| Head Games |
| Summary: | Rose runs into Damon, Cora, and Radcliffe at the Head; Deck manners are sometimes remiss in mixed company. |
| Date: | 24 Sep 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | None. |
| Players: |
    |
| Deck 4 - Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus |
|---|
| Post-Holocaust Day: #210 |
| 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: 3 - All Clear |
There's not a whole lot of traffic going to and fro in the corridors of Deck 4 at this time of day. It looks like there are some pilots coming off CAP, some people heading off to PT, others just milling about killing time. Amongst these is Damon in off-duty garb with a towel slung over his shoulder. He looks like he's still half-asleep as he trudges toward the head, his hair a mess and his stubble longer than usual.
Standing at the entrace to the head, having just emerged, is perhaps the most unlikely person Andreas would expect to see. Dressed in oversized clothing, clutching an old, large leather bag to her midsection, and fumbling with her whitestick is none other than Rose Ibbhanas. "Um, sir? Mister MP-person? Hellooo…?" Of course, there is no MP here. She tilts her head, turning an ear more towards the hallway. "Is anybody there? I know I'm not supposed to be here unescorted…"
Pause. Blink. "Er…" Damon looks around - there's no MP to be found anywhere. "I don't think that there's anyone waiting for you here, Rose," he says. "It's Damon, by the way. I met you down at the Starboard Hangar a little while ago. We talked about your algae-ship idea?" He takes a step forward, intentionally pacing his foot so that her whitestick will tap against it. "Are you… lost?"
"Mister Dam- …I mean, Andreas. Hello!" Rose's exclamation and greeting was much more excitable than anyone had any reason to be, especially for someone just waking up or getting off an extended shift. "Oh, you don't need to do that," she says, tapping at his foot with a playful grin. "It's not like I'm going to fly in a random direction and possibly collide with you, or anything." Ahem. She checks her enthusiasm, but she does bounce on the balls of her feet a little, first. "It was my turn for a shower. It seems my MP escort has wandered off. Probably got called away? I think I heard something when I was in the shower but the water was so loud I couldn't hear clearly."
Damon rubs the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. "Well, I just wanted you to know where I was and all. I can't ever really tell… well, what you can tell." He takes another quick look around. Nope, still no MPs. "Well, uh, maybe they got called away. That's all right, I can take you if you need to go somewhere." He points to her bag. "Do you need a hand with that at all?" Durr, wake up, Damon. He clears his throat. "With your bag, I mean?"
Rose shakes her head, and a few strands of wet hair come loose. Back behind an ear they get tucked. "No, I'll manage, but you sound sleepy. Did you just wake up? If you want to wash up first. I mean, I can wait. Wait here by the door!" She blurts the last bit out, apparently stumbling over her words just as much as Damon is this afternoon. Pink cheeks fresh from showering definitely gets a little redder.
"Is it that obvious?" Damon asks with a chuckle. "Yeah, I just woke up, like, five minutes ago." When PO3 Timon passes by, sees Rose blushing, and waggles her eyebrows at the Petty Officer, he responds by rolling his eyes and flipping her the bird. 'She's frakking blind,' he mouths to her. 'That explains why she's talking to you,' is Timon's silent reply, a devious smirk lighting her face. "Maybe I'll just splash my face real quick and see if I can't wake up a bit more," he says to Rose, motioning for Timon to frak off. Her only response is a cheeky grin and a shake of the head.
Almost birdlike, Rose's head tilts slightly to the side at the silent exchange. There's a subtext she's detecting that she can't quite follow. Then, she smiles, peering up at Damon. It's almost as if she *can* see him, today. "I don't mind at all," she demures. There's that awkward moment when she doesn't realize she's standing in the doorway, and then she does. "Oh. Right." She shuffles to the side, just inside the cavernous head, and plops her old leather bag down on the tile floor. Looks like clothes and toiletries.
Damon gives Rose a nervous smile. Can she see him? She never said she was completely blind. "I'll be quick," he says, glaring to Timon as he goes through the doorway. As he passes by Rose, he turns around and walks backwards. Pointing to Timon and frowning, he mouths, 'Don't frak around.' Too late - Timon's already all but in Rose's face, slowly waving her hand around. Maturity and self-restraint are not required life skills to be a knuckledragger, that's for sure. Damon reappears a minute later, towelling off his face. Standing just beside Rose, he gives Timon a swift kick to the shin - with steel-toed boots, no less - which makes her hop back a few steps, pain etched on her face. To her credit, she manages to maintain her silence - aside from the noises of her movement, of course.
