Chapter XXXVIII: Happy Christmas
December 23, 2540 (UNSC Calendar)/three months later
UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Reach, Epsilon Eridani
"Fuck off!"
"Come on Frank, it's the Christmas dinner," Pavel said. "Or Hanukah, no, not that. It's the December banquet, we have one every year, you've never missed it."
"I said fuck off didn't I?"
"You know, Marina is going to be there…"
"The whole ship is there, alcohol is like honey to them," I interrupted. My statement probably lacked strength, considering that I had a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand.
"…and you might receive your own little Christmas miracle. Maybe she'll wear that sexy underwear for you," Pavel continued unperturbed.
"I don't care."
"Yes you do, you've been chasing after her for like forever!"
Ok, forever was being used loosely here. It had been nine months since I started feeling myself attracted to her (more than in just fantasies anyway), but most of that time had been spent in cryo or away from her.
"Sexy underwear…" Pavel threw in again.
Now I don't know if it was because as a man I was drawn to attractive women in skimpy clothing, or because the alcohol in my system was messing with my judgment, or because I actually wanted to go but was just being a stubborn asshole, but I agreed.
"Fine, I'll go," I mumbled.
"Great, that way I won't be alone," Pavel said merrily.
"What happened to that Delacroix chick anyways?"
"I dunno, I think I'm in the friend zone," he said sadly.
I laughed, probably louder than was considered appropriate for this situation, but Pavel was royally screwed. Once you were in there it was a bitch to get out of.
"Hey, maybe you'll get your own Christmas miracle," I said.
"Fuck off!" he said. Funny how positions change so quickly isn't it.
I laughed for some more before deciding that standing up was probably the best thing I could do right now. I took care not to fall face-first into the floor, but my augmented body handled it pretty well. It was, after all, the body of a drinking champion version 2, so it was cool. I put on a shirt and splashed my face with water. Eight years ago I normally would've splashed my hair as well, so it didn't look like I was a lazy bastard that had just gotten out of bed, fortunately, the short haircut that I sported right now was a good way to avoid that. I had been forced to shave my mane by one Lieutenant Krikor Darbinian. What an asshole right? It had been forever since I had been actually forced to get a haircut, I usually asked the ships barber to trim my hair every couple of months. That way my lovely head look even lovelier. I had my hair down to a mohawk. Not my style, but admittedly, I didn't look as bad as I would've expected.
"When is the banquet?"
"Twenty fourth," Pavel reminded me.
"Christmas Eve then?" I asked. For a multi-national, multi-religion organization, the UNSC sure liked things Christian.
"What day is today?" I asked.
"Twenty third."
"Already?" Time flies when you spend your days drunk in your room.
"Yes, already."
"Ok, let's do something," I said.
"Firing range?"
"There isn't much else to do now is it?"
Five minutes later we were both in the firing range with our pistols and Pavel's ACS. I had been itching to try out the weapon since I last saw it in action, but I'd ask Pavel to borrow it later on. Now I just had to shake off my drunkenness by shooting at targets. That way I could pass off for a superb shooter instead of a god-like one. Hurray for egotistical comments!
"How'd you manage to get in the friend zone?" I asked while putting up my target.
Pavel glanced around before answering, the only other person in here was an army captain about thirty spaces away, so we were safe. "I think I was too nice to her."
"Pretty sure that's not the reason," I said.
"Well, somewhere along the line I said something wrong, because now she treats me as a friend," Pavel explained after emptying his shotgun magazine.
"You know I'm not good with girls, I can't really help you there," I said. "Mind if I borrow that?" I asked, pointing at the shotgun.
"Yeah, no problem," he said as he tossed it towards me. "What do you mean you're not good with girls? You got Layla, who was hot as hell, that redhead chick, who was hot as hell, and now Marina, who is, coincidentally, hot as hell. Your life is like a bad sitcom about single life."
"Well, that's three girls, I never went to school with girls, my uncle sent me to an all-boys military academy, so I'm not big on dealing with high-school troubles."
