Luke Castellan (anineiron) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-03-06 22:03:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, luke castellan, thalia grace |
Who: Luke Castellan & Thalia Grace
When: The night of the Oscars
Where: Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth's place
What: Getting ready to watch the Oscars
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete when posted
Every year, Thalia swore she wasn’t going to watch the Oscars. It was self-congratulatory; it was simultaneously over the top and extremely boring; it was the biggest waste of time she’d ever experienced.
Yet when February 27 came around, Thalia got ready with snacks and drinks so she could watch the red carpet arrivals. This time, she had Luke with her, because snark loved company, and also she liked being able to do these little casual acts of boyfriend/girlfriend with him. It felt like the more they did these, the easier it was to remember the dreams that plagued them at night.
There was only one problem.
“Auw man,” she grumbled as she stuck her head in the cupboard. “We’re out of popcorn.”
***
Luke cared about the Oscars about as much as he cared about watching paint dry. Which was to say not at all. But Thalia wanted to watch it, so he was here and he was going to watch it. He guessed that there were worse things to do with his time than this.
The thing about knowing Thalia was that it wasn’t exactly great at details. At least with things that involved remembering to restock snacks. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought about popcorn, but he had thought about snacks.
He moved to a bag that was sitting on the counter and handed it to her. He’d at least had the good sense to get snacks he knew she'd like. “Not to say you're scatterbrained, but I might have prepared for this eventuality. Sorry about not having popcorn, though. I can get some more if you want.”
***
Thalia lifted her eyebrows, pleasantly surprised at his preparation.
“You,” she told him as she tugged him down for a kiss, “are an awesome boyfriend.” Because not only had he resigned himself to watching the Oscars even before she’d told him he was going to do it with her, but he’d actually prepared for it. That was the advantage of having a boyfriend who knew her so well. “I’ll even forgive you for suggesting I’m scatterbrained.”
***
Luke smiled into the kiss. “Well, I do my best.” He laughed at her last words. “I’d be very grateful to have your forgiveness.” He leaned in to steal another kiss. “And anyway, I think I’m probably just as bad sometimes, so I can’t really say anything.” Even if he probably would anyway. Teasing Thalia was one of his strong points. At least light-hearted teasing.
“So does this mean I get an award for my amazing ability to think ahead?”
***
“You get some of these M&Ms you got me,” Thalia said, teasing back. In moments like these, it was easy to forget that just a short time ago they’d dreamt about fighting to the death, and all the feelings of betrayal that had led up to it. Those feelings were still there, though, lurking at the back of her mind, but Thalia was determined not to let them ruin things in real life. This Luke here, the one who’d anticipated her needs before she realized she had them and went ahead and got her what she needed - this was the real Luke. She wasn’t ever going to forget that.
She stayed where she was for a moment, the teasing light fading from her eyes. “I love you. You know that, right?”
***
Luke chuckled softly. “Well, I guess that works out for me.” He couldn’t complain about M&Ms after all. He could complain about a lot of things, but not that. He was happy to have these moments with Thalia. Even when he wasn’t really into the idea of watching the Oscars. Though, he distinctly remembered Hades mentioning them. So maybe it would be interesting in the end.
A slow smile spread across his lips. “I know, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it every so often. Every hour or so.” Now he was teasing. Just a little. “I love you, too. For the record. In a very gross and unfortunately ridiculous sort of way.” He smiled a little. “And I just remembered that we might see someone we recognize on the Oscars.”
***
Thalia grinned at that. “I am totally okay with gross and ridiculous. This is what you've brought me to.”
At his other remark, she tilted her head. “Who do you know? Have you been hobnobbing with the rich and famous without me?”
She'd hung out with some of those people, but Luke was a nice boy from Connecticut. His world didn't exactly intersect with those degenerates.
***
Luke couldn’t help but laugh again. “I’ve been told that I’m a bad influence. So I can see how this might extend to making you totally okay with these things.” And he was glad that she was, too. He was glad that she liked him enough to be happy that he felt so strongly toward her.
“I wouldn’t call it hobnobbing, but remember when I sort of broke into Hades’ place to return something to him because I wasn’t thinking clearly and probably could have died if he was the killing business here?” He gave her his best smile. “Well, I saw him mentioning going to the Oscars. And he’s apparently a director.”
***
He might be giving her his best smile - and it was a very nice smile - but Thalia still took the opportunity to scowl at him. She still wasn’t entirely over that. It was one thing to be an evil friend-betrayer in their dreams, but trying to break into a very powerful man’s home in real life? There weren’t enough M&Ms in the world to get him off the hook for that one.
“You mean the night you decided you had a death wish? Yeah, I remember that,” she said pointedly. “I guess once you’ve broken into somebody’s place and get caught, you kinda get invested in their career, huh?”
***
“Yeah. That would be the time.” He knew that she was still upset about that and he understood why, but it didn’t change what had already happened. It was already done now. He wasn’t really that sorry about it. Of course he would have been if things had gone differently than they had. “I saw something about it on Valarnet? I guess I kind of just noticed it because I’m oddly aware of his existence now.”
Luke shrugged slightly. “I guess we’ll see if he does well tonight.” A pause. “So are we secretly rooting for him or against him?”
***
“Against,” Thalia said decisively as she picked up one of the bowls and started heading out to the living room. “Because he has the best bitch face when he loses. Also because he sent hellhounds after me in my dreams and I'm petty that way.”
Holding grudges wasn't just a child of Hades thing.
***
Luke guessed that was pretty fair. Especially with everything that happened in the dreams. He didn’t really have anything against this version of Hades, but he’d probably need to give Thalia a little time before she decided she wanted to give him a chance. “All right. Boo, Hades. May you lose.” He wouldn’t end up losing, but Luke could say that he’d asked for him to lose anyway.