"Oh, my word! What a night!" Mrs Potts sighed as she set the tray of empty teapots and cups on the draining board to be washed. "I thought it would never end," she then plopped herself down in a nearby chair, fanning herself with a napkin.

"Ah ah ah!" Cogsworth tutted. "The night may be over, Mrs Potts, but tomorrow the real work beings. The clean-up, but- let me finish!" he quickly added as all of the staff moaned drearily. At the moment the kitchen was full of the castles employees, having just dragged themselves from the ballroom for a quick staff meeting before bed. Needless to say, they all looked exhausted. "As you know, the Master and Mistress leave early tomorrow morning for their honeymoon." Cogsworth stated. "It is now 7 am. I will give you until lunchtime to wake up, so you have five hours to rest, it's not much but it's better than starting the cleaning now." Cogsworth continued. "We will meet here at 12.30 for lunch and a small meeting before we get to work. If you all do well, we can end the day at five, as I'm sure you will all still be tired."

"Yes!", "god bless ya Cogsworth." And "thank heavens" were sighed in relief all around the kitchen.

"Hem hem. They will be away for approximately 2 weeks and, if we do a little cleaning and repair work a day, we can have most of the afternoons off. But if I see slacking off, you can forget about it!" he added firmly. He understood as well as anyone how tired everyone was, but he would not be given a bad reputation for someone else's laziness.

"You heard the man, off to bed with all of you." Lumiere said, shooing everyone out of the kitchen. Mrs Potts lagged behind long enough to say,

"Well done boys," and then the kitchen was empty.

"Thankyou Cogsworth. I know that you would rather have all of the work done as soon as possible. Thank you for taking it easy on us," Lumiere smiled.

"Well, we haven't been humans for a long time, I'm sure that everyone has personal business to take care of, not to mention getting used to having muscles again. Besides, the more that the staff are relaxed and happy, the harder they will work when they are on shift," Cogsworth said. He had thought it through and he knew full well from his past experiences that the harder he pushed, the more they ignored him.

"Too right, Mon Cher," Lumiere was glad to see that Cogsworth was loosening up. "I seem to be rubbing off on you."

"Just so long as I don't get a maid fetish." Cogsworth scoffed.

"It is not a fetish, my friend, but a way of life." Lumiere stated proudly as if it was something everyone should boast about.

"Not anymore though, right?" Cogsworth asked quietly. He knew how flirtatious Lumiere could be, he couldn't stand to have his heart broken. Lumiere saw his sad face and downcast eyes. He gently caressed Cogsworth's cheek; Cogsworth absentmindedly leaned into the touch.

"Just you and me, Mon Cher," he said and leaned in to kiss Cogsworth's forehead, then each cheek, before he moved to his lips and kissed him sweetly.

This time, Cogsworth didn't feel so confused and uncomfortable as he did before and kissed Lumiere back straight away. Lumiere held Cogsworth's hand and travelled his other hand across his side, back and occasionally his ass. Cogsworth jumped a little at the contact there and Lumiere chuckled.

"I assumed from earlier that you had never done this before, now I am certain," Lumiere nuzzled Cogsworth's cheek before taking a step back.

"Why did you stop?" Cogsworth asked with a blush- not that he was eager of course.

"Mon Cher, I might find it hard to hold back once we start, I want you to be ready and willing for me to devour you. I want it to be the best experience of our lives," Cogsworth blushed harder. Lumiere had really thought about this and, even though he wanted to continue, he knew that Lumiere was right. He had to be ready and willing to go the whole way.

"Then…I will let you know when I am ready."

"I can't wait-wait no I can, that's the whole point, it's just that the anticipation is exciting no?" Lumiere stumbled over his words. Cogsworth giggled, it's not every day that you make the smoothest man in the castle lose his cool.

"I think it's time we both get ready for bed. We need to be well rested for tomorrow," Cogsworth sighed as they both started to walk towards their quarters.

"I agree. I just got both feet back and now I can't feel either of them," he said, shuffling his feet to emphasise how numb they were.

They soon stopped outside their respective doors, both of which were next to each other. They gave each other one last hug and bid each other good night, but before they entered their doors, Cogsworth pulled Lumiere's necktie to bring him down for one last kiss. Lumiere looked surprised but let him continue.

"Can we still have kisses like today though? It's just…I rather liked them." Lumiere gave him a look that clearly said, 'you are more flirtatious than I thought' and said, "Yes Mon Cher, I think that will be fine." Lumiere kissed his forehead one last time. "Now, to sleep! It was your idea after all," Lumiere laughed. Cogsworth blushed yet again, heavens he had been doing that a lot today, if he was not carful he would end up with one stuck to his face permanently. He felt embarrassed and happy all at the same time, it almost didn't feel normal.

"Right, um…well, goodnight," he said shyly.

"Oui, goodnight Mon Cher."

As Cogsworth closed his eyes and leaned against his closed door, he suddenly realised how very tired he was. It had been such a long day but, what had started out as a busy workday had turned into something unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. He sighed again and, with an effort, pushed himself off of the wooden door and closed his curtains so that he wouldn't wake up due to the bright light now streaming in through the glass. He didn't set his alarm clock, unlike the rest of the castle staff he didn't need one to wake up on time. He guessed that after living 10 years as a clock automatically meant that you knew what time it was. He was just happy that he didn't chime on the hour like he used to.

Even though he was bone dead tired, it still took him ages to fall asleep. His mind was just abuzz with...everything! He was human again, what was he going to do with his new lease on life? What would it be like when the master and the mistress came back; did they plan on having children? Oh god! That gave him a grey hair moment! He could just imagine children pulling at him from all sides, and his heart did a horrible stutter. The next two weeks would be the best though. Cogsworth wondered how his relationship with Lumiere would change and grow. He didn't have any past experiences to go on so he was totally in the dark as to what would happen. He lay in his soft bed for what seemed like hours (but he knew that it had been exactly 27 minutes) until he finally fell asleep.

In the next room, lumiere only took only 5 minutes to fall asleep, but those few minutes were filled with thoughts of future dates, Cogsworth's feelings and the constant 'why didn't I do this sooner?'