Alastor x Male!Clown!Reader

1

I inhaled slowly, relishing the sharp, sweet scent of the fresh tomato sauce as I spread it. Though my touch was delicate and my movement 'precise', I couldn't keep the swatches of bone-white dough from materialising in the ladle's wake.

But that was easy to correct.

Measuring the sauce by eye, I painted over each ghostly trail as an artist corrected imperfections on the canvas. Under appreciated as it was, cooking was still as much an art form as sculpting marble or painting the ceiling of a chapel. The patience, skill, dedication and raw talent necessary to combine the ingredients that inspired me into masterpieces of cuisine were no less than those of any renaissance master applying themselves to their art. And if cooking was an art, then I was, without question, the Michelangelo of cuisine! Whoop!

Tonight had been years in the making. The recipe was elegant in its simplicity but the ingredients to do my masterpiece justice had taken time to procure and prepare. Shopping for the meat had been the hardest part. Nothing found in a market would do and though the farmer's market had more organic options, it was often too crowded to judge the quality.

I had a sixth sense when it came to knowing which animal would prove worthy of my efforts.

It was all in the eyes. A glance at the right eyes and electricity would hum through every nerve, arousing all my senses at once it was all I needed to know I had found what I was searching for and not two months back I had finally found them.

I had felt the blood quicken in my veins when I spied her alone. The distended girth of her belly had filled me with awe and a tentative joy but it was when I had discovered that she was but one half of a bonded -and obviously breeding- pair that my considerable, though already quivering self control was pushed to its limits.

It had been a difficult acquisition but they were mine now, my own little budding family.

I had never had a family before...and though I found myself enjoying the changes inherent in raising my new stock with affection, I quickly discovered it made the matter of selecting parts to harvest delicate. Now, I'm no fan of slaughter, so if I can harvest without killing, I will do so and normally the selection process allows for a variety of cuts to be had without killing the stock. However, my beautiful pair were fickle. It seemed few of the available cuts would leave them in a state still willing to breed together. I was gentle in my treatment of them yet firm and eventually I had settled on a portion of leg from each.

Happily, my careful selection meant many more to come and I rewarded them generously for their sacrifices.

Shortly after I had procured the leg cuts - fatty from him, and lean from her - I had cubed and ground both cuts to the dulcet stains, occasionally humming along with the radio as the marbled pink tendrils slithered from the grinder's narrow slots, and blended it by hand into a mixture of cracked anise, sea salt, wine, paprika, a dash of sugar and of course pepper and cayenne. After the spices had a chance to really saturate the meat, I passed them through the grinder again, bloating the taught casing gathered at the end of the hole plate until several links of glistening sausage were laid out before me.

Eight agonising weeks later, the meat was cured enough to be painstakingly sliced into the rich burgundy medallions that would adorn my masterpiece. They smelled of the wine, fennel and garlic I had used to season them but there was a more subtle scent beneath the spice, a scent that was unique to my little family, a scent that made my mouth water in anticipation of the flavors that would unfurl upon my eager tongue.

On a blanket of fresh mozzarella made from the females own milk- made not an hour before I set about building my masterpiece for the freshest possible taste. I arranged the medallions of pepperoni in concentric rings. I finished with a garnish of more cheese, grating it directly onto my creation and felt burning anticipation rake its hungry nails down my back. With a delicious shiver as well as delicacy and deliberation, I slid my masterpiece into the simple brick oven built into the kitchens wall, to be lovingly toasted by a fragrant applewood fire.