PWD #15: Only Himself To Blame
Only Himself To Blame
Summary: Lennox confronts Daniel in the Head and tries to cheer him up. Cameo by Augie
Date: 21/12/2012 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: None
Lennox Aios Augie 
Head - Battlestar Orion
The Head is the area on the Battlestar to find showers and bathrooms and this is one of many throughout the ship. Male and female crew members share the area equally as space is at a premium on fleet ships. There are half a dozen shower stalls and enclosed toilets as well as urinals along the wall. The room, an L shape dogleg, has the entrance open into the sink area. There are four sinks on the left and four on the right sitting back to back in the middle of the room.
Dec 21, 2004

The Head is the area on the Battlestar to find showers and bathrooms and this is one of many throughout the ship. Male and female crew members share the area equally as space is at a premium on fleet ships. There are half a dozen shower stalls and enclosed toilets as well as urinals along the wall. The room, an L shape dogleg, has the entrance open into the sink area. There are four sinks on the left and four on the right sitting back to back in the middle of the room.

A short time has passed since the simulated training session hosted by the new CAG, Bumper. While the training session could be considered on paper to be a success, there were a number of technical difficulties that will no doubt result in private ass-chewings and doubled efforts to ensure that previous mistakes aren't made a second time. Worst of all, those mistakes could be made in the field, which would claim lives.

Daniel "Talkshow" Aios is alone for the long walk from the Air Wing bunks to the head. Wearing his sweats with a laundry bag, a fresh towel, and his toiletry kit, he slips into the head and heads over to one of the wash basins. Setting his gear down, he turns on the tap and leans down to splash two handfulls of water into his face. Repeating his ritual twice, he leans over the sink and lets the water bleed off of his face while he rubs the back of his neck. It's been a long, long week for the man.

There's the soft beat of boots on decking coming from inside one of the stalls. It's an upbeat rhythm, something from a show tune. It's a Tauron piece, if one's familiar with such things, a tale of murder, a tale of betrayal, a tale of DRINKING! "He had it comin'," she sings softly. "He had it comin'." She drums her fingers against the toilet paper dispenser. "He only had himself to blaaaaaaaaame."

The beat is involved, competently musical. Her voice is okay, not zomgsawesome, but she can hold a key and throw some attitude. Little Lola sings on the pot. Yep. She drops off into humming, tapping her fingernails on the walls of the stall.

One might notice a pair of boots, a helmet, and flightsuit bunched up on one of the benches. The chest pocket reads LENNOX in case nobody out there recognizes the blonde's singing in the loo.

Daniel's eyes open to stare at his reflection in the mirror, tracing every line and sign of his aging while doing his best to not laugh at the sudden emergence of Lola's singing. His brow-line falters and a hissed scoff erupts from his lips. He lowers his head into the basin until he can feel the warm water from the faucet brushing over the hair that lines the top of his forehead. "Frakking Lola…" He laughs again and rises up to his full height, pressing the towel to his hair.

"And 'lo are these times when hollow men and prideful men are faced with the inevitability of their own folly, for all men are finite and only the gods themselves know eternity." He raises his voice, fighting her happy little song with the recitation of literature. "From blackened sky to blackened ground, all men are created equal when survival becomes one's basis of need. For what does man know more than need and the fear of dying hungry and wanting?" He stops at a bench, pausing to pull his tanktops over his head. His dog tags jingle. "Until, at least, that sad day when men have to question whether it was he or the gods themselves that brought about their famine."

Lola's tappy-tapping stops when Daniel speaks up from outside her little stall-box. "'Lo, Talkshow. Hey," She kicks the stall door to punctuate her words. "Do me a solid and turn on the faucet a little higher, yeah?" Oh, but then he does that on his own, so she takes a minute in silence. At last, there's the sound of a blessedly soft tinkle. She sighs hugely. "Thank you, Gods."

"So," the ensign's tone is much more perky this time around. "How you think that went? I mean, before the radiological?" Of course before the radiological. "… You're kinda weird, but I like you." That to his recitation of blackened things. "Biscuits. Hey, can you pass me some paper? There's only a square in here. And it ripped."

