Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kaidan let out a frustrated sigh as he rolled over once more trying to get comfortable.

The bed was too big. The room felt too big and it was too quiet. It wasn’t right.

He didn’t have nearly this much trouble falling asleep in the crew’s quarters when he had about half a dozen reasons in the form of how many other people averaged sleeping at the same time he was in there. You’d think without anyone else around, it’d be easy to fall asleep.

He was a career marine who had spent a significant amount of time in combat and near enough to front lines as well as not really staying in the same place for long enough to call it home. Falling asleep anywhere was a basic skill.

“Anywhere” apparently now excluded Shepard’s apartment when the guy wasn’t there.

He had to be careful or he’d get tired and make it more likely to trigger a migraine and he really didn’t want Shepard coming back to him in pain. It just felt like he’d give the impression that he couldn’t handle himself when Shepard wasn’t around when he’d been doing just fine.

Then again, the last few nights he’d been either falling asleep somewhere else in the apartment or he’d come back so tired that he’d just get changed and be asleep right when he laid down.

The Council was absolutely taking advantage of having another Spectre hanging out on the Citadel and they kept funneling missions his way that didn’t require leaving, which still left them with plenty to send his way. He didn’t actually mind because it kept him busy but the one they’d sent to him earlier today had been ridiculously easy and he’d wrapped it up in a few hours. He’d then offered his help to Commander Bailey to fill in a few more hours before returning to the apartment for the evening.

Apparently, that’s where he’d gone wrong in ignoring the fact that he missed Shepard. Yes, he was also worried but he’d realized quickly that he had enough confidence in Shepard that it wasn’t what he was primarily feeling.

Shepard was at Omega with Aria. He had been for the past nine days. They hadn’t gotten any communication from him but they weren’t surprised with him deep in a Cerberus controlled station where he was likely having to fight back with guerilla tactics rather than military. Kaidan expected him to be gone another few days at least.

He'd deeply considered asking EDI and Traynor to work their magic and do whatever they did to try and pick up anything from Omega that might indicate what was going on there but he didn’t want to give himself away like that. There was no way that would be anything except him being worried about Shepard and he didn’t want to give anyone teasing ammunition.

After all, with Shepard gone like this, Kaidan was in charge, as they’d agreed with the Alliance and Council when Kaidan joined the Normandy to get them off his back about deciding to rejoin the crew. For the Alliance, it had been treated as an easy workaround for the state of the war, the Normandy’s unique role in the war efforts and covering how they didn’t have an XO to spare to make it look like they were meeting regs. Besides, Kaidan was familiar with the various responsibilities of the position from the experience he’d gained through his career so it wasn’t like he couldn’t do it.

He sighed as he accepted that letting his mind wander over mundane information wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

He knew better than to try and force it. That would just frustrate him even more and keep him awake even longer.

So, he rolled out of the bed and got up. He grabbed one of his datapads from the stack he’d accumulated in the apartment because he’d shown up still working on something enough times by now. Just like there was a place on the table beside the couch in Shepard’s cabin on the Normandy and a whole corner of a shelf in the Starboard Observation Deck was dedicated to him with how often he primarily worked in there. Everyone knew those were his and they left them alone and even put them away for him if he had to rush out and left them out.

As he headed to one of the couches outside the bedroom, he briefly thought about if the apartment he’d actually gotten while he’d been at the Citadel after being released from Huerta had anything that made it look like he’d existed there. He had a few changes of clothes, food that was only one step above being rations since it was easy and quick to be ready to eat, and it was actually where he’d left his Alliance armor when he’d found and switched to the lighter gear he used now and definitely preferred.

He might as well just call it storage. It certainly wasn’t where he lived. He had no attachment to it.

There was only one place he’d really felt attached to in years. Well, officially two now since the first one had been destroyed.

He recalled the old saying along the lines of how home was the people and not an actual place. He got it now.

John Shepard was home for Kaidan and had been for a long time now.

He really wasn’t going to sleep now.

He still laid down with his head pillowed on the armrest closer to the wall and he synced up his latest messages so he could start going through them.

He was getting reports from multiple squads under his command in Spec Ops now. One squad had taken over a post that the Normandy had cleared Cerberus out of while the rest were on Earth under Anderson’s command but he was still getting any reports they submitted and doing his best to keep on top of them and send responses to the students he cared about. He didn’t know if it mattered to them to hear from him but he’d keep sending things unless he was told not to. He hoped that the camaraderie that he’d felt working with them had been as mutual as he thought and they were in some way relieved to hear from him.

