Tradition
Finally posted over at Jampony for this year's challenge. YAY!
Waay too late for Jampony fic's 12 days of Xmas wishlist, too early for next Christmas.
D-5. Fic: Christmas Eve dinner at Terminal City (gen please!)K-2. Fic. Alec/Max or gen. Give me something happy with the transgenics and Christmas. Are they out of TC yet or are they making the best of it?
E-2. Art - a take on Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want”. The style doesn’t have to be the same - just the sentiment - everyone sitting down for a holiday dinner (that Logan probably made since we know he’s a good cook!)
They don't do a lot of cooking in TC. It feels like pitifully few transgenics made it in safe, remnants of decimated units rattling around in the contaminated zone, but several hundred is still too many to scrounge up fancy meals for. Not much of TC is even on the grid yet, and most of what they get is devoted to essential ops.
The transgenics eat out when they can. When they can't, they get soup and beans and porridge. On special occasions somebody will try to put together one of those giant institutional casseroles like they had at Manticore. They decide Christmas should be extra special.
Christmas dinner is handled. It’s going to be a publicity stunt, a joint effort by the TC command committee with the city. All the human -looking transgenics and some others that aren't too scary will be helping with the Mayor's Feed Seattle initiative, then they’ll sit down and eat with the citizens. They'll be roasting up the extra container of turkeys Dix and Dalton scored there too, for all the trangenics who’ll spend Christmas stuck behind the fence in TC because they don't make such good publicity shots. It's not the tradition they hoped to start.
So Max and Logan decided the whole community should eat Christmas Eve dinner together instead. And the whole community decided Logan should cook. Actually, Command Central said over the PA that Logan should cook, and everybody agreed.
Logan suggested pasta, but got voted down; noodles are already a TC staple, and this has to be a special dinner.
Besides, if he's making pies, they won't have enough ovens for the garlic bread, and that seemed to be the point that stopped the argument over whether Logan's pasta was special enough, which most who'd eaten it agreed it was. Plus Normal and OC both said pie is traditional and garlic bread's not, so there's that. Anything Original Cindy and Normal agree on must be true But Logan flat refuses to do all the cooking alone.
Logan taught Max to cook, OC will attest to that when her girl ain't around, but they can't both be cooking in the same kitchen, it's just too dangerous. If Max cooks, Logan can't eat it either.
So.
Command also decided Logan's gonna teach some more trangenics to cook, while cooking Christmas dinner for..uh, they should probably have a number, hunh?
Logan drops his head in his hands.
*********
Manticore taught basic chemistry, acids and reactions from mixing, when to pour very slowly and when to move fast. Someone else, sometime, Alec carefully doesn't remember who, told him cooking was the same thing.
It looks more like a dance the way Logan does it, or maybe a pinball game. Spinning and pacing, shaking and stirring, tasting and sipping. A lot of sipping. Gourmet Cooking isn’t much like chemistry at all. Alec would describe it as more of a drinking game, since it seems Gourmet cooks consume a lot of red wine, one sip at a time.
Logan claims his impression of the Galloping Gourmet is integral to the cooking process-that the Gourmet only shared a truth known to all true cooks. Alec decides it's a pretty good perk for reluctant apprentices too, so he diligently copies Logan's every move. Sometimes Alec even manages to anticipate him, so he's already grinning and licking his lips while Logan's still swallowing.
Gourmet cooking is more fun than chemistry, at least, since the rules involve knocking back a slug of wine every time Logan adds something to a bowl. Or takes it out, or cuts up a vegetable, or lights a burner- actually, lighting the burner required several slugs, since the first time Logan turned it on nothing happened. So he took another drink and tried again, then they had to find a new propane tank. Well, they had to find Dalton and tell him to find a new propane tank, while they went on chopping and sipping and tasting.
Then chug another glass while Fixit does her thing.
Fixit's back on kitchen duty, again. Alec doesn't even want to know why this time, because she's got her own bottle of wine and is playing the Gourmet Game nearly as well as Alec. She had to set the bottle down to crabwalk behind the stove, so Alec and Logan kindly take her drinks for her, until she's hooked it up and tested it. Another toast all around for the hissing of gas, and then Dalton had to come up with a lighter too because the clicker thing (ignition, Fixit says, and by Gourmet rules has to take an extra drink for knowing that) was broken and the stove still wouldn't light.
But Dalton had a lighter, of course, and they all drank to that.
And to the fireball, because the gas had been hissing for a while before he got it out of his pocket.
