Puck. "You know, you could be spending your time a little more... productively." Puck. "I am. I han't thrown that 'art, it wouldn't be there." I replied, pointing a crooked finger at the dart I'd just thrown. Dylan sighed, crossed over to the board and plucked the latest dart out. "Hey..." I groaned as I watched him do it. Dylan turned the dart in his fingers and threw it at me, and it poked my cheek with its dull tip before falling onto my lap.
"Okay, Sir Efficient," I growled, picking the dart up and tossing it over my shoulder, "what would you suggest?" "Oh, I don't know," Dylan started sarcastically, "Maybe spending some time with your younger sibling?" I reached over to the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, muttering, "Irelan' is fine." Dylan leaned over and pushed the package out of my lazy reach.
"I'm talking about Arthur." he replied in something of an exasperated tone. I leaned back into the sofa and plucked the dead cigarette out of my mouth, mildly blowing a faint trail of gray smoke. Mindlessly smudging the end of it on the ash tray, I wondered if I'd actually listen to him this time. It wasn't like he didn't drop by every several days just to scold me about how dirty the place was, like a parent telling a kid to clean their room. Similar problem, similar results; the place is a wreck.
"C'mon, just listen to me, okay?" Dylan pleaded. "You know how this goes. You've stormed in here every week for the last seventeen weeks telling me to stop smoking." To complete the point, I leaned over, grabbed a cigarette and twirled it in my fingers. Dylan just looked at me, confused. "How do you know it was seventeen..." A sharp glance in my eye, I jerked a hard thumb at seventeen deep, jagged carvings in the wall behind me. My brother pointed an acknowledging finger at the wrenched, irritable indentions, and looked back at me.
"Really though, you do what to get along with your brother, right?" I shrugged and picked up my neon green lighter, only to have it snatched away by Dylan. "I can't see why not, but I know I ha' a really goo' reason to say no... oh yeah. I can't see why." Dylan raised his arm, and I instinctively grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at him. Target hit, unfortunately.
"What the bloody hell was that for?" he cried ridiculously. I raised an eyebrow. "You weren't gonna hit me?" Dylan rolled his eyes. "No, I ran out of creative ways to annoy you. But seriously, can't you spend as much time with Arthur as you do with..." Dylan desperately searched the room, and his mind, by the looks of it, to find something to complete his statement.
Suddenly, he took the unlit cigarette out of my mouth and threw it at my forehead. I have no idea how we get along so well. "...your bloody cigarettes?" I frowned and took hold of the cigarette that ended up on my knee, examining it. "These guys 'on't last too long, so no in'ivi'ual one has much meaning to me." I replied practically. I held out a hand. "By the way, I' like my lighter back." Don't ask me why, but somehow, Dylan had hold on the collar of my shirt and was, quite literally, dragging me out the front door, leaving me still wondering when I'd see my lovely lighter again.
Dylan ended up dragging me all the way to Arthur's beeping house. Beeping. Again. As if this was completely normal(which it was), Dylan walked up to the house, opened the three windows on its front wall, and climbed in through one. I followed.
Smoke seemed to fill the entire house. I couldn't see three feet in front of me, so Dylan and I resorted to trusting our hands and memory of the interior of the household to find our way to the kitchen, calling "England" over and over. We found him pounding dreadfully on a piece of parchment on a kitchen counter, a good three-foot fire burning peacefully to his left. I walked over and shut off the stove while Dylan got the fire extinguisher(we all know its location better than we know our religion) and sprayed down the flames. Arthur was still pounding on that poor parchment by the time we'd filtered the house of smoke.
"Okay, England, what happened?" Dylan asked, exasperated by now. Of course, we all knew that Arthur hadn't the slightest idea what went wrong in the cooking, but he could probably explain where his depression was being fueled. Knowing him, he went to an American fast-food restaurant and found that its crap was better than his. England turned to his eldest brother, parchment in hand and accusing finger pointing to it. "This said... and that... and then it said... and then... so then... and I thought..." Arthur drabbled on and on while Dylan tried to hush him. I walked over to my brother and sighed.
"Okay, Englan'. First thing, you never think when you're cooking. You look over the recipe. If you have all of the right stuff, you do it. If you 'on't have the right things, you forget about it. You can't make substitutes and expect it all to turn out just right." I explained tiredly. Arthur turned to me. "But it said... and then I..." "Nope. Doesn't work. And by the way, your burner was on high. It says here to keep it on low at all times." I commented, pointing a finger at said-instruction. By that time, Dylan was doing the finishing touches on cleaning up.
"And another thing," Dylan remarked, holding up a large spatula, "I do believe the instructions required a two-inch-wide spatula or smaller. And it looks like most of the sugar you were supposed to put in whatever in the world you were making ended up on the floor." he told his younger brother, who by this time was on the edge of tearing up the recipe.
"So... what was you're final result..?" I inquired, unsure whether or not I really wanted to know. Dylan and I peered into the dish which was burning on the stove not ten minutes before. What lay inside was a rather sorry-looking slab that looked sort of like death itself; entirely black and undefined by nature. For testing's sake, I took a fork and poked it. I seriously was about to bolt when the thing reacted like jello- the outside cracked and fell apart to expose a soft and squishy interior, which oozed a mysterious brown liquid. Maybe I should have bolted, or at least stopped and talked myself out of stabbing a piece of the stuff off and putting it in my mouth. Raw meat boiled in lime juice, seasoned and topped in liquified carrots and whipped cream. I felt my face go green and I ran for a bathroom.
"And you want me to get to know that guy?" I questioned Dylan on our way back to my place. Dylan sighed. "Hey, it's not like he's cooking around the clock." he pointed out. I rolled my eyes. "That thing looked more like part of a nuclear bomb than something regularly eaten anywhere."
"C'mon, give him a chance. He's your brother! And what do you have to lose anyway?" "My face and a few limbs..." I muttered. Dylan tried again. "Okay, but you do have something to gain, right?" I shrugged. "Nothing that I need," I remarked. "How about..." Dylan dug into his pocket, "this?" He flashed my neon lighter in front of his grin. I blinked, then glared at it.
"Give that back!" I threw out a hand after it, and Dylan ran off, leaving me to chase my lovely flash of green.