Piper Delany (little_witch_) wrote in btvsal, @ 2011-03-12 09:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | jared delany, place: la, ~piper delany |
Movie Night and Talk of Family
Who: Piper and Jared
Where: Their Home
When: Sunday Evening
Jared was happy that he usually had Sundays off from work. While yes, people technically had the weekends off at Wolfram & Hart, more often than not the majority of the workers there would be in on weekends catching up on paperwork and the like. Jared was usually able to at least get Sundays away from work (being higher up than most had its perks, after all), and tonight he was taking full advantage of that by having dinner with his daughter. He knew that she had put a lot into this dinner, so he was more than happy to enjoy it with her now.
It was days like these that Piper looked forward to. Days where it was just her and her father. While most daughters might scoff at the thought of spending an entire day with their fathers, and even more so at the thought of cooking meals for them. Piper actually looked forward to these times. So much so that the teen tended to go all out with making dinner.
With the table set for two and a platter of fried chicken, bowl of mashed potatoes made from scratch and cooked ears of corn already having been placed on the table, Piper busied herself with pulling a tray of biscuits from the oven, which were then transferred into a basket and then placed on the table. With dinner now ready, Piper called out to her father before getting drinks for them both.
Jared headed down the stairs from his bedroom for dinner. Since they didn't get to spend a whole lot of time together like this, he had actually 'dressed' for the occasion in a button up shirt and slacks. "Everything looks marvelous," he said to Piper as he came into the dining room.
Piper was so her father's daughter in many aspects, and this happened to be one of them. Just as her father came down for dinner the teen unfastened the ties of the cooking apron she had worn during the whole preparation of the evening meal and slung it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. The teen then met her father in the dining room wearing a black, knee length, sleeveless dress with her hair tied back at the nape of her neck. The lack of time father and daughter were able to spend together made meals such as these special occasions, and Piper felt the need to dress for the occasion.
"Thank you." The teen smiled warmly to her father as she eased back one of the chairs to seat herself.
"You're welcome," Jared said as he sat down at the table. He loved when they were actually able to do things like this. It was unfortunate that it was so rare, but his job really did call him away a lot. "So, is there an occasion that I'm not aware of, or just that I'm actually off of work?" he asked in a playful voice.
"It's the latter." Piper smiled, which should be occasion enough for her to go all out in cooking dinner. They rarely spent time together as a family, which had been why Piper was wanting to make the most of their day together. It really was the quality of time, not the quantity of time that mattered to the teen. "And I was thinking after dinner and dessert we could do the movie thing." She suggested as she scooped some mashed potatoes out of the bowl and then onto her plate. She'd probably end up falling asleep before the movie was over, but that would matter little to the teen witch.
"You know that I'm always more than happy to hang out with you, Piper," Jared said with a smile. Possibly because it was a rare opportunity to have, Jared always took time when he had it to spend time with his daughter, whether it be dinner, a movie, or just sitting and talking with one another. "I think a movie would be lovely. Do you have one in mind?"
"Well," Piper paused a moment then to take a drink of her milk, "I was thinking we could do Dial M For Murder, Sleeping With The Enemy," yes, Piper just happened to be a big Julia Roberts fan, "or an Abbott and Costello movie." Well she didn't much care for the classic black and whites, Piper did like Abbott and Costello, and The Marx Brothers movies.
"Any of those sound perfect to me," Jared said to her. He did happen to like old black and white movies, but was more than willing to sit through a Julia Roberts movie in order to spend time with his daughter.
"Okay. An Abbott and Costello movie it is, but you're going to have to choose which one." Piper informed her father with a happy little smile. This was a family night, after-all. Piper had cooked dinner, and most likely would be the one to pop up some corn. Least her father could do was choose which A&C movie they'd watch.
"How about the one where the meet the mummy then?" Jared suggested, finishing filling up his plate and deciding to start digging in. After eating a few bites, he took a sip of his drink and smiled at Piper. "All of this is delicious," he said to her.
"I'm glad you like it." Piper smiled warmly to her father. She wasn't anywhere near a master chef, but at least she knew how to cook food that was good in the end result. Following her father's lead, then, Piper finished filling her plate and happily started in on her meal.
After dinner, Jared got a phone call from work that required his attention. "Sorry, honey," he said, feeling a bit mortified. "I'll be right back." He had NO intention of going in to work tonight at all.
"Don't be too long." Piper called after her dad as she started filling the dishwasher with their dinner dishes. They had lingered a bit over dessert with talk, generally speaking, of how their day went, and Piper hoped her dad's phone call wouldn't take longer then it took her to load the dishwasher, run upstairs to change into her pajamas, and then get some popcorn to popping.
Luckily for them both (and whomever had DARED call him right now), the call didn't take too long. Some intern had momentarily misplaced a file and had called Jared for help in locating it. It had been figured out, though. About twenty minutes later, he came back downstairs, having also changed clothes into a pair of pajama pants and a white shirt. "Did I miss anything?" he asked as he came down.
