beyoncepadthai | i'll have what she's having

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i'll have what she's having

So, Mindy's last birthday went uncharacteristically uncelebrated. Of course, she shopped and drank and all of that, but this year she's more than in a partying mood and has more than enough invitees to put something on without seeming like a total loser.

Deciding to mix things up, Mindy's rented out a cool seat-reclining, wine and dine theater at High Street mall, splurged on snacks and booze and arranged for a viewing of her favorite film. Of course there are a bunch of cool new releases she could let her guests enjoy, but it's her birthday, and this is one way she can force everyone she knows to watch the wonder that is literally anything Nora Ephron.

She can hear Danny's whining already, and she couldn't care less.

What she can't help but care about is what Danny once said to her back in New York, his cruel reminder to her that she wasn't getting any younger, the promise of a hot husband and adorable children ticking away. She's all the more conscious of it this week, especially after freaking out momentarily thinking that Luke might have already moved on.

The right decision or not, a real relationship or not, it's one more shot at a future that she's managed to screw up.

Hence, the alcohol. Dressed to impress, Mindy arrives early to get her start on a super strong and super fruity cocktail while she waits for her first guests to turn up.

[Set to the night of the 20th of June at one of the fancier theaters at High Street Mall. From 8-ish cocktails (+ beer and wine) and finger food will be served in the bar area, and then the movie (viewable on YT, if you are so inclined) will be starting at 8:30. Tag Mindy, tag around, before or after the film. ENJOY.]

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"I don't know if you can be a weird third wheel when you're invited," Kate points out with a grin. "Even when you're not invited. Even if you just want to come on over like, any time you want, that's totally fine with us. It would never make you a weird third wheel."

If they're doing something that requires there only be two wheels, they just won't answer the door. Kate's never been too concerned with being polite and she thinks Mindy knows that already, but she also never wants her friends to feel like they can't call her or hang out with her just because she's married now. It's basically the same as just having a boyfriend and she hadn't gotten totally caught up in that.

Okay, so maybe she had. Just a little. But it's fine now. She's chilled out a lot.

"Okay, at the very least we're getting a drink," Mindy says, tone suggesting that she's not going to take no for an answer. She gets it, though. Whether or not she's scheduled, there's a very good chance she'll end up in the hospital on her actual birthday, too.

And she doesn't mind. Tonight's her night to celebrate. "Busy is best," she adds in agreement. Without being busy she might have to deal with the weight of life's problems, and she's so not about that.

"Clementine and I have that in common," Mindy laughs, enjoying the visual immensely. She's definitely going to have to take Sawyer up on his offer of a more child friendly occasion for her to catch up with her favorite kid in Darrow. She might see babies on a day-to-day basis, but most of the time once she's checked they're doing okay, it's off to the pediatrician save for the occasional visit with their moms. "Both the sweet tooth and the destruction of cakes with our tiny, dainty hands. Obviously."

No, Newt certainly hadn't had parents like that but then again, spending his formative teenage years in Germany where the legal drinking age had been sixteen hadn't exactly paved the way for a quiet life. Especially not when he'd been lightyears ahead of the learning curve in school and joined a rock band that'd sold all of eight records--two each to each of the band members' moms--after playing in considerably empty bars on some Tuesday nights.

"I'm sorry were you about to say dragon? And did you actually say sea monster? You see what you've, don't you, making me talk like this?" He sighs heavily, rolling up his sleeves and holding his arms out so she can see his tattoos. "Do we have to go over this again? Because you know I will, and I'll treat it like I've never told you the whole thing in the first place. Happy birthday from me to you, my friend. They're kaiju, okay? Kaiju. As in, kaiju come get a drink with me?"

It doesn't make a lick of sense but whatever, that's not the point.

"Oh my god, you have to stop," Mindy says, throwing her hands up as her voice lifts in insistence. This is worse than any number of times that she's accidentally misquoted a fact about Bruce Springsteen or Jakob Dylan's dad or the Statue of Liberty to Danny. She is having no part in it, not on her birthday. "I will actually kill myself if you don't. Kaiju, got it. Most majestic creature of the sea, awesome. Thank you, what a gift."

