| Own It |
| Summary: | Psyche and Devlin are having a pleasant lunch until Tisiphone comes and asks nosy questions and Devlin gets confused and does everything wrong. |
| Date: | 04 August 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Galley |
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| It's a cafeteria! |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #159 |
Devlin is early for lunch, already half-finished with a sandwich. He's taking up an extra chair with his feet, and his books and tray cover the table in front of him. He's drinking from a water bottle with one hand, head tilted slightly back as his eyes angle down, towards the stack of cards in his hand, and then back up to the ceiling like he's trying to remember something. Lips move, and he looks back down, flipping over the top card and nodding along. Yes, flashcards. Really.
Psyche pauses with her tray in hand, watching him for a moment, just out of his line of sight. She bows her head, grinning hugely, looking almost aswoon. Cue interruption to productive study time! She slides into the chair behind him, putting her tray on the table and propping her chin on his shoulder. "You are so motherfrakking cute when you're all studious and stuff? I could eat you with a spoon."
Devlin is focused enough that he doesn't seem to hear the chair getting pulled out behind him, and starts at the sudden appearance of a chin on his shoulder. "Oh, hey," he says, and then grins sheepishly, reddening just a little at having been caught. He flips the flashcards against his hand and chuckles, "I'm trying t'be studious, at least. Not sure it's working. I think the cards help, though. Better than the book, anyways. And I'd rather you didn't use a spoon," he adds, somewhat belatedly teasing back. He drops his feet off the other chair so he can turn and ask, "How was your morning?"
"Whatever works!" Psyche approves, cheerfully. She takes a bite of her sandwich. "I'm sure they cannot fail to be impressed by the big brain on you. I've always liked flash cards for studying, too. Of course, my notecards were pink." Of course. She raises her eyebrows about the spoon. "No?" She takes her spoon from the tray and rubs the bowl of it with her thumb, then hangs the spoon from her nose. "But this is sexy, no?"
Devlin snorts at the mention of a big brain, nodding, "Oh, yeah, definitely." He sets the stack of notecards (plain white, sadly) down in favor of his own sandwich, chewing a bite as she describes her own study-method. It is washed down with a mouthful of water or, well. It is meant to be. But then Psyche models a spoon on her nose, and he starts to laugh, covering his mouth with a hand as he tries not to choke. It takes a minute before he manages to swallow and then grin, "Oh yeah, totally sexy. You should wear it all the time."
Psyche wiggles her eyebrows laciviously and points the spoon at him. "See? I knew you'd like that." She totally has his number. "I knew a guy who held the Inter-Colonial Collegiate record for spoon balancing. It was some completely retarded number, too, like… sixteen. All on his face, mind you. I'm not even sure I could identify sixteen separate facial regions, much less hang spoons off them."
"You were right," Devlin shakes his head, feigning serious, "You've caught on to my secret spoon-nose fetish. There's no point trying to hide it now." He remains deadpan through another bite of sandwich, but afterwards brows rise and he asks, "Sixteen on his face? And his face wasn't like… covered in glue or something? That's nuts."
"-got it, Chief," comes Tisiphone's voice as the Ensign pushes out through the swinging doors connecting the inner and outer workings of the Galley. She's carrying — well, staggering under, really — a fresh stack of meal-trays, the muscles standing out in her arms as she wobbles them this way, wobbles them that way, before sliding them down at the head of the lunch queue. As a mark of insolence for daring to get the job done properly, the top tray, already half-jostled free, sli-i-ides gently off and hits the floor with a clatter. She glares at it for a second, then leaves it be, digging for her smokes. Frak it, she's on break.
"I saw a picture of the record-setting feat once. There was something vaguely gruesome about it — but no glue. Someone gave him a five-hundred cubit scholarship for it." Psyche goes to take another bite of her sammich, startling a little at the tray clatter and craning around. "Oh! Tis!" She beams and waves at the ensign-on-break. "Hi!"
"Really?" Devlin's brows rise at the scholarship, "Crazy. I didn't know doing stupid stuff like that could actually get you anything." He doesn't seem disturbed by the noise that tray makes, but when Psyche turns he turns, and then gives a similar wave to Tisiphone, adding, a "Hey," in greeting between bites.
Today's fruit-like offering is canned pears, their ghastly whiteness not improved by the drab shatterproof plastic they're dished into. Tisiphone, showing her usual fine Saggie table manners, slurps at the syrup while doubling back for a spoon, her unlit cigarette trapped against the edge of the bowl. Pale eyes skitter across the room and land on Psyche and Devlin, her chin coming up in mute greeting as she angles that-a-way. Once she's closer: "Didn't see me on the flight roster already, did you? CAG cleared me this morning." The weary face splits in a sudden, wolfish grin. Leave it to pilots to look so damned happy about a chance at horrible death in hard vacuum.
"REALLY? Ohmigods!" Leave it to Psyche to bounce and squeal about the chance at horrible death in hard vacuum — but her delight, however effusive, appears entirely sincere. "That's fantastic, Tis!" The little blonde claps her hands. "Welcome back!"
Devlin doesn't bounce or squeal, but his brows do rise, and he smiles at the grinning pilots, offering, "That's awesome, congrats," to Tisiphone. He wipes his fingers on the greyish paper napkin as he adds, "I'm guessing this means I should be ready for you to come demolish me in the sims even sooner than I'd thought?"
Her fellow pilot's effervescence is always greeted with a moment of uncertainty. Is it catching? Will it awaken some long-dormant girlishness lurking within her heart of hearts? Will she find herself at the edge of The Pink One's bunk, requesting barrettes once her hair grows out again? After another slurp of sugary syrup, Tisiphone says, "Yeah. Thought it'd be eight hours of humping dishpans in here for another week yet." The wide grin goes crooked. "Now it'll only be four. And yeah. Yeah, you bet. Soon as I've got time to blink between here and CAP, you got it."
Psyche looks immensely relieved as Tis details her schedule. "Oh, thank the gods. I thought they were going to have you pulling full shifts in here AND on flight — I thought the CAG had lost her frakking mind." She nods. "Four hours is a lot more reasonable. Though, if you ask me — and nobody did, but since when do I care — this whole thing is bogus. It's outrageous enough, the brig and the demotion — I mean, you tried to break a machine. What is that — vandalism? Misuse of equipment? They should jail Trask for making drain babies, then." She takes a bite of her sandwich. "Someone should give you a frakking medal, anyhow."
"Four hour shifts aren't so bad," Devlin agrees with a nod, "You'll only have to do one of the meal rushes, probably." He grins at Tisiphone's agreement to kick his ass sometime soon, and nods, "Awesome. Let me know." He takes a sip of water, and idly flips at the corner of his flashcards like they're a flipbook or something, though he doesn't appear to find any awesome little movies when he does it, and looks back up instead to shrug at Psyche. "I mean, sounded like command thought letting that one live a bit longer would let us kill a bunch more. Isn't killing more of them overall better anyways? I'm sure the one in the brig would've gotten what it had coming soon enough anyways."
Tisiphone nearly aspirates some pear syrup when Psyche mentions Trask's contributions to the plumbing. "Heh," she mumbles, after clearing her throat, and finally takes a seat — not in a chair, but perched on the edge of the table, using a chair for a footrest. A short distance away from the pair, as her cigarette is still needing to be lit. "CAG's charges weren't far off, really. Mischarge of a Firearm, right?" A quick glitter of black mirth. Dead to rights on /that/ one. That firearm didn't do what she wanted it to, at all. She sets her bowl down by her hip and finally lights up her smoke, saying on the exhale, "You want to bend someone over a barrel with style? You don't frak 'em over, first time out. You sucker 'em in. Tell them something they wanna hear. Like, say, a research facility and all-ll-ll the Raiders we could shoot. Next time we've got one on board? Command's that much more likely to listen to whatever it says. And /that/-" She points with her cigarette. "-is where that barrel comes in."
"See?" Psyche points at Tis, looking validated. "That's exactly it. And all the people saying how, 'Oh, look, she helped us. Maybe some of them aren't that bad…'" She makes a face. "Makes me want to projectile vomit. How can people be so stupid? And the worst part is, that shit's got to be coming from higher up. If command would take a frakking stand and remind everyone that 'she' was not a 'she', that IT was the enemy…" She takes a breath, her dander seriously up. "The last thing we need is someone hesitating to shoot one of the motherfrakkers because they're worried it's one of the 'good' ones."
