InsaneJournal

PRESENT RP Log: Edwin and Nikolai
Who: Edwin and Nikolai
What: Edwin decides to try cooking for Nikolai. Nikolai decides to help. It goes poorly.
When: Last month
Where: Sutton Cottage
Rating: PG

Edwin had never needed to learn to cook anything more complicated than jam on toast. His family had had hired cooks while he was growing up, Oxford had had cooks in the dining room of Oxford when he’d gone to university, and it had been easy enough to order up a hot meal to his room at his boarding house, or to eat in the common area where he rented in the city. It wasn’t quite so easy in Vallo – he did not have the funds to hire any full-time staff at Sutton Cottage, aside from Briar to tend the gardens, and he was paid mostly from the donations people left visiting the gardens and by the convenience of having a room at the Cottage.

Edwin had grown very familiar with delivery and take-out, had been pleasantly surprised to discover tasty meals that he could transfer straight from the freezer to the oven and have them come out ready to eat, and had managed to practise some basic meals, such as eggs and bacon, until they were passible if not particularly palatable.

He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to attempt to cook for Nikolai. Perhaps he’d been swayed by the romance of Valentine’s Day, or perhaps it was just that he liked making Nikolai happy. Whatever the reason, he was sure it couldn’t be too difficult. Cooking, at it’s heart, was nothing more than following instruction. Like any natural science, it was following the established perimeters of previous experimentation. Edwin had studied the natural sciences in university, had been fond of chemistry, and was sure that this wouldn’t be much different than that, and besides, the recipe for bryndzové halušky looked easy enough to follow.

He’d thought cooking bacon would be easy enough, except it turned out that the small bacon bits cooked much faster than the strips of bacon he cooked for breakfast, and he’d been nearly smoked out of the kitchen, until he’d cast a spell to blow the excess of smoke out the window, and while he thought the bacon was still serviceable (he’d tried a bit, and while it was definitely burned, it wasn’t awful), but the smell of burned bacon lingered. Then he’d nicked his knuckle badly when he’d been grating the potatoes, and hadn’t had enough magic left to perform the mild healing spell to close it, and so he’d had to take a break to bandage his knuckles and wait for some of the pain to subside. The potatoes had taken longer to grate than Edwin had calculated, and the batter he’d made for the dumplings was thicker and lumpier than he thought it should be, but maybe it wouldn’t matter so much.

He was sure that Nikolai would be off work and coming over at any minute now, and he cursed himself for all the wasted time. He wondered how important it was, really to wait for the water to boil before straining the potato batter into it, but he talked himself down – it likely was important, even if he swore under his breath when he felt Nikolai enter the grounds before it had managed to bring itself to a boil.

The most peculiar smell was coming from the flat. Nikolai wasn’t certain he’d smelled it before - possibly on the battlefield? When a squad of Inferni set a platoon of slower enemy soldiers afire. It was a roasted, unpleasant sort of smell, mixed with the scent of raw potato and… something on the eye of the stove?

“Edwin?” Nikolai didn’t wear a gun to work but he did pack a knife; it had come in handy more than once when the creature-of-the-month was attacking. It wasn’t long before he realized that the clanging sounds coming from the kitchen weren’t the product of an attacking monster, but were instead coming from his boyfriend.

“Edwin?” Nikolai repeated, and rushed to his side, expression torn between concern and amusement. It was a rare day that Edwin swore quite so extensively, after all. “What did those potatoes do to you to merit such a stern response?”

“Fuck,” Edwin swore once more, under his breath, shoulders slumping. It wasn’t that he was disappointed that Nikolai had found him, so much as Nikolai’s appearance finally dashed the last of Edwin’s hopes for surprising him.

It had been inevitable, really, and it was probably for the best. He ran a hand through his hair – if one was looking closely, they might have spotted some flour and grated potato already blending into his pale locks – and turned to face Nikolai.

“They’re supposed to be,” he paused, so he could dryly quote directly from the recipe he had open on his phone, “‘thick but pourable, like really thick pancake mix.”

He gestured to whatever it was that was in the bowl, which was certainly thick, but decidedly lumpy, with some watery liquid at the edges. “I do not think that qualifies.”

Nikolai closed the distance as he entered the kitchen with a sort of halting curiosity generally reserved for discovering what animal you might have hit in the grill of your car. He’d never seen the kitchen such a mess. He’d never seen Edwin such a mess (at least, not a mess he hadn’t been semi-responsible for creating…) He set down the flowers he’d brought, because yes he was a good boyfriend and had bought a bouquet of wildflowers to celebrate this strange love holiday that Edwin had mentioned, and attempted to figure out what aspect of this to address first.

He went with the potato in Edwin’s hair, picking off a piece delicately. “Are you cooking for me?” Nikolai had landed on delighted as an emotion - delighted, because it was such a sweet, stupid gesture when neither of them approached “adequate” in the kitchen, and delighted because Edwin turning red was one of his favorite Edwins of all of them. “That’s so kind of you.” He didn’t guess what Edwin was making. He wasn’t sure he could guess, at this point.

