Chapter Text
Between garage fires and grease blazes, Seifer had seen his fair share of odd incidents called into the Balamb City Fire Department. Today was his first time being called to a university lab for a kitchen fire.
Apparently, someone in academia didn’t quite grasp the concept of a controlled experiment.
"Kitchen fire at Balamb University, Lab Building C," dispatch crackled through the radio as the engine roared to life. "Possible chemical involvement."
Autumn leaves swirled across the pavement like dry confetti as the fire engine screamed through Balamb City’s tree-lined streets. Hanging off the side of the fire truck, Seifer watched as they approached a stately ivy-covered building.
Dark wisps of smoke were indeed curling up from one of the fifth-floor windows, but the building seemed otherwise completely still. No flurry of activity, no screaming flood of panicked students.
Just the shrill drone of a lone fire alarm, somewhere high up, surrounded by perfect calm and blue skies.
Leaping off the fire truck before it slowed to a full stop, Seifer bounded up the building stairs two at a time. His team trailed behind, clearly less enthused about running head on to tackle what increasingly seemed like a piddly kitchen fire, rather than a raging chemical lab explosion.
Seifer, on the other hand, handled every call like it was a five alarm situation in need of a hero.
A stinging, burnt smell grew stronger with each floor. By the time he reached the chemistry department on the top floor, his senses were flooded with a caustic, powdery smell that made his eyes water.
Seifer pushed open the door to find a slender woman with her back to him, standing amid a kitchen lab that looked like a science experiment gone wrong. Which, technically, it probably was.
Her sun-blonde hair was twisted up into a fishtail bun, the practical styling slightly mussed and patterned with large, messy smudges of flour. She wore a pencil skirt and knee-high boots underneath an oversized lab coat, with plastic safety goggles pushed up high on her forehead.
Her feet were spread wide in a firm stance, her back to the door as she pointed a fire extinguisher straight at the source of the flames: a gaping oven, charred around the edges with dark soot. The acrid smell was from the plumes of chemical smoke the woman was currently piling into the oven, and Seifer couldn’t help but notice an empty extinguisher canister already discarded at her feet.
So that’s why there was no real fire left for them to tackle.
He only knew what she looked like from behind, but something about how fiercely she was facing off with the dying remains of the oven fire, as though she were determined not to let it get the best of her, struck Seifer as rather…cute.
"Ma'am, I'm with the fire department," he announced loudly, trying not to smirk when he saw her startle slightly with surprise. "We got a call about a lab fire?"
She turned, and Seifer felt something in his chest do a little flip that had nothing to do with the five flights of stairs. Underneath the safety goggles was a perfectly oval face, complete with shapely pink lips and brilliant blue eyes, currently sparkling with equal parts determination and indignation.
“Oh, yes. Well. Took you long enough to get here. As you can see, I have the situation well under control. Sorry to have troubled you.”
Seifer grinned. Her demeanor was strictly business, but it was somewhat diminished by the smear of white flour on the end of her nose. Again…cute.
“No trouble at all, ma’am. Just doing my job. I’ll still need to do ventilation and post-incident analysis, if you don’t mind.”
Seifer proceeded to unlatch all the windows in the room, then pulled out a small notepad from his jacket pocket as he peered into the soot-filled oven. "Can you tell me a bit more about what happened here?”
The woman primly cleared her throat and set the fire extinguisher to the side, dusting her hands off on the twill of her pencil skirt. A direct contrast to Seifer’s casual ease, everything about the way she moved radiated a no-nonsense type of air.
"I was attempting to bake a cake for my research assistant, Nida. A sort of going-away present, if you will, before he leaves to focus on his PhD. In any case, it seems that the principles of thermodynamics don't quite apply to baking the way I thought they would."
"You tried to apply the laws of thermodynamics. To baking a cake." Pen poised over the notepad, Seifer struggled to keep the grin off his face.
"The principles should be transferable!" she protested, pulling the safety goggles off her head with an exasperated flourish. "Heat transfer, chemical reactions, precise measurements… Baking is just chemistry you can eat, after all."
"Right," Seifer said, moving to examine the wreckage. The smoke alarm was still shrieking overhead, grating into their ears like an indignant parrot. "And I'm guessing you also calculated the exact temperature needed to achieve optimal protein coagulation?"
She blinked, those brilliant blue eyes momentarily stunned. "You... know about protein coagulation?"
"Lady, I’ve made soufflés known to make grown men weep." With a cocky grin, he reached up and switched off the smoke alarm with practiced ease before turning to face her fully. "Miss...?"
