#wcs fic

2. Sex in front of a big window, where anyone could glance up and spot them

Fair warning, I got a little carried away... things get pretty explicit after the cut 😇

***

She's been staying in the apartment a few days before she takes the time to enjoy the view from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Coming in from a much needed night out, she doesn't turn the lights on right away. Something about the light coming in from the strip is so appealing; she walks straight to the windows, her stilettos clicking lightly on the hard floors.

Kaidan follows her over, wrapping his arms around her to pull her back against his chest. He kisses her lightly behind the ear, his evening scruff pulling a few strands out from her loose bun. They tickle her skin as they fall down her face and she shivers, turning her face toward him and resting her cheek against his chest.

She loves the smell of him. Not his cologne, and not his soap – although both are lovely; tasteful and inoffensive. No, what she loves most is the smell of his bare skin. His natural smell, at the end of the day. She breathes him in deeply.

"Beautiful place," he murmurs into her ear, "...not a lot of privacy."

She laughs. "When have I ever had the luxury of privacy?" she says, and he concedes her point with a soft chuckle. She feels so relaxed, so secure with him. She looks down on the strip, at all the people down there. So far away. He starts kissing her jaw softly, gently, working slowly down her neck. Her heart starts to pound.

"Do you–" she starts, her resolve failing before she can get the words out.

"Do I what?" he murmurs, his lips dragging across her shoulder. God, his voice drives her crazy at times like this. She turns her face toward his, studying his profile.

"Do you want to fuck me," she says slowly, in her most alluring voice, "...right here? Now?"

Yes I'm still working on this fucking thing (but I'm having a nice time)

Dialogue Prompt #18: "I had a dream about you."

"Do you think dreams have meaning?"

She looked up from her datapad to find him looking down at her. She didn't answer right away; she'd never really given her dreams much deep thought. Most of her dreams didn't really bear thinking about.

"Yeah," she said slowly. Reluctantly. She'd rather keep pretending that dreams were just neurons firing randomly in the brain, but they were always honest with each other.

"I think dreams are our brains' way of communicating to us directly, in our own language. I think that's why explaining them to other people can be so hard. They'd have to be fluent in our... brain language. To really understand."

He looked at her thoughtfully for the briefest moment before continuing.

"I had a dream about you."

He's heard that panicked tone before, but never from her. He whips around to see her crumpled on the ground, leaning back against cover. Something about the way her legs splay out in front of her is awkward, wrong; but it's the pool of bright red blood, large and rapidly growing under her, that sets him running toward her.

Hopefully Garrus can hold off the enemy alone for a while – it looks like the two of them will be out of the fight for the foreseeable future.

He races to her side, his hands shaking as he starts to tear away at the thigh module of her armor, reaching for the trauma shears in his medic pack to cut through her under armor.

All the blood is becoming more and more of a problem in every way. First and foremost because the more that comes out, the less she has; but it also causes his fingers to slip and fumble over her, and makes it impossible to visualize the wound.

Down to bare skin now, he can effectively apply the tourniquets. He slips the thick rubber tube under her leg, pulling it as high up her thigh as he possibly can til it's nearly at the groin, and ties it off tight. The bleeding slows but doesn't stop, bright red blood in a pulsatile flow. Femoral artery. He applies a second tourniquet on top of the first, and the blood finally stops coming. Now he has some time.

He rips open the bottle of irrigation fluid and pours half of it onto her thigh, the fluid running and dripping over her flesh in a way that would be alluring, provocative even, if it weren't for all the blood.

The sounds of combat are fading away as he rips off his blood soaked gauntlets. He hopes that's because most of the hostiles are down and not only because of his laser focus on her, but he can't be sure and doesn't have the bandwidth to figure it out.

He dons the medical gloves from his kit, clean and thin and highly tactile, and pours the rest of the irrigation fluid onto her, rubbing blood away with his hand to get a visual of the wound. How can he be thinking about how her thigh feels under his fingertips, at a time like this? He is going to set time aside for serious introspection when this is over.

For now, with the blood washed away, he sees the entry wound on her upper inner thigh clearly. It's large and deep, too much for medigel. They need to get back to the Normandy even sooner than expected.

Fuck. He should have radioed Joker first thing, the second he saw how much blood she'd lost. What is WRONG with me?

"Garrus, radio–"

"Already done," he says, taking aim, "ETA about 30 more seconds. By then, I should have taken care of the rest of these bastards." Popping off a shot, he turns from his scope to look down at Shepard. "Is she gonna be ok? She looks… gray."

