Night Out

Posted on Sun May 5th, 2019 @ 7:40pm by Brigadier General Nathan Wolf & Major Jacob Asher & Master Sergeant Jamal Hassan & Technical Sergeant Anthony Mantelli & Staff Sergeant Rhiannon O'Connor & Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Corvus & Civillian Shae & Civillian Ravi Azad PhD & Civillian Selyna Braeden & 1st Lieutenant Hunter Williams

Mission: Interlude 1
Location: The Axe and Oak Whiskey House
Timeline: End of Two Weeks of Training

[Now]

Jake waited at the bar at the Axe and Oak Whiskey House for the others to arrive. Hassan didn't drink at all, and he owned an eight-passenger Chevy Traverse, so he was planning on being the designated driver for most of the team. Though Jake didn't want to be presumptuous, he was pretty sure Shae was going to leave with him, but he didn't drink to excess anyway, so that wasn't a problem. Nathan said he'd make an appearance. So now he just needed to see who showed up first. He had laid down some rules before they'd left training to get ready for the evening.

[Earlier]

"Most of us are going off-world Monday or Tuesday at the latest," Jake said. "So there's going to be a briefing Monday AM. Hassan and I, who will, of course, be fine long before Monday morning, will personally run the left over booze out of you if you're still recovering thirty-six hours after you started drinking. And then we'll ground you until you're ready to work. Moreover, you will not get so drunk that you start dancing on the tables or, worse, so drunk that you start trying impress your way into someone's pants by bragging about the Stargate and the fact that you defend the world from alien snakes that live in people's heads and bellies. Alright. Scram. Beat it. Go get ready."

[Now]

"Lieutenant," Jeremy said, standing outside in the cold and staring at the entrance. It was odd, though, to be out with all his military team and not in uniform. Very odd. He couldn't remember the last time he went out not in uniform when it didn't involve his family. "I still don't think this is a good idea."

"Haven't we already discussed this, Sergeant?" Hunter said, scanning the parking lot to make sure all their people were getting inside safely. "Does it seem like a voluntary assignment to you? No, no it doesn't. Go on in, have a good time."

Jeremy sighed. "Lieutenant, they already think I'm too much of a boy scout cause I don't swear or smoke or talk about fornicating with women. Or men," he threw in O'Connor because she was part of the team. "Now I don't drink? And, things are good with the Major this last week, I don't want to do something stupid to screw it up."

"Don't worry about that, we all have faith in you. Screwing it up, that is. But, you don't drink that's fine, they do have something called root beer and I've got a feeling you like that. And this place is famous for it's small batch brews, to inclue root beer. You'll like it."

"Lieutenant," Jeremy tried. But, he felt he pushed it enough. "Yes, sir," he said then trudged toward the door. Just his luck. The major was already here.

"Sir," he said by way of greeting after he entered and went to the bar. "The others should be right in."

"Welcome, Crow," Jake said. "Pull up a bar stool. There's a tab running, so order what you'd like. Good to see you, Williams. Let me guess, Jamal is parking that giant grocery grabber of his and Tony volunteered to walk back with him in case they run into some ignorant sheet wearing motherfucker? Or the bald version of the same? That's their usual thing. Probably a good idea. A fair number of good ole boys out here."

"What?" Jeremy said as he turned to look out the door.

"Stand down, Sergeant," Williams said, shaking his head. "You think Mantelli and Hassan can't handle themselves against a couple ignorant townies?"

"Well, no, I mean," Jeremy said, "I'm sure they can it's just..." he shrugged. "I'd want in on the fun."

"Yeah, negative. We're out for some fun, not looking for trouble. Go ahead and order and leave the others to whatever is occupying their time."

Jeremy sighed as he turned back to the bar and the young lady tending it. "Root beer?"

She smiled back at him, "We've got Not Your Father's Root Beer, that okay?"

Jeremy shrugged, "Sure, I mean, it's root beer right?"

"Sure is, doll," she said as she went to pour.

"That's the ticket," Williams said, as he ordered an Arrogant Bastard off tap for himself. "Now, Sergeant, that group over there," he said, pointing out a group of young ladies occupying the other side of the establishment. "Looks like the one with the sash and tiara is off limits, so be careful charming her with your innocent boyish manners."

