[PRP] Kitchen Takeover [Jeremiah/Cass]

[azuredreams]

"I could potentially get three if I worked at it but they may not be deer anymore, if things work out ..." Jeremiah, of course, was clearly speaking about a thing. Also he fully expected that Cass would absolutely do something like try and wrangle a deer into blessing his yard.

"As for beating up? Magic, maybe an all power teenager? Take your pick. Despite my looks and charms I am not beloved by all." There was a dryness to it that might have given away more about Jeremiah than most would get (mostly because Jeremiah did not think about himself in terms of being attractive so such a statement was out of place; it was easier than saying what he really thought it was).

He was in the process of making the sauce, though he was slicing up extra vegetables as tasty snack sides. "You want to strain the yoghurt while I finish this up? We picked up more vegetables than I realized," a small chuckle, "so we'll definitely have more than one meal's worth. Probably send you home with some leftovers."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cass didn't get the joke all that much. "Yeah? That's a lot of deer. I'll have to up my deer-blessing goals if three is an option." she laughed.

"Oh, I might get arrested if I beat up teenagers." she tilted her head slightly, "I mean, I'm hoping you would arrest me if I was caught beating up teenagers. "Sucks to be them, but hey. Not everybody needs to like everybody. I'm OK with being tolerated at best." Cass shrugged, patting the top of the tupperwares before walking over to take the yogurt from Jeremiah.

"Yeah, I think I can manage that without just," she motioned with a hand and made a 'blurpeppppprrttt' noise to pantomime 'dumping this all over me'. "How much of the Yogurt do we need? And hey, I love leftovers. I'm not gonna say no to some good leftovers."

Azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Deer people but that's another story altogether ..." Jeremiah chuckled and nodded in agreement. "I would also prefer you not beat up teenagers without good reason but, again, what goes around comes around." So if people started s**t, he fully expected Cass to lay down the smackdown. "Admittedly, I am usually okay with being tolerated but of late that's been a bit harder to manage.

"Though that's a lot do with the magic and there's little to be done in that regard." There was a fine line that he walked. (Perhaps sharing because she had shared earlier in the day.) "Nothing quite like being looked at as if you're a predator." He rolled his eyes before looking to Cass. "I think you can do so just fine. If not, I can be at your side in a moment to catch it."

There was a quick eyeball to the container. "Three-fourths should do it." Another chuckle with a smile made. "We'll make sure and pack you up some leftovers then when it's all said and done."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Wait, Deer people" Cass said, a look of excited wonder on her face. What she was imagining was likely very different from reality, but maybe she'd be allowed to entertain that for a few minutes. "Well, I'm not an absolute brute, I only punch people who really need a broken nose..." she paused, "Or people who've paid me to do it." there was a somewhat awkward silence before she whispered, "That was a really weird time in my life."

Frankly, Cass had quite a few of those.

"Jeremiah. If people look at you like you're a predator, then that's definitely a problem on their front. I've met predators. When you're 5'2" and made of lean, living by yourself, there are men and sometimes women who definitely will try to take advantage of that. I am comfortable here alone with you and I can say I've been in situations I couldn't escape that feeling from."

A serious frown - much different from her usual playful or pouty ones had set itself on her face.

This look remained on her face as she set about to her task with the Yogurt, brow set seriously. She was only halfway through it before she puffed up her chest and said, very seriously; "I know it shouldn't bother me, but it's going to. I'll punch everybody who's being stupid over your magic. People are dumb and it's dumb."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"What you are imagining is likely not ... exactly what I am talking about." His lips twitched. "It's rather complicated and tied to all of this." Jeremiah snorted about the weird time in her life. "Generally speaking, age sixteen to twenty-two is meant for weird times."

