i don't believe it, i had to see it

[unsanguine]

Who: Hal et Riley
When: Day 78, after the communal fish fry Hal did not attend, because most of you are delicious.
Where: House 7!
What: Just a werecat and a vampire having dinner, nbd.



If there is one thing Hal knows how to do, it's entertain guests.

--that's a lie.

He used to know how to entertain guests. Lord Harry had been famous for his hunting parties, which of course involved the requisite amount of running, screaming, and slaughter. They were also much more week-long exercises in debauchery than they were parties, but by God, everyone used the correct forks. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Now, all he really has left is the forks. In fact he doesn't even have those, because the people who lived in this house were barbarians.

But he won't let that stop him, so he sets the table with the single type of fork available to him, alone with spoons and knives. He even found a little grove of fruit and flowers from which he's procured something colorful for the table (irises, which symbolise, among other things, friendship; he's not sure if that's stretching it or not).

That accomplished he's left with nothing else to do to get ready; the house is already spotless and has been since the day he moved in. So he sits on the living room couch with his hands neatly folded over his knees, playing a series of numbers in his head which make no sense to anyone but him, the domino occasionally making an emergence to be turned over and over until it feels more like an extension of his fingers than anything else.

Comments

[undomesticated]

Riley had enjoyed her little social foray, but she'd promised Hal she'd come visit him, and no way was she letting mister broody pants sit in his house alone. So she grabbed enough for two, made a stop by the bar, picking up some kind of English lager (he should like that, right? It wasn't wine.), then made her way over to where he was staying.

They hadn't really talked about the specifics of what she was, but he knew she was a shifter and he was oddly okay with that. It made her less hesitant to climb the stairs to the house and knock briskly.

She also had a pack of cards stuffed in her back pocket. She hadn't gotten further than three dominoes in her attempt to make him a set, and she wasn't going to just give him that pittance. So until she was done, he'd get the cards.

[unsanguine]

Hal was frankly much more comfortable with any variety of shifter than he would have been with his own kind. As a for instance. So once he heard Riley's knock he sprang up like the world's most nervous jack-in-the-box and then ...settled himself, smoothing his shirt of a non-existent wrinkle or two. In fact if there had been a wrinkle he'd have berated it furiously rather than just brushing it out like a normal person.

He was well past the time he'd have thought of checking his reflection, but he patted his hair down too, touched the sides of it gingerly; it wasn't that he was desperate to make sure Riley thought he looked good so much as he'd had bred into him the aristocratic ideal that not looking his best at all times amounted to a truly astonishing amount of disrespect for company, the fact that company was often eaten notwithstanding.

Never mind! No one was going to be eaten here today except some fish! And they were already dead and cooked so Hal didn't have to worry about smelling their blood, or seeing it, or--damn it.

He jerked open the door with less grace than he'd have liked to exhibit, and beckoned Riley inside with an outstretched arm. "Good day. Please come inside."

Help. Throat clearing? Yes. That was the solution. "You'll find everything you might need in the kitchen."

This meant literally everything he could find, by the way. A platter, a pair of tongs, whatever spices he'd been able to locate, possibly a blender...he would just occupy himself by standing in the doorway between there and the dining room, concertedly not fidgeting.

[undomesticated]

The door swung in rather quickly and Riley almost flinched, even though she'd heard him walking towards it. He seemed... nervous? It was strange and she gave him a small, unsure smile as she stepped in. What was there to be nervous about? It was fish and beer. If she could, she would have brought some french fries to go with them, but unfortunately, they weren't blessed with a deep frier.

"Thanks. I just need a couple plates and some glasses. I brought beer." She held the bag with the bottles up, feeling kind of proud of herself for thinking to bring it.

Stepping in, she saw how clean everything was. Like, beyond immaculate. "Wow, you have a lot of spare time, huh?"