Day 26

[sendthemback]

Tea and awkwardness.

Words required: 43,342
Words achieved: 46,693
Words of today: 1,738



"I can leave," Keith answers, his eyes dropping from her face to her hands. She's curling them together, her hands running up from her wrists to her elbows until she's leaning down over her knees. He frowns. "Your stomach still hurt?"

"A little, but it's not that. I just... Do you ever feel like your limbs don't belong to you?"

"All the time," Keith answers. "Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, remember?"

"Good point," Rachel says. Then, she grins. "Man, you got some bum genes, didn't you?"

Keith smiles in spite of himself. "And you apparently missed out on all of the ones for politeness, I see."

"Like you're one to talk," Rachel snorts. "Mr. Shouty."

"'Mr. Shouty?' Seriously? That's your best insult?"

Rachel thwacks him on the shoulder. He grunts and tries to look offended. "Sorry, Periodic Limb Movement."

"I can't hit you back, can I?"

"Nope," Rachel grins.

Keith sighs. "Maybe I will take some tea. With a lake of bourbon in it."

"Are you saying I'm driving you to drink?" Rachel asks as she stands up.

"No, but everything else is." Keith follows her back into the kitchen. "I can get it. You do tea weirdly, anyway."

"I do tea efficiently," Rachel says. "I hate waiting for the water to boil. It's boring."

"I guess that makes sense," he says, distracted by the carton of tea she's left on the counter. He picks it up and looks it over. "Do you have anything caffeinated."

"I do."

"Where is it?"

"In the cabinet." She smirks, crossing her arms over her chest when he looks back at her. "You said you could get it."

He smiles in spite of himself. "You're sure I can't hit you back?"

"95% sure. Guys can't hit girls. It's a rule."

Keith opens a door.

Rachel leans back against the refrigerator. "Other cabinet."

He shoots her a thanks for nothing look and swings open the remaining cabinet door. "And that remaining 5%?"

She watches him for a few seconds, taking in the way the roots through the shelves, pulling out one box and then another, before stuffing them both back in favor of a third. He doesn't seem to even notice that she's looking at him, and she kind of likes that, the casualness of his movements, the way he's starting to relax. He finds a mug without her help.

Then, she has to say it, just to see him go tense again. He twists back to the kettle, picking it up and shaking to listen for the water level, then turns on the burner.

"I guess the remaining 5% would be reserved for incidents of S&M," she nearly singsongs.

Keith jerks his attention back toward her. "What?"

"Spanking, flogging, I don't know..."

"Rachel!"

"Hmm?" she answers, leaning forward a little. "You asked."

"And you know that's not what I meant at all."

She shrugs. "So what if it isn't?"

"Then why would you say that?" Keith grunts. He opens the teabag and drops it into the cup.

"You were getting too comfortable."

Keith looks around the kitchen. Standing in the middle, he could easily touch both of the plain white walls that enclose the space. Still, it's never really felt cramped until right now. He focuses his eyes on the lone frying pan that hangs over the sink. It actually looks like it's been used before and he briefly wonders if maybe the last owners left it when they vacated over a year before.

"How could I possibly get too comfortable?"

"I'm not sure, but you looked like you were doing it." Rachel smirks and then slips back into the living room, grabbing her mug of lukewarm tea and chugging it down. Then, she steals a new bag out of the box Keith has chosen--oolong, sweet caffeine. She rips open the packet and then plunks it into her cup without rinsing it out.

"So, how's your comfort level now?" she asks, leaning in next to him on the counter.

He frowns. "I'm not sure, mostly because I'm not sure why you wouldn't want me to be comfortable."

"Oh, no, you can be comfortable, but not too comfortable..."

Keith realizes he's not going to get anywhere with this, so he gives up and changes the subject. "How are your alien limbs?"

"Better, I think." She leans away from the counter on her palms, stretching her arms and back. Keith watches her stomach and chest arch up and then slowly fall back. "I don't know. It's just been a strange day."

"It has," Keith answers. He steals a look at the tea kettle, listening to the water starting to boil. "Why did you run off like that, anyway? You could have at least told us what was going on."

"And what would you have done?" Rachel asks. "Would you have let me call her?" She shakes her head. "You two would have immediately rushed me and taken my phone away."

"And then?"

"I don't know."

"Did you really get all that much out of your little stunt?" he asks.

