Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

-1.1

Apollo's Cafe, The Citadel - 2 days after the Cerberus coup attempt

-1.1

"Sanity check" Alenko reiterated, leaning back in his chair and smiling as the cafe waiter returned with their meal. He picked up his beer, a microbrew from a New Brunswicker who'd set up shop on the Citadel, and extended it in a toast. Hadrian raised his as well- he hated the taste of beer, but he'd ordered one to humour Kaidan- and they clinked the bottles' necks together. He hesitated, though, as the major took a swig.

Having finally acknowledged and opened up to their mutual rapport, and noticed that Shepard had begun mirroring him, Kaidan took note of the subtle withdrawl. "Something bothering you?" he asked. Shepard looked down at his bottle.

"It's just... as long as we're talking 'sanity'..."

"What?" Kaidan's brow furrowed upwards, concerned that Shepard was already having second thoughts. "You think this- us together- is crazy?" Hadrian's eyes snapped up to meet Kaidan's.

"No," he said earnestly, "no, it's absolutely not that. What feels crazy is... why did we take so long? I mean I- what you said, about caring about somebody-"

"About you," Kaidan injected, eliciting another, slightly sad smile.

"About me... Maybe I sounded like it was this novel idea to me but... that was just me being taken by surprise that you'd said it. The truth is, I've felt the same way for a while. About you. As long as... pretty much since we met aboard the Normandy."

Kaidan's expression softened even as he blushed slightly. Smirking, looking into Shepard's eyes, he said in that coy voice, "Aww. Well I always had kind of a crush on you, too, Commander. I liked you from the start. But... are you saying that for you it was love at first sight?"

"Well when you put it like that it sounds so cliché," Hadrian chuckled, embarrassed. "But okay. Yeah. Pretty much. I was attracted from the moment I saw you, and it wasn't long before I was thinking about you all the time. I was asking Chakwas about your fuckin' headaches of all things, just to find out anything about you."

Kaidan shook his head, grinning. The picture- Shepard, shy as a school-boy- was so at odds with the gung-ho 'barrel in balls-out' vanguard image Alenko had had of him all along. "Bullshit!" he laughed. "You're saying you couldn't talk to me? I remember us talking plenty on that mission."

"But not like I wanted to. Not like this."

"So? What stopped you?" Kaidan put his hand on Hadrian's again, squeezing it gently. Shepard turned his head away slightly, muttering a sheepish response. "Sorry? Missed that," Alenko chided.

"I said... that b- that chick, Rahna." A brief, awkward silence lingered between the two men.

"Rahna from Jump Zero? Aw Hell," Kaidan sighed. "Right. I suppose I kinda' brought her up pretty early out of the gate when we were getting to know each other. So, what? You took from that that I was only attracted to women?" He laughed a little incredulously. "You thought I was strict?" Shepard shrugged.

"Well what about you? You never said anything or showed any interest."

Now it was Kaidan who sighed and shrugged, with a hint of bemusement. "I didn't think it was really appropriate at the time, or under the circumstances... you were my CO. And the mission was so important, you were so focused, I guess part of me told the rest 'no way, he'd never go for a personal relationship when so much is at stake.' But... even then... I actually thought I was being too obvious. My whole life people- exes, people I served with, my mom- they all told me 'oh, we knew you weren't one of those strict guys, you're so sensitive." He squeezed Shepard's hand again. "So I always felt awkward, like there was no hiding it from you, and thinking that you knew and just weren't reciprocating."

"So you're telling me... that the whole time, we were circling each other, thinking there was no way and wishing that there were... like a couple of..."

"Idiots?" Kaidan laughed. "I guess so. A couple of idiots. That was us."

Shepard finally took a long drag from his beer.

"Was. Was us. But not anymore," Alenko stressed, hopefully. "No more circling." He adjusted his grip, lacing his fingers between Hadrian's and gently stroking the vanguard's palm with his thumb. "We've got our act together now. Finally."

"At least I got to fast forward over most of the wait," Shepard said. The reminder that- from his perspective- all of this, everything since Eden Prime, had started only 8 months ago instead of two and a half years, was still a little jarring to Kaidan. "Now if we can just avoid getting blown out of the sky and spending another two years dead," Shepard said drolly. Kaidan smirked, a bit of mischief in his eye. "What?" Hadrian asked, half-mirroring the smile.

"Well... now that we're done circling... I hope there will be some... you know..."

"What?" Shepard smiled quizzically and took another drink from his beer, suppressing the face he wanted to make at the taste. Kaidan licked his lip slightly- clearly Shepard still wasn't completely thinking of him 'that way.'

"Some blowing."

Shepard ejected his mouthful of beer in a fine spray and coughed, eyes wide, startling a woman at a nearby table. As he caught his breath he broke into contagious laughter. He covered his blushing face in his hands and Kaidan laughed until his eyes were wet with giddy tears that he pinched away between his thumb and finger.

"Ooooohhh boy... So I hope that doesn't mean you're a spitter?" The pair roared again until they were both doubled over, each with an arm wrapped around their aching ribs, their other hands joined tight in the middle of the table, heads resting on their forearms.

When they caught their breath again, Hadrian picked up a napkin and dabbed at Kaidan's temple. "Shit," he sputtered, embarrassed, "I think I sprayed beer in that hair of yours. Speaking of- I love it, don't get me wrong, or at least it's grown on me- but where exactly did you first get that 'do done, anyway? It's like a sort of-"

"This relationship is never going to work if you start in on my hair," Kaidan interrupted, smiling but managing to sound deadly serious. "Besides at least I can keep a look consistently, I remember when we met you had that high and tight, then when you were working with Cerberus you had those bangs-"

"I was unconscious on their operating tables for months, my hair kept growing! And once I was awake we were a bit busy, you know, fighting the Collectors? Not a lot of time to visit a barber."

"And now you're rocking the faux-hawk? Which I'm sure makes James happy, he probably tells himself that you're copying him, but what brought that on?"

Hade shot off a lopsided, macho grin. "Makes me look tough, no? Like 'hey, that guy- cool, definitely cool, but his hair makes him look like a brawler,' right? It's scrappy! I love it. You don't like it?"

Without saying a word Kaidan sat up straight, taking a slow drink of his beer and looking sidelong at Shepard.

"Shut up, you like it. You're gonna love it when you're looking down at it between your thighs."

Kaidan choked on his own drink and pounded the bottle to the table, coughing and turning bright red.

"Yeah," Hadrian nodded, smirking, "yeah, revenge is one mean motherfucker, ain't it?" He smiled. At least this courtship was going to be fun. With everything that was going in, he rather felt like he could use a bit more 'play.' These were dark days and sometimes he felt... well, doomed. Like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and that it wouldn't be satisfied until he was some burnt offering. Like the ultimate, inevitable price of all this had to be his life, as though he couldn't possibly expect to survive this. But if he was nearing his end, he wanted to have a little fun before his big finish. He wanted a little more levity in his life, and some love. He wanted to affirm his life before he paid it. And maybe now, finally, he'd get to be happy- at least for a little while, if there was no 'long haul.'

-1.2

SSV Normandy, en route to Rannoch, 2 days later

-1.2

Things had settled down on the Citadel enough for Normandy to embark on a new mission to respond to a call from the quarians for a meeting, but it was on the far side of the galaxy with about a week of inter-relay travel all told. After giving his orders for the conn and calling it a night, Shepard asked EDI where he might find Kaidan and was directed to the observation deck. Now that they were taking a stab at a real relationship, he wanted to some real catching up and get some quality time.

When he walked into the lounge he found Kaidan stretched out on one of the couches, gazing out the window at the swirl of x-ray and gamma ray sources rendered visible by Normandy's flight at FTL. He stalked up from behind, knelt down behind the couch, crossed his arms over the back of it and ran one hand through Alenko's hair.

"Hey," Kaidan smiled sleepily, looking up at him.

"Hey. Were you about to go to sleep on this? Are you living out of here?" Hadrian asked.

"Well, the crew quarters bunks were all spoken for and this wasn't, so... yeah, I'd kinda' staked it out. I hope that's okay?"

Shepard made a bit of a face. "It's not my first choice for where you'd sleep," he grinned.

"Well, now, Commander, I didn't think it would look great to your crew if I came back aboard and jumped right into your bed." He stretched himself awake a bit and rolled onto his back, looking up at Hadrian, who continued brushing his fingers through the front of that as-far-as-he-could-tell unique coif. "Not that I'm not looking forward to it in time, I just thought a bit of time would be better... hm... decorum?"

"The tyranny of appearances. Rats!" Hade huffed. Kaidan laughed pleasantly. He couldn't say that the eagerness was surprising. Or one-sided. But where Shepard's conditioning as a vanguard was typically regarded as 'controlled recklessness,' Kaidan like most sentinels was a careful planner and controller by training. He believed in arranging one's ducks.

"Don't get me wrong, we'll get there," he said, voice full of sincerity and promise. "But wouldn't it be nice if there was a little- I don't know- 'journey,' first?" Hadrian rolled his eyes a little, then gestured for Kaidan to sit up. As he did, Shepard hopped over the back of the couch, sat down, and gently urged Alenko's head back down onto his lap.

"Hey, we 'journeyed' all over the Attican Traverse chasing Saren for a couple months. We journeyed from geth holdout to holdout for weeks after that. I journeyed through atmosphere and through two years on a slab while you were becoming Anderson's go-to guy, and then journeyed to a black hole at the galactic core. I journeyed to the stockade and then we hit up Mars for good measure. How many more stamps do we need on our passports before I have enough frequent flier miles to take you for a joyride?" They both chuckled and Hadrian put his free hand on Kaidan's stomach.

"You don't think I want to boldly go up one side of you and down the other?" Kaidan grinned. "I just... I guess I want to make sure we aren't rushing just for the sake of getting to where we think we should be if we'd started back on the first Normandy. We stalled and we stumbled and it was frustrating to both of us, but I don't want to just pretend we're somewhere we're not yet. Let's give it at least one 'date night' before we lose our heads like a couple of horny teenagers?" The two looked into each other's eyes for a long minute, taking it in.

"Okay. I get that," Shepard shrugged. "Just so you know, though, I'm good to go. Any time, you give the word and I'm... just... fuckin'... ready to go. All engines ahead full if you know what I mean." Kaidan laughed warmly and pulled himself up to sit next to Hadrian. He pressed close, took Shepard's hand in his, and rested his head on the commander's shoulder, looking forward out the window again.

"I know you are. You're always full-speed ahead. Sometimes I wonder what it's actually like inside that head of yours, you know? I mean I like you, and I respect you, but I don't know that in the time we actually served together that I really got to know you. You were impressive to watch in action, but I never did quite know for sure what made you tick."

"Ahh, I'm just a humble spacer kid, Major," Hadrian said dismissively, slouching down in his seat a bit and stroking the top of Alenko's head with his chin briefly. "Parents and tutors aboard ships and space stations until I was seventeen, teaching me about the merits of service and how the uniform represented the best of us- respect and courage and dignity and dedication and all of it, you know. I looked up to them... not just my mom and dad but 'the brass,' they were like uncles and aunts and grandparents, and the decisions they made when lives depended on it... I was always kind of in awe of how they handled responsibility. I can't remember a time that I didn't want to be like the very best of them. And the summer before I enlisted, they sent me to Earth to try civilian university for a year, so I could at least make an informed choice about my future."

"Now see- I never knew you went to university. What did you take?" Kaidan asked, intrigued.

"Liberal arts. English, psychology, religious studies, political science, philosophy. You know, artsy-fartsy fancy stuff." Alenko laughed out loud.

"Bullshit you did!"

"They said they wanted me to get a taste of the flip-side of everything I'd known growing up!" Shepard laughed. "So I figured, it didn't get much more flip-side than debating the socio-political ethics of war with some soft townies who thought every soldier was some dumb thug."

"Jeez... you must have been miserable?" Kaidan said in a playful, 'poor thing' tone, and rubbed Hadrian's shoulder as if to console him.

"Well... no. Not really. I kinda' liked it. I was good at it, even. Got good grades, felt engaged. A lot of what I got into during that year even stuck. I got some new role-models to add to my list, some new habits. Even got my first tattoo. Opened my mind up and try as I might I never quite got it completely closed again." He flashed a self-deprecating smile.

"But you still enlisted at the end of the year anyway?"

"Yeah... blame Spring Break. I went to Rio with some friends I'd made in residence. Had some fun, even met a boy. My first, if you don't count making out and experimental handjobs with a buddy aboard the Montezuma."

"I'm insanely jealous, of course," Kaidan interjected with feigned seriousness.

"I'll bet." Hadrian sat quietly a moment, watching space blast by outside.

"So... what happened that brought you back to the Alliance?"

"It was as we were winding down at the end of that week, getting ready to head back to campus in Toronto. I started asking what everyone was planning on taking the next year, wondering if we might get to plan to take courses together."

"And they were all selling out and going into business degree programs." Kaidan leaned in, rocking Shepard to the side and back gently.

"Nah. That would have been easier to wrap my head around, I suppose- at least it would have been something. But most of them, they weren't planning on coming back. Seven out of the eleven friends I went on the trip with were dropping out. School 'wasn't for them,' they said."

"And doing what instead?" Kaidan asked.

"Fuck, who knows? They didn't have any plans. They'd had a fun year, but they said three more years of it- with higher standards and more demands on them every year- just sounded like a drag. But they didn't have work lined up, for all I know they joined gangs or went back to live with their parents." Shepard made a slightly disgusted face and shook his head. "I didn't know if it was something the environment had done to them, or if it was just some difference between me and them, but suddenly I just felt like I couldn't relate to these people. Like I didn't actually belong in a place that people could so... so blithely 'wash out' of. They were undisciplined, you know? As a peer group they suddenly just seemed really unimpressive. And then I thought of the friends I had back on the fleet coming up, and I just knew... I belonged somewhere that people weren't apathetic, where the bar was higher than just 'do a year and then fuck off to do whatever.' I mean, I didn't regret that year I spent- I was grateful for it- but that summer I flew back to my dad's base and told him I wanted to enlist.'

"Now there's someone I wish I could meet- the paragon of unbridled manliness that raised up Hadrian Shepard," Kaidan smirked.

"Oh please," Hadrian retorted, a little sarcastically. "Don't try and paint me with that. My dad was a good soldier- a good man, I'll give him that, too- but those other role-models I had... they were in no small part because I wanted to be more than he was. The old man was old-fashioned. He'd have never approved of us, here, like this." Shepard nuzzled the top of Kaidan's head and sighed softly. "I mean he did alright by me, but it was despite some fuckin' backwards ideas about the only 'right' way to be a man. I got the stuff you'd like from... from my mom." There was another pregnant silence. Kaidan knew Shepard's mother was still in the service, with her own ship, but he hadn't heard since the Reapers' arrival what had become of her. He was reluctant to ask, in case it was a sore topic at the moment.

After a quiet minute, Kaidan lifted his head up, let go of Shepard's hand, and put that arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer so that he leaned into the sentinel, reversing their postures.

