Easy Bake Oven [Clyde]

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

The autumn semester was starting tomorrow and Breeze was very excited. Anyone that knew Breeze knew that he was a nerd. A major nerd. He loved school and books. He thrived in the academic world. On the other hand, it was quite the opposite when it came to nearly every other aspect of his life. And it wasn't an exaggeration.  To make it worse? Breeze didn't really recognize his own shortcomings. It was probably why the few friends he did have recognized the need to supervise him when doing... most everything. So, when he'd told Clyde that he wanted to make pizza, Breeze didn't understand Clyde's hesitation. He knew what he was doing! Breeze had seen one of those videos and thought it looked easy enough. Plus the video had had a ton of views! So, after reassuring Clyde that he knew what he was doing, Clyde had relented. 

Of course, living in the dorms meant that Breeze didn't have a kitchen that you could make a pizza in. Clyde on the other hand did. Breeze had done the grocery shopping, buying what they'd  seen in the video, before heading over to Clyde's. It sure took a lot to make pizza didn't it? Breeze didn't really understand the cauliflower, but who was Breeze to not follow the instructions exactly? Had Clyde gotten a loot at the ingredients he might have realized sooner that Breeze didn't know how to cook. Alas, Clyde hadn't questioned it after Breeze proudly announced he'd done research.

Thankfully, Breeze had been so proud of his research that, after arriving at Clyde's, he'd shared the link to the video (mostly to get Clyde's praise after Clyde realized Breeze did know what he was doing), and gotten to work in the kitchen.

Clyde didn't have a mixer, but Breeze wasn't concerned. A knife was the same thing, right? It'd work just fine. Though, now that he was staring at the knife block.... What knife did he use? WEll, surely the biggest one would work best, right? Why did people have so many different knives anyway?

A few moments later and Breeze was staring down at his hand and the very fresh cut on one of his fingers. "Oh..." he blinked a few times, trying to process what had just happened. 

[Deleted]

Clyde lived his life in the shadows. He hunted criminals for other criminals more often than not. The world that he lived was morally gray at best. Hearing that Breeze wanted to come over and make pizza, the man was a bit aprehensive. Did the kid even know how to cook. They had to know the basics right? Having two mothers, they had to learn something. They semed confident enough, and Clyde didn't know other wise. That didn't mean that he wouldn't be on his toes. Knives were sharp, fires happened. And book smarts didn't do much to help with those situations.

But, Clyde had the nearst usable kitchen to Breeze. And the kid seemed so proud of the "research" that they had done. That thought didn't comfort the older man. Breeze did all the shopping for it so how could he say no.

By this point, the fact was that they were coming over didn't change anything. So, as he often did when Breeze was coming around, Clyde hid his laptop in the hidden area in his flat before hearing the knock on the door. Letting the kid in Clyde couldn't help but notice how....much, Breeze had bought. As if to assure him, they shared the link of the video. Taking a moment to look at the video, the Breeze took the chance to make their way into small galley kitchen.

Just getting a short glimps of the click bating, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous video, Clyde's heart skipped a beat when he heard a knife being pulled out of the block, and then the voice of the only person in the kitchen. Quickly setting the phone down, Clyde rushed into the small kitchen to see the scene infront of him. Clyde hurried over, displacing the extra sharp knife from the reach of the kid with the bleading finger. "You have to be careful when using a knife, Breeze." He said, pulling the cut hand towards him, he stated, "Let me see how bad it is." As he observed the luckily clean cut. "Not that bad. Your lucky. Go to the sink and run it your finger under some water ya Nyaff."

With that instructions, he went pulled a first aid box from a shelf, and brought it over to the counter. Pulling out what he will need he walked back over to Breeze.

OOC:Translation: Nyaff-irritating person

@breeze

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

Breeze had never actually cooked before this moment, though they hadn't told Clyde this. Nor had they used a knife past the typical steak or something... Though they hadn't eaten it too much because their mom was vegan. It was why they'd chosen the recipe they'd found. It'd looked like something their mom would make. They didn't really know how to pick recipes so they'd just gone with something that looked familiar.

Breeze was blinking down at the cut, still confused how he'd managed to cut himself when he heard Clyde behind him. He tilted his head to look at the taller and older man, not really paying attention as he still held the knife in one hand. Clyde, thankfully, was smart enough to remove the knife and place it very far out of reach. Breeze looked down at his hand, still processing. "I thought I was being careful." he stated, though there was a new questioning tone to his voice, the tone he often took when studying something new and trying to comprehend it. He didn't struggle as Clyde took his hand, examining the cut, just twisting his body so that Clyde could get a good look as he stared at the ingredients. "I don't understand," he muttered softly. He'd been following what, in his mind, made logical sense.

