My gift for @shiroganeholt for the @voltron-ss.
So, I heard you liked Flowers Shop AU and Klance? So here, have an Au with... lots of flowers... where’s the shop though??
Look at Lance’s apron and you’ll find it! (oops)
Lance was probably taking over for his mom when Keith first visited, wanting flowers for celebrating something. Also, put a real sweatshirt over Keith, it’s freezing!
I hope you’ll like it, despite the lateness of it aaaah!!
And Happy New Year to you!!! (Yes because, like, what’s Christmas, it’s so last year *cough*)
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Pairing: Shidge (Shiro/Pidge)
Rating: Teen and up; for language.
Summary: Cooking was like chemistry, which she’d aced last semester, so she figured that it would be easy to whip something up. You followed a specific formula and would achieve edible success–simple. And even simpler was putting a monstrosity called a frozen meal in the oven at the right temperature and waiting for it to be done. Piece of cake, she thought.
Only...it wasn't.
Author’s Notes: From the prompt Character A tries, and fails, to cook dinner for Character B, resulting in a hoard of takeout food and a promise to never use the stove again for @shiroganeholt and @ohdearkamiwhy, who asked for it way back in like, August. I’m sorry it took me so long! I never forgot, I just got distracted and busy and here it is.
I hope you guys enjoy it!
Also on Ao3!
(shiroganeholt and ohdearkamiwhy, if you guys have Ao3 accounts, if you could comment or message and tell me the name so I can edit the Ao3 post to be gifted to you guys, I’d appreciate it!)
It had been a while since Pidge had tinkered in the kitchen.
She was a very technical sort of person. Machines were kind of her thing. But cooking was like chemistry, which she’d aced last semester, so she figured that it would be easy to whip something up. You followed a specific formula and would achieve edible success–simple. And even simpler was putting a monstrosity called a frozen meal in the oven at the right temperature and waiting for it to be done. Piece of cake, she thought.
Only...it wasn’t.
As the open oven allowed the plumes of dark grey smoke to disperse, Pidge stared blankly at what was supposed to be pizza. The center looked like it might conceivably pass as food, but the edges were blackened and the pepperonis were curling in on themselves, shriveled and much darker than she thought they should be.
She spared a glance for the smoke detector, abandoned and in pieces on the counter. That horrendous beeping would have given her a headache, if she’d let it persist. So she’d disassembled the device, because that was something she could fix later.
The pizza, however, looked like a loss.
“Holy crow,” she murmured, pulling the pan out and sliding it onto the stovetop, biting her lip. “What did I do wrong?”
She had set the timer for fourteen minutes, just like the box had said. And she was certain she’d had the right temperature. It should have been as easy as following the instructions on the box, so where could she have possibly gone wrong?
Pidge didn’t exactly have time to right this wrong. Shiro would be back to the apartment in about ten minutes, give or take a few, and would start asking her questions. Why does it smell like something burnt? he’d probably start with, raising a skeptical eyebrow at her. And despite how easy fibbing to her friends was, usually as a joke, she couldn’t do the same to Shiro. She’d probably end up spilling that she was trying to surprise him because they’d officially been dating for six months.
Six months.
Even now, it seemed impossible. Six months ago, she’d been a college freshman that was hopelessly head over heels for the teacher’s assistant in her Altean history class, and now here she was, a sophomore whose feelings had long since been reciprocated. It was almost unreal.
Shiro was in the middle of his obligatory student teaching semester, preparing for his career and life as a history teacher, and he’d been asked by his classroom mentor to attend a faculty meeting after school. He’d accepted, of course, because he liked to be useful and he liked to be prepared. And so Pidge had taken it upon herself to fix them dinner tonight, in celebration of six months together and the progress he had made.
Burnt pizza didn’t make for a good celebratory dinner, though.
After a few more moments of staring, wondering what she’d done wrong, Pidge pulled out her phone. If there was anyone who could help her come up with something in the next five minutes, it was the infallible Hunk. So she scrolled through her contacts and found his name in record time, pressing the Call button and lifting the phone to her ear impatiently.
“Hey, Pidge, what’s up?” he asked after the third ring, his tone familiar and warm.
“I need advice,” she said brusquely, prodding her catastrophic attempt at cooking with a spatula. “I’m trying to make something for Shiro for dinner and I burned this stupid pizza. He’s supposed to be home in about five minutes. Is there anything I can at least start in that timespan that might hide the smell of the burnt pizza and be ready pretty soon after he gets here?”