"Doctor Trepe. Quistis Trepe." She politely offered her hand and as he shook it, he couldn’t help notice how her slender fingers practically disappeared in his large, callused hands. "And you are?"
"Seifer Almasy, Balamb City Fire Department. Pleasure to meet you," he replied, making sure to break out his most charming, knee-buckling grin as he said it.
Despite this, the woman remained rather cool and unaffected. Interesting.
"So, Dr. Trepe, any particular reason you were here at the lab on your own when you decided to declare war on your oven?"
Quistis huffed, crossing her arms in a way that made her lab coat fall open just enough to be distracting. "I have three advanced degrees in chemistry, a PhD in materials science, and I've published papers on molecular gastronomy. I should be able to handle baking a simple vanilla cake on my own."
"Ah, but there's your problem." Seifer stated, glancing around the ravaged kitchen before landing his gaze squarely back on her. "You were treating it like science instead of like baking."
"Baking is science!"
"No, baking is an art that happens to use science."
He picked up what looked like the remains of a plastic measuring cup from the dark granite countertop. "Let me guess. You substituted ingredients based on molecular weight?"
The guilty look that flashed across her face was worth more than every single gil that Seifer had in his bank account.
"I may have...optimized the recipe. Replaced the butter with a more efficient fat compound, substituted the vanilla with a synthetic vanillin derivative—"
"And probably calculated the exact joule requirements needed to achieve your desired browning reaction."
"Well. Yes."
Seifer laughed, his chest filling with pleasant warmth even in the smoky kitchen. He thought he saw the ghost of a smile flit across Quistis’s face as well.
"Doc, I’m sure you're a brilliant professor, but you just committed about seventeen different crimes against cake."
"I don't see what's so funny!" she exclaimed, but her lips were now definitely twitching like they were fighting a smile. "The chemical composition should have been nearly identical."
"Should have been. But baking doesn't care about your molecular theory."
Seifer stepped forward slightly, just close enough to catch a hint of her perfume under all the chemicals and smoke - something fresh and clean that made him think of spring mornings. He dropped his voice an octave lower and looked down straight into her eyes.
"It's about…feeling the dough, knowing when it looks right. Trusting your instincts instead of your calculator."
Quistis had to crane her neck back slightly to look up at him, frowning slightly as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She came across as many things in that moment, but ‘adorably clueless’ was near the very top of that list.
"I don't really trust my instincts when it comes to food," she admitted. "The last time I tried to make cookies for the faculty meeting, four people had to ask me if they were edible."
"Well…were they?"
"Technically, yes. They met all FDA safety requirements for human consumption."
"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement." Seifer couldn't help but break out into another wide grin; she was just too damned gorgeous when she was flustered.
"Look, the good news is you didn't actually burn the building down. The bad news is, I’d say you're banned from this kitchen until you learn the difference between baking and conducting chemical warfare."
"I am not—" she started, then caught sight of the blackened oven interior. "Okay, that's fair. I guess I just haven’t found the right information sources to help me improve my technique yet."
Easing into a more casual stance, Seifer leaned back against the countertop and pulled out his incident report pad. He scribbled something rapidly, very aware of her watching him with an intense focus that made him bristle pleasantly with the attention.
Tearing off the page, he placed it face-up on the countertop and slid it her way.
“Listen, feel free to take it or leave it, but…you could always check this out sometime, see if it helps. Never know; might find something there that speaks to you.”
He winked at her as she eyed him with hesitation, delicately picking up the paper to look at it. Her brow immediately furrowed in confusion.
“This is a learning resource?” She flipped the page so he could see what he’d written.
Scrawled in hasty penmanship was just a single line of text:
Look for @TurnUpTheHeat on Prestogram
Seifer smirked. “It can be, if you want to think of it that way. It’s definitely more of a ‘show, not tell’ kind of learning aid though. If that works for you.”
Quistis hummed thoughtfully, clearly in consideration. “I suppose I am more of a visual learner. I’ve been reading up on sourdough as a demonstration of proteolysis for my classes, but I just can’t seem to get it right from the written recipes.”
She paused, a bit hesitant. “And you really think this could help someone like me?”
“I can’t say for sure, but you'd be surprised what people learn when they stop thinking and start… feeling their way through something. Baking is about so much more than following a formula."
Pensively, Quistis rubbed the wrinkled edge of the paper in her hand. "And what makes you think I’d be interested in anything beyond just learning a formula?"
Seifer's grin was pure trouble as he leaned back in, causing her to blush ever so slightly.
