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Evan knew Tuck was talking, but all he heard was "dessert round the clock all of the time." This day just kept getting better and better. "Hell yeah I cook," Evan replied, not at all ashamed of it. "Pretty sure half my meals overseas were MREs. I told myself when I got out that I'd never again eat anything that can also double as a bomb." While that was only half the truth, it was honest, and it was the only half Tuck was going to get.

Evan hummed in heartfelt agreement. "Guess Deus is all for cruel and unusual punishment. Hoped it would be for the monsters, though, and not, y'know, us. Pretty sure I ate something the other day that looked like it used to be one of those things."

Evan pushed his way into the cafeteria, making a beeline for the back. "Oh, I'm sure I can be convinced," he replied with a grin, "as long as you show me where they keep those pies."

Apple pie. Tuck might as well have just told Evan that Santa Clause was real and that for Christmas this year the war on monsters would be over with all of them dead in a pile on Deus' doorstep. With a cherry on top. "Sounds like the better half of breakfast to me."

Evan didn't quite run into the kitchen, but it was a near thing. "Get me the biggest damn frying pan you can find. And that pie," he said as he opened the fridge. He got out a carton of eggs, a gallon of milk, some butter. "Huh? No, don't think so. Why, does she bake too?" Evan pulled out half a dozen or so random containers he found, possibly someone else's leftovers, and added them to the pile of ingredients.

An investigation of the mystery containers yielded half an onion, apple slices, a whole tomato, some mushrooms that may or may not have been intended for human consumption--whatever, they could go in there too--some kind of ground meat that could have been beef or pork or turkey or human, for all Evan could tell, and lime jello. The jello was considered for a moment before Evan shook his head and set the container next to the pie.

A rummage through some drawers uncovered some silverware and utensils, including a potato peeler that got tossed to Tuck. "Gonna need a couple of those, too," he said, indicating the stack of potatoes Tuck was sitting next to with a nod of his head.

Now Evan could get to work. He started with the onion, chopping it into thin slices as he listened to Tuck speak. Just turned eighteen. Evan was struck again by the severity of their situation: at eighteen, Evan had been just out of basic and ready to fight to defend his country; at eighteen, kids like Stormy and this Heidi were ready to die to defend humanity. There was something distinctly unfair about that. "Yeah," he said, suddenly very intent on slicing the onion, "I mean, maybe. You know what she likes?"

"Twit-what?" Evan turned his attention from the pan he was currently measuring butter into to frown in confusion at Tuck. "Sounds like a fancy name for the bird flu, or something." He hadn't put all that much stock into social media before he had come to the island; now that he was here among an even smaller group of people, it seemed doubly pointless.

But he would probably do it anyway.

"You want breakfast or not, grunt? Just keep peeling," he said, hiding his grin as he dropped the onions in the pan and turned the stove on. "I'll let you know when you've done enough." No, he totally wouldn't.

"Mm. I'll look into it, maybe." If worse came to worst, he could always delete it or disable it or whatever to get rid it. Chances were he'd probably run into the people who used it anyway, especially if they could only use it on the island.

As the onions started to caramelize, Evan added the ground mystery meat. The pan on the stove sizzled pleasantly as he went to work on that tomato. A quick check on Tuck's progress showed that the other man had peeled more than enough potatoes. Evan left him to it.

"Just one, to some library. Got shot, blown up, and drugged while carrying this bigass book around." It didn't sound like a whole lot of fun--and it hadn't been, really--but it was a hell of a lot better than dying over and over again. "How about you?"

Impaled and turned into one of the monsters they were trying to stop, trying to put her down and just failing failing failing--

/I'm hungry,/ Gir said, interrupting the descent of the black mood that could have easily overtaken Evan.

You just a--

/I'm hungry!/ Gir insisted, reminding Evan that he had a pan full of food that could easily burn if he didn't pay closer attention to it. Evan ignored him in favor of chopping the apple into smaller pieces. He added the apple, mushrooms, and tomato to the pan, turning the heat down to let it all sautee while he prepared the eggs. "Hell of a welcome to Deus," he replied, beating them with a little more fervor than was necessary.

He looked over his shoulder at Tuck and the small mountain of potatoes he had peeled, humming in consideration. "Home fries?"