Life Among the Ruins

Kaidan wakes up to the hazy gray sky of London filtering in through his window. It’s been a hazy gray for weeks now, the atmosphere still choked with soot and ash. He has a room, more or less, in the half-destroyed remnants of a University of London dorm building. Part of the hallway outside his door is missing, reduced to rubble. He can climb down to the rows of tanks that line the street without using the stairs or elevator, and at night, his door rattles in the wind.

His rank and his status as Spectre entitle him to one of the nicer places they have. Most of the troops are stuck constructing their own makeshift shelters like they’re starting up a colony on some newly discovered barren wasteland. Kaidan had never been to London before this, but he’d seen vids of it as a kid, towering skyscrapers dotted with ancient well-preserved buildings. Most of it is gone now. The tallest buildings have fallen. The London Bridge has been sliced in half. Big Ben is permanently stuck at 3:42.

But it can be rebuilt, Kaidan remembers. They’ve weathered things like this before. He’s read his history books. London has been pieced back together more than once. The Reapers are gone for good, and they have the time -- the whole galaxy has the time -- to recover, to celebrate its hard-earned peace.

The Alliance has been focusing its efforts on Earth, slowly recovering what it’s lost. Most of their ragtag fleet has dispersed, headed off to their home systems. The Citadel has been moved back to its rightful place in the Serpent Nebula. It’s just them, now. Humanity fending for itself once again. The Normandy’s crew excepted, of course. After the Reapers had been destroyed, they crashed in the Amazon due to the kickback on Normandy’s systems. It had been easier to be happy then, when they were surrounded by the untouched rain forest, celebrating their victory for a few days while they waited for the Alliance to send shuttles to pick them up. It was a chance to let loose, unleash all of that pent-up energy. Garrus even made some choice comments about human bodily reactions to alcohol. There’s more than one vomit stain still left behind on the bulkheads.

But now they’re back here.

As much as he’d enjoyed his time in the rain forest, Kaidan always knew it couldn’t last. Besides, it had been a relief to see Shepard amongst the London survivors, wounded but still alive, beautiful as always and with a few new scars to show for it. There’s something different about him, though. His time on the Crucible changed him, made him quieter somehow. He keeps to himself, hands shoved into his pockets, lost in thought, curling into himself. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that this is the same man Kaidan fell in love with, the larger-than-life Hero of the Citadel, defeater of the Geth, the Collectors, and the Reapers. They haven’t talked about what happened at all, but Kaidan wants to. He just doesn’t have the words.

Today, Kaidan’s using his biotics to help clear out some of the roads. Some of Jack’s students are backing him up. They’re young, and they’re eager, and that means more than experience in the end. It’s gruelling work, hard on the mind and the body, and by lunchtime, Kaidan’s ready to fall asleep and never get back up again. During their lunch break, he finds himself lying on his back and staring at the steel-gray sky. There are dark cumulonimbus clouds on the horizon, promising rain.

“Shepard’s looking for you,” Jack says. It’s cold enough that she’s actually wearing a coat. It hides her tattoos, gives her an air of respectability. Kaidan doesn’t know how he feels about that. She perches on the edge of a ruined wall, giving off a restless, caged energy. “I never thought Earth would look like this,” she continues. She looks out over the city, rubble and corpses and artifacts of another life. “We used to hear about it as kids. Not exactly what I imagined.”

“It’s not exactly looking its best right now,” Kaidan agrees. “Where did you last see him?”

She makes a vague hand gesture towards the main camp, where they’ve set up an operations center to coordinate their efforts. Kaidan stands up -- with some reluctance -- and goes to find Shepard.

For a while, everyone had wanted Shepard to be the leader of their rebuilding efforts. With Anderson dead, there was a power vacuum at the top of the ragtag group of resistance fighters. It seemed easier to trust in Commander Shepard, the way they always had. But after a few missed meetings, some terse, pointless arguments, it became clear that Shepard’s heart wasn’t in it, and Hackett handed things over to Coats instead.

Kaidan finds Shepard in the main part of the camp, a datapad in hand, frowning at the words. He’s sitting on the hood of a truck, hunched over. It makes him seem smaller than he is. There are dark rings that circle his eyes, new lines along the corners of his mouth.

