Work Text:
Julia had never thought baking cookies would be this hard.
Julia was no fool, she knew baking was no simpleton’s task, baking was a capricious mistress, who rarely smiled upon the poor devils attempting to earn her good graces.
But! She had made cookies many times before, for many different people. She had been making cookies for her friends and family since she was allowed into the kitchen.
Julia looked down at the mess of ingredients, and the (1) singular spoon, on the tiny wooden counter before her.
With a serious expression on her face, she decided to grab a little knife and add it to her arsenal as well.
“Amhm” Okay, maybe she should have taken into consideration her current “Unique” Circumstances.
“Why are you whining already? This was your idea!” Ashley screamed at her from in front of their stove.
Except, Julia reminded herself with a headache, their stove, didn't have an oven, only the fire part, below it, there was only a hollow dark void, where she figured some cabinet, or maybe, you know, an oven, should be.
But there wasn't, and Julia didn't even want to ask how exactly their weird thing worked, because, as she also reminded herself, this was technically a deadman’s stolen apartment, that she had been forcefully brought into, and locked up in for a few months now.
Funny how that works.
She pulled her sleeves lower down, to try to ignore the many red and fresh cuts on her arms, or the two discolored scars, from when they had tied her up with old itchy rope to their walls.
Julia looked to the side, this kitchen was so unbearably small, and they were pressed so close together, that she barely had to look behind her to catch Ashley's eyes.
“...I don’t think you need to scream so loud in this tiny kitchen, Ashley.”
Ashley gasped and bumped into her, as she turned to look at Julia in the eyes.
“It’s my house! I will scream whenever I want!”
“Shut up, Ashley!” Andrew bonked Ashley in the head, with a large roll of paper towels. “This whole cooking thing is already giving me a headache, and you are making it worse.”
“It’s not even cooking! It’s just baking, phlew” Ashley rolled her eyes, walking closer to her brother, and out of the kitchen, finally giving Julia some space to breathe.
With her newly acquired autonomy and space.
Julia was determined to make-do with what they had, which was basically just some flour, a little sugar, and exactly two bars of butter, oh and that little bag of chocolate chips, that apparently Ashley had pressured Andrew into shoplifting for absolutely no reason.
“Don’t think you are both going to get away with not helping me” Julia stood before both siblings, her hands planted firmly on her hips.
“Andrew, your ex-girlfriend frowns like a cat,” Ashley said, looking right past Julia.
“Don't call her that.”
“Ex-girlfriend or catty?”
“Neither.”
“Ohh, how sensitive.”
Julia just sighed and shook her head. Conceding was a strength “Andrew, can you help me out with this?”
She had already looked through their cabinets, and this sort of flat soup spoon was the closest they had to a scraper, so she was making it work
“Suree” Andrew sounded a little insecure, being invited into the kitchen, which lead Julia to wonder if prior to this, Ashley had really cooked for the both of them every single time.
Andrew entered the kitchen.
He stood behind her, very very close.
Julia wondered how having a kitchen this small was even legal at all, surely this was some sort of violation to human rights.
She ignored the sorta warm feeling in her chest.
“I'm gonna beat up this butter” Julia said, her tone incredibly serious “You just pour the sugar, and then the flour, slowly, alright?”
“Alright” Andrew grabbed the little bowl with the sugar, while Julia began to amass the butter underneath her spoon. It had been outside quite a good while already, but their apartment was so cold all the time, it didn't really make much of a difference.
She appreciated Andrew following her instructions without questioning her too much, obviously this whole thing would be way easier if they had an actual filter, but as she said, making-do.
Julia gulped down, and plastered the butter against the bowl as hard as she could.
She supposed it would also be way easier, if she could stop leaning against Andrew behind her.
Julia had to consciously stop herself from looking at him through the corner of her eye, and then, had to stop herself from searching for his reflection on the reflection of the bowl.
Finally, Andrew finished pouring both of the solids into her now, sort of soft, butter paste.
