The thing about family recipes is that they have extra love built in

October 27, 2020 -- The Haunted House

Elena felt awkward not cooking for a guest for once, it was weird, but the point was they were going to cook together...and maybe she would work up the courage to talk about Hikari. The girl did still have a batch of cookies she finished yesterday there, you know in case Atlanta wanted to eat something.

A floating pillow pushed Elena onto the sofa and Elena mutters, falling on her petticoat clad vintage dressed ass right on it. She giggled, “Yes, yes Remmy, I’ll calm down, I am sure it will go well. ”

She let herself relax and decided to let Remmy get the door whenever Atlanta would knock on it.

After her mission with EliZe last week, Atlanta had been very curious about the house where she lived with the Fearless trio. The *haunted* house. As an October baby, Atlanta loved everything even kind of Halloween-y, and a real haunted house? She was so excited to see what that meant. October *also* meant it was jacket and sweater weather again, and Boon’s closet had been suitably pillaged. Atlanta was wrapped up in one of Boon’s coziest flannel-lined jackets as she approached the address that Elena had sent her.

The old fashioned door didn’t even have a doorbell, but an old school knocker showing the age of the house. The architecture was old fashioned; it looked like where a witch would live (albeit well kept) in a kids movie and it has had rumors about it at least since Elena was a kid. It opened for Atlanta, a chill in the wind flying past her from Remmy’s ghostly presence that they always played up when they were considering messing with someone.

Atlanta blinked, hand raised to knock. “Oh. Um. Hello?” she called into the open doorway.

The design of the home showed its age, it wasn’t a mansion but it was a rather nicely built home clearly made for a rich person in the area who wanted something “simple” way back in the day. The inside wall to the girls right had a collection of cursed swords and assorted weapons, clearly close to the door for Fearless to grab weapons. There were assorted strange little artifacts from adventures the five residents of this home minus Remmy had collected.

To the left was a dining room and further behind that the kitchen. It was a pretty old fashioned dinner table, as was most of the furniture that was visible around the home. Perhaps it came this way or maybe it was simply Elena and EliZe’s combined taste for old things.

Elena moved out from the living room, which was further away, with a clear sign of modernity given the big tv and game consoles attached to it. The kitchen similarly was modernly equipped with all the latest stuff to make the kitchen a perfect place to cook (although some of it was styled to look older). Elena said cheerfully in her approach, “Welcome Atlanta to our humble abode.”

Atlanta waved as she saw Elena coming and stepped inside. The whole place was large and old. It was nothing like her old apartment or the house she lived in now. Even her grandparents’ house in Ohio wasn’t like this. Maybe that was the haunted-ness of this one? “Hi Elena! Sorry for not knocking, the door just, uh, opened? By itself.”

Elena giggled. “Oh that was Remmy, the ghost. I told them not to do a prank on you and just be nice and open it.”

A knife floated behind Elena but she turned around and glared, and the knife turned back around going into the kitchen. She switched her focus back to Atlanta. “Ready to do some baking or do you want to...chill...for a while, I have some cookies from the other day if you want some.”

Atlanta stared open-mouthed at the floating knife. “Oh so EliZe was serious about the haunted thing, huh?” As the knife floated away, Atlanta stared after it. She didn’t take her eyes off of it even as she answered Elena. “Oh, either is good with me! I love baking but we for sure can do something else if you like.”

Elena giggled, acting like this was a silly office story. "Nope, not at all. Remmy was a pirate cook, went down with their ship and it was torn apart for the guy who made this home's mantelpiece. So Remmy's haunted it for a long time."

Elena took Atlanta to the kitchen. Elena took super good care of everything, afterall it's also where she recorded Sappho’s Sweets. Elena asked, leaning against the kitchen counter, "So cupcakes or mix it up?"

Atlanta nodded before she could really process that story, then realized she really didn’t have a good response to that after she did. So she followed Elena to the kitchen. At the question, she tapped her chin for a moment. “Why don’t we mix it up? Do you have any favorites?”

Elena smiled, showing off three recipes she printed out from the internet; it was so exciting having so many cookbooks so accessible. Elena would normally mix it up after that, there were already scribbles and notes all over the brownie one since she had made it before. She said, “We could make brownies, I have leftover ingredients from when I made them for Sappho’s Sweets last week. We could make conchas, it’s a Mexican sweet bread my mom used to make. Or we could make mochi, I’ve never made it before but it could be fun to challenge ourselves. What do you think?”

