Note: written for the Free-For-All-Fic-For-All at the AskTheSquishykins tumblr.
Prompt: Jon and pumpkin pie
CATverse, takes place the night of November 22/23, 2018. This places it after "Holy Haunted Houses!" or, if you prefer to go by what's actually posted, BiteMeTechie's "Fork in the Road." I'm not sure if it's meant to be followed by Techie's "Memories Are Made of This" or "Hungarian Rhapsody," since my personal notes differ slightly from the official timeline.
The worst thing about having a birthday that fell so close to Thanksgiving - sometimes on the day itself - was that the girls would not take no for an answer when it came to baking him something good to eat.
It wasn't that Jonathan didn't like cake and pie; he didn't have much of a sweet tooth, but he quite enjoyed the occasional treat. It was just that they always had something to say about it. Always.
So when Techie and Captain made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, he refused to touch it. He ate the turkey, he ate the stuffing, he ate the mashed potatoes with cayenne pepper, and he listened to the yearly rant about white colonialism and grave robbing, but he drew the line at dessert.
He went to bed a little too full and woke up from a nightmare just before dawn, when the girls were sound asleep. In the kitchen, he moved aside a can of chocolate frosting to get to the tea, and moved aside a package of birthday candles to get to a cup. He didn't know why they still bothered. He wasn't going to blow out the candles, and he wasn't going to eat the cake.
After putting the water in the microwave to heat up, he went to the refrigerator for a dollop of milk. A glance at the expiration date made him think the better of it.
As he started to turn away, his gaze rested on the remains of the pumpkin pie. The girls had gone to work on it, but almost half of it was left. Sitting in the pie pan. Begging to be eaten. Buttery and delicious.
He didn't like cake, not in any variation. But pumpkin pie...
The microwave beeped. Jonathan removed his tea.
When the girls found the empty pie pan in the sink later, they would blame it on each other. No one would ever have to know.