For Les (closed) dated Nov 8

[callmeemily]

"Okay." The moment that Les opens the door to his apartment, Raleigh's giving him a box full of food. There's vegetables and uncooked chicken and bags of rice and flour and butter and eggs; there's all sorts of food, but she shifts the bag on her shoulder as she gives him a pointed look.

"I meant it when I said today was for me," she said with a smile, moving up the stairs to his kitchen - she's slower than he is, she's always slower than he is - but she brought him a bunch of food, so she supposes she's allowed to be just as slow as she likes.

"And I hope you haven't eaten a lot. Have you?" She realises then- "How're you?" She should have asked that first, but she's a little bit a Woman On A Mission.

Comments

[callmeemily]

"We're making everything. Including your own pickles, although I brought a set with me that I made a couple of weeks ago." Raleigh looks at Les pointedly, because she's told him before that pickles are fine, well, and good, but they're not exactly a standalone sort of food product.

"I don't know! You could have just woken up but not gotten yourself put together." She didn't know how else to put it - she didn't want to tell Les he wasn't dressed, exactly, even though he was clearly in his pajamas. "And I'll make you eggs. I'll win you over to the whole 'cooking real food is worth it' camp, swear to god," she said with a smile even as she shook her head.

[lesparker]

"My own pickles," he repeats curiously, peering into the bags she brought once again. His mother hardly ever cooked anything in their kitchen. Nothing edible anyway. Spells, yes. Food, no. Not only does look just like Rosalie Parker, but he learned his culinary prowess from her too.

"Oh my god, eggs sound so good right now." He takes a seat on one of the bar stools he has near his counter, opposite where she's standing. He could go put on normal clothes, but he much prefers his pajamas. He looks around at all the items spread out over his kitchen suddenly. "How do you even know all this?" he asks somewhat amazed. And to him maybe it is...like his potions and spells are to her.

[callmeemily]

"Your own pickles. They'll be done in about two weeks." She looks at him a little pointedly. "So you can just make yourself all the pickles, if you want. See? Cooking. it's useful." She moves to dig through his cabinets and find his pansven as she answers him. "Well, my mom taught me how to cook, and she baked some. I'm not all that good at the general cooking stuff - you should eat some of the stuff Joel's put together. But it's mostly just... you know. Stuff you can look up on the internet."

Baking's something else entirely, but Raleigh's just interested in food. "It's not that weird, though. I mean, lots of people know how to cook."

[lesparker]

"Okay, but do most people know how to make a wound healing potion? You need frogs," Les asks, looking back at her pointed look with one of his own. These are the things his mother taught him because...well...Les doesn't know a ton about his family's origins, but he guesses they are the same things Rosalie's mother taught her. They passed down magic spells and potion recipes. Not chicken recipes. They were a witch family.

Still he is up to learning what she is here to teach him. Who knows maybe one day he'll need this. If he ever wants to have dinner with April where one of them actually prepares something instead of calling out for Thai. He thinks she may like that...

He claps his hands together, rubbing. "Alright, what's first? Do I need to go catch a frog? Actually I may have one downstairs in the basement..."

[callmeemily]

Raleigh laughed, wrinkling her nose. "No. No frogs, unless you're from Louisiana. First thing? Wash your hands." She moves to scrub hers with soap and water so hot it hurts, and she moves out of the way so he can, too - and then starts digging through his cupboards for a saucepan for her to make some eggs.

"Dig out the container of eggs and some of the tomatoes, would you?" She paused, and then- "So, weird question, but can not-magical people make potions? Why do only witches know about it?"

[lesparker]

Les follows her lead and washes his hands thoroughly in the sink then gives her a nod as she directs him to find the eggs and tomatoes. She wouldn't know it, but he remembers countless lessons like this with his mom. She would make Les pull down all the ingredients, helping him with some that were too high to reach. They would spend all day huddled around the cauldron.

He puts down the carton and the two perfectly ripened tomatoes and looks at her for what to do next. "Hey do you give away your best recipes up at Orchard House? Some of those potions make people money," he says, shrugging. You need a potion you find a witch...and you pay. "But you could probably make some of the easier things. If you had a nice handsome witch to show you how."

[callmeemily]

"Cut the tomatoes in half, okay? And cut up the butter." She passes him half a stick of butter, and then rolls her eyes when he asks if she gives away her recipes. "I don't mean like that. I mean- yes, I do have two nice, handsome witches to show me how," Pointed look at him, "But I meant like.... is it that you mix up a bunch of stuff and then..... zap? Or whatever? Or is that you mix up a bunch of stuff, and it just.... sort of works."

She made a face. "I guess- I mean. I don't have any... I'm not magical, or anything, you know? In the scale of Ghost to Hydra, I'm pretty much a sitting duck."

[lesparker]

"I said I could show you how. Some things need magic, some don't," he says with a shrug taking the knife she gives. He begins to chop considering what she says for a moment. "You are always very concerned about....I dunno." He really doesn't know, but she often refers to herself this way when she asks about magic. He frowns for a second. "There are other humans in this town you know that right? They all seem to get along just fine."

"Things happen, but things happen everywhere."

[callmeemily]

She just sort of freezes when he says what he does, and for one terrifying second, she just wants to turn on him, she wants to turn on him and shake him and get him to see, somehow, what it's like.

How terrifying it is, to be a human, to have no powers in this town, but to know what's out there to get you, that you have no defense from except that the other people with powers happen to give you, if you make the right friends.

