Austin drifted awake to both the smell of smoke and dog breath. Neither good on their own but together was even worse. He jolted up, nearly knocking his hyper dog to the floor. "Okay, okay boy. Down for a minute." He swiftly moved Alexander off of him and dashed out of his room, the dog nipping at his heels. He barreled into the open area and skidded to a stop at the bar.

The apartment kitchen was void of smoke, but a whiff of burning plastic still drifted in the air. Bri sat on the floor, negating all the free room on the counters, a conventional purple 'oven' in front of her. Small round and square tin pans were scattered around her amongst even smaller boxes and packets with various colorful pictures of baked goods on them. Her tails swished back and forth as she hummed.

'Pick your battles, Austin.' He groaned, dragging a hand down his still half-asleep face. Double checking the room for smoke, he opened the doors to the balcony for safe measure and Alexander bolted out into the fresh morning, eager to escape.

Back in the kitchen, he looked around for the paper manual, spotting it draped over the edge of the trash can. He sighed. Of course. He rescued it and flipped through its pages, looking for any warnings or cautions that involved setting the toy oven on fire.

Bri pulled out a cake tin with a steady hold on the comically large pan pusher. She poked at the lump of presumably confetti birthday cake, frowning slightly. "It doesn't look right. Austin, why doesn't it look like it does on the box?"

"Nothing ever looks exactly like it does on the package," he replied. He squatted down in front of her, the toy in between them, tapping the manual in his hands. "It's also baked with a lightbulb, what did you expect?"

"Doesn't your big oven use a lightbulb?"

"No, it doesn't."

She looked at the normal kitchen oven and back to him. "But there's a light in there."

"Yeah but it's not the same kind of lightbulb. It cooks with more actual heat."

"Wait, is it baked or cooked?"

There was a rapid knocking at his door and Austin rubbed the back of his neck, standing up and walking over to answer it. "There's a difference but no one really cares about it." He rested his hand on the doorknob, waiting. "Who is it?"

"Your greatest friend in the entire world," a voice from the hall called out.

"But Alexander is out on the balcony."

A bag shook on the other side. "I have Shake Shack burgers."

He immediately threw open the door. "Chad!"

His friend raised an eyebrow at him, a smile playing on his face, and stepped inside. Clutched in one of his hands was the promised Shake Shack take out bag, as well as Wendy's. "The fact that you occasionally eat fast food for breakfast still concerns me."

"And yet you still enable it."

"Because you've drawn me into it as well," Chad said, holding up the bags, one bigger than the other. He glanced around the apartment. "Where's the fox girl?"

Austin shut the door behind him and didn't bother stifling a yawn. "In the kitchen baking cake in a plastic box under a lightbulb."

Chaderick stopped and blinked at him until it registered through. "You got her an Easy Bake oven?"

"She got herself an Easy Bake oven. She really likes getting kid toys then complaining that they don't work right."

Chad leaned around the corner to peer into the kitchen and watched as Bri mixed more batter much quicker than she needed to in a tiny muffin tin. He looked back to Austin incredulously. "Does she not know they're not meant to work completely right? Since they're, you know, for kids?"

"It's like she does but doesn't." Austin yawned again and rubbed at his eyes, trying to force the sleep out of them. "At least she's not using magic like she did the chemistry set."

"...Do I want to know?"

"Not really."

"Chaderick!" Bri yelled, noticing his presence hovering by the doorway. She reached into what Austin assumed was the warming chamber on the other side of the oven and pulled something out. She leapt to her feet and over to them, an eager look on her face.

Chad tilted his head. "What- what's that?"

Bri held up a small tin pan filled with what looked like a decrepitating brownie with two candles stuck in it. "I. Baked," she said with a serious look.

"She baked."

"She...baked?"

Austin sighed. "You can eat it. It'll probably not poison you."

Bri pointedly pushed the brownie closer to Chad. "Eat it."

He gave her a small smile and took it. He looked at it apprehensively for a few beats before using one of the candles to scoop out a bite the brownie and ate it. As he did, Austin watched his face go through the seven stages of grief before managing to swallow it down.

Bri grinned. "Good, right?"

"Yeeaaahhh," he drew out, knitting his eyebrows together, "just, uh, didn't it come with a recipe book?" Chaderick asked genuinely confused.

She blinked at him. "What's a recipe book?"

"...Here, there's a chicken sandwich in there for you," he said simply, holding out the Wendy's bag. Bri oo'ed and grabbed the bag, racing back to her toy oven and plopping down next to it to eat.

Austin threw back his head, exhaling a breath at the ceiling. "I guess we're eating breakfast on the floor today."