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For once, it wasn’t Shepard’s driving that was the problem.
When the carburetor started failing them, it was only a matter of time before the planet’s unfriendly temperature—just one of the hostiles they were dealing with—started to freeze the fuel.
‘You want me to get out and push?’ Shepard asked, one of those sideways jokes that reminded Kaidan of how Shepard acted behind the wheel. His sense of humor was always a blindside, maybe when Kaidan should’ve been expecting a head-on collision.
‘That’s my line, Commander,’ Kaidan replied. ‘…Waiting on orders.’
‘I’m not going to tell you to get out and push, Kaidan.’ Shepard fell silent for long enough to listen to the sounds the engine was making. ‘Guess we’d better radio back to the Normandy and see if Joker can tell us which wires to cut to give her the jump she needs.’
Ice storms on Noveria… That wasn’t the worst they’d run into the past few missions, not by a Tuchanka mile. Once you saw your first thresher maw, you quit complaining about a little thing like bad weather. And you forgot, being a soldier, that weather itself could be the enemy, too.
‘Lieutenant,’ Shepard said, ‘we have a problem.’
‘..mandy…do you…opy…’ The static over the radio sounded like the storm itself, a punctuation to the driving winds. They had to be whole gale, maybe over a hundred kilometers per hour. Sheets of ice pounded the Mako’s side and she was a tough hunk of junk—she had to be, to survive Shepard’s driving—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t rattled. ‘…mander…conditions for…storm…’
‘Sometimes I wonder if Joker’s up there messing around with protein wrappers and crinkling hot cups,’ Shepard said, messing with the frequency. ‘Seems like something he’d do, right?’
One of the Mako’s side hatches groaned. ‘Just how fast do you think those winds are?’ Kaidan asked.
‘Fast enough,’ Shepard replied.
He switched off the transmission frequency and set up his omni-tool for a local ground scan. Kaidan could hear him breathing over the sound of the scan’s intermittent beeping and he went for the temperature regulation settings, first on his suit, then in the vehicle itself. They were down by half so they’d last twice as long. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it could make the difference.
‘Found something,’ Shepard said. ‘Not too far. Abandoned facility. It isn’t our recon point, not by about twenty miles, but it might have some spare parts we could use to get this thing back in action. Garrus and Liara are gonna be pissed when they learn they’ve missed out on all the fun. …Garrus gets pretty cranky when it comes to the cold, though.’
‘Biotics run hot,’ Kaidan replied. That’d be something Shepard knew already—while something Shepard didn’t know was how Kaidan’s mouth twisted halfway and sideways when he said it, the expression hidden behind his visor.
Already the clouds of his breath were fogging his vision. He steadied his breathing and his pulse; there were no settings to adjust for that, just a state of mind. Just staying calm.
‘You think we can make it?’ Shepard asked, gunning the engine a few sputtering times in a row.
Kaidan braced himself for impact. Buffeted by the storm, Shepard compensating by spinning the wheel against it, they managed to travel half a mile in thirty minutes before the engine cut out and the lights inside the Mako dimmed to nothing.
‘I think I saw this exact scene in Blasto: Cerberus Strikes Back,’ Shepard said. His omni-tool flickered but the orange glow held steady. ‘Only about a quarter of a mile left. We’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.’
‘Aye aye, commander,’ Kaidan said.
Honestly, his stomach was grateful, even if the rest of him wasn’t.
The blast of sharp, burning cold hit them when they opened the front hatch. Shepard was out first, omni-tool a momentary beacon in the darkness. The noises it made were swallowed by the winds but he set it on vibrate and then they followed, hoping the defrosting systems on their armor could hold up for long enough that they didn’t freeze before they found the facility.
Abandoned facilities, Kaidan thought. It always had to be abandoned facilities, not four star space stations or resort hotels.
It was a close one. Even when Shepard was right in front of him, Kaidan still couldn’t see the faint orange omni-tool light sometimes, much less the reflection off Shepard’s suit blinking in and out against horizontal winds.
There’d been an exercise pretty close to this in brain camp. That’d been with simulated conditions, but still—Kaidan remembered a couple of the students getting hypothermia and one who didn’t come back at all.
‘Can you hear me, Kaidan?’ Shepard asked.
Short range communication—at least—was working. Not great, but Shepard’s voice cut through the static and the snow that looked like static, and it was brighter than the light they were supposed to be following.
‘Loud and clear, Commander. I copy,’ Kaidan said.
‘You know, I’m starting to think maybe Garrus has the right idea about the cold.’
Kaidan focused on the sound of Shepard’s voice. ‘Don’t let Vakarian hear you say that, Commander. You might just encourage him a little too much.’
They hit the facility’s wall seventeen seconds later by Kaidan’s count. His hand fell against Shepard’s shoulder, a back-plate that was reassuringly solid, while Shepard groped along the side-paneling until they found an entrance.