"Well I think my parents would like you," he said, bravely trying to stifle the worry and hurt that thinking about them brought up. He hadn't heard anything from his family since leaving Earth, but he was holding out hope that some of his inquiries to Alliance brass would turn up some lead on them.

"Really?" Shepard asked, curious.

"The saviour of the Citadel? How could anyone's parents not be thrilled to hear that their son or daughter netted that fish?" Hadrian snorted.

"He's such a caaaaatch," he mocked in a motherly tone.

"Well, even before the Citadel battle I also might have told them a bit about you two years ago... about the ruggedly attractive new XO I was serving under aboard my new assignment," Kaidan blushed a little, looking up at the ceiling as though to break scrutinizing eye contact with Shepard's reflection in the window before them.

"I knew Ash was yammering to her sister about me during that... but there- again- see? You should have just been up-front about liking me back then. I could have been spared all that awkwardness of trying to make her feel welcome aboard the Normandy without leading her on, and just told her 'sorry, sister, the el-tee's already 'serving under me' if you catch my drift.'" Hadrian playfully swatted the major's thigh in trumped-up irritation with him.

"And missed watching you squirm? Man, she was determined," Kaidan laughed, reminiscing about Williams' talking about him when Shepard wasn't around. It had all been a bit weird, keeping his own feelings for Shepard under wraps while listening to her fawn somewhat, especially now, in retrospect.

"I oughtta' make you squirm," Shepard quipped, trying to get the subject back to the two of them. Talk of Williams raised a question that pressed on Kaidan, however- in especially stark relief, under the circumstances.

"In time, eh. But... Commander..." the rank heralded the seriousness. "I've always wondered... and I can't help but wonder all the more, now... when you came back for me on Virmire, and left her covering Kirrahe's squad's retreat..."

"Kaidan-" Hadrian lifted his head from Alenko's shoulder and turned his face away uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry. I am. But... given how I felt about you, and how I guess now you felt too... I don't know what I want the answer to be, but... did that have anything to do with...?" The question trailed off, but it was obvious. Had he been saved from that nuclear fireball because he was the better officer, or because it had been more critical to safeguard the bomb he'd been assigned to arm, or merely because of something 'personal?'

Shepard hesitated for a long beat before he turned back to lock eyes with Kaidan. "I had at least two reasons," he said earnestly. "And one of them was... that I could never have left you behind. Ash was a good soldier, I wanted to save her too, but when I had to choose... I chose you. I chose you then, I choose you now... I'd choose you again. Over and over again, I'd be hard pressed to choose anyone else, if you have to know the truth. If that makes you feel... I don't know- guilty, or unfairly favoured, or whatever- I don't care. If it's my choice, I..." He looked away again, down at the floor, and picked his thumbnails together pensively.

Well, he was certainly learning what made his man 'tick.' 'Dedication and 'all that.' Having his answer, finally, after those years of always questioning whether there had been more to it, brought him some unexpected solace in the knowledge that his life had been spared for more than just practical considerations. But he could sense that it had also raised the anxiety for Shepard, who'd tried to steer the conversation back to their relationship in the present. The least he could do was relent a little.

"So... how exactly would you like to make me 'squirm?'" he asked, putting a hand back between Shepard's, interrupting his fidgeting, and knocking their legs together affectionately. Hadrian looked back to him, his face a bit sad at first. But then it cocked slightly to the side and his eyes narrowed, trying to gauge Alenko's intent. Kaidan let out a little more 'line' to hook him, and said "as long as we're opening up, and getting to know each other all over again... when the moment's right, what do you want to do to me, Commander?" and with that he produced a kindly, slightly mischievous smile for Hadrian. It proved contagious, and Shepard flashed a wolfish, toothy grin too.

"Hmmm, well," he said, engine practically revving, "when you asked to come back aboard my ship and 'serve under me' again, I started having all kinds of thoughts dad would never have approved of."

"You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine," Kaidan offered. Shepard was suddenly filling the room with a whole new atmosphere, like a hormonal terraforming plant, and it was hard not to get swept up in the rising tide of his wicked enthusiasm.

"Yours had better be good, and you'd better not skimp on the detail, because those English classes I took gave me plenty to work with when it comes to describing every smutty, lurid fantasy I've thought up around you."

"I'll do my best to keep up," Kaidan promised. After a piercing gaze for a moment, Shepard got up, pulled Kaidan to his feet and led him over to the window before them. He maneuvered Alenko to stand in front of him, their bodies nested close together, looking out at the passing stars, his arms around the major and clasped together over his stomach. Then they slid gently around his waist, and one continued up to his shoulder. A sudden, firm push at his back and pull at his hip made him reach out and his hands caught the edge of the window frame in front of him.

He felt Shepard gently kick at the insides of his feet, spreading his legs to about shoulder-width, and then felt Hadrian twitch and swell with arousal against the seat of his pants. His pulse started to quicken and he cleared his throat before swallowing hard and starting to breathe more deeply. His own manhood started to stir as he stood there, bent over, feeling the slight grinding from behind.

"Hnnn," he groaned softly. "Right here?" he asked in a slightly breathless, conspiratorial tone.

"Right. The fuck. Here," Hadrian growled assertively. "With the door open." Kaidan blushed a little at the thought. And here he'd worried about decorum?

"Isn't that a little-"

"It's a lot," Hade interrupted. "But as we said in my assault mastery class- 'the higher the risk, the higher the reward.'" He started to pump his pelvis a bit more aggressively, and Kaidan felt the swelling become downright solid against his seat.

"Nnnnhh. You're a bit of a freak, aren't you?" he asked, smiling excitedly.

"A bit. Now it's your turn, tit for tat, tell me yours before I get impatient and just decide to go ahead with mine."

Kaidan took another deep breath to try and collect his thoughts from the swirl of arousal that he was circling like a cork in a vortex. "Hmm," he hummed, "you know that card table in the lounge?" he asked.

"Ya' don't say," Shepard mused, audibly smiling behind him. "Over it, or on top of it?" Alenko's chest swelled and shrunk with aroused breathing, and he gripped the window ledge tighter.

"Both," he confessed, feeling just a little... no, not embarrassed... but definitely 'exposed.' Hadrian's throat rumbled approvingly.

"Mm-hmm... and which of us is-"

"Both," Kaidan said immediately, urgently. He felt Hade's hand move from his shoulder to the back of his neck, massaging it, causing his head to roll forward submissively. It triggered a broader reaction, and he found his pelvis starting to writhe back against Shepard's with provocative gluteal contractions.

"Mmmn- fuck yeah... what else?"

Kaidan was starting to feel a bit dizzy- which made him worry about the possibility of a migraine- but he sucked in another deep breath and pressed the side of his face against his arm, eyes closed, and bit his lip. "Ohhh god... y- you know Vega's pull-up bar down in the hangar bay?"

The idea must have tweaked something, because Shepard's hands on him suddenly pulled him back upright, spun him around to face him, and grabbed him by the back of his thighs, lifting him off his feet. He wrapped his legs around Hadrian's waist and his arms over Hadrian's shoulders; in turn, Hade's hands groped and squeezed his cheeks, greedily trying to pull them apart inside his pants, and he felt the commander's mouth hot on his neck. Shepard carried him several paces to the right, walked him over the foot of the 'dream recliner' chair, and set him down in it just so, positioned so that if they hadn't had their clothes on...

"There is no place aboard this ship that I don't want to fuck you," Shepard hissed impatiently. "Is it that 'right time' you were talking about yet?"

Kaidan whimpered at the reminder, suddenly finding he was reluctant to follow through. But this was happening... awfully fast, two year wait notwithstanding, and his inner planner-and-controller urged him in a small, nagging voice to slow things down. He wanted it to happen, absolutely- he'd clearly just 'outed' himself as wanting it. And with every bit as much a wicked, risque flavour as Hadrian had invoked. But the sudden, crazed feeling of it all... he didn't want just some torrid, desperate fling while the universe was crashing down around them.

"I wish it were," he sighed breathlessly, a pained look on his face. "I really wish it were, b-but... I really... I want to know we aren't just being-" Hadrian ground his hard-on against the protesting sentinel's pubis again, trying to persuade him, but despite the lusty wave of pleasure it caused, it only made him more certain he wanted to slow things down. He grabbed Shepard and pulled him closer- close enough that all they could do was breathe together. 'Clinched up' as they were, he waited until he felt Hadrian let out a slow, slightly thwarted sigh, relaxing a bit. He got the message.

"Well," he grumbled into Kaidan's chest, "if we aren't going to get it on right now, I'd really better go... 'pull rank'... because if I stay here-"

"Yeah," Kaidan nodded, still a bit flustered. "same here." He held Hadrian in the pacifying embrace another minute until he felt the urgency of their mutual excitement start to abate. "I know how you feel," he said. "I just... I want to show you that you're more to me than just-"

Shepard interrupted him with a dismissive grunt, and he lifted his head to look up at Kaidan with dull, discomfited eyes. "I get it," he groaned. "And I do like that you're a romantic. Just... we're going to have to figure out some pressure relief system and quick, if we're going to do this without doing this as right-the-fuck-now as we want to."

"Trust me- I'm planning some pressure relief as soon as you're out of here and I can lock myself in the head for five minutes."

"Hrm. Well... I want to see you again. Tomorrow night. Think of something before then, or I might just have to defile you." Hadrian reluctantly peeled himself away and stood up, adjusting his pants.

"I'll see what I can do about that," Kaidan said, sighing. He felt like an idiot, but he justified it to himself by thinking about how much the prize would be worth in the end. Shepard leaned down and kissed him, then paused and gave Kaidan a quizzical look.

"Hey... one thing before I go. Say my name."

Kaidan made a bit of a puzzled face. "Shepard?"

Shepard shook his head slowly. "We're involved now, Kaidan." He kissed Alenko again softly. "So say my name."

Ah. It became clear now- it had still been 'Shepard' this and 'Commander' that even since their first date. He knew he'd said it before, but never to Shepard's face. He smiled and looked into the other man's eyes. "Hadrian," he said, "as in, 'mom, dad, this is my boyfriend, Hadrian.'"

Shepard grinned approvingly. "About time. Now I've gotta go or you're gonna get tore up. Good night, Major hotness." With that he stalked out of the room like a tiger whose prey had escaped.

And sure enough, as soon as he was gone, Kaidan made a bee-line for the men's room to attend to himself and take a cold shower before turning in.

-1.3

SSV Normandy, en route to Rannoch, the next evening

-1.3

"And this one?" Kaidan asked, brushing his fingertips across another scar, this one lower, on the small of Shepard's back. Laying on his stomach, Hadrian looked back over his shoulder.

"That one. Ahh... to tell the truth I don't remember. Must have been from the Normandy explosion... or the atmospheric entry afterwards... or the landing, I don't know. I guess maybe when you can't keep track of them all it must be getting close to time to retire, ya' think?" Kaidan slid Shepard's boxerbriefs down ever so slightly and leaned down to kiss the discolouration.

"Just about," he said. "You ever think about what you want to do after this is over?"

"I wasn't really thinking that far ahead, I'm just enjoying what you're doing," Shepard smirked, then winced as Kaidan swatted his taut behind.

"You know what I mean," Kaidan said. He ran his hand down over Hadrian's clothed buttock to his thigh, and one of the barely-visible white lines that criss-crossed Shepard's body from the reconstruction. He traced it with his fingernail, silently remarking to himself the fineness of the incision.

"I know. But I don't know, I guess the last year has just... taught me I really don't know what's next. I try to get through the fight that's right in front of me, and just hope that I'll come out the other side of one of those fights to find the war is won." Hadrian rolled onto his side and looked down his body to where Kaidan sat on the bed, also in his underwear, one leg draped over Shepard's behind his knees. "And that everyone's still standing with me when it's over."

Kaidan turned himself and stretched out parallel to Hadrian, laying with his head propped up on his hand. He rested his other hand on Shepard's hip and used his thumb to stroke the skin just above Shepard's waistband. "I'm not going anywhere," he said. Shepard inched forward and rested his forehead against Alenko's.

"You'd better not be. I want to get used to all of this with you."

"Same here... I think we deserve that much, eh?" Kaidan kissed Hadrian's cheek, then his eyebrow, and returned to touching foreheads. He felt a little shrug from the other man across their touching points.

"Life ain't about what we deserve, is it?" Hade sighed. "If we got what we deserved, we'd already be on a honeymoon or some damned thing. We'd at least have fucked each other senseless by now." He grinned and chuckled, but the intent... his desire... they were dead serious.

Kaidan took a deep breath, inhaling Shepard's scent. His whole body was buzzing with longing and he could practically feel a current- electromagnetic, stronger than mere old gravity- where their skins were touching. "I'm having serious second thoughts about this rule we just arbitrarily made up," he said wistfully.

"Only second thoughts? I'm on fifth or sixth thoughts and I'm hating it. I just want to charge you and detonate," Hadrian chuckled, biting his lip.

"Hmm. I could help set that up. But we said at least one... at least one night where we just... take it slow. Waste time. Like idiots."

"Total idiots," Hadrian sighed, tilting his head so that their noses brushed against each other.

"Fucking idiots. Or, not fucking idiots."

"You and your coy... cute as hell word-play, and your talking me into this stupid waiting game..."

"So stupid," Kaidan agreed breathlessly.

"Going against my training, the way I handle things- my whole..."

Alenko's fingers tightened against Shepard's hip, his thumb hooking and tugging at the waist of his boxerbriefs, and he groaned. "Nnnnghhh- against your hole?"

Hadrian swallowed hard, sliding his hand up to Kaidan's chest, his thumb brushing Alenko's nipple and feeling it harden instantly. "Shut uuuuup," he hissed. "Shut the fuck up, Major, you aren't making this any easier."

"No? So I'm... making it harder?" Kaidan smirked, nuzzling their faces together as his hand wandered around to Hadrian's front, the backs of his fingers brushing Shepard's stomach, the heel of his palm feeling the heat and stiffness below through the straining black fabric. He felt an electric twitch and a brief surge of weightlessness- was it imagined, or Shepard's biotics tweaking with excitement?

"When we... finally... really do this... Joker's gonna' think the ship's hit turbulence," Hadrian groaned, grabbing Kaidan's wrist and pulling it behind his back. They pulled each other impossibly close, every inch of their chests tingling together, legs intertwined, erections squeezed together between hips that were trying to melt into each other through the fabric of their underwear. Their lips met- open-mouthed, not like their previous kisses the last few days- and both shivered with barely contained, mad, impatient lust.

Kaidan tasted sweet, creamy coffee, and nutty chocolate from a protein bar, and a coppery tang from the metal that had been used to reconstruct Shepard's jaw. To Hadrian, Alenko was all cinnamon and icing sugar and vanilla underneath the crisp taste of the mint he'd had in his mouth when he arrived at Shepard's cabin. Their tongues wrestled in long, slow motions punctuated by fits and starts and the over-eager clacking of teeth.

When the pair finally broke their kiss and gulped for air, Kaidan's hand darted back to Hadrian's hip and he pried them apart reluctantly, trying to slow the pace. "Why did I want us to go slow, exactly?" he whimpered.

