Work Text:
The Cake
“Bloody…! Be careful with that!” Sniper ducked down, holding his hat in place with one hand, balancing a pile of bowls and plates in the other. A cleaver flew past his head, missing his right ear only by an inch. The kitchen door ended its flight, and with a dull thud the edge buried itself deep into the wood, the handle still trembling from the impact.
“Don’t blame me, man! Didn’t ask for being forced to clean the dishes!” Scout called over his shoulder, holding up his lather-covered hands in defense.
“Did you throw that thing or I?” Sniper gave the young man a slap against the back of his head, and dropped the dirty dishes he was carrying into the sink.
“Stop that, ya damn moron!” Scout snapped, shoving his cap out of his face with his arm. Crestfallen he stared at the pile in front of him that only seemed to grow the more he washed.
“Fuck it, ain’t doing more of this shit.” He slammed the sponge into the sink. Water splashed up, soaking the front of his shirt.
“Fuck it,” Scout repeated with a disgruntled growl, wiping his wet hands on his pants. “Ain’t a man’s business anyway. Doing dishes is girl’s stuff.”
“Don’t be a wanker, gremlin. Won’t have any of this from you,” Sniper scolded, knocking Scout’s cap into the youth’s face again, with another slap against his head.
“Cut it already!”
“Not unless you have the guts to go to lil’ Miss Pauling or the boss herself and tell them ladies what ya just said ‘bout what’s a man’s and what’s a girl’s business Or even better: your mother.” With a sly grin, Sniper opened the oven.
“Geez, look at the time! Hey, isn’t the cake ready? Ya better check!” Whistling in pretended surprise after looking at the kitchen clock, Scout hurried over to the Sniper, bouncing up and down behind the him to glance over his shoulder. “Can’t get that thing burned ya know. Matter of pride and all that shit.”
“Especially that shit that happened the last time you burned a birthday cake because ya had yar head in the clouds.” The Sniper’s voice was toneless, but Scout caught that flash of glee in the Australian’s eyes. “Don’t be in the way, go and get the bloody whipped cream.”
“Stop rubbing it in, will ya?” Grumbling more to himself than to the Sniper, Scout opened the fridge. Behind heads of lettuce, tomatoes, cans of bonk and two half-empty milk bottles, he found the red bowl he was searching for. “After all, I’m trying my best to make up for it for old Soldier-boy now, don’t I?” He kicked the door shut with his foot, and leaned, burying two fingers in white, whipped cream, with his back against the fridge.
“Sure, mate, after Pyro threatened to fry you on the spot if ya don’t make up for the complete mess ya caused. How again did ya manage to blow up the stove?” Carefully, the Sniper freed the cake from the baking pan, giving an approving nod. He had taken it out right in time. The scent of baked vanilla, chocolate and whiskey – a generous donation from their Demoman to honor his friend’s birthday – filled the kitchen, and the cake’s crust was of a perfect, dark brown. There had been a time in his life, to be exact, when he had been the Scout’s age, when he would have begged his mother for mercy whenever she tossed her second apron at him – in his opinion, a hideous lime green thing with obnoxious pink and yellow flowers. But she had always ignored his pleas, and after shooing her bellowing husband out of the kitchen, she had insisted that if he didn’t want to learn anything else, he’d at least learn how to cook.
As a grown-up man he had learned to value her teachings, especially since he worked for RED, when messed up kitchen duty could send a man into the respawn room, burning, bleeding, with bullets and knives in his body. Obnoxious apron or not, in hindsight the Sniper preferred his mother’s cooking lessons over those the Scout had taken several times since the young man had been working for the team.
“Looking good here. Scout, hand me the… Bloody mongrel, get your fingers out of the cream!” He leaped at the smirking Scout, ready to snatch the bowl out of the youth’s hand. Scout saw him coming. A wicked smile had suddenly appeared on his face, and just before the Sniper could lay a finger at the bowl, he jumped aside, laughing when the Sniper grasped at nothing, his weight pulling him over.
“Hey man, ask nicely, and I might share with you.” Chuckling, he dipped his index finger into the bowl, and wiped it off at the stumbling Sniper’s nose, covering the shapely organ with a thick layer of cream.
