| The Night Before |
| Summary: | Eddie and Roubani have a short, quiet talk the night before the second mission to Scorpia. |
| Date: | PHD090 (18 July 2009) |
| Related Logs: | General Scorpia |
| Players: |
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Kharon - Officer Berthings
Roubani is in his bunk, in sweats and a T-shirt. Bedtime clothes, but he looks like he's a far cry from doing anything so wasteful as resting. He has his laptop open and is typing away, a bunch of scribbled notes on papers next to his legs. A cigarette burns in an ashtray on his shelf.
Eddie spins the hatch wheel and enters as if she has every right to be in here, which maybe she does, as she's acting on invitation. "I came for tea, dahling." She says in her best approximation of an aristocratic drawl. Eddie draws up outside of Roubani's bunk, "Huh. You guys have a couch in here. Never noticed. Fancy." Ducking her head so she can peer in on what he's doing, there's a wide grin offered the working Ensign. "If you're busy. I can come back…?" A pause. "Who the frak am I kidding. Pack it in."
Roubani looks up as someone appears in his field of vision, doing a good impression of a deer in the headlights for a moment. "Oh…goodness, I thought you were that crazy Lieutenant in weapons." He doesn't get any more descriptive of past traumas than that, reaching over to close the notebooks. The pen's set delicately on his shelf, in line with the edge.
Eddie edges onto his mattress when things are shuffled aside. "I wasn't ticking like a time bomb, was I?" He doesn't have any idea who he's talking about, but the joke seemed amusing enough to her. "Whatcha dooooin'?" She asks, out of obligation to act interested or just enough to use that phrase.
"Safety course on tylium handling," Roubani answers, in a tone as dry as the material. He taps a few keys to save his work and shuts the laptop, pushing it aside. It leaves a warm spot on the dull olive blanket. Shifting back on the mattress, he picks up a little thermos and a cup that was sitting there. Apparently he anticipated the visit enough to prepare. The mug's handed over. There's a chipped slogan on the front: 'If at first you don't succeed, call it version 2.0'.
Eddie stretches out across the end of his bunk, making herself at home. Propped up on one elbow, a hand is free to grasp the cup he offered. Tea isn't usually her preference, but you make silly concessions for your friends. "Wow. Now I'll sleep better at night, knowing you remembered to put the cap back on the gas tank." She takes a sip, at least grateful for the warm liquid.
"Don't laugh. I've read some horror stories about that." Roubani rubs his eye and picks up his cigarette, tapping the column of ash off before taking a drag from it. "And we are trusting the Marines with explosive fuel, here."
"I'm surprised we trust them with sharp knives in the mess hall. Got another one of those?" First his tea, now Eddie is trying to mooch off his cigarettes. "So. More gossip for you. Maybe you can help me solve this latest conundrum.."
Well, she did give him one of hers during his low time after Scorpia. Roubani picks up the pack and shakes one loose so it sticks up, holding it forward. "If it doesn't have to do with imaginary numbers, I probably can't do much. But one can try."
Eddie reaches out to pluck it from the wrapping. "Rabbit propositioned me." She says simply, before sticking the filter in her lips, then digging in her sweatshirt for the lighter he fastened on a chain for her.
Roubani adjusts his legs on the mattress, making two triangles out of them. Smoke rolls slowly from his nose as he exhales and processes at the same time. Least it's not out of his ears. "Propositioned…?" He's being careful not to assume.
The cigarette waggles between her lips, "Yeah, you know. Like. He wants us to explore a romantical relationship." And yes, she says 'romantical' with a straight face. The flint wheel of her lighter is sparked, a cherry drawn, and then Eddie is snicking back the cover. "I tried to tell him that our wingmate pairing is more important to me then anything physical. I'm not sure he gets it yet."
Roubani sets the ashtray down on the blanket between them. His cigarette coils smoke in various shapes, flattening up against the wire grid of the bunk above. "Are you not interested in him, or are you just being professional?" A relationship advisor, he is certainly not. The words come experimentally, as if guessing this should be a good thing to ask first.
Eddie turns her head towards the ceiling, pursing her lips to give a long stream of smoke on her exhale. "I'm more interested in not frakking up one of the only things I actually have going for me, right now. Marek's going to make the assignment a permanent one. I'm with Hale a hundred percent now. No need to muddle that up, with my horrifically bad track record." She taps her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray. "So anyway. How are you?"
Roubani smiles faintly. "Sounds like you didn't need my help with that one after all." He taps off the cigarette again. "I've been alright, I suppose. Better than some I've seen lately. What about you?"
Eddie's shoulder rises and falls in a partial shrug. "Surviving. When I'm not embarrassing myself in front of Saddie's father, I'm making a fool of myself elsewhere. It's six of one and half dozen of another." She shifts things around so she can take another sip of tea before it grows tepid. "You seem better."
"I am." Roubani tips his head so he can use his shoulder to rub at an itch on his cheek. "But I know what you mean about making a fool of oneself. At least when you can be relatively certain that everyone's doing it, it's not -quite- as bad. Most of the time." He smirks slightly, then it fades. "Did everything come up alright? The tests?"
Tea is replaced by cigarette, and so the cycle continues. Eddie takes a draw from it, smile still resting on her lips and quirking at his words. "Well. So long as everyone else is jumping off a bridge too, then I don't seem so dumb." She tugs up her sleeve, showing him not the usual marks that mar her skin, but a cotton ball still strapped to the inside of her arm. "Won't know until tomorrow. Here's to hoping. Been through this once before though, and it could be as stupid as I skipped lunch that day. So. We'll see."
"Like lemmings," Roubani comments drily, as to the bridge thing. Then he looks at her arm, turning his head so his exhale doesn't go in her face. "Well I hope it isn't serious. It wasn't serious last time, was it?" His brows are drawn with concern.
"Naaah." Eddie rolls onto her stomach, angling herself so she's not facing the back wall of his bunk, but rather the inhabitant. "Everything that could go wonky with my pregnancy with Saddie, did. So for a while, they were worried I had developed gestational diabetes. I also had an unexplained rash for half my third trimester, too. Fun stuff, lemme tell you."
Roubani watches her a few moments, the drawn brows turning into a raised one. It's not so much judgmental as him sewing together things in his head. "I…have the utmost respect for females, I must say." He clears his throat quietly, and there's a few seconds of silence. "Gestational diabetes."
Eddie gives a snort. "Don't even think about it. I'm on an IUD. There's no way my baby maker kicking out anything viable. So pack away your dreams of becoming a godsfather." Her thumbnail scratches over her bottom lip, trying to obscure her smile but failing.
It's almost cartoonish, the relief that goes across Roubani's face. It even comes with an exhale that puffs out his cheeks. "Well. I suppose I should drink to that." Which he does. With…tea.
Eddie gives a laugh, then. Just a short and sweet burst, "You and the rest of humanity. I might be a fool, but I'm not stupid. Others can harbor dreams of repopulating the species, but they don't let women who are preggers fly. And without that? I'm just your garden variety brat that isn't worth her salt or the rations."
"We're all nothing without what we do, I suppose." Roubani muses on that himself for a few seconds. "Well, nearly nothing. I'd still like you." Pause. "That sounded awfully egomaniacal of me, didn't it."
Eddie reaches over to tap her cigarette into the ashtray again. "Nothing about you is egomaniacal. If I could even spell or define the word. But thank you for that…I think." She grins lopsidedly, "I'd be lost without you, ya know? You're like the calm in this great big shit storm."
"Except when I'm caught in ridiculous whirlpools of self-pity," Roubani answers, with an appropriately self-deprecating half-smile. "I'm sorry about all that, by the way, I didn't mean to…" The end of that sentence is hard to figure out, so he settles for something less than eloquent. "…be weird."
Eddie ehs. "If we can't 'be weird' with each other, then what's the point of having a friendship. I'm sorry I just wasn't as clever as finger puppet theater to draw you out of it. But I'm glad you seemed to work past it all the same." 'Without me' seems to hang on the air, unsaid, and Eddie is clearing her throat uncomfortably. "I should bail and get some rack time. If I'm cleared by medical, we're making another run to Scorpia tomorrow."
Unsaid words do get heard sometimes. Roubani gently scratches his eyebrow, glancing down at the ashtray. "You helped, you know. Sometimes you just can't…say everything, but. It's then that knowing you matter to someone knocks you around enough to get back up out of bed and tackle the rest." There's some weight to all that, and he stubs out his cigarette before he looks up and nods. "If Eos has me go, I'll see you there. If not, I'll see you when you get back."
Eddie kisses her finger tips, then pats his blanket twice. Whatever specifically that means between the two of them maybe doesn't matter beyond the fact that it means /something/. "Be safe, Nadiv." She offers, before shooting back the last of the tea, and leaving the empty cup easy for him to reach.
"Did you just leave cooties on my bunk?" Roubani blurts, way too seriously to be serious. Kissyfingers, maybe not. But he does tap his hand once over his heart before he returns the double rap. "Goodnight."
Eddie gives a quiet laugh as she slips out of his bunk. "Sell them to the highest bidder." She draws the curtain partially, "Goodnight, babe."
