We took the day off, of course. Granted, we had debated going out to check on the damages downstairs, but decided not to because that could lead to a combat encounter.

No endangering our lives on rest days, was the new policy.

I spent my points for the day on two barriers, and reanimating a couple of my cheaper mechs to help keep an eye out. So both Fry and Mick-chicken got to hang out with us that day, as well as Tommy. None of them had really gotten to share some off time with us for a while, and Tommy had only known bloodshed and violence in his short little life. I felt I owed them some R&R.

Maybe a little silly, but I was far from being a logically minded person.

I supposed I could have Animated and tested out a couple of mechs that I hadn’t tried yet. That would have been spendy, however, and then I’d feel responsible for the new lives I’d be bringing into the world. Best to hold off on that until I needed to.

The morning passed quickly, my mechs avenging all my previous losses in fighting games against Madeline.

Their coordination really was something to behold.

For lunch we finished the leftover stir fry that I’d been saving in my inventory. It was just as hot and tasty as the day I made it, and the rice was still perfectly fluffy.

I figured it was safe on account of the fact that I’d never gotten any form of food poisoning from earlier experiments.

In the afternoon I busted out a board game that I’d been meaning to try. It was a dexterity game about flicking little wooden disks to take out enemies, themed around a spelunking dungeon dive. It took me an hour to get through the rules, clear off enough counter space to play it on, and set up the first encounter.

I invited Madeline to try it with me. She sucked at it.

That mostly came down to the fact that she had trouble controlling her strength with any real precision; the stat boosts she’d received threw her way off the mark for most precise shots. At one point she flicked a disk with such force that it launched all the way down the hall and audibly impacted her bed.

Regardless it was still a fair bit of fun, and we cleared a couple of the game’s scenarios with the assistance of my diminutive plastic friends. They had to play the game sort of like soccer, which was fun to watch.

That evening, Madeline decided that we should cut loose for dinner and open a ration as well as some drinks. When I asked her what the occasion was, she pointed out that that day was our seventh day surviving this mess together.

We’d made it one whole week. And what a week, too. A long, desperate, messy week.

I agreed that making it this far was a definite cause for celebration. So Madeline cracked open a bottle of cheap hard cider for herself, and presented to me a selection of the weirdest soft drinks she could find in place of alcohol. I couldn’t drink alcohol because of my meds, after all. Thus why I was to go through a sampling of sugary beverages and offer an opinion on each.

First was an off brand cola with an absurdly long marketing blurb on the label. It tasted like a blandly sweet median average of the major types of cola. It had probably been designed to appeal to the widest marketable demographic possible, but its overreach ironically left it with none of the positives of anything it imitated.

“A grecian tragedy in a can”, was my review in summary. That got a laugh out of Miss Madeline, which encouraged me to try the next carbonated bevy.

Our next contender was a one liter bottle containing a liquid in a concerning shade of blue. Reading the label the first thing I noticed was that it was not blue razzberry or a blueberry lemonade as I’d expected, but cotton candy flavored.

“Hold on is this fucking faygo!?” I exclaimed.

“You’ve had it before? It’s my first time ever seeing that brand.”

“I’ve never actually had it, no. I’m just intimately familiar with graphic depictions of it in media.” I explained. Madeline clearly wasn’t aware of its cultural impact. That was honestly probably for the best.

“But man, I worked in that store. I had no Idea they stocked it.” I said.

“Ah, but that’s the thing. I nabbed it from that mini mart we went to yesterday, not the place that employed you. It was one of the only things left on the shelf.” Madeline said, an odd amount of pride in her voice.

“Well that speaks well of its quality. Can’t wait to try it.” I replied dryly.

No turning back now.

I uncapped the bottle and took a swig of the lukewarm substance within.

“Well, that certainly tastes like cotton candy.” I said. “Not that that’s a recommendation. In fact the only possible reason I can think that you would drink it is because it’s so sweet that it’s thirst provoking.” I said.

I wasn’t lying either, it kind of burned going down. Taking another sip, I winced. The flavor did not evolve in what I would regard as a positive manner. It just got blander and even more sickeningly sweet. Drinking a full bottle would probably dehydrate someone so badly that they would need to drink twice the same volume in water just to break even.

