firstofitskind | Spaceship Parking & Beyond, Sunday Afternoon

Spaceship Parking & Beyond, Sunday Afternoon

Liam had made plans with Kaidan and Verity to go on something of a joyride today, so he'd shown up at the junkyard early to give himself time to do an extra-thorough pre-flight check.

The virtual glass shimmered and became permeable as the shuttle recognized his biometrics, and he sat down in the pilot's seat and brought up the HUD.

ID core, optimal; conventional drive, optimal; weapons, optimal; communications, online; backup controls, online... everything seemed to be in working order. Now he just needed his passengers.

[ooc: for them what's mentioned!]

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Kaidan thought about that for a minute. Liam was the sheriff - but more importantly, Liam was his friend and Kaidan trusted him.

"It's a complicated answer," he said finally, "But the basics - lift things, throw things, freeze things, make electronics explode, and create a barrier around myself that keeps damn near everything out. Don't ask me how oxygen gets through when nothing else does, because damned if I know." He lifted a shoulder, "Those are the things I trained with the most. That's nowhere near the range of biotic effects available."

Liam was still working on the trust thing; historically speaking, the whole 'I'm part-alien and also only a few years old' conversation had a pretty small success rate.

"Makes sense, if you were being trained to fight," Liam commented, one hand moving in a semicircular motion to slow the shuttle down to a near-crawl as they approached the asteroid belt. "Those all seem like pretty useful abilities in a combat scenario."

"They're effective as hell," Kaidan agreed, "Though I didn't sign on as a biotic with the military. I worked my way up from grunt, same as everyone else."

Looking out the wall, he breathed a sigh of relief when the planet was well behind them. "It's weird, being a civilian again. Never expected to retire. Hell, didn't think I'd make it through the war. Here I am, running a business on the strangest island nobody in my world would ever have believed.."

Liam nodded. "Same here." And if there was a significant glance in Verity's direction at the phrase 'never expected to retire', well.

It was complicated.

"The time travel bit alone is a bit much for some people," Liam said, shaking his head and smiling slightly. "At least I only hopped sideways, rather than backwards."

"Finding myself on antique Earth hasn't been the best thing ever," Kaidan said with a small frown, "Things are a lot better on several levels, my galaxy. I can only hope they'll advance here along a similar mien."

"It's far from perfect," Liam acknowledged. "But for me, at least... I can't go back, so all I've got is forward. And like I was saying before, this is somewhere where I can make my own choices about what happens to me."

"Yeah, that's been the one nice thing. No preconceptions, no expectations," Kaidan agreed. A chance to breathe. A chance to not have all eyes on him, the last human SPECTRE.

"It's an adjustment, though, realizing that things ..aren't an issue here. Nobody treats me like I'm contagious." A beat, "I'm not."

"I didn't think so," Liam assured him. "What happened to you sounds pretty close to what happened with the hybrid program on my Earth. And none of them were ever contagious."

And Kaidan didn't seem like the type to go around teleporting babies out of the womb to make more biotics, so.

He was going to take a moment to put the shuttle's navigation on autopilot, though. Because his palms ached, and he needed a moment to just... press a thumb into the palm of one hand, and then repeat the process with the other.

He caught the gesture and threw Liam a look, "You ok?"

Kaidan was definitely not doing anything to make more baby biotics, no.

"I'm good," Liam said quickly. "Old injury." He was well aware the mark of the shaqarava on his palms looked like a burn scar of some sort, and wasn't averse to letting people continue to think that. "Flares up sometimes, is all."

Kaidan frowned, "Do you need anything for it? I have painkillers, or medigel."

Liam bit his lip to hold back a laugh at the idea of him and painkillers. Because you did not want the only person who knew how to fly this thing high as a kite. "No," he shook his head. "Me and painkillers don't generally get along very well." A vast understatement. "It's fine, it'll pass."

Edited 2018-09-10 02:37 (UTC)

Kaidan eyed him, "Alright. As long as it's not some macho bullshit."

Liam didn't seem the type, but still.

It wasn't! At least, not in the way Kaidan was probably thinking. But even if he hadn't been flying the shuttle through an asteroid field, Liam really didn't like having his inhibitions loosened the way painkillers had a tendency to do.

"I promise it's not," Liam assured him. And the ache was starting to fade, now that he wasn't thinking so much about the energy pathways that ran throughout his body like blood vessels.

He was probably going to go find a quiet spot on the beach and blow holes in some rocks when they got back to Fandom, though.

See, Liam, there's so much fun you two could be having together.

Kaidan shrugged a shoulder, "Ok. If you change your mind, hit me up."

It was extremely unlikely that he would, because otherwise Kaidan would be dealing with a very giggly, high-as-balls Liam.

Instead, he just re-engaged manual controls and took them whipping through the asteroid field. "I'll keep that in mind."

Hey now, that would be fun too. Until Kaidan had to figure out how to land the damned thing.

Kaidan relaxed further as Liam went slaloming through the asteroids. What was it with flyboys needing to zigzag every rock they saw? Joker, Kanan, now Liam.

Did make him grin a little. Maybe also admit to himself that if were flying, he'd be doing the same damned thing.

Look, sometimes he needed to just show off a little.

"I hope I didn't need to pack a barf bag for you," Liam teased.

Kaidan barked a short laugh, "No, I'm good. Normandy's pilot used to like to see if he could centrifuge hard enough to mess with the artificial gravity. The other pilot I know likes to do elevator drops and see if he can make my stomach hit my head. I trained for drop-shuttle missions. This is fun."

"I wouldn't judge, if you did, of course, but I'm glad to hear it." That was a lie, he absolutely would judge. A little tiny bit.

Kaidan snorted, "He's in a galaxy in another plane of reality with no current portal connection and I would still be able to hear Joker giving me shit about it if I did. He'd know. Somehow."

"That would be totally shocking behavior from someone who calls themselves 'Joker'," Liam deadpanned.

Kaidan threw him a grin, "It's sure not because he smiles too much."

"We should throw him in a room together with my friend Augur," Liam decided. "They can witty-one-liner each other into exhaustion."

"I honestly don't know if Joker has a down mode," Kaidan admitted, "I've only ever seen him wired."

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