Book I: to cross oceans for [BxB] (trans) - completed

Alone - Sean

I'd gotten used to it by now, waking up alone, it was hardly surprising anymore. I barely batted an eye at Danny's absence next to me. If I was lucky - which, as a general rule, I wasn't - he'd stop hiding/stalking me, and would be back soon.

However, the smell of pancakes that reached me before I even had a chance to close my bedroom door, was surprising. I frowned because while the smell of burning breakfast wasn't all that unusual in our house, the mouthwatering and delicious scent of cinnamon pancakes, certainly was.

"Good morning?" I said slowly, leaning against the kitchen island and staring at Matt's back as he stood at the stove, cooking breakfast, apparently.

"'Morning," he said without so much as a glance in my direction.

I frowned at the lack of his term of endearment for me. Matt almost never missed a chance to call me "Brat".

"When did you learn how to cook?" I asked him.

"When one lives by himself, one must learn how to forage," he answered.

I snorted and sat on one of the stools. "Oh, please. You know nothing of foraging. You've been blissfully living without mom's Saturday-Sundaes."

"Don't remind me. Those gelatinous, vanilla-flavored, goos have scarred me enough." He shuddered dramatically and turned toward me, frying pan in hand. "Plate."

Obediently, I handed him my plate and sighed in content at the perfect, golden pancake stack he placed in it. He poured a generous amount of syrup and slid the plate toward me.

I sighed again and stared longingly at the pancakes. It felt almost sinful, cutting into them and forking up a bite with a generous helping of syrup. The cinnamon was so fragrant, I could almost taste it as I opened my mouth and-

Wait. Something wasn't right. Matty was never this nice to me. He never not called me "Brat" or made me perfectly decadent breakfast foods. Not unless he'd done something wrong.

"Okay," I said abruptly, resting the fork back on the plate and pushing it away from me. "What did you break, and how much is it going to cost?"

"What?" He laughed, far too loudly. "Nothing's broken. I don't know what you're talking about. Everything's fine."

He waved his hand dismissively in front of me and laughed again. I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"Out with it Mathew." I tried to flip my hair dramatically like I'd seen the detectives do on that cop show with way too much gratuitous nudity and alligator-related homicides. But my hair ended up getting tangled with my eyelashes, completely ruining the dramatic effect I was going for.

"I swear I don't even know what you're talking about. I didn't do anything, everything is fine. Yeah. Peachy, perfectly fine." He threw a kitchen towel over his shoulder and coughed as a fine cloud of flour surrounded his head.

"Really? Because the last time you made me breakfast, you had performed open heart surgery on Mrs. Flowers and was afraid to tell me," I reminded him.

"Come on, you have got to let that go. I was nine and Mrs. Flowers was a really ugly stuffed bear." He raised one eyebrow at me, mimicking me and crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Take that back!" I demanded, picking up the perfectly golden piece of pancake I'd been about to eat, and throwing it at him.

It landed on his T-shirt with a wet plop and I smiled in triumph. And then remembered just how vindictive Matt could be, especially when it came to food fights. I braced for his attack, taking one of the empty plates on top of the kitchen island and holding it in front of me like a shield.