CHAPTER 4: By the Light of the Cupcake

Summary: Steve, feeling unloved and ignored on his birthday, retreats to his lab to work on his latest experiment.

It was a pretty pitiful sight indeed - there Steve was, seated at the Winslow kitchen table by his lonesome in a party hat, his chin perched in the palm of his hand as he stared dolefully at the lit candle grounded in the chocolate frosting of a single cupcake plated before him. Despite the few balloons and festive party confections brightening the table around him, he looked absolutely miserable as he sang 'Happy Birthday' dismally to himself.

"... Happy Birthdaaaay ... Dear Stevie-Who-We-Love-And-Admiiiiirrrre ..." he sang, speaking for all the loved ones who obviously exhibited the contrary. I'd give anything to actually hear that for once from somebody other than Myra. His own parents often regarded him as the worst mistake of their lives - they moved to Russia without telling him, for Pete's sake! And he knew the Winslows made a constant effort in avoiding him at all costs - they always had. And now with Myra being still upset at him for kissing Laura, the only person that acknowledged he was turning 20 so far had been his own reflection. He sighed heavily with dejection. "Happy Biiirthdaaay ... toooo ...meeeee."

Once again hearing crickets, he resolved to create his own one-man celebration, never-minding how pathetic he looked as he halfheartedly blew out the lone candle, picked up a party horn and gave it a single jubilating puff, then finally grabbed a handful of confetti and tossed it so that the colorful paper shreds rained over him. Some Birthday. His chin slowly returned to his palm as he continued to stare at his cupcake, utterly depressed.

It certainly wasn't the first time he'd spent his birthday by himself, but he figured by the time he became an adult and hit the big 2-0, things would be different. He had hoped everyone would finally get over their hang-ups about him and just learn to accept him - it was clear he continued to stumble through life kidding himself.

He could only figure that civilized society was still not ready for his larger-than-life persona and he had to wonder if changing himself at all would help. He spent the momentary silence that followed considering what new look he was going to try next for his makeover.

"Oh. Hi, Steve," greeted Carl, the Winslow patriarch entered the kitchen through the back door in his Captain's uniform, making a cavalier beeline for the stairs with his bag in tow.

"Sure," Steve murmured begrudgingly, not budging as he watched Carl pass right by him and completely ignore the obvious pity party he was throwing himself ... until he spotted him stop in his tracks to pivot in his direction. Steve perked as he saw the Big Guy taking notice.

"Heeeeey. Wait a minuuuteee..." Carl mused wistfully as if he'd just stumbled upon an epiphany, his brows knitted curiously as he regarded the now eager Steve.

"Yes-yes-yes?" he asked earnestly, alight with hope as he leaned towards Carl for the response he was looking for.

"Is that the last cupcake?" Carl finally asked passively, pointing to the lone dessert in front of Steve indicatively.

"... No," Steve answered tightly, discouraged as he deflated back into his self-pity, "There's plenty more."

"Oh. Good." Completely missing the despondency seeping out of Steve, Carl spun towards the stairs again in apathy, only to be balked by Steve's next doleful statement.

"But there's only one day you turn 20," he griped sadly, causing Carl to pause again and turn back to Steven to give him his full attention, this time appearing shocked that'd he forgotten ... probably because Steve hadn't made a big show out of it this year; usually Carl knew to prepare for the nerd's birthday by way of his overly-dramatic fanfare/countdown that sparked a warning like clockwork a week prior.

"Steve... is today your birthday?" he asked rhetorically, shame-faced as he stepped to Steve's side.

"Noooo," Steve replied caustically, dramatically beaming with sarcasm as he gave a dismissive swat of his hand, his acerbic words biting as his voice rose in volume to shrieking levels on the tail-end of his burgeoning frustration: "There was a blackout and I decided to read by THE LIGHT OF THE CUPCAKE!"

