Chapter Text
Qi never had an opportunity to cook in the old Centricide house.
Well, qi did, it's just that qi never ended up doing it much, not in the quantity qi usually did when qi was back home, cooking in portions easily large enough to feed ten people. Fuck, twenty if qi really wanted to. But it took up too much time back then, and qi wasn't motivated enough, and if Ancom saw Nazi stealing another spoonful of one of qir pots of soup, qi swore qi'd never cook again.
He complimented qir cooking once, and it made qim want to throw up. Commie, of course, ended up hearing about it, and he took Nazi aside and told him not to take any of the food qi made. Nazi said something about how he is allowed to take whatever he wants, and if Ancom doesn’t want qir shit stolen qi should guard it better, and he reminded Commie of the bagels he stole from Ancap a week prior, and Commie realized he didn’t really have anything to argue back with that wouldn’t end in the usual fighting {1} .
Qi just resorted to not cooking in large batches again.
So qi ate ramen and quickly-prepared sandwiches and ate them in qir room, alone, or in Commie’s room, if he was being polite that week and he invited qim to come and join him to talk about things. Sometimes would sneak in snacks, would wake up surrounded by wrappers in the living room, and qi’d let Nazi and Ancap think qi was just lazy, or disorganized, or incapable of taking care of qimself, and that was fine by qim. Qi knew qi could, and that’s what mattered to qim.
So with this being the first time qi was cooking for Commie since everything happened, qi was a bit nervous about the whole affair. It had already taken some convincing for the other anarchists to let qim bring him into their household, and qi knew Anqueer wasn’t happy about the whole thing. But they were, at the very least, playing nice and willing to be supportive, and that was appreciated.
Commie, of course, knew how to cook, would often do it for qim, when they were back in that house. Before then, even. He knew what he was doing in a kitchen. But he didn’t have the same talents as Ancom did. He was decent, he knew what he was doing, knew how to hold a knife. He knew the mechanics of it. He could get measurements right, and he could get the spirit of the thing.
Commie would also put a slice of Kraft cheese over some oven chicken nuggets and call it chicken parmesan, and would not understand why qi was yelling at him.
Qi just - had a sense of things, around a kitchen. When things tasted right. Didn’t have to check recipes for more than references, qi knew what qi was doing and qi didn’t need them. To say qi took pride in qir cooking would be an understatement. It was important to qim, it was sacred, it was communal, it was a showing of love and appreciation for another person, a display of family bonds and ties and culture - not to get too emotional about the whole thing, of course.
So saying qi was nervous would also have been an understatement, but qi had music in the background, and a house full of hands qi trusted to do something close to what they were told to do in the kitchen, so qi tried not to think about it too hard {2}.
"You know you could give him soup out of a can you heated on the stove for two minutes and he'd probably worship it, right?" Qi heard, halfway across the room, as an annoyed Anqueer walked in the room, “You don’t have to make him something perfect. You could hand him a full onion and he’d probably eat it raw.”
Qi laughed, wanting to be upset, knowing they were, most likely, correct, shoving out a breathy, “I know, I know, I just - want this to go okay.”
They scratched qir scalp, playfully, muttering a “poor baby” into the air beside qir head.
“Don’t poor baby me,” qi replied, smiling and pushing them back.
“What?” They joked, “Not okay with your partner treating you like a kid?”
Qir smile dropped, automatically, and qi felt like snapping a bit but - no, qi was past that, qi took a breath and a step back, mentally, and tried to think of an appropriate response.
“Don’t be shitty. I don’t need you being shitty today.”
They rolled their eyes, muttered a quick, “Is it shitty to be worried about this guy?”
“Yes, because you can trust me, because I’m your partner, and I need you to know that I know I can manage my own shit. I’m not - yours to manage. Jesus.”
“I’m not trying to manage you, I’m just trying to make sure that authoritarian shithead doesn’t end up hurting you again.”
“Yeah, well, it really makes it seem like you don’t trust me to take care of my own shit."
Anqueer backed off a bit, folded into themselves, not sure where to go, as Ancom just kept slicing tomatoes next to him.
"We talked," qi argued, "I want you to know we talked a lot about everything, and he promised to stop doing - this. "
"You think he's going to listen to you telling him to stop treating you like a kid?"
“I didn’t have to,” qi corrected, softly, "He's the one who brought it up."
Anqueer felt something stirring a bit in them, a bit of guilt, mixed with too much pride to be offering any apologies, and they offered up a quick,
"What are you making?"
As qi kept cutting up vegetables, laid tomato slices out on top of sandwiches, already covered in swiss cheese and mustard, eight sets of two, as qir face softened, the sides of qir mouth upturning, and offered a quiet, "Monte Cristos."
They paused a minute, "Special."
"Yeah," qi offered, weakly, "It's probably going to be the best thing he's eaten in a while."