‘Locked.’ Static popped again through the close-range commlink. ‘Encrypted. How much more time do you figure we have on these suits before we become permanent fixtures?’
‘Permission to begin decoding,’ Kaidan said.
‘Permission granted.’ Shepard guided Kaidan forward by the hips until he found the alarm system and hooked his omni-tool in to the network. Behind him, Shepard put up a kinetic barrier that at least held against the wind. Kaidan’s fingers were starting to go numb inside his gloves, the last few tingles that meant he could still feel them even if feeling them was unpleasant, and Shepard braced a palm on either side of Kaidan’s waist, armor on armor.
The cryptograms scanned in rapid time, lights bleeding together until Kaidan found the matches. Three seconds before the codes changed over and set-up a preventative second lockdown, he cracked the first set, and the door in front of them slid open with a hiss.
They got inside. Shepard got the door shut again before the entire storm came in with them.
No more wind. Kaidan’s fingers were still tingling, which meant he still had them. He chafed his gloves together in the total darkness, ears adjusting to the silence, still ringing from the sleeting ice that’d been crashing against his helmet.
‘Might be able to set up a radio out,’ Shepard said. ‘See if there’s a working air circulation system in the place, and a satellite. First we’ve got to do a sweep.’
Kaidan took point and Shepard followed. The facility was small, probably nothing more than a storage unit for one of the larger facilities in the area, only a top level and a sub-level, both full of empty crates. Nothing came jumping out from behind them or shambling and shrieking around a corner—so considering their luck, this was actually a good day.
When getting stranded on Noveria with a dead all-terrain vehicle out front and no supplies, no estimate on when the storm would end and they could get picked up, constituted a ‘good day,’ then you knew you were serving under Commander Shepard.
‘All clear,’ Shepard said.
‘All clear,’ Kaidan confirmed. ‘Looks like we’re alone in this place.’
‘It’s a good thing we’re not dressed for a welcome party.’ Shepard removed his helmet, wincing at the cold. His lips were cracked and rimmed in blue, his eyes bright. Kaidan took his off, too, tucking it under his arm, cold sweat at his temples and pricking the back of his neck. ‘You take the generator. I’ll see about getting through to the Normandy.’
The generator itself had to be at least thirty or forty years old; Kaidan hadn’t ever practiced on a model that ancient. It was close to the first generator he’d ever jumpstarted on Jump Zero in terms of wiring, time winding down, the sweat in his eyes making his vision blur. Kaidan set his helmet aside and got under the battery, checking to see if there was even any juice left.
Across the room, over by the transmission terminals, Shepard had managed to make one of the wavelengths scream like metal being torn apart. If Kaidan didn’t have a headache after this mission, then maybe the latest painkillers he was taking worked after all.
Kaidan blinked and tried to give the battery a boost with a charge from his omni-tool. There was peace down there, a heavy, suffocating sort of peace, but it gave his fingers something to do to warm them up again and gave his mind something to focus on that wasn’t the cold, keeping him awake.
A few wavelengths later and the battery hummed to life. Kaidan tested it to see how much time there was left.
‘Seven hours,’ he said.
‘Ten hours until the storm clears,’ Shepard replied. ‘Another two before Garrus and Liara can get to us with jumpers for the Mako.’
It didn’t add up.
A good soldier didn’t point out the obvious.
‘Think we can put the generator on reserves to make it last?’ Shepard asked.
‘We could give it a shot,’ Kaidan said. ‘It’d take two, though.’
‘On it.’ Shepard cased the generator room, circling the mainframe battery partly to see its make and model and partly to keep his blood warm. ‘Damn. I think this thing might just be older than Udina.’
Despite himself, Kaidan chuckled. His fingers were losing feeling again and he flexed and clenched them into fists, joints stiff. ‘And about as difficult to figure out, too.’
‘Figures. But I think we can take him. And if we can handle Udina, we can handle an old generator—right, Kaidan?’
‘Right,’ Kaidan agreed.
*
An hour and a half later, it was still chugging away. At least they hadn’t broken it. It was still a good day as far as the Normandy crew was concerned, and they’d even managed to make contact with Garrus and Liara on the beta team.
‘…ate…cold systems…’ Garrus had said. Somehow, Shepard knew exactly what he was getting at. ‘…on’t…until further…Vakarian out.’
‘You understood all that?’ Kaidan shook his head in the usual amazement. ‘I guess that’s why, of the two of us, you’re the commander, Shepard.’
‘Because I know what one turian’s thinking?’ Shepard asked. ‘I don’t know if that skill’s as important as you seem to think it is, Kaidan.’
‘It’s the instincts,’ Kaidan replied. ‘No matter how hard you train… You just can’t learn those instincts.’
Shepard headed over to one of the crates and sat, stretching out his legs. One of his knees popped, muted by the armor cap around the joint. ‘Your instincts weren’t too bad earlier, you know. You did a good job out there, Kaidan. If Alliance vehicles were as trustworthy as you are, we wouldn’t be caught in this mess to begin with.’
