Who: Drystan and Bess
What: Dinner! And its multiple interruptions ;]
Where: Drystan's flat
When: Ermmmmm last night?
Bess liked to think she had a knack for cooking. She wasn't one to come up with dishes off the top of her head, but if you gave her a recipe, she was sure she could make it to be as tasty and delicious as it was meant to be. Which was why she had insisted on making dinner for Sadie as often as she could, and now with the addition of Drystan and Stephen to their little...family, Bess was nearly in seventh heaven with her time in the kitchen.
It did help that Molly Weasley was now sharing recipes. It had taken Bess a long, long time to gain the woman's trust in that way, but now she had a nice box of some of the finest dishes a woman could ever dream to cook.
"If I stink at being a solicitor, I think I'll be a chef," Bess said, sprinkling some salt into the boiling water. Sadie and Stephen were taking their pre-dinner naps in the living room (Bess loved how they'd fallen so in sync), and she turned to look over her shoulder at Drystan, grinning, "Would you risk opening a restaurant with me?"
Drystan was eager to volunteer to set the table, happy for any busy work that would occupy him. But a task that ordinarily occupied no more than a few minutes was suddenly a job that involved his entire focus. Plates had to be centered, cutlery had to be perfectly aligned, napkins had to be folded just right. When he found that he'd run out of things to set the table with, he went on a search for candles rather than summon them, merely to have something else to do that required all of his focus.
"Hmm?" he asked, caught off-guard by Bess's question. "Oh—er—" What had she asked, he wondered. Something about a restaurant?
"It would require some consideration," he said, frowning a little as a mocking note entered his voice. "This face cannot be put to just anything, you know."
Bess pulled a face, her mouth dropping open in exaggerated shock. She tutted loudly as she poured the ziti into the water, taking a step to the side to stir the sauces and meat. All right, so maybe a variety of pastas was Bess'
speciality, but she did try to mix it up so that the people she cooked for didn't get sick of it. Ticking her head back and forth as she stirred, Bess' voice took on a snotty tone.
"I don't see how you could deny 'Captain Fawcett's Seafood Palace,'" she said, not missing a beat as she lowered the heat on the stove. Bess grinned to herself, the ridiculously-named restaurant taking shape in her mind. They could ask Odette to borrow her monster for the front, all proceeds going to some hippocampus fund, or what not. And Drystan would have to wear a pirate hat.
"You would look dashing with an eye-patch," Bess said with a nod, focusing once again on the stove in front of her.
Drystan snorted indelicately, only half-listening to the conversation as he put the finishing touches to the table, casting a glance towards the living room to make sure Sadie and Stephen were still resting peacefully. "Yes, and I imagine I shall wear tattered breeches and walk with a peg-leg as well."
Satisfied and perhaps a little annoyed that there was nothing left to do with the table (silly as it was, being that two of the dinner guests were under the age of three, and the elder two could just as well have eaten at the counter), he walked back to the kitchen. "Are you quite sure I can't do a thing to help?" he asked, leaning against one of the counters with a skeptical look. Not that he wasn't fond of Bess's cooking, of course, but if he had his way, it would have been him cooking—at least for tonight. But seeing the happiness it gave her, Drystan was more than willing to give Bess her own space.
Bess turned to Drystan, waggling a spoon in as seductive of a manner that you could waggle a kitchen utensil.
"I've got quite the handle on dinner, Captain," she said, pushing up and forward on her toes to give him a quick kiss. It was lovely how easily they'd fallen into these paces. She felt like...well, a
wife in his kitchen, and as much as she liked to be independent (which really wasn't that much), she enjoyed the feeling of being part of something like that with Drystan. Bess dropped back to the floor and lifted her chin. "Now, I'll be out with everything in a minute, do you want to wake up the kids or no?"
Sometimes dinner without getting splattered in the face by pasta was relaxing, but
sometimes it was easier to get a little one to eat when they saw that everyone around them was eating, as well. So, she'd let Drystan figure that one out.
"What?' Drystan asked, his mind slipping for the second time. "The childr—no, no, I think it's fine. They've been busy today; it's best to let them rest." And it also allotted them some modicum of privacy, even if the snuffling, deep breathing of two young children permeated the air every once in a while.
It was ambiance, no?
"I—am happy we have this time, though," Drystan said, disregarding or forgetting Bess's assurance that she'd bring everything out, and grabbing the nearest dish that looked ready to the table, "to talk."
He tugged one of the crooked pot holders straight.
She tutted again, but just turned to turn off the stove. He was the one losing out on her adorable entrance with the food, not her. Bess took another plate and patted Drystan's chest with her free hand before heading toward the table. They could definitely talk, she had plenty to talk about, like always. Sometimes Bess was sure they could go all evening without Drystan saying a word...that sounded terrible in her head, but he simply didn't talk! And she liked having someone to listen.
