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[[div class="blockquote"]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/0|06:58, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/1|07:23, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/2|07:48, Third Floor Lounge]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/3|09:32, Executive Wing Offices]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/4|10:42, Site-17 Hallways]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/5|11:23, Humanoid Common Room]]] [[[Friday afternoon |Afternoon]]] [[[Friday night |Night]]] [[/div]] Iris was normally pretty snippy, which was, if nothing else, a good, consistent baseline for Jackie to deal with. Sometimes, she thought, looking at Iris grinding her teeth, she just had to risk pissing her off. For the greater good of humanity. "I think," Jackie said as she //gingerly// reached over Iris' head to pluck the rolled-up magazine out of her hand, "This might go a bit better if we try //talking// to them at first, sir." Although she expected her to snap at her, Iris just stared ahead at her target with narrowed eyes. For her part, 4960, or Kadesh-Nanaya as Iris had tersely explained it, returned Iris' gaze with a gentle - no, a //knowing// smile, continuing to gently run her fingers through the hair of a shapeshifter peacefully resting his head on her lap. He almost certainly wouldn't have had the audacity to put his head there if Cain and Bes had still been around, but it seemed that they'd both been called away to their duties in the archives and the infirmary, respectively. If Jackie said how all she could think about at the moment was how long it'd been since she'd been like that with someone, she suspected Iris would just shoot her on the spot. "Good-for-nothing guards," Iris cursed under her breath. "That //tramp// probably seduced them all with her... //feminine wiles.//" Jackie's face slowly screwed up into a look of... well, //something,// she sure as hell didn't know what the hell to make of that comment. Iris, for her part, noticed Jackie's face and pointed toward the love goddess. "She must have bribed the guards or something." "What?" "The //dates,// Jackie." She gestured to the coffee table at Nanaya's side, with a small pile of dates placed on it. As if in response, she languidly reached out for one of them before slowly parting her soft, amber lips and wrapping them around the date, all while keeping her eyes locked on- //Oh Christ, all these years of containment are fucking me up. It's 11:30 in the morning.// "Oh, you two seem hungry," Nanaya called in a... normal voice that Jackie thought about normally. "Come, sit. I have some just de-//lectable// food. Not as good as I used to have, of course, but quite succulent." The friendly gesture only incensed Iris, and she stepped forward to address Nanaya properly. Jackie stayed by her side, though more because Iris wouldn't let her hear the end of it if she didn't, and front-row seats to whatever was about to happen didn't seem like something she particularly wanted to pass up. "I don't want anything from you," Iris huffed, puffing out her chest with her arms crossed. "I'll have you know you're breaking regulations." "Oh?" Nanaya placed a hand on her cheek in faux surprise. "I didn't know we were barred from having //fruit,// now." "//No close contact between anomalies//," Iris spat through gritted teeth, looking every bit like the imposing yet nebulous task force commander she liked to project herself as. The shapeshifter finally realized something was wrong and dreamily opened his eyes. They immediately blew open in shock, though, when he saw Iris staring down at him. He started making an awkward choking noise. Nanaya continued to caress his head. "You better get your ass out of here before I give you something to choke on," Iris threatened. The shapeshifter's eyes bulged a little bit before shifting to a confused expression, still resting his head in Nanaya's lap. "She means, like, her fist or a gun or something bad," Jackie clarified. "It's a threat." He nodded to Jackie once in thanks before bolting up and disappearing into the crowd. Iris watched him leave with narrowed eyes before snapping them back to Nanaya, still smiling, though sans a companion. "How the hell did you get that one past the guards, hm?" Iris shifted into interrogation mode. She had laid out her plan to Jackie beforehand - or at least muttered it to herself while Jackie was standing next to her. Find all the rules Nanaya broke, scare her with the possible (if slightly overblown) punishments, then tell her that she'd let this one slide if she didn't try anything ever again. A tall ask for an immortal goddess, but as long as Iris was dead by then she probably wouldn't care. Although, with her, who knew? "I just asked, you know," she responded, thoughtfully biting off half of a date. "I've found your... rank and file to be quite reasonable when addressed respectfully." She narrowed her eyes, an expression that reminded Jackie of a hunting fox. "Have you given that a try?" "Tch - If you did have some resp//ect// you'd-" Iris quickly cleared her throat to cover up the voice crack. "...You'd zip up that jacket." Odd, Jackie couldn't remember her doing that before, but it seemed like she was just sort of expecting Nanaya to take this laying down. Nanaya only leaned back in her seat, getting more comfortable as if to telegraph she had no intention of leaving any time soon. "We're... wearing the same thing, Iris, dear." "No we're-" Iris looked down at her t-shirt, jacket, and sweatpants. She looked up at Nanaya's t-shirt, jacket, and sweatpants. Then back to herself. Back to Nanaya again. Then she hastily zipped her jacket up, as if that accomplished anything. "I just got this - How did you even //get// it? They just started making them!" "My, my, it truly wasn't so difficult," Nanaya said in a bemused, slightly condescending voice that Iris looked as though she didn't know how to deal with. "Did you... ever think to ask?" "I //asked,//" Iris replied, with an even more apparent voice crack. She brought up a hand to cover her mouth, and Jackie gave her a side-eye. Was she... feeling alright? Nanaya laughed deeply, leaning back in her seat and bringing a hand up to her chest. After a few long seconds, she leaned forwards again and locked her eyes on Iris. "Oh, I meant no offense, little bird." "Li- uh-" Whatever insult Iris had primed to go seemed to have died in her throat. Jackie pinched the bridge of her nose. She... was beginning to get a clearer idea of what was happening. "Uh, it might be a good time to go help Adams with that thing she asked about, sir." A blatantly paper-thin excuse, but Jackie figured she should throw out a lifeline for Iris. Buy her some time. Let her get her thoughts in order. Maybe work through some stuff. Instead, Iris took the opportunity to regain her footing and press on, shooting Jackie a "She can wait" once she became coherent again. "Wh-What's with the name? And how the hell did you hear my name in the first place?" Oh, good, she was catching up to things that were said a good thirty seconds ago. "You make just the most //delectable// little chirps," Nanaya jabbed, the significance of her comments not lost on Iris, who turned a shade redder. "Cain has spoken of you quite a bit," Nanaya said as she stood up from her spot, elegantly straightening out to stand a couple of inches taller than Iris. "All good things, you should know," she added with a chuckle. "Allegedly, you're quite the important figure here." "I don't-" "Right," Nanaya interjected with a coy smile. "You wouldn't do //anything// we wouldn't know about, would you? Why, despite all that bluster, it seems like you don't like doing much of anything our lovely hosts wouldn't like, little bird." Iris tensed. "Excuse me?" "Well, the way I've heard it, it seems you have no shortage of grievances with this place. Of course, I don't think any of //us// find that unreasonable," Nana said, stretching as she made her way over to Iris and Jackie, the latter of whom cleared her throat and looked away. "And yet... it seems you've taken an issue with me before the guards." "You trying to say something?" Iris' 'intimidating' voice was a bit less effective when she was speaking in a lower tone to prevent any more voice cracks. "Oh, no, once again, I mean no offense, little bird." Nanaya raised her hands in a reassuring gesture, but the effect on target of that nickname of hers was undeniable. "I really //do// just want to get to know you better, that's all." A part of Jackie felt extremely awkward, just standing right next to these two and not even having anything to say, but at the same time, Iris would probably see any attempt from her to leave to be dereliction of duty. Not that she was getting paid to stand here and watch Iris heat up like a pressure cooker, though that was, in a sense, its own reward. "The rules are in place for a //reason,//" Iris half-yelled back. "All these regulations are written in-" "Now, now, no need to start chirping like that." Despite Nanaya's much softer voice, Iris didn't yell over her. Perhaps she couldn't. "It would be //irresponsible// of me to deny any form of merit to security - I know firsthand that much of this is for our protection as well - I simply believe there could be a more... //nuanced// approach... Would you like some dates?" Upon that question being asked, Iris seemed to finally realize that Nanaya was standing right in front of her and staggered a half-step back. Despite her scowl, though, she still accepted a few in her open hand, which Nanaya seemed happy with if her smile was anything to go by. "It... It's just a lot..." Iris' face was a mix of concentration and confusion. "I //understand// that it might be something of a hassle, little bird." Nanaya's voice sounded almost condescending, something Iris was usually quick to snap about, but she looked at Nanaya with a strange expression of paralyzed terror. "But we aren't given much agency in our stay here. A life without //warmth,// without //passion...//" The way she emphasized those words made Jackie bite the inside of her mouth. "Or..." With half-lidded eyes and a victorious smile, Nanaya leaned in towards Iris, speaking in a voice barely above a whisper. "Is that //really// what you're afraid of, little bird?" Jackie looked between Iris and Nanaya. The former looked like all she was seeing was a blue screen error message, and the latter looked like she had just toppled a rival and stole their territory. Which... probably wasn't very far from the truth. Nanaya brought a hand up to her mouth and chuckled, perhaps more to herself than to Iris or Jackie. "Oh, don't worry yourself so much. Here, have a date," she said as she stepped forward and plucked one from Iris' open hand. "It helps calm the nerves." It wasn't clear to Jackie if Iris opened her mouth or if it was already agape, but Nanaya delicately placed the fruit into the open mouth, then trailed her hand down to close Iris' jaw, pinching her chin. She looked down at Iris contentedly. "There's a good girl," she cooed. Christ almighty. She'd already won. There was no need for the double tap, the overkill. It was obscene. Disrespectful. Jackie was so jealous she could have screamed. "Alright, I think we're done here," Jackie announced as she stepped in between the two. Nanaya's gaze snapped up to meet Jackie's eyes, noticing some weakness that she'd failed to cover up adequately. "Oh, I was wondering when you'd speak up," Nanaya said, holding up another date. "Care for a bite?" Oh god. "My friend here just wanted to inform you of the regulations you may have been unaware of, is all. We all have an interest in keeping things going smoothly, it's just that Iris can have a little bit of trouble articulating her thoughts," Jackie said in what she hoped was a diplomatic voice. With any luck, that little jab went right over Iris' head while she was... rebooting or something, Jackie didn't know. She was whimpering like a balloon with a small hole in it. "Right. Of course." "Right." Jackie cleared her throat, then turned to Iris and half-steer half-pushed her out of the room. Pleasures of the flesh were fleeting, but Iris seemed like she had at least another sixty years of scolding left in her. "Some other time, I trust?" Nanaya called after her in a smug voice as Jackie and Iris rounded a corner. After a couple more hallways, Iris regained the presence of mind to walk on her own, albeit at a slower pace. She hung her head in shame as she came to a gradual stop near some rarely-used bathrooms in a quiet hallway. "Stupid... apocryphal tramp. Probably has some... memetic... pheromones..." Iris muttered to herself. Her heart clearly wasn't in it. Jackie looked down at Iris, who was practically doubled over. "Wow, you're that easy, huh?" "What?" "I said it's that easy, huh?" Jackie pointed to the dates Iris still held in her hands. "To get stuff like that, I mean. I would have been asking way earlier had I known." Iris just looked up at her with an expression of weariness and distaste. "Are you going to finish those?" "Just... take them." Iris handed off the dates as though they were poisoned, and Jackie wasted no time taking a bite of one. It was the good stuff - not too sweet, but they hadn't gone sour. Someone had gone out of their way to get these. "What now, sir?" Jackie asked, hoping that her continued recognition of Iris' authority would spare her the commander's ire. "Alright, yeah." Iris stood back up to her full height - which still wasn't all that much - and rubbed her eyelids with one hand. "We should... fuck, I don't know. Go talk to Cain or something." "Sounds good, sir." Jackie took another bite. Good stuff. Iris stared at the ground like she was looking at a deer her dad had just run over. "This was such a waste of time. Everyone thinks I'm an idiot now," she said in a morose tone. Jackie held back a laugh. //That's not quite it.// "Well," Jackie said, "we did learn one thing." With a sigh, Iris shifted to look at Jackie in her slumped posture. It wasn't like her to look for comfort, but here she was. "What's that?" Jackie took a date and tapped Iris on the tip of the nose with a wink. "You're cute when you blush." 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