Happily Ever After AU - for conning

[abrightboy]

From here

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[conning]

Neal is awake enough to realize it’s Malcolm’s phone, and muzzy enough not to look at the display. He answers with a groggy crispness that makes it clear he’d rather not be talking.

“Malcolm Bright’s phone, his secretary speaking.”

[abrightboy]

“Oh, good,” Martin says dryly. “You’re still here. I’d like to speak to my son.”

[conning]

“I am.” Neal lifts a hand to touch the remains of the bruise Rhonda left on his face, hoping silently that Martin is still at least a little sepia green around the eye. “He can’t come to the phone right now. May I take a message?”

[abrightboy]

“Oh, he can’t. Well, tell him it’s about his sister and see if he can’t find a moment to come to the phone,” Martin suggests.

[conning]

Ah. “Please hold,” Neal chirps, then presses the mute button and counts to ten before he calls over to Malcolm. “As much as I would like you to stay exactly where you are looking exactly like you do, your dad is on the phone.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm turns, expression bright at the sound of Neal’s voice, though it darkens slightly at his news.

He pads over and crawls onto the bed, curling up against Neal before taking the phone and unmuting it.

“Dr Whitly.”

“Your dalliance continues to be as charming as ever.”

“I’m hanging up…”

“Okay, wait. We need to talk about… the Ainsley thing. This morning.”

Malcolm sighs. “Fine. I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

[conning]

Neal resists the urge to say something smart before Malcolm hangs up. He brushes his fingertips against Malcolm’s cheek lightly. “You want me to come? I can wait outside.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, pressing his face to Neal's shoulder.

"Yeah. It's not like you don't know the story."

[conning]

Neal hugs him close, then kisses his crown. “Come on. You were making me breakfast. It was sexy.”

[abrightboy]

He lifts his head to look at Neal.

"It was?"

[conning]

"Very." Neal takes the opportunity to kiss his mouth as well.

[abrightboy]

He brightens noticeably.

“Okay,” he agrees, clambering off the bed to go back to the kitchen to finish whisking the eggs. “Do you want toast?” he asks over his shoulder, getting out a frying pan.

[conning]

Neal watches him fondly for a moment from bed before bestirring himself. "That would be great. I got some honey oat bread--it's in the cabinet next to the fridge."

Hearty, calorie-dense, sweet, on the easy side when digesting.

[abrightboy]

"That sounds good," he remarks, turning on the burner, not thinking for a moment that Neal bought it specifically with him in mind. He rummages around in a drawer for a spatula. "Will you split a piece with me?"

[conning]

It makes Neal happy, in an odd way, to do little things to make Malcolm’s life better without drawing attention to the choices made.

He kisses the back of Malcolm’s neck as he enters the kitchen area. “I’d love to.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm grins at him, looking over one shoulder and then the other to follow him around the kitchen with his eyes as he pours egg into the pan, Martin and whatever he wants far, far away.

"Scrambled okay?"

[conning]

"Scrambled sounds perfect." While Malcolm handles the eggs, Neal deals with the coffee, caught up in the surreal domesticity of it.

This is what he wants. It's what he's always wanted. It feels somehow too good to be true, now and then, but he does his best to ignore that feeling when it arises. He sets a cup of coffee down next to the stove and wraps an arm around Malcolm from behind, his other hand occupied with its own cup of coffee.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles as Neal's arm slides around him and tilts his head to look up at him.

"Am I doing these right?" he asks, but in the tone of someone asking an expert, not someone afraid of fucking up.

[conning]

"Here," Neal says, resting his chin on Malcolm's shoulder and guiding Malcolm's hand with his free one. "'Scrambled' is something of a misnomer. You want to fold them evenly over low heat. Theoretically, the slower you cook your eggs, the creamier they'll be. You can turn the heat up high and whisk things around and be done in less than a minute, sure, but they'll have a harder texture and the curds will be a lot larger and wildly inconsistent in terms of thickness and degree of cook-through."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm makes a face at the pan. “I like them better when they’re soft.”

He just lets Neal guide his hand for a moment then tilts his head slightly to ask “is it true that the real test of how good a chef is is how they cook eggs?”

[conning]

A soft chuckle. “Eggs, roast or seared fish, Hollandaise sauce, consommé. To paraphrase Julia Child, a chef that can’t perfectly roast a chicken is no chef. That’s on the primarily European side. If you’re looking at Cantonese cooking, one of the primaries is congee, along with stir-fried bean sprouts. Vietnamese chefs can take particular pride in their tableside nuoc mam, which is essentially a dipping sauce prepared right before the meal. Being good, seeing how good someone is, it’s not about how complicated they can make something. It’s about how patient they are, and their focus on getting the simple things just right.”

[abrightboy]

“I bet you can roast a chicken,” Malcolm tells him. “Do you need something besides eggs and toast?”

[conning]

“Perfectly,” Neal says haughtily, then smiles. “No, I think that will do it for me, Chef Bright.”

He kisses the back of Malcolm’s neck again before letting him have control of the spatula back.

Neal doesn’t want to bring Martin’s presence into this conversation, but he’s also desperately curious what Malcolm thinks the man could want to talk about.

The way he hovers in Malcolm’s space a moment longer without doing anything in particular before he steps to the side to get plates probably gives his hesitation away.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm lifts the pan off the heat, glancing over just in time to see Neal’s hesitation, though he isn’t sure how to read it.

“Is everything okay? Oh! I didn’t put the toast in yet. The eggs are going to get cold, right?” That must be it.

[conning]

Neal lets that be it. He's not going to take a single moment of happiness away from Malcolm that he has some ability to preserve.

He notices Malcolm going quiet on the way to Claremont, retreating internally the way he does sometimes, and he reaches over to take Malcolm's hand. "Do you want me in the room or no?"