Who: Leon and Sharon What: Dinner after Leon's diet switch When: October sometime Where: Leon's apartment Warning/Rating: Low/none Status: Complete
Leon had enjoyed the regular steak nights he and Sharon shared. It was a good time to catch up, just the two of them. Not that he didn’t like Bucky - he did, for the most part - but he had been relieved when Sharon’s almost-engagement didn’t entirely take her away from him. And, well, Sharon’s steaks were always so damn good.
But the steak nights were over now. Leon’s new vegetarian diet, it changed things. Or, at least, it changed the menu. He wasn’t sure what Sharon was cooking up, at least not yet, but he hoped it would be good.
Dinner with Leon without eating meat? Sharon was at something of a loss. She settled on a mushroom risotto. Of course, Sharon was almost physically incapable of cooking for two people. Whenever she went into a kitchen to make dinner, she ended up cooking for an army. So when she arrived on Leon’s doorstep with the casserole in its travel caddy and a bottle of wine, she was weighed down by the size and weight of the dish.
She knocked on the front door, arms tired from carrying the thing.
The whole vegetarianism thing was harder than Leon had thought it would be. The smell of freshly cooked bacon simultaneously made his mouth water and his stomach churn. Watching Revy devouring a delicious looking steak, still bloody, made him gag and want to steal it right off her plate. If someone had told him someday he’d be a vegetarian, he would have laughed in their face. But after actually meeting some slaughterhouse cows on the job, he couldn’t in good conscience eat them anymore. He’d even managed to find an animal rights group that was able to buy said cows on the cheap once he’d sent the farmer to prison, and last he’d heard they were in much greener pastures. Literally.
He was glad, at least, that Sharon was willing to make some changes for him though. He opened the door, smiling widely, and kicked aside an old sweatshirt from Sharon’s way before she came in through the door. “Hey you.”
“Heyyy.” Sharon couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her friend. It felt like it’d been forever since she’d seen him, even though it hadn’t really been that long. She raised an eyebrow as he shoved aside a sweatshirt on the ground, but then offered up the casserole dish to him. “I brought deliciousness? It’s enough to feed six grown giants, but I think it’ll do for the two of us.” She gave him another little grin as she headed into his place.
“Good. I’m hungry enough to eat a horse,” Leon said, patting his stomach. Not that he would, because that horse would no doubt try and introduce itself to him before it went off to the slaughterhouse. But already the smell of the risotto was making his mouth water. He kicked the door shut and headed to his kitchen table, quickly gathering the empty beer bottles and deck of cards that currently occupied it. He tossed the beer bottles in the recycling and placed the deck of cards on his kitchen counter. “What’d you make?”
“Mushroom risotto.” Sharon brought the casserole dish to his table, eyes moving around the room to all the things she should tidy. She should make a point of coming over every once in a while to keep this place clean--just like when she watched Chris for Leon. She missed Chris. With a little sigh that had nothing to do with cleaning or food, she set the food down on the table. “I hope it’s good. Should be. And you can keep the leftovers. I have more waiting for me at home.”
“Sounds great,” Leon said. He’d never been what one might call a clean guy, but he’d definitely been trying to at least keep his apartment in check. Sharon was practically engaged these days, and he couldn’t imagine that Bucky would be too pleased with Sharon coming by to clean some other man’s apartment. And while Revy wasn’t exactly the tidiest of people, with her coming by more often he made a point to make sure his apartment never quite got to the pig sty stage of things. He’d even removed most of the posters of topless models from his walls. “I’m sure it will be. It always is, after all,” he said. “How’s things been?”
Leon wasn’t just “some other man” to Sharon. He was practically her brother. As much as she loved Bucky, Leon would always have a place in her heart. And if Bucky had a problem with Sharon spending time with Leon? Well, that was something she’d have to put an end to. Sharon wasn’t about to be told where, when, and with whom she could go, hang out, and clean. Sharon was an independent woman, and Bucky had to love that about her.
“Things are good. Really good, actually, I’ve found a new Pandora station that I love to listen to while I’m on the treadmill,” Sharon grinned as she started dishing up food for them to eat. “How about you?”
