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jcmorrigan · 4 years

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Epithet Half-Baked!

I saw through @selfshipimagines that @nougatships is having a Yuletide F/O event...and I know I’m kind of a flighty, shadowy entity in this community, but I do like to write, and thought, what the hey, this’ll be fun. So here I come out of nowhere to contribute a thing.

The F/O? Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased. The S/I? Rachel Scribere - mundie, writer of much fanfiction, independent contractor supervillainous minion who has also given up on adulting. (Most of those things apply to me IRL!) I decided to go with something a little on-the-nose for the “catering” theme and write about the two of us trying to arrange party food - expect much food talk and many headcanons (e.g. I see Gio as ace, even though that may not end up being Word of God). For optimal results, please listen to the Mariah Carey/MCR mashup “Welcome to the Christmas Parade” while reading this. Not to mention that song will change your life anyway. (Freeman DNI unless you’re going to get the name of the band CORRECT)

***

I wouldn’t say Christmas was my favorite holiday, because it really wasn’t. Nor would Giovanni ever say Christmas was his favorite holiday, because he wanted to look like a cool guy who didn’t care about Christmas. That said, when our invitation arrived in the mail, neither of us needed to do much cajoling to get the other to agree to attend as a plus-one. Almost immediately, we’d begun work on what we were going to wear to the occasion.

Well, to be fair, Giovanni was doing most of the work in that department. I’m still trying to figure out how a needle and thread even works for something besides a dangerous impromptu sushi fork. I did play a role in the design of my formal wear, however – a full-skirted red-and-green gown that served the purpose of making me look like the princess of Christmas and thereby able to pass laws banning the repeated playing of “Jingle Bell Rock” more than three times per night. As for Giovanni, he was dead set on creating the World’s Ugliest Christmas Sweater, and boy, did it ever deserve that capitalization. I don’t have the words to you to describe properly the conglomeration of non-coordinating colors and mismatched winter-holiday symbolism that went into that monstrosity. Which basically meant we were going to be the two best-dressed people in attendance.

However, that still left the important factor: the catering aspect. This was essentially a potluck, and as much as we would have loved to skim off everyone else’s hors d’ouevres and pretend we “dropped” ours on the way there, eventually, our need to show off our cooking skills combined with my compulsion to contribute to community activities won out over the dark side of our consciences.

My first mistake was going into that kitchen with no idea what Giovanni was planning on making. Me? I was set on a hot-chocolate-and-marshmallow cake. Festive and full of my two favorite flavors! Not to mention I’d baked in the past as a hobby, though it had, admittedly, been a while. I was actually rather looking forward to this.

“So, Composer,” Giovanni asked as I set up my laptop, “can we expect any musical entertainment?”

“Damn right,” I said as I clicked through playlists.

“Just please tell me you’re not gonna stick us with three hours of Christmas music bullshit.”

“Oh, trust me. We are going to get enough of that at this party.” I set off a rather jaunty emo-pop number with guitars that were just obnoxious enough.

“Oh, yeah,” Giovanni cried, “this is PERFECT! Totally captures our debonair yet badass essence. THIS is why I let you pick the car music.”

I gave him a playful bow. “Okay. Let’s do this thing.”

I began rounding up my ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, et cetera, et cetera…

“Done.”

Wait…”What?”

I had only just gotten my ingredients lined up on the counter, yet Giovanni was leaning over the other edge of the island, elbows on the countertop and head in his hands to give me a playfully innocent look, as an enormous pot of something steaming, golden, and tantalizingly scented sat before him.

I peered into the vessel, making note of the contents. “Is this…butternut squash soup?”

“You know it.”

“…You made soup.”

“Is there a…problem with that?”

“Your Epithet is literally soup.”

“Aaaaaand…?”

I marched around to shake my index finger at him on every word: “You. Fucking. CHEATED.”

He rose, pointing right back at me: “I’m. The. BAD GUY. So I don’t care!”

I gave my eyes a sufficiently dramatic roll. “You realize this is gonna take me like two hours.”

“I’ll watch.”

