2010-06-14 - Take A Load Off

The TDD-1 is still in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship will be involved in three more operations over the course of the next week, two more off the Atlantic and one, less than 24 hours later, in the South Pacific. For an ordinary submarine it would be impossible. For /this/ submarine it should be impossible. But Captain Teletha Testarossa may be the best submarine captain alive. If it can be done, she will achieve it. That is the kind of pressure she lives under.

And she does it alone. Over the last week her emotional emotional support structure has crumbled. Kaname betrayed her trust. Cagalli...cannot be fully relied on, either. She has convinced herself to trust Rachel but still harbors secret doubts, to say nothing of the simple understanding that Rachel is not mentally stable and must be somewhat coddled. Sumeragi is in space half the time and Tessa doesn't particularly care to spend the time cutting through her bitter self-defensive sassery to form any real bonds. Elenia...probably cares more about Tessa's brain than about Tessa, which is no great surprise; they barely know each other, after all, even if that night alone was nice.

Long story short: In the back halls of the Tuatha de Danaan, near the computer cores but in a space calculated to the thirty-seventh decimal point to be the most removed from both smoke detectors and common personnel traffic, there is a smell like cigarette smoke.

There is also Tessa Testarossa, coughing pathetically on the floor.

It would be a mistake perhaps to say that Elenia cares only for Tessa's brain; or perhaps more accurately it could be said that she thinks /of/ Tessa as 'Tessa's brain.' Such is her weird philosophy and somewhat creepy commentary, even if the mommy voice also was a clear factor.

And now, as if drawn by some psychic compulsion, or alternately by the fact that most of the time she gets yelled at otherwise, she rounds a corner, sniffs the air, and then looks downwards, the pack of Egyptian cigarettes, long-stemmed holder, and lighter in her hand all shifted around like some kind of strange bushel.

She crouches downwards slightly, and her tone is sympathetic. "Trying in private? You know, that's how I got started." She then reaches out with one faintly whirring hand to pat Tessa's shoulder, lightly.

Tessa looks up, but can't stifle her coughs, eventually managing it only after a little while.

She stays on the ground, knees stuck under her, just looking at the ground with what is very probably shame in her heart.

"I yell at Melissa for this," she mutters, coughing into her fist. "She'd probably laugh at me." And then knock her upside the head. She starts to rise, slowly. ...

She has no idea what to say. She feels more and more like an idiot.

Except for the arm going around Tessa's shoulder. "Ohhh," she says, voice rather jollying, "don't be like that." It is probably enough to keep Tessa from getting up.

"The coughing's normal the first time or two," she continues. Her tone lowers, confidentially. "In fact it happens occasionally anyway, even with prosthetics." More normally. "But what are you worrying about?" NOW she lets Tessa get up, straightening herself.

She continues, shifting the pack of cigarettes around and tapping it at the bottom. Several stick partway out. "Did you steal them from her? The older ones are always harsher, they dry out. I imagine you're feeling a bit of stress lately?"

Tessa is a complete noodle. Elenia exerts that force, and Tessa's only recourse is to look up at her, surprised and a little bit alarmed. What, is she going to get bullied on her own ship, now, too? she wonders, bitterly. Elenia is talking at least. It's useful advice, in a way. Tessa's thinking this is a bad idea, now, as she thinks it through more - a juvenile and weak-willed way to try and get out from under the wall that seems to be rushing down on her. But still...

...When the pressure lifts, she murmurs something incomprehensible, even to herself, and starts to rise at last, sticking to the side bulkhead and looking gloomy. "Yes," she says. "She left a pack in my quarters. I thought..." She thought Mao looks relaxed all the time, and maybe...

"I'm always under stress," Tessa murmurs, quietly. "That's the weight of a commanding officer. But it has been more difficult lately."

"Well," Elenia says, "It /does/ help." She can think of other things that would, but the project she has silently internally assumed without thinking about it as her eyes soften slightly is left alone.

She squeezes Tessa's shoulder then. "Anyway, I bet they'd been sitting half open for weeks at least, hmm? Here, these are fresher." She plucks one out with gloved fingers, turns it around, and holds it outwards.

It looks suspiciously like a cigarette.

Tessa hums, uneasily, unhappily. "Does it?" she murmurs. "I've never seen the appeal, but..." But she's starting to want /something/. Other people are proving troublesomely unreliable as emotional support. Time for the chemicals!?

Tessa feels that squeeze and hums again, still sounding unsatisfied with it all. She catches the 'here' part, and looks over, and finds herself confronted with...

A slow, uneasy exhalation, and fingers reach up to grip the cigarette in two fingers, pulling it away. She can tell the chemical profile just off the top of her head. She was always good at chemistry. "Help is good," she sighs, lamely, thumping her head against the far wall.

"Well, what you want to do is breathe in slowly," Elenia says as she draws out the lighter and flicks it on with a practiced motion of her hand. "Then exhale just the same way. Try to force yourself not to cough. It's going to feel a bit strange if I remember correctly, but it isn't like you're trying to become some sort of /professional/, hm?"

She lights the tip of it, adding conversationally, "You have to be a bit careful to only do the first little bit. If you /want/ to flirt you can always fish for someone with a lighter, but it doesn't work terribly well on Americans." The tip of the cigarette is now indeed glowing cherry red. What do you do, faced with this crossroad of life?

Elenia's looking on benignly even as she flips the lighter shut. There is that peculiarly pleasant smell from a freshly lit cigarette, notably different from the smell later.