"Because you're a dummy," Shepard growled, gently biting the other man's cheek. "A stupid, stupid fucking dummy. A ridiculously romantic... hot as hell... fucking dummy."

"Mmm-hmm. Y'know what we should do, right now?" Kaidan asked, taking a deep breath.

"Get these off," Hadrian snapped instantly, tugging at Alenko's underwear, "then use our mouths-" he kissed Kaidan's neck- "to get ready for... nnnhhh, fuck, and then I can think of about half a dozen other things, but we'll never make it through all of them without a break for snacks." Kaidan shuddered excitedly but shook his head, Shepard nipping with his teeth at his cheeks, chin, jaw.

"Nooo- well, I mean yeah, but no... We should... spend all this energy somehow-"

Shepard ran the fingers of one hand through Kaidan's hair, gripping a handful of it and lightly tugging his head back to hungrily kiss his neck again, while the other slid around Alenko's waist and clawed at his firm cheeks. "Mm-hmm, we should."

"Some other how," Kaidan interjected, gasping and resisting the urge to arch his back, "and then... go to sleep. Together, but- sleep sleep."

Shepard huffed, giving Kaidan an intense, ravenous look directly in the eyes. "I have a lot of energy to spend, all over you. How 'other' do you plan to burn all of it off?"

Kaidan pulled away- reluctantly, but with his willpower rallying- and leaned over the edge of the bed, reaching for something on the floor. The sight of the sentinel's backside, bent over the bedside slightly elevated and stretched out, exerted an irresistable pull and Hadrian pressed his face squarely into it, biting a bit less-than-playfully and eliciting a gasp and a yelp. He nuzzled his face into Kaidan's pelvis harder as Kaidan tried to push himself back up, and despite his intent to self-restraint Alenko parted his legs slightly and moaned plaintively before remembering himself and deftly manoeuvering himself- pivoting onto his back by swinging his left leg over Shepard's head and shoulders and using a little biotic thrust to push himself back up into a seated position beside where Hadrian knelt. He held up what he'd retrieved from the floor- a condom from his pants pocket.

"Now you're talkin'!" Shepard smiled, wolfish, but Kaidan grinned and shook his head.

"Shhh. It's a game from Brain Camp. We didn't use one of these but I'm improvising. Watch and learn." He held it up between them, focused his attention, and removed his hand, holding it aloft in a mass effect field. After a moment, through his intense concentration, he said to Shepard "okay... now... you try to push it toward me- not like you're throwing a merc, but just... move it toward me in a controlled way." Hadrian shimmed over to sit in front of Kaidan, splaying his legs out on either side of the Major, and looked intently at the condom. It seemed like a curious exercise, but after a skeptical moment he focused on it and exerted his own biotic ability.

The condom didn't budge. Shepard furrowed his brow slightly, and as his gaze drifted beyond the wrapper to Kaidan's face he noticed the growing smirk.

"Problem?"

"Are you pushing back?" Hadrian asked.

"Maybe. Try pulling it to yourself instead." Shepard re-focused and subtly flexed the muscles in his arms that triggered his biotics to pull, but after a miniscule shift it stayed suspended in place. Kaidan was starting to breathe harder, though.

"Aaah, I see how it is," Hadrian said, narrowing his eyes. "Biotic tug-of-war?"

"Something like that," Alenko chuckled. "You tug and I tug, you push and I push. Push, pull, push, pull... I try to keep it where it is and you try to move it, toward me or toward you, doesn't matter. It's about precision, and control, and learning to... read each other, to anticipate those little shifts between pulling..." his chest rose slowly, drawing Hadrian's gaze, "and pushing." The condom snapped forward and against Hadrian's chest, just hard enough to serve as 'punishment' for his distraction.

"Mm-hmm. I get it." Shepard picked it up off the bed and held it up halfway between them. He was intrigued enough to play along. Taking his hand away, he suspended the condom in his own mass effect field, feeling a bead of sweat run down his side under his arm from the tight focus and physical exertion required to will a breach of gravity. He looked past the token of their little contest into Kaidan's eyes, and tried to gauge what the sentinel would do.

Half an hour later, the two dozed off in each other's arms, content, glazed in perspiration and feeling spent from the stalemate they'd quickly established... the un-opened condom lay on the pillow behind 'big spoon' Shepard's head.

When Hadrian awoke the next morning, Kaidan had turned in his sleep to face him. Looking at Alenko's peaceful face, he didn't have the heart to wake him. He'd let 'his Kaidan' sleep; reports could wait a couple of hours.

-1.4

SSV Normandy, en route to The Citadel from conducting S&R ops following Rannoch, 11 days later

-1.4

"I've got some land on the Sunshine Coast I could put up," Kaidan proposed.

"Ah, I'll pass," Vega chuckled. He'd made off with Kaidan's pocket money, and frankly land on Earth wasn't very compelling stakes under the circumstances. Leaning against the transpariplast panel enclosing the lounge's game table with his arms crossed, Hadrian grinned.

"You've got the clothes on your back," he suggested. Kaidan gave him a mischievous look.

"Strip poker?" Vega asked. "Uh, no offense Sirs, but maybe if we invited a couple of the ladies to the game. Like that Private Westmoreland."

"What's the matter, Vega? Afraid we'll tag-team you to get your kit off?" Shepard's smile grew as James raised an eyebrow and tried to give him a tough, cocky look, but the sheepishness in his expression shone through.

"I'm pretty sure I could take both of you, Commander," he said, puffing up a little. But he deflated just as quickly when, across the table, Kaidan snorted and put a hand over his mouth. "What? Wait- that didn't come out right."

"Sounds like it 'came out' alright to me," Kaidan teased. James pursed his lips and nodded, accepting his teasing.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, shifting his 'footing,' draping his bulging arm casually over the back of his chair and looking at Shepard. "Tell you what, Commander- that N7 hoodie you got? Stake that and I'll play along, if I had a shot at that bit of merch I'd chance baring it all and lettin' you espadachines molest me with your eyes. How 'bout it, Loco?"

Shepard held his smile, but shook his head. He'd seen Vega get taken for a ride before alright, but he'd also seen a couple of winning streaks and that hooded sweater had a lot of sentimental value. "Not today, Lieutenant. So if you're done fleecing my right-hand man, I'd like to poach him for a bit."

"Is that what you two are calling it now? Well Sirs, far be it from me to come between a man and his right hand!" Vega smirked.

"Don't get too cozy with those credits, carne," Kaidan said, getting to his feet, "I'm going to expect a rematch."

"I'll play two-for-one stakes if you can get that sweater off him to... aw wait... crap. I mean if you- Dios mio, never mind! You know where to find me, Major. " James laughed.

"He does. On the bottom, with Steve," Shepard quipped, winking at Alenko who cracked a knowing smile back. As they exited the lounge he asked Shepard "So... business or pleasure, Commander?"

"Your pleasure is my business nowadays, Major." Kaidan tilted his head, his smile getting lopsided, and as he followed Hadrian to the elevator he took the other man's hand, intertwining their fingers as they walked. Once inside they stood quietly in the corner, and he rested his head on Shepard's shoulder during the ride up to 'the loft.'

"You know, if James had any idea the thoughts you had about that game table..." Hadrian let the image of the burly marine finding out about their half-serious scheme of 'christening' it hang in the air between them, and they both snorted and laughed on their way past the CIC.

As they entered Shepard's cabin, they dispensed with all appearances and restraint. Shepard waved Alenko in ahead of him, but as soon as the door closed behind them he grabbed Kaidan's hips from behind, turned him around, and backed him up against the wall kissing him eagerly. Their hearts both started to race as their tongues probed each other's mouths. After a couple intense minutes, Kaidan pulled back slightly, catching his breath.

"Now, I'm not complaining, but what brought this on?"

Shepard's hands rubbed his lower back, holding him close, and Kaidan felt his excitement in their pressed-together groins. "I'm just... feeling good about things, after Rannoch. We killed another Reaper. We made peace between the quarians and the geth. We gave Tali's people their home back. It's been a good week, and I want to make it complete." Hadrian closed in and nuzzled Kaidan's neck.

"Mmmh. 'Top it off,' so to speak?"

"You always say the nicest things," Hadrian chuckled, and reached up for the snaps on the front of Kaidan's uniform jacket.

"So, you don't want to... y'know... take any more time? I thought we were actually enjoying building up the anticipation?" His words aside, Kaidan was now fumbling at Shepard's jacket too, breathing heavily with excitement and grinding his hips into the quickening vanguard.

"No," Hade answered matter-of-factly. "Rannoch reminded me of something else- about not hesitating. Dancing with a Reaper destroyer was... well, I don't want to waste another second holding off or trying to get things 'just right' with you. We could get ambushed any minute and blown apart... again. So no. No more hesitating." He unzipped Alenko's jacket and pushed it down over the sentinel's shoulders. Their lips met again, but Kaidan interrupted their kissing with a little, incredulous laugh.

"Right. You hesitate," he said drolly, letting his jacket fall off his arms and reaching back for Shepard's. But Hadrian paused, and backed away slightly, looking into his eyes. His face showed a little consternation. "Did I say something wrong?" Kaidan asked.

"I do, you know. Hesitate. You know that I do."

Kaidan smiled awkwardly. "Okay," he said, "you hesitate."

"No- I do, Kaidan. I have." It was so earnest, and it had the sense of a confession. There was a hint of pain in it, as though he was hurt that it was news to Alenko, even after all their long talks over the last week and a half. Kaidan put a hand on Shepard's face, willing to pause to take a moment to understand what this was about.

"Alright," he said. "You've hesitated. What about it?" He rested his forehead on Hadrian's, gazing into him.

"And I don't want to anymore because every time I do, I've fucked things up. Every time I've put my instincts on hold to slow things down, or stopped to think things through, I've over-thunk them. Whenever I've second-guessed myself and tried to be 'smarter' about things, I've fucked up."

"What are you talking about?" Kaidan asked, confused. He took Shepard's hands in his and pulled him gently down the steps from the work-space landing down towards the bed. They sat down on the edge and Kaidan finished undoing and pulling Hadrian's jacket off, and put a hand on his back, rubbing it through his undershirt.

"I fucked up during the battle with Sovereign at the Citadel, when the Fifth Fleet came through the relay and asked me what they should do."

He wasn't sure where this was coming from- he didn't think that any meaning behind their little courtship 'dance' could have grafted itself on to some bigger picture- but it seemed to be bothering Shepard, so he found that he dearly wanted to help ease whatever recriminations the commander had. "Hey, that was a good call," Kaidan said, trying to be reassuring.

"No. No it wasn't. There were ten thousand people aboard the Destiny Ascension, and the leaders of the Council. In my gut I knew that it would be worth the risk to our ships to save her- I knew it was the right thing. But I hesitated, and I started thinking about it- what would be 'the smart thing,' or the 'strategic' thing, what would some smarter person expect me to do? So I told them to hold back in reserve, to focus all their strength on Sovereign." Hadrian looked down at his hands, fidgeting awkwardly, picking at his thumbnail the way he did when he was anxious. "But it was a mistake. And seven months ago I did the same thing with the Collector base. That place was disgusting, and my first instinct was to blow it the fuck up, but then I hesitated, and I listened to The Illusive Man talk about what 'the smart thing to do' was. I thought maybe I could out-smart him... out-smart the Reapers... out-smart myself. And now- we saw it on Mars- Cerberus is using Reaper technology I handed them on people. I helped The Illusive Man do that because I tried to be the 'wise, big picture guy' instead of just being myself-" he looked back up into Kaidan's eyes, longingly, "-the 'dumb cannonball' trained to trust his feelings and rush in and attack, or to defend, or to just go ahead and..." his gaze darted to Alenko's lips, then back up, intensifying, "and..."

And 'attack' he did. It was gentler than when his training launched him into battle, of course, but the same take-no-prisoners spirit was there. He was done waiting and playing it safe and it was like the difference between seeing a tiger in a cage versus in its full glory, in its nature. There was no holding back. In a fluid motion he was on top of Alenko, gripped the collar of his t-shirt with both hands, and ripped it down the middle.

"Ya' know I only had two t-shirts aboard," Kaidan said breathlessly. Then Hade's mouth was on his lean stomach, kissing and breathing fire. He started at the top of the sentinel's pants and his lips eagerly prowled upwards.

Alenko moaned, stiffening up excitedly. He found Hadrian's thumb on his face at the same moment as Shepard's mouth reached his right pectoral. He closed this eyes and opened his lips and took two fingers into his mouth as Hadrian's tongue circled his nipple, and his back arched up off the bed. He felt his left leg nudged aside and the unyielding weight of Shepard's thighs sliding in between his own. Hungry-but-gentle teeth pinched his chest, and he was about to nip back at Shepard's fingers when they pulled back, slipping wet from his mouth and down over his chin. He lifted his head slightly to try and pursue them, and looked down the length of his shivering torso.

Hadrian was sliding back down, licking the crease down the center of Kaidan's abdominals. His hands moved with purpose to Alenko's belt buckle, undoing it and unfastening his pants. Kaidan curled his legs around Hadrian's pelvis and he pulled his seat against Shepard's straining bulge, winning a low, lusty growl out of the commander.

Hadrian's back curled and after unzipping Kaidan, his hands were back- chest, shoulder, the back of his neck, brushing through Kaidan's hair- and Shepard's face descended on Alenko's, kissing him passionately. Every nerve felt hyperactive. The hairs on his arms rose with goosebumbs as he slid one of his hands up the back of Shepard's shirt, fingers digging at his lower back, while the other clutched Shepard's rhythmically flexing buttock. Kaidan hooked his thumb in the back of Hadrian's pants, trying to tug them down to bare skin- more skin was absolutely critical- but he was clumsy with excitement.

Shepard broke their frantic liplock and his teeth found Kaidan's earlobe. His breath was like ion thruster exhaust. "I want you, first," Shepard whispered, and Kaidan gulped breathlessly.

"I want you to, too- ohmygod, I want-"

"You want what, Major?" Hadrian rumbled.

"Nnnhhh- you. Your- inside. I..." Kaidan writhed their hips together harder, but there was something about the way his body was trembling that, having engaged in a few nights' worth of foreplay now, Hadrian picked up on.

"You're nervous," Shepard said, pressing their foreheads together and gazing into Kaidan's eyes point-blank.

"I j-just... it's been... I mean, since I-"

"It's alright," Hadrian whispered, "I'm not in such a rush that I can't go... slow." His right arm stretched for the headboard and Kaidan kissed his bicep, catching an intoxicating whiff of Shepard's scent- like leather and wood smoke- from under his arm. He closed his eyes again as Hadrian's mouth docked with his neck, sucking greedily just under Kaidan's jaw. Then he felt a pinpoint scratching run down his chest. He opened one eye and saw the still-pristine condom from their biotic foreplay matches in Shepard's hand, sliding down his trunk.