Hunk remained silent for a few moments, and she heard a few clanking sounds. He was probably cooking, too. But there was chatter in the background, so maybe he was at the store or something instead?
“How did you mess up on a pizza? I doubt you made it from scratch–sorry, Pidge–so how did you misread the oven instructions? Nevermind, I’m not sure I want to know, really. Um...do you have pasta? Pasta is pretty simple. Put some tomato sauce in a pan and let it simmer on low heat while you boil water and a dash of salt and put the pasta noodles in. Even you shouldn’t be able to mess that up.”
“Hey–”
“–sorry, sorry. Anyway, just let the sauce simmer for a bit on low while you boil the pasta. Easy-peasy. Even Lance can do it, so it should be easy enough for you to handle.”
A muffled, “Hey, I heard that!” sounded from the other end of the line, but Pidge merely snorted and focused on Hunk’s voice.
“Hush, Lance! But Pidge, as long as you keep the pasta from sticking to the sides of the pan while you boil it, you should be fine. Don’t overcook it, or it will be mush. But you’d have to let it boil for ages to get to that point, so you should be fine.”
“Somehow I’m not sensing much confidence,” she drawled, lips folding into a frown as she held the phone on her shoulder to rummage for the pasta in the cabinets.
“You burned a pizza, Pidge. One that you just have to put in the oven for like, fifteen minutes at the right temperature,” Hunk’s tone was flat. “Sorry if that doesn’t lend me confidence about your skills in the kitchen. Anyway, while the sauce is simmering, you should be able to add some cu–ow, Lance, what the hell–cumin, just for a bit of flavor. Personal family recipe, don’t tell Mom I told you that!”
Cinnamon? Pidge thought, Is that what he said? I didn’t think cinnamon went in pasta, but I’m a terrible cook.
“Yeah, yeah. Anything else you can tell me?”
“I’ve told you pretty much everything. It’s up to you. Make sure the pasta has enough water and a dash of salt, stir the sauce occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick, and you should make it through. Lance is trying to run me over with the shopping cart now, though, so I’ve got to finish shopping. Later, Pidge! Good luck with the pasta!”
“Thanks, Hunk. I’ll let you know how it turns out,” she managed. “Later!”
The phone clicked into silence soon after, and she let out a disgruntled huff of air through her nose.
Formulas and calculations she could do with ease. Mixing chemicals and using a bunsen burner was nothing. But somehow cooking was proving to be a lot harder than expected.
With one last sigh, she gathered all that Hunk had told her she needed and got some water in the pan she’d be cooking the pasta in. Pidge placed it on one of the burners, turning it on to let the water start heating up. For a moment she paused, trying to remember whether she needed to wait for the water to start boiling before she dumped the pasta in. After a few moments, though, Pidge decided that it wouldn’t hurt and did so anyway. She poured some tomato sauce into another pan and placed it on an adjacent burner, turning up the heat to let the sauce start simmering. Shiro was supposed to be back any minute now, so after a moment she decided to turn the heat almost all the way up.
“I hope this is right,” she murmured, glancing at the ruined pizza on the cabinet. She started to step towards it to clear it away, but then remembered Hunk’s other tips and turned to reach for the seasoning instead.
She dashed some salt into the pasta pan. She wasn’t sure how much she needed, so she gave it three or four good shakes just to be safe before reaching for the cinnamon. With that in hand, Pidge actually hesitated for a few moments. It still sounded so weird, but who was she to judge? Hunk had said it was his family’s secret ingredient, and he was nicer than Lance. He wouldn’t play a trick on her to ruin her pasta.
After two shakes of the cinnamon, which she mixed into the tomato sauce, Pidge stirred both pans a little before moving to deal with her earlier mess.
Tentatively, Pidge reached out to touch the pizza pan. It had already cooled enough for her to hold the metal, and she reached for the metal spatula in order to lift the pizza and discard it.
The only problem, however, was that it was stuck.
“What the hell?” she murmured aloud, brow furrowing. Pidge redoubled her effort, wiggling the spatula and working it under the edge of the burnt crust. If she’d expected it to get easier after that, she was wrong, because she had to continue wiggling to get under the pizza. And when she was able to flip some of it over, she saw that the entire bottom was black.
Pidge groaned.
Muttering to herself, a string of swears and admonishments, she continued to pry the blackened crust from the metal pan. It was a slow process and she grew gradually more agitated as she worked.
Until she glanced over to the stove as the first drops of water rolled down the side of the pasta pan.
