ataraxion | ( text )

[ Claire wrinkles her nose, imagining the smell of burnt anything. Burnt skin. That had been the worst. ]

There are people who would exile you for saying that about a steak, you know.

[ Not that it matters, really, and Claire gives him a spoon to hold for her in the interest of having easy access to it. She starts mixing things without flourish, not bothering to find an apron, which she's sure will result with streaks of white flour across the pale pink of her shirt, but oh well. It's seen worse. The batter is white and thick, and she pushes a separate bowl to the side for the frosting. Measuring cups and one whisk in hand, Claire does things almost automatically, working off of a recipe card in her head. She manages to glance at him now and then. ]

So you never had any pets growing up. Not even a fish?

[ Severus is immune to the smell of burning humans. ... He's not going to mention that. He takes the spoon and mixes.. something. Dry ingredients maybe. After a moment he lets the spoon continue its work while he looks at something else. ]

I had darkmoon fish for a while to use for my seventh year students.

[ ... That's not funny!! ]

[ The bowl and spoon get a look of their own, scrutinizing and almost squinting, as if she can't quite grasp whether or not she's supportive of the idea or offended. In the end, Claire lets him - the spoon? - have this magic moment, literally, and focuses on what she's doing and watching him to make sure he doesn't do something improperly. She's controlling about her kitchen, okay. ]

I'm sensing a joke in there but... I'm not. Sure.

[ She glances at him suspiciously over her shoulder. ]

[ Severus knows what he's doing, thank you. At least the mechanics-- if he was in control of the recipe she might object; English pastries are a bit old and sticky by fun cupcake standards. Not that he's used to making anything of the sort. ]

Potion ingredients. It's occasionally a cruel art.

[ Boiling tiny fishes in sludge, woo. ]

[ And that's decidedly less amusing than she had initially anticipated. Claire makes a face to let him in on as much and breaks a couple eggs expertly and without fanfare. ]

Well that just makes me sad. Poor, little fish. [ Shells in the trash, Claire wipes her hand on her thighs and then considers, again, the bowl that is stirring itself before she reaches out to stop it. ] And that doesn't count as a pet. At all.

[ If spoons could be affronted, this one would be. It's just trying to help, man!! But Severus doesn't say anything. He wonders how far he can go with unpleasant humor before Claire really balks. He wonders why she agreed to this.

(Or why he asked.) ]

No, it doesn't. I've never been one for them, though. And now that I'm a teacher the idea of having more small, stupid things dependent on me for survival is a crushing thought.

I'm starting to wonder if that kind of perspective on students is something all teachers have in common or if it's just something uniquely you.

[ Why she's trying to determine anything about him one way or another is anyone's guess, though Claire has actively stopped thinking about it, thanks in part to more or less understanding the reasoning behind it without having to dissect it too much. She feels like she fits in better, here, however weird that might be, and starts back up with the manual labor without so much as a pause. Sorry, spoon, but your time has come and gone.

If she questions anything at all, it's not very different from what he might stop to consider himself. ]

We always had a dog, for as long as I can remember.

I was almost killed by a werewolf when I was sixteen, it's rather permanently put me off things like dogs.

[ He doesn't know why he says it, it just. Comes out. The look on his face makes it apparent he's not sure why he said it, too-- and he frowns after, the expression an introspective one. What the hell, self.

He silently accios a bag of chocolate chips. He's sure they're probably mostly wax, but maybe they can't be picky on a space ship. ]

It's not common. My perspective.

[ Severus is unique in his hatefulness. ]

[ Brushing that statement off by retracing steps back to the comment she made previously is not going to make it go away, Severus, and Claire spends a moment paused in her cupcake making effort to peer at him strangely. The look on her face tries very hard not to turn sympathetic, but the more she gathers about him and his life, the more she can't actually help herself. She's told him little things about her family, her life, and she's aware that it probably amounts to nothing, as much as she's aware that this isn't a pissing contest or an eye for an eye type of trade. But she wants to.

Standing in the kitchen with her hands all floury and white fingerprints on her clothing, Claire wants to connect. It's difficult to determine if the benefit outweighs the risk, just as it always has. ]

When I was younger, a dog tried to basically chew my arm off at the park one day. My mom was freaking out. It was a lot worse than it looked, and, uh, definitely not as serious as being attacked by a werewolf, but. I don't know. [ Probably the lamest response ever to something like that, and Claire busies herself by putting the plastic holders into the tray and sliding the bowl over his way. ] Want to do the honors?

[ She means put the chips in. ]

We both survived. Cheers. [ He dumps an appropriate amount of chocolate chips in - not hat he has any idea of the recipe but he's not the actual best potion maker e v e r for nothing, okay.

(Also, he sounds less deadpan than usual. He's trying. A little. Maybe?) ]

[ Well you can never have too many chocolate chips. Claire eats one, plucking it out of the bowl before it sinks too far into the batter, and yeah, it all tastes pretty okay. A couple final stirs and she's ready to start pouring. And he might be the actual best potion maker ever but she is the actual best pastry maker ever, and she will do this part. ]

Cheers.

[ And she gets to pouring. ]

[ Well. That was cute and Severus is ignoring the shit out of it.

Maybe he said that about the werewolf because she is being so forthcoming - in her own way, in starts and stops. He thinks he's got her father's identity figured out by now; he could probably just ask, but that feels like cheating. ]

You'd put even some of my seventh years to shame, not spilling anything.

Considering how much you like your students, I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.

