#sorry i had a bunch of stuff in my drafts from 3am last night that i wanted to get out in the world

[sondheim-girly]

What if instead of Terrence Dipp it was Trip Dipp and we dipped the trip in the terrrence

[masterwords]

Ok, so I’m so hyped for May and all the domestic Hotchgan! And you said blow up your ask box, so….

I would love a fic about Derek and Aaron taking a cooking (or baking) class together! I just think it could be so funny and sweet. (And probably more messy than they think it is. Maybe a little competitive 😅)

Turns out...I am not good at writing cooking classes. LOL This idea was one of my absolute favorites and I found it to be incredibly challenging. I had three different drafts, none of which were good, so I set myself a 30 minute timer this morning and just went to town...landed here. It's better than the others, but not great. At least it's coherent! I didn't edit it, just skimmed...so if there are horrific embarrassing errors. I'm sorry please forgive me. We're in the thick of baseball and getting ready for tournament season and end of the school year stuff so my time isn't as plentiful as I'd like but we're getting there! Doing the thing! (Not on AO3 yet...I'm being lazy.)

Words: 1.7k

Warnings: food, it's all food based.

** hey shorty **

“You should take Penelope,” Derek muttered, one last attempt at salvaging his Saturday afternoon. “She would love this.”

“She bought the gift for us, Derek. To do together.”

He’d forgotten that part. Maybe not entirely, but he was clinging to some thread of hope that maybe she had wanted to go to the classes too. And if she did, he wouldn’t have to.

“It’s just gonna be a bunch of nerds…” Now he was whining. He wasn’t proud of it.

“It’s an hour, Derek.”

“An hour I’ll never get back.”

In the end, it turned out to be two hours...but two hours Derek was glad to have been present for. The instructor, an old woman with a thick Scottish accent and a frown that could rival Hotch’s any day of the week got right to business. No jokes, no wasted time.

She started by explaining the history of shortbread, and Derek breathed an audible sigh of relief. His ultimate fear was that they were going to be making something awful...it was described by Penelope as a “historical cooking class” and she gave him no more information. Hotch knew but refused to divulge – so he’d looked it up, and it turned out there were three possible classes it could have been given the time and day. One of them was making something called a medieval beef pie and something about the thought of that made him feel ill. Shortbread he could do.

Or so he thought.

“Pilcaithly Bannock,” she said and Derek couldn’t help glancing around the room to see if anyone else was as lost as he was. Turned out, he was not alone. “It’s a traditional shortbread made with the addition of almonds and a few flavors you may find intriguing. The recipe we’ll be using comes from a cookbook written in 1861.”

At her direction, everyone filed up toward the front of the classroom where she handed them a bin full of ingredients and cooking utensils with a photocopy of a recipe taped to the top. Hotch and Derek glanced at one another thoughtfully, both impressed by the instructor’s organization. Suddenly Derek, who had never considered himself much in the kitchen, felt like he might actually be able to do this.

Hotch baked. He loved to do it. His insomnia sometimes led to incredible pastries, flaky dough and sweet treats that helped him ease his troubled mind in the wee hours of the night. He would come back to bed around 3am with the house smelling like a bakery and a little flour in his hair and Derek would wake up starving and salivating. But him? No. He could grill, and he could do that with the best of them...and he could eat, boy could he eat...but baking required so much precision, measurement, time and patience. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, it was that he didn’t want to. Nothing about it was appealing except eating the end result.

They were not supposed to talk while they worked, but everyone seemed to want to chatter a little. The instructor poured herself a mug of coffee and stood in a corner observing for a long while. Surrounding them was the chaos and clatter of a kitchen, mixing bowls and whisks and spoons and running water.

“What does it mean when it says to beat the butter to a cream?” Derek whispered, leaning over close to Hotch. “Isn’t that already what it is?”

Hotch tipped his bowl in Derek’s direction and showed him the thick peaks of creamed butter with a smirk. “Just use your whisk and whip it.”

“Too bad we don’t have stand mixers in here.”

“Seems like a good time to put those muscles you work so hard on to good use…” Hotch muttered and Derek, under his breath, called him a shithead.

“Mine’s gonna be so much better than yours.”

“Keep dreaming,” Hotch replied so quietly, so sure of himself that it became Derek’s entire mission in life to do this one thing as perfectly as he could. So, stepping back, he read the entire recipe top to bottom and then again, closer, before he set to whipping the butter. He was a little behind the rest of the class, they all looked like they were adding in the flour and sugar and almonds, but he wasn’t concerned. He could take his damn time.

And he did. He chopped his almonds into fine little bits, he made sure there were no clumps in his dough that he would definitely classify as a “paste” in accordance with the recipe, and when he scored his final product before taking it up to the oven he was...well, he was proud.