So maybe cooking is a little like chemistry after all, and Dalton should have moved faster. But he could see just fine, once they brushed the bits of char off his eyebrows. They drank to that too.
Now Alec's watching giant pots simmer on a tiny campstove, and he’s blurring back and forth holding the wine bottle ready to anoint them, with his other hand ready to discreetly shove them back on if they start to slide off, because it turns out cooking pots vibrate and jump around while you're not looking. Alec’s become Apprentice in Charge somehow, because Logan's not paying attention anymore.
For some reason Logan is trying to convince Dalton he should talk like an Englishman named Dawson instead. Logan says he says the accent's gotta be in his genes too, but he's not too clear on why, or what DNA sequence he thinks it's tied to, if he really does.
Dalton asks, but Logan doesn't make much sense. He just spins and waves around at all the stuff piled on counters, points at the crate of wine and bottles ready to hand,
"See?" See that?" Logan slaps the box of ammo topped with bananas, slings his arm around Dalton's neck and laughs like a fool.
"It's in your genes, man."
Then he grabs Dalton's face and tries to make him talk without moving his upper lip. Dalton actually managed a decent British accent once Logan took his fingers off his face, so Alec files the tip away just in case he has to impersonate an Englishman again someday. He toasts Logan for it, and Logan toasts back. Gourmet cooking is kind of fun.
It's starting to smell good at least. Alec was a little dubious at first. Not that he doesn't trust Logan in the kitchen, hell no, the man's got mad skilz, but. Logan might be a little impaired. He's only an ordinary, and he ditched his wine glass a while ago. Now he's got his own bottle like Fixit, and he's not cooking anymore. Instead Alec is cooking and Logan's teaching to the kitchen crew to carol, whatever that is. Sounds almost like singing. The lizard girl lays down a catchy beat with her tchk thchk tchk, anyway.
But Alec is getting suspicious. Logan says everything is going fine, and he can take a break. But. Cooking is supposed to be this big mystery, and so far it‘s all been too easy.
Logan said he’d teach them to cook. He’s supposed to be training them.
But. Alec looked at the formula- recipe, whatever- when Logan was muttering over trying to scale it up from 8 to infinity. It was complicated, three pages long , in French.
But.
All they’ve done so far is chop up piles of raw meat and way too much green stuff, mix the mess in with grease and flour, and apply fire. Well, and wine.
But it doesn't look right to Alec. It’s roiling around in a cloud of steam, vibrating and surging up at him like it's trying to escape. And Logan's not cooking anymore. Maybe he can't. It's all on Alec, who knows jack about cooking except that it's less like chemistry and more like a party than than anybody ever told him it's supposed to be, and it feels like he's juggling grenades.
Nothing like more pressure.
After the fireball Max showed up too.
Seems a lot of people saw that, and somebody tattled. She was a little pissy when she got there, because of were they trying to burn the whole city down, it's already a wreck, blah blah woof woof, but Logan and the Loganettes sang Jingle Bells at her until she calmed down, while Alec splashed wine into pots and made sure they didn't hit the dirt. Max still won't come past the door, but she lingers there, laughing, along with half TC behind her. Joshua sidles in the back way, nose twitching wildly, but before he can do any damage Dalton drafts him to help roll crates of booze back out in the hallway so the rest of TC can play the Gourmet Game too. Alec relaxes a little. If everybody's drunk, they're less likely to notice if he screws up their dinner.
But he doesn’t, somehow. The stuff in the pots is surprisingly good. They got nearly as much wine in the food as in themselves, and Logan swears that's the secret. Fixit frowns at him and whispers too loudly nothing's much of a secret after you tell a roomful of transgenics with eidetic memories, but Logan says it's not that kind of secret.
He could be right.
The big concrete space they designated their eating hall smells like excitement and looks almost intimate, wavering in candlelight. There were cookies and chips piled on long tables, half-eaten already. Some woodland adapted models dragged in a couple of evergreens which are now standing up inside, sort of decorated with colorful bits and pieces and some snow that’s steadily dripping on the piles of packages below.
As the place warms up with all the bodies packed in it, the green scent of sap bleeding from freshly chewed stumps winds through a fog of pheromones and alcohol mixed with the smells of dust, wax, unfamiliar spices, burnt hair under the overwhelming scents of seared meat and sugar.