Kaidan blinked, long and slow. He was feeling tired, but he knew he had to stay awake. Sleep was the real killer, the cold slowing a body’s mechanisms down until they stopped. He fished a protein bar out of where he kept a few extra for missions that ran long.
‘Hungry?’ he asked.
‘You go ahead,’ Shepard said. ‘You need the calories. Must’ve burned up plenty when we were taking on those Cerberus agents.’
Kaidan had—and he was lucky for the armor covering up the noises his stomach was making now, too.
The protein had almost frozen solid. Kaidan was gonna break a tooth trying to chew it enough to swallow, but with his head going fuzzy, he didn’t have much of a choice. When he got it down, it settled in his stomach like a hunk of indigestible ice. Like solid eezo. Damn, it tasted bad.
‘That good, huh?’ Shepard asked.
‘Tastes like chicken—if you close your eyes,’ Kaidan replied.
They settled in. It was gonna be a long night and an even longer morning. They might’ve played solitaire on their omni-tools if they didn’t have to conserve energy, sitting shoulder to shoulder and propped up by the nearest crate. Shepard rested his elbow against one bent knee, his other leg straightened out, and Kaidan returned the protein wrapper to the storage pocket he kept the others in until he had the chance to toss it in the proper garbage disposal unit.
‘Wish we had a pack of cards,’ Shepard said.
‘I don’t know, Shepard.’ Kaidan could taste the flavors on the back of his teeth. At least it was better than the cooking on the Normandy and his stomach had quit sounding like a thresher maw for the time being. ‘I’ve seen you when you’re playing one-on-one. You’re pretty good.’
‘Don’t go spreading it around,’ Shepard said. ‘You’ll ruin my reputation.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me, Commander.’ Kaidan thought about saluting—the split-second indecision he could afford even with a superior on his squad during off hours, but that didn’t mean he liked it any. Hesitation in front of the guy he wanted to impress…
Anyway, saluting at a time like this would only be a waste of valuable energies.
‘Thanks for having my back, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.
‘Any time, Shepard,’ Kaidan replied.
‘We could always talk sports,’ Shepard added. ‘You been following any of those relay races lately?’
‘I, uh…’ Kaidan could feel those proteins, lumpy and sharp, taking up valuable energy by needing processing. ‘…I’ve always been more of a hockey guy,’ he admitted finally. ‘Earth sports. Vancouver thing. Not too much time lately to keep up with the home team, anyway.’
‘Well, if they made chasing after enemies of the Alliance around the galaxy a team sport…’ Shepard shook his head. His lips were still rimmed with blue, his skin white under a few old scars and day-old stubble. His mouth was soft, twisting in a wry but unfamiliar grin. Tight and crooked, it didn’t last. ‘We’d better hope we’re coming in first. And if we’re not, I wouldn’t want to be the team that did.’
‘Oh, we’d take home the gold, Shepard,’ Kaidan said. ‘You’ve seen how competitive Wrex gets, anyway. No contest.’
Shepard chuckled. His breath clouded on the air, a puff of white condensation that curled away. Kaidan huffed a breath of his own and it did the same, and Shepard shifted closer.
‘They ever teach you about sub-zero situations in training, Kaidan?’ he asked.
‘As much as they needed to.’ There was the other stuff, Kaidan thought. Some things he’d hinted to talking to Shepard before, because despite him being a commanding officer, he was easy to talk to. Kaidan thought of them as friendly, absolutely. It was nice to have that, at the end of a rough mission, some way to process his thoughts. ‘Had a drill like this one…back in brain camp, actually.’
‘No kidding.’ Shepard leaned back. He didn’t watch his breath show up and disappear but focused on the generator room, where the low hum of the battery was still thrumming. Damn, but it was gonna get even colder soon.
‘No kidding,’ Kaidan confirmed. ‘It was… It wasn’t our favorite training course, that’s for sure. The only chance you had back then was pooling resources and supplies with somebody else you could trust not to grab your stuff while you were on sleep shift. Teaming up, sharing body heat—all the stuff that’s in the Alliance manual, although nobody got hypothermia when we ran it through in Alliance base.’
‘Yeah.’ Shepard’s voice hardened. Cold as ice, Kaidan figured, or maybe it was just a trick of the temperature in the room. ‘Spent a few cold nights myself, before winding up in my first sub-zero simulation room.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
Shepard didn’t offer much beyond that and Kaidan settled for silence, even though that gave one of them the high ground and the other one less information than when they started. Shepard might’ve been easy to talk to, but that led to other questions: like if Kaidan was talking too much. If he was saying the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong ways, or getting ahead of himself.
All a guy had to do was keep quiet and he could seem like your best friend—if only because he wasn’t interrupting you.
And in the end, it was just an illusion, breath that looked like smoke on the cold air, but didn’t have any fire behind it.
Yeah. That was messed up.
‘Think you have enough proteins to make it until pick-up, Kaidan?’ Shepard asked.
‘With a few to spare,’ Kaidan replied. ‘…You know. If you get hungry.’
The battery in the generator room rattled. Outside, the wind kept howling. Kaidan focused on the exercises that’d keep his blood pumping, small but necessary, flexing his fingers to the rhythm of his pulse.
*
At oh three hundred local time, the generator powered down. Kaidan twitched, realizing a split second after that he’d started to drift off.
‘Stay with me, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.
‘Yes sir,’ Kaidan replied.
A better line would’ve been I’d never leave my CO before the mission was over, but all of Kaidan’s energies were going to warming himself up from within; he had his own generator, kind of, and it kept the blood pumping hot, especially when he unwrapped and ate a second protein.
Every engine needed fuel.
‘You sure you’re not hungry?’ Kaidan asked.
‘Rock solid protein ice doesn’t agree with my stomach,’ Shepard said.
They even managed a chuckle in the relative darkness. It eased up the tension in Kaidan’s shoulders, anyway, while Shepard rolled his out. A quick scan from Shepard’s omni-tool revealed they were still the only life forms as far as the omni-tool’s limited scope could tell, and that was as much of a curse as it was a blessing.
In the orange glow of his omni-tool, head bent over the holo-screen, Kaidan saw that Shepard’s lips were blue. His teeth weren’t chattering, but he was Shepard; of course they weren’t gonna chatter. He had better self control than that. Better self control than anybody Kaidan knew.
‘Seven hours,’ Shepard added. The omni-tool glow powered down to conserve energy, energy they needed, but Kaidan could still picture Shepard’s mouth—moments when his lips looked unexpectedly soft—white as the snow that was falling outside.
‘Better check suit temperatures,’ Kaidan said. Even if his fingers were cold, he didn’t feel it numbing the center of his chest yet, and the pit of his stomach was warm, although it also had solid hunks of protein sitting in it, heavy and undigested. ‘Hey, only…six more hours to go.’
‘It’ll go by like that,’ Shepard agreed.
But it only took half an hour to experience the steepest temperature drop they’d faced, and Kaidan was starting to feel like one touch and he’d shatter.
‘You said you had a training exercise like this on Jump Zero?’ Shepard’s voice had a hard edge to it that managed, Kaidan realized, to sound strained, maybe even vulnerable. He remembered Shepard’s soft lips, the blue tinge of his skin, and wondered just how cold he was really feeling. How much it got to him and how hard he worked on constant maintenance, never allowing his generator to power down.
‘Sometimes, yeah,’ Kaidan said.
‘You remember what you did to get through it?’
‘Who said I got through it?’ Kaidan aimed for a chuckle but it came out like a wheeze, an icicle sheering off and smashed on the hard tiles. ‘…That was joke, in case you… Yeah. Might not’ve been…’ Wasting air was about as dangerous as wasting body heat. Kaidan moved on. ‘…There were a few methods, actually. Depending on the environment we were working with. Desert at night was the most popular, come to think of it, but there were a few times we had to deal with a snowed-in scenario.’
Kaidan knew Shepard was shaking his head in the shadows. He just knew. He knew Shepard’s jaw was hard, the lines around his mouth deeper than they should’ve been for a guy his age, and his eyes dark, stormy, instead of clear blue reflecting the bright stars. What happened in brain camp didn’t sit well with Kaidan, either, like something he’d never be able to digest, but right then he was almost too numb to remember it with the same clarity. It was something that’d happened, something that could happen again, but not if he could help it. Not if guys like Shepard could help it.
And they could.
‘Sorry, uh… Sorry,’ Kaidan said. ‘Got lost in thought for a second there.’
‘Stay with me, Kaidan,’ Shepard replied.
Kaidan moved closer. He was with him and they needed to stay with each other.
‘Partnering up.’ Kaidan licked his lips, then regretted it when it made his mouth even colder. ‘That’s how we did it. Six weeks running, Rahna got top score in our age group. And… Yeah, so did I.’
‘Any insights, lieutenant?’ Shepard asked.
‘We didn’t have as much armor.’ Kaidan remembered how vulnerable he’d been—realizing he was no less vulnerable now. ‘Two biotics are hotter than one.’
‘Sounds like a tagline for one of Joker’s extranet vids,’ Shepard said.
Kaidan chuckled again, less like brittle ice. ‘It wasn’t like that. I mean, not that I didn’t… It wasn’t like that.’
His cheeks were warm. They stung, bringing life back to cold flesh, but the blushing helped. It elevated his heart rate, which had been starting to slow.
‘So.’ No way to tell if Shepard was blushing too, or what that’d look like in the hollows of his sharp cheekbones. Perfect cheekbones, even; it wasn’t the first time Kaidan had thought something like that and it wasn’t the first time he’d shoved the thought down and, mostly, away. ‘…Shared body heat. Is that the tactic?’