Atlanta grinned as she looked around the kitchen. She spotted the knife that was floating earlier and subconsciously took a little step away from it. “Hmm, as much as I think mochi would be fun, I think trying out your mom’s recipe would be great! I love trying old family recipes. Plus, sweet bread sounds yummy.”

Elena tossed the other two in the air and they were caught by Remmy, who floated them out of the room going off to leave the pair in peace for now. Elena placed it down and started gathering ingredients: sugar, flour, yeast, milk, you know, the whole sweets shebang. While doing that she said, “Family recipes are the best, it has a whole storied history and little tweaks, I love them.”

The little lesbian tried to get her mind in order to talk about what she realized after talking to Subliminal at her retirement home. Baking should calm her nerves and make all this so much easier.

“Yeah! My grandma has some recipes from her mom from back in the 30s, and you wouldn’t think that pickled watermelon rind is good, but it is. She always opens a jar whenever we visit her and my grandpa in Ohio.” Atlanta cheerfully started to measure out the first ingredients. “Before I met Ernest I would have said that I’m a recipe rebel, since I change recipes a lot in order to make new kinds of cupcakes, but I’m nothing compared to him.”

Elena giggled hearing about Ernest. His videos were an actual nightmare and she wasn’t sure how Atlanta could handle it, but he seemed nice. Elena started mixing while she thought for a moment how wild it was that she was Grandma old, technically, like she was born in 1937. The girl muses “It’s always nice to hear about what people’s grandparents have, cuz like, that’s things I can remember from when I was a kid.”

Then finally, maybe this was the solid segue she tries to be smooth. “Your grandparent, I realized something when I was hanging out with Subliminal….”

Nerves were setting in, Elena came into focus. Finally she squeaked out, ”I think they're my godparent. I just thought, it had to be another Hikari when you mentioned them because that would be a wild right but nope.”

Atlanta stopped mixing to look at Elena when it became clear that she was nervous about something. “Oh yeah? Cool! I’m sure they’d love to see you again. Do you want to come over for dinner sometime next week to catch up? I mean, they’re also out of their normal time, so I’m sure they’d love seeing a familiar face.”

Elena nodded her head, oh wow, getting to have dinner with them again, that would be amazing. They had a lot to talk to them about. Now Elena understood a lot more about Hikari having talked to people about everything that went down and looking at things from her time in a new light. The girl awkwardly said, finally looking over at Atlanta, “That would be super nice...thank you. Things are complicated but I would really like that.”

It was hard to come up with a way to say everything she was feeling or everything that it felt like was going into that. Like Hikari was technically supposed to adopt Elena after what happened to her mom, but she got moved to the Russos instead. Plus Hikari was young, they probably just said yes cuz like, their friend asked. Elena’s mind was racing with so many thoughts so she focused on mixing and breathing.

“Hey are you okay? I mean, I’d think this was good news, but you don’t seem excited about it?” Atlanta leaned against the counter. “Is something wrong? Did you like, have a fight with them in the past or something? They’re not really the grudge type, if that’s the issue.”

Elena matched the lean and explained, “No, we didn’t fight. Hikari was always super nice to me and supportive. They helped me feel confident in being me. Just we didn’t get to see each other that much cuz after my mom was arrested, I got sent away to a new family, who were fine. Still, Hikari came to visit me sometimes.”

Elena sighed, feeling like she wasn’t doing a good enough job explaining this but the feeling made no sense, why was time and family and everything so complicated.

Atlanta nodded, but still looked a little confused. “So what’s the problem then? Sorry, I don’t think I’m making the connection there. But I’ll help if I can.”

Elena felt like such a weirdo. What was the problem then? Elena tried to think, it was...it was...oh gosh darn it was obvious. Elena explained after a really big breath, "Okay, so like Hikari is retired now right? Things have felt like a lot lately but I’m worried that I’ll only cause problems for them if I get back in their life. I don’t want them to feel the need to take care of me but If I see them I might feel that I want them to take care of me. I want them to live a nice life with their actual family.”