Until he saw Hotch’s, which looked borderline professional. His heart sank. The students all piled their trays into the waiting preheated ovens and set to their next task...cleaning up while the shortbread did its thing.

“If mine is better,” Hotch said while he scrubbed his countertop, “you take me out to lunch at Shake Shack.”

Derek scowled. It wasnt’t that he didn’t like Shake Shack, but he wasn’t in the mood for greasy burgers and milkshakes. “And if I win, you take me down to Così.”

When the timers began going off, the instructor pulled them out of the oven one by one. She inspected each tray before handing them off to their owners to begin cooling. The look she gave Derek was impossible for him to read, but he could see the admiration on her face when she looked at Hotch’s perfect little slab of shortbread. He began mentally preparing himself to eat at Shake Shack, to watch Hotch with his mushroom burger and frozen custard quietly gloating over his perfect performance. He realized in that moment that while he loved Hotch, he probably would have hated him had they met in high school. That smug look on his face was getting Derek all sorts of riled up and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss him or smack him. Maybe both.

“How are they?” he asked when Hotch broke off a corner to try. He just shrugged and looked...disappointed.

“I could have done better. They’re a little tough.”

Derek stared at him agape. “They look professional, man.”

“I over-mixed the flour. They’re not bad but they don’t crumble the way they’re supposed to.”

Derek, horrified by what his own creation must be like in order for Hotch to be disappointed in his own turnout, stared down at his slab. They were darker than Hotch’s by at least one full shade, and a little extra even on the edges. Slowly, he reached out and broke off a corner of his to try and it crumbled in his fingers.

Hotch was watching him closely with a sweet smile on his face. “That’s perfect, Derek.”

“What are you talking about? It fell apart.”

The instructor made her way to their counter and peered at both of their creations. First she looked at Hotch’s, broke off a corner, and Derek saw the same look of disappointment on her face that Hotch had.

“They taste incredible,” she started with a smile. “But you’ve overmixed a bit, haven’t ye?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Give it another try at home.” Hotch smiled and nodded at her encouragement, proceeding to clean up the rest of his station and package up his failed attempt at shortbread. He could turn it into ice cream topping or something else at home at least. It was salvageable. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the instructor inspecting Derek’s.

“Nice color,” she began before grabbing a bit and watching it crumble in her hands. Her smile, once somewhat timid, widened. “Ahhh. That’s perfect.” She snapped off one whole cookie and held it in her hands reverently before snatching a chair, dragging it over to where Derek stood and stepped up on top of the seat. She stood now beside a very confused Derek, her hands still cradling the cookie.

“An old Scottish tradition is to break a slab of shortbread over a bride’s head. If it crumbles, the marriage will be good and fruitful. Shall we give this young man’s shortbread a try?”

The class erupted in laughter and applause, so she held her hands now over Derek’s head and snapped the cookie. It barely took a second before it crumbled to bits and fell over Derek’s head and shoulders in cookie dust. He shut his eyes and laughed along with everyone.

“Ahhh. Well, if that’s any indicator of the strength of your marriage…” she said, doing her best to get safely down off of the chair with Derek’s help. “Job well done.” Derek glanced at Hotch and shrugged, thinking he would find the man looking jealous or disappointed in himself...but all he found was Hotch with tears in his damn eyes and a smile on his face. The big softy.

In the car afterward, Hotch sitting in the passenger seat with two takeaway containers of shortbread on his lap, Derek poked the bear. “Did you hear her say mine was perfect?”

“I did.”

“She used the word perfect. Not good or great...perfect.”

“I heard.”

“Just makin’ sure. I know your ears don’t work so good, shorty.”

"Derek..." Hotch mumbled, giving him the side-eye. Derek just smiled broad and pulled out of the parking lot.

"Whassup shorty?"

Hotch had no response, but he couldn't help the ghost of a smile that ticked up at the corner of his mouth. Being called shorty was probably the least of his concerns. Derek was about to be insufferable over this shortbread ordeal for the remainder of the weekend and he would just have to suck it up and deal with it.

Derek, with a wicked little grin on his face, drove them straight to Shake Shack, bypassing Così on the way. He won the competition in class fair and square, but the instructor was right. He did have a pretty damn good marriage, and part of what made it so good was knowing when his partner might need a little pick-me-up...even if he did make the superior treat. He won cooking class.

But Hotch needed that frozen vanilla custard for his wounded pride and Derek was going to make sure he got it. (But if he crumbled a little of his perfect shortbread on top...well, could he really be blamed? It was perfect.)