“Hey” Julia choked out a little, as she pressed herself closer to the counter “Do you want to help too, Ashley?”
Ashley just stared at her like she was dirtying up her kitchen, and salting her crops, which, yeah, probably, but still.
“You look like you are already getting plenty of help, Julia. Never knew you were this greedy” Ashley's tone was obviously high-pitched and mocking, but Julia decided to look past it.
Cohabiting demanded sacrifices, of many different kinds and natures, after all.
“Well, you made Andrew get the chocolate chips, right? So I figu-”
“I didn't make him do shit! Is that what he told you? He wanted them too! He just didn't want to tell you. because he's a little bitc-!”
“Ashley!” Andrew pushed himself closer to Julia, trying to get closer to Ashley.
Julia yelped, but neither one of them stopped staring at each other to stare at her instead.
“What!?”
Andrew tsked “Just get over here, and make yourself useful for once.”
It sounded more like a warning than anything else.
Ashley pursed her lips, stomping closer to the kitchen, her teeth strongly gritted, she stood right in front of them, on the opposite side of the counter.
“What does our lovely little guest need?”
It took Julia a second to realize Andrew was not only referring to her, but actually talking to her, there was always this small degree of degradation, Ashley would speak about Julia, like Julia was a dog that couldn't understand her sometimes.
“Here” Julia took the kneaded mass out of the bowl “Andrew, can you put the bowl in the sink?”
“Aja” Andrew twisted his body in a rather awkward motion, and tossed it into their metal sink.
Julia panned out the dough as far as it would go “Help me put the chocolate chips in it. We gotta put lots, so between the three of us it should be quicker.”
“Charming” Ashley said, her eyes dead and boring, but Julia ignored it and powered through.
She handed Ashley the little plastic bag, then Ashley handed it to Andrew, then Andrew bit it open, and handed it back to Julia, which was, for sure, a way to go about doing that.
Julia let most of the cookie chips fall into the dough, she could tell the mass was way heavier and denser than it technically should be for this, but hey, they had already gotten this far, right.
“Wait, why don't we just pour the chocolate on top?” Andrew asked, seeming genuinely curious.
“The chocolate chips spread unevenly, if you throw them on top, a bunch of the dough will end up super empty, and the rest, super full, and when we cut them-”
“Ahm- acktually” Ashley interrupted her “While you are being a nerd, I already started.”
Ashley was making little sad faces into her side of the dough. Julia decided not to question her art.
“Abstract. Love it” Andrew stated, completely blanked face, and began working too.
“A-Ah, actually!” Julia felt a little embarrassed about actually saying it out loud “We can cut them into shapes first, if you want.”
Julia thought she had cookie cutters back home, that would do the job a lot better, but then she remembered that she didn't really have anything anywhere anymore.
Well, she had two kidnappers here, Julia supposed.
“Ohh” Ashley leaned over the counter to get closer to Andrew, in the process, getting way too close to Julia “Lend me your-”
“You are not using my cleaver to cut cookies, Ashley.”
“You are such a tyrant!” Ashley leaned away from the counter, and Julia allowed herself to breathe once more.
“Let’s use this one instead, okay?” Julia handed Ashley a far more-appropriate- for- the-task knife, and Ashley recklessly snatched it from her hands.
Not like it would be the first time Ashley carelessly cut her.
“I’m making rabbits” Ashley proudly declared, before focusing her gaze on that bit of dough, and getting to cutting.
Julia nodded with a small smile on her face, she stepped slightly away from the counter, knocking her back softly against Andrew's chest.
Julia had to crank up her neck, and look directly above her, to look Andrew in the eye.
“Do you want to make shapes too?” She softly asked him.
“Nah, let Ashley have her fun.”
He sounded dismissive, but Julia knew that was just another facet of his way of caring.
She nodded “Okay” And they continued slowly placing the chocolate chips on top of Ashley's bunnies.
