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Everything is going well up until the fire alarm goes off.
Gyrus sets his watch alarm to vibrate. He also sets his phone to vibrate with a backup alarm and an old alarm clock he found for free to go off as a third backup alarm. That one doesn’t vibrate, so it’s really only for emergencies, because it’s almost certainly going to wake Kodya up. That’s why the first two do vibrate.
He wakes up an hour and a half before the first one and then wakes up every twenty minutes until it goes off. Tasks keep popping into his mind. He won’t get back to sleep without getting them down, so he reaches for a tiny notepad on the bedside table. Scribbles it down. Kodya’s got an arm around his waist so he has to be very careful not to wake him up. But he also likes the contact. Likes pressing up against him and feeling completely surrounded. Safe.
Kodya’s always felt like the safest place in the world.
When he wakes up for the last time, Kodya’s back is pressed all up against his right side, which makes getting out of bed an almost impossible task.
Almost impossible.
But Gyrus is on a mission.
He turns off his phone alarm and turns off the alarm clock. Then he stares at it. What if it’s not really off? What if it wakes Kodya? It would ruin the surprise and annoy him.
He spends ten seconds checking it and then in irritation unplugs it and carries it with him to the kitchen.
Cheese and Toast twine around his ankles. “Shhhh, girls. Shhhh. Don’t wake your dad.” Quietly, he reaches for the door to the hallway and closes it. They’ve got another litter box out here – they should be fine for the time he needs.
Then he turns to the fridge and starts pulling out his secret ingredients. He’s been slowly stockpiling them in a grocery bag at the back of the fridge.
Gyrus has always been a bad cook. He knows this. He’s bad at following instructions. Worse at paying attention to details like timers. He lets things burn constantly. Kodya’s not much better at following instructions generally, but he spent years cooking for himself in the wilderness, so he’s much better at perceiving when things are fully cooked. He had to be.
The thought of Kodya being hungry makes something in Gyrus want to rip the whole world down and make a new one.
But he already did that. He’s safe now. They’re all safe.
They built a world they wanted to live in, and while it’s not a world without problems, it’s a world without problems like that.
He starts with the pancakes. They’ll take the longest to make and they seem the easiest. Also, they don’t require the oven, which beeps really loudly when it goes off. Not that any of the other things do require the oven. Gyrus planned carefully for this, because the oven is his nemesis. Gyrus has spent hours of his life trying to disable its alarm. But whoever built the oven somehow decided to wire the alarm directly into the wires for the heating mechanism, so there it stays.
He measures out the powder, then cracks in two eggs. He gets some shell in the bowl, but he’s able to fish it out with only a bit of powder on his fingers. He grins in triumph and brushes it off on –
Wait.
He knew he was forgetting something.
He pulls on Kodya’s kiss the cook apron – the one Sylvia got him as a gift for the last winter holiday – and then proudly brushes the egg shells off on it.
He can do this.
He’s slain monsters and demons and the simulation itself.
He can cook his husband breakfast without burning the house down.
He dumps in the oil and probably too much water because he doesn’t want to wash another tablespoon measurer.
“It’s fine, right girls?” Cheese meows at him from the floor and Toast gives him a look like she’s thinking about getting on the counter. “Absolutely not,” he tells her.
He’s getting the hang of this. It’s even kind of fun. He cuts some bananas into the batter and puts in chocolate chips.
Pan. He needs a pan.
He didn’t turn the heat on either.
While he’s at it, he’ll get three pans. One for the bacon, one for the eggs, and one for the pancakes. That’s efficient. Then he’ll heat all three at once, put the bacon on next since it seems the messiest, and then do the eggs last.
Perfect.
He tries to pour the pancake batter right from the bowl and it makes one giant lump that he panics and tries to scrape into a bunch of smaller circles. It… kind of works. He ends up with two big lumps.
“They have those giant pancakes at tons of places, right girls? That’s what we’re going for. Giant, face-shaped pancakes.” He winces. They’re not even close to round.
He moves his hand and almost burns it.
“Shit, the bacon!” He grabs it from the fridge. Why is it so sticky? How is he supposed to get it out without just sticking his whole hand in there?
Desperate measures.
He cuts the whole bag open and dumps it on the pan. Then he breathes a sigh of relief.
He notices the third empty pan.
Shit, this was a bad idea.
Then the smoke alarm goes off as he realizes he’s forgotten the pancakes.
“No, no, no, no,” he hisses. He turns all the heat off and opens the window. Starts the fan on the microwave and starts running around opening windows. He waves his hands frantically at the smoke alarm, but it’s not going off.
Desperate, he pulls it off the ceiling and throws it out the window just as the handle creaks on the hallway door.
Gyrus grabs it and holds it shut. “I’m fine! Go back to sleep!”
Kodya says sleepily through the door, “Did you burn the h’se down?”
“No! No! Everything is fine!” He’s crying now, which is just annoying. He has everything under control.
Except that the pancakes are burned and the eggs aren’t even cooking and Kodya’s awake.
“Gyrus, open the door.”
