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A chocolate cake with sprinkles and frosting.
That was at least the plan, but Sirius now stares in utter horror at the coal coloured cake in front of him. The only vague resemblance his creation has with actual cake is its shape.
He’s volunteered to bake Remus’ birthday cake this year, but it turns out that watching hours upon hours of Great British Bake Off doesn’t turn one into an expert baker. And neither does completely disregarding the recipe Lily has emailed him.
One desperate call and ten minutes later, James stands beside Sirius, eyeing the cake with the same expression as Sirius. “Bloody hell, mate. One question,” he says and turns to look at his best friend. “How?” He ruffles a hand through his dark, curly hair with a puzzled expression.
Sirius shrugs. “I don’t know! I did exactly what the recipe told me.” It’s a lie but James doesn’t need to know that. It will only increase his judgement and Sirius already feels judged enough. Then he adds, “Please help me, Jamie.”
James laughs, pats Sirius on the back and rolls up his sleeves. “Let’s do it.”
They immediately get to work. James reads out the ingredients and Sirius moves about the kitchen, fetching eggs and milk from the fridge and flour, sugar, cocoa powder, sprinkles and baking powder from the pantry.
James is, to Sirius’ surprise, a lot more precise with measuring out everything and taking double-takes at the recipe before proceeding than Sirius could ever be. It’s almost a little odd to see his best friend calm like that. Though James has always been the one keeping Sirius not only calm but also in-check.
“So precise,” Sirius teases with a chuckle and throws back a handful of sprinkles, chewing with a happy grin.
James shortly looks at him and rolls his eyes, grinning. “Hey, I’m not surprised your cake turned out to be shite when you didn’t do it correctly. They give you instructions for a reason, you know.”
Sirius dismissively waves his hand. “Instructions are overrated. Do you want to know who always followed recipes word for word? My mother and her stuff was pure shite. My cake would be gourmet foot compared to that tasteless goo she would force me to eat.” He shrugs and pops even more sprinkles into his mouth.
James laughs before he returns his attention back to the task at hand. “Two eggs,” he mumbles after checking the recipe and takes them from Sirius, tapping them on the edge of the bowl and cracking them open.
“What do you think came first?” Sirius asks as he watches James mix in the eggs with the rest of the ingredients.
“What?” James looks up and pushes his glasses up, getting some batter on his cheek in the process.
Sirius leans over and gently wipes it away with his thumb, bringing it to his lips and licking it off. The batter already tastes a million times better than the one he made. “What came first, the hen or the egg?”
James seems to contemplate both the question and his answer for a moment before he replies, “The egg, obviously. Where else would the hen have come from?”
“But where did that egg come from? So I would say the hen came first and then laid an egg. No one ever said that the egg has to be fertile, right?” Sirius says, jumping onto the counter, legs swinging back and forth.
James puts the whisk down and places a piece of parchment paper in the cake pan. “But where did your hen come from? It’s not like it just took the bus there, ay?”
To be fair, it is a stupid question, but it’s something that Sirius often thinks about when he can’t fall asleep. One moment he’s thinking about whose idea it was to create words that are hard to spell correctly like nauseous and necessary and the next moment he’s going back and forth in his mind whether the hen or the egg came first.
“Another question. If identical twins had children with other identical twins, would their children technically be siblings?”
James turns to preheat the oven and pours the batter into the cake pan, shaking it slightly to make sure that he gets rid of all the air bubbles. “I was never good in biology but I assume that genetically speaking they would be, yes.”
“Imagine how weird that would be. Do you know what else is weird? That the Queen owns all the swans living in England and Wales. Imagine you’re a swan, just living your life and chilling in some random pond, not knowing that you are technically royalty.”
“But they’re not royalty, Sirius. They are royal property. A big difference, you know,” James replies, calmly. He opens the oven and puts the cake pan in. “Now we wait,” he announces and joins Sirius on the counter, one leg folded underneath him.
“I don’t think there’s too big of a difference between being a royal and royal property. The autonomy is almost the same,” Sirius says with a chuckle and pours another load of sprinkles into the palm of his hand before handing the little container to James.
James snorts and playfully elbows Sirius. “Stop with such horrendous blasphemy, foul fiend,” he exclaims dramatically which only makes Sirius laugh more. “They shall lock you away in the tower!”
Sirius chuckles, taking back the container with the sprinkles from James and pouring some more into his mouth. “So,” he says while chewing, “what did you get Remus for his birthday?”
“Well, Lily and I got him the classics collection he’s been fawning over for months. I know he specifically said not to get him that because he thinks that they’re expensive, but they’re really not.”
Sirius snorts, elbowing James into the side. “Because it is fucking expensive, you ass. I bet he’s gonna faint.”
James ruffles a hand through his hair with a laugh and leans back a little, knee bouncing and head turned to look at Sirius. “What did you get him? Not another animal-shaped tea mug, right? I think you have at least doubled his collection over the past years.”
“What do you mean not another? You can never have enough mugs. Especially not if your name is Remus and your blood type is tea with milk. But I can assure you, it’s not a mug, though I was very close to buying him a pelican-shaped mug I found at that small pottery shop that opened last month. It was a truly magnificent mug.”
He is quiet for a moment, thinking back to that small pottery shop and how Remus asked him to go past it again and again, looking at the mugs and plates and bowls in the store window. Sirius can clearly remember the flint in his eyes, the big smile on Remus’ lips that didn’t leave his face for the rest of the day.
Maybe, he thinks, he should have gotten that mug. He bites his lips, quickly regretting his decision, but he doesn’t have much time to ponder because James is bumping his leg against Sirius’, pulling him back to reality.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sirius croaks and clears his throat. “Where was I?”
“Remus’ present.”
“Right. I got him a motorbike helmet so he can ride me. I mean… with me. On my motorbike.” He can feel himself blush and quickly turns his head to hide it from James. Of course, his best friend knows about Sirius’ feelings towards their friend, but it’s still hard for Sirius to openly admit to them.
He’s not sure when he first started to notice his feelings for Remus, he can’t put his finger on what prompted them and what made him realize it all.
Falling in love with Remus happened step by step, puzzle pieces slowly fitting together until Sirius could no longer deny it.
He hasn’t had the courage to confess his feelings yet though. Sirius would never dream of it either. He’s too afraid of ruining what they have, ruining this brotherhood they all have. They are his family and losing just one of them, losing Remus , is something Sirius dreads more than anything else.
James laughs and lifts his hand to pat Sirius on the back. “I’m sure he will love it.”
Sirius opens his mouth to say something, but the kitchen is suspiciously smelling like fire and when he realizes where that smell is coming from, Sirius’ blood runs cold.
The oven. The cake. Remus’ birthday cake.
They completely forgot about it and Sirius can’t believe that he fucked up. Again. Though this time he can blame it on James for not setting a timer, but he still feels bad because they won’t have enough time to bake a third cake. And how can a birthday party without a cake be even called a party?
It’s an absolute tragedy.
James beside him is just as speechless and they spend a good minute just staring at the absolute monstrosity.
“Oh no. We fucked up big time,” Sirius says. “This cake looks even worse than mine and I have no idea how we managed that. I didn’t know it could get any worse.”
“Lily will kill us,” James adds.
They are so screwed.