The only reaction Rose gives to Timon's antics is a few blinks of her eyes and the usual slight movements of someone who doesn't rely on their eyes for perception - back and forth, perhaps tracking movement, or perhaps just following her thoughts. The kick from Andreas - or, the sound of the boot, anyway - causes her to jump. "What was that? Andreas?"
"Yeah - it's me, sorry, I musta stubbed my boot on the doorframe," Damon says to Rose. Now he's staring Petra - PO3 Timon - down while she mouths a string of expletives at him, rubbing her shin. "Maybe the cold water didn't wake me up as much as I thought." Of course, he sounds much more awake now. To Timon is mouthed, 'Seriously. Frak. Off,' before he offers Rose his arm. If she can tell enough to take it, anyway. "Where were you headed? Back down to the hangar, or somewhere else on the ship?"
Just at the entrance to the enlisted showers, Rose is in close proximity to Damon and PO3 Timon, who's apparently just been kicked by the latter, and is silently hopping on one foot because of it. Rose doesn't immediately take Damon's proffered arm. Perhaps she can't see him, after all. "I was headed back down to the hangar deck, I presume. I mean, my escort, was supposed to bring me back there. I'm not exactly dressed to be seen by, say, Major Cavanaugh, or anyone important. I mean, look at me!" She smirks, resting a hand on her hip for drama's sake.
"I'm, uh, I'm looking," Damon stammers. "Not that I'm looking, I mean, I see you - I see what you're wearing. Not that what you're wearing isn't, y'know, uh…" Timon hides her mouth behind her hand as he makes a fool of himself, her body shaking with unheard laughter. "You look fine, yeah?" he finally manages. "I'll take you down there - I'm not in my coveralls yet, but I should probably check in and see how the Deck's doing real quick." He reaches over and guides Rose's hand to his arm - if she doesn't pull away, that is - so she doesn't have to use the stick.
Cora steps out of the Officers' Berths, tucking dogtags into the neck of her tanktops, bare skin still tan from her time on Sagittaron. Damon and Rose are directly in her path as she heads down the hall, and she pauses to greet them. "Miss Ibbhanas, Mr. Damon."
There's that rabbit-reflex jump again when Damon takes Rose's hand, but she doesn't pull away. Instead, when her hand slips around his arm, she peers up at him through cloudy eyes with a shy smile. It'd probably be a moment to remember, if not for Cora's entrance. Clatter goes Rose's whitestick when she nearly jumps out of her skin at the greeting. "Um, h-hello! Whoever that is," she says. She pulls her hand away from Andreas and crouches down, searching briefly for her aide.
"Here - lemme get that for you," Damon says, going down to a knee to pick up the whitestick. "I got it, here, it's right - " He puts it in Rose's hand and stands back up, giving Cora a friendly smile and nod. "Morning. Or afternoon. Whichever it is on the ship," he says. Leaning over to help Rose up, he says to her, "It's El-Tee Ni… uh… Nika…" Looks like he's missed the memo that she's not an LT anymore, and he's also forgotten her name on top of it. If only she weren't in off-duty garb, he might have some help there. Timon arches a brow at him and finally scampers off now that someone else is present - Damon coughs into his hand, trying to hide the fact that he can't remember her name for the life of him.
"Captain Cora Nikephoros," she supplies helpfully, her look at Damon's stammering and stumbling more amused than affronted. To Rose, she directs the words, "I apologize if I startled you. Either of you," she adds, lips twisting slightly at one corner in a hint of teasing humor at the deckie's expense.
There's a clambering of boots as someone hurries up the stairs, that someone being Radcliffe who is a mess with her arms streaked with hydraulic fluid and her face smudged with grease of some kind. Even those bright orange coveralls are grungy with slime, muck and other bits of assorted ick spotting it here and there. She doesn't notice people just yet as she's trying to make it where a hot shower and a fresh set of coveralls can be found before she has to return to work.
"Nike… Nikephoros? Oh my goodness!" Rose exclaims when she's standing upright again, facing in Cora's direction. "I'm so glad to see you again!" She's looking more towards Cora's left, but it's close enough, right? "But, Captain… I remember you being a Lieutenant! Congratulations on your promotion!" She turns to Damon, and she's lost his exact location as well, not quite looking him in the eyes. "The Captain here was part of the rescue team that found me and eight other survivors on Sagittaron." And, naturally, Rose can't see the oily deckhand coming.
"Captain," Damon says between fake-coughs. "That's what I meant. Captain Cora Nikephoros. Of course." He can feel the burning in his face just as surely as Rose and Cora can see it. When Rose congratulates Cora on her promotion, he breathes a little sigh of relief. So he wasn't just straight-up wrong; he was just slightly behind, that's all. "Yes, congrats," he echoes. He's about to follow up with more when he spots Radcliffe heading for the head. "Incoming," he says to Rose, once again helping her hand to his arm but also pulling her to the side a little to make room for the greasy deckhand. "I thought I told you not to break anything," he notes mildly to Radcliffe.
