InsaneJournal

Who: Jacob Black & Nessie Cullen
What: Valentines Day = Everything that can go wrong does
When: Backdated. Tuesday, February 14th. Evening
Where: Their apartment
Rating: TBD
Status: Incomplete. Finishing in Comments

Jacob coughed as the thick white smoke continued filling the kitchen. The source of the smoke was the stove where Jacob was attempting to make dinner for Nessie. Dinner for Nessie for Valentine’s Day. It was their first Valentine’s Day as a couple and Jacob had wanted everything to go well. He’d even asked Emily for help and despite having gone through a dry run with her over the weekend, it seemed that he was completely hopeless. Before tonight he hadn’t even known that it was possible to burn pasta, but apparently if anyone could do it, it was one Jacob Black. Not only had he somehow managed to burn the pasta, but the pot of sauce had bubbled over and most of it was now on the stove instead of in the pot and Jacob really wasn’t sure which pot the smoke was coming from anymore. This was a disaster.

“God damnit!” Jacob swore as he opened the kitchen window, the cold night air wafted in, but didn’t seem to make any difference in the thick smoke that was still filling the room despite the fact that he’d turned off the stove. Of course he didn’t feel the cold, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone around and opened almost every other window in the apartment in an attempt to clear it out. Going back to the kitchen, he glared at the stove, glad that at least he could control his phasing, otherwise the mess in the kitchen would wind up even worse, “How the fuck did I burn fucking pasta?” Jacob didn’t swear often, but when he did, it tended to be all at once.

Having spent most of the day out of the apartment, Nessie had been blissfully unaware of Jacob’s attempts to surprise her with a romantic Valentine’s Day - or, rather, Valentine’s Night - dinner. Had she realized what he was up to, she might have suggested that someone else oversee his attempts at cooking. She might have even suggested they go out to some nice restaurant instead. However, she hadn’t known what he was planning and, as such, had been completely surprised when she’d returned home later that evening to find the entire apartment filled with smoke that smelled suspiciously like burnt pasta and some sort of tomato-based sauce.

Crinkling her nose at the noxious odor, Nessie fought back her gag reflex and made her way into the apartment despite the stench that seemed to permeate from virtually every square foot. Brown eyes darted about, easily seeing through the smoke, until she finally spotted the shapeshifter she was looking for somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. Waving her hand in front of her face in an attempt to clear the air enough to at least meet his gaze and speak without coughing, Nessie offered him a small, bemused smile.

“That definitely smells,” she paused, coughing ever so slightly despite her best attempts not to do so. “Interesting,” she finally offered, unable to bring herself to claim it was appetizing or anything even remotely similar. Even if such a false claim would probably sooth his wounded pride, Nessie simply couldn’t bring herself to lie to Jacob, no matter how noble the cause might be.

Jacob had heard the door, but hadn’t been able to turn towards Nessie until she was finally standing next to him, a slight pout upon his lips before he sighed, “It was supposed to be dinner, but somehow I messed it up. Did you know it was possible to burn pasta? Cause apparently it is.” Grabbing the handle of the pot the pasta was in, Jacob brought it to the sink and dumped it into the garbage disposal; well what wasn’t stuck to the inside anyway. One pot gone, the air slowly began to clear. He had wanted this to be perfect so badly considering all the crap that had been going on lately and he’d screwed it up. Turning around, he leaned back against the sink, arms crossed as he gazed over at Nessie, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He’d already said it to her that morning, but he felt the need to say it again. “Sorry about dinner.” He knew that he should have come up with a plan B, but he had thought that this would actually work, so a plan B wouldn’t have been necessary. Boy was he wrong.

Despite the smoke that filled the air - even if it had dissipated quite a bit once the pasta was dumped - Nessie couldn’t help but smile lovingly at Jacob. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she replied lightly, refusing to let something like burnt dinner sour her mood. The way she saw it, clearly the city of Colligo, or at least the being known as Asaph who ran the place, was determined to ruin the day, and she simply refused to let that happen. Pulling a DVD case from behind her back, her grin grew ever so slightly.

“I come bearing a movie,” she offered as way of not necessarily a peace offering but rather a means to improve Jacob’s mood. “Since dinner is pretty much shot, maybe we can,” she hesitated, not sure exactly what would still be available at such a late hour on such an important day for couples. Finally she settled on, “Order pizza?” She shrugged, slightly. “Or Chinese. Or something.” Her eyes shone with faint amusement as she waved the case about ever so slightly. “And watch one of your favorites?”

A pause as she held it out for him to see the case, her grin growing even more. “It took a little bit of convincing but I managed to get the manager of one of the video stores to hold a copy for me,” she explained. “Apparently, for not being a strictly romantic film, it’s still pretty popular.”

And if Jacob ever had to ask himself why he loved Nessie, the answer was simple; she always knew just what to do to make a bad situation better. Grinning, he crossed the kitchen and took her face in his hands, gently, and pressed his forehead against hers, “Thank you.” Other girls probably would have gotten annoyed or upset if their boyfriend ruined dinner on Valentine’s Day, but Nessie was not like other girls and Jacob was grateful for that. “You’re the best, you know that?” He smiled at her for a moment before pressing a kiss to her lips.

