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There’s an unholy clatter coming from the kitchen as soon as Yuri walks through the front door of the mansion. Crap. Victor had better not be cooking again. The food isn’t bad - though Yuri wouldn’t admit that out loud - but he makes a hell of a mess and then, since he cooked, everyone else (Yuri) has to help clean up. It’s not worth it.
In the kitchen, he finds all three of the Nishigori triplets, their little eyes barely visible over the countertop even with the aid of stools. Victor and Yuuri are both supervising as the girls pour some sort of concoction into a bowl, their hair and faces streaked with white powder.
“What are you supposed to be making, aside from trouble?” he asks, dumping his backpack on the couch. “And where the hell are the adults?”
“Yuri!” Axel cries out.
“Making cookies,” Loop says.
“Come help,” adds Lutz.
Hovering over the counter like an oversized firefly, Aura grins at him. “Yuuko and Takeshi are out doing some shopping, and Yakov is at the cottage tonight, so Yuuri and I are the adults.”
“God forbid.” Yuri walks over and peers down into the bowl in front of the triplets. There’s a little mountain of various dry ingredients piled in the center. Yuuri tilts the other bowl he’s holding for Yuuri to see where he’s creaming eggs, butter, and sugar.
“Some show they were watching with Victor had cookie decorating,” Yuuri says, huffing with the effort of mixing. There’s a dot of flour on the tip of his nose. “It sounded fun, but I haven’t baked anything like this in a long time.”
Victor peeks at the recipe book on the counter, then drifts over to the cabinets and pulls out another ingredient. He’s about to add a spoonful to the bowl when Yuri notices the writing on the side.
His hand shoots out, grabbing Victor’s wrist. “That’s baking powder, old man. The book says baking soda. Is your eyesight going?”
“What’s the difference?”
Yuri and Yuuri exchange a look, and Yuri rolls his eyes. He lets go of Victor’s arm and pushes past him. “Just let me do it.”
Under Victor’s watchful, if confused, eyes, Yuri and the triplets manage to get the rest of the dry ingredients measured and mixed with only minor distractions, while Yuuri finishes up with the wet stuff. The triplets get bored with this, dropping onto the floor to play at being animals or possibly pirates, and leave them alone to do the important and difficult parts.
“You’re good at this,” Yuuri says, his voice pitched out of range of Victor’s ears.
Yuri bites back the impulse to make a sarcastic comment. “Thanks,” he says instead. And then, because it’s Yuuri, and because Yuuri is okay, sometimes, he adds, “My grandpa taught me.”
The warmth of the oven radiating against his back, and the girls giggling in the living room take him back to when he wasn’t much bigger than them, sitting on the counter of the cramped, shadowed kitchen in Moscow and watching the snow fall out the window as his деда hummed to himself and stirred.
He pulls back from the memory, realizing he’s over-working the ingredients in his bowl, and passes it over to Yuuri. They combine the two containers into one, and then Yuuri pauses.
“Victor, do you have an electric mixer?”
“No need,” Victor says and scoops the bowl out of Yuuri’s hands. Before anyone can question him, he grabs a spoon and begins to beat at the mixture with superhuman speed and force.
Half-mixed dough flies everywhere, splattering along the counter, the floor, and everyone in the splash zone. Though Victor catches on quickly, momentum keeps the bowl spinning in his arms, slinging more dough onto the kitchen cabinets. There’s probably cookie dough on the ceiling.
Victor sets the bowl back on the counter with care. “Not my finest hour,” he admits with a self-deprecating smile. “I’ll go get a towel.” As he floats out of the room, Makkachin pads over, wagging her tail as she laps up the splashes on the floor. Good thing they aren’t making brownies.
The rest of the process goes off without a hitch, aside from the triplets having a brief spat over sharing turns on the rolling pin. Once the dough is flat and Victor’s finishing wiping up his mess, Yuuri stops again to chew his lip.
“We don’t have any cookie cutters, do we?” The halo of light around Victor intensifies as he begins literally beaming at Yuuri’s easy use of the word “we”.
If Yuri lets him, they’ll all get scooped up in some ridiculous sapfest, so he cuts them off at the pass, popping out the claw on his index finger. “Cookie cutters are for suckers,” he says. “I’ve got this. What shapes are we doing?”
“A unicorn,” Loop screeches. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so confident.
By the time they run out of space on the dough, Yuri has attempted to draw: a unicorn, an alien, a hippopotamus, three dogs, Makkachin specifically, Georgi, Yuuko, and a “cookie-shaped cookie”. He adds in a cat for himself.
Once everything is on the cookie sheet, Yuuri sets the timer and pops the tray into the oven. The triplets have collapsed onto the couch in a pile, using Makkachin as a pillow, and Yuri can almost see Victor’s hands itching to latch onto his boyfriend. Yuri brushes the stubborn sprinklings of flour off his clothes, then wipes his hands on his jeans before heading for the stairs.
“Aren’t you staying to decorate?” Yuuri calls after him.
Yuri waves him off. “Text me when they’re cool enough, if the kids wake up,” he says. “I’ll be in my room.” He has a phone call to make. It’s probably snowing in Russia.