Chapter Text
Trevor still groaned as he sat down in the kitchen. He knew Adrian wanted his help but even a good month after their return, Trevor could not help it. His ribs were still fucking hurting.
Adrian understood, of course. His wounds were healed, given that Greta had been quite insistent to feed him. So, he was once again a lucky bastard, while Trevor was just slogging along with his stupid broken ribs. He rolled his eyes, looking at his partner. “So, what do you need my help for today?”
“You are gonna make noodle dough today,” Adrian replied. “While I am over here making some nice bone broth.”
Trevor sighed. “Let me guess, the noodle dough is gonna be more exhausting than the broth.”
With a slight smile Adrian came over to him, ruffling his hair. “You will manage.”
Of course, the bastard had been insistent for a while that sooner or later Trevor should be able to make bloody noodles by himself. Trevor knew where this was going. Give it another few months and he would take up part of the cooking duty, whether he wanted to or not. He would complain of course, but he would do so with a chuckle. His dear bastard deserved some rest, he assumed. And being cooked for.
“Alright. How do I make noodle dough?”
“It is fairly simple,” Adrian replied. “You mix flour and water.”
“Like bread.”
“Yes, like bread, but without letting the dough rise or anything. And with less water. The dough is drier.”
Trevor grunted at this. “Alright. Sounds simple enough.” With yet another groan he rose from the chair, wondering why he had even sat down. He walked over to the supply room, grabbing himself a large bowl and filled it with flour. It did not escape Adrian, of course, that the bowl was almost filled to the top.
“That’s gonna yield a lot of noodles,” he muttered.
“Well, that’s kinda your fault, isn’t it?” Trevor carried the bowl over to the table. “You never tell me how much I need.”
Another chuckle. “It’s fine. We are gonna dry those noodles either way. So, they will keep.”
“Makes me wonder, why I have to do this right now.” It was not as if Adrian had not made noodles for them before. So, if they kept…
“Because we don’t have any right now.” Adrian turned his back to him, to content with breaking those three backbones from poor old Lara, a milk cow that had stopped giving milk, apart. There was still a bit of meat on them, which would probably make for an even better soup.
And while Adrian was busy also roughly chopping some vegetables—onions, eggplant and some beets—Trevor drew some water from the faucet, before looking at the flour he had collected. Now, he had seen Adrian doing this before, so he assumed he could figure this out on his own. It was only flour and water. By now he understood that the goal was probably for those little things within the flour to connect and stretch or something. The old bastard had explained it to him when it came to bread after all.
So, after looking at the bowl of flour the came to the result to do, what he had seen Adrian do. He put the flour onto the table and made a well in the resulting hill. Into that well he poured the water, mixing it with the flour bit by bit. The result was once again a rather sticky affair. But he also had heard what Adrian had said before. About it being a drier dough than bread. So he was careful with the water.
At some point his partner looked over his shoulder. “You are not as stupid as you look.”
“Ha ha,” Trevor grunted. “Quite funny, aren’t we?”
“About as funny as you,” the bastard replied.
“So,” Trevor asked. “Once I have mixed it… What do I do next?”
“You are going to knead it.”
Trevor sighed. Of fucking course. Why did he even ask? “For how long?”
“Eh.” He did not see the shrug, but could feel it. “Quarter of an hour, maybe.”
Another groan came over Trevor’s lips. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“I am not.” Soft lips planted a kiss against Trevor’s neck. “As I said so many times before… Your big muscles gotta be good for something.”
Trevor turned his head to him. “You are aware that my ribs are not yet healed completely, right?”
“You are gonna be just fine,” the bastard replied, before returning to the stove and taking care of the broth.
Trevor muttered some more cusses, but he got on it. First finishing the mixing and then, once a thick paste had formed, kneading it against the surface of the table. By now he knew what the bastard had been saying. He had quite a lot of dough to work with now, requiring him to use both of his hands to roll it against the wood again and again.
He noticed, that the dough was getting more elastic, though. And just as with the bread before, he found that it was a strangely satisfying thing to observe. And while the broth was long bubbling, Adrian turned around.
“That should be fine like this,” he noted.
“Alright.” Trevor stretched, his shoulders creaking against the movement. “So, I roll it out now?”
“No,” the dhampir said. “You put it into the bowl and let it rest for twenty minutes or so.”
“Thank God for that.” Trevor did as he had been told, putting that dough ball into the bowl, before putting a cloth over it to prevent the dough from drying out. A little action, that made the dhampir’s face light up with a smile.
