Scenario: The cup clattered to the floor... (Nordics)
... As you rushed to the sink to wash your mouth out.
“What the hell was that?” You spat between heaves of the awful concoction that Matthias had offered to you.
“An Irish car bomb?” Your reaction had turned his otherwise exclamatory phrase into a question, whilst he moved to rub your back. You finally coughed the last of it up, and used the spray nozzle of the sink to wash the remaining taste out of your mouth. Once the offensive taste had retreated, you raised your head from the basin of the sink to glare at Matthias.
“That was not an Irish car bomb! What’d you put in it?” You demanded, and the once-bold Nordic fiddled with his collar in response.
“Well, I didn’t have any of that Irish beer, so I substituted some of mine. And I couldn’t find any cream stuff either, so I put in coffee creamer.” He explained, looking at you through his eyelashes in hopes that you’d go easy on him.
You weren’t entirely sure that you wanted to know what his other stand-in was, but your mouth moved before you could get ahold of it.
“What ‘some of yours’ did you use, then?”
At this, Matthias smiled proudly.
“Only the best there is: Pilsner!”
Matthias’ smile was quick to flee the premises when he saw your face drop into one of disbelief.
“You used Pilsner? You used a Danish pale lager, instead of an Irish black stout, such as, I don’t know, Guiness, the only beer you’re supposed to use to make an Irish car bomb! And don’t get me started on the fact that you used coffee creamer instead of Baileys! Do you not realize that Baileys is just another alcohol? Just because it’s a cream alcohol doesn’t mean you can just dump some sugary garbage into a shot glass and make an Irish car bomb out of it!”
While he only paid about half an ear to your rant, Matthias lent both eyes to the passionate luster in your own and was quickly enveloped in the fire they possessed, warming him down to his bones with affection for you. Quick to stop you before you could rant for another half an hour, he reached a hand out and cupped one of yours.
“Want to go out so I can treat you to a real Irish car bomb?”
... As opposed to the garbage can, where it was supposed to go.
You sighed in disappointment and got up to put it in its place, unwilling to litter in such a beautiful area. Padding back over to where Tino waited with an amused smile, you grumbled a half-hearted demand for him to hush before continuing on the path with him.
The silence, pierced only by the noise your boots made as they beat down the snow underfoot, went unbroken by purposeful sound. It was a little ironic, Tino thought to himself- The whole point of getting out of the house was that you two wouldn’t make noise and rouse the others from their slumbers, seeing as you both had happened to get up early. But now that you were outside, the two of you were as quiet as was nearly impossible in the house.
It was anything but unwelcome to either of you, though. And without sharing a single word, the two of you came to agree on that fact, and allowed the hushed air to continue its rounds undisturbed with your own waves of sound.
Perhaps it was because of this respectful pact with nature that it granted you sight of things typically hidden from those outside of its residence. Your walk was punctuated with appearances of all walks of life, from gray owls preening themselves high in the evergreens, to a family of deer picking out the sparse greenery hidden in the folds of white. The most that either Tino or yourself did, though, was motion to it with a smile. There was something pure, some kind of sanctuary here, and neither of you were willing to invade it.
Along the way, your head ended up propped against his shoulder. Wordlessly, Tino capped it with his own, and on you went to experience the magic of the forest together.
... And shattered against the tile.
“Shit!” You shouted under your breath, frozen where you stood. Emil rolled his eyes at your behavior and grabbed a broom from a closet, quickly returning and handing it off to you.
“It’s not a big deal, just clean it up. I doubt you woke anyone up anyway, they all sleep like logs.” More annoyed by the noise you produced than anything, Emil leaned back against the counter, staring out the gap between the curtains in the kitchen window.
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to do a midnight raid for hot chocolate,” you offered, trying to escape the blame while sweeping up pieces of what was decidedly your mess.
“You’re the one who suggested it in the first place!” Your companion shot back, crossing his arms.
