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Fuck Bioware and EA, happy N7 day! Have some #mshenko!

This story has been sitting in my drafts for a whole year, but I've decided to just post it already.

Initially inspired by this post. @starshep, I am no Shimmy, but I hope you enjoy this thing. ❤️

All Those Kisses

Tags: Fluff and Humor

Summary: Shepard and Kaidan try to watch Fleet and Flotilla. Turns out this task is harder than they thought.

***

Сhoose military service as a career, and your life will inevitably be ruled by schedules.

Some parts of it are simple, like reveille, retreat, and taps, and some are more complicated, like weekly reports, training sessions, watches you get assigned to, shifts that seem endless, grueling planetside missions... And all of this gets ten times worse during the war.

Worse to the point where you have to find time to catch your CO in a small corridor between the cargo elevator and Engineering, not even to steal a kiss, but to figure out when your off schedules overlap next week.

"I think we can squeeze in another hour," Shepard says.

"If we put me on an earlier shift?"

"No. If we make your shift shorter."

"Oh?" Kaidan raises his eyebrows. "Am I getting special treatment because I'm friends with the skipper?"

Shepard gives him The Look™, but then plays along, smooth as ever.

"No. Because you're more than friends with the skipper."

"If you say so. Sir."

The look Shepard gives him this time is of mild annoyance, but there's a heat in it, and the way his mouth twitches betrays him as well.

"And because my XO deserves some rest," he continues.

And he is right as always, they both deserve it. What he doesn't mention however is that things would've been a lot easier if Kaidan wasn't his XO, but he suggested that idea himself, right after Kaidan transferred back to Normandy, before they became more than friends.

'I can't imagine anyone else in this position,' he said then, voice firm but eyes soft, and Kaidan agreed, because how could he not? The amount of trust Shepard showed him despite everything, was something he couldn't pass up. And now they were both suffering the consequences.

"See you on Wednesday?" Shepard says before looking around, leaning in and stealing the kiss, his 10th Street habits die hard.

"See you on Wednesday," Kaidan replies, lingering in the circle of heat created by the tension between their bodies. Then his palm slides down Shepard's cheek, and they move past each other, Shepard into Engineering, Kaidan back into the elevator, the orbital resonance between them stretched but never broken.

***

When Wednesday comes, it's inevitably eventful. Kaidan does his round of PT with the other officers on shift, reviews yesterday's reports, runs an emergency drill on a second deck, and spends the rest of the day trying to work out the list of team-building activities for the rest of the week. He's so deep into it that when his omni-tool pings, signaling the end of his shift, Kaidan flinches. But then the realization that he's about to spend some private time with Shepard finally dawns on him.

"You really getting a kick out of all that paperwork, Alenko?" Adams says from his console.

He himself looks so exhausted that Kaidan immediately forgives him for stepping that far out of line.

"How's that requisition list of yours coming?" he teases, knowing full well that Adams is nowhere near finishing it. The last time he checked, it already contained 90 items. And then Requisition Officer Polyakova ripped him a new one, because at least a third of those items were produced on Earth and Palaven, and gave him three days to find analogs.

"I still have one day left," Adams says in a small voice. Judging by that and the haunted look on his face, he has failed miserably and is already imagining facing the brunt of Polyakova's cold wrath.

"It was nice knowing you, Adams." Kaidan logs out of his terminal and stands up, grinning the whole time. "I should go."

The moment he steps into the elevator, his stomach grumbles, reminding him that with all the planning, he completely forgot about dinner. But a detour to the mess hall also means less time with Shepard, so Kaidan thinks 'Fuck it' and pushes the button with number one on it.

The first deck is quiet as usual, the small space between the elevator and the cabin door dimly lit, and Kaidan exhales, then smiles when the lock indicator turns green as he steps forward.

Shepard is standing at his desk, scrolling something on his datapad when Kaidan enters the cabin, but he immediately turns to the sound.

"Hey," he says, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. "I was thinking about pinging you already."

Instead of his usual fatigues, he's wearing sweatpants and a dark hoodie, the longer hair on top of his head still slightly wet from his morning shower, and the simple domesticity of it all does strange things to Kaidan. He stops. "You think I forgot?"