Cora is still amused by Damon, yes she is, especially as he covers with congratulations after Rose offers them. "Thank you," she replies to both of them, offering, "It was fairly recent, yes. I'm pleased to see you're out of sickbay, Miss Ibbhanas," she offers, before turning to look at the filthy Radcliffe as she approaches, glancing between deck hands momentarily.
"Frak you, Damon. I frakking fixed the bird that had the sluggish thrusters," Brina play-snaps, her tone too wry to be seriously put off with him. From the look of her, fixing the Raptor meant she had to practically climb into the ship to do so. "So you can kiss my ass…oh." Whatever else she was going to say is cut off mid-sentence, that being when she sees the others, her mouth and her footfall coming to a stumbled halt. Clearing her throat, she looks at the woman and then back to Damon, her eyes now held to his face and not anywhere near the officer. "Sir."
This place is starting to get very busy, and Rose is starting to look rather nervous. "Andreas? I don't belong here," she says to him quietly, after being moved aside. "I don't want to be in the way. If you would grab my bag, I'll leave. I can… find my own way back?" Yes, it's asked as a question. She has a nervous smile on her face, glancing in both Cora's and Brina's directions, although it's clear she can't really see either of them.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Damon says to Radcliffe. "Looks more like you took the place of a drip pan during a hydraulic flush." He gives her a grin and a wave of the hand. "Go get showered. And no playing with yourself - you're on the clock!" And then he, too, realizes that he's not exactly standing on the Deck amongst fellow crude knuckledraggers. "Er, that is, I…" Yeah, no recovering from that one. Shutting up, he grabs Rose's bag and puts a reassuring hand over hers. "I can take you down there. If I stay here, I might embarrass myself even more."
Cora glances between Radcliffe and Damon once again, and while her expression is never particularly forthcoming, there is still that lingering hint of amusement that Damon, at least (having seen a few minutes of it now) might be able to identify as such. At least she isn't offended by the language, right? She certainly doesn't seem that. To Rose she replies, "Well, it is a hall, Miss Ibbhanas, people are bound to pass through it. You are not in the way, however, if that is your concern." Back to the deck hands then, she replies dryly, "Tactical is still the navy, you needn't look quite so much like you expect me to be scandalized."
One thing people should learn when it comes to dealing with Radcliffe is that you should not give her ammunition as she'll turn it all around and fire it right at your ass, something Damon has yet to learn about her despite his having known her for quite some time. "I'd rather it be you who's doing the playing," she tosses out there, not even bothering to act like she's embarrassed for saying something so crass in front of Rose and Cora. "But seeing as how you won't even so much as ask me out for a drink, let alone a frak, I'm stuck masturbating." Watching Rose now, she steps to the opposite side, giving her and Damon plenty of berth to move around while she addresses the Captain. "Nice day, isn't it Sir?"
Rose blinks several times, nods, and with lips pressed tight she directs her whitestick towards the hall. Pulling away from Damon as well, she's clearly the scandalized one. "I'm… yes, I don't belong here," she echoes in a shaky tone, dropping her gaze down to the deck where her walking aide is finding the path for her. She's left poor Andreas standing there with an old leather bag that was probably some woman's oversized purse at some point. She beats a /hasty/ retreat.
"Oh, great," Damon says to Radcliffe. "Now look what you've done." Yeah, it's not like he's the one that started this whole line of conversation or anything. "'Scuse me. Captain." He gives Cora a nod and Radcliffe a quick glare and slips away from the group to follow after Rose. He catches up to her right after someone yells, "Nice purse, PO!" at him. "Sorry about that," he says to the retreating blind woman. "That's not how we - " Pause. "Well, yes, that is how we talk most of the time, but we should've been, y'know, mindful."
Cora's expression could best be described as 'deadpan' and her tone matches it as she replies simply to Radcliffe, "Apparently not for you Miss…?" A space is left for her name and then she turns to nod, "Mr. Damon," apparently approving of his decision to go escort Rose.
"What is it about a guy liking a girl that makes his balls crawl back up into his belly," Radcliffe utters to herself before she calls out to Rose and Damon both, "Have a nice walk, you two! And PO? When your balls decide to drop again meet me in the boxing ring." Shaking her head, she looks back at the Captain and straightens up a bit, behaving a bit better than just a few seconds ago. "Petty Officer Radcliffe, sir."
Radcliffe adds belatedly, "My day's going just fine. Petty Officer Damon loves me too much to stay mad at me."
