For Want of a Comb

Posted on Sat Apr 25th, 2026 @ 7:43pm by Lieutenant Irynya & Ensign Noah Balsam

Mission: Port of Call
Location: 6-18 New Junior Officer Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 24 at 0600

Noah yawned. His mouth was dry and he licked at the parched pink in some vain attempt to wet it. He tasted his own morning breath, his nose wrinkled. He didn't remember giving a rimjob to a Nausicaan, he thought to himself, as brows rose but sleepy eyes stayed up. He powered up slowly. "Computer, time?" His voice was all grog and thickness, murmured through like a sleepy teenager who dreaded school.

"The time is 0557 hours, twenty-nine seconds."

Noah whimpered.

His arm was... quite asleep. But he tried to wiggle his fingers anyway. What he touched had him grimace and snicker. "Oh, sh-wow. Sorry." That had definitely been a breast. "Just, just checking to see if my hand was still there." He sighed across her neck, his chest against her back. The curse of the younger male he tried to keep discreetly away by moving his butt backward only to find that, even through pajama pants, the new privacy shells were quite cold! He gasped once. He lifted his head and glared back at the screen that sheltered them from the hum of the Engineering section, and whatever else Sheldon Parsons might be doing.

The response from the warm bundle of tan skin and mussed dark hair that had been the recipient of the accidental groping was so far from language as to classify as a grunt, but with a higher tenor that somehow evoked a cat-like grin despite the entire lack of recognizable words. Somehow, Irynya had slept through the request for time and had, instead, been awoken by the shifting of fingers in a place where they were, generally, not expected. The curve of Noah against her back and his sleep heavy words brought a slow sleepy smile to her lips even as her eyes remained closed.

And then he felt him shift away, the movement creating a gap in the warmth where their legs and hips would meet. Half instinct and half desire for five more minutes of cozy closeness saw her shifting back with him, closing the gap he created in a somewhat pointed fashion just after the gasp that the cold privacy shield had elicited found her ear along with the sensation of breath against her neck.

"Come back here," she murmured sleepily. "Five more minutes."

Sleep had made her recognition slow, but the realization of why he'd moved away crashed over her shortly after she'd pressed back against him. She stilled, the shift in her breathing making it clear that if she hadn't been awake before, she was now. "Oh," she echoed softly. "Umm..."

Noah, instead of being embarrassed- though he probably was on some level- cackled. "Oh my God..." He muttered, rubbing his face. "I-I'm going to guess Risian men don't have this problem." He paused, hands on his face, bleary eyes staring at the ceiling of his sleeping cubicle between his fingers. "Yeah... uh. Morning." Noah leaned over her and playful clamped teeth on the bridge of her nose, applying no pressure to it. "Do-don't worry, I'm in full control of it. Its just... a Human thing." His nose wrinkled, "I don't actually know why it happens to us... maybe Xex knows."

Iry shifted, giving him space, though a wild hare of curiosity made her want to move closer, just to see what happened. Her nose wrinkled at the application of teeth, the playfulness of his actions mirrored in the answering smile. "No," she said with quiet mirth. "I mean... It's not unheard of as a reaction to a partner... but... umm... I'm assuming from your reassurances that isn't the case here." Her voice, though no longer sleep-laced, held a lower register in the morning as if it needed warming up. She shimmied until she was facing him, lips curling cat-like into the smile that her earlier utterance had hinted at. "Does... umm... does it hurt? Or..."

Noah grimaced and shook his head, "No, it's just... a thing. I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, to be honest." Noah added. He shrugged a nude shoulder at that, finally leaning his cheek on his knuckles.

The enclosure of the privacy shield felt safe and several thoughts, some intimate enough to start the creep of color toward the apples of her cheeks, fought for dominance. She had questions, certainly. Not least among them whether this reaction was something to be capitalized on or something else entirely. Not that capitalizing on any such reaction was something he would want. She traced the planes of his face, curiosity plain, and blinked at the thread of her own thoughts.