Which was all he was going to say about it at the moment. He paused however and smiled at her, something more truthful and open in his expression than most usually got from him. Things were almost entirely cut up by this point, Jeremiah about ready to move to the next task. "You are, yes, but you know me. You've also fought beside me, which certainly fosters trust and camaraderie." More like a strange spirit-father and spirit-daughter bond but-

He was cleaning his hands, wiping them with a towel and placing a cool hand on her shoulder again lightly. "You can try to punch all the people but it's not going to change them or how they look at anyone with noticeable magic like mine." A free hand gestured towards his eyes but that was only half of it. "To you, I am just Jeremiah - with cool eyes and fights with strange glitches and cooks things to share and owner of a flower cat princess - but to the rest of the town? To those who aren't magic or part of this? To the world? I'm the Chief of Police of a city that is practically overflowing with magic with untested and potentially unknown magical capabilities. People fear what they don't know or understand and, in all honesty, I am dangerous." His expression went to something more wry and a touch somber.

"When I first realized the world was different, that magic was known, I thought I might have been more free but I am not. It's a false freedom because now, more than ever, I am under watch. One misstep, that's all that's needed, for them to turn on me." He knew, all too well, what awaited those with magical talents that they could not keep tabs or control of.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cass laughed - it wasn't an amused laugh. "New things aren't always better things. You find..." she frowned, "..well, I'm sure you've noticed it. You're supposed to be free and instead there's the weight. Mine sits on my shoulders all the time." it was a weird comparison, but, it was almost a similarity. Jeremiah's new identity was just an entire world he'd been placed into. She turned to look at him, a brief look of fear on her face.

"My name isn't Cassandra. Well...I.....I wasn't born Cassandra. My birth name is Samantha Simons. Eight years ago I reported my parents for...well, it doesn't matter. They're in jail for it now. I did time for a year and then they dumped me in a random town with a wad of cash and let me tell you, I call my ********' Marshall all the damn time and he never picks up." it spilled out so easily. She hadn't even tried to tell Marcus any of this - and she'd told him she loved him. Maybe she was too busy trying to figure that part of everything out.

"All it took was one time of seeing someone that...hell I don't even know if they actually were one of my parents' acquaintance...but they looked close enough that's all it took. I don't have wanderlust. I have fear. And I'm afraid if I stay here too long that someone will find me, and someone will get hurt."

And lord, did she look like she wanted to cry.

azuredreams

And Jeremiah is the first to get to know.

 

[azuredreams]

"I have noticed it," he said quietly, meaning the weight. The look on his face was sardonic but heartfelt as he spoke. "Certainly you've noticed I roll my shoulders frequently enough." It was true that he did, whether he caught himself and stopped or not. Sometimes it was because of the pain that he could never get rid of but sometimes it was the weight that would never leave.

His heart twisted the moment he saw fear on her face and Jeremiah was quiet, listening. Whatever he had expected to hear, whatever he had thought might be the case for Cass's past, it was not what he heard.

The hand on her shoulder slipped around, becoming more supportive. There was frustration, a low simmer of anger that whatever marshal had been assigned to her had essentially ditched her. That she had been in a point in her life where she needed the support and no one had been there for her. He knew what that was like, he would not wish it upon anyone.

"You don't," he said quietly, "need to be afraid here. I mean it. If there's someone that shows up and looks like it might be trouble, you have me in your corner." With one arm around her, the other came to rest on top of her head. "I have it on good authority that I am fairly indestructible." A breath escaped. "It won't make the fear easier but you have support if you want it, Cassandra." The name was said on purpose because that was who she was to him, even with the reveal of her birth name and everything else.

She was Cassandra and she was important and that was all that mattered.

demon_pachabel

jer is just going to keep cass okay, she can be his spirit-daughter 5ever

 

[demon_pachabel]

She leaned her head into his chest, shoulders shaking but whatever sob she felt was held in; not because she was trying to be strong, but it was one of those feelings she'd just wound up inside of herself so tightly she didn't know how to use it anymore and one day it would just unravel all over the place unexpectedly.

