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The Park - Thursday

It sure had been a pair of weeks. Iceland had been nice and relaxing and then they'd come back to the island. Where everything seemed to have gone wrong for several of his friends. Strangely - and it shouldn't have been but yet there it was - it wasn't random island occurrences, it was mainland things in all cases. Jack had gone on a trip to New York to work her stress off and he was proud of her. She'd done it constructively and thoughtfully and without fatalities in her wake and that was definitely progress. She'd taken Sparkle's feelings into account and adapted her behavior to accommodate and that was a pretty huge step. A hopeful one.

Kaidan went for a run to clear his head. It wasn't doing all that much good. Thought about doing his own trolling for muggers but just now that didn't seem like the best plan in the world even if it would have been pretty darn cathartic. He ran the stairs for awhile until he worked up a good muscle burn and then went for a slower jog through the trails in the park.

Thought about calling Kanan and finding out what his plans for the weekend were and, if he didn't yet have any, suggesting they go find something to do. Bad life choices seemed to be the name of the game this week and he had a few reasons to want some of his own. Yet, because his brain was contrary, he also wanted .. downtime. Quiet. Calm. Something productive and not fueled by adrenaline and stress. Which was why he hadn't made the call yet and wasn't sure he would.

For now, he ran, letting his brain do its thing while his feet took him along the paths on autopilot.

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After soaking herself to limp noodle state in the Onsen, Jack reversed all of that and went for a run. Relaxation wasn't a state she was comfortable in. She got quite twitchy if she didn't have enough adrenaline in her system to make her jumpy.

A quick ask into her comm had Kaidan's location and she detoured to take paths in the park so she could jog with him. Not that he was jogging. She shot him a small frown.

"Alright, what the fuck?"

Also hello and how are you doing.

Some days you just needed to feed the bloody ducks.

... No reason, sometimes. Just, on occasion, Jonothon made his way to the park with a bag of bread. First time in a long while that it was a bag of bread that he was occasionally snacking on himself, sure, but overall?

Ducks.

It did occur to him that it was odd that they tended to stick around the island even while there was snow on the ground, but seeing as they didn't seem to care, neither did he. He was going to just park his arse on a park bench and start tearing off pieces of bread for them.

It was a tradition going way back.

He did turn a glance and a nod toward Kaidan as he spotted him jogging, at least.

Kaidan shot Jack a look, "What the fuck what? I'm running. I do it every damn day."

Kaidan slowed when he spotted Jono, letting himself break to a walk. "Spoiling the ducks again?" he asked with a small grin.

"Somebody's got to do it," Jono quipped, and the next piece of bread he pulled from the bag, he lobbed at Kaidan. "Care to join me, mate? Keep me from being eaten alive by mallards."

"Along the beach and on the stairs, yeah. In the park you usually jog but today you're doing the whole masochism pace thing so I repeat: What the fuck?" Jack said, "You're on edge, the hell's going on?"

Kaidan's brow furrowed. "I dunno, Jack, you think it might have anything to do with you SOS'ing me three times over the damn week and making me watch my friends be upset about things I can't do a damn thing about?"

Jack snorted. "See? You do count him as one of your friends."

Kaidan stopped and pivoted to glare at her. "No," he said coldly, "I don't. Friendship's a two way street, not a dead end road. Get off it, Jack. I get it. I'm an idiot for caring as much as I do about everything. I need to step back and quit making people uncomfortable. Message fucking received. Leave it the hell alone already!"

Jack gave a single slow blink and then her eyes narrowed. "That wasn't any fucking message I gave you, so for the third goddamn time, Kaidan: What. The. Fuck? Where'd you get this fucking message? Who gave it to you? I want names. I'll get the addresses myself but whoever told you any of that bullshit is in for one helluva slap and if it's some bullshit your head came up with out of thin fucking air, I'm going to slap it right the hell back out again."

She waited exactly one breath before demanding, "Talk."

"Right, because that wasn't you yanking my chain on Sunday," Kaidan said, "Or you getting me to run damage interference with Sparkle on Wednesday - which, fine, that one I understand, but then tagging me in with Liam? Jesus, Jack. He has my number and he knows where I live if he wanted to talk to me about anything. Instead, you hauled me in to, what? Talk to him? You had him talking to you, what the hell did you need me there for? To make shit real awkward? Because that's what happened."

He glared at her, "I'm a 'big dumb squish', I'm 'contagious', I 'give a shit about everything'. If that message isn't one you wanted me to get maybe you should put a little more goddamn thought into how you fucking say it. Mocking me for caring and then throwing me into situations because you want me to care so you can, what? Laugh when they blow up in my face? When I fail at knowing what to do so hard that it adds to the damage? Watch someone else chew me up and spit me out because of it? What's the goal here? Because hell if I know anymore and I'm sick of it. I'm done, Jack. I can't help how I am but I can help how it shows and I can stop reaching when all it's going to get me is slapped."

