Author's Note: We're still visiting Ovid Outpost so beware innuendo. This is for the ladies at TCWWU – you know who you are. Sorry, but I just couldn't title it 'Countertop'.

Smile

Taste.

Nadeh's hands were balled into fists, gripping the front of his shirt and holding him down at lip-level. Said lips were smushed gloriously into his, and as Jir's hands found the small of her back and pressed her closer to him, she tugged him (and his lips) down further towards her (and her lips).

Then, abruptly, the kiss ended, and his lips were no longer smushed with her lips, which was allowing her to twist them to the side in a smirk, which was accompanied by an arched brow and a tilt of the head. "Now do you believe me, Jir?"

Jir blinked. Then he blinked again. Nadeh's brow arched a little bit higher, and the smirk became more pronounced as she waited for a response about something he'd entirely forgotten about all of a sudden. Short-term memory loss was, he'd discovered, an unfortunate side effect of making out with Nadeh (as were the heart palpitations and the occasional extra excitement between his legs). Fortunately the memory loss remained short term, and he flushed as he remembered.

"But I didn't get you anything," he said, still feeling a little guilty. Nadeh didn't give him random make out sessions in quasi-public locations if she was mad, but he was pretty sure he'd read somewhere (on the holonet, even if it wasn't always right) that you were supposed to do something special for your girlfriend on her life day.

Nadeh's smirk softened into a smile, and she tugged him down again to kiss him on the cheek. "You're sweet, you know that?" (He did. He was also strange and funny and frequently weird, but apparently he managed a consistent sense of sweetness.) She released the front of his shirt and patted him once on the chest. "But did you even know it was my life day today, Jir?"

He scratched the back of his head. They'd been dating three whole months now. The holonet (which was not always right) said he was supposed to learn everything he could about her so that they had "a deep mutual understanding and appreciation for each other" (according to SentientSingles . holo). Nadeh frequently had very different ideas about what he should and shouldn't do than the holonet though, so in cases like these, he'd figured out it was best to just ask. "Shouldn't I have?"

Nadeh's head tilted to the other side, and she shook her head. "Jir, we haven't talked about it before. Besides, I have no idea when your life day is."

She was grinning up at him, with that particular look in her eyes she got when she was flirting with him or trying to cheer him up with a joke. He hung his head. He knew when her life day was now, but he couldn't tell her when his was. "I don't know, either."

Her brows furrowed and her grin faded for a long moment. When it returned, it was small, and her hands came up and cupped his face, and pulled it down towards hers, and he got another kiss, this time on the forehead. "Well, then today's your lucky day. You're helping me make my life day cake. Iridonian style. None of that Coruscanti frosted stuff."

So that was why she'd dragged him into the mess hall kitchen. He liked cake, even if the mess hall cake was kind of dry. They'd both had the late shift, and it was the small hours of the morning for everyone else; even the kitchen droids were still recharging in their outlets.

There was an array of items set out on one of the countertops near the back of the kitchen, and Jir found himself tugged towards it by a hand. "It took two months for all this to get here," Nadeh explained, waving a hand across the display. The bowls were filled with what looked like good machine oil (some golden brown liquid), rusted bolts (nuts?) and a couple with of some sort of powdery white stuff that looked suspiciously like the detergent he usually used to scrub scorch off starfighters.

Nadeh was picking up the smallest of the bowls, filled with what looked like little brown pellets of dehydrated nutrients. She held it up to her nose, closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the pellets as though it were the best smelling thing ever. Then she tilted her head towards him with that look on her face – the sly one where she was up to something. "Karyophyllon," she said, and picked up one pellet very delicately, still with the wicked look in her eyes, and held it up to his lips. From here, he could smell it too; spicy, with a rich, earthy aroma, like the glittering rock formations near the outpost, when they would take morning walks together. "Open," she urged, and he gave her a skeptical look – and opened his mouth, letting her pop the pellet in. Her fingers lingered on his lips while the karyophyllon literally melted on his tongue, dissolving into powder. It tasted like it smelled, rich and heady, with a strangely pleasing bit of burn that made his eyes widen. It was a shocking change from the tasteless food he was used to eating here at the outpost; the droids cooked everything into a bland (nutrient rich!) mush.

Nadeh popped one into her mouth too, chuckling up at him, then set the little bowl aside. "Karyophyllon," she repeated, tapping the top of the mound of pellets, then tapped the rims of each of the other bowls in turn, pointing them out. "Flour. Sugar. Sweet oil. Wuli nuts. The nuna eggs and blue milk are in the conservator."

