Priestly's apartment, Friday night

[lovemykilt]

So Priestly and Dinah, being untraditional in all of the things, hadn't actually gotten around to celebrating their one year anniversary on the actual day.

Or the day after the actual day.

Or the few weeks after the actual day.

Whatever, they weren't about that kind of thing. They were all about casual and cozy and just being awesome together. Still, there was nothing wrong with celebrating their casual, cozy, awesome togetherness lasting without major upset for more than a year, right?

Right.

Also, Tia and Mark were both planning to be out of the apartment for the night, and Priestly had gotten himself a fancy new toy he'd been wanting to try out. He gave Stevesie a treat ball to play with, tucked him away in the bedroom, parked Dinah at the kitchen island, and started setting up his mise.

"We should have music," he said. "Something to set the mood. Any ideas?"

[for her and the inevitable ooc peanut gallery, and likely to go SP at some point]

Comments

[blondecanary]

Dinah had the wine bottle in hand, and was pouring a glass for Priestly, and one for herself. "I'm in an Elvis Costello mood. Or Diana Krall. Either one. Do you guys have any of those CD's here?" She grinned. "And do I get to know what you're making, or am I just watching and guessing?"

[lovemykilt]

"Dinah," Priestly said with a grin. "My darling. This is the 21st century, we don't have any CDs here. YouTube it."

Really now.

"And the show is part of the whole experience." His mise this time included extra wine glasses, a whole line of ingredients premeasured into attractive dishes along the kitchen counter behind him, and a whole array of candles. "Once these are lit, I'll hit the lights."

Cooking in the dark, awww yeah.

[blondecanary]

Dinah stuck her tongue out at him, and then smirked and pulled up a Costello playlist, setting it to play off her phone before settling in to watch him do his thing. Food and knives, and fire! "It's like you know me. All my favorite things." She grinned at him, perching her chin on her hand. "Did I say thank you yet? I feel like I need to come up with something equally awesome for you now."

[lovemykilt]

"I have every confidence in you," Priestly told her as he swirled some butter in a small ceramic bowl over one of the candles to melt it. "Not that it matters if you actually do or not. This is fun for me too."

Especially if he managed not to set the kitchen on fire!

[blondecanary]

"I know," Dinah allowed, taking a sip of her drink. "But still. I mean, I'm wearing sexy underwear, but I do that a lot around you anyway." Just call her a Girl Scout, ever ready!

[lovemykilt]

"The red thing?" Priestly asked, eyes wide and hopeful. "With all the lace? Or, oooo, the navy blue. I like that too."

He liked all her sexy underwear. And she knew it.

His knife gleamed in the candlelight as he carefully sliced open a vanilla bean pod and scraped out the seeds.

"You know, I'm not sure I even have sexy underwear. That doesn't seem fair. I should get a sexy red thing for you to enjoy, too."

[blondecanary]

"The tiger print!" Because she'd been feeling growly today, with this to look forward to. She leaned forward, watching Priestly's hands move expertly. "I didn't even know vanilla had seeds, before this. .. I could get you some sexy underwear!" Ooo. Oh hey, maybe he wanted his own corset thing? ... well, it couldn't hurt to ask. "Guy's or women's?"

[lovemykilt]

Priestly opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and looked thoughtful. "You know what? Surprise me." He added the vanilla to the butter and stirred it around for a few moments, then picked up another bowl to beat an egg. "Whatever you find that makes you go 'aww yeah, I wanna see Priestly in that."

[blondecanary]

Dinah's grin widened, and she bounced on her heels, leaning forward to sniff at what he was mixing up. It was already smelling delicious. "I'll find you something awesome." And she would borrow a set of his underwear and undershirts for comparison, to make sure it'd fit, too. "Hmm. Eggs, butter, vanilla..." Vanilla meant something dessert-ish, that much she could guess.

[lovemykilt]

Priesly finished the egg and picked up another bowl, sifting together dry ingredients with a whisk. "And flour, sugar, salt, and some milk." He slowly added the wet to the dry, working it into a watery batter. "Any guesses yet?"

[blondecanary]

"Dessert omelet?" Dinah had picked some things after knowing him this long. "Orrr something that is like that, but that I don't know the name of, because it's more complicated and cuisine-y?"