They kept going until they heard her whine “Aw, Jules make more dough” So Ashley had run out of space already.
“I will when you guys get an oven.”
“Do you know how much an oven costs?”
“I-”
“Do any of us know how much an oven costs?”
Ashley looked down “...Fair enough.”
“Actually, how do you bake cookies without an oven?” Andrew asked.
“You can bake them in a pan. I haven't really done it before, but… it should work out” Sounding super self-confident there, Julia.
“Hey! I can do that” Ashley said, actually sounding super self-confident there “Leave it to me.”
“Are you sure, Ashley?” Julia asked.
“Duh! Who do you think does all the actual cooking in this house?”
“Doing the cooking we eat is not something to brag about.”
“Oh, c'mon, dude.”
Ashley made her way back inside their kitchen, and Julia was promptly forced to make her way out. Now they stood in opposite spots, with Julia looking in from the outside.
Both siblings stood near each other, as comfortable as she had ever seen them, Andrew's hand was confidently resting on Ashley's lower back.
Things Julia didn't really need to question anymore.
“I told you I can take care of this, Jules!” Ashley confidently remarked.
“Are you sure this is how that’s supposed to be, Ashley?”
“Geez, have some faith in your sister-wife for once, Andrew.”
Both Andrew and Julia cringed at that, looking away, like they could escape the crime scene they had chosen to live in. They, at least, had that in common.
And then, like 10 minutes later, Ashley turned the stove off, and presented Julia with the most utterly burnt plate of cookies Julia had never seen.
They placed it on the wooden counter.
“Sooo, who’s gonna take one for the team, and do the first bite?”
“You burned it, you eat it” Andrew told her.
Ashley made a bitter face at that.
“...You don't have to eat it,, if you don't want it” Julia chewed out her words, looking down to the plate of burnt butter cookies.
She had almost made it work.
“Eh? You want me to waste food?” Ashley said, a serious frown in her face, as she picked up the least burnt cookie from the bunch “Guess you’ve never been starved for 3 months straight!”
And she bit straight into it.
Julia’s eyes widened at the loud cough that came out of Ashley, her expression looked bitter, and disoriented, but she still swallowed it down, without wasting a bit of it.
“A-Are you sure?”
“You are such a baby” Andrew poked his little sister’s forehead, rolling his eyes, a teasing smile on his face “They don't even taste that bad.”
Julia had always thought that his eyes were a little cold, a little perpetually disinterested in the world around him, but his countenance always seemed to soften up when Ashley was nearby.
“How do you know that?” Ashley poked her tongue out at her brother “You haven't even tasted them yet.”
Ashley grabbed one of the most generously burnt cookies, and shoved it into Andrew's hands.
Julia grabbed his elbow, holding onto the black fabric of his sweater “Really, Andrew, you don't have to, I know they came out horrible and-” Julia was already going into a small babbling rant.
She was trying not to be this way so much anymore, but she wasn't always successful at her attempts.
Andrew made a little bitter expression at the burnt pastry, but after a second, he simply shrugged.
“I mean, it is edible, isn't it?” Andrew nodded to his right, towards Ashley's “This bitch ate it and she hasn't died yet, soo, it’s probably safe.”
“But it tastes awful” Julia felt like she was pleading to him. Maybe, she always was.
Andrew looked uncomfortably away from her, fixing his gaze carefully just to the side of her face “Trust me, I’ve tasted worse.”
“Rude,” Ashley said, her mouth hidden behind her palm.
And knowing the implications of that, Julia decided to stop pleading.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Ashley's mocking Cheshire Cat Smile.
Andrew bit minutely into the cookie, he grunted a little under his breath, like the taste caught him off guard, even though, Julia had just warned him.
“Told you so” Julia let go of Andrew's sweater.
Andrew finished it, and wiped the yellowy crumbs off his white face “Eh, it wasn't that bad” He looked oddly bored while saying it.
Julia supposed they did have far more exciting lives than she would ever really get to see.
