tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; Friday evening
Rating; PG-13/R?
Characters; Toshiko Sato

warped_inside and Steven Daedelus

beejinthewalkin
Summary; Toshiko meets Steven at the soon-to-be restaurant for dinner
Log;

The attack on Ianto and his subsequent stay in the clinic had dampened Tosh's spirits a little, but Jack had been right when he'd insisted she could carry through with her plans. It wasn't as though sitting around worrying was going to help anyone, and Martha was providing expert care. That restless energy wouldn't do anything but make Ianto fretful anyway, so maybe getting out and enjoying herself was exactly what Tosh needed to settle her nerves.

Plus, she had to admit that she'd really been looking forward to it, no matter how many times she insisted to Dawn that it was not really a date. The dark wine dress and patent leather pumps she was wearing didn't do anything to support the anti-date argument either.

Not quite able to leave the job or the team behind, Tosh had her gun and mobile tucked away in her handbag, and wore the comm piece in her ear right up until she was tapping hesitantly on the door of the half-finished restaurant.

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Steven pushed away from the stove at the sound of the knock on the door. He had caved. Sort of. Dawn had helped him pick out a nice pair of dark jeans and a pale blue button down. She said he was "salty goodness" and that was good enough for him.

He wiped his hands on a bar towel as he headed for the door and tugged it open, a smile broke on his face and he leaned in the doorway. He was trying very hard to look presentable for her.

"Tosh. You look bloody fantastic"

Well, that kind of greeting could certainly make a girl smile. Tosh beamed at Steven, noting that he'd compromised on the suit issue and pleased to see that he looked both handsome and comfortable.

"The shopping fairy took over," she admitted. "I had to draw the line at glitter, though. You look very nice yourself. No tie, that was a good decision."

"I let the Dawning have her fun, even promised her a blurry watercolor of tonight's events," he flashed a wry grin and held up his hands as if in surrender as he ushered her inside "her words, not mine."

Artichoke was definitely under construction, some walls were knocked out, those that weren't had plaster spots on them and there was a clear tarp dividing the kitchen from the dining area. It didn't look like much, not really, but to Steven it looked amazing.

And to Tosh it looked fascinating, because it was a work in progress, something you could see the innards of and how it went together. Finished products weren't as much fun to her, unless she was taking them apart to see how they worked.

"Yeah, I did the same. She has good taste though, I think." Tosh stepped inside and peered around, obviously curious. "Do I get a tour?"

"This really does interest you doesn't it?" Steven's smile widened as he offered her his arm. She was so small next to him, even in heels "You didn't just agree to this because you thought it would keep me happy."

He liked that about her, Tosh was earnest and that was rare among the girls he knew. Except Tanya and he'd always sort of liked her ditzy, airheaded sincerity. He waved his hand grandly around the front room as if it was so much more than drop cloths and plaster, "This, Toshiko Sato, is the dinning room. We're doing the walls in either eggplant or wine red and there's going to be banquets along that back wall and the bar on the south wall. It'll have a mirror behind it and possibly a water feature."

"I would have agreed to just keep you happy," Tosh admitted, "but I didn't. I really am curious about it, this is completely new to me. It's not even anything I've ever given much thought."

Spend enough time around Tosh, and Steven would find out that anything 'completely new' was like catnip to her.

She took his arm and listened with open interest while he talked. "Sounds gorgeous. Plants or artwork, or are you going to stay very minimalist?"

"Artwork, definitely," Steven sounded almost afraid of the idea of living things in his restaurant "can you really see Jack and I keeping anything a live for long?"

He closed his other hand over hers where it sat on his arm and pulled her forward into the restaurant, past upturned tables and some messy sketches the designer left on the soon to be bar top. Steven lifted the hanging tarp out of the way for Tosh and nudged her carefully into the kitchen. He didn't bother with a flourish, the very first thing to be dealt with the kitchen was sparkling and new and as far as he cared it didn't need a flourish.

"Artichoke's beating heart."

"You could get someone to look after them," Tosh suggested mildly, but she understood his point. She wasn't the person who looked after the hothouse, after all. Plants were great so long as they were the type that you watered when you remembered and otherwise left to their own devices.

She was suitably impressed by the kitchen -- she might not have been a cook, but it was shiny and sparkly and full of exciting looking gadgets, and that was good enough for her.

"It's fantastic! I think this has to be the first time I've ever been inside a restaurant kitchen."

Steven was thrilled by her enthusiasm for the kitchen. He'd hoped it would be suitably be-gadgeted for the genius. There was a table pulled into the kitchen and set up for them but he lead her right passed it towards the walk in cooler. There wasn't much in there yet but it was still one of his favorite places.

"This is where I give Jack head and try to remember not to molest the meat" he grinned, holding the door open so she could see inside, "if this goes? it's over. We can deal with a power out but not if your fridge dies for keeps."

Tosh actually took a step into the cooler and looked around. "What kind of cooling system does it run on? You've got backup power, I'm assuming? Something that's off the city grid, or at least off the part that runs the surrounding blocks. Is the temperature control computerized?"

Once a tech geek, always a tech geek.

"Well we've got a back up generator in the basement and the temperature control is that dial on the far wall," Steven's grin was wide and he was maybe, just a little bit laughing at her inside but it was well intentioned laughter. He placed a large hand on her shoulder, his thumb brushing her bare skin "I promise if we ever get something fancy and upgraded you'll be the first to come fangirl it."

It was all right, she kind of deserved the laughter, and she knew it. Tosh looked back at Steven, grinning sheepishly, a little shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature of the walk-in running through her at his hand on her skin.

"I...guess it sounds like you've got it covered then. Sorry, I have a little trouble turning off the work part of my brain sometimes."

"Don't worry about it, artichoke, as soon as we decide it needs fancying up I'll let you come play with it," he assured her, his hand sliding away from her shoulder to the center of her back so he could turn her gently and lead her back into the kitchen "Its good that you're so dedicated to your job."

"It's what I love," Tosh replied with a shrug, referring back to the conversation they'd had the previous day. "Sort of an instinct, I guess, to hunt for the puzzle in a thing and try to sort it out. It's why Jack recruited me. Half the time I do it without even really thinking about it."

She let Steven take her back out of the cooler, curious to see what else he was going to show her.

"Passion for what you do is a rare luxury, most people work to live rather than live to work," he grinned down at her, enjoying the heat he could feel from her skin through the layers of her dress.

Steven lead her back to the range, the ten burners and side grill which had completely won his heart when he walked into the kitchen. His fingers slid across the front of the stove and he went just a little glassy eyed, "our stove."

The look on Steven's face reminded Tosh of her own reaction to some of the things that occasionally dropped through the rift, or the equipment in Tony's workshop. She smiled understandingly, tilting her head a little as she studied the stove as though it were one of the tools from her own workspace.

"It's impressive," she decided. "You're going to be spending a lot of your time in here, aren't you?"

"About two to just after eleven every day," he nodded, rubbing his hand across the brushed metal one more time before he pulled away and flashed her a sheepish smile. He cocked his head to the side and gestured at the table which was pulled close to the stove "Why don't you take a seat, have some wine and I'll get dinner finished and on the table."

"And you'll love every minute of it," Tosh added, grinning as she moved to the table and took a seat, making sure she was situated out of the way but where she could still see everything.

"This is normally where I'd offer to help, but I figure you're probably like I would be if I were building something and somebody who knew nothing about electronics beyond how to program a DVD player wandered in and asked to give me a hand."

"Every fucking minute," he groaned, eyes rolling aback a little and he dipped, knees giving for just a second. He loved the idea that he could spend countless thousands of hours in a kitchen owned by him and Jack.

"You can pour the wine, artichoke," he flashed her a wicked grin over his shoulder and disappeared back into the walk in to grab his tray of ingredients. Most of it was already prepared, all he had to do was cook the fish through and make up the seasoning for it so she could watch his sexy knife skills.

"Do you want a glass too?" Tosh called out after him, finding the bottle and glasses and pouring some for herself. She decided that once the new house on the beach was built, she'd return the favor and show him around the spiffy workroom and armory they'd be putting in. Maybe even the holding cells.

"Can I just say, for the record, that I like that you think a date can be combined with work? A lot of people think that's just..." She waved her hand, trying to think of a better word than 'lame'. What would Owen call it? "...pathetic."

"As far as I'm concerned if you love what you're doing then it can be combined with anything," he pushed his sleeves up over his elbows as he approached the work surface. It was with a practiced flick of his wrist that he unrolled his knife kit and drew his chef's knife out. The metal glinted under the hard kitchen lighting when he started cutting fresh herbs.

"Anyone who believes that work and play should be mutually exclusive is a lost cause," he looked up at her, his knife pausing for just a second as he sliced through the second lemon "getting up for work in the early afternoon is much easier when its something you want to be doing."

"Well, it's easier to get up for work in the early morning too," Tosh laughed, turning a little sideways in her chair and resting her chin in her hand while she watched Steven work. He was very good, and she was definitely impressed with his knife skills. Good hands, she thought.

"You'd probably be horrified to see what I've done to one of the kitchens in our flat. We've three -- Jack took out the walls to connect three apartments -- and Ianto keeps the main kitchen safe for cooking and eating. We talked Jack into letting us turn one into a hothouse, and I mostly took over the third. Which means the counters are covered with gears and wires, and we had to hang a 'toxic' sign on the fridge to make sure no one ate out of it."

It took Steven a minute to say anything and he actually had to set his knife down on the cutting board. The look he gave her was all pain and betrayal.

"Artichoke," he gave her a long suffering sigh and dropped his head back to his work, "I suppose it's only fair since I've broken my fair share of computers."

