Chapter Perspective: Curtis

It was starting to get a bit late when a new knock hit the front door and I pulled myself away from my conversation with Patel, or, well Layla was her name but even with my own crew I was still convincing myself that first names for them were okay on occasion and doing so for someone on another crew that I had just met felt against every bit of training I had gone through in my life, though folks like Kara, Vicky, and even Layla, with their insistence that their first names be used, was also helping to fix that.

Unlike the others, who I absolutely was glad to see them all relaxing and unwinding just a bit, I couldn’t find the motivation to drink more than a single beer past the one we had initially toasted with. It was partially that I didn’t like the feeling that came along with the beverage, the fuzziness in my head always unwelcome the few times my sisters insisted I join them at their parties to try and get me to “loosen up.” Maybe it was just a sour taste from those events that kept me from trying more tonight, but I was fine with it, after all, I had gotten to relax and mingle with the other crews, something that left me more pleased than I had anticipated.

Another knock made me pick up the pace, “The door is open, you can just come in you know,” I shouted, slightly above the music that I suddenly realized that someone must have turned up. Even though several others were standing near the door and looking at it, none of my crew had been nearby it and I understood the instinctive awkwardness of letting someone else in a home that wasn’t your own. Still, no one came in and instead another knock, even louder this time, echoed as I yanked the door open to find Armstrong standing with one fist raised and ready to knock again. “Grounds dude, the door was unlocked, why didn’t you just come in?”

“That’s rude, you wait to be invited in,” He grumbled as his hand dropped to his side and looked to the side.

“What are you a vampire?” A lanky girl that I thought must have been from the MEGALODON crew asked, having apparently been close enough to the door that she heard him.

“Hush Bolton,” Armstrong responded as the sternness in his expression finally seemed to loosen slightly. “The rest of the crew still here?”

“Yup, we tried to tell you it would be fun but noooo you just didn’t want to hear it,” she replied before walking back into the party.

“Hey that’s-“ Armstrong started to call back but Bolton had vanished before he could even get anywhere and he let out an annoyed sigh. Instead of inviting him inside, I made the snap decision and stepped out and pulled the door closed behind me.

“You good man?” I asked and the snort of laughter that escaped him felt more than a little bit sarcastic.

“I thought you guys were throwing a party to gloat, figured the rest of the crew would get here, see that and abandon it, just a bit annoyed that I… I don’t know, misjudged I guess? I’ve been doing that a lot,” he groaned and finally seemed to deflate as he reached for the back of his head.

I let out my own laugh, and shook my head, “Honestly we discussed how the sudden party was going to come off and that was definitely a fear, but no, this was about just letting us all loosen up a bit and shake off the sense of seriousness we’ve been holding onto since we all got here.”

“That’s a load of crap and I think you know that,” Armstrong snapped back, his annoyance reinflating. “There’s no way in hell you’d be having a party like this if you hadn’t scored the way you did.”

“Maybe not, but your crew or Kara’s might have, and I’d be a fool to not listen to my crew want to go to an event just because my plans didn’t work out,” I said, although I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Armstrong stiffened and the annoyance in his expression briefly flashed with anger.

“My plan was fine, it was my crew that didn’t-“

“No, uh uh, not hearing that shit and if you’re going to blame them I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” I said, cutting him off before he could even start. Captains were not supposed to blame their crew, even when something felt like it was their crews fault. It’s why I never let myself fall into the trap and becoming angry with Sullivan after our first trial, at the end of the day, it was more my fault than his and I only had enough blame for myself.

“Fine,” he spat back. “Why don’t you just tell my crew to not forget we have PT at first light tomorrow,” he said before he started to turn to leave. Before he could even take a step though, I instinctively reached out and grabbed his arm.

“Armstrong, I get it, I do, shit the only reason we scored moderately okay on the first trial was because you guys had helped beat up the Parasitum before we finished it off, and we’re to blame for you guys getting discovered in the first place,” I admitted, keeping my grip firm as he tried to yank his arm away, “And you can hate me for that if you absolutely need to, but you should stay and come inside.”

“What? Grounds, why would I do that?”

“You might not normally, but you should, if not for yourself to loosen up a bit than for your crew. They’ve been having fun in there and you’re really missing out on it. It’s way too easy to get lost in the job, the responsibility that we didn’t really feel when all of this was just theoretical back on the ground. So come in, stop grinding your teeth for an hour and have a damn drink,” I said and let go of his arm as I turned and pushed the door back open to find a few more had gathered near the door, trying to make it seem less obvious that we hadn’t drawn their attention.

“Fine, one drink,” Armstrong said, once again deflating as I think we both realized what the others might have thought had started to happen. While I did notice a slight sigh of relief coming from both Plum and Novarod, who must have overheard some of the conversation given their proximity to the windows, a chorus of cheers emanated from the MEGALODON crew as their Captain finally joined them.

While I hadn’t outwardly expressed it, instead choosing to understand why Doc had suggested the party in the first place, I hadn’t exactly been a fan of the idea. As I had learned from my sisters parties, they were loud, messy, and could often end in people being mad at each other for the stupidest of reasons. The fact of the matter was that there were benefits to the party too, from getting to mingle with the other crews, to just being able to finally be around each other in a setting that wasn’t totally focused on the major goal we were striving toward.

At the end of the day, we were still humans, still barely out of our childhoods and it was easy to forget that simple fact. We had all been so heavily, so relentlessly pursuing this goal over our lives that for many of us, myself absolutely included, success had been the only option and to a point, an obsession. Many of my instructors back at Ground School had insisted I would finally feel a bit of relief when I had been officially accepted into a flight class, but that hadn’t really been true at all.

Between the general unease that seemed to come with the transfer from Earth life to Station life and our collective loss in the first trial, it was hard to deny that my crew, maybe with Doc as an exception, hadn’t exactly slowed down. I had kept tabs on them as much as I could through the night, and each of them was relaxing and enjoying themselves in their own way, though I was hopeful I wouldn’t have to actually enforce my fraternization rule with Sera and Sullivan already. Given the seeming success of the party, I was sure that come tomorrow, my crew was going to wake up feeling truly refreshed for the first time in weeks, maybe even months.

Grounds, I knew I sure was.