"It will be," they responded, "You don't need to worry about that."
Knowing qimself, and how qir cooking was, Anqueer was probably right, but that didn't stop the anxiety much. But, still, qi knew what qi was doing, moved onto dicing the sage, throwing it in a soy milk and cornstarch wash, with paprika, and salt, and pepper, all in the correct amounts, as objectively as qi could speak to that. Something was still biting at qim.
"Do you actually not trust me?" Qir voice, full of a shaky uncertainty, "To do this, I mean. Do you think I'm not - responsible enough to be doing this?"
"No," they moved to reassure qim, "No, I'm sure you'll be fine. I know better than to worry about you."
Ancom finally takes qir eyes off of the chopping board.
"I just - don't know why you're doing this. You have a home here. With all of us, other anarchists, just like you. Anpac, Annih, we all like you. I've liked you a lot, for a long time now."
"This place isn't really mine, though, is it? Never felt like home."
"I want it to."
"I know, but it - doesn't feel like my place, y'know? Never could really live easy."
"So - you're moving back in with a Nazi?"
"Oh, no, absolutely fuck that shitbag, I'd bash my own skull in before I went back to that house. We’d have to move out on our own if I ever left this place,” Qi explained, “But - before I settle here, before I try living nice and easy - I think I want to try my hand at the communism thing again, and he wants to try again with me. Be all hero-y, or whatever. But we're good now. Equal. Five by five, y'know?"
"You sound like you're from the nineties."
"You always forget I'm older'n you."
"Not nineties kid old, you fucking boomer," they rhetorted, poking qir stomach as qi jumped out of the way, the knife not leaving qir hand.
" Quit it - please, we're in the kitchen, I’ve got a blade," qi laughed, "I'm not even boomer old, I'm over a hundred'n fifty."
They, eventually, relented, and let up, after a few threats to stab them, and warnings that qi might actually end up stabbing them accidentally if they insisted on bothering qim while they were cooking, at least gimme a chance to put the knife down, quit that, I give up.
So they resorted to hanging over qir shoulder, as qi kept slicing things, and asked, "So, what do you mean 'not your place'?"
Qi had moved onto dicing celery now.
"I dunno, just -" qir voice flipped around, like qi wanted to avoid the actual point, "they're your partners, this is your home, your parent's home, it’s just not my place, I guess. You have a good thing going on your own here."
"They aren't just my partners," they retorted, "they're your partners too, they love you all the same."
Qi shrutched qir nose a bit.
"They weren't just my partners when Apac and Annih invited you into their room last night," Anqueer teased.
"Don't be dumb, you know what I mean."
"Ableism."
"Sorry - just, don't be weird, you know what I'm talking about."
"You know, normativity is hard to pin down, so the term ' weird ' -"
"Now you're just being mean."
"Still, you're welcomed here, and we all love you," Anqueer consoled, fussing with qir hair a bit, "plus, you're useful around the kitchen, without you, Annih would probably go back to eating uncooked poptarts from the dollar store. I don't think he'd seen a vegetable before you got here."
"..Thank you."
"I just don't understand why you're doing this. We're not - doing anything wrong, right?"
"No, G-d, no, you're fine, you’re as good as you could be," qi mused, "Just - Commie and I, we've lived through a lot together and he's - he's not someone I want to give up on, not right now."
"Don't sunken cost your relationships, Com."
"I am not sunken costing my relationship with him," qi yowled, "He's a good person! And I trust to do the right thing, and -"
"You trust him to do the right thing?"
"Half the time?" Qi conceded, as they rolled their eyes, “Two-thirds of the time.”
"You're not obligated to stay with him and hold his hand until he realizes which half is correct, you know?"
"We also talked about that. I'm not interested in doing that, and he knows that."
They finally backed off, knew the questions were getting too much and loosened up a bit.
"Okay then, yeah," they said, finally conceding, "I'll call a temporary truce with your shitty boyfriend."
" No," qi whined, " that's no fun , I want you to give him a little hell for it."
"Light bullying?"
"Mhm. Light bullying. Keep him on his toes."
"Alright," they laughed, "do you need help with anything?"
Qi smiled.
"Yeah," qi said, "I boiled some potatoes. Drain 'em for me. I'm making potato salad."
"Course, baby."
“Just - don’t do anything else to ‘em, you always spice things weird.”
"Course, baby," they repeated, before harshly slamming their lips quickly into qir brow, "You want to take a Xan before your date tonight?"
Qi quirked an eyebrow.
"I could also roll us a joint."
Qi, of course, nodded, before getting back to food prep, finally settling with qir hands, knowing qi knew what qi was doing, and that everything would turn out alright.
“You’re not borrowing my clothes for any of your dates with him, though,” they taunted.
“That’s fine.”
“Can’t borrow my makeup either.”
“Now that’s just fucking rude,” qi whined.
And qi was happy with the things in life which never changed.