"I say that all the time. I've tried to convince myself to put down roots for years but I just..." she sighed, the kind that sounded like trying to catch your breath after sobbing, "I tried to go to college once. Nobody wants you when you have a large chunk of your history missing. It's suspicious. They screen for that stuff....so I just...." her shoulder slumped, "...I gave up. Nobody would answer my calls. If college wouldn't take me, who else would?"

After allowing some of the floodgate to overflow, however, she stepped back, rubbing both hands on her face and taking a deep breath of composure. "Sorry. I...I've held that in a long time. I don't think I've ever told anybody any of that before but....I feel a little better. Maybe." she ran a hand through her hair.

"Maybe I'll be indestructible one day too, but.." her stomach rumbled, reminding her that her sudden exposition had just interrupted a path to food. "Thanks for listening. I'll...I'll try a little harder."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah ran his hand down her hair soothingly, a quiet support and listening even as she let out that hiccuped breath. When she stepped back, he let her go with one soft squeeze. "With your determination, I am certain that you are indestructible in a few ways already."

She was, in some ways, much like him. There was hardness and dependability on the outside but the inside? The inside was soft, squishy, and few were ever let in because if they were they had the easiest access to hurting in the worst way possible.

Cass's stomach rumbling had him smiling a bit but the food could wait another moment. "I would assume you've likely a particular skillset from that life, it might even be a little more varied than my own, but ... I can do something about cultivating a history to fill in those years. I've done it before for someone." Which, out of respect, that was all he was going to say on the matter. "If you still want to do something like take classes or the like.

"I'm glad you trust me enough to let me know," a smile was given, "and you don't ever have to thank me for doing so or say sorry for listening." Not that he would stop her. Then he was quiet, watching her compose herself before he held out his hand to her; a universal sign he wanted her to take his hand.

"When I touch skin, especially with certain people," something in the way he said that implied it was rare, "they can get a glimpse of my feelings." Jeremiah let out a breath. "It doesn't change or affect yours in any fashion, it just ... lets you know how I feel. You don't have to if you don't want to but I thought I'd offer." So he kept his hand out for her to take. If she did, it would not be immediately obvious. Instead she would first feel that his hands, like him, were cool (he was not dead but he was certainly not on the warm side) and then-

Then she would sense it: a faint warmth that blossomed in a feeling of affection and caring, the sincerity of his words and that he absolutely meant what he said. Jeremiah was sharing because it was meant to be a quiet reassurance that while he had said what he did, he was also sharing the truth of his own feelings. That she really did have someone that would back her up and she wouldn't have to question it, she could know it.

(And if she didn't, that was okay too. Cass would just get another hug and then they'd go back to finishing up cooking.)

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Sturdy, maybe, but maybe not indestructible," Cass suggested as an alternative, taking a moment to adjust her ponytail again (fussing with her hair too much had really messed up the look) then putting on that smile of hers again - the one that never seemed all the way there.

"Well, I still dunno if I'd be able to afford it at this point. College is expensive," and Cass definitely didn't have any sort of credit history. She dealt in exclusively cash after all. "I mean, if I could fanagle it, maybe." And maybe she wasn't ready to put down that many roots. Hell, at that point she was less putting down roots than she was being connected to a potato that would put down roots for her that would maybe eventually become her own.

When he offered his hand she hesitated, listening first to his explanation before reaching out to take it with one of hers. It was less jarring than when her own feelings had been...changed....at least, her shoulders visibly relaxing after a moment before she pulled her hand back again.

"Thank you."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Something like that, yes," Jeremiah agreed, "as I've no desire to test what it would take to break through my dragonhide." He nodded at her assessment about college, his hand squeezing lightly once she was holding it.

"I simply figured it may actually help to ... be able to feel the truth of my words." After all it was one thing to hear him say what he did and another entirely to be able to feel that he was truthful and meant what he said. Let go, his fingers stretched out and he moved to start back on their cooking project.

