Never Been the Loudest

Disclaimer: I hereby declare my ownership of nada. I own nothing in this franchise. I own this little story, and that's it. Well…I own copies of the games, but yeah. Everything is Bioware's…shame. I imagine that if you're not into gayness then you may wish to hit the back button now and save yourself from such content since there won't be much point flaming me. You volunteered to read the thing if you choose to continue and I can't be held responsible for you not liking the subject matter.

Warnings: M/M material people, some explicitness. Swearing.

A/N: I finally surrendered to the urge to write fan fiction instead of just reading it. I hope you do enjoy it. Leave me some nice reviews? That would be nice. This is my sort of head cannon of what happened. I refuse to acknowledge the idea that Shepard would just not call foul on the bullshit the Catalyst spouts. Plus, no harbinger dialogue? Da heck. My Shepard by the way: Nathan 'Nate' Shepard; Paragon War Hero Spacer Vanguard – well…mostly paragon.

Kaidan had never been the loudest of his supporters. Kaidan tended to be reasoned, he tended to be moral and honourable and he hadn't been the one that would shout out his opinions unless it really fucking mattered. He had never been the loudest of them and he had never been the strongest of them, but he never really had to be. He had other squad mates for that, the loud support and encouragement and that meant that he didn't need another one. He needed what Kaidan gave him; that simple feeling of being alive, of needing to win. The others – they made him want to win so that he wouldn't have to feel the devastation of their loss; Ashley on Virmire, Mordin on Tuchanka, and Legion on Rannoch. They were just the tip of the iceberg. Those losses were among billions, trillions that the Reapers had been killing whilst they were gathering the resources and the armies. What Kaidan gave him, made him need to win. If they lost this war he wouldn't get to feel what he did when he was around Kaidan anymore.

He couldn't describe it; he could only feel it, experience it. It was less an emotion and more a fundamental force of being. It coursed through him like blood through his veins and he knew that like were he exsanguinated; the loss of feeling what Kaidan gave him would kill him. He couldn't bloody lose. He didn't lose on Tuchanka, he didn't lose on Rannoch, or on the Citadel. He would not lose on Earth because he had to get back to Kaidan. He had to feel what he had felt that night before the assault on Cerberus. He could recount the experience with perfect detail; he could feel those memories still.

He had been working late which was not exactly rare lately. Sleep was coming a lot harder than it used to, especially because of those damned nightmares. They had never troubled him before this and he had seen some pretty horrific things in his travels across the galaxy. Ashley mentioned that she had trouble sleeping after Feros and the Thorian Creepers and of course the Thorian itself and that had barely bothered Shepard at all, but yet, that kid. He was haunting Shepard. It seemed odd though; the really vivid ones only seemed to happen after being close to the Reapers again - Probably just because it was a reminder of the tragedy that he had seen on Earth. That would explain it. He looked over the numbers of the datapad – they were listing the so called 'war assets' that he had acquired. Specialist Traynor made sure that they all had numbers next to them to list their relative strength, according to her strange system of numbering and then factoring Galactic Readiness as she had put it at one point – he still didn't quite understand that – his forces stood at nearly 5000, which she said was excellent. Somehow, that didn't really comfort him. The entire Turian military was barely holding together – how could this force be that much greater?

He sighed roughly and walked towards his cabin door, he needed…he would have said air were he on a planet, he just needed to be in a larger space than this. Perhaps he would go to Life Support, no one went in there and there was usually a little breeze from the system, but he had a visitor apparently. His door was opening. He looked up.

"Kaidan?" He asked as he saw the Major stepping out of the elevator with a bottle of something in his hand. Was that the TM-88 that he had given him in the hospital?

"Just a quick drink, Shepard, you look like you could use it," He said without force or insistence and yet it was indescribably there. He didn't want to argue. Maybe that was why it felt like Kaidan had even without trying persuaded him. He followed the Major back towards his couch.

"You know…we are alone here, you don't have to call me Shepard," He replied as he sat down. It seemed that no one ever really called him by his first name anymore. He felt like he might as well drop it completely sometimes. Or change his first name to Commander. He was sure the Turians would enjoy that, given their sense of duty. Or they would, if they weren't being decimated.

"Alright then, Nathan," Kaidan replied. Nathan smirked in response – something that was also becoming rarer. He didn't smile much anymore – how could he? Why would you smile when everything around you was going FUBAR? There wasn't much left to smile about. Kaidan was his lone exception, his lone weak spot when it came to this wall of seriousness that he had built to keep himself from cracking in this godforsaken war.

"Mmm…you can call me Nate if you want," Nathan answered, "Also, I think you mentioned actually drinking." God knew that he could use it. He didn't drink often but sometimes during this war, he felt like he needed to just say screw it and drink himself into a glorious drunkenness that would allow him just to stop being Commander Nathan Shepard, Vanguard, Curer of Genophages, Settler of Quarians and Geth, and just be Nate Shepard, 32 year old human in a galaxy at war and lover of Kaidan Alenko. Tonight, with Kaidan here, seemed like a good night to do that.

