Awkward

Posted on Sat Aug 27th, 2022 @ 6:23pm by Delaney O'Callaghan & Curtis Vaan

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Cargo Bay
Timeline: Prior to storm
4928 words - 9.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The rest of the morning had gone much the same way. Every time Delaney found a task to keep her occupied, she also found a fresh way to frustrate herself. Eating had helped, the normalisation of her blood sugar took some of the frequency out of her dizzy spells but they hadn't stopped entirely and it was getting harder to complete tasks when she couldn't feel her fingers properly. She wasn't alone, however, and that sense of communal suffering had kept her from mentioning to anyone, especially Leiddem, who was busy with his own version of 'avoiding stagnation by doing everyone else's job'. They orbited around each other in sweeping rotations, sometimes crossing paths just long enough to check in but never stopping long enough to get swept up in each other's self-designated responsibilities. It was easier that way; he couldn't attempt to coddle her if he was too busy to notice she might need it.

The flow-on effect, however, was that Delaney had effectively isolated herself from everyone except in the very superficial ways that came from trying to help. The atmosphere was generally subdued anyway and so it wasn't quite so obvious, as she searched the shelving in the supply depot for the adhesive currently under request for cot repairs, that she was avoiding people. Persons. Certain persons.

A yelp from nearby was alarm enough to indicate the presence of someone else in the supply depot. The high-pitch was also indicative of the source.

"Yowch!" Curtis slumped, feeling a little bit defeated. Then he spotted that he wasn't alone and quickly tried to cover himself. "Oh. Hey." He waved a hand, then pointed at it with his other one. "Fingers are cold, I can't wrangle the locking mechanism on this crate," he explained. "My grandma used to have this thing where you could stuff some rice in like a sock or a glove, then if you heat it up it would retain the heat for longer...so..." he motioned at the crate, which appeared to be some sort of food container.

For a split second, Delaney experienced a sensation that was wholly alien, particularly in regards to Curtis; dread. The sinking feeling of the inevitable, the anticipation of something unpleasant. The truly baffling thing was, she couldn't really explain why. The night before had been awkward, there hadn't been time to catch up with him after Cami had dragged him off and there was still a residual amount of guilt, for want of a better word, that he had been used as some sort of punctuation point to whatever barrage of insults the Bajoran clearly wanted to send her way. Part of her wondered if Cami had unleashed any reason for the sudden twist of the knife but Delaney instinctively wasn't all that keen to find out. The weight of uncertainty wasn't pleasant; she never had enjoyed guessing games.

There was also the fact that, ever since she'd set off into the dark bowels of the ship to seek help for her stricken friend, Delaney just hadn't felt right. It was a physical malaise, presenting mostly as the bouts of vertigo that had announced themselves immediately afterwards and continued well past the time when her body really ought to have re-acclimatised to the conditions in the cargo bay. As someone who very rarely fell ill, Delaney hadn't been able to decide what to do about it and, thus, had dealt with it by doing nothing. The last thing she wanted was to suffer a spell of it whilst Curtis was there to question why his friend was suddenly sitting with her head between her knees. It wasn't his fault, and she loathed the idea of him getting it into his thick head to think otherwise.

Both concerns rendered her observably subdued as she took a moment to consider him and then left what she was doing to go help. Reaching under the folds of the blanket she was wearing, Delaney fumbled for a moment and pulled out, of all things, a screwdriver. "Here," she offered, in a tone remarkably quieter than was typical, "I've been using this to pry open the crates that just snap shut."

"See, that's probably what grandma would've done," he replied, taking the screwdriver and starting to pry open the container he had been working on. He glanced up as he did, noticing her weird silence. Laney was rarely silent; she talked almost as much as he did. So that meant something was probably up. And he wouldn't be a very good friend if he didn't see if things were all right. "Something up, besides the cold?" he asked.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected but ignorance hadn't been top of the list. Unable to control the slight pucker of a faint frown, Delaney glanced up at the Risian for signs of his usual sheepishness when attempting to fumble his way through deceit and then immediately averted her gaze as both hands retreated beneath her blanket poncho again. "No, I'm having a wonderful time."

The sarcasm didn't hit quite right, a little too laced with the bitterness of a sliver of ice that had nothing to do with the temperature controls. Normally, Delaney was the first to deflect attention away from people's attempts to fuss about her and it definitely bothered her that she felt in any way concerned by the sensation of being partially invisible, but all her usual options for reenergizing herself through other people seemed a lot more distant the more people retreated into survival mode. For Curtis to need to ask meant that he hadn't noticed, and that was good, except for the fact that it immediately hit her with a wave of intense loneliness.

