Velma shifted on her stool at the kitchen bench. Fred was taking Daphne to a fancy French restaurant right now, and rather than ordering take-out, Shaggy had offered to make dinner for the three of them. Scooby, understandably, had been enthusiastically for this plan, as he and Shaggy had similar tastes in food – that is, as much as possible, and maybe with something crazy thrown in like a whole bottle of hot sauce. Velma however was a bit more tentative. She had seen Shaggy make his 'gourmet' sandwiches before, and while she appreciated that everything he had put in them did taste good, she squirmed at the idea of putting them all together.

He'd start with the bottom piece of bread. On that would go the butter, and the peanut butter and jelly, and the first cheese, the hot sauce, the turkey, the apple sauce, the cold roast beef, and the lettuce. Then the second piece of bread was laid down. This one took the bacon, the second cheese, the mustard, the ham, the chicken, the third cheese, the anchovies, the hot peppers, the chocolate sauce, the pineapple, and the broken cookies. Finally, he'd top it off with a few olives and the third and final slice of bread.

Always impressive, but rarely appetising to anybody but Shaggy or Scooby.

Velma adjusted her glasses and peered around the kitchen, looking intently at what ingredients Shaggy had fetched out of the cupboards. There was no bread to be seen, and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. No bread meant no sandwiches. There did, however, seem to be a lot of different herbs and a few of the milder dried spices out on the counter.

Shaggy re-entered the kitchen, tying the apron on that he had gone to the laundry to fetch. It was clean, it just hadn't gotten as far as being put away yet.

"Rot we raving runight Raggy?" Scooby asked, jumping up to put his paws on the counter and inspect the ingredients his best friend had laid out. "Roesn't rook rike a randwich."

"No Scoob, if it were just the two of us, I'd make you a sandwich, but Velma always gets this green look to her face when we start chomping 'em, and she's eating with us too," Shaggy explained, scratching the large dog behind his ears and gently pushing him away from the counter before washing his hands and grabbing down a wok from the kitchen wall.

Velma felt her face heating up. She hadn't realised her reaction to Shaggy's sandwiches had been so obvious, and she certainly hadn't known that Shaggy had noticed. Still, she really appreciated the gesture.

"So, what are we having?" Velma asked, watching Shaggy pulling a large soup pot up out of the cupboard and setting it on the stove beside the wok.

"A meal of three courses," Shaggy answered with a smile, as he reached down a bowl of something from the very top of the pantry where Scooby couldn't reach. He drained the bowl and then emptied the remaining contents into the soup pot, and added chopped up dried tomatoes, a whole bunch of herbs, some salt and pepper, and some chunky tomato sauce like Fred used when he was making spaghetti sauce. A few other things went in that Velma couldn't see, but it sure smelled good before Shaggy put a lid on it.

"First, we shall have oysters on a bed of stir-fried vegetables," said Shaggy as he swirled some oil around in the wok before chopping up a large amount of greens and tossing them in quickly before plating up and, removing some oysters from the fridge that hadn't been there that morning, arranged the food artistically on two plates, and simply piled it high on the third – Scooby's.

Scooby licked his chops and dug in, cleaning up his share in barely a minute.

Velma laughed as she watched the canine's enthusiasm for eating matched in her other dining companion, though Shaggy was clearly restraining himself to eat in a more refined way. Velma had to stop eating while there was still food on her plate.

"I don't eat as much as you guys. If I want to fit all of three courses, I'm going to have to take it slower," she said as she gave Scooby what she had left. The dog was more than happy to finish off for her.

Shaggy chuckled. "That's true. Me and Scoob are gastronomically more experienced, aren't we boy?"

Scooby laughed. "Rexrerienced," he agreed.

"The main course needs another ten minutes or so any way before it's ready," Shaggy said, getting up to clear the plates away. "I'll give it a stir before I wash these up, and then it should be good to go."

"We had a dishwasher installed last month, Shaggy," Velma reminded him. "You don't have to wash the dishes in the sink any more."