Kaidan doesn't answer; he resents the question. Of course she's gray, Garrus. Don't you think I know she's gray? All my combat medic training, you don't think I have basic assessment skills? I need you to tell me you think she looks gray?

And she's not just gray, she's cold. Her breathing has started to slow. And even more concerning to him, she hasn't said a thing this entire time – not one flippant comment to cut the tension, not one playful criticism of his technique, not one "helpful" sniping tip offered to Garrus just to get on his nerves. She's silent, just breathing, eyes closed.

When had she lost consciousness? Has she been unconscious this entire time? He hadn't even noticed until right now.

"Commander," he says, a hand on her shoulder.

"COMMANDER," he repeats, giving her a shake.

Her eyelids flutter, but she doesn't rouse. He digs his fingers under the flexible material of her collar, pinching her trapezius muscle with all his strength. She jolts awake and slaps his hand away angrily.

"Jesus, Kaidan!" She says, about to chew him out before he cuts her off.

"Shepard, you need emergency medevac. This wound is way too deep, you've lost too much blood," he says, gathering up any essentials – his, and hers – and then positioning himself to gather her up, too.

"I can walk," she says, trying to get to her feet.

"Shepard–"

"Give me your shoulder. I can walk."

Biting back his reply with great difficulty, he helps her to her feet, bracing her on the side of the injury as Garrus confirms the last hostile is down.

"Don't move that leg," he tells her.

"I'm just supposed to, what? Hop?" She says, irritated.

"You're supposed to be carried to the LZ," he says, equally irritated, but adding in a "ma'am," to cover his ass.

His shoulders sag as she pulls down hard without warning, getting the leverage she needs to manage a little hop. She nearly slips on her own blood, his firm grip on her hip righting her just in time to prevent them both from falling. They both speak at once:

"Shepard! This isn't going to work." "Kaidan, this isn't working."

They look at each other, relieved to have come to an understanding.

"I need to put just a bit of weight on this foot," she says.

"You need to be carried! We don't have a lot of time, Commander! I don't know how much blood you've lost, but it looked like at least a liter. Probably more."

"I'm fine!" she shouts, "just… a little dizzy." She looks over at him sheepishly, and whether it's the look on his face or her own medic training finally sinking sense into her, she grits her teeth.

"Fine," she says, looking away as he turns toward her, allowing him to hook his arm behind her knees and bring her into his arms. As she wraps an arm around his neck, he turns back to check on Garrus and finds he's not there.

"Kaidan, come on," he calls, already meters ahead.

When did his situational awareness get so bad? Normally he didn't have this kind of trouble keeping track of the field while also focusing on the task at hand, no matter how critical the task. He thinks back over the dozens of bombs he's defused in the past few months while intense firefights raged around him, and he'd had no trouble keeping track of it all mentally.

But even this train of thought goes incomplete when he looks down to see her drifting off to unconsciousness again. Damn… she is very gray.

"Garrus, tell me you told Joker what happened? When you called for evac?"

"Of course," Garrus says, starting to sound a little insulted, "Chakwas will be waiting for us..."

Oh I'm up for it 😏

14 takes place after ME1, during shore leave at Kaidan's Vancouver apartment:

14. 'I don't have the words right now so here's a kiss.'

"I can still remember the night before we left Earth," she says, his fingers gently combing through her long hair as she fidgets with his dog tags, his chest rising and falling steadily under her cheek, "I was 6. I'd gone to stay with my grandparents for a few days while Mum and Dad packed the house up.

"When I came home that night everything was just… gone. The floors were bare, the walls were bare, even the furniture was missing. I can remember so vividly walking room to room, and every room was just… empty.

"It was so eerie, Kaidan. I ran back outside to tell my grandparents that my parents had already left without me, and saw their tail lights fading away into the dark."

"Pretty scary for a kid," he says softly, trailing his fingertips slowly down her back, bringing them back to her shoulders to start again each time he came to the end of his reach.

"I was terrified," she says. "I thought everyone had forgotten about me, and now I was going to be alone the rest of my life in that empty house."

"Then what happened?"

"I was curled into the corner of the hallway crying when I heard my Dad: 'Al, you little panther, when did you sneak in here?' I told him what happened and he just scooped me up and brought me to Mum, told her the story. She said-"

When he had asked her whether she was born on Mindoir and she told him that, no, actually she was born in Los Angeles, she had thought to tell him this story -- but she'd forgotten this part. She's not sure she'll be able to get through it, but she wants to try.

