Work Text:
“Hey baby, I’m home,” Alex calls out over the loud thump of the drums echoing throughout the house.
David happily prances out of the kitchen to greet him, his excitement manifesting in full body wriggles.
“Hey buddy!” Henry can hear the jingle of tags that means Alex is scratching David’s head and rubbing his silky ears.
Dramatically spinning himself into the kitchen doorway just as the chorus hits, Alex raises one hand to point at Henry and holds an invisible microphone in the other. “You’re simply the best,” he sings along with Tina.
Henry glances up and grins, his long, talented fingers squeezing one more choux pastry from the bag in his hands.
“You’re better than anyone,” Alex sings, slotting into place behind Henry and wrapping himself around Henry’s waist. “Anyone I ever met,” he trails off with a low growl before nibbling on Henry’s earlobe.
Henry moans a little. Alex smells faintly of grease and spices, but also of the shower gel they share. “Hello, love. How was your day?”
“Good. Whatcha making me?” he asks, propping his chin on Henry’s shoulder.
Henry turns his head to grab a quick kiss. “Pâte à choux with Nutella pastry cream.” He keeps working, adding more dough and easing his hand up and down the bag with just the right amount of firm, gentle pressure.
“Excellent technique, Chef,” says Alex, a little breathless. “If you want to work with your hands later, I’ve got some ideas about where you could do that.”
Giving up, Henry drops the pastry bag and twists to face Alex. He rests his slightly sticky hands on Alex’s hips, squeezing lightly. “Oh, do you now?”
“Ooh, is that a chocolate craquelin?” Alex asks, wriggling out of Henry’s arms to stretch himself over the island and grab one of the finished pastries.
“Mmhmm,” Henry nods, staring appreciatively at Alex’s ass. He swats at him lightly with his side towel. “I thought you were bringing dinner home?”
“Oh, I did,” Alex mumbles around a mouthful of pastry. “This is fucking amazing, by the way.” He darts into the front hall and comes right back. “Yellow curry and papaya salad,” he says, holding up the bag. “Leela was cooking tonight. She said to tell you hi.”
Henry truly enjoys the little network of local chefs and other kitchen staff who have accepted him as a friend and colleague recently, something that didn’t happen when he worked for his grandmother.
“That’s kind of her,” Henry says, turning off the music. He pushes his baking sheets to the side and gets out the plates and silverware.
“Actually, she said, ‘say hi to that hot man of yours.’” Alex explains with a grin. He drapes his arms around Henry’s shoulders and kisses him, long and slow. “But I didn’t want you to get a big head.”
Henry laughs. “I’ll try to control my ego.”
They eat dinner at the table before settling in on the sofa to watch a movie. As it's starting, they share a pastry for dessert, Henry critiquing each bite and Alex telling him to shut the fuck up because they’re delicious.
David leaps into Alex’s lap as soon as the movie starts. Henry finds himself looking at the two of them more than the screen.
A few minutes later, Alex is distractedly scratching David’s head when he slides his fingers under the nylon collar, a spot that usually makes David’s eyes roll back in his head with pleasure. Alex abruptly pulls his hand back out, covered in … something. “Ew, David, what did you get into?” He unfastens the collar and carries David to the bathroom.
“Oh, sorry, love,” Henry calls after him, “that’s my fault. He was underfoot when I was mixing pastry dough and I turned the mixer on too high. I thought I cleaned it all off of him.”
“I got it,” Alex calls back. “It’s not that much.” Henry half-listens to Alex’s adorable baby-talk conversation with David in the bathroom. After a minute or two, David trots back into the room and jumps onto the sofa. He shakes his head, spraying Henry lightly with dog-scented water droplets. Henry closes his eyes and turns his head. “I suppose that’s fair,” he admits with a shrug.
Henry starts the movie again and Alex flops down to rest his head on Henry’s lap. He drags his fingertips through Alex’s soft curls, sometimes stopping to worry a few strands between his thumb and forefinger. It's a familiar, almost hypnotic movement, one he uses to rub butter into flour for pastry. When he looks down to ask a question about the actor on screen, he realizes Alex has fallen asleep.
Henry smiles down at his boyfriend. Gently, he strokes the back of his hand down Alex’s cheek. He turns down the volume on the TV, even though Alex seems hardwired to sleep through noise and chaos. Henry reaches toward the coffee table and picks up his moleskine journal. He’s spent the last few months working on a cookbook, incorporating traditional British pastry recipes in context with interesting historical facts about some of the ingredients, the areas they could be found, and how and why the recipes have evolved over time. It’s helping him get back in touch with his home and his culture, now that he plans to stay in the US indefinitely. Alex teases him about writing by hand, but it helps him organize his thoughts. And he finds the scratch of pen on paper to be immensely soothing.
About an hour later, he’s making headway on a section about the Cornish pasty when Alex’s eyes fly open. He sits up, looks at Henry, and says, “Cornbread and sage waffles with stuffing and maple béchamel.” Henry just nods, knowing this isn’t a two-way conversation. Alex snatches the pen, scribbles quickly in the corner of the open page, and curls back onto Henry’s lap. Henry's not sure if he's already asleep again, or if he never actually woke up.
Henry looks over at David, who’s sprawled on the chair. “David, d’you ever wonder what it would be like to belong to some normal blokes out in the world?”
David tilts his head curiously, waiting for some mention of going outside or treats. When none of those things seem to be in the offering, he curls back up and closes his eyes. The similarity to Alex is not lost on Henry.
Alex tosses his head and murmurs something that starts out incomprehensible and ends with, “Himalayan salt.”
Henry smiles down at him. He slides his journal onto the table and just looks around the room.
One of Alex’s obscenely long eyelashes has worked its way free and rests precariously on his equally obscene cheekbone. Carefully, Henry retrieves it on the tip of his index finger. When they were young, Bea taught him how to make a wish on an eyelash. Little Henry wished for toys and candy and the occasional flying unicorn. As he got older, his wishes became more complicated and, somehow, even more unrealistic. By the time he was working for his grandmother, he’d given up wishing as a foolish child’s game.
And yet in his wildest dreams, he never imagined having this much love within arms reach. For the life of him, Henry can’t think of anything he would wish for.
He blows on the eyelash anyway, sending the wish out into the universe on loan. Extra reinforcements for some lonely little boy out there somewhere, a boy who doesn’t think happily ever after is meant for him.
Henry slides down into the cushions and tugs Alex up so his head rests against Henry’s chest. They’ll have to get up and move to the bed soon, but for now Henry relaxes beneath Alex’s warm and comforting weight. He nuzzles Alex's curls and inhales, breathing in the familiar sweetness. "I’m a lucky man," he whispers to himself. He looks over at David. "Actually, I think we're all pretty lucky, don't you?"
David opens one eye and wags his tail reassuringly. Alex lifts his head, stares deeply into Henry's eyes, and whispers, "Hollandaise." His head falls back onto Henry's chest with a thump.
With a smile, Henry presses a kiss to Alex's warm forehead. "I love you, too."
