Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to The Princess and the Frog. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.
So here's a story in which Tiana and Naveen cook. That is all they do. It is not a euphemism. So.
Prince Under Foot
In the evening, after a long day spent tearing out the half-rotted floor of the sugar mill, Tiana said, "I'm thinking jambalaya."
Naveen followed her into the kitchen.
"Let me help, please!" he said. He showed her his palms. "My hands are very eager to work." He looked at his fingers. Experimentally, he wriggled them. "My hands are not themselves eager," he conceded, lowering them. "They cannot be, but I most certainly am." He smiled blindingly. "I will mince the mushrooms, yes?"
Tiana rested her arm on the island. She leaned forward upon it and said, as if she were in confessional, "I don't use mushrooms in my jambalaya."
"All right," he said, "then I will not mince the mushrooms. Instead I will peel the potatoes."
She shook her head. "Nope. No potatoes in this dish. Least not how I make it."
Naveen frowned. His brow furrowed. "I will chop the peppers?" he ventured at last.
She smiled at him, so brightly, so quickly he was momentarily overwhelmed. She pushed off the island. "It's not jambalaya if there's no peppers, is it?"
"It would be very boring," he said. He set his elbow on the island and his chin on his palm, and watched as she crouched to sort through the vegetable racks. He shifted forward, to follow the fluid line of her back.
She straightened, her skirt falling back down against her shins. Her stockinged feet whispered across the tiles.
"You going to cut yourself this time?"
"No," he said scathingly. "I am not going to cut myself this time. But thank you for your concern. It is most appreciated."
She set the bell peppers on the island before him. Tiana rose up on her toes to brush a glancing kiss across his cheek. "I'm just looking out for my husband," she said, "who was so kind as to offer to help."
He brought his other cheek to her attention, turning to present it. She obliged.
"Yes, I am so considerate," he said.
"Well," murmured Tiana, lingering on his jaw, "since you're so thoughtful, I suppose you wouldn't mind chopping a couple onions as well." She stepped back, unbothered by his indignation, perhaps even pleased with it.
"You would take advantage of my generosity," he accused.
"No, no, Mister Easy Living," she said. "I am taking advantage of your generosity. You know where the knives are. Cutting boards are in the second cabinet on the left. You'll want a real sharp knife for the onions." This she called over her shoulder: the refrigerator beckoned her.
Naveen retrieved three knives, just in case. He did not know how to test for sharpness, except perhaps to eye the blade and consider which would prove most painful should it wind up in his finger. Carefully he set the knives down.
"Just one pepper's enough," said Tiana, as he looked them over. This green pepper, the skin was soft here and here as well; the red pepper was too hard. He rolled it beneath his palm.
Tiana dropped the skinned chicken breast on the cleaned counter. "You know how to pick them out," she continued. "We went over this just yesterday. Remember?"
"I have not forgotten, no."
She smiled at him over her shoulder, her hair falling dark across her brow, a curl twisting at her ear. "I trust you."
"What comfort," he said dryly, but it was at that. Such a peculiar thing, to feel so very shy, so pleased at such a simple expression of faith, but then he was not accustomed to anyone expecting anything significant of him.
He found he was smiling wildly at Tiana's back. He forced his mouth back down into something more sophisticated, more sarcastic, but as he withdrew an orange pepper from its fellows, he smiled again.
As was always true, Tiana took on the bulk of the prep work. She was quicker, more experienced, her movements deft and sure, her fingers nimble as she sliced the sausage and cut up the chicken into clean hunks. Naveen's work with the pepper was not quite so glamorous; several chunks were larger than the rest.
"Would you look at that!" said Tiana. "You did just swell."
"Perhaps not so well as you would have," he demurred.
"Mmm," said Tiana. She tipped her head to the side, considering, then looked up slyly through her lashes. "Maybe not."
He scowled down at her. "You know, you're supposed to say something comforting. Something like, 'Oh, no, Naveen, I could not have done better myself.'"
"Mama always said it's wrong to tell a lie," she said piously. "Now how about that onion?" She rifled through the near cabinet, picking out a pair of garlic cloves.
"All right, okay, I'm getting to it," he said, then under his breath, "Taskmaster."
"You better not be calling me names again."
"What?" said Naveen. "I would never."
She set the celery down beside the garlic and gave him a look across the kitchen that prickled his skin. Probably he was not supposed to kiss her with his fingers still sticky with pepper juice.
"Uh-huh," she said. "Well, you just make sure you keep it that way."
"Yes, of course, my beloved tyrant," said Naveen. He flashed his most disarming smile. "Tiana. My beloved Tiana. That is what I said."
What skeptical looks she gave him this day, all of them so undeserved. He picked up a clean knife and applied himself to the onion with dignity and fortitude. Dignity was the first to abandon him.
He leaned hard against the island, the countertop pressing sharply against his ribs, and gasped. The knife clattered against the cutting board.
"You're supposed to lean away from the onion, not toward it," said Tiana, laughing.
Through the wet, stinging haze he glared at her. His nose burned, his tongue as well. He reached up to his eyes.
"Do not touch your eyes!" She was before him, then, clasping his wrists, pulling his hands down. "C'mon," she said. She tugged on his arms, drawing him with her to the sink. She flipped the tap on and stuck his hands together under the sink, with a strict admonition for him to wash.
He pressed his face hard into his shoulder and obeyed, rinsing off his fingers, his palms, his wrists.
A hand, light upon his back: Tiana pressed against him, leaning over his shoulder to gently say, "Better?"
He straightened. "Yes," he said. "I am much better, thank you."
She smiled up at him. "Good," she said. "You've never handled onions before, have you?"
He rolled his eyes at her. After a beat he said, with cutting slowness, "No. I have not."
