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“Is this… the eggspocalypse?”
There are eggs everywhere – a dozen per carton lined up at the back of the big counter behind bowls with food safe dye and half a dozen eggs each, and a basket holds smaller, paler but no less colourful ones.
Aiden pokes one curiously as he watches Jaskier scramble around.
“Ha ha,” his friend says, clearly not appreciating Aiden’s great wit. “Don’t you have a Wolf to annoy?”
“You looked like you might need the help.” Aiden eyes the bowl that has been scraped almost but not quite clean of chocolate cake dough. Will Jaskier stab him with the spatula if he tries for one of the swirls that are left? “Also, Lambert isn’t free until closer to noon.”
“Great,” Jaskier says, “just – I can’t, right now. Sorry, I know – I just…” Jaskier trails off, setting the carton of eggs back down exactly where he’d picked it up a minute earlier.
With a sigh, Aiden abandons his plans of snatching himself a little snack and intercepts Jaskier’s harried pacing.
“Hey –”
“Buttercup.” Aiden holds Jaskier firmly but gently by his upper arms and waits until Jaskier meets his eyes. “How can I best help?”
Jaskier isn’t exactly territorial about his kitchen, but he has zero patience for incompetence, and Aiden may be able to charm the customers, but he has yet to find a recipe he can just grin at roguishly until it subsides. Though that would be an awesome ability to have, without doubt.
Jaskier stares at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights for several seconds before he visibly shakes himself and takes a deep breath.
“Eggs,” he says, which – no shit. Aiden had gathered as much.
But then Jaskier points him towards the cartons and twists out of Aiden’s hold in one smooth motion. Aiden lets go of him, because he would scarcely be helpful if he didn’t, now would he?
“These” – Jaskier motions at half a dozen of cartons – “need to be cracked, six eggs per bowl. No shells, but other than that, go wild.” He indicates another set of cartons. “And those need to be separated, egg whites in one bowl and yellows in the other. I can set you up with bowls but – have you ever separated eggs?”
“No,” Aiden says truthfully even though he’s worried that will just send Jaskier into another spiral, which would be a shame now that he’s calmed down a little. “But I have 72 eggs to learn.”
Jaskier actually cracks a smile at that before bracing himself on the counter the bowls are stored underneath. He takes another deep, deliberate breath. “Okay. I – thank you, Aiden.”
“It’s no big deal.” Aiden shrugs. “It’s what friends are for.”
“And I’m still thankful. Well. Up and at ‘em, then.”
With one last longing glance at the tempting bowl of dough remnants, Aiden rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
“Uh, Aiden?” Essi pokes her head through the door, voice wavering with something that almost makes Aiden start if he were prone to such things.
If his macaron is a little more wonky than the recent ones – well, he’s still learning, isn’t he?
“Yes?”
“There’s, uh… a … gentlemen there for you?” Essi turns the statement into a question. “He was rather insistent.”
Aiden glances at the clock and swears.
“Aiden?” Jaskier asks, reappearing from the walk-in cooler at that moment where he’s just deposited the elaborate, lamb-shaped cake he’s spent the last hour decorating. It seems impossible that it’s been that long since Aiden last checked the time, but it has, and it means –
“I’m late.” He is frozen between stripping out of his kitchen-approved gear and finishing the baking sheet of macarons. “Lambert was supposed to pick me up ten minutes ago.”
Jaskier’s eyes turn wide as he sweeps his gaze over the chaos of the kitchen. Still, he puts on a brave smile as he turns towards Aiden. “Go. I’ll be fine on my own.”
Aiden really should. It’s only their second date, and standing Lambert up seems like a, frankly, terrible idea, but he also cannot leave Jaskier alone in such a state. Not in good conscience, at least.
“Where’s Cam?” Essi asks. She’s avoided the kitchen since starting her shift, which is a fair reaction to Jaskier’s… everything, right now.
“Sick,” Jaskier says. “I’ll be fine.”
Essi and Aiden share a doubtful look, before Essi sighs. “I’ll just go send him back here, huh?”
Jaskier has already turned away to finish up the cupcakes he’s prepared for the afternoon rush: blueberry, with pastel frosting and miniature eggs made from marzipan. They still look uncannily like the basket of pale, colourful eggs in one corner, but Jaskier has let Aiden try one, and they’re definitely sweet and edible. The cupcake decorations, that is. The basket still appears to contain real eggs, not that Aiden has found the time to ask Jaskier about it.
“As long as he stays away from the food-safe zone,” Aiden thinks to tell Essi, which gets him a roll of her eyes.
“Not my firs day working here,” she grouses, and then her voice changes to customer-facing friendly. It’s totally wasted on Lambert, but good luck trying to convince her of that.
“Gosh,” is the first thing Lambert says, “you’re adorable.” Lambert has the decency to blush, but Aiden still scowls and bares his teeth at him. It only makes Lambert’s blush intensify.
Aiden puts the cap on the macaron pipe and ventures over to steal a brief kiss from Lambert. “I’m really sorry I stood you up.”
Lambert trails his gaze over the Chaos behind Aiden. “Seems like a pretty good reason. What’s gotten into Jaskier?”
Aiden sighs and lowers his voice so it’s only audible for a fellow Witcher. “Easter rush. There’s a Nilfgaardian quarter around the corner, and it’s insanely profitable, but the other baker fell sick.”
“So you’ve decided to help out?” Lambert still sounds delighted instead of annoyed at being stood up, which helps alleviate some of Aiden’s concerns.
“I’m just being a good friend.” Aiden ducks his head. “Do you mind if I just finish this up?”
“Take your time,” Lambert says, settling into the visitor’s chair they’ve installed since Jaskier started seeing Geralt more seriously. Aiden feels a certain perverse sense of pride that unlike him, Geralt is not yet allowed into the kitchen. “And in the meantime, I’ll see if I can reach my brother, because seriously, the kid looks like he could use a shoulder to cry on.”
Aiden follows Lambert’s gaze to Jaskier, frazzled and harried again even as his hand is utterly steady in piping swirls onto each cupcake.
“He really could.”
He steals another kiss, and then returns to his piping.
It’s not the second date he’d imagined, but Lambert’s gaze on him as he moves through the kitchen as surefooted and easy as always does have a satisfying feel to it.