Splish Splash Sloth

Posted on Sun Jun 9th, 2024 @ 10:22pm by Lieutenant Irynya & Ensign Noah Balsam

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Sojourner Gymnasium
Timeline: Mission Day 4 at 0900

[Gymnasium Pool]
[Deck 5]

The standard issue SOJO one piece swimsuit was, according to Irynya, extremely modest. It was all black with the Sojourner's abbreviated name stamped across the chest in capital letters after the fashion of all of the other standard issue exercise attire. The neck on her suit was high, curving just below her collarbone while the back of the suit dipped low to just below her mid-back. Not a bad look, per se, but more designed for function than anything else.

Now, standing at the edge of the small pool inside the Sojourner's gymnasium she ran one finger along the back of the suit’s left leg hole, making sure it covered her butt and shifting her weight awkwardly as she slightly bent her knees, making sure her thighs weren't brushing so that the cloth between her legs wasn't riding up. It wasn't a particularly ladylike move, but then the Risian figured if that had mattered then she would be wearing a different suit.

Returning to a normal standing position, this time confident that the suit was correctly positioned she peered at the water in front of her and then, grinning, extended her arms over her head, one hand atop the other and sprang, slicing into the cool liquid with the grace of someone practically born swimming.

---

So that is what Noah had forgotten to ask the LMH to do during their meeting. As Noah rose, he did so with the unpleasant ache of tired muscles and aching bones. His chest felt tight.

He'd forgotten his monthly infusion of osteo-fortifier and his myo-densifier.

Noah sighed, and rubbed the side of his nose. His eyes held shut for a moment as he felt the creeping fatigue weighing on him. If it was in the cards, he'd have rolled over and gone back to sleep. But that would solve nothing. Earth gravity had a number of effects on those from light gravity worlds.

His lanky body was just not meant to be here. "Index," he croaked. Noah rubbed his temples and looked across the room. He'd expected to see his shimmering privacy field protecting him from the intrusions of his roommate. And for a moment, he felt a surge of panic. He'd forgotten. That half of the room was now completely empty. And he'd taken down his privacy screen.

The androgyne in the white suit had appeared when Noah had requested their presence. But when his follow up stretched into seconds, she spoke. "Did you summon Index in error?" Noah was bending toward his core some. His eyes were closed.

"No. Just... thinking..." He lied and like most of his lies, they were unconvincing. "Uh. Sorry, yes. Close Index." The androgynous figure phased out of existence as Noah pushed onto his feet and flexed his toes. He stood up, tugged on the short legs of his boxer briefs and ventured outside to the replicator. As he ventured outside, the door to the wider ship had just hissed shut. Noah thought he saw the back of Sheldon Parsons heading to work before the doors closed. The room felt empty and he guessed Irynya was likely on her shift.

Noah tapped the coms panel. "Noah to Basheer. Can I delay my shift by about an hour? I'll stay an hour later?" A moment later the screen blinked up to the Jordanian man already in uniform. His Chief Petty Officer shield glinted in the light of what appeared to be a lamp.

"We'll manage. What's wrong Ensign?" He asked.

"Forgot my medication," Noah grimaced apologetically. His eyebrows rose in lament, "Again," he chuckled darkly. Basheer tutted.

"Understood. I'll move you to Beta Shift today. But you won't be Lead. I believe it's Ensign Frav's rotation. You'll assist." Noah nodded acceptance. "Basheer out." The panel went black. Noah started to rub the tightness of his shoulders and neck. A move to Beta Shift was a generous bump that made bed beckon again, but it also meant it was all work and then straight to bed. No depressurizing tonight. Noah had to bake that into his day's outlook.

He decided against bed and went straight to Sickbay where he asked the LMH to deliver his requisite infusions. They took only minutes but their effects would take a few hours. In the meantime, Noah decided to spend some time in a place a little more buoyant: the pool.

Noah was not a "gymrat." And he truthfully didn't go in there often. It was full of Security types. And when he ventured into the small locker room there were indeed a pair of Security crewmen who eyed him with a mix of the requisite rank respect but also curiosity as to why this virtual stranger was in here. "Anything we can help you with, Sir?" Once asked. Noah shook his head.

