Let us Continue
“I have to ask,” Sersi said as they strolled through the streets back to her home.
The traffic from the rush hour had long since died down, leaving the occasional car streaking by the once jammed-to-hell roads. Here and there, groups of friends and couples could be seen emerging from various storefronts.
Illuminated under the bright store signs as they chattered animatedly amongst themselves, their faces looked relaxed and happy, their paces leisure and unhurried. Sersi looked all around, taking in the environment around her before continuing. “How did you find me?”
“Ajak told me.” He replied simply.
Ah. And here she thought the ol’ Prime Eternal just wanted her address to send her a knitted sweater for Christmas.
She cocked her head. “But surely not my live location. I mean how did you know I was in the supermarket of all places?”
Ikaris froze for a second but played it off coolly. "Instinct.”
She snorted. “Good going, Sherlock Holmes.”
He shrugged. “What can I say, I am a little bit of a genius.”
She simply graced his response with a fond eye roll.
To confirm her suspicions, when they reached a junction, she slowed down and watched to see what he would do. Without waiting for her directions, he made a left turn towards her street and continued down the path, not realising his blunder.
Checkmate, genius.
She shook her head as she followed behind. Honestly, if she didn't have 7000 years of history with this man, she would be in fear for her life now that she figured out he had been watching and following her for who-knows how long.
Otherwise, the walk up her home was pretty uneventful. They reached a row of tiny little townhouses and climbed the small steps leading to the front door, which Sersi unlocked and stepped through, holding the door for Ikaris as she did.
As soon as they stepped foot into the hallway, a flurry of activity began all at once. Lights began to flicker on, the air conditioner started to rumble, and the door behind them made a beep as it swung shut on its own.
To her slight surprise, Ikaris actually didn’t seem too fazed. Instead, he simply asked. “Did Phastos come over recently?”
“No, actually.” She shook her head as she took off her shoes. “I haven’t seen Phastos in a while.”
“Then..”
“This is all designed by the humans, yes.” She confirmed.
Ikaris hummed, seemingly impressed. She plopped her bag of groceries onto the small kitchen table and Ikaris moved to follow.
“Have you eaten already?” She asked as she sorted through the groceries, already knowing the answer she would receive.
When he shook his head, she continued, “Do you want to eat my food? The same cooking that you once told Druig was ‘barely edible’?” She teased, making the quotation marks with her hands.
“That was one time and I was baited into saying that!” He retorted. “And yes. please. If you want to.” He added.
She crossed her arms, a grin splitting her face. “No. Starve.”
“Oh come on, Sersi. Surely you can spare this poor soul some scraps? I haven’t eaten in almost two days. ”
She looked at him in disbelief. “Seriously? How are you still alive?”
“Well,” He shrugged. “There is the fact that we can’t die.” He stated matter-of-factly.
She huffed a laugh as she shook her head. “Touché.”
Doing a quick scan of her kitchen, she figured she could whip up a simple pasta dish. Her mind made up, she moved around the kitchen to gather the ingredients she needed.
Dropping off the onions, garlic and bell pepper at the counter, she opened the pot drawer under the sink, pulling out a pot and pan from underneath to use.
As she was about to fill the pot with water, she heard the rhythmic thump of a knife against the chopping board and turned around to see Ikaris wielding the sharp knife.
“Please be careful and don’t cut off your hand. I didn’t buy insurance this time around, and Ajak is an 8.5 hour plane ride away.”
He huffed. “Is that a challenge?” He asked, a grin lifting the edges of his mouth.
Sersi snorted. “Do it you won’t.” She smirked. There was something menacing in her challenging him while brandishing a pot and pan in each hand.
“Do it I won’t?” He asked, confused.
“Oh, never mind. It’s a meme.” She waved a hand -the pot waving along- dismissively. “A dare, basically.” She added when his confusion didn’t clear up.
“Right, anyways, just slice the vegetables, take as much time as you need as long as you don’t slice yourself, alright? I’ll just be over there heating up the pan and boiling the water.”
They fell into a familiar old rhythm where one of them would work on the vegetables while the other fetched the cooking utensils, dry ingredients, sauces and condiments scattered all around the kitchen in the name of tidiness.
By the time the vegetables were sliced, the pan was sizzling hot and three quarters of a bag of spaghetti was added to the salted boiling water.
When the onions looked almost transparent and the bell peppers turned soft, she reached for the can of tomato sauce and-
It wasn’t there.
What?
Her mind flashed to the one item on her checklist that she hadn’t ticked off. The one item where she glanced at the list and thought, eh, it’s fine, don’t think I’ll be cooking pasta this week.
Aside from that, any chance of her walking past the pasta aisle and remembering went straight out of the window when she saw Ikaris. Who was now in her house. Whom she was cooking dinner for. Who was currently waiting for pasta with pasta sauce.
“SHIT.” She cursed, banging her fist on the counter.
At the very least, she knew Ikaris would ask her what was wrong. Or maybe he would keep mum and wait for her to tell him on her own accord. They had been together for so long that they intuitively knew what the other was going to do, but 100 years could do a long time- enough for their habits to change
Well, whatever reaction she expected Ikaris to have, none of them included him reaching a hand out across her chest and shoving her several steps backwards.
“What the-”
“-Are you okay?” He cut in, checking her hands for something. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he took a step back, still scanning for something.
“What are you doing?” She asked, unnerved at being looked at so intensely. Whatever annoyance she felt dissipated instantly at the genuine concern on his face.
“Where were you hurt?”
“What are you talking about?” She asked, bewildered.