Kaidan chuckled that adorable chuckle and opened the bottle. Nate looked at the bottle now that he had the chance. He was right, it was the Peruvian Whiskey.

"I didn't think you would have kept that," Nate commented as Kaidan filled two glasses sitting on the table in front of them, he hadn't even noticed that Kaidan had lifted them from the counter next to his computer where he kept them.

"I did say that we could drink it later…plus, you gave it to me. I wanted to drink it with you," He replied with what seemed to be a little blush developing on those lovely cheeks of his. Nate chuckled; he refused to admit to anyone that he giggled. He would deny it. EDI on the other hand, probably wouldn't. That reminded him, he better say it to her now, before he got too drunk to remember.

"EDI?" He asked into the room, drawing Kaidan's attention. He was probably wondering why he was asking for the AI. For a moment anyway, realisation dawned on his face a moment later. EDI was as Liara had put it; a 'blabbermouth'.

"Yes, Shepard?" She asked in her oddly human inquisitive tone. It was getting more human since she had taken Dr Core's body and she had been growing closer to Joker.

"Can you stop…listening and watching and whatever in here?" He asked somewhat unsurely. He had never really asked her to do that before. Well, only once really. Kaidan had been just too appealing that night.

"As you wish Commander," She replied with her amused voice. He could have sworn that were the Robot body in front of him she would have winked as she spoke the word Commander.

Kaidan laughed again, that beautiful laugh. Nathan didn't enjoy much to the degree that he enjoyed Kaidan's laughter. It made him think that this wasn't entirely hopeless. That he wasn't actually doing too bad at the whole…you know, boyfriend thing. It wasn't something that he had really done before. As a spacer he hadn't really gotten too attached to the people that he was on board with since he usually left them after a year or so anyway and then as part of the Alliance there had been rules and regulations. Then it had been pining after Kaidan for the last three years.

"I wish we had an 'EDI off' button sometimes," Nathan moaned.

"Oh but then you'd miss the fun of 'as you wish, Commander,'" Kaidan countered with another amused sip of the Whiskey he'd poured. Nathan took a drink of it as well – it was alright. Not strong enough to be really good, but not cheap enough to be really shitty.

They drank the glasses of Whiskey and they shared some of idle conversation which he had to admit was making him feel better than he had in a long time. He supposed that everyone else on the ship was doing something similar.

"What's everyone else up to at the moment? I've always been curious about how they prepare for this…probable suicide run," He asked Kaidan.

"Tali slipped into the Gun Battery with Garrus. Adams said that he was on his way to the med-bay after Ken and Gabby mysteriously vanished. Liara's on a call to Feron. I'm pretty sure Cortez and Vega were doing something in the Lounge…it sounded like their voices I heard in there….and that's all I actually know," Kaidan replied. Nathan could have laughed. It seemed like the people on the Normandy naturally paired off with each other. All it seemed, except for Javik. He wondered if it was lonely down there but with the alcohol starting to work and Kaidan's company around, he wasn't that interested in the life of the last Prothean at the moment.

He leaned towards Kaidan a little more, couldn't resist it any longer. He wanted to be close to the other man. He wanted to touch him, and breathe him in and not let him go. There was something about Kaidan to Nathan. It was as if Kaidan had a gravitational pull and Nathan was his satellite. He couldn't bear to be too far away from the Sentinel.

"Kaidan…" Shepard murmured as his head came closer to Kaidan's shoulder, his mouth kissing the clothed shoulder, his nose breathing in the unique scent of Kaidan, and his skin tingling at the feeling of the collision of two biotically active beings. Of course the way in which they were biotically active were as opposite as night and day. Kaidan being trained in the art of control and of defence and Nathan with his torrents of offensive energies blasting outwards in the field.

"I lied, I'm not here for a quick drink," Kaidan said almost apologetically, "It's just after this we go straight to Earth and I don't want to…spend my last night of peace without you. I can't…" Kaidan was going to go on, but Nathan slipped his mouth over his lover's.

"You don't have to convince me…I wasn't going to kick you out. I've been glad of this. Of you. I love that about you, you know what I need." He answered, pulling Kaidan up to kiss him.

Kisses with Kaidan were strange. Uniquely blissful. The meeting of two people who were trained so differently. Kaidan's powers strictly regimented and defensive, his mouth allowed in the torrents of Nathan's raw power – undisciplined and wild and strangely enough it worked together as their tongues fell into an almost natural rhythm with Nathan's taking the control and doing the work and Kaidan's responding exactly as Nathan needed to feel great even if Nathan didn't know that's what he wanted at that moment. It was like how they fought now when they were together in battle – in a rhythm that just was uniquely theirs. Others had mentioned it on occasion – Garrus often whined that with them he wasn't getting enough kills because 'they kept stealing them'.

These kisses though, they grew in intensity, in passion as both of them started releasing everything that they had. They could die after this. They could have died long before this. They knew it, everyone knew it. The battle at Earth was going to be hell come to say hello and they knew that not all of them were going to make it. That was what flowed between them. That desperation to hold on, to cling, to never let go until they were pried apart from the other's cold dead hands and even then fight like hell to stay there. They pushed at each other, the boundaries between them coming apart, and these were just kisses. Desperate, hungry kisses, but they needed more than just those. It was Nathan who moved first, just as he always did. His hands ripping at the clothing that his Kaidan was wearing, getting them off. Kaidan's shirt came off first exposing the lovely muscled chest underneath. It was something they shared, especially now that they had been in heavy action for a while. Nathan had lost it for a while whilst they had him under house arrest but he had gotten it back quickly. He felt his own shirt coming off and he pushed at Kaidan's trousers, pushing them down, as far as he could get without detaching himself from Kaidan, but they needed air.

They came apart to get their trousers off, the Alliance standard issue black boxers were all that were left as their breathing became heavier, both from the arousal of this and from the lack of breathing with the frenzied kissing. One barrier left, as they kissed again feeling each other rubbing against them. Similar height meant that as they ground their hips together, the two erections rubbed at each other through their clothing. Kaidan slipped his hands down, slipping them across Nathan's erection. He groaned at the feeling, Kaidan moving his hands back up to head to the waistband. Not yet, they were still standing. Nathan was the one nearer the bed and almost reading his mind, Kaidan pushed him a little, and he fell back onto the bed, moving further up it so that they wouldn't end up with their legs half off the bed. If this was the last chance they had, it would be fucking good.

Kaidan climbed on to the bed after him, almost chasing him like a predator and its prey. Catching him, Kaidan claimed the reward of Nathan's lips again as he pulled at his boxers. Nathan didn't resist this time, and off of him they started to come and when one of them had to move Kaidan moved his mouth down and down, a trail of kisses following him wherever he went and that was steadily moving southwards past his nipples, getting past his belly button and now he was close, oh so close. He could feel Kaidan's chin and neck over him. His legs split further apart in anticipation of Kaidan's mouth being between them. He was not resting in anticipation long before Kaidan engulfed him. Warmth and wetness and Kaidan's…unique Kaidanness, Nathan Shepard would not have minded if the Reapers came and vaporised them at that second because it didn't matter with how he was feeling and he knew that it would only get better. Kaidan's mouth was the most talented mouth he had ever felt. Not that he had many to compare on, but that paled in comparison to being in him. Being truly in him. There was no pleasure greater, although the Asari might try to allure the other species in, might try and convince them that they were the Goddesses of Pleasure that many though them to be, Nathan was left unconvinced because he had experienced Kaidan and he was better than they were.

Kaidan's rhythm was almost teasingly slow, it was just fast enough. Just. If he slowed even a fraction, he'd reduce his lover; the famous Commander Shepard to a quivering and begging mass that would do anything that Kaidan said to get him to go just that little bit faster and Kaidan probably knew it from the way that his lover whined and moaned but that was not what tonight was about. Tonight wasn't about teasing, it was about being together, being one for the brief time that they could be. It wasn't going to be much longer before they would likely be torn apart by this war.

He moved back up again, after all, they didn't want to stay at this moment forever; they wanted to be stuck in a moment later on when they were joined – when they were together wholly. Kaidan let Nathan flip them. Nathan was on top for this bit because he wanted to be staring into Kaidan's eyes, he wouldn't stop looking into them except for when their lips clashed together again and again drowing out the moans of "Fuck Kaidan…just so," and "Oh God, Na-Nate.." until that moment where they couldn't kiss because they couldn't stay silent: that moment of completion where a cry of "Kaidan" mirrored a cry of "Nate".

The cry of Kaidan's bliss still rang in his ears and that was why as he looked at…this…child, ghost thing. He would not take what it said. His options weren't going to let him back to that man, wouldn't let him hear another cry of his first name. He wasn't going to let this fucking kid tell him that he couldn't go back to Kaidan and stop the Reapers.

"Bullshit," Shepard replied to the Catalyst kid when it stopped talking for a moment. "You just told me you made them, you're in charge. Well if that's the case, why don't you go all 'control' and tell them to fucking stop or whatever?" His tone was pretty damn angry for someone with a massive gun wound. Also, how the fuck did he get that? Anderson was the one that got shot. There was something wrong here. The child's mouth moved. He wasn't quite sure what it said, or if it even spoke out loud.

The child in question turned away from Shepard and a flash of irritation crossed it's perfectly neutral face.

"It seems I underestimated you," It said, it's voice suddenly less ghostly and less boy like. It was a familiar voice to Shepard now. Harbinger. He knew that it couldn't have believed that he had died after his attack when they had been racing to the transporter beam thing. The child faded away, to be replaced by the appearance of the eldest Reaper.

"I think that makes that twice you've done that," Shepard snorted.

"It will not happen a third time." Harbinger responded as the room began to fade to black.

"Yeah, cause I'll destroy you, all of you before you can," Shepard answered with his trademark fierce determination before the blackness overtook him completely and he fell into what felt like unconsciousness…or maybe that was him starting to wake up.