"Heading t-to the pool," was all he said. And that was all the explanation he gave. He quickly disrobed with an eye for modesty, waiting for that last drop of his drawers until they'd left. Then he replicated some basic swimwear, a sort of squared, high-rise set of black trunks with "SOJO" across his butt. He slipped them on past his too-long and skinny legs. He looked in the mirror. He looked nothing like a security officer. He turned slightly to see the "99" tattooed where his arm met his shoulder. It was subtle, and a subtle nod to his graduating class. Under it was the word, "Tau" in lettering very much like the same font of the SOJO shirts, justified to the same width as the numbers above. That was his squad's name: Tau Squadron.

Noah sighed and after a hesitation of fingers at the locker room door, he pushed the key and stepped into the gym. It was not huge. A couple of treadmills and some free weights and a space for gymnastic or sparring. The pool was mostly for swimming laps but had a diving area on one end. As Noah climbed the short ladder, he heard splashing. When he looked within, he saw someone he knew.

"Oh." He blinked. "Hey. I thought you were on the Bridge?"

From the middle of the pool, Irynya had only seen the wavy outline of a diver as she surfaced, letting her eyes adjust as she ran her fingers over her face and scalp to trail down the hair tied in a low ponytail at the base of her neck. Even tied back stray pieces had pulled loose and lay plastered to her forehead at an odd angle until her hands forced them into sodden compliance along her scalp.

"And I thought you were getting ready to start a shift," as the speaker on the board coalesced into the lanky form of Noah. He, like her, wore the standard issue SOJO swim attire which somehow managed to only augment the wirey-ness of his form. She grinned at him. "Coming in?"

"Basheer assigned me to Beta Shift today," Noah half-explained. He somewhat stiffly sat on the edge of the board, his feet dangling into the water. It was warm enough. He lamented with a shrug, "I've been busy lately. Forgot my meds." He admitted. Despite his fatigue he offered his too-wide smile with its hint of his teeth, "So who's flying the ship today?" He asked. He lifted up and rather than dive, he slipped into the water and bobbed underneath. When he came up his normally unruly waves and cowlicks were plastered to his head- and in his face. He sputtered some.

Noah hadn't shaved that morning and he had dusky traces of it on his chin and upper lip. He pushed his tresses out of his eyes onto his forehead. And he started to bob with slow movements of his arms. It was already somewhat of a relief not to have a full gravity pushing down on him unaided.

"Lieutenant Galina" she answered when Noah surfaced. She brushed her arms through the water moving closer to her now damp friend. A look at him, hair all akimbo and droplets running down his face and neck, loosed a bout of giggles making her eyes crinkle merrily at the corners.

"You're a mess," she commented. Her voice was full of good natured teasing, but the extra edge of fondness couldn't be missed. "I'm glad Basheer let you switch."

Noah guffawed with a last smear of water that was persistent in dripping from his eyebrows. "Tha-that's me." He replied. Noah began a slow swim sort of like a nautilus, his back used for bowshock. "He's good as Chiefs go." He added, "I think I saw Sheldon leave. But you'll never guess what else happened."

"Oh!" She said, eyes lighting up with excitement and no small amount of mischief. Her eyes tracked the slow gyration of Noah's movement even as she said. "I have news too!" The words spilled from her with the enthusiasm of someone with a particularly juicy bit of gossip. "You go first though..."

"No no, you. G-go ahead," Noah said deferring to Irynya. His news was likely less important than hers anyway. She seemed so enthusiastic so why make her wait. He liked to listen anyway. "What've you got?" His eyebrows rose, earnest and curious.

Her grin spread and she let the movement of her arms move her closer to Noah--the swimming equivalent to leaning in. "Margarar's been reassigned. She's gone! You don't have to work with her... live with her anymore?" All of this was delivered in a breathless rush, eyes tracking Noah's face for a reaction and not, she realized, finding the one she expected.

Noah pleased look of waiting for Irynya's mystery reveal turned to realization and then a soft chuckle. "Uh, tha-that was my news too. The Dots and the stewards cleared out her space yesterday afternoon." His arms flapped underwater as he again Nautilused in a sort of circle around Irynya. He smiled good-naturedly but there was a hint of something more. "It was weird sleeping alone last night. I realized I haven't uh s-sleep alone in years. I'm waiting for someone to get assigned to it." He hesitated with his mouth and then twisted his mouth. "I guess her last r-revenge was she didn't say goodbye or anything. I think she stealthed off the ship."

