Title: Cookin' Cupcakes (1/1)

Author: Lynne Facella

Email: lynne1919@aol.com

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of John Wells and Edward Allen Bernero. I wish they were mine but unfortunately they're not.

Summary: Sully and Ty bake cupcakes for the precinct picnic - Just felt like writing something silly

******

"What did you do?" Ty asked as he gave Sully an incredulous look. "You've got to be kidding me. Were you drinking again or something?"

Sully glared back at Ty. "I'm dead serious and no, I was not drinking."

"Well, have fun." Ty tilted his head back and drained the last bit of coffee in his cup then threw it in the trashcan before he started walking back towards the RMP.

"What do you mean have fun?" Sully asked, hurrying after his partner. "You're helping me with this. The signup sheet was for partners."

"Yeah well maybe you should have asked me before you signed us up, Sully. What the hell were you thinking?" Ty sat down in the RMP and buckled his seatbelt, waiting for Sully to take his place behind the wheel. "Didn't you think I deserved a say?"

"It's only six dozen cupcakes, Ty. How hard can it be?"

"When's the last time you've made cupcakes?" Ty asked, shaking his head. "Because I've never baked them. Closest I've ever come was licking the bowl when I was a kid and my mom was making them."

Sully didn't answer Ty. Instead he sat behind the wheel, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. "Well, we don't have to make them from scratch. We can get a mix.... Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines."

"You know...cupcakes don't cost a lot to buy, Sully. We need to just go to a market or a bakery. I mean we don't have to make them."

Sully shook his head adamantly. "Homemade cupcakes are definitely better."

"Maybe if someone who knows what they're doing makes them. Sully...we do not know what we're doing. Our cupcakes will -not- be better."

"Come on...we can at least try, can't we?"

"You don't see Bosco or Faith making baked goods, Sul...They're smart. They signed up to bring soda and chips. I mean...I still don't understand what possessed you to say we'd make cupcakes. We could have brought hamburgers or hotdogs or..."

"Alright, I get it," Sully interrupted, getting a little bit aggravated by his partner's negative attitude. "But cupcakes are what I signed up to make and that's what we're making."

"We could have made cookies..." Ty mumbled under his breath. "Pop 'n Fresh dough, you just cut them and stick them on the cookie sheet, no muss, no fuss."

"We're making cupcakes."

"Whatever..." Ty shook his head, finally relenting. "We're not making them at my place though. Carlos would be laughing his ass off at us and besides that, I'm not messing up my kitchen. You can mess up your own."

"That's fine." Sully nodded, a faint smile on his lips. "We'll go out after our shift to get what we need and then we can get started."

"Huh? When?" Ty asked, looking at his partner in confusion. "You mean tonight?"

"Of course tonight. The picnic is tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? Oh no way, Sully. I have a date tonight...with Belinda...you expect me to give up a date with Belinda to play Suzie Homemaker with you baking cupcakes?"

"You said you'd help. You can't go back on it now."

Ty sighed and then looked at Sully imploringly. "What about Hildy's Bakery? They're not all that expensive and they have great baked goods. I bet they have terrific mouth-watering cupcakes, Sully. We can tell everyone we made them. Who's going to know the difference?"

"-I- will know the difference."

"I bet we're the only squad stupid enough to be actually making something for this thing...no one else would be."

"Now that's where you're wrong. Richardson and Andrews are making brownies...and not just any brownies, three different kinds, fudge, fudge walnut and blondies. Andrews was bragging about how great they're going to be..."

"Oh no, Sully." Ty shook his head and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the top of the seat. "Is that what this is about? Andrews is always cooking and baking stuff. It's just what he does. It never bothered you before."

"Yeah well he made some crack about how all I could do was eat...that I couldn't actually make something if my life depended on it. Bosco was there...everybody... They were all laughing. I don't know...I just found myself signing us up to bake cupcakes."

Ty sighed and shook his head. Sully was his partner and he was going to stick with him, even if it was to do something as ridiculous as to bake cupcakes.

******

"So are we getting all one kind or different kinds?" Ty asked with a yawn as he and Sully made their way up the bakery aisle of the 24-hour supermarket.

"I think we should do half and half, chocolate and vanilla."

"Okay." Ty started grabbing boxes and tossing them into the cart. He wasn't in the best of moods. Belinda hadn't taken the cancellation of their date very well. He didn't think she'd be going out with him again any time soon.

"How many boxes are you getting?" Sully asked, watching his partner curiously.