“Try it.” I prompted, handing the bottle over. I wasn’t going to suffer alone. She took a sip, and immediately pulled a face.

“Man, that’s kind of gross.” Madeline commented.

“Yep.” I agreed. I drank from a can of seltzer to reset my pallet, but an Idea suddenly occurred to me.

“Hand me the cotton candy soda. I wanna try something.” She obliged, and I grabbed a glass. I dumped in some crushed ice, half a can of sparkling water, some of the mediocre blue soda, and a dash of lemon juice.

I gave it a stir with a spoon, and sipped from my impromptu mocktail. It was surprisingly cromulent.

The thing about the cotton candy soda was that it lacked the sourness that one would expect from a soda, being just flat tasting sweetness. I knew by rights that the drink should have had some acidity, due to the carbonic acid that all fizzy beverages came with by default, but by some chemical miracle there was absolutely no tartness to be found in the wicked elixir.

Thus why I wanted to try it cold, diluted, and with some extra sour added from the lemon. The result was something that was quite a bit more drinkable. I gave the glass to Madeline to try. She sampled it, curious.

“That’s not bad. Still tastes like cotton candy, but not overpoweringly so. Kinda like a weird cream soda.” She said. I nodded in reply, it did taste vaguely cream soda adjacent.

“It’s a good thing you figured out how to salvage it. I have three more of the same brand to try.”

“Jesus christ.”

***

I finished off the selection of saccharine swill in a lighting round review.

The red flavor sucked. I refuse to buy into its claim that it was strawberry flavored, and given that the label was ‘red pop’ I don’t think it believed it was, either.

The orange soda was equally bad. It was like someone had only ever heard the flavor of an orange described to them, and decided to replicate it based on that alone.

The ‘firework’ flavor was ok. Just mid. Kind of reminded me of a melted bomb pop.

And with that the midwestern soft drinks were done. We moved on to dinner. Madeline had just finished her fifth cider for the evening, and I wanted to get some food in her system before she made herself sick.

Not that she couldn’t hold her liquor, mind. Even if the cider didn’t have the highest of ABV’s, she hardly even seemed to be blushing as she sipped on her sixth.

Apparently crushing a six pack was nothing in comparison to her might. Or she just had some unhealthy drinking habits, leading to a mildly higher resistance than was the norm.

I wasn’t there to judge.

We sat at the counter and used our rations for the evening.

In an odd twist, Madeline was the one who needed a fork for her ration while I was left with the finger food.

I had a simple plate of chicken tenders with steak fries and ranch. The ranch was the good kind too, made with actual buttermilk and a bit runnier for it. The chicken strips were breaded, not battered, just the way Iiked them. The fries had enough salt on them to pickle a god.

Definitely a meal fit for a child’s palette, but between my pancake breakfast and the incredible amount of sugary soda I just drank, it suited my mood perfectly.

Madeline got a heaping mound of Pad Thai, a mountainous snowfall of crushed peanuts sitting atop the pile of reddened rice noodles. I could see chunks of stir fried chicken and long slices of green onion mixed in. As usual, she dug in with gusto.

As was now tradition, we swapped a little bit of our meals near the end. The Pad Thai was some of the best I’d ever had. The sauce was spicy, but balanced with a mild sweetness, and had both umami and acidity for days. This was the good stuff, not the mallrat imitator made with ketchup, but the forty-dollar-a-plate noodle stir fry with real tamarind.

Madeline was happy to steal a part of a chicken tender and some fries on her part. She too appreciated a good ranch dipping sauce.

Satisfied, we sat back and luxuriated in the feelling of a full stomach. Madeline took a swig from a small bottle of cinnamon liquor, having finished with her cider. She looked at me, concerningly serious from her seat across the counter.

It appeared that her drinking was not solely for celebratory purposes. She’d been imbibing liquid courage.

I waited tensely for what she was going to say next.

“Leonardo.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got something important and uncomfortably emotional to talk about.” She said. I nodded, bracing myself. She took a second to gather her words, before opening her mouth.