Turning, Delaney went back to her search. "Just leave the screwdriver there when you're done."

"Don't you want it back?" he asked, innocence personified. It was either that or ignorance; he didn't really have an option either way. When she didn't answer straight away he decided to carry on with what he was doing, but unfortunately the crate only contained vacuum-packed Ktarian eels, which he figured would not only fail to do what a sock of rice would do heat-wise, but it would also stink out the cargo bay to the high heavens. "Who decided, of all the supplies we might need this week, to bring fish. Fish!" he complained loudly.

"Probably better here than left in the kitchen to rot." Delaney, preoccupied with rummaging for the box she was very certain should have been in the first place she looked, didn't even bother to glance over as she replied. There was a small chance she'd already known what he was about to find; she had spent the entire week turning the depot into her pet project. Apparently unapologetic, she shifted aside another basket of things-she-wasn't-looking-for and wrestled a moment with its insistence on wedging itself awkwardly on something sticking up through the shelving below. Normally, it would have been a minimal frustration. Under current circumstances, it became the catalyst for a sudden outburst of energy, coupled with a string of very culturally-colourful words that would have seemed more at home inside an Irish pub. An aggressive yank pulled the container free and another shoved it back into place with equal force before the redhead's cracked composure gave way to a far more familiar brand of forthright honesty.

"This week can go straight to hell."

The agitation dissolved quickly to something more akin to resigned exhaustion but at least it coaxed Delaney to turn around, which in turn made the situation immediately more familiar. Silence wasn't her forte. Holding in her thoughts and opinions wasn't her preference either; it would have been easy to accuse Delaney of finding that kind of restraint practically impossible. Being proactive about solving potential problems was her normal approach, however, and there was something about her expression, as she sank down to sit on an upturned crate, that looked ridiculously like defeat. Lifting her head, she stared at his crate of eels and then finally made eye contact, not bothering to hide her misery as she pointed to a nearly-identical crate wedged under the nearby shelf.

"What's left of the rice is in there." Several tired blinks later, she added, "You could have just asked me."

"You looked busy. And I didn't want to look stupid if it didn't work...grandma was a bit funny in the head sometimes..." he shrugged, trying to evade the distinctly emotional subtext that was at work.

"I just want all this to be over with. It's cold," she pointed out unnecessarily, "and I don't feel..."

Here, Delaney looked down at her hands, though they were stuck under blankets and resembled only a steepled mound.

"...right." Without elaboration, it was hard to know exactly what she meant, but admitting weakness was difficult and Laney's features were peaked enough to appear demonstratively unwell without her having to spell it out. "And, as a sum total of my efforts during this entire situation, I'd say things have mostly ended up a steaming pile of..." Her voice trailed off, lacking the energy to even cuss. "Upset Cassie, upset Liha, Cami hates me for some reason..." She didn't reference the incident in hydroponics, having no energy to even attempt to explain what the trek through the ship alone had cost her. She didn't want that to become his burden anyway; she'd do it a dozen times more without hesitation, so complaining about it was moot. "I got a boyfriend amongst it all, and I want to feel great about that. I do feel great about that, it's just..."

Predictably, as her momentum built, Delaney regained some of her normal animation. From beneath the blankets, her hands emerged for emphasis.

"I can't even talk to anyone without Cami interfering. I thought I was being crazy at first, but as of this morning, it's completely out of hand. I tried to talk to Jeassaho; Cami turns up out of no where with a sudden desperate need to drag her away, but oh, it's okay, I don't need to worry about helping. I'm probably already very busy with 'my stuff'." Delaney eyeballed her friend. "I'm not doing justice to her patronising tone. Literally half an hour later, I help Cassie with some supplies the engineers wanted and, this time, it's inch-thick layers of insincere concern about how unwell I look. Telling me to go lay down, that there's plenty of people to help out with last-minute security if I don't feel up to it. Little jabs. It started days ago, after the Girls' Night and that breakfast where she practically pushed me onto the floor, and now she can't look at me without smirking. I thought we were friends."

The plaintiveness in her voice was so utterly un-Delaney that she'd find time later to hate herself for it.

"And, as per usual, I don't even know what I did to her to make her this way. All I wanted to do last night was make sure you were okay."

To her dismay, Delaney's eyes welled.

"She wouldn't even let me do that."

Curtis scratched the back of his neck, his face screwing up awkwardly. Should he tell her where they went and what they did? Would that upset her even more? Might it mess up their friendship? The thoughts came thick and fast. Too fast for him to process.

"I don't think she hates you. I think...I think she just really likes Leiddem. And...I guess she thinks that what she's doing is trying to help you and him..." He wasn't very good at the elaboration part of things. "She has a good heart, you know?"

Through the blurry haze of emotion, Delaney blinked at her friend and then experienced the chill of a sinking heart. She wasn't, by nature, prone to jealousy. The absolutely catastrophic breakdown of her previous serious relationship had gifted the redhead some experience with the complications of other people becoming involved, but it had been its own unique situation and hadn't impacted, as far as she could tell, her willingness to trust Leiddem. Even in light of this information, Delaney was more bewildered by how Cami had chosen to handle it than threatened. Leiddem had known Cami longer and still chosen to instigate a relationship with someone else; it would be wholly unreasonable to fall to pieces and assume the worst because of something out of either of their hands.

"You think it's helpful of her to place herself between us and then drape herself over him?" In hindsight, the issue was blatantly obvious; Delaney just didn't think in the terms that Cami clearly did and it had never occurred to her that this was just the green-eyed devil coming into play. "You think it's helpful of her to talk down to me and effectively try to send me to bed to get me out of the way?" Anger never came swiftly to Delaney but, once provoked, it harboured all the danger of a lit match in a fireworks factory. "Did you even notice that she left me entirely out of her concern last night and dragged you off under the premise that Leiddem was too nice to tell you to feck off? Even Lei' was confused. I guess you think every single filthy look she sends my way is her way of being helpful too, right? Thanks, Curtis. For making it my fault that someone decided to treat me like shit because they have a problem with who I'm dating."

Tiny little pieces trickled into place. Delaney wasn't a stupid woman, she just didn't have a mentality that always made it easy to relate to the way others operated. The slights of hand, the furtive secrets, the ebb and flow of a probably more normal attempt to navigate social intricacies. If their situations had been reversed, Delaney would almost have certainly been likely to just articulate the root problem, if not to Cami then at least to someone. And she certainly wouldn't have sought out the couple in question. Eyes that burned with fresh moisture pinned Curtis with the accusation of someone who had just figured out a few things and Delaney, unable to gather her wits, opted instead to just shut down.

"But I guess it's easier to blame me, right? I'm sorry she weaponised you." That much was genuine, and had been something she'd struggled with all day. Now, Delaney wasn't all that sure that Curtis regretted it. Rising from the crate, Delaney gathered all the tattered shreds of her composure and stood for a desolate moment in rigid determination not to stoop to the pettiness being flung at her. "But her reasons don't excuse her behaviour. You don't have to worry about being stuck in the middle," she reassured him miserably. "At least, not from me. But you don't get to tell me that I have to be the bigger person here. Cami and I were friends. We would still be friends except for the fact that nothing she's doing right now leads me to believe she still wants to be."

Not really saying anything, Curtis closed the container lid with an annoyingly loud 'click' that filled the momentary silence. He wasn't very good at this. Terrible, in fact. Most Risians were great with people, but Curtis had never been that way - at least not to the same extent as the notoriously hospitable people he was associated with. He thought about just blurting out the details of how that evening had really gone, but immediately knew that was the wrong move. So he tried to play peacemaker instead.

"I don't think she hates you," he repeated, a second time. Like a broken record, maybe. Or perhaps programmed. "And...I don't hate you either." That was an understatement. "Sure, she was pretty shitty about it. But I'm fairly sure she wasn't entirely herself, having drunk a lot and..." he realised very quickly that he sounded like he was defending Cami, which wasn't what he intended it to sound like. "I don't want to be in the middle." Although his youthful mind went immediately to the mental image of being intimately pressed between the two women, he instantly recoiled from the very notion that it would ever happen like that. Instead he looked innocently hopeful at Laney, wondering how she might respond to that.

Were he capable of reading her thoughts, Curtis may have been disappointed to know that, the more he spoke, the more Delaney sank towards a singularly focused gratitude that Leiddem had not only expressed confusion to match her own but hadn't rushed to make excuses, or frame the way Cami had been behaving as something that deserved an assumption of sympathy. Being barely in possession of an intentionally mean bone, Delaney took a lot of what life threw at her on the chin but their circumstances were dire and they were facing unknown odds a long way from a lot of things, and a lot of people, she held dear. She had no energy left to spare for a friend's sudden desertion. Perhaps she'd taken Curtis too much for granted; that would be something to ponder when she could feel her extremities again. Or maybe she'd just never really tried to confide any sort of vulnerability to him before. All she had were her suspicions, and what sounded very much like a door being closed in her face.

