Peter is normally a patient person. He was patient watching James fail to win over Lily for years, despite how frustrating it was. He was patient with Sirius and Remus, biting his tongue every time they fought, fighting the urge to scream at them to just fuck and get it over with so the rest of them could stop suffering through their sexual tension. He’s patient with Harry whenever he babysits, and really that’s a feat in and of itself--that child loves to ask the most mind numbingly repetitive questions.
However, at this current moment, for what feels like the hundredth time this week, the sound of the bed hitting the wall in the flat above his is bringing that patience down to a thread, and tugging that thread so hard it’s threatening to snap.
And, really, he’s been putting up with it forever. Since he moved in two months ago, the sound from the overhead unit has been non-stop. And not just the sex, these people are constantly doing something. Either they’re dancing, or singing, or talking, or laughing. Peter swears they have to be doing construction sometimes from how loud it gets up there.
It doesn’t help that the guy who lives there is obnoxious face-to-face as well. Gilderoy. Obnoxious name. Obnoxious smile. Obnoxious voice. Peter can’t fucking stand him. Is he hot? Yeah. Does that stop Peter from wanting to deck him every time he waves down the stairs like he doesn’t have a care in the world? Absolutely not.
Which is exactly what he’s doing the next morning when Peter is on the way out the door for work.
“Good morning!” Gilderoy shouts down the stairs. Peter looks up and gives him a flat smile. He can practically feel the bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep. “How are you today?”
“Great.” Peter turns back around.
“I was thinking,” the other man hurries down the stairs and stops right next to Peter, leaning against the wall in a way that blocks him from opening the door. “You’ve been living here two whole months and we haven’t spoken properly even once.” His grin is lopsided in a way that looks so good it should very well be illegal.
“Bummer.” Peter tugs on the door a little, hoping that will prompt Gilderoy away.
“It is, isn’t it?” He stays put. “Why don’t you come over some time? I’ve just written a fantastic article for the magazine I work for and I think it would be a really great conversation starter.”
Peter levels him with the most incredulous look he can muster.
“No.”
Somehow, Gilderoy looks alarmed at this response.
“Why not?”
“Why not?” Peter repeats back at him.
“I’ve been friendly.”
“You’ve been loud.” Peter feels the thread snap. “You’ve been the loudest person I’ve ever had the misfortune of living under. I mean, holy shit man it is constant. You’re either walking around at 2 am, singing while you make dinner, laughing, watching television way too loud--I mean last night I got maybe one hour of sleep around the sound of you banging someone so hard I’m surprised your bed might still be standing. You are the most annoying person in the building and the fact that you have the gall to stand here grinning at me every morning like you aren’t keeping the whole block awake is mind boggling to me.”
Gilderoy blinks at him a few times, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. After a few moments, the shock seems to wear off into defensiveness.
“Well…my apologies.” He stands up straight and huffs. “Sorry I’m living in my own home.” Before Peter can say anything, Gilderoy turns sharply and marches away, back upstairs, and slams the door as he re-enters his flat.
“I mean, seriously, it is day in and day out.” Peter rounds the corner from the kitchen into the dishwashing area to bug Marlene. “The noise is non-fucking stop. And he’s so fucking smug about it, I don’t even--”
“Oh, my god.” She puts down the plate she’s washing and glares at him. “Peter, I get it. He’s annoying. He’s loud. He’s hot. He’s this, he’s that--you know what’s day in and day out? You. Not shutting the fuck up about your neighbor. I’m begging you, can we please work one shift together in silence?” She leans forward and grips his shirt, bending her head to press it into his chest, quite literally begging. “I have not been able to get through this album once for the past two weeks because I have to pause it every time you come back here to whine at me.”
“I’m not whining.” He throws his hands up in defense.
“You’re whining.” She stands up straight and turns back to the sink. “Go count money or pay bills or whatever it is you’re supposed to do as the owner. Please.”
“Well, fine,” he grumbles, pouting as he turns around. “I will.” He pauses for a moment. “You’re co-owner, you could be doing those things too.”
“I can’t hear you!” She shouts as she puts her earpods back in. He watches her turn the volume up, turn to face him, and gesture to her ears like she herself isn’t the reason she can’t hear. He rolls his eyes and laughs a little before finally making his way away from the dish pit and back to his office.
