Title: Happiness
Rating: R (man sex, language)
Pairing: MShep/Kaidan
Warnings: Angst! Angst!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters and am not making any profit from the publication of this.
Summary: Many years after defeating the Reapers, Commander Shepard just wants to enjoy what little time he has left, his failing cybernetic implants, however, are making that a very difficult goal to accomplish.

This was written as a fill for a prompt at the Mass Effect Kink Meme, and I decided to post it here as well.

Kaidan turned his head when he heard John hiss in the kitchen. "Shit…" it was a quiet whisper, but he was familiar enough with his husband's voice to know when there was frustration in it, no matter the volume. He ran a hand over Lee's forehead.

"Can you finish the story yourself?" he asked calmly, pushing the book towards the child. "I'm going to go and check on Dad."

The five year old cocked his head. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Of course he is. I just want to make sure he didn't break anything." Kaidan smiled reassuringly at his son and hurried to the kitchen. John was standing in front of the sink, back hunched and his hands out of sight. "John?" Kaidan asked quietly, coming up behind the man to run a hand over his back. "What's going on?"

"I…it's nothing," he said, turning off the tap with his elbow. "Can you get some medi-gel, please?" His right hand was covered in a thick splatter of red and he cradled it with his left.

"What happened?" Kaidan asked, moving to get the medi-gel from the cupboard. He tried to keep his voice level, didn't hurry too much, because making a big deal out of it would only anger John. And he was already upset. Kaidan set the medi-gel on the counter and held out his hand, waiting for John to give him his wounded one.

"I was trying to take my pills."

"And?" Kaidan wiped the large cut clean and winced at its depth. Medi-gel could only do so much, and he could see the cybernetic implants flickering under the mess of torn flesh.

"My hand…shook, I guess. I don't know. I was picking up a glass of water and…" John looked over Kaidan's shoulder, out the large window. "God damn it, Kaidan." He kept his voice quiet – he probably knew the girls would already be asleep, but Kaidan could tell it was a struggle. "I'm so tired of this. I should be able to pick up a fucking glass of water without killing myself." Kaidan wiped off the excess medi-gel with a cloth and covered John's hand with a bandage. The fabric covering wasn't necessary, but he knew that the younger children would probably be frightened to see their father's hand flickering.

"Come to bed, John."

John glanced sideways and shifted uncomfortably when Kaidan put a gentle hand on his face. He had never been one for placation. "Kaidan, you know I'm not…I can't…Not since the new medication." He frowned and let out a small puff of air. Kaidan arched an eyebrow and waited, knowing there was something more behind that aborted sigh. "I hate this. Why couldn't they just let me die properly the first time?" His voice rose a little in the dim light of kitchen and his breath hitched audibly.

"I didn't mean it like that." John's hand shuddered involuntarily in Kaidan's grip and the man set his jaw in a firm line.

"I can't do anything right."

Kaidan grimaced. "They said that it would take time…that after a while, you could recover full-"

"Jesus Christ Kaidan! How long has it been since I started taking those useless pills?" he spat, ripping his hand away from his husband. "How long have we been living on the edge? Everything's different, now. I have to be careful, no matter what I do. 'Don't leave the house on your own, John, you could have a seizure. Don't leave him alone – ever – who knows what could happen? I'm sorry, but we'll have to hold onto that for you. Metal isn't good for you right now.' I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring for years. How do you think it feels to need a baby sitter anytime I want to go out? How do you think it feels to ask Jaqueline to come shopping with her old dad because he might need her to help him walk?"

"Jack doesn't mind going with you." Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck. "Please, can we just go to bed, we can talk about it there." He knew that John wasn't intentionally getting louder, but Lee's room was close to the kitchen and he was sure the boy hadn't fallen asleep yet. He didn't want the child to hear his father so angry.

"I used to be a Spectre." John hissed angrily.

"You still are."

"You know that's just a formality." He sighed and his shoulders dropped. "I…I hate being like this. I'm not even a shadow or a shell of what I was. I'm just…I'm nothing. I went from Elysium to Ilos to Earth to…dick all."

"Excuse me?" Kaidan stepped forward and gripped John's arm firmly – not too hard because he didn't want to break the skin, but firm enough that his husband would take notice – "You are not dick all. You mean everything to those kids. You are an amazing father and an incredible uncle to many children all over the galaxy. And you, John Shepard, are my entire world. I don't know what is going through your mind but you'd better smarten up because too many people need you. I'm sorry, but you're not old enough to wallow in self-pity yet." He loosened his grip and ran his hand up John's arm to his neck, pressed his thumb to the man's lips. "Now, are you going to come to bed, or am I going to have to carry you?"

John thanked his daughter for driving him to the doctor's – Kaidan was in a meeting – before leaving her in the waiting room. "I should be out soon," he promised.

