Tavrien/Kaidan, first kiss :)
Sweet dear, here is a link to their first actual kiss, I can’t make myself write a different one because I love it. Also, I feel really awful about this, but my brain went to a terrible place. I understand completely if you want to throw rotten vegetables at me. Have the the angsty beast that is their first kiss post Shepard’s resurrection. Or the shit fest that is Horizon.
Tavrien Shepard x Kaidan Alenko - ME2 - Angsty Beast
For The Dream
She fought past swarms of Collectors, heart in her throat every time she found a human in stasis. The feeling magnified each time it wasn’t him. A breakneck pace that was not long sustainable, yet fear propelled her forward. Unable to let up until he was safe. When the ship flew off, Kaidan still nowhere to be found, Tavrien screamed at the sky. Gun empty of rounds, useless as she had never felt before.
His whiskey warm voice startled her, sure she was hallucinating, her brain finally snapped. She couldn’t help it when she ran to him, body reacting faster than her mind could think. She held him again. Fingers gripping tightly, armor clashing against armor, trying desperately to breathe in the scent of him. Kaidan was real, standing in front of her, and she fit in his arms just like she remembered.
But then he was speaking to her like he never had before. Throwing words like betrayal and manipulation in her face. Cold and rigid, nothing and everything about him familiar. He was bitter, angry, and lashing out at her. She clawed her way to him, and he refused to hear her. Her world began to spin, lump forming in her throat, as he made clear what he felt for her was over. He’d moved on, loved her. Past tense.
Smoke filled the air around them, blood soiled the ground so thick she could taste the metallic tang. Kaidan questioned her loyalty, her humanity, and Tavrien did nothing. Could not think of a single thing to sway his mind. She stared back at the man she loved with all her heart, and prayed he would see past his outrage.
When he denied her plea to join her, to see that she was fighting for the right cause despite being on the wrong team, she began to build up her walls. He went so far as to claim Cerberus was manipulating her, something she absolutely would not stand for. She argued back, all the fear and worry pent up since her revival unleashed.
He turned his back on her, an act of defiance she would never have thought to see from him. The sight stealing all that was left of her heart. She called to him, his name breaking on her lips. He stopped, half turn toward her, face full of unguarded emotion. She walked toward him, somewhere in her mind she realized this reunion was likely goodbye. Reaching for his hand, terrified he would pull away, Tavrien rose on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. The once routine gesture, lips brushing against his five-o’clock shadow, tickling her nose brought treasured memories. The only thing she had left of him now. Her eyes closed, hot tears sliding down her face.
“I’m sorry, Kaidan. I….,” touching her forehead to his, an expression of love from a different life, “Good luck.” She remembered the young marine he was at their first meeting. Trying to reconcile the dreamer, the romantic he was with the unyielding man in front of her. “I hope you go back to looking for the dream. If anyone deserves it…it’s you.”
It’s her turn to walk away now. Heart in her chest crumbling to dust, the sound of it’s shattering reverberating in her ears. The voices of her companions attempting to console her distant and unclear as if she was struggling to hear through water. She may have just lost the last piece of her former self, but the war on the Collectors would continue, and she would do it without him.
