#at least I ate my weight in mini blueberry pancakes today

[mer-se]

last night everyone was having traumas back to back and I wish none of it happened but it feels nice to be the first person they call

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Thirty Nine

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

March 1st, 2001

Remy was trying to stifle giggles and failing miserably at it. He had come to check on how Emile was doing with his final tutoring session of the day, and arrived at the scene of Emile being pinned down by six kids while two or three more ran circles around his body, chanting something or another. Remy wasn’t entirely sure that Emile wasn’t being used in a human sacrifice to some eldritch being. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

One of the kids’ heads popped up. “Mister Remy! Is dinner ready?”

“Just about,” Remy confirmed. “So you might want to give Mister Emile a break, sound good?”

The kids all left the room in an instant, and Emile sat up, groaning. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Any time, my dear partner in all things illegal,” Remy said with a smile. "Anything for you."

  July 18th, 2001

Remy knew that he had to do something special. Emile had to work three night shifts in a row, restocking and working the floor and being wherever he was needed at that point in time. On one hand, it was nice that they would have a little extra cash from all the long hours, but on the other, Emile was constantly dead on his feet, when he wasn’t flat-out sleeping the entire day in his room.

Now, Emile had slept for ten hours, and Remy had everything planned out for a domestic day in. He had taken the liberty to get what they needed for pancake batter for breakfast, and he had all the She-Ra episodes Emile had compiled set up for a mini-marathon, plus a couple other animated movies Remy knew Emile had a soft spot for. Then, he had stuff for a simple lunch. Sandwiches, mostly, but it was still nice. And that evening, they had plans to help at the shelter, so dinner was taken care of for them.

Remy crept into Emile’s room, where Emile was still passed out on the bed. Remy shook Emile’s shoulder. Emile grumbled and buried his head in the pillow. “No, if you don’t let me get away with napping for more than an hour, I won’t let you sleep for more than ten hours in a row unless something super drastic happens,” Remy laughed.

“Remy, lemme sleep,” Emile grumbled.

“But if you sleep, you miss out on a domestic morning in with me!” Remy said with an exaggerated pout. “And I was so looking forward to making pancakes with you.”

Emile removed his face from the pillows. “Pancakes?”

Jackpot. “Pancakes, mio amore,” Remy confirmed. “Made just the way you like, provided you help me.”

Emile sat up with a stretch. “Do we have blueberries to toss in?”

“That we do, I splurged a little on our last shopping trip,” Remy confirmed.

“Okay, I’m up, I’m up,” Emile said, getting out of bed. “Let’s cook us some pancakes.”

Remy grinned and ushered Emile out of his bedroom with a bow. “The most handsome men go first,” he said with a grin.

“Oh, then why are you insisting that I go first?” Emile retorted.

“Because I am not handsome, I am drop-dead gorgeous and what I say goes,” Remy teased. “You. Out. Kitchen. Pancakes.”

“All right, all right!” Emile laughed.

They went to the kitchen and Emile sighed happily. “I’m really happy that we can do something special on a day that is just...kind of...there.”

“Well, we both appreciate the little moments,” Remy reasoned. “So I figured, why not, you know? Let’s make a special morning after you’ve been running yourself into the ground.”

“In other words, give me a reason to not sleep the entire day and then some?” Emile asked, arching an eyebrow.

“More like a thank you for the extra cash we’ll have from you picking up shifts,” Remy said. “I can’t thank you enough for giving us enough money that we could buy blueberries of all things.”

Emile laughed. “Well, I’m happy I could help,” he said. “I actually have a trust fund from my late grandmother, but according to her will, I don’t have access to it until I’m twenty one. Maybe at that point we can get blueberries and strawberries, though.”

“That would be great,” Remy said with a grin. “We could get actual fruit once a month without worrying about our bank accounts. Is it lame that I find that exciting?”

“No, I think it’s pretty cool, too,” Emile said. “Having fruit once a month, being able to go to places other than pizzarias for dates, it would be fun.”

Remy nodded and got everything that they needed for the pancake mix onto the counters. “You know, there’s a manager position opening in the next few months at the local shop. The current manager is being moved to a secondary location which needs more help.”

“Think you’ll apply for the position?” Emile asked.

“I was gonna try, but I’m not expecting much to come out of it,” Remy admitted. “After all, I haven’t even been working with them for a year, yet.”

“You’ve told me you have better work ethic than most of your coworkers, or at least you care more than they do. Don’t most people at the local chain just...skate by?” Emile asked.

Remy shrugged. “They generally favor people who work there for a long time, even if they don’t actually work that hard. I’m lucky that Marcy saw that I was pulling most of the weight at work and decided to give me a small raise. And I hate to say it, but I think I have better co-workers at Starbucks. August is great, and so’s Brian, and while the manager there sucks, each of us can keep the others’ spirits up pretty easily. I don’t know which chain I’d stick with if I only had to work one job.”

Emile hummed in thought as he measured out water. Remy turned to him. “What?” he asked.

“Meh, it’s probably nothing,” Emile said. “But I was wondering, I mean, you love cooking and experimenting with all kinds of food and stuff...would you ever want to branch out from being a barista, and try being a chef of some sort? Go to culinary school, or whatever?”

