Inexplicable Dream Team one-shots

Made With Love // KarlNotFound

| romantic |

[963 words]

Author's note: This story was inspired by the Saturday Night Live skit "Brownie Husband" from 2010 featuring Tina Fey.

***

Instead of complaining about his loneliness, George decides that if he cannot find a boyfriend, then he will make one... or rather, he will bake one.

George slams a small box onto his kitchen countertop, aware that he will never be able to tell anyone about what he plans to create.

Ignoring the alarm bells ringing in his head, George retrieves several aluminum foil trays from the cabinet near his oven and sprays their bottoms with oil. After placing the trays aside, he opens his refrigerator and pulls out the two jugs of milk, the eight sticks of butter, and the carton of eggs that he bought from the grocery store yesterday. Stuck in a daze, he combines all of the cake's dry ingredients in a metal stock pot: the only bowl-like item that he owns which can contain so much cake batter. Next, he hums to himself while adding each wet ingredient to the mixture.

After dumping five kilograms of flour into the cake batter, George stirs the mixture with considerable effort. His forearms ache, his hands sweat, and grunts rise in his throat, but he reminds himself that his future cake boyfriend will be worth all of this effort.

Once George divides the fully-mixed cake batter into the aluminum trays, he preheats the oven and leaves the kitchen to ponder his plan. After three solid minutes of raking fingers through his dark brown hair, George decides to be productive while he waits for the oven to preheat.

Meticulously he fills fifteen bowls with frosting, then he adds varying amounts of food coloring to each bowl. When the oven beeps, alerting its owner that it is hot enough, George slides the first few aluminum trays onto the racks, then he stores the rest of the trays in the refrigerator until the oven is done with the first batch of cakes.

George spends almost the entire afternoon and evening in his kitchen, baking and tending to the cakes. Once both batches are fully baked and cooled, their creator begins the next phase of his plan. Leaning over the kitchen countertop to view the cakes more closely, he carefully lifts the cakes from their trays, then he arranges them into a row on a long sheet of parchment paper upon the marble surface.

George's hands tremble with anticipation as he begins the painstaking process of carving the cakes. Using an image of his best friend Dream as a reference for the body proportions, George slices upwards from the feet, legs, waist, and chest... before he realizes that something is strange.

Stepping back, George frowns at the half-finished boyfriend as he stretches his wrists. Weird. The shoulders appear to be narrow, not broad. When George compares the cake boyfriend's current appearance to the reference picture, he notices more differences between it and Dream: differences that seem too substantial to be products of mere accident. Why does the sculpted figure have hands like that?

Cautiously George approaches the cake again and decides to continue. By now, he has spent too many hours on this project to quit. Turning off his smartphone, he chooses to ignore the reference picture from now on. Just rely on your instincts, he tells himself. What does a handsome man look like?

Without even thinking, George leans down again. Diving deeper into his concentration, he reassures himself that even if the project goes wrong, then he will still end up with an entire cake to eat; he could even invite Dream to help him consume it!

However, as the microwave's clock reaches the late hours of the night, George regains his certainty that this project will succeed. Painting the fully-carved cake with frosting and icing, he realizes what he has created.

Despite the reference picture, the cake boyfriend does not resemble Dream at all. Instead it resembles... who? Someone who George does not even know? How is that possible? This person appeared in his subconscious brain like a mirage, and he is also the most handsome man who George has ever witnessed in his life.

The cake's creator barely comprehends how much time has passed. George cannot remember when he last ate or drank water. All he knows is how conflicted he feels about the man who lays on a sheet of parchment paper in his kitchen. Adamantly he decides that he would rather let this cake stiffen and dehydrate on his countertop instead of eating it. He would prefer to let it disintegrate rather than destroy it.

George stares at the cake boyfriend for twenty minutes after its completion, trailing his fingers along the marble countertop as he assesses its freckled cheeks, curly brown hair, and soft pink lips. This man, who he "dressed" in a purple shirt and simple blue slacks, is perfect. No one else - not even Dream - has ever filled George with so much joy and pride.

That night, after George turns off the lights in his kitchen, changes into his night clothes, and lays down in bed, he expects to fall asleep immediately. However, even after an exhausting day of grocery shopping and baking a cake boyfriend, he fails to surrender himself to sleep. Instead he stares up at the ceiling, relaxing his grip on his blankets as he urges himself to slip into unconsciousness.

Soon George realizes why he cannot sleep yet. His boyfriend needs a name! Obviously, he scoffs to himself, wondering how he could have forgotten to give the perfect man an equally handsome identity.

Karl. George likes that name.

If only you were real, Karl, he thinks wistfully.

Within seconds of making his wish, George finally drifts into a warm, content slumber. He is unaware that, in the starry sky high above his head, a shooting star just heard his wish.

***

Author's note: Although it is implied that the cake will come alive and turn into a real person after this, you can interpret the ending however you like!

Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are much appreciated and I love you all! <3