Title: Family Meals
Author: stolendreams
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Being Human and all it's characters belong to the BBC.
Pairing/Characters: Mitchell, Annie, George
Summary: Mitchell enjoys food just as much as any human. Unfortunately he's never learnt to cook it himself. Set in early S1.
Author's Note: Written for misura who won a fic written by me in the help_haiti auction. Also for Java Genie whose Yuletide prompt misura requested that I fill. Thanks to Joulez217 and londonplease for the beta reading. All remaining mistakes are my own.
The list of misconceptions about vampires could easily fill a book, several books probably. Every now and then a new book comes out, a new TV show, a new movie and the old misconceptions get firmly planted into the general publics' minds once more. Inevitably some new and bizarre ideas get added into the mix. Breaking the reality of the supernatural to people is never easy, but once they've accepted it, the worst thing for Mitchell is always patiently correcting all those misconceptions.
George was fairly easy in that respect. Being a werewolf had given him some insight into the fact that the movies were not always right. The whole sunlight thing was still a surprise to him. He actually squawked with shock when he first saw Mitchell wandering around in broad daylight, but he didn't have to be convinced that Mitchell didn't sleep in a coffin so that, at least, was a relief.
The one thing that seemed to really surprise George though was food. That was the problem with the 'Buffy generation', as Mitchell had taken to calling them. They could accept the lack of a coffin to sleep in but the idea of a vampire eating and enjoying food seemed to baffle them completely. They were firmly of the opinion that a vampire giving up human blood would need to rely on pig's blood. The truth is blood is more of a drug than a real life sustaining type food. It's addictive, and while it does make a vampire feel full it isn't needed. Eating a meal will do the same thing, just without the thrill that blood gives. Pig's blood doesn't do either and it certainly doesn't taste as nice.
Mitchell loves food, always did, probably always would. Even when he was still drinking blood he'd enjoyed good meals at expensive restaurants. Usually ones where he didn't have to pay the bill because he'd killed the staff after eating. Before George he never really had a reason to learn how to cook though. Before there were plenty of houses, plenty of people around, but there was never a home, never a family. Then there was George and a house that rapidly became a home. Then there was Annie, and before he knew it there was a family.
Annie makes tea and coffee nonstop and nobody else in the house ever needs to go near the kettle. The electricity bill gives George a small panic attack but Mitchell soon talks him down. At first George cooks for the two of them. Sometimes Annie will have an urge to cook and she'll usually make enough food to feed a small army in her enthusiasm. Occasionally, Annie will join them for meals. She doesn't eat, but she seems to enjoy the idea of sitting down for a meal together. Mitchell suspects George enjoys it too, however much he complains about being watched while he's eating. The problem is Mitchell doesn't really have any practical role in this new little family. He does his best to guide Annie and George through the minefield of their new conditions. Both of them are relatively new at this and there are so many things they still have to learn, but that is hardly the same as providing meals.
It's around the full moon that he always begins to feel guilty. George has enough to worry about without having to feed both himself and Mitchell. The decision to cook a meal isn't something he plans in advance, he just walks into the kitchen one day and decides to do it. He's been around long enough after all, he's watched people cook plenty of times and even used to do a little himself back in the day. It'll be a nice surprise for George and give him a break.
Personally he felt it was going rather well. Okay so it wasn't quite as neat and tidy as George's cooking normally is, but then that's George for you. It might even have been a little messier than Annie's cooking, but then she's had more practice. Then he turns his back for what feels like only a moment and the next thing he knows there's smoke everywhere. The high-pitched wail of the smoke alarm is deafening him and Annie has appeared from nowhere and is panicking that he's burning the house down.
"What the hell are you doing?" Annie demands, when they've finally got everything under control and the fire alarm has stopped. "Are you trying to destroy my house?"
"Your house? Who pays the rent around here?" Mitchell knows the question of who owns the house is hardly the most important part of her question but it seems easier than trying to explain the cooking disaster.
"Well excuse me if it's hard to get a job when you're dead," she shoots back, hands on her hips. "I was here first you know! Now why is our house suddenly full of smoke?"
"I was cooking dinner. It was supposed to be a surprise for George," he explains, shrugging and avoiding her eye. He was expecting her to shout more. Instead she looks around the kitchen, and then looks back at him and without warning collapses into giggles. "What?" he exclaims, annoyed.
"This..." she struggles to speak around her giggles. "This is definitely going to be a surprise!"
Mitchell takes a proper look around the kitchen and can't help but admit that she might have a point. Every single available surface is covered with mess. There are pots and pans all over the place, he's spilt or dropped things on the floor and, of course, the smoke is still hanging in the air. It's a good thing neither he nor Annie really need the oxygen.
"Oh God, he's going to freak out," Mitchell groans. "We've got to get it tidied up before he comes home."
"We?" Annie questions, eyebrow raised. "Why we?"
"Because if George comes home and sees this he's going to blame you as well," Mitchell points out, rationally. Annie appears to consider this for a moment before clapping her hands together.
"Right then, let's get cracking!" she announces.
When George walks through the front door half an hour later the smoke has cleared, thanks to Annie deciding to throw open every window in the house, and the place is a little tidier than it had been. The problem now is that half the kitchen is still a tip and the entire house is freezing cold. The cold is something Mitchell and Annie have no problem with but George, of course, is a different story.
"Why are all the windows open?" George is asking as he walks into the kitchen. "I understand when you don't have the heating on while you're alone Annie. There's no point paying for heating that you barely even notice, but all the windows open? What's the point? It only makes it uncom..." George trails off mid sentence as he takes in the state of the kitchen. "What happened in here?"
"Mitchell tried to cook," Annie offers before Mitchell can speak.
"You," George is staring at him, "tried to cook? As in you made this much mess and you still weren't successful?"
"At least you missed the smoke," Annie tells him, helpfully.
"Smoke?" George asks, then seems to think better of it and shakes his head before Mitchell can reply. "Mitchell, you can't cook?"
"Well, I never really needed to," Mitchell defends himself.
"Right," George is clearly coming to terms with the situation. "Okay, we'll teach you. Right, Annie?"
"Of course!" Annie seems positively thrilled at this idea. "It'll be great. You're always teaching us about how all this spooky ghost-werewolf-vampire thing works, so now we get to teach you something normal. We're good at normal. Well we used to be, before... you know."
Annie and George start him off slow, with basics. In fact, George tries to teach him to make toast until he points out that while he may be clueless in the kitchen, making toast does not require a sheet of instructions. Learning to cook turns out to be fun though. George and Annie clearly enjoy themselves too. George creates incredibly detailed instructions for everything and is obsessive about keeping the place neat while they cook. Annie, on the other hand, encourages him to experiment. She doesn't care about the mess they make in the process and they always end up with enough to feed most of the street, never mind just him and George.
The day he cooks by himself, Mitchell does it as a surprise for George. He's waiting when George walks through the door, a meal ready to be dished up. The smile on George's face is worth every moment of last times disaster. George doesn't comment when Mitchell's hand lingers just a little longer on George's back than is strictly necessary as he guides him to the table. When Annie joins them George bitches, as usual, about having someone watch him while he eats and Mitchell teases her a little about the way he has managed to produce just enough food for two people instead of catering for seven. After they've finished he and George wash up while Annie makes yet more tea. Mitchell can't help smiling as he does so, they're all contributing, all working together.
They're a family.