| The Sauce |
| Summary: | Two drunk officers, lotsa cigarettes, and an attempt to gross-out Tisi. Good times. |
| Date: | 31 March 2041 |
| Related Logs: | Related Logs (Say None if there aren't any; don't leave blank) |
| Players: |
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OBS DECK
Tisiphone has claimed one of the frontmost couches, where the view of the stars is the best, and the view of the rest of the room is the worst. She's stretched out as usual, half-wedged into the corner between armrest and back-cushions, with a smouldering cigarette dangling from her casted fingers. On the floor near her couch is a near-empty corked bottle, a few fingers of amber liquid remaining in it.
Tillman tends to bumble into bad situations. Or good ones. It depends on who is watching and judging. So you all can make your own call about him approaching Tisiphone. Hard to not recognize the starscape reflecting off that head. He's off-duty with a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he heads down front. "Hey Ensign. How's things?" he asks easily.
Today, it seems, is 'smoke out the observation deck' day. He wanders in not long after the XO in duty greens, lighting and extinguishing his Cerberus zippo a few times on the side of his uniform pants before finally igniting his own cigarette. Likes to play with fire, just a wee bit? He eyes the observation port for a few moments before looking away, and approaching the pair.
Relaxed, mildly drunk, halfway to a nap — all of this would explain Tisiphone's boneless head-loll to peer upside-down at the approaching voice. Realization kicks in a second later — you're slouching in front of the XO, girl — and she hastily starts picking herself up out of her sprawl. "Uh. Sir. It's- good to see you again?" The inflection is probably aimed at herself, as there's no wariness to it; is it proper to say such things to one's XO?
Tillman doesn't seem to care too much. He waves her off. "Sprawl as you see fit. I've got better things to do than get feisty about someone relaxing up here. Hell, I'd be a shit-ton of trouble for it, myself." He smirks, the cigarette bouncing and ashing itself as he speaks. Is he..? The XO very well could be. Certainly seems in a good enough mood. The man plops down on a couch next to the one Tisi has claimed in time to see Kulko. "Stalker," he chuckles. "How's things, Kulko?"
"Things ain't bad, boss," sayeth the only sober one in the room, that being Kulko. "Been workin' on some room-to-room drills with Corporal Maragus, and puttin' pen to paper on those relay battle plans." He remains standing, pulling hard on the cigarette to give the cherry a point. "Had no idea y'all were up here, I swear. Came for the view."
Sauntering through the door in her turn is Penelope. She seems relatively relaxed (if not well-lubed-at-lunchtime), garb proclaiming her off-duty and hair suggesting the just rolled out of her berthing. She pats herself down for a pack of cigarettes, leaning against one of the upper-tier seats — which shifts just slightly. She pauses, frowns, and gives it a little shake. It wobbles. And she sighs. Returning the cigarette to her pack and the pack to her pocket, she produces a small wrench from somewhere on her person and lays down to shimmy under couch. There's a moments pause. "Oh. That is sodding dis-GUST-ing."
Tisiphone's starting to sprawl back out in her best 'leopard with a bellyful of gazelle' impression when she hears Kulko's voice. Her eyes light up, followed quickly with a grin. "'ey. Stephen," she greets, gesturing in the vague direction of her couch with her cigarette. She's pulling herself into a more conventionally-seated position, to actually make room for the fellow. "Got a smoke? Mine's nearly out." Something especially cheeky about that question, considering the sudden, wolfish grin.
Tillman nods to Kulko. "Yeah. I heard you were running around with the Marines. Hanging out with known psychopaths know, eh?" he jokes. The cigarette is finally pulled from his mouth and he ashes it into a nearby tray - what little is left to ash. Hearing Penny from the back of the room, he cranes his neck to look back in that direction. "Can't be any worse than something you'd find in a Storage Room near the Viper berths, can it?" Tillman grins and aims a wink to Tisi. Yep, the XO is nice and toasty, enjoying the morning.
Kulko fishes a rumpled soft pack out of his pocket and tosses it Tisiphone's way, settling into the sofa beside her. "Tis. How you feelin? Gonna get you back in the cockpit soon or what? Ain't the same listening to the comm chatter without you on the horn." Tillman earns a laugh. "Yeah, well, if those psychopaths can keep me breathin' and in one piece, I'll look past their instabilities. Besides, y'all have CIC covered pretty well - not that I mind watchin, but I think I'm more useful as a pair of boots and eyeballs on the ground."
