Duo peered down the darkened hallway cautiously, then hurried with his burden into the safety of the kitchen. "Made it," he whispered to himself, grinning as he plugged the small boom box in and started the Christmas music playing softly -- it had been hard enough waiting for everyone else to turn in for the night and Heero to go to sleep. It wouldn't do to wake anyone now; that would spoil the whole surprise, and he very much wanted to surprise his friends, to start the holiday season off with the perfect touch.
The only apron in the dorm's kitchen belonged to one of the girls, and he grimaced as he tied the fluffy, frilly thing around his waist with a neat bow. He already got enough cross-dressing comments as it was, because of his long hair -- not that he had a problem with cross-dressers, really, but he was sure tired of hearing about it.
The idea occurred to him that Heero would look awfully pretty in a dress, and he had to double over, stifling the sound of his snickering at the mental image. Cheerfully humming along to "The Little Drummer Boy," Duo fluffed up the ruffles of the girlish apron and started pulling out the things he would need. Thank goodness nobody ever messed with raw cooking ingredients -- a can of soup wasn't safe in the public cupboards, but a bag of flour could rest undisturbed indefinitely... or at least until an intrepid explorer like Duo Maxwell came along to make something of it.
"Heero in a dress," Duo chuckled to himself, and set out the rest of the ingredients he had hoarded for the past few weeks, as well as the big mixing bowl and the community electric mixer. Still humming cheerfully, he mixed the first group of ingredients, the whirring mixer and the happy music lightening his heart.
"Shall I play for you, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum," he sang along softly, and added the water to the mixture, pulling an awful face as the mixer did its work.
"Nothing more repulsive-looking than gingerbread in progress," he muttered to himself. He continued to run the mixer, his arm wearying from holding it for so long, and his mind naturally wandered back to cross-dressing as "Winter Wonderland" started to play. Chihaya would make a pretty girl, and so would Arislan... Wufei would look like a boy in a dress, if you could get around his offended dignity long enough to get him into one. Quatre would be pretty, but probably wouldn't quite pass... and the thought of Trowa in a dress was nearly enough to send him into hysterics. The only thing goofier than that would be... Zechs-sensei and Treize-sama in drag!
Duo had just enough presence of mind to shut the mixer off before the laughing fit doubled him up again. He sank helplessly into the nearest kitchen chair, wheezing with laughter and burying his reddened face in his arms as they rested on the table. Oh, God, but that was a vivid image! He could almost see Treize-sama in deep blue velvet and Zechs-sensei in icy pale silk!
Three songs later, Duo wiped his eyes and went back to his recipe. "Ok... all I need is flour and the spices!" This was way easier than he'd been led to believe -- those Home Ec. students must have just been exaggerating when they said they'd had a hard time with this recipe. And it seemed like such a big, fat waste of time to add one cup of flour at a time... he put all the flour in, added the spices, and turned the mixer on.
A few seconds later, he turned the mixer off and wiped the flour out of his eyes. Practically the entire kitchen was covered with a fine layer of flour, and he had gotten the worst of it.
"One cup at a time," he sighed to himself. Well, he'd just have to estimate how much flour had gotten out of the bowl. He didn't have enough molasses to start over from scratch.
A half hour later, the kitchen was once again clean. Duo straightened his now less-than-pristine apron and started replacing the escaped flour, this time carefully mixing in one cup of flour at a time while "Frosty the Snowman" confronted the traffic cop. By the time he'd added the fourth cup of flour, the dough was already so thick that the mixer's motor was obviously straining to process it. The fifth cup produced a high whine from the overtaxed hand mixer, and the sixth cup brought it to a dead stop. Worried, Duo pried the beaters out of the thick dough and hit the power button --
and was rewarded with the splatter of dough hitting wooden cabinets making a fine counter to the rhythm of "Jingle Bells." Stifling the urge to fill the air with a few colorful Christmas curses, Duo wiped sticky dough from his eye, threw the beaters into the sink and put the mixer away. He'd just do the rest by hand, the old-fashioned way. His mom made meatloaf with her hands... way back when she used to cook meatloaf. So this wouldn't be much different.
He carefully scrubbed his hands with the precision of a man preparing to perform surgery, then added the last of the flour and the spices to the bowl and sunk his fingers into the dough.
This method wasn't so bad -- the dough smelled good, and the sensation of squishing it through his fingers was not at all unpleasant. And to make it even better, the flour was being incorporated without flying all over the room in a puff of white smoke. His cheerful mood restored, Duo began humming along to "Deck the Halls" as he mixed the gingerbread dough. Oh, but these cookies were going to be good! A tiny smirk stole across his lips as he thought of how surprised everyone would be. Nobody believed him when he said he could cook -- well, now they'd have to take his word for it! Mrs. Maxwell's little boy could certainly cook more than just bugs and peanut butter!
It wasn't until several minutes later that Duo realized his mistake. The dough seemed to be well-mixed... but he couldn't get his hands back out. He pried one hand loose, and stared at the roundish glob of dough that thoroughly coated it. Damn. Prying the other hand free, he tried to use one hand to scrape the fingers of the other clean. At least half of the bowl of dough remained stubbornly attached to him, and it was impossible to get so much as one finger free from the sticky mass.
Fifteen minutes later, he gave in with a final whimper. "HEEEEEEEEEERO!"
