making breakfast for june, cal, damon, and bash!
I have been brainstorming domestic moments that might have occurred in like the time between Orion and Tilaarin and when this struck me I was just like :O
This is each member separately, but I do think a big crew breakfast would be a fun thing to write as well
I am fs planning to finish this with Ryona, Aya, and Vexx!! I just wanted to get something out since I’ve been working on this for like 3 days lol
We know that this man canonically barely sleeps but we don’t really know his eating habits? So for the sake of this he gets hungry just as often as anyone else lol.
You don’t actually set out with the intention of making breakfast for him. It’s actually sweeter than that: you simply integrated him into your morning routine. When making yourself breakfast (and this is a morning where you have time for more than just some water and granola, you like actually cook), you find yourself already considering June’s needs. You hadn’t seen him in the hallway, and you’d gotten up fairly early, so you assumed he was still in his room. Whether he was actually asleep or not, who knows.
You debated whether to eat yours first and just wait for him to come into the kitchen eventually or take it to him, and decide on the latter since you were also hoping for a private moment with him away from the mayhem of being full time mercenaries.
Transferring the food you’d cooked into some more portable dishes, you exit the kitchen and make your way to June’s door. With your hands full, you knock on the door with your elbow, and while awkward it gets the job done. You can hear some shuffling behind the door and then June answers in some comfortable pants and a shirt you can tell he hadn’t been wearing prior to five seconds ago.
He answers on high alert but then his eyes soften when he sees you.
“(YN), good morning, um, to what do I owe this surprise?” He asks, smiling softly yet still quirking his eyebrow.
You smile and hold up the food you’d made, steam still wafting slightly from the top of the bowls. “I made breakfast and hoped to have a quiet morning in with you!”
“You made me breakfast?” He asks, as if that isn’t obvious from the two portions you’re holding and the invitation to eat some with you.
“Oh, well I guess I did,” You respond, “I wasn’t really thinking about doing anything special, I was just already thinking about you and made you some without thinking.”
He looks surprised for a moment before smiling deeply, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “Come inside, I was thinking about you too.”
While it’s a bit cramped trying to both eat off from his desk, and he only has one chair that he all but forced you to sit in, insisting that standing was no problem, you both find yourself occupied with thoughts only about how happy this companionship makes you.
During his light rant on the proper storage of Lizzie’s food and how Damon keeps taking it out of the fridge even though he knows that it needs to stay cold, you take his hand and run your finger along a fresh, but albeit, small cut. You’d reached out without really thinking about it, and June cuts off his sentence preemtively.
“Are you not using the cream that Ryona gave you for these cuts? It doesn’t seem like this has healed much since yesterday. You know you should be doing that,” you scold, despite there being no anger behind your voice.
He blushes just slightly, barely visible with his tanned skin and the greenish tint to his blood. He averts his gaze but you know he’s guilty.
“It’s not that big of a deal and my hands are already so scarred anyways, I don’t see how they could look any worse,” he deflects, and from the look of sadness that passes over your face he knows he’s said something wrong. He just wanted to keep you from worrying about him.
“June,” you start earnestly, “you do realize that I love you, wholeheartedly and completely, and that includes all your scars, external and internal? I will always accept you just as you are, and care for you even for the most trivial things. I know that it must still be hard adjusting to this level of attention, but I will always remind you that I care about every small part of you.”
There’s a silence that follows that statement, as you see tears welling in his eyes. His brows furrow as he tries to process every word of your statement. Twice already today you’d cared about him as if it was second nature and now you’ve told him that he has your unconditional care and support. While he’d found trust and friendship with the crew of the A6, nobody had cared for him in this way, without judgement and as if it was like breathing. The feeling of it crumbled him, and he took you into his arms, cupping the back of your head with his hand as he buried his face into your shoulder.
And you hug him back just as tight, as with your arms you could squeeze the doubt and pain right out of him. While you hadn’t considered how much your small actions would mean to him, you wanted to convey how big your emotions were too. When June pulls himself back together again and pulls away from the hug, you smile and wipe his cheeks dry with your hand.
“How about we go to the kitchen for seconds?”
With preparations for Tilaarin and the diplomatic nightmare of dealing with Alisa and Oppo simultaneously, you hadn't seen Calderon in a couple days, besides in passing where he gave you a soft look but kept walking.