“Because, Dr. Trepe, you strike me as someone who doesn't like being bad at things. And right now you're very, very bad at baking."
"I am not—" She huffed again before looking around at the smoking remains of her kitchen experiment. "Yes, yes, fine. You may have a point."
"They always say the first step is admitting you have a problem. All in all, I’d say my work here is done for today." With that, Seifer shouldered his heavy equipment bag and headed for the door, but not before pausing to look back over his shoulder.
"Oh, and Doc? When you do try and make that sourdough, maybe keep the fire department on speed dial. Just in case."
"Very funny," she groused after him, but he caught the smile in her voice.
As Seifer jogged back down the stairs to meet his team, he found himself fighting back another reckless grin. That had been way more fun than his normal emergency calls.
Behind him, Quistis stood in the destroyed lab kitchen, staring at the torn-off paper in her hand and wondering what exactly had just transpired.
The smoke alarm chose that moment to give one last, indignant beep.
"I heard that," she said aloud to the room, then sighed resignedly before starting to tidy up.
*****
Later that night, Quistis was sitting alone at her dining room table, pouring herself a glass of red wine to unwind after a long day of lectures and course preparation. Not to mention the peer review work that got dumped on her desk at the last minute.
Swirling the glass, she leaned back and took a slow, luxurious sip. Savoring the taste, she let her eyes wander along the stack of notebooks next to her purse, then down to the crinkled sheet of loose paper sticking out near the bottom.
Ah, yes. The learning resource from the handsome fireman.
Indeed, he had been incredibly handsome. She couldn't help but notice that the second she’d laid eyes on him. Rakish smile, mischievous green eyes, a sharp jawline and clean-cut blonde hair. Even under his heavy firefighter garb, she could tell he was tall and well-built.
And charming. Almost too charming. Men with that much easy confidence always put Quistis on edge.
She didn’t trust them. She didn’t trust anyone for whom things seemed to come too easily. Not since she’d had to work tooth and nail for every degree under her belt, and yet somehow the men in her field always seemed to walk away with all the recognition regardless.
But something about him today had relaxed her. Eased her guard down. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, though the attractiveness certainly didn’t hurt.
“Let’s see…do I still even know my Prestogram password?” Quistis mused aloud as she pulled the slip of paper out from between her notebooks.
Swiping through her phone, she finally found the app near the very back. After going through her normal rotation of password variations, she unlocked it on the very last one. Clearly, it had been a long time since she’d made the account.
She’d only done so at the insistence of Selphie, one of her oldest grade-school friends. And the only account she’d ever bothered to follow was one about superacids and oddities in the periodic table. The experiments had been clever and fun to watch, though not her preferred medium.
Typing one-handed as she held her glass of wine in the other, Quistis tapped the handle @TurnUpTheHeat into the search bar.
Funny, it didn’t sound like a learning resource.
Maybe it was a shrewd play on the progression of heat and entropy? Or perhaps the scientific nature of irreversibility and universal heat death? The possibilities were, in fact, endless.
The feed populated and suddenly Quistis found herself staring at a mouthwatering array of baked delights filling her screen. Rustic sourdough loaves with crackling crusts. Jewel-toned fruit tarts glazed to a polish. Dark chocolate cakes, half molten and dusted with sugar that looked like edible snow.
She certainly saw what he meant by visual aid. If she could recreate even just one of these recipes to this caliber of appeal, she’d consider it a smashing success.
What she didn’t expect was the visual she got upon clicking the first image.
What she imagined she’d see was a starter loaf of sourdough, or maybe an array of ingredients laid out to start the baking process.
What she got was an eyeful of Seifer himself. Shirtless, muscular. Glistening.
Ambient studio lighting cut shadows across the canyons of his pectorals. The curves of his biceps. The rippling expanse of his bronzed abs.
His blonde hair looked slightly more unkempt than she remembered (but in a pleasant way), a stray lock or two falling over his brow. He was wearing his firefighter uniform, but only the pants and suspenders. If anything, the look was even more distracting than if he’d been wearing nothing at all.
Oh, there was still sourdough alright. But it wasn’t the star.
Okay, so he’s full of himself. Most attractive men are. It’s fine, just focus on the baking. It’s a learning resource, remember?
Sure, whatever you say, a small part of her chimed in.
She watched on nevertheless.
Large, strong, very capable looking hands folded flour and water together, slowly pressing the mixture into a glass bowl. His thumbs pressed down into the starter — firm yet gentle — letting the dough pillow up into his hands as he cupped and shaped it with confident ease.
