Chapter Text
“And I am telling you: I survived fucking well until know,” Trevor protested weakly, while Adrian put the basket filled with vegetables on the table.
His boyfriend eyed him. “And here I was under the impression you spent much of the youth almost dying.”
“Because I was almost killed. Not because I starved.” Which was of course not the whole truth. There had been several winters in which Trevor had been quite close to starving. It had been one of the reasons he had later left the cities behind. At least in the countryside he had been able to hunt. No, he had never done much with the meat. But meat was meat. There was only so much you could do wrong hanging a hare over a fire.
“And you promised me you’d learn,” Adrian said.
“But…” Trevor looked at the vegetables. What did they even need so many fucking vegetables for? “I mean…” He sighed. “What is there to learn?”
“Well, do you know how to make a soup?”
“You put the meat into the water and cook it.” Trevor shrugged. He knew that much. “Easy.”
“That would be a broth,” Adrian said. “A soup is more complex.”
“By putting bloody vegetables in it?”
“For example.”
Once more Trevor grunted. He had already promised to learn cooking, but he was not going to do it without some protest. Especially, while the cooking did not involve enough meat or beer for his taste. “You should show me how to make beer.”
That earned him a chuckle. “We can talk about beer brewing at some later point.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow. “You know how to brew beer?”
“Of course, I do,” Adrian replied. “It is not that hard.”
One reason more they should fucking start with that! Now that would be a useful skill. Knowing how to brew beer himself. Yeah, Trevor decided he would like that. “So…”
“Later,” Adrian said, before Trevor could continue down this road. “For now, we are making soup.”
Trevor sighed. “Fine.” He still crossed his arms in front of his chest, while eyeing the ingredients. There was meat, sure. Two rather small chickens, which were mostly whole – apart from their missing heads. Though Trevor knew how to pluck a bloody bird. There was also a way to big amount of vegetables for his taste. Carrots, onions and turnips, as well as some garlic. Mostly carrots though. As well as some herbs, which truthfully Trevor could not even name. “So, I guess we start with preparing the stupid birds.”
“Very good, yes."”
“I know how to do that.”
“You do?”
“Look, mate, I've hunted quite a lot. Feathery birds don't taste well if the feathers are still attached.” He had tried. There was also the fact that the skin would not crisp up properly, if the feathers were still on the bird.
With a grunt he took one of the birds. Yes, admittedly he had gotten lazy living in a freaking castle – and having Adrian and rarely Sypha prepare the meals for him. He had eaten better in that last year and a half, than he had since he had lost his family. But cooking still sounded like a pain in the ass.
However, he did really know how to pluck a bird. While he was not as clean and methodical as Adrian doing the work – the feathers were quickly covering the entire kitchen floor – the bird's skin was clean in little time. Without even asking, he took one of his regular knives and cut a hole into the bird's ass. It was the quickest way to get the organs out.
“Keep those,” Adrian instructed, when the bloody entrails were on the cutting board.
“I would not have thrown them away.” Trevor looked at the guy irritated. At least the bird's stomach, heart, lung and liver where good roasted. The gut not so much. Whenever he had caught a bird in the wild, he would’ve made sure to eat the entire fucking thing. Everything else would be a waste.
“Good.” Adrian had finished the other bird as well.
“So, now we cook those things, right?” Stock or broth or whatever was the base of a soup. He knew that much.
“No, we are going to roast them first,” Adrian said. “It gives the soup a stronger taste.”
“Sounds like a pain to me,” Trevor muttered. But he would not protest – well, not too much at least.
“Well, it is something one can afford to do if one has the time. And we do have the time, don't we?”
It was only early afternoon and Sypha was still out teaching her mage students, so, yes, technically they did have the time. Trevor just would never get why anyone would invest that much time into cooking, if just hanging the meat over the fire for an hour or two would easily do. Sure, he did appreciate Adrian's cooking, it was just… a bit too sophisticated.
Other than Trevor Adrian used a knife, which apparently had been made for exactly this line of work, when he started to carve up the raw bird.
“Why are you doing that?” Trevor asked.
“Because the taste will be better, the more browning the bird gets. And it will get more browning, if you carve it up.”
“Those are a lot of bloody extra steps…”
“But worth it.”
