Chapter Text
Fic: The Taste of Happiness
Giftee: @still-searching47
Santa: worryinglyinnocent
Prompt: No Reservations AU
Title: The Taste of Happiness
Word Count: 27684
Rating: T
Summary: Chef Aiden Gold’s perfectly ordered life is turned upside down when he suddenly receives custody of the son he has not seen in almost ten years. As he tries to bond with teenage Neal, matters are further complicated by the arrival of a new sous-chef in his kitchen, the irrepressible Belle French, who has a very different outlook on life to his own…
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One
The kitchen of Dragon’s Roost, the hottest new place to eat in the city according to several critics with no sense of verbal imagination, was running exactly as was usual for a Thursday evening at fifteen minutes past nine. Everything was working as a well-oiled machine, with the chefs in a tense, busy harmony, the waiters and waitresses slipping in and out almost unnoticed, and the head chef in the middle of it all, moving from fridge to grill to pass; everywhere at once and yet never in anyone else’s way. People who worked in a kitchen with Aiden Gold knew that if he was coming in your direction, you got out of his way, and the kitchen staff at Dragon’s Roost, from the kid who washed the pots on weekends to the dependable sous-chef who’d been with Gold ever since the restaurant opened, had learned to get out of Gold’s way without even realising that they were doing it. The entire kitchen worked as a beautiful, intricate dance, and that precision showed in the creations that they produced and served to their hungry customers.
“GOLD!”
The head chef having his name yelled across the kitchen by someone who sounded incredibly angry was not exactly as usual for a Thursday evening, but if pressed, no-one would claim that it was the first time it had happened. Gold, for his part, ignored the summons and continued to plate a perfect fan of lobster tails on a light cream sauce with just a touch of red chilli to add that little extra kick to the meaty tail.
“GOLD!”
The shout did not perturb him at all, and he wiped the edge of the plate with a tea towel before spinning around and setting it on the pass.
“Service table nine!” he shouted to the next member of waiting staff to come into the kitchen, before he finally turned to the person who was hailing him, who had since crossed the kitchen and was standing right behind him, arms folded and a furious expression on her face. “Evening, Mal,” he said benignly.
“Gold, would you care to explain to me why I have just had to waive a $500 bill for table twenty?” Mal’s voice was icy but her blue eyes were flashing fire, and in that moment, she could well have been mistaken for the dread fantasy creature that her beloved restaurant was named after.
“I’d love to, Mal, but I’m slightly busy at the moment.” Gold grabbed the next batch of orders from above the pass and called out to the team. “Two scallops, two beef, one chicken and fire the steak for table three, so rare it’s still mooing!”
“Yes chef,” came the chorus from the kitchen, and Gold neatly side-stepped around Mal to move to the fridge and grab a couple of crème brulées ready for caramelising. Mal, unperturbed and tenacious to the last, followed him, slamming the fridge door shut behind them.
“I leave that front for one minute!” she exclaimed, jabbing her finger at Gold’s chest. “One minute! And I come back to find Jefferson trying to prevent world war three at table twenty because you decided it was a good idea to tell a man where he could shove his steak.”
Gold folded his arms, leaning back from Mal’s jabbing finger. “He asked for medium rare and I provided him medium rare. If what he actually wanted was medium well, then that is what he should have asked for. It’s not my fault that he wouldn’t be able to tell a prime medium rare steak if it bit him in the fat backside.”
Mal pinched the bridge of her nose. “Is that what you said to him?”
“No, I think I used more swearwords.”
Mal sighed, and for a long moment nothing was said. Gold grabbed the crème brulées and made to leave the fridge, but Mal held up a hand to stop him.
“Mal, there are customers waiting on their desserts and if you don’t let me out of this damn fridge then it won’t be me to blame when you have to waive their bill.”
“I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t throw a raw steak at him and tell him to fucking well cook it himself, like the last time you blew up,” she muttered.
The fridge door opened and a head poked in.
“Boss, Chef, table eight wants to see you to congratulate you on the lobster.”
“Not now, Jeff,” Mal and Gold responded in unison.
Jefferson, Mal’s long-suffering maitre d’ and right-hand man in all matters related to running the restaurant apart from the kitchen, shrugged, but did not move out of the fridge doorway. “Let me guess, today’s private conference is about the steak guy?”
“Yes,” Gold snapped. “Jefferson, you’ll back me up here, the man ordered a medium rare and that is what I gave him.”
“Yeah, the guy’s an asshole but you can’t just yell at someone every time they don’t like your food, Gold,” Jefferson said pragmatically. “You can’t please everyone all the time.”
“I’m not trying to please everyone all the time,” Gold protested. “I just want to please all the customers in this restaurant all the time and I can’t do that when they’re all fucking imbeciles!”
“You know, I’d be really interested to hear what your therapist has to say about your attitude,” Mal muttered.
Jefferson snorted. “Which one?”
“Oh sweet Jesus, don’t tell me you left another therapist?” Mal threw her hands up in the air in defeat and let them drop limply back to her sides. “What happened to that guy Mary Margaret recommended? Dr Hopper?”
“I scared him,” Gold said, finally succeeding in pushing past Mal and Jefferson and getting back into the kitchen, grabbing a blow torch and turning it on in the most threatening way possible.
