Girls' Night

Posted on Tue Jun 7th, 2022 @ 4:16pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Ka'see 'Cassie' Anderson (*) & Delaney O'Callaghan & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Beya & Laurier Cami

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Chapel maybe?
Timeline: MDO3, 2230
4053 words - 8.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"I think, if we want to truly preserve our sanity, we should just ban them from this space entirely."

Delaney threw the armful of cushions she'd carted all the way from the spare bedding storage onto the ground with the rest of her recent plunder and then tossed the jacket wedged under her arm at Cassie. "Found this too, looks like it might fit you."

It had been a while, or so the Irishwoman had rationalised to the rest of the group, since Girls' Night had gone ahead. Though it had already been a tentative, less-structured thing even before Delaney had arrived, it had been Eva's overall vision for the bar that had branched into themed events and provided an avenue for intentional organisation. Division via gender was an obscure and arbitrary notion, except for the fact that it had invariably become one of the most popular reoccurring gatherings, not to be outdone by the rival Boy's Club, and had actually gone a long way towards establishing a sense of community amongst the members of the crew who identified as not having cement for brains. The karaoke had always been on point. Delaney was a little bitter that it wouldn't be an option tonight.

And, of course, the bartender with her list of cocktails a mile long was no longer with them, and most of the best alcohol was still locked safely away in the out-of-bounds bar, but that didn't mean there was no hope of salvaging a renewed sense of sisterhood. If nothing else, it would be nice to debrief and take a moment to just exist in the same space. Between them all, they'd covered just about every major aspect of the current emergency situation in one form or another.

Arriving with a blanket wrapped around her, Beya was considerably more covered than for most girls' nights, but she was looking forward to it. She needed a break after a long day shift in their makeshift medbay and the Girls' Night meetings overall were one of her favorite events on the ship - they felt almost like evenings spent with sisters back home.

Cassie took the jacket and put it on instantly and smiled in relief at the warmth that spread through her. “Thank you. Though I think I should have done what Beya is doing.” It would make things more snuggly but that would mean she would get to sleep.

"Banning the boys...just imagine..." Cami sighed, throwing herself onto the padding with aplomb. "The sleeping area might smell a bit nicer for a start."

"Just start walking around and spraying them with an odorant neutralizer." Kali was already wearing a jacket of her own, a trim black leather number with silver accents that one assumed was lined with some sort of thin insulation or heat-reflective material. "Or, we could apply the universe's most effective solution for no longer caring about situations..." She reached into the bag nearby and pulled out a decent sized flask of somehow deep blue yet nearly iridescent liquid: The good stuff, not the export grade most people this side of the border had experienced.

“Sounds like a much better plan,” Cassie said simply as Jeassaho finally wandered in looking tired.

“Oh, someone else brought booze too. Obviously, this is going to be a better party.” She held up a bottle of nectar and something clear which could have been anything but she looked happy with her stash.

"Okay, that looks like all my bad ideas rolled into one." Delaney levelled an accusatory finger at Kali's offering, though very little about her disposition screamed actual protest.

"That's why it's a small bottle." Kali grinned.

"Been a long time since had anything like that," Cassie said thinking of Freecloud and the wild night she had, had with Jeassaho and other women when they had first spent some time there. It had been a fun night and one she had sorely missed since. No one had, had a chance since then to just have a good night where they could let their hair down and forget about all the troubles.

"Good booze - I'll take some of that," Beya said, grabbing a cup. "And if anyone wants it dressed up as a cocktail, I can probably do that. I grew up in a bar after all."

"Cocktails!" Cami declared, enthused by the idea. "If you tell me we've got those little umbrellas despite being stuck in the cargo deck of the ship, I'll be amazed."

