Work Text:
Mike pulled into the driveway and noticed Joel's car was still in the garage. He didn't have to go out on that parts run after all, then. Joel had asked him over a hurried breakfast this morning if he could pick the 'bots up from school today, since the prototype he was working on was at a critical stage and he might be out until evening looking for...well, he didn't remember what Joel said he would be looking for, and even if he did remember, he wouldn't understand, so he just nodded and mumbled “sure” around his french toast stick. It was a stroke of luck that a transformer fire knocked out power to the building he was working in today, so he wouldn't have to sneak out early.
It wasn't until he unlocked the door and stepped inside that it struck him: he was home. Joel was home. They were home, alone, together. Glancing at his watch, he saw he had nearly three hours of home, alone, together time before school let out. Three hours of alone time without two hyperactive robot children poking their metaphorical noses into everything. Three hours of alone time with his Joel…
“Joel, you busy?” Mike called down the basement steps. No answer, but he heard the sound of a Dremel, so he descended the stairs.
Joel was bent over his workbench with his back to him, obviously deep in his work. Cambot hovered a few feet away, saving a visual record of Joel's work for future reference. Mike waited quietly until the Dremel shut off, and then softly called “Joel?”
Joel whirled around. “Hey! Is it that late already? Did you remember to pick up Tom and Crow? I don't hear them-”
“Relax. It's only ten past noon. I got the afternoon off. The power went out and the electric company said they couldn't get it back on 'til four, so they sent us all home early.” Mike stepped over to Joel and draped his arms over Joel's shoulders. “So I'm home. You're home. And we're alone...” He tried to raise an eyebrow suggestively.
“Sorry, big guy.” Joel shrugged out from under Mike's arms. “I need to get this prototype up and running ASAP. Gypsy's gotta big deal riding on this one and I can't let her down.”
Mike knew it was unmanly to whine, but he tried anyway, sidling up to the other man. “But Jooooel, when are we ever alone? We're not gonna get a chance like this again for months, years even! Please? Pretty please?” He batted his eyelashes like something was stuck under his contacts.
Joel laughed, but pushed him away anyway. “I know, I know. Don't try to make me feel guilty. I promised Gyps. I'll make it up to you as soon as I can, OK?” He turned Mike around to face the steps and patted him lightly on the ass. “Now you go have yourself a good afternoon off, and don't forget to pick up the guys-”
“-At school. Yeah, I'll remember,” Mike sighed. He turned to plant a peck on Joel's cheek, then trudged up the stairs and into the living room where he plopped down on the coach. Grabbing the remote, he started to flip through the channels. His sulk increased as he slowly realized daytime TV consisted of nothing more than cooking shows, court shows, talk shows, bad reruns, and insipid cartoons. He shut the TV off, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Slowly it dawned on him that having only eaten a single french toast stick for breakfast (Crow had snatched the last one off the plate just as he was reaching for it), he was hungry, and it was lunchtime.
Mike wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. To his surprise, there was actually food inside. That's right, Joel did the grocery shopping yesterday. Fresh head of lettuce, package of bacon… He glanced over the fridge door to the produce basket. Yup, tomatoes.
Mike didn't think he was as bad in the kitchen as his family was convinced he was. I just don't do well with an audience. To his relief, he managed to slice a tomato without inflicting bodily harm and inspired by the victory, decided to tackle the bacon. In a few minutes he had the griddle full of fatty pork goodness, with the flame carefully set a bit lower than his last attempt. I am not going to start a fire this time, he smugly assured himself. But as he stood vigilant watch over the range, his mind wandered to a past conversation on the Satellite of Love.
********************
Mike decided he couldn't just let the 'bots get away with spying on him in his bedroom. A man was entitled to some privacy, especially a man stranded in space alone, sort of. Once he told them that yes, he did wear pajamas (navy blue, long-sleeve), the pair became uncharacteristically cooperative and actually gave him some straight-forward answers to his questions.
“I bet you guys never spied on Joel like that, did you?”
“Oh, no,” Servo piped up. “We did it all the time. Especially the first couple of years, you know, when we were young, naive robots unaware of the great mysteries of life, struggling in our existential morass-”
“Didn't he mind?”
“Mind?!?” Crow snorted. “He didn't know. Joel was half-asleep most of the time anyway. When he really slept, you could stand over him banging a pair of cymbals together and he wouldn't wake up.”
“We did! And he didn't!” Tom added helpfully.
Mike pondered that for a moment, then pressed on. “So how often did you watch him sleep?”
“Every night until he decided to program a sleep function into us. Crow spilled the beans, didn't you, Crow?” Tom sneered.
“Shut up dickweed! You're the one who had to ask about dreams and talking in your sleep! He wouldn't have figured it out!” Crow snapped back.
“Well, I'm not the one who asked him what 'don't stop, don't stop' and 'ooh, I want your bacon, honey' meant!” Tom pouted.
Mike's brain stuttered for an instant, then rewound just to stutter again. “Joel talked in his sleep about bacon?” He wasn't going to ask about the not stopping part; the man was entitled to some secrets.
“Yup. More than once. He'd usually get all squirmy, too, like he was trying to scratch an itch without using his hands. Then he'd sigh and get still and start snoring.” Crow used the exact tone a seven year old does when tattling on a younger sibling.
Mike nodded. “I see.” He didn't, but best to go on. “What did he tell you when you asked him about it?”
