#redacted smartass

"Hey, Smartass, where's your other thermos?" He inquired, trying not to look as curious as he felt. Aaron didn't like to show how especially attentive of them he was; they were just another one of his employees. Hopefully they wouldn't dig too deep into how much he noticed.

"Hmm?" Pulling an earbud from their ear and locking their screen out of sheer habit, they twisted in their seat to face him. "Oh. Y'mean this one?" They replied as they lifted up the metal bottle from their lap.

"Yeah." It definitely answered his question as to where it was, but it created a new one in why it was on their lap in the first place. He dipped his head, watching them patiently, waiting for them to continue.

"Well, HR delightfully informed me that hot water bottles are prohibited and I couldn't find any heat patches in the shop on my lunch break." They sighed, slumping into their chair more than sitting on it, while shrugging their shoulders in defeat. "Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say." Rotating the bottle in their lap to find a slightly less hot hot-spot, they waited for their boss to argue back at them. Their semi-regular confrontations with him had become somewhat of a high point of their days at Vesta.

Aaron's face scrunched up in confusion; a specific ban on hot water bottles wasn't a rule he was aware of. "Why aren't they allowed?"

Their eyes met his with a deadpan stare, unafraid to sass the man they called their supervisor. "They're dangerous," they explained, eyes rolling and with exaggerated air-quotes for – unnecessary, but endearingly comedic – emphasis.

The corner of Aaron's lip twitched unnoticed.

"What I can never understand is, when there are so many coffee drinkers in this place, why the hot water machine is literally boiling. That's dangerous, not to mention inefficient; it burns the coffee, not that I'm an expert on that. Though to be fair, no one here is making fancy enough drinks for it to really matter." Their reasoning went on and on as Aaron watched them grow more and more passionate about the subject. A few choice pieces of information stuck out among the rest, and it annoying him how much they concerned him despite his attempts to keep all of his employees at arm's length.

Aaron leaned against their cubicle wall with as much casual nonchalance as he could muster and held out his hand to halt their monologue. "Let me get this straight, you're putting boiling hot water in a metal container to use as a make-shift hot water bottle." His brows were tilted upwards in an expression that could be best described as "are you a fucking dumbass?"

"Uhh, yeah." They rolled their eyes, for now uncaring that he was their boss. "I'm in pain. This reduces the pain. Ergo, it's a genius idea." Although subtle, their face added a silent remark of "duh!"

Aaron was unimpressed, levelling them with a glare that could freeze a lake.

They'd had plenty of practice; they were unaffected. At least physically.

"And what if you scald yourself." If no one was there to witness his hard stare growing soft, then it didn't happen.

"That's on me," they insisted, leaving no room for argument, though almost daring Aaron to try, except he was momentarily distracted by the round pout of their lips.

He sighed in exasperation, closing his eyes and raking his fingers through his hair, missing how the action caught his employee' attention.

What was he going to do with them...?

"I'll have a word with HR, and whoever's in charge of office health and safety now, I'm sure Tracey forgot to elect and train a successor before she left..." It wasn't a promise, definitely not a guarantee, and barely even a suggestion that anything could actually be done, but it was an olive branch, extended far outside the normal reaches of the pair's near-constant disagreements. "Just... just be careful. You're not an idiot, but hot water is hot water."

And that was enough for them to see eye-to-eye and know that although they were stuck in a red-tape infested bureaucracy nightmare, they weren't alone in it.

They cleared their throat after a few seconds of semi-awkward silence; it was rare to have a normal conversation for a change. "Umm, thanks, boss." The title lacked the usual bite of sarcasm, leaving only genuine gratitude in its place.

He hummed his reply as he pushed himself away from their cubicle wall. "Just make sure you get the data from the eastern centres before eleven." Aaron leaned in closer to add, "Amy's out for her absolutely essential boba tea break right now," though his rolling eyes belied the truth of the word essential.

Smiling conspiratorially, they nodded and let their fingers fly over the keyboard and mouse to achieve their time-sensitive goal of making sure that Amy did not get her hands on this assignment and cause headache-inducing delays. The new task nearly made them forget about the cramps that had more-or-less facilitated this little chit-chat of sorts.

As they typed and clicked, their mind began to wander... but it was just too much to imagine that this could change anything, that the next time they spoke it would be anything but an outright challenge, duelling stubbornness against authority, but it was a welcome change of pace.

But maybe... maybe they would want more of this. But that was just fanciful thinking. It would never happen.