InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I can never be too insane."

terribly sorry, officer (baelfiery) wrote in valarlogs,
@ 2017-04-04 22:41:00

Entry tags:

!complete, edward elric, neal cassidy (baelfire)

Who: Neal & Ed
What: Taking Ed to the mecca of all-you-can-eat buffets
When: Backdated to the middle of March
Where: Buffet Mecca
Rating/Warnings: Nothing to speak of!
Status: (Mostly) Complete

Neal wanted to go to a restaurant. Welp. Twist his arm. How terrible, Ed had responded to the invitation with dripping sarcasm per the usual Elric fashion when he’d received said text message. In spite of all the weird dreams, he still needed to eat. Nobody could fault him for that. Riza had been doing a lot of late shifts recently at the flower shop, so he found himself eating alone recently anyway and that just wasn’t much fun. His best meal was probably grilled cheese. He was a scientist not a chef, though he did a lot better at baking if he put effort into it. His interests just weren’t there.

He didn’t know how to feel about many of the events that had happened lately dream and life wise so he was just going to try to bury his feeling in massive amounts of food. It usually worked out fairly well. His father had been admitted to a mental institute recently, Ed wasn’t really sure what had happened-but the call had come as a bit of a surprise to him, he was still processing it. How exactly was he supposed to feel about that? The man was out of his hair yes, but it meant even if he wanted the closure he’d be unlikely to get it at this point. Apparently the dude barely recognized his own name from what was said over the phone call he’d gotten a while ago. But now there were more important things ahead of him. Things that included words like buffett and all you can eat. Dangled in front of him like a shiny prize to make him forget his current troubles enough to go and enjoy time with Neal.

“Oi, took you long enough. You don’t lead on with things like buffet and then drive here slow” Ed teased as he finally spotted the man.

“Had to convince Henry to babysit - besides, leaving the house with a baby takes about two years so just be glad I didn’t bring Niko,” Neal quipped in response, taking the usual Elric wit n’sarcasm in stride. He unlocked the car doors and let Ed in, then they were off for some stomach-exploding good times. Normally you’d think buffets weren’t fresh, shit was just sitting out there under lights for hours - you know, quantity over quality - but that wasn’t true with this one. They had great seafood and sushi. Even baked lobster in the half shell, snow crab legs, pizza, a meat carving station, fresh fruits, gelato, and mochi. Usually it was packed, but no matter. It’d be worth the trip.

He knew Riza had been working a lot lately and Neal didn’t want Ed to always be by himself for meals. The Cassidy household was a zoo when it came to that sort of thing, so going out was nice sometimes. “How’ve you been, kiddo?” he asked, making sure to drive fast enough so they could make good time and the kid’s grumbling stomach could be appeased.

Al was around but even he had his own life, so Ed didn’t often end up with his company lately. He was kinda glad and sad about it if he was entirely honest. He wanted him to have his own interest as opposed to the dreams where Al had no real choice but to follow him around thanks to being trapped in that suit of armor.

“It has been forever since it was just us.” He couldn’t help but feel a little special, which was a welcome change compared to how he had been feeling lately. “I guess you can get a pass, this time.” He gave him a side glance as he leaned against the door of the car. “Okay I guess, Stuff is weird, but when isn’t it here?” He accepted that with a shrug and glanced out the window at the random stuff that passed them by.

“What’s weird?” Neal asked since, at least for him personally, things had been kind of all quiet on the western front. Mostly he was just immersed in work, childcare, and putting the last touches on the wedding planning - it was coming up soon, and the whole getting everyone to Tallahassee thing was first priority. Portals were so handy.

He parked the car at the restaurant, pulling in luckily as another car was pulling out. Thank you, traffic gods. “Tell me about it inside.”

Ed probably shouldn’t have been surprised about the question, but honestly he hadn’t really advertised it. He didn’t intend to either. It was personal, that network didn’t need to know just how fucked up his family was in reality and the dreams. He was glad for the distraction of parking and nodded as he hopped out of the car to investigate the resturaunt. He was expecting heat lamps and half cold food even though Neal had told him it really wasn’t that sort of place.

It looked more upscale and he wondered for a moment if he was underdressed. “This isn’t like tie fancy is it?” He hadn’t planned for that.

The place really wasn’t that upscale - Neal had to laugh a little at the question, and Ed’s adorably brief moment of panic. “Nah, you’re fine,” he insisted, since it wasn’t like the adult in this scenario was decked out in a suit and tie either. Just jeans and a clean shirt, no tie, everything tucked in, and actual shoes. Overall though, Neal wasn’t a fancy-pants dinner kind of fellow. He preferred casual and laid-back.

“You can even start with the chocolate fountain if you want,” he pointed to the dessert options, once they got inside. Besides that, there was a gelato wheel too - so much sugar, so little time. Henry and his bottomless pit of a stomach (plus his sweet tooth) would love this place.

