[bandom] FIC: "Baked," Panic gen, PG13
May. 25th, 2008 05:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephanometraTitle: Baked, or The One Where Panic Gets Stoned And Jon Wants Cookies
Pairing: Totally fucking gentastic
Rating: PG13, or would be if not for the "fuck" rule
Summary: You can never go wrong with cookies.
Warnings: Lots of reasonably tame stoned shenanigans. Also, Tom Conrad.
Notes: This fic may or may not be brought to you by the Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookie dough in my mother's freezer. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
t_usual_suspect, rhombal, and especially jewels667 for audiencing, and I remain as always completely incapable of writing anything at all without my dear, darling anoneknewmoose. 3800 words.
***
"You know what I want right now?" Brendon says, thoughtfully tapping his fingers against the cool glass of the bong. "Cookies."
Ryan snickers. "You are so stoned, Bren."
"Pot, meet kettle," Spencer says, and then leans in to take another hit.
"That is so completely, totally beside the point," Brendon says airily. "You can never go wrong with cookies. I would still want cookies even if I was sober."
"But you're not," Ryan says.
"But I'm not," Brendon agrees. "Wait, what?"
Jon rolls his eyes. "I can't take you guys anywhere."
"We're in a cabin in the middle of nowhere," Spencer points out, and passes the bong to Ryan.
"My point exactly," Jon says. "Also, cookies sound awesome. I could totally go for cookies."
"See? Jon agrees with me. Jon, will you be my cookie buddy?"
"I will absolutely be your cookie buddy, Brendon. We'll even make t-shirts, or something."
"Cookie t-shirts."
"Seriously, so stoned."
"Shut up, Ryan."
The next morning—well, afternoon—Jon wakes up with a mild headache and "BDEN AND JWALK COOKIE BUDDYS 4EVA" scrawled on his arm in Sharpie.
Jesus, Brendon really was stoned.
And now Jon really wants cookies.
"I want cookies," Jon announces when he goes down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Spencer looks up from his Cup Noodles. "So make some," he says, gesturing meaningfully at the oven.
And, whoa. He totally could. "I totally could."
Brendon stumbles into the kitchen, blinking sleepily and pushing his glasses up his nose. "Jon, why does my shirt have your name on it?" He points down at his grey t-shirt, which has "JON WALKER" written in messy upside-down black letters near the hem.
"Uh," Jon says. "I think I'm going to make cookies."
"Really?" Brendon says, hopping up on a barstool. "Awesome, I love cookies."
But first Jon needs to call his mom.
He hasn't actually made cookies in like two years.
"It's not something you forget how to do, right?"
His mom laughs. "Not generally, no. And that recipe is pretty foolproof; I've been making them since I was eight. You won't screw up too badly."
Jon smiles. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. I really appreciate it."
"Hush. You'll be fine." There's a rustling on the other end. "Your father's making faces at me; I'll have to talk to you later."
"What, no 'don't work too hard?'"
"Jon, you just called me to ask for my oatmeal raisin recipe. I don't think there is even the slightest danger that you're working too hard."
"Hey, I'll have you know that cookies are a vital part of the songwriting process."
She laughs again. "I've been baking for your bands since you were fifteen, sweetheart. I think I know that better than anyone."
They have precisely one of the ingredients required to make his mom's cookies. Jon looks forlornly at their empty pantry, like that will suddenly make flour and raisins and cinnamon appear alongside the lonely canister of oatmeal. Why do they even have oatmeal? Jon doesn't know. Probably Ryan wanted it and then forgot about it; it seems like the kind of thing Ryan would do.
Brendon bounces into the kitchen. "Jon Walker! What are you looking for? Did you lose something in the kitchen cabinets?" He gets up on his tiptoes, peering into the mostly-empty cupboard above the oven.
Jon frowns. "You aren't allowed to place our grocery order anymore."
"What? Why not? We have everything we need."
"If by 'everything we need,' you mean 'ramen, peanut butter, and Froot Loops.'" He doesn't count the half-full box of Bisquick that Jon brought to the cabin himself—because sometimes a man just needs to make pancakes—nor does he mention the bag of Skittles he hid behind the toaster oven after the last grocery run, because he'd actually like to eat some of them, and Brendon needs to remain unaware of their existence for that to happen.
"And Red Bull. Don't forget the Red Bull."
"How do you expect me to make cookies with Froot Loops and Red Bull?"
Brendon's eyes go wide. "Holy shit, could you? Those would be the best cookies ever."
Jon regards Brendon with narrowed eyes. "You're stoned again, aren't you?"
"No," Brendon says.
"Yes!" Ryan calls from the living room.
Jon sighs. "Seriously. Can't take you anywhere."
Spencer comes in and grabs a Coke from the fridge. "Write down what you want, I'll make sure we get it."
And that is why Spencer is pretty much Jon's hero. "You're my hero, Spence."
Spencer shrugs. "The cookies'll be worth it."
They have groceries delivered on Thursdays. It's kind of a sweet deal, actually; they email off their grocery list, and then somebody from the label brings them food the next day.
