Work Text:
“Fuck sake!” A standard exclamation from Boss, who slams the penthouse door open with a loud bang. They storm into the living area, placing their hands on their hips and demanding everyone’s attention.
The moment Carlos notices the boss enter he removes his feet from the coffee table, sitting up straighter to listen. Kinzie sits beside him, too distracted by her laptop to even look up at Boss.
Boss clears their throat before loudly asking, “can any of you bake?”
Hm, not a standard boss statement. Although their problems have been increasingly strange since travelling back in time to kill all their rival gangs again. And again. And again. Ownership of Stillwater, Steelport, kind of the entire universe, and space and time itself gets boring from time to time. At least their gang is back, mostly.
“Ask Shaundi,” Pierce snorts, turning back to his chess game with Oleg. A constant game, it seems, no one has won yet.
His jab earns a glare from Shaundi, who crosses her arms as she snaps, “I don’t do that anymore! I’ve got shit to do, I can’t waste time throwing parties and playing the same chess game over and over again!”
“Hey, I do heaps around here! I’m the face of the Saints!” With that Pierce stands, successfully knocking over the chess board. Oleg exhales as Pierce throws his hands up, glaring at Shaundi, “aw, shit! Look what you did!”
“I didn’t do shit!”
The pair immediately begin bickering, the usual complaints of “you don’t have any good ideas!” matched with “bullshit! You steal all of mine!” Oleg bends down to start collecting the chess pieces, comically small in his large hands. Kinzie rolls her eyes and continues typing on her laptop. It’s honestly impressive that she’s even here inside the penthouse with the rest of the gang. Carlos remains silent, patiently awaiting instructions as he always does. Boss and Gat exchange a look before Boss says, “alright you two, stop your scrabbling for five fucking seconds!”
Shaundi huffs, although seeing Gat’s raised eyebrow makes her disposition soften, if only slightly, “sorry, Boss.”
“Yeah, sorry, Boss,” Pierce mutters.
“Right, now that you’re done,” Boss says before placing a foot up onto the coffee table, “I need to know if anyone here can bake a cake.”
“What? Why?” Shaundi asks, eyes narrowed, “who did you piss off.”
“It’s not who I pissed off, Shaundi,” Boss scoffs, waving a dismissive hand, “it’s who I pissed off.”
“Those are the same thing.”
“I pissed off famous five star chef, Lee Mon Bonswãure.”
“Lee Mon Bonswãure!?” The entire room gasps. Everyone, I mean everyone, knows of incredibly famous, five Michelin Stars baker Lee Mon Bonswãure. The entire continent craves a bite of his famous pastries, stops in awe when they see his impressive chocolate statues in the windows of his many bakeries. But it’s his cakes that are truly impressive. Multiple tiers of deliciousness, covered in the most intricate designs and perfectly iced.
“What did you do to anger him?” Oleg asks, quite rattled, “how do you anger a man of that much respect?”
“He’s literally the best baker in the entire world!” Kinzie snaps, closing her laptop lid finally, “god, Boss, sometimes you’re so fucking stupid!”
“I don’t know about the best,” Gat mutters, “it ain’t Freckle Bitches.”
At that Kinzie’s mouth drops open, “You’re not seriously saying that Freckle Bitches and their horrible burgers are better than Lee Mon? That’s so insulting!”
“The paddies were not cooked evenly,” Oleg criticises.
“And last time we got Freckle Bitches there were pubes in my burger!” Pierce complains.
Johnny shakes his head, muttering something about no taste when the Boss clears their throat, “it doesn’t matter. I’ve pissed him off. I told him his cakes taste like dogshit.”
“Boss!” Shaundi exclaims, eyes widened in horror, “why would you do that?”
“Because they taste like shit!” Boss snaps back, “I said it was nothing like the milkshakes at Freckle Bitches!”
“Seriously, what is wrong with you people,” Shaundi grumbles, shooting both Gat and Boss a glare, “those milkshakes tasted like ass.”
“That’s the point,” Gat says with a sly grin. He looks up at Boss, “honestly, I respect you, Boss. Too much flavour in those cakes anyway.”
“Thank you!” Boss says, “I was in my right to destroy their entire display case of $50 cakes on the way out, too.”
“Boss!” Comes a chorus from their horrified gang.
“Oh, come the fuck on! You know me, he’s lucky I didn’t bring a fucking rocket launcher back to the restaurant after that amount of disrespect. Trying to throw me out of his restaurant,” they shrug now, “so I might have told him that I can cook twice as well as his Belgian ass fucking can.”
“Lee Mon is French,” Kinzie interrupts.
“Same thing,” Gat says.
“What he said,” Boss nods, “anyway, here’s the plan. You all bake a sick fucking cake that we can take to that fucker tomorrow to prove that we are all so much better than him.”
