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It was the ending of the day, the final rounds coming to a close. In fact, it was what was most likely the last round of the day, and Two Time was sitting on the couch alone, nearly everyone else either currently in the round or outside of the cabin already, off doing whatever it was they did before dinner.
…Speaking of dinner.
Elliot had peered his head out of the kitchen, spotting Two Time and calling out.
“Hey! Two!” he waved, “You up for helping me a bit? I wanna get these in the oven sooner rather than later!”
Two Time paused before they stood, slowly stepping towards the kitchen.
“Are you…quite sure I would be any help?” they questioned, “I…don’t know how to cook much beyond boxed things.”
Elliot stared at Two Time like they’d grown another head.
“You…don’t know how to cook?” he questioned, “How old are you again?”
Two Time blinked and thought for a moment “Not counting my time here…twenty seven?”
“Then h–” Elliot then paused for a solid moment, realization dawning on his face, “Oh, the uh…”
Two Time pursed their lips, sort of awkwardly nodding, “Yeah, the…cult.”
“...That’ll do it,” Elliot nearly folded his head-wings entirely over his face in embarrassment.
The two stood there for a long moment, and Two Time glanced back to where those who died in rounds would appear back, for just a small moment hoping someone would abruptly appear and help drive off the strange way this conversation had gone. When no one appeared, they instead cleared their throat and brushed themself off.
“If you would be…willing to put up with mistakes,” they waved a hand, “I would be very happy to learn, in all honesty. It’d be nice to gather some skills so I am better prepared for life once we escape this realm.”
Elliot’s face practically lit up, and Two Time realized with amusement that they’d agreed to what was most likely one of Elliot’s favorite things, further proven when he turned and headed back into the kitchen with a brisk pace, leaving Two Time to catch up.
The kitchen was clean, as it always was, and there was notably a big metal bowl full of potatoes on the counter. Two Time assumed it was one for every member of the group save for Veeronica, as that’s what would make sense.
“So, chef,” Two Time grinned, “What exactly are we making?”
“Hasselback potatoes!” Elliot nearly danced towards the counter, “I won a really stupid last man standing like a week ago, as you know, and I have been desperately trying to figure out what to do with the cheese I got as a reward for it. It’s not enough to make enough pizzas for everyone here, so that’s off the table, but cheesy potatoes are absolutely the next best option I’d say.”
Two Time hummed, nodding, “You do know how to make good potatoes, I’d be honored to help!”
“First order of business!” Elliot motioned to the sink, “Gotta wash your hands. Can’t be risking getting germs in the food!”
Two Time watched as Elliot stepped over and rolled his sleeves up without a thought, quickly getting to washing his hands. They stared without thinking at his right arm, where distinct red-and-black box-shaped markings marred him like scars. Sure, he had some visible on his neck and cheek, but Two Time was unaware that the ‘scars’ went all the way to his arm. They only realized they were staring when Elliot looked back to them and followed their gaze.
“Ah,” he waved an arm, “Don’t worry about those, they’re old. It’s from the kid, not Sev. They don’t hurt much anymore.”
“I…apologize for staring,” Two Time awkwardly rubbed the back of their head.
“No worries!” Elliot turned his focus to the potatoes, “Just wash your hands and we can get right to it.”
Two Time paused, staring at their jacket and their gloves. Ah…to help they’d have to reveal their scars too, wouldn’t they? Not wanting to back out and disappoint, they took a breath and removed their gloves, slipping off their jacket and capelet as well and placing them on a corner of the counter, going to wash their hands. When they finished and headed back to Elliot, they were pleasantly surprised that the most reaction he gave to their exposed arms was just a sympathetic hum.
“These potatoes have already been washed, so the first order of business is slicing them,” Elliot turned to set two cutting boards down, “Are you alright with doing that? I’ll be here the whole time if you wanna step away from it.”
“You…trust me with sharp objects outside of rounds?” they blinked at him, receiving a scoff in turn.
“Hay naku-You’re nearly thirty, you’re not a child,” he insisted, “You’re gonna need to learn how to properly handle a knife in a cooking manner rather than just a stabby manner if you wanna actually live out in the outside-that-place-world,” he paused a moment, “and if you get to doing it and decide that you wanna sit it out until the cutting is done, then no hard feelings, alright?”
He handed them a potato, then grabbed one of his own.
“Just follow my lead, okay?”
Two Time watched as he pulled a knife from the wooden block they were all kept in, carefully cutting one side of the potato so it lay flat when he placed it down on that side again. He motioned a head-wing to Two Time’s potato, wordlessly telling them that it was their turn to copy. They slowly drew a knife, focusing hard to not accidentally slice their fingers as they cut or cut too much of the potato, and when they were done and it lay flat and didn’t roll, they looked to Elliot for approval, seeing him nod.
