Austin sat at a crossroads of his life so far at his new school. Sweat freely dripped down the sides of his face as the muscles in his fingers twitched and jerked with each movement. The herculean task set before him was almost completed, he had almost done it, and with this one victory he would rewrite the course of history! He felt the adrenaline in his body reach its peak, a large grin going across his lips as he finally completed the intricate set combination of movements to win, he prepared to bask in the light of victory before suddenly all of his positive feelings left him in a rush.
Abel sitting next to Austin was similarly focused on their game and as Austin had the character on screen do a complicated combo he easily put in the counter movement and was rewarded with the "VICTORY!" in large red letters going across his section of the screen. Abel glanced over at Austin with a grin on his features as he lowered his headphones off of his head "Hey bud, nice game, you almost had me that time." He then put his fist out for a bump from the larger boy beside him.
Austin turned his most vicious glare onto Abel before sighing, heartbroken, as he returned the man's fist pound halfheartedly. "I thought I was going to win… I was so close…" he put his face in his hands and groaned before standing up and placing the controller on the sofa below him. He trudged over to the window and glanced outside noticing the later hour then turned back to Abel "You feel like giving kicking my butt at video games a rest long enough to get some food?"
Abel jumped straight off the couch at the mention of food and grinned "You're speaking my language now! But you should sit right back down and let me cook for you, call it my treat for beating you so many times." He began heading towards the kitchen not noticing the glint in Austin's eyes. "I feel like you winning so much would be cause of a reward, wouldn't it? So of course, that means I should be the one to cook for you" Austin replied. Turning on his heel Abel cocked his eyebrow at Austin "I think I must not have understood what you just said friend." At this he walked up to the larger man and looked up into his eyes with a challenging smirk on his face. "Are you saying that you can cook better than me?"
Austin began moving towards the fridge, opening it and glancing inside "I am in fact, saying I'm a better cook than you, and…" he began rummaging around the fridge as his face fell "I was going to challenge you to a cook off but it seems you and I are distressingly low on supplies." As Austin began to dig around he furrowed his brow "Why does everything in the fridge have Martel's name on it? Is this all his?" Austin stepped back from the open fridge, gazing inside as he thought to himself on what to do.
Abel just laughed at this "I don't think he'd mind if we used some of it, but we could always just go and ask him if he'd let us use his ingredients if we cooked for him too." Austin gave him an absent minded thumbs-up as he continued to dig around in the fridge, trying to figure out what he wanted them to make.
Abel shrugged and began to walk out of the kitchen, heading towards the living area of the dorms, he turned his headphones up louder for the walk head banging and dance stepping his way down the hallway. He got to Martel's door and knocked on it loudly in time to the drum beat of "We're Not Gonna Take it" slipping his headphones off his ears as he did and putting on his most winning smile.
Martel opened his door a crack peeking out to see who was bothering his work, seeing Abel with a weird smile on his face "yes? What can I do for you?" Martel asked, as he glanced around the hallway. None of the other students had stopped by to talk to him since he had moved in, and he was fairly confused why it was happening now. "Hey bud! Austin and I were about to have a cook off, until he realized that we were out of food between the two of us, but he said you have the fridge full. Think we could use some of it if we cook for you too?" Abel questioned.
Martel stared at Abel for a long moment before shrugging "I suppose everyone gets hungry every now and again, and couponing is an amazing hobby to get into if you need to be stocked up on food."
Abel blinked at him confusedly "So… are you saying we can?"
Martel shrugged again "You should invite the rest of the dorms too; you guys could cook for everyone. Did you know that Venus's atmosphere mostly consists of carbon dioxide? It also has clouds of sulfuric acid droplets." Abel slowly slid his headphones back on and stepped away from Martel as he continued talking about the weather conditions of the planets and made his way back down to the kitchen where he found Austin setting out ingredients.
"He said we could use them, but he thinks we should cook for the whole dorm" Abel grinned at Austin as he said this "I'm all for it, let everyone that lives here know how much better I am than you at something else."