"One moment, Convict. I'm trying to get a…" There's a grunt, followed by the light thud of leather falling to the floor. "…boot off." Walking on uneven feet, Talkshow crosses the tile floor towards a latched closet in the corner of the head. Drumming it open, he selects a roll of toilet paper and hobbles his way back over to the line of stalls.

The dilemma suddenly makes itself readily apparent to the man, as he's never quite handed off paper this way before. Overhand? Underhand? Just throw it in? No, he's not the type to throw it in. Getting off of the fence, he carefully leans down, averting his eyes, and sticks his arm under the bottom of the door to offer her the paper.

"Weird? Convict, you came into the Rec the other night with gummy candies stuck to your face." He smiles quietly, waiting for her to take the paper from him. "That, was Erich Gronmayer's Sand and Storm. I think in the end I'll win points for being sad enough to be able to recite some of it off of the top of my head, but you, my friend, are the odd one."

"You just gotta loosen the laces, sir." Lola's comment is ever so helpful. She seems genuine, which, at this point, has to be just a little bit of a pisser. "One then the other, bam. Free footage." She mms. "I think my feet are getting bigger. I found someone else's boots and tried them on, and they fit pretty good." She's sitting in there wearing someone else's boots. That's what she just said. "Wait, maybe the ones I put on today were Milkshake's." The two do have stacked bunks. And Ygraine's feet are pretty damn small. Ah, to be young.

"Thanks," she says, tipping forward to snatch the roll up as it's offered. "Obliged." She grins, and merrily unwinds a few squares to rip them off. "What's wrong with gummi candies? You ate the one that tasted like the floor of the Head in Charlie's." Rust and whiskey. Blargh. "Man, that's darn stuff. Hey, I got something that will cheer you up. Hold on."

"There's nothing wrong with gummy candies, but I like the more mellow flavors. You've got to realize that my father's house is pretty much upholstered in corduroy and…old spiderwebs. We didn't keep much in the way of bright sweets around, let alone ones that tasted of the same color that they were made to appear." He steps away from the stall, taking his lopsided dog and pony show back over to the bench.

"So is this thing that's supposed to cheer me up the sort of thing I should avoid getting ready for my shower for?" He asks, planting his one remaining boot on the bench while he works at the laces.

Lola flushes, and takes a moment to adjust whatever clothing she's got left from the stripping of the flight suit. Her door lock jiggles, then finally pops open. "They should fix these things. This one hangs crooked and gets stuck." She smacks it closed and stomps out in a pair of someone else's boots, hot pink booty shorts, and a tshirt sporting the Buccaneers logo right across the chest. It fits long enough to almost cover the short, but not quite. Her hair has been re-wrapped in a fresh braid, bangs tamed. But she looks like something that just wandered out of a pillow fight at a sorority house. "You're darn right there's nothing wrong with gummis." She trundles over, heavy booted feet clunky on the decking. And she pulls up right in front of the other pilot, dropping her hands to her hips. "You know, you gotta turn your frown upside down." She reaches down to the hem of her tee. "If you fake it, it still helps. I read an article." It was probably in a crinkly magazine. "Here." She whips her tshirt up, and flashes Aios a delicate little yellow bra with white polka dots all over it. And she stands there. "Okay. Did that work? Polka dots always cheer me up." She's totally casual about it, and absolutely sincere. And no, it doesn't occur to her that anyone could walk in, at any moment, and that perhaps rumors of her flashing her undies at a recently-broken-up-Talkshow might come off the wrong way. "Just smile. The cheerful will follow."

At first, Daniel doesn't know quite what to do as the scantily clad Raptor pilot starts walking towards him, the underside of her ass-cheeks hanging out of the pair of hot pink shorts. Slapped across the face with the awkward stick, he stands there dumbstruck, watching her walk towards him in the same way that most animals stare down the headlights of an incoming car.

When the headlights, or her polka-dotted bra come into view, the boot in his hands accidentally tumbles from his fingertips and lands on his foot. He winces and his eyes dip down, then back to resuming what eye contact he can muster. Awkward indeed.

The door to the head opens, the sound of someone saying oh echoes through the room, and then closes again.

