¡Tink! (tinkhatespink) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-08-04 12:24:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, neal cassidy (baelfire), tinkerbell |
Who: Tinkerbell and Neal
When: Saturday
Where: Neal's place
What: Neal cooked dinner
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete!
Tink was excited. And nervous. After consulting with her friend Faye on how she was supposed to act, she’d picked out an outfit that was fairly comfortable and hopefully sexy. At least, she’d gone for sexy. Black, v-neck, three-quarter sleeve shirt and black capris. She was in her Converse All Stars, and her hair was slightly windswept from the ride. When she knocked on Neal’s front door she had her helmet under one arm, and a bottle of wine in the other hand. Wine was good, right? She’d seen that on tv shows and in movies. That’s the sort of thing that people brought to a date. Right? Hopefully it wasn’t… too forward. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to get him drunk or something. That definitely wasn’t the intention. She was actually debating turning back to her bike to shove the bottle in the saddlebag when the door opened, catching her off guard.
Neal’s loft apartment wasn’t anything that indicated he was living the highlife, but it was cozy. He liked it, and it was affordable, and that was what counted. It was also kept clean, all the time, because a dirty place sort of showed guests that you couldn’t take care of yourself, and that was about as far from the truth as possible. He’d been taking care of himself since he was a kid. Probably kind of amusing that he wasn’t a better chef, but oh well, everyone had their talents.
“Hey, come on in,” that bright, crooked smile was Tink’s greeting when he opened the door, and he stepped back to let her enter his domicile. “Make yourself at home. Oh, and...welcome to Chateau Cassidy.” The living room had a decent entertainment center, magazines on the coffee table and books on shelves, hardy leather recliner and sofa - since that was one piece you really should actually spend money on and not just pick off from a dumpster. The lighting was warm, no football-shaped lampshades or anything, and the bar and fridge fully stocked. The stairs led to the one bedroom and bathroom in the place. As for artwork, there were a few pieces - mostly photography of ocean views, and one painting of a combo of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, a modern thing that was a canvas stretch on his living room wall. He had a thing for water, maybe for New York too. Difficult to say why.
Heading back into the kitchen, which faced everything anyway because of the layout of the apartment, he asked, “Oh, is that for dinner?” regarding the bottle Tink was carrying. The smells of stir fry, sesame oil and Asian spices, pleasantly filled the air and Neal had managed that without setting anything on fire. There were spring rolls in the oven too (ones he had made, although the adventures with the wrappers and folding the damn things equaled a mess that had been cleaned up), and rice on the stovetop. Stir fry was kind of a ‘just toss this’ cooking method, so it hadn’t been too bad, all things considered.
Tink was, in a couple of words, really impressed. She was pink around her cheeks as she stepped inside, giving him a gentle “thank you” as she passed through the threshold. But then her jaw dropped a little. His place was small and cozy, but clean. Everything looked like it was where it belonged--which was the exact opposite of Tink’s place. She took another couple steps in and then turned around to him. “Oh. Yes. Wine. Well, I thought… y’know… since you’re cooking, I should do something to help and not just be a loaf? Right. Here.” She said, shyly and awkwardly, and held out the bottle to him.
“...your place is pretty great. I feel like I need to take my shoes off.” She added, setting her helmet down on the floor by the front door.
“You don’t need to unless you feel like it. I mean, I own a vacuum,” Neal chuckled, taking the bottle of wine from Tink with a thanks. It looked like it’d go pretty well with stir fry, although what he knew about expertly matching wine with food you could fit into a thimble. Sommelier was never one of his random, jack-of-all-trade jobs.
Then he realized that since this was a date, maybe he should get some music going? That’s what they did in restaurants, it was just that the music was often fucking terrible. Now, he’d go with something better. Probably some Velvet Underground. A little bit of Lou Reed to kick off dinner, and he clicked the remote to the stereo system to get it started. Then it was back to the kitchen to take the spring rolls from the oven. They weren’t difficult either. Even Neal could figure out how stuff things into a...whatever they were called. The thing. Cooking technical terms were not in his wheelhouse.
