Drink Your Feelings

It had been a full twelve hours since things had gotten back to what more or less qualified for normal on DS15, although T'Pren had yet to experience anything so mundane.

She spent her short on duty shift going over reports and readings from the red alert and not getting anything much at all out of the Cardassians in the brig. She also still had not managed to sleep, much less put in any kind of real time in her empty room.

Instead, wearing an oversized navy sweater and leggings, she sat at the back of the bar (even though there was practically no one else in it), sipping at a Vulcan spice tea and reading very slowly from a particularly beat-up copy of a hardback book.

Falten paused from wiping out glasses to watch the young woman sitting alone in the back corner of the Eel, legs tucked up on the couch and face in a book. Her thin antennae gave a subtle twitch as she read the air and the edges of this girl's massive emotional state. Her hair was more unkempt than she cared for it to be while on duty, but she hadn't had much time to fix herself up.

Falten had spent the majority of the day trying to take stock and reorient the bar from the red alert earlier. The shaking had dislodged bottles and ruined plenty of the champagne glasses, damn delicate things, which required tedious cleaning and proper disposal. She hadn't been on the station more than three days and there was already a red alert? Bad luck like a shadow, she thought idly.

The Eel had reopened about an hour ago, after she had righted all of the chairs and triple checked the display bottles for damage, but no one had come in yet. Not a surprise, given the general air of panic (she could sense the fear and unspoken nervousness from most people on the Promenade passing by), and this girl was the first of the evening.

HJ (Hologram Joe, the old bartender and permanent VI fixture) had been slightly fried by the power surges during the red alert, and Falten had been forced to mute him as he was hopelessly repeating the brandy menu.

Falten looked from the flickering HJ to the young woman again.

"You look like you need something stiffer than that, miss," She said, the edges of her mouth barely turning up in a small, knowing smile.

The young woman in question looked up from her book not with her head but just with her eyes, her slanted brows lifting slightly in question. Otherwise, her face remained stony and unexpressive. Her wavy hair was loose around her face to cover her ears, but it would be pretty clear from her careful neutrality that she was Vulcan. Or at least part Vulcan, since most of the green-blooded variety tend to be fairly emotionally placid even on the inside.

"I do," T'Pren agreed frankly, and her gaze slid down from the Andorian's face into unfocused nothingness as she clearly gave thought to just how much she needed something stiffer. When she pulled herself back into the present, her hands wrapped with excellent etiquette around her cup and lifted it to her lips, as if testing to see if maybe there was already something extra in it. There wasn't and she frowned down at the cup.

"Unfortunately, I doubt it's wise."

"This isn't a house of wisdom, miss, it's a bar." A small smile and slight tilt of the head. Falten leaned on the bar top, curious. She could sense the inner conflict about the booze, that was a common state for people to be in around here, but there was a distance and strangeness about her mental state as well.

A self-loathing half breed, Falten thought, her eyes smiling a bit now as well. Sounds familiar.

"I can hit that tea with a touch of something, just to take the edge off," She said, glancing at the liquor over her shoulder. "Nothing too vicious, no bloodwine, just a little something to help you sleep later."

Sleep, eh?

That, apparently, was the magic word. T'Pren looked up at the blue-skinned bartender again with decidedly piqued interests. Her lips pursed in thought and, for a long moment, she said nothing. Then, looking simultaneously relieved and resigned, she confessed, "Better toss in a little glucose too or it won't do much good."

She'd just have to be very wary of how much she drank and escape to that awful Cardassian living area if some kind of emotional response seemed inevitable. Now that she was decided, she lovingly closed the book and set it away from the tea, title-down, and turned her attention more fully to the Andorian woman.

"The Commander told me the only bartender on the station was holographic."

"Fresh cup?" Falten held up a mug questioningly as she turned to look through the available bottles. Altair Water and a touch of glucose syrup to a cup of spice tea would make it just sweet enough.

"Yesterday was my first day getting the Eel set up, so he wasn't wrong. Holographic Joe over there was in charge till then. Poor fucker's all kinds of fried from the power surges today. Haven't had a chance to fix him yet." She nodded over at the VI, still flickering repetitively and silently through the brandy selection. "Name's Falten. And you?"

"Yes, please," T'Pren answered regarding the fresh cup, and to make sure it was necessary, she drained the rest of the one in front of her. She studied the bottom as if she expected to find dregs, but this one had come from the replicator, so there would be no divination for her.

"Engineering is still working overtime to make sure all priority systems are online and functioning, but if you put in a work order, I'm sure they can get to him in a day or two." Her head tilted to one side and she stood a little stiffly, leaving her empty cup and her book on the table as she picked her way to the bar proper. "Actually, I could take a look at him now, if you want."

Partly in greeting and partly as credentials, she added, "I'm Lieutenant Inabnet. I'm the new Chief Science Officer."

Falten turned and gave her a slightly surprised once-over. "Lieutenant? My apologies, Officer. Don't see many of you out of uniform, here. Like to strut about, I guess."

No replicators at her bar. Replicators were all well and good, but there was nothing like the real thing, and she didn't settle for half-assed. She moved to the far end of the bar, scooping up tea leaves from a tall rack of glass containers and setting them to steep in steaming water.

"And don't worry about HJ. You're off duty - he's not much more of a problem now than he was before, really. Good intentions, the fucker, but completely useless. Right, HJ?" She tapped the mute pad as she walked towards the liquor.

"Acamarian Brandy - bitter and grainy. Altairian Brandy - sweet and smooth, with a hint of citrus. Antaran Brandy - Malty and dark. Vvvvv.." HJ smiled, flickered, gave a garbled hiss, then began to repeat himself.

"Fucker." Falten tapped the mute pad again, a small smile on her face. "Ah, well. He's a sweetheart. They said I could get rid of him if I wanted, but I like him."

"For you, Officer, on the house. Vulcan Spiced Tea, with glucose and a splash of Altair Water." She set the steaming mug on the inky black surface of the bar, looking at Officer Inabnet. "Long day for the new Science Officer, I take it."

Fear, confusion, nerves, anger, loss, hope? Cardassians, danger, Bajorans. Falten's antennae moved slowly.

T'Pren smirked despite that distant emotional exhaustion that dusted over all her other feelings like new snow. Or the ashes of nuclear fall out. Either one. "Strutting about is all well and good, but sometimes getting away from the uniform is one of the best things you can do for yourself."

Even though she wasn't to be inspecting HJ, the young half-breed was already at the bar, so she pulled up a stool, only glancing behind her to double-check on the safety of her book before returning to watching Falten make her tea by hand. As she became more expressive, the appreciation for the bartender's efforts -- both at her craft and at being good company -- made itself clear.

"I've had longer days," she agreed wrily, "but not many."

In a particularly human gesture, T'Pren leaned forward with one hand holding back her hair to blow on the top of her tea.

Falten caught the look Officer Inabnet shot back towards her book.

"You can bring it over here, you know." She gave a small smile as she leaned back, folding her arms and watching her guest take the tea.

"It's been a long day for plenty of people, I can imagine. What the hell happened, anyway? Power surges, shutdowns, an evac call? You look like you've been in a warzone. I came here to get out of a warzone, don't tell me I fucked up." Falten smiled, but it didn't reach her grey-green eyes, this time.

Comfort, nerves, sadness, fear, relaxation, blurred memory. Falten watched Inabnet, curious but cautious. Something was going on.

"You've inspired me." Falten began prepping a mug for herself, this one straight Baghol.

The lieutenant gave Falten a sidelong look before trudging to her original seat. She delicately scooped up the book in one hand and the empty cup in the other, returning with both to the bar and her stool. As she made the short journey, she talked: "The Bajoran Orb of Serenity..." she hesitated before landing on, "needed to get our attention. And there were some related attempts at undermining our uneasy peace."

The dirty cup is pushed toward the bartender while the book is kept very close to her body, still title-down now that it's on the counter. "I imagine they'll release a station-wide report once everything is back in order."

Falten's not-quite smile is met with an understanding but mildly apologetic one from the half-Vulcan girl. "If you're looking for safe and comfortable, I'm afraid the boundaries of Federation space, especially where the Cardassians are involved, are probably not the place to be." And it's just going to get worse.

Falten arched an eyebrow and gave a small smile at Inabnet's nervous possessiveness of the book. "I won't look at it, you can relax a bit."

She lifted the mug away and began cleaning it beneath the bar ledge as her guest talked, and Falten's small smile turned wry.

"No wonder the pay was so good out here." She shook her head.

And it's just going to get worse. Falten gave a quick sigh, then dried off the clean mug and set it away. She now had a moment to sniff and sip at her Baghol, black as night and about as strong. The Klingons knew their brews, alcoholic or not.

"Bajoran Orb of Serenity, huh? And it sent us into evac mode? Well done, 'Serenity.'" She shook her head and sighed again. Bad luck like a shadow. Always.

There was a faint green blush to T'Pren's cheeks when Falten called her on her wary handling of the book that she chased with a slightly helpless, thin-lipped smile. She resisted the urge to put her arm over the tome just in case and instead directed her energy toward finally lifting that new cup of tea to her lips.

