Backdated: Angel and Kyle Get Crabs

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

In the interest of trying new things, Kyle convinces Angel to try soft-shelled crabs. They're both a little horrified but that never stopped them before.



Like a good bottomless-stomach-owning-person with limited funds Kyle had signed up for every possible discount or coupon offer that any restaurant in the area gave out. Sometimes he used them to take Jan out, sometimes to just have lunch with friends - this time, he knew exactly who to find ... and then shove the printed out coupon in their face. Because it was perfect. "I don't even know what this is but dude, we have got to go eat it!"

Angel very nearly gave herself a concussion as she squawked in indignation at being so rudely woken up and very nearly rolled right off of the pool lounge chair she'd been napping in. Clutching at the plastic under her, she shifted her weight so she wouldn't fall even as she tried to make out what was being waved in her face. "How do you know you can eat if you don't know what it is?" she asked.

"You ate a live tentacle thing, I can totally eat this!" It wasn't that Kyle didn't exactly know what it was, it was that he'd grown up 1000 miles from anything like an ocean and so 'crab' wasn't something he'd really eaten a lot of. "I can eat anything as long as it's not chocolate or coffee, besides."

"Yeah and that is not chocolate," Angel agreed, finally grabbing the paper so she could really get a look at it. "Soft-shelled crab? I've never had thaaaa wait do you eat the legs?" She shoved the paper back into Kyle's face as she grinned. "There are legs coming out of that sandwich!"

"I know, that's the best part!" That's why Kyle had printed it out instead of just dragging Angel out with him. Because it was a sandwich with legs and he had to show her. Some things just didn't get explained without pictures. "You eat the whole thing. I think you eat the eyes too. Do crabs have eyes? I don't know."

She squinted at the picture but couldn't really figure it out thanks to how the picture was taken and the bread he was wearing like a hat. Bread hat. Angel snickered. Delicious bread hats for everyone! With some effort, she focused back on Kyle. "I don't know either but that sucker looks deep fried and we all know that deep frying makes anything vaguely tasty, right? So even potential crab eye balls?"

"I ate a deep fried mole once." And he'd gotten in so much trouble for it too. "It was pretty good." Well, good by Kyle's definition which was 'made of meat'. "I wonder how many people would be totally freaked out by this. Because dude, I was almost freaked out by it and I eat moles."

"Okay, Mr. Mole Eater, there's only one way to find out!"

**

"So, if this thing tries to crawl out from my sandwich, will you hold it against me if I scream like a girl and kill it with the salt shaker?" Angel asked as she got comfortable in the booth across from Kyle. They had both just ordered the soft-shell crab and drinks so now they were waiting with anticipation and a bit of horror as to what would come out of the kitchen.

Angel petted her camera like it was her pet. And there was going to be evidence of every single moment of it.

"Dude, if you scream like you're in a horror movie, I'm totally gonna mock you." Kyle said. And right up until the sandwich actually arrived, he had every intention of mocking.

It was just that once it was in front of him, all he could do was poke dubiously at the legs sticking out of his sandwich. The picture had been very leggy, he'd figured it was just advertising and that the real thing wouldn't have so many ... legs. It did. Ten of them in various sizes. It smelled good, it had sounded delicious, he knew he sort of liked crab, it was just he really hadn't expected it to really have legs.

"Sssssaaaalt shaaaaker," Angel whispered, hefting it like it was a weapon. "Oh god, it's wearing a bread hat, just like I thought it was going to! How messed up is this thing?" Putting the salt shaker down, she picked up her knife and used it to make the legs sticking out from the bread wiggle a little bit.

"Do we seriously eat the whole thing? And where do you even start?" Horrifying images flooded her mind of her biting into the sandwich only to find that the legs could still move. Like a zombie. "It smells fantastic but it looks creepy!"

