Work Text:
Flame wasn’t the type to cook, bake, or any of the sorts. He was the type to eat pre-made food often. Recently, pre-made gapples, pre-cooked steak from the markets nearby his base, pre-made--okay, pre-made food was practically his entire diet.
Flame never really had the time to cook for himself or learn how to prepare many dishes either, especially after all the recent events regarding Wemmbu and, ugh, the Law. Practicing his PvP skills was just more of a priority now. After all, he's the strongest in fighting on unstable, not cooking. That can be Lomedy's specialty, or something.
Well, just because he can’t make a lot of dishes, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any knowledge in cooking at all. He knows how to cook steak perfectly to his preference in his furnace. He knows how to make a few small snacks too, heck, he even knows how to bake a few deserts here and there.
But, if he was going to be completely honest, his favourite recipe would be this one soup recipe Manepear taught him a while ago, back when they were both young and when Flame still lived with Mane in his treehouse.
It’s silly, Flame knows, but it still fills a sense of nostalgia and home in his gut. Even if Mane did betray the Zam empire, and even if Flame still resents him for it.
The soup didn’t need too many ingredients or take much time to prepare. It was perfect for times where Flame ran out of food at his base and was too exhausted to go to the market to restock. Which is also precisely accurate to right about now.
Wemmbu and Flame has just fought the billion law members outside of Flame’s base (in which they obviously won) and were both famished. Bruises and injuries practically coated the two’s bodies, evidence of the huge battle they had just fought.
After the battle, both entered the base tired. Wemmbu immediately falls on the comfort of one of Flame’s carpets—spreading blood all
over the material in the process. Flame flashed a look and grunted, too tired to force him off. Instead, the rumble of his gut directs him straight to the kitchen, in hopes to find some sort of leftovers he can stomach.
Unfortunately, his search was left in vain, as his pantry was practically bare. ‘Stupid lawmen must’ve ransacked his storeroom,’ he thinks. (Totally didn’t eat it all bro.) His stomach lets out another growl, followed by a “Flameeeeee, do you have anything to eat?” From Wemmbu.
Flame just frowns in response, completely scanning his kitchen for any ingredients. Cabinet doors were slammed open and closed in frustration, until Flame beams. He finds his emergency stash of ingredients, hidden in some random basket. This counts as an emergency, right?
So, with the last bit of strength he can muster, he empties the basket and scatters all the content onto his counter. He observes the stash carefully for anything he can prepare in less than 5 minutes.
‘The stew,’ He eventually settles, immediately heating up a kettle of water and throwing some ingredients into a pot.
In about 2 minutes, the soup was already steaming—leaving arich scent throughout the air. However, despite being close-to-finished, he was still missing a key ingredient.
“Yo, Wemmbu!” Flame yells. “Got any spare golden apples?”
“One, but I’m about to eat it!” The voidling yells back.
“No, bro, bring it here!” Flame hollers, arms busy with
salts and spices.
Wemmbu audibly groans in response—the sound rumbling through the walls. He eventually enters the kitchen with a slouch in his posture, golden apple shining in his hand.
“Throw it here,” Flame instructs, hand out ready to catch the fruit. Wemmbu throws it to Flame with little to no precision—who catches it perfectly with one hand.
Wemmbu mumbles, “That was not aura,” before slumping himself on a chair at the dining table.
“I heard that,” Flame responds, cutting the apple into bits before depositing the cut up fruit into the boiling pot. The dish froths in return, releasing a cloud of steam.
“Smells good,” Wemmbu yawns, propping his chin on his arm. “But I bet your food can’t be as good as anything I can make,” Wemmbu challenges confidently.
Flame replies with a laugh, “Dalright bro.”
He eventually finishes cooking the stew, switching off the stove and pouring the pot’s content into two bowls. The concoction stirs in the
basins as Flame brings both dishes and places them on the table carefully. Wemmbu doesn’t wait until the dish is on the table. He snatches a bowl from Flame’s hand, bringing it up toward his face hungrily before stealing a sip.
