This is my first Mass Effect fic. I realize there's been a lot written about Vermire, but I had some Kaidan/Ashley/Shepard feelings, so I wrote this. In my playthrough, I brought Wrex and Tali, but I wrote it as though more than two companions were on planet and with Shepard.
The hypothetical in universe background is that Kaidan and Ashley had a fling, at some point, and Shepard's had feelings feelings for them both for a while. Then, on Vermire, Ashley dies, because that's what I chose, and Kaidan and Shepard are kind of messed up over it.
Kaidan found John staring at Ash's empty locker. "Are you going to be okay, Commander?"
He wasn't usually the type to ask that kind of thing—he and John didn't have that kind of relationship where they talked about their feelings—but this was important. They still had a mission, and Kaidan needed to know that John wasn't going to screw this up. Ash deserved that much.
John slammed a closed fist against the locker. He turned wordlessly, and Kaidan noticed what could have been tear tracks.
"I don't know," he said. "It's like I'm back on the ship after Akuze, imagining the bodies of my men lying there. What am I going to tell her parents? Her sister?"
"You did the best you could," Kaidan said. He still didn't entirely understand why John had come back for him. "I would have been overwhelmed if you and the crew hadn't come back for me."
"I should've sent someone, anyone, up to that tower after her. Liara, Wrex, Garrus, anyone!" John's voice cracked, and he turned away, once more facing Ashley's locker. "I can't bring myself to open it."
Right, they would have to go through Ash's stuff. Kaidan hadn't thought of that, and he felt stupid for forgetting it. "I'm sure her family will understand if we wait until after we defeat Saren," he said. It was weird to be the stable one, for once. Miracles of miracles, his implants had decided to behave, for once, despite how much he had used his biotics down on Vermire.
"You still believe we can do that?"
"Yes," John had almost talked Saren down, Saren, or at least that's how Kaidan had seen it, from his place in the mud of the breeding grounds. If anyone could defeat that madman, it was his commander.
John sighed. "You don't think I'm just being manipulated into seeing a threat that's not there?"
Kaidan hadn't been there for John's most recent interaction with the council, but he'd asked Joker about it after. He'd had to, considering just how pissed off John had been. The pilot had told him that they'd dismissed the idea of any threat greater than Saren.
If Kaidan had been about a decade younger he would have offered to kill the councilors for John, but he wasn't the kid who killed his abusive instructor, and he realized that was something his commander could never take him up on.
Instead, he put his hand on John's shoulder. "That machine didn't just talk to you, Commander. Even Saren can't falsify a true AI, and I doubt Tali'd lie about seeing something like that."
John put his opposite hand over Kaidan's. "What are we going to do without her?" he asked.
"Same as we've always done. Kick ass, and kill geth."
John turned, dropping Kaidan's hand. "I need to not think tonight," he said. The tear tracks were still there. "Not about Ash, not about Saren, not about the fact that he could be completely right."
Kaidan wanted to shake John by the shoulders and shout at him, tell him that there was no way in any race's hell that Saren was right. But he couldn't say that, not with absolute certainly.
"Are you asking for what I think you're asking, Commander?" Not that John wasn't handsome, but he'd always assumed he was interested entirely in Ash or Liara.
Kaidan and Ash's own brief complication was another matter entirely, one that would only compound John's guilt if he admitted to it.
"If you're not interested, I understand completely," John said. He put he hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling of Deck 2. "This isn't necessarily the best time, I just—I've been wanting to ask you something like this for ages, and all of this," he made a broad gesture with both his hands, "has made me realize, again, just how precious time is."
"I always thought you and Ash were going to be something," Kaidan said.
"If I'd been smarter I would've asked you both," John said. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. "And way sooner too."
"It's not your fault, Commander. Ash wasn't about to leave her post, and she was… she was the best one for the job." If he had gone with the Salarian team instead…
"That doesn't make it any better," John said. "And I take it from how you're addressing me that we should pretend I never asked you anything?" he added with a small smile.
Instead of answering, Kaidan put his hand on John's cheek and kissed him. "I'm calling you Commander out of habit, mostly," he said.
"Call me John, then," he said. He looked, to Kaidan's amusement and surprise, a little dazed.
"Well, John," Kaidan said, "you told me you don't want to think tonight?"
John nodded.
"Your quarters or mine?" Kaidan asked.
"Mine are closer," John said.
"That makes our choice for us, then," Kaidan said.
John smiled, and with one last look at the row of lockers, he headed off in the direction of his quarters.
Kaidan hurried along behind him, already mentally figuring out the fastest way to remove someone else's tactical armor.
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