Victor Alec AU: Baking & Mentor Feels
Someone on Tumblr asked for Alec & Emory mentor feels to start off the new year, and 
xanify suggested baking. It was adorable, so ... why not!
Emory slides her spatula into the bowl of batter, folding it with smooth, expert strokes until the wet and dry ingredients combine. She let Alec try first but no matter how he struggled, chunks of white flour stuck out between strings of egg yolk as the batter stubbornly refused to come together. “I don’t know how you do it,” Alec says, pulling his feet up onto the rung of the stool and resting his chin on his knees.
She favours him with an indulgent smile. “Same as anything. Practice and dedication. You did’t walk out as a baby knowing how to chuck a spear, did you?”
“Ha.” Alec can’t help but be transfixed as Emory sticks her finger into the botl, the batter now thick enough she can pinch a piece of it with thumb and forefinger and test it with a light squeeze. She hums to herself, then sprinkles a little more flower into the mixture. “How do you know how to do things like that? You’re not looking at a recipe.”
Emory reaches over, takes his hand and sticks his finger into the batter. “Feel,” she says. “See how it sticks to your fingers, doesn’t wanna come off? If you try there’ll be bits and pieces stuck to you. We want it to stick to itself when we roll it, not to the sheet or to our hands. So we need more of the bonding agent. Flour helps keep it all together.”
Alec stares at the batter stuck to his fingers, but he can’t exactly put it back now that it’s all over his hands and it seems wasteful to throw it away. He hesitates, but then Emory winks at him like she can read the absolute nonsense of his thoughts, and so he gathers up his courage and licks his fingers clean.
“You don’t wanna do too much of that,” Emory says, taking down a block of dark chocolate from the cupboard. “They say you can get real sick from the eggs, even the flour. But you can’t cook without tasting along the way, so sometimes you gotta take that risk.”
The idea of raw cookie batter posing a risk after Alec lost an entire arm to sepsis from a mutated monkey creation is quite possibly the funniest thing he’s heard all year, but at the same time, he’d rather not have people killing themselves laughing at his untimely funeral. Alec tries to recall whether Aunt Julia ever baked cookies, and if so whether she would have let him taste any of the raw batter, but those memories, if they existed, hide behind a fog.
“It all seems like magic to me,” Alec says. Except then Emory hands him the chocolate and a thin knife and tells him to shave off small pieces for the cookies, and he might not know baking but he knows knives so at least he’s not entirely useless.
(He does remember Aunt Julia’s hands, the fearless curl of her fingers around the knife handle as she made quick work of any vegetable that made it across her cutting board. Sometimes she and Dad had competitions to see who could cut the most vegetables the fastest and into the prettiest pieces while Mom and Uncle Paul sat back with drinks and rolled their eyes when they thought the kids couldn’t see. Aunt Julia almost always won - and that’s how Alec found out she’d been in the Program too, back in the day, but only until Transition. Funny how no one ever talked about it.)
“Everything is magic when we don’t understand it yet,” Emory says. “The trick is not leaving it there. Not knowing how to do things should be exciting, not an excuse.”
He shouldn’t stare, except sometimes Emory said things he swore would be a joke or a trap if it were anyone but his mentor speaking. Emory catches his expression anyway and cocks an eyebrow, and Alec’s throat flushes. “I’ve never thought of it that way, that’s all. I can’t imagine what it would be like, even. I’ve always been scared of not knowing things. Like I’ve failed before I started.”
Most of Alec’s life had been spent playing catch-up to Creed and Selene, who’d been older, faster, braver. They’d done everything first, and all their knowledge was meant to osmose down to Alec so he’d have it before it was his turn; by the time Alec got there, he should already have practiced and perfected everything with them, no mistakes allowed. Why should there be when he had two living examples to learn from right in front of him? He should know better.
It took the thrill out of discovery, leaving him to follow in their footsteps, afraid to deviate from the well-trodden paths in front of him. Sure, he could try something new, but then all the mistakes and first attempts would be his as well. He could either take the safe path through the forest or forge on through the thorny bracken, and while Selene would not have understood the question or even seen a dilemma being posed to her, Alec had definitely chosen to play it safe.
Emory rests her hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly before letting go. She takes the bowl from the counter and covers it, then sticks it in the fridge. “Do you know why we have talents, Alec? The unofficial ones, I mean, the ones we don’t share with the Capitol.”