Cappella arrives from Deck 3.
Cappella has arrived.
Wriggle, wriggle, RETREAT! Penny is out from under the seating and climbing to her feet, doing a disgustipated shimmy. "I wouldn't know, sir," she responds. "But it's bad enough that I just went from 'off duty' to 'really frakking off duty'." Away goes the wrench, out come the smokes once more. She lights up and wanders down, joining the little group. "Tisiphone, right?" she asks the pale-eyed pilot, smiling. Then, to Kulko, "And the boy with the mandolin. Morning. Or… afternoon. What-have-you."
"'ey, there's frakking /nothing/ in those storage rooms that isn't in any of the others." Tisiphone rises to Tillman's bait, obediently as can be, accompanying the statement with a smoky, "Pfft!" of faux-annoyance. She catches Kulko's pack of ciggies against her chest with her good arm, pops the stub of her existing smoke into her mouth, and sets to work lighting a new cancer-stick on the last gasp of the previous one. "Yeah. S'me. Didn't get your name?" she says to Penelope on the first exhale. Ah. Someone else's cigarettes always taste better, somehow. "Mandolin?" is muttered to Kulko as she hands the pack of smokes back, sotto voce.
"Yeah, watch me argue, Stephan. Whatever keeps someone kicking. Keep it up." Tillman jerks his thumb towards teh ceiling a few times and takes another drag of his smoke as he eyes the bottle by Tisi. Then her. Then the bottle. His neck cranes onces more as he looks back to Penny as he laughs. "Ah well. Nobody is immune." To Tisi: "Uh huh. Except Viper pilots. But I think you got the 'frakking' part right." The XO snickers at his own jokes like a moron and pulls once more on the smoke.
"Boy?" questions Kulko, eyeing the engineer. "Stephen Kulko. Or, Ensign, or, 'hey you', dependin' on the level of urgency. Good to meetcha." Tisiphone gets a sideways glance, and a nod. "Yeah, been playin' since I was a kid. Gives you somethin' to do when you've got to spend a few hours out with the beasts, yanno?"
Cappella enters through the door way, he pauses though seeing everyone present on the deck, including the XO he catches Penelope's eye, if possible and smiles, before looking like he is about to withdraw.
"I'm Penny. Lieutenant Paris, if you feel like getting all ceremonial about it, but Penny's just fine," Penelope provides to the pilots, pleasantly. She takes a drag of her smoke, giving Kulko a semi-apologetic grin, then turning her attention to the XO. "Did I miss the cocktails with lunch?" she asks Major Feels-No-Pain, obvioulsy amused. She perches on the arm of the couch where everyone's gathered, giving Capella a languid wave as he catches her eye.
It's an unlabelled, corked bottle near Tisiphone's feet. Considering the touch of glassiness to her eyes, it's not apple juice, and has been sampled somewhat recently. For now, it's being left alone. "Dude, whatEVER," she says, baited by Tillman again. "Right in the berths, some of 'em. Why in Hades you think I camp out here?" She half-turns with another smoky snort and gets resituated in her corner of the couch, looking Kulko over with an odd expression warmed by a touch of crooked smile. "No kidding." She's adjusting her mental diagram of her fellow Ensign, it seems. "Lieutenant Paris," she murmurs, committing that to memory, before adding, "Penny. Good to know you."
"Nah, Lieutenant," Tillman slides to Penny, waves the hand that has his smoke in it. The smoke leaves a thin trail in the air. "Had a busy few weeks. I needed to relax. Figured I would start the day early. The coffee just wasn't cutting it. Then more than one wasn't cutting it. Stopped before the bottle started winking at me. Luckily. Damned things can be downright seductive." Sagenod. He lolls his head to look at Tisiphone, then. "Oh I'm sure. Course sometimes its just more prudent to find a closet. I remember hearing a song about cheap motels about it years ago…Some kinda slick southern Aerilon rock. But you all aren't immune. Sneaky sneaky." Tease tease.
