celia wood (theyoungestwood) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-02-15 12:53:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !thread, character: celia wood, character: charlotte wood, retired character: theseus rosier |
who: celia wood & theseus rosier & lottie wood
where: athena's bistro, wood sisters apartment
when: 15 february, 1am-ish
what: friends being friends
status: complete
warnings: none
Celia had already been to Athena's Bistro once that evening, but that didn't stop her from going again. She had very distinct reasons for both visits, too. The first had been for dinner, where she'd had a reservation and enjoyed more food than she probably should have, but it was all so good! She'd also spent a couple minutes convincing Oliver she shouldn't join him and Charlie at their table when he tried to get her to. Even if she hadn't punched Charlie the day before, she still would have said no. Not only did she not want to be the third wheel on their Valentine's Day date, she also wanted to have her own table to help fill up the restaurant. That was the point, after all. Dinner had been amazing but there had never been a question in her mind that it would be. She'd eaten enough of Theseus' cooking to know anything off the menu would be wonderful. It was a big night for him, and she couldn't imagine trying to do anything nearly that stressful. Her Quidditch tryouts had been pretty stressful for her, but that wasn't the same as opening a restaurant. From the times she'd seen Theseus while she was there for dinner, he'd certainly looked stressed. That's why she went back, near closing time. Her goal was to bring a little lightness to what had obviously been a difficult day. Even if it had gone well, difficult in the sense of getting through all the hullabaloo of the opening. So Celia sneaked back to near the kitchen, where she'd been plenty before, back before it had opened, and waited for Theseus to come into view to shoot a soft felt heart arrow at him from the bow she was holding. His whole body hurt and he smelled of food and sweat. The rest of the cooking staff had gone home at around midnight, but at one he was still cleaning and trying to enjoy the high of being done- not the anxiety of wondering how the critics would take it, how people would respond to the fixed menu or the desserts. Theseus had just finished scrapping a stove top more than he really needed to when he felt something hit his side. Looking down he saw the soft arrow and frowned with confusion until he spotted Celia Wood. His frown turned to a smile as his friend grinned, and Theseus stooped down to pick it up. "Who am I falling in love with, Eros?" he asked. For all his lack of common sense or book learning, Theseus did know his mythology. That tended to happen when you grew up in a family of Athenas, Persephones, Theseuses, and more. Wiping his hand on the front of his very spattered chefs' coat, he walked over to Celia and handed her the arrow. "Good date?" he asked. He hadn't even noticed who she'd eaten with that night. Theseus had been too busy trying not to vomit or panic. "I didn't think that far ahead," Celia replied with a grin, taking the arrow back from him when he offered it. To be fair, she hadn't thought further than making him smile - and considering the holiday, she worked with what she had available. Whether it had been hers or Charlotte's costume at one point, she didn't know, but it had been in the closet ready for her to take out. At his question, her brow furrowed and she gave a shake of her head. "I didn't have a date?" That didn't matter though, because that wasn't the reason she was there. With the restaurant empty, it seemed much more peaceful than it had been earlier that evening. And it was certainly quieter, by a long shot. "How did it go? Do you feel good about it? Everything was great." “I'm alive, we didn't have to close down because of a catastrophe on our first night,” was Theseus’s response as he gave a weak smile and then slid down the wall until he was sitting down on the floor with the rag in hand. He hadn't even eaten, not outside of taste testing. He'd been too stressed. “I've never been in charge of jackshit. I'm not used to… this. It. You know.” The eloquent poet looked up at his friend. Friendship with Celia was so odd to Theseus, because friendship usually included sex or blood relation. “I'm glad you liked it, though. Tomorrow will be a whole other test; full menu. And then I have to trust others to be the cooks on Tuesday so I can take a night off, and I think I'm going to come anyways-” he stopped. He was rambling. “Sorry, Cels.” Celia watched as he slid down the wall and sat, biting her lip as she listened to him go on. She'd never been in charge of anything ever, unless one were to count Quidditch Captain at school, but that wasn't a professional setting so she didn't. The thought of being in charge of something like Theseus was, she knew she would never be able to do that. "Hey," she replied, shaking her head and sitting on the floor in front of him, setting her bow and arrow off to the side. "Why are you apologizing?" “Because I’m babbling, and that doesn’t really do more than make noise.” It sounded like another line fed from his father, another left overs for the world to enjoy. Theseus leaned over a little and took Celia’s bow from her, plucking at the string and listening to the noise it made. “Did you want more food?” he asked. He really didn’t want to cook anymore that night, but he wasn’t about to say that or make Celia feel like she was bothering him. If Theseus had his way, he’d have a head in her lap