The scent of cooked meat and the greasy scent of fried onions and potatoes wafted around Paul as he made his way into Comic World; the aroma mingled oddly with the scent of paper that always greeted him when entering the store he owned with Flake. The store itself felt cool against his skin, body overheated from the summer sun of outside; a headache tugged at the backs of his eyes from where he'd screwed them up against the brightness. He cursed himself silently and his own inability to remember his sunglasses; whilst his body now remained inured to extremes of heat, his eyes were more sensitive to both sunlight and to darkness since his change.
Paul found himself smiling, as thoughts of Richard wandered warmly through his mind. Since meeting Richard, a lot had happened; Paul had found himself a new lover, a sea of tranquility in the otherwise previously dry desert of his love-life, through quite literally running the other man over, after a particularly ironic and heinously bad blind date. Richard had then moved into Paul's flat, became his life-partner and also, as it turned out, was a dragonshifter who'd chosen Paul for his soul-bonded mate, complete with a synesthesia-based emotional link. That Paul had allowed Richard to bite him, which therefore caused Paul's own transformation into a dragonshifter and even welcomed the change, still came as a source of both surprise and amusement to Paul, yet still he was yet to feel any kind of regret or guilt over his transformation. Secretly, he enjoyed the fact that he was different to everyone else, that he harboured a secret that no one else knew or could even guess at. Not even Flake, co-owner of Comic World and who had, until recently, been Paul's flat-mate, didn't know what Paul, and Richard by proxy, really were. Paul wasn't sure when he'd tell Flake the news, or if he even would; Paul thought that Flake should only know if he needed to know, and he hadn't needed to know yet.
Thoughts of Flake brought his wandering thoughts back to the present again, and Paul hurried his way down to the counter at the back of the store, bag of greasy food still blissfully hot. It was lunchtime, and to make a change from baguettes and soft pretzels, Paul had left the store in order to buy burgers and chips, and paper cups of sweet, syrupy cola. On the way to the burger stand, he'd dropped in on Richard, where he worked at the luthier's a few doors down from the comic store. They'd chatted for a while, and Paul had left only when Till, the owner of the luthiers, had started making warmly joking admonishments about how Paul was in danger of monopolising his staff. Paul had hurried away with many a kiss bestowed upon Richard's smilingly soft mouth, and many more silver-gold dragon kisses, to leave reluctantly and to continue on his way to buy the lunch for himself and for Flake.
"I've bought burgers with all the trimmings, two portions of chips and two large colas," Paul sang out as he slapped the greasy, crinkling paper sack of food down upon the counter in front of Flake.
The other man barely looked up, too busily invested in what looked to be an A4 flyer for a bar or restaurant splayed out in front of him; Paul had missed that flyer with the corner of the greasy sack by millimetres, a fact that Flake soon predictably complained about.
"Don't mess up my poster, Paul," Flake said, as Paul opened the employee's gate to shimmy behind the counter.
"I missed it, didn't I?" Paul huffed good-naturedly at him. "What even is it, anyway? An ad for a restaurant?"
"Yeah, sort of. Gastro-pub, actually," Flake said, with evident interest. "It opened in Charlottenberg a few weeks ago; the assistant manager dropped in and asked if I could display advertising flyers on our notice-board."
He gestured towards the board in question, populated by similar flyers for local businesses, and more than a few out of date posters for old punk concerts that Paul couldn't bring himself to throw out. Once again, he made the promise to himself to frame the posters, and to hang them on the wall properly.
"I said yeah, provisionally, but that I'd have to ask you. You're the big boss man around here," Flake said, eyes rolling in sudden sarcastic disdain behind his glasses. "She even left a stack of menus and business cards behind to hand ou to our customers, just on the off-chance that you actually agreed."
"Oh?" Paul asked, in interest, as he dug a burger out of the sack with one hand and reached for one of the mentioned menus with the other. "Nice, is it?"
"Sounds all right," Flake said, with a shrug. "I suppose. For a place where people gather. You know, socially."
By Flake's seemingly dismissive description, Paul assumed that the place was actually top-class; the less enthusiastic that Flake appeared, the more interested he actually was. He was like a wonky barometer that seemingly only Paul, and Flake's partner Till, could correctly decipher. Paul flicked through the four page menu for himself, impressed by the glossy paper and the professional layout; even the name sounded intriguing - Sanguine. It brought up images of lazy evenings, filled with companionable talk and heady, home-cooked food and dizzying drink, right before the blood-hungry vampires came. Paul huffed at his own blood-related folly, and turned his thoughts again to the menu. Paul thought that it looked as though the place had some decent food, with an equally impressive array of alcohol at affordable prices. That Charlottenberg wasn't too far away from Alexanderplatz wasn't lost on him, and he wondered, silently, whether it would be a good idea to drop in one night, with Richard. Flake, seemingly, had had the same idea.
"You should take that boyfriend of yours in there, Paulchen," he said, with a smile, before he popped a chip into his mouth and chewed slowly. "Have one of these date things everybody's going on about."
"I prefer the term - 'life-partner' - thanks, Flake, and you're talking out of your arse again. You go on dates, don't you? That's what Till's for, isn't it?" Paul asked, with an amused huff from around his burger. "And eat your burger before it gets cold. You know you complain when your food gets greasy and slimy."
"Fuck you," Flake said, after a brief pause spent in digging out the burger in question and another large and greasy handful of chips. "And don't change the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject. We're still talking about food, aren't we?" Paul pointed out, from around a stuffed mouthful of bread and beef.
"Maybe so, but we're not talking about this gastro-pub, are we?" Flake said. "Seriously, take your life-partner with you."
The way that he said the words 'life-partner' indicated that he'd implied quotation marks, complete with waggling fingers, despite the fact that his actual fingers were still wrapped firmly about his burger and chips. Paul smiled, mouth too filled with food to pass comment immediately.
"How is Richard, anyway?" Flake asked, when Paul didn't immediately answer after finally clearing his mouth of food. "Still all right, are you?"
"Of course we are. Never better," Paul replied, in genuine confusion, as he glanced up sharply at Flake. "Why wouldn't we be?"
"No reason," Flake said, with a shrug and smile barely hidden by his burger bun. "Only I haven't heard you talking about him in about an hour, so I thought something had gone wrong."
"Only because I haven't bloody been here, you shit-head," Paul laughed. "And I do not talk about him that much."
"Like hell you don't," Flake grumbled, but by the soft smile he gave Paul, Paul could tell that the other man truly didn't mind, no matter what he said.
That Flake worried, and cared, about him was obvious, and now that Richard had entered Paul's life, Flake worried still more, that they'd break up, that Richard would break Paul's heart, that Richard would die a horrible flame-fuelled death. Paul never understood quite where Flake got such depressive thoughts from, yet he knew the other man well enough by now, to realise that that was just a natural part of his character.
"I will take one of these home, as it happens," Paul finally conceded, from around a mouthful of bread wrapped meat and fried onions, as he tapped one of the menus with an outstretched greasy finger. "I'll bring it up with Reesh tonight when we both get home; I'll see what he says. Might be nice to go on a date in an actual gastro-pub. I've never been to one before. You know, Flake, you should go with Till. We could even go on a double date, one time."
"Yeah," Flake said, noncommittally, although Paul wasn't quite sure what he was actually referring, and agreeing, to.
Flake could be willfully inscrutable at times, and sometimes Paul found it better to leave the other man to his own devices and to reveal things at his own pace. To push him woud only provoke him into sarcastic little paroxysms, and Paul, whilst he thought it funny, often couldn't be bothered with dealing with a catty Flake.
Paul continued eating his chips and his burger in relative peace, chewing slowly at the food; whilst it was greasy and undoubtedly packed full of cholesterol, it still was a good meal, worth the impending heart attack for a bi-monthly treat. Flake seemed to enjoy the meal less, yet Paul couldn't remember Flake actually enjoying a meal, ever. He could count on one hand the amount of times that the other man actually complimented food over the course of any given three years. Still, Paul knew that if he didn't ensure that Flake ate, then the other man probably would forego food entirely, more out of absent-mindedness than through any other reason. Flake seemed to remember to feed his new cat more often than he did himself most days, although Till seemed to be doing quite well in ensuring that Flake at least remembered to eat semi-regularly.
