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Enjolras had a perfect plan for his boyfriend's birthday. He'd have Courfeyrac take Grantaire out for some reason or another (Courf was always good at coming up with excuses) and he and Ivy Jo would bake a cake for R's birthday.
Of course, as was the tendency of Enj's perfect plans, this one failed on step two. Courfeyrac had managed to get Grantaire away for the evening, so all Enj needed to do was bake the cake.
Only today was one of those days where his body simply refused to cooperate. He'd taken all of the pain meds that Ferre had told him he was allowed to take, and had been so good about wearing his knee and ankle braces, and had even been really careful at work and still. His body was not having it.
But it was fine, Ivy Jo liked to help in the kitchen. He'd just sit on a chair and let her do most of the work and everything would be okay. They had a box cake mix, it couldn't be that hard, could it?
He sat at the kitchen table with the box mix in his hands, reading the directions.
"Hey, Ivy Jo, could you turn the oven on to 350?" he asked.
"Yeah!" she said very excitedly.
She dragged a chair over to the oven and climbed all the way up onto the counter. She stared at the buttons.
"Mr. Enjolras, how do I turn it on?" she asked.
Enj looked over at the oven, but couldn't quite read what the buttons said. If his legs had decided to work that day, he would've stood up and gone over to have a look, but alas, he was stuck on his chair for now. Maybe he should've grabbed his cane before he had sat down at the table. But he didn't want to get up and get it now. He'd just make do with what he had.
"Uh, is there a button that says on?" he asked.
Ivy Jo frowned, looking across all of the buttons. "No."
"What do the buttons say?"
"Bake…br-bro-broll? Keep warm…Temp time…"
"Hit the one that says bake," Enjolras instructed her. He wasn't sure that was the right one, but it probably was.
"Okay." She hit the button. The oven beeped. She squinted at what appeared on the little screen.
"What's it say?" he asked.
"Bake…three five zero…" She cocked her head. "A tiny baby zero…F…start…question mark!"
"Is there a start button? Push start."
Ivy Jo scanned the buttons. "Yes!" she said as she pushed the button.
The oven beeped again.
"Did I do it?" she asked excitedly.
"Yeah, I think you did," Enj told her with a smile. "Now, we just have to make this cake. Can you find a big mixing bowl for me? They should be in the cupboard right there."
He pointed to the lower cabinets by the oven.
"Okay!" she jumped off of the counter and flung the cabinet door open.
Enjolras heard lots of clanging as she stuck her head in and searched for the bowl. Eventually she came back to the table with a blue mixing bowl, leaving a stack of other bowls behind her on the floor. Enj would've picked them up if he was confident in his ability to stand.
Ivy Jo hopped up onto the chair next to Enj. "Now we make it?"
"Now we make it," he confirmed. He pulled the package of mix out of the box.
"Can I open it?"
"Go for it," he said, handing it to her.
Ivy Jo pulled and pulled and pulled on the packaging, but she couldn't get it. She frowned.
"Can I help?" Enj asked after a minute.
"Yeah," she said with a sniff, handing over the package. The poor girl looked so sad.
Enjolras pulled with all of his limited strength that he had that day. After a minute, he was ready to give up, too. He was too tired to use all of the rest of his spoons opening a little package.
"Here, you pull one side, I pull the other one?" he suggested.
Ivy Jo enthusiastically agreed to that, grabbing the side that Enjolras had offered to her. With their combined strength, they sure managed to get the package open. Well, more like explode. About half of the contents spilled everywhere, all over both of them, the table, the chairs, the floor.
"You look so silly, Mr. Enjolras!" she giggled. Ivy Jo had cake mix all over her face and hair, and he assumed he was in a similar state.
It now occurred to Enj that the easier solution would probably have been to just find a pair of scissors. But he supposed it was too late for that now.
"You look pretty silly, too, Ivy Jo," he said with a laugh. "You want to put our mix in the bowl?"
"Yes!" she said, enthusiastically taking the bag from Enjolras and dumping it in the bowl. She got most of it actually in the bowl, too.
