| Busted |
| Summary: | Cidra tracks down Tisiphone to discuss Pallas's accusations. |
| Date: | 2041.04.10 |
| Related Logs: | Gone and There Again, Principle of the Matter. |
| Players: |
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| Officer's Berthings — Naval Deck — Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post Holocaust Day: #43 |
| Much smaller than the Enlisted Berthings, 'Officer Country' has a less available in it but still manages to squeeze everything into this room. Like the other berthings aboard, this room has armored doors that can lower to seal off sections during fire or depressurization. Over-under bunks provide some individual privacy for the crews who occupy this area with a small blue curtain while lockers stand between each sleeping module to hold personal items. Tables are set-up in the space in between. |
| Condition Level: 2 — Danger Close |
A few hours after the strange Eidolon incident, Stavrian is back at 'home'. Off-duty for the rest of the night. In his sweatpants and a plain T-shirt, he's settled on his bunk. A decent attempt to read some book is futile, interrupted as it is by constant, wet-sounding coughing. Gross.
Enter Tisiphone through yonder hatch, her loose-laced boots announcing her steps with sloppy scuffs. There's a quick glance around — one never knows, the officers may suddenly decide to run amok — before she heads in. Straight for Stavrian's bunk, though her steps get slower and slower as she approaches. She doesn't speak up until she's at the foot of his bunk, and even then, it's quiet. "Hey."
Stavrian is in the middle of a coughing fit, his hand curled up at his mouth. It wracks his shoulders, hunching them up so when he peers at Tisphone with one reddened eye it's looking at a sharp angle upwards. He lifts his other hand, index finger raised, until the harsh sounds stop. Followed immediately by a muted burp. "Sorry." Swallowing air sucks. "Hey."
Tisiphone's expression is a little blank and a lot tired, emotions shuttered back behind that odd, glimmery light in her sleety eyes. She's watching with her mouth primmed into a tight line until Stavrian holds up his finger; at that, she looks down at her booted toes, waiting. Once the coughing fit passes, she steps forward until she's across from his shoulders and sinks down in a crouch, fingers resting on the edge of his bunk. "I didn't mean to give you the poisoned smokes, you know," she says after a long pause.
Stavrian hehs. Another light, dry cough. "Eidolon. There was…shit in the air." He clears his throat, pushing his hands against the mattress to help straighten his back up. His eyes are still slightly red, but there's no tear tracks on his cheeks. "How are you?"
"Better." That part's easy to answer, at least. At closer range, Tisiphone's eyes are a little glassy as they keep tracking around Stavrian's face, then away to some middle point, then back again. "The Admiral put out an announcement you were all dead," she says. "I was working in the hangar when the crew manifest- came through." There's something about the phrasing, there, that doesn't ring — or look — honest.
"Dead?" Stavrian clears his throat, blinking slowly. One brow ticks upwards and he shifts backwards on his bunk, slouching his back against the wall. "Didn't waste any time. Surprised all my shit's still here." Black humor; as he says it he can't quite make eye contact. "We're fine, though, we're all…you know. Alive." This one word comes out in a tone that doesn't seem sure what to make of it. A slight pause, then: "They found a cat."
"Yeah. Dead." Tisiphone's mouth twitches as she looks away from Stavrian, down to the fingers hooked between metal frame and mattress. "The way the announcement sounded, Bu-uh. Evan and I, we figured it sounded like the Raptor got caught in the FTL wake." She clears her throat as well, fingers drumming there against the metal, before she raises her eyes again, trying to get one corner of her mouth to push upward as well. "You're serious. A cat?" A flicker of surprise clears her odd look, warming her expression a touch. Kitty.
See, Stavrian knows what girls like. He smirks — more of a little smile than a smirk, even — and scratches chin. "Yeah. Little…what do you call those. The ones with the orange and white and black? Those. It was a kitten. So I guess the Cerberus has a ship's cat now."
Tisiphone sinks down a little lower as she settles back from the balls of her feet to flat-footed. Unhooking her fingers from the frame, she starts drumming them again. Bat-bat-bat. Bat-bat-bat. "Calico," she says, looking up again. "Calico kitten." Her mouth tugs further. So busted. "Gonna be loved to frakking /death/ within a month. We'll be finding new planets just for fish and cream."
"It is a cute little frakker," Stavrian says, with just enough reluctance to admit such. Kind of a grunt. "I think it's in Sickbay overnight, if you want to see it-…" By the end of that he's starting to cough again. His shoulders jerk forward, and he yanks his shirt collar up in front of his mouth. The first few coughs dislodge phlegm way down in his chest, then slowly wring until they hack themselves dry.