"They're not high-school troubles," Pavel complained. When he said that I realized that despite both of us being in our mid twenties, we still had been in slipspace or cryo for a considerably long time in the past years. That meant that our brains had the maturity of someone a couple of years younger than we actually were. Yeah, it would get worse with time.
I grabbed the shotgun, feeling its weight for only the second time. It wasn't as heavy as you'd expect, but still heavier than anything I was used to, except the SPANKr. I grabbed a single magazine and pushed it into its slot. Then I pulled back the gun's bolt.
"Pavel, why don't you tell her how you feel?" I suggested.
"Don't say that, they only say that in romantic comedies, also, I am a fucking ODST for God's sake, I'd come out as soft."
"Maybe she likes soft," I said as I shrugged and aimed at a caricaturized elite.
"Why would she do that?" Pavel asked.
"She's an Army lieutenant, maybe she thinks of herself as strong and wants a girly man," I said. I had no idea what I was talking about.
"Are you even listening to yourself?" Pavel asked.
"I try not to."
I fired a couple of rounds in quick succession. The gun wasn't actually fully automatic. It only fired about as fast as someone could've fired a semi-auto shotgun, but it didn't require to continuously pull the trigger, something which might throw your aim slightly off. My first two shots completely wrecked my target, so I was forced so switch to a metallic plate. Those were reusable and were only switched once they were so bullet-ridden that they barely functioned as anything other than scrap metal. The target I was aiming at right now was simply a metallic sheet a few inches thick without any shape whatsoever. It was relatively new, because I could still make out the lines that marked your score. I decided to aim for the general center of the thing and fire the rest of my ammo.
The shotgun roared for a second and a half as it ate through the rest of its magazine. Maybe it does fire faster than semi-auto. I told myself. I took a moment to take a look at my target and it turned out that the blasts from the shotgun had dented the metal sheet in the area where I had hit it.
"Hmmm, nice gun," I told Pavel. I tossed him the gun and pulled out my pistol, this time I chose brutes for targets.
"It is a nice gun," Pave agreed.
"Of course it is," I repeated, "I got it for you."
Pavel mumbled something and then we resumed firing, my shots eventually left a perfectly intact brute without a head, while Pavel ate through targets like it was nobody's business. We didn't talk to each other for a while. We were just deep in thought. Pavel was certainly thinking about his predicament with Lieutenant Chloe Delacroix, I was thinking about that would have happened if we had evolved with tails.
We'd probably use them for balance, or perhaps they would have the same function as hair, being only cosmetic in purpose. I know, we could use them as third arms, to grab stuff without needing to stand up… But what about clothing in cold places? Would we hide them in our pants or simply have another opening for our tails? Maybe people in there would just grow shorter tails… Perhaps we would cut them short as soon as we were born, just like those dogs… I forget their breed…. Talking about dogs, wherever did those Martian Mastiffs go? Were they evacuated? I think they were, probably leaving a happy life with the refugees of that planet, or dead, who knows?
Yeah, it went a little bit like that.
"How are you going to dress like for the banquet thing?" Pavel asked. The banquet was supposedly important, we only got it once a year, so people usually dressed nicely. At least that's how it went in other ships, it usually turned into some sort of drinking contest/frat party whenever we did have it on our ship.
"I don't know, why don't you ask your new best friend?" I said, pretending to be hurt.
"Aw screw you man."
An hour and a half later I was asking Marina and Pavel was asking Alisa how the hell we were supposed to dress like.
The next day, a few minutes before the dinner 'officially' started, I was dressed up in black fatigues and a flack t-shirt. It was my usual outfit, Marina had said that it would be a casual diner, so that's what I wore. If she was wrong or lying, I could always change to my buttoned shirt (which surprisingly, was black as well) instead. Right now I was worried about who I would sit with. Normally I could have tons of fun with Pavel alone, especially since the December Dinner was famously known to be one of the few times that Command allowed for alcohol to be dunk on board the ship. You could have fun by yourself if there was a faithful bottle of jack next to you.
"Hey Frank, when are you changing?" Pavel asked from behind. I turned to face him and was surprised to find him dressed in full dress uniform.