“I don’t know,” Shaundi says, leaning back into the couch, “this is your own issue. Maybe you should solve it yourself for once.”
“Whoever cooks the best cake gets to drive the spaceship next time we go out.” Boss says calmly.
At that Gat grins, “do we get to blow up a planet?”
“One.”
“Oh, fuck yes. I'm in.”
“What the fuck?” Pierce asks, “I’m in too! I’m gonna out-bake all you motherfuckers.”
“Could be fun,” Shaundi mumbles.
“I’m not helping you guys disrespect literally the best baker in all of America,” Kinzie grumbles, “but I will watch the shitshow that is all of you trying to bake.”
Oleg nods in agreement with her.
“Right,” Boss says, clasping their hands together, “we’re gonna need a fucktonne of eggs.”
—
And so, that very afternoon, Boss aims their pistol to the ceiling and shoots yet another hole into the plaster.
“Time!”
“Jesus fuck!” Pierce yelps, holding his arms out to cover his finished cake, “you can’t do that shit!”
“As the leader of the Saints I absolutely can,” they remind him, waving their pistol a little too haphazardly. They tuck it away as they approach the counter, “but it’s time! I want to see all the kickass cakes you guys made. And they better be kickass, otherwise I’m gonna embarrass myself in front it all those Belgian fucks.”
“French!” Kinzie calls out from her seat at their dining table. Her laptop is actually nowhere to be seen for once, instead choosing to spend this competition time chatting to Oleg, who sits beside her. Those two understand each other a little too well, honestly.
“Same fucking thing, Kinz!” Boss rolls their eyes. They turn back to the bakers, “anyway, cakes better be good, alright guys?”
“I still don’t know why you only gave us three hours to do this in,” Shaundi sighs, adjusting the plate her cake sits on properly, “there’s no way you can make a good cake in that time.”
“You totally can, stop complaining,” Boss insists.
“So why didn’t you make your own cake, huh?” Pierce interjects.
To which the Boss very cleverly says, “shut the fuck up, Pierce.”
Pierce immediately starts skulking as the Boss approaches the counter, hands clasped together in anticipation. They decide to go left-to-right, which means they’re judging Carlos’ cake first. Honestly, they’re still not entirely used to seeing him again, having only saved him during their most recent time-travel. It’s a tricky thing to traverse, one that they’ve learnt comes wrought with destiny and a bunch of other bullshit that Kinzie and Miller have tried to explain to them, something they brushed off countless times. It took a lot of guts to go back and save Carlos from dragging across the bitumen, especially after failing time and time again. It’s a shock to see him still here years later.
He’s never really shaken off the nerves of talking directly to the Boss, still holding him up on a pedestal. Their relationship is a mirror to Shaundi and Gat’s, something Boss takes extremely seriously in hopes of keeping Carlos around. He’s a good kid, even if he’s forever cursed with a baby face topped with a patchy pube-stasch.
“Explain your cake to me, Carlos.”
“Sure thing,” he says, quiet as he pushes his plate forward. It’s a standard chocolate cake, one layer, with a shitty fleur-de-lis drawn on top with purple icing. Carlos clears his throat, clearly trying to think on what to say. “It’s chocolate.”
“This kind of looks like you just went and bought a premade cake mix,” Boss observes.
“That’s uh,” he adjusts the edge of his purple beanie, “that’s kinda exactly what I did, Boss.“
“Oh,” they tilt their head now, examining the messy icing, “well. Looks good. I like the sparkly icing.”
“Me too,” he smiles smally, a little proud of himself.
It’s not a winning cake by any means. But Boss absolutely wants to steal a slice later.
They move onto Pierce next. And, hell, it is a beautiful cake. Three tiers, purple icing adorned with gold drip on the top and edible flowers covering the sides. There’s a chocolate fleur-de-lis covered in gold leafing sitting atop and it almost seems to sparkle under the light. This would impress most for sure.
Before they can ask him to Pierce is already explaining.
“-and the fleur-de-lis is decorated with gold leafing. All of the layers are actually double-layered underneath the icing, with cream and chocolate ganache mixed in the middle. Tedious, but totally worth it. The purple is the most perfect saints shade, which is actually fondant I made all from scratch, hand-rolled.”
“You used fondant?” Shaundi asks, more to herself than everyone else, “tastes like ass.”
“Wait, fondant?!” The Boss parrots, loud enough for likely the whole building to hear, “the shit tastes like ass!”
“Yeah, what the hell?” Gat mutters. Most wouldn’t be able to tell as they haven’t known him as long as Boss has, or maintained an extremely homoerotic will they-won’t they for decades like they have, but he’s incredibly horrified despite his nonplussed attitude, “fucking fondant? Tastes like ass.”
“Hey! You said this morning that you liked Freckle Bitches because it tastes like ass!” Pierce’s voice raises in pitch as he gets more and more defensive, “like, literally this morning!”