"It just seems like this has got to be a thing command has already thought of," Devlin points out, "I mean… you don't get to be command by being stupid, do you?" It's not quite a totally rhetorical question from the recent civilian, who shrugs and shakes his head, "And I can't see anybody hesitating to shoot one, not just because somebody claims one might've maybe helped us once. But prisoners can be useful, right? You don't have to trust them for them to be useful. That's why people take prisoners in, like, every war ever."
"Exactly," echoes Tisiphone back to Psyche, gesturing with her cigarette again. "Down in Kythera, middle of frakking everything going down, and people were already slow on the draw. Now we've got one that made nice. It's-" She stops abruptly, and holds her hands up in a pantomime of whoa, there. "I gotta stop," she says. "XO promised to bust me down to Sub-Assistant Crewman if I ran my mouth about this too much." She drags hard on her cigarette, the ember flaring hellfire orange, then exhales toward the ceiling. "Bring it up in berths sometime. I can run off there."
Psyche nods, promising Tis, "We'll bitch." The Bitch Session (tm): an important female bonding rite. Frak. Maybe Psyche WILL have her borrowing barrettes, after all. "Getting intelligence is all well and good, sweetie," she says to Alex, "but you interrogate the prisoner, learn what you can, and the you space the frakker. You don't keep it around, feed it and coddle it and afford it all the rights in the Articles of Colonization. There should have been an execution followed by a big frakking party." She takes a drink from her little carton of milk. "I'm not saying anyone in command is stupid. I'm just saying… you put a pair of big brown eyes and nice tits on a Cylon, and people lose perspective."
"Put a pretty face on a monster and it'll get away with anything." Pause. "/Everything./" Tisiphone's sun-bleached lashes drag down over her eyes, concealing her expression for a few long moments as she refills her lungs with smoke, then re-empties them. Smoke break, how she loves thee. "Gotta say," she notes as she looks up again, one corner of her mouth drawn up further than the other, "If I'd made a list beforehand? People who'd agree with me, people who'd be disappointed or angry as frak with me? Almost /nobody/ is on the side I thought they'd be."
Psyche huhs softly, considering as she pulls up a leg, resting her chin on her knee. "It's so weird. Like, I can't imagine what other people are thinking, at all I mean, in general, sure. I have a good imagination, most of the time. But this?" She shakes her head, frowning. "How the frak can you have… even tolerance for these things? Much less pity?" She waves a hand quickly. "But. Right. Not a safe subject for public consumption. Sorry to obsess." She shrugs. "History will show. People will look back on this and realize you were right."
"Here's hoping, man." Tisiphone's eyes slide away from Psyche and she grins oddly down at her cigarette, then drops her hand to rap her knuckles three times against the edge of the table. "Here's frakking hoping." She takes a short puff off her cigarette, looking over at Devlin while she holds the smoke in, then away as she exhales. "You guys docked?" she asks, out of no where.
Psyche blinks around a big bite of her sandwich. She chews, swallows, and washes it all down with a swig of milk. "Docked?" she echoes, blankly. She's blonde.
"People looking back and realizing she was right would mean we walked into a giant trap," Devlin points out to Psyche a bit dryly, "So maybe let's not hope for that too hard. Let's just hope there are people around to look back at all." He glances at the superstituous table-knocking and nods a little, and then looks up, puzzled as well. "Docked?" he asks, at almost the same moment, adding, "What's that mean?"
Tisiphone squints from one of them to the other, an uncertain smile playing across her lips — as if she thinks her leg's being pulled. "Docked," she repeats — c'mon, guys, you know what I mean — then leans back a little. "Hooked up," she tries, instead, but waves it off with her cigarette-bearing hand as soon as it's said. "Nevermind. I'm being nosy." Which she totally is. She even has the grace to grin as she admits it.
The dawn of enlightenment breaks across Psyche's face. "Ohhhhhh," she exclaims. "Hooked up." Right. That one she knows — and she blushes. Maybe it's over her ignorance of the parlance, maybe not. "Right. Sorry." She clears her throat and takes another sip of milk, eyeshifting to the nugget beside her. Wanna field that one, Abs? 'Cause she's not gonna.