He blinks. This one seems like a baby-Victor question, the kind of thing a mentor has to run through when a fresh Victor digs their heels in, except that Alec has never questioned Emory about anything so fundamental. “So we know we can be more than killers?” he hazards. It seems straightforward enough. “So we have hobbies that have nothing to do with swords or weapons or the Games. To give us something else to focus on when we have bad days. And to remind us that we’re capable of creating things when we spent our whole lives learning to destroy.”
Emory’s mouth quirks a little, and Alec hopes he didn’t come off as sarcastic. He used to have that problem, being so steeped in Centre culture through his parents and their friends and with Creed and Selene being older and siphoning down the answers that by the time the trainers asked him questions they thought he sounded glib even when he meant it. “How do you think we choose them?” she asks instead.
Again, it feels a little like a trick, but then again Dad liked to ask obvious questions all the time and Alec still managed to give the wrong answer. “You find something you like that you’re good at and you stick with it?”
“The exact opposite.” Emory’s eyes are soft and warm even as she corrects him. “You find something you’re interested in that you’ve never had the chance to try before, and you do that. Start over at the very beginning like you’re a kid again and learn how to get good at it. Let yourself be terrible and have fun.”
Alec fights the instinctive surge of panic. “But why? Why not start with something you’re already good at?”
“Because every one of us has spent the last ten years before the Arena doing everything we can to avoid failure, and it doesn’t get easier on the other side,” Emory says. “We practice and perfect and hone our skills and after a while if something isn’t working, the trainers tell us to drop it, don’t waste our time. When was the last time any of us were allowed to be bad at something? Or figure out how to do something new on our own, without pressure or trainers telling us how to do it? There’s freedom in discovery. I had to learn that. You will, too.”
All of this sounds like a fairytale written in a giant book engineered to snap shut on his fingers when he tries to read it, but - okay, sure. New things to learn, no pressure, and he’s allowed - supposed - to be bad at it when he starts. “You know that sounds terrifying,” Alec says. It comes out accusing but he can’t help it. Sometimes this mentor stuff is too much.
Emory laughs. “Believe me, I hear you.”
It’s all a lot to process and not a little overwhelming, but Emory brought this up for a reason. She never starts talking to hear her own voice, and Alec runs through the conversation backwards until he finds the junction. He chews on the inside of his lower lip. “You think I should learn to cook?”
“I think you’re learning already,” Emory says gently. “What do you think we’ve been doing, every time you sit with me while I make food? But yeah, eventually you’ll be doing this on your own. Making food for yourself is a powerful feeling. Making food for other people is a great way to say you love them without having to say it - you know, in case there’s anyone in your life who spooks easy.”
Alec laughs at that. Emory would have had to figure out how to handle Artemisia long before Selene came into the picture, so she must be well versed in the signs. “That’s a good point,” he says. “Maybe I’ll start paying more attention.”
“Can’t hurt,” Emory says, and slaps him on the back. “Also maybe we’ll finally get a favourite food out of you. Important step in the Victor self-identity process, that one.”
“How long did it take you to get one?” Alec asks. Emory told him she had a rough recovery, but he still has trouble making it rea.
She snorts a little. “Longer than it should have, for stubborn and nothing else,” Emory says. “Which is why I’m starting you off early. Let’s get supper started while the dough chills.”
For a second Alec blanks before his brain catches up. “Is this a bad time for me to admit I’ve been calling it ‘batter’ in my head the whole time we were cooking? I don’t think I actually know the difference.”
“This a bad time for me to tell you it’s actually ‘baking’, not ‘cooking’, when you’re making cookies?” Emory grins and slings an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in for a quick hug. “Don’t worry. First step at being good at something is being bad at it. We’re off to a great start.”
“I think my mentor just insulted me.”
“Think you must be imagining things.”
Alec tackles her, and Emory knocks him to the ground and pins him right there on the kitchen floor. “Cheeky, cheeky,” she says, shaking her head in mock concern, but then she laughs and claps the side of his face with her massive palm.
When she lets him up Alec weighs a hundred pounds lighter. “I think I want chili tonight,” he says. “Can we make it spicy?”