"Give it a rest, Tis. It's either gonna be the racks or the showers, and at least you don't have to go into anyone else's racks," Kulko points out. "Although maybe that's just a Viper jock problem. Daresay up in the officer's berths we have a lil' more respect…" A glance aside to Tillman, as if he's looking for backup. "Right?"
Penny raises her eyebrows at Tillman. "Well, sir… if the bottle's ever too seductive, engineering's got your back. Wouldn't be the first time I helped medical get someone unstuck." Without missing a beat, she asides to the pilots, "The racks or the showers or here, apparently. 'Cause there's somebody's unborn children under that loose seat, up there." She blows out a plume of smoke. "I'm just sayin' is all."
Cappella hmms and seeing this appaears to be a private discussion, turns to head back out he apparently can take care fo his business later.
"Give it a rest." Tisiphone sniffs at Kulko, sleety eyes narrowed at him for a moment. It's not exactly a playful look, but it doesn't cross all the way into hostile, either. "Dude, all I been doing is giving it a rest." Her mouth takes on a somewhat petulant cast as she drags hard on her cigarette — promptly ruined by a sputtercough on her own smoke and a bark of laughter at Penelope. "Frak, you're- you're not- you're serious. Frak, what a bunch of filthpigs." Still chuckling, she tries a fresh drag on her cigarette.
"You're kidding," Kulko responds to Penny, clearly dumbfounded. "That's frakking foul. More to the point…" A pause, and he cranes his neck to look towards the upper seating. "/Under/ the sofa? What kind of…" Tis gets a grin, after a moment. "Sorry. I keep forgetting you must be all sensitive about getting your wings clipped."
The Major snorts, chuckling to Kulko. "Yeah. Or something. My first tour on a flak frig? Augh. I think I only got two or three hours of sleep a night. My bunk wasn't secured to the wall properly and the gal who bunked over top of me was taken somethin fierce with a Lieutenant from Supply. But Viper jocks? Man." He laughs, shaking his head and ashing the smoke. Though he nearly chokes on it with Penny's offer. "If I could crawl inside a bottle, I'd go swimmin. The last thing I'm going to call is Engineering for an exit. Though…I might call them for company. Pools are always more fun wih friends, you know?" Though the remark about unborn children gets a roll of his eyes. Ew. "Bet it smelled like roses under there."
Cappella heads out of the Obs Deck.
Cappella has left.
"Well, I'm pretty sure the deed wasn't done under the sofa. The kids were packaged in rubber —" Penelope stops herself and wrinkles her nose. "These are details no one's really asked for, aren't they? And yet, I sort of want you all to share my pain." Mm. Moar smoke. She takes a drag and tilts her head, listening to the XO go on about swimming — to which she responds simply with a grin and a waggle of her eyebrows.
"Two more weeks, man," Tisiphone mutters, abruptly looking… well, very sorry for herself. Sulk. "At least two more weeks." She folds her left arm up and uses it like a pillow against the couch's backrest, absently rubbing her cheek against it between slow pulls on her cigarette. "Shouldn't be more'n two until the cast's off, though. Physio's something to look forward to. Frakdamn, but I'll feel better once I can hit the punching bag again." /That's/ something she's obviously looking forward to; some of the sulkiness is replaced with almost predatory anticipation at the thought.
"Yeah, forget I said anything," Kulko suggests. Though unclear to whom it's directed. He lays his free hand over the back of the sofa, carefully avoiding the cast, and drags deep on the cigarette with the other. "Must have been weird serving on such a small ship for your first tour, eh boss?"
Tillman groans, laughing at the packaging. "Oh Gods. Well at least they were packaged. Last thing I want to do is worry about stains in this room that I can see when the lights are low like they normally are. If I don't have to see it, I can use my powers of personal persuasion to deny their existence." Yep. Ignore the problem and its not there. He laughs at the waggled eyebrows. "Hey!" The Major points a finger at Penny. "That's frat. Frat in a swimming pool full of booze." A pause. Yeah, he isn't serious. "Mmm. Swimming pools of whiskey." He tilts his head back and takes another drag on the smoke. He then looks to Kulko. "I'd say your first posting on any ship after spending nine years in the Corps would probably be weird for anyone. At least colony-side you don't have to worry about someone rockin the tent. Or a foxhole. Or leaving packaged kids under a couch…Frak, that's nasty."
