shake and bake [michael]

early september 2003

Noah picked up the roll of homemade butter and eyed it. “I swore we didn’t use this much last time?” he wondered aloud, before shrugging and unwrapping the greaseproof paper and cutting it into discs.

He paused mid-slice and turned to flick the oven on to preheat. “Thanks again, man.” Noah had met Michael through their mutual friend @Anthony Goldstein, whom Noah had met back in New York, and they’d become friends on their own -- this arrangement, however, was bordering more on business than pleasure. Emma didn’t even like Noah smoking in the house, so there was zero chance of her being chill about baking it -- especially because the process took so long. Cue Michael. He’d generously offered the use of his kitchen, and in exchange Noah left half of whatever he made here.

The heavily-tattooed chef brought the butter over to the bowl of chocolate, melting on the stovetop over a pot of boiling water, and dropped it in. He wiped his hands on his t-shirt -- he had forgotten to bring an apron and wasn’t about to ask Michael if he had one -- and picked up the wooden spoon to mix it in. After about thirty seconds of doing this manually he pulled his wand out and charmed the spoon to stir itself.

“Okay, so I brought some candy from home -- got my sister to send it over -- and then some weird shit your people eat,” he said, lifting his backpack up onto the bench and unzipping it fully. He tipped out the contents, most of which were wrapped in fluorescent packaging -- the hallmark of a wizarding candy store chain in the States. He picked one up at random and threw it to Michael to catch. “You’ve gotta try this, it’s like popping candy but you go deaf for like, I dunno, a minute.”

Noah turned back to his chocolate and levitated the bowl (spoon still stirring) to the counter. He added the pre-measured sugar, a pinch of salt, and a dash of vanilla, before picking up an egg to crack into it. “Come on, man, try one,” he grinned.


@Michael Corner

Michael craned his neck (he never stood straighter in his own home than he did when Noah was visiting) and finally spotted Noah’s butter, rolled up in paper. “Oh, that,” he said, “Yeah, I used some o’ that to make pasta. Here, I’ll pay you back --” he dug into a pocket of his jeans. There wasn’t any money there -- his wallet was in his briefcase on the coffee table ini the other room -- but he wanted to appear willing to pay Noah back more than he wanted to pay Noah back. There was only about a sickle’s worth of weed in that entire roll.

Noah went back to his work; Michael went back to drying his dishes, flicking them up into the cupboard with lazy levitation charms. It was starting to smell rather good -- rich, with the chocolate, but definitely good. Noah thanked him again for the kitchen; Michael shrugged one shoulder and said, “Don’t thank me. I like it.”

A moment later Noah was back, dumping the contents of his bag all over Michael’s worktop -- “Oi,” he protested, though none of it spilled onto the floor. “Weird shit our people eat? What people is this, English or fussy?”

Noah chucked a little individually wrapped sweet at him.  Michael fumbled it, gave it a doubtful look, and then gave Noah a doubtful look (for more than the candy; he took both pride and pleasure in keeping his kitchen clean and had never trusted people who could crack eggs with one hand) but unwrapped it anyway. It tasted like artificial, candy-spun watermelon; when he bit it there was a sound like a cannon in his ears, so loud that he instinctively jumped backward and slammed into his refrigerator.

“Oh motherfucker,” he said, presumably aloud; Noah had not been exaggerating when he’d said it could make you go deaf. He gave Noah a short, baleful glare, but then cleared his throat and busied himself leaning casually against the cupboard behind him until his hearing came back with a little pop. “I didn’t like it,” said Michael at once, crinkling the paper wrapper in his hand.

He was never quite sure what to do while Noah cooked -- it felt impolite to leave him alone and more impolite to sit around staring -- so, though the dishes were all dried, Michael stayed, opened his fridge and looked inside, on the off chance there was a chore to be found in there. “So are they for a party or are you stressed?”

