| Inferences and Insinuations |
| Summary: | Sawyer is at a loss for words when Trask is at a total loss. Mental gymnastics and wits wrestling result in some injuries. |
| Date: | 31 Oct 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Spin Cycle (the Laundry Room incident); Stress Test (the Hammock incident); and Taking Aim (the Shooting Range incident that prompted the apology) |
| Players: |
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| Athletics Area - Deck 12 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post-Holocaust Day: #247 |
| A large pair of mats dominates the center of this room, their centers taped-out for a small area to practice boxing or other martial arts. Around the outside are treadmills, bikes, weights, and an impressive variety of gym equipment to help tone and shape the bodies of the crew. To one side of the room is the locker room while at the rear is a hatch that leads back to the oversized swimming pool. Off to the side is a rack that holds boxing gloves, pugil sticks, and the associated pads for the sticks. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
The gym is full of sweaty individuals, working off some steam, frustration or just a few extra pounds. It's hard to say which category Sawyer falls into, flattened as she is on the set of mats in the center of the room, a young marine standing over her and looking quite pleased with himself. Without a set of sweats to her name, she's dressed in her marine-esque black cargo pants and tanks, feet stripped down to socks for sparring. A spar that she's apparently losing. Left to her sprawl for a panted breath or two, the man finally reaches down to help her to her feet. "Again." She huffs, and takes a few steps back into a ready position.
Extra pounds is not something that concerns Kal Trask. Well-toned describes his physique: lithe and wiry but defined. The Fleet-issued grey hoodie has long since been removed and currently is tied around his waist, double-knotted so as to not go anywhere even though it hangs somewhat loosely about his hips. By the look of him, he's been here and working hard for quite some time, the dark tank top he wears soaked with sweat. Even some toweling off hasn't fully removed the sheen of perspiration marking his naturally light tan skin, and his damp hair looks a bit tousled as a result of rubbing aforementioned towel across his scalp. Heart rate still up and breathing still quickened from recent exertion, he's enjoying a small break that consists of drinking deeply from his sports bottle and quipping to the quite-pleased marine, "Just because that's prob'ly the only way Miss Averies will willingly be on her backside for you, it's still rather unclassy to wait so long to offer the lady an assist."
Rule number one (or is it eight?) of sparring: don't get distracted. It's something Sawyer really should heed, but her eyes flick over at an inopportune moment, right as the young MP decides to make his move again. The tussle is short, when he's got the advantage of size and initiative, and one good hip throw later the reporter is flat on her back again. "Okay." She tells the ceiling in her supine position. "That's enough for today." The red-headed PFC goes down on a knee beside her and they exchange a few quiet words before he pushes up and off to the showers, leaving the woman where she lays as she tries to get some wind back into her lungs. "So how long are /you/ going to wait?" She asks the ceiling again, but the words couldn't be more pointed at Trask if they had little barbs and it was fired by an expert marksman.
"He sure beat outta here quick to go beat off in the showers," Kal quips. Although, really, there probably is a whole lotta truth in that statement, for that red-haired, can't possibly be more than 20 years-old if even, Private First Class that has just taken his leave is the very same one who was effectively eyeball frakking the journalist at the shooting range scarcely a week ago. Back to the pointed question, the Raptor SL mildly shrugs. "I'm all for equal rights." As if to say Sawyer is a big girl and capable of doing it herself. "If you'd like a hand up, you could always ask. Why, if you even say pretty please, I'll probably oblige. /And/, unlike the Pee-Eff-Cee, I won't dawdle to determine the best way to try to cop a feel without it seeming like that's precisely what it was."
Sawyer grunts and curls at the abdominals, planting a hand on the mat behind her to aid rousing herself from the floor. "I got myself into this mess, I can get myself out, right?" Averies takes a licking and keeps on ticking, hoisting herself to her feet and doing an obligatory dust off of her legs and butt. "You wouldn't need to dawdle, I'm sure you have an S-O-P for that type of situation." Her eyes shift to where the PFC disappeared, "Cadmus usually runs me through the drills, but he wasn't available." As if she owed some type of explanation to Trask. Realizing that's precisely how it may be seen, she shakes her head. "I owe you an apology, by the way."