“You could at least help. You’re good with this stuff, you know.”

“Hmm…” Giovanni pretended to think it over. “No, don’t think I will.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s too bad, because I love you a lot, Composer.”

I blushed, then muttering “IloveyoutooandIdon’thateyouandIwasjustkidding.” Quickly followed up with “Okay, I’m gonna start doing this shit BY MYSELF, then.”

Baking an entire cake with your boyfriend just smugly staring at you is…an experience. Not a bad experience. But an experience. Still, I thought I was on a good track so far. Until it came to the electric mixer.

As a disclaimer, I stated, “It’s been a while. I’m a little rusty.”

“It’s just an electric mixer.” He shrugged. “Even I couldn’t screw up – I mean even SOME LOSER LIKE SYLVIE couldn’t screw up using it.”

Well, now the pressure was on. I flicked the appliance to life, dipping it into a pool of eggs suspended in buttermilk, and immediately plunged into chaos. The thing about electric mixers is that they are an extreme balancing act. Too far down into the bowl, and the blades will make a horrible grinding noise against the bowl bottom, making a catastrophizer like me worry about glass shards ending up baked into the dough. However, it is very important that if this happens to you, you do not do what I did and overcompensate by yanking the still-spinning blades out of the bowl, thereby splattering eggs and buttermilk all over yourself.

As I was attempting to figure out damage control, I became acutely aware of Giovanni trying to hide an absolute fit of giggles. “You know,” I growled, “this wouldn’t HAPPEN if you would HELP me.”

I absolutely did not want him to help me. See, I have an inferiority complex the size of the sun, and even that feels weird to say, since it’s admitting I actually possess a large quantity of anything. I wanted to make this monster cake my goddamn self, and I wanted him to be fucking impressed. Still, I was pretty sure if I didn’t ask for his help, I would just end up with some kind of inedible toxic waste.

I wasn’t sure if he was just playing coy or if he knew me all too well when he said “No. Don’t feel like it.”

“Come on!”

“Composer, this is YOUR time to shine! I’m not getting in the way of YOUR masterpiece blowing away the competition?”

“…Gio, it’s not a com – “

“OF COURSE IT’S A COMPETITION! EVERY POTLUCK IS A COMPETITION! WHY ELSE HAVE EVERYONE BRING DISHES OF VARYING QUALITY IF NOT TO DETERMINE THE SUPREME CHEF AT THE PARTY?”

Well, if it meant somebody might think of me as supreme chef, I sure wasn’t going to argue. Unhealthy as that might be for my ego.

So I let Giovanni actively not help me. Even when I tried to crack another egg and it rather exploded from my overuse of momentum. But thankfully, the rest of it seemed to be coming together well. As it baked, I decided to use that time to put together the icing. The recipe, of course, called for cream cheese icing, but that is not real icing (don’t @ me) and I absolutely refuse to sully any of my confections with it, ever. I was making the real stuff – just butter, chocolate, milk, and way too much sugar.

However, that meant a rematch with my archnemesis: the electric mixer. I gave it a very sour glare as I picked it up again.

“Ooh, someone’s mad,” Giovanni teased.

“Damn right I’m mad,” I told him. “This thing fucking hates me.”

“No…I think you’re just bad with it.”

“WHAT THE – “

He was at my side then, using one hand to guide my face upward to meet his gaze: “Because no one and nothing could ever hate you, my beautiful, beautiful Composer. And anyone who does can EAT SOUL-SLUGGER DOOM-BAT.”

Well. Now I was a flustered mess. I gently leaned forward to rest my forehead temporarily on his collarbone. “No, you,” I teased. “I mean it. People who hate you don’t have souls. End of discourse.”

“And this is why we GO TOGETHER!”

“Damn straight.”

It would have been a beautiful moment if I hadn’t been thwarted, yet again, by the mixer. The grinding of the glass, the startled removal of the blades, a chocolate splatter –

Except this time, it missed me. No, the stuff made a direct hit on the tall, pink-haired, and handsome card-carrying villain standing next to me.

