[right][sub]Collab With: [@McHaggis][/sub][/right]

Caelum slept better than he usually did with the promise of active service looming once more on the horizon. Space was comforting, like a blanket––a dark, empty blanket with pinpricks of stars and certain death by asphyxiation. By the time the Orion was set to depart Earth, the customary dark circles under his eyes were nowhere to be found, and there was a certain lightness in his step as he swanned past the various new medical personnel, forgetting faces and names almost instantly. 

In the space of two and a half hours, he had reorganized his old notes from [i]Plagueship: Infectious Diseases On Board[/i]––a textbook he swore by since the CMO on his first residency off-world recommended it––and skipped through an alphabetical list of important medicines in his head before double-checking with the inventory list. Such work was for the staff, and he could have delegated, but there was nothing wrong with doing something [i]twice[/i], especially not if in six months it could be the difference between life and death-by-brain-eating-parasite.

But in the end, there was only so much tedium he could take, and it was the sixth minute of stroking the sharp spines of his pet cactus (the only exception he made to the spick and span medical lab; a slight untidiness on otherwise clinically clean surfaces) and the eighth jag that almost drew blood that had him realise he really ought to find something else to do. 

Break involved a walk: a chat with an engineer on terms that Caelum only had the vaguest familiarity with (because he was never one for that), two minutes of dietary recommendations to a panicked girl in a red shirt whose first voyage began in about two hours, and ending up at Science for ‘business’.

William, on the other hand, was, as his mother always put after hot, summer day, ‘Rode hard and put away wet.’ Preparations took a toll on William, enough that he wandered most of Orion’s science division sneering and almost literally snarling. Only thirty minutes in and he’d already sent a kid to his bunk red faced and puffy eyed. He’d apologize later; having one’s ideas shot down never was pleasant.

The rest of his hours, he’d spent inside one of the ship’s labs - dubbed, [i]his[/i] lab purely because that’s where he logged most of his hours. Those thirty minutes wandering had been the only thirty minutes inside the ship not working. Sensors had to read accurately, anything and everything that could go wrong had to be closely monitored, and not only that but his own theoretical research had gone upend and blown up in his face (not literally, this time). At least his lab remained pristine.

That’s likely the thing about William. On the surface, he seemed loud and raucous. Just that fact brought on various (wrong) assumptions of his own intellect. Beneath, William had very precise ways of looking at things, taking in information, and observing practically anything that could prove useful to him and his research later. That meant William kept a tidiness not usually akin to what people thought of him. It’s the number one reason why only a select few, likely senior, science officers even stepped into the same lab. What better way not to piss off the supervisor, boss-man than refusing to even be in the same vicinity as him.

That hard disconnect, between work and play, drove a deep wedge between William and his younger, newer subordinates. It didn’t help that his accent got incredibly thick when he found himself livid; anger filled his words with nonsense idioms that sprang to mind. Of course, there were a select few that found William tolerable, endearing even. Caelum was hardly one of them, but they were fast friends regardless. It helped that a lot of their work intersected: Caelum epidemiology put him in William’s realm of study. Somewhat. If there was any science officer that could aid the CMO to the greatest effect, it was likely William.

The moment Caelum even so much as walked past William’s lab, the door sprang open, a hand reached out, and it forcibly pulled the man inside. “I need some assistance,” William drew, tacking on a clumsy “pardner,” at the end. He had about as much aplomb as an elephant, at the moment. “My damnable [i]ex[/i]-cadets decided they’d have some great fun genetically splicing some of the ship’s rations,” he started almost immediately, moving away from Caelum toward a petri dish of sliced [i]something[/i], “they’ve irradiated a few boxes, though I made sure to order double the replacements. Now I just gotta clean their mess.”