Michael reached into his pocket and Noah pulled a face, waving him off. “Don’t worry about it, man.” He hadn’t been accusing Mike of anything, genuinely. But to make pasta! “Was it any good?” he asked, curious about whether he ought to give it a whirl himself -- he was almost embarrassed that, as a chef, he hadn’t thought to try it.

Noah grinned. “Same difference,” he told Michael. He knew he had had a somewhat limited palate of his own before getting into food for a career, but it wasn’t through fussiness -- he just hadn’t sought to expand his gastronomical horizons until Frank had taken him out of the Tri-State. Something he and Michael had in common, though, was that they were both willing to try anything once -- not the same could be said of most of the Brits Noah had met; they seemed to always order the same thing. However, where Noah enjoyed flavour he thought Michael might lack taste buds entirely -- and so Noah had taken it upon himself to find something Mike actually liked eating.

He did his best attempt at looking innocent -- blasé -- as he cracked an egg into the mixture, grinning in anticipation a second after Michael had popped the candy in his mouth.

A muted bang -- like a muffled explosion -- was immediately followed by Michael reeling back into his fridge with a thud. Noah erupted into belly-laughter, bending over at the hip and wrapping one arm across his stomach. He caught the look from Mike and doubled-over again. “Sorry, man—” He wiped at his eyes. “Fuck. You sure you don’t want another?” he asked with a playful grin, picking one up and flinging it at him.

He grabbed the flour and started adding it to the bowl, a grin still on his lips— The expression disappeared quickly at Michael’s question. “What?” Noah blanched. Was it that obvious? “Uhh, no party,” he admitted with a shrug. He chewed on his lip. He wasn’t stressed as such but there was definitely something on his mind. A few somethings. Someones. He set the packet down on the bench a little hard, a miniature mushroom cloud of flour poofing up. “Dude, I’m fucked," he announced, pulling a vaguely pained expression. 

He plucked the charmed wooden spoon from midair and set it down, picking up the bowl of brownie mix and pouring it into the trays as he talked; "There’s this girl, but I dunno what I'm meant to do, like— I really like her, but she’s way outta my league bro, and she had a shitty breakup so I don't wanna be that guy, you know? We're friends." He set the bowl (now empty) down, then picked up the tray and put it in the oven. "And then there's this other chick who I think might be into me, she keeps coming into work, but she'll only hang out when her friend -- who's kinda hot too -- is there, like, as a backup or something. Like, she's probably not in my league either but she seems more like, obviously interested. But what if that fucks up things with the first girl, you know?"

“Was alright,” said Michael thoughtfully, “Put me to sleep. Starches, you know.” He nodded once and went back to slinging plates overhead (it would be quicker to dry them all at once, he’d figured out, but he’d always been soothed by dull, repetitive tasks. He thought he’d make a brilliant cook if he had any interest in food; at least from what he saw when Noah was here, it was as much iteration as it was improvisation.)

Noah grinned -- same difference -- and Michael glanced over his shoulder, dried his hand off with a short blast of air from his wand and settled against the bench, arms wrapped over his stomach. “You’re the first American I’ve ever met who’d eat blood pudding,” he countered, though (to be fair) Noah was only like the third or fourth American Michael had ever met. “Glass houses, stones.” He had to unfold his arms to catch the sweet Noah chucked at him.

He could tell, even without hearing it, that Noah was laughing like a drain; Michael rubbed his nose self-consciously. “At least someone enjoyed that,” he griped; he clapped the second sweet out of the air, considered it, and stuck it in his trouser pocket. He doubted any of his friends would want it -- Michael’s social circles, by and large, were people who took poorly to being startled -- but maybe Edwards would get a kick out of the boom.

Michael was paying less attention to Noah than he was to Noah’s bag of flour, which was settling like the ash of Pompeii all over Michael’s worktop; he glanced back up at Noah’s face only at the dude (Noah calling him one of those was possibly a sign of distress.)

Predictably it started with there’s this girl, though it turned out in due time that, actually, there were these three girls. Michael steepled his fingers in front of his face, brow crinkled with thought, before he passed judgment: “Well, they travel in packs, girls. But -- well, d’you actually like this other girl or do you just like being flirted with? ‘Cause you seem more into girl number one.”