“There we go! That’s step one, you think you’re good to help me with cutting the rest of these so they lay flat?”
And so they ever so carefully helped along, slicing the edges of one side of each potato so they all lay flat. Once that was all done, they cleared their throat.
“And now?” they asked, seeing Elliot carefully looking through drawers before he pulled out four small wooden dowels and set them on the cutting boards.
“Now we use these to make sure our slicing doesn’t go all the way through the potatoes,” he explained, “setting one of these on each side means that we can cut without the worry of chopping right through, because the knife hits these and stops. You could do it without the dowels, but that would probably take ages.”
Two Time watched as Elliot set one of the partially cut potatoes between the two dowels on his cutting board, then effortlessly sliced the potato until it was a series of chips, just barely held together by the very bottom.
“Take your time with this,” he insisted, “Don’t try it as fast as me. I’ve been helping out in the kitchen since I was a very small kid. If you try to go as fast as me, you will end up cutting yourself, that’s a lesson Chance learned early on.”
Two Time paused and imagined Chance, normally so confident and good at keeping up a poker face, trying to go as fast as someone with Elliot’s skillset and managing to nick himself, most likely resulting in his poker face breaking in frustration. They let out a small laugh, and Elliot paused before laughing himself.
“You have an excuse for not knowing how to cook. That nepo baby meanwhile?” Elliot rolled his eyes, still laughing, “You’d think his parents would’ve hired something fancy like a cooking tutor or something.”
“Ah, but Elliot,” Two Time hummed, a good-natured smile on their face, “If I recall, aren’t you also a ‘nepo baby’? Your father does own the most famous pizza company in the entirety of Robloxia.”
Elliot paused and opened his mouth to defend himself, only to make a mock-offended gasp, “Gagi, basher ka ba? I offer to teach you to make food and you insult me in my own kitchen?”
“Actually, it’s Dusekkar’s kitchen,” Two Time corrected with the tilt of their head. Elliot flicked them in the forehead and they stepped back, laughing.
“Get to the potato, idiot,” Elliot huffed with a smile. Two Time gave a mock salute, then carefully lined up the potato to cut it as they had seen Elliot do, taking his advice to do it much slower than he had to avoid cutting themself by accident. When they were done they looked for approval from him again, and were satisfied when he nodded.
“And now we do that to…all the rest of the potatoes,” Elliot blinked at the pile they had to go through.
“Cooking for an entire group seems exhausting,” Two Time admitted, seeing Elliot nod.
“I’m used to cooking a lot, I worked at a pizzeria before this after all, but it’s a matter of working around a smaller kitchen and with not…industrial grade tools. I’m not making mass-produced pizza, I’m just making…” he trailed off.
“...Home cooked meals, without it being home?” Two Time guessed.
“Exactly,” Elliot nodded again, “it’s not just pizza over and over, everyone would get sick of that. It’s potatoes, it’s mac and cheese, it’s lasagna, it’s a dozen different things.”
“But others help you,” Two Time observed, “It’s just another piece of everyone working together.”
“That’s the thing making it bearable, I think,” Elliot laughed, starting work on another potato, “I swear, I need Sev’s meatloaf recipe. If he doesn’t give it to me I’m gonna track him down and get it through any means necessary.”
“You’re going to threaten a nearly defenseless old man over meatloaf?” Two Time’s eyebrows raised as they gave a laugh, knowing they were exaggerating exactly how ‘defenseless’ that old man was.
“I’d kill for that meatloaf, Two,” Elliot’s expression and voice turned dire as he turned to stare at them.
There were a few beats of silence before the two of them burst out into laughter again, Elliot eventually shaking himself off first.
“The potatoes! Come on, we can’t keep getting distracted!”
And so they sliced through the potatoes, careful not to cut through them. When that was done, Two Time sat back as Elliot explained putting olive oil, salt, and pepper onto the potatoes and making sure it was rubbed in well. With that they were slid into the oven, Elliot then stepping back to stand next to where Two Time had sat on the counter.
“And there we have it,” he wiped his hands off with a paper towel, “they’ll bake in there for a while, and then we put the butter and cheese in, and then send it back in for a while and tada, dinner!”
“It’s really that simple?” Two Time questioned, “Cooking always seemed so…difficult,” they added, slightly embarrassed.
“Hey,” Elliot hummed, “Don’t feel bad. Everyone’s gotta start from somewhere, y’know? I didn’t come into the world perfectly knowing how to cook. I once burned instant noodles when I was twelve,” he chuckled.
“I once snuck into the dining hall’s kitchen and tried to make soup,” Two Time’s laugh was muted, but genuine, “Just ended up making hot water with herbs in it.”
“I think that’s a rite of passage for anyone trying to cook,” Elliot stared up at the ceiling, “Thinking you can make soup with some water and some plants.”
