STATUS REPORT  ::  wolf
He still didnât understand. What kind of people were this crew, to care for something like him? A clone? Emotional baggage, he had called them. Seemed like they suffered from the same thing their Commander did⌠Except⌠Did he just say âalrightâ? He was distracted when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Warily, he looked at the Major.
When the glow of dark energy began to show, he had the urge to run, to defend himself. While he had advocated eliminating threats, he wasnât going to go meekly to an execution. His eyes flick around for potential weapons and cursed the fact his progenitor didnât keep much in the cabin. He supposed he could try lobbing datapads⌠The crack of the biotic field had him suddenly jumping up and diving for the bed. Crouching behind the frankly pathetic cover, he gave a quick look at the Major, heart pounding with adrenaline, half expecting to see an attack ready to make him a smear on the wallâ but the biotics faded.
The absence of the biotic field didnât make him feel any less wary, but he cautiously stood. He could lie, tell the man what he wanted to hear. Lull them into complacency like they thought and escape. Maybe kill some of them along the way out. Show them just how having such âemotional baggageâ could be deadly. And yet, he could imagine the disappointment on the originalâs face and inexplicably felt off.
âI donât know,â the honest admission slipping out. âLike you said, Iâm a deadly weapon. Killing things, itâs my nature. I really havenât⌠known anything else.â For all his talk about learning to be human, he actually hadnât learned more than the basics. How to walk and talk, cultural references so he wouldnât stick out. Most of the time he was learning different weapons, how to use them, take down an enemy with prejudice, combat tactics, the works.
âI thought thatâs why he wanted me on the ship. Youâre going up against Reapers, makes sense you want the best weapons to do it.â
âyouâre not just  a weapon!â kaidan snapped, then paused, shoulders squaring and his mouth parting slightly, as though the instant counter wasnât intentional.  gaze flanked for wounded pride, he set a hand down on the desk almost anxiously, his distress echoing in spades by now, ricocheting off metal walls and rattling his head hard enough to easily force the onset of a migraine.
kaidan had assumed appealing to this manâs battle instinct, his sense of honor as a soldier, regardless of how little he might have, would prove convincing enough.  lower your weapon.  leave it on the ground.  show them youâre not hostile.  surrender peacefully. begin negotiations.  and - damn it.  this wasnât how kaidan meant for this to go.  it was bad enough the man had already shown alarmâor what had seemed a lot like panicâand seeing the stark flash of it in bright blue eyes, before he dove for cover and hid behind the bed âŚÂ kaidan furrowed his brows and pinched the bridge of his nose, questioning why and how this backfired so spectacularly in his face.
he bet powering off his biotics probably looked like nothing more than a knee-jerk response, some inane impulse having swept clear past rationality, because look where they ended up: shepardâs clone appearing more troubled than kaidan had ever seen him, and kaidan, doubting his ability to keep calm when it was shepardâs expression across the distance, shepardâs voice in his ears, shepardâs blue eyes having pinned him stiff, unable to walk away.
kaidan had walked away once before, back on horizonâand not just that ;  heâd walked away from someone who needed help.  he swore to himself there wouldnât be a second time, and he wasnât about to break that promise, now...
vacillating between waiting for the ground team to return to the normandy, or to remain here, in shepardâs cabin, and fully subscribe to the idealistic concept that if kaidan simply tried hard enough, he could splinter this man from this cerberus identity and â and â for a moment, kaidan could only seethe in silence, before he tore each notion apart and cast them aside, uncaring of how many pieces of himself scattered, as well.
âwould youâwould you want to, then?â  kaidan kept his eyes on shepardâs desk, hating the hard mix of anger and helplessness pulling his voice tight.  there wasnât enough he could do, so little he could change, in both this and the reaper war, but maybe, just maybe âŚÂ  âlearn - i mean, experience ⌠something other than being someoneâs tool.â  what âthe hell was he even saying?  âwell, i - if you want, i could â  i could show you what âblastoâ is.â