‘I guess it is.’ Kaidan didn’t know if the sound he made when he swallowed was as loud as it felt, but even if it was half as loud, there was no way Shepard couldn’t hear it. ‘It, uh… It worked pretty well at the time.’
They’d been too tired, too cold, too afraid but also too determined to do anything but hold onto each other. They hadn’t even slept. They’d stayed in their skivvies but they held each other, tight, all the way until morning, in a cave with simulation winds howling outside. They both got frostbite, and chilblains, when being ice cold could burn the skin just as much as an open flame or incendiary rounds, but they pressed their chests together and breathed warm heat in patches against each other’s skin, chapped lips resting over a reassuring pulse.
They stayed with each other, and that… It meant something.
Stay with me, Kaidan.
Kaidan blinked, hard. When had his eyelids started drooping? Biotics ran hot, he reminded himself. They were gonna get through this. They’d seen way worse and that was just in the past week.
Stubbornness was the first sign you were getting to be a little too good at all this.
‘Take off your armor, soldier,’ Shepard said. ‘…That’s an order.’
‘Aye aye, commander,’ Kaidan replied.
…Definitely not how he’d pictured this going down. Not that he’d pictured it at all—not that he’d let himself picture it—but it’d been there, locked up with so much encryption that nobody’d be able to hack into the system. That didn’t mean it wasn’t around, that he didn’t feel it, the lance of dark, throbbing heat in the center of his gut when Shepard said—rusty, hoarse, but still in control of the situation—take off your armor.
It was the soldier part that kept it official. Kaidan’s fingers were almost too stiff to get his chestplate off, while he heard Shepard grunt under his breath and crack his knuckles, already doing the same. Regulation order; they undressed piece by piece the way they’d kitted down countless times in training, in the Normandy shuttle bay, for all the commissions they’d served through to the end. But the relief Kaidan usually felt in pulling off the polished chrome and heat-tech Kevlar, knowing he’d made it back from one more, that he was in Alliance blues again, was missing.
The sound of Shepard setting his armor down section by section, without stopping to do the routine breach check like they would’ve anywhere else, replaced any relief he might’ve felt. Kaidan swallowed, already colder.
He’d been so much younger the last time he needed to ask himself if he’d just made a tactical mistake.
‘Generator might still be hot,’ he said. ‘…Worth a shot, anyway.’
‘Good thinking, lieutenant,’ Shepard replied. He led the way. In the dull lighting from the emergency strips surrounding the battery, Kaidan could see him in his skivvies, boxers and a t-shirt, both of them dressed down to almost nothing at all.
Their joints creaked as they settled in, backs to the wall. They had a decent view of the entrance in case they had any unexpected visitors; as long as they didn’t get backed into any corners, they’d have the advantage, which was usually not giving the enemy the element of surprise.
‘So,’ Shepard said, ‘how’d you do it?’
Their thighs brushed together, bare skin on bare skin, and Kaidan thought warm thoughts, setting his weapons and his extra proteins down beside him. Shepard was cold, really cold, their breath fogging the air as Kaidan moved over him, on top of him, chafing his arms.
Shepard sighed. Kaidan could see it as clearly as he felt it. Then, Shepard got his hands up to the small of Kaidan’s back and began to rub with both palms and splayed fingers, something to keep his hands busy.
Kaidan worked his way from chafing Shepard’s biceps to his shoulders to his chest and didn’t think about how his nipples were hard beneath the thermal cotton of his t-shirt. When the temperature dropped too low they could bust out their emergency hot-packs but until they had to, they had each other.
Shepard’s fingers started to warm up against Kaidan’s body. And, encouraged by Shepard’s fingers, Kaidan’s body started to warm up, too. The insides of his thighs, the heels of his hands, the center of his belly spreading outward through the veins. They pulsed first, then started to burn, while Kaidan used that trick brain camp had taught him, one of the best tricks there were, about turning liabilities into assets. About burning the fuse at both ends. Sure, it’d use up energy faster, but at almost eight and a half hours in, he had to.
Shepard picked up the pace. He was actually rolling his knuckles over Kaidan’s back now and his fingertips weren’t ice-cold anymore.
‘Feels like some kind of symbiotic relationship thing,’ Kaidan said, hoarse voice cracking, wishing he hadn’t said that—but it was too late now. Too late for a lot of things, too early for some others. ‘Like…the hanar and the drell, I mean.’
‘You warm me up, I warm you,’ Shepard agreed.
His voice wasn’t as hoarse as Kaidan’s but it had a ragged edge under the words, a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth followed by a slower release.
‘…Stay with me, commander,’ Kaidan said.
Underneath Kaidan’s thighs, Shepard shifted. Kaidan thought he could feel… But he pushed it down, away, kicking it out into the cold and keeping its heat for himself. He palmed Shepard’s shoulders and the back of his neck until there was even some sweat, and Shepard never shook, but his muscles were hard like he had to brace them to hold his position. When his hands slipped lower than the small of Kaidan’s back, his breath tore in his throat and he cleared it out after, moving higher instead.