When he arrives, he sits down in his little chair with a heavy sigh. Leaning back, he stares at the framed picture on the wall of him and Marlene standing in front of the bakery. They went in on it together a few years before, and it took a long time for it to take off. Really, if it hadn't been for James and Sirius’ help, it might not have made it as far as it did. He owes them a lot.
He owes Marlene a lot too, if he thinks about it. Growing up, he was always the one into baking. He and his mother spent the majority of his childhood holed up in the kitchen, writing and testing and re-writing recipes. Warm summers listening to jazz music with the windows open rolling out pie dough, cold winter nights putting together Christmas cookie boxes, cozy fall afternoons gutting pumpkins for home-made puree. James and Marlene always loved to come over and watch them bake, and Peter loved having them taste all the recipes they came up with. Sometimes Marlene would get curious, and she’d lean into the kitchen while James riled up the dogs in the other room. She was always watching, silently learning while never participating.
When his mother died, Peter wasn’t sure he’d ever want to bake again. It was too painful, reminded him too much of her. He thought he lost the only thing he’d ever cared about doing. But Marlene came over every day. She made him food. Forced him to get up and drink water and take care of himself. He remembers the first day she tried baking something. He came running downstairs at the smell of something burning and found her staring miserably at what he still questions to be cookies. Frustrated, he cleaned up and angrily started putting together another recipe. Shouting the entire time, yelling instructions at her, throwing flour and eggs into bowls. By the time the tray went into the oven, he was fuming. But she just stood in the doorway, watching, smiling.
It was the first thing he had baked in months.
Over the next few years, she never stopped pushing him. Forced him to go to a baking school down in France. Forced him to apply to bakeries back home in London when he graduated. Forced him to learn how to take out a business loan. After a while, it worked. He got his passion back and now, a few years later, here they sat in a bakery of their own making.
He rubs his hand over his face, thinking about all of this, and sighs. He leans forward and looks down at the old recipe book he keeps on the desk. He’s been trying to digitize it recently, a suggestion from Lily. She thinks it would be safer to have it in a computer file, just in case anything happens to the book. He told her over and over that he would never let anything happen to his mother’s book, but she insisted. “Better safe than sorry is all I’m saying Pete.”
The thing is…it's ugly. Like, really ugly. It’s just the words typed out into a word document and that’s great and all, but it feels cold and distant to him. He’s not sure why it bugs him so much, but seeing the recipes typed instead of written in his mother’s curly handwriting makes him uneasy. He hates looking at it.
Regardless, he opens the book, and begins to type away.
By the following week, Peter is starting to regret saying anything to Gilderoy at all. The noises from upstairs seem to have intensified. The walking at 2 am has turned into stomping. The volume on the television has gone up at least 5 notches. The singing while making dinner is somehow more off-key than it was before.
As for the sex--don’t get him started. Gilderoy, who seems to be so full of himself that Peter’s surprised he even needs a second player in the first place, has gotten even louder, seemingly out of spite. Now it’s not only the bed hitting the wall--it’s the couch squeaking, it’s the sound of what Peter assumes to be ‘mood music’, it’s Gilderoy being brazenly loud. And it’s happening at all hours. It’s happening when Peter gets home, when he’s trying to sleep, while he’s trying to cook dinner. He’s honestly starting to get concerned for their health at this point because going at it this many times a day cannot be good for them.
None of it is stopping Peter from complaining though. In fact, it’s fueling him to complain even more. Every time Gilderoy stomps, Peter hits the ceiling with a broom. Every time he turns his television up, Peter goes to the kitchen and starts rummaging through his pots and pans, making sure to hit every single one together as hard as he can. Every time Gilderoy moans loud enough to wake Peter up, Peter gets out of bed and starts blaring music.
When they pass each other out in the hallway, Peter always makes sure to make a comment, and Gilderoy shoots him one right back. On more than one occasion, Gilderoy’s partner has to tug him away and up the stairs to get them to stop sneering at each other.