"You don't think we're going to need extras? If we screw them up, I'm not coming out again after cupcake mix at three in the morning. I still don't know what possessed you to do something so stupid, Sully."

"Do we have to go through this all again? I admit it was stupid, okay? Listen, I'll owe you. I'll take you out to dinner tomorrow night. Wherever you want to go."

"I have a date tomorrow night," Ty grumbled.

"Well then the night after...or the night after that. Whenever you want."

"Fine, but we're going to go somewhere nice. Not some greasy spoon."

"I said wherever you want, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Ty admitted grudgingly. "We need frosting too and those little paper things to put the cupcakes in."

"Okay...and we need pans."

"Pans? You don't even have pans?"

Sully raised an eyebrow as he looked back at his partner. "Didn't we already establish that baking cupcakes isn't an everyday occurrence for either of us? Do you have cupcake pans?"

"Actually yes I do," Ty said with a smirk. "I have muffin tins."

"So you know how to make muffins? That should be helpful. They can't be all that different than making cupcakes."

"I said I had tins, Sul...I didn't say I used them. Mom gave me a bunch of stuff after I moved. I never used half of it."

"Great..."Sully said as he pushed the cart ahead of him as he scanned the back of one of the boxes for some of the other ingredients they needed. "Come on. We need eggs and vegetable oil."

"So...what time is this picnic anyway?" Ty asked.

"Everyone is meeting at the park at 11:30."

Ty rolled his eyes and followed behind his partner. It was already after midnight and they were still in the damn supermarket. They were going to be lucky if they got any sleep at all tonight...

******

"Are those eggshells in the batter?"

Ty raised his hands in the air and backed away from the mixing bowl. "You know, if you're going to be criticizing everything I do, maybe you should just make these damn things yourself."

"I wasn't criticizing...just...we need to be careful. We can't have eggshells in the cupcakes, Ty."

"You know what? I'm going to go check out the late news to get the baseball scores. I'll be back in a few minutes." Shaking his head to himself as he walked, Ty made his way into Sully's living room and flopped down on the couch. He was tired and irritable and had no desire whatsoever to be doing this. He wanted to be home in his own bed or at Belinda's house in her bed. Either scenario was a hundred times better than making cupcakes with Sully in the middle of the night.

"I thought you were watching the scores," Sully asked, a short while later as he came into the living room and saw Ty sitting on the couch, seemingly lost in his thoughts. The television set wasn't even turned on.

Startled, Ty looked up at his partner and shrugged. "I'm tired. I was just taking a little break."

"Well I have the first batch in the oven. One down...five to go. It's not going to be so bad."

Ty gave Sully a look of disbelief, but managed somehow to hold his tongue. It wasn't going to do any good for him to just bitch all night long. "Let's check out the scores," he said as he turned the television set on with the remote control and changed the channel to ESPN.

It wasn't long before Sully started snoring softly as he dozed off on the couch. Ty decided to let him sleep until the first batch of cupcakes was done. He started flicking through the channels and found a west coast baseball game, which was still going on. Temporarily forgetting about the cupcakes, he focused on the game and didn't even think about the cupcakes, at least not until he smelled something burning.

Ty wrinkled up his nose as he sniffed. "Sul?" he said loudly, in order to wake his partner. "Uh...you smell that?"

"Oh damn!" Sully struggled to his feet and ran towards the kitchen while Ty followed behind, laughing. "You're not much help, you know." Sully said angrily as he pulled the cupcakes from the smoky oven.

"What do you want me to do?" Ty asked with a grin. "Didn't you time them?"

"Yeah I timed them..." Sully glanced at the oven timer, which was still set at zero. "Or not...Well you could have said something."

"How was I supposed to know you weren't going to time them? You're the expert baker here, Sully, not me. I told you I couldn't bake worth a damn."

"Yeah well...you -could- try to be a little bit more helpful, you know? It wouldn't kill you. You're going to look like as big of an ass as I am if these things come out tasting like crap."

"I don't think I'll look like -quite- of as big of an ass as you," Ty chuckled. "But I'll tell you what. I'll make the next batch. You go sit in the living room and relax for a little while."

"You don't mind?" Sully asked, narrowing his eyes at his partner.

"Nope. I'll make them."

"Alright then." Sully headed back out into the living room and a short while later Ty joined him and plopped down in an easy chair. "They're all in the little paper liners and everything is timed. This batch is going to be perfect."

"I hope so."