Flame, again, too tired to react, sits himself down and starts to scarf down his bowl too. He was just about halfway until he hears sniffs arising from the other half of the table.
He doesn’t look up from his bowl. He just assumes Wemmbu is frothing at the mouth at Flame’s extraordinary cooking skills. The blaze hybrid jokes, “Is my cooking that good bro?” expecting a laugh of some sort or a snarky reply. Except, the response never comes and the sniffing gains volume. Flame doesn’t dwell on it and continues to slurp some more soup.
‘Maybe Wemmbu’s just tired or sum,’ he shrugs, and he couldn’t blame him either. Flame’s practically one blink away from passing out on the spot.
It wasn’t until another 70 sniffs and... sobs? From Wemmbu that Flame finally chooses to look up from his meal, only to see the voidling-demon’s hands shakily wiping his face.
He’s crying.
——
Wemmbu knew the scent of the stew was familiar.
Tasting the soup that Flame just made was a mistake. The second he brought that bowl up to his lips, he knew. He knew.
He knew that the soup was Mane’s, all the way back from when he trained at the treehouse. The treehouse that’s long gone, now. The memories of sitting at Mane’s table, the broth brewing across the air, the constant banter and training-talk. It was all too familiar.
Too familiar for smell.
Too familiar for taste.
Too familiar for touch.
Way too familiar for Wemmbu.
----
Wemmbu wasn’t much a crier. Nobody has ever seen him cry before except Eggchan. It’s not like he wants people to see him cry. It’s pathetic. It shows weakness. Which is why Wemmbu refuses to let his weaknesses slip between the cracks for everyone to feed off. For everyone to manipulate, and for everyone to use.
But not even Eggchan saw the tears shed on that stupid tree. The stupid tree that had the even more stupid sign placed on top, permanently engraved with the words: ‘Lost Cause.”
Even if Wemmbu did shed a tear or two on the dying wood, he… expected it. The message, and more importantly, the fact that Manepear was going to leave—one way, or another. Even if it meant losing Wemmbu’s trust and companionship. If you could even call their relationship that.
Because that stupid mace was the only reason Manepear trained Wemmbu in the first place. Gambit.
Manepear only saw Wemmbu as a tool to get closer to his own goals. A weapon.
Months of training, weeks of pain and practice, days that Wemmbu considered bonding, were all pointless. Fake.
A waste of time, Mane probably considered Wemmbu.
…
Does this make Wemmbu scared?
Scared of others seeing him as a weapon, no less, no more?
…
It’s stupid.
It’s stupid to cry about something that’s stupid.
Yet, Wemmbu’s eyes burn anyway.
Eggchan wouldn’t think that crying is that stupid at least, Wemmbu presumes. He’d probably talk about norms or something, and Wemmbu would intake it—in one ear and out the other. He almost giggles at the thought.
Eggchan never saw the Wemmbu fighting tears at his rival’s table—with said rival literally less than a feet away from him—either.
His stew, now long forgotten on the dining table, stood, continuing to emit soft clouds of steam.
Wemmbu was shivering. His hands wiped his face consecutively. Wemmbu’s purple bangs loomed over his face, uneven and messy.
He didn’t realise Flame was talking to him—laughing sarcastically and bantering to himself about something dumb.
He wipes his face again in attempt to stop crying (which fails profoundly). Wemmbu’s sleeves grow damper.
The kitchen was filled with the emptiness of Wemmbu’s sniffs and sobs—the one-sided conversation from Flame pausing.
“…Yo, bro, my cooking can’t be this amazing, right?” Flame
speaks up eventually.
Wemmbu looks up at Flame, tears actively flowing down his cheeks--scoffing. ‘You cannot be serious,’ he attempts to say. The words get lodged in his throat instead.
Instead, he wavers his arm across his eyes for the final time, the forearm of his sleeves clutching his tears. He manages to speak, cracks evident in his tone.
“Shut up.”