Chapter Text
Shrek and Fiona had an outdoor oven. It was ridiculous and unconventional, completely inconvenient, and improved no one's life. It was made of stone, carved to be a sphere, but so poorly made that it appeared more square than anything.
It was very them.
And not at all their idea. Donkey had been the one to bring it up first, somehow. He'd apparently tried to make bread over the happy couple's fire pit and ended up with a burnt lump of dough that was somehow still gooey inside. Shrek hadn't even said anything yet when Donkey began his lament about the awful conditions he had to work with. How he had put his heart and soul into this bread, that no one asked for, and was it too much trouble to just have a proper oven?
After it was brought up, Fiona had started reminiscing about the old castle oven, and how she used to sneak down to the kitchen for a freshly baked snack.
This was before her father locked her in a castle.
Felicia then had to be told what an oven was, and Farkel was showing interest in baking. Which was. Nice.
Regardless of any reason, the Muffin Man had a spare (poorly designed) oven and offered to install it, which Fiona graciously accepted, and Shrek mumbled about.
No one used it. Donkey realised he had hooves instead of hands, Fiona was more adjusted to fire pits, and the triplets, by extension, didn't get to see it in use much. Besides, it had a tendency to catch fire, which led to a bucket full of water being left at the wall close by. Just in case.
It was left to rot around the side of the hut.
Which wouldn't do.
So Gingy decided to put his minimal skills to use and bake every so often, usually when there was a gathering of some sort at the Ogres' abode. Scones, cookies, sweetened pastries, that sort of thing.
The thing was, Gingy wasn't the biggest creature in the swamp, and he had trouble mixing, adding ingredients, or setting the oven temperature, or putting things in the oven, or-
He's very short, is what he means. Usually, he'd get the Triplets to help, they were eight now, which was apparently still pretty young for Ogres, but they were a lot taller than Gingy, so he called it a win.
He's there to supervise anyway.
On this specific occasion, a simple get-together 'for fun' since Shrek was feeling slightly social for once, the triplets were busy with the Dronkeys. Gingy tended to steer clear of Donkeys' children, as they had a habit of spitting fire and Gingy was overbaked as it was, but the Triplets liked them, and they were big enough to be ridden now (though Gingy doubted they'd get bigger than Donkey himself).
Needless to say, Gingy was without his extra hands. He couldn't ask Donkey, for obvious reasons, and Shrek didn't have the patience for cooking. He would ask Fiona, but she was enjoying watching the kids play.
That left him with Puss.
The cat had already begun to spin tales and stories of adventures and danger when Gingy approached him. He tended to get a little worked up at parties, or even at small get-togethers as he ended up acting like it was some big celebration. No one minded his antics, even if they were starting to get a bit more frenzied as the years went on. He'd started a gambling game at the triplets' 7th birthday and tried to put the King's crown on the betting table. And that was before he scratched up the Inn's curtains.
Gingy suspected everyone put up with it because he's cute. You tell him off for drinking all the milk you needed for a cake and suddenly Fiona is side-eyeing you.
Not that Gingy really minded that much, he was family after all. Family with the ability to mix. Gingy assumed at least. He'd guess that if you can swing a sword, you can stir a spoon.
It was just annoying that he had to wait until after Puss finished singing before he could ask anything. But he prevailed!
After a great exclamation of how he'll 'bake the greatest baked biscuits in all the land', Puss was by the side of the hut, perched on the table near the oven, looking over the recipe book.
Ignoring everything Gingy had said.
"Just add the egg!"
"I have. Looks, there is an egg." Puss gestured to the bowl, wherein sat a mountain of flour, some vanilla extract, and one whole egg, dusted in white.
Gingy rolled his eyes, exasperated. "You have to break it." Puss nodded, as if he understood exactly what Gingy was asking of him. He then proceeded to smash his paw into the bowl, causing the egg to splatter all around the edges. He looked over at Gingy, an expectant smile splashed across his face.
"Broken, sí?"
Fiona had to come check on them after that.
In the end, Gingy had to go into the bowl and extract every single eggshell. It was a painstaking process and he ended up covered in flour, but Puss did end up following the rest of his directions well enough. Even if he did lick the butter.
Turns out a swordsman (cat?) does make for a good stirrer.
Only when they had finished placing the batter onto the tray, did Gingy realise. He'd forgotten to preheat the oven. Later he will deny his dramatic fall to the ground, which involved slamming the floor repeatedly.
Puss turned the oven on, his tail flicking side to side as he reached the knob, which had no numbers, but instead the words 'cold', 'hot', and 'very hot'.
"I have got it, hombre de pan." He then proceeded to shove the uncooked cookies into the cold oven.
"They won't cook properly like that," he said, but Puss simply grabbed him up from the ground and deposited him onto the table, tsking.
"Worry not! This is but a simple task for I, Puss in Boots!"
Gingy didn't see what the correlation between his name and baking cookies properly was, but he conceded that the title was very impressive.
The recipe called for a thirty-minute wait, but Gingy estimated it would be closer to forty, due to the preheat debacle.
Puss got about ten minutes in before he was turning the oven knob even further right, ignoring Gingy's protests. "The hotter, the quicker, no?"
He seemed unable to stay away from a 'party' for even a few minutes, huffing every time he heard laughter that wasn't caused by him. He eventually settled for the audience he had infront of him, even if Gingy was an unwilling one.