The next advice, of run it under water, made even less sense than the issue of how he'd cut himself. "Why?" he blurted out, head tilted a little to the side as he looked at Clyde with an equally puzzled look.

[Deleted]

Had Clyde known that Breeze had never cooked before, He would have protested, or at least had a back up plan ready to go. A cut so soon didn't encourage any confidence. Clyde learned knife skills at a younger age, so the possibility of an adult not knowing any didn't cross his mind. "How'd you even manage that? Don't ya realize that that knives are sharp, eejit." True, his knives were possibly sharper than the average household's cutlery. But didn't anyone reach Breeze to be careful around knives.

Holding Breeze's hand, and examining the cut the kid seemed completely oblivious as usual. As expected, Breeze had a very specialized knowledge set. What they knew, then knew verry well. But what they didn't know, they were clueless to. After examining the cut, he instructed to run the cut under water. After placing the first aid box on the counter, he went back to the kid. Letting out a deep sigh, Clyde moved around Breeze. Standing behind them and waking them over to the sink, taking the hand and letting some tepid water. With one hand holding the cut under the water, the other wrapped around the smaller body. He took another deep breath, trying to speak calmly. "Running it under water will help flush out anything that may have gotten in it via the knife."

As he watched the cut flush out for a bit, he finally pulled the cut away from the water, let it run as he then walked the kid out of the kitchen, and placing Breeze on one of the stools.

@breeze

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

Breeze wouldn't have considered himself sheltered. He'd had a very adventurous childhood being raised in Egypt and his father's dig sites. But he was, in fact, very sheltered. He'd simply always focused on only his interests and ignored everything else. His stepmom had always loved cooking, so he'd never thought about cooking himself, though being such a book person he'd never considered it was hard either. It was straightforward wasn't it? "The cauliflower rolled. If it was sharp shouldn't it have just cut through it?" At least how he'd managed to cut himself was making a bit more sense now... Proper and basic knife safety was Breeze's problem. Or rather, a lack thereof. "I had to use the proper force to cut the cauliflower, but I miscalculated." Clearly.

Breeze definitely did not understand the purpose of running the cut under water. Biology, at least modern biology, was not a subject they'd spent much time studying. THey much preferred organisms long since dead and fossilized. Biology wasn't as much of a factor anymore.

Breeze, of course, was strangely used to being manhandled by Clyde. Clyde wasn't aggressive about it, but he was still bigger than Breeze and easily able to move Breeze around without much issue, though it wasn't like Breeze was trying to resist either. Breeze was very much lost in his own thoughts as Clyde steered him to the sink and suck the cut finger under the faucet. It stung the moment the water touched the cut, making Breeze hiss just a little in protest, but staying still. "But there wasn't anything on the knife," Breeze answered, still slightly confused. It was as Clyde was walking Breeze out of the kitchen, that Breeze spoke again. Not really realizing that he was being lead out of the kitchen to begin with. "Did you use the knife earlier? Is that what needed to be flushed out? It was in the knifeblock, so I thought it was clean." Because, clearly, that was the only reasonable explanation of what would need to be flushed out.

[Deleted]

The what just rolled. how could it just....wait. Now the picture was starting to come into focus. Then Breeze mentioned force. Clyde had to pause, holding his breath, and the countless number of colorful words that thrived to escape his mouth. While the man didn't have much of a filter, he tried to be better when spending time with Breeze. Especially after teaching the kid some rather crude words that their mothers wouldn't be too pleased to hear their baby say. "You....miss....that's not....no." Clyde nearly growled before talking a few calming breaths.

Running the cut under water was something that he learned in the back alley life that he lived in. He was taught to care for his own wounds as long as they weren't too serious. If they were serious, you went to a back alley healer.

Holding Breeze and making the smaller frame go where he wanted them to go was so natural by this point. Clyde ignored the hiss of pain. He knew all too well how painful it could be, but pain was necessary in this situation. Luckily they stayed still as the water cleaned the cut. Breeze continued some sort of logical protest that nothing was on the knife. "Doesn't matter if you didn't see anything" He coldly stated as he held them to him. Clyde's main focus was ensuring that there was as little chance for an infection as possible. And, well, from what Breeze stated previously, the cauliflower rolled away the first time. Clyde was also completely positive that Breeze didn't wash the vegetable.

