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George is glad Ringo’s birthday is in July: it falls smack-dab, right in the middle of strawberry season, so when he’s perusing the farmer’s market, there’s a veritable smorgasbord of ripe, plump, juicy berries for him to choose from. George drags a hand across his brow, wipes the beads of sweat away that have been forming as he’s been taking his time picking out the cream of the crop: the unusually warm summer weather completely undaunted by his large floppy hat. He keeps a careful eye out for Ringo, not wanting to spoil his birthday surprise, although, having strawberries in the house isn’t exactly unusual, especially this time of year. It’s more what he plans to do with the strawberries that he wants to keep secret. “Wot’cha got there?” Ringo asks, hooking his chin over George’s shoulder, picking a juicy red strawberry from out of George’s basket, “ooh, that’s good!” Ringo makes the chef’s kiss motion, waving his hand a little before sneaking another berry out from under George’s nose. George swats ineffectively.George knits his eyebrows together, gives Ringo a pointed stare, “they’re part of your birthday surprise,” he tells him, “and, the more you eat, the less there will be for tomorrow.” George slaps a hand over his mouth as soon as he finished speaking.“Surprise, eh?” Ringo says, smile curling at the edges of his mouth, “and honestly, George, you could buy the entire market, so no griping ‘bout me eatin’ a few.” Ringo punctuates his point by taking another strawberry.George gives up.~-~“You need to stay out of the kitchen,” George tells Ringo as he’s actively shooing him out the door and in to the dining room. “And stay out of the fridge too,” George calls after Ringo as he’s still actively propelling him through the dining room and out in to the wide-open great hall. “We’ll go out for dinner.” George figures that’s the best way to keep Ringo away while he’s preparing his birthday surprise.Ringo blows him a kiss over his shoulder and disappears upstairs to do who-knows-what, who-knows-where. George isn’t concerned. What he is concerned about is where his kitchen scale has gone. It’s critical to what he’s doing.After turning most of the kitchen upside down, and shooing Ringo out one more time when he’d come to investigate a particularly loud crash, he finds it in the cupboard over the fridge, right where it should have been this whole time. George blames the garden gnomes.He’s got all his ingredients laid out, the proper way to cook in his opinion, none of that grab-as-you-go stuff for him, thank you.Cocoa butter – checkMaple syrup – checkCacao powder – checkVanilla extract – checkSea salt – where the hell is the sea salt?It turns in to another fifteen-minute process of trying to figure out where the sea salt is, and he eventually finds it sitting behind a half-eaten bag of crisps. He doesn’t even know who’s those are. Or how long they’ve been there. It’s probably best not to dwell on it.Sea salt – checkGeorge also makes sure all of his cooking implements are lined up and ready to go—he doesn’t need to be half-way through his recipe only to find his whisk or his measuring spoons are missing. George gets his package of cocoa butter, finely chops up a handful, throwing pinches in to the small bowl that sits atop his kitchen scale, adding little bits until the readout states precisely 112 grams. He gets the maple syrup, measures out 45 milliliters to start, but only caps the jug, not putting it away yet: he may need more to add a little sweetness.From there, everything else is pretty easy to measure out as needed, so he fills his saucepan with about 5 centimeters of water and sets it on the stovetop to boil. It doesn’t take long, there’s not too much water, but while he’s waiting, he takes the strawberries he’d purchased the day before and makes sure they’re nice and clean and there’s none in the bunch with little yellowy or green bits on them. He finds two, slices off the offending pieces and sneakily pops them in to his mouth, one after another, feeling minorly guilty for indulging after giving Ringo the business the day before. Quality control, he tells himself, and he feels much better.By the time he’s done chastising himself, then justifying his actions to himself, the waters boiling, so he sets his glass bowl atop the saucepan, creating himself a make-shift double boiler. In goes the cocoa butter, and George watches as the steam from below fogs the glass bowl but very shortly after, the cocoa butter starts melting and within 2 to 3 minutes there’s no more bits and it’s all smooth and melty. He pours in the maple syrup, holding the measuring glass upside down for an extra moment, getting every last drop out, using his finger to wipe away the last remnants, sucking his fingertip in to his mouth. What Ringo doesn’t know won’t hurt him.George whisks the melted cocoa butter and the syrup together over the heat until they’re fully incorporated and pulls the bowl carefully off the saucepan and sets it to the side, shutting off the fire after that’s done. In goes the 48 grams of cacao powder, followed by a teaspoon of vanilla extract and he swirls it all together in the bowl until everything is smooth again. He adds a pinch of sea salt, dips his finger in, lets out a small ‘yowch’ because it’s still cooling, and gives it a taste.One more splash of maple syrup does the trick. Vegan chocolate! And it’s pretty good, George thinks, sneaking one more taste before setting it aside to cool just the tiniest bit more.He uses the time to clean up all the ingredients, gets the saucepan emptied out, loads his measuring spoons, cup, and pan in to the dishwasher and gives the counter a cursory wipe-down. He realizes he’s forgotten to get out a baking sheet and the parchment paper, spending a little longer than he wanted to tracking them down, but he’s pleased to see the chocolate is still perfectly dippable when he finally gets everything arranged.George stabs a strawberry, right at the leafy bit with a toothpick, holds it over the bowl of melted chocolate and uses his other hand to dip a spoon in to the smooth mixture, drizzling it over the strawberry once he’s collected enough. He makes short work of it; stab a berry, dip the spoon, drizzle the berry, and soon his tray is filled with delectable looking vegan chocolate covered strawberries. Ringo’s going to love them!He pops the tray in to the fridge to harden, pats the door on his way out and heads off in search of Ringo to see what he’s been getting up to.