At first, Desmond thought that Shaun was crazy—crazy in the sense that carrying around a waist-high tea plant was completely impractical to their cause. He wondered if all British were as anal about their tea as Shaun was, and if they spent an hour every morning and every night preparing a—grapefruit-sized—teapot of tea from the freshly plucked leaves.

Lucy dismissed the plant as the only living thing that was with them, a welcome sight among all the rush around them. It was a pretty green, and Desmond could only wish that Shaun would give him as much attention as he did that damn plant. Rebecca enjoyed it because of the color, adding a wonderful splash of color into the dreary settings of his ancestor’s villa or the warehouse. She also liked talking to it when she got super bored—Desmond thought she was crazy, too, but then he realized talking to the plant gave it the gases it needed to survive, like a human needs oxygen. So, occasionally, when he woke from a nightmare, he started talking to the plant to calm himself down, and then he realized that a tea plant was an extremely good listener.

Nevertheless, it nearly drove him “batty” to see Shaun up every fucking morning and preparing a small pot of tea, drinking it from a small little teacup, and then repeating the ritual at night. He would watch him carefully—Shaun never put milk in it, always added some lemon juice if it were available, and usually forced himself to drink it all. Desmond knew he forced himself to, because sometimes Shaun would forget he had it, and then it would go cold, and instead of reheating, he would just dump it.
Sometimes, he envied the plant for all the attention it received.

One night, he was sitting on his sleeping bag at the villa, watching Shaun as he carefully plucked the leaves and went about making tea. When Shaun had finally settled back down with a cup in his hand and a slice of juiced lemon by his side, Desmond’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Why do you put so much effort into such a ridiculous plant? It’s massive!”

His eyes grew wide. He said a silent thanks that Shaun and he were actually starting to get along better. He heard a long, drawn out sigh and turned to face the newest assassin.

“Because fresh tea is so much healthier for you. And green tea is preferable because of all the health benefits.”

Desmond’s nose wrinkled, and he shifted on the sleeping bag. “But it requires so much care.”

“It’s well worth it in the end.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.” Shaun had picked up the pot and two cups—Desmond never understood why he always kept a second one nearby—and walked over, sitting beside him on the sleeping bag and pouring some in the second cup, offering it to him. “It lowers the amount of stress hormones and helps you sleep and think more clearly. It’s said to help stave off cancer and raises your immune system. And with all this stress, I think a fresh cup each morning and night is warranted, don’t you?”

Desmond stared at him blankly for a moment, then looked down at the cup Shaun was offering. “It tastes disgusting.”

“Try it.”

His lip curled in disgust. “You know, you are always nicer after you’ve just had a cup of that shit.”

Shaun scowled. “Green tea is not ‘shit,’ and I think that you could benefit from it. I’ve tried to convince Lucy and Rebecca, but they just won’t listen to me.”

He reached out and took it slowly. When the cup was taken, Shaun lifted his own from the ground and took a sip, letting out a soft and contented sigh. “There are some lemon slices, if you’d like them, at my desk.”

Desmond looked from the cup to Shaun, then raised it tentatively to his lips. “Don’t you drink it with milk?”

“Milk blocks some of the healing properties, and soy milk is just flat out gross.”

Desmond snickered at that.

“What?”

“‘Gross’ doesn’t seem like something you’d say.”

“There’s no other way to accurately describe how much I loathe the taste of the imitation milk.”