Noah searched her face. "Isik for your thoughts?" He asked. "Not that I have an isik. I mean, from what I understand, they haven't been used for more than a thousand years so..." He squinted an eye, "I'd guess they're really rare and expensive. But um, yeah." He looked down between them. He blinked. "Um. It's a... friction thing. I think Humans are a little weird that way. Friction is part of the whole... ehhh..." He shrugged and grimaced. "Process. It-it makes being a teenager super awkward."

Her thoughts had rapidly moved in a direction she wasn't prepared to share. Or... at least... she didn't think they'd be well received no matter how much she might enjoy them. Iry found herself thankful for Noah's tendency to ramble whenever something he said wasn't entirely precise. It gave her a moment to organize her thoughts into something less... Risian.

When he looked down, though, she couldn't help following the line of his gaze. There was no missing the evidence of what he was describing and though this was hardly the first time she'd encountered this with him -- she'd elicited such a response once or twice by accident while the two of them were curled together on the couch in their old quarters -- she had never been in a position to do more than hold still to avoid exacerbating things.

Of course, the direction of her thoughts now had not been nearly so intent then.

"You're not a teenager, though," she commented unhelpfully. "Not that... umm... that matters I guess." She hurried ahead, dragging her gaze back to his face. "It doesn't hurt, so... does it feel good?" Her cheeks pinked at the asking, but he hadn't drawn away from the discussion and he had asked about her thoughts.

"Right now?" Noah brushed his fingers awkwardly at his neck, "No, not really. It's just... awkward. I mean its awkward anyway. It's-it's not you or anything I mean." Noah shrugged. "It'd be awkward with Shelly if I got out of bed... but." He shrugged. Fortunately drawing attention to the issue had a way of reducing the problem. "So uh... Human anatomy lesson over for today?" He smiled and rubbed sleepy crust out of the corner of his eye.

Irynya's expression twisted in sympathy at Noah's further explanation. "Yes," she agreed, recognizing that his answer served both as explanation and description of his current feelings on the matter. She wanted to ask him why it was awkward if it was a natural occurrence or, for that matter, how he dealt with the reality that friction was pretty much a fact of life. But she tamped the curiosity down and instead half shimmied toward him until she could duck her head against his chest. She pulled her knees up slightly to shift the way she was balancing on her hip, succeeding only in nudging Noah's legs with her knees before she adjust again. These beds really weren't made for two.

Seeing this- and living through the same feeling that these accommodations were truly a berth for one, Noah said, "Computer, end shutters." They collapsed away immediately, sliding away toward the headboard. He rolled his feet off the bed and let his legs dangle, hunched, elbow on a knee.

"Thanks for explaining," she murmured, shifting to settle beside him. Her own legs dangled next to his. She slid close enough that she could drop her head against his shoulder. He smelled like familiarity and warmth and her desire for five more minutes of their coziness returned anew even though it was less and less of an option. "Did you sleep alright?" She asked. "I mean, with company taking up some of the space?"

"It felt like sleeping in a strange place." Noah admitted. He missed their old room and its character. "Kinda of feel like I'm sleeping in a submarine here." But he shrugged. "But. I'll get used to it." He looked down at Irynya on his concave chest. His smile pushed in to one cheek. "I think we're used to those hotel beds."

With an exaggerated roll of her eyes she groaned and righted herself to return his gaze. "Oh my word, yes. I swear I could do a full starfish and not touch the ends." She demonstrated her comment awkwardly by extending the arm and leg furthest from him in a sort of half approximation of the move she was describing, leaning into his shoulder with her own for balance before dropping them.

Noah chuckled at her display, nodding slowly whilst he tried to wipe sleep crust from the corner of his eye again.

Her eyes shifted to the bed across from them. She wondered what time Sheldon had come home. The privacy shutters of his own bed were closed so she knew he must be there. Despite knowing that the shutters were sound-proofed she felt a turn of worry that her groaning might wake him. She'd always been careful to be as quiet as she could when she had been the owner of the bed opposite his.