~-~Dinner is fab but when Ringo tries to order dessert, George has to dissuade him of the notion, promising something extra special for later that night if he does. Ringo raises his eyebrows, mouths ‘oh’ and winks, signaling for the check when he catches George’s drift.“Wait right there,” George points at the settee when they get back home and they’ve had the opportunity to change in to something more comfortable, i.e. – their pajamas.“Is it time for me extra special surprise?” Ringo asks, grinning.George rolls his eyes. “Here? In the parlor? No.”Ringo huffs, laughing.George waves a hand behind him as he sets off to the kitchen to retrieve Ringo’s not exactly extra special, but special surprise none the less. “Close your eyes,” George says, pushing his way through the swinging door carrying his dessert that he’s now got laid out on a very nice silver platter. “Voila!” George exclaims, putting the tray on the coffee table, “you can open your eyes now,” he adds after a moment when Ringo reaches out blindly and knocks a magazine on to the floor.“Ooooh!” Ringo makes a very delighted noise and reaches out but George slaps his hand away unexpectedly. “Ow!”George takes a seat next to Ringo on the settee. “I get to feed them to you,” George proclaims, “it’s your birthday after all.”Ringo grins.George picks up a chocolate covered strawberry, holds it by the leafy bits and cups his hand underneath, leaning in to place it close to Ringo’s mouth. Ringo takes a bite, lets out a long mmmm and takes another, gently scraping his teeth across George’s fingertips before finishing as much as he can get without getting a bit of leaf too.“That,” Ringo says, pointing at the tray, “is marvelous! Did you make those?”George nods, “vegan chocolate too—from scratch!”Ringo grabs George’s hand, gives it a squeeze, “you are amazing.”George picks up another strawberry, holds the leafy bits between his fingers and again, cups his hand underneath and leans in so he can place the chocolatey fruit in front of Ringo’s mouth. Ringo goes to take a bite, but George withdraws the berry, replacing the dessert with his lips instead. Ringo hums with delight in to the kiss. “Even better I think,” he says when George pulls back after a moment. “Are there more of those too?”“Plenty,” George laughs, holding out the strawberry again, this time allowing Ringo to eat it up in two bites.George feeds Ringo two more strawberries, pausing after the third when Ringo has a stray piece of chocolate on his lip, licking it off and lingering for a bit to give Ringo a more thorough kiss. After the fourth strawberry, Ringo picks one up, “your turn!”George willingly accepts the berry Ringo’s feeding him, takes a bite and relishes the smooth sweetness of the chocolate and juicy sweetness of the strawberry: he did do a great job, didn’t he? Ringo feeds him another, and pulls George’s stunt of replacing the berry with his lips, but George definitely doesn’t mind. The strawberries are sweet, but Ringo’s kisses are even sweeter. He chases Ringo’s lips as Ringo pulls away and Ringo pops the end of a strawberry into George’s mouth to placate him, chuckling.Between George’s fourth and Ringo’s fifth strawberries, they get a little derailed. George has a little chocolate on his fingers and Ringo notices, and next thing George knows, Ringo’s got his finger in his mouth and he’s sucking lightly and George decides it’s probably best to just pick up another strawberry with his other hand and he lets the chocolate melt all over those fingers. “Oops!” he says conspiratorially showing Ringo what’s happened.Ringo shakes his head in disbelief. “You did that on purpose,” he accuses, looking at George over his glasses.George grins, “can you blame me?”“No,” Ringo concedes and holds up chocolate covered fingers of his own.They take their time cleaning up, trading kisses in between, and when they’re finally chocolatey finger free, they decide to feed each other at the same time, that way, there will be no more opportunity for chocolate incidents. George and Ringo each pick up a berry, hooking their arms around each other’s and both take a bite of their respective berries at the same time, following the berries up with yet more kisses.It doesn’t take long to finish off the entire tray, George honestly only made about a dozen and a half, and there was a bit more requisite finger cleaning—it couldn’t be avoided, the longer the strawberries sat outside the refrigerator the softer the coating of chocolate had gotten—Ringo takes George’s hand and gives him a very soft and tender look, “that was amazing, George, thank you.”George smiles, tilting his head a little, giving Ringo a very coy look from under his shaggy hair that’s fallen down over his eyes. “Are you ready for your extra special birthday gift?”The silver tray sat forgotten on the coffee table, littered with the little green leafy strawberry bits, George and Ringo disappearing upstairs, fingers woven together as they climbed the long wooden staircase.