firstofitskind | Spaceship Parking (and Beyond!), Sunday

The weekend, Liam felt, had been a pretty good success so far. Sure, Sarah hadn't really been up to anything involving crowds, but that was fine. There were plenty of things they could do that didn't involve lots of people.

Like go flying in Liam's shuttle. Sure, for three out of the four of them it was not actually a new experience, but Liam never got tired of flying and besides, this time it would be Verity behind the controls for the majority of the flight.

(And okay, he genuinely liked Antimony, but he had to admit that picturing her face when she found out that not only did Sarah get to go to space but she did so in a ship that Verity was piloting was pretty damn funny.)

Of course, just out of habit he headed right for the pilot's seat, but then stopped, shook his head, and settled in to the front passenger seat instead, twisting around to grin at Sarah and Renee. "I promise she's a more patient pilot than she is a driver," he said, mostly for Sarah's benefit since it wasn't like Renee had ever had to experience Verity on the road.

[ooc: for two blondes and a cuckoo! posted early for SP purposes.]

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"I wish I'd been able to see that," Renee pouted. And then perked up. "Could I see that? Did someone get it on video?"

"Absolutely not," Liam shook his head at Renee.

"She's faced down an army of space vampires more or less solo," Liam informed Verity. "She'd do just fine."

"'Space vampires'," Renee rolled her eyes. "Don't let Yulyn hear you call them that."

"He absolutely agrees with me that it's an accurate description," Liam said smugly. "So there."

"Space vampires?" Sarah and Verity asked in the same time with the same inflection.

For once, it wasn't Sarah 'leaking' powers. Just raised a cryptozoologist, stay a cryptozoologist.

"I'm driving, take notes," Verity told her cousin.

"The- " Liam stopped himself before he let the species' true name fall from his lips. It had been years and it still felt almost blasphemous to say it, though he had used the name once in Verity's company. "Proto-species that became the Taelons and the Jaridians, millions of years ago, were capable of feeding off the energy of other beings."

"Turns out there was a ship full of them in stasis on Earth," Renee picked up from where Liam left off. "And when I went looking for Liam after he- well. When I thought he might still be alive? Guess I made a little too much noise, because they woke up."

Verity's eyebrows drew together as she tried to remember the name of that species. She knew he mentioned them once.

*Atavus,* Sarah offered helpfully. *That's the name you're thinking of.*

"That sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi horror movie," she said out loud. "Creeping through a ship full of sleeping space vampires."

Beat.

"Antimony would watch that."

Atavus had been the closest word any human language had to describe them. Their true name had been the Kaluuet, a name that hadn't been spoken since Ha'gel first gifted them with shaqarava.

(Minus that one time Liam had said it to Verity, the day after another one of those strange weekends, where he'd been replaced by a version of himself where events had played out slightly differently.)

"She would," Liam said with a snort.

"That," Renee did finger-guns in Sarah's direction, "is exactly what it was like. Luckily for us in the end, though, not all of them were psychopaths with no regard for life."

Sarah's expression was a little bitter. "Sounds familiar," she said. "Well, minus the horror-movie ship, anyway."

"Bet the odds are better with space vampires," Verity mutters.

Renee glanced between the two of them. "Clearly, I'm missing something," she grumbled.

"It's complicated," Liam said. Helpfully.

... Huh. Maybe Sarah would be up for an email pen-pal? He raised an eyebrow, thinking the thought loudly in her direction. Yulyn was a good kid, but being one of the handful of non genocidal maniacs from a race of genocidal maniacs (and the son of their leader, besides) was a lonely sort of life.

"I'm also from a race of genocidal telepathic non-humans, driven insane in the womb," Saarah said simply. "It's pretty much as big a bitch as it sounds, yeah."

She sounded almost exactly like her old self when she said that.

"Yeah, well, I dance real good, so there," Verity teased. "And can throw a mean knife."

"I should introduce you to Yulyn," Renee mused, looking at Sarah. No, she wasn't telepathic, just... on the same wavelength as Liam, a lot of the time.

"The teenage son of the- former- leader of said space vampires," Liam added. "He sort of adopted Renee as a big sister. It's very cute."

"Does he like comics?" Sarah asked. "Or math?"

"If he likes comics, Artie will set up some kind of comic exchange program faster than you can imagine," Verity noted, bringing them smoothly around to Saturn. "Especially if it means he can get his hands on alternate dimension comics."

"I don't know that he's ever read a comic," Renee admitted.

"He didn't exactly have a lot of time for fun after waking up from a few million years of stasis," Liam added.

"But now, he's one of two kids on a spaceship with a handful of adults. He's got nothing but time."

"Well, if Artie wasn't going to send comics before," Sarah said wryly, giving Liam a nod of agreement.

She'd be willing.

"I could suggest some of the games I played growing up," Verity offered.

Because she was terrible.

"As long as it's something that two people could-"

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