"Yes, Lieutenant," Jeremy said as he side-eyed Asher but there were a few attractive ladies in the group. But the possibility of Ginny playing him to get information from Command still weighed heavily on his mind.

Oustide, Ree took Shae by the hand and squeezed that hand reassuringly. "Ready, Shae? It's gonna be a little loud, and probably smell funny to you between the booze and the food and I'm sure the cologne and the perfume in the room, but it's not so bad, I promise. And if you need to get out of there, just grab me and we'll get our coats and go for a walk or something, okay?"

"Okay," Shae replied warily. The places she had visited during her little shopping trip with Ree, Jess, and Selyna had been overwhelming and very nearly put her off from ever exploring Earth cities again, but she knew she could not hide in the base forever. Dressed in the casual clothes from that shopping trip, and another henna treatment on her hair to make it appear brown, Shae approached the establishment with Ree, feigning confidence as she held Ree's hand tightly.

Of course Ravi’s sister would call just as they arrived at the bar. He was lucky she was so understanding or he’d be outside for an hour. But, with a, “do not drink too much,” she had let him go. He entered the bar and quickly located his friends. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Sisters. You know.”

"No worries, Doctor," Jake said. "Tab's been started. Have what you'd like. We can start a bottle for the whiskey drinkers if they want to drink it straight, but the cocktails are nice. They 'mocktails' for the non-drinkers. Don't be shy about those. a full two thirds of my evening is going to be spent drinking those. If you want to cut the chill, they make hot toddies, too."

"Thank you, sir," replied Ravi, and he ordered a rum. But, to be honest, he was probably not going to drink many of them; he'd only been hung over once in his life and he didn't intend to ever repeat the process.

Ree had not been joking about the smells that would assault Shae's sensitive nose, and upon entering Shae was hit by a wave of alcohol accompanied by the scent of food, and very good food at that! The combined scents were quite strong, but she was hoping it would be tolerable enough for her to enjoy the evening. "Hello," Shae said nervously as she and Ree found their group of friends. "I am here and did not immediately run away, that is a good start, right?"

"Hi, Shae," Jake said. "You look great." He handed Ree a menu. "Non-alcoholic drinks for her. Ginger beer, mocktails, soda's, etc. Watch out for the ones with caffeine in them, please. We don't need a repeat of the briefing room incident. Food's in there, too. You can have booze if you want, just go easy. Order up some appetizers for people to share, would you?"

"Right," Ree said. Contrary to her image of being a huge spaz, Ree actually didn't like getting drunk. A little tipsy, maybe, but not drunk. Which is why she volunteered to Shae's wing woman for the night. "Come on, Shae! Let's grab a seat at the bar. I'm starved!"

"Okay," Shae replied as she followed Ree further into the restaurant to the bar. "So, what were all those things he said?"

Ree laughed. "Okay," she said. "This lists everything they serve here. He was telling me to make sure they only gave you non-alcoholic drinks, since you'd said you didn't want any alcohol. Sodas are carbonated drinks, like that seltzer I let you try, remember? It was bubbly? Sodas are like that, but most of them have sugar and all sorts of other stuff in them, a lot of it not good. Let's see, a cocktail is mixed alcoholic drink. A 'mock' tail is a non-alcoholic cocktail. I bet there are a lot of those you could have. And...Ginger Beer. Hmmm... remember those gingerbread cookies my mom sent? Ginger beer is a sweet, spicy carbonated drink that tastes a lot like those. And food... wow, this is gonna take a second. Help me out here." Ree began to describe things to Shae and explain what they were and together they picked things to order for the group, making sure to get things Shae could try with a fairly probability chance of enjoying.

Shae felt like she was in over her head, but eventually settled on the simplest of simple non-alcoholic drinks, a Shirley Temple; it seemed the best of all the options, no caffeine, no alcohol, and not as much sugar, and it came with cherries! And with that, they ordered a basket of onion rings and mozzarella sticks to nibble on until the shindig was in full swing. Once beverages and nibbles had been procured, they went in search of where the others were congregating.

Jake waved Shae and Ree over. "Come on and join the crowd, ladies." He looked up and saw Hassan and Mantelli enter the bar. "Jamal, Tony, I see you survived the rough streets of Colorado Springs. Grab a drink and more food if you want it."

The two Special Tactics Sergeants nodded and went to order themselves something to drink and maybe something else to eat. Hassan was pretty strict about liquor and things like pork, but he wasn't so strict about Halal that he wouldn't eat other things at a restaurant.

"Hey, your Bossedness!" Ree said. "Thanks for the night out. I was going stir crazy."

"Sure thing," Jake said. He looked at the food they brought over and grinned. "I'm thinking Shae had something to do with this."

"Yeah, true," Ree said. "She thought they sounded interesting. We ordered some real food. Hope that's okay."

"Sure," Jake said. "Now, though, I'm curious how our foxy friend here is going to like those mozzarella sticks. Pretty sure she hasn't encountered that much deep fried breaded cheese in her travels."

"I have never had anything like this, it's amazing!" Shae declared around a mouthful of breaded cheese and marinara sauce. "And these rings of onion, I love them! I hope everything here is as good as this!"

"Rav!" Jeremy said, carrying his mug of root beer over to the doctor. "Looks like we're getting to be regulars on the Colorado Springs weekend scene," he said, with a smile before taking another long drink of the beverage. "Can I order anything for you?"

"I'm all right," answered Ravi, holding up his second rum of the evening. "Probably not going to have many more of these, though. Did you see those onion rings Shae ordered? They're huge!"

"Really?" Jeremy said, the mere hint of a promise of food always able to catch his attention. He did see the basket and immediately gravitated toward it. The deep, golden color of the thickly battered onion rings was certainly a treat. "That's a pretty small serving," he said of the basket. "We might want to consider getting some more for the rest of you guys. What do you think? Another two or three baskets?"

"I say order more; whatever we don't eat now, we can take with us," Shae suggested. "That is a thing we can do, right? I do not know all of the social customs yet, or how they might affect something like this."

"Usually, yes," put in Ravi. "Although, sometimes, reheating these can be tricky. They get soggy and do not really taste the same."

"Doesn't matter, I will at least try them cold, so order many baskets!" Shae declared.

Selyna wasn't normally the party girl, but she was also not the kind to ditch when the whole team was gathering. How would that look, after all? Pretty much like she was a snooty egghead. And that wasn't really the impression she wanted to give her new team. So here she was, black slacks, long-sleeved t-shirt and knee-high boots, with her hair pulled back into a braid down her back. As she entered, she cast her gaze around to see who was already here and where she should start.

And of course, Ravi would spot her and motion her over. "Selyna!" he called to catch her attention. "Join us!" He turned to Jeremy suddenly. "You do not mind, do you?" he asked belatedly.

"No," Jeremy said, washing down a mouthful of onion ring with root beer. "'Course not."

"Oh, good, everyone's here!" Hunter said as he set a bag on the table. "As promised...t-shirts!" He pulled one out and unfurled it. "Dr. Ravi first, of course, since it was his idea." He held up the t-shirt reading "Doctor of Not Getting Your Face Eaten By Aliens" complete with a small graphic of a stereotypical green, egg headed, big black eyed alien wearing a checkered bib, holding a knife and fork and a copy of what was a Mike Meyers from Halloween style mask on a plate surrounded by greens. "You did promise to wear it everywhere."

“And indeed I shall,” replied Ravi with a grin, pulling it on over his long sleeved button down. It was a bit weird looking, but he didn’t care; most people who would see him would realize that it was a new shirt made just for this evening.

"And for Dr. Braeden," Hunter said, holding up another that said "I'm Out Of This World" with a graphic of the Milky Way on it.

At Ravi's invitation, Selyna had smiled and approached their table. The t-shirts were not something she had been aware of prior to this moment, but she had to admit that she liked them so far. Grinning, she shook her head at Hunter good-naturedly and took the shirt. "Very nice." she complimented. Her expression changed to playful as she continued. "But isn't it a bit cliche for an astrophysicist?"

"Well, I tried to get it in just grunts so you'd understand it and feel as if it came from your father," Hunter said with a smile, "but the printer refused to do it. And besides," he took off his jacket and laid it on the table, to reveal his own t-shirt reading "Dad jokes...my specialty". Next to that was a nametag reading "hungry" and a word balloon saying "Hi Hungry, I'm Dad".

Selyna laughed and shook her head. "You are completely irreverent." she chastised playfully. "But so was my father, so I guess it's appropriate."

"Now, now, Doctor, you've had your turn, not it's time for someone else to get a go. For Shae," he had one that had a stylized photo of the Korean rapper Psy and the caption "hhheeeeyyyyyy...Foxy Lady...Oppa! Kitsune Style!"

"Thank you very much!" Shae said with excitement at being gifted a new item of clothing to wear, but then she saw the words and it took her a full minute to work out what it was saying, and even then she didn't get it.

"Sergeant O'Connor," he said, holding up the next shirt reading "Tough Chicks don't need Richards".

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Ree said. She loved her shirt (though she was getting to the point where she could really use some 'Richard'), but she was mad at Williams for putting Kitsune on a t-shirt. She didn't Shae would like that at all.

"Ree, what does this mean?" Shae asked, pointing to her shirt, but then upon closer inspection, she was finding herself more than a little confused with Ree's shirt as well. "Actually, I don't understand what yours means either."

Ree grinned. "I'll explain later," she said. "Yours, though, refers to a song by a Korean performer. I'll play it for you later so it makes more sense. He's just replaced some of the words so it says 'Hey Foxy Lady!' and 'Kitsune Style' on it."

"Oh, okay," Shae said with a nod, but she still didn't understand all that well.

"Where's Crow?" he asked, pulling Jeremy back from the bar and a refilled mug of root beer. He held up the shirt for Jeremy which had two crows on a branch and read "Attempted Murder".

"Awesome!" Jeremy said as he set his mug on a table and took the shirt. "This is real nice, thank you!" he said as he stripped off his button-down shirt. He blushed as he heard some whistles from the girl group several tables over, but that didn't stop him from putting on the new t-shirt. "What do you guys think?" he asked, flexing his chest and lats to show off the shirt. He looked over as there were more whistles. Another coming from the lady tending bar.

"Oh that is funny, not just because a group of crows is called a murder, but also because you tried to kill me with a chair when we first met!" Shae said with glee. "Oh wait, was I not supposed to say something like that out here?" Then taking her cue from Jeremy, she started to lift her shirt so she could remove it to wear the new shirt she had been given, seemingly unashamed of showing the scars that littered her torso.

"Whoops!" Ree grabbed Shae and stopped her from taking her shirt off. "Unfair fact of the world, sweetie, men can go topless in public, women can't, except at a topless beach, or a nude beach... or a nudist colony... yeah, I'll explain all of that later. Anyway, you and I can't take our shirts off in public. Neither can Selyna, which is too bad for the guys, cuz she might just have a more impressive rack than both of us! Come on. We'll go to the restroom and you can change in there." She looked at the men in the unit, who, except for Jake, looked almost disappointed. "Oh, grow up!" she said. "Come on, foxy lady!" She took Shae by the hand and led her off so they could both change their shirts. She met Jake's eyes as they passed him and he nodded almost imperceptibly. Ree nodded just as imperceptibly in return.

"But I'm wearing that uncomfortable bra thing! Does that not count?" Shae asked in rebuttal as Ree ushered her away to the bathroom, their voices growing faint as they maneuvered through the bar, eventually disappearing completely down a hall.

"I didn't leave you out, Major," he said as he held up another, in Asher's size, that said "Oh, S#!T, this IS my circus and these ARE my monkeys!" Complete with head shots (in goofy facial poses) of the rest of the SG1 team, to include the civilian scientists.

Selyna couldn't help it. That one made her laugh. "Now all you need to go with that is the two-billed hat that says 'I'm their leader. Which way did they go?'" she teased. This group was... contagious. She hoped she didn't offend though as she was the newest member of the team.

"Why thank you, Lieutenant," Jake said. "I'd say this earns you an extra banana at feeding time, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

"That I'm your favorite? Nah, that'll be our secret." Hunter looked around, "Just a bit of levity to help people understand that tonight is to relax!" He held up his mug. "Aim high, into the wild blue yonder, right?"

A few minutes after they had left, Ree and Shae returned wearing their new shirts. Shae was holding Ree's phone with Gangam Style playing so Shae would have some context as to what her shirt meant, while Ree tactfully whispered into Shae's ear what her own shirt meant. "So why don't you need that? Do you not like it? Or perhaps you have one of those artificial phallus things that Asher told be about," Shae said as she returned the phone to Ree, not realizing that they were now within earshot of their group.

Ree raised an eyebrow. "That's probably something you should keep to yourself... tell me later, of course, that's a given, but otherwise, keep it to yourself."

Jake grinned, shook his head, and waited for the ribbing, to which he wouldn't respond, of course, except when it reached the point threatening bodily harm, and perhaps actually inflicting it, became necessary.

It was then that Shae realized that they were now standing at their table and that everyone had likely heard what she said, so she blushed as she sat back down. "Oh, right..." she said with embarrassment, then tried to drown away the humiliation with her Shirley Temple.

"Wow!!!" Jeremy said, a little loudly and a little slushed. "That's Psy! 'Gagnam Style' is my jam!" He put his nearly finished drink on the table, jammed another large onion ring into his mouth and chewed as he picked up on the lyrics and, after just a moment, got into the dance...which was really just a mixture of 'ride the pony' with a bit of MC Hammer thrown in, so it wasn't exactly hard steps to learn. But, he went big on it. "C'mon!" he said, looking around at the others. "Oppan! Gangnam style! HEEEEYYYYYYY SEXXXXYYYYY LAAADDDDYYYY!"

"Hey, cowboy!" The bartender called, "Much as I don't mind that booty scootin, stay off the tables and stay off the bar, cause you sure ain't coyote ugly and neither is this place!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Jeremy said, throwing in a bit of pelvic action with the moves. This time, when he heard the whistles from the other side of the room, he turned toward them, a bit more hip, a bit of of flexing. Suddenly, the girl in the sash and cheap, plastic tiara was being dragged across the bar by two of her friends, the blush on her was palpable. But as she reached them, unfortunately the song was coming to an end.

"Uh uh, ain't no going down til the sun comes up with those moves!" the bartender said as she hit the remote on the jukebox. The music started with a midtempo guitar riff and then kicked in with some heavy bass drum.

"Yeah!" Jeremy shouted, throwing the 'devil horns' to the bartender and sidled up to the woman before him:

She Was A Fast Machine
She Kept Her Motor Clean
She Was The Best Damn Woman I Had Ever Seen
She Had The Sightless Eyes
Telling Me No Lies

By this point...the shirt was off and the 'bride' was already covering her face, but her friends weren't quite as shy.

"Oh, shit," Williams said, but with a smile and a shake of his head. "Who ordered him alcohol? WHOA!" he said, as the belt came off and found it's way as a 'saw' between Crow's legs. Yet, somehow, the 'bride' wasn't as shy anymore.

"Jeremy!" called Ravi. "I do not think this is strictly legal!"

Shae blushed crimson. "Oh my, that dance is... quite provocative!" Shae said, covering her mouth and heated cheeks with her fingers.

Jake laughed. "Williams," he said. "If he tries to go Full Monty, he's all yours. Push comes to shove, just tell Hassan to punch Jeremy out. I've gone a few rounds with Jamal. Guy's got cinder blocks for fists. He'll fell Crow like an old tree."

Before Hunter could answer, the shoes were kicked off and button on the pants were popped. "Full monty, huh?" Williams asked. "Now I understand why nobody lets him drink alochol."

Jeremy got to the twerking/grinding portion of the dancing, his moves getting slower, more suggestive and closer to the woman. During it, he played with the waistband of the jeans he wore. Not being a 'cowboy' type, he didn't wear the tight, hip hugging jeans, but a looser variety. As he moved, his pants shifted around, showing flashes of the dark boxer briefs he wore.

"Alright!" Williams said, moving toward the wayward sergeant as the pants dropped and Jeremy worked on kicking them off, dancing just in his undies and socks. "That's enough, Crow!"

"What are you, his dad?" one of the girls asked, glaring at Williams.

"No," Williams said, "his CO and I'm the one trying to keep him out of trouble." He saw that Crow was still 'grooving' even as the song was ending. "Sergeant Corvus! Stand down!"

Jeremy twirled on his heel and came to attention facing Williams. His sweat soaked body heaved as he worked on catching his breath. "Shir!" he said, making an attempt at a salute, but tagged himself in the nose instead.

Williams tried to maintain a hard ass attitude but was still laughing inside. "Get dressed and no more stripping for...ever."

"But shir," Jeremy said, "Their dansher couldn't shew'p. It'sh her basher'l'te pardy, gotta have a dansher at basher'l'te partiesh!"

