Just something that I wrote pretty quickly for the RvB Bingo. Love me my beautiful snarky blue boys. 3
Title from the song 'Caffeine' by Jeff Williams.
Church can't exactly explain why he keeps making coffee for himself- he's a ghost possessing a robot for fuck's sake, two things that irrefutably don't need food or drink to survive. Yet still, every morning he finds himself shuffling into Blue Base's kitchen, methodically filling and boiling the coffee jug and dumping several spoonfuls of instant coffee into it from the vomit green coloured package. There's not even a goddamn coffee machine to automate the process (who the fuck is running this under equipped, useless army?) but Church still manages to do it every day without fault.
He figures it must just be one of those habits that are really hard to break, like gambling or hard drugs. Perhaps it was because he'd drunk so much coffee in life it had become a purely instinctual habit, so much so that not even the cold embrace of death could keep him from his daily cup o' Joe. That was a really depressing thought. Had he really done so little in his dumb life that something this stupid had bled into his afterlife?
So every day he makes himself a cup of coffee, sits down and then just… well, stares at it, mostly. Contemplates it. Tries to act deep and brooding, when really he's just trying to remember what it tasted like. Like if he thought hard enough about it, it would be just like he was actually drinking it. Church couldn't explain the feeling out loud, but then again his whole life would probably be difficult to explain out loud. Hell, anything he said would probably sound crazy to someone outside of Blood Gulch; his life was a goddamn circus 24/7.
Am I doomed to keep making coffee I can't drink for all eternity? he thinks, moodily, stirring his brew. If that was the case, it honestly wouldn't be that surprising; the canyon was already his own personal purgatory, what's one more endless torture to add to the goddamn mix?
Once, once, ("One time, Tucker, it happened one time!") he had forgotten entirely that he didn't have a mouth, and had splashed an entire cup of scalding coffee down his visor and onto his metal robot legs. It had taken Caboose hours to scrub it off, and he'd be damned (ha) if he made that embarrassing mistake again.
The one thing Church is sure about is that he absolutely isn't making coffee to be nice to his teammates. They may just happen to be the only people left on base that could still consume caffeine, but there is no way in hell he's making coffee for them. Absolutely not.
"Hey Church I've been meaning to ask you for a while, why the fuck do you keep making us coffee every morning?" asks Tucker from across the breakfast table one morning. Tucker is wearing only his leg armour and an aqua t-shirt, and had just sat down with a steaming coffee cup poured fresh from the jug.
If Church could still scowl through the lifeless metal helmet, he would be doing that right now.
"What? Fuck off, asshole. I'm not making it for you, I'm making it for me," Church replies, angrily gesturing to his own cup. It is black with exactly half a teaspoon of sugar, just as he likes it. Had liked it, before he had died, that is.
"Dude, you're a fucking robot. You have no mouth or tongue! All you end up doing is pouring the coffee down the sink when it's gone cold, and when you don't do that I'm the one finding full cups just lying around base in random places," huffs Tucker, gesturing with his hands to punctuate his annoyance. "Sometimes I use it to tell where you've been. Is the cup still warm? Well then, Church must have been here recently!"
Church throws up his middle finger at that, which Tucker ignores.
"So, dude, come on, what the fuck is the point of making coffee every morning if you can't even drink it?"
Church splutters and folds his arms over his chest, not wanting to answer that question. Not that he has an answer for it. "I died for this fucking war, Tucker. I don't have to explain anything I do or don't do in my afterlife to the likes of you."
Tucker groans. "God, will you stop using that excuse? And come on, at least tell me why you always make enough for the whole team. Every morning there's always coffee in the pot waiting for me. It's almost like you're being nice, and I gotta be honest? It's kinda starting to freak me out."
Church scoffs, almost offended by the implication he is being deliberately helpful to anyone, much less his stupid teammates. "Like I said before, I make the coffee for me, Tucker. You fuckers just get lucky that I always measure out too much. Besides, you should really be thanking me, I'm doing you a damn favour."
Tucker rolls his eyes. He sips at his brew (Tucker liked his coffee with milk and two sugars, Church had noticed) in lieu of a reply, and pulls a disgusted face. "Wow, thanks so much for this shitty fucking coffee, I'm so grateful. Ugh, why does military-issued food always taste like dirt?"
