Anti-Wingman

Posted on Fri Jun 21st, 2019 @ 1:43pm by Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Ensign Fiona O'Dell

Mission: Fractured Fairy Tales
Location: USS Hera, Deck 10, Ten-Forward
Timeline: 2396, Post-Tribunal

The mission had been a huge success, and the partying afterward promised to be just as legendary. The two misfits of the research and Development department were to be found, of course, in 10-Forward, drinking and carrying on as they tended to do. After all, they had been enforced sober for nearly 4 days now, on the first officer’s orders. But now they had discharged their duties and been freed on their own recognizance to do what they did second best- drink and cause trouble.

Of course, no one had told them that anything they had done was classified. Which meant they were quite busy bragging up a storm.

Leaning over the bar, the towering Tellarite Engineer, Ensign Briaar Gavarus, was wagging the empty beer mug of her pint-sized partner in crime Ensign Fiona O'Dell, at the already exasperated bartender on duty. "C'mon, man! Pick up the pace! The hero of the frickin' Hera is THIRSTY!

Then she hung her head and groaned audibly as the bartender shouted back, "You aren't the only two people waiting in here, Gavarus! Hold on!"

"If I'm holding on, then hold on." The prickly porcine grabbed her own massive mug of beer and chugged the remaining third down in one massive gulp. "BRAAAAP!!! Do me too!"

The long-suffering bartender moved with a bit more speed to deal with the confrontational space swine, and by the time she returned to their high-top table, O’Dell was still telling her tale. Standing on her chair to get her up to eye level with most of the crowd, the pint-sized pilot was already drunk, loud and proud.

“So as the security team are all latched on and I’m flyin after a starship movin at impulse speed, I figure, aye, we’re likely showin up on their sensors. What I dinna expect is for them to launch a bloody photon torpedo at us! Now ye got to remember, I’ve nivvir tried these shields agin a torpedo, but the whole point is that it’s the shockwave that gits ye, since the shields dinna stop that.” Pausing to take her beer from the offered hand of her partner in crime, O’Dell took a sip, then continued the story.

“Noow, I might survive a near miss, but the lads an’ lassies in the EVA suits, ye know they’re g’win ta be chunky salsa in airtight containers under the best a’circumstances. And twillnae do for that- not me shipmates, not on my watch! So joost as I’m concoctin me a brilliant plan in me wee tiny brain, what do the goddamned pirates do? They launch another one at us!”

At that, O’Dell paused for a longer draught off her beer, and gave opportunity for questions or for Gavarus to horn in.

Leaning.on the hightop hard enough to shake it, Gavarus was now on her third, decidedly non-syntheholic beer, and was a bit more chatty with the crewmembers that she didn't actually recognize. "Oooh, shitshitshit! Is this where you did the frickin' thing, Fee? When you made them shoot their own frickin' ass?!"

Taking a long but quick swig, the engorged Engineer didn't wait for a reply as she kept on talking. "Seriously, I kid you frickin' not. She let them target her and made them torpedo their own mother@#$&in' nacelle!" Gavarus shouted, slamming her beer down on the table, inadvertently splashing herself in the process.

"Shit. Wait, did that happen yet? I can't frickin' remember the order, but it was Gods damn EPIC!!"

The story was told, more in a knotty string than a straight line, out of order more often than not, but complete with bombastic sound effects and cartoonish expressions. When they'd held court and told their tale, the unlikely duo settled in at their table, to do nothing more than enjoy being gloriously drunk. Heroes, sure, but drunk was the important part. Which meant a number of activities to the frenetic Mariposian moppet- including singing tavern songs no one had ever heard for a few hundred years, while literally dancing a merry jig.

"O Mrs. McGrath, " the sergeant said
"Would you like a soldier of your son Ted?
With a scarlet coat and a big cocked hat
Now Mrs. McGrath would you like that?"

It wasn't about the attention or standing out. It wasn't about proudly carrying her people's traditions to the stars, nor defending their art and culture. No, O'Dell did what she did when she drank because it made her happy, and filled her heart with joy. She did not care if no one else joined in, nor if they thought her a capering fool- which she was. The bonny wee lass of the Bringloidians was simply a merry drunk, and when she had a half-pint in her she expressed it clearly and well.

"Ach! I've got ta pess," the little leprechaun declared, toddling off towards the matter reclamator. She wasn't blind drunk yet, so she managed to not run into anyone between points.