“Fuck,” she cursed again, abandoning the pizza and slipping back to the pasta on the stove. Pidge stirred it quickly, noting with disdain how a few noodles were sticking to the bottom and sides of her pan. “Fuck,” she repeated, trying to gently scrape the pieces away from the edges. Once satisfied, she glanced at the sauce, gave it a quick stir and grimacing when it felt like some of it had already been sticking to the pan. But as long as it was edible, she could count the endeavor as at least partially successful and not a disaster.
Pidge returned to prying the pizza from its pan, depositing the ruins in the trashcan that she had pulled over. There was nothing else she could do with it. Even strays wouldn’t have been able to eat that. It was so burnt it was probably poisonous. Not to mention that she didn’t even know if dogs or cats could safely eat pepperoni or cheese or any of that stuff. Some of the simplest things had the worst side effects, sometimes.
She noticed the smell next.
Something...burning? Burnt? Pidge paused, leaning forward to sniff at the last few pieces of pizza on the pan. And, once she’d deduced that the new stench wasn’t coming from her first ruined meal, her head whipped towards the stove again and she dropped the pan and spatula on the counter as she moved over to it.
She stirred the pasta–a little bit of sticking, but so far, so good.
Furrowing her brow, Pidge started to stir the sauce only to find that it was being stubborn. When she forcefully scraped some of the food from the pan, she stared blankly at it for a minute.
“Motherfucker,” she hissed, turning off the burner and staring at the lumps of black in the sauce. “Of all fucking days for me to mess up,” she muttered angrily, rummaging for some serving dishes in the cabinet. Once she had placed her dish of choice on the cabinet, she started to scoop the pasta out into it.
Halfway through, she realized that she could have used a strainer, but the scooping was mindless and helped her vent some of her frustrations, so she continued anyway. Doing it like this also helped her gauge how done her noodles were. There were some with dark spots, and she assumed those had been stuck to the sides, and some that looked...rubbery? But she tried one, and it was at least edible, if a little salty.
She turned, then, to the travesty that was her tomato sauce. The pungent smell of burning food was even more pronounced now and she wrinkled her nose as she reached for the pan.
“Dammit,” was the swear of choice this time. And then Pidge carefully tilted the pan over the pasta, pouring out what remained of the tomato sauce–or at least what still looked edible–before returning the pan to the stove and sighing, staring at her concoction. Pidge felt incredibly weary as she fished out a fork, and a little more than nervous. She knew her own prowess in the kitchen, and she knew better than to test her luck on most days. But today wasn’t most days.
As soon as she’d managed to spear a piece of pasta with her fork, dragging it through the meagre drizzle of sauce for good measure, she took a shuddering breath, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth.
The first thing she noticed was that it tasted burnt. She wrinkled her nose and kept her eyes closed while she tried to decipher the rest of the flavors that were assaulting her tastebuds. There was too much salt–that’s what she tasted next. And then...cinnamon. Of all things, cinnamon. It didn’t work with the sauce, it was extra awful with the salt, and Pidge felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
She forced herself to swallow and slammed her fork down.
The next course of action had her pulling her phone to her ear, fighting back the frustrated tears, as she waited for the call to connect.
“Pidge! How did it go?” Hunk’s voice was carefully level, and it only made her eyes burn more.
Softly, grudgingly, Pidge admitted, “I fucked up again.”
Her voice was a lot smaller than she’d hoped, and it cracked, and she knew if it had been Lance she never would have lived that particular moment down. But this was Hunk–kind, benevolent Hunk.
As much as she hated to admit it, though, she was calling to get the warm rush of feeling that his comforting skills always provided. He was the best person to go to–aside from Shiro and her family, of course–when she was feeling particularly down. So she listened as he hummed softly in understanding and started to reassure her with little sentences–”It’s okay, maybe next time. I’ll teach you sometime, Pidge. Don’t worry about it. Just clean everything up and wash the dishes and everything will be okay”–and she felt her frustration start to ease.
“Pidge?” the voice rang through the hall, decidedly not belonging to the man on the phone, and she cursed. Hunk cut off in the middle of comforting her.
“What’s wrong, Pidge?”
“Thanks for the help, Hunk. Shiro’s home, so I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure thing, Pidge. You’ll be fine. Later!”
“Bye.”
She had just hung the phone up when Shiro poked his head into the kitchn, sniffing.
“Something smells burnt,” he observed, not unkindly, as he stepped into the room. He observed the scene as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her overlarge hoodie and failed to meet his eyes. He saw what was left of the pizza on the pan first, and with a glance she could see that he was putting the pieces together when he spotted the pasta.
