Five people who sneak out to Brody’s still after hours
Title: Five people who sneak out to Brody’s still after hours
Author: Shenandoah Risu
Rating: G
Content Flags: lots of sneaking
Spoilers: SGU Season 1 "Sabotage" onwards
Characters: Eli Wallace, Cpl. Barnes, Ronald Greer, Dale Volker, Lisa Park, Amanda Perry, Nicholas Rush, Varro, Adam Brody, Everett Young
Word Count: 1,220
Summary: Almost everybody on the Destiny drinks Brody’s hooch - not because it’s any good (although it is slowly getting better, they have to admit) but because there simply isn’t anything else. And even though the hangovers are a bitch, the high you get from a hooch buzz is pretty darn high.
Author's Notes: Written for prompt set #126 at sg1_five_things.
Disclaimer: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)
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Five people who sneak out to Brody’s still after hours
Eli quietly hums the “Pink Panther” theme to himself as he sneaks furtively down the corridor.
While there is no actual day or night on the Destiny, they still follow the cycle they’re used to - simply because their watches all work that way. Eli waits until it’s well after midnight and most of the crew is in their quarters, except for the on-duty staff in the Apple Core and of course Rush, who probably never sleeps at all. He always brings a kino along, so if someone catches him on his once-a-week tour of stealth, he can claim kino roundups as a cover story.
“Da-da de-dum, de-dum; de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, da-da de-doooooo-diddlediddle-de-dum,” Eli shimmies around a corner, back pressed against the wall, checking the next intersection. Then he tiptoes onwards, using every spy movie cliché ever invented.
When he finally reaches the still room he pulls out a small pill bottle that once held his gummi bear vitamins (now long gone), and with his best Tom & Jerry walk he sidles up to the still, fills his bottle, screwing the lid down tightly afterwards.
“Da-da de-dum, de-dum; de-dum, de-dum, de-dum…”
He glances down the hall and waves at the kino to follow. Once he passes the bathrooms he’s in the safe zone, because now he can always claim a visit to the loo.
Back in his quarters he closes the door, pulls out the bottle, dabs a little of the vile brew onto a scrap of cloth and starts cleaning the kino lenses. “Even better than Windex,” he mumbles, and maybe he just spends too much time with the flying camera balls, because even the kinos seem to enjoy their weekly polishing.
Eli might think he’s got stealth mode hooch procurement down to an art, but he can’t cut the mustard when it comes to Leanne Barnes. Barnes has considerable experience in undercover work, and surveillance has always been one of her strong points. Eli makes it so easy for her, too - same day, same time, every week. It’s cool with her, though, because she likes Eli.
A lot.
Eli on the other hand probably doesn’t even know her first name, and while Barnes, a rough-and-tumble marine, isn’t scared of jack shit, she just can’t get herself to walk right up to him and tell him he’s the cutest thing since Lolcats. Besides, she knows Eli is madly in lust with Chloe, and lately he’s been making googly eyes with that red-headed Lucian chick Ginn, so little stocky Leanne with her shortly cropped hair feels she doesn’t stand a chance.
And before she knows it, Barnes has turned into an Eli-stalker.
She heads for the still room ahead of him, watching him pretend to be a spy and getting a big kick out of his child-like playfulness. She hides in the room - in plain sight, actually, if Eli was even halfway serious about stealth. But movie stealth and real life stealth are two very different things, and Leanne is a master at the latter. Nobody would ever even know she was there, but Eli’s visits are well documented, at least in her book.
Nobody can really figure out what’s going on between Lisa, Volker and Greer.
It’s complicated at best, and to the outside observer, it’s downright weird. Here we have a blind woman, a burly marine and a mild-mannered scientist, and the two guys have only one kidney each, and they are both Greer’s.
“We’re the invalid triangle,” Lisa snickers, and hugs them both.
Exactly what goes on in their room (and shortly after Lisa’s terrible accident they did all move in together) is subject to much speculation, but somehow nobody on the crew really gossips about it. Weird it may be, but the three of them simply go well together - Lisa is the head, Greer is the hand, and Volker is the heart. It works for them, so why not?
Volker isn’t much of a drinker, but when Lisa, still somewhat entangled with Greer’s long limbs, gets a craving for some hardcore booze, it’s Volker that heaves a big sigh, grabs a flask, pulls on his pants (usually his, but sometimes it’s Greer’s, and he barely notices anymore) and heads for the still. Once he ran into Colonel Young, who, Volker is well aware, has done his own share of still room sneaking in the past, but the man only greeted him in his usual cordial manner without batting an eye, and continued on his way.
Volker’s secret is still safe.
Back in his - their - room, the happy threesome enjoys a little nightcap before turning in.
Barnes may think she’s the Queen of Stealth, but she can’t outdo Amanda Perry when it comes to being well hidden, because Amanda, being an uploaded consciousness in a memory chip, is quite literally invisible. So when she sneaks into the still room, nobody ever even notices, except maybe for Destiny, and she doesn’t care much where her quarantined bits and bytes are as long as they don’t mingle or get out for real.
So Amanda heads to the bar whenever Rush is there, and he never makes any secret of filling his bottle - usually there’s plenty of people around, and he prefers that, because someone is bound to invite him to sit down with them, and then he can say no and walk away, ever the mysterious genius.
But when he pays a visit after hours she thinks herself there, using what little access to the ship’s sensors she has. And she watches him and pretends to be there with him, enjoying the sole redeeming quality of Brody’s hooch, because as far as she’s concerned it could be swamp water there in his cup - she would still love it if she could share it with him.
Almost everybody on the Destiny drinks Brody’s hooch - not because it’s any good (although it is slowly getting better, they have to admit) but because there simply isn’t anything else. And even though the hangovers are a bitch, the high you get from a hooch buzz is pretty darn high.
The only person who absolutely adores the intergalactic booze is Varro, who quite obviously has kevlar intestines. Oh, he gets just as miserable as the others from the hangover, but he loves the taste of the liquor on his tongue, and the way it smoothly slides down his throat and warms his belly. He’s had some pretty awful crap to drink throughout his years with the Alliance, but the first time he tried Brody’s hooch he thought he’d died and gone to Heaven.
At first Brody thinks that Varro is just a really good actor, since he never grimaces or pants after a sip - no, he gulps it all down in one go and then he gets this angelic smile on his face, uttering this weird sound halfway between a grunt and a giggle.
Once he is allowed to roam the ship freely his first priority is to make a beeline to the still room and enjoy a guilt-free guzzle. He sits and watches it slowly drip into his mug, about half an inch of it, and then replaces the collection jug, hoping nobody will notice.
“To Brody,” he grins. “Divine engineer. You’re the best.”
Note: Here is The Pink Panther Theme, if you want to hum along with Eli.