BackDated - New (Year's) Cycle's Solar Day

[do_your_duty]

[Morning after John's New Years Party]



Aeryn is awake, and upright. This might be all that can be said for it.

She is awake. Upright. Also, there is a cup in front of her.

She didn't even argue when Guinan looked at her, walked away and then brought it back. The women speaking in low, soothing tones, that would have annoyed Aeryn if the world would stop pulsing so violently for her to be annoyed longer than the half-micron of trying to think about being annoyed. But the pain was ruthless.

Which is why her eyes are half-closed and she's barely touch the drink.
It is morning. The room hurts her eyes. She is upright, awake, sitting.




And nothing happened last night. Nothing.
Definitely not any kissing. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Comments

[tript]

Trip was awake far earlier than he wanted to be. He had at least counted on sleeping through the hangover. But as it was, he'd come to Ten Forward and received a glass of something from Guinan when he'd asked for a hangover cure. Although he wasn't sure he could stomach anything yet, without being sick.

She'd also mentioned something about the party last night and who had gone, nodding her head in Aeryn's direction. Trip had seen Aeryn there, but not spoken to her, and he went over to her now. "You look like I feel."

eeeeeeeee. I love Trip and Enterprise ssssssooooo much.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn can hear him come over and stop nearby. It sounds like a stampede of boots in a background of far too much yelling. Even if she knows neither of those is actually happening, and all of this is actually her fault. (Like. .... All of it.) There's a good chance she never should have left her room. John was just as likely to find her here as he was to potentially go looking for her in her room.

The words made her wince, and it's a very slow movement, eyebrows twinged up, to turn her head and look at him.

It took a few seconds first, focusing on the unknown face before her. "Not if you're still standing."

[tript]

He managed a smile at that. "Practise." But he slid into a chair, so at least she wouldn't have to look up at him. "The trick to dealing with hangovers is to sleep through them. Or start drinking again before they hit." Although he clearly hadn't done either of those.

He felt terrible, but he'd worked while feeling worse, admittedly not from drink, so he was functioning pretty well.

"Or drink Guinan's patent brew." He sniffed it and made a face. He'd quite like last night's food to stay where it was.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn doesn't actually dispute the logic of his first few statements. But, then Aeryn doesn't feel much up to disputing anything because it requires thinking, moving, breathing, and talking. None of which seem all that good to her since standing up the first time. Added to that, he isn't entirely wrong, maybe. About that practice thing.

It's not like soldiers were sent to get drunk often, or given large amounts of time to find themselves as such.

Not when they could be called up at a moments notice for orders.





Aeryn looked at her cup again at his mention of it, and she shifted. Pushing her back straighter, which put her hair loose around her shoulders, picking up the cup again. "At least it isn't as bad." She's had worse and had to pretend it wasn't. Beggars weren't choosers all the time on a stolen ship with little to no credits.

[tript]

"As bad as what?" He frowned. Either he'd missed what she was talking about or she had. Or both. He wasn't really doing well at thinking at the moment. Which was fine - it was why he'd drunk so much in the first place.

[do_your_duty]

Her head. Remembering last night. The spike being stuck into her temple every time her heart beat. The unflagging, nagging in her curled shoulders to straighten her back perfectly, and keep a look out for John. To be somewhere else John couldn't find her before he happened to walk into any place he could. Could want to see her, or try to make her talk. About last night. All of them words, thoughts that passed through her head, swimming in the lights and throbbing.

But Aeryn just shrugged. Not at any great want for anyone -- even Natasha -- to know any of those things.

[tript]

Trip took her shrug to mean she was comparing hangovers. "I know that feeling."

He decided to try the drink. At this point, it couldn't do much more harm. He only had a tentative sip, though, then made a face. "Ugh. I think that's a warning not to get so drunk, not a cure."

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn slides him a look, brows pinching for a moment, certain he has no clue what he's talking about. Or maybe that she has no idea what he is. Or both. Maybe both. When the world won't stop strobing a bit when she moves, it could totally be both going on.

"Could be worse." Aeryn mustered, sitting more straight and putting her hands around hers to lift it, too.

"They haven't had much like that here during the last cycle." Because John hadn't decided to make it happen.

[tript]

Trip pretty much didn't know what he was talking about. That's what hangovers did to you.

"That's probably just as well." He pushed the glass away from him a little way, preferring the hangover right now, and still not entirely sure the first sip would stay down.

"But there should be more parties and movies and less liquor." If it didn't involve hangovers, then synthehol was looking a lot more attractive.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn took a drink, grimacing some at the taste. If this were food cubes, she'd say they'd gone bad. But that woman had made it within sight of Aeryn and then brought it to her It was simply foul, but somehow supposed to help. She took another drink without letting herself even consider the action.

Aeryn swallowed around it with effort and forcefulness. Grimacing again, but more at his words this time.

"You hoomans are incomprehensible."

[tript]

He smiled. T'Pol hadn't said that exact thing, but her expressions often did. Although it was more crazy than incomprehensible in her case.

"We are." Although until now, he hadn't known she wasn't human. "It's all part of our charm."

John & Trip totally should commiserate about their anti-emotion alien not-girlfriends.

