KOTLC: Baking with Pride

> EPISODE ONE

unnecessarily long A/N: Pride Month is nearly over and i haven't been able to celebrate it at all :( sooo here's a lil gay oneshot for my ol' watty friends! (:
i haven't read or written anything to do with KOTLC in quite some time, so i apologize if the characters are ooc.

to anyone who stumbled upon this randomly: hello! very glad you're here. this is sort of a spinoff from my fic Keeper of the Lost Cities: LGBTQ+ Edition that i recently completed. no need to read it for this oneshot; it's totally unrelated. it was simply suggested by a bunch of geniuses in the comments (thanks guys!).

this is a HUMAN AU in which Fitz has a baking show (which is why it's a human AU). he is also in his early 20s or so and newlywed to Dex Dizznee-Vacker. if this bothers you, i have no idea what you're doing here (:

lastly, i do not own Keeper of the Lost Cities. all creds to Ms. Shannon Messenger. I ALSO HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO BAKE AND DO NOT KNOW WHY I WAS CHOSEN TO WRITE THIS PARTICULAR ONESHOT. major respect to all the bakers out there; please don't hate me for inaccurate baking shtuff. i also do not know anything about filming -- i literally do not even watch TV. apologies.

Well. This was a fine disaster.

A very alarmed Fitzroy Avery Dizznee-Vacker glanced up into the camera before turning back to stare at the brownies in front of him in abject horror. If they even counted as brownies anymore. They had the consistency of that sparkly slime stuff Biana (and yeah, Fitz too) used to love when they were kids, but with a little extra grease. And it was brown, of course. Anything but appetizing.

"Ah, so, this ... is not the intended result," he told the camera awkwardly, reaching up to run a hand through his dark hair. He quickly pulled it back. That last thing he wanted was brownie slime in his hair.

The cameraman gestured for him to continue, seeing as the awkward pause had stretched far too long for live television. Fitz cleared his throat and grinned awkwardly at the camera again.

"So! It looks like this recipe is flawed. Or my ability to follow the recipe correctly is flawed. Either way, hopefully my husband will still accept this mess as dessert tonight," Fitz remarked, forcing out a laugh. To his dismay, he could feel his face reddening with embarrassment and glanced desperately at the clock. Thank god -- it was only a few minutes before the program ended. He began rattling off his usual ending script -- Thanks for watching, tune in again soon, yada yada yada. His face was hot and decorated with brownie slime, he knew. Because if there was some kind of higher power up there, they must enjoy humiliating him in every way possible.

Finally, finally, the program ended and Fitz nearly collapsed. He managed not to, however, because the floor was covered in flour and sugar, and with his luck, he would knock over the pan of alien brownie and dump it all over himself.

"Nice episode, Vacker!" Jensi, one of his crewmates, called. Fitz smiled weakly, unsure if Jensi was being sincere or not. Probably not. He had just filmed an ultimate failure, after all.

As his crew helped him clean up the kitchen and set down their filming gear, Fitz heard familiar light footsteps against the tile and jerked his head up. A small grin split his ever-reddening face as his husband approached him.

"Hey, Deck," Fitz called. He could practically feel the black cloud above his head dispersing.

"Hey yourself, brownie face." Dex surveyed the messy kitchen with a lopsided smile, waving goodbye to crew members as they began to file out. When they bought their house, the Dizznee-Vackers had renovated their living room and kitchen into a huge, beautiful kitchen so that Fitz could achieve his dream of a baking show. It meant that the filming crew was constantly in and out of the house, but most of them were friends, so nobody minded. Other than Dex, who occasionally complained about the stomping overhead that he could hear and feel from his basement-turned-lab, but Fitz didn't think Dex had the right to complain, considering the ground-shaking explosions that often occured down there.