Ivan eyed the bowl of milk with remarkable distaste.

"I see you found the fridge." He commented, picking the bowl up and gently dumping the milk down the sink. "Do you not like milk?" He asked again, walking over to the dishwasher and placing the dishes inside with unusual precision. I noted that my bowl and spoon were the only dishes inside, and that he had a particular way he liked the dishwasher loaded. Something I could easily mess up.

"Oh I like milk." I started with a coy smile. "I just didn't feel like drinking it was all. Too sweet for some reason." I hauled myself onto the counter and sat down, making sure to scoot back and rub my butt all over it's clean sanitized surface. Ivan looked positively livid, but he held his tongue. I couldn't help by smile triumphantly, and the urge to swing my legs back and forth was much too strong for someone with weak will like me to resist. The result was satisfying enough, and I could practically see the veins in Ivan head burst.

"I thought you liked sweets. Thats why you wanted a cake so badly, wasn't it?" He opened up a cabinet and moved a few things around. He was in a real pissy mood for some reason, and it came on suddenly too. The milk must have done the trick, and if milk could do that much in such a short amount of time, then the whole list was probably going to get me sent home with a black eye… Or worse.

"Oh, I love sweets, thats why I have a pooch. I work out a good bit -at least I used to- and did sports, but man oh man could I eat. I mean can eat. I can eat everything in your house in a week. I probably will too since I don't have anything better to do..." I looked down at Ivan who had crouched down next to me, and patted my stomach for good measure.

"Oh," He said, pulling out a couple bowls and placing them on the counter next to me. "It looks like im going to have an obese little gay boy to deal with."

I stared at him in utter shock. He reached up and closed my mouth with his hand, a cruel smile spreading across his face.

"I-Ivan," I stammered. "I am not a little gay boy! And I am NOT fat!"

He stood and looked down at me from the corner of his eye, pretending that the bowls were the center of his attention. "Not a little gay boy?" He asked innocently, his smile small and deliberate. "Then what are you?"

If I had met Ivan under any other circumstance his innocent behavior would have fooled me. I probably would have moments of paranoia, but would have been smoothed over by his smile and light hearted manner, dismissing any cruel words as a blunder of the language barrier or a simple joke justified by our different cultures. They say rooming with a friend will ultimately ruin your friendship. This was kinda like that, except Ivan was never my friend, and I had no intention of trying to live peaceably with him.

"Not a gay boy that's for sure! Gay boys like-" I started to explain the likes and dislikes of all the gay people I had ever known when Ivan cut me off by holding up a card with my mother's cursive scrawled over it.

"Is this the cake you wanted?" He asked. "I'm sure it is since your name is on it."

I took the card from his hand and turned it over tentatively, my mood swinging from annoyed and angry, to shocked and heartbroken in a single moment. "Where… Did you get this?"

"From the box with all the other cards. Where do you think I got it?" Ivan's innocent sarcasm smoothed over my skin like the edge of a knife.

I practically tore my eyes from the card to look up at Ivan. "Where… Where is the box?"

Ivan gave me a growingly familiar look and pointed at the bread box some ways to the left of me. It was hard not to smack that satisfied look off his face, but the burning anger in the pit of my stomach couldn't mask the voice in the back of my head that wanted nothing more than to keep my body as pain free as possible.

I slid myself off the counter and made my way over to the box that used to contain bags of pre-cut bread. I gripped the knob gently and pulled the box open, only to see my mother recipe box stuffed inside. I pushed the box out limply, like a cat lazily pushing around a toy, and looked at Ivan for a moment, the card held limply in my hand.

"My mom is going to be so pissed." I said blankly, involuntarily holding the card up a little higher for him to see.

"I know," Ivan said with a bored sigh. "you mentioned that already. A lot actually,"

I lifted the old worn lid and numbly placed the card back inside with all the others, not caring whether I put it under the B's' for birthday or A's for Alfred. "It doesn't matter anyways. It's Mattie's year this year, so we have to eat Mattie's cake... It's easier to make anyways… Sometimes." I fingered the cards inside the box, spreading them out and letting them fall back against each other.

