Work Text:
You open the door to Joseph’s apartment, after a long day in your boring office job, to see him standing in the kitchen. This in itself is unusual, first because he’s bad at cooking, and second because it’s too early in the day to be cooking. You can only see the back of his head and his spiky brown hair, he looks concentrated.
You wonder if he knows you’re home, surely he wasn’t so concentrated he didn’t hear the door? Regardless, you are going to try and scare him, sneaking behind him into the kitchen. You lean forward to put your arms around him, but he turns around and scares you first! He has some super instincts…
”Gotcha!!
You jump slightly, and put your arms around his torso anyways. He squeezes you with his rough hands on your back, this is where you are content, in his arms. You close your eyes for a second and lean your head against him when you smell burning. You open your eyes and look into his big, blue, nervous eyes.
”What's that smell?”
you step away from him, cautiously and see that he’s wearing an apron too. One of your aprons that he bought for you last Christmas, with text on it saying “pro baker”. But in this situation the text is covered with flour. Joseph puts his hands up in the air dramatically and speaks
”It wasn’t me!!!!”
it obviously was him, but you are in a forgiving mood today so you let it go. His frown is slightly downturned, so he does feel guilty for making a mess in the kitchen. You ask him what he was baking and he replies hesitantly
”cookies…”
he still looks nervous, but hearing that word makes you start beaming. He knows cookies are your comfort bake, and he tried to make them for you coming home for work. His face lights up when he sees you looking happy, and his lighthearted energy returns, you look deeply into his eyes and decide to make him an offer.
”I’ll help you”
”But I was going to make cookies for you…”
”I’ll be happier if we’re doing it together!”
you begin to gather the supplies he left sitting on the counter, getting a bowl, a spoon and a tray. You avert your eyes to the burnt cookies and ask JoJo to bin them, they were so burnt there was nothing else to do with them. You don’t even want to know how long he kept them in the oven for.
You ask Joseph to pass you the ingredients while you measure them, so nothing can go wrong this time. You add flour, eggs and milk to the bowl, you are about to ask for chocolate chips when you see JoJo eating them. You glare at him until he notices you, then he slowly goes red while eating a chocolate chip. He reaches into the bag and leans forward to put one in your mouth, you open your mouth to eat it, still looking at him with disappointment. It is only now that he passes you the bag, and you add chocolate chips to the bowl.
You don’t know how trustworthy Joseph is with a bag of flour, so you put some on the counter, and give him the job of mixing the dough with his hands. You’re done putting flour on the counter and glance at him, he is grasping at the dough, looking confused. You shuffle over to help him, putting your hands over his so he can get the correct mixing motion, then you let go and put your hands around his waist, feeling the muscles against your palms. You gently nuzzle against his back, and you can feel that he’s relaxed under your touch, and you can sense him flushing, but he is still focused on mixing.
When you are content you’ve cuddled him for long enough, you stand beside him again and help to roll the cookie dough into balls, and place them on the tray, ready to go into the oven. Now you have to ask him the important question:
”How long did you put them in for…last time?”
”uhhhh- 30 minutes at 300”
”300.” (572 fahrenheit for y’all Americans)
You exhale loudly, ensuring he can hear you. This time you set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, a more normal cookie temperature. You ask Joseph to put the cookies in the oven, he’s the one wearing an apron after all. He does that successfully and now you just have to wait for the cookies to be done.
”I do appreciate you trying to make cookies, but maybe wait for me next time, okay?”
Joseph's neck goes slightly red, but he nods obediently.