#and i read it a week before dracula daily started and
You live with a Vampire. Every Saturday, you give them a cup of your blood, and they cook you a nice meal.
@biggest-gaudiest-patronuses Please write this.
(Part 1)
We have dinner on Saturdays.
Arcady always cooks. I’m never certain if it’s out of irony—spending all that time on something they can’t even eat—or if they actually enjoy cooking. I think they like the ritual of it. It might almost be arcane, from a certain point of view. A specific (religious, even) set of instructions, ingredients and chemical changes. Strict instructions for a desired transformation.
And isn’t that what spells are, after all? Instructions you don’t understand, but hope will work any way. Arbitrary rules, which may or may not matter. Either it works or it doesn’t (or something in between) and we have no idea until it’s done with, and there’s nothing we can do.
Well now I’m just being theatrical.
That’s another part of our epicurean ritual—Arcady sitting down to ask me how it tastes. They sit across from me, hands folded on the table, and stare intently, waiting. I think they can guess when I lie—it’s good!—so I’ve started telling the truth. In the beginning they used far, far too much salt. I choked a little, on the first few meals. Asked for too many glasses of water.
(Part 2)
Across the table, Arcady is talking, recounting things they read this week. Things they learned and researched, thoughts they had. Ways they tried to make sense of the world. I’m eating slowly, savoring the taste. I don’t quite enjoy it, not yet, it’s not familiar enough. It occurs to me that Arcady has never repeated the same dish twice. I wonder how—why—Arcady knows how to cook. They’ve spent most of their life unable to eat, to taste. Perhaps if I’m lucky, they’ll share that story with me one day.
I focus on the spoon in my hand, on the voice across the table. It’s a bit of a treat for me, having them carry the conversation. More often they’re so… self-contained. In the early years of our friendship, I was the one keeping the conversation alive. Babbling even, nervous at being stared down by an unblinking gaze. Twisting in my seat.
And why not? You meet someone many centuries older than anyone has a right to be, you assume they’re going to have answers. You are eager for approval. You assume there is some grand truth they might conceivably share with you, if only you are good enough. If only you are worthy. So of course I was desperate to impress, terrified of disappointing.
Arcady needs more blood than just mine. (“At least a liter a day,” they admitted once, in a mumble.) Fresh, warm blood is preferable when possible, but Arcady keeps their main supply in the refrigerator. And an emergency supply in the freezer, but they look disgusted if I even mention it. I don’t know.
It’s a bit of an experience, opening a refrigerator to find rows of plastic water bottles filled with blood, but you get used to it. Still more hygienic than most people’s fridges. At least Arcady keeps it clean. I keep yogurt in there.
I sit on a kitchen barstool and spin clockwise while Arcady retrieves sterile supplies from a cabinet. They are always so careful in this. Disposable exam gloves, alcohol wipes, hypodermic needles and standard plastic tubing. Just like getting blood drawn anywhere else. Medical. I’m not sure what I expected. I asked about it once. Arcady just looked confused and asked, How else would I do it?