"Then don't be. I absolve you of the inconvenience."

As she turned back to the shelf she'd been hunting through, it struck Delaney that she supposed Cami had done what she'd set out to do. If there was no confiding in Curtis anymore because he'd suddenly wound up with competing allegiances, then the tit-for-tat exchange was complete. In better health, Delaney would have done something about it, marched the lot of them to a central place to have it out, but there was a bleakness to being barely able to walk straight that made the effort entirely moot. Hopefully they wouldn't die. It would be a shame to freeze to death without her best friend complaining in her ear the entire time.

The room pitched sideways, so she relented and followed suit. Several items fell from the shelf as Delaney stumbled to catch herself and, not for the first time, she slid quickly to sit leaning against the supports whilst the world flipped upside down. In a more typical exchange, the effect would likely have been comical and, more to the point, would have definitely seen their positions reversed. Curtis fell over himself all the time. Curtis fell over himself so often that he had nearly rendered himself potato fertiliser. So many decks down. He'd scared her.

I don't want to be in the middle.

So many decks.

"Easy there-" He didn't really finish speaking, holding on to the large cargo unit that had looked precariously close to sliding off its slot and tumbling down on her head. It took them both that silent moment to recognise that the angle and distance would have been almost certain to mean it would have done some damage. He pushed the box back into place and stepped back. Given the weird emotional outburst she had given him followed by that silent 'just saved you from being crushed' vibe, he wasn't really sure what to say.

"Almost ended up with an O'Callaghan pancake." It was probably the worst line he could have thought of. Not really sympathetic, and certainly not actually funny. He was left scratching his head. "I guess I should go find something to warm myself up."

At least, Delaney mused silently amidst the nauseating waves of giddiness that had nothing to do with the ship's unexpected lurching, he wasn't making a fuss. It wasn't Curtis' style, really, if she really thought back over the course of their friendship. One of the things that had always appealed was that the Risian, either because he was totally oblivious in the first place or just completely inept at knowing how to broach sensitive matters, could always be relied upon as a distraction from annoyances. He wasn't a shoulder to cry on and that had never mattered because Delaney rarely needed one. She didn't need one now, a certain stubborn insistence admonished. The way she felt was just all part of the challenge of their situation. It would pass.

That didn't help her with lifting her head, which she kept pressed against her knees as her only response was a thumbs-up.

The fact that she hadn't made some sort of witty or on-point comeback to his stupid joke was indicator enough that she wasn't 'herself' - so much as Laney could be. Curtis just shrugged very awkwardly. "If you want...to talk..." That was usually the right thing to say, wasn't it? He'd heard people do that before. Then the other person was supposed to open up, get things out and feel better. At least, in the holovids. He wasn't very good at the in-person real thing. He was fighting a losing battle trying to figure out what was going on in her head, so once he was satisfied the crate wasn't going to bash her head in he took some steps back.

Delaney had just enough spatial awareness remaining to lift her head far enough to glare at him. It wasn't an unusual expression. Pointed and mostly deadpan, it was the kind of look she'd always shot him when he'd pushed 'social awkwardness' to its limits. She'd just tried to talk to him and all he'd given her was a complete lack of empathy and 'I don't want to be in the middle'. And really, the more she thought about it, the more Delaney realised she really ought to have known better. At an emotional level, devoid of deflection and partially-witty repartee, Curtis had never been a confidant. She so seldom needed one, being far more inclined to unleash dissatisfaction as a tirade and then immediately seek a distraction, that his lack of experience had never mattered. Ultimately, who was at fault here? The friend who didn't know how to offer support, or the friend that didn't normally ask for it and suddenly expected miracles?

"I feel like shit," is what she eventually landed on. "And my head is killing me."

"Oh." He stopped short of leaving. Instead he figured the best thing would be to mirror her a little. He eased himself down onto the deck next to her, leaning with his back to the storage unit. "It's been a crazy week. Probably crazier than most weeks either of us is likely to have had." Just keep talking, when has that ever made things worse? "Do you want something for the pain? I know a guy who knows a guy. Well, I know Oliver. He's an easy touch when it comes to getting a prescription, you know?"