While your time with Cal had been short, you knew this man as a workaholic with no sense of self care, and got it in your head to make sure he was taking care of himself, since he couldn't seem to do it himself. Before you went to bed you'd stopped by the bridge to make sure he wasn't still there and luckily only found Aya confirming the path to Tilaarin and making minor adjustments in the autopilot. Satisfied that Cal was most likely at least in his room, you went to bed yourself.
The next morning while making yourself something to eat you noticed a distinct lack of dirty dishes from Calderon. (At this point, you'd eaten with the crew enough to know who used what and Cal was extra particular with his items.) Sighing, you started up the stove to make sure that he ate something more than a handful of nuts or some plain bread.
Once you'd finished and plated both of your meals you realized you had no idea where he was. Most likely he was already awake doing god knows what, and you didn't have the energy to hunt him down. So, you picked up your com, took a deep breath, and called the shipwide line:
"Paging Captain Calderon Lynch, from Prince(ess) (YN) Peg'asi," you laugh inwardly at the formality that certainly wasn't necessary but conveyed urgency, "I need you to report to the kitchen."
You can hear Bash laughing from the hallway, and through your mild embarrassment hold out hope that Cal is even more embarrassed and that he'll arrive at least to chew you out.
You sit at the table, waiting in silence for a minute, when you hear the automatic door slide open and a peeved but blushing Calderon step in.
"To what do I owe this, pleasure," Cal begins, "your majesty." You know that if it has been anyone but you, he would already be yelling, or even more likely wouldn't have entertained the request at all.
"No need to have a stick in your ass so early, Captain," you tease back, "and I'll have you know that your continued well-being is of utmost importance so I believe my call portrayed the exact right amount of urgency."
"And what is your concern with my well-being?" He asks, leaning against the counter with the air of someone with undeserved confidence.
"Well, and I don't know for sure as a [Tilaari/Kitalphan/fellow human], but I believe people need to eat to live and if you don't do that for long enough it's not good for you."
You gesture towards where the breakfast is already beginning to cool and raise your eyebrows suggestively.
"Do you think you need to take care of me?" Calderon sighs, though there's no defensiveness in his voice and he takes a seat.
Taking the seat next to him, you take his hand in yours and near force him to look you in the eyes. "It's not about thinking I need to, it's that I want to. You're someone important to me, and the rest of the crew, and you can't be the one sacrificing himself for others. We're in this together, ok?"
Calderon swallows the lump in his throat and nods, determined not to cry at such a small gesture. But in the back of his mind he thinks, when was the last time someone's done even something this small for him? Squeezing your hand, he releases it to grab the fork and take a bite, smiling at your anticipatory face for his reaction to the food.
I imagine with Damon is less of you making him breakfast and rather making it together. We already know he can cook and bake pretty well, so I'd like to think he makes himself nice meals as a way to have something he can control. So when one morning you're both entering the kitchen at the same time, he quirks you a smile and asks, "You come here often?"
"Not as often as I probably should," You respond, reaching around him to open the fridge. When he sees you pouring yourself just a bowl of cereal he furrows his brows a bit and then sighs.
"Is that all you're having?"
"Um. Yeah? What, is there something else I should be eating?"
Damon pauses, an inscrutable look on his face, then sighs resignedly.
"You ever cook in that palace or did you have a personal chef to do it all the time?" He teases, but steps aside from the stove so you can see what he's doing.
"Uh....I never really made anything, but sometimes I'd sneak into the kitchens to get a midnight snack or extra food. I don't think that counts though."
Damon let's a breath out of his nose in laughter and says, "No, I wouldn't count that as cooking. But I know a thing or two about stealing food, too."
You swat his arm but feel a pit in your stomach. Was it pity, sympathy, or simply sadness that he had to experience such desolation? You shake the thoughts off and lean closer to him, either to see better or to simply get closer. The reason doesn't matter.
"So what are you making?" You look at a greased frying pan and a mixing bowl filled with what you think is a mixture of eggs, milk, and cinnamon.
"Well I was going to just make myself a plate of eggs and call it a day but I figured if I'm teaching you then I might as well make something nice. You ever have French toast?" He takes a...whisk? You weren't sure, like you'd said, you didn't have much experience with cooking. He hands the whisk to you and says, "Here. Mix until it's all one consistency. I'll let you know when you've gotten there."
You hold the side of the bowl and begin mixing like your life depends on it. Maybe it was your pride making up for the fact that you felt so inexperienced compared the rest of the crew. What you didn't know was that that would cause the mix to start spraying everywhere.
“Hey! ‘The hell you do that for?” Damon shouts in surprise as he gets egg and milk in his hair.
