Earl Grey Tea

Earl Grey Tea
(Tea Lovers Association)
23 November 2016
Anchorage, AK, United States
Raleigh likes to sit by himself a lot. His brother knows that's his personal time and that he doesn't like to be interrupted. He kicks his feet back and forth on the ledge he's on, his mind soothed by the repetitive motion. The instructors think he's impulsive; Raleigh's just distracted by the way someone smells or how loud the squeak of the marker on the tactics white-board happens to be.
They call it Asperger's syndrome.
Mom had definitely known how to quiet the immense overload of info, but no one except Yancy knows about it in the Academy. Yancy likes to say it's Raleigh's intuition when he beats the tacticians at their own games but it's completely natural.
A pained grunt draws Raleigh out of his reverie long enough for him to spot a lanky man fall on the slick black ice. It's common in Alaska but not everyone can tell where it is so Raleigh jumps down from his perch to help.
"Hey, you okay?" He holds out his hand, waiting for the man to reach up.
"No. I will be fine in a moment."
The short answer doesn't bother him very much. He sits next to the man easily, cracking the ice with the knife he keeps to carve wood when he can't get away from people.
"Why are you concerned?"
"You're new here but you're not a pilot, not with the cane," he hums, toeing it over to where they're sitting on the frosty ground. "You have chalk dust on your sleeve. We only got blackboards last week. Gossip says you're a math guy." Raleigh shuts up, stabbing the ground with his knife because sometimes people don't appreciate what comes out of his mouth.
"How do you know any of that?" The man's confused.
Everyone is when it comes to Raleigh so he gets it. "I pay attention. I watch everything and I put it together in my head." He shrugs and tucks his nose into the scoop of Yancy's cable-knit sweater. "My brother says it's intuition."
"I see."
"Do you?" he huffs as he shifts on the hard ground.
"More than most would think," comes the cryptic response and Raleigh turns to face the man properly.
"My Mom said tea cures most ills. How’s your chess?"
"I'm afraid I do not understand your meaning," the mathematician states as he shifts to sit up and reaches for his cane.
"I'm asking you to drink tea with me in my quarters and play some chess while the soreness eases."
The sharp brown gaze narrows and Raleigh tucks away the knife to raise his hands. "Just tea 'n chess, I promise. I got a lot to think on and both help."
"I suppose one game could not possibly ruin anything." The concession is grumpy and very reluctant.
"Great. Here." Raleigh tugs up the lanky man even as he towers over him. The suspicious crunch as the man wobbles makes Raleigh gently take the man's arm to steer him towards the dorms. The cane's tucked under Raleigh's free arm because his guest is probably going to need it to get anywhere after the tea and chess game. "Name's Raleigh Becket."
"Doctor Hermann Gottlieb."
"How do you like your tea?" he asks as they go through the doors.
Yancy's out again with the other cadets, a note indicating a place in Anchorage that's probably loud and very confusing for Raleigh.
"With lemon if you have it," comes the response as he settles the doctor in the comfy chair. "I am not displacing you?"
"Nah. This is my chair. That's Yan's baby right there. He's big on being cushy," Raleigh says as he puts water in a pot and pulls down his tea collection. "Have a favorite type?"
"Earl Grey." It's no surprise the doctor's tight-lipped because Raleigh has moods like that.
He takes two tea-bags full of Earl Grey out of their pristine packaging and sets them in the thick blue mugs. He lights up the mini-stove to boil the water as he digs around in his half of the room for the chess set.
"'s a bit battered but it works," he murmurs with a fond smile at the wooden box his Mom had gifted him with. "Passed down for eight generations or something."
Raleigh sets up the pieces with attention to the way Hermann eyes the white set. When he's done laying it out, he turns the board around so that the doctor has access to the white pieces.
The blink of confusion is back but Raleigh doesn't comment as the water burbles loudly. He efficiently pours the water over the bags, sets down a chipped blue mini-plate of vanilla wafers and even finds the saucers for the mugs. Cutting the wedge of lemon is done quickly as he pours cream into a tiny pitcher while scooping up the sugar cubes in a bowl. He pops one in his mouth as the tea brews, enjoying the quiet. The dishes are all correct for an English setting and he smiles faintly at the recognition on Hermann's face. Being wide-traveled is good for some things, he supposes.
