A Liturgy for Small Corrosions

"You can't use that one," Finn said. His voice was unnervingly calm.

Liam blinked, his brain still buffering. He was holding the Nescafé jar in one hand and a mug in the other. "Use what one?"

"That one." Finn pointed a dramatic finger at the teaspoon Liam had been about to retrieve. It was a perfectly ordinary teaspoon, distinguished only by a faint pattern of indeterminate flowers on the handle, worn smooth with age.

"The spoon? Finn, it's a spoon. It's the only clean one."

"It has a malevolent aura," Finn stated, as if discussing the weather. "I felt it this morning when I was looking for the honey. A palpable chill. A frisson of... wrongness."

Liam set the coffee and mug down on the countertop with deliberate care. He was not a morning person. His patience before 9 a.m. was a finite and rapidly dwindling resource. "It's just cold, mate. The heating clicked off an hour ago. The whole flat has a malevolent aura."

"No, this is different. This is specific. Concentrated. That spoon has seen things. Bad things."

"It's seen the inside of my yoghurt pot and countless cups of tea. Its greatest trauma was probably that time you tried to use it to pry open a can of paint."

Finn recoiled slightly, clutching the fuzzy lapels of his dressing gown. "An act of desecration, I now realise. I likely awoke something. An ancient and petty kitchen deity."

Liam sighed, a long, rattling sound. He leaned a hip against the counter and crossed his arms. The lino was cold under his bare feet. "Right. Okay. So, what you're saying is, I, a living, breathing human who needs caffeine to function, cannot use the only clean teaspoon because it might give my coffee... bad vibes?"

"It might curdle the milk! It might turn the coffee bitter! It could, Liam, grant you a day of persistent, low-grade misfortune. Stubbed toes. Missed buses. Spilling things on your shirt."

"You're describing my average Wednesday."

"Today is Tuesday! See? Its influence spreads already!"

Liam pushed himself off the counter and took a step toward the drawer. "Move. I'm getting the spoon."

Finn didn't move. He straightened his back, assuming a posture of baffling dignity. "I cannot, in good conscience, allow it. Your chi is fragile enough as it is."

A slow, dangerous smile spread across Liam's face. "My chi is about to kick your arse back to bed if it doesn't get a coffee."

He lunged. It wasn't a real lunge, more of a clumsy, sleepy shuffle, but it had intent. Finn, however, was surprisingly agile for someone who claimed to have the constitution of a Victorian invalid. He sidestepped, blocking the drawer with his body. Liam reached around him, fingers scrabbling for the handle. Finn grabbed his wrist. Their hands were cold.

"Don't make me do this," Finn warned, his voice a theatrical whisper.

"Do what? Bore me to death with talk of auras?" Liam grunted, trying to lever Finn's hand away. They stumbled, locked in a bizarrely intimate and utterly silent struggle. The only sounds were the ticking of the boiler and the drumming of rain against the glass.

The stalemate was broken when Finn, with a sudden cry of "Begone, foul influence!", released Liam's wrist and grabbed the salt cellar from the counter. Liam, caught off balance, stumbled back a step.

"What are you doing with that? Adding flavour to my impending misery?"

"I'm performing a cleansing!" Finn twisted the cap off and held the cellar like a holy relic. "This is a necessary countermeasure."

He began to sprinkle a circle of coarse sea salt on the floor around the cutlery drawer. Liam just stared, his mind a total blank. He was witnessing a full-blown exorcism of a piece of stainless steel. In his own kitchen.

"You are completely, certifiably, mad," Liam announced to the room.

"Madness is just wisdom that the unenlightened cannot comprehend," Finn retorted, meticulously pouring the last of the salt to complete his circle. "Now, the implement must be placed within the circle of purification. It must be contained."

That was the final straw. The sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it all snapped the last thread of Liam's restraint. With a roar that was mostly exasperation, he pushed past Finn, yanked the drawer open, and snatched the cursed teaspoon.

"Aha!" he yelled, holding it aloft like Excalibur. "Behold! The bringer of slightly-off-tasting tea! The spoon of minor inconveniences!"

Finn gasped. "You fool! You've touched it directly! You've exposed yourself to its core energies!"

He made a grab for the spoon. Liam, now fully committed to the ridiculousness, dodged him. They began a strange, circling dance around the small kitchen, Liam brandishing the spoon, Finn trying to snatch it away. The salt crunched under their feet.

"Give it here, you absolute nugget!" Finn hissed, making a dive.

Liam sidestepped, but his bare foot slipped on a patch of salt. He pinwheeled his arms, the spoon flying from his grasp. It clattered onto the floor. He went down, landing with a soft 'oof' on his backside. Finn, who had been lunging, had nowhere to go and tripped over Liam's outstretched legs, collapsing on top of him in a tangle of limbs and tartan dressing gown.

For a moment, they just lay there. A heap of man on the cold, salt-strewn lino. Liam could feel Finn's breath against his neck. The 'cursed' teaspoon lay glinting innocently just inches from his nose.

Then a giggle escaped Finn. It was a small, choked sound.

Liam felt it rumble through Finn's chest against his own. He tried to hold it in, he really did. He tried to maintain his righteous anger.

But he couldn't. A snort escaped him, then another. Soon, both of them were shaking with silent, then not-so-silent, laughter. It was deep, helpless, stomach-aching laughter at the sheer, weapons-grade stupidity of the situation.

"Its core... energies..." Liam wheezed, tears forming in his eyes.

"Shut up..." Finn gasped, burying his face in Liam's shoulder to muffle the sound. "It's a very... serious... matter..."

This only made them laugh harder. The tension of the morning, the stress of exams, the endless grey rain outside—it all dissolved into the ludicrous image of two grown men wrestling over a spoon and performing a salt-based exorcism before nine in the morning.

Finally, the laughter subsided into quiet breaths. Finn didn't move. Liam, suddenly aware of the warmth of Finn's body, the weight of him, fell silent. The rain tapped against the window.

"So," Liam said, his voice a little hoarse. "Breakfast out?"

Finn lifted his head, his dark hair a mess, his cheeks flushed. "Only if we leave the spoon here. In the circle. Just in case."