| Just a Tuesday |
| Summary: | Sawyer and Constin converse following their first pass under the Gun. |
| Date: | 09 Apr 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Rise and Shine, Nobody Expects the Areion Inquision |
| Players: |
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| Areion Brig |
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| It stinks of jackassery and smugness |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #407 |
The crew of the Areion had tranquilized Constin before dragging the big man out for his time under the gun, and the Gunnery Sergeant had been in a similar state of drug induced semi-consciousness before the black-clad marines escorted Sawyer to the chamber for her question-and-answer session. By the time the radiated reporter is escorted back to her cell a long four hours later, Elf is awake and aware, and instructed at gunpoint to stand facing the back wall of the cell while the door is opened long enough for Sawyer to be shoved inside, before the door is re-secured with a clatter.
There is a shuffle of bare feet behind him, a tired voice calling out, "Gunnery Sergeant. Can you do me a favor and stand in front of the camera again?" Sawyer must have to use the toilet after all those hours of being strapped to a chair, unable to move. Should he turn and catch sight of her, she's a little worse for the wear, her skin flushed an angry red from the heat of the chamber and her hair is shiny along the hairline. Her blouse, too, seems to cling along her spine from the dampness of sweat.
"Don't want to be seen out of heels, huh?" Constin drawls dryly as he lowers his hands from the wall, and turns to eye Sawyer, rather than the close-up view he'd gotten of the bulkhead. A short nods, once it's clear that Sawyer is steady on her feet, and the big marine steps to the requested screening location, back to the civilian again.
It's as if Sawyer was waiting for that subtle movement from the big man, before she's quickly manuevering around him in a beeline for the toilet. It's clear quite soon that she didn't need to micturate, but rather it's the violent sounds of her throwing up that goes on behind Constin.
Constin draws and releases a slow breath through the nose as his jaw tightens and the scowl deepens. Woodenly not turning back around until the vomitting has eased and the toilet has flushed, he will fix baleful stare on the surveillance camera as he waits silently.
Eventually the gut wrenching noises cease, and the flush follows. Sawyer pulls up her blouse, using the bottom hem of it blot at her lips as she once more retakes the little slice of wall and floor she's come to think of as hers. "Thanks." She says quietly, her voice raw from the irritation of her throat. "I'm sure they know what happened, but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of a clear view of it. Did they blare the klaxons with you too?"
"They got tired of 'name rank and serial number' after the fifth question," Constin mutters back with a short snicker. "Just left the shit blaring for the rest of the time." Turning back around, he leans into the opposite corner of the cell facing Sawyer. His left hand is raised to itch at the skin beneath his dogtags before he draws a breath to ask, "You give them anything?"
"My ears are still ringing." Sawyer lifts a hand to her head, but the pounding seems to have been relieved a bit by the tossing of her cookies. Everything is down to a dull roar now, though beneath that rudy color to her skin, she still looks a little green around the gills. "I think we both frustrated our dear Kepner, then. There was nothing to give, I invoked my right to counsel when I was 'arrested', he questioned anyways. He deserved every bit of mockery and cuss word I could think of."
"Good girl," the big marine mutters with wry approval twisting his lip upward. Settling into a seat in the corner, so that he and the civilian are of a common level, he regards the woman for a momnt. Letting out a breath, he cants his head to a curious angle and muses, "Try not to get too pissed off at me? But something I gotta ask: you can clearly wrap your head around the notion of secure information.. why the frak are you letting Donut throw his career away?"
Sawyer cracks one eye open to look across at Constin because if the blonde had any intention of trying to get some shut eye, that's now completely off the table at the mention of: "Donut?" Clearly she's not familiar with that particular nickname.
"Danny," Constin fills in. "Started calling him that in basic, when I figured he'd wash out inside of two weeks. 'Do-nuthin'. Donut. Also on account of him being a bit pudgy," he admits with a slow shrug. "He's still the only recruit ever proved me wrong." Regarding Sawyer anew, he notes, "You ain't stupid. You gotta know what the consequences are of a serviceman sharing confidential information with a civilian. Part of why I've had so much spite for you: you use him for info, and let him stagger toward a court-martial and living out the end of the world in prison."
Sawyer shakes her head with a little laugh. "Gunny? Danny's not my source. Never has been. The few times I have gotten privileged information from him, I was probably working in collaboration with the Fleet at the time. Hell, it's hard to distinguish when I haven't been operating as a contractor for the Cerberus. All of my security clearances are in order. If you're talking about the Gemenon AAR, I'm going to give you a little tidbit…" She shields her mouth with her hands so the camera hopefully can't see, and her voice is pitched low because of the monitors, "I didn't leak it."
Constin shakes his head at the mention of the Gemenon leak, "I know you ain't THAT stupid," he notes lowly in dismissal. "But I will look you in the eye and call bullshit that he ain't 'never been your source'. 'Probably working' when you get confidential shit tells me loud and clear you ain't sure." His eye hardens with the words. "Now I like Donut. As much as I don't like entitled civilians," he adds, with a dry smirk briefly affected at the needling. "Now I don't know if you just like having him sniffing after you like a little puppy dog, or what. But no shit, Averies: do not let him put hisself in a position where I gotta crack down on him, just because he's hung up on some woman who ain't got the time of day for him, hear?"
Sawyer just shakes her head at Constin again in an incredulous manner. "He's my friend, Gunnery Sergeant." As if that alone should put an end to this matter. She looks away to the wall again, mindlessly rubbing at her sore wrists. "I heard what happened to those boys that attacked you. I'm sorry for that. Not exactly what you call 'justice'."
