Work Text:
“Give me your arm, Ron,” Hugo Habercore said, holding out his own hand as the two health inspectors stood in their shared kitchen.
It was an early evening in May, warm but not so hot that the two of them had closed their windows in favor of air-conditioning. That wouldn’t happen until June. Right now, the air smelled like lilacs and, somewhere close, a pigeon cooed.
Ron looked up at the ceiling, not at Hugo. A bright shade of pink started to color his cheeks, but he held out his arm like Hugo told him to do.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“I don’t know why you’re saying sorry to me. You’re the one who’s bleeding.” Hugo stood on his tiptoes and poked Ron on the shoulder. “This is why we look at our vegetables when we’re chopping them. You know that.”
“Sorry,” Ron said again, managing to look Hugo in the eye now. “I can take care of it, you know. I don’t want to make you do anything. ”
By the time the words were out, Hugo already had Ron’s hand under the faucet and was vigorously scrubbing his sliced fingertips with a bar of soap. He saw Ron wince, and his eyes started to look a little wet too.
Oops.
Hugo tried to be less rough, and with that Ron seemed to relax, at least a little bit.
“It’s not bleeding much anymore,” Hugo said, “but... just hold your hand under the water until I’m back, okay?”
“Okay,” Ron said. “Th-thank you.”
When Hugo got to the bathroom, he rummaged in the medicine cabinet for the box of band-aids he knew was in there somewhere. He smiled—and rolled his eyes a bit—when he finally found them. They’d been bought on a day when Ron had done the shopping. Whereas Hugo would have just gone for the plain, tan kind, Ron had opted for blue ones with little rainbows on them. That was so very him.
As he scurried back to the kitchen, cartoonish band-aids in hand, Hugo thought about the man he’d been living with for nearly as long as he’d been a health inspector. Hugo had been worried at first, when Ron asked him to be his roommate, that living with the same man he spent his entire workday with would be too much togetherness. That they’d start to hate each other like roommates usually did. But at the end of the day, Hugo had needed a place to stay. His fiancé had just dumped him for some burger flipper, and he couldn’t move back in with his parents.
So he’d said yes. It had been a few years, and he and Ron didn’t hate each other yet. Far from it, even if Hugo did snap at Ron sometimes. (And he was trying not to do that as much.) They’d even fallen asleep on the couch together a few nights ago, at the end of a period drama Ron had suggested they watch over a few glasses of wine. Hugo definitely wouldn’t do that with just anyone, whether "that" referred to watching a period drama, drinking wine, or falling asleep next to another person.
“Let me see your hand again,” Hugo said as he sidled up to Ron, wondering why he was remembering the other night just now. “Thank you.”
He noticed, as he began to wrap the bandages around each of Ron’s sliced fingers, one by one, that Ron’s hands were shaking. He was avoiding eye contact again too.
Hugo sighed. This wasn’t totally out of the ordinary for Ron. The man was pretty shy, after all, but he’d gotten to a point where he wasn’t usually like this around Hugo anymore. Something must be wrong.
“I’m not mad at you,” Hugo said, trying not to speak as loudly as he usually did. “You didn’t ruin dinner. I mean, we’ll have to throw away the carrot that has your blood all over it, and if you were cooking at a restaurant, I’d write you up for leaving the mess over there for so long, but—”
He reached around then, and patted Ron on the butt like he’d seen men do to each other before. It was an easy enough reach; Ron’s torso was practically at eye level for him.
“Oh,” Ron said, his eyes widening and his face getting red again. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” Hugo said, “and you’re all done.”
He let go of Ron’s bandaged fingers and Ron looked them over, mouthing something to himself.
Hugo furrowed his eyebrows—Ron really was acting weird today—but he turned his attention to the countertop. He threw the bloody carrot in the compost bin, cleaned and dried the cutting board and the knife, washed his hands, and then set to work chopping up another carrot for the stir-fry.
“I can do that,” Ron said, but Hugo waved him off.
“You almost always cook. Anyway, you still haven’t explained yourself to me.”
“Explained myself?” Ron asked.
Hugo smiled, not taking his attention away from what he was doing. “What were you looking at when you hurt yourself? And don’t tell me it was the cutting board, I know it wasn’t.”
“Oh,” Ron said, “um…I don’t remember.”
“Don’t lie to me or I’ll get the wooden spoon,” Hugo sang.
He’d meant it as a joke, he really had, but Ron went dead silent.
“I won’t—” Hugo said after awhile.
But, at the same time Ron said, “I was looking at you.”
Hugo licked his lips. The carrot was fully chopped.
“Oh?”
“You were sitting on the counter.”
Hugo tossed the carrot in the pan and turned his attention to some garlic.
“I was watching you for most of the movie the other night,” Ron added, his words coming out slowly, like he was mulling them over as he said them. “And, um, after you fell asleep on the couch, before I fell asleep too.”
Now it was Hugo’s eyes’ turn to widen. He stopped chopping and turned to stare at the bushy-haired man, who looked ready to bolt out of the room at any second.
“You were looking at me?” Hugo asked.
“Sorry,” Ron said. “I know you probably don’t feel...like that. I—”
“Well—” Hugo said after Ron trailed off.
It wasn’t like Ron wasn’t gorgeous. Hot, even, in a sexy librarian sort of way. Hugo wasn’t going to pretend he’d never noticed how soft Ron’s lips looked under that mustache, or how golden his freckles were in the sun when the two of them were out in their work van together. Hell, even Ron’s smell was nice, aftershave and lotion. But… Hugo? Short, tubby Hugo? Ron liked him? He couldn’t believe it, but Ron wasn’t the type to pull a joke on him.
Ron looked absolutely humiliated.
“I’m sorry,” he said for what sounded to Hugo like the millionth time that day. “I won’t talk about it again and, and I’ll stop looking at you, and we don’t have to get ready in the bathroom together to save time in the morning anymore. I’ll get up earlier, and—”
Ron wasn’t usually a rambler.
Hugo shook his head. “Come here.”
Ron took a step toward him, then stopped. “Are you gonna hit me?”
“If you want,” Hugo said, another joke that didn’t quite land. “No, come here. Good, now bend down.”
He hoped Ron didn’t notice his voice was shaking.
When Ron did bend over, he was finally at eye level with Hugo. The sunset shone through the kitchen window and those freckles were more golden than ever. Hugo practically felt himself melt.
When he cupped Ron’s face, his hands shook too, but he ignored them. He leaned in and kissed Ron on the lips, holding himself there for ten blissful seconds, according to his count. Hugo had been told once that he didn’t kiss long enough, but Ron seemed happy. He felt Ron gasp into his mouth before the two of them pulled away from each other. Well, sort of pulled away.
Ron’s hands were on Hugo’s shoulders now, the pressure from the bandaged one a little lighter. Hugo assumed this was so Ron could steady himself, but then Ron gave him a little squeeze with his unbandaged hand, and it felt like more than that.
When they looked into each other’s eyes again, Hugo was sure his own face was as red as Ron’s.
Huh. Wow.
Ron opened his mouth, but Hugo just said, “If you’re apologizing again, I don’t want to hear it,” before diving back in.
Before this, Ron and Hugo had slept in different beds in different rooms. Ron’s bed was a queen, big enough for all his gangly limbs and more. Hugo’s was the same twin he’d grown up sleeping in. After tonight, Hugo would never sleep in his old bed again.