The Sweetest Thing, by Corinna (Cake or Death Challenge)

[corinna_5]

Notes: Thanks to liviapenn, gchick, and runpunkrun for  beta-reading, vocabulary lessons, and general enthusiasm. The management takes no responsibility for any hunger pangs caused by reading this story!

Title: The Sweetest Thing
Author: corinna_5
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: Adult
Spoilers: AU. Seriously AU. No spoilers except for ongoing Brooklyn gentrification and at least one New York restaurant menu.
4000 words
Summary: "I am not getting back on train to Chelsea without a brownie."


The Sweetest Thing

“I still can’t believe I’m doing this,” Rodney grumbled as he huffed up the stairs at the Union Street Station. “I have a deadline. I don’t have time for gallivanting all over the city.”

“Ah, come on, Rodney. Discovering new places is part of your job! Have you lost your sense of adventure?” Radek, coming up behind him, gave Rodney a little shove to the small of his back, and Rodney stopped in his tracks to turn and glare back at him.

“Look,” Rodney said, “if you’d said you wanted to explore Fujianese dim sum out in Flushing, or a new Salvadorean place in Sunset Park, or, I don’t know, hell froze over and a good restaurant opened on the Upper West Side, I would be right there with you. In fact,” he continued loftily, “I would actually be there ahead of you, since I am, after all, a far better food critic. Which is why I know that coming all the way out here for some incompetent hack’s patisserie is a total waste of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon.”

By this point Rodney had built up a good head of steam, and it carried him up the rest of the stairs to the bleak corner of Fourth Avenue and Union. There was a tamale place right on the east side of the street: Sietsema had mentioned to him that they had Oaxacan specialties on the weekend.

“Rodney, what happened at Per Se was not his fault,” Radek said mildly. “He was assistant pastry chef. He did not choose the dessert menu.”

“But he did choose the eggs that gave the mayor and half his aides salmonella,” Rodney said. “And don’t tell me he couldn’t have known - a chef needs to know where his ingredients are coming from.”

“You are a hard man,” Radek said, shaking his head.

“Thomas Keller made a mistake hiring him,” Rodney concluded as they crossed the street. “Got distracted by his family history - you know his mother was Alice Waters’s pastry chef in the seventies? Like genetics can help you make a perfect soufflé. Look, these tamales over here are supposed to be amazing, let’s go there.”

Radek protested, but even he knew a good hole-in-the-wall Mexican place when he saw one, so they stopped for tamales and pumpkin-flower tlacoyos and a couple of ice-cold watermelon aguas frescas. The guy working behind the counter didn’t speak much English, but between them, Radek and Rodney had enough restaurant Spanish to quiz him on the tamales, the equipment, and the life history of the chef.

“You’ll write it up for $25 and Under,” Rodney said as they walked out. It wasn’t a question.

“I will write what I wish for my column,” Radek replied. “But I am more likely to be persuaded to return and sample enough dishes for a true review if you come with me to our original destination.”

“Blackmail?” Rodney considered for a moment, looking at his colleague, his wispy brown hair, the determination in his eyes. “You’ve changed, Radek. Gotten harder. It doesn’t suit you.”

Radek said something that was probably obscene in Czech, and headed east towards Flatbush. After a moment’s consideration, Rodney followed suit. After all, in New York, a good tamale needed all the press it could get.

***

For years, even as the neighborhoods around it gentrified past recognition, Fourth Avenue had stayed dirty and industrial, full of warehouses, repair shops, and gas stations. But a recent change in the zoning laws had allowed for new residential construction, and now the yuppies were rushing in. The first handful of restaurants worth noticing had opened the previous year; now there were more, ones that Rodney hadn’t even heard of but which clearly had ambition, with menus posted in the windows that listed the chef’s name at the bottom, and exteriors that spoke of understated chic. Too bad most of them would be mediocre at best. Rodney made a mental note to visit the Chowhound boards to see if any of these new places had distinguished themselves there yet: if a restaurant could survive that viper pit, it was usually worth at least trying an appetizer.