Sitka actually emerges from the hatch that leads into the kitchens proper, rather than the hallway. He flashes a small smile over his shoulder as he steps out, perhaps in conclusion of a conversation with someone back there. Hmm-mm. On his way through, he stops at the coffee machine and pours himself a cup — right to the brim — and happens to catch sight of the table of pilotry as he's slurping some excess off the top.
Devlin does a similar sort of moment of revelation, the slow nod and the 'ahhhh' of understanding as it dawns. He doesn't blush, but he does cast a look towards Psyche, the dual eyeshifting not really helping. So instead the nugget just offers with a shrug and an easy smile, "Y'know." Because that's a totally acceptable answer. Right?
"Shit, sorry," Tisiphone mutters, caught halfway between amusement and embarrassment, herself. "Uh. Pretend I never asked, okay?" She scratches earnestly at the corner of her mouth until the lopsided grin starts to ebb, then glances away as she lifts her cigarette for another drag. Her expression freezes entirely for a second as she spots their squadron leader Over Yonder, slurping at his coffee, then thaws enough for a silent nod to be thrown his way.
Psyche shoots Devlin a disgruntled look. Yea, verily, her boy-thing failed to step up and claim with great pride that they are, in fact, a something… and she is Most Displeased. "Whatever," she mutters, then hastens to put on a smile and assure Tis, "It's fine. We do, actually, frak on occasion." There. See? SHE'S not afraid to say it. Nyah.
Slurping, indeed. Shiv's a classy fellow. Hey, he's even gussied up in his blues uniform this afternoon; probably some sort of official business that needed tending to, as the top flap's been unfastened to signify 'off duty'. Catching Tisiphone's glance his way, he returns the nod with one of those wonky, almost shy smiles of his, and observes the trio for a measure of half a minute or so before angling in on an approach vector.
Devlin grins at Tisiphone's taking-back of the question and shakes his head, shrugging, "Nah, don't worry about it." And then Psyche is grumbling and blurting stuff out, and he throws up a hand, adding to the pilot, "See? Even more fine than I thought." He grins a little and then turns to look over at Psyche. "So, why was I put in charge of dodging that question if you were just gonna answer it anyhow?" he asks, more amused than exasperated. He turns back as Sitka approaches, offering a wave. "Afternoon, captain."
"You weren't supposed to dodge it, you big dummy. You were supposed to own it," Psyche tells Devlin, rolling her eyes. Duh? "Anyone who's frakking me should be frakking proud." Hrmph. She coughs a little on a sip of milk as the captain tools up. Uhm. "Er. Hi there, sir!"
"Shit, man," Tisiphone mutters, amusement springing back into pale eyes as if it had never left, as her attention moves from the disgruntled pilot to the carefully-vague nugget. "Listen. I'll give you a little tip." She leans forward against her knees, cigarette bobbing at the corner of her mouth as she speaks. "Girls'll insist up and down 'til they're frakking blue in the face that they ha-a-ate when guys pull that possessive territorial crap, and /man/, they are /lying SO HARD/ every time they do." She plucks her smoke out of her mouth, jabs it at Devlin for emphasis. Advice to live by. So saieth her. "Hey," she says, then, tucking her smoke back between her lips as she glances to Sitka. A wary glance down and up his duty blues. Such attire rarely bodes well. "What's up?"
"Just 'cause I'm frakking proud doesn't mean I have to frakking tell everybody," Devlin replies to Psyche dryly, "Besides, you were giving me a 'you deal with this' face, not a 'let's gleefully announce shit' face." He makes a bit of a face at her then, brows wrinkling and then turns back for Tisiphone's advice, which draws both of a roll of his eyes and a smirk. "Yeah, I think I'm with you on that one."
"Afternoon," the Captain returns obligingly in kind, drawing up near the pilots' table but electing not to sit for the nonce. Instead, the table becomes a convenient perch for his blues-clad butt of ill omen. "What's up?" he repeats, eyes switching from their slightly bemused contemplation of Devlin and Psyche, to Tisiphone giving his uniform the evil eye. He gestures vaguely with his coffee cup, before taking another sip. And swallowing. Cheekily, "What's it look like?"