“I! Um! I thought you had to mix it really hard?” You say guiltily, setting the whisk down as gently as possible.
“What? No, these ingredients are mostly liquid! They’re just to soak the bread in!” He says, swiping his hands through his hair. When he sees your dejected look, he purses his lips and puts the whisk back in your hand.
“Here,” he puts his hand over yours, “We’ll mix together. See, nice and gentle, just with enough force to break the egg yolks.” You can feel the callouses on Damon’s hands as he holds one of yours stirring the whisk and the other is over your hand holding the bowl.
“Ok,” you say quietly, since his chest is pressed against your back, “and what next?”
“Well, we let the bread soak while we make some [coffee/tea/drink of choice].”
The rest of breakfast is made without any more spills, mostly you observing Damon but he does let you flip the toast in the skillet, laughing lightly at your surprise when the uncooked side begins to sizzle. When you’re finished and both sitting down to eat, you smile widely at him. You’re extremely grateful for his patience with you, and not just today. Adjusting to life as a not-so-ordinary person has certainly not been easy, but after his apology he’d been nothing but gentle, though he’d never admit it.
“Thank you for teaching me this, Damon. I hope you’ll let me learn more from you.”
“I, uh, it’s really no problem,” he says, pointedly looking at his plate as he picks at his food, “It’s nice to have someone to do this with anyways.”
Bash is another member of the crew known for his baking prowess, so I think he’d make something really nice once a week that he can eat off from for the rest. Like meal planning but for like an oatmeal bake lol.
He keeps his portions labeled neatly (well, not all that neatly but you can certainly tell they’re his from the doodles that accompany his name) in the fridge, and he has lots of fun mugs to drink from, one matching your own “I <3 Cursa” mug. This particular morning you can see steaming tea coming from a mug that has clip-art of tools on it and says, “Kiss The Mechanic” in bright pink lettering, and you know it has to be his, though you have no idea where he would have gotten it. There were a few very specific gift shops on Chrono, however, that seemed like they had something for everyone. You had to stop him from buying you a T-shirt covered in words that started out reading, “I have a kick-ass biomechanical boyfriend, and yes, he bought me this shirt.”
Since the tea in the mug was still hot, you knew that Bash had to be around somewhere, though he wasn’t currently in the kitchen. Knowing at that point his habits for breakfast, you took out one of his portions from the fridge and set it on the plate to microwave (? I have no clue what cooking would look like in the future).
While waiting for that to finish, you rummaged around in the fridge for something for yourself, finding some fresh fruit that Ryona had picked up on Chrono, with a note that said “for sharing but do not eat it all!!” and laughed. You knew for sure that even if she hadn’t labeled it, she would have made an exception for Bash. Taking the carton of fruit out of the fridge you, spoon some onto Bash’s oatmeal to give it some more flavor and set it on the table before making a bowl of fruit for yourself. You hear the doors swish open as Bash walks in, yawning. It takes him a moment to process that his food was already warm and waiting for him on the counter.
He looks at you and then back at his food. “Did you do this?” He asks, before picking it up to smell it.
“Um, yes? Don’t worry, I didn’t poison it.”
“Oh,” he starts, “Well, uh, thank you. How did you know that was what I wanted?”
“Bash, you eat the same thing every morning and the containers are covered in your name. Plus, while I may be sheltered, I know how to operate a microwave.”
He picks up his bowl and mug and takes a seat next to you. He then eyes the fruit in his bowl and the fruit in his. “Is this Ryona’s?”
“Yes, but she said she’d share. Do you not like it? I’m sorry I put some in without asking, I thought you’d like the extra flavor.”
“Oh! No no, I love it, I just, I don’t know. I’m not used to people caring for me. Sure, the crew cares about me but, I never had someone taking care of me growing up, and when I was under the care of the Archangels it was because I couldn’t take care of myself. It felt more like a debt I’ve yet to pay back. So I guess when it’s something small and out of the goodness of someone’s heart I just don’t really believe it. Not that I don’t believe you and your feelings! But, my brain doesn’t want to, you know?”
You smile at his ramblings, he always manages to make you smile.
“Sebastian,” you say with a fake stern voice, causing his eyes to widen, “I don’t just do this out of the goodness of my heart but the love in my heart. I pay attention to you and your habits and want to take care of you because I love you. It’s that simple, and I’ll keep doing it until you and your silly brain of yours believes it.”
He takes your hand and raises it to press a kiss to your palm.
“I love you too, (YN). I hope you’ll let me take care of you too.”