She took a sip and then another and the warmth and relaxation it brought with it reverberated through her entire being. Was she still a minefield of freshly reopened wounds? Absolutely. But they were a little further away. A little less in focus.

"Apparently the serenity had already been disturbed. The Orb was attempting to call attention to it." She smirked, but this time it was her turn to have a smile not quite reach her eyes. "It succeeded."

Calm. Tide going out. Warm. Safe. Control. Fear. Control.

"How's the tea?" Falten gave a nod at the mug in Inabnet's hands.

She sipped quietly at the Baghol, watching the Officer. Her blue face was not quite expressionless, but she was also very good at masking anything other than interest. There was so much fear inside this little half-breed, so much uncertainty, even if it was walled off. Interesting, for a Vulcan.

"This Orb can't just send a memo like the rest of us? It has to nearly shut down a space station?" Falten gave a dry, short laugh. "And I wasn't aware that artifacts were normally chatty things, either."

"Wonderful," T'Pren promised, taking another sip of the tea just to prove her point. "It never does taste quite right coming out of a replicator. I picked up a few tins on my way through the Vulcan system after receiving my assignment, but I'm trying to save them for ceremonial use."

Continued talk of the Orb sent a little ripple of sadness rushing through the lieutenant's system, but she chased it with her spiked tea and locked it away behind genuine scientific enthusiasm...which is interesting for a Vulcan indeed. "The Bajoran Orbs aren't quite artifacts. They're fascinating, really. They're sort of...communication and transportation devices for a race of other-dimensional beings who have no linear concept of time. The Bajorans consider them Prophets."

"Vulcan Spice Tea is a favorite - I do my best to keep it stocked." She smiled. "And I never use a replicator if I can help it. Not with drinks, anyway. Fuck food, though. I'd burn a salad if it weren't for replicators."

Sadness, memory. Walls. Excitement.

"Other-dimensional beings?" Her antennae lifted. "How do you know that? And what kind of things are they communicating, when they're not preaching to the Bajorans?" She had never been much into science or too much tech, other than what was needed to get by in space, but this was interesting. A weird cultural quirk that was far more than what it seemed to be. She didn't run into too many devout Bajorans in her wanderings, but she had heard enough rumors and talk. "Did it say something to you?" She knew the answer before she even asked. She could feel it.

In response to Falten's final question, T'Pren took a very long pull of her tea, letting it rest on her tongue to experience the flavor before actually swallowing it. This gave her time to start shutting down the fallout shelters of her emotions, locking them up tight to be reopened later when the radiation wasn't so deadly. And if there was one Vulcan thing she inherited, it was the ability, when absolutely necessary, to bury her feelings deep, deep under the surface.

"It did," was all she said, her features beginning to go stoic again. "They're very protective of the Bajorans, so if they communicate, it's usually to people with some kind of helpful influence, like the Bajoran religious leaders." Facts are much safer than feelings.

Her antennae swayed softly, and her eyes moved across Inabnet's face. The lockdown was very strong, and though Vulcans could be hard to read, Falten still knew when the effort was being made.

"And it spoke to a non-Bajoran science officer? That's interesting - quite an honor, I'd guess." She didn't push. Everyone would talk when they were ready. Something she learned early on working behind the bar was that everyone talked. Some talked without provocation, some talked just to talk, plenty talked to boast, and some needed to talk more than they knew. But it was only a matter of time before everyone talked.

She took a long, steaming drink from her Baghol, her cheeks flushing a slightly darker blue.

Though T'Pren's features shifted slightly at the idea of speaking with the beings from the Orb an honor, her expression was still impassive at best.

"Everyone else ran. They needed to speak to someone and I was the one there." She shrugged. "I also am in a position of helpful influence."

If T'Pren was going to talk, it wasn't going to be tonight. At least not to the bartender. She left a lull in the conversation and turned her attention to her tea, sipping at it pensively.

Falten's lips turned up slightly at the clear closing off from the young half-breed. Untrusting and afraid of many things. She must be very, very smart to have made it this far in her current state.

"I mean, nobody'd ever be asking me or HJ for race-guiding assistance, so I'd say that makes you one of the more qualified to offer helpful influence." She smiled again. "Let me know if you need more tea. I might name it the Inabnet - a spiked Vulcan, as it were." She received the lull gently and nodded, beginning to step down towards the tea again, taking stock and considering what to order in.

The idea of the drink being named after her brought one last particular genuine smile to T'Preb's visage before she finally lost herself in thought and tea. Eventually, as the bar started to fill up, she retreated back to her private table.