This Means War

Coffee

Morning coffee. For most Americans, it's a given ritual of sorts. The day doesn't start without coffee. Some people consider themselves purists and like it hot and black. Others think those people are crazy and dump copious amounts of sugar and cream into theirs. Others still like theirs iced.

Ellie was far from what would be considered a purist. She liked hers loaded with sugar, cream, ice and thrown into a blender. Basically, her favorite morning coffee amounted to a milkshake. Sebastian had tried it once before. It made his teeth hurt and left him confused and sad in a way he didn't fully understand. That wasn't coffee, that was a six year old's dream. She was probably also the kind of person that would eat cake for breakfast.

That never stopped him from being a good friend, however. He may not fully understand her, but she was still a close friend and he treated her as such. On the mornings he knew she had an early call with him, he'd always grab her abomination on the way to set.

She may want him to stop doing that after today. Today's coffee happened to have a special surprise inside. More to the point, a special surprise inside the straw.

Sebastian did his best to not be obvious when he handed her the concoction. Hopefully she would be too tired to notice his devious smile. She quickly thanked him and stuck the straw in her mouth, taking a deep pull.

Her face changed very quickly.

"Oh my God!" She gasped, opening her mouth and fanning her tongue desperately when the hot sauce took over her taste buds. Without thinking she snatched his coffee away and took a huge gulp to try and douse the flames.

Judging from her disgruntled whining, hot black coffee did little to quell the burn. The gagging sound she made was unnecessary in his opinion, but he just let her keep on being dramatic.

Finally she ripped the lid off her own drink and tried to take a drink from it that way. It dumped all over her face, but she managed to get a mouthful.

"You good?" Sebastian asked once she had calmed down, trying to hide his amusement at her antics.

"I hate you."

"Love you too. Give up?"

"No, fucker."