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“Chocolate croissants,” Etho says, like that's enough explanation for anything that's going on here.
Okay, maybe it is on the surface: Etho in Bdubs's kitchen, up to his elbows in flour, cautiously—erm— fondling the ball of sticky pastry on the countertop.
“Chocolate croissants,” Bdubs echoes back. “What, you picking up a new hobby?”
Etho shrugs. “Gem gave me the idea. She said used to make them a lot, but when she tries to do it now, they all come out tasting like seafood.”
“Eugh,” Bdubs grimaces. “That serves her for setting up next to a river full of mutated fishy freaks.”
Etho nods, and looks back down at the worktop to fold the pastry over itself. “Uh-huh. So I thought, you know, making croissants from scratch, that’s pretty cottagecore. And you know who’s got the most cottagecore base arou—”
“HEY! Not cottagecore!” Bdubs flares, grin reflecting Etho’s as he laughs.
“Okay, okay,” Etho says. “Do you mind for real, though? Because your oven’s way bigger than mine.”
Bdubs pretends to think for a second, then says imperiously, “I do not mind. But I will be taxing you, uh, fifty percent of the total you make.”
“Fifty percent?! No way. I’m the one doing all the hard work here. I might be generous and give you one.”
“Generosity’s got nothing to do with it,” Bdubs growls, grabbing a rolling pin off the counter to wave in Etho’s face. “You’re not stiffing me on payment for venue hire.”
“Uh-huh.” Etho swipes the utensil out of his hand and starts rolling the pastry out. “Didn’t you ever hear of the little red hen, Bdubs?”
“The little red hen was using her own flour. That is my bag.”
Bdubs doesn't have to see it to know Etho’s smiling blithely behind his mask. Bdubs comes up close beside him—closer than is reasonable, maybe—and bumps his shoulder. “You got flour on your mask.”
“Oh.” Etho takes a swipe at it and ends up covering it even more.
“No—you,” Bdubs says, catching his wrist to stop him, “you made it worse. You want me to…?”
Etho nods, and Bdubs unhooks it from behind his ears and brushes the flour off, knocks it out a couple of times against his other hand. A little cloud of white poofs off it.
Then, carefully, he brings it back up to Etho’s face and hooks it over one ear, then the other, and pulls it back up into place over the bridge of his nose. Smooths out the creased folds on Etho’s cheeks.
“Good as new,” he says.
The tips of Etho’s ears are a little pink. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
What does that— ohh. Bdubs grins, and reaches up to pull the mask back down under Etho’s chin.
“Fine, twist my arm,” he says, and kisses him.
Etho kisses sweetly—always has, even when his lips don't actually taste like chocolate. Each press of his mouth against Bdubs is soft and insistent, and he lets out a tiny, breathy sigh when Bdubs buries his fingers in his hair. He's supposedly got a good four inches over Bdubs, but you'd never know it with how he angles his head down and melts into Bdubs's arms.
“You're cute,” Bdubs murmurs against his mouth.
“Mhm.” The sound is soft and syrupy as Etho ducks in to catch his lips again before pulling back. When he pulls his mask back up, he got the distinct look of the cat who got the cream.
Bdubs, for his part, feels kinda dazed. Some running joke.
“I'll share the croissants,” Etho says. “But only to make sure I’m not poisoning Gem.”
“But you’re alright poisoning me,” Bdubs says flatly.
“Yep.” There’s a smile dancing through Etho’s eyes.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Look: the first time Bdubs kissed Etho, it was a joke.
“Take a picture, Bdubs. It’ll last longer,” Guude was laughing at him, and Bdubs jerked around to see Guude standing behind him, looking at him looking at—
“Hey, I wasn’t looking at anything!” Bdubs protested.
But, yes, okay, he had been looking. Etho had pulled off the mask to wring it out after he’d tripped and stumbled face-first into a river, and Bdubs laughing at him had very quickly turned into Bdubs shutting up because he’d never, ever seen Etho without the mask on before. So yeah, okay? Bdubs’s eyes had caught on the splay of of Etho's scar, bright red and vicious and taking up most the bottom left quarter of his face. Etho was interesting to look at. Sue him.
When he looked back from Guude to Etho, though, he found Etho averting his eyes with a look of faint embarrassment written across his exposed features.
“That’s what you call not looking at anything?” Guude prodded, elbowing Bdubs in the back.
Etho ducked his head and looked at the ground, hiding as best he could while still trying to dry the mask off on his jacket. There were times Bdubs liked it when Etho got all cute and shy. But this? His stomach twisted. He didn’t like being the one making Etho want to hide.
“Well, how am I supposed to not look,” he said, throwing on as much bluster as he could. “Guy walking around with a scar like that. It’s cool. Really—uh—sexy.”