"Before I'm inside you, I want to give you a little taste of what you can look forward to later," Shepard said. He reached down and slipped his empty hand down the front of Kaidan's boxerbriefs, wrapping his palm around the throbbing cock within. It was slick with Alenko's precum, and after a few long, slow strokes to straighten it out and let it grow to its full erect size, Hadrian pulled it out, tucking the sentinel's underwear under his scrotum. His hand wrapped around it, squeezing and loosening, and then he lowered his head towards Alenko's pelvis.

Hadrian took a deep whiff of the musky scent of Kaidan's groin. Kaidan closed his eyes- the lights seemed so monstrously bright- and squirmed in anticipation. After a brief, teasing wait, he felt Shepard's mouth envelop him. There was an explosion of light behind his eyelids and he felt weightless. He felt ecstatic suction, and wetness, and heat like the sun on a warm summer day. "Ooohhh godddddd!" he moaned, clutching the sheets in his fists and rolling his head back, gasping wildly.

After a too-short couple of minutes of Hadrian licking and sucking him, Shepard raised his body up again. He couldn't help himself of put this off one more second. Still gently stroking Alenko's wet dick with one hand, he slid the other into the crook behind Kaidan's right knee where it was hooked around Shepard's hip, and peeled it away. The hand slid down Kaidan's calf, lifting his leg, and then with a gentle but insistent push, he torqued Kaidan's hips to the right. The rest of his body rolled with it, turning him onto his stomach. Hadrian's weight shifted, disappearing for a moment, then returned as he positioned himself back between Kaidan's legs.

The tickling scratch was back as the corner of the wrapper in Shepard's hand slid up the small of his back, pushing his torn undershirt up under his arms, exposing his back. There was heat and pressure against his ass as Hadrian pressed their bodies close, and he felt Hadrian's mouth on his spine between his shoulders. More hot kisses marched down his back step by step, and then he felt fingers slide into the waist of his loosened pants and his boxerbriefs above his left glute. They slid down, baring one side of his ass, and he started to hear his own blood rushing in his ears. The air felt thick and humid on his skin. His skin. Suddenly he wanted to be in nothing but his bare skin. Gulping for breath, he reached over this shoulder with his right hand, grabbed the back of his ripped shirt, and pulled it over his head and off over his arms. Shepard's hand landed with a light thump, warm on his back, and pushed his torso down so that his chest and shoulders were below his hips.

He obligingly- eagerly- held the position except to pull a pillow under his head and bury his face in it. He felt the condom wrapper switch into Hadrian's left hand where it was now holding his pants below his hip, and the other slipped down the right side of his pants. Exploratory, Shepard's fingers wrapped tight around Kaidan's pulsating, slick-cock and slowly 'milked' it, sliding up and down its length a few times before withdrawing to haul his pants down on the right side as well. They were pulled down over his thighs, bunching around his knees, and now that his upper legs were bare he could feel Shepard's skin against his.

Kaidan turned his head to one side and looked back. Shepard was naked except for his t-shirt, which he'd pulled up over his head and wore like a holster behind his shoulders. His whole torso was flushed red with excitement. His left hand gripped at Kaidan's raised hip, and the right probed between his legs- fingers stroking the underside of his scrotum, his thumb brushing and circling Kaidan's sphincter. Something warm and wet dripped there- lubricant or saliva, he didn't know, but Alenko swallowed hard, dizzy with arousal. Years they'd been waiting and working up to this, and now here they were- thighs practically melding into each other, bodies quaking, aching, seeping with slick, wet lust, their skins electrified and blazing with heat, drunk with the smell of each other.

Hadrian positioned himself, pressed Kaidan's legs apart just a little more, and then with a slow, inexorable, white-hot push, slid inside. Alenko quivered like a leaf and gritted his teeth, groaning/squealing into the pillow as he felt his world turn inside-out...

-1.5

The next morning

-1.5

Hadrian slowly opened his eyes to the back of Kaidan's head, which was resting on his outstretched bottom arm, which had gone 'to sleep' for lack of circulation. Alenko's back and buttocks were warm against Hadrian's chest and hips, their legs intertwined. As he looked up at the 'skylight' something caught his attention- something protruding from the otherwise flat, shiny panel above. As he squinted at it, he realized it was pen.

"What the hell...?" he murmured. Lifting his head slightly from the pillow to see over Kaidan's, his eyes widened. The cabin had been in some disarray following their hasty flight from Earth mid-refit, but this was... "What the fuck?" he snapped in surprise. Kaidan jolted awake with alarm.

"Wha-? What is it?" he asked hoarsely, turning to look at Shepard. Something he saw over Hadrian's shoulder startled him in turn, and his brow pinched with confusion. "Wait a second..." He nodded behind Hadrian, who looked back at the wall behind him. The end-table was flipped over, its drawers open and their contents spilled onto the floor. It looked like the aftermath of a biotic detonation in an enclosed space. The two looked into each others' eyes.

"Holy shit," Kaidan croaked sheepishly, "did... did we do that?"

Shepard's face turned a little red, but once again, he was smiling a self-assured smile. "I told you we should have switched our amps off," he said.

-1.6

Purgatory Nightclub, the Citadel, later that night

-1.6

Shepard, Alenko and Cortez sat together at a table at the lower bar, where the crew had gathered to celebrate their three-fold victory at Rannoch. Word had reached the Citadel that the quarians had begun re-settlement of their homeworld, and the geth, liberated from the Reapers' influence, had joined the war effort and begun harrowing enemy supply lines, such as they were.

"Are you sure?" Kaidan asked, grinning as he looked across the bar toward Vega. "Because I've heard you two bantering back and forth down there and sometimes I'd swear that you were a couple. Or at least that there was something going on." Steve laughed.

"No, Major, he's just a good sport. I think it's curious to him that my own preference is as 'singular' as his is." He took a swig of his drink before continuing. "Maybe he thought he was a rare specimen and he just enjoys ribbing the other relic." Kaidan's head snapped back towards him, one eyebrow raised. "Ribbing!" Cortez repeated, louder, laughing. "Clean the shit out of your ears. Sir!"

"Like you haven't thought about the other thing!" Shepard laughed, also watching Vega, who was telling animated stories with some Alliance marines. He looked back to his table mates and smiled too. It was unusual but refreshing to see Kaidan being less 'professional'- or was it less 'proper'- around another member of the crew. He remarked inwardly how much more laid back Kaidan had been all day. He figured 'his guy' would still be mortified, however, if he made aloud any comments about 'loosening him up.'

"He does fill out the uniform, and I admire the view sometimes while he's hanging from that chin-up bar. But where most people are less hung-up anyway, I wouldn't sink my time into chasing a strict guy. Not even for the challenge." Cortez chuckled and nudged Shepard with his elbow. "I hear we have that in common, Commander."

Shepard shot a dry look at Kaidan. "I only have to live down half of that comedy of errors," he retorted. "This one thought I was 'too busy for a personal relationship' back on our old ship chasing Saren. That wasn't half the race against time we're in now, and we seem to be managing one alright."

"I'd say the other night was better than 'alright,'" Kaidan added over his shoulder, with a smile that could be heard even facing the other way.

Cortez's head ticked side to side in a double-take and his eyes widened a little. "Wait- so you two finally... ?"

Kaidan turned back to face Shepard and the two looked meaningfully at each other. Alenko put his hand on top of Shepard's and squeezed, evoking a relaxed smile. "Three 'sleep-overs' later, yeah, we just couldn't stand the anticipation anymore," he winked.

"Well. Good. That's great!" Cortez said, finishing off his drink and putting his own supportive hand atop the other two men's. "I'd hate to think you boys were nothing but sweaty telekinetic foreplay and longing glances until the night before the big, final fight or something. It'd be a damned shame if you did it once and then we all died! You're too hot together for that. It's something else to celebrate, I'd say!" He held up his empty glass. "So, I'm getting another one of these," he smacked his palm down on top of Shepard and Alenko's hands affirmatively, "and then we're gonna go dance, right?"

Shepard looked at Cortez as he stood up, raising an eyebrow in a playful but questioning look. "The three of us? Sounds like fun but I'm not sure I have enough hands."

"Oh, no- sorry, Commander, not you. I saw that already. Twice!" the shuttle pilot laughed. "When I asked you to dance- that night before you and the Major went out on the Presidium- I thought you might redeem that display you put on with your friend from Grissom Academy. But she was right, Sir, you really just can't dance!" Shepard grimaced as Kaidan very conspicuously turned to give him a knowing, exaggerated open-mouth smile. Cortez patted the biotic on the shoulder and jostled him a little. "Now this one, on the other hand, we'll see. I'm hoping for great things! Maybe we'll discuss a lesson plan to try and teach you a thing or two." Steve winked at Kaidan, and with that he sauntered into the crowd toward the bar.

Shepard turned his gaze back to Kaidan, who was now smiling sweetly into his beer. "He's so crazy about you," Kaidan mused, briefly rubbing his temple, his eyelids, and then reaching for his arm to pinch and apply some heat and pressure to the powerful transdermal analgesic patch that Chakwas has given him, so that he could enjoy a night out despite the lights and noise of a bar.

"What? Steve? Get out."

"No, I mean it. He's working to get over it, but he likes you. He's graceful enough that I don't think he's bitter or jealous, but I bet if our first date had been a disaster, he'd have made a pass. Probably tried to nab you on the rebound." Shepard shot an incredulous look from Kaidan towards the lieutenant and back.

"I didn't make that much of it, I thought he was just flirting because I'd helped him with some personal stuff and he'd gotten a bit attached... You aren't jealous, are you? I mean he's cute and all-"

"Oh I know," Kaidan interrupted, leaning back in his chair to look over at the pilot as he stretched over the bar to make himself heard by the server, accentuating his shape in his navy blue and white uniform. "Have you seen those big, round, perfectly formed blue eyes." He smiled teasingly and sipped his beer.

"Yeah, yeah, cute and all, but I'm with you,” Shepard grinned. “We had a drink and we danced- or, apparently, he danced and I embarrassed myself... and I guess maybe we flirted a little. But you and I already had that lunch lined up for the next day. And I was kind of hopeful about that going in. So I told him I just want to be friends. Good friends, but just friends." Alenko shook his head dismissively and squeezed Hade's fingers again, reassuring.

"Don't sweat it," he said. "I'm not worried. Frankly I'm glad he's around. You know we're the only two guys who are together aboard-ship? I mean, I haven't heard anything 'off' from the crew, no ignorant comments or whispering anything like you hear about under some backwards commands. I can tell it isn't a big deal to anybody except the ones who worry about 'fraternization' regardless. Heh- like I did once upon a time. But, more than just not catching flak from idiots two centuries behind the times, it's nice to have someone to talk to about 'us' who we know can relate."

"Yeah, there's that. Well I'm glad you aren't weird about it, if you're right."

Kaidan leaned over and nuzzled their faces together. "Oh, I'm right," he said confidently. They closed their eyes, blocking out the club's throbbing noise, and kissed. When they opened their eyes and parted again, Shepard looked up and smiled as Cortez returned, drink in one hand and a shot in the other. He plunked the shot down in front of Kaidan and slapped his freed hand on the major's shoulder.

"Fuel up, Sir!"

"Aye aye, Lieutenant!" Kaidan downed the shot, leaned over the table again to kiss Hadrian on the cheek, and got up to follow Cortez to the dance floor. Shepard smiled as he watched them- the one he'd waited so long for, and the one that arrived out of nowhere and might have been- sway in time to the music better than he ever did. He knew better than most non-fleet-kids that a ship's crew really could become an extended family, and it was comforting to see that even in the middle of an apocalyptic war, that those connections didn't have to take a back seat to the mission.

Serendipitously, it was then that he spotted Garrus and Tali approaching from the entrance and waved them over. Tali's movements were so light in her suit, she was still energized from the reclamation of Rannoch a couple days ago, and Garrus- despite everything that was going on with Palaven, he still had that unflappable demeanour that was such a cornerstone of their friendship.

Tomorrow Shepard would make his meeting with the asari Councilor, and Normandy would put out for Thessia. But tonight they could take a few hours to enjoy their hard-won successes, the consummation of the two Spectres' relationship, and the growing bonds of affection between them all.

-1.7

SSV Normandy, departing Thessia, 3 days later

-1.7

Hadrian stalked off the Kodiak, his face a sullen mask of anger and disappointment. He looked up briefly at Kaidan, waiting for him near Cortez' supply & requisitions station, then back down at the floor as he continue toward the elevator.

"Get to MedBay and have Karin check you out," he said to Liara and Javik. "Both of you."

"Your medical officer does not have the experience with prothean physiology to effectively treat me if I were injured, Commander, which I am not-"

"And I'm not interested in anybody's reasoning or excuses, have her take a look at you!" Shepard snapped. He shot a look at Liara as if to ask 'and you?' but she wisely offered no complaint. As the three of them and Kaidan got in the lift a thick silence descended on the way to the crew deck. There was palpable tension between T'soni and Javik, and an aura of it around Hadrian in general. When the elevator stopped at deck 3, Shepard's squadmates from the failed mission to the asari home world debarked and the doors closed again. The two Spectres began their ascent to the 1st deck.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kaidan asked, offering a sympathetic look.

"No." The silence loomed, and the sound of the elevator seemed to grow unbearably loud. When they arrived at the 'loft' cabin Hadrian beat feet inside and Kaidan had to skip a couple paces to keep up. Shepard threw his Umbra visor onto the bed and started to fumble with his gauntlets, but his hands had begun to shake and he was struggling with the release points. It only took a couple seconds for his frustration to boil over. "FUCK!" he yelled, and the blue glow of his biotics started to shimmer as he raised his arm to try and smash the armour piece off against the wall. Though startled by the outburst, Kaidan closed the gap between them, gently snatched his commander's wrist and unfastened the clips holding the forearm sheath in place.

"I'm not going to tell you to calm down," he said, softly and patiently, but with clear concern. "And I'm not going to tell you to get over it-"

Hade interrupted, pulling his arm away and flinging the gauntlet off. It crashed across his desk noisily and he winced at the sound and the mess. His rage was cracking and the helplessness and sorrow underneath bleeding through. "How could I? How could I get over it? Millions of asari are dying behind us right now and I-"

"You couldn't have prevented it," Kaidan jumped back in. Hadrian hissed to himself and looked down at nothing in particular- anywhere but Alenko's face. Stepping closer again, Kaidan took Hadrian's shoulders in his hands and patted the armoured pauldrons. "Suppose you'd found out what the Catalyst was," the sentinel continued, "was learning that going to instantaneously repel the Reapers that were landing?" He waited for an answer, but after a long moment all Shepard could muster was a deep sigh and a quiver on his lower lip. "You still would have had to have done who-knows-what with that information. Maybe flown us halfway across the galaxy on some new fetch operation, delivered whatever it is to the Crucible, waited for the crews there to integrate it, figured out what difference it made. Meanwhile everything that's happening now would still have been happening."

"It wouldn't be happening for as long," Shepard muttered.

"That's an assumption. For all we know the Catalyst is something already long-gone and finding out what it is will ultimately do us no good anyway!"

Hadrian's mouth dropped and he shook his head in a flabbergasted expression of despair. "Oh, well, yeah! We could just be completely wasting our fucking time," he said sarcastically. "We might have failed years ago, fucked it up before we even knew how bad it was. That's much better!" He seemed to shrink away, but Kaidan pulled him close and wrapped his arms around the ailing vanguard.

"We are all doing the best we can," he said, "and you more than anybody I can think of. Nobody can fault us for doing any less."

Shepard shuddered and choked out a sob through angrily gritted teeth. "My best wasn't good enough today," he snarled. Then his forehead dropped against Alenko's shoulder and his grip tightened, like someone shipwrecked and clutching to a buoy in the middle of the ocean.

"That Cerberus fuck outmaneuvered you. This time. And only by cheating- the bitch brought a gunship."

"I've killed gunships before," Hade growled. "On Omega, on Illium, on Beckenstein- fucking gunships are not my kryptonite!"

"When they're attacking you is one thing. When they're laying down non-stop suppressing fire so some chickenshit space ninja can recharge his shields because he's afraid you're going to beat him down, that's another. And when they're shooting the floor out from under you it's cheating," Kaidan insisted in his most consoling voice.

"I should have been faster, more aggressive, not given him the chance to-"

"You're the fastest, most aggressive attacker I know," Kaidan assured him. Shepard shook his head, heaving with frustration.

"I should have-"

"You did the best you could."

"It wasn't- I should have- I-"

"Stop it," Kaidan pleaded. He put a hand on the back of Hade's neck and squeezed, and the doubts stopped sputtering out. He felt Shepard's weight against him, trembling and gasping for breath, fighting back a full-scale outburst, and he found himself wishing Hadrian would just cry it out so he could be there to support him through it.

But there was still more anger than sadness, more anger than recriminations. His heart was breaking for the asari losing their lives and their homes, but more than that, he was fuming. Kaidan stroked the back of Hadrian's hair for a long minute before the vanguard lifted his head and looked him in the eyes, resting their foreheads together.

"Help me out of this fucking armour," he sighed, "I have to get changed and call the asari Councilor."

Kaidan nodded and backed off a step, starting to un-snap and un-buckle the connectors holding the armour plates together, stripping Hadrian down to the woven battlesuit underneath. First the other gauntlet, then the shoulderpads, the breastplate, the greaves and cuisses. Finally he slowly started sliding down the zipper on the form-fitting black woven armour 'body glove' beneath, exposing the bruised and scarred skin underneath. He unzipped it to Shepard's navel and peeled it back over his shoulders, off his muscular arms. The upper half hung down around Hadrian's waist and the rising and falling of his chest began to quicken slightly as he felt Kaidan's longing eyes plying over his torso.

Alenko dropped slowly to his knees, looked up into Shepard's still sad eyes, and lowered the zipper the rest of the way- through the diagonal turn it took toward his hip just above his pubic region (to avoid any zipper 'chewing' of delicate parts) baring most of his pelvis on the right side. He slid his hand inside and around to Hadrian's hard ass cheek, pushing the body suit down over his thighs and exposing the commander completely above the knees. He leaned his face in closer, catching a whiff of the sweat that the suit hadn't completely managed to wick away, and kissed Shepard's pelvis between his hip and his cock, which twitched against his cheek and started to throb.

"This- it r-really doesn't feel like the right time," Hade whimpered, no more than half-convincingly, as he looked down at his XO.

"It's the end of the world and it's hurting you," Kaidan said in a low voice. "I know it won't make you feel any better, but I want to try anyway."

Despite himself, Hadrian continued to harden. His breathing deepened and quickened, his hands found their way to Alenko's shoulder and the crown of his head, and he closed his eyes as Kaidan took him into his warm, lust-whetted mouth.

"I tried," Hade said pleadingly. Kaidan- not stopping- suckled at his now-rigid erection and squeezed his buttocks and upper thighs affirmatively. "F-fuck, I tried... And now I have to... nnnhhh... to try and explain how- aw- aawwww- ohhh god." Hadrian gripped Kaidan tighter as his hips started to bob back and forth of their own accord. His thighs started to quiver as the sentinel's hands wandered, one to the front, gently kneading his balls and the other sneaking between his cheeks, a finger wriggling at his rear.

It would end up being an hour before he made his call to the Citadel. He would still be angry, and frustrated, and disappointed, but at least he had the small consolation of knowing that however he felt he'd failed on Thessia, he still had Kaidan's devotion and the fresh sense-memory of his tongue against his skin, his breath hot against his groin, his finger inside, coaxing him to give in an release whatever was pent up inside him...

And at least Traynor would have some good news about a possible location on the fucker Kai Leng.

-1.8

SSV Normandy, en route from Horizon to the Horsehead Nebula, 5 days later

-1.8

The door to Shepard's cabin split apart and slid open, and Kaidan stalked cautiously inside. His whole body was tense- his head starting to ache from the stress- the lingering physical expression of his anger at what they'd discovered at 'Sanctuary.' He didn't immediately see Hadrian, and he wondered if he'd missed him since Shepard had visited him in the observation deck and invited him up to try and relax.

"Hadrian?"

"I'm here," came Shepard's voice from below on the other side of the desk's display case. Kaidan went down the steps to the living area and found Hade to his right, on his knees on the floor in front of the couch, having pushed the table several feet out of place.

"What're you doing?" Kaidan asked, a little perplexed. Hadrian looked up, mirroring the expression back.

"You're asking? I thought your doctors back on the Citadel after Mars prescribed you meditation, yourself. I was meditating." Alenko made a bit of a confused face.

"What? Meditating? You?" The curiosity briefly eclipsed his stewing anger, and softened his mood fractionally. He approached and lowered himself to sit cross-legged beside Hadrian.

"Yeah, 'me,'" Shepard smiled slightly, looking back to the floor a few feet in front of him and taking a deep, placid breath.

"Fuck off, you don't meditate," Kaidan laughed. "I've spent half my nights here since coming back aboard the Normandy and I've never seen you meditating."

"I've never seen you drop a deuce or watched you shave below decks, but I'm sure you do the first and I know you do the other," Hadrian's smile widened. "And if I walked in on you doing either I certainly wouldn't say 'hey, you don't do that.'"

"If you walked in on me shaving anything you'd offer to get anywhere I couldn't see," Alenko said dryly.

"Probably. So? What's so incredible about me meditating? It's another kind of training, like learning to handle a gun or use biotics, just... this is about learning how my mind works, and accepting it, and seeing reality for reality, you know?" Shepard paused, thoughtfully. "And finding a little peace. And after Horizon- seeing what Lawson was doing- I needed a bit of that more than usual... But it isn't a religious 'thing,' if that's what you're thinking, I'm not some closet-religious-case. I mean, some of the people I learned from took the reincarnation and some of the mythology stuff seriously, but it's just a practice for me."

Kaidan shook his head to try and dispel Shepard's apprehension. "No, no. You just... even with how much time we've spent together the last weeks, and how much better I've gotten to know you, it's still a surprise. You still manage to surprise me." Kaidan nudged Hadrian a little, but when the restive vanguard didn't move, he shimmied up to his side and rested his head on Shepard's shoulder.

"Well, that's because you'd like to think you know everything. So... you know, sometimes you assume that your assumptions are right. Like on Horizon after the Collector attack last year." Kaidan lifted his head and gave Shepard a complicated look, like a wrongly accused man's expression of hurt. Without even lifting his eyes, Hadrian picked up on the emotional shift. "That wasn't a dig at you, I mean. I wasn't trying to call you- y'know, never mind. I'm sorry. I was just trying to say... we've both made mistaken assumptions and deductions about each other over the years, right? But hasn't admitting what we didn't know, and opening up to each other, and learning better always been what got us closer?" He finally broke his posture and turned his body toward the major. "I used to think you were strict, remember? I'm glad I was wrong about you on that."

"Okay," Kaidan conceded. "You're right. I guess it'll take more than a month here and a month there with two years in between before we get to where we don't surprise each other anymore." He interlaced his fingers with Hadrian's and balanced his chin on his knee.

"Maybe if we're lucky, we never will," Shepard grinned. The calm and the insight was a side of him that Kaidan hadn't really seen before, but it was a welcome new facet. It helped with that small, nagging voice that occasionally arose to whisper to Kaidan that this might just be some sham- a desperate fling with a shallow egocentric exploiting him for comfort and affirmation. That he had such a placid, thoughtful aspect, it made it easier to trust that he was taken seriously.

"It's just... it seems out of character with how I've seen you in a fight, and..." he looked toward the bed, recalling how- after at least one 'go' every night for the last five nights together, and as they'd learned each others' 'moves' and rhythms- he'd come to recognize the same wild, irresistible kinesis in Hadrian's style in sex as on the battlefield. Blasting through without really thinking that deeply on abstractions or chasing 'enlightenment' just seemed to be a consistent theme, one that he'd been trying to reconcile with his esteem and affection for his commander.

"I get that," Shepard shrugged, accepting the point. "But... that way that I seem to you- to everybody, I suppose- it isn't all that I am. Maybe it isn't even really what it appears to be. I told you that first night we were really together that I'm at my best when I don't hesitate. When I listen to my instincts." Hadrian pulled Kaidan's hand closer and kissed the back of it. "Well... it took practice to tune in to that. I had to get to know myself before I could trust myself, enough to do- well- whatever crazy thing comes to mind. Before it gets loaded down with a lot of... 'conceptual baggage' or doubts. It took practice. To live in the moment, and try to get the most out of every sensation and intuition... I couldn't really be 'that way' without learning to reflect first." Shepard smiled at the irony in the summary he'd figured out through explaining it. "My recklessness is very mindful." He puffed up his chest a little, theatrically. "I may well be the most mindfully reckless motherfucker in the Milky Way."

Kaidan thought about it, and it made sense, but it also stirred up a twinge of guilt in him. "So... when I talked you into us 'starting out slow,' instead of just sort of barreling in-"

Hadrian chortled, obviously misconstruing it- probably deliberately, of course.

"Oh shut up," Kaidan rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. The week of beating around the bush and massages and restraint 'n all that, when I know you wanted to just get on with it- when I wanted to, too, but thought that taking our time would make it 'better'- I guess that must have been... pretty obnoxious, huh?" Shepard reached out and put a hand on the back of Kaidan's neck, squeezing it affectionately.

"Not one second of our being together has been 'obnoxious' to me," he said earnestly. "Not in the least. It was... like learning to use chopsticks, when you really just want to grab your food with your hands and dig in. It can be a little uncomfortable, but there's no reason to regret learning something new that might come in handy someday... especially not if you're in love with your teacher."

Kaidan laughed. "Now you're definitely screwing with me, if you expect me to believe you have the patience to use chopsticks. There's been a long parade of wraps and bars and sandwiches but I've never seen you eat anything requiring so much as a fork." Shepard's face lit up.

"Fuck you, you have so- you're just focusing on the last week when everything you've seen me have was designed to be portable and full of energy..." the smile turned wicked "so that I could keep up having my way with you." He brushed his hand behind Kaidan's ear, then squeezed his tricep, then playfully tugged at his belt buckle. "There wasn't time enough for cutting up my food and fooling around. It's not my fault you can't think of anything more than a week passed."

"Fine, may be, but the last week has been... especially memorable." The major leaned forward, brushing his nose against Shepard's. He felt looser. Relaxed. Almost content again. Like he could forget about Horizon, forget about the war going on from one end of the galaxy to the other. "Thanks," he said softly.

"For what? Us pounding the bejeezus out each other for the last week? That's a little formal, don't ya' think?" Hade gave Kaidan a playful push and the sentinel flopped submissively to the floor, grinning and shaking his head. Shepard followed after, crawling over top of him, straddling Kaidan's waist and rummaging his fingers through his hair. "God, 'thank you' makes it sounds like an arranged marriage or some birthday-pity-thing. Or like I'm paying you!" The pair cracked up, and after a minute of warm laughter Kaidan took Hadrian's hands and held them between them on his own chest.

"No," he sighed, "for breaking me out of the mood I was in after Sanctuary. I spent the last day just so disgusted and furious. At Cerberus, and Miranda's father, and The Illusive Man, feeling like- if they were humans, claiming to act for humanity's good, then what the hell is humanity worth? I know there's you, and there's my family, and our friends, but... as a civilization? One that produced those murderous assholes? What are we fighting to save if they could do that to other people? I just... I wanted to kill some crazy, evil sons of bitches, but then I kept thinking- if they could do that, what actually makes everybody else any better? That they don't have the resources to do whatever selfish fucking thing they want? That they don't have some 'cause' they believe in strongly enough to do the same- that people are generally too apathetic to be that evil?"

"Ah," Shepard nodded, leaning down, hands on either side of Kaidan's head as if to examine him, "That's a lot to mull over. I could tell you were stewing, but I didn't know there was all of that to it." His scrutinizing gaze took on a bit of an air of disappointment. "So, then... the foul mood is lifted? Your faith is restored and you're not angry anymore?"

Kaidan took a deep, cleansing breath, inhaling Shepard's scent, and shrugged. He didn't know quite what to make of Shepard's expression, but he put on a calm smile and nodded. "Yeah, the clouds are breaking up. It's hard to stay mad around you."

Hadrian huffed. "Well crap."

The major's brow immediately furrowed with unmasked confusion. "What? What do you mean, 'aw crap?'" he asked in disbelief. "Wasn't that why you invited me up here, was to try and cheer me up?"

Shepard returned a sly, sideways grin. "Well... actually... I'd hoped we might just relieve your stress in bed so I could find out how you taste when you're angry."

Kaidan rolled his eyes, raised a hand to his face, laughed, and gently laid a bemused, playful slap on Hadrian's cheek.

"Goddamn but you're a freaky pervert," he snorted.

"Ah! But see, I know exactly what I am and I accept it- that's the important part!" Shepard started to explain very earnestly. "And since you're crazy about me for what I am, we should see if we can get you riled up so that I can satisfy my curiosity- because I think you'd be a spectacular anger-fuck, I really do." Kaidan laughed hard and tried to roll Shepard off him, but Hadrian grabbed his wrists and pinned him down. "Maybe, and I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe I could tie you up and smack you around and call you names until you get mad enough to biotically bust free and then we just go in at it. Like badgers!" Kaidan heaved underneth him, laughing absurdly and offering up a token struggle. "We won't even say in advance who's what- we'll just wrestle like we fuckin' hate each other, and whoever wins gets to decide!"

They wouldn't be able to muster up any fake hatred, and it wouldn't take long for Hadrian's fetishistic curiosity about anger-sex between them to dissolve somewhere amid the empassioned lovemaking. But he did let Alenko 'win' that night. At least partially to reinforce his point that he could be yielding as well as aggressive.

An hour later, as they lay sweaty and perpendicular, the sheets bunched haphazardly at the foot of the bed- Kaidan's chest and shoulders draped over Shepard's pelvis, chin perched on his hip- Alenko thought back to the unexpected image of Hadrian kneeling on the floor in contemplation. He chuckled, and Hade ran his fingers through the sentinel's hair.

"What- something funny?"

