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Porco’s ass buzzed incessantly.
He struck the scoop into the litter. His thumb smushed into the screen.
“What is it?”
A yawn stretched on the other end before his caller managed to speak.
“Is that how you answer a call from your beloved?”.
Porco rolled his eyes and reclaimed his task.
“I’m scooping Marley’s shit right now. What is it?”
He was promptly shushed.
“You’re so loud - ” Another yawn. “ - I can practically hear you from here.”
“Is that what you called to say?”
Covers rustled over the receiver. Porco doubled down on his commitment to be annoyed.
“Come cuddle me,” came the demand.
“I’m busy, I’ve got to get ready. Some of us get to work on time.”
“But - Porco.”
Porco’s chest tightened at the way Bertolt drew out his name. Blankets shifted again and he could envision far too clearly how Bertolt looked when he burrowed down, self-swaddled with hair that always pulled off an escape. Bertolt, refusing to get out of bed until the last possible second.
Porco cut the call. Marley made an appearance at his feet, meowing out a command for food. What, did everyone need something from him this morning?
His pride surged quietly in his gut.
“Finally,” Bertolt exclaimed, muffly from beneath a puffy duvet. Porco trudged across the room, light-hearted.
“You could’ve come across the hall, you know.”
“But I like my bedroom more. Yours is so… dark.”
Porco eyed Bertolt’s sheer drapes. Meanwhile, his own room was a testament to the strength of blackout curtains.
“It’s nice at night,” he offered.
Bertolt nestled into Porco’s chest. Hummed, vibrating warm through him. Porco wound fingers through dark hair.
“It is,” Bertolt admitted. “I could join you tonight?”
“If you insist.”
Bertolt’s gaze met his own before calling the bluff by at least a mile. “And if I don’t insist?”
Porco softened. His fingers tightened around a lock of hair and before he could stop, he had Bertolt even closer to him.
“You should join me,” he insisted.
The smile stretching Bertolt’s lips gave Porco a start. It was a lazy morning smile, bending up towards him and out of his hold. An obnoxiously long leg flopped over Porco’s thighs and Bertolt was back to using him as a pillow. The heavy breathing of a half-asleep husband pulled Porco’s unwilling mouth into a dumb grin and he was almost tempted to nod off himself.
But unlike his husband, Porco could never quite seem to break the habit of leaving on time. He planted a kiss into the shock of hair springing off the head before him. “C’mon. Time to get up.”
A grumble rolled from the heap that was doing it’s best to anchor Porco in place. Bertolt’s grip was too late, though. Porco slipped out, sock feet padding out to the kitchen where he was promptly berated by Marley over an empty bowl.
“Ok, ok,” he mumbled as he pried the lid. His nose crinkled at the cat food slime that caught on his thumb, to be washed as soon as he had overturned the can’s contents to their begging cat. Now, to satisfy the remainder of the household.
Bread was deposited in its proper places: one piece in a pan, one in the toaster. Porco washed his hands again at the feeling of butter, smeared over his index finger. Their toaster sprang out and he had this routine more than memorized. So much so that when Bertolt had gone out of town the month before, it took Porco three days to stop making two slices.
He pulled more butter from the fridge for one, margarine for the other. Jam for one, none for the other. Toast of varying methods was distributed to plates and coffee grounds to its maker.
Coffee for one. Orange juice, for the other. Two plates, in line on an island. Porco dried his hands a third time and beheld his quality work. Bertolt made his usual appearance five whole minutes before Porco’s departure time. And, as always, he was miraculously fully dressed and groomed despite being fifteen minutes out of blankets at most.
Porco’s cheeks threatened to heat at the sight.
“You look so much like a professor, Bertie,” he teased halfheartedly.
“You know you like it,” Bertolt mumbled around a bite.
Porco liked it very much. He dove into the fridge, fishing out leftovers packed the night before then shoving them into Bertolt’s line of sight.
“Don’t forget to eat your broccolini.”
Bertolt’s nose ruffled in confusion.
“Broccolini? Is that what the side was last night?”
“Yes.”
Bertolt’s eyes drifted aimlessly. “Hm.”
Porco bit his lip as a memory of years prior attacked him. It was the most horrible and annoying trip he had ever taken. Pieck had insisted he accompany her to Graceland on what he could still only interpret as a strange devotion to the King of Rock and Roll. He had successfully evaded her pleas, too, until Annie had threatened him, in her own strange devotion to Pieck.
And it was the worst trip of all time. Until he had seen him. Long fingers, cradling an overpriced mug with printed-on bedazzle. Eyes, unfocused and dreaming from where he had stood in line.
“The line’s moving,” an Elvis enthusiast had urged at the slightest suggestion of a gap in front of Bertolt. His brow had pinched and his eyes had snapped up. Porco still frowned at the thought. It wasn’t right to interrupt such a beautiful daydreamer. And over a few measly inches?
“You, um, like Elivs?” Porco had attempted the moment Bertolt turned from the cashier.
“Hm? Oh - No, not… Well, it’s a gift. For a friend.” A chuckle vibrated the strangers’ throat and made Porco swallow. “Apparently I’m not allowed to leave the state without it. Do you? Like Elvis, I mean?”
“No,” Porco half-shouted. “No, my friend - her fiance threatened to kill me if I didn’t come.”
He cringed hard at the tone escaping his mouth. When had he everhad trouble talking to a guy? Never! That’s when. But… The stranger laughed a little. Smiled. Stepped closer and Porco’s tongue stuck to his teeth, until they were suddenly moving away with an,
“Ok, well.”
“Your number,” Porco blurted so stupidly he couldn’t fully believe it. The man didn’t skip a beat.
“Do you want it?”
“I - ” and of all the times for Porco’s pick-up talk to kick back in, “ - I mean, if you think I’m that hot.”
His bluff didn’t last one second.
“I think you think I am,” came a quietly confident reply, tumbling down to Porco.
“Porco?”
“What?” Porco challenged, mostly on instinct. He looked up to find Bertolt looking vaguely concerned and, much less vaguely, amused from across the island.
“You’re going to be late.”