I finished my draft early, so I'm posting it early. This chapter focuses on Benny and Ethan being geeks and dealing with the Sarah is a vampire problem. See my profile for a hint about upcoming chapters, as I have posted working chapter titles.
As always a big thank you to everyone who comments!
MBAV fan66: So I played around with a couple of possible ways Benny could react, but ultimately I wanted to emphasize how physically comfortable the boys are with each other. Also I'm running with the idea that they haven't realized they're into boys, thus sleeping together wouldn't seem scandalous... yet...
Century'sRain: Hi! It wasn't My intention to lead the reader to hate Sarah, but I'm not one to turn down anyone's interpretation of my writing. I'm glad you're enjoying my story, hopefully I can keep delivering!
"If I can direct your attention here," Benny says adjusting the focus on the projector lens. The large papyrus words 'The Vampire Curse: Blood & Power' sharpen on the basement wall. The projector itself is balanced on bar stool stabilized by a wedge of folded paper under one leg.
Instead of addressing the obvious hazard, Sarah asks, "How do you have a projector?" They have her set up in the comfy desk chair with a bowl of popcorn.
"I snuck it out of the AV club storage room," Benny answers briefly before jumping right into the presentation the boys had prepared. "The Vampire Curse: Blood & Power, by Benny Weir and Ethan Morgan."
Sarah chuckles softly behind her hand, trying to hide her amusement. Sarah has always been more of an action-taker, but somehow she still gets drawn into Ethan's long explanations. Admittedly Ethan plays up his nerdiness for exactly this reason.
Benny, however, doesn't have the same levity about his own geeky tendencies. He clears his throat pointedly, and Sarah responds by schooling her expression into a mask of serious focus. Gratified, Benny taps the spacebar and reads the title off the next slide, "Initial Blood Need."
Ethan takes his cue as Benny hits the spacebar again, triggering the next bullet point to to spin into view. "The vampire curse kills the victim's body but then maintains its normal functioning through the use of magic. In this case blood-based magic."
Tap. In spins the outline of a human with a drop of blood placed in its chest.
Tap. Benny explains the next slide, which is movie vampire holding his head in pain, "Fledglings need human blood at least once to power the transition to full vampire. After that other types of blood can be consumed."
Benny taps through a list of examples, including their cartoon illustrations: rat, cat, dog, racoon, old roadkill, and blood substitute. Blood substitute is a juice box with a blood drop photoshopped over the apple.
The next slide, entitled 'Sarah vs Rory,' has a picture of Sarah holding up Rory's severed head. In her comfy seat, Sarah's open mouth gaping appears to be caught between emotions.
Ethan hopes at least one if those emotions is impressed. Ethan spent a considerable amount of time finding a picture from when she was still human where had an arm raised, and even more time finding a picture where her characteristic beaming smile was replaced with a more neutral expression. Apparently there were no pictures in existence where Sarah was screaming in enraged victory over her fallen enemies.
Luckily, the boys' youthful exploits had resulted in a bevy of pictures where Rory was pulling an 'I'm dead' face.
Benny had photoshopped the pictures of their friends together in front of the erupting volcano background. Out of the two of them, Benny was more artistic, which meant the final product left a lot to be desired.
Ethan calls Sarah's attention back, chuckling, "Pretty epic, right?"
Sarah laughs, "Sure. Yes, epic is definitely one word for it."
Her smile is genuine, so Ethan continues on with the presentation, "The side effects of not drinking human blood include reduced vampire abilities; thus you would win in a fight against Rory. I mean we would need to perform more thorough tests. This is based on observation only."
"Hey Ethan," Benny stage-asks. "iif most vampires drink human blood, then why are some vampires stronger than others?"
"That's a great question Benny," Ethan answers. "We think vampires can retain excess magic, so they should get stronger over time. It's also possible that vampires just learn more tricks as they get older. We've also discussed the possibility that vampires have lineages with different strengths." Ethan rotates his splayed fingers in the gesture of maybe-maybe-not.
