[turkey day, nov 21]

[youfeelluckypunk]

They've graciously been invited to Derek's Thanksgiving celebration on the actual day itself, but Reid had gotten to thinking after Luke had told him of the invitation that it would be nice to throw a small get-together of their own. Halloween at the bookstore had been a success, after all, and in spite of the fact that they'd been sent to a hellish version of Darrow for the next ten days, Reid had really enjoyed planning and decorating for the holiday with his boyfriend. In a way, it also serves as a bit of a housewarming, even if nobody else needs to know that. They've been officially living together for a week now, though the only real difference is that he's handed over his keys to the Dimera apartment back to the landlord.

Still, being able to call this apartment home, knowing that he gets to spend every night with the man he loves, it means something special to him, and he wants to share that sense of home with the rest of the people he cares about.

So he sends out texts to Alec and Magnus, Peter and Jason and Hild, telling them all to save the date for the twenty-first so they can have an early Thanksgiving celebration. Others are welcome, of course, and Reid suspects they'll have more than enough food because he'd made arrangements for one restaurant in particular (one that he visits often and had already been promoting take-out for Thanksgiving Day) to set him up with a turkey dinner early. There are all the expected fixings, though he'd ordered four turkeys because Luke still needs to eat more to make up for all the weight he'd lost in the alternate version of Darrow, plus a couple pumpkin pies and various other desserts strewn out across the table. The wine Peter had given to him on Halloween is out, available for consumption to those who want it, but Reid will be sticking to water tonight.

If anyone asks, he's been slaving away in the kitchen all day long, brewing coffee after coffee as he and Luke make sure everything looks nice and neat for their first Thanksgiving dinner together. The food is set out over the counter in the kitchen, china and utensils and glassware placed at the very end so people can take what they want and find a place to eat in the living room, where they've placed extra chairs, and it isn't until they hear the first knock at the door that Reid finally decides he's satisfied with the way everything looks.

Every single person who will be here tonight has been through so much, seen more than one person ever should, but tonight, Reid is just grateful that they're all still here.

Comments

[high_warlock]

Magnus swooped in almost immediately upon Peter's entrance, only managing to avoid crashing into a departing Jason by inches, but he made the move look smooth and calculated. A glass of wine in one hand, he poked at the casserole dish with a brightly painted finger.

"What'd you make?" He did not wait for a response but lifted the lid a crack and sniffed. Glitter drifted through the air in the wake of his movements. "Ooh, the thing with the marshmallows. Did you do this? By yourself? You can't become a housewife, Peter, unless you promise me manicure dates every Monday and wine every week night."

[paper_courage]

Every moment Peter is sure that he cannot smile for any longer without his mouth wrapping Cheshire-like around his face, he's proved wrong. This time, it's Magnus' incredible Magnus-ness that does it. It starts with the extravagantly painted nails and spreads from there.

Peter presses the lid closed and tries at a playful glare, but he's smiling too wide for it to even happen. "You're going to get your glitter in my dish!" he protests before bumping him with his shoulder affectionately. The dish gets placed on the counter to be presented to Spencer and Luke later and he turns back to Magnus.

"I've always loved to cook! I just never got to do it at St. Cecilia's." It's another one of the millions of things he never got to do that he can do anytime he wants, now. Like wine and manicure dates with Magnus.

Speaking of wine, he heads for the glasses and bottles, tugging Magnus along with him. "You want me to pull myself away from my Herculean boyfriend and drink wine with you every weeknight? I love you, but I think you've finally asked too much." He pours himself a glass of wine, which still feels like he's doing something wrong, even though he knows it's legal where he is. Alcohol and Catholic school, in Peter's experience, go together like the body and blood of Christ, though, so he'll get over it.

With a smile that's more contained than the last three or four, Peter raises his newly-filled glass of wine to Magnus. "Happy Thanksgiving, Magnus. I'm grateful for your bad influence on me."