"...oh my god, this place is the worst," Mindy sighs, not really blaming Emmett but still kind of blaming Emmett in the same frustrated way she blames her lame coworkers when they don't get a good percentage of her references. "Inception is... I can't even explain it. It just is. It's so good, man. And Tom Hardy? Oh my god, tell me you know who Tom Hardy is?"

Newt squints at her, crossing his arms over his chest and huffing like a petulant child. "Y'know, just because it's your birthday doesn't mean you can threaten death over the actual story of my life." Actually, he's come to expect it, though the death threats are usually aimed for in the general direction of, well, him. "And I will be expecting a very formal, very written apology when you open the eight trillion gifts Kate and I got for you later. A very written apology."

There's not an ounce of irritation in his tone, really, which is a pretty considerable feat for him and speaks a hell of a lot for how much he likes Mindy, and he drops one hand back down to his side while waving toward the bar with other.

"Seriously, though, I'm like, crazy parched and if I'm going to watch this movie, I'm going to need a few beers first."

"We are super resilient," Mindy nods, smiling at Kurt's embrace. She's pretty sure that anyone who can go through med school and come out without any (at the very least, a minimal amount of) nervous breakdowns must be resilient. The same for anyone who can handle the rejection of musical theater. She'd had a bad enough time the short period she decided to join her college's acapella group.

She shudders inwardly at the thought. "The both of us. And doctors get way too much credit. Basically anyone can pass an exam, but act and sing? Not so much. Believe me, I have tried. I would have absolutely been on Broadway if they'd have had me, babe."

But she's grown to love medicine an unbelievable amount. She definitely couldn't do what she does if she didn't enjoy it. Way too much ick and heartbreak.

"It's my party, and I'll threaten to kill myself if I want to," Mindy counters. There will be no apology letters. She has a hard enough time getting through her thank you notes, though she totally has the Kate Spade stationery for it. She has the stationery for most things, actually, but none of the motivation to use it.

Or, you know, care.

"If you're going to keep talking about sea monsters, I will have to join you," she says, nudging him forward with her shoulder and going straight for the brightly colored cocktails. Unlike most of the guests here, she doesn't need alcohol to enjoy Nora Ephron, but that doesn't mean she can't get wasted with everybody else. Well, wasted-ish.

"Your hands are pretty dainty," Sawyer says, raising a brow as he reaches out for her hand, which is far smaller than his own. Balancing it in the palm of his own, he raises them together, feeling her hand's weight. "Tiny. Absolutely tiny. I guess that probably ain't so bad for being an obstetrician, right? You're handlin' tiny humans. Imagine me tryin' to do any of that. Heck, I didn't get Cleo until she was a few months old — don't know what I'd do with a little newborn."

It's a slight exaggeration, truth be told. He had held Aaron before, shortly after Claire had birthed him. But even then, it was only with plenty of encouragement and careful guidance. He'd been a lot more afraid of babies, then.

Things have changed.

"Aw, c'mon. If the world gives you way too much credit, you should just take it and run," Kurt says with a laugh. He's fought the uphill battle so long to make people who don't appreciate the arts understand the work that goes into his craft, as well as the persistence it requires. There are no easy handouts in the arts, especially because they're not always funded well. Only a small subset of people make it to celebrity status and find themselves living comfortably for the rest of their lives.

Job security for everyone else is rather thin.

"I mean, yeah, passing an exam is great and all. But it's the stuff afterwards that really makes your career, right? Whether or not your patients like you. Whether or not you're able to actually fix what's wrong with your patients. It's not just passing a paper exam and being done with it, right? Every case is different."

"We can definitely get a drink," Molly says, letting out a short, warm laugh as she nods. It's not like it's a huge concession or anything. She just doesn't want to be the center of attention on a day that isn't really easy for her, to celebrate something that doesn't feel worth celebrating. Explaining that is only ever a mood killer, though, and something she doesn't exactly like to talk about. As it is, there are only a couple of people who know, and she intends to keep it that way. "Let me know what your hours wind up being then and we'll figure something out."