Now she felt like a bad person. She would
love to listen to Drystan's stories, especially when she didn't have any to share.
"How was practice today?" she prompted as she placed her plate on the table, taking the initiative and making sure that Drystan got a word in, tonight. Bess had no idea what she was going to do when Sadie was old enough to hold full conversations; they were going to have some trouble sharing the proverbial microphone.
"Practice?" Drystan asked, bemusedly. "Oh—practice—was adequate. There are still some—unresolved issues one or two teammates, but it's nothing being benched for a few matches wouldn't—" Oh, of all things tonight, he did not want to discuss his team and their failures. No, there were much more important things to talk about. "—It's really nothing of importance. Although, if I may, I had something I wanted to—"
Wailing. Very loud, very persistent wailing.
"Oh, bollocks," Drystan mouthed, looking up at the ceiling with the smallest of irritations visible on his face. It wasn't that he didn't love Stephen, of course, or usually felt he was a burden—but the child had impeccable timing.
While Drystan wasn't much of a talker, he certainly didn't stutter like he was doing now. Bess was about to question him when Stephen started to cry, and that of course brought along Sadie's usual mutterings upon awakening. The girl often got very offended that Bess wasn't in her direct line of sight when she woke up, and snatching some garlic bread off the table Bess hurried over. It was probably strange, that she didn't hesitate to go for Stephen before Drystan, but Bess found it quite natural; and if Drystan minded it, he would surely tell her. Sadie was sitting up on the couch with a frustrated frown, and Stephen was pressing his face into the netting of his playpen, shrieking.
"What's with the face?" she said to Sadie, handing her the garlic bread. Bess reached into the playpen to pick up the still crying Stephen, and turned back to Sadie, who was chewing on the bread with the still-rather-peeved expression, "I made ziti."
"Ooh," Sadie let out, looking a bit happier with the news. Stephen's whines calmed slightly as Bess bounced him around, and she tried to flatten down his bed head hair.
Sighing, Drystan dropped his fork back on the plate, pushing his chair out. Children—one never could tell what they would bring. That, he mused as he made his way over to them, was probably half the joy and half the horror and exasperation in having them.
"I'll take the other one," he told Bess with a smile, turning his attention to the tiny blonde. "Well, then, what have we here, Miss Sadie?" he asked, giving her a half-smile at the petulant expression she wore, holding a hand out. Perhaps this was best done in front of the whole clan, anyway. "Can't have a pout at the table, my lady." He hazarded a glance at Bess with Stephen.
Bess didn't think it would ever get old, seeing Sadie and Drystan interact. Since they had become official, she had been telling people that Sadie was more enthralled with the man than she was! Which, wasn't
necessarily true, but Sadie had been able to express her feelings for him much earlier, and easier than Bess could ever dreamed of. The innocence of being a child was definitely something you missed when you had to grow up.
She laughed as Sadie immediately launched herself into Drystan, and Bess shifted Stephen from her hip to sit in her arms in front of her, as the boy's eyes were beginning to roll back into a sleepy daze. He was such a handsome boy, and Bess' feelings toward the baby had changed dramatically from great sympathy to adoration. Even though he was so young, a baby boy was
much different than a girl.
"Drystan has to breathe, Sadie," Bess said, noticing the tight grip her daughter had around her boyfriend's neck.
With a laugh, he rose up from the knee he'd dropped to, one arm wrapped around the girl. "No, it's quite all right. Breathing's not much to my liking." To Sadie, he turned his face and heaved an amused sigh, bouncing her up a little. "Come on then, m'lady. A table setting awaits you."
He supposed it was just one of those nights. With thoughts of grand plans tucked away, Drystan said as much. "Sitting down during dinner isn't much to my liking either," he winked at the woman he was sleeping with, now carrying his adopted child (it was good to think in realist terms every now and then, you see) making his way to the table.
Bess stuck her tongue out at Sadie (she'd done it first!) and followed back to the table. Stephen was lounging comfortably in her arms, and she figured she'd just eat with one hand as to not disturb the little mister's peaceful state. She was very skilled at this, and sat with ease in her seat and tried to tease Stephen awake by tickling his stomach.
"What did you want to talk about, before 'the awakening?'" she said, absentmindedly. Bess had taken particular interest in this, because Drystan never really prompted for a conversation.
See, she was very good at paying attention to important things. Even if it was probably just about some event or whatever a captain had to do besides lead the team. Her eyes lifted from Stephen to look across at Drystan for a second, before dropping back down to the baby.