Without asking anymore questions, and before Pidge could speak, he stepped forward and swept her into a hug, spinning her around.
“Wha–Shiro?” she asked, weakly, as she wrapped her arms around him.
“I thought you told me you couldn’t cook,” he said cheerfully, releasing her as he looked over at the pasta.
“I can’t,” she muttered, busy staring at her socks. “I messed up.”
“This doesn’t look too bad,” Shiro offered, gesturing to the meagre serving of pasta she’d dished up. He reached for the fork and she moved to stop him, opening her mouth to argue but unable to find the words to say.
Finally, as he looked at her inquisitively, Pidge settled for, “It tastes burnt. And I seasoned it wrong.”
“Well, you tried to cook for us, so the least I can do is try it.”
Shiro said it easily, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. With a reluctant sigh, she moved to let him pick up her discarded fork and watched with a bit of guilt as he took a bite. At first he seemed relatively unfazed, and then she watched his eyebrows rise in confusion. He chewed a little more slowly, and realized he was trying to process the taste information he was receiving.
He swallowed after a few minutes and cleared his throat a little. “That was...interesting.”
“I told you I messed up,” Pidge decided that her socks were more entertaining yet again. She did spare him a glance, though, and then held his gaze.
“Well, that’s nothing that a little bit of practice can’t fix,” he said optimistically, smiling down at her as he placed the fork back in its previous position. He opened his mouth to speak again but paused, brow furrowing, as he sniffed. Confused, Pidge followed suit and found herself wrinkling her nose.
Her eyes trailed, in horror, down to the burner she thought she’d turned off.
“Fuck,” she repeated for probably the hundredth time, lunging around her boyfriend to click the burner off.
The burnt sauce in the pan had bubbled, and after a few moments Pidge realized, with horror, that the non-stick Teflon was bubbled and warped, not the sauce.
“Oh no,” she breathed, eyes prickling again. “Shit. Fuck. I mean...shit.”
A warm, heavy hand descended upon her shoulder, and she didn’t dare look up at him.
“Don’t worry about it, Pidge, I’ve got another pan that same size. Your mother makes sure I have plenty of cookware, remember?”
“Because she knows I can’t cook,” Pidge mumbled numbly.
“And because she’s a kind woman who likes to make sure you and all your friends are well taken care of,” Shiro added smoothly, slipping his arm around her shoulders as he moved the ruined pan to the sink to cool. “So for now, why don’t we order some thai and watch some SyFy movies while you promise me not to mess around with the kitchen while I’m not at home. Okay?”
Pidge nudged Shiro in the ribs, snorting as she ducked out from under his arm. His methods were different than Hunk’s, of course, but they could never go wrong with thai and SyFy.
“Well, sure. You order the thai–I’ve gotta go grab something real quick.”
Shiro quirked an eyebrow at her, questioningly, but was already pulling his phone from the pocket of his black slacks. She beamed and dragged herself up on her tiptoes using his tie–which also pulled him down a little–to press a kiss to his cheek. She mouthed I’ll be right back as he smiled and pulled his phone up to his ear, and then she slipped into the bedroom, where her backpack was tossed haphazardly in the middle of the bed.
It took her only a few minutes, but she finally pulled out the box. It rattled and she grinned, turning and making her way back down the apartment hallway. She reached the living room from one direction just as Shiro stepped out of the kitchen, and he smiled at her again.
“The thai will be here in about forty minutes or so,” he announced, sliding his phone onto the wooden coffee table. “Now...what is it you had to rush off to do?”
“I went to get this,” she responded, crossing the distance between them to offer him the metal box in her hands. He glanced at it, then back to the tentative but excited grin on her face, and accepted it even though there was confusion written all over his face.
“What is it?” he asked slowly, reaching for the latch.
“You’ll see,” Pidge retorted simply. With a chuckle, Shiro opened the box and started to look through the bits and bobs inside. When he glanced back up at her, she found the words tumbling from her mouth without bidding. “I know it’s a little unorthodox, but I know you’ve been saying you wanted to get your prosthetic fixed and we already had the list of parts we needed, so I talked to dad about getting them for you. All the wires we need to remodel the inside should be there, plus some upgraded components, since you refused the last time the Garrison offered. And it’s just...well, it’s not an anniversary because those are annual, but it’s been six months now and I just thought I should try to do something for you because you’ve done a lot for me, and–”
Her words were muffled by his warm chest, and she sank into the hug, wrapping her arms around him and forgetting whatever she was planning to say next. She’d long lost her rehearsed speech, anyway, and had just been babbling.
