hi! i'm not sure if this fandom is even that active anymore (i hope it is!) but i wrote a little something that came into my mind a little while ago and decided to post it. i hope if there's anyone out there, you enjoy it :)

"Well, that is just tragic."

The pair stared dishearteningly at the tray of grotesquely burnt peanut butter cookies set on the oven stove top. Not only were they charred beyond belief, the kids had underestimated how large the baked good would grow under the heat from its small dollop of dough. A dozen cookies had morphed and stuck together into a rock solid monstrosity. Even if they had managed to not burn them, chiselling them off the cooking sheet in concrete chunks wouldn't look, or taste, very appetizing either.

"This is probably punishment for not making chocolate ship instead," Puck retorted, peering closer at their failure. "These didn't even turn out lime green like the recipe said they would."

Daphne had her face buried in oven mitts that were too big on her, defeated. "How can you even tell, they are burnt black!"

Puck pulled his face into a slight pout, then a light bulb seemed to go off above his head. "Hey, this would make a great frisbee if we can get it off in one piece..." The fairy boy made a move for the spatula but Daphne snatched the flat plan, stomped over to the side of the counter and dumped the atrocity, baking sheet and all, in the trashcan. The little girl was positive that not even Elvis would be inclined to rummage for that later.

Puck frowned at her, twirling the spatula in his hand. "That was a waste, there's always a use for something. If anything, my chimpanzee army could have used that to beat each other over the head after their poop slinging fights."

"Yours or theirs?" Daphne asked, taking off her oven mitts and plopping them next to the dirty mixing bowl.

Puck laughed and grinned, as he began to use the spatula as his own personal back scratcher. "You looked and sounded exactly like your sister when you said that. Good one."

The two were suddenly interrupted with a coughing fit that echoed throughout the house from up the stairs. Daphne and Puck shared an empathetic look, the boy even pausing mid-scratch. Daphne mentally noted that she would have to throw that cookware out later too.

"What was her temperature last time you checked, again?" Daphne inquired, beginning to clean up the large mess the children had made over a simple batch of cookies. She peered up at the whipped egg on the kitchen ceiling.

The Everafter screwed the lid back onto the jar of peanut butter, pondering for a heartbeat. "102.5? It had gone down a little. Got her a fresh washcloth for her head too."

Daphne turned her head from washing out bowls in the sink to look at him. "That was nice of you." The little girl said slyly, raising her eyebrows dramatically.

"Hey, I can be nice," Puck said nonchalantly, licking leftover raw dough off wire whisk. "I only said she kind of looked like the bride of Frankenstein today."

Daphne grinned, turning back towards the sink. "What'd she say to that?"

"She sneezed on me. On purpose."

Daphne giggled at the tone of his voice and the pair continued their cleaning up in comfortable silence. The girl was scraping some stubborn dried granulated sugar off the inside of one of the mixing bowls with her fingernail when Puck spoke up again.

"She's different when she's sick," He commented slowly, and Daphne had to turn off the running sink to hear him better. "Like she doesn't mind having people taking care of her for once."

Daphne looked up from the dishware and gazed throughout the small window in front of her, overlooking the backyard and beyond that, the dense forest. It was surprisingly sunny today.

"Sabrina doesn't get sick often," The dark-haired girl frowned into the muggy water of the sink. "And when she does, she ends up having the flu. I feel bad."

Puck made a dramatic groaning noise. "Yeah, everyone else picked a fantastic time to go on an adult only vacation. Really loving the discrimination in this house. It's not fair that Red and your brother got to go, too."

Daphne turned around, leaning against the counter while drying her hands with a rag. "Hey, it's different. Mr. Canis wasn't gonna go but Granny insisted they bring Red along as it'd be a good bonding opportunity for them. My parents wanted to bring Basil cause well...he's still little!"

"Okay, so why'd they leave you here then?"

The little girl stuck her tongue out at him. "Ha ha, very funny. I grew like three inches this year."

"I've grown like six," Puck beamed, settling deeper into his chair at the kitchen table as he put his hands behind his head.

Daphne rolled her eyes. "We've all noticed. Believe me, it's not every day we see a 4,000-year-old growth spurt in the making happen." She gave Puck a knowing smile and a cheesy thumbs up. "Very punk rock!"

Puck's face tinted pink and Daphne couldn't help but snort at his expression. The fairy brushed it off fairly quickly and gave a toothy smile.

"You could always bring back that mohawk you had like before," he suggested, cooly reflecting the attention off of him. "It did make you look taller and it was way cooler than the beehive."

