AWD #084: Journeys and Destinations
Journeys and Destinations
Summary: Cole and Phin make up after the chapel incident. Then chat about Cylons and free will versus predetermination, and other uplifting odds and ends.
Date: 31/03/2013 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: All the King's Horses most directly.
Cole Phin 
Viper Berths — Deck 2 — Battlestar Orion
Bunks and stuff.
AWD #84

Phin has been avoiding Viper country for the last few days, when not sleeping or getting something from his locker or bunk. Presently he's crashed. Or was. He's slated for a later shift, and his alarm just started beeping in his ear. He sits up with a groan, yawning, and running a hand over his face to rub some of the sleep out of it. He tugs his curtain open, to further facilitate this whole awake thing. The light makes him blink and squint, but at least it's jarring enough to keep him from giving into the want to lay back down.

"Oh, hi!" Aristides comments flatly, his face suddenly in Phin's field of vision. There is a quirk of a smirk before he's reaching out with a five fingered point system to Dolly's chest to persuade him back into the depths of his own bunk. It seems Janitor is bent on joining him that personal space, as he's crawling in next to Phin with a hand reaching out for the curtain. The Jig may just have to go without his pre-shift shower for the distraction of the Captain.

Blink blink. "Oh. Janitor. Hey." More blinking from Phin as Cole invades his personal space. "Dude, I'm not sure why this kind of thing keeps coming up, but you? Not my type. Sorry." It's sarcastic. He does not actually think Cole is looking to cuddle. He is confused, but he scoots back amiably enough so the other man has room to sit.

"I don't believe that no really means no." Comes the dry response from Ari as he settles on the mattress, his lanky legs hanging off the mattress and out of the curtain. If there is any hanky panky going on in Phin's bunk? Ari is keeping his boots on. "So. How ya doing?" It's a rather generic question, but it sounds mildly pointedly pointed.

"If those boots come off, I'm going to start screaming," Phin says dryly. As for the question, he shrugs. "You mean apart from incurring the wrath of the CAG and bunking with a Cylon? Same old same old. How're you?" Also generic, but also with a point. And more than a touch of concern. He hasn't managed to confab with Cole since the incident in the chapel.

"Wow, you're shacking up with one too? This Battleship is getting smaller by the day." Cole leans back against the bulkhead in Phin's little nook, studying the surroundings of the little personal quarters of the Lieutenant. "Besides owing you an apology and breaking the heart of a good woman? Same old same old." He repeats. "You did the right thing, calling the MP's on me. I want you to know that."

Phin's personal quarters are relatively neat, though the bed needs to be made just now if he's going to achieve Navy-perfect corners. There are a number of books on the makeshift shelves. The required flight manuals, but those're outnumbered by fiction. And a book of scripture on the goddess Aurora that's bookmarked as if he's been reading it. Also lots of pictures. A few of him and his brother, though those're the only images that suggest family. Some Scorpia postcards featuring beaches and the paragliding cliffs. Several of his Academy days on Leonis, and some new ones he's added since coming aboard. The silliness captured at his promotion party is featured.

Phin doesn't quite make eyecontact with Cole throughout that, until that last part. Blue eyes tick up, a little surprised. "Yeah. I mean. Wish it hadn't come to that. Wasn't sure what else to do, though." A pause. "What was that, man? I mean, at first I thought you were amped off your ass on something but…doesn't seem quite right."

"I was mourning." Cole says simply, his finger tracing one of the book's spines, as if taking particular interest in one of the fiction novels. "My wife. I told you about her, I told you what happened to her. It just happened to be the anniversary of her suicide. I…" Ari takes a moment, collecting his thoughts and more importantly, himself. "I was mourning. And I wasn't thinking. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't thinking."

The book is one of those "newer" post-Cylon War classics written in terse prose. That particular one is about Leonan bullfighting and one man's struggle with his inner demons, and that sort of thing. As for Cole's answer, Phin nods as he takes it in. Taking a moment to look down at his hands, before his eyes raise to the other man again. "We all get a little frakked up sometimes. No worries. I…" He shrugs. Searching for something to say about all that, but all he can come up with is, "That sucks."

"It sucks. It sucks my wife chose to join Dionysus. It sucks my wife couldn't wait for me, couldn't stay for me. She decided that living without me was more difficult than living in general. So yeah, it sucks. And I'm still screwed up as all Hades trying to deal with it. But I'm dealing with it. But beyond my lame ass apology, I wanted to check up on /you/. So. Dish." Ari makes a motion with his hand, like he's egging the younger pilot on.