“This cannot be healthy.” Marlene comments, settling into the booth across from Peter. They’ve just finished closing the bakery for the night, and they’re sitting down to have their little weekly meeting that they do to check in with each other. It’s something they did even before the bakery, that Marlene started as a way to keep an eye on Peter. Now, it’s mostly taken up by bakery stuff--financial, staffing, menus, all of that. Tonight though, Peter is detailing the noise feud to her. He’s been mindful in the recent days not to bug her too much but he was starting to lose his mind over all of this.
“You’re telling me.” He grumbles, picking at one of the unsold cookies from the day. “They’re going at it like fucking jackrabbits.”
“Not their fucking stamina,” Marlene laughs. “This!” She gestures towards him. “You two are so obsessed with each other--”
“I am not obsessed,” he cuts her off. “I’m exhausted!”
“Partly of your own fault.”
“How is it my fault?” He gawks at her.
“You’re letting him get to you.” She says simply, leaning back in the booth. She spreads her hands like she’s presenting some groundbreaking idea. Peter splutters.
“I am not!”
“You are too!” She points at him. “You’re being petty, and you’re doing it because you’re letting him get in your head.”
“Hard not to when he’s burrowing himself in there with all the fucking noise.”
“Headphones, Pete. Put on headphones. Play music. Or, here’s a fucking thought, leave the house. Go over to James and Lily’s to hang out with them and Harry. Hit up Mary and get coffee with her. Go ask Sirius to give you a ride on his bike, do literally anything outside of your flat and then you don’t have to deal with him.”
“Between being here at the bakery and staying up at all hours listening to him, I don’t think I’d have the energy.”
“Okay.” Marlene shrugs. “PTO approved.”
Peter stares at her.
“Come again?”
“P. T. O. Approved. A week.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Go out of town. Get a hotel room. Do whatever the fuck you want with your time.”
“I’m not taking PTO, I have to be here.”
“Why?” She leans forward. “I’ve got it under control. We have enough staff. Nothing important is going on over this next week. No big orders or anything. You think I can’t handle the bakery by myself?”
“No, Marlene, I never said that--”
“And I know you don’t think it.” Her voice is softer now. She reaches over and gently lays her hands on top of his. “I love you Pete, but this is driving you insane. Take a break. Get some rest. Please. For my sanity, at this point.”
He hesitates for a moment. But finally--
“Fine. Alright.” He sighs softly, and Marlene pumps her first in triumph.
Turns out, having time off is not relaxing. He feels like a ball of energy with nothing to do with it. The first few days, he’ll admit, were great. He did what Marlene suggested--got coffee with Mary, watched some movies with Lily James and Harry, went for a ride with Sirius (not relaxing), he even went to a book market with Remus (much better). He considered the hotel idea but it wasn’t really in his budget at the moment and the places that were within his budget were not necessarily appealing.
He did learn, however, that Gilderoy seems to have an almost identical work schedule to him. The hours he would normally spend at work are blissfully silent. He takes some of that time to nap and catch up on sleep. He bakes a few things to keep his hands busy. He even does some cleaning around his flat and spends time just hanging out with his cat and reading.
By the last two days of his vacation, though, he’s getting a little stir crazy. No one is available to hang out and he’s exhausted all of the interesting looking options on Netflix. He considers just going for a walk in the park down the road. Maybe he can even go to a cinema or something.
Then, he hears it.
Something drops on the ground in Gilderoy’s flat.
He expects to feel irritated.
Instead, he feels excited.
For a moment, he’s blind-sided by that. But the longer he thinks about it, the more he’s able to rationalize it. He’s been sitting here with nothing to do for three days now after he filled his time with all the possibilities he could think of. He’s been bored out of skull. Arguing with Gilderoy will at least give him something. Anything.
The sound is followed by a few loud stomps and a door slamming. Then voices. They’re loud, but not loud enough for him to make out the words. He rolls his eyes and stands up to grab his broom, ready to start a back and forth.
“That’s your fault!” Is the first thing clear enough to hear. Peter pauses. It’s not Gilderoy’s voice, it’s his partner’s. “You did that, Roy!”
Gilderoy responds, but it’s too muffled.
“--what I want! That’s all you ever do anyway! You always--” the voice fades in and out as they move around the room above. Peter stays still.
He listens for a while, listens as the argument eventually fizzles out. Unsure, Peter moves slowly to the front room. He quietly grabs his keys, closes the door behind him, and leaves to go on that walk he was thinking about.
