Author's Note: Here it is, chapter 4! I'm so, so sorry for not updating sooner, I blame life. Thank you thank you thank you, for all those who reviewed, favorited, and followed so far. ^_^ I'm glad you liked the story, I hope you continue to enjoy it! So here it is, enjoy!


Chapter 4: Food


Eve had gone downstairs after convincing Claire that it was perfectly acceptable for her boyfriend to be digging his best friend's undies out of the drain only to stand there and stare around the kitchen, at a complete loss as to where to start. After looking around a minute she decided that the potatoes needed to be peeled. That didn't seem like too difficult a task.

She had just gotten half a dozen of them peeled when her cell phone rang, the ring tone indicating it was Michael. She dried her hands and thumbed open the connection.

"Uh, I kind of have a problem here." he said by way of greeting.

"What?" she asked. His tone didn't sound like he was being attacked by vampires, but in Morganville, you never could tell. That's when she heard a loud thumping, like someone was kick-boxing the walls, followed by a crash from the living room.

"What was that?" Michael said sharply.

"I don't..." Eve began, then heard Shane yell that the drain was fixed. She assumed that was code for 'big-ass frozen pterodactyl is out of the bathtub', and decided that was all the detail she needed at the moment. "It's fine. What's the problem?" she asked.

He sighed. "I've been to every grocer and convenience store in town, and none of them have any pumpkin pies. They don't even have a fall-back sweet potato or cherry pie, either."

"What?!" Eve squealed frantically. "What do you mean there aren't any? Anywhere?"

"No, I checked." He said patiently. "I even went back to Common Grounds, but nothing. Morganville isn't all that big, and most people stay in town for the holidays. I guess everyone wanted a pie."

Shane walked in, still looking soaked and more than a little ticked off. She mouthed 'What was that sound?' He grimaced and started to answer when she heard Myrnin's voice coming from the living room. Of course. Why wouldn't Claire's crazy boss just show up in their living room hours early?

The frustration must have shown on her face, because Shane just sighed and grumbled he'd take care of it.

Michael had still been talking all the while, and she caught the tail-end of his sentence as she watched Shane stalk off. "...so I found a can of the pumpkin stuff, and I'm looking at the ingredients on the side here, and it doesn't really look all that hard." he was saying.

"What?" she asked, feeling even more lost.

"I'll get a crust and the rest of the ingredients on this can of pumpkin, and we can just make a pie ourselves. It doesn't look difficult at all." he said, sounding encouraged, which was much more than Eve felt. She swallowed and stared at the counter, filled with all the food she had yet to cook. She closed her eyes and sighed into the phone. "It's not as though we have any other choice, why not?"

"See? We've got it covered. I'll be back in about twenty, as soon as I get the rest of the stuff. Love you." he said, sounding cheerful as he hung up. Eve put took the phone away from her ear and looked around the kitchen again.

Shane poked his head into the kitchen and said "I'm going to go take care of the turkey, I'll be back by dinner with the bad boy all ready, okay?"

She looked back at him blankly, then remembered Myrnin. "What about Myr-"

"Uh, don't worry I took care of it. He'll come back later. 'Bye." he said quickly, disappearing behind the door. She probably should have been more worried about how fast he had said that, but right now she really didn't care. If Shane had staked Myrnin, it was one less thing for her to worry about. Right now, her only problem was figuring out what to do with the potatoes once she was done peeling them. When in doubt, Google.

xXx

Michael sighed with relief. Finally. His twenty minutes had quickly turned into forty when he couldn't find a pie crust in any of the stores he had visited, but this one had just happened to have one all the way at the back of a tall shelf. Luckily he had managed to secure all the other ingredients on his list, though he had to fight a surprising number of other 'runners' hell-bent on trying to find whatever the cooks in their kitchens had sent them off to find. In all honesty, he found most of them less threatening then the grannies and housewives from the day before, and a surprising number of them were vampires.

He bought the last ingredients on his list, then headed home, where Eve was hopefully not killing anyone.

The smell when he hit the door was not encouraging.

"Eve?" he called tentatively. He walked into the kitchen and found no Eve, though there was two pots steaming (which appeared to be where the smell was coming from) on the stove, food spread out all over the counter, and a laptop on the table.

He noticed the laptop was on a web page entitled 'How to boil potatoes'.

Whatever was on the stove, it wasn't potatoes. It smelled more like burned popcorn.

Eve rushed in, looking flustered. "There you are, I was just about to call you! Did you get the stuff?" she said quickly, looking into the bags he had set down on the table.

"Uh, yeah. Where did you go?" he asked, deciding to go investigate the pot where the smell was coming from.

"Ran Claire up some hot chocolate. I've been trying to throw her off the trail, I think she might be on to us." Eve answered, reading the side of the canned pumpkin. "I threw in a DVD to distract her. Between that and her pain meds, I think she'll be out soon anyway. I was actually going to call you because I needed you to get something else while you were out."