If their grocery guy (Jon tried to remember his name, really he did, but apparently Pete has been promising dire consequences should anyone try to distract Panic! during their working vacation, so the dude gets antsy if he stays longer than the ten minutes it takes to bring in the frozen pizzas and beer and get it all shoved away in the fridge) gives him a strange look when Jon grins like an idiot over the bag with sugar and baking powder in it, well. The cookies will be worth it.
He pulls the ingredients—the new carton of eggs, the oatmeal, the brown sugar and shortening and salt—and turns on the oven, and he's just about to start mixing up the dough when he remembers that he's supposed to grease the cookie sheets first, so he goes to the cupboard to get them.
Then he realizes that he has no cookie sheets.
"Goddammit," he mutters, and goes into the living room. "Why did none of you fuckers tell me that we don't have any cookie sheets?"
"Bottom cabinet," Spencer says.
"That's not a cookie sheet, Spence. It's a brownie pan. And it's cracked down the middle."
"You're making brownies?" Ryan asks hopefully, looking up from the guitar in his lap.
Spencer rolls his eyes. "You are such a fucking pothead."
Ryan scoffs. "Yeah, like you can talk," he says, and then hits some diminished minor chord that real human beings have no reason to play, ever.
Intently watching Ryan's fingers on the strings, Brendon says, "Guys, guys, we're all potheads. And try C-sharp instead; that B is totally harshing my mellow."
"You don't have a mellow, Brendon," Spencer says. "You don't have anything even remotely close to a mellow. You have a 'slightly less frenetic than normal.'"
"Frenetic," Ryan says thoughtfully, as Brendon cries out in protest. "I like that word." Then he plays the B-chord again.
Jon throws up his hands and goes back to the kitchen.
He picks up his phone and mashes in numbers as he shoves the flour into the cabinet.
"What?" Tom says when he picks up.
"My band cannot hold their marijuana," Jon complains, putting the eggs back in the fridge. "Not even a little bit. And there's no cookie sheets in this stupid kitchen."
"You're making cookies?"
"Not anymore. Because I don't have anything to bake them on."
There's the creak of a window opening, the click-hiss of a lighter. "Why don't you just use aluminum foil like a real man?"
"Because it's low-rent," Jon says automatically, and then blinks, because wow, where did that come from?
"You sound like your mom," Tom says.
Oh. That's where. Jon suddenly remembers his brother Mike's first apartment and his mother's exasperation at the state of the kitchen. "Yeah, well."
"No, dude, it's fitting. You're totally Mrs. Panic! At the Disco; you should probably sound like someone's mom."
"Fuck you, no I'm not."
"You're making them cookies, Walker. I think that makes you their wife."
"The cookies could be just for me, dickhead, you ever think of that?"
"Yeah, right." There's a pause as Tom sucks on his cigarette. "You forget that I've seen Brendon's puppy-eyes at work."
He hates it when Tom's right. "Shut up."
"Whatever."
"Anyway, speaking of wives," Jon says, "how's Sean?"
"Making me cookies on aluminum foil," Tom says serenely.
Jon laughs. "You're full of shit, you know that?"
"Better than anyone," Tom replies, and Jon can hear the smile in his voice.
The next afternoon—Jon can't think of a single day in the past three weeks when his day has actually started at a time that could be considered "morning," so he's just going to stop thinking about it in those terms—there's a FedEx delivery for a Mrs. Jon Walker-At the Disco.
Jon would be pissed off, except for the fact that the package contains not one but two shiny new baking sheets.
Mixing up cookies is harder than Jon remembered. By the time he finally shoves the covered bowl of dough into the fridge, his arm aches, the hair at his temples is damp with sweat, and he's totally covered in flour with a little bit of egg thrown in just for fun. He decides to take a well-deserved shower while the dough chills.
The bowl of cookie dough is mysteriously missing from the refrigerator when he comes back, which somehow doesn't surprise him, but he doesn't have to look far before he finds it: Brendon and Ryan are sprawled on the couch in the living room, eating it with spoons.
Briefly, Jon wonders if some cosmic entity is just really, genuinely opposed to Jon making some fucking cookies.
"Guys," he says wearily, "I was going to bake those."
Ryan looks up at him. "You bake things in the oven, Jon. Not the fridge."
"You don't have to bake it. It's really good like this," Brendon says, licking his spoon.
"You're high, Brendon. Everything tastes really good when you're high."
"I am not. I am so not."
"It's true," Ryan says. "We were just hungry."
"You could have had cookies, if you'd waited twenty minutes!"
"But cookie dough is delicious, Jon," Brendon says, scraping the bottom of the bowl for another spoonful to shove into his mouth. "Mmm, so good."
"It loses something of its essential character when you bake it," Ryan adds, nodding in agreement.
"Right, it ceases to be dough and becomes cookies. I can't believe you ate that entire bowl." He sighs. "I'm going to find Spencer. He doesn't eat my cookie dough."
"We were hungry!"
Spencer's smoking up on the roof, which is usually where he is when he's not hanging out with them or talking to Haley on the phone; he says it helps him think. Jon doesn't know about that, but he likes it up there, too. Especially when he needs to get away from the dough-stealing jackasses in the living room.