"That was, in fact, my 'you deal with this' face. And this is my, 'you failed to deal with this' face." Psyche sticks her tongue out at Devlin. "Furthermore, answering a direct question isn't frakking telling everybody. It's the opposite of slinking around like you're ashamed of it. And of course she's right!" The little blonde fairly bristles with impatience, happy as a wet cat. "Except for the fact that I wouldn't bother to deny it. I'm a girl." She points at her tits — just… in case anyone failed to notice them. "I'm the girliest frakking girl that ever skipped over to squee at a basket full of kittens. I own my girliness."
"It's a subtle difference," Tisiphone points out to the Captain, reaching for her little bowl of canned pears. A touch patronizing, that tone of hers. Maybe a little cheeky, too. She's mid-mouthful when Psyche owns her girlishness — uh, hello? TITS here, yo — and tries for the second time today to aspirate her food. Cof. CofCOF. It sputters away to half-choking, half-cackling laughter as she leans forward over her knees. She's worry, windpipe. The pears weren't supposed to go there.
Shiv, meanwhile, is looking cool as a cucumber over there as he sips his coffee and observes the whirlwind of self-proclaimed girliness that is Psyche "Bubbles" Athenos. One might almost think that antics like this were a common occurrance in the Petrels. "I'm guessing these two are frakking?" he postulates to Tisiphone, brow cocked, once she's finished inhaling her food.
Devlin just sort of blinks as Psyche sticks her tongue out at him, and catches up around the time that she's talking about slinking, and then pointing at her tits (he glances, of course he does) and then bites down hard on the laughter that wants to come at the bit about squeeing at kittens. No laughing while being berated. Rule #1. He breathes deeply through his nose and then turns at Sitka's guess, spreading his hands as he replies, "Yes. Alright?" the second word directed at Psyche before turning back to Sitka and Tisiphone, "Yes, we're frakking, or hooked up, or whatever you want to call it except not 'docking'," he says to Tis, shaking his head on a brief tangent, "Because that is a totally different thing that is not at all like what you think it means, but yeah," he circles back around, and points at the blonde, "Her? My girlfriend. Everybody good?"
Psyche blinks, almost spit-taking a mouthful of milk. Holy frak! She just got upgraded to 'girlfriend'… It's obvious she needs to point at her tits more often. She swallows and plays it cool, tough, just clearing her throat a little and nodding. Dimples go deep and she can't quite keep the smile off her face, but she does manage to keep from grinning like a complete idiot. "We're good," she affirms.
A small flurry of throat-clearing later, Tisiphone seems to have figured out which pipe is for breathing and which is for eating. She slurps more of the syrup out of the bottom of the bowl before setting it aside to return to her smoking. Lung cancer is safer than pears in this crazy post-apocalyptic world. "Mmmmm-hm," she drawls to her fellow Saggie, belatedly /and/ unnecessarily, her eyes warm with amusement. "And here I thought chivalry was dead," she jibes at Devlin, grinning.
"I don't know," mumbles the Captain into his coffee cup after Devlin's spoken, "could you explain it one more time? I don't think it's clear yet." He, of course, is grinning by the time he finishes swallowing, and dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. And licking coffee residue off said hand. Before anyone can level dirty looks his way, however, he slides off the table and lifts his free hand in 'surrender'. "You all take it easy, yeah?"
Devlin jabs a finger at Tisiphone, though he can't quite manage to look like he's actually angry, let alone like he means it when he says, "You? I hate." Sitka's grin is met with a crooked one of the nugget's own as he just shakes his head, and then brows lift as the elder pilot moves to leave. "See you later, captain."
Psyche grins and elbows Devlin. "Don't be hatin' on Tis! You're the one who just amputated your leg for a hangnail." She lifts a hand and waves a cheerful farewell to the departing captain. "G'bye sir! Fly awesome"
The Ensign's face splits in a wolfish-wide grin when Devlin declares his (faux-)hatred for her. A single, cheeky syllable best translated as, "Mmmheh," is her only reply. Her attention moves back to Sitka, the wide grin wobbling away to something more uncertain. "Uh," Tisiphone says to him. "CAG cleared me for flight duty, I guess? I'll- catch you after KD about it." Nervous. She's not /actually/ back in rotation until Shiv's got her scrawled back up on the flight board, after all.
