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It had been Gwaine’s idea. Like all the other things that currently went wrong in Leon’s life, it had something to do with Gwaine. This time it was a gingerbread house that was the culprit. Or maybe it was Gwaine, who had insisted on making one.
“It’ll be fun” he said, trying to convince Leon. “It’ll give this place some holiday spirit.” It was true that their apartment really could need some. They’d only moved in a couple of weeks ago and, since both of them were busy at work, the living room was still littered with boxes in various stages of unpacking.
“I don’t think that a single gingerbread house would be much compared to all the junk in here” Leon had answered but still picked up the ingredients to the dough on the way home from work. Gwaine had a knack for always getting what he wanted, one way or another.
So together they prepared the dough and cut out all the pieces needed to make the house, as well as a couple of gingerbread men and women to live in it, and put everything in the oven and even got everything out on time, before it burned even the slightest. Leon should have known that it was too good to be true. And it was.
As soon as the cookies had cooled of it was time for the tricky part, putting all the pieces together into a house. Gwaine raised his eyebrows when Leon held up a bottle of glue.
“Oh no, that stuff isn’t coming near this delicious building” he said, standing protectively in front of the cooling rack, and Leon looked at him confusedly.
“How do you put it together then?”
“With melted sugar” Gwaine answered as if this was the most common knowledge in the world, already pulling out a frying pan and pouring sugar into it. “How else would you be able to eat it?”
“Eat it?” Leon echoed. He’d thought this to be only a decoration and nothing more.
“Of course!” Gwaine exclaimed. “On Christmas morning you’re allowed to break pieces from it and eat for breakfast.” He grinned widely at the thought.
“After it has been sitting on a shelf for two weeks getting dustier and dustier?” Leon asked, scrunching his nose. “And everyone’s been poking at it?” Gwaine only shook his head and continued stirring the sugar in the pan, murmuring something about Leon not appreciating the finer things in life.
When all the sugar had gone from pearly white to a light caramel brown Gwaine pulled the pan off the heat and looked at Leon expectantly.
“Well, come on then.” Leon approached cautiously.
“Isn’t it very hot?”
“We’ll just have to be careful.” Gwaine waved casually. “Nothing to worry about.” They started out carefully and slowly and soon they had put all the walls together. Feeling a bit more confident they moved on to the roof, only to find that the sugar had cooled off somewhat and needed to be reheated. And that’s when disaster struck.
“I’ll just take this…” Gwaine started to say as he lifted the pan but it slipped in his hold and the contents tipped out of it. Right onto Leon’s bare foot.
“Owfuck!” he yelled, trying to wipe the sugary mass of his foot, only succeeding in burning his hands as well. Gwaine, for once managing to do something useful, upended the fruit bowl, filled it with water and put it on the floor.
“Thank god” Leon groaned as the cold water soothed his burnt skin. He didn’t even care that he probably looked ridiculous, having crammed both of his hands and one of his feet into the bowl.
“Leon, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.” Gwaine skittered around the kitchen, nervously wringing his hands. “Really, I didn’t mean to… I’m so sorry.”
“So you’ve said” Leon spat out through gritted teeth. “Multiple times. Maybe you could get me a bigger bowl of water instead?” Gwaine disappeared in a flash and came back with a large bucket.
When Leon felt like he had lost all feeling in both his hands and his foot he tentatively pulled them out of the water and was relieved to see that the burns seemed to be rather shallow and would probably heal quite quickly. He padded across the apartment to seek out his flatmate and was surprised to see that Gwaine’s door was closed. He raised his hand to knock but froze as he caught the mention of his own name.
“… and now Leon hates me. I know, I know, but…” There was a moments silence and Leon waited impatiently for Gwaine to speak again.
“Yes, I know, but you know how he never really celebrates Christmas and I just wanted to do something nice together, and get him to feel some Christmas feeling, like we do at home. With all the candles and presents and sweets and… but I guess I really ruined this time.” Leon frowned where he stood. Gwaine almost sounded sad and it wasn’t like him.
“Yeah, whatever, it’s not like the other things I’ve been trying worked out either. I don’t know, maybe, he’s been talking about this guy called Arthur so maybe he fancies that bloke instead of me. Nah, I’m good, you go back to movie night. Yes, honestly, Merlin, I’m fine. Yeah, see you next week. Bye.”
On the other side of the door Leon processed this. So maybe his friend, which he happened to have a crush on since forever and ever, didn’t have his mind set on making his life miserable. Maybe he was just trying to hit on Leon. He didn’t mix up Leon’s laundry on purpose, he was probably trying to help out since Leon was busy at work. And he wasn’t trying to mess up Leon’s duvet, he’d just wanted to bring him coffee in bed. Leon grinned and opened the door. He needed to have a word with his maybe-boyfriend flatmate. Maybe building gingerbread houses wasn’t so bad after all…