InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's bigger on the inside"

ａｌｅｘｉｓ! (celebutante) wrote in valloic,
@ 2020-12-01 12:55:00

Entry tags:

!: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: alexis rose, ₴ inactive: cullen rutherford

WHO: Alexis & Cullen
WHAT: Sushi! Chopsticks! Deciding to go steady!
WHERE: A place with raw fish (and tempura ice cream)
WHEN: Today, perhaps?
WARNINGS: Just cuteness
STATUS: Complete

One of the most fascinating things about Vallo was the incredible variety of food available. Cullen had developed something of a taste for adventurous cuisine when he first traveled away from Ferelden, but Kirkwall and Val Royeaux had nothing on this city at the center of thousands of worlds. Not only did the city have dishes he’d never heard of, they had ingredients he’d never heard of. It could have been overwhelming (like nearly everything else about the place), but he’d lucked out on making a few friends who were willing to give some guidance on the adventure.

And of course, there was Alexis, who had a way of approaching everything with such energy that it was impossible not to get swept up in it and find one’s self having a good time. She’d quickly become his favorite companion for adventures in Vallo’s city and forest, despite the fact that they came from such completely different worlds and experiences. She had a genuine kindness and generosity about her that did more to make her attractive than the mere fact of her physical beauty (though her physical beauty was admittedly considerable). Cullen hadn’t done much in the way of courting since the Inquisition disbanded, and he usually considered himself rather bad at it, but this time he was having fun.

Thus, when Alexis suggested sushi, Cullen had promptly agreed to go despite not really knowing what it was. As he now looked at a thin slice of raw salmon delicately draped over a ball of rich, however, he was beginning to wonder if he had perhaps made a mistake.

“It’s…” Cullen looked at it, his head tilting to the side in a manner almost identical to his dog’s reaction to a puzzling situation, then looked back up at Alexis. “It’s meant to be raw?”

Well, wasn't he just the cutest? This was like, the...fifth date with Cullen, maybe? Fourth? Oh my god, it was probably the fifth. Or was it the fourth after all? Whatever, point was, Alexis was pretty smitten with him and she thought that tonight's foray into sushi might be a good time to ask to be exclusive. Official, boyfriend-ey, girlfriend-ey, which was kind of a big deal but also not because labels could be stupid yet they also helped define things so. Taking the plunge. She planned on it.

But first she wanted to enjoy the ambiance - the place she picked featured high-end sushi, with bamboo art and a couple glowing sake bottles. It was vibrant and modern and projectors on the wall showed art that changed with the seasons, to match the changing nuances of the menu. So yes, excellent ambiance and he was adorable with the whole 'what have I done' look on his face.

"It's meant to be raw," she confirmed, flipping hair over her shoulder; there was a spark of amusement in mossy green eyes, and she picked up her chopsticks to begin a demonstration. "But it's not supposed to taste like fish. Good sushi doesn't. Like maybe there's a mild fish flavor but combined with the rice and whatever else is in it, it's just like the perfect combo of sweet and salty and fresh deliciousness. You can eat it with your hands but I can show you how to use the chopsticks if you want?"

“By all means, show me how to use the chopsticks,” Cullen said. If he was going to try eating raw fish, it seemed proper to embrace the experience completely and learn to eat with sticks. Coming from the lower classes in a sword-and-sorcery world, most of the meals he’d eaten had been consumed with nothing but knife, fingers, and bread. The first time he’d sat down at a table with forks, he’d had to watch other people at the table to even know what he was supposed to do with one. At least this time, he’d have some help upon encountering a new eating utensil.

“Cool, here we go,” Alexis grinned, leaning across the table a bit (careful not to get the sleeve of her dress in a dish of soy sauce or wasabi or anything, embarrassing, and it was totally a cute date dress too - red, peasant style, bohemian as was her usual way, but she had tights and boots on underneath to combat any autumn chill).

She took the chopsticks, placing the first one and looking down through volumized lashes, a focused sort of teacher, “...this one’s held like a pencil, and then this one - “ She placed the second against Cullen’s ring finger, gently pressing the base of his thumb there too, “...you hold it here like this, and it points the same way as the upper one. Then your index and middle fingers basically do the work. You move it up and down and for sushi you can trap the pieces between them.”