"I pride myself on being thorough," is lobbed back without missing a beat. The comment about Cadmus prompts, "If you say so." Perhaps it's a side-effect of his sense of humor, but it's not all that clear whether or not Trask is ribbing the blonde or if it's that he has no idea who this Cadmus fellow is, thus can neither confirm nor denounce the claim. As for the matter of an apology being owed, he breezily banters, "What hideous sin have you committed lately?" Squishidy-shoosh, the sports bottle is squeezed to unleash liquidy goodness into that smart mouth of his.
"I spoke inappropriately to you the last I saw you. At the range." Swiftly and efficiently, she fixes the hang of her ponytail with a sharp tug. "I apologize for my lapse in decorum." Sawyer wanders a few steps before she drops heavily onto a bench instead of just fully retreating. A towel is pulled from the backrest and touched to her face, drying off the dapple of sweat that's beading on her brow.
Wait… She's apologizing to Bootstrap about a lack of decorum? Seriously? No. Really. Seriously? That's the sentiment the man conveys with the furrowed brow that melts into a cockeyed look. Not quite sure what to make of any of that, he rolls with it the only way he knows how: "Oookay…" No, really. He just isn't getting it. "Soooo," lightly, he shrugs, and his head slowly shakes as is not uncommon when someone is trying to puzzle through something, "like, is this due to a lack of 'sir'ing me, or 'cuz you seemed neither flattered nor offended that I was checkin' out your ass when you were filling out forms?" By the time it comes to cracking jokes, his confusion has been bulldozed into a smooth delivery of lulz.
Sawyer flicks her gaze to the left and right, but any others in the gym seem too intent on their own personal workout to care about the conversation between Kal and Sawyer. "For speaking so plainly in mixed company. I have to watch myself with that sort of thing, and I tend to… lose myself around you." There's a slight smirk at the mention of checking out her ass, but for the reasons stated just prior, perhaps that's why she doesn't out and out comment.
The thing about the gym is that anyone dressed to workout is utterly lacking any insignias of their rank. Not that this sort of thing would deter Trask. Case in point: his tone gets a bit snarkier because, really, he is not entirely following this and he is not the sort who ever likes to feel at a loss about anything. "Yeeeah." The way it's said is kind of as though he just said, 'Okay, Sparky.' "Look, you gotta be less vague here 'cuz I have no idea what yer yabberin' about. For example," continues the smartass, "what the frak d'ya mean by 'mixed company'? We talkin' genders? Military versus non? Officers versus enlisted? And 'lose yourself'?" Did she really just say that? Color him incredulous and perhaps vaguely amused.
The towel gets flicked over her shoulder in an irritated gesture. "Okay, look. Just forget I said anything. This conversation is now completely counterproductive to my original goal. Especially when you start talking to me like that. Then I'll start talking to /you/ like that, and I'm back at square one." Hard to say now if Sawyer's narrating for his benefit or her own, but fingers start to twine around the terrycloth in knotted little twists. She hoists herself to her feet, and takes a step closer, going toe to toe to close the distance and make lowering her voice possible. "You shouldn't have given me a hammock." As if that explains /everything/.
Honestly and truly, regardless of how it may comes across to others, Trask really isn't sure just what the woman is getting at. "Like what?" It's his turn to start feeling exasperated, which means that blithe derisiveness is poised to be tagged into the ring. "Like someone wanting to know what the frak you're goin' on about?" In his estimation, she made some bizarro apology and then hasn't explained (to his satisfaction, anyway) what any of it means. Granted, this very easily could come across as him being a jerkass who's taking the piss in an attempt to embarrass and/or get a rise out of the reporter.
Oh, but then she mentions the hammock and that's pretty much it. Because, to him, it explains Absolutely Nothing. That genuine attempt to understand any of this taps out and sarcasm leaps over the top rope to deliver a dropkick to Averies upon entering ring… er, squabble. "Bein' on your backside in public places simply is your kink. I get it." And whatever she can read into that could be read in a half-dozen unspoken languages, easily. "Pardon me for failing to realize you get off on that. Had I known that was your thing, I wouldn't have given you a hammock." Really, Kal has no idea what the hell the hammock deal is, but that doesn't prevent him from drawing the lewdest and crudest of conclusions from which to fashion caustic barbs. Whether or not he actually believes what he says next is a moot point. "Had I realized that you'd take that as me expressing some interest that you cease spreading eagle on the Head floor while I was on-shift," thus not even around, "I wouldn't have bothered."