Jack took a physical step back. The second she realized she'd done that her chin came up defiantly, and then..

Then she spat to the side and looked away. "Fuck." A hand scrubbed over her head and she began to pace back and forth, just a few steps in each direction to keep her from turning and just running.

"Okay. Okay, no. That ain't it. That just ain't fuckin' it, Kaidan." The words came out bitten off and angry.

Pace pace, turn, pace. She'd fucked this one up good. It hadn't occurred to her that maybe Kaidan needed a capacity check-in and she'd already bloody known he was on edge due to something he wasn't talking about. Watch someone else chew me up and spit me out.. And wasn't that just a mystery she was going to get all up into with him. Later, though.

She hadn't checked in and he'd overloaded to the point he thought she was fucking with him. Not that she was above fucking with him but .. not like this.

"You gave me a list when I asked who your friends were. Every time I called you was for someone whose name was on it." She shot him a look, "Every time. I don't do caring and I don't do give a shit but I'm getting better at recognizing when I should but the what the fuck to do about it is still hard. That's the part you're good at. They're your friends, man. Sparkle's my friend too. But all of 'em were yours. Or so I thought anyway. I tagged you in because you do care. You always care and you usually know what the fuck to do. Fucked if I ever do."

Jack spat again. "Atton was good and fucked up and hypersensitive to noise and my first fucking thought was that I should whistle. My second thought was that no, maybe that would be a real shitty thing to do. Sparkle? Doesn't need what I'd say and you fucking know it. It's all come out wrong and if I say the words I can't unring that fucking bell. You know better'n I do how bad my goddamn words could hurt him about this. And Liam.. He wasn't talkin' to me. I was yellin' at him. A guy who's having a raw fucking deal somewhere in his head and I all but told him to quit sniveling, pull on a pair of big-boy pants and deal with his shit. The fact I ever have second thoughts about this, any of this? Cuz I know you care. You'd care if something I did made someone worse off. And you'd stop me. But..fuck, man. No. No to what you thought because that ain't fuckin' it. Not from me. I'm the last person in any goddamn galaxy who'd get to tell you to stop reaching out. To stop caring. And I know I ain't done that."

Jack took a breath and her hands curled to fists at her sides. "So if it ain't me - who? Where the fuck's this comin' from, Kaidan? What the fuck happened?"

"I'm tired, Jack," Kaidan said. He wasn't sure where the words came from but they were true. "I'm tired of trying to help only to find out I'm doing more harm than good. I'm tired of having every interaction with someone be due to some sort of crisis or trauma. I'm tired of my friends being in crisis or trauma. Especially when there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it or for them. I just.. I'm tired, Jack. It's always aftermath. It's always reactive. It's not even people asking for help, you know? I'm just.. I keep offering. Stuff goes south and they're a mess and I have to nag them to tell me what's going on, how I can help them and.."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "And they don't want me to. I've been trying to be better about not .." A hand flailed, "Prodding them to accept it, you know? Cuz that one hasn't worked out so well for me. Then three in a week, I get pointed at and told 'fix this'. The thing I'm trying not to do to people, here."

Jack listened and while her expression didn't change, she was worried. There were several different things going on in his answer. None of them were good.
..not even people asking for help..
..I have to nag them to tell me what's going on..
..how I can help them and they don't want me to.

"I didn't know you were trying to go on a caring diet or whatever," Jack said slowly, "That shit's on me, I should've checked with you to see where your own fucking head's at before throwing your friends at you. But.. Kaidan.. who doesn't want you to? Where's that shit from? You said you're gettin' slapped when you try so.. and I mean, I swear that wasn't me settin' you up for shit. I didn't know about whatever this is, I was pointing it out to you so you could step in and help cuz..it's kind of what you do, bro. And I mean.. not just you bein' you but that you actually fucking help people. So I don't.. Kaidan, I don't fucking understand this. If someone's makin' you feel like you shouldn't try, I want to know who that is because I will go have a fucking talk with them as a prime fucking poster child of what happens when you try. I wouldn't goddamn be here, I'd have stayed fucked off the other side the galaxy after Shepard bit it if you hadn't dragged me out and tried to help. Anyone thinks you don't know what the fuck you're doin', or they try to make you feel that way .. what the fuck even, Kaidan, have they ever even fucking met you?"

She was ..really confused.

Kaidan rubbed a hand over his face and then shook his head. "If it were just one person, I'd give you a name but it's a culmination of a lot of things and I just don't want to dig into it. I don't have the energy right now, I'm tired and snapping everywhere. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry I snapped at you. You were trying to help people. It wasn't your fault I'm just tapped out."

Jack's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Do I need to call Kanan and get him to haul ass down here? I will call him right fucking now, Kaidan, see if I won't."