Walking the child out of the kitchen, it seemed as though Breeze couldn't compute what was happening. Clyde sat breeze down, and crouched down so that he met the eyes of Breeze. "Your verry intelligent, but Breezee, your knowledge of fossils, is far from knife safety. Will you trust that I know more about this one thing?" Well he knew more than one thing. Clyde was very street smart, the exact opposite of Breeze. But he would never tell the innocent little flower in front of him about what he did for a living, or how he grew up. After a moment, Clyde then moved to placing ointment and bandaging the injured finger.

@breeze

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

Breeze was now trying to think back to their childhood and watching their mothers cook, trying to think of how they'd cooked and cut things. But, alas, nothing came to mind. Breeze memory, as those who knew him knew, was very selective. He could completely discard information he didn't find important from his mind, and only retain the information he did want. Of course, he knew he'd watched them cook, but he couldn't really recall what they'd done. Then, when he'd been with his father they'd mostly done take out or quick meals. So, well, I guess you could say Breeze was microwave savvy. But that was about it. Regarding this incident he'd assume that cauliflower, being a vegetable, would be easy to cut. How was he supposed to know the knife wasn't sharp enough to cut it? Though... it had cut him. So perhaps the sharpness really wasn't the problem.

Breeze, still lost in this vortex of thoughts, let Clyde do as he wanted, not really paying attention or fighting it. He was, quite literally, lost in thought. It was a very normal state for him. He just lost complete focus on reality as he focused on the thoughts swirling around in his head, not really hearing or registering things going on around him. Somehow he did managed a quiet "hm" after Clyde's scolding, as he'd formed the habit of mumbling while deep in thought to seem like he was listening. Those who knew him though, like Clyde, would know that Breeze definitely hadn't heard a word though.

Breeze only came out of his thoughts when he was pushed into a seat and Clyde was suddenly eye level and forcing eye contact. Immediately it made Breeze feel squirmy. He always got a little squirmy when he had to make eye contact like this. He didn't look away though. "You are very knowledgeable in knife safety," Breeze immediately responded. Of course, Breeze didn't know Clyde's occupation so how exactly did Breeze come to that conclusion? Well... Maybe it was the number of knives Clyde owned. "What did I do wrong?" He asked blatantly as Clyde wrapped the finger. He wasn't talking about in general, he meant his technique with the knife. While he didn't have much interest in knife skills and cooking too much, he was an intellect that didn't like when he was wrong. As such, he wanted to know what the right answer was.

[Deleted]

Clyde focused on the cut that the kid managed to get. It was a miracle that it wasn't worse. Especially with how the kid tried to slice the round vegetable. Breeze was lucky. Though Clyde doubted that the kid would recognize that. Now that the damage had been done, it was important to clean and then bandage the cut before Clyde would take a look at the mess of whatever Breeze brought. Clyde continued to speak, though after a subtle "hm" he wasn't so sure that the kid heard anything. In fact, knowing Breeze, Clyde was very sure that they hadn't heard a thing. Well, perhaps he could try getting some simple knife safety lessons later. But if it wasn't something Breeze wanted to learn, then there was no way that they would learn it.

There were a lot of things that Clyde didn't tell Breeze. His occupation, back story and associates all fell under that category. Breeze was smart and could be observant. Clyde had a lot of knives, and all the knives that he kept were extremally sharp. He had a number of other weapons as well, but those were locked away. Knives made sense that they were in the kitchen, though there were plenty of hidden things that he was sure that Breeze never found. Clyde knew that Breeze didn't like eye contact, but this was important. He smiled as the kid stated that Clyde was knowledgably with knife safety. That was as good as it was going to get.

Bandaging the finger was his first priority, but it seemed as though Breeze had moved past that, asking what had gone wrong. Clyde's eyes were on the kids finger while he thought. At the question, he glanced up again. "You really wanna know" He stated, as he finished the bandage. He stood up, eyeing over the young adult in front of him. Right, Breeze was an adult.

@breeze

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

It seemed acknowledging Clyde's knife skills was the right choice, as he'd flashed a smile. It brought just the smallest in return from Breeze, though Breeze was still very aware he was "in trouble", and didn't push his luck. His social skills might be extremely poor and fumbling at times, but he at least knew when to keep his mouth shut after being scolded. It was better to take a step back and assess the situation before getting too confident.

