Over Pickles and Twix

vi.

"I know that right now with quarantine, and social distancing and everything, it might be harder to get the real fresh stuff," Harry says as he peels ginger with a spoon. "But everyone's buying the shelf-stable stuff and pasta and that kinda thing, there's loads of produce everywhere. So even if you're not able to get the farmers market stuff, don't worry. But try to support your local folks as much as you can, if you're able to. All these corporations, they're gonna be fine, but the small farms, they have it way more difficult."

Harry's distracted by a lot of commotion to his left and suddenly, he has a black and white cat up on the countertop with him, meowing at him. "Oh, hello, you shouldn't be here, buddy. That's not where you belong."

"Sorry about that," Zayn's voice follows the cat shortly. "I was trying to trim his nails because he scratched the fuck out of me earlier today so it was long overdue." He scratches the cat right above its tail and it arches its back. "But he's being a diva as always even though he got the fancy treats." Zayn's attention goes from the cat to Harry's video set-up. "Oh shit, you're still filming. I thought Jeff had a thing and you stopped for a while."

"Yeah no, it was just like, a minute or two," Harry says. He turns to his phone that's one half of his entire filming equipment and smiles. "We kind of live together, ignore this. I promise we're social distancing."

Zayn picks up the cat, offhandedly scratching it under its chin. "I'll leave you to it, babe. Sorry for the disruption."

"You should make something together for the next episode," Jeff's voice comes from the Zoom call. "Gourmet fermented food for the cats."

Harry and Zayn exchange a look. Harry raises an eyebrow. Zayn shrugs.

"I don't know if cats can eat fermented stuff," Harry tells Jeff. "But I'll do a quick search, ask Siri, type it up into Google. We'll see. It's not a bad idea."

Zayn nods. "Yeah, I've seen a recipe for cat biscuits before. It would be worth giving it a try. Spoil those little beasts even more. Okay, I'll let you do your thing now. Bye, Jeff." Before he goes, he gives Harry a quick peck on the lips. Jeff can be a menace but this will certainly be edited out. Or remixed with some knock-off royalty-free version of Careless Whisper behind it and the image flashing with disco colours. It's really either one of those.

Harry smiles to himself, blood rushing to his cheeks. "Okay, so once you've got your ginger nice and ready, you'll move onto cleaning up and smashing your ginger and garlic a little. Hopefully without any more cat disruptions."

The rose ring glimmers on his hand when Harry moves his hand into the sunlight just right. The sight of it still makes Harry's heart flutter sometimes and turn him into a fumbling teenager with a crush. Nevermind English roses or some roses that fall. This is the only rose Harry truly cares about.

--------------------

thank you all so much for reading!! i hope you liked it :) please do leave some feedback, it means a lot to me :) this was a part of an anonymous fic fest so some of you may have seen it on ao3 already but yeah :) i've wanted to write a bon appetit au for MONTHS and i finally got around to it and mayyyyyyybe i'll expand this universe who knows :)