Raleigh Harper / Emily Watkins (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
callmeemily) wrote2014-07-06 05:09 pm
callmeemily) wrote2014-07-06 05:09 pm
COOKIES well they're baking lessons - hopefully they don't burn down the house. (Levi)
You request a baking lesson, and you get a girl standing on your doorstep at 9AM with a bag over her shoulder. This time, there's no crutches; there's no crutches, and even though Levi had said he'd get the ingredients, she's got more, because she found out a yesterday that she can bake again. She can bake, and that means they're not just making cookies, even though they were still going to make those.
She wonders about making this a thing, the teaching, but then Raleigh realises that she'd rather have it be like this. Friends, and teaching, not anything more formalized. There's sort of an elephant in the room, the sort of elephant that she doesn't know if it can be banished with cookies and well-intentioned half-explanations, but she figures she does want to be honest; she can't go around with half the town knowing her name and the other not. But they'd get to that bridge when they come to it.
So she rings the bell - not needing a cab, she wanted the walk, she needed it because she's been too long on crutches - and waits.
She wonders about making this a thing, the teaching, but then Raleigh realises that she'd rather have it be like this. Friends, and teaching, not anything more formalized. There's sort of an elephant in the room, the sort of elephant that she doesn't know if it can be banished with cookies and well-intentioned half-explanations, but she figures she does want to be honest; she can't go around with half the town knowing her name and the other not. But they'd get to that bridge when they come to it.
So she rings the bell - not needing a cab, she wanted the walk, she needed it because she's been too long on crutches - and waits.
no subject
"It's adequate bossing," he said with a shrug. "You look happy doing it. And not happy to be doing it, just happy."
Which was good. Raleigh happy was very, very good as far as he was concerned. It seemed like she needed as much happiness as she could get.
"I will know, once you keep your ass on that stool and explain to me how to do it," he warned, knowing what she intended.
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"Yes, sir," her mouth quirks into a smile, and she's mocking him just a tad. "You want to take the softened butter - a cup - and put it in a bowl with a cup of sugar, and press it together with a fork until it sort of becomes one thing instead of seperate - like instead of sugar and butter, it's sugarbutter. Does that make sense?"
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"Yes, we call that a different name here in New England," he said, getting out the butter and putting two sticks worth in the bowl along with a cup of sugar. Sugar was always a bit of a pain in the ass, no matter how careful he was Levi always seemed to get crystals of it all over the counter.
"We call it mixing. Because that's what it is, Emily, taking two ingredients and making them one is mixing."
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She pauses, and then her voice loses most of it's joviality. "Uh, about that. Remember when that guy - Bach? He said my name wasn't Emily?" She doesn't want to do this, she doesn't want to tell him she lied to him, but just can't keep doing it. "He wasn't wrong. I... uhm. I sort of was- Before they-" But she has to stop, because she's thinking about it. She's thinking about it, and she's not supposed to, she'd made herself not think about it, because when she does, it's like a ball rolling down hill. The last time it'd happened, it was with Les, and before that it was with Spencer and Bach, she can't stop the way that she reacts, and she can feel herself sliding into it again. The man asking her for help, and she should have known better, because then she's grabbed- she somehow should have known, and she has to force herself to take deep breaths. Deep breaths. She forces herself not to check behind her, and she sucks in another breath. Forcing a small smile for a moment, because if you act like you're alright, you'll be alright, somehow, she continues. "Sorry. Stuff was weird, and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone who I was, and so... I apologize, you deserve better than me lying to you. It's Raleigh." She's gripping the edge of the stool with white knuckles, but besides that, she seems... sort of normal.
That is, probably unless you happen to be a detective who can read minds.
no subject
Levi had been wondering about that and while he wanted to ask her about it he figured she would tell him in her own time if it was real. Why Bach had known he wasn't sure but he was glad that she had told him, that she trusted him that much. He just wish that it hadn't conjured up a lot of memories of her of the time Joseph had kidnapped her.
"Hey Raleigh," he said, turning to smile at her and offer her his hand. "I'm Leviticus Astor the Third. It's nice to meet you."
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"You're a good man," she says softly, and she reaches to take his hand, and she squeezes it tightly, for just a second. It's not a handshake, it's something else, and it's weird, the way she just is all-in, with him and Les and Lara and likely Corry. The people who were there, she's put so much stock in them because she believes in them, because she knows that they're good.
"Thank you," she says as she lets go, her head bent for only a moment as she pulls in a deep breath. She's not going to think about it, anymore. She can't. She forces herself to stop, her eyes flicking to the bowl. "So... yeah," she says, even though her heart's a lot less in it than it was. "You cream together the butter and the sugar."
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"Are you kidding? Thank you for not making fun of the fact that my name is 'Leviticus'," he said, grinning at her as he started to mash together the butter and the sugar. She could call it 'creaming' all she wanted but it was just mixing and mashing.
He knew that what she had said was just a big deal for her but he was equally sure that she didn't want to act like it was a big deal. If she wanted to tell him more he'd listen but for now he figured that focusing on baking would be best. Levi had a sense that it's what they both really wanted to be doing at the moment.
"But there, I think this is creamed now."