He gingerly steps around the mattress on the floor, where Beth and Melanie are still fast asleep, and manages to close the door behind him with minimum sound. Across the hallway, the door to Chowder’s room is ajar, and Whiskey can hear two people snoring in there. It’s no surprise, really – Leo and Jeremy were still dominating the Haus dance floor when Whiskey finally stumbled up the stairs last night. Or, more accurately, this morning – Whiskey thinks it might’ve been around half past three, but he’s not entirely sure. In any case, those two could probably sleep for a week.
A kegster is always a kegster, but last night? Last night was a kegster.
Whiskey will have to remember to get Chowder something as thanks for letting Beth’s friends crash in his room. Then again, Whiskey thinks with a grin, it probably wasn’t a huge inconvenience for Chowder to stay over at Cait’s.
Whiskey sleepily pads his way into the Haus kitchen, only to be met with… Nothing. A resounding abundance of nothing.
There’s nobody in the kitchen.
Whiskey blinks.
Dex did say he had a thing this Sunday – something about a mandatory captain’s meeting at too fucking early o’clock. Obviously, he’d have left for that already, or he’d be running late. Meaning, Dex isn’t at the Haus. Dex won’t be making post-kegster breakfast.
Oh.
The kitchen is something of a mess – although, to be fair, it could’ve been a lot worse. There’s an open garbage bag hanging from one of the chairs, evidence that someone’s already cleared out a whole lot of paper cups – Dex, Whiskey suspects, since no one else seems to be awake yet. The kitchen counter is still covered in a myriad of half-empty bottles and cans, but the sink looks recently rinsed and someone’s clearly swept the worst remnants of the kegster off the floor.
Still. There’s no way they can have post-keg breakfast with the kitchen looking like this.
Without even really thinking about it, Whiskey rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
Fifteen minutes later, when Tango wanders into the kitchen, Whiskey has actually dealt with the worst of it. There’s three filled garbage bags out in the hallway, the kitchen counter is wiped clean and he’s opened the windows to let in some fresh air.
“Hey,” Tango mutters, his voice somewhat hoarse from last night’s escapades, and Whiskey can hear the question in his voice before he asks. “S’Dex?”
“That captain thing.”
“Huh.”
Tango surveys the clean but decidedly breakfast-less kitchen for a moment.
Then he shrugs.
“Scrambled eggs?” he offers. “Probably the best I can do.”
“Yeah,” Whiskey affirms, after a beat. “That’d be great, T.”
Tango’s already opening the refrigerator, pulling out several cartons of eggs while stifling a yawn.
For a moment, Whiskey simply watches Tango. He’s not quite sure what to do with his hands. Or with himself at all, really.
Somewhat hesitantly, Whiskey makes his way over to the shelf by the microwave. It’s where Dex keeps the spiral notebook with the plain, grey front, the one that’s scribbled full of all the recipes Dex uses for baking and cooking. It’s no coincidence that Whiskey’s never gone anywhere near that thing – whenever anyone is using the Haus kitchen for more than making a sandwich, Whiskey tends to feel more comfortable anywhere else.
Which is why Whiskey can’t keep himself from glancing furtively in Tango’s direction, as he slowly reaches for Dex’s notebook.
Tango meets his eyes briefly. Then he yawns again, and keeps stirring his bowl of eggs.
Whiskey still hesitates, before carefully opening the notebook.
He skims through the first few pages, quickly flipping past them. It’s pie, plus more pie, and Whiskey immediately recognizes Bitty’s neat penmanship. Which is just, no. Anything Whiskey can throw together wouldn’t even begin to compare.
The next section is a little more promising – there’s a couple of pancake variations that don’t seem too tricky, except Whiskey’s pretty certain they don’t have an abundance of milk at the moment, and there’s a basic omelet that might’ve worked if Tango wasn’t using up all the eggs.
The next page makes Whiskey pause.
Scones.
That’s funny.
And not too complicated, Whiskey realizes, as he reads through the remarkably brief instructions. Measure, mix, bake. Right.
He holds the notebook up for Tango to evaluate.
“Think I’ll fuck it up?”
Tango takes a moment to skim the page. Then he shrugs.
“Better than nothing, yeah?”
Whiskey nods in agreement. Then he gets to work.
A while later, Ford enters the kitchen. She’s got her sunglasses on and is clutching an Annie’s takeaway cup, no doubt a double espresso. As soon as she looks up, she stops dead in her tracks.
There’s a ton of scrambled eggs, all piled up in the biggest bowl Tango could find, as well as a huge pile of slightly dry vanilla scones. Whiskey’s dug through the refrigerator and found several jars of lemon curd and blueberry jam to go with the scones, and Tango’s made a whole pot of coffee. There’s orange juice, too, and some milk for the coffee, and Whiskey’s just put on some tea in case anyone prefers that.
It’s breakfast.
“What the hell,” Ford mutters, pushing her sunglasses into her hair. She snatches up a scone and nibbles on it experimentally. “Huh. Neat.”
“I made the eggs!” Tango proclaims, not without pride. “But Whiskey’s really behind most of this. He was already going at it by the time I showed up.”
“That’s a significant exaggeration,” Whiskey cuts in, because really, it’s not even true. “I just. I wanted…”
He trails off. He’s not sure what he wanted.
Thankfully, half the hockey team chooses that moment to descend.
“Food! All right!”
“Please tell me there’s coffee, please.”
“Yo, Whiskey, you made those? ‘Swasome.”
Whiskey finds himself taking a step back, just watching. He wasn’t expecting to feel this way. Although actually, Whiskey’s not even sure if he knows how to label what he’s feeling, exactly, as he watches everyone dig into something he tried his best to make for them.
Suddenly, Dex appears in the doorway. Whiskey feels his mouth drying up as Dex surveys the room with furrowed brows, before Dex’s eyes land on the still open spiral notebook on the counter. Right next to Whiskey.
Dex meets his eyes.
“You made this?”
“Tango cooked the eggs.” Whiskey’s got a feeling that’s a phrase he’ll be repeating. “It was, uh. Yeah.”
Dex nods, slowly, taking it all in.
Then he grins.
“‘Swasome. Next time, you guys have to give me a hand with post-keg breakfast, captain’s orders. We can always use a few more scones in the world.”
“Now that’s a fact!” Pippin hollers – immediately, Joyo and Jader cheer. “Samwell class of 2021, make some noise!”
“Yo,” Nursey grumbles. “The kegster was last night. Chill, Scones.”
“Woah.”
Beth and Melanie have just entered the kitchen, hand in hand. Mel’s rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Beth is blinking a lot as she takes everything in.
“This is a frat house,” she states, addressing no one in particular. “And yet…”
“Ah, but you see, post-keg breakfast is an important SMH tradition,” Tango informs her brightly. “Go ahead, grab a scone. No – not Pippin. One of these.”
“Huh.” Beth slides into the chair next to Tango as she bites into a vanilla scone. “Oh. Nice.”
“Whiskey made them. I made the eggs!”
Beth looks up abruptly, meeting Whiskey’s eyes. Whiskey still doesn’t have the right words for any of this. He shrugs, instead.
Beth’s smile is warm.
“Get over here, C – come on, grab a chair. I wanna have breakfast with my favorite cousin before we’ve got to head back to Columbia.”
That sets Whiskey into motion. He finds himself a chair and squeezes it in between Beth and Ford, before carefully taking a scone from the now half-empty plate. Tango pours him a cup of coffee, and Mel passes him the jam.
Whiskey tentatively bites into his vanilla scone with blueberry jam.
You guys!!!! It's update day!!!!!!! Kegster!!!!!!! Jack and Bitty trying to be discreet!!!!!! Sneaking away to make out!!!!! (and more???) SCREAM WITH ME!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!
Does it bother anyone else that N calls kegstands-> kegsters?
Maybe it’s a regional thing? Where I’m from, a party with kegs are Kegsters, smh kegsters are Epikegsters bc they just are, and the act of doing a handstand on a keg while drinking is called a Kegstand.
“Check, Please!” is an amazing webcomic, by the amazing artist Ngozi, about hockey, pie, and friendship. Check it out here: http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/...
I have entirely too many feelings about this hockey comic and its nonexistent musical version. To wit, another song! It's rough, but I had a blast! Hope y'all like it!
