Baking tiem! // Zander

[Joseph "Max" Keys]

Zander had said midnight in the dorm kitchen, so that's where Max was. In the kitchen. At... 11:45 pm. Alright, so he was a bit excited, and not just to learn how to make strawberry shortcake either. Zander was cute, intelligent, and he could cook. Overall that made Zander very much his type of guy. Not to mention the fact that Zander was gay, so Max wouldn't have to worry about any awkwardness. Unless Zander didn't reciprocate his feelings, although it seemed like he did. After all, why else would he schedule their baking to be just the two of them and at midnight?

Max leaned against the counter top, resting his head back against the cupboard. Come to think of it, Zander and him had really mostly spoken online. Zander had mentioned that he broke his ankle -- poor boy -- after tripping on a rather large stick. Max wondered how badly Zander's ankle was twisted... after all, he had asked for help with carrying the ingredients from his dorm room. But Max didn't know where Zander's dorm room was. For all he knew, Zander might have had to climb stairs or something to get to the kitchen.

As Max waited for Zander, he thought back to the last time he tried to bake a strawberry shortcake. Somehow, the cake had become one solid mass instead of, well, a cake. Cakes usually were more difficult for him to make than other foods. He could do cupcakes and cookies just fine, but somehow cakes never quite worked out.

Max had been anticipating for this day for some time. Usually, he filled up during dinner, to prevent him getting hungry at midnight and going for a midnight snack. It took a lot to fill him up, so he normally ate a lot of carbs, potatoes, and cooked veggies. Tonight, he had eaten something filling, but light enough so that he would be hungry enough at midnight to eat the strawberry shortcake once he was finished. And hungry he was! After a dinner of sushi and won tons, Max had been full, but that was a few hours ago. By now, he had finished digesting, and was hungry once more.

Max stood up straight and checked his watch. It was 11:53 pm now. Still not quite midnight. He walked back and forth a little, wishing he had brought his iPod or something else to pass the time. He then stopped in front of the refrigerator, leaning his forehead against it and closing his eyes. At six feet tall, his forehead was actually touching the top of the freezer, cooling him down a little from the hot summer night. His stomach grumbled audibly, and as if on cue, he heard footsteps just outside the door. He stood up straight, turning around and leaning back against the refrigerator, waiting for the door to open to see if it was Zander who had arrived or another ambitious chef-to-be.

[Zander Alesnia]

Zander stirred quickly to the loud beeping of his alarm at 10:00 P.M. He hit the snooze button as soon as he realized what was making the sound, he didn't want to wake the others. Zander rolled out of his bed onto the floor with a clatter. He bit his bottom lip to muffle the cry of pain that would of escaped his lips. Blindly, he reached around for the silver metal crutches in the dark. His hands grasped the cold metal and he pulled himself to his feet. He limped across the room with the help of the crutches. Leaning against his support he slid his dresser drawers open and pulled out a pair of plaid pj bottoms and a black hoodie. Zander sighed. He had half a mind to cancel on Max, but, he didn't want to do that, he liked Max. Max was willing to be awake at midnight just to cook with Zander. Zander dropped one crutch to the floor where he was. He was pretty positive he woke up someone with that, at this moment he didn't care. He limped back to his bed with the help of one crutch. After sitting on the bed he slipped the hoodie over his bare torso, that was the easy part. After about 15 minutes of struggling he finally got his pajama bottoms over his cast and legs. Zander let a sigh of relief past his lips, a yawn then took over and stretched his face. His eyelids felt heavy, what would be another half an hour of sleep? In his sleep time seemed to go fast. He came to a half-consciousness where thoughts of Max roamed his head. He sat up startled looking at the digital clock on his bed side that read 11:32. "Thank god." he whispered grabbing the single crutch he had left by his bed.


Only using that as support Zander made his way towards the mini-fridge by the door and stared for a long second at the picnic basket on top. He slid the pre-made basket of a multitude of ingredients, mixing tools and pans over his arm that wasn't using the crutch. He took a deep breath, he could do this. He stepped one step to the door and put the basket strap to rest on his fore-arm as he opened the door with the free hand. It seemed like it took him forever to get to the door of the kitchen where the lights already seemed to be on. Zander fumbled with the knob for a few seconds before he finally managed to open the door. As he practically crawled into the kitchen he dropped the basket to the ground and it landed with a loud clang. Zander stared up at Max who was leaning against the fridge. "Hiya." he said cheerfully. Man, that boy was WAY more attractive in real life. He left the basket there as he crawled to a chair and pulled himself into it.

[Joseph "Max" Keys]

When Max saw Zander walk in, he almost immediately stood up and walked over. Zander was using a crutch to walk, meaning that his broken ankle was worse than Max originally thought. "I really hope you're like, just down the hall or at least really close by." he said. He found a chair and pushed it closer so that Zander could sit down before finding a chair for himself so that they could be at eye level with each other.

Zander looked cuter in real life than he did in his profile picture online, Max decided. While in his profile picture Max couldn't tell what color his eyes were (they were dark and could easily be dark blue, dark green, or brown) but now he could tell they were an icy blue. Almost like Max's own eyes, which from afar looked brown, but up close were really dark blue.

