"Okay." Viktor nodded. "Buthisblood doesn't make you faint?"
"No." Charlie forced himself to look at the bag in Viktor's hands. His stomach churned, but the dizziness was manageable as long as it stayed sealed. "His is... different."
"Different how?"
Charlie didn't know how to explain that Simon's blood tasted like safety and controlled violence and something protective that made Charlie's entire body sing. That wasn't a normal thing to say about someone's blood.
"It just doesn't make me sick."
Viktor hummed thoughtfully. "Interesting. Well, we need to get you tolerating other sources." He stood, taking the bag with him. "Stay there."
"Where are you going?"
"Getting supplies."
Charlie watched Viktor move around his kitchen, pulling out a bowl, a spoon, and…
"Is that ketchup?"
"You can tolerate ketchup." Viktor set everything on the counter. "You need blood, so we're trying something."
Trying what…?
"No. No, no, no." Charlie stood, alarm bells ringing in his head. Did Viktor mean to mix blood and ketchup? "That's not a solution. That's a crime against nature."
"Desperate situations call for desperate solutions." Viktor opened the ketchup bottle with the focus of someone conducting a scientific experiment. "Think of it as a stepping stone."
"You're not seriously going to—" Charlie watched in horror as Viktor opened the blood bag and squeezed a measure into the bowl like he was making pancake batter.
The smell hit immediately. Charlie's fangs descended while his stomach simultaneously tried to crawl up his throat.
"This is good," Viktor said, adding ketchup to the bowl. "You haven't fainted yet."
"I'm going to throw up."
"You haven't eaten anything to throw up." Viktor picked up the spoon and started whisking like he was competing on one of those cooking shows on TV. "The consistency is important. Too thick and it's obvious what it is. Too thin and the textures separate."
"You're just making shit up."
"I'm problem-solving." Viktor added a pinch of salt. "Let's have some electrolytes."
Charlie watched the mixture turn a repulsive color, neither brown nor red, and somehow worse than either option alone. It looked like evidence from a particularly creative murder scene.
"There." Viktor poured it into a glass and held it out to Charlie. "Think of it as a Bloody Mary. Without the vodka. Or the celery."
"Right..."
"Just try it."
Charlie took the glass against his better judgment. It smelled like sweet tomatoes mixed with iron, artificial preservatives battling with organic copper. His fangs ached, wanting the blood, while his human memories screamed that ketchup should never smell like this.
"Maybe if I do it fast…" Charlie brought the glass to his lips and took a large gulp.
It was instantly, catastrophically worse than he'd imagined.
The ketchup's sweetness somehow amplified the blood's metallic taste, like pennies dipped in corn syrup. The textures were wrong, too thick and too thin simultaneously, coating his throat with something his body couldn't decide whether to accept or reject.
Charlie made it three steps to Viktor's sink before his body came to a decision.
