THE RED FIREFIGHTER HAT ON LITTLE GAY EDDIE ICON IS SO CUTE ICONS ALWAYS AMAZING 🥰
(also immediately made me think of season 5 Eddie at dispatch and him saying “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is Firefighter Eddie Diaz on a department-wide channel. We have a fire at Metro Dispatch downtown.”)
tge has had so many silly hats he wanted to remind you all that he is indeed firefighter eddie diaz. on a department-wide channel. oh and metro dispatch is on fire
Shizuo drinking from the milk jug and Izaya yells at him and tells him to use a glass ksskwkqkqmqmqmms
Hello darling. <333333333
I want you to know that this ask helped inspire part of this fic and therefore this fic is in honor of you!! It's super sweet, just like you!!
Anyway I finally wrote one of the prompts I have on my pinned post!! Pat on the back for me tbh.
Yes I wrote this all in one sitting no I did not reread it all the way through but I followed a recipe pretty closely while I was writing it so I'm sure all the steps are there.
“Don’t ever say I don’t ever do anything for you,” Izaya was scowling as he scanned his phone, “This is going to make a mess of our kitchen.”
Shizuo wasn’t listening for his listing off ingredients, “Flour, sugar, baking soda, vegetable oil, powdered gelatin, and I got out the eggs we’ll need in this bowl. Is there anything else?”
Izaya did a once over at the ingredients, “Did you find the sea salt?”
“Oh yeah here it is,” Shizuo put it down proudly. His face was as nonchalant as ever but Izaya’s assessing eyes saw how excited he was. “And you found strawberries earlier right? It looked like the recipe called for a lot.”
“Just ten,” Izaya said dismissively, “And they’re all laid out there.”
He indicated to the bowl in front of him with his bowl as he read over the recipe for the fifth time. Something was still missing.
“Cream of tartar. Do we have it? It’s very important.”
“Uhhh,” Shizuo paused to turn back to the cabinet with their baking ingredients and he pulled out the little canister of cream of tartar. Izaya felt a little wary and picked it up to check it and as he had suspected, it felt entirely too light. He uncapped it with his thumb and sure enough it was nearly empty. He sighed as Shizuo said, “I think that’s the thing I dumped last time when we made lemon meringue pie.”
“Great,” Izaya sighed, “We’ll need a substitute then.”
“It should still be fine, right?” Shizuo asked, “I can run to the supermarket really quick and grab some if I need to. Can it still work?”
Izaya held up his hand, “Could you make your desperation any more obvious?” he scrolled on his internet search and sighed again, “It says we can use vinegar or lemon juice. We have plenty of vinegar, right?”
“Um let’s see,” Shizuo turned around and hastily shifted the various bottles they had, “Does it matter if it’s white or red?”
“It doesn’t say,” Izaya sighed, “Probably white though. Actually it says lemon juice is better.”
“Oh. Why?”
“How should I know? Just check for lemon juice.”
“Okay fine lemon juice.” Shizuo opened the fridge. “No lemon juice.”
“Fine, then we’ll use white vinegar.”
“’Kay.”
Shizuo went quiet after that and Izaya took this time to organize the ingredients in the order they’d need them. Shizuo passed him the jug of white vinegar and he set it in the line-up he had. It was almost like they were setting up a set for a baking video which almost had Izaya smiling to himself when he felt something pressing against his back and around his waist.
“What’s this? Are you flirting with me?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo pressed his face to Izaya’s cheek. “Thanks for making this with me.”
Izaya diverted his eyes away. “You know you need to keep your hands clean for this.”
“Just one kiss and then I’ll behave. Promise.”
“Oh, what a rare occasion. You giving me your word,” Izaya turned and let Shizuo kiss him sweetly from the side. When he let go Izaya gave him a caustic look, “I do appreciate the ass-kissing though since we both could’ve enjoyed what I suggested.”
“I know, but you have to assemble dorayaki after they’re done and it’s just a pain when I’m hungry now.”
