| Red Flags |
| Summary: | When Trask swings by, more than a few red flags are hoisted — and not just those in Sawyer's game of Minesweeper. |
| Date: | 07 Mar 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Tits and Ass |
| Players: |
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| News Room - Deck 3 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post-Holocaust Day: #374 |
| This compartment isn't huge by any means, an afterthought shoved into an alcove when the engineer was finishing the final plans for the ship. The long awkward rectangle is filled with several desks and those heavy pieces of machinery that are tools of the media trade — copiers, computers, printers, and of course a seemingly never-ending supply of paper of both the A4 and broadsheet variety. In the far port corner hangs a mulberry-colored hammock attached to the bulkhead — where the head-reporter-in-charge is purported to spent her nights. Three heavy desks have been moved to form an inverted 'U' for the new Editor in Chief's work station, and behind them lies the hatch to the modest closet-sized darkroom. |
| Condition Level: 2 - Danger Close |
Right now, instead of working on the article that's plagued her for weeks upon weeks, the blonde is sitting at her computer playing Minesweeper and cussing everytime she misplaces a flag. Dressed in pink plaid pajama pants and a pink babydoll tee with a cigarette in her hand and a glass of alcohol at her elbow, this is how Sawyer Averies rolls when no one is paying attention. Not even the previous drive-by of her 'protege' did much to shake her from this current funk.
Condition Two is as busy as ever for members of the Air Wing. With Command green lighting the preliminary planning Trask had been doing for the past week, hammering out the fine details is going along at a smooth and steady pace. The Swarm attacks have yet to abate, but the Fleet is faring fairly well, all things considered, in Audumbla. Between extra electrical maintenance, Aeolus Belt sims practice runs, and following-up on research projects, the SL of the VAQ-141 has had no shortage of things to do. A few hours from now, he has a scheduled meeting with the CAG and some of the other squadron leaders. At this particular moment in time, some other important matter warrants his attention, which brings him by the News Room unannounced and likely unexpected. Rattling the box of choice Allegheny cigars, he casually remarks, "You forgot these."
The second time the hatch opens for the evening, Sawyer doesn't even bother jumping at the noise. Maybe she knows who it is, or maybe if the big bad boogey man is going to come through the door she'll meet him unafraid. Or maybe they're one in the same. "Forgetting implies a lack of cognition for ones actions." The blonde responds rather flatly, eyes returning to the screen and her oh so riveting game of clicking squares to see if they blow up or not. Sure, she could figure out the puzzle, but this is far more entertaining.
"Well, saying you dropped them when you dropped your dignity has a nice flow, but there's more to life than witty turns of phrase." Uninvited, he unsurprisingly invites himself further inside, closing the hatch behind him. Setting the box on Sawyer's desk, Kal regards the blonde with a vague sort of regret, but it only lasts as long as it takes the putrid stench (as far as he's concerned) of booze to hit his olfactory senses. Brown eyes then flit in that direction, the onset of something between a gut-wrenching wince and a disgusted sneer forming as he bores contemptuously at the glass.
"My dignity is fully intact, thank you very much." At his lull into silence after the box has been set on her desk, Sawyer glances up and then easily follows his gaze and line of distain. "Just because you don't drink, doesn't mean I shouldn't." Despite her words, she extinguishes her current cigarette by dropping it into the liquid with an angry hiss before she moves the glass aside and around a stack of papers to obscure it from his view. Sorry, but there's nothing she can do for the sugary smell. That little kindness aside, her eyes go back to the computer screen, "Do you mean to say your previous statement that you don't care what I do or to whom I do it doesn't apply to what I drink? I don't think me having a nightcap endangers the state of the fleet, I just can't sleep and Doctor Cameron isn't around to shake down for more sleeping pills."
"Maybe if you were wearing your glasses, you'd see all the places it's chipped." His voice doesn't raise, but it doesn't need to with such a quietly corrosive tone. Removing the offending drink has not improved the man's mood. And when Sawyer starts to needle him about it? So. Not. Good. "Do whatever the frak you want. Get wasted, get gangbanged for all I care," he asserts, too angry and too hurt for that to ever be the truth. "I'll leave you to it." And now it's his turn to get the hell away from her.
Sawyer pat pat pats at the top of her head until her hand closes on her glasses. Aha. She pulls them down to settle on her nose, silently marvelling as her computer screen suddenly gets that much more clear. Unfortunately, it did nothing for her dignity. "Good night, dear." She responds as even as she's been all night, emotion carefully kept from her voice because once in a while she remembers that she's a journalist. And she does have training in this type of thing. But something in her is niggling and she can't quite just leave things at that. She pushes her chair back quickly, an annoyed squeak of wheels heralding that maneuver. "Kal?" She calls, because her voice travels faster than she could cross the floor. Now whether or not he stops…
By the time her voice registers, Bootstrap is already at the hatchway, hands on the wheel, ready to shove the door open. A torrent of emotions — none of them even remotely positive — whir and rage even if he does stop. "What?" It comes in a tone too brooding to even offer him the protection of flippancy. Odds are that he's scowling, or glowering, or some fluctuating composite thereof, but it's not as if Sawyer can see with how he doesn't bother to turn around. Which also means she's in no position to notice how white-knuckled his grip is, growing tighter as his eyes close. Steeling himself for another snide remark from the blonde, his body stills with the kind of tension poised to erupt in violence.
It's the impending mission that hangs over her head and forces her to stay his leave. Second chances are hard to come by these days, and they're running through their allotment quickly. Maybe tomorrow he won't even be around for her to yell at anymore. "Don't die out there. I'll miss you." The thoughts are almost separate the way they're delivered. Sawyer's hands reach out to grip the edge of her desk and haul her bodily on the squeaky wheels back toward her mindless game.
If that's supposed to make him feel better, it doesn't. Whether or not it makes him feel worse is open to interpretation. What's for certain is that it's not good enough to get him to stay. "Sure, you will," is the retort somewhere between sarcastic and incredulous, and snort and scoff, "because you love me oh so much." So damn much that she saw fit to toy with one of his triggers. Never mind that Kal never revealed why he doesn't drink. The investigative journalist once said she knew why. Admittedly, the man was such a mess at the time, it probably only registered in an unconscious level. Certainly enough to feel betrayed by her imbibing of booze.
The red flags in Sawyer's game of Minesweeper aren't the only ones that have been hoisted, and if she's not careful and quick to defuse the timer that has just been set, one hell of a bomb will end up going off. The sound of that tick-tock tick-tock stays with Trask even after he's out the door.