Summary: Ryder overstays their welcome, ruffling Sloane's feathers. Kaetus is skilled at unruffling them.
a/n: This is a treat for Raven_Wilde. While I was cruising the 2017 Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange. I found her prompt for something funny for Kaetus/Sloane Kelly.
Irritability
The pathfinder backed out of the room, pistol held at the ready. Sloane's eyes narrowed as the door whooshed closed behind the Initiative representative.
"Get out!" Kelly barked.
The krogan guards scrambled out of what some of the residents of the port had taken to calling the throne room. A growl hung in her throat as the liberator of Kadara Port unfolded her leg and pushed her scarred body out of the chair. Her footfalls rang heavily against the hard floor, each step echoing in her ears, as she crossed to the windows.
Despite the shade cast by the louvers, the sill of the picture window warmed her fingers and hands when she leaned against it. With a shake of her head, she raised her gaze. Keen dual-colored eyes scanned the landscape below.
Everything on Kadara was so … beige.
Jagged mountains broke through the scrubby brush, reaching for the rust-colored planet hanging heavy above the horizon. The rough peaks broke and dropped in sheer cliffs and curved sharply to valleys the same khaki shade despite the shadow fingers stretching carving dark swaths across them. There were rare dollops of color. Dangerously beautiful, crystal aqua pools bordered in sun-bleached whitish rock and pockmarked with rare pops of red and yellow foliage. The water on that moon was a deadly as inhabitants—both wild and supposedly civilized.
The silence around her stood in stark contrast rattle of thoughts racing through her head. But it all froze in an instant. Her hands tightened on the window sill as Kaetus' closed over her shoulders. With the first squeeze, her eyes closed. Then her head lulled forward.
He knew better than to say anything. Her blood still boiled in her veins and the memory of the visit by Alec Ryder's uppity, demanding child.
Strong hands kneaded and knuckles pressed into stressed out and sore muscles. Sloane didn't even notice the soft hums and groans her second pulled from her tired body. She was sickening of it all—the Nexus, the quid pro quo, the late arrival of a Pathfinder—but not him.
Expert digits pressed alongside her spine while his other thumb rubbed a soft circle at the back of her neck.
"Sloane." The husky whisper sent a jolt through her nervous system.
Sure, it was merely her name, but the way he said it—the tone of his voice dropped when he spoke it and from his mouth, that single word caressed and enveloped her, making it so much more than just her name. She turned, leaning against the window, an unspoken invitation for him to close the distance between them.
His situational awareness, still spot on, carried him forward. His hands stayed relatively put as well—one resting on her hip, the other on her neck. His talon traced the line of her jaw as he stared at her. When she tipped her forehead just so, Kaetus' completed the movement; his eyes closing as he took a long, slow breath. They stayed like that for a time in comfortable stillness and connection, then she looked up into his eyes again.
"How'd Ryder get your gun?" Sloane asked, a laugh tickling her voice.
Kaetus' eyes popped back open. He looked at her before he admitted, "I underestimated them."
Her fist bumped the turian's chest piece. "Clearly, so did I."
"Won't happen again."
"I know." Sloane leaned against his chest, allowing him to wrap her up in his arms as hers circled his thin waist.
Old habits were hard to break, she reminded herself as an internal alarm blared in her head. This was ill-advised. She retorted with the argument that Andromeda was supposed to be a new start—but it all went to hell minutes in. Her eyes screwed closed and for a moment she could taste the soot in her throat again.
His rough thumb grazed the shell of her ear and she glanced up at him. Well, not all, she reminded herself.
Kaetus lowered his head and Sloane stretched upward to close the distance and press her lips against his mouth. The kiss was far softer than either of the old soldiers; it deepened in the same easy unspoken way many interactions happened between them. The two exiles lost themselves in one another for a few calm moments there in the slivers of light passing through the shades protecting the massive windows in the Outcasts headquarters at the center of Kadara Port.