"Eve, what's cooking in here?" Michael asked, staring into the pot he had just lifted the lid off of.

"Creamed corn, why?" Eve responded distractedly, consulting her computer screen.

"Not anymore," he sighed, pulling out the spoon that had been sticking out of the pot. A huge, yellowy, burned blob in the shape of the pot was stuck to it. "Now I think it's corn bread."

Eve yelped, then ran over to pull the pot off the stove. "But I only left ii for five minutes!" she cried, waving a hand over the faintly smoking blob. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

Michael shrugged. This stopped being funny when Eve threatened to shove a stake up his ass if he didn't get up this morning, and was all beyond affecting him anymore.

"You said you needed me to pick something up? I'll just go and get some more stuff for this, and whatever else you said you needed."

She threw her arms around him gratefully. "Thank you, I love you, you are a life saver, you know that?" she said against his chest. "I need you to pick up some chicken stock for the stuffing, and some margarine. Or butter. Whatever you can find."

Michael nodded and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a bit," he called over his shoulder, not daring to give her an exact time. He had no idea how many other people he was going to have to battle for the stuff.

He saw her nod at him as she dumped the burned slab of ick into the garbage can, spoon and all, and wondered if he should maybe grab some take-out while he was at it

xXXx

"So, I'm new at this science thing. What now?" Shane asked, looking around.

After telling Eve he was going, he had walked back into the living room, then through the portal Myrnin had left open for him into the lab. He had managed to save his pride by telling Myrnin to go ahead with the turkey while he was talking to Eve, and when he arrived, Myrnin had it set out on a table with something that looked like a thermometer held over it.

Myrnin looked up at him. "I'm trying to configure the temperature output by the core temperature, then we can start. Though when I say 'we' I mean 'I', since, as you just stated, I am the scientist, not you." he said, turning back to his work.

Shane gritted his teeth. Don't hit him, don't hit him, you need his help, he thought to himself. That was going to be easier said than done. How did Claire put up with him all the time?

"I can say the same about you, boy." Myrnin said, making Shane realize he'd muttered the last part to himself. And of course he heard, with vampire hearing.

Shane shrugged a shoulder, trying to channel Claire's diplomacy. "Fair enough. But really, what do we do now? And is this really going to work?"

Myrnin seemed to have taken Shane's remark as a truce. He nodded and said "I take this device," he held up what looked like a child's toy water gun with a solar panel on the end. "Calibrate it to the right temperature, then point it at the poultry and hit this button. And viola, dinner." he said with a flourish.

Shane blinked at the gun, then the turkey, then Myrnin. "That's it?" he asked.

"That's it." Myrnin replied cheerfully. "This will give me an excellent way to test the device since I've worked all the bugs out."

Shane nodded slowly. Myrnin fiddled with the device some more, then tapped and moved the turkey around some. He nodded to himself after a minute, then backed up to where Shane was standing, turning a dial on the gun's handle. "All ready!" he announced, still sounding like a kid on Christmas.

"You said you made this thing to work on vampires?" Shane asked, in spite of himself. If this thing worked, he kind of wanted one for himself.

"That was the intention," Myrnin replied, still eyeing his gun, which had started to make a high-pitched whining sound, almost like a jet engine.

"Erm, why?" Shane asked. Not that he didn't see the usefulness of it. Hell, even he had to admit it seemed like one of Myrnin's more useful inventions, in his opinion. He just didn't know why Myrnin would want to make one.

Myrnin looked up from the device, which now had rippling waves of heat radiating from the solar panel part of it, like black top on a hot Texas day. "Well, why not?" he said with a shrug.

Which was when, without warning, there was a loud BOOM, and what felt like a truck hit Shane and threw him against the wall, hard.

He lay there on the floor for a minute, hearing a loud ringing in his ears and blinking stars out of his eyes. Something smelled like charcoal and burning wood. He groaned and forced himself to sit up and look around. Myrnin was in a similar position five feet away, looking dazed and using the wall to prop himself up.

"Oh my," he said, shaking his head like a dog ridding its ears of water. "I don't believe I've worked all the bugs out yet."

"No kidding," snapped Shane, stumbling to a standing position. "What the hell was that? What happened?"

Myrnin simply pointed. Shane followed his gaze. There, where the table and turkey once were, there was burned, charred wood pieces. And one frozen, uncooked turkey.

"It seemed to have locked onto the table, rather than the bird." said Myrnin, sounding nonchalant. "I suggest we don't put it on the table, this time."

Shane glared at him, then at the turkey. "And the stupid thing still didn't cook?" he fumed.

"It's quite hardy. I'm sure it didn't go down without a fight in it's life." Myrnin said, nodding gravely. Shane was inclined to agree.