“You little…”
Despite the husky growl and the Sniper’s eyes turning dark as the Australian glowered at him, Scout doubled over with laughter; the Sniper tried to wipe clean his nose, smearing traces of cream over his shades and cheeks.
“Slow, man. Ya ain’t 20 anymore, take care or you’ll break a bone or two. Yikes!” Almost choking at his own snickering, Scout coughed, dodging the Sniper’s punch just before it hit him right into his face. But he recovered his breath and wit quickly.
“Catch me if ya can!” With a boisterous yell, he dashed towards the door, the Sniper on his heels.
“Fuck,” he cursed, when he couldn’t push the door open. He backed away, only bump against the Sniper’s chest.
“Will you ever learn which way the doors open, bunny-boy?” Flashing his teeth with a grim smile, Sniper slammed his flat hands against the door, next to the sides of the Scout’s head.
“Eh… I’m sure we can make a deal, yeah? Come on, Snipes, ya ain’t gonna hurt ya best buddy, right?” Pressing the bowl tightly against his body with both arms as though it would protect him, Scout shoved his back as far as possible against the door. Chewing on his lip, his supposed to be confident grin was nothing but a nervous smile.
“Deal? Here’s the deal. You can choose if ya want me to sent ya back to respawn, or into the doc’s office. Pest against cholera, what is it?”
“Uh…” Suddenly, the mischievous gleam returned to his blue eyes. “I choose… cream!” Scout dropped the bowl onto the floor.
Before the shattered pieces of red pottery found their rest on the tiles, the Scout’s pink tongue slowly glided over the Sniper’s face, licking the remains of cream from the blushing skin.
“Ya bloody…!” Sniper turned away, covering his face with his arm, almost knocking his shades from his nose. “Will you wait, you bloody little ankle-biter!” He spun around, ready to grab the youth by his neck, but halted.
Grinning, and his head held high, Scout stood next to the kitchen counter. One hand propped on his hip, he held the freshly baked cake in his other hand. Or rather – balanced the plate on his fingertips.
“Admit I won, and no hostage is gonna be harmed!” he declared jauntily, wriggling his eyebrows and bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet. Gloating at the Sniper’s flabbergasted face, Scout sniffed at the confection, inhaling the scent deeply.
“Sweet. Would be a shame if this babe gets hurt and – whoa! Wait, wait, wait!” His smile faltered into horror when the Sniper jumped at him.
“The cake, man!” Scout cried out when the Sniper knocked him over. The platter sailed through the air, and together with the precious cake, it was smashed against the white kitchen wall. Moaning with pain, Scout barely registered how pieces of chinaware and chunks of chocolate cake were scattered across the floor.
“Get off of me, man, you’re heavy!” Scout groaned, and tried to push the Sniper off.
“Nah. First, I’m gonna give ya back what I owe ya.” With a broad grin, the Sniper straddled the Scout, reached for the puddles of cream and crumbs of cake splattered around him.
“Ya ain’t owing me anything, let’s call it even. What… no man, no, stop that, stop!” Squirming and twisting, he started to laugh; Sniper had shoved his hands under the Scout’s shirt, and his cream- and cake covered fingers ran over the Scout’s smooth skin.
“Not fair! Ya promised to not tickle me again!” Scout gasped between fits of laughter and giggles, when the slick fingertips ran up and down his sides.
“All is fair in love and war.” Without mercy, the Sniper pressed his fingers deeper into the Scout’s side, chuckling when the struggling youth tried in vain to push his strong hands away.
“Is this love or war?” Scout stammered, barely unable to stop himself from choking on his own breath.
“All the same, gremlin, it’s all the same.” Grinning widely, his hands still poking against the Scout’s twitching muscles, he lowered his head, playfully biting the young man’s exposed throat.
_ _ _ _ _
“What has happened here?” Heavy pushed the door open. The noise of shattering china and squeals of pain and laughter had caught his attention, and, in the company of the Medic and Demoman, he had hastened to the kitchen.