"No way," Daphne mused, grabbing the thick recipe book that was set astray in the failed attempt of making something Sabrina would enjoy while sick. "It was high maintenance and I had too many people trying to cramp my style. I can only fit so many fidget spinners in my hair."

Puck enthusiastically nodded in agreement as Daphne set the book on the table between them. She flipped through the old, crinkly pages that had been passed down through generations of Grimms before her, each adding their own recipes and cooking guides. Granny Relda had contributed a bunch of her own over the last few decades. The newest entries being from Veronica and Uncle Jake, the book was practically bulging now.

"Okie doke," Daphne continued, eyes scanning the pages as she flicked through for anything relatively easier. " Let's see what we got here...again."

"Can't we just get Sabrina McDonald's?" Puck sighed languorously, watching the paper turn. "Trying to cook for her is the most exhausting thing I've done in the past five years and I'm starving. Plus, who doesn't want McDonald's when they're sick?"

The thought of chicken nuggets was tempting for Daphne, but she shook her head to try to get the thought out of her head. "Nuh uh, making something home-made is the best for someone when they feel bad."

Puck titled his head back and groaned. "Who said?"

"I don't know!" Daphne exclaimed, exasperated. "Gordon Ramsay!" The girl who was studying a particular entry spun the book around towards the Everafter. "What about this?"

Puck leaned in closer. "Matilda Grimm's Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe?" He looked at Daphne with a doubtful expression. "This sounds infinitely harder to make than peanut butter cookies."

"Baking is harder than cooking I think," she muttered, bringing the book into her arms and inspecting the recipe once more. "Soup is kinda just dumping a bunch of stuff in a pot and letting it boil."

"Sounds boring."

"Sounds easy, let's get cookin'."

The two children stood side by side at the kitchen counter working in unison in preparing the ultimate soup. Puck was on vegetable cutting duty after a long back and forth on who was less inclined to have an accident while handling the chef's knife. Daphne sulked for only a few minutes before she went on a hunt for a select choice of seasonings the recipe called for. Granny Relda had a lot of spices and flavorings stuffed in her cabinets and it was fun seeing what Daphne could find. Towards the end of her scavenge, she had discovered a tin of ground cinnamon from 1989. The girl then had hastily thrown it away before Puck could claim he had a use for it.

"I'm bummed out, Marshmallow." Puck confessed as Daphne stood next to him by the pot, stirring the chicken stock. She looked at him quizzically.

Puck tossed some of his freshly chopped baby carrots into the broth. "I was almost looking forward to us three having the house to ourselves for a little while. I guess it just reminded of the good old days when we would run around getting ourselves into all sorts of trouble. I had a lot of throwback activities planned."

"Like...?" Daphne implored curiously.

"Like," Puck mused for a moment, stopping to dice some onion. "Going to the library and knocking over every bookshelf on 'accident'. Freewheeling down Mount Taurus. Shooting your sister out of a circus cannon while we watch. I don't know, Grimm things."

Daphne laughed then smiled at his last words. "Grimm things?"

Scooping up the slivered onion, Puck cast that in the pot as well. "Yeah, Grimm things. Things normal, boring people never do. C'mon, it's like you don't even know your own family."

Daphne introduced the thawed chicken to the soup bowl as she turned up the heat on the stove a bit. "We can still do those things. We just have to make Sabrina better first."

"I'm starting to think she got sick on purpose just to ruin all our fun. Now we're spending our own vacation waiting on hand and foot." Puck complained, looking over at the recipe book before peeling a couple garlic cloves.

"Really?" Daphne crowed. The girl added a small amount of cayenne pepper to the stew and waited for Puck's expression. "Last time I checked, she wasn't making you sit in that chair next to her bed at night while she's sleeping."

The fairy boy did a double take and almost cut his finger open with the knife's blade. He looked over to Daphne on his right who had a smirk on her face.

"How'd you even find out," he muttered, averting his gaze from her to resume dicing. "Thought I was in there late enough and out early the next morning to where I'd avoid you checking up on her." Puck looked over at her again. "Are you drinking espressos again so you stay up all night? You know you're not allowed to have those."

Daphne shook her head, grinning. "You know I've just been staying in Granny Relda's room so I don't get sick. But I needed socks from me and Sabrina's dresser the other night, so I snuck in and saw you had fallen asleep in the chair."

Puck was suddenly more interested than ever in cooking. Daphne raised an eyebrow.

