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English
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Part 254 of Three Hundred And Sixty Five Ficlets About Homestuck
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Published:
2021-09-12
Words:
743
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
1
Kudos:
4
Hits:
33

Meat

Summary:

The air was filled with two noises, primarily, the ones easiest heard on first listen. There was, of course, the very old refurbished radio that played a constant medley of 90s and early 2000s metal hits throughout the kitchen, an omnipresent fixture in the refurbished old cottage on the coast, and the very loud sizzling of meat on buttered cast iron, imbuing the very air itself with the most delectable scents imaginable to all sorts of minds, human and canine alike. Such a cooking environment could only be found in the home of... thousands of Gen X and Millennial adults, sure, but also the home of one freshly-moved-in Jade Harley, and her very small dog that could navigate around the world only through her senses of touch and smell (and proprioception, and her taste worked fine but that wasn't as much of a navigatory sense, ANYWAY).

254/365

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The air was filled with two noises, primarily, the ones easiest heard on first listen. There was, of course, the very old refurbished radio that played a constant medley of 90s and early 2000s metal hits throughout the kitchen, an omnipresent fixture in the refurbished old cottage on the coast, and the very loud sizzling of meat on buttered cast iron, imbuing the very air itself with the most delectable scents imaginable to all sorts of minds, human and canine alike. Such a cooking environment could only be found in the home of... thousands of Gen X and Millennial adults, sure, but also the home of one freshly-moved-in Jade Harley, and her very small dog that could navigate around the world only through her senses of touch and smell (and proprioception, and her taste worked fine but that wasn't as much of a navigatory sense, ANYWAY).

There were, of course, other sounds if you were willing to listen. The gentle hum of an in-window air conditioning unit. The quiet pants of a very hungry puppy walking circles around the consistent circular shaped object (a table) in the room - she couldn't see it, but she did have the route mostly memorized, barring a bump against a table leg every now and again. Jade pacing in circles, or mothering her steak, the clink of her spoon dipping into cooking butter to toss it over the top for extra basting, better, more even cooking. The sound of her gulping down soda from a can, the little clack as it touched countertop, there were sounds everywhere if you knew where to listen. Her breathing, the dog's panting, and then the sizzle of steak drowning them all out.

Getting the house was, of course, a process, but Jade was ready to exist in the outside world now that there was nothing stopping her, and she had more than enough money to throw at the problem to make sure she could do just that. Just talk to the right people and it was all gone for her, with only the occasional questioning from men in black suits or men with intimidating uniforms who backed down when she told them who her grandfather was and also introduced them to some of her other friends that she lived with, the inanimate ones. Her actual friends, that she did not live with, and were not inanimate, questioned both the usefulness and wisdom of this decision, but Jade paid her taxes, and the intimidation tactics seemed to work well enough that she was left unbothered after a couple of uncomfortable months.

One thing that Jade quickly discovered after acquiring Becky was that, unlike Becquerel, she did not like raw steak. She did not even like lightly irradiated steak, even when it was in the microwave!... That was a joke, Jade knew better than to feed animals that weren't Becquerel irradiated steak. Or irradiated anything, unless the radiation was microwave radiation, or really any form of thermal radiation. Just not nuclear radiation. But Becky was picky! She didn't like raw steak, or microwaved steak, only cooked steak, and after several weeks of trial and error, Jade came to the conclusion that this little girl was quite the gourmand! Of course, Jade was all too happy to oblige, even though she had never properly cooked a steak in her entire life, and... here she was, a little later than that, cooking her dog a steak dinner. No garlic, though. Or onions. Or too much butter, really, and most of the steak was just for Jade. It was more of a sometimes treat.

Becky, though, was having the time of her life, running loud, raucous circles around the table and beginning to bark as she smelled the telltale smells of cooking meat. As Jade finished off with the relentlessly large T-Bone steak, setting it on a plate to rest and setting aside the cast iron, Becky began to jump and yap, bumping into Jade in an attempt to jostle steak out of her hands that wasn't there. You drop an entire filet out of your butterfingers once and your dog will never let you forget it, huh...?

Jade laughed, reached down, and scooped Becky up into her arms to give her a little inch-high toss before catching her, just like a baby, before setting her back down. Salivating with hunger, tail wagging like a motherfucker, Becky continued to bark and bump her head into Jade's ankle.

Notes:

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