33 Apocalypse Ave, Friday Evening

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan had been called back in to deal with some mercenaries out near the borders of Alliance space. Then he'd had to sit through a debriefing, and another debriefing, and a third, spontaneous debriefing that happened when they ran into one of the off-duty Admirals on their way to the shuttle bay, and... ... and, well, it had been a couple of hours-- more than that-- since his last meal.

And, you know, there were nights for ordering in, and nights for going out to grab some dinner, and then there were nights you just wanted to crash out on the sofa with a beer and a nice steak without having to actually reach out and talk to people.

So his entrance back into the house had gone like this: shuck off his jacket, throw one of his bags in the corner, put away his guns, then head right up into the kitchen, dig around for the meat, and get the grill going. Okay, besides the steak, they didn't really have anything in the house that screamed meal, per se, but he was rummaging around and making do with whatever he could scrounge.

Genuine, grade-A Jump Zero-style meal. That'd be nice.

[[ because when canon gives you lemons, you gleefully plan out two months' worth of lemonade. Especially when the lemons are this good. Open to housemates and visitors and calls! ]]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

"You're home," Jack observed. (He was a sharp one.) "You're home and -- we have food?"

He'd been saving his grocery shopping for the weekend. It hadn't happened.

[not_a_whiner]

"I have some steaks," Kaidan offered. "And... I think this is a tomato. And a, uh. I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look rotten to me."

Yes. ... Yes.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack went over to poke at the probably-not-rotten. "Fried rice," he judged. "From before we went to Turkey."

He grimaced. "I'd stick to steak."

[not_a_whiner]

"I don't know. Rice lasts a while, doesn't it?" Kaidan said. He poked at it with the spatula. "Doesn't seem to have gotten a second lease on life, at least."

[bitten_notshy]

"And if something isn't moving on its own, it's probably more or less edible," Jack said, only halfway sarcastic. He'd eaten worse. "Go for it."

He went to fix himself some tea, glancing over at Kaidan. "How was home this time?"

[not_a_whiner]

"Not that exciting," Kaidan said, giving the rice another poke before he decided that, you know, it'd do. "Spent about two hours peeling some Blood Pack mercs out of a colony settlement, then spent about two days in debriefings... and not the fun kind."

[bitten_notshy]

"Doesn't sound like a thrill," Jack agreed. "It's been quiet here. Do I want to ask what the Blood Pack is?"

[not_a_whiner]

"Mercenary group made up mostly of krogan and the vorcha they hire as cannon fodder," Kaidan explained, flipping the steaks. "They mostly function on pure rage and, well. Redundant organs and extremely fast healing. Nasty pieces of work."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack permitted himself a theatrical shudder. "Right. Sounds like a better fight for you than for me."

[not_a_whiner]

"It's not that tough," Kaidan ameliorated. "I mean, you put on some incendiary ammo, that'll cut right through the armor and keep the vorcha from--"

Oh, crap, his rice was burning.

"...regenerating," he said a minute later, as he shook the slightly burned rice from the pan into a bowl.

[bitten_notshy]

"Right, but in my world things you shoot at don't regenerate to start with," Jack pointed out, nostrils faintly curled at the acrid scent of the burned food. "I'm still not sure how it's possible. It'd seem to make anyone who could immortal."

[not_a_whiner]

"Vorcha have a really short life span," Kaidan said, merrily continuing onwards with his cooking adventures. The steaks weren't burned, after all. "But a really unique biology. You been keeping up with local research on, uh, stem cells?"

[bitten_notshy]

"No," Jack admitted. "I have a vague sense they're trying to manipulate them to cure diseases, but that's as far as it goes. It's all too advanced for my poor 19th century brain."

Or he didn't care.

[not_a_whiner]

"Okay, stem cells-- basically these... well, basic cells that make up all life. A stem cell can become any kind of cell," Kaidan said, pulling his tomatoes off the fire, too. "You and I don't have an awful lot of them. But, uh, think about worms. You cut 'em in two, they grow back, right? That's because they're swarming with them."

Beat.

"At least, that's about the story I've been told. Vorcha are like that, just... not worms."

[bitten_notshy]

"Huh." Jack had learned something new; he was going to take a minute and absorb it. "So if you cut them in half, do you get two vorchas?"

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan opened his mouth to answer that, then... realized he couldn't. "I don't know," he said cautiously. "Usually we just... shoot them in the head or set them on fire."

Welcome to life in the Alliance Navy?

[bitten_notshy]

"Probably bringing them in live to run experiments isn't standard military procedure," Jack said, sounding a bit disappointed even though he understood the logic. "Fire's more efficient."

[not_a_whiner]

"Fire's really efficient," Kaidan agreed, pushing his steaks onto his plate. "And there we go."