After the Games: The Careers
A collaboration by EMPG22HoPe and TwilightAftiel
Cupcakes
"Burn the house for all we care, just not the cupcakes."
"Marvel, get the cookbook!"
The district one Career Tribute gaped at Cato who looked like he was in a fit of a rush. He was running around the kitchen, frantically grabbing his Kiss the Killer apron and a sack of flour from the top cabinet. Marvel couldn't help but laugh at Cato and at the same time do little of the other's example, only less frantically and less crazily.
He had never seen Cato run like an Olympic athlete. To be honest, he wasn't that much fast when he was running away from the Tracker Jackers. Maybe it's just the fact that Cato was carrying Glimmer in the process that he was that slow. Marvel shook the thoughts away. No, he doesn't want to remember what happened in the arena, despite the fact that it was the only place where his friendship with Cato, Glimmer and Clove was tested.
Without another thought, Marvel took the cookbook from one of the drawers and started searching through it while putting on his apron that had paint splayed all over it in cursive, written, Kiss the Derp. Let's just say that Clove had personally re-designed it for Marvel.
"What cupcake recipe are we even going to bake?" Marvel asked Cato who was slowly bringing out a box of eggs from the fridge.
"Uh..." Cato thought absent mindly as he turned to grab a carton of milk from the fridge. "Can you search for a Red Velvet Cupcake recipe?"
Marvel moved the pages lazily while asking, "Reason out with me why we should bake Cupcakes for the girls. There's nothing special today, is it?"
Cato frowned at his best friend from the other side of the middle counter. "Nothing special? Do you even know what date it is today?"
"Hm, the 25th of May," Marvel replied before pondering over the date. Then, a shiver ran down his spine. Cato couldn't be joking, right? "It's the 74th Hunger Games Anniversary. Oh, that's just sane, Cato... really? We're baking cupcakes for the girls because of today?"
"Hey!" Cato retorted, causing Marvel to jump a bit. "May 25 is like our... friendship day or something!"
"And what witch told you that, Cato?" Marvel asked, laughing in the process before finally stopping at the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe page.
"Clove and Glimmer, those two witches - to be exact," Cato replied with a smirk. "Do we have to preheat the oven?"
"Yeah," Marvel nodded as Cato moved to the oven. "350 degrees."
Cato switched the temperature to 350 degrees before going back to the middle counter. "Hit me."
"Let's see..." Marvel clicked his tongue and took the cookbook with him before nearing Cato. He dropped the cookbook beside the ready ingredients then stated, "Two and a half cup of flour, half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, one teaspoon of baking soda..."
Cato began to grab a cup from the other counter behind him before scooping up a cup of flour from the sack and putting it in the mixing bowl. The two male Careers began to mix all the ingredients for the Red Velvet Cupcake which took them thirty minutes to do so due to the amount of ingredients in it.
"Alright, your turn bro," Cato said as he went to the kitchen sink and started washing all the sticky ingredients that stuck to his hand. "I'm sure that the Vanilla Cheese Cream Frosting is on page 53."
"Coming right up," Marvel turned the pages before finally arriving at the correct page. "Does Clove and Glimmer know we're baking for them?"
"Well, Glimmer does," Cato said with a shrug before taking a towel and damping his hands on it. "Glimmer was like... burn the house for all we care, just not the cupcakes."
"Wow," Marvel laughed upon hearing Glimmer's remark from Cato. "She'd rather want the cupcakes saved than the house. That's completely priceless of your Baby Doll, Cato."
Cato rolled his eyes before spatting, "Shut up, derp. Now go get the recipes while I recite it."
Marvel only chuckled before opening the fridge, waiting for Cato to recite the ingredients.
"One eight ounce package of cream cheese and one fourth cup of butter. Those two ingredients needs to be softened," Cato recited, nodding to Marvel who had begun mixing the ingredients on a new bowl. "Two table spoons of sour cream and pure vanilla extract. Then... a six ounce box of confectioner's sugar..."
"Isn't that too much confectioner's sugar?" Marvel asked before staring at the box of confectioner's sugar before him.
"You have no idea how big a pack we're serving," Cato shook his head with a laugh before moving to the mixing bowl where the ingredients of the cupcake lay mixed in it. He took a cupcake pan from the bottom cabinet of the middle counter. He moved farther to move to another cabinet where the cupcake cups were placed. He placed the cupcake cups on each circle before filling them in the cupcake batter.