“I know you haven’t been doing well, and while I don’t want to try and force you to talk about anything you don’t want to, I do want you to know that I’m here for you, ok? I care about you.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I started crying of course, because it really didn’t take much to set me off these days, and I choked out a thank you amidst the tears.

After I calmed down, I figured I owed Madeline an actual explanation. I’d told her a little bit of it the other day, but I decided to explain a little more of what I knew was wrong with me.

I only briefly explained that I hadn’t had a particularly great time growing up, and that recent events before the apocalypse had made me feel like I was experiencing it all again a second time.

“Because of Jacob?” She guessed.

“Because of fucking Jacob.” I spat. The man was an abusive asshole, and I was angry and ashamed that I let him get away with what he did.

“I didn’t want to recognise what was happening with him because I didn’t want to admit that someone could do that to me again and I just. . .” I was tearing up of course. I coughed, took a second to regain control of my breathing.

“. . .wanted so badly to be ok, that I couldn’t admit that I wasn’t. And then all this happened and it turned out that getting magic powers didn’t fix my mental illness.” I sighed, feeling rather silly. And guilty, and embarrassed and ashamed and all the other emotions that were swirling in my too-tight chest.

Why was this so difficult?

“That sucks. I’m sorry.” There was a pause, and I could see her winding up to say something else.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” She finally offered.

That meant a lot to me, but she couldn’t fix the world, or my brain.

“Not that I can think of, Miss Madeline.” I admitted. “I appreciate the offer though. And honestly the fact that you haven’t kicked me off your couch has been more than enough help.”

I couldn’t go back to my charred little cupboard of a room in that wrecked apartment. Not If I was constantly worried about Jacob coming back and doing something.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve been doing more than enough cooking and cleaning to make rent.” she said, parroting what I’d said earlier back at me with a lopsided smile.

There was a flush to her cheeks now. She was definitely a little tipsy. I grabbed her some water. She accepted it and took a long drink, stowing the now empty bottle of cinnamon-spice flavored spirits into her inventory.

I finished off my disappointment of a cola product, and retrieved the ingredients to make dessert. I was going to make those donuts that I promised while Madeline sobered back up. Plus busying myself in the kitchen would allow me to get my thoughts in order.

I cleaned off some counter space and retrieved a mixing bowl.

***

Personally I use baking powder and cake flour for a much quicker doughnut than the traditional yeasted variety. I also like to commit the mildly blasphemous act of adding mix-ins to my dough. You have to maintain roughly the same percentage of hydration, but you can get some pretty amazing results if you’re careful.

Today I was going to make some mixed berry doughnuts with a lemon glaze. First step was throwing some frozen mixed berries in a saucepan. I was going to cook them on medium heat to both thaw them out and reduce the juices down.

After the berries reduced and the liquid started to bubble, I added some lemon juice, sugar, and cornstarch. I was basically making pie filling.

I took it off the heat once I was satisfied. I threw it in the fridge in order to let it cool while I worked on the dough.

The dough was pretty basic. I skipped on the nutmeg that was often traditional in a sour cream doughnut, adding both a bit of extra vanilla extract and salt in its place.

I went lighter on the sour cream than was normal as well. That was in good part because I didn’t have enough of it. Thus why I was making up my hydration with mixed berries. Apple sauce would have worked too, and if I was going that route I would have added cinnamon and other baking spices.

But the destiny of these doughnuts was all but decided. The berry mixture was just about cooled enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about melting the butter. I got out a kitchen scale and measured out enough mixed berries to roughly make up for my normal weight in sour cream, before setting it aside.

I got to creaming together the butter and sugar with a hand mixer. After that I added the egg yolks, then the other wet ingredients including the berries. I mixed in the dry ingredients little at a time with a wooden spoon, being careful not to overwork the dough.

The end result was an eye-catching shade of reddish-purple.

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour. While it was chilling I got to making the lemon Icing. I was going with the lemony-est icing I could muster, using both the zest and juices of two lemons, as well as some additional lemon extract.

The icing would end up a little thin, but that was fine because I wanted the Icing to soak into the doughnut. I was basically just going to soak the doughnuts in sour sugar syrup.