Selyna had not moved, stunned by Jeremy's behavior. She likely shouldn't have been, but somehow she had expected better from SG-1. It wasn't even that he had done anything truly wrong so much as inappropriate. She stood in stunned silence, mouth open slightly as if she were preparing to say something, but nothing emerged. She closed it after a few moments but still stood watching the train wreck, inable to look away. It was one of those things where you want to look away but can't because you just have to see how bad it will get, watch it to its inevitable conclusion.

Shae stared in stunned amazement, still covering her reddened cheeks with her hands, then with a sudden realization, she looked to Ree. "Get your phone, we must document this for posterity," she said.

"Way ahead of you, Foxy Chick," Ree said. "I've been recording since he started dancing. Sooo dumb, but sooo hot! I was kinda hoping Lieutenant Williams would at least let those tramps get Crow's pants off before he shut down the striptease!"

"I say we ambush him at breakfast and make him relive this moment," Shae said, now smiling behind her hands.

Ree snickered. "I'll wait til Monday morning so you can be there! And we have to play that song around him all the time! Man, I am going get so much mileage out of this!"

Ravi should not have thought this was as funny as he did, but he couldn't help it. "Make certain that I am there when you show him," he requested, trying to supress the grin teasing the corners of his mouth.

Ree grinned. "Sure thing, Doc!"

"Could shomeone get me more of...what am I drinking?" Jeremy asked as he stumbled around, trying to get dressed again. Finally he just gave up and sat on the floor to try to get his pants on again. "It'sh not...alkie hall...but like it. ROOT BEER!!" he shouted, proud of himself for getting the drink right. "More root beer pleash?"

"Uh, let me think about that," Jake said. "Yeah, no, I don't think so. Williams, keep him from doing something--" Jake had been about to say either dumb or stupid, but he'd called Jeremy that a lot recently, as had Ree, so Jake tried to find a better way to say that. "--unbecoming an Air Force Staff Sergeant--anymore unbecoming might be a better way to say that. Hassan, would you please go get him something unleaded?"

Hassan nodded and left to get Jeremy something less potent to drink.

"On it, Major," Williams said, already moving toward Jeremy, collecting what scattered clothing he could. "Water, I think for the moment, Hassan," he called after the master sergeant. "I think you got enough film, O'Connor," he said as well. "He'll be plenty embarrassed with what you already have, and for a good time to come."

Ree frowned, but put away her phone as ordered.

"Alright, big guy," Williams said, hunkering down to help Jeremy. "Let's get dressed, yeah?"

"Masjer shaid I can't have no more root beer?" Jeremy asked, frowning up at Williams. "Why? Jusht root beer."

"Yeah, I'm having some doubts about that, Sergeant. Here we go, get your shoes on and then we'll get you to some more of those huge onion rings, right? With some amazing dipping sauce?"

"Yeah," Jeremy said, his face breaking into a large grin while exaggerating all the movements to get his shoes on. "Y'know, Looeytenant, you're a great guy. Sho like my dad. You're a great dad aren't you?"

"Yep," Williams said, "Like to think so. And in a few months, I think I'll make a pretty good grandfather also." He tied Jeremy's shoes and then put an arm under the sergeant's shoulder. "Okay, on three we're going to stand up, right?"

"Yesh, shir," Jeremy said, again trying to salute but not anywhere good. But he was able to stand, despite the room spinning. With Hunter's help, he got turned around and plopped onto a bar stool. "RAV!!!" he said, still smiling really goofy. "You're my friend! My besht friend! Such a good guy! Thish guy, my parentsh loved'm! Even when they found out I lied to them, they loved Rav caushe he'sh a great guy!" He attempted to pat Rav on the back, but got the top of his head instead. "He'sh my besht friend."

Looking around at the table, mostly looking for the food. "And Shae, you're awesh'me! Shilent! I keelhaul you!" He chuckled at what he considered the height of witticism.

"O'Connor!" he said, reaching across the table to attempt to fist bump his fellow staff sergeant. "You're such a hottie, we gotta find you a great guy." He looked around the bar and saw, for men, a bartender and their group. "Nope, nobody here but ush. You don't want ush, probably shay 'like brothersh' but...out there...yeah, out there...a great guy." He gestured to the door and windows while looking, as if the perfect guy for O'Connor were waiting just beyond the glass.

Ree shook her head. "Yeah," she said. "Maybe. For now, though, you should probably sit down and drink that water Hassan is bringing over and eat a bunch of food to soak up the alcohol from that big person root beer you've been drinking."