Tessa just watches Elenia work with mounting discomfort, even as she listens to the explanation, stores it away. Tessa is a startlingly quick learner as long as she has a teacher who has /anything/ like a clue what they're doing. Strange is right, she thinks. Strange, it was, and a little overwhelming, which just made the whole affair feel more like a huge mistake. But now Elenia's right here and walking her through it, and even a supergenius teenager can fall prey to stupid ideas if they've got someone of suficiently maternal beahvior on hand.

She holds it a little unsurely. Elenia uses that holder; Tessa just looks at her own for a bit, that cherry-red tip and knowing perfectly well what's going on inside, what it'll do to her body.

Staren and Tieria bickering on secure band.

Juku bitching endlessly about the whole procedure.

The faint, nagging question in the back of her mind, that she could have stopped any bloodshed if she'd just called Spectre to a remote, neutral location and /asked/ what the hell was going on.

She slides the cigarette between her lips and attempts to follow instructions, breathing in slowly.

Fortunately, modern medical science can ease a lot of those woes. Which of course is a totally efficient and sensible use of expensive lung-dredging and heart valve rescaping resources.

Of course it's also not going to be a concern for like decades. There is probably a statistically high chance Tessa will die in an accident before then! Now that we're done being cheerful: It tastes curiously sweetish, with an odd hint of some kind of dry fruity taste. It is also irritating, though probably pronouncedly less than the first time.

"Anyway, you have to be a bit gentle," Elenia says as she puts one hand on her hip, the other one lifting the cigarette pack to her mouth where she lips out one of the Egyptian things and then lights it. Slightly muffled by the 'holding it in her mouth' for a moment thing, she says "Quite an argument earlier, wasn't it? You know I can respect them speaking their mind -" She takes a rather voluminous breath inwards, then draws it from her lips and blows it up roughly towards the air vent. "But I mean /right/ in the middle? And that girl, ugh! 'Weh weh weh, /so it's bad/ that they can /defend/ themselves,' as if some sort of mercenary army with questionable long term intentions for the hegemony of an extrasolar colony cluster is in /any/ way a possible threat to a free world."

Good way to increase your odds of dying before cancer gets you: Work in a career where people shoot missiles at you and try to carve your ship open with huge swords.

Tessa is mostly surprised by the taste, though not to the point that she starts to lose control; after that first round of hacking, she's got a rough idea of what to expect, or at least to the point where experiencing it in a way that doesn't blast her composure to ribbons works out.

After another few seconds she starts to exhale. There's a strong impulse to cough and hack and get the intruder out of her lungs, but she manages, with her stupidly stubborn iron will more than anything else, to suppress it as she exhales a thin cloud.

Takes a few good breaths of regular air, while she's at it. "It's not so uncommon," she murmurs, by way of explanation. "The Veda discussion is one they have regularly. Miss Beltorchika was right, Wiremu remains a child in a lot of ways. And Erde has never been very flexible on matters that touch on Celestial Being's mission." She twiddlse her fingers around the cigarette, not quite thinking of it right off the top of her head - falling back on /older/ habits to vent her kinetic frustration. "I've got nothing kind to say about Miss Reimaru, though," she mutters. "She's only recently come here from the Trailers herself, but she seems blind to exactly what you say." She pulls the cigarette up, just kind of looking at it. "...we're here to stop the proliferation of groups like that. I guess you could say it's hypocritical; we more-or-less are one."

"Careful, you'll burn yourself," Elenia says maternally as the cigarette is twiddled. "Maybe she was just worried about her old friends then. Or else she's used to /their/ arguments, but you'd think there'd be, mm, how to put it, the zeal of the convert?" She takes another rather languid drag and exhales as she slumps against the bulkhead as well.

"It really is a little difficult, isn't it? I mean not that Celestial Being aren't a bit, mm, a bit insular themselves," she says as she gestures a bit with the cigarette, "but /frankly/ Wiremu seems to think the entire world belongs to him! Maybe he's the real heir of the Riksent gold mines and he's just waiting for the right time to spring it on everyone."

"Cagalli brought her over," Tessa says. "Perhaps she saw something I don't. Or she just doesn't want to see what's in front of her." That's something Tessa can understand all too well, even if it's annoying to be confronted with.

"Oh," she adds, looking at the cigarette and noticing she was even doing that for the first time. "...thanks."

With less trepidation, this time, she pulls the cigarette towards lips and takes a slow, measured drag, eyes sliding shut to try and think about the relatively pleasant taste over the bitter thoughts of the contradictory band of egomaniacal cats she seems to have somehow wound up the shepherd of. She doesn't talk again for a few moments, just holding it in, before slowly breathing out on the final words, having to struggle not to cough, in part because she also wants to laugh.

"That'd make things easier," she says. She's never liked the smell, but... this isn't.../so/ bad? "Mister Wiremu just wants to be...accepted, I think. It's difficult. I can't really blame him, however troublesome he may be. And he does do good work. That Star Hawk isn't half bad, though I have questions about the stability of his implants. Cranials are always..." 'crazy as hell', but remember who you're talking to, "risky."

And then she glances up to Elenia and laughs a little, muttering, "Sorry. No offense," as she pulls the cigarette up for another drag.

She has no Earthly idea what she's thinking, but...it's a little companionship while she tries to get her head back together. She'll go back on her principles a little for that much.