"No reason to be embarrassed by it. She did the same thing for you with the whole Jabberwocky thing."

The small girl slowly added the strained egg noodles to the mixture and for a few moments, the only noise in the house was the sound of the soup bubbling.

"She did?"

"Yeah, you didn't know that?"

"No."

"Well..." Daphne started, swirling the ladle around in the pot. "Now you know. You guys are even now."

"Looks that way." Puck acknowledged. Daphne glanced over at him again to find him smiling a bit as he finished chopping up some celery. She noted that this was the first time Puck looked happy in the presence of vegetables.

About an hour and a half later, the timer went off, and the soup was finally done. The pair slowly approached the pot placed on the stove top and looked at each other apprehensively.

"Okay," Daphne breathed. "This is our last chance. If this doesn't work out, we're ordering pizza and pretending its homemade."

Puck just stared at her. "We couldn't do that three hours ago? From the start?"

Daphne grinned sheepishly and quickly went to stand over the soup, gesturing for the fairy to join her. He did, and together they lifted the lid off the pot and, almost hesitantly, looked inside.

The blend of chicken, spices, noodles and vegetables bubbled in greeting at the children as the aroma enveloped them, finally free to fill the house with its savory smell. Daphne, practically drooling, picked up the ladle and stirred around making sure everything was perfectly cooked. And it was. Puck and Daphne shared the biggest and loudest high-five which made Elvis' ears perk up from his spot on the living room couch.

"We did it!" Puck hollered rambunctiously and Daphne gave him a shush but was practically squealing herself with excitement. The boy continued in a much lower tone, "We have succeeded in being domestic!"

"Granny makes it look so easy," Daphne laughed, then went deadpan. "I don't ever want to see another cooking utensil ever again. Let's eat!"

"Hold your horses, did you forget why we endured this torture in the first place?" Puck smirked, rummaging for a clean bowl in the cabinet. Daphne's stomach rumbled loudly in retaliation and they both started laughing again.

"Hey, we can bring it up to her on a tray, like a breakfast in bed sort of thing," Daphne glanced at the clock. "Dinner in bed." The girl corrected herself, opening some cupboards. "See any?"

"Uhh," The Everafter joined her search. After a few seconds of some digging, he uncovered a small wooden food tray with handles. "Something else in here that's small too." He handed the tray over to Daphne for a moment as she peered to see what he had his eye on. The fairy pulled out a small, skinny glass flower vase. He turned it over in his hands, inspecting it.

"Never seen that before, maybe Granny put it back there and forgot about it," Daphne shrugged, setting the tray down on the kitchen table. "Anyways-" The girl was cut off as Puck walked past her towards the back door. "Where are you going!"

Puck's wings appeared at his back and he turned back towards the Daphne. "I'll be back ten minutes tops, I have to go get something." There was a gust, and he was gone.

Daphne fiddled with the glass vase as she waited for Puck to return from whatever what he was doing. She looked over at the clock, it had been around fifteen minutes since he'd flown off, and she already plated the food tray with a big bowl of chicken noodle soup, a napkin, a spoon, and a hot cup of green tea with four sugar cubes. It didn't feel right to her to bring it up to Sabrina without him, or to even pour a bowl for herself. So the small girl waited not so patiently.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Puck glide down and come through the back door, yellow pollen coated his hoodie.

"Get McDonald's without me?" Daphne questioned. Puck laughed instead of giving her an answer, closing the door behind him. He carefully removed something from his big hoodie pocket. Daphne's eyes widened at the small bouquet of wildflowers. Marigolds, red poppies, hyacinths, petunias, she even spotted a small sunflower. She fixed the boy with a smile. He took the vase from her and went to fill it up with water in the sink.

"I know a few flower fields around here," Puck mused, fitting the blossoms into the glass vessel. "Thought it'd make her feel better. This one is for you though," He snapped off the sunflower, went over to Daphne, and tucked it behind her ear. The girl beamed so cheekily Puck couldn't help but laugh at her expression. He set the vase on the tray next to Sabrina's food. Daphne carefully picked it up and the pair headed towards the staircase.

The Everafter paused at the first step and turned towards Daphne.

"The flowers were your idea," he declared, and the girl couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You picked them yourself too. But I did help with the soup, deal?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, deal." Daphne resigned, throwing him a dramatic funny look. Puck grinned at her and started up the stairs like his feet couldn't carry him fast enough.

Daphne was smiling too because she knew he'd end up spilling his affections anyways.