This repeats the next night, later in the evening. Peter is eating dinner when the argument starts. He quickly mutes this video he’s watching, and strains his ears to listen. He isn’t able to make out anything this time around, and waits until it stops to clean up his dinner and turn in for the night.
Two days later, when he returns to work, he feels more well rested than he has in months. It’s honestly refreshing.
It’s also disconcerting.
After the two arguments, the noise stopped. Not just the arguing, the noise. No more stomping. No more music. No more sex. It was silent. He would be worried his neighbor might be dead if his mail wasn’t disappearing from the slot downstairs.
Marlene notices the dichotomy in Peter’s demeanor the second he walks into the Bakery on Monday morning.
“You look…odd.” She squints at him.
“I’ve been sleeping.”
“That’ll do it.”
“Gilderoy stopped making sounds.”
“Oh?” She looks up from where she was gathering cash for the drawers. “That’s good, no?”
“It…would be.” He says slowly. “But he and his partner got in a few fights the last couple of days. The lack of sound is…off putting.”
“Oh,” she says, shoulders dropping. “That bums.”
“I know,” Peter bites his lip.
“Other than that, how was your break?” She grins. Peter rolls his eyes fondly and begins to detail his days off to her.
The silence stretched.
And stretched.
And stretched.
Four months went by with the only sign of life from above being occasional shuffling across the wooden floors. It’s officially been quiet longer than it was ever loud. Peter has settled into the silence well, but it feels incorrect, he thinks. He’s glad he gets sleep now, and he doesn’t have to fight to hear his own television, and he can play soft music while he cooks and bakes. It’s nice, really. But some days he misses the routine arguing. He misses the interaction, in a way.
He does also see Gilderoy from time to time. Well, see is a strong word. It’s more like glimpsing. He’ll see a flash of golden hair in the doorway every now and then as he returns home from work. It puts a little ease into Peter’s mind. At least he’s not staying inside a hundred percent of the time. He wonders if Gilderoy has his own Marlene; someone coming by and helping him get out of bed. Clearly he and his partner separated and while Peter’s never lost a relationship like that, he imagines it has the potential to result in grief as well.
“Oh,” a voice startles Peter as he shifts through his mail after work one day. “Hello.”
Peter looks up and locks eyes with Gilderoy’s partner. He could never remember their name.
“Hello,” Peter nods awkwardly.
“I’m just here to grab my stuff,” they say, gesturing up the stairs. Peter nods a little.
“Alright.” He blinks at them, unaware why they felt the need to share that. “Have…fun?”
They stare at him for a moment and nod before scurrying up the stairs. Peter attempts to shake off the odd interaction as he enters his front door. His cat wanders up and rubs against his leg, meowing for dinner far too early. Peter laughs a little, crouching down to scratch her chin.
Why did they feel the need to tell him that? The thought bounces around his head as he sets his mail down on the kitchen counter. Why would Peter care what they’re doing there? Maybe they realized he would have done the math and thought it was weird they were in their ex’s flat. That makes sense, but why would they care what Peter thinks?
One of them shouts upstairs. Peter sighs and drops his head into his hands. For fucks sake.
The argument doesn’t last long. Probably no more than ten minutes go by before the door is slamming and Peter hears stomping down the stairs, followed by another slammed door. He waits for a moment, contemplating.
With a sigh and an accompanied thought of ‘what the fuck am I doing?’, Peter makes his way out of his flat and up the stairs.
He stands in front of the door for a long while before knocking. He’s really not sure why he’s doing this. It’s not like they’re friends. They exchanged friendly greetings maybe four times before they started The Fight.
Gilderoy doesn’t answer. Peter waits. He knocks again.
Silence.
“You know, if you were this good at ignoring me, I’m really wondering why you didn’t start earlier than you did.” He shouts into the door.
Nothing.
He sighs and leans his forehead against the cold wood. He knocks again, with no response.
He knocks again.
“I’m gonna keep knocking until you answer.”
True to his word, Peter stands there for another ten minutes, knocking intermittently.
Finally:
“Go the fuck away.”