“Want a glass?” he asked about the wine, already going for the bottle opener. “I bet you probably have one of these you MacGyvered out of a paperclip and a rubber band.”
Still, Tink kicked off her shoes by the doorway. She had clean, sparkling white socks on. “Please. MacGyver’s got nothing on me,” Tink said, breaking into a proud grin as she followed him into the kitchen. “I left it at home, though. We may have to do it the old-fashioned way here.” She added, then began to poke around his kitchen. Everything was so… clean. And neat. Nothing in her place was neat like this. It was almost intimidating.
She turned and leaned against the counter. “...Good music.” Then again, what Tink knew about music could fit into a thimble, too. She pretty much listened to the alternative station while she was at work, or put on one of her mix tapes. Yes, tapes. At home she worked mostly in silence. Or with the television going.
“Oh, totally. MacGyver would have went into conniptions over the Kermit toaster,” Neal grinned. The cork was pulled out the old-fashioned way, and he retrieved two wine glasses from one of the cabinets then poured Tink a generous amount and handed it over - just to sip on, pre-dinner, but they’d be eating soon. It’d have been rude to not have everything ready if he invited her, right? Not like watching him attempt to cook was very exciting.
The compliment about his music choice rendered him all a-flutter, if he was one to actually get that way. He was pleased, rather. “Lou Reed’s one of my favorites,” he shared, tossing the pot holder onto the counter after the baking sheet was removed from the oven. “I taught myself to play guitar awhile ago and I played a lot of Velvet Underground while I was learning.”
Plates were procured from the cabinets as well, and he asked, “You like spicy things or no? I got a chili sauce and then one sweet and sour for those spring rolls, I just wasn’t sure what you preferred.”
"Damn straight," Tink agreed with a grin. Then he pulled a tray out of the oven, and she was distracted again. Her jaw dropped a little. "You made these?" She asked. She'd come back to the guitar thing later. For now her stomach grumbled at the sight of the food. To try and cover it up, she gulped down some wine.
Those baked spring rolls? Neal gave them a glance, and a bashful shrug, and he wasn’t used to being complimented on his bare minimum chef skills (because who did he cook for besides himself? No one, really, and even then it was like...spaghetti) so he was feeling pretty good right about now. “Yeah, not too hard,” he admitted. “It’s basically just...cook everything in a skillet, wrap, and bake.” But he was glad that diligently googling ‘recipes that are difficult to fuck up’ had paid off!
The stir fry was in a big bowl, the rice in another, and he had serving utensils for both. “Take as much as you want,” he encouraged, handing Tink a plate. “Seconds, thirds, whatever.” Of course at the kitchen table, he pulled her chair out for her. Sit, eat, enjoy - he would take care of that grumbling stomach.
“Still. Impressive. And I’m starving, so.” Tink gave him a bright smile. “Ooh, okay,” she set down her glass and accepted the plate. “Serve myself, then?” She wasn’t shy about this sort of thing. At least, she didn’t over-think it. Tink filled her plate with generous portions, never one to shy away from food. And Tink could put it away. Then she sat down, giving him a smile at the pulling out of her chair.
“...so. Tell me about this guitar playing.” She said, before digging in to the stir fry and spring rolls. God, it was delicious. She’d have to let him cook for her more often.
A girl who could pack away food was impressive. Neal didn’t think she needed to be shy about it at all anyway, because food was life and culture and all of that, and it was meant to be enjoyed. If she ate it all, who cared, that just meant he wouldn’t have leftovers that would be consumed as a midnight snack, straight from the fridge. “This guitar playing,” he chuckled, picking up his wine glass to take a sample from it. And it was good, kind of light and aromatic, maybe a bit sweet. Deep, burgundy red wine - the kind that coated the glass - just wouldn’t work here, not with what was meant to be a dish for hot summer nights.
“But yeah, I taught myself, like I said. Spent a lot of hours in music stores and the library, because it’s not as if I could really afford lessons at the time. Then I found an acoustic in a thrift shop and fixed it up, it hasn’t failed me yet. You’d probably add like, rocket launchers to it though, right?” he teased.
