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Kaidan studied the remains of the coffee pot. It was, technically, still intact, but the poor thing had experienced...something. Something that normal kitchen appliances should not have to endure.
Nearby, the carafe was sitting in the sink, hot water running over the sides as the gush from the tap tried to free the poor thing of the dark stains now coating its insides. The rest of the machine also looked like something akin to tar had gone through it, but with all those electrical components, he could hardly submerge it without making things worse.
He tried to remember what his mom had said about cleaning things with white vinegar.
Behind him, announcing herself with a mighty yawn, Jack padded into the kitchen. She’d remembered the shirt this time - an enormous white t-shirt that was the closest thing to pajamas the biotic would wear. Apparently, clothes specifically for sleeping was a dumb idea. And within the privacy of her own room, that was an opinion to be acted upon.
But first thing in the morning, few were the roommates who needed to see everything, even covered with impressive and colorful tattoos.
Since John was out at the City of the Ancients this week, resolving disputes among the Krogan academics and making sure his own notes on the progress of the project were up to date, and legendary among their friends for his dislike of coffee, Kaidan was confident that he’d found the culprit of whatever had happened here. He turned to look at the woman leaning sleepily against the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Did you do this?”
Jack blinked at him. “Do what?”
Kaidan gestured to the traumatized coffee machine. “This.”
Jack studied the device, absently. After a moment, her gaze shifted back to Kaidan. “What’s wrong with it?”
Kaidan tried not to scoff. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It looks like a coffee machine.”
Kaidan pointed to the carafe in the sink. The clear glass walls of the little pot were still sepia toned, though an optimistic beige after so many gallons of water had passed over their abused sides. “It was a coffee machine. Now, it’s a casualty of taste.”
Jack snorted. “You’re such a purist. It’s just coffee.”
“I’m not arguing about the coffee.” And he was not a purist; you couldn’t be career military and care too much about your liquid caffeine. “I just can’t figure out what you did when you made coffee that would leave such a...residue.”
Jack stood up, arms above her head as she stretched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alenko.”
Running his fingers along the inside of what should have had a filter in it, Kaidan held up his hand. Dark, gritty particles coated the ends of two fingers. He did his best to level a teacher’s gaze at his subject.
Jack looked unconcerned. “So wash it out.”
“I would,” Kaidan said, “but I don’t usually have to be so thorough.” He leaned on the words a little, hoping she’d get the point. “It doesn’t usually look like this when I’m done.”
Jack shrugged. “That’s where the grounds go.”
Kaidan rolled his eyes. “Not by themselves.”
Jack scrunched up her face, morning tiredness given way to annoyance. “I guess not everyone learned to make coffee like you did.”
Fair, but not the point. Kaidan prodded the overheated coil in the back of the machine. “No, but they probably learned not to abuse the machine or leave it dirty when they were done.”
“It’s not dirty; it’s seasoned.”
At this, Kaidan scowled. “That’s pots, Jack. Like you cook with on the stove.”
Jack rolled her shoulders, clearly done with this discussion. “Whatever. Do what you have to, Alenko. I’m going to find pants.”
“Jack,” Kaidan said, tone scolding even as he knew it’d get him in trouble, “you can’t just destroy the coffee pot every morning.”
Pausing in the doorway, he thought she might say something crass. But instead, she just looked back at him over shoulder. “You have no proof it was me.”
Kaidan raised his eyebrows. “John doesn’t drink coffee. I wouldn’t be bitching if this was how I did things. Who else could it be?”
Jack considered. “No idea.” And then she disappeared down the hall.
Kaidan stayed where he was, weighing his options. The machine was salvageable; for all the drama of his caffeine-deprived brain, it was mostly just a terrible way to make coffee, barring overriding the heating coil’s temperature limit. And Jack had only moved in a few weeks ago, so he should probably just let it go, even though he knew she could make proper coffee - she’d stayed at the orchard for months and never brought his mom’s wrath down on her head.
The easiest way to solve this was to talk to John. John could tell Jack to knock it off and she would; more to the point, John would know how to ask Jack to stop it, or to clean up after when she was done, in a way that wouldn’t feel like an insult or start a fight.
But Jack was living here now, and it wouldn’t do to go running to his husband whenever they disagreed on something. It set a bad precedent, and if they were going to be living together, Kaidan knew they’d have to learn how to talk to each other anyway. That, and he couldn’t think of a pettier way to handle this.
With a sigh, Kaidan ran a hand through his hair as he set off to the storage closet. He was pretty sure they’d put white vinegar on the supply list at some point, and the machine did need a thorough cleaning. A small, petty part of his mind was glad he hadn’t gotten around to it before Jack had taken her anti-morning attitude out on the poor appliance.
“So everything’s going well? You’re not suddenly regretting moving all the way out here?”
Jack sat on her bed, legs folded up beneath the tent-sized white shirt Shepard had hunted down for her. On the screen in front of her, her friend looked happy in a way he hadn’t back on Earth. Hadn’t since she’d seen him at his apartment on the Citadel, still trying to sort out how he felt about having a clone. “You make moving to Tuchanka sound like I moved from one side of a colony to the other. I changed planets, not buildings.”
Shepard laughed. “My mistake.” With all the sun he’d been getting, his teeth looked white as they flashed in that tanned face. Running around a death world for the last year had been good for him, in more ways than one, and it showed in the smile lines she’d rarely seen before. Smile lines that smoothed out as he repeated his concern. “But seriously, Jack: I know you have issues with Kaidan. You two are getting along OK?”
She didn’t have issues with Alenko; she had issues with the jerk who’d broken Shepard’s heart because of his stupid fucking oath to the Alliance. Just because Shepard agreed with his choice didn’t mean Jack had to be cheerful about the fallout.
But that had been years ago, and Alenko had, annoyingly, turned out to be a good man. Honest, patient, kind: everything Shepard had said. And he could kick some serious ass in a fight; Jack had spent weeks egging the older biotic on until he agreed to spar. The blow to her ego had been absolutely worth it.
So she’d understood Shepard’s worry when he’d announced that he had to run out to the City of the Ancients for a week. The Krogan working there had discovered some kind of structural issue with a section thought safe, and headbutting contests hadn’t helped in determining the best way to shore up whatever was failing. While someone else was in charge on paper, Shepard was the head of the excavation and preservation of the City, and so it made sense that he’d have to go out and take a look. One tiny, squishy human shouting down all those armored, pissed off lizard people.
Which meant she and Kaidan were here. Alone. For the first time since she’d started calling this house her home.
After so many months living at his family’s orchard, she should probably be over it. But Shepard has been a fucking mess during Cerberus, and as the person he’d come to at his lowest points, she’d probably always snap and snarl when it came to the King of the Boy Scouts. And at her lowest, when she’d needed someone to clock her one and tell her to man up, Shepard had listened to her rambling speeches instead. He’d even given her a hug - just once, and he’d never said anything about it after.
So, after having been so rough on his not-yet husband, Jack wasn’t entirely sure how to meet the man halfway. And she’d abused the hell out of the only coffee machine, probably on all of Tuchanka, and she could hear the helpful bastard out there cleaning it.
“Jack?”
Shit. She’d gone quiet. “We’re good here.”
Shepard gave her a look.
“I said we were good,” she snapped.
Shepard nodded. “And I call bullshit.”
Jack sighed. “It’s nothing, Sheaprd. It’s not like we had a fight over Eezo or I set something on fire.” That had always been Elena’s question when there was trouble, and while Alenko hadn’t been excited about a pet varren in the house, Eezo preferred being outside anyway.
It wasn’t helping her confession that it sounded dumb when she said it outloud. “I...made coffee.” When Shepard didn’t respond, she growled. “I know it’s all gross to you, but there’s different ways to make the stuff. Alenko and I don’t make the same level octane shit.”
Shepard nodded, his own lack of interest in the stuff showing. “Did you break the machine?”
“No.”
“So what’s wrong?”
Jack rolled her eyes. “I just...make coffee stronger than he does. It comes out thicker, and kinda...gritty.”
Shepard pursed his lips. “I didn’t think coffee could sound less attractive.”
Jack scowled. “Fuck you. Some of us are not flowers who thrive on fucking sunlight.”
She refused to smile at Shepard’s laugh.
“I drank his kind of coffee the whole time I was at the orchard.” It sounded childish, she knew. “I just wanted to make my shit for once.” It wouldn’t even have been a thing except Alenko had slept in this morning, and Jack had been up stupid early.