"She said... that..." she takes a deep breath, and her exhale is shakier than she'd like. She can feel the tears rising, burning her nose and throat. She has to get it out now. Soon she'll be unable to speak.

"She said that they'd never leave me behind," she whispers, "never. That they would... they'd be there for me, forever. That I'd never be alone."

With that last word finally out, she dissolves. She's devastated, miserable, lonely, mortified.

She's never shared this with anyone; there's never been anyone to share it with. And now she's sharing it with her poor Lieutenant, because... why? Because he's the first person she's slept with since her life was destroyed? Jesus.

She feels pathetic, weak, like some integral part of her structure was torn away at 16 leaving her dilapidated. She's been living in fear of total collapse ever since, living in fear of exactly this moment.

She can feel herself slipping away from her body as he rolls over towards her, as he pulls her into him so tight that she can't help but feel his arms around her, can't help but feel his heart beating against her, can't help but feel her body nestled safely against his. He pulls her into him, and pulls her back into herself.

He's kissing her face, whispering her name. She looks up and sees that he's crying, too. And he kisses her, so sweetly, so tenderly, that she starts to cry for an entirely new reason.

15. A kiss because I have literally been watching you all night and I can't take anymore.

Skulking around the back of the throne room almost brings him back to his youth, except for the fact that it's Elissa Cousland holding court.

It almost brings a smile to his face, imagining his late father apoplectic with rage at the sight of a Cousland, and this one in particular, on his throne. If only he could know how his son's been spending most of his nights.

What does bring a smile to his face is the thought of her throne in Denerim, meaningfully vacant beside her husband the King. If only he could know how his wife's been spending most of her nights.

She's a vision in her ceremonial armor -- beautiful and imperious. And she's even more stunning out of it, as only he and the King know.

Something about the way she conducts herself, the way she wields her power so naturally, with such grace, has such a strange effect on him. All his life he's felt repelled by this sort of thing, but to watch her do it...

To watch her do it, and to know that once she leaves this room he'll have her on her knees beneath him, begging him...

As if she can read his mind and finds his thoughts too tempting to resist, she stands and moves toward the exit. Looking around, he realizes the once-long line of nobles has since cleared the hall.

She retreats to her chambers and he follows close behind, slipping in behind her before she closes the door. He grabs her by the waist and pins her to the door, his lips pressing into hers, his hands in her hair and his tongue deep in her mouth as she tears at his clothes.

Using my bestie privileges to request a combination of the two plz kthxbye 😎

Ok I allow you to invoke bestie privileges, but it activates monkey paw mode 🫤

–

It's a summer evening in Vancouver, but the air on the balcony is growing cool with the sea breeze. She snuggles into his lap, and he hopes his arms are enough to warm her; this could be the last he sees of English Bay for quite a while.

"It's freezing," she says, hugging herself, "but I don't want to go inside yet. I want to stare at this view until I can never forget it."

He smiles, looking at her in profile. "I feel exactly the same way."

He settles his chin on her shoulder, looking out at the Bay. She reaches her hand up to cup his cheek.

"I can't believe it's almost over," she says softly. Sadly. 

"There will be other shore leaves," he says, dreading their return to the Normandy at least as much as she is. His time serving with her has been the highlight of his career so far, a dream of an opportunity even excluding their relationship. But having to work in such close proximity to her, having to pretend away this intimacy, feels like an especially sick form of torture.

"What was your favorite moment?" she asks. 

How can he choose? After months of bonding over their insomnia, every night they fall asleep together and every morning they wake up late; he can't remember the last time he's been so well-rested. And after months of not trusting himself to let a friendly pat linger too long, they've barely kept their hands off each other. After months of being in awe of how incredible she is, how superhuman, she's spent hours and hours being totally... normal, with him. Being vulnerable with him. And he's still in awe of how incredible she is.

"I don't know," he says, "I can't choose. What about you?"

"Getting high at the zoo," she says, without hesitation. "I cannot believe all the fucked up animals on this planet. Walruses? Giraffes? And the fact that my parents knew about them? And didn't tell me?"

"I'm sure they would have told you when you were ready to hear it," he says, kissing her behind the ear. He catches her little laugh just before it's carried away in a gust of wind.

"...When you told me you love me," he whispers shyly, kissing down her neck as if to conceal his flushed cheeks in the dark. "That was it... my favorite moment." He still can't believe it happened, and saying it aloud almost feels like inviting her to deny it.

She takes one of his hands in both of hers. "I do love you," she says, kissing his palm before entwining their fingers together.

"I love you too," he says, kissing her shoulder and hugging her tight, "I have for a long time. I just thought I'd be the one to say it first, I guess."