"God apparently doesn't want me to make cookies," he says, sitting down on the shingles, gratefully taking the joint when Spencer offers it to him.
"That's fucked up," Spencer says.
"I know."
Jon asks Spencer to help him make a second batch.
"You know I don't know how to bake, right?" Spencer asks, obligingly passing down the cinnamon when Jon reaches for it.
"You're not actually doing any baking," Jon points out, leveling his teaspoon and dumping the spice into the mixing bowl. "You're just, like, my lovely assistant."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "Okay, just because I don't know how to do it doesn't mean it's magic. Jesus."
"Fuck you, dude; it's totally magic. I'll saw you in half next."
"That's what she said."
And then they both start giggling helplessly, because maybe they're still a little bit high.
"These are awful," Spencer says around his first bite of cookie.
"There is no such thing as an awful cookie," Jon says, chewing thoughtfully. "But these are pretty bad."
He takes another bite, trying to identify precisely what went wrong. They're too—the consistency feels odd on his tongue, and the sweetness tastes wrong, somehow, like he forgot—"Shit, the salt! We forgot the salt."
Spencer sniffs. "I didn't forget anything. You're the magician, here."
Jon looks affronted, because clearly these cookies were a team effort. "You're the worst assistant ever, Spencer."
"Maybe next time we shouldn't try and make cookies when we're stoned. Just a suggestion."
"Definitely the worst assistant ever."
Jon wants to throw away the whole batch, but Brendon, who is kind of a human garbage disposal when he's baked, eats them all before he gets a chance.
Seriously. Jon leaves the room for ten minutes—and he knows it's ten minutes, because Cassie informs him that she's only got ten minutes to talk the second he picks up the phone—and when he comes back, Brendon is lying on top of the kitchen counter clutching his distended belly.
"Raisins, Jon," he says, groaning pathetically.
Jon really, really wonders if Brendon has any survival instincts at all. "There were three dozen cookies here ten minutes ago. Please tell me you didn't eat them all."
"Too many raisins."
"Oh my God, you did." Jon presses the heel of his hand between his eyes, willing his band to be less retarded. "You can't keep this up, Brendon. You're going to gain six thousand pounds, and then we'll have to find a new rhythm guitarist, because you'll be too fat to play. Is that what you want?"
"Want to die, Jon. So full, too many—"
"Raisins, I know." He peers down into Brendon's face. "Are you going to puke?"
Brendon appears to think about it for a long time before he says, "...I don't know."
Jon wishes he didn't know that "I don't know" invariably means "yes" in these situations.
"He did what?"
"The whole batch. And then he threw up, even though he was stoned out of his fucking mind."
Tom whistles low. "Damn, that takes talent."
"Being an idiot does not take talent," Jon says. "It just takes being an idiot."
"He's just a kid, man. Give him a break."
"He's been smoking since he was fifteen, dude. I don't think the 'he's just a kid' defense works."
"Okay, he's a moron." There's the tell-tale pause for Tom to take a drag on his cigarette. "Sucks for you, since he's your moron."
Jon grins. "Jealous?"
"Fuck no, I like being able to handle my drugs," Tom says. "Also, I'm totally still your number one moron. You'll never find a better moron than me."
"Thank God for that. Walker-At the Disco, Tom? Really?"
"I have charts and graphs demonstrating how funny I am."
"You stole that line from a webcomic." He pauses, and then adds, "Also, I really hope you had rent covered before you went out and bought me bakeware."
Tom blows smoke into the phone, making a soft, whispery sound. "A gentleman never asks, Jon."
"I can't be both a wife and a gentleman, y'know."
"You could if you moved to Canada," Tom muses.
Jon rolls his eyes. "Yeah, okay. I'll get right on that."
"Love knows no boundaries. Or something."
"'Or something,'" Jon repeats, laughing in spite of himself. "You're such an asshole."
"It's the true source of my power."
"I thought that was your chest hair?"
"Don't talk shit about the chest hair, Walker. I will hang up this phone right now."
Jon smiles fondly. "No, you won't."
"No, I won't."
"Think of the cookies, Spencer. Just think of the cookies."
"Okay, seriously, it was kind of cute at first, but this cookie fixation of yours is kind of beginning to scare me."
Jon makes an irritated noise. "It's not a fixation; I just want to make some cookies that don't suck and then eat them. Why is that scary?"
Spencer gives him an arch look. "Because when you say 'just think of the cookies,' you sound exactly like Brendon."
"Fine, okay. If I admit you're right, will you please get Brendon out of the cabin for an hour?"
"On one condition." Spencer holds up a finger. "While we're gone, you have to get Ryan to quit fucking around with that stupid B-minor progression. It's driving me insane."
Jon considers. "You realize that's, like, the only music he's actually written since we got here."
"Yeah, and it'll be the last thing he ever writes if I have to kill him because he won't stop playing it 24/7. Put something else in his head, I don't even care what. Pull out the banjo if you have to."
Man, Spencer's really serious about hating that B-minor shit. Jon still feels the need to say, "But I'm going to be busy making delicious cookies!"
"Those are my terms, Jon. Take 'em or leave 'em."
He sighs. "Fine."
