though it's been said many times, many ways

[more_magic]

It’s strange to think of where he was a year ago, exactly. Waking up in Alex’s bed, hung over from the shame of the night before and the lingering effects of whatever Manuscript had given him, preparing for his first full day in a city outside of the world he knew and realizing in the process that he’d lost nearly two months in the space of a breath. There were more shocks to come, more alterations in what he thought to be true, but very little had managed to surpass the disorientation of that initial beginning to his tenure in Darrow.

Back then, Darlington had wondered what they might have done at home, if Alex would’ve been on a plane to California at the start of break--or if he might have managed to convince her to stay, to spend Christmas at Black Elm with him. What they got instead was better, that makeshift celebration with hastily-bought gifts and the smell of a half-remembered recipe wafting from Alex’s kitchen; the start of something new, even if neither of them had known the depths of that newness at the time. And now, a year on, through hard work and some kind of miracle, he gets what he’d wondered about after all.

Christmas Day will be just for them, presents and breakfast and relaxing by the fire, but tonight is a chance to celebrate. They decorate the main floor of Black Elm, filling the rooms they’ve already managed to furnish with light and warmth, the tree they’d bought earlier in the month standing by one of the large picture windows in the great room. Alex cooks all of Estrea Stern’s recipes she can think of, adds a few of Bernadette’s that Darlington remembers from his childhood. There’s music low on the stereo, a fire lit in the vast fireplace, the new table and chairs they’d bought for the formal dining room arranged just so beneath the chandelier at the center of the room. Even Kirby gets into the spirit in a new, festive collar, bright red against his black fur.

Above all, they’ve invited the people that matter, the few who have come to mean something--to one or both of them--in the year that’s just passed. It’s the first real party Black Elm has seen in many years, not since Darlington’s grandfather was alive. It feels, once again, like starting something new.

[[tag in, tag around, enjoy the party!]]

Comments

[takecourage]

Alex drifts back and forth but, increasingly, she finds herself in the kitchen, pulling things together. She's got a glass of wine at her elbow, and the kitchen smells incredible. She's making a bunch of Estrea's favourites: fassoulia, artichokes with lemon and honey, roasted beets, chicken, fish, sweet things for after. She's got an apron on over her dress, her hair twisted up into a knot on top of her head. She feels happy in a way that she never thought would ever apply to her.

She feels complete.

ooc: Alex could definitely do with a hand in the kitchen!

[more_magic]

"You're amazing," he says as he comes into the kitchen, an empty bottle of wine in one hand. After setting it in the bin by the door, he joins her at the stove, one arm looping around her waist as he drops a kiss into the twisted knot of her hair. The party's moving along easily now, their disparate groups of friends coming together into some kind of whole without Darlington or Alex to nudge them further on their way.

"What can I help with?"

[takecourage]

"Salad," she says, leaning back into his embrace for a moment. "Please. And try and make it vaguely interesting? Let your pasty WASP ass live a little, babe."

[more_magic]

"I'm wounded, Stern," he says, grinning, holding her tight for another moment before he goes to take the salad spinner out of the cupboard. "You have such little faith in me."

The refrigerator's old and heavy, the door sticking just the same as it always has, and Darlington gives it a hard, practiced yank. "The peppers are reserved for something else, right?"

[takecourage]

"I already took the ones that I need," She says, glancing over at him. "So anything in there is fair game."

[more_magic]

"Perfect." He takes the lettuce and a bag of frisée mix out, putting them on the counter before considering the other vegetables in the crisper. The peppers, he rejects, selecting a carrot instead along with a tub of crumbled blue cheese. He's careful to stay out of Alex's way as he gets to work, stripping off leaves of lettuce and tearing them into the spinner, adding a few handfuls of frisée to balance out the flavor.

"I'm glad we decided to do this."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky watched for a minute, getting a feel for where things were at and what she was working on. By the time he stepped in, he seemed to get a feel for what she was working on and what needed to go where.

Plus, a timer was going off, and it was easy enough to open the oven and check what was in.

"Never took you for a domestic," he said, shuffling roasted beets on their pan before popping them back in for a last bit, and then turning his attention to things on top of the stove that are bubbling and simmering away happily. He's as familiar at the stove top as Alex seems to be, and he looks at her with that quiet understanding: food is comfort for creatures that don't see a lot of that.

"Your boy's pissed I've invaded, but I've placated him with my husband."

[takecourage]

"He likes Newt a lot," says Alex, knowing that there's no point in pretending that things aren't the way they are between Darlington and Kavinsky.

"I know how to cook things my grandma used to make," she says. "It's all kind of..." She makes a vague gesture. "More suited to Hannukah."

[mitsubishievo]

"Yo, I think that's just called Eastern European grandma cooking?" Kavinsky shrugged a little bit. He didn't think he had any Jews in his background, but a lot of the cuisine on the docket right now was familiar enough for the strict purposes of being Slavic in nature.

He smiled, though. "And Newt is, like, deeply likeable. Definitely more likeable than me. So I'm just glad that he doesn't hold me against him."

[takecourage]

"We're Spanish," she says, smirking a little as she starts to stir something on the stove. "Well...Sepphardic. Turns out that Granny's Ladino didn't help me a tonne with Spanish 101."

[mitsubishievo]

Kavinsky flapped a hand in the air. Jewish food scanned Eastern European even when it was Spanish probably because of diaspora, but did that need to be a topic of conversation? Probably not.

