AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize for the horrifically long gap between chapters, but my Chibi!Pyro muse abandoned me and I was getting nowhere on this fic. Fortunately, he seems to have returned, or at least sent another muse to take his place temporarily, so we should be seeing more chapters soon. Everybody cross your fingers!
AUTHOR'S NOTE 2: I also apologize for the disgusting Mary Sue-ishness of this chapter, and I promise on pain of death it will not happen again. I swear I wouldn't have put you through it if it wasn't necessary to the plot line.
* * * * * * * *
It was five thirty on the nose when Rhiannon stepped into the roasting warmth of the kitchen. Before her stretched a long room; on her left, a row of stoves, ovens, and sinks lined the wall, while to her right was the counter where people lined up to be served. Occupying most of the space in between were a series of square tables where the food was being chopped and prepared for cooking.
John Allerdyce was already there, standing next to a tall girl with a curly blonde ponytail; both of them were slicing carrots for the stew that was already boiling on the stoves. He glanced up as she approached, and to her surprise his eyes hardened and he went back to cutting his carrot without a word to acknowledge her presence. Her smile faltered.
The girl with the ponytail caught sight of her abruptly, and beamed. "Hi!" she said brightly. "Come to help, have you?"
Rhiannon, glad that someone at least was speaking to her, returned the girl's smile. "Detention, actually," she answered ruefully, and shot a hopeful grin at John, but he was refusing to look at her. She wondered what was wrong.
The girl laughed. "What'd you do?"
Rhiannon was interrupted in the middle of her answer by a bellow from Inge, the head chef, a good-natured portly woman in her mid-forties with a perpetually smiling mouth. "Ve haff tventy minutes," she boomed, as everyone looked around to listen to her. "You haff your instructions, people, let's get to vork!"
Dutifully, Rhiannon picked up a knife and began chopping celery sticks into bite-sized pieces as the blonde girl – who had introduced herself as Laurie Taylor – chattered something about the benefits of carrots for good eyesight. Rhiannon was only half listening; instead, she was shooting surreptitious glances across the countertop at John, but he was still looking only at the carrot and knife in his hands. His full lips were pressed into a thin line, which gave Rhiannon the distinct impression that he was trying to control his temper. What on Earth can have made him so angry? she wondered. And what does it have to do with me?
Her wandering thoughts were brought back to her task by a sharp squeak from Laurie. Rhiannon's head snapped up just in time to see Laurie hold up her left hand, consider the bloody stump of a now-missing index finger, and then say in a tone of supreme boredom, "Well, damn. That's going to sting in the morning."
Rhiannon gaped at her, astounded that anyone could be so calm about having just sliced a finger right off. "You—but it—" she babbled, her head reeling. She'd never minded the sight of blood, but severed limbs were another matter entirely. Forcing down a wave of nausea, she said instead, "Shall I go get the nurse?"
"What?" Laurie looked up, her expression puzzled. "Oh! No no no, I'll be just fine. They grow back, you see." When Rhiannon just stared at her, she went on, "It's my power, you know? I'm like a lizard. Chop me up and I grow right back," she finished cheerfully.
"Oh, is that all?" said Rhiannon weakly. It made her feel slightly better to notice that John looked equally horrified by Laurie's mangled hand, but only slightly, because he was still refusing to look at her. Her heart sank even lower.
During their three hours of mutual detention, however, Rhiannon's confusion and depression slowly turned into anger. She hadn't done anything to deserve this treatment, damnit! Wasn't it obvious that she'd done this for him? She'd gotten herself into detention so that she could spend time with him, so that he wouldn't have to feel so lonely – didn't he understand the sacrifice she was making?
His determinedly stony silence answered that question for her.
She was in such a foul mood that even Dante's and Nisse's attempts to cheer her up went completely unnoticed. When Dante, grinning from ear to ear, yelled, "Yo, coffee bitch!" at her across the dining hall, she snarled at him so ferociously that he and Nisse exchanged a surprised glance. And when Nisse attempted to ask her what was wrong, all she would say was, "I don't know, so don't ask." But the furious glare she threw at John, who was serving stew at the counter, told them all they needed to know.
Finally the miserable experience was over; eager to escape the heat of the kitchens, Rhiannon washed up as quickly as she could and slipped out. She walked quickly, hoping she could get back to her dorm without seeing John again – his sudden coldness made her feel sick with humiliation and anger. But predictably enough, luck was not with her, and she ran right into him as she rounded the first corner.
He grunted, realized who she was, and his lip curled. He began to walk away, but in a split second Rhiannon had grabbed his arm, deciding that if karma had thrown them together, she was damned well going to seize the opportunity and get the answers she wanted.
"Hey," she demanded, "what the hell is going on with you? Why aren't you talking to me?"
John growled and shook his arm violently free of her grip. "As if you didn't know," he sneered.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking," she shot back coldly.
"Shove it," he told her. "The innocence act is not going to work any more. I heard you. What was it you wanted from me, anyway?"
"What?" Rhiannon gaped at him, completely lost. "I'm sorry, what are you talking about?"
"I heard you!" he snarled. "I fucking heard you! 'I always get what I want,'" he mimicked sourly. "Feel free to deny it all you like, but I heard you tell your little friends you were using me – so excuse me if I tell you I don't fucking want to hear it."
She blinked at him, jaw dropping as she stared, and then, to John's total astonishment, grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss that sent his head spinning. And it wasn't one of her illusions either: he could really feel her lips on his, her waist under his hands as he clutched at her to steady himself.
"You," she said calmly when she finally released him, "are a twap."
"I—what?" Now it was John's turn to blink and stare. "Okay. Now I'm REALLY confused."
That brought a small smile to Rhiannon's face. "I freely admit that I had devious ulterior motives when I worked to get that detention," she said simply.
"You do?"
"Absolutely. I was hoping my antics might clue you in to the fact that I like you, John Allerdyce. Kind of a lot."
"Um," he said, which was about the most eloquent thing he could think of. That was certainly the last place he'd expected that confrontation to go. Why on Earth would she like him? Sure, there were his impressive powers, and yeah, he was witty, and he was undeniably a schnazzy dresser if he did say so himself, and really now that he came to think of it all this was starting to sound terribly convincing... "You— you actually like me?" He couldn't quite believe it.
Rhiannon snickered. "What, that kiss didn't make that clear enough?"
"We-ell, I don't know," John said thoughtfully. "I might need a repeat performance to be sure…" She laughed outright at that, and as he leaned in to kiss her again, she slipped her hand into his, letting their fingers intertwine.
"So what exactly did you do to get your detention?" he asked after a long moment.
A wicked grin flitted across Rhiannon's face. "Oh, nothing much," she dodged. "Let's just say that painting of Abraham Lincoln in the foyer now resembles shiny purple badgers more than it does our dear departed President."
