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Artemy paused, his sweater halfway lifted from where it had been folded in the chest of drawers, the moment he caught it. It was impossible to miss, but he lifted the soft woolen knit to his face anyway to check, breathing deep.
Yes, there it was. His favorite sweater—which had been folded exactly like this a week ago when he’d left for a routine trip to Shekhen—now smelled unmistakably like Bachelor Dankovsky.
There was only one reasonable explanation for why that might be, but still, Artemy took a moment to think through the puzzling scenario around how that might have happened. Perhaps Daniil, who was presently downstairs brewing a strong pot of coffee to welcome him home for his first morning back, had merely gotten chilly while Artemy was away and thought to borrow it. The Town did have the occasional colder evening nights, even now that the season had tipped over into summer. But nothing in the past week had been unseasonably cold, and besides, Daniil usually still insisted on wearing his elaborate coat, which was well insulated, in basically any weather in which doing so would not immediately result in heat stroke. So, presumably he hadn’t wanted for warmth.
And there was of course the context in which the article in question had been found: exactly as it had been left. As though someone had gone to great pains to fold the garment in exactly the same way and innocuously tuck it back away in an identical position to where it had been before. Which spoke instead to an illicit borrowing, in which the guilty party had attempted to conceal the evidence of the theft from the owner, and was likely quite pleased with himself for how skillfully he’d done so.
Well, Artemy would just have to see about that.
Though he’d planned to wear something much lighter on this reasonably warm day, Artemy chose instead to slip his arms into the soft knit, taking another deep inhale while it was over his head to enjoy the smell. He even felt a touch of that same thrill, to savor the scent without Daniil knowing, heady with the imagining of his partner doing the exact same thing in his absence. It settled like comfort itself over his shoulders, and with his heart full of both love and mischief, he made his way downstairs.
Where he found his beloved culprit tending not only to a coffee pot on the stove—shirtsleeves rolled up fetchingly to the elbow—but also a pan of sizzling eggs.
“Breakfast too?” Artemy asked, lurking in the kitchen doorway. “You said you were just making a pot.”
Back still turned, Daniil clicked his tongue. “Has no one ever taught you the phrase ‘under-promise, over-deliver’? Really, it’s a simpl–”
The sentence stuttered to an abrupt halt as Daniil finally glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of what Artemy was wearing. And there it was. The guilty little widening of the eyes, the touch of pink invading the cheeks. He’d never had a good poker face, Artemy’s dear Bachelor, and today was no exception. Always wearing everything he was feeling plain in his expression.
Still, he made a valiant attempt at hiding it, turning back to the stove to try to conceal the blush in his cheeks and covering up the stutter with a surprised scoff instead. “A knit sweater on a day like this, Burakh? Quite a choice. You aren’t coming down feverish, are you?”
Unseen, Artemy let himself grin for a moment, but he kept it out of his tone, feigning something neutral and casual instead. “Dunno. Something about it just called to me this morning.”
“D-did it now? Well, if you befoul it with an excess of sweat, you’d best not look to me for laundering assistance.”
Something tells me you’d not be as upset about that one as you pretend, oynon.
“Feels a bit strange though,” Artemy admitted leadingly. “Like something’s off with it. Maybe it doesn’t quite fit right anymore? Can’t put my finger on it.”
“You're quick to blame a perfectly mundane sweater. Are you certain it's not your Lines acting up again? A toddler probably sneezed on the other side of town with a mild case of rhinitis, and your shoulder blades started to twinge or something,” Daniil said dismissively, still pretending his intense focus was just about the cooking in front of him. His turned back did nothing to conceal the cords of tension starting to draw his shoulder blades together with stress. Sweating under such a mild interrogation already? Artemy could practically feel his heart racing from across the room.
“Maybe. I think it's something else though.”
“Very precise, dearest,” Daniil drawled, admirably keeping his guilt-strung nerves from leaking into the tone of the sarcasm. “An enthralling mystery for you, I’m sure. It’s almost certainly nothing.”
On completely silent footsteps, Artemy crossed the kitchen in a stealthy rush and suddenly gathered Daniil, back still turned, into a swallowing embrace of thick arms, earning a yelp of startled indignity. He mischievously tucked his face close into the crook of Daniil’s neck, murmuring against his skin.
“Oh no, I’m pretty sure it’s something about this very sweater, khөөrkhen.”
At the same moment, Daniil’s realization of exactly how he’d been caught hit his scattered thoughts with an audibly hissed: “Oh, fuck. You couldn’t have–!”
To reinforce just how thoroughly caught in the act his partner was, Artemy took a deep breath of him, right there against the shivering hairs on the back of Daniil's neck, before letting the breath back out in a rumbling chuckle. “I missed the way you smell too, Danya.”
“Ugh, that nose of yours is cheating!” Daniil said witheringly, now bright red out to the tips of his ears in his mortification but fighting to hold back a smile. He did pull his hands back from the stove implements while the Bear encircling him continued the deep hug.
“You’re welcome to borrow my sweaters whenever you like,” Artemy said through a grin, still not letting him go.
The guilty aspect of Daniil’s nerve-ridden embarrassment was sublimating into affection again with a bubbling, involuntary laugh. “You’re a suprahuman menace, you know,” he scolded. “Was the tormenting of my poor nerves truly necessary, after I’ve already endured an entire week of missing you?”
“Shouldn’t’ve tried to hide it if you didn't want to get caught. And it’s your own fault for being so handsome when you’re flustered.”
“Well! I...! I-If your eggs are burned, it’s entirely your own fault.” The teasing did nothing to help the Bachelor’s blush abate. In fact, the effect was rather delightfully the opposite.
“I’m sure they’ll be perfect.”
On a morning like this, how could they be anything but?