William paused, his head swiveled to stare at Caelum. He eyed the officer, once, twice over before sighing. “My ma woulda killed me for my incredible lack of manners.” After setting some of his equipment down, William walked over toward his long time friend and braced Caelum by his shoulders. “Would ya kindly help me out, darlin’?” he said, a slow, deliberate, thick draw of an exhausted tone leaving his lips, “I just need some of your medical officers to scan any of the old shipment of foodstuffs in order to make sure I ain’t missin’ a few irradiated bananas. I’ve got all the ones I found in this lab’s hazard room and am testin’ a few decontaminated ones to make sure they ain’t got no viruses or any other contaminatin’ contagions. Whaddya say, bud?”

Long since accustomed to a lack of small talk (and the strangeness of being called ‘pardner’ by a modern day cowboy-turned-Chief Science Officer), Caelum took only thirty seconds to translate. The cogs could be seen turning behind a momentarily furrowed brow. “Before I agree, what on Earth did they splice it with? And––no, never mind, I don’t need to know why. [i]Cadets[/i].”

They were all the same, but then again, a younger Caelum hadn’t tried genetically modifying fruit.

He leaned back against the wall beside the closed door, crossing his arms. “I’m guessing you scared ‘em off. Why make them fix up their own mistakes if you can make them cry, right?” It was sarcastic––the exact sort of sarcasm that Caelum let slip around Hackett most of the time. Serving on the same ship for more than a year gave him free reign to pick on the officer’s deplorable people skills. The concept of ‘Southern Charm’ was clearly a lie.  

William gave a tight lipped smile - the kind of sneer only a Southern man could achieve. “Absolutely. Better to be feared than loved, my ma always used to say.” Clearly a lie and Caelum would likely see right through it. It tended to happen when one prefaced everything with, ‘My mama always used to say,’ and then some garbage that no mother would tell their son.

The camaraderie felt nearly palpable, or at least in a sarcastic sense. Regardless, William waved off the jab for a moment to gesture toward the petri dish. “They thought, ‘Why would we need replicators if we could make food replicate itself?’ Amateurish,” William scoffed, “They tampered with a replicator, spliced whatever element they deemed appropriate with this here banana and thought it’d just suddenly work. Bless their hearts.” Faulty science. Well, not faulty. It was sound logic, just the methods used were seen as deplorable. A few experiments - lousy ones - didn’t suddenly mean full success. Failure, in science, was a necessary application. Both William and Caelum knew that well enough, though Will assumed Dr. Cassidy’s failures had a more immediate impact.

“Contaminated a nice section of our emergency supply with a great, big ol’ dose of radiation.” William finished with a pause, and then, “By the way, how was your day, good Doc? Nah, I don’t really care. Come help me ‘fore I scalp myself.”

“This is grunt work. Friends don’t ask friends to do grunt work,” Caelum noted, as if Hackett didn’t already know, but took the necessary steps to the nearest free lab space, rolling up his sleeves. “You’ve got me for thirty minutes before I have to go do, you know, medical duties. Check-ups. And, in return for this––”  Caelum, since it seemed to be the done thing, gestured at the petri dish. He didn’t even know what mysterious splicing it contained yet, but he could only assume it to be bad.  “First: you owe me help in the medical lab; I’m doing some research and I need a half-decent lab partner. Grunt work for grunt work.”

He paused, then offered a fleeting grin. “Second: cards when you’re free? It’s weird being back after shore leave; I could use something to keep me busy.”

After the recent years, the parents’ death, the return to Starfleet, the coming onto the Orion, it felt nice having something familiar to fall back to. Of course, William refused to acknowledge that out of some dumb masculine pride - or rather, he’d rather not feed Caelum’s non-existent ego. He smiled still and dug into work, letting the triviality lull him into a relaxed state. “You got yourself a deal, pardner,” William nodded, “I can’t deny any chance of takin’ all your hard earned spirits. And I mean both: your competitive spirit and that whiskey I know you got hidin’ in your quarters.”

At that, Caelum could only marvel. “You really are a stereotype.”

“I do make my mama proud. Did. I did. Whatever. Shut up, yer Euro slang’s trippin’ me up.”