"Then don't let him do anything him or me will regret," Constin answers to Sawyer's statement that Danny is her friend. When Sawyer raises the sore spot of his assailants, the big marine grunts once and turns his eye toward something else. "Yeah. Me and Jag didn't see eye to eye on that one."
"You know I identified the man, the one who came to the News Room and threatened me? It took me a while, but I saw him at your wife's funeral. It took me even longer to figure out his name, but it's not like I had a lot of motivation with news like that of your assailants." Sawyer's eyes are still across the room, as if giving Constin that little bit of privacy by averting her direct gaze.
"Saw your report. Took it to Cag the same day," he mutters with a short nod, glancing back to Sawyer as talking business gives him that comforting layer of inter-personal insulation. "He's being watched and the business is being handled. That fella's one thing you ain't gotta worry about, ma'am."
Sawyer give a sudden laugh, the noise making her head pound if the hand to her temple is any indication while it dies to down to just a chuckle. "For frak's sake. Stop calling me ma'am. Call me Sawyer…please? If I get nothing out of being locked in this damnable cell with you, at least use my first name so it doesn't sound like you're cussing at me beneath your breath?"
Constin narrows his eyes in brief confusion- although confusion on the big man's face can look a lot like annoyance. "Huh? You do know most folk consider 'ma'am' a respectful thing, yeah? S'how we're supposed to address civvies," he adds before letting his head roll back to touch against the cool metal of the cell wall behind him. "Besides, I never bother cussing under my breath. If the folk I'm cussing at can't hear me, it defeats the whole purpose of cussing at them. But hell- lest I get called inconsiderate, and since you asked so proper-" he adds, dryly, "Will call ya Sawyer."
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it? Only reason I call you by your rank is because you look like you could crush me between your palms like a ripe canteloupe. And I say that out of respect. That and I trip up your first name almost every time." Sawyer's face slowly starts to fall from it's short-lived levity, back to the slight frown that seems more natural given the time and place. "How are you feeling? Not that I care." The end gets obligatorily tacked on.
"Bad? It were downright painful," Constin returns with an affected sniff as his expression relaxes back into its comfortable stern neutrality. At the mention of his difficult first name, Elf drawls, "Yeah, you and the rest of the Fleet. Heh. A good name is the one luxury every parent can afford to give thier kid." The latter query is answered by a simple, "Hell, this ain't but a tuesday." Bravado, certainly, but lacking any boastful edge, or audible pride. To hear him say it, the marine might believe the words. "How you holding up?"
"A little wear and tear, but I still have some mileage on these old tires. Good thing, too, because I don't think they're done with us yet." Sawyer finally pulls her eyes back to meet his straight on. "You going to make them knock you out everytime they take you out of here? Or is that a Wednesday?"
"Wednesday rolls around, we'll see," Constin returns with a slow roll of one shoulder. "Like I told old Rudy: this is an illegal detainment, and I consider myself a hostile prisoner." Matching the reporter's head-on stare, he notes, "Sure you've noticed, but I ain't real big on compromise when it comes to right and wrong, ma'am. Shit- Sawyer," he corrects, with a snap of his healthy left hand fingers at the slip up. "What happened to your tires, anyhow?" he wonders a moment later, flicking his attention for an instant to the reporter's bare feet to clarify his question.
"Oh…my shoes." Sawyer gives an up nod to indicate the door. "I threw them at the marines the last time they sedated you, so they confiscated them. I guess that makes us two hostile prisoners." She smirks. Not that a reporter wielding a shoe is very intimidating, but they were heels!
Constin barks out a short, abrupt sound that Sawyer has never heard before. A subsequent sniff and shake of his head follows, as the marine mutters, "Guess it does, at that." A slow breath drawn in and let out. "It's Eleftherios, by the by. Most folk settle for 'Elf'." A breath later he adds, "I don't take it foul when you say Gunny, though. Not just for the… canteloupe crushing thing," he adds in clarification. "I got given my name. S'who I am. But I had to earn the rank."
The reporter is quite for a long moment, worrying the inside of her cheek with her teeth. Finally, she murmurs quietly, "Gunny? We're going to get out of here, aren't we?" And for the first time, Sawyer's brown eyes look genuinely worried. With all their bravado aside, it's a scarier frontier they're hedging on.
"Unless there's something so important about you that they'd rather jump away and face down the cylons on their lonesome?" Constin states the words without gravity. "Holding us turns them away from the rest of the Fleet. Would lay cubits on it, if anybody took cubits anymore: this is Areion trying to make the rest of the Fleet roll over and back down. Once that don't work, they'll send us back."
"Gunny? I'm the last person the fleet is going to roll over for. But you? You're going to need your strength. If I'm right, it's going to be your turn again soon." Sawyer's head lulls back against the bulkhead, her headache getting the better of her. "So stop yammering at me, will you? Just in case you need to do that canteloupe trick later." The last is murmured as her eyes close.
"Zactly. If they were serious about grabbing the most dangerous cylon suspects, they'd have snatched up the Command staff," Constin mutters in answer to Sawyer's initial words. "Instead, they're trying to make a point with us: 'we can take your people and there ain't shit you can do about it. Don't get in our way'. Typical Special Forces bullshit." The instruction to quit yammering and save his strength provokes a wry, upward tug to his lip. A wordless grunt of assent, and the big man does his level best to get some rest while rest is gettable.