"What's wrong?" Heero asked a bare half-minute later, wild-eyed and breathless before his eyes took in the sight of Duo buried to his elbows in brown dough.
"I can't get loose," Duo admitted sheepishly, blushing as Wufei, Quatre and Trowa all crowded into the doorway. He hadn't meant for anyone to see him in the frilly apron!
"You can't get loose," Heero repeated, his mouth twisting wryly.
"Right."
"Why did you put your hands in there in the first place?"
"I was mixing! Look, could you please give me a hand, here?"
"I am not putting my hand in that," Heero quipped, while the others clapped behind him.
"But I can't get loose!" Duo snapped, exasperated, prying one hand free and waving it in demonstration. The dough formed a solid lump around his hand, looking for all the world like an incredibly thick and slightly moist mitten.
Heero snickered and went to get a spoon from the drawer. "Ok, so you couldn't get your hands back out of the dough. You have an explanation for why you're wearing a lacy little apron?"
Duo's blush deepened as Heero began scraping the dough away with the spoon. "It was the only apron here."
"Told you you'd look good in girls' clothes." Duo bit back a caustic reply -- it'd be just like Heero to leave him stuck in dough if he snapped back like he wanted to. Heero smirked again, and the boys watching from the doorway hooted with laughter.
When the last of the dough was finally off, Duo covered the bowl with plastic wrap and stuffed it into the refrigerator, greatly relieved, then scrubbed and scrubbed his hands, trying to get rid of the gingery, cinnamony smell. With a great deal of dignity, he doffed the apron and stalked out of the kitchen past his laughing friends.
"Wait, aren't you going to finish your cookies?" Wufei asked between giggles.
"The dough has to chill," Duo answered, and went back to his room and crawled into the bed.
"I don't care if I never eat gingerbread again as long as I live," he mumbled to himself, then closed his eyes and slept. Nothing else to do, when your Christmas spirit has deserted you and there's nothing left but crankiness. Especially when your friends are still laughing over how cute you look in girly ruffles.
The morning light spilling in on him through the open curtains woke Duo up, and he rolled out of bed, somewhat less cranky. His hands still smelled like gingerbread. Heero wasn't in the room, but that was to be expected -- he had an assignment he was working on for his Chemistry class, and he had arranged to spend part of this Saturday morning in the lab.
Duo shuffled around, getting dressed reluctantly and heading once again for the kitchen. The gingerbread dough sat innocently in its bowl, and Duo pulled a face at it. This time he wouldn't bother with the frilly apron -- he busied himself with preheating the oven and getting the tabletop ready for him to roll out the dough.
Cold dough was, thankfully, a lot less sticky than warm dough. He spread flour over the table and coated his hands with it, dimly remembering his mother fixing gingerbread cookies when he was little. He was certain that this was how it was done. The flour kept the dough from sticking to him, and his cheerful mood returned as he remembered that rolling the dough out and cutting it into shapes was the fun part.
The first dough boy stuck to the tabletop where the flour coating had been too thin, but the others came up fairly easily, and Duo paused to turn the Christmas music back on as he filled the first cookie sheet with raw gingerbread boys. The first batch hadn't been quite uniformly rolled, so some of the boys had thin feet and the others had thick middles, but it seemed like no time before the cookies were ready to bake. While the timer merrily ticked away, he rolled out the next batch. The heavenly scent of cooking gingerbread filled the air, making his mouth water, and the warm, cheery kitchen, filled with Christmas music and the smell of gingerbread, somehow made everything all right again. His spirits were high when Wufei poked his head into the room.
"Are you baking the tar babies?" he asked.
"The gingerbread boys. The first batch'll be ready soon," Duo answered, confused. Maybe there was some kind of Chinese tradition about "tar babies" that he didn't know about.
"I smell tar babies cooking!" Quatre said, giving Duo a cheeky grin as he entered the kitchen.
"What are you guys... "
"Are Duo's tar babies ready yet?" Trowa asked, walking in with a gleam in his green eyes. Duo gaped at them all, flummoxed until he remembered the old Uncle Remus story about Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby... and then suddenly he laughed, sinking down into a chair as his friends laughed with him.
"Damn, I was stuck but good, wasn't I?" he asked, when he was able to speak again, and Wufei nodded, still cackling. Quatre was pink in the face, and Trowa looked as though he might pop a blood vessel trying to hold his laughter back. The sight of Trowa's face made Duo laugh harder, and he pointed a floury finger at the silent boy in a vain effort to explain what was so funny.
The first batch of cookies was unevenly cooked -- the thinly-rolled parts of the cookies were a little too crispy, and the thickly-rolled parts were still a little too doughy, but all of the boys agreed that they were the best gingerbread cookies they'd ever had.
"Laughter with friends is the perfect spice," Wufei said, then blushed at the sappiness of his comment -- if he'd said that sort of thing at home, Meiran would have laughed at him and his father would likely have snapped at him for being less than manly...
"I think you're right," Duo agreed easily, patting Wufei's shoulder and leaving a flour handprint on the dark green sweater. "Have another." Wufei smiled at Duo, and Duo smiled at all his friends, basking in the warmth and the music and the friendship. It was already the best Christmas season ever.
(unfinished)
Yoiko -- Please send feedback to the author at: mightyyoiko@hotmail.com
(:./knm/wilmington25)