Austin cracked his knuckles menacingly, the light reflecting off of his glasses to shade view of his eyes "You're on, I know how much you like hamburgers, so we're going to make burgers for everyone." He gestured with his arm towards the laid out ingredients. Ground beef was in abundance obviously, with several types of vegetables and many containers of herbs and spices "The spices are actually mine, so use them as you want." Pulling out his phone Austin put in his ear buds and began listening to music of his own, Counting Crows playing as he began to prep his meal.
Abel laughed heartily "You made a big mistake, I make the best hamburgers in California!" if Austin had still been listening he would have replied with something along the lines of hamburgers from California weren't true hamburgers. Abel put his headphones back on, turning them up loudly and turning on ACDC and getting to work.
Austin started mixing his ingredients together in a bowl as he let his mind wander; working like this reminded him of home, he used to cook with his brother all the time for his sisters. He'd used to cook like this with his mother as well; the thought caused an aching cold rock to settle in his stomach, and heat to build behind his eyes. He sighed and shook his head to clear the thoughts from his head, the memories wouldn't help him, and he wasn't ready to face them yet, he wasn't sure that he would ever be. Swallowing hard he looked over at Abel seeing him hard at work with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth causing Austin to laugh.
Soon the sounds of frying meat could be heard in the kitchen and throughout the area around in the dorms, and the smells of cooked herbs and spices floated up through the area. One person in particular sat up sniffing the air appreciatively before slowly moving downstairs towards the kitchen area. Blake's black hair bouncing slightly with his movement as he flounced his way into the kitchen area, spying Austin and Abel cooking he headed that way. A large blindingly white smile came to his lips as he began to poke at Austin repeatedly "Hey! What are you guys doing!? Other than cooking obviously!"
Austin jerked away quickly from the sudden prodding at his skin, his eyes going wide as he gazed down at Blake. He quickly pulled his ear buds out as he blinked down at the smaller boy "Oh! Uh… sorry Blake what was it that you just asked?" he skittered away from Blake a little, moving out of arms reach.
"I was just asking what you guys were doing, I see that you're cooking, but you're cooking an awful lot for just the two of you. Are you planning on eating it all yourselves? Oh! Are you having one of those eating contests? Can I watch? I was watching television once and I saw these guys eating hot dogs and they were…."
Austin just stared in bewilderment at the flood of words escaping Blake's mouth; he froze up immediately not sure what exactly to say to the other student, they hadn't interacted much past a few words said in passing and he wasn't sure how to react to the verbal barrage. He looked up at Abel, who happened to look over seeing the predicament that his friend was in and laughed silently to himself as he went back to cooking.
"But I couldn't imagine eating that much! Could you? I mean, they were so small too, like barely bigger than me and they ate forty-five or more each, do you think you could eat that many?" Blake was still going as Austin was looking for help, having not even stopped for breath.
Abel finally felt pity for Austin, seeing the panicked look growing on the bigger man's features; he removed his head phones gazing over at Blake. "We're having a cooking contest; if you want to sit down I'll bring you this masterpiece of my creation in just a minute. You can tell Austin how much better my cooking is while you're eating." Abel grinned smugly over at Austin who was just now recovering after Blake's attention had been pulled away.
Blake nodded eagerly, bouncing over to Abel "Yeah! That sounds great, I'm really hungry right now, I haven't eaten since this morning, and my parents always told me that you have to eat three meals a day! Well, they mostly said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, but you still should eat three right? Oh! I can go get everyone else if you guys want, so that they're all here when you're ready to go!" Blake turned away quickly and headed up to gather everyone else.
Austin shook his head in bewilderment "I don't… I don't know what to do with that guy" he just gazed wide eyed at Abel who began to laugh uproariously at his socially awkward friend.
"I'm done over here, you finished up too? We can set them out on the table before everyone gets here so we don't have to worry about favoritism." Abel began to place plates with burgers at each seat at the table, not sure who all would end up joining them. Austin finished his cooking as well, quickly setting a plate next to Abel's placing a colored toothpick in each burger; red for Austin's, and blue for Abel's and then stood back to wait.
