Lavender (paintedonthesky) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-08-07 16:32:00 |
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Current music: | Emilie Autumn: Opheliac |
Entry tags: | lavender brown, viola marlowe |
Who: Vi Marlowe, various flatmates and Lavender Brown
What: Margarita cookies.
Where: Vi's flat
When: 7th August, evening
Rating: PG (I think)
Status: Closed; complete
Lavender pounded on the front door, her collar pulled up over her face as the rain lashed down. Ducking her head down, she stared at her slip on white pumps and sighed as she saw the water creep into them. Bloody rain. Bloody typical, too. Only ever happened when she was wearing shoes that made it easier for the rain to get in.
"OI!" Lavender yelled, tilting her head back and stepping out into the rain, so she could see the windows. The lights were on, so she suspected someone was in. Maybe there were all giggling their heads off, or away the other side of the house smoking pot or something. Pounding harder on the door, she yelled out again and then, as a last ditch effort, yelled, "I'm here to make food. You know, that lovely thing that you can sit and eat and what not?" If the door didn't crack open in about two seconds, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to tell them--that she was the filth, maybe. They might open the door then.
Lavender was just considering doing that, seriously, her mouth opening when Vi's next door neighbour leaned out of her window and yelled, "Shout one more time, girly, and I'll fucking scalp you. A'ight?"
"A'ight," Lavender responded, unconsciously mimicking the accent. When the older woman leaned back into the house and slammed the window shut she lifted a hand to her mouth and laughed into it, one arm tightening around the plastic bag in her arms.
Hearing the neighbour yell alerted Vi to a presence on the street, and she tore herself away from her view of the telly to dash out onto the balcony, making no attempt to shield herself from the rain. "Oi!" she shouted down when she spotted Lavender, "whatcha doin' out in the rain, then? Get the hell in here!" She pulled her door key from the pocket of the hoodie she was wearing and threw it down to Lav, then headed back inside to open the upstairs door for her soaked friend.
"I was waiting for one of you lot to open the bloody door!" she yelled back up and then stretched up, snatching the key from the air and almost slamming against the door as she tried to huddle against the rain. The key was forced into the lock and it clicked, then she flung the door open, stepping into a house that was getting almost as familiar as Reggie's. Shaking her head to try and get rid of the rain, Lavender didn't notice (nor, to be honest, did she particularly care) that she looked rather like a wet dog.
"All right, youse lot, how are youse?" she asked, the words made almost a mumble as she pulled the heavy jumper she was wearing off.
There was a chorus of 'alrights' and greetings from the males and Tess in the living room, interspersed on mismatched bits of furniture or pillows on the floor as Byron, Kazza, and Rudolf played video games. Kieran even tore himself away long enough to grin at Lav and mutter "we really should get her a key, Vi." Ana emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea (which would most assuredly contain a shot of Jack Daniels) which she handed to Lavender, proclaiming she looked like a wet dog. Rachel turned away from the linen closet opposite the bathroom and draped a towel over the newcomer's head with a smile of greeting, rubbing at Lav's hair to help dry it. Vi took the plastic bag out of her friend's arms so that she could dry herself off as the other women found their way back to watching the game, Rachel, the self-proclaimed mother of the lot, taking Lav's damp jumper with her and depositing it in the dryer as she passed it. "Whad'ya bring us?" Vi asked excitedly, peering into the bag.
Taking the tea gratefully, Lavender took a deep sip, and thanked Ana, though she barely managed to speak before there was a towel dumped over her head. Laughing slightly, Lavender protested but it was mild and far from heart felt. Honestly, she loved coming over to Vi's because of the cacophony of noise, the way there was always someone there (or so it seemed, anyway), and the way everyone just seemed to know each other so well. There was no silence in the place, not really, and that was something she appreciated more than she could really say. Plus, the atmosphere of the place was just comfortable, like a favourite, old chair that you couldn't bring yourself to part with.
Lavender wasn't really sure if she could ever tell anyone that and expect them to like the analogy, but it was how it felt.
Rubbing her hair with the towel, Lavender said, with a grand gesture, "I have brought with me baking stuff--soda, flour, ginger extract, a few recipes. Just in case. Because I'm not sure how well you guys keep your baking stuff stocked." She paused and rubbed fiercely at her wet hair, until it was drier and then said, "Aye, so cake or cookies?"
