A/N: Helloooooo again! I'm sorry for this lateness... All I can say is thank you, wonderful readers and reviewers, who put up with my inconsistent ass. I swear that some day- maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow- but some day I will stop being a bum. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my incredibly late chapter.
Dislcaimer: One o' these days, Dreamworks- bang, zoom, straight to the moon!
Chapter 11: A Good Cook Never Cleans Up
Shifu woke up in the morning with a tight knot of anxiety in his stomach. He had officially dug his own grave. He hoped sincerely as he headed to the kitchen for breakfast that Lin would act as if the events of the night before had never happened. Unfortunately, it was clear from her smug grin the moment she saw him that his hopes were in vain.
"Breakfast is almost ready," she said, sounding as if she were on the verge of laughter. "Please, have a seat."
He refrained from speaking; he feared that if he did he would lose his temper again, and this was probably a bad morning to do so. "Where is Tai Lung?"
"He looked like hell, so I sent him back to bed," she replied simply.
"What?" He turned to glare at her with narrowed eyes, but she was facing the stovetop. "And what makes you think that you can do that?"
"What're you gonna do, fire me?" she shot back, then had the audacity to actually laugh.
"If you think you can act like you're in charge around here just because I asked you not to quit, then you are mistaken," he ground out. "As I have pointed out repeatedly, you should be grateful to be here."
"I am!" Lin began in an extremely pleasant tone as she plated his breakfast and walked up behind him. Then, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "And I just want you to know, now that we've come to the understanding that you couldn't bear to see the look of disappointment on your son's face if you ever fired me, that from now on I'm gonna bust your balls so hard you'll wish you were a eunuch." She smiled warmly at him, then dropped a plate full of fresh fruit and thin, sweet-smelling pancakes in front of him. "Enjoy your breakfast!"
"Thanks," he grumbled, glaring down at the plate. It was going to take a miracle for him to bounce back from this disaster. He tried to think of something, anything he could do to level the playing field, but he just kept drawing blanks.
If he had any hope of reigning in Lin, he was going to need to find out more about her. He realized as he tried to think of what he already knew, that she had managed to remain as mysterious as the day she arrived. He still had no idea where she'd come from, or what she was doing in the Valley of Peace. He supposed that the best way to find out would be to simply question her in a straightforward manner, assuming she even answered him. Still, if he gave her the day to gloat her guard would be down and she might slip and reveal something important. He decided to wait until after dinner, and then he would strike.
"Hey." Lin swatted his arm, bringing him out of his reverie. "Listen when I'm talking to you. Anyway, we're doing soup for dinner, and it's gonna have some spice in it. Now, I know that gives you massive diarrhea, so whaddaya want instead?"
He couldn't remember a time in his life when his eye had ever twitched more.
Shifu readied himself for battle; dinner had been admittedly delicious, a recipe that Lin claimed to have learned from some missionaries from Thailand, or something of the sort. He had a sneaking suspicion that his soup had been much less spicy than Lin's an Tai Lung's, since they'd both been blowing their noses regularly throughout the meal, and Tai Lung had actually needed a break from his dinner. He was relieved that she'd actually made his meal mild, though he did feel bad for Tai Lung.
Lin was now cleaning up the kitchen, and Tai Lung had gone for his nightly meditation, so this was the perfect time to question her.
"So I was thinking of making douhua for dessert tomorrow night," she suddenly blurted out once she noticed that he was lingering.
"I don't think you should be making dessert so often," he replied sternly. "It's too much sugar."
"So you don't like douhua." She grabbed a wet rag and started wiping down the kitchen table with it.
"No, I like it just fine. However, a practitioner of kung fu must have certain dietary restrictions." Although, he was a fan of the sweet tofu pudding.
"Okay, then," she sighed, sounding as if she hadn't taken anything that had just been said to her seriously. "I'll slice up some fruit, instead. After all, you gotta end a meal with something sweet."
"No, you really don't," he argued. He realized that he was letting her get on his nerves far too soon, and reminded himself that he was going to need patience to get through this conversation.
"Huh. Y'know, I never realized that you, a kung fu master, knew more about how to serve a meal than me, a cook. What a world we live in." She crossed the room to the wash basin and began working on the dishes.
"I certainly know more than you do about what to feed my son," he snapped. Perhaps patience was overrated, but then he realized that he had an opportunity to ease her into some questioning. "Where did you pick up a habit like that, anyway?"
"If you can make it, you should eat it," she replied.
"And why is that?" He tried to sound like he was actually interested and not just humoring her.
"Because everyone eats, but not everyone cooks." She seemed determined to answer him with what she appeared to think were little gems of wisdom.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "And where did you learn to cook?"
"At home, of course."
"Home? Where was that?"
She raised her eyebrows at him, frowning a little. "You're gonna keep asking me these dumb questions, aren't you?"
He had apparently asked something that she didn't want to answer, so of course he wasn't about to stop. Still, he didn't think he'd be able to think of a response that didn't further offend her. While he was normally a much more decisive and forceful person, he needed to show some subtlety, at least, so he settled for a non-committal shrug.
With a heavy sigh, she stopped washing dishes and grabbed a towel. Then, she threw it at him; he caught it, of course, but he was still annoyed by her gall. "Look," she snapped. "I'm instating a new rule. No one, including you, is allowed to loiter around here and badger me while I wash dishes- without helping. If you wanna play twenty questions, get drying."
"I think you are forgetting whose hospitality you are living off of." He couldn't believe her attitude; it made him miss the days when she would stutter out insults under her breath.
"Oogway's," she replied shortly. "And if you won't get out, I'll just have to pretend you're not here."
"That's ridiculous! I have a right to know whether or not you're some crazy serial killer or shiftless bum or bandit- or whatever you are."
She just kept washing dishes.
"If you won't answer me, I could fire you!" he threatened. He realized that it was an empty threat, and apparently so did Lin, because she refused to acknowledge his presence. "Fine." Despite everything in his nature, he gave into her and walked up to the wash basin. "I'll ask you again: where are you from?" He grabbed a bowl and started drying it.
"That has nothing to do with who I am now," she replied. "Yesterday is history."
He glared at her, but that seemed to be the end of her answer. He tried his best not to let her see how much she was irritating him. "Then what do you want here? What is your goal?"
"Tomorrow is a mystery," she said serenely, setting another plate in front of him. "But today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."
"Do you want me to dry these dishes or not?" he grumbled.
"You didn't like my impression of Oogway?" She laughed at the unamused expression on his face. "Fine, fine. Ask me something relevant, and maybe I'll give you a straight answer. Also, put those away when you're done drying them."
He couldn't believe she was actually ordering him around. "Are you serious?"
"I don't know, are you going grey?" She raised her eyebrows at him, and put another wet dish on the countertop.
"I am not." For some reason, he took the dry dishes and headed for the nearest cabinet. "And for your information, I can see right through-"
"Wrong cabinet," she interrupted.
"What does it matter?"
"Wrong is wrong," she replied stubbornly. "Put the dishes back in the right place, please."
He was starting to think that solving the mystery of who Lin was, exactly, wasn't worth the trouble. He reached for another cabinet.
"Nope!" she called out; he didn't even see her turn around.
He reached for another one.
"No, wrong."
He tried one more time.
"Nuh-uh!"
"Then you put the dishes away!" he snapped. "You obviously know where they're 'supposed' to go."
"Okay, you clean and I'll dry and put them away." She walked up to him and yanked the dishes out of his hands. Then, to his utter annoyance, she put them in the first cabinet he'd tried.
He decided to let it go in favor of asking more questions; he walked up to the basin and began washing dishes, watching her carefully from the corner of his eye as she dried. "You seem to be getting rather close with Tai Lung; why is that?"
She shrugged, completely unconcerned. "I just like him. He's a funny kid."
"So you like children?"
"Not really. I'm neutral toward them, in general. D'you like kids?" She grinned at him, but he wasn't sure what she meant by it.
"I do," he huffed. "Why did you come to the Valley of Peace?"
"I thought it would live up to its name," she replied cryptically.
"So you wouldn't say you led a peaceful life up until now?"
"Whose life isn't chaotic?" She grabbed the plate he'd been washing from him and started drying it. "Try to pay attention to the dishes."
He decided to switch topics slightly, hoping to catch her off-guard. "Why don't you let anyone see your room?"
"I believe in upholding a right to personal privacy." She shrugged. "And it's messy."
"So you expect me to believe that you are absolutely normal and well-meaning?"
"I never said that." She waggled her eyebrows at him, and he felt the overwhelming urge to simply drop the subject and leave.
"Fine, I'll give you one more chance. Since you apparently see all my questions as 'irrelevant,' what about you is relevant?" He had her cornered with that one; if she lied, he was certain he'd be able to tell.
"Let's see..." She picked up the dried dishes and began putting them away. "I like to drink, sometimes. Hard liquor, wine... Whatever catches my fancy, really. I don't drink on the job." She gave him a pointed look, and he cleared his throat, wondering perhaps if he was a little too predictable. "Also, I like to work," she continued. "I don't like having nothing to do; luckily enough for me, that's never the case. And I don't like going to bed, 'cause that's a whole eight hours of just lying around. I wanna be more productive 'an that. Also, I don't have a favorite color. I think they're all equal. I think that's about it."
"So... All you do is work and drink and you don't have a favorite color?" He was skeptical, to say the least. He also suspected that her admission to liking hard work was simply a ploy to get on his good side.
"Whatsamatter, am I too boring for you?"
