Notes:
Fluffy but sweet like salted caramel – a little salt to balance the sweetness.
White
It was a conspiracy, that was the only way to explain it. His valet had to be involved, Tony loved a bit of skullduggery, and if Green wasn’t involved in some way he’d be surprised. But though he always pondered, theorised and made his comments and observations within the earshot of the suspected parties, Colonel White never put too much effort into unearthing the culprits, much rather allowing the game to continue.
He couldn’t accept gifts from his staff out of concerns of favouritism. But when things simply appeared in his quarters, well, he couldn’t refuse it if he didn’t know who had given it to him, and he was known to enjoy a good cup of tea. He picked up the latest offering left by his tea set: a paper bag of Russian Caravan tea and a jar of mānuka honey to sweeten it with.
Opening the bag of black tea, the woodsy, smokey scent promised to be a real treat. Charles weighed the small bag in his hand – plain brown paper with a standard plastic-coated wire strip to hold it closed, the label and instructions had been printed in a neat and precise hand. He spent the time the kettle took to boil carefully examining the loops and lines of the letters, in particular the ‘a’, ‘r’, ‘g’, ‘y’ and ‘s’ for any hints of the author, but they had been careful to ensure their graphology was bland and anonymous. That instantly eliminated Fawn, Ochre and Magenta; they all had atrocious handwriting at the best of times. Unless, of course, they had asked someone else to write it for them.
The kettle boiled, he placed a tea strainer in his cup, measured out a heaping teaspoon of the dried leaves and poured water over them. He set a timer for them to steep and resealed the bag, picking up the jar of dark amber honey instead. This one was both easier and harder: it was a commercially packaged product, but with the popularity of the honey, it was now a world wide export product with mānuka farms planted in several countries in direct competition with the New Zealand apiarists. It could have been purchased almost anywhere. Playing a hunch, he checked the product information. Ah, there it was! Packaging date just two weeks ago, and made and packaged in Aotearoa. To be so fresh it had to have been purchased there, and there was a very short list of people who had been anywhere near that country in the required timeframe.
The timer buzzed and he took the tea strainer out, dumped the leaves in the bin and put the strainer aside to wash. A heaping teaspoonful of fragrant honey went into the cup and Charles carried it over to his couch, intending to enjoy his treat with a good book. “I’ll make a comment in Grey and Blue’s earshot later,” Charles decided as he perused his shelves. “They picked very well.”
・--・--・--・
Ochre
Seated at the desk tucked in the back of the Officers’ Lounge, Ochre rubbed his eyes, peered at the printed out reports in front of him, then groaned and rubbed his eyes again in the vain hope it would make his brain do the reading thing. There were days that being neurodivergent sucked, and today was one of them. He’d already been tired before starting this, now it was like the words were starting to move around on the page, and it really didn’t help that the guy was using every military report-writing trick in the book to polish up his performance at their expense.
“My brains are gonna start dripping out my ears,” Rick groaned and resisted the urge to gently beat his head on the desk and see if some percussive maintenance might work.
“What’s that?” Blue asked from his position at the computer terminal, looking up something.
“That trigger-happy general from the Frost Line Defence System.” Ochre frowned. “The Colonel wants a more accurate account on the Frost Line attack for the World Council. I’m supposed to go through the general’s report and annotate it with corrections from our report. I’ve been working on it, but...” He made a frustrated noise and gestured at the paper.
“Here, let me help.” Blue crossed the room and took the files off him. “I’ll read out his report, you tell me what doesn’t sound right and I’ll make notes,” he said as he sat, finding a clean page amongst the papers.
“Sounds good to me,” Rick smiled wearily. “Hey, lemme make us coffees before we get stuck in.”
“And that sounds really good to me.” Adam grinned back.
・--・--・--・
Magenta
“Keep your fists up!”
Scarlet’s harsh voice echoed through the gym, cutting through the whaps of padded leather gloves against a foam and rubber sparring vest. Another smack of contact and a grunt out of Magenta, then Scarlet continued with his lesson. “You’re dragging your left foot and leaving too much weight on it,” Scarlet snapped, “and that will let someone...” He moved, Magenta registered a foot alongside his, hands grabbing him, then the world went topsy-turvy and the breath wooshed out of his lungs as he ended up on his back, Scarlet’s heel touching his throat. “... Do that.” Point made, Scarlet moved his foot out of the way and crouched down well out of Magenta’s personal space to let him get his breath back.
“Eff... you...” Pat gasped out the censored cuss, a habit they’d all gotten into since no one could anticipate when the Colonel would show up.
“No thank you,” Paul grinned back, stripping off his sparring gloves.
This exchange was also a habit – a way of letting Scarlet know when someone had had enough of being chased around the ring - and it dated right back to their days at Koala when Scarlet had realised that Magenta and Brown didn’t have the same level of hand to hand combat that the others did and set about bringing it up to a more acceptable level. It hadn’t taken long to remedy things – Scarlet was a very good teacher and ‘don’t get dead’ was a very good motivator – but after they graduated, Pat had wanted to keep it up and Paul had happily obliged him.
