fandomhigh | Iron Fandom, Wednesday, period 3

The Danger Shop this week had shed its arena-esque look for a lovely event tent in a large, verdant field. The interior still had large individual cooking areas for each student, and the programmed sous chefs were waiting patiently by each student's station.

Pinkie's sous chef even still had the braids.

Raven and Kathy were at the front with their very special guest judge of the week, who was staring suspiciously at the sous chefs and giving Kathy a major case of side-eye.

"What do you think," Raven asked. "Should I turn into him, too? Or will that break his brain a little too much?"

"No, no," Kathy said, looking at least a little less panicked than she had before. "Less is more. Let's use the subtle approach." Because anything about this class could be considered 'subtle.' Sure.

"Just tell me they don't speak with horrible 'southern' accents," Eliot said.

"Don't be silly," Raven told him. "They don't speak at all."

Ignoring Eliot's expression at that tidbit, Kathy turned to address the class, swallowing back a laugh. "Welcome class, to your second week of Iron Fandom!" She paused for the obligatory sting--thank you, Raven--before continuing. "As today is your first real competition day, it's only fair that you meet the first guest judge of the semester! Cooking for over a decade now, he's the owner of Luke's Diner in town and best landlord ever, Eliot Spencer!" A blinking APPLAUSE sign was lowered from the tent's ceiling, encouraging the class to join Kathy and Raven in clapping for their guest.

And he'd had the nerve to think they didn't prepare for this class. Ha!

"Eliot will be assisting us in judging your three culinary creations today, which must all include. . . ." Pause for drumroll, dramatic tension, and close-ups of the contestants looking worried/excited/blankly off into the distance. ". . . Cherries! Black cherries, tart cherries, dried cherries, marischino cherries, doesn't matter. So long as it's a cherry, and it's in each of your three courses."

"Eliot," Kathy said, turning to him. "Did you want to introduce yourself, or would you prefer to do that later, while the class is working, more one-on-one?"

Eliot blinked at her, then looked between the two teachers. ". . . I mean, you kinda already covered that, darlin'. Name, bonafides, what else you expectin' me to say? I'm kinda just here for the food."

"You didn't prepare remarks?" Kathy asked, pretending to be shocked before breaking into another grin.

"Okay, since this is a competition class, you're going to need as much time as possible. So cooks, Get ready..."

"Get set. . . ." Raven added.

"COOK!" they said together, and then gave each other a not-at-all-surreptitious low-five. Eliot just rolled his eyes and folded his arms to watch the proceedings and make sure nothing got set inappropriately on fire.

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"Oh god yes," Kathy said fervently. "Home, couch, maybe naps?"

"So many naps," Raven agreed. "This class is basically all the spoons."

That was how that metaphor worked, right?

It was close enough Kathy got it.

"All the spoons," Kathy agreed. "And then I run out of forks to give about anything else."

Raven snorted. "Okay. That's terrible."

"I know," Kathy said with mock-sadness. "I only have knives left."

"Does that mean you're going to go on a stabbing spree? Because I could be into that."

"Sometimes that likelihood feels closer than others," Kathy said in a let's-pretend-I'm-joking-even-though-I'm-secretly-not kind of voice. "Good to know you'll have my back if I do."

"Pretty sure at this point you can probably just assume there's not going to be a situation where I won't," Raven pointed out. "I mean."

Kathy leaned over and dragged Raven into a tight hug. "You have no idea how much that means to me," she said. "And me, too. I don't care what, I've always got you."

She pulled away to look into Raven's eyes. "I don't care. I got you."

Raven gave her a small, sad smile. "I know."

Kathy saw the sadness at the edge of Raven's smile and didn't understand where it had come from. "What?" she asked softly.

Raven looked away. "You don't know what you're getting into."

Plenty of people had told Raven now that the things she did last year were understandable. Forgivable. Necessary. But Kathy was good. A hero.

Promising to always have someone like Raven's back might ruin her.

Kathy was pretty sure she wasn't a hero any more. In fact, she wasn't sure if she'd ever been anything more than a joke.

"I don't care," Kathy said. "You were the one person who stuck with me at the end. You're the one person who never gave up on me. If it weren't for you, I'd still be eating people in LA. You're my best friend. We're fucked up, broken, and not really sane and I don't know if I could be doing this with anyone else who isn't you. You don't make me feel bad for being me. I'll be damned if I don't do the same for you."

"I know that," Raven told her. "I really do. It just . . . makes me sad sometimes. That's all."

Kathy still didn't get it and her expression said so.

Edited 2017-05-18 19:09 (UTC)

"Sad is better than a lot of the other stuff in my head," Raven assured her. "I'm okay with sad."

"Okay then," Kathy said, nudging Raven's shoulder with her own. "If you're good, I'm good."

It literally was what they'd just agreed after all.

"I think we've just agreed we're ride-or-die chicks now."

"We should get jackets," Raven said. "Like a proper gang."

Of two.

"Leather or nothing," Kathy declared. "Mostly because awesome and sexy trench coats don't really scream 'gang.'"

"Pretty sure a coat that long would be some kind of hazard on a motorcycle."

She wasn't certain, though. Raven was entirely self-taught when it came to bikes.

Whereas Kathy'd had two whole Driver's Ed. lessons on the subject and a couple of hours racked up riding behind Dante.

"But think of how cook it would look flapping behind you in the wind!"

"Flapping in the wind, getting caught in the spokes of your wheel. . . ." Actually, she was kind of curious what would happen after that. Would the jacket rip? would you get yanked backwards off the bike? In her head there was a whole cascade of possible events, each bloodier and nastier than the last.

The fact that this was rather entertaining was exactly why Kathy pledging to always have her back made her a little bit sad.

"If it's flapping in the wind, I don't think it can also get caught in your wheel," Kathy said, thinking about the physics because of course she was. "They'd have to be hanging down over the sides to get bound up that way. Though there's always tangled in the exhaust or whatever to worry about instead."

"But aren't there, like, wind sheers?" Raven asked. "Either way, it just doesn't sound like a great idea."

"Probably not," Kathy said, reluctantly consigning a that mental image to the 'unlikely' pile. "Looks like we're back to leather. That's cool. We'll look badass."

Well, Raven would. Kathy would try.

Re: Talk to the judges

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