🤝 How did they meet in the first place? what were their first impressions of each other?
Giuseppe and Audrey have a mutual friend named Kyle. Giuseppe and Kyle grew up together on Emerald Cove, and Audrey is Kyle's squad leader. Kyle introduces them on shore leave, thinking "Hey, these are two people I really enjoy hanging out with, I should introduce them so we can ALL hang out!" without considering he liked their company for different reasons. Audrey and Giuseppe were NOT at all fond of each other to start with. Giuseppe found Audrey to be loud, coarse and fairly invasive, and Audrey found Giuseppe to be easily annoyed and standoffish.
💕 Who confessed first and how? Did it go as planned or did shenanigans ensue?
It was Audrey, and it was a very spur of the moment kiss, followed by The Realization that this had been a mutual pining situation, which was in turn followed by Audrey grabbing Giuseppe by his shirt and yanking him back into her hotel room.
🕊 Give a domesric tidbit!
Cadmon's name was a Lirerature Nerd Name, and pretty much the whole time Audrey was pregnant with Tom, Giuseppe terrorized her by suggesting names like "Rehoboam" or "Chaucer". or "Gilgamesh" It was very good natured, something that was a continuation of them trying to figure out a name for Cadmon. Even after they settled on just Thomas, he'd suggest other names just to make Audrey laugh.
So far he knew three things about John: He was very large, his eyes were alarmingly blue, and he was very quiet. All things Thomas had mentioned beforehand in some form or fashion. But Giuseppe was also expecting something more in line with other UNSC personnel he'd met through his wife, who usually came in two flavors: outrageously foul-mouthed bawdy people who loved a good, loud party and meticulously well-mannered creatures of habit. 'Starched', he called them.
John was neither. Despite his size he kept to himself thoroughly enough to lack the sense of presence everyone else had, and in a way that made Giuseppe want to try and gently pry him open more than he had when they'd first met. John wasn't aloof...he might look it, but his eyes betrayed him: he was anxious and uncertain, so far out of his element that the only thing he could think to be was completely and utterly benign.
Giuseppe attributed this insight to having married an ODST; while Audrey was 'starched' to a degree after fifty years, he'd seen her through her worst episodes of PTSD, during which he'd noticed similar (but far less pronounced) behaviors whenever her anxieties would get to her. So, Giuseppe did what any dad would do in his mind: gave the big man something to do.
So far, it was working. As he watched John methodically cut the carrot into near-perfect cubes, his movements became a little more organic, a little less robotic, less rehearsed. He still watched Giuseppe demonstrate each task with that carefully-cultivated neutral expression, but getting him to feel comfortable with something was a start.
As he left John to make sure he hadn't missed any bones in the chicken, Giuseppe decided to check in on his family and rounded the corner to see his two sons engrossed in a semi-argument about something involving cheese and plastic wrap.
"Cadmon, get your fucking feet off my table." Giuseppe sighed.
"Oh come on, dad. It's a table. And my feet are clean."
With remarkable speed for his age, Giuseppe pulled his foam-sole sandal off his foot and slapped the Spartan-IV in the back of the head.
"OW!" Cadmon yelped, and jerked forward in surprise.
"Oh, don't 'ow' me. I know for a fact the UNSC made your skull thicker than it already was."
There was a quiet snort from the kitchen, almost inaudible over Cadmon's sheepish apology and Tom's barely-stifled cackles. Before Giuseppe could check on John, Audrey appeared from the bedroom. She paused and looked from her half-shoeless spouse to Cadmon - who looked for all the planet like a kicked puppy - to Thomas, who had a fist pressed to his mouth trying not to laugh.
"The hell did I miss?"
"Just some light percussive parenting." Giuseppe replied as he put his sandal back on.
As Audrey sat back down, Giuseppe returned to the kitchen to check on John.
"All good?" John paused.
"Yes, sir."
His face was still a mask of neutrality, but there was a faint crinkle at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there before.
Audrey Lasky and Giuseppe Hall (his unmarried name), roundabout 20-21. I haven't figured out who's the older of the two, tempted to say it's Audrey by like, 2 years.