“Oh, he speaks.” Peter rolls his eyes, pulling his hand away from where it was about to land on the same spot for the hundredth time. Thank god, he thinks. His knuckles were getting sore.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.” Peter answers honestly. “To make sure that you're, like, alive.”
“I’m alive.” His voice is almost venomous. “Now go away.”
“I dunno, this could be some kind of elaborate recording.” Peter turns around and leans against the door.
“Is there something wrong with you?”
“How much time do you have?”
He’s met with silence again and Peter sighs.
“I really just want to make sure you’re okay.” He tries again.
“Why do you care?” The voice is closer now, like maybe he’s standing just on the other side of the door. Peter crosses his arm and stares at the wallpaper across from him. He’s never noticed how god awful ugly it is before.
“I know how much it sucks for someone to be there one day and gone the next.” He supplies quietly. He’s not sure why he’s sharing this. Some part of him is hoping Gilderoy didn’t hear. He thinks for a moment that he didn’t because the silence is long.
“If I let you come in and see that I’m alive will you go away and leave me alone?”
“Yep.” Peter pushes himself away from the door and turns back around. He hears the lock click and the door swings open.
He tries really hard not to laugh and how pathetic the other man looks. He’s standing there, hair messy, facial hair grown out and scraggly, bags under his eyes. He’s wrapped in a tattered blanket and wearing, for some reason, only one slipper. Peter takes a moment to compose himself so he doesn't hurt the guy’s feelings before stepping inside.
The apartment is…well, it could be worse, he thinks.
There are clothes scattered about, dishes piled in the sink, and the heater seems to be on full blast despite it currently being the early days of summer.
Gilderoy stands there, watching Peter.
“Alright, you’re alive.” He nods.
“Great. Go away.”
“Hold on,” Peter resists. “Look…” he sighs, and runs his hand through his hair. “I know we…” he sighs again. “I know we don’t get along. I get that. But…obviously you don’t feel well and, just,” he pauses. He’s not even sure where he’s going with this or what he’s trying to offer, if anything at all. “Just. Know that you can come grab me if you need anything. Alright?”
“Great.” Gilderoy repeats. He opens the door. “Go away.”
Peter does as he’s told and walks out the door. It slams behind him.
Three days go by with not even shuffling above him, so Peter reluctantly drags himself back up the stairs. The process repeats, albeit shorter this time. Knocking, being told to fuck off, being annoying enough to finally be let in.
“What?” Gilderoy asks aggressively as he tears the door open.
“Just making sure you’re not dead again.”
The door slams in his face.
Two weeks go by with this new routine. Every other day, Peter will walk up stairs and irritate Gilderoy into opening the door. Gilderoy gets more and more mad every time, but the time between Peter arriving and the door opening gets shorter and shorter. At the two week mark, the door opens before the first knock even lands. Peter, trying not to act surprised, just nods and turns away, starting to head back downstairs.
“Wait,” Gilderoy’s voice shakes a little. Peter turns back around with raised eyebrows. Gilderoy swallows and avoids eye contact before stepping back a little and opening the door wider. Without saying anything, Peter nods and steps inside. Gilderoy closes the door behind him.
The flat is in a much worse state than it was that first day. Peter tries not to let his contempt for that show on his face. Gilderoy moves past him, almost ghost like the way he glides across the floor and over to the couch. Peter follows silently, standing behind the adjacent arm chair as the other man throws himself down onto the cushions dramatically.
They sit in silence for a very long time. Gilderoy just blinks up at the ceiling. Peter waits with his arms crossed.
“I’m lonely.” Gilderoy finally mumbles.
“I can see that.” Peter nods. Tears well in Gilderoy’s eyes.
“I miss them.”
“Understandably.” Peter tries to soften his voice. He’s not sure that he succeeds.
They’re silent again.
“You can go away now.”
Peter nods and turns around. When he gets back down to his own flat, he leans against the door and sighs.
Two days later, Peter is standing at Gilderoy’s door with a very small container of leftover cookies from the bakery.
“What are these?” Gilderoy asks when he answers, peering down at the baked goods.
“Cookies.” Peter answers flatly. “If you want em.”
Gilderoy hesitates.
“Are they low calorie?” Peter can feel his empathy crack a little bit, but apparently that shows as Gilderoy hurriedly takes the container. “I still want them,” he says before shutting the door in Peter’s face.