"You know an English tea well."
"Yeah. My family traveled around a lot. It was great. White first," Raleigh answers as he tucks his foot under his other leg, snagging the tea bags and squeezing them out carefully with a fork.
Hermann takes his rook's pawn and moves it forward two spaces.
Raleigh nibbles on a wafer as his mind goes over the morning fitness test nearly three weeks prior. He's cataloging the feel of the air, the way the instructor's elbow was wet from his dipping it in the chow hall oatmeal and even the way his breath fogged like a dragon's as he moves his knight's pawn forward. They go back and forth for a while, taking pawns and even the occasional knight. When Raleigh pulls the castling maneuver, Hermann counters with a different strategy.
They turn ruthless as Raleigh makes them a second tea and refills the wafer plate (he knew Hermann was eating them while he zoned out to catalog the day before simulations). When Raleigh puts Hermann in check, the man pulls a crazy maneuver that leaves him crushed.
"Checkmate." the slightly smug announcement is a clear declaration of triumph.
"You got me. I haven't had a match like that in ages. How'd you do it?" Raleigh grins at the doctor with a good-natured shrug at being defeated.
"You may be twelve steps ahead but I calculated your strategy a third of the way in when you sacrificed you bishop in place of your king," comes the proud answer.
"Huh. Only way to fix that is to challenge you to a rematch. I know you're probably gonna be pretty busy soon but if you need a ... break or some quiet, I'm usually on the ledge or in the Jaeger hangars. If not there, probably with Yan." He rattles off the locations without realizing it.
"Yan?"
"Oh, right. Yancy's my brother. Sorry. I get ahead of myself sometimes," Raleigh concedes as he taps his forehead to indicate his mind. "It's all organized up here but comes out like shit occasionally. More tea?"
"What were you doing when I made my moves?" Hermann asks as he nods to the last question.
Raleigh fixes them another cup as he bites his lip to form the proper response.
"You don't have to tell me."
"Nah, it's good. I have Asperger's syndrome. It means that I think in a different pattern than everybody else and a lot faster. I get distracted easily cause I'll focus on something that's not important. Yan's my anchor. Keeps most of it at bay with practice or sims. That bother you?" Raleigh questions as he glances at his guest from the corner of his eye.
"Hardly. It was an interesting chess game. I may ... take you up on your offer some time in the future," Hermann replies with hesitation.
"Sure," he easily agrees as he hands over the tea. "I know it's not easy to make friends in a new place."
"Friends?"
"If you think that's okay." He won't push but he likes the guy well enough. "No pressure."
"You are incredibly confident that I will accept your overtures."
"Of friendship, yeah," Raleigh says with a soft chuckle. His cell buzzes and sees Yancy's texting him stupid shit about girls in the club. "One sec." He types back something to the effect of 'quit drunk texting me bro.' "That's Yan being an idiot. You have siblings?"
"Three."
"That's one more than I got."
"As pleasant as this has been, I do think I need to work."
"Alright." He gets up, cusses lightly at his foot that fell asleep and gets Hermann's cane. It's fairly brittle for one, especially a wooden cane. Raleigh's got an idea for carving now and it'll be put to good use. It won't be ready for a good while, though, which just gives him an excuse to get to know the quiet man better in the future. "Thanks for, uh, indulging my invite."
"It was a well-thought out choice," Hermann replies as he limps down the hallway.
Raleigh's got a feeling there's more chess matches to be lost and tea drunk in the future.
Category:Ficlet
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Category:Tea Lovers Association storyline
Category:Beckets are mother hens
Category:Raleigh
Category:Raleigh (ficlet)
Category:Yancy
Category:Yancy (ficlet)
Category:Hermann
Category:Hermann (ficlet)
Category:Hermann and his leg don't get along
Category:Gottlieb siblings (mention)