The smoke in the kitchen had dissipated quite a bit now and he could see her clearly as he pulled back, his hands still cupping her face. “Why don’t you find the menus and I’ll clean the, well, what use to be sauce out of that pot before it eats through it and we have to buy new cookware. Then we can start the movie and decide what to order.” Jacob was pretty sure that most places were busy on Valentine’s Day and wherever they ordered from would probably make them wait an hour before their food was actually delivered, but he didn’t really care right now. Right now, he just wanted to spend a couple of hours with Nessie without something else ruining the night.

Nessie smiled lovingly up at Jacob as she returned the light kiss. “I know, I’m awesome,” she agreed lightly, brown eyes sparkling with amusement. Laughing at his comment about the sauce eating through the pot, she considered assuring him that that wasn’t very likely. However, a quick glance in that direction, followed by a memory of just how thick the smoke had been before it had finally started to clear out a little, and she reconsidered her stance. It probably was for the best that the mess get dealt with now rather than later. Otherwise, if nothing else, they’d have to buy new cookware just because the stuff was so caked on it would never come off again.

“Sounds like a plan!” she agreed with another grin. She paused for a second then her voice took on a slightly teasing tone. “Now that I can find my way through the kitchen to the menu drawer, that is.” Crinkling her nose ever so slightly, she made a kissy face at him as she side-stepped around him and headed to where they kept the ridiculous number of takeout menus that they owned. Sure, dinner was going to be postponed a bit, but she was fine with waiting. Truth be told, she would be fine with eating cereal and watching cartoons all night. Mostly, she just wanted to be with Jacob. The rest was all just a big bonus.

Jacob had begun to move back towards the stove when she spoke again and he turned to playfully swipe at her before grabbing the pot off the stove and began washing it, “You’re lucky you’re so cute, you know that?” He glanced over at her, smirking as he watched her go through the menus, “And how did we get so many menus? We haven’t even been here that long.” He hadn’t realized just how much take out they’d been eating and he wondered if he really should learn to cook for real so that they could have an actual home cooked meal every now and then; especially considering how much he ate, it’d probably save them some money too..

Once the pot was finally clean, which had taken a little longer then he’d expected considering how caked on the sauce had been, he put it in the strainer and turned to Nessie, crossing over to where she was and wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder, “So, what are the choices tonight?” He definitely wasn’t in the mood for pasta anymore, but other than that he didn’t really have a preference.

It really was insane just how many takeout menus they had. Sure, it made sense, considering neither of them really were all that great at cooking, but still. She had to agree with his assessment that they hadn’t been there nearly long enough to have accumulated as many has they had. “If we keep this up,” she commented as she began trying to sort through their options, “we’re going to need some kind of system. Separate them by food type then alphabetical based on restaurant name, or something. It’s going to be breakfast before I even reach the bottom of the stack.”

Fortunately, it was only a half dozen or so menus in that she finally located a couple of their more favorite choices of places to eat. The food was inexpensive, the quantities were large and, best of all for nights when Jacob was tired from working on bikes all day, the places delivered. Now, whether or not they delivered during a zombie apocalypse was anyone’s guess, but Nessie figured there was only one way to find out. Holding up two menus, leaning slightly back against Jacob, she glanced at the choices.

“I say we go for Asian or the one with the homecooked meals with the really nice, old lady who runs the joint. Because the steakhouses are going to be packed,” she paused to glance over her shoulder at Jacob with a grin. “And I’m pretty sure if we tried to go to that all you can eat buffet across from the university so soon after our last visit, even just to get food to go, the owner would either burst into tears or shut the place down. Possibly both.”

Jacob laughed and kissed Nessie’s cheek, “Yeah, I think I ate a little too much the last time.” He couldn’t help it that he needed to eat a lot, but at the same time he felt a little bad for the owner of the buffet. “I’m good with either though. Lets go in the living room and start the movie while we decide. Otherwise we’re just gonna wind up standing here all night.” Not that Jacob minded spending the whole night with his arms around Nessie like this, but eventually they were going to have to eat and standing for a long eventually got uncomfortable. Taking the two menus from her, he detached himself from her and with his free hand, he took one of hers then led her into the living room.

Sitting down on the couch, Jacob held both menus out in front of him, glancing back and forth at the names, “So, do you have any preference?” He asked, glancing at Nessie over the top of the menus, “I mean, on one hand I was going for home cooked tonight, but I also really like Asian, but I bet a lot of people are opting for Asian tonight.” Jacob was beginning to think that no matter what it was gonna take awhile to decide on dinner.

