| With Old Friends Like These |
| Summary: | …who needs new enemies? Spiral and Hosedown have another quick friendly chat which ends with him throwing a bottle at her head. |
| Date: | 17 Nov 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Cidra and Pallas Sitting in a Bunk is referenced. |
| Players: |
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| Pilot Berths - Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post-Holocaust Day: #264 |
| The battlestar's pilots call this place home. Bunks line the walls with grey curtains to cover their sleeping areas. Lockers sit between each pair of bunks and a round metal table sits in the center, furnished with simple but comfortable steel chairs. A hatch at the rear of the room leads to a communal head. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
Andrea is still going over the information collected from Raptorball. It was, apparently, a hit, but now command wants more info and ideas on streamlining the experience. Ah, the work goes on. The papers are scattered all over the table in the middle of the room, as Andrea stoops over them, occasionally jotting down notes.
Pallas enters the berths looking pretty damn tired. He's in his flightsuit, so it's a fair assumption that he's just come off CAP - or doing some basecamp scouting over Tauron. Or both. Andrea is given a momentary wary glare before he passes by her to his bunk to peel himself out of the flightsuit and into something more comfortable.
Andrea's eyes raise as Pallas passes her, and shakes her head for a moment, going back to her work. Suddenly, a grin breaks out. "So, you and the CAG, eh?"
"Me and the CAG what?" Pallas shoots back, voice flat. Then what she said actually sinks into his tired brain and he turns around to face her with an annoyed glare. "Grow the frak up, Hosedown."
"Grow up?" Andrea looks at him innocently. "Whatever do you mean, Spiral? I see you having a nice moment with the CAG, who is a great person, and I'm curious. No crime in that, is there?"
Pallas just shakes his head, a sneer forming on his lips, before he turns his back on Andrea again to finish changing. "She just wanted a drink. Don't make anything more of it than what it was." The flightsuit gets dumped unceremoniously into a heap in his locker, which he kicks shut before rolling onto his mattress with a grunt.
"Yeah, there are drinks and there are drinks." Andrea stands up from the table and walks around to sit on the bunk opposite his. "You two were having a moment. You were being all sweet, and stuff. I've seen you do that once, before, and that was after frakking you."
"If that's your definition of 'sweet', then I've pretty much frakking proposed to Toast by your standards," Pallas snorts dismissively. "Don't they keep you busy enough that you start poking your nose into spreading bullshit rumors? Or are all those papers on the desk just for show?"
"Its not spreading rumors if I'm just talking to you, Spiral." Andrea shrugs. "Raptorball is a project that I work on when I get a few moments. It's hardly a rush assignment, or anything. And don't go off on me just because I MAY have seen you have a human side. It's not like people will lose their shit if they see you happy for a few seconds. What are you worried about? Your reputation?"
Clink. Clinkclinkclink. Pallas keeps some bottles stashed in his bunk, apparently, and he's rummaging through them. "I'm not afraid of shit," he replies. "I just don't need any brainless rumor-devouring parasites looking at me funny or trying to 'figure me out'." His head pokes out from behind the curtain to scowl at Andrea. "And in case you're too dense to catch my not-so-subtle drift, that was me giving you a frak-off."
"Bullshit, Spiral. You're so scared that you were willing to leave me on Aerilon because I MIGHT have been a Cylon. Not the greatest excuse you ever gave to leave a woman you'd frakked behind." She stands up. "Maybe I just liked the thought that you were loosening up enough to actually enjoy yourself, for a change. Maybe then you'd stop being so frakking scared all the time. So in case you're too dense to catch MY not so subtle hint, if there was something there you enjoy, then enjoy it. Because for some reason I still actually would prefer to see you happy, though frakked if I know why."
"Shoot first, ask questions later," comes Pallas' reply. "Call it being scared if you want. I'd rather have put two rounds in you and left you in that rotting ship than bring a potential Cylon on board and put it in a Fleet uniform." And it doesn't sound like it bothers him none, either. "You sound like you'd fit right in with the frakking cowards who court-martialled Money Shot for shooting at the enemy. We're at war, and if I think for one second that you really are the enemy, I'll kill you with my bare Gods-be-damned hands. Take that as you will, Hosedown. Or whatever the frak you are."
"Yeah, because its real frakking easy to fight the enemy when watching your back all the time. That'll win this war real fast. I don't know what the frak you got into after leaving Volans, but I never thought you'd become a coward."
<FS3> Opposed Roll -- Pallas:Athletic vs Andrea:Reactive
< Pallas: Good Success Andrea: Good Success
< Net Result: DRAW
Mere seconds after the word 'coward' leaves Andrea's lips, an empty glass bottle comes flying out of Pallas' bunk. It's aimed with expert precision even though he throws it blind, on a crash course directly for her head. "You best watch your words," he says, his voice calm and dark.
Andrea sees the bottle coming and manages a fairly impressive backstep to avoid it, watching as it crashes against the bunk and shatters everywhere. "A random attack from your bunk with no warning? Seems I chose my words perfectly." She glances down at all the glass and shakes her head. "I'd ask if you were going to clean up your mess, but we both know that you never do. Gods forbid you ever do anything but drink and curse the world."
No, Pallas is not getting out of his bunk to clean up the shattered glass. Nor will he get on his feet to respond to Andrea's baiting, no matter how much he might be wanting to smash a metal chair across her face. He's given his warning, and that's the end of this as far as he's concerned. No words spoken, no actions taken, he just sits in his bunk and continues to drink silently.
Andrea returns to the seat at the table. It's not her mess, and her bunk is on the other side of the room. Back to Raptorball. But for a moment she looks over and frowns. He means what he says. Sooner or later, she'll have to do something about that. Something more permanent than dodging his attacks, verbal or otherwise.