Rachel turns away from him, reaching for the nob on the stove, turning off the heat just as the kettle starts to whistle. Keith quickly regrets his use of the word 'stunt', but she doesn't seem to care, focusing instead on lifting the kettle and filling both of their cups. When she turns back to him, she has his cup in her hands and is wincing a little from the heat. He takes it from her by the handle with a nod and she grabs hers from the counter, trailing him back into the living room.

"There's sugar somewhere if you need it," she says. He shakes his head.

"And it wasn't a stunt," Rachel continues. "I didn't plan to do that, it just happened. And please don't tell me that's not an excuse, because I know and I've already heard it once today."

"I wouldn't, anyway," Keith answers. He sits back down on the couch, staring awkwardly at his cup.

Rachel sighs. "Ana. That's what I got out of my running off. She actually talked a little sense, I think. And then, she got her revenge on me in the form of quite the nightmare."

"Really?" Keith asks, frowning as he turns toward her. "What did you dream?"

Rachel shakes her head. "I don't want to talk about it and you don't want to hear about it."

"I'd hear about it if you wanted me to."

"Then I guess I don't want you to."

"Okay."

Rachel blows on her tea and then lifts the mug to her lips.

"It's been maybe a minute, Rach..."

"I know. It's my thing. I don't like to wait."

"You don't?" Keith asks. "I've always pegged you as more patient than that."

"I don't like to wait for tea, then," she corrects.

"But other things?"

"Sometimes."

Keith smiles. "What sort of other things?"

"I don't know, Keith." She lets out another breath over her cup. "The train. I like waiting for the train. I can read a book or mess around on my computer and there's nowhere I have to be and nothing I have to do but wait for the train."

Keith hums. "Why can't you just wait for tea in the same way?"

"Tea's not taking me anywhere. The train is a process, it's a means to an end. You put the train into your schedule, or work your schedule around the train. Tea, on the other hand, well, you don't schedule tea. Tea gets in the way, stops you from doing other things."

"Some people schedule tea," Keith offers. "A lot of people, do, actually. Whole countries have morning and afternoon tea as a part of every day life..."

Rachel laughs. "But not this country." She lowers her voice, playing at serious. "Not my country."

"Well then, I'd like to remind you that the majority of your country also doesn't wait for trains on a regular basis."

"Their loss," Rachel shrugs.

Keith smiles and tugs at the string on his teabag, looking for a good place to put it once he's taken it out of the mug.

"Just leave it," Rachel says.

"What? Why?"

"Because you can."

"But then my tea will steep too long."

"No such thing."

Keith gently elbows Rachel's side. "That's a lie."

"YOU LIE?" Rachel laughs. "And that's definitely a 95% violation."

Keith snorts. "I'd threaten to show you a real violation but, one, we're holding cups of hot liquid, and, two, you might report me."

"Aw, I'd never report you," Rachel says, leaning in to briefly nuzzle Keith's shoulder.

"I'm not sure if what you just said is touching or terrifying," Keith answers.

Rachel squints and leans away, cocking her head a little. "Drink your tea before it gets cold."

"Before it over-steeps?" Keith teases.

"No, before it gets cold."

"So," Keith says after a few minutes of silent sipping. "What were you planning on doing before I barged into your life and ruined your girl's night in?"

"Oh, you know, bubble bath, nail painting, maybe one of those facials that involves cucumbers."

"Whoa, now, that last bit was a little too much information!" Keith grins.

"I will hit you again," Rachel warns. "And hard this time."

"So you won't report me, but you will fight back?"

Rachel grimaces. "The battered woman metaphor has left the station, Keith."

"Sorry." He turns back to his tea. "Must have missed it."

Rachel's grimace shifts into a smile. "If you spent more time waiting for trains, maybe you'd have seen it go."

She takes one more drink and then sets her mug down, stretching up and down, but not out, keeping her body away from his.

"What were you really going to do?" Keith asks.

"I don't know, actually. I thought I was going to start doing homework for Monday, but then Ana suggested that maybe I should take some time off, so.. Oh, hell, I'd probably still start reading up, anyway."

"You could still do that. I mean, I could still leave, or read or watch TV while you worked."

"Nah," Rachel answers. "In all honesty, I really don't feel like it any more."

"So, what do you want to do?"

Rachel picks up her cup again and takes another drink.