Author's Disclaimer: Kaidan Alenko, Joker Moreau, Arcturus Station, SSV Normandy, and all trademarked characters are property of Bioware and EA. No infringement is intended or offered by this work of fanfiction.

Arcturus Station

The Launch Bay Diner

The harsh lighting of the Launch Bay diner couldn't quite cut through the thick haze of frying oil that cauled the air, but the sheer wattage of Joker Moreau's grin did. His expression was halfway between incredulity and unmitigated glee as he picked up the remaining half of his vat-grown burger with one hand and made expansive gestures with the other. "You saw the crew roster, right? Man, I don't know how the Normandy's going to fly with all these celebrities stuffed into her."

Kaidan Alenko grinned into his milkshake and took a healthy swig of vanilla and malt before answering. "Concerned your girl's going to be too loaded to to get out of dock, Joker?"

Joker made a rude motion with a french fry. "Hey! My girl might have a little more in the drive core than your average frigate, but that just makes her a thing of beauty, Alenko." He popped the fry into his mouth and chewed vigorously before leaning forward again. "Seriously, though, have you seen the crew manifest? Captain Anderson, Commander Fucking Shepard, and we're even picking up a turian Spectre on Palaven." Joker leaned back against the worn plastic seating, a self-satisfied expression half-hidden in his scruffy beard. "Normandy's poppin' her cherry in style."

Kaidan winced, grateful that he'd chosen a booth in the back of the diner so that there was less chance that they'd be overhead. Not that the diner was crowded, middle of shift as it was, but still... "Joker..."

"Yeah, yeah, not so loud. I know. You are such a buzzkill, Alenko." He rolled his eyes. "Why the hell are we friends again?"

Kaidan considered his own plate and carefully chose a french fry before angling a look at the other man. "So I can talk your way out of the crap your uncensored mouth gets you into."

Joker snickered. "Well, it is tough to have all this charm, brains, and good looks. I had to have one flaw to make me less intimidating to you mere mortals."

Kaidan saluted the helmsman with his milkshake glass. "Truer words were never spoken, Joker."

"Ah, you're just saying that so I'll still hang out with you."

"No, I'm just saying that so you don't bitch when I steal half your french fries."

"Bastard," Joker said without much heat. "Didn't you get a double order already?"

"Your point would be...?"

Joker muttered something that sounded like "friggin' biotics and their hypermetabolisms" and pushed his plate across the table. "Fine, take some fries. But you touch the burger and I will do something creative and evil to your sleeper pod." He waited until Kaidan had scooped a handful of fries onto his own plate. "Now, back to the question. Whaddaya think of all these high-value crew members being on board?"

"It's the maiden voyage of the first joint project between us and the turians, Joker." Kaidan shrugged, the muscles of his shoulders rolling easily beneath the dark fabric of his BDU shirt. "If the brass didn't trot out our best and brightest for crew, the Hierarchy could take it as an insult."

Joker leaned both elbows on the table and aimed a glare at the other man. "That's a very carefully considered, politically savvy remark, Alenko. As usual. And it tells me nothing. As usual. It's me. Will you stop being so cautious?"

"No. Because it's you." The little half-grin twitching at the scarred corner of Kaidan's mouth slid into a full smile at Joker's disgusted snort. "Pick something else to talk about."

"OK, fine." Joker took another bite of his burger. "Anderson. You figure he's going to be a good captain, or a hardass?"

"You don't earn as many medals as he has by not being a hardass, Joker. You know that."

"Yeah, and he picked me as helmsman, which tells me he has a sense of humor, at least."

"He picked you because you're the best. And because you ran circles around the test course." Kaidan raised one dark eyebrow at the other man. "With fighters on your tail."

"Hey, it wasn't my fault they didn't originally want me to helm the Normandy. Best scores in the Academy, top of my class and then some, and they couldn't look past these." The pilot flicked a glance at the crutches propped in the corner of the booth.

"Yeah, well, they were idiots, but so were you. You hijacked the Normandy, Joker. That stunt should have landed you in the brig for the rest of your career."

Joker pointed at him with his last french fry. "You don't get anywhere in life by not taking risks, Alenko. Remember that."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm on a ground team."

"A ground team lead by Commander Fucking Shepard." Joker pounded one fist on the table, rattling the plates. "Now there's a dream assignment. Or a nightmare. Man, all you have to do is say thresher maw, and half the Alliance groundpounders'll shit their hardsuits."

"Akuze was a fluke. Threshers should never have been there, much less anywhere near a settlement site." Kaidan frowned down at his plate. Akuze bothered him on more than one level. The idea of fifty marines just... slaughtered like that... was an uneasy one. But he'd been telling the truth when he'd said that thresher maws should never have been anywhere near a colony. If the planet had shown indications of having an infestation, it would've been removed from the list of colonial prospects or the threshers would have been eradicated before the colony was greenlighted.

"Yeah, yeah, Akuze may have been a fluke, but I still say I'm glad I'm Flight and not marine detail. Planets are just dangerous, man." He finished off his burger with a few quick, neat bites before continuing. "I mean, thresher maws, people shooting at you, deadly spores, hayfever, fluffy man-eating bunny rabbits, trenchrot..." Joker stirred five sugars into his coffee cup before sipping. "I'll stay in my nice helmsman's chair and let you handle the glamour detail, thanks."

Kaidan collected their empty plates and silverware and stacked them neatly in the center of the table. "You're all heart, Joker."

"Bet your ass I'll be reminding you of that when you're crawling through some pirate-infested warehouse getting shot at. But hey, at least you'll be able to watch Commander Shepard's six while you're doing it. The extranet photos make her look pretty hot." He waggled his eyebrows beneath the brim of his brand new SR1 cap. "Think they're accurate?"

Kaidan rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Moreau, if the commander catches you referring to her as "pretty hot", you're going to be either in the brig or dead. She's an N7. Telling her she's hot is about as smart as hitting on a tactical warhead."

"OK, yeah, she's an N7 scary badass marine, sole survivor of a horrible tragedy, yadda yadda yadda. I read the personnel docket." Joker grinned, completely unrepentant. "But I bet she still fills out a hardsuit real nice. Those Alliance mods they give us do wonders even if you're nothing special before you join up and get jabbed.."

"The ones they gave you clearly didn't include a brain-to-mouth filter." Kaidan finished off the last of his milkshake. "How you ever got this far in the Alliance without someone rearranging your face is completely beyond me."

"Skill, my friend." Joker drank more coffee and smirked. "You're not always around, and I learned how to take care of myself. No one wants to be known as the shithead who hit the cripple, after all."

Kaidan snickered. "The only thing about you that's crippled are your manners."

"Boyscout."

"Jackass."

They grinned at each other.

"Gonna be a good tour, Alenko. A good tour. I got a feeling." Joker set his empty mug aside and stood, fishing for his crutches.

Kaidan groaned, but exited the booth first and waited for Joker, conveniently blocking off a space that would allow the other officer to perform the tricky maneuver of extricating himself from his seat and fitting into his crutches without risking someone bumping into him. "Not another one of your feelings, Moreau. Remember what happened last time?"

"Hey, you won 500 credits on that varren race."

"Which you conveniently forgot to tell me was an underground varren race, thanks." Kaidan absently dropped a credit chit on the table to cover their tab. "We almost got busted by the MPs."

"Almost doesn't count. And I was going on a tip. How was I supposed to know Vancouver had ordinances against varren racing?" Joker sneered companionably at him. "Not like it was my home town or anything."

Kaidan folded his arms across his chest. "We are not going through this again."

"Yeah, all right. You win. This time." Joker rolled his eyes. "I'll see your spoilsport ass at the dock in a couple of hours, Alenko. Try to get into trouble while I'm gone, OK?"

"Only if you try to shave."

They each grinned at the familiar insults and shook hands, Kaidan keeping his touch carefully gentle in light of his friend's brittle bones.

"Gonna be a good tour, Kaidan. You'll see." Joker settled the brim of his hat more securely on his head and started for the exit. "Top of the line ship, top of the line crew, best helmsman this side of the Milky Way... It's gonna be awesome."