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The Perk, Wednesday Morning

There were a lot of ways in which Sam would not consider herself an especially cool person. She blushed often; she sometimes lost control of her mouth and rambled on about things; she lacked the apparently fairly common ability to survive in a maze-dungeon without panicking internally; and every once in a while she laughed so hard at some science joke or another that she needed to take a puff of her inhaler before she could continue giggling.

But, for Sam, the height of cool had to be defined as 'the ability to play chess against oneself and make it a challenge,' and that was what she was doing today at the Perk, with a cup of coffee at her side. The game was the tactile, board-and-real-pieces kind as opposed to a GUI interface, and she felt it really contributed to the overall satisfaction level of firmly lifting the bishop and placing it three diagonal squares away, checkmating herself.

If anyone else wanted to cut in on this game, Sam would be more than willing to let them.

[[open Perk!]]

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Kaidan came in after his morning jog to get a cup of coffee. It'd been a couple of days and he was feeling a lot better - this was the first time since last week he wasn't just doing this to keep his routine going.

He paused halfway into the shop, though, because... well. "Specialist?"

Sam looked up. Oh, this was going to be awkward. Unavoidable, really. And right when she was in the middle of being cool.

"Commander," she greeted him. "Ah. Hi."

Kaidan crossed his arms and offered the chess board a look that was caught somewhere between amused and confused. "I didn't take you for a chess player."

On her own, even.

Well, she would have asked the barista to play with her, but that would have ended too quickly.

"Oh," she said. "I mean, yes. I quite like strategy games. They're a hobby of mine. Chess is a particular favorite, but there's also Risk, Kepesh-Yakshi..." Sam, you were babbling. "Do you play?"

"Uh, last time I tried, I got distracted upgrading the GUI interface," Kaidan admitted. Because he was a tech geek. A techie tech geeky geek. "Kepesh-Yakshi? Is that an asari thing?"

"It is," Sam said with a nod. "It's a bit like their version of space chess. It's also on a GUI interface, but rather than pawns and rooks and bishops, you control a small fleet, with the objective of taking over your opponent's homeworld. It's very... asari."

Edited 2013-04-17 13:25 (UTC)

"It sounds like it," Kaidan said, sliding into the chair opposite her. "So, Specialist - considering the past two weeks, I was wondering where your headspace was at."

Dealing with subordinates, the Shepard Method.

And a fine example of the Shepard Method it was!

"Well..." Excuse Sam for one moment as she figured out just how much of her fretting she wanted to divulge. The answer was 'some, but not much,' apparently. "The truth is that I've been better, sir. With the dungeon, and intruding on your private moment. But I'm confident that I'll... acclimatize and be accustomed to this place in no time."

"It takes some time," Kaidan agreed. "And that's without, you know, the dungeon thing and everything."

After a pause, he added, "Don't worry about what happened in there with me. It's not important."

"I just feel awful about it, Commander," Sam said earnestly, but she took his advice and left it at that. "But. Apart from that, the house the Alliance set up for me is fine and the Portalocity office is finally free of dust, so I suppose it could be a lot worse."

"They actually got you the house?" Kaidan asked. "Guess they learned from my case, then..." He hadn't gotten a house. He'd gotten a hotel room. "Anyway, you should... keep taking downtime while you can. With any luck we'll be quiet for a couple of weeks."

Sam blinked. "Did they not set one up for you?" Awkward. "But yes, that's what I'm planning on doing. It helps that I have a student employee at the shop now to take care of some of the portal coordination. Leaves me plenty of time for coffee and chess."

She made an awkward attempt at a grin at that.

"And you're... doing all right as well?"

"I'm fine," Kaidan said. But then short of him winding up in a hospital with a rattled implant, he was always going to be fine. "They set me up in a hotel room when I showed up. I had to talk my way into the house I'm in now."

Don't ask him how. ...Okay, Ronan had offered. Still.

"Oh." Well. "I suppose I should be grateful that they don't seem to think as highly of my ability to do that."

Because she so could not.

"I could've offered you a spot in the house I'm bunking at," Kaidan said. "But it's... mostly guys. All guys, actually. Still, glad to hear you're set up, Traynor."

He liked having another Alliance soldier around. It made this place... slightly less unsettling.

