InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "i'm tired of talking now...."

allinthecards (allinthecards) wrote in beyond_evo,
@ 2009-06-14 11:40:00

come down and i'll give you something to cry about [Caroline]
Despite all of the attacks, explosions, and powers accidents that the Xavier mansion has weathered, the kitchen of the school is still in relatively good shape. Big and spacious, it's just the kind of mecca a streetrat with a secret love for cooking was looking for, all of his life, even if he didn't know he was looking for it until he got here. While he doesn't exactly advertise his culinary abilities for any of a number of reasons, Remy can, in fact, hold his own in the kitchen and does come down to it quite often to get the need to cook out of his system. And so it is that Remy is in the kitchen today, to scratch that particular itch.

He doesn't usually indulge in his cultural roots when making food since he can't possibly ever eat everything that he makes and not everyone appreciates the subtle, complex and completely awesome flavors of Cajun and Creole cooking, but today is not one of those days. No, today it's a full-on gumbo fest in the biggest stock pot that Xavier's could offer, complete with okra he no doubt conned and cajoled Storm to grow in the greenhouse because these damn Yanks don't know the first thing about essential vegetables.

So there Remy is, standing in front of the stove with a spoon in one hand, burning eyes narrowed at the pot as he thinks over its contents, looking about as put-together and not-street-rat-esque as he ever does, short of being in formalwear, a vague and pensive frown over his face.

[ this lame open is for Caroline ]

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whatyoueat
2009-06-14 08:53 pm UTC (link)

Caroline hadn't cooked too terribly much since she'd gotten to Xavier's, preoccupied with crying in her room the first few weeks, and then trying not to die when things went all to Hell. But you didn't grow up on honest-to-God Creole cuisine and find yourself in the north completely fine with their utter lack of flavor. So it was down to the kitchens she went every so often, laden with ingredients shipped from home and the best shops in Manhattan, a meal for 12 writing itself up in the back of her mind.

She's roughly 174 pounds when she walks in and dropping fast, having downed a few boxes of cheezits before she came down to bulk up, so she might carry all the ingredients and pots and pans down with ease. Granted, she isn't expecting anyone to be in there cooking, and the thought of shrinking in her clothes in front of someone who wasn't a training instructor still makes her a little uncomfortable. The sound of grease popping and vegetables sizzling stops her in her tracks, and she makes an effort to walk a little slower and conserve energy on her way to set the pile of ingredients on the counter. Her dress already looks a little big --

And then she smells the spices. And the okra. And the shrimp. And was that the Holy Trinity she smelled in that pan? The thought that this might be ~the infamous Cajun~ she's heard so much about doesn't occur to her; her face lights up, and she peers into what's in the pots. "Well, hi!" she says, in the cheeriest Lousiana drawl you ever did hear. "I didn't know there was any other Creole chefs 'round here!"

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allinthecards
2009-06-14 09:36 pm UTC (link)

At first, all Caroline earns herself is an almost dismissive glance to the side, red-on-black eyes flickering over her in a casual, almost disinterested expression. The fact that she's apparently a chunky girl in an even chunkier girl's dress doesn't phase him much at all, but then again this particular Cajun has seen a lot in his time at the mansion. Remy himself, of course, isn't changing size. He is the same six-foot-two he's been since he more or less got finished with puberty, and it's doubtful if he even really has any body fat left on him at all. His clothes are not in danger of falling off, no matter how much some people in the mansion might see that as a bonus.

"Ot'er Creole chefs?" Remy asks, skeptically, and even in those three words, his accent is apparent. New Orleans, but apparently according to Caroline's worldview, the wrong kind of New Orleans, since he has the marble-mouthed way of mushing together vowels and consonants indiscriminately of a true Cajun. "I wasn't 'ware dere was somebody here b'sides me dat gives a rat's ass 'bout anyt'in' but cheeseburgers an' pizza." He gives Caroline another quick glance before saying, speculatively, as a statement rather than a question, "You's new, 'dough."

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whatyoueat
2009-06-14 10:10 pm UTC (link)

Oh, Lord.

Caroline's face freezes up as soon as the words come out of his mouth. Of course. Of course he's Cajun. Of course the only other person who knows how to properly use an onion is some disgusting little river rat from the bayou. Surely some ethereal deity was getting his kicks out of this. First she's a fat-ass and has to leave home, and now she's stuck with -- ugh. She forces a smile, and for a brief second before it falls into place, it almost looks natural. But the tic on her eye and the twitch of her cheeks clearly make it anything but.

"I sure am," she says after a second, and makes a point of busing herself with the pile of ingredients she's brought down. "Just moved in a couple months back when my -- mutation started up. Trust me, sugar, cheeseburgers and pizza don't have nothing on a good old plate of etouffee." Then its over to the refigerator to pull out the meat and shrimp and eggs. She is making an effort to be as brisk as possible -- and still shrinking; there's a brief pause for her to tug at the drawstring on her waist and make the dress fit again. Common courtesy dictated that she leave the kitchen to him, since he was there first and in the middle of a meal, but Caroline apparently had no intention of waiting. She was starving. "You seen a plate a crawfish in here?" she asks, straightening up from the fridge. Knowing his kind, he's probably using it. Ew.

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allinthecards
2009-06-14 10:27 pm UTC (link)

The tic at the eyes does not go without Remy's notice, and his eyebrows lift, just faintly. He doesn't stop working on the gumbo, nor does he particularly make an effort to get out of Caroline's way, instead just standing exactly where he was before in front of the stockpot. He gives Caroline a funny glance every once in a while, though, because that shrinking thing is awful weird, now that he's really noticed it.

"You been here a coupla mont's an' you ain't even poked y'head up yet?" Remy muses, his expression thoughtful. "You been holin' y'self up. 'Course, wit' all de shit dat goes down here, can't say as I'd blame you."