"No. I just know that once you get all snuggly with the reports... And don't look at me like that. You know it's true. Even back on the SR-1–"

"You're the second person to make that joke about me today, and I'm already done with it."

"Who was the first?"

Kaidan sighs. "Adams."

Shepard sets the datapad down on the table and raises his eyebrows.

"Really? What got into him?"

"I think he wanted me to put him out of his misery."

"So he still hasn't finished his list? Good. I'll be so rich by tomorrow morning..."

"John," Kaidan shakes his head and steps forward, "don't tell me you organized a betting pool on one of your officers."

"Organized? No, that's Joker's work. I only participated in it." Shepard grins, and Kaidan steps closer to him again.

"You're terrible..."

"So I've been told..."

Shepard's grin grows wider, now bordering on wolfish, and it makes Kaidan take the last step to stand right in front of him.

The space separating their bodies is small, but packed so tightly with the promise of touch that it makes the hairs on the back of Kaidan's neck stand up. They both take a breath, falling in sync as easily as ever, and Shepard's expression smoothes. His gaze falls from Kaidan's eyes to his lips, and Kaidan's stomach flips in anticipation... and immediately rumbles.

"Good thing I stashed some snacks for us." The corners of Shepard's eyes crinkle again. "So, are you ready for a soap marathon or not?"

And there it is, the real reason why he had squeezed in another off-hour into Kaidan's schedule and woke up an hour earlier himself.

So they could finally watch Fleet and Flotilla.

***

It all started a little over a month ago when Tali rejoined the Normandy team, and at first the outbreak was confined to the Engineering deck. Kaidan caught her, Adams and Daniels watching the stupid show on a military-issued datapad that Tali had "tweaked" a bit, and he let it slide at the time, but then it started to spread.

First to the lower decks; Kaidan blamed it on the Engineering officers' habit of getting all nice and cozy with the techs, who mostly hanged in the docking bay. And since the said techs were wandering around the ship doing small fixes, it was only a matter of time before the discussions about the new episodes started in the Mess, and finally spread to the one place Kaidan couldn't ignore: the squad chat.

One day, he opened it and immediately stumbled upon a reaction vid with one of the Quarian main characters posted by Garrus–which wasn't too surprising; he was doing whatever Tali was doing lately–and followed by a string of laughing emoticons sent by Liara.

Kaidan took a breath and slowly placed the cup of coffee he was drinking on the nearby table. He already knew what was going to happen next.

Traynor, Joker, Cortez and Vega all joined the club in the next few weeks and Kaidan thought that would be the end of it, but then somehow they recruited Wrex.

"I'm bored and it has explosions," he said in response to Kaidan's long, startled look. "And I'm tired of not getting what everyone's babbling about."

'Tell me about it,' Kaidan thought.

What irritated him the most were all the inside jokes everyone was suddenly using everywhere, even in the War Room, and he was already thinking about checking a few episodes, but he hated the idea of giving in to peer pressure and spending his precious time on something he wasn't interested in at all. He already had enough hobbies! Like sleeping. Or reading. Or kissing Shepard on the mouth (and other places). Kaidan had his standards.

Besides, Shepard himself wasn't giving up either. His uncanny ability to weasel out of situations he didn't want to be a part of would've definitely felt like cheating if it weren't coupled with his terrible luck, but here he was using that skill it to the fullest, fending off every attempt to get him to watch the stupid soap so effectively that most of the crew gave up.

Except for one person.

***

"So who's gonna tell him about today's episode?" Joker asked, sprawling out in his chair.

Around the table, everyone but Shepard stopped eating.

It was Friday, and that meant their schedules overlapped enough to meet in the mess, and Kaidan was both thankful for it and not.

Thankful, because he was a terrible sap these days, and just being in the same room with Shepard made him feel all warm and fuzzy. And not, because of Shepard's breakfast ritual.

For the past few months breakfasts on Normandy have consisted entirely of ration bars that tasted like sawdust and looked even less appetizing. The only way to stomach them was to bite off large chunks and swallow as quickly as possible, but Shepard did something opposite.

