Smells Like Family [Erica, Ranma]

Ranma couldn’t help but rub his face against her hair. He never thought of himself as a sort of rival to her when it came to Kidō or literally anything else – okay, maybe in bed, but that was a different topic – so he just felt snuggle-ish now. But they had a dough to finish preparing… wait, butter?

“I’ll be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine – just gotta melt some butter, is all,” Ranma reassured her with a grin before putting a pan over the stove top and drop- wait, he just noticed that Snuggles had returned to the kitchen table with the mini-Shakka-ball in his maw. If he was a dog, he’d be wagging his tail a lot right now…

“Oh, hello there- wait, my arm’s not a pillow…” Ranma groaned as Snuggles just decided to lay on his left arm right after he dropped a small block of butter on the heated pan. After a few seconds of realizing that he just had to wait, he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling Snuggles’ face and neck, giving in to his inner cat father vibes. “Look at your sleepy, wittle face~ Look at your furry, wurry face~ Look at you nibbling – please don’t bite them, I really need those fingers~ Erica needs them too~”

“Oh, yeah, the butter’s ready…” Ranma reported back to his girlfriend, the tip of his index finger being gnawed on by Snuggles like a carrot stick, “Me and Snuggles synced for a bit… I think he’s really grown on me.” Sync isn’t exactly the best word to describe the feline’s unwavering determination to stay hooked to his finger with his fangs, but Ranma wasn’t too bothered by it…

… Although, as lifting his finger up and down didn’t make Snuggles let go, he figured that the tom was some sort of attention-whore. “C’mon, Snuggles, you know paws can’t cook well,” Ranma tried to reassure the feline with logic – it was not very effective, “Besides, can’t you smell it? I can – it smells 100 times better than the dough I used to make… like, it smells good good.”

Snuggles noticed it too… the lingering aroma of fresh, sweet pastry in the air. Strange, they hadn’t even begun to bake the dough yet, but the scent was unquestionable – especially for the feline with a far sharper nose than him. “*Sniiiiiiiff*…” Ranma got a little preoccupied with enjoying the scent, even pressing his face against Erica’s hair, “… Oh, wait, the butter, yeah. It’s all melted!”

Aww, he wanted to play with her hair too – now Snuggles got capital over it… lucky bastard.

But alas, it made Snuggles stop distracting them on top of the kitchen desk, instead drawing the tom back to their legs with clingy meows. Little tom had gotten very clingy to the two of them ever since they picked him up from the woods far away. Maybe there were other cats just running about… and who knew? If the numbers matched, every Shinigami couple could have an obligatory feline companion. A pseudo-familiar, if you could call it that.

Okay… so now, he had the task of taking the butter-block half-melted on the pan and drop it into the flour volcano. Grabbing a spatula from one of the drawers below, Ranma took a deep breath, knowing that 10 good points from Erica were on the line. “Okay… be flawless, hand,” Ranma prayed, slowly lifting up the butter with the spatula and dragging it towards the other bowl with the other ingredients. His hand was shivering a little… just a little, but he couldn’t waste time – otherwise, his paranoia would rise higher.

*PLONK*

… Oh, he dropped the butter right on the edge of the dough volcano. “Ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhi- wait, mhmmmm, wait wait wait, so is that 10 points?” he asked with a mixture of enthusiasm and bubbling dread.

10 points- FUCK YEAH!

Ranma’s sudden excitement spiked through the roof, figuratively at least. No more breaking holes through roofs anymore… he’d learned his lesson from Beetle. However, somebody else was having a good time too – the snuggly tomcat kept demanding attention, so Ranma found himself holding the whisk and bowl a moment after. “…”

This was a new feeling- not so new, this was a recurring feeling. Absolute, seething jealousy. Oh, Ranma kept whisking away at the mixture, but his pained eyes were glued to the scene unfolding in front of him – Snuggles lived up to his name and snuggled tightly with Erica, clearly enjoying the attention he got now. Little rascal. Little homewrecker! Pussycat!!!

“…. Wish I was a fuckin’ cat, sometimes…” he cursed under his breath, acting a little childish and pouty, “Think you got it real good, don’t ya? Remember, I’m the one who found you first! Hmpf!”

Snuggles just meowed back at him, indifferent to his bubbling feelings. Ranma’s eyes grew more and more comical, stark and cat-like with slitted pupils as he meowed back, thinking that he could speak feline all of a sudden. Who on earth could take any of this seriously…?

Ranma whisked away, holding himself back just enough to prevent the mixture from whipping out in all directions. The milk, the flour, the egg, the butter, and the milk… all the other ingredients were fusing into a single, wet, viscous substance – getting ready to be poured in intervals on the pan. Ranma could not only smell the fragrance… but also taste it. The air itself tasted like a real pancake – the real ones his Auntie used to bake as well.

Snuggles was still getting his namesake in spades from Erica, but surely, the tom loved Ranma just as much. He was the one who could comically turn ‘cat-eyed’ when intrigued or intimidated by Komugi, so Snuggles had to feel some sort of connection there… or rivalry. Speaking of-

“Snuggleeeeeeeeeeeeeeees,” Ranma reverberated quietly, “Why’re you glaring so hard at the mixtuuuuuuuuure? The milk’s gone, my fur-covered child of feline parts unknown – the dough drank it up. Look!” Ranma held the bowl up to Snuggles, who aptly sniffed at it… then gently poked it with his paw before licking up the mixture joyously.

“… Well, now our pancakes are gonna taste like cat too…”