[high_warlock]

Magnus has had a great many friends over his lifetime, even with mundanes, miraculous mundanes who accepted what he was and loved him for who he was. They were all candles, lighting up the darkness, every day moving closer to being extinguished. But they burned so brightly in their time that Magnus could not help but be attracted to them. Peter was one of those, playfulness and light and joy spilling out from his boyish smile and sparkling eyes. Magnus felt compelled, like a moth drawn to a flame, to match his grin, his glare, the bump to his shoulder, every friendly gesture answered with one of his own.

"I thought your dwindling Hot Pocket supply indicated otherwise," he replied, smirking and following along as Peter moves for the wine. "But if you love to cook I'd be more than happy to eat for you, whenever you like. No more sandwiches at mine." It was a sacrifice, but he would make it for Peter.

He took a sullen sip of his own wine and half-leaned against the table supporting the drink selection. "I knew there was a limit to your affection. I just didn't think I would hit it so soon," he pouted.

The sad-faced act was short-lived, replaced with a wink and a grin as he clinked his glass against Peter's. "And I am grateful for the injection of Disney musicals you have reintroduced to my life."

[paper_courage]

The way Magnus minces sexuality with all of the comfort of being around a childhood best friend is fascinating to Peter. In all of his winking, touching, grinning, Magnus never feels predatory to Peter. It's a balance he didn't see often back in Cecilia's hallowed halls; every couple of people that were touching (that weren't Peter and Jason) were doing so with such intense inappropriateness and it was all so desperately charged. When Peter bumps Magnus or Magnus bumps Peter back, he feels all of the thrill of welcome contact without any of the messy urgency that causes bad decisions to be made. So uncomplicated. A month with Magnus has felt more like home than any summer back in Arizona.

"That's because I'm always at Jason's," Peter explains with a fond shake of his head. "I try to inject something edible into his diet once a day, but I'm not always successful. Did you know Slim Jims have no expiration date? I can't imagine what's in there." He shudders. He doesn't even want to know. He's eaten a Slim Jim or two in desperation between class and rehearsal, but every time it was grosser than the last. He'd almost been desperate enough the other day, but that was the day he went shopping with Magnus after a delightful, glitter-infused sandwich.

Speaking of which, "your sandwiches are a part of our friendship. I've grown accustomed to certain standard of living, thanks to you." Why is this so easy, he wonders for the millionth time. Once his glass is full and the toast has been delivered, he settles to lean against the wall next to his friend. "I'll cook whenever you want but this is a two-way street.

"And we can watch other things, you know." He finds Magnus' enchanted eyes to shrug. "I'll even let you pick the music." The wine is good and it's the first drop of alcohol he's had since arriving, so he's looking forward to any kind of warmth he can generate against the biting cold he's recently stepped in from.

[high_warlock]

Never let it be said that Magnus befriended Peter purely by virtue of proximity and nothing else. He shuddered in time with Peter at that unnecessary piece of information about Slim Jims and vowed never to let one pace over his door step again.

Funny, really, as Magnus had no expiration date, but he felt allowed to judge food items by different standards. Even if Magnus himself was delicious.

"Well, excuse me," he said playfully. "I wouldn't want to upset the delicate balance of your life." Even though it was obviously a joke, the idea that Magnus had already ingrained himself into Peter's life made him smile. Too often, between the once-a-decade friends that mattered, there were people who took him for granted. People who wanted Magnus only for his magic or his showiness or both, who wanted him beside them and not the other way around. Even after several centuries, they could still surprise Magnus with their carelessness. Not Peter. He was genuine and transparent, to an extent, and Magnus let the joking comment touch him.

"Next day you have off work, maybe I'll bust out the big guns. Grilled cheese." He let that offering sit for a moment, gave it the proper respect of two seconds of silence. "If you're lucky, I'll open a can of tomato soup, too. But this reminds me: I have to grill you on your classics education."

He wet his tongue with a quick sip of wine. "Gone with the Wind? Yes or no?"

[paper_courage]

Peter will continue not to confirm or deny Magnus' deliciousness. Either way, Peter's pretty sure he doesn't want to give his friend that satisfaction.

