I'll be completely honest, I'm horrible at writing humor. Give me suffering or tragedy and I'm golden, but funny? I'm practically a lost cause. So here we are, me writing subject matter I normally don't do. But such is a writer's inspiration.

Enjoy.

Piper was determined, of that there could be no doubt. It was just in her nature. When something caught her eye, she would grab hold with both hands until she found out whatever it was that piqued her interest.

Usually it was a story of some kind for the paper. Whether it was a new settlement being secured by the resurgent Minutemen, or yet another person suddenly going missing in the middle of the night.

But this time, Piper's goals were not about the paper at all. Rather were about a certain man that had enraptured her heart completely.

Piper usually always carried around extra snacks, even more so when she discovered Nathaniel's sweet tooth. All her boyfriend had to do was smile and she'd happily turn over everything in her pockets to him. And that was coming from a woman who practically had sugar running in her veins.

While the snacks always had the desired effect of getting Nathaniel to give her one of those fond looks he always reserved for her, Piper was hoping for a little more. Not for herself, but for Nathaniel. It just so happened that the man's birthday was just around the corner.

At least it was if Piper had the math down correctly. Then there was Nathaniel's actual age. While he was probably about early thirties, he was really more about 240's or so. Some would be bitter about being called so old, but Nathaniel took it in stride and found it a little funny. Piper would never forget his laugh when she made an offhand comment about roaming around with her own pre-war relic.

Due to Nathaniel's love of sugary snacks and the closeness of his birthday, Piper decided to attempt something she had never once thought about doing before.

Baking a cake.

Between Nat and herself, Piper had been part of many birthdays, but those rarely had anything memorable. Never a cake or anything, a sweetroll or two if they were lucky. A lack of caps was often an issue for most of their lives so such luxuries were always put off to the side. The two girls had been raised that way so they never thought twice about it or lamented what they simply didn't have.

Not to mention Piper's utter lack of cooking skills. Nat had often said feral ghouls were not as terrifying as the 'things' Piper made when she tried.

Nathaniel was no master chef either but he was pretty good using meat from wasteland creatures and a campfire. Good enough that Piper often preferred his food to that of some of Diamond City.

This time, Piper had a secret weapon. A pre-war cookbook that was somewhat intact that she had found on one of her outings with Nathaniel. Piper had stuffed it into her coat when her boyfriend wasn't looking.

Speaking of the former vault-dweller, a quick glance at the clock told Piper she had quite a while until he came back. Nick had requested his help on wrapping up another missing persons case. If all went well, the pair would be back later in the evening. Plenty of time to whip up a cake to surprise Nathaniel and to welcome him home.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Piper surveyed the kitchen and the book before her on the counter. It felt oddly like she was preparing for battle against the kitchen. Piper wanted so badly to make this perfect, Nathaniel deserved nothing less as far as she was concerned. Hell, the man deserved the world!

"Shouldn't be that..." Piper trailed off as she opened the book to one of the simpler cake recipes. Her heart sank more than a little when she saw the book was a lot more damaged than she previously thought. Most of the contents were illegible, so were some of the actual directions. The only upside was that the material list was mostly intact.

"Okay Piper, one thing at a time. Uhh... pan, going to need a pan." Piper abandoned her post at the counter to find the aforementioned item.

Some of the ingredients were surprisingly easy. Salt and sugar among other things. The rest was going to be a bit of a problem.

"What the hell is vanilla?" Piper scratched her head. "Butter?" She had never heard of these things but assumed they must be a food item of some sort. Maybe the butter was part of what gave the cake flavor?

Whatever they were, Piper didn't have them on hand so she would have to do without and hope it wasn't all that important to the overall recipe.

"Eggs..." Piper held her chin her hand as she thought about it. They didn't really have any...

Piper snapped her fingers when it occurred to her. Jumping over to the refrigerator, she pulled open the door to reveal her target at the back of the appliance. Nathaniel had plans for them but Piper was sure he wouldn't mind once he knew what she was going to use them for.

"Eh... close enough." Piper shrugged as she pulled out the mirelurk eggs. "Eggs are eggs."

Rubbing her hands together, Piper leaned over the small pile of cake ingredients like a general would her troops before sending them into battle.

Another shrug later, Piper was shoving the contents into the large bowl she found earlier. With no real directions, all Piper could do was wing it and hope for the best.

It was just a simple cake after all, it couldn't be that easy to screw up.

"Nick, I swear to god..." Nathaniel started, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's the second time something like that happened!"

"I admit, I didn't see it coming." The synth detective held his undamaged arm up in surrender. "I know people can be stupid, but a girl running off with some young punk to join a raider gang? That's a new one on me."

"Darla did it." Nathaniel shot back. "Remember?"

"How could I forget." Nick rubbed the back of his robotic skull, as if remembering getting clocked upside the head by the woman he once tried to find. "Besides, at least Skinny's gang was a bit more refined than the raiders."