He was proud of them regardless.

Catching up with those, he switched over to updated specs on the Crucible’s construction because it was easily the least interesting thing he received and he was still hoping to calm his brain to fall asleep.

What if Shepard hadn’t wanted him back on the Normandy when he’d asked? What if he’d asked and Shepard had turned him down? Where would he have gone?

It was easy to say that he would have gone back to Earth and would be right where his squads were working with Anderson but that hadn’t ever been his only choice. It really was just as likely that he would have stayed on the Citadel where the Council could use him as a Spectre, exactly as they were doing right now. And he didn’t mind that. He was doing work that did matter and that was important to him. As long as he was contributing, that’s what he cared about. He considered that if he stayed on the Citadel, he would have remained better informed about what Shepard was doing and he could have even maybe seen his friends sometimes when they made their pit stops here.

Or maybe the pull to return to Earth would have been too strong and he wouldn’t have been able to stay away without being on the spearhead ship of the war efforts to help him fight that particular desire.

It was just hard to say. He’d still been on the Citadel partly because he hadn’t been able to decide and Udina had been pushing orders to him off under the guise of wanting his appointment to Spectre to be used as a distraction from the building war.

It bothered Kaidan how much Udina had obviously been trying to maneuver him into a position where he could have potentially manipulated him. He had used Kaidan in getting the Council to where they were exposed and Kaidan knew he would have been killed once Udina got them to where he was supposed to hand them over to Cerberus. Kaidan was good, but he wouldn’t have been able to fight off as much firepower as would have been turned on him then. He’d reviewed enough information from that day to know that with certainty.

He hadn’t told Shepard about that. Shepard was protective enough over him as it was where he seemed to have to get eyes on Kaidan a few times a day in order to actually believe he was alright. There were already plenty of nights that they spent together where Kaidan would wake up to Shepard pulling him closer like he needed to prove to himself that Kaidan was still alive and with him.

The war was taking its toll on Shepard and Kaidan wouldn’t add to it if he didn’t have to.

Besides, Kaidan figured that Shepard deserved some leeway there since he’d succeeded in keeping their relationship from affecting them on missions. He didn’t stick closer to Kaidan to prioritize him over anyone else and he didn’t hesitate to designate Kaidan to do something that would take him farther away when he was the obviously correct choice for the task just for the sake of keeping him out of danger. No, they were still just Commander Shepard and Major Alenko while on mission. It still felt the same to be on mission now as it did when they first started working together years ago.

Things hitting Shepard harder when they weren’t on mission seemed to be the trade for that and Kaidan accepted that graciously. There were definitely worse options for that to have gone.

It wasn’t like he was immune either. Far from it.

He’d almost slipped up on Rannoch, both when Shepard went into the geth consciousness and when Shepard had charged in alone against the Reaper. The former was easily covered as anyone just being concerned about an unknown situation, especially that someone being him as he was known for preferring to have more information before jumping into the unknown, and he only hadn’t reacted to the latter more extremely because of being stuck where he couldn’t get out easily from the vehicle he and Tali had been in. But he knew his reactions to both had been initially based on his strong feelings for Shepard.

He’d done better about it after that and they’d settled further into being together. He thought what they had was healthy as far as relationships went, especially considering the somewhat extreme situation they were in the middle of.

What if they made it? What if the end of the war came and they were both alive? That’s what they were aiming for, right? They knew their chances but the point was to defy them and survive.

Kaidan…hadn’t thought about it before. Not like this, where it was just about what it might look like for the two of them to keep being together once the Reapers were defeated. He’d looked at the state of the Alliance, the state of the Citadel, the state of other species, and what would be needed for recovery afterwards. He’d never just looked at himself and Shepard. Himself and John.

This thing between them, it didn’t have an expiration date that matched up to the war being over, did it? Shepard didn’t act like it did. He didn’t talk like it did. Actually, based on what Shepard did and said, everything pointed to him wanting this to be something that stuck with them as long as they were both alive.

Kaidan wanted that, too. He did.

His brain was just being an asshole because he hadn’t been separated from Shepard like this since they’d gotten together. They saw each other every day. They spent most nights together and grabbed as much time together as they could manage other than that.

But them being physically close to each other wasn’t them, he reminded himself. They were together, in a relationship, no matter how many mass relays apart they were.

