Jackunzel Month
Week 2 - Coming of Age
The kitchen is once again filled with the sounds of Rapunzel banging around, plates and dishware clattering as she searches the fridge. Jack's got a sneaking suspicion this all has something to do with the huge, tinfoil-covered mound on the top shelf.
For an entire week, Rapunzel insisted they put every ounce of leftovers in the bottom half of the fridge, ignoring the Mysterious Object™️like a leaky faucet you handn't gotten around to fixing. Not that Rapunzel doesn't occasionally need her home fridge for work-related things, but she isn't normally cagey about it.
Jack once again resists the urge to peek out of the blindfold.
"Come ooooon, Zellie! This anticipation is going to kill me before our starving artist lifestyle does."
Rapunzel laughs. "Starving? I'll have you know, sir, that I've had no less than 5 whole french fries today!"
Considering it was 9 pm, this was not an ideal french fry quota. Rapunzel definitely had time to eat more fries today.
Jack wonders idly if Rapunzel's just getting too caught up in her work to take lunch breaks, or if her manager is crunching her deadlines again.
Before he can get too far into plotting how he would swap her boss's salt and sugar without getting Rapunzel in trouble, he hears the distinctive sound of a lighter.
"Are you torching our apartment?" he asks. "Because if so, I'm very offended I wasn't invited to participate."
Rapunzel scoffs. "Don't be silly! Like I'd set the place on fire without getting home insurance first. And it isn't as though either of us can afford that."
"You're still making me nervous. Usually I'm the one who plays the pranks."
"Hmmm, well...that would have been a good idea, actually." Rapunzel sounds a little regretful. "But no tricks today, I promise. Now open your eyes!"
And at last, Jack gets to see what all the fuss is about.
A stunning, snow-white cake sits in the middle of their dining room table, covered in sparkly silver candy orbs and carefully sculpted fondant snowflakes. All around the side are little hand-painted winter scenes, meticulously crafted by an icing brush in a process that must've taken hours. On top, a "2" and a "6" candle sit ablaze.
Rapunzel, of course, spends all day at work decorating cakes. It's her career. (Or, at least, it has been for the past 6 months--the longest she's gone without leaving a job to date.)
It still seems like she went the extra mile with this one.
"What--" For a long moment, all Jack can do is stare with his mouth hanging open.
"What the hell," he says finally. "How did I forget today was my birthday???"
Rapunzel's surprise quickly turns to laughter.
"Oh my god, how did you forget?"
Easy for her to say. Back when Rapunzel lived with her crazy mom, who practically kept her a prisoner in her own house, birthdays were easily the most interesting thing that happened all year. Birthdays with the Overlands were always much more...lowkey, so to speak.
"In my defense!" He holds up his hands. "Nothing interesting happens when you turn 26. Pretty much all the milestones are finished, so it's just another orbit around the sun."
"Nonsense!" Rapunzel sticks her lip out in disapproval. "That's no way to talk about your coming-of-age ceremony!"
"Coming-of-age?" He raises his eyebrows. "I think we missed the cutoff for that a while ago."
"Well, 26 is your age now." She crosses her arms, chin up defiantly. "And you have come to it. So therefore you have come of age."
He chuckles. "Is that how that works?"
"Why not? Teenagers and college kids shouldn't get to have all the fun!"
"My point still stands, though," he argues. "You don't really...unlock the same kind of stuff in your 20s that you do when you're younger. It's not like there are new magical adventures that you suddenly have access to when the clock strikes 12 on your 26th birthday."
His girlfriend's conniving smirk sends a wave of excitement through him. What is she plotting?
"Did you find an elite 26-and-over club to join?"
"Not exactly." She leans over the table, smirk widening. "But someone did have a chat with your boss about how many great snowscape photo opportunities there are in the mountains, and how you're going to need to not come into the office for while to get all the best shots."
Jack's eyes widen as her meaning dawns on him. "And Mr. North was cool with that? Me taking a vacation right before the holidays?"
"I mean. He could hardly resist the offer of having his best photographer out getting festive snapshots for the December issue of the magazine. You'd do more good on the field than stuck behind an editing desk, right?"
Jack sits down, getting ready to blow out the unexpected birthday candles. He pauses, something occurring to him.
"Wait, what about you? I'm not about to go off and leave you to handle the bakery's holiday rush on your own!"
Rapunzel hums thoughtfully.
"Well, funny thing. I told our head baker that I just hadn't been feeling very inspired lately. And if I went somewhere, say, fresh and exciting, then the muse was sure to strike again and I'd pump out a collection of the most beautiful winter cakes the bakery's ever known. Ones to really send that holiday profit flooding in."
"So...you snuck around and got us both a week off for my birthday by spinning it as a work trip? And on top of that, you just casually whipped out the most gorgeous birthday cake I've ever seen in my life?"
"You're my goddamn hero."
He stands up and sweeps her into his arms, pulling her into a kiss worthy of being the Big Dramatic Finale to any coming-of-age film. All these years later, and it still feels like cameras should be spinning around them with rock music building into a triumphant crescendo.
