#my bf has been distracting me with Game Grumps so idk

[halfblood-fiend]

Fictober 2019 - Day 9

From The Fictober 2019 event <3

Prompt 9 : “It has a certain taste to it.”

Fandom : Star Trek: Voyager

Words : 927

Warnings : none, sorta a companion piece to this, where Giana makes banana bread

“It has a certain taste to it.” - Vorik x Modern!OC

“Okay, corazón. You ready?”

“If you are asking whether I am prepared to be underwhelmed and unsurprised,” came Vorik's voice from his study down the hall, “then, yes, I am.”

“You ready to get your ass kicked?” I countered, setting the glass baking dish on the island countertop with a roll of my eyes. That was gratitude for you. You slave away all day and only get sarcasm for your efforts. Typical day on Vulcan.

The guest of honor sauntered into the kitchen fidgeting with a holo-emitter. I caught him out of the corner of my eye when I checked on the sauce and took out plates.

“I know you’re not going to keep working while we’re eating,” I warned him. “Not after I worked literally all day to make you this stupidly complicated recipe—which, by the way, did you only ask for it because it was so complicated and you assumed I would mess it up by making it from scratch?”

Vorik's face was a mask of innocence, but I could feel the tug of amusement in the corner of our connection that gave him away. “You asked for my favorite meal, and I gave it.”

But the unspoken answer was, yes.

“You’re on thin ice,” I whispered to him before I gave him a kiss on the cheek on my way to grab serving utensils.

He peered with calculating interest at the b’lltarr as I served it and poked the thick, jagged noodles with his finger when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“The consistency looks correct; a detail that is usually difficult to master,” he commented somewhat begrudgingly. “However, you promised it would taste better as well, being handmade out of ‘natural’ ingredients and not protein synthesizers.”

“Yes.”

“Can I also assume I shall be able to taste the ‘love’ in each bite?” The ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips and I had to pause the bask in its glory for a moment.

But then: “You'll taste something if you don’t stop giving me this attitude, but I promise you won’t like it.”

I heard the soft exhale of breath, faint, almost like a sigh, which was the closest he ever got to laughing. “Any other threats before we get started?” he asked, setting his holo-emitter aside to pull out forks from a drawer.

“Yes. One. If you don’t say something nice to me about this meal, I am going to start crying.”

I took the saucepan from the stove and spooned the viscous, bluish liquid over the noodles, paused, then added a dollop of sauce in the corner of each of the plates and smeared it artfully. There. Plated and everything. Like a professional.

Vorik gave me a bemused look but knew better than to comment.

“Okay…” I picked up a plate and offered it to him, sucking my lip between my teeth. “Homemade b’lltarr. As promised.”

He kept staring at it and moving the plate in his hands as we took it to the table, but our bond was left frustratingly colorless. Vorik gave no indication of any kind how he might’ve felt about it and that made me wholly nervous. Not just because b’lltarr was the single most frustrating thing I’d ever made (I had to throw out two attempts at the weird noodles because I missed taking them out of the steamer by a few seconds each), but because I really wanted him to like it.

Shockingly, it was hardly about ‘winning’ that ancient bet anymore. I just wanted to make him happy. Or as happy as he could be, anyway. Despite the doctrine of IDIC and it being a hundred and fifty or so years since Sarek and Amanda had first lived here, I knew many of his peers were giving him a hard time about me while we lived on Vulcan, whether they said so outright or not. While Vorik didn’t mention it much, choosing to spare his anxious wife most of the details, I knew he dealt with other’s disapproval to his face a lot more than I did. And I knew it was much more difficult than he let on.

Vorik tasted the sauce separately before taking a tentative bite of it all together.

“You added something to this.”

I pressed my hand to my heart, laughing, “Oh, you caught me. My secret ingredient was poison. Now I’m gonna make off with your estate and become the mysterious widow down the street.”

He shook his head and tried the sauce again. “It has a particular taste to it… Is that…did you put Terran chipotles in this?”

My entire thought process spilled out in a rush of words, “Ummmm, yes, because everything is better with chipotle in it, y’know, and I thought the redspice that was supposed to be in here was a little bit bland, I dunno. So I added the chipotle I had too. It’s, like, a Vulcan-Human fusion now! I thought it’d be sorta cool. Is that…okay?”

“It is satisfactory.”

I let my fork clink to the table. “Woooow. It’s gonna be like that, huh?”

Saying nothing else, Vorik continued to eat the rest of what I served him. Our bond was blank and his face was composed.

“So, is it better or nah?” I finally asked.

The Vulcan swept from the table and served himself more, and I guess that had to count for something. No one got seconds if the food was awful. When Vorik returned he held his fingers out to me. I pressed the pads of my own fingers to his and warm-colored affection blossomed over our bond. Without realizing it, my lips settled into a soft smile as calm washed over me.

“Are you ready, ashayam?”

I started. “Ready? Ready for what?”

“To prepare this again for my parents.”