Anne felt well and truly blessed. As full as her heart had been at the prospect of being able to give her son a better life in Atlantis, away from the king and within easy access of his actual father, it was a beautiful thing to see that those efforts had been successful. Tristan was a dream. He was polite and compassionate, but his own man. Anne knew royalty -- it’s all she’d known up until her arrival on the island. Tristan was regal, but he did not put on an air that made him untouchable. It was such an overwhelming relief to see him so well-adjusted and normal.
It was also beyond adorable to see her boys together -- her brain had largely split the two into a pair of sons, rather than trying to muddle through the odd timeline that came from Tristan and Louis being the same human on a technical level.
Anne had changed clothing into something a little more comfortable, and was tying an apron around her waist as she re-entered the kitchen, the happy chattering of Louis meeting her from where he sat on the floor of the connected living room. “Alright, I think I’m ready if you are,” she said, grinning. “What are we making, Monsieur Chef?”
The first few days of Tristan seeing his parents so young had been an adjustment, that was for damn sure. But the feeling of weirdness had mostly faded, like it usually did in Atlantis. Now he just slipped easily enough into doing things he would’ve done at home without batting an eye.
“Well, there’s a cookie exchange, so I thought we could do something for that. Only, you know, make enough that we can eat a bunch of them.” He smiled and put on his own apron. Porthos had loaned it to him and it said Mr. Good Lookin’ Is Cookin’, which would be embarrassing if it didn’t just make him laugh. Pulling out a few pieces of paper from his back pocket, he unfolded them and laid them out on the counter for his mom to peruse.
“Couple different options.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I, uh...I mean, you’re fond of snickerdoodles so I’d suggest that one, but I don’t want to pressure future crap on you.”
Anne had been practicing her cooking since she arrived -- she’d always enjoyed it at home, when she had a chance to do so, but her skillset was unsurprisingly limited. In Atlantis, she had options for learning, and it had proven to be one of those areas that she’d really come to enjoy.
“No, no, they sound perfect. Let’s make them,” she said, grinning. “You take the lead, Mr. Good Lookin’.” She made her way to the refrigerator, pulling those ingredients as they were listed on the recipe sheet.
Rolling his eyes, Tristan laughed and moved to the back of bag of dry ingredients he’d brought over. He hadn’t wanted to clear her pantry out, even if he was pretty sure she didn’t know much about cooking still at this point. She might’ve learned some things for his sake. His gaze shifted to baby Louis and then back to his mother.
“Okay, so I don’t know how much baking you’ve done since you got here.” His smile stretched crookedly and uncertain. “If I say preheat the oven to three hundred and twenty-five degrees, you say…?”
“I’ve done very little,” she admitted, laughing. “And only with very specific instruction.” At the question, though, her face lit up. “I know that one! I turn this little knob and press this button!” She did exactly that, gesturing to the screen on the oven where the temperature was starting out. “Step one, accomplished!
Tristan chuckled and held up a hand for a high-five. Luckily he recognized the stupidity of that half way through the motion and ended with his hand pointed at the big bowl he’d already set aside.
“Okay, so the best part of this recipe is that it’s a practically an all-in-one. Just dump in all the wet ingredients on the recipe first anddd…” He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked around. “Fuck. I didn’t even think to ask if you guys had a hand mixer.” He held out his hand, mimicking pulling the trigger. “Have you seen anybody using a gun kind of thing with metal whisks sticking out of it?”
It’s just as well that he caught himself, as Anne hadn’t actually had enough experience with high fives to understand them well and it would’ve been a somewhat awkward moment.
“That really is easy,” she commented, then looked at him curiously as he cursed and tried to describe the item. “Is it… this?” she said, and pulled out the object in question, though the whisks were missing. “I think its little metal pieces are in that drawer.”
“Perfect,” Tristan smiled and dug out the whisk attachments. Taking the mixer from her, he popped the attachments into place and then handed it back over. “I’m going to let you do the fun part. Okay…because I love you, I should admit, it’s only fun for like a minute and then it’s just work, but still!” He held up his hands and laughed. Pouring the ingredients into the bowl didn’t take long. The number of times he’d made these over the years – sometimes with her, sometimes just to make her smile – was pretty high.
“Okay, just plug that in there.” He pointed to the wall. “Then put the metal parts down into the bowl and move the switch to where it says ‘low’.”
At his admission, Anne laughed, reaching to tap his nose affectionately. He wouldn’t be Aramis’ son if there wasn’t a bit of mischief in him. She watched him put the ingredients into the bowl, because this very definitely was something she wanted to learn while enjoying the quality time with her son. Especially since this was apparently something important to them in his time.
She plugged the mixer in as instructed, and followed his guidance as best she could -- except for the fact that she’d never used this device before, and overshot the low setting rather completely. Set to ‘high’ instead, the ingredients rather quickly splattered all over the bowl, the counter, the cabinets, and the pair of them. Stunned silent, she looked over at him, a piece of cookie batter clinging to her cheek and peppering her hair. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”
Maybe if Tristan hadn’t been beaming about making his mom laugh, he might’ve seen this coming. With his eyes closed to protect against the mixture, he swiped a hand over his mouth first so he could laugh.
“Wow, you know. I was really young, but I think I just got crazy déjà vu.” More swiping and laughing and Tristan had his eyes free to blink open. He grinned. “Meaning I’m pretty sure that’s how this went down the first time so don’t feel bad.” The idea that he might be somehow ruining his own childhood moments surprised him into stillness for a second and then he started cleaning up the mess. “Maybe just, uh, pretend you don’t know the dangers when it comes to that, huh?”
Anne was certainly not above laughing at herself, and his response brought the giggles from her as well. It was always such a refreshing feeling, having this sort of casual amusement. All her life, Anne had been largely surrounded by those who stepped on eggshells. If she made a mistake, she had people quick to step in and resolve it. This was different. She preferred this.
“I can definitely do that,” she said, reaching to rub some batter from his cheek with her hand, still grinning. “I hope there’s still enough in the bowl. We’ll be cleaning the rest of this for a good long while.”
They’d talked over the years about how nice it was to be fallible here. To learn and grow. Tristan could see that look in her eyes now and he smiled warmer because of it. “I think we’ll manage just fine. We always do.” That said, he still reached for the mixer with mock tentativeness and a joking wrinkle of his nose. “But I’m going to take this off your hands. Just to be safe.”
“That’s a very good idea,” she said, grinning, and handed him the mixer willingly. “Alright, my darling. What’s next?”