#moonright

“I told you, we don’t need to have an entire forest in this stupid key.” Seth raised his arms and gestured to virtually everything around him on the word ‘entire’, his expression as grumpy as a child pretending to be upset over the wrong type of dinner.

“And I didn’t say an entire forest. Just some forest,” Adam attempted to clarify. Seth ignored him, but he continued anyway. “You might enjoy spending all your time in your weird lab making more children that try to mutilate me but I need to spend at least some time outside a building.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “You’re not leaving this key,” he said; then paused. “No, more like I doubt you could.” He tapped at nothing in particular, but a small blue light pulsed from the invisible spot he touched. “You just had to raise them like fools.”

“Were your ghoul children any better?” Adam countered, a scar on his hand tingling in almost a reply.

“Shut it.” Seth turned on his heel and stalked off, the wall in front of him melting into a doorway, returning to a wall once he had exited through it.

Adam stared at the wall. Buildings didn’t do that. At least, they shouldn’t do that.

“I live. In a key. Because I am dead.” Saying the words didn’t make his situation seem any more real or less like some strange hallucination. He focused on the wall again, wondering if he was actually capable of making it adapt to his will like it did for Seth. The wall pulsed the same bright radioactive blue, then shifted into a window with a bit of a wobble.

On the other side of the wall appeared to be a small living space. Seth lay there facedown on a leather couch, silently screaming into the armrest.

Adam huffed in annoyance at his roommate’s utter drama, and released his grip on the window. It melted back into a wall.

It had been two days since they’d gotten stuck in the key. His foster children, who he was no longer certain if they were human at all, had already stuck the key in someone’s mailbox, deep into Apocalypse territory. How they had gotten there was a mystery - the key did not always let them see into the material world - but it had not yet been found by anyone.

For a split second, he wondered if it was possible to get hungry. He hadn’t actually eaten anything since before his death, and truth be told, he wasn’t exactly sure if they even had a kitchen.

Adam scrunched up his face, trying to turn the wall into a door. A splatter-shaped, ever-changing hole seemed to be the best he could do, so he stepped through it and hoped he didn’t get stuck.

He opened his mouth to ask Seth if they had a kitchen, but the moment he was in earshot, all he could hear was muffled screeching. He waited a few moments. The screeching didn’t stop.

“Seth.”

Screeching.

“Seth.”

The aforementioned man lifted his head, all the grace of a pouty child on his face. He didn’t stop screeching, but it was now less muffled. Adam didn’t exactly know how to deal with that, but there was an armchair beside him, so he took the small pillow, aimed, and tossed it in Seth’s direction. As planned, Seth suddenly had a mouth full of pillow, and momentarily stopped screaming.

“Do we have a kitchen.” It was not a question.

Seth removed the pillow. “Go make one.”

“I’m going to go make a forest,” Adam announced, “and I am going to hunt wildlife and cook it over a fire and roast some s’mores-”

Seth cut him off. “What are s’mores?”

Adam stopped dead, horror filling his body to almost the same degree from when he had seen the Leviantan Senate for the first time. Seth stared at him. Adam choked out, “You don’t know what s’mores are?”

“Uhhh… No?” Seth looked puzzled, and slowly the horror went away. Adam huffed and stepped over to him, lifting him up over his shoulder effortlessly and willing the walls to take him outside.

“We are having a campfire. You are going to enjoy it.” Seth let out a plaintive whine of vague distaste. Adam ignored him.

  A few hours later, when Seth had been persuaded to make it look like nighttime in the key and had graciously sat somewhat still on a rock long enough for Adam to chop some wood and make a fire, Adam managed to will into existence some forks and hot dogs.

Overall, he was pleased with his progress. Seth gave him a dirty look, but his eyes had never left Adam for about four hours. When would Adam notice that? Not for a couple hundred years, probably. But neither was to know that.

Seth sat on the rock, legs planted firmly on the ground with the campfire fork in his hands. He stared into the fire, not even bothering to fix it when his hot dog caught fire.

“Seth, no, that’s not how you cook-” Adam protested, reaching over from his own rock to pull Seth’s meal out of the fire and attempt to stop the flames.

He was left with a very burnt hot dog, and a Seth whose last fuck had flown away several hours ago.

“Do you know how to cook with a fire?” Adam gave a moment’s wish that the answer would be yes. The wish was useless.

“Do I look like someone who functions without proper research technology?” came the answer, and Adam wasn’t sure if he even had the right to be surprised.

“You’re going to learn,” he declared, and forced Seth’s rock to elongate itself so there was room for two. Seth stared at him in vague distaste. Adam at least tried to be oblivious of that.

  A full half hour and three more burnt hot dogs later, Seth had finally gotten the hang of cooking. Once Adam had compared it to heating some chemical substance or other, his roommate had done a decent job. And then immediately tried to grab the end of the fork and swore - quite loudly - at the heat.

Adam tried not to laugh, and got the fork swung at him in response. He ducked, and it missed him by inches.

“Now you get to eat it. See, isn’t that a good reward?” He smiled, trying to be friendly. Seth pointed at the hot dog.

“This is your dick.” Adam watched, suddenly aware of Seth’s nature as an HER and not sure what to expect. Seth made a very lewd face, put half the hot dog in his mouth, and bit down, ripping it in two in one motion.

And then he smiled ever so smugly at the horrified expression on Adam’s face.

  Once they had finished eating the hot dogs - Adam had returned to a rock on the other side of the fire - he pulled out a bag of marshmallows. “So, s’mores. You roast the marshmallow like with the hot dog until it’s golden brown all the way around. Then you take some graham crackers and put a piece of chocolate on one. Then you put your marshmallow on the other cracker, and make a sandwich. There you go. S’mores.”

“That does not sound in the least bit healthy,” Seth answered somewhat flatly.

“Neither was the thing you did to that hot dog.”

“Your face made it worth it.”

“The taste will make it worth it.” Adam tossed the bag of marshmallows towards his roommate, hitting him square in the chest. “Go roast your marshmallow. And please don’t set it on fire this time.”

Surprisingly, Seth made a proper s’more on his first try, despite shaking half the marshmallow into the woods in surprise at how liquid it was under its skin. Adam watched his face carefully to try and see his reaction to the taste.

Seth looked like he just swallowed lava, but forced himself to keep a neutral face. Adam mirrored it. “Is it good?”

“It’s food.” Seth gave him a very careful neutral expression, almost as if hesitant to have any sort of emotion that wasn’t some form of Malice-driven arrogance.

Adam attempted to make a pouting face. Seth sighed. “Pass the marshmallows, woodcutter boy,” he said.