Iry's mouth shifted into an "O" of recognition and then softened with her features into understanding as Noah explained about sleeping alone. "I hate sleeping alone," she commented with quiet empathy before confirming Noah's suspicion. "I should have guessed you already knew. The shuttle left late yesterday. I got a look at the manifest after my beta shift status check."

An image of Tolbert leaning against the wall flashed through Iry's head and she felt herself flush slightly, eyes dilating a bit. The brief amount of time she'd found for herself last night had been fine, but not particularly satisfying.

Noah bobbed his head. "Its uh. Well its weird, huh." He didn't hate sleeping alone. But it was also... distracting and empty.

Covering her momentary distraction Irynya ducked below the water, bobbing back up just as quickly and repeating the hair fixing water sloughing motion of her hands that happened instinctively when she breached the surface. She sought out Noah as soon as her eyes opened and turned until she was facing him, shifting slowly in a sort of internal mirror dance to his slow nautilus motion.

"How do you feel about that?" She asked as she tracked his movement, long arms and legs graceful in the buoyancy of the water. "I mean about her leaving quietly?"

Noah's bare shoulders shrugged under the water, briefly breaking the wet tension of the water's surface. "Um." His mouth twisted into a knot. He flapped his arms in another righting motion. "I don't know... I'm still working through it. I thought m-maybe we'd get to something... uhh... neutral but... I guess not."

She nodded her understanding, not quite sure what to say. Maybe nothing. She couldn't blame him for his desire for improvement in the hostility, but she also found she had no regret over never mending fences with the Antican. They didn't like each other and she was ok with that. Of course Margarar had been her peer and not her supervisor, so the dynamics were different.

Still adjusting herself, her hands twisted in the water acting like rudders to keep her aligned with Noah. Without really thinking she brushed a cupped hand through the water too forcefully accidentally propelling herself forward a few inches before she corrected the motion by thrusting her opposite hand outward.

She had over-over corrected and her fingertips found skin with bones beneath- probably a thigh. Noah didn't seem to react to it. He felt it. It was the nature of being in a pool- especially a small one on a small ship. "Do you-you ever think about how small this ship really is?" He asked. It took great effort to keep it running and yet one of the old Galaxy-classes or the Odyssey-classes would utterly dwarf it. The only thing truly smaller and still recognizably a manned starship were the old Defiant classes.

And having some limited access of preliminary data it seemed like Starfleet ships were getting smaller. Though the two he knew of in the pipelines- one called Duderstadt and the other Echelon were both bigger than the Nova refits.

He guffawed as he'd lost himself for a moment. "I-I ask cuz... we have this little ship and we have this little pool."

Noah's laughs, Iry had learned in the time that she knew him, were contagious. It was hard not to laugh along with him. She shook her head at his amusement, joining in the laughter before answering his question. "I mean... in the full scale of the universe or compared to a planet or another ship or...?" she chuckled, stopping herself before continuing into absurdity. "I guess I don't think about it except when its size reminds me how far away from home I am," she said. "Or when we're right on top of each other and all need a minute. Like... when I was having an issue with the showers. There wasn't any really truly open space to help. Even the way the holodeck can make things feel so much bigger has limitations. You know you're in a room even if you feel like you're looking at the open sky."

"Have you ever seen wuh-one of the old Mark I Holo-matrices?" He asked. "Like, way way back before they could make immerse holo-environments? They looked pretty fake. Even the Mark III's in the 60's didn't look real at the wrong angle. When I went to Smithsonian they had a exhibit of holo-technology." He trailed off realizing he was being too-Engineer. "But they Mark IX's are pretty convincing. Um for therapy even I hope?"

She pointed her toes beneath her, pulling her hands to her side so she sunk more rapidly in this streamlined pose. Once she had sunk to just below eye level she thrust out her arms again, spreading her fingers wide and pressing upward to counter the drop propelling not only her face, but also her shoulders from the water with the whooshing sound that came with water being suddenly dispersed. The tops of the letters across her chest appeared for just a moment and then she bobbed downward again, using hands and feet to steady herself again. "It is kind of amazing, though," she continued. "So much uniqueness held in a teeny tiny town-sized space. Not even a town... I don't know..." She shook her head, feeling the heavy weight of air against her back. Her ponytail floated out behind her, but anywhere it left the water the weight was notable.