Kyle picked up his sandwich and turned it over in his hands a few times. Then he shrugged, and took an impossibly-large bite out of the sandwich. Which from his perspective was both less crunchy and crunchier than he had expected. Even though the coupon had said soft-shelled, he couldn't separate the idea that crabs had shells from his expectations of the sandwich. But 'soft' implied soft. Which this certainly wasn't, exactly. It resisted as he bit, and the breading made a nice crunch, but there wasn't even a hint of shell.

Of course, putting the sandwich down before he was done chewing meant that he had three of the legs half sticking out of his mouth, including one of the larger claws. "mfs gd!"

Angel stared at Kyle and then back down at her own sandwich. "Well, here goes!" she finally said with a shrug.

Picking it up, she took a decidedly smaller bite than Kyle had as she really had no desire to look like the sandwich was fighting it's way out of her mouth. Her eyebrows shot up as she chewed - it was good if decidedly weird. The legs were sort of bizarre deep fried crunch straws if she had to compare them to anything. Tasty but weird feeling.

"Wht?" Kyle chewed more, and swallowed, and the legs disappeared from outside his mouth and went into the perpetually hungry place he called his stomach. "What? I wanted to see if you'd hide under the table." He said with a grin. "At least I don't have like, amputated crab legs on my plate!"

One of those said amputated crab legs bounced off of his head. "At least they aren't looking like they're making a break for it!" Angel laughed, wiping off some sauce from the side of her mouth. "And we've been friends for, like, forever, dude. I have yet to hide under the table due to your antics."

"I don't have antics!" Kyle protested. "Do I have antics?" He asked Angel, and the remains of the crab and the world in general. "Come on, you gotta admit that it's pretty goddamn funny to eat a sandwich with legs. We gotta figure out how to make these."

"You have antics coming out your ears!" she laughed. "Oh man, do you think we could make these at the mansion? I know I can't in my dorm room."

It couldn't be too different from making fried chicken or catfish or fried anything else. "I guess so. I mean, I dunno where we get soft shelled crabs but I bet we could find some. Lorna might know." Kyle considered this. They had those little deep fryers. He knew how to bread things. "I bet we could get Cammie to eat one raw."

"Yeah, I don't know anything about crabs -" Angel couldn't help it. She'd been good all day. She snickered for a few moments to herself. "Like, do they come like this naturally? And, duh, Cammie would take one look at this thing and probably want to eat a live one."

"Aw, man, dude, don't remind me. I had to do a whole report on those for Health because it's like the only STD I could get." Kyle took an aggressively large bite out of his sandwich in protest. "Or fight it. Or fight it and then eat it. Hell, I'd eat one of these if I had to fight one, so I'm not sure I could really make fun of her if she did it."

"Why are crabs the only thing you can get? I mean, I understand why you can't get anything else but why crabs for the one thing you can?" Despite how good the sandwich was, Angel decided to attack her fries -not only were they delicious but they also didn't have any legs. "I have nothing against eating what you fight! I think it makes it sporting!"

"My healing factor doesn't work against fleas, lice or crabs." Kyle said, with a shrug, and another aggressive bite of the sandwich. He had a minor grudge, it seemed. "Everything else is like, a disease, so I can't get it like I can't get the flu. Also fleas and crap are gross so can we please totally change the subject before I start like, itching just thinking about it?"

"Yeah, sometimes in not so polite company -" Angel quickly pulled her legs up underneath her to avoid getting kicked as she grinned at him. "- I forget that some conversations aren't, you know, good around food. Or in public. Or spoken out loud. Ever."

"More crab eating, less old woman with blue hair giving us the shut up face?" Kyle said, and then proceeded to busy himself with trying to recreate the bite that left him with the crab's legs sticking out of his mouth. The legs were fun to chew and made a really satisfying crunchy feeling.

Kyle glanced up at Angel's giggle. Of course it was right in time for the flash of the camera in her hands to go off - even the camera sounded ultrasmug in it's noises as she grinned at him around it. "Best. Picture. Ever."