‘Hey, I guess… C’mere,’ Kaidan said, fumbling with the request because it sounded like an order, and because Shepard was his superior, his CO, a commander to his lieutenant, but Shepard was open to other ideas and what his teammates had to offer. Not just under him. Over him too, apparently.
Shepard shifted closer and Kaidan wrapped his arms around Shepard’s shoulders, the prickle of his buzz-cut tickling Kaidan’s thumb. That trapped more heat between their chests. Shepard’s cold lips warmed over Kaidan’s pulse—testing it, making sure it was still there, a check-point that went above and beyond protocol.
Kaidan’s eyes stayed open, unblinking, until they started to burn.
All he saw was the wall behind them. They were wearing their thin body suits for insulation but it was as tight as skin, only one unobtrusive layer between them and the cold—but also them and each other.
‘This was how you did it on Jump Zero, huh?’
‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Kaidan replied. ‘It wasn’t pretty.’
Kaidan was hard, himself, trapped against Shepard’s stomach; it was physical proximity, he told himself, and the reaction of his body to the cold and heat battling for prominence, the way he had to keep his heart rate elevated so his blood pressure wouldn’t drop. There were plenty of reasons for why and only a few of them had to do with the sweat at Shepard’s jaw, the stubble tickling Kaidan’s throat and shoulder, the tensing slide of his thighs under Kaidan’s, where Kaidan was kneeling over them. It wasn’t the swell of Shepard’s belly when he breathed, the shape he had under his armor, the bunching of muscles in his biceps or the way they were regulating their pulses together, chest on chest.
‘You think I’m pretty, Kaidan?’ Shepard chuckle. It sent a gust of heat over Kaidan’s throat, enough to make him shiver.
Weird, he thought—how they reacted to the cold the same way they did to being too warm. It was like the body had no idea what it wanted. Kaidan just had to keep feeding it so it’d keep running for him, running from a thing as often as it ran to them.
‘You’re not so bad,’ Kaidan admitted.
'You’re not so bad, yourself,’ Shepard replied. ‘…Might not be the time to talk about it, though.’
Kaidan closed his eyes. It wasn’t like he could pretend they were in any other circumstances but the one they really were in; the hard, ice-cold tiles under Kaidan’s knees alone were enough to remind him, every painful second, exactly where he was and what he was doing. Why he was doing it, though…
There were a couple of reasons.
‘Physical proximity,’ Shepard added. ‘It’s a natural reaction. These things happen, lieutenant.’
Relief and disappointment had the same effect on Kaidan’s gut, too. And those two things were as different as night and day, krogan and salarian. Hot and cold.
Which, Kaidan figured, Shepard was constantly blowing.
‘Do they happen that often, though?’ Kaidan asked.
Shepard chuckled again. Kaidan could still feel every inch of it, just like he was feeling every inch of Shepard.
He stuck to the facts. What he knew about himself to keep himself in line.
Kaidan Alenko.
2151: Born with biotic potential.
2167: Among the first to receive biotic implants.
‘Credit for your thoughts, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.
‘Just trying to stay with you, commander,’ Kaidan replied.
The slide of Shepard’s dick under two thin layers of standard issue sub-armor wear bumped Kaidan’s and they both cleared their throats at the same time. ‘Always could keep a level head in a…tight situation,’ Shepard agreed. ‘After this, you know… You oughta get a commendation.’
There was heat in Shepard’s voice and something else Kaidan couldn’t name. It was earnest, at least, and colored with what might’ve been a blush, and Kaidan canted his hips forward, dick trapped against the jumping muscles of Shepard’s stomach, Shepard’s sliding along the inside of his thigh.
Shepard’s breath hissed in instead of pooling out onto Kaidan’s skin. He must’ve know how Kaidan’s pulse kept losing time, skidding out of rhythm like the Mako hitting a patch of ice. At least Kaidan hadn’t bottomed out—not yet, anyway.
‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘Yeah…’ Then, he came back to himself, even if it was briefly. Stay with me, Shepard. ‘Biotics do run hot. Looks like you’re no exception to the rule.’
2169: Kills Commander Vyrnnus. BaAT shuts down.
2173: Enlists in the Alliance Navy.
‘What’re you thinking about, Shepard?’ Kaidan asked.
‘I’m, uh…’ Shepard cleared his throat again and his mouth widened over the stretch of skin he was keeping warmed up with his lips. ‘…trying not to think about anything right now, Kaidan.’
‘In brain camp…’ Kaidan had to stop to let pleasure bolt from the base of his spine into the center of his belly when Shepard kneaded the small of his back, pushing him closer, heat-tech fabric drawn taught over the head of Kaidan’s dick, friction from muscle and synthetic fibers tugging at the sticky slit. ‘…we, uh, we… It wasn’t counting elcor, but I always ran through drills. Instruction manuals. Killed two batarians with one shot that way. Got my studying in and I didn’t let the simulation drill get the better of me.’
