Chapter two summary: Ezra is no cook. In fact, Ezra cooking normally ends in a fire or some sort of explosion. Zeb decides that needs to change - the kid needs to learn this survival skill.
The crew had learned pretty early on that Ezra is no cook. In fact, they learned early on to just ban him from trying to cook anything entirely after a bad incident where he tried to heat a metal spoon, which subsequently exploded.
Normally, their little rule against the youngest member of the crew cooking isn't a problem, as the crew doesn't have too much good food lying around anyway, and lives mostly off of ration bars. But, every now and then, Hera will decide to spoil her crew by throwing a few luxury food items onto the shopping list during a supply run.
Zeb wakes the morning after one such supply run to the smell of burning space waffles, and jumps up out of his bunk on instinct. Sure enough, Ezra is awake early and not in his bunk, leaving Zeb to book it down to the kitchen to save his precious space waffles while he still can.
When he finally gets to the kitchen, though, it looks like he's too late. Ezra is cursing a string of words that Zeb wouldn't expect from the boy (and frankly isn't sure he approves of) and holds the toaster upside-down to get the two too-hot-to-grab waffles out. They fall onto the table, blackened, petrified, and charred, along with an array of crumbs from past waffle attempts. The entire heap of inedible waffle is smoking slightly, and Ezra waves a hand over it to get the smoke to disperse before any alarms can go off.
"I thought that we told you to stay out of the kitchen!" Zeb growls. He's not going to let Ezra make another two waffles now that he's here. He had his two, and he burnt them.
"They're just waffles! I thought I had this!"
"Well, you didn't!"
Ezra shoots Zeb a pointed 'well obviously' look that dares him to continue. "Look, let me just clean this up and I'll try again. I'm sure I'll get it this time." He moves to scoop all of the blackened chunks of not-food in arms to take to the trash as Zeb snatches up the box of waffles.
"Oh no. You're not taking extra waffles from the rest of us just because you can't cook and burnt your own."
"Well what do you expect me to eat, then? Air?"
"Eat those." Zeb points towards one of the drawers where they keep their ration bars and goes to plug the toaster back in so that he can properly make himself breakfast. Really, you'd think that after seven years on the streets, the kid would have picked up a survival skill or two when it came to food. Although, he supposes that the focus then would be less on cooking and more on just grabbing whatever you can get your hands on and shoving it in your mouth before it can be taken. Something in Zeb's gut twists at this realization.
Ezra sends a side-long glance towards the store of fresh, good food that they all now have. But alas, he doesn't know how to cook any of it, and he's never going to be allowed to experiment with it when any of the crew is around.
He rummages around in the drawer for a ration bar and goes to sit across from Zeb at the table, who is still waiting for his waffles to heat, and stares at the unopened package in his hands. Just the thought of another one of these bars- so tasteless and dry, like a ball of sandpaper going down your throat - makes Ezra cringe.
Zeb groans internally, watching the pitiful display Ezra is putting on, and slumps over. "Alright, quit 'yer moping and come here." He stands up and walks over to the food store. Behind him, Ezra slowly rises to his feet and goes to follow, unsure.
"O-kay… what are you doing?"
"I'm gonna teach you how to cook. You're going to make breakfast for the crew."
Ezra looks over all the food, a bit shocked, but doesn't complain if it means that he won't have to eat another ration bar.
"Alright. What are we- I making?"
"You're gonna make a quor'sav-fried steak. Should be big enough for all of us to share." With that, Zeb rummages around in their new food supply and pulls out what might possibly be the largest nerf steak Ezra has ever seen.
"Okay. It's already thawed. Normally, if it were frozen, you'd need to wait for it to melt, but not so much that it's not cold anymore. Are your hands clean?"
Ezra nods, face hardening, perhaps taking Zeb's lesson a bit too seriously.
"Good. Now go get the eggs, pom seed flour, and oil."
"Right." Ezra needs to hop up on the counter to reach the flour and oil in the top cabinets, to which Zeb openly laughs, but Ezra is far too focused to let that get to him. He started out just wanting a nice breakfast for once, but for some reason really wants to prove that he can do this.
"Now," Zeb slides a bowl towards the kid. "Gently crack about four eggs on the rim of the bowl, and then open the egg up over the bowl."