Izaya smirked, “You sound like a little child, Shizu-chan.”
“Shut up.”
“It doesn’t have to be strawberry,” Shizuo offered, “If you want, it can be just the regular chiffon cake if you want.”
“And bow away from a challenge?” Izaya batted his eyelashes at him, “My man wants strawberry cream, he’s going to get strawberry cream.”
Shizuo’s face lit up at everywhere but his mouth. They were practically sparkling at Izaya’s words. He could never admit it, but when Shizuo looked at him, looked at him, like that Izaya couldn’t help but want to give him anything he wanted. It was like Izaya was a god yet he wanted to serve Shizuo like he was the one.
“Settle down now. Your wagging tail is going to knock all these ingredients off the counter.” he chided.
Shizuo frowned at him, but then turned to their prep work. “So what can I do?”
“Preheat the oven,” Izaya said, returning to his phone to read the recipe a fifth time, “And do you know how to use the tool that separates the whites from the yolks?”
“Think so. It looks kinda like a spoon, doesn’t it?”
Izaya watched him pull out the wrong thing, and smirked. Without saying a word, and with his phone still in one hand, he removed the lemon juicer from Shizuo’s hand and found the drawer with the correct tool and handed it to him. Shizuo gave him a scathing look.
“What about that looked like a spoon?” Izaya asked as he stood in front of the mixing bowl and Shizuo started poorly separating egg yolks from egg whites. He shouldn’t have given Shizuo a task related to delicate items, but he was just too eager to not give some sort of task.
“Shut up.” Shizuo grumbled.
“Use a bowl with a shorter diameter,” Izaya said nonchalantly as he started measuring out flour, “And you can just set it in there so all you have to focus on is breaking eggs.”
“O-Oh. Right… thanks, Flea.”
Izaya very well almost blushed at being called his nickname. He looked up swiftly and glared at him, wondering if it was purposeful but Shizuo was fixated on following the instructions Izaya gave him. He recovered quickly and looked away before Shizuo could notice. He mixed together all the dry ingredients and added what was left of the cream of tartar- exceedingly little. They’d have to use some vinegar for the other part.
“Oh that’s right I need vanilla for this next part.”
“Yeah, it’s already on the counter.”
“Good, I’m also gonna need milk.”
Shizuo was concentrated on his egg yolks. He was almost done with the last one. When he dumped the last separated yolk into the little measuring cup he handed it to Izaya who was staring pointedly at him.
“Did you hear me? I said I need milk.”
“Huh? Oh sure.”
“Shizuo.”
“What?” Shizuo finally met his eye and noticed the death stare Izaya was giving him. “I’m getting it.”
“This isn’t the one you drank directly from, is it?”
“Who cares? Nobody else is gonna eat it but us, right?”
Instantly Izaya whacked him with the wooden spoon he was holding. “That’s not the point! Use a glass, and don’t be a pig.”
“Relax! It’s not the same jug. And I told you I only did that so I wouldn’t have to dirty a glass that one time. What do you keep getting all prickly for anyway?”
“Shut up,” Izaya huffed, turning back to his station with the egg yolks, “You need to be more accommodating to your sweet boyfriend who’s making sweets which he hates.”
“I already told you thank you. What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have one!” Izaya snapped. “Now get me milk.”
Shizuo’s mouth twisted but he did as he was asked and watched Izaya combine the yolks, oil, vanilla extract, and of course milk into the well he made in the middle of his flour mixture. Once the ingredients were incorporated, the instructions specifically advised to leave it and set it aside.
“And now for the meringue,” Izaya said, then turned to Shizuo, “Will you set up the parchment paper onto the cake sheet for me?”
“Yeah sure.”
“Thank you, my love.” Izaya said without even thinking about it, and instantly froze. He took a chance by glancing over nervously to Shizuo, who wasn’t looking at him. Even after something as shameless as that, Shizuo’s mouth remained unmoved, but he could still make out a light pink on the other’s cheeks. He concentrated on getting out the mixer to put the egg whites in to hide his embarrassment. He hadn’t done anything quite so mindless in a while.