Penelope laughs at the Major's scolding. "Sorry, sir. Don't know what came over me. Must be the ambiance." She finishes her cigarette and lights another, offering Tisiphone one — apparently, she's also of the Others' Smokes Taste Better school, and sharing is caring, right?
"Pfft," Tisiphone replies to Kulko, de-slouching enough to bring one foot up and push at his knee. It's as close to a petulant swat as she can muster, at the moment. She's wearing her usual non-regulation gold-and-crimson stripey socks. Sagittaran colours represent, yo. "You get any flak from the Marines for crossing the tracks?" she wonders, canting her head over to the side to look past Kulko to Tillman. And lo, an offer of free cigarettes, too. "Shit, yeah," she says to Penelope with a sudden flash of grin, twisting to accept the cancer stick. She'll light it on the last breath of her current one, just as she did before. "Thanks."
Tillman just grins at Penny. "Yeah. Somethin about drunk assholes jokin and rollin after a few drinks? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I feel some of that ambiance." He takes another drag, the last one, before he stubs out the cigarette into the ashtray.
Penny smiles warmly at Tis. "Cheers, luv," she tells the pilot, then snort-chokes a laugh at Tillman, looking bemused. "You have had more than a little, haven't you, sir?"
"We're all drunk assholes here," Tisiphone opines, raising her delicious new cigarette to Penelope in a sort of smoky thank-you toast. "Suits me /just/ frakkin' fine." She slouches back again, watching the smoke curl up from her cigarette as she says, "Closest he's come to downtime in forever, man," she says, with a slight nod in Tillman's direction. "Clear skies." She touches the cuff on her left wrist as she says that. Some sort of 'knock on wood', perhaps. "Ferrying scrap from the Anchorage. Smoke 'em while you got 'em, y'know?"
"I can feel you judging from here, Lieutenant," Tillman observes with a laugh. "But yeah. Had a couple fingers. I don't have Watch til tonight. I'm off duty until, like, eighteen hundred. Figured I might indulge in some artificial relaxation and stalk the corridors, making people nervous. ..Is it working?" he dares, doing his best to look angry and failing horribly. The man subdues a bit with the remark from Tisiphone and he nods to her. "Aye. True 'nough. Past three weeks have been somethin kinda like knocking your head against a bulkhead while trying to write a book about zen or something. Said you're back in the cockpit in a couple weeks, yeah? You even allowed down in the sims with that thing on your arm?"
"Mm," Penny agrees with Tisiphone, eloquently. "So say we all." She smirks at Tillman. "Sir, if you could actually feel me judging you, THAT would be frat." She turns her head a bit to view the grounded-pilot, clearly interested and sympathetic.
"Euh." It's an evasive sort of sound from Tisiphone, offered around her cigarette in Tillman's direction. "Once the cast is off. Can't throw the stick around with- this." She leaves the smoke propped in the corner of her mouth and starts scratching at the top edge of her cast, eyes hooded. "So, apparently your sandwich-dipping technique is legend in the corridors, Sir." Change of topic time. "It wasn't just a momentary lapse of judgment in the galley that night, like I was praying."
Tillman, snorts, chuckling with the comment from Penny. "Point! Okay, you got me," he ventures, looking a bit wistful for a moment as he looks to the stars outside. Eyes only settle out there briefly before he looks back to Tisiphone. "Sucks. You're a better person than I. I'd probably be shitting kittens with all my boredom." Classy. Ah well, he's drunk. There's amusement with the mention of the sammich, too. "Yeah, I picked that up back on a cruise about..Gods, maybe six years ago? The bread they loaded us up with for the cruise was stale before we left. Nobody wants to eat a soggy sandwich with water. People were dipping their bread in everything from coffee to that gawdsawful powdered orange drink mix. Problem is with hot stuff? Melts the cheese. Find little chunks of it floatin around the bottom of your mug and you aren't sure whether its from the sandwich or the chef. Turns the stomach. Like what's under the sofa." Always gotta come back to that.