and his eyes would closed while she pet his hair again. Persephone had been a lifesaver by managing the place, but Theseus couldn’t be comforted by her the same way Celia managed to. "You're allowed to babble," Celia offered with a shrug. "Sometimes you just need to get things out, even if it's just making noise." She offered him a soft smile and watched him lean over to pluck at the bow. At his question, she quickly shook her head. "No, I don't think I could eat anything else if I tried. It was all so good, and I ate everything." She hadn't meant that to be the purpose of her going over, after all. It wasn't to make more work for him, it was to hopefully help him relax after a stressful day. "Did you have a chance to eat?" “I tasted the food,” Theseus said instead of giving a real answer, deciding that he didn’t care if it was awkward or weird; he turned around and leaned back so that his head was back on her lap. She was his therapist chair right then, that long couch thing he could never remember the name of despite having one in his room. His brain was sludge, even more so than usual, and he needed someone to pick up his hand and keep him moving forward. “I should probably eat something. Just… not here. Not my food. Something I don’t have to make,” he said, thinking carefully through what that even left at one in the morning the day after Valentines. Everything was probably closed, even grocery stores. Celia straightened out her legs when she saw him moving to lie down, making her lap flat to be a better pillow for his head. Her fingers automatically raked back through his hair, starting at his forehead and moving to the point where they hit her leg, then over again. Tasting food wasn't the same as eating, and she was about to point that out when he said something to the same effect himself. She gave a soft hum of agreement before looking down at him. "I'm not a good cook like you," she started, her fingernails scraping gently against his scalp. "But my apartment's just down the road and I could make something? You should eat." Theseus could have purred with the way Celia was touching his scalp, his eyes closing before he nodded. “That sounds really good, Cels,” he told her, reluctantly sitting up and grabbing his wand from one of the counters. He used it to lock all but one door in quick succession, and with a scan of the room, he decided that maybe it was time to go to Celia’s, relax a little, and fall asleep on her couch. Celia got up slowly once Theseus was out of her lap, staying off to the side in case he needed to take care of anything else before he could leave. She hooked her bow over her shoulder and absently spun the arrow between her fingers a few times until it seemed time for them to leave. She let him lead the way out but then once the restaurant was secure, she took the lead to get them to her apartment. "My sister is asleep," she said once they got to her building, walking up the stairs to get to her floor. "But as long as there's not too much noise we should be okay." She unlocked the door and let them inside, leaving the door open for her to follow her. Theseus followed, his feet stumbling a little. He held himself up in his the doorway, scanning the apartment. It was too dark to really make it out, but it looked much neater than his own room was back at the Rosier Manor. Well, at least before the elves went through and cleaned it all for him. “I’ll be very quiet,” Theseus promised, before promptly walking right into an end table, knocking it and everything on it right over. He actually ‘shh’ed the table before using his wand to set it all back into place, looking a bit sheepish. “Uh- is there a shower I could use? I… do not smell fantastic right now. And my clothes have about half an inch of food on it,” he said, offered a tired laugh. Looked back at the table, wondering if Lottie would notice he’d done that. Or if he’d already woken her up. He got the distinct feeling that he was not Lottie’s favorite person in the whole world. Which was sort of funny for when he was feeling up to teasing the shit out of Lottie, but right then he just really wanted to shower. With a towel and directions from Celia, he went into the bathroom and flicked the lights on. Stripping down, he tossed his clothes on the floor and went under the hot spray of the water. It was like being reborn. His muscles unknit from the tension, even his jaw felt better after having clenched it all night long. Which Theseus hadn’t even realized he’d been doing. For a little while, he could disappear into the steam and heat. Celia briefly closed her eyes when Theseus knocked over the table, because she really didn’t want to wake up her sister and she could almost guarantee that would have done it. Still, she hoped for the best and set him up with a towel to go take a shower. That would give her enough time to get food made, and she started water on the stove to get it boiling before sneaking in to grab his clothes off the floor of the bathroom, knowing she could get them clean fast with magic for him so he wouldn’t be putting dirty clothes back on. She set about multitasking in the kitchen, the few elements of the dinner she was making working on the stove while she turned her attention to getting the clothes clean, her gaze moving back and forth between the two every so often to make sure nothing on the stove was going wrong. Lottie was a light sleeper on a good day. When her sister was out on her own, especially after her journal about being harassed, that light sleep became more of a doze. She didn't allow herself to fall asleep fully because she wanted to hear