Tiny bb!Blaine playing pee wee football. Tiny bb!Blaine playing pee wee football in a helmet that's too big and falls in his eyes. Tiny bb!Blaine being the smallest, fastest kid on the team. Tiny bb!Blaine sharing his snacks and juice boxes. Tiny bb!Blaine always being the first to help another kid who falls down or gets hurt, even if they're on the opposing team. Tiny bb!Blaine being excited about all the things.
Title: Half a Cup of Christmas
Characters: Blaine, Cooper
Rating/Length: G / ~1,515
Summary: Cooper and Blaine make some Christmas cookies together.
[AO3]
The house is quiet when Cooper gets up, slipping out of his bedroom and into the hallway. His father is away on business even though Christmas is a spare few days away and his mom won’t be up for another hour or so.
It’s the first day of winter break and Cooper intends to make full use of it.
Blaine’s room is just across the hall from his, and when Cooper gently pushes open the door, Blaine is a tiny limp in his bed, curly head peaking out from under the covers.
Cooper kneels down next to the bed. “Blaine,” he whispers, pushing his brother’s mess of hair back from his forehead. “Blaine wake up.”
Blaine’s little nose scrunches up and he twists away and as the bed covers shift Cooper can see that Blaine is clutching an orange dinosaur in his fat little hands.
“Blaine, time to wake up.” Cooper could let him sleep, he supposes, but where’s the fun in baking Christmas cookies without his little brother? Besides, Blaine would be put out of Cooper did it all by himself.
“Awake?” Blaine mumbles groggily, his eyes struggling to open.
“Yeah, squirt. Awake. If you get up you can come help me make cookies.”
That gets Blaine attentions and he sleepily sits up, clutching his stuffed animal to his chest. “Cookies?” His hair is pressed flat to his head on one side and riot of curls on the other.
“Yep, cookies.”
“Before b’fast?” When he’s tired he still lisps a little on certain, bigger words and it just makes Cooper want to pinch his rounded cheeks.
“With breakfast,” he clarifies.
Blaine narrows his eyes a little, like he’s weighing the chance to go back to sleep against the possibility of cookies before dessert. “Can Oop help?” He asks, completely serious.
“Of course Oop can help. He’ll be our sous chef."
Cooper gathers Blaine up in his arms – making a quick stop in the bathroom – before carrying Blaine and Oop downstairs.
The kitchen is cool and quiet and Cooper sits Blaine down in a chair with a cup of milk and a bowl of dry Cheerios so he can get the oven pre-heated and all the heavy things pulled out of the cabinets and down onto the counter top.
“Remember what I said about the oven?”
“Hot!” Blaine chirps dutifully, shoving cereal into his mouth.
“That’s right. And we don’t touch hot things.”
He’s going to make some snickerdoodles from his grandmother’s recipe book, because he and Blaine love them and their father hates them, but he’s also going to bake up a bunch of sugar cookies so Blaine can make an utter mess decorating them. Cooper is fully prepared for how long it’s going to take them to clean up the kitchen when they’re good and done.
“All right, squirt, come get your uniform on.” Cooper holds out a pint-sized apron with the words Little Chef stitched across the front and Blaine scrambles out of his chair, eyes alight.
“Hold still,” Cooper mutters as he ties the apron around Blaine’s little body. “All right, are you ready?” He asks, hands on his hips as he looks down at Blaine. His little face is set with determination and he matches Cooper’s stance, chubby fists on his hips and a stubborn chin.
“Ready.”
“Wait, we’re missing something.”
Blaine’s face scrunches up in confusion. “What?”
“Music.” Cooper turns on the radio that’s tucked into the a corner, setting it to a Christmas station because if there’s going to be Christmas cookie making there better be Christmas music playing. “Ok, now we’re ready.”
***
Baking with Blaine is an exercise in getting more ingredients into the bowl than on the floor. Blaine stands on a stepstool pushed up to the counter and Cooper lets him dump flour and sugar and spices into the mixing bowls. Thankfully, most of the ingredients end up where they’re supposed to go. Blaine doesn’t yet have egg-cracking down, hands still too clumsy for it, but Cooper happily wastes a couple eggs just to hear the delighted laughter than bubbles from Blaine when another yolk splatters. Cooper gives Blaine a spatula and lets him hand mix it all together, standing on his toes to reach until his little arm gets tired and Cooper takes over.
