Seeing that Belle had dozed off, Arthur took her cup from her hand slowly so as not to rouse her and adjusted her to a more comfortable sleeping position. She tensed a bit—it still must have hurt—but she didn't open her eyes. With a sigh, he brushed some hair out of her face and squatted next to her, watching.
He really had no idea what to do with her. It was enough of a shock to find another human, but a lady? And had he been alone so long he didn't remember what an average woman looked like, or was she really that pretty? He found himself leaning towards the second option, admittedly mostly because he liked to think he hadn't gone quite that mad.
Still, it was rather impossible to say he was still at his sanest, especially after today. What, he didn't even remember how to give a handshake? How to say his name? Even if he hadn't exactly practiced social skills much when he had been altogether the only man around for—how long was it, even? Three years? Four? More? He had lost track.
At any rate, none of this was good for his mental health. Apparently fate wasn't satisfied with however much the isolation had already wrecked his mind. All within twenty-four hours he managed to shoot a lady—one nice-looking enough she could have completely thrown him off before any of this—and find out that other humans indeed existed. What's more, he had to make sense of it all in infuriating little patches when his guest was actually awake and then drive himself madder wondering about it all as she slept. If living through the apocalypse hadn't driven him completely insane, that would be fixed soon.
Taking as deep breaths as was possible, the twenty-three-year-old sipped away at his water. It tasted fine—he had built the filters for it himself, after all—but it wasn't tea. Oh, why did he have to start thinking about tea again? Now that little hole in him he'd forgotten about was gaping open again. Why couldn't there just be some tea about in the first place? That would more easily fix things, without him having to hope he wouldn't suddenly remember some forever-lost aspect of his life. And he would probably recover some of his concentration skills with the stuff, because he had been beyond scatterbrained since he went through the last bag—ugh, his last taste had to be from a teabag, too—and certainly it would have been nice to be able to focus on things again.
Arthur circled the couch, his feet dragging over a path of faded and torn carpet, before deciding he had to do something to keep his mind off all of this. He could go shoot down some game or zombies, but that would leave Belle vulnerable.
At one point in his circle Arthur noticed the box of gelatin that Belle had dropped when he shot her. While he had mopped up the blood, the box was still sitting there on the ground. He quickly stepped over and picked the thing up, sliding a drawer open before pausing.
Considering she tried to take it, Belle had to be interested in the dessert. Perhaps he should make some for her? It seemed like a hospitable thing to do. He hadn't really cooked anything in a long while, aside from roasting meat, but he had been an excellent chef before. No doubt he retained some of those skills.
Flipping the box in his palm, he looked over the instructions on the back. One cup boiling water, and one cup cold. That was quite a bit of his rations for the day, but it would be worth it.
Arthur set up a cup to go over the fire and poured the cup that was to be cold. He wasn't sure what to do about the latter. The refrigerator wasn't exactly still operating, nor did he have any ice. Well... They added rock salt to make ice colder for ice cream, right? And it wasn't as if water and ice were different substances, so that would do.
He looked over the house for rock salt and found a hefty bag of the stuff in the garage. Bringing it into the kitchen, he went through all of the measuring cups a few times before giving up on which one was best. He just threw in a good handful of salt before setting the water on the counter to cool and putting the bag back in the garage.
With a glance at Belle to make sure she was still all right, he walked over to the fireplace to check on the water. Not boiling yet. He went back to check the other cup, dipping his finger in. Not cooled yet.
After another trip to the living room, he decided it would be a lot easier if the two were in the same place. The kitchen seemed like the place to do his cooking, so he went over to the oven. Atop it was a gas stove, but he didn't have anything with which to fuel it. It was open to the air—surely some wood would do? And he even had some lit branches in the fireplace.
He prepared to ferry the cup over first but grabbed the heated surface with his bare hands. Swearing sharply—then turning to find that Belle was thankfully still asleep—he snatched his hands away and waved them in the air to cool them. Returning to the kitchen, he grabbed some ratty pot-holders and used them to get the cup over. He set the water on the stove, then took a burning stick that was long enough to keep him from burning himself again. Propping the flaming end under the grates, he wrung his tingling hands together and went to check on the other cup of water. It certainly felt cooler to the touch this time. The other cup wasn't boiling just yet.
He decided to check on Belle again. She was still sleeping peacefully, though one of her hands was curled up not far from her wound. The makeshift bandage was definitely bloodstained, but it all looked like old blood. Weren't these things supposed to be changed out? But how often?
Deciding it quite possibly was time to change them, Arthur started to unwrap the curtains but paused. He should probably find new dressings first. Well, these were the living room curtains. There were still curtains in the kitchen, right?
He turned his head to find that indeed there were curtains in the kitchen. They also seemed to be on fire.