Guude giggled behind him, and Etho flushed and laughed too, and Bdubs couldn't tear his eyes away from his funny, toothy smile, all wide and jagged and a little goofy-looking but so completely Etho. Man, Bdubs wished he got to see that more often without a mask in the way.
“Aw, Etho, careful,” Guude tittered, “better put that mouth away or Bdubs’ll start fixing to kiss you.”
“That’s right!” Bdubs joined in. Etho just shook his head, still laughing a little as he dried the mask out. So he wasn’t expecting it at all when Bdubs took the opportunity. Riding the wave of comedic timing, he sidled up and grabbed Etho’s shoulder to bring his face down to his own level, and planted one on him. “Mwah!”
It was hardly a kiss—he caught Etho just on the very corner of the mouth, mostly on the cheek—but it sent Etho wheeling back in surprise. He stumbled a couple of steps, caught his foot on a clump of dirt, and tripped right back into the river.
Water splashed up in a huge arc, drenching Bdubs and leaving Etho completely sopping. His white hair matted against his face in chunks over his eyes, and his clothes were soaked again, and he looked for all the world like a cat in a bathtub. Behind, Guude howled with laughter.
“Did I sweep you off your feet, Etho?” Bdubs teased.
Etho rolled his eyes. “My knight in shining armour, Bdubs.”
Bdubs offered a hand out to help him out the river but—yeah, of course—Etho grabbed him with both hands and pulled . One moment Bdubs was upright, then there was a half-second where the ground fell out from under him before he was waist-deep sitting in the drink next to Etho.
On the bank, Guude completely fell to pieces. Etho looked at him with open amusement.
“Eugh.” Bdubs spat out a little river water. “Remind me why I was trying to help you.”
“Probably because I’m so cool and, um,” Etho said, leaving the sexy unsaid even if his cheeks went a little pink again. He stood up, soaking clothes dripping all over Bdubs, and wrung out his mask again, hard. It was back on his face before Bdubs was even on his feet.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
The next time it had happened was only a couple of days later—and, look, it was an accident. Sure, Bdubs had thought (briefly!) about kissing Etho. But only briefly. Very, very briefly.
So? The second time was still an accident. Or, mostly an accident. Bdubs didn’t go out trying to catch Etho with his mask off, but if he happened to swing by Etho’s base while Etho happened to be in the middle of eating—so what? Bdubs wasn’t being weird about it.
But when evening did roll around, and Bdubs did cross the threshold to see Etho sitting with his mask pushed down under his chin as he bit into an apple, making notes in a book on the table as he ate, startling when he noticed that Bdubs was there… maybe it was a little weird.
A little.
“Etho, hey,” he tried to play it off, aiming to sound casual and ending up semi-strangled.
For what it was worth, Etho rallied quickly. “Um. Hey, Bdubs.” A smile flickered across his mouth. “You look like you’re about to kiss me again.”
Erm. Was he? It’d be funny, for one. If he knew anything about Etho, Bdubs knew he liked a running joke. And the way Etho was looking at him now, light and amused like he was happy to see him—
Bdubs made the snap decision: yes, he was. So he crossed the room in a couple of strides, and did.
More careful this time, he steadied the back of Etho’s head with his hand, and leaned down to press a kiss against Etho’s mouth. It was quick, less than a second, but it was warm and certain, and when he pulled back, Etho grinned.
Man, that goofy smile.
Etho pulled the mask up then, even as he was laughing. “I guess I’ve got to watch my back with you.”
When Bdubs looks back, years later, he thinks this might be the moment he fell in love with him.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
It’s like a trust fall—though maybe it’s even more certain than that, because if there’s anything he can rely on, it’s Etho’s ability to recall a decade-old joke. Every now and then, Bdubs catches Etho with his mask down, and every time, Bdubs kisses him. The best part is that Etho never seems to be expecting it—like it doesn’t occur to him until Bdubs is an inch from his face.
But it doesn't happen that often. At least, it didn’t. Which is why it kinda catches Bdubs by surprise when… Well.
Etho’s got his jacket off, this time—even an apron knotted messily around his waist. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his biceps flex as he mixes a gloopy batter in a bowl.
Arms, Bdubs thinks. And then thinks, even less coherently, yeah, ARMS.
“Whatcha making?” he says, tearing his eyes away from the soft white hair that dusts the backs of Etho’s forearms and trying to get his face to un-redden.
“Mm—carrot cake.”
That has Bdubs perking up. “I like carrot cake.” The croissants last week had tasted awesome, and Bdubs wasn’t even that much of a fan of super sweet pastries. If carrot cake was as good as those had been—
“Uh-huh.”
“Just saying. I happen to like it. In case you were looking to share.”
Etho laughs, and looks over at him with his wide, kooky grin. His mask’s sitting on the table behind him, Bdubs realises. Out of the way of the flour that’s got everywhere else.
Well. Bdubs isn’t one to pass up an opportunity. “C’mere,” he says, and grabs the bowl out of Etho’s hands to set it aside before he snags Etho around his narrow waist and pulls him into a kiss.
