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anoseforrottenapples · 3 years

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Scent Associations/Tea--Gavin Troy

@detectiverickitubbs

Troy never gave tea much thought until he moved to America. Maybe it was because everything else in his life became so strange after the move that he found himself turning to the drink more than he ever had when he lived in his home country. April Curtis guessed that, like his uncle Devon, Troy found a comforting sense of familiarity in the drink and offered him one of the spare teapots they kept at the Foundation (Devon was very particular about how he made his tea). Now just the scent of tea issuing forth from a teapot, the steam from the spout curling up into the air and shimmering in the light, was enough to start easing the tension knot that had taken permanent root in his right shoulder. The soothing effect was even better when he was in Mrs. Michael’s kitchen.

Mrs. Michaels had more-or-less adopted Troy as soon as her own son Murphy explained that Troy was both new to the US and had no living family left except Devon and a half-sister in London. Herself a native of Galway and her husband hailing originally from Manchester, it was easy to welcome their son’s new friend and partner at the Foundation. Troy knew the unofficial adoption was complete when, a few months after he met them, Murphy and he swung by for a visit and Mrs. Michaels’s set a unique teacup and saucer in front of him.

Everyone in the Michaels’s social sphere had their own teacup and saucer. Mrs. Michaels joked that she loved haunting thrift stores and had to do something with the teacups that she kept collecting. There was nothing haphazard about her choices though—she thoughtfully picked each one out so the patterns matched the personality of the recipient. Troy ran his finger along the edge of his saucer—the saucer and matching cup were white with black lines creating crisscross and squiggle patterns across the porcelain. Celtic-inspired knotwork patterns in gold covered Murphy’s saucer and cup, glinting in the light whenever he lifted the cup to take a sip. Picking up his own cup, Troy smiled a bit. Sitting in the warm kitchen, the heat off-setting the January drizzle outside, the spicy scent of cinnamon rolls cooking in the oven, the earthy smell of the tea in his cup…it all created a sensation of ‘home’ like he had never known before. Growing up in Causton, his house had always been half-empty, dark and cold when he came home from school hours before his mother got off work. Half of his after-school meals came from whatever leftovers he found while he waited for her to come home. The house, just like its residents, never fully recovered from Owen leaving them and starting a new family across town. His father’s absence left a gaping hole that Troy, at the tender age of eight, had no idea how to fill. Celia, for her part, had no interest in filling it. Instead, she became addicted to her own misery and allowed herself to sink down into the mire. Mrs. Michaels clattering something down on her counter startled Troy from his thoughts and he almost spilled tea over his tie. Murphy laughed and pushed a roll of paper towels toward Troy before standing up to help his mother. Settling his cup down on the saucer with a clink, Troy pulled a towel loose and dabbed at the spilled tea on the table. This household had its holes too…but the Michaels tried to keep these gaps confined to the china hutch in the corner instead of letting them consume the whole family. Wadding up the paper towel, Troy’s eyes moved toward the cabinet against the wall that displayed every designated teacup and saucer. The top shelf held a mixed air of museum-like preservation and sacrosanct holiness. Almost all the cups on that shelf had nameplates in front of them so no one would forget who they once belonged too. As often happened when he took a moment to observe the hutch, Troy’s attention moved to the last two cups in the line. One, a white cup with shamrocks around the edge, brimmed with dried forget-me-nots. A small medal box holding a Bronze Star, awarded posthumously, leaned against the cup. The small nameplate simply read ‘Patrick Michaels’. Troy silently filled in the rest of the details: killed in action on the Cambodia-Vietnam border in 1971. A second cup sat next to it, a blue one with birds painted over the porcelain in quick brushes of white paint. This one varied from all the others on the top shelf in that Mrs. Michaels had carefully set the cup upside down on the saucer like the cups on the lower shelves. In a voice that still trembled over a decade after she placed the cup there, she always stated that she wanted to keep it clean for Conall when he came home. There was no nameplate—to put a nameplate on the cup would be to admit a terrible truth. Murphy had told him the details though: Conall Michaels—Missing in Action, presumed captured or killed while fighting North Vietnamese troops in 1970. The steam rising from his cup tickled Troy’s nose and he inhaled the familiar scent. Tea had a healing element to it. How many cups of tea had he made and poured over the years? How many had he placed at his mother’s elbow when she got home from work? How many had he handed to survivors as they reeled from losing a loved one to sudden violence? How many had he made for himself, trying to decompress after a miserable day at work? He had definitely made more than five hundred cups already and there were probably hundreds more such cups coming in his future.

