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Tommy is a disaster in the kitchen except when it comes to breakfast foods. Worse than Eddie even, which Buck didn’t think was possible. Since Tommy’s such a big fan of baked goods, Buck thought it would be fun to teach him how to make his own.
Plus Tommy paints, so he’s got a level of creativity that Buck thinks goes hand-in-hand with baking.
Only Tommy’s terrible at it.
“How hard is it to follow a recipe?” Buck asks. They’re in Buck’s new kitchen since it would’ve been too much of a hassle for Buck to haul his stand mixer and all his other baking gear over to Tommy’s house for one day and then haul it all back. Seriously, how has Tommy survived all the way into his forties without owning a single measuring cup? “Would you put a car engine back together in the wrong order or with different parts?”
“No.” Tommy shakes his head and then shrugs. “This is different. A car is a machine. It’s all science. If you put it together wrong it won’t work. Simple as that.”
“Baking is science,” Buck says before he snatches the baking powder out of Tommy’s hands before he dumps too much in without using a measuring spoon. Seriously, what the fuck is Tommy thinking? The man can rebuild an engine and fly a helicopter – both things that require an insane amount of precision – so why can’t he grasp the fact he has to measure out the baking ingredients? “You have to measure.” Buck thrusts a teaspoon into Tommy’s hand. “And make sure it’s level. Too much and it’ll over prove.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Tommy says. “And cooking’s pretty much vibes-based, isn’t it?”
Buck sighs, smacking his forehead. “Baking is totally different from cooking,” he says. Buck doesn’t feel like getting into the nuance of the differences. Cooking still requires following the steps and you should measure your ingredients, but you can get away with a certain amount of imprecision that you just can’t with baking. “It’s chemistry. If you don’t put the right amount of ingredients in in the correct order, you’ll end up with the wrong chemical reactions and then it won’t turn out right.” He swears Jee understands baking better than Tommy and she’s five. Honestly, why is this so hard for Tommy to understand? “You’ve watched Bake-Off, think about what Paul Hollywood would say if he saw you just throwing ingredients in at random.” Personally, Buck would find the British baker’s disapproval utterly devastating.
Tommy frowns as though he’s imagining the Bake-Off judges observing his process. He takes a step back from the counter and gestures towards the mixer. “Do you want to just take over?” Tommy asks.
Buck desperately wants to. He itches to kick Tommy out of the kitchen, or at least to set him up on one of the barstools and make him stay as far away from the work area as possible. “You’re supposed to be trying something new,” Buck says, pushing down the controlling tendencies that he’s just self-aware enough to know he has. “That’s what today is all about right? I teach you to bake. You teach me to paint. Doesn’t it defeat the purpose if I take over?”
Tommy sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Though I still don’t get why you go through all the trouble when we could just go down to the bakery and buy something.”
“It’s about the process,” Buck says. “It relaxes me. Same with you and painting.”
“I thought it distracted you,” Tommy says, raising an eyebrow.
Buck rolls his eyes. Every time he bakes now that he and Tommy are back together, Tommy makes some sort of glib comment about how Buck must be thinking about him. Buck wants to protest that it’s not true, but it is. Though now, instead of baking to keep himself from calling Tommy, Buck bakes for Tommy. He likes that a whole lot better. It gives meaning to the idea of something being “made with love.” Buck’s never quite understood that concept before, but now whenever he makes for Tommy, he gets it. He understands that what he’s doing as he folds in egg whites and measures out cookie dough that every little movement is one of many ways he can show Tommy just how in love with him Buck is. He likes making things for Tommy. Likes imaging the face Tommy will make when Buck gives him a fresh tray of cupcakes or has him test a new muffin recipe. He’s never felt quite as satisfied as he does when he hears Tommy moan after taking the first bite of a freshly iced chocolate sponge cake. When he sees Tommy’s face crinkle with a joy brought about by Buck’s efforts.
Buck's not crazy about Tommy’s cavalier approach to baking though, but he resigns himself to the disaster that his boyfriend’s bound to produce.
“Think it’ll taste any good?” Tommy asks when they slide the baking tray full of what are meant to be chocolate chip cookies into the oven. His cookies might look like a natural disaster but Tommy himself looks devastatingly handsome with flower streak across his cheek. Somehow, he’s gotten chocolate in his curls.
Buck shrugs as he reaches up and pulls the chocolate goo out of Tommy’s hair, licking his finger after in a way he knows will drive Tommy crazy. He can’t quite bring himself to dash Tommy’s hopes about the probable outcome of his cookies but he also can’t lie. “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he says. “Now let’s get this kitchen cleaned up while we wait.” At least, Tommy’s good at dishes.
Though they do get distracted, slashing each other with sudsy water and smearing cookie dough on each other’s clothes. Which of course leads to Buck tanging his fist his Tommy’s shirt and pulling him into a kiss. Only it doesn’t get further than that because they are rudely interrupted by the timer declaring that twelve minutes have passed since Tommy slid the try of would-be cookies into the oven to bake.
Tommy pulls the tray out and set in on the chopping block. He frowns down at a solid mass of what are ostensibly cookies. “What happened?” he asks. “Why’d they all run together like that?”
Buck takes a look, trying to diagnose the problem. “Well, one, you put them too close together on the tray. It should’ve been baked in two batches. And two, you used too much butter. The batter ended up too liquid and spread out instead of rising.”
“It might still taste okay, though, right?” Tommy doesn’t sound like he thinks that’ll be true, but Buck tries to remain encouraging.
“Maybe,” Buck says. “We’ll have to wait for it to cool first though.”
The “cookies” do not taste okay. They’re too salty and the taste of baking powder is overwhelming. The chocolate somehow ended up charred too. Buck’s not sure where to begin explaining where Tommy went wrong. “Maybe I should stick to baking and you should stick to fixing cars,” Buck says.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Tommy nods. “Do you still want to try painting?”
“Yeah,” Buck says. “We said we were going to hobby-swap today, just because you suck at baking doesn’t mean I’ll suck at painting.”
#
Buck sucks at painting. One of the things he likes about baking is that there’s a logic to it, a set of very firm rules that he can follow to achieve a specific result without second guessing himself. He knows exactly what he needs to do to achieve a specific result. It’s replicable. Orderly.
Painting’s not like that.
Sure, there’s some science to colour theory that’s actually pretty cool and Buck likes the way Tommy describes the process of building up colours and shading. And yeah, there’s some math to in the way you divide the canvas and focus on shapes. But it’s one thing to understand the principal of what Tommy’s saying, it’s another to actually be able to execute it.
Unlike with baking, there’s no definitive measurement of colour to put on the canvas, no set number of brush strokes. It’s all very vague, wish-washy, vibes-based.
It leaves Buck feeling uncertain about his choices, kind of like when he’s trying to deal with other people when he doesn’t have job procedure to fall back on.
Buck’s trying to paint a portrait of Tommy but even he can tell that it’s looking more like Mister Potato Head than anything human. It’s so not sexy. Meanwhile, Tommy’s painting a masterpiece that somehow makes Buck look like he belongs with Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Like Tommy looks at him and has a religious experience.
It’s a bit overwhelming, that feeling of being held in awe.
“Are you crying?” Tommy asks. “It’s only your first try. At least it looks like a face.”
Buck laughs. “Thanks,” he says. “But it’s not that. It’s just that, is that really how you see me?”
Tommy’s expression softens. “I wish I had the skill to paint you exactly as I see you, Evan,” he says. “This pales in comparison.”
And doesn’t that just take Buck’s breath away.