I could feel myself growing evermore sad. The thought of my brother coming home from school and finding the house ransacked, my bloody footprints leading down the stairs from my room with the broken down door and shattered glass, all the way to the kitchen with measuring cups thrown around was hard enough to handle. He was so gentle and delicate that some people hardly noticed he was there at all, under most circumstances. Everyone has their exceptions of course.

I thought about how he probably called the cops first, because unlike me he was smart like that. The cop's probably questioned my parents and asked them why they didn't take action sooner… I could see my parents crying faces… Mathew's crying face… I wondered if any of my friend's cried, or if I was on the news… If anyone cared to search for me.

I didn't noticed it until Ivan stopped me with a firm grip of the shoulder, but I was rocking back and forth, banging my knee against the counter. Ivan's stupid precious counter.

"Okay," I said gritting my teeth and searching through the rest of the cards. "Mattie has, like, three or so different cakes, and since I have no Idea what you have on hand, I guess we'll just have to read them all off and see what we can do." By that time I'd pulled the cards out, even ones that weren't a pastry, and laid them out side by side.

"Why does your brother have so many different cakes?" He asked picking up a recipe for pasta salad, eyeing it with a bit of confusion before turning it to me. I took the card from his hand and threw it back down.

"Mattie has so many different cakes because I broke three of his ribs one time and he had to be flown to this special hospital to deal with it. We were on vacation to Canada to visit family, but we were leaving the day it happened. My parents were so pissed…"

"How did you break his ribs?" Ivan asked, picking more cards up and mumbling the words softly.

"We were like… five or six or something and I may or may not have pushed him off these fifteen foot rocks… It's all really foggy. He swears I pushed him, and I swear that I may have given him a little shove, but he wondered over to those rocks and tumbled down all by himself. The shove and him falling are not related at all. I'd never hurt Mattie… At least intentionally… Most of the time… Either way he got his revenge." I rubbed the side of my face, trying not the feel the scar as I got lost in the old memorie. "Anyway, the point is, while my dad and I were going down to visit the ranch in the states, Mattie had to stay in the hospital where he met this French kid who… I actually have no idea what was wrong with him, hurt pride or something, but that kids mom learned that Mattie didn't get to go down for his birthday and the lady made him a cake and he's never lived it down. So," I continued, lifting up a couple of cards with Mathew's name on them. "Mattie's got about three cake recipes that he changes depending on how he feels. One's a simple white cake that we haven't eaten since we were three. The other is a recipe for some really good pancakes, and the other is this French cake that's really nice. We eat the pancakes a lot though, so we normally eat the french one."

Talking about my brother really lifted my spirit, and I couldn't help feeling a sense of fondness for my brother. I moved closer to Ivan, lifting the card up to show him. "Yea, if you look here," I trailed my finger under the line of French. "You can know what the cake is called. It's says 'Hon hon hon hon' and thats what you eat." I laughed inhumanly loud at my own joke. Ivan pulled the card from my hand and looked it over.

"No, it says 'Lemon sponge with maple and raspberry'. Theres nothing about 'Hons' at all."

I took the card from his pretentious fingers and wiped it off in an exaggerated gesture. "It was a joke, and in all reality we're probably going to be eating pancakes today anyway so…" I didn't know how I was going to end the sentence so I gave an exaggerated huff and poked a few cards. "These are the things I want to eat. They're so bad for you and full of calories and I want to eat them all." I pushed the cards over to him, and put the others away, lingering a bit on the French cake, wondering if my family decided to celebrate anyway.

"It's only a few easy things. I have no Idea what you have, and there's no way we could ever eat all the things I want."

"Oh, what happened to being able to eat my whole house?" Ivan asked, his sarcasm almost as thick as his accent. I slapped his arm playful and smoothed my hand over my stomach.