The very next day, there is, for once, a knock on Peter’s door.
“I thought you might want this back.” Gilderoy holds the container out in front of him. Slowly, Peter takes it from his hands.
“Thanks.”
Gilderoy nods, but doesn’t move.
“They were very good.” He says, avoiding eye contact. Peter repeats his gratitude. Gilderoy shuffles awkwardly. “I can smell when you bake sometimes. It’s…nice.”
“I do it for a living.” Peter supplied, leaning against the door frame. Gilderoy nods. He’s quiet for a moment.
“I…” he starts to say, but then seems to think better of whatever it was. “Alright. Goodbye.” Before Peter can protest, Gilderoy is turning on his heel and making his way upstairs.
Another new routine begins. Once a week, Peter brings Gilderoy something leftover from the bakery, with little to no words exchanged. The next day, the container or plate will be returned with awkward small talk ensuing. By the end of the summer, Marlene finally lets her curiosity get the better of her.
“Who are you taking all these leftovers to?” She pops her head into the office one evening. Peter looks up at her from where he was filling out a deposit slip and frowns.
“Sorry?”
“Every week you take something that didn’t sell back home with you. I know you’re not eating them for yourself cause, like, why would you? So you’re taking them to someone, but who?”
Petter sighs and scratches his head a little.
“Gilderoy.” He supplies quietly.
“The annoying guy upstairs?” She asks, incredulously. Peter nods, and she throws her head back in laughter. She continues to cackle as she steps into the office and closes the door, planting herself in a chair. She’s nearly doubled over at this point, laughing so hard, and Peter can only sit and watch.
“Why is that so funny?” He flicks her knee, and she finally composes herself, a few stray giggles escaping.
“You hate that guy.”
“He was depressed.” Peter shrugs and turns back around to finish filling out the little slip of paper.
“So?”
“So, I dunno, I just…I felt bad, you know?” He finishes up and paper clips it to its corresponding cash before tucking it back into the safe. He turns the chair and fully faces his best friend. “I just…know what it feels like, you know? You came by and checked on me every day when my mum died.”
“You’re my best friend.” She leans forward. “Of course I did.”
“Yeah, well…I don’t think he has friends to do that--not any that I’ve seen anyway. I just thought it might be the right thing to do, you know?”
Marlene smiles at him, watching him for a moment.
“Is that all you’re doing?” She asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean are you just taking him sweets or are you actually checking in?”
“I--” he pauses. “I thought I was checking in.”
“I bet his place is a mess if he’s as depressed as you’re saying.” Peter nods. “Help him clean up a little, then.”
“I’m not sure he’d want me to.”
“Did you want me to help you clean up when you were out of it?”
“Course I did.”
“Did I wait for you to ask me or did I just start cleaning?”
“...you just started cleaning.”
Marlene crosses her arms and nods.
And Peter is nothing if not fast acting. That very night when he gets home from work, he’s upstairs knocking on Gilderoy’s door.
The door is opened and Peter is met with a look of mild confusion.
“It’s only Tuesday.” Gilderoy says.
“Yeah, I’m not here with a brownie this time I’m…here…to…clean?” He realizes as he’s saying it that it sounds odd.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your place is a fucking nightmare.” He says before he can stop himself. Gilderoy immediately starts to huff, but Peter cuts him off. “Come on, mate, look at the fucking state of the place.” He gestures behind Gilderoy to where he can see a small pile of socks accumulating in the living room of all places. Gilderoy turns to look at said pile and then turns back around to Peter, cheeks faintly red. Peter tries to ignore how cute it makes him look.
“I don’t need your help to clean my home, I’m a grown man.”
“Clearly.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Okay.”
After just a beat, Gilderoy steps aside and lets Peter in.
It’s far too much to tackle in just one night, realistically. They go at it for about an hour before Gilderoy is begging Peter for a break. Peter agrees and says he’ll be back in the morning.
First thing he does when he wakes up is head to a shop to buy some extra cleaning supplies. He stops at a coffee shop on the way back and even though he’s not entirely sure what Gilderoy will like, he brings back a plain drip coffee.
“I usually like lattes.” he says once Peter is inside his flat. Peter stares at him. Gilderoy nods, mumbles a very quiet thank you, and they get to work.