“But that seemed really bad…”
“No, I still have had worse” He eyed Ashley.
“Okay, now you are really pushing it” Ashley lightly hit him on the shoulder, Andrew didn't even acknowledge it.
But, Julia didn't quite think that was a good thing, though.
“Well, we both already tasted your awful baking, so now it’s your turn” Ashley pushed the plastic plate closer to her.
Julia felt her whole body get paler.
“C'mon, don't be a scaredy cat, Jules!”
Ashley grabbed another one of the extra burnt cookies, she began making airplane noises, while moving the cookie back and forth closer to Julia’s mouth each time, somehow, this reminded Julia of a scene from her childhood, a little too much.
“Ashley!” Andrew reprimanded her, that same old, done-with, expression on his face “Give it to me” He sounded so stern.
“Bohoo! You are no fun” Ashley pouted, her lips pursed together.
Andrew sighed.
Rolling his eyes, carefully on top of the plate, so as to not make an even greater mess, than the one that was already in their kitchen, he began to remove all the black and orange burnt off bits of the cookie.
Once Andrew concluded there wasn't anything left to be salvaged from the poor thing, he looked back up to Julia, his eyes trained on her freckles, never on her eyes.
“Here” Andrew handed it over to her, and Julia opened up her hands, like she was receiving water from a well “You can eat it now.”
“Ah?” Really, that's what he was worried about? Julia couldn't help but think.
This was the guy she had fallen in love with after all.
“Well, you already went through all that hard work, didn't you?” Julia teased him a little bit, her smile lopsided.
She thought, she was becoming a weirder and weirder person by the moment, like The Graves oddities were rubbing off on her, infecting her in ways that would leave her irreparably changed.
But yet again, Julia knew for a fact, there were far more terrible fates out there.
“I did” Andrew nodded, the deep eyebags around his eyes, making his lighthearted smile appear far more tired than it probably was “You should eat it before it gets even colder.”
“Responsible!” Julia grinned at him, these strange moments of normalcy felt even heavier than the moments of plain weirdness, but she rejoiced in them.
“Isn't he?” Ashley said, with her arms crossed, her eyes fixated on Andrew's face.
Julia nodded, holding the cookie up to her face, it felt like forcing herself to drink bitter medicine.
“...Here goes nothing.”
And she bit into it.
“Ew!”
Julia spat out the rest of the cookie.
She looked up like she had been zapped. Julia heard laughter all around her.
The Grave Siblings were loudly laughing at her.
“Are you really doubled over laughing at me, Ashley!?”
“You should look at your face!” Ashley screamed out between giggles, pointing with her index finger right at her.
“Sh-Shut up, Ashley” Andrew was struggling between breathing and laughing, obviously attempting to hide his face behind his arms, and very obviously, strenuously, failing at it.
“You are laughing too, jackass!” Ashley screamed back, her laughter growing louder, and more high-pitched.
“I'm laughing at you, dumbass!”
“I hate you both!” Julia screamed out.
Her face bright red, she stomped the floor with her right foot like an anxious bunny would.
She turned to run away from them, but before she could, Andrew held onto her elbow, his hand, corpse-like, cold.
“Don't leave” He could barely breathe, and Julia wasn't even sure he was trying to finish an actual sentence, all that came out of Andrew's lips was that simple statement.
“We’ll make up to you” Ashley said, cheerfully and self-confident “We will eat another one ourselves.”
“You will?”
“We will?”
“We will!”
And to her surprise, Andrew just nodded, and the Graves kept their promise, but really, Julia should know better by now, because after Ashley so-bravely downed her own cookie, she demanded Julia do the same, to ‘keep it fair.’
And well, Julia couldn't help being who she was.
At least Andrew stole some of the decent chocolate chips, the ones that don’t burn and only melt, which was a sort of a positive point on their corner.
Somehow, before Julia even realized it, their cookie plate was empty, and they went to sleep, and she didn't feel painfully empty for once.