I gaped at him momentarily, unsure what to say. Then it all came rushing out: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – “

“Sorry?” he repeated, and at first, I thought he actually was angry. “You’re SORRY? Oh, it’s too late to be sorry, Composer.”

When he picked up the quarter-full bottle of vanilla extract from the counter beside us, I realized his game. “This means war,” he growled in a not-very-growly-at-all way.

Our eyes locked. His way of asking permission. I gave the slightest of nods; “I guess I deserve it. But you know I’m not going down without a fight.”

The vanilla sloshed onto me. I smashed an egg onto his shirt. He dumped about a half-gallon of soup down the back of mine.

Now, what you must understand about a food fight that takes place in the Potage-Scribere kitchen is that anything, and I mean absolutely anything, becomes a weapon. Even things that weren’t part of the dishes we were cooking. The refrigerator was raided, the cupboards stripped bare for the ensuing battle. Whatever we could hit each other with, we did. Smashing tomatoes against each other. Sneaking ice cubes into each other’s clothes to try and get a shriek. Several different flavors of soup flying through the air, of course. Retaliation in the form of grabbing the sprayer from the sink and brandishing it like a Banzai Blaster standard-issue pea-shooter.

Then my timer let out a “ding” to inform me that the cake was done baking. Giovanni froze, standing perfectly still as I transferred the cake to the fridge to let it cool down.

Then we picked up right where we left off.

It came to a head when Giovanni had ended up with two cans of aerosol whipped cream, dual-wielding them at me. I had an ice cream scoop in a tub of whipped cream, ready to lob it like a snowball.

Wait - “Gio, why do we have three things of whipped cream?”

“Well, I picked these up when you texted me our respective assignments for grocery day last weekend.”

“I told you to get toilet paper. I was gonna get the whipped cream.”

“No, you said YOU were getting the toilet paper, and I should pick up whipped cream.”

“DID EITHER OF US GET TOILET PAPER?”

“…I’m thinking no,” Giovanni mused.

“Okay, emergency store run after this for toilet paper,” I declared. “Resume.”

Instead of turning the cans on me, Giovanni spun to kick an apple off the counter so that it would hit me in the sternum. I recoiled, but only slightly. “The fuck was that?”

“That? Oh, THAT was…well, Composer, have you been keeping track of how many hits I’ve landed on you?”

My eyes widened. “SON OF A BITCH.”

“THAT’S RIGHT!” Giovanni crowed. “TWELVE! WHICH MEANS WHEN I LET THESE CANS LOOSE ON YOU, IT’S GONNA BE CRITICAL!”

I let go of the ice cream scoop; it clanged to the floor. “Okay, okay!” I put up that hand in a gesture of surrender. “I give!”

“…Seriously? But it’s no fun if you – “

“I am NOT in the mood to get blasted by critical whipped cream, Gio.”

Giovanni shrugged, not letting go of either can. “All right. Then it stops here.”

I pouted. “I really am sorry I started it. Can we just…you know…kiss and make up?”

“Absolutely.”

I had counted on this. I let him shut his eyes, pucker his lips slightly, lean forward. I advanced.

And then, screaming “WORTH IT!”, smashed the tub of whipped cream directly at his face.

The resulting blast of the aerosol whip was like getting hit with the blast of twenty-six cans of aerosol whip – which, really, isn’t that harmful at all. Just a lot messier and with some added momentum; I ended up skidding across the kitchen floor. “Okay!” I laughed. “I really do give in now! I promise!”

Giovanni was already scooping the cream off his face and shoveling it into his mouth (and this is the part where I want to remind you that as ripe of a picking as this seems for innuendo, neither of our sex-repulsed minds would have it). He then slumped down onto the tile next to me, leaning onto me.

“Well played, minion,” he said with a grin. “We’ll make a bona fide villain out of you yet.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m not already there.”

We actually did kiss then, tasting all the sweeter for being covered in sugar.

#yuletide f/o event #selfship #hoooo boy putting myself out here like this #kinda wanna write more of these?#they'd be tumblr-exclusive though #not for my ao3

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