Emory smiles, big and proud and warm enough to make his chest glow. “Sure can do. Run down to the pantry and grab me that bag of dried beans.”
xanify suggested baking. It was adorable, so ... why not!
Emory slides her spatula into the bowl of batter, folding it with smooth, expert strokes until the wet and dry ingredients combine. She let Alec try first but no matter how he struggled, chunks of white flour stuck out between strings of egg yolk as the batter stubbornly refused to come together. “I don’t know how you do it,” Alec says, pulling his feet up onto the rung of the stool and resting his chin on his knees.
She favours him with an indulgent smile. “Same as anything. Practice and dedication. You did’t walk out as a baby knowing how to chuck a spear, did you?”
“Ha.” Alec can’t help but be transfixed as Emory sticks her finger into the botl, the batter now thick enough she can pinch a piece of it with thumb and forefinger and test it with a light squeeze. She hums to herself, then sprinkles a little more flower into the mixture. “How do you know how to do things like that? You’re not looking at a recipe.”
Emory reaches over, takes his hand and sticks his finger into the batter. “Feel,” she says. “See how it sticks to your fingers, doesn’t wanna come off? If you try there’ll be bits and pieces stuck to you. We want it to stick to itself when we roll it, not to the sheet or to our hands. So we need more of the bonding agent. Flour helps keep it all together.”
Alec stares at the batter stuck to his fingers, but he can’t exactly put it back now that it’s all over his hands and it seems wasteful to throw it away. He hesitates, but then Emory winks at him like she can read the absolute nonsense of his thoughts, and so he gathers up his courage and licks his fingers clean.
“You don’t wanna do too much of that,” Emory says, taking down a block of dark chocolate from the cupboard. “They say you can get real sick from the eggs, even the flour. But you can’t cook without tasting along the way, so sometimes you gotta take that risk.”
The idea of raw cookie batter posing a risk after Alec lost an entire arm to sepsis from a mutated monkey creation is quite possibly the funniest thing he’s heard all year, but at the same time, he’d rather not have people killing themselves laughing at his untimely funeral. Alec tries to recall whether Aunt Julia ever baked cookies, and if so whether she would have let him taste any of the raw batter, but those memories, if they existed, hide behind a fog.
“It all seems like magic to me,” Alec says. Except then Emory hands him the chocolate and a thin knife and tells him to shave off small pieces for the cookies, and he might not know baking but he knows knives so at least he’s not entirely useless.
(He does remember Aunt Julia’s hands, the fearless curl of her fingers around the knife handle as she made quick work of any vegetable that made it across her cutting board. Sometimes she and Dad had competitions to see who could cut the most vegetables the fastest and into the prettiest pieces while Mom and Uncle Paul sat back with drinks and rolled their eyes when they thought the kids couldn’t see. Aunt Julia almost always won - and that’s how Alec found out she’d been in the Program too, back in the day, but only until Transition. Funny how no one ever talked about it.)
“Everything is magic when we don’t understand it yet,” Emory says. “The trick is not leaving it there. Not knowing how to do things should be exciting, not an excuse.”
He shouldn’t stare, except sometimes Emory said things he swore would be a joke or a trap if it were anyone but his mentor speaking. Emory catches his expression anyway and cocks an eyebrow, and Alec’s throat flushes. “I’ve never thought of it that way, that’s all. I can’t imagine what it would be like, even. I’ve always been scared of not knowing things. Like I’ve failed before I started.”
Most of Alec’s life had been spent playing catch-up to Creed and Selene, who’d been older, faster, braver. They’d done everything first, and all their knowledge was meant to osmose down to Alec so he’d have it before it was his turn; by the time Alec got there, he should already have practiced and perfected everything with them, no mistakes allowed. Why should there be when he had two living examples to learn from right in front of him? He should know better.
It took the thrill out of discovery, leaving him to follow in their footsteps, afraid to deviate from the well-trodden paths in front of him. Sure, he could try something new, but then all the mistakes and first attempts would be his as well. He could either take the safe path through the forest or forge on through the thorny bracken, and while Selene would not have understood the question or even seen a dilemma being posed to her, Alec had definitely chosen to play it safe.
Emory rests her hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly before letting go. She takes the bowl from the counter and covers it, then sticks it in the fridge. “Do you know why we have talents, Alec? The unofficial ones, I mean, the ones we don’t share with the Capitol.”
