33 Apocalypse Avenue, Friday Morning, 1/11/13

[bitten_notshy]

Exactly one year before (and 110 years, a continent, and a universe away) Jack had been waking up in a hospital bed to a world that would never smell or sound exactly the same way to him again

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[not_a_whiner]

"...God, that is so twentieth century."

Kaidan hadn't meant to interrupt Jack's TV-watching, weird as it might've been. But sometimes his mouth got the better of him if he saw something out of the ordinary (or... a particularly bathroom-tile-like floor), and the special effects on this...

Okay, 'out of the ordinary' might be charitable. It was enough to make him stop halfway into the room, though.

[bitten_notshy]

"I know," Jack said, after the seconds it took him to get away from woe-is-me and into an acceptable conversational mood. (In fact he didn't know, but he understood what Kaidan meant; the show looked pretty cheap.) "It's slander against my kind, too. I should start writing letters."

[not_a_whiner]

"Maybe it's a blessing in disguise," Kaidan offered. "I mean, they'd be running around looking for a werewolf that looks like, well, that. And, uh." Beat. "I don't know the show. I'm sure there's some way you can use it."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack smiled a little. "What not to do, maybe," he suggested, gesturing to the torrid graveyard embrace on the screen. "For example, I'm almost certain it'd be a bad idea to fall in love with someone who was sworn to kill me. Those things never end well."

[not_a_whiner]

"Depends on how badly they want to go ahead with it," Kaidan said, dropping into a chair. "Unless we're talking about, say, being sworn to the mob..."

[bitten_notshy]

"Now there's an interesting question," Jack said, grateful for the distraction. "I might take a werewolf hunter if my other choice was someone in the mafia. At least the hunter would be honest about it."

Jack and Derek might disagree on this point.

[not_a_whiner]

At least Kaidan's own distractability was occasionally good for something?

"And probably less likely to turn on you in the middle of the night." Kaidan paused, thought about it, and added, "I guess. I'm not really familiar with werewolf hunters."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm not an expert myself," Jack said, shrugging. He knew what Derek said, but Derek was hardly an unbiased party. "But I don't know that much about the mob, either, so why let it stop me from having an opinion?"

[not_a_whiner]

"You could just say you'll burn that bridge when you get to it," Kaidan said wryly. "Or not."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'll take the not," Jack said, equally wry, and glanced away from the TV and toward Kaidan. "Not that it's terribly likely to come up, anyhow. How's your week been?"

[not_a_whiner]

"All right. New class is going okay," Kaidan said. He considered leaving it at that, but... well, since they were looking at terrible representations of someone currently in the house already... "The Alliance's given my likeness rights to a bunch of movie producers, which is not okay, but I'll deal."

[bitten_notshy]

"Seriously?" This was actually more interesting than Jack's woe-is-me-ing. "How did that happen? Do you get any say over who plays you?"

[not_a_whiner]

"Humanity has only been part of galactic society for about twenty years," Kaidan said. "We're part of the Council now, but the other species are still kind of... iffy... about us having that much power. So the Alliance decided it's in my and every other human's best interest to help produce a movie about the Battle of the Citadel. Just in case the galaxy forgot who saved their asses."

He snorted a little. "And... no, I don't get to choose who plays me," he said, "but I have the 'bragging rights' of being considered a notable historical figure."

[bitten_notshy]

"Huzzah," Jack said, with notable sarcasm. "Not on the war hero bits, that's actually impressive, but this" -- he nodded to the TV -- "doesn't do much to promote film as a medium."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan shrugged gently. "I don't know what kind of movie it's going to be," he said. "I could raise a stink. I'd probably get my name out of there, at least, but it won't help much, and it's a great way to piss off the brass, so..."

[bitten_notshy]

"And you did it," Jack said. "May as well keep your name in it. Fake names just make everyone confused down the line."

He was thinking, not without bitterness, about Sebastien and "Amedee Gosselin." That still seemed like the kind of thing his guardina might have brought up at some point.