With a wince and a groan, Pat peeled himself off the mat and rubbed at his ribs. Scarlet had been pulling his blows so he probably wouldn’t be too bruised up, but the guy could hit. “So,” Pat threw on a confident grin, “what are we gonna do about the left foot thing?”
“Well,” Paul drawled and shifted to sit cross-legged, “Harmony gives me a shin kick every time I do something like that. We could give that a shot,” he teasingly suggested, absently rubbing at his own shin in remembered pain.
Pat winced in sympathy. The Angel was lightning quick and deceptively strong – which many opponents had found out the hard way – and 99.999% of the times Scarlet and Harmony sparred, it was full contact with no padding or protection except on knuckles, teeth and skulls. “Yeah, I’ll pass on that.”
“I don’t blame you.” Paul looked thoughtful. “You don’t drag your right, so let’s try making you fight left-handed again, that helped even out your technique last time.”
“Yeah, that might do it,” Pat nodded. When Paul gestured for it, he held out his nearer hand so Paul could undo the straps on his sparring gloves for him. “Thanks, Paul.”
“You’re welcome.”
・--・--・--・
Fawn
With what felt like the mother of all cricks in the neck, probably the worst case of coffee-breath he’d ever had to go right along with the post-surgery BO, and a thumping dehydration headache pounding away on the inside of his skull, Fawn peeled himself off his desk and blearily looked around his dimly lit office.
“What time’s it...?” He groped for his watch, found it in the dish on the corner of the desk where he usually left it when he had to scrub for surgery, and squinted until he could sort-of read the face. “... Three-something... huh.”
Not really up to processing that fact just yet, Fawn scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to draw his brain into something approaching functionality.
Today had been bad.
The mission had gone every direction except the one they wanted it to; he had three captains and an Angel in post-op, and he could swear he’d only sat down a moment ago to rest his aching feet after a marathon session in theatre. Evidently, his body and brain had had other ideas and he’d passed out on his desk for a good hour or two.
Sitting back to stretch in place, Fawn felt something shift and slide off his back. “Eh?” He turned and looked to see the thick folds of the plush blue blanket they kept for visitors who wouldn’t leave. Some kind soul had obviously snuck in and draped it over him while he was dead to the world. Warmed by the gesture, Fawn picked it up before it could fall onto the floor, and that was when he noticed the banana, two bottles – one of water and the other of electrolyte solution – and a little medication cup sitting beside the dish for his watch. Picking up the cup and peering at the contents, he recognised the four pills as two ibuprofen and two paracetamol.
“Message received, whoever you are,” Fawn murmured as he reached for the banana – he needed to eat before taking the ‘brufen. “ ‘Doctor, don’t forget to heal thyself too’.”
・--・--・--・
Scarlet
Adam could read a room like regular people could read a newspaper, and tracking his people through a milling crowd had been second nature for years now. Compared to the gatherings he’d grown up with, navigating the yearly garden party fundraiser the Metcalfes put on for the local hospital was child’s play.
Having ensured he maintained close proximity to his friend, he was moving as soon as he sensed Paul’s building discomfort. Old Bostonian charm let him cut into the conversation with a friendly smile and a “Sorry to interrupt,” to the garrulous old biddy who’d cornered Paul. He used “Paul, your mom, ah, sorry, your mum needs you,” to provided cover, the little touch of humour deployed to ease the escape. A guiding arm completed the extraction, slipping between the enemy and the target as a physical barrier to keep her from chasing after them as he led Paul away.
“Thank you so very, very much,” Paul murmured, sotto-voiced as they wended their way through the knots of people filling Longheath’s grounds. “I couldn’t figure out a polite way of getting away from her.”
“No problem,” was Adam’s answer, slightly distracted as he kept a sharp eye out for anyone else who might waylaid them on their way out of the crowd. “What was she wanting?”
“She’s one of the village gossips, after fresh fodder,” Paul replied, dodging around one of the local teens who’d volunteered to act as wait staff. “Trouble is she’s one of the social queens around here and she knows it. Dad and I keep telling Mum to leave her off the guest list but if she doesn’t get an invite, she’ll make no end of trouble for Mum. Mum says she can handle her, but...”
“I getcha.” Adam nodded. Mary Metcalfe was formidable – she had to be, she raised Paul – but he completely understood Paul’s desire for his mother to not have to deal with any more nonsense than she absolutely had to. He knew this kind of social dance all too well and the sorts of trouble that misstepping could bring.
He also knew exactly how wound up Paul was getting in this environment: lots of chattering people and many of them strangers, music, bunting and banners flapping in the breeze, a large, open area with lots of cover around it and very little inside it, and a veritable smorgasbord of soft targets. Yes, General Metcalfe had ‘borrowed’ a few people from his base to ‘assist’ with things, but still... “Time to sweep through the forest?” he quietly suggested, knowing how a perimeter check would soothe his friend’s nerves in more ways than one.
“S.I.G.” Paul nodded and indicated a wire fence intersected by a wooden stile. “This way.”
・--・--・--・
Grey
“What do you need me to do?”
Those words were exactly what he wanted to hear right now, so much better than the well meaning and best intentioned ‘let me help’. That phrase – specifically from people who made it a command, not a question – conjured up the old memories of the bad days in the spinal ward, of visitors getting impatient and trying to do things for him, instead of giving him the time he needed to make his body obey him.
“Just... need a minute.”
“S.I.G.”
Lying on the floor beside the pool, his eyes shut as he breathed through the pain of a nerve that didn’t want to do its job right now and waiting for his meds to kick in, Brad felt air move, heard feet on wet tiles and knew that Seymour was posting himself to watch the door and chase off anyone who happened across the scene.
The privacy to not be the stoic, stalwart Captain Grey was such a blessing right now.
Finally the pain ebbed. When it felt safe enough to move, Brad carefully flexed his fingers and toes, then his legs and arms, then eased himself up into a sitting position and stayed there for a moment to let his body adjust to the change of altitude before he went any further – he’d gotten up too quickly one too many times and had learned the hard way.
“Need a hand up?” Seymour asked, coming over from his position at the door.
“Yeah, thanks.” Brad reached up to take the offered hand.
“Not a problem,” Seymour smiled back.
・--・--・--・
Blue
Sitting at the breakfast table of the Svenson family home, Adam stifled his groan as he heard his father start in again on his favourite hobby of talking to his siblings about what was happening in the family firm and working in comments about ‘wasted potential’ and similar things in that vein.
“I’ll just grit my teeth and bear it, Adam decided, glancing at Paul. “They did do us a favour after all. Pity Mom’s not here, she would have told them to knock it off and we’d have been able to have a civil breakfast.”
They’d been in Boston for a mission yesterday and a once-in-a-decade storm had hit the area just before they were due to fly out. Faced with the option of sleeping in the airport or seeing if his family could put them up for the night, Adam had reluctantly settled on going to the house. Their mission had been hard enough, he’d argued, and Paul had been too exhausted to put up much of a fight about it. Luckily they’d worn civvies for the mission so they’d avoided having to figure out how to do a last minute shopping run, but a rather petty part of himself had wanted to break a whole heap of rules and show up in uniform just to shut up his father.
“It probably won’t work, but I can dream.” Adam stirred some cream into his coffee and did his best to ignore the more pointed barbs from the other end of the table.
The clink of silverware being put down drew his attention and Adam looked over as Paul pushed his chair back from the table, his features set into a neutral expression that really wasn’t.
It was fascinating how much could be said without speaking a single word.
Moving with the deliberate grace of a panther, Paul uncurled himself from his chair and stood up, shoulders squared and chin lifted. The extra half inch of height from the thick-soled combat boots he was wearing helped – all the Svensons were tall and it brought him up into their range – but there was just something about Paul right now that made him seem that much bigger as he silently reminded the Svenson patriarch that he was both present and listening.
Adam smiled behind his cup of coffee as the far end of the table fell silent. How on earth anyone could put a sense of ‘I am displeased’ into the act of gathering up one’s used dishes and taking them to the sink, he’d never know, but it worked like a charm.
His father’s topic change to the upcoming Christmas party wasn’t exactly graceful, but Adam decided to not draw attention to it. Paul had won this round, there wasn’t any point in rubbing it in.
・--・--・--・
Green
The quiet was the tough part.
Seymour shook his head to himself as he walked down the halls of Cloudbase, meandering with no real destination in mind. When he was growing up, he’d have done almost anything to get some peace and quiet in his very full household. Being used to chaos, noise, and a near total lack of privacy had helped with the transition to WASP, but the shift over to Spectrum had been something of a culture shock for him, what with the private room and a bathroom all to himself that his rank and position now accorded him.
He had the peace and quiet he’d longed for and he loved it, but at the same time he missed the company and noise he’d lived with for so much of his life.
“Be careful what you wish for, I guess,” was his thought as he wandered in the rough direction of the theatre.
“Ah, there you are!”
Seymour looked up as Pat caught up to him, comfortably dressed in sneakers, jeans and a New York Yankees tee shirt. “What is it?”
“Poker night in Blue’s quarters tonight, at 1930, the others want to know if you want in,” Pat explained as he fell into step. “We’ve got him, me, Ochre and Symphony lined up.”
Seymour felt a broad smile cross his face. “I’ll be there. What’s the currency this time?”
“The shop’s got chocolate coins in, everyone’s bringing two bags of that and some snacks. I’ve got chips, Ochre’s getting nuts, Blue’s bringing peanut butter pretzels, and Symphony’s getting crackers.”
“I’ll bring soda,” Seymour promised. “Thanks for the invitation.”
“No problem.” Pat grinned and headed off.
His spirits much buoyed, Seymour turned to go in the direction of the base shop. He had supplies to pick up.