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"Where do you want to go?" It's a soft request, breathed into the quiet that's fallen. They’re in the corner by the window, just out of the way of what Kaidan’s pretty sure started as a ping pong match and then turned into…he hadn’t quite caught. Wrex, Grunt, and Zaeed seemed to have had fun with it though.
Kaidan stirs himself enough to lean his head back on Casey’s shoulder from where it had fallen into the crook of his arm as he tried to stay awake - watching the cars pass beneath them and the shifting lights of the Citadel blocks and listening to the slowly petering out sounds of his friends having a damn good time.
He’s not sure when he and Casey had decided to steal this little corner - but everyone had more or less left them to it, except for one errant ping pong ball to Casey’s temple.
“Hm?” He asks, not quite sure he’d caught the whole question in the first place. He feels Casey laugh softly, pressing a kiss into his hair and tightening his arms around Kaidan’s shoulders.
“Where do you want to go, after all this?” Kaidan grips at the hand curled over his heart, suddenly far more awake.
Another car pulses past the window - a faint whir all he can hear through the glass. Behind them, Wrex is snoring on the couch, Miranda and Liara are talking quietly in the kitchen, and if he really tries, he can make out Jack and James trying to be quiet about starting up another round of biotic versus regular muscle.
Underneath it all, is the slow intake of breath against his back - a strong heartbeat just out of sync with his own. Casey’s quiet behind him, lips still pressed into his hair, and grip around him warm and stable.
“You think we’re going to get an after?” He means it…not pessimistically. Not even unbelievingly. He hasn’t let himself think much of…of anything like ‘after’ in a long time. He’d barely worked himself up to thinking about ‘now’ when he and Casey had fallen into each other.
And until now, he hadn’t thought Casey had either.
Casey’s silent for a long minute after that - long enough that Kaidan’s almost worried he’s dropped the conversation - before he leans back against the wall, pulling Kaidan back with him.
“No.” It’s sharp, honest - and Kaidan has no doubt that if he could see Casey’s face right now, he’d be smiling. “But I like thinking about it.” Thinking about it. Planning for it. The barest thread of hope buried under the heavy weight of the last ditch joy and frenetic apathy that had been dogging their every step.
He twists his head again, catching sight of that small sad smile he knew he’d see as he pulls their twined fingers up to press a kiss to bruised knuckles. “Doesn’t matter where we go. Long as we go together.” A stuttered breath he can feel the skip to, fingers tightening around his own, “And maybe we find a better bar than Apollo’s, huh?” The skip turns into a startled laugh - loud enough to get a groan and a pillow thrown in their direction from the couch. Casey buries his face in Kaidan’s neck to strangle the rest of the sound - soft and wounded, but bright against his skin.
“Deal.” He feels more than hears, as he presses back into the man and goes back to watching the cars pass beneath them and the shifting lights of the Citadel blocks. and listening to slowly beating hearts, just off sync, and all the more real for it.