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Twilight had thought that he’d finally found the perfect ratio of milk to coffee, after multiple days of trial and error. Fifty percent milk, fifty percent coffee. Enough coffee for the drink to still vaguely taste like coffee, but enough milk for it to not destroy his stomach.
He’s always preferred his coffee black instead – the more caffeine he puts into his system, the more alert he is, after all – but it’s a sacrifice that must be made. A stomachache is a more major distraction than whatever caffeine withdrawal could throw at him. Twilight is pragmatic enough to know that. So he forces himself to be content. Fifty percent milk, fifty percent coffee. It’ll have to be good enough.
And most days, that’s what it is: good enough. Even diluted with milk, the coffee keeps him awake enough during late-night missions. Even diluted with milk, the coffee still tastes bitter enough to be somewhat enjoyable. It doesn’t make him sick anymore (although the antacids he’s been regularly taking probably play a part in that as well), so he accepts the compromise.
Except, as it turns out, his calculations were incorrect – or, at least, he was incorrect in assuming that they’d be absolute. Because one evening, he finds himself taking a sip of his coffee and feeling his stomach burn in response.
He lowers his cup with a sigh and closes his eyes. He’s sitting on the couch in the living room, with exhaustion weighing down heavily on his shoulders; this is the first chance he’s had to sit down in twenty-four hours. In between the three consecutive combat-filled side missions that were assigned to him, he hadn’t been able to find a moment to rest before now.
Rest is a relative term, though, as it always is these days; Anya is waiting for him to help her with her homework, he has his night shift to look forward to, and now he has to deal with a stomachache as well. He’s not one to complain, but he could’ve really used a moment of peace.
With another sigh, he tucks away his frustration – he has no need for it – and opens his eyes. Anya is staring at him from where she’s sitting at the coffee table, her homework temporarily forgotten. Twilight forces himself to look alert and raises an eyebrow at her.
“Something wrong?” he asks her, nodding his chin towards the half-completed math assignment in front of her.
“Something wrong with you?” Anya blurts out as a reply. When he stays quiet, expression confused (where is she learning language like this?), she clarifies: “You made a funny face at your drink.”
“Ah. Yeah.” Twilight hadn’t noticed that his discomfort had been that obvious. On top of everything else, he can’t even control his own expressions anymore, it seems. Yet another thing to worry about. “I just think my coffee needs some more milk, that’s all. You continue doing your homework, I’ll be back in a moment.”
It feels like failure, having to slowly get up and walk to the kitchen to add even more milk to his already-pathetic coffee. He used to drink his coffee black. He’s growing old, and soft, and weak – he’s certainly not as unstoppable as he used to be.
Bond has followed him to the kitchen, probably hoping for a treat. He nudges the side of Twilight’s thigh, and Twilight rests his hand on Bond’s large head. He’s certainly growing soft, that’s for sure, though not so soft that he’ll let Bond have a treat without him having earned it.
Twilight trudges his way back to the couch, holding his cup of seventy-percent-milk-thirty-percent-coffee in his hand. Bond follows him again, seeming determined to escort him. Twilight tries his best to not let that wound his pride even further. Bond is probably just restless because the Forgers haven’t been complete in a while; Twilight himself had been gone since yesterday, and now Yor is working a late shift. Maybe Bond just missed him.
Once he’s settled down on the couch again, Bond lying at his feet, Twilight takes another careful sip of his coffee. He’d hoped that the extra milk would help – but his stomach protests immediately, the burning in his abdomen worsening. He has to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from grimacing.
“So, Anya,” he says, hoping that helping Anya with her homework will distract him a little, “have you come across any problems that you need help with?”
He knows her answer should be “yes” – he can tell that about half of the answers she’s written down is incorrect. But when she looks up at him, she shakes her head.
“I can do it by myself,” she tells him resolutely. “You don’t have to help me.”
And on top of everything else, Anya is now refusing his help. Twilight had been wishing he didn’t have to help her with her homework tonight, but this isn’t what he meant. If Anya decides not to let him help her anymore, she’ll get kicked out of school for her bad grades. The pain in his stomach instantly worsens with the new stress.
“Why not?” he asks, hoping that he doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels.
She gives him a look that’s a mix of calculating and quietly frustrated, her lips tightly pressed together and her brow furrowed, and Twilight wonders idly what he’s done wrong. Eventually, she looks down at her sheet of paper, and points out one of the problems. “This one. This one’s hard.”
Twilight’s shoulders sag with relief. “Okay. Let’s take a look at it, then.”
He explains the math problem to her – the solution is laughably simple, as it always is, but it’s actually explaining it to Anya that’s the challenge. Thinking of simple words to use and keeping his patience when he explains it for the third time, are both skills that he has yet to perfect.
It distracts him from his stomachache at first, but when Anya asks the same question for the fourth time in a row, he starts to fear that she’ll never understand it and that she’ll get expelled and that Operation Strix will fail and that he’ll have to live through another war – and his stomach responds with a stab of pain. Twilight tightens his jaw, his shoulders hunching.