“You were looking for me?” Kaidan asks. Before they were-- they meant something, but now he doesn’t know.

Shepard looks up, sits up straighter. “Yeah,” he says. “I was cataloging one of the streets, and I found a place…” He holds up a six pack, the plastic case slightly dented, the colors muted by the dust. “The owners -- they won’t need them anymore. We’ve already cleared out the bodies. I figured we could both use a break, and I cleared it with Coats. Jack mentioned that you were looking pretty beat.”

“Sure,” Kaidan says, even though he has no idea where this is going. He’s followed Shepard into enough messes over the years. Why would it be any different now?

The apartment Shepard found is almost entirely intact, frozen in time. It’s a two-bedroom, a small common area between them, a bathroom. Holo-projections on the wall. Dishes in the sink. Laundry dumped into a basket. The common area has a couch that was too old even before the Reaper invasion, the colors faded and stained, the cushions lumpy and smelling faintly of mold. It faces the top-of-the-line vidscreen hooked up to a set of the newest content-consoles. Kaidan finds places like this more depressing than the ones that have been completely decimated. He can almost feel the presence of the former owners here, haunting every nook and crany.

There are still blood stains on the kitchen tile. The husks must have gotten them before they could be evacuated to the countryside.

Shepard settles down on the couch and flips the vidscreen on. He pops open one of the beer bottles and hands it to Kaidan. Kaidan takes it and sits down next to him, unsure of what they’re doing. He does trust Shepard; on some level, he’s always trusted Shepard, even during the darkest of the Cerberus days.

“They didn’t let me have data access while I was under house arrest,” Shepard says. “I was really pissed I was going to miss this game.” His expression is blank, stoic as ever. His tone of voice is level and even.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kaidan says. He drinks some of his beer. It’s flat and slightly disgusting, but he hasn’t had any alcohol since they drank the Normandy dry. Joker swears that he has the connections to get them more, but he’s too busy on routine supply runs to follow through.

Kaidan has never followed football, but he’d played it enough as a kid that he can follow the action on screen. He watches the ball as it gets passed from player to player, as it travels up and down the field, but he’s barely paying any attention to it. If he squints his eyes just right, looks at this whole scene from another angle, it’s like he’s at a friend’s house, maybe even a boyfriend’s house, just having a lazy, quiet afternoon together.

It’s nice.

Shepard doesn’t say anything. He barely even reacts when one team scores a goal over the other. Maybe a twitch of his lips, a tilting back of his head to get the last drop of beer out of the bottle. By the time it ends, Kaidan can barely remember the score. They both stare at the empty vidscreen as the file ends, the sudden silence swallowing the room.

“Shepard--” Kaidan starts. He wants-- he wants to know what’s going on, what’s going through Shepard’s mind right now.

Shepard grabs a handful of Kaidan’s shirt and pulls him into a kiss. The movement is so sudden that it takes a moment for Kaidan to realize it even happened. Their mouths meet awkwardly, but Shepard keeps pressing forward, their teeth clicking together. Shepard seems desperate, hungry for something. Kaidan gets caught up in it. It’s been so long since he was last able to do this, able to wrap his arms around Shepard’s shoulders and feel the familiar planes of his back, able to run his fingers over the familiar peach fuzz of Shepard’s hair.

They strip off their clothes with rushed, clumsy movements. Shepard shoves Kaidan back so that Kaidan’s lying flat on the couch, legs spread, arms awkward at his side. Shepard kisses him again, bare skin against bare skin, and Kaidan has missed him so much. Shepard’s cock is hard against Kaidan’s hip. If Kaidan closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that they’re back on the Normandy, stealing some time before the next mission, lost in the vastness of space. He doesn’t have to worry about how many civilians are still in temporary housing, doesn’t have to think about the wall filled with pictures of dead loved ones that lives on the edge of the city, doesn’t have to think about how long it will be before the city will look like itself again. He can just live in the moment, let everything else fade away.

“Fuck,” Shepard says. “I need--” His hips jerk forward, frantic, but then he pulls back, eyes dark and impossible to read.