Now it was his turn to look confused. “Weren’t you hurt? That’s why you swore, right?” He gestured at the stove, and it was only then that she noticed he had put himself between her and the stove.
“Oh no, no no no, no. I'm fine.” She pushed his hand off, too irked with herself to notice their proximity.
“It’s just- argh.” She groaned, pulling at her hair in annoyance. Leaning back against the cupboard under the stove, she slid slowly and dramatically towards the floor, legs splayed in front of her and all.
She shook her head, drawing her knees so she could hug them and sulk. “I forgot the fucking sauce.”
“The what now?” He asked as he got to his knees so that they were on eye level.
“The pasta sauce.” She sighed. “Instead of the lamb sauce, I forgot the pasta sauce. I’m actually an idiot sandwich.”
“... I really don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”
“And whose fault is that?” She glared at him.
Ikaris, to his credit, wisely chose to ignore that. “Let’s just focus on the problem at hand. The lamb- I mean the pasta sauce. I can fly over to the store now, if you want me to.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll scare the people shitless. Plus, the store’s closed already.” She looked up at the large kitchen clock Sprite got her for her “birthday”. The one with all the numbers clustered in one corner and the hour and minute hands were warped and the batteries were probably dead. “Yeah, definitely closed by now.”
“Hmm,” Ikaris looked away, frowning in thought. Then he snapped his fingers and looked back at her. “What about transm-” He cut off as his eyes widened as if realising something, and whipped his head around again. “Oh no.” She followed his line of sight and looked up, where she saw an unusual amount of smoke rising from the stove.
At the same time, she smelt the unmistakably acrid scent of burnt food.
“oH SHIT” She swore, scrambling to her feet to stir the pan but it was too late. By now, the vegetables had practically become one with the pan- both in colour and in solidarity. As in, the charred bits had stuck itself to the bottom. Even with a very good scrub, the pan was most likely unusable.
Not only that, she had forgotten to set a timer for the pasta noodles, so the pasta that had been boiling along swimmingly were also overcooked and stuck to the bottom of the pot. Double homicide.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” she swore. Not right now. Especially not in front of Ikaris.
With two sharp twists on the stove knobs, she put out the flame and lifted the pan off the stove and into the sink instead, where it was promptly showered in running water. In the rippled reflection, she could see her miserable self, the warped clock behind her looking even more grotesque and the image of Ikaris standing some two steps behind her.
She turned around to see the poor man standing with one foot ahead of the other, caught between wanting to help but not quite knowing how to.
She took a glance behind her at the oil-stained, spaghetti-water splattered stove, looked back to where Ikaris was standing, and swiftly came to a decision.
“Screw it. When all else fails, call pizza.” She announced as she reached for her phone.
“Right.” He was happy to agree. “Wait. Didn’t you say all the stores are closed at this time?”
“Astute. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and we are in some dark times.” She gestured at the burnt pan and chuckled. “Hehe, dark times. Get it?”
Not waiting for a pity laugh, she pulled out her phone and began to browse the apps. She skipped the delivery app and instead went to Google for the pizza shop’s phone number and dialled it.
Just as she placed the phone next to her ear, Ikaris started to speak, “Oh wait, Sersi, what about-”
But she tuned out the last word, for at the same time the phone was answered.
“Hi th-”
“Dude we close in like, a minute.” The voice on the other end complained.
e“I know, I know." She sighed. "Look, is there any way you can help out? It’s been a very long day and I just need some goddamn pizza.”
There was a sigh. “Alright, give me a second.”
She heard muffled voices, most notably a loud groan quickly followed by more muffled talking before the phone was picked up again.
“After some intense discussions -which is really me asking the manager and she says yes- the pizza council, as in the kitchen, has decided to grant your wish.”
“Oh, thank you.” Sersi breathed in relief. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while. Could I ask how many people are working right now?”
“Uh, there’s just three of us today. Weekdays, you know? We will get your food out as soon as we can, you know, thirty minutes or free pizza, yaddy yadda. But please don’t do that, I will literally quit my job right here, right now.”
“Oh no no, it’s not about that. It’s just, if I were to add on a 50 pounds tip for everyone there, would you please help us out?”
She heard a bleary “Huh?” and then what sounded like a person being shoved aside as another person cleared their throat before speaking all too cheerily:
“Let's start over, shall we hot stuff? Welcome to Ol’ John's Pizza, how can we help you?”
–
After thanking and apologising profusely , Sersi finally set down her phone and looked at Ikaris, who had decided to occupy himself during her phone call by vigorously scrubbing the ruined pan.
“Oh, just leave it.” She waved a dismissive hand. “There’s no salvaging it.”
He paused in his scrubbing. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Not in the mood to deal with this mess right now. In fact,” She reached a hand out and touched the pot, then the pan, turning them into flower pots. “There.” She smiled at him. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“If you say so.” He shrugged, moving to dry his hands on the dish rag instead.
“Yeah I’m sure.” She picked up the ruined kitchen and placed them on the windowsill where at least seven other pots housing different kinds of herbs. “Into the pot graveyard we go.”
She did want to plant basils next.
Suddenly she snapped her fingers as she remembered something. “Oh yeah, what were you about to say? Sorry, I didn’t hear you because they picked up the phone.”
“Ah, it’s nothing.” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, scratching the back in his neck.
“Aww come on, tell me.”
“It’s a little too late for that,” He hesitated. At Sersi’s almost-glare stare, he finally continued.
“But I was going to ask about transmutation. You know, the thing you just did to the pots?”
“Yeah?” She frowned. “What about it?”
“Couldn’t you have.. turned something into the pasta sauce you wanted?
Sersi blinked.
“SH-”