The tentative smile gets wrung away with the wracking coughs, Tisiphone looking back down to her fingers. "I-" she starts to say, abruptly, looking up. "Dammit, Jesse." Like she's angry at the coughing fit, or something, her mouth going from a tight line to a restless, unhappy twist. "Get you a tea?" she offers. "Will it help at all? Anything else?"
Stavrian keeps his mouth firmly shut, an expression of disgust crinkling his lips. He twists around, grabbing a cup off his shelf and spitting a copious blob into it. His eyes flicker up after that, wincing with embarrassment, and he clears his throat hard. "Yeah…actually that'd be cool. My throat's all dry." A glance into the cup he just made unfit for serving in. "There's some more cups over there. Get one for you too if you want one. I've got plenty of tea." The cup's pushed back on the shelf. Waaay back. "You still have that cardamom stuff you mentioned once?"
"Give me that. I'll rinse it out." Tisiphone reaches her good hand out, forefinger extended slightly more than the others to indicate the… sullied… cup. A tiny bit of amusement creeps out again beyond that odd and weary look, shifting to a warm sort of surprise with a blink. "Cardamom /stuff/." Tiny snort. "Pods. Yeah. I- figured you'd forgotten. Sure, I'll get them."
"Hey, I don't claim to be classy." Cardamom /stuff/, got that right. Stavrian looks at her hand, then her face. Then her hand again. "I'll get it," he decides, finally. "Don't worry about it. My biohazard's not your biohazard." His lips twitch, curling on the left side in a faint smirk. "But no, I didn't forget. Actually thinking about it the other day, no idea why. But you don't have to get them now…I've got stuff. Better figure out what you want for your pods though, so we can do this black market thing the right way."
One pale brow lifts in a sort of 'oh, c'MON' look at the mention of biohazards, but Tisiphone doesn't press it. He wants to chip dried lung-butter out of a cup that badly, he can have the privilege. She pushes up from her crouch, one knee cracking, and crosses over to the sinks, where two clean mugs are collected. They're rinsed out before she takes them over to fill them with steaming water and bring them back. "Who's to decide the value of cardamom pods?" she wonders, crouching back down very carefully with the two mugs. Across the back of her casted hand, right at the edge of the plaster, is a wide, dried smear of blood. "Maybe we have vastly different opinions on their trading power." There — a grin.
"I think we also ha-…" A pause, Stavrian has to cough again. It's a short-lived spasm, ripping dryly up his scratchy throat. "…have different opinions on what 'drawing on your cast' means." He reaches up for one of the mugs. "What'd you do to your arm?"
The grin twists a little toward puzzled defensiveness. "What? What do you mean by that?" Her grin twists more, a few teeth showing briefly as she looks down at the cast, noticing the smear of blood about the same time as Stavrian points it out. "Oh." There's an evasive little squirming of her head as she stalls — there are mugs of steaming-hot water to be distributed, after all. Once they're squared away, she draws her casted arm back to look at it. "Lieutenant Pallas didn't show any respect for the dead," she finally says, looking up. "Well. Temporarily dead."
"You don't like this Pallas guy much, do you." Stavrian makes this stunning observation with a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He reaches over his shoulder, pulling down his little wooden box of tea leaves. "Remind me never to cut you loose with a pair of brass knuckles. Hate to see what you'd do with an actual weapon." He sounds amused rather than chastising, popping the lid off the box.
"You'd've hit him too if you'd heard him say it," Tisiphone replies, eyes flicking up from the dried blood to Stavrian's face. "Y'know, if you hadn't been dead at the time." She tries to muster a grin as she says it, though it clashes with the light in her eyes. "Can't wait to get at the punching bag again," she confesses, reaching her mug forward a bit in anticipation of the tea leaves. "/Really/ can't wait."
Stavrian reaches the box over her cup, tapping the side of it with his finger until leaves sprinkle out. Tap tap tap. "It's tomorrow, right? That they're going to evaluate your cast?" Eyes flicker up from cup to her face, and he moves the box back to darken his own water with leaves.
Cidra arrives from the Deck 4.
Cidra has arrived.
"Yeah. Tomorrow afternoon." Tisiphone's crouched at the edge of Stavrian's bunk, holding out a steaming mug of water to which the medic is adding crumbled tea leaves. "So what'd you mean, anyway, about drawing on my cast?" She doubles back to the previous topic, pale brows shooting up paler forehead.
Stavrian gives a pointed look to the blood smear. "I'm not usually one for organic paint jobs." He pushes the little box back up onto the shelf and settles back, blowing on the tea. "Little too 'edgy'." He winks at her and smirks, sipping carefully. The hot water's barely down before he starts coughing again, drawing in air in a sharp gasp in the middle. That phlegm gets swallowed, thankfully.