"Not a clue," Emmett says, shaking his head, entirely unsurprised by the fact that he doesn't. Between how strange this place is and how much of the last few years at home he'd spent so focused on his schoolwork, and then assisting with Callahan's class, it would have been more unexpected if he had known what or who she was talking about. "Who's Tom Hardy? Wait, when did this movie even come out?"

It's tragic, but not unsurprising. There are, after all, characters of Tom Hardy's roaming around here, if she recalls. It's definitely not the first time that she's had to explain a hot actor to a friend in Darrow, and it certainly won't be the last. "Like... 2010ish? Maybe? Great year for film, let me tell you. But Tom? Oh, Tom. He's in, like, Batman? You know the Batman film with Heath Ledger? Not that one. The one after that. He played the guy with the mask. Still hot, somehow."

"Oh, totally," Mindy nods. She's been working a lot of nights lately, in part because of babies that don't want to be born at a more convenient hour but also because she's pretty sure she's pissed off someone in scheduling and always winds up on call. But she's more than happy to move things around for friends like Molly. "Birthday or otherwise, I am not one to turn down a drink."

"Well, give it some time," Elle says, hand on Mindy's arm. "I've only got a year to go, and then I sit the Bar exams, which is gonna be a total nightmare. Like, I'll probably go into total burrowing mode for a couple weeks and just vanish into my little study cave. But it'll be so worth it when it's done. And then we can be working stiffs together."

It's so much to do and prepare for, but it's going to be worth every minute of work she's put in and she's determined as hell to come out on top. Just getting through isn't good enough. She intends to be top of her class.

It's with a sigh of relief that Reid lets himself smile a little easier once Mindy expresses her satisfaction with his gift. He hadn't expected her to discard the cards in the trash or anything quite so dramatic, but he also couldn't have known how she'd react. Could have predicted it, maybe, but Reid glad all the same that she seems to be genuinely pleased with what he's given her. The stress of this aside, he can feel the tension in his shoulders loosening, and he ducks his head to let out a short laugh before taking another sip of his cider.

"I'm glad I didn't completely misjudge what to get," he says, but he knits his brow when she asks him to tell her something about himself. It should be easy because after all, he knows himself best, but that also means he knows just how little it takes to make someone's eyes glaze over once he starts talking. He's found that with Luke, his ramblings don't seem to have the kind of effect but that's unusual. That's part of why Reid feels so comfortable around him in the first place. It's always a gamble, offering up what he thinks is interesting, because a considerable majority of the time, it's not what the other person had really been looking for; in which case, Reid thinks they should have offered up a subject better suited to them, but he won't make a fuss about that here.

After half a moment of biting down on his bottom lip as he tries to think of something, he settles for the most generic bit of information about himself. "Um, I work for the FBI? Used to, anyway, before I got here." Got here, as if he hadn't been plucked from one world and dropped into another in the blink of an eye. "You said you're a doctor? I am, too. Not a medical one, the PhD kind. But I was an agent for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, we did criminal profiling. What about you, what field are you in?"

"Okay, fine, just keep it to yourself. Do not want to deal with digging your grave so soon after Seymour's because friendly reminder, your death will definitely be all about me." Actually, Derek had dug the hole for Seymour and to be honest, it probably would have been better suited for a human body, but Newt hadn't exactly given him specs. Or a reason for digging a hole in Petros Park. Better that way, really, mostly because he doesn't think Derek would have done it otherwise, but at least he knows he's got a friend who will help him bury bodies.

He makes a face at the cocktails, not because he's against them, not fundamentally; it's just that the last time he'd had one that bright, he'd been hugging a toilet for the better part of the morning after. That may have been because he'd also been high on Crentist laughing gas at the time, but he won't forget it. He'll never forget it.