"Like... not even a village. I-I think most schools have more people in them than we have." He shrugged staying mostly station-keeping as Irynya moved about. He was surprised she wore such plain clothes to swim. It seemed counterintuitive. "I-I wouldn't say I know everybody... but I feel like I know almost everyone on Alpha Shift." He scratched his nose and pinched away on the end of it. "So there might be new crew members on the next shuttle? Do you think?"

"I think there were a few on this one," she commented, bobbing closer to Noah before curving her path to swim a tight circle around him. "I wonder if we're getting a new suite-mate."

An errant thought of crashing on the extra bed in Noah's room for a night crossed her mind; an extension of how easy it was to fall asleep together curled up on the couch. She pushed it to the side, swimming another circle around as she added. "Do you want another roommate?"

Noah considered that. He finally dipped under the water and resurfaced with his head back, keeping his tresses out of his face. "Um." He stalled. "I don't really feel like I-I have a real choice? I mean even senior officers have roommates on the Sojourner." He pointed out. "I can make it work. I just hope they aren't another direct superior officer. Tha-that was awkward." And, he hoped, they weren't as difficult as Margarar had been.

Iry let the water slow her pace until she was stopped again, treading water next to Noah. "Yeah." The remark was tacit agreement and understanding all rolled together in a single word. She didn't want another difficult roommate either, but then he was right, and it was likely as not one of the newcomers would be assigned to the empty spot today anyway. She was silent for a moment, taking in the pool around them and enjoying the feel of the water--the buoyant push and pull created by their movements and the way it made her want to unfurl and stretch, like a fern opening up to catch the sun and dew.

Of course, unfurling also came with the annoying shifting of her bathing suit and so she dipped the arm closest downward, trying to hook a finger or two under the fabric of a leg hole to pull it back into correct coverage of her posterior assets. The effect was comical in its awkwardness making her sink in the direction of her lowered shoulder and then, barely snagging the offending material, yank her hand back up to steady herself so that she wouldn't crash bodily into Noah. She'd been too close, though, and even as she tried to correct, flinging out opposite arm to stabilize, her legs curled slightly as counter balance and tangled with at least one, if not more of the engineer's appendages.

Noah's too-big smile had grown. "Tha-that's a wardrobe error if I ever saw one try to style one out. I feel like these suits are just designed to have them." He shrugged, "Wha-what's wrong with a comfortable pair of shorts, replicator?"

Irynya's eyes drifted downward briefly and she grinned, the expression taking on a slightly teasing wolfish edge. "At least yours looks good. Mine..." she bobbed upward a tiny bit and gestured to the topmost part of her suit, "surely was not made for anyone with hips and more than a B cup."

Noah smiled a nibbled-lip pause of a smile, "Well, I-I wouldn't know," he looked down at his chest, with the swoop of his diaphragm and the parted, slightly sunken shape of pectis excavatum- a condition his parents had never seen a reason to fix. Then again, they hadn't had to contend with curious young peers in primary school. "I'm not even an A-cup." He chortled the words lightheartedly, and let that old childhood sting fade.

Unable to help herself Irynya popped her eyebrows suggestively at him, giving his chest a pointed look before offering up a playful and entirely overblown growl. She managed to hold that for a moment and then subsided into giggles. "I didn't realize cup sizes were something most human men had to worry about," she said through the giggles.

Noah shook his head at that. "Just for athletic support." He flapped his arms, treading water lazily, to station keep. "Speaking of roommates... I kind of feel like Shelly's been avoiding me lately. Did he, uh, say anything to you?" Noah looked concerned and yet conflicted. Was it just him, in his head? Or had he done something to his engineering brother.

Iry had shifted backward slightly, arms swiping water to give Noah a bit more space. Only a bit, though. The grin that had seemed to be permanently affixed to her face mellowed into something more like concern. "If he's avoiding you," she said, going back over the last several times she'd seen their roommate, "then he is avoiding me too." The grin dropped fully off her face now, and she pulled the inside of her cheek between her teeth, twisting her lips to the side as she did. "I'd noticed he seemed... cooler... lately, but I thought maybe he's just been busy or distracted."