Unable to find any kind of comeback for the blatant truth, you sighed out the last of your indignation and threw the shards of the mug into the trash can.
“Sorry for breaking your mug.” You looked guiltily back at Emil, tapping the dustpan against the bin to get the last bits of ceramic out of it.
Emil’s eyes flicked over to you, frosted back over with his usual composure.
“Oh.” You returned. Lacking anything to say, and having finished your task, you set your tools down and joined Emil in slouching against the counter.
After about fifteen seconds of staring at the white curtains, you ejected a “Hold on,” moving forward to push them out of the way of the chilled glass.
Emil watched silently as you did this, as you opened up a portal to a vast, unending nebula of stars, accompanied by a peeking sliver of the just-past-new moon.
And just as silently, when you settled back at his side to join his vigil, he slipped his hand in yours.
... Along with the rest of your careful stack of dishes. You dragged a hand through your hair in irritation, bending down to pick all of them up, biting back a choice word or two for the loud- but thankfully unbroken- glassware. You had just gotten the last plate into the sink when you heard the kitchen door swing open, and you knew exactly who it was.
“You can make more than one trip between the sink and the dinner table, you know,” Lukas started.
“It’s faster this way,” was the utterance with which you chose to defend your actions, as you plunged your hands into the soapy water and began to scrub.
“Not when you spend ten minutes every time picking up all the dirty plates, cups, and silverware that you drop all over the ground.” The man who was apparently deemed the backseat dishwasher quipped.
You didn’t bother continuing the argument, knowing that he would win one way or another. Instead, you huffed into your shoulder, scratching your chin against it in place of your wet, occupied hands.
Reading the mood like the book he had set down moments ago, Lukas decided to drop his very one-sided debate as well, instead walking over to join you at the sink. Rolling up his sleeves, he set to work on rinsing the dishes that you had scraped clean.
“It’s not your turn to do the dishes,” you pointed out. With a wry smile, you added, “And it won’t get you out of your next turn if you help me.”
“I know,” he replied. “I just wanted to help you.”
“Weren’t you reading, though?” You turned to him with this question on your lips, and he looked over at you once he saw your pivot in his periphery.
Taking one look at you was all he needed to confirm his decision to abandon his novel on the couch. With just a glance, he found every story he’d ever want to read written on your person.
He nodded, and turned the plate in his hands under the tap, washing the suds off the back.
... Once your arm jerked to the side to stretch. Your tired eyes could barely keep up with the speed that gravity lent the mug, but it definitely had your attention when the coffee inside of it spilled out.
“Ah, damn,” you muttered. “I’m sorry, Berwald.”
The man sitting across the table from you simply set his own mug down and moved to grab some paper towels, quick to sop the dark sepia tones up from the lighter wood of his kitchen floor. Not needing to be asked, Berwald poured you another cup of coffee, mixing with it just what you liked before handing the fresh brew off to you.
“Thanks,” you mumbled into the rim of your cup, rearing your upper lip to blow at the surface before taking a sip.
“You can go back to bed,” the introvert suggested as he settled back down, picking up his own mug and disrupting the still surface of the coffee with his own long draft.
“No, I want to stay up with you,” You protested, rubbing an eye and sitting up straighter as if to prove to him that you could.
“You said that fika is an important thing in Swedish culture, and if it’s important to you, it’s important to me. Plus, I looked it up, and you’re not supposed to do it alone. If...” You trailed off to look blearily behind you in an attempt at reading the microwave. “... 3:30 is when you want to fika, I’ll do it with you!”
Berwald gave your drowsy figure a long stare, while thoughts poured over his internal dialogue like your previous cup of coffee over his clean floor.
“I’m glad that you care enough to get up early and fika with me. And you look very cute, almost falling asleep into your coffee like that. Should I say that? ... No, too embarrassing. I’ll say it later.”
In the meantime, though, he afforded you a small smile, and that was better than any dream you had missed.