"You would have waited too long," she says, "you never would have said it until you were sure I loved you too."

He laughs. "Were you unsure? Whether I loved you?"

She looks back at him with a smirk, conceding.

He smiles against her shoulder, kissing his way to her spine. As she sighs, a sudden explosion of thunder makes them both jump.

"That doesn't bode well for our plans," she says, a drop of rain hitting her cheek.

For the dialogue prompts. BESTIE PLZ 🥹

"Don't talk," she says as he approaches, maintaining her concentration rather than turning to face him. "I'll show you," she adds, almost to herself.

Wondering if she's still an insomniac like him, he'd been wandering around the mostly empty ship looking for her. He hadn't expected to find her alone in the shuttle bay, struggling to biotically lift a small dumbbell from James' station. He still wasn't used to her being a biotic… but, he'd promised himself and her not to go down that road again. They had agreed to move forward. 

He stops in his tracks. "Show me what?"

The dumbbell, hovering shakily barely a meter off the ground, hasn't quite hit the floor when she whips around to level a glare at him. 

"What did I just say?" she asks, the heat of her eyes tempered somewhat by her lips obviously working not to smile.

"Sorry, Shepard," he says, stepping forward to pick up the dumbbell. He laughs. "This can't weigh more than a few kilos. Cerberus didn't have the funds for biotic lessons?"

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, I got lessons."

"From who? I can't imagine you'd be hard to teach. You pick up everything so quickly." Except chopsticks, he thinks absently, remembering the shore leave that seems like a lifetime ago.

"Do I? I still can't use chopsticks worth a damn. But I wanted to show you something. Look."

She closes her eyes tight, sucking and chewing absently at her lips as her eyebrows knit together. It reminds him of the face she made when he went down on her that first night on the SR-1, just before she came. He looks away, not sure whether he should be embarrassed. What are they to each other now?

"Kaidan. Look." 

He turns back to see her glowing ever so faintly, biotic energy gently swirling up her neck and over her jaw, barely illuminating her deep dark eyes. 

"I'm looking," he says, "show me."

"I am."

It takes him a moment to realize that what he had assumed was just a weak biotic aura, prefacing a biotic maneuver, was actually her attempt at … something?

Her jaw clenches as she says through her teeth, "it's a barrier. I've been practicing more or less daily since you mentioned it on Mars."

He feels a rush of tenderness at the thought that she took what he said to heart, despite the uncharitable way he had behaved. He's very conscious of not sounding condescending in his reply.

"It's a great start."

"Don't be condescending," she says, sighing as the glow recedes. "Honestly, Kaidan, I really don't get how to control biotics. I'm horrible." 

"How are you doing it?"

"I'm… well, I don't know," she says. He so rarely sees her self-conscious, and it's always endearing. He wishes they could forget everything, the biotic lessons and the tension and the arguing, and that he could just wrap his arms around her and kiss her. 

"I'm just imagining it surrounding me. I'm visualizing the energy flowing from my amp and rolling over my skin, to start. And then I start to imagine the energy compressing into a solid form."

"That's a good start. No, really! But thoughts aren't really enough on their own. You need to find something physical, a gesture to anchor it to."

"I don't know why I bother. Now that you're back on the Normandy, you can just throw a barrier around me like you used to."

"I'd feel better if you knew how to put up a strong barrier yourself. In case something happens and I'm unable," he says.

He closes his eyes, interrogating his senses as he summons a barrier of his own. His biotics flow readily through his amp, pouring fluidly down his spine and over his limbs in a protective matrix. How can he explain this to her?

"Ok. Try this," he says, walking her through a few steps. After failing to replicate any of them she turns away, crossing her arms over her chest with a frustrated grumble.

Looking at the back of her head, he sees her amp: the way the baby hairs at the nape of her neck curl around it. A few hairs are trapped between the amp and her socket, betraying the careless way it was plugged in. He remembers how she started picking sushi up with her bare fingers, laughing behind her napkin with a mouthful of fish and rice at the way he gaped at her in horrified fascination.

He reaches out to pull her against him, his arms wrapping around her shoulders before he's even aware of himself. The way she startles at his touch makes him jump to release her; but when he pulls his arms back, she grips his forearm to keep him in place. Settling into his arms, she looks up at him over her shoulder. 

"Maybe I can show you this way, how I do it," he says. Idiot. He can see the invitation fading from her face as her coy expression gives way to boredom. Idiot! 

But, he's committed. May as well keep going along with the pretense of biotic education; at least he might end up teaching her something that will keep her safe. 