Cidra slips into the Officer Berthings. She is not actually an unheard of presence here. But this does not seem to be a social call. She clears her throat softly.
"Edgy? WhatEVER." Tisiphone narrows her eyes at Stavrian a little as she brings her own mug in for a sip. Shlorp. Shl- She draws back from the mug, and looks over at the throat-clearing. "Uh…" One could almost hear the gears spinning. "Sir?" The question is plain on her face, as she looks over to Cidra; what's the CAG doing here?
Stavrian is about to answer, or at least wheeze a little more. Cidra's presence stops him, however — from talking, not from wheezing. His breathing makes a soft whistling sound for a few seconds as bronchioles all over take their time to relax again, and recognition of the CAG's face hits him. "Sir." Has it come to hunt? Is her vision based on movement?
"Good eve," Cidra opens simply. She's holding a cigarette between her fingertips. Half-smoked. Tisiphone is note and regarded. For a beat. Then her attention moves onto Stavrian. "Lieutenant. I am most heartened to see you and the rest of the away team returned safely. We had feared the worst for a few hours. Please give my regards to Captain Gabrieli if you see him before I do. I know he had personnel along on that as well."
"Sir." Stavrian's voice is naturally soft-spoken, the scratchiness making it slightly moreso tonight. "Thank you. Usually your people are the ones we have to pray and worry for." His lips twitch, not really a smile. "I'll tell him, sure. You're right, Lieutenant Parres was with us. If you run into him before I do, you can let him know she should be released tonight if she hasn't been already."
Maybe her vision IS based on movement. If Tisiphone stays right where she is, and doesn't move much, everything will be A-OK. Slo-o-owly, she lifts her mug for another quiet slurp, mouthing 'FRAK' to Stavrian as the mug is lowered. A tiny throat-clearing, before she looks back up at Cidra. Innocent Ensign is innocent.
"I thank you for it, Lieutenant. Gods be with you," Cidra replies to Stavrian with a deep inclination of her head to him. Eyes then swivel to Tisiphone. Unlike some dinosaurs, stillness is not enough to escape the older woman. "Ensign. How is it with you?" There's a mild not to the question.
"And you, sir." Stavrian's chin lowers as well. The traditional Sagittarian response to such things is much longer, but he spares the senior officer the time. Lifting his cup to sip from his tea, his blue eyes shift over the ceramic rim to Tisiphone. Et tu, Ensign?
"Better than a few hours ago, Sir," Tisiphone answers, too truthfully to sound dutiful. Her fingers shift on her teamug, restlessly. She looks across at Stavrian for a moment, eyes sketching across his face, before she pushes herself up to a standing position. She looks about to say something, then lifts her teamug for another sip, instead, watching Cidra through the steam.
Cidra watches Tisiphone right back, through the smoke. Blue eyes unreadable. Par for the course for her. Puff, puff. "When you two are finished, Ensign, I do need to speak with you. If you've time to walk with me now? If not, I shall be in my office."
"I'll-" Tisiphone glances back toward Stavrian for a moment, then sighs out through her nose before looking back to Cidra. "No, Sir. It's- I'll come along now." So. Busted. Quickly, a few more mouthfuls of tea are stolen before she slides the half-full cup onto the shelf in the medic's bunk. "Sorry about the tea," she says to him. "I'll- catch you later, okay?"
Stavrian sips his tea again, moving the mug away from his mouth just in time to avoid coughing into it. His hand makes a fist in front of his mouth, shoulders jerking with good force three times, then two more. The subsequent exhale puffs his cheeks and has a tinge of frustration at his own body. Looking up, he gives Tisiphone a look that's not unsympathetic. "Sure. Cardamom next time." Another nod to Cidra. "Goodnight, sir."
"Goodnight, Lieutenant," Cidra says with a parting nod to Stavrian. "Come along, Money Shot." With that she strides out, smoking as she goes. Tisiphone is clearly just expected to follow.
"Yessir. Right behind you, Sir." And there's the Dutiful Ensign voice again. Tisiphone trails after Cidra, digging out her cigarettes as she goes.
Cidra leaves, heading towards the Deck 4 [Out].
Cidra has left.
| Deck 4 — Naval Deck — Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post Holocaust Day: #43 |
| The floor plating along the corridors of the Cerberus is standard military. Their forged steel plates are welded seamlessly together to run nearly the entire length of each hallway. The hallways themselves are the typical load-bearing structural design of the angled quadrilateral. Oxygen scrubbers and lighting recesses are found at nearly perfect intervals throughout the passageways. |
| Condition Level: 2 — Danger Close |
Cidra slips out the officer berthings, slowing until Tisiphone can fall into step beside her. Still working on her cigarette. A very mild air about her. She waits until the hatch is closed behind them before she says, "Lieutenant Ellinon came to speak with me earlier." Tone, also, very mild.
