Fifth Floor Common Room, Friday Evening

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"No, really," Marshall said, balancing his phone between ear and shoulder as he measured sugar into his mixing bowl. "I'm baking. Like, the common room on each floor has pretty much a full kitchen, it's totally cool."

"I didn't mean that," Corrine said, on the other end of the call. "I was surprised that you're baking, not that there's a place at your school you can do it. Since when do you bake?"

His timer dinged; Marshall turned around and pulled a pan of orange-flavoured cupcakes. "Well, I mean, it's just applied chemistry," he pointed out. "Besides, it's not that hard to follow a recipe. Just like doing a lab, y'know? Anyway, I should go, I don't want to be distracted while I'm making the ganache. Tell Vaughn and Z that I said hi, okay?"

"Sure. ... What's a ganache?"

Marshall laughed. "Goodbye, Corrine. If Lucas asks, yes, I'll be online later tonight."


[Totally open and distractible. There are tasty things! Come and get some.]

Comments

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"Is there any diet coke up here?" Quinn asked, swinging the fridge open to poke at what was inside.

Then she remembered to at least be vaguely pleasantly social. It might get her a cupcake. "Hi, Marshall."

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Quinn, how's it going?" Marshall turned from his melting chocolate to wave vaguely at the fridge. "I think I saw some diet Pepsi? If you don't mind that instead of Coke."

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"It tastes funny," Quinn groused, but took the Pepsi anyhow. "I'm good. Grateful this week that I already did my time in ethics. I'm not in a mood for a fake baby. How are you?"

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

Marshall blinked. "Suddenly very glad that I'm not in Ethics. Are we talking, like, the egg-baby things? Or dolls?"

Someone hadn't been listening to radio the last few days, no.

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"They're these robot doll things," Quinn explained. "They look like real babies except their eyes are kind of ... you know. Glassy."

She shrugged. "Professor Skywalker thinks he's funny."

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Those sound freaky," Marshall said, wrinkling his nose.

He turned back to his chocolate, pouring the cream over top and slowly stirring.

[walkswithcoyote]

"Oh wow, those smell good," Mercy said, appearing in the doorway.

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Thanks! They'll be a little while yet," Marshall explained. "They still need to cool."

[walkswithcoyote]

[ooc: Sooo sorry about this! I tried to post it for about 20 minutes and LJ utterly refused so I finally gave up and went to bed. Apparently one of the attempts went through after that. Oh, LJ! feel free to tag back or just disregard as you wish.]

"For something that smells this good I can wait," Mercy said with a smile. "Anything I can do to help?"

[wasthecuteone]

"Hey, Marshall," Petra said as she came into the common room. That was his name, right? She brushed off the brief moment of uncertainty in favor of rounding up dinner. Dinner was going to be scrambled eggs and toast. Some voice of responsibility inside her suggested that vegetables might be a thing, but she didn't have any vegetables so, whatever.

"What are you making?" she asked as she searched for a frying pan.

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

It would help if Marshall actually came to meetings on a regular basis, really. Reinforce the whole name thing.

"Cupcakes," he explained. "I figured, y'know, baking's just applied chemistry, how hard can it be? And hopefully they'll turn out all right and I can bring some to Pride this week."

[wasthecuteone]

"Really freaking hard," Petra muttered, still digging through the cabinet. Too big...too small...just right. She emerged clutching the frying pan and said, "The first, like, three or four times I tried to make cupcakes without adult supervision it was a total disaster." And that had been with a mix. "And let's not even talk about the pancakes." They'd had to buy a new griddle, but her parents were still oblivious to the cupcakes disasters because her mom had been in the hospital then, and she could usually get the kitchen cleaned up before he came home to notice. Also, the cupcakes had been intended to be dinner.

She regretted nothing but the part where they were inedible.

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"... Oh," Marshall said, looking down at his pretty-close-to-perfect ganache. "I guess I'm just lucky, maybe? I dunno, I have lots of practice following directions really closely. It's a chemistry thing."

Cupcakes were totally the best dinner. Inedible cupcakes could at least be used for makeshift ammunition?

[wasthecuteone]

"Chemistry. Right. Tell that to all the scientists who can't cook." She was thinking of Shanti here. Genius with makeup. Not so great with fish on the solar grill.

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Well, cooking's kinda different from baking? Like, it's all chemistry, but some of it's more chemistry than other parts."

He thought back to the last few things Lucas had tried to cook. "... But I guess I know what you're saying. A couple of my friends are kinda useless in the kitchen. I dunno, it just seemed to make sense to me the way chemistry does? So I figured it couldn't hurt to try. And it looks like everything's working out so far."

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

"Petra, hey," Toby waved. Toby's own dinner was a bag of ketchup chips he'd found in the cupboards, so. He was not one to judge responsible dinner choices.

[wasthecuteone]

"Hey, Toby," Petra said, waving back with the spatula. "How's it going?"

And that was when she realized, and smacked herself on the forehead with her free hand. "I forgot to announce the contest winners!"

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

Well, Toby had forgotten to participate in the contest because the player was an overwhelmed-by-finals flake so they were maybe even. "Oops?" he replied. "Well, it's only, um." A week and a half after Halloween... "it's probably not too late to do so yet?"

[wasthecuteone]

"I'll do it tomorrow. Principal Washburn gave me permission to use the PA at the last meeting. Ugh, I suck," she muttered. "Oh, well, no use dwelling on it, right?"

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

"I don't think you'll get booted off council or anything," Toby mused. "So, yeah. Don't worry about it."

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

Baby Isabella was still with Annie, so Toby was taking advantage of the respite to actually, you know, go be social.

"Hey, man," Toby greeted. "What'cha making?"

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Cupcakes!" Because that wasn't totally obvious. "Chocolate orange cupcakes. Figured I'd give baking a try." Marshall pointed to a bowl on the counter. "I had to cut the tops out for the filling, if you want to try a piece."

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

"Chocolate orange?" Toby echoed, raising an eyebrow. "I'm intimidated already." Especially with the mention of filling. But that wasn't gonna stop him from reaching for a cupcake-bit, of course.

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, apparently they're a complicated recipe?" Marshall said. "But I managed to bake them fine. it's the decorating part that's giving me problems."

[godgavemecable.livejournal.com]

"I can see that," Toby observed dryly. "I'd offer to help but, uh. I'd probably just make it worse."