this is just the way we do things
(I had a prompt list in image form, and I don't remember where it came from. Enjoy the result of the transcription.)
Chapters
Chapter 01: Who spends almost all their money on the others?
Chapter 02: Who sleeps in the others' laps?
Chapter 03: Who constantly wears the others' clothes?
Chapter 04: Who drives the car and who gives the directions?
Chapter 05: Who does the posing while the others draw?
Chapter 06: Who is the most affectionate?
Chapter 07: What is the most common argument?
Chapter 08: Who apologizes first?
Chapter 09: What is their favorite activity to do together?
Chapter 10: Who is most likely to carry the others?
Chapter 11: Who uses their nicknames and what are their origins?
Chapter 12: Who proposes?
Chapter 13: Who worries the most?
Chapter 14: Who has the weirdest taste in music?
Chapter 15: Who is embarrassed to take their clothes off in front of the others?
Chapter 16: Who tops?
Chapter 17: Who initiates kisses?
Chapter 18: Who reaches for the others' hands first?
Chapter 19: Who brings animals they find home?
Chapter 20: Who holds the umbrella for the others?
Chapter 21: Who hogs the blankets?
Chapter 22: Who wakes up first?
Chapter 23: Who makes the morning coffee?
Chapter 24: Who cuts the others' hair?
Chapter 25: Who says "I love you" first?
Chapter 26: Who is most likely to ask the others to dance?
Chapter 27: Who wears the others' jackets?
Chapter 28: Who whispers inappropriate things in the others' ears at inappropriate times?
Chapter 29: Who makes the others laugh the most?
Chapter 30: Who needs the most reassurance?
Chapter 31: Who would need to bail the others out of jail?
Chapter 32: Who would rock/sing their child back to sleep?
Chapter 33: What do they do when they're away from each other?
Chapter 34: Who picks up the pizza?
Chapter 35: Who is ticklish?
Chapter 36: Who sings and who plays the music?
Chapter 37: Who is the big/little spoon?
Chapter 38: What is each partner's favorite feature of the others'?
Chapter 39: What is the first thing that changes when they realize they love each other?
Chapter 40: Who puts inadvisable substances in the microwave?
Chapter 41: Who forgets to put the cat outside during sex?
Chapter 42: Who is lactose intolerant?
Chapter 43: Who remembers what the others order at restaurants?
Chapter 44: Who reaches for the others' hands while driving?
Chapter 45: Who gets the window seat?
Chapter 46: Who leaves little notes in the others' lunches and what do they say?
Chapter 47: Who falls asleep while watching a movie?
Chapter 48: Who reminds the others to put on sunscreen?
Speaking strictly by the numbers, Addam's the one with the biggest income, but he might as well be a poor man when the year's over, for all how much he's frittered away on silly gifts for Flora and Minoth - perfume, and flowers, and chocolates, everything as normal and conventional as can be. He's the quintessential, stereotypical, impossible-to-shop-for man of the house, in his own right, so they just resign themselves to accepting with all enthusiasm. That's really all he asks in return, that his affections be honestly received; they oblige fondly, easily, when he's out pocket money for a casual date.
"Addam," Flora calls over the knee wall, "can you come help me with this last step?"
She probably means holding the mixing bowl, because it's just the slightest bit too heavy today with the batter for a full sheet of coffee cake, but she could mean anything else he's useful for, too, so she's intentionally kept her request vague.
Addam is equally so: "Er...I can't."
"You can't?"
"I've been...incapacitated."
"Well, that's a shame, isn't it? Send Minoth, then."
"He's asleep."
"Oh? Is he taking after me so soon?" She makes do as quick as she can, to join him.
"Flora, where's my green and purple flannel?"
There is quite literally no chance in this universe that Minoth's ringing voice could somehow not be heard by anyone any closer to the bedroom than the garage, but Flora pointedly ignores it. She'll be happy to hear it again if he repeats himself, anyway.