Of course, then she's mentioning crawfish, and the look she gets from Gambit is nothing short of put-upon. "Si vous plait. I ain't t'ievin' nobody's 'ngredients. B'sides, wouldn' trust no crawfish nobody got up here 'nyway. Prob'ly taste like shoe leat'er." A beat. "Ain't seen dem, 'dough."

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whatyoueat
2009-06-14 10:52 pm UTC (link)

"Well, forgive me for not jumping gung-ho into everything," she says with a little half-sniff, and adjusts her sleeves. But it's the crawfish comment that gets her. Her smile sours to a thin line, and she stands up a little straighter (now at only 167). "I ordered them from a trusted shop in the French Quarter," she says as archly as a seventeen-year-old can. Which, all things considered, just comes out more primly than anything. Short girl with fluctuating weight standing up against an over-six-foot man who Wasn't Having It? Caroline isn't nearly as successful as she might have hoped, but she manages to bite back some retort about stealing food that may or may not have gotten her slapped.

She glances down at the gumbo he's making, and judging by the color and density, she can assess what stage of cooking he's at pretty well. Still, she puts a hand on her hip (very fierce, she knows) and asks anyway: "So how long you gonna be in here, sugar? I have to cook a couple meals for tonight."

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allinthecards
2009-06-14 11:06 pm UTC (link)

"An' dat trusted shop in de Big Easy...what, teleported dem up here? Non, je pense qui non." Remy makes a derisive, clucking noise in the back of his mouth. "Dey gonna be shipped up wit' dry ice, or frozen or some shit, an' dey gonna taste like rubber an' chemicals. I don' know 'bout you, but I like t'be a l'il more discriminate 'bout what I put in m'mout'." Was that a fat joke? With Gambit, it's hard to tell, from the way he says it so conversationally. The gumbo gets stirred.

The gumbo which, it stands to be noted, probably has another forty-five minutes or so, and that's if he doesn't plan to put any seafood at all in it. "I be done when 'm done, chere, don' rush good food."

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whatyoueat
2009-06-14 11:43 pm UTC (link)

She bristles. Her shoulders stiffen, and her eyebrows lift as high as they'll go. "Pardon me, darlin, but just because you're -- " A dismissive glance at his person -- "Cajun doesn't mean you know a lick more about cooking than me. If I didn't trust the shop, I wouldn't order from them." Never mind that, yes, he's right: those suckers had been packed in ice, but not dry ice, and Caroline is getting really very huffy at the idea that she didn't know what she was doing in the kitchen.

The fat joke almost went over her head, and she almost used what weight had not been converted to energy yet to slam the refrigerator door shut and tear it off its hinges. As it stood, her hand slightly shakes in the effort to close it without a) smashing it and b) bursting into tears. It wasn't her fault she was plump, okay. "You're one to talk, Cajun. You might want to put a little less cayenne in there next time, if you don't want to kill anyone." She shifts past him brusquely to regather all her ingredients up in her arms -- though now that she's a good 15 pounds lighter than when she started out, it's a somewhat unwieldy bundle she's piled up. It occurs to her, briefly, that she may or may not look ridiculous. Insult to injury.

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allinthecards
2009-06-15 12:08 am UTC (link)

"Mais non, pas de tout." Remy says, easily, and now he turns to look at Caroline with his devillish eyes, the red maybe just a little brighter than the others. "Ain't b'cause I'm Cajun. 'S b'cause I'm me, an' I don' order up mudbugs from Nawlins hopin' dey ain't gonna go bad t'N'Yawrk, dat's why I'm better in de kitchen den you." Again, he says it with such easy disregard, as if he's just stating facts rather than jibbing at her. He's had a lot of practice with giving and receiving insults in the past, even if he thinks it's all in fun.

"M'name's 'Remy', jus' in case y'want to switch it up wit' de unreasonable sudden high horse shit." He notes to Caroline, looking back to his meal-in-progress, before Remy continues with, "Not dat I care 'f anybody but me can even get wit'in' a ten mile radius o'de shit, but don' you t'ink y'oughta taste it b'fore you start t'rowin' dem stones?"

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whatyoueat
2009-06-15 12:33 am UTC (link)

Caroline stares at him over her pile of spices and dry ingredients, her eyes wide in, as he noted, completely unwarranted rage. "No, thank you," she says, hitching herself ever further up that high horse. Her face crumples up in a mixture of disgust, outrage, some vague realization that she's making a mountain out of a Cajun molehill, and even more outrage that she can't just be angry without stupid sensibility creeping in. "Go ahead and have the kitchen, Remy." If ever a name was said with more derision, Caroline was giving it a run for its money. "If I wanted food cooked by some river r--"

Three different spice jars fell out of the pile in her arms, effectively silencing her slur in a flurry of "Oh, Lord"s and "I'm fine"s -- but all attempts to bend over and pick up the jars end in some part of the pile shifting precariously. After two minutes of frantically trying to toe the jars towards her hands, she straightens, shakes her her hair back into some semblance of its original coif, and steps carefully towards the door. "I will come back later." And, dropping another small bag of garlic cloves, she huffs her way back out.

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allinthecards
2009-06-15 12:42 am UTC (link)

"Street rat, chere. Street rat." Remy calls to Caroline cheerfully as she leaves, not once looking up from his gumbo. He'll continue to cook it just like he was cooking it when she came in, and enjoy his lunch or dinner or whatever this is, and pack up the leftovers to put in the freezer in convenient meal-sized portions.

And, when Caroline comes back later in the Cajun's absense, she'll find more or less everything she was fumbling around with in neat, alphabetical order on the counter, along with a freshly-washed mixing bowl and other various cooking sundries.

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