Sadie's breath tickled his ear with her loud, breathy whispers, distracting him enough that Bess didn't catch is attention until mid-sentence—something that had been happening altogether too often this night. With a little shake of the head, he looked down at the little girl on his lap and cocked his eyebrow musingly as she fidgeted. "No, it was nothing, I—Sadie," she poked her small hands in the pockets of his robes, prodding his sides in the process. "I was only, er—"
Her small hands grabbed ahold an object in the recesses of his robes and Sadie fished it out, looking at it with wide eyes. Brief panic seized him, and he began, "Sadie, that's—" But her declaration of "Shiny!" as she opened it drowned him out.
She wriggled out of his lap and toddled towards her mother, box in tow. Tongue in cheek, he accepted this was probably the way it ought to be. He wasn't certain how, but Sadie was like a small pillar of strength to draw from, and the previous stiffness and equivocating seemed to have disappeared. He could trust her to get right down to business.
"I suppose it was less of a thing to talk about—" he watched the small hands tighten around the equally small box. "And—more of—erm—" he smiled crookedly. "Well, more of a thing to give."
She liked presents. Bess couldn't help that her eyes shot up at his words, and a sly grin slid onto her face as she began to think.
Hmm. Celebrating his captaincy, maybe? Bess could definitely understand if he wished to shower her with something lovely, because that's what a captain's girlfriend needed. Bess also understood that it was best to keep these thoughts to herself. She would never
insist on being given gifts, there was a difference! She would merely accept them when Drystan deemed it a suitable time for gift----
"What do you have!" Bess let out in a breathy tone at the sight of Sadie holding up a
ring box. She clutched Stephen closer to her, because if she didn't she would have just let the boy roll off her lap and to the floor.
No, Bess, she scolded herself. It could just be a---
ring. There were many rings that came in many shapes and sizes and
stones and she couldn't breathe. Bess looked at Drystan with an expression of complete
shock and---her heart had stopped, she was going to pass out. Bess pushed back in her chair, almost in a panic.
"I don't know what to do now," she admitted to Drystan, her hand going to her chest as Sadie sighed and shook the box at her. Should she--
assume, or...."You need to say something."
He'd forgotten the bloody most important part!
"Oh, I suppose that's—my go—" It would have helped to think past delivering the ring, he thought with a bit of panic. To spend the whole night obsessing over getting the ring in her possession was not, as Drystan might have believed, the hard part. Sadie pawing through his pockets and ending up finding it was just a push in the right direction towards asking her, but the asking still needed to be done! Clearing his throat, he pushed his chair back and stood up, walking towards the other side of the table.
"It's been a topsy-turvy year so far," he said, "and we're not that far into it. With all of what last year had to bring, good and bad, and all that's happened so far, I know that the ups and downs have only just begun. And I know—I
know it's sudden, but you said it yourself at the wedding… as long as I'll have you, Bess Zeller, that's as long as you'll stay."
He down on one knee, looking up at her earnestly, one hand covering hers. "So I'm asking for the rest of our lives, Bess—if you'll stay that long, if," he reached for the box with his other hand and pulled it open, the gems catching the sparkle from the soft candlelight, "
if you'll marry me."
"Oh, Christ," Bess let out, her hand going over her mouth. Her entire body was shaking. She--she had to let Stephen slip off of her lap and to the floor (with a bit of insistence on her part), because if not he would have tumbled to the ground with the tremors racing through her body. Drystan really--he really wanted to be with her, forever. For the rest of
their lives. Oh, God, he didn't even have to ask (well, no, he
did, but---) because in her mind she'd already picked out their first son's name, and the kind of dog they should get, and where they should
live because this flat was not big enough for all the babies she wanted to have with him.
Yes, that's where her mind had immediately gone: she got to build an even bigger family with this man.
Her hand went up to her hair and she realized she looked an absolute mess. How could he have allowed her to be dressed so
casually when he was going to
propose? That was not important! But it sort of was, but----she blinked, unable to see with the tears in her eyes. Oh---oh she needed to---
No words. He'd knocked her completely speechless like no other man ever could or
would. Bess' face scrunched with a short laugh as she nodded, and Sadie jumped, "Yes!"
Yes!
Yes, she'd said yes, Bess Zeller had agreed to be his wife, and—He swept her up into his arms and kissed like he never had before, holding her close to him as could possibly be. A small weight knocked into his leg, and he looked down to see another blonde head, face buried tightly in the knee she was gripping.
"I promise," Drystan said, voice hoarser with the unexpected swell of emotion, "I'll take good care of you two, I'll give you anything—everything—" he kissed her again. Happy, they were going to be so
happy.
