[AN: I am a terrible, horrible person and I am so so so SO sorry I've left you hanging for so long. I love this story and I haven't given up on it, I promise. I hope you enjoy this and I promise I'll update more regularly!]

Gluttony

When she was fourteen Max finally accepted that when it came to nourishment she had two options: she could learn to cook or she could continue hoping that her steady diet of school lunch and takeout would kill her quickly instead of slowly and painfully. She dug up her mother's cookbooks and began working on simple recipes, just enough to keep her stomach from embarrassing her in class. Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her and she began experimenting with more advanced recipes. Once she perfected those, she began adding her own touches.

It was at this point that she recruited Terry to be her official taste tester. It was the perfect arrangement. Terry had an iron stomach and had no problem telling her what he loved and what he hated and Max was more than willing to let Terry take whatever leftovers he wanted home with him. It took a while but soon Max had a collection of recipes that rivaled any professional chef's. By sixteen, she knew she was finally ready to tackle the one recipe that her mother, her father and her sister had all tried and failed.

Her grandmother's pancakes.

Pancakes themselves aren't difficult but this recipe had stumped the best chefs on both sides of her family. There was a certain balance of spices her grandmother had used that, combined with her "secret ingredient," had made pancakes so perfect that it rivaled chocolate which in Max's opinion was nature's perfect food. Terry spent three days and two nights at her house, eating one pancake from a batch at a time and declaring each one better than the last. Finally, when both of them were beginning to hate the sound of the spatula scraping the pan, she gave him a pancake and leaned back to wait for his assessment. He took one bite and his eyes widened. He took a second, bigger bite and grinned.

"Maxie, you gotta try this one. But not this one, a different one," he said as he swallowed. Max made a second one and took a small hesitant bite. Immediately, her face lit up.

"It's perfect!" she exclaimed.

Terry nodded happily and responded with his mouth full. "Congrats Gibson. Can I have some to go?"

Needless to say, her pancakes became his favorite. He asked for them every chance he got and every time he thought he could talk her into it. One year on his birthday, she gave him two huge containers of pancake batter just to give herself a little break. He'd hugged her so hard she thought he'd broken a rib and demolished one container by himself in two days.

Now he sits across from her, eating his sixth. "Maxie, I want you to marry me," he says with his mouth full. She rolls her eyes and takes a sip of coffee.

"No. I don't want pancakes every morning for the rest of my life."

"What about every other morning?" She shakes her head and goes back to reading the comics. She can feel him watching her, but she doesn't look up.

Every so often, always under the influence of pancakes, he asks her to marry him and she says no and they go about their business. She knows that it's just a joke, a little game they play. And yet, every time he asks her, for just a second or two, her heart floats and her stomach plays host to millions of butterflies and she wants so badly to say yes; to agree to spend the rest of her life with her chowhound best friend, who she would make pancakes for every damn day if he wanted, because she wants him to be around when he's not and she needs him all the time, whether it's to kill a spider or to share in an inside joke and because she loves him. She loves him more than she's ever loved anyone and there's little she won't do for him.

Terry head shoots up again. "Can I have another one?"

"Pig."

"Love you too Gibson," he says, winking at her as he takes his seventh. Max shakes her head again, her face showing disbelief and her heart warming with a strange sort of affection. Eventually she'll have to lay all her cards on the table but for now she's content to feed him to his heart's content because even if he finds a new nurse or a new place to crash she knows that he'll never find pancakes as good as hers, and that's reason enough for him to keep coming back.