Work Text:
"Pies are hard," Mikey says.
Ryan snickers. "Right now it's not. It's very, very soft."
"Shut up," Mikey says. He does not believe in Ryan's latest experiment. "I remember my mum making pie for Thanksgiving. She cried, Ryan."
Ryan just hums and keeps kneading the dough.
"Seriously. Her crust all fell apart and then she burnt the turkey. It wasn't pretty."
"Why, did Gerard threaten to eat you instead?"
"Oh, shut up," Mikey says. He steals another of the apple slices. "Just saying. Ever since my mum's been using ready-made pie crusts."
"Ginger makes her crusts herself," Ryan says. "She gave me her fail-safe recipe."
Mikey used to think that Ryan's attempts at reconciling with Spencer by asking for his mom's recipes is both cute and weird. Then he was in the room when Ryan called Ginger to asked her about meatballs ("Her's are all fluffy," Ryan'd said; Mikey didn't say that his mom's meatballs were rockhard, he was used to that) and then Mikey figured out that Ginger wasn't Ryan's best friend's mom--she was Ryan's adoptive mom. Sometimes it makes Mikey want to go and find Ryan's mom, ask her why she left, how she COULD have left Ryan, but mostly he's happy that Ryan has Ginger (and Spencer, although Ryan's a bit slower in figuring that out than anyone else; Brendon told Mikey, "Just let them, it's how they do shit: Ryan's oblivious and Spencer hides his feelings behind snark. It'll work out").
"Okay," Mikey says.
"Stop stealing my apples."
"Hmm." Mikey stands right behind Ryan. The dough is looking surprisingly good.
The pie actually ends up tasting good. Mikey's impressed--the brownies Ryan tried the other week burned to coal. ("Have you never made hash brownies?" -- "Of course. Something must've gone wrong.")