“You don’t even know what they are.” Ozzie laughed.
“So?” Tuesday huffed a bit. “Come on. Teach me. You said we were gonna celebrate together… so, show me how!”
“Okay.” Ozzie’s heart fluttered, and he took one of Tuesday’s hands to lead him into the kitchen. “Well, first, we gotta cut up some oranges.”
“Then what?”
“We cover ’em with spices and dry them out in the oven. Punch little holes in them to put some ribbon or string through, and we use them to decorate.” Ozzie smiled as he put the oranges on the kitchen counter. “We can use what’s left over to add to the mulled wine we’re gonna make too.”
“I dunno what that is, but you had me atwine,” Tuesday teased, bringing over the cutting board.
“Trust me. It’ll be good.” Ozzie opened up the bag of oranges. “Can you grab the cookie sheet from under the oven?”
“Under the oven?” Tuesday seemed surprised, but he kneeled down to open the drawer beneath the oven. “Isn’t this supposed to be for keeping food warm or something?”
“What? No. It’s for storage.” Ozzie hesitated. “At least I thought it was.”
Tuesday chuckled and set the cookie sheet on the stove beside where Ozzie was. “Pretty sure it’s for broiling.”
“Pretty sure you’re crazy.” Ozzie laughed, pulling a knife out of the block to cut a few of the oranges into thin slices. “While I’m doing this, can you grab that big metal pot from the top of the cabinet?”
“The one that looks like you could boil a horse in?”
“I… Yes?”
Tuesday grabbed the large pot with ease. “Where’s this going? On the stove?”
“Yeah. There are two bottles of wine in the cabinet there.” Ozzie nodded in that direction. “We heat it up and mix in some spices.”
“Oh! That’s fun. Spicy booze.”
“You guys have anything like that for Sluth? Special Sluth juice?”
“We do.” Tuesday grinned as he retrieved the wine. “It’s an alcoholic drink fermented from mushrooms. Oh, don’t make that face! It’s good!”
“Fermented mushrooms?” Ozzie tried not to grimace. “If you say so.”
“It tastes like, hmm.” Tuesday hummed thoughtfully. “Like oranges? But also like your candle smells.”
“The mushrooms?”
“Yeah, they’re really special.” Tuesday smiled warmly. “They’re super sensitive to light, so all of it has to be brewed up in total darkness. It reminds people that hey, even when thesun isn’t around and things might seem kinda lame, there’s still beautiful stuff happening.”
“Aw, that’s cool. I like that.”
“And we sure as shit don’t use prepackaged spice packets.”
“Ha ha.” Ozzie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, on this planet, sometimes we take shortcuts. The horrible packets are right over there?—”
“Yeah, yeah! I’ll find ’em. You focus on your oranges, baby. I got this.” Tuesday stepped around Ozzie, pausing to kiss the back of his neck as he headed over to open more cabinets.
Ozzie blushed, and his heart skipped a beat.
This was nice.
It was downright domestic even, and he’d never been so comfortable sharing space like this before. Tuesday fit into Ozzie’s life effortlessly, and his charm was incredibly endearing. He had to poke and taste and sniff everything as he mixed up the wine in the big pot on the stove, and he took it upon himself to make a few adjustments to the recipe, citing that prepackaged spice mixes were lazy.
While the wine was heating up, Ozzie laid the orange slices out on the cookie sheet. He and Tuesday sprinkled both sides of them with cinnamon and ginger—spices associated with fire and common for Yule festivities. They put the orange slices in the oven on low heat, and Ozzie explained they had to be turned every thirty minutes for a few hours to fully dry them out.