"Flora? Are you here?"
She hikes the shirt tighter over her shoulders, drawing the front panel shut. Maybe if she baits him enough he'll come retrieve it directly, and then just so happen to stay.
When Minoth finally emerges, it's with a graphic t-shirt and a fond (tired) sigh.
Addam and Flora used to trade off, about equal frequency, the driver and passenger seats, but when Minoth arrived he soon became the de facto driver, and thereafter Flora had to be the one armed with directions - and those with sensible landmarks; any colorful descriptions she quickly learned to tailor to Minoth's spatial accustoms and not her own.
Peering up from the back seat, when they haven't jammed three to the front in the coupe, Addam's fascinated. "By the diner, you'll turn," says Flora, and Minoth shoots back, "There is no diner at an intersection around here, you mean the hospital?"
"I don't see why you have to draw my hands - they're all stubby, Addam's are so much nicer than mine."
Minoth doesn't look up from the piece of printer paper he's commandeered for this project (notebooks he loves, sketchbooks he avoids at all costs). "If I wanted to draw the stereotypically-proportioned hands of an adult male, I would take a picture of my own hands, doing..." he lifts the pencil to gesture in unison with his eyebrows "...whatever you like."
Flora's hands are already demurely laid atop one another, but somehow they intensify in it.
"That's why I need you. Variety."
Classic comparisons to housepets have always served far better than they've almost any right to; Addam's a huge and hugely affectionate dog, like a golden retriever or some such, Flora's a kitten that curls up whenever and wherever she feels like it, never leaving you any less than wholly gratified when she's done so, and Minoth's a grumpy-grouchy cat of mysteriously just-barely-imprecise temperament who might follow you around at a moderate distance for weeks before slinking off, never to be heard from again.
That is: Addam's the only one who approaches anything like slobbery, but when Minoth's made his mind up...
Well, if they're still meant to be together after years, any common argument can't be all that serious. It'll always be relevant, though.
Something about how Minoth seems to enjoy "stealing" Addam's wife. Something about how Addam seems to enjoy watching it. Something about...what are Flora's thoughts, anyway? She has the right to have a say, hasn't she?
And they reconcile: yes, if not for Addam, Flora and Minoth likely never would found each other. But, if not for Flora and Minoth, Addam wouldn't be finding such happiness as he does, day after day.
You know. Something sappy like that.
If anyone's proud, too much so for their own good, it's Minoth, but even Flora beats him sometimes, with causes scrupled enough.
Addam apologizes with a fervitude that nears shocking, always, but sometimes it takes him a while to actually pinpoint what it is he's done wrong; most times he likes to have at least given a fair shot at figuring it out, if opposing emotions run cool enough.
With him as an example, they're always holding out to the last. And their returns are sneaky, too. No sighs, no searching eye contact, just a simple gravity, and an "I'm sorry."
Flora likes gardening, knitting and sewing, et cetera; tactile forms of something that wouldn't quite be called fine art but is always just a little more whimsical than practical, if it's not socks she's darning.
Addam likes building things, reorganizing and optimizing anything that doesn't bark or bite to the best of his abilities, because he's got two hands that work and he's got the hours in the day.
Minoth likes telling stories; that both does and doesn't about describe it.
The point: None particularly likes the others' hobbies, performed in isolation, but when they come together? All of the above.
No question. It isn't even that Addam won't admit it; he's absolutely the happy-go-lucky bloke who loves to be carried around like a princess, because some days he is one, and Flora very nearly invented the position.
And Minoth? Minoth's only gripe with the whole affair is that he hasn't yet figured how to properly balance himself so that he can hold Addam while Addam's holding Flora, thought experiment made physical with a sliding center of gravity that can only slide so far before the whole thing comes crashing down in a pile of limbs...and kisses. Yes, lots of kisses.
