salute [h.s]

piper completely failed at cooking (and the one time she succeeded)

the five times that Piper completely failed at cooking (and the one time she succeeded)

1.

It was very rare that Piper woke up before Harry in the morning because he had some sort of internal clock that usually went off at some ungodly hour in and around the crack of dawn. So when it happened — Piper rolling over to find Harry's face firmly planted into his pillow, his heavy breathing audible against the soft cotton — she decided she was going to make the most of it. Sliding stealthily out of her bed so she wouldn't wake him, she crept out of her room and headed straight for the kitchen.

She was going to make Harry breakfast this time. He was always doing it for her, each and every morning that he stayed the night, and she felt like it was her turn to return the favour. Knowing that anything too complex would inevitably lead to disaster, Piper pulled up a recipe for pancake mix on her phone and got to work. How hard could pancakes be right?

It went well for the most part. Pancake mix was easy. It was like baking, mixing together ingredients she actually had like flour and baking powder, and she even used up a couple of yogurt containers that were on the verge of going bad. She was feeling pretty good about the whole thing, dancing around the kitchen as a big pancake cooked in the only pan that she owned. Walk the Moon was playing low in the background so she wouldn't wake Harry and there was something about buoyant, upbeat music that made mornings just a little bit better.

She should have known better. There was no way she would be lucky enough to get through a whole cooking experience without something going wrong and that wrong thing was one little utensil — a spatula. She couldn't find one. She opened every single drawer in her kitchen looking for one because she knew there had to be one somewhere. After all, she lived off of cheese toasties. There was no way that she didn't have a spatula. It just seemed to be hiding.

"Don't need it," she muttered to herself as she took the pan handle in both hands and stared down at her sizzling pancake. "We can do this, can't we pancake?"

The pancake didn't respond, choosing instead to sit silently in the pain and let her wonder whether she could flip it on her own.

"It's just physics," she told herself as she poised to toss the pancake. "If we give it enough force with a firm flip of the wrist, it should toss up and come back down properly. This will work."

She took a deep breath in preparation and then tossed the pancake, flicking the pan so it soared up into the air. She watched it fly up high, high enough that it smacked into her ceiling, sticky side up.

"Fuck."

"What're you doing?"

Piper spun around at Harry's gravelly voice, thick with sleep and deep from lack of use. He was standing in the kitchen doorway in just his form-fitting black boxer briefs, complementing the dark leaves that decorated his hips and the butterfly resting on his stomach. He was squinting at her, rubbing one eye with his big hands so that he looked like an overgrown toddler and Piper resisted the urge to cuddle him and kiss him all over his face because of how cute he was.

"Nothing... I, um, was just, uh, just about to make pancakes." She figured that what Harry didn't know wouldn't hurt him and he didn't need to know that she'd just tossed a pancake onto the ceiling. That could be a little secret between her and the pancake.

Except that it chose that exact moment to drop, splatting down onto the floor just behind her. Harry's eyes had followed the movement, watching as it unlatched from the ceiling and fell to its death on the floor. He studied the pile of pancake for a moment and then rose one inquisitive brow in her direction.

"I fucking hate physics," she muttered as she crossed her arms with a huff, the pan abandoned back on the stove.

"Oh petal," Harry cooed sympathetically in his groggy morning voice as he stepped forward toward her. She let him give her a quick cuddle and a kiss on the head but when she heard his chuckle she nudged him hard in the stomach. "Ow. Sorry, didn't mean to laugh. You just surprise me sometimes."