"Yeah, s-sort of..." He trailed off, one eye squinted and his head tilted in thinking. "I feel like... I don't know, maybe it's in my head. Just... feel like he breezes through the common area anymore." His nose wrinkled, "I-I bet I'm just being neurotic... though..." He twisted his mouth again. "His schedule isn't any busier than mine... really. Maybe he and Ensign Dravor are back on and he just hasn't told us." He smiled hesitantly, "Just... got this funny image of Shelly climbing him like a horny sloth...." he shook his head.

"A what?" Irynya asked, blinking back at him uncomprehendingly. "She gathered that the image must be amusing by way of Noah's demeanor, but sloths were foreign to her. "You're going to have to give me more context for that one."

"Oh right," Noah frowned. His eyes swayed away. How did he describe this one with the common knowledge they shared. In the end, he just decided to describe a sloth: "Uhh a lanky tree-dwelling, uh, mammal. Usually very slow and calm... I-I don't know where the idea that they are lazy comes along..." He fingered up his tricep as his joke had fallen somewhat flat. It was never good to have to explain the aspects of a joke.

"Ok. I'm going to need to see this creature," Irynya said, eyes glinting. "You said it's called a sloth?" She tucked that a way, feeling he tiniest bit disappointed that she didn't get the reference up front. She would have liked to share in the mental image.

"Index," Noah raised his chin a bit, "Please appear as an Earth Sloth." He turned toward the fizzing sound of light and force fields but he wasn't prepared for it to appear on the edge of the pool. He did a double take and then pointed, "That's a sloth. Thanks Index."

The Risian, too, did a double take and then made her way a bit closer to examine the creature. It was all over with fur and had a look of almost blissful unhurriedness on its face. Enormous curved nails took up the end of its appendages and it sort of laid there awkwardly as if the side of a pool or the ground, even, were not its natural habitat. "Index?" she said, the name coming out as a question, "Please climb something?" She turned her head back to Noah as if to ask if that was the correct thing to request and then, realizing that she might not have been clear enough, scanned the area for something climbable.

The sloth seemed to pause at that and Noah looked around- there were no easily climbable surfaces within it's area. The lanky engineer swept water off the lower half of his face, "Standby Index." ANd Noah began to move for the edge of the pool.

"You're not being neurotic, though," she finally said after a moments pause. "I've noticed it too. I'm trying to think how long it's been going on. I mean..." she frowned, pausing mid sentence to think, "if it was Dravor why wouldn't he say something?"

"Oh," Noah shrugged. "At least since Hukatuse Tagumik. Mmmaybe some before." He shrugged, looking behind him as he approached the pool wall, "You know Shelly. He doesn't overshare. Maybe, if it is Dravor, he's just not ready to-to talk about it with us." His eyebrows rose, "I-I mean, Shelly and I usually talk about ideas... shop talk... not who we're sticking our parts into and stuff."

She shook her head slightly completely unphased by Noah's chosen way to describe sex. It wasn't as direct as she would have been, but it also was very much in keeping with her friend's sensibilities. "I don't know. He's more likely to share that with me. At least... I've known about some past interests. But also his demeanor isn't so aloof. I mean..." Her frown deepened, wrinkling her brow slightly, "it's not as though I've shared anything with him lately..." She glanced at Noah then realizing she'd not shared with him either and not wanting him to feel as though he was missing anything surprising. "Not that there's much to share." She sighed, a sound that was half frustration and half forced acceptance of her current lack of sexual partners.

As quickly as her frustration came, though, it went and she added with enthusiasm, "At least if it's Dravor one of us is getting some relief."

"There's always the holodeck," Noah proffered up the option he'd considered himself when it'd struck him earlier. "I-I guess that's the curse of being on a small ship." He paused, "Instead of a city flying through space." He shook his head, "Aren't we glad we're not on a, uh, subspace relay. Population three." He grimaced at that. "Should we ask him what's up?" Noah asked again, twisting at the waist to look at her.

The holodeck. Right. Briefly she considered whether there was a way to make the attendants in Timmoz's program more... Her brain failed her, unable to conjure an exact explanation for her restlessness. Despite her inward wandering thoughts she grinned at Noah's comment about relays. That, she was certain, would legitimately drive her crazy.