Tink really just bought the kind of wine that looked like what she’d want to drink. And it didn’t disappoint. Together they could likely polish off the bottle with their meal. Tink wasn’t a big drinker, really, so a few glasses went a long way. She started in on her food as he spoke.
“Probably,” Tink said, grinning and going a little pink. “Or… I dunno, automatic string depressors so that I could make the thing play by itself.” She wondered for a moment if that was cheating, but then got distracted making a mental blueprint of how something like that might be done. Her eyes slipped out of focus and the smile spread as she imagined the parts she’d need to make it.
“Well, then how am I supposed to impress you with my guitar playing if the instrument plays itself?” Neal asked, granted, it was a rhetorical question. Probably obvious by the laughter in his dark eyes. “Okay, so I guess inventing something to make it play itself is kind of impressive too. But you could sell a guitar played by an invisible person to haunted mansion rides. Really sounds kind of creepy, when you think about it.” And Disney was right around the corner, hey, jackpot.
He was glad that this stir fry didn’t suck. In fact, he was pretty pleased with the outcome. Could be that he had some something good to appease the cooking gods; whatever it was, he wouldn’t question it. “Maybe you were MacGyver in another life...” Though that statement brought him to a whole other train of thought. “Or...you haven’t had any of those dreams, have you?”
Tink was thinking about the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, actually, and how the banjo played in the beginning of the ride, but the guy on the porch didn’t have one? She could make a banjo that played itself, and… but then he asked about the Dreams. And she swallowed. Hard.
“Oh. Yes. Actually, I have.” Honesty was the best policy, right? “Have you?”
The concept of the dreams, or actually, mass dreaming in tandem with the whole of the OC - well, it was difficult to wrap one’s mind around. Neal had trouble with it, and at first he wasn’t even sure he had been dreaming in that ‘special’ way, but like Lina said, everything felt real and the colors and sounds and all of it just enveloped him and put him there. Not to mention the fact that they unfolded like a story. A crappy one, but a story all the time.
He cleared his throat, his next words mumbled, in that spray of gravel way. Neal had given up smoking awhile ago, not wanting to use cigarettes to stave off hunger and keep warm when he was living the hard knock life, but his voice betrayed him sometimes. “Yeah, I have.” Were Tink’s dreams not very good? If they made her uncomfortable he wouldn’t ask, but he was curious anyway. “It’s, uh...I think it’s some fairytale world. My father’s Rumpelstiltskin. And I just met Peter Pan.”
Okay. That sounded fucked up.
Tink blinked at him for a moment, a little nervous that the conversation topic had come up. He’d brought it up, sure, but he seemed as hesitant to talk about it as she had. And then she raised both eyebrows. Funny thing was, though they would be having the same Dreams in future? She wasn’t having those yet. “Well… that sounds… interesting.” She said, and set down her fork.
“...I mean, I’m one to talk. In my dreams? I’m a fairy. A little, leaf-clad fairy who likes to make shit out of rocks, vines and springs. It’s bizarre. But I like flying. And I’ve got a sister in my dreams, which is pretty cool. I don’t have one in this world.” That she knew of, anyway.
“A fairy?” Neal repeated, his curiosity piqued. It actually helped relax him a bit, when it came to this topic, because at least Tink was dreaming of some weird shit too. “I knew a fairy...well, there are lots of fairies in that world. The one I live in as a kid? In my dreams, I just turned fourteen,” he explained. “It’s weird because I looked like that when I was fourteen, yeah - “ He had the wild mop of dark hair and everything, “...but I’m just in a whole other place now. Medieval times. The land of fairytales. Enchanted Forest, whatever. Basically, it really fucking blows.”
And alright, Neal knew his folklore. This woman was dreaming of being a fairy and considering her nickname and her pastimes... “Of course you’re a fairy,” he grinned over the edge of his wine glass. “Tinkerbell?” Holy fuck, it was surreal. In no other place would this be appropriate date conversation, and yet...it made total sense. Dipping part of his spring roll into sauce, he took a crunchy bite to occupy his mouth so it wouldn’t be dropping on the table.
“Yeah, there are lots of fairies in my world, too. I live in Pixie Hollow, but I got to go to the mainland once.” She said, smiling a little at that memory. Actually, it was pretty good no one else knew what her dreams were. They would absolutely ruin her street cred.
