We Come Out At Night [Cecelia]

[grey xavier slater]

@cecelia

The waiting period between graduation and auror training had passed. It had been significantly longer than he had anticipated, courtesy of the very people he was trying to stop by becoming an auror. If there was ever the time to confirm his resolutions, it was now. The next morning, training began. He wasn’t sure if he was mentally prepared for it, but it was now or never. The only hitch that had presented itself with the first day, was that he had to be at the training facility early. Like really early. Sleeping issues aside, getting there from his family’s house at such an odd hour was going to be almost impossible. They had warned about apparating close to the premises, stating that spells were set up to prevent that. Security had tightened over the last few weeks. Instead, all of the trainees were required to take muggle transportation. Grey had never cared for taking a taxi or the Tube unless absolutely necessary, but it was starting to look like this was one of those times where he had to. He had briefly mentioned it the last time he had been with Cecelia, stating that it was looking like he was going to have to sleep on the floor at Claire’s apartment, which also meant being bugged incessantly by Addi as well because she was staying there for some reason.

Staying with Cecelia had never crossed his mind. Here he was though, standing outside the Ripam De Sanguinem – the blood bank, waiting for her to do what she needed to do. Less than a month ago, he never would have anticipated that he would be waiting outside of a place that distributed blood to vampires because his girlfriend had become one. Life had hit fast and hard. It wasn’t all about school and the problems that happened there anymore. To counter it all, he had decided that things were going to stay as normal as possible in his personal life, vampire girlfriend aside. In his hands he had a couple plastic bags full of different kinds of take-out food. Honestly, he had gone a little overboard, but it was for a good cause. Cecelia had completely blown his mind when she mentioned that she had never ordered delivery from a muggle restaurant before. There was something special about eating cheap, relatively decent food out of plastic containers with equally flimsy utensils. It had been rare at home while growing up too, but he couldn’t resist letting her go any longer without at least experiencing a piece of it.

So there he was, leaning up against a wall directly across from a blood bank in the middle of Horizon Alley, watching vampires walk to and fro, while he waited for her to come out. She didn’t know about the amount of food he had decided to buy, only aware of the fact that he was going to ‘meet her there, and have dinner with him’. His exact words. This was something closer to a feast, and there would probably be leftovers for days. Nothing was better than the guilty pleasure of take-out leftovers.

[Deleted]

Adjusting to becoming a vampire had not been without its roadblocks, but Cecelia was pleased to say that she was about as adjusted as she was going to get. She had developed a schedule that allowed her to get her blood without going out in the sunlight but also allowed her to maximize her time with Grey while she had it. Her boyfriend was going to be starting his training to become an Auror the next day, but Cecelia was still struggling with accepting that. She didn’t want Grey to get hurt. She knew that Aurors were extremely well trained and had been through dozens of practice exercises before they were allowed out in the field, but she also knew that sometimes things went wrong that no training could prepare them for. She had spent the majority of the day fretting over it, even when she was at the blood bank. Unluckily for her, there was no one else she was familiar with at the bank, so she had nothing to distract her crowded mind.

She and Grey were having dinner together, so when Cecelia was finished with her business at the blood bank, she exited and began looking for her boyfriend. Grey wasn’t difficult to find, mostly because he was directly across the alley from the blood bank, leaning against the wall like he was a fixture there and wasn’t waiting for someone. She raised an eyebrow at the bags and bags of food that were in his arms. Grey had been baffled when Cecelia had mentioned that she had never eaten takeout before, but she hadn’t been expecting for their dinner to be takeout – or for there to be so much of it. Cecelia approached Grey, skeptical look still on her face as she surveyed the food. “Did you buy half the city?” She teased. “I hope you’re not expecting us to eat all of this.” She said. Being a vampire hadn’t changed the size of her stomach, and eating that much food would be all but impossible.

grey xavier slater

[grey xavier slater]

@cecelia

It didn’t take long before he spotted Cecelia exiting from the blood bank, pulling himself off the wall as she crossed over to him. He could tell she was looking at all of the bags before she even said anything about them. Like he had anticipated, it was definitely overkill. Oh well. It left more for the next day. And the day after that. So on, and so forth. Lifting up the bags to observe them as his girlfriend teased him about how many he had, he put a quizzical look on his face. “Half the city? This is only half a block,” he chuckled. “You misunderstand the power of take-out Cece. We’ll go street by street from now on. Probably finish sometime five years from now.” Grey shook his head as she said she hoped they wouldn’t be eating it all. “Not tonight. That would be impossible. I’m not that much of a masochist.” He omitted the part where he always found it easier to overeat take-out because it was such a treat. And tasted so good. That was for her to find out once they got to her apartment.