"... and you're welcome, Cass. Even if you don't decide college is for you, the offer stands. I have the connections that would enable me to get you something more than blank holes and a name. Could see about filling those holes in with a credit history and other things. Even if you don't want to settle here, it'd help you in the long run."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Just avoid anybody named Bard." she suggested helpfully with a wink, then also turning back to the food. Whoops. Gyros were important still, darnit. "Okay, I'm actually done with this Yogurt, so I guess I should give this back," she laughed nervously. Cass then glanced towards the clock. "I also think the meat is done sitting, so if you want to get your rotisserie sat up, we can start the....arrangement..." it was less skewering and more arranging meat in a weird pattern so it stuck to each other while it was cooking. Still good, but also a very strange science.

"I'd like to feel like a whole person again someday. I kind of feel like a weirdly reset human being sometimes. Like...does that even make sense?" she frowned, "I mean, when I was dropped, I feel like all of the parts of me that ever made me feel like a person just sloughed off of me and I never really...picked them back up again. So it's strange. But I dunno. I told Marcus I'd try. So I'm gonna at least try."

Cass took a moment to crack her neck from side to side.

"I wanted to study food, actually. Culinary Nutrition. It's just been so long since I cooked I don't even know if I'd be any good at it anymore."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah let out a laugh at Bard and shook his head. "Alright, we can finish up with the sauce after we get the meat arranged." Which meant that he was moving to the rotisserie and getting the settings all set before they could start arranging the meat.

It was a process to get it all together but at least it was one that lead to delciousness.

"It does make sense," replied Jeremiah, "all of it. It's a watershed, all the parts that made you part of the human race slipped off and everything that was left was survival." He was carefully arranging meat, glancing towards Cass as she did the same. "You just need people around you that you can be safe around so that you can start picking them back up." He paused. "Admittedly, I can't really say what caused me to do so. I like to pretend that I got tired of being called a hooligan but ..."

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Marcus is a bit strange sometimes, but he's a good man, and lucky to have you." Jeremiah meant it. "... as for culinary? There's an excellent culinary program at the university in Boston. Besides, if you don't have the space to try things out, you're more than welcome to do so here? Or borrow Hellbine," the small feline's ears flicked from where he was sleeping on a stool, "for herbs and the like."

Watching her for a moment, he nudged her lightly with his hip. "I'd say you're doing good, considering how much of this process you remember."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Cass pointedly nudged him back with her hip, sticking her tongue out. "Well, I used to help mom...and I'll admit I've googled it more than once in the last few years after being disappointed too many times.I guess it was one of those things I didn't let go." Still, she fussed her arrangement far too much, laying down a piece, and then considering the placement, then shifting it a little bit.

"Oh, Marcus is very strange, but he's special to me. It's...weird to explain. He's so busy being strange in his own way I don't feel self conscious about my own oddness...and we have this strange mutual disinterest in each other's weirdness. Like don't get me wrong, I can say the wrong thing over breakfast and suddenly he's slapping spatulas on the table and starting off about how flu vaccines are how the government tracks you but..." she trailed off, tilting her head to one side..then just laughed. "I like it. I like him."

But maybe she was just being mushy.

"Hey, if you don't mind me making disasters in your kitchen, I'm not against trying.....might need to find my touch again for a while and...figure out the rest first..."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Marcus is very strange, yes," Jeremiah chuckled, after listening to her. She very much sounded like someone who was absolutely besotted with the man she was talking about. "I was, at least in the old world, the one that usually went out whenever he called in about things. When things turned out to be less conspiracy theory and more truthful ..." He shook his head. "He's good to have around. He's got an eye for details that some miss, even myself."

It turned out that Jeremiah was probably just as fussy about the meat arrangement, stopping a few times and rearranging things before he found the method he liked. "As long as you don't blow up the kitchen, I don't mind. Blowing it up is not covered in disasters," he gave her a look, "but everything else essentially is. I don't get to cook or take advantage of my kitchen as much as I used to with my schedule so someone might as well."

demon_pachabel