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“How about you try cooking for once?”
WX-78 scoffs at the question, not even bothering to look up from the messy tinkering station they've turned the living room coffee table into. Wires, screws and plastic covers litter the surface of it, and the remains of what used to be the hardware of a laptop are scattered across the couch cushion that they aren't occupying.
“THAT ACTIVITY IS BELOW ME, ESPECIALLY WHEN I HAVE A FLESHLING LIKE YOU TO DO IT FOR ME.”
From the kitchen of their shared apartment, Wilson huffs.
“I think you're just mad because you're bad at it,” he says.
“ONE, I AM NOT MAD,” they say, turning sideways to look at him from the couch, “AND TWO, YOUR ATTEMPTED REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY WILL NOT WORK ON ME. I AM NOT GOING TO COOK.”
Wilson frowns at them. “I cook every night, or at least the nights we don't get takeout. You won't even try?”
“CORRECT.” WX-78 turns back around to sit with their back to the couch, returning to their tinkering.
“I'll go get you some jumbo muffins from the bakery down the street tomorrow if you cook tonight,” Wilson says. WX-78 perks up visibly, turning around to look at him again, and Wilson hums in satisfaction.
“GET ME A HALF DOZEN AND YOU HAVE YOURSELF A DEAL.”
“Cool. Get up, then. You're making chicken parmesan.”
“THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART,” WX-78 says, gripping a metal meat hammer in their hands.
“You haven't even started,” Wilson mumbles from the couch. He sits with a book in his hand and his legs in an awkward position to avoid the mechanical clutter, which WX-78 refused to clean up before cooking. He's resigned himself to observing them from afar to make sure they don't set the apartment on fire.
“NOTHING WILL BE AS EXCITING AS BEATING A FLESHLING CORPSE,” they say, bringing the hammer down on the chicken breast way too hard. Wilson flinches.
“It's already dead!” He shouts, tempted to get up and show them how to do it himself. Despite this, he stays seated and tries to focus on his book. They're going to earn their muffins, even if having to witness them dent the counter is actively giving Wilson grey hairs.
What was that term again? Weaponized incompetency? They don't seem like the type, but there's a first time for everything…
WX-78 would never admit it aloud, but Wilson's comment earlier got to them. WX-78 is perfect at everything they do, or at least better than any fleshling is, and it was frankly insulting for him to insinuate otherwise.
That being said, his statement may or may not have been somewhat grounded in reality.
They stare down at the flattened chicken with a blank expression. How the fuck do you make chicken parmesan?
They hear Wilson sigh from the living room. “You have to bread it, WX,” he says. He must have seen them staring.
“I KNEW THAT. I WAS PLOTTING THE MOST EFFICIENT ORDER TO COMPLETE THE REQUIRED TASKS IN,” they say, hoping the overly-verbose explanation will deter him.
Instead, they look up to see him staring at them intensely.
“You don't know how to bread it, do you?”
WX-78 stares back. “OF COURSE I DO.”
“Okay,” Wilson says. He closes his book, tip-toes around the mess on the floor, and walks into the kitchen. He sits at the kitchen table and looks at WX-78 with an expectant expression.
“Go on, then,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Shit.
“You have to dip it in the flour first, or the eggs won't stick,” says Wilson drily, not looking up from his book.
He realized very quickly that there's no weaponized incompetence of any kind going on, and that WX-78 is actually just incompetent in the kitchen.
WX-78 has stopped responding to his comments, but they are listening to what he says, which is a first.
“Then into the breadcrumbs,” he mumbles. “Then you heat the pan with the oil before you start cooking it or the oil will soak into the—”
“I UNDERSTAND, MEATBRAIN,” WX-78 says harshly. It seems like their ‘newfound’ inability to do something perfectly the first time is causing them a lot of anger, so Wilson decides to let them figure the rest out themself.
He watches WX-78 clumsily bread the rest of the chicken out of the corner of his eye as he reads. He sees them place the pan on the stove and then turn the eye on with their raw-chicken-breadcrumb-hands, and he can't hide a slight cringe.
Wilson had been quick to suggest they wear some single-use gloves (courtesy of his makeshift at-home lab, which has caused more than one small fire) due to the nature of their water-sensitive build. The best they can really do in terms of sanitizing themself is hand sanitizer, and that doesn't exactly work to get breadcrumbs out of sensitive metal joints.
He chooses to keep his comments to himself when he sees the foul expression on their face, clearly perturbed by the whole thing. It can always be cleaned later.
He's pulled from his thoughts by the smell of smoke, and looks up to see the kitchen covered in a thin layer of smog. He looks at the stove, where they’ve set the temperature to high, and then at the smoking oil in the pan.