"Right, one of them is Jack, isn't he?" Sam recalled. "I met him in the dungeon. And again at the bar the other night. He seems quite friendly." He flirted without seeming to be serious about it! Sam appreciated that. Then, wryly, "Though as kind as the offer is, sir, I can't say I'm too disappointed about passing up the chance to live in a frat house."

Kaidan shot her a look that wasn't entirely amused. "It's not a frat house," he said. "We're just cohabiting."

Oh. Okay, poor attempt at a joke not appreciated. Good to know.

"Right," said Sam. "Of course. Sorry, sir." She was really not doing well with Kaidan, was she? "Well, I'm, ah, glad you're comfortable here."

She was doing fine most of the time, honest. Standoffish was just his default mode.

"Jack's a good guy," Kaidan said. "So's Josh, actually. Don't know if you've met him yet..."

"Not yet, unless I just didn't catch his name," Sam mused. "I haven't met very many people yet at all. Just you and Hannah, Jack, a fellow named Jonothon, and... Kitty?"

Interesting name selection around here.

"Kitty from the bar?" Kaidan asked. Duh, Kaidan, there was only one Kitty. "She's nice. Anyway, Josh isn't much for socializing, but I'm sure you'll do fine with the locals here. You'll bump into most of them at the two bars, probably."

A beat.

"Normally I wouldn't give you the advice to spend time at a bar, but since most of this job is outreach..."

"...I'll spend time at the bars," Sam filled in. "It's all right, Commander. I bartended all through university. I'm sure I'll fit right in."

Because Sam would probably try to socialize until it hurt, dammit. But her upward-tilted chin and the look of resolve in her face only hinted at that likelihood with somewhat less intensity.

"Do you have any other tips?"

Honestly, Kaidan was happy someone would be doing the socializing, since so far he hadn't actually managed to push himself past 'show up when my friends are bartending'.

"Don't talk too much in the woods, for some reason it attracts the deer," Kaidan said. "And watch out for the squirrels."

And yes, he sounded completely serious.

"Avoid the woods, got it," Sam said. It was a somewhat stricter interpretation of that advice than he'd actually said, but Sam wasn't really a woods person anyway. Better not to risk it. "And... why the squirrels?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but it's true," Kaidan said. "There's this radio broadcast that reports on everything we do. Apparently the squirrels are the ones who collect the reports."

A beat.

"Tune in tomorrow, you'll... figure out what I mean."

Sam thought about asking if he was messing with her, but based on how this conversation had been going so far, she somehow didn't think that was his thing.

"Okay," she said, sounding just a touch more strained than her usual tone. "Literate squirrels. Who... spy on things. That's not weird."

It was weird.

She looked around, and sure enough, her gaze fell upon a bushy-tailed squirrel near the door. "So... that one there. It's monitoring us?"

Edited 2013-04-17 17:43 (UTC)

"Yep," Kaidan said, glancing its way. "A recap of this conversation's gonna make it on the air tomorrow. And I haven't even gotten my latte yet."

"But this hasn't even been that interesting!" Hey now, Sam. "That is. Not that I'm not enjoying talking to you, Commander. I'm just a bit... bemused by all of this."

She shook her head. "At any rate, I appreciate the warning."

"Bemused is the right reaction," Kaidan said wryly. "Trust me. If you weren't - I'd be concerned."

"I suppose it's at least a step-up from 'alarmed,'" Sam added, optimistically.

"Just see it as an incentive to keep making the Alliance proud, Specialist," Kaidan said. Well, deadpanned.

Edited 2013-04-17 20:17 (UTC)

"Of course, Commander," Sam said without batting an eye. "It's a lot more difficult to procrastinate when there's always the chance that I could be transported to a dungeon without extranet access tomorrow morning."

#peterwigginproblems

Kaidan huffed out half a chuckle. "Yeah," he said, "That'll light a fire under your ass."

"And it's a reminder that I probably shouldn't be sitting around in a coffee shop playing chess," Sam mused, looking guiltily at the chessboard. "I should likely get back to Portalocity and see what new public relations disasters have sprung up since Monday."

"It's Portalocity," Kaidan said, poking one of the pieces on the board. "It'll be many."

Hey now, Kaidan. What had that pawn ever done to you?

"Almost definitely," Sam agreed reluctantly, leaning back to deposit her empty coffee cup in a nearby trash can before beginning to slide the chess pieces into a drawer that came out of the board. "I'm glad we had the chance to talk, Commander."

She was feeling a lot less twitchy now, for one thing.

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The Perk, Wednesday Morning

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