It was suicidally wrong, Kaidan decided [after the faint death rattle of bodies disappeared], to have these thoughts when there was a fucking crater in Shepard's side where the incendiary rounds melted through his hard suit.

Maybe it was shock over the initial spray of red mist as Shepard went down, or that fleeting sense of apprehension before a migraine, or the cacophony of beautiful screeching monsters and gunfire howling relentless inside his head. In any case, for all his well laid expressions of concern as he readied the implants and medigel [and quickly now], the only real feeling Kaidan had left was the one hanging between his legs and begging him to get a damned fuck already –

And –

[A freeze, a sharp blue zap...perfectly repressed]

Shepard breathed, all shallow pants- hitching while Kaidan slathered on the blob of technically illegal substance and tried to distract himself with relief over the lack of fragments – Not, not peeking at exposed skin, all cracked and scarred where it'd been abused and smooth where it'd healed over. Because holy shit, it'd never looked better than when he was covered in blood [Not so much Shepard's own, not usually, but when it was the blood of others after rush-slamming into enemies...] There was always something about dark streaks tainting his face and his neck and his hair, and Kaidan just — well he would stop thinking about it.

It took another couple of seconds, but the gush finally crawled to a halt. Shepard retched slightly. His eyes were glazed over as if he wasn't entirely sure where he was, and he squinted as he tried to regain focus. Blurry vision and unsettled stomach aside, he seemed calm and watchful. Not a tinge of fear. Kaidan wondered if Shepard would still have that look of absolute trust in his eyes [nice to know you'd follow me anywhere] once he knew about his little kink.

He sealed in the hole with synthetics, applied a clean dressing and Shepard groaned involuntarily, something welcomely processed by a far less rational part of Kaidan's mind. He was telling himself he'd be damned if he couldn't keep it professional [he would always play it safe, ever so committed in his marriage to self control since brain camp], so he could stick to his finely trained first-aid skills and bedside manner, thank you very much. Or something like that.

And then something latched onto his hand, still slick with gel and blood, and pulled down –

[Made his arm bend at an angle it probably wasn't ever designed to experience]

until their heads crashed together in a horrifyingly moment where Kaidan was sure he'd cracked his nose, and Ow if Shepard's teeth would stop digging into his bottom lip in – okay, some kind of heavily awkward, delirious kiss.

There was a chuckle, followed by an unintelligible mumble [suspiciously sounding like dealwithit] and a spark of energy that seared through his veins and licked up his spine. It pulsed, spiked and went on for way too long before Kaidan found himself lapping at the corner of Shepard's mouth: some small attempt to clean up the trickling little red from the impact.

He pulled back for a second of hesitation silence pause to find Shepard grinning [teeth baring, feral, unsettling scrunch of the eyelids], giddy and flushed [paleness on the edge whispering why thankyou blood-loss and see if you can wrench some colour back into me], and Kaidan couldn't understand why he was suddenly the disoriented one. Never noticed exactly when there was a grip on his neck [still tightening and almost painful right next to his amp], as he slid around the tiny cut, sucked on it [tasting salty metallic deep warm] like a goddamned vampire. And carefully, because he wouldn't want to swallow everything [so breathtaking but oh so delicious and he couldn't get enough].

Shepard didn't protest.

Maybe conversing was the last thing on his mind in the jumble of limbs struggling to undo armour clasps and toss the pieces aside. Subsequently, one landed on the charred remains of a still twitching corpse [but no one cared since they're dead and we're all alone now].

They pressed up against the haphazardly placed crate [squat in the middle of the place for no good reason, but great for cover and liberally smeared with dirt and everything else Chakwas-disapproved] and it was all teeth tongue lips breaking the skin tugging hurting tearing, getting high on the messed up daze of pleasure and pain.

Afterwards, Kaidan was a bit sick from the realization of the [sheer insane] difficulty of thinking around the copper-bitter taste filling his mouth sliding down his throat, while Shepard tangled his fingers into the pop-star hair and yanked yanked yanked [like he was trying to tear apart the ungodly amount of hair products dissolved in it] until all he could see feel hear taste was –

Red [from lips hair blood fire explosions]

And he couldn't help but think that it was quite possibly the only part of the spectrum that mattered.