"Moving all other items away from it should fix the problem," Myrnin carried on, standing himself. "Let me just recalibrate the system again, and do get one of those fire extinguishers. And do something about your elbow, it's smoldering." Shane looked down at his elbow in resignation, noticing that, indeed, his jacket was smoking there.

All well. It was Michael's jacket anyway.

XxxxX

"Eve? Eve! What are you doing down there?" Claire called from upstairs.

Dammit. She kept calling and asking what was going on, everything from where Shane and Michael were (Shane was working overtime for some extra cash, and Michael had some vampire business to attend to in Founder's Square, Eve had explained) to what that smell was (Eve had told her that she had turned the oven on and put some of their wet clothes around it, since the dryer was still broken, only to come back and find one of her expensive bras on fire) and why she had thought she had heard Myrnin's voice earlier, and felt a portal open (Eve had pointed out that drug-induced hallucinations weren't unheard of).

Eve was resisting the urge scream. She knew Claire was just concerned and maybe a little suspicious (Eve had to admit she would be, too), but still. This was getting difficult.

She stepped around the pieces of glass plates she had just dropped (the sound was probably why Claire was yelling down again), and poked her head out of the kitchen to yell back "Nothing, CB! Just dropped some dishes! It was Shane's turn to wash again, but you know how that is! Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm okay." she called back. "I'm think I'm going to take a nap, my medicine's making me sleepy."

Thank God. Eve thought. She had been wondering when the stupid things were going to work.

She turned back to the dishes on the floor, then remembered what she had been meaning to do before she dropped them. Michael had been gone awhile, so odds were he was still out trying to find the stuff she had sent him out for. She pulled out her phone and started to call him just as he walked in the back door, groceries in hand.

"Okay, I finally found the stuff, though I had to threaten to bite a few people, one of them a vampire, so you may want to stay out of that antique shop on main the guy runs for a little while-" he stopped when he saw her holding the phone, looking at him a little guiltily. He sighed. "You need something else, don't you?"

"Marshmallows," she said, putting her phone away and taking the bag from him. "For the sweet potatoes. Sorry." He just sighed again and nodded, turning around and going right back out the door. Eve decided to go about making her stuffing.

XxxX

"Alright, that should do it. I know I have it right, this time!" Myrnin said triumphantly, crouching down next to Shane.

They had spent the last hour and a half trying to get the stupid bird cooked, only to have something else in the lab blow-up or burn. Like a lamp. And two more tables. And a bookcase. Shane's jacket. Myrnin's shoes. Their hair.

Now, though, they had effectively removed any other possible targets from the blast field, were ducking behind a solid granite table in the corner that Myrnin had turned over, and were wearing some flame-proof (or so Myrnin said) jackets with hoods and some goggles. Shane also had all of the lab's fire extinguishers behind him, and one in his hands.

As much as Shane hated to admit it, if he hadn't almost died and hadn't been doing this with Myrnin, it would actually be kinda fun.

Well, almost. Micheal was going to be a little pissed about his jacket. And he was pretty sure that laptop had been Claire's.

"Okay, let's do this." Shane said, tightening the grip on his fire extinguisher. Myrnin nodded, then turned the dial, letting the tell-tale whine and air ripples loose.

They waited.

There was a loud pop, and both men ducked and covered their ears, squeezing their eyes closed. The last blast had been a bit blinding.

Nothing happened.

They slowly opened their eyes, then looked at each other. Nodding, they both carefully peeked over the table. No explosions. Taking that as a good sign, Shane walked around the table to where the turkey sat on the floor.

The plastic button timer popped out. Shane looked over at Myrnin, actually giving him an impressed nod. He looked back at the turkey, noting as he did that it even had the golden-brown sheen the ones on TV always seemed to have. Myrnin was frowning at it.

"Dude, it worked! It actually worked! I take back at least one bad thing I've said about you!" Shane said, bending over the turkey. It didn't actually smell like a good roasting Thanksgiving dinner, but he would take what he could get.

"Wait, something's off." said Myrnin, bending over it as well.

"What do you mean?" Shane asked. "It looks fine! See, the button even popped out."

He had barely finished saying it when the turkey just...split. Wide open, revealing a charred, black interior, and sending the button flying out at bullet speed. It ricocheted off the walls a few times, bouncing here and there, before whacking Myrnin in the side of the head, causing him to swear in some language Shane didn't recognize and stumble, knocking Shane into the burned turkey carcass.

On the bright side, Myrnin was right about the jackets - they were flame proof. Just not heat proof. It was like falling against a pile of turkey shaped lava.

Shane swore some himself, then rolled off of source of his agony, trying to get any of the pieces stuck to him off. He rolled into Myrnin, who took a header right into the mass of hot poultry, only to start yelping almost as loudly as Shane.