He filled the awkward silence with the sound of the mixer beating the eggs into a meringue. He sure hoped that vinegar would suffice, but after a minute he determined that it would likely be fine. In the meantime Shizuo was haphazardly laying out the parchment paper so Izaya had no choice but to go and take the task from him. He pushed Shizuo over to the meringue to add sugar once the whites finally turned the correct color. When it was time to increase the speed again, Izaya shooed him away.
“You know, you’re kind of a control freak.” The other commented.
“And I’m surprised you haven’t gone into a rage and destroyed our kitchen by now,” Izaya said pretending to check his nails, “You usually hate being treated like a nuisance, even when you are.”
It was an intentional jab to make up for the ‘my love’ thing, and Izaya knew the risks which he was prepared for. He took the incorrect gamble.
“You know I love to watch you doing stuff like this,” Shizuo said, “So concentrated. And you can barely hold a fake smile when you’re like this which means you’re invested in this.”
Izaya started to scowl but he caught himself and smiled instead. He lifted his phone again to scan over it as a distraction.
“Izaya, how many times are you gonna read the recipe? You’ve definitely memorized it by now.”
“I’m trying to determine the best time to incorporate the poison.”
“Uh-huh.”
The oven beeped, which meant it was hot enough for the cake batter. Izaya turned off the mixer and pulled out the prepared meringue. He then returned to his batter which he had set aside and really did wonder how he and Shizuo had gotten this far without destroying anything- in a very literal andmetaphorical sense.
Without further ado, Izaya folded the meringue into the batter. There wasn’t much time to dally now. He lifted up the batter and Shizuo stood aside as he dabbed the corners of the parchment paper with little dollops of it to keep them down while he spread out the rest.
“It looks really good.” Shizuo was saying.
Izaya didn’t speak as he did this part, spreading out the cake smoothly and scowling in concentration as he did so. Truth be told, he didn’t have the patience for baking. He would never have tried to do this for himself back when he lived alone, even if he had liked sweets. It was too tedious and there were too many laborious steps to this process and for what? Some swirly shaped cake? Yep, Shizuo was very lucky and should be grateful, he thought to himself.
On the other hand though he wondered what had made him this way. When he did the numbers in his head, he had never been able to pinpoint the exact moment his main source of entertainment had stopped been human suffering and idiocy and became keeping this annoying blonde brute who used to throw trash cans at him happy. It was humiliating in a way, but for some reason not even that had been enough for Izaya to ruin it- because in addition to being enamored with him, Shizuo had also managed to learn how to read Izaya’s self-destructive tendencies. He didn’t even have the kindness to just ignore them either which Izaya found the most annoying.
“I need to tap it,” Izaya said, grabbing either side of the pan and trying to lift it. It was a little awkward for his arms, which hurt for various reasons, but he couldn’t ask Shizuo to do this: the batter would go everywhere. He very slowly lifted it and tapped it on the counter one good time. Shizuo watched him in silence, presumably waiting for any sign of distress to show on Izaya face. Finally, into the oven to bake it went. Izaya exhaled and when he turned, Shizuo was admiring him again. He turned away and rolled his eyes.
“Did you make sure we have enough whipped cream? If we have anything missing we need, now’s the time to get it.”
“No, but I’ll check it in a second,” Shizuo said, pulling him into a hug to kiss him again. Izaya stuck his finger to Shizuo’s lips as the other let go.
“I thought you were going to behave.”
“Yeah, I guess I lied. I do spend a lot of time around you after all.”
“Hmmm. Well maybe you can enjoy this plain, not creamed sponge cake, how about that?”
“Come on,” Shizuo said softly getting in his face, “I don’t know why you keep getting so mad, but I wish you’d just act the way you really felt damn it.”
“Oh you wanna know the truth? I hate you and your stupid cake.”
“That’s not honest,” Shizuo said, pressing his forehead to Izaya with a scowl though not an aggressive one, “What about that ‘my love?’ comment, huh?”
