early-ish fff

it's been awhile since i got one done this fast, especially considering that the gremlin's still here and the universe still (and always, i assume) revolves around her.
so big up the fabulous jj in purgatory for setting this all up, and here's some very short fiction. i opted to intentionally keep the opening phrase the way jj delivered it, and see how much i could do without having to make a choice about which person it was.
i like to experiment.

I/He/She watched the bubbles rise... tiny at first, and fast moving around the bottom of the kettle, then finally getting big enough to hold their own on their rise to the top. while it might be true that watched, it could never boil, it was a risk taken to make the most of the tea-making. it had to involve numerous trips back and forth to the kitchen to check on the hopefully-but-never-yet-boiling, even though the sound it would make when it actually hit the boil was something instantly recognisable, even in sleep.
watching the gradual approach of the boil was part of the fun. carrying on a conversation in the living room while simultaneously attending to something imminently delightful in the kitchen, back and forth, tying the details of the evening together with the hot drink smoothing the disparate edges of small talk among those who knew each other too well.
hosting was something so many seemed to enjoy and take pride in, but with this group it all came down to how the mellowing progressed. the boiling of water for the teas, cuban coffees, and host of other hot toddies was the essential turn of the evening, when the last acquaintances left and only true stragglers (read, friends) remained to wind down together with shared history, warmly alcoholic beverages and the lingering sweet smoke that was the wrapping paper around the box set of their many evenings together.
new years, birthdays, anniversaries, house-warmings, pity-parties, wedding- and baby-showers, dinners and drunken debauchery – after everything, who were these people?
the bubbles were more insistently roiling the surface of the water and the kettle was making it’s boiling noise, but suddenly all that mattered was the question.
the fire wasn’t turned off from under the kettle.
the bubbles were now softly sounding mini-explosions, vying for steam passage upward and outward.
the walk from the kitchen back to the living room was slow and sticky, a testament to feet afraid of an answer. but the question had been thought and now had to be asked.
feet acknowledged arrival with a shift to redistribute weight, as eyes surveyed the would-be-imbibers of any product of the rapidly-drying kettle’s contents, the hand lifted the needle off the al green record, and the question was addressed to the room with a shout:
“who the hell are all you people? and what are you doing in my house?”

walk good.