Hemlock Grove Pandora's Take Out Container

**Notes: **So I got a prompt for a Romancek first kiss, I'm not sure how this turned out, but I hope people enjoy it. Also because I needed to write Peter and Roman engaging in Vampire Mythbusters type activities.

_**Pandora's Take-Out Container**_

Peter Rumancek was beginning to wonder if he'd made some sort of secret death wish. One so important and so special even he didn't know what it was because he kept winding up in situations in which his life hung in the balance due to poor life choices. As he stared at the tin foil, briefly glanced up at the Upir across the kitchen island, and looked back at the foil, he hoped he at least had the sense to wish for a motorcycle and that who or whatever was in charge death wishes actually granted them.

He knew practically nothing about Upir outside of scary stories his mom and grandpa told and he suspected Mamma Godfrey had shitty reviews on Rate My Professor for her course in Upir 101. If they were going to get Nadia back, they would need to know exactly what their limitations were. This wasn't the first time he'd wondered if any of those vampire movie clichés were true, but it was the first time he wondered about it and was able to test it before the stupid idea went rotten.

He'd picked up some sort of cheap Italian at some place off the road just inside the Pennsylvania border. There were days when he couldn't wait for Templar to fire him and send him the severance check, but days like today, driving helped with the worrying. Not as much as running, but a human body could only go so far and so fast. The Italian was a poor life choice to begin with, but the thoughts running through his head as he stared at leftover garlic bread were poor life choices to make being friends with an Upir look like the smartest thing since venison sausages.

Roman didn't look up from the newspaper as Peter began to unwrap the tin foil, too engrossed in searching for any hint of Doctor Manta Ray to notice. He pulled a bit of bread off the end of the roll, grease and bits of garlic clinging to his fingers. He looked back up at Roman, made sure he was well and truly paying no attention to anything he was doing. He waited a moment, reevaluated his super-secret death wish for a Harley, revised his super-secret death wish to include a long backpacking trip around Europe, then flicked the piece of garlic bread at an Upir with questionable self-control on a good day.

Peter always did make the best life choices.

As the bread flew through the air, the air in the kitchen was charged like the hours just before a full moon. The Wolf told him to bolt. Now. Don't hang around when things start to get dangerous. But the Human wanted to know what would happen. Fucking humans and their fucking compulsion to open Pandora's Take-Out Container.

The growing storm dissipated like mist in the noonday sun as the bread landed in the crook of Roman's elbow, eliciting little more than a dirty look before shaking the offending leftovers off onto the table. The severely annoyed arch of his eyebrow and flash of teeth as he said, "What the hell?" told Peter that he was no alternate universe in which he was cleaning this up himself.

"Stuck on the tinfoil," he said by way of explanation as he picked the bread off the island and popped it in his mouth. Roman rolled his eyes as he turned back to the police blotter. It was less than five-star cuisine when it was fresh, but now he knew he would be better off raiding Roman's refrigerator for anything that didn't look like people.

His calves coiled in preparation to hop down from a barstool meant for somebody a good half foot taller than he was and his stomach told him to get edible food, but he kept thinking about the goddamn garlic bread. It hadn't actually touched Roman, just stained the Armani. The wolf pawed at him, growled at him to leave well enough alone. This was probably a waste of time and would accomplish little more than pissing off an already edgy Upir. The human disagreed.

The human had spent too much time with his step-cousin Constantin and as such, picked up on the phrase so often muttered before the loss of eyebrows or a finger, "What's the worst that could happen?" And so, hoping that humanity's strange predisposition towards doing things for the sake of doing them ended better for him than his step-cousin's adventures with bottle rockets, he remained on the barstool, picking at pasta.

He waited until Roman was again engrossed in the paper. Then he covered the bread with one hand while discretely pulling off another delicious garlic based missile. He took more care to aim this time, this would likely be his only shot. He was probably going to have to run like he'd never run before after the fact, but he told himself that this was for science. The look on Roman's face when he got hit with garlic bread had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Peter looked back up at Roman, saw that the other man was paying him no attention, moved the bit of bread a little to the right, then took his shot. It made a beautiful arc across the island, streaking through the air like a comet made of greasy bread and bad ideas. He couldn't help but do a little mental victory dance when it made contact. To add to his success, it stuck.

