Down

Posted on Sun Feb 20th, 2022 @ 2:41am by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant JG Irynya

Mission: Sojourners of Time
Location: Junior Crew Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 6 at 1900

[Junior Crew Quarters - Deck 4]
[MD 6 - 1900 Hours]

"Index. 56g bottle of cool gunmetal glossy, enamel paint." His fair skin blazed white as the replicator in front of him swirled spritely energy into a small glass jar with a blue-gray gunmetal color. He picked it up and shuffled it to his off-hand. "Index, A Ghorlan Fizz and-and..." His eyebrows frowned their lines along with his mouth. He needed to eat. But he wasn't hungry. He'd been working overtime with Chief Basheer to learn the intricacies of the newest gelpack technology. He'd had breakfast but not Lunch. And, as he thought, he couldn't remember what breakfast had been.

"Please restate your request," the computer urged.

Noah's brow knit at his beakish, eagle nose. "Um." He raked through his coiled hair with lanky fingers- distracted he did it with the hand with the paint jar in it. A glassy thunk against his scalp, mildly panging, was just indicative of distraction. "Blackberry cobbler, extra whip cream. And a glass of m-milk. Three degrees." Noah stood back as again the nimbus of white made swirling moved to materialize food before him. He, meanwhile, pulled away the gamey feeling navy SOJO t-shirt on his person. He shifted into his bedroom. It was strange, it being empty save for him. He missed Walsh's quietness.

The Chief Steward had said to expect a new roommate in a day or two.

When he returned he had a model of a strange, partially cone-shaped thing with a domed head and a long plunger apparatus on its face. He settled it on the coffee table and then retrieved his food. With a clink, his plate, his drink, and the jar of paint all settled on the glass table.

A swish of doors announced the arrival of the only female roommate of the current threesome. Irynya exited the bathroom, a pair of sweatpants hung low on her hips and a fresh Sojo t-shirt sat fitted at her waist, the typical roll that came with curves and hips already shimmying upward even as one tan-toned hand tugged it back into place. Her hair was still wet and it hung loosely over her shoulder.

Brown eyes zeroed in on the long-limbed cadet situated on the couch. "Is that... your dinner?" she asked, sniffing as the sugary warm sweetness of the cobbler permeated the room far enough to reach her.

The black eyes of the cadet turned to Irynya, freshly showered. If he'd been Kennedy, he'd have died of shock just now. Noah had pushed a spoon of the gooey, sweet, and cream-sopped dumpling, stooped over the dish of it. "Um," he said with a rounded sound of a full mouth. He raised a finger to ask her to wait. He chewed- in somewhat dramatic fashion, with a nasal intake and exaggerated chew. He swallowed. "Yes," he said somewhat flatly. "Would-would you like some?"

Noah looked back at her, twisted and pulled on the fresh tee- he bowed it out and did his lanky arms first, then forced his curly head through the hole.

Irynya took the question as permission to move, but waited a moment, watching the fluidity of Noah's movements, a thing she wondered if he was even aware of. When he'd finally donned his t-shirt she closed the couple steps from where she stood to the couch and flounced down next to him, close enough for her knee to brush his. They were close enough friends that Noah didn't seem to typically mind her regular invasion of his personal space, but she'd also put a foot in her mouth in one massive insecure blunder of worry while he was on duty recently so she paused for a second, trying to catch the minutiae of his body language so she could decide if she should move before she settled.

Noah held up the bowl for her to taste it. "Does Risa have berries?" He asked the woman next to him. He didn't seem bothered by her. Perhaps he'd forgotten the whole affair in the core room. But more likely, he simply did not judge around it. While she had the opportunity to sample he stooped across the couch-table gap again and seized his milk. He sipped it- nice and freezing cold. Perfect for hot cobbler.

Not sensing any hesitation she sat next to him, shoulders brushing, appreciating the nearness--a bit of Risa that spilled out onto her closest friends. Whatever it was in the bowl it was warm and sweet and a little tart with a pop of dark berry mixed in with the baked bits. Heaven. It was warm heaven in a bowl. "Nothing like this," she said once she swallowed. "Goodness that's good."