"It's not a lot to go on," he clarified.
"Well, if you ask me the only real way to gauge whether someone's trustworthy or not is to get to know them as a person. And that kinda thing can't really be done with a quick summary." She eyed him for a moment, as if he were the one on the spot. "You gonna keep washing, or are you done?"
"I'm not done yet." He scrubbed at the dishes a little more vigorously. "What would you say is your worst trait?"
"What'd I say? That's a dumb question. Whadda you think's my worst trait?"
"You want me to pick just one?"
She laughed at that, to his utter bewilderment. "You're pretty funny for someone with no sense of humor."
"That wasn't a joke," he huffed. "Why must you laugh at everything?"
"'Cause everything is funny, if you look at it the right way." She began pacing the room, and Shifu suspected that she would begin some sort of diatribe about optimism or some other nonsense. "Y'see, I have a sense of humor that most people find unusual. Some have described it as infantile, vile, and heartless. But it all comes down to self-awareness. For instance, say someone trips and falls in a crowded place; everyone who sees it wants to laugh, but they don't, and not outta common courtesy. They don't laugh 'cause they're worried about what other people'll thinka 'em. That ain't a problem for me, 'cause I already know that nobody's gonna like me either way. So what I think is funny, everyone else finds funny, too; they just don't wanna admit it. Y'see what I'm getting at?" She paused near the door and crossed her arms, apparently waiting for a response.
He would be lying if he said that he didn't find her answer intriguing. "You've really thought this through, haven't you?" he mused.
"Yep! It's all about the collective id, y'know what I mean?" She grinned, then pushed the door open and walked out.
It took him a good few seconds to realize that she wasn't coming back. He stared down into the wash basin as the bitter realization that he'd been tricked into doing the dishes for her settled in. He wondered if she was more clever than she seemed or if it had just been a last-minute decision to leave him there, elbow-deep in filthy dish water.
He dropped what he was doing and trudged out into the hallway; Lin was nowhere in sight, of course. He doubted that she had returned to her room, so he walked out of the barracks and took a look around; he still couldn't see her anywhere. There was no way that she could have disappeared so quickly; he had seen the way she moved, and even at her fastest she wouldn't have been able to get out of his line of sight by then. He would have gone to search for her, but was stopped by a small cough that sounded behind him. He turned around to see Tai Lung standing in the doorway.
"Master, have you seen Lin?" He stood up a little straighter and crossed his arms behind his back.
Shifu tried to keep his eye from twitching at the fact that the first thing Tai Lung had said to him was an inquiry about Lin. "I am sure that whatever you needed from her, I could help you with just as well." He paused to reconsider the offer. "Well, unless you wanted dessert."
"It's not that," Tai Lung replied quickly. "I just wanted to... Well, never mind."
"No, wait a minute. I mean it, whatever you needed Lin for I can help you with." He refused to believe that there was anything he couldn't do better than such a brash, inept person.
"It's nothing like that. I just wanted to talk."
"I could talk."
Tai Lung briefly looked absolutely horrified, but had the good sense to quickly mask his reaction. "No, thank you, Master."
Shifu frowned at the reaction to his offer; he was most certainly capable of carrying on a casual conversation. "No, really. I can sit down and... And... I don't know, whatever the latest slang word for talking is."
"It's fine," he answered quickly. "I just wanted to ask Lin a question. About the vegetable garden. That's it."
Shifu somehow doubted that the vegetable garden was the only thing on his son's mind. "You're sure? Because I could-"
"Thanks, but I gotta go meditate some more." Tai Lung practically ran back inside, just to avoid him.
Shifu had to admit that he was jealous. Tai Lung normally didn't take too well to others, and yet in a mere month he was acting as if Lin was his closest friend. Shifu honestly couldn't say that he remembered the last time they had actually sat down and had a conversation, but that was the price he had to pay. He strove to be a good father and an even better master, and in the process he sacrificed a few smaller things. Trivial things like long meals and conversations, yet these were the tools Lin had used to gain Tai Lung's trust. And the closer Lin got to Tai Lung, the more out of touch Shifu felt.
Despite all of this, though, he would be lying if he said his life hadn't been that much more challenging since Lin had arrived- and he liked a good challenge.
Lin scratched herself and yawned as she stirred some rice porridge on the stovetop. She'd managed to find a decent dive bar the night before, and had ended up staying until closing. It was probably the first time since she'd left Shanghai that she'd been able to just sit around and enjoy being a barfly. She grinned to herself as she remembered those relatively carefree days; maybe she'd get lucky and get into a bar fight before she had to leave the valley, just like the old days.
She turned as she heard someone enter, and her smile widened when she saw Shifu sitting down at the table. "G'morning!" she greeted cheerfully.
"Is it, now?" he asked tightly, shooting a glare her way.