It takes them a week to get the flat back to perfect condition. There is a lot of laundry, a lot of dishes, and so. Much. Sweeping. But, they eventually get it done.
When the last bag of garbage finally goes out, they both sink down onto the couch with heavy sighs.
“Fucking finally,” Peter can feel the sweat drenching his shirt. He feels disgusting, but can’t find it in him to care.
“Thank you,” Gilderoy says next to him. Peter looks over and sees the other man staring at him earnestly. “Really, I…I’m not really sure how much longer I would have been able to live like that.”
“Well then don’t let it get that bad again.” Peter looks back at the ceiling. All he wants to do is nap. And Gilderoy’s couch is comfortable. So. So comfortable.
When he wakes up, it’s dark outside. The flat, however, is filled with warm lighting, illuminated by the various lamps adorning the floor and some tables. He sits up, disoriented.
“You’re awake,” Gilderoy says, voice sounding happier than Peter’s heard it in months. He rubs his eyes and looks up to where the other man is standing proudly in the little area between the living room and the kitchen, holding a little plate of pasta. “I made some dinner to say thank you.”
“Oh,” Peter is surprised by the gesture. He stands up and walks over. Gilderou sets the plate down on the counter in front of a stool before gathering his own plate. They sit next to each other and eat quietly. The pasta is alright. A little undercooked. And the sauce is clearly from a jar. But Peter gratefully eats the whole plate and even goes back for seconds. When the meal is over, they both return to the couch, where the silence continues.
“I know I said it earlier, but thank you.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Who did you lose?”
Peter stalls at the question. He looks over, slightly bewildered at how boldly Gilderoy just asked that. But he’s staring right back, seemingly eager to learn something about his downstairs neighbor. It takes a moment of back and forth in his head before Peter finally sighs and relents.
“My mother.”
“Oh,” Gilderoy is unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I thought you--I thought it was gonna be like a---not-- Fuck, I’m--”
“It’s alright,” Peter cuts him off, huffing a little laugh. “It’s fine.”
Gilderoy fidgets on the other side of the couch, clearly made uncomfortable by his own prying question.
“I promise it’s alright.” Peter attempts to reassure him again. Gilderoy nods but he’s still showcasing nervous energy. Peter sighs and looks over at him. “Maybe I should go home for the night.”
“Okay.” Gilderoy bites his lip.
“Alright.”
“Peter?” Gilderoy stops him from standing up. “Will you, um…I mean now that my flat is clean and all of that, there’s…not really a reason for you to keep checking on me or anything which is totally fine but, I mean if you ever, like, feel like--”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Gilderoy.”
The blonde man seems to relax immensely, nodding and finally letting Peter go.
True to his word, Peter returns the next day.
And the next.
He returns every day for a month until, for the final time, they’ve developed a routine.
The visits are really mostly silent at first. Gilderoy makes dinner, they eat, Peter leaves. Then they start talking while they eat. Then they start talking for a while after they eat. By the end of the month, Peter is almost reluctant to leave at the end of the night.
The weekly baked goods persist throughout as well, but now Peter just retrieves the dishes the next day himself. And…okay sometimes he bakes them fresh. His excuse to himself is that he’s testing out recipes. That excuse works for a while.
“What are you typing over there?” Gilderoy asks from the kitchen one night. Peter has gotten into the habit of bringing some of his work with him to do while Gilderoy cooks.
“Recipes.” He answers, not really paying attention.
“Fun,” Gilderoy hums a little bit. “Is that what’s in that book?”
Peter’s eyes snap up to him from where he’s reading a recipe on a page of his mother’s book. He frowns a little.
“Yes.”
Gilderoy feels the tone switch and looks up from the onions he’s in the process of caramelizing. Peter hopes they actually fully cook this time--Gilderoy is awfully impatient when it comes to his cooking.
They stare at each other for a moment and the other man’s eyes flicker between the book and Peter's face.
“Is it something to do with your mum?” His tone is light and cautious. Peter appreciates the effort and, somewhere in his brain, a wall crumbles a little bit.
“It is.” He supplies. “It’s a lot of the recipes we made when I was a kid.”