Despite the scathing quality of what he says, his voice doesn't really get any louder than it had been, especially since the blonde sought to close the physical distance.
She really doesn't know what to say to that, as evidenced by the slight gape-jawed expression that she gives him. Sawyer looks as if she's about to unleash half a dozen times, but she keeps the words in check. A crimson flush starts to crawl up her throat, the heat of it making her fingers fumble at her throat and finally rest on her collar bone after a flutter. Finally, she swallows back some lump in her throat, "It was the floor of the laundry room. Not the head. You should get your facts straight, but I suppose that's my job, not yours." Eyes go from his to the floor, and then she turns away from him as to collect her things. "You can't take it back, however. What's done is done and now Cidra sleeps on the cot in the dark room and I take the hammock. So. You can't take it back."
"That /I/ saw." He's well aware it was the laundry. Being a smartass, though, means twisting Sawyer's sparring with the PFC into the mix. (Hey, she /was/ sprawled on her backside. The reasons behind that meaning nothing in the name of snark.) No, he was being a dick and alluding to the kind of stuff she surely must be doing to get so worked up over a hammock that was meant to be a nice gesture from one workaholic to another. Again, whether or not he actually believes any of what he's just hurled is moot. When Cidra is mentioned, Kal's hands go up in a 'wtf?' manner and his body starts to vibrate as though all the inanity is causing the onset of an aneurysm, or maybe a seizure induced by a toxic level of stupid. Large, brown eyes go wide and his very essence and expression is that of 'what the frak?'. "So, you're pissed off 'cuz the CAG is bunking with you?"
At this level of exasperation and, to say it yet again, 'what the frak?', Bootstrap's voice gets loud enough that a trio of people about 3-feet away glance in his (and Averies') direction.
Also, he appears to have entirely missed the mention of a cot in the dark room. Or maybe it simply hasn't registered.
Sawyer touches the heel of her hand to her brow, positively grinding it into the ridge just above her orbital socket. "Honestly, I don't even know what we're talking about anymore, so I couldn't be any further from pissed off. Other than the fact that I think you just inferred that I'm a whore. Or was that insinuating? You see, this is why we have editors. I sometimes stumble over the correct verbage. Lords of Kobol, I hope Sylvester is a speech writer." Sawyer hisses out a breath and then her hand falls away from her forehead and she gives another toss of her pony tail to clear her head. "I've upset you. But this time I'll make sure to send a written apology instead, hmm?"
Oh, so she's lost, now? "You're still in the lead, 'cuz I have no idea what /any/ of this was frakking about." Kal is cranky, and his tone is still caustic, but the volume has been scaled back down. "Whores get paid," he crassly points out, a comment that in and of itself could be an allusion to skankitude. "You never stuck me as the sort who'd suck some cock for some inside info, but it's evident I don't frakkin' get you, so maybe you're on to somethin' if that's the kinda thing you're inferring from what I'm insinuating." Aww, he knows his vocabulary. How cute. "And with the level of editing you're suggesting, it's more like a ghost writer." High-brow insults to go with the low-brow ones. So talented, he is.
Sawyer no longer has the energy for this repartee, she just merely stoops so her fingers can close around her water bottle and straightens to make her pained way to the hatch. "Good night, Lieutenant Trask." If he caught a rise out of her, it doesn't show except in the tightness of her shoulders.
"Whatever," is muttered, that sole word pretty much summarizing Bootstrap's sentiments over what has just happened, even if he really isn't sure what /did/ just happen. Sawyer, as far as he's concerned, is not making sense, and he's at a point where he just can't be arsed to figure out any of what she meant. Still annoyed, he faintly frowns and broods a wee bit, drinking more water, faintly shaking his head as if trying to shake off that annoyance. The browbeaten blonde is left to her own devices, not even spared a single glance.