Cupcakes For The Princess

Song for this chapter: “Songs of Love” (Ben Folds)

Cupcakes for the Princess

Base needs of his body and a nicely messed up bio-rhythm conspired against Chris’s desire to sleep in the next morning. Zach was still conked out, comatose and snoring softly. Chris discovered he was fucking sore in every possible meaning of the phrase, and that the aftereffects of receiving anal sex were much messier than giving it, condom or no condom.

After a quick shower, he hesitated in front of the bathroom mirror. Not even the gentle fog that softened his reflection could obscure just how well-fucked he looked. More than. A bruise or two, teeth-marks, and red, chafed nipples told their own story of last night. More unsettling, however, was the curious impression that he had changed somehow. That he was not the same man who’d arrived in New York the previous day. He stared into his eyes in the mirror, but he couldn’t make any sense of what he saw.

In an attempt to shake off strange “morning after” thoughts, Chris managed to remember how to feed Zach’s pets before they woke their master with their morning whines. Then he investigated the fridge and helped himself to orange juice and a rather bland organic yogurt. He kind of hoped that letting Zach sleep in would result in a real breakfast later on, with bacon and pancakes and things.

Back in the living room, he picked up the notebook again. His heartbeat sped up at the poem-like quotes they had read the night before, and he quickly turned the page. He didn’t want to linger on that while he was alone.

The next, left-hand page was blank again, but there was another quote on the right side, which confirmed the identity of the notebook’s owner as a “Star Trek” fan.

They are tragedies and heroes and cautionary tales and they never grow up or grow old, they simply are.

Jim Kirk is a pain in Spock’s ass.

Chris snorted. “That one they got wrong,” he muttered and shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “Zach’s the one who’s a pain in my ass.”

“Sore, sweetheart?” Zach sat down next to him, snaking his arm around his back, hugging him close.

Chris turned his head and grinned. “Like hell, damn it. But—” A kiss interrupted his sentence and effectively cut off his train of thought.

Blissful minutes passed with gentle necking, soft kisses and caresses included for free. Chris already knew that Zach could be incredibly tender. But he was relieved that Zach didn’t hesitate over such gestures with him this morning. He didn’t try to suppress the thrill of hope anymore that centered in a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Still obsessing over stolen goods, Christopher?” Zach reached for the notebook. For a second, he grinned at the passage he’d interrupted Chris with. Then he flicked to the next page.

“Hmm,” Zach hummed appreciatively and smacked his lips. “A recipe for vegan cupcakes. We could try that today, if you want. I think I could do it. Doesn’t sound too difficult.”

“Urgh, no.” Chris groaned. “I was hoping for a real breakfast, you know. With bacon. And things. Also, what’s so fannish about vegan cupcakes?”

Zach shrugged. “Spock would eat them.”

“If you’d go so far as to suggest actually baking them, I’m sure he would …” Chris hastily flipped the page to remove the temptation of healthy living from Zach’s sight.

Neither of them had any idea what the following cheesy love poem about star-met lovers had to do with Star Trek.

“Way too sentimental for Spock,” Zach said finally, after they’d stared at the seven lines in baffled silence for a minute or two.

Chris nodded. “Can you imagine Kirk going ‘we are the dream of the ages’?” He shuddered. “Well, I can’t.”

(Very secretly, he thought the poem might be nice for a wedding. But only because sentimental lyrics suited such occasions. Not because he had a romantic streak that was approximately a mile wide or anything like that.)

Because he was still arguing with himself over appropriate moments for extreme sappiness, he never noticed when Zach turned the page again. Zach’s sudden laughter, however, was impossible to miss. He threw his head back and laughed like a loon, sending Harold scrambling for safety in a panic.

“What?!” Chris asked and craned his neck to see what the heck was so funny. Not even five words. With some LOLs scrawled underneath.

Dr. and Mrs. Princess Whitelaw

LOLOLOL

“What?!” Chris repeated. “Or to be more precise: What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Zach couldn’t seem to stop chortling, collapsed against the back of the sofa, helplessly shaking his head. At last he gasped for air and managed to reply. “That’s us,” he sporfled. “Not Spock and Kirk. You and me. Dr. and Mrs. Princess Whitelaw.”

Chris blinked at him. “And you know this how?”

“Because fandom.” Still out of breath, Zach added, “It’s one of their nicknames for you. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that, Your Royal Highness?”

“I know those movies will never stop haunting me,” Chris grumbled.

Zach just snorted. “Anyway, what with that quote, my best guess is that the fan you stole this from is not just a Star Trek fan. It’s one of those tinhats who’ve always believed in our secret love affair.”

Chris stared at the notebook. After last night the joke was on them in that respect. But even though he knew it was futile, he felt compelled to make an effort for old times’ sake at least. “Because of course you’re the doctor in question. It could be McCoy.”

“No, that would be a crossover.” Zach shook his head, always the expert on everything. “Also, psychologically speaking it’s interesting that you identify with the wife’s part in this.”

