Author: Maguena
Disclaimer: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and all its characters are owned by Paramount. I am not making a profit on this story.
Notes: Written for the fic simplicity community on LJ, prompt #1, "morning cup of coffee/tea." (There's an underscore linking the two words in the community name that FF.N's editing software keeps erasing.) Criticism very welcome.
"Here," says Ahwaz, yawning uncontrollably. "This will keep you going another hour."
Truth be told, despite the crowded, noisy Trauma Center right outside this small breakroom, despite being unused to keeping the irregular hours of a medical resident, despite the fact that he's swaying on his feet, Julian could keep going another hour without the tea. Everyone comes to the breakroom on their breaks, though. He accepts the cup.
It's strong and nasty, nothing like the tea his mother makes. Tea is one of those things that his parents like to have old-style. Large, fine porcelain bowls and delicate, tantalizing scents. Julian doesn't always like the taste, but he's polite about it. It's nice to have something hot, anyway, on those dim, grey mornings when it rains.
He takes a long swallow of the bitter, scalding liquid. Ahwaz gulps his tea, staring blankly at his cup for long moments in between the gulps. Julian slows down and imitates him. The tea is nearly black, but he can see red somewhere in the depths. The heat feels so good, better even than he remembers it feeling on rainy mornings. Things have been ever so much better since he's figured out how he'll become famous for himself.
There's an emergency; there's often something. This is, after all, "frontier medicine." Julian chuckles at himself, softly. Everyone in immediate crisis is dead or has been stabilized. He's got ten minutes to himself before he'll go back out to tend to the worst-injured, and the dim emergency lighting is just like predawn. It probably is morning; he hasn't bothered to check the clock in a while. He brews his tea, making it stronger than it should be, which destroys much of the subtlety of the scent, but gives it extra pungency. The heat against his palms and his insides soothes him. He's long grown used to the acrid taste. He likes it that way.
It'll keep him going.