#50 "don't talk. i'll show you."
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?
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."
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.
"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."
"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.
"Don't talk," he says, dropping to his knees. His fingers are deftly unfastening her belt as he looks up at her, a starved man nearing a banquet. "I'll show you."