[lovemykilt]

Priestly chuckled and went to get his new toy. "Well, it's got egg in it, and I'm about to fry it up into a sheet. So I guess it's kind of like an omelet." For a certain value of "like". He set the heat, the burner lighting up a lovely blue in the dark, and poured a bit of the batter into a nonstick pan, swirling it around until it formed a nice, thin pancake. "It definitely is 'complicated and cuisine-y', though. I mean. Only the best for my girl."

[blondecanary]

It was a little bit the wine, but a lot more just the words that made Dinah wriggle at that statement. "Your girl, hmmmmm. Like you're my guy." See, that worked a lot better than 'girlfriend', or 'boyfriend.' Not in a possessive way. Just a statement of fact. "I can sing for you. At karaoke. I can... Eat your food?" And watch him play with fire and sharp things!

[lovemykilt]

"You'd better eat my food," Priestly said. "Stevesie's a terrible audience." He always tried to steal the ingredients before they got cooked. Not even the fun ones! He flipped the first crepe, gave it a few moments to cook through, then slid it out onto a plate and started a second. "I like the karaoke idea, though. Mmmm, you should wear a tux. And sing something all deep and throaty."

[blondecanary]

"In an accent?" Dinah half-teased. Look, how long had she known him by now? "French or German?"

[lovemykilt]

"Dealer's choice." Priestly finished off the crepe batter and swapped the burner for the cutting board again, this time pulling out several oranges. "You'll like this part," he told her, and chopped the top off the first orange with his knife, setting the orange cut end down, putting the top on it, and skewering through both with a two prong kitchen fork. He made sure the knife caught the candlelight again as he used it to gently peel the skewered orange in one long stroke, leaving the peel to hang down in a loose coil.

[blondecanary]

"Ooooooooo." Dinah leaned forward to watch the knife-work, and said, "I never stop being impressed by what you can do with a blade."

[lovemykilt]

"I feel like I should make an innuendo out of that," Priestly said, setting the mostly-peeled orange aside in a small bowl and chopping two other oranges in half for juicing. "But that crap took a lot of practice, so I think I'll just be proud of it as it is."

The number of times he'd nearly cut his own fingertips off. . . . Well. He was lucky he hadn't had to call on their magical healing type friends more often than he had.

[blondecanary]

Seriously! Dinah might be good with nunchuks and still okay with a sword, but knives? No way. That was impressive stuff, especially when used to prep food, not stab people.

"Consider the innuendo made, meant, and planned for after crepes?" she said, looking hopefully from the sliced oranges and back to the pastry, and the impressive teeny show-off stove-top. "I'm getting huuuungry." Oh look. Another innuendo. Also just the plain truth.

[lovemykilt]

"Patience," Priestly said. "I promise this'll be worth the wait." He finished juicing the two oranges and swapped back to the fancy burner thing. And grabbed the liquor bottles. "Besides, we're getting to the really pretty part."

He put sugar into his pan, shaking it around dry over the heat for a few moments before stirring in butter and melting them both.

And then he added cointreau, and when he put it back over the burner, the whole pan lit up with bright orange flames.

[blondecanary]

Dinah pouted at him for that, then settled back, humming under her breath-- humming that was cut off in a gasp as the pan lit up, trailing off into thrilled laughter when she got her breath back. "Shiiiiiiny!"

[lovemykilt]

"And this is why we turned the lights off," Priestly agreed, grinning at the flames as they slowly burned down and the alcohol evaporated off. "Also, why I cleared all the paper out of the kitchen before I got started."

It actually took some doing to get flammable cocktails to set paper on fire -- totally different combustion points -- but still. He took no chances.

When the flames had died, he poured the fresh squeezed orange juice into the pan, stirred it around, and added the crepes back in.

"Home stretch now."

[blondecanary]

Dinah checked herself to make sure that she wasn't about to trail a sleeve or her hair into the fire, and said, "You don't have to impress me-- but it's really cool when you do, you know?" She licked her lips, and closed her eyes.

[lovemykilt]

"You kidding?" Priestly said, pouring some grand marnier into a wine glass and setting the hot pan aside so he could heat the glass over the burner.

The whole glass flamed up electric blue. Priestly grinned down at it.

"I'm impressing myself."

[blondecanary]

Dinah was gleeful now, restraining herself from reaching out to touch with a main effort. "This is so cool holy crap, how much did you have to practice this?"