"You talked to the priestess since all that?" Phin asks. As for himself, he takes a moment to think on it. "Trying to deal with everything, I guess. Some days better than others. I should've just kept my mouth shut and my head down about Redux, seems like. Oh well. I get what I'm dealing with there now. CAG gave me a reality check." He does not sound particularly grateful for this reality check, but he says no more on it.

"No. No I haven't seen her. I…I plan to." Which just sounds like a lame excuse. Janitor's fingers scratch at his jawline sheepishly before his hand falls away and his attention focuses back on Phin. "How /do/ you feel about Redux. I mean, I know what I heard but I want you to tell me." Another reality check in the waiting?

"She's a confessed Cylon agent, and whatever she says, she can't offer any proof she's on our side beyond some intel we could've gotten eventually ourselves, like Storm says," Phin begins. Straightening his posture a little, doing his best clear-eyed and logical spiel about this. "I think, whatever she is, she undermines our morale and ability to act as a cohesive unit. You can see how on edge everybody is when she comes up. And I…" He has more. There are plenty of perfectly legitimate anti-Cylon arguments about Ceres, and he can probably recite all of them by now. But, after a long sigh, what he says is, "…she made me think we were friends. She made me think I could trust her. But it was a lie. It was all lies."

"So is your main issue the fact that she's a Cylon, or the fact that she's a Cylon and she didn't tell you first?" Ari cocks his head slightly, taking a slightly quizzical and impartial stance.

"My issue, Janitor, is that I let her play me," Phin says. "I let her get inside my head and figure out how to frak with me and I…I trusted her. And everything she told me about her past, about her life in the Fleet, about piloting…it was all just some trick. Some spy game so she could run whatever the frak long con she was running on humanity easier. And because I was a sap, I fell for it. But that's not going to happen again. Time I grew the frak up. Maybe about a lot of things."

Ari shifts his seated position, so he can rest his temple on the cold metal and look at Phin more directly. "And if she believed all of that? Everything she told you. What if she believed all of that, and only recently realized she, too, had been lied too? Had been living a lie? And now she's married, to a man who believed her too. Do you think she's scared? Alone?" It sounds as if he

Ari shifts his seated position, so he can rest his temple on the cold metal and look at Phin more directly. "And if she believed all of that? Everything she told you. What if she believed all of that, and only recently realized she, too, had been lied too? Had been living a lie? And now she's married, to a man who believed her too. Do you think she's scared? Alone?" It sounds as if he's speaking random thoughts out loud.

"I think she's a liar. I think she always was, and that she still is. And if you want to believe her, man, that's on you. But I'm done with it," Phin's being stubborn about this point presently. A lot of his anger is plainly of the hurt variety, but angry is easier right now. "She's not alone. She's got her husband and there're still plenty of people left who buy her con job. She doesn't need me." A pause and he asks, "What do you think of her?" Despite all of what he's said, he sounds genuinely curious.

"Nah, she doesn't need you. She may want you, but she doesn't need you. Who wouldn't want their friend when they're going through a confusing and hostile time." Ari merely shrugs at the notion. "I don't know her. I can't say one way or the other. The only thing I consider, that gives me any comfort at night? Is maybe if they were built to look like us, bleed like us, feel like us, is that they can choose sides like us. And I'd like to think Ceres and Knox? Chose us."

"We were never real friends." Phin says it under his breath to himself, but firmly. Perhaps if he repeats it enough times, he'll eventually believe it. He definitely wants to right now. The rest of that he thinks on longer, though it's unclear what he makes of it. "If they really have a choice. Not sure how much any of us even do, most days." A pause and he asks, "One time, you said you believed the gods had a plan for you. You ever had any idea of what it might be?"

"I wish I knew. But sometimes…I think I wasn't meant to. If I knew, then I wouldn't be half the man I am now. Which, to be fair, isn't saying much." Ari's expression turns to humor, his lips thinning with a smile. "Maybe the journey is half the point?"

Phin cracks a half-smile at Cole. "Maybe. Though some journeys only have one destination, however you walk them." His smile doesn't last long. It flickers away, to a pensive look. "Lately I wonder how much our choices matter. How much mine have, anyway. When I was fourteen, my brother and I jacked this guy's car from a casino parking lot. Nothing we hadn't done before. Lots of times. Like I think I said once, I was kind of a punk. No idea where I was going back then, but it was nowhere good. Anyway. The cops nabbed us, because of course they did. Only we didn't just get bounced to juvie. The guy we'd stolen from was this retired Marine colonel, real religious dude. So we got bounced to the Ares School in Celeste, to be all reformed. My brother took to it pretty fast, but I hated it at first. Felt like a cell with a lot of required temple, y'know? Spent my first year there screwing around, looking back I think I was looking for a way to get kicked out. I thought I'd managed it, one day. Headmaster called me into his office. Didn't toss me, though." He doesn't seem done, but he pauses a beat, like he's getting some thoughts in order that've been rolling around in his head for awhile.

"The only advice I can really give you is that you can't screw up any chance you have to protect what is yours. Be they your friends, your beliefs or your family. So if that means once in a while you have to bite your tongue? You should." Ari shifts his head to tilt to the other side."So what did the Headmaster do? Take you under his wing?"

Phin nods in agreement at that first bit. "Yeah. Right now I'm just trying to hold onto what I've got. Make sure whatever's between me and the people who actually matter doesn't immolate. Which is to say, glad we're still cool, after the whole thing with the MPs." He shrugs. And snorts. "Not exactly. I remember standing in front of his desk, expecting to get my ass shipped back to the 'Bay, or to be told to go cut a switch or something. And he said to me…the Lord of War has saved you, if you aren't stupid enough to waste his good fortune. And brought you here for a purpose, to serve your part in his plan. And I remember looking at all the stuff on his wall. Ares scripture about the glories of war and righteous death. And these big murals of battles. Mostly bloody fields and people getting gacked in the neck with spears and stuff. And I just thought…no frakking way is that going to be me. But I wasn't getting expelled that day and, as I thought about it, didn't have anything else to go back to. So I shut up, studied hard, figured maybe I could use the place as an escape hatch off Scorpia. Navy'd let me fly so…that seemed like the place to be. Seemed different than just joining up with the Marines like a lot of the guys did, to go carry around a gun and get shot in frak-ass nowhere. And for a long time I thought it was. But now…what we do out there isn't actually all that different. We just fly real expensive guns. But they want from us is to shoot who they tell us to shoot, and die in righteous battle. And I think about that dream I had, about the Styx, and I…maybe I got myself exactly where they wanted me, even if I was trying not to go there. Maybe that's all the plan is. Just a matter of when."

"There are worse things. We can either give ourselves over to the Gods' plans, or act of our own volitions. Either way, I'm not entirely sure they are separate, nor one in the same. You're a good man, Phin. You have a good head on your shoulders, and I'm not saying that just because we're from the same stomping ground. Eventually, you'll realize it's not about right and wrong, do or don't. History is doomed to repeat itself. All we can do? Is our best." Ari scoots forward on the mattress, letting his legs dangle now at by the crook of his knee. "Don't you have a shift to get to?"

Phin shrugs at the good man part. "It's easy to be a good officer, even a good pilot. You just follow the rules and learn to finesse the stick. All you need's good reflexes for that. Do it long enough, you're exactly what everyone expects you to be." That was probably not at all what Cole was getting at, but those are the things about himself he can actually qualify in his brain. So it's where he takes it. "Thanks, though. Ari look…I'm glad we're cool. I trust the people I fly with, don't get me wrong, but there's that and there's…I'm getting a handle on who my real friends are, and I'd like to think you're one of them." He half-smirks. "Even if you are a little bent sometimes. Ain't we all, right?"

"More than sometimes." Ari reaches out to tug aside the curtain. "Just remember: two people can be friends without having the same beliefs. It just takes understanding. And again, sorry about the whole nearly clocking you with a wooden Idol thing."

"I been clocked with worse. And I got you. I understand, I guess." Phin smirks, and drops out of his bunk. "Yeah. I should suit up. I'm on CAP, so I get to fly my really expensive gun today. So there're some perks, if nothing else. Later, man. Good luck with the priestess. She strikes me as the forgiving type, for what it's worth. I think in her line of work, it's even technically required."

Ari smirks back at Phin and shoves his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders rolled forward as he retreats to his own bunk. Nope. The Priestess will have to wait for another night, it seems Ari is headed for rack time. "Technically." He repeats, letting the junior pilot head off for CAP, further unmolested.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License