Work Text:
It happened to other people—waking up one morning and learning everything that held a body together had just slipped off the center pin. Shepard might’ve been a little slower these days and a little heavier too, with a scar under his kneecap and more titanium than original bone, but he wasn’t even close to forty yet. He still had at least ten more good years left in him—twenty, if he kept at the PT every day like the doctors said.
Everything in its time. The only things he couldn’t put off were the priority missions. And he’d go through that relay when he came to it.
Except Shepard woke up one morning to learn everything that held his body together had just slipped off its center pin.
He was probably…whatever nurses called it when they were looking through their datapad files on a patient. Out of alignment; suffering a pinched nerve. The small of Shepard’s back felt like he’d been carrying James all the way up Grouse Grind the day before, and unless his night ended a lot crazier than he’d thought—something after falling asleep with Kaidan on the couch, watching an old Blasto movie because it was Shepard’s turn to choose—then he hadn’t been.
‘Ugh,’ Shepard said.
‘Yeah,’ Kaidan agreed, already stretching beneath him. ‘I’m gonna go make some coffee. You want to get breakfast or should I?’
‘I think I’m gonna lie here a few more minutes, actually,’ Shepard said, while Kaidan slid off the couch and Shepard fell back onto the cushions.
‘One too many lagers last night, huh, Shepard?’ Kaidan kissed him next to his ear, below the temple. ‘You’ve got worse tolerance than Joker sometimes.’
‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘Funny, right?’
Well, he told himself, trying to shift his hips, he could still feel his toes.
*
Shepard rolled off the couch eventually—the smell of coffee made that easier—and by the end of the day, things were looking up. Kaidan got on top of him in bed that night, which was probably made for sleeping more than the couch no matter how comfortable it was, and Shepard let him rock their hips together with their briefs still on, or at least until Kaidan