Breakfast at the Supper Club (pt 1)
Posted on 30 Sep 2023 @ 8:54pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri & Admiral Zavareh Sepandiyar & Major Porter Wallace & Delmer "DB" Holland & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:08pm
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: Obsidian Command, Promenade, The Supper Club
Timeline: M4 D2 Morning
2653 words - 5.3 OF Standard Post Measure
It had been his plan all along to turn the Supper Club into a happening breakfast spot at least once a week, but he wasn’t quite ready for that. It was a different vibe, a different crowd and put a strain on the staff that he wasn’t fully prepared for yet. Delmer had mentioned to the Captain that he’d wanted to setup a Sunday Brunch complete with breakfast buffet and Mimosas to the point he’d bought most of the accoutrement to make that happen, but he’d yet to put one on just yet. Captain DeHavilland had told him to take his time about it, and so he was. But when a four-pip Admiral shows up and asks you to do it now, you didn’t bandy about it. You did it.
So here he was, having turned his restaurant section upside down, setting up a breakfast buffet along the dance floor and a mimosa bar on the bar. The stools had been moved to the dance hall side leaving plenty of room for guests. He’d had his kitchen staff up late last night on their normal nightly machinations so he’d been the one up at the crack of dawn this morning manning the kitchen. The recipe’s were all his anyway, but it had been a hot minute since he’d run the whole of a kitchen on his own, this time utilizing only the staff that didn’t have a human standard circadian rhythm. It was the most intergalactic southern meal anyone had ever had.
The buffets had been prepared, the food cooked and put out and the second round almost done with the third in the hopper. Everything that he could see had gone off without a hitch. They hadn’t run out of champagne for the mimosa’s despite not really being stocked for this, and the servers weren’t bringing back any complaints on the food. At this point, the rest of the kitchen staff could handle it. So, after washing his hands, he ditched his apron, adjusted his flyaway hair in the mirror and composed himself before walking out into the crowd of the dining room. Smile at the ready.
Delmer stepped through the doors of the kitchen, ready to greet the crowd and felt his smile immediately falter. The place was nearly deserted. Sure, there were people there, but he had been led to believe that this was a big deal. That this brunch that the Admiral put on was meant to have some important people. That this was a matter of importance. But what he saw here, this crowd would barely get through the one round of food he prepared. They wouldn’t even get close to touching the second, let alone the third he had cooking.
“Hells bells,” Delmer groaned, looking over to his buffet and walking that way.
The food had been piled high, the second course on top of the first so that each tray was laden with food. Exactly like he’d have never done on his own. He ran a hand through his hair, groaning. This was exactly why he wasn’t ready for this. This wasn’t spit and polished service, this was near chaos. It was amateur hour, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A young, dark-haired boy came up to the buffett as he was freaking out quietly and he moved quietly aside to let him serve up a plate which he quickly filled to the top. Well beyond what was reasonable. Normally, he’d have said something about leaving plenty for everyone. But, shaking his head, he just offered another pair of biscuits off the tray. “Memaw’s recipe. You can’t beat it,” he said without his trademark zeal.
The young man just nodded and left with his plate. Delmer quickly rearranged the biscuits so they didnt’ get burned by the heat lamp and turned back as he heard someone take a plate and looked back to see the same young man.
“Gawl-lee, did you inhale it?” he asked in disbelief.
“What?” the boy asked.
“You just…” Delmer said, pointing the way the boy had just gone and then seeing him at a table tucking into the massive plate. “... right,” Delmer cottoned on, turning back to the other boy, the twin of the former, looking at him as if he might be ill. “Try the biscuits… memaw’s recipe…,” he suggested.
Ibis arrived with uncertain expectations. Having gone through the replicator catalog, she’d worn a new uniform variant in place of her decade old one. It was fitted right, and soft, but it still felt strange, and she kept pulling at the hem of the skirt, self conscious of her bony knees, even if she had included some dark stockings. She’d worn new shoes, tall boots that went up her calves and helped to hide her legs. She’d laid out a nice outfit for Olivia, hoping she might take it herself without there being a fight, but the dress had been left untouched on the foot of the unmade bed. Ibis said nothing about either, seeing as Olivia had never had a bed to make, it wasn’t a skill like rolling up her sleeping mat. As for the going about in underwear and body paint, Ibis was considering turning the temperature in their quarters down low enough to force the girl to put on something more than a sports bra and those nightshorts Olivia had settled for when the seaweed had been taken away. But here they were at another function, and Olivia had no shame.
Recognizing that other young people were already collecting their own food from an overwhelming smorgasbord, Ibis stopped Ikemba from grabbing fruit with his hands, and showed him to the dishware. “Here,” she said, passing him a ceramic dish. He’d eaten on the tin pieces Wallace had crafted, and she hoped he’d understand as she put it into his hands.
Ikemba understood well enough, and, standing on his toes and holding up the plate to the side of the buffet, he used his hand and forearm to swipe a row of sliced peaches onto the dish and moved to the next array to repeat the motion.
Ibis bit her lip as the serving utensils went unnoticed, but couldn’t bear to stop him from his spree. The plate would fill fast enough, and there didn’t seem to be enough people in the Admiral’s breakfast table as they were all arriving to justify it all.
“It’s… his very first self-serve buffet,” she said by way of apology to the man who seemed to be overseeing it.
As if the establishment was now under her management, Olivia strode past, hands on her barely dressed hips, scrutinizing everything, and Ibis knew she was looking for what seafood was on offer.
“Give her some space and time,” Wallace murmured, noting Ibis’ less than bemused face as Olivia passed. “Besides, don’t Betazoids go naked all the time?”
"Just during weddings…" Ibis whispered.
“She’ll like ours then.”
Although smiling, Ibis shook her head ‘no’ to that idea.
He absent-mindedly tried adjusting his own uniform so he looked more…more. Although the health regime the doctors had put them on saw him gaining weight at a quick pace, Wallace still failed to fill out his uniforms like he had before. To his eyes, he looked like an old man pretending to be a Marine. At least she looked comfortable.
DB, still minding the buffett and trying to make sure everyone got double and triple helpings, nearly dropped the butter dish he was offering an older Marine when an elder man with Admiral’s pips walked up to the buffet and grabbed a plate. He’d never actually met the Admiral, he’d just received word via a Yeoman as to what he was needed for, so he was more than a bit surprised that he was actually here. In his experience, Admiral’s did pop around for breakfast buffets.
“My sons are already asking when you will do this again,” Admiral Sepandiyar offered to DB as he stepped up to the first station and glanced over his shoulder at his sons tucking into the two large plates they each had.
“Oh… I didn’t realize they were yours, sir. Uhm. Well. I’m not rightly sure when I’ll do this again. Lots of things learned today, lots of things we aren’t rightly ready for. But it seems to be… well received,” he shrugged uncertainly. He really wanted to be mad at him for not telling him he was only serving ten people. He would have done something very different, but as a civilian on a Starfleet base it was already a tenuous spot. Arguing with the Admiral, or at least making it seem like he was ungrateful, was not a recipe for longevity.
Ibis took a plate for herself and held out one for Wallace, then followed behind the Admiral. She looked around, expecting to see the mother of the boys. They were all youngmen, practically grown... and eating like it. “Your wife couldn’t come?” She asked politely, curious to meet her.
“Unfortunately, no,” he replied simply as he moved down the line. “Were you able to sleep?” he asked, “I recall the first few weeks finding it hard to sleep on anything less than a hard floor,” he added knowingly. He was no stranger to harsh conditions having spent more than two years under harsh conditions as an inmate at Rura Penthe and then a brief sting on Terok Nor, before the Cardsassians abandoned it. Those were long years ago, but they were incidents that you never really forgot.
Ibis looked between Wallace and then back to the Admiral, wondering how he came to talk about it so familiarly. “We’re still adjusting,” she said. “Someone was insightful enough to give us a firm mattress.” She held her plate vertically and against her while she felt dizzy from the selections. Eventually, she picked out one of the quiches, and sighed contentedly. “Eggs.”
“The first time I saw fruit again… I very nearly fainted,” Zavareh offered, letting the restaurant owner spoon a dollop of eggs onto his plate. “It’s a matter of pride now to keep a bowl of fruit on my desk at all times,” he added. “Little things we learn to balance us. To keep us grounded to our new reality. You’ll find yours in time,” he smiled.