“Not really,” Remy laughed. “I love cooking, Emile, don’t get me wrong, but being a barista is somehow relaxing after a while. I’m good at it, and I know what I’m doing. I talked to Marcy recently about how the shop was doing and was able to follow most of what she was saying about the business side of things. I don’t think I’d want to move out of coffee shops. But I wouldn’t object to being a manager instead of a barista.”

“What about an owner?” Emile asked.

Remy laughed. “Emile, that would never happen in a million years. I don’t have the money to start up my own shop.”

“Hey, if I can do mental exercises about what it would be like to be a dad, then you can do some about being a shop owner. Would you like it, do you think?”

Remy considered. It would be a lot of pressure, and everything would rest on his shoulders, but that wasn’t a bad thing. And he knew enough about business to run a small shop. Maybe not a chain, but he didn’t have to run a chain if one shop theoretically sustained them both. “Probably,” he eventually settled on. “I’d get to make my own recipes, be my own boss, I could kick customers out if they weren’t being kind to either the workers or myself. It would be a lot of work, but it would be worth it, you know? Theoretically.”

“Yeah, theoretically I think it would be great,” Emile said. “Sounds like something you could do out of spite, too. They don’t move you up the food chain? Quit and start your own shop, that outdoes theirs and makes them have to leave town.”

Remy laughed. “Of course, because I could totally have the money and the means to do that.”

“Hey, like I said, it’s just a ‘what if’ situation,” Emile shrugged.

Remy shook his head. He really didn’t understand Emile sometimes.

They made the pancakes together, enjoying each others company and poking fun at each other as they worked, and then ate. Remy told Emile about his plans for a cartoon marathon and Emile looked like he was about to cry happy tears. “What’s the big deal?” Remy asked. “I let you watch cartoon marathons all the time.”

“Yeah, but you don’t do it with me, and you don’t encourage it,” Emile pointed out. “And considering that you started out being convinced that cartoons were entirely childish and I should have grown out of my love for them, this is a big step in my opinion. You might have come around slowly, but I haven’t seen that progress, so when you casually show support it’s like a shock to the system. A good shock, but a shock nonetheless.”

Remy sat there for a moment, stunned. He had forgotten that Emile didn’t see all his progress, all his talks with Kim, everything that went into his therapy sessions. He only saw the end product. He didn’t want to show Emile that whole thought process, though. That was a conversation Remy didn’t feel up to right now. So he said, “I guess you have a point,” instead.

They watched cartoons until it was four in the evening, and then they headed out towards the shelter. Remy generally helped cook food and serve it for dinner, while Emile helped entertain the small children, so they didn’t always work side-by-side, but they got to talk on the way over, and the way back, and of course, they got to have dinner too before they left.

Today, though, the walk to the shelter was done in companionable silence. They just walked side by side, a little too close to be just friendly, hands brushed against each other, but neither of them reached for the other. When they got to the shelter, they walked in and immediately Emile was swarmed by a dozen tiny humans all vying for his attention at once. Remy laughed and pecked Emile’s cheek as he went to the kitchen.

Cooking was entertaining enough. Remy had become the unofficial head chef on accident after revealing how good a cook he was when he wanted to put in the effort. He had to keep the others on track, sometimes, but everyone there worked their best and he got to have a few laughs with them every time they worked together.

They rang the bell to start dinner and people lined up as usual, Remy serving them as usual, and when everyone had food, the volunteers came into the back grabbing the remains of the dinner, heading out to eat at the tables as well. Remy sat next to Emile and they both worked on sandwiches. “The kids were very excited to see you kiss me,” Emile said casually.

“I kiss you all the time,” Remy said, frowning.

“Yeah, but apparently they didn’t realize you were my boyfriend, and some of them hadn’t realized that boys can like boys and girls can like girls. So what usually involved me being a monster with the kids grabbing on my legs and me roaring like Godzilla became an actual discussion about romance, and love, and all that good stuff,” Emile explained.

“Huh,” was all Remy said. The mental image of Emile being a giant monster for the kids made him giggle, though, almost as much as the time he found Emile lying on the floor, laughing as half a dozen of the gremlins were keeping him pinned down.

“Yeah. Kids are incredibly accepting, believe it or not. Provided you tell them something is okay, they’ll generally believe you. And the older ones might ask questions, but generally it’s nothing too invasive. And it’s fun to get to play with them in the off-months when they don’t have school. Sure, tutoring is useful, but it’s nice to play with them, too, you know what I mean?”

“Not really, but I appreciate your enthusiasm and enjoyment of it,” Remy said with a shrug.

Emile grinned and Bernie looked at the two of them. “I’m pleased that the both of you help here regularly. It’s nice to have people I can count on, and you two make a good team. I’m sure that if you ever had kids, you both would be excellent fathers.”

Remy made a noncommittal noise. “I don’t know, Bernie. Helping kids for a couple hours a day is one thing. Dealing with them virtually twenty four-seven is another. I’m not entirely sure that I could handle that.”

“You wouldn’t be doing it alone,” Emile offered. “But I agree. I don’t see kids being part of our future. Raising them seems like a daunting task. Obviously, I’d do it if needed, but it would definitely take a lot.”

“We do make a good team, though,” Remy said with a grin.

Emile ducked his head and smiled. “We do,” he agreed.