He laughed a little bit, grinning. "Congrats on that, Bulgarian wasn't very helpful either. I mean, being multilingual was great because I could just automatically get out of second language courses unless I wanted to take them--which I didn't."

Kavinsky bumped Alex a little bit as they stood at the stove together.

"Your man's been watching you whenever he's not schmoozing, so congrats on being hot shit."

[formicine]

"Hey," Blue says with a little smile, poking her head in. She has a bottle of wine in hand, other gifts having been set down earlier in the evening, but it's also a little bit of an excuse to step away from small talk with a large group. Even if it's got about five times the counter space of 300 Fox Way, the warmth of a kitchen in use has something more familiar and comforting about it than most other parts of a house. Definitely than a formal dining room with a chandelier.

She thinks Alex will get that, probably, which also makes her comfortable to come talk to.

"It smells fantastic in here. Anything I can help with? Glass of wine?" She lifts it. "It says it's Spanish, but I don't think there's any way to prove or disprove that, here."

[takecourage]

"I'm not really drinking at the moment," she says, gesturing towards the can of Coke that's open on the side beside the stove. "But there's a corkscrew on the table, and glasses, so help yourself." She grins. "How comfortable are you with throwing a salad together?"

[formicine]

Blue knows enough not to fall all over herself apologizing, or making it weird, but she can feel herself flush all the same. "I'm good," she says, setting it down, "I should probably wait until I'm eating." Having had a drink already, there's only so much she and her 4'11, fairly slim self can expect of her liver.

"Oh, that I can do," she says, grinning back and looking around to start gathering vegetables to rinse and chop. It's nice to have a kitchen big enough for two to move in without bumping hips or having to half-hop up on the counter, she has to admit. "You don't work in a mom and pop pizza joint from the time you're legal and never make a salad."

"Have your holidays been good?"

[takecourage]

"Yeah, actually. Yesterday was Danny's Darrow anniversary, and being out here? Decorating a house like this?" She grins. "I didn't exactly have this back home. And Danny was on his own for a long time, even with this house." She shrugs. "It's nice to have people around us."

[formicine]

"Oh, wow," Blue says, and tries to remember when she'd met him. She thinks it was at last New Year's. She knew he'd been new, enough so that he wasn't familiar with weird Darrow traditions, but she hadn't realized it had been so soon.

"Yeah, this place looks fantastic," she smiles. "I can tell you guys enjoyed decking the halls." She talks as she rinses and starts chopping lettuce, tomatoes, onion - the basics - and glances around for toppings. "I definitely didn't have anything like this either." It makes her a little homesick for what she did have, talking about it. "I mean -- people to celebrate with," she adds, to be fair. "I had it better than a lot of people in that way. But nothing so grand to decorate."

"Hmm, do you have walnuts or almonds or something? Nuts and dried fruit might be good in this, with those flavors."

[maloscuridad]

"Don't think I knew you cooked," Nova says, his tone entirely complimentary. Alex has changed a lot from the tired, naked girl he first met. It's not just physical. There's a groundedness to her now and that makes her look happier.

Nosy, he comes in properly through the door and takes a look at the food she's working on. The dishes are pretty unfamiliar but there's something about them–the way they're made for sharing–that he can relate to.

[takecourage]

"I didn't really," she says. "Not before I came here. But Estrea taught me. She died when I was nine but, I guess I held onto it." She smiles at him, glancing up as he surveys the stove. "Her house was the only safe place I had growing up."

[maloscuridad]

"Gods, I know what that's like," Nova says. Not that Angela Santiago's place was ever his definition of safety but it had been the closest thing for a long time before he found Patricio Mortiz and they took him back in.

"My grams owns a bakery. I know a thing or two."

[takecourage]

"Estrea was never great at baking," says Alex, with a faint grin. "Made a mean flatbread though." She looks down. "She always lit candles in her windows and the greys didn't have the balls to come anywhere near."

[maloscuridad]

Nova laughs at the mental image. He doesn't really see ghosts unless he's somewhere or sometime when the veil is thin but it's easy to imagine what a comfort that must have brought someone like Alex.

"In another life, my grandma was probably a mad scientist. I'm just grateful it's not this one."

[swerved]

Intermittently mingling and keeping at her girlfriend's side, Kat is smiling, caught up in the cheer of everything, when she makes it to the kitchen. "Wow, this smells amazing," she says, all warm and genuine. "Do you need a hand with anything?" She doesn't recognize some of the dishes, but she knows her way around a kitchen well enough. At the very least, she figures she can offer some company, anyway, so Alex doesn't have to just be in here cooking while everyone else chats in the other room.

[takecourage]

Alex shakes her head, brushing back a sweaty strand of hair with her wrist and flashing a grin at Kat over her shoulder. "Just hang out with me while I pull everything together. Shouldn't be too much longer, now."

[swerved]

"That, I can definitely do," Kat says with a grin of her own, taking a sip from the drink in her hand. It all feels sort of wonderfully homey, more so than she would have expected given the size of the place; she likes that about it. "What are you working on, anyway? I don't think I know some of these dishes."

[takecourage]

"It's all stuff my grandma used to make," says Alex. "Mostly Spanish, lot of middle Eastern influence. Estrea took her heritage really seriously." Sometimes, Alex feels really guilty, for ignoring that part of herself for so long.