St. Honoré
"Enri, you are meant to fold boxes, not eat their contents," Oliver observed with his back turned to the offense, stooped over a sheet of parchment paper, piping miniscule white flowers onto petit fours.
Enrique hesitated, teeth poised around the third stolen pound cake delicately pinched between two of his fingers. "But I've breathed on it," Enrique said, voice smiling, lowering the confection. Glancing imperiously at the stack of unfolded golden card boxes. Softening his eyes when Oliver didn't reply because of the lower lip he typically worried when at work.
Oliver cursed at a curl that'd come free of his ear to bother at his cheek, while his hands, scarred by molten sugar and Unicolyon, steadily finalized the loop of an icing daisy. He blew at the green lock and heard his Italian accuse, "You filled it with raspberry buttercream, Oli." Heard Enri crossing the room to lean over him and peer at the meticulous concentration.
"What d'you expect, my man, your convictions and culture aren't mine. My talents are just women and 'blading, not painting, nor baking, nor restraint, nor—" He cut off, reaching across Oliver's vision to tuck the tickling curl away again. Catching Oliver's chin on the return trip. "Ciao. Pipe me a flower please."
"Bonjour. Not until you buy me a bouquet. And obviously I didn't give you something interesting enough to do?" Oliver said with heartbreaking apology. Which he was of course faking, his eyes narrowed at the petit four Enrique had felt fit to breathe on and now presented to him on the flat of his hand. "You're melting that…"
Enrique grinned and raised his eyebrows; levered the cake closer and played at opening Oliver's mouth with a thumb. "When are you going to try one?"
Oliver put down his pastry bag, looking with earnest pleading up at his friend, and said, "For God's sake, Enri, eat it before it's ruined! I've tasted enough icing today; I'm quite fine, thankyou. Pff, anyway you left off your list of talents running." And Oliver whipped around to the knife block, seizing a pair of scissors while Enrique wheeled away in hilarious fright.
"Ahh, I knew it, I knew I'd die by your hand in the end," the blonde wailed from the opposite counter, his grinning mouth full of petit four. "I knew you'd do to me what you did to that old rooster. In the end, all these confections were only meant to fatten me up."
Oliver, wiping his scissors on his apron, looked up at Enrique sternly. "Enri, you in no way resemble coq-au-vin. Except with your pre-mortem crowing." He stuck his nose in the air, turned, and cut the tip off a second pastry bag. Behind him, Enrique smirked that the only thing in the world Oliver took seriously was the quality of his ingredients. And that the curl had come unsettled again, just as Oliver's hands were busy.
"Though to be honest, Enri," Oliver said softly when his Italian returned to help rake back his hair into a ponytail. "Were I going to cannibalize you, circumstances would be such that you'd feel lucky to fold my boxes. And see daylight, you know. All that old rooster business.
You've even got years." He turned into Enrique's chest and smiled into Enrique's smile, opening his mouth and pointing expectantly at it.
Enrique was ready with another snatched petit four, and placed it gingerly between Oliver's teeth.