Anya’s hand clenches around her pencil. “We’ve gotta take a break,” she says urgently.
Twilight sighs. He’d normally disagree, but just getting to sit here for a moment doesn’t sound so bad right now. “All right, then,” he replies, sitting back and crossing his arms across his stomach. “Just for a little bit.”
With impressive speed, Anya puts down her pencil and crawls onto the couch, squeezing herself against his side. It surprises him, but he accepts the hug.
“Your stomachachiness is an even higher number than normal,” Anya states earnestly, her voice muffled in his T-shirt. “I can tell.”
He doesn’t fully understand her, but it’s clear what she means. The corner of Twilight’s mouth twitches into a wry smile. Wasn’t he supposed to be good at keeping secrets?
He sighs, shifting in an attempt at finding a more comfortable position. “Yeah. You’re right.” He would’ve preferred to keep it to himself – in most cases, showing weakness is a terrible idea for a spy – but he realizes that lying to Anya would be more risky than telling the truth. She’s always been far too good at reading him, after all. If he lied to her, he might destroy her trust in him. “It’s fine, though. I’ll probably feel better soon.”
Anya sits up to glare at the half-empty cup of coffee on the table. “Was the coffee the culprit?” she asks.
“Yeah. Though I think “traitor” is a better word for it.” He huffs a laugh. “I thought I could trust the coffee, but it gave me a stomachache anyway. My mistake.”
“Traitor,” Anya echoes in a hissing voice, her glare at the cup intensifying. Twilight ruffles her hair, and she presses herself against his side again. “Are you upset about the be-tray-ol?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“But you are upset,” Anya says, looking up at him from underneath his hand. She’s frowning. “The teachers at school say that if you’re upset, you’ve gotta talk about it.”
“That’s pretty good advice,” Twilight admits – and it is, though he doesn’t like the idea of applying that advice to himself. He sighs. “It’s not the coffee I’m upset about. Not really.” He pauses, wondering whether to leave it at that, but then he continues: “Work has just… been more difficult than it used to be, and I don’t know why. I thought I was used to stress, but now the stress from work is making me feel sick and tired and unfocused, and I don’t know what to do about it. So, that’s what I’m upset about.”
“Complicated,” Anya whispers. “Seems like you need a feelings doctor.”
Twilight huffs a laugh. “Maybe I do.” Maybe he does, though it’s unlikely that he’ll ever get the chance to talk through his emotions with a professional – he would never dare put his trust in the flimsy civilian concept that is doctor-patient confidentiality, and if WISE ever had any counselors, they quit a long time ago. But maybe he could stop by the library soon to pick up some books on dealing with stress. It seems like something he could use.
Anya seems content with his answer, and the two of them sit like that for a while. It’s quiet apart from the gentle buzzing of the lamps and the swishing sound of Bond’s wagging tail on the carpet. Some of that ever-present tension leaves Twilight’s muscles.
It takes a while before his stomach stops aching, but it’s bearable; sure, he’s always under some kind of time pressure, but there’s no imminent harm in sitting here and waiting until he feels better. Anya needed a break from her homework, anyway.
Eventually, he sits up and ruffles Anya’s hair. “We still need to finish your homework,” he says gently.
Anya buries her face in his T-shirt. “Nooo,” she complains. “You’ll have to bribe me first.”
This isn’t the first time she’s tried this approach, though it only very rarely works – but Twilight finds himself sighing an exasperated sigh this time. “Fine, then,” he says. “Would hot cocoa be a sufficient bribe?”
“Very suffificient!” Anya replies, looking up at him with no small amount of surprise and delight in her eyes.
Little menace. Well, two can play that game.
“I’ll give you the hot cocoa once you’ve solved the next problem,” he says, and she gives an insulted squawk in response. “If you want to drink it while it’s still hot, you’d better get to it soon.”
She scrambles back to her homework, and Twilight makes his way to the kitchen, an amused smile on his face. As he prepares the hot cocoa, he briefly considers making a mug for himself as well – though he doubts that hot cocoa would be much easier on his stomach than coffee is. Maybe tea, though.
He eyes the coffee pot once more, but decides not to think about it anymore. He’ll likely miss the caffeine for a while, but he’ll certainly not miss the stomachache. If it’s doing him more harm than good, it’s best to let it go entirely.
Someday, he’ll realize that there’s a lot more things in his life that follow this principle: things that make him a good spy, but are harmful to him in the long run. The fact that he’s always running on adrenaline, for example, or the fact that he never truly lets himself rest. His tendency to hide away even the slightest hint of sincere emotion. His determination to never fully trust anyone.
But that realization is far too big for a tired evening like this. Right now, Twilight is content to sit on the couch in the living room, sipping tea as he helps his daughter with her homework.
The sweetness of the tea (and the sweetness of the moment) helps him forget about his stomachache altogether.