Tap. The text in the next slide bounces in all together. Benny had argued with him about that actually, insisting that it was better showmanship to have each bullet point bounce in as you were talking about it. Ethan won by reminding him that Sarah didn't want to sit through an hour long presentation.
Benny takes this slide. "We have several additional theories on what could cause some vampires to be stronger. I could go over then I'd you're interested…"
Benny's puppy-dog-eye-beam-of-hope combats Sarah's hesitant smile. "Maybe another time"
Benny's jaw clicks shut, biting the thought off before it leaves his mouth. Ethan would feel bad for his best friend expect that Benny had already talked through all his theories with Ethan.
Tap. "Which brings us to the purpose of today's activity," Benny continues easily.
"Making you stronger!" Ethan enthuses.
Sarah flinches. "What? Why?" Sarah crosses her arms over her chest, her expression defensive and hurt.
"Uh, because it would be awesome," Benny replies.
Ethan grimaces, realizing that they've managed to hit a nerve. Hindsight reminds him that some part of Sarah still wants a normal human life no matter how much she's accepted being a vampire. "Well we also thought that the same things that would make a vampire stronger might also decrease the reliance on blood." It was true, they just hadn't thought it would fit with the theme of the slide show.
"Oh, that would be good, " Sarah unfurls with the simple statement.
"Good..." Benny's stiff posture and guilty smile betray that he may picked up on Sarah's reluctance. Asking Sarah if it was okay that they doctored her weekly food source may have been prudent.
Instead of addressing the situation, the spell caster stoops down to retrieve his handiwork from the mini-fridge.
Ethan taps the spacebar, the next slide showing a list of strange latin words, "These are the additives we put into each of these twenty test tubes. We're going to have you try each one and answer three questions: Does it give you a surge of energy? Does feel like it quenches your blood thirst? Does it taste better than blood by itself? Then we'll wait until you feel as hungry as you did before you drank the sample."
"Okay," Sarah crunches up her brow in consternation. "I'm not sure exactly how this will work. Normally a pint of blood lasts me a whole week…"
"So a tenth a pint could last 16 hours," Benny follows the thought to its conclusion. "16 hours and 48 minutes," he corrects.
The boys had been thinking the wait would be in minutes not hours. This makes the logistics considerably more difficult.
"Well," Ethan says starting to think about what this means. "If our first assumption is right, then we'll be done with all of the samples before the end of the weekend. If not, then we can test as many as possible before Sarah leaves. At least we'll get some data."
"We're testing two variables at once though," Benny replies. "The blood additives and drinking a pint of blood over a longer time period."
Sarah pops a kernel of popcorn in her mouth watching the boys bounce ideas back and forth. "Okay so to have a true control," Ethan thinks out loud, "We'd need to have another week where Sarah drinks her blood one tenth at a time, only without additives. Just to determine if the amount of hunger satisfied is constant for each portion of blood dranken or if there's a cumulative effect."
"It should probably be the same blood, too," Sarah adds. "I mean blood from the same donor."
She's right. At least this week they used Ethan's blood for the experiment instead of an anonymous blood donor's.
Benny pulls out a Bunsen burner, placing a beaker with water on a stand above it. "So that means we can't perform the control for another eight weeks. But you're down, right?" Benny asks Sarah.
"Yeah, of course. Whatever you need me to do, I'll do my best." Sarah does look more interested now, trying to read the labels on the still rocking test-tube rack.
Ethan retrieves the clipboard with the printout he made to record Sarah's answers. "Any of them look tasty?"
"Well it's all blood. So, yes?" Sarah responds with a half shrug.
Benny grabs the first test tube out of rack and places it into the beaker of water in order to bring the blood back up to body temperature.
There are only two chairs in the basement, so Ethan sits in Sarah's lap while they wait. She locks her arms around his waist like a seat belt.
"So have you seen the latest Avengers movie yet?" Benny asks, settling in to wait.
Next time the family eats dinner that includes broccoli