“I don’t think it works that way, Jack.” Shepard looked to the side, frowning at something she couldn’t see. “Whatever’s going on with the, uh, coffee machine, I’m sure...oh, don’t do that.”
Jack raised an eyebrow at the distraction. “Do you need to go?”
“Yeah.” Shepard sounded like a teacher at the end of the day. “Thrisk is just...he’s being Thrisk.”
Jack hadn’t met most of the Krogan working at the site, but she’d heard of this one. A large, grumpy old man; like Wrex, but instead of using a shotgun he’d just bite people he thought were too dumb to let live. “Go babysit your academics,” Jack said, lifting a hand to end the call. “We’ll sort things out here.”
“Talk to him.”
Jack glared.
“ Talk to him.” Shepard’s frown had deepened, irritated by whatever was going on at his end of things. “Or maybe just clean the damn pot. You know, leave things like you found them?”
“Is that what Spectre’s do?” Jack asked, sarcastic. “Leave things how they found them?”
“Want me to talk to him?”
“Fuck no.” The Krogan, Shepard could babysit. Badass biotics did not need a third party to sort out their shit.
Ending the call, Jack glanced at the door to her room. Shepard would be back in a few days, but this coffee thing was going to last as long as they all lived here. Not to mention there’d be other things she and Alenko disagreed on besides varren and morning beverages. They needed to learn how to...communicate.
Elena had told her that. Looking so much like a female version of Kaidan it had spooked her the first time, Jack had decided she liked the older woman. She had a quiet kind of strength, one that spoke of getting her way without having to raise her voice. Jack hadn’t been sure about befriending Kaidan’s mom, though. By the time she’d joined the guys at the orchard, she wasn’t sure if her standoffish treatment of Kaidan was still anger or just habit. Elena had given her a week before calling her on it.
She’d laughed when Jack explained, something that should have rankled but somehow didn’t. Keeping her smile, Elena had explained that she understood - she hadn’t been sure about Shepard. The man her son had loved - even if the two had never said anything - had died, then showed up again two years later, working for the other side. It hadn’t been easy, and just because Kaidan had been happier than she’d seen him since Alchera didn’t mean she was willing to just let John Shepard off the hook for making her son attend his funeral.
It sounded like opposites, but it put them on even footing instead. And while Jack still didn’t know how to deal with Kaidan, she was trying. For both Shepard and Elena.
Squinting at the darkened screen, Jack thought back to a cold, snowy morning. Elena had been a big believer in picking her battles, and had been explaining her reasoning to Jack while she taught her how to make coffee the entire household would drink. Coffee that Elena rarely drank herself, because both her husband and son liked it with “less fire in it”. And in all the years he’d lived there, Kaidan had never once noticed because she made sure to get up first...
Kaidan studied the coffee pot. It looked...unused. As if nobody had been down here, making something that certainly smelled like coffee, not even an hour before.
Nearby, the carafe and filter basket were upside down, drying on a towel next to the sink. No dark stains, no sign of grittiness, nothing odd at all. The rest of the machine also looked normal. Like yesterday morning hadn’t happened at all.
Behind him, Jack wandered into the kitchen, already dressed for a day of exploring the local terrain with Eezo and a shotgun. Walking over to the ‘fridge, she pulled the door open, staring at nothing for a moment before pulling out a cartoon of apple slices.
Kaidan watched her, not sure if he should say anything.
Jack, slice halfway to her mouth, paused. “What?”
Kaidan glanced at the machine.
Jack glared. “Don’t fucking say it.”
“Say what?”
Shutting the door to the ‘fridge with her hip, Jack shoved the rest of the slice in her mouth. “You two and your ‘thank you’s. Can’t you just let things ride?”
“You could have destroyed the coffee pot again.”
“Yeah, well.” Taking the container of fruit slices hostage, Jack stalked out of the kitchen, headed for the front door. “Wait till you see what I can do to a stove.”
Kaidan grinned and fetched the jar of grounds from the cupboard. She’d won the pet varren fight, even if Eezo did mostly stick to his area outside the house, and Kaidan had gotten his coffee machine back. Maybe this roommate thing was going to work out after all.