Morning Came and then Came Noon [March 8, Closed]

[dead_black_eyes]

Who: Lazarus Lawliet and Belle Goldman
When: March 8th, Saturday evening.
Where: Their apartment
What: Belle's aunt sent her some expensive gourmet truffles. Guess who just took his first fledgling steps into cooking?
Warnings: Trufflecide and awkwardness.



L realized that many woman in their mid-twenties would be out on a Saturday night, on a date or at least trying to find one. In all the time he had lived with Belle, he had never witnessed her doing or even preparing for either undertaking. It was therefore a reasonable assumption that she was out running errands this evening, perhaps grocery shopping in an attempt to replenish the refrigerator. Since teaching him how to make stuffed french toast, Belle had set off something of a mania in her patient, and he was suddenly very interested in finding ways to cook everything. Eating it was another story entirely, but he seemed to enjoy combining everything from eggs to herbes des provence to birthday candles just to see what would happen.

Tonight, L wasn't out at a restaurant or club, either; his wild Saturday nights a thing of the past, he was still nevertheless in a highly experimental mood, and on going through the dwindling supplies in the refrigerator, he stumbled across a package, in the back, of gourmet Italian black truffles.

Those looked interesting.

Slitting open the plastic sealing them in, he popped them in the microwave, setting the timer for ten minutes and peering intently at them as they rotated on the carousel.

Eventually, they caught fire, and L hastily opened the oven, sprinkled ginger and cayenne pepper on them until the flames died down, and then started the oven again.

Comments

[belphe]

"I mean that, for the time being, you're living here and you are certainly allowed to watch the television, regardless of if I'm watching it as well or not."

[dead_black_eyes]

"Is there anything that you would prefer to watch alone? Sometimes people prefer to be alone when they watch things. My uncle had videos like that."

[belphe]

"....no. Nothing like that."

If anything, at least the question lowered her worry that he might be hiding a collection of his own that he might "forget" in her DVD player at some point in the future...

[dead_black_eyes]

"OK. Then we'll watch everything together," L resolved happily.

[belphe]

She wasn't sure how she felt about watching EVERYTHING together. The idea of every movie and show in her future featuring a backdrop of Lazarus' nitpicking and questioning was not especially appealing.

But it had seemed to satisfy him for the moment. And, by her experience, his attention span for things that he was not entirely dedicated to tended to be short.

And, looking at it from a clinical perspective, it was an opportunity to observe him in more or less of a controlled environment outside of a therapy session. Sitting in front of a television offered him very little opportunity to create chaos.

"Whenever you like. Just as long as it doesn't interfere with your writing."

[dead_black_eyes]

"I'm just keeping a journal right now. Not much writing to interfere with," L confessed.

[belphe]

"I see. You're taking a break, then?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"More like... I'm taking a look at reality. I think that my skills are going to be better used in other capacities, from now on."

[belphe]

It was a shift in priorities she couldn't disagree with. His writing was disturbing at best, and something a publisher would never look at beyond the first couple of pages at worst.

"Good for you, L. I'm glad to see you pursuing something this aggressively." It was said with enough emphasis that it could be nothing more than an enthusiastic statement of encouragement, rather than her belittling his skills as an author.

[dead_black_eyes]

"I'm sure in the near future you'll see me pursuing even more things, very aggressively," he assured her.

[belphe]

As usual, his way of phrasing things was nothing if not disquieting...

"I'll keep it in mind. And I'll stay out of your way as much as I can."

[dead_black_eyes]

"If you..."

He paused.

"If you... want, we could subscribe to Netflix's DVD service as well as their streaming service. Then we could get all sorts of films delivered straight to our doorstep."

[belphe]

Her eyes had momentarily widened at what she'd thought he'd started to say, even as he "artfully" misdirected it to a different statement. She, too, paused before continuing, unconsciously folding her arms over her chest to create a meager barrier.

"It wouldn't be bad idea. I'd liked what I'd seen of their trial a couple of years ago, but too much was going on to worry about having a movie service at the time. I'll look into having it set up."

[dead_black_eyes]

"OK, great," L said, a little too enthusiastically, missing the signs of discomfort entirely and only really picking up on the fact that his misdirection seemed to have worked.

[belphe]

"I'll do that right now, actually." she said, gladly taking an excuse to leave his room as she moved to excuse herself.

Belle was not someone who had ever dealt with someone expressing open interest in her, and she was sincerely hoping she was misinterpreting L's latest actions. It was entirely possible that she was. Living with him was an entirely different world from seeing him briefly once a week, after all.