Kiss the Cook

[Rachel Ascot]

"Right... oh, ok... right, Franklin, where's the fish slice?"

Franklin didn't answer, simply taking in the sight; Rachel in an apron. Nothing more needed to be said. She wasn't a bad cook, but she was the only person who's cooking could be described as 'punishing'. Mostly to her. Sweat coated her brow, which was, in a rare display, bent in concern. It was a comedy routine for Franklin. She had spent the last half-hour screaming and panicking, and even spent some of it crying. If you wanted to put Rachel in a moment of weakness, the best way to do it was ask her to cook.

"I was about to ask what you were cooking for this little goodwill dinner you're having, but now I'm guessing fish," he said, a wry smile upon his features. "What you doing with it?"

"Boiled potatoes, roast OH SHIT!" Rachel leapt back, a flame rising out of one of the pans, before receding again. She looked at the contents, and just decided to carry on. "Eh, they look ok. Boiled potatoes, roast vegetables and cheese, and a homemade Marie Rose sauce, served with prawns and crab."

"Riiiiiiiiiiiight... and the fish?"

"Fried halibAAAH!" Rachel leapt back as both pans on her comically undersized stove hissed loudly. "Halibut. Where's the fish slice?"

"You know, you could've hired a chef. He probably would've done it a lot better." Franklin explained, looking around her small kitchen; Rachel decided to keep her penthouse, which was fairly big but was clearly made more for the life of a nightclub owner than a queen. Small stove, big microwave, two kettles (Franklin always asked why) and one fridge for food and another just for drinks. The floor was covered in pizza boxes and honestly, it was clear Rachel only used the kitchen for keeping snacks, doing stir-fries and heating up takeaways she had not finished yet. "It would've saved you the trouble."

"Exactly," Rachel said proudly. "I want to make sure this goodwill mission goes well, and even if the meal doesn't come out great it shows character if I cook it myself. Now, again, where's the fish slice?"

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing~

Franklin and Rachel both looked to the door, and Franklin knew he had to act fast; Rachel was about to ask Franklin to take over while she answered the door, but Franklin knew that if there was one thing about the meal that wouldn't be forgettable, it would be the nightmare of Rachel tearfully screaming at the oven.

"I'LL GET IT!"

"NO! AS YOUR QUEEN, I COMMAND THAT- OH FUCK!"

It was much too late for Rachel to stop him, turning back to the dinner, with Franklin making great leaps and bounds to the door, leaving her to attend to whatever emergency had occurred. He got to the door of the house, and opened it widely to greet their guests.

"Chancellor and Mrs Reinhardt, you grace us with your presence." He said, bowing respectfully. "I should tell you that Queen Rachel is the cook tonight. Given these circumstances, while you may want to choose the drinks you will be having tonight from our impressive selection..."

Franklin could only grin widely at the interruption. The uncharacteristically shrill cry of "WHERE'S THE FISH SLICE?! HELP, OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, HELP! IT'S ALL GOING WRONG!" followed by what sounded like the usually joyous to a fault queen of Creta leaping onto the counter, curling up into a ball and sobbing loudly. Franklin's grin didn't diminish to this.

"... but it would be infinitely funnier if I accompanied you two to the kitchen to watch the spectacle of Rachel trying to cook." He finished his statement, hoping for what he would consider the correct answer. "You will not regret it."

[Hans L. Reinhardt]

This had to be a first for Hans. Sure, he'd been invited for dinners when he was a diplomat and even as Chancellor. But they were usually formal or semi-formal occasions. If invited into someone's home, it was spic and span and someone else was cooking. Brigitte had caused a stir one time by cooking an entire dinner herself for a couple politicians. So this was definitely an exciting thing that he and his wife had been invited by the Queen of Creta for an informal meal at her penthouse home. Warily, Hans had accepted.