Gavarus wiggled in her seat slightly. "Nah, my dam ain't ready to burst yet. I'll guard your seat, Fee! And your drink!" The Porcine partier grabbed her friends mug and took a swig from the mugs in both hands. "Yup... Nowhere safer."

As she did, she gestured to the bartender for a refill.

Relieved, O'Dell checked her appearance in the mirror, which showed 3/4 of the top of her head, her whole face if she stood on her tippy-toes. Running her fingers through the thick curly bright red mop on her head, she swept it back away from her eyes and strode back into the bar, expecting to hear Gavarus bellowing for a beer in the distance.

As she moved to skirt around a seated patron, he reached out to snag her sleeve. "Hey, flygirl."

Spinning with it, O'Dell peered at the speaker- a humanoid male sitting in a regular chair, which brought him down around her height. His legs were spread in a wide stance, and a little half-smile played at his lips. His dark hair was longish on top, but still humanoid Starfleet regulation, while lending him a rakish air. Cracking a smile he made eye contact.

"They say you're really something with that fighter mech," the crewman offered. "Really good with your hands, huh?"

"Aye, I got reflexes like a wee ninja! Hwahhh!" O'Dell chirped as she made judo knife hands and jumped into a fighting stance.

"Right on, right on. Bet you're a nimble little minx too, ain'tcha?" the crewman, emboldened by his success, pressed the vein of conversation to see if it could keep going.

"Sure and begorrah! I dinna weight squat, so I kin do all sortsa hopping an' bouncin' aboot. I'm a bit drunk right noow, so not me best time ta show off, aye?" The little leprechaun grinned from ear to ear, her eyes practically closing. "But aye, m'a bit of a gymnast I guess, sure."

"Ohh, flexible and athletic, huh?" Crewman Ignatious Jones couldn't believe his luck. He'd wanted to hit on the little redhead all night, but the big pig with her just glowered at anybody that got close. Or anybody not that close, really. Now, catching her by herself, she was sweet and funny and kind of really catching the vibe of where he was going with all of this. It was time to make his move, he reasoned- after all, fortune favored the brave.

"Say, Fiona- can I call you Fiona? That's a lovely name, by the way..."

"Aye, sure, we're off duty and I dinna give that much of a shite. Who're ye?"

"Jones, but my friends call me Iggy."

"Nice ta meetcha Iggy. Alreet, well-"

"You want to get out of here?" the crewman asked, putting it on the line.

"What're ye, kiddin? A'course not," O'Dell declared, pish-toshing at the very idea of leaving the only bar on the ship. "I'm nowhere near drunk enough ta get kicked oota Ten-Fa'rd yet. C'mon, ye kin join me an' Gavarus fuir a drink, aye?"

"Uh, sure, I'll be right over. I just gotta use the reclamator," Jones stalled as O'Dell bounced off into the crowd, headed for the ugliest ugly friend ever. If Crewman Iggy Jones was going to score with the tiny little redheaded gymnast with good hands, he was going to need not just a wingman, but a friend willing to make one hell of a sacrifice in taking one for the team.

As O'Dell returned to their table, Gavarus shouted far too loudly, having clearly cleaned off all the beer on the table in the interim. "FEE!!! What took you so damn long? You can't hold that much pee."

As she spoke, the bartender returned with the fresh beers, put them down and all but ran away.

"So... My beer got lonely. Annnnddd... it needed a friend and there was YOUR beer, and here we are with new beer!" The clearly tipsy Tellarite grinned uncharacteristically broadly at her best friend.

"Me bitters!" O'Dell held the dark beer aloft as if it were the holy grail, then brought it down carefully to hold it beside her cheek. "Ah, mah wee and lonely bitters, nivvir ye fear. Ye'll goo ta join yuir friends in me belly soon enough! Here's mud in yuir eye!"

Snorting a muffled laugh, Gavarus playfully jabbed, "Its friends ain't in your belly, they're in the reclimator now, Leprechaun."

"True enuff!" With that. O'Dell took a mouthful of beer, savoring it before swallowing it, a rhapsodic expression spreading across her face. "Let's nivvir be parted agin, me one true love. Unless the Commander orrrrders me nae ta drink so I'll be sober enow to fly. Maybe then, because I'm more afraid of her than I love you, Ah think." O'Dell looked at her beer as if it had answered her. "Nae, dinna be that way! Ah still loove ya, but I'd nivvir get another drop in the brig, aye?"