He ended up enjoying the story about how Puss defeated a 'were-man' with opera tickets. That was the thing with Puss, he could tell a good story, no matter how nonsensical.
Twenty minutes later, they stood in front of the oven, the cookies inside looked brown.
Maybe a bit too brown. Kind of black, to be honest.
Actually, it seemed as though the whole oven was blackening from the inside out, like an infection with gangrene setting in. Gingy could feel the heat radiating from it and it trembled slightly, like an anxious chihuahua. He looked up, the knob Puss had fiddled with was set far past 'very hot', onto a section ominously in red.
"Puss, I think you set the oven too high!"
"I am the master of the baking," Puss replied, his eyebrow twitching, even as Gingy started inching away from the oven opening. "Watch!"
Gingy jumped to the side and away from the blistering heat, just in time for Puss to pull open the oven door.
Gingy could feel the heat on his back, scorching him. It was like an explosion, sending his gingerbread body flying into the ground, where he face plants. He has only a moment to orient himself before his hearing adjusts and he hears the yowling.
The noise cuts through the cold night air and all other sounds stop. It's loud and high-pitched, a kind of cawing whine that seems to be clawing its way out of Puss' throat. It sounded like an animal on its last legs, trying desperately to be heard so that anyone, someone, could put it out of its misery.
It sounded like death.
And it was coming from Puss as he rolled around the ground, the lethel blaze attacking his fur, swallowing it whole and leaving nothing but burning orange flame visible, a mockery of his natural colour. He used his paws to bat at his own face as if he could claw the scorching heat away before falling backwards onto the ground, where he twisted and screeched, like a distorted form of play.
The party had stopped, the oven was on fire, and the cookies were burnt.
Puss would not stop yowling.
Gingy was only vaguely aware of any of this, as he sat uselessly on the ground, staring in horror.
A drop of water landed on Gingy's head as someone tossed a bucket of water above him, and he watches as it lands on the unmoving cat. When had he stopped moving?
Someone rushed over, he saw green, and a cloth or towel or something is placed over Puss, dowsing the rest of the flame.
The fire disappeared, and so had any trace of orange.
Fiona had sat by her husband's side, content, as her son lent against her knee. He laughed with the rest of her family as Donkey told an anecdote. Something about a friend of a friend's cousin's dad.
And then the yowling started.
Once, Shrek stepped on Puss' tail. The cat had just finished his latest children's story-turned-song, with a flourish of his cape, when her husband walked past, stepping on the poor cat. He had let out a fierce shriek, followed by a hiss, and Shrek ended up with half a shoe and a very moody cat pouting by the fire pit. The children had laughed at the expense of their father and uncle, but Fiona had felt rather sick hearing such a noise of distress.
Now she just felt dread.
Everyone was off their seats in seconds, except for Donkey, who Fiona would later realise had the foresight to try to keep the kids away.
She smelt it before she saw it, the scent of burning fur and cooking meat clinging to her nostrils. She was used to unpleasent odors, but even she had to fight back a gag. Shadows danced on the ground and walls in a sick fandango as an orangey hue lit the area. She felt terror pool in her stomach.
Around the corner, they finally make it. It took seconds but felt like decades.
The oven they'd bought on a whim was on fire, flames pooling out the cracks, and Gingy sat unmoving on the stone floor.
Puss is on fire.
It was the only thing she could think, even as she grabbed the bucket left near the wall, working on autopilot.
Puss is on fire.
She tossed the bucket of water, already ignoring the fact that the yowling has stopped and he isn't moving.
Puss is on fire.
The water landed, dousing most of the flame, and her husband rushed over soon after, a wet cloth in hand. Puss is scooped up into the cloth, Shrek holding him in his arms. Fiona coverd her mouth with her hand. She could still smell it.
"The oven-" Gingy cut himself off with a whine.
She drops the bucket.
"Puss? Buddy?" Shrek coaxed as if talking to a beaten dog, and not a burnt cat. He was wrapped in the cloth and held softly in the ogre's arms. Fiona had never seen him be so gentle.
She approached slowly, the sound of her footsteps echoing loudly in her ears. It was the only sound.
She touched the top of the Puss' head, and it was jagged and raw, no longer soft fur. His hair had been burnt to the skin. Fiona was almost glad he was all black if just so they didn't have to see the colour of the burns.
He doesn't move. Fiona looked at Shrek, and he shook his head. Once, but difinitive.
She's the first to cry, but she hears Gingy start behind her and she wanted to go to him but she just-
She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds trying to escape.
Shrek isn't a crier, but he pulled Puss' little body up and hugged him to his shoulder. He isn't a crier, but he ran his hand over Puss' head, burnt and furless, and he might as well have been.
They sit in silence, all the light draining away as the oven died down and Gingy was crying and she knew she should go see the children and-
She thought of Puss, and his little face. With all his bluster and hotheaded energy, it was easy to forget how small he really was. A tiny cat that spoke of fighting monsters and soldiers and of being an outlaw. She can't forget now, his tiny form, so limp and lifeless, held in her husbands arms. She felt stupid, letting a cat near an oven, letting Puss near an oven. It was something so avoidable, something she could have prevented if she had just been here. And now her friend, her family, is-
A soft rumble filled the air, cutting off any thought Fiona could have.
Shrek gasped breathlessly as Puss pushed his head into the hand with a soft purr, then a short, loud, laugh.
"Please, Señor, your wife is right there!“