He broke the bars into small pieces and stirred them with hot water, making himself a sawdust oatmeal of nightmares, which he consumed with the tenacity of a machine built specifically for that task. Other humans watched him do it with a mixture of horror and respect, and Kaidan was no different.

"Oh, come on," Joker continued after being met with an uncomfortable silence that immediately caught Kaidan's attention. "Is that going to be me? Fine." He turned to Shepard. "They did a Saren episode and some of us were in it."

"Okay," Shepard gave him a half-hearted shrug before sending another spoonful of the sawdust mix into his mouth.

Joker's face slowly broke into a shit-eating grin. He leaned forward again. "And they made you a chick."

Silence fell over the mess hall. A group of corporals at the next table stopped chatting and stared. Shepard froze with a spoon halfway to his mouth. A small wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows.

For good five seconds he was working out the retreat strategy before asking, "Is she hot?"

"Uhhh..." Joker wrinkled his nose in thought. "Yeah," he finally concluded. "She's pretty hot."

"Good." Shepard nodded before returning to his breakfast, but Joker wasn't done yet.

"And they made you date Vakarian."

This time, Shepard's reaction was more animated. His eyebrows went up, he dropped the spoon into the bowl, fell back in his chair and put his hand over his heart.

"And why am I hearing about this from Joker, Garrus?" he asked in a strained voice, doing one of the best sad puppy eyes impressions Kaidan had ever seen in his entire life.

"I..." Garrus' mandibles fluttered in a gesture that Kaidan easily recognized as embarrassment. He also averted his eyes from Shepard's face. "I didn't think it was important… You don't watch it anyway…"

"And here I thought our bond meant something to you..." Shepard continued. One of the corporals behind the next table chuckled.

"Oh my god." Joker turned to Garrus. "You're shy about this. You're actually shy about this!"

"I am not."

"Yes, you are! Look at you, all blushing!"

"I don't blush, human!"

They continued on, completely forgetting about Shepard, who had apparently outmaneuvered them both in less than twenty seconds. Realizing this, Kaidan shifted his gaze to find that Shepard was already looking at him. He winked at Kaidan, picked up his spoon and resumed eating as if nothing had happened.

***

Kaidan honestly thought that would be the end of it, but the very next day, Shepard called him into his cabin for something completely different from what Kaidan had hoped for.

"I did some research," Shepard started, and Kaidan immediately pictured him as he looked when planning the next missions: walking in circles with a datapad in his hand, frowning a little, doing that twisty thing with his mouth he usually did when deep in concentration. Kaidan felt warm at the thought.

"There is the original 2-hour vid, a 2-hour prequel to it, and two and a half seasons of the show. And if you think you'd rather swallow a thermal clip than watch all that, I totally agree. But they recently released another vid that summarizes the events of the first season, and I think watching that plus four episodes of the second season sounds doable. Opinions?"

"I have many. But first, a question."

"Shoot."

"What's with the sudden change of heart? I thought you were ignoring this thing on principle."

"What, I can't just decide to watch something stupid these days?" Shepard slowly blinked at Kaidan, making his ‘sincere’ face and clearly in the mood to play.

Kaidan crossed his arms over his chest.

"No."

Shepard rolled his eyes, but the left corner of his lips curled up.

"And I can't pass up the opportunity to get more ammo in my ongoing war with Vakarian."

"So that's what this is about?" Kaidan arched an eyebrow. "You want to harass Garrus with the fact that your female version is dating him on that stupid show?"

"Have you seen his face yesterday? Of course I do. Besides, If he has a crush on me, he deserves it."

'This is the man I've followed through hell and back,' Kaidan reminded himself.

"And I want to spend more time with you," Shepard continued, stepping closer, right into Kaidan's personal space. "You know, just sit together, get angry at how stupid this thing is… Like normal people."

"Like normal people," Kaidan echoed.

They both weren't normal, of course, but pretending that they are even for a couple of hours sounded too good to pass up the opportunity.

"Fine," Kaidan said, already leaning forward, falling into the well of Shepard's gravity as easy as always.

The rest is on AO3. 😊