Title: Experimentation
Author: Corona
Fandom: Xena
Rating: PG
Archive: Yes, want ask, take, have.
Pairing: C/S
Warning: None, foodstuffs.
Disclaimer: I don't own anybody here. I never have done and I never will.
I'm borrowing all of them for this story, I'll give them straight back
afterwards.
Series: Probably not.
Summary: Experimentation with Cookery.
No one was ever up this early...whether they were awake or not was a
different matter, but at this time of the morning the only people wandering
Olympus were a few random light Gods, a sleepy Apollo and-
*CRUNCH*
Cupid stopped in mid-stride, pulled a face, what the...? After a pause he
picked up his sandal and eyed the bottom of it with a certain amount of
trepidation. Half a peanut shell was forlornly squished against the very
expensive sole. Not, admittedly, the worst thing he'd ever trodden on
wandering the halls of Olympus. Some of the things that escaped Dad's temple
touched so strongly on primal urges that you couldn't afford not to mash
them into the marble with repeated shoe blows until they stopped moving.
Food items very rarely figured into the equation. He looked at the floor, a
little trail of the things wound off down the corridoor like some psychotic
monkey had tried to lay a trap for the unwary. Judging by the angle of the
trail the psychotic monkey appeared to be Strife.
Utilising all the stealthy qualities he'd inherited from his father he
squeaked, crunched and flopped his way into Strife's temple. No way would
Strife be up. The way Cupid heard it Strife didn't get out of bed until Ares
ripped his temple doors off their hinges and threw at least three buckets of
water at him...a good four or five hours from now. Which suggested
interlopers...or foul play, not that he was entirely sure what constituted
foul play. So he peered round the door more carefully than usual, just in
case.
It took him a few seconds to take in the entire scene.
Then a few longer seconds to make sure it was real.
Strife was indeed up, though by the looks of things he wasn't certain if
Strife knew it yet. He was wearing...well Cupid would tentatively label them
pyjama's. If a madman had made pyjama's out of a collection of black
straitjackets he suspected they'd look a lot like that. They certainly spoke
of an intention to take lots of sharp things to bed with you. He was mostly
visible behind a large silver pot, which was swinging precariously from
something Cupid couldn't name and didn't want to. The pot had various pieces
of cutlery sticking out of it at odd angles. Drag marks stuck out sharply on
the floor leading out of the temple. Whatever he was doing wasn't going very
well because he was muttering to himself, occasionally scratching his head,
which explained why he had butter in it.
"What are you doing?" Strife looked up, blinked, scratched his chin with
something sharp, somehow managing not to slit his own throat in the process.
"What does it look like?" Cupid made a puzzled face, raised an eyebrow,
seeking some sort of rational explanation. Strife's expression wavered
somewhat.
"No really what does it look like, because I'm damned if I know." There was
a very thin note of panic in Strife's voice. So Cupid went forward a step
and very carefully took the sharp thing from him. On closer inspection it
seemed to be his Mom's.
"Why are you bastardizing Mom's cutlery?" Strife sniggered, snatched the
offending shiny thing out of Cupid's grasp.
"I'm not bastardizing nothing, I'm..." He peeked into the large tin bowl and
frowned hard enough to pull most of his forehead to the bridge of his nose.
"I'm...making...something." He looked utterly confused.
"At half past four in the morning?" Strife shook his head, as if that didn't
matter.
"I was making something...only it's not right. I've put all the bits
together and it's sort of the right colour but it doesn't taste right. It
tastes wrong."
A spoon was dunked into the miscellaneous substance and prodded in Cupid's
direction.
"Taste it." Much as he would have loved to help Strife through his nervous
breakdown Cupid wasn't putting anything Strife had knocked up anywhere near
his digestive system.
"Er...I'd really rather...not." He wasn't expecting the twitch. The twitch
usually only happened in the direst of circumstances, bad things happened
whenever the corner of Strife's left eye flickered like that.
"Taste it." Oh nuts, well with any luck Dad would find his bloated poisoned
corpse somewhere, Mom would probably cry, he felt bad about that. He opened
his mouth.
He was expecting something gruesomely horribly, so it was rather a shock to
get a mouthful of squashed peanuts. Almost instantly he lost all ability to
chew.
"U ung uk o he uuf og m nh." It appeared even Strife couldn't work that one
out. Against his better judgement he attempted to swallow.
"It's wrong isn't it, there's something missing." Cupid was still trying to
unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
"It's supposed to taste of something else as well I'm sure of it...not quite
so gloopy." A box of something was tipped half-heartedly into the mixture.
Judging by the colour and consistency it was sugar.
"It's...very peanutty." Cupid offered in an attempt to be helpful. Strife
leant over his pot and glared at the contents.
"It's supposed to be...I think." Cupid watched the fidgety movements.
"Where exactly did you get this..." He waved a hand.
"Recipe from?" Strife frowned, shook his head.
"I don't have a clue, but it's good, I know it's good. At least I think I
do. Maybe it was a dream. Only once I dreamed that I was a giant flying
minotaur who could breath fire but I'm fairly sure that was just the
cheesecake." The spoon was stuck back in the mixture. It stood straight up.
Strife sagged, scratched his head again, well at least the butter had
company now. Cupid was re-thinking his original thought concerning psychotic
monkeys, only now he suspected they had stolen Strife's brain.
"Why don't you go back to bed." Cupid suggested gently.
"You look like you could use it." Strife shook his head.
"Uh uh, I'm nearly there, I know I am." Cupid took a chance at losing all of
his fingers by very gently grasping Strife's shoulders and tilting him in
the direction of the bedroom.
"I'll watch the goo and make sure it doesn't go smooshy while you're
resting." Strife twisted his head, gave the pot a forlorn look.
"It'll be fine." The God of Mischief padded off into the back of his temple,
slightly unsteadily, looking oddly thin and rumpled. Cupid eyed the mixture
with bewilderment.
"Yes, and what exactly am I supposed to do now?"
END