"Like this?" He taps the egg against the bowl, and it's barely enough to make a dent.
Zeb rolls his eyes. "A little harder."
Ezra slams the egg down, and it bursts open, only half of it actually making its way into the bowl. The remaining half is dripping in a thick goo off of Ezra's sleeve.
"Not that hard!"
Ezra cringes from the feeling of egg on his arm. "Sorry."
Zeb sighs. "Ugh. Okay, try again."
By the fourth egg, Ezra is pretty sure that he's got this, and Zeb doesn't interject with some snide comment about actually getting the egg in the bowl or keeping the eggshell out of it.
Whisking the eggs is another battle, and by the time that's done, Ezra has spilled enough of the egg that they need to add another.
"It'll be lunch time by the time we're done," Zeb quips when it looks they're finally through with the eggs. "Nevermind that, the meat is going to rot before you're done learning how to cook something."
"I'm sorry, I'm doing my best!"
"That's what worries me."
Ezra shoots Zeb a glare. "Just tell me what to do next, alright?"
"Next, you coat the steak in the egg there. You could dip it in if it were smaller, but I'd use one of the brushes in the drawer there."
Ezra does exactly as he's instructed, and dips the brush into the bowl of egg. The sticky yolks roll off of the brush and Ezra struggles to get it to stay on, but aside from dripping egg in the counter space between the bowl and the raw steak, does a fairly decent job.
"Done!" he announces proudly.
Zeb raises an eyebrow. "No catastrophes?"
"...No," Ezra almost growls, earning a barking laugh from the lasat.
"Alright, then we're almost done. Now just dust some flour over the steak and- not that much!" Zeb shouts abruptly when Ezra nearly pours the whole bag over on top of the steak. "Dust the flour."
Ezra tilts the bag back and grabs a handful, gracefully letting flour fall through his fingers onto the steak.
"Good. Normally you'd roll that in a bowl of flour too, but like I said, this steak is too big. Now all you have to do is cook it."
Zeb is strict with supervision over this part- as the cooking part normally equates to the fire and explosion part with Ezra, and shows him how to set the frier and how to tell when the steak is done.
"Smell that?" Zeb asks.
Ezra sniffs the air- thick purely with the aroma of savory food. "Mhmm." Ezra's mouth is already watering.
"When it smells like that, that's how you know it's ready." He closes his large eyes and takes a nose-full of it in, grinning. Just to double check, though, he cuts it open, right through the middle. It's a perfect medium-well. Zeb prefers his steaks a little rarer, but this will do.
"Is it okay?" Ezra asks, peeking over at his creation, not quite sure what to look for. He's more so trying to judge Zeb's reaction than the quality of his food, though.
"Yep. You did good, kid."
Ezra smiles and beams quietly. It's just in time, too, as the crew normally starts waking up right about now. Not a moment too soon, Hera jogs into the kitchen in a hurry, still in her sleepwear, Sabine following in a similar outfit, albeit walking a bit more casually.
"Come for breakfast?" Zeb offers, starting to slice up the huge steak into portions for the crew to eat.
Hera shakes her head. "I smelled something burning."
Ezra lets out an indignant "hmph," as he thought that his cooking turned out perfectly fine, only to realize that Hera isn't looking at the steak. She's looking at… the toaster. The toaster where Zeb had put two waffles in and forgotten to take them out. It's set on low, which is probably why it took them so long to burn, but sure enough, thin trails of smoke rise up from the blackened triangles in the toaster. How Hera smelled the smoke before Zeb, Ezra can't quite figure out.
Zebs eyes widen in realization, and he quickly looks down to Ezra, who is in turn looking back up at him with a devious grin.
Oh no. He's never living this one down.
So I've been doing some research, and while Quor'sav steak isn't listed as something that humans eat, it's made from a nerf steak and other ingredients, which humans do eat, so I figured that this was feasible enough.
For those of you who want more brotherly/sisterly fics, I took FarmerGirl55's advice (thank you FarmerGirl55 ;)) and started a new community called "Space Siblings" where I've been collecting them. Don't feel obligated to follow, but if you want to check it out, you can find it on my page.
Thank you for the wonderful suggestions for future chapters (which I would still love to hear) and, thank you all so much for all of your kind reviews on chapter one! Each and every one truly meant the world to me. Thank you so much!