There’s kissing, and there’s making out, and this time, whatever the hell they’re doing definitely tips the scale over from the former to the latter. When Etho sighs against him, Bdubs takes a chance and deepens the kiss. Etho responds like he’s been waiting a decade to push his tongue into Bdubs’s mouth, and doesn’t waste any time at all taking advantage of now having permission. He kisses Bdubs like he can’t get enough of him.
“Getting flour all over me,” Bdubs gripes when they part for air.
“Sorry,” Etho says, all Canadian, not sounding sore-ee at all. He drapes his arms over Bdubs’s shoulders and pulls him in again, and Bdubs forgets to think about anything other than how nice it is, how good it feels to have Etho so easy and happy against him, and the taste of his mouth—like sugar and carrots and Etho, of course.
“I like this,” he says, cupping Etho’s cheek. “I like your face.”
Maybe he feels a little loopy.
“You do?”
“Yeah. And I like this,” Bdubs tells him, tracing his thumb over Etho’s scar.
“It’s a lot lighter than it was. Used to look a lot angrier,” Etho says.
Under Bdubs’s fingers, the scarred skin is smooth. “It’s alright, I will graciously take all the credit.” Bdubs’s eyes track the way Etho’s lips curl into a teasing smile. “I’m sure you’ve forgotten, but I’ve been the one kissing it better for the last decade."
“Is that what you’ve been doing?” Etho laughs, and grabs his mask to pull it back on.
“Well,” Bdubs says lightly. “Not just that.”
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
So Etho bakes with his mask off. Bdubs kisses Etho when his mask is off. What’s the saying? Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, three times is…
“You know,” Bdubs says as he’s pinned against the kitchen cupboards, pastry left forgotten as Etho sucks a line of bruises into his neck. “I’m sensing a pattern.”
“Mhm,” Etho hums. His thumbs creep up under the hem of Bdubs’s shirt and sit, hot and possessive, at his waist.
When they finally part, the pupils of Etho’s mismatched eyes are blown wide, and he looks wrecked in the best kind of way, completely breathless and gorgeous. Gorgeous as Bdubs has ever seen him.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
“I want to do more than kiss you,” Bdubs murmurs into his mouth. There’s an unopened bag of sugar on the countertop, and a completely full box of eggs. Bdubs hadn’t let Etho even get started before he’d pushed him against the freezer box and got to work. “Which is crazy, because I want to kiss you all the time.”
Etho makes an agreeable noise and shifts his legs, just a little, so Bdubs’s slot neatly in between them. He’s hard—somehow, this information is stunning. It makes Bdubs’s brain light up like he’s made of electricity, like whole new circuits have opened up he never even knew were there.
“Yeah?” Bdubs breathes.
Etho nods and kisses him again. “B-double-o,” he says, and Bdubs knows exactly what he means by that.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
When Bdubs wakes, the bed beside him is empty, and broad brushstrokes of sunlight are painting the sheets radiant white. He showers quickly and goes downstairs to the smell of fresh pastry.
“I made danishes,” Etho says. He rubs the back of his neck, like he’s nervous or something, but the danishes taste really good. They’re fresh from the oven and full of stewed apples and cinnamon. Bdubs imagines the scene: Etho waking up early to roll out pastry, Etho bent double over the counter, Etho drizzling on white icing over the back of a spoon, fingers sticky and brow furrowed in concentration. Fondness fills Bdubs up. He overflows with it.
“Do you remember?” he says. “First time we worked out how to make cookies, back in the day. We made way too much dough, ended up with a million of them.”
Etho smiles. “I remember.”
“Got everyone on the server to take some home, still ended up eating so many I felt sick.”
“I remember,” Etho repeats. When he kisses Bdubs, he does it soft and slow, a dragging of lips. Never asking for more, always giving. “I remember,” he says.
Where Etho clutches his face, Bdubs’s hands come to cover his, holding Etho close to him. It’s all he can do not to haul Etho back to bed. To feel every point of contact as a point of bright light.
“Eat your pastry,” Etho says after a minute. “I’m going to suck you off.”
Then he pushes Bdubs back against the counter, gets on his knees, and makes Bdubs see stars.
When he eventually pulls away, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and grins up at Bdubs, and says, “How was it?”
Bdubs, dazed, blinks back at him. “You’re wonderful.”
“Really?” Etho says. “I meant the danish.”
Bdubs pulls him up by the collar and kisses him again, and again, and again and again and again. Maybe by now the contact should be familiar, but it isn’t. Every time he touches Etho, he feels like he’s building something he’s never made before. And the feeling will never wear off, he’s sure of it. It’s a cathedral he’d never be done with even if he had a thousand years to finish it.
“You taste like apples,” Etho mumbles against his lips.
“Yeah,” Bdubs agrees. “Wonder who’s fault that is.”