She raised an eyebrow and lifted her own wine glass. “Tinkerbell?” She repeated, then realized she hadn’t told him. Had she told him? “Yeah, that’s my… that’s my name in the Dreams. How did you know?” Tink still had the block. The weird, OC block that made her not know about any of her Dream stuff until after she’d dreamed it.
Then her heart started to beat a little faster. “Wait, am I in your Dreams??”
“I don’t know,” Neal answered honestly, because he hadn’t encountered her yet. Didn’t mean that he wouldn’t later, he just had no idea. “I met the Blue Fairy. She gave me a magic bean to use to get to another realm. That’s as far as I know. But I just guessed because...well, your name’s Tink,” he swallowed another bite of rice, “...and you tinker on stuff?”
Yeah, that was the best he had for that reasoning. It made sense though, didn’t it?
“The mainland, is that...where is that, exactly?” This was all so bizarre. It was teetering on the edge of ‘irrational’ and alarms heralding how fucked up it was, and yet everyone else seemed so used to it. Here he was, discussing it like he was used to it too.
Tink was a little nervous that talking about this would make him… disinterested. She didn’t want him to think she was crazy. She knew she was crazy, she just didn’t want him to think she was crazy.
“Yes. Well, Tink… and Isabel? Maybe they together make Tinkerbell?” She said, then shrugged her shoulders, not wanting to look that deeply into it. “I don’t know the blue fairy. Was her name Silvermist, by any chance?” God, this was weird. He was going to think she was crazy for sure.
“The mainland is… like, where we are now. It’s the real world. Pixie Hollow is just outside of Neverland, and it’s where the fairies all live. We make the seasons change.”
Isabel and Tink, that matched up, didn’t it? “Probably so.” Neal smiled at her, a reassuring one, and he reached over to snag her hand, thumb brushing across her knuckles. Because he was the one who brought up the fucking dreams in the first place, the crap that should be filed under ‘things that are wrong about the OC’ so he definitely didn’t think she was due for a stint in a strait jacket and rubber padded walls. He came from medieval times with no indoor toilets and his father was a wool-spinner turned stupidly powerful wizard, that was its own special brand of insane.
“Her name’s Reul Ghorm,” he said about the Blue Fairy. Needless to say, he liked Silvermist better. “That’s what my friend Morraine called her. She’s like the head of the fairies or whatever. They all answer to her. Their magic also powers the world, with their...fairy dust, I guess.”
Then he patted her hand and let go, taking another sip of wine. “You probably wouldn’t want to meet me anyway, I’m just a kid.”
All of the stuff that Neal told her about the Blue Fairy went straight over Tink’s head. The moment his hand touched hers there was a loud, ringing in her ears, and a loud thumping. It took her a long moment to realize that the loud thumping was her own heartbeat. Everything else was drowned out by the sound of her heart, the feel of his warm skin against hers, and his thumb brushing over her knuckle. Now her face was burning.
“I’m fond of kids in my Dreams,” Tink said, softly. It was easier to think when he wasn’t touching her. She didn’t normally touch people. Mostly because she wasn’t sure how to instigate it. Sometimes she wished she was better with people so she could hold hands or hug or whatever without it being a big ball of awkward. “I mean, I brought a music box back to one once. And I spent a summer afternoon with another one once. She was nice.” Weird, Tink. Really weird.
“... though I’m sure I’d much rather know you as an adult.”
Neal thought it was nice too, since he also had a soft spot for kids. Maybe because he knew what it was like to be that age and really need someone to give a shit, yet no one did. So it was important when that little extra step was taken, even if it was just bringing a music box back for someone or spending a little time with them. “It probably meant a lot to her,” he said. “I guess there are worse things to be in your dreams, besides a fairy?”
Not like Tink gave off serial killer vibes in any sort of world. He just...couldn’t picture it, really.
“Anyway, sorry, I was just curious. We don’t have to talk about those if it’s too weird.” He had a feeling things were about to take a turn toward terrible anyway, considering what had been happening in his dreams. His father and that much power? There was no way this could end well.
