Ketchup and Soy Sauce.

(Disclaimed.)

First fanfiction in... what? Over a year? A year and a half? Thanks Frankenwolf. You brought me home.

It's bubbling and blood red and the smell is overwhelming. It's a sugar and flower and ketchup, pepper-spicy kind of sweet. Whale peered over Ruby's weaving shoulder to a saucepan on the stove and faintly heard some heavy bass coming from her headphones. She stirred it away slowly while several cuts of pork stood by, simmering away in a slow cooker, while corn baked in the oven and okra fried on the back burner, a bowl of whipped potatoes sat on the counter, keeping warm under a hand towel, and a jar of her grandmother's pickles sat on the table, between two stately black candles, which would both be very appalled and offended if they knew what was going on.

It had displaced a centerpiece of Bachelor Buttons and Bellflowers and love-lies-bleeding, which now sat on the far end table by the couch, wilting a little and looking forlorn and neglected. Also looking forlorn and neglected was a record player which Whale was very fond of, specifically for its black finish, which was marbled with bits of red. The record he had started had played to the end, and it turned along in dull, tentative silence. Standing questioningly near the home-jarred pickles was an unopened bottle of red wine. There was also a dark chocolate cake in the freezer, where it would probably remain. He had picked it up from the grocery store, but it would probably not go with pork and barbeque sauce very well. And that was okay, because Granny had sent strawberry pie.

Two days ago, Whale has suggested that they have dinner, which Ruby must have interpreted as, 'cook me dinner' because she has come in with two fabric shopping bags, a slow cooker filled with mostly-cooked pork, and boxes of jars. He should have suspected something when he asked if he had a back yard grill—No! I don't even have a back yard why would I have a grill?—and after that a slow cooker—No, of course I don't!

"Ruby, I meant we'd get take out."

She did not hear him.

He lifted up her headphone and tried again, "Ruby, I said we'd get take out!"

"From where?" She asked. She scooped the okra from the hot oil with a slotted spoon and dropped them on a folded paper town on a plate. "Boston?"

"Well, no..." Victor replied. He flinched back as batter-dipped okra hit hot oil and sizzled violently, "But isn't this stuff served at Granny's too?"

"No." she replied. "She can sell barbeque at the dinner, everyone would die. She's smarter than that! She doesn't sell a lot of things made from scratch, anyway."

"Right."

"And she doesn't use what I use." She shuffled past him and reached into one of the shopping bags and took out a bottle of soy sauce. She declared smugly, "She uses Worchester Sauce!"

Victor hated soy sauce. He hated the smell, and he was not too fond of the taste, either. It was too... yech. He also hated the color. To him, it looked like ink. Ever since he had gotten his memory back, it was all he could think about when he saw soy sauce; those old inkwells, filled with inky black, somewhat toxic... ink.

And the bottle was shaped like an inkwell. That did not help anything.

Before he could get out a word of protest, Ruby took off the lid and dumped an indeterminable amount in. She did not measure. She just let what looked suspiciously like something that would be better suited to the tip of a quill or the innards of a squid in the barbeque sauce.

Victor tried not to vomit. He gagged a little, where she could not see, and stepped forward again. "But, Ruby, I don't even—"

She pointed her wooden spoon at him, tipped with mostly-done sauce, a bit of blood-red dripped off of it and landed between his feet on the floor. Right in the grout. "Out."

"What?"

"Out of my kitchen."

"Ruby this is my kitchen."

"My recipe." She replied, making a move to poke him with the spoon. Fearing for his tie, he jumped back, "My kitchen."

"You bring in ketchup, two kinds of pepper, cloves—I don't even know what cloves are!—paprika—which tastes terrible, by the way—You… You use up all of my sugar..."

She frowned, not in a sad, upset way, but in a way that seemed to say she could not believe he was giving her any sass. She fluttered her lashes, smiled pleasantly, showing all of her teeth—she smiled like a wolf!—and turned away from him. She knew that was the end of it.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

So that was the end of it.

Victor turned around and opened the fridge to get himself a beer, but found instead the small armada of home-jarred goods. Apparently, Granny Lucas thought he was too skinny, and everyone knew the boyfriend of a werewolf had to have meat on his bones. As she had said herself, with a judgmental look in her eye, 'Paper skin just don't suit rough play, Ruby.'

While he was pushing past jars of jam and applesauce and marmalade and cranberry sauce and even MORE pickles he found the last half of a six pack he had gotten the other day, and found right next to it a jar that was labeled liquid smoke.

Liquid smoke.

"What."

Ruby turned to him while she splashed another spoonful—the final spoonful—of okra into the oil, "What?"

In all his years as a doctor and a scientist, he had never heard of such magic.

He looked around for a bottle opener, but before he could find one, Ruby took the bottle from him, opened it on the cabinet, and took a deep swig. She handed it back to him and he felt slightly cheated and violated, but he said nothing about it.

He vacated her temporarily won kitchen and got rid of all of the fancier things. He blew out the candles and removed the nice flatware—pure white with the bold rim of black and a delicate line of gold—and the wine and the wine glasses, and the white table cloth that had once been inherited from his grandmother, but now that his memories were back, it was just kind of there, but attached sentiment or not, it would never due to have sauce spill on it. He folded it up, shut off the record player, and set the flowers on top of it, so at least they were a little closer to the table.

It did not seem to make them feel any better.

Victor sighed, adjusted them for a bit, and gave up.

"Food's done!" she announced from the kitchen.

His head turned towards her and he held his breath while she reached up for plates. She did not make a move for his good dishes. She took down the grey and black plastic ones that he used every day and served it up. He sighed, very softly, with relief. She also did not touch the wine.

She sat down with her own beer and looked expectantly at him, "Well come on!"

Mechanically, he did.

He had never really been a barbeque man. Of course, it was almost always chilly in Maine, so there had never really been much of a chance for him to try it on his own, and he had not had many friends.

"Twenty eight years and I've never had barbeque."

Ruby smiled and laughed.

There was a pause. Victor looked down at his plate. It was still sugar and flower and pepper-spicy sweet-smelling, but now it had hints of soy sauce. There was melted cheddar cheese on the whipped potato and finely chopped green onions folded in.

She was not going to start until he was.

"This shirt is too nice for barbeque."

She smiled again, smaller this time, but still showing all of her teeth. She bit her lip, as if with anticipation, and when she spoke again, it was bright, glowing red. "You can eat shirtless. I don't mind."

Victor grinned and reached for the knot of his tie.