“Gold, I swear, if this happens again, you’re fired.”
“Oh, for real this time?” Gold asked snidely, sprinkling caramel crystals over the crème and giving Mal a dark look. “Or just for funsies, like all the other times you’ve threatened to fire me.”
Despite the kitchen being just as noisy as it normally was and despite the other staff all seeming to be busy as usual in their normal roles, a knife could have gone through the tension in the room.
“Gold, you are a brilliant chef,” Mal said, her voice cool and barely suppressing the seething anger that was bubbling through her entire frame. “But do not push your luck with me, and do not insult my paying customers.”
She swept out of the kitchen in a wave of fury, and after a moment, the tension in the room dissipated; everyone who had been surreptitiously watching the confrontation out of the corners of their eyes went back to their work. The evening’s entertainment was over.
“I’ll insult them if they insult me,” Gold muttered under his breath, his focus sharp as he browned the crème brulées to perfection and set about decorating them with sugar frosted berries and mint.
“She’s got a point, you know,” Jefferson said, leaning on the pass as Gold worked. The chef looked up with a furious scowl before returning his attention to the desserts. “They are paying us.”
“I don’t care,” Gold growled. “They need to learn to appreciate good artistry. If they just want food that no-one has taken time over or put any love into then they can fuck off to MacDonalds.”
Jefferson gave the heavy sigh of someone who had heard the argument more times than he cared to count. “There are so many things I could say to try and make you see where Mal’s coming from but I’ve got a job to do so I won’t. But I will say this: Gold, you’ve got to stop taking every single thing so personally. Someone sends their steak back and you act like they spat on your mother’s grave. I swear I thought you were going to demand satisfaction and pistols at dawn. It’s just a steak. It’s not the end of the world as we know it.”
Jefferson left the room and Gold sighed, leaning heavily on the counter. Maybe for Jefferson it wasn’t the end of the world as he knew it, but Jefferson, as lovely as the man was, was not a chef. He just didn’t understand the pride that chefs took in their work, in every aspect of it. One miscooked steak could be the end of a career that he had spent twenty-five years building up, so when someone complained about their meal, Gold always made damn sure that their complaint was justified. And ninety-nine times out of one hundred, it was not. It was just that the customer was an idiot who thought he knew better than the chef.
Still fuming with barely contained ire, Gold thought of the man at table twenty with his medium rare steak. He had so wanted to take off his apron, shove it at the guy and haul him into the kitchen, telling him that if he knew best, he should try running the kitchen for the night and see how he liked it.
“Erm, chef?”
One of the waitresses was hovering nervously.
“What?” he snapped.
“The brulée’s on fire,” she squeaked.
Gold swore violently as he realised that he’d left the blowtorch on and it had caught the sugar. He threw his tea towel over the miniature blaze and made for the fridge again. Mal said time and again that he was a control freak with a temper problem, but he wasn’t at all. He just didn’t trust anyone else to do things properly, which was why he took personal responsibility for every dish that left his kitchen.
There were no more incidents for the rest of the evening, the kitchen staff and customers alike having been shocked into quiet and obedience after the earlier confrontation, and by the time the kitchen was closing and the final clean-up was being done, Gold had just about calmed down from his earlier fury.
“Hey.” Mal hailed him as he left the kitchen and he saw her sitting at one of the empty tables with a large glass of sauvignon blanc and the bookings list for the next day. She looked worn down and tired, her usually bouncy blonde curls limp around her face. “The Midases send their regards and congratulations,” she said, although her voice was lacklustre. “One of these days you should actually come out front and meet them, they’re a lovely couple and despite the number of times they’ve witnessed you having a hissy fit, they still keep coming back and thinking you’re the best thing since sliced bread.” Mal leaned back in her chair. “I don’t understand you, Gold. You’ll leave the kitchen and pick a fight in a heartbeat if someone dares to say your food isn’t perfect so I know you take a lot of pride in what you do, but when someone wants to pay you a compliment, you can’t be bothered with them.”
Gold bristled. “I am bothered,” he snapped. “I just have a job to do that I can’t take time away from to receive praise.”
“And yet you’ll take time away from it to receive criticism.”
“That’s different. I’m defending my honour.”
Mal rolled her eyes. “Jefferson’s right about you,” she muttered.
“Will there be anything else?” Gold asked lightly. “I promise you that I’m going to therapy tomorrow morning.”
Mal gave a heavy sigh. “No, no. That’s all. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe I’ll download some calming panpipe music to play in the kitchen in the hope that you’ll chill out a bit more.”
Gold had to snort at the notion. He didn’t do chilled out. A calm and relaxed chef was a sloppy chef. His therapist would probably tell him that was an unhealthy attitude, but Gold really didn’t care. He knew his profession better than anyone, and he didn’t need anyone else to tell him how to work. Especially not customers.
“Good night, Mal.”
“Good night, Gold.”
The walk to his apartment from the restaurant was a short one; he never liked to live more than a few minutes away from wherever he was working in case there was some kind of emergency. As he let himself in, his gaze alighted on the photograph on the dresser by the front door, a smiling, chubby-cheeked toddler covered in chocolate cake. Of course he was protective of the kitchen and his cooking. How could he not be, when it was the only thing he had left?