Two blocks after Rodney thought they’d gone far enough already, Radek stopped, looked around, and pointed. There, in the middle of a stretch populated by a laundromat, a nail salon, and a seedy bodega, was a store with a large plate-glass window, a cheerful yellow sign, and a brass doorknob. The sign said “SHEPPARD’S PIE.” On the window, there was a line drawing of a contented-looking sheep munching on a piece of pie and the legend “Just Desserts for Everybody.”

“Oh, God,” said Rodney, “he’s a hippie. Let’s go home.”

Radek frowned, and grabbed Rodney by the placket of his shirt. “I am not getting back on train to Chelsea without a brownie, Rodney.”

“You’re very difficult to work with. Have I mentioned that recently?”

Radek pushed his glasses up his nose and opened the door to the shop.

Inside, it was cool and dark, and it took Rodney a few seconds of blinking before his eyes focused and he could really take the place in. The wall behind the counter was painted a bright sky blue, and the three little tables looked handmade. The pastry counter was long and protected by glass: there were cakes on stands, and rows of cookies and truffles and cupcakes with careful handwritten labels, and a plate of brownies right by the register. Radek’s eyes lit up, and he went to examine the offerings. But Rodney, for only the eighth time in his entire career, was focused on something other than the food.

The guy behind the counter was a little old to be working the cash register, but the funky haircut, the ragged jeans, and the washed-out T-shirt advertising some old Japanese cartoon all marked him as the sort of superannuated hipster that Brooklyn was just crawling with. He hadn’t even looked up from his magazine when Rodney and Radek walked in, like he needed to show them he was above actual customer service. Probably he worked the job to support his band, or his art, or his novel. Normally Rodney wrote guys like that off: they were invariably terrible lays, and worse boyfriends, self-absorbed and always wanting you to come to some hideous avant-garde thing. But this guy was tall and lean, the way Rodney liked, and he was leaning against the back counter with his magazine and one hip jutting out just so, and the line of exposed skin between his shirt and his jeans was making Rodney’s head buzz, so maybe, Rodney thought, he could make an exception, just this once.

“See anything you like,” the guy said, not looking up, “let me know.”

Rodney swallowed hard.

“What do you recommend?” Radek asked. Classic first line, meant to soften them up for the tougher questions about ingredients and sourcing Radek always loved to ask, but this guy just shrugged and kept reading.

”’S all pretty good,” he said.

Rodney looked up and down the display counter. It did all look promising: baked goods usually did. But just choosing a few samples and getting back on the train would mean the guy behind the counter never even had to make eye contact with him, and the idea of that left Rodney with a clenching feeling in his gut. “Baguettes,” he said finally, catching sight of a bouquet of bread loaves at the far end of the counter. “You have baguettes?”

The guy nodded and turned a page.

“I thought this was a patisserie. Pastries, cakes, desserts of all kinds, sure, but what kind of patisserie worth the name sells bread?”

The guy finally looked up. Even with his eyes narrowed into a glare, he was pretty, and it gave Rodney a jolt he could feel to his toes when the glare finally landed on him.

“This is a neighborhood place,” the guy said. “If the neighbors want bread, there’s bread. You missed the croissants, too - those go pretty fast.”

“Oh,” Radek said sadly. “I love croissants.”

“Nobody’s calling this place a patisserie but you, buddy,” the guy continued. “Only thing in the name is pie.” He gestured to the row of pies on the second shelf of the pastry case: pecan, peach, apple, strawberry-rhubarb and one blueberry-lemon, which was half gone and leaking blue onto the pie plate. “Besides which, I always heard that those old-school patisseries used to team up with boulangeries.” His French was pretty good for a slacker. “So they did both too.”

“Not in the same ovens,” Rodney countered. “And not the same chef.”

“You want to inspect the ovens?” the guy asked, deadpan. “See if they’re up to your standards?”

“Yes, please,” Radek said quickly. He shot Rodney a look: settle down! You’re embarrassing us both! But Rodney didn’t really care - if pissing off the hot counter guy was the only way Rodney could get his attention, well, at least Rodney was good at pissing people off. And there was something about the guy that made Rodney think he was enjoying being challenged. He hoped that wasn’t wishful thinking.

“Is the chef back there?” Rodney asked.

The guy shrugged. “Nobody back there right now but some yeast doughs waiting for their executions.” Rodney and Radek gave him matching puzzled stares. “Joke. There was a hard-core vegan in here earlier. I was giving him a hard time about his bread order.”

“Do you get a lot of vegans?” Rodney asked as they followed the guy to the swinging kitchen door at the back. He was almost better looking from behind, Rodney thought, where you could admire the line of his back and the soft slope of his ass, but then he turned, and smiled a little, and Rodney changed his mind.

“Yeah. In this neighborhood? Everything’s veggie - no lard, no nothing - and we’re pretty vegan-friendly. If it’s got a green dot on the label, vegans can eat it.”

Rodney tried not to let the distaste show. He’d been to vegan restaurants, from the downscale dives that smelled of hemp to the upscale raw food meccas, and they’d had one thing in common: they stunk. Dessert was inevitably an over-sweetened dry-as-dust carrot cake, or some awful chocolate thing that claimed it was pudding.

“It’s better than you think,” the guy said.

“It’d have to be,” Rodney replied.

There were three big professional ovens in the kitchen: two sleek newer ones against one wall, and an old battered hulk on the one opposite. “That’s the bread oven,” the guy said pointing to the beater. “Got it from Rosa’s Bakery, down in Sheepshead Bay.”

“Oh my God.” Rosa’s had been the sort of bakery worth any number of long subway trips out to deepest Brooklyn. Rosa herself had been a tiny old Italian woman who still manned the oven herself long after most of her peers had retired, somehow staying strong enough to keep pulling long wooden paddles out of the oven with the best Italian breads Rodney had ever had in the States. Her oafish sons had sold the place for the value of the property two months after she died. “How - how did Sheppard get this?”

The guy shrugged. “When I moved to New York back in ‘95, I went down there and I asked for a job. Didn’t last past six months, but we stayed friendly enough that I got invited to the funeral. Vincenzo and I made the deal there.”

“You.” Rodney’s brain had shut down pretty early in that story. “You’re John Sheppard?”

The guy - Sheppard - nodded. “And you’re Rodney McKay. They had your picture up in the kitchen at Per Se.” He nodded at Radek. “I’ll bet you’re Radek Zelenka. I didn’t know you guys hung out.”

“I try not to let it get around,” Radek said.

“You were wrong last week about Espadrille,” Sheppard said. “They make a great moules frites.”

“Have you had the one at Chez Oskar? Espadrille is nowhere close.”

“Well, you know, Oskar’s a nice guy, but -”

“Hey!” Rodney said. “I seem to be the only one still focused on the important thing here, which is that one of Rosa Berti’s ovens is still making bread in Brooklyn.”

“Don’t get carried away,” said Sheppard. “I mean, it was cheaper than buying new, and lower-impact environmentally. But that bread was all about Rosa, not the oven.”

“That’s one school of thought,” said Rodney. “Let’s go try a baguette.”

***

Years ago, when he was still fairly new to the city, Rodney had co-hosted a Tastes of New York tour with Samantha Carter, the editor of Gourmet. Their last stops had been out in the far reaches of Brooklyn: Totonno’s pizza, Mrs. Stahl’s knishes, and Rosa’s Bakery for bread.

He and Carter had argued most of the way home about what made Rosa’s bread special. For Rodney it was obvious it had to be the ovens. Rosa’s husband, Giacomo, had trained as an engineer back in the old country, and he’d rebuilt the ovens to his wife’s exacting specifications. Carter was less certain. Sure, the tools were important, she said, but most of it was Rosa’s artistry. The care she took with her crescente, the starter she’d been using for decades; the way she kneaded the dough against an old wooden table, the whisper of fine-ground cornmeal she scattered on each loaf as it cooled-these were things no one could build into a machine. The miserable tourists who’d paid 200 bucks each for a food tour mostly sided with Carter, but Rodney knew he was right: baking, when it came down to it, was nothing more than a chemistry experiment you could eat. Now, with the opportunity to prove himself right at last, all Rodney could think about was the way John Sheppard’s jeans slid down his hips as he leaned over to inspect the day’s breads. Focus, Rodney told himself. Focus.

Sheppard pulled a baguette out of the display. He stroked his hand up the side of the loaf, considering and slow. Rodney felt certain he was actually going to explode from lust. Then Sheppard smiled, winked at Rodney, and twisted about a third off the top of the baguette. “Here you go.”

It was a revelation, biting into that baguette, the perfectly crisp crust and the lightness of the bread, and it almost didn’t matter that it meant Carter had been right all along. Rosa Berti’s breads had tasted Italian: Rodney could practically see Lake Como when he devoured one. John’s bread didn’t taste like that, and it wasn’t French either. Chewing his first mouthful, Rodney could taste sunshine, and wheat fields, and an endless open sky. “Oh my God,” he said once he’d swallowed. “You’re a genius.”

Sheppard grinned. “Sure it’s not the oven?”

“Of course it’s the oven too, you couldn’t do this without the right tools, but this…” Rodney raised what was left of the bread at both of them. “This is greatness. You could be a Poilâne, a Silverton, a, a…”

Sheppard shook his head. “I told you, Rodney, it’s a neighborhood place. I don’t want the hassle.” He cocked his head to the side, thinking. “Besides, if I was going to be anyone, I’d be Claudia Fleming. She’s cool.”

Radek sighed. He’d had a crush on Claudia Fleming for years: Danny Meyer had had to talk to him about it after a particularly embarrassing Beard Awards in 2004. “May I try the bread?”

“Sure,” Sheppard said, tearing him off a large handful. “But you know the other stuff’s pretty good too. You want some?”

“Please,” Radek said.

Rodney didn’t think anything could match the bread, but Sheppard gave him the rest of the baguette before going back behind the counter, so he was willing to pretend to be generous. “What do you like?”

“Well, there’s the blueberry-lemon pie.”

Rodney winced. “I’m allergic to citrus.”

“He gets hives all over,” said Radek. “Very unattractive.”

Something flickered in Sheppard’s expression, but it was back to placidly cheerful almost before Rodney had registered the change. “Well,” he said. “How about this?” And he passed a brownie to Radek and a piece of reddish-orange cake to Rodney. “Give it a try.”

Radek’s face lit up as he bit into the brownie. “Is the muscovado brown sugar, yes?” he asked, his mouth still full. “I love that!”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Took a little doing to get it in bulk, but it was worth it.”

“Ohh,” Radek moaned, and took another bite. “So worth it.”

“Radek, you’re embarrassing yourself. And me.” Rodney was still holding onto the baguette, but he took a bite of the cake to humor Sheppard.

It was - well, he wasn’t sure what it was. It was dense and moist and rich, and the flavor was sweet and spicy, notes of ginger and coconut on top of something he couldn’t quite name, and the texture wasn’t a flour cake, it was… “Carrot cake?” Rodney asked, horrified and impressed all in one.

Sheppard smirked and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Like it?”

Rodney took another bite rather than have to actually admit that yes, he did.

“It’s vegan,” said Sheppard. He could barely conceal his glee.

Rodney groaned. “Bastard.”

***

Sheppard’s Pie closed at 7pm, but Sheppard didn’t actually come out and roll down the security grate till 8:45. Rodney’s leg muscles had gotten cramped from sitting on the stoop of one of the dilapidated brownstones across the street, so he was half-limping when he walked up to the door. “Would you be damaging your precious indie hipster anonymity street cred if you tried hiring people to do some of the work around here?”

Sheppard frowned. “I did. Everyone who works Saturday afternoon went to Coachella together. What are you doing here, McKay?”

“I, well, ah…” Things had been going really well, and Rodney would have been happy to spend the rest of the afternoon eating his way through Sheppard’s pastry case and fantasizing about the all the ways he’d like to use his mouth on Sheppard himself. But at some point, somewhere between the bread and the four different kinds of truffles, the mood had changed. Sheppard was friendly and polite and even explained how to make a vegan cupcake that was good for something other than insulation material, but he disconnected: it was like he was back reading that magazine and pretending Rodney wasn’t really there. When an actual customer came in with a passel of hungry children, Sheppard had shut the two of them out completely. Rodney had sulked all the way to his apartment, thought about it, and sulked all the way back to Park Slope. By this point, he was due for frequent flier miles.

“Where’s Radek?”

Rodney frowned. “I don’t know. Astoria.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“No, of course not. It’s Saturday night, he’s probably at the Bohemian Beer Garden with his crazy Czech buddies. Why do you care?”

Sheppard closed the padlock on the gate with a determined-sounding snap. “I don’t sneak around, McKay, and I’m not interested in starting.”

“What? What?” It took a few seconds for Rodney to even figure out what the hell Sheppard was saying. “Wait. Sneak around - you think me and Radek? Me and Radek?”

Sheppard frowned. “You’re gonna try the just-friends line?”

“Just friends?” Rodney said. “Radek is straight. Straighter than straight. I could measure my house with him. He is my oldest friend, and quite possibly the closest thing to a life partner I will ever have at my current rate, but he’s not my boyfriend and he’s never going to be. And if you tell him that you thought we were a couple, he is going to hold that like a cudgel over me the next time I want to take him furniture shopping, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d keep that part of it to yourself. Though,” he added, “I can probably offer you third-party verification of Radek’s heterosexual credentials if you want: his last girlfriend was cool.” Thinking about Elena and how Radek had screwed that up made something else fall into place. “So you were flirting with me! I didn’t imagine that.”

Sheppard looked down and scuffed his feet: Rodney hadn’t known people really did that. “Well. I shouldn’t have been flirting with a food critic anyhow.”

“But, but, no,” Rodney spluttered. The thought of getting so close and not getting to have Sheppard was just intolerable. “You should always flirt with food critics.”

“For the reviews?” Sheppard was smiling now.

“Because we’re sensualists,” Rodney said. “And we know what’s good.”

“Oh,” Sheppard made a show of considering it. “But you only gave Momofuku Ssäm Bar two stars.”

“I had to! The stews are terrible.”

“Rodney. You go there for the stews?” Sheppard turned and started walking up the street. Rodney stood frozen where he was, horrified at the thought that a bad Asian fusion stew was going to cost him his shot, until Sheppard turned and cocked his head at him, inviting him along.

“I - you know Ssäm Bar has an actively vegetarian-hostile menu, right?” Rodney said, slightly breathless, as he caught up. “He adds pork to everything.”

“I know,” Sheppard said, unlocking a door only a little way down the street. “Don’t tell my customers.”

He followed Sheppard up two flights of stairs into a small, nearly-empty apartment. Rodney barely had time to register the tired couch, the flat-screen TV, the well-used kitchen before Sheppard secured the chain lock, and then Rodney had to kiss him. He bit and he licked at Sheppard’s mouth, and when Sheppard grabbed his ass and kissed him back hard, Rodney ground against Sheppard’s leg like some kid in heat.

“Bedroom’s to your left,” Sheppard said, and nipped his ear.

Rodney was a little self-conscious getting undressed in front of a man who clearly got a lot more exercise in his day-to-day life than Rodney or any of his other recent lovers. But Sheppard was looking at him with impatient interest, so he stripped down in a hurry and climbed into bed.

“What do you like?” Rodney asked between kisses, trying not to be greedy.

“God,” Sheppard moaned, “Jesus. I don’t - anything. It’s been a while.”

“Right,” Rodney said. “How about this?” He licked a strip up the center of Sheppard’s stomach. Sheppard made a low, needy sound, and grabbed Rodney’s arms. He tried to pull Rodney up towards him, but Rodney wriggled back. He wrapped a hand around Sheppard’s cock and moved down his body to suck him.

“Jesus, yeah, just like that, fuck,” Sheppard said as Rodney took his cock in his mouth. Rodney put his hands on Sheppard’s hips, holding him down, liking the feeling of Sheppard trembling beneath him. “Oh, oh, yeah, Rodney.” Sheppard got less and less coherent as Rodney sucked him harder, until he came, making meaningless noises, shaking with it.

Rodney laid his head against Sheppard’s thigh, waiting for his breath to even out and Sheppard’s aftershocks to pass. Sheppard pulled him upwards again, and this time he moved with it, letting Sheppard pet his hair and kiss a trail up his jaw line.

“Let me, yeah, let me,” Sheppard breathed, and then his hand was on Rodney’s cock, and God, his hands were so strong, and Rodney was so turned on already he could barely speak.

“John, please,” Rodney said, and then John’s hand was moving, and Rodney’s hips were moving with it. John’s hands were work-roughened, confident, even teasing as he learned what made Rodney shudder. Rodney could feel the orgasm pooling at the base of his spine: he came with a white flash behind his eyes, and collapsed at John’s side, exhaustion already hitting him like a blow.

“God, that was good.” Rodney mouthed the side of John’s neck to underline his point. John’s neck was scratchy with stubble, but he smelled like cinnamon and cloves, and his skin was the sweetest thing Rodney had tasted all day.

***

“Rodney.” Someone was poking him on the shoulder. “Rodney, wake up.”

Rodney opened his eyes. John was leaning over him, sleep-mussed and gorgeous. There was a light on in the main room behind him, but both the bedroom and the street outside were dark. “Time to make the donuts.”

“You make donuts?” Rodney asked muzzily.

John laughed and dropped a kiss on Rodney’s mouth. “Go back to sleep. Door’ll lock behind you when you leave.”

“No, wait.” Rodney grabbed John’s wrist as he started to pull away. “I was going to-” he yawned ”-make you breakfast.”

John’s expression was amused and guarded all at once. “Some other time, maybe.”

Rodney hadn’t let go of his wrist. “When?”

John thought about it for a moment. “Well. I take off Tuesdays.”

“OK.” Monday was a terrible night to eat out, but Brooklyn Fish Camp was open, and walking distance from John’s place. Plus, there was always take-out. “Monday night. It’s a date.”

“Yeah, OK.” John’s smile was slow, and almost shy. “OK. Can I go to work now?”

Rodney let go of John’s arm and slumped back into the pillow. “I’m so glad I’m on the sensible side of this business.”

He woke up the next time with a dry mouth and a full bladder. He stumbled into the bathroom to pee, and then it was only a step over the rim of the tub to take a shower, so he did that too. There was only one towel hanging on the rail: it was still damp. Rodney wrapped it around his hips and stumbled back into the bedroom for his clothes.

When he was dressed, he checked his cellphone - no new voicemail, a text message from his editor - and got ready to head out. Maybe John would have some coffee he could cadge, and if not, he could walk west, towards Atlantic Avenue: there was bound to be a Starbucks by the big subway station.

The kitchen was spotless, and set up for hard work, knives and cups and spices all easy to reach but tucked away in their set places. Except, out on the white counter top, a row of oddities lined up in single file, out of place but together. A glass storage jar full of coffee beans. An electric coffee grinder. A French press, recently cleaned. A toaster. Butter. Jam. And a brown paper bag that, on inspection, turned out to include half a loaf of sourdough bread.

“Help yourself,” said the note. “There’s plenty.”

Rodney put up some coffee, and ate a slice of the bread with butter while he waited for two more to toast. The bread tasted yeasty and complicated, and he couldn’t wait to have more.