Addam's long abandoned the "I thought I told you to stop calling me that" bit; half of him's stopped believing that he ever did say such a thing, because the fact that Minoth's got a nickname for him reserved uniquely among all Alrest, a relationship found exactly one-to-one, almost convinces him that there really is something special about him, that he isn't just the bland, available intersection point for two infinitely more interesting people - and nicknames are what they haven't got, besides love, darling, dear, and...well, "sillies" qualifies, doesn't it? When Flora says it, it usually just means "my loves".
"Would you marry me?"
Indeed, "would" not "will" like Addam's asking in the abstract, not prompting for a concrete choice.
Flora smiles, says of course I would, and of course I will. Addam colors as red as his hair tie.
"Right. That's...right, yes, of course that's what I asked."
Minoth, some years later, gets "would" as well, and gives his biggest side-eye to date.
"What is this, a job interview? Prince, come on, you gotta get into it a little more than that."
(Maybe getting down on one knee would have helped, but he wouldn't have expected Minoth to approve.)
Flora might hide it, but she's their worrier supreme, far above any of Addam's whirlwind catastrophizing or Minoth's pan-deprecating anxieties.
What if she left the stove on? What if they've poured too much time and money into the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood? What if she's leading an entire generation, albeit a small suburban subsection not universally taught the facts of life by a primary school teacher in proto-academia alone, astray?
You might ask, aren't those such anxious, impossible catastrophes built up by nothing so sensible as she usually is?
Surely, they are, but there's still something...prim about them.
If we're being honest, which I hope we are, progressive rock nowhere near qualifies as "weird" musical taste, but it's certainly less "normal" than light classical, whether that means orchestral or folk or even jazz, and easy listening oldies - simple songs with simple, sometimes powerful lyrics, nothing overly artful about them.
No, it's not heavy metal or deep-cut harpsichord layers or exotic bubblegum pop, but whenever Flora hears Minoth roll into the driveway hammering the steering wheel while a vocalist proclaims the coronation of a cyclical soldier-christ's king...well, she's not sure whether she begins to understand him more or less.
For Minoth, it's the scars. For Flora, it's the lack of anything substantial in the same place.
For Addam, however fortunately or unfortunately, it's nothing.
"You know, Prince, I don't think I'll ever be able to understand you. You strip your shirt off faster than you draw your sword."
Of course he does: "Didn't you expect, Minoth, that I'd always be faster to love than to violence?"
If Flora ever chose moments to groan exasperation, now would be one. "Addam Origo, you are a mystery."
It's not true, but he lets her say it, because then maybe it'll be...uncovered, later.
Ah, yes. This question. The question Addam sometimes wishes he'd the wherewithall to answer just a bit quicker, for the hell of it.
With three people, obviously it's a bit harder to pin down (pun so severely unintended) who's...who, in such scenarios, but where the sensible solution would be to assign one person this way, one person that way, and the other a mix of both...they don't even do that.
Mostly, everybody's too tired, and they realize there's no point in making a big fuss. If everybody's horizontal, there's no sense in providing vertical...directions anyway. Right?
(It's Flora.)
Addam might be the touchy-feely one, but he's not the adventurous, swashbuckling, spontaneous-kiss-in-the-middle-of-the-sidewalk one. He always has to ask if he can, and then get himself prepared for it, and then arrange his hands, and so on, and so forth...
Flora, too, is rarely one for anything deeper than a peck at the corner of the lips, if not apple of cheek proper.
So we're left with Minoth, who doesn't bother asking if the gesture doesn't fit (sometimes you've just gotta say it with your eyes) and already knows which hand goes to which point of jaw - he knew it yesterday.
Flora loves holding hands. If she were anywhere near as much of a savory foods enjoyer as her husbands, she'd call it her bread and butter, but since she isn't, maybe it's more...broccoli and beans?
No matter. She's always doing it. Pulling reluctant fingers out from behind shifting waists, fetching followers after her on the way to the hammock hung gaily in the corner of the yard, leaning on offered props to reach up and give a kiss or two...
