Can you feel the love tonight?

[highprofilerichkid]

Characters: EVERYBODY
Date: 14 February
Location: Anywhere
Situation: It's VALENTINE'S DAY! Flowers, candy, love notes, dancing, and dates... Maybe you don't have Valentine's Day on your world, but plenty of the foreigners do, and those who have found love on the turtle will be happy to tell you all about the holiday. Some of the more enthusiastic foreigners may even try to play matchmaker with their unattached fellows...
Warnings/Rating: Lovey-dovey nonsense, smooching, romance, and maybe people getting a little frisky. It is Valentine's Day, after all. Further warnings will be added if anything gets really steamy.



No plans for the big day? Feeling a little lost? Well, why don't you:

• Build a snowman together! Embrace your inner child.
• Give your lover a big box of... chocolate? Well, there's technically no chocolate in Keeliai, but maybe a kedan confectioner can whip you up something close enough. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you could go to a candy shop together and experiment with the local sweets.
• Go dancing and engage in some pan-galactic cultural exchange. Teach your partner one of the beloved dances of your home universe, like salsa, or the foxtrot, or the electric slide.
• Baby, it's cold outside. Maybe you should stay in for the day. Cook a meal together, light some candles, drink the most expensive alcohol you can afford, and take some time to appreciate each other's company. Nothing says "romance" more than fancy wine and a candlelit dinner for two.
• What better excuse to take a chance on romance? Ask out that person you've had your eye on.
• Set up your friend. You're satisfied with your relationship or lack thereof, but somebody you know is pining, so get out your bow and quiver and cupid wings and find them a potential sweetheart. What's the worst that can happen? Don't answer that.
• No date? Grab a friend and go out to a fancy dinner with each other to celebrate Singles Awareness Day. Platonic love is important too!

Comments

[highprofilerichkid]

With Gene's approval of the restaurant selection, Tony relaxes. Everything is going well so far.

They are quickly seated and given menus. Tony starts looking over his, mostly to be polite, since he can't actually read it. It's in Kedanese, which he has not applied himself to mastering just yet. Maybe he should get on that.

He looks over his illegible menu at Gene. "You know Fire Sector food. What's good?"

[wrathfulkhan]

Oh, it is hard for Gene to resist the urge to tease Tony for not really knowing the kedan language yet. But he names a couple items of varying tastes. And be glad you weren't the guinea pig for these, Tony. Gene's been here long enough to know what tastes good and what won't make him sick upon consumption. It had been a long, bitter series of trials.

The waiter comes by, and they order, and Gene quite subtly implies to the waiter that they'll tip handsomely if their food is brought to them untainted. Perhaps an unnecessary precaution, but with the anti-Foreigner sentiment these days, you really could never be too careful. That taken care of, he turns back to Tony and smiles, feeling a little better about the whole scenario.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony almost doesn't catch the little hint Gene drops at the waiter - it takes him a couple seconds to realize what Gene had been implying.

Tony wouldn't have thought that sort of thing would be a problem at a place as nice as this, but... he has to admit, Gene's life experience probably makes him a better judge of that. Sad but true. That's a grim note to start the meal on, though, so Tony chases the funny look off his face and tries to pretend he didn't notice.

"Should we... order wine or something?" They're underage at home, but that doesn't matter here. Wine is a classy thing people drink at fancy meals, so that's appropriate for a Valentine's Day date, right? "...I've never done the whole Valentine's Day thing before."

[wrathfulkhan]

Hey, better safe than sorry. Or struck ill with some sort of food poison. (Well, Tony would probably get out of it unscathed due to Extremis. Gene, on the other hand...well, he is only human.)

"...huh. Neither have I," Gene admits, thinking about it. Truth be told, Valentine's Day had never been a part of his experience even peripherally. The magic of globalization had meant that he'd known of it, but he'd never found reason to participate. "You want to order wine, we can order wine."

[highprofilerichkid]

"I even missed out on most of the elementary school candy exchange, after Dad took me out of school," Tony muses. "I used to get really jealous every year when Rhodey would come home with a bag full of candy, so Trish started sneaking me some when Dad wasn't looking." He grins at the memory. To be fair, he could usually wheedle candy out of Trish on any day of the year, but it felt extra special on Valentine's Day.

"Yeah, I guess we could get something. Just... not the most expensive bottle on the menu, okay?" He laughs like it's a joke, but, uh, seriously, Gene, he can't afford that.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene is briefly struck with horror at the thought of a tiny, hyperactive Tony hopped up on the wrath of a thousand Hershey bars. It's too terrifying to contemplate.

It goes without saying that he never did the cards, or the candy, or any of it at all. A decadent Western holiday; taboo in Zhang's household.

So he just grins back as Tony recounts the memory. It sounds like a good one. He tries to ignore the talk of Howard; the subject's still raw, for him. "I'll get us something nice. But not too nice." Like you're a damn sommelier, Gene. Regardless, he picks out a mid-range bottle that seems to...maybe?...pair well with what they ordered, and flags down their waiter to request it.

[highprofilerichkid]

Yes, Tiny Tony on a sugar rush was something to behold. His dad probably only put up with it because he'd crash hard a couple hours later and not be a nuisance for the rest of the day.

"Sounds good. If I ever get my job back for real, we can get the nicest one," he promises with a chuckle. He's still not used to being not rich, and he's a little bummed that he can't treat Gene to the best Keeliai has to offer. But this dinner is putting a serious strain on his finances already (not that he'd ever admit that to Gene).