WX-78 is just about to put the chicken in the pan when Wilson springs up and lifts it up from the stove’s eye. They seethe at the action.
“WHAT IS IT? WHAT DID I DO WRONG THIS TIME?” They ask angrily.
“The oil was about to catch on fire,” he says hastily, gesturing to the near-black olive oil in the hot pan. “I don’t want the fire alarm to go off. Can you go open a window?”
“NO. I AM COOKING,” they say, taking the pan from him and setting it back on the eye. It’s still smoking.
“At least turn the heat down!” He exclaims, reaching over the pan to turn the heat off. A metal hand slaps his before he can touch the dial, and Wilson recoils at the feeling of damp, eggy flour rubbing off on his fingers.
“I AM COOKING,” they say, and turn the heat down to medium.
Wilson’s eye twitches.
“If it starts a fire, you’re paying for the damages.”
“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME TO COOK,” they snap. He pays this no mind, first opening the kitchen window on the other side of the room before jogging into the living room to push the window open as wide as he can.
“If the fire alarm goes off, so does the sprinkler, and then so does WX-78,” he says, turning to face them with his arms crossed.
They’re silent for a moment, and then they turn the heat down by another notch.
That’s a win in my book, Wilson thinks.
When WX-78 finally gets to actually cooking the chicken, they find the oil to pop and splatter as soon as the chicken makes contact with it. Some of the oil burns through the glove they’re wearing and stings the metal on their hand. Of course, it doesn’t actually harm them, but it does hurt. They shake their hand back and forth reflexively, and some of the bread crumbs sticking to the glove fly off in various places.
Wilson said that they had to cook, not to clean up. So, they choose to do nothing about it. The man in question frowns at them with a disapproving expression, but they choose to focus on the task at hand instead of coming up with another witty comment.
They place the other piece of chicken into the pan, basically dropping it into the oil instead of placing it down (and splashing some of the oil onto the stove in the process.) They turn around for only a moment to take their gloves off and throw them away, and come back to find the coating of the chicken becoming brown quite fast. They scramble around the kitchen and eventually end up finding a spatula to flip it with, finding the crumbs to be so brown it’s teetering on burnt. WX-78 flips the other piece over and finds it to be in the same state.
“Is this a bad time to tell you that you also need to make pasta to go with it?”
WX-78 slowly, deliberately cranes their head over to where Wilson is sitting, scowling at his smug expression. He quickly starts to look uncomfortable.
“Orr… We don’t have to have it like that tonight,” he says hurriedly, and WX-78 turns their head away after glaring at him for another moment for good measure.
Once the other side is browned sufficiently, WX-78 slides the spatula underneath one of the pieces of chicken, but has neglected to find a place for it. With one hand, they grab two plates out of the cabinet and set them down on the counter a little too hard. They plate each chicken breast rather disappointingly, and oil leaks from the breadcrumbs and onto both plates.
Wilson is staring at the plates with a quirked eyebrow.
“That didn’t take long,” he says skeptically. “Are you sure it’s cooked all the way? Did you temp it?”
“I DO NOT NEED TO ‘TEMP’ IT. I KNOW IT’S DONE.”
Wilson furrows his eyebrows.
“YOU ASKED ME TO COOK,” they repeat. “THIS IS THE FINAL PRODUCT.”
He stares at it suspiciously as WX-78 drops both plates on the kitchen table with a clatter. They take out two forks from the utensil drawer and set them on the plates. As they go to sit down, Wilson pipes up again.
“Would you mind getting me a knife, too?” He asks, and WX-78 swears that he’s doing everything possible to grate on their nerves tonight. Instead of giving in to their urge to fling the whole drawer of utensils at him, they set a butter knife on the table next to his plate and sit down across from him.
“BON APPETIT.”
Wilson grabs his fork and knife and hesitantly cuts a small corner off of the chicken. He holds it up close to his face, squinting at it as he thoroughly checks for pink spots. His inspection is interrupted by the sound of loud crunching from across the table.
“How is it?” He asks, trying and failing to keep the apprehension out of his voice.
“IT IS FOOD,” they say, clearly avoiding the question. “TRY IT YOURSELF.”
Wilson sighs. I’m getting the feeling that putting this in my mouth would be a horrible idea, he thinks, staring down at the meat. He glances up at WX-78 to see them looking expectantly at him. I don’t want to hurt their feelings…
He stares at the chicken for a second longer before putting it in his mouth with a wince. He chews it once, expecting the worst, but is pleasantly surprised to be met with chicken that’s not squishy and also not dry as a bone. He raises his eyebrows.
“It’s… good,” he says with exasperation.
WX-78’s posture visibly changes, but their facial expression does not.