Noah followed her gaze over to the dark filter that enclosed Sheldon's bed as well. "He's not in a good place right now..." Noah's face, as it turned back, was sad. "He won't tell me much though... This move really upset him. But..." Noah skewed his mouth, "He doesn't much like, uh, Tork. I think because Tork isn't F'Rar..." He shook it off and thought returned to the present. "Hotel was... nice though. Kind of crazy, uh, opulent for my taste but... yeah."

Iry's heart squeezed as she listened, thinking of Sheldon. She'd seen so little of him in the last few weeks, but much of that had been chalked up to the his position and the work that needed to be done on the ship. Had he taken shore leave? She realized, uncomfortably, that she didn't know and made a mental note to check on him. Maybe he wouldn't open up to her either, but, as Qo had told her weeks ago, sometimes it is enough to make sure they know you're there.

Eyes still staring ahead she shifted her attention to Noah's comments about the hotel and added, "I know it wasn't quite what we planned or hoped for, but..." her gaze dropped to her hands, now tucked in her lap. "I really enjoyed exploring with you. Even the not fun stuff... I'm glad you were there. It... it's always better with you there."

Noah smiled at her and nodded. "Yeah. It was fun. I had fun too." It had been a checkered shoreleave. Noah wasn't eager to return to the Pathfinder Station's halls anytime soon. But it redoubled that his home, as it had been for awhile now, was the Sojourner, in its comparatively miniscule hull and eighty four souls.

"When's your shift start?" He asked her. He'd started to pet her shoulder. "We could get food at Debbie's. If you have time. I kind of want one of her waffles."

When Noah had reached for her shoulder she'd shifted slightly, making herself easier to reach and soaking up the gesture. It was so easy to be comfortable with him, and offered a small murmur of appreciation, tilting her head to the side before answering. "I'm second shift today, so yeah... I mean... Debbie's sounds amazing honestly. Not that we didn't have some great food, but -- I'm pretty sure there's not much that can beat her breakfasts."

Shifting again and rolling her shoulders she peered down at herself, chuckling quietly before looking across at Noah. "Between the two of us we have one set of clothing," she quipped, unable to help her amusement. "So... probably we should get dressed first." She knew she was stating the obvious, but the thought of lounging about in pajamas like this was also appealing and the combination of the two impulses struck her as more than a bit amusing.

"Uh actually," Noah jutted his thumb toward the door, "I need to jump in the sonic before I go to the computer core." He pursed his lips. "If that's OK. And refresh my dental nans."

"Oh," Iry followed the direction of Noah's thumb then glanced back at him. "I mean. Yeah. Of course. Do you, uh, want to meet there or? I can wait. I mean..." Not that she wouldn't need a shower eventually, but she'd taken one prior to her unplanned visit to the 6th deck. Still it felt like she should at least offer to leave. No one needed to feel rushed first thing in the morning. Least of all because there was a girl sitting on their bed waiting for them to be ready for breakfast.

Noah smiled slowly. "Oh uh, no need. Come on." He shrugged. "We've got a couple shower stalls." He head jutted towards the door. "Some sound waves might feel good after sleeping in that bed." He twisted his mouth in bemused reluctance, "And we've, uh, gotta get used to them again sometime. After those real showers in the hotel."

Something like relief and appreciation mingled in Iry's thoughts at Noah's offer for her to stay and shower there. She groaned at the thought of the unfettered access to showers made up of water that they had enjoyed while on leave. Sliding from the bed she stretched her arms over her head. Even though Noah's shirt wasn't her typical oversized t-shirt, it was long, so the stretch only brought the hem up to the very top of her thighs. "If you don't think any of the guys will mind," she said as she dropped her arms.

"They're probably still sleeping." Noah guessed. He winced one eye. "Umm, but just in case..."

A quick glance around the small space reminded her of where she'd left Noah's robe the evening before and she stepped over to it, sliding her arms through the soft fabric and collecting her small bundle of clothes. She glanced down at her now more thoroughly covered bottom half and then back up to Noah with a mischievous grin. "Just in case," she said with a wrinkle to her nose.

Noah led. The heavy private doors opened much more crunchily than they had on the higher deck, and Noah was going to have to get used to that. It was unsettling, feeling like he was sleeping in a cargo bay. The main room was colder. As he poked his head out, he saw the space in the dim luminescence of idle standby. No one had passed through, at least not recently.

Noah took Irynya's hand. It was a little cold, slender. He gave it a tug and turned them left. They passed an empty space on the more industrial feeling wall that begged for a painting... or something. And then with another heavy grind the bathroom open. It took was idle in its light. He stepped inside and with a soft thrum of powering up, it was well lit. There was the usual- the sets of sinks, the storage for towels, the garment reprocessor. Then of course the two sonic showers, cylindrical, tiled in a sort of golden material that glowed when you entered.

Noah approached the sinks first and examined along his jaw. He was still sporting the wiry black short hairs on his chin, with a few more growing off his lip.

It was nearly impossible not to feel as though they were sneaking, or maybe more specifically that she was being snuck, into the bathroom. Not that she thought Noah had any reason to hide her or that she had any need to be hidden. But the low lighting and quiet movement through the shared space with her hand in his held a cautious hush that made her want to press her lips together in a small smile while some kind of secret agent-like theme music played in her head.

She was reluctant to release the warmth of his hand when the bathroom doors closed behind them, and wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her hands inside the end opposing sleeves to warm them. It really was cooler in his quarters than in hers. Goose bumps pricked at her bare legs, but she ignored them, instead stepping up next to him and peering at his reflection from his side. "There's definitely more than there were a few days ago," she commented helpfully. "Is it still itchy?"

"Uh huh,"Noah attested with a nod, fingers still brushing at the long stubble. "I feel like a weird... porcupine. Maybe I should shave it off." He said. He wrinkled his upper lip and furrowed his nose. "Maybe I'll give it another day." His nose wrinkled. Another silent round of swung around his thoughts and landed in the same position. "Computer, activate sonic shower one. Set to medium tone, standard clean, minimal exfoliation." He went for one of the cabinet. He tapped it- at least something in here still had the whisper quiet feature. It swished open. He pulled two exfoliating pads out. "One for you."

"Give it another day," she encouraged taking the offered pad and tucking it with her bundle of clothes while she slid the robe off of her other arm. A quick transfer of her bundle enabled her to remove the robe completely and offer it to Noah in return. "For after," she said by way of explanation though the goosebumps from her legs were quick to travel up to her arms.

"OK." He let her decide. What was one more day? He took the robe, turned, and hung it on the hook near the sonic stalls within easy reach. He pursed his lips in thought and chewed at the inside of his mouth.

Like Noah, she spoke to the middle distance. "Computer, activate sonic shower two. Set to medium tone, standard clean, standard exfoliation with tonal adjustment for long hair." Quietly she stooped and tucked her bundle between her knees holding the slightly awkward position while she half straightened and finger combed her hair with both hands hoping to loosen any particularly sleep-snarled knots. Next time, she thought, she'd bring a brush.

Next time. The thought was so innocuous that it took her half a moment before she fully registered the assumption. She glanced sidelong at Noah, stooping again to regain her bundle of clothes and exfoliating pad, and then peered past him toward the small lip of wall that led to where the two stalls had already begun to hum.

Noah smiled at her. He stooped with thumbs hooking on his underwear. They came down and off his long, skinny legs and over his large, narrow feet. He smiled at her, one hand with his pad and the other adjusting some color and fine-tune settings in his stall. Nude. Lean. Not exactly the Starfleet example of fitness. certainly not a security officer type. Lanky as hell. Pale. Noah didn't have much in the way of tan lines. "See you on the other side," he said as he swayed in to his tall.

Irynya registered the movement and then the tall leanness of exposed and uninterrupted skin and oddly found herself unsure where to put her eyes. It wasn't as though they'd never been naked around each other before, but there was something very easy about the moment--as if showering like this were routine rather than a divergence from the norm. And with the ease came a natural desire to appreciate. At home she wouldn't have shied away from the idea, but here... this wasn't Risa. And Noah, despite her deliberate adoption of him, wasn't Risian.

The quandary was quickly solved, though, as he shifted into the furthermost stall leaving her blinking for a protracted moment while she fumbled to make her own quick adjustments a few beats late. Even though she was certain that it was just the two of them she still glanced quickly around the room before tugging Noah's shirt over her head. She folded it carefully and set it on a small shelf next to his robe then shimmied out of her own underwear and stepped into the adjacent stall.

The warbling of sound waves increased once she was in them and she felt the low massage of their him against her skin. The technology of sonic showers was a fascinating one and one she was thankful for even though she immediately missed the feeling of water against her skin. "Are you looking forward to your shift?" she called across to him after a minute or two of letting the sonic waves do their initial cleansing work. She unwrapped the exfoliating pad he'd given her and reached up to apply it to the back of her neck, lifting her hair with her free hand.

Fingers had dabbed at the controls in his sonic shower, focusing on a sort of concentrated harmonics that would clean his short hair. "Umm..." Noah hesitated. His head cocked up, and to the side, hair moving as if it was underwater in current, or in some kind of strange hair dryer vortex. he looked down the front plane of his anterior and began to use the pad along the skinny smooth expanses of ribs and sides, lifting arms, padding through with the hand held across underarms. Then with a limber bend, he put his arm back behind him and made some sweeps at his shoulder blades. He walked in a tight circle, heel planted, so that the harmonics could do the rest. "Kind of looking forward to the change. Actually. If it gets approved."

Green light. The vortex about his head stopped. "What about you?"

Stooping to run the pad down the outside and back up the inside of first her right and then her left leg, the Risian leaned forward a bit cupping the pad in her hand while pressing her fingers to the ground. She rolled her back slightly, somehow making the stretch work in the small enclosure of the shower before straightening and setting the pad aside. "Gotta get that request in then," she commented, pausing only a moment before adding "and not really." As pilots jobs went, being docked was one of the less interesting parts of her responsibilities. She keyed in the particulars for her own hair as she spoke. This part always felt odd to her, and she imagined looked equally so. A light suction, enough to lift and separate the long strands of her hair came from above. It didn't pull the hair up outright, but she couldn't help the impression that the sonic waves were seeking her scalp and rustling their way through her hair to do so. Were it anywhere else the experience might have reminded her of a breeze off of the ocean, but even her best attempts at imagination had never quite been able to make the leap.

"Not much to do other than reports and crew assignments and warming the seat. At least not for a few more days. I don't know how Timmoz didn't go crazy with the parts of this job that don't involve flying." A small smile flitted across her lips at the thought of her friend. "Did I tell you that I heard from Timmoz?"

"Uh..." Noah searched his memory. "I think so... he's in Thailand?" Noah announced from the other stall. He was passing his pad across the outside of his hips and then down over his butt. His eyes blinked. He braced a hand on the harmonic wall, pulsing with its pleasant golden light. It was a pleasing warm. He parted what he needed to part to let the shower do its job, leaning forward and with legs opening.

Even though he couldn't see her, Iry's cheeks flushed slightly. "That's right. Geez. That mail pick up feels like an age ago." The green light for her own hair cleansing process came on as the sonic invasion of her follicles ended with the odd cascade of hair down her back. A shiver ran up her spine not unlike the autonomic response that came from having someone run their fingertips along the sensitive spots where spinal column met neck. Turning, she lifted one arm to give the ongoing sonic cascade more direct to an armpit, reaching across with her opposite arm to cup and lift her breast so the waves could reach the curve underneath that always seemed to be one of the first to sweat. Satisfied she shifted and turned the otherway to repeat the motion on the opposite side.

"I still haven't looked through all that media. Maybe tonight..." Noah said from the other side.

"I know in my head that I'm getting clean," she commented after a moment, "But do you think the Regency Balancar would let us steal their shower tech? I think it's going to take me a while to get over that shower."

The image of Noah's expression the first morning when she'd drug him into the bathroom to show him the Enceladus program she'd tried to make flashed in her mind's eye and a wild hare made her wonder if he'd ever tried it himself while they were there.

Noah chuckled at that. "Uh. Ye- well, um. Yeah, it's hard coming back to sonics. I mean its nice but... its not the same. I've heard the Captain and the XO have actual water showers. I guess that's the perks of command. We're just down here... vibrating our genitals to death." He snerked. A moment later, his sonic shower powered down. "Still. OK. Clean. Maybe not wet but... clean."

The answering snort of amusement was unmissable, but no real commentary followed. A few moments later Irynya's shower powered down as well. She reached up, lacing fingers into her hair and shaking as if doing so might undo any of the unlooked for knots that she was bound to find when she finally got a chance to brush it. She leaned forward using her elbow to release the door latch and stepped out, hands still shuffling rubbing along her scalp in a way that made her hair seem to cascade along her back in waves. "It's certainly... an experience..." she said almost cryptically as she exited, adding to her snort with commentary of her own.

Noah stepped out, after going for a metallic silver towel that hung at the ready near the stall. It was wrapped about his waist. "Yeah. His hair was a curly wavy mess of sound-induced chaos, that largely angled up like some kind of strange hair crown. It gave him an infernal look when coupled with the shape of his face, his eyebrow shape. His mouth formed a line, and he walked over to the vanities. "Oh. Sh- um. I forgot to bring my dental nans, from my stuff." He rubbed the side of his nose. "Be right back."

His quick glance at her caught enough that he knew to swing his eyes toward the discreet. Their dark Betazoid likeness swung politely away. But. Still. Irynya had amazing breasts.

She watched as he moved out of the stall, aware of him in her range of sight, but not direct in her appraisal. Still, the earlier temptation to appreciate had returned and she let her eyes wander over his frame when he turned toward the vanities just long enough to appreciate the leanness of his musculature before he was turning back her way.

For a moment she thought she caught a flicker of a glance from him, but then he was out the door and she was left to her own devices. Had he been looking? Not directly, certainly, but still... She stooped and pulled on her underwear, she was halfway to picking up her bra when she paused, halting the impulse to cover up not because she felt a need to, but because she didn't want to offend. It wasn't as if this was a first for either of them.

Instead she moved to one of the vanities and cocked her head to the side so that the hair on that side of her head fell long and loose. With careful fingers she combed through the strands stopping to tug at knots where she found them.

When he returned, Noah had donned some new underwear and the metallic towel was bunched in his hand. Noah put it in the garment reprocessor and tapped its controls. In a whirl of silver light, it dis-apparated in to its subatomic parts. His eyes scanned the room, Irynya now at the vanity. Still... bare. He blinked. He ventured over to the vanity and from his palm produced a small capsule. "Do you use these, or do you do something else?" Noah asked as he picked up a glass from the vanity and filled it with water. He put the capsule on his tongue, took a mouth full of water and began to swish like it was mouthwash.

With a flip of her head Irynya's hair shifted to her opposite where she began the slow process of finger combing again. She adjusted so she would keep catching her chest with the arm that crossed her body. It was chilly in their bathroom as it was and the goosebumps had begun to return now that the warm sonic waves had long since ceased. "Umm... The nanites?" She asked though she didn't need to. "Yeah. A different make up though to account for differences in biology. But, yeah mine are once every 10 days." Her eyes shifted to watch Noah in his mirror and chuckled at the shifting of liquid from cheek to cheek. "Yours?"

Noah held up a finger to ask for a little longer. He deliberately swished the water, churning it in one cheek, then the other. He tilted his head back... more squelching... then forward. Then he finally spit out the water with an "Ah!" as if it was spicy. He stuck his tongue. "Ngah, okay... that's done." He wet his hand and wet his mouth. "Um. Couple weeks. I thought about asking the CMO if I can have access to the monthlies but..." He squinted an eye doubtfully and shook his head, "I've heard they don't work as well."