"I just thought of a joke I heard once. Where the, ah- what's he called- the Dalai Lama, he walks into a burger place... or, no, it's a pizza place. And when they ask if they can take his order, he says 'can you make me one with everything?'"

Hadrian smiled and chortled once. "Yeah, I've heard it," he said. "That one's old."

"You have any plans to get all enlightened on me? Or to ascend to some 'higher plane'- become 'one with everything'- any time soon?" Kaidan asked, not meaning to be as mocking as it probably sounded. There was a pause and Hadrian took a deep breath, rubbing the back of Kaidan's neck.

"Oh, well, eventually that's the idea, isn't it?" he grinned lazily. "But later. For now I've got too much work to do, and a guy I'm nuts about to debauch relentlessly, and not a whole lot of time to do them in. But maybe when I'm done... 'one with everything,' as long as that includes you... sure. Why not? Sounds like a plan to me."

-1.9

SSV Normandy, after the raid on Cronus Station, 3 days later

-1.9

Shepard sat at his desk, eyes fixed on the SR1 model in its display case, lost in thought. They'd returned from The Illusive Man's headquarters a little over four hours ago, with the truth about the Catalyst and the news about the Citadel's relocation to Reaper-controlled Earth orbit. The next, final push would have to come soon, the fleets were just waiting for him to make the call. Everything was building to a head. And his head wasn't in the game.

The door chimed and snapped him out of his brooding. He picked up one of the datapads off the desktop- a prop, to be sure- and said "enter." The door bloomed open and Kaidan stepped through, a bandage on his head jumping out at Hadrian like a blast from a pulsar.

"Hey," Alenko said, stepping into the cabin.

"Hi," Shepard replied, feigning interest in the screen in his hand. "So? Was it bad? Are you-"

"Karin said I'll be fine," Kaidan said softly, making a pacifying gesture with his hands. He closed the distance between them, put a hand on the back of Shepard's neck and kissed the top of his head. "It was just a bump on the head. Leng hit like a little bitch. Don't worry." He stepped back, smiling, expecting the same from Hadrian, but his expression turned concerned when there was no reciprocity. Instead there was only tense anxiety. "Hey," Kaidan knelt down now between Shepard's legs, setting down his kit bag and resting his forearms on the commander's thighs. They were tight- his whole body was taut. "I'm okay. I promise. A little bump, that's all. What is this?" Shepard was totally closed down, and the contrast to the depths that their relationship had opened up- the sides and facets he'd revealed that were all turned inward now- was sharp and striking.

Hadrian looked away for a long moment before he could meet Alenko's gaze again, eyes stinging. A lifetime of conditioning was telling him how to handle his confusion and hurt: convert it into force and slam it into the problem, hard. But his affection for the man who- after so long- had become his lover and right hand aboard the ship was tempering those instincts. For the first time in a long time.

"I don't know if I can do this, Kaidan. The fight that's next- it's going to be the big one- and I... I don't know if I can..." His hand shot up to rub his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. Kaidan reached up and took Hade's hands in his own, kissing them and looking up with worry.

"If you can what? I told you this morning, before we went over there, you'll do the best you can. That's as much as any of us can hope for. I have faith in you, what more can you ask?" He swayed his elbows on Shepard's thighs, rocking him gently side-to-side in the swiveling chair. "You want another 'go' before we head to Earth?" he asked, trying to break the tension.

"No. I mean... I do, I always want more with you... but that's just it. It's you. You're the reason I... Something's changed, Kaidan. We're so close to the edge now and I'm..." He shook his head, confused.

"You're what? What's changed? Before we went over there you seemed to have brought it all together; you were strong, we were so good-"

"And then I saw you get knocked out by that piece of shit!" Shepard snapped. "Saw him hit you, and you dropped, and I thought... I was afraid you were..."

"But I wasn't-"

"And all I wanted, all I could think to do, was to get to your side and check on you, and to kill that motherfucker- to smash him into absolutely nothing- and I didn't even know which to do first. I hesitated for a second- and I don't hesitate in a fight. Maybe when I've caught my breath and the big decisions jump up on me, but not in a fight. But I did, I hesitated because I didn't know which to do first- and for a second I wasn't doing anything." He heaved with a despondent sigh. "I was useless."

"And then you charged him. You charged him like a slug from the main gun on a dreadnought, and you put three shotgun blasts into him- to the gut, the chest, and his stupid face- and before he'd even hit the floor you were there, at my side, checking on me." The image was etched in Alenko's mind- Shepard swooping in over him like some avenging angel- and a proud lump formed in his throat as he recalled it.

"How do you know!" Hadrian shouted. "You were- you were out. You don't know the state I was in! You don't know what seeing you like that, again, what it did to me! Mars- Mars was bad enough but we still had that tense, fucked up thing going on where you didn't even trust me. Where you thought I was some Cerberus plant or a fucking remote controlled puppet- some zombie Shepard cyborg. But now! Now that you're mine... mine to lose, you make me... You don't even know what you do to me now." Kaidan winced, and there was a long silence as the walls seemed pulled in by the vanguard's anguish. After a minute, he swallowed hard and cleared his throat softly.

"I do, you know. I do know. Because I did see it. I saw it all," Kaidan said solemnly, nodding, and taking to his feet again. He released Shepard's hands and picked up his kit bag, carrying it over to the bed. "Even before you left me in the MedBay to come up here I could tell something had happened during that moment between him hitting me and you waking me up after the fight was done. You were so quiet the whole way back. You looked at me, but it was like- I don't know- you were trying not to see me." He opened his pack and started laying out his other uniform on the foot of the bed for tomorrow. "So after you left, I asked EDI what I missed. You know she records everything that infiltrator body she operates sees? So, she showed me her video memory. It was maybe the most ... brutality... I think I've ever seen in the span of a few seconds. So actually I did see what you did. I saw how bad you were hurting."

"You... you did?" Shepard leaned over slightly in his seat, his stomach feeling knotted, but he wasn't sure if it was from the memory, or from the idea that Kaidan had seen him- albeit second-hand- at such a raw moment, or if it was guilt over having snapped at him.

"Yup." Alenko sat down on the bed they'd shared the night before, and numerous times before that, and stretched the aching side of his neck and shoulder where he'd been jarred by Kai Leng's backhand. "I did. And you know what? It was beautiful to me. Awesome. And terrible. But beautiful, too." He patted the bed next to him and reclined back, propped up on his other arm. Shepard slowly rose from his chair and stepped tentatively to the edge of the raised workspace landing overlooking the bed. "Come on," Kaidan coaxed. Tentatively, Hadrian crossed the room and this time lowered himself to his knees between Kaidan's legs, and rested his forehead on Alenko's thigh. Kaidan sighed and rubbed Shepard's back and neck and stroked his short cropped hair.

"I was so worried, I was... Something just locked up and shut down!" Shepard said, choking up. There was no more point in putting on any facades, apparently every veneer had been seen through and it was just the two of them now. His fear and his love were laid out bare, with nowhere to hide. And the two were quickly becoming alloyed into a painful resolve for Hadrian.

"I know. I know. But listen, I'm fine. Look at me." He cupped Shepard's face in his hands and lifted it up to look at him. It was impossibly difficult to see the vanguard, his commander, his rock, so torn up. "I'm good. He hit me, and then you killed that fuck, and that's that. We're fine."

There was another long, pregnant pause. Shepard was breathing hard, his arms wrapped around Alenko's waist.

"I'm not," he finally said. "I'm not fine with the idea of losing you."

"You won't. Hade. On my life, you aren't going to lose me. After everything we went through to finally get together, you're never going to lose me. This is it, I really believe that; this is the rest of my life- our lives- together." And he meant it, he really did. Hadrian heard all of that characteristic earnestness and sincerity in Kaidan's voice, and hope- fuck, the hope in that voice of his. What miracle of 14 billion years of chance and probability and improbability had shaped the neck and vocal chords that gave rise to that perfect, slightly scratchy, throaty baritone? But he pushed that aside- there was no turning back.

"You can't promise that," Hadrian said gravely, shaking his head. "You can't be sure that when we get to Earth and all Hell breaks loose, that something won't happen to you. And I'm telling you, I couldn't take it. I couldn't stand it. If I saw you hurt, saw you go down... I'd be crushed. Where we are now, I'd be helpless." He steeled himself for the rest, because he knew how it would hurt them both. "And it'll get me killed."

"Don't say that," Kaidan pleaded. "This is one of those- you're over-thinking this. Like you do, you know? This is your second-guessing and your doubt, it isn't you."

"No. It is, this is my guts, and my- my heart- as much as it's my brains. Anything happens to you- a spark flies off your armour from a glancing shot- and it'll be the death of me. It will. I know it will." He wiped more tears away, though his jaw was set like steel. "Listen... When we get to Earth... I know I can't send you away or ask you to sit it out, but I can't have you at my side. No matter how badly I want you there, it's going to be the most dangerous place anyone could be and if you are there- in my line of sight, on my comms- and anything does happen to you, it's game over for me. I know it. I can't do what I need to do if I'm looking over my shoulder for you the whole time." Shepard sighed heavily, but it was a kind of relief to have it off his chest.

Kaidan looked down at Hadrian pensively, upset but trying to be understanding. It was everything he'd been afraid of, that had held him back from the start. The nagging doubt that had always told him to keep things professional, lest the complications of a personal investment become someone's excuse to hold him back. He recalled his military history from Earth, stories of the Sacred Band of Thebes that had extolled love between brothers-in-arms- no, more than that, had built one of the most effective fighting forces in history upon the fealty of lovers- but also stories of the generations when romance between men was taken for weakness, for baseness, for a reason to doubt their valour or their ability to fight effectively side-by-side. He'd always hated thinking about the latter, and dreaded being held up as a cautionary tale by some regressive asshole CO pining for 'the good old days' of two centuries passed. But he knew now that this wasn't 'that,' that these circumstances were extraordinary.

Shepard wasn't questioning Kaidan's fitness or objectivity- he was trying to maintain his own. It hurt to think that there was any conflict, but there was nothing shameful in it. He was asking his love to lift a burden of worry from the battle that was coming... but the problem wasn't them. "Okay," he finally said. "Okay... so then where do you want me, if not with you?"

Hadrian made a helpless face and bit his lip. "The corner of the galaxy that's farthest from me?" He shook his head. No, he didn't mean that. "Or just... somewhere that I can tell myself you're safe."

Kaidan leaned down and rested his bandaged head against Shepard's, the closeness- close enough to share each other's breath- giving each some comfort. They were learning to take solace in this 'posture.' "We'll figure something out," he said. "Because I want you to be safe, too. Even if you are at the eye of the storm." Hadrian looked up, took Alenko's chin in his hand, and gave him an earnest look.

"If I'm fighting to make it back to you," he said darkly, "I'm not walking into the eye of their storm. They're getting caught in mine." Something savage flashed in his eyes, a rising, functional rage. "Don't be afraid for me. Anything that's between you and me and us getting back to this bed together, be afraid for them."

Kaidan smiled, encouraged. His fearsome, fiery vanguard was back. And that always made he feel more secure. "Well what if next time I want us in my bed?"

"This is your bed now." Shepard got up and straddled Kaidan's thighs, pushing him gently down and hovering over him. "Not mine. Ours. This cabin's ours now... this is home for us. You hear me, EDI?"

EDI's synthesized voice came over the comm. "Yes, Shepard. I have flagged the Major for full access to the compartment. May I say that I am quite happy for the both of you. And that I would make an enthusiastic bridesmaid at any affirmational ceremony you may eventually elect to engage in."

Shepard looked up at the ceiling- everyone seemed to do that when they they were addressing EDI's disembodied presence. "Uh, thanks, EDI," he smiled sheepishly. He felt Kaidan squeeze his hips, approvingly.

"I have also referenced several sources, and I believe I would make an exceptional godmother, as well."

The corners of Shepard's mouth twitched downward and his eyebrows pinched up in the middle a bit. He looked back down at Kaidan, who was wearing a similar quizzical expression, head cocked slightly to one side. Surely... surely EDI knew that two men couldn't...

"That was a joke," EDI said flatly, before deactivating the intercom.

Shepard glanced back up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes. "Of course it was," he said dryly, and looked back down at Kaidan beneath him. The sentinel was giving him another of his come-hither looks.

"Well... as long as we're both thinking about how we can't make little... what did I hear Joker call them- Shenkos?"

Kaidan made a face. "'Shenkos?' Really?" he asked. Hadrian shook his head dismissively.

"Whatever, it the thought that counts. So. You want to give it another good old college try anyway? One more time- maybe two- before we focus on doing what needs doing?" Hadrian cracked a wicked, lopsided grin and reached for Kaidan's belt.

Alenko stretched his back a little and groaned contentedly, pressing his hips up against Hadrian's. "Stupid question. You know me. I always want to try again for our babies."

-1.10

London FOB, the next day

-1.10

"Well... I should find the rest of my squad," Kaidan said, a bit sadly, half-turning away.

"Yeah," Shepard agreed, looking down the ruined London street.

This was supposed to be it. The major had reconnected with his biotic spec-ops unit- probably the safest place he could be under the circumstances- and Hammer was preparing for the last big push towards the Reaper destroyer, and beyond it the Citadel beam. This was supposed to be their "see you on the other side." But now that the moment was upon them, neither budged. Shepard blamed Kaidan- that embrace and that kiss, right there in front of everyone, and the promise to hold each other again. It had completely undermined all of Shepard's determination. It had summoned up new doubts, and smashed them, and with them perhaps some of the previous day's that he had convinced himself couldn't be ignored. Now... now none of his reasoning or his rationale for wanting to leave Kaidan behind seemed to make the same sense.

"Huh. Y'know, I've never been to London," Alenko said off-handedly.

They met again in a mutual furtive, sideways glance.

"You aren't moving, Commander."

Hadrian slowly turned back towards Kaidan. "No."

"Having second thoughts? Thought we talked about those?" Alenko asked.

"Second. Third. I know what I said about you being somewhere else, but... now that we're here..." Shepard took a step forward, closing the gap between them. He gripped the collar piece of the sentinel's armour and pulled him close.

"I don't want to distract you, Hade. If it puts you in danger then you're right, I should be-"

"No... Y'know what? To hell with it. There's nowhere else you should be. We started this together... we should finish it together. I know the risks. But this close to the end? I do want you with me." Shepard closed his eyes and the couple nuzzled their foreheads together; it was now undeniably one of 'their things.' "I'd be distracted no matter what. At least... at least if you're with me, I won't be wondering. I can keep an eye on you-"

"And I can keep my eye on you," Kaidan interjected.

"-And if anything does happen, if they lay a fucking hand on you..." Shepard backed away just enough to give Alenko a smoldering gaze.

"You'll kill 'em. You're my killer, lover," Kaidan nodded.

Hadrian flashed a kind of smile. The smile of an apex predator in its glory. He slowly nodded back, released his grip on Alenko's collar, and pounded his fist back and forth between their chestplates.

"I'll kill them all," he affirmed, meaning it.

