Dialogue the First

"Serenity."
"We are not having this discussion." Her green eyes sparked; her voice was cold.
"Yes, we are." He followed her into her cabin. The room was clean, the air filtered. The desk organized and neat. No trace remained of last night's bout of drinking. There was no sign of all the empty bottles that had littered the room so badly that he had almost broken an ankle trying to get to her side a few hours ago.
"Fine, close the door." He did so, and she sat down on the couch, facing him. He took a chair. She wasn't relaxed on the couch. She was stiff, quietly furious.
Suddenly this seemed like a very hard, very pointless fight. Did it really matter if she had a few drinks now and then?
"Well?" she said sharply.
She was angry. But she was nervous. He could tell.
"I hate fighting with you. It gives me a headache."
"Then why do you do it all the time?"
"Because I love you."
She thawed visibly. More nervous now than angry, not so ramrod straight in her chair. "I don't have a drinking problem. I don't want to discuss this. I never drink when I'm on duty. What's the big deal?"
"Serenity.... there's more to it than just when you drink. Have you ever had just one drink? Ever?"
"Does it matter?"
"I think it does. I'm not sure. I just... if you can't stop after one, maybe you shouldn't be drinking at all."
Sparks. Her eyes flashed with silent anger, but she waited for him to go on.
He swallowed nervously. This was hard; much harder than he had thought it would be. Why couldn't she see how terrifying and destructive it was? "I think what bothers me most is realizing how tightly wound you are. You decompress so much when you drink, it's like... a shadow version of your real self. Like you save up all the wicked thoughts."
"Oh, come on, it's not that bad." There was a touch of amusement in her voice. "What's the point of being drunk if you're just going to be yourself, only uncoordinated?"
"Tell me the truth. Can you stop after one drink?"
"I've never tried. Who bothers to go out for one drink?"
"That's not an answer."
She surged to her feet, towering in the room, and began to pace back and forth. "I don't get it. I don't get the point of this. I thought we were having fun."
"I was. Until I realized I was out with a bunch of strangers. The Serenity I know doesn't ... she doesn't do the things you did last night. She doesn't act like that."
"Oh, be real." Scorn, a little amusement again. A naughty little girl, mocking, shone through her half-smile. "What did I do that was so bad?"
"Besides kissing Liara?" The words came out before he could stop them. He hadn't meant to say it.
"I did not....wait, yes I did. So you're jealous? Is that what this is about?"
He closed his eyes, counted his heartbeats. "Why did I have to tell you that? Why didn't you remember?" A flare of anger, his own this time. "Why did you do it while I was there?" He stood up himself, walked away, his back to her. "Of course I'm jealous. I'm not made of stone."
"It - " she stopped herself from saying something that probably would have been harmful and stupid. "I - " She tried to start her sentence again, but gave up. With an angry growl she flung herself back down on the couch. "This is just stupid. I stopped kissing her when I saw the look on your face. It didn't mean anything."
"Why did you kiss her in the first place?"
"Because I was drunk! That's what drunk people do! Stupid things they don't do in real life!"
"And not because you like her." He turned around so he could meet her eyes.
"We're friends, Kaidan, nothing more. I made a choice already. The right one. A few drinks isn't going to change that." Her voice was softer now, more confident.
"Are you sure?" He wasn't even sure what he was questioning at this point.
"Of course I'm sure." Her voice was still a purr of confidence, but her eyes... her eyes slid away. Impatient, angry.
"Because you make an awful lot of choices when you're drunk that aren't the same as the ones that you make sober."
"Now what?" Her irritation was evident in her voice, her eyes.
"Hitting unarmed civilians? Smashing up construction projects? Cow tipping?"
She burst out laughing. "Oh come on! You had fun with the cow tipping!"
He smiled. "Ok, I did. But not the rest of it. Not the brawl."
She frowned at that. "The batarians deserved it. They started the fight, not me."
"Does it matter what species they are? They were unarmed civilians."
She gestured, angry, waved it aside. "They didn't have the common sense not to pick a fight, they got what they deserved."
"You could have killed someone. You would have killed someone if C-Sec hadn't shown up."
"I don't kill people in bar brawls." Her voice was flat, emotionless. He stared at her, unbelieving for a moment.
"You certainly looked like you were going to kill him."
"I was." She met his eyes, and the feline slant of Serenity's green eyes struck him harder than they ever had before. "But not because of the brawl."
"Serenity, you can't go around strangling people who piss you off."
"Yes, I can."
"There was no reason - "
"Yes, there was." Green eyes locked with his, and he realized she was deliberately provoking him.
He thought for a second, struggling to remember. "Sorry, it's a little fuzzy. Was that batarian the same one who knocked me flat?"
"Yes." Her voice was still flat and emotionless. Hiding something behind the words.
He considered. "So... you remember some guy knocking me out in middle of a bar fight, and tried to kill him for it. But you don't remember making out with Liara until I mention it? You have some really weird priorities."
"It makes sense to me."
"Look... let's just try an experiment. No drinking, none at all, either of us. For a month. We can do that, right?"
"Why?"
"Because ..... this whole thing is wrong, and I'm getting a migraine from this discussion. Serenity, you shouldn't pile up so much anger. We can work it out when it happens, instead of letting it all build up. Let's just try it, okay?"
Wary, cautious green eyes. "And then what?"
"And then, we'll see." He put his hands to his head, the throbbing pain was distracting him.
"Uh... okay. Maybe you should lie down for a bit? Should I call the doctor?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna lie down.... did you just agree to my plan?" He pulled his medication out of the drawer and smiled as she handed him a glass of water. She was worried. All the anger had melted away.
"Yes. It's not that big of a deal, really. We can talk about it again in a month or whatever." After all that, she just brushed it aside. Agreed with him. Maybe it really wasn't that important after all.
He smiled at her as he lay down. "You know, this isn't how I wanted to win this argument."
She smiled back. "Who cares?"