| Eighteen |
| Summary: | Santiago encounters one of her young bunkmates, and Sawyer comes by. The unintentional story (leaked to the ship) is touched on briefly. |
| Date: | 03 March 2041 |
| Related Logs: | Well before: Rant and Run. |
| Players: |
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| Enlisted Berthings | Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus | Condition Level: 2 - Danger Close |
Rows and rows of bunks run along the outside and center of this room which is quite a bit larger than the Officer's Berthings. With multiple hatch entrances to different sections of this area, the entire Enlisted Berthing has spaces for armored doors similar to the ones on the Hangar Deck that can lower in case of fire or depressurization. Tables are set up along the spaces between the bunks and lockers divide each over-under sleeping area. Each bunk is a standard military size and has a deep blue curtain to seal in some privacy for the occupant.
The berthing is quiet, aside from the soft sound of music playing from a certain civvie's bunk, on a tiny digital recorder/player with its own speakers. It's a peppy beat, something with a lot of rythym, that would lend itself well to salsa. Santiago is seated in her bunk, just on the edge, with a chair dragged over. Her foot is propped just on the edge of that, as she paints her toenails a pleasant, summery shade of robin's egg blue.
Even in crisis, there are some things that just need to get done. One of them? Laundry. Enter Tyr Bannik with a canvas bag over his shoulder, one which contains his clean laundry. He glances up when he notices Santiago doing her nails. "Nails? Really?" he asks, with a certain arch of his brow, but also with a faint line of a grin on his lips. "Wow."
"Nails." Santi replies, with a delicate stroke of the applicator brush. "Really." Once she's finished her right toes, she slides her feet down to have a look at her handiwork, and to let that coat dry. She caps the bottle, twists it on, and glances up. Dark green eyes track the deckie across the berthing. "Manual labor, really?" She smiles just a little, then says, "There's no excuse for looking like shit just because everything's gone to shit."
Bannik throws his laundry down at the foot of his bunk, and then makes his way back over to Santiago to 'confront' her more fully. "Yes. Manual labor. It's keeping the ship going. Though. I guess." His eyes trail down towards the robin's egg blue toenails and then up. "I mean, it /does/ look good. I guess. And keeps you out of the way. So — that's good." Accentuating the positives.
Santiago's brows rise slightly. "It keeps me out of the way." She crosses her legs, and looks up at the deckie. "It keeps me out of the way for roughy twenty minutes, depending on the pigment content and age of the bottle." Fingers laced and resting in her lap, she looks up at the man. "How old are you? Twelve? And you're worried about me being in the way."
"Eighteen." The retort is delivered slightly defensively, slightly dejectedly. Okay. So he's young. "And I've got — plenty of stuff to do to keep me busy. Like repairing all the fried electronics in the birds." But clearly, Tyr is off-balance. "Let's try again. How are you doing?"
"Okay, have a seat, Eighteen." Santi lifts a foot and kicks the chair back just a few inches from her bunk, as if pushing it out for the deckie, which is exactly what she's doing. She turns a little sideways, and re-crosses her legs, to prevent smudging her toes on his slacks. "Hi, I'm okay. Better now that my toes are presentable again. It's like sexy underwear. It just makes you feel better, even if everyone else thinks it's a waste of money." She waits to see if he sits before continuing.
Bannik drops into the seat, somewhat unceremoniously, limbs all a-gangle at the no longer being standing. "Name's Tyr," he offers, perhaps in an attempt to avoid being labeled 'Eighteen' forever. He's seated near Santiago's bunk, apparently engaged in conversation with the civilian. As for the sexy underwear comment — well. His mouth opens. His mouth closes. It's like he's cutting off anything he could possibly have to say to that.
You'd almost think Santiago has done this before. "Santiago Blue, Tyr." And thusly, his name's swapped out for the moniker of 'Eighteen'. Close call there. "So you're a new guy, right? Coming up on the Deck to show them what repair looks like these days. The Chief seems a decent guy, I'm sure you'll be fine over there. How are you?" Now that the young man is seated, Santiago's eye contact is a lot more direct.
The hatch to enlisted berthings open, and Sawyer steps partially through. She's distracted by something out in the corridor, and pauses half way in and half way out for a moment with her head craned to look behind her and beyond into the hallway. Finally with a little, "Huh," the reporter makes her way further into the room to look at the pods of bunks until she just spies Santiago standing there. "Ms. Blue." The other gentleman gets a nod, as do some others that quickly skitter out at the sight of the journalist.
"I'm doing all right. Just — you know. Lots of stuff going on." Tyr wrings his hands together. "Lots of stuff." He sighs. "Still haven't gotten a chance to see if I can write to my girl back on Aerilon. Or maybe — I don't know. Get some sort of message out. Do you think they're going to send back a Raptor with mail or something?" Clearly, what happened hasn't quite set in yet for him.
There's a momentary pause from the civilian. Santiago glances over as Sawyer enters, and it gives her a moment to hesitate before answering Tyr's question. "Ms. Averies." There's a little smile at the greeting, but then her eyes turn back to the young man seated just across from her, in the chair she was using to prop her foot for toenail painting (blue). "… I think you should write what you want to say, and the rest will work itself out." Seems the princess is residence can't quite bring herself to take a giant rusty chainsaw to Bannik's fragile hopes.
Sawyer helps herself to a seat at the table, dragging over another chair to triangulate her positioning with the other two so it's some how equal and neutral. Absently, Sawyer makes a 'gimme' motion for Santiago's bottle of toenail polish that has to be lingering around somewhere, as the telltale scent of it still cloys the air. "What are we talking about." Inviting herself to both the table and the conversation, the reporter seems to have no qualm sticking her nose into the thick of things.