"It's cool," she said quietly, reaching into her bag for a book. John was surprised she was still able to find them, but then, given the family's acquaintances, maybe he shouldn't have been.

Once in the exam room, the assistant helped him onto the exam table. He tugged his shirt over his head and she pulled back for a moment. "I didn't expect the damage to be so bad," she said, stepping forward to look closer at the network of lights. They weren't quite scars – Dr. Chakwas surgery performed fifteen years ago had ensured that the nasty scars wouldn't appear again – but more like strings of bright orange lights which someone had draped across his skin. "Do they hurt?" the assistant murmured, reaching for a glove.

"Only when they malfunction," he offered gruffly, as she probed one near his hip. "Otherwise, they just look ugly."

"And how often have they been malfunctioning?" she asked, backing away to open his file on her omni-tool.

"Often," he grunted, running his hands over his stomach. "Multiple times a day. I thought the doctor said the medication would help."

"Well, it should be helping, but it's important to recognize that there's not precedent here, Mr. Shepard."

"Captain Shepard," he corrected her quietly. If his title was the only thing he had left, he was going to cling to it.

"Captain Shepard. Like I said, you're the only human being who's died and lived to tell the tale. While it's not uncommon for people to have one or even a few cybernetics implanted to prolong their life, you are the only human in recorded history to have more cybernetics than flesh. They're just all malfunctioning together and the medication we've been giving is designed to assist your body. We just don't have anything to help the machinery work better." She frowned sympathetically and turned her omni-tool off. "I'll let Dr. Hamburn know that you're ready for him." The door hissed shut behind her, leaving Shepard alone for the moment.

He scratched at his leg and contemplated sending Kaidan a message. Just as he was raising his hand to write it out, the door opened and his doctor entered. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Captain," he said, coming to shake Shepard's hand.

"No problem," the man muttered.

"So, Anika mentioned something about you being frustrated with the medication?"

Shepard shrugged his shoulders. "It's just…they don't seem to be doing anything. I just seem to be getting worse every day. And all of the rules that go with taking the medication…" He sighed and rolled his shoulder, rubbed the soreness unconsciously. "I can't do the things that I like to do, I can't be the man that I want to be. And if I'm going to…if I'm going to die anyways, why can't I die doing the things that I enjoy?" He hadn't told Kaidan about this, about asking these questions. He couldn't even begin to imagine how angry the man would be if he knew what was being suggested.

"But the medication is slowing the degradation of the cybernetics, Captain. You need to understand that."

"By how much?" Shepard asked. "A week, a month? A day?" The doctor stared at him for a moment. "You don't know. You have no clue. I…I'm frustrated. I haven't had sex longer than I can count and it's killing me, lying next to my husband every night, not being able to be with him. I can't leave the house by myself. The other night, I cut myself trying to drink a glass of water. I don't want to die like this…I don't want to die unhappy."

"You could have years left," the doctor said carefully.

"Look…I appreciate that your job is to keep me alive. And that you're trying to do the best with limited resources. But these pills…they could be useless. I don't want to take them anymore."

"Captain, I'm sorry but –"

"No. No buts. This is my body. And I'm tired of feeling trapped in it. I want you to tell me how I can wean myself off of these. I don't want to take them now, I don't want to take them later. I want to be done with pills."

"I'm going to have to report this as against doctor's orders."

"That's fine," Shepard said, pulling his shirt back on. "Whatever you have to do."

Kaidan slammed his fist against the surface of the table. "You did what?"

"Kids, go to your rooms, please," Shepard said.

"Dad, I'm not done yet."

"Fine! Take your dinner with you."

"Can we watch TV while we eat?"

"Yes, fine. Of course." Four children grabbed their plates and scurried from the dining room.

"How dare you?" Kaidan asked, his voice sure to carry thorough the house regardless of how loud the kids had the volume of their TV shows. "You didn't even ask me."

"It's my body, Kaidan. My life."

"Are you being serious right now?" Kaidan let out a gust of air, a sardonic laugh, as he fell back into his chair. "I feel like I don't even know you. You were willing to give your life to save Joker on the SR-1, you risked everything to save humanity from the Collecters…John, the number of times you risked everything for others is innumerable. But when it comes to taking a few pills, to stay alive a little longer for your family, you won't do it?"

"He said the tremors would stop, the seizures. I would go back to being my old self." Shepard rubbed his forehead. "He said he wasn't even sure if the medication was helping."

"John, if there was even a chance –"

Shepard reached across the table top to grip Kaidan's forearm. "Please…try to understand how hard this has been for me. I know it can't be easy for the kids, or you, either. Watching me fall apart. Maybe this will be faster, but it will be easier." He squeezed the man's arm tightly before letting go. "Cleaner."

Kaidan sucked back a wet gasp of air. "I don't understand why they can't just replace them."

