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She had, by and large, left her Old June tendencies behind, but this was for a good cause, so surely it was acceptable for New June to adapt Old June behavior to suit her needs. Surely. Her cause was just, her intentions pure, her blackmail material accidentally acquired.
It wasn’t like she’d set out to blackmail anyone here. Hell, she’d purposely avoided it, squelching the instinct to gather useful and embarrassing information when the opportunity presented itself – and opportunity came again and again and again. For the many, many times that she hadn’t succumbed to her old habits, this one time had to be acceptable.
And really, she could have gone without walking in on Mongoose and Madame Ghostlight in the costume closet of the theater. In fact, she’d have preferred never seeing them at all, in her entire life, despite her general enjoyment of Mme. Ghostlight’s class, to having seen them going at it that once. However, what was seen could not be unseen and the information, unwanted as it was, proved useful to her.
Ernest – bless his pure, generous, healthy, chef-ly heart – had been whipping up all sorts of smoothies and soups and protein shakes and weird tea and lemonade combinations for Maks. All three of them were on a liquid snack diet during their usual hangouts because Ernest wouldn’t ever eat something Maks couldn’t in front of him and Ernest was in charge of food so June couldn’t. And, alright, yeah, she’d feel bad eating solid food when he was still restricted to liquids because of his jaw. But goddamnit, she’d gone long enough without chocolate and, no matter what Ernest said, that wheatgrass ginger shit was not cutting it. Desperate times called for desperate measures which called for cashing in blackmail material. She had a few words with the Mongoose and swore on her mother’s grave that this payment would be the only one requested and that she’d never speak of it again after her demands had been met. Of course, Marcy was alive and perfectly healthy, but Mongoose didn’t know that and June wasn’t going to bring it up again anyway so she figured it didn’t matter what she swore on.
June didn’t know or care how he acquired them or had them delivered on the Wright house doorstep, but there were two pints of chocolate fudge swirl ice cream waiting for her when she arrived at five pm, as promised. She scooped them up, deposited them in her bag, and headed straight in to the kitchen, shooing Ernest out. He gave her an anxious look as he left that she felt was hardly justified – one tiny little incident with the stove top and he and Maks had practically barred her from the kitchen – and she heard him discussing worriedly and quietly with Maks in the other room. Well, as quietly as Maks could discuss anything. She ignored them, gathering up the ice cream, the blender, and a gallon of milk. She’d never made milkshakes but it couldn’t be that difficult. She dumped in ice cream and milk and set the blender on high while she pulled out the large glasses and the sparkly crazy straws that she’d seen at the General Store and which had “magically appeared” while Maks was still rooming with Nurse Bliss. She checked the consistency of the shake, added more milk, and set it back on high for a little while longer – she didn’t want it too thick. When she was satisfied with her concoction, she poured it out into the cups and called Ernest in to carry them out to the living room.
Maks was sprawled out on the couch as boneless as he could be with one arm in a cast and taking up far more room than he physically should have been able to when she and Ernest walked in. “Let it be known: I made something edible and nothing exploded,” she announced dryly. Maks wiggled into a mostly upright position.
“How could you make something explode in the blender? It’s June proof, there’s no fire!”
“Does it count as exploding if you just leave the lid off?” Ernest asked. June snorted.
“No, that’s just a mess. Explosions are big scorching affairs and – is that chocolate?” Maks leaned over and took a glass from Ernest. The glass with the green straw, June noticed. She’d rather thought that’d be his favorite straw when she first saw it.
“Double chocolate milk shakes. No protein, just sugar. Just what the doctor ordered.”
“Well, if the doctor ordered, how could I refuse?” Maks sucked down about half of it all at once – it took a while. Almost two minutes, really. It was the longest she’d heard him not speak since he’d moved back out of the nurse’s station.
“Where did you get ice cream?”
“There was a rogue ice cream truck skulking about the campus. I hunted it down in the woods and dragged its bleeding corpse to the mess freezer.” June rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and drink your shake. This is as close as I’m getting to cooking for you lot.” Maks made an innocent face and clutched his milkshake to his chest, lips clamped around the curly straw.
Chocolate shakes were a good cause, right? Especially if she was sharing. Good enough reason for a one-off relapse.