Did Breeze really want to know? Well, yes, to a degree. He didn't actually think he would cook often, or have much of a desire to. But failure due to his own mistakes needed to be sorted. He'd thought he'd done adequate research to handle the task at hand and clearly he hadn't. So what had he missed in his research? For some reason the idea that it was poor research material mixed with his own poor hand-eye coordination seemed to escape him. He was an intellect to a fault, after all. Practical knowledge and experience always seemed to elude him. As the bandage was finished and Clyde stood, Breeze nodded. "Yes," he answered quite firmly. "Failure must be taken into consideration and assessed. If you can't find the flaw, you can't correct it and repeats are inevitable." Quite the bookworm answer, but very stereotypical of Breeze. He seemed to think that cooking was just like a science experiment. You tried again with only a slight adjustment, expecting a different result.

[Deleted]

Sometimes it was difficult to remember that Breeze was no longer a child. When they had met, it had seemed as though their ages were leaps and bounds from each other. He was a fresh adult and Breeze was simply an eager child. Now, years later, Breeze was no longer child. Though at times it was easier to treat them like a child. Once the finger was taken care of, he inquired if Breeze wanted to learn more about what had gone wrong.

It was true that Breeze was an intellect through and through. They fit into the world of academia and study much better than the world that Clyde knew to be real. With a grin he ruffled Breeze's hair before entering the kitchen. The way that it set up, the one with no knife skills could sit at the counter and look in while Clyde could take control of the small kitchen. Grabbing a new knife, and new cutting board, he pulled over the cauliflower that had started all of this. Placing everything so that Breeze could watch he started his explanation. "You have to hold it down, but in a way that your fingers aren't in the way." He placed his non dominate hand on the round white object, tucking his fingers in. Using the knife he held in his hand, his thumb and forefinger on the blade, the rest of his fingers holding the handle. He then cut the vegetable masterfully in half. He tried his best to avoid thinking about what else the vegetable reminded him of, and how easily his sharp knives could deconstruct many things with ease.

Realizing that there would undoubtably be more cutting involved he looked back up at Breeze "How about you help with the cooking instructions, and I'll do the work." After what had just happened, he was sure that he didn't want the kid in his kitchen for a while.

@breeze

[Deleted]

Breeze's pronouns are he/him in this thread
September 5, 2027
@clyde

Clyde didn't answer immediately, instead ruffling his hair like he was a child and moving to the kitchen. Breeze made a face, one that immediately seemed to voice his displeasure at being treated like a child (though lets be honest, he did act like it sometimes.). None-the-less he got up to follow Clyde, finally looking down at his hand to examine the bandage on the cut. Clyde moved about in a way that made it clear Breeze should stay on the other side of the island, so that Clyde could demonstrate. Breeze took a seat in one of the bar chairs and leaned toward, watching with intense intent as Clyde demonstrated.

Again, Breeze was frowning as he watched, his emotions written all over his face like an open book. It really couldn't be that simple. Hadn't he held it like that (He hadn't)? Why had Clyde succeeded when he didn't? There had to be more to it. There was that typical "hm" in response, though this time it was more in slight defiance as he seemed to still be in a heated debate in his mind on how easy Clyde had made it look. Finally though, the debate seemed to end. "I suppose using a knife is harder then I thought," he admitted with what could only be described as a child being forced to apologize when they didn't want to.

Clyde was probably right at overing to do the work while Breeze did the instructions. Immediately Breeze pulled out his phone and pulled up the extremely detailed notes he'd taken while watching the video. "The video said to 'steam' the cauliflower. Then mix with mozzarella, Parmesan, oregano, salt, garlic powder and eggs." And that, no doubt was why Breeze had had a number of groceries when they'd arrived. This definitely wasn't a recipe for a beginner that didn't even know how to boil an egg.

[Deleted]

To say that Clyde was an expert in the use of knives, would be an understatement. Though he was far from a chef, he still knew how to cook. He cut through what Breeze had failed so fantastically at. As he watched the sharp knife flawlessly cut, he could fee the intense Breeze watching his every move. This was not an unfamiliar feeling. Knowing the younger man was studying Clyde's moves. Or trying to figure out why something was easy for the hit man, but the student couldn't manage. Seemed the kid finally came to the correct conclusion. Using knives was harder that original thought. Clyde took a moment to stop and look up, giving a chuckle. "You think. I've had years of practice. Maybe later, I'll help you with some practice." He said smiling at the apology.

The idea to split the work seemed to be accepted with out any issue. Thank goodness. At that, Clyde finished cutting the cauliflower like it was softened butter, and moved to continue following the instructions, getting amounts when necessary. This recipe wasn't for a novice, but he could understand why Breeze had chosen it.

In time, the first portion of the recipe was completed. And, best part, there were no additional casualties.

@breeze