the door, to know when Celia got home. So imagine her surprise when there was an extra set of footsteps and a man's voice accompanying her sister. Lottie didn't care if Celia dated, but she did expect a bit of a head's up if she was going to bring someone home. Even if it wasn't planned. She had her journal set up so that it would alert her if she got a ward. She laid in bed, listening to the hushed tones, and winced when the table was bumped. Then the shower started, and she went into protective mode. On many levels, she knew it wasn't any of her business, but she was still an older sister, and she had to make sure Celia wasn't getting herself into something. Quietly climbing out of bed, she stuck her feet into her slippers and silently moved into the hall. She paused at the door to the bathroom, not actively listening, but frowning all the same. She padded into the kitchen, relieved to see her sister. "Who's in our shower?" Her tone was soft and conversational, but it held the kind of warning people with protective streaks got. Celia jumped slightly when she heard her sister’s voice behind her. She knew there was no way Lottie had slept through the table getting knocked over, but she had still been hoping she’d just go back to sleep - not for any reasons of her own, but because she didn’t want to be disturbing her. Glancing over her shoulder, she offered her a soft smile as she folded the now-clean clothes and set them on the table. “Theseus,” she replied, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I went to see how it went, once the restaurant was closed, and he hadn’t eaten so… I wanted to make sure he did.” She bit her lip, frowning softly as she moved over to the stove to work on the food she had going. “I’m sorry for waking you up, I didn’t mean to.” Lottie raised one brow at the clothes, and barely managed to keep the other from shooting up at the name. Theseus Rosier. She would have to have words with him about his intentions, because she knew about his trysts with Oliver, and she didn't want him breaking her sister's heart. Which was assuming that Celia was in a position to have her heart broken, so that conversation had to happen first. "You brought a man to our flat without warning. Of course that's going to wake me up." She leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and watched her sister. "What're your intentions here, lass? I'm not meaning to be nosy. I just wanna make sure you know what you're doing." “I didn’t mean to,” Celia said, her brow furrowing as she stirred at the sauce in the pan, glancing over at her sister. She didn’t see it as being nosy, really, because she didn’t have intentions - at least, not in the way Lottie probably meant. Her mind went back to the conversation she’d had with Oliver earlier that day, though she wasn’t about to bring that up since he’d specifically said not to mention it to Charlotte. But still. “Well,” she started slowly, reaching for the pot to drain the pasta out into the sink. “My intention was to make dinner since he hasn’t eaten yet. And I’m not the best cook, I know, but I’ve made this before so I’m fairly sure I know what I’m doing.” She paused, shaking the lingering water off the pasta before dumping it into the pan with the sauce. “That’s literally it, Lottie. There’s nothing else going on.” Lottie rolled her eyes and silently counted to ten. Celia and Oliver were a lot alike, and she had to remind herself that their logic didn't always match her logic, or the logic of the rest of the world. Bringing someone home wasn't an accident, but it was late, and she didn't want to get into something that would cause an argument. "Next time a man follows you home like a puppy, since you didn't mean to bring him, pause for ten seconds to ward me? Because it's a little worrying when I hear the shower start, and my sister's alone with a man I don't know." That came out grumpier than was probably necessary, but it was common sense and courtesy. Celia bit the inside of her lip as she made sure all the pasta was getting coated with sauce. She took in everything her sister said, but she still didn’t see what the big deal was. Her intent had been to keep from waking her up, but that had obviously not gone to plan with the whole table debacle. And then the truth was exactly that - she was making dinner for a friend. There wasn’t anything worrying about that, in her mind, and she also felt slightly resentful that she Lottie didn’t seem to trust her enough to know what she was doing. She knew she was the youngest, but that didn’t mean she was stupid. “I didn’t have my journal,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Lottie. I didn’t mean to wake you up, and I didn’t mean to make you worry. I was just trying to be a good friend.” Lottie sighed. "I'm sorry." She crossed to her sister's side and wrapped her arm around Celia's shoulders. "I didn't mean to be grumpy. I just…" She shrugged, shaking her head while managing a small smile. Dipping her finger in the sauce for a taste, she smacked her lips thoughtfully. "Add a bit of garlic powder and cheese to that, and it'll be perfection." She stepped back. "I'll explain my reaction later. Now is not the time." Celia leaned into her sister’s hug around her shoulders, grateful for it because she had certainly started to feel bad. She looked over to her when she tasted the sauce, raising an eyebrow. “I was saving the cheese for last,” she replied, but offered her a smile and reached for the garlic powder from the cupboard, sprinkling some into the sauce. “Go back to sleep, alright? I’ll try to keep anything else from getting knocked over.” She reached over and poked her fingers gently into Lottie’s shoulder, nudging her back in the direction of her room before turning to the cupboard to get a bowl out for the pasta. Now, while the Sisters Wood were bonding, Theseus had been cleaning himself up. He officially smelled like whatever soap came out of the purple bottle, and it was flowery as hell. When he stepped out of the shower, feeling more awake than he had an hour before, he started looking for his cloths, but came up curiously empty handed. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened- on of Celia’s house elves (everyone had those, right?) had grabbed his things. Except it left him without any clothes. Drying off, he used his fingers to try and make sense of his hair before wrapping the towel around his middle and strolling right on down the hall and into the kitchen. He heard Lottie before he saw her, and knew that a smarter man would have gone to the bathroom again or into Celia’s room. Theseus was not a smart man. “Lottie, you look ravishingly red,” Theseus said loudly, grinning from ear to ear as he walked in, towel and nothing else. Lottie turned at Theseus' word and smirked at his "attire". Honestly, she couldn't blame Oliver for his trysts, or Celia if she did harbor certain feelings. As a specimen of man, he was pretty decent. Sighing as if she was completely inconvenienced, Lottie walked towards her sister's guest. "Theseus." She tilted her head and took in the towel. "Not really your colour. You should get dressed. It is February. You'll catch your death of a cold." She didn't trust him, but she was just down the hall, and only an idiot would try something when she, who was trained to deal with werewolves, was right down the hall. She didn't bother warning him about that, but she did whisper, "behave" as she passed him, low enough only for him to hear. Once she reached her room, she closed the door loudly so they knew she was fully out of their hair. Celia glanced to the doorway when she heard him come in, and her cheeks flushed almost instantly. She’d gotten so caught up in talking to her sister - it was all Lottie’s fault, really - that she hadn’t been able to take his clothes back to the bathroom once they were clean. And now Theseus was standing there in her kitchen with no clothes on. There was a towel, but that was hardly helpful considering the circumstances. “Sorry, I meant to bring them back, but…” she trailed off, not sure what the end of the sentence was supposed to be, but either way she grabbed his clothes off the table and held them out for him to take. “Food’s almost done.” Maybe it was because Theseus had such little interest in seducing Celia, but when he grinned it wasn’t because he thought he was doing a good job of ‘getting the girl’, it was because Celia was being sweet. “Thanks,” he said, taking the clothes under one arm and holding onto his towel with the other. “The food smell good,” he commented. He had such little shame about his body, and honestly it was hard to blame him for it. An entire adulthood of being praised whenever his shirt came off had reinforced it, which didn’t help anything as he went back to the hall. "Um, thanks," Celia replied, offering him a quick smile before going back to the stove to make sure it wasn't going to burn. It could smell good all he thought but if it got messed up it would entirely defeat the purpose. While he went back down the hall, she tasted the sauce one last time before adding the cheese and getting it mixed together properly. She spooned it out into the bowl she'd gotten and set it on the table with some flatware, moving the pan off the burner but keeping it on the stove in case he wanted seconds. While Theseus walked down the hall, he did pause at Lottie’s door, knowing he damn well wasn’t going to leave it alone. “Your concern is touching Lottie, I always knew you had a soft spot for me,” he teased. While basic manners and friendship kept him from hitting on Celia, he felt no such need when it came to Lottie. In fact, he would have been thrilled at the idea of seeing her let her hair down. “But if I do get sick, I’ll be sure to come to you for your sound advice.” He left the hall at that point, going to the bathroom and changing back into his cloths. Well, he left the chef’s jacket in the entry of the apartment, sticking to his plain undershirt and black pants with socks. He was quieter when he reentered the kitchen, putting his hand on Celia’s shoulder. “Sorry about that- your sister is very talented at making me want to drive her insane.” Celia looked up at the touch to her shoulder, not having heard him come in thanks to how quiet he was being. She shook her head once, offering him a smile. Him wanting to make Lottie insane probably didn’t help matters with how annoyed Lottie had seemed to be with him being there, but Celia was sure she could handle her sister if need be. “That’s okay,” she replied, turning around to face the kitchen. “So… like I said, it’s not anything fancy, but at least you’ll have eaten? And I have wine, or beer, if you’d like.” There were other things to drink too, but she figured after a long night at work like he’d had, alcohol would be preferable to tea. “Beer,” was the automatic response. He went hunting for said beer and pulled out two bottles for them to enjoy. When he sat down and got a forkful of the food, he didn’t complain about the taste or anything else. It was amazing after a full day of cooking away at his own restaurant and not having more than a few tastes here and there. Sure, on another day he might have offered some suggestions, but that wasn’t