"You're just in time." Piper said meeting her father in the living room with a large bowl of buttered popcorn. She had changed as well and was now wearing a pair of black and white plaid pajama pants and matching short sleeve top. "Did you want to put the movie in." Asking as she set the popcorn full bowl down on the low table in front of the sofa.
"Sure," he said, going to the DVD playing and popping the disc in it. He grabbed the remote to the player and sat down on the sofa next to her. "You sure you don't mind watching this with me?" He knew her tastes in movies differed a bit from his.
"Dad." Piper said with a roll of her eyes as if that was the most ridiculous he could have thought. While it was true she didn't exactly share his love of the classics, Piper did enjoy watching the Abbott and Costello movies he had in his collection. Leaning forward then, Piper grabbed the bowl of popcorn to set in the middle between herself and her father as she stretched her legs out with her feet resting on the table.
He laughed. "I had to make sure," he teased. He took a handful of popcorn from the bowl and popped it into his mouth. If anyone from work saw the formidable Mr. Delany sitting with his daughter, eating popcorn and watching Abbot and Costello, they might fall over from shock.
"We should do this at least once a month." Piper stated dipping her hand into the bowl to grab out a handful of popcorn. "Make it kind of like a ritual thing." The teen then popped a couple into her mouth to munch on slowly as she watched the movie.
Jared nodded. "We should definitely start making sure to do this at least once a month," he said to her. He figured that once a month would be easy enough to do, after all. He was at least high enough up now that he could get away once a month.
"Have you spoken to Uncle Jack lately?" Piper asked a bit hesitantly as she popped the rest of her handful of popcorn into her mouth. Her uncle probably wasn't the best subject to bring up, and Piper wouldn't have except for the fact that she had run into him a little was back and had been wondering since then if Uncle Jack had made any attempts at trying to contact her father, his brother.
He arched an eyebrow. That might explain a few things. "Yeah, actually...he called me about a week or so ago and we talked for a little while," he looked over at Piper with a slight smirk. "Did you talk to him yourself lately?"
"A little ways back I did." Piper answered truthfully to her father. "I was doing a little food shopping when I happened to run into him." Which wasn't the most pleasant of experiences for the teen, but at least she had been civil to her relative.
He was actually glad that she answered truthfully about it. "I think you should get to know him and his daughter a little better," Jared said to her. "Jack and I don't really not get along so much as we're so different we don't know what to talk about with each other." Jack also didn't LOVE where his brother worked, but what could you do? The last phone call had actually been a pleasant experience, if a little out of left field. "Doesn't mean that you shouldn't get to know him and his daughter a little more. She's actually got an album climbing the charts right now." One of the interns had actually had the bravery to ask him if he was related to Meredith Delany the other day and explained why they knew her. Frankly, he had just been relieved that the intern hadn't slept with her (yes, he DID keep up on what his family members were doing, even if they didn't talk all that much).
"But I'd feel like I was betraying you or something." The last thing Piper would ever want to do was hurt her father in any way, and attempting to play nice with her uncle and cousin would have felt like that. "And I did meet Meredith shortly after I moved back here, we kind of got along til I realized who she was. I kind of turned on her then." Piper admitted a bit timidly unsure how her father would take that little bit of news.
Jared had to bite back a chuckle at the idea that she would be betraying him by talking to his and her family. "I can promise that you wouldn't be betraying me, Piper," he said to her. "I actually like Meredith, even if' she is a bit...rambunctious at times." Nice way of putting it. She was really Jack made over with less relationship issues (shows what he knew). "Just try it out. Who knows? You might like them." They weren't really bad. Just...very, very different.
"If you really want me to," Piper agreed with a little bit of reluctance, "I will." The teen promised slipping a couple more pieces of popcorn into her mouth to munch on. She couldn't promise how things would turn out, but at least she'd make the attempt to try and get to know her uncle and cousin.
"I just don't want you to feel like you have to avoid them on my behalf," he said simply. If she talked to them and still found that she didn't like them? He wouldn't push. He just wanted to be sure that she gave them a real chance before making a decision about them.
"That's exactly why I wasn't wanting to get to know them, dad." She answered back just as simply. "You've always been my family, and they... they were just distant relatives I rarely saw. I would have never done anything to hurt you." Piper said, sad, but true. It really had always been just the two of them that no one else really matter to the teen.
"Well, Jack and I are talking a little bit more, so you talking to either of them wouldn't hurt," he said, pulling her over and kissing her on top of her head. "I'd never want to do anything to hurt you, either."
"Love you, dad." Piper said softly as she snuggled in a bit against her father when her drew her closer in a fatherly embrace. "And I will try playing nice with Uncle Jack and Meredith." Whether anything would come of it remained to be seen, but at least Piper was going to try.
"Love you, too, pumpkin," he said, pulling her closer as the two of them continued to watch the movie. "And thank you."
Piper smiled hearing her father's words as her eyes fixed on the TV and the movie playing. If it was going to please her father, then Piper was going to put forth the effort in trying to get to know her Uncle Jack and cousin Meredith.