Work Text:
Throughout the years, Angel has found themself on the receiving end of many a description from both coworkers and friends, some arguably more accurate than others: dedicated, dependable, forthright, passionate, energetic, silly, snot. The fact that “liar” wasn’t included on that list was not by coincidence.
And yet, as they were standing in their and David’s shared kitchen, tomato sauce sizzling happily in the pot behind them on the stove, one of the two homemade pizzas heating in the oven while the other laid half-assembled on the countertop, buffalo mozzarella drying in a sieve by the sink, themself covered in flour and their man, their mate, the love of their life standing in front of them with his work bag in hand and a look of mixed worry and confusion furrowing his brows, they found themself wishing they were a better liar.
Because truth was that Angel, try as they might on rare occasions, was a terrible, terrible liar. Sweaty hands, flush cheeks, flickering eyes; the whole shebang and then some came tumbling over them whenever they had to lie about something, no matter how trivial. So just like how the sun is known to rise in the east, or how the tide ebbs and flows with the moon, Angel is known not to lie.
The irony of the situation was not lost on them as they stood in the kitchen, face flushed and wringing their flour-covered hands while their mate was staring them down. They felt like a deer that after nine months of carefully and thoroughly painting the floor had finally been caught - with crumbs strewn around them and the empty cookie jar on the floor beside them - sitting in the metaphorical corner.
“You’re back early,” they hurried to say when David started opening his mouth, no doubt to ask when they’d hit their head and if they were in need of medical care. Unfortunately their poor attempt at distraction did nothing to ease the concern-slowly-morphing-into-suspicious look on his face.
“The clients came to an agreement quicker than anticipated,” he put his bag down, eyes firmly glued on Angel as if the entire kitchen would spontaneously combust if he looked away for nare a second, “so yes, our trip was shortened by a day”.
“Ah,” they mumbled. Eloquently.
“Angel,” David closed the distance between them, joining them by the kitchen island, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“...cooking?” as if that alone would in any way explain how Angel, known noodle lover and Kitchen Wrecker only second to Asher, was making a whole ass meal by themself. From the ground. The various bowls with the different toppings not yet cleaned off the counter.
The timer on the stove beeped, alerting them to the first pizza already being done.
Fuck.
They hadn't meant for this… slight alteration of the truth… to go on for this long.
There was no secret that if you looked up the definition of “hardworking” in the dictionary, the first word you would stumble across would simply read: “Angel”. The problem with definitions though, is that they leave precious little wiggle room for deviation. So when life gets hectic and Angel finds themselves in the midst of a hurricane of papers and reports and meetings and timetables, they tend to forget (to their own immense chagrin) that they're also a human being with human needs.
The point of this is to say that when David came along and entered their life, Angel was barely operating as a functional human being. Work had at that point been a living nightmare for the past three weeks, and the majority of their day-to-day was spent in the office. They slept an average of 5 hours at night, got maybe another half hour on the train to and fro, and since they’re fortunate enough to have a relatively good cafeteria at work, cooking at home quickly became the lowest of priorities.
Once things started settling back into the normal amount of stress-per-day, and Angel at long last found the spare time to invite David over for a long overdue movie night, their excitement had sort of, maybe, perhaps made them forget to restock their fridge and pantry in advance. The memory of exasperation on David’s face though when he went to search said fridge and pantry to get the designated movie-night-snacks, and found little else in there other than a couple stacks of ramyeon noodles, some cans of beans, one pack of coconut milk and a half full bottle of ketchup, almost made all future teasing they would receive on the subject worth it.
Indeed, that little incident had in fact stirred quite a few jabs from him about how Angel couldn’t possibly survive on preprocessed food like that, and that if they wanted to live a short life then there were easier ways to go about it than starving their body of all necessary nutritional needs.
Problem was, the teasing had been fun! Angel found immense joy in riling David up, and had therefore not made it a huge point to correct him in his assumptions about their cooking-abilities. Whenever had they tried to comment on the fact that they weren’t, in fact, completely useless in the kitchen he would disagree and say they were a disservice to Darvin’s theory about natural selection while they laughed and made some half-baked, farfetched innuendo about servicing, he grumbled and rolled his eyes so far back that by now they were sure he must be painstakingly familiar with the inside of his head, they kissed him on his nose, he kissed them on the mouth, scandalous little man that he is, and they both went about their day!
And, alright, so maybe that little “almost accident” he had been witness to a few weeks into living together didn’t do a whole lot to change his mind about whether or not they should be allowed in the kitchen. In their defence, a new deadline at work had been closing in, and having only gotten a few restless hours of shut-eye that night, the toast they’d been heating up for breakfast had promptly been forgotten when they started dozing off by the dining table.