Roman's grip on the newspaper slacked slightly as the garlic bread slid slowly down his cheek. Still looking intently at the paper, but not focusing on it, as though he couldn't believe what just happened, he reached up and removed the offending object. He stared at in bewilderment it for what was probably a fraction of a second, but felt like years of deliberate inquiry.

Then, so quickly that if Peter were human, he wouldn't have seen it, Roman dropped the garlic bread and rolled up the paper in his fist. Roman swung the makeshift battle ax at Peter and shouted, "If you ever do that again…" He paused to think of appropriate threat.

Peter on the other hand was immobilized by man and wolf still not seeing eye to eye on what to do next. The wolf told him to stop antagonizing the Upir. The human couldn't help but notice how ridiculous this situation was and had a stupid need to poke things that should not be poked with sticks with sticks.

Silence and stillness hung in the air while the wolf and the human fought, Roman still trying to come up with a suitable way to phrase making the very short remainder of Peter's life as miserable as possible. Unfortunately for Peter, that was all the time it took for the human to win out.

"Are you threatening me with a rolled up newspaper? Because that's werewolf racist," he said. Silence hung in the air for another moment, then the unexpected happened.

Roman's expression softened and his grip on the newspaper relaxed. Then as he realized he was a vampire threatening a werewolf with a rolled up newspaper after getting hit in the face with garlic bread. And he started to laugh.

Out of all the things that happened in the last ten minutes, that made Peter want to bolt out the door and not stop running until his legs finally gave out the most. He had not seen Roman Fucking Godfrey laugh like that ever. Not a self-satisfied or derogatory laugh, like a real, "oh wow that was funny," sort of laugh. He hadn't seen Roman laugh since coming back to Hemlock Grove period. This was a year and a half of suppressed emotions coming to a head via Vampire Mythbusters. If he didn't sound abso-fucking-lutely crazy, Peter would be relieved.

He'd been so hard on himself after losing Nadia, denying any sort of happiness, that this was weird. This was really weird. Even by their standards of weird. After a minute or so of Roman laughing like a maniac in an otherwise quiet room, Peter couldn't help but laugh along with him because god, he'd been throwing garlic bread at an Upir. Of course, because barstools were not the best place to have a laughter fit, within a few moments, Roman fell of the stool.

"You okay?" Peter said, leaning over the island to see his friend still laughing on the floor.

"Help me up you jackass," he said, holding his hand out.

"Stop sounding like you've lost it and I'll consider," he said.

"Help me up or I'll make your pelt into a rug." And there was the Roman he knew and loved.

"Love to see you try," he said, hopping down from the stool and walking around the island.

He took Roman's hand and started to help him up. While Roman claimed supernatural coordination from being an Upir, he still had a million miles of arms and legs. Sometimes, signals got delayed. Like now. Rather than getting up, he sort of lurched to his feet like a baby deer and crashed into Peter, knocking him over. The next thing he knew, they were both on the ground and Roman's lips crashed into Peter's.

They kissed at Miranda's request when they had their threeway, but he didn't think that that would really qualify as a kiss. Until Roman made no move to get off of him and actually settled against Peter's body, he had no intention of qualifying this as a kiss either. Then he felt Roman's lips curling into a genuine smile. Not a smirk or a sneer, a real smile.

For a moment, he didn't think of how a Upir was laying on top of him, just Roman's soft, full lips on his. Without realizing what he was doing, he took one of his hands off of the tile floor and let his fingers tangle with Roman's hair. Roman's lips pressed against his, wanting and for once, asking and Peter couldn't think of anything to say but yes. So his lips moved with Roman's, feeling something akin to a static shock everywhere they touched.

Lying on the kitchen floor with Roman, he felt content in a way he hadn't in a very long time. Peter's tongue ran along Roman's lower lip, then Roman pulled back, a look of intense guilt spreading across his face. Peter didn't need to ask what was wrong. It was the same thing it had been for over a week. Roman couldn't let himself be happy while Nadia was in danger.

"Don't worry, we're going to find her," he said, putting a hand on his cheek. Roman slowly got off of Peter and lay on the floor beside him, any trace of the earlier fit of exuberance gone. For a long time, they lay in uncomfortable silence. Then, to break the awkwardness and because he just had to know, he asked, "When the garlic bread hit you, you didn't feel any sort of tingling, burning, "oh god get it off me," sort of thing did you?"


End file.

Hemlock Grove, Humor, Romance