That only took a couple minutes to whip together, so I sat back down and took advantage of Madeline’s altered state of consciousness to get her to watch more anime with me.

After the timer I’d set on my phone beeped, I uncovered the rested dough and rolled it out into a roughly flat sheet. I used the rim of a glass to cut out circles of dough, and a shot glass to cut smaller holes in the center to complete the familiar ring shape. I’d save the doughnut holes to cook last.

I grabbed my largest pot and filled it barely a third of the way full with fry oil. Next I clipped a cheap glass thermometer to the side of the pot and cranked the heat. You can get away with deep fat frying without a thermometer, but I prefer to be a little more precise for safety reasons.

Once the oil had reached just over 375, I carefully laid a single doughnut into the hot oil at a time using a spyder. You don’t ever want to just ‘drop’ something into hot fry oil. That’ll more than likely cause it to splatter and start a fire. Always use a tool like tongs or a slotted spoon to gently deposit your food items whenever possible.

Oil safety aside, the doughnuts only needed about a minute or so on each side. They were done pretty quick, and I got into the rhythm of putting finished pastries on a wire cooling rack, before then starting the next ones in the oil.

I made a pretty large batch, so a number of rounds of frying were required. Once they were all done, I swatted away a hand that I caught reaching for one. Madeline would have to wait; I hadn’t even started Icing them yet.

I found my silicone pastry brush, and set about evenly distributing lemon icing upon each and every fuschia-colored torus. Once they’d cooled enough that they weren’t going to burn anyone, I gave my inebriated friend permission to dig in.

She expressed hearty approval upon taking her first bite. I knew that well liquored taste buds could make just about anything taste better, but I was flattered nonetheless. Biting into one of my creations myself, I had to agree that they were pretty dang good. Superbly moist, sticky, and tart.

We absolutely ate more of them than was healthy, and I had a real toothache by the end of it.

I didn’t regret it in the slightest.

My dreams that night were pleasantly mundane. I spent a good portion of them just sitting in a movie theater, watching a mediocre rom-com with the people I cared about. I couldn’t say I really enjoyed the film, but I did enjoy watching the reactions of the person next to me. They had a wonderful time, laughing at jokes that I found entirely too corny and gasping when the two characters on screen finally kissed.

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

***

Madeline was curled up on her incredibly expensive recliner, having drunkenly passed out at some point that she couldn’t quite recall. Finding herself suddenly awake in the middle of the night, she saw one of Leo’s robots perched on the window next to her. It was the one that looked kind of like a bird. It stared at her for a second, before pointing at the television remote before it.

The TV was on, and she dazedly realized that the bot was asking if she wanted it turned off. She shook her head no. It turned away from her and peeked through the blinds, staring intently at something out there. She wasn’t really interested in whatever it was seeing. The world outside could go fuck itself for all she cared. She liked it in here well enough.

Sharing her space with Leo hadn’t been terribly comfortable at first, but she hadn’t wanted to be alone any more than he did when the world seemed so uncertain. So she invited him in and offered him the couch.

She looked over to her left to find him fast asleep and grinning like an idiot. That was a nice change of pace.

The dude seemed to have such troubled dreams. More than once she’d been woken up to find him muttering and struggling in his sleep. The sight disturbed her, so she’d generally sneak back to her bedroom where she probably should have been sleeping in the first place.

Once, she’d come back from her bedroom and saw that he was in the middle of a particularly bad nightmare. Working up the courage, she’d tried to wake him up. That hadn’t gone well. She’d never seen somebody that freaked out before.

What would you even call an episode like that? Leo said it was a panic attack, but it seemed to her more like PTSD. Which brought the question: What had traumatized Leonardo so badly?

Madeline found herself rubbing the prayer bead bracelet she always had on her right wrist. She didn’t think herself a buddhist, strictly, but spirituality had been a lifetime thing for her and the prayer beads made for a good fidget.

If all that was haunting her friend were recent events, she wouldn’t worry so much. If it was just the mutual hardships they’d gone through that were hurting him, she could at least share that hurt easily enough.

