It was an almost unseasonably cool afternoon for August in the giant heat sink that was New York City. The weather had been pretty brutal for the last several days and the air had that quality to it that just suggested that things were going to get better from there.

Kevin was coming home from Texas tomorrow, and Tarin honestly couldn’t wait to hear if the dating advice he’d so sagely given the teen had paid off or if Tarin was, in fact, the worst advice-giver ever.

While that was exciting, it did mean that a young roommate was coming back to the apartment and the dynamic of things would be changing a bit. Tarin wasn’t complaining. Truth be told he was the interloper and Kevin had been more than gracious.

Still. This was the last night that they’d have without a teenager in residence, so Tarin and Lee had decided to do something silly and potentially a bit reckless.

They were going to cook dinner together.

Lee had less than no confidence in her cooking skills and beyond the most basic of staples Tarin knew his own skills weren’t great either. Still, it had seemed like something fun they could do together and the absence of Kevin’s commentary would make things easier.

So. After his work day had ended, Tarin was waiting for Lee. He was waiting for Lee outside the shop, which he had already closed up for the day.

Kevin would be home tomorrow. And while Lee was beyond happy to be able to see her soon, this year his homecoming from Texas was a little bittersweet. Kevin coming home meant that there was suddenly much less time before he moved to the mansion for school.

It also meant that things around the apartment would change, her and Tarin weren't going to be alone there anymore. But that was fine. Things had been good before Kevin had left. Comfortable routines, Kevin and Tarin got along well, everything went as smoothly as it could with a teenage mutant in the house.

All it really mean was that she and Tarin were going to need to cut down on the public displays in the common areas a bit.

At least if they didn’t want to gross Kevin out.

But they still had one more night on their own, and for some reason as they had been talking about it, it had somehow sounded like a good idea for them to try to cook dinner that night.

Lee had no idea what they were thinking. But she still made her way toward Tarin’s shop that evening, timing her arrival for when he should have been finishing up the day. Only to find as she approached that he was already waiting for her outside.

”What, did you not trust me to come inside?” Lee asked with a laugh.

Tarin hasn’t been waiting outside for very long when he saw Lee approaching and smiled. She was laughing by the time she came up to him and Tarin couldn’t help but laugh a little bit too as she spoke.

”More like I didn’t trust myself to meet you inside.” Tarin said honestly ”We've got a list and plans and things to do and I figured that I would help keep us on schedule.” it made sense. They last time they’d tried to have a date and Lee had met him at the shop they hadn’t left for hours and had ended up giving up and just getting take-out.

Tonight, they were going to follow through on plans.

”You ready?” he said, reaching out to grab Lee’s hand.

They did have plans for that night, however ridiculous they were. Cooking. What was she thinking?

But Tarin did have a point. The last time she’d met him inside the shop, they really hadn’t followed through with their plans for the night. And the couple times before that when Lee had stopped by the shop when Tarin had random time available in his schedule…

Yeah, it probably was best that she hadn’t gone inside. If she had and they still managed to end up cooking that night, the chances were very good that they wouldn’t end up eating until midnight.

”I am,” Lee replied, taking Tarin’s hand as they started walking away from the shop. ”Though I’m still not sure how I got talked into this. I haven’t burned water in years, but I’m not sure how good of an idea this is.”

Lee caught his drift and Tarin had to smile a little bit as she took his hand and they started walking. See, he thought, they could stick to their very normal evening plans like reasonable adults.

Sometimes.

But now they were making their way down the street and Lee was voicing her apprehension with their evening plans.

”We have instructions, we have a list, we are going to buy two of everything we need so that when we mess up we can try again.” Tarin said reassuringly, surely they were going to be just fine.

”I also still don’t believe you ever managed to actually burn water though. Doesn’t it just evaporate?”

Tarin was trying to reassure her by listing everything they had figured out in order to do this. The list of ingredients, the directions with each step spelled out for them. And unlike with the pie, they were making sure to have two of everything to start with so they could try again.

Though, Lee supposed, when they ended up ruining the second attempt, they could always just order dinner.

He was trying to reassure her, yet he also was questioning her comment about burning water. Lee shrugged. ”I don’t know. I’m just that talented?” she said jokingly. ”You’re always saying how amazing I am. I’m an amazingly bad cook.”

Tarin still didn’t believe that Lee had actually managed to burn water. It just wasn’t a think that a person could do.

Apparently being amazing made Lee somehow capable of being worse at cooking than the average person, thus enabling her to be able to defy the laws of matter and energy.

It made sense. Somehow.

”Well when you use that kind of logic…” Tarin teased right back.

The nearest grocery store wasn’t far from the shop and it didn’t take them long to get inside. Tarin kind of knew his way around from when he’d lived at the shop and quickly enough they were gathering ingredients.

Well. Some of the ingredients.

”You’d think I’d know where more things are….” he said to Lee looking at the list again like it was going to tell him where to find things.

Lee shrugged as she smiled up at Tarin while they walked down the street. ”It makes perfect sense to me,” she replied.

It really didn’t take them long to get to the nearest grocery store to do their shopping for the disaster that was going to happen that night. And while Lee had been there before, it had been years. There were other stores that were closer to the apartment, and one between there and Kevin’s old school that were so much more convenient.