Kaidan isn’t sure what to ask or even if there is a question to be asked here. Shepard just slides down Kaidan’s body and sucks Kaidan’s cock into his mouth. Kaidan’s entire body goes tight for a moment. Shepard’s mouth is hot and wet and all too real, and Kaidan hasn’t had more company than his right hand lately. It’s a sloppy blowjob, too fast, a little uncontrolled, a hint of teeth. Shepard’s eyes are squeezed tight, and he’s breathing hard through his nose, and he’s squeezing Kaidan’s cock just this side of too-tight with his right hand.

Whatever else he is, Kaidan is a marine, and this isn’t the first rough, messy fuck he’s had. Shepard doesn’t usually do that. He’s always been gentle, almost overly so, like he thinks Kaidan might break if he pushes Kaidan too hard, and Kaidan has always returned the favor. This time, he digs his fingers into Shepard’s shoulders, leaving purple bruises on his skin, holding on.

Shepard sucks harder, flicks his tongue across the head of Kaidan’s cock, and lets out a soft, half-strangled moan. It’s filthy, dirty in a way Kaidan hadn’t ever associated with Shepard before. And then Shepard’s kissing him again, the taste of Kaidan’s pre-come still on his tongue, Kaidan’s wet cock sliding against hard planes of his stomach. “Come on,” Shepard murmurs against Kaidan’s lips. “Come on, come for me.” His voice is rough, scraped raw from the blow job, and Kaidan doesn’t refuse direct orders.

Kaidan comes so hard, he gets some semen on his chin. His body feels wrung out, the exhaustion from this morning finally catching up to him. Shepard wipes Kaidan’s face clean with his thumb and absentmindedly licks it in a way that really shouldn’t be as hot as it is. Kaidan presses a hand against his cheek. “Shepard,” he says.

Shepard kisses him again. His cock is soft -- he must have come while Kaidan was too out of it to notice. There’s a new stain on the couch. Kaidan feels guilty until he realizes that it’s not anyone’s couch anymore, and then he feels even guiltier. There’s an awkward silence as they put their clothes back on, all these unspoken things hanging between them. The couch sags underneath their weight.

“Do you think the choices we make mean anything in the end?” Shepard asks, finally, as he pulls his boots back on. His forehead is furrowed in thought, eyes focused on something that is very far away. The question feels faint, insubstantial, like Shepard isn’t sure he wants an answer.

Kaidan glances out the window. This street is still untouched except for how unsettlingly empty it is. A ghost street. The sky has gotten darker overhead. “How far out are we talking here?”

Shepard’s hands go still, still lost inside his own head. “Thousands of years from now, will anything we do today matter? I mean, really matter.”

Kaidan shrugs. “Well, the Reapers won’t be coming for us that time around. I think that counts for something.” He can tell the joke falls flat as soon as he says it. Shepard’s lips don’t even twitch the way they do when he’s trying not to laugh at one of the poor saps who are asking for his help all the time. “I don’t think we care about that,” Kaidan continues. “I think we need to focus on making things matter right here and right now. I think that’s all we can do.”

Shepard turns his head to the side, and it’s like something drains out of him, leaving behind all this exhaustion. It’s written across his face, in the slope of his shoulders, the curve of his back. He leans his head into Kaidan’s shoulder, tucks his face into Kaidan’s neck. “Fuck,” he says. “I told myself I wouldn’t let this…” His voice trails off, like he doesn’t want to finish the sentence.

“You’re allowed to be human, you know,” Kaidan says. He curls an arm around Shepard’s broad shoulders, just holding him because he can. “I missed you.” He presses a kiss against the buzzed cut of Shepard’s hair. “I missed you so much it hurt. I didn’t think I could lose you again, and then I did.” Something cold and hard clenches in Kaidan’s chest. They’ve come so far, made it through so much. He’s not sure the third time’s the charm.

“I’m right here,” Shepard says, and he’s warm and solid and real pressed against Kaidan’s side.

“I know,” Kaidan says. They’ll have to go back outside eventually, back to the world of destroyed cities, petty squabbles and difficult work. But for right now, they can sit in this empty, abandoned apartment and drink their flat beer and watch old games on the vidscreen, and they can pretend that everything is all right.

“Yeah,” Shepard says, and he closes his eyes.

Outside, it starts to rain.

FIN.