Like, seriously, you'd think after eight years of his fanfares, somebody would have remembered by now, especially Carl! Oh, the agony of having an IQ over 180 - geniuses were cursed, it seemed to Steve. He gave a roll of his eyes, clearly agitated as his chin once again found a place on his palm.

Carl cringed at Steve's shrill tantrum but he couldn't say he blamed him for being upset - even though he'd never admit it, Carl knew himself to get pretty depressed whenever anybody forgot his birthday and he shouldn't have expected Steve to feel any different. "Gee, I'm ..." he murmured, genuinely remorseful as he put his bag down on the island counter and stepped to Steve, patting him apologetically on his shoulder, "I'm sorry, Steve. I had to work a double shift today and I guess ... I just forgot."

"Yeah, so did the rest of the civilized world!" Steve cried in disappointment as he stood up from the table to pace pensively across the kitchen. "Everybody forgot! Let's face it, Carl. I am not loved," he whined despondently.

"Ohhh, now that is not true!" Carl insisted, even though he was still having a very difficult time accepting that Steve had become almost like his adoptive son. Almost. "We all-uh-uhh.." He began strong in his attempt to convince Steve of the latter, but the words got caught just at the edge of his lips before rolling off in a stutter as Steve looked on: "...we all l-luh ... l-luh ... l-luh-luh-love you." ...He resisted the urge to scrape his tongue against his teeth to the get the taste of that statement out of his mouth and simply mustered a forced smile.

"...Do you love me enough to stay up and play Twister all night?!" Steve finally asked, hopeful after absorbing and accepting the bald-faced lie his hero just told him. Maybe if he asked quick enough, he'd get a 'yes' for once. It was his birthday after all!

"No way," Carl bellowed back instantly with a determined scowl.

...Or not. Looks like Steve still wasn't witty enough when it came to tricking the Big Guy into spending time with him and he deflated back into his disappointment. ...Such is life. Only his life, it seemed. At least he managed to get a pity invite to Carl's duck hunting trip next weekend and since Steve was a glass-half-full type of guy, he considered it a belated Birthday present. All was not that bad with the world.

Too bad the one person he really wanted acknowledgement from had been much harder to track down lately for some reason. He was willing to be his life savings that the chances of running into Laura at all today were slim to none... especially since he wasn't even sure he had it in him to even seek her out.

LATER THAT EVENING

Since Carl seemed hell-bent on preventing him from continuing his experiments in the Winslow household, Steve had set up shop at his University lab that the Science Department had granted him as apart of his scholarship. Even though it was the weekend and the sun had gone down, he had access to the lab at all times and it tended to serve as the perfect hiding spot during those rare occasions when he just didn't care to be seen by anybody. Locking himself away to tend to his experiments when he was depressed had always been extremely therapeutic.

More than that, now seemed like the perfect time to continue work on a complicated molecular extraction he'd been trying to perfect every since the idea came to him the night after his confrontation with Myra. Since plans to celebrate his blooming into manhood seemed like a bust, he figured occupying his mind with the experiment's next phases was the next best way to spend his first day as a 20 year-old-future-Nobel-Prize-winner.

Seated on a stool by the main counter hovering over an electron microscope, he was clad from head to toe in flamboyantly colorful wild-west-style Cowboy attire - white spurred boots, blue slacks and bright orange leather chaps, a stitched long-sleeved red shirt, a black bandanna, and a huge, white Stetson. What made the get-up even more odd was the fact that his white lab coat added to the downright clownish nature of the costume, along with his large black rubber gloves, and a pair of safety goggles perched high on the rim of his cowboy hat.

He mumbled calculations under his breath to himself as he moved from the microscope to a bubbling yellow mixture heated in a flask over a Bunsen burner, grabbing several other flasks around his workstation and carefully adding the contents to the mixture until it began to settle. Satisfied, he grinned with excitement before grabbing the flask off the burner and very carefully pouring it into another one off to the side that could have easily been mistaken for a lemonade pitcher. Since it was only him there, he didn't bother with labeling it.