Once Jacob was settled on the couch and looking over the menus, Nessie made her way to the DVD player and turned it on. She glanced over her shoulder at him as she pulled the DVD from the case, sticking it into the slot and pressing it shut, all the while trying to decide on their best options for food. “Let’s go with home cooked,” she finally suggested, grabbing the remote from the shelf by the TV and making her way to the couch to sit beside him. “The lady was really nice and seemed to like us. Maybe she’ll put a rush on the order.” Besides, truth be told, it seemed like he really did want as close to a home cooked meal as they could get tonight, and that was their best option by far.

Snuggling up beside him, she began fast forwarding through the previews, not particularly caring to see any of them considering the movie was a bit of an older one so they weren’t going to be surprised by whatever was considered a ‘new release’ when this one had come out. She was all set to pause the movie when it got started, figuring they could order the food then settle in to watch while waiting on the delivery, but something caught her eye a split second before she hit the pause button.

In retrospect, she would wind up deciding it was her fault for not having checked out the DVD before leaving the store with it. However, at the time, Nessie had been so happy to have finally found a copy of My Bloody Valentine that she had simply taken the case and left as soon as she’d paid, trusting in the clerk’s ability to make sure the movie she wanted was the one that was in the case. However, as the swell of all too familiar music began, she instinctively knew that clearly she had been giving the clerk too much credit. And, by the time the title of the movie popped up on the screen - clearly reading ‘Gone With the Wind’ - Nessie couldn’t decide whether to laugh, scream, or hunt down the clerk and beat him to within an inch of his life.

Deceptively calm, she instead paused the movie instantly and stared in abject horror at the screen for a few more seconds. Part of her refused to even look at Jacob, not sure she wanted to see his expression at the realization that she had wound up with that movie, out of all of the ones possible. Finally, after a heartbeat or two, she managed to say slowly, “I did not rent this movie.” She chanced a glance at Jacob. “I swear,” she insisted. “The case said My Bloody Valentine. I don’t know how the two got mixed up but this is not what I rented...”

Jacob had set down the menu for the Asian restaurant and had been scanning the other menu, despite knowing what he was going to wind up ordering when he heard that music. No, it couldn’t be that movie, because no one could have luck that bad. When Nessie paused the movie, Jacob finally lowered the menu, needing to see it with his own eyes even though he didn’t think that his ears lied. He’d been forced to watch Gone With the Wind more times then he could count in the last few years and as a result he knew the opening music better then he should.

“I guess whoever rented this is going to get a big surprise when they get home,” Jacob could just imagine some little gray haired lady, expecting Gone With the Wind and instead being greeted with a hospital full of bloody limbs; the thought almost made him laugh. Ok, so it did make him laugh, because honestly, if he couldn’t laugh at this then they really were doomed. “Nessie, it’s okay. Really.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, “I appreciate you trying. I really do.” Putting the menu down, Jacob got to his feet and held his hand out, “We’re going out. We’re going out and if any zombies try to attack us, so help me god, they will not know what hit them.” One way or another they were going to salvage this evening; Jacob was determined to give Nessie a nice Valentine’s Day.

If Jacob hadn’t laughed, Nessie probably would have opted for the tears route. It was one thing when he had ruined dinner. At least he had looked adorable, trying to make a meal and turning it into potential toxic waste instead. This, however, was something entirely different. How someone had confused those two titles, especially Gone With the Wind, she couldn’t fathom. However, at Jacob’s laugh, Nessie felt her desire to cry melt away a bit and she couldn’t help but snicker slightly. She gave him a smile as she put her hand in his and got to her feet.

“We could always just force feed them the pasta and sauce,” she offered cheekily, eyes sparkling as she tacked on, “Then tie them up and make them watch Gone With the Wind a couple dozen times.” Because hey. If that wasn’t a good way to inflict what amounted to torture on someone, she wasn’t sure what was. “Oh!” She added as they made their way to the door. “Or we could lead them to the video store where I got the movie in the first place!” She sounded almost excited at that particular prospect. “It’s already closed, so it’s not like anyone would be hurt...”

Pausing in the doorway, she raised up on her toes and gave him a light kiss. Already feeling much better than she had been a few seconds earlier, she gave him a smile. “And I guess,” she admitted, “if nothing else, this will definitely be a Valentine’s Day to remember. So there’s that.” A pause and her smile turned almost mischievous. “And you know... that all you can eat buffet does have home cooked food. Not to mention I bet it’s probably not all that busy right now.”

Jacob laughed at her suggestion and couldn’t help but swing their arms as they headed towards the door, “Now that’s just cruel and unusual punishment and I do mean unusual. Have I told you that I love the way you think?” Jacob was so glad that the night hadn’t been ruined and that they were still able to laugh over the things that had happened thus far. “But doesn’t Claire own the video store? I don’t think my boss would appreciate zombies rushing his wife’s store.” Unless there was another video store that Jacob wasn’t aware of, which was entirely possible.

He kissed her back, smiling then laced their fingers together, “If the owner locks the door when he sees us coming I’m blaming you.” Jacob grabbed his keys from the table by the door then led Nessie out into the hall, “Because then we’re gonna starve and be forced to watch Gone with the Wind while we starve and that’s a really long time to starve.” He grinned and bumped her hip with his as they walked down the hall.