“Can I ask you something?”
Kaidan shifts a little. The weight of Shepard’s leg has put his foot to sleep, and he braces himself for the inevitable pins and needles. They’re lying on the couch, Shepard with his back against Kaidan’s chest, discarded datapads wedged into the cushions around them. Two empty beers sit on the coffee table. They’ve both said something about getting up to get fresh ones, but Shepard hasn’t moved and Kaidan isn’t about to encourage him.
“You’ve never had to ask if you can ask me a question before,” Kaidan tells him. The report he’s got in his hands has something to do with troop movements in Attican Beta. It’s important, but he hasn’t actually looked at it in the last twenty minutes.
“Before was…different.” Shepard finds his free hand and threads their fingers, squeezing as though looking for some kind of reassurance. Kaidan finally abandons the pretense of the datapad, dropping it to the floor, and drapes his arm across Shepard.
Shepard’s right, of course. Before was different. Before there was no this. No them. The feel of Shepard against him is still new, still surreal, but he marvels to think that of all the things it is, the one thing it isn’t is strange. In fact the two of them together like this feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Shepard hesitates for a moment, something Kaidan hasn’t expected to discover about him. For all his surety in command, on the battlefield, here, when it’s just the two of them, Kaidan often gets the feeling Shepard is waiting for the other shoe to drop. As if he expects Kaidan to change his mind.
As if Kaidan would ever change his mind.
Shepard leverages himself up, scoots around so that he’s leaning against the back of the couch, head propped on one elbow, looking Kaidan in the eye. His other hand lays flat against Kaidan’s chest, fingers tracing eddies into the fabric of his uniform.
“When did you know? About me.”
Kaidan draws in a breath. The answer to that is something he’s held close to the vest for three years.
vaporwave
stormborns
origamiaround
pixelskylines