“Oh,” Gilderoy’s interest seems piqued. He wanders over and stands next to Peter, peering down at the book. “Lovely handwriting.” He comments. Peter watches him.
“Thanks.”
“May I?” He glances up at Peter and their faces are awfully close. He feels the way his breathing picks up, and tries to ignore it. He nods, and Gilderoy very gently picks up the book, taking in the page Peter was working on. “These sound delicious, but I’m not sure how you pronounce this.”
“Ka-wat-ch-kee,” Peter enunciates the name of the cookie at the top of the page. “They’re polish.”
“Fascinating.” He inspects the page further. “Why are you typing it out?”
“My friend Lily suggested it so that the recipes are safely stored in case something happens to the book.” He explains. Gilderoy nods, and turns the page to look at another recipe. “I don’t really like doing it though.”
“How come?” Gilderoy frowns up at him.
“I dunno,” Peter shrugs and looks at the computer screen. “It just feels wrong. It feels…blank.”
“Well, maybe I can help.” Gilderoy sets down the book and turns the laptop screen towards himself.
“How?” Peter scoots a little to see the screen better.
“Well, you’re using a very displeasing font.” He explains, clicking the box that says ‘Arial’ at the top. “And it’s all formatted to the left with nothing else, which leaves this side of the page looking empty.” Gilderoy walks him through every step as he clicks around the screen making change after change. By the time he’s done, the pages holding the recipes feel full and inviting.
“How did you do that?” Peter asks, staring at the screen. Gilderoy shrugs a little.
“I do journalism, but before I got into it I did a lot of graphic design to help me get a place at a magazine I wanted.”
“That’s incredible.” Peter looks over at him. Gilderoy beams, thanking him for the compliment.
After a beat, he asks, “Did you and your mother bake together a lot?”
“It was all we did when I was growing up.”
“I bet that was very fun.”
“It was.”
They’re quiet for a moment.
“What happened?”
Peter stares at the book instead of at Gilderoy.
“She was in a car accident.” He finally answers. Gilderoy doesn’t speak. The smell of the onions is warm and comforting as he pulls the memories forward. “I had just turned eighteen and finished school. I was going to go to a baking school here in London.” He pauses for a moment, trying to figure out what he’s saying. “She worked overnight at a hospital. We had dinner together that night. I went to bed. I woke up at midnight to the sound of the police banging down our door.” He pauses again. “Didn’t feel real for a really long time. Hell some days I’m convinced she’ll wander into the bakery and it’ll be revealed as some elaborate thing. She’ll have a good reason, I tell myself.” He can feel the tears stinging his eyes and he attempts to blink them away. He clenches his jaw a little bit. The feeling of Gilderoy’s hand on his arm is so gentle he almost doesn’t feel it. He looks over and sees bright golden eyes meeting his.
“Go on.”
“I almost stopped baking all together. It reminded me of her too much. If my friend Marlene hadn’t been there to pull me out of it I might have wasted away in that house.”
“That’s why you were so insistent.” Gilderoy mumbles, like he’s just now realizing it. Peter huffs a little and nods. “It’s not nearly the same thing but…that’s how I got bad too.” He admits quietly. His hand trails down Peter’s arm until their fingers meet and he intertwines them. “We did everything together. We ate and cleaned and watched things and we just…our lives were so melded together it felt weird doing anything alone.” He swallows thickly. “It’s…it’s nice to be able to do something with someone else again.”
Peter watches Gilderoy’s face turn red again and something in him clicks.
Gently, he lifts a hand up to Gilderoy’s jaw and lets his thumb trace it softly. Gilderoy stiffens slightly, and raises his eyes to meet Peter’s one more. They stare at each other for a moment, soft puffs of breath shared in the space between them, blinking slowly.
“I’m glad I could help.” Peter says quietly. Gilderoy’s eyes track the movement of Peter’s lips. He swallows thickly.
Without really meaning to, Peter leans forward and the contact between their mouths is gentle. They both move slowly, like they’re scared to spook the other away from whatever this is.
“Oh,” Gilderoy says quietly, only pulling away enough for the contact to just barely be broken.
“Oh good?” Peter mumbles.
“Oh good.” Gilderoy supplies.
The onions, for once, are over cooked by the time they make it back to the kitchen.