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“How awake are you?”
Magnus mentally weighed his sleepiness for a second, eating another spoonful of peanut butter straight from the jar. He should probably go sit in an actual chair at some point, but for now he was content to lounge on the kitchen tiles with Alex. “Pretty awake.”
“Because I am seriously craving cake.” Alex said.
Magnus shook his head, taking another bite. “Nowhere is open. Except Denny’s, and I don’t think they have cake.”
“We have a big pantry.”
“Are you saying we should make one?”
“I’m saying that we’ll definitely regret it if we don’t.” Alex raised her eyebrows suggestively. Well, if suggesting that they embark on a homemade pastry mistake counted as suggestive. She offered the jar of strawberry jelly she had been eating to Magnus, but he declined. He was good with his peanut butter.
He and Alex were leaning against the cupboards, snacking on whatever items they could reach in the fridge and pantry from there. Mostly that meant condiments and crackers - all of the good stuff was on the higher shelves. The fridge stayed open, illuminating them in a faint glow in the otherwise dark room where the only other light source was the moon through the windows. It made the kitchen feel soft, almost ethereal. Magnus liked it.
“I dunno,” Magnus said. “We’re already asking for someone to come downstairs and find us as it is.”
Alex rolled her eyes, which only made Magnus have a few heart attacks, thank you very much. “And do what?” she asked. “You own the place. If you can’t bake a cake at 2 a.m. in your underwear in your own homeless shelter, what can you do?”
The underwear thing was true. Well, more like pajamas. Magnus was in nothing but his boxers and socks while Alex slouched in fuzzy pajama pants, a sports bra, and a pink sleepmask pushed up to her forehead. Magnus had no clear memory as to how they had gotten there, but he did know he was a little miffed that even Alex’s sleepclothes were more fabulous than his. He sighed, stared at her for a long moment, then started to stand. “Fine. What do we need?”
Alex was up in a flash, getting out butter and sugar and everything that should, in theory, make a cake. Magnus didn’t quite know what to do. He asked, “Uh, do you need a recipe?”
“You insult my honor, Chase.”
Magnus put his hands up in surrender and watched her do her thing. When she couldn’t reach the flour off the top shelf, she snapped her free hand and said, “Magnus. Chair.”
He didn’t even hesitate before grabbing one from the nearest table and propping it where she needed it. He thought to himself that they would make a good supervillain/lackey team, one where she did all the global domination and he fetched things for her in the background.
She stepped up onto the chair and grabbed some other ingredients from the top shelf. As she reached up for the baking powder, the muscles in her arms and back flexed and her pajama pants hugged her hips and Magnus forgot what he was doing for a second.
“I still can’t reach some stuff,” she said. “Can you try?”
“Sure.” Magnus quickly came back to Earth and switched spots with her. “Oh. This chair is kind of rickety.”
“If you fall, I’m going to wake everyone up with my laughter.”
“Won’t the crash wake them up first?”
“I’ll laugh louder.”
Magnus suddenly also became very aware that he was standing on a tall surface with loose boxers on. He shifted to avoid giving an accidental peep show and Alex boo’d. He went red, but he just stepped down from the chair with the canisters they needed and handed them to Alex. “Here.”
“Thank you,” she said, which was nice. Boy, the manners bar was low for her. “Okay, now we need bowls. Do we have big bowls?”
“I have big bowls and I cannot lie,” Magnus said on impulse. He knew it was dumb, but it made Alex laugh.
“Oh my god. You’re so stupid.” Alex said, pulling her pink sleepmask down in shame over her eyes and hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter. “Come over here and kiss me because I apparently have a stupidity kink.”
Magnus face heated, but he couldn’t argue with that. Gods, that face would destroy him someday. He started to move the sleepmask up away from her eyes as he leaned in, but she said, “Nope. Leave it.”
Magnus’s thought process was completely derailed at this point, but he still knew how to follow orders. He leaned up and kissed her, fire spreading through his chest. She leaned into it, curling her hand into his hair and pulling him closer. Magnus’s heart pounded and he wanted to get her down from the the counter and kiss her properly, but she pulled away.
She pushed her sleepmask up on her forehead again, took one look at what must have been a very amusing expression on Magnus’s face, and smirked. “Okay. That’s all. We have a cake to make.”
