callmemajor | (no subject)

"She's a beauty, Evan," Jack says softly. "I almost want to ask you to take her up alone so I can see her in the sky first."

He grins at him. "But I'd rather be in the sky."

"Well, get in then," Lorne says, grinning. "You can watch some of the others going up after we're finished if you still want to."

More grinning, and Jack scampers up the stairs.

"Good god," he murmurs at the sight of the cockpit.

Lorne is right behind him, and he smiles at Jack's reaction. "It's less complicated than it looks. I promise."

"I'll take your word on that," Jack says and begins to buckle himself in.

Lorne climbs into the front and straps himself in as well. "You'll want to flip your visor down," he says. "And make sure you can hear me through the radio."

He starts flipping switches and going through his pre-flight checks which mun knows nothing whatsoever about.

Jack obeys and waits for Lorne to finish, watching the lights and readout panels.

Lorne finishes his checks and an airman on the ground wheels the stairs away as another one directs them to the runway. He gets clearance for takeoff and says, "You ready for this?"

Jack smiles and says, "Let's fly."

Lorne grins and takes off down the runway. The roar of the jets drowns out all sound not coming through their earpieces and before long, the jet lifts off the ground.

Jack breathes in and closes his eyes. It's been nearly a year since he's been in a plane--the jumper wasn't the same, it didn't have the same feel of gravity pulling against it--but he can still feel it in all the same places, in his gut and his feet and between his eyes, exactly where they're heading and where they need to be.

It's flight. It's glorious.

Lorne takes a moment to enjoy it as well. The X-302s are better than jumpers for getting the feel of pulling Gs, but even they have inertial dampeners, and there's something unique about the feel of being up in a jet.

"How you doin' back there?" he asks after a moment.

"Hangin' in there," Jack says. "Remembering to breathe."

Lorne smiles. "That's the most important part," he says. "Keep doing that, and you should be just fine."

He's not pushing the jet just yet. They haven't even broken the sound barrier.

Jack laughs. "Copy that, sir."

"You wanna see what she can do, or should we just coast like this for a while?"

"Let's see what she can do." He leans forward in his seat, he's so eager.

Lorne grins and pushes forward on the throttle. "This is the one that makes people hate living near an Air Force Base," he says as their speed climbs higher and higher until there's a loud BOOM, and the cockpit gets slightly quieter.

Jack yelps into the radio.

The sonic barrier wasn't broken until decades after he died--he's never heard a sound like this before.

Of course, after the yelp he starts laughing, because, as the kids say, it's awesome.

Lorne laughs as well, taking them into a barrel-roll with a loud, "WHOOP!"

More laughing from Jack. "This is better than Coney Island!"

Lorne laughs harder. "This is better than a lot of things," he says, stabilizing the jet before pulling it up and climbing almost straight up.

"Maybe one or two things," Jack murmurs.

"Not everything," Lorne concedes. He flips the plane over in a loop and levels them out again.

"You want to try your hand at it?"

"Absolutely," Jack says and takes hold of the throttle.

[ooc: Hometime.]