Title: I Made That?!

Rating: Pg

Disclaimer: I refuse to conform. REBELLION!

Summary: Oh c'mon. Just taste it. It won't bite. . .hopefully.

Warnings: Butter cake abuse.

A/N: Happy Birthday to my wonderful Fenny Piper.

"He's a one-stop shop, makes my cherry pop. He's a sweet-talking, sugar-coated, Candyman!"

Riku's voice floated through the cozy, Radiant Garden house. He had never been the greatest singer, but it was a habit of his to sing in the kitchen, and at the moment, he was in the quaint little kitchen, attempting something that he probably never should have tried in the first place.

You must understand something about Riku. Though he is quite talented at cooking, baking is a foreign concept. When Riku bakes cakes, they never cook right. The edges will bake perfectly, but the middle will be nothing but sloshy cake batter. When poor Riku bakes cookies, the middle of the small treats somehow cave in on themselves. Don't ask him how. He'll tell you that all he did was follow the directions, and he just must be cursed.

Cloud, despite their friends' protests, believed Riku. Because really, how could you screw up cookies when the dough was already made, and all you had to do, was scoop it out and put it on a pan? So, Riku's blonde boyfriend believed his excuses of being 'cursed.'

But if Riku had anything to say about it, he'd tell you that those excuses were going to be put to an end today.

He'd woken Cloud up early and ushered him out of the house quickly. He did have a delivery all the way in Midgar today, and Riku said that he wanted to make sure that Cloud was home at a decent hour. The confused blonde, who had no clue why he was being rushed out of his own home, simply complied. It was better not to question what went through Riku's head at times.

Today was definitely one of those times, because Riku had a plan. Today was the day he would bake a real cake. He'd been told (by Aerith of course) that Cloud had a special liking for butter cake with chocolate frosting and it was his mission to bake one, and bake it right.

However, by six o'clock in the evening, Riku still hadn't done it correctly. The kitchen was a mess. There was flower and sugar everywhere, small puddles of cake batter littered the floor and counters. Butter stick wrappers lay strewn across the room, and an empty Vanilla Extract bottle lay on its side, leaking its contents into the sink that was overflowing with bake wear. Riku himself, looked as he'd had multiple fights with the electric mixer, and lost every one (which probably wasn't far from the truth). There was chocolate frosting in his hair, batter on his face, and flower everywhere else.

He'd made a total of five cakes already, and all of them had been disasters. The first one, baked like his cakes normally did. He'd decided to bake the second one longer, to fix the problem of his sloshy center. That didn't work however. The center had stayed sloshy and the edges had simply burnt. The third one. . .he didn't even know how he'd messed up the third one. The fourth one had appeared quite normal, and he proceeded to frost it in excitement. But when he'd tasted it, he'd immediately run to the bathroom to get rid of it. He'd screwed up on his measurements. He promised himself that he'd never confuse a teaspoon of salt, with tablespoon of it ever again.

And the fifth cake is never to be spoken of. It may still be alive and we wouldn't want to hurt its feelings now would we?

Now, Riku's last chance was the cake he'd just taken out of the oven. Cake number six, looked worse that the others had. It seemed fully cooked, but one couldn't be sure with Riku's baking. And. . .it didn't appear to be alive this time. But it wasn't standing upright and closely resembled a deflated soufflé. Riku sighed, disappointed. This was apparently, as good as it was going to get. He frosted the sorry excuse for a cake (making it look more like just a simple mess of chocolate pudding), and set it on the only clear part of the counter.

Riku growled low in frustration. Riku was perfect. Riku could do anything and everything and when he did it he did it right. He was not going to be defeated by a dumb cake. Even if it was Cloud's favorite. And even if he had worked his ass off all day, only to be rewarded with this piece of crap. But. . .it was time to give up. He was out of ingredients now and was just too tired to make anymore. Besides, the fifth cake had broken the electric mixer and mixing the sixth by hand was murder on his already overtaxed arms.

The silver-haired boy slid down the counter in exhaustion, landing in a small puddle of cake batter with a plop. He only shifted slightly when he felt the wetness of the batter soak through his pants. He couldn't even find the energy to care right now. What was one more spot on his already filthy jeans? He really must be cursed.

The sound of a dying engine was heard, as Cloud Strife parked his bike on the side of his house. He put up the kick stand on Fenrir and sat back to take off his helmet and goggles. Once the protection was removed he ran a hand through his hair, returning it to its trade-mark Chocobo style. He dragged his hand over his face. The delivery had taken longer than he had anticipated and he was secretly thankful that Riku had sent him out early. Now all he wanted was to eat, take a shower, and crawl into bed to be showered with affection.

Oooh. Affection sounded especially nice right about now.

With renewed energy, the blonde delivery boy hopped off of his precious motorcycle and headed towards the front door. He fished through his pocket for a few seconds before finding his keys and unlocking the door. Once he entered, the blonde dropped all of his gear at the door, kicking his boots off to join the pile. Riku was probably going to get on his case about that later.

Upon closing the door, Cloud had initially begun to head towards the bedroom. He was stopped in his tracks however, by the smell wafting through the house. Was that. . .Butter cake? He sniffed the air, looking much like Pluto when he smelled a cat. A sly grin spread onto his face as he concluded, yes, that was Butter cake. Aerith must have stopped by today, he thought with an excited (and very uncharacteristic) clap of his hands. Briefly, he wondered where his boyfriend might be, and why the house was so quiet. But, thoughts of the awaiting treat quickly deterred his thoughts and he immediately changed directions, all but skipping to the kitchen.