Flake dug around in the paper bag again, fingers grasping and digging out the packages of chips; he huffed when he found the third burger, stashed at the bottom of the bag. Paul had almost forgotten it, distracted by Flake, and his questions about Richard and the menu from Sanguine that he'd been flopping about whilst reading.
"Who's the third burger for, Paul?" Flake asked, in genuine confusion. "Did you forget that there's only two of us, here?"
"That's for me," Paul replied, guiltily, with a hasty smile, but didn't hasten to add why he wanted the second burger.
Since his change into a dragonshifter, he'd been packing away the food like it was going out of fashion, changed metabolism requiring more sustenance in which to survive.
"Jesus, Paulchen; I don't where you put all this crap, honestly. Are you sure you're all right? You're not ill, are you?" Flake asked, and there was genuine concern in his gaze, his expression at that.
"No, I'm not ill," Paul replied, in surprise. "Never been better, actually."
That last was true. Since his transformation, he hadn't suffered anything more horrible than a headache.
"You really have been eating a lot, lately. I thought you had worms, or something," Flake said, partially turning away yet Paul could still see that the other man was worried despite his diffident, almost-joking tone. "Or that you were pregnant. Richard hasn't knocked you up, has he?"
"How the hell can Reesh make me pregnant, Flake?" Paul asked with a sudden laugh. "Last time I looked, I still was a man, you know. And before you ask again, I can assure you that I don't have worms, either. The very thought of it."
Paul didn't want to add that he wasn't sure that dragons even suffered from worms; he still had a lot to learn about his own new and improved anatomy. Flake huffed but he didn't look entirely satisfied with Paul's assurances. He stared at Paul's abdomen as though checking for visible signs of illness or pregnancy still, and he shook his head, when he found that Paul looekd as normal as he ever did.
"I worry, Paul. You've been different since you've been with Richard," Flake finally murmured.
"Different? Different, how?" Paul asked, even as he ripped another huge mouthful from his burger and chewed with continued noisy enjoyment.
"Your eating habits for a start, but I've already just said about that. You seem happier," Flake said, before he checked himself. "Not that that's a problem, in and of itself, mind you. There's just something else that I can't quite put my finger on, though. Like you've changed somehow, but I don't know what it is."
"Like you said yourself, I'm happy. I'm in love, aren't I?" Paul said, with a snort. "You should be over the moon that I've finally settled down. You've moaned at me for long enough about my complete lack of a love life, before Richard came along."
Flake grunted, and looked about to argue further; he then sighed and by the look in his eyes, Paul could tell that he was about to drop the subject. For that he was grateful. Flake was getting too close to the truth about why Paul was possibly different; it didn't seem right to Paul to keep something like his true nature from him for much longer, yet it wasn't the sort of thing one broached over coffee and cake in the afternoon, or in their current case, burgers and chips.
"I am glad you're happy, now," Flake said, conceding to the unspoken fact that he never would put his finger on what was so different about Paul. "Seriously. Richard's good for you."
"Says the guy who thought he was a murderer not so long ago," Paul teased him, gently.
"I was wrong, wasn't I?" Flake said, with a disgusted, sarcastic snort. "It happens. Get over it."
Paul laughed at that, and bit into his burger again; he finished the remainder of his greasy treat in a few seconds and reached for the second one, shoving chips into his mouth with his other hand as he did so. Flake made a disgusted sound and shook his head, before he turned away again; Paul was glad for the fact that he hadn't said anything, even though it wouldn't have been the first time that the other man had complained about his eating habits, or referred to Paul as an animal because of it.
Paul began to eat his second burger, tearing into the meat and bread treat with as much enjoyment and hunger as he had the first one. Flake seemed to be eating as slowly as he ever did, distracted by his own thoughts, that Paul was rarely ever privy to. Paul continued to scrutinise the menu from Sanguine, but otherwise didn't say anything more until their meal was finished, and the rubbish was disposed of in the bin. Flake looked satisfied and happy on a full stomach, and Paul certainly felt better than he had in a while, now that he had a full belly. He didn't think of the gastropub again for the rest of the afternoon, too busy with dealing with customers or ordering stock to think of much else.He also tacked up the poster for Sanguine on the noticeboard and made sure the business cards and menus that Sanguine's assistant manager had left with them were displayed in a prominent place.