Disclaimer: Every single last character used in this fic belongs to CLAMP and anyone else CLAMP says. I have not, will not, and probably could not, make money off this fic.

Dedication: For my ever patient and encouraging tsuin Circe.

Notes: A stand-alone (well, it was…once…*sob*) that runs with In the Midnight Gleaning and By This Day's Light. Takes place sometime before Midnight. They were just … there…and I couldn't help but put it down in writing.

The line "I do love…." is one of my favorite lines ever; Benedict says it to Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Which, no, I do not own.

The Hidden Inside

"We need to do laundry, Tomoyo." Eriol knows avoidance tactics when he tries them. He knows Tomoyo does, too. But there is always hope that this time….

"We need to figure our budget for this month before we'll know if we can do laundry." She teases. She's smiling when she says it, though. She's always smiling.

Eriol sighs and flops backwards on the bed, head hanging off the foot of it. "I hate paperwork." He says meditatively, then smiles slightly. "I hate budgets. I hate laundry. I hate you." He whines playfully. He's rewarded by a quick, gentle shove that sends him toppling over onto the floor. Immediately, the downstairs neighbor pounds on her ceiling to let them know they're being too loud. Again.

"Do you think if I stripped, went down there, and told her to keep it down we're trying to have sex up here, that she'd stop doing that?"

"Eriol!" Tomoyo can't help but laugh at him. He's so funny. "I think she'd have a heart attack if you did that!" She watches as he reappears from the floor and crawls back onto the bed, hair messy and eyes alight with mischief. "I think I might, too." She leans forward over the bills and bank statements to kiss him, helplessly attracted.

"Tomoyo-chan! Eriol! Could one of you turn your radio on, please? I need to use the blow dryer. Suppi's all wet."

"What did you do to him this time, Nakuru?" Tomoyo asks, pulling away and getting up. "I didn't hear a thing."

"I didn't do anything! You," Nakuru sticks his head into the room, "are too suspicious. I'll get a complex if you keep assuming bad things about me." He ducks back out, but not before Tomoyo can see that he has Spinel's mouth covered.

"Of course. Please forgive me." She flicks the radio on and hears the blow dryer start up in the bathroom, along with Spinel yelping about the sudden heat. If he didn't bite Nakuru, she thinks, it couldn't have been too bad.

She walks back to the bed, singing along with whatever's playing - it's in Cantonese, and while Syaoran-san, Meiling-chan, and Eriol have been trying to teach her, it goes by too quickly on the radio. It's a popular song, though, and Tomoyo's heard it often enough that she can sing the notes if not the words.

Eriol knows he's staring. He can't help it. He loves it when she sings like that; and she's smiling at him, walking towards him, and he can't believe how beautiful she is. Can't believe she's looking at him like that. Like she loves him. Unthinkingly, casually, comfortably loves him.

"What?"

"You." He sits up, watching her come to the bed and sit cross-legged near the headboard. He reaches over, strokes her face lightly. "You're so beautiful, Tomoyo, so special." Framing her face, he quotes, "I do love nothing in this world so much as you. Is not that strange?" He watches that happy smile become one sparkling with a quiet joy. He has to kiss her. Has to.

As kisses go, this one is soft and quiet, being one born of love instead of lust, though they have their fair share of those. (More, as Sakura once complained to their answering machine, as Eriol had pulled the phone out of Tomoyo's hand, hit record on the machine, and tossed the phone into a pile of dirty laundry in need of sorting.) It stretches into another kiss, warmer and slower than the first, and a third that might have become a fourth or maybe even a fifth, but it's getting hard to tell one from the next. Besides, in a lifetime of kisses, why bother to count?

Tomoyo feels her heart beat slow and heavy as Eriol's hands drop from her face to either side of her knees, steadying himself as he continues to lean over the papers. The sleepy intensity of it is slowing time down, pushing the world away until she's aware only of his mouth and the sound of paper being crushed as Eriol walks his way up the bed until she's lying under him.

The sound of crushing paper. The budget. They have to get that done today, they really do. So, as much as she wants to continue, she drags her mouth from his. Breathless as his kisses move down her throat. She hates paperwork.

"Eriol. We have to finish with those papers. The ones which you are destroying as we speak. C'mon, be a grown-up."

"I'm not speaking." His voice is muffled against her skin, but she can hear the smile she feels him wearing. Shifting, he begins shoving the papers he can reach off the bed with one hand as she sighs. It'll take a long time to reorganize them, but at least he knows better than to crumple them up too much. It had been hard enough the last time they'd had to work their way through the wreckage of their financial statements.

"Let me up, you're making a mess." She's trying not to laugh. It'll only encourage him to continue if she does. They can never seem to act their age. But then, they have years of childishness to catch up on, don't they? They're years behind on being reckless teens, too.

"I'll pick it all up later. I promise. Is that grown-up enough for you?"

"We don't have time for this." She manages to get him to look at her. "Besides, I don't think the landlord would appreciate a signed copy of our lease after we've had sex on it."

"So dirty, Tomoyo! I can't believe you kiss me with that mouth!" He's so used to her neat manners and politeness that he forgets how matter-of-fact she can be. It's always a surprise to hear her say something like that, something she'd never say to anyone else.

"You like it when I kiss you with this mouth. But we need to get back to work."

She's right, but he rolls them over anyway. "So just kiss me for a while." He nuzzles her lips with his. "We can be irresponsible, over-sexed teenagers for a few minutes." They do have a few minutes to spare. And if her sigh has resignation in it along with desire, that's okay.

"You're just using sex to put off the paperwork." She accuses him playfully.

"No, I'm using sex to have sex. The non-figuring of numbers is just a bonus."

Before he can convince her she still wants to kiss him anyway, Eriol hears the blow dryer shut off and Spinel taking to the air. The moment is simply too good. Quickly, he catches Tomoyo's hands, stretching them over his head and, releasing them, stretches just a bit more, so that her hands slide to his wrists. With a wink, he begins to protest.

"I said no, Tomoyo! We don't have time for this. Let me up!" Right on time, Spinel darts into the room, seeking refuge. "Spinel Sun, help! Tomoyo is trying to distract me from my work with her wily charms. Make her stop seducing me!"

"Oh, for the love of...don't you two ever stop?" With a cutely fanged smile, Spinel lands on Tomoyo, dangling down her back as he hangs off her shoulder. He transforms, squishing them both and neatly cutting off their laughter.

"Dog pile!" Nakuru bounds across the room and throws himself on top of them. With an ominous creak and groan, their bed collapses.

After a moment of stunned silence, Eriol sighs piteously. "I want to finish the monthly budget. I want to do the laundry. You three never let me get any work done around here. Someone has to be a grown-up, you know."

Below them, the pounding begins again, louder than ever.

"But first," Eriol wiggles out from under the three of them and pulls off his shirt, "I'm going to go tell her to quit making all that noise. We're busy doing grown-up things up here." He swaggers to the door, undoing his button fly as he goes. Tomoyo is laughing too hard to stop him.

With a sigh, Nakuru gathers the papers together. "Come on, Suppi. Looks like we're in charge of the budget again this month. Do you think there'll be enough money for fudge?"

"Quit calling me 'Suppi,' my name is Spinel. And the bed is on half of what we need before we can answer that question."