#Muse: Gavin Troy #You sent me prompts for headcanons associated with scents ages ago #My brain finally decided to just turn them into stand-alone short pieces soooo....here we are and here's the first one #Gavin Troy--Foundation for Law and Government Field Agent (Knight Rider/80s fandom verse)#Crossover with AVictimoftheJazz #Couldn't stop thinking about Troy interacting with Murphy and Murphy's family #and the sad backstory I gave Murphy's family!#So it stole this prompt and ran with it

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sittingoverheredreaming · 4 years

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This is an ENTIRELY self-indulgent fic I’ve written in between cases at work today, but it’s been awhile since I got a fic out on Michiru’s birthday, so, here’s 1500 words of Rei & Michiru BroTP

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Michiru had not said it was her birthday, but Rei knew. And Rei knew that Michiru knew she knew, of course Rei knew, so surely, this was a test. The invitation had been casual— “When should we next have tea together? How does the sixth sound?”— and there the challenge was set. What did you get a woman that had everything, without being so tacky as to ask her what she’d like, or mention her birthday at all?

Rei knew what Michiru thought of the Inners as a whole. That she’d still ask Rei to prove herself more than that was frustrating, but that did not mean Rei would not pass with flying colors. She was Rei Hino after all. She was unstoppable, and nothing so simple as a birthday could change that.

And yet. As she browsed through the third boutique she’d visited that morning, she felt the tiniest sliver of doubt. She was running out of time, and had nothing. It wasn’t that she procrastinated, only that she had been sure the right idea would strike her if she gave it time. She was down to just a few hours now, and it had yet to come.

“Can I help you?” a sales woman with her hair up in a tight bun asked.

Yes, Rei wanted to shout, yes, help me! But instead she said, “I’m looking for a gift.”

“Ah.” The woman gave a knowing nod. “For a lady friend?”

“A friend who is a lady, yes.” It was a shop for women’s accessories, did they really get enough clueless people to need to ask... Rei’s face warmed. “A friend only. Still a lady, but a friend.”

The saleswoman kept nodding. “And you are seeking an expensive gift for this... friend.”

“Well, she’s got a lot of money,” Rei said, her defenses rising. “I can’t just give her some knick knack and a comic book and call it a day.” That had been exactly what she had gotten Usagi for her last birthday. Usagi was simple. She liked things as freely as she liked people. As did Michiru, Rei supposed, just on the opposite side of the spectrum.

“I see. And your budget is...?”

“Ideally, as cheap as possible, but still something nice. Do you have any sales?”

The saleswoman pressed her lips together. “I thought that might be the case. I can show you a few items, but if she’s worth so much to you, perhaps consider...”

Rei huffed and left. Maybe this was the wrong angle— Michiru could buy herself anything from these shops with no markdowns or clearance. But Michiru could buy herself anything anywhere. Rei peered into another shop window. “Show her you care!” a sign demanded in elegant font next to a glimmering gemstone bracelet. Rei sighed. Would that she could pick out something so gaudy and generic, and have it matter simply because she cared. She thought again of Usagi, of any of the others. Even Mina, demanding as she was, could be pleased without much deliberation.

She wandered the streets, meandering towards lower price tags and less nosy shopkeepers as her time ticked down. One shop tried to sell her on a handbag that cost more than a month’s rent, another on a perfume Rei knew Michiru would say smelt cheap. She looked at jewelry and scarves, books and candles, stopped short of entering a pet shop that sold exotic fish. Somehow, that felt like both the best and worst idea.

Finally, with barely an hour left, Rei found herself at the door of a thrift shop. She almost didn’t enter— Michiru would surely chide her for a secondhand gift— but then she turned the handle. If Michiru was going to set Rei a challenge, she had to be prepared for Rei to solve it the Rei way.