“Good job,” Cooper says, ruffling Blaine’s messy hair. “These are going to be so good.”
Blaine hums happily, swaying to the music coming from the radio while Cooper finishes up.
When the snickerdoodle dough is mixed and ready, Cooper hands Blaine a spoon. “Go for it.”
Blaine already has flour smeared across his cheeks and butter in his hair and seconds later he has sticky dough all around his mouth. Cooper knows you’re not supposed to eat raw eggs, but he’s been doing it for years and it makes Blaine so happy.
“Good?”
Blaine nods, head bopping ecstatically. “The best.”
“Excellent. We’ll get these in the oven and move on to the next batch.”
The sugar cookies are easy enough to throw together and Cooper has Blaine rustle up the cookie cutters while he quickly rolls out the dough into a sheet.
“Okay, what kinds of shapes do you want?”
Blaine shoves the little metal cutters across the counter, eyes bright. “All of them.”
Cooper laughs. “Let’s do trees, snowmen, and candy canes. How does that sound?”
Blaine considers the rest of the cutters – pumpkins for Halloween and eggs for Easter among others – but eventually nods. “Okay,” he agrees, and Cooper sweeps the rest back into the drawer.
It’s easy enough to let Blaine push the cookie cutters into the dough and then let him eat little piece of the leftover. But Cooper is careful Blaine’s fingers don’t get in the way, or that he doesn’t eat so much raw dough he makes himself sick before he can even enjoy the finished cookies. It’s a delicate balance for sure.
“Okay, stand back, squirt,” Cooper cautions as he opens up the oven to slide the tray in. The snickerdoodles are waiting on parchment paper off to the side and the whole kitchen smells amazing. This is one of the things Cooper loves most about Christmas.
The cookies have to bake and then cool before they can be decorated and Cooper gets Blaine some fruit and crackers to snack on while they wait, partially to keep him busy but mostly to put something other than sugar and butter in his belly. Blaine chatters away about what he wants for Christmas and how he hopes it’s going to snow while Cooper cleans up, getting the bowls into the dishwasher and wiping up the flour and sugar and everything else from the counter tops. Not too much made it to the floor this time, which is its own Christmas miracle. Though maybe that’s because it’s all on Blaine’s apron instead.
Blaine is telling him all about the snowman he wants to make, complete with a long scarf and mittens, when the cookies have cooled enough to decorate. Cooper spreads parchment paper across the kitchen table so no matter how big of a mess they make it’ll be easy enough to clean up.
“Okay, what do you want to start with?” Cooper asks, setting down the array of fresh cookies and little bowls of red, green, and white frosting and a whole host of sprinkles.
“A tree!” Blaine reaches for one with his little hands, almost knocking over what’s left of his glass of milk.
“Let’s put Oop over here, okay?” Cooper advises, settling the stuffed animal safely out of the way. “So he doesn’t get messy.”
Blaine is still too young to handle a piping bag, so he just uses his chubby, clumsy fingers, spreading green icing all over the tree and his own hands with no finesse at all. His tongue pokes out in concentration and Cooper ruffles his hair.
“You boys having fun?”
Cooper looks up to see their mom coming into the kitchen, wrapped up in a warm robe with her hair up in a messy bun. “Oh yeah. Aren’t we, Blaine?”
Blaine nods. “Coop let me help!” He exclaims, gesturing to his array of cookies. He’s attempted to decorate the candy canes in red and white stripes and managed with a certain kind of success.
Their mother grins, padding over to the big, expensive coffee maker and suddenly the scent of espresso joins the sugar and spice of the cookies.
“You boys going to go out into the snow when you’re done?” She asks, nodding towards the window.
Blaine is up out of his chair almost before she’s done speaking. “It’s snowing!” He shouts, scrambling back up onto the step stool to peer outside, delight etched across his face.
Cooper laughs and goes to stand next to him, a steadying hand on his back. “Would you look at that?”
“Can we build a snowman?” Blaine asks him, hope full in his eyes. And all at once it feels like Christmas, with their mom and her coffee and the smells of baking while snow falls softly outside.