Trevor grunted. He could carve up the bloody bird as well. That was all stuff he had done before. He could handle dead animals – with emphasis on dead. It seemed that living critters tended to dislike him, which in turn made him dislike them.
It might well me the vampiric strength – or maybe the bloody special knife – but the bird split apart quite easily for Adrian, while Trevor painfully carved the wings and thighs from the stupid dead creature. He managed, though. Again. It was stuff he had done before, even though he had mostly taught himself.
The stove was already burning. Admittedly, the thing still gave Trevor the creeps. In his youth he had spent two winters helping out at farms. He knew “normal” stoves made from brick and clay. This thing was made from metal and he was quite unclear how. Just another one of Dracula’s fucking inventions.
“You don’t put spices on the bird?” he asked, when Adrian put the meat into the oven.
“No. The spices will go into the soup later on. One could rub the bird with sugar, though.”
“Sugar?”
“It caramelizes in the oven and adds to the flavor.”
“You really like cooking too much.”
Another chuckle. “Yes. I do like to cook. I kept myself busy this way, while my parents were out traveling.”
There was that, Trevor guessed. Yeah, he knew. Adrian had been fully grown with 12 or something and while his mother had moved back to her village to treat sick people, fucking Dracula had gone out travelling the world. So, he guessed Adrian had to keep himself busy somehow. And there had, of course, been the time he and Sypha had left the poor guy behind as well.
“So, what now?” Trevor asked, once the birds were cooking.
“Now, we wait,” Adrian said. “And take care of that mess.”
Trevor was well aware he was sitting in a pile of feathers. “Don't rich people have kitchen boys to do that stuff for them?”
“Oh, my dear Belmont, you are my kitchen boy right now.”
Now it was Trevor’s turn to chuckle, before giving a scoff. “Oh, don’t you get too cocky, fucking bastard.”
“What if I do?”
Trevor grinned. “Oh, I could think of a thing or two.”
“I am sure you can.” Adrian went over to him to steal a single kiss. “Now up, my dear kitchen boy, clean up a bit.” He picked a single feather out of Trevor’s hair. “Yourself and the kitchen.”
Admittedly, it took Trevor longer than he had expected to get the feathers off the floor and into a basket. They would still be useful. The light feathers had been very resistant to being collected, however, as sweeping them just made them whirl through the entire kitchen.
By the time he was done, Adrian was already getting the meat out of the oven.
“If you ask me, we could simply eat that as it,” Trevor noted standing behind his boyfriend.
“Those were rather tiny chicken,” Adrian commented.
“Still good.” Stealing one of the wings off the tray, Trevor earned himself a playful slap on the wrist.
“You are impossible, you know that?”
“So you keep telling me.”
Adrian sighed and shook his head. He put the tray aside. “Make yourself useful and get me some water.”
This was definitely a point when Trevor was glad to live in a strange fucking magical castle - or technological or whatever. He knew what kind of a pain it usually was to get the water from a well. Here the water simply came out of a faucet in the wall. And yes, he had been explained how that worked. And no, he still did not quite get it.
This way the big pot was however easily filled with clear water and put onto the stove.
“Do we put the chicken in now or later?” Trevor asked.
“Now. It is better if it gets to slowly heat up with the water,” Adrian said. “That way it can more easily release…” He stopped. “Do you know why chicken soup is good for colds?”
Yeah, there was the other part. Both Adrian and Sypha knew way too much bullshit for Trevor’s taste and were all too excited to explain it to both each other and him. “I guess you will explain it to me.”
“Don’t be so sarcastic.”
“I am not.”
“You are.” Adrian patted his back, before putting the chicken into the liquid. “There are acids in the muscles of all creatures. It just turns out that the acid in the muscles of chicken loosens mucus.”
“Great.” Yes, admittedly he was a bit sarcastic.
“It also adds to the taste,” Adrian said.
“I guess so.” Trevor shrugged. “What do we do now? This is going to have to cook for a while, right?”
“It has to, yes,” Adrian agreed. “If you were an actual kitchen boy this would be a time you would get to busy yourself by washing dishes or running to the stables and getting some ingredients from there.”
“But as I am no actual kitchen boy…”
“I guess we can play cards for a while.”