Everybody cheers when the food comes out, then the place goes quiet, like eating is serious business. It’s the same phenomenon Alec‘s observed when Logan actually cooks, instead of leaving it to the apprentices, so he relaxes enough to really taste it himself. Logan lied after all. That fairly disgusting mess they started with turned out better than fine. The meat is plentiful and tender, the vegetables melted into a sauce that clings to the rice and tastes nothing like wine, except that it makes you smile.
And there’s even better to come. Logan wasn’t so drunk he forgot to pull the pies out of the oven. They’re cooling on the big table in Control now, smelling really good.
Normal brought a couple extra bags of groceries, too, says he’s gonna mix up some snow ice cream, once enough accumulates. They’ve got gallons of real ice cream, but nobody wanted to snuff his enthusiasm. Logan wandered over with a bottle of rum and talked earnestly about contaminants and radioactive goo until Normal looked a little green,. Then Logan whipped out a whisk, Normal’s eyes went round, and Project Ice Cream turned into The Eggnog Initiative.
Normal brings his Golden Boy a cup from the very first batch and watches him drink it, which might be awkward, except that eggnog is even better than ice cream and Normal seems satisfied at the look on Alec’s face.
The packages under the trees aren’t props either, they’re real gifts. OC, Sketchy and Normal rounded up presents for everybody. Bicycle bells, warm socks, candy…Good stuff. Mole deploys a little army of small trangenics armed with miniature catapults to deliver them. (Mole blames the homemade artillery on Sketchy, who scoffs and says every kid should have one.) X-7s and 8s load up and fire random volleys during dinner, so that reverent silence doesn’t last long.
There’s a lot more cheering. Gifts rain down like hail, adding to the commotion. Luckily OC made all the “elfs” wear silly little hats with bells. That's a bit of sound tactical thinking Alec should remember to compliment, since the noise and bright colors make it easier to see the next assault coming.
The kids are badly hopped up on sugar, but it didn’t spoil their aim any. A catnip mouse pegs Alec right in the cheek almost causing him to lose a mouthful of deliciousness. The whole table cheers and laughs like hell.
OC and Sketchy give Alec a thumbs up when Max snorts wine out her nose, so he salutes them with the mouse and sniffs it once more before he drops it in his shirt pocket. He feels a silly grin he can’t stop creep across his face and stick there. It’s probably just the wine.
Plus catnip always makes him a little cheerful.
He’s not alone, though, so it’s ok.
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Waay too late for Jampony fic's 12 days of Xmas wishlist, too early for next Christmas.
D-5. Fic: Christmas Eve dinner at Terminal City (gen please!)K-2. Fic. Alec/Max or gen. Give me something happy with the transgenics and Christmas. Are they out of TC yet or are they making the best of it?
E-2. Art - a take on Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want”. The style doesn’t have to be the same - just the sentiment - everyone sitting down for a holiday dinner (that Logan probably made since we know he’s a good cook!)
They don't do a lot of cooking in TC. It feels like pitifully few transgenics made it in safe, remnants of decimated units rattling around in the contaminated zone, but several hundred is still too many to scrounge up fancy meals for. Not much of TC is even on the grid yet, and most of what they get is devoted to essential ops.
The transgenics eat out when they can. When they can't, they get soup and beans and porridge. On special occasions somebody will try to put together one of those giant institutional casseroles like they had at Manticore. They decide Christmas should be extra special.
Christmas dinner is handled. It’s going to be a publicity stunt, a joint effort by the TC command committee with the city. All the human -looking transgenics and some others that aren't too scary will be helping with the Mayor's Feed Seattle initiative, then they’ll sit down and eat with the citizens. They'll be roasting up the extra container of turkeys Dix and Dalton scored there too, for all the trangenics who’ll spend Christmas stuck behind the fence in TC because they don't make such good publicity shots. It's not the tradition they hoped to start.
So Max and Logan decided the whole community should eat Christmas Eve dinner together instead. And the whole community decided Logan should cook. Actually, Command Central said over the PA that Logan should cook, and everybody agreed.
Logan suggested pasta, but got voted down; noodles are already a TC staple, and this has to be a special dinner.
Besides, if he's making pies, they won't have enough ovens for the garlic bread, and that seemed to be the point that stopped the argument over whether Logan's pasta was special enough, which most who'd eaten it agreed it was. Plus Normal and OC both said pie is traditional and garlic bread's not, so there's that. Anything Original Cindy and Normal agree on must be true But Logan flat refuses to do all the cooking alone.
Logan taught Max to cook, OC will attest to that when her girl ain't around, but they can't both be cooking in the same kitchen, it's just too dangerous. If Max cooks, Logan can't eat it either.