The old man at the counter inclined his head at the sound of bell above the door, but did not look up from his crossword. As it should be, in Rei’s opinion. The shop smelled of dust and full of cluttered floor to ceiling shelves positioned haphazardly around furniture for sale. Michiru would be utterly out of place, which made it precisely the right store to find a gift. She could buy herself anything, certainly, but something she wouldn’t buy herself, that was the winning idea. Michiru would never deign to rummage through other people’s cast offs— perhaps her worst flaw, in Rei’s eyes— so she would never find what treasures she could get a great deal on. When Rei found the perfect gift— and she would find it— she would simply buy overpriced wrapping, and Michiru would be none the wiser.

She’d nearly settled on an ornate vase, on the justification Haruka bought Michiru far too many flowers, so she should have something nice to keep them in, and besides, it had a fantastic price, when something else caught her eye. It was less striking than the vase, or anything else she’d considered. It would be a gamble as a gift, and Rei was not sure she wanted to take that chance.

A cacophony erupted through the shop as every clock marked the hour in its own dissonant chime. Rei had to make her decision, and she needed to make it quick.

*****

Michiru eyed the clock as the kettle began to whistle. It was quite unlike Rei to be late. Their tea time was hardly a momentous occasion, but it was one Michiru had come to enjoy, as she’d assumed Rei had. Perhaps, though, it had become a burden to her. Perhaps Michiru was nothing more than an obligation to check off her list between school work and shrine duties, something that must be taken care of before real fun could be had. Michiru should not have been surprised, Rei would not be the first nor the last to be less than genuine in her intentions. The only sting in the matter was that Rei had not seemed the type, but, as Michiru well knew, most everyone was the type, when it came down to it.

She took the kettle off the burner, but did not pour the water into the teapot she’d prepared. It was fatalistic, perhaps, but it was always best to prepare oneself. As her mother had often said, if others are cruel, it is their weakness, but if you respond to their cruelty, it is yours. Little as Michiru liked to agree with her mother, the philosophy had served her well.

The clock had ticked nearly twenty minutes past their arrange time when Rei burst through the door. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair just slightly displaced by the wind. A delicately decorated gift bag was nestled into the crook of her arm. “I’m late,” she said without apology. “But I made it.”

“Indeed you did.” Michiru leaned against the counter to keep from crossing her arms. “And what is that?” She indicated the gift bag.

Rei frowned. “It’s your birthday present.”

“My…” Michiru thought for a moment, and then allowed herself a small laugh. “It is my birthday, isn’t it? I’d quite forgotten.” She had asked Haruka to forgo the fanfare this year, but it seemed without it, she couldn’t mark the day. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Of course I did!” Rei huffed. “Even if you weren’t testing me, I wouldn’t let your birthday just pass by.”

Michiru raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. Testing Rei did sound like something she might do, even if in this circumstance she hadn’t been. The results of such a test, intentional or not, might prove interesting. “What then, did you get me?”

Rei shoved the bag at her unceremoniously. Michiru set it gently on the counter, pulling back the tissue paper to reveal a two person tea set, the tea pot and cups emblazoned with a pattern of simple crows. They were slightly faded with age, and dust had settled in the crease of the handles. Still, Michiru could not help but smile.

“It’s not entirely your style,” Rei said. “But I thought you might like to have a set just for my visits.”

“And here I’d thought you might be tiring of me.”

Rei snorted. “Oh please, this is the only peace I get some weeks.”

Michiru looked at the cups. They were garish, and cheaply made, but she found she quite like them. She could have this day wiped from memory, and it would take only a look to know where they had come from. “It’s lucky, then, that I haven’t poured our tea yet. Should I give these a quick wash?”

“If you want to,” Rei said. Her voice had the slightest edge, one Michiru had come to recognize meant she was trying to be casual about something that held importance.

“I would like to very much.” She turned towards the sink, but paused. “Thank you, Rei.”

“It’s nothing. Happy birthday.” Rei cracked a smile, and Michiru smiled back, feeling a warmth spread inside her that had nothing to do with tea.

#sam writes #this is kind of a mess but it was so fun to write

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