Trevor laughed. “I am good with that.” He knew they would get to those dreaded vegetables soon enough.
While Adrian put some garlic into the stove to roast for a while, they got out a game of cards. It was a good a way as any to pass the time while the soup – or stock – cooked. The smell of both it and the garlic quickly started to fill the kitchen.
“Was it your mother who originally taught you cooking?” Trevor asked, after losing another round of cards.
“Both my parents, actually.” Adrian shuffled the card game again. “And I taught myself quite a lot.”
“How?”
“There are books, you know? Well, and scrolls. A lot of scrolls.” Adrian sighed. “But people write their recipes down.”
“Normal people don't.”
“Some do.”
Trevor doubted it. Whenever he had helped out as a farm hand most recipes were relayed in the kitchen from mother to daughter or something. Heck, not everyone knew how to read – and even less people knew how to write. “And you took to it, eh?”
“I did, yes. It is fun. And it beats eating stale bread.”
“I can't argue with that.” Trevor grinned, while picking up his hand. “Your cooking is good.”
“I know.”
“Of course you fucking do.”
“But you can learn this as well. It is really not that hard.”
“Says you.”
Adrian grinned at him. “Says I.”
Their game continued for a while, as the stock bubbles along in the pot. Adrian got the garlic out of the oven after a while, putting it into the pot as well. It made the smell even more intense.
It was around that time, that Sypha entered the kitchen. There was a quite noticeable little hole in the robe on her shoulder. With a long and tired sigh she sat down at the table. She was holding Marie in her arms. “Those kids will set the village ablaze some day!”
“What did they set ablaze today?” Trevor humored her.
“A bush. And almost me.” She sighed once again. Squinting at the stove she asked: “How is dinner coming along?”
“I am afraid it will be another two hours or so,” Adrian replied.
“I was afraid of something like that.” She leaned back on her chair. “Make it go faster.”
“You know as well as I do, that I can't do that.”
“I know…” She closed her eyes.
With a slight smile Trevor went over to her to press a short kiss onto her head, before stroking through her hair. “Are those kids that bad?”
“They are… enthusiastic.” She leaned against him, with Marie making some quiet noises.
“You could lie down for a while,” Adrian offered.
Sypha looked at him and paused. “Nah. I am good. But I think I'll go read.” There was a hint of amusement, while she looked up at Trevor. “I gather you have all the help you need.”
Once again Adrian was chuckling. “Yes. I think I do.”
With a grunt she got up, rolled her shoulders for a moment. “You know where you can find me.”
“The sitting room?” Trevor asked – as the library was as likely.
“Yes.” With a tired smile she turned around and left.
Looking after her Trevor shook his head. “She is going to fall asleep.”
“Yeah, she probably is.” Adrian stepped behind him. “But before you fall asleep, you might as well start peeling the carrots for me.”
“Of fucking course.” Trevor muttered. He was already getting out one of his normal knifes, when Adrian put a smaller and simpler knife in front of him. “Trust me.”
Doubtfully Trevor picked up the other knife. Yes, he had seen other people use knifes like this in the kitchen. He just did not get what was wrong with his own bloody knife. He also did not quite get, why the carrots needed peeling. They were as good eaten whole – as he could well attest to. He was not going to argue however and just started the work given to him, peeling the first of the rather large carrots.
Adrian sat down at the table as well watching him for a moment. “You are using too much force again.”
Trevor rolled his eyes. “What’s that supposed to fucking mean?”
“You take off more than the peel,” Adrian said. He had a knife of his own and yes, Trevor had to admit that the peel he got from the carrots was much thinner than the chunks Trevor liberated from the vegetables.
He still thought peeling those things was bloody stupid though. “Well, you do it then.”
“No, you'll learn,” Adrian replied. “You just need some patience and delicacy.”
“Delicacy, eh?”
“Yes. I know that does not come easily to you.”
“Oh, I can be delicate.” Not with this, though. Grunting he tried to mimic Adrian’s quick motions only to accidently cut the fucking carrot in half. Why did he get himself talked into this? He had been fine grilling meat over an open fire. This was way too much work for a simple soup!
“You do not need to be quick,” Adrian commented. “Be careful for now. The speed will come, once you’ve learned the basics.”