She returned the bowl with a grin after making sure the spoon was fully cleared of any leftovers from the bite she'd stolen. "But that is definitely a dessert. I know a dessert when I taste one. There's no way that has even an ounce of nutritional value to it," she teased. She was far from the right person to talk and she knew comfort food when she saw it, but she couldn't resist a little bit of nudging.

Milk went to the table. Bowl went back to Noah's hand. He smiled smallish into his cheek. "Blackberries are-are very high in vitamin C." He said but his protest, if it was even one, was anemic. "It tastes nice though." He poked at the browned biscuit lump with the spoon as if testing for softness, "Not as good as b-back home. At Dingo's." He glanced at her.

"Dingo's?" she asked, probing the odd term to get him to say more, hands going to her hair to pull it back and to the side away from him so the damp wouldn't brush him while she was sitting this close.

Noah nodded with a modicum of enthusiasm, her touch not bothering. "Dingo's Deep Dive," he said with a sidelong smile at the woman. "Wuh-one of my favorite places to be on Enceladus. It's down off the main dockring of Eilat Anchorage." He took another spoonful with a deft turn to carve off a cliff of biscuit into deep and viscous purple-black. He spoke with a knot of dessert in a cheek, "It's a pizza place. A-a little like Debbie's... sort of." He wanted to back off the comparison because Debbie's was wholly unique- and Dingo's was more like a pizza parlor in Chicago.

Even though it served Detroit-style pizza.

She nodded, a sort of a picture of the place formulating in her head--likely far from the reality of the place, but she got a sense of its coziness from the way he spoke. "So this is comfort food," she remarked knowingly. "Comfort food kind of day?"

"Mmmmhmmm," Noah agreed. He slouched back into the cushions, with most of his back against the seat. It left his shoulders and head propped up on the back. "Comes from home."

She twisted so she could look at him, shifting so she was settled against the arm of the couch while bringing her leg up onto the couch to form a sort of triangle, still touching him, but no longer shoulder to shoulder. Her head tilted to the side studying him a moment, taking in the slump of his shoulders and the lines of exhaustion. "It can't be Basheer that's got you seeking out comfort food," she said, thinking out loud. "Something happen today or..." she trailed off, leaving the question hanging so he could answer or not. Maybe he'd rather not and she'd respect that if he didn't take the opening.

Noah smiled again into his cheek, rueful. "No, not Chief Basheer or Chief Costa or Chulthuat." He stared at his bowl's rim. Having to relive the unpleasantness from not much more than three hours ago, Noah felt his appetite bail on him. He sat up, stood, and put his dish dutifully into the replicator. He tapped a few keys and it disappeared in a twirling smear of light.

There he hesitated. He leaned on the edge of the replicator and hyperextended his elbows. "W-when...." he began with strange caution, "You were a cadet... did-did anyone ever..." His mouth grimaced with discomfort at an uncertainty of how to phrase it. "Treat you like you were... low?"

Irynya's posture shifted in tandem with Noah's tone, alarms setting off in her head as he spoke. She sat forward again feet meeting the floor and hands settling on the edge of the cushions on the other side of her legs. "Low how?" she asked, tone careful, like she was coaxing a skittish fingerling monkey onto her palm. While her body language was open and inviting her expression held a slight edge.

Noah's mouth contorted, vexed. He was holding back. "I-it's hard to explain..." he said. He pushed off the replicator a long moment later. "Like... you-you're just... a grunt. In-incompetent grunt."

"Noah," the Risian said. His name held a bundle of emotions in her voice, concern and coaxing, insistence and gentleness. She wanted him to turn around so she could see his face, read his expression and the tone in his eyes. "I have had experiences like that, yes," she said quietly. "Thankfully they have been few and far between and none recent." Her eyes traced him like she was looking him over for physical harm, frowning. "Will you tell me more? Or... At least come back over here?"

Noah's mind was still trying to spin, a broken loop, short-circuited. He'd never met anyone so deliberately hostile to him... was it a misunderstanding? Was the person angry about something else? He didn't even know their name! They'd just said a title and he'd seen a rank. "I...." he started. His mouth closed. He shook his head. "F-from a Starfleet officer, tuh-too. I don't..." He looked at Irynya and shook his head. Somewhere in the morass of confusion, hurt, he wound his way back to the Risian's request.