As the batch of cupcakes baked, Ty went in and out of the kitchen, constantly checking them. Even though this batch was timed, he didn't want to take any chances with them burning. The third time he came back out into the living room with a funny look on his face.

"What?" asked Sully, immediately suspicious.

"Uhhhh...nothing really...these cupcakes well...they're kinda big...

"Oh Ty, what did you do?" Sully stood up and hurried out into the kitchen to take a look at the cupcakes. Kind of big was an understatement. The cupcakes were huge...more like monster cupcakes. They were all overflowing out of the holes in the pan and running into each other. It basically was one huge mess. "These aren't any good!" Sully grabbed a potholder and pulled the pan out of the oven. "You think we can give these to people?"

"Ummm...no I guess not." Ty was biting his lip really hard in an effort to keep a straight face, but he finally gave in to give in to the laughter that was bubbling up inside of him. "You ready to admit defeat yet, big guy?" he asked.

"No I am not." Sully grabbed the cupcake box and looked at the instructions. "It says to fill them two thirds of the way full. How much did you fill them?"

"Uh...I guess I filled them to the top. Sully this is stupid. It's almost 3 a.m. and we don't have even one dozen yet. We're never going to finish these."

"We will finish them!" Come on...let's get the next batch started."

******

"The bottoms are burned."

"The insides aren't cooked."

"You forgot the liners."

And so it went until finally at around 5:15 a seemingly perfect batch of cupcakes came out of the oven.

"Those look good," Ty said, staring at the cupcakes blearily.

"Yeah...yeah they do..." They'd been doing this all night long and all they had was one lousy dozen cupcakes. Sully couldn't believe what an incredible waste of time the night had been. Pure and simply they were incompetent as bakers.

"We just have to do that again five more times and we're done," Ty stated unenthusiastically.

Five more times...seemed like forever..."Listen, can you get the next batch in the oven? I'm going to run out and grab us some coffee, maybe something to eat."

"Sure...whatever..." Sully left the apartment and Ty struggled to wake himself up a little bit more to get the next batch of cupcakes into the oven. He definitely didn't want to screw any more of these stupid things up. After he'd put them in, he went out into the living room and stretched out on Sully's sofa, then promptly fell asleep.

******

When Ty awoke, there was a blanket covering him and sunlight was streaming in through Sully's living room windows. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was 9:30 a.m. Shit. He got up off the couch and went out into the empty kitchen. Two-dozen cupcakes were on the table and Sully was nowhere to be found.

"Sully?" He headed back into the living room and almost collided with his partner who was just coming out of his bedroom "Sully, what's going on? It's 9:30. How are we going to get four dozen cupcakes baked before the picnic?"

"We're not."

"We're not? Really? How come?" Not that Ty was complaining. He'd had enough cupcake baking to last a lifetime, but he was curious what had prompted Sully's change of heart.

"I went to Hildy's bakery this morning. She was there early baking. Anyhow, she's going to have six dozen cupcakes ready for us at 11. We can pick them up before the picnic."

Ty raised an eyebrow, tempted to say 'I told you so' but managing not to. "Sounds like a plan." He nodded, a wide smile on his face.

"Thanks for not saying it," Sully said, grinning back at his partner. "And I appreciate you staying here all night."

"Well I'll be getting a nice dinner in payment, right?" Ty said. "A nice steak dinner or maybe some Thai food..."

"Whatever you want," Sully said, still smiling.

"So you want to run me back to my apartment so I can shower and change before the picnic?"

"Sure...let me go get ready and we can get out of here."

Ty nodded and restlessly wandered out into the kitchen as Sully headed off to the bathroom. Curious, he opened one of the cans of frosting and began to frost the cupcakes. When he was finished, he picked one up and bit into it. It was really dry and crumbly and he immediately started to cough as the tiny crumbs seemed to stick in his throat. He quickly went to the refrigerator and poured himself a cup of water then gulped it down. Hildy was definitely saving their asses. These cupcakes really sucked.

A short while later Sully entered the kitchen, dressed and ready to go. "Hey you frosted the cupcakes?" he asked, reaching for one. "How are they?"

"Don't do it, man." Ty grabbed the cupcake from his partner's hand and put it back on the table. "And let this be a warning...If you ever have the urge to volunteer to bake ever again, leave me out of it, because no way will I be involved."

"You don't have to worry," Sully muttered as he put on his jacket. "I don't think I'm ever baking anything again for as long as I live."