"So, what took you so long gettin' back?" Gavarus grumbled, taking a swig, "You almost made me have to talk to one of the other assholes in here." Her comment was in no way stifled and elicited a good five indignant head turns from some of the people that had been listening to their stories not five minutes prior.

"Oh, a nice fella was chattin me oop. There he is, talkin to his friend over there. I invited 'em ta come join us," the tiny test pilot explained, sipping at her beer. This was her fourth half-pint of the night, of which she had actually finished perhaps a quarter to a half of one, Gavarus polishing off the rest. But the wee wingman didn't need much to get drunk, due to low body weight and a particular allergy to alcohol or synthehol that made her uniquely susceptible to it's effects.

In other words, a cheap drunk.

Eyeing the two male crewmen O'Dell had indicated, they appeared to be in hot debate or a mild argument over something, although it was impossible to make out at this range. However, the discussion was a very old one.

"Come on, you owe me!"

"Not THAT much I don't owe you!"

"Well, no, I'll owe YOU one after this. But come on, you gotta keep the ugly friend occupied!"

"Dude, why do you want to do it with a midget?"

"She's not a midget, she's just short. I mean look at that hair, man, she's a ginger! Besides, everything looks huge compared to her, you know what I mean?"

"Dude, you are straight up weird, and I feel sorry for your junk if you need a chick that tiny..."

"Hey, don't be a dick. Just help me out and keep the big pig girl busy so I can score with her friend, huh? I'd do it for you!"

"The hell you would!"

"Okay, but see, next time I'll HAVE to because I'll owe you for THIS one!"

"Fine. Whatever, let's go get this over with so you can find out if the top of her head's a good place to rest your beer..."

As Gavarus watched the two men talking amongst themselves, her eyes narrowed. "Those two? Ugh... they look like twatwaffles. And the one keeps looking at me. What the @#$%'s up with that?"

“Maybe that’s why the one fella was chattin me oop, so’s he’d have a chance to get his buddy in with ye?” O’Dell chirped optimistically. “Maybe he’s into ye and joost wants to get to know ye?”

Letting out a snort of a derisive laugh, Gararus cricked her eyebrows. "Yeaaahhhhh no, I don't think so. He has the look of an asshole who would rather be anywhere but here. I know. It's the look I have in staff meetings."

As the two crewman walked over, O’Dell waved cheerfully as Gavarus scowled.

Gesturing to his friend, Crewman Jones started making introductions. “Fiona, may I present Dick Turpin. Dick, this is Fiona, and this is…” he let it trail off as he extended a hand to Gavarus.

“That’s Briaar. Dinna mind her, she doesnae like innybody at first. C’mon, pull up a stool and have a pint, aye?” O’Dell’s particular drunk cheer and inclusiveness was not unusual, but she was surprised at how closely the humanoid crewman parked his barstool next to hers.

"I don't like anybody at second, either, uh... 'Dick'." Then the suspicious pig eyed the other man. "And you are?"

“”Ignatious Jones, at your service. But my friends call me Iggy,” the humanoid crewman offered his hand across the table, then withdrew it when all it got in return was a glare. Picking up smoothly, he changed the subject. “So what department do you gals work in?”

“We’re R&D!” O’Dell declared gleefully. “Advanced flight systems development an’ testing. Chief Gonadie dreams ‘em up, then tis me job to break it, and her job ta make sure we learn from it and invent new ways around the problems. What do ye two do?”

“We, ah, work in Science as a biology lab techs,” Jones volunteered. “Dick and me. We came aboard back on Earth, and we’re about six months into this tour. All sorts of exciting stuff happens on this ship, huh?”

As Gavarus eyed the two men, she hooked one of her hooves around the leg of O'Dell's chair, and with a feigned cough, dragged it slightly closer to her and away from Jones by a few inches.

"Sorry about that... drink went down the wrong pipe." Gavarus said, disingenuously. "So, lab techs? What does that mean? Washing test tubes and cleaning up waste? Press the lab coats of the officers? All that 'exciting' stuff?"

“Pretty much, yeah,” Jones replied with a laugh. “Monitoring tests in process, recording results, setting the stage for the next test. Chief Sonak is pretty exacting, and it’s not unusual for him to order a test run thirty, forty, fifty times. Sometimes a hundred. He had this transporter experiment he was working on, and I swear he must have had us run the simulations 300 times. All with some weird variable quantum equation he came up with somewhere that had to be overlaid with a specific biopattern. But yeah, that’s our job… sounds a lot less interesting than yours, huh?”