"You haven't!" Tosh gasped, biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud. "Would it make you feel better if I pointed out that technically what I've got is a workroom/lab that just happens to have an oven in it? Completely different creature from a kitchen. Though it does double as decent space for a necropsy."

"I might have," he admitted with a sheepish little smile as he tossed the fresh cut herbs into a mixing bowl with lemon juice and a little olive oil. He swirled the mixture casually in one hand as he leaned over to turn one of the burners on "How do you feel about olives?"

"And what the frilly hell is a necropsy," it was added as almost an after thought.

Tosh sat up a bit straighter to watch, curious to see what Steve was going to be doing next. She was already completely lost -- pretty much had been since the herb-chopping started -- so it was something of a private game in her head to see if she could guess what the next step might be.

"Oh, same as an autopsy, but mostly we use it to refer to animals these days. Or aliens. 'Alien autopsy' sounds like something you'd see on late night telly."

Steven grinned up at her, the attention she was paying to what he was doing wasn't lost of him as he peeled open the brown paper package that had the sea bass he'd bought for them. Steven wasn't about to lie and say that he didn't love the way the bits of herbs clung to the fish when he poured the dressing over it, all oily and flecked with green.

"Good call, say alien autopsy too much and you're likely to date a lot of trekkies," Steven grinned up at her as he set the fish down in the screaming hot skillet with a hiss of steam and a fragrant burst of lemony, green herb purfume.

Ooh, that looked tasty and smelled even better, and Tosh smiled back at him. It was entirely possible she was going to enjoy this meal more than she had in a long while, simply because of having seen the work that went into it.

"Oh god, those people are crazy. And the ones on the internet. Completely barking mad. It's so aggravating to have to chase down their web sites and hack them to pull things off we don't want spread all over the bloody world."

He gave a low laugh, his back turned to her so he could watch the fish. It only took a few minutes on each side until they were faintly golden and the flesh was just starting to get melt in your mouth soft. He lifted it quickly from the heat to plate with a generous topping of tapanade and a handful of fresh spring greens.

"Don't encourage the conspiracy theorists, artichoke" he flicked off the stove, balancing both plates easily in one large hand and deposited them on the table "I hope you enjoy this."

"We try not to, but there really are some things you just can't let get out," Tosh answered distractedly, watching Steven's movements with interest, and turning to face the table properly as he joined her.

"That looks fantastic, Steven. You know I've never had anyone cook dinner for me before."

Max had made her breakfast that once, but that was mainly bacon and slightly burnt toast. It was the thought that counted.

"Never?" Steven made a disgusted noise low in his throat as he sank down across from her at the table and reached for his fork. He'd never been one for manners and toasts when there was good food on the table and it wasn't that he was arrogant - well yes he was but not just that- he just knew how good his cooking really was "That's a sin, Tosh."

"And who exactly would be doing it?" Tosh laughed, picking up her own fork and taking a taste of the fish. "Tony doesn't cook, and I don't think we're counting meals that get made for everyone 'round the flat."

She smiled wryly, not mentioning that back before coming to the City, there hadn't even been that much -- no one taking her out to eat, no one cooking for her at home. So the situation now was a thousand percent improvement in Tosh's eyes.

"God, this is amazing."

"Me, Jack," Steven grinned and watched her carefully. A pretty girl eating his food was sometimes better than a pretty girl sucking his cock and with Tosh he was really not sure which would win out. Not that he'd say that to her "We'll cook for you whenever you ask, artichoke."

They'd be more than happy to, it wasn't just men who fell into bed with someone who cooked.

"Well, I just now found that out, didn't I?" Tosh grinned before another mouthful, then gestured with her fork at her plate.

"So, tell me about it. Unless it's supposed to be a big mysterious secret, because I can promise you it's nothing I'd ever be able to replicate."

"It's just a sea bass that I rubbed with coriander, cumin and cardamom," he leaned over the table to indicate the faint traces of the spices under the bright green of the marinade "Then we went with cilantro and coriander leaves with lemon and olive oil, it brings out some of the freshness of the fish, livens up the flavors."

He paused and gave a sheepish smile, sinking back in his seat. He knows he runs on sometimes when food is involved and he doesn't mean to it just comes naturally.

"And that's why it smells so incredible." She grins and shakes her head at Steven, to let him know she doesn't mind. Not at all, in fact, because she's exactly the same way, only about physics and computers.

"I love it. And I think it was brilliant of you to make it for me."

"And that's why it smells so incredible," he agreed, nodding his head. He appreciated her understanding about his slight obsession with his job. It wasn't as if he tried to bring it up at every turn. That was just sort of how it had turned out.

He sank back in his chair a little, content to try and enjoy the food without over epicureaning her, "you said you wanted something light and when I was looking for ingredients the fish really spoke to me."

Tosh would happily sit and listen to someone wax poetic about their interests. There was a certain appeal in hearing about a topic that was new to you from a source that treated it with reverence and passion.

"Well it obviously said all the right things. I love it, and I can already see I'm going to be ridiculously spoiled now."

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Log; Ongoing

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