A flick of the wrist, and the patty flipped. Landing with a resounding sizzle, he grinned. To his side, he had already finished Ruby and Blake's burgers, sitting pretty in a small fire-dust powered heater that would ensure they retained their heat and wouldn't make the bread go stale; it was an old machine, but it did its job.

Outside of his kitchen, he could hear the smalltalk that Team RWBY was currently engaging themselves in, along with the occasional ringing of the door that signified the entrance of a new customer. Waitresses wordlessly exited from their break room and went out to the dining area with a smile on their face and menu in hand already, and Dan looked up to check the time: eleven thirty.

"How's it comin' along in there, Danny?" Yang hollered towards the door, aroma nearly drowning their senses by now if it hadn't already. Blake had to resist drooling when she smelled that salmon grilling, but Ruby had already started to drool much to Weiss' ire.

"It's peterin' along, Xiao-Long! A few more minutes and I'll be right out!"

"Sounds good! Make mine awesome, alright?"

That same, resounding laugh boomed through the walls and door. "I wouldn't do anything else, Xiao-Long!"

Another sizzle was heard, just one of many by now, and Yang turned to Blake on her right.

"Sooo, Blakey. Couldn't help that you had quite the dreamy look on your face. What's up?"

She didn't have to lie, but her enhanced sense of smell made her speak in shorter verses. "Faunus senses. Fish. Smells good."

Yang just snickered, shaking her head. "Jeez Blake. Remind me that if I ever need you to get outta bed, I'll just fry a piece of fish."

She sniffed the air again. "Okay."

Meanwhile, Ruby and Weiss were still chatting along to the blonde's left, with Ruby leading the conversation and Weiss looking up from her nails from time to time.

"-you have for snacks, usually?"

"Anything I wanted, really."

"Really? Anything?" Ruby's mind flashed to endless piles of cookies, envisioning her diving into a pool full of the sugary, chocolate filled platters of-

"Ruby, please, clean up after yourself." Weiss tossed a napkin at her face, and Ruby nearly fell out of her stool as she took the brunt of the napkin's force to the face. Realizing that she was drooling again, she quickly wiped the corner of her mouth. "That's the fourth time today," Weiss chided.

"I drool for a righteous reason, Weiss! Especially if I drool for a burger!"

"It's not sanitary if you drool all over the table, though."

"... Well, I didn't get any on the table..."

"That's right. You got some on my sleeve." Weiss flared her wrist and flicked it in the air just to get the wrist cuff some motion, Ruby remembering the incident from a few minutes ago on how she first smelled her own burger being made. The familiar scents of peppers, sea salt, and his secret ingredient led her to slobber just a bit.

"I said I was sorry..." She put on those same puppy eyes as she tilted her head down, fully aware of the cuteness of the expression as well as the power it held over all except her family.

Weiss didn't make eye contact, but she still caught that look out of her peripherals and rolled her eyes. "It's not a big deal." Ruby smiled at Weiss' relaxed tone of voice; at the beginning of the year Weiss would've released all hell on Ruby just for drooling in her mere presence. "I'm just saying, it's unbecoming for a young woman such as yourself to just... drool at the sight of a slab of meat."

Ruby pursed her lips. "It's not just a slab of meat, though!"

"Until I'm proven wrong, I will call it that."

"Urghhh! Weiss, stop denying the power of the burger! You can't tell me that the stuff he's making in there doesn't smell..." She took another sniff, and Weiss grasp on her napkin tightened just in case if she had to throw it. "Awesome..." Luckily for the both of them, Ruby didn't drool.

"Many things can smell wonderful but taste terrible. Cinnamon powder, for instance."

"Well, duh! No one's gonna straight up eat cinnamon! Unless you're like those stupids on RemTube..."

Weiss looked at her and rose an eyebrow. "Someone actually had the gall to eat cinnamon powder? On video?"

"Wait, Weiss, have you never seen the cinnamon challenge?"

In typical ice-queen fashion, she had to add a teeny insult at the fact that she's never seen it. "Of course not! I actually spend my time studying instead of searching up ridiculous videos of people making poor life decisions."

At this point, however, the jabs that Weiss made were taken as all but normal by Ruby, and she just kept going on, unfazed. "It's when someone takes a teaspoon of cinnamon powder, and they try to swallow it in a minute! And they can't drink water."

Weiss shut her eyes, shook her head, and opened them again. "What? That's ridiculous! Who in their right mind would do that? There are numerous safety hazards to that! They could choke!"

Ruby just shrugged. "I mean, it looks pretty funny when they do..." Ruby straightened out her back and looked at Weiss, perking up. "You wanna see it?" She started to take out her scroll.

The heiress shook her head and her hands. "Please, no. I'm afraid I would lose brain cells from watching."

"Aw, but Weiss! I need something to pass the time, and you're not making this easier!"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, uh, uh, great weather outside right?"

"... Mhm."

An awkward moment of silence passed between them as Blake and Yang were still chattering about fish versus beef as a better source of protein.

"So..." Ruby started.

Weiss wasn't looking at her nails anymore, and was instead crossed-legged on her chair, hands folded on the counter. "So."

"... Whatcha wanna talk about?"

"Preferably something that's not remotely close to burgers."

"Oh, okay, I can do that."

Another few moments of silence elapsed.

"Uhhh... So, uh, what do you, uh, think Team JNPR's doing right now?" She added her usual cheery rise and fall of intonation at the end of her question.

"Most likely doing something more productive than sitting at a diner."

Over at Beacon...

"NORA, LET GO!"

"IT'S MINE! MINE!"

"Nora? Please?" The calm redhead rose her hands in a placating manner as she tried to calm the bizarreness of the situation down.

"Let her be. It will pass." The calm voice of reason from Lie Ren shone through... for a few seconds.

"YOU SAID IT WAS MY TURN, JAUNE! NO TAKE-BACKSIES!"

"NORA, I SAID..." Nora attempted to grasp for the comic, but Jaune was still using his height to his advantage, raising the magazine high above his head. "FIVE MINUTES! FIVE MINUTES, OKAY? THAT WAS LIKE, THRE- OWWW! MY TOE!"

She grabbed her prize. "THE X-RAY AND VAV IS MINE! MINE!"

Pyrrha just shook her head and chuckled while Ren just continued cleaning his weaponry, Jaune still bouncing on one foot as he clutched his right foot, a very visible boo-boo on the outside as it shone with white light, aura going to work on the stomp.

"Yeah, probably." Ruby said the words with a hand on her cheek, elbow on the table as her palm puffed out her face.

Ugh... it's been too long since I've done something with this. But this has been sitting in my 'to publish' list for a while, and I think you guys deserve a little more, no matter how... 'little' it is.

Much love, much love~