Sullenly Trevor watched the guy for just a moment. Adrian did not even have to look at what his fingers were doing. They were easily getting the thin outer layer of the carrots of them. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Well, for once because carrots grow underground and are fertilized with shit. But also: The taste of the soup will be better if we take the peel of first.”
“If you say so.”
Heck, Trevor could’ve made a soup on his own. He would’ve just put the meat and some roughly chopped vegetables into a pot and that would do it. Maybe some salt, now that he had access to it. This seemed just way too much work for something as simple as a soup.
Yes. Sure. Again. The soups Adrian had cooked for them this far had been better then whatever Trevor had tried to make for himself under a fucking tree in the forest. And yet… How did the bastard even have the patient for this kind of stuff?
In the end Trevor managed to peel four carrots, while Adrian did take care of the other ten.
“You can peel the tulips, too,” the dhampir said. “You need practice.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“See if the stock is ready.” With that Adrian got up to turn towards the stove, while Trevor just sighed and did as he was told – trying to not cut the tulips in two by accident. From time to time he watched Adrian, as he now got the chicken parts out of the soup, putting them onto a carving board. Same went for the two heads of garlic.
A thought crossed Trevor’s mind and made him laugh. Yes, he knew that the entire thing about vampires and garlics was nothing more than superstition, yet…
One eyebrow raised Adrian turned to him. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“I doubt that.”
“It's nothing, really.” He inhaled deeply to stifle his laugh. This really was no topic that needed discussion. Instead, he motioned at the peeled turnips. “What shall I do next?”
“Peel and slice the onions,” Adrian instructed.
“Isn’t it enough to roughly chop the onions?” Not to say to quarter them and be done with it.
Adrian sighed. “Yes, that would be fine as well. But you will learn how to slice onions sooner or later.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Darn.” Yet Trevor laughed. He had at least peeled an onion before and chopped it roughly. So, this was not entirely new. His cutting was maybe not pretty but it did the job. After all he knew one thing: Onions were mostly about adding flavor to a soup or any other food. Though they could be tasty enough on their own.
He watched as Adrian added the roughly chopped vegetables to the soup. “And I guess chopping the carrots and turnips comes next?”
“You guess right.” Adrian went over to him. “And slicing. We are slicing the carrots and turnips.”
“Fine.” Trevor was, however, not to guarantee equal width of those slices. It was not really as if the slicing of those vegetables was especially hard work – it was just that it was a pain in the ass. But, well, it did seem that this entire practice was making Adrian happy, so Trevor held back further complaints. He did even try his best with those slices. After all he had eaten the soup Adrian cooked before and knew about the right width he would slice them in. Trevor did not manage to stay consistent though. Bringing the vegetables over to the stove he asked: “What do I do next?”
“You can pull the meat from the bone,” Adrian said, handing him the carving board. “And, if you would be so kind, crush the garlic to a paste.”
With some irritation Trevor remembered that they did indeed have several pestles for the kitchen. Something he had, indeed, never used in his life before. “I…” He looked at the soup, which seemed already pretty edible to him. “I’ll do my best.”
This earned him a smile, which made him actually confident about not having given a witty remark this time.
Yeah, well, teaching him really seemed to make the old bastard happy. This entire way to complicated fucking process did seem to make him happy. Trevor would not get it, but yeah, maybe he should humor him. “You have to tell me where the pestles are, though?”
Without much hesitation Adrian produced a medium sized pestle from one of the cupboards, putting it on the kitchen table. “No more complaints?”
“For now,” Trevor just said.
At least pulling the meat from the bones was something, he had done before. It was an easy and oddly satisfying job to do. And he did snack on some of the meat – after all this entire process did make him rather hungry.
“Don't eat too much,” Adrian chided.
“Yes. Sure.” It did not stop Trevor from snacking again, though he tried to not eat too much. After all Sypha was indeed hungry – and she deserved to properly eat, too. After all chicken parts were divided into meat, bone and skin, Trevor put the cloves of garlic into the pestle – not sure what would happen with the resulting paste. “What do we do with the chicken skin?”
“We can roast it, remember?”
He did remember. It would make for a nice snack later on. Left in the oven for a while it would crisp up again. Maybe with some spices, too.