Maybe that's cheesy, but to hell with it.
"Have I ever mentioned I'm in love with you?" he murmurs against her lips.
"I would hope so, Overland. We've been dating for 9 years now."
Half a hazelnut chocolate cake and two celebratory hot cocoas later, Jack finds himself being dragged toward the car in the encroaching darkness of 5:30 pm.
"Come on! I booked us a night in a cabin, and we need to take off before the roads get icy. It's supposed to snow in a couple hours!"
"I packed the car while you were at work." Rapunzel doesn't miss a beat. "Don't worry, I grabbed all your favorite sweaters! Your snowboarding stuff too. And the sleeping bags. And the cozy socks. And the snow chains. And the binoculars. And the sled. And the scarves."
He doesn't have time to form a reply before he's being bundled into the front seat and covered in one of his favorite fluffy blankets. The sheer amount of alpine field guides and brochures on the car floor make him do a double take.
"You have an itinerary?" he asks, surprised.
She hums uncertainly as she pulls out of the driveway.
"Well...nothing too rigid. No coming-of-age road trip of self-discovery can be that structured, or else it might get in the way of spontaneous epiphanies about who you truly are, right?"
Rapunzel looks like she's about to burst open with what she isn't saying.
"I did find a really cute place for us to sled." The dam breaks as Rapunzel pulls out of the driveway. "And there's this secluded little mountain animal rescue we have to see. And this four-star cafe we can stop at for hot cider and soup, and this really pretty snowy hike that I don't think is too tiring. Also this ski and snowboard slope we can check out if we have time, with this really cozy lodge, and--"
She cuts herself off mid-sentence as soon as she picks up that all this might be a little overwhelming.
"Buuuuut," she amends slowly. "It's not like I've put down a deposit for anything. We could just drive through the mountains and stop whenever we feel the urge. Find the best secret spots and have them to ourselves, you know? Have deep conversations and be alone with nature and reconnect with our humanity and our sense of purpose. Or something like that."
He can't help but laugh at the way her brow scrunches as she goes deep into thought.
"Do you...have a preference?" She gives him a searching look as they pull onto the freeway, already glowing with streetlamps and taillights. "Agenda or no agenda?"
"Whatever you're down for, I'm down for. Hell, I'm just happy to have an unexpected week of vacation."
"I guess that's the thing about these types of 'finding yourself' stories. You kind of have to figure them out as you go along."
"Then let's do some figuring!"
Rapunzel hits the gas, and off they go into the winter sunset, bound for their next coming-of-age adventure. One to perhaps be followed by many more, depending on how many future ages they deem it significant to "come to."
Tfw you keep aging but The Blorbos™️do not, so the only logical solution is to force them to age with you XD God dammit, if I have to be in my mid-20s, then so do my comfort characters!!!
Fr tho, I often find myself wishing there were more aged-up AUs in the RotBTD fandom. Most fandom olds returning to (or who stayed in) the fandom aren't the teenagers we were when we first got into the big four anymore, so...why not let them grow up with us??? It's not like their canon ages are some sacred, set-in-stone thing that can't be changed since people do in fact get older as time passes ajdnlshbf
And like!!! Don't get me wrong, I love a well-done high school or college AU, and they can be a lot of fun!!! But I think as I've gotten older I wonder more about how the RotBTD kids would navigate adulthood, and how they would change/adapt and how they would stay the same throughout their lives.
Jackunzel I feel like would be one of those couples who would just be it for each other. Like they get together in late high school--probably junior or senior year--and everyone keeps waiting for the spark to die in college and for them to get stir-crazy (as people who get into committed relationships young often do) or bored of each other, and they just. Don't. MFs hit 30 and are still in the honeymoon phase with no sign of getting out XD
Rapunzel is so right here btw. Twenty-somethings DO deserve to have indie coming-of-age dramas made about them!!! Kids and teens and college students shouldn't get to have all the fun!!! Besides, there's plenty of growing/maturing still to do in young adulthood, so why stop writing stories about that just because the people in question are out of school??? Tbh I'm so tired of movies with adult protagonists being either fluffy (hetero) romcoms or a drama about Some Guy with a wife and kids like??? There are other types of adults besides straights in the dating pool and middle-aged people with tidy little nuclear families!!! I promise!!!
Guess I'll just have to write all those funky little RotBTD twenty-something AUs myself ajshdkuys
Shout-out to the RotBTD discord for giving me the idea of having Rapunzel be a cake decorator and Jack be a photographer! I sometimes struggle a bit with future career ideas for the RotBTD kids, but these fit really well :D Jack definitely seems like the kind of person who would like something freelance and loose-scheduled where he basically gets paid to capture the beauty in the world around him :O And we know Rapunzel can bake, and she likes art, so...
CAKE ART CAKE ART CAKE ART CAKE ART
VERY happy I found that snowflake-and-orb cake, because that definitely seems like something Jack would enjoy 🤍❄️ And now I kind of want to try it 👀👀👀I DO have to wonder how they did that little picture with the tree and the car :O
As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!