Then they were shown to a table, the buffet was ordered along with drinks, and it was time to grab a plate and go.

Fancy places usually wanted to serve small portions, Ed viewed that as a crime. If it was so good why not serve it like a normal human and give more than just a bite? He raised an eyebrow and nodded. “That might be a cool idea though.” Fancy buffet where they served you and all you had to do was sit there and look a the thing to bring it over.

To someone who loved food as much as Ed did this was basically sensory overload. He had no idea what to start with, the pile on his plate looked rather unappealing to some. Half chocolate fountain half steak. But to Ed it was the perfect combo, who didn’t want chocolate after eating meat?

“I wanna live here. Just leave me on the way out.”

Chocolate and meat made a great combo (wasn’t there such thing as lamb with a dark chocolate sauce, that was like super gourmet) - anyone who didn’t think so was severely lacking. For Neal, he’d gone with the seafood - crab legs, some pasta - and would tackle the gelato after this. There was plenty of room for more than a plate’s worth of food (that was the glory of buffets, right?).

“Figured you’d like the place,” he grinned, settling down at the table with Round 1. He had a cold, crisp beer to drink that paired well with crab, a really great brown ale. “So, kiddo, want to talk about anything?”

Or if Ed just wanted to stuff his face, that was fine too. Whatever made him happy. It was a special trip out, meant to be enjoyed.

Ed wasn’t sure where to start. If he could start with every damn thing he probably would have but alas. The plate was only so large. Many trips would have to suffice. He was scouting places within the buffet where a small tent might be able to go up and unnoticed for several days should it ever come down to it. And frankly recently this was basically a consideration. This was Ed’s Disneyland. They had to have a hotel or something near by for scenarios like this didn’t they?

He had collected an odd plate of chocolate and meat combos, unable to resist the siren song of chocolate wafting through the air. But also bacon. Because what decent person could resist it? Strange half demon girlfriends aside. She partially wasn’t human, so tt didn’t count. Ed was practically drooling over his plate when the question that made him wince showed up. “Nothing that wouldn’t ruin this” He waved a hand dismissively not exactly wanting to taint the best thing he’d had all week.

“I didn’t have to kick anyone’s ass this week at Al’s school?” That was an improvement for his little sensitive brother. He was an easy target sometimes, it made Ed’s life complicated at times.

“Well, that’s good news,” Neal said, and alright, he supposed a week without violence at the high school was, uh. Something to celebrate? Hey, why not. He sipped his beer, and wouldn't bring up anything that was potentially heavy - at least not right now. The food was heavy enough. And there was plenty of it.

Besides, he was feeling pretty light-hearted lately. Things were going well. “Think we’ve got most everything set for the wedding,” he said, since weddings were usually happy topics. Felt like this one was a long time coming, what with all the turmoil he and Emma had been through both here and in another world entirely. “Niko’s even got a little suit. With a golf cap.”

He would look like a baby old man, a chubby one. It would be great.

Ed gave a shrruggy faced nod. “It really s getting a bit tiring, but I won’t have anyone picking on him.” He’d do the same for Henry if it ever happened, but so far Henry seemed to be doing just fine with his school friends. Ed was always the more violent of the two, bit harder around the edges than his little brother- and he aimed to keep it that way. He didn’t want Al to grow hard because of circumstance, so if he could protect him from it he would.

“Yeah? ..That reminds me I’ll need to get a new suit I think, busted the last one. New arm upgrades didn’t like the fabric of the last one.” He shrugged, with the recent set of dreams he’d gotten a bit of a metal upgrade and could tell the difference in strength and size, but of course it happened when wearing fancy clothes. “Just hoping not to go back to the creepy place I went to last itme. Dude was a little..too excited to be around suits and clothes and crap.”

Henry liked school, he had his friends that came over the house and sometimes he went over there or parents took turns carting the kids places in the car - just another thing was on the duty list, when you had teenagers, Neal supposed. In a few years Henry would be getting his license and then his dad would really start to worry. At least it wasn’t like in Storybrooke, where (as far as Neal heard), Charming had decided it’d be ‘cool’ to teach Henry to drive a lot earlier than necessary.

Neal would be with Regina on that one. Over Charming’s dead body, would Henry be behind the wheel of a moving vehicle at his age.

“No need to wear a suit unless you want to,” Neal reminded, with a chuckle. “It’s a rustic wedding, outdoors, so it’ll be mostly casual all things considered. I don’t even have a suit, actually.” Just a vest over a dress shirt, and he’d wear the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He wasn’t even wearing a tie, and he was pretty sure Emma had cowgirl boots as footwear. Though he wasn’t allowed to see the dress before the wedding - that was an apparent ‘nope.’