“You’re all set then? At the bank?” he made sure to ask, looking over her shoulder at the building one last time. Last thing he wanted her to do was have to come back later in the night. Obviously it was in her nature to roam in the dark, both through her job and as a vampire, but he hated having to leave the house to get something after calling it a night. Sticking his elbow out for a shared disapparation in case she was all set, Grey tightened his grip on the bags of food. Last thing he needed was everything to spill all over while traveling through the ether.

[Deleted]

Cecelia was sure that she looked absolutely comical when Grey said that the food he had gotten had all been from the same half-block in the city. She hoped that was hyperbole, because she honestly couldn’t imagine that many takeout places being in such a small radius. Maybe that was just her ignorance to takeout speaking, though, because Grey seemed to consider his statement normal… and then went on to say that it definitely was her misunderstanding of takeout that led to her incredulity. He said that they could do a takeout tour, street by street, and Cecelia was about to voice her assent when Grey said it would take five years. “I don’t think eating takeout for five years straight is very healthy.” She informed him. Weren’t Aurors supposed to be on a strict diet so they could complete their training without passing out from exhaustion? “And there would be more new places when we finished…” Cecelia shuddered. She didn’t want to be in takeout purgatory for the rest of her life! She nodded when Grey said that they weren’t going to eat all of the takeout in one night. That was a relief – and it also meant that she didn’t have to think about what she was going to eat for her lunch for the next day.

Cecelia nodded when Grey asked if she was done at the bank. “They were surprisingly quick today.” She commented, deciding that that would be the most appropriate response, rather than going into the details of her time at the blood bank since they were about to eat, and gore was not the most appetizing way to begin dinner. Grey extended his elbow to her, and Cecelia grabbed on tightly, Apparating the pair back to her apartment so they could enjoy their night in together.

grey xavier slater

[grey xavier slater]

@cecelia

“Okay, maybe not five years. Three sound more reasonable?” he continued to joke. He actually had no idea how many restaurants did delivery in London, but if he somehow managed to hit all of them (assuming it was possible to do so in the first place) at the end of a designated time period, that would be pretty damn impressive in his opinion. As for his health, he wasn’t all that concerned about it. Being an auror had its own built in perks of constant training and exercise, so there was no way he would have too many negative health problems. Someone was also quick to forget all of the food that the house elves practically forced upon them in the Great Hall. Now that was definitely concerning. The argument could be made that they used magic in the kitchens to make all of the food given to students benefit their overall growth and health, but Grey had also seen kids shove dozens of cookies and pastries into their mouths every morning during breakfast. It didn’t matter at that point how nutritious the food was – overeating would always cause problems in the end. “Fine, point made,” Grey relented, still grinning at her. “But this isn’t going to be a one off thing. You’ll understand why.”

Quick and efficiency was what normal banks ran on, so he had assumed that the blood bank was the same why despite being used to feed throngs of hungry vampires. If anything, the blood bank had to be even more on top of their game because of what it was used for. The last thing they needed was for those aforementioned vampires to get really hungry, because then there could be problems. Grey didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought of what would happen at that point, seeing as Cecelia took hold of him and subsequently apparated them back to her apartment. Going from normal apparition to side-along was slightly jarring, mostly because he felt like he was being dragged along instead of sending himself through the void. Sucking in a large breath as his feet felt the ground again, he let it back out with a whole body shiver. “I’ll never get used to that.”

[Deleted]

Cecelia had intended to glare at Grey when he joked about three years of takeout being more manageable than give, but she realized that with her new eyes, the glare might have been scarier than she intended it to be. Somehow red eyes could make everything scarier, even when the intention was to be teasing or… whatever else. Cecelia was slightly mystified that a vampire’s seduction powers could work when their eyes were just so damn creepy. Grey finally relented that they wouldn’t eat takeout every day, and Cecelia flashed him a quick smile. She was still trying to figure out how to smile without it also looking creepy thanks to the fangs. Why did being a vampire make everything seem sinister when she was just trying to have a lighthearted conversation with her boyfriend? Stupid vampirism. Grey said that she’d understand why they weren’t going to eat takeout just once, and Cece shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it.” She replied. She had a feeling that she’d end up agreeing with Grey – he was rarely wrong when it came to matters of taste. Except his taste in girlfriends – Cecelia still wasn’t sure how he had ended up with the one that he had, but she was thankful nonetheless.