"We're not exactly drinking it out of martini glasses," Delaney observed, picking up a tumbler from the assortment they'd managed to salvage. It was plastic, at least, which seemed like a very wise idea. Not to be confused with the stereotypes of her countrymen, Delaney was very much a candyass when it came to holding her booze. It was for exactly that reason that she side-eyed Kali's flask again and grimaced. "I think I'll stick to something less lethal."

Jeassaho held out the bottle of vodka as she opened the nectar and poured herself a healthy amount before she sat on the floor cross-legged and just listened to the noise around her. It was nice to be among people not talking about hypo spanners and the deflector dish and she had fresh clothes on even if it was the thickest fluffiest Pj's she had grabbed quickly. "So what do we have planned?" She wondered once everyone had a drink.

"I brought some juice, just in case everyone else only brought alcohol," Beya laughed, pulling out citrus and berry juices. "So we can do mixes. Also..." She pulled a bag of snack mix out of her bag. "Snacks!"

Kali pulled the built-in shot glass off the top of the Romulan ale flask, then unscrewed the top, poured herself a measure and shot it straight, reaching over and setting the bottle down with the rest of the assorted booze and juice for anyone interested in matching her.

Several competing compulsions attacked Delaney from multiple fronts. The challenge of Kali's gauntlet was far more tempting than common sense ought to have allowed, and it took a scrunch of the human's nose and the recollection of some semblance of responsibility for her to instead pour half-and-half of Jeassaho's mysterious clear liquid and juice. One drink. They'd all heard that before.

"Do we ever plan these things?" She flopped down onto a puddle of blankets and cushions and wriggled until she was stretched out on her front, chin propped up on her hand. Technically, Delaney suspected that Eva had done all the planning in the past, since it had definitely been more of the bartender's thing. "Is it too early for Cami to start singing?" The redhead grinned across at the younger woman.

"Never!" Cami grinned. "But my singing voice improves when well-lubricated..." she added, motioning for someone to pass her a drink.

“Of course dear.” Jeassaho encouraged taking a gulp of the nectar and felt the pressure from the last two days leave her body. It was better than anything a doctor could have ordered. She never really drunk to excess as you just did not know but one glass would not hurt that night.

Beya had taken some of Kali's offering and sniffed, evaluating the quality - surprisingly it really was the now-rare good stuff - before taking a sip. She smiled appreciatively, nodding to Kali. "That is good. Use the juice on the other stuff," she said looking around at the group. "This is too good to cut."

"Transported a shipment a couple years back and decided what I wanted as payment was a cut for personal use." Kali grinned.

"You've kept it for years? Oh god, now I'm definitely not touching it." Vintage anything when it came to alcohol was wasted on Delaney, who might eventually be forced to address her besmirched family honour. Right now, the only thing keeping her from further shame was the fact she couldn't find a straw to drink her vodka-juice through. "So, anyone got any good news? Humorous anecdotes? Droll observations? Do we just skip the small talk and play Truth or Dare until Kali wins?" Even Delaney had found it nigh-on impossible to out-dare the Romulan, though not for lack of trying.

The grin on Kali's face spread, if anything, a bit wider; and perhaps a tad smug, in the fashion both pilots and Romulans were occasionally known for: Confidence, and pride in it. Rather than attempt to nudge things in such a direction, though, she reached over into the bag again and pulled out a little purple silk pouch, unsealing it on the deck in front of her to reveal the contents: 6 bottles of nail paints, in a variety of colors and metallic glitters.

"Hell yes!" Cami exclaimed, sliding forward to examine them herself. "You can definitely stay."

Kali waved a hand at the little bottles, indicating open season on them for anyone who wanted to try them; looking at her own hands as she did so showed her own nails had a silver glitter polish on them that went well with the accents on her jacket and, for that matter, the silver earrings she was wearing.

"Oh, fun!" Beya said, reaching for a bright red with copper swirls. "I don't even mind not getting to beat Kali at truth or dare. Romulans are too easy - you just dare them to get naked and dance for everyone." She winked, flashing a teasing grin at Kali.

