onyxbird:

The shape of brownies

(Random concept I was suddenly compelled to share with someone my dear friends, the faceless hordes of Leverage-Tumblr. )

One of Eliot’s many friends drops by to visit unexpectedly–I’m picturing General Flores, on a well-deserved vacation from helping to run a small country. As they’re catching up, Eliot asks Hardison to pull out the brownies he was supposed to have taken out of the freezer earlier.

Hardison cheerfully heads to the kitchen. They can hear the container pop open, and then sudden silence. Eliot is, of course, deeply suspicious about this, and demands to know what Hardison did.

“Nothing!” squeaks Hardison. “Everything’s fine!”

Parker pops into the kitchen to peer over his shoulder. “Oh, right! They’re heart-shaped. Is that weird to serve to your friend?”

Eliot is flummoxed. “Hardison, what the hell? All the brownies I froze are rectangular. You know, the standard shape of brownies. What did you do?”

“Nothing!” says Hardison. “Well… uh… so, funny story. All your brownies are still in the freezer. We, uh, made some ourselves to surprise you. Man, don’t give me that look! I know what look you’re giving me! Your kitchen is fine!”

Hardison and Parker scrupulously researched a well-reviewed recipe, and they followed it faithfully. (No Hardison culinary experiments here–just a nice classic, brownie to impress their chef boyfriend.) The brownies taste great. The kitchen survived.

Said brownies are also cut into heart shapes and individually decorated with sprinkles and/or little royal icing flowers because 1) they were deliberately making a Gesture™ and wanted them to be fancy, 2) Hardison went down a Youtube rabbit hole of how to make icing flowers and spent hours obsessing over his project, and 3) Parker has the focus and nimble fingers to individually place hundreds of multicolored heart-shaped sprinkles in elaborate patterns with tweezers.

Eliot is speechless. (He is even more startled to admit, upon taking a bite, that the brownies are genuinely excellent as well as pretty.) Flores is trying his hardest not to crack up at the juxtaposition of Eliot Spencer as the targeted recipient of this assortment of elaborately flowery and/or brightly geometric-patterned heart-shaped sweets, clearly never intended for the eyes of outsiders. (He thinks it’s adorable. He is also honored when the decision is made that, yes, he may partake of the heart-shaped brownies. It is decreed, by Parker, to be Not Weird because he is a friend and that means they love him, too, just differently, so heart-shaped is fine.)