Another round of drinks

Posted on Sunday May 12th, 2019 @ 22:00 hours by Mayterial Droz & Ares Onasis

Mission: Pixie Dust
Location: Captain's Quarters, Deck 1, Fawkes
Timeline: MD03 - 1900 hours
3052 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

It had been a long two days, but with everyone inoculated against the effects of the lingering hallucinogenics in the ship's environmental systems May was confident that they could continue their way. With the injuries her first mate sustained in the chaos she needed someone to fill his spot and what seemed like the craziest idea two nights ago now registered as the only logical thing to do in her mind. She opened a comm. channel to the quartermaster, =A= Miss Onasis, this is the Captain, can you please report to my quarters? =A=

Ares tossed the grape, giving out a loud cheer as it landed perfectly into Colt’s mouth. “Damn, I’m good!” She let out a chuckle as Colt joyfully chewed on the food and leaned back against the wall. It had been over 24 hours since their conversation about what happened during Ares’s hallucination and he seemed to be in quite a comfortable position. As they sat on her bunk in her quarters he couldn’t help but just keep smiling at her strong beautiful face. She had been through everything and she was still hanging on. He would never stand to replace Adam but he certainly hoped she would consider settling for him.

Ares’s finger still felt bare but the feeling wasn’t as hollow and empty as it had been yesterday. She could feel Adam looking over her shoulder as she placed her engagement ring back in its box and tucked it away in the drawer below her mattress. He would’ve rolled in his grave if he actually saw her act the way she did all in his name. Deep down she knew he only wanted to see her happy. And she seemed content in Colt’s company. He was a hard worker with a big heart. He cared about the people in his life and made sure everyone was taken care of. And, boy, was he a lot of fun!

Colt wanted so bad to grab her face by her jaw and kiss her with all of his might. He needed to wait, though. He needed to wait for her to be ready and to be the one to make the move to the next level. She had gone through Hell and back and had been at her most vulnerable. He couldn’t ruin what they were building because he wanted to feel every inch of her. Also, he knew she would be worth the wait. So instead of jumping across the bed and landing on top of Ares, he let out a satisfied sigh and picked up a bit of the sandwich from the tray that rested between them on the bed.

The silence was rather pleasant, unforced and relaxing until it was broken by the Captain’s hail. Ares glanced over with a disappointed drop in her smile. She was almost happy for the first time in months and she didn’t want to leave. “Well, duty calls,” Ares sighed the words as she looked back at Colt. “I’ll be back, okay?” She leaned forward, giving Colt a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“You better be,” Colt’s lips twitched up from both the soft touch of her lips and his silly joke.

Going back through the day, she tried to think about what she did wrong to prepare herself for the summons. Nothing came to mind. She’d been settling in comfortably down in the basement of the Fawkes and cleaning up the mess left behind by the turbulence. She was still on good terms, though still somewhat tense terms, with May and she still in her mind prepared to get kicked off. Maybe May was going to tell her to pack up and go? At least she had Colt who’d be able to help her get back on her feet. Ares was as prepared as she could be for the meeting.

Going through the door that opened for her, Ares stopped as she looked at the two empty glasses and the bottle of brandy that was opened and in the Captain’s hand. “You need something, Droz?” She asked with a bit of hesitation in her voice. She still couldn’t decide whether this was going to be a good meeting or a bad meeting. The alcohol just made the distinction even more subtle.

"I probably interrupted something, but I wanted to talk to you for a moment." Mayterial stood in the middle of the room and motioned for the couch before she poured them both a glass of the brandy that had fueled their earlier conversation, "Please, take a seat." She gave a warm inviting smile.

Ares’s eyebrows furrowed at the rather pleasant demeanor. It was so… out of character, especially after what had gone down over the past three days. Her feet were stuck to the ground, worried that she was about to sit in a trap that would take out her bottom half. But she did anyway, using slow movements to settle down before taking a grip of one of the glasses. “Are you actually happy right now? Because you look it,” Ares’s lips twitched up slightly at the joke.

"I'm glad we got things back to normal, relatively speaking." Mayterial took her own glass and sat down next to Ares, "So, I guess I'm happy." She was happy it was putting Ares a bit more at ease. "I wanted to talk to you about what we went through in the MedBay, and Greece I suppose." She allowed Ares to take that in for a moment before she wanted to continue. Give her an option to brace herself or walk out if need be.

Ares’s face dropped at the mention of having to repeat that conversation. She had talked about it with Colt the day before and made her peace with herself. Her confused lips had waned as her whole body began to warm slightly. The words couldn’t come out of her dry mouth, getting caught in the lump that was forming in her throat. Greece had been her lowest point, far exceeding anything illegal and immoral she had ever done. Why would May want to talk about it anyway? She’d been there and seen it. Ares finally nodded her head slowly in affirmation as she tightened her lips against each other.

"After our previous round of drinks I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep you on after our next port of call." Mayterial wasn't quite sure how all of it fit together in her head, but it made sense to start there, "I know I was out of line and you had a visceral reaction to that. Knowing now the deep emotions, the person, behind that. It makes more sense." She shook her head a bit, not quite satisfied with how she was wording this, "What happened, when the love of your life was taken from you, gutted you. I could feel that. I could feel all of those emotions." She took in a deep breath, "and even even if it meant that it was an illusion, and even if it meant that in reality, you would wither away in a coma, I think you would have wanted to stay in that house in Greece. I think coming back with me must've been the hardest decisions you've ever made for yourself."

The words confused Ares, especially with how delicate May was being with them. Where was she going with this? She had been right in thinking that she was about to get kicked off of the ship for her misstep, but there was hesitation in May’s voice when it was mentioned. Was this an apology? Just the mention of Greece sent a stinging pang in her stomach. She had kept her eyes to the ground, unable to bear to let May see the struggle in her face. Ares had been doing so well since the final clean up and now she feared taking a giant leap back. “Something like that,” was all she could mutter.

"I need people around here that can make the hard decisions. People that are not afraid to go with their gut." Mayterial took another drink, she never was someone that really beat around the bush like this but the entire situation was more than a little screwed up, "I need people like that in positions where they can make the decisions, not in positions where they just push boxes around in our supply closet." She shook her head a bit, "Sorry that this is coming out so convoluted. I need a first mate. Volok is in a bad shape and I don't know if he'll ever be in a good enough shape again for space travel, let alone for the role of First Mate. I need someone that can stand next to me, someone that can stand up to me" She gave a sheepish grin, "someone to slap me if I cross the line."

Ares’s blood started pumping harder the longer May talked. As soon as she mentioned Volok, the woman’s head began raising both in confusion and curiosity. May’s wish list for a First Mate was what completely changed the look on her face. Ares’s eyebrows, which were scrunched up began to jump up slightly. She could see where this was going. May, the Captain and the woman she backhanded just a few days before in a drunken fit of anger, wants her to be her second. My God… there must’ve still been some of that stuff still lingering in the environmentals. The Captain had officially lost her mind. Ares couldn’t help but let out a laugh in humor and disbelief. Why, out of all the people who were working here, would May choose the one who still carried too much baggage around. “You want me to be your First Mate…” Shaking her head, she took a rather long pull from her glass. “You’re paráfron.” Ares still had a habit of slipping in Greek words into her conversations. “You’ve really gone off the deep end, you know that?” She leaned back in her chair and watched May think over the decision again.

"Well, it's what got me this ship, I figured it's working out well for me so far." Mayterial thought back a moment to the painful memories of the crew nearly a year back. It wasn't that she wanted to forget about them, but she needed to move on. Give everyone on the ship now a fair shot at this. "This isn't something I came to lightly." She gave a smirk, "I thought I needed someone to balance me, someone like Volok. And to be fair he hasn't really had a fair shot with everything that happened." She then shook her head and took another drink from her glass, "But truthfully, he doesn't drink brandy. I can't really trust someone like that, you know?" She joked and let out a laugh of her own.

“True,” Ares let out an amused breath. “But can you trust a Hell-bent dirty cop to help keep your shit together?” She was less joking than May, but kept her voice dry and unreadable knowing full well that the Betazoid could, and would, read her like a book. That was the more concerning part for her. May had jumped in on her thoughts on more than one occasion. What was going to keep her from doing it again and again in the future under the possibly false pretence that she was only ‘doing it to help’?

May shrugged, "Only time will tell." then another smirk crept onto her face, "hell, if it doesn't work out I could still go with my initial plan to eject you out an airlock." She finished her drink and gave another comforting smile. "Look, I know we've gotten off on the wrong foot. The whole thing where our minds got affected and my telepathy got a little stronger than I generally like it." She shook her head a bit, "That's not how I wanted this to come about. but I'm a pragmatist above all else and if something good can come from this whole ordeal I'm not one to shy away from it."