"That's my boy," Kaidan smiled. "I'll be alright. Don't worry. And on the other side of this..." he leaned in close and lowered his voice, "we will shake your- our- cabin apart." Hadrian growled approvingly. "We'll lock ourselves in for a week, with a crate full of juice and protein bars and 'party supplies,' and we... will... wreck up the place. The things I'll do to you? And that I'm going to let you do to me?"

Shepard put his hand over Kaidan's mouth and gazed lustfully into his eyes. "Nnnhhh... not here," he said, half-demanding and half-pleading, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I really don't have room to 'breathe' in all this armour as it is." Kaidan's eyes smiled at him. Looking around, he noticed an unattended Mako with its hatch open, and nodded toward it with a roguish lilt of his eyebrows. During one of their dirtier conversations Hadrian had owned up to wanting to have sex in a tank sometime, and glancing over at the fighting vehicle he immediately 'got' the implication. Something desperate in the ruins of a war zone... it had a certain appeal. But he smirked and shook his head. "One wrong move in there and we fuck the whole FOB," he grinned, relishing the double entendre. "I'd love to, but save it. For later. One more reason to get through this alive. But everybody's getting ready to move out- it's time to get to work." Hadrian leaned in and kissed the back of the hand he'd placed to silence his sentinel. "And you're with me, now, so we need to get prepped."

As the major walked over to delegate command of the biotic squad to his lieutenant, Hadrian reflected on his change of heart. From the moment they'd finally opened up to each other at that cafe 3 weeks ago, it was nuts to ever think he would do this without Kaidan. He was embarrassed that he'd ever contemplated otherwise. After the time they'd wasted in the beginning, and the two years of anguish Alenko had gone through after Shepard's 'death,' the months after Horizon, the agonizing few weeks between their escape from Earth to Mars and Kaidan's return following the coup attempt- they'd been separated too long to invite one more moment of it, now that they knew the alternative.

Whether it was today, or seventy years from now, the bond they had cemented at last... Hadrian knew that Kaidan would 'have his six' until the day he died.

-X

Fifteen minutes later, as they held out against the Reaper advance on the Thanix missile launchers, Kaidan watched Shepard fascinated and awe-struck as the man he loved fought the flood of enemies trying to overwhelm them. He'd have decribed it as violent poetry in motion, but somehow it seemed more fitting to put it in the words Hadrian might have- the vanguard fought like a motherfucking force of nature. He was virtually impossible to track as he flew across the battlefield, charging enemies in every quarter.

Kaidan would fire a few rounds down-range, reducing a marauder's shields, and Hadrian would be there, slamming into it and finishing it of with a shotgun blast in its pointy face. He'd hear a round zing past him from a cannibal approaching from behind, and Hadrian would be there, flying past and blowing it through a wall with a biotic uppercut. Kaidan would unleash an overload, stunning a pair of cannibals as they climbed over a barricade, and Hadrian would be there, throwing off the precious protection of his own barrier to finish them with a shockwave of force from his new 'nova' trick. And then he'd charge again. And again. And again. His only pauses were to re-load- the rest was a brutal efficiency of motion, no movement wasted.

And enemy 'heavies' fared no better. When a pair of brutes came crashing onto the battlefield, Vega harrowed one with his incendiary shotgun slugs, Kaidan biotically reaved the other, and Hadrian positioned himself like a mountain between the beasts and his team, charging the reaved one and staggering both with the explosions of dark energy, pumping shotgun blasts into one and then the other, rolling under their claw swipes. They were finished in less time than some forces took to bring down a single brute.

When a banshee arrived at the head of another force of marauders and cannibals and husks, the instant Kaidan took down her barrier with an electrical surge, Hadrian was there. The asari mutant died when he stunned it with his shotgun stock, shoved the barrel into her screeching mouth, and blew her head apart. By the time EDI signaled that she had re-calibrated the missiles and that the destroyer was in range, and Shepard thundered to the missile truck to launch the weapons at their last obstacle, Hadrian was covered head-to-toe in the sickly blue and grey flesh of countless Reaper abominations. Not so much as a husk got within twenty feet of Alenko- Shepard's body and his bullets created a nearly perfect circle of protection.

And that was when Kaidan knew: Hadrian would be his Shepard, relentless and true, until they were both dead.

-X

The Reaper destroyer was downed, and while more were reported to be inbound, for a moment the way to the Citadel beam was essentially clear. As they crested the hill of rubble overlooking the razed field of urban ruins, the rattle and pop of weapons fire near and distant wove through the thick, heavy atmosphere around them. The beam illuminated the crumbling city for miles, a throbbing thread of light ascending into the clouds. This was it. With everyone's eyes on his back, Hadrian took Kaidan's gloved hand in his and squeezed. In the month they'd been together, it was actually- strangely- the first time he'd had the occasional to 'initiate' the gesture during their courtship. Kaidan had always reached out for his commander's hand first, it seemed. They looked deep into each other's eyes, urgently.

"Everyone makes for the beam!" Anderson shouted. "Nobody stops, and nobody turns back. Just keep moving and don't think twice!" He turned to face the rest of Hammer's remaining troops, but Shepard and Alenko were in their own spacetime.

"Stay close to me," Hadrian said.

Kaidan nodded. "You have to be tired. Watching you back there... my guy... my wild, incredible, unstoppable man. They never even got close to me. I've never seen anything like it- I was in awe. You were just... amazing. Again. And if anyone can do this, you can." Then a warm smile crept onto his face. "Just... try to keep up, babe."

"I don't care what they say about no turning back- if anything happens to you, I'll be there. Know that I'll be coming for you."

Kaidan nodded. "I know," he said, "like you have every time before. Like I'll be there for you."

They kissed again. Kaidan put his helmet back on while Hadrian opted for just his comms headset. Though it was taking a big risk, this one time he wanted nothing between the battlefield and his eyes, between the air and his mouth and his lungs. They did one more comms check as a precaution.

"Love you," came Hadrian's voice over the helmet speaker.

"Love you," Kaidan answered.

"I love you boys, too," piped in Garrus' voice, with an audible turian smile. "But Tali and I would like to get this over with and get back to the Normandy every bit as much as the two of you want back and cross swords again, so... Shall we?" The three of them- and others could be heard over the channel, too- laughed. And then there was nothing more for it.

They set off running, with the rest of Hammer behind and all around them. A third of the way there, Kaidan heard it- that blast of dread reverberating from the descending Reaper. Harbinger. The ground rumbled as it landed. Towering over everything, with those glowing yellow eyes- and then rays of blinding hot negation began screaming from its body.

A gunship above them was hit, and fell stricken to the ground in a fireball, shuddering the earth. Hadrian stumbled briefly and Kaidan- slightly less taxed from the Thanix holdout- opened the gap between them.

Another blast cut through an armoured truck to Kaidan's right and debris from the explosion whizzed by him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shepard fall another couple of steps behind as he leapt over an errant wheel from the wreck and shielded the eyes from flying droplets of molten metal.

Harbinger fired again and the beam tore a long gouge out of the ground to his left, throwing the corpses of several charging soldiers through the air. Peripherally aware of where Shepard was, Kaidan looked back for some assurance that he wasn't struck by the hurtling bodies.

Then he felt it.

A wave of heat arose at the side of his face. And he heard the crackle and snarl of another beam strike in front of him, but lower in its pitch- a time-dilated growl instead of a roar. At the same time, his backward cast eyes met Hadrian's and he saw a horrified expression on the vanguard's face. It could only mean...

There was sadness. Heartbreak, that he'd never see Hadrian again. He'd really hoped to see what could become of them if they'd had more time. But then there was peace- at least Hadrian's face would be the last thing he saw, even if it was that look of pain. No, not pain- now it was something else... resolve? Determination. Absolute certainty.

He heard Shepard's voice in his ear, immediate, and low, like the pronouncement of an intervening higher power. "No."

And then he felt something else: the tingle of hairs on his skin, weightless in a corridor of reduced mass that reached out to him. It felt almost electric- the static-like cling like their naked bodies pressing together- sweaty and humming in the afterglow.

And then Hadrian exploded toward him in a blur. Kaidan heard a sonic boom. No, wrong again- he didn't hear it- he felt it. It was like a crack of thunder- in an instant he was a child again, trembling as a clap directly overhead shook the roof of his parents' Vancouver home- and then there was blunt, crushing pain. Pain and disorientation, and vertigo. He was spinning, tumbling through the air. He remembered being a child, and his dad throwing his miniature body gently up and then catching him.

When he landed, twenty feet to the side of the scorched track of Harbinger's strike, the wind was battered out of him. He felt the ground quaking and yawning, and heard screams as he blacked out for... a few seconds? Several minutes?

When the fog lifted and he regained consciousness, his entire left side ached like he'd been hit by a wrecking ball. He tried to take a breath and his chest burned from at least a couple of broken ribs. The armour was smashed off of his left shoulder, which hung ajar at his side- not only dislocated, but unsupported- a broken collarbone, too? The visor of his helmet was cracked, obscuring his vision, and the internal HUD was projecting static and error messages. The air creeping in through the crack carried the barbeque smell of seared meat from the battlefield, and he grew nauseated. His wrist felt broken. His ears were ringing. Something felt pulled in his lower back, in his hip, in his neck. His teeth ached, and he tasted blood. The beating he'd taken on Mars felt like rough play by comparison.

It was a day of firsts. First time to London. First time Hadrian had taken his hand instead of vice-versa. And now, the first time he'd been hit by a biotic charge. So this was what people talked about- the ones who survived, at any rate. No wonder so few of Hadrian's targets ever got up from this- and he could tell that he'd one taken a deliberately glancing hit. As he tried to pull himself to his feet, the blinding hot pain of a broken femur made him scream.

Gasping for breath, he gradually became aware of garbled voices crackling through his helmet's comms as they cut in and out.

"Did anyone make it to the beam?"

That English major's voice replied. "Negative, our entire force was decimated!"

Looking despairingly toward the beam, Kaidan saw Harbinger lurch and launch itself back into the sky. He was still a long way from the beam, and he couldn't see any movement except the half-dead between him and the humming pillar of light, crawling or writhing until they slumped to the ground and joined the fallen.

"W-wait," he groaned, "this is Alenko- can anyone hear me?" He started to try again to stand. "I'm still active, I- ghaauurrgh!"

"Major?" It was Hackett's voice. "Alenko, where are you? Can you make it to the objective?"

Kaidan laid back on the slab of fallen wall where he'd landed, gritting his teeth in pain and shaking his head, frustrated. "No, Sir, I'm alive but I- I'm incapacitated..." He wheezed through the pain in his chest, feeling sick with helplessness- impotent . "I can't make it, Admiral, I'm sorry. What about Shepard? I can't see Shepard anywhere, have you- do you have a status on Hadrian?"

"Major! Report! Can you reach the beam?" Hackett pressed.

"Urrrgh!" Frustrated, Kaidan banged the back of his helmet against the concrete slab underneath him. The radio crackled to life again. "Admiral this is Alenko, do you read me now? I'm down. I- I survived. Because of..." His voice caught up on the rest, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. "I survived, but I can't advance. Do you know if Shepard is okay?"

"Your transceiver has to be damaged, Major, your signal keeps breaking up but I copy your last message. Stay put, we're ordering in a recovery bird to evacuate you and any other injured personnel we can find."

"Aye aye, Sir... but please- please Admiral- do you have any eyes on- or any communication from Shepard?" He clutched his throbbing side. There was a long pause, and his eyes started to well up with tears- sorrow and frustration and fury- as he sucked in a laboured breath to ask again. But then Hackett's voice crackled back.

"No, Major. We have nothing on Shepard. I'm sorry. But all communications are a mess right now, it might just be that we can't raise him."

Kaidan shook his head and clenched his fists, heart sinking. He looked back toward the beam, hoping against hope to spot Hadrian. If his own radio had been fucked by the near-miss, surely Shepard's was damaged too. He had to believe there was another reason they had no contact from him, he couldn't be... he couldn't. During his biotic charges nothing had ever been able to hurt him- his barriers surged of the charts. He was untouchable.

"I copy, Admiral..." he said, choking up. "Waiting for extraction." After a moment he muttered "I'm not going anywhere." The seconds dragged by, one into the next, and Kaidan stared towards the beam hoping to see something. Some answer to his prayers. He tested his leg one more time but the shock of pain it sent searing through his entire body reduced him to another anguished cry and tears that he couldn't even wipe away inside his helmet.

"Major! That you?"

Kaidan sniffled and looked toward the voice that had called out to him. It was Vega, limping toward him with a hideous chunk of shrapnel sticking out of his thigh. "Yeah, James, I'm here. Evac transport is on its way- are you...?"

"Dizzy, Major... I think I... I don't think my armour's medical system's working." Vega staggered the last few steps forward and dropped to his chest at Kaidan's side. "I- I'm sorry, Sir, I don't think I can..."

"No," Alenko said, sympathetically, putting a hand- the one that didn't aggravate his broken ribs- on Vega's shoulder. "Neither can I, Vega. I wish I could, b-but my leg is broken. Have you... have you seen Shepard?" James groaned and shook his head wearily.

"I was a fair bit behind Shepard and all I saw was him charging you, slamming you out of the way of that Reaper blast, but... the charge carried him straight into it, Sir," he slurred. "To deflect you he... he took it dead on. I don't see how he could possibly have..." The two laid silently for a long moment. "I'm sorry... He must have-"

"Yeah," Kaidan said, squeezing his eyes shut and struggling not to break down. "Yeah, he must be-"

Vega interrupted. "No, Sir, I was going to say... To do that... He must have really... you know." He sighed wearily. "Aw fuck, I'm tired."

"Stay with me, Lieutenant," Kaidan ordered. "They'll be here for us any second now, we just have to hold on. We have to... just, hold on." Their mutual disappointment hung heavily in the air between them a moment. "Hey, James?"

"Yeah, Major?" Vega was audibly teetering on the edge of consciousness.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, Major. I really am sorry. It... it was pretty awesome to see, though, to tell you... the... to..." James' voice faded away, and Kaidan rocked his unconscious body gently by the shoulder.

"Hang in there, Lieutenant. Help's on the way."

Kaidan looked back to the beam, and to the gash in the ground where he'd been running toward it. Where Hadrian had hurtled him out of Death's jaws. It was all darkness and grey light and smoke, and Kaidan started to feel the image- the feeling of it- seeping into him, under his skin, laying claim to a part of him. It was all becoming dark, and grey, and smoke.

Then there was the sound of engines. Alenko looked skyward and saw a Kodiak shuttle swooping in, braking hard. His radio crackled to life again.

"Major? It's Cortez, I'm inbound. Got a new ride, but we have to move!"

"Nnnghhh. Why, Cortez, what's the situation?" Kaidan shook Vega again, harder. He'd need James' help to get on the shuttle.

"It's the Normandy, Sir. My instructions are to get you back there to re-group, but she's picked up a destroyer tail. Joker's doing his best to evade, but the Reaper seems determined- we have a very narrow window to rendez-vous! Get ready!"

"James! Wake up!" Kaidan ordered, urgently. Vega roused.

"Ughhh... Major? Are we-?"