Cato then moved to the oven and put the cupcake pan in it. He then turned to Marvel who had finished adding the sugar confectioners on the vanilla cream cheese frosting.
"How big a pack is it, then?" Marvel asked, completely confused. Cato only laughed. If only Marvel knew that the Male from District 2 was pertaining to Glimmer who loves cupcakes.
"You'll see," Cato grinned which only caused Marvel to arch an eyebrow at his best friend. Moments like this, Marvel would rather be obliged to punch Cato than to bake with him.
Marvel finished mixing the cream before asking, "How many minutes does it say for the cupcakes?"
"Um," Cato hummed as he turned a few of the pages back to reach the cupcake recipe. "About 20 to 25 minutes."
"That's not so long." Marvel said as he put the vanilla cheese cream in the fridge. He wiped his hands on the dish towel before asking, "Hey, wanna go training? I need to go practice my spear stance."
"Sure," Cato shrugged before the two Careers took off and went down to the basement which they have now made into a Gym for training. Growing up as Careers, even though they're already off the games; they still enjoy the company of weapons and the thought of killing. Well, minus the killing part. But you get the idea. And besides, as the two have mentioned to themselves quite a long time ago, "Gotta be fit for our ladies."
Little do they know that they weren't fit enough to handle a few cupcakes for their ladies.
An hour later...
"Marvel, do you smell something?" Cato asked as he sniffed the air upon slashing a dummy's head with his lethal sword.
Marvel did Cato's example of smelling the air before saying, "It smells like someone had farted," He grinned up to Cato before saying, "Keep your digestive system prioritized, man."
"Not that smell, you derp!" Cato spat before sniffing the air once more. "It smells like burnt..."
The two male Careers turned to look at each other before cursing and dropping their weapons. They both quickly ran upstairs and into the kitchen only to find black smoke filtrating the entire room. Marvel waved his hands around, trying to put the black smoke out while Cato had began running through the thick black smoke up to the oven.
Cato took hold of the oven's handle before opening it, causing more black smoke to escape the smoking appliance.
"We're so screwed, man." Cato said, coughing in the process. He prodded for his baking gloves a counter away from the oven before putting them on. He went to the oven and quickly took out the piping hot cupcake pan. Marvel instinctively closed the oven, relieved as the smoke finally drifted outside the kitchen and out of the open window.
Cato and Marvel stared at the result of their cupcakes. Instead of scarlet red, the cupcakes were crisp black.
"Well," Marvel sighed, shaking his head. "At least we still have the vanilla cream cheese?"
Cato turned to gape at his best friend. "Seriously?"
Marvel shrugged before staring at the burnt cupcakes. "You know that saying... YOLO? You only live once?"
"Yeah?" Cato asked. "What about it?"
"It so does not apply to baking," Marvel raised his hands up in surrender. Suddenly, the phone rang as Cato and Marvel looked at each other.
Marvel was the first to near it and click the answer button. They had put the phone on loud speaker so that both of them could hear the recipient.
"Derp, Cat," Clove's voice rang from the phone. Oh, how Clove loved calling the two boys in names that doesn't seem to connect to each. "We're coming home in an hour. You guys better not do something stupid like... burn the house or something. Glimmer and I are almost at the end of our little "shopping spree", so when we come home; the place should be spotless. And Cato, you better not touch my knives cause I'm subtracting a life from your nine cat lives."
"Clove!" Glimmer's chirpy voice resounded from a distant in the phone. "Look at these shoes! We have got to buy them! They would look gorgeous on you!"
"Not now, Glimmy-poo!" Clove teased. "I'm talking to the boys!"
"You are?" Glimmer asked as Cato and Marvel heard rustling. The two males guessed that Glimmer had snatched Clove's phone away from the short tribute. "Cato Cakes, you alright there?"
Cato laughed nervously. "I'm fine, baby doll."
"Ugh, you and Buttercup's name calling," Clove said, gagging in the process. "Disgusting!"
"Shut up, Clove!" Glimmer retorted at her best friend. "Anyway, we'll see you guys in an hour. Love you, Cato. And Marvel? Stay marvelous!"
"Y-You got it!" Marvel replied nervously.
"Glimmer, give me my phone, goddamn it!" Clove yelled as shuffling came from the phone. Soon, the sounds went dead as a double toot resounded through the object.
