Death Wish

Chapter 26

The last ingredient of hate has left us stumped. 

While most imagine themselves stubbornly pushing further to get the final piece of the puzzle, we are not like most. Instead of racking our brains any further, we came to a far more important task to perform.

Dinner.

I shovel in another spoonful of soup with a tired hum. "I miss the hell out of regular meals."

Everyone mumbles with stuffed faces in agreement. Despite our meal consisting of canned tomato soup, stiff saltines with no expiration date, old chips Bob found behind the stove, and sleeves for napkins, we're content. If anything, we're barely containing our joy. We're all starving.

Ray discards his spoon to drink from the soup can. We all pause to take note as he chugs it down - - within the second Frank tosses his own spoon aside to copy the good idea.

I smirk, "Y'know, I heard eating slower fills you up faster."

Frank doesn't budge anything but a middle finger to my comment. 

I laugh at him, "Jerk."

The whole can is drained in a single gulp. Frank sets the can down before looking to mine and pointing. 'Are you going to finish that?'  

I guess I could spare some...it's not much good anyways, despite Frank apparently loving it. I hesitate before starting to scooch it over; before I can get far Frank puts a hand up to stop me. He also points to the stale saltines and greasy chips beside me.

That too, huh. Rose wasn't kidding about remaining gross behaviours. "You want this garbage?"

He nods intently. "Alright, whatever..." I group it together before ushering it over. He gladly takes the trash food and fills up.

Mikey smirks at us, "You guys really like food, huh."

I frown and look to Mikey, just remembering his lack of knowledge of basic human need. He sits there with an unopened can of soup on his lap, holding his spoon just to fit in, and watches us all curiously. I huff through my nose, "Yeah, we kinda need it to live."

He pushes up his glasses, "I need to start writing this stuff down."

Ray finally tips his can down to swallow and wipe his mouth. "You won't need to, soon enough." He says and smiles at him.

Mikey nods and looks at our small pile of ingredients on the coffee table. He sighs, "D'you know what we could put for the last thing?"

"We'll figure it out." Ray assures.

Mikey sits back in his seat defeatedly, "If you say so...I just don't want to waste anymore time."

Ray cocks his head at him, "You think you're doing that bad?"

His gaze drifts to the ceiling and he sucks in a breath, "I dunno what I dunno. All I remember is that I'm gonna end up like Bob if I don't get shit done."

Bob makes a face, "Like being me is a bad thing?" He cuts in.

Rose breaks the somewhat tensing scene with a yell, "Frank, get over here!"

Frank lowers the chip bag and raises his brows. I look over my shoulder towards the kitchen, "I thought you said the antidote wouldn't be finished til tomorrow?"

Rose turns from her stock pot with a grim face, "Never said I was giving him an antidote, Mister Pushy."

I move back to face Frank with a grimace. He sighs and pushes up from the second-hand sofa, sending a few puffs of loose stuffing up from the rips, and plods over to the kitchen.

Ray clears his throat, "Anyways. We're going to figure it out, you're not going to lose everything."

"How d'you know that?" Mikey sits up; he's starting to get brash with the unconditional positivity. He can't get a point across without this ball of sunshine putting a spin on it. "You keep saying it's going to be fine, but things keep getting worse."

I shift away from a candle that starts to flicker angrily beside him. I stammer, "Could - could we not burn this place down, too?"

Ray shakes his head, disregarding me in the background. "Well we got this far, I wouldn't say things are going bad at all."

While a debate rises in the livingroom, Frank and Rose stand over a cluttered counter and steaming pot of gutsy abnormalities. It smells horrendous to any normal being, but to Frank it smells like the biggest pile of shit to ever stumble upon. He covers his crinkling nose and turns away from the foul steam to distract himself with anything else. He easily finds himself picking at the vials of vampire blood and extracted fangs.

The witch remains on task. She peeks into her stock pot once more before closing a lid over the top of it, "Well we're almost there, but I need one last thing."

Frank fumbles with Morgan's stolen fang, shirt still over nose, completely distracted from reality. The tooth is too frickin' cool to ignore. 

He turns it over in his hands, wondering if he could possibly wear it. Maybe he could put it on a necklace and casually wear it around Morgan? He snickers to himself at the thought; the clueless bastard would have no idea. He'd be secretly gloating or something...hell, that'd be rad.

 Rose folds her arms and watches patiently, still waiting on his attention. "Ahem. Frank?"

Nobody's home. She rolls her eyes, "I wanted to do this consensually, but..." She moves forward, grabs the top of her friend's head, and yanks at his roots.

Frank's attention is ripped away just as a clump of his hair is. He squeaks and drops the tooth to cover his head. Rose already escapes with her small handful however - she breaks away and dumps it into the pot. "That's all I needed, sweetheart, you can go back with your friends."

He scowls at her and takes the fang back up before going back to flop down on the couch in the middle of our argument.

Frank drops to sit beside me as I wave out the growing candle flame. As soon as I snuff it, I look to notice him sorely rubbing his scalp. I hesitate, "Should I ask?"

He grumbles under his breath. I sigh, "Right. Like you could answer..." I trail off and look to everyone bickering before back to Frank, "You didn't miss much. Just a load of bitching about the final item."

Frank briefly raises his head to see. As their voices raise his ears hurt more, making him wince. They're going to give him a headache by the end of the night. He ignores the ringing in his ears and unpockets the vampire fang to fuss with again. He ought to pretend he can't hear any better than the rest of them, his own complaints will only be drowned out. 

He flips the fang around with a sigh before stopping short. Wait a second. He pauses to stare at the tooth before up at everyone arguing. He immediately sits up and hurriedly pats my arm for attention.

I glance, "Huh?"

He points to the group before lifting the fang. I frown. "What?"

Frank glowers before pointing harder. I raise my hands in defense, "That didn't help at all."

He scowls in frustration before standing and slamming the fang beside the pile of items. He points at them again, giving me a look. 'Get it yet?'

I do. It fits perfectly - that fang was taken out of a hateful little bastard...and definitely out of spite. I gasp; while everybody is snapping at each other, Frank became a frickin genius. The last thing we need is the fang.

"Guys," I get to my feet to interrupt the group debate, "Guys, wait, I think I got an idea!"

Frank glares. I shrink a little, "Frank had an idea...but I think he found what we need."

~ ~ ~

Happy Christmas. I know this is rather short, but as you can imagine, it's the holidays. I hope you enjoy yours as well as what this chapter has to offer.