"I don't know," she answered in response to the question he had asked. "I mean... if there's something going on that's not Dravor then maybe we should check on him?"

As Irynya had been speaking, Noah planted his thin and hyper-mobile limbs: first his hands, on the deck of the pool. He bobbed down and then thrust up like a lean seal wanting a fish from a surface handler. His paleness, glistening in water, surfaced with its slim musculature working to hoist himself back in earth-gravity from the solace of buoyancy.

Below his waist the paleness traveled still further, beyond just little hints at the dimples of Venus. His swimsuit hadn't quite made the hoist and had sagged down to mid-cheek, a shallow crevice between the small globes embarrassingly undercut Noah's modesty. He clamored less elegantly to the pool deck with his knees. And then was up onto his feet where he righted his swimsuit with two quick tugs on his hips.

"Here you, uh, go, Index," he said as he bent over and offered his arms out. The sloth began to slowly move to use him as a human tree. Ultimately the furry facsimile, behaving reasonably like a sloth, used Balsam like a willowy tree and eventually put its arms in a loose fashion around his neck. Noah then turned to his pool-bound friend and stretched out his limbs, "Sloth. See?"

Though she knew she was meant to be worrying about Sheldon, she couldn't help stealing an appreciative glance at the top half of Noah's two well-formed cheeks. It didn't help that the swim attire for men was also form fitting and there was little to be left to the imagination--of which she had more than plenty. She squeezed her eyelids shut, pressing them tight for just a few moments longer than it would take for her to blink. She really was going to have to make a visit to the holodeck.

"For some reason, we named these animals after one of the worst sins back when Humans w-were super-religious." Noah added. He looked up to see Irynya's eyes shut and he flushed. Uhh so she may have seen his drawer drop then. That was embarrassing.

As she re-opened her eyes, though, Index-as-sloth was moving in the world's slowest mammalian locomotion to Noah's outstretched arms. Long claws wrapped his forearm, then his bicep, and she couldn't help wincing at the thought of whether or not this demonstration was going to result in bruises or other discomforts from the pressure of the creature hefting itself up her friend's appendage.

It was a slow process, certainly. One long furry arm moved up and the opposite back leg moved next, tucking underneath the long arm above it. Then the process was repeated with the opposite limbs until finally the creature had looped its arms around Noah's neck, it's pleased moon-like face turned to the side as Noah turned to face her.

The whole thing had been unbearably fascinating to watch and her eyes, rounded to match the slight "O" of her mouth shifted from the sloth to Noah's face and back again a few times before she concluded, "I am never going to be able to get that image out of my head now." And then, unable to help it, she gave a full bellied laugh. "Promise me never to let me look like that... ever... I'd like to think I'm capable of getting on and off the couch without appearing to use you as a climbing apparatus."

Noah smiled, "Like this for Shelly, but in really fast motion." Noah said as Index-as-Sloth began to paw at his wet hair. "Uh no... nope... uh let's not do that." Noah protested. "Close Index." And the creature immediately phased out of the room with a whispered cascading sound. He tilted another smile, "I-I don't think you have much to worry about. Anyway." He came back to the edge of the pool but didn't immediately slide inside. He was shivering and his skin and surface features and grown taut and goosebumped. And Noah folded his arms over his chest. "Um. I don't know." His eyes narrowed while he returned to the topic at hand.

"Shelly's always been really private... I don't want to embarrass him." His lips pursed and behind his eyes it was almost like he was reviewing what Irynya had said while he was letting a holographic Sloth climb him. "He-he and I talk about ideas more than feelings. I keep feelings for Mum, you and Debbie." He winced. Mom was actually hard to talk to about emotions, but he kept trying anyhow. He usually got the shutdown- what does your rational mind say? She would ask.

"Did-did you talk to him about this weird... puzzle thing? The Kali-fal thing?"

Iry had come to the edge of the pool as Noah shifted to sit beside it. Like any other pool there was nearly a foot between the water and the edge itself and, bobbing lightly, Iry snagged the edge with her hands and pulled her legs up to push hard into the side of the pool, stretching her body out behind her in a sideways toe touch movement. She held the position a moment, answering as she did. "No, not yet. I think we should, but I feel like until we get to whatever next step there is..." She released the position dropping her legs while also swinging her body to face Noah. They were close enough that the front of her suit brushed his leg as she shifted, the push and pull of the water nudging her in that direction before she used her free hand to move her back a few inches. "And I don't know that we should ask him about Dravor... yet..." she said. "He and I do talk about this kind of stuff and if he hasn't mentioned it..." She gave a sort of partway shrug on her free side and pulled herself back around to face the side again.