"It's not pain." Delaney squinted one eye open in an attempt to see if her vision wanted to cooperate. "Not really. Since they adjusted the life support, I can't seem to put one foot in front of the other without eventually taking a spin. The overwhelming urge to barf is exactly how I wanted to spend this last stretch before the storm." She mentioned nothing about it starting as far back as her rescue mission because, whilst she'd been miffed at him earlier, Delaney had no driving impulse to bring Curtis' mood down to her level.

"As much as I'd get a kick out of seeing you barf all over the deck...I'm sure you'd figure out a way to make me clean it all up, so maybe it'd be better if we helped you not do that." He nudged her gently with his shoulder. "So is that it?"

"I already told you the rest of it," Delaney pointed out, in a tone that suggested she didn't really want to go over it again. He wasn't telling her everything, and since she'd not been able to locate him before she and Leiddem left the party for bed, she had a reasonable idea of what he wasn't telling her, and Delaney just didn't want to go there. Didn't want to deal with the fact that her friend might have been used intentionally because he was her friend. There was no point trying to explain her guilt when he was so firmly on the side of validating the way Cami was acting anyway.

"All right." He didn't push it any further. Instead, he decided, she needed to be distracted from all her problems. "When we get out of all this we need to finish your holonovel," he said, a more firm instruction than he would usually have made. "The daring pirate captain needs to face down her dastardly foe and save the damsel, or find the lost treasure, or whatever it was she was supposed to be searching for." He'd forgotten the details, but it was an opportunity for her to at least get back some of her usual smugness.

A tired huff of laughter, which barely even counted as such, was Delaney's first reaction. But, since she recognised a safe diversion when she saw one, and could at least agree with Curtis that the conversation needed a change in direction before she further embarrassed herself, the redhead turned her head to rest her cheek on her knee and added, "Did I tell you Kali agreed to be a character model? I don't think I made a lot of headway in getting Liha on board though."

Curtis chuckled as he processed the potential that had. "Is Kali going to be a heroine or a villainess? Maybe if you get Liha on board they could be like the bickering sisters or something." The fact that she was talking about it was a good sign. And a sign that their friendship was okay even if there had been a little wrinkle in there too.

"I have grand plans for her to be a legendary character of great renown, so possibly more a neutral party than anything. An introduction before the climax to really ramp things up." Though she still sounded tired and a little lacking in her usual exuberance, Delaney's tone certainly resembled something much closer to normal. "I wouldn't even know how to broach it with Liha though, she'd probably think the whole thing pointless." Speculation on the Romulan's inclusion, however, did open up other avenues. "I may ask some of the others if they want a part. I don't usually include people I know but maybe..." Uncertainty didn't suit her, parading as insecurity that seemed an utterly foreign concept to the redhead.

"I think there'd be people who wouldn't mind," he said hopefully. "Oliver, perhaps. Maybe Burnie, if you told him he could be involved in some sort of pyro. Lots of options." He patted her on the side of the head gently. "See. Reason to be positive."

It earned him a half-smile. Life beyond the moment would eventually be enough of a carrot to pull her upright. For now, the best thing seemed to be to try to navigate the disorientation and extreme cold without burning more bridges. "If I stay down here much longer," she confessed, "I'll just wind up falling asleep here and they'll need a chisel to excavate me. Story planning can happen later, we need to keep moving for now." She paused, mustered her strength and groaned her way upwards to an unsteady standing position. Then, because some things never changed, she offered him a hand.

Relieved as much as anything that she wasn't mad at him - at least from what he could tell - Curtis took her hand and let her help him back to his feet. "We can do both. I'm great at multi-tasking, you know." He was terrible. But it sounded optimistic, at least.

It was no great revelation that Delaney could be impulsive. Certainly, when she'd first reached out to pull him upwards, she hadn't calculated anything beyond the usual requirements of coaxing him out of being a lazy sod. Inspiration, spurred on by every confusing thought and emotion trying to battle for prominence, saw her extend the assistance to a sudden, swift throttle of a hug, her arm caught around his neck in such a way to contest the Risian's capacity to breathe comfortably. He was a lousy farmer, and a rotten counsellor, but she'd spent an unpleasant amount of time fumbling around in the dark half-terrified that she was moving too slowly to be of any assistance to him. At least he was still alive to annoy the hell out of her.

"Okay," the redhead eventually said, letting him go as quickly as she'd grabbed him, adding a slightly prodding push for good measure. "Go make your rice-sock. If you want to be helpful for once, make a few."

"For once...?" he grumbled softly, but thought better of making it an actual thing. Letting her go, he just shrugged it off and declared, "All right. Granny Vaan's hot sox coming up."