"Hey, you going to be alright?" Nathaniel motioned to Nick's arm, which was sporting a rather fresh bullet hole. One of the raiders had gotten the drop on the pair when Nathaniel put one in his chest. Before going down, he'd managed to get a shot off with a 10mm that caught Nick in the arm.

"Nah I wouldn't worry too much." If Nick even felt like he'd been shot he didn't show it. "I'm more concerned about Ellie sending me to the scrap heap if I ask her to fix my coat again."

Nathaniel couldn't help but laugh at that one. "Well don't get shot and it wouldn't be an issue."

While Nathaniel was tired, and having a somewhat bad day, he was looking forward to returning home to his girlfriend. Nothing could brighten his day quite like his favorite reporter.

Man and synth had just stepped up to the door when they heard the sound of a small explosion from inside the house along with a poorly muffled curse in Piper's voice.

"Piper!" Nathaniel had already unslung his rifle in less than an eye blink and had kicked the door open. A revolver armed Nick right behind him.

The scene the two found was not one they expected. A coughing Piper was standing in front of a smoking stove using a book to try to fan the smoke away from her face. From what Nathaniel could see the stove was the source of the explosion they heard.

"You stupid piece of sh..." Piper snarled but was cut off by Nathaniel.

"Piper?"

The woman spun around so fast she almost fell over. "Blue! Hey... what's up?" Piper laughed nervously as she tried to blow some smoke away from the corner of her mouth only to have it come right back.

"I think I'm leaving this one to you." Nick whispered to Nathaniel after Piper turned her back to kick the still smoking stove, grumbling all the while.

Once Nick was gone, Nathaniel set his rifle aside and moved to approach his girlfriend. "Umm... Piper what happened?"

Piper looked everywhere but at him, mumbling something incoherent.

"What's that?"

"I tried to bake you a cake." Piper spoke just loud enough to hear, almost sounding like a child caught doing something they weren't supposed to be.

Nathaniel found it adorable.

"Really?" Another nuclear apocalypse couldn't wipe the smile from Nathaniel's face. Her certainly hadn't expected Piper to do something so... domestic for him. Even if she blew up the oven, it was the thought that counted.

Wait a minute...

"How on earth did you make the oven go boom?"

"I don't know!" Piper cried out, throwing her hands in the air. "None of the others did that!"

"Others?"

Piper meekly pointed to the nearby table, where there were several dishes of... something, laying there. There had to be about three or so, all looking like something that crawled from the back end of a deathclaw.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong." Piper held her head in her hands groaning.

"Umm... Piper, is that supposed to be moving?" Nathaniel didn't want to make her feel any worse, but his brain to mouth filter chose that moment to not work.

"What?" Piper turned her gaze to the table where sure enough, one of the dishes was scooting and working its way to the end of the table. "Not again!"

Nathaniel wasn't sure if he wanted to know why she said again. Regardless, Piper ignored him and snatched up a fork from the table and proceeded the stab the offending chunk of 'food' several times til it stopped wiggling.

The utensil fell to the wooden table with a clatter as Piper slammed her fist on the wood. "Stupid cookbook, stupid oven, stupid..."

Piper was again stopped mid-sentence when Nathaniel gently wrapped his arms around her middle. Her body remained tense for only a moment before relaxing back into his chest.

"All this trouble just to make me a cake?" Nathaniel buried his nose in Piper's wavy locks. Piper couldn't see it but the man was grinning like an idiot.

"Happy 240th birthday." Piper sighed softly when Nathaniel began nuzzling her neck. He knew this was all it took for her to become putty in his hands.

"I don't need a cake, not when I have something much sweeter." Nathaniel spun Piper around so that she was now facing him. Giving her a quick peck on the lips, he rested his forehead against hers. "What do you say we go get some of Takashi's noodles eh? My treat."

"You're the birthday boy dollface, shouldn't I be buying?" Piper arched an eyebrow, her arms loosely wrapped around Nathaniel's neck so she could pull him closer.

"Nah, I feel like treating my girl to a night on the town." Nathaniel replied, lips touching the center of her forehead. Piper leaned into the contact, her eyes closing so she could bask in the affection.

Nathaniel just happened to glance down and saw the aborted cake was starting to move yet again. Piper was about to go for the fork when Nathaniel grabbed it and stabbed the moving mass himself until it stopped.

"Maybe we ought to do something with that before we go. So it doesn't run off and grow into some bug monster to terrorize Diamond City." Nathaniel poked the thing a couple more times with the fork. "Why the hell does it keep moving anyway?"

Piper shrugged, the picture of mock innocence. "Not a clue."

Came out a bit better and differently than I was expecting. I literally just googled how to make a cake and looked at the list of ingredients. I also took some liberties with what people in the wasteland might not actually have or know about, like butter and vanilla. Let me know what you all think.