callmeemily | We's goin' on a date, son. (Jason)

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We's goin' on a date, son. (Jason)

To say that Raleigh was nervous would have been the understatement of a century. Nevermind that she saw Jason every day, nevermind that she basically now had a tiny budget item actually set aside for Alfredo because there would be dog biscuits in his future pretty much every day - this was a date, which meant it was different from the other times she'd actually hung out with Jason, and so... she was wearing a dress. She curled her hair, borrowing the curling iron of the woman who owned the boarding house she was renting a room in. She was wearing a black sweater (which had a couple of flour-y handprints on it) and flipflops, and surprisingly...

She wasn't wearing pants. No leggings, no pants, no nothing, which meant that the scars on her leg were actually visible - but she figured if she was going to the effort of wearing a dress... whatever. Whatever, it wasn't like he didn't know there was something going on, at this point.

There's groceries, there's a plan (make dinner, go get Alfredo, go walking for a while), and jesus, she's even wearing makeup. It's like she's an actual grownup, and she leans against the wall of the bakery and for once, she really wishes for a cigarette even though she's only smoked every once in a while and gave them up when she ended up here without an ID and the fact that she doesn't look her age.

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Jason laughs. "I'm not great at it, okay. You probably won't even notice when I'm doing it." But he is, he's hitting on her now, in his own way, pulling her closer and smiling the way he does. And now she seems completely distracted from the cheese. Something he's definitely okay with.

His gaze is focused on her and he glances briefly at her lips. Without realizing, he's leaning closer to her. "Something about cheese, I really don't know," he admits and his bites his lip.

"Oh, I'd say you'd doing just fine," she says, half-distracted by the way that he bites his lip. "It's... I mean...." She just sort of trails off, before she blinks when he says something about cheese.

"Oh- cheese sauce, for dinner. It's okay, it can wait." She breathes the words, because the last thing she really wants to do right this second is move. The lobster's on a timer, and his hand's warm on her waist, so that's pretty much the two important things going on right now.

Raleigh actually has to pull in a breath - to remember to do that. Breathing, it's a thing. "I mean, hell, we could just eat lobster and croissants, at this point, and I'd be pretty happy." She can't stop the way she smiles, and she finally lets her fingers slip from his - so that her hand can find his waist, and not for the first time in her life she actually wishes that she was taller.

He's pretty sure he's smiling stupidly now because of the way she's smiling at him, and it's very clear to him now that she likes him. Of course it was clear before because she said she likes him, but now they're close and her hand is on his waist and there's definitely attraction there.

He chuckles at the way she dismisses the cheese now. "Lobster and croissants...that's a damn good dinner in my book." He's honestly fine with whatever she wants to do for dinner, Jason's just enjoying the contact and feeling closer to her.

"I mean, it's food," she's more distracted than she should be, given they were having some sort of a conversation, and her eyes have flicked down to his mouth and she tugs her lower lip between her teeth like she's about to do something, and then the timer starts to beep.

She blinks like someone's thrown cold water on her, forcing herself to pull back and she turns red as she actually moves around him, for some reason needing to catch her breath even as it feels like her heart's pounding eight hundred miles an hour. "Lobster," she says like that's an explanation, and she is a flurry of nervous energy as she checks them.

Not quite done, but it'll be just another minute or two, and she's realising that yes, she should make the roux or at least melt some butter or something. "Can you hand me the butter?" She holds out her hand for it, and she looks back at him at the last second, her cheeks pink.

Jason's leaning down closer to Raleigh when the timer goes off and he actually grimaces because timing. He clears his throat and pushes off the counter where he had been leaning. "Yeah, of course." He grabs the butter and hands it to Raleigh, catching the flush of her cheeks. He smiles a bit shyly, realizing they were on their way to something before being rudely interrupted.

"Lobster," he repeats after her.

Dumb lobsters.

"We should- We should eat. And then- then we can go for that walk?" She's still flustered, and the butter's melting in a double boiler so it doesn't scorch while she moves quickly, pulling out the lobsters and putting them on towels just so they don't get saltwater everywhere, and she's sort of single-minded about the whole thing even as he spends his time smiling. She's a woman on a mission; eat. Feed him (that seems to be her default feeling, so it really is a good thing that he is actually remarkably physically active.)