There were several knives of various sizes stuck to the wall behind the counter on a magnetic strip, and Nadeh reached over and pulled one off, inspected it for a moment, then nodded. "The wuli nuts need to be chopped up. Think you can handle it?" she asked, offering him the handle of the knife.

Well, he'd learned how to wield vibroknives on Kamino, this couldn't be too different. Jir took the knife and stared at it while Nadeh bent down and pulled something rectangular and flat out from under the counter. "Cutting board." She set it down on top of the polished durasteel countertop with a thud. "The nuts need to be chopped finely." She took the bowl of nuts and upturned it on the cutting board, then mimed rocking the knife across the mound. "Cut them like this. It's not a vibroknife, Jir. You don't stab nuts or slash at them. Give it a try. Slowly."

Jir mimicked Nadeh's motions, holding the handle firm but loose (just like Kamino) but with one hand lightly over the blunt edge of the blade (definitely not like Kamino) and pressed down. The nuts made a dull crinkling sound as he cut through a few of them, and he looked at Nadeh for confirmation that this was the correct procedure. She grinned and nodded, and he pressed down again, cutting through another handful of wuli nuts, then again and again until Nadeh turned away and started mixing the other items into a bigger bowl, stirring them together while he chopped.

It was steady work, and quiet except for the sounds of chopping, mixing, and the occasional noise of a bowl hitting the top of the counter or the conservator door opening and closing as Nadeh got something out of it. Jir smiled as he slowly reduced the pile of caf-colored nuts to a heap of soft, almost caramel colored fluff. So this was how things got turned into food. Usually he only saw it freeze-dried, as (nutrient rich!) mush, or dehydrated into cubes for easy storage on a utility belt. He was actually making food. With Nadeh. He snuck a look at her, pouring blue milk into the bowl, then picking up a spoon and stirring it with an expert flick of the wrist. Her hair was blonde again, currently with red streaks. It'd been blonde for an entire month now (albeit with various colored streaks and patterns in it) and he had a sneaking suspicion it was because he'd mentioned he liked it blonde best (though she was cute with pink, green, and blue hair too). There was a flour smudge on her face, across her right cheek, and he reached out and rubbed at it with his thumb. The gesture earned him a fresh grin, then a quick kiss on his fingertips as he started to withdraw his hand.

Three months ago, he had no idea how many ways (or places) two people could kiss each other. Sometimes it was secretive, like when they were on duty and inside a ship working on its engines, and sometimes it was all heated, like when they were in bed together, and sometimes it was like now, when the kiss was brief and small but made his gut squirm because it was just such a natural, comfortable way of touching her. And he was allowed to do it whenever he wanted. Maybe she'd be up for some tactical intimacy later…could you have tactical intimacy with cake? He liked Nadeh, he liked tactical intimacy, he liked cake…all three at once…..

"You okay, Jir?" Nadeh asked, and he realized he'd stopped chopping the nuts and was now chopping the countertop. Nadeh simply lifted a brow and gave him a wry, knowing look before she set down her bowl and spoon and placed a hand on his - the one still holding the knife – and eased the blade out of his hand. "I think that's enough chopping for now."

The wuli nuts were now mostly just a mound of fluff, but there were still a few bits and pieces that were large enough to pinch between fingers. Nadeh gave him a taste of the karyophyllon – he'd repeat the gesture. Picking up one of the larger chunks, he lifted it up to her mouth, offering it. Nadeh quirked a brow, smirked, set aside the knife, and opened her mouth for him to pop the piece in. He mimicked her earlier action, letting his fingers rest on her pink lips until she was done chewing, and she gave him a quick kiss to his fingertips when she was done.

Oh, definitely tactical intimacy tonight. He grinned. Nadeh smiled coyly.

"Think you can scrape the nuts into the batter?" Nadeh asked, turning again towards the countertop and tilting the bowl towards him. "Pick up the cutting board. Use the knife if you want, but push the nuts into the batter. Leave just a little out, we'll put them on top for garnish."

Since the nut-fluff wanted to go everywhere except the bowl when he tilted the board, Jir picked up the knife and used the edge to scrape the fluff into the bowl. Nadeh gave the batter a few more stirs, tucking the nuts in, then pulled a rectangular pan across the counter and poured the batter into it, scraping the edges of the bowl with a spoon.

She held the spoon in one hand, and the other was cupped a couple inches below it, apparently to catch any batter-dripping. "Want a taste?" she asked, and Jir leaned forward, opening his mouth for her to slip the spoon in.