Penny considers Tisiphone's cast, digging around in one of her pockets. "Here, ducks, give us the arm," she puts a foot up on the sofa seat, making a semi-table of her bent knee. She waves a black, fine-tip permanent marker in the air with a flourish. "Cast's looking a little empty. Let's spruce her up." She grins sidelong at Tillman for a moment. "We use that powdered orange stuff to clean up oil spills in engineering."
"Dude. Just- /dude/." Tisiphone cannot wrap her mind around the concept of sandwich + coffee, it seems — she even gestures at Tillman with her cigarette a bit, as if making some sort of warding gesture against such unclean thoughts. "Cheese in your- it's not even /cheese/, it's- pfaugh, mother of the gods." Ajibbly-jibbly. Sleet-blue eyes flick over to Penelope when she advances, and she sits up slightly with a sudden flicker of wariness. "Uh," is her first reply, looking from her cast, to the marker, to Penelope. "Ah. Sure, okay." She doesn't sound quite so certain, but she sits forward all the same, twisting around a bit to offer her casted arm out.
"I believe it. I heard from a Petty Officer back on the Aegean that he used to chunk it up and load it in his shotgun like rock salt. Its like a multipurpose powder that just happens to be -moderately- consumable." Tillman turns his gaze toward Tisi then and just -laughs-!! "Oh c'mon, Ensign!! You're hatin' and you haven't even tried it. See, it adds a nice little zing to it. The cheese? Well, yeah okay you have a point, but that's not -the- point. The point is flavor. Adds some variety to the canned shit you eat too often. I mean, you know how they cook steak? They BOIL it. BOIL IT. Its enough to make anyone cry. Consider my coffee dipping to be my way of drowning my sorrows."
The engineering officer doesn't seem content to just jot down best wishes and a smiley face — no, apparently Tisiphone's plaster albatross is going to be the canvas for some kind of magnum opus. Moons, stars, some indistinguishable little planet with a ring around it — your typical backdrop of space. She hums a little tune to herself as she draws, quick and spare lines flowering beneath her hand. What looks (reasonably) like a Viper in flight takes form, little swoops of motion behind the wings and tail (underscored with the word: ZOOM!). In the cockpit, a bald, maniacally grinning little stick pilot with exaggerated eyelashes. Ordinance has been discharged, and the shots sweep around the crook of Tisiphone's elbow at a crackerjack angle to intercept (what appears to be) a Raider — a little toaster head with X.X eyes is just visible behind the jagged explosion (which reads in big, block letters: BLAMMO!). She grins as she listens to the conversation continue around her, finishing her work with a more traditional touch: Get well soon! Cheers, Penny
"Not a chance," Tisiphone informs Tillman of her likelihood of trying any possible permutation of un-cheese, coffee, and boiled steak. "Sorry, Sir. I only eat real food." The cheeky grin accompanying her statement is aimed more at her cast than the XO, though, as the frenetic scribblings have her primary attention. There's an obvious unspooling of tension as the work progresses, coiling back up a bit as the plaster across the forearm proper is doodled upon, as if she's bracing for a hurt that never comes. "Well, shit," she says, head tipped, arm awkwardly twisted around to survey the artwork. It sounds rather tickled, that statement, teeth flashing in her grin.
"Yeah. Real food. Keep diggin, sister. I got a baggy of jelly beans hidden away in my bunk that is about the only real food I'm likely to see again for some time." Tillman goes about watching the cast-scribbling with some mild amusement. When the Snipe tops it off, the XO chuckles. "Blammo. Niiice. Well-done, El-tee."
Penny beams, delighted to see her work well received — especially by the person who's going to have to wear it for at least another fortnight. "I thought that might cheer it up a bit. Nothing sadder than a blank cast. Such miserable implements of torture, only redeeming thing about them is their ability to take ink." She nods, capping her pen. She shifty-eyes towards the Major. "Jelly beans? I could wire your quarters for stadium theatre sound, if there were jelly beans in it for me."
Delighted all 'round, it seems — Tisiphone is quite enrapt in the studying of her cast for the moment, eyes skittering all around it between quick little puffs at the cigarette dangling precariously at the corner of her mouth. "Frakdamn. It's awesome. Thanks- I mean, really. Thanks, man." What the difference is supposed to be between those two 'thanks' is impossible to tell. "Little harder to brood on what's under it with something like this over it."