the point right then. The point was that Celia had cooked for him. Something no one ever did for him anymore. “You really think it went okay?” he asked. Celia moved to get the beer but Theseus was quicker than her, so she just murmured a ‘thank you’ when he handed her one of the bottles and slid into her own seat at the table, taking a sip and watching him when he took his first bite to make sure he didn’t make a face or anything. She had made it before, like she’d told Lottie, but something could have gone wrong. He didn’t make a face or spit it out, so she was going to claim it as a victory. “I do,” she replied automatically, and she wasn’t just saying it to be nice, either. “Everything was delicious, and I heard nothing but good things from the people sitting near me - not that I was eavesdropping, but I could hear them.” “You were eavesdropping, own it,” he teased her. It was good to hear that it wasn't a bust, and honestly he didn't expect a Wood to pull any punches on him. Even Oliver, an ex lover, would have been totally upfront in Theseus’s opinion. He ate like a man who hadn't seen food in days, not a chef who should have been enjoying his own creations as the night went on. “One day I'll make this with you, and I'll show you some tips.” "Only a little," Celia admitted with a grin. So what if she had been? She had been there by herself, it wasn't though she'd had someone to make conversation with - so she'd listened to the conversations other people were having. Not the personal ones, though, just the comments about the food. She sipped her beer as he ate, far from hungry herself otherwise she might have gotten her own bowl. As it was, she was fine to sit and simply have a drink instead. She paused a moment at what he said, setting her drink down. "Was it bad?" “No, no- sorry that’s not what I meant at all,” Theseus said, wanting to kick himself. Celia had been nothing but incredibly kind to him that night. “I just mean that I happen to know a few tricks. You know, sometimes I cook,” he tried, wanting to lighten up the moment again as he finished his bowl with gusto. The moment the food was gone, the moment he finished his beer though, he felt tired. Bone tired, dead tired. The sort of tired that made it dangerous to go into the floor or apparate. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, picking up his own bowl to clean it out. “I should probably leave you ladies alone to your dreams. Or something, I’m not very poetic at… 2 am.” "Only sometimes, but I've heard you mention it once or twice," she replied, smiling softly and taking another sip of her beer. She hadn't been offended, more so worried than it hadn't been good. There had been the warning that she wasn't a particularly good cook, but she had been certain she could pull off something simple and have it be alright. Her gaze followed him when he stood up, and she grabbed his empty beer bottle to put with hers on the counter after she got up as well. "You don't have to be poetic," Celia replied with a light laugh, shaking her head. "It's been a long day." She paused, watching him for a moment. "You going to be okay to get home?" This was, after all, the same man who had knocked over a table not much earlier. Theseus shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “Well, unless Lottie plans on finally taking me to bed, I think I should probably go home to my own,” he said. He winked though, fully aware that Lottie would never do such a thing and Celia probably wouldn’t want to be in the loop if she ever did. But he was tired enough to find the idea of Lottie steaming in her bedroom about Theseus that he could laugh to himself about it. He began to look for the fireplace, his tired eyes not really making much out as he managed to get into the kitchen and washed the bowl by hand. He had thought about using magic, but the spell had alluded him. Celia frowned, not because of his joke without Lottie but more so because she was more awake than him and could see the slowness of his movements and how his eyes seemed unfocused. The last thing that needed to happen was for him to end up splinched, or popping into the wrong fireplace rather than getting home. She raked her hand back through her hair as she thought, then gave a shake of her head. "Or, the couch is pretty comfortable," she offered, folding her arms across her stomach. "I've fallen asleep on it loads of times, so I know." Theseus put the clean bowl back into the sink and walked over to Celia, hugging her tight. She was small, but leaning over was more than comfortable given how very tired he felt in that moment. He smiled and squeezed her tight, before letting go and ambling to the couch without a single word. He hadn’t realized just how desperately he’d needed to sleep on that couch until his body hit it, and Theseus was out even before his body settled- face down, feet dangling over one edge. He didn’t snore, but he breathed deeply and seemed more dead than alive. Celia let her arms drop when Theseus got so close to her, making a little noise of surprise at how tight he hugged her, but circling her arms around him to return it until he started to pull away. She watched him move over to where the couch was, turning the lights off in the kitchen on her way out after him, and went to get a blanket to lay over him since he was already out, setting a pillow beside him in case he woke up and wanted it because as it was, it looked like his neck might hurt in the morning. Once she was sure he wouldn’t need for anything in the middle of the night, she sneaked off to her own room to go to sleep, glad to be in bed finally. |