"She sure did," Sitka answers, grin mellowing into a small smile for Tisiphone. "We'll.. yeah, we'll talk about it later." With a nod for the trio, he meanders his way on out with his coffee, and dodges around a taller marine who passes him at the hatch.
Devlin blinks at Psyche, and then eyes narrow. "Wait," he says, "You mean you weren't actually that mad? Gods damn it. Well, I take it back, then," he says in a 'nyah' sort of tone before adding to Tisiphone, "You get to be the witness. I am taking it right back. So there."
Psyche laughs. "Of course I wasn't mad, you big — " Wait. Buh-blink. "Hang on. Did you actually just tell everyone I was your girlfriend so I wouldn't be pissed at you?" Okay. NOW she might be mad.
In almost every situation, Tisiphone utterly fails at lying. This is one of them — those huge innocent eyes she levels at Devlin completely fail at the sentiment she's going for. "Wait, what?" she says to him, on matters of witnessing. "You're breaking up, I don't copy you." She climbs off the table, grin creeping back onto her face — though with a hint of alarm when Psyche's mood teetering toward genuine upset. "Pull up, man, pull up," is her, frankly, useless advice as she starts to amble backwards away from the pair, back toward accursed KD.
"No," Devlin replies, bumping Psyche's shoulder with his own. If he was serious before he is pulling up and changing gears very quickly now, shaking his head as he grins, "I was just kidding." Presumably he means just now when he tried to take it back. Tisiphone, sneaking back off to the safety of the kitchens, gets a wave. "I hope somebody spills some of those peas on you!" he calls after her, in a friendly sort of ill-wishing.
Psyche doesn't look like she entirely trusts the reassurance, now that doubt's been introduced into the equation. She eyes Devlin a moment, then simply shifts her attention to Tis, putting on a smile. "See you later, sweetness. Good to see you!"
"What?" Devlin replies, brows rising before they drop back together in a frown, "Seriously? Now you're not going to believe me?" He sighs, and begins gathering up his stuff. "Alright, if you want to get upset about everything I say today, you go ahead."
"Don't take his balls off, man," suggests Tisiphone to Psyche, before she ambles so far away that she has to shout. "I think he meant it." She lifts her cigarette-bearing hand to the pair in a salute-of-sorts before she crushes it out against the side of a trashbin and vanishes back into the kitchen.
Psyche blinks. Again. "What?" Then, frowning in turn, "Upset at everything you — are you sniffing glue? I wasn't upset in the first place, and I didn't say anything in the second place. Don't make this out like I'm some irrational, huffy, high-maintenance girl!" She stands, pointing a finger at his chest. "I've got news for you, buddy — I'm a frakking amazing girlfriend."
"You seemed upset!" Devlin protests, "And now you're all frowning and looking at me sideways like you're suspicious!" He frowns, and then gets poked in the chest, and adds, "Hey, I never suggested you were any of those things! Now you're putting words in my mouth." As for her being a frakking amazing girlfriend he laughs, "Well, you are off to an awesome start, that's for sure. This is going great."
"Well, you're putting words in my looks!" huffs Psyche. She blinks at the awesome start, mouth opening slightly — stung. She snaps it back shut instantly, eyes flashing. "You know what? I don't recall being asked if I even wanted to be your girlfriend." She grabs her tray and heads for the bins.
"Well your looks are—" Devlin trails off lamely. Comeback fail. He frowns, and frowns again as she snaps and stalks off. He is still frowning as he gathers up his book and flashcards and tray and heads after her, dumping the latter. He pauses a moment, just looking at the back of her neck, and then leans down to say quietly, "You realize we're creating a fight where there wasn't one, right? Can we just go somewhere quieter and figure this out?"
Psyche looks at him over her shoulder, then sighs and finishes disposing of her lunch. "Fine," she murmurs, stepping back and gesturing him ahead of her.
"Alright," Devlin replies quietly. He shifts his books under his arm, and heads out of the galley, holding the door for her, and then checking as he heads for the stairs to make sure she's still there.