“Well, nothing,” Tom answered. “Joel didn't tell us anything. He just got really red in the face and put his head in his hands for a minute and then put us into time-out for a whole hour!”
“And the next day he programmed our sleep functions. He said we were old enough now to sleep alone in our own rooms and if we needed him to knock first. He even locked his bedroom door that night! To think he didn't trust us!” Crow was still smarting over the slight.
“Well, you did try to go into his room again without asking or knocking, didn't you?” Mike responded reasonably.
“It was our duty!” Tom was indignant. “What if the bacon was some horrible Jungian dream manifestation of a giant space pig? Or – hey, wait a minute...what if Joel's dream actually signaled a Freudian oral-fixation on the act of-”
“That's enough, Tom,” Mike interrupted. “Maybe Joel just really likes bacon.”
“I think he has some sort of weird fetish and he humps bacon in his dreams,” Crow announced authoritatively. Mike choked, then sighed and rubbed his temples as the 'bots started to squabble about space pigs and bacon sex.
********************
The smell of only slightly burnt bacon jolted Mike out of his reverie. Joel did like his bacon, insisting that it was part of at least one breakfast every week. He recalled how Joel would close his eyes and sniff deeply over the rashers, then slowly chew and swallow, obviously savoring every delicious, crispy bite. Just how much does he like it? Could Joel have some sort of sexual turn-on from bacon? Mike glanced over at the basement door. Only one way to find out and damn it, he really didn't want to waste the afternoon.
Joel straightened up from his workbench, stretched, and sighed. He'd have to go out to get that part after all, as no amount of fiddling was going to make the present piece work. “Hey buddy, you can take a break. I gotta go to the U-Pull-It and it's gonna be a few hours at least.” Cambot beeped in assent, hovered over to their basket, and settled in as they put themself in stand-by mode. As Joel mounted the steps the smell of bacon finally penetrated his consciousness. He hadn't heard the smoke alarm, so Mike must have successfully cooked himself some lunch. Joel wasn't above hoping he could snatch a few strips for himself before heading out – he did love bacon. He walked over to the range (frowning at the remains of tomato innards left on the cutting board) and noticed the empty plastic package in the trash, but there was no bacon to be seen on the griddle, table, or counter. “Mike?” he called.
“Upstairs!” came the response.
“Did you eat all the bacon?”
“Nope.”
“Well, where is it? You can't cook bacon and not give me any! That's against the Geneva Convention or somethin'!”
“Come up here and find out.”
Joel thought about it for a second before deciding to humor him.
He stopped in the doorway of their bedroom. Mike was naked, reclining on his side trying hard to be seductive. A plate of bacon joined him on the bed, directly in front of his area. On the nightstand was the remnants of a BLT.
Joel put a bored look on his face. “Mike, honey, how many times have I asked you not to eat in the bedroom? It sets a bad example for the boys, and you get crumbs in the sheets.”
Mike's face fell.
Joel immediately felt bad. He had no idea what Mike was doing, but obviously lecturing him on his dining habits wasn't germane to the current scenario. He tried again. “Honey, why are you in bed with a plate of bacon?”
Mike started to blush, flumped back on the bed, and turned his face into the pillows. “ 'm tr'n t' s'duce ya.”
“Sorry?”
Mike lifted his head slightly. “I said, 'I'm trying to seduce you'.”
Joel walked over and sat down next to his partner, reaching out to rub his shoulder. “And the bacon is here why?”
“Because you have a thing for bacon. You love bacon.”
“Yeah, I love bacon, but why is it in our bedroom?”
“You really love bacon. Tom and Crow told me so, up on the SOL.”
Joel thought hard for a moment, but came up empty. “Sorry again?”
“Remember when I told you how they hooked up a camera to a toy truck to spy on me in my cabin?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They told me how they used to watch you sleep.”
“Uh-huh.” Vague memories stirred in Joel's brain.
“They said you talked in your sleep about bacon and – other things.”
“Uh-huh.” It was coming back to him now.
“They said – well, they said you would get all squirmy and I put two and two together and -”
“You thought I'm sexually attracted to bacon?” Joel said, bewildered.
“No! Well, not exactly. I just thought that bacon might trigger some sort of Pavlovian response and...” Mike trailed off. In a small voice, he continued. “And I really didn't want to take no for an answer this afternoon.”
“Oh, honey.” Joel laid his head on Mike's shoulder. “When I got all flustered with the guys after I found out they watched me every night, it was out of anger, not embarrassment. I get all squirmy when I dream ever since I was a kid. I'd wake up and be all tangled in the covers or they'd be halfway on the floor or I'd be on the floor. You sleep like a rock so you haven't noticed it. I don't think I have any special attraction to bacon other than it tastes really good. Really, really good.”
“Then no weird psychological bacon-sex attachment thing?” Mike asked with more than a little relief in his voice.
“No bacon-sex thing, period.” Joel smiled.
“Can I have a kiss anyway?” Mike pouted.
“How could I say no after you cooked me bacon?” Joel leaned in to kiss Mike just as Mike leaned over to kiss him. Their foreheads cracked together. Mike flailed backward and caught the plate with the edge of his hand. It flipped into the air, raining bacon down on the bedspread and the floor.
Mike rubbed his head and glanced around ruefully. “I better get this cleaned up before it stains.” He started to push himself up.
Joel pushed him back onto the bed. “You stay right there, mister,” he grinned. “I'm the only one around here who's gonna handle your meat today.”