Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, you’ll do what?”
Herbert’s look of incredulity is so risible it could most reasonably break any person’s composure. But Sarah somehow remains perfectly stoic in the face of his reaction. She had, after all, prepared for it.
“You heard me,” Sarah replies smoothly. “I’ll do all the work, I’ll pay for the whole meal, and I’ll bring two so you don’t even have to share with Alfred. You can each have your own dessert.”
Herbert looks at the pepper sitting at the center of the plate before him, then back up at Sarah, who stares placidly back, then back down to the plate again.
“What’s the catch?” he asks finally, eyebrow raised. “You aren’t going to go through all the trouble of finding two willing humans, setting up a luxurious dinner, and then not partaking unless there were a rather large catch to all of this.”
“Ah. Yes, well,” Sarah says, smiling, “I do have two rules: You have to eat the whole thing, and you can’t drink water or milk for ten minutes. If you break either of my rules, the deal is forfeit and I don’t pay for anything.”
Alfred, who is sitting between the two of them, looks nervously from Herbert to Sarah and back again. His wide-eyed visage was that of a man sworn into secrecy—a condition of his own part in this little scheme of hers—but attempting to communicate the danger to his rather reckless lover wordlessly all the same. It proves to be a hopeless endeavor, however. Despite ample evidence that if something is too good it be true, it should be avoided—especially when Sarah Chagal is involved—Herbert dismisses Alfred’s warning. He nods to her and says, “All right. I’ll do it.”
The smile on Sarah’s face grows wider. “Good. Alfred, what time is it? We’ll start the countdown after Herbert swallows the last bite.”
In a move perhaps bolder than strictly necessary, Herbert picks up the pepper, pops the whole thing in his mouth, chews quickly thrice, and swallows exaggeratedly. “And that time would be now," he says primly.
Sarah and Alfred look blankly at him for several long moments before two things happen at precisely the same time: Sarah throws her head back and bursts into uproarious laughter, and Alfred throws himself to Herbert’s side dramatically, apologizing profusely. “I should have just told you, I’ll do something to make it up to you I promise—”
“Oh Alfred," Sarah giggles, "do you honestly think Herbert would have said no to me even if he had been told that it was an entire California Reaper?”
“No, but if he was told the full effects he might have considered it!”
“I just have to last ten minutes, Alfred,” Herbert assures him, though he stumbles over the last word as the tip of his tongue begins to burn, and then burn hotter, and hotter still, hotter yet—
Oh no.
"That's right," Sarah says, "only ten minutes."
Somehow, impossibly, the fire inside Herbert's mouth is only growing in intensity, even as it reaches and exceeds the limits of any heat he's ever considered before. “Do you,” he says slowly through his tingling lips, turning to Sarah, who is brimming with laughter, “really like to watch me suffer?”
He's attempting his hardest to remain unaffected in the face of Sarah's grinning, but his leg begins twitching of its own accord, and he cannot keep his mouth closed; the feeling of touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth is, by now, astonishingly painful, though keeping his lips slightly parted to allow cool air within does very little to relieve that pain.
"You are a wicked woman," Herbert stutters through the fire raging inside his mouth. "It's no wonder you're the only person who can manage my father."
"I'll take that as a compliment," she replies. "Cheer up Herbert! You only have nine minutes left!"