Was it just her, or did her apartment suddenly feel warmer than normal? And since when had her throat gone inexplicably dry?
Without thinking, Quistis took another deep gulp of her wine.
Then, a montage of him feeding fresh flour and water into the starter over several days. Wet hands reached into the bowl, pulling and kneading and stretching. Letting the dough turn into silk under his roving palms. His fingers looked dexterous; his knuckles large and glistening.
As he worked, his fingertips would trace its curved surfaces, somehow leisurely yet suggestive.
At one point, Seifer leaned forward to inspect his work and smirked knowingly at the camera, his pecs and shoulder muscles flexing in the low light.
Her pulse raced, and Quistis found herself grasping the stem of her wine glass a bit tighter.
Once the starter had doubled in size, he dusted the counter with a coat of fresh flour. Then, with a loud ‘smack’, he threw the wad of dough heavily onto the table. The way he slapped it onto the table seemed unnecessarily rough, and a bit…provocative.
Subconsciously, Quistis’s legs squeezed together under the table.
Deftly, he coaxed the dough into a tight ball with confident, gentle pulls. Molded it with his palms. The shape of it now looked vaguely…female.
Something was slowly electrifying her senses about the way he gently circled the pad of his thumb over the surface of the dough. Massaging moisture into its surface with slow, patient swirls. Then, his hands slick with wetness, he confidently slid two of his fingers deep into-
“Nope!” Quistis slammed her phone screen down onto the table and shot up from her chair, face beet red and her pulse racing wildly.
Snatching up her wine glass, she paced over to the other side of the room, suddenly filled with a nervous energy she couldn’t possibly contain.
Her brain felt scrambled. Her heart was pounding up near her ears. And there was definitely a warm feeling gathering low in her belly, threatening to creep dangerously lower.
What had she been looking at?
Bewildered, Quistis stared at her phone from across the room like it was a grenade. Futilely she tried to scrub her mind blank, but all she could do was replay the images of Seifer – glistening, shirtless, flexing in the low light – working the dough like it was a supple living thing.
Picturing his hands doing…things to her.
Breath shaky, she took another few sips for courage.
After several long minutes (and perhaps more than a few pulls of wine), she slowly walked back over to the table and turned her phone back over.
Enough time had passed that the video had looped several times already. Face up now, the phone played the final few seconds of the baking process.
In the background gaped an old-fashioned oven, open and glowing with heat. With a swift upward movement, glinting kitchen knife in hand, Seifer scored the cold dough with one decisive slash—a baker’s signature.
Seconds later – the cooking process sped through – he pulled the fully baked bread out of the oven. The bronzed crust bloomed open, golden and cracked, steam rising from the sides. She could practically smell it through the screen.
Perfectly baked sourdough.
Damn. Maybe she should have taken some notes.
Easing back into her chair and gripping the edge of the table, Quistis let the video replay again from the start.
She steeled herself to watch through all the distractions – her mouth was not watering from the sight of Seifer, it was simply the delicious sourdough, of course it was – and found there was a surprising amount of technique to pay attention to. Small things she never would have thought to do, and had never seen in any recipe books before.
Yet they made perfect sense when she reflected on the science behind them.
Dimpling salt into the dough late in the process, allowing the gluten’s proteins to fully bond before pulling moisture. Using a dash of carbonated mineral water to lower the pH and accelerate aeration. Veiling the dough in rice flour instead of wheat for the higher combustion and beautiful crusting.
Even the baker’s slash at the end was meticulously executed, done at an impeccable angle. It was a strange thought to have, but she felt he somehow had the precision of an expert swordsman.
Fascinated, she jotted frantic notes down into her notebook.
Her curiosity piqued, Quistis now felt compelled to watch more of the videos on his feed. Arguably for more reasons than one – but who was around to judge her, really?
Mechanically she started to click on the videos one by one. She watched with wide eyes as reel after reel of gorgeous pastries and sweets pulled up onto her phone, her glasses reflecting luscious textures and delectable colors at every turn.
Occasionally she paused to take notes, worrying her bottom lip in her teeth or pushing her glasses back up into place. But mostly she watched in a captivated trance.
On the tenth video, she was watching as he sensually drizzled glaze over the glossy mounds of a peach tart, when the image froze and a jarring text bubble in bright purple splashed onto her screen.
You’ve reached your limit of free views! Please subscribe to @TurnUpTheHeat’s feed to keep viewing.
Quistis froze.
Subscribe? She didn’t know she had to subscribe to keep viewing. Wouldn’t that be…traceable?
For the second time that night – okay, maybe tenth – she found her heart hammering uncontrollably. She could just stop watching. She could.
