Work Text:
~*~
"There a reason you're doing this in my apartment?"
Barry dipped the hard-boiled egg into the dye and then looked up, grinning at Len. "You're home? Iris and Joe are volunteering at the fundraiser?" Len crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, staring at Barry. He looked entirely unimpressed. Barry sighed. "Okay, okay, I ran out of room in our fridge at home. I thought you wouldn't mind me borrowing some space on your bottom shelf. Okay?"
"Should've asked," Len said, but he uncrossed his arms and approached the table, dropping a quick kiss onto Barry's upturned mouth before he took one of the eggs that had just finished drying.
"If it was going to be a problem, you would've told me when I brought the egg dyeing kit." Barry turned back to the cup and pulled out the egg, pleased by the saturation of blue. He set it aside. "Besides, you've stolen like, eight of these things."
Len shrugged and deftly cracked the egg in a way that Barry had never successfully mimicked, his hands moving precise and methodical as he peeled the egg from the shell. "I like eggs."
"Leave some for the kids," Barry said sternly.
Len just grinned and shook his head. "Didn't think you were an Easter kind of person, Red." Barry watched Len peel the egg white away from the yolk and then pop it into his mouth before grabbing the salt to sprinkle it over the yolk. Len noticed Barry watching him, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What?"
Barry shook his head — how could he explain how warm this left him? Sitting in Len's kitchen, making eggs for the city council's annual Easter egg hunt. Len stealing eggs just for an excuse to stay in the same room when Barry knew very well Len had a million other things he could be doing instead — Barry's heart hurt a little, in the best way. "Nothing, Len. And I'm not really. An Easter person. I just like making sure the kids have fun."
Len snorted at that, giving Barry an appraising look. "You dress up in a costume?"
"Sometimes." Barry lowered another egg into the dye. "But not this year. Captain Singh's husband convinced him to wear it." Len smirked at that. "I'll get you pictures," Barry said before Len could even ask, and he was rewarded with the way Len's smile spread over his face, slow and pleased.
Len finished his egg and watched as Barry carefully set another colorful egg into the tray. "How many are you doing?"
"Five dozen," Barry said, very firmly, and then he gave Len a sly look from the corners of his eyes. "It would go a lot faster with help." Len's gaze flickered over the table and rested on Barry's face before he looked away. After another minute, he strode to the table and sat, taking one of Barry's dye bowls. Len refused to look at Barry again, but Barry smiled anyway, pressing his foot to Len's beneath the table. Len didn't pull away, so Barry considered that a victory.
~*~
Later, on the grass of the field at Turtle Park, Barry took the picture he promised: Captain Singh, miserable and discontent, his face poking out of a huge white bunny suit, and Barry watched as Singh's husband went over to him, whispered something that chased the shadows away from Singh's face and then kissed his cheek.
Barry turned away from that small show of intimacy and wondered if, maybe, in some other world, it would be Len in the bunny suit, suffering just because Barry asked, because he loved him enough to say 'yes.'
~*~