fandomtownies | Portalocity arrivals area: Saturday Sept 14, afternoon.

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Portalocity arrivals area: Saturday Sept 14, afternoon.

Kaidan had sent a text as promised. Carrying and overlarge duffel bag, in the same outfit he'd left the island in. Cargo pants, t-shirt, boots. A little more wear and tear on the boots, the leather of one toe had a distinct bitemark impression from one of the little Kroglettes. He smiled every time he looked at it. She was his favorite, the feisty little runt of the first hatch.

It had been a good few days after a very long month. He still badly needed sleep, but that was a never-ending problem lately, and had been for over a year now. At least maybe now his brain could content itself with something. The mission had been a success. Impromptu and done mostly out of panic, the Hail Mary had succeeded. The galaxy wouldn't be the same, but he couldn't help but think it would be better. Maybe a little more stable. Maybe give him a little more room to breathe for just a little while longer.

He waited for the portal to open and when it did, he stepped through. Back to the island he went.

[For the one or two, could be open if you have a reason to be there, sure. Wanderer returns. OCD below.]

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There was one (1) surprisingly soggy Jedi incoming, and one (1) incredibly pleased with himself spotty dog trotting along with him, clad in his vest vesty vest. Kanan didn't seem too concerned with the sogginess - these things happened when you had to reel an excitable dog in from a frolic with the ducks - and was entirely intent on making his way in to the arrivals area, dripping or not.

... Of course the soggy dog was the first to plow into Kaidan. Kanan had given up trying to beat Stance anywhere. But he was definitely hot on the pup's heels.

"Kaidan!"

Kaidan crouched to catch the incoming puppy, laughing when Stance barreled into him and then making quiet 'Ack!' noises when he noticed how wet the puppy was. "Hi, buddy! Were you playing in the pond? Did you chase all the ducks? Did you make Daddy go swimming?" He held his face out of licking range with another laugh, "Yeah, I missed you too, Stance."

Because when your friend's about to catch a headful of a pure riot of emotions, might as well give him that small burst of nothing but happy first.

Then he was standing and offering Kanan a hug with a wry look. "Since I'm already wet. Hi, Kanan."

Kanan smiled faintly, stepping in and pulling Kaidan into a tight hug. It had been a while, Kaidan had been missed, and Kanan had been worried. That hug hopefully managed to get as much across, too.

"Hey, buddy," he said, squeezing tight. "Good to see you."

Kaidan hugged him back and let himself breathe. This was why the island felt anything like home. Kanan, Jack, Sparkle, Hernando. The friends he had here. The people who missed him and worried about him just as much as he missed and worried about them, when there was distance.

"It worked," he told Kanan quietly, "We did it. They were waiting on Saradril. Took awhile to get them all home."

It was worth it. What they'd done had mattered.

"Thank the Force," Kanan murmured, holding on. Letting Kaidan breathe as long as he needed it. "That's some of the best news I've heard in a long while."

Hands-down, really. It was difficult to top that even on a good day.

"And how are you holding up?"

"Honestly?" Kaidan swallowed hard. "I need about three weeks of sleep and for things around me to be calm and normal for awhile. It was.. It was hard, Kanan. Not just going back and checking but even after. Bringing them home. It was a good thing, it was the best thing. It was a badly needed thing, a hope and a healing everyone needed. And here I am whining because I'm the last human Spectre and it was a whole thing, because.."

There went his breathing, right out the window. "They think it was him. That's what they were all meant to think. Had to think. I had to be there in it, and hear how I was finishing something Shepard started." He went quiet, "I just can't do it. Not right now. I just can't be in the center of that right now. It's still too raw."

Kanan gave a small nod. Didn't begrudge Kaidan some ragged breathing.

"Take your distance, take your time," he said, hand reaching up to rub circles on Kaidan's back. "I've got you, buddy. You don't have to be in the middle of it right now. And if and when you do need to go back, just say the word. You don't have to do it alone."

"Yeah, you need to come with next time," Kaidan said, trying to lighten the tone, "I got no end of hell from the Normandy crew when I mentioned you. They get why Jack didn't come with, she isn't really a people person, but they all want to meet you, buddy." He laughed, "Vega didn't believe me when I said you two sound alike. He's demanding proof."

"And there's no proof quite like meeting a guy in the flesh," Kanan agreed, leaning back and grinning. "I've heard him already, he was in a recording Jack was watching when I paid her a visit one day."

...

"It was weird."

Super weird.

"It's weird from here too, buddy," Kaidan said, leaning back. "You act like Garrus, you sound like Vega. It's wild." With a gesture at the door with his chin, he asked, "How've things been here? Quiet, I hope?"

Kanan kept an arm slung over Kaidan's shoulder as he looked doorward, and then started walking that way, soggy dog keeping pace.

"Quiet since the end of summer, anyway. You missed some... weird stuff."

And some outright horrible stuff. Which probably went without saying at this point, though he didn't doubt he'd get around to saying it eventually anyway.

"Spent half a week in a loth-cat outfit," he'd never call it a raccoon suit. "Spent about as long as a wolf." A beat. "A big one."