[wrathfulkhan]

"That is, if we even like wine," Gene says with a bit of a laugh. He prefers to keep himself clearheaded. Though what the hell - tonight is a special occasion. He can break his teetotaling ways for that.

It's cute that you think you're going to pay for this without a fight, Tony.

[highprofilerichkid]

"I like wine. You know what is gross, though? Bourbon." Tony makes a disgusted face. "But wine is nice. I haven't ever had it here," he admits, "but it's probably not all that different."

It could, in fact, be very significantly different, but he's trying to be optimistic.

[wrathfulkhan]

"I haven't had much of it," he admits, "and I've never had bourbon."

He thinks for a moment. "I can't imagine that it'd be too different, if it still translates to us as 'wine'. But who knows?" And Gene smiles at him, a little bit. "We're trying a lot of new things today, it seems."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yeah, I guess so. Well, I like trying new things. Especially with you."

His smile turns cheeky: he totally intended that innuendo, and is very pleased with himself about it.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene grins at him. "Oh, good. So do I. And I'm certain we'll be trying a few more, before the day is through."

Hey-oh!

He smirks and has a sip of his water.

[highprofilerichkid]

"I can't wait," Tony says, while unsubtly making eyes at Gene.

Actually, his plans for the night are less raunchy than he's making out: given the recent shock their relationship had gone through, he'd opted to focus on cuddling and affection rather than wild, uh, experimentation sexperimentation.

But he's glad that Gene is in a good enough mood for this kind of banter. That has to be a good sign, right?

[wrathfulkhan]

It's just as well, really; for all his overconfident joking, a lot of it is a front. It'd take a lot for Gene to be comfortable getting as intimate as he's implying after their rough patch. But maybe affection is just what the doctor ordered.

The waiter returns with a starting dish. Apparently you can't escape starter salads even in another dimension. Although the edible foliage usually isn't quite so...pink.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony loves the pink salad. It actually makes salad interesting. He attacks it with gusto. He's especially taken with what appears to be bright coral-colored Romanesco.

"Pink fractal broccoli!" he holds it up on his fork, looking delighted. "This place is great. I wish we could afford to eat like this all the time."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene's digging into the salad as well, a little less intensely - but he has to admit, it is pretty good.

"How does that stuff even grow?" he asks idly, examining some on his own fork. Fractals sure are weird!

[highprofilerichkid]

"In the dirt?" Tony jokes, around a mouthful of pink fractal broccoli. "I don't know. I'm not a botanist. Especially not an alien botanist." All he cares about is how it tastes. "I would have eaten a lot more broccoli as a kid if it was fractal, though." Math makes everything more fun. Even vegetables!

[wrathfulkhan]

You would be in the distinct minority on that, Tony. Engineers.

Gene rolls his eyes at Tony's lame joke. "Ha ha," he deadpans, spearing another piece of pink fractal broccoli. Though it is hard for him to hide the genuine smile on his face. For all their drama and struggle, and for all that the sex is pretty damn good, he sometimes forgets that he just likes Tony. Even if he can be an obnoxious little weird nerd.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony just grins back. He knows he's hilarious.

A light appetizer soon follows the salad: small grilled strips of some kind of white meat, drizzled in spicy sauce and garnished with delicately spiral-cut vegetables. "So what's this supposed to be?" He takes a curious bite. "Some kind of squid? It tastes like calamari. Oh, wow, that's hot." Really spicy. They take the 'fire' part of Fire Sector seriously here, apparently.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene takes his own delicate bite of the...seafood? Seafood, probably. He's lived in Keeliai long enough to know that if you can't immediately identifty the food, it's best not to ask questions. Especially now that the Foreigners were less than welcome in some circles.

"Oh, what's the matter, can't take the heat?" he teases. Tony's right, though - it is quite spicy! In a good way.

[highprofilerichkid]

Oooh, Gene, them's fightin' words!

Tony looks Gene dead in the eye and stuffs three pieces into his mouth. He chews, swallows, and then, after a long pause, takes one single delicate sip of water.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

[wrathfulkhan]

That's attractive.

"My mistake, clearly you can hold your capsaicin," he says, continuing to eat his own food at a more sedate pace. All you're gonna do is give yourself hiccups like that, Tony. Fire hiccups. Which would really put a damper on the evening, because it's hard to be romantic if one of you is hiccuping and the other is laughing at his pain.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yeah I can," Tony agrees smugly. That's nothing. You can perform all sorts of amazing and horrifying feats of completely pointless masochism when you're pathologically stubborn, dangerously competitive, and have a very high pain tolerance. Go ahead. Dare him to eat a whole Carolina Reaper. He'll do it.

He picks up one of the spiral garnishes next and bounces it up and down a few times - sproing, sproing - and comments, "They really know how to make vegetables fun, here. Guess you have to make sure nobody wants to hide their peas under the placemat when fresh produce is so hard to get."

[wrathfulkhan]

"...is that something people do?" Gene asks, genuinely nonplussed. He always eats his vegetables, that's how come he got so big and strong and cunning. He'd known the American aversion to vegetables was strong, but maybe not that strong. "Please tell me you're joking. People don't actually do that, right?"

[highprofilerichkid]

You mean, is that something Tony, personally, has done on numerous occasions, to the great exasperation of his father?

..."No comment." He tilts his head back and lowers the veggie squiggle in slowly (yeah, Tony, that's high-class). "You gonna eat that last squid strip?