Once you learned, it was difficult to forget so that was good. It was like riding a bike, or opening a beer bottle with another beer bottle - a skill that took practice.

“All right…” Cullen watched each movement carefully, and mentally replaced pencil with writing quill, because that was what it felt like when the stick settled between his fingers. “So essentially, I am making the hinge of a pair of tongs with my hand?”

That seemed to be the basic principle, at least. It didn’t seem inherently any more difficult than learning to use a knife and fork together had been. Just another way to avoid getting sauce on one’s fingers.

Alexis beamed, her smile bright as a fresh pearl. “Yes, exactly! Look at you, getting the hang of it right away,” she praised, fingertips brushing Cullen’s wrist before she leaned back to give him space to attempt his first chopsticks adventure. She figured she’d demonstrate with her own sushi rolls first, because maybe a visual aid would help too.

She started with the spicy tuna roll (they had a few different kinds all lined up, some with crab and some with eel, some with fish that was actually cooked, like tempura-style) - because sushi didn’t have to be complicated to be good - and used the hinge chopsticks to scoop up one roll, popping it into her mouth. So delish. The tuna was fresh and the spicy mayo was just chef’s kiss. “Give it a try? The spicy tuna is definitely spicy, but it’s amazing.”

“Spicy is good!” Spicy food was fun, a bit exciting, and of course spice could cover a multitude of sins when it came to eating meat that wasn’t too palatable otherwise. He got the impression that sushi was meant to be the opposite, though - particularly fine meat sliced and prepared so well that no adornment was necessary, not even cooking.

Cullen adjusted his grip on the chopsticks, analyzing the task before him with methodical precision. He was holding on too tight - a classic new swordsman’s mistake, not keeping the grip flexible. Relax a bit, then, and remember that only the top stick was meant to move. He made a small experimental movement, and found that he could successfully direct the stick up and down. Now he just had to manage it without pinching the little sushi roll in half.

Very carefully, he reached forward. It felt awkward, and it undoubtedly looked awkward as well, but he managed to get one stick on either side of a spicy tuna roll. Just as carefully, he began to apply pressure. “All right, I think…”

Yes! He’d gotten it! Sushi successfully captured. So now he just had to put the whole thing in his mouth, and...done! Awkwardly done, but done, and...delicious? The surprise showed on his face, eyebrows popping up and eyes widening a bit, though he couldn’t say anything with a mouthful of tuna and rice. Alexis was right - it didn’t taste at all like he would have expected raw fish would. He’d smelled enough raw fish on the docks and markets of various port cities to think it couldn’t possibly be good, but sure enough, this was absolutely bloody excellent.

Honestly, Alexis was on the edge of her seat - paying rapt attention, because seeing someone try sushi for the first time was kind of amazing? Like, it blew her mind to realize that it just wasn’t a thing for someone where they came from, a different time and place. When here she was, stopping for sushi or sashimi at basically any hipster joint in LA or whatever big city she happened to be in at the time, the kind of spot where all your raw fish rolled out on a conveyor belt.

She’d even had real sushi, in Tokyo, and it was kind of the opposite of Americanized sushi, but still really, really good. Introducing Cullen to one of her favorite foods made her happy. And seeing that he liked it was the cherry on top of the sundae.

“It’s good, right? Love it,” she sighed, clacking her chopsticks and going for a spicy salmon roll - the salmon was draped over the ball of rice and seaweed, salmon inside the roll too, but the gochujang was what made it spicy. “In Japan, where sushi originated - they don’t really put it into rolls like this, it’s mainly just rice and fish over top of it, maybe some other stuff. It’s also good. But yeah, you can like - add some soy sauce or wasabi paste for an extra kick. Whatever you’re feeling.” It also wasn’t very ‘authentic’ to mix the wasabi and soy sauce but #yolo, Alexis did it anyway. And dipped.

“The texture is a bit strange, but the flavor is excellent,” Cullen agreed. He still looked a bit surprised by the sushi revelation. “I never would have expected I could enjoy eating raw fish. Or that anyone would, for that matter.”