So.
Command also decided Logan's gonna teach some more trangenics to cook, while cooking Christmas dinner for..uh, they should probably have a number, hunh?
Logan drops his head in his hands.
*********
Manticore taught basic chemistry, acids and reactions from mixing, when to pour very slowly and when to move fast. Someone else, sometime, Alec carefully doesn't remember who, told him cooking was the same thing.
It looks more like a dance the way Logan does it, or maybe a pinball game. Spinning and pacing, shaking and stirring, tasting and sipping. A lot of sipping. Gourmet Cooking isn’t much like chemistry at all. Alec would describe it as more of a drinking game, since it seems Gourmet cooks consume a lot of red wine, one sip at a time.
Logan claims his impression of the Galloping Gourmet is integral to the cooking process-that the Gourmet only shared a truth known to all true cooks. Alec decides it's a pretty good perk for reluctant apprentices too, so he diligently copies Logan's every move. Sometimes Alec even manages to anticipate him, so he's already grinning and licking his lips while Logan's still swallowing.
Gourmet cooking is more fun than chemistry, at least, since the rules involve knocking back a slug of wine every time Logan adds something to a bowl. Or takes it out, or cuts up a vegetable, or lights a burner- actually, lighting the burner required several slugs, since the first time Logan turned it on nothing happened. So he took another drink and tried again, then they had to find a new propane tank. Well, they had to find Dalton and tell him to find a new propane tank, while they went on chopping and sipping and tasting.
Then chug another glass while Fixit does her thing.
Fixit's back on kitchen duty, again. Alec doesn't even want to know why this time, because she's got her own bottle of wine and is playing the Gourmet Game nearly as well as Alec. She had to set the bottle down to crabwalk behind the stove, so Alec and Logan kindly take her drinks for her, until she's hooked it up and tested it. Another toast all around for the hissing of gas, and then Dalton had to come up with a lighter too because the clicker thing (ignition, Fixit says, and by Gourmet rules has to take an extra drink for knowing that) was broken and the stove still wouldn't light.
But Dalton had a lighter, of course, and they all drank to that.
And to the fireball, because the gas had been hissing for a while before he got it out of his pocket.
So maybe cooking is a little like chemistry after all, and Dalton should have moved faster. But he could see just fine, once they brushed the bits of char off his eyebrows. They drank to that too.
Now Alec's watching giant pots simmer on a tiny campstove, and he’s blurring back and forth holding the wine bottle ready to anoint them, with his other hand ready to discreetly shove them back on if they start to slide off, because it turns out cooking pots vibrate and jump around while you're not looking. Alec’s become Apprentice in Charge somehow, because Logan's not paying attention anymore.
For some reason Logan is trying to convince Dalton he should talk like an Englishman named Dawson instead. Logan says he says the accent's gotta be in his genes too, but he's not too clear on why, or what DNA sequence he thinks it's tied to, if he really does.
Dalton asks, but Logan doesn't make much sense. He just spins and waves around at all the stuff piled on counters, points at the crate of wine and bottles ready to hand,
"See?" See that?" Logan slaps the box of ammo topped with bananas, slings his arm around Dalton's neck and laughs like a fool.
"It's in your genes, man."
Then he grabs Dalton's face and tries to make him talk without moving his upper lip. Dalton actually managed a decent British accent once Logan took his fingers off his face, so Alec files the tip away just in case he has to impersonate an Englishman again someday. He toasts Logan for it, and Logan toasts back. Gourmet cooking is kind of fun.
It's starting to smell good at least. Alec was a little dubious at first. Not that he doesn't trust Logan in the kitchen, hell no, the man's got mad skilz, but. Logan might be a little impaired. He's only an ordinary, and he ditched his wine glass a while ago. Now he's got his own bottle like Fixit, and he's not cooking anymore. Instead Alec is cooking and Logan's teaching to the kitchen crew to carol, whatever that is. Sounds almost like singing. The lizard girl lays down a catchy beat with her tchk thchk tchk, anyway.
But Alec is getting suspicious. Logan says everything is going fine, and he can take a break. But. Cooking is supposed to be this big mystery, and so far it‘s all been too easy.
Logan said he’d teach them to cook. He’s supposed to be training them.
But. Alec looked at the formula- recipe, whatever- when Logan was muttering over trying to scale it up from 8 to infinity. It was complicated, three pages long , in French.
But.