Taking no notice of the condition of the kitchen (or the filthy lump on the floor that happened to be his briefly thought of boyfriend), Cloud followed the smell to the cake that was on the corner of the counter. Immediately, he recoiled at the sight of it. What was that. . .that. . .thing? That was so not Aerith's Butter cake. For a moment, thoughts whirled through his head about what must have happened during the baking for one of Aerith's cakes to look like that. He calmed down after a minute, getting closer to the mound of chocolate (and what he hoped was cake) to inspect it. He didn't want to touch it. . .but it was Butter cake! The most heavenly food to ever descend to earth. No matter what it looked like, he had to have at least one bite. . .right?

He shook his head. No, it was Butter cake. It smelled like butter cake, it hopefully tasted like Butter cake, and it looked—well. . .it didn't look like Butter cake, but he could overlook that for the time being.

He opened the drawer right in front of him and fished around for a fork. After a minute or two (they really needed to get rid of all the extra silverware) he finally found one and extracted it from its wooden prison. He looked at the cake. Or. . .what was supposed to be cake. Gingerly, he poked it.

It didn't move.

He let out a sigh of relief. Well, at least it wasn't alive. Cloud stabbed the fork into the supposed treat, and lifted out a small bit. He inspected the inside. He smiled, finding nothing out of the ordinary. It must really be Butter cake then, he thought happily, shoving the forkful into his mouth. Five seconds of silence ensued as he tasted the strange looking cake.

And by second number six, he was in pure, sweet treat heaven. Without even a second thought he stabbed the cake again, this time pulling out a hefty sized bite. He shoveled the delicious desert into his mouth, bite after bite until he'd eaten the equivalent of a very large slice. He was about to start on another "slice" when he finally noticed the lump leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

"Ungh," it groaned, and Cloud turned around to see what had interrupted his cake eating. His eyes lit up as he recognized the person, but confusion soon settled on his face as he took in his loves appearance. Riku wasn't overly concerned with what he looked like, but he was never that filthy. He was covered in frosting, batter, and flour, and Cloud wondered what on earth he could have been doing.

And why was he asleep on the kitchen floor?

It was then, that Cloud finally looked at the rest of the kitchen, taking in the mess. The blonde put two and two together. After realizing who'd actually made the cake, Cloud directed a fond smile towards the silver haired boy, who was now curled up like a cat on the dirty floor. Cloud set down the fork, Butter cake momentarily forgotten in a sudden rush of affection for Riku.

He walked up to the sleeping teenager and kneeled down. Gently, he grabbed the smaller boy's arms and sat him upright. The movement woke Riku, and he opened his eyes with a start. He looked around the kitchen quickly, before his eyes finally settled on Cloud.

"C-Cloud!" he stammered nervously, a blush warming up his batter splattered face. "I um. . .I made you a cake. . ." he finished lamely, as he recalled what the cake had looked like.

"Yeah, I know," Cloud replied.

"Oh. . ." Riku's face fell in disappointment, "You saw it?"

"Mhm. I tasted it too."

Riku blushed even harder. "I'm so sorry Cloud! I didn't mean to mess up the cake! It's just that I heard from Aerith that it was your favorite and I was so determined to make a cake for you and so I asked for the recipe but the first one came out like my cakes always do and the second one was burnt and I don't even know what the third one was and the fourth one wa—"

Riku's apology was cut off by the crush of Cloud's lips on his. Riku immediately melted into the kiss, parting his lips as soon as he'd felt the contact. But Cloud didn't accept the invitation, and broke the kiss as suddenly as he'd given it. He smiled at Riku, "Which number cake was this one?"

"Six," Riku breathed.

Cloud grinned broader than the Cheshire cat as he took his boyfriend's hand. "Number six must be your lucky number, because I don't think that even Aerith has made a cake that tasted that good."

Riku went slack-jawed and his eyes grew larger than dinner plates. "Are you serious?!" he yelled. But too impatient to wait for an answer, he scrambled to his feet and rushed over to the cake. Picking up the fork that Cloud had been using, he shoveled a bite into his mouth. As he chewed, his smile grew wider and wider and by the time he'd swallowed the bite of cake, his smile was almost wide enough to break his jaw. He turned quickly to go back to Cloud, but found the blonde standing directly in front of him.

The delivery boy wrapped his arms around Riku, leaning to whisper in his ear. "I really want to eat your cake, but I think someone needs a shower. Then after that, we should probably find a productive way to use up the rest of that chocolate frosting, ne?"

BAHAHAHA!

XD

I gave myself cavities.

So anyway, I wrote this for Fenny. Fenny, this shall be dubbed your official Birthday fic. Though I'm still writing the multi-chap and it'll still be dedicated to you, I wanted to give you a present sooner. xD I was getting impatient, as I'm sure you were too. You've probably been impatient for a while though. Heh. . . .

So happy 18th Babe. ILU.

Heheee If anyone can tell me what fic Cloud's thing for Butter cake comes from, I'll give them a cookie. Or maybe even a slice of the cake. Because if you know, then you've read one of the most amazing fanfictions on this site and for that you should be rewarded. Even though technically in the other fic, Cloud's the one who bakes the Butter cake. . .oh well. Minor detail. xD

And I really wanted an excuse to make Riku sing that song. Cuz I love it. Now everyone go listen to Candyman! Do it, do it!

So take a couple minutes to tell me if you liked this, then you may be on your very merry way.

One Love