Soon Blake was back with Martel, a grouchy looking James, and a silent Hunter as each man took a seat in front of the burgers. Hunter looked up at the two chefs with an eyebrow raised "What made you guys decide to do this?"
Austin just shrugged looking away, very uncomfortable with all the eyes on the two of them suddenly so Abel answered instead. "I've been kicking Austin's butt at video games since we moved in, so he decided to try his hand at a cooking competition instead; although I'm going to win this as well" he finished his statement with a wink and a self-assured smile.
Each boy picked up one of the burgers at random and bit into it chewing in appreciation as Austin and Abel waited for them to finish their deliberation. The burgers were gone quickly, the result of feeding a bunch of teenage boys in heroics courses to be sure, as soon as he was finished James stood up and scoffed "I'd say thanks for the meals, manatees, but it was only just barely edible" at this he stood up and stomped back up to his bedroom.
Hunter looked in deliberation, two sets of his arms folded across his torso while his free hand cupped his chin with a thoughtful look on his face "They were both really good… I'd have to say I liked the ones with the blue toothpicks better though." He shrugged as he stood up "Although, they still aren't as good as Mom's home cooking, thanks for the food." At this he left the room as well.
Martel stood up and began to leave as well causing Austin to call out to him "Hey wait! What did you think of the food?"
Martel turned back to look at him with clear disinterest "I think food is required to sustain life on this planet, what did you think of it?" before leaving the room and heading back up to his own bedroom, plenty of gadgets that needed inventing already circling his mind.
Both of the cooks turned to the table, where only Blake remained, Austin felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck as he glanced at Abel's smug face. He couldn't lose, not again; his pride was already basically gone at this point.
Blake turned to the boys and held up a red toothpick with another bright and broad grin on his face "I have to say the red one; it was good, and kind of sweet. The blue one was good too though; oh that reminds me of this time that my parents…" Blake continued to ramble with that large smile still on his face before leaving the room himself, presumably going to talk to Drake.
Austin just stared at the boy in shocked silence before turning his gaze to Abel who was equally stunned "Did we really just tie?"
Abel sighed "Well that was certainly anti-climactic, and I'm still hungry too. What a waste of time, at least Hunter and Blake gave us straight forward answers huh?" he laughed before going to grab one of his own hamburgers. Before he could pick the meal up Austin suddenly pushed one of his own burgers into Abel's face before taking the one that Abel had been about to eat.
"While I was cooking I smelled yours and it uh, it smelled really good and now I kind of wanted to try it." Austin explained while gazing down and to the side, as if embarrassed to be admitting this. He glanced back up to see Abel already in the midst of chewing up a large bite and not paying much attention to him so he quickly followed suit. As he chewed he closed his eyes and hummed appreciatively at the flavors of the meat, before slowly opening them and seeing Abel grinning at him victoriously.
"I told you mine was good!" He laughed before heading back towards the couch popping the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. "Although, I'll admit, yours was good too." He powered the game station back up offering a controller over to Austin as the boys began to battle each other online again.
Hunter peaked around the corner to the kitchen; he heard the noises coming from the television and the shouted curses from Austin, and laughter from Abel as they played the game. Hunter snuck into the kitchen, seeing two more burgers set for Leo he would presume. He stealthily snatched one of the burgers up in each hand before slowly sneaking back to his bedroom as he began to eat the other part of his meal.
As he glanced down the hallway he noticed James sneaking out of his room, shutting the door quietly before turning and almost running into Hunter. James gazed up at the much larger student then saw the burgers in his hands, he quickly made his way back to his room slamming the door shut and disappearing as quickly as he had appeared. This left Hunter incredibly confused for a moment before he chuckled quietly to himself 'you snooze you lose' as he went back up to his bedroom and began to lift the large weights on the ground in two of his free hands, the empty feeling in his stomach finally being sated; for the moment anyways.
A.N.: Hope you guys liked the longer chapter, introduced a few more of the stories characters this time around. I have to again point everyone to the story that I have mentioned in the description written by Andretti, it's a great read. The author's for the other characters are listed in the original story as well, and I'd like you to give a shout out in the reviews to who your favorites are!