The second your feet hit the sticky, uneven floorboards of Hobie’s flat, the familiar war zone of sound slams into you like a cymbal crash. It’s not just yelling—it’s overlapping voices, static-filled punk riffs bleeding from Hobie’s amp, Christmas music crackling from a beat-up radio in the corner (two beats off from Hobie’s guitar, naturally), and the hiss of something burning in the oven.

Your lips curl into a smile before you can stop yourself. This was home.

You barely have time to lean against the doorway before the chaos unfolds in surround sound.

Pavitr freezes mid-whisk, his curls bouncing as he exclaims in sheer betrayal: “...We don’t have any ginger.”

The entire kitchen seems to pause for one split second. Gwen’s head whips toward Hobie like she’s about to deliver a WWE finisher, wooden spoon raised like a weapon.

“YOU. DUMBASS. WE NEEDED GINGER!” she roars, waving her arm so dramatically she nearly takes out a string of tinsel duct-taped to the cabinets.

Hobie, sitting half-slouched on the counter with a screwdriver in one hand and his guitar in the other, doesn’t even flinch. He just sticks his tongue out at her, lazily plucking a wrong note that clangs against the cheery Christmas carols blaring from the radio.

“Well how in the bloody hell was I suppose’ to know that, eh?!” he fires back, voice booming like he’s trying to win an argument in a stadium.

Miles, who has been very responsibly untangling fairy lights while simultaneously failing to hide his laugh, pinches the bridge of his nose like a tired single dad.

“Because, Hobie,” Miles says with the patience of a saint, “they’re gingerbread cookies?”

He doesn’t even finish before Hobie swivels on the counter, glaring like Miles just committed treason.

“Oh, thank you, Professor Obvious, where would we all be without your deep culinary wisdom?” Hobie drawls, waving his screwdriver like a conductor’s baton.

“Definitely not gingerless!” Gwen snaps back, whipping the spoon so fast Pav ducked just in case.

Pavitr’s already frantically flipping through a recipe book like it’s a sacred text, muttering, “Okay, okay, wait, what if we substitute with… turmeric? Cardamom? Do we… have cardamom?!”

From the living room, where nobody even noticed he came in, Peter B. just calls out with a mouth full of chips: “Just put cinnamon in it, kids, it’s all the same once you dunk it in milk!”

“PETER, GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!” Gwen screeches, hurling the spoon in his general direction.

It smacks into the doorframe with a dull thunk. Peter doesn’t move. Just raises the chip bag in salute.

Hobie bursts out laughing so hard he drops the screwdriver, which clatters into the mixing bowl Pavitr was holding, splattering cookie dough across the counter and half onto Gwen’s sweater.

Miles finally loses it, doubling over with laughter while Gwen stares down at the sticky mess on her chest like she’s about to declare war.

And you? You just lean there, grinning so wide your cheeks ache, watching your family tear the kitchen apart in the stupidest, most chaotic attempt at holiday baking you’ve ever seen.

Because yeah—you loved them. More than anything. More than the family you left behind.

And no one here needed to ask why.