Eventually, of course, Addam and Minoth learn her favorite patterns, and when they've interlaced together she practically gleams with joy.
"Now look, Addam. I've never had a pet, I don't know what they're like, so it's all hearsay, but just what on earth makes you think you can bring a rabbit into the house and expect that we'll all be able to keep up with it? With them, rather!"
Addam, eyebrows peaking, begins to wish distinctly that he'd never given the aforementioned animal a makeshift cage of storage rack components; he'd surely prefer it cuddling innocently in his arms to gnawing on the dandelions he'd carefully plucked from one of the patches of grass Minoth hadn't already treated with pest repellent.
"Addam, for the last time, I don't need an umbrella!"
"But you're not wearing a hat," Addam persists petulantly. "Come on, it's big enough for the three of us!"
That's a stretch, and it's only merited by the fact that Flora knows how to step exactly in rhythm with Minoth's boots, behind her, so as to minimize her overall spatial footprint, but it doesn't matter.
"I'm not wearing a hat because it's raining," explains Minoth with a dangerous lilt to the end of his statement; only impatience, not anger.
"But you'll get wet!"
"So would the hat!"
"But...but I'm lonely!"
The first thing Minoth realizes upon waking up is that he's cold. Not cold like his body heat has been leached away by the debatably-cold-blooded Flora, who, lying right there, naturally ends up giving it right back, but cold like he's not wearing a shirt, and somehow his chest has been exposed to the open air.
While the natural assumption of culprit is Addam, because he's...Addam, Minoth knows better, by now. Addam always ends up kicking off any blankets he steals with as much mindless facility as for the theft itself.
"Flora, I'm cold."
Her response is a muffled giggle.
Much as he'd like not to be, Minoth's a perpetual late-riser. Falling asleep is basically always an accident, and waking up is the first time he's been comfortable all night. Sure, he's never been late to an actual obligation in his life, whether it's work or a pale-morning vehicle exchange at the car dealership, but he's no early bird (neither is Addam, but he's at least more moderate).
No, that's Flora's job. In fact, it's her easy, charming way of leaving that prompts him awake half the time - if he doesn't kiss her now, he won't get to for, oh, hours!
Neither Minoth nor Flora are coffee drinkers, and I certainly won't try to frame coffee-making endeavors as some wayward example of Addam's mythical general incompetence, but if Flora doesn't start it brewing, well...he'll probably forget.
They sit and drink their tea, Minoth's a topical French Vanilla or Earl Grey blend and Flora's a piquant raspberry, and they watch as their silly bird awakens, slowly at first and then with a start.
"Good morning!" he shouts, of a tremendous sudden and absolutely entirely too cheerily, and Minoth only rolls his eyes because he knows Flora will indulge him. Liquid lightning, indeed.
"Flora, I have long hair. I don't need a haircut!"
"That's silly, everyone needs at least a trim every once in a while."
He looks at her. She looks back. It's not as if he can disagree with the example she presents, soft and perfect day in and day out.
"Besides, I cut Addam's hair all the time."
Oh. Well. Minoth fidgets for a moment, fingertips working to prepare the gesture he needs.
"You couldn't pay me to have Addam's haircut."
"Right. I'm not paying you." With one final shove, Flora sits him down. "I'll give you a kiss, how's that?"
"No, silly," Flora says over her shoulder as she walks out of Auresco, "it's because I love you."
She doesn't remember why she said it - the cause that had asked such a crucial reason - nor does she remember planning to, knowing the shape of that truth before it fell out of her mouth.
Addam's almost stunned, moreso because he'd never expected it out of her than because of anything to do with getting beaten to the punch.
The same falls out with Minoth, later, only this time Flora says "we" instead of "I" and the lightness of "silly" is...less present.
It's not that Minoth's opposed to dancing. It's not that he thinks the modern institution of the retro, nostalgic dance hall, complete with disco lights and hardwood floors, is something to scoff at.