They shake on it, all gentleman-like, and then Spencer yells for Brendon to meet him on the porch so they can go for a hike.
"The cookies had better be worth it," Jon hears him mutter under his breath as he breezes by on his way to the door.
As soon as Brendon and Spencer leave—and Jon is honestly torn between amusement and horror at seeing Brendon dressed up like an 80s fitness instructor; the kid brought a matched set of sweatbands to their cabin, Jesus—Jon pokes his head into the ground-floor bedroom that's their designated practice space. "Hey," he says to Ryan. "You should come keep me company in the kitchen."
Ryan looks up, squinting behind his ridiculous scene-kid glasses. "Can't," he says. "This is almost—I think I've almost got it." He runs through a series of chords that sound perfectly awful both separately and together, ending with a resoundingly out-of-tune B-minor.
Jon rolls his eyes. He thinks for a second, trying to choose the precise words that will get Ryan to put down the guitar with the least fuss, and decides to go with complete honesty. "Ryan, you're never going to 'get it.' That progression sucks, and you should quit fucking around with it before Spencer kills you."
Ryan blinks. "Really?"
"Really really. I'm only telling you this because I care."
"Yeah," Ryan sighs. He shrugs out of his guitar, setting it on the stand next to his chair. "I really wanted it to work."
"No producer's ever going to let you get away with fuckin' B-minor, dude, you know that," Jon says consolingly. "Now come and help me make some cookies."
He beckons Ryan over and throws an arm across his shoulders when he hesitantly steps into Jon's space.
"I really need a cigarette," Ryan says. "And I don't bake."
Jon grins. "By 'help me make cookies,' I obviously meant 'chainsmoke at the kitchen table and make sure I don't forget the salt this time.'"
Ryan brightens. "Oh hey, I can do that."
"That's why I asked."
"You're a wise man, Jon Walker."
For someone who doesn't bake, Ryan is awfully interested in Jon's cookies.
"Dude, I'm not going to let you eat my cookie dough. Not again." Jon brandishes his spatula in what he hopes is a threatening manner, although he recognizes that a spatula is not particularly intimidating as a bludgeoning implement.
"Strictly speaking, you didn't really let us eat it last time," Ryan says. "Did you remember the salt? You said I had to make sure you didn't forget the salt."
"Yes, I remembered the salt. Now, seriously, back off. I don't want these to taste like Parliaments."
"You're the one who said I could smoke in the kitchen." Spencer actually gets kind of bitchy if Ryan smokes in the house at all, which is why it's a big deal.
"At the table, Ry. Not leaning over my bowl of cookie dough."
Ryan pouts, flicking his bangs out of his eyes with the hand that isn't holding his cigarette, and goes back to the table. "You know that Brendon's sworn off raisins this week, or something, right?"
Jon hums, putting his shoulder into stirring the stiff dough. "Got it covered."
"Okay." He takes a long drag, leaning into it like it's the best cigarette he's ever had—which is the way Ryan usually smokes, actually—and then blinks, looking sharply at Jon. "Is that my oatmeal? It is, isn't it. You'd better buy me some more, asshole."
Jon doesn't even bother trying to explain why he finds that so hilarious. He just laughs.
"Jon!" Brendon yells. "Jon, it smells like cookies in here!"
"That's generally what happens when you bake some," Ryan says dryly. Then he crams the rest of his second cookie into his mouth. "Fuck, these are good."
"You remembered the salt this time?" Spencer asks. He gives the plate of cookies on the table a wary look.
"All ingredients present and accounted for," Jon says, taking a bite of his own cookie. "And they really are, aren't they?"
Hopping up on the table, Brendon makes a huge production out of reaching over and grabbing the entire plate. "I believe I'll be the judge of—oh." His face falls. "Raisins."
Wordlessly, Jon gets up to retrieve the second plate of cookies from where it's still sitting next the oven, handing it to Brendon as he slides back into his seat.
Spencer picks up one of the cookies and inspects it from both sides. "Think you forgot something in these, dude."
"Wasn't the salt," Ryan chimes in. "And he left the raisins out on purpose."
Brendon's eyes light up with total, perfect joy. "Jon Walker, you are my favorite cookie buddy ever."
Jon arches an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't remember that. You were pretty blazed."
"Of course I remember!" Brendon cries around a huge mouthful of oatmeal cookie. "Cookie buddies are forever."
"So I've been told, Bden. So I've been told."
Two bong loads later, when they're all sprawled out on their backs on the living room floor, Ryan says, "You know what you should make next, Jon?"
"Ryan," Spencer says.
"Brownies," he finishes, blithely ignoring the distinct note of warning in Spencer's tone.
Jon sits back in his chair, looking contemplatively at the plate of cookies and trying to decide whether or not he can eat another one—but who's he kidding; the answer to that question is always "yes." "I think I'm about baked out," he says, biting into what definitely ought to be his last cookie, but they're just so good. "And, y'know, making these was kind of a production. I don't know if I could handle another project of that, uh, magnitude."
"They were worth it, though," Spencer states. "Right?"
Brendon, who has finished his plateful of plain cookies and is giving the remaining all-the-way cookies a glazed, mildly predatory look—raisins be damned—says, "Well. They are really, really good cookies."
