#priorityotp

Sleepy and ready for bed but just wanted to let you know that you’re appreciated very much and I hope you have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night wherever you are and I hope you rest well :) Goodnight! :D

It was like the plot of a bad movie. Every time they’d try to meet up, try to get some time alone together, they’d be interrupted. Quiet time in the cabin? Emergency Council message. Downtime on a recon mission? Cerberus attack. Dinner at Apollos? Whoops, someone’s set the Presidum on fire. Every time they’d have to rain-check it, and Shepard would offer up an apologetic grin and say, “Sorry, Kaidan. Coffee later?”

It turned into a joke, every time they parted ways. “See you in the morning, Shepard. Coffee later, right?”

Until they ran out of laters.

In London, they got one stolen, bittersweet kiss before war and duty pulled them apart again. As he left, Shepard looked back at Kaidan — who clung valiantly to his thin veneer of professionalism — and he smiled. “Hey … coffee later?”

"Yeah …" Kaidan answered, though could not bring himself to hope. 

—-

Then there was fire, smoke and death. A race across a killing field. A goodbye and an escape. A blinding light. One long walk alone, one last desperate act, and silence.

Grief.

Two months on a nameless moon, three more limping home through the stars. He expected nothing, until they told him.

He raced to the hospital, so fast he couldn’t feel the ground, and Shepard was waiting for him. He was sitting up in bed, with a fresh pot of hospital coffee brewed and ready waiting on nightstand.

"Hi," Shepard said.

And Kaidan could not stop laughing through his tears.

—-

"Can I tell you a secret?" Shepard asked later.

"What?" Kaidan answered.

Awesome!

I'm so excited that you found it helpful and might give MP a shot. I love multiplayer a lot, but there is just so much going on when you first start that it can get overwhelming (if I'd not had friends to play with, I probably would've looked at it and then slowly backed away whispering "nope").

“‘m gonna be sick…”

"I know," Shepard said, helpfully. Slightly more helpful was how he was rubbing Kaidan’s back while the latter was crouched over the damned commode. 

Kaidan crumpled and heaved. Spit a few times when he was done, accepted a drink from the glass Shepard passed him, rinsed his mouth and spit again. “I hate you,” he groaned.

"I know," Shepard answered.

“‘m never drinking with you again.”

"I know."

"You’re an awful, horrible person."

Shepard grinned. “I know.”

Kaidan groaned again and dropped his head onto his forearm, which was braced across the commode, and made an incoherent miserable sound.

Shepard valiantly tried to conceal his amusement. “You know,” he said brightly, “I think this is a real milestone in our relationship.”