He went back. He sat down. He put his hands between his knees and closed his knees tight against them, like he was trying to pin them from flailing or gesturing. "But not in Starfleet, r-right?" He asked about her experience.

Irynya's gaze was soft and a little sad. She moved now to make sure she was touching him deliberately, not the kind of touch that felt like an accident, but the kind meant to comfort and soothe. "I would love to tell you that I have never encountered this in Starfleet, but that wouldn't be true. Do you remember the other day... when I was worried about how Jyl-eel might perceive our friendship because I am Risian?"

Noah's nod was slow and stiff. Somehow he was uncomfortable about broaching that topic again like it was edging toward fear of.... something: not disagreement. Tension? Misunderstanding? He rubbed the flat of his nose, realized he'd let his hands free of his control, and clamped down on them again. "Yeah." He routed straight to it. Blinking his eyes shut with a squint, "You-you mean that happened in Starfleet?"

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Senior year. I was assigned a tour in-system. Just piloting shuttles to and from McKinley. The Lieutenant who oversaw the shuttle pilots took one look at me and laughed outright. Asked if someone was pulling a prank. Said his people did serious work, not pleasure cruises. Tore me up one side and down the other in front of a group of pilots and then took every opportunity to criticize my work, always in front of the other pilots."

Noah's brows knit with angst and sympathy, "And tha-that instructor..." He blinked eyes close again, mouth twitching. No, she didn't specify instructor- she said Lieutenant. Revise. "Lieutenant. They're still in Starfleet? Teaching people? Other races and everything?" He asked, searching.

She nodded, "Last I checked, yeah," she said with a small shrug. "Closest I ever came to quitting was that first month with him. But at some point, after a particularly ugly dressing down, I decided he was wrong. I am a good pilot. The way I look... Where I am from... What he thought... It didn't matter. Other people saw me and reminded me that I was good. And eventually, I listened to their voices more than his."

Her hands were in her lap, fingers fiddling with each other. She hadn't looked up through most of her explanation, but she did now and her expression was fierce. "He hated it ... When I stopped letting what he said get to me."

She was quiet for a moment, eyes searching. "Noah, I don't know what happened, but anyone treating you like you're incompetent, or beneath them ... They're wrong."

Noah looked down at his trapped hands. "I guess I thought we-we were always here to help each other, y'know. We-we're Starfleet. We put aside our families... and-and," his knee hold on his hands failed and he rolled a hand as if its motion would give him momentum. "For something bigger. We become a family." Noah pursed his lips. He looked a little pained, "Taught.... to-to trust our superior officers, and they trust us to know what our job is." He nodded once, slowly, "And we'll get it done."

"You're not wrong," she said with quiet encouragement in her tone. "Most of the time it is that, Noah. That's what we strive for. But people are... not simple." She shrugged again, "That's not the point right now, though. Something happened to you today. Who was it, Noah?"

Noah looked at her with a sheen in his eyes, "I don't even know her name. She just came in... said I looked too-too young to even walk let alone be here." He bounced in his seat, tiny minute bounces; vibrations of anxiety he was trying to squash. "Barking o-orders I'd never seen or-or heard. Said I was maybe smart but if I was so s-smart why did I take five years at Academy." He was up as the fidgets won out. "S-said- implied. Implied I wasn't doing my job. That-that I had to be done when she said no matter what. And-and that meant before she wanted it." He shook out his hands and paced little circles. Circle after circle. "Asked why I was in the kernel...um area... li-like that- like I didn't belong there. But Chief Basheer was showing me the Primes."

Iry was on her feet right after him giving him only a moment. "Noah," she said quiet but firm, stepping into his circle so he had to stop. She took each of his hands and held them in between them. She didn't grip him tightly, but neither was her hold on him loose. "Five things," she said, tone even, calm. "Tell me five things you see."

He hesitated and looked around. And then with a startling blur of words, he replied, "Irynya, table, replicator, wall art, hand."