It's just not for him.
No, no matter how insistently Addam and Flora tug at his hands to try to get him to budge in the general direction of the entrance, because he's dressed so nicely anyway, come on, it'll be fun, he's just...not amenable.
Not unless the hardwood floor is in their kitchen, and it's Flora's socks slipping over his as they move in luxurious circles.
"The problem with Addam," Flora remarks fondly to Minoth one day, "is that he doesn't have any interesting jackets."
"You wear his hoodies all the time, I'm supposed to believe you don't think they're interesting?"
She laughs, says of course, they're extremely comfortable, and they smell like him, and he loves when I steal them, but they're not...
"Fashionable," Minoth finishes for her with the smug beginnings of a grin, and she nods, plucks his leather jacket off of the chair back behind him, and ignores his every sputtered rebuttal as Addam appears to escort her somewhere doubtlessly incredibly interesting indeed.
"There, I've finished," Flora proclaims with less of a flourish than she'd give if she'd actually stopped worrying about whatever it is, or was.
Minoth flashes a glance at Addam, who flickers back, and he offers lazily, "Oh? So soon?"
For a moment, Flora's squinting confusion, and then she realizes what he's meant, and she huffs five or six different ways before leveling an index finger at the two of them and making sure they know that they'd better not do that in public, or...or else!
Addam bites his lip. Oh, he's just got to. "Or you'll be finished again?"
Depending on the subject to which he's applied his fumbling attempts at humor, you either laugh at Addam, with him, or because he's just so doggone friendly and maybe you're even a little bit harmlessly frightened. You don't, usually, laugh at his jokes.
With Flora, it's something of the same, but a little bit less on fear and a little bit more on actual effective humor. She knows how to handle her audience, nearly always, nigh timelessly.
With Minoth, though?
You know the drill. The wit inmitable, the charm effortless, the occasional stumble exactly in time. And the crowd goes wild.
"I'm sorry I'm...like this, all the time."
"Like what?" Flora says, very clearly directed, giving Minoth her core meaning that even if she knew exactly what he meant down to the inflection, she wouldn't stand for him being so vague about it, like he's sorry about the whole universe in one, so that takes care of it.
Minoth straightens up. "I'm mopey, and I don't really like my job, and I need you two to tell me everything's gonna be alright all the time."
"Minoth..." Addam lays a hand on his forearm. "You don't think we love to do that?"
Flora doesn't get into scrapes. She just doesn't!
Even so, she's not too annoyed when she finds that Addam and Minoth have done the very thing.
"I think I would have appreciated some advance notice on this, loves," she murmurs good-naturedly, clicking the pen shut and handing the clipboard back to the waiting bailiff.
"You think we planned to get detained?"
Addam nods earnestly, a little too frazzled to actually be exasperated at the accusation, but Flora just shakes her head. Honestly, whatever the scheme was, it was probably worth it.
"No, and that's the trouble. You don't think at all."
For obvious reasons, he keeps his voice low when he does it. What's the point of putting a child to sleep if you're waking up their parents all the while? Minoth's learned that it's not always only children who find it difficult to get back to sleep when there are distractions around.
That doesn't stop Addam and Flora from hearing, though. They're well aware of the specific patterns of fussing that Xander and Evie each have, when they're falling asleep, and that mysterious sound, not quite like a rumbling and not quite like a humming either, can only mean one thing.
"Oh, Addam, come off it, he'll be home soon enough."
"You don't miss him?"
"Of course I miss him. It's not the same in the least, with only you there. But I know better than to pout about it. We've each still got our work to keep us occupied, even if we can't go on the same dates, or whichever, as usual."
"I just...don't like how wrong it feels."
"Oh? I would have thought you would have treasured knowing."
"Ah, well, that's..."
"It's exactly right, is what it is. Now shuffle these, you've a fair shot at winning for once."
"I passed the place, and I wanted pizza, and I was running early anyway," Minoth says, by way of explanation. He doesn't say why he got which toppings he got (Flora would do so eagerly, even before/without being requested), or how long exactly he waited, or even how many staff members there were unless there's a particularly dry, witty comment he can make about their competence or lack thereof; it's too late for that, anyway, because he's already taken a slice and settled down at the table to silently watch Addam attempt making sense of these (entirely unremarkable) recent events.
Minoth, quite honestly, flinches when being touched, really anywhere but specifically on his sides, below his ribs; Addam doesn't quite mark that as funny, doesn't laugh at or about it, so it's distinctly different from the way Flora...wriggles, if a hand should come to touch her there.
Of course she's embarrassed, and of course she's too harmlessly breathless to do anything about it, but of course they think it's charming, that there's such a singular and entirely obvious hook in to her lighthearted overall discomposure.
And of course she knows how to get back at Addam, should she need to.
They're all just about fair at carrying a tune, and they're all just about as fair at rendering those passages on instruments (clarinet and bassoon, and alternately upright bass), but in no universe would they be considered virtuosos. Flora knows how to spin out just about anything on the piano, however, so she usually keeps mischievously silent while the two men dance their stereotypically awkward duet.
"You always get these things stuck in my head, you know."
"Yeah, and? That's not my fault. Sue me, I like hearing you sing!"
Flora smiles, shakes her head, and rounds the verse yet again.
"You know, it's a shame I'm not shorter."
"Hm? Not a shame at all. I like how tall you are very much."
"Yes, well..." Addam fidgets with the arm unfortunately still firmly attached to the hand Flora's just taken, crossed over her chest almost like a seatbelt. "But what about Minoth?"
"What about him?" Flora asks sleepily, still preening. "I like how tall he is very much too."
On the other side of the bed, Minoth catches Addam's gaze, lifts a brow. If he said, "you'll have your turn tomorrow, darling," aloud, maybe it'd be easier on Addam. So he doesn't.
"I like your nose," Minoth says, out of nowhere, his lazy weekday off intersecting rather bluntly with Addam's flurry of odd-yet-constant tax-season duties.
If he were Minoth or Flora, Addam would have said, "Well, I like your nose, too," without skipping a single beat or keystroke, but since he's Addam, he has to stop typing, pause thinking, and look wonderingly up.
Minoth's not exactly amused. "Well if I'd known it would have stopped you in your tracks, I wouldn't have said anything!"
"That's what I love about you, Minoth. You're so..."
"No, no, no. You're the eccentric one. Back to work."
When Flora realizes, she gets quieter, for a couple days. Everything's hushed tones and flighted glances, like she's been holding a baby bird in the palm of her hand for over a year and now that she knows she's petrified she'll crush it.
Minoth wouldn't call his a realization so much as an acceptance, an overturning of denial: if it's gotta be, then it's gotta be. I'll learn to live with it somehow - isn't this supposed to help that?
Addam doesn't change at all. He just thinks, ah, so that's what that is. Lovely. And then he makes sure everyone knows.
He stares dejectedly at the mess. Trooper though Minoth is, Addam knows he'd never agree to helping sop up gobs of marshmallow stuck to the sides of the microwave, in-on-around-under the glass platter that rotates at its base.
He should have known. There's nothing in his life experience so far that permits him not to have known that you cannot caramelize marshmallows in a microwave the same way you can over an open fire, whether that's a gas stove or convenance at a campfire.
Only he would do such a thing. So now, only he will have to clean it up.
"Addam..."
His acknowledgement is muffled, cheeks tucked as they are between pillows and the underside of Minoth's forearm. "Mmmh...yes, dear?"
(She tries not to be annoyed. Oh, how she tries.)
"There's something moving on the floor. Now, are you going to get up and find out what it is, or am I?"
"Why don't you have Minoth do it? He's the...creature specialist, isn't he?"
The whole bed goes still as they await his response; they know he's listening.