Elena held back tears, there was more but she needed to be strong, strong like Maria, not let these feelings overwhelm her. Elena wiped her eyes and rubbed her arm trying to think of a way to move on from this, Atlanta came here for fun baking.

“Hey,” Atlanta said gently, and laid her hand on Elena’s arm. “From what you’re telling me, you’re they’re actual family, too. I know I’m super lucky that my bio family is pretty darn good, but that’s not any more valid form of family than what you have. And if there’s one thing the James household is well equipped to handle, it’s problems. If you’re family, then your problems are our problems, and we want to help you with them.” Atlanta smiled comfortingly up at Elena. “Besides, Jasper might be a handful to take care of, but he doesn’t take up *all* of Grandy’s time. Hug?” Atlanta opened up her arms as she offered.

Elena hugged Atlanta tight, although an Elena tight was basically nothing at all given her strength and Atlanta’s own. Elena held onto her for a moment and said, "Thank you."

The girl broke the hug and said, "I have some worries but I think this clears a big worry off my mind."

A big smile coated Elena's face, it all sounded really nice. Getting to meet people she would have grown old seeing, their old parental figure, seeing what Hikari's new life looked like, hanging out with Atlanta, it sounded perfect.

She grabbed the ingredients and got back to work with extra gusto.

Relief settled over Atlanta as Elena seemed to feel better. Being able to help people and be there for her friends always made her feel good. She hated when people felt bad around her, and any time she could make it better was a good day.

The two chatted as they finished up the bread. Elena’s mood only improved as time went on, nothing like baking with someone you care about. The pretty colored sugars gave the conchas a pride direction as Elena was wont to do and sure enough they came out pretty perfect.

The pair of lesbians ate up and talked about Boon and relationships, Elena lightheartedly talked about her current disaster gay status after having been pretty good at relationships in the 50s. Following more gushing about Boon cuz they were too cute.

Elena was excited for alternate universe love potentials, she wondered if she and Mara were still together in some other world, oh or if she dated the Liminals, or gosh she would have loved to hold both their hands. Atlanta in turn talked about trying to set up her and Boon’s E-verse counterparts, and wondering how her last year would have been different if she hadn’t met Boon until this summer.

Elena offered Atlanta as their evening wrapped up, “Take the conchas with you. Hikari used to like them and I bet Jasper, Noah, and Demeter would like them.”

“Oh thanks! I’m sure they’ll love them. I might have to stop Jasper from putting ketchup on them, though. He’s going through a phase where he puts weird condiments on everything and Ernest and Mel only encourage him. My brothers are nightmares.” Atlanta rolled her eyes fondly. “And I’ll talk to my parents and Grandy about having you over. Maria’s invited, too, of course. I don’t know how long you two can be separated? EliZe can come if you want, but I don’t know how many people you want at your first meeting with them.”

Elena giggled, family stuff was cute, it made her think of her current family: Maria, Fearless, EliZe, Zane, Jullio, The Owlnights, she was lucky. Now maybe that would extend, too. Elena said with glee clear in her voice, “Thank you, I’ll probably come solo if I can. Speaking of how long I can stay unfused, I’m hitting my time limit so we had perfect timing.”

Elena flickered for a moment, like a glitch on a screen. She twirled the knife Remmy had left out perfectly, oddly even placing it into its proper place. Elena looked confused at the spot but then shrugged it off, turning around and saying, “Remmy, say goodbye, don’t be a jerk.”

Atlanta’s things floated in the air and as Remmy handed them over a ghostly but gentle voice said, “Thank you for coming over matey.”

Atlanta’s eyes went wide as she wordlessly accepted her stuff. After a moment, she leaned over to Elena and whispered, “They can talk???” Then, realizing that was probably a rude thing to say, she straightened up and said, “Right, um, thanks Remmy. And thanks, Elena. I’ll text you about coming over later.”

Elena held back a giggle, she was also surprised at Remmy at first, she might have dated a witch but she hadn’t dealt with ghosts before becoming Fearless. She waved Atlanta off with a “Sounds perfect, see you at The Big Team Base.”

Then turned around to text Maria. ”We should fuse, did you feel that?” A big smile breaks her face of any worry about the time limit or what strange things might be happening, she was going to get to meet the rest of Atlanta and Hikari’s family, yes!