“I …” Chris started and promptly fell silent because he had no fucking clue if there was a correlation between bottoming for their first time and his spontaneous interpretation of that line. And if he cared. “I …” He tried again. “I thought you hate fanfic.”

“I’m not allowed to anymore,” Zach muttered. “My PR people came down on me like a brick wall after Ireland. I was lucky they didn’t send me to some kind of fandom reeducation camp.”

Chris winced in sympathy. Been there, done that. At least he had a cool t-shirt to show for it. There was more than one very good reason he normally stayed as far away from the internet and social media as he could get away with.

“Although, they kind of did that anyway,” Zach added with a grimace. “I had to suffer through some thoroughly embarrassing explanations about fandom and fan fiction. They have an intern for that.”

“Okay, fine,” Chris agreed grudgingly, in the hope to be spared any further details. “The owner of the notebook is a tinhat who’d like to think we’ve always had the kind of passionate love affair we actually just um, embarked on.” In a way that was hysterical. Also sort of of embarrassing, if their body language had really given them away for years while they’d remained determinedly oblivious. Kind of begged the question who the tinhats really were in this situation. “But what does that tell us?”

“Not much, really.” Zach closed the notebook with a thud and shrugged. “Unless you want to Google all the quotes.”

“Do you want to Google all the quotes?!”

“Nope. Better things to do with my time.” Zach winked at Chris suggestively. “Although …” He frowned and opened the notebook again, at the beginning this time. He leafed through the technical gibberish of the first pages. “Just as I thought. We can skip the fanfic. Because you missed something in the first part, you Luddite. Look, here’s a company name, a URL, and an email address. With this information, we should be able to figure out who the notebook belongs to. ”

“Cool.” Chris plucked the notebook from Zach’s hands. For a moment he pondered the booklet. It appeared harmless. Innocent, almost. Yeah, right. “You know, since we’ve already proved them right, we could go and read those stories. Maybe they are hot.”

“Or maybe you could shut up and we could fuck.”

Chris’s pulse sped up. Sore as he was, he wouldn’t mind more of the peculiar mixture of pleasure and pain he’d experienced the previous night. He put the notebook back on the coffee table and turned to Zach.

“I’m all for it,” he said softly. But instead of pulling Zach against him or on top of him, he reached out and dared to lay his hand against Zach’s cheek in a gentle gesture. “It’s not just sex, Zach.”

Zach swallowed hard enough that his Adam’s apple jumped. But he didn’t draw away. Instead he covered Chris’s hand with his own.

“There’s …” Chris tried to explain in order to untwist that damn knot in his stomach at long last. “There’s too much between us already. More …” Now it was his turn to gulp in an attempt to rid himself of the lump in his throat. “More than I’ve shared with anyone, ever.”

So much more than those boxes in your hallway, Chris thought.

Zach stared at him in silence, his eyes huge and dark and—

“Burned umber,” Chris whispered. “Perfect black coffee. Glowing embers in the depths.”

“That,” Zach started. Blinked. All dorky and ditzy with his black-rimmed glasses. “Is absurd. But. You do have a point,” he admitted and exhaled in a sigh. “With what there is between us, I mean. Seven years. No matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done. Together and apart.”

Chris nodded. “All that jazz.” He licked his lips and reveled in the heat that gesture conjured up in Zach’s eyes. “And,” he added, because this was important, “I’ve always been okay with saying I love you. You know that. Only now …” He took a deep breath and let his hand sink down to their laps. And Zach didn’t let go of him but held on tightly. “… now I want to be allowed to say that I’m in love with you, too.”

He could see that Zach was scared. That he was thinking of the damn boxes in the hallway. And probably of publicists and paparazzi. Maybe even how one gay night (no matter how glorious) mattered little in the greater scheme of things. He thought he could also see Zach want. Want all the things they had already shared. Want all the other things they could share on top of that. Like all kinds of kisses and naked skin and orgasms and falling asleep together and waking up together and …

They sat staring at each other and holding hands long enough for Harry to come back and curl up in Chris’s lap, a purring ball of black and white fur. As if Chris was an absolutely natural addition to his universe. Thanks for that vote of confidence, buddy, Chris thought with a smile.

“Okay,” Zach muttered at last. “I … I yield, too. Though I may need some swimming lessons yet.” He hadn’t forgotten their skewed metaphors from the previous night.

Chris nodded. “Same here, definitely.” With a dramatic sigh he added, “And as long as I get bacon for breakfast, we can try making those vegan cupcakes this afternoon.”

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Author’s Notes

• The quote about Jim being a pain in Spock’s ass is from the summary of the story “my boy builds coffins” by waldorph.

• The vegan cupcakes are an allusion to the story “Vegan Cupcakes for All (Or Whatever)” by Medeafic.

• The recipe for vegan cupcakes used in the banner may be found here: Vegan Cupcakes

• The extremely sentimental poem is “We are star-met” by Leonard Nimoy, in: “A Lifetime of Love”

• “Dr. and Mrs. Princess Whitelaw” refers to the story with the same title by leupagus and screamlet.

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