It's not until they get to the point that they've both eaten (lobsters and butter and croissants from today and she's got apple tarts for desert) and she's run the dishes and they've cleaned up that she's actually not acting like she's got a mental list of things to get through. She was flustered, is all, but now that the stuff they're supposed to do is over, she actually exhales slowly and blows out a breath. "Good food? Dinner number two, success? I know there wasn't actually much cooking besides you being my hero about those lobsters."

"Definite success," he answers and it's no lie. The lobster was amazing, dessert especially. He's starting to get used to this full meal thing and Alfredo's starting to get used to having dog food down regularly. It's a rare feat.

Jason stands up from the table and holds out a hand to Raleigh. "Ready for that walk? I wanted to show you something." When he's not at the docks or working his construction jobs, Jason wanders the town, talking to the other homeless people and helping them with resources since everyone's been so helpful to him. Though he doesn't know exactly what all the shop names are and where they're located, he knows the alleys and best quiet spots like the back of his hand now. But first, he'd like to show her where he's been spending most of his time.

Smiling, she nods, agreeing with him. Success. Good. That's the goal, and honestly to know that she's done good is pretty much... well. The rest of this she's having to sort of play fast and loose, but she knows how to feed people, and that means no matter what, this isn't a disaster. Not that she thinks it's going to be a disaster.

There's no hesitation as she takes Jason's hand, although her brows do rise in curiosity. "I'm with you," she says once she grabs her keys and her bag, so they can lock the bakery shut behind them. The sun's just starting to set, and it's beautiful outside - blue skies turning purple, with wispy white clouds streaking over the horizon. She locks up and then her hand finds his again, their fingers twining together. "Lead the way." She doesn't even ask where they're going, and she's thankful she rested for a while before this - she really did want to go for a walk, and she thinks that her leg giving her more trouble than she slight limp she's always got would be a nightmare.

"Why'd you decide to come here? I mean, out of anywhere you could have picked." She's glad he did, but she's still curious.

When he steps outside, a part of Jason longs to go back to the docks, to watch the water. He really never gets tired of the sea. He smiles when Raleigh's hand is in his again and he leads her across the street and between some buildings.

"To Sirenn Cove?" he shrugs, looking down at her. "I never really decide where to go. I work until the jobs run out, then Alfredo and I walk to the next town, work, walk to the next town, rinse and repeat. I forget the last town I was in, actually." Probably because he only stayed for a week. "But Siren Cove was the name on the road sign so here I am."

She can't not ask, even as she holds his hand, even as this is sort of something like what you see in a movie, minus the fact that he'd had to stand her in a corner because she couldn't handle the fact that the lobsters were alive. "Do you think the work'll run out, here?" It's a simple question, one that's not got any sort of judgement in it.

It is what it is, but she just has to ask. Neither of them are natives, and both of them, she supposes, could have to leave at a moment's notice, although she doesn't know where they'll go. She thinks he's still staying at the cabin like he'd told her, not that she knows where that is or anything, but she's wondering already how he got through the winters, before now.

"I hope not." Now he's almost convincing himself. He likes it here. He's made friends here, become part of other people's lives. "Fishing has seasons, so I won't be fishing year round. But maybe during off seasons, there'll be enough construction work." He hadn't really thought beyond his current job, when fishing season ends in just a few months. They cross through a few blocks before turning a corner and Jason opens a gate, leading Raleigh into the community gardens. "This is where I've been volunteering." He walks her through the patches of vegetables and fruits Eli's team helped regrow and stops at a rather intricate shed. Eli designed it, Jason brought it to life. Still bringing life to it, actually. He has the frame up, the complete sketches tacked to where the door will be. "I'm building this," he nods at it. It might be silly to some, but he's proud of the work he's put into it so far. Fishing is great, he enjoys his job, but construction gave him more creative license.

