Disclaimer: Not mine; never mine.
Sunshine
"So," he says, hunching close to the screen like he's about to tell a secret, "find a boyfriend yet?"
Gunny tips her head back and laughs, eyes squinted closed against the sun. It's summer on Tiptree, and Gunny's wearing flowers like jewelry, in her hair and around her neck; she looks like something out of an old vid from before humans found a home among the stars. Joker knows he would go crazy if he were stuck planetside, but he'll be damned if his baby sister doesn't make it look tempting.
"Jeff," and she's still laughing even as she wrinkles up her nose at the thought, "every time, really?"
"I don't give you a hard time often enough. Gotta make up for lost time when I can, right?"
She sticks her tongue out at him but doesn't tell him he's wrong. She never does. Fourteen isn't too old to still think your big brother is perfect, or maybe it is - always the odd kid out at her age, Joker wouldn't know these things - and Gunny just doesn't care.
Her giggles fade out into almost-awkward silence, and that's new.
"You don't… actually have a boyfriend, do you?" The thought makes something sort of like panic spike in his chest. Do fourteen-year-olds date? Is that normal? What if it's his fault? "Gunny, you know it's okay to be - to take things at, uh, at your own pace -"
"Jeff, calm down, it's okay! I know you're just teasing. It's okay. It's just…"
Somehow that's not exactly reassuring, and the way she's not quite looking at the screen anymore. Joker takes a deep breath and gives her time. She's a teenager. She's allowed to have feelings and… and dates.
Really.
"I'm warning you now," he says, when it's been a few long seconds and the urge to fly on over to Tiptree and protect his sister's honor has (mostly) passed, "if he's a krogan, or, I dunno, a dextro species or something, I have educational vids, and you're not doing anything until -"
The look on her face is probably about the same as Joker's was when he found out Mordin actually has vids on human/krogan intercourse. "Thanks, but - no thanks," she blurts out, and then "I've never even met a krogan," and then she's quiet again, the edge of her hand blurring into view of the camera as she fiddles with her terminal.
Gunny's not alone in her sun-drenched field. There's someone lying next to her in the grass - another colony kid, gawky and tan, with flowers braided into her hair.
"Jeff," Gunny says, almost shyly, from somewhere off-camera, "this is Amy. Amy, this is the best pilot in the Alliance. Maybe even the whole galaxy."
He can't give his sister the great big hug she deserves, so he settles for grinning like an idiot and tipping his cap to Amy, who blushes and shoves the terminal back into Gunny's lap.
"No maybe about it," he says - but really, Gunny's the one he couldn't be more proud of.