“Not bad,” Leon said. He grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, and then sat down at the table, leaning back as Sharon dished out the food. It was his place, so maybe he should have been serving everything, but Sharon seemed happy enough doing it and why ruin a good thing? “This vegetarian thing kind of sucks. Though I finally managed to find myself some decent fucking veggie burgers.” It had taken him far too long before he’d managed to find something that didn’t taste like soggy cardboard, and he was actually kind of enjoying eating it these days. “The significant other isn’t so pleased about it though.” He and Revy had originally bonded over a mutual hatred of vegetarians and a mutual love of bloody, bloody steak. It had definitely taken some adjustment.
“So… what’s the whole story there?” Sharon asked, giving a gentle ‘thanks’ for the beer, and then turning her eyes to Leon once more. “I mean, you said something about talking to cows?” She started in on the risotto, which actually went pretty amazing with the beer. It was going to be a good meal. She’d have to hang out for a while after, too, to let the beer and food coma fade before she drove home.
“Yeah,” Leon said, and began to tell the story between mouthfuls of beer and food. “There was a murder. Some vegan protester was trampled to death by cows. We went to the slaughterhouse to check the crime scene, and I decided to question the cows too. Turns out they were these little old ladies. One even tried to fix my hair.” Of course, she’d done so by licking the side of his head and making his hair even worse than it had been originally. “It just feels wrong after that to, you know, eat them.”
“Wow. Yeah, I can see how that might be… disturbing.” Sharon couldn’t imagine--just talking to them as cows might be bad enough, but seeing them as people? That was one superpower(?) she didn’t envy. “So you gave up all meat, then?” It was a strange, strange world where Leon wasn’t eating meat. So much for their monthly steak dates. Risotto was almost as good, though.
It really was a strange world, and one that Leon was still adjusting to. “Yeah,” Leon said. “I just can’t do it anymore. It makes my stomach turn thinking about it.” Of course, Leon had a surprisingly weak stomach for a cop. He could walk in on a the most grisly of murder scenes without batting an eye, but thrust a photo in front of him when he was in the middle of a meal, and he was liable to be sick. And now it was the same when he looked at a steak. Life really wasn’t fair.
“Well, that’s okay!” Sharon said, not wanting him to be sick right here, right now. “I mean, there are plenty of other options. Some great vegetables out there. Ones almost as good.” Almost. Not quite. Sharon couldn’t imagine going without beef.
“You have a sweet tooth, Leon?” She asked. They’d had all kinds of food together, but mostly pizza, steak, beer.
“Actually, D took me to this restaurant in the dreams, and I had no idea the whole thing was vegetarian until D told me half-way through.” It had been one of the best meals he’d ever had, he had to grudgingly admit. Grudgingly because it felt like he’d been tricked into eating it, D had been the one to bring him there, and the chef and D had ended up dating for a time until they’d discovered the chef was actually a cannibal.
“But no, I can barely stand the sweet stuff,” Leon said, frowning at her. It wasn’t entirely true. In his dreams, at least, he’d managed to get used to sweets as D served cakes and pies when Leon went to visit him far more often than he served actual food, and Leon would partake if someone was offering it to him, or if he’d gone out to buy a pie for his sweet-loving friends.
Sharon nodded. “I suppose if I’m given the choice between a piece of pie and a salad, more often I’d opt for the salad.” If it was specific times during the month, Sharon had to admit, she’d go for the pie. And the chocolate. And the steak. But for the most part, Sharon loved vegetables. She almost always had some kind of veggies to go with their steaks. Grilled mushrooms or sautee’d onions. Sometimes roasted bell pepper.
“That is, unless there’s meat involved. Maybe I’m more carnivore than anything else.” She mused, thoughtfully, then took a long pull on her beer. “Please tell me when dinner’s over I can help you clean this place up.”
Leon frowned. He wasn’t much of a salad fan either. But he guessed that was his life now. Endless mounds of salad. At least it also included this delicious risotto. “Yeah, rub it in, why don’t you?” Leon grumbled as he shovelled more food into his mouth.
He glanced around his apartment. For him, it was remarkably clean, but even as he noticed the clothing on the floor, the overflowing ashtrays, and the empty bottles that decorated the room, he realized that it probably didn’t count that way for anyone else. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “If you want to, I guess this place could use a once-over.”
“Good.” Sharon finished up her risotto, then leaned back in her chair to enjoy the last few sips of her beer. Her friendship with Leon was pretty amazing. She wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.