Quiet... "Minoth?"
"Will you calm down? Santo never climbs up on the bed, what makes you think he's going to now?"
Far be it from ice cream to ever make anyone feel morose, but particularly anyone as generally excitable, even gung-ho, as Mr. Addam Leigh Origo. Far be it from anyone to be sitting at a farm stand on the side of a dusty highway, cheek in palm and eyes on a very particular bit of gravel visible between the ribbing in the tabletop.
"Come now, love, it's no trouble. I should have remembered - we'll get water ice next time."
Smirking, Minoth licks the last of his soft-serve from his spoon. "Does that mean you won't let me kiss you like this?"
While Minoth wouldn't exactly categorize himself as meticulous, he's certainly more decisive than the other two. Sure, Flora remembers what Addam likes to order at just about every restaurant they've been to, but she also remembers two or three other options, and cross-references them with the vague memory of ordering the same dish (or adjacent) at other establishments, and are you sure you don't want to try something new, actually?
The server smiles indulgently at him, and his embarrassment withers broadly back. Great.
"Does everybody know what they want?"
He cracks assorted knuckles, under the table. "No, not everybody. Just me."
"Flora, I'm driving."
"I know you're driving - you do that very well."
"So you'd rather I do it less well just so you can hold my hand?"
"That's exactly what I'd rather. Just be glad Addam's sitting on my other side, or you'd really have something to contend with."
Minoth rolls his eyes. "Isn't that supposed to be the driver's job, reaching irresponsibly for the passengers' hands - by choice?"
"Yes, and? You weren't doing it."
"I wasn't doing it because I didn't think anybody should be!"
Flora, not to be circumvented, glances back at Addam leaning warm agreement over her shoulder.
"You know, I've never before considered how lucky we are to always be traveling in a group of three."
"Lucky?" Minoth questions with a shot of snark in his voice. To him, it seems like an incredibly deliberate choice. If Addam really doesn't put any stock in his own actions, and their consequences...
"Well, more convenient, I should say. In airplanes, anyway."
Oh. Right. "Until we board one with four seats to an aisle," he can't help but quip back.
"As long as no one fights me for the window seat," says Flora. Minoth smirks; he knows even Addam wouldn't dare.
Since Addam works from home, the proud responsibility naturally falls to him to leave cheesy, nigh-embarrassing notes in lids and pockets of handsome brown plastic lunchboxes and quilted insulator bags. Flora doesn't mind, of course; anyone who sees will just be endeared by the thought of such a loving husband.
Minoth minds, though. How's he supposed to supervise a team of exterminators who already regard him (conditionally affectionately) as an oddball when there's a yellow sticky note emblazoned with forest green permanent marker proclaiming "Remember, you're the bees' knees!" on his turkey sandwich? His knees have enough problems as it is!
"Hang on, Flora...pause it."
"We can't pause now, it's in the middle of the action sequence! That's worse than trying to stop on a clean sentence of dialogue!"
But despite her extrameticulous fretting, Flora pauses, and Addam points his chin over in Minoth's direction.
"I think he's asleep."
Lacking any more dramatic weapon, Flora smacks Addam's arm with the remote. "Of course he's asleep, we're at home. Don't you know he only ever stays awake at the theater?"
Now Addam thumbs absently at his chin. "I wouldn't have expected it. Isn't he supposed to be the film buff?"
"Maybe so..."
It's not that Addam's jealous, he's just...confounded. Not only is Minoth naturally tan (somewhere between a deep olive and a light bronze), Flora's always the first one to get sun-kissed almost effortlessly, any patches of reddened skin appearing more as flattering rosy blush than anything else.
Sunscreen, of course, will only serve to make him embarrassingly pastier, and he says as much when Flora attempts gentle reminders.
"Yes, I know, I'll get burned, and my nose will peel, and your husband's such a mortifyingly milquetoast mess! I know!"
She bites her lip. "Darling, I don't want you to get cancer."