"Yeah. That's a good idea." Tyr nods firmly at Santiago's suggestion, though he doesn't seem to quite catch on what the meaning behind it is. "I mean, with Picon and everything, who knows when things will be able to get out. I'll just write the letter and bring it down to the guys at the Post Office and it'll get out when it gets out." Seemingly satisfied for the moment, he turns back to Sawyer. "Oh. Just about what's going on around here."
Santiago picks up the little bottle nestled at the edge of her bunk, and leans over to hand it off to Sawyer. "We're talking about the Deck, manual labor, how important it is to feel good about yourself, even if it requires painting your toes. You know. The usual." She smiles to the reporter, then nods to Bannik. "Tyr and I were just getting acquainted. Tyr, Sawyer Averies. Sawyer, Tyr."
Sawyer palms the bottle, then switches it to her other hand to reach over and shake with Tyr if he'll accept it. "Acropolis Monthly." Which should tip him off to her profession. She's apparently feeling magnanimous today, by giving the man a heads up that anything he may say might just end up in the latest edition if he doesn't specifically request otherwise. Afterwards, she leans back and shakes the bottle of blue polish. "All we have right now are the little things, while we're stuck out here in the middle of no where."
Bannik reaches over and takes the hand, shaking firmly. "Tyr Bannik. I'm one of the deck techs. Avionics." He gives a flash of a smile and then withdraws the hand. "Sexy underwear." That was one of the topics of conversation, apparently. And then something seems to hit him: "Sawyer Averies? The one who wrote that flyer thing?"
"Health is good, looks is good," Santiago points to herself, "Hair is good. Tyr here has young love." She points to the Deckie, "And we're not currently watching anything be destroyed. Always good." The platinum blonde's tone remains somehow cheerful despite the implications of the last few words. "The flier thing?" Uh oh, Santiago's been asleep too long today. Her eyes go to Sawyer.
Sawyer's left eye twitches in a wince. "I was only responsible for the original copy. I don't know how it ended up in general circulation, much less wallpaper in one of the Heads." Sawyer kicks off one of her high heels and props her foot up in the chair with her, knee tented and her chin resting on top of it. "I wrote an article for my editor. Soon, it's going to be used as toilet paper, I imagine." Starting to spread blue paint on her toenails to match Santi's, "So has there been any activity down on deck since we fled Picon space? Any Raptor flights or recon?"
"Yeah. I don't know. I've heard about that story. I think it's just a rumor, though. I mean, really. Could people really do that?" Bannik shakes his head. Oh, the innocence of being eighteen and being on the Deck when these things happen. It's a rhetorical question, it seems, because he moves on. "Lots of stuff going on down on the deck. I mean, we've got a lot of birds to repair."
There's a snort from Santiago, and she reaches up to cover her mouth briefly, as if she could stop the grin. She clears her throat, and does her best to stifle the amusement at Sawyers expense. "Uh… I think they did some recon to somewhere. I didn't catch the whole conversation." She seems hesitant to give any details. "Haven't heard? They clam up when you slide in and out of the viper berths? It was pretty chilly over there when I walked in —" She pauses, and then turns her eyes to Bannik. His question clears up her question as to what the 'flier' was about. Preeeetty quickly. A weighted silence follows, but there's a fairly good chance it's just regular old silence to the young Deckie. "… How's the repair load coming? Pretty heavy, isn't it? Are you running doubles yet?"
"I can clear a room faster then a marine with a smoke grenade." Sawyer mumbles, her voice distracted sounding as she concentrates on making her toes look purdy. "Any idea who flew it? The recon?" Yeah, no doubt the woman is fishing a bit, but it's for the common good! Honest!
Bannik runs his hand up and through his buzz-cut hair, watching the two women talk back and forth, sort of caught in the middle of the questions. "Yeah. Real heavy. Not even repairs, necessarily. I mean, we've got to get weapons up on the Mark II trainers so we can run them in space, and all of that stuff. So we're keepin' good and busy. Not sure if we're officially runnin' doubles, but lot of us are doing the equivalent, just trying to keep ourselves busy. You know?"
Santiago nods. "I know." She smiles then, ushering the young man a good day with the wattage of that smile. A quieter aside to Sawyer is probably unheard by the young man. "I hope he gets to live with that optimism for a while longer." She clears her throat, and calls a little more loudly, "Have a good one, Tyr. Don't work too hard." Again to Sawyer, Santi says, "I have to go fix a little mess I made. You free for dinner?"
Sawyer smiles to Santiago, "Everytime I come for one of breakfast lunch or dinner dates, you ditch out on me. But yeah, yeah I should be, unless I get thrown in some sort of military jail for my rather loud opinions. Good luck with the fixing." Sawyer, however, seems content to stay here and paint her nails while she probes Tyr further for information. "I'm sorry, you said the Raptor pilot was…?"
Tyr returns that bright smile to Santiago, the grin taking over his nerdy features. "Yeah. Have a good one, Santiago; good luck on your own fixing. If you need any tips, give me a call." Aw. Look. Deckie humor. "See you around sometime around here, I bet." Here being the bunks, presumably. He then turns back to Sawyer, blinking owlishly. "I didn't say."
"If you want, I can do something louder so you don't have to sit in there all by yourself," Santi replies, with a wide grin to Sawyer. She's not really kidding, either. "Keep the polish. I'll swap it back later. I have a couple of other colors." She nods to them both, then grabs up her boots and heads out without putting them on. Have to be sure the nails are dry first. "I'll do that!" And she's off!