Jason burst through the front door of Wirt's house, heart thumping.
"Wirt!?" he sped down the hall, skidding to a stop in the kitchen. Well, more like slipped on the flour covering the floor and fell. "Wirt?" he called again into the puff of white his fall had created.
"Ohmigosh, Jason! Are you ok?" Wirt was bent over him, hands hovering but unsure of how to help. "Oh, my message sounded way worse than it should have! The mixer was going all crazy and then the flour got everywhere and I just panicked- and you got here so fast and now you're hurt! Here, sit up, does anything hurt?"
Wirt pulled Jason into an upright position and Jason looked around the kitchen. Flour coated every surface. It dusted over the counters, skittered up the walls and over the cabinets, even brushing the ceiling before falling and plopping in piles on the floor. The mixer in question was unplugged on the counter, exhausted and overflowing with eggs and butter.
"Does anything hurt?" Wirt repeated. Jason turned to him, fully alert. Wirt's face was dusted with flour, too. It clung to his hair and eyelashes, and it streaked his pale face.
"No, I'm ok," Jason reassured him, and accepted a hand up. "What happened?"
"Well," Wirt confessed "It's Greg's birthday tomorrow, and my mom had this elephant cake planned, but she got called in to work today, so my stepdad was supposed to bake the cake," Wirt grabbed a towel and trudged to the sink. "But then Greg wanted to go roller-skating, and since I can't drive him yet and this is supposed to be a secret anyways, his dad took him and I have to bake the cake." He turned the sink on to wet the towel.
"It was supposed to be easy!" he shouted over the sound of the faucet. "Just a simple cake for us four, which is what the recipe was supposed to give," He turned the water off, a motion reminiscent of snapping someone's neck.
"Well then Greg's dad calls and says he's inviting some friends from work so I'd better double the recipe," Wirt marched back towards Jason, whipping the towel around in the air. "And then my mom calls and says she's inviting Greg's friends too so I'd better triple it." He lifted Jason's chin and started wiping flour off his face. "Add that together and now I have to quadruple the recipe and it turns out, our mixing bowls aren't big enough for 8 cups of flour," he scrubbed a little harder. "A dozen eggs, and a mountain of sugar, so here we are," Wirt made a sweeping gesture with the towel. "And I don't know what I'm doing!"
Jason looked at him. Wirt's jaw was clenched and his eyes were clouded with frustration and panic and a little bit of flour. Jason gingerly took the towel out of Wirt's hand and brushed it over his cheeks with his thumb. Then, he used it to smooth over his forehead. Jason watched his brow relax, the worry melt off his face like snow.
Jason let the towel fall and ran his hand down Wirt's face, around to the back of his neck. His left hand found Wirt's shoulder. Slowly, Jason pushed up onto his toes, and pressed his lips to Wirt's.
Wirt's chest rose with the impact of the kiss. His fluttering hands alighted on Jason's back, where they sank into the fabric of his shirt.
When Jason let go, Wirt's eyes quivered open. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, and then looked straight at Jason. A question reached his eyes, but never his mouth.
"Did that help?" Jason asked quietly.
Wirt blinked. He poised his mouth to say 'yes,' but it expanded into a smile, which burst into a giggle.
His hands slid around to Jason's sides and finally to his hands.
"I don't know how you're pulling this off," he laughed. "but that flour actually looks really nice in your hair."
Jason grinned and led Wirt by the hands to his baking disaster.
They made 4 small cakes instead of one, which turned out to be considerably less intimidating.