For Those Who Wait: a Mass Effect fanfic 4/4
The first thing Kaidan noticed when he woke was that he hadn't banged his arms or feet against anything when he stretched, and his eyes popped open to see that he wasn't in his usual cramped, coffin-like bunk bed in the crew quarters. The faint smell of sex on the sheets and the pleasant ache in his muscles reminded him that he was in Shepard's bed, in Shepard's cabin, after a night of mind-melting lovemaking. The commander was nowhere in sight. Then he noticed a bundle on the blanket next to him.
A datapad rested on a neatly folded set of BDUs, along with a pair of socks. He wondered how she'd gotten his clothes, and his face warmed as he imagined her ordering one of the crew to get them out of his footlocker, calm as you please. Or had she gone rummaging herself? Either way, tongues had to be wagging if she'd been caught. He snorted at his own hypocrisy as he reached out to pick up the data pad; he hadn't felt this worried the previous night, when anyone and everyone could've seen them on the Presidium.
The pad only had a couple of lines, which was just as well, considering how groggy he felt. Sparring called on account of - here he stopped and grinned, because hot, sexy, naked man in my bed had been crossed out; since she could've just deleted it, she'd meant for him to see that. He continued to read: on account of making breakfast. Come down when ready.
Looking at the clock on the bedside table, he could see why it'd been cancelled; he hadn't overslept like this in a long time. After reading the pad a third time, he grew more alert; Shepard didn't usually have time to cook, but when she did, the results were usually spectacular - and delicious.
A standard-issue toothbrush had been laid out for him, too, as well as his shaving kit, which Shepard must've included in her spoils after getting fresh clothes for him. Well, he'd been told he looked particularly disreputable, piratical even, before he shaved, but the gesture still touched him.
After luxuriating in a shower he didn't have to share with anyone else, Kaidan dressed and began to shave. As always when he navigated the razor with care around his nose and lips, a zen-like trance state descended on him, during which time he pondered deep philosophical questions like why science, which had given them things like mass relays, spaceships, and FTL communications, hadn't improved upon the humble razor. Even the ancient toothbrush had been upgraded with tiny mass effect generators. Maybe it was because only human men grew hair on their faces - a pretty small market share compared to the hygienic needs of the rest of the galaxy's races.
He snapped out of it when he was done, and it wasn't until he was putting on the aftershave that he noticed the hickeys peeking out of his collar. Despite his best efforts to adjust his shirt, the red marks remained quite visible. Unless he wanted to hide in his mancave - er, starboard observation - until they faded, everyone would see them, but the thought didn't seem as daunting anymore. In fact, he couldn't really bring himself to care.
Kaidan gathered his dirty clothes into a bundle and headed to the elevator. On the crew deck, he heard quiet conversation in the mess when he stepped out, and his stomach growled like a rabid varren as the delectable smell of cooking food wafted towards him on a breeze from the air cyclers. After dropping off his laundry in the crew quarters, he heard Tali's lilting voice.
"Is Shepard... is she humming?" the quarian asked with quiet astonishment.
Kaidan rounded the corner in time to hear Garrus say, "She certainly is." The turian spotted him and waved. "Morning, Kaidan."
"Morning, everyone," Kaidan said as he sauntered by the two dextros, exchanging a nod with Tali, and to Traynor, who was sitting next the quarian.
Shepard had taken her formal jacket off to cook; the collar of her black shirt didn't quite hide the hickeys he'd given her last night. Well, neither did his BDUs, so they were even.
"Wow, something smells good." He leaned over the pan, taking a deep, appreciative sniff of the contents while he reached over and brushed his hand over Shepard's ass, going for a surreptitious squeeze of the firm flesh.
He glanced over and saw a blush on her face, one that couldn't be attributed entirely to the heat of the stove, and her eyes smoldered with lust and memories of the previous night before a sweep of her eyelashes hid it away. It didn't stop her long spoon rapping his knuckles as quick as a snake when he tried to steal a bit of the eggs, though.