She can't not smile as he lets go of her hand, and she can walk through the garden, taking it all in. There's streetlights to help where the sun's fading, and she can't not skim the leaves of the plants with her fingers. "This is amazing." There's no reservation in her assessment, and she turns to look at the shed, her eyes widening. "You're building this? Seriously?" She moves forward, looking up at the frame. "How do you know how to do this? It's-"

She shakes her head, because she's never been able to do this kind of thing, she's never known anyone who could. She could get puff pastry to do what it was supposed to do, but building? That's something else entirely. That's making something permanent, and she's looking at it like he's a goddamned wizard.

Looking back at him, she shakes her head yet again in disbelief. "You do this and you go out on the boats every day? I feel like such a slacker." She's teasing him, grinning as she bites her lower lip. "But seriously, it's amazing."

Edited 2014-06-16 02:19 (UTC)

He laughs a little at how amazed she is at the shed, but he definitely appreciates that she seems to get that a lot more goes into construction than just hammering in a few nails. Eli's been a great motivator and Raleigh's amazement definitely makes him feel good. He smiles as he checks that a few screws are still holding up.

"It's not hard. Practice helps. The hardest part is the design, but Eli made that easy with all the ideas in his head. I just had to draw it out, make sure it'd stand, and build it."

He laughs again when Raleigh points out how busy his days are. "I got nothing else to do, might as well build if people will let me." He doesn't like to sit. Twenty-four hours in a day isn't enough for most people, but it's too much for Jason.

She's mostly amazed when people make things - it's why she is drawn to baking, but when people take bits of things - wood, paint, fabric, words and in her case, flour - and put them together and the whole is more than the sum of the parts...

It's an amazing thing. And it's hard, and she's tried to build a birdhouse or two and they were summarily disasters. So when she sees someone who makes clothes, or art or writes - all of that's impressive, but add in into it that she knows how hard Jason's job is, and how tiring it's got to be... That's why she's amazed.

"It's a skill," she says with a shrug when he says it's not hard. "But you knew how to make it stand, and not like... fall over if the wind blows the wrong way, or like, somebody bumps into it." She wrinkles her nose when he laughs. "Now you get why I bake so much." She shrugs her shoulders, but she still looks around the garden. "This really is beautiful - the whole thing. You said this was partially Eli, too?" She barely knew him, but he'd ended up grabbing her when she'd fallen at the ball - not exactly her most shining moment.

"A useful skill, thankfully." Part of why he's so good at building is because he had to be. Construction work was a hot commodity in parts of Alaska, men fired at the drop of a hat and fifty more ready to take his place. He had to be good to keep his jobs.

Jason looks around the garden. "And his volunteers. Eli's kind of an idea guy. He knows how to get the supplies and the work. He's a really good guy," he admits, now realizing he does consider Eli a friend. "They worked hard to get everything back together."

"Have you ever built anything bigger? Like... I dunno, a house or anything?" She forces herself to stop asking a million questions right there, because her next question after that was asking if he'd built anything smaller, and she doesn't want to be a Dr. Seuss book. Touching the leaves of what she's sort of sure is a growing bell pepper, she glances back at him to smile at him over her shoulder, then nods.

"He caught me, once. When I was working at the ball, I..." She'd only seen Jason for a few minutes and had told him she was doing okay, even though that'd been a baldfaced lie. "It was a long day, that day, and my leg just sort of decided it hated me, and he just caught me. He's a really good guy." She completely agrees with him, and she chews on her lip for a second, before...

"Back together? Did something happen?"

"I've worked on houses, buildings, and bridges. Never by myself though." It's actually a dream of Jason's to build his own home one day, he just...never sees that happening. It's just not feasible.

"Yeah?" he smiles back at her, now following her through the garden. "Sounds like something he'd do." And then he frowns. He arrived the day after it happened and still didn't know the full story. "Something about a hydra?" Now he sounds crazy. "I don't really know, I just know the shed I tore down was extra crispy."

"Bridges?" She looks surprised, just because... that's so far beyond what she'd expected him to say. "That's... wow." She doesn't know what to say besides that - besides wow, and they're actually walking through the garden together and it's.... nice. It's really nice.

He frowns, though, and when he mentions the hydra, so does she. "They breathe fire? I thought they were just like... 9 heads that eat people, like in Hercules or whatever." Neither of them know a ton about any of this, and she feels a little bit like they're the only ones.