Noah picked up a brush and began to right his hair. His gaze shifted from himself to Irynya in the mirror. "D'you need a comb... I can replicate one..." He asked while she finger combed. His concern was broken a moment later by a soft wooshing ebb.

"A brush?" Iry answered turning her answer into a question as she righted herself and gave up on the fight against her hair. "If you don't mind, I mean. Or I can borrow yours when you're done if that's not weird. Or I can wait. I just hate the way the knots feel."

And then a soft, pleading mewl. Through the door stalked a cool gray cat with bright golden eyes, materializing fully to sit down and lick at its chops.

The Risian's eyes lit appreciatively at the arrival of Noah's holographic pet. "Cat!" she exclaimed warmly and turned, crouching and offering out her hand to the hologram to see if she would like skritches. Peeking back at Noah she grinned. "'I've missed her! Wonder what she thinks of the new set up."

Noah, who had stepped away to the reprocessor, had gone for the above supply slots only to find that this bathroom was designed differently than the above deck home he sorely missed. He frowned. "Hmm not..." Noah twisted at the waist and smiled in to a cheek. "Feed you in a little bit." He said to the sitting Russian Blue facsimile. The cat blinked slow at Irynya and then proceeded towards the Risian. Her legs, they belonged to Cat, and Cat's marking cheek intended to remind her of that.

"I'm just glad she got ported over from Deck Four. " Noah moved for another storage overhead and fished out some glasses, and, luckily, a few combs. "Here you go." And then Noah, unceremoniously, sat down in his underwear. His legs folded like a pretzel and he pss, pssed at his hologram. She blinked at him as if naive, and then continued to cheek rub the back of Irynya's calf.

Taking the comb, Iry murmured an appreciative, though distracted, thanks as Cat adamantly headbutted her calves, rubbing it's soft holographic cheek against her with a not insignificant amount of determined force for a creature so small. Her fingers found the cat's pelt, getting in fleeting pets as Cat shifted, winding herself around her legs and back again with a stubborn persistence that made it hard to properly pet the creature.

Finally Iry, too, plopped down onto the ground, crossing her legs into a lotus and patting her knee to offer her lap up to the creature who, now that she was on the floor had taken a new approach of headbutting her knee and then running a glancing cheek down the side of her thigh. Cat did not take the proffered lap.

An ear twisted back as if detecting, her paw up in a mid step. Then cat diverted, her gray nose flexing and laxing to scent this person. Her personality program recalled this was a friendly, and Cat approached- perhaps more eagerly than a biological cat would, less aloof. She mewled and began to find- or more like, try to create- a space for herself in Irynya's lap.

Hazel eyes left the soft facsimile to look at Noah and smile, warm appreciation for the moment open and unmissable in her expression. She met his eyes. Held his gaze for a beat. And then another that felt as if it was stretching long, and then blinked and set about plying the comb he'd given her to her long locks. She resumed the head tilt from earlier and began running the comb through her hair, sucking a hissing breath through her teeth when it caught a particularly intractable snarl almost immediately. She pulled it free, and brought the offending hank of hair in front of her face to inspect before plying one of the comb's teeth to the center of the knot and tugging with short determined pulls.

Noah, meanwhile, went through the rest of his ablutions. Comb hair. Fix the... wavy floof. Deodorant. He went to the garment processor and produced a fresh SOJO shirt, black pants, and a jacket. "Shi - hmm. In all the move, I don't know where my badge is." He frowned. "Or my pip. Computer, locate Ensign Balsam's badge."

The mirror blinked up with an LCARS and smartly showed him that his badge was safely ensconced somewhere in his room.

From the floor where Irynya was making significantly more progress with her hair than she had been without a comb, came the answering chuckle. "I think I saw them both on your desk," she advised. "I set my bundle down by them last night. So I'd look there."