When they arrived at the apartment, Grey said that he’d never get used to Side-Along Apparition, and Cecelia gave him a sympathetic glance. “I’m sure you could, if you did it enough.” It didn’t make much sense to do Side-Along if you could Apparate yourself, though, unless you were only travelling with one other person. “Do I need to get plates?” Cecelia asked Grey. She wasn’t entirely sure how this whole takeout thing worked, but she also didn’t want to do more dishes than she absolutely needed to.

grey xavier slater

[grey xavier slater]

@cecelia

Grey wasn’t sure what he was more intimidated by: the looks she was giving him before he finally relented about the amount of take-out they would be eating, or the smile she flashed after he gave in. He knew there was nothing to worry about, but getting used to her new appearance was taking a little longer than he thought it would. Comparing what was different from before happened on a daily basis, and he knew he shouldn’t be doing that. She was still Cecelia – he had said so himself when he visited her in the hospital. Most of the time his staring at her was in wonderment that she was able to so quickly adapt to everything, or at least pretend like she had. This was going to be how things were from now on, so getting used to it sooner rather than later was on his agenda and he was sure it was for her as well. She said she would take his word for it, and he flashed a grin at her before they disapparated.

Another shiver went through his body as Cecelia rationalized that he could get used to it with practice. He wasn’t so sure that was possible, but trusted that she was right about it in some capacity. Practice made perfect, or so they said. That collective kind of thinking had never exactly been his cup of tea, something that had been exemplified with his newspaper. Now it was kind of ironic that he was putting himself through the indoctrination of the Auror training program, because that was basically the same model of thought that he wanted to avoid. “Maybe,” he responded after a few seconds to her first thought on getting used to the apparation. As for plates for the food, that was a damn good question. “Up to you. We have enough here where it might be easier to set everything out and put as little or as much as you want on a plate,” he said. “Or we just go crazy and eat right out of the containers.” On his own he would do that, mostly because it meant he wouldn’t have to clean a plate after he was done eating. It wasn’t like a plate or two would take forever to wash, but the fact remained that he was too lazy to do that most of the time. Especially after putting himself in a food coma, which was more than likely going to happen tonight.

[Deleted]

Grey said that he would maybe get used to the Apparition, and Cecelia shrugged. He didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t need to be convinced, either. They could both Apparate under their own power, so it wasn’t like anything was stopping them from not using Side-Along except for wanting to be together. Cecelia thought that wanting to be together was a pretty compelling reason, though, even if it was just for the brief period it took to get from the alley to her apartment. This was their last hurrah, after all – their last chance to see each other before life exploded into craziness.

It probably spoke to how novel the idea of takeout was to Cecelia that even the decision about whether or not to use plates was overwhelming to her. Getting to sample a little bit of everything sounded nice, but they weren’t exactly prevented from doing that if they ate straight out of the containers. Some would argue it wasn’t hygienic, but Cecelia and Grey were the only ones who were going to be eating out of them, and they shared saliva anyways. Cecelia shuddered – that was probably the least romantic way to think of kissing someone. Cecelia eventually looked at her boyfriend, a little bit of panic on her face. “You decide what we do.” She half-pleaded, half-commanded. She was even more out of her element than she thought. Hell, Cece wouldn’t have been surprised if eventually she had to cave and ask Grey exactly what she was supposed to eat. Obviously he enjoyed all of the food if he had purchased it, but there was always a hierarchy with those sorts of things, and Cecelia didn’t accidentally want to fill up on the food that wasn’t as good because she didn’t know any better. “I can’t believe this is happening.” Cecelia muttered, more to herself than to Grey. She wasn’t talking about the takeout specifically – more her reaction to it. She could handle being turned into a vampire, but the thought of a takeout buffet was what finally did her in!

grey xavier slater

[grey xavier slater]

@cecelia

Grey chuckled as she told him to decide what to do. Looking over all the food once again, he could see how it was a little overwhelming, especially for someone that had never had takeout before. Laying all the food out was even impressive for him too, his family only typically getting a few entrees that they shared. This was something else altogether, and he had definitely looked like a crazy person carrying it all around Diagon Alley earlier. He almost turned the decision back on her, because he didn’t even know where to begin with the food. If they decided to pick and choose, it was infinitely easier to do so by putting what they wanted on a plate. That also saved the mess that would come from stabbing food out of the plastic containers. He certainly didn’t want to have orange chicken sauce all over the place. “Since there’s so much, I think plates will work best,” Grey decided for them, laughing once again as Cecelia seemed baffled that this was still going to happen. It was just takeout, and they were making a big show of the whole thing. The best part was that he had come to accept that there were a lot of things she had never experienced because of her upbringing. That meant he had to show her, and she would hopefully in turn give him a glimpse of the privileged life. As long as it wasn’t all glamorous parties and balls. He could do without that sort of stuffiness. The Yule Ball was one too many for him. “I’ll start popping the lids off of these things if you want to grab the plates,” Grey instructed, moving around the table where he efficiently started to unload them from their plastic bags and peel off their plastic tops, each one releasing a combination of steam and smell into the air. This was either going to be the best dinner ever, or leave him struggling to get up the next morning. Most likely the latter of the two.