Distancing herself from the head, going in the absolute wrong direction to get her back to the starboard hangar. Naturally she gets a few odd looks from crewmembers, as she's dressed… well, like she just got out of the shower. Which she has. "I made a mistake, Mister Damon," she says to him as he catches up, but she doesn't slow, following the wall in a hurried pace. "You'll have to forgive me, but I wasn't raised with that kind of language, or thinking." Her face is burning red, and it's clear she's likely about to turn on the water works at any second.
Damon looks back at Radcliffe like he's going to respond to her challenge - then glances over at Rose and refrains from replying. "No no, it wasn't your mistake," he says to the phycologist. "It was mine, if anything. I kinda forget myself in front of… non-military people, y'know - that they're not used to that kind of language." His speech is halting, like he's trying to find the right words for everything. "It's just how we Navy get on with one another. I know it probably sounds disgusting to them who ain't used to it, but to us, it's… it's the sound of friendship. Or camaraderie." He clears his throat. "I've got your bag-thing, I'll take it down for you. And, uh, the way down to the hangar bay is in the other direction."
"I couldn't say," Cora replies to Radcliffe, still dry, "Though I would consider the possibility that he simply doesn't like you as much as you think he does." She looks the Petty Officer over as she straightens up, her gaze weighing in its cool keenness. She says nothing of the assessment's outcome, but after a moment suggests, "You might also consider apologizing to Miss Ibbhanas."
Radcliffe pauses in leaving, her eyes going a bit hard around the edges. "It was a joke, sir As for the apology? Sure. I'll give her one but I can't say I feel like I should say I'm sorry for me being how I am. Now, I hate to have to leave but I do need to get some of this stuff off before it eats anymore of my flesh off of me. With your permission, I'll retire to the head." She doesn't leave, waiting for permission before going to descuzz herself.
Rose stops in her retreat, and glances up in the direction she was going. Then she glances back the way she came. "Starboard. Port. Right. I know where I'm going," she snips, and about-faces and starts tapping in the opposite direction. "Stupid girl," she mutters, probably meaning herself. She wipes at her face with her free hand, and forges bravely forward. This will naturally take her (and the bag-carrying Damon) past the Head again, no doubt earning more ridicule.
"I understand it was a joke, PO Radcliffe," Cora replies, and though her tone is firm, it is even, more bland than reproachful, "But being oneself is no excuse for being unprofessional, particularly in front of a civilian. In the future, I would strongly suggest you be more mindful of your surroundings and the fact that you represent the Colonial Navy to those who are not of it. They are generally far more…sensitive… than we. You can apologize on your way," she directs, jerking her chin in a fashion that is both dismissal and an indication of Rose's position, between Radcliffe and the Head.
"Yes, sir," Brina responds in a level tone while she turns, going past the pair as she tries to get the hell out of there. Once close enough to the pair who has been trying to retreat, she slows down and clears her throat before speaking to Rose. "I am sorry for having offended," she says, managing to pull off sounding sincere (or so she hopes as she does feel a bit bad for her behavior) but even as she gives her apology she's looking right at Damon who gets a glare not unlike the one he had shot her. It's his fault she is in this bind after all. "See you on the deck, PO," she grumbles but doesn't stop, her pace picking up once she's past them. Time to go get that shower.
Well… he probably deserved that one. Damon doesn't return Radcliffe's glare in kind but looks away instead. He misses Rose's sotto voce remark completely, it seems. Cora gets another nod as they pass through in the other direction. And after the little chastisement that just happened right in the doorway of the head, it appears that nobody wants to heckle the purse-holding PO. "Just let me know if you want a hand. Or an arm. Whatever you're comfortable with," he says to Rose, letting her tap-tap-tap along.
Rose glances up at Brina's half-hearted apology, although it's a glance in her direction. There's a hint of a nod, although she doesn't stop to hear the woman talk - instead, she taps by with Damon in tow. "Just stop me when we get to the stairs so I don't kill myself," is her quick and quiet aside to Andreas. "Get me home, please."
Cora watches Radcliffe as the deckhand moves away and makes her apology, and watches Rose and Damon as and after it is delivered. When the pair pass, she has nothing further to say, and merely steps to one side to allow additional space for them to go by before heading in the opposite direction herself.
"I gotcha," Damon says reassuringly to Rose. "Let's get you down to the hangar. Then I'll get out of your newly-washed hair." And just because it's more awkward for him to walk beside her saying nothing than for him to say some other stupid thing without meaning to, he describes the surroundings to her. "You're about fifty paces off from the stairs, just so you know; over that way to the left, that's where the pilot quarters are; down the hall and to the right is where I live, in the enlisted quarters…"