She rubbed his shoulder in small, uneven circles, her hand warm through his shirt. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should've remembered."
"That would've been very helpful, yes," he said, without venom. "I did not realize onions could be so painful." He blinked rapidly and touched a finger to his cheek, slick beneath his eye.
"Well," said Tiana, into the quiet, "I've got a trick I could show you. If you're still up for it?"
How very easily he could have said no to this; he could have withdrawn to nurse his stinging eyes. Her hand stilled upon his arm, her fingers wandering across his shoulder. She looked, expectant and in offering, up at him.
He ducked his head and rubbed at his nose, so that she could not see the horrible, helpless smile that pulled at his mouth. "Fine, all right," he said, "you win. Show me this trick of yours."
She filched a small bowl out of the cabinet and held it beneath the tap until the water neared the top. "My daddy showed me this," she explained as she carried the bowl back to the island, and the onion and the knife. Naveen followed her, his collar pulled up beneath his nose.
Tiana hefted the onion, rolling it around between her fingers. "If you cut out the root, here, that's where most of the juice is." She slipped the knife into the onion and sliced out a wedge, popping the root out on the tip of the blade. She held it out for him to inspect. He declined, his hands held before his face.
"It takes a little practice, though," she admitted, picking the root free of the knife. "It took me a while to get it right."
"You?" he said, delighted. "Impossible. I refuse to believe this."
"You'd better," she said wryly. "Now, if you cut the onion in cold water," and she plunged it into the bowl, "that helps, too."
She flipped the knife around, handle first. She grinned at him, challenging. "Think you can handle it?" she said.
Gingerly he took the knife from her. He looked down to the bowl where the onion rested, fat and white and terrible. "If my eyes burn," he said, "and I can no longer see, it will be your fault."
"Stop talking and start cutting," she told him, pointing her own knife at him. She turned back to the garlic.
He took a deep breath, pinched his lips, and stuck his hands into the bowl.
As Naveen advanced to the last inch of onion, his eyes hardly stinging at all, she had the chicken neatly sautéing.
"You about finished with that onion?" she said. She jerked the pan, sliding the chicken through the thin layer of fat.
He slapped the knife down upon the island and said, proudly, "Done."
"Good," she said, smiling back at him. She jerked the pan again. The fat sizzled, popping. "You need to strain the water now. Should be a strainer beneath the sink, behind the mixing bowls. After you've done that, I need you to bring it over here. Chicken's about done."
"Your vegetables," he said into her ear, "my beloved tyrant." He set the bowl beside the small pile of celery, behind the sausage.
"Thank you," she said, and perhaps it was the heat off the stove that made her eyes shimmer so. She reached out to the dials, turning the heat down just a bit. She shivered the pan over the burner. "Let me show you what we do next. We're going to stir in all of that stuff right there--yeah, that's right, and the sausage, too."
He handed her the bowl and each tidy pile, and one by one she tipped them into the pan, stirring the lot round and round. "Little bit of salt, little bit of black pepper, some thyme, a pinch of cayenne--"
He watched her work, swift and yet unhurried, her hands moving, moving, sprinkling in spices and scraping her spatula every now and then through the lot.
"We let that cook for a few minutes," she told him, "then we add the rice and the tomatoes, and some of the shrimp, and let it all simmer. Would you mind?" She tapped her spatula in the direction of the refrigerator.
"But of course!" he said, then he corrected himself: "Of course I do not mind. I will just get the rice. And the everything else."
He grumbled about it, as he was expected to grumble, and if he enjoyed the alternatingly amused and exasperated and quietly affectionate looks Tiana threw him as he clattered noisily about the kitchen, that was his prerogative as prince under foot. There was, he thought, something endlessly fascinating about the way Tiana cooked: the ease, the grace, the deliberation. With her it was as much an art as a science.
He stared into the pan, following the progress of a small bubble which rose up through the broth.
"A watched pot never boils," said Tiana. She worked at the sink, cleaning the knives one by one. At her nape, three curls twined, loose from her bun. Her hands were slick with soap.
"Of course it boils," he said. "It must. The water is not shy. It does not hide in fear when you look at it." Another small bubble wound its way through the slowly cooking jumble. Absently he stirred the jambalaya. "The transference of heat from the burner to the pan to the water is not concerned with whether I am paying attention to it or not."
"It's just a saying," she said fondly. "It means, be patient."
"Patience?" He thought. "Patience," he said again, slowly. "Yes, I have heard of this."
She flicked water at him and he yelped, dancing to the side. A damp spot showed dark on his sleeve.
"So mature," he muttered.
"Watch your pot," she said.
Two long minutes, three, four, and the sparse bubbles thickened, rising in greater clouds. "Is it boiling now?" he said. A bubble popped, spraying broth which fizzed violently on the hot stove. Naveen jumped.
"Looks like," she said, folding the dishtowel over the sink's lip. She swept over to the stove, displacing him. "We're going to turn the heat down some and cover the pan up. Let it simmer about twenty minutes."
"Then we eat?" he said.
"Then we eat," she agreed. She fitted the lid over the pan; beneath it the jambalaya whispered, still bubbling faintly. She reached up to tuck one of the straggling curls behind her ear, but he beat her to it. He smoothed his fingers down the delicate curve of her ear, resting forefinger and middle in the soft joint behind her earlobe.
"You did pretty well," she said to him. "Chopping that pepper. Cutting that onion."
"Through great suffering I prevailed," he said.
Tiana covered his hand, holding it to her cheek. She smiled, so sweet, and turned her face to press one small kiss to the heel of his palm. She said, "Thanks for helping, Mister Easy Living."
He stroked his thumb across her cheek. He bowed his head, to touch his nose to hers.
"Thank you," he said, "for letting me help."
This story was originally posted at livejournal on 01/31/2010.