trans_9 | Glory be to Paddy, but they're drinkin' it straight. [OPEN, R for Cussing]

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Glory be to Paddy, but they're drinkin' it straight. [OPEN, R for Cussing]

Earlier, somewhere in the Vatican's outbuildings:
Carefully, Murphy poured a little of the precious liquid into a dish, then placed the bottle far, far away. He nodded to his brother who then, with great ceremony (and from a safe distance) lit a match and tossed it in.

The flame burnt fast, bright, and blue.

The twins grinned.

******

The next flame burnt a decidedly different color, and distinctly higher. The boys jumped back, laughed, and Murphy pointed at his twin.

"You're trying it first!"

Now, nearly everywhere:
Connor and Murphy paraded through the city, past the library, the sensoriums, through the sleeping quarters, winding their way to the cafeteria. The two, who had been strangely difficult to pin down lately, were now laughing, chanting, and banging on pots they'd scrounged from somewhere. They'd each a large jug or two slung on make-shift straps over their shoulders, and their chant seemed to go something like this:

"Two Irishmen, two Irishmen were digging in a ditch,
one called the other a dirty son of a
Peter Murphy, Peter Murphy, sitting on a dock;
along came a bumblebee and stung him on the
cocktail, ginger ale, five cents a glass.
If ya do not like it, ya can ram it up your--
Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.
If you're hit with a pail of shit, PLEASE CLOSE YOUR EYES!"

Between rounds of it, they were sipping from flasks and shouting "Come on, it's fuckin' Saint Paddy's Day! Free drinks in the mess! Get your arses in there with yer fags put out, or we're fucking partying without ya!"

[ooc note]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Connor looks almost serious for a second, still smiling a little. "Hey, we're trapped on a giant organic ship with God knows what after us, comin' home from fuckin' terrifying missions, gettin' possesed by slugs, and tons of other fuckin' horrible things. I think a bit of booze is perfectly all right."

"In moderation," he replies, folding his arms. He doesn't sense a lot of moderation in this room, from the look of a few people.

"If we're attacked while half the crew is drunk, it lessens our chances of survival. I still don't trust this ship."

And the Chief gets clapped on the back as Leon enters the conversation.

"Chief, relax a bit. Have yourself a drink, its on the house."

"It smells like it would kill me," he replies. "Et tu, Leon?"

"Hn... thought you Spartans were tougher than that." The was a quiet grin there.

"Everyone needs to blow off some steam. I haven't even been here half as long as you, but it's still be a lot to take in. And its not like Stacy will let the crew get away with too much in terms of drunken antics." With 'mommy' keeping a close eye on them, it was highly unlikely people would end up in bed together, at least.

"A drink or two might do you some good. You've been looking like shit the last few days."

"I don't need to test my strength for no reason," he says. Chief is no fun, Leon. Don't you know?

"I've looked like "shit", as you say, due to a lack of sleep. Alcohol won't improve matters. Most of the threats we've faced so far have come from on the ship itself and once even from inside our own numbers. I see more risk than advantage in this."

"Agreed." Leon had a few drinks by now, but he knew his limits quite well, so he was still think with a reasonable level of clarity. Tactically, the Chief was correct.

Leon took another sip of his drink.

"That being said, everyone walking around, paranoid as all hell isn't healthy either. Everyone is having trouble dealing with the reality of the situation. Just look at how much time the crew spends in the sensoriums, trying to find ways to forget the rest of the ship is there.

"They need to learn how to deal with things here, and they need to learn how to deal with each other. I've only been to a handful of meetings, but every time there's more than a handful of people in a room, a fight or three is guaranteed to break out. At the rate we're going, its only a matter of time before someone snaps and things get ugly.

"Alcohol will lessen their abilities, yes, but it can also ease attitudes and loosen tongues. It'll get the crew to relax and talk to each other. In the short term, this could be a disaster. In the long term, though, this could pay huge dividends and help build a stronger, more united group.

"Seeing as how we're going to be here for a while anyway, you might want to start looking more than one or two steps ahead, soldier."

The Spartan sighs.

"I don't take any immediate disadvantage lightly," he replies. "You can't always afford to wait and see if it pays off. You have to worry about what you have here. Now. That's what matters, because before you know it everything can change."

"I can't shut this down now, and I won't. Maybe you're right. But if anyone gets out of hand I am going to close this operation up," he says. "Release is all well and good, but if anyone starts wasting violations because they can't think straight I will make it stop."

While there are some points in there that he disagrees with, the response seems reasonable enough, so Leon isn't going to argue further.

"You're an excellent soldier, Chief, but you'd make a horrible politician." That's why he respects him.

"Don't ever change."

"Thank God for that," he replies, meaning it. The Chief hates politics, deeply.

"And I don't plan on it. If I start behaving differently, that's everyone's cue to check me for brain worms, got it?"

Hey, is he actually joking? Whoah!

It got a bit of a laugh out of Leon.

"Sir, yes sir!" Leon didn't follow that up with a mock salute, as he knew some soldiers found that rather rude.

"So how long have you been in the military?"

"Getting to be around thirty years, if you count all the time in cryo sleep," says the Chief. Thirty-six years, actually. And considering that he's forty-two, the math is interesting.

But he's not going to let that particular secret loose.

There was an eyebrow raise. By his own estimation, the Chief had to be in the mid-forties at the worst. Late forties seemed possible, but a bit of a stretch.

He passed the curiosity off as an interest in something else.

"Cryo sleep?"

The Chief probably ranges from his mid to late thirties physically, considering the time he's spent frozen.

"Yes. It's pretty standard to freeze all but essential crew in cryosleep on long slipspace jumps. Mostly depends on how long you'll be in slipspace. It doesn't seem like much at first, but even weeks start to add up. If it weren't for cryopods, people would waste entire years of their lives waiting to get from point A to point B. Even if we ran into a Covenant ship in slipspace, neither of us could fire weapons anyway."

"That's why I look older than Kelly now, we're both forty-two but she's been frozen a lot longer than I have."

Kelly and John go way back, you see.

"Kelly's forty-two?" He hadn't quite meant to blurt that out, but it was still surprising none the less. "Cryo sleep is very good on the skin. And the mind." Sharp as a tack didn't even begin to describe that girl.

Though his brain was operating a bit less efficiently than usual, it was still operating quite well, so 42 - 30 =

"You and her joined the military when you were about... twelve?"

Edited 2009-06-15 16:42 (UTC)

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