Shower Thoughts

Posted on Tue Aug 31st, 2021 @ 8:18pm by Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Crew Rec Facilities, Gym Locker Room
Timeline: Mission Day 12 at 0600

The warble of the sonic shower was a strange combination of comforting and stressful. Irynya stood in the far corner of the locker room style open sonic shower, shoulders leaned back against the wall and head tipped back such that she could feel the vibration in the base of her skull.

It had been 4 days since she had gotten stuck in the sonic shower in her quarters.

4 days since Noah had, quickly and expertly, retrieved her.

4 days since he had let her know that repairs had been enacted.

4 days since she had panicked.

She closed her eyes, thankful for the emptiness of the space. Most crew opted for a shower in their own quarters, even after a thorough workout. So the sonic showers in this space were often free. And, more importantly, were designed in an open layout.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to use the showers in her quarters again. She had. She had waited until she was unlikely to be encountered by any of the 3 men she lived with and made her way into the bathroom. At first she tried to convince herself to use the stall where she had gotten stuck--some insistent part of her brain implying that she should face the irrational head on.

When that felt like too much she had tried to convince herself to use the other shower stall. It didn’t seem to matter though. Every time she stepped through the opening, even with the door open, her breathing picked up, the feeling of pressure--a weight on her chest--bearing down on her as her heart rate sped.

She had exited the space both times taking long moments to return herself to any semblance of calm when she did.

In the end she had sought out the gym showers, too embarrassed to admit that she couldn’t handle something as simple as taking a shower in her own quarters and too proud to ask anyone for help.

With a shove of her shoulders she moved back to standing, hands running over the back of her neck where the vibration had been distracting her from her own thoughts. Reaching up she snagged the band holding her hair up in two fingers and tugged, pulling it down the length of her hair until it hung loose around her shoulders, the ends on her back felt feathery and light in contrast to the heaviness of it.

She heaved a sigh, digging fingers into the roots of her hair and rubbing to relieve the tension of a 24/7 ponytail. A few presses of the tips of her fingers felt amazing, but there was nothing she was going to be able to do to alleviate the feeling altogether unless she left her hair loose for a while and duty rotations wouldn’t allow for it.

Reaching for the small shower caddy she had hung on a hook in front of her, she pulled two bottles of hair product, shampoo followed by a heavy conditioner, working the first into her hair and waiting for it to rinse away before combing the second in with her fingers.

Distracted, she let her mind wander. She hadn’t even been onboard for two weeks and the whole makeup of her friendships seemed to have shifted. It made sense--they weren’t on the Adelphi anymore and some of the crew whom she had become close to during that time had been assigned elsewhere. Still, she hadn’t expected to become so attached to her roommates so quickly. Nor had she been prepared for the news that Chaali was leaving.

Irynya’s thoughts wandered to the azure woman, pregnant with her first child. She wondered what that must be like. She knew, technically, how it all worked, but the experience itself eluded her. Truthfully she hadn’t thought much about whether she’d have a family for some time until Chaali shared her news. Now it occupied a corner of her mind. A curiosity she had long since set aside cropping up afresh.

Her mind turned to the evening when Chaali had shared her news; an image of Parsons’ fuzzy light up unicorn slippers creeping into her thoughts. She smiled despite herself, reminding her of their conversation in the midst of the conflict on Cho'thil. After asking him about them she had been tempted to look up the officer he mentioned in his story of the origins of his fabulously fuzzy footwear. A part of her couldn’t help wishing she could fix it for him somehow. If only to bring him face to face with the other man to see if there was, in fact, something there worth fighting for.

She hadn’t, though; the urge to meddle quelled with the reminder that, whether Sheldon would agree to it or not, he hadn’t consented to her meddling in his personal life.

And then there was Noah, sweet and kind and curious, who had so willingly taken to talking with her after their unfortunate encounter in the bathroom. If she had to admit it on that day she would have guessed he might avoid her from then on out, so it was a pleasant surprise that he hadn’t. It had been an even more enjoyable surprise to be let into the utter geekiness of some of his interests--a move that allowed her to geek out along with him in a way that she might not have done around others. It was surprisingly easy to do and she had to wonder why that was.

Moving her head out of the stream of sound so that the conditioner could set, she swapped her hair supplies for a bottle of soap and a puffy contraption for scrubbing. The fiber-based poof was soaped and then she began the job of cleaning the rest of herself--starting with her arms and shoulders then making her way down, looping under her breasts and along her back before running down her legs and hitting all of the places that saw the least amount of light--natural or otherwise.

The scrubbing poof rasped as she went, a natural way to slough off dead skin. For all that she could run with the flyboys she still preferred the feminine in her appearance--soft skin one of the many things she valued. Skin cleaned to her satisfaction she ducked her head back into the stream, running her hands back through her hair to remove any remaining traces of the conditioner.

With a swift movement she tapped the panel to end the shower, sonic waves dropping to silence leaving her feeling strangely exposed. She returned the poof and the soap to their places and pulled out a bottle of lotion, beginning with her hands and then working her way up her arms before working lotion down her legs to her feet.

She was avoiding thinking about her third roommate. And by acknowledging that avoidance she failed utterly in her attempts not to think about him. A blush crept up her cheeks despite the emptiness of the space and she quickly returned the bottle to the caddy, pulling on underwear and a bra followed by sweatpants and her SOJO t-shirt.

Dressed, she made her way to a bench just outside of the sonic showers to put her shoes back on for the walk back to her quarters, but rather than get on with it she leaned back, the heels of her palms carrying her weight as she did. She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling as if the meaning of life might be hidden in those deck plates.

What in all of the universe was she going to do about Kennedy?

The deck plates remained silent, not that she expected an answer.

Slowly she leaned forward again, resituating her boots unnecessarily as she considered the problem.

On one hand, she subscribed fully and wholeheartedly to the idea that two ship mates could carry off any number of encounters with each other and still be perfectly fine to work together. No, she self corrected, it wasn’t that any two ship mates could do that… at least not without some deliberate agreement… it was that she could. Most humans, in her experience, didn’t separate the physical and the emotional well.

For a brief moment her mind skipped back through a series of moments between herself and Kennedy since coming onboard. An accidental brush of a hand. A comment made. A look. Each one felt pregnant--every day encounters that wouldn’t make her pause with anyone else setting her pulse racing just at the memory.

Her hands gripped the edges of the bench and she let her head fall forward, hair a waterfall around her as she stared at her knees. “If you’re attracted to him then what is the problem?” she chided herself, her own voice sounding louder than necessary in the empty space.

And there it was. The crux of the problem. She wasn’t normally hesitant to act on attraction. The process of getting to know someone else, particularly physically, was one of the most ingrained and straightforward parts of Risian culture. It was a brilliant and exceedingly exciting thing, but it was a thing with a clear path.

And with Kennedy, none of it felt clear. All she knew is the noticing that was going on wasn’t the same as any other people she had noticed in the past. It held more import and left her more flustered than she had experienced before.

And… it wasn’t going to unravel itself while she sat outside the gym’s sonic showers.

Sighing, she wiggled her feet into her boots, choosing to leave her hair down. She stood, stretching her arms up and back until she could feel the muscles in her shoulders pull against the tension. Releasing them she let out a long low breath. Then, swiping her caddy, she made her way out of the gym.

She’d have to figure out what to do about Kennedy Ryan Walsh eventually, but for now she would just have to let it go.

=/\= A Mission Post By =/\=

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Acting Chief Flight Controller