Starches. Noah nodded as if he understood -- like, theoretically he got it, but his diet had always been considerably starch heavy. Man, he could go some pasta right now.

“Gotta try everything once, right?” he said. Admittedly, half the time he simply didn’t know what a thing was when he tried it -- haggis had been his most recent culinary awakening and while it tasted fine, he wasn’t sure he’d be rushing to eat more of it now that he knew what it was.

Noah glanced at the clock to take stock of what time he’d put the brownies in (and subsequently when to take them out).

Then he looked at Mike and pulled a face -- an obviously offended at the insinuation face, recoiling slightly. “Woah,” he said under his breath, and that was all for a moment. The shock of being so openly called out kept him from formulating any good sort of defence.

“Harsh, man,” he said after another moment. He began sealing the bag of flour, clearing the bench of mess with a flick of his wand. “Doesn’t everyone like being flirted with?” he asked then, resting up against the other counter with his tattooed fingers gripping the edge. He was deflecting, defending, whatever -- but he didn’t think that was the reason, really. Yes, it was nice to be flirted with, but would he even be considering his options if it was just about that?

“I dunno. Yeah, I guess.” Noah thought he liked Kate the most too -- but was he being unrealistic? More importantly, was he being a Grade A douchebag by even ranking them? Or was he just trying to temper his expectations? What if none of them were interested and it was all just in his head? Wouldn't be the first time he'd aimed a little too high.

“Were you friends with—?” He didn’t know Michael’s girlfriend’s name and didn’t want to admit that he’d either never cared to ask or (worse) had forgotten, so he tried to make it sound like he was trailing off… respectfully or something. (The fact that Michael didn’t talk about his girlfriend more often was baffling to him.) "You know, before."

“Once,” said Michael; it was both an agreement and not. While he and Noah shared a similar philosophy -- that a man couldn’t knock something till he’d tried it -- Michael was far more willing to knock things once he had, and had never minded swearing things off for the rest of his life. He’d thrown up a plum during a pneumonic episode when he’d been nine and consequently he hadn’t had a stone fruit in fourteen years.

He’d never really been anybody’s choice of advisor in a crisis of this sort, and though Michael was a little flattered, he couldn’t help doubting his credentials. He didn’t think he understood women with especial acuity. In fact, his track record with girls was probably proof that he didn’t. But he had a working understanding of the superficialities of romance.

It was obvious he’d rubbed Noah up the wrong way, though: Noah gave him a greatly aggrieved look and a Whoa and finally a Harsh, man. Michael shrugged in response -- “Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t particularly. The assertion that everybody liked being flirted with was both untrue and unproductive, so he ignored it in favour of saying, “Well, if you like this first girl that much, it doesn’t make sense to fall back on your second choice.” He had an inkling that Noah would object to the phrasing of that, too, so he said, hoping to soften the impact a little, “I’ve dated girls for stupid reasons like that. Went badly.”

Michael hadn’t expected the conversation to turn back on him. “Not really, no,” he said after a moment. “We went to school together, but...” He rubbed absentmindedly at his wrist with one thumb. It was a gross oversimplification. Though he could say, with some certainty, that she remembered at least one thing that had happened to him, specifically, in seventh year, he didn’t think he’d even known her name back then. However much trouble she might have gotten in over the year -- and he’d never gotten the stones to ask her that -- she hadn’t been made into an example in front of the school.

He’d now been sitting on the ‘but’ for about fifteen seconds, so he shook his head -- “We were a couple years apart. But -- I dunno, man, I think it’s a different situation. Like, Cordelia and I met talking about the war.”

Noah nodded along with Michael’s reasoning initially, but abruptly stopped when the other man said second choice. He wasn’t ranking them! … But he kind of was, wasn’t he? Noah frowned down at the tile-patterned linoleum floor, feeling more than a little guilty about it. He glanced back up when Michael spoke again. “Really?” That either made Noah less of a dick or Michael as much of one – and he was kind of fine with either, so long as he wasn’t out here on his own.