All they’ve done so far is chop up piles of raw meat and way too much green stuff, mix the mess in with grease and flour, and apply fire. Well, and wine.
But it doesn't look right to Alec. It’s roiling around in a cloud of steam, vibrating and surging up at him like it's trying to escape. And Logan's not cooking anymore. Maybe he can't. It's all on Alec, who knows jack about cooking except that it's less like chemistry and more like a party than than anybody ever told him it's supposed to be, and it feels like he's juggling grenades.
Nothing like more pressure.
After the fireball Max showed up too.
Seems a lot of people saw that, and somebody tattled. She was a little pissy when she got there, because of were they trying to burn the whole city down, it's already a wreck, blah blah woof woof, but Logan and the Loganettes sang Jingle Bells at her until she calmed down, while Alec splashed wine into pots and made sure they didn't hit the dirt. Max still won't come past the door, but she lingers there, laughing, along with half TC behind her. Joshua sidles in the back way, nose twitching wildly, but before he can do any damage Dalton drafts him to help roll crates of booze back out in the hallway so the rest of TC can play the Gourmet Game too. Alec relaxes a little. If everybody's drunk, they're less likely to notice if he screws up their dinner.
But he doesn’t, somehow. The stuff in the pots is surprisingly good. They got nearly as much wine in the food as in themselves, and Logan swears that's the secret. Fixit frowns at him and whispers too loudly nothing's much of a secret after you tell a roomful of transgenics with eidetic memories, but Logan says it's not that kind of secret.
He could be right.
The big concrete space they designated their eating hall smells like excitement and looks almost intimate, wavering in candlelight. There were cookies and chips piled on long tables, half-eaten already. Some woodland adapted models dragged in a couple of evergreens which are now standing up inside, sort of decorated with colorful bits and pieces and some snow that’s steadily dripping on the piles of packages below.
As the place warms up with all the bodies packed in it, the green scent of sap bleeding from freshly chewed stumps winds through a fog of pheromones and alcohol mixed with the smells of dust, wax, unfamiliar spices, burnt hair under the overwhelming scents of seared meat and sugar.
Everybody cheers when the food comes out, then the place goes quiet, like eating is serious business. It’s the same phenomenon Alec‘s observed when Logan actually cooks, instead of leaving it to the apprentices, so he relaxes enough to really taste it himself. Logan lied after all. That fairly disgusting mess they started with turned out better than fine. The meat is plentiful and tender, the vegetables melted into a sauce that clings to the rice and tastes nothing like wine, except that it makes you smile.
And there’s even better to come. Logan wasn’t so drunk he forgot to pull the pies out of the oven. They’re cooling on the big table in Control now, smelling really good.
Normal brought a couple extra bags of groceries, too, says he’s gonna mix up some snow ice cream, once enough accumulates. They’ve got gallons of real ice cream, but nobody wanted to snuff his enthusiasm. Logan wandered over with a bottle of rum and talked earnestly about contaminants and radioactive goo until Normal looked a little green,. Then Logan whipped out a whisk, Normal’s eyes went round, and Project Ice Cream turned into The Eggnog Initiative.
Normal brings his Golden Boy a cup from the very first batch and watches him drink it, which might be awkward, except that eggnog is even better than ice cream and Normal seems satisfied at the look on Alec’s face.
The packages under the trees aren’t props either, they’re real gifts. OC, Sketchy and Normal rounded up presents for everybody. Bicycle bells, warm socks, candy…Good stuff. Mole deploys a little army of small trangenics armed with miniature catapults to deliver them. (Mole blames the homemade artillery on Sketchy, who scoffs and says every kid should have one.) X-7s and 8s load up and fire random volleys during dinner, so that reverent silence doesn’t last long.
There’s a lot more cheering. Gifts rain down like hail, adding to the commotion. Luckily OC made all the “elfs” wear silly little hats with bells. That's a bit of sound tactical thinking Alec should remember to compliment, since the noise and bright colors make it easier to see the next assault coming.
The kids are badly hopped up on sugar, but it didn’t spoil their aim any. A catnip mouse pegs Alec right in the cheek almost causing him to lose a mouthful of deliciousness. The whole table cheers and laughs like hell.
OC and Sketchy give Alec a thumbs up when Max snorts wine out her nose, so he salutes them with the mouse and sniffs it once more before he drops it in his shirt pocket. He feels a silly grin he can’t stop creep across his face and stick there. It’s probably just the wine.
Plus catnip always makes him a little cheerful.
He’s not alone, though, so it’s ok.
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