[do_your_duty]

Which made him like every other arrogant, assuming other person on the ship, but Aeryn was used to that. It wasn't something she wanted hidden. (She had some of those. McCoy had gotten to see that violently up close and personal.) She didn't want to be thought of as a human. She didn't want to be one of them.

... No matter how much John's words plagued her mind.

(You can be more.

You would have fit right in.)

"If this is what charm feels like--" She meant the pounding pain. She had meant the pounding pain. She really had when the words were coming out of her mouth. Why was it that was the second she remembered kissing John, again? "--I'll pass on everything involved."

It still fit, and she didn't have a single clue, nor want to have one, nor want to think about it, to parse that out.
"You all have too many celebrations all the time as it is. It's wonder you keep them straight, or get anything done."

They totally should

[tript]

He shrugged. "Maybe you'll like humans once you get to know them." Maybe. "And all our celebrations."

He tried some more of his drink, which went down a bit easier this time, now he knew what to expect.

"Life is hard and sometimes you just need an excuse to party." Or get very drunk, in both their cases.

[redarmorhunter]

That wonderful feeling of post-party hangover will be enhanced ever so much by the large robot clanking up next to her.

He regards her for a moment, clearly not surprised by humans. She might be a little more surprised by him, however.

"Statement: Hello, meatbag," he says. Probably his friendliest greeting yet.

[do_your_duty]

He's loud.



And offensive.



If Aeryn's head wasn't throbbing, and making the lights around them throb with it, just to look over at him, the dirtiest of glares might have been happening. What happens for the first blast of seconds is that she looks at him, blinks, focuses her eyes, and blinks again. Thats. Definitely. New.

You are a hero for playing Aeryn

[redarmorhunter]

Loud and offensive are pretty much his default settings. Sensitive scanning technology reviews her and comes to an instant assessment.

"Query: how did you become so hungover and yet remain vertical?"

Re: You are a hero for playing Aeryn

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn raised an eyebrow. It took a second before it happened.

"Do people here not get up?"

[redarmorhunter]

"Response: Not with such hangovers. Usually they are curled up in a ball or streched out on a bed. Either way, they are generally complaining and groaning."

He tilted his head slightly.

"You are not a standard humanoid."

Accccccck. I just saw your title message and THANK YOU. I adore her so madly.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn did not approve of the comparison on a good day. The kind in the Charted or Uncharted Territories. On a ship of criminals. Presently being hunted down for having made the wrong choice herself. Which was a good day. Being on this ship, run by hoomans, in a hooman military that kept claiming it wasn't, in a hooman sector of space. That wasn't.

Especially not at this point of her morning. Frelling new yer and ruhm.

"I'm not one of them. Have a prize." It would be more acidic not hung over.
At least it's out loud, and maybe it's savagely proud she's not as weak as them.

You and me both, and not just because I have a thing a mile wide for Claudia Black. :P

[redarmorhunter]

"Statement: No thank you, unless the prize comes in the form of weaponry or credits. Which I can then utilize to purchase weaponry."

And he can tell, really. Much better systems, though he has questions about heat dissipation that clearly would not over well in this case. It might start a fight, and he didn't want that.

Not because he wasn't always up for combat, mind - just that in her state she was unlikely to function at her full capacity and he would learn less.

"Addendum: A likely superior design, no doubt. A step in the right direction. For a meatbag, anyway."

You and me both. Just. Guh. Yes, ma'am. Your self and your character.

[do_your_duty]

She approved of the first, but not the last.

That term, again, which gets a winced look.
One that tinges toward annoyance more than pain.

A hoarse twist to a point "And what are you under all of that?"

I should mention I tossed Daniel Jackson and Scorpius into the meme thread because of you :P

[redarmorhunter]

"Explanation: I am HK-47, combat and protocol droid. I was constructed by the Jedi Revan as the ultimate tool in his combat against, and then later in the name of, the Galactic Republic."

He paused for a moment.

"Addendum: Truthfully, it was more fun to fight against the Sith. The Republic may be high-minded and naive, but the Sith were much more fun to hurt."

Awwwwwwwww! You are the best. I love both of those characters. Sorry, I'm been gone a while. D:

[do_your_duty]

"HK-47." It's sounds like a storage lot. Or a planet sector designation. But then everything being frelled was normal here. Like the fact she was frowning as she was trying to parse anything that his rambling just spit out. She appreciated, or at least could identify logically with his last comments, but they didn't entirely clarify the earlier ones.

"What is a drah-hoyed?"

Well, both could do with tags if you have anybody for 'em :P No chance of a spare Vala? :P

[redarmorhunter]

"Clarification: Droid. An artificial being with no organic parts whatsoever, with fully autonomous processors, a certain degree of free will, and in my case quite a lot of it."

Alas, I belong whole heartedly to Aeryn. Though maybe out of time tags might go to Scorpy.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn's eyes narrowed and her head tilted a small bit to the side. Or maybe meant to go a small ways and then lolled a little under the weight of her head, feeling like it was five times the weight of itself. Even though it did not stop her words, "Like a DRD? Only bigger."

Beat. "Why?"

Though he had mentioned the fighitng part.