Michael said he met his girlfriend at school, though the way he trailed off after 'but' suggested they hadn’t been dating since then. He confirmed it after a suspenseful pause. Noah nodded, half-way to reminiscing about his girlfriends during his Ilvermorny years. "Heavy," he said, which was one of his pre-prepared responses for whenever the British Wizarding War was brought up in conversation—

“Wait—" He frowned again, more concerned than confused this time. "Did you say Cordelia?” He gripped the counter-edge tighter, his knuckles flashing white for a brief second. How many Cordelia’s could there reasonably be in their generation? It wasn’t exactly a common name, but it wasn’t super uncommon, either, he reasoned with himself. But what if? Noah’s mouth hung slightly open and a low “Uhh…” noise seeped out and into the space between them. “She’s not… about this tall–” he held up his hand at her approximate height, which was probably underestimated slightly, “–brown hair?”

Really? said Noah; it felt like he was fishing for reassurance, but Michael had nothing better to do. At least this was fishing for reassurance for gullibility and not for anything more embarrassing. He wasn’t sure his sense of solidarity would ever be strong enough to make him admit to being anybody’s affair.

Michael was too busy being baffled by “Heavy” to register Noah’s expression (was he supposed to be offended, or was this the exact lack of reaction he’d always wanted to receive?) but it sank in a moment later. Noah had vaguely the coutenance of a fish out of water.

“Yeah, Leighton,” he said. He still wasn’t sure if it was Lee-ton or Lay-ton -- for months he’d been letting his accent excuse any slip either way -- at least it seemed Noah was too busy trying to remember how tall Cordelia was to judge his pronunciation. Michael could only assume that Noah’s height had given him an inability to judge size; the estimated height was close enough to Cordelia’s actual height that he assumed it was the same Cordelia.

“Aye, yeah,” said Michael, “You’ve met her?” He supposed it shouldn’t have been a surprise -- there were only so many young wizards’ haunts in London -- but it still was. It was always unpleasant to be reminded how small the wizarding world was; so far Cordelia was the best thing to come out of it, maybe the only good thing. His dad had liked to not-really-joke about how wizards would die out in a few generations.

Michael offered up his girlfriend’s last name, and Noah wasn’t one-hundred per cent certain he remembered his Cordelia’s full name (sans middle names, he supposed) that that was enough to know she was the same Cordelia as Michael’s, but now that he was thinking about it, he was sure it did start with an ‘L’, and then Michael confirmed Noah had the right approximate height to match—

You’ve met her? Noah hesitated, then half-shrugged, half-nodded -- didn’t fully commit to a yes or a no before coming clean(ish): “Uhh, yeah, I think so.” The American cleared his throat and scratched at his opposite elbow. He was trying to quickly determine what was the best truth to tell Michael: the real truth, which was that Cordelia was his ‘second choice’, whom was actively flirting with him (or, he had hoped so, but in hindsight perhaps she was just being friendly to a foreigner); or an alternate truth, where Cordelia was option one--who he had just admitted to being really into, but hadn’t otherwise suggested she was returning the sentiment--or option three, in which Cordelia was ranked third out of three, which wasn’t exactly a nice thing to say about a man’s girlfriend.

Noah shifted awkwardly, glancing at the clock to see how much longer he had until the brownies were baked (too long). “Mike, I—” he exhaled, a little dramatically, “I’m really sorry.” Noah stood upright without resting on the counter, though he was still slouching. “I thought she was single,” he explained, running a hand through his hair from forehead to crown. “She didn’t say she was or anything,” he added hastily, “I just, assumed, you know -- she was being nice to me, but obviously she was just like, being friendly or whatever. If I’d known she was your girlfriend I wouldn’t have even thought about it.”