[skeletxnqueen]

flower crown fairy lights daisies 1975 matte black nail polish pantone moodboard stars plants converse lace handwriting cactus sunrise oil paints overalls combat boots winged eyeliner pastel tattoos piercings bands messy bun cry baby grunge space white bed sheets old books beaches eyes 11:11 painting lightning thunder storms love clouds coffee marble

T H E N E V E R E N D I N G A S K (I wasn’t ignoring you, I’m gonna be honest, I forgot this was sitting in my drafts waiting to be completed aaaaa)

flower crown: when did you last sing to yourself? - A few minutes ago. I left my iPod in my co-worker’s car so I kinda have nothing better to do. All my favorite apps are on there.

fairy lights: if a crystal ball could tell you the truth about anything, what would you want to know? - Are alternate universes real and is there one where I am content and happy? (sorry to get depressing there bud but life just ain’t what I want it to be rn)

daisies: what is the greatest accomplishment of your life? - I haven’t experienced enough things to  really say I’ve accomplished anything. I guess getting a job and keeping it for as long as I have? Six months and counting.

1975: what is the first happy memory that comes to mind, recent or otherwise? - Seeing a gif of a kitten walking over to a camera man and then proceeding to nap on him and walk all over his shoulders and sit on his head while he had to hold almost completely still.

matte: if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? - This question as me depressed and low key anxious I don’t think I can answer it without crying sorry

black nail polish: do you have a bucket list? if so, what are the top three things? - Not really. I try to avoid really confronting my own mortality. Thinking about dying both scares and tempts me and it’s really weird and terrifying and no bueno. Gosh my answers seem so depressing I’m sorry bab aaAAAA

pantone: describe a person close to your life in detail. - I’m too lazy to describe anyone again but um my brother c’: Again. Heckie

moodboard: do you feel you had a happy childhood? - I suppose. I mean it definitely could have been better, but it’s not really on “tragic backstory” level so I guess yeah. I dunno how to answer this, in all honesty.

stars: when did you last cry in front of another person? - Earlier tonight

plants: pick a person to stargaze with you and explain why you picked them. - My friend Antonio. He’s weird but he loves space and it’s nice to hear how excited he gets talking about the stars and planets because he’s super passionate about it. I just like when my friends are happy ya know? So I know stargazing with my space buddy would be fun.

converse: would you ever have a deep conversation with a stranger and open up to them? - Honestly I have before. I don’t mean for it to, but sometimes the conversations just take that direction. I’m a big oversharer.

lace: when was your last 3am conversation with someone, and who were they to you? - fam I’m always up at 3am wym I stay talkin to ppl at 3am (for the record it’s usually my mom and/or brother)

handwriting: if you were about to die, and you could only say one more sentence to one person, what would you say and to whom? - Again, I can’t answer this without crying I’m sorry.

cactus: what is your opinion on brown eyes? - I have them and I love them why is this up for discussion why is this a question is there brown eye discourse???

sunrise: pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally. - “I don’t care what you think, as long as it’s about me.” …….. I really like attention. More seriously though, I like knowing that I’m real to other people. I know it sounds weird but sometimes I just like being reminded that I actually exist in other people’s lives and that I’m a real person???? Idk how to describe it but yeah. That line makes me think about that aspect of myself a lot.

oil paints: what would you title the autobiography of your life so far? - “Still Figuring It Out”

overalls: what would you do with one billion dollars? - cry because I can finally get my family out of our rough situation, spoil my mom and brother rotten, buy lots of pretty makeup, travel the world, and still have enough left over to live comfortably for the rest of my life without ever having to work again unless I want to to have something to do.

combat boots: are you a very forgiving person? do you like being this way? - I am. Sometimes too much for my own good. Sometimes I like it just cause it can help settle conflicts quicker and sometimes I don’t because not only do I let toxic people back into my life but it causes me to miss them and desperately want them back because I convince myself “it’s in the past, it wasn’t that bad, and they’ve probably changed so I should let it go”.

winged eyeliner: write a hundred word letter to your twelve year old self. - Dear Mikii,

First of all what a weird nick-name you dork. I’m Gabby. I’m still just as much of a dork so don’t feel bad. You’re going through a weird phase in your life right now. You’re confused and probably questioning who you are. That’s not really going to stop, but it gets better. It gets easier to deal with. Eventually you’ll work for your favorite pizza place and, while it’s stressful, you’ll make cool friends and you’ll make money, and nobody will be able to tell you what you can and can’t buy. It’ll be awesome. You got this

pastel: would you describe yourself as more punk or pastel? - I guess I lean closer to the punk side. It’s kind of funny because I have the soft cute personality that you’d think would fit on a pastel type person and honestly that’s my aesthetic but style wise, I usually go for darker colors and stuff. My brother is the polar opposite. Punk personality and pastel style.

