"What are you doing?"
Boogeyman's voice was full of unveiled suspicion. He stood in the doorframe, watching her moves with the inkling of some mischief.
Hazel smiled, but didn't stop: "What does it look like, my love?"
He reassessed his options: "Fine. Why?"
She set the knife down: "Because I felt like it. Because I refuse to live solely on tea and biscuits."
"Works fine for me," Pitch raised an eyebrow.
Hazel looked around the kitchen. The Lair's kitchens were vast spaces, ready to feed hundreds of hungry throats. So were the pantries. Everything was covered in centuries old dust and cobwebs, except for one small corner that was responsible for the said refreshment. Not that Pitch would ever touch the kettle or flour. He'd come up with a handy way to make the Lair's magic do that for him very, very long ago.
It took Hazel a full afternoon to clean enough of the workspace to even be able to cook here.
"I've noticed," she nodded and started to chop the onion again.
Pitch waited a moment, but she didn't seem willing to add anything more, as if their short exchange explained it all. For a reason he wouldn't be able to rationally explain, her silence and the calm, decisive clattering of her knife irritated him to no end. It was like a riddle without an answer.
Eventually he walked closer, taking a look over her shoulder. Their intended dinner was resting in a large bowl, just next to the bottle of white wine.
"Mussels? Where did you take those?"
"Your best friend is a Wassermann, remember?" Hazel's smile widened, her glance half a joke, half a challenge he didn't miss.
"Of a river." It wasn't even a counter-argument. Just like this wasn't a quarrel. And yet he was arguing with her. Well, non-arguing.
"A river that flows to the sea," she shrugged, unbothered by his tone, "and I'll need wine."
"You already have one."
"That one," she nodded towards the bottle, "will end up in the pot. A drinking one. A better one."
Pitch glared at the bottle as if its existence here itself was offensive. "Isn't it a waste, my dear?"
She put a pot on a stove, tossed a generous piece of butter inside and added all the onion. Then she turned to him and her eyes sparkled with barely suppressed chuckles: "Wouldn't it be a waste to drink bad wine?"
Pitch opened his mouth - and closed it again. Arguing with Hazel wasn't the easiest discipline when there was something to argue about. When there was nothing, it was usually easier to let her unravel whatever chaos she decided to bring into his life.
Like mussels, apparentely.
But she wasn't about to get away with it completely for free. So he leaned closer, pointing out: "You know that even the biscuits are unnecessary. Neither of us needs… any of this."
"I know," Hazel sighed dramatically, turning back to the sizzling pot "but indulgences of the flesh, am I right? Not our first, not our last." A beat of silence - and then she shot him a glare, free of that theatrical flair from before: "And the tea isn't unnecessary?!"
Her frown met his sharp grin and a shrug: "Not something I would dare to experiment with."
That earned him a small nod. The mussels were sent on their way after that with a tone too serious: "Tea is the gateway to dinner then."
"Wise. What's the dinner gateway to?"
She poured them the very pitiful rest of the wine and handed him a glass: "You tell me, being of the night. But first find us the new wine."