“I think the worst part is it was decent,” Two Time fidgetted with their necklace, “I got told I had to drink it because I used supplies on it, and I think it upset…my mentor when I actually ended up liking what I made, sort of.”
“Probably because I assume the herbs were fresh?” Elliot queried.
“Most likely.”
The two sat in silence for a long while, and then got back to talking about everything and nothing at all. Recalling stupid events during rounds, telling stories of their lives outside of this place, talking about the other survivors. Talking about the killers, even, surprising Two Time with how comfortable they were speaking on that subject. Two Time hadn’t realized how much time had passed by until they heard the noise of the kitchen door opening and they peered over their shoulder to see who it was, crossing their arms to partially hide them from whoever it was.
Chance was leaned on the doorframe, a smile on his face.
“You two having fun?” he laughed. Two Time eagerly waved to him, giving him a smile and returning to the position they were previously in.
“Hello, my lucky charm!” they very pointedly ignored Elliot's joking gagging motion, “Elliot taught me how to make potatoes!”
“Hasselback potatoes, to be specific,” Elliot chimed in, then turned to Chance, pointing a thumb at Two Time, “They’re pretty good at making them, in all honesty. Not sure why half of the others don’t trust them with knives outside of their dagger.”
“So you two worked together on dinner, huh?” Chance stepped further into the kitchen, peering into the glass of the oven, “Niiice.”
“And I managed to not nick myself once!” Two Time announced, then smugly adding, “unlike you, apparently” with a smirk. Chance clicked his tongue and made a mock offended noise, then immediately turned his voice into an almost unbearable whine as he stared at Elliot with what was presumably his best attempt at puppy dog eyes, though covered by his glasses.
“Ellllssss!” he whined, “you said you wouldn’t tell anyooone!”
“And pass up the opportunity to make fun of my best friend to his partner?” Elliot leaned forwards with a smirk, “I’d sing your secrets like a bird if it was funny.”
“YOU WOUND ME SO!” Chance put a hand to his forehead, throwing his head back, “Oh, save me, Times! I’ve been wounded!”
With that he dramatically half-fell into Two Time’s arms, leaving them to awkwardly hold him up as they sat partially on the counter.
“You are overzealous and grossly dramatic,” Two Time laughed.
“And you love it,” Chance smirked.
“And I love it,” they admitted.
“Gross!” Elliot scoffed, waving his hands and trying to hide a smile, “Gross gross! You’re like a pair of moody teenagers! Have some maturity! Don’t get sappy in the kitchen!”
“I could get sappier!” Chance announced, then immediately grabbed Two Time’s bandana to yank their face closer to his, planting a kiss on the bridge of their nose.
“YOU RUIN THE SANCTITY OF MY KITCHEN!” Elliot yelled.
“Dusekkar’s kitchen,” Two Time and Chance both corrected at once, each with a smug look of their own.
“I hate you both,” Elliot firmly stated, still very poorly hiding a smile.
Nearly immediately the three burst into laughter, only stopped when the kitchen timer went off and Two Time nearly dropped Chance at the sharp noise ringing out, forcing Chance to stand back up normally and brush himself off. Elliot quickly rushed to the oven to finish up what needed to be done on the potatoes, and after that, it was merely a waiting game.
So Chance began telling the story of how exactly the last round of the day had gone, where apparently, somehow, John Doe had thrown Builderman onto the top of Horror Hotel, baffling both himself and Builder, as well as every other survivor. In fact, baffling him so much that the corrupted man hadn’t even continued attacking, just simply sat there staring up as everyone scrambled to generators–and even then it seemed like something had gone very wrong, because the timer would not tick down. Two Time had had the passing thought that the round was taking longer than expected, but hadn’t thought to point it out. Apparently Shedletsky had to scale the hotel to get Builder down before the timer kicked back into gear, and Two Time wondered if The Spectre had implemented a failsafe after they had gotten stuck in a few walls the day after Christmas when the coding was completely messed up.
By the time Chance was wrapping up his story, Elliot was already pulling everything out of the oven and starting to plate it, and Two Time was putting their jacket, capelet, and gloves back on [noting to themself that Elliot was a person who wouldn’t overly react to scars]. Soon enough, the three were heading back out of the kitchen and shouting [or trying to shout, in Two Time’s case] that it was time to eat.
As the group was gathered around the table, eagerly talking about their day over their food, Two Time couldn’t help but smile. Yes, being here was started and marred with tragedy, but they couldn’t help but acknowledge that it gave them an actual second shot at life. Not one promised to them by a man using religion for his own gain, but instead a shot at having a normal life, surrounded by people who cared about them enough to teach them how to do things like cook.
So maybe there was some benefit to be found in the tragedy of it all.