"We gotta start recooking this shit!" Marvel said frantically before the two male Careers began moving. Do you know those kind of athletes in the Olympics who sprint like the floor beneath them was just made of fluff? That's the kind of moving the two Careers had began doing.
Marvel accidentally and absent mindedly put the burnt cupcakes inside the freezer before sprinting back to grabbing the sack of flour in the top left cabinet. He and Cato moved with complete precision, not missing a single beat as they finished mixing the cupcake batter. They grabbed a new cupcake pan and started pouring them in carefully. Cato watched the cupcakes in the oven as Marvel cleaned half of the mess.
Twenty minutes later, Cato had began to clean up some of the mess while Marvel took charge in watching the cupcakes. As soon as the oven went ding, Marvel had opened the oven and put on his own baking gloves before taking the cupcake pan out.
Cato grabbed a toothpick and pricked on one of the cupcakes. As he lifted the toothpick, not a single cupcake batter stuck to it. He sighed and high fived with Marvel before leaving the cupcakes to cool. They ran upstairs to take baths so that they'd look presentable to the girls.
Thirty minutes passed and soon, Glimmer and Clove had arrived with humongous shopping bags. In accurate number, there were twenty bags. Ten for Glimmer and ten for Clove.
The two girls dropped their bags on the living room and soon plopped their selves on the sofa.
"Glimmer?" Clove asked, breathing in and out out of tiredness.
"Yes, Clove?" Glimmer asked sweetly before slowly propping her upper body up.
"Next time you drag me into a shoe shop," Clove groaned, propping her upper body up as well before glaring at Glimmer, "I will really slit your throat."
"I love you too, Clove," Glimmer laughed before taking off her glimmering golden stilettos. Clove only rolled her eyes before taking off her flats, quite thankful that Glimmer didn't force her to wear heels on a shopping spree because if she had... well, Clove would make sure Glimmer wouldn't wake up to see the light of the day.
"Derp, Cat!" Clove called before standing up, tying her hair into Japanese buns. "We're home you sexist pigs!"
Clove and Glimmer walked up to the kitchen barefoot and almost fainted from either tiredness or surprise. Splayed in the middle counter which was also their dining table were lovely red velvet cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting to top off the desirable sweet.
Cato and Marvel stood behind the bunch of cupcakes, grinning at the girls in the process.
"Welcome home," Cato remarked before walking up to Glimmer and wrapping an arm around her, kissing her in the process.
"It's got frosting and shit," Marvel nodded which caused Clove to laugh. Clove neared her derp before planting a durable kiss on Marvel's lips.
"I never would have thought the day would come that Marvel and Cat fish here could bake without burning something." Clove remarked with a smirk.
"What can we say?" Cato asked. "We were born hot bakers."
"Like Peeta the hopeless romantic?" Glimmer asked, laughing in the process.
Marvel shrugged. "Well, we got more swag than he does."
"Dig in!" Cato pronounced before the girls plopped on their seats to grab a piece of cupcake from the plate of it.
Glimmer took a bite, chewing the cupcake perfectly, "Oh my flipping... Guys, let me freaking love you."
"You already do," Cato told Glimmer before sitting beside her. "How is it?"
"Oh, mother of Panem," Clove said through bites of cupcake and turned to Marvel. "I gotta admit, this is flipping amazing. You guys know what this needs?" She asked before standing up and opening the freezer. "Ice Cream on top, yeah?"
The three other Careers nodded in agreement before Marvel and Cato helped their selves to eat their own cupcakes. Cato and Marvel never would have thought that their cupcake would be such a success. Who knew motivation could force people to do things?
Clove searched through the freezer, trying to look for the container of Cookies and Cream ice cream until she found a pan with black bread in it. Or so she thought it was bread.
"Hey, Derp and Cat?" Clove asked which caused Marvel and Cato to turn to the short Career who had her head stuck in the freezer. "Why is there a cupcake pan here with black... is that black velvet cupcake?"
Uh oh.
A/N: Guys. You have no idea how happy we are from the reviews we're receiving. Thank you guys so much! Your reviews mean a lot and it's quite a motivation to help us continue writing this story. Anyways, please don't forget to review this chapter and we hope you guys enjoyed it! We'll be setting up a quota. Maybe reach the story to 20 reviews. If we do receive so, we'll post the 4th chapter.
LONG LIVE THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE OF CATO AND GLIMMER AND CLOVE AND MARVEL.
- EMPG22HoPe and TwilightAftiel