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Partitio descends the stairs carefully. He knows where they creak the most, but the Oresrush house has a habit of picking up new ails, aging much like his pops– gracefully, for the most part, but still constantly besieged by the dust and wind around it. It’s worn, for all the time it’s held him and Papp gently within its beams. He treats it kindly.
So when he alights in the kitchen, Partitio is gentle when he lights the lantern and begins to work. He sets out his cutting-board and peeks through the stores. There are eggs in the icebox; there is fruit upon the counter. The baker is already up this early in the morning, as the sky is going cornflower-blue, but there’s still most of a loaf from yesterday.
It takes him a moment to stand in the kitchen and work through his course of action in silence. He’s so used to how his thoughts flow right into his words, like there’s a sluice gate somewhere in his head stuck permanently open. Still. The silence is preferable to the consequences of noise. He lights the stove and takes up his knife.
Even with an unsharpened knife and the crust starting to go ever-so-slightly stale, the bread is yielding. Partitio bends his knuckles against it, taking care to cut even, thick slices. He wordlessly sorts through his jumping thoughts as best he can: cinnamon, sugar, butter…
A sound grates across the plane of his mind, and Partitio looks up. There’s a mockingbird in one of the gnarled old trees making an ungodly noise– like a child’s scream, albeit a touch more melodic. He mentally assesses the layout of the house, and when he realizes this tree is right below the window of his bedroom upstairs he opens the window in front of him.
“Would ya keep it down?” He stage-whispers. “You’re gonna wake up the whole darn house!”
The mockingbird, unheeding, ruffles its plumage and tries a different tune. This one is only marginally less scream-like and just as loud.
“Shoo, shoo!” Partitio leans out the window and waves a hand at it. “I’ll cut up some grapes for you later, I promise!”
“You will?”
Although Partitio recognizes his voice instantly, he still cranes his head upwards to see if it really is Hikari at the window of Partitio’s second-floor bedroom. It is; Hikari’s loose hair blows in the wind, streaks of perfect black against the shadowed side of the house.
“Aw, darlin’, I hope I didn’t wake ya,” he calls. “Go back to bed, alright? You need the rest.”
Hikari smiles down at him for a moment before relenting, silently retreating back into the room. When Partitio leans back down, the mockingbird is just fluttering away. He allows himself a moment to think about how pretty its feathers are before he rededicates himself to his task at hand.
Eggshells rest within the emptied carton. Cinnamon drifts through the air. The cast-iron pan sizzles softly. Partitio curls a rag around his hand as an improvised mitt as he sets the pan aside to peek at the burner. The flame is sputtering unevenly, so he snaps his fingers to give it a magical boost before he puts the pan back. The stove has always been faulty– usually Papp would just give it a good whack, but ever since Partitio learned what he termed his “little handful o’ magic”, it had been his responsibility to relight it.
It doesn’t take much time at all for a nice stack of slices to finish cooking, so Partitio sets himself against cutting up some of the fruit. His knife glides through a couple of peaches as he expertly de-pits them. But he hears a creak from above and– and he listens– and near-silence overtakes the kitchen again. Partitio sighs, relieved that he doesn’t have to go through the ordeal of ordering Hikari back upstairs. The man is an unstoppable force when he wants to be, so it’s a good thing Partitio is an immovable object.
And for this morning, he is immovable. Immutable in his determination to do something kind, all with his own two hands.
He plates the slices with steady hands. These plates– painted with fine flowers– are a new addition to the house. Papp had bought them for special occasions, and Partitio figures this is as special an occasion as any: he and his father and the love of his life, all under the same roof. And under this roof, for years on end, he has been asking himself the same question. What can I do to help?
In this moment, this is what he can do. With his worn hands and coal-dust lungs and winning smile and bad shoulder and odd fashion and all the other things that come together to make him who he is– this is what he can do.
He climbs the stairs to kiss Hikari awake.