#notkaidanalenko

“We should probably make camp here,” Kaidan’s voice cut through the piercing win, obtaining the glances of the three companions with him, including my own.

With a smile, and a nervous tug of my hood, I agreed. “Yes, you’re right.” He usually was when it came to outdoor stuff. In all honestly, I trusted his instincts more than my own when it came to this stuff. “Shall we find shelter in a cave?”

There was a silent nod, a hint of something troubling on his mind and we all silently lumbered to whatever nearby cave we had found. The fire took some stoking, but Strom was able to get it started and they each sat bundled in their own little blankets. Meanwhile my eyes were on Kaidan.

He wasn’t shivering, but he seemed so lonely and distant. Just like her, my hand hugs the amulet of Mythal around my neck, trying to remember the warmth of my mother’s arms around me. I wanted to comfort him, that’s what my honest wish was but deep down something stopped me. A fear, or a doubt, I wasn’t quite sure just what but something anchored me down. Right before my eyes, someone I cared about was suffering and my words were leaving me.

Distracted by this conundrum, I didn’t even notice that Kaidan was looking right at me. “Oi, Ren!” I still didn’t hear him, I didn’t notice anything until he suddenly grabbed my wrist and stopped me from rubbing my palms. “You really shouldn’t do that,” his touch was gentle and my heart soared in different ways. In conflicting ways. My body and mind screamed ‘Bad touch!’ The memories of the thalmor slavers tearing him away, abusing him and ripping his skin apart.

Words tried to leave me, tangled and scrambled a sound of a stuttering idiot. I look into his red eyes, to try and find myself and all I see his him. They look through me, into me, sharp and piercing. Gods, he so handsome. I want him to stop looking at me but only look at me, it’s conflicting. “I apologize.” That’s all that left me as his hands looked over the palm I was rubbing, his gloved rough as it went over the pale thin scar on my right hand. His eyes follow it, soft and caring. My body moves and I don’t know why I poked at the little fold in between his eyebrows. He looks at me and I can’t help but smile at him. “You’ll get wrinkles if you frown so much,”

“Heh, you were the one rubbing your palms like a bloody maniac.” While his words seemed harsh, I could feel the warmth in them. “Now tell me, what’s bothering you?”

A smile pulls on the corner of my lips and I let out a short giggle. “I was wondering the same thing for you.” My eyes watch him. I want to learn everything about Kaidan, I want to know what his quirks were, how to read him, every little thing so I could help him better. Yet, his expression always made my grasp seem out of reach. He was so masked and mysterious, I was just an open book.

“Is it the storm?” There was no reason for me to wonder if it was the weather, I just asked and it felt like the right way to go. If this were a book it might have been a new chapter. One chapter stops at the question, the next ist the answer. His hand leaves mine, eyes tearing away but I still watched. He’s not going to talk that easily, I claimed to myself silently, moving my eyes away. As I looked down at my hands, I remember Brynjar and how Kaidan spoke of him.

He didn’t seem to be like a father figure, but I could sense the immense respect Kaidan had for the man. Even if Brynjar did things I would never expect a parent or guardian to do, he had taught Kaidan many things and led the red eyed male to becoming the person he was. I also knew that he was no longer a physical part of this world. “Hey, Kaidan?” My only answer was a low hum. It was an answer at least. “Can I ask you how Brynjar died?”

No answer. Not for a minute or so and I thought I stepped on his toes. Why was it so damn hard? I just wanted to know more about him, to understand how or why he does the things he do or says the things he says. He was a curiosity that I couldn’t seem to pull myself away from, an interest that seemed to have no bottom and I loved it. I loved everything about him and it felt right and wrong. Everytime I talked to him, it felt so easy and terrifying, the more my feelings grew, the more the terror haunted my dreams. A feeling twisted deep inside me. Something dark and poisonous tearing through my flesh, yet even as that grew, my feelings fought against it.

Why did I feel shame for my love for Kaidan? Was it because we were both men? No one had said it was bad or wrong, though it was never taught to be right either. Was it because he hated magic users and I was one of those dreaded monsters that could possibly terrorize him in the night? What was it?

