Chinese Food Paradigm
By: 6beforelunch
CATEGORY: General
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for the Fall Fandom Free-for-All. stargated requested “something with Vala/Daniel on a positive note with any other pairings you’d like to include. Bonus points if you include (in any way, shape or form) the following: puppies, Daniel mooning over Atlantis, an unopened box, and Chinese food.” randomfreshink beta’ed and made it better. All remaining mistakes are my own.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://emily.ink-and-quill.com/
"So this is Chinese food?"
Vala had her bare feet tucked up under her, a yellow silk pillow that Daniel
had gotten in
Daniel swallowed his bite of vegetable fried rice. "Yeah, this is
it."
Vala took another experimental bite of shrimp lo mien. She'd grabbed the
chopsticks eagerly when she'd seen them in the bottom of the bag and was using
them deftly. Daniel had planned on giving her a lesson and he was a little
disappointed that he hadn't gotten the chance. He liked teaching Vala things;
she was quick on the uptake, she challenged everything she didn't understand,
and her face lit up beautifully when everything came together and she got it.
Vala made a noncommittal sound and picked up a cooked shrimp, holding it up and
looking at it from different angles.
"You don't like it?" Daniel asked. He was sitting a foot away from
her on the couch. They'd stopped the movie they were watching when the food had
come and now the only thing on the screen was the DVD logo appearing and
disappearing randomly.
Vala shrugged. "It's fine. I guess...the way your culture goes on and on
about it, I was expecting something...more."
Daniel smiled. "Well, I wouldn't judge all Chinese cuisine by a take out
place in
He remembered that dinner. Shen had taken him out and bought him dinner, a
thank you for saving her life, she called it. Her hands had shaken a little
when she talked about the bugs. He'd been surprised to find her still rattled
by her experience more than a year later, but he supposed it said more about
him than it did about her that, in his mind, the destruction of the former
Gamma site was barely a footnote in a tome full of near death experiences.
"So people are talking about a different Chinese food?" Vala asked.
"Not this?"
"No," Daniel said. "No, people are pretty much talking about
this."
Vala took another bite. "I don't get it."
Daniel handed her another container. "Here, try the sweet and sour
pork."
She glanced at him quizzically and tasted. Tasted it again. "No," she
said finally. "I still don't get it."
Daniel shrugged. "It's not the taste so much as it is
the...experience." Vala didn't say anything, but she was looking at him
like she wanted him to go on. Daniel sighed. "Chinese food is
like...it's...it's not the food so much as it's the experiences that most
commonly go with it. Movies with your friends and all-nighters and... It's
easy, it's decent food, it's fun." He looked at Vala. She stared at him
blankly. "You don't get it."
She shook her head slowly. "I like puppies."
Daniel was pretty good at keeping up with random segues in conversation, but
that one did throw him for a loop and leave his brain struggling to catch up
for a good second and a half. "Come again?"
"You like puppies. I like puppies too."
Daniel blinked at her.
"I thought maybe...well if you were trying to share the things you like.
Just because I don't get the Chinese food...we still have things in
common."
"Puppies," Daniel said flatly.
"What's wrong with puppies?"
"Nothing's wrong with puppies. Everyone likes puppies."
"Exactly."
"Well, it's not really the sort of thing that you use to show shared
interest. I like breathing. I assume you do too."
"I'm appealing to shared humanity."
"It's a date, Vala, not a hostage negotiation."
Vala drew back a little and Daniel realized that he hadn't actually said the
word 'date' all evening. He hadn't said it when he'd expressed shock that Vala,
in her ten months on Earth, still hadn't tried Chinese food (and how she had
managed with Mitchell as a teammate was beyond him, but she had). He hadn't said
it when he had suggested that they should rent a movie and get crispy orange
chicken because it was an essential Earth tradition and she really should
experience it. He hadn't said it, not even when he'd told her that, no, she
shouldn't ask Mitchell and Teal'c along because it was just going to be the two
of them.
Vala poked at her food with her chopsticks. "I thought a date was a fancy
restaurant."
"It doesn't have to be," Daniel said slowly.
"Huh."
Daniel felt like a man who had opened Pandora's box, not because he was
curious, but because he was missing his keys, and he thought they might be
inside. Well, even Pandora had managed to slam the lid shut and keep hope
inside.
"When I said...by date I don't mean..."
"Please don't back peddle," Vala said softly and the simplicity of
the request shut Daniel up far more effectively than any threat or teasing
could have.
Daniel took a bite of the pork. Maybe if his mouth was full it wouldn't get him
into any more trouble.
"Put the movie back on," Vala said.
Daniel picked up the remote and pressed play. They'd rented Atlantis, the
animated movie. It was giving Daniel an uncomfortable sense of deja vu, but
Vala seemed to be enjoying it. He saw the DVD case sitting on the coffee table
and nudged it with his foot so that it fell on the floor and the title was no
longer mocking him. Not that he was still bitter about not getting to go, of
course. Nope, not at all.
Vala traded the sweet and sour pork for the container of orange chicken,
managing in the same movement to shrink the distance between them from a foot
to about half an inch. Her hair smelled fresh and clean and mingled with the
scents of ginger and sesame oil in the air. Daniel swallowed.
"Hey, Daniel?"
"Yeah?"
"The Chinese food thing?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I get it."
** The End **
Feedback to: lyasandra515@hotmail.com
Stories by Rating and Category
Copyright©2004-2011 Midnightstorms.net
All Rights Reserved.