Work Text:
Henry had just sat down for his evening meal when someone began banging at his door. He sighed heavily – slightly unhappy that his meal would cool below the ideal temperature before he returned to it – before going to answer the door.
“Oh… good evening Eliza,” Henry began as soon as he’d opened the door.
“Don’t you ‘good evening Eliza’ me,” Eliza interrupted, pointing a finger at him.
Henry’s eyebrows rose in silent surprise. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he continued, ignoring her rudeness.
Eliza pushed past him into his house without invitation, throwing her purse down on his breakfast bar before turning on him once more. “What have you done to me?!”
“Pardon?”
“So I was at this club being the total life of the party and I spot this really hot guy, total ten… abs you just wanna lick ice cream off of.” Henry wrinkled his nose. “Anyways, I spent most of the night trying to get him to notice me – and I was being totes adorable… I mean, look at me,” she straightened and motioned to her outfit.
Henry vaguely nodded, struggling to follow her skewed logic. “Yes, because it is what’s on the outside that counts.”
“Totally!” Eliza exclaimed, misinterpreting his sarcastic remark. “So I finally get his attention and we totes click and he says he wants to take me back to his place to show me his collection of… I don’t know, something manly, I wasn’t really listening…”
Henry pinched the bridge of his nose, already growing weary of her overuse of ‘totes’ and story that, thus far, didn’t seem important enough to justify letting his dinner grow cold. “Then why aren’t you with Mr. Abs right now instead of here, keeping me from my couscous?”
Eliza narrowed her eyes suspiciously and grinned. “Is that code for something?”
“Yes, my dinner,” Henry said as he took her by the arm and tried to lead her out. Eliza easily circled around him and leaned against the breakfast bar again. “Eliza, why are you here?”
“Oh, right!” Eliza pointed at him accusingly again. “You have ruined me for hot men Henry Higgs!”
Henry coughed, choking on his own saliva in shock. “Come again?”
“Once upon a time, I had no problem hooking up with some random, totes hot guy for a night and now…”
“And now?”
“And now… I knew he just wanted a hook-up and I…” Eliza looked down at her shoe, toeing at a smattering of dirt that she knew could only be there because she’d tracked it in.
Henry watched her for a moment before realization hit him. He took a few small steps toward her. “You want more than just a hook-up now; you want something meaningful and lasting.”
“Well, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound as appealing,” Eliza muttered, trying to pretend that he hadn’t just said out loud what she’d been thinking the entire duration of the cab ride from the club to Henry’s house. “You broke me Henry Higgs!”
Henry smiled. “Alright, first of all, stop calling me by my first and last name; there’s absolutely no need for that. Secondly, wanting something more meaningful is not ‘broke’, quite the opposite in fact.”
Eliza put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You think you ‘fixed’ me?”
“No… absolutely not,” Henry said quickly, though his tone betrayed his reply.
“OMG, you do!” Eliza closed the gap between them and began poking him in the chest.
“Ow!” Henry rubbed at the spots where she’d poked him before deciding he needed to be proactive and grabbed her hands. “To be fair, this was not altogether unexpected.”
Eliza tried to shove a finger in front of his face, but her hand didn’t make it far in Henry’s grasp. “Ah hah! So you admit it!”
“I admit no such thing,” Henry said, shaking his head. “But you must admit that under my tutelage, you have grown as a person. And that growth has brought you to this point… this point of wanting more than settling for something fleeting.”
Eliza stuck her nose in the air, refusing to look at him. “I will admit no such thing,” she said, mimicking Henry. “I like… fleeting.”
“Not like you used to.”
Eliza pouted. “I don’t know how to do this… meaningful and lasting crap.”
“As with everything else, I’ll teach you,” Henry assured her with a smile.
“Okay. Where do we start?”
“Dinner.”
“Dinner?” Eliza asked, trying not to smile.
“Yes,” Henry replied, making his way to the stove to fix her a plate. “I was going to have tonight’s leftovers for lunch tomorrow, but you can eat with me tonight instead. This is how mature adults in meaningful relationships spend their evenings.”
“At home eating leftovers?”
“Having dinner together. It might not be at home, but definitely not in a location that requires a sound permit and/or sound proofing in their walls,” Henry handed her the plate and motioned for her to have a seat at his dining table.
Eliza took the plate and sat in the chair next to the spot where Henry’s food was waiting. Henry joined her a moment later with a glass of wine, a cloth napkin and a set of silverware for her. He placed them in the appropriate places around her plate before sitting down himself.
“Wow, this is nice. Does this place cater?” Eliza joked, suddenly a bit nervous. She’d eaten with Henry at work before, but that was different. Here, in his home, she felt there might be certain standards that she’d be held to. Henry was so formal… maybe too formal. It was oddly part of his charm though.
Henry smiled at her joke. “I’m afraid not.”
She placed the napkin in her lap as Henry had and took a large sip of wine before trying a bite of Henry’s leftover food. “For leftovers, this is hella good.”
“They’re not… thank you, Eliza.”
They ate in relative silence, save for Henry trying to make polite conversation or Eliza enquiring more on meaningful relationship etiquette. Henry considered it quite a pleasant meal, perhaps the most pleasant he’d had with Eliza thus far. Eliza thought it to be a bit boring, but enjoyable nonetheless.
“So… for our second date, are you going to take me out somewhere?” Eliza asked, hoping her tone sounded casual enough. She finished her wine so that she didn’t have to look directly at Henry.
“This wasn’t a real date,” Henry began, before considering how Eliza was acting. “Was it?”
Eliza shrugged, still not looking at him. “I dunno, was it?”
“Did you want it to be?”
“I dunno, did you…”
“Eliza.”
“Maybe,” Eliza admitted quietly. “Unless…”
“Stop.” Henry smiled and took her hand in his. “I think I would like a second date.”
Eliza looked up at him and smiled. “Really?”
“Very much so.”
Eliza leaned across the corner of the table to kiss him. Henry gently cupped her cheek and kissed her tenderly. Eliza was surprised to find that she quite enjoyed Henry’s genteel manner of kissing.
Henry pulled back after the respectful amount of time he considered should be spent on a first kiss and smiled. “Would you like some dessert Eliza?”
Eliza wiggled her eyebrows. “What’d you have in mind?”
Henry leaned close to her and whispered, “I have a tub of raspberry sorbet in the freezer.”
“You don’t put out on a first date, do you?” Eliza asked, half jokingly, have genuinely curious.
Henry gave her a disapproving look. “I thought you were looking for meaningful.”
“Does meaningful mean you can’t have sex?”
“Not on a first date, and especially not when it wasn’t officially a date five minutes ago.”
Eliza pouted as Henry cleared the dishes from the table. She waited until he had retreated to the kitchen before allowing herself to smile. Henry’s style of dating was completely out of her depth, but she was excited to see where it went.