"I-I just want Shelly to be happy." Noah said. "He-he's finally back in a good place after what happened in Engineering." Noah said. He'd heard from third party sources, never having wanted to engage his friend on such a tender topic, and one that he was not there to help through. "I-I mean as Trill go I guess Dravor is very nice looking. If you go for the security type." Noah's nose wrinkled slightly on that. "N-not my personal thing for long-term. My friend Wendy, in Academy? Her mother was in Security. She constantly worried about if her Mom would come back from an away team alive."

Legs up to the pool side and pushed out, she ducked her head forward so her nose was almost touching the water as she bent double and stretched. Grinning, she let the slight pull of the water push her into Noah, nudging him with the combination of waist thighs that came from being doubled over to stretch. "Have you talked to him about it?" she asked, releasing the wall and dropping back into the water.

Noah smiled slowly even though he was still shivering. He shook his head, "Not yet. But I think I will. Like I said, I just want him to be happy. If counting Dravor's spots makes him that way then," Noah's nose wrinkled infectiously as his mouth spread. "I say good. I have some duties in Main Engineering tomorrow. I'll ask then." He shrugged, "I could mention the Kali-fal thing then too. I wonder if the Chief would know anything about it?" He mused, thinking of Nico. Though the Chief Engineer seemed to have his hands more than full these days.

Iry's face darkened with worry for the briefest of moments at the mention of the engineering chief. Timmoz --Nico's lover and a man who she loved as dearly as a brother-- was still in stasis following their visit to the station. His wounds from a fight that had left one of his lungs irreparably damaged among other things had been extensive and though she had been assured he was stable, if... no... when... he would wake again was uncertain. The Orion pilot's status hadn't just left her in charge of flight control, something she'd been trained for as Assistant Chief, but it had been like a whisper in the back of her mind for days. A worry that didn't hound her so much as follow her around like a shadow. Even with assurances from Dr. Wang she couldn't help the temptation to catastrophize.

Noah blinked with a tilt of his head. He seemed to lose Irynya for a moment. He was about to say something when she spoke up again.

"It might seem more natural coming from you anyway," She said in response to Noah's decision to inquire after Sheldon's more recent distance. "If it's me I'm afraid he'll think I'm prying."

"I'll-" Noah began but he didn't finish.

As she spoke she'd pulled in from her stretch and tucked her feet tight against the wall, pushing back out with her arms while her feet remained bunched beneath her. She tilted her head toward Noah and caught his shiver. Without a thought she let go of the side and slid fully back into the water coming around until she was in front of him directly, one hand placed on either side of his legs. With a kick of her feet and some upper body maneuvering she pulled slightly out of the water. Just enough that she could peer over his long pale appendages up at his navel and then upward again from there. It was a quick move, but as she did it she let go of the wall and on her drop back down wrapped her arms around his legs near the top half of his calves, tugging.

With a squawk- and a seriously uncomfortable bunch-up of his speedo along the pool deck floor- Noah went skidding into the water with Irynya's deft move. He came up sputtering and as soon as he locked eyes on Irynya, he splashed her. "How long were you-you wanting to do that?" He asked with a tilted grin and a blink. He reached to brush his limp black hair out of his dark eyes and then pinched his nose. Then he splashed her again.

She shrieked joyfully at the splash, throwing her hands up in front of her to block her face and grinning like an idiot. She was just about to retort back a Wouldn't you like to know to his question when he splashed her again and this time, laughing, she splashed him back. There wasn't an enormous amount of space between them and they'd barely moved away from the edge of the pool so the spray of water from the flat of her hand created a thin wall that not only sprayed Noah, but also the pool deck behind him.

Noah shielded himself with a flinch and then, using those lanky arms, he started to try and skirt behind her. The game was on. It was splash or be splashed.

=/\= A roomie confab by... =/\=

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Acting Chief Helmswoman

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist