Kelpie Squad - I
Ever since... the incident, Crusher had been avoiding her. Sure, it hadn't been the most professional of encounters, but that was not typically a word that went with the squad anyway. She'd need more hands to count the number of times one of them had caught Princess with her pants around her ankles and several inches of mech pilot inside her, and if Gutters had done even a fraction of the things she'd talked about, it was a miracle she could walk, talk, or think on any given day. And that wasn't even getting started on Ket—
Diamond scrunched her eyes for a moment to clear the images bombarding the inside of her skull.
The important thing was to sort this out and get back to, well, normal levels of interpersonal drama. She wasn't getting shot next mission just because her squadmate refused to look in her direction.
Crusher had hurried off from the gym the moment Diamond had shown up to talk, but this was perhaps something best done in a more private setting anyway. She usually disappeared to the squad's quarters after a workout; hopefully today was no different.
Diamond rapped twice on the door, stepped in without waiting for an answer, then stood in front of it as it slid anaemically shut behind her.
"You've been avoiding me," she said, not quite nailing matter-of-factly.
"Observant," replied Crusher, similarly failing to keep emotion out of her tone, back still to Diamond as she sat cross-legged, scuffed boots cast aside, scribbling away at something on the terrible excuse for a desk.
"Why?"
There was, maybe, a second of pause in the scratch of the pen, before it continued.
Diamond took a breath and launched into her prepared speech, stumbling somewhat, despite, or perhaps because of, repeated mental rehearsals. "I know it was perhaps not the most appropriate behaviour, but that appears par for the course here. It was a rather... compromising position to see me in, but that should matter far more to me than— Were you trying to spare me embarassment? Because if so, I must say that it's been exceedingly mo—"
"I thought you were straight!" burst Crusher, snapping the pen down flat.
"...Why?" asked Diamond, after taking a moment to recallibrate, her brain slamming into itself trying to write the new information into her mental script. "As in, why does that matter?" Scowling, she added, "Actually, why in the other way too."
Crusher muttered something under her breath about "should hate it" and "dense" before sitting upright, setting her shoulders, and resolutely addressing the wall, "I've had a crush on you basically since we met," and then, in more of a sigh than anything, "And I dunno... Vibes? Just..." and waved her hands in Diamond's general direction, keeping her head facing away even as her body turned enough to make the gesture.
There was another moment of silence as Diamond once again had to jump mental tracks.
"First off: rude," she said, half offended, half trying to lighten the mood. "Second: do you make a habit of crushing on straight women? Because that is a fantastic way to break your heart chip by chip until it's dust. Third: rude."
"You asked," Crusher shrugged, sounding... bitter? Annoyed? "And it's more of a way to stop it getting broken. Can't be let down if there was never any hope in the first place."
"But now you think you have a chance with me, and that's worse," said Diamond, attempting to restate the apparent problem.
"No," spat Crusher, with a small hiccup of a laugh, definitely annoyed now. She picked up the pen and started fiddling and fumbling with it. "...but— one day you could change your mind. I— that's the hope part."
"I see..."
They stayed in silence for what felt like an age or a second, Diamond's mind desperately trying to figure out how to improve the mood.
"Is that why the guys from Osprey keep hitting on me? These 'straight vibes', I mean."
Crusher made a minute throat-clearing sound before croaking out, wincing, and restarting: "The— They hit on everyone. Trust me. Plus, you look like their off-the-table only-woman-routinely-friendly-with-them squad mate."
"I thought she was straight."
"Bi, I think, but she's been quietly seeing Stallion from Polo Support since last year, and they'll hit on the lesbians all day every day, but they aren't gonna hit on someone taken by another guy." Diamond could swear she heard the eyeroll. "Plus, she's kinda like a sister to them now. One they'd fuck, like, but still.
"Oh," she added after a moment, "keep that bi thing to yourself. She works hard to give off gay vibes."
"What gay vibes? I thought she was straight."
"Yeah, and I thought you were, so clearly you're not the expert here."
"How is that on me? And I didn't take you for a gossip."
"I'm not a gossip, I just have friends! Wild concept, I know."
"Well," Diamond said, opening the door behind her and taking half a step back, "with that remark, I shall go. Stop avoiding me."
Crusher let out another brief laugh. "No. Let me get over it like a normal disfunctional human."
"About how long will that take? Also, just as a clarification: that was a one-off with Mantis. There's nothing going on between us."
"Why are you telling me that?" asked Crusher, annoyed again.
"So you don't go gossiping about it," said Diamond, swiftly stepping around the doorway for cover from the oncoming boot.