"Hey, Gems," Jackie says on the phone, over-brightly. "You know how you want to do me a massive favour?"
"Do I?" Gemma says dryly.
"Sure you do. No, listen, my car's in the shop, wouldn't start this morning, but I said I'd give a friend a ride — would you mind—"
"A friend?" Gemma says. "Or is it Jude?"
"Buddy," Jackie wheedles. "Pal. Bestie—"
"It's Jude, isn't it."
"I'd ask someone else," Jackie says, "but...."
Gemma sighs, eventually, into the pointed, trailed-off silence. "This once," she says gruffly.
"Hi, baby," Wanda says, dropping her keys into the bowl by the door. "How was your day? Why are you making that face?"
"Jackie needs me to do her a solid," Gemma says, arms folded on the kitchen table, chin on her arms, as flat and drooped as a sad dog.
"Everything okay?"
"Her car's broken down," Gemma says. "She was supposed to run an errand tonight, drive someone into town, help carry some stuff. Asked if I could do it instead."
Wanda pauses, looking at her, considering the tone of her voice and the slump of her shoulders. "Why do you think I'm going to be mad at you, babygirl?" she says. "Oh. Oh." Her voice slides downward, cool and dark. "Is this for your shitty bloodsucker ex?"
"Please don't say it like that," Gemma says quietly, and Wanda presses her lips together tightly for a moment, then lets out a tense breath.
"I'm sorry, baby," she says. "That's — nobody's humanity is contingent on whether I like them. Not even your shitty ex. Montrositising language hurts every conditionally personed minority, and I know that—"
"I'm not asking you to recite a social justice primer," Gemma says tiredly. "It's a grocery run, okay? I'll drive her across town, load some shopping into the car, drive her back, take the bags up for her. That's all."
"I don't like that it's you," Wanda says. "She couldn't ask someone else?"
"She didn't. Jackie did. It's short notice and — you know. Specialist groceries. Doesn't have to worry I'll be weird about it."
Wanda nods slowly, chewing her lip. "I don't like that it's you," she repeats quietly.
"I do not want to fight about this," Gemma says.
"We're not," Wanda says. "Are we fighting?"
"It's just." Gemma closes her eyes, rubs her face on her arms. "Mutual aid, right? Also the Dracula cliché, you know, about werewolves helping out? Monster symbiosis."
"It's only symbiotic when both benefit," Wanda says. "When you get hospitalised twice, that's a parasite—"
"I walked into a clinic under my own power and got myself a precautionary checkup," Gemma says, raising a steady gaze, even if her voice wobbles. "...Twice," she concedes, looking away.
"Can you hear what that sounds like," Wanda says. "Gemma. Babygirl. Can you hear what that sounds like? And Jackie has no problem just asking you to—"
"Jackie doesn't know about that," Gemma mutters. "Jude only knows about the first time, I didn't tell — yeah, I know what it sounds like, Wanda. How many times have you gone into work going shit, I need to hide the bruises we got playing in the park, people are gonna start thinking—"
"That is not the same."
"Isn't it?"
Wanda takes a deep breath. "I know we're not done talking about this," she says, "but I really need a hug—" and Gemma scrambles instantly off her chair and half-throws herself at her girlfriend, wrapping around her waist, head down and pressed against Wanda's chest.
"Okay, two questions," Wanda murmurs after a while, gently scratching Gemma's scalp. "First, are you sure she needs your help with this?"
Gemma nods against her. "Vampire feeding works in two stages," she mutters against Wanda's shoulder. "First one's supernatural — symbolic. Pulling the life straight out of someone, you know? That's the phase that powers — you know. Vampire stuff. And the second phase is just digestive." She noses at Wanda, then resettles with her chin on her shoulder. "Phase one trades off intensity and duration — and you don't get much of either unless you take an irresponsible amount of blood. Phase two's pretty much a digestive disorder — you can't nutritionally run a human-ish body on just blood. Definitely not the amount a human can actually drink. Most modern vampires aren't using supernatural resilience to tank Van Helsing, just massive chronic calorie deficit, and taking fistfuls of medical-intervention-grade nutrient supplements. Chronic fatigue, brain fog—"
She breaks off for a while.
"Babygirl," Wanda says gently. "It's okay."
"There's a lot of — issues that develop around the, you know, the quick hit of just feeling healthy? From phase one feeding. Just, just sips." Gemma tightens her arms around Wanda's waist for a second. "And a werewolf can just — lose more blood. She — we...I know we had a problem."
Wanda strokes her back. "Babygirl," she acknowledges.
"If she's not — if nobody's doing RADE with her—" Gemma hides her face back in Wanda's chest. "Risk Aware Dietary Enhancement—"
"If she's not snacking on someone regularly, she's physically disabled."
Gemma nods a little.
"Okay. Okay, baby." Wanda squeezes her. "Question two is how you feel about me coming along, because I'll feel better about that."
"She's not gonna...do anything."
"I'm just having a lot of feelings," Wanda says dryly, and Gemma scrubs her face on the fabric of Wanda's shirt, then nods.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Mhm. Yes, please."
Jude is tall, slender, and unsteady as a reed in the wind. Pale in way less interesting than worrying, with deep purple crescents under her eyes; hunched, hands intermittently trembling.
"Thanks, pup," she greets Gemma, and then flinches as Wanda slides out of the passenger seat and closes her door slightly excessively hard. "This — must be Wanda? Hi."
The ride across town is deathly, awkwardly quiet; Wanda waits in the car while Gemma follows Jude into a windowless, vaguely pharmacy-vibed unit; the vampire shuffles exhaustedly out a while later with two small shopping bags, Gemma easily holding two stacked cooler-sized polystyrene insulating crates, plastered with obviously medical info stickers. And then the drive back is equally awkward.
"Lemme take everything up," Gemma says at the other end, quickly grabbing the bags and boxes, before bounding up the steps into Jude's building while Jude is still unbuckling her seatbelt.
The vampire pauses, looks after her, then at Wanda. "You really don't like me," she says, conversational.
Wanda turns a little in the passenger seat, to look over her shoulder. "I really don't," she says, and Jude nods a little, lips twisting wryly.
"Can't argue with that," she says. "But, look, I've made as many apologies as are meaningful, to the people they're owed to, for the health scare. You weren't there. I don't owe you one."
"I only found out two months ago that Gemma can play the guitar," Wanda says levelly. "When I asked if she ever wanted one at home, to practise or whatever, she just — brushed it off, said she doesn't have time. I don't have to dig, any more, to know what that means — she didn't have time with you."
"I can't apologise for being ill."
"It's not about support needs, it's about boundaries," Wanda snaps. "She fed herself to you metaphorically, too — despite the health scares, you can see she's healthy. Blood grows back. The other stuff? I am holding together the mess you left her in every day."
Jude looks away, out of the window, then back to Wanda. "She looks happier now than I ever saw her," she says, muted and rueful, opens the door, climbs halfway out. Stops. "Health scares," she says. "Plural?"
"Yes," Wanda says, hard.
"Fuck," Jude says, almost under her breath, gets all the way out, and carefully shuts the door.
Halfway up to the building, she passes Gemma on her way back down. Wanda watches them pause, exchange words.
Gemma shoots a look at the car, and a sweet, bashful smile spreads over her face. She nods, hands in her pockets, and bounces the rest of the way down, flinging herself into the car.
Wanda reaches over to trail a hand along her arm. "You good?"
"Yeah." Gemma's lips quirk. "She said you seem like a keeper."
"Damn right I am," Wanda says loftily, giving Gemma's bicep a quick squeeze.