#i was on a kick thinking about kehina so here she is!

[theartistknownaslymond]

Cheek kisses for D/J

The small kitchen table was piled so high with food Danny could barely see Jerott sitting behind it all.

"Are you in hiding, doudou?"

Jerott's dark eyes, wide with trepidation, peered at them over the stacks of bagels and samosas. "Are you in disguise?"

Danny put mock-offended hands on their hips. Hips that were enclosed in a slinky black cotton dress, showing the soft curve of belly and braless, fleabite breasts. The dress was long enough to cover Danny's knees and accessorised with new, floral Docs, tasteful silver jewellery, and maroon dark lipstick. Even the eyeshadow was restrained - by Danny's standards - a pale smoky haze that didn't take away from the pout. A sensible grey mohair cardigan was draped over one arm, but Danny couldn't quite bring themselves to put that on yet.

"Excuse me? I look perfect."

Danny dropped the cardigan with a flourish over the chairback in front of them.

Jerott tried, but he couldn't stop his eyes from dropping to check every line of the dress. He didn't disagree, Danny saw.

Danny loved to see this expression on his face - a bit flushed, a bit lost, a bit smitten. It made Danny's heart race every time.

"You don't need to pretend for her..." Jerott said eventually, chewing his lower lip as he checked Danny's expression, worry still a shadow in his eyes.

Danny smirked and dropped a hand to the back of the chair opposite Jerott's. The fine chains on their arm tumbled elegantly over their shapely wrist. "Pretend what?"

Jerott's eyes narrowed. He was too well practiced in such leading questions now, and sat back, turning his attention to the immaculate, symmetrical tower of cream cheese bagels.

"That you're not a filthy jazz animal with an addiction to pickled herring and cotignac?" Jerott surveyed the spread of food they'd spent all weekend preparing, and all of a sudden Danny could read his wicked intentions plainly.

"Jazz animal!" Danny exclaimed, delighted and committed to not showing it. "Wait - filthy?"

A slinky dress called for a slinky step, and Danny rounded the table, eyes watching Jerott like he was an untrustworthy pet at a buffet table. "Doudou, don't you dare..."

"Hmm?" Jerott raised a hand to flutter his fingers threateningly over the snacks.

"Jerott, I spent an age getting that tower of bagels even, you can't take one now!" A note of alarm entered Danny's voice.

"My mum won't even notice, Danny, don't worry..."

This was his way of distracting himself from his own unease at the first meeting, Danny knew. But stacking the bagels had been Danny's way of dealing with it, and now Jerott was interfering with the carefully curated image Danny wished to present to la formidable Madame Bensaïd.

Jerott grabbed a bagel and Danny lunged to stop him. But half the damned bagel was in his mouth even with Danny's hand on his wrist and Danny yelping out, "I'm the animal?!"

Jerott laughed, tried not to choke, and chewed on the too-large bite with difficulty, leaning away from Danny as Danny loomed over his chair.

That remorseless smirk, the dimple that was at war with the bulging cheek full of bagel turned out to be too tempting a target.

Danny grabbed his jaw and planted the biggest, poutiest kiss that could be achieved on Jerott's face.

Jerott protested around the bagel, feeling the waxy residue that remained on his skin. A near perfect red smear formed an 'o' on his cheek.

Danny folded their arms to look down at their handiwork. "You deserve it."

But Jerott was standing, a new mischief in his eyes that Danny understood too late.

"Oh, no!"

Jerott shoved the other half of the bagel into his mouth as messily as he could. There was cream cheese everywhere and Danny hesitated, transfixed with horror for a second too long.

Jerott grabbed Danny around the waist and smacked his own cheesy kiss on Danny's cheek as Danny gave a shriek of thrilled disgust.

"Quequette! Crotte de bordel!" Danny squirmed in Jerott's hold, dissolving into appalled peals of laughter and pretending to fight as Jerott left more bagely kisses on Danny's cheek and Danny no longer knew whether Jerott was depositing cheese with each touch of his lips or kissing it off Danny's skin.

They only stopped scrambling with one another when a polite cough interrupted them, and Danny opened their eyes to see la formidable herself, Jerott's mysterious mother, standing in the kitchen doorway.

She held her designer handbag before her a little like a shield, her eyes round - they're just like Jerott's! Danny thought hysterically - her outfit as immaculately chic as Danny had predicted it would be.

«I heard shouting, and the door was open,» Kahina gestured behind her.

Jerott's grip on Danny tightened before it loosened. He straightened, holding onto Danny's waist with one hand and using the other to hide his own cough and to wipe the remnants of bagel from his mouth.

"Yemma," he said with a measure of contrition.

Danny was torn between the sight of Kahina - in flowing silk scarf, black blouse, white Chanel trousers, with exquisitely blow-dried and styled black hair - and the messy red mark on Jerott's cheek that he seemed to have forgotten about.

Kahina looked puzzled and concerned, but she smiled. "T'es Danny?"

Danny summoned the fortitude necessary to nod and agree that that was, indeed, who they were.

Kahina's smile remained warm, and she fished in her handbag and handed a tissue to each of them.

«It's good to meet you at last,» she said, composed now as though she were about to be seated at a Michelin restaurant. «I would apologise for my son,» she said, which was the kind of introduction Jerott had promised she would give him, and which made Danny's heart ache a little with protectiveness. «But I see you understand already how to deal with him,» Kahina added. The shy twinkle of fun she said it with left Danny with a stupefied grin and a twinge of emotional whiplash.

Kahina turned to the spread of food and grasped a bagel of her own without preamble, letting out a purr of joy as she raised it to her red lips.

«Ah, my god! You can't get them this good outside Le Marais!»

Clearly she had no interest in the even stacking of the tower either, and Danny let out a laugh of relief and received an equally relieved grin from Jerott. «Well, I did live there for a few years...» Danny said, pulling a chair out for Jerott's mother.

Now she was here and the anticipatory worrying was passed, Danny felt confident that they would get on famously.