Chapter 1
The Newbie was starving. His name was John. He walked over to the kitchen to see if maybe Frypan had left for a few minutes so he could sneak some food out of the fridge. As he rounded the corner of the doorway to the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody here.
As he went to fill a plate of food, however, Frypan chose to make his appearance. John was just grabbing something to eat when he heard:
"Slim yourself Greenbean! It's a wonder you can eat all that, I swear you eat more than the Runners!"
John froze, one hand on his next selection, a large piece of ham, and the other halted halfway to his mouth, holding a delicious cookie.
"Turn around, shank. I don't feel like talkin' to your back." John couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn that Frypan's voice held a note of humor in it, masked by irritability. He hesitantly turned around to see Frypan, arms crossed, nasty looking glare on his face, who looked about ready to come kill him for raiding the kitchen. But then the cook broke into an enormous grin.
"Settle down! I don't bite! Much." The grin turned into an expression of pity. "Stress eating?"
He asked. John nodded, his eyes still wide from his recent fright.
"I did that too my first few days. Shuck it, I did that the whole of three months. Everyone was telling me to save some for them, and we didn't have quite so much to spare back then anyway. Hey, you know something? You've been here almost a whole month. New Greenie will be comin' up in another week. Newt, the Keeper of our Runners, has decided that you look strong enough for a try out. See if you're fast and mnemonic enough to be a Runner." His face brightened again. John was still trying to figure out if this guy was kidding or not, he was still terrified from Frypan's unexpected entry and he was shocked to hear that Newt wanted him to try out for the Runners.
"So, what do you say Greenbean? If you become a Runner, you'll at least have an excuse to come eat outta my kitchen whenever you like." Frypan laughed. John smiled through a full mouth, having given up being shocked, nervous and uncertain for his cookie and plate full of food.
A month later, a new kid had come up, the next one was on the way and everything was working well, especially for John, who had become a Runner, and who not only got to raid Frypan's kitchen, got twice as much packed food as the other Runners and even got a special package of sweets once a week, after Frypan swore him to utter secrecy.
"Can't have these slintheads thinkin' I got soft on people. I'm still the king of my kitchen." He had told him. John had agreed to get the sweets, and once or twice, he'd hidden one under some scared Newbie's pillow at night, with a note that said, "Things are bad, but they'll get better. Don't fret, don't sweat, 'cause we got a Glade Mother around here."
A/N I thought it would be cool if Frypan turned out to have a little fatherly side, even though it was sort of playing Glade Mother, and then how a Newbie eventually spread the favor around, sort of playing the Glade Mother role himself. And also, I'm assuming that this happened before Newt's incident, so he really is Keeper of the Runners in this, not Minho. For this chapter anyway.:) Leave a review if you please, sometimes they are quite helpful in encouraging the plot bunny to visit.:)