Kaidan Appreciation Week 2017, Day 4 - Shore Leave
Wrote these in November, never released them for fear the narrative conceit wouldn’t land. Oh well, let’s try anyway.
Day 1 - Childhood
Day 2 - Alliance Training
Day 3 - Friendship
Day 4 - Shore Leave
Day 5 - Memories
Day 6 - Love Interest
Day 7 - Author’s Choice
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When things went wrong, sometimes Shepard was liable to try humor to deal with it. It was part of what Kaidan liked so much about him. And he couldn’t imagine how things could’ve gone much more wrong. Except he could, of course.
Aboard the Normandy, he and Kaidan had bonded over remembering the same pamphlet from basic which suggested shore leave locations that would keep the graduates out of trouble. One of the infamous was the Playa del Oro Aquarium, on the newly renovated Shepard City Center.
‘Glad we went to the aquarium, ay boys?’ was a popular rallying cry at the bars around just about any Alliance base, planet side. ‘Saw some pretty fish at the aquarium, huh?’ or ‘You’re not supposed to swim at the aquarium’ or any of a dozen other standard and drunkenly improvised jokes usually followed. The younger crew on the Normandy didn’t seem to understand the reference, they must have discontinued that particular pamphlet, finally.
Still, when Shepard had woken up after being knocked unconscious by the beacon on Eden Prime, his answer when asked how he was feeling was “Like I just spent a day at the aquarium.” And it had made Kaidan smile. Even though he’d only known the man for a matter of hours—and most of those standing vigil over his comatose body—it made an impression.
Not here they stood together, in the actual aquarium.
The Normandy was gone.
‘Shore leave’ was mandatory. So were the psych evals.
Drinking wasn’t the best idea, right now.
Other friends had contacted him when he got back planet-side, but he’d mostly spent the time with Shepard. For a man he’d known for a matter of months, there was something about him that made him feel like they’d known each other for a long time.
“You’re one of those people that reads all the little plaques, huh?” Shepard said, walking up behind Kaidan, leaning in to keep his voice low. Kaidan laughed, cleared his throat.
“Depends. Guess I was just thinking.”
“Hm?” Shepard bumped their shoulders together, slipped his hands into his pockets.
“Thinking about how we’re finally here.” In their cups, on the Normandy, they had each secretly admitted how much they’d actually like to visit the Playa del Oro Aquarium sometime. “How we got here.”
There was something comforting about it—though Shepard had worried when they first arrived—being surrounded on all sides by water. After shooting out of the flaming husk of their ship in an escape pod, floating in space for hours before rescue ships arrived, the huge panels of deep blue felt soothing, full.
“Nobody wants to get out there and hunt down the Collectors more than I do,” Shepard’s voice was just a little louder. “But…”
“There’s no way in hell we’re going to be part of the investigation.”
“…I’m a Spectre. I could just go.”
It was something neither of them had mentioned the last few days. For whatever reason, the dim of the aquarium hall made it all easier. Kaidan thought very careful about how to respond.
“’Could’ and ‘Should’ might be two different things here, Shepard.”
“What do you mean?”
An iridescent jellyfish drifted past their view, a shimmer of light in the dark tank. Behind it, a black shape seemed to emerge from nowhere, long, fast, bolting forward from the ‘depths.’
The eel slithered past the glass, well out of the way of the jellyfish. Of course nothing kept in a tank would be hunting anything else in the tank. Things were safe in the aquarium.
“I wanna get back out there too,” Kaidan said in a hushed tone. “When I think about Valerie, about Sakai… it makes me crazy to think about the friends I lost. But… I lost friends. We all lost friends.”
“Takes more than a few psych evals and a visit to the aquarium to shake off, huh?”
“Those are great steps, don’t get me wrong. But. Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Shepard sighed. Then, after a moment: “Plus, I don’t have a ship.”
“’We’ don’t have a ship,” Kaidan turned on him with a determined grin. “Don’t think you’d be leaving me behind.”
“I, uh,” Shepard scratched the back of his head, took a few steps back to sit on the bench. Practically held his breath as a family strolled through behind them and Kaidan sat next to him. “I’ve been worried about you. Since the memorial. I don’t exactly no what to do to help, other than to distract you, but… I’m here if you want to talk.”
Kaidan couldn’t stop the laugh that came out of him, echoed off the glass panes. Maybe some things were just easier to say in the dark, with only the silhouettes of fish listening.
“I’ve been worried about you. Thought that trying to bring up what happened wouldn’t be good for you.”
Shepard smiled broadly, took his hand.
“I’m… I’m not okay. Losing my crew—so many of my crew—like that. It was awful.”
“Yeah, it was.” Kaidan swallowed. “I don’t know how I would’ve handled it if I had lost you, too, Shepard.” He said, softly, at last.
“Mm.” Shepard didn’t answer, but let his head drop to Kaidan’s shoulder.
They sat in the dark for a while, like that. The colorful shapes and the deep blue and the fullness and the quiet letting them just be two dark shapes alone together in the world.
the Good Animes ™(the ones i maybe cry during cough cough), really pretty mobile themes with headers that go really really well with the color schemes (i’m usually on mobile that’s why its mobile specifically), red/pink/white/maroon/etc color schemes, aand keyboard smashes :3