"I was here for enough of it," Kaidan said with a small shudder, "Tolouca Lake was... enough." He forced himself not to think about it, and then smiled a little, "Not quite as fun as Jack trying to ride dinosaurs. Little sad I missed you in a Tooka outfit, Kanan. Tell me you got pictures of that?"

The wolf thing made him blink. "You got a new animal form? Did the island decide the Tooka suit was close enough or something?" That was a little concerning. He stepped past that for the moment. "And here you'd been teasing me about turning into a large dog someday."

"Of course there are pictures," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "And if there aren't, we can ask Sparkle if we can borrow his for a demonstration. Jack made mine go poof, but I think he got to keep his." A shrug. "No idea why a wolf now, but I'm not complaining. Even if I have a bit of trouble with doors."

...

"Fitting through them, I mean."

"Dial me back to 'Jack made mine go poof'?" Kaidan asked, trying not to laugh.

Kanan gave an amused little snort at that.

"You almost had to be there," he mused. "This one week had a tendency to stick people in weird costumes with superpowers attached. This one let a person fly if they didn't mind having a fluffy propeller attached to their behind, but the trade-off was, if you got hit by anything, it just..." He held out his hands in fists pressed against one another, and then mimed a little explosion with them, fingers spread. "Poofed."

Which was basically Kananese for 'Jack punched me, I probably had it coming.' He didn't seem too torn up about it, anyway.

"You had a fluffy propeller on your butt?" Kaidan was incredulous, "Did Jack take offense to you flying by helicopter butt or something?"

"Wait.. you could actually fly that way?"

"Jack gave me a quick lesson in self-care," Kanan replied, and now his smile was edging into something more wry. "It was over a point that's moot now, but the message was received loud and clear anyway."

Did Kaidan know Kanan wasn't even supposed to drink dark colas? Or eat bananas? Kanan hadn't known he wasn't supposed to drink dark colas or eat bananas. Getting a good thumping by Jack had inspired him to go looking into ways to better take care of himself.

He missed bananas.

"And yeah, that place wasn't too big on paying close attention to the laws of nature. Propeller-tail was one of the least of the crimes against physics. I have pictures of Stance in a frog costume, too."

"Yelling 'take care of yourself, asshole!' and punching you?" Kaidan guessed. It seemed like a Jack thing to do.

He knew about the phosphorus issue, but Kanan didn't really drink anything to excess anymore, and Kaidan hadn't seen him eat a banana. Berries were his poison of choice.

Kaidan paused. "Ok, what did you do that was bad enough Jack was thumping self care into you? We'll come back to how cute Stance is in a minute." Then he paused again. This was starting to sound familiar. "Wait - Tooka suit? Is that the same general shape as a raccoon onesie?"

Cue his wince. He had been here for that. Sort of. For a value of 'here'. ".... Ah. Uh. The kidney thing?" Another wince.

"..Stance must've looked adorable in a little frog outfit. Did you get to sneak up on the ducks, buddy?"

Edited 2019-09-16 11:44 (UTC)

You know that thing where, the moment you know you can't have something, you want it?

Bananas. And they happened to pair well with strawberries, damn them anyway.

Stance, for his part, gave a proud bark as Kanan shrugged.

"Kidney thing," he agreed. "I don't know about any raccoons, though. I try to avoid those guys ever since hearing that the ones in the island are bootleggers. Even though there are two bars here and nobody's looking for illegal ferments."

... Missing that connection there, Kanan.

Kaidan winced again and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "Yeah - sorry. That one was my fault. Jack was being a pest and, uh, she doesn't always think through what she's saying before it falls out of her mouth. I'm pretty sure that began its life as a 'think about pretty men' pestering, for whatever response she thought that would get. It, uh, wasn't the one she got. I look at scars a little differently than she does." He huffed a small laugh, but not because anything was really funny. "She's not wrong, it's, uh, just not the first thing I think about. You can take the man out of the medic corps, but..uh."

"She would have figured out out eventually," Kanan noted. "And I wasn't that attached to that outfit, anyway. It helped put some things into perspective, maybe, so it wasn't all that bad."

"Well, that's good," Kaidan said with a slight change of subject, "I have about fifty pictures of Sparkle in his, because Hernando thinks it's cute. If you were sending me raccoon onesie selfies, that might be a bit much." He smiled lopsidedly, "Kinda want to see Stance in his frog outfit though. I bet that was adorable."

"Well, yeah," Kanan replied. "There's no such thing as too many dog photos, though."

Hey, guess who was already digging through his pocket for his phone so that he could pull up those pictures!

"He definitely seemed to like it, anyway."

Kaidan craned to look at the pictures and laughed. "Ok, that is cute. Seems appropriate, too, given how he thinks he should be part aquatic animal, sometimes."

Stance and his buddies the ducks.

"Yeah, it isn't exactly a stretch," Kanan chuckled. "I'm pretty sure a few of his friends back where he came from were penguins in fancy hats, after all."

Or was it the bear in the fancy hat? And the pink and purple dolphins...

Anyway, the place Stance came from was an absolute trip.

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