“Thank you, Katie,” his tone was soft, and she squeezed him even closer.
“Thank you,” her voice was a lot smaller than she’d expected, but it was enough.
“I–” Shiro started, but the obnoxious clanging of the apartment’s doorbell cut him off. He extricated himself from the hug with an apologetic grin–it wasn’t even his fault, he didn’t have to feel bad about it–and moved to answer the door.
“Hi, thanks for ordering Hunan’s,” a familiar delivery woman stood there, offering Shiro a brown paper bag with a bright smile.
“I, uh, didn’t order Chinese,” Shiro offered her an awkward grin, and she laughed.
“Oh, I know. Your friend Hunk came to the shop and ordered it for you in person, and he already paid for it,” she pushed the bag into Shiro’s arms. “It’s your usual, anyway. You’ve got good friends, don’tcha?” with another laugh, she waved, “You guys have a good night!”
“Th-thanks,” Shiro leaned out the door, watching the delivery lady leave, and Pidge stood in the middle of the living room, dumbfounded, as Shiro turned around with the Hunan’s bag in his arms.
It smelled amazing after the concoctions Pidge had ruined.
“Well, I guess we’ll have Chinese and thai?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I guess,” Shiro shook his head with a grin. “I’m going to have to pay Hunk back for this.”
Pidge snorted, reaching up to unroll the bag in Shiro’s arms and peer in at the three boxes. One would be their fried rice, and the other two would be their normal entrées. She could smell them. Satisfied, she dropped back to her feet and rocked on her heels with a very pointed, “Hunk will never take your money.”
“I know,” he sighed, “but I still have to try.”
“Well, before that, you should probably change out of your nice clothes into something comfy. Especially if we’re going to chow down and watch SyFy movies!”
Shiro agreed, and with a grin, pushed the paper bag into her arms. “You get everything set up in here, then, and I’ll go get changed.”
He leaned down to kiss her forehead, and she let out an exaggerated groan and dragged out her spoken, “Fiiiiine.”
As he disappeared down the hallway and into the bedroom, Pidge deposited the takeout on the table, pulling it from the bag and rejoicing when she found the chopsticks at the bottom, as well as some plastic cutlery. It wouldn’t do to dirty any more dishes tonight, after all. And then she went about finding all of the SyFy movies they had, whether on DVD, Blu-Ray, or on the Roku.
One of the things she looked forward to most about their SyFy movie nights was the intense debate over which ones they’d watch.
Ten minutes later, they had just settled on a movie–Something Beneath–when the doorbell rang again. They shared a confused look, but then Pidge shrugged and got up to answer the door.
When she opened the door, she saw another delivery person...but he wasn’t wearing the thai restaurant’s uniform. Instead he was wearing Pizza My Heart’s uniform.
“Can I help you?” she asked tentatively.
“Is this where Shee-ro and Podge live?” he asked, trying to read a messy scrawl on his notepad. Pidge winced.
“I’m Pidge,” she answered instead, “and we didn’t order a pizza.”
“Nah, it says here that your friend Lens–or is it Lanny? Laney?–anyway, your friend ordered you a large pepperoni pizza. Here you go,” he handed her the box and, without looking back, turned and said, “Have a nice night!”
“Lance?” she said blankly at his back, but he didn’t hear. And then, when she stepped back inside and closed the door, Shiro first looked shocked at the box in her hand. The expression soon morphed into one of amusement.
“Let me guess, Lance?”
“Unless we have a friend named Lens, Lanny, or Laney, then yes, it was probably Lance,” she snorted, recovering from her own surprise to bring the pizza to the table. “And now we’ll have Chinese, pizza, and thai to eat while we watch some questionable cinematic masterpieces.”
“Hear, hear,” Shiro deadpanned, but they shared a laugh as she slipped back onto the couch next to him. He hit play on the movie and handed Pidge her Chinese entrée before grabbing a slice of pizza himself, with a wink. He leaned back, draping his arm around her shoulders and pressing another soft kiss to her temple, before focusing his attention forward.
And if they were mostly full when their thai actually arrived, it didn’t faze them too much. Whatever they didn’t eat would serve them both as lunch and possibly dinner tomorrow.
“Love you,” Pidge murmured warmly into her pad thai, curled up against her boyfriend’s side as the credits rolled and he moved to start the next movie.
“Love you, too,” Shiro responded affectionately around the slice of pizza dangling from his mouth, one arm around her shoulders and the other fiddling with the remote.