His breath was coming choppy now, like he’d been jogging across the Tuchanka desert, under the Tuchanka sun. He couldn’t think of anywhere that was hotter except for here: snug against Shepard’s body, hard on his abs, putting to practice the most basic principles of chemistry, and hoping the whole thing wouldn’t go up like a frag grenade with the pin pulled out. Kaidan definitely felt like he had a detonation counter somewhere and the time was ticking down.
‘Shepard…’ he began.
His own voice sounded like sex. Blown-out sex. Full-on, no holding back, no holds barred, this-is-all-wrong-but-it-feels-so-good sex.
It’d been a while.
Shepard’s chest was firm beneath Kaidan’s palms. And, admittedly, his nipples were obviously cold, even if warming them up by rolling them under his thumbs shouldn’t have been Kaidan’s top priority.
2183: Assigned to the Normandy.
‘Yeah, Kaidan,’ Shepard replied. It didn’t seem like a question. It felt like an answer.
When Alliance TOs told them to use all available resources, something told Kaidan they hadn’t had a scenario like this in mind. But, truth be told, it was still a good day for the Normandy crew, or at least this sub-section of it. Kaidan’s hands weren’t cold anymore, his fingers tingling as blood rushed to his extremities, and there were protein bars to keep him from crashing after he’d burned off their extra calories. Literally.
‘Permission to—’ Kaidan’s voice snagged on something, half laughter, half groan.
‘Kaidan,’ Shepard repeated.
Not lieutenant; not soldier. The difference was obvious and Kaidan rolled his hips, his balls and the base of his dick, down into Shepard’s while Shepard rolled the length of his dick into the crook of Kaidan’s spread thigh.
‘Warm yet?’ Kaidan asked.
‘Not as hot as you are,’ Shepard said.
Even that was good to hear, a knotted secret in Kaidan’s gut, where flare after flare was being set off. And Shepard was answering the call, his chest rising and falling like static, only the rest was loud and clear, echoing through the generator room.
2183: Kept warm with Commander Shepard on Noveria.
Kaidan came. He wondered where that was in Alliance protocol data files, if there was a standard acting order for who should come first, then winced at himself. He was really something. Shepard had just enough time to register concern in his touch before Kaidan got a hand between his legs and rolled his balls along his palm—to get him off, too, that final push for the body heat they’d generated.
Like live wires or—or leaking batteries. Kaidan listened to the sounds Shepard made while he came and, although he wasn’t proud of it, he didn’t kiss them off Shepard’s lips.
They were both still trying to catch their breath, anyway.
They were gonna be trying for a long, long time.
‘Gonna…’ Kaidan coughed. He didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d said anything but his voice echoed off the walls, too loud for his tastes. Blowing off steam like this… It was the only way he’d maybe avoid getting a headache once they were off Noveria. ‘Gonna refuel,’ he finished finally. He groped around on the icy tiles next to them while Shepard did the same, and their fingers closed over the same protein at the same time. ‘I got it, Shepard.’
Shepard let go; Kaidan drew the wrapper to his mouth and tore it open, every movement rocking him gently in Shepard’s lap.
‘You hungry?’ he asked.
‘Might’ve worked up a bit of an appetite,’ Shepard admitted.
Kaidan took the first bite. Shepard held his hand steady and took the second and they both tried their best to chew.
‘Think I just broke my jaw,’ Shepard said, mouth still full. Kaidan heard him gulp and felt him wince. ‘Doesn’t taste like chicken, either.’
‘Did you close your eyes?’ Kaidan asked.
Things were gonna be okay. Well, if they didn’t freeze first, they would be.
*
Kaidan’s fingers smelled like proteins. They’d switched off the final few hours on which one of them was holding the other, shifts designed to keep them awake and distribute body heat evenly. For the past forty-seven minutes, Kaidan had been holding Shepard against his chest, cheek pressed against his scalp, stomach rumbling distantly.
They didn’t exactly have a pillow, so it wasn’t like they could strike up some pillow talk.
Forty eight minutes and thirty seven seconds into his big-spoon shift, Kaidan thought he heard something like static—something that wasn’t the rasping of Shepard’s groans while Kaidan was on top of him.
Not for the first time, Kaidan’s skin heated up with a flush. Shepard shifted, an empty protein wrapper crinkled, and Kaidan went for his weapon first, Shepard rolling out of his arms.
Cold air hit Kaidan’s chest with an impact like being thrown by a singularity straight into a kinetic barrier. Rubbing the ache with stiff fingers, he made it to the communications terminal in the main room.
‘—you copy?’ the speakers asked him.