“Hey, don’t disrespect Freckle Bitches like that!” Johnny hisses.
“Seriously, fondant,” Kinzie snickers in the background. Oleg shakes his head in disappointment.
“Handmade!” Pierce emphasises now. He throws his hands up in defeat, “come on! I worked so hard on this. It even has edible fuckin’ flowers!”
“Bad texture!” Kinzie calls out.
“Fuck you!” He snaps back, crossing his arms.
“Right well, with that disappointment out of the way,” they shoot a glare at Pierce, “we’re moving on to Shaundi’s cake. What do you have?”
She beams, pushing forward a three tiered cake covered in goopy purple icing. This cake also has edible flowers on it, as well as a golden fleur-de-lis on top adorned with golden icing, “this is my original cake. It’s three tiered, has royal icing which tastes much better than fondant. And underneath the icing, the cakes are actually split in half, with a cream and chocolate ganache mix in the middle.”
“What the fuck!” Pierce exclaims, eyes wide.
“Oh wow, Shaundi,” Boss says, tone impressed and clapping politely, “that’s such a good idea for a cake! What inspired you to use the flowers and gold flaked fleur-de-lis?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs with one hand, the other resting on the counter, “just came to me.”
“Bullshit it did!” Pierce cries, “that’s literally my cake design! She stole the first fleur-de-lis I made and my leftover flowers!”
“Pierce,” Boss sighs. They reach over the counter, resting a hand on his shoulder, “you can’t get mad at Shaundi for having good ideas. If you try a little harder you can come up with some good ones too!”
“Man,” Pierce shrugs their hand off, “I hate you all sometimes.”
“Don’t take it personal,” Shaundi shrugs, smirking, “I’m sure you can do great.”
“You icing looks like shit!” He points, although ultimately goes unheard when the Boss finally makes his way to Gat.
“Alright,” Boss says, bracing, “show us what you’ve got, Johnny.“
Gat simply waves a hand over his masterpiece. It resembles a deflated football, covered in the same purple icing that Shaundi used on her cake, hence why it’s currently melting off in lumps as it hasn’t set properly. There’s a knife sticking out of one side of the cake and suspicious bits of grey within the icing. To top it all off there’s a soft beeping noise radiating from the cake.
“You’re uh,” Shaundi looks over the cake, thin eyebrow raised, “you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on in there.”
“It’s very simple,” Gat says. He flicks the knife, “it’s a danger cake. Cause danger makes my dick hard. You’ve got some sort of batter in the middle, got eggs and shit inside it. And a sprinkle of shrapnel.”
“God, you’re so badass when you bake,” the Boss murmurs under their breath. It’s loud enough to earn a universal groan from everyone else in the room, save for Gat who smiles.
“Shaundi gave me some of her icing. Sorry if that was cheating.”
“If I can ask,” Carlos says, hesitant to approach Gat and his cake. He points down at it, “I can hear a faint beeping? You didn’t like, put a watch in there or something, right?”
“Nah, that’d be stupid,” Gat says. Carlos’ shoulders lower in relief, only to rise again when Gat adds, “there is a live bomb in there though. Rigged to blow in about two hours.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kinzie mutters.
Boss claps their hands together, catching everyone’s attention once more, “it’s a tough decision to make. Heaps of deliberation and stuff since all of these cakes are so good. And Pierce’s is there too, I guess.”
“Morhefucker.”
Boss pauses now, pressing their pointer fingers together and bringing them to their chin in thought.
Eventually Shaundi rolls her eyes, “Boss, no offence, but we all know exactly who you’re going to-“
“Gat,” they point directly at him, “box your cake.”
“No surprises here,” Kinzie mutters, “you guys are so gay.”
“Hey, it’s more than that,” Boss insists, turning back to Kinzie. They gesture towards Gat’s cake, which has collapsed to the point where the knife has slid onto the bench, covered in purple icing, “that thing is rigged to blow in two hours-“
“-actually, Boss,” Gat interrupts, “it’s more like an hour and a half now.“
“So we’re gonna take it to that Belgian fucker-“
“-he’s French!” Kinzie corrects, likely not for the last time.
“-and we’re going to blow that entire shitty ass, pretentious gang up!” Boss exclaims, hands now over their head.
“Uh, Boss, that’s not even a rival gang,” Carlos says, “they’re bakers.“
“It’s basically the same thing,” Boss insists. They pat Gat on the shoulder, “come on, Johnny. Let’s go blow something up.”
“Oh fuck yeah,” Gat grins, eagerly lifting his plate and the goop covering it, “can we blow up Mars after this?”
“Anything for you partner,” Boss says, eagerly leading Gat out the door.
The door doesn’t quite shut before Kinzie groans, resting her head in the desk, “oh my god, you guys are fucking gay!”