He sighs and lets go of the handle. Pushes forward on the door sheepishly.
Kodya takes one look at him and says, “Come here.”
“No, no! You’re not supposed to be understanding, I was trying to do something nice for you.”
Kodya snorts. “And you picked one of your famous weaknesses?”
“How am I going to improve if I don’t practice!”
“You’re allowed to have some weaknesses, you know.”
Kodya’s so sleepy and tired and he keeps rubbing his eyes and yawning. And even though his breath smells terrible, the sight of him melts Gyrus’ heart. He feels bad for waking him up. But it’s nothing compared to the sun in his chest at the sight of seeing him. He thought it would have faded by now. But instead, he feels like he’s walking around with a nuclear bomb in his chest.
He leans up and kisses Kodya on the cheek, right on the edge of his scar. “You’re my weakness, silly.”
Kodya pulls him in. His clothes are so soft. They smell so much like him. Like both of them.
Kodya says, “Did you throw the fire alarm out the window again.”
Gyrus says mournfully, “Clear to the other sidewalk.”
Kodya snorts. “Go get it.”
Gyrus says, “Can you please go back to sleep?”
“You don’t want help?”
“It’s –” Gyrus sighs. “Look. You – do all this stuff! All the time! Stuff that I’m bad at. Like, cleaning. And cooking! And remembering when to take the cats to the vet. I… don’t feel like I’m contributing.”
“So you thank me by burning the house down.” Kodya snickers and Gyrus swats him.
“Hey!” Lets his hand linger on Kodya’s bicep. “Seriously, Kodya. Go back to sleep.”
Kodya looks at the closed blinds blearily. “Is it even dawn yet?”
Gyrus says firmly, “Sur. Prise.”
Kodya says, “I’m more surprised you got any sleep at all.” Kisses Gyrus again. Then he sighs. Gyrus makes a face. Morning breath is gross. “Okay, I’m going. Please don’t burn the house down.”
Gyrus smacks him on the ass, grinning. “I’ll come get you, don’t worry.”
Kodya waves a hand behind him.
Gyrus turns back to the kitchen.
The pancakes… are actually fine. He just leaves the last layer on the pan and scrapes the rest off.
The bacon is half cooked. He’s pretty sure he just needs to turn it over. He’s seen Kodya do that.
Multi-tasking was a bad idea. He’s just going to go one by one with the eggs.
Alarms.
He can use alarms.
He sets alarms on his watch and his phone so when he gets distracted (as he inevitably does), he comes back to check the eggs.
Only two of them burn, and he feels comfortable presenting the rest to Kodya.
He did it.
He puts them on the biggest plate they have and then finds – something. He thinks it’s a cutting board? It will work – and puts the plates on it.
Careful, careful, careful.
“Just like the puzzle in the vampire realm,” he whispers to himself.
Toast almost vanquishes him by tripping him, but he manages to nudge her away with a foot before anything disastrous can happen.
“Morning!”
Kodya, who’s very clearly just pretending to be sleeping, cracks an eye open and gives an obviously fake yawn.
Gyrus laughs.
Kodya gives a sheepish grin.
Gyrus plops the tray down in front of him and almost knocks all the eggs onto the blanket but grabs them at the last second.
“Fork!”
He takes off for the kitchen and sprints back into the bedroom. He hands it to Kodya proudly. He’s smiling – he can’t help himself.
“Only one?” Kodya stares at the piles of food in front of him. “I can’t eat all this.”
“I’ll eat what you don’t,” Gyrus promises. Then he stares at Kodya. Did he do a good job? Is Kodya going to like it?
Stars and space, he feels just like he did in the realm of eyes. When all he wanted was Kodya’s approval.
Kodya takes a bite and makes a surprised face. “It’s edible!”
Gyrus swats him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to act so shocked!”
Kodya grins and kicks him in the knee, which almost upsets all the bacon. Gyrus grabs it. “Ah!”
Kodya says, “Sorry. But seriously. Get a second fork.”
Gyrus says, “Okay, okay, okay. Try the eggs! I really took my time and it took ages to scrape out all the shells.”
Kodya’s probably making a face, but Gyrus is already getting a second fork.
When he gets back, Kodya’s feeding Toast one of the pieces of bacon. He looks up guiltily.
“Kodya!”
“She was hungry! It’s not because it was bad.”
Gyrus gives him a look. Kodya gives him one back.
Gyrus says, “So, want to fuck?”
Kodya chokes and almost spews eggs all over the blanket. “Later.”
Gyrus grins. “We don’t have any plans today.” Leans forward and grabs one of the pieces of bacon in a way he’s very aware shows off his arm and chest muscles. Or at least, he’s become aware because of how many times he’s felt Kodya staring at him while he does it.
Kodya makes a noise and Gyrus grins.
Says wickedly, “Finish your breakfast, then you can have second breakfast.”
Kodya croaks, “I thought this was a thank you, not a punishment.”
Gyrus sticks his tongue out, laughing. “It can be both.”
And he leans into Kodya’s side, letting the promise of later ring out in the air.
It sounds an awful lot like a promise of forever.