Chapter Text
They boys were in fact so distracted in each other they didn't hear the sound of the door open as a tired and weary Brian showed up, trudging his over weekend baggage. Brian noticed right away when he entered the smell. It smelled like something burning! He dropped his bag to the floor and bolted to the kitchen. Dark smoke was pouring from the oven and the whole place reeked unbearably. "What the fucking hell!" He pressed a teaclothe to his mouth and nose as he opened the window wide open. He turned the oven off.
He didn't even know if they were home. They could have left this in the oven carelessly as they headed out but still he called out, "Is anyone home!?"
He cracked the oven door open, carefully standing back as blacked smoke poured out. The fire alarm sounded over Freddie distant excited shout of, "Oh! You're home!"
Brian looked into the oven -his oven! as he was the only one to cook with good reason- and saw... Such horrors. This was going to be terrible to clean. Batter had spilled from the mold and had splattered down onto the tray below before spilling over the sides and splatter all along the bottom of the oven and onto the bake element (heating rod) itself. Where it had clearly burned, possible caught on fire and now was completely blackened and affixed to the surfaces.
Brian pushed out a chair and easily with his height removed the fire alarm's battery after so much practice, when his three boyfriends piled into the kitchen. They look around with horrified faces and Freddie's face completely falls.
"We forgot a timer," Roger bemoans.
Deaky shot the clock on the wall a look. "It wasn't- It hasn't been that long though."
Brian stood back from the mess, letting oven cool and the smoke escape out the window. He placed his hands on his hips, so exasperated with the boys after his long tiring weekend and yet... And yet he couldn't pretend he didn't have a good guess as to what happened.
With his stern posture he corralled the boys into their living room and onto the couch. "We are so sorry," Roger said genuinely and he can see the expressions of sadness in their faces. "We were just-"
"We knew you were upset and you've been working so hard, we just wanted to make you feel better," Freddie jumped on Roger's hesitation. Brian has never felt more like the eldest than that this moment. John is sitting on his hands and refusing to meet Brian's eyes, staring holes into the carpet.
He sighed deeply. "I suppose I am reassured that you had the best of intentions and didn't intentionally make a mess that I have to clean up but I would like to know what happened."
They try to tell him all of it. Roger bemoaned that fact that cookbooks are reference books that cannot be checked out. Freddie showed him the sad recipes with their ran ink and John carefully hints at how it ruined Freddie jacket, although Freddie is good enough to know not to mention it. Roger in his turn carefully pointed at Freddie noticing the fahrenheit to celsius discrepancy. Something that actually surprised and impressed Brian as he had messed up the first time had used this oven. Freddie in turn flattered Roger over his sharp maths skills.
They emphasis to explain that they don't know what happened after as while they forgot a timer the cake had only baked 20 of its 35 minutes. "You-" Brian can't even express his frustrations as he figured it out well enough. He leads them to the oven where he shows them what's left. "You overfilled the mold so it over flowed, you can't use cake batter to make cookies."
Brian removes what cake batter is left in the mold. He pokes at it with a knife. It being undercooked is the least of his worries, "You didn't put any baking soda. It hasn't risen, while we could cook this, it will come out as dense like a brick. I'm going to see if I can't cook it on the stovetop as the oven needs to be cleaned for all that mess it burn into its walls."
They all looked crescent fallen, giving him their most heartbroken puppy dog eyes so he throws them a bone, "But other than that the batter looks fine and you were very resourceful in finding a recipe in such little time on a Sunday." Freddie beams but John feels a little condescended to. Brian sets up a bain-marie to cook the cake no that the oven is out of order.
The oven is too hot to clean right now but having them tell him how much they thought about him and cared about him as he works is good. He makes them clean the dishes from the baking. Once hopefully cooked enough, they are at least eager to share in this hopefully tasty treat. Freddie brings the frosting out of the fridge, hopefully they didn't fuck this up somehow it had tasted fine when they had put it away.
Freddie brought spreading knives and Deaky and Roger were ready to spread the frosting when Brian stopped them. "No! No, you can't spread frosting on a cake that is still hot, I-" Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. He was trying to take the cake from its mold but it was clear that they hadn't buttered the mold.
He didn't want to tell them, to make his boyfriends feel worse when they had just been trying to help. There was little choice, they were going to realise. In the end they decide to eat the still hot cake with spoons that they dip into the frosting. "The batter and the frosting are delicious," Brian says honestly.
"Good to know we can manage to copy a recipe, well almost," Deaky says bitterly.
Brian covers John's hand with his own while Roger wraps his arm over John's shoulders. "What was it that I was told? That everything is going to be alright because we have each other?" Brian repeats the words told to him when he had finally decided to stop school. He looks around at his disaster boys, who definitely and permanently are banned from the kitchen; what they had tried to do despite their complete lack of knowledge on the subject, "I really do love you."