Health, Food by celli (PG, Nick/Nat)

[celli]

Title: Health, Food
Author: celli
Beta-Readers: barely_bean and havocthecat
Recipient: waltd
Prompt: Nick/Natalie, romantic dine a deux, and everything goes wrong (but it works out in the end)
Length: 1,135 words
Rating: PG
Summary: "Health food makes me sick." (Calvin Trillin) Not long after meeting Nick, Natalie starts her campaign to get Nick to eat food by making him

Comments

"Nick, eat the damn meat."

[brightknightie]

This story gave me many smiles, and left me smiling after. Food is one of the essential mysteries of the FK vampire fantasy -- what can and can't they eat, how much, why -- and it's curiously little addressed either in canon or in fanfic. (Although I do recall that Ophelia5 had this Nanette thing with chocolate in a zine, and Marcia once starved Nick out of his quest quite tragically, and of course wiliqueen... ~g~) As discussed, there are all these passing moments in canon where Nick manages to stomach a bite or sip of this or that, and all these other moments where he does not, interwoven with Natalie's chiding presentations of protein shakes and urging him to eat real food.

Thanks for giving Sydney a turn on stage. :-)

>"she'd discarded white as too matrimonial and red as too vampirical, and gone with a dark green that was hopefully neutral."
This is funny on its own, but it's also an excellent illustration of Natalie vastly overthinking this event. He's an eight-hundred-year-old guy; candles are just light sources. :-) I think...

>"did the bright colors and casual clutter look comfortable and homey to him, or were they signs of the smallness of the human mind, fixating on the everyday instead of whatever bigger, immortal picture he could see?"
Oh, it is early in their acquaintance, isn't it? :-) This captures Natalie's first-season apartment well in a few words, and then sketches the distance between the characters this early in their acquaintance, while also touching on the helpless fascination with what Nick is that starts here and draws her further and further in ever after.

>""Save me?" he said. Some of the humor faded from his expression. "Please?""
Oh, gracious. As wiliqueen said in her comment, one must pause here. Then start breathing again, or heart beating. Nick doesn't just mean save him from the food, the legitimate and polite surface joke, or even the second level deep of save me from vampirism so that I can face the food, he means ... save me, body and soul, I've been drowning for so long and I don't know how much longer I can keep treading water.

Good work.

Once you get out of the pit and onto the track ;-) your speed is good and you take the turns well. Thank you very much for sharing!

Re: "Nick, eat the damn meat."

[celli]

*laughs* Racing references for the win!

Thank you so much for all your help with this. You really made writing it a joy.

*hugs*

Re: "Nick, eat the damn meat."

[brightknightie]

You made a lot of people laugh and leave smiling with this story. Good work! And thank you again for playing with us in general (and me in specific!).