"Both!" Vi replied immediately. "Rachel keeps us fairly well-stocked with baking supplies. She gets the urge to muck about with cookie recipies sometimes, and we pretend to like them while secretly feeding them to Charlton Heston." She giggled as Rachel flipped her off from her spot on the floor, and the ancient dog curled up by the game console raised his head in acknowledgement of his name. "You didn't mention chocolate in your list of supplies," she said in a suspicious tone. "Is there chocolate?" She rifled through the bag even as she called out an order for Byron, who had lost the last game and was thus the flatmates' bitch until someone else lost the next game (it was an unwritten rule), to go buy some. Byron stumbled to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest, looking to Lav in acknowledgement that he really needed to go out.
Lavender threw Vi an almost disgusted look. "Of course there's chocolate!" she cried and dived into the bag, taking out a large slab of cooking chocolate and waving it through the air. "I'm really not that cruel. If I'd bought cooking shit, I'd have definitely bought chocolate." It was said with a firm nod and a glance towards Rachel, complete with a roll of her eyes, as if she expected Rachel and Rachel alone to understand her.
Then, bouncing on the balls of her feet, Lavender entered the kitchen, merrily chatting away, most of the words tumbling from her mouth complete nonsense, questions about how everyone's jobs were going, a few inquiries after family members. She bumped her hip against Tess', by way of hello, trying to elicit a smile from the other woman before she started banging about. Taking a large bowl out of the cupboard, Lavender lined up all the ingredients she'd need on the countertop and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, the weak glamour she had put on that morning still holding. "I'm doing the cookies first--Vi, pet, love, darling, you can help me with this one, aye?"
"'You really think I'd have invited you over and then stood back and watched you bake for me?" Vi questioned, bouncing along behind her friend. Hearing the word cookies, she pulled out some cookie sheets from a cupboard. Charlton Heston plodded after her, parking himself under the kitchen table, probably also hearing the word 'cookies'. She raised an eyebrow at the glamoured lack-of-Dark-Mark on Lav's arm. "You know they're all Muggles, right?" she reminded the other woman with a poke to the side, "you don't have to hide it here." Rolling up her own sleeves Vi started digging mixing bowls and measuring cups out of other cupboards, then turned towards the stove to light the gas. "Lucky for you this is a gas stove and I don't seem to affect it unless I sit on it for hours, or I really would be standing back and watching you bake for me," she muttered with a grin.
Lavender laughed slightly as Vi muttered and then took a slab of butter, cutting off what she needed and placing it into a pot to melt. "Aye, I know they're Muggles. It's just weird. I'm used to covering it, you know?" Then she sighed and, with a glance either way, she took out her wand, waving it over her arm. Her mouth moved, and the glamour dropped. "The glamour takes a bit of effort, though." It was her reasoning for dropping it anyway. She'd got so used to holding up the glamour that she barely noticed the effort, but, she figured, it could contribute to why she felt tired sometimes, completely without reason.
"How've you been, love?" she asked, looking closely at Vi for a moment. "Everything good?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. You don't have to tell me about glamours and wards taking effort," Vi replied ruefully. "Sometimes," she said in a whisper, "I dream about having my own place, where I don't need to ward myself all the bloody time. No lights, no telly, no video games, nothing electronic that I don't want or need." A great cheer went up from the living room as someone's character got their head kicked off by an evil ninja, and Vi giggled. "Except sometimes I think the silence of my own place would kill me. How've you been?" she asked curiously, and then waggled an eyebrow as she exclaimed: "and how's Will?"
Lavender tilted her head to the side, looking curiously over at Vi. "Why?" she asked and then paused, before clarifying, "I mean, why do you think the silence would kill you? What's wrong with silence? Sometimes it's supposed to be bliss."
Greasing the baking paper, Lavender pointed the flour, baking soda and salt and said, "There's supposed to be two hundred and fifty grammes of flour, two of baking soda and five of salt. Could you measure that out for me and sift them? Please?" She almost batted her eyelashes. "Aye, and I've been all right. You know, the job? First day of it the other day. It was all right. Bit like walking into the past, though, it's been that long I worked in a shop. And there's been so many wee small things. I don't know, thing's are irritating me more than usual this past week or so."
