A flash of fire leaped from the pan Mad had just put on the heat and splashed a little oil into. It was very dramatic. For a second, Will felt like he was in one of those fancy restaurants where the chef turns the meal into a performance. He’d been eating processed prison food for year. Most days his meals were comprised of boiled noodles and traded flavors. Occasionally he’d brave the cafeteria for whatever they considered to be protein and vegetables, but the food was rarely fresh enough to eat and usually coated in grease.
He had the feeling that Maddox would never serve anything but the best. Coming to terms with the man being a creature was hard. As he worked with food, he looked more human than ever. Just a man, a fancy man — who could fucking kill you with his teeth.
He barely paid attention to the preparations being made. The food, hungry as he was, was irrelevant compared to Maddox himself. Will had learned to get to know his enemy. You had to know someone’s weaknesses. In prison, that was who they had a beef with, any previous injuries, issues with guards, outside influence. In here, it was the physical being of the creature himself.
From Maddox’s fingers to his shoulders, his chest, his torso… this was a man elegantly constructed by nature. At first, Will had thought him too lanky to be strong. In his experience, men built like tanks were the most dangerous. But as a vampire, yes. Fucking vampire, Maddox had more strength than Will could imagine.
In rapid restaurant-quick time, Will’s meal was plated and presented to him.
“What is it?”
“ Pan-seared Alaskan salmon and lemon rice with braised asparagus.”
“Wow,” Will said, picking up the proffered fork. It was heavy in his hand, a mark of quality. This was the first time he had eaten anything without a plastic utensil in longer than he could remember. He was all too accustomed to yellowed tines breaking off in suspicious meat masquerades. This was an altogether different experience.
He went for the fish first, then scooped up what rice he could onto the same fork, following it with a hastily stabbed asparagus head. The entire load was delivered to his waiting maw with eagerness. He was fucking hungry.
It was harder to swallow than he expected. It wasn't that it didn’t taste good. It was more that it didn’t compute. It tasted like food he should not be allowed to eat. This was food they served to rich people in expensive restaurants. It was not food that creatures like Will ate. It all tasted so rich and so fresh and so overwhelmingly complex in terms of flavor and texture he found himself nibbling at it rather than wolfing it.
“Is there something wrong with it? Not to your taste?” Maddox’s disappointment was palpable.
“No. It’s really good. It’s too good. I’m used to prison food. You don’t have any toaster tarts, do you?”
“Toaster. Tarts.” Maddox repeated the words as if they were the crudest of curses. An expression of deep offense crossed his features.
“Yeah. It’s like a pastry with a filling. You can put it in the toaster and it comes out hot, and you put like, sweet topping on it…”
The more Will explained, the more disgusted Maddox’s expression became.
“I give you freshly caught Alaskan salmon, and you ask for toaster tarts.”
“Yeah. Can I, uh, get some?”
A shudder went through Maddox, a visible horror. “Toaster tarts. Anything else?”
“Well. Yeah. Snacks?”
“Snacks.”
“You know. Like. Snacks. Snacks!”
“I know,” Maddox sighed. “Your palate needs educating — along with the rest of you.”
Will got the feeling he should apologize, but he never said sorry without being forced to. Sorry felt like submission and weakness, two things he did not entertain unless he was forced to.
“You can take the man out of prison, but I guess it’s harder to get the prison out of the man,” he said instead.
“Perhaps,” Maddox allowed. “You should finish your food and get some sleep.”
There it was, an order which did not pretend not to be one. Eat your dinner.
Will picked up his fork and tried to eat. Besides the order, there was a good reason to consume food. He needed his strength. Whatever Maddox had drained from him would need to be replaced. He felt a little shudder run through him at the memory, something horrified and turned on at the same time. He had been fed from, the same way he was now feeding from the flesh of other creatures.
“Is it weird?”
“Is what weird?” Maddox returned the question indulgently. Will should have known he’d be pedantic.
“Being a vampire.”
“I suppose it is. Most things are strange if you are not used to them,” Mad replied philosophically.
“A vampire,” Will repeated, more to himself than anybody else. “Fucking vampire.”
“In your case, yes,” Maddox smirked. “A fucking vampire.”