A/N: Well, now I'm hungry... Anyway, enjoy this short little one-shot I did for Thanksgiving. Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater or the reference that is going to pop up somewhere down there.
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When it came to Thanksgiving for Maka and the others, it had been a tradition for the last few years to always eat at Maka and Soul's apartment. Sure, there had been one time they'd suggested Gallows Manor for the convenient kitchen and dining room, but the fight over the turkey being baked symmetrically and the table being set up so there was two of almost everything was not worth it. So the tradition lived on: Thanksgiving would always be held in Maka and Soul's humble little home.
However, on this certain Thanksgiving, the apartment would not be the place to go. No one really could get the full story through Maka's seething wrath and Soul's blissful ignorance, for he'd been out shopping for the turkey. From what everyone could gather through Maka's angry hisses was that Smashing Pumpkin was what Blair called the 'easy way' to make pumpkin pie. In Maka's opinion, it was the easy way to start home demolition on the kitchen.
So when Soul had returned to the apartment complex, Maka had been waiting on the front steps of the building, a few plastic bags filled with the bowls of cranberry sauce and containers of stuffing she'd been charged with preparing. When he'd asked her rather calmly (he hadn't seen her face yet so didn't know to venture forth with caution) what had happened, she'd snapped, "We're having Thanksgiving at Tsubaki's. Don't worry, I called and she's fine with it, now let's go!"
When they'd reached the apartment of the rowdy assassin and his sheepishly smiling weapon partner, Maka had calmed down a little and handed over her bags of food while saying, "We're trying something new this year. Everyone's bringing something, right?"
"Something new?" Black Star had echoed dubiously, eyes wide as though the thought of something new confounded him. At Tsubaki's quick glance, he'd added, "Oh, yeah, yeah! Something new! Sounds great!"
And so, after Kid, Liz, and Patty had arrived with their own 'food' (Liz cooked and had looked so proud and happy, no one had the heart to tell her it all looked the same: like charcoal.), they began their tradition a little differently.
Maka helped Tsubaki bake pumpkin pie in the kitchen while Patty madly went to work with the cranberry sauce, stirring away and turning the entire contents into puree, to which Tsubaki had smiled nervously and murmured, "Cranberry soup... We did say we were doing things a little differently."
The three guys sat around the stout table in the room next to the kitchen after being told to stay away and not make a note about anything being unsymmetrical or too bland and boring. They did just that but wondered on the side about how they were going to fit everything on the small little table.
By the time the pie's aroma was wafting through the air, the food was done and Tsubaki explained they would dish up in the kitchen and then sit down on the floor in the living room to eat. Everyone deemed the idea acceptable and filed into the kitchen, dishing up cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, green beans, and different assortments of bread rolls. (Liz's charcoal delicacies remained untouched for the rest of their sad, over-baked and over-fried lives.)
It wasn't until everyone began milling around the kitchen with expectant stares at the packed counter, all looking for the same thing, that Maka whipped around to face Soul, green eyes flashing dangerously as she inquired darkly, "Soul, where's the turkey?"
And then Soul remembered at that very moment he'd been quite pissed off earlier that morning but he'd forgotten it entirely after seeing Maka. And at the very moment right after the first moment he'd remembered why he'd been pissed: He'd forgotten something that morning while heading out of the apartment, and while on his motorcycle driving through Death City, the anger crawled deeper and deeper into his soul because damn it, what he'd forgotten had seemed so obvious but still it left his mind like an angry girlfriend. And after the second moment following the first, he finally, finally remembered what it was he'd been trying to remember that morning while driving through Death City: The turkey.
"Um... well..." was all the scythe managed nervously before Maka had sent him the apprentice Maka-Chop to the mother of all Maka-Chops. And it was a mean sucker...
"Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without the cooked bird!" Patty cried, giggling hysterically which didn't help Maka's mood or Soul's current predicament.
"Hey, hey! It's okay! We said we were trying something new, so I went ahead and got us turkey because I've never done it before!" Black Star suddenly piped up, pumping a mashed potato clad fork in the air. "I'll be right back."
To everyone's surprise, the assassin returned only moments later with a pristine platter with a pearly white cover hiding the turkey beneath. Clearing a spot on the counter, they all stepped back as Black Star slid the large serving plate beside Liz's black cooking. With dubious looks sent to one another, they all watched as Black Star dramatically whipped the lid from the plate of food like one hell of a butler.
Everyone peered at the lump on the plate, the expectations that hadn't been that high to begin with ultimately crashing and burning. It looked like pale brown parchment morphed around a ball of fluff, without any characteristics of a turkey whatsoever.
Black Star looked pleased, but unlike their patience and smiles towards Liz, everyone turned to the assassin with skeptical looks and Kid was the first to speak, demanding, "What the hell is that?"
"Turkey!" Black Star answered cheerfully, grinning like a maniac.
"No... No, I'm pretty sure that is not turkey," Soul mumbled, raising a finger to poke the specimen and finding it even felt like paper.
"Just look for a second!" Black Star cried impatiently, grabbing the bread knife from the rolls and turning the 'turkey' onto its back. "I can't believe you're making me mutilate it."
"We stuff the bird with stuffing, a not at all original name," Liz muttered. "We passed mutilation a long, long time ago."
Black Star ignored her, slicing through the bottom of the 'turkey' in a whacked out line of curves and lumps before prying apart the papery skin. Everyone watched in amazement as he reached into the beast, pulling out handful after handful of white fluff and shoving it into anyone's unsuspecting hands.
Kid pinched the soft material between his fingers, asking with rising suspicion, "Is this the stuffing that comes out of furniture?"
Again, Black Star didn't answer, finishing his gruesome dissection and lifting the skin of the questionable Thanksgiving dinner into the air and ripping it here and there, just like old, baked paper, until everyone, with expressions reading disbelief and I'll-be-damned saw that it was indeed turkey. A big ass map of the country of Turkey.
"Seriously?" Soul murmured, not sure if he was surprised or irritated. "You found a map of Turkey, stuffed it with literal stuffing from a couch cushion or a pillow, and cooked it?"
"You guys wanted to do something new," the blue haired teen answered as-a-matter-of-factly, and everyone couldn't help but nod with a few smiles of defeat, sighing, "Yeah, I guess we did."
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A/N: Congrats if you spotted the Black Butler reference in there, I couldn't resist. Hope you enjoyed. I'll be very thankful for all the reviews. *hint hint* ^^