Trevor grunted. “Look, I am not that bloody stupid. I am watching you when you do this, okay?”
“Yeah, I notice.” Given that he had nothing much more to do, Adrian came over to him, pressing a kiss against Trevor’s forehead. “You are gonna make for a great cook yet.”
Trevor chuckled. “Well, look at that. I am no longer a good-for-nothing.”
“You never were.” Gently Adrian ran his fingers through Trevor’s hair, while Trevor just rolled his eyes.
“So, what we gonna do with that after the resting?”
“Roll it out,” Adrian replied. “And then cut it into sheets and ribbons. Considering you have made so much.”
“So, we gonna have noodles in the soup later?”
With a smile Adrian looked at him. “Not quite. I was thinking we just have some bread and broth for dinner today. And tomorrow we're going to make some lasagna.”
This got Trevor to grin. “With lots of cheese?”
“With lots of cheese,” the dhampir promised, once more pressing his lips against Trevor’s forehead.
***
Something Trevor had not bet on, was that the next afternoon, as he was helping his dear bastard out, they were having an audience. Not only was Sypha sitting there with Marie, but Greta, too. She had brought over some beer—thank God—and was enjoying a mug together with Sypha and very much without Trevor.
“You get something if you make a nice dinner,” the village head woman had said and ruffled his hair, as if he was small boy.
He felt surprisingly self-conscious, as he was pealing those onions, Adrian had given him. After all that was the kind of lasagna the bastard tended to make. With lots of vegetables and some minced meat. And cheese, as Trevor had requested.
Greta was not doing him any favors, of course, her elbow on the table, her head resting on her palm. as she watched him.
“I guess this is very interesting,” Trevor muttered, putting one pealed onion down.
“Oh, I am just observing how far your cooking-skills are coming along, Belmont,” she replied with a grin. “After all those two are not reliable judges, I think.”
Sypha huffed. “Hey.”
“Well, you two are kinda prejudiced in his favor.” Greta took a big swig of beer, while continuing to watch.
Trevor groaned, but tried to ignore her. He had pealed three large onions by now, as well as a good pit of garlic. He needed to peel some more carrots and celeriac, as Adrian wanted to put both into that thick sauce as well.
The dhampir was behind Trevor now. “Oh, believe me, he is coming along great. He isn’t stupid after all.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Trevor muttered, as he was contending with one of the knifes and those stupid carrots.
“Don’t tease him like that,” Sypha said. “He is a good cook by now. And he will only keep getting better.”
Marie, who was sitting on Greta’s lap, stretched her arms towards the ground not for the first time. “Down,” she demanded, but Greta pulled her close.
“Not now. You will get under your papas' feet like that.”
This was obviously not anything that the little girl understood. “Down!” she demanded again, making Greta chuckle.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she muttered. “You are gonna get into so much trouble someday.”
Blue eyes looked at her without much understanding. The little girl frowned. She was pouting, no doubt.
“Don’t forget your vegetables, Trevor,” Sypha muttered, as his focus had drifted to his daughter once more.
“Alright…” He sighed. He continued to peel the carrots, until all five of them were lying on the wooden board in front of him. And while he did the same with the celeriac, Adrian put some of the broth into a pot to once more heat it up. They had enough broth to last them several days now, though this bit was gonna get used up in the sauce.
As the vegetables were finally peeled, Trevor started to cut them into smaller pieces. While he knew by now, that he would not need to cut the onions super small, given that the vegetable would get very soft during the cooking, the carrots and celeriac were something else. But he had gotten quite good with this, too, by now.
“Will you mince the meat as well?” Adrian asked. “Or shall I?”
“Just give me the fucking meat,” Trevor grunted, as he got out the bigger knife. Once: He liked big knives. But also: He had to admit by now, that the old bastard was right and that different knives made for better results depending on what you were doing with them.
The meat, too, came from poor old Lara. A nice chunk of brisket. And while Lara had been old and her meat had not been really fatty any longer, this was still a nice bit of meat.
Adrian meanwhile got a pan onto the second fire hole of the stove, making that buttery sauce he liked to make.
“You are a lucky woman, Sypha,” Greta muttered, as she watched the two men work.
Sypha smiled at this. “I know I am.” She leaned back on her chair with a sigh. “The two are really good for something.” There was still some exhaustion showing in her face. The kind of exhaustion that sleep would not easily make go away. Trevor knew it of course, just as he knew that right now, she was sleeping even worse than Adrian.
Another reason, why Marie was sitting on Greta’s lap right now.
As Greta’s attention has been shifted, the little girl had other ideas though. Small hands grabbed for her mug, trying to pull it towards herself.