Izaya’s scowl deepened. “What about you? I’m making you a whole cake yet I haven’t seen one smile from you.”
“Wha-? Is it really that important if I smile with my mouth?”
“You’re the one talking about insincerity. So then? Are you saying you’re not holding back smiles so that I won’t feel encouraged to tease you?”
“No, I definitely do that.” Shizuo leaned in a little close and at that he gave Izaya the barest of little smiles and nudged him with his shoulder a bit, which jostled Izaya back a bit. Izaya crinkled his nose at him.
“I’m going to prep the dishes for the cream now,” he said, “Not because you deserve this cake but because I’m going to do this perfectly for bragging rights and then I’m going to dump it in the street.”
“You wouldn’t make it that far.”
Izaya ignored him and turned to the sink to begin washing dishes, but then Shizuo pushed him out of the way.
“Let me do this. It’s my job to do the dishes anyway, remember?”
Izaya rolled his eyes. “Just hand me back the mixing bowl and the metal beaters once they’re clean.”
“Well hold on. You could help me dry, you know.”
“What for?” Izaya didn’t like to do the dishes, which is why he pushed them off on Shizuo. Something about left over food and saliva contaminated dishes, even if they were just with their two mouths, left him feeling icky.
“It’ll take less time. Besides, you like doing human couple shit, right? This is as human couple-y as it gets.”
Izaya huffed, but he stepped into place beside Shizuo, not wanting to let on how compelling that argument sounded him. He did like doing traditional couple-y things with Shizuo. Damn it. That’s why he was making this stupid cake in the first place.
They were strangely quiet as they did dishes with Izaya losing himself in thought for once while he did such a mindless task. He wondered if the fact that he couldn’t look at his phone while he did dishes was the real reason why didn’t like doing them. He could pause and check it while vacuuming if he needed to, or he could take a moment between tasks but with dishes his hands were occupied and more specifically covered in water. Maybe Shizuo had a point when he said Izaya was obsessed with technology.
Unconsciously at his side he kept leaning over and bumping shoulders with Shizuo. He was surprisingly fidgety so he often shifted from foot to foot. He wasn’t sure how much of it was caused by his years of parkouring throughout the city, or if he happened to pick up parkour because of how fidgety he was. Either way, he’d never really been the best at keeping still.
The oven beeped, and Izaya immediately went to it, checking that it was cooked through and letting it cool for a few minutes before flipping over onto the cooling rack. When he felt like it was cool enough, he also pulled the parchment paper off the top, which had once been the bottom. He could feel Shizuo’s eyes on him as he carried out this process, but Izaya was not about to fuck it up by pausing to start a fight after coming this far with no issues.
“It looks like it’s going to turn out really good.” Shizuo sounded so pleased, but once again he was smiling with his eyes and not his mouth. It wasn’t that Izaya hated Shizuo’s face like that- it was that he’d started to consider it a point of pride that he was able to make Shizuo smile more often than anything else, so he was constantly on the lookout to try and do it again. It was part of his competitive nature to make Shizuo more embarrassed than Shizuo ever made him.
“This is the most important part,” Izaya told him seriously, “You read to roll this cake?”
Shizuo nodded. “You sure you’re up for it?”
“You’re asking me that now? Just who do you think you’re talking to anyway?”
Shizuo nodded. “I’ll leave it to you then.”
Izaya took a deep breath and pulled out the fresh parchment paper. When enough time had gone by, he flipped the cake back down onto the counter and took the longer edges of the paper so that it would go inside the cake as he folded it into a swirl. He couldn’t help but think to himself, stupidly, how out of place he felt making something so sweet when he was himself the opposite of something sweet. Shizuo was looking at him like he was though.
The swirl came out decent enough. Izaya didn’t mess with it too much since he was scared it would break apart if he did, but he glared at it for a full minute after he wrapped it up to cool in that swirled shape. It probably could have been swirled a bit tighter by someone with more skill and that thought pissed him off.
