The Tea Shop [mxm]

VIII: Experimental Pies

I apologize in advande for the quality of this chapter. (Dedicated to BeMy17G for awesome support, and for being the most dedicated fangirl I know)

Elliot had messed up. He'd messed up really bad, this time.

He was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, on his knees, looking at the cake in front of him. The cake that was supposed to be on the plate he'd been holding; the cake he was supposed to give to Wren. He didn't only drop one slice, no. That would have been fine. But he'd dropped the whole thing. There was no fixing this. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were watery. His gut ached, and he felt like hurting himself. How could he be so stupid?

He knew why he'd dropped the cake, and that made it even worse. He didn't slip, he didn't trip over his own feet, nor did he walk into something. That could have been acceptable, that wouldn't have been entirely his fault. He'd just blame whoever designed the kitchen (okay, so it might have been Elliot himself who did that, but that's just an insignificant detail).

The actual reason he'd dropped the cake was his own fault, completely. There was no dying that.

He'd just been on his way to put the cake back in it's place, while carrying Wren's plate in the other hand, when he'd been hit by a wave of dizziness. He stumbled forward and lost his footing, and in a second everything he held in his hands were on the floor.

Elliot held onto the counter for dear life, so hard his knuckles turned white. He stood like that for a few minutes, waiting for the dizziness to go away, and the dark spots in his vision to disappear.

Not until he felt somewhat okay did he realise what he'd just done. He fell to his knees, and felt his gut clench. He'd completely ruined the cake he was supposed to give to Wren.

If he had just taken better care of himself he wouldn't be in that situation.

The night before, he hadn't gotten much sleep. As usual he was working late in the shop, cleaning the kitchen and closing up. He'd refused Abigail's offers of help, not wanting anyone but himself to clean his kitchen. That was his job to do.

Then, as he'd missed the last bus home, he had to walk all the way to his apartment. That took longer than usual, as he was incredibly tired. But even so, he'd had a hard time falling asleep - he was too busy worrying about what would happen the next day. Nothing out of the ordinary should happen, but what if? What if something went incredibly wrong? What if he would accidentally forget to set the timer, and the cakes would burn and he wouldn't notice and then there would be a fire in the kitchen? What if he overslept again, and this time didn't wake up in time to open the café? What if, somehow, he mixed up all the ingredients and all his baking turned out to be inedible?

Those were the kind of thoughts his previous therapist had helped him with, thoughts that would lead to him stressing about absolutely nothing, but in his head the scenarios got so real he could feel the panic coming. Of course he knew that it was unlikely that the scenarios in his head would ever play out in reality, but in the heat of the moment and everything, he couldn't think straight.

He ended up staying up all night, caught up in his own mind and too riled up to sleep. When the alarm sounded he'd just gotten out of bed like usual, barely noticing the lack of sleep. He always felt like a zombie in the mornings.

He stayed in that zombie like state until Abigail and Auntie Mae started forcing sweets down his throat, and he went from one extreme to the other. No longer feeling like a dead man walking, Elliot started to run around the café part of the shop, juggling both orders, small talk, and baking all at the same time.

He felt like he could do anything, almost like superman, and barely noticed the concerned looks that was thrown his way. All through the day he continued like this, and he was sure he'd never been better. Whenever he started feeling a bit tired he gulped down a couple of cups of coffee (so he needed the rush, sue him), ate a cupcake or two, and resumed with whatever he was doing.