He reached for another roll with his chopsticks. This one didn’t go quite as well - the angle of the top stick was a little off, and instead of picking up the roll he just flipped it around on the plate. “Oh, Maker’s breath,” Cullen muttered. He tried again, narrowing his eyes at the sushi like he was about to lecture an Inquisition recruit, and this time pinched too hard, squishing the roll and giving the salmon an opportunity to escape.

“It’s fun to try new things. I like introducing all you medieval newbies to stuff in the twenty-first century,” Alexis said merrily, going for a dragon roll this time (an ‘inside out’ kind of roll, with some of that shrimp tempura and cucumber, some avocado - one of her favorites, but then again, all sushi was her favorite). She had to chuckle a little at the way Cullen squashed his own roll, however, but not like she was laughing at him.

He was just super cute, was all. “It’s okay, everyone does that when they’re learning,” she assured, after she’d chewed and swallowed. “You just gotta keep at it. But you’re doing good, really!” She would totally be his cheerleader. Ra-ra, eat that raw fish!

"I told myself when we started that if I could learn to use a fork or a throwing knife, I could learn to eat with sticks," Cullen replied with a smile. Alexis had a way of making failure seem like it was nothing to get bothered by, and thus Cullen found he wasn't too bothered either. That was unusual for him...and probably good for him, if he thought about it. His tendency to get wrapped up in perceived failures had never really done him any favors. Perhaps not caring about a squished sushi was a good start on relaxing a little more.

So Cullen adjusted his grip and tried again, this time successfully capturing one of the shrimp tempura rolls. Once again, he found it delicious, and the combination of flavors and textures was rather fascinating. Sushi was a very thoughtful food, it seemed.

One of the best things about sushi was the variety of textures - some were smooth, some had a nice cronch; the colors too, Alexis really enjoyed how, in addition to how flavorful some selections were, how vibrant they were as well. It was just a nice smorgasbord and lots of ooooh for your tastebuds. A different kind of ooooh than, say, pizza.

“Well, see, I don’t know how to use a throwing knife so you’re way ahead of me there,” she chirped brightly. “Um, also like - I wanted to ask you something?” She took a sip of her water, just to kind of clear her throat so she’d be sure to get this out without any embarrassment.

Though asking someone to go steady was a big deal no matter what, and this was her first attempt at Serious since Ted - but she wanted to be gentle about it, because Mom Persephone said to be gentle, and plus she felt like that was a good idea anyway, so. Alexis liked to think she’d mellowed a lot since her hookup and partying days - she knew what it was like to really love and value someone, and be valued by them, which was so much better than the superficial tinge to her relationships in the past.

“Presumably not about throwing knives,” Cullen said, having finished experiencing the tempura sushi. His brain had already gotten straight to work on coming up with worst case scenarios for what Alexis might have to ask him. I wanted to ask you something was no we need to talk, but to a person with a propensity toward anxiety and a history of bad luck, it still generated plenty of awful possibilities. Things had been going so well, after all, and usually that was when everything came apart for him.

“Oh! No, not about throwing knives - but throwing knives are super cool,” Alexis assured. She maybe was a little nervous, but not about to go spiraling toward Gloom City, Population: Them so hopefully Cullen wasn’t too anxious. Best to just spit all of this out, then.

She set down her chopsticks because, you know, relatively serious business. And she didn’t want her hands to twitch and then accidentally fling one of those chopsticks onto the floor. “I just - I really like going out on dates with you, so I thought...maybe we could keep going on dates like, with each other? But only each other. So like a boyfriend-girlfriend kind of thing.”

And whatever all of that entailed; they could figure that out because every relationship was different and she’d never been with anyone who lived in a world where dragons actually existed and there was no electricity so - pretty old-fashioned. Her smile was a little timid, but sweet, sugar-spun - and here’s where she’d just send up a prayer to the girly gods that this all worked out.

It was rather the opposite of any of the worst-cases that Cullen’s overactive imagination had quickly concocted. That was the good thing about expecting the worst: all surprises were pleasant. This one was especially pleasant, bringing an instant smile to his face. The words boyfriend and girlfriend might be new to him, but he could figure out enough from the context and the bewitching smile. She was clearly talking about the idea of a somewhat more official and exclusive relationship, regardless of what the local terminology was.