She nodded, squeezing his hands in encouragement. "Five you can feel."

"F-feel?" Noah's brows flexed in confusion. This time he was a little slower. "Uhh hands... socks? Floor? Uh...." He wasn't sure what else to say. "Pulse?"

"Good," she said in the same even calm voice. She watched his face, looking for signs that this was helping. "Three things you can hear?"

Noah looked up then back, "Inertial dampeners... air ventilation s-systems... and talking."

"Smell, two things, go," she said, her tone turning encouraging again.

Noah smiled small, a little titch-up of his mouth on either side. Enough to show teeth even if briefly. "Um... wi-with a nose like this I think I smell everything." He tapped his nose. He sighed and reached up to tap at his mastoid bone. "It's my ocean.... it's my ocean...." He closed his eyes and said it without voice a few times.

Irynya met his smile with one of her own, her fingers still wrapping one of his hands. She was quiet while he mouthed the words and almost as a reaction found herself mouthing them along with him.

Noah sighed with his mouth a thin wide line. He was frustrated and hurt but the anxiety was ebbing. He refocused. He went back to sitting down with a gentle tug by the hand in Irynya's. "I don't... know what to do. I just keep going around about it... a-asking myself if I should be here. You know I-I haven't felt that way since my first year." He sat down and fixed his eyes on his model. "Maybe Security treats their people like that but we Engineers...." He pushed out a breath that fluttered his coils of hair. "I-I mean maybe its not like when we had Lieutenant Giorgiou..."

Iry had followed him back to the couch, hand still in his while they settled into their usual spots. "What makes you think you shouldn't be here?" She asked with quiet coaxing when he trailed off. Her heart hurt for him and a flare of deep-seated anger made itself known. She still wasn't sure who had drawn this deep of a reaction from him, but her hackles we're already up looking for a threat to react to.

Noah grimaced. "C-come on. I know I'm not all... strong and stuff like normgees," Noah said. He grimaced again, "That's people from uh, normal gravity worlds. I-I spent my first year... well half of it, doing afternoons in the Infirmary getting bone densifiers... fortification therapy... supplemental cell regen for organ support." He grinned wryly, "I-I don't jog every morning because I love it. I-I do it so I can stay here." He shrugged, "So if I get... umm...." He glanced away and back, "You know... dressed down for the stuff I am good at... then it's.... w-why am I here?"

Irynya was quiet for only a moment after he spoke, the answer to his question rolling off her tongue in the inquisitive form. "Do you love it?" She studied his face as she asked, looking for his reaction. "What you do here, I mean. The stuff you're good at. Do you love it?"

"Y-yes," Noah said emphatically, his heavy brows knitting at his nose, "I love it. So much. And-and that's why it hurts. Hurt. Someone saying you weren't doing um, your passion to their s-satisfaction."

She nodded, expression still serious. "Then you should be here," she said. "One person, no matter how horribly they have treated you, or how insignificant they made you feel, cannot undo years of evidence to the contrary." As she spoke the Risian's tone turned fervent, determined to be clear. "You're one of the smartest people I know, Noah. And one of the most hard-working. I mean... Debbie's... Just Debbie's... And Mood?" One hand gestures broadly as if to emphasize her point. "Every other person who sees your work is supportive of you. It does hurt. I get that. But it doesn't make you any less amazing than you are."

"Thanks," Noah said after a moment, while he glanced her way. He looked down at her hands. "You're a good friend." He sighed and rubbed his eye socket with a grind of his palm. "N-negativity bias is hard to beat sometimes." He said with a few loose nods. "It's a Human failing."

"Of course," she said with a warm smile. "I'm happy to remind you any time."

As if her comment needed punctuating she snaked the arm closest to him back around his shoulders, tugging him into her in a sideways hug.

The lanky one swayed like a reed and let her hug him. His arm put around her back and he returned affection. "Thanks," he said. He blinked slowly. It felt good to be validated... but in the deep abyssal pit of his innards, a persistent voice haunted. The voice growled and sneered with teeth at him. And he didn't even have a name for her.

A Post By:

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Assistant Chief Flight Controller

&

Midshipman Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist