Princess Tsundere (pendleton) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2015-10-26 04:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | beth bristol, pendleton askew |
Who: Bristol & Pendleton
What: Licking wounds. Metaphorically.
Where: Kamikaze; Captain's office
When: After this
Rating: PG-ish
Status: Complete
It isn't the first bounty the Cuba Libre had stolen from under the Kamikaze's nose, and Bristol dared say—however much it galled her to admit it—that it won't be the last. But it is the first one stolen directly from Pendleton, and she remembers acutely the bitter coppery taste of losing your first bounty to another crew. Like biting your own tongue mid-word, shocking and sharp and more pride than pain. (And to someone like Pendleton who wore Pride - with a capital P - like a shield, it was a bitter pill to swallow). A meeting was in order anyway to discuss what had went wrong down in the sewers, she knew; but perhaps another discussion was in order, as well. The Cuba Libre gets away with their bounty, and though the Kamikaze tries to chase them down, the other crew already has an exit strategy in place, and they are rocketing off before the Kamikaze has fully launched out of orbit. Their quick getaways were always one of their best tactics. They were bountyless and exhausted and one of their crew members would probably smell like sewage for the better part of a week, no matter how well he washed. But such was life. The only path was forward; no time to wallow. She is sitting at her small captain's desk, reviewing the documentation and paperwork she would have to sent to Jadzia when the knock sounds on the door to her cabin. "Come in." There is a tense pause following that before the mental clinking sound fills it, and Pendleton is stepping inside trying very hard to look dignified. A rather difficult task when the smell of sewer radiates in waves despite the fact he took three consecutive showers since stepping back onboard. Fastidiously careful of his appearance, there was something unkempt about him in this moment(the awkward shift of his feet as he straightened up when facing Bristol; glancing at her but not quite daring to meet her gaze) after all, he had failed. Circumstances be what they may be: failure was failure. "Captain." "Sit," she says, gesturing at the small chair in front of her desk; visible hesitation on the part of the Gunner due to the smell he currently carried. Everything about the room was small, despite her imposing presence; but still, she seemed to imbue even the most mundane of secondhand officeware with a sense of severity. Bristol could probably even make a Marilyn Monroe bobblehead seem austere. "Had a chance to clean up, have you?" she asks, marking a few more things on her paperwork. He folded his knees, lowered himself onto the chair and tried not to feel like throwing up(anxiety and stink and memory digging inside like blunt spoon on concrete). "More or less. It's not going to go away for a few days." Which meant that the entire crew would be treated to a delightful souvenir from Mars. And Pendleton was not that much of an asshole to want to inflict this situation onto others. Unless they were the crew of Cuba Libre. "Got my shots from Sawyer too." "Good." Bristol closes her folder of various forms and documents and looks up at him, properly, her hands folded on her desk. She is a direct woman; her gaze is doubly so. It might have been easier if she'd kept looking at her papers; Pendleton is trying to stifle the urge to fidget or fling himself towards the door. "So," she says. "Tell me what happened." An uncomfortable heat crept up his neck, his mouth gaping like a landed trout before closing. Facing his captain day-to-day was not uncomfortable per se, facing her after failure was a whole different issue. "I went down as instructed." Obviously. "Began a sweep along the tunnels, keeping an eye out for anything unusual." But at no point had he picked up the intrusion of Cuba Libre, "The target was hiding on the east block of the area, I spotted him and went after." The entire affair had been methodical, protocol had been followed - he should have returned with the bounty. Sleek slime on the walls, the refraction of his light on the water, scuttling rat feet along concrete; Pendleton wanted to vomit the memory out of his brain and forget it happened. "They came from behind, I didn't have time to-" his fists clenched, resisting the urge to pull at his damp hair. "-there were three." Bristol nods twice: once mid-speech, and again afterwards, brisk and peremptory. "I see. They jumped you, then. How unsurprisingly cowardly of my old crewmates." She purses her lips and, in her first display of frustration, pinches the bridge of her nose for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "Well, what's done is done. I should have sent you in with back-up. That's my mistake," she adds, lowering her hand back to the desk. If it's an apology, it's hardly framed as one: she says it with the same flat affect she might deliver a weather forecast for that day's lift off. "And we'll work on your situational awareness moving forward. The Cuba Libre crew are sneaky, but they're not invisible." No, no they were not. And even at three, Pendleton ought to have done better(a black eye, bruised shin, twisted ankle in return for the humiliation of being shoved headfirst into sewage and having a banana peel tangled in his hair). Bristol's tone feels like a cool hand on the back of his neck, serves more like a balm than expected: respite from the swimming sickness along the insides. "Yes, captain." Young and impatience came hand in hand more often than not, Pendleton prey to this fatal flaw. "There is another thing." Hesitation tangles his tongue, the resounding taunt of the Cuba Libre a sour aftertaste(it was not just his pride as Pendleton, but his pride as part of this crew). "They said about you-" because this was his captain and Pendleton would have never screamed it out to the crew in a message, "-that you're soft, not like before." Cryptic information to the gunner, once released he wondered if sitting on the words would have been a wiser choice. Bristol stares at Pendleton, her eyebrows high, eyes just a hair wider than usual. The gunner looks like he might wet his pants having confessed this little tidbit, or perhaps melt through the hull of the ship, eject his own body out into space. She couldn't blame him: it was hardly as if Bristol had a reputation for gentility. But all she does in that moment, staring at Pendleton, her hands folded on her desk—is laugh. Loud and clear and full of amusement; she covers her mouth with one hand, looks at Pendleton again as if to check he wasn't pranking her (he wouldn't dare), and bursts into another peal of stunned, hysterical guffaws. When she finally collects herself, she touches a finger to the corners of her eyes to be sure she hasn't made herself tear up. "Soft!" she repeats, smiling. It's an equal measure of reassuring and terrifying. "My. I think we've ruffled their feathers, then, haven't we?" His eyebrows went up, unsure on how to respond to this reaction. He was expecting to die. He could still die. Maybe he was dead and this was his ghost. Pendleton stared, jaw hanging slightly open(don't catch bugs with your tongue, boy-- his father's gruff voice as he tossed frozen hearts in a freezer). "Yes, probably, captain." It was not his place to give an opinion; or ask questions about why her old crew mates would say such a thing. There was also a sense of indignation at the words of CL, as if they had physically kicked him while he was down with those words. Pendleton was loyal and would defend the honour of his crew - even if such scuffles were childish in nature. Bristol's chuckles fade after a few moments. She repeats "soft!" to herself under her breath, far more amused than she has any right to be. The thought that anyone in the RAC legitimately considered her soft was probably the funniest thing she'd heard all week. Perhaps all year. But, she thinks, straightening her papers, if she laughed any more she would probably terrify Pendleton into an early grave. She smooths her face and gives him a more characteristically unamused look. "All right. Take another shower. We'll file your report with headquarters when we get back to Ganymede. For now—" she purses her lips for a moment in thought, and opens up her file again. "Well done tracking the bounty. Dismissed." Marionette jerks took him from the chair and out the door; there was a surreal quality to the moment still(the captain had laughed, and not just a little chuckle -- that, well, Pendleton was going to take to his grave too). Which would potentially come sooner rather than later if he could not get rid of the stench promptly. Well done The unexpected happiness brought by those words was welcome. Even if he had failed overall, he could get better. Pendleton would make his captain proud. |