"Just a beer," he orders from the bartender, "darkest one you've got on draft. And whatever the birthday girl's getting." Newt turns to lean back against the bar while they wait for their drinks, shooting Mindy a wide grin as he arches an eyebrow. "So anything new? I heard you and your flannel-loving book friend called it quits but whatever, who needs him? I want to hear about prospects."

The last time Reid had gone to see a film in theaters, it'd been a brief revival of Rear Window in one of the older theaters near his neighborhood. He hasn't seen many contemporary movies, but he's always considered Hitchcock one of his favorite film auteurs. There's something about the style of the director's films that make Reid less eager to solve whatever mysteries may play out on the screen and much more willing to simply go along with what's presented to him. Most of the time, he tends to be able to guess the final act of a movie before the halfway point, and he's frustrated Morgan and Garcia more than a few times because of that habit. He'd gone alone to Rear Window, knowing that if he'd invited anyone, he'd probably talk their ears off about what makes Hitchcock so talented and what separates his films from the rest but more than that, Reid generally prefers to go to the theaters alone because it forces him to keep his attention on what's in front of him rather than the person beside him.

Right now, for example, he's significantly more interested in what Luke has to say rather than the sight of Meg Ryan before them, and Reid shifts in his seat so he can lean closer to answer his friend's question. "No, I haven't seen it, but I do know there's a quote from it that's listed at thirty-three on AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes, 'I'll have what she's having.' No idea what the context is, though."

He's never been keen to find out, considering romantic comedies aren't quite his cup of tea. The few he has seen, mostly thanks to Garcia, had left him baffled by the ridiculous misunderstandings and arguments that had caused the two leads to split up for a bit, only to get back together by the end. It'd all seemed so pointless when it was so obvious the two main characters were always going to end up with one another, and Reid had questioned nearly every move they made throughout the entirety of the last one he'd been forced to watch.

It wouldn't escape his notice later that Garcia never invited him to watch another romantic comedy with her again. Maybe, he thinks, he'll find watching one with Luke more enjoyable, if only because so far, they aren't doing much watching at all.

He can't make out all of Luke's features in the dark but every so often, the light from the screen flashes against Luke's face, highlighting his jaw and the slope of his nose, and Reid knows he should probably pull back and just keep his eyes facing forward but he can't find it in himself to do it. He wets his lips then bites down on his bottom one, his hands fidgeting in his lap because he isn't sure what else to do with them, regardless of the logical solution of just keeping his elbows planted on the armrests.

"I'm a terrible person to watch horror movies with," Reid admits sheepishly, "I always manage to guess who the killer is. I've tried keeping it to myself, but I think I've called it too many times for anyone to believe I'm still enjoying the story. I apologize in advance if I ruin anything about La Strada for you, by the way."

"You continue to be the absolute worst for my ego, Kurt," Mindy says, but she's still totally grinning, happy to accept the praise and the credit. And it's true what he's saying, anyway. Medical school had been such a small part of her life relative to her present and future years as a doctor.

"But also the best. But enough about me," she insists, a rarity, Kurt is endlessly fascinating so she's happy to shift the attention to him even at her very own birthday celebration. "What's going on with you? I feel like it's been forever. We have to figure out a monthly hangout or something. Maybe bimonthly, even."

"I don't know what I'd do with a newborn more than... about four minutes old," Mindy clarifies. It's not wholly true, she'd held Riley some when she was born quite a bit but that was a million years ago and in another dimension, even. She'd never been forced to look after her more than a few horrifyingly short stints once she was on solids.

It scares Mindy to death, sometimes, how she can be so well versed in prenatal care and delivering babies but so little afterwards, beyond basic checkups and a clinical rotation. She has no idea what she'll do when she has a kid. If she has a kid. She's not sure when that shifted, she used to be so certain. "So you are not alone. God, it feels like forever ago that Clementine turned up, doesn't it?"