[ Taken as such, Claire grins at him without actually looking at him, busying herself with the contents of the bowl, portioning it out properly, wiping her hands again down the front of her. The air smells like heat from the oven and chocolate, and without much of a flourish, she moves past him to bump the cupcakes into the oven. Once that's taken care of, she retrieves the bowl with what's left of the batter and holds it out to him. ]

All yours.

[ He shrugs languidly at her observation. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. (Surely he can't hate all of them?) And then she's handing him that and... okay. Severus takes it and goes over to put it in the dishwasher. Assuming that's her aim??? ]

[ Surely, he can't, and before that line of thought can be completed, Claire is taking a half-panicked (completely unnecessary) step in his direction and reaching out to grab his arm and stop him before he can turn the tap on or stuff the bowl in with the other dirty dishes. ]

No, wait, you don't - That's like the best part of the whole process. You're supposed to eat it.

[ Severus freezes in an almost-extreme overreaction to somebody touching him - grabbing him!! - and for a second it looks like he's bracing for this tiny girl who barely clears five foot tall to hit him, but then it passes and he's looking at her like she's lost her mind in a totally normal, not dire way. ]

... What?

[ But still. ]

[ She notices it - someone with her history wouldn't miss it, that tension, wire tight and humming - and then feels varying degrees of bad as she eases her grip, which hadn't been tight to begin with, in the crook of his elbow and exchanges it for the bowl. Trying to summon up a laugh isn't especially difficult, as Claire is capable of laughing at her own ridiculousness at any time of the day. ]

Like - here, give it to me. [ This is saying a lot about his life in general, and Claire isn't sure if she thinks he's just being aloof on purpose - not really his style - or if she's right in her assumptions. Either way, she scoops up a dollop of batter on her finger and pops it in her mouth like it's a normal piece of candy. ] This is basically the underlying reason people make baked goods in the first place, Severus.

[ She is Very Serious. ]

[ It's a completely stupid reaction that betrays he's not quite as jaded about this whole space ship abduction thing as he puts on - his nerves shouldn't be that shot, no matter how paranoid he is. But he pretends it didn't happen, and is relieved she plays along. Once again, he wonders what her motivations are. ]

I am familiar with the ritual, [ he says dryly. He wasn't ACTUALLY raised in a cave. ] I just don't.

[ Not only is it TOO WHIMSICAL TO DEAL WITH (and only something he'd do while alone where no one can see evidence of a soul), but-- he splays out his hands, palms down, to show her the damage and staining on his nailbeds and in the tiny creases near his knuckles. He's washed his hands in here, in front of her, so it's obviously not that he's diseased or dirty, but he knows what it looks like. And what it looks like is gross! So he doesn't stick his fingers in food in front of other people. ]

[ Maybe they're all just carefully strung together people who are pretending, some better than others. The concept of being jaded isn't lost on her, but maybe if she listened to her instincts more, she'd be less inclined to be shoving a bowl of chocolate chip batter into someone's face. At the very least, she probably would have left him alone by now, but her particular brand of aggressive friendship can't be stopped even by stained fingers, apparently.

Distantly, Claire wonders when it's going to become obvious that she's trying too hard to anyone other than herself. ]

Keep hanging out with me, and you're gonna have to start. Or I'll start wondering if I'm not actually as good at this whole baking thing as people have been telling me.

[ Regardless, she moves over to the sink to start cleaning up. ]

[ Fortunately (..or not), Severus's lack of traditional social skills means he's largely oblivious to how potentially awkward she's acting. It seems strange, but he thinks it's strange because she's being aggressively friendly to him, which is sharply different than thinking it's strange in general; 'in general' isn't something he's familiar with. ]

The brownies were acceptable.

[ Deliberately neutral. Stealthtrolling. ]

That's it? Acceptable?

[ That's it. That's the show.

She's got soap on her hands and distantly wonders how he might react to her actually flicking it at him but decides it's better to keeps suds where they rightfully belong, even if it does leave her as woefully vulnerable as it does suitably armed and potentially dangerous. ]

Do you cook things?

[ A wonderfully intelligent inquiry posed by Claire Bennet. She's sure to get into that linear algebra class by the start of next semester. ... Which just leads to her thinking about Annie, so she shuts down that line of thought with a hard scrub counterclockwise on one of the bowls. ]

[ If she catches it before looking back at the dishes, Severus almost smiles. The brownies were actually really good. ]

Things. Yes. [ Back to being aloof and nearly inscrutable. ] Would you like me to do that?

[ Somehow she is less than surprised at that skip back into being insufferable. The suds seem to agree with her on that front, and Claire is momentarily struck by how normal this has begun to feel. Her hands still and warm in the water a moment, and then she's flicking the clinging bubbles back into the sink and wiping her palms on her thighs. ]

Well, it's the least you can do after such biting insults.

[ You're the one who wants to be pals, Claire!!

Severus makes a 'hm' noise and steps forward, before muttering something at the basin. The dishes promptly wash themselves, going so far as to hop out of the sink when they're done. He has to fish around for a towel to dry them with, and when he does he leans against the counter and does so - by hand, while the rest continue to function under the spell. ]

[ That's beside the point!!

She observes this all in silence, quirking her mouth to the side in some manner of vague consideration before announcing: ]

Magic would have really made chores a hell of a lot easier, that's for sure.

[ At least she's not accusing him of cheating anymore. ]

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my tags suck this week

well i only have half a brain so maybe we are even

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i've risen from the depths of work hell

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