Max picked up the basket of things and placed it in his lap. "I did say I'd help you bring everything over, you know." He said, looking into the basket. Inside were ingredients, mixing tools, and pans, and pretty much anything else you needed to make strawberry shortcake. Perfect. Zander had come prepared, though Max still thought he should have just let Max carry everything over. After all, Max still had working use of both of his legs, and without requiring the use of a crutch either.

Max figured that Zander either wanted to make things easier (after all, he had prepared everything in a convenient little basket) so they could spend more time cooking and less time hauling ingredients, or he didn't want to feel like he was making Max work. Which, Max wouldn't have. After all, Zander was teaching him how to make strawberry short cake, for free, and Zander had brought all the ingredients and tools that were necessary. This all required almost no effort on Max's part, and to be honest, he felt bad about it. He felt like he was taking advantage of Zander, even though it was Zander who had offered to do all of this. See, this was the problem with one nice guy doing a favor for an equally nice guy; one guy always end up feeling like he took advantage of the other, even though the other didn't feel taken advantage of at all.

[Zander Alesnia]

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Zander grinned at the boy. "Ju-just do-down th-the uh... hall-hallway." he assured the boy getting more comfortable in the chair Max had placed for him. "I-I-I kn-kno-know but I-I'm a bi-bit inde-indepen-independent." He stuttered out, examining the other's eyes. They sure were pretty. After he had caught his breath Zander placed his hand on the boy's knee to pull himself to his feet. "To cooking?" He asked, leaning on the support of his crutch. Zander bit his bottom lip and stared at the boy. God, he was sooo cute, way, WAY cuter than Zander expected. After he realized he was staring his cheeks blushed a bright red.

He started fidgeting as he made his way over to the oven and preheated it to, 425 degrees and wobbled back to the boy and lifted the basket out of the boys lap. Zander started to wobble over to the table. With one loss of balance Zander was across floor and the kitchen tools and ingredients were scattered around the room. He let out a small whimper as a jolt of pain shot up through his leg. Zander pulled himself in a ball, hiding his face. How embarrassing! At this point Zander just wanted to lie there and not look at this cute boy. Why did he have to be so independent? See, things like this made him hate himself.


After a few minutes Zander unrolled his body and started to crawl along the floor, gathering tools and closed containers of ingredients. He placed them in the basket one by one and he used the crutch to help himself back to his feet. He turned to the boy. "Ahg! I must look like a fool." he said, cheeks a deep red. He placed his face in his free hand and gently rubbed his temple.


"Zandie, you'll burn yourself that way, use oven mitts!" Nick said as Zander went in to grab the cake from the oven. "Nick, it's not hot, we forgot to turn on the oven." He chuckled. Zander watched Nick's face turn a bright red. A small grin grew on his face as he wrapped the boy in his arms. "It's okay, we can still cook it." Zander chuckled and turned the oven to 425. Zander pretended to look suspicious as he dipped his fingers in the flour and flicked it on Nick's black shirt. "Zander!" the boy chuckled and smeared whipped cream on Zander's face. Zander laughed and dumped sugar on the boy's head. Nick grinned. "You look cute with whipped cream on your face, but, I think we should get it off your face." Nick smiled, deviously before moving in and licking the whipped cream off Zander's face.

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^{TAG - Max
WORDS - 449
OUTFIT - clothes
NOTES - bah! sorry it's crap >.<
COLOR CODE -
speech
Memories
TUNES - rainbow veins , owl city.
CREDIT - template by MUNZTAR * of caution 2.0}

[Joseph "Max" Keys]

Zander said he was just down the hallway and Max breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I'd feel guilty if I was making you climb like ten flights of stairs to get here or something." he said. There was a pause, then "What room are you in? Cuz I'm just down the hall too..." Max thought it would be weird if they were neighbors all along. Well in all likelihood they weren't next door neighbors or anything, since Max had seen some of his next door neighbors come and go, but if they lived near each other and didn't know it...

Max chuckled when he said he was independent. "Regardless, there are times when you need to be a little less independent." he said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm the same way. When I twisted my ankle before an audition, I tried to convince the director I could still do the full audition. I really wanted one of the leads..." he made a face. That was when he was trying out for Wicked, for the role Fiyero (known to those not familiar with Wicked as The Scarecrow).

Zander stood, grabbed the basket, and before Max could offer to help with something, started trying to walk, with his crutch, while carrying everything. Max stood to help, but Zander fell, bringing with him his crutch and everything in the basket. Max rushed to help, first helping Zander to his feet, helping him onto his crutch, then collecting everything in the basket and putting it onto the counter.

I must look like a fool.
"No, no..." Max reassured Zander. "You're just trying to do too much at once." He paused. "Look, since you're teaching me how to do this, maybe you should just tell me what to do, and I can do it. And help if I'm doing anything wrong." he said. "After all, you're the expert." He paused again. "Besides, I learn better by doing anyway.

Zander stood there massaging his temple. He appeared to be thinking about something. Max stayed quiet. At first he wondered if Zander was remembering the recipe, but he quickly realized that whatever Zander was thinking about, it was completely unrlated. He waited a while before speaking. "Are you alright?" he finally asked Zander.