“OF COURSE IT IS. I MADE IT,” they say, and for once this evening, their voice lacks malice. Wilson cuts into the chicken again and takes another bite.
“Stars,” he says through a full mouth, “You made it better than I do. The outside is a little crispy, but it’s so… moist,” he says. WX-78 grimaces.
“DO NOT USE THAT WORD.”
“Oh, you’re one of those?” He asks condescendingly after swallowing. “It’s just a word, WX.”
“I AM NOT ‘ONE OF THOSE,’ EVEN IF YOUR STATEMENT HARDLY MAKES SENSE. IT IS JUST AN ODD WORD TO USE TO DESCRIBE IT,” they say, taking a bite of their food. They look pleased, and Wilson smiles.
“Sure. So, since this was a success, do you think you’ll start—”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” they interrupt through a mouthful of chicken. “THE ONLY REASON I DID IT WAS FOR MY MUFFINS.”
“Fair enough,” Wilson says simply. “It was worth a shot.”
It’s later that evening, long after the two have gone to bed, that WX-78 is powered on with an alert to nearby noise. They scan their environment briefly to find the man they sleep with making moderately concerning sounds of pain.
Over the years, they’ve realized that there’s a time and place for their usual insensitivity, and that maintaining relationships with fleshlings requires sacrifices. As of right now, that includes the restraint of yet another witty, sarcastic comment that would feel good to let out. Instead of berating him for disturbing their rest, they set a hand on his shoulder.
“WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?” They ask.
“Stomach hurts,” he mumbles into the pillow, strained.
WX-78 sits up slightly. From what they can see in the dark, he’s curled up into a ball around himself and shaking.
WX-78 doesn’t say what they’re thinking, even as he curls into a tighter ball.
“ARE YOU OKAY?” They ask instead.
“No,” he groans miserably. Suddenly, he seizes up.
“Oh shit,” he mumbles. He scrambles to get out of the bed, throwing the covers off of himself and making a beeline for the bathroom.
WX-78 sits up fully and leans against the headboard, not daring to follow after him. He’s gone for at least fifteen minutes by their internal count. If the dots they’re connecting are placed correctly, then they should be very glad the bathroom is as far away from the bedroom as it is, for the sake of their audio receptors.
When Wilson walks back into the room, he says nothing, sliding into the bed and under the covers with a grumble. He flops himself onto WX-78’s chest unprompted and wraps his arms tightly around their midsection with a noise of discomfort.
“...DO YOU THINK THIS WAS MY DOING?” They ask, wrapping their arms around him in return.
“What do you think?” He asks bitterly, then grunts. “Sorry, sorry. That was mean. It just… hurts.”
WX-78 is silent for a few moments, their guilty expression obscured by the darkness of the room.
“THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING ME TO COOK.”
“Asshole,” Wilson says, shifting around and seemingly trying to get as close to them as is physically possible.
“YES, AND I BET YOURS STINGS.”
Wilson lets out an offended scoff.
“I can’t believe you’re joking about this,” he says, but they can hear a poorly-concealed laugh in his words, even through the pain and exhaustion.
“LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: I GOT YOU OUT OF WORK FOR THE NEXT WEEK.”
Wilson whines instead of a response, and WX-78 goes quiet. It’s one thing to make a bad dinner, one to laugh at and then order takeout, but it’s another thing to poison your partner.
“I… THIS WAS NOT MY INTENTION.”
WX-78 swallows their pride and chokes back yet another snide comment, one meant to distract from the severity of the whole situation, from their own guilty feelings. Just this once.
“I AM SORRY.”
Wilson hums.
“It’s okay… at least it tasted good,” he mumbles into the fabric of their shirt. WX-78 can tell he’s saying that to spare their feelings. Most fleshlings would be offended, but they can appreciate the effort. Especially considering how miserable he sounds.
“...I DID NOT PARTICULARLY ENJOY IT,” they note.
“It was a little crunchy. Next time, you’re making mac and cheese.”
WX-78 looks down at him scrutinizingly.
“YOU WANT ME TO COOK AFTER THIS?”
Wilson scoffs again. “You think you’re getting away with this scot-free? Did I really need to add a clause to the agreement stating that you shouldn’t give me food poisoning?”
“DOES THAT MEAN I WON’T GET ANY MUFFINS TOMORROW?” They ask, and they snicker when Wilson elbows them in the arm.
“This is going to be a long night,” he mutters after a moment.
“...AND I WILL BE HERE,” WX-78 says, trying not to cringe at the words as they come out. Despite the unpleasant sensation the statement brings them to say, it’s quickly stamped out when they feel Wilson squeeze them a little tighter.
“Good. It’s the least you could do."