Fate was not a coffee drinker, though he seemed determined to become one. This baffled Cliff until Fate explained that on every single planet and station they'd visited, someone had offered him coffee. It seemed rude to continually refuse and ask for something else. And besides, coffee tended to be unique to each location, with different flavor and conventions for its creation.

Coffee - and everything lumped under the designation of 'coffee' - was an important cultural item, Fate argued. Cliff had arguments of his own that he bit back. Coffee was potentially someone being lazy with programming, he wanted to say, but he knew Fate wouldn't want to hear that. Besides, watching Fate order coffee at every stop and try to put enough cream and sugar in it to make it into something drinkable was downright hilarious.

The faces Fate made were endlessly epic. Either too bitter or too sugary or too everything. Even at little shops, Fate would ask for the local favorite and try.

Cliff had to give him points for trying, he supposed. But honestly, if Fate wasn't a coffee drinker, he wasn't a coffee drinker. Cliff had no problem asking for tea instead. Now tea-- it varied brilliantly across the universe and had enough subtle flavors and didn't need everything under the suns added to it.

But he wasn't going to say that to Fate, either. At least not any time soon. The faces were too amusing.