Wallace muttered about fruit under his breath. He’d served directly under an admiral once. Reardon hadn’t been such a bad fellow, for the brass. He preferred distance from the pips in boxes, however, and having to talk with Sep simply confirmed that nothing in the last nine years had changed that. “We’ll keep that in mind, Sir.”
“Are your children faring any better?” he asked, “To have grown up in such a different world. It must be hard to see how we live here. How different it is and how very much the same it is.”
“We all grew up on different worlds. I’ve always found Vulcans a strange bunch.” Wallace tussled Ikemba’s hair. “He’ll be fine. He’s still young. Olivia…she’ll manage in her own way.”
Ibis observed across the bar as Olivia selected grits. She imagined it was because they looked so similar to the sea oat mash. Her plate also featured tough, dark purple, curly kale leaves that must have been intended as an embellishment on one of the trays. Olivia probably took it to look like one of the edible sea plants they occasionally could harvest. Ibis wondered if any other child ever willingly would choose those items, with everything else on offer…
Although Wallace sounded confident that Ikemba would be okay, Ibis felt the knot of concern in her stomach. He still barely spoke. It wasn’t the same as a cultural difference between Trill and Andor. The island would be indelible in his psyche, she knew. But maybe. Maybe Wallace was right and Ikemba could adjust and catch up on all the growing he needed.
“You were…” Ibis struggled to try to find the word for her question. Had the admiral been captured? Tortured? Stranded? “...lost?”
“I was a guest of the Klingon’s, and eventually the Cardassian’s,” Sepandiyar answered simply, not shutting down the line of questioning but not offering too much a thread to pull on.
“Bibi! Bibi, Chocca!” Ikemba was bouncing up and down beside himself, ready to stick his hand into a vat of pudding, but Ibis quickly put the serving spoon into his fist and helped him target it onto the plate. Helping him operate the long spoon was strange, almost like managing a second elbow.
“Olivia, help Ikemba carry his plate to the table.” Ibis directed, forcing Olivia to come back around and move Ikemba with a directional push on the shoulder.
There were tons of tables—everywhere, in all the rooms there seemed to be tables, chairs, beds, desks, counters, shelves. It felt weird sitting so high off the ground. But even with a huge room full of tables, there was only one to which some older boys were carrying their own plates. Recalling the positive receptions she had with the marines the day before, Olivia figured that table was going to be the most interesting and navigated Ikemba there. She put his plate on the table while he mountain climbed the chair and popped his head up over the edge.
“Chocca,” Ikemba declared to the adult looking young men with a goofy grin and a hyper inhale and exhale laugh, while wielding a spoon from the place setting in a firm fist grip.
The three boys at the table already laughed at the kid, grinning all the while.
“Kids not going to want to eat anything else,” the eldest of the three chuckled, looking over to the young girl. “I’m Roham, by the way,” he said by way of introduction, “My brothers Arash and Jamshid,” he said, indicating the twins next to him already tucked into their plates ravenously. They looked up just long enough to wave politely.
Olivia kept looking between them, like they were a malfunctioning reflection. “Why did you get two of the same one?”
Roham snorted into his coffee while the twins looked up confused, first at her, and then at each other. As if they both needed the other to confirm what she’d just said.
She kept trying to find a difference, but she wasn’t used to seeing this many people in the first place. “Which one is Arash and which of you is Jamshid?”
The boy on the left said, “Arash,” pointing to himself, and pointed to the other and said, “Jamshid.”
Olivia looked dubious. She knew what she would do if she had a twin. “How could anyone know if you’re lying? And one of you isn’t the other one of you?”
“That’s the fun of it,” Jamshid grinned back.
Ikemba had his first few spoons of pudding, and without warning or preamble he started to feed some to Roham, standing on his chair and shoving an overfull spoon in the young man’s face, because sharing your food was caring, and he decided he wanted to show Rohan he liked him.
Roham recoiled at the spoon being thrust at him and managed a patronizing smile as he took a nibble off the end and nodded, “Yeah. That’s good,” He said, leaning back at bit more as the boy continued to offer it. “I’m good. You go on and finish it. I-I’m more of a vanilla pudding guy,” he declined politely.