"Alright, now we need a cup of water," Enj said. "You wanna check in that drawer for a measuring cup?"
To be completely honest, Enjolras did not know if there were measuring cups in there. He was very underqualified to be doing this. Courfeyrac usually cooked. Or Grantaire. And even on occasion Ferre did. Enjolras never cooked. He was beginning to realize this was probably a bad idea. He had no idea what he was doing.
Ivy Jo rummaged around in the drawer and pulled out some sort of measuring cup. She took it over to the sink and filled it up. She very carefully walked the water over to the bowl and dumped it in.
Enj got a look at the cup she was using. It was 1/3 cup.
"Okay, we're gonna need to fill that one up two more times," he told her.
"But you said one cup of water," Ivy Jo said with a frown.
"This isn't a full cup. It's only a third. So we need to fill it up two more times so we get one full cup."
She didn't stop frowning, but she did turn around to fill it up again. She walked carefully back over to the table and dumped it. She did it again, only this time, she wasn't as careful when she walked back, so some of the water spilled on the floor.
If Enj had the energy he'd just clean that up. Unfortunately, all he could do was stare at the puddle as Ivy Jo put the last of the water in.
"What's next, Mr. Enjolras?" she asked when she'd finished with the water.
He took a look at the box. "Uh. Eggs."
"Oooh! I like doing the eggs!" She ran to the fridge and grabbed the carton.
Enjolras contracted suddenly. Sitting up hurt. Maybe if he just scrunched up in a ball for a minute he'd feel better. He pulled his legs up to his chest and folded his arms over his head. He sat like that, eyes squeezed shut, hoping it would be over soon.
Ivy Jo was humming as she cracked the eggs. Enj just listened as he waited for his pain to settle.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up.
"I did all the eggs! What do I do now?"
Oh, God. Ivy Jo had cracked a full dozen eggs into the batter. There were egg shells all over the table.
At this point, Enjolras was ready to just say they'd buy a cake from the store. But they had to finish what they'd started. Not for Grantaire, but definitely for Ivy Jo. She was at least having a good time.
"Mix it up," he told her.
Ivy Jo used her chair from earlier to hop back up onto the counter and grab a whisk. Enj laid his head down on the table and watched Ivy Jo mix. He was sure he was getting even more cake mix in his hair, but at this point it didn't really matter to him anymore.
The kid whisked the mix vigorously, spilling plenty of the mostly egg mixture onto the table and all over her shirt.
Well at least R loved Enj and would probably forgive him if his daughter came home a mess. If nothing else, Enj could play the "I wasn't feeling well" card and anything that happened would be immediately forgotten while R tried his best to make him feel better.
"Okay, let's find a pan for this," Enj said a minute later when he was ready to speak words again. "Can you find a rectangle pan from the same place you found the bowl?"
"Yeah!" Ivy Jo dropped the bowl onto the table and went back to the cupboard. She found a pan and brought it back to the table.
She dumped the batter in, and didn't spill very much of it this time.
"Can I put it in the oven?"
Enj sat up. "No, actually let me do that. I don't want you to get burned."
Ivy Jo pouted at him.
"Sorry," he said.
It took him a minute, but he got himself to standing. He grabbed the pan and walked over to the oven. Slowly. He still had his knee and ankle braces on, which helped a bit, but it still really hurt to walk. Ivy Jo supervised him.
He set the "cake" on the stove and opened the oven. He carefully slid it onto the rack and closed the oven door.
"When is it going to be ready?"
"Whenever it's done baking. Let's check how long it's supposed to be in."
He took a step and promptly slipped on the water Ivy Jo had spilled earlier.
Enjolras crashed onto the floor. "Ow." That was not what his body needed.
"Are you okay, Mr. Enjolras?" Ivy Jo asked, bending over so her head was upside down while looking at him.
Before he could respond, he heard the front door open and a second later, Ferre was standing in the kitchen.
"Jesus, what did you guys do?"