"Sounds like the best kind of party..." Cami snorted.

"Hey, Truth or Dare usually comes with some boundaries." Kali rolled her eyes. "I'd just make sure to negotiate that one into them." Privately, she considered that if there was a pool, Beya was perhaps going to be very surprised to discover she owned and wore a bikini, though.

“Can I try a little bit of the alcohol?” Cassie spoke up as she looked at the nail polish. “It was not known in my time.” Romulan’s were not spoken of or even well know in her time so she was still trying to learn about them through Kalahaeia and Liha.

"Sure." Kali reached for one of the clean cups and the small bottle again, rapidly weighing in her head how much to pour: Cassie had the 'right ears' to handle a larger measure of the stuff; but if she'd never had any before, that argued for caution regardless, and so Kali poured only the sort of amount she might for any of the humans, and passed the glass over to Cassie.

Cassie nodded at the woman her thanks as she took the glass and took an experimental sip before nodding her approval. "It is good." It was pretty good and the icing on the cake for the whirl wind of a day she had. It would allow her to sleep to be bright and breezy for the morning and the adventure they were going to have.

Delaney, whose oval fingernails were manicured to a semi-practical length and were not often decorated, opted for scooting closer to Beya and reaching out to request the Orion's chosen shade. "Here, let me do it before I lose the ability to paint inside the lines."

"You've hardly even had anything to drink," Beya laughed, pulling her chosen color out of the redhead's grasp. "Besides, it's an awful color for you. The copper highlights are okay, but with your coloring, you need turquoise or emerald." She sat back, considering the problem in front of her - ivory skin *should* go with everything, but the underlying pink, especially paired with orange-red hair actually made choosing good palettes difficult. "Pearl would work too, especially if we mix it with blue/black to mask over any pink."

"Not sure I've seen you with any nail polish before," Cami said, verbally poking at Delaney. "Trying to impress someone?" She flashed a mischievous grin, also tossing a surreptitious look at Jeassaho in the process.

Delaney, who had been distracted by the unexpected dissemination of her colour palette, hadn't been inclined to correct Beya's misunderstanding. Though her intent had been to paint the Orion's nails for her, rather than claim the polish for herself, the confusion had piqued the human's interest enough to warrant silence. Cami's question, however, evoked an immediate mental deadpan. Here we go. "I think anyone who cared whether my nails were green or blue probably doesn't deserve the effort," she quipped back, reaching for the emerald green polish and shaking it.

Cassie did not say anything but she noticed the smirk on Jeassaho's face and realised the teasing was likely about her brother if the woman was finding it all amusing. "Plus they would likely like purple more," Jeassaho commented with a grin.

"Well, they are out of luck because I'm not seeing any purple."

For a moment, Delaney afforded her thumbnail a disproportionate amount of attention. Partially because she had to concentrate on not smearing green nail polish all over her cuticle, but also because she could feel the combined force of Cami and Jeassaho's mischief. It had been easily predictable, of course, though not exactly objectionable. Leiddem had green-lighted disclosure and, according to him, his sister already had front-row seats to his sentiment, which was honestly kind of intriguing. Beans could be spilled in many directions, after all.

"Okay," she suddenly declared, screwing the brush back into the bottle with only the one nail to show for her efforts. "I can hear you grinning," Delaney accused Cami with a pointed look. Marching over, the redhead grabbed a crate, turned it over, and sat herself atop it. "I hereby volunteer to take first Hot Seat given that some of you are already cheating and trying to get freebies."

Hot Seat had originally been Eva's idea, and consisted of one of them taking centre stage so that all others in attendance could interrogate them. Each girl got one question, with the only stipulation being that it had to be answered with either a yes or a no. There had been some general ground rules about keeping it light-hearted and not using the game as a way to make each other feel uncomfortable, and every Hot Seater got an opportunity to Pass on one question they preferred not to answer, but for the most part, Delaney had actually found it a cathartic way to broach topics she otherwise would have blurted out awkwardly anyway. She knew she was asking for several loaded barrels sacrificing herself so early but it was honestly better than waiting until the vodka hit her. Sitting up straight, her chin pointed in a mockery of extreme haughtiness, Delaney sniffed and invited, "Do your worst."

Jeassaho shrugged as everyone looked to her to ask something. “Oh alright I already know so I don’t need to ask. Someone else can get my question.” She declared wickedly already deciding she was not going to torture the woman when Lieddem would already be doing that enough.

"Who...was the last person...you kissed?" Cami demanded, practically bouncing with the mischievous little grin on her face.

"That isn't a yes/no question," Delaney countered, folding one leg primly over the other. The sheer hypocrisy of being the one to argue against rule-breaking didn't daunt her.

"Well in that case..." Cami kept the grin. "Was he a good kisser?"

Delaney utterly failed to control the grin flirting with dominance over her expression. "Yes."

TAG

Beya had been watching the goings on with a semi-bewildered puzzlement. Why was hooking up with someone such a big deal? But then humans could be weird about that sort of thing ...unless she had a more normal (at least from an Orion point of view) reason for acting so embarrassed... "Is everyone so interested because he's the only person you've kissed since you got here?"

For a split second longer than was comfortable to avoid incrimination, Delaney was confused about what it was she was responding to. On the one hand, the Orion might have been placing higher priority on levels of promiscuity, but the question had been phrased in a way that required Delaney to somehow predict everyone's motives. Her bewildered expression, the confusion, the way her features contorted as she tried to settle on an interpretation, had nothing to do with hesitancy over how many people she'd kissed. She realised a split second too late that it probably looked that way. "Y-es? I mean, he is," she said, immediately breaking the rules.

"When you catalogued my weapons; did you...try out...the throwing knives?" Kali veered the conversation abruptly away from the prior topic; a half-eyebrow rise smirk on her face as she waited to see if her arsenal had proven irresistible to handle.

Leave it to Kali to throw in something Delaney hadn't anticipated. Slightly widened eyes, caught staring at the ground as she attempted to rapidly recall the sequence of events that had occurred directly after their conversation, eventually darted from dirt speck to dirt speck as Delaney arrived at a point of relief. The wording of the question mattered. "No."

“Um… does it make you happy?” Cassie finally asked as everyone looked at her as the last person to speak.

Once again, the meaning was ambiguous, and Delaney flirted with the idea of making her response equally as vague, but eventually her features softened and she gave her friend her full attention as she nodded. "Yes."

“Wait am I in the hot seat now as I am last?” Cassie demanded quickly as she really did not want to have anything out in the open yet. She was still too confused about everything to share.

"Nope, I think it's Kali's turn."

Pushing off the crate, Delaney offered it with a flourish to the pilot.

Kali hopped up to a perched on the crate with the same sort of deliberately-projected confidence, whether real or feigned, that she shown initially in the science labs after the Holoworld incident; or probably, in a variety of casinos this side of the quadrant; leaning back on one arm and crossing her legs with an enigmatic smile.

Since the question was already in her mind, Beya decided to jump in with the first one. "When you were asking if Delaney 'tried out' your throwing knives, was that a euphemism for guys you've been with?"

“Nah.” Kali stretched slightly; for an Orion it was a fairly innocent remark, really…

"Wait, you thought she was asking if I tried out her exes?" Delaney, who had reclaimed her drink and flopped down into the blankets beside Cassie, found one of the bottle caps and threw it at Beya. "In what lifetime have I given the impression that I'm some kind of maneater?" To Kali, the redhead deftly asked, "Can I use your likeness to create a legendary pirate queen for the holonovel I'm currently writing?" Direct. Blunt. Practical.

"It came right after the questions about who were hooking up with, so, yeah, seemed as likely as complete non sequitor," Beya replied and cocked at eyebrow. "And why do you say that like it's a bad thing..?"

Cassie smirked a little and sipped on the drink she had. She had no idea if that was a euphemism but it was amusing to her to say the least. It had come out of nowhere but Cassie could alawyads thanks Beya for bringing that out of somewhere.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Delaney retorted, her gaze still fixed on Kali as she waited for a response. "I just have a hard time believing anyone that Kali interests is going to find me a likely rebound."

Kali's left eyebrow climbed at Delaney's question, but considered the proposition and couldn't really see too many reasons to refuse it. "Don't see why not."

A celebratory fist clench secured Delaney the ultimate final piece to her grand plan. "This is going to be my pièce de résistance."

"Well if we're on the topic," Cami pondered, sipping her drink a little more, "Is there anyone on the crew you might be interested in 'throwing knives' with?" she smirked again, interested in grasping as much gossip from the opportunity as possible.

"If you mean that as a euphemism for sex, no." Kali rolled her eyes. "I haven't been aboard that long yet. If you mean that literally however, certainly; I'm always open to a contest of skill or a practice opportunity."

"Wow. I'd hate to see the Romulan version of 'kiss marry avoid'...probably involve someone being skinned alive or something," Cami snickered.

"Ask Liha, maybe." Kali shrugged her shoulders and eyebrows. "I played with humans and Andorians and Betazoids growing up."

Jeassaho grinned. If only they could get a Romulan on the program it would different and increase the ratings she was sure. “I will be.” Cassie assured intrigued to find out how different it would be from the Vulcan version.

"Huh. So what about it, Cassie? You wanna share a little more about how you've been 'throwing knives' with the XO?" Cami grinned wickedly.

To her credit, Delaney held her tongue, though everything about her expression exuded confused disbelief. She had vowed and declared she had learned her lesson about gossiping, particularly in regards to other people's love lives, but this sounded like a convoluted jumble of identities. She opened her mouth and then promptly clamped it shut again, eyes swivelling instead to watch Cassie's reaction.

Cassie did not even react other than to look confused. "I think you might be mistaken I have not been 'throwing knives' with anyone." She outright lied. She was not sure that anyone approved of what was going on between her and Jake as Humans had sentiments toward widowhood but they did not know how much of a relief it was to her for her to finally move on. "And if I was... does anyone have an issue with me 'throwing knives'?"

"I don't know why anyone would." Beya shrugged. "I mean, it's just normal healthy fun." she paused a moment thinking. "Unless you mean it literally. Then I guess it could be a problem if you're lousy shot."

Delaney winced, unscrewing the lid on the green nail polish again to make a wobbly attempt at the thumbnail of her preferred hand. "Can we stop referring to sex as 'throwing knives'? The mental imagery is terrifying."

“Some people would see me having sex so soon wrong due to my history and being a widow…” though Cassie did not see herself as a widow but she knew that some people did not see it how she did and that was fine but she respected everyone there’s opinion of her. “but as long as no one here does then I am relieved that no one would judge… if I had anyone or did anything…” she corrected with a nod.

"Really?" Beya's brows drew down along with the corners of her mouth. "That seems cruel. Normally Orions don't do the monogamy thing 'cause it's ...well, kind of kinky... but when someone loses a favorite lover, they're not only grieving but deprived of normal levels of physical comfort, so we see offering them as much of that comfort as they want as the decent thing to do." She leaned toward Cassie sympathetically, not touching since she knew Vulcans could be weird about that, but close enough to make the offer plain.

“Yes really not everyone is as open as people here..” Cassie looked at Beya and nodded once. It was a unique and interesting proposition that she would not be enquiring on more but it was kind. “But thanks for your point of view.” She said politely as the conversation quickly moved away from Cassie. She quickly left them to it to find somewhere to have a quiet moment without the hustle and bustle.

It was lining up to be an interesting day to say the least.