It had taken the entire day to air the remaining smell of burned bread out of their home…
And then, bless this man’s heart, David had taken it upon himself to try and teach Angel how to cook. And he’d gotten up all close and personal and touchy and feely, pressing himself up against their back, covering their hands with his bigger ones, his calloused fingers caressing theirs, soft breaths tickling the hairs at the nape of their neck. No way in hell were they going to turn around and tell him that they were quite capable in the kitchen, thank you very much, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. Not when they could feel his chest expanding with each breath against their back. So they stayed put, kept quiet, and enjoyed every second of their Basic Cooking 101 lesson, (not offering a single thought to the actual learning part of the lesson, mind you).
Their little… secret (not lie!) had almost been revealed one evening when Angel had invited a small group of friends over for dinner. One of them had made a comment on how sweet it was to see Angel not being the one responsible for dinner for once, allowing themself to take the time and actually talk and hang out instead of flying around trying to make everyone else feel comfortable. David had snorted and muttered something about how he wouldn't have let Angel within a ten metre radius of a kitchen if he could help it, before disappearing around the corner to finish up the last preparations for the food.
The looks they had received from their friends had them squirming in their seat, and with sweaty hands, flushed cheeks and flickering eyes they’d stuttered their way through the Toast Incident in hopes of satisfying their suspicion before quickly changing the subject, sighing in relief when neither of them had comment any further on their strange behaviour.
If they were being completely honest with themself… it was nice having someone else do the cooking for a change. Growing up Angel often had to be in charge of dinner, with two parents working their asses off trying to make ends meet for their little family. They had never blamed their parents for relying on them to act as a stand-in parent for their younger siblings at times; not even when they had to get a part-time job in the kitchen of the local italian restaurant, spending the hours after school to clean and chop and stir in various pots and pans, just to come back home and do the exact same thing there.
Their parents were doing their best with what means they got, and so was Angel.
After graduation they’d stayed another year at the restaurant to earn some extra money for their family and to try and save up some for themself, learning how to make the perfect pizza and lasagne and bolognese and carbonara and risotto (and gods the tiramisu) along the way. They’d enjoyed it, all things considered, but it was also exhausting.
And then there came David - sweet, gentle, stubborn David - who had started lecturing them about the importance of feeding themself properly, and they hadn’t found it in them to correct him. When he had dragged them to the store the morning after their first movie night at their place to fill up their barren food supply, they’d let him. When he started showing up every other day at their apartment after work to cook them something to eat, they’d simply dug around for their spare key and given it to him.
Because for once someone had been concerned about their health, and it felt nice.
In just a few short minutes it took for him to unlock the front door, untie his shoes, hang his jacket and move to the kitchen, their rose-golden bubble popped, and in the process their world had abruptly shifted three inches to the left, leaving them frozen in vertigo not knowing if they should stay put or try to follow. After having lived together for seven weeks and four days (not that Angel was counting…), they had not once attempted to correct his misconstructed impression of their cooking skills. Because it felt nice.
They hadn’t meant to lie.
It wasn’t a lie.
They had actively told David that they could cook. Just purposefully hadn’t demonstrated it yet…
So why did it feel like one fat, neon coloured lie now that they were facing their mate with what felt like a crime scene surrounding them?
…it had been so nice.
Whatever their face was doing must have been quite the sight, cause’ while David was surely still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Angel was seemingly apparently quite capable of replicating the entire italian cuisine in their kitchen on their own, the sceptical look on his face was quickly replaced with concern as he reached forward to softly brush his fingers against their cheek.
“Angel?”
No, Angel was not a good liar. Never had been. So now, when the truth was so clearly written out behind them on the counter, they felt their shoulders sag and a breath they hadn’t realised they’d been holding for the nine months they’d known each other rush out in them in a choked sigh.
“I- um…” they cleared their throat before trying again, voice a bit steadier this time: “dinner’s almost ready?”
They could still see the sceptical worry clear in his eyes and the dozen questions forming in his mind, but whatever he read on their face made him shelve them for later, opting instead to kiss them softly and promise to be right with them after he’d put his bag in the bedroom and gotten changed to something a more comfortable.
He returned just as they were placing the second pizza - fresh out the oven - onto the dining table and they smiled as he sat down across from them.
They would answer all his questions tomorrow. Tell him everything he wanted to know about their suffocated love for cooking that they hadn’t realised they’d missed until they had gotten themself so tangled up in their accidental lie that they felt themself unable to cook, whether they wanted to or not.
But that was tomorrow, after they had eaten and cuddled. After David had showered and unpacked, and they both had had a good night's sleep to replenish their depleted energy stores. They would make them breakfast, they would sit him down, and they would talk about it. But not now.
For now, dinner was served.