Who: Pondson When: Late November Where: John’s place What: Thanksgiving Rating/Warning: Low/None Status: Complete
Amy arrived on John’s doorstep carrying some bags heavily laden with groceries. She’d been spending so much time at his place that she wanted to do some of the shopping… earn her keep? Anyway, she was back to work now, and bringing in a paycheck, regardless of stalker photographers who broke their restraining orders and ended up in the slammer.
She rang the bell, struggling with the bags, then decided to just set them down on the step. It would give her hands a bit of a break.
John opened the door at the exact same time as she was putting the bags down which was really amazingly counter productive. “Oh,” he said, sounding just as apologetic and British as one person could possibly be at the same time. “Amy, lemme help you with those.” A pause. “You didn’t have to go shopping. But did you get wine?”
“Red and white.” Amy said, giving him a grin. Her hands were red and white--the kind of imprints when you carry lots of shopping bags? She wrung them a couple of times to get the blood flowing back into them. “I feel bad that I’ve eaten so much of your food and not… you know… replaced it. So.”
She bent down and picked up half the bags. “And it’s Thanksgiving. We’re supposed to have tons of food, right? I brought my elastic waistband sweatpants.”
“How did I ever resist keeping my hands off you?” Watson deadpanned, taking the bags and leading her further into the house. He didn’t mind so much that she didn’t replace the groceries, considering that they both made a good wage and neither were hurting one way or the other. She tended to buy the take out more often so it wasn’t like she didn’t contribute.
“Thanksgiving,” he mused, unpacking the bags and looking at all the food selections with amusement. “Have you ever done one before? I certainly havent.”
“Oh, you never got to see me in my elastic waistband sweatpants, three days away from a shower, with my hair in a sloppy pony.” Amy said, nodding once. “That would have ruined everything.” She said, grinning softly.
She followed him in, and started unpacking one of the other bags while he was unpacking the first. “No, never had a Thanksgiving before. Not really even sure where to start… but I hear there’s turkey. And Egg Nog.”
So there was. He pulled the turkey from the bag and stared at it for a long moment before deciding to suck it up and just look up how to make one online. There was no shame in it - it wasn’t like single men went around making whole turkeys often, anyway.
“Nah. There’s no ruining anything about being comfortable. Although, yeah, three days might be pushing it, Pond.” a pause. “You’re making the egg nog.”
Amy laughed. “So I am.” She moved about the kitchen, pulling ingredients out of bags and puzzling at some of the things she’d picked out at the store. She really had no idea toward the end. Overwhelmed and confused, she’d just started shoving random things into the cart.
“Doesn’t it take several hours to cook a turkey? I think I watched an episode of that Julia Child show about it.”
“Aren’t you a little young for Julia Child?” Really, John just seemed impressed, though. He already had the turkey thawing a little more completely in the sink and was separating out other things she’d bought. He didn’t know at all why Amy had thought frozen mac and cheese a requisite, but he supposed it’d do. “Yeah, though. Few hours? Five? I don’t know. Internet.”
“Internet.” Amy agreed, nodding. “And no, I’m not too young for Julia Child. Just like I’m not too young for The Ramones.” She came up with the first band name she could think of that was pretty much before her time. Hopefully it made him feel old. “I’ll internet for the bird cooking time.” She said, and set about searching his flat for a laptop.
It did make him feel a little old. But it wasn’t bad -- it was just something Amy managed to do constantly. She was, after all, quite a bit younger than him. He smiled to himself wonderingly, always a little lost on how he’d managed to end up where he was today. A condo, a ridiculously adorable girlfriend.
Thanksgiving dinner.
He shook his head and moved to peel some potatoes. Having been in the military, even in the capacity of a doctor had taught him more than a few things about doing this chore quickly enough. “This is a lot of food,” he said, “Hope you thought to invite someone over.”
“Oh. Right. Invite someone?” Amy found the laptop and pulled it open, jumped up onto the counter and settled it in her lap. She was taking up valuable countertop space, and hoped that he wouldn’t mind. He didn’t need it for his potato peeling, did he? “...I think I missed that part.”
No, potato peeling was a sink and garbage can sort of exercise so he wasn’t currently using the counters. It was okay. It it wasn’t, he’d just tell her to get off of his counter lawn.
“Oh,” he said, bemused and raising his eyebrows like he did. “Well. I guess we’ll have a lot of leftovers.” Which didn’t seem bad either.
“That’s okay. I love turkey sandwiches. And stuffing and cranberry sauce… it all sounds absolutely delicious, doesn’t it?” Amy said, pulling up a how-to website. The first half of it went on and on about how dangerous it was to deep fry a turkey.
“Stuffing doesn’t actually sound delicious,” John pointed out, still working. “Think about it, really. I mean. It’s food that advertises it’s been stuck up the private bits of an animal. That’s kind of disgusting.” Not that it didn’t taste good, but really.
“Not the private bits, but the hollowed out insides. There’s no private bits inside anymore.” Amy said, shaking her head. Suddenly, she wasn’t really hungry anymore. Or, maybe that was an illusion.
“Got any crisps? I’m in the mood for something crunchy while I watch you cook.”
“You’re terrible,” he told her pointedly, and then gestured vaguely to a cupboard behind him. “In there. You might as well pull over a seat while you’re at it.”
“What, you don’t want me sitting on your cooking space, is that it?” Amy said, grinning as she jumped down. She went for the snacks and the chair, and sat around to watch him do the cooking.