“I think calling what I’m doing cooking is a little too generous,” Edwin said, dryly, and shot a whithering glare at the bowl of goop. Some of the tension in his shoulders released, and he gave a rueful sigh. “I was attempting to make that meal you’d mentioned. The bryndzové halušky.”

Nikolai was delighted that Edwin had identified the attempted dish in question, because he probably wouldn’t have guessed it otherwise, and now he could pretend as if he knew it all along. “It’s quite a big undertaking, the first time ‘round,” he said generously, giving Edwin a nudge with a clean spatula. “I’ve… mostly… seen it done. Once. I think? I believe this is the point where I suggest ‘teamwork’ and everything gets set correctly, if you’ll have me.”

“I’ll always have you,” Edwin said, giving Nikolai a sly smile that suggested he wasn’t talking about cooking at all. “Once is more than I have, so I think you’re in a better position than I am,” he added.

“You can assume the better position later,” Nikolai answered in the same flirty tone Edwin had employed, but his concentration was largely on figuring out the mess in front of him. With an apologetic look, he tossed out the flour mixture, because it was mostly unrecognizable at this point. He did grab a piece of crispy (very crispy) bacon and gave it an amenable crunch. Tasty.

“I think,” he said slowly, “let’s reboil the potatoes and go from there maybe?”

He sounded very authoritative. This was a lie. Nikolai had never cooked - truly cooked - a day in his life save maybe thrusting an unfortunate rabbit over a fire.

Edwin was chagrined, but he couldn’t fault Nikolai. It would take a much more skilled cook than either one of them to rescue the disaster that Edwin had wrought, if it could have been rescued at all. He was more than a little relieved that Nikolai wasn’t making fun of him for his failed attempt, or worse, berating him.

Instead, he’d decided to take charge, and Edwin was absolutely willing to cede control over to him.

“Yes, okay,” Edwin agreed. “I think that would be the best course of action too. A second attempt attempt then. At least it can’t go much worse than the first, right?”

Shockingly, it could.

It started out well enough - Nikolai was watchful as the potatoes boiled, and seemed to have a decent idea of what went into the dish without having to consult the recipe. But Nikolai’s attention soon wandered.

It had been a big problem in school - his inability to focus on one thing for any amount of time. And he wanted to do this right, wanted to both take care of Edwin and treat this with the fun moment that it was, which heightened his sense of theater, which made for even more opportunities for distraction. Suffice to say the promising start ended in literal fire as he managed to forget that the eye of the stove was on and placed a dishtowel on it.

“Saints” Nikolai yelped.

Edwin, for one, was not one for distraction. If there was every a man who was well primed to stay on task, no matter how boring it was, it was Edwin Courcey.

Except, apparently, if Nikolai was thrown in. Edwin tried to keep his focus: he knew little of cooking and was, apparently, quite bad at it, which meant that he should probably be paying more attention to it – but Nikolai seemed to know what he was doing and Edwin was far more interested in watching him than any of the minutiae of what was going on around him. Especially once he’d finally taken notice of the flowers that Nikolai had brought. No one had ever given Edwin flowers before, and he had been quite happy to show Nikolai his appreciation for the gesture.

Until Nikolai’s exclamation. He glanced at the fire, and then gaped at it for a moment as if he had no idea what it was. It didn’t make any sense that there was a fire on his stove. That was not where fire went.

And then it clicked. “Water! We need water!” He said, and dashed to the tap. “We need something to put water into!”

Nikolai hadn’t been home in a year now, but the instinct was still to call for help from a Grisha: “Is there a Tidemaker on hand?” he bellowed, knowing that there wasn’t, because his luck never ran that way. Luckily he wasn’t completely without a general notion of self-preservation; he shrugged off his coat and threw it over the flames to smother them just as Edwin managed to locate a bowl of water and toss it… on Nikolai.

The crisis was averted. Nikolai dripped water onto the stove and considered his various options for saving face. “Take out, perhaps?” he concluded, and burst out laughing.

Edwin stared at Nikolai, a mix of horror and humiliation on his face, and for a too-long moment, he was sure that Nikolai was going to turn on him, berate him, call him a clumsy, inattentive fool, and he’d be right, of course. Edwin had been so stupid, could never keep his head in a crisis.

He stepped forward to apologize, and then Nikolai’s laughter burst forth like music. There was a jarring moment where Edwin’s thoughts rearranged themselves, for the utter ridiculousness of the situation to sink in. He laid an apologetic hand on the counter, silently promising the cottage that he’d clean the kitchen soon, and then closed the distance between him and Nikolai, smiling as he pushed Nikolai’s wet hair from his face. “Take-out,” he confirmed.

“I think it’s very sweet,” Nikolai said in a smug sort of voice as he kissed the corner of Edwin’s lips slowly, first the right, then the left, “that you nearly did a war crime trying to make my favorite dish.” He pulled away just a little, his grin bright as a blaze. “How hungry are you? Hungry enough, or can you wait?”

Edwin’s lips twitched. He couldn’t help it; there was no one who could make him smile like Nikolai did. “I believe you’re the one who very nearly set my house on fire,” he pointed out. He wrapped his arms around Nikolai’s neck. “And I’m very hungry, but take-out can most certainly wait.”