"I thought you had burned that," I observed. "And what are you? Twelve? Asking me when I'm going to change…"
"Well, seriously, we're all supposed to be down there in five minutes," he said, meaning the hangar, where the dinner would be taking place in.
"It isn't obligatory Pavel, I can show up whenever I want," I said.
"Oh, right, forgot about that," he said.
"Pavs!" someone called. "You ready yet?"
"Coming!" he returned.
"What. The. Fuck?" I said. "She gets to call you 'Pavs' and you're not even screwing her," I said.
"Shhhh! And fuck you," he said as he turned around.
"See you in a while Pavs!" I said as he left. He simply flipped me the bird and did a variety of other insults that required body-movement but not speaking. I laughed all the way until he disappeared in a corner.
I headed back to my room. I think I mentioned before that it was supposed to fit six soldiers, which meant that it had six bunks and six closets. It would've been pretty cramped for six, but it did the job with just two. I opened one of the spare closets. It was filled to the brim with metallic crates marked with the logo of the UNSC. These crates contained an assortment of items. There were a few boxes of experimental ammunition, some had drum magazines, other had spare clothing, and some even had medical equipment. Mostly they contained alcoholic beverages and cigars. They were from that raiding operation back in Carentan.
I grabbed a bottle of some scotch from the topmost crate and took a swig from it, putting it back on. If I was going to have fun at this thing, I was certainly going to do it my own way.
I walked all the way to the 'banquet hall' by myself, it seemed like most people were already there. Well, there was a good bunch of people in the hangar. The pelicans had been hung to the ceiling with some giant claws that were supposed to secure them. Those claws were rarely used. The pelicans provided a space of about four meters from the floor to their bellies. It was more than enough for what we had in mind right now. There were tables covered in white sheets all over the place, even the chairs were covered in white. It looked very formal to me. For a moment I felt underdressed, but then I realized that most NCOs were dressed like I was.
"Over here!" Marina waved. I would've smiled at her if she hadn't said that the moment when the entire complement of the ship managed to shut up and hear that, then they all turned to face me. Had I not been a battle-hardened veteran, I would've blushed. Fortunately, they resumed their conversations moments later.
I sat down on Marina's table, it was occupied by me, her, and mister new pilot. There were a couple of empty seats. There was a nice piece of bread waiting for me. Someone had torn half of it and now I had half a piece of bread to eat.
"Where's the food?" I asked.
"Hello, how are you? You look lovely," Marina said, obviously mimicking what I should've said.
"Kid?"
"We got waiters," he said, obviously excited.
"Really?" I said as I raised an eyebrow. Other dinner/banquets in the ship had simply been buffets of sort. Then it turned into a drinking contest, as I preciously stated.
"Yeah, Brooks said that he managed to pull in a couple of favors and bring us an extra tasty dinner," the rookie pilot.
Sheppard! Aha! I thought triumphantly.
"So, what's the deal with that guy?" Sheppard asked, pointing at Krikor Darbinian, the XO of the marine complement on board. Yes, the asshole. Right now he was simply eating in the table that had the COs and XOs of the Army and Marines on board, with the addition of Captain Brooks. Didn't seem like Albaf or Wilkins were on board, poor ONI types.
"I don't know, but he is a rather magnificent asshole," I pointed out.
"I know, he actually stopped me and yelled at me for something involving slouching. We're not even in the same branches, he's not allowed to do that."
"Technically he is, still, bit of an asshole."
"I'll drink to that," Sheppard said as he raised his glass. I clinked it with mine.
"How about that big guy? The other ODST."
"Pavel? What about him?" I asked.
"No, I mean him and that Army chick, why doesn't he just bang her already?"
"Bang? Seriously? Who says that?"
"Ok, have sex with her," Sheppard relented.
"For a moment there I though you were going to say make love," I teased.
"Shut up," he said with a smile.
This kid is actually kinda cool.
"Apparently he's in the friend zone," I explained.
"Uh-oh, that's trouble," Sheppard said, he had enough experience with woman to know that. Pretty much everyone knew about the ghastly friend zone.
"Tell me about it," I muttered before taking a healthy swig from my beer. I hope that they brought out the strong stuff soon; otherwise I'd have to sneak in a bottle of vodka.
From that point on Sheppard and me had a lengthy conversation about the futility of neo-impressionism on the impact of art in general. Nah, just kidding, we had a rather fun conversation which was primarily focused on criticizing the people around us. We were having a hell of a time doing an impression of one of the Navy lieutenants when I realized something, we had been leaving Marina out of the conversation. Right now she was staring at the wall, hear hand holding up her head. She only had to blow her hair away from her face to complete the image.
"Marina! Hello, how are you? You look stunning!" I said after a pause in the conversation.
"Ha, ha, very funny," she said, obviously not convinced.
"No, I'm serious, you look beautiful, doesn't she Sheppard?" I asked. She truly looked good. A little makeup made her already pretty face even prettier.
"Umm… sure?" he said as he drank from his whiskey. He obviously felt awkward about this.
"You really think I look beautiful?" Marina asked, her voice just louder than a whisper.
No, I just fucking made it up.
"Yes, you do," I said.
Pavel saved Sheppard from further awkwardness and ruined the moment for Marina and me. Kudos for him. Asshole.
"Hey guys, how are you?" he asked as he sat down.
"Good," we all said simultaneously.
"Ok, it was creepy that you all said that at the same time," he noted. No one said anything, it had sounded slightly creepy.
"So, what's the deal with you and that army girl?" Sheppard asked.
"Well, seems to be that I am in the friend zone…" Pavel said almost sadly.
"Ah, the dreaded friend zone. What are your plans for it?"
"Well, apparently it's impossible for me to get out of it, it's like a black hole."
"I know. You're screwed."
"Word," I said.
"Why don't you just tell her?" asked Marina.
"What, that would never work," Pavel said outraged.
"Yes, that's stupid," Sheppard agreed.
I abstained from commenting, although I agreed with my fellow male soldiers.
"No it's not," Marina said, obviously annoyed that they hadn't taken her seriously.
"How would you know?" Pavel asked.
"Well, for starters, I am a girl."
They both stared dumbly at her for a few moments before they could come up with an answer. Marina was quick to chastise both of them for thinking that she would know nothing about relationships and whatnot. I rarely ever see Pavel looking worried or scared, but this time he was looking like he could've put a gun to his temple and fired it just to get out of the situation.
Thank God I didn't say anything. Thank God I didn't say anything, Thank God I didn't say anything, Thank God I didn't say anything, I kept telling myself.
"You say something?" Marina asked.
"No," I replied quickly.
"Seriously, because I could've sworn that…"
"No, I didn't say anything."
"Oh, ok," Marina said I could see a small grin on her face when she turned around to keep intimidating Pavel and her new copilot. I wished I could've had some popcorn. Marina was really laying on Pavel, who looked like he wanted to hide in his own dress uniform. It's not often that you see an ODST veteran fall prey to the quick talking of a blonde that was at least seven inches shorter than him. Pavel is 6'5, I'm not entirely sure how tall Marina is, haven't gotten around to asking her.
Anyways, Pavel soon left the table and returned to Delacroix and the other officers. Seems like they didn't mind his presence, because he didn't return to our table for the rest of the dinner. Instead, he actually managed to put his arm around Graham while talking to the other men. She didn't look annoyed by it, so perhaps Pavel wasn't so deep in the friend zone as it seemed. That point was hotly commented in our table.
"Well, this is boring as fuck," Sheppard said. "I'm out of here."
"Agreed, you should've been here three years ago… or not," I told him. "Wanna bail?" I asked Marina.
"Sure, why not?" she said.
We all stood up from our table and headed out of the hangar. The food we had received was worse than spaceliner food, but it was manageable. We tiptoed our way around the labyrinth of tables and chairs before we parted ways. I clearly remember Pavel giving me an almost imperceptible nod before I left. I am not sure if it was because he was doing well with Delacroix or because I was leaving the place with Marina holding my hand.