Chapter Text
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He was thinking of blue eyes. Blue like the sky above him. He was thinking of running hands through tight hair, dark, course to the touch. He was thinking of stolen moments aboard a ship two years gone and the man who had held his heart.
What else could he be thinking of, stuck as he was, unable to move, unable to do anything. He was staring at the sky, a crystalline blue, like Shepard's eyes. There was irony in the picturesque view. A perfect day, not a cloud to be seen, sun shining its warmth, a giant alien ship looming over them all. Swarms of giant beetles floating along the gentle breeze. The smell of burning, the sounds of people screaming and the buzzing and clicking of insects.
All he could think of was him, of Shepard. Of eyes that pierced through Kaidan's defenses, of lips that invited and tempted his own. He was thinking of a man two years gone while the colony went to hell around him.
Kaidan Alenko, Staff Commander of the Alliance was helpless. Helpless to stop the abduction of the colonists, helpless to stop the direction of his thoughts. When they were alone together in Shepard’s cabin the marble statue that was Commander Shepard became human again. He would no longer be Commander , but John, just his John. When Kaidan could take John in his arms, bury his face in his neck and breathe him in, an earthy and spicy scent that was definitely not Alliance regulation soap.
He flashed his biotics, suffusing himself in its glow, the smell of ozone briefly overpowering everything else. His heart rate increased, his blood pumped. He was flushing the toxin out of his system, Biotic metabolism burning it up. Or that was the hope. It was that or he'd have one hell of a migraine before he...what, died? Was abducted?
The invaders had just left him, walked right on by and collected the others. He had felt the rising panic when they first approached, his gun trained at the enemy and unable to pull the trigger. He had flashed his biotics, uselessly, unable to form even a simple barrier. They ignored him and he had felt shame in that. Being ignored. Couldn't protect the colonists on Horizon, couldn't protect himself and he couldn't protect Shepard.
He flashed his biotics again, willed his body to move, screamed it in his mind and felt his fingers twitch. He took a shallow breath, the best he could manage at the moment, body as it was. He felt the sweat bead on his forehead, drip uncomfortabley into the creases of his armor at his neck.
He could hear gunfire now, sometimes it would sound close, often times far into the distance and still he could not move, could not pull himself away from thoughts of Shepard. Thoughts of his skin, soft and silky smooth. Trailing his fingers along the grooves of his abs, amazed at how it could feel so different from when he would hold his hand, all tough and calloused. He would trace circles along his arms and place soft kisses between Shepard's shoulder blades, feel him shudder as their tongues met and explored. The way those blue eyes would look at him, pupils dilated, blown from pleasure, full of so much warmth...maybe even love.
He would marvel at how they could be so full and warm when he'd seen those same eyes cold, hard, like chipped ice, a raging storm.
Once again he flashed his biotics, as distraction from the ghost of the man two years dead.
He haunted him still. No matter how hard he tried to move on, no matter how much he mourned, Shepard’s ghost would not let him rest. And if on the really bad nights, when the memories hurt more than he could bear, when he'd had a few too many whiskeys and Few too many lagers, if he thought about joining him in the embrace of oblivion, well, he always managed to pull himself back.
He could breath easier now, take deeper breaths, ribs and abdomen expanding to accommodate the pressure. He felt the the GARDIAN turret start firing before he heard it, the deep rumbling rocking through his body and then the sound wave itself reaching his ears seconds later. And just like that he could move again, blessed relief as aching muscles were finally free once more. The turret was still firing, gunshots accompanying it. He took a few tentative steps forward and then he was off, sprinting towards the action, rifle tucked tightly in his arms.
He took cover behind a few crates to assess the situation. Husk corpses littered the area with the occasional hulking something else sprinkled in. A few Collector troops were still fighting but were quickly taken care of by a bald woman, covered in tattoos and the telltale glow of biotics. Her technique was sloppy but damn she was powerful.
The turret fired uselessly at the monstrous ship as it left the atmosphere, fleeing with the colonists. He pushed away the guilt that threatened to crush him. Later, when he was alone, maybe with a bottle of whiskey, he would let himself feel it. Mourn those who were lost. His eyes followed as...Delan rushed out from a bunker, shouting at the sky, hands raised as if he could physically pull the ship, and the colonists, back.
And then all the air rushed from his lungs, his focus stuck on a pair of impossibly blue eyes. He felt it rush back, overwhelm him. Stolen kisses in dark corners of the SR-1, breathless laughter, muffled by tongue and lips. Hands clumsy with nervous energy, fumbling to undress Shepard in between desperate kisses. Making plans to visit Vancouver and the family orchard on their next shore leave. Sending his mother a letter, begging her to be on her best behavior when they visited. Watching a coffin being lowered into the ground, empty, taps playing as a twenty-one gun salute cracked loudly. Going through bottle after bottle, searching for answers when there were none.
He stepped forward. "You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost."
He didn't listen to the Delan's reply, just stared into impossibly blue eyes. They were filled with apprehension, uncertainty. The eyes were the same but the face was all wrong. Everything about this moment was wrong. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to scream, he wanted to break down and weep, feeling the loss and pain all over again.
Instead he chokes out a simple name.
"Jane."
John's twin.