The Chateau kitchen smells like grease, smoke, and something very, very burnt.

Which, unfortunately, is entirely JJ’s fault.

“You gotta stop lookin’ at me like that,” he says from across the kitchen, pointing a spatula at you while standing in front of the stove like he’s some kind of professional chef instead of a walking OSHA violation. “I know what I’m doing.”

The second he says it, the pan flares up.

You stare at him.

JJ stares at the fire.

Then back at you.

“…okay, in my defense,” he starts immediately, grabbing the nearest towel and aggressively smacking at the flame instead of doing literally anything useful, “that has literally never happened before.”

“You almost burned the kitchen down last week.”

“That was unrelated.”

“It was the toaster.”

“Exactly. Entirely different situation.”

Smoke starts curling toward the ceiling while JJ coughs dramatically, waving the towel around hard enough to almost knock over an open bag of chips. Somehow, in the middle of all of it, he still looks unfairly good sunburnt nose, messy blond hair falling in his face, grin breaking through even while everything around him falls apart.

Typical.

He finally gets the fire under control and turns back toward you looking way too proud of himself for someone who almost died making grilled cheese. “See?” he says, dropping the spatula onto the counter. “Handled it.”

*The spatula immediately slides off the edge and smacks directly into his bare foot.

JJ yelps so loud it startles both of you.

For a solid two seconds he just hops around the kitchen holding his foot while trying not to fall over, which only makes it worse because he clips his shoulder into the fridge on the way down and nearly takes himself out entirely.

You burst out laughing.

And honestly?

That seems to matter more to him than the pain.

“There it is,” he says, pointing at you dramatically from the floor where he’s now half sprawled against the cabinet laughing too. “That’s the reaction I was going for the whole time, actually.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, but I’m your idiot.”

The words come out so naturally he probably doesn’t even realize how honest they are.

For a second the room goes quieter around the edges, the kind of quiet that sneaks up on JJ sometimes when he lets himself stop joking for too long. His grin softens just slightly as he looks at you from the kitchen floor, messy and bruised and ridiculous.

Then he snorts and ruins the moment immediately.

“Also, before you ask,” he says, struggling back to his feet while limping dramatically, “the grilled cheese is definitely still edible if you scrape the black parts off.”