But it was clearly not just recent events that had wounded him.

Leo had spoken a little on the subject, but clearly wasn’t ready to go into detail. That was fine.After all, it wasn’t exactly like she was eager to talk about her past hurts either. That was the sort of thing that was just a lot easier to keep locked up and not think about. Technically, it wasn’t even really her problem. Leonardo was his own person, and she was hers.

That was just fooling herself, though. She liked to pretend she could be an island unto herself. Easier that way. Putting enough space between her and every other person on the planet meant that no one else could hurt her.

She knew it wasn’t the healthiest of coping mechanisms.

Which was why she tried to force herself out of it by entering into the world with athletics. That had come with mixed results, her attempts at a basketball career had gone horribly for instance, but murderball had treated her much better.

She liked her team. Basically all of them were guys, but they were nice enough. Only one or two of them had tried to hit on her, and they hadn’t taken it too hard when she turned them down.

She’d rejected their advances primarily because she couldn’t handle being that close to another person. That would mean being vulnerable, which was a no go.

She couldn’t be vulnerable.

Madeline-Evangiline Burroughs let out a small sigh, worrying at her beads. She liked Leonardo, obviously. Probably more than just about anyone else she’d met, if she was honest.

Which was a problem, for multiple reasons. For one, admitting that she might want a relationship would open her up to being hurt, and for two Leo was clearly just incredibly damaged.

She wasn’t an idiot. She saw the way he jumped like a rabbit anytime somebody got too close. Or the way he hesitated whenever someone offered him a handshake.

She’d just told herself that it couldn’t be her problem. He was his own person, she was hers. That was a normal, healthy boundary to have with most folks, she thought.

But now everybody else she knew was missing, and she’d gotten a kind, considerate new roommate who was rapidly doing an excellent job of reaching her heart through her stomach.

Speaking of such, those doughnuts had been divine. In her half asleep state, Madeline could almost taste the tart, lemony flavors of the brightly colored pastries on her tongue. And he made a mean breakfast too. . .

Madeline eventually drifted back off to sleep, pulling a blanket around her that she didn’t remember grabbing for herself.

***

On the morning of our eighth day, I made some french toast.

Ahh, french toast. The only bread pudding in the U.S. anybody bothered with anymore. And for good reason. French toast is amazing.

Better, even, than my lifelong love, pancakes. Though only by a slight margin. It’s pretty easy to make too. A simple custard made with two eggs and a cup of milk, plus any sweeteners or spices that you might like, and then some stale bread. Apply butter to a pan, fry, and top with your choice of syrups, whip cream, or both.

I only had powdered eggs left, and those only because a brief stint with childhood hunger had made me paranoid. That would still work fine in this instance. You don’t even need milk technically. A blend of powdered eggs and powdered milk rehydrated with water will still a fine custard make.

Which was great, because I was also out of milk.

And yes I had powdered milk because of my aforementioned formative experiences of being four years old and not having enough to eat in the house. Plus, powdered milk is also great for enhancing a browned butter, but that’s neither here nor there.

Rehydrated custard base complete, I seasoned it with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ground cloves. That, a pinch of salt, maple syrup to sweeten, and we were in business, baby.

How long you should dunk your stale bread in custard is something that will vary depending on how custard-y you want your french toast to be. And how custard-y you want your french toast is a deeply personal question to which only you can provide the answer. Thus, how long you should soak your bread is not something I can be reasonably expected to tell you.

Follow your heart.

Personally I go for maximum custard saturation. I want my french toast to be as much egg and milk as it is bread. No interior pore of french toast should be left untouched by my well seasoned custard of hunger crushing doom.

I fry each slice thoroughly in enough butter to replace the wide ocean entirely with dairy fat.

If you're not utterly drowning your french toast in salted butter, I want nothing to do with you or any of your ill begotten progeny.

Likewise when it comes to the final application of syrup. The toast should practically be floating in an amber lake of high fructose corn syrup, or you need to get the fuck out of my house.

Thankfully Madeline agreed with me. If she hadn’t, I would have been forced to undertake the unfortunate act of evicting her from her own domicile.

We went through an entire loaf of bread that morning.