It was sounding rather like they were thinking about the same Cordelia; Michael settled back against his worktop with a bit of a grin, and decided he wasn’t particularly surprised. He was about to ask how when he caught Noah’s expression: the other man was looking decidedly twitchy. He hadn’t answered the question with much enthusiasm; at first Michael was worried that Noah and Cordelia had some sort of feud like the one she’d unearthed between him and Ginny Weasley.

But no, that wasn’t it -- Noah’s apology sounded too guilty. Michael gave him a blank stare for as long as it took to get to I thought she was single.

“What?” he said, over Noah’s next words; Michael shut up again to let him keep explaining what had happened, which Noah did not do, at all. Rather most of the explanation was vague and confusing -- Michael was about to ask if Noah had slept with her, but that definitely didn’t fall under the heading of just like, being friendly or whatever, so (with some guilty relief) he removed that from the list of possibilities.

That left a lot of grey area, though -- after a long moment of awkward silence (but for Michael’s owl in the other room hooting dolefully) Michael said, “I’m sorry, what? What did you do?” It didn’t surprise him, when he’d thought about it a moment, to hear that Cordelia was a flirt. He was a bit of a flirt too. They’d fucked the night they’d met -- that didn’t happen without some flirting. But he’d stopped flirting with other people in about March; he added, to his first question, “Also, when?”

It felt rather strong to make any accusations just yet -- this was his home, but Noah was on the side of the kitchen with all the weapons, and Michael was on the side of the kitchen with a sink and a fridge, and they both still had their wands out from cleaning, though Michael’s was tucked half behind him. He pulled his arms tighter over his stomach; it occurred to him, with a trace of amusement, that possibly the only thing that could have improved this situation was weed -- but they still had twenty minutes to wait.

It was very quiet for a moment, and Noah was torn between breaking the silence--offering more reassurance--and staying silent, letting Michael process all of this information. “What?” he echoed back. “Nothing, man. I just gave her free food and— I was thinking about asking her out,” he gestured vaguely at nothing (had been asking her boyfriend for advice on whether or not to, it turned out). Noah tried to quickly work out if the cuddly manner in which she had acquired this free food required disclosure -- but before he could determine that, Michael was asking more questions.

“Uh, like,” he scratched his head, consulting his mental calendar, “August? Maybe? I’ve been going to a quiz with her and Edith—” he didn’t bother pointing out Edith was lucky lady number three, Michael could surely deduce as much, “—but like I said it was just, like, as friends.” Only because he was so indecisive (or was it greedy?). Concurrently, he wondered if he had asked Cordelia out if she would have turned him down or… the alternative -- embarrassing as it would have been to be shut down, he absolutely would have preferred that to… this. Or whatever this would have become.

Fuck, this was awkward. Mike was one of his few close friends this side of the Atlantic -- he hoped this wouldn’t result in losing not one but potentially two friendships (because Cordy was a friend too). Noah kept his eyes on Michael, acutely aware he was in the man’s kitchen, using his oven, admitting to all but hitting on his girlfriend. He thought he saw the other man’s line of sight drift to the knife block behind him -- or was that all in his head? Wouldn’t be the first time. He stood up a little straighter, opened his hands out in an I come in peace sort of expression; “Mike, I was probably imagining it all, man. You know I’m like, all over the place, right?”

Free food? Or -- right, Noah worked at a restaurant. Michael scrubbed one hand over the back of his head, a little annoyed that Noah had acted so guilty over something so trifling. It’d have saved them both a little posturing to start with ‘nothing’. And August was hardly long ago (though, it occurred to him a moment later, it was rather a while later than March.)

It took him another moment, but if Noah had been thinking about asking her out, that possibly put Cordelia on this list of girls. First he could eliminate shitty-breakup girl number one; he didn’t really know what Cordelia’s dating history had been like, since asking about it would entail sharing his own, but he felt reasonably sure that if he hadn’t learnt something major in eight months, Noah hadn’t learnt it in one.

That left girls number two and three. Michael unfolded his arms and scratched his nose and let the silence stretch out some more, looking a little to Noah’s left instead of at Noah directly. Michael wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this -- this was another conversation they he hadn’t had, because he hadn’t wanted to find out that they somehow hadn’t been on the same page this whole time.

