Gideon
He begins kneading with a rhythmic push and pull that never fails to soothe him.
Some quiet old-time jazzy Christmas instrumentals are playing in the background, and every so often, he’ll break into song.
It doesn’t take long before the dough is perfect.
He’ll let it rise again for a few hours before rolling it out, adding the cinnamon filling, and letting it rise again.
The pack will enjoy them with coffee and hot chocolate tomorrow morning before they open their gifts.
Tsuki arrives in the kitchen just as he’s putting the rolls to rest, sitting so prettily that he’s inspired to give her a treat, which no doubt had been her nefarious plan. “I’m a victim of your wiles, you,” he murmurs as he gives her another.
When there are no more forthcoming, she stands on her back legs to nose at the counter, where she noses at his old recipe book. Not that he’d needed it for the buns; those he knew by heart. But some of the older recipes, the ones for the side dishes, he’d wanted to look those up.
He liked to look them up.
Mostly because they were written in his mother’s tiny scratch.
When he’d pulled it down from its spot in his room last week, he’d gotten a whiff of her sweet, buttery scent infused into the pages, even after all this time.
He’d been stuck in a loop of memories in his room, finally coming back to himself when he’d heard Finn in the hallway asking whether he needed help with dinner.
He’d been frozen there for two hours, bruised at the thought of her.
A torrent of feeling—for the past and about his first Secret Santa Gift.
Both meant he was spending a lot of time reminiscing, and not all of it was good.
He’d made a point of unearthing his gift from the closet and placing the large box under the tree before following Finn into the kitchen to make dinner, tucking the recipe book into his bag.
Now, he pulls the book down, settling beside Tsuki on the floor, opening it to the very beginning.
She noses under the fridge and pulls something tiny out.
He watches her drop it into Luca’s rubber boot by the front door before returning to lie down beside him, with her chin on his thigh.
She makes no explanation about it, and he has to ask himself why he’d been waiting for one.
The fragile book contains the simplest recipes. Things like a reminder to stir the grits so they don’t get lumpy, or how to boil a perfect egg. Thinking back on it, his mother had most assuredly known she was dying and had wanted to be sure he would know how to care for himself.
It hurts to think of her doing that, so he rubs Tsuki’s ears, paging forward to where the Christmas sweets are written, and then on to the last entries she had made, where Gideon had added his own notations.
Seeing their writing together in the margins makes him happier, even though he doesn’t miss her any less.
The sense memory of ginger and molasses, of brown sugar and almonds, still hangs in the air, warm and soft, grounding him just as the floor creaks behind him.
Tsuki hears him first, wagging her tail and sitting pretty, just in case this person could be convinced she hasn’t already had two (six) treats.
After all, Gideon will hardly admit to having caved.
He’s on his feet, surreptitiously wiping his cheeks with the hem of his apron just as Leo comes around the corner.
He arrives humming a beat under his breath. LRH has been in their home studio, nailing down the tracklist for their first album at Phoenix Records. No doubt his mate is hungry, given he’d already worked out, and breakfast was some time ago.
He raises his nose slightly, either to check what Gideon’s cooking or to gauge his mood.
“Hey, Gideon. You okay?” he asks, before sliding onto the stool on the other side of the island.
He’s smart enough to stay out of Gideon’s way when he’s cooking, and it’s also the perfect place to make his pouty I’m wasting away face.
Is he okay? Probably not.
“You’ll eat the leftovers from last night.” Gideon grabs the takeout from the fridge.
His mates had ordered because Gideon hadn’t been home to cook. Again. He’d been hiding at Quest under the guise of the holiday rush, when it had been more about how the holiday still makes him miss his mother.
“Yeah, okay. I’m starving. But…hey, what’s that?” Leo asks, looking at the recipe book.
Gideon sticks the covered plate into the microwave and presses the buttons. “My recipe book,” he says, hiding that the book is the last thing he has of his mother’s beneath his fussing with a placemat and searching for Leo’s preferred chopsticks.
He slides the book over. Leo can appreciate nice things, and this is Gideon’s nicest thing.
“Shit, this is like your stuff, yeah? I recognize this one and oh…can you make this one again?” He wipes drool from the corner of his mouth, eagerly accepting the warmed leftovers.
He puts a bite in his mouth and grimaces.
The microwaved Thai wouldn’t hold a candle to the memory of Gideon’s cooking.
“Is this your mom’s writing?” Leo points his chopsticks at a recipe for sugar cookies he used to make with her when he was really young.
It’s a good memory of his mom. She’d be in the Cook’s kitchen, wearing her expensive dresses, wrapped in a red apron with flour on her cheek.
She would let him stand on a kitchen chair so he could help her mix the flour, cream of tartar, sugar, and butter by hand, before they’d roll them out in shapes like stars, and hearts, and pine trees.
“Yes, most of those recipes are hers.”
Leo puts his chopsticks down so he can give Gideon his undivided attention, like he always does. It’s part of what Gideon loves about him the most. They are Leo’s number one focus, always.
“They look hard to make, but I bet they were delicious.”
Gideon swallows against the lump in his throat, focusing instead on the way Leo’s eyes linger on the faded ink until he feels his eyes prick again with tears he won’t shed.
Instead, he wipes the counter and starts the water to wash the mixing bowls.
“They weren’t hard to make, except for maybe the decorating. I liked the hearts best.”
I like your heart, Gideon wants to say, but he just throws a dish towel at his mate’s head instead of the heartfelt confession. “Come dry these.”
“Oh, come on…” Leo complains, bumping Gideon’s shoulder as he begins drying the bowl regardless. After a beat, and oh-so-casually, Leo asks, “Hey, did you get your Secret Santa gift done?”
Gideon stiffens, because yes, it’s done. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Sighing, he turns his head back to where there are only five gifts under the tree. He wonders whose is missing. None had name tags (he’d looked earlier), but none had smelled like they might explode or go bad.
Jay had asked him to double-check, though Rowan had been offended by the suspicion. Most of them had just smelled like a craft store. Gideon would know, and no, he doesn’t want to talk about that either.
“None of your business, nosy-britches.” He flicks some soapy bubbles at Leo’s face. The beta had been lost in thought and hadn’t seen it coming. A blob falls from his nose onto his T-shirt before he looks incredulously at Gideon.
Gideon has three seconds to turn and run before Leo snaps his ass with his damp tea towel, chasing him down the hall toward the studio. Gideon cackles, thinking it’s no coincidence that Leo chases his melancholy away, too.