“I’d like that very much,” Cullen replied, and set his chopsticks aside to reach for her hand across the table. “And I’m glad you asked, because I probably would have spent another month at least on trying to figure out the proper way and time to ask such a thing here, with everything so different from home.”

Phew. Big phew, big sigh, all of that. Alexis was so relieved, and now she could tell those butterflies that had been flapping around in her stomach to chill. Of course, she still felt them - but in a different way now. The ‘oh my gosh, I really like you’ sort of way. And she was pleased to know that the feeling was mutual.

She placed her hand in Cullen’s, cheeks a bit pink and flushed with the thrill of all this - sushi and a boyfriend, it’d be hard to top how awesome this day was. “I’m glad I asked too,” she chuckled, fingers stroking between his - all that rough skin, all the things he’d done with these hands. He’d been through a lot, had a tough past - but it didn’t have to be that way anymore, there was so much life left to live (not the soap opera) and it was okay to be happy and to want that for themselves.

“I guess we’re a little more blunt here in the twenty-first century,” she added proudly, a twinkle in her eye. “More bluntness and more raw fish.”

“I’ve always appreciated bluntness,” Cullen replied with a somewhat self-conscious chuckle. “I find it much easier when people say what they mean rather than hinting around it. And apparently I appreciate raw fish, as well. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; you seem to have a gift for making all sorts of unexpected things enjoyable.”

Like being dropped into a foreign universe, for instance. And performing in a play. And holding hands in public where literally anybody could walk right in and see them. Raw fish was merely the tip of the iceberg.

That was like, the sweetest thing ever? Alexis considered herself properly wooed and courted. It was nice, because much of her dating history was bleak in the sense that the guys she tangled herself with didn’t seem to care about what her gifts were unless it involved being super limber for various bendy, sexy positions. Ted had been her first real love - the kind where anything seemed possible, where it just seemed to extend for endless miles and miles through a whole set of fairytale dreams.

It didn’t turn out that way, but she didn’t begrudge him his happiness and she knew he would want her to be happy too - not like the experience soured her. She was ready and willing to try again and see how this went. Every love in a person’s life should feel different.

“Well, now that we’re official, just you wait - I have more unexpected enjoyable things to suggest,” she grinned. “Like, make sure to save room for tempura ice cream. I hear this place does it amazingly.”

Cullen paused in the midst of enjoying the dizzying teenage feeling of fancying someone and knowing they cared for him just as much to raise a skeptical eyebrow at the notion of tempura ice cream. Ice cream was cold - indeed, by its very nature, ice cream was frozen. He’d just learned that tempura was a way of frying things. The two did not seem to go together at all. Wouldn’t the ice cream melt?

“Does that require magic?” he asked, because surely it must. Magic here was different than in his world, used casually for all sorts of things, so maybe they also employed it in their frozen treats.

“Nope!” Alexis’ responding giggle was delighted. She patted Cullen’s hand and then leaned back to give him free rein with the chopsticks again. “You just stuff the shell with ice cream first and freeze it, then fry it when you’re ready - the outside gets crispy while the inside is still frozen.” Maybe it was magic, in a way? Culinary magic. “I mean, I probably couldn’t do it without burning the kitchen, but. I just know that’s how it’s done.”

She winked at him, perhaps a bit silly, but she was aiming for charming - though she was aware that some of her charm was tied to her over-the-top, wild stories and general demeanor, so. Basically, she was who she was - and Cullen seemed to like her just fine. She made the unexpected exciting and he was a good, calming influence.

“But definitely stick with me. We’ll be going places,” she assured. Raw fish today, and maybe tomorrow - noodles so spicy you needed to sign a waiver! Would the wonders ever cease?

Well. Maybe they could take a break before the Jjambbong, so as not to burn out on fun New Food too quickly (or burn their tastebuds). Still, Alexis was all in, and when she was super happy like this, the ache she felt from missing her family simmered to a dull roar. And that definitely meant something.