Now he and Brigitte stood outside the door to the penthouse, listening to the doorbell echo in the apartment beyond. He heard some strangled yells and looked down at Brigitte. She was casually dressed in a floral sundress, her hair loosely tied up in a bun. Hans was similarly casual, in dark blue jeans and a green plaid button down. It felt weird, but Brigitte had insisted that he looked very nice in it.

The door opened to Franklin, Rachel's assistant-valet-whatever. Hans wasn't entirely sure what Franklin was, except that he was always with Rachel. "Chancellor and Mrs Reinhardt, you grace us with your presence. I should tell you that Queen Rachel is the cook tonight. Given these circumstances, while you may want to choose the drinks you will be having tonight from our impressive selection..." Franklin ushered them in as they heard Rachel screaming from the kitchen. "WHERE'S THE FISH SLICE?! HELP, OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, HELP! IT'S ALL GOING WRONG!" Hans frowned, somewhat puzzled and more than a little worried about his stomach. Brigitte's face showed the opposite, a mild concern on her face. "... but it would be infinitely funnier if I accompanied you two to the kitchen to watch the spectacle of Rachel trying to cook. You will not regret it."

Hans managed a rather undignified snort and chuckle. The woman who had dared use a flamethrower during a national crisis was having her comeuppance in the form of dinner. Most amusing. The chuckle stopped abruptly as a tiny hand smacked his arm sharply. “Viky, really!” Brigitte huffed and went into the kitchen. Hans shook his head and turned to Franklin, offering his hand for a firm handshake. “Good to see you again, Franklin.”

Brigitte continued into the kitchen, clucking like a mother hen. She rubbed her hand gently on Rachel's back for a moment, shushing her. “Come now, dearie. It'll be all right.” As Brigitte continued to calm and encourage the young queen to remove herself from her counter-like perch, Brigitte went to work on the stove. She effectively turned the heat down on various objects, helped things to simmer and generally calmed the calamity. She then turned to Rachel with a bright smile. “Much better, Majesty. Let's see if we can't get this finished together, hm?”

[Rachel Ascot]

Franklin was glad that Hans, at least, could see the humour in the situation. Rachel cooking was a hilarity worth sharing. Brigitte, for whatever reason, didn't see the funny side, scolding her husband and disappearing into the kitchen. Franklin sighed woefully; there was the dinner's entertainment gone.

“Good to see you again, Franklin,” said the Chancellor, offering his hand forward. Franklin took it, giving it a firm but friendly shake.

"Likewise, Chancellor," he replied, before looking back to the door that led to the kitchen. "See, that's how you get Rachel to behave. Any insult you throw her, any blows you inflict on her, any situation you put her in, she'll smile back, bounce back, and hit you ten times harder. However, if you just stick a stove in front of her, she becomes a shivering wreck and she'll do anything you tell her to." Then the humour in the bouncer's eyes died a little, as he looked away from the Chancellor. The look in his eyes was now one of concern.

"It's odd, given just how much she puts herself through and shakes it off. Not to insult the Cretan parliament or diminish your own similar duties, Chancellor, but Rachel's the only person who is actually running Creta at this point; the MPs are more interested in fighting with each other to keep her on the throne or get her off now that Dietrich's back, and I don't even know what he's doing. Yet she's the one running around, managing Creta right down to the paperwork, and going abroad on diplomatic talks. And she refuses to let anyone else run her nightclub, so there's that to add to the list, and she's learning to take care of her new elephant. Anyone else might burn out and crack under the pressure, but she just breezes through it like it was nothing. It's just odd that of all the things to make her break down, it's the cooking. She's an extremely clever girl, Chancellor, despite her... quirks, shall we say?" It was then that Franklin looked to a small framed photo hanging on the wall. A picture from her childhood, the young Rachel looking no more or less vibrant than her older self, and behind her the ideal of a loving mother as she held an even younger child in her arms. But the figure that stood out was the one who wasn't there; several ink scribbles drawn onto the photo obscure his face entirely, with the only indicator of his identity being the word "cock" written in Rachel's handwriting, an arrow pointing to the man.

