Breakfast and beyond

After the pilot’s initial outburst, Meli had interrupted Sammie with a look; not for the first time, Dustin was impressed at how well the Velca was able to manage everyone in his orbit. Before the Velca could add anything by way of reply however, another voice spoke up. “That all being said, I take it you intend to engage with us with the intent of courting my mate.” Trea’k’s voice was calm, but there was an edge to it that Dustin didn’t usually hear. “As a participant in this relationship, and as the ship’s counsellor, I must advise you that there is a strong chance you may not mesh with either Dustin or the rest of us. Are you still willing and able to serve on board if you are rejected romantically?” To her credit, Sammie didn’t immediately reply, instead sipping her drink thoughtfully. “Yes. If I didn’t think that I could handle that, I’d either not approach you or would have requested Axworth assign me elsewhere. It’s not like you’ll be the only polycule floating around the fleet if the number of alien staff we’re expecting is accurate.”

Emely leaned forward at those words, eyes narrowing dangerously. “So we’re just one option out of many for you? Sir is worth significantly more than that, you know.” The hair on the back of the fox girl’s arms was standing up; Dustin had never seen her look so angry. Rye laid one restraining hand on the Feliax’s shoulder, although her own glance towards the human woman wasn’t much friendlier. “Ya gonna answer Emmz’s question?” Sammie took a deep breath, then leaned forward and matched the Feliax glare for glare. “If I thought the ambassador wasn’t worth it, I wouldn’t be here. But I’m not going to act all weepy and say I’d throw myself out an airlock if you turn me down, nor make out that I’m just some fan-girl obsessing over you all. I’ve got too much self respect for that, but if even half the shit on the under-net is true, that man over there - and the rest of you - are one hundred percent worth my time and effort. Happy?”

Rye released Emely as the Feliax sat back, red tails still vibrating slightly as she did so. “Yes.” The fox girl’s tone remained sharp-edged, but she seemed appeased by what the pilot had to say. Any further discussion was halted at that point by the arrival of Naera along with a truly massive collection of fried foods. “Breakfast!” she announced cheerily, ignoring the vibes around the table as she set the plates down before hopping into her own chair and starting to help herself. Dustin glanced around before shrugging and grabbing his own plate. “Eat up. This isn’t going to resolve itself this morning, clearly, so we should all at least eat something to help get over last night’s hangover.”

Food did indeed settle both the dregs of everyone’s hangovers and the mood; while conversation was limited, what there was of it was mostly around quizzing what Sammie knew about the new fighter wings and their impact on the ship’s ongoing travel. Eventually though, the last plate was cleared and after scanning a message on her communicator the pilot stood up. “I’m sorry about the way things worked out, and about rushing off” she began, before gesturing to the door. “But I need to head back to base to check in with my wing, and also get a clean outfit. If you need anything from off the ship ambassador, call me and I’ll be right back. Otherwise I’ll see you this evening - Axworth says he’s going to go over the adjustments to the Solar Ascent with you then and wants me present.”

After the woman had left, Dustin gave it a minute or two before glancing around at his lovers. “Thoughts?” he asked, seeking some kind of clue as to how he was supposed to deal with this long term. To everyone’s surprise, Bleu spoke first - the slime girl having been sat so quietly the entire time that she’d more or less faded into the background. “Put this incident behind you, let her approach you again properly if she decides to do so once she’s had time to get to know everyone. She’s aesthetically pleasing, and a moderately good conversationalist when drunk, but that’s all we know about her as of right now.” Seeing everyone looking at her, Bleu shrugged. “She did also give me what I hope is good advice last night, but we’ll cover that later on.”

Meli nodded. “It is a sensible approach; while I dislike how we reached this point, I can hardly fault her for her reasoning.” Rye waved a screwdriver idly in agreement before returning to her current tinkering. “The nerd’s right. Who knows, if we’d gotten Nae-nae drunk earlier on we might have ended up in the same debate about her a week or so back. Wait and see isn’t a bad idea, for all I might have teased ya about it earlier Dusty.” The mention of Naera’s nickname had the shortstack sit up straight in her chair, eyes flickering between Dustin and Rye. “I think I already said I don’t mind, but if you want my advice Captain, there’s an old Caenii proverb that says… well, the translation is all about wind blowing in branches and doesn’t work very well, but the meaning of it is ‘waiting for something good generally makes it better’. If it works out, it works out.”

Trea’k meanwhile had stood and moved behind Emely, and was now running her fingers to gently brush tangles out of the fur of the fox girl’s tails. “I believe that we are in consensus regarding miss Coastwood. Judging by her skill when we were landing, she is a very capable pilot, and despite her… altercation with Emely, my judgment of her is that she is mature in her approach to a relationship such as ours. We can wait and see as the others suggest.” Emely gave a gentle huff under the Vex’ess’s tender care, but nodded her head as well. “If she puts in the work to get to know us all, I won’t object if sir wants to see where things go.” Then the fox girl winked at Dustin. “I might have been hamming up the whole angry thing earlier just to see how she’d react. Sorry if I worried you sir.”

Dustin took the advice of his women seriously, and gestured for them to talk amongst themselves while he thought about it before he reached any kind of conclusion. As he was doing so, his tablet pinged with a message from Yril’k - apparently, Axworth had asked for her to spend the day with some of the newest human recruits to give them the benefit of her experience as a security officer. Sending a quick reply to confirm the assignment, he sat back and stared at the ceiling. On the whole, he had to agree with the ladies in the room. Sammie was a problem best handled later on, and one that from the looks of things could be safely left for the time being. Deciding to roll with that for now - making the pilot and her overly-toned muscles later-Dustin’s problem, and adding a mental note to ask later-Dustin to question why past-Dustin had noticed the woman’s muscles quite so much - he turned back to his assembled lovers and let them know.

With the pressing, albeit unexpected business of the morning out of the way conversation turned to other matters - Dustin was content to let it drift around him until he became suddenly aware of Bleu approaching. “Captain… no, Dustin. If you recall, I said that Sammie gave me some advice last night. Would you mind if I act on it?” Dustin nodded; whatever the medic wanted would be fine, he was sure. What he didn’t expect however was for her to nod to him in thanks, then turn around and climb onto the table.

The other women halted in their conversations as Bleu strode to the middle of the long desk and sat down, crossing her legs in front of her. “Ladies, Dustin. I’ve been struggling a lot with how to best get to know you all. You know that I want to, it’s just… I find it difficult to express myself emotionally, I think that’s been made apparent already.” She glared at Rye as if expecting a sarcastic remark, but the bunny girl just shrugged. “I’m not enough of an ass to crack a joke when I can tell you’re trying to talk through some stuff, bubbles. Say what ya need to say, we’re here for you.” Bleu breathed in deeply at that point, nodding her thanks to the Rabyth. “As I just said to Dustin, Sammie gave me some advice - she said to stop worrying about all the things I’ve been debating with myself these past days since Dustin and I… well, anyway, she said to just go for it.” At that, the slime girl’s outline shimmered slightly as she reformed her figure.

Emely took one look at the woman’s new form and then glanced at Rye. “If we’re going for things, we did have that bet…” she said, causing the Rabyth to look back at her. “Oh, you want to do that now, do you? When there’s a naked slime girl sitting on the desk in front of us looking like the most fuckable table decoration of the year? Really, now, Emmz?” The Feliax grinned at her, then gestured between Bleu and Naera, who’s mouth had dropped open the moment Bleu had changed to her nude form. “Yes, I think so. Because bubbles clearly wants to get to know us all a lot better, and she’s struggled with saying so. And this way, she gets to see everything we like to get up to, right?”