Letter 'C' in my ABCs of Goth series (AO3 series, individual stories on here).

Tried something a little more light-hearted.

The choice was between metal work and home economics. Or at least, it was for the other students. After the Hot Topic incident, the school had taken great care to prevent the Goth Kids from working too closely with flames. Henrietta was lucky, her parents had given up on her years ago, and now, so long as she wasn't home between eight and three, they were content. Michael wasn't so lucky, he needed decent grades, and Pete was sympathetic enough to stick by him. So, this left Pete and Michael in home economics. They had excelled at sewing, since DIYing was part of the Goth lifestyle, but cooking? Not so much. Cooking class was scary.

Pete watched the demonstration with avid interest, while Michael jotted down the instruction in his perfect, flowing cursive. They grabbed the ingredients. They knew what they needed to do and how and with what, so they couldn't possibly be more ready. There was no reason they couldn't get this right. How hard could pancakes be?

Within minutes of starting, while the Goths were still setting up their equipment, Kenny McCormick set himself on fire. Pete saw the smoke, heard the muffled scream, and rolled his eyes. He only remembered the boy's name because he was constantly finding new ways to literally kill himself with his school work. The teacher should have taken this as a sign it was going to be one of those days, but it took more than a roasted eighth grader to get classes cancelled in South Park.

Pete ignored the smell of burning, human flesh and started trying to crack an egg on the side of a moss green bowl. He tapped it lightly, not wanting to lose marks for having shell in his batter, but it wasn't doing much. Eventually, he picked up a butter knife and stabbed it into the side of the egg, hoping to create a small hole, but instead obliterating the thing and spreading yoke across their tiny workbench. 'God dammit.'

Michael looked up from the pan he was oiling and stared at him blankly. 'We're supposed to put the eggs in last.'

'It doesn't fucking matter,' Pete snapped. 'It's going to all be mixed together anyway.' He ran his fingers over a tea-towel, then used it to wipe up the mess.

'Now how're we going to dry the dishes?'

He threw the towel down beside the sink. 'Fuck that, let the next class get salmonella.'

When it came time to add the egg properly Michael volunteered to do it. He got the first one in perfectly, but all good things must end, and the second completely shattered. He stared into the bowl, eyes wide. 'Oh God.'

'What the fuck, man?' Pete put his hands in and started pulling out pieces of shell, but he knew it was a lost cause. They were only making a small batch, and that was an entire egg. Michael, who was already on the verge of failing this unit, looked catatonic. Pete sighed. 'Come on, we can save this.'

'I'm going to be homeless,' Michael muttered.

Pete flicked baking soda at him, almost hitting his eye. 'No, you're not. We can do this, it's only pancakes. Only. Pancakes.'

Michael nodded and grabbed the whisk.

By the end, their batter was lumpy and full of shell and powder pockets, but when the teacher walked by she told them they were doing a good job, so they supposed it must be passable. They were finally allowing themselves to relax, at least superficially, but the greatest test was yet to come. The stove.

They had only been allowed to take this class because electric stoves do not require flames, so they would have a hard time starting a fire, but someone else had already managed it today, and maybe that was an omen. Especially with the amount of oil in their frying pan.

The directions said to set the stove to medium heat, which Michael assumed was somewhere around 350 degrees, but he upped it to 400 because they were running behind. He put the pan down and waited for the oil to begin to bubble and sizzle, then Pete tipped what should have been 1/4 cup of batter in, but may have been a bit more. It bubbled, like the oil had, and for a while things looked how they were supposed to. Then, Michael grabbed the spatula and tried to flip the pancake. It came up alright, but when he tried to turn it over, the overly large pancake slipped off and landed half on the bench and half still attached to the pan. The stove-top began to steam and, distracted by the burning stove, they didn't notice the stream of oily pancake seeping into the tea-towel until the teacher picked it up, wrapped it around her hand, screamed. She dropped it right on top of the stove.

With the teacher in the infirmary and the cooking room on fire, they were told they could finish up the lesson in study hall, which they liked a lot better.

As they walked towards the library, Michael asked, 'do you think we'll have to redo the assessment?'

Pete shrugged. 'Where? The whole wing is probably going to burn to the ground.'

'Awesome.'