"Ok, thanks," Noah said as he did a wipe gesture and deactivated the locator beacon on the mirror.

With a final tug on a last knot she freed the comb's teeth from her hair. The purring soft sleepy form of Cat had found a happy circle of space in her lap and for a moment she sat and ran her fingers between the creature's two pointed ears and down her shoulders, eliciting a deeper purr and a few adjustments of the creature's head in her rounded position.

"I know I have to get up," she told Noah before he could leave in search of his things, "but... she's so sweet. I hate to disturb her."

Noah stopped at the door, its heavy ka'thunk as its weight slipped into the door bulkhead. "Cat owner problems," Noah noted with a nod. He pat the door and then proceeded out. He returned in his SOJO shirt, his commbadge pinned to it like a gleaming asterisk nearish the "O". In the door he stopped and threaded his lanky lower half in to his uniform trousers and fascinated them. Then he tucked in the SOJO shirt. On its hem he'd pinned his single silvery pip.

He eyed Cat with his dark gaze, who was stretching his velvety gray paws up, back arched along Irynya's thigh. Intelligent gold eyes blinked at him as if to say she wasn't moving, and perhaps even this subject was more agreeable to her morning requirements. Noah tilted his head at her. "Geez you two, get a room."

Iry twisted, craning her neck to look up at Noah. She fixed him with a smile that screamed mischief and popped her eyebrows a few times then snorted a laugh that, apparently, was not to Cat's liking as the creature stood, picked her way out of Irynya's lap, and then stretched disdainfully as if to imply she had been planning to get up anyway.

Iry gave the holographic cat one last regretful look, but it was fleeting as she clambered to her feet and reached for the sports bra on the top of her pile of clothes. With practiced motion she shook it out, adjusting until it was facing the direction she wanted and then in one fluid and complicated motion threaded her arms through before pulling the bit of cloth over her head. To Noah it might have looked as if it had gotten stuck once it eas over her head, but quick tanned hands adjusted to tug the tight fitting fabric down over her breasts.

"How... is that so easy for you, and so hard for us to figure out?" Noah asked, a brow high with question.

Though the bra now appeared to be in place the movement continued as Iry peered down her nose at her chest then used one hand to tug the neck line open while the other swept into the bra and scooped to arrange things more comfortably. "Practice," she murmured as she made one more minor adjustment, dropped her arms, seemed to find that adjustment insufficient, and snagged the bottom between her fingers on each side, shimmying until she was happy. "Besides... its' much harder to take a sports bra off than put one on, even when you know how they work."

Noah shook his head at the fluid ease. "I'll be just outside." He made a noiseless snap-like gesture for Cat, who, with a raised paw, stared at him like he'd grown antennae. Her golden eyes blinked, deciding if she wanted to acknowledge this gesture and its intended Pavlovian response. "So, you don't want food?" Noah asked. The Cat sat down on its haunches. Noah breathed in, patiently. "Uh huh." He looked at Irynya. "Guess she's not actually hungry..."

Iry grinned, sliding first one leg and then another into the sweatpants she'd been wearing the night before. "Maybe she's standing guard while I get dressed?" she suggested hopping up onto her toes so the leggings settled high on her waist. In the roll back to her normal stance she bent and snagged her shirt, pulling it on much faster and affixing her commbadge to the collar.

"Oh uh." Noah's brows popped. "Maybe. But if she is, her program is learning. I didn't put that in her subroutines." Noah's mouth started to spread with a coy fascination only a proud parents or an engineer might feel.

"Hungry Cat?" she asked in a honey-sweet tone before adding a pspsps sound and making her way out of the bathroom.

The Cat blinked at the Risian, twisting a velvet ear with a tone of annoyance that the situation had shifted. Unable to tolerate this, the Cat program stood up and again did a back arching stretch. She trotted toward the two with a melodic meow for attention. She followed the two out of the bathroom.

--- A wake up with ---

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Helmswoman

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist

with a special appearance from Cat!