He blinks. This one seems like a baby-Victor question, the kind of thing a mentor has to run through when a fresh Victor digs their heels in, except that Alec has never questioned Emory about anything so fundamental. “So we know we can be more than killers?” he hazards. It seems straightforward enough. “So we have hobbies that have nothing to do with swords or weapons or the Games. To give us something else to focus on when we have bad days. And to remind us that we’re capable of creating things when we spent our whole lives learning to destroy.”
Emory’s mouth quirks a little, and Alec hopes he didn’t come off as sarcastic. He used to have that problem, being so steeped in Centre culture through his parents and their friends and with Creed and Selene being older and siphoning down the answers that by the time the trainers asked him questions they thought he sounded glib even when he meant it. “How do you think we choose them?” she asks instead.
Again, it feels a little like a trick, but then again Dad liked to ask obvious questions all the time and Alec still managed to give the wrong answer. “You find something you like that you’re good at and you stick with it?”
“The exact opposite.” Emory’s eyes are soft and warm even as she corrects him. “You find something you’re interested in that you’ve never had the chance to try before, and you do that. Start over at the very beginning like you’re a kid again and learn how to get good at it. Let yourself be terrible and have fun.”
Alec fights the instinctive surge of panic. “But why? Why not start with something you’re already good at?”
“Because every one of us has spent the last ten years before the Arena doing everything we can to avoid failure, and it doesn’t get easier on the other side,” Emory says. “We practice and perfect and hone our skills and after a while if something isn’t working, the trainers tell us to drop it, don’t waste our time. When was the last time any of us were allowed to be bad at something? Or figure out how to do something new on our own, without pressure or trainers telling us how to do it? There’s freedom in discovery. I had to learn that. You will, too.”
All of this sounds like a fairytale written in a giant book engineered to snap shut on his fingers when he tries to read it, but - okay, sure. New things to learn, no pressure, and he’s allowed - supposed - to be bad at it when he starts. “You know that sounds terrifying,” Alec says. It comes out accusing but he can’t help it. Sometimes this mentor stuff is too much.
Emory laughs. “Believe me, I hear you.”
It’s all a lot to process and not a little overwhelming, but Emory brought this up for a reason. She never starts talking to hear her own voice, and Alec runs through the conversation backwards until he finds the junction. He chews on the inside of his lower lip. “You think I should learn to cook?”
“I think you’re learning already,” Emory says gently. “What do you think we’ve been doing, every time you sit with me while I make food? But yeah, eventually you’ll be doing this on your own. Making food for yourself is a powerful feeling. Making food for other people is a great way to say you love them without having to say it - you know, in case there’s anyone in your life who spooks easy.”
Alec laughs at that. Emory would have had to figure out how to handle Artemisia long before Selene came into the picture, so she must be well versed in the signs. “That’s a good point,” he says. “Maybe I’ll start paying more attention.”
“Can’t hurt,” Emory says, and slaps him on the back. “Also maybe we’ll finally get a favourite food out of you. Important step in the Victor self-identity process, that one.”
“How long did it take you to get one?” Alec asks. Emory told him she had a rough recovery, but he still has trouble making it rea.
She snorts a little. “Longer than it should have, for stubborn and nothing else,” Emory says. “Which is why I’m starting you off early. Let’s get supper started while the dough chills.”
For a second Alec blanks before his brain catches up. “Is this a bad time for me to admit I’ve been calling it ‘batter’ in my head the whole time we were cooking? I don’t think I actually know the difference.”
“This a bad time for me to tell you it’s actually ‘baking’, not ‘cooking’, when you’re making cookies?” Emory grins and slings an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in for a quick hug. “Don’t worry. First step at being good at something is being bad at it. We’re off to a great start.”
“I think my mentor just insulted me.”
“Think you must be imagining things.”
Alec tackles her, and Emory knocks him to the ground and pins him right there on the kitchen floor. “Cheeky, cheeky,” she says, shaking her head in mock concern, but then she laughs and claps the side of his face with her massive palm.
When she lets him up Alec weighs a hundred pounds lighter. “I think I want chili tonight,” he says. “Can we make it spicy?”
Emory smiles, big and proud and warm enough to make his chest glow. “Sure can do. Run down to the pantry and grab me that bag of dried beans.”