But she hadn’t even had a chance to see him make that lemon soufflé – or the molten chocolate lava cake, or the vanilla mille-feuille… those had all been next on the feed! In fact, a classic lemon soufflé had always been her Everest. She was determined to master it.
Nervously she glanced over at her notepad. The tips had certainly been helpful so far…
Tapping one finger against her chin, Quistis reflected. She had zero posts, zero followers. No profile picture. Even her profile name was ambiguous; nothing personal about it. She was almost never on Prestogram and even if she were, her students couldn’t possibly trace it back to her.
Could anyone possibly know who she was?
Cautiously she went to take another sip of wine for courage, only to find her glass empty. Wait, since when had she finished her glass? Hold on, had she actually polished the whole bottle while watching his videos?
Slightly buzzed and cheeks flush with heat, Quistis chewed her lip with indecision for only a second more.
Decisively, she pressed ‘subscribe’ on her phone and almost breathed a sigh of relief as the image unfroze and the surge of silky, lustrous fruit glaze continued to pour.
No one ever had to know.
*****
The next morning, she was seated at her table having breakfast, mulling over the day’s tasks ahead, when a soft ping interrupted her thoughts.
Her phone screen flared with brightness, drawing her eye as a bright purple bubble popped up. It contained a message in the commercial Prestogram font she was starting to become quite familiar with.
TurnUpTheHeat: hey doc
TurnUpTheHeat: how’s the sourdough coming along?
Quistis stared blankly at her phone.
She debated ignoring it.
She considered simply turning it over or maybe just tossing it out the window.
How in the world could he have known?
Flustered and apprehensive didn’t even begin to describe how she felt at that moment. But…there was also nothing else for it. She couldn’t simply dismiss the message now either, could she?
Quantum_Queen: Good morning. How did you know it was me?
TurnUpTheHeat: had a hunch
TurnUpTheHeat: name and lack of profile pic kinda gave it away
TurnUpTheHeat: that, and the fact that the only other account you follow is about the periodic table of elements
Quantum_Queen: Their posts are highly informative and clever. You should check them out, since you seem to know a thing or two about basic chemistry.
TurnUpTheHeat: perfect, i’m always looking for new lessons in chemistry ;)
TurnUpTheHeat: i’ll be sure to give it a whirl
TurnUpTheHeat: so…
TurnUpTheHeat: you still haven’t answered about the sourdough. thought about giving it another shot?
Quantum_Queen: Things have been too busy, honestly. It’s exam season and I’m also in the middle of applying for some new grants. Not to mention my upcoming seminar on organic chemistry.
TurnUpTheHeat: sorry to hear
TurnUpTheHeat: probably just as well
TurnUpTheHeat: fire department’s a bit short staffed right now
TurnUpTheHeat: not sure we can spare the manpower for more kitchen fires
Quantum_Queen: Ha, ha. I didn’t know you were a funny firefighter.
TurnUpTheHeat: for you, Doc, i can be whatever kind of firefighter you’d like me to be
Why did everything this man say feel like shameless flirting? Combined with the gratuitous videos, he must be far too casual, too nonchalant about dating to be suitable for her.
Not the serious type at all, and Quistis only wanted serious men.
And yet, she found herself continuing to write back.
Quantum_Queen: And if I were hoping for a more helpful, instructional type of firefighter? One who promised I might learn something of value?
TurnUpTheHeat: absolutely, can do. how about a live lesson?
TurnUpTheHeat: nothing like some hands-on curriculum to get you familiar with the ropes
Quistis felt herself blushing. Why did everything he say feel slightly suggestive?
And even worse, why was it making her grin like some teenaged school girl with a crush?
Quantum_Queen: Live tutorials do tend to be the most effective. I’m only free on weekends however. Would this Saturday 3pm work for you?
TurnUpTheHeat: absolutely
TurnUpTheHeat: it’s a date then
Quantum_Queen: It’s an appointment. I look forward to receiving your instruction.
TurnUpTheHeat: and I look forward to giving it to you
TurnUpTheHeat: have a beautiful rest of your day, Doc
TurnUpTheHeat: see you Saturday
Leaning back in her chair as she set her phone down, Quistis found herself staring at the ceiling, feeling somewhat dazed and delirious. She had a date - no, an appointment - with the sexy hot firefighter this Saturday. Would wonders never cease?
Fighting back a smile, she sat back upright and looked down at her plain button-down blouse and tweed pencil skirt.
It might, at the very least, be time to reevaluate her wardrobe.