He tries not to think about how her hair smells different, not like the shampoo she used to use. By the time he hears himself explaining his process once again, step by step with demonstration this time, he's almost convinced himself that he doesn't notice how she leans into him, how she's resting her head against his shoulder. He tries to keep his voice steady and neutral, but somehow he can't stop himself speaking lower, slower. If he can feel her steady heartbeat pulsing through her, does that mean she can feel the way his heart is pounding?

She's stopped giving her dismissive "uhhuhs" and "mhms", her eyes closed and her hands still holding tight to his arms. Stupidly, he's still telling himself that she's trying to absorb what he's telling her… but she surely isn't. He's not even listening to himself.  

She smells too good, her skin is too soft and warm. She's trailing a finger lightly up and down his forearm. It's getting harder to keep talking. 

"Kaidan," she whispers, her dark eyes half lidded as they find his.

Seeing her like this, feeling her in his arms, brings him back to before everything got so complicated. Before he had to think so hard about what she is, what they are, what he's supposed to do about it all. Seeing her like this makes him want to forget about barriers altogether.

He feels her lips on his, open and eager, and as she turns to face him he realizes that he kissed her. He's got her pinned against a nearby wall, her thighs in his hands and her hands in his hair before he knows what he's doing. It seems like his brain is lagging seconds behind his body, and he dimly wonders what he might do next.

He's grinding his hips against her now as she moans into his mouth. "Kaidan," she whispers breathlessly between kisses, "Wait. Wait. Are you sure this is what you want?"

Breaking away, he lowers her to the ground. 

7.

hello. thank you for your very good prompt 10 weeks ago (do anons get notified of answers? i hope so)

you have to share your fic with chloe @tempestrune because you're only an anon and she's my BELOVED pervert mutual whose birthday is TODAY and whose #proclivities were my guiding light for this fic!!!!!!

🌟HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHLOE!!!🌟 my understander!! #ourproclivities!!!!!

(edit: i changed the ending slightly after @loverinthesnow @chalkituptofate already reblogged hehe)

(whole chapter is below. very explicit under the cut 😇)

"Oh, God," he says, following her into her quarters. She turns as the doors slide closed behind them, watching a blush climb his neck as he bends to unlace his boots. “Tell me they didn't really say that…?"

"Oh, they did," she says, kicking off her own boots and stepping down into the sunken lounge with him close behind, "and it probably got even more explicit after I left, if last week is anything to go by. And a few days before that–"

"Okay, okay! I get it," he laughs, sitting down beside her on the couch and reaching for a datapad. "Hopefully this all blows over once the interview isn't being broadcasted all over the Citadel, and I can fade back into relative obscurity."

"I don't think so, Major. Not with that 'smackable ass,'" she says, enjoying his mortified groan as she rolls over to straddle him. She reaches up to fiddle with the pins holding her hair in its regulation twist. 

With a sigh he drops the datapad back onto the couch, his warm hands sliding up from her hips to encircle her waist. She loves the feeling; she's missed it. There's just something about it, having those strong hands wrapped around the softest part of her. It makes her feel vulnerable and safe at the same time. 

"No one can get enough of you," she continues, her voice taking on a dreamy quality: "Oh! Humanity's second Spectre! He's so tall, dark, and handsome… with brains, brawn, and biotics…" Her hair secure, she runs her hands through his coarse waves. "And look at that cute little crooked smile of his," she adds, leaning down to kiss the corner of his lips.

"You're going to make me blush," he says quietly, sliding down a little lower on the couch. 

"You've been blushing this entire time," she says, tracing the scar on his lip with her thumb before kissing him again, "And anyway. I'm just repeating what I've heard!"

She'd expected that his induction into the Spectres would invite some public interest, but not that half the galaxy would be lining up to throw themselves at him. Her mind wanders as she takes hold of his dog tags, their heat warming her fingers pleasantly while she pretends to study his vital details. 

This will definitely take some getting used to.

"Al… please tell me all this unwanted attention isn't making you jealous?"

She frowns. She hates that word: "jealous." And he knows that.

Why would he think she's jealous? Of some random people gabbing on the Presidium, who stand absolutely no chance of actually being with him? She looks up to find him studying her, and shrugs as she looks back down at his tags, rubbing her thumb over his name possessively. 

I'm not jealous.

"They can have their sad little fantasies,” she says carelessly, winding his chain slowly around her fingers, “I have you.” With a smirk she pulls him forward by his tags, so close she can taste the mint on his breath. "...And I can have you whenever I want."