"She'd despise the comparison, and again not to insult you, but the only person I've met who was half as smart as her was her dad."

-

In the kitchen, Rachel certainly was not appearing to be the clever girl Franklin described. Curled up into a ball on the counter in her undersized kitchen, head pressed into her knees as she wept. In front of her, the various foodstuffs violently crackled, not yet burnt but certainly on the way. And then, out of nowhere, came some angel. “Come now, dearie. It'll be all right.” Rachel raised her eyes, red with tears as Brigitte simply flew in, her hands flying across the knobs on the oven, all the heat dying as Rachel placed her feet onto the ground. The elder woman turned to her and smiled warmly. “Much better, Majesty. Let's see if we can't get this finished together, hm?”

"Thank you, Brigitte," Rachel said on instinct, then shook her head. "Though don't be putting yourself out of your way on my account, I didn't invite you and Hans over so I could be a burden." The usually loud and proud voice was considerably shakier and softer as she peered over the pan's lip cautiously. "The halibut's fine, at least, though I can't for the life of me work out where the fish slice is," she murmured, before opening up the nearest drawer and peering in. It was fairly obvious that Rachel hardly ever cooked just from the contents of the drawer alone; a few knives, forks and spoons, just one tablespoon and, bafflingly, a pencil. "Sorry, I'm more of a takeaway girl, myself. If it's not jacket potatoes, sandwiches or stir fry, I struggle," she shyly admitted. It was really weird; Brigitte looked and sounded like every single mother who had ever lived rolled into one. With the floral dress and the hair in a bun, she looked like she had stepped right out of a movie, and Rachel stood by, her hair frazzled with stress, her eyes red, her shirt with more than one stain of tomato sauce on it. If one were to have to guess which one was a queen, Rachel wouldn't be the first choice.

A loud thunderous boom erupted from outside, though Rachel didn't put out at all, simply bending down to look into the oven. "Sorry if Samson startled you, he's likes to stomp around outside my house when he isn't sleeping. The vegetables look done." The queen stood back up, turning the oven down so it'd remain at the same heat while the rest of the food was finished. "But yeah, I don't usually cook but I thought I'd try to make the effort; I know that one of my jokes didn't go down so well with Hans last time we met, so I hoped that a little gesture might go a long way and patch things up a bit."

"She'd despise the comparison, and again not to insult you, but the only person I've met who was half as smart as her was her dad."

Rachel didn't move, but the friendliness that she spoke to Brigitte with vanished in a flash, as if the lights had gone off and the summer breeze was replaced with a winter howl. She didn't have to look back, but just stared out of the window. "I hate it when people mention Dad." She said finally, before smiling to Brigitte, the smile seemingly to bring all the light and warmth back into the world. "I'll just quickly pour the drinks; that's something that actually is in this kitchen, at least." She then looked around the kitchen, the bounce returning to her step as she did. She opened one of the cupboards, and pulled out a bottle of red wine.

One of forty. In that cupboard.

"See, government, the club, it's all good and important, but if I may say, Brigitte, if there's one thing I pride myself on its the drinks selection," she proudly boasted, pointing to each cupboard in turn. "I've been collecting drinks since I was 15 and it's a collection I'm proud of. This is just the stuff I drink regularly, the basement's got stuff I just got for show." She then looked to the bottle in her hand and rattled off information that she memorised by heart. "2003 Venu; the Dublith based company can trace its roots back to 1201 AD, Albert Rochedacht trying his hand at red wine after red grapes were brought over from Rouenian. They had trouble growing them in Amestris before that time and even now Venu can't shake the stigma of a red wine based company in a country that drinks ales and white wine more than anything else. It's rare to find good Amestrian wine, but when you do, it's truly special." She grinned happily to Brigitte, feeling more in her element. "I'll pour some for you and Hans, and if you don't like it then there's plenty of other choices."

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