"Break out the Twister, you steamy loveboat, because we got a birthday to celebrate!"

Severely startled by the sound of Myra's twittery voice echoing against the lab walls, Steve nearly dropped the flasks in his hands as his flinching almost caused him to fall right off the stool. Somehow managing to steady himself and his experiment without ruining it- which couldn't have been easy wearing those spurs, he carefully placed the flasks back on his workstation and snapped in her direction as he stood upright: "Jeepers, woman! Not while I'm pouring! " he seethed in frustration.

People knew he was extremely clumsy so why didn't they ever listen to him when he tried to warn them not to do that?! Only as he recovered from the shock of her sudden appearance did he realize he should probably look for somewhere to hide now - alas, Myra had found him. His guard shooting up, he regarded her cautiously. "...What are you doing here?"

"You didn't think I'd forget about your big day, now did you?" she chimed gleefully from the doorway of the lab with an adorable smile, carrying a picnic basket in one hand and a bundle of a dozen balloons with Steve's face on them in the other. Giddy with excitement, she began to skip over to her honeybuns when she paused in confusion, sizing up his costume with an intrigued tilt of her head. "... Steven, did you take up donkey herding again?"

Steve took a step back as she took a step forward, shrinking away anxiously since Myra always proved to be unpredictable at times, but seeing the festive items in her hands softened him slightly since he'd been looking forward for his birthday to be acknowledged all day, even if Myra had always been the only one to acknowledge it every year. "Not this time," he replied, still wary but a little more relaxed, "Just searching for my new look. Don't know about this one, though - this hat has been getting caught in doors all day."

"New look? Stevie, why on Earth would you ever want to change yourself?" Myra closed in on him and by the way she glided, he assumed he was safe from assault - Myra was no joke when she was angry. But as always, even if they'd had the worst fight a couple could have, she would always show up again as if it'd never happened, trying desperately to mend her perfect fantasy back together.

"You're perfect just the way you are; sexy asks you how to be," she purred as she closed the distance between them, dropping the basket on the counter and tying off the balloons to it before reaching up to remove that umbrella of a hat from his head. Along with his goggles, she tossed them dismissively aside, slinking her arms around his neck so that she could deliver a lascivious whisper to him, "Besides, if you're thinking of a wardrobe change ... I suggest your birthday suit. It's far more fitting for today."

"Myra!" Steve cried as he reddened with embarrassment, her shameless and explicit remarks about him never failing to shock his sense of chastity. "B-but ... I thought you were angry with me," he bashfully added once he then realized she really did come in peace. He allowed himself to relax against her as she embraced him, his gloved hands hesitant and unsure as they settled on her waist.

"Oh, pish-posh!" she chirped with a dismissive swat at the air, "Anger is only temporary. But passion for that bodacious bod lasts a lifetime," she purred as she grinned impishly and nuzzled her nose against his with a giggle. "Now, stop worrying your handsome little buns and let's make a toast, birthday boy."

Myra torn herself away from her love muffin and reached for two plastic flutes from the basket and before Steve could protest or stop her - since he'd been too dazed from the alluring power of her sweet nothings to notice right away - she'd already picked up one of the pitchers from his station and filled the glasses with what she assumed to be lemonade, forcing one into his hand as she lifted the other into the air. "To you, my sweet Stevie, who is now one year closer to finally fulfilling my child-bearing needs. Cheers!"

"M-Myra, no-no! Don't drink that!" Steve scrambled to grab the flute from her hands after having accidentally spilled his flute onto the counter in his quest to stop her. Thankfully, his reflexes had been quick enough to snatch it before she drank it, but not before the rapid yanking motion sent his arm crashing right into the cross-tubed setup of his station, sparks flying as chemicals splattered and violently shorted his computer. Glass flew in every direction and all of the flasks except the final yellow compound in the lemonade pitcher crashed to the ground.