He tightened the bandage again a bit too quickly and stood. Hurrying through the kitchen doorway, he saw that somehow the fire had gone down the stick to the hand rags on the oven handle. How on earth the stuff jumped to the curtains above the stove he was not entirely sure. Still, he should probably put it out.
Since the cold water was on the opposite counter, he went for the closer option and grabbed the cup of hot water. He managed to immediately dump a good deal of it over the hand rags even though the plastic had somewhat liquefied and was spreading over and burning his fingers.
Swearing again, much louder this time, he tried hard as he could to shake the plastic off, but it was stuck to his hand. The continuous cursing was rather difficult to keep up when every smoke-filled inhale demanded a cough.
"Is everything okay?"
Arthur froze at the sleepy voice and stepped back to see Belle stirring, though her eyes remained closed.
"I'm all right," he hollered hoarsely, trying his best to ignore the scorching plastic in his hand. "The kitchen..." he glanced back at the flames and grey fog—"sort of happens to be on fire, but I promise I have everything under control!"
"Okay," Belle murmured, too asleep to really respond.
Stifling another cough, Arthur turned his attention back to the kitchen. The fire was still limited to the curtains at the moment. Unfortunately, he had dumped all of the hot water, and he really didn't want to risk the cold water, too, if he hoped to make Belle that gelatin. The most logical next step, then, was to go to the floor and try to scoop up some of the used water into the cup molded into his three-fingered grip. It wasn't particularly efficient, but he did manage to get about an eighth of the cup full, and that he dumped on the curtains.
After another two cycles of this, the last of the fire had finally disappeared, leaving Arthur coughing in the cloud of smoke. He waved to clear the air before focusing on the hot plastic attached to his hand. With a series of stifled grunts, he struggled to peel the cup off him and, after some time, unfortunately succeeded.
He at least had the presence of mind to curse into his arm after the skin on his fingers had ripped off. The warped cup dropped to the ground as he, nearly in tears, ran over to make sure Belle hadn't heard him. It would do him in completely if he'd sworn in front of a lady.
She didn't seem to have heard. She looked nearly asleep again, peaceful and beautiful. And, bugger it, he was going to make her that gelatin she wanted!
Squinting through the smoke, he salvaged what was left of the recipe: the cold water and the little box that started it all. The first step was apparently to add the mix to the boiling water. Well, that wasn't going to happen. The cold water would just have to do.
Setting the cup of water on the counter, he stirred in the powder with his left hand, since for some reason the owner of the house had taken the utensils with him. It didn't mix all that well at first, but he was supposed to keep swirling it for two minutes. Or perhaps he just wasn't mixing hard enough. He put a little more oomph into his stirring, and a good bit of the mixture sloshed out onto the floor. With a lighter swear, he found an unburnt bit of dish rag and mopped up the mess. Tossing the rag outside, he returned to swirling the gelatin for a moment before he realized he probably used up the two minutes with that distraction.
He checked the box, which said to stir in the cold water, but he had already done that. Next was to refrigerate for four hours. That wasn't going to happen, either, so he figured all he could do was add another handful or two of rock salt and wait. He did just that—scooping the rough stuff up in his uninjured hand, of course—set the cup on the counter, and resolved to put the ordeal out of his mind till the gelatin was done.
Although, with most of the skin ripped away from the insides of his thumb and his next two fingers, that probably wasn't going to be that easy. What was he supposed to do for that, anyway? Again, not a physician. Perhaps his only choice was to tough it out. He would be decent at that, at least. Though it certainly wouldn't be fun shooting like this.
Flicking his hands a bit—though it ended up hurting him more—he wandered back into the living room and squatted next to the couch to watch Belle again. Before he could think about something other than her looks, her eyelids cracked open, and she rolled her eyes over to look at him. Feeling like some sort of stalker, he scooted back a bit before realizing that wasn't particularly helping things.
"Er, I, uh, thought you were awake," he said quickly, clearing his throat, which felt and sounded full of gravel. "Um, good morning. Again."
With a high-pitched yawn, Belle shuffled her shoulders in a stretch. "Good morning again to you, too," she said, swallowing. After a moment of getting her eyes opened, she squinted at Arthur, then at the ceiling. "Do I smell smoke?"
"Um, yes—no. Um... It's a surprise."
"Not a well-kept one, then," she said with a grin. "But, really—smoke? For me? You shouldn't have."
Arthur just stared at her for a second as he processed the words. Belle stared back seriously before bursting into giggles.
"It's called sarcasm," he said, stifling her laughter.
Arthur bolted upright, bristling like an indignant cat. "I-I know what sarcasm is! Thank you!"
Belle just broke down laughing again. Despite the fact that he of all people not easily recognizing sarcasm was quite terrifying, he really couldn't concentrate on his own problems with her giggling like that. Why did she have to be so cute? It was frustrating. Very, very, ridiculously frustrating.
She calmed down a bit in her laughing and looked over at Arthur again.
He found himself smiling back.
