Author's note: I haven't mentioned this before, but Michelle is Seychelles, in case someone was wondering. Also, I think that after this chapter there will be only two short chapters left. (Past time I returned to this little fic!)
Fortune of Our Misfortune
Moment seven
It begins a promising evening.
Francis has always loved having guests at his place, even more so when the guests are his closest friends and, as the icing on the cake, their plan is to cook together. All of then have been so busy with their work and studies lately that it's been a good while since last time they had the chance to relax and enjoy some quality time together. Not all of them could make it, though, but nevertheless they are a decent number: Liz, Toni, Gil, Matt, and Lovino. Al and Ivan were unable to attend, as was Belle, but Arthur brought Michelle along, and Francis is pleased to see that she blended quickly in their little group.
And, yes. Arthur is there, too.
Ever since the now infamous gum-in-the-hair incident, something has been different between Francis and Arthur. As if something has clicked, or a wall has crumbled down, and Francis has come to notice that lately he has been completely at ease in the Englishman's company, something that he hasn't felt since... since forever. No back stabs, no poisonous words, no cold back-turning from either side; only familiar and harmless bantering every now and then. It's refreshing and so, so pleasant that Francis can't help smiling from ear to ear whenever he thinks of the change. He only hopes that this peace will last longer than all the previous ones, but what they have now is different from all the other truces, and so Francis has faith. Its like rediscovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle that is Arthur all over again, and so far he is definitely liking the picture he is building.
An ominous crash rouses Francis from his idle musings. Quickly he scans the living-room to find most of his friends there, arranging some colourful playing cards that Michelle brought along, and hurries to kitchen with dread coiling in the pit of his stomach.
As suspected, he finds the source of the crash near the fridge, on the floor: a dozen of broken eggs. In the same place he also finds the one responsible for the spreading mess: a guiltily pouting Arthur still holding the fridge door open and looking a little lost. Francis runs his eyes up and down the scene, draws quick conclusions, and, without a word, turns around to glare at the others, who curiously followed his trail to the kitchen.
"All tight," he says. "Who let Arthur in the kitchen?"
"Hey," Arthur protests.
Gilbert bursts in cackles. "You should invest in a watchdog, Franny!"
"Evidently, as you suck at it," Lizzie quips at him. "I thought you were supposed to guard our groceries."
"No, it was Lovi," Gilbert defends himself, and from the corner of his eyes Francis takes note of Arthur mortified expression.
"What are you all ogling here?" Lovino's voice demands from the back of the group. Then he pushes through and sees the mess. "The fuck? I leave for bathroom for one microsecond and immediately someone has to ruin something!"
Through the whole banter Arthur merely glares at them all, but, realising that the general opinion is against him, joins the court to defend himself. "They fell when I opened the door! It's not my fault someone can't fill the fridge properly."
"Who filled the fridge?" Michelle asks.
Now it's Francis' turn to step out and stand for himself. "Not so fast! I did put them in the fridge, but I did it with good care."
"Be that as it may, we still need those eggs if we want to make the pastries," Antonio points out and thus opens an argument about who should be sent back to the grocery store to buy another set of eggs.
The verdict comes quickly.
"As it is difficult to say which one of you is more to blame, Arthur for dropping the eggs or Francis for not putting them properly in the place, I think you both should share the blame and go to the shop together, and quickly, before it closes," Michelle suggests importantly. She smugly smiles to right and left as Elizaveta is quick to support her. "A just verdict," she declares and sends a sly smile to Francis. The Frenchman frowns at her; he knows that Lizzie remembers their conversation before Christmas, as eve since she's been trying to push Arthur and Francis to spend more time together – alone. She has been very discreet about it, but Francis has seen long ago what she's doing, and he doesn't quite know what he thinks of it.
Michelle's suggestion is largely supported, and so Francis finds himself out in the crisp winter evening together with Arthur.
"This is your fault," he says sulkily, though truth be told, he doesn't really mind a little evening walk.
"Yours entirely, frog," Arthur counters.
"You are right," Francis sighs dramatically. "I should have known better than to invite you over before the food was prepared. Trust you to mess up in the kitchen."