"There's too many. Too high of a risk that I might reject them. To high of a cost."

"This wasn't supposed to happen. Not like this."

It was early yet when something warm pressed against Kaidan's back. An arm wrapped around his chest and fingers scratched across his nipples, encumbered by the fabric of his t-shirt. He blinked a few times and felt John's knee nudging his legs apart, settling itself between his thighs. John reached down and tucked his fingers under the hem of Kaidan's shirt, heat dancing over his abdomen as he pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. The pressure of his arousal pushed at Kaidan's lower back as his breath ghosted over the man's skin. "I love you," he whispered.

Outside of their window, stars were still visible in the sky. Kaidan gripped at John's hand and closed his eyes. "I love you, too," he whimpered, before rolling over to press his lips to John's. Considering that it had been months since they had done anything more than some heavy petting, it came as a surprise to both of them that they didn't rush into anything. There was slow comfort to their lovemaking, as Kaidan dipped his head to tentatively nip and lick at John's clavicle, pulling back only to remove their shirts. He ran his hands over the man's torso and when he closed his eyes, he couldn't even feel the cybernetics underneath the man's skin. It was just like before.

John hooked a leg around Kaidan's waist and threaded his fingers through the man's hair, skittering over the soft spot at the base of his skull where the man's implant was located. He shifted so that their groins were pressed together and let out a quiet moan, slipping his free hand under the waistband of Kaidan's shorts to pet the hot skin. His thumb traced a lazy pattern for a moment before Kaidan pulled back from their kiss and licked down John's stomach, pressing his lips to the fabric of the man's underwear. John arched his back and it was all the request Kaidan needed, he pulled his husband's underwear off and dipped to take the man's erection in his mouth.

The slow, rising heat at the base of his spine as almost too much for John, it was all he could do to keep from snapping his hips up towards Kaidan's mouth. The man used his hands to hold John's body down and massaged a small circle over the man's hot skin before pulling away, trailing his tongue over John's arousal. He pushed his own underwear off and reached into the bedside table, pulled out a condom and ripped it open quickly. "Okay?" he mouthed in the near darkness. John nodded and raised his hips in an answer, pushed his heals into the mattress.

Kaidan rolled the condom on and used one hand to ready John while gripping the back of the man's knee with the other. It didn't take long for John to breathe Kaidan's name in a rush of air and reach for him. He was begging for it. Kaidan situated himself and entered John, gripped the man's thighs as he rocked back and forth. It had only been a short amount of time, filled with the sound of their bodies sliding along each other, when they both finished. One following the other before they collapsed in a heap of sweat soaked limbs and soft kisses.

When Kaidan woke the next morning, John was sleeping quietly, his hair tousled against the sheets, limbs akimbo in the warmth of the bed. He turned off the alarm clock before it woke the man and hurried to get a shower before the kids woke up.

It hadn't been two weeks since John had stopped his medication regimen. He seemed to be doing much better – the seizures had stopped completely and the tremors only occurred every other day or so. He seemed to have much more energy and he was spending more time at HQ. It was a Sunday morning and Kaidan was hoping to sleep in when the twins came in to wake them. He shook his head and shooed the girls from the room. Should have known, he thought lightly, you never get to sleep in once you have children. Liara told me. He pushed himself out of bed and grabbed a pair of pants off the floor. "John, you should get up, you promised the girls we'd go to the aquarium today." He pulled the pants on and did the zipper up, only realizing they were John's when he saw how high the hemline was. He shrugged and leaned over the bed to shake his husband's shoulder. "Hey, sleepy head, time to get up and do that fathering thing."

John didn't say anything. He didn't move. He didn't breathe.

"John?" Kaidan asked quietly, afraid of the answer. Afraid of the silence. He shook the man's shoulder a little harder and moved to kneel on the bed next to him. "John, please wake up." He tried to keep his voice calm, but couldn't stop it from cracking. "Shit…no." He gripped at his husband's arms, pulled him so that John's head was in his lap. "Please, John. Come on. You've done it before." He ran a hand over the man's face, feeling for any hint of breath, a sign of a pulse, any mark of life. "You can't do this. You're not allowed." He ducked his head and pressed it to the man's shoulder, feeling a pain forming in his neck and the beginnings of a migraine.

"Dad?" Jaqueline's voice caused him to look up, wipe the wetness from his face. She was standing in the doorway in her pyjamas, a blank look on her face.

"Jack…Can you call…" Kaidan trailed off and looked back down at John, cradled in his lap. "Um…I need you to…"

"It's okay. I'll call Aunt Liara." She moved to leave the room before she seemed to think twice, turned around and came inside. Her hand floated about Kaidan's bare shoulder for a moment before coming to rest against his skin. "This is how he would've wanted it, you know."

"What?"

"He was…happy. He would've wanted to be happy."

"Yeah. Happy."