Spiraling?

Posted on Thu Dec 31st, 2020 @ 2:44pm by Ashe Zachariah & Lieutenant Commander Calvin Morgan

A quiet Earth bar. The kind that music was always in the background, quiet enough to have a conversation, loud enough to drown out the other conversations. The lights were dimmed a while ago as the sun had set.

He sat at the bar, with open stools on either side of him. Calvin didn't look well. Not that you could put a thumb on the specific of it. He had discarded his uniform he was wearing earlier in the day to put on plain civilian clothes. They had the look of coming out of a locker that hadn't been touched in years, which they had. He nursed a whiskey on the rocks, staring off at the bottles of alcohol that lined the back wall.

As she walked into the bar, Ashe looked around, narrowing her eyes to adjust to the dimmed lights. It didn't take long for her to find Calvin, his familiar figure was quite obvious, especially to her.

Threading her way between tables, she walked up behind him, resting her hand lightly in the middle of his back as she leaned forward. "Well, fancy meeting you here," she offered with a grin before shifting her gaze to the wall of bottles before nodding at the bartender and indicating that she'd have whatever he was having.

If Calvin was startled, it didn't show. His movements and thoughts dulled slightly by the the drinks he was having. He was somewhere on the far end of tipsy, but not overboard. He looked Ashe's way as she sat down and smiled. "Well hello to you too," He responded with a smile.

"Figures you'd be in a dive bar like this," she said with a grin, sliding onto the stool next to him and wrapping small hands around the glass set in front of her. "I left messages for you..." she cast a glance between his glass and the slightly flushed hue in his cheeks. "So," she asked, motioning toward his glass. "How much catching up do I have to do?"

“Did you? I haven’t looked at my comms in a while,” Calvin replied, his focus shifting from her to his drink. “Umm, two?” He responded. The bartender subtly raised three fingers behind Calvin before returning to his work. “Starfleet said we were all on forced shore leave for a week so I haven’t really looked at any of the communications in a few days.”

"I was going to see if you wanted to grab a drink, but it seems you beat me to it." She picked up the glass and took a sip, her gaze still firmly on him. "Wanna talk about it? Or shall we just get drunk and make bad decisions?"

“Can’t say there is much to talk about. However drunkenness and bad decisions with you sounds like a fantastic idea,” Calvin said, clinking his glass gently on hers before taking a big swig. “Any word on the Captain?”

Ashe shook her head. "Captain was rushed off the Ts'usugi ship as soon as we got to Earth and taken straight to Command. I'm sure y'all will hear something soon enough, and until then," she held her glass up momentarily before finishing the drink, shuddering slightly and setting it back down on the bar. "I have some catching up to do it seems."

Calvin chuckled. “Not an easy drink to knock back!” Clinking her new glass and downing his before raising a finger for another. “After being mentally dissected and interrogated for several days and now forced shore leave, they have seemed to leave the whole crew in the dark. I don’t know what they expect us to do. ”

The rainbow haired woman shook her head and laughed. "That makes me glad I'm just a civvie, not important enough to worry about and not worth talking to in the eyes of Starfleet," she replied with a grin. "I guess they're gonna have some big decisions to make. Pretty sure a starship exploding isn't exactly run of the mill, especially given the circumstances." A pause, another sip. "You holdin' up okay though?"

“Starfleet’s safety record is pretty impeccable. Can’t imagine what some of the other departments are going through right now, let alone Captain and XO.” Calvin took another sip. “Me? Yeah I’m good. Still got four limbs and not jammed up in a hospital. Can’t say I enjoy the enforced purgatory but it is what it is.”

"You're just looking at this the wrong way," Ashe grinned as she sipped the drink, this time a little slower. "You've got no one looking over your shoulder, no commitment and no responsibility, at least for a moment. Live it up! Good food, good drink, and good company, what can possibly go wrong?"

“An interesting way to think about it,” Calvin replied, holding his drink just shy of the bar. “I haven’t spent much time on this planet since I was stationed at Starfleet Medical for that bit.” He paused to think about it for a moment. “Though I can think of a very long list of things that could go wrong with some bad decisions,” Calvin smirked at Ashe, taking another sip of his drink.

Ashe laughed openly at his retort and shook her head. "Just don't tell her your real name, and stay away from the Klingons. Their pain sticks leave too many bruises. I've heard that Orions can be fun though," she replied with a grin.

“I may like a little pain with my fun,” Calvin replied in a coy but matter of fact way. “Though green is a nice color I don’t think an Orion would be my speed.” He studied his drink for a minute before pipping back up again. “What are your plans with this free time you now have?”

"Good food, good drink and good company," Ashe raised her glass momentarily. "Then, I guess when y'all get reassigned I'll work out what I plan to do. That whole, I'm outta work now thing. But for now, huzzah!"

“Huzzah,” Calvin replied, tapping his glass to the bar before knocking back what was left. He set the glass down and pushed it to the far side of the bar, and raised his finger for another drink. “I’m sure wherever Captain goes, she’ll bring you with if you still want to fly.”

Finishing her drink, Ashe set the glass on the bar before leaning toward him, bumping her shoulder against his and offering a grin. "Why would I not want to fly? Especially if it meant maintaining such interesting company," she grinned.

Reaching and picking his drink, he leaned into her shoulder for a moment, returning the grin. “It wouldn’t be the same up there without you, that’s for sure.” He sipped at his drink.

"If I wasn't around you'd have to find someone else to randomly appear in your bathroom while you're taking a shower, or to take over your office and put their feet up on your desk," she teased. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure you'd have no shortage of volunteers, especially for the shower part, but I bet they don't make a BLT sandwich nearly half as good as mine."

“Have to say, you are the first to beam into my bathroom, but I can’t say I had any complaints about it, wouldn’t stop you from doing it again,” Calvin chuckled. “Probably the best damn BLT I’ve ever had.” Calvin worked his drink a bit more before setting it on the counter and spinning it slowly, something for his idle hands to do.

Ashe laughed as she watched him turning the glass in his hands. "See, not all the malfunctions were terrible." She finished her drink and set the empty glass on the bar. "You don't do boredom well do you?" she mused.

“No, I don’t,” Calvin replied sipping his drink before turning her direction again. “Boredom usually gets me in a lot of trouble with very questionable decisions, so I try to keep busy.” He shrugged slightly.

"Now you have my interest piqued," she pushed her empty glass forward and motioned to the bar tender for a refill. "Seems you have some stories to tell, so spill!"

“Stories that I do have,” Calvin said. “But I’m not near drunk enough to spill them,” Calvin said with a wink. He took another sip of his drink, his mind wandering to the past for a moment, which slowly morphed into the recent past. His smirk remained but the life of his faced slowly drained as his mind wandered.

The concern on her face was evident as she watched him. With one hand wrapped around her glass, she reached out with the other, her hand resting over his, fingers wrapping around his hand until her fingertips pressed into his palm. She didn't say a word, instead picking up her glass and taking another sip, keeping her hand over his to make her presence known.

Calvin looked down at her hand, and back up at her face. He opened his mouth a few times, taken off guard. The life returned to his face quickly as his mind focused on the present again. He drank from his glass with his one hand still on it. “I’m fine, really,” he finally said, gently holding onto her hand.

"You're not, but you will be. And in the interim, we have alcohol and bad decisions to make, so where shall we start?" she asked with a grin, squeezing his hand slightly. "Personally, I think more alcohol, I'm not even close to buzzed yet!"

Calvin raised his hand, "Another round of drinks, and shots!" He said to the bartender.