They both flinched, ducked, and dodged until the sparking contraption settled to a smoky calm. "Look what you did..." Steve griped calmly in the lingering, foggy silence with a shameful shake of his head at Myra before mourning the ruins that used to be his station with a long-faced pout.

Myra's eyes widened in confusion at his wild reaction to her attempt to toast him, scrutinizing the yellow compound with curiosity. "I'm so sorry, honey lump! ... Not lemonade?"

"Ding, ding, ding! How'd ya guess?!" Steve retorted sarcastically before lifting the half-empty pitcher eye-level. "It's my new potion and it's very dangerous, pooh bear! Why, if it got into the wrong hands, all human relationships on the planet could be destroyed single-handedly, unraveling the little peace left across the globe for generations!" he explained tightly as he quickly recovered what was left of the compound and made the hasty decision to put it in a safer container.

Finding one with a lid, he began to pour it, warning her, "One sip of this stuff and your Urkel-worshiping days are over!" ...Pausing in mid-pour, his eyes shifted impishly between her and the compound. "On second thought ..." he murmured to himself, considering that maybe that's what he really wanted ... but before he could ponder on it further, he quickly saw that she was unbothered by his warning by the way she shuddered with passion and shimmied closer to him like a moth to a flame - he somehow forgot that science only turned her on; it never warded her off. That automatically made her a case to be reckoned with - naaah, he shook off the temptation to de-Urkel-ize her and decided to stick to his original plan. Besides, it'd be pretty idiotic of him to do away with his only cheerleader.

"Ooooo, Stevie. If only you knew what you do to me when you get all 'mad scientist'. Hurt me, baby," she growled seductively as she reached around to goose his tush, causing him to squirm and wiggle with a high-pitched giggle - he was extremely ticklish! Exhilirated but still feeling somewhat violated, he skedaddled away and created just enough distance between them so that he could finish pouring, labeling, and lidding the compound, piquing Myra's intrigue further as she watched, "What exactly is your hot, brilliant mind cooking up this time, my little sugarpuff?"

"Uhhh ..." Steve croaked nasally in hesitation as he turned to her, clutching the freshly contained potion against his chest protectively. "Uh, well, I'm afraid I can't tell you, cuddlebug."

"Well, why not?" Myra demanded with a pout, her fists planting firmly on her hips ... a tell-tale sign that he'd better tread lightly into some kind of explanation.

When he couldn't find one that didn't involve lying, he resorted to stuttered dodges, "Uhhh, it's a, uh ... well, it's a ... it's-it's kinda personal! Uh -" A snap of his fingers once the right word finally came to him, throwing it at her with a confident point of his index finger: "Confidential."

Of course Myra was unsatisfied with that answer, but she seemed to be on her best behavior. "Steven, there's been a lot of things you've been keeping from me lately and you should never keep secrets from a future Mrs. Urkel," she chimed calmly, slowly stepping up to him and giving his forearm a soothing caress. "And while I won't say it doesn't worry me ... I trust you."

Steve felt horrible for keeping it from her - he was usually itching to let someone know when he'd made an important breakthrough but he had told her the truth: this experiment was personal and he had every intention of destroying the results after he conducted it - no need to disclose to her what he was up to; she was much better off not knowing.

It was just ... keeping secrets made him felt dirtier than a sewer pond and he couldn't help to be a little surprised that he didn't have to make much of a case - Myra was pretty aggressive when it came to him, after all. "You do?" he asked meekly as he put the compound away, tucking it into the inside pocket of his lab coat.

"Absolutely," she confirmed with a big reassuring smile, once again closing the distance between them in order to claim his space as her own. "As much as I disapprove of your covortings with that fermented lamb chop, today is your day and I don't want to spend it upset with you."