“I guess,” Tink said, frowning. “I mean, I could be a bug? Or something.” She shrugged her shoulders. “There isn’t much in my dreams that’s worse than being a fairy. We’re all pretty much… the same. Though, Vidia is a bit rough around the edges before you get to know her.” She admitted, breaking into a smile. Then she gulped from her wine glass to cover the pang of sadness that hit at the thought of one of her closest Dream Friends. It was weird to miss someone you never really knew as much as she did.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Tink said, smiling. “But we can talk about something else. ...do you like movies?”
That was an amusing question. She was just so cute (alright, maybe the hourglass shape was more like va-va-voom than cute), and Neal could see the flickers of fairy traits in there...if he actually believed in such a thing, because even if he was dreaming about fairies and story book characters didn’t mean he was one, or that he’d put any stock in it. Right? Sure.
He lifted his brows, with a rumble of a chuckle, since he hadn’t met many people who disliked movies. “I hate them,” he teased but then quickly amended, “No, actually, total movie buff over here. Sort of. I just got World War Z on Netflix. The uncut, unrated version or whatever it is. We could watch if you haven’t seen it?” he offered. “I was going to just sort of play dessert by ear, too.” Because zombie movies and dessert went together awesomely.
The idea of dessert made Tink’s cheeks go pink. She wasn’t thinking about food. This was the second(ish) date, right? Did that mean there would be kissing? Was he talking about kissing without talking about kissing? (God, how did she end up so awkward? It probably came from spending more time with cars than with people in her formative years…)
“I haven’t actually seen that one. Funny, normally I gravitate toward zombie movies, but… well, I wanted to read it first, so I bought the book, and then it kept putting me to sleep at night. Which actually turned out great, because I was going through a bout of insomnia. Not really common for me, but anyway…” Her cheeks deepened. “I’m ready whenever you are.” She lifted her glass and gulped from it again.
“Wow, the book was that boring?” Neal laughed, but he was also thrilled to be in the presence of someone who gravitated toward zombie movies. They were just so campy and fun, how could you not love those things? “Hey, whatever helps the insomnia. I usually try to just recite the alphabet backwards, that sometimes works.” But he’d gotten pretty good at sleeping in questionable places and cramped positions - and because of that, he was also a light sleeper; there were some things just ingrained in you always.
He cleared the dishes, giving them a rinse before stacking them in the dishwasher. There wasn’t a lot leftover but whatever was, it went back into the fridge. Now. Dessert. Of the clean variety. There were a couple things he could have done but in the end went with something else because it was simple and delicious and...okay, it was him attempting to be funny too, a little. The plate of it was set on the coffee table, and the bottle of wine they still had to finish, before he motioned Tink nearer.
“C’mere...” When she did, he cupped her face, stroked her cheek, down along her jaw. There it was, that first kiss, slow and gentle upon her lips. “I made you fairy bread.”
Tink stood and followed him to the dishwasher. She would have helped, really, but he seemed so efficient. So she simply finished her glass of wine and poured another, keeping him company while he worked. As he packaged the leftovers, she moved into the living room to poke around at his apartment; reading the titles on the bookshelf, checking out his entertainment center. And then he came back in. She moved when he beckoned, and her eyes fluttered shut when his lips met hers. Her heart was thundering in her throat and she had no idea where to put her hands. Awkward. But it was amazing.
“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes still closed, when he pulled back. “...I love fairy bread.”
A grin flickered on his face, and reached his eyes - she just looked like she was about to float away and it was, needless to say, kind of flattering. “You’re welcome.” Another kiss placed on the corner of her mouth, and Neal didn’t know exactly how much of this movie they’d get through but he wasn’t complaining either way. The first kiss was always supposed to be the most awkward one, with all the uncertainty and when and where, but this one seemed pretty perfect to him.
He plopped down on the couch, reaching for Isabel so he could drape his arm around her. Zombies, always a great supplement for any date.
Tink's heart was in danger of thundering out if her chest. That and her cheeks would likely never be white again. But she slipped down onto the sofa and awkwardly settled against him. After the kisses and the fairy bread, she wasn't paying much attention to the movie anymore. Few things in the world could take her attention off of Neal right now.