He startled into a sitting position and realized that he’d at least been dozing before waking back up quickly. The datapad was clutched in his hands at his chest but at least his biotics hadn’t flared. He let out a sigh but then realized that he’d been woken up by hearing movement in the apartment. No wonder he’d come awake so abruptly.

He set the datapad onto the couch and moved to stand quietly. He was already barefoot so he didn’t need to soften his steps too much and he’d already walked the apartment more than enough times, memorizing steps between rooms for the sake of navigating while in a migraine, and he knew where there were creaks, few as they were.

Kaidan wasn’t necessarily expecting danger, not in this building and area of the Citadel with the amount of security it had and not with how numerous people had their own codes to access the apartment, but he was still ready.

Honestly, if it was James or Garrus or Joker following through on their increasing threats to steal him away from the Council to drag him out drinking, he was Throwing them out and changing the codes.

He might now be a bit short-tempered because he’d actually managed to start to fall asleep when he’d been trying for hours.

He went down the stairs that were closer to the entrance to the apartment, preferring how there were more corners and the sound was a bit more muffled on this staircase.

Someone was moving around…back towards the office.

He just reached the bottom of the stairs when he heard someone speaking just loud enough to be heard, “Kaid? That you?”

“Shepard?” he replied, surprised, as he walked around the corner of the kitchen with Shepard stepping into view in the opposite doorway.

“Hey, I was trying not to wake you up. Should have figured it was asking too much with me not already here with you.” Shepard gave him a warm smile as he walked across the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Kaidan’s waist, pulling him into a tight embrace before he pushed his face into Kaidan’s throat and took in a deep breath. Kaidan slid his arms around Shepard’s shoulders to return the embrace, still not quite believing that Shepard was there, not when he hadn’t expected him back yet. He figured Shepard would have sent a message of some kind before just showing up.

“It’s fine,” he replied sort of automatically.

“Damn, I missed you, Kaid. I was worried you wouldn’t have stayed here without me and I’d have to track you down. I’m glad you’re here.”

Shepard pressed a few kisses to his throat between words.

“I wasn’t expecting you back. Not for another few days.” He gave it a few seconds and then continued, “You could have just waited until the morning to see me if I wasn’t here.”

“You say the weirdest things sometimes,” Shepard said and Kaidan could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re lucky I think it’s charming or it might be a deal-breaker.”

Kaidan missed this so much. Not just being held by Shepard or hearing his voice but just how easy it was to exist with him. He understood that Shepard was almost immediately teasing him in a show of not only affection but relief. Shepard had genuinely been ready to scour the Citadel looking for Kaidan if he’d needed to because he would have needed to see him right away. Kaidan didn’t doubt for a second that Shepard had only come to the apartment first because of the time and that he’d forbidden Kaidan to just stay on the Normandy and Kaidan had mentioned that the apartment he had was farther away, closer to the Embassies since the Council had been aiming to keep him close when they’d assigned it to him.

“I’m good to go right to bed,” Shepard said easily. “I dropped my gear off already when we docked and stopped in for a quick shower while I was at it. Like I said, I was aiming to not wake you up.”

Shepard was already pulling away and he grabbed for Kaidan’s hand as he was dropping them away from Shepard’s shoulders. He then tugged at Kaidan’s hand as he walked past him for the stairs and Kaidan let himself be pulled along back upstairs and to Shepard’s bedroom.

Shepard paused at the couch when he noticed the datapad.

“Were you even asleep?” he asked as he continued walking.

“Working on it. I’d dozed off.” Knowing Shepard would press him about it, he got ahead of him. “It was just tonight that I was trying somewhere other than the bed to sleep in. I was having trouble falling asleep and figured it wouldn’t hurt to try someplace different.”

“Why not just try the datapad in the bed?”

“The bed felt wrong. Too big. Too quiet in the room. Every time I’ve been in that bed, I’ve been sharing it with you.”

“I missed you, too,” Shepard said so easily and with such fondness and warmth. Kaidan smiled at his back, hearing different words implied in Shepard’s words and he wondered if maybe John might actually say them.

Kaidan had said he loved Shepard but he hadn’t said it as an isolated declaration. He tended to fold it into other things he was saying, wording it as things he loved about Shepard. While it was still honest and being honest with John was why he was working to not hold it back, it was still him leaving himself an out of not fully committing to just telling John he loved him. He was checking John’s responses.

Maybe he should just get rid of the pretense.

Shepard let go of his hand so he could head into the closet to change out of his BDUs. He usually wore a t-shirt and underwear to sleep since it was easiest to get dressed in a hurry if necessary while Kaidan had pants that he wore to cut down on the sensory input on his skin just in case a migraine flared. Kaidan headed back to the bed and sat on the foot of the bed.

Not wanting Shepard to walk out and think something was wrong, he asked, “What happened on Omega?”

Shepard let out a heavy sigh that conveyed that there was likely the usual amount of mayhem that seemed to come with the territory of anything Shepard was attached to.

“Short answer is ‘a lot’. Aria has Omega back so she’ll stop haunting Purgatory.” C-Sec would be happy about that. They were nervous about her presence but just kept their distance knowing that she had the asari Counsellor’s backing. “You’ll likely start getting things connected to a General Oleg Petrovsky. You heard of him?”

Kaidan took a moment to think it over. He’d taken in so many names connected to Cerberus since he’d met Shepard on Horizon and really dived into whatever he could find about the organization that it really could be a huge ask to think of something or someone in particular.

He was still considering it when Shepard walked back out and gave him a curious look, likely because of seeing where he’d sat. But Shepard just came to him and he dropped down to kneel in front of Kaidan, sliding his hands up Kaidan’s thighs and then around his lower back as he leaned in to start kissing at Kaidan’s throat.

“I don’t recognize the name,” Kaidan replied as he set one hand behind him on the bed to lean against while his other hand cupped the back of Shepard’s head, lightly scratching his fingers at the buzzed hair.

“Hm, I wanted you to have known him so I could gloat to Aria that someone on my crew knew him even if I didn’t and it would have been even better if it was you for plenty of reasons. He’s the guy that ousted her. Very good military strategist, I’ll admit. High up in Cerberus but I’m actually thinking he wouldn’t have stayed loyal if he hadn’t been stuck on Omega while the Illusive Man started to pull the shit he’s been doing that’s running counter to what he claims to stand for. I’d bet Petrovsky’s cooperation is going to become pretty genuine once he starts hearing some details that I’ve suggested they bring to his attention.” He nudged his nose against the bottom of Kaidan’s chin and Kaidan tipped his head back accommodatingly, liking how Shepard seemed to not be able to stop kissing his skin even as he hadn’t actually kissed Kaidan yet even though it didn’t feel like he was holding back.

“Aria let him live?”

“Yeah. It was actually pretty surprising. She had her hands around his throat and everything but decided to hand him over to the Alliance. We ran into someone she was really close to there, though. She didn’t make it and I think it was Aria’s way of honoring her loss.”

“I’m not going to go as far as saying that I doubt Aria has any honor and give her that it’s just some code that I’ll never be able to figure out and that I’ll never agree with. But I’d buy that anyone who actually got her to care about them would be what means we saw something we’d call honorable. People like her do have a likelihood of doing things that would be considered out of character if someone manages to get through everything.”

Shepard paused for a moment before he started moving around again. He pushed into Kaidan and the biotic let himself be guided to lay down on his back while Shepard moved onto the bed so he was sitting between Kaidan’s legs with his weight resting on Kaidan. He pulled his arms out from under Kaidan and rested his elbows on either side of Kaidan’s head while Kaidan let his hands rest on Shepard’s sides.

“Watching Aria just bulldoze her way through everything and how her and Nyreen argued over what was a waste of time and energy, I couldn’t help but think about myself. And then how Aria held back for Nyreen, I thought about us.’

“How so? Neither of us are like Aria.”

“No, not like that. It was sort of how Aria seemed to ease about everything to do with Nyreen while the rest got what people know her to be. Neither side was a lie. They were both genuine. What if I’d been more like that in how I handle things? Of course I think about doing things that don’t take everyone into consideration. Like with curing the genophage, it would have been significantly easier to just take the salarian’s side and tell the krogans it could wait until after the Reapers were taken care of or even go along with the Dalatrass’ plan to sabotage the cure and let Mordin assume it just didn’t work. It would have been easier but it wouldn’t have been right.”

“The right thing always seems like the harder option. Doesn’t mean it actually is.” Kaidan deeply believed that, tried to live by it.

“I really wish you had been able to be with us on Tuchanka. I thought about you a lot, about what you would say and do about everything that was happening. And then when I visited you, I didn’t want to talk about it too much and make you feel bad for not being able to be there so I couldn’t bring myself to really ask your opinion.” Kaidan picked his head up and gave Shepard a quick kiss before relaxing again. Shepard gave him a warm smile. His hand started combing through Kaidan’s hair absently. “You’re so important to me, Kaid. I don’t want anything I do to disappoint you.”