Church grumbles, and can't help the wave of envy that broils in his chest. He is not jealous of Tucker's stupid organic body and his ability to still drink coffee. Not at all, that would be idiotic. He glares at his own cup, and ignores Tucker's concerned glance.
There is a long beat of silence.
"You know dude," Tucker says, swirling his cup around and staring determinedly into it. He looks uncomfortably like he is about to say something girly and deep. "It's okay if you… miss it. Drinking coffee; doing other alive stuff that you can't do now you're dead." Tucker pauses, still looking anywhere but at Church. "Like, I get it, uh… well, I'm pretty sure if I died and came back as a robot there's a heap of things I would miss too. Like eating candy or that satisfying feeling after you rip a fart. And sex. Wait, I want to revise that list so sex is the first thing on it. Bow chicka bow wow."
"What?" Church chuckles, probably louder than is necessary. That's stupid, right? That can't be why he keeps doing this, he can't miss- but does he?
"Tucker, I don't miss being alive, that's stupid," Church bites back, using sarcastic air quotations around the 'miss' and pointedly avoiding the thought that Tucker is probably right. "You really think I would miss being a smelly meatbag, constantly shitting myself and having to drink water just to stay alive? Nah, I'm just fine with my super robotic strength and immortality, thank you very much. Geez, of all the stupid things you've said…"
Tucker shifts irately and purses his lips, annoyed. "Whatever dude, I was just trying to help you. You know, being nics? That's a thing that people do? But if you're gonna be an asshole about it…" he mutters, taking an angry swig of coffee.
There's another long and pregnant pause before Church decides to shift the subject and escape the uncomfortable air that had settled in the kitchen.
"All right Tucker, you wanna know the real reason I keep making coffee?" Church asks, leaning forward in his chair and clasping his gloved finger together like a supervillain from a cartoon.
Tucker glances up, his curiosity evidentially overriding his anger. "Yeah, sure."
If he'd been able to, Church would have grinned evilly. "It's all part of my master plan. You see, I'm slowly but surely screwing you fuckers over. The more coffee I make, the quicker it gets used up and the more goes to waste. And you know how long it takes command to restock supplies sometimes."
Tucker rolls his eyes again and barks out a laugh. "Why did I have the feeling it would be something messed up like that? Dude, that's low, some of us are still alive and need this shit to keep going."
Church chuckles bitterly and leans back in his chair, making a show of stretching out his robot back. "Enjoy your coffee while it lasts, Tucker," he says with an undertone of threat. For dramatic effect, he picks up his own cup and swirls it around, making a show of sloshing the liquid wastefully on to the table.
Tucker shakes his head, looking scandalised.
"Good morning, Church!" comes Caboose's cheery voice. Both Tucker and Church turn to watch their teammate, still wearing the ludicrous bunny onesie he often wore to bed, cross the kitchen on a beeline to the coffee jug.
(Caboose likes his coffee half and half- half-coffee, half-cream and with piles of sugar, that is. Church had tried it once back when he was alive, and had almost gagged it back up. It was sacrilegious, a fucking tragedy that Caboose could drink that monstrosity of sugar while Church had absolutely nothing-!)
And okay, maybe Tucker has a point after all. Maybe Church does miss being alive and feeling the lovely bitter taste of coffee slide down his neck and into his stomach, but only a little bit. Not that he'll ever admit any of that out loud, especially not in front of Tucker or Caboose.
"Alright, you know what, Tucker? If all you're gonna do is bitch about it, then I'll just stop making the coffee every day." Church stands up angrily, his chair scraping horridly on the concrete floor. He grabs his cup and stomps to the sink to pour it out, clunking it down on the bench when he is done. "One of you guys can take over. Have fun with that you ungrateful pieces of shit!" He injects a high and deliberate note of glee into his voice modulator there.
Caboose sends him a confused look as he stalks from the room.
"Tucker, why is Church angry with the coffee?" he hears Caboose ask after he slams the door behind him.
"Because he's an asshole who doesn't want to face his feelings," is Tucker's derisive reply.
Church hates it when Tucker is right.