“Exposure.” His voice snapped me out of my swirling chaos instantaneously. I almost thought I would fall from my sitting position for it felt jarring. “That’s what the priests called it anyway. See..” a pause for a breath of air. Was I breathing? “Brynjar had found in the Great War but he lost his faith in the Empire after the Concordant was signed. That, joined with whatever horrors he’d seen in action had scarred something in his mind. Happens all too often.” A scarred mind, body, and soul, I knew that all to well. War doesn’t just stop, it never stops. “So, he tried to fight those demons with drink. I’d grown up seeing it so I didn’t quite notice How He’d worsened over the years.”

I didn’t want him to stop, but I felt like that maybe he was pushing himself. “Kaidan,” but he didn’t stop.

He continued. “One winter night he went out in search of something stronger; they found his body the next morning lying on the steps to the Temple. Frozen solid. I don’t know if he meant to kill himself but it was clear he didn’t care if he did or not.”

My heart ached for Kaidan as I looked at him, tears in my eyes. My hands wanted to reach out, to comfort, but reasons told me not to. “Kaidan, I’m so sorry,” I didn’t know what else to say. “It must have been painful.”

“I wasn’t sad.” His voice tightened, I felt my blood freeze. The fire danced in his eyes, lighting them up into a furious crimson. Flashes of memories tore through my mind. Screams echoing in my ears. The Synod on fire. “I was angry.” Snap out of it, Ren! A silent plea to myself as Kaidan’s words continued to journey in the air, their honesty tearing me out of his eyes. “He could have died fighting, or as an old man surrounded by some family or,” It’s not that easy. “In any other way tht might have had some bloody dignity. Instead, he just left.”

I had to tear my eyes away from his. They were making me feel nauseous, reminding of things I didn’t want to remember. Dammit! I wanted to love his eyes, I did love his eyes, but they saw through me, they saw the monster at the Synod, the monster in chains. They saw everything.

“He was sick, Kai. That doesn’t change the good he did.” My voice was shivering. I didn’t expect it, but a large arm wrapped itself around me and I tensed for a second before looking up to see Kaidan. His eyes were calm.

“I suppose you’re right,” he started and my heart nearly exploded just feeling his chest rumble as he spoke. His scent of metal and sweat, familiar and soothing. Then he looked down and I felt like a peeping Tom. “And a more forgiving person than I am. Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from you.”

My mind froze. Never in my life had it felt like someone looked upon me with such respect. His eyes, they were warm. They cared and maybe even kept themselves at a distant because they felt they were too different, too bad. I want to tell him, I needed to tell him, but fear stopped me. “You’ll find peace,” my body is no longer cold, it relaxes in Kaidan’s arms. They feel familiar and safe, they’re a place I could call home. “It just takes time.” My hand falls on his thigh, wanting to give him a form of comforting touch.

I feel him pull away and my heart fractures a little. “Thank you for, y’know, listening.”

A smile is painted upon my face, my hand habitually pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s no worries, I-” I beg myself to halt. His eyes question, my mind screams. The words leave me. “I care for you.”

Ren had woken up from the many terrors that plagued his sleep and his only reality upon open his eyes we seeing Kaidan asleep across from him. His breathes were light and smelled of theming he had sucked upon before bed. Gently, like the large male before him was a fragile china doll that hadn’t been touched in decades, Ren placed his hand on his lover’s tattoo, tracing it’s curves and shapes.. It was a small habit he had picked up when they first go together. The motion was familiar and calming.

I’m so lucky to have you, that was always the first thing the halfling thought, his golden eyes tender. He would do anything for Kaidan, Ren knew this. “Words fall short, what do I say? How can I tell you?” This was a question that Ren asked himself aloud as if the answer would appear before him like a fairy godmother. There was nothing in his vocabulary or the various parts of language that could ever embody the emotions complex within him. So he left it at three words, putting all his feelings into it. “You’re so amazing.”

It was simple an quick, but if one listened close, dug their ear into his voice, they could hear the waves rolling on the shore. Not the ones where they crashed and pounded, but the gentle lulling of land meeting water like gentle kisses. This was his voice and those were his words.

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