And while it was easy for them to find some of the things on their list, they hadn’t been able to find everything yet. ”It’s trying to tell us that dinner is doomed,” Lee teased. Even if she did think that it actually wasn’t going to turn out well.

”Though, unless you’ve got a map hidden under that list, I don’t think staring at it is going to help.”

”Dinner is not doomed.” Tarin said, ”We are two highly capable adults who can easily follow directions well enough to do this.”

As he spoke, Tarin walked down the end of the aisles, looking down them in hopes he’d find one of the missing items. A map. Bah.

Spotting a potential win, Tarin veered down an aisle and managed to find the pasta. Thank God.

Except that there were like 20 different kinds.

”Do we need a specific kind? I don’t think it says on the list. I don’t think spaghetti is right…”

Yes, they were two very capable adults who were able to follow directions. Yes, Lee had managed to do a hell of a lot in her life. Things that most people would consider to be far more difficult.

But this was cooking.

”If you say so, dear,” Lee said jokingly as they walked past the different aisles looking for the remaining ingredients.

Then Tarin was heading off down the next aisle, and Lee followed behind.

To find a wall of pasta.

”Spaghetti noodles aren't flat,” Lee said. ”Any time I've had Fettuccine Alfredo, it's had flat noodles.”

”I do say so…dear.” Tarin had confirmed with a quick grin at Lee. They were going to do this and they were going to do this well.

So no they’d gone to the wall of pasta. Lee pointed out that any time she’d had chicken Alfredo the noodles had been flat and Tarin agreed. Spaghetti wasn’t flat, neither was thin spaghetti, or angel hair pasta. Farfalle looked like little bow ties, penne was little tubes. Ah, there was fettuccini, it was flat and Tarin could remember seeing fettuccini Alfredo on menus before. Snagging it off the shelf and dropping it into the little hand basket thing it was time to find the protein.

Tarin knew the general area where that was, and soon enough he and Lee found themselves standing in front of the wall of meat, which was similar but somehow less intimidating than the wall of pasta had been.

They needed boneless, skinless chicken breast. Surely that would be easy to find.

Oh. There were different types. Thin cut. Strips. Whole. ”What do you think?” he asked Lee. Maybe this was a bit more helpless than they’d thought. ”I think we are supposed to cut it up, so would the stuff that’s already cut up be easier?”

Lee laughed softly as she heard Tarin repeat her use of ‘dear’. At least if nothing else, it would be a fun, enjoyable evening. Even if she was still doubting her ability to cook.

And then there was the wall of pasta. Lee hadn't really realized that there were this many types of pasta; with not cooking, Lee had had no reason to go down this aisle.

Before Lee had found the right pasta, or even just one that would work for what they were supposed to be making for dinner, Tarin managed to find something.

And then they were moving again coming to stop in front of the meat cooler. When Tarin spoke, Lee looked over at him, completely lost. ”It sounds like it would be easier, but I honestly don't know.”

Okay, so maybe they were a little out of their depth. But how did you learn to do something like this? You had to do it, right? At Lee’s look of utter confusion, Tarin nodded and looked back at the meat case, grabbing one of the chickens that was already cut in strips and one that wasn’t. ”We’re going to make that decision a problem for us an hour from now.” he said.

They’d already gotten the half and half, the Parmesan cheese, the butter, and the minced garlic.

”I think that’s everything on the list…” Tarin said, ”Is there anything else we need?” he asked, ”Anything else we want?”

The basket was definitely a bit intimidating. There were ingredients in there. Lots of ingredients that were not already put together. The instructions had seemed simply enough though. They could do this.

That was going to be a problem for an hour from now. That really did not sound like a very good solution to Lee. In an hour, they were going to be standing in the kitchen, all of these ingredients on the counter in front of them.

And they were supposed to turn those ingredients into actual food somehow.

Watching as Tarin put two packages of chicken into the basket with the other ingredients, Lee took a deep breath. That was the last thing, they were actually doing this.

When he asked if there was anything else they needed or that they wanted, Lee shook her head. She wanted to tell him that they had all of their takeout menus at home, so after they messed up their second attempt, they could order something.

But Tarin kept sounding so sure that they could actually do this. So she kept the takeout thought to herself. ”No, I think that’s everything,” she ended up replying. ”Let’s pay so we can get this disaster started.” She was only partially joking.

Lee didn’t think that there was anything else they needed and that they should just get this disaster started. At her pessimism, Tarin scowled at Lee a bit, ”I’m not going to be the least bit gracious when all of this turns out excellent.” He said, the tiniest big smug despite the fact that his confidence was not high. With the whole normalcy thing he had been tasked with being optimistic enough for the both of them, and he took his job seriously.

”To the checkout then.” he said, and made his way in that direction. At least it was easy to find and once everything had been bought and paid for and bagged up, they made their way back out into the street.

”Now.” Tarin said as they walked, ”We are going to be positive when we do this. No self-fulfilling prophecies, no self-deprecation. If it goes wrong, we try again.” Tarin let that sink in for a moment.

”It’s like anything else. You can’t be good at it if you don’t practice, and when you practice, sometimes you fail.”

Was the pep talk as much for himself as it was for Lee? Yep.