“Sweetheart,” Trevor said. He went around the table to pull the mug out of his daughter’s reach. “As much as I appreciate you coming after me… this is not for someone as small as you.”
Again the girl was pouting. “Thirsty,” she announced.
Trevor sighed at this. He went towards the supply room once more, as they some chilled mint tea here. Getting a mug of the stuff, he handed it to his daughter. “There you go.”
She was still pouting, though. “Wanna!” she said, pointing at Greta’s mug.
Greta chuckled, though, ruffling the girl’s hair. “When you are older.”
Trevor continued to content with the meat. For the sauce it was better, if it was really small. Broken apart into little pieces. As the smell from the butter filled the kitchen, he did his best to mince the meat with his knife, until it was almost like a paste.
“Coming through,” he said, as he gently pushed Adrian to the side to put the vegetables into the broth for now.
He was aware that there needed to go some flour into the broth as well to thicken it. But for now, he was thinking of something else. “Say, what kinda spices are we going to put into it?”
“I am leaving that to you,” Adrian said. “I think by now you know your way around those spices enough.”
Trevor chuckled. “That’s gonna be your responsibility, though,” he muttered.
By now he had at least had his own will in one regard: A bit of their spice collection was kept in smaller wooden boxes in the supply room, so that he did not need to run into the basement every time they were cooking. And while pepper really was the one, he would take either way, he thought on it for anything else. The garlic and celeriac would already give a spicy note to the sauce either way. Fennel would probably be a good fit as well. And he assumed that would be enough for now.
So, with both in a mortar, he returned.
“Alright, I give it to you, Belmont,” Greta observed. “You are really getting good at this.”
He could not help his sarcasm: “Oh the surprise.” He started to pestle the spices into a powder. He knew that often enough Adrian would add some cinnamon to the lasagna as well, but he did not like that as much as peppercorn and fennel.
“Again,” Adrian said. “He is a bit uncultured, but he is not stupid.” A gentle hand was put onto Trevor’s shoulder. “And you cannot turn this against him.”
Greta watched him. “I guess you can’t.”
And while the two women continued talking, Trevor mixed the minced meat with the garlic, spices and salt, before going over to the stove once more. The vegetables still needed some cooking, so he was going to wait for another while. After all the meat would get a bit dry, if left in the sauce for too long.
Adrian’s sauce was meanwhile taking form, as he was putting pieces of cheese into it, watching them melt, while stirring with a spoon from time to time.
The view of this alone was enough to make Trevor’s stomach fucking rumble. How nice the cheese melted into it and how the spoon was already pulling bits of cheese from the sauce. No wonder Greta was here right now, eating with them.
He was aware that Adrian was now looking over to him, with that gentle, but genuine smile on his lips. Because of course the old bastard was still worried about him, even though he liked to tease him. Trevor shook his head, putting one hand onto the man’s shoulders and pressing a kiss onto his cheek.
“I am alright,” he whispered. “Don’t worry.”
By the time he put the meat into the sauce, he really could feel the hunger rise. And Marie was quite the same, announcing loudly to everyone: “Hungy.”
“Just a bit more,” Greta promised.
“Are you sure she can even eat that?” Sypha muttered.
“A bit. She can taste a bit.” Because in the end Greta seemed to be still of the opinion that whatever didn’t kill the girl was alright.
As Trevor finally put the rice flour into the sauce, it was nice to see it thicken rather quickly. It was only now that Adrian got out a spoon to taste. He smiled, as he did. “You really get good with this.”
“Well, I have a bloody good teacher,” Trevor muttered. But darn, he was glad the preparations were complete now.
And for once it seemed that Adrian was content with layering the sheets of dried noodle dough with the two sauces.
“More cheese,” Trevor demanded as his boyfriend graded some of the cheesy goodness onto the final layer.
“I agree with the Belmont,” Greta chimed in.
“Of course, you do,” Adrian muttered, but he did oblige, before putting everything into the oven.
Only then did Trevor allow himself to sit down on the table. He looked over to Greta and the jug of beer. “Do I get some beer now?”
The two women exchanged a long gaze and for once Sypha was laughing at least a little. She looked over to Marie, who was by now sipping from her tea mug from time to time. “I still think you are a bad role model for your daughter.”
“Well, admittedly,” Greta noted, “we all kinda are.”
Trevor sighed, though a smile crept onto his face, as Adrian got another mug for him, filling some beer into it and handing it to him.
Looking over at his daughter, Trevor sighed. “I think she will grow up just fine.”