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I just don't want to get thrown in the brig, okay? Apparently bans on cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners isn't really a thing here.

[Said off the cuff, all joking (even if it's apparently true, but whatever he heard that stuff second hand so it's easy to be a little cavalier about it).

And despite his protests, Aidan doesn't move to stop her.]

Okay, that's a fair point. Not a wimp, I take that back.

[ And it does give Kate actual pause, not so much in her backpedaling but it's obvious from the serious consideration in her expression and the thoughtful noise she makes. She taps her lip with a bent knuckle, and stops beside the panel in the wall. ]

But maybe they shouldn't have made them so accessible if they didn't want us to play with them. The furniture's all bolted down anyway, right? [ Suck it, engineering.

Kate taps the controls and slides a finger across the display, holding onto the wall to keep herself steady as the room is converted to zero-G. Then she lets go and pushes off just a little, floating up into the air. ]

Thanks. I feel way better now.

[He watches her from his spot on the sofa, twisted around with an arm hooked across the back of the couch.

The change in gravity doesn't immediately send him floating up into space or anything, but the shift in the atmosphere is definitely palpable: like he can feel the small hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck shifting marginally. Aidan flexes his fingers in and out of a fist. The air feels weird, off in a way he can't really describe. After a moment he experimentally nudges himself up, gently drifting up from the couch cushions.

So much for Space Rocky.]

Yeah, I bet that was really weighing on you. Oh look, [ Kate goes for the cheesy joke, gesturing at his slow drift upwards and grinning. She pushes off the wall, floating clear of the floor into the middle of the room. She spots the tv as she turns slowly. ]

Heh, sorry. Totally derailed Space!Rocky. I wonder if-- [ She nudges the coffee table and drifts toward the couch, taking up a reclining, cross-legged posture but hovering in the air a couple feet above it. Shrugs. ] Actually this is really comfortable. I might only watch movies this way from now on.

[Aidan makes a low noise in the back of his throat - shoots her an exaggerated eye roll over the punning.] Yeah yeah, real cute.

[With no force made to correct his trajectory, he continues to drift gently upward. Aidan shifts, stretching and and twisting in mid-air. He reaches a hand out toward her, fingers wiggling.] Help?

Don't lie, you were totally going to make that joke if I didn't. [ Kate's smile is unapologetic as she levels accusations of bad joke tendencies.

But she is at least helpful, reaching over to take his hand and tugs, hauling him back toward her reclining height. She overestimates the force required, and they careen together and into the wall. ]

Sorry, I guess this isn't as easy as it looks.

[He throws out a hand to keep cut down on the force of the impact, and while it's not enough to avoid the collision completely it does soften the blow of his shoulder against the bulkhead. It knocks a laugh out of him, grin breaking wide. This is ridiculous.]

If you wanted to kill me, you could've just said so.

[ Kate thunks into the wall beside him and reaches out a hand to his shoulder to stall her rebounding back off again. She rubs her elbow but is grinning, too. ]

If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. [ This would be an excellent place for a vampire joke, and she bites her lip to resist the urge. They're all pretty cheesy anyway, so maybe it's doubly for the best. ] I mean I might have doomed us to floating around upside down for eternity or something, but that doesn't count.

[ More careful this time, she uses the force of just a single finger against the wall to bump her shoulder against his, grin wide. ] This is pretty cool, right?

[The force is marginal, but if it weren't for his hand bracing against the wall it might still send him (very, very, very) gentle drifting. Instead he bumps her just as delicately back - can't help but flash an equally wide smile.]

Okay, I'll give it to you. It's pretty cool.

[ Kate's grin remains huge and bright as he agrees. ] Good, [ she says, and then, ] Okay, I'm gonna try something. You might have to catch me?

[ She turns to face the wall, carefully moving away from it until she's just gripping with her fingertips. When she pushes off it's more downwards than out, and she pulls her legs in as she somersaults through the air. She does drift away some but her horizontal motion is more limited than the spinning, and after a minute she's able to windmill out of it and snag ahold of Aidan to pull herself to a stop. ]

I'm pretty sure we could backflip across the room. [ Suggestion more than idle commentary. ]

[He reaches out to grab at her when she starts to come out of the somersault, fingers snagging at her wrist and locking just tight enough to keep her from drifting.]

Yeah? [By the thoughtful glance he throws across the room, it's obvious he gets her meaning.] Okay, but if I take a header into a wall, I'm blaming you.

"A risk I can live with!" Kate's smile is brightly shit-eating, and she shifts her wrist in his grasp, pulling away so she can take his hand instead. She carefully rearranges to get feet to the wall and waits for him to do the same. "Ready?"

She lifts a brow at him, and then has a moment of obvious inspiration: "Oh man I just had the best idea. It's gonna be awesome." But first, backflipping. Hope he was ready because she is pushing off, prepared to pull him after though she'll let go rather than drag him across the room. Probably. Chances of headers into walls: high.

Aidan shoots her a last wary glance, corner of his mouth pulling at the vague outline of a smile, and then he folds: shifting against the wall to get his feet under him, fingers knitting simply enough with hers. "Ready."

He pushes off just a half beat after her, tucking his head and letting her momentum carry him. It's easy, weightless - and he has to throw out a hand to avoid them running headlong into the couch, which sends their trajectory slightly too high up, giving them a destination a little closer to the ceiling than to the far wall.

Aidan's wariness is probably wise, given her professed lack of concern for his well-being. She probably doesn't really mean it? Off they go, flipping across the room at a deceptively gentle pace, and Kate stretches a foot out to tap the ceiling, cushioning their landing. It's partially successful, and there's some fingertip grabbing and sliding, a shoulder braced to try to soak up their momentum and avoid too much of a tangling collision of themselves, too.

"Good catch with the couch," she says, "Actually this is perfect because I was going to say we'd better walk on the ceiling while we can. Don't you think? I mean I don't know about you but I don't get to do that much."

"What can I say, I've been working on my mind reading." He's shifting with his feet a bit, momentarily awkward about getting his bearings - the soles of his shoes - against the ceiling. Without gravity, it shouldn't be difficult but logically dealing with standing upside down makes things... intellectually difficult.

But he does get it. Aidan releases her hand, but promptly offers her him arm. It's very old fashioned. "Alright." He flashes a grin - not strictly toward her, but definitely because of her. "Would you give me the pleasure?"

Kate repositions her body quickly and her mind a little less so, craning her neck back to eye the wall and the floor below(?), which proves counter-productive in the effort to orient herself. There's a moment of unsteadiness and sudden tension, the sort of split-second shock that runs through your system when you almost fall, before she remembers that's not really possible.

Aidan's gesture gets him a grin in return and she settles her hand in his arm. "I'd be delighted. Shall we take a turn about the room?"

"It'd be an honor."

And off they go. It's not precisely like walking - too much air time and Aidan has to be careful not to simply accidentally propel them from the ceiling - but it's the thought that counts. Skimming across the ceiling is probably as close to the real deal as they're likely to get.

"Eat your heart out, Jane Austen," says Kate as they glide with undeserved grace. Her grip on his arm is light, other hand occupied with preventing her ponytail from fanning out absurdly.

"My brain can't decide if we're upside down or rightside up at all. I might have to try practicing like this. I might have to try doing everything like this."

"What can I say; I'm pretty old school." Not helping the whole 'I'm not a vampire, no really' agenda, Aidan, but it's out of his mouth before he can help himself.

So, right, moving on: "It's kind of messing me up. If I throw up on you when the gravity turns back on, it's not my fault." Romantic.

If he thinks for a second that Kate isn't filing that away in her mental 'evidence Aidan is a vampire' folder he is wrong. But she continues to resist poking at it any more than she already has today, and instead lets out a laugh at his threat.

"Is that how the did it in the olden days? Take a girl for a stroll and then throw up on her? The BBC has definitely been leaving that part out."

"Well," he quirks an eyebrow - shrugs. "You know how it is. TV's always glamorizing everything. Sex, drugs, Edwardian courting rituals."

He's definitely grinning now, spare hand catching and patting at her arm hooked in his. A beat then - a small one -, but eventually he comes back with a just slightly tentative: "This is nice."

No doubt Masterpiece Theater will be in receipt of a strongly worded letter about their authenticity just as soon as Kate gets down from this ceiling and off this spaceship. In the meantime, she smiles back. It's a little lopsided and less of a gigantic grin than some earlier but better suited to the moment for it. She nods without hesitating.

"It is."

Maybe he's just officially been in space too long that messing with the gravity controls is within the realm of if not normal, at least possible (and kind of charming). Or maybe he's just officially missing home and all the comforts that come with it. Or maybe-- maybe it's the part where he's pretty sure Kate knows, where even he's not stupid enough to pretend she doesn't - and she seems kind of okay with it.

(That shouldn't be a good thing. It should worry him.)

Whatever it is, it prompts an effort out of him: "So, uh, about last time--"

There's definitely something weirdly normal about this, maybe just the fact that they've found something that's specifically about being on a spaceship but isn't horrifying. (Obviously it should worry her, too, but she listed off the traits of the last couple guys she went out with and put 'vampire' next to them and said 'eh'.)

She turns a little so she's not watching quite so much out the corner of her eye and lifts a brow. It's a prompting expression rather than a warning one, but he may have noticed by now that with her there's at least some chance of mockery pretty much at all times. "Yeah?"

Aidan opens his mouth faintly - closes it and pauses. He's not really sure what's on the tip of his tongue, just that something is. That he should be saying something to her. That he wants to.

His fingers settle absently at her forearm, curling gently there. "Just that I was stupid. And I made a mistake." He shoots her a glance, mouth pulling absently at something else before he flicks his eyes away. No big deal. "Because it was pretty nice then too."

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