He jumped off of the turkey, then drop-kicked it. It flew through the air and smacked up against a wall, where it exploded. They both stared at the turkey splattered spot on the wall a minute.

"Ahh, what now?" Myrnin asked, actually sounding sheepish.

Shane closed his eyes and rested his head back against the floor. His stomach felt like it was on fire. "I have no idea. But I'm certainly not going back to Eve and telling her we blew up the Thanksgiving headliner."

Myrnin was silent. When Shane opened his eyes, he was still standing in the same spot, staring at the wall in awe.

"I guess," Shane sighed, sitting up. "we have to get another turkey."

XxxX

Eve stared in horror at the pile of tasteless mush that was her stuffing. She had followed the recipe almost exactly as it said (okay, so maybe she might have gotten a few things a little off, but part of cooking was adding your own flair, right?), and this looked awful. It tasted even worse. She couldn't serve this to people, not even Myrnin.

The doorbell rang.

"What now?" Eve almost wailed, dashing over to go answer it.

It was Hannah Moses. Eve sighed and opened the door. "Hey, Hannah. This really isn't a good time."

Hannah started to open her mouth, then wrinkled up her nose. "What is that smell?" she asked, making a face.

Eve scowled. "I had a bit of an accident with dinner, okay?" she grumbled.

Hannah blinked at her. "Oookay, is that why it isn't a good time?"

"No, it's not a good time because I have a pie in the oven, and my stuffing is ruined." Eve half-sniffed.

Hannah raised her eyebrows. "You're making Thanksgiving dinner?" she asked. At least she was polite enough to try to keep the scepticism out of her voice.

"Yes, and I'm screwing everything up, I can't even make mashed potatoes right!" Eve cried, running her fingers in her hair.

Hannah didn't seem to know how to take this, and just stood awkwardly in the door for a minute. "Ah, you know, Eve, if you're having trouble, you could always give my Gramma a call." she said finally. Eve looked up at her. "What?"

"Just call my Gramma, she'd be happy to help, I'm sure. She makes the best stuffing in Texas, everyone loves Gramma Day's Homemade Stuffing." Hannah suggested. "You can even call her now, if you like."

"Really?" Eve said, her eyes wide. "She'd help me?"

"Well, she'd give you advice over the phone, but yeah, I'm sure she would." Hannah replied with a shrug.

"Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you! You're an angel!" cried Eve, as Hannah wrote the number out for her. "Um, what did you need, anyway?"

Hannah shrugged again. "I was actually looking for Michael, there have been some complaints of his, er, conduct at the stores. But now that I'm here, I think I see why. Tell him not to worry about it." She handed over the paper with the number on it. "I'll be off, then. Happy Thanksgiving to you." she said with a nod.

Eve thanked her again and closed the door.

She checked her pie, which was surprisingly turning out okay, then sat down at the table and called Gramma Day. She answered on the fourth ring. "Hello?"

"Hi, Gramma, it's me, Eve."

"Ah, child, I just got off the phone with Hannah. She tells me you need a little help?" said Gramma, sounding friendly and helpful. Eve would have kissed the woman if she's been in front of her.

"Yes, Gramma, thank you. I was wondering about your stuffing recipe...?"

"Of course, child, of course. Alright, here it is, are you ready?" Gramma asked.

Eve picked up her pencil and held it over the paper she had ready. "Ready."

"Go on over to the store and pick up a few boxes of Stove Top."

Eve blinked. "Wait, what? Stove Top? Like the boxed stuffing?"

"Yep, exactly."

Eve stared down at her blank paper. "But, Gramma, I thought Hannah said it was homemade?"

"Yes, and that's what you will say, too, when people ask. You made it at home, it's homemade." Gramma said, not a hint of shame in her voice.

Eve grinned. "I like that idea. Thank you, Gramma!"

"Don't mention it, dear. Feel free to call anytime."

Eve thanked her again, then got off and went to call Michael. She heard the door slam, and looked up to find him standing in the kitchen, a mashed bag of marshmallows in his hand.

"Sorry, it's all they had." he said, sounding defeated.

"I need a few boxes of Stove Top stuffing." she said, standing up and cutting straight to the chase. He didn't even ask why, just tossed her the marshmallows and turned back around.

He paused at the door, though, to turn and ask "Where's Shane, anyway? I haven't seen him."

"Uh, he said he was going to go take care of the turkey problem. He's been gone for a few hours, now. I have no idea." Eve replied distractedly, opening the oven to her pie. It smelled wonderful.

She heard Michael mutter "Probably ran while he still could." as he went out the door.


AN: Phew, that was a long one! It was actually longer, but I broke it up further for the upcoming chapter. Again, sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes, they're all on me. Read and review, please, so I know if I should continue this or if I'm hopeless or not. Thanks! :)

Edit (November 2014): Fixed some spelling, grammar, and formatting issues as well as a few other things.