Francis has always known how catastrophic a combination Arthur and kitchen is. Already in their childhood, when the two young friends decided to cook or bake something (usually secretly, when their parents were at work), Francis realised that if he wanted to eat a delicious dish, he had better not let Arthur touch it while it was in the process of being cooked. Much later, when Francis and Arthur no longer spent time together like that, Francis assumed that Arthur, living on his own, had learnt to cook out of necessity. But he was wrong, as he discovered not so long ago.
In the previous week Francis suggested to Arthur that they cook together something for their mothers, who were coming for a visit. Arthur agreed, and... And. Let it only be said that the said cooking session ended with Francis preparing the food without the assistance of a certain Englishman, while the said Englishman busied himself with smuggling the poison he called soup to the thrash bins behind Francis' apartment house (Francis still fears that someone will call environmentalists on him for that). Bothered by how serious Arthur's cooking problem was, the very next day Francis insisted on giving him a cooking lesson or two just to get some basics clear and perhaps, in that way, save many human lives in future.
Now, looking back, Francis doesn't know what madness possessed him to make that offer. Pride, probably. He believed that Arthur's problem could be solved with a little practise, with such a great cook as Francis to guide him. Yes, it must have been pride, he believed that he could cure Arthur of his kitchen curse, but he was wrong, and he was punished for his insolence. Teaching Arthur was fun for perhaps the first twenty minutes – and even that's stretching it. It took days for the smoke to dissolve properly, and even now Francis' kitchen has a faint smell of something odd and not actually pleasant. Yes, after that disaster last week Francis did the right thing that he should have done from the start and forbade Arthur going near any kitchens, including his own.
"Stop sulking," Arthur utters and thus drags Francis back in the present.
"I'm not sulking," Francis argues and quite suddenly laughs.
Arthur gives him a long look. "You know," he says after a while. "I've been thinking on what you taught me last week. About cooking."
"By that you mean, I hope, that you've understood what you must never do in your life again."
Arthur snorts. "Very funny. But I'm serious. Yesterday I tried some recipes that you left behind last week."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, no!"
"I did. It turned quite good, actually. After I made some corrections."
Francis' insides turn cold. "Corrections? To my recipes? What have you done?"
"Well, the pastries with syrup, for example," Arthur explains to him in a serious tone. "I'm fairly sure you mixed up some ingredients when you wrote that recipe, so I scratched out the baking powder (I didn't have any, anyway) and replaced it with potato flour."
"Arthur."
"Or was it even potato flour? They all look the same. Anyway -" Arthur continues, "I didn't have any syrup, so I used marmalade instead. But when I tried to make the little rolls, the dough didn't hold in shape."
Francis merely groans, an image of Arthur attempting to make dough rolls of a messed-up dough vivid in his mind.
"So I used Marmite."
"What?"
Arthur blinks at him innocently. "I used Marmite. To help the rolls keep their shape."
Francis pales, blood draining from his face when he imagines what Arthur has done to his recipe..! "Arthur, I swear -"
He doesn't finish his threat, because Arthur's laughter interrupts him.
Francis halts and turns to stare at his companion. Arthur is laughing, laughing so that he clutches his belly, tears of mirth visible at the corners of his eyes. Laughter erupts from his chest and the coldness of the night turns it visible, as the warm puffs of Arthur's breath turn into white clouds that rise toward the black evening sky. Francis' eyes follow them up, then turn on the laughing Englishman again.
"You- you should have seen yourself!" Arthur manages to utter amidst the laughter.
Francis stares at him.
"I was just messing with you," Arthur admits, calming down and grinning at Francis, eyes twinkling dark green. "You actually bought it..!"
"Which is not surprising, keeping your previous record in mind," Francis quips, his lips tugging upwards.
"Sod off," Arthur says good-naturedly, still grinning.
"Dieu, I still feel cold shivers..." Francis says and utters a laughter as they resume walking. "I must admit you got me there."
"It doesn't take much to achieve that. Just a word about cooking and you're done."
Oh, Arthur, Francis thinks while stealing a glance at the self'-satisfied Englishman beside him, What am I to do with you?
He chooses the easiest, safest, and the most amusing prospect, and fills Arthur's collar with snow at the first convenient moment.
When they arrive back in Francis' place they are both shivering of cold, soaked in melted snow, and guilty; the grocery store was closed while they were taking their measure in form of a snowball fight.
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