Star Trek: Starbase 777 - ens-m’kahl﹢ens-suzuki

[D] Having coordinated a whole nut-cracking session with a fellow nut enjoyer on the chatroom, Randy had made sure to tidy up his new quarters, replicate several varieties of nuts, even pulling some real pecans out of the stasis unit he had in storage and arranged everything neatly on the table in the common space. He was in much more relaxed garb than usual, a simple white tank top, a pair of jeans that had more holes than a colinder and a comfortable pair of black suede boots, having decided to forego his usual hat, his coffee-colored hair was laid out in messy spikes along his head. He was excited at the prospect of making another friend, something he had sought out doing once he had become an officer and an official long-term member of the crew.

[D] After a day of thinking about all the nuts he was going to crack, Lama made his way to Randy's quarters. He was dressed still in uniform, with a tote bag slung over his shoulder that was filled to the brim with nuts. Unfortunately the majority of them were replicated, but he had a few 'real nuts' they could crack. He also had a Romulan nutcrakcer which looked similar to a normal one but in the shape of the Raptor insignia seen in the Republic's emblem. Lama chimed the buzzer at the entrance to Randy's quarters. As always his hair was the same ugly bleach blonde, it looked like he left the bleach on way too long and his face was as smooth as ever. Lama was very excited to enjoy some nuts with a new friend.

At the sound of the buzzer, Randy leapt off of the couch he been lounging on and practically ran to the door, hitting the open key with gusto. When the door slid open, he was pleased to see Lama with a bag presumably full of nuts and gesticulated him to enter. “Come on in partner!” He said happily, taking a moment to double tap the combadge he had in his pocket to activate the ‘Texan subroutine’, not wanting to confuse the poor Romulan.

"Partner? Yeehaw!" Lama said when the doors switched open and the human greeted him. No matter how often he encountered tall people, he still was in shock whenever he met them. Lama was not short by any means, he was on the taller end for many humanoids, although definitely shorter for Vulcanoids. He entered the room when invited, like some vampire who was waiting for his queue. "I brought the nuts and a Romulan nutcracker, OH I was trying to see if Betazoids had nutcrakcers but when I asked my sibling they said such a thing was stupid and why would nutcrackers differ between planets," Lama laughed when he remembered his conversation with Imin. His sibling had a much firmer grasp on life than he did, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to tease him. Lama plopped his bag of nuts on the sofa and pulled out the Romulan nutcracker. "This! Is a Romulan nutcracker though! One could also argue so are my fists, but that's another story entirely!! What kinda nuts do you have? Peacocks right?"

Randy chuckled hearing the Romulan use such a Human phrase, something he never would have expected to hear from anyone other than his friend Rilek, who themself tended to be surprisingly knowledgeable with slang. "Well, thank you! I suppose we are well stocked now! I have some authentic Texas pecans from a tree near my home!" He said happily, before grabbing his own nutcracker that had specifically modified to crack pecans over 500 years prior. "I'm curious to see how different Romulans nuts are from Terran ones!"

Lama laughed along with Randy although he wasn't sure what was so funny. Was it his failure at terran slang? The silly Romulan-Betazoid was fully aware his usage of slang was bizarre to most as he didn't have context for a lot of the words he heard. Unlike Romulan insults, it seemed terran ones had more rules than just mashing every explicit word in the dictionary together. Lama sat right beside his nut bag on the sofa and pulled out a bowl he had brought from his quarters for putting the cracked shells. "Yep!! So many nuts! I gotta say, I never thought I'd be cracking nuts with a human," Lama admitted with a loud guffaw. "Romulan nuts actually also contain poison if ya get enough of them because-- of course they do. But don't worry, you'd need like.. put a million nuts in your mouth at once to get any sort of adverse effect," As Lama said it he held up one of the nuts in his hand. It looked like a walnut, but instead of being brown it was red with some green bits in the centre. "My brother loves nut stew, you just grab some nuts and boil them and drain the soup out! Real good, kinda gives like a musky flavour! Here, try a nut," Lama gave the nut in his hand a good crack with the nutcracker and handed the green inside pit to Randy.

