25 Days of Christmas (With The Agency)

Day 10 | Golden Boy Bakes a Golden Cake

Day 10: Midas attempts to make a cake from scratch at two in the morning

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He accidentally turned half of the objects in his room gold again, which usually happened when he couldn't sleep. Tonight was, in fact, one of those nights. The gold on his hands was slowly making its way up his arms, which indicated something was different tonight. His powers never affected him like this; not recently, at least. Usually, he had some self-control when things got bad, but tonight showed him that he couldn't control it.

So far, Midas has turned his alarm clock, half of his wardrobe, a corner of his room, and parts of his desk to gold, which was less than he expected, but things he will have to fix nonetheless. He almost hit himself on the head but stopped short as to not hurt himself.

Suddenly, he had an idea. An absolutely terrible idea, but one that didn't seem as terrible at almost two in the morning. Usually, he would look up this stuff on his computer, but unfortunately, he also managed to turn that to gold. Awesome. Just what he needed at this time.

"I've baked a cake enough time to know what I'm doing," He reassured himself, brushing his dark, messy hair off of his face. He's seen plenty of cooking shows and those people looked like they knew what they were doing, so why would he have a problem with making a cake from scratch. If they can do it, why can't he?

Unlike them, Midas hasn't had years of experience and training, and he usually forgot that he baked something when he woke up in the morning, so any hope of remembering what he did was utterly gone by breakfast time.

And with that, he quietly made his way to the kitchen, his strange sense of confidence shutting out any doubts he had. He walked downstairs slowly, making sure he didn't accidentally turn anything to gold. Luckily for him, he didn't have to worry about the baking utensils turning to gold since Jules managed to make gold-resistant tools, much to everyone's satisfaction (they hated waking up to find random forks and spoons covered in a layer of gold).

Midas quickly made a mental note to thank her again while pulling out the tools he (probably) needed and preheating the oven. He obviously needed two bowls (to separate the wet and dry ingredients), a whisk, measuring cups. a cake pan, and...

He shrugged, unsure if he needed anything else, and continued onto the ingredients. He opened the fridge and just... stared for a minute, unsure of what he needed,

"What do you need to make a cake..?" He muttered to himself, watching a gold handprint slowly form on the fridge door, "Eggs... butter... milk..?" He grabbed everything he (probably) needed, quickly setting them on the island. Once the door was closed, his eyes slowly set onto the golden handprint-turned-blob mark, wincing slightly at his mistake.

He quickly (and inaccurately) measured and threw the ingredients he grabbed into the smaller bowl, hoping for the best. He haphazardly mixed everything, trying to think about the dry ingredients that needed to be added.

"Flour... sugar," He stopped mixing and walked to the cabinets, "Salt... and baking powder? No. Yes?" He grabbed it anyway and threw those ingredients on the counter, watching the little container of baking powder turn to gold. Whoops. "Guess I can't use that then."

He did the same thing as the wet ingredients, inaccurately measuring everything and mixing everything with a lack of self-control. There was less mixing this time because everything went together easily, but that didn't prepare him for combining both the wet and dry ingredients.

It took longer than usual for them to combine (due to earlier inaccurate measurements and lack of responsibility), but eventually, it came together in a mess of cake batter and a wave of tiredness.

He poured it into the ungreased cake pan (the batter was practically overflowing), shoved it into the preheated oven, (accidentally) set the timer for way longer than needed, and finally, passed out on the kitchen couch.

The next time he woke up was to the smell of smoke and a small flickering light coming from inside the oven. It didn't register in his mind at first, but then it hit him.

The oven was on fire.

Midas shot up from the couch, instant panic setting in. What should he do? What should I do?

He turned the oven off, hoping it would go away by itself while he ran to find the nearest fire extinguisher (the Elf on the Shelf was sitting on it and he wondered if he should move it or not. He decided on moving it to another nearby location so he could try and not burn the kitchen down).

Once he got back, the fire in the oven seemed to have drowned itself out, much to his comfort. He opened a nearby window and opened the oven, smoke pouring out from its containment. A pair of gold-resistant gloves and a coughing fit later, the burnt cake was finally resting on a rag outside of the oven. Batter dripped down the side of the pan, the top of the cake was burnt to a crisp, and the pan was practically ruined. He stared at his disaster for a few moments, wondering how he was going to deal with the aftermath in the morning.

Well, tomorrow's problems are for tomorrow's him, and that's when he'll deal with this.