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‘The trees always remind me of incendiary rounds.’ Shepard had leaned against the window, lips pressed tightly in thought, 'The way the red and orange mix together… Yeah, just like the glow on armour when you shoot it.’
Kaidan could see the tips of those very trees just outside their living room window - a sleepy sort of autumn Sunday with rain pattering against the windows of their home. Shepard wasn’t the most romantic type of guy, his analogies always fell on guns, armour and Blasto but Kaidan understood what he meant to say and that was the importantpart.
With Shepard, Kaidan always had to read between the lines or they wouldn’t be on the same galaxy map most of the time and today had been no exception. Their argument had started over nothing - Kaidan was over thinking and Shepard had stopped thinking.
Things usually went downhill by that point, like a slippery slope on Noveria - the momentum almost too strong to resist but this time, Shepard solved it without much effort. He grabbed his irate lover and pulled him into his arms, head tucked under his chin and sighed.
'It’s Sunday, no time for a fight, we have movies to watch,’ he said in his best Commander Shepard voice and Kaidan surrendered.
'Yeah, okay - I’m… sorry.'
Somewhere between Blasto III and Blasto IV, with Kaidan’s ear pressed hard against Shepard’s chest - listening to his heart beating like a pulse star ready to go nova, they dozed. The rain falling a little harder against the window pane and Kaidan could see the wind swaying the old maple trees on the horizon.
Shepard was the first to fall asleep while Kaidan spent the last few moments fighting the pull of slumber listening carefully to the sound he never thought he’d hear again all those years ago; the first time over Alchera, and the second occurrence in the Citadel rubble.
They were old soldiers and old soldiers couldn’t deny the only thing they knew,especially Shepard. 'Incendiary rounds, huh?’ Kaidan smirked and nuzzled Shepard’s chest before closing his eyes, feeling the weathered hands wrap around his back for a sleepy squeeze, 'Yeah, that’s the best way to describe them.’