The garlic was oddly restive against being crushed in the pestle. Having cooked in the soup for a while, it was slippery and tried to evade him, though it was soft, too. Once he had gotten a clove between mortar and pestle it was easily crushed into a soft and surprisingly dark paste.
“See, it is not that hard,” Adrian said, watching him.
“And I still don't know what this is for,” Trevor replied.
“For taste.” Adrian shrugged. “Just as the herbs.”
“Do I need to cut those, too?” Trevor gave the herbs that still remained in the basket a wary look.
“No. We put those in, whole and get them out before serving.”
“Thank God.”
“Oh, come on, it is not that hard. Cooking is not that hard.”
“It is a nuisance though.” Trevor sighed, before managing a smile. “But I will learn. Okay? I promise. And while we are on it: How much salt do you put into a soup?” Salt, after all, had been a luxury he never had been able to afford.
His smile was returned. “Put in the meat,” Adrian said, before turning to get the salt from the pantry. “And you put in salt to taste. Same goes for pepper. Though I prefer to cook some whole pepper corns in the soup.”
Yes, Trevor had noticed that much. Well, for now he could be thankful for that. Otherwise, he might have had to contest with another round of pestling. As instructed, he put the meat into the soup, which smelled even better up close. Gosh, he was really getting hungry by now.
“How long until it will be ready?”
“Another hour, I would say. The vegetables should properly cook through. And the spices need their time as well.”
“That’s fucking forever.”
“You will manage,” Adrian reassured him. Ladling some soup into the mortar, he mixed the liquid with the crushed garlic, before pouring everything back into the pot. “Do you want to put in the salt?”
Trevor eyed the wooden pot of salt. “I can try. But I will not guarantee for anything.”
“You’ll just need to stir and let it dissolve before tasting.”
“I could've guessed that much.” Salt was a strange ingredient. It managed to make almost anything taste better, though he did not quite get how. He knew it made things not spoil for some reason. But once again he did not know how. Something else he did not know: What was an adequate amount of salt for a bloody large pot of soup? A handful? More? Less? He took some of the raw salt and put it into the liquid, overdoing it with the stirring a bit. He suspected Adrian would tell him, if he tried to put too much salt in. When he took a bit of the soup in the ladle to taste, he could almost feel his partner's gaze on him.
“How is it?” Adrian asked.
What a stupid question. “Good. I guess.”
“And the salt?”
Well, yeah. How was the salt? Trevor did not really know. He knew what this soup was supposed to taste like, but it was hard to tell whether it was the salt missing or the cooking time. “I… I guess it could use some more salt.” In a silent request he offered Adrian the ladle, making him taste as well.
“Yes. A bit more salt. And then some time cooking with the herbs and vegetables inside.”
Trevor shrugged, but added some more salt. It still felt weird to him. Cooking. Well, no, not cooking itself, but the act of doing so to actually enjoy the meal. Until quite recently eating had been something Trevor did to sustain himself, not much more. Sure, there had been times that for one reason or another he had gotten his hands onto a good meal – but most of the time the beer was for enjoyment and the food for sustenance. “This is like some bloody science,” he muttered upon tasting again.
“It kinda is,” Adrian agreed. “There is a lot of chemistry going on, you know?”
Trevor sighed. Of course, there was. And of course, Adrian – and maybe Sypha – knew all about it.
Being able to read him all too well, Adrian put an arm around his shoulders. “I won’t bother you with it right now. Though understanding it helps you cooking, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that.” Trevor managed a smile. “It’s just… a lot.”
“You will get used to it.”
“I won't guarantee that.”
“Oh, I will.” Adrian turned around to put the sprigs into the soup.
Watching that Trevor frowned. “That’s rosemary and… what?”
“Thyme. I will later put some fresh parsley onto the soup as well.”
“You are putting more fucking work into this as most people.” Trevor shook his head but kept smiling. “But I guess everyone needs a hobby.”
“And what’s your hobby?”
Trevor shrugged. “Beating things up, I guess?”
“Well, maybe it’s about time you learn something constructive then.” Adrian pecked him on the cheek.
With another tiny sigh Trevor turned his head to kiss him properly. “I guess I do.”