#dissasterrific

When the family had said that Lightning could be in charge of the main course of their Christmas dinner, she’d thought they’d all been kidding. She was a terrible, awful cook and might even burn down the kitchen in any attempts to cook something halfway decent…or at least, burn off everyone’s taste buds.

Serah had tried to reassure her sister that she’d be toootally fine. All she had to do was follow the recipe and throw some things in the oven! Totally simple!

Yeah, no.

Hope tried to reassure her that the smoke alarm constantly going off was a good thing, since that meant they were in working order. She’d slapped his arm with her burnt-oven mitt-covered hand, because really, the alarms being in working order was the only good thing about this.

"I’m never going to make this edible," Lightning argued, setting aside the fourth burnt pan. "Serah was wrong. She should just make this like she usually does."

"She wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t think you could do it," Hope replied gently, rubbing her shoulder a little. "C’mon. Fifth time’s the charm."

“No. I’m done with this.” She tossed the oven mitt aside with an angry noise. Honestly, she hated admitting that she couldn’t do something as simple as not burning food, but cooking had really never been her strong suit at all. “I’ll just…order something out. I don’t know.”

"Where’s the love in that?" Hope wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close when she only grunted. "Look, Serah wanted you to make this because she loves you and believes you can do it. And then we get to share that love around the table when the rest of us eat it. It’s a family thing."

"I guess." Lightning shrugged, looking at the burnt experiments on the stove. "Not that it matters, since not even Snow would eat this crap. Everyone would love having something edible, I’m sure."

There was a pause. For a second, Lightning imagined Hope was finding some way to argue her totally valid point, but to her shock, instead he reached for a fork, stabbed out a chunk of one of the dishes she’d ruined…

…and ate it.

She stared at him like he was absolutely insane. “…Hope?” He chewed and swallowed - not without some difficulty - and then went for the second batch she’d ruined. “What are you doing…?”

He coughed, the second bite apparently going down the wrong way, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. As he went for the third one, he explained, “It’s what I said before - eating something that someone cooks for you is an expression of love.” Chew, chew, swallow. “And, well…” He paused before going for the fourth bite, turning to see Lightning’s wide-eyed expression instead. “…I love you. So it makes sense that I’d eat it if no one else would.”

She stared at him like he’d been speaking absolute gibberish, too shocked to realize that her cheeks were growing hot with a blush. “You…”

"Hmm?"

A little sigh escaped her, but then a smile formed on her face. She rose on her tiptoes, tugging him close for a sweet kiss. “You could have just said it instead of risking food poisoning.” She planted another affectionate peck on his lips. “Idiot.”

He chuckled quietly. “I’ll say it as many times as you want to hear it.”

"Really?"