Ares shook her head. “It’s not an issue of practicality, Droz.” in all honesty she was made for leadership. Ares was honest, charming, straightforward, loyal, and brutal when she needed to be. It was the other thing that stood between them that was keeping her apprehensive about the whole thing. “It’s the other thing. I know you can trust me. You can read my fuckin’ mind.” She paused, looking at May square in the eye, her voice dropping a bit to push her point across. “Can I trust you?”

It was the question that May had been asked a hundred times, and perhaps even then a hundred times over. Before she got the Fawkes that was her entire line of work. Trust. Getting people to trust her, then take them for everything they'd been worth. That wasn't her anymore. She was actually, genuinely, trying to bring out the best in the people around her. Keep them all on the straight and narrow, "Trust is something that I have squandered by the boat load in the past. That's not me anymore. I'm not asking you to trust me just by looking in my dark orbs." she placed her empty glass on the table, "I'm asking for you to give me a chance to proof that I can be trusted." Mayterial took a moment of silence to allow that to land with her, "the first step towards that is to train you against mental intrusion. At the very least I can teach you how to notice it's happening in the first place."

"No, no," Ares shook her head as she finished off her glass, then held it softly against her thigh. "I will learn the basics on my own. You'll fine tune me when it's been reasonably clear that you're not going to take advantage of me," her lips tilted up slightly in humor, "or at least try to. But you know what I'm capable of already so I think it's safe to say you're going to tread lightly in that regard." Ares was always one to want the advantage, the upper hand in any sort of power struggle. It's how she managed to remain alive and breathing even during the most dangerous moments. If only she could've used it to save Adam. But that was neither here nor there and it wasn't doing the woman any good to dwell over the idea. "So what exactly are my official duties if I were to accept your offer?" She hadn't officially said yes and needed to milk the situation a bit more before she did. It would be dumb of her to continue to, as May said, 'push boxes around' when she'd be one of the head honchos onboard. That meant more influence in decisions and a higher cut from jobs. She'd lose her mind if she had to stay in the depths on the cargo bays after experiencing only a day or two there.

"If that's what you prefer." May referred to the offer to bolster her mental defences. She grabbed the bottle again and offered to refill the glasses, not waiting too long for a conformation to pour it out into the empty glasses. She choose to ignore the thinly veiled threat in regards to any advantage that might be taken, "You'd be the second in command aboard the vessel. Your primary duty is to assure the safety of the ship and its captain." She took up the glass and put it up as a way of toasting that, "in general that comes down to training the crew to be ready for emergency situations, running drills with the Bosun, the Engineer, the Master-at-Arms." She took a sip to take a moment to assess how that all was landing with the former police officer, "It's also making sure the right priorities are set for the different departments, and helping me in finding and negotiating, new business." Another sip, "all of that excitement and more for a bigger cut of the profits and a higher base wage."

Nodding her head slowly, Ares took a drink from her freshly filled glass. There were quite a number of perks in taking on the job, and she actually would be able to use her training. When she was a cop she actually did her job and really enjoyed it. She was there when people needed her, and shook down the criminals on the side.

Adam would be proud of her. He’d kick her ass from his grave if she didn’t take the offer. “Alright, Droz,” Ares placed her glass down on the table next to her and stated with finality, “I’ll take it.”

Mayterial stuck out her hand to seal the deal with her freshly minted First Mate. Only time would tell if this had been the right decision, but there would always be the next port city. once they had shaken on in May took another sip of the brandy, "I probably interrupted something."

Ares gave her a small smirk. “You’re going to have to tone back your Betazoid-ness, Droz.” She stood up from her chair, keeping what was going on between her and Colt to herself. In all honesty, she really didn’t know what was going on. At least not entirely. There were still many questions left unanswered. “But looks like I’ll be going back to him with a bit of good news.”

"Don't make it too late, your day stays early tomorrow." May finished her drink in one fell swig. She should probably take her own advice and have an early night. Just one more drink wouldn't hurt, though, besides she had sector news to catch up on and needed to put out some feelers on the outpost they were heading to as an impromptu layover.

[OFF]

Mayterial Droz
Captain

&

Ares Onasis
First Mate

S.S. Fawkes

"Opportunities don't happen, you create them."