He is excited, though, that they're about to geek out about whatever Magnus considers 'the classics.' Books, movies: Peter's pretty confident in the fairly unintentionally gay education his mother has bestowed upon him. She's a silly romantic like he is and growing up, it had pretty much been just the two of them until that unnamed thing landed him in boarding school across the country. Granted, he hasn't been around as long as Magnus has, so this may end up being incredibly disappointing, but Peter trusts his expensive education, too.

"Oh, God, who doesn't love Gone With the Wind?" Peter asks, a little horrified at the thought that anyone would dare to be so arrogant to snub that perfect piece of cinema. What a sweeping spectacle of fantasy. "In historical context, of course. It's creepy and gross if you think about it too long." Unlike grilled cheese, which Peter is thinking about when there is turkey and incredible-looking food all around him. Why hasn't he eaten yet? Maybe he's trying to get drunk -- he rarely drinks and he's on an empty stomach -- or maybe he's just too wrapped up in his dorky conversation.

"Do I get to play, too? Let's talk movie-musicals: Moulin Rouge?" In this moment, he wants Nadia to meet Magnus so badly. He wonders if she'd get one of her all-encompassing Nadia-crushes on him and moon about his Magnosity all day. He wouldn't mind that, except for the part where she was, again, doomed to be disappointed.

[high_warlock]

He was gratified some by Peter's reaction to Gone with the Wind and his sense of context. Even without the age gap of centuries between them, Peter was just a kid and Magnus worried about what kids were being taught these days. There was nothing more appealing to living in the 40s than living in the new century. Magnus was never one of those who held nostalgia for the good old days. They were the old days, just as full of war, injustice, poverty, illness and crap as the current days. There were no cellphones and the men wore suits more often, that was all.

But the movies... some of them were great and all of them built the foundation upon which modern cinema stood. It was hard for Magnus to pay attention to someone raving about how groundbreaking a movie was when they hadn't seen Citizen Kane.

He nodded his approval as he sipped his wine, then wrinkled his nose as though something had gone sour. "Hard to really love Moulin Rouge when you've seen the real thing," Magnus said. "But two hours of Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman is in no way a bad thing."

[paper_courage]

The joy that Peter feels sitting there surrounded by new family and talking about movies and historical context mingles with wonder when Peter's brain wraps itself around what Magnus has just said.

"You were there," Peter says, more confirming it to himself. It occurs to him that he's gaping a little, and he has the good sense to blush, once again. "I always forget you're not just, like, a few years older than me." It sounds so stupid, but it's true: there is very little that is more important to Peter than connection in this new life he leads and they've already forged that. There are a great many things about Magnus that Peter doesn't understand, but he trusts that if he ever wants to know, most likely Magnus would answer his questions. It just doesn't seem too important to know. Maybe he just doesn't want to be like the people that whispered their own questions about him in his considerably shorter lifetime.

"Oh God, his voice," Peter gushes. He takes a sip of wine that slides warmly into his belly, relaxing him more with every drink, not that he's that wound tightly tonight anyway.

"Your turn!" Peter hopes that Magnus will share some of what he did with his Bohemian time, but it's a new friendship and despite all of their progress and ignoring of polite society's rules, he's still moderately afraid of overstepping his bounds.

[high_warlock]

He had to laugh at Peter's ... shall we call it awe? Magnus preferred to live in the moment and for people to take him just as he was in that moment. But the knowledge of his otherness, in all its varieties, never left him. It amazed and relieved him to know that people forgot; that for all the makeup and jewelry, Peter forgot that Magnus wasn't just another young man like him. It was what he had always wanted back home: to be treated like an equal. Amazing that it came easier to mundanes in Darrow than it ever had to anyone at home.

"Only a few hundred years older," Magnus said lightly. "But all that really amounts to is having the ultimate trump card against hipsters." Magnus was always, invariably, had the most vintage gear and had heard of that band before everyone else.

He mulled over their new game as he sipped at his wine. "Mmmm, Hairspray?"