tattoos: how do you feel about tattoos and piercings? explain. - Yes. Body art is yes. I love it and I want it. If you have tattoos and/or piercings I am 75% more likely to get some kind of crush on you.

piercings: do you wear a lot of makeup? why/why not? - yes, because I like it and it’s pretty.

bands: talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way. - I dunno if this counts much, I had to think long and hard on this one, but Crossfire by Stephen makes me think a lot about current events and police brutality and the bombings in other countries and just a bunch of sad stuff that’s going on now which I know is the point but it makes me really think about the privilege I do have compared to those who face discrimination and oppression far more harshly than I ever will and I just heckin

heck

messy bun: the world is listening. pick one sentence you would tell them. - “Prince didn’t die for this.”

cry baby: list the concerts you have been to and talk about how they make you feel. - I’ve only ever been to one and it was a local band so

grunge: who in the world would you most like to receive a letter from and what would you want it to say? - Idk man probably my dad. Not gonna go in depth but I’ll say this. I’d want a large sum of money included and a 5 page long apology letter.

space: do you have a desk/workspace and how is it organised/not organised? - nope nothing is organized and I dont have a workspace

white bed sheets: what is your night time routine? - stay up til I physically cannot hold my eyes open anymore then fall asleep

old books: what’s one thing you don’t want your parents to know? - that I’m not Christian and that I have a um…. device. Of some sort.

beaches: if you had to dye your hair how would you dye/style it and why? - Keep it red / make it redder, probably some kind of undercut or side shave

eyes: pick five people to go on an excursion with you. who would you pick and where would you go/what would you do? - 1. Alin2. Mikey3. Kaylee4. Dom5. Rose

I’d take these nerds with me as I travel the globe and try new experiences, shop cool unique things, and just live my dream life with. I’d go to the ends of the earth with these precious babies.

11:11: name three wishes and why you wish for them. - (1) Wealth. I want to pay off my mother’s college debt, buy her a nice place to stay as well as somewhere for myself, buy my brother anything his little heart desires, donate to fundraisers and charities, live my dream life, etc. (2) Clear skin. I’m pretty confident in my body shape and all, but I can’t stand my skin. Especially everywhere that isn’t my face. My shoulders have it the worst. (3) Someone willing to date me who doesn’t live thousands of miles away would be lovely. I mean I can do long distance but I just crave physical affection ya know? I dunno man I’m just lonely.

painting: what is the best halloween costume you have ever put together? if none, make one up. - Well, last year I was a dead cowgirl. I used my day of the dead makeup and wore a flannel, jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat that I got from party city. Relatively simple, but it was still fun to see little kids’ reactions and everything at work.

lightning: what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done while drunk or high? - this implies I’ve gotten drunk or high before (I’ve been kind of tipsy before but otherwise I’m fucking lame and I don’t do that stuff)

thunder: what’s one thing you would never do for one million dollars? - kill somebody (there are a few exceptions but in general ya know?)

storms: you can only listen to one song for the rest of your life, or only see one person for the rest of your life. which and why? - both of these would drive me literally insane let’s not and say we did

love: have you ever fallen in love? describe what it feels like to realize you’re in love. - I think I have. I don't know. To me it's realizing the things I'd be willing to do for that person. Just wanting to make them happy. Wanting to spoil them, see them smile, hear their stupid jokes even if they aren't funny, see all the ugly or silly faces they make, and just loving everything about them. Overcoming my biggest insecurities and discomforts for them. Realizing that there are certain things I can only see myself doing with them. When I read those couple posts I think of them, even though it's been over a year since we've been together. Hearing a certain song or artist is tainted by thoughts of them, when nothing would come to mind before I got to know them. Filling spots in my mind and heart that for years had been left vacant. Realizing that despite how much they've hurt me, I'd gladly take them back if they asked. Feeling like it was the right love at the wrong time, even though it probably wasn't the right love at all. Falling in love to me is having them lurking around every corner of my mind, the darkest shadows, the deepest trenches, even when I'm not thinking of them, they're always there. Even when I'm not thinking about them, I somehow am. I don't know if this is love or obsession, admittedly. Maybe I just need help lol

clouds: if you’re a boy, would you ever rock black nail polish? if you’re a girl, would you ever rock really really short hair? - I’d rock both and look sexy while doing it

coffee: what’s your starbucks order, and who would you trust to order for you, if anyone? - I don’t go to starbucks enough to really say

marble: what is the most important thing to you in your life right now? - my family and getting us out of the tough situation we’re in right now