Randy couldn’t help but laugh along with Lama, feeling equally ridiculous in that moment, but Randy being Randy, he didn’t mind, even going so far to lean into the ridiculousness in the moment. Taking a seat on the opposite couch, Randy looked on at the strange red nuts, fascinated by the vibrant colors. “Never thought I’d be cracking nuts with someone I’ve just met, but hey, there’s a first for everything!” He said with a grin, excited to see if the nuts tasted as good as they looked. “Poison you say?! Wow! I guess in this case moderation is key, plus, who wants that many nuts in their mouth anyway!” He said, eyeing Lama’s nuts carefully as he cracked one. “Ooo that does sound good! I love anything with a nice musk to it!” He was quick to grab a pecan from his own bag, and decided not to futz around with the nutcracker, Randy quickly cracked it in his hand, pulling out the oddly shaped nut from the center, offering it to Lama as he took the proffered Romulan one. With a chomp, Randy chowed down on the nut, immediately nodding with approval at the intense musky flavor and slight, almost pineapple sweet flavor. “Wow! Romulan nuts are great! Have you ever taken them and made nut butter? I bet that would be super good on toast, or even just to lick on by itself!”

Laughter tickled his cheeks all the way to the tips of his pointy ears. It didn't take long for him to catch the inneundo though and he quickly shifted gears. The laughter stopped and his eyes narrowed. "Oh, I've cracked nuts with someone on a first meeting," He replied in an ominous tone. Was this a violent nut cracking or something else? Who knew, it was Lama tr'Ehweia, ex-Tal Shiar spy. He held the grim expression for a few moments before bursting out laughing once again. "Yeah, I suppose if someone had a really big mouth, but then you wouldn't even be able to taste them! Romulan nuts are best had one at a time," As Lama said that he watched Randy crack the peacan with his bare hands! Lama's eyes widened at the sight before gladly exchanging nuts with the other. "I-- okay okay," Lama laughed as he popped the peacan into his mouth and chewed it softly. It had a... Nutty taste. He couldn't pinpoint the exact flavour as he had never had anything like it, but it wasn't bad at all. "Not bad, for earth nuts. Actually, I have nothing to compare it to, but it's good!" Lama said as he grabbed another Romulan nut from the bag to crack it. "Mmhmmm, nut butter? Sounds good! And as much as licking butter straight from the jar sounds appealing, I'd much rather try it on toast! We don't have nut butter or well, I've never had it and I used to work at a grocery store!" Lama told Randy with a silly smile and another laugh. "What other uses for nuts do humans have?"

Randy tilted his head in confusion, still unaware of the innuendos he was unwittingly throwing six ways from Sunday. “Oh, interesting! Did they have a special affinity for nuts too, or was it just a by chance thing?” He had no idea so many people were into nuts, perhaps it was Romulan thing? Randy nodded, quickly cracking a few more pecans and happily munching on them as Lama spoke. “I can definitely see how you’d want to only eat one at a time, pecans are small enough that you definitely want at least two in your mouth or else you don’t really taste much!” When he really thought about it, pecans were definitely one of those things that you needed a true abundance to really get any flavor out of, kind of like sticks of gum. “Oh a grocery store! Cool!” He was always amazed when he accompanied his parents to the grocery store, seeing so much real food was fascinating. “We have lots of uses for them! Though, I suppose the most popular is peanut butter, which you often find dipped in chocolate, its really tasty! Oh! And walnut shells can be used to repair furniture!”

"It was a joke, wahahah!!" Lama laughed, slightly pleased that he was able to say something that slipped past the human officer. He was usually the one who didn't get jokes so it was nice to be the smart one in the situation for once. "I mean-- I beat up a guy, cracked nuts," Lama explained the real meaning of his statement before bursting out in another fit of laughter, nearly dropping his nutcracker and knocking over his bag of nuts. "It was in self defense! I'm Betazoid, I'd never hurt anyone without purpose!" Lama reassured Randy that he wasn't some dude going around kicking people in the nuts for fun, although that would be quite the criminal. "Two at a time? Makes sense, I like the light flavour!" Lama munched a few more nuts, cracking them neatly into the bowl. "Peanut butter, wait I know that one! Sounds good, mmm, could we replicate any of that? I was kinda feeling toast," As much as Lama loved eating some nuts raw, they weren't very filling on their own. "We can also replicate some Romulan nut soup!"

“OH!” He exclaimed, finally getting the jokes and innuendos, and burst out into a fit of cheek-splitting laughter, taking a hand to wipe away the tears that gathered in his eyes from his laughter…that was, until Lama mentioned beating up a guy, at which he moved to sit up straight in his seat. Lama wouldn’t beat him up, right? “I’ve heard that Romulans and Vulcans are a lot stronger than Humans, I bet you did some damage to the guy!” He said, laughing along with Lama. “I believe you! I used to do wrestling in high school and the Academy, I guess I ended up beating people up for sport if you put it that way?” He said, thinking back to his wrestling days and all the people he had innocently and happily put a beating to. “Oh yeah! Absolutely! Peanut butter inbound!” He got up from the couch and made his way over to the replicator, a tray of peanut butter, grape jelly and toast materializing in the device. He brought the tray back to the table and carefully laid everything out for Lama to see. “Ok! I’ve got some peanut butter, both crunchy and smooth, some toast and some jelly, which many Humans put on bread along with peanut butter to make one of the best sandwiches ever!”

”On average, yeah, Vulcanoids have strength in our favour!" Lama said with a proud smile and a loud belly laugh. "But nah I beat him by my sheer knowledge of Vulcanoid anatomy and his lack of knowledge about mine! Woooo my insides are whack!" Lama told Randy, speaking very casually about what was actually a pretty traumatising event. Lama even had a scar from the ordeal! "Wrestling? Sounds cool! Wish we had something like that at the War College!" Lama said as if he would ever engage in a physical contact sport. He happily stayed on the sofa cracking nuts whilst Randy went to replicate them some food. He was looking forward to trying this 'peanut butter', maybe if it was good enough he'd recommend it to Taev or something. "Waahhh thanks Randy!" He tossed the nutcracker haphazardly into the bowl, making a loud cronch noise when it hit the nut shells. He turned his body so he could grab a piece of toast and-- "How do we get the peanut butter on it? Do we just... Dip it? Like nachos or something?" Lama asked, thinking this was like other terran foods where you just have dip with either crisps or bread sticks or something.

“Well then! Well done I suppose! Though, any kind of violence in anger is a sad thing to have to do.” He said, pouting for a moment, before perking back up to his usual self, not wanting to drag Lama down into sad thoughts of the past. “Oh its super fun! It’s especially fun when they put people against you that are similar sizes to oneself…a good challenge!” He said with a chuckle, happily looking over the spread, making sure everything was in place…that was, until Lama pointed out there was no way to get the peanut butter on the bread. With a facepalm, Randy ran back to the replicator, quickly procuring a butter knife and handing it to the confuddled Vulcanoid. “Sorry about that! Though, the idea of PB&J nachos is something I desperately need to try now!” He said with wide eyes, before grabbing a slice of toast and dipping one half in the peanut butter and the other half in the jelly, eager to monch on it.

"It sure is! You know, I'm Betazoid, empathic, I could never actually do fighting. Even for sport, I just would feel too bad. But, maybe that's what my last employer liked," Lama said, very casually just mentioning the Tal Shiar, but in a way that only he knew what he was referring to. He noticed the brief interruption of his human friend's normally cheery demeanour, but assumed it was probably just him being sad about the violence. Seriously though, Lama wished he could just tune out other people's emotional soups. "I will take your word for it though! I've never been one for fitness and stuff, well, Spacegram fitness where I just pose sexily in front of a mirror and then go home," Lama said, revealing the secrets to how influencers looked so good at the gym. The trick was not to actually work out, just pretend like you are. Lama giggled when Randy scurried back to the replicator to make a knife and then when he handed it to him. A human handing a Romulan a knife, honestly, worst move in history and Lama could not resist but grab the knife and grinning wildly. "Mwahaha silly human, it was my plan all along to get you to make this knife now I shall-- Would you like me to spread some peanut butter on your toast for you?" Lama's face went from evil to very kind and helpful like the switch of a light as he grabbed a piece of toast and stuck the knife into the peanut butter to spread it. "And yeah, PB&J nachos sounds good, next food adventure idea!"

Randy quirked a brow at the subtle mention of Lama’s previous employer, deciding not to mention anything further about it as he assumed it might be a bit of a touchy subject for him. He couldn’t imagine how both amazing and annoying being an empathetic could be, especially somewhere with as many people as the starbase. Randy let out a deep laugh hearing Lama’s gym routine. “Hey! I do that too! I guess wanting to be a t.h.o.t on social media is a universal constant or something!” He grinned, taking another big bite of his bread, only to turn back to Lama and see him grinning wildly while holding the butter knife, snorting out a chuckle when he feigned evil for a moment, before shifting back to his regularly cheery self. “As long as the knife stays away from my person, I don’t particularly care what you do with it!”

"A tee-haysh-oh-tee? Tell me you are not going trying to join the Breen Confederacy," Lama stopped what he was doing and stared straight at Randy with a serious expression. He could only handle it for a few seconds before he bursted out laughing. "Wahaaha!! Same, I have always wanted to be a Breen admiral," Lama only continued his joke, laughing as he was spreading the peanut butter on the piece of toast. He nearly dropped the knife he was laughing so much-- and got peanut butter all over his nice uniform! "But yea yea I wanna be sexy on Spacegram, I have a lot of fans who are curious about my vitiligo, maybe I should open up an OnlyHands because people are asking so much!" And now for a more honest statement, Lama put the knife down and showed Randy his hand. Unlike the rest of his body, the patches of white almost fully covered his hands with only a few tan spots on the backs. "I'm KIDDING! I'd never show scandalous hand photos," Lama said as he realised he did not know where he put his knife down so he just... Rolled up the toast in a burrito shape and dipped in in the jelly.

Randy too fell into a fit of laugher, both from the miscommunication and from his own confusion of why being a Breen admiral would be funny to his friend, but thus was the nature of interacting with people from highly diverse cultures to one’s own, one of his favorite parts about being in Starfleet. His laughing was only stopped by him catching Lama nearly dropping the knife and accidentally peanut buttering himself. After subtly sliding a towel toward Lama, unsure if he had noticed the peanut butter all over himself and not wanting to mention anything lest he be embarrassed, and listened as he talked about OnlyHands…totally unsure of what that was. “I say give the fans what they want.” He said deadpan, before letting out another laugh after a beat, eyeing the way Lama ate the toast in a way he had never seen before. “So, do Vulcanoids find hands of other species as scandalous?”

Lama was happy to laugh alongsisde with Randy and took the towel from him to to wipe up whatever bits of peanut butter he got on himself or the sofa. He then took a big bite of his weird peanut butter and jelly burrito, the combination of flavours giving him quite a shock at first. He was not a big fan of the mixture of gooey and sticky. The peanut butter was creamy but the jelly was sweet and a little slimey. Not a bad combination inherently, but the flavours felt odd. So He prepared another piece of toast, this time with chunky peanut butter and no jelly. "I think my siblings would have a heart attack if they ever found out. Imin especially, they told me it's awkward when people ask if they know me because our family names are the same," Thankfully with Lama having vitiligo, he looked almost nothing like his siblings. The only thing they had in common was their black eyes, but unless they were all lined up, it was hard to tell they were related. "Yep we do, well, I don't know if all Romulans do. And not all Vulcanoids care about hands. Vulcans and Romulans sure, not so sure about Zami Rigelians or something," Lama shrugged as he bit into his toast with peanut butter on it. "Mmm.. I once heard about a Romulan who found like... Smooth foreheads attractive. But I think he just had a thing for Vulcans, mixed and full. Uhh my bestie's husband I think," Lama was trying to remember who exactly that was but couldn't quite remember the name. "But humans, you guys don't look at hands like that, do you guys?"

“My brother Parker tries to deny any relation when asked, but unfortunately for him we look quite a bit alike!” He said with a cat-like grin, having always enjoyed embarrassing his older brother whenever he got the chance, knowing that while he did annoy the absolute hell out of Parker, they were still close regardless. “Interesting! I guess atleast two of the Vulcanoids I’ve interacted with lately are chill with hands, as I’ve held hands with them recently!” He said with a chuckle, a slight pink tinge to the tips of his ears. “I mean, I’m sure there are some people that have a…fascination for hands, but they aren’t as scandalous. Most Humans consider holding hands quite time to be honest.”

"Ahhh, that makes it hard! I am so glad my siblings and I don't really look like. Well, I am the hottest one and the only one with vitiligo, not a coincidence at all!" Lama cleaned his hands off before he touched his face lightly and winked at Randy. Whilst he was a little sad when his skin continued started to progress throughout his adolescent years, he had long since embraced the random patches of white that covered his hands and face. He also had some pigmentation loss on his feet and chest area, but it was much more prevalent on his hands and face. "But I am glad you and your brother are friends! I kinda wish my siblings got along better but there's three of us and we're like.... Half Betazoid too so we not only have to deal with each other's spoken words, but also like.. I hate feeling their feelings all the time," Lama shook his head and grabbed his bowl of nut shells and his nutcracker. "WHAT?? Wow that's like... third base for Vulcanoids," He let out yet another laugh at that. "Holding hands.. honest, hmm, not really for Romulans. Well, the ones that wanna do the sneaky murders, don't hold hands with those guys!" He said as if that wasn't already obvious. [D] The two continued their nut adventures, cracking nuts, eating peanut butter, and indulging in cultural nut exchange. Lama cracked some nuts for Randy and Randy did the same for Lama. Lama also tried to impress Randy with how many nuts he could fit in his cheeks but it wasn't that many as Lama had a surprisingly small mouth for someone who talked so much. When they were all out of nuts they said their goodbyes and Lama headed back to his quarters, satisfied with all of the nuts he had eaten that day.