Jon smiles. "Yeah. They really, really are."
***
Pairing: Totally fucking gentastic
Rating: PG13, or would be if not for the "fuck" rule
Summary: You can never go wrong with cookies.
Warnings: Lots of reasonably tame stoned shenanigans. Also, Tom Conrad.
Notes: This fic may or may not be brought to you by the Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookie dough in my mother's freezer. Thanks to
t_usual_suspect, rhombal, and especially jewels667 for audiencing, and I remain as always completely incapable of writing anything at all without my dear, darling anoneknewmoose. 3800 words."You know what I want right now?" Brendon says, thoughtfully tapping his fingers against the cool glass of the bong. "Cookies."
Ryan snickers. "You are so stoned, Bren."
"Pot, meet kettle," Spencer says, and then leans in to take another hit.
"That is so completely, totally beside the point," Brendon says airily. "You can never go wrong with cookies. I would still want cookies even if I was sober."
"But you're not," Ryan says.
"But I'm not," Brendon agrees. "Wait, what?"
Jon rolls his eyes. "I can't take you guys anywhere."
"We're in a cabin in the middle of nowhere," Spencer points out, and passes the bong to Ryan.
"My point exactly," Jon says. "Also, cookies sound awesome. I could totally go for cookies."
"See? Jon agrees with me. Jon, will you be my cookie buddy?"
"I will absolutely be your cookie buddy, Brendon. We'll even make t-shirts, or something."
"Cookie t-shirts."
"Seriously, so stoned."
"Shut up, Ryan."
The next morning—well, afternoon—Jon wakes up with a mild headache and "BDEN AND JWALK COOKIE BUDDYS 4EVA" scrawled on his arm in Sharpie.
Jesus, Brendon really was stoned.
And now Jon really wants cookies.
"I want cookies," Jon announces when he goes down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Spencer looks up from his Cup Noodles. "So make some," he says, gesturing meaningfully at the oven.
And, whoa. He totally could. "I totally could."
Brendon stumbles into the kitchen, blinking sleepily and pushing his glasses up his nose. "Jon, why does my shirt have your name on it?" He points down at his grey t-shirt, which has "JON WALKER" written in messy upside-down black letters near the hem.
"Uh," Jon says. "I think I'm going to make cookies."
"Really?" Brendon says, hopping up on a barstool. "Awesome, I love cookies."
But first Jon needs to call his mom.
He hasn't actually made cookies in like two years.
"It's not something you forget how to do, right?"
His mom laughs. "Not generally, no. And that recipe is pretty foolproof; I've been making them since I was eight. You won't screw up too badly."
Jon smiles. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. I really appreciate it."
"Hush. You'll be fine." There's a rustling on the other end. "Your father's making faces at me; I'll have to talk to you later."
"What, no 'don't work too hard?'"
"Jon, you just called me to ask for my oatmeal raisin recipe. I don't think there is even the slightest danger that you're working too hard."
"Hey, I'll have you know that cookies are a vital part of the songwriting process."
She laughs again. "I've been baking for your bands since you were fifteen, sweetheart. I think I know that better than anyone."
They have precisely one of the ingredients required to make his mom's cookies. Jon looks forlornly at their empty pantry, like that will suddenly make flour and raisins and cinnamon appear alongside the lonely canister of oatmeal. Why do they even have oatmeal? Jon doesn't know. Probably Ryan wanted it and then forgot about it; it seems like the kind of thing Ryan would do.
Brendon bounces into the kitchen. "Jon Walker! What are you looking for? Did you lose something in the kitchen cabinets?" He gets up on his tiptoes, peering into the mostly-empty cupboard above the oven.
Jon frowns. "You aren't allowed to place our grocery order anymore."
"What? Why not? We have everything we need."
"If by 'everything we need,' you mean 'ramen, peanut butter, and Froot Loops.'" He doesn't count the half-full box of Bisquick that Jon brought to the cabin himself—because sometimes a man just needs to make pancakes—nor does he mention the bag of Skittles he hid behind the toaster oven after the last grocery run, because he'd actually like to eat some of them, and Brendon needs to remain unaware of their existence for that to happen.
"And Red Bull. Don't forget the Red Bull."
"How do you expect me to make cookies with Froot Loops and Red Bull?"
Brendon's eyes go wide. "Holy shit, could you? Those would be the best cookies ever."
Jon regards Brendon with narrowed eyes. "You're stoned again, aren't you?"
"No," Brendon says.
"Yes!" Ryan calls from the living room.
Jon sighs. "Seriously. Can't take you anywhere."
Spencer comes in and grabs a Coke from the fridge. "Write down what you want, I'll make sure we get it."
And that is why Spencer is pretty much Jon's hero. "You're my hero, Spence."
Spencer shrugs. "The cookies'll be worth it."
They have groceries delivered on Thursdays. It's kind of a sweet deal, actually; they email off their grocery list, and then somebody from the label brings them food the next day.
If their grocery guy (Jon tried to remember his name, really he did, but apparently Pete has been promising dire consequences should anyone try to distract Panic! during their working vacation, so the dude gets antsy if he stays longer than the ten minutes it takes to bring in the frozen pizzas and beer and get it all shoved away in the fridge) gives him a strange look when Jon grins like an idiot over the bag with sugar and baking powder in it, well. The cookies will be worth it.