Noah broke the silence first, probably because he felt guilty (rookie mistake.) “Don’t worry about it,” said Michael after a moment. He put his hands on the counter behind him to make himself stop touching his face and shook his head, deciding deliberately to move on. “Okay,” he said, and glanced back up at Noah. (He almost certainly couldn’t have taken him in a fight -- but then Noah hadn’t had the education Michael had.) “First thing is, don’t date my girlfriend. Think that’s self-explanatory.” He had gotten tense sometime in the last few minutes, so he shifted his weight off his right leg. “Second thing is, do you still want advice ‘ere, or is girl number one a done deal now, like?”

How could he not worry about it? Noah was prone to anxious thinking but he felt that this, if anything, warranted it. In an attempt to be as cool as Michael was being about it all, though--and, honestly, he thought if he lingered on it too long Michael would be less cool about it--he simply nodded.

But, Okay, came next and Noah was right back--as if he hadn’t stopped--worrying about it. If this hadn’t felt quite so serious he probably would have laughed, or let out a nervous giggle or something, but, man, they could use some of those brownies right now -- he glanced at the timer on the oven and saw they still had just over fifteen minutes. He flicked his attention back to Michael and swallowed into another nod, bringing his hands up in the universal no-touchy gesture. It probably didn’t need saying but: “Yeah, of course, man.”

Did he still want— Michael was a better man that Noah had given him credit for (not that he’d exactly judged him as a bad guy). “Uhh, no. I think I’m good.” He wasn’t sure girl number one was a done deal--didn’t that depend on how she felt about him?--but he could definitely cross out girl number two, at least.

Quiet came over them again -- the only noise was the hum of the oven in the background. Michael said something about a match on the radio and Noah nodded, electing to stay and keep an eye on the baking -- Michael being in the next room while he remained in the kitchen felt like a better way to pass the remaining quarter of an hour than standing here together in silence. He heard the radio turn on and the sportscaster speaking a mile-a-minute through the wall.

It was the longest fifteen minutes of his life, but when the oven finally beeped Noah took the brownies out and quickly set about trying to cool them down enough to portion out. He did the dishes, next, and put everything back where he’d found it. When he left the kitchen half of the ‘goods’ were left on a plate for Michael.

He poked his head into the lounge. “I’m gonna bounce, man. Thanks again for…” he trailed off, unsure whether he was thanking Mike for use of his kitchen, for the ‘advice’, or for not hexing him. Before Michael could change his mind on the latter, Noah retreated quickly and left through the front door.


[ out ]

Michael settled stiffly against his counter again, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers; neither of them spoke, for quite a long moment, as Michael flicked mentally through every responsibility or foolery he could honestly claim he needed to attend to right now. He wasn’t seventeen anymore, and I need to go read my book had never held much weight in any case; he’d already sorted the first list of brackets; he’d already put his dishes away; he’d cleaned the floors yesterday.

God, he was a pill -- here he was desperate for a chore and he’d already done them all. What the hell was wrong with him? His seventeen-year-old self would have hated him.

Finally he said, “There’s a match on I wanted to catch,” and took his leave -- it was a rerun from a year ago, but he’d tried once to talk about his brackets game to Noah and gotten mostly blank stares, so he felt reasonable in assuming that Noah wouldn’t know that. He turned it up loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, to be polite -- in any other circumstance he’d have brought the whole radio into the kitchen, but Noah looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and Michael wasn’t cruel.

With the radio on, he could hardly hear Noah rustling around putting things away. Michael was tempted to go out and supervise -- he was particular about the way he nested his dishes, he was particular about the way he swept up, he was particular about his utensils, and he was very particular about his bench -- but he didn’t want to loom, so he propped his mouth against his clasped hands and waited. Noah took his leave; Michael nodded a goodbye and waited until the front door was shut and locked before he got up to reassess his kitchen.

OUT