The taste of the karyophyllon was still there, heady and aromatic, but now there were other tastes, of milk and sugar, of something he thought might be cinnamon; there were a few nubs of nut-fluff clinging to the spoon, and they had an ever so mild bitter tang that contrasted with the sweetness of the batter. Jir closed his eyes as Nadeh slipped the spoon back out of his mouth and set it aside in the bowl. "Good?" she asked sweetly, and Jir grinned down at her when he opened his eyes again.

"Very."

She laughed. "I thought you'd like it."

Maybe this would be a good time to start kissing her? No – she was already moving for the cake pan and then towards one of the ovens, and he did want baked cake even if the batter was tasty. A moment of programming later, she slid open the oven door and slipped the cake pan inside.

Nadeh then turned, not towards him, but again towards the sink, and started filling a measuring cup with water. "Could you get me a pot, Jir?" she asked as she moved back towards the counter, set the cup of water down, and reached for the bowl of sugar and what looked like good machine oil.

There was a line of pots stacked on another counter nearby, and Jir started rifling through the different sizes, finally settling on the largest one (since it could fit anything). "A small one!" Nadeh called over her shoulder just as he picked it up, and he traded it for the smallest one.

"This okay?" Jir asked as he offered it to her, and she nodded once.

"Thanks. That's perfect. Last thing we need to do is make the syrup. It gets poured over the top of the cake at the end to keep it moist." She poured the cup of water into the little pot, then measured out a cup of sugar, then used a spoon to scrape the machine oil looking stuff into the pot as well. Whatever it was, it wasn't actually machine oil – it poured slow and gloppy instead of smooth.

"What is it?"

Nadeh blinked once, then looked up at him in mild surprise. "Honey." Jir frowned. It was a type of food, clearly, but otherwise he didn't know about it. It wasn't something they usually served in the mess. Nadeh gave him a small smile and a nudge with her hip as she scraped a little bit of the extra onto the spoon. "There's an insect on Iridonia called a meli-bee. They make honey – meli – in hives they build inside trees and burrows. It's sweet. You'll like it."

Jir half expected her to feed him the extra honey, but she seemed to think otherwise, and instead set the bowl aside with a small grin, and instead picked up the pot and whisked herself towards the nearest stove, setting the pot with the honey, sugar and water onto a burner with a low flame. She had a small smirk on her face as she headed back to the counter, and she seemed to be resisting the urge to giggle.

That either meant something very bad was about to happen, or very good. Jir hoped it was good.

Nadeh placed her hands on the counter, then hopped up onto it, twisting herself around mid-leap so that she was sitting on top of it, her legs dangling. She picked up the bowl with the remnant of honey left in it, smiled at him, and waved a hand at him, urging him closer.

Was this some sort of new tactical intimacy opening sequence? There were so many, it was hard to memorize them all….

"I haven't had honey in ages," Nadeh sighed, fiddling with the spoon for a moment. "They don't let the droids cook anything good. We'll share, okay?"

That seemed fair, and honestly, it was her life day, she could have all of it if she wanted. Jir nodded, smiled and stood close to her, letting her knees rest up against his abdomen as he leaned forward, placing his hands on the counter on either side of her thighs. There was probably just enough of the honey for each of them to have a taste.

Jir didn't know if she was going to give him his share first, or take a mouthful for herself first, but he didn't expect her to clamp her mouth around the whole spoon and smile at him with the handle still sticking out of her mouth. When she pulled it out, it was completely free of any honey, and Nadeh had a wicked grin on her lips.

Before he could figure out what else was happening, Nadeh's hands were again grasping the front of his shirt and pulling him forward, and then her lips were slanting across his, and her tongue (oh, there was the honey!) was slipping across his (honey tasted like Nadeh…or did Nadeh taste like honey?) and Jir had about two seconds to register that honey was sweet and had a flowery, almost citrusy taste, before the heart palpitations and short-term memory loss began again, and he wrapped his arms around Nadeh's waist at about the same time one of her legs hooked around his, and then he couldn't remember very much anymore.

Sometime later, Jir discovered Iridonian honey cake was good. Iridonian honey cake with Nadeh was better. Iridonian honey cake with Nadeh and tactical intimacy was, however, definitely the best.

"Karyophyllon" is an Old Greek word meaning "cloves". Greek is standing in for Zabraki here. I don't recommend eating real-world cloves straight up, though (too strong)! The type of cake Nadeh is making is a Greek honey-walnut cake called karithopita and quite tasty. Also, not a birthday cake. But I wanted to write something different than the usual Western sugar-and-frosting birthday cake. Also – with honey. Meli is Greek for honey, as well.

Hope you enjoyed.

~Queen