"Well, we're very lucky in this case, because I've seen La Strada already," Luke answers with a grin and he knows he's supposed to be paying attention to the movie, but he's seen it before and it's difficult to give all his focus to the screen when Reid is sitting so close beside him in the dark. If Luke concentrates, which he's trying very hard not to do, he can hear the minute shift of fabric as Reid fidgets, the soft sound of his breathing, even his pulse beating steadily in his throat. Over the past eighteen years, he's worked so hard at tuning these things out except when it's necessary, usually when he's fighting or on edge, but it isn't necessary now and yet he can't seem to stop every last little detail of Reid from pushing in on him.

Not that he really wants it to stop. The scent of him sitting so close to Luke is intoxicating, even more so than the beer he'd had outside in the lobby. It makes him feel a little bit like he's floating along outside his body, being so aware of another person's physical presence, and he has to resist the urge to slide a little closer and press his nose against the curve of Reid's throat just to better inhale the scent of him. It would be a hard thing to explain away as a simply friendly gesture when it would be anything but. They haven't really discussed the details of what it means for Luke to be a werewolf and he finds he isn't afraid, exactly, but he's nervous.

He's not sure how to explain this. How to explain how important scent is to him, how easy it is for him to get lost in it. That there's a possessive part of him that wants to mark the people he's attracted to, that wants to lean in and bite the edge of Reid's jaw just so people know they're here together. It's silly and it's possessive and he knows it. He would never do it, not here, not like this, and most especially, not without permission, but as he grips the arm rests of his seat, he can't pretend it's not an urge that's close to overwhelming.

It doesn't help to realize the scene Reid is talking about isn't exactly the most family friendly scene in the movie and his mouth quirks briefly in amusement. That part he's determined to let Reid discover on his own, simply because he can't imagine trying to explain the context of it now without becoming terribly embarrassed himself.

He's still smiling when he glances over and catches Reid's eye in the dark room. There's not really enough light to see by, but they're close enough to the full moon that his vision has sharpened and even in the dark he can see most everything he wants to. At this point, that mostly consists of Reid, and he smiles before glancing away.

"I'm willing to bet you'll find that scene, ah... interesting," he settles on saying, looking back toward the movie and then back at Reid again before he glances down at his own hands.

"Interesting," he repeats, his voice the slightest bit hoarse as he forces himself to look at the movie, though he's still not actually watching it. "That doesn't seem foreboding at all."

For a moment, even in the dark of the theater and with talk of a particular scene, Reid almost forgets they're supposed to be watching a movie. If this is how watching La Strada goes, he thinks he'll be very much looking forward to it for more than one reason. It sounds pretentious but so often, Reid has found that people who strike a conversation with him simply can't keep up, and it's not they don't try or that Reid doesn't try to give them a chance; it's just that everyone has a limit and for the most part, Reid seems to be it.

It's not exactly offensive, sometimes he doesn't even notice, but he thinks that's likely why he finds it so hard to engage people for long periods of time, aside from being a sounding board for random trivia. Years ago, he'd talked to a table of strangers for nearly a full hour but that had been because they'd found it amusing to quiz him on various episodes of Star Trek, testing his eidetic memory and using what he has stored in his knowledge bank as currency for a drinking game.

He'd had fun that night. He may be painfully awkward at times, but he likes talking to people. He likes impressing them and being impressed by them, he likes conversing in foreign languages with those who are skilled enough to do it, and he likes knowing that when he speaks, the other person isn't looking for a way out. It's easy for people to think that he doesn't care when a joke is made at his expense or a sarcastic remark is thrown his way in response to a bit of information that, admittedly, might not have been necessary; but it is hurtful, in some small way. High school had helped him grow a thicker skin, nobody at the BAU has ever tried to tie him naked to a goal post; but when he sees those subtle glimmers of frustration at his ramblings, Reid sometimes wishes he knew how to react to social cues in a better way.

With Luke, though, he hasn't had to do much to read what the man thinks of him. Reid wouldn't have been invited to this birthday party in the first place if Luke didn't like him, after all, so he thinks rather than fight a good thing, it'd be very beneficial for him to embrace it. Luke is the first real friend he'd made in Darrow, possibly even his only real friend, but Reid doesn't yearn for much else. He's content with this connection they've made, with what they've learned and shared about each other, and with all the bits and pieces of this friendship they've built that is leading Reid more and more to the feelings he doesn't want to ignore. Not forever, at least. For right now, they're in a perfectly good place, kept buried deep within his mind.