How the police are full of witches, and how the people in this town can make the stars dance overhead in a ballroom or summon a hydra or control a siren to do their dirty work so they can live forever. How you always have to be on your toes, how hard it is to constantly be in pain and to know that she literally can find relief at the good graces of someone who is thankfully her friend, but without Joel, she'd end up either suffering, or with a very, very expensive habit.

She almost tells him all of it. She almost yells at him, she almost explodes in a way she's never done because it's so hard, because the only other person she knows 100% is human is Spencer, who's been through the same sort of shit that she has.

She almost turns around and asks him the names of the homeless men that the Siren who kidnapped her killed, because if they'd had powers, they maybe could have gotten away, and Leslie Parker has no idea in this world just how privileged that he is, that he doesn't have to be as afraid. That the fact that he can vaporize something, how terrifying that is. How terrifying it is that anyone could have that power. That a witch could kill someone, and turn the knife to ash instantly. That they can read minds, that they can influence people, and you don't even know it's happening.

It's terrifying, if you let yourself think about it. Which is why usually, she doesn't think about it.

She almost explodes.

But she doesn't.

Her shoulders tighten with tension, and she has to force herself to find words. "Anyway." She pulls in a breath. "Let's make you breakfast, right?"

[lesparker]

If Les notices the tension in her, he doesn't say anything. He just continues chopping the tomatoes she gave him until they are all in a neat little pile on the counter. It isn't that he doesn't care that there could be something wrong with her, but he's learned that it's best to wait for people to come to you. Or maybe that's just him. He doesn't like to talk about his feelings or problems. Maybe they are the same that way.

Placing down the knife, he looks at her proudly. His culinary prowess is already surprising him. This won't be so hard after all. "Just tell me what to do. I learn quick," he says.

[callmeemily]

"Okay, then you're going to make the eggs, Mr. Learns Quick." She puts the pan on the stove, and then passes him the carton. "Add six eggs, and the butter." She moves to pull over a stool - standing in one place is hard for her, some days, and so she needs to sit down anyway - she'll keep a watchful eye on him. "You're going to make a real meal. Promise." It's like a present, or something. Cooking lessons, ended with a delicious breakfast.

[lesparker]

"Six eggs," Les notes pulling open the carton. He counts them out and places them on the counter, trying to keep them all together and from rolling onto the floor. He loses one and it smacks onto the floor with a splat. The bright yellow of the yolk oozes out, and Les looks at it for a moment and then laughs. He elbows her with a smile. "That one was yours," he tells her.

[callmeemily]

Raleigh laughs. "You.... you are a treasure, Leslie Parker. That one is yours, and that means you get to clean it up," she says with a shake of her head. "I signed up to feed you, not to clean your kitchen." She winks, and pokes his calf with her toe from where she's sitting.

"But you want to break those eggs into the saucepan, by the way - not on the floor." It's a little cheeky, that reminder, but she's smiling broadly.

[lesparker]

"A treasure?" He repeats after her. When she doesn't clean up the egg, he bends down waving his hand over the mess, using his powers to clean it up the easy way. He winks back at her after she pokes him in the leg with her shoe. "I'm trying here..." He picks up the egg and cracks it into the pan. "See? I did it."

[callmeemily]

"A treasure. You know, like... I don't know, the stuff that goes in a treasure chest? Gold." Her raised eyebrows clearly say You know, Gold.

She rolls her eyes as he winks at her, shaking her head, but she's smiling. Of course she is, Les really is one of her favorite people, even if he's as oblivious as they come, sometimes.

"You did it! Now just five more, and add the butter." When he manages to get them all in, she pushes herself off the stool, careful to land on her good leg. "Okay - I'm going to do this part, but I want you to watch the eggs, okay? And see what I'm doing, and what they look like when I take it on and off the heat."

She stirs briskly it in the saucepan - not the typical way to make eggs, that's for sure - and she takes it on and off the heat as she stirs, watching it closely. The eggs start to firm up as the butter melts - and still, on and off, until- "There it is!" Raleigh grins as she wrinkles her nose, because the eggs just hit that magical point when they start going from a sort of wobbly solid until they're really solid.

She snaps off the heat, holding the saucepan up as she keeps stirring. "It makes it so they don't overcook. Can you grab me the cheese out of the fridge?"

[lesparker]

He watches carefully as she moves the pan from the heat, stirring viciously. He is surprised to see just how similar it is to his potion making. Though the smell of the buttery eggs makes his mouth water, whereas most of his magical concoctions never really have that effect. There is something he enjoys about potions; it is tactile and allows him to use his hands. He has never considered that cooking could give him that same feeling.

Glancing at the fridge he finds the cheese she needs and places it on the counter. "You know when I make potions there is usually a spell to follow. You giving me all these instructions right? What're they called....cookbooks?" He smiles holding out the pack of cheese.

[callmeemily]

Raleigh rolls her eyes. "I didn't get this out of a cookbook," she says over her shoulder as she grabs the cheese, and dumps in a handful of the shredded stuff so it'll cool down the eggs and stop them from cooking. "I got this off Youtube." She turns the eggs out onto the waiting plates with practiced turn of her spatula, adds salt and pepper, and then passes it to him with a fork. "Well? Go ahead." She's watching him keenly, because she wants to know what he thinks.

[lesparker]

"Youtube, okay," Les says, like he understands, but he really doesn't. If he doesn't know anything about cooking, he knows less about computers, but he just rolls with it. Taking the fork from her, he digs into the plate of eggs. From the first bite, everything is delicious. More than delicious. Probably the best eggs ever. "Alright, let's get married," he tells her with a smile.