He pulls the ingredients—the new carton of eggs, the oatmeal, the brown sugar and shortening and salt—and turns on the oven, and he's just about to start mixing up the dough when he remembers that he's supposed to grease the cookie sheets first, so he goes to the cupboard to get them.
Then he realizes that he has no cookie sheets.
"Goddammit," he mutters, and goes into the living room. "Why did none of you fuckers tell me that we don't have any cookie sheets?"
"Bottom cabinet," Spencer says.
"That's not a cookie sheet, Spence. It's a brownie pan. And it's cracked down the middle."
"You're making brownies?" Ryan asks hopefully, looking up from the guitar in his lap.
Spencer rolls his eyes. "You are such a fucking pothead."
Ryan scoffs. "Yeah, like you can talk," he says, and then hits some diminished minor chord that real human beings have no reason to play, ever.
Intently watching Ryan's fingers on the strings, Brendon says, "Guys, guys, we're all potheads. And try C-sharp instead; that B is totally harshing my mellow."
"You don't have a mellow, Brendon," Spencer says. "You don't have anything even remotely close to a mellow. You have a 'slightly less frenetic than normal.'"
"Frenetic," Ryan says thoughtfully, as Brendon cries out in protest. "I like that word." Then he plays the B-chord again.
Jon throws up his hands and goes back to the kitchen.
He picks up his phone and mashes in numbers as he shoves the flour into the cabinet.
"What?" Tom says when he picks up.
"My band cannot hold their marijuana," Jon complains, putting the eggs back in the fridge. "Not even a little bit. And there's no cookie sheets in this stupid kitchen."
"You're making cookies?"
"Not anymore. Because I don't have anything to bake them on."
There's the creak of a window opening, the click-hiss of a lighter. "Why don't you just use aluminum foil like a real man?"
"Because it's low-rent," Jon says automatically, and then blinks, because wow, where did that come from?
"You sound like your mom," Tom says.
Oh. That's where. Jon suddenly remembers his brother Mike's first apartment and his mother's exasperation at the state of the kitchen. "Yeah, well."
"No, dude, it's fitting. You're totally Mrs. Panic! At the Disco; you should probably sound like someone's mom."
"Fuck you, no I'm not."
"You're making them cookies, Walker. I think that makes you their wife."
"The cookies could be just for me, dickhead, you ever think of that?"
"Yeah, right." There's a pause as Tom sucks on his cigarette. "You forget that I've seen Brendon's puppy-eyes at work."
He hates it when Tom's right. "Shut up."
"Whatever."
"Anyway, speaking of wives," Jon says, "how's Sean?"
"Making me cookies on aluminum foil," Tom says serenely.
Jon laughs. "You're full of shit, you know that?"
"Better than anyone," Tom replies, and Jon can hear the smile in his voice.
The next afternoon—Jon can't think of a single day in the past three weeks when his day has actually started at a time that could be considered "morning," so he's just going to stop thinking about it in those terms—there's a FedEx delivery for a Mrs. Jon Walker-At the Disco.
Jon would be pissed off, except for the fact that the package contains not one but two shiny new baking sheets.
Mixing up cookies is harder than Jon remembered. By the time he finally shoves the covered bowl of dough into the fridge, his arm aches, the hair at his temples is damp with sweat, and he's totally covered in flour with a little bit of egg thrown in just for fun. He decides to take a well-deserved shower while the dough chills.
The bowl of cookie dough is mysteriously missing from the refrigerator when he comes back, which somehow doesn't surprise him, but he doesn't have to look far before he finds it: Brendon and Ryan are sprawled on the couch in the living room, eating it with spoons.
Briefly, Jon wonders if some cosmic entity is just really, genuinely opposed to Jon making some fucking cookies.
"Guys," he says wearily, "I was going to bake those."
Ryan looks up at him. "You bake things in the oven, Jon. Not the fridge."
"You don't have to bake it. It's really good like this," Brendon says, licking his spoon.
"You're high, Brendon. Everything tastes really good when you're high."
"I am not. I am so not."
"It's true," Ryan says. "We were just hungry."
"You could have had cookies, if you'd waited twenty minutes!"
"But cookie dough is delicious, Jon," Brendon says, scraping the bottom of the bowl for another spoonful to shove into his mouth. "Mmm, so good."
"It loses something of its essential character when you bake it," Ryan adds, nodding in agreement.
"Right, it ceases to be dough and becomes cookies. I can't believe you ate that entire bowl." He sighs. "I'm going to find Spencer. He doesn't eat my cookie dough."
"We were hungry!"
Spencer's smoking up on the roof, which is usually where he is when he's not hanging out with them or talking to Haley on the phone; he says it helps him think. Jon doesn't know about that, but he likes it up there, too. Especially when he needs to get away from the dough-stealing jackasses in the living room.
"God apparently doesn't want me to make cookies," he says, sitting down on the shingles, gratefully taking the joint when Spencer offers it to him.
"That's fucked up," Spencer says.