Steve gave a modest little smirk, dramatically blushing, "Ohh, thank you, buttercup. You're really the best tootin' gal-pal a guy could ask for!" He sighed wistfully as he allowed himself to finally relax, relieved that he was off the hook. And even better, he actually had someone to spend his birthday with after all! Perking up as a result, he took a quick step back to open his arms wide with a bright grin. "I'm peanut butter!"

"I'm jelly!" Myra chirped in response and her arms flew open as well.

"Sandwich!" they cried in unison as they smashed together in a spirited embrace, nuzzling cheeks with peppy fervor. Leaning back from her momentarily, Steve kept his arms around her waist as he regarded her with a gracious smile, "Y'know, you're the only one who remembered my birthday this year." Blink. He peered into space pensively for a second when he then realized, "Come to think of it ... you're the only one who ever remembers."

Myra giggled with pride and elation at his vague acknowledgment of what she already knew was true: "I'm also the only one who sees you for the incredible catch you really are, handsome," she purred as her arms slinked around his neck, slowly tugging him down to her as she then whispered affectionately, "I adore you in all your amazing, hunk-a-dacious glory. That makes me the only one for you, Steven."

He couldn't really argue with that, especially not when she smashed her lips against his in a passionate kiss that made his spurs spin, giving him virtually no window to protest. Her kisses usually had him feeling like he'd been thrown off a roller-coaster, but she was surprisingly gentle this time, making it easy to fall against her lips without feeling like he had to buckle up. And considering how deprived he'd been feeling lately, there was very little room for resistance and, ignoring his better judgement, he allowed himself to kiss her back just as passionately.

... Laura took note of that as well as she accidentally witnessed their moment through the large observation window outside of the lab as she rounded the corner of the hallway, a neatly gift-wrapped box in one hand and a birthday card in the other. The amorous sight grinding her gait to a halt as her heart hop-scotched to her throat, she wasn't sure if the sour sting she felt in the pit of her gut was because of the sushi she'd had earlier or because she wished she'd walked by maybe a few minutes later.

It probably would have helped to have just found Steve earlier that morning before she left for work, but she'd only remembered that it was his birthday when she came home and saw the decorations left over from his one-man celebration. Considering she had been deliberately dodging her socially-inept friend for weeks now only to realize she'd completely forgotten about his birthday too was far more guilt to stomach than she would have liked.

Quickly finding him a present he might like, she actively sought him out to give it to him, no matter how unsettling the thought of facing him felt. He'd never forgotten her birthday - the least she could do was show that same courtesy in return ... only to turn the corner to become even more unsettled.

She gradually shrunk away to remain inconspicuous, though sneaking a double-take as she slowly backed away from view. There had been a time when seeing Steve kissing Myra made her feel relieved that the focus wasn't on her for once. But the emotions that riddled her in that moment were incredibly foreign and confusing; she couldn't figure out why watching Steve kiss his girlfriend - as he had every right to do - made her feel rueful, envious, and ashamed ... and why, for some reason, it made her think of Stefan.

Actually, she'd been dodging him lately, too ... ever since the night she made a complete fool out of herself, she hadn't had the courage to answer any of his calls and had yet to make it up to him like she'd promised. Boy, could the guilt lay on any thicker? She exhaled sharply, warding off the sudden nausea that weakened her core just a little.

But this was a good thing, right? If Steve was making things work with Myra, there was no reason to even entertain any of these funny little musings she'd been having like little annoying brain sneezes lately. They came and they went constantly, always itching the back of her mind, but never blooming in depth enough to convince her that she actually believed in them.

Coming to this revelation with an internal sigh of relief, she quickly brushed off the abrupt internal struggle, knelt by the door in order to leave the present and card beside it. Maybe seeing those two was just the confirmation she needed. Carefully backing away so as to not be spotted, she pivoted and marched with determination back around the corner. What the hell are you thinking, Laura? she chastised herself as she made a beeline for home. She had to call her man.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 5