Remotes

[somerandomhippie2]

Oliver stumbled into the sleeping quarters, banging into the doorframe. Ow. That hurt. He grumbled, rubbing his head, and managed to make his way over to the couch. Closing his eyes for a moment, he sighed. Even for the first month on the Venia, they seemed to run into a lot of trouble, lots of which required his immediate, chief-person attention. He didn't know how some people did this for a living.
Opening his eyes, he grabbed the remote, and turned the holo on. He flipped through, and finally found a relatively boring documentary on Gengis Khan in anime that he could mindlessly watch, before checking up on his equipment in a couple hours. His eyelids got heavy, and before he knew it, he was dozing lightly, his head on his chest. He needed the sleep.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie grumbled, punching her pillow. Sleep was evading her, despite how heavy her eyelids were and how mentally exhausted she was. Sadly, her body was still trying to work off the coffee she'd had earlier, and until it was ready to shut down, her mind wouldn't get to. Sighing, she slid out of bed and stumbled around her room in search of her slippers, the cool air nipping at the skin of her legs that weren't covered by her night-shorts.

Rubbing her eyes against the light in the common room she made her way down the hall. The room was deserted, save for a young man who she recognized was the Chief Science Officer, Oliver Pratt. A small smirk tugged at her lips when she saw that he was dozing, no doubt as tired as she was. Quietly she snuck over and fell onto the couch beside him, easing the remote out of his hand.

Genghis Khan? Honestly? she thought, amused. How old is that guy, anyway? Gotta be centuries. Shrugging, she flicked to another channel. Or at least, she thought she did. Turned out that she'd hit the volume, and the sound went up just as they entered a particularly loud battle sequence. Cringing, she stabbed at the volume again, lowering it almost violently.

Glancing at Oliver, she realized he'd started awake, and she blushed furiously. Well, that was definitely smooth. Her mouth fell open in silent horror as she realized that if she'd woken him up, it was very possible she'd woken up someone else, too. She bit her lip, fighting laughter, and glanced back down the hall. Not hearing or seeing anything she shouldn't have, she turned back to Oliver with an apologetic smile, chuckling quietly.

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I'm absolutely hopeless with all the simpler technology. Throw me at an engine and I'll play with it like a pro, but shove me in front of a holo and..." she gestured towards the speakers, shaking her head. Noting then that, just because she knew he was, didn't necessarily mean he knew her. "Natalie Fairholm, by the way. Engineer."

[~ ADMIN]

Anna awoke blearily, covering her hands with her ears as the volume of the holo in the next room went up decibels beyond what should be allowed of such a machine. Quickly, it went down again, but, unfortunately, Anna was awake now, and with open eyes, she sighed, groaning to herself. It seemed sleep was impossible on this ship. For some anyway.

Clambering out of bed in her shorts and over-sized t-shirt, she walked over to the door, opening it, looking around the common room. Natalie, one of the engineers, and Oliver, the chief science officer were both sitting there together innocently in front of the holo. Anna took a step out of the room, tripping over the edge of the door. "Mother..." she cried out, catching herself before she fell flat on her face, righting herself, blushing a little. "Well, that was graceful," she said sarcastically, looking at the both of them, "I didn't mean to interrupt anything..."

[somerandomhippie2]

Oliver's eyes snapped open as yelling and metallic clashes ensued. It quickly diminished, and turned blinkingly to see a woman with blonde hair flush, the remote in her hands. She apologized profusely, then introduced herself as Natalie. He smiled.
"Oliver Pratt," he said blearily, extending a hand. "Apologies for the sleeping, nice to meet you." He turned at the sound of someone about to swear, and saw Annabelle come over, dusting off her knees.
"Okay?" he asked automatically. She said something about interrupting, and took a few minutes to piece it together. "Oh, um, yeah, no, no, I mean, no, I, um, just woke up," he stumbled, trying to blink spots out of his eyes. He probably sounded drunk. He felt like he had a hangover, anyways. Not that he knew what a hangover felt like.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie smiled at Oliver, waving a hand dismissively. "Oh, no worries. I probably would've just let you keep sleeping anyway. You look like you need it." She glanced up as Annabelle stumbled in, dressed very similar to her, and she grimaced in embarrassment. "Oh shoot, did I wake you, too?" she asked apologetically.

Great, two Chief Officer's in under a minute. At least neither of them appeared to be overly irritated, or she would have been in serious trouble. Looking back down at the remote, she located the channel switch she'd been looking for in the first place and flicked over to a pointless reality TV show. There were always good for lulling her towards sleep, what with the animated laughs and the generic conversations.

"So..." she said, turning back to the other two. "I know you're out here"--she looked at Anna--"because I woke you up. I'm out here because I'm still on a caffeine high. So what's your story?" she asked, looking curiously at Oliver.

He seemed like a likable enough guy, maybe a year or two younger than she was, and he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes either. Then again, none of the men on the ship she'd met yet had been exactly homely. With a sigh, she noted that none of the women were lacking in looks, either, and she'd never exactly been much of a looker to begin with.

Shaking off the pointless and slightly morbid thoughts, she smiled at Anna and indicated the free space on the couch on Oliver's other side. "If you're going to join us, why don't you come and sit down?"

[~ ADMIN]

"Yeah, yeah, fine," she said quickly, brushing her hair out of her face. It was probably wild right about now because she hadn't thought to brush it before emerging from the bedroom. Oh well, if anyone started staring at the birds nest that she could only imagine her hair was, she'd just pretend to fall asleep or something. That'd make it a whole load better.

Resisting the temptation to roll her eyes at herself, she took a step closer to the sofa. "It sounded like the holo was throwing a fit," she said, glancing at it briefly. She'd never been one for sitting and watching mindless television. "That wouldn't surprise me on this ship." Despite being state of the art, the tech on this ship had a funny habit of malfunctioning, or having a mind of its own.

"Don't worry about it," she told Natalie, "I'm becoming accustomed to sleepless nights on this ship anyway." She then did as Natalie suggested, sitting on the other side of Oliver. Anna imagined Oliver probably felt somewhat lucky right now, sitting between two women. Sure, there were probably other women on the ship - some of them were stunning - that he'd rather sit between, but she and Natalie were there now. At least they could probably keep up a half decent conversation.

"Yeah, how did you end up out here?" Anna said, looking at Ollie, reiterating Natalie's question.

[somerandomhippie2]

Oliver couldn't help but mentally shake his head as the two women perched themselves on either side of him. He wasn't much of a ladies' man-- he had been one of the geekier ones back in his school days. Age had helped get rid of some of the giraffe qualities of his youth, but not all of them. He was too busy cooped up in his lab, anyways-- ladies had never really noticed him before. Now he had one on each side, like he was a celebrity or something. This ship was weird.
He shrugged as they bombarded him with a question. "I just got back from the lab," he explained. "The computer needs some time to run through, so I came back to watch some TV, so I wouldn't fall asleep." Nothing special.
He turned to Natalie. "Anything else on?" He took the remote, after a second's hesitation-- maybe she liked this show. But no sudden boxing matches were started, so he turned to the guide and browsed. After a minute, he smiled.
"Cartoons. Perfect. Mind-numbing, stupid, and funny-- fits the bill perfectly." He switched it on in time to watch Elmer Fudd plummet to his doom, and Bugs Bunny laugh at him. "Any objections?" he asked the ladies.