"I know."
Jon asks Spencer to help him make a second batch.
"You know I don't know how to bake, right?" Spencer asks, obligingly passing down the cinnamon when Jon reaches for it.
"You're not actually doing any baking," Jon points out, leveling his teaspoon and dumping the spice into the mixing bowl. "You're just, like, my lovely assistant."
Spencer rolls his eyes. "Okay, just because I don't know how to do it doesn't mean it's magic. Jesus."
"Fuck you, dude; it's totally magic. I'll saw you in half next."
"That's what she said."
And then they both start giggling helplessly, because maybe they're still a little bit high.
"These are awful," Spencer says around his first bite of cookie.
"There is no such thing as an awful cookie," Jon says, chewing thoughtfully. "But these are pretty bad."
He takes another bite, trying to identify precisely what went wrong. They're too—the consistency feels odd on his tongue, and the sweetness tastes wrong, somehow, like he forgot—"Shit, the salt! We forgot the salt."
Spencer sniffs. "I didn't forget anything. You're the magician, here."
Jon looks affronted, because clearly these cookies were a team effort. "You're the worst assistant ever, Spencer."
"Maybe next time we shouldn't try and make cookies when we're stoned. Just a suggestion."
"Definitely the worst assistant ever."
Jon wants to throw away the whole batch, but Brendon, who is kind of a human garbage disposal when he's baked, eats them all before he gets a chance.
Seriously. Jon leaves the room for ten minutes—and he knows it's ten minutes, because Cassie informs him that she's only got ten minutes to talk the second he picks up the phone—and when he comes back, Brendon is lying on top of the kitchen counter clutching his distended belly.
"Raisins, Jon," he says, groaning pathetically.
Jon really, really wonders if Brendon has any survival instincts at all. "There were three dozen cookies here ten minutes ago. Please tell me you didn't eat them all."
"Too many raisins."
"Oh my God, you did." Jon presses the heel of his hand between his eyes, willing his band to be less retarded. "You can't keep this up, Brendon. You're going to gain six thousand pounds, and then we'll have to find a new rhythm guitarist, because you'll be too fat to play. Is that what you want?"
"Want to die, Jon. So full, too many—"
"Raisins, I know." He peers down into Brendon's face. "Are you going to puke?"
Brendon appears to think about it for a long time before he says, "...I don't know."
Jon wishes he didn't know that "I don't know" invariably means "yes" in these situations.
"He did what?"
"The whole batch. And then he threw up, even though he was stoned out of his fucking mind."
Tom whistles low. "Damn, that takes talent."
"Being an idiot does not take talent," Jon says. "It just takes being an idiot."
"He's just a kid, man. Give him a break."
"He's been smoking since he was fifteen, dude. I don't think the 'he's just a kid' defense works."
"Okay, he's a moron." There's the tell-tale pause for Tom to take a drag on his cigarette. "Sucks for you, since he's your moron."
Jon grins. "Jealous?"
"Fuck no, I like being able to handle my drugs," Tom says. "Also, I'm totally still your number one moron. You'll never find a better moron than me."
"Thank God for that. Walker-At the Disco, Tom? Really?"
"I have charts and graphs demonstrating how funny I am."
"You stole that line from a webcomic." He pauses, and then adds, "Also, I really hope you had rent covered before you went out and bought me bakeware."
Tom blows smoke into the phone, making a soft, whispery sound. "A gentleman never asks, Jon."
"I can't be both a wife and a gentleman, y'know."
"You could if you moved to Canada," Tom muses.
Jon rolls his eyes. "Yeah, okay. I'll get right on that."
"Love knows no boundaries. Or something."
"'Or something,'" Jon repeats, laughing in spite of himself. "You're such an asshole."
"It's the true source of my power."
"I thought that was your chest hair?"
"Don't talk shit about the chest hair, Walker. I will hang up this phone right now."
Jon smiles fondly. "No, you won't."
"No, I won't."
"Think of the cookies, Spencer. Just think of the cookies."
"Okay, seriously, it was kind of cute at first, but this cookie fixation of yours is kind of beginning to scare me."
Jon makes an irritated noise. "It's not a fixation; I just want to make some cookies that don't suck and then eat them. Why is that scary?"
Spencer gives him an arch look. "Because when you say 'just think of the cookies,' you sound exactly like Brendon."
"Fine, okay. If I admit you're right, will you please get Brendon out of the cabin for an hour?"
"On one condition." Spencer holds up a finger. "While we're gone, you have to get Ryan to quit fucking around with that stupid B-minor progression. It's driving me insane."
Jon considers. "You realize that's, like, the only music he's actually written since we got here."
"Yeah, and it'll be the last thing he ever writes if I have to kill him because he won't stop playing it 24/7. Put something else in his head, I don't even care what. Pull out the banjo if you have to."
Man, Spencer's really serious about hating that B-minor shit. Jon still feels the need to say, "But I'm going to be busy making delicious cookies!"
"Those are my terms, Jon. Take 'em or leave 'em."
He sighs. "Fine."
They shake on it, all gentleman-like, and then Spencer yells for Brendon to meet him on the porch so they can go for a hike.
