House of Many Bachelors, Thursday

[what_the_shock]

It was Thanksgiving. Miguel had sent a message to his brother, but he couldn't exactly go home for it, and the Exiles were off making Miguel feeling vaguely guilty by beating heads in another dimension, so he left them some food and came back to the island.

Damn it, today was for cooking and eating and being with people, and if he couldn't be with his family or his team, he was going to be with the insane people here. He shot off a text message to anyone he thought might be interested, then rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Turkey with chorizo stuffing, sweet potato black bean enchiladas, mashed potatoes, Mexican-style roasted corn, green bean casserole (because shut up), and pumpkin empanadas and tres leches cake.

Because damn it, it was Thanksgiving. And it wasn't like leftovers would go to waste in this house.


[If you think you got a text, you did. If you smell it walking by and want to drop by, go for it!]

Comments

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden had got an invitation to celebrate some holiday she didn't care about, but she rarely got invitations, and Miguel seemed ok. Making tea without being annoying and not lecturing about pointless things was rare here.

So she arrived, smiling, looking more relaxed than she felt.

[what_the_shock]

"Hey, Seivarden." Miguel answered the door and let her in. "I know it's not your holiday, but I figured food and company is food and company, right? Come on in."

[1000yearstoolate]

"Thank you for the invitation," Seivarden. "I admit I have no idea what's being celebrated."

She didn't care much, but it might be good to at least know.

[what_the_shock]

"Apparently in this time it's still ostensibly - if barely - about the colonization of this place by folks from another continent." Miguel shrugged. He'd googled it. "But basically it's just about being thankful for what we have, by eating a lot and spending time with friends and family."

He waved Seivarden toward the table. "Which means since I can't go home, I made a ton of food and invited everyone I know."

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden didn't think she had much to be thankful for, possible apart from being not dead and her cat.

"Good food is always a good reason, isn't it."

Unless people ate it with bare hands.

[what_the_shock]

"I like to think so." Miguel grinned. "So how's your week been going?"

Not the weekend. The weekend had been stupid.

[puppy_fair]

It wasn't Zack's holiday, but... honestly, he'd take any excuse to not sit around the apartment alone today. Portalocity wasn't taking his calls anymore, they'd put their feet down and informed him that there was nothing they could do to help him, and so all he really had was... home. With the dog.

He was so damn relieved when he'd gotten Miguel's invitation.

And so he arrived, Girl at his side. She was on duty at the moment, keeping an attentive eye mostly on Zack as he knocked on the door, leaning the side of her body against his leg to let him know she had this situation well in paw.

[what_the_shock]

"Hey, Zack!" Miguel let him in and grinned down at Girl, but frowned when they were all there was. "Still no Iris?"

[puppy_fair]

Zack's mouth pulled into a strained.. not quite a frown. He was trying like hell to not frown. But it wasn't a great look for a smile, either.

"No word," he confirmed. "And somebody put a travel ban on me through Portalocity. I'm not to leave this Earth."

He could guess about who.

[what_the_shock]

"What?" Miguel scowled. "Okay, we're fixing that. But they're probably not open today, so..." He waved Zack in. "Food? Talking about other things?"

[puppy_fair]

"Food," Zack agreed, stepping inside and pausing a moment for Girl to catch up with him. "And other things. Any other things, please."

[1000yearstoolate]

"Zack," Seivarden said with a nod. "How are you? I haven't seen you in a while."

[puppy_fair]

"I haven't been out much lately," Zack admitted, a little bit sheepishly as he smiled over at Seivarden with a nod. "How have you been? It's good to see you!"

It was totally possible that he'd just forgotten to answer her question about how he was doing. Totally.

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden wasn't going to push about things Zack didn't want to talk about.

"Oh, ok." Avoiding things here too, but that was just the obvious ones.

"You brought your dog!"

[puppy_fair]

"I brought my dog," Zack agreed, smiling a little. "Should... should I not have?"

She was a good dog, Seivarden.

[died8yearsago]

Rosa had figured she'd have gotten over being sick just to get sick again right away (seriously, who agreed to let Santiago do the Nine-Nine Thanksgiving again?), and by the time Miguel's text came through, she thought she was tempting sickness a third time after more than ten minutes of dealing with various questions and stories from nearly all of the formidable Diaz clan. She was mostly going to ignore it, since, well, clearly she couldn't make it, but once one of her nieces went and grabbed a stack of board games from the closet, she had a newfound desperation.

"Oh no," she said, pulling out her phone that hadn't made a sound, "mmm, darn, work. I better respond to this, could be important. Probably...dozens...already dead. Tragic."


If anyone gets sick, you have to tell me, or I'm gonna be pissed.

[what_the_shock]

Miguel looked at the text and snorted.

If anyone gets sick, I'll report the grocery store to the cops and let you go after them, he promised.

[died8yearsago]

Gross. Dont make me work. Then I'll have to kick the ass of anyone who got sick for making me work.

Although this did give her a great idea to help bolster her story about not being able to play Pictionary because of work.

That's not how you draw a dog, Diana! That's not how anyone draws a dog!

[what_the_shock]

Okay, I'll report them in Baltimore, Miguel answered. Still not planning on it, though. You coming by, or you off doing family things?

[died8yearsago]

Family things.

Could complete and utter disdain and irritation be so succinctly conveyed in two simple words via text? If anyone could pull it off, it was probably Rosa.

[special_rabbit]

Far be it from Amaya (these days, anyway) to turn down an invitation for eating food. She'd mostly been planning to spend most of the day in the shop anyway (where else?), so why not?

Plus, it wasn't at Stark and Rogers', so the likelihood of something going all weird was...lessened a bit, by her experience.

So there she was, wondering if she should have brought something, but confident in the fact that no one would have wanted to eat anything she'd bring, anyway.

[what_the_shock]

"Hey, Amaya." Miguel greeted her at the door with a big grin. "Nothing on sticks, but we've got some good meat."

Hey, he knew his audience.

[special_rabbit]

"No worries there," Amaya assured him with a grin. "I want expecting anything too fancy or anything. Pretty nice of you to put out the out the invitation, though, especially for those of us who've got no idea what we're doing for these things."

[what_the_shock]

"Hey, feeding lots of people is tradition," Miguel said. "Don't worry about the rest of the holiday; it's nothing really important beyond food and being with people you like or you're related to."

[special_rabbit]

"Well," said Amaya, with a glance around at who else was there, "looks like we've got one part of that, at least. The other part? Well, the Blackstones have never really been a very close clan, as families go."

A shocker, truly.