“It’s so weird to see you getting pissed off by stuff that wouldn’t be a big deal to anyone else,” Shizuo said, which only reminded Izaya that there was indeed someone there, watching him. How’d he go so far in life avoiding letting people seeing him participate in mundane parts of life only to start doing acts of service for one particular person?
“It’s not perfect,” Izaya sighed, “It’s not going to stay rolled up well, and I can already tell.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“Sure it is,” Shizuo said easily, stepping closer. “It’ll still taste good either way. And We can always just put more cream there so it sticks in the swirl.”
Izaya didn’t say anything. He was frowning and glaring at the swirled cake like it had seen his aspirations for today and spat at him in direct defiance.
“I can’t wait to eat it.” Shizuo was saying, “No one’s ever made me a chiffon cake before.”
“You say the same thing every time I bake you something.” Izaya muttered. “I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity though. It’s a genuine confession, alright? Nobody ever made me things in school. No chocolates no handmade gifts, and definitely no damn homemade cakes with strawberry cream even though my boyfriend hates them. It’s nice, alright?”
Izaya huffed. “Sure.” He said, unable to conceal his pout.
“Well? We making this cream or what?”
Izaya nodded. “You fix the gelatin while I cut the strawberries.”
Shizuo made the gelatin on the stove while Izaya beat the cream and sugar in the bowl they stuck in the fridge. They felt like a real team in this exact second and Izaya heaved a sigh to conceal how bashful he felt. At one point he felt Shizuo’s hand brush across his back and he didn’t say anything but a smile did bloom its way onto his face. Finally it was time to combine the gelatin with the cream and strawberries. They worked together for this, which probably wasn’t the best course of action considering they were them, but in the end the cake turned out quite nice. They wrapped their cake back up and placed it in the fridge before cutting it. He wasn’t sure which of them was more impatient for Shizuo to try it, himself or Shizuo; either way, they ended up taking it out before the ‘recommended’ time. Izaya cut a sloppy slice of it off and fed it to Shizuo.
Shizuo chewed it slowly. He swallowed it before nodding. “It’s good.”
“You’re a bastard. Say more than that.”
“What? It tastes like it’s supposed to!”
“I hate you! I’m never making you anything again.”
“Hey,” Shizuo said seriously. “Isn’t it enough I enjoyed making it with you?”
“Absolutely not. Choke on it and die if it’s not good.”
“But it is good. I love it.”
“Then say it with more enthusiasm!” Izaya snapped. “I feel like I’m talking with an automated voice. “For someone so animated, you’re not good at expressing when you’re happy about something.”
“Yeah look who’s talking here,” Shizuo sighed. “Listen, I love it a lot alright? But that’s just the thing about sweets. At the end of the day it’s like… they’re just sweets, you know?”
Izaya froze, absolutely dumbstruck. Did he just…? He did not just say what Izaya thought he said right? After doing this for well over an hours? Just when Izaya was about to murder him in cold blood, listing in his head merchants that would buy his organs for good money on the black market, Shizuo spoke again.
“It’s not nearly as important to me as the fact that you did it for me. Even if it had tasted like shit I would still love it. I mean… it tastes great, so I love it for that too. But I love it because… like… you know.”
“That’s enough.” Izaya sighed, “I get it okay jeez. You love me very very much.”
Shizuo smirked at that- a deep smile, just like Izaya had been hoping for.
“Yeah you’re pretty much the worst. But I do love you.”
Izaya cast his eyes away just as Shizuo had when he smiled. He didn’t pretend like this little set up between them was perfect. Izaya doubted he’d ever be the perfect partner- hell he didn’t even know if he could be a great partner, but he could do this much.
“Yeah, you’re okay too I guess.” Izaya shrugged. “Now… I think I deserve a reward.”
Shizuo opened his arms and dropped his cake back onto the plastic wrap around the rest of the loaf as Izaya jumped into his arms and gave him the makeout session he’d rightfully earned.