"Lennox, love," Daniel reaches out for her shoulders and gives them a soft squeeze. Unable to help himself, he reaches out then for both sides of her head and plays as if he's going to crush her skull. "Yes, that definitely cheered me up, at least a little bit. You're very sweet and I…I…" The novelist is at a loss for words, he turns back to his bench and starts stuffing his tank tops into the laundry bag. He closes his eyes and takes a cleansing breath. "Us fellow Capricans have to be there to help each other when we're down, don't we? What would I do without you?"

Lola stands there for a long moment, tshirt held up, making small talk. She gives him ample time to look over the goods, which are fully encased in fabric, thanks. There's really nothing too scandalous, aside from the inappropriate nature of flashing an officer your panties on purpose. "Oh, well, see. Good." She grins and glances over Aios' shoulder as the hatch opens. There's a pause as someone ducks halfway in and ducks back out. She watches the hatch for a moment. In all the mock threats, she grins, lets the tee fall back down, and she thumps Aois upper back when he turns. "See? Good. There's hope for you yet." There are no lingering touches or awkward brushes of the hand anywhere suggestive. "See, the cheerful stuff already bubbled up through all the dark clouds, and you didn't know what to say." Talkshow speechless. How often does that happen? Lola nods at his question. "Yes, sir. I got your back. Hey, don't even wonder. We got eighteen months." Eighteen months of well intentioned, social-boundary free Lola Lennox, who can't even say porn in a normal voice in front of majors, but isn't shy about tromping around half naked in the head. Maybe it's her youth. Maybe it's that her body's just her body, and young people are used to seeing each other mostly naked all the time. Military life just lowers those inhibitions. Boobs aren't that exciting, but she's all about yellow polka dots.

Talkshow, however, is older and still trying to maintain some sort of balance after suffering a nasty relationship break, and now he's in the head with a young blonde in skimpy clothing, flashing him to cheer him up. For the man, it's a large amount of being kicked in the side of the head with something he wasn't quite expecting. Convict is lucky he didn't immediately go into a seizure.

Looking back over her shoulder as she pats him on his, Daniel stops to consider just how he's going to step out of his sweats and into the shower. He turns, glancing her over before judging the distance to the shower. Openly calculating the distance, he turns his side to her, sighs, and drops them. His surliness has returned at last.

"Lola, there's something about you that needs to be recorded, put on camera, and have a documentary made. I fully intend on giving you an entire chapter when I write about this." Stuffing the sweatpants into his laundry bag, he turns his pale, white ass to her and then grabs his towel. "But, I'm going to be straight with you. It's awkward. It's not that this breakup is in my head, there's just a million stresses right now and we're all constantly at work." He turns to step past her. "So you're saying I should just fake being unaffected?"

Lola is to balance as a wrecking ball is to a Lego city. She swipes up a towel and tromps over to the sinks to wash her hands now that she's had a brief tete a tete with Daniel over by the benches. Her demeanor is as easy as anything, and she goes through her ritual briefly. "Hey, you got a pretty good butt for somebody your age," she says, from her vantage at the sinks. "You'll find somebody new. I know it." She pauses in stripping out of her own clothes, right there in front of the mirror, and turns around with her shorts around her knees. "Did you say you're gonna write about this? I mean, me? Wait, do you write memoir stuff?" And then she finishes stripping, taking stuff off over the boots. It takes a bit of balancing, wobbling, and general dexterity to do so without falling over. Slight cotton material stretch, but those are clunky ass boots. "I know. I mean, one things goes out of alignment, and everything else seems worse, right?" She wads up her clothes and chucks them toward the bench, where her other stuff is. "No, don't fake it. I mean everything, you can't fake that. Be affected. Be hurt. Be stressed out. Be whatever you need to be to be whatever you are." She takes a breath, and lifts her hands. "Just… remember to smile too. I mean, take some time to smile, because it will help. And they say that laughter takes less cleaning up after than tears, you know? I'll help you. Because you need that balance, too. You can't not laugh. You can't be hard all the time. So you be those other things. I'll help with this."

"For my age?" Daniel wraps his reply in a tight layer of sarcasm and then turns to swing it into poor Lennox, and then finds her in even less clothing than she was before. Four eyefulls and a millisecond later, he looks away and chews on the inside of his cheek. Little words whisper over his breath towards the floor as he enters his shower stall. "I'm not that old, Convict. I'm bloody thirty-five. Spare me having to say things like despite my age to you." His smile is obvious in his voice. "But you are rather insightful for someone of your age, you know this?"

Hanging his towel outside of the stall, he turns on the faucet and sticks his head underneath the water. He raises his voice so that the echo of it can reach her, wherever she is, while he starts to wash the sweat and grime from his body. "But yes, I do write memoir stuff. I'm taking it upon myself to write an account of our experiences here. I intend to gather stories of every sad, horrible, joyous, and hillarious moment that I can. I just need to convince people to share these with me, really. Do you have any yet you'd be interested in contributing?"

"Oh…" There's a pause from the little blonde. She clears her throat softly and says, "I thought you were thirty." Awkward. She ducks into a shower stall while Aios is waxing on in defense of his childbearing/not that wrinkly/still gets the lingo agelessness, and flips the water onto high. "Ahhhhhhhh." The sound is a high pitched breath of squeaky air. But it doesn't sound like she was surprised by the ice that spewed from the tap. I mean, she's old enough to know that happens when you whip on a shower from standing. Maybe she likes it. Mother of pearl.

"Wow, I guess. I mean, I guess I could write something. It's been a long time since I did anything but practice AARs and paperwork and stuff." Her squeaky voice squeaks a bit less as the water naturally warms up to something more tolerable. "Maybe. Do you like… take poetry too?" She almost sounds normal by the time she asks that question.

Daniel's voice becomes immediately hard to hear as his words are muffled out by the sound of the shoulder and the downward angle that his head takes. Forehead pressed to the rapidly warming tile, he closes his eyes and lets out a quiet sigh. He's safe now, not from Lennox, but he's safe from the outside. For a few minutes he can find some solace.

"I read poetry far more than I write it." He replies, his shoulders rising and then falling quickly as the soft, pleased sigh is cast down towards the drain. To balance himself, he reaches out to the side of the shower and plants his palm flat against the tile. "But yes, I love poetry." A long pause falls into place. "Sometimes you can't say what you're thinking in some logical, guarded manner. Sometimes it just needs to come out that way. Why? Do you write poetry, or just little yes or no notes?"

"Summertiiiiiiiiiime," sings Lola from one of the shower stalls over yonder. Once the water's warmed up enough that she can breathe again, of course. "I write totally crap poetry," she calls through the rising steam of her shower. She calls a bit loudly, because Daniel's being so quiet over in his stall yonder. And then she resumes her song. "And the livin' is easy." There's a finger-snap there. "I mean, it's crap, but I like to write sometimes. I'll see if I have anything." She's probably dancing under the spray of water. "Dang it. Hey, anybody out there got any soap? I'm soaaaaaaplessss!" She sings that for the benefit of all.

Stepping into the shower, Augie starts to undress from working out in the gym when he hears the… 'singing'. "Who the Hades is frakking a cat in the showers?!" he calls out as he grabs a bar of soap, heading towards Lennox's shower. "Ya want plain, plain, or plain?"

"Bloody hell, Convict, you always pick the unsupplied places." Daniel replies with a laugh and finishes soaping up. Wet bar of soap in hand, he leans out of his shower stall and leans out to tap the wall and offer the soap to Lennox. Seeing Augie, however, he blinks and the soap is squeezed. It flies out of his hand. "Oh frak me, this is getting ridiculous." He sighs and disappears back into his shower. Head back under the waves, he disappears into the background, giving the rather naked Lola a chance to converse with Augie of all people.

Lola falls silent for a moment, and there's just the hiss of the showers to liven up the Head atmopshere. She finally answers the question from whoever that is out there — hey, she doesn't know everyone by voice yet, just that it's familiar enough that she's heard it before — with, "I'll take the plain, sir!" It's a drawn out sir, as one might address a person on the street, not a sir sir.

"I don't know," she calls out to Aios. But she does know. There's a reason she always bums smokes. Sure, she has a stash, but it's a stash, and she squirrels things away. And pre-planning isn't really the strong suit of some folk. Particularly the young ones. There's nothing wrong with communal soap. Right? She whips open her door, wet, long blonde hair plastered to her face and cheeks, long bangs matted down into her eyes. No, she can't see. She thrusts a hand out, naked in the stall doorway, and waits for someone to hand her soap.

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