Shaggy chuckled. "Oh yeah, I'm so used to just cleaning my sandwich plate and putting it away again, I forgot we bought that."

"Or eating Scooby Snacks straight from the box," Velma teased gently as she watched Shaggy stack the plates and the wok into the machine.

"Don't mock them until you've tried them," Shaggy reprimanded gently.

"Reah!" Scooby joined, a bit more vehemently. Then again, they were his snacks.

Velma just laughed, and patted Scooby in apology, while Shaggy gave the soup pot a stir, and a sniff, before he nodded his head and served. Velma got a smaller helping, Shaggy served himself an amount that looked almost normal, and Scooby got his dog dish filled.

"You know you're sleeping in your own room tonight, right bud? And with the window open," Shaggy said, catching Scooby's chin before the large hound could dig in.

Scooby nodded, and Shaggy let him go at it.

"Why?" Velma asked, sitting down at the table again with the second course.

"This here is my grandma's recipe for baked beans. It tastes really good, but it gives Scoob gas something awful," Shaggy explained. "My grandpa got bad gas when he ate this too, and so did Fred the time he tried it. I don't know why it doesn't give everybody gas though."

"But you and Scooby have burping competitions and farting competitions almost every week, what's the problem?" Velma asked before eating a mouthful.

"We usually hold those in large spaces with the window open, and we're in control," Shaggy pointed out. "When you're sleeping, in a small bedroom with the window shut, the smell can't get away, and waking up to the smell of a whole night of farts shut into a small room isn't something you ever want to experience twice," he explained, the most serious and emphatic look on Shaggy's face that Velma had ever seen.

She laughed as she imagined Shaggy waking up to too much of a bad smell, and soon enough the second course was gone, leaving Velma feeling very full. The beans, Shaggy explained, had that effect if they'd been allowed to soak long enough, and since he'd started them soaking about an hour after Fred had told them, two days ago, that he was taking Daphne out for this French dinner, they'd had plenty of time.

"You really put a lot of thought into this, didn't you Shaggy?" Velma said, surprised. She had been expecting sandwiches, though hopefully she would have been able to get away with a mere peanut butter and jelly.

"Well sure I did," he said, smiling as he put the second lot of dishes into the dishwasher.

"Jinkies."

"Raggy?" Scooby said, interrupting Velma's stupor as he bounded up to the man of the kitchen. "Ressert?"

Shaggy laughed. "Sure thing Scoob. One triple chocolate fudge sunday with all the fixings coming right up. I think we humans should probably wait a little bit before we have ours though."

Velma watched Shaggy make the giant sunday for Scooby with a warm feeling buzzing around inside of her. She'd always had a soft spot for those two, but particularly for Shaggy, and that was before she knew he was such a great cook when he wasn't going overboard with every available foodstuff he could get his hands on.

Scooby ate his dessert with great gusto, and after that retired to his own room, Shaggy going with him to prop open the window.

Velma was making herself comfortable on the couch in front of the fake fireplace when Shaggy came back. He didn't say a word as he walked past her straight to the kitchen, and he didn't say anything when he returned with two plates containing mud cake, whipped cream and strawberries. He just sat down beside her and passed her one of the plates and a spoon.

"Thanks Shaggy," Velma said, shifting so that she was a little bit closer to him.

"No problem Velma," Shaggy answered. "I know it's no fancy restaurant -"

"It's better," Velma interrupted.

"Hey Velms?" Shaggy asked quietly, turning his head slightly to look down at her as she ate her cake. "Have you heard what they say about some foods being aphrodisiacs? Oysters, some spices, chocolate..."

"I have," Velma answered, smiling up at Shaggy.

He leant down the short distance between them and pressed his lips to hers.

"Jinkies," Velma gasped when Shaggy pulled back. "If you had just kissed me like that to begin with, you really would've had no need to feed me anything that is rumoured to be an aphrodisiac."

"Zoinks!" Shaggy yelped, happily for once, as Velma pressed her lips back to his.