"I figured that's what this was about, Sir." Tisiphone glances up for just a moment, then away as she lights her cigarette in a thick plume of smoke. She gives a glance behind her before the corner is turned, then quickens her steps to fall back into place alongside the CAG. There's still a wide, dried smear of blood on her cast, at the edge of her fingers. "What did he tell you?"
"It is fortunate for both of you that he came to me before the witness statements from the Deckhands hit my desk," Cidra says. Rather than answer that she rejoins, "Tell me what happened, Apostolos."
"I was down working in the hangar," Tisiphone begins. "Just- sweeping, whatever. Then the Admiral's announcement that the away team was KIA, and we went to Condition Two. Nobody knew who was in the team for sure, except for Petty Officer Damon, so I stayed put. Then- I saw Bunny come in, suited up in case they had to go out for SAR. We talked a bit. Just- waiting for news, mostly." She frowns for a moment, dragging hard on her cigarette, eyes hooded. "The crew manifest finally came through, and I got a look at it. It had- you know, everyone on it. Boots, Temperance, Je-um. Lieutenant Stavrian. I gave it to Bunny, and he just came apart. Over- over Boots, you know? I guess Spiral came in about then. He grabbed the crew manifest and- he-" She's struggling with an emotion, here, though it doesn't seem to be anger. "Said it was my frak-list, said Bunny was upset because he wasn't on it. I just…" Her steps trail down to a halt as she looks up at Cidra. "I hit him. Our guts out on the floor in front of us and he's just- I hit him. I'm sorry that- well, that I'm /not/ sorry I did, Sir."
Cidra nods to that. None of it comes as a surprise to her, obviously. Expression remains very cool. "The Admiral's announcement was premature, thank all gods," she says. The little lines around the corners of her eyes are very prominent tonight. KIA taken back or not. "That is essentially the account Lieutenant Ellinon gave me, yes. So you admit that you struck a superior officer? You are fortunate he did not have you brigged. He would have been within his rights to do so, strictly speaking."
"I- yeah. I mean, yes, Sir. I did." Tisiphone looks up at Cidra, fidgeting her cigarette between her casted fingers. "I could quibble and say I was swinging at an asshole, not a superior officer, but-" She ends it on a shrug. It's not what the CAG's getting at, and they both know it. "I- kinda figured that's what this was, actually. Sir. A nice quiet walk, last cigarette before the brig."
"The fact that Lieutenant Ellinon behaved like an asshole is, unfortunately, beside the point," Cidra says. Profanity from the CAG such a rare thing that it always jars a bit. "But, no. Spiral is not inclined to pursue the matter to the JAG and I am quite happy to devote my time to more important matters than this little show of asshole-ishness and hot-headed stupidity. There were witnesses, however, so it cannot just pass. A formal reprimand shall be placed in your record and you shall be confined to the berthings for twenty-four hours. When not on light duty, in the mess hall, gym, or undergoing any necessary examinations in Sickbay, of course." A whole…eight hours rack time as punishment. Give or take.
Tisiphone's expression cycles through bracing acceptance to confusion and wariness, before ending on a slightly wary gratefulness. Maybe Spiral's been confined to berthings for the same twenty-four hours, or something, after all. The minds of Majors are not for mere Ensigns to comprehend. "Y-yessir. Understood. I'm sorry any of this took up your time. Especially with- it being false news." She touches one of the charms on her soma bracelet for a moment. "I'll- get back to berthings right away, then, Sir?"
"Thank all gods it was, yes," Cidra repeats softly. She does not send Tisiphone on her way just yet, however, turning to face the younger woman. Blue eyes steady. "I trust I will not hear of anymore altercations between yourself and Lieutenant Ellinon." It's a statement, not a question. "The rank gets a bare minimum of respect, Ensign. The person who holds it? That's your private matter. You don't have to like everyone you fly with. Gods know I have not always. But you respect the rank because you respect the service and you respect the job. Keep the rest off-duty. I know circumstances were extreme, so I trust this shall not happen again. The lieutenant could have made this much worse on you than he did. I do not excuse his behavior. But keep that in mind. You may go now."
Tisiphone's back stiffens reflexively when Cidra faces her directly, dragging her up out of a slouch she hadn't realized she'd been in. "Yessir. Thank you, Sir," she says at the end of the CAG's words, saluting — with relative success — with her uncasted off hand. She lingers for just a beat, looking back at the other woman's expression, before turning and making her way into Chez Viper, post haste.