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Gideon glanced over her shoulder towards the couch where a pile of blankets surrounded by white crumpled tufts of tissues made a sound like a dying donkey.
“Whassat?” she asked, turning back to the stove to oversee the frying of her dinner as it sputtered in the pan.
“Griddle,” Harrow’s voice accused from the pile of blankets, “is it your intent to force nausea upon me in addition to the tortures I must already endure?” She’d come down with a cold some days prior and her voice was low and full of sandpaper and misery.
“I’m just frying up my fish cakes,” Gideon explained, prodding a round little cake with her spatula. “We’re out of grocery money and I need to get my protein in. One can of salmon has like thirty grams of—”
“Spare me,” Harrow husked. “The smell is horrendous.”
“I’m surprised you can smell it at all through all that congestion you got going on,” Gideon said wryly.
“So putrid is the stench of that offal you are cooking that it penetrates the obstruction brought on by my affliction.” With that, she burrowed further under her nest of blankets.
Making sure her cakes were cooking well on their own, and could go unguarded for a moment, Gideon went about opening the kitchen and living room windows in their shared, shitty apartment.
“Poor little Harrowhark,” she said, her voice full of false lament. “So tortured, so abused. No respect or sympathy.”
“Save your platitudes,” muttered the pile of blankets. “Just let me die here in peace.”
As Gideon made her rounds, opening the windows so Harrow might survive the “stench of offal,” she noted that the cough syrup that she had brought home for her cantankerous roommate remained untouched. So did the sleeve of saltine crackers and bowl of chicken broth, now sitting cold on the coffee table.
She stepped back up to her frying pan, carefully flipping her fish cakes over for one last browning. “Harrow, you gotta eat and take your medicine.”
“No,” said the blankets, contracting on themselves with a fresh coughing fit. “It’s foul, and I lack any appetite.”
Setting her fish cakes to the side on a plate to cool, Gideon turned off the stove and turned around, hands on her hips, giving Harrow her full, annoyed attention.
“You’ll only be sicker. You gotta eat to get better.”
“I welcome death.”
“Come on, Harrow.” Gideon rounded the kitchen island and began to wade through the piles of used tissues that dotted the carpet. “At least take the cough syrup.”
“Cough syrup does not quicken one along the route to wellness.” Even as sick and muffled in blankets as she was, Harrow could still give a know-it-all lecture with the best of them. “It merely dulls one’s perception of the discomforts of the illness.”
“Well, then dull your perceptions so your body can rest, you stubborn little shit.” Gideon tore off the plastic seal on the bottle of syrup. Setting the little plastic dispensing cup on the table, she convinced the child safety lock to give way and poured the fluorescent green syrup into the little cup. The sharp chemical tang of it made her nostrils flare as she closed the bottle back up. Harrow wasn’t wrong to accuse the syrup of being nasty. It probably tasted worse than it smelled.
Sitting down on the couch next to the pile of blankets, Gideon gave the mound a prod. “Come on…”
The pile wiggled, then stilled. “No.” Another fit of wet-sounding coughs shook it violently before it shuddered into a deflated wad.
Gideon began digging through the layers of fleece. “Harrow, don’t be stubborn. Where—how many blankets do you have here?” She saw a tassel of dark, mussed hair, indicating where Harrow’s head was, at least, and crowed with victory. “Ah ha! Come on, now. Sit up. There you go.”
Harrow reluctantly allowed herself to be maneuvered upright and propped up against the corner of the couch. She looked as miserable as she sounded. Already a thin woman, she now resembled a stick even more than usual. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and her short, curled hair stuck her head with fever sweats. She squinted at Gideon in the light of the afternoon sun that filtered in through the windows, which was seemingly too bright for her to bear without scowling.
“There’s my sick little shadowy sovereign,” Gideon teased lightly, handing Harrow the little cup of green syrup. “Now. Down the hatch.”
Harrow frowned all the harder, turning her head from the cup in her hand.
“Harrow—”
“It’s probably poison.” Her voice was unmuffled now that she had been extricated from her blankets, but still hoarse and full of glass.
“I am simply ushering you along towards the death you welcome so fucking much,” Gideon grumped, though when she turned Harrow by the chin to face the medicine again, her touch was gentle. “Whether for death or comfort, please take the medicine. For me? Please?”
At Gideon’s pleading, Harrow made a face. But she sipped at the small cup nevertheless, taking the medicine in small desperate gulps, her brow furrowing further after each swallow. When she finished, she gasped for breath, tears welling in her fever-bright eyes. Then she gagged.
Gideon immediately clapped her palm over Harrow’s mouth, pinching her nose shut between her thumb and pointer finger. “Do not throw that up,” she ground out from behind her bared teeth. Harrow stared up at her with wide, surprised eyes. She clawed at Gideon’s immovable wrist, but she was a weak little twig and her struggles had no effect. Only when Gideon was sure the syrup had made its way fully into Harrow’s stomach, and no longer waited in her esophagus to be yakked up, did she pull her hand away from Harrow’s mouth.
Harrow took a few gasping breaths, her too-pale features still locked in a look of surprise, before she recovered herself and glowered at Gideon. “Brute.”
“Baby,” Gideon countered, taking the medicine cup to the kitchen to be washed. Her stride faltered a little, unsure whether her insult had had the sting she intended. Before she turned away, she had seen it soften the edges of Harrow’s scowl.