"My quarters? Hell, Lieutenant, you've got higher hopes than I do. As far as I know the XO's cube is still a blast furnace. Abbot has me bunkin with the Quorum Delegation. But those jelly beans are mine. Sorry. One of those few rations that help get me through a cruise. My daughters pick out all the grape and vanilla ones and stick 'em in these stringed sacks. I've been known to trade, rarely, but they come at a high price." There's a slow nod. Probably booze. Or projection-screen TV's. "First time you've broken somethin, Ensign?"
"You're welcome," Penny grins. "Sort of a little window on what's on the other side of the mountain, aye?" She tilts her head and critiques her work, bemusedly, "I guess a toaster ought to have just one X instead of two…" She crushes out her cigarette absently, which went all to granny-ash while she worked. "I dunno, though. It'd look like a sphincter instead of an eye, then." She rakes a hand through her hair and pats herself down for that ever-ellusive pack of cigarettes. "Anyhow—" she casts Tillman a look of astonishment. "You haven't got your own digs? Seriously?" She looks as though her respect for him has gone up inordinately. Still, "I will have some of those jelly beans, you know. You entirely underestimate my resourcefulness and my slavish addiction."
"Broke a couple fingers in a-" Tisiphone's delighted peerings grow a little hooded for a second as she considers her wording. "In a fight, back in flight school. Nothing- nah, nothing like this before." She shifts, vaguely discomfited, and determinedly bullies toward another topic. Ganging up on the XO seems a fine choice. "Shit, man, just trade him some fake cheese-crap in a coffee mug for his sandwiches, you'll be swimming in jellybeans."
The XO nods. "I was bunkin down with the rest of the officers until Abbot ordered me out of there. Personally I could care less. I don't even see my bunk that often and I do most of my paperwork in CIC or the Map Room." He shrugs lazily. "I kinda miss the company, sadly. Fartin around corridors with a bunch of bitchy civvies makes me wanna come bunk with the Air Wing." Even if he already has been seen in and out of the Raptor group more recently. He glances to Tisi and shakes his head. "Again. Its like icecicles. Bzzzt!" He flicks his hingers towards Tisi with a smile. "That junk is good, I don't care what you say. Seriously. It opens up whole new worlds. Like Admiral Strye? She wasn't immune. She used to dip her roast beef in hot cocoa. It was damned good, too. Ain't no au jos, but shit was good."
Penny grins at Tisiphone, then shrugs at Tillman, pulling out and lighting another smoke. Smoke 'em if you got 'em does indeed seem to be the theme of the day, and she's got 'em. "You're a man of simple tastes, sir," she says to the XO, drily.
Tisiphone visibly recoils in disgust at the thought, flicking the last dregs of her cigarette at Tillman. The last warding gesture against Horrible Foods didn't work; maybe this one will. "Frak. That," she utters. "Seriously. Something happens to a mind when it crosses the Captain-Major threshhold, I'm startin' to think. Mother of the gods, that's disgusting to think about."
"My taste is subjective to me. I happen to enjoy it. Even if it is faux-cheese coffee that -might- look like onion soup at some point with all the stuff floating in it." Go for broke, right? That door is already opened. Run through it at full speed. "But I still have jelly beans. I'll remember who supported me in my time of sandwich dipping. Loyalty can be purchased if necessary. One bean at a time." He eyes the both of them carefully. "Yeah, well I'm not a Major. Not really. The pins are on loan. I'm a slacker Captain trapped in the body of a Major. It happens, though."
Loyalty can apparently be purchased. Even with the mere intimation of such rewards. Penelope perks up and offers with shameless enthusiasm, "I thoroughly and deeply support your right to dip your sandwiches in whatever you like, sir." She nodnodnods. Can haz jelly beanz, pls?
"Pfah, shameless," Tisiphone mutters at Penelope, the narrowed eyes bright with amusement. She starts pushing herself up to her feet, stooping to collect her precious bourbon-bottle, glumly eying the last of its contents. "Think of what you're endorsing, man! No matter how…" Resolve is faltering. "No matter how delicious the results," she finishes, faux-bravely. There's a nod to Penelope, and a salute-of-sorts to Tillman, using her bottle — seems fitting, somehow — and then she's on her gently-swaying way out the door.
Le Fade