She suppressed the urge to laugh and spooned some porridge into a couple of bowls. "So how'd the dishes go last night?" she asked casually, placing a bowl in front of him.
Shifu's eye twitched at the question, and Lin snorted in amusement at the sight. "Where were you?" He dug into the porridge while somehow managing to glare at her sideways.
She sat down next to him with her own bowl and let out a long sigh. "Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, y'know?"
"And where would that be, exactly? Prison?"
"Nope, but close. A bar." She took great pleasure in the sour look on Shifu's face when she told him that.
"You tricked me into doing the dishes for you so you could go out drinking." He sounded pretty angry about it.
"Good cooks never clean," she replied casually. "Besides, it ain't all bad. Kinda like meditation, am I right?" She elbowed him playfully, which he didn't react to at all. "I toldya already, you gotta keep on your toes around me."
"You like to play petty games, do you?" He stood up abruptly and brushed himself off. "Very well. However, if you think you can suck me into your plot, then think again."
Lin furrowed her brow at the statement, thoroughly confused by Shifu's outright paranoia. "I have a plot?"
"Yes!" he snapped. "And just you remember: I'm watching you."
"I thought that was illegal."
"You're missing the point," he snapped.
"No, I'm not. It's just that after a while you're not really intimidating anymore." She took a bite of her porridge and raised her eyebrows at him as she chewed. "I mean, I already know that all your threats are completely empty. You're just blowing smoke."
He glared at her.
"Plus, you're kinda fluffy."
"That's it. I don't have to sit here and take this from you." He abruptly stood up from the table and walked out of the kitchen; he didn't even take his dishes to the wash basin like he usually did.
"Well that was easy," Lin muttered to herself. She often marveled at how easy it was to get rid of Shifu, once she found just the right buttons to push. It was a skill she had developed and honed over the years, mostly thanks to her many siblings.
Tai Lung interrupted her thoughts when he walked into the kitchen, already biting into a ripe peach. "Hey, Lin. Did you just piss Master Shifu off again?" He plopped down in his seat, groaning at the sight of the rice porridge.
"First of all, I don't think kids are allowed to say 'pissed off,' but I'm not entirely sure. And second, rice porridge is good for you. Third, Shifu thinks I'm plotting against him."
"Yeah, he does that sometimes." He shrugged. "You'll get used to it."
"Y'know, it figures that outta everyone in this whole valley, I end up working for the one crazy paranoid kung fu fighting raccoon in the whole bunch."
"He's a red panda."
"Yeah, whatever." She leaned back in her seat and sighed. "Doesn't he realize that when he does that kinda stuff he's only making things more fun for me?" She realized as she spoke that she was probably a little too easily amused.
"Master Shifu doesn't think about fun," Tai Lung said matter-of-factly, and leaned over his porridge to sniff at it. "In case you haven't noticed by now."
"And yet he's getting so good at providing me with entertainment." She finished up the last of her porridge and pointedly raised her eyebrows at Tai Lung.
He grudgingly began to eat, and spoke with his mouth full. "Don't go getting yourself fired," he warned. "I mean, Master Shifu already wants you gone enough as it is, so I wouldn't give him any good excuses, if I was you."
Lin snorted at the warning; she wondered what Tai Lung would say if he knew that Shifu had just begged her to stay the other night. "Don't worry, I'll be careful," she reassured him.
He nodded at her with a contemplative expression that was, as usual, way too mature for him. "So where were you last night?" He took a huge bite of porridge, despite his earlier disdain.
"Nowhere special," she sighed. "Just some seedy bar."
"Aw, man. How come you didn't tell me?"
"'Cause you're not allowed to drink, that's how come!" She narrowed her eyes at him, frowning. "Y'know, sometimes I wonder about you. You act all goody two-shoes, but I think-"
"Gotta go!" he interrupted nervously, jumping up from the table. "Sorry, but I can't be late for training!" He rushed out of the room, leaving Lin to suspiciously contemplate his true nature on her own.
She supposed that even kids like Tai Lung shared that universal juvenile desire to get into trouble. Or maybe, just maybe, she was a bad influence. She didn't think so, though. She doubted anyone, even a kid, was influenced at all by her.
Well, her best role model as a child was a mean old woman and she'd turned out okay, so she supposed that Tai Lung would be alright with her hanging around for a couple of months. Besides, the kid was way too nice. He needed to mean up a little, as her grandmother would have put it. Lin sighed to herself, and as she stared at the dirty dishes her thoughts wandered back to Shifu. "Where is that sucker when I need him?"
A/N: And there ya go! Hope you all noticed the little tribute to Cheers in there. I have about half of chapter 12 written already, so expect that one to actually be on time for once. (I hope). I'm not sure what else to say about the next chapter... There's a rainstorm? Yeah. It's pretty fitting, considering the current weather (it's been raining for two weeks). Well, see y'all later.