“I’mma make you something to eat,” she said hastily. Better not think about that one too hard. She washed the medicine cup and placed it in the dish rack to dry. “You’ve had nothing but broth and crackers for two days—” she peered over at the coffee table at the abandoned paltry meal— “and I don’t even know how much of that you’ve actually eaten.”
“Do not bother,” Harrow said, voice flat and defeated. She was still propped up in the corner of the couch, staring listlessly at the ceiling. “I hunger not.”
“You’re fucking weird,” replied Gideon, cleaning out her frying pan. “Don’t worry, I’ll make you some real bland protein. I promise you’ll feel better.”
“You live to torture me.” The accusation was weak.
“Yop.” Gideon was already pulling out the ingredients she’d need: canned chicken, breadcrumbs, and two eggs. She had made her fish cakes using similar ingredients but left out the scallions, salt, pepper, and mustard in favor of Harrow’s sad, limited palate.
While Harrow coughed feebly, wedged into her spot on the couch, Gideon drained the can of chicken and mixed it with two eggs and a handful of breadcrumbs. She set that bowl aside to firm up and helped herself to her own fish cakes, slathering each in hot sauce, like a normal person.
After she had eaten half of her cakes, Gideon returned to Harrow’s bowl of beige glop. She shaped portions of the glop into patties with her hands, pressing them into the breadcrumbs and setting them on a plate. After a moment of thought, she sprinkled each patty with several granules of salt. Despite Harrow’s overly sensitive palate, she would need salt to replenish what she had lost to the wads of tissue that surrounded the couch.
Turning the stove on low, and putting a conservative amount of oil in her frying pan, Gideon fried up the chicken patties to crisp them and hold them together. With so little oil, the patties only reluctantly took on a faint, pale gold.
When she had done the best she could, Gideon placed two patties on a plate alongside a disgusting dollop of mayonnaise. Ketchup or any other actual sauce, she knew, would be too “spicy” for Harrow. With a flourish, she placed the bland meal on the table for her pathetic, sickly roomie. “Here ya go. Eat them while they’re hot!”
Harrow jerked upright, seemingly returning to her body after having drifted away to another plane of existence. She squinted at the offensive plate of food with no small amount of suspicion.
“I don’t want your rancid fish bullshit, Griddle.”
Gideon sat on the other end of the couch from the offended pile of blankets and broke off a bit of the chicken cake, dipping it ever so lightly in the mayo. Fucking yuk. “It’s not fish. It’s chicken, your favorite. Now open your stupid mouth.”
Frowning all the harder at the morsel of food being held to her lips, Harrow hesitantly did as she was told, letting Gideon push the crumb of food into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, seemingly surprised at the palatability of the chicken cake. Her stomach grumbled audibly. At last she took the plate from Gideon, slouching into a pout, and Gideon did a quick internal victory dance. Bland as hell and twice as beige, just like she likes it!
“It’s too salty,” Harrow said, dipping one of the cakes into the mayo. “But not entirely offensive.” She nibbled on a corner, the food soft enough once chewed to not cause her further discomfort once swallowed. “It is acceptable.”
“Well, you’re welcome,” Gideon said, returning to the kitchen to wolf down her remaining portion of properly seasoned cakes. As an afterthought, she filled a mug with water from the tap and zapped it to tepidity in the microwave, placing on the table in front of Harrow.
“Your efforts are appreciated. I will need water after choking down this overly salty meal,” Harrow husked, reaching for the mug and sipping from it gratefully.
“There’s my cranky curmudgeon,” Gideon said, ignoring the touch of affection in her own voice as she tidied up in the kitchen. “Wrestling is on tonight, so if you’re going to convalesce on the couch, you’ll have to watch it with me.”
“Ugh!” Harrow honked. “You wish me nothing but misery. I hate you.”
Gideon couldn’t help but smile as she used a broom to corral the herd of tissues strewn about the couch into a pile she could shove into a wastebasket. “Hate you too. Eat your nuggets.”
Gideon’s Fish Cakes:
- 1 can salmon, drained
- 2 eggs
- 2 scallions or a bit of parsley, chopped
- 2 teaspoons mustard
- Lemon juice to taste
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of pepper
- ¾ cup breadcrumbs, divided
- Oil for frying
Mix together the salmon, eggs, chopped scallion or parsley, mustard, salt, pepper, and half the breadcrumbs into a mash. Let rest for ten to fifteen minutes to firm up. Form mash into patties using your hand and press each patty, front and back, in the remaining breadcrumbs. Fry in oil on both sides till golden brown and season with lemon juice if desired. Serve warm with preferred sauce.
Harrow’s Sad, Pathetic Chicken Cakes:
- 1 can chicken, drained
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup breadcrumbs, divided
- Minuscule amount of salt
- Oil for frying
- No seasonings or joy needed
Mix the drained chicken, eggs, and half the breadcrumbs into a bland glop. Set aside for 5 to 10 minutes to firm up. Shape sad glop into patties with your hands, then press each patty, front and back, in the remaining breadcrumbs. Fry each patty, front and back, in not-too-much oil and serve warm with no spirit, happiness, or flavor. One can use a mild “sauce” such as mayonnaise if one is disgusting and a sad fucking little stick of a person. They probably need the calories anyway. This is a good method to trick your sad stick of a person attempting to wither away on the couch into eating food with any substance.