Chapter Text
Victor and Devin stood side by side behind the kitchen counter. Victor wore a dark green apron that said “Having A Mental ‘Bake’ Down” in white lettering, a skeleton rolling out dough on with a chef toque. Devin on the other hand wore a light beige apron that said “Made With Love Which Means I Licked The Spoon (And Kept Using It) in black lettering. (Victor hated that apron) He had many more aprons, spanning from cute, funny, basic, and a few obscene ones hung in his closet. A courtesy of their Baba who scoured Etsy, RedBubble, and a few malls for at least 50 aprons, partly as an apology. Victor’s goal for today was simple, make a glaze cake. He had freedom on the design and wanted to try and make a beach. That goal was made less simple when his ge suddenly arrived back home and decided to “help”. Now he was frantically trying to correct Devin.
“No! The pot is too high! You're going to ruin the glaze before it even becomes glaze!”
“That’s not even gelatin? Where did you get that?”
“How are you burning chocolate?! It’s charred?! Stop! Just give me the bowl…”
Victor was at his wits end, but finally they got to a break step. Just let the cake cool on the rack and the glaze cool in the bowl. So there the two Liu brothers stood, in silence with a probably too dense cake and grainy glaze. Devin turned to Victor, a large arm lying obnoxiously on the counter. “You’re good at this.”
Victor scoffed, “And it should be written in the Geneva Convention that Devin Tian Liu should never be allowed to operate any kind of cooking device or utensil.” Devin glared at the younger man before he looked away, “I mean, I’m glad you found your passion. What works for you.” Victor didn’t know what to say. Him and Devin didn’t have heartfelt conversations like, ever. So, Devin telling Victor he was happy with him without any snide remarks or quips was a bit jarring, so he just nodded.
“I wish I handled our conversation better. Maybe if I said something better or didn’t storm off you wouldn’t have…” Devin shook his head, “I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t have been scared to open up.” Victor was worried his ge somehow inhaled some of that not-gelatin and it somehow unlocked the empathy in his brain.
“No, I probably would have done the same things anyways. I wouldn’t let anyone pull me out; that’s not on you.” Devin turned back to Victor and pulled him into a hug,
Victor froze for a moment,
“I’m glad you’re okay, now. I don’t know if I could handle it if you had fallen and gotten seriously hurt.” Victor could hear the strain in his ge’s voice.
Victor knew what Devin meant by ‘seriously hurt’ and honestly, it scared Victor that he was even close to that. He relaxed and hugged him back. Arms contracting around his ge, a life float he’d never let go of again, “I love you, Dev.”
“I love you too, Vic.”