“Nein, how adorable.” His expression a curious mix of an amused smile and disapproving frown, Medic adjusted his glasses. “Two little babies, who mistake the kitchen for the Kindergarten.”
“It wasn’t my fault! He started it!” Scout jolted upwards and jumped back onto his feet as soon as the Sniper had climbed of his lap.
“Shut up, ya bloody moron! You stole the whipped cream, after almost beheading me with ya dumb cleaver!” Sniper snapped back. He had stood up as well, and tried to wipe the mix of cake and cream from his pants.
“If ya hadn’t forced me to - “
“SHUT UP!” Heavy’s voice thundered through the room, and Scout, Sniper and Demoman alike ducked a step away from him. Only the Medic remained unimpressed.
“This is a fine mess. I think this is all that’s left from the cake for our Soldier?” He raised his delicate eyebrows, his voice harsh as his German accent grew stronger at his irritation about his two team members.
“Meine Herren, I wonder if friend Pyro will leave the first blow to me this time. You see,” he explained Heavy. “This morning, the company had just delivered my order of new-”
Sniper and Scout exchanged an anxious look.
The eager smirk on his face unsettled them more than the previous grim scowl. A grim Medic was predictable, but a rejoicing Medic whose mood just switched to gleeful and eager…
“Blime!” Demoman piped up for the first time. “There goes one of me finest scrumpys!” he suddenly remembered, staring at the mess of cake, cream and broken tableware with heartbroken grief.
“Uh, maybe we should… try to fix it? I mean…” Scout waved his arms in desperation when the other four men glared at him. “Before you decide how to kill us. The party is tonight, don’t we have, uh, more important stuff to do? Like, preparing the party? You know what happened last time when Frogs forgot to tell helmet-boy that there’s gonna be a surprise party for him?”
Even Heavy flinched at the memory. In all the years they’ve been working together, they had failed to explain the concept of a surprise party to the Soldier, so they simply had decided to ‘accidentally’ drop a hint in his presence. Last year, though, something had gone wrong, and it had taken days to cheer the pouting Soldier up, and to convince him that the party had been planned all along, and not been a last minute stunt because they all had forgotten.
They looked at each other, shrugging.
“Hell, when me was a wee lad me just got me mother the biggest boot in the village, and filled it with scrumpy,” Demoman sighed, his face brightening up at the memory. “She was happy as a lark, me tells ye!”
“Well…” Sniper hesitated a moment, his brows knitted to a thoughtful frown. Suddenly, he smirked. “Ya know, mates, I think I just got the bloody best idea!”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
“Oh, you didn’t forget!” Touched, the Soldier sniffled, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
“Of course we didn’t!” Scout grinned widely, the nervous worry in his eyes only visible to his friends when he glanced back at them over his shoulder.
“Happy birthday, old man! Here’s your cake!” He thrust his gift into the Soldier’s arm, and took two quick steps backwards, seeking refuge behind the Sniper’s tall figure.
“Is that one of my old helmets?” Soldier tilted his head when he recognize the bowl.
“Yeah, man!” Scout hurried to explain. “It’s a symbol… uh…”
“It’s a symbol that even under the hardest helmet there’s a, err, sweet mess of a…,” Sniper tired to come to his help.
“Brain,” the Medic finished. “Strong on the outside, but with a squishy, delicious, delightfully beautiful brain inside.”
“I see!” Solder smirked back at them. “Very clever, recruits, very, very clever. But why is there only one candle?”
“One America, one candle.” Heavy and Demoman solemnly nodded.
“Beautiful.” Soldier had to wipe his nose again. Too moved to say another word, he silently accepted the spoon Sniper handed him. Under the wide eyes of the five men privy to the situation, and the confused glances of Pyro, Engineer and Spy, who were out of the loop, Soldier dug the spoon deeply into the mashed up mix. With bated breath, the conspirators watched how he shoved the spoonful of cake and broken pieces of chinaware into his mouth – along with two hairs, as the Scout noticed, struggling against his gag reflex.
Slowly, the Soldier chewed. He swallowed, and broke into a wide, beaming smile.
“Crunchy! Why, that’s my favorite flavor! You boys are the best!”