"You've seen me naked so many times now that you know i'm not fat. I'm tall, blonde, tan, and oh so perfect." I gave a sly smile in his direction and lifted my shirt up, watching as his purple eyes flickered over to me. " You see this here?" I asked, poking the small amount of pudge just below my belly button. "This isn't fat. It's actually a pocket full of gooey icing. You see, i'm a yummy Hot Bun and this here is where I keep the icing. I've been storing it up instead of dumping it all over my hot bod so that I could survive these awful Russian winters. No room for a house in here i'm afraid, but I think your house should be grateful that it can be around my god-of-a-self at all." I posed very deliberately, propping myself up against the counter and stretching my majestic limbs out, so that Ivan could see how heavily I truly was.

Ivan looked down at the cards and smiled innocently, his hair falling over his face in just a way to give it a sinister shadow. "How are you not gay?" He asked blatantly, putting the cards down and pulling a few more bowls from the cupboard.

I let out a small gasp in disbelief and let go of my shirt. "I am not gay! This is skinship! Skinship I tell you! If I was gay, then no one would continue the family line, and I'd have fabulous and not cool at all!"

"That's not correct. You don't have to be fabulous to like other men, besides it's probably best that your brother is the one to continue the family line anyway. Your children might be born desigesed."

"Not uh! My children will be the best most awesome hero children this world has ever seen! He can't even have kids because he's the gay one in the family you… You idiot! You remember that french kid from the cake story? Yeah, that's his boyfriend, and he's French as they come too."

"Oh, he's gay? And you're twins? I see, you can't possibly be gay if you have a gay twin."

"Oh shut it Ivan! Here," I tossed the cards into his many bowls. "Lets get started so that we can watch movies and shovel food into mouth hole!"

Ivan cocked his head to look at me, his eyes playful and his smile innocent. "That's not the only thing your mouth could be stuffed with."

I rolled my eyes very deliberately. "Ivan, I think you've been putting food into the wrong hole, because the only thing that comes out of your mouth is shit." I took a step back the moment the sentence came from my lips, and I think he was almost as surprised as I was. "T-that came out kinda wrong. Um..." I looked at the door, and then at Ivan who only lifted a brow. "I was gonna help, but I just remembered that I was never any good in the kitchen, so im just ganna get everything set up and you can work your magic in here! Make sure not to play with knifes, and if you spill salt throw a pinch over your left shoulder! Well, good luck and bye!" With that I was running through the kitchen doorway and slamming the door behind me.

I thought Ivan would be a shit cook, and my original plan was to watch over his shoulder like a majestic eagle and criticize his every move, but the smell coming from the kitchen was really nice, and I was willing to hold onto the hope of good food.

Picking out a movie on the other hand was proving to be difficult. Action was my goto, but action probably wouldn't send me home by the end of the night. I flipped through the movies that I could read, all of which I had seen hundreds of times, and thought about what would irritate him the most. We didn't have any movie about the cold war, and all the other war movies were about WW2. Scary movies were out of the question (For I have a small problem with clinging.), and a romance would probably give Ivan the wrong Idea about what I actually wanted from him. The only option was a comedy filled with humor he wouldn't understand, and the only movie I could think of that would probably fit the bill perfectly happened to be White Chicks.

After I decided on the movie I had no Idea what else we could do. I told him I wanted explosions, but that actually seemed a little unreasonable and I didn't know how we'd go about it. I didn't want to, but I swallowed my self pity masked as pride and decided to scrap my demand for fireworks. I looked about the room and wondered what we could do. This wasn't the ranch I was used to.

When Ivan finally opened the kitchen door and called me in, i'd decided on only three things for us to do. One would be the move, the other would be an intense video game session, and the last would be us painting pictures. How boring is that? It's all I could think of though, and unless Ivan had some magical Russian birthday tricks to pull out of his nose, it was going to be a pretty dull birthday.

So... I became an adult and a lot of things happened. Being an adult sucks guys. Also, my nephew got set on fire and as well as other stuff, but I hope nothing else awful happens and I can update more regularly. Please review and tell me how you liked it, maybe make a prediction. I don't know. I actually have a few weird plot twists that will pop up at some time to help the story along, so I hope that won't be too boring for you all. I also made a Russian friend and now know a lot more about the culture so Ivan's character will probably get better.

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