She pauses under a tree that definitely has seen better days - you can see the crispy sort of thing that he was talking about, and she sighs, reaching for his hand again because she... well. "This is really nice," she says lowly, and then she makes a face. "I mean, not the hydra, but- tonight. Today. Whatever. It's been really... good." She kind of was thinking they'd walk for a little longer, or hell maybe a lot longer, but she thinks it's important to tell him - maybe because she's a giant sap.

"You got me. I've never met one before. Apparently they do some damage though." It still sounds ridiculous--a hydra attack. But he believes Eli and he saw the aftermath for himself. That shed was scorched to hell and back.

He squeezes her hand lightly and smiles down at her before leading her around to another area of the garden. "It is," he agrees. "No pressure, just a nice, casual date."

"I've never really done the date thing much," she admits it out of the blue as they walk through the garden, and her free hand just keeps brushing the leaves of the plants. "Or... I mean, mostly at all. Once? But it was a huge disaster." She makes a face, scrunching her nose.

"So.. uh. Not really much to compare it to, but you're right that there's no pressure - I would hope most dates would be?" She looked over at him with raised brows, like maybe he'd know.

Jason grimaces with a chuckle. "I'm probably not the best person to use for dating information. Went on a few as a teen, and I did all the stereotypical things. It made me anxious, like I was going to mess up at any moment and be hunted down by the girl's father. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the whole getting cleaned up and being polite routine, but you have to feel comfortable on a date, like you're being yourself. Those dates I felt like I was trying to put on an act."

He smiles down at her, letting go of her hand just to place his arm around her shoulder. "I feel comfortable with this though."

"Well, good news, the last person in this world you have to worry about is my dad." It's said dryly, and she nods when he says that he feels comfortable - she does, too. "I definitely like you being you," she said with a smile, her mouth curled up on the corners. She paused when he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she spoke quietly. "How about maybe we go down and sit on the beach for a while, and then we can go get Alfredo or... we can just do whatever we feel like doing?" Because right now? Right now she just wants to be close to him. It's weird, she knows it's weird, but she shifts so she's more against his side than she was, because... it makes her happy. Makes her feel giddy, sort of.

Nodding, he leads her away from the garden, making sure to close the gate before they leave. It's not a long walk to the beach and they reach a nice area pretty quickly, one that Jason knows doesn't have a lot of traffic. On a nice night like this, a lot of residents are out strolling the beach. It was almost hard to believe some terrible things had happened in a town as nice as this on a night like this--that good things can happen in a supposed cursed town, and good things can happen for Jason.

He helps her sit down on the sand, sitting down beside her and leaning back to look at the waves. He can't help but smile. He really does love the water. "Now this is perfect."

She doesn't know about the town curse - she's only just discovered about witches, but she agrees with him. The moon's rising over the ocean, and she's been sort of trying to sort through her brain for the last few minutes while they walked. He was warm, and this.... this was really, really right, for her.

It was perfect for both of them, and Raleigh's been trying to get her courage in line this whole time. Dinner and the garden and now, on the beach where they're 100% alone and there's not another soul for what seems like miles even though they weren't that far from the docks - and she can see the faint light of galaxies starting to fade into the sky. That's why she turns, and all she says is, "Hey," so that he'll look at her.

That's when she leans up, and it's quick because she doesn't know how he'll react, but she kisses him. It's soft and sweet and close-mouthed because until he does something she wouldn't just run with it, but she pulls back slightly, her eyes searching his, and she can't stop the slow smile that spreads on her lips.

He's surprised when Raleigh presses her lips to his, and he's smiling already when she pulls back, because she got him--he's wasn't expecting that and he's not against it at all. She's definitely full of surprises, something he catches himself liking more and more. He enjoys getting to know her.

Jason leans back in to kiss her properly, resting his forehead against hers after he breaks away from her lips. It's that moment, resting his head against hers, the sound of the waves brushing against the beach, and the feel of the warm summer wind in his skin that he realizes how alone he's been and how much he craves human contact. She's soft and kind, a fixed point in his rather chaotic life, and he cups her face, kissing her deeper.

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