Deb walked back to the spaceport from the Den of Bens (shudder). She preferred to walk home whenever she woke up hungover (it’s only a walk of shame if you feel shame). It helped her sober up and clear her head, and she always felt better when she got back to the ship (still tired as shit, though).
She found the Poor Dick in one of the docking bays and walked slowly up the ramp into the cargo bay of her ship, still feeling pretty ragged even though her head had cleared considerably (nothing a good nap won’t fix). She found Tyler and Rozelle playing poker on one of the crates. Rozelle had his back to her, his long dreadlocks hiding his thick neck but not his massive shoulders. Tyler was opposite Rozelle and facing the entrance. His skinny frame perked up as he noticed Deb’s slow approach. “Oi Cap! How was your night? Where’s your shirt?” he chipped to her through a mild Australian accent.
Deb shuffled up to her crew, hands in her jacket pocket. “If I knew that, I would be wearing it, Ty,” she said as if still in bed trying to sleep (idiot). She shuffled past them towards her quarters.
“Must’ve been a good night, then,” Tyler said with a rye smile as he turned back to his cards.
“Sally’s back there waiting for you. She seemed pretty pissed,” Rozelle told her without looking up from his cards.
Deb’s feet hesitated for a moment at the warning, but then continued their prisoner’s shuffle toward bed. “Thanks, Roz,” she mumbled.
Deb walked into her quarters and was greeted by a very stern Sally, dressed and showered, sitting on Deb’s bed with the stern look of an angry mother. Deb looked at her through half closed eyes, then sat down at her desk and began taking off her boots. For what seemed like forever, Sally said nothing, just staring daggers into Deb (I’m too tired to deal with a lecture). “Well, I hope you had fun, Deborah,” Sally began.
“At this point, you would know better than I.” (I don’t need a mother, least of all one that wants to fuck me)
“Oh, no I would not. I was back here by midnight, like you promised you would be,” Sally said, letting her anger seep through.
“I recall you promising me that you would make sure I got home safe if I got drunk. I got drunk.”
“Yeah, and then you shot me, Deborah! With a bullet. From a gun.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have been on the other side of the door,” said Deb simply, taking her jacket off.
“I was knocking to see if you were in there. I went to the bathroom and you were on the couch, I came back and you were gone, a boot on the couch and your shirt on the floor.”
“Gah! It was on the floor! I knew I should have looked there,” said Deb, dropping her arms from her unbuttoned fly and throwing her head back in frustration (Ben did say I threw it behind me, I should have figured that out).
“This isn’t a joke, Deb, I had to tell the hospital I got caught in the crossfire of one of the gang battles over in the combat zone. They made me give a statement and everything.”
“I’m sure you were very convincing,” said Deb as she crawled into bed.
Sally sighed out of frustration. She knew that it was useless trying to argue when Deb was like this. Rather than trying to continue the argument she tabled it for later and instead turned around on the bed and starting spooning with Deb.
“Sal, get outta here,” said Deb with practiced annoyance, “we’ve talked about this, I’m not a lesbian.”
“I’m pretty sure that girl last night would have some interesting thoughts on the issue,” said Sally, annoyed at having to explain a simple hug from opposite sides of the sheets.
“I have no memory of any of that. If a tree falls in the woods and I don’t remember cutting it down, then I’m definitely not a lumberjack,” mumbled Deb.
Sally frowned, “I… don’t know what that means, but whatever. You are easily the most in-the-closet lesbian I know. You sleep with women. You never hang out with dudes. You named your ship The Poor Dick for crying out loud, could you hate men any more?”
“It’s an historical reference!”
“Whatever, you treat every man you meet like a total dick.”
“Yes, real, flesh and blood dicks, that I fuck. Ergo, ipso facto, e pluribus unum, not a lesbian. Now, go away and let me sleep off this hangover.”
Sally sighed and stood up, “Alright, but sooner or later you are going to realize that all that flesh and blood dick you’ve been fucking isn’t worth it, and then you’re going to come to me all, ‘wow, Sally you were right all along, I like vaginas and tits’ and I’m gonna be all, ‘see, I told you, now let’s go back to my place.’ And you’re going to be like ‘Alright,’ and I’m gonna be like, ‘Cool.'”
Deb was snoring.