"No!" Jeremy said, shaking his head wildly. "I'm not drunk. I jusht drank root beer! I don't drink alkiehall. Never drink it, it'sh nashty. We have food?" he asked, looking around the table.

Ree chuckled. "Crow," she said. "Adult Root Beer is an alcoholic drink, you goof! Now, eat some of this food and soak up some of that alcohol, okay? If you don't, I'm going to tell your mother that her little Jeremiah went on a bender and tried to drop trow for someone's fiancee and her drunk, horny, girlfriends!"

Jeremy grabbed a basket of onion rings, almost upending them as he did so. "Who'sh little Jeremiah? He shoundsh like he got trouble."

"You can say that again," laughed Ravi. He snatched up Jeremy's mug and sniffed. "Yes, this is definitely Adult Root Beer. How could you not taste the alcohol? I'll get you a normal one." And with that, he returned to the bar with the offending mug to ask the bartender for non-alcoholic root beer.

"Becaushe I don't drink alchohol," Jeremy said. "I wash drinkin root beer. NOT alchohol."

"I can smell it on your breath from over here," Shae pointed out. She was on the opposite end of the table from Jeremy, and looking very confused about why he had been dancing in the first place; she understood that those women had been celebrating something and that drunk Jeremy started dancing for them because their dancer did not show, but for what reason could they need someone who would dance without their clothes?! "I am confused; there is a drink called 'root beer' that contains alcohol, but also one that does not contain alcohol... Why are they called the same thing?" she asked, deciding not to broach the confusion about the dancer since she'd already embarrassed herself enough asking Ree if she had a dildo.

Ree laughed. "Technically, they are called to different things. The non-alcoholic version is just called root beer, while the alcoholic version is called either adult root beer or hard root beer."

"Then how did he end up with the adult kind?" Shae wondered aloud, then continued to eat her cheese sticks and onion rings; what a wonderful world to have created such food!

“Because the bar tender made a mistake,” replied Ravi, returning to the table with a regular root beer. Before he set it before Jeremy, he sniffed it to double check that it was non alcoholic. “He was horrified when I told him. He just assumed that since everyone else is drinking, so was Jeremy. No matter, we’ll sober him up,” he added, resuming his seat.

"I'm not drinking alcohol," Shae said, lifting bright pink fizzy drink with a cherry floating in it. "Ree ordered this for me and promised me it's not alcoholic because I can't have alcohol... or caffeine... or chocolate..." Then she sighed, because she knew how wonderful chocolate tasted and yet she could not have anymore! "This is one of those times when being a fox-person is not fun."

“She probably specifies a non-alcoholic drink,” Ravi replied. “But, keep in mind that you will never be hung over. Be grateful for that; it is dreadful.”

"To be fair," Williams said, "they did try to tell him. I'm just betting Staff Sergeant Dancy Pants here," he clapped Jeremy on the shoulder as he smiled at the confused young man, "didn't realize what they were saying. Part of that is my fault, I guess, I told him to go ahead and order root beer. But, somehow, I don't think the girls are going to complain too much."

He looked over at O'Connor, "Though I'm sure a link to whatever gets posted is going to find its way into my inbox as well. Y'know, for those days when I could use a good laugh."

"Mine, too, O'Connor," Jake said.

Ree laughed. "Yeah, sure," she said.

"Hangover?" Jeremy said, groaning. "How bad is it?"

"No sense in borrowing trouble, Sergeant," Williams said. "But I think for you party time is over. At least while you're still capable of moving your overly muscular self on your own. Get settled up, wheels up in five. And for anyone else that is ready for a ride back to the base." Williams looked around. He hoped that everyone had a bit of fun, got out a bit of steam and were refreshed and ready to go in the morning.

Selyna had finally gotten over the shock a few minutes ago and had simply sat down with her own plate of chili cheese fries and a hard iced tea. She chewed silently, listening to the conversation around her and trying not to chuckle at the antics of the rest of the team. She wished she had something to add to the goings on, but she didn't, so she had just watched.

The New Dawn members drank and talked for a while longer. Nathan arrived and bought a round. Eventually they were done for the night. Hassan drove the people going back to the base back to the base, and those who intended to pair off for the evening paired off. Jake settled the bill and left with Shae.