"The cookies had better be worth it," Jon hears him mutter under his breath as he breezes by on his way to the door.
As soon as Brendon and Spencer leave—and Jon is honestly torn between amusement and horror at seeing Brendon dressed up like an 80s fitness instructor; the kid brought a matched set of sweatbands to their cabin, Jesus—Jon pokes his head into the ground-floor bedroom that's their designated practice space. "Hey," he says to Ryan. "You should come keep me company in the kitchen."
Ryan looks up, squinting behind his ridiculous scene-kid glasses. "Can't," he says. "This is almost—I think I've almost got it." He runs through a series of chords that sound perfectly awful both separately and together, ending with a resoundingly out-of-tune B-minor.
Jon rolls his eyes. He thinks for a second, trying to choose the precise words that will get Ryan to put down the guitar with the least fuss, and decides to go with complete honesty. "Ryan, you're never going to 'get it.' That progression sucks, and you should quit fucking around with it before Spencer kills you."
Ryan blinks. "Really?"
"Really really. I'm only telling you this because I care."
"Yeah," Ryan sighs. He shrugs out of his guitar, setting it on the stand next to his chair. "I really wanted it to work."
"No producer's ever going to let you get away with fuckin' B-minor, dude, you know that," Jon says consolingly. "Now come and help me make some cookies."
He beckons Ryan over and throws an arm across his shoulders when he hesitantly steps into Jon's space.
"I really need a cigarette," Ryan says. "And I don't bake."
Jon grins. "By 'help me make cookies,' I obviously meant 'chainsmoke at the kitchen table and make sure I don't forget the salt this time.'"
Ryan brightens. "Oh hey, I can do that."
"That's why I asked."
"You're a wise man, Jon Walker."
For someone who doesn't bake, Ryan is awfully interested in Jon's cookies.
"Dude, I'm not going to let you eat my cookie dough. Not again." Jon brandishes his spatula in what he hopes is a threatening manner, although he recognizes that a spatula is not particularly intimidating as a bludgeoning implement.
"Strictly speaking, you didn't really let us eat it last time," Ryan says. "Did you remember the salt? You said I had to make sure you didn't forget the salt."
"Yes, I remembered the salt. Now, seriously, back off. I don't want these to taste like Parliaments."
"You're the one who said I could smoke in the kitchen." Spencer actually gets kind of bitchy if Ryan smokes in the house at all, which is why it's a big deal.
"At the table, Ry. Not leaning over my bowl of cookie dough."
Ryan pouts, flicking his bangs out of his eyes with the hand that isn't holding his cigarette, and goes back to the table. "You know that Brendon's sworn off raisins this week, or something, right?"
Jon hums, putting his shoulder into stirring the stiff dough. "Got it covered."
"Okay." He takes a long drag, leaning into it like it's the best cigarette he's ever had—which is the way Ryan usually smokes, actually—and then blinks, looking sharply at Jon. "Is that my oatmeal? It is, isn't it. You'd better buy me some more, asshole."
Jon doesn't even bother trying to explain why he finds that so hilarious. He just laughs.
"Jon!" Brendon yells. "Jon, it smells like cookies in here!"
"That's generally what happens when you bake some," Ryan says dryly. Then he crams the rest of his second cookie into his mouth. "Fuck, these are good."
"You remembered the salt this time?" Spencer asks. He gives the plate of cookies on the table a wary look.
"All ingredients present and accounted for," Jon says, taking a bite of his own cookie. "And they really are, aren't they?"
Hopping up on the table, Brendon makes a huge production out of reaching over and grabbing the entire plate. "I believe I'll be the judge of—oh." His face falls. "Raisins."
Wordlessly, Jon gets up to retrieve the second plate of cookies from where it's still sitting next the oven, handing it to Brendon as he slides back into his seat.
Spencer picks up one of the cookies and inspects it from both sides. "Think you forgot something in these, dude."
"Wasn't the salt," Ryan chimes in. "And he left the raisins out on purpose."
Brendon's eyes light up with total, perfect joy. "Jon Walker, you are my favorite cookie buddy ever."
Jon arches an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't remember that. You were pretty blazed."
"Of course I remember!" Brendon cries around a huge mouthful of oatmeal cookie. "Cookie buddies are forever."
"So I've been told, Bden. So I've been told."
Two bong loads later, when they're all sprawled out on their backs on the living room floor, Ryan says, "You know what you should make next, Jon?"
"Ryan," Spencer says.
"Brownies," he finishes, blithely ignoring the distinct note of warning in Spencer's tone.
Jon sits back in his chair, looking contemplatively at the plate of cookies and trying to decide whether or not he can eat another one—but who's he kidding; the answer to that question is always "yes." "I think I'm about baked out," he says, biting into what definitely ought to be his last cookie, but they're just so good. "And, y'know, making these was kind of a production. I don't know if I could handle another project of that, uh, magnitude."
"They were worth it, though," Spencer states. "Right?"
Brendon, who has finished his plateful of plain cookies and is giving the remaining all-the-way cookies a glazed, mildly predatory look—raisins be damned—says, "Well. They are really, really good cookies."
Jon smiles. "Yeah. They really, really are."