‘Well it’s about damn time, Joker,’ Shepard said. He was just as stiff as Kaidan felt, but he was moving, leaning over Kaidan at the terminal—an arm around Kaidan’s waist, still sharing what heat there was left.
‘And here I was, afraid I might be talking to two ice cubes.’ Joker’s voice was cutting in and out, but not so badly that Kaidan could imagine the storm outside being bad as it was when they last made contact. If that even counted as contact. With the real contact he was feeling, Shepard’s hips against his ass, the fronts of Shepard’s thighs and knees bumping the backs of Kaidan’s, the comparison didn’t exactly hold water. ‘Good to hear from you, Commander. Garrus just contacted us from the Mako. He’s jump-starting the cables and he should be with you in… T minus fifteen minutes.’
‘Copy that,’ Shepard said.
‘Even told him he should bring warm blankets and hot cups full of cocoa for you, commander,’ Joker said.
‘…That doesn’t sound half bad,’ Kaidan admitted, once Shepard switched off the commlink. He started to turn, but Shepard didn’t pull away, lips resting over Kaidan’s shoulder blade, his forehead brushing Kaidan’s amp jack.
Kaidan shivered. With anybody else, the reflex might’ve been more severe.
‘Time to suit up,’ Shepard said.
It always was.
‘Yeah.’ Kaidan swallowed. That protein wasn’t giving him a break for a second. ‘I mean… Aye aye, commander.’
But when he pulled away, he found himself picking up Shepard’s chest-piece first. Shepard was chafing his hands together, palm cupped around palm, puffing hot air against them, and Kaidan settled the ceramic on his shoulders, heavier than Kaidan’s suit. Shepard carried it all and never seemed to run out of breath—breath that was curling, visible, through the frigid air between them. Eventually, after what was probably less time than it felt like, it faded away, only to be replaced again. Shepard’s chest rose and fell. Kaidan locked the pieces of his armor in place, over muscle he knew better than he should have.
‘Now that’s cold,’ Shepard said.
‘Yeah,’ Kaidan replied. Shepard cracked his knuckles inside his gloves and helped Kaidan kit up in return. Four half-flexible hands were better than two. Between them, they had almost one working set, bumping into each other and, maybe, looking for excuses to touch while they still could.
There was no way of knowing for sure.
The final seal hissed shut. Garrus Vakarian was about to ride up in the Mako to save the day and Kaidan couldn’t picture him with hot chocolate in his three-fingered turian hands; the image nearly had him chuckling, puff after puff of condensation on the front of his visor, fogging the view. After a few stalled seconds, the defrosting kicked in and Kaidan could see again.
Liara might have blankets, he thought. And Shepard was already heading for the exit, ready to watch Garrus make his entrance.
*
It took longer to warm up again than it would have if Kaidan was younger.
Now there was a depressing thought.
Thermal blankets first, hot vitamin drinks to jump-start his metabolism, and after an hour or so wearing three pairs of socks from home—a good thing nobody else on the Normandy knew about those, ones Mom had knit him herself when she was going through a free extranet lesson series while Dad was stationed off-world—he could finally feel his toes again.
He only thought he could see his breath on the air in front of him. It was nothing, just an illusion—kind of like the hours he’d spent riding Shepard’s hips, giving as much warmth as he took.
His dick almost twitched at the thought and he shook it off. They’d done what they had to. Sometimes—and soldiers knew this better than anybody—you went too far, but reeling it back in again was an important part of the process. They could show restraint when they could afford it. A little extra for good measure and nobody had to know about it, or remember it outside of dreams, the memories that ran wet and hot over Kaidan’s skin in the shower.
A nice, hot shower—now that was what he needed. To wash Noveria off him, to remind his skin what it was like to be hot all over. He grabbed something to change into and two towels, one for his hair and one for everything else, and he was halfway there when he was blindsided by Shepard. Probably because he never saw those head-on collisions coming.
‘Looks like we had the same idea,’ Shepard said, fatigues slung over one arm, a towel over the other. Just one towel; Shepard was a minimalist like that. The perfect soldier. Hard when he needed to be, but his lips knew how to be soft.
Kaidan knew he was regulating his breathing patterns, like some kind of connection remained long after they’d moved away from each other. Like they’d established an orbit and couldn’t build up enough speed to break free of each other’s gravity.
Or they didn’t want to. Kaidan couldn’t read Shepard’s big, blank face.
‘Alliance minds usually think alike.’ He paused. ‘…Not you, though, Shepard. You’re always one step ahead somehow.’
‘Guess that means I’m going in first,’ Shepard replied. ‘…Wouldn’t want to leave you out in the cold, either.’
‘That an invitation, Shepard?’ Kaidan asked.
‘Must be,’ Shepard said, ‘since it’s not an order.’
He headed into the showers—the kind of CO who used the same facilities as the rest of his crew; Kaidan had always admired that about him—and Kaidan felt a burst of new heat shed its armor inside his gut, a fever that was more than biotics run hot.
END