As he spoke Jones leaned in to bump shoulders with O’Dell, only to discover the little redhead wasn’t in the same spot she’d been when he pulled up his chair, and he nearly stumbled out of his own.

“So you’re the handy one?” Dick Turpin asked, trying to strike up a conversation with the surly space swine.

Looking at Turpin contemptuously, Gavarus was putting together what she was reasonably sure was going on. The chatty one, Jones, had his eyes on Fiona and his buddy Turpin was to throw himself on the gravitic mine that was herself to clear the path. Her eyes squinted and a distressing grin curled on her thick cheeks. She allowed just the slightest hint of her lower tusks to show as she did.

"Extremely." Gavarus said in an exaggeratedly breathy voice as she leaned over, wiggling her thick, three-fingered hand in the air. Under normal circumstances, she was physically incapable of flirting with someone she liked. But she did not like Mr. Dick Turpin so far, and was fully capable of messing with him a little to suss out his intentions. "Well, for those that appreciate a woman who knows how to use... tools, at least."

Raising one eyebrow, a slight smile settled onto the face of Turpin. “Well, I mean, the right tool for the right job is essential, right? Plus there are power settings, variable speeds, size to consider…”

Ugly she might be, but this was kind of interesting to Turpin.

Staring at Turpin with half-lidded eyes, Gavarus didn't blink as she pulled her mug up and loudly slurped a large swig of beer, all without tilting her head back so as to keep her eyes focused. Whatever Turpin's game was, she wasn't going to fall for it, the enormous Engineer thought as she replied flatly. "A belt sander, mag-lev clamps, nano-lubricant and one decoupling rod. You figure it out, and get back to me."

"You ARE a handy gal...!" Dick Turpin grinned at that.

Irritated by Turpin's tenacity, Gavarus let out a deep, throaty burp that literally drove the young man back, fanning away the cloud of beer belch as Gavarus turned back to the ringleader, Ignatious Jones. "So, what's your story here, Egregious?"

Off to the side, while Briaar had been distracted, Jones was making quiet small talk with O'Dell as she snorted a laugh out. "Ain't that the bloody truth. Allays somebody in the reclamator when ye got to goo, and allays somebody rappin on yuir door when ye hafta poo in pooblic. S'a universal truth right there!"

"Oh, for @#$&'s sake..." Gavarus muttered, watching O'Dell laugh with Jones, her last comment having gone completely ignored. Fed up, she slapped the table and let out an over-the-top snort of a laugh.

"HAAAWWW!!! Shit! Ain't it the truth. Ya' know, with the adjustments I made to the transporter for emergency beam out in the Thunderchicken, I'm betting I could figure out an algorithm to beam the shit right out of someone." Gavarus laughed and spoke too loud to be ignored as the conversation came to a screeching halt.

Their corner or Ten-Forward went silent for a full second, as the prickly pig continued staring at Jones flatly. "It would be a public service for some, that need a major shitectomy."

As she finished her statement, she bit her bottom lip and looked over to O'Dell with widely flared eyes, trying to get the seemingly clueless test-pilot on the same page as her regarding Jones' intentions. O'Dell silently offered a confused but pointed 'WTF?' expression as Jones stepped into it.

"You know, I get the feeling you don't like me much, Briaar," Jones offered with a solicitous smile. "Why is that? We're just here having a friendly drink together?"

Confused by what was going on, O'Dell picked up her beer and sipped at it, eyes darting back and forth between Gavarus and Jones. Even drunken Fiona was starting to get that idea, but she didn't understand why just yet.

"Oh, I don't like much of anyone, Ignominious." Gavarus replied, shooting daggers at the man she assumed had less than honorable intentions for her best friend, deciding that she was done being subtle. "Maybe I think that you're just trying to get my friend here in bed to fill out some creeper-ass checklist and I don't want to see her get hurt?"

At that, O'Dell spritzed beer and started coughing in a comic spittake, but Gavarus wasn't finished yet.

"Maybe I think you convinced your buddy here to take one for the team and distract me? Maybe I don't trust that you're... sincere. Am I wrong? Elucidate. Is there some reason I should like you?" Gavarus finished her rant, taking a sip of her beer.

Blinking up at Jones with wide, innocent eyes, O'Dell turned on the puppy dog eyes at the crewman, who started at the expression for about three seconds before he was off his stool, hands raised in surrender.

"Okay, you know what? We were just having a friendly drink with a fun gal I met in 10-Forward. I didn't know you two were a couple... it's cool, we'll bow out." Stepping away, Jones kept his hands up as he nodded to O'Dell. "It was nice meeting you, Fiona. C'mon Dick, let's leave the ladies in peace."

Rising from his chair, Crewman Turpin offered Gavarus the universal 'call me' signal with a wink.

Replying with a stunned expression and a groan, Gavarus shrugged off Turpin's slightly creepy wink and re-focused her attention on Jones. "Ooooh, no. That wasn't an answer, Inauspicious. You're frickin' right she's a 'fun gal'. But getting indignant AIN'T proving me wrong. Nobody told you to leave. Stick around. Tell me what you think of Fiona. Tell me why I should back the @#$& off? C'mon."

"If you like her, that should be a gauntlet worth running, right?" Gavarus finished with another swig of her beer.

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly and a sly grin spread across his face, as Iggy Jones stepped back to the table, directly opposite Gavarus.

“Yeah, she seems fun. She’s cheerful, she’s sweet, she’s cute. She’s funny and her laugh can warm up a room. She’s got those big green eyes that are like emeralds, and that amazing mane of fiery red hair. But the part that I like best about her? She’s nice. Friendly. Approachable. She seems like a gal you could hang out with and really get to know, because she doesn’t play games or bullshit you. She says what she thinks, and she’s honest about how she feels. That’s pretty hard to come by all in one gal, so yeah, I’m interested.” Turning to regard Fiona, he tilted his head toward her slightly.

“Sorry to talk about you as if you’re not here, but your friend really seems to want answers. Also to not have to share you with anyone, it looks like. Maybe you ought to think about that, Fiona, because it sounds a whole lot like you’re spoken for. As for me,” He straightened up and shot a side-eye to Gavarus, “I know when I’m not welcome, and I’ll back away from your territory, lady. C’mon, Dick,” Crewman jones straightened up, offered a two fingered salute and turned to walk away.

“Get back to me about those mag-lev clamps and the nano-lube…” Crewman Turpin offered with a wink and gun fingers to Gavarus as he departed with his friend.
The angry engineer clenched her jaw and ground her teeth behind pursed lips as she watched the pair walk away. He was right.

Deep down, Gavarus still believed that she was right about his intentions, but everything he said about her was on target and she knew it. And worse, Fiona probably knew it too.

But all the quivering Gavarus could think about was how badly she wanted to beam his smug ass into space. "That mother@#$&ing piece of... I'm gonna..."

Then she froze in her anger, and slowly moved her eyes over to the subject of the evening, Fiona. Those aforementioned big green eyes were wide, and she half-hid behind her beer, which she was holding in both hands. Carefully setting it down on the table, she looked uncomfortable, and when she spoke, it was in a small and quiet voice, not her usual high-pitched caterwaul.

“I, um… I dinna… I’m nae s’good at, uh, seeing when fellas are… ah… I thought he was joost bein friendly,” the wee wingman explained, pointing out one of her own blind spots. “I shouldna… I’m sorry, Briaar, I didn’t know that’s what was happenin’. But, uh, what he said… dinna get mad, aye? It’s okay… yuir the only friend I’ve had in a long time who doesnae get tired of me after the novelty wears off, so, uh, I understand nae wantin’ innyone else ta butt in or… yeah.”

Offering a small, sad smile, O’Dell was trying to make it better, even though she herself was a ball of conflicting emotions churning in her gut, disagreeing with the dark beer it found there. Something told her the situation was complex, and she couldn’t understand Briaar’s anger. The fellow had not been rude or crude and he’d been a gentleman, but she was so angry at him, and anger from large mammals always tended to make Fiona shrink a bit. As she didn’t want to upset her friend any further, she backpedaled, assuming guilt for the situation and apologizing to calm her big buddy down.

n some level, Gavarus was even more upset now. She expected righteous anger out of Fiona. She expected to be told to go away. She expected to finally be abandoned because she didn't know how to behave around other people. She was ready for all of that. But she wasn't ready to look and see that her own anger was making her best friend afraid. And, as such, she had no idea how to process it all.

So she just began talking. "I... he was saying all the right things. He was being perfectly nice. I just... It's... I've seen so many guys like that at the academy. Guys who smile and flatter and flirt, and they see you as a mark on some kind of... checklist. Guys that just want to take you back to their room, @#$% you and then go brag to their little asshole friends." As she spoke, she was still shuddering in place, staring into the distance as if Jones was still in her field of view. And it was clear she was speaking from a place of experience.

"I saw him and it was all I could see and... I didn't want him to..." Suddenly, her voice broke a little and her familiar pattern of stuttering, when she was nervous, reared its ugly head. "But... n... n... now I d... don't know. Maybe he was right. Maybe I am the one that's h... h... hurting y... Maybe I...I...I'm the problem."

Gavarus couldn't handle it. Deep down, she knew he was right about one thing. She didn't want to share Fiona and she didn't want to think about what that meant or anything else. So she took a massive swig of her beer, cleaning off the mug.

As she did, she muttered out a hoarse "I'm sorry..." as she stood up with a start and began all-but breaking out in a run past the doors of Ten-Forward towards the nearest turbolift.

As for O’Dell, she couldn’t be angry at her friend for defending her- it was, in fact, one of the things she liked about Gavarus. Seeing her run off only made her more upset, because she had tried not to say anything wrong, but now Briaar was upset, and that was her fault. Chugging a few mouthfuls of liquid courage, the tiny test pilot hopped off her barstool and began chasing after her best pal. A finger of warning from Security slowed her from a flat-out run, so she switched to the speedy short-legged walk which she exercised so frequently to get from place to place.

Too slow to catch up to Gavarus before she made it to the turbolift, O’Dell caught the next one down to Deck 9, and chased after her porcine pal, assuming she would go back to her quarters. Tabbing the door chime, there was no response, so she simply leaned on it until she got a reply.

From inside the room there was a muffled "G... G... Go away." The voice was broken and weak but it was definitely Briaar Gavarus.

“Please dinna be that way, Briaar. I’m sorry, I dinna mean to say anything wrong. Please don’t be mad… I was joost being drunk an’ friendly,” O’Dell might have grasped the complexities of the situation had she not been in it herself, or clear-headed. But drunk and confused, she didn’t understand exactly what was happening. All she did know is that her best friend was more upset than she’d ever seen her, and it was her fault somehow. Eyes filling with tears, she rested her head against the door.

“I’m sorry Briaar…please don’t make me go away…”

From inside, O'Dell could hear a faint mumbling in the distance that sounded slightly like, 'Computer, door.' Then, a second later, the door wooshed open.

Sitting on the floor with a bottle of whiskey in her lap, Gavarus had clearly started crying but was trying to awkwardly rub her eyes clear. She was angry at herself and the motions were aggressive as she sniffed. "Y... You didn't say anything wrong. You d...d... didn't DO anything wrong, Fee. I @#$&ed this up."

Stepping over a pile of laundry that was nearly up to her knees, O’Dell cleared a spot on the floor and sat down cross-legged opposite the Tellarite terror. “Ye dinna fook innything up. Ye were joost bein’ protective and lookin’ out for me. I was the one who was flyin’ blind. I shoulda known that was what was going on, I joost… he seemed nice, was all. I’m sorry Briaar, I dinna mean to mess up the good time.” O’Dell offered a bit of a frazzled smile to her porcine pal. Her own eyes were puffy and tears tracks were clear on her pale freckled cheeks. “Please dinna be upset, aye?”

"Hell, he probably IS nice. I'm just... I don't know. He felt like an asshole. But that was p... probably just me being me." Gavarus muttered, taking a long swig of the whiskey from the bottle. "And stop it, Fee. You didn't mess anything up. You should probably... I dunno... go see where he went. And if he turns out to be an asshole... I can just beam him into space or something."

“Uh uh,” Fiona replied. “He’s joost some rando who wanted ta chat me up, and yuir prolly right- he’s probably joost playin fetish bingo wi’ me and… all the things people do like that.” Deftly avoiding the topic of sex, the wee leprechaun pressed on.

“But he doesnae matter to me. YOU matter to me, ye feckin eejit. Yuir me best friend, not some fella I met who might or might not want ta do weird things to me. We’re… you’re… I…” the little lass fumbled for what to say and how to say it. “Nobody matters ta me like you do. Ye look out for me, ye take care of me when I’m drunk, ye git me out of fights, and ye always believe in me. That’s…”

Hands waving about as she tried to articulate what she was feeling, O’Dell was on the verge of ugly crying. “Yuir me best friend, and I dinna want you to go way. I dinna mean innything talkin’ to that fella, honest. Please dinna be mad?”

"I'm not mad at you, Fee. I promise." Gavarus pleaded, crossing her legs and rocking in place as she talked."I'm mad at myself! This was supposed to be a celebration! YOUR celebration! And I couldn't keep my ugly face shut and just let you have it because some asshole made me..."

Pausing, the fragile engineer stopped herself short of saying that she was jealous of the idea of someone else encroaching on them. "I ruined everything because I don't know how to not be a raging bitch to everyone."

“Ye dinna ruin anything, Briaar,” O’Dell offered, scooting closer so she could put her small, pale hand on the thick, calloused three-fingered hand of the Tellarite engineer. “It’s nae MY celebration, it’s OUR celebration. Cuz we’re a team, ye and me, and I couldnae have done inny ‘a this withoot ye, aye? And yuir nae a raging bitch to everyone. Joost people ye dinna like. Or strangers. Or people that say stupid things. Or pervos. Or… well, yuir nae a bitch ta me. Ye allays stand up for me and yuir allays there for me, aye?” O’Dell beamed a hopeful little smile, trying to make her grouchy pal feel better.

Hanging her head a little lower, O'Dell simply leaned down further, tilting to ensure her grinning mug stayed in Gavarus's line of sight. After a moment, the tubby Tellarite chuckled slightly. "Alright... Okay... Turn down the grin. It's gonna melt my face off. I'm... Okay."

Her tone got just a touch more serious. "I'm just... I am sorry, Fee. I didn't mean to be so stupid." Then she awkwardly returned a grin of her own, toothy and wobbly.

“Ye’re nae stupid, Briaar,” O’Dell offered softly as she levered herself up a bit, so she could park herself beside Gavarus. “And ye’ve nae ta be sorry aboot, aye? I’m nae mad, I’m joost… I’m glad we’re okay. I really… I dinna want to lose ye, aye?"

"M... Me neither." Gavarus said sheepishly as she took a swig of the whiskey before hesitantly offering the bottle to O'Dell and leaning just a bit closer.

Then, trying to bolster her mood, she chuckled. "I... I bet I could rig an algorithm to beam just his clothes off."

"Oh, a'that I'm sure," the pixie pilot took the whiskey bottle in both hands and tilted it up to take a little sip. But then, a little sip went a long ways for her. Handing the bottle back, she glanced up at Gavarus from under her brows, then O'Dell curled up into the side of the tubby Tellarite, then looked up at her porky pal, all moon-faced and filled with drunken sincerity.

"Yuir m'best friend, Gavarus. We're a team, ye and me, and we'll allays have each other's backs, and no one will e'er come between us. Even if ye manage to climb Mount Jablonski, 'twill ne'er come between ye and me. Aye?" It was the best way the bonnie babe of the Bringloidians could put it to words, but it sufficed.

Taking a massive swig from the rapidly emptying bottle, Gavarus wiped her cheeks dry, then patted O'Dell on the head softly as she smiled. "Aye, Leprechaun. Aye."

"Good. Then ye dinna need ta worry if someone else talks to me or hits on me, aye? M'nae goin' nowhere. Which is not to say ye canna chase off the creepers. But we're pals. partners, amigos, deirfiúr an chroí, ach? Hic!" The whiskey started hitting then, and the compact combat pilot, exhausted from an exciting day and a long night of drinking, curled up against the expansive engineer. Pulling her legs and arms in toward her body, O'Dell lay against the warmth of her friend, and soothed by the wheezing breathing of the toothsome technologist, she sighed.

"Ye take care of me and make me feel safe, Briaar," Fiona O'Dell murmured as she began to doze off. "M'grateful."

As O'Dell drifted away, tucked into Gavarus' side, the generally grumpy Tellarite was feeling anything but. She inexplicably had a best friend and she was determined to not mess it up as she had done most everything else in her life. Scootching down a little and leaning into O'Dell's cat-like curl, Gavarus smiled and chuckled a little under her breath. She may not have believed that she deserved a friend as good as Fiona O'Dell, but she wasn't going to lose her if she could help it.

"I'm grateful too, Fiona." The gruff engineer whispered with a smile as she let her friend sleep.