"Your boyfriend's here now, Lieutenant, come on, I'll need your help to get aboard. We're going home but we have to double-time it!"

Vega grunted and groaned- "huh, boyfriend my ass," he chuckled through the pain as he mustered all of his formidable strength- blood loss notwithstanding- and forced himself up. He took Kaidan under the shoulder, eliciting a long yell of pain from the sentinel, and pulled him to his feet as well. Dirt and smoke started swirling around them as the Kodiak descended, doors already open, and set down mere feet from them. EDI's infiltrator body was in the back, covered in dust and soot, her armoured frame badly scuffed with evident stress fractures. She must have been through some kind of hell since they'd last seen each other at the FOB.

"Get aboard!" Steve shouted from the cockpit. "I'm co-ordinating with Joker for pickup but it's getting hairy topside! Hairier"

Moaning, Vega helped a yelping Kaidan up the step on to the shuttle where EDI offered him a hand. Shaking with pain and tension, Kaidan looked one last time toward the Reapers' Citadel beam. And in the distance, he saw...? A speck? A person? Muzzle flash. Something, some form moving, silhouetted against the pillar of light.

If anyone can do this, you can.

"Wait!" he shouted, "do you see that?" He started to lean back, but with the last of his strength Vega pushed him from behind as he flopped inside himself, and Cortez pitched the shuttle to one side, rolling all three of them more securely inside. EDI pulled Vega the final inches toward one of the attachment points in the floor, fastening his armour to hold him in place as the bird started its frantic ascent, Cortez closing the hatch from his control panel.

"Hang on!" the pilot instructed.

"Wait, Steve, please! I saw-"

"There's no time, Sir!" Cortez snapped. And they were aloft, racing for the upper atmosphere to meet Normandy.

Kaidan laid on his stomach, panting, his mind racing. His heart pounded impossibly hard as EDI knelt beside him and buckled his armour to another harness attachment point to keep him from being tossed about the cabin.

"Shepard?" he whispered into his helmet. "Shepard, if you're there, please... God, please be safe. Come back to us. You promised me. You promised."

The rest of the flight was eerily, agonizingly silent except for the rocking of the shuttle as they flew through turbulence and evaded enemy fire, until Cortez announced that the docking maneuver he'd plotted with Joker was going to be rough.

"It's the best we've got," he warned, "so... cross your fingers, guys. And brace for- uh- possible collision and death." The injection of dark humour helped slightly, but the tension was palpable for the next fifteen seconds... and then there was a whine from the engines, and a jarring impact. The two pilots had pulled it off- mostly- matching course and velocity precisely long enough for Normandy to scoop up the shuttle. It was the seconds after that that were less smooth. The Kodiak lurched sickeningly, bouncing Kaidan off the floor and causing another mind-numbing flash of agony from his leg and his ribs, but then he felt the embrace of Normandy's artificial gravity again. But she was dancing. Joker was pushing her at the very edge of her envelope, and Kaidan could immediately feel the inertia dampers straining to keep them all from being smashed into paste against the bulkheads.

"We're aboard and we're alive!" Cortez reported. "What's your status, Joker?"

Moreau's hectic voice came back through the comm system. "Our friend flagged down a couple of his buddies to try and kick our ass- I'm guessing it said 'uh, hey guys, isn't that that Shepard guy's piece of crap ship? Well uh why don't we fuck that up?' So my status is busy, leave me the fuck alone!"

"Please excuse Jeff," EDI enjoined, finally cracking the seal on Kaidan's damaged helmet and removing it, "we are now engaged in evasive maneuvers against three Reaper destroyers that are coordinating their attacks. He is under a great deal of stress. We are weighing a possible relay jump out of the system to try and lose our pursuers."

"You're leaving the system?" Kaidan snapped in disbelief. He knew the situation was desperate, and he knew Joker wasn't stupid, but it was a stretch to imagine Moreau running from this fight, of all fights.

"We are considering it as an option, as our tactical alternatives deteriorate, Major," EDI clarified. "Flight from the system would break contact with the destroyers, and we could immediately back-track to re-join the fleet. Though I am uncertain of the usefulness of returning- given the ground force's apparent failure to access the Citadel. The fleet is attempting to regroup and weighing the possibility of a withdrawal to re-strategize, but as a strictly conventional battle-"

"I don't need the editorializing, EDI. Why were we brought back here, specifically, anyway?"

The shuttle's hatch groaned and whirred open sluggishly, and Doctor Chakwas stepped aboard the shuttle, looking down at Kaidan on the floor and booting up her omnitool to run a triage scan of him and Vega. "Lay still, Major, I'm seeing some very nasty injuries and we don't want to aggravate them," she said. Another crewman appeared with a med-kit and started assisting by stabilizing Vega.

"The fleet is in some disarray," EDI explained, "Hammer's inability to open the Citadel and interface the Crucible has left Admiral Hackett in the position of attempting to win a conventional battle, and he is trying to adapt his strategy accordingly. He requested that the Normandy's crew return to the ship, in the event that defeat should appear imminent. Presumably with the intent of ordering us to advance-scout the fleet's fallback position to assess options, or deploying us on some failure-mitigation mission. If you will excuse me, Major, my combat chassis can be more useful on the command deck."

With that, EDI- EDI's body, anyway- left the shuttle. Cortez followed to evaluate the Kodiak from the outside, and Kaidan looked questioningly at Karin. "So does that mean the rest of them are back aboard, too? Garrus? Liara? Tali?"

"No," Chakwas answered tightly. "Last I heard they were all still alive down on Earth, but scattered across the theater. Steve couldn't retreive everyone, he was only able to pick up EDI from the FOB after it took a hit, and then you and James, before he had no choice but to return to the ship or risk not getting back at all." So in other words, it was all falling apart. The plan had broken down with their failure to reach the Citadel, and now everything was going to shit. It was worlds apart from the hope he'd told Shepard he had given everyone. It seemed that without him... but Kaidan could swear he'd seen something in that moment before dustoff.

If anyone can do this, you can.

"I need to get you and James to the medical bay for proper attention, Major. Let me give you something for the pain."

"I'll go the the MedBay, Doctor, but hold off on the drugs. P-please! I can handle it for now- as long as I don't have to walk there myself- but I- I need to be clear-headed, I need to stay aware of what's going on." Chakwas shook her head and clicked her tongue, exasperated.

"Very well, Kaidan. I'll see that you're able to monitor the situation once we're there, if you give me your word that you won't be trying to get up and leave before you're stabilized!" Kaidan nodded reluctantly, and did what little he could to help a couple of crewman load him on to a stretcher for transport to the crew deck.

As he was carried out of the shuttle he saw Steve using an extinguisher to put out a spot fire on the cargo bay floor, and felt the ship continuing to strain under Joker's extreme maneuvers. "How are we doing, EDI?" he asked aloud. Her voice piped in over the intercom.

"We have lost one of the destroyers and managed to damage another, but the third is still pursuing aggressively, and several oculus drones are complementing its attack, attempting to corral us into an optimal firing solution for it. We have fighters supporting us, trying to screen the drones, but Jeff is concerned that they may impede his ability to maneuver as much as they help." As if to punctuate, there was a twist of vertigo during the elevator ride up as Normandy executed a tight spin.

Halfway between the elevator and MedBay the ship shuddered from some kind of impact, and the crewman carrying the foot of Kaidan's stretcher stumbled, jostling him in place. He gasped in pain, but sucked it up lest Karin sedate him after all. As he was lifted on to one of the medical beds and a medic started undoing the buckles on his armour to remove it, Private Westmoreland appeared at his side and gently placed a comm headset in his ear so he could monitor the internal radios in the cockpit and on the bridge, and the priority external comm channels.

"Did he say Shepard was aboard the Citadel after all?" he heard Joker ask.

"The Admiral said he's made contact and that he was calling in the Crucible in anticipation that the Commander would have the Citadel open imminently," EDI replied. Kaidan started to snap upward in surprise.

"What!" he said. But there was no word of acknowledgment, the earpiece was only configured to passively listen in. Chakwas gave him an irritated look.

"Lay still, Major," she insisted. "Whatever it is, there's nothing you can do about it anyway!"

"I need more coolant flow to the thermal exhaust system," he heard Adams saying in Engineering. "And keep an eye on that electrical charge, Joker is running the core hard!" Ken and Gabby were working frantically to keep up.

"Crucible has arrived in-system," came Hackett's voice. "It's en route to the Citadel, keep up the pressure on the Reapers. Shield fleet will do everything it can to get the Crucible into position safely, but Sword can't afford to let up now!"

"We're going to have to switch to torpedoes soon, the Thanix cannons' tanks are nearly depleted," reported a crewman who'd taken Garrus' place in the main battery control. "Unless we start doing a little less jabbing and a little more bobbing and weaving!"

"I'll pass it along," Traynor replied, "but I don't think Joker intends to slow down any time soon."

"It's opening!" The voice was strange, but vaguely familiar. "Thank God, Hade did it, the Citadel is opening!" 'Hade.' The only other person Kaidan knew of who used that diminutive was the one Hadrian told him used it first: his mother, Hannah Shepard. Her carrier's signal must have been on the priority channel. They hadn't met, but he was glad to hear she was still alive.

"Crucible is five minutes out! Keep the heat on!" Hackett rejoined, with something unmistakable in his voice. It was hesitant, but it was hope.

"SHIT!" Joker snapped, and in the same moment Normandy lurched to one side. "That is no fuckin' destroyer!"

"I am trying to disrupt the dreadnought's targeting runtimes, but with the volume of radio traffic there is very little bandwidth spectrum left for me to run cyber-warfare signal operations," EDI said. "I don't think we have any choice, Jeff. At top speed we can reach the relay, leave the system, and be back from Arcturus in less than ten minutes, but if we remain engaged-"

"I know, I know," Joker snapped, frustrated. "Believe me, I want to get away from these assholes, but..."

"If you believe you can continue to evade I will redouble my efforts."

"No," Moreau sighed, and Kaidan felt Normandy twist, turn, and accelerate as hard as the engines could push. "No, you're right, we've gotta' go, I just... I just really wanted to see what the Crucible was gonna' do. And now I feel like we're gonna miss it."

"Come on..." Kaidan pleaded under his breath. If anyone can do this, you can. He was so focused, he was only peripherally aware of Chakwas saying something in an apologetic tone, and then there was a sickening flare of pain as one of the medics pulled his shoulder back into joint, stressing the fracture in his clavicle and his ribs. "Aaaowww!" he screamed in shock, thumping his head back against the pillow. The earpiece fell out. "Shit!"

He wanted to plead with someone to replace the headset, but the pain of his shoulder and his ribs was incandescent, debilitating. Suddenly every nerve in his body was screaming, and despite his assertion that he could handle it, the pain was starting to make him writhe on the bed as Karin tried to treat him. "Major, I need to you keep still. Major? It's no good- prepare two cee-cee's of Andropaxazine."

"Aaarrrghhh! Nnnuh- no, I need- I-" Kaidan tried to roll onto his side to reach for the comm set off the floor, but the medic held him down to the bed. He felt a transdermal patch pressed to his neck, and in an instant he started to feel a tingle and a haze spreading throughout his body. Everything started to go loose, and warm, and muted.

As everything dissolved into a grey fog, he felt the rubber nub inserted gently back into his ear. From far away, he heard Joker say something... he vaguely perceived a tone of alarm. Then there was a shudder and a groan from the ship. And then there was darkness.

And dreams.

-X

Kaidan and Hadrian laid sprawled and intertwined on the captain's cabin bed, glazed in sweat, with Alenko's head on Shepard's stomach. Kaidan brushed his fingers slowly around the commander's pubic hair as Shepard's hand played gently through his hair.

"You know... when all this is over... it might sound crazy- I mean, I know we've only actually spent a few months together all told, but... I think I want to put some kind of ring on your finger," Hade said, pensively.

Kaidan looked up Shepard's chest with bedroom eyes. "It doesn't sound crazy. It sounds perfect to me," he smiled.

"Yeah? I just haven't felt... this... in a long time. Maybe never, before now. I've dated, I've screwed around, but I'm not sure I've ever..."

"It sounds... perfect," Kaidan repeated, earnestly. "I want the whole galaxy to know." His head bobbed as Shepard's stomach clenched with a laugh.

"We could make a video and put it on the extranet," he joked.

"If we sold it we could probably retire from all this weirdness. But it might hurt our chances of... um... adopting kids?"

"Well I don't see how else we're going to have kids, since you seem to be barren." They both laughed, longer and harder. Kaidan turned his head again and looked squarely at Hadrian's flaccid member just a couple inches away from his face, and saw it twitch at the thought of them 'trying again.' "And my mom would never forgive me if I didn't give her some grandkids to dote on, one way or another."

"Where do you want to...?"

"Right here," Shepard said, sounding certain. "Not this ship, I mean. Not specifically, though the Normandy's as good a place as any. But I mean right here, with you. Wherever we are, that'll be home. Like a turtle, y'know? As long as you're on my back..." They laughed again, contentedly.

"I'd love to retire to my parents' vineyard, eventually. When we're too old and beat up to save the galaxy anymore. Just laze around the interior and drink wine and..."

"We're gonna' have it all." Hadrian squeezed a handful of Kaidan's hair gently, and Alenko rolled his head again to look up into Shepard's eyes. "All of it. I dare anybody to try and keep it from us. To try and get between you and me. I'll make the fuckers wish they'd never been born."

"But you're going to die." It wasn't what he wanted to say. It wasn't what he remembered saying. But it came out of his mouth, and he felt a sad, heartbroken lump start to form in his throat. The warmth of Shepard's stomach on the side of Kaidan's face suddenly seemed hotter, like he might burst into flames. Hot like impending death under Harbinger's fire.

"I've died before. I'll always find my way back to you. Whether it's cybernetics or reincarnation, whether I'm some ghost that haunts the halls of this ship, or whether I have to possess some poor bastard to hold you again. I know I'm supposed to give up my 'attachments,' but... I'm not ready to give you up. They can burn me down to embers- you're the oxygen that'll re-ignite me."

"Wait... this isn't how I remember that night," Kaidan said, brow furrowing with confusion. He felt tears starting to run down his face, but he hadn't felt them forming in his eyes.

"It's alright," Hadrian shushed him. "When you see me again, it'll be like you remember. We'll pick up right where we left off. And I'll make you my husband. We'll be dads together. And we'll drink wine. It'll be everything we deser-"

Kaidan awoke with a start. His face was wet with tears and his whole body ached. The only lights were the medical diagnostic display on the panel beside his bed, and a dim lamp on the MedBay desk that cast shadows across Cortez's face where he sat slouching, asleep, in Chakwas' chair, sitting vigil. The ship was asleep, still recovering from their collective trauma.

A sensor in the patient care system must have detected a spike in his heart rate or his respiration or something, because it beeped and began to administer a new dose of tranquilizers to keep him still. As Kaidan started to doze off again he had mixed feelings- dread that he'd be haunted by more dreams, but also a longing for more of them. At least there, he was back with Hadrian instead of busted up and alone in a medical bed.