“You know the reason I’m here is because that doesn’t actually determine your choices, right? I’m here because you were making those kinds of choices long before we met. I don’t want to be the reason someone makes a certain choice and I try not to do the same to anyone else, especially you.” He thought over all that Shepard had said since he thought he’d heard something else that he felt he needed to directly address and recalled it quickly. “If how you treated me didn’t line up with how you treated everyone else, it would have bothered me. It would have felt like something had to not be as genuine because eventually there would be a blatant conflict in the actions you took against the words you’d say. I don’t think I could have fallen in love with someone like that. Ends don’t justify the means nearly as often as people like to think. The means always matter. You get that and you see where effort is needed and you don’t let it deter you. That’s why I love you, John.”

John kissed him, long and deep and passionate. He folded his arms under Kaidan’s head and put almost all his weight onto Kaidan so that they were fully pressed together. When he would usually start reaching under Kaidan’s clothes to touch his skin or start undressing him, he didn’t. He just kept kissing him. It felt good and Kaidan loved it.

When Shepard did let their lips part for long enough to say anything, he asked, “You did that on purpose, right?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, his voice thick and quiet. “It was overdue. It isn’t new.”

John rested his forehead against Kaidan’s and Kaidan tightened his arms around Shepard’s back in an embrace.

“I know. Honestly, I didn’t think it would make much difference for you to say it like that as opposed to how you’ve been wording it. I was wrong. I’m being completely serious in saying that’s one of the best things I’ve ever heard. Please never doubt that I want to hear it again.”

Kaidan squeezed John tighter. “Sorry I’m not better about this.”

Shepard chuckled. “I’m not. The implication to being better at this is that you had more experience with relationships like ours. I don’t want you to have had more experience. I’m selfish like that.” Shepard had said things like that before with varying levels of seriousness.

Kaidan didn’t necessarily mind regardless.

“There’s the implication and then there’s the reality. That’s just who you are, Kaid. I love who you are. I love you.”

Kaidan’s chest tightened with the swell of emotion he experienced.

He saw where John had been coming from. After all, he’d truly already known how John felt. It was obvious in pretty much everything he did concerning Kaidan, so obvious that they hadn’t actually had to tell any of their friends about their relationship. They’d just known that they’d actually gotten back together and commented on it so much more casually than Kaidan ever felt about it. But for John to actually say it, it really did feel like there was something different between them, something that was as tangible as it was something he couldn’t explain.

But for once, he didn’t feel like it was something he alone didn’t understand. He was pretty sure it had been like this between people who loved each other as they did, where there was so much about what they felt and experienced that couldn’t definitively be explained.

So Kaidan wouldn’t try.

“I’ll admit, I was kind of trying to work you up and turn you on,” John then said and Kaidan couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or sigh. “I’m good with this, though. More than good with it. Just holding you like this feels better than I could have ever imagined.”

Now Kaidan sighed. “I can’t tell if you did that on purpose because I’ve told you saying things like that gets to me more effectively than you trying to turn me on.”

John dipped his head down to kiss Kaidan again. “No ulterior motives this time. Go back to suspecting me next time.”

“Then let’s at least get into bed. I like this but I don’t want to wake up having spent hours in this position and dealing with those consequences.”

John moved begrudgingly and it took another few minutes for him to actually move off Kaidan so that they could move up the bed and under the covers. Kaidan happily let John wrap around him once they were situated and he liked how it felt to be held again by the man he loved.

He was relaxing quickly back to sleep when he whispered out one last thing. “I missed you, too, John. I don’t want to do a separation like this again, not where none of us could go with you. I don’t trust anyone else to watch your six. If something like this comes up again, someone that I trust to watch out for you stays with you.”

John kissed at the back of his neck a little below the scarring of his implant. “I’m good with that. Hopefully, it won’t come up again but I’ll stand my ground about it. There are actually enough variety of people that falls into your guideline that there’s no reason for someone to not agree to at least one of them. I’ll always prefer you, though.”

Kaidan thought about giving a joking response but dismissed it. John hadn’t actually been joking and he didn’t want to diminish anything that was said right now.

He agreed with John that he just wanted to lay with him and feel good, no matter how little they were actually doing.

They loved each other, after all. It wasn’t something simple like a hook-up. They were both committed to each other, in it for the long term.

Kaidan really hoped that meant they actually got a long time.