Glancing over at Vi, she laughed, the laughter only increasing when the other woman waggled her eyebrow. "Will is fine," she said. "As would be expected. I mean, if he'd got gangrene or summat I reckon you'd know before me anyway. Don't you work with him or something?"
"'S'not bliss," Vi said with a wrinkle of her nose. "Silence just means you're alone. It's okay for short periods of time, but I could never come home every day to being alone. Dunno," she admitted, "maybe I'm just mentally scarred because my house when I was a kid was always empty- my parents were always working, it seemed, locked up in their offices in the house if not actually at work. Damn, I was hoping you'd not notice I wasn't actually doing anything," she grumbled teasingly, stepping forward to begin measuring ingredients and sifting them. "Huh," she said in eloquent response to Lavender's mention of feeling irritated. "Is it a moon thing?" Sharing a laugh with her friend, Vi shook her head. "Yeah, I work with him, but we don't talk about him, because we're too busy gossiping about you all the time."
Disregarding what Vi had said about silence, for a moment at least, Lavender made a small 'hmph' sound in the back of her throat. "I notice everything, darling," she said, putting on a disgustingly posh English accent. It held, as well, and she managed to keep the posh accent up as she continued to speak. "So of course I'd notice that. Pish posh." She was fairly sure that made no sense in that context but Lavender shrugged it off. "And, no, of course not, darling. I think it's a life thing. Or maybe just a not-enough-chocolate thing. I haven't decided yet." She wondered if the other woman would notice the rather dementedly large grin on her face tht seemed to directly contradict what she was saying.
"I don't know about that silence thing, love. Aye, you've got a reason for it, at least." Picking up a spoon, she muttered something about folding the flour and other ingredients in, and then continued, "I know I sure as hell don't. I just don't like it for no good reason at all, I suppose. Do you reckon we could add a bit more for a bigger batch or will eighteen a batch do?"
Tapping her foot off the floor, in time with a song in her head, Lavender said, "He's really...nice. That's a silly thing to say, but he is. I like him."
Vi shook her head. "It's not a silly thing. It's a good thing. Nice is good." She dumped some more of the dry ingredients into the bowl, her response to Lav's question about making a bigger batch. "I don't think I eat enough chocolate either," she mused. "Let's put plenty of chocolate in here."
Lavender's mouth dropped open and she flung her arm out, trying to pull Vi back. "No, not that much!" she said, but it's too late. Wrinkling her nose, she stared into the bowl and said, "Aye. Well, at least there'll be plenty of chocolate in there." Lifting a spoon she poked through the mixture and laughed, then, the sound so loud that there was a shout to 'shut the fuck up'.
"Maybe they'll be better if it's slabs of chocolate instead of chocolate chips, aye? You know I've never tried them like that so it is entirely possible." She tried to keep the doubt out of her voice.
"Oops." Realizing what she'd done, Vi stuck a hand in the bowl and pulled out a slab of chocolate, breaking a piece off and popping it into her mouth. "'Least it's good chocolate. Can we maybe put it in the blender to break up the pieces?" Without waiting for a reply she snatched the bowl off the countertop and dumped it into the blender that sat on the counter. "Uh... I think this might still have some traces of margarita in it..." she realized after she'd dumped the half-finished cookie dough. "Chocolate margarita cookies!" Smirking, she slammed the lid on the blender and turned it on.
Covering her face with her hands, Lavender almost cringed. Then, peeking through her fingers, she caught sight of the devilish expression on Vi's face and erupted into laughter, her arms moving to hug herself as she continued to laugh loudly. "Oh my God," she gasped. "We'll go down in cooking history, can you imagine?" She was giggling madly and, after a moment, paused the blender, looking inside. It didn't look particularly appetising but Lavender shrugged. "We'll shove this in the oven now and pour Smarties or something over it after, yeah?"
Taking the plastic jug out of the blender and tipping it up, she hit the bottom part to try and force all of the cookie dough onto the baking tray. "Who'd have thought it? Viola Marlowe: Baking Extradonaire."
"At least I didn't blow up the blender!" Vi crowed happily.