“What is it now?”
Octavia, who was standing by the kettle, just continued to stare at Vinyl, her face showing an obvious disgust that she didn’t even try to hide. ‘Unbelievable’ was the only way she could describe Vinyl’s actions, sitting so casually as she did... that.
“Tavi, if you don’t tell me, I won't know what I’m ‘so obviously’ doing wrong, and nothing will change.”
Octavia gave her an unimpressed look. “You know what you’re doing.”
Vinyl sighed. “Is this the kind of nagging I can expect now that we’re a couple?”
Octavia frowned. “Vinyl, we’re not a couple.”
“Drat.” She snapped her fingers theatrically, “I thought you’d fall for that and just go along with it. I mean we’re practically a couple already—minus the fun bits, obviously.”
Octavia chuckled, forgetting her disapproval. “That sounds a bit too optimistic, even for you.”
“Is it though? How many people have mistaken us for a couple?”
“Too many.”
Vinyl scrunched up her face. “Bit harsh, but I’ll let it slide as it’s you.”
“I am forever grateful for your seemingly eternal forgiveness.”
Vinyl shrugged. “I see it as more a checklist thing. I owe you a bit of forgiveness every time you forgive me.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow. “So how much forgiveness are you indebted to me.”
Vinyl thought for a second. “I’d say at this point I’d have to forgive you for killing my parents to break even. My parents, FYI, are people who thought we were a couple when they came to visit.”
“Ah yes, how could I forget your father's now-famous line: ‘my daughter’s got herself a right uptown lass’.”
“A true inspirational speaker,” Vinyl stated with a nod. “You should feel bad about letting his hopes down when you refused to make out with me. It was so cruel of you.”
“Now Vinyl, you know I couldn’t have lied to your parents.” Octavia smiled. “And it wouldn’t have been fair on you to have to kiss me just to prove you’ve found an honest ‘lass’.”
Vinyl raised her hand before placing it on her chest. “I, rather heroically, would have taken the bullet.”
“Well, duly noted. I guess we’ll have to wait till next time.”
“I’ll keep you to that,” Vinyl said, picking up another ‘biscuit’.
Octavia’s look of disapproval returned. “You just did it again!”
“Sorry, alright. Calm down… Wait, what did I do again?”
“You know, Vinyl,” Octavia said, turning to pour hot water into her mug, “for someone who is constantly getting at me for my tea etiquette, you are very much a hypocrite.”
“Please don’t leave the tea bag brewing.”
A flash of frustration spread over Octavia’s face, but she started stirring her tea nevertheless. “This is just what I mean. You think you know so much more about this kind of thing than me.”
“To be fair, that is because I do. Just remember when you first made a cup of tea here and you left the teabag in while drinking it. It took a lot of my will-power to not be sick.”
“You know it’s silly that you consider it some kind of great crime against humanity.”
“You know it’s madness you consider it not to be,” Vinyl countered, taking another bite from her ‘biscuit’.
Octavia squinted at the sight. “And yet you go and do that.”
“Do what?” Vinyl asked, beginning to get a bit frustrated.
“Hello everybody,” said the familiar sing-songy voice of a particular lyre playing classmate. “I was just coming round to—”
Lyra, who had practically skipped into the kitchen, froze dead in her tracks when she saw Vinyl dipping her ‘biscuit’ into her tea.
“What?” Vinyl asked for the fourth time.
“Vinyl, you should not be doing that with a jaffa cake.”
Vinyl looked at the jaffa cake in her hand, which was the ‘biscuit’ she had just dunked in her tea, before looking back to Octavia. “Is this seriously what you’re annoyed about?”
“I’m annoyed at the fact you’re being such a hypocrite,” Octavia corrected. “The dunking of a ‘cake’ is the most un-british thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Hey! Maybe for you southerners it is, but there’s more to England than you posh tots.”
“How many times are you gonna call me that?”
“Excuse me,” Lyra interjected, “it’s not just a southern thing. That’s quite difficult for me to see as well.”
Vinyl turned back to Lyra, getting a little defensive. “Well, you’re not much better. You grew up in Cambridge for pete’s sake. Neither of you two can pass judgement on the rest of us.”
“What’s all the commotion?” asked the recognisable voice of Lyra’s girlfriend with a yawn, as she entered the kitchen in a white dressing gown.
“Bon-Bon, perfect,” Vinyl said, pointing at her. “You grew up in the east midlands, right?”
“It was a fate better than some, yes,” she replied, effortlessly sliding her arm around Lyra and pulling her closer. “What about it?”
“Well.” Vinyl, seeing the display, shuffled closer to Octavia so she could put her arm around her. She was stopped when Octavia grabbed the arm and placed it down on the table with a disapproving look. “You’re mean sometimes,” Vinyl moaned.
“I’m aware.”
Vinyl stuck her tongue out at Octavia, something she rolled her eyes at, before returning back to Bon-Bon. “You need to be the deciding vote here.”
Lyra frowned. “But it’s already two against one.”
“Doesn’t matter. Bon-Bon, do you think it’s normal, or the very least British, to dunk jaffa cakes in tea?”
Bon-Bon thought for a second. “I’m not sure I can say that’s normal per se. I did know some people who did that, but they couldn’t do so without causing a commotion.”
A flash of panic spread over Vinyl’s face. “O-Oh.”
“Ha, three against one,” Octavia proudly announced. “Look who’s living in their own regional bubble now.”
“That’s still the southerners,” Bon-Bon muttered under her breath.
“What, sorry?” said Lyra.
“Nothing.”
“But this doesn’t make sense,” Vinyl said, straightening out her thoughts, “jaffa cakes are just normal biscuits, like a digestive or a bourbon, so why are they off limits?”
