[color=#16B887]“Nice that they care enough to try, I s’pose,”[/color] Skye shrugged at shorty’s explanation about the coffee. He sipped at his drink again, downing a little less than before as he got used to the feeling of gritty sludge sliding down the back of his throat. He had a hunch he would stick to black coffee most of the time, but it was good to know they had a peppermint flavor in the winter. He’d always been a sucker for the stuff. Plus, anything that offset coffee breath at least a little bit was good news in his book.

As the girl reached for his arm and gave him a tug toward her, he blinked, unsure what she was doing until he noticed the other soldiers gathering around the table. Must have been in their way. Absently, he noticed the roughness of her touch as she pulled him. It seemed out of place for a girl her size, but he wasn’t overly surprised. He’d never met a soldier with soft hands in his life.

[color=#16B887]“Got experience with both?”[/color] he asked with a smirk when she remarked about her death preference. It was mostly a sarcastic question, but there was a small part of him that was curious if she really did know what it felt like to die. He was morbidly interested in the subject. On earth, when you were gone, you were gone for good. He’d never met a group of people who had died and been raised again by white coats who grew bodies for a living.

As she went on to inquire about who he was, Skye nodded. [color=#16B887]“Just got in last night,”[/color] he confirmed. [color=#16B887]“It’s my first tour in space, but not my first tour ever. I spent a few years in Germany and Afghanistan before this.”[/color] Not that those tours really counted for much. Since the world was focused on fighting off the alien threat, no one was doing a whole lot of bickering with each other, which meant he spent most of his time training on the bases, playing games with the other guys and getting drunk off his ass on his days off. He hoped he’d see some more action on an actual warfront.

[color=#16B887]“Rifleman,”[/color] he said proudly in answer to her last question. [color=#16B887]“Master of the M4. What about you?”[/color] He looked her over again. [color=#16B887]“I’m guessing you don’t go anywhere near the front lines, right, short stuff?”[/color]