He lets his gaze linger on Luke's profile as the other man turns to face the screen, and Reid knows he should do the same but he can't help but notice the way Luke's hands are gripping the armrests so tightly and how they'd caught each other's eye just for a moment before they'd both looked away from each other. He can't look away now and if he's caught staring, Reid has no defense in place, no plausible explanation for studying the curve of someone's jaw by the light of a movie he's never seen before, but he can't seem to help it. There are a lot of things he can't help now that he's met Luke, like buying the occasional extra coffee even though there's a machine at the bookstore or texting Luke a picture of something he sees in a shop that he thinks his friend might like.

These are, at least, justifiably friendly acts that aren't too suspicious to the casual observer, but Reid fully understands what it means about himself. He doesn't look at his friends the way he's looking at Luke right now, that's for certain.

Luke can feel Reid's gaze on him like a physical thing, a weight upon his shoulders, his jaw, the way his fingers are all but pressing into the arms of his seat. He feels it and he enjoys it. He doesn't want it to stop, but he doesn't know how to say this either. Briefly he finds himself thinking of Clary, the way she had looked at him when she had realized his feeling for Jocelyn, the way it had all seemed so simple to her. Just tell her, she'd said. You love her, just tell her how you feel. He remembers the way he'd looked back at her across the seat of his truck, how grateful he'd felt that she didn't yet know this and how sad he'd been that she would one day learn. And then he'd smiled and said, Sometimes, Clary, love just isn't enough.

Nothing is as easy as she would have him believe, not even this. There are so many things that could complicate this relationship, the fact that he's a werewolf being just the tip of the iceberg. There are a thousand reasons for him to not do anything, to just satisfy himself with Reid's friendship as he'd satisfied himself with Jocelyn's friendship for all those years, and he knows if he were to say something like that to Clary -- or Caroline, he thinks with amusement -- she would have a thing or two to say in response. She loves so freely, too freely, in Luke's opinion, just like Jocelyn had all those years ago and it frightens him. Love like that gets people hurt. It gets their hearts broken.

Sometimes it does things far worse. He doesn't believe Reid would hurt him the way Valentine hurt him. He doesn't believe some horrible secret is going to come out and hurt them irreparably the way it had with Jace and Clary, but he also knows he doesn't do anything halfway. He remembers sitting beside Mindy, telling her he knows he's likely never going to get married and have a family, but that doesn't stop him from wanting it. He wants to be with someone who wants only him, he wants to be loved and casual is not the way to go about finding that. Whatever he does here, whatever advances he might one day make, that much will have to be clear to Reid. Luke's long since over the desire for something casual, something fun.

"It's not foreboding," he says as the scene begins and he throws a glance in Reid's direction, an amused smile curling his lips. His fingers twitch against the material of his seat as he imagines himself reaching out, curling his hand around the back of Reid's neck and pulling him closer. It's not something he can allow himself to do, not now, not here, not when they practically have an audience, though he's paid little attention to anyone else in the theatre since they sat down. So far no one has yelled at him for talking during the movie, but he can hear Mindy talking to people, too, so he doesn't think she'll mind.

"I promise, it's interesting," he insists, just as Meg Ryan starts her scene, and he has another memory of Clary, of trying to explain this scene to her after they had watched it for the first time. She'd been only ten at the time and he had struggled through an explanation as Jocelyn had watched in amusement.

"Oh, that makes two of us," Molly says, all but rolling her eyes as she laughs. It's a part of her routine now, really, and as long as she doesn't overdo it, she doesn't see anything wrong with that. As long as she isn't going into work hungover in the mornings, she figures, she's in good shape. "Half the time I could usually use a rescue from my coworkers, anyway. They're great, but sometimes it's just way too much."

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i'll have what she's having

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