“But -”
“Where did you put the cocoa powder?”
Magnus couldn’t really focus, his brain still rebooting after Alex’s lips shut it down. “Um. By the fridge?”
“There we go.” Alex jumped down from the counter and grabbed it. “Okay, we can start stirring the dry things now. Go get the bowl.”
Magnus did so, still in a bit of a daze. He plunked the bowl on the counter in front of Alex, who was scratching her head, thinking.
She ran a hand through her emerald hair (which did not affect Magnus in any way, of course) and said, “I just realized we probably don’t have anything to frost or decorate this with.”
“Oh.” Magnus shrugged. “Won’t we still have a cake?”
Alex looked at him like Oh shit. “Touche. You’re a genius, Chase.” She kissed his cheek, which put him out of commission for a good ten seconds, and she said, “Alright, then, onward!”
Magnus laughed. “Onward!” He grabbed a cake pan and whatever else they still needed and met Alex by the counter. He looked over her shoulder. “Do you need any help with that?”
“Measure everything on this list.” She slid him a piece of paper in her surprisingly bubbly handwriting with more instructions than she could have possibly written just now.
“Did you have this pre-prepared?” he asked, staring at the sheet.
“I write fast. Now, chop-chop.” She pushed him toward the fridge.
He smiled again and measured everything she needed. “You’re welcome,” he said as he brought them all over to her workspace.
“Thanks.” Another thank-you. She was on a roll.
Magnus watched her mix it all together in a whirlwind of flour and butter and some mysterious unlabeled white canister of baking powder that Magnus really hoped she had checked to make sure wasn’t one of their tenant’s stashes of cocaine. Otherwise this was going to be a very interesting cake.
Alex worked so fast that there wasn’t much for him to do, so he just watched her. That was fine - it was all the satisfaction he needed. Alex’s eyes had that same laser focus as when she made her pottery and he loved watching her sure hands whirl through the steps as if she could do it in her sleep.
“I assume you’ve done this before?” he asked as she expertly separated an egg.
“Nope. Winging it.” Alex laughed at Magnus’ shocked expression. “No, yeah, I made this a lot when I -” Her expression went dark. “Nevermind. What’s important is that I’m basically Chef Boyardee.”
“Wasn’t he a culinary chef?” Magnus asked stupidly. He was stupid. The pointed look from Alex confirmed this fact. He continued weakly, “Not a… pastry... chef. I mean.”
“Oh, poor, sweet, deluded Magnus,” she said, tutting. “You just missed the opportunity to make a ‘Kiss the Cook’ joke. I prepared it for you so carefully, and you squandered the chance.”
“But you said chef, not cook,” he said, unable to help himself. “And like I said, you’re not even being a culinary -”
Alex shut him up with a kiss. Magnus had absolutely zero problem with that, smiling into it and bringing his hand up through her flour-dusted hair.
When Alex pulled away, she hovered there, looking into his eyes, and sighed. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, Chase." Then she went back to stirring, leaving Magnus to stand there, staring and stupid.
She glanced up and smiled. “I think I broke Magnus.”
He shook himself out of it, then leaned his elbow on the messy counter to look at her properly. “You’re going to kill me one of these days,” he said absently. It was true.
“That’s the idea,” Alex said, pouring the batter into the pan. After she put the cake in the oven and set the timer, she started to say something else, but instead just stopped and slowly started laughing.
“What?”
Alex shook her head, still snickering. She turned around, back to the counter, and slid down until she was sitting on the floor.
Magnus followed suit. “What?” he asked again.
“Nothing,” she said. She looked over at him, eyes still alight. “We’re just making a cake at 2 a.m. You know?"
Magnus nodded and before he knew it, he was laughing, too. His heart leapt as Alex leaned her head on his shoulder, and he leaned his head on hers, and eventually they were just a pile of ridiculous giggling. Alex’s breath smelled of some chocolate she must have snuck from the batter and he could feel the press of her body into his and her fuzzy pajama pants really were fabulous and all Magnus could think of was how he couldn’t have gotten this stupid grin off his face even if he wanted to.
(And for the record, the cake was fucking delicious.)