Octavia stayed quiet as both Lyra and Bon-Bon shared a look before turning back to Vinyl. “They’re cakes,” they both said in unison.
Vinyl’s worried face turned to one near to horror. “What?”
“They do have ‘cake’ in the name,” Octavia stated bluntly.
“But… you buy them in the biscuit aisle.” Vinyl sounded almost as if she was pleading.
“Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make,” Bon-Bon said. “There was actually a huge kerfuffle about it because there’s an additional tax on chocolate covered biscuits but not cakes. The courts classified them as cakes because they met certain criteria—the main being that cakes are defined as hardening when stale, as jaffas do, while biscuits go soft.”
Both Octavia and Vinyl stared at Bon-Bon, blinking a few times to help register what she just said. “How do you know all that,” asked Octavia.
Bon-Bon Frowned. “My job is baking biscuits and making sweets before I sell them. I need to know this kind of thing.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Octavia blushed slightly.
“Well, screw you guys,” Vinyl said, bringing everyone’s attention back to her, “I don’t care if you think it’s ‘improper’, I’m gonna dunk my jaffa cakes, and I’m gonna enjoy it!”
Bon-Bon and Lyra both giggled at Vinyl’s overly strong conviction on the topic. But Octavia seemed less than happy.
“Well, if you’re gonna go ahead and do that,” she snapped, ”then you have no right to judge me when I do this.”
She stood up and stormed past Vinyl to get to the tea cupboard. Once inside, she moved the Yorkshire out of the way, revealing a hidden packet of tea.
“Green tea,” everyone else collectively grimaced at the sight.
“Yes, green bloody tea!” she snapped, taking a bag out and throwing it in a mug. “I like it, okay; but I’ve never been able to drink it around her—” she motioned towards Vinyl “—as she would always make fun of me. But if she can dunk a jaffa, I can have a cup of this!”
The kitchen suddenly became very awkward. Octavia, as far as Bon-Bon and Lyra could tell, was a quite a bit more aggravated than they’d expect. And Vinyl, for her part, had gone quiet, just staring at Octavia with a somber expression.
Bon-Bon coughed, doing her best to fill the silence. “Erm, Lyra,” she finally said, “do you want to eat out instead?”
“Yes please,” she squeaked before quickly following her girlfriend out of the kitchen.
Vinyl just continued to stare at her as she faced the other way to prepare her green tea. “Erm, Octavia,” she said, voice lacking its usual charisma.
Octavia straightened up, surprised to hear Vinyl say her full first name. “Yes.”
“You know you can drink green tea, right?”
“I would suddenly hope so.” Her voice turned cold again. “If you want to do that without being ridiculed, then I should be able to drink this.”
“No, I mean…” Vinyl scratched the back of her hair. “Do you really not drink green tea because I teased you for it?”
Octavia froze. “W-well, partly. I have drastically cut down on the amount I drink, as I tend to avoid drinking it when you’re here. I drink it to relax, and it’s not very relaxing when you’re constantly getting at me for it.”
“Oh.” Vinyl paused for a moment. “I didn’t think any of that got to you. I always thought it was just harmless messing around.”
Octavia finished her tea, but she stayed facing away from Vinyl. “Yes, well, that’s what it was meant to be. I suppose it’s kind of stupid of me to actually be affected by any of that.”
“Hey, I didn’t say that.”
“No, no, I’m the one acting like a child here. I mean how stupid is it feeling like the odd one out when you refuse to make me what I want during a tea round? The only thing that makes me weird is the fact I feel weird when I want green tea.”
Vinyl stood up, a couple steps away from Octavia as she stared at her with a concerned look. “I didn’t… I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Octavia stayed silent.
“Oh for gods—oh crap.” Vinyl hit her head. “I didn’t think any of that was actually hurting you. Damn it, I’m such a freaking idiot.”
Octavia spun around to face Vinyl, visibly shocked at her reaction. “What? No, I’m the one being silly here. It shouldn’t have hurt me.”
“But it did.” Vinyl paused, giving Octavia a firm look. “The point is it did hurt you, and that’s not cool. Octavia, I’m really sorry.”
“Oh.” Octavia hesitated, looking off to the side slightly. “And I’m sorry I got so offended by something so small.”
“No, bad Tavi. You don’t have to feel even the slightest bit sorry. I am the one in the wrong here, making you feel bad about drinking green tea.” She clicked her fingers. “In fact, from now on, not only won’t I make fun of your tea, I will make it for you whenever you want it.”
Octavia let a little smile appear on her face, giggling slightly. “You’d actually make green tea for me. I’ve heard you say drinking it ‘is the single worst crime anyone can commit’. That and you detest the smell.”
Vinyl grinned. “Tavi, for you, I’d make iced tea.”
Octavia raised her eyebrows. “But what about your northern heritage?”
“To hell with the northerners, they’re a bunch of twats anyway. I should know, I’m one of those twats.”
Octavia giggled again, stepping closer to Vinyl. “Why do you always try to make me feel better by calling yourself an idiot?”
Vinyl shrugged. “Me being stupid is the one thing we can agree on.”
Octavia smiled. “I’m not so sure about that.” She moved next to her chair, brushing past Vinyl as she did. “I think you’re actually a lot sweeter that you let on.”
What looked like a little blush appeared on Vinyl’s face, but she waved off the compliment. “Wha? Nah. I’m the hardcore bad girl that people like you secretly want to be with.”
Octavia leaned closer to Vinyl, a smirk appearing on her face. “Well, you’re half right.”
Vinyl’s cocky smirk continued for a second, but then it wavered. Forgetting every piece of advice she’d learnt, she stayed with her mouth half open and face bright red. “W-when you say half right… so you mean bad girl or…”
Octavia’s smirk just widened, taking a sip of her green tea. “Oh Vinyl, you really are adorable sometimes.”
