The Things We Hunger For

Chapter Eight - The Side Effects of Pizza *Annabeth* Part I

A/N: Did anyone else get totally wacked out by Easter? I feel like my whole routine (writing, sleeping, working-out, studying) is totally off. Like just because I took a few days off from it all it's all gone to h*ll. But I guess that's life. Hopefully I get back to normal soon because this is annoying :-(

Also want to say thanks to the people who told me their age! It's fun to know, but like most of you mentioned I can't (nor would I) change the way I write even if all my readers turned out to be twelve. But it turned out most of you weren't, in fact it seems like WP is full of people of all ages, which makes me happy. A community is always made richer with lots of different people, from different stages in their lives!

Enjoy the chapter and (late) happy Easter!

Eight

 -The Side Effects of Pizza –

Part I

*Annabeth*

"So what kind of topping would you have had if we were having pizza?" I asked as I fished a peach out of the jar. My laptop was set to some weird radio station, which was playing a Christmas song in French I'd never heard before. But I didn't care, it was cozy and Christmassy.

"I don't know. Mushrooms," he said between bites of steak. This was the second meal of the day we were sharing and it was a good one. Steaks, fried potatoes and peaches (for dessert) and despite me having made it, it was all edible. I probably wouldn't have bothered with cooking had I known Don was going into town to get pizza for a few of the pack that were coming over to watch some big game on TV. But now that I had I was kind of proud of it.

"Mushrooms, seriously?" I asked as I looked at him through the Plexiglas of the Cage. I'd brought a blanket down, pulled the medical table over and was sitting on it. It worked well enough even though it wasn't anywhere close to comfortable. He'd pulled the bed over to sit close by the glass so we weren't much more than two feet from each other. There was just a glass wall between us.

"What's wrong with mushrooms?" he asked. He made that face I'd learned during the afternoon we'd spent talking meant he didn't understand why I thought something he said was weird. He had had to use that face quite a few times since we'd spent the afternoon talking about chill everyday things, about movies (Ryan loved the Men in Black and thought Back To The Future was hilarious) and cafeteria mishaps (he'd once spilled a plate of Mac 'n Cheese on his sixty year old math teacher) and what we were planning -or in Ryan's case had planned to do before he was turned into a werewolf – with our lives (he wanted to work for his cousin who owned a motorcycle garage, not join his father in running a restaurant. He also wanted to travel to Australia and learn to surf, which was something that was on my list to do too and had let us dream about beautiful sandy beaches for a long, long time.)

"Nothing," I said, nibbling on my peach. "I just don't really like mushrooms."

"Seriously?" he said taking the last piece of steak and potato and then pushing his plate away. "What do you take on your pizza then?"

"Pepperoni, bacon, onions," I said holding up fingers as I counted them off. "Olives, extra ham, extra cheese."

"That's nasty. I hate pepperoni. And olives. Tastes like..." He made a face to show just how bad he thought olives tasted. I grinned at him.

"Clearly we'd have trouble sharing a pie," I said, taking another peach out of the jar. "Not that I'd be willing to share anyway. I eat mine all on my own."

"I guess we have that in common then," he replied. The song switch to a re-mixed version of 'Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.'

 I glanced over to the plate of food he'd finished. I'd found three huge steaks I was sure my dad would really miss when he noticed they were gone. I had picked the slightly smaller but still big steak for me and given him the two others. He'd finished them along with every fried potato that had been made. I had no doubt in the world Ryan would and could eat a whole family pizza all on his own.  Maybe two. I even doubted he'd be dissuaded if the pie had both olives and pepperoni.