'It doesn't matter'. Alenko-speak for 'this means everything to me but I want you to ignore that'.

She wasn't going to do that, buddy. She knew better.

"Snap at me all you fucking want. I can take it, you know that," Jack snapped back at him, "but don't try to brush me the fuck off, because when you snap like this? That's like lighting up a billboard tellin' me to worry. I suck at this caring bullshit but I know what it means when you say it doesn't matter. You should know by now that if you're feeling like shit that it fucking does matter to me."

"Leave him out of it," Kaidan snapped at her. He took a breath. He took a few. Forcing himself to chill out, "I don't need the both of you tag-teaming me. I just said I don't want to dig into this right now so could we please just not?"

The hand scrubbed through his hair with the predictable sparks. "Look. I came here to run and let my brain do its thing so could we please just run? I need to relax, Jack, and this isn't exactly relaxing."

Her voice was flat when she answered, throwing his own phrase back at him. "Sure man. Sure. Whatever you need. You want to run right now? Ok. We'll run. So's long you're aware this isn't anywhere near done, this talk. You're upset as hell and I'm going to keep kicking at that door." Jack looked at him, "You'd do the same if it were me. You fucking know you would. I might be shit at caring but I'm real fucking good at kicking doors in."

She turned and nodded at the path, letting him lead the pace.

"Later," Kaidan muttered, "Ok? Just.. later." Or never. Never was also good by him. He set the pace and ran, letting the wind hit him and focusing on nothing but the eventual burn of his muscles.

He knew she wasn't going to let this go. He'd worried her and Jack didn't do well with caring, much less worrying. Didn't know what to tell her. It wasn't just one thing. There wasn't just one incident to point to. There were too many and they all ended in tears and failure.

Like he'd told her, he was exhausted and he was done. It was time to take a step back. Emotionally, anyway. Physically, he was taking many steps forward. He was running. Letting the paved paths flow by under his feet and just enjoying the sensation of it all.

Kaidan caught the bread and offered a rather wan smile. "Isn't that a curse? 'May you be nibbled to death by ducks'?"

He tore off a bit of bread and threw it off to the side to make the ducks chase it.

"I imagine it's only a curse if you don't like ducks," Jono offered, smiling faintly. "I'm a fan, more or less."

He had a lot of history in this park.

"Fortunately, I think we can take them on if they get any funny ideas."

"Generally not a fan of being nibbled to death by anything, due to that whole 'death' part," Kaidan said with a lopsided smile. "We could probably handle an awful lot of ducks."

He tossed some more bread. "How you doin', Jono?"

"Been worse," Jono replied easily, setting the bread bag down on the bench and nodding an invitation for Kaidan to take a seat, if he so wanted. "Still waiting for the other shoe to drop, it always does, but enjoying living life in the meanwhile. I suspect this whole situation," he gestured vaguely at his face, "will hold right up until things get ugly. But that's the way of it."

He cast a sidelong look in Kaidan's direction.

"And yourself, mate?"

Kaidan stayed standing so in between tossing bread to the ducks, he could stretch his legs up behind him, catch an ankle, and work the muscles.

He still felt awful about that whole thing with Jono. "If the mechanism for it still works now that you have your memories back, we could always.. put you back again if you want. Take some measurements, get some proper fitted vents. Have an actual surgeon do it under controlled circumstances this time."

Kaidan thought about the answer to the question he'd been asked. "Tired, mostly. Feeling a little like a pinball being shot from one crisis to the next. I can't really even remember the last time I went to do anything just for fun because it's been one thing after the other. Hell, the last time I tried to go for a bar run it turned into a whole thing. Not even sure it's the situations. Starting to wonder if it's just me, like I've forgotten how to relax and it goes so deep that I make trouble."

He shrugged and threw more bread for the ducks. "Honestly thought about taking my ship and suitable rations and parking myself on Mars for a month. Except, the way my luck's been going? That'll be how this planet finds out Mars is inhabited by something unpleasant." A beat. "Other than me."

"Tempting," Jono admitted. He turned Kaidan a sidelong look. "Been meaning to thank you for it, though. You took a rotten bloody situation and dragged it from disaster back to something simply temporarily unfortuante." A pause. "And I've eaten far too many strawberries since."

They weren't even in season. Tragedy.

He listened to the rest, teeth worrying his bottom lip for a few seconds before he spoke to that.

"Mate," he noted, "I think part of that is just... life, here. Maybe I'm coming from a skewed perspective, but I don't think it's just you. Fandom does crises like it thinks that's how everyday life is meant to be. Hell, when I was a student, all hell breaking loose happened so often we had what we'd come to know as the cavalry. 'These are the people who'll come if you need firepower. These are the ones if you need telepaths. These are the healers...'" He tore off another piece of bread and tossed it to the ducks. "Some days I miss it. And then I remember that I'm an idiot, those days were hell."

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The Park - Thursday

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