"Ow!" He hugged his hand to his chest and gave her a reproachful look, rubbing his smarting knuckles.
"You know better than to do that, Kaidan," the commander said without sympathy, cinnamon stick meandering to the other side of her mouth as she returned the spoon to the pan to stir through the simmering eggs and potatoes. Sweeping it back up like a baton, she used it to point at the mess tables. "It'll be ready when it's ready, so go sit and wait like a good little soldier."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, meek as a scolded boy, but his eyes were hot as he took in her flushed face, so like how she'd looked in bed just hours before. He grabbed a cup of coffee as a feint and pinched her ass, making a narrow escape before she could swat him.
"She's an unholy terror with that spoon, isn't she?" Traynor said, giving Kaidan a sympathetic look.
Kaidan sat down on Tali's other side. "Makes you wonder what she could do to the Reapers with a ladle."
The comm specialist grinned. "I shudder to think."
It was a real pleasure to watch Shepard; she cooked like she fought, with an economy of motion and no wasted energy. She looked like she was flipping pancakes - but they smelled more like bread. Though Kaidan did detect just a hint of flamboyance in the way she flipped a white, round and flat piece of dough in the air exactly twice before she caught it in the pan. Those weren't pancakes stacked in a neat column, he realized now - the color was all wrong.
"I didn't even know we had tortillas," he remarked.
Traynor propped her chin in her hands, a sigh escaping her; the wistful look on her face reminded Kaidan of Liara, for some reason. "We don't - she made them from scratch."
Tali stared at the commander. "You know, I haven't heard her hum in... in a long time."
Garrus seemed just as fascinated by all the activity, as if he couldn't reconcile the image of the commander as a biotic warrior and the commander as a cook. "It's been just as long since she last cooked."
"She made brownies before you came on board, Garrus," James said as he plopped himself down onto a chair near the turian.
Garrus turned to the lieutenant. "Brownies?"
"A human pastry, it's something between a cookie and a cake," James explained, making a square with his fingers to demonstrate.
Garrus did a creditable imitation of an aghast human, gaping with his mouth open. "A pastry made of humans?"
"No, pendejo -" James stopped, realizing he'd just been scored on. "You know what I mean!"
Garrus fluttered his mandibles at the lieutenant and laughed. "You know, one of these days, I'm going to have to take that Reversal immunosuppressant, just to see what I've been missing."
"It's pretty expensive, and it's not exactly a foolproof way to eat levo food," Tali said.
"Sounds like someone's been doing some research," Kaidan said with a smile at the quarian.
Tali twisted her fingers together and shrugged. "Well, Garrus isn't the only one who's curious."
"Say, where's Liara? She said she was going out for drinks with you two last night," Kaidan said.
"I think she's nursing a hangover in her office," Garrus said, mandibles flared in a turian grin. "She may be the Shadow Broker, but she still can't hold her liquor worth a damn. Poor kid."
"Damn, Shepard's so intense, even when she's cooking," James remarked. "You'd think she was planning a counterattack or something. It's only food, right?"
Cortez joined them, dropping into a seat across from James with easy grace. "And that's why she's such an awesome cook, Mr. Vega - and you're not."
The younger marine shot the shuttle pilot an outraged glare. "Hey! I thought you liked my huevos rancheros."
Cortez raised his hands and laughed. "I did, I did."
Crossing his beefy arms over his chest, James retorted, "Well, you can cook your own damned huevos rancheros from now on!"
"Stop pouting, Mr. Vega, or I'll keep my new bottle of tequila to myself."
James's eyes narrowed. "You been holding out on me, Esteban?"
Kaidan's discreet cough, the unspoken warning that maybe they shouldn't be talking about getting drunk quite so loudly in a superior officer's hearing, succeeded in shutting the two lieutenants up. James's thwarted glare said without words that the discussion wasn't over, though; Cortez just looked amused.
Garrus, whose mandibles had been fluttering the whole time he'd been listening to the two men bicker, turned back to watch Shepard. "She's always like that, though. Like when she plays that game, what's it called again? Went?"
"I think you mean 'go'," Traynor corrected.
The turian gave the comm specialist a puzzled look. "Isn't that what I said?"
Traynor was spared from attempting to explain when Javik entered the mess; all conversation ceased as they stared in complete surprise at the Prothean. As far as Kaidan knew, Javik hadn't ventured out of his quarters on the engineering deck all this time - except to accompany Shepard on missions. The sudden silence caught the commander's attention, and she turned.
"Oh, hey, Javik," Shepard said. To Kaidan's surprise, she beckoned the Prothean over and pointed to a covered dish on the counter. "I made this for you."
Javik blinked all four of his eyes as he looked at down at the dish. "This is why you called me up here?" he asked, solving the mystery of just why he'd left the cargo bay.
The commander's eyes crinkled as the cinnamon stick made another round-trip across her mouth. "Uh-huh."
"What is it?" The Prothean's tone was full of wary suspicion.
"Your breakfast," Shepard replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Give it a try." She cleared her throat, then said something that Kaidan's translator didn't pick up.
The Prothean had never bothered to hide his contempt of the primitives he'd found in his midst, but this simple gesture of generosity seemed to disarm him. Or maybe he was just shocked that the commander was doing such menial work - or it was what she'd said. Either way, Javik hesitated, then picked up the tray and took a seat at one of the mess tables, away from the rest of them.
"What was that all about?" James asked, the only one of them brave enough - or tactless enough - to say something.
Javik paused in the middle of lifting the lid before he spoke. "It is... a Prothean blessing that Shepard must have learned from the beacon. Roughly translated into your language, it means 'may this meal sustain you in the coming battles'. I... could not refuse."
Kaidan craned his neck just like everyone else to see what the contents were when Javik took off the cover. It looked like a breaded fish to him, since Shepard had removed neither the head nor the tail, but there were no slices of lemon included. His stomach rumbled; however it looked, it smelled delicious, and he watched in envy as the Prothean took a cautious bite.
"How is it?" Shepard called.
Javik took another bite. "It is... adequate." Kaidan rolled his eyes at the faint praise.
"Oh yeah? Let me try some -" James reached out to pinch a little for himself.
Javik snarled, lips peeling back to reveal his fangs as he pulled the plate back out of reach. "Get your own, human."
Cortez shook his head. "Why don't you just ask the commander to make you one, too, Mr. Vega?"
"You don't tell her what to make, Cortez," Kaidan demurred, "you take whatever she cooked, and you're damn grateful for it."
Traynor slanted a sly smile at Kaidan. "Not even you, Major?"
"Not even me." When it comes to cookery, anyway. An image of Shepard willingly allowing him to restrain her played out in all its erotic glory across his mind's eye, and he had to cross his legs, thanking God that he was at least sitting down.
"All right, I'm done," Shepard declared, and raised her spoon in warning before the stampede - minus the dextros - started. "Three each, no more than that. Biotics are allowed to have five."
Kaidan wasn't the only one already stuffing his face before he'd even sat back down. The breakfast burrito was perfect, filled to bursting with scrambled eggs, potatoes and crunchy bits of bacon - or at least damned convincing substitutes - and spiced just right. He tried to smile at Shepard when she sat down next to him with her own tray, though he suspected his full mouth distorted the result a bit; her eyes danced with laughter at him as she sipped her tea.
"These are so good," Traynor said, eyes closed in gastronomic bliss as she took another bite of her burrito. "Thank you so much for making them, Commander."
Shepard smiled at the compliments tossed her way, taking them as her just due. "You're welcome."
"Damn good stuff, Commander - it's got some real bite to it," James said. "Esteban's right, damn him - this puts my huevos rancheros to shame."
Garrus coughed, looking up from his dextro ration, an oh-so-innocent lilt in his voice. "Speaking of which - it seems these 'burritos' bite back."
James looked up, eager as any bored soldier for gossip. "Huh?"
Kaidan struggled with the impulse to hunch over and turtle up to hide the hickeys from view. Damn Garrus and his eagle eyes - and his blabbing mouth, too! He glanced over to see Shepard's lips curve in that familiar enigmatic, I-know-a-good-joke smile, and decided he would take her example to heart.
It didn't take long for James - and everyone else - to spot the lovebites on Kaidan and Shepard. "Awww, shit," the lieutenant said in disgust, crumpling his napkin and throwing it down on his empty plate as he checked his omni-tool. "Guess you were right, Javik - you won... huh, half the jackpot."
All four of Javik's eyes narrowed at James. "What are you speaking of, human?"
James's mouth opened and shut in confusion as he shut down his omni-tool. "Whaddya mean? You're the one who asked to place a bet yesterday!"
"Bet?" There was a dangerous note of menace in Shepard's voice as she narrowed her eyes at the younger marine, mug of tea paused halfway to her lips.
"Uh," was James's intelligent answer as he backpedaled. "I was just - I mean, it's nothing, Commander - just having a little fun, yanno? Something to pass the time."
"And what exactly were you betting on?" The commander's voice was frigid.
James shrank under Shepard's withering gaze, and said in a small voice, "Uh, just... when you and the major were going to, uh, get together."
The lieutenant didn't know Shepard well enough to spot the amusement hiding in her twitching lips - but Kaidan did, and decided to bail James out this one time. After all, he could afford to be magnanimous now that he'd won a substantial amount of credits.
"Actually, I was the one who placed the bet, James," Kaidan said, trying and failing to hide a triumphant smirk. "Javik let me use his account."
The younger man's eyes bulged in shock and outrage as he swiveled to face Kaidan, fear of the commander's wrath forgotten, while Cortez placed a hand over his mouth to try to hold in his laughter.
Over the giggles escaping from Tali's helmet, despite the hands she'd placed over the vocalizer, James yelped, "You set me up, Major?!"
Shepard couldn't keep it together anymore at that point; she burst out laughing at the face James pulled. Once she could speak without sputtering, she said, "Javik was the one who contacted you about placing a bet, and you weren't the least bit suspicious of a guy who told you games of chance were punishable by death in the empire?"
"Well... no - I mean, I was only looking at the number of credits he was - the major was putting into the pot," James said as he glared at Kaidan.
Kaidan just grinned back. "Come on, Lieutenant - you can't blame me for taking a little revenge now, can you?" Considering I could have you up on charges of insubordination.
"The major's got a point, Mr. Vega," Cortez said, in between snickers.
James turned his glare on the shuttle pilot. "I thought you were supposed to be my friend, Esteban!"
"I am, I am," Cortez said, raising his hands again. "I just can't help it if seeing you hoist on your own petard is so damned hilarious."
"So who was the other winner of your little bet?" Kaidan asked, before the shuttle pilot could die laughing at James's expression.
"Sam," James said, finally leaving off glaring at his fellow lieutenant. "Not surprised she got it right - she's got all sorts of data at her fingertips, and she stands next to the commander all the time."
"Actually, James, um," the comm specialist began, her hands clapped over her mouth to hide her smile, though she couldn't hide her crinkling eyes.
To Kaidan's complete astonishment, Shepard spoke over the other woman and said, "I was the one who put Traynor up to it."
Kaidan stared at the commander. "You mean you knew?"
The commander's smile broadened into a huge grin. "I'm aware of everything that goes on around here - you should know that by now. Samantha let me use her account to place my bet."
James threw up his hands in disgust. "I can't believe this shit - both of my superior officers set me up!"
Kaidan couldn't help it; the rumbling swell of mirth began in the pit of his stomach and rolled all the way up, and he doubled over, laughing. Shepard lost her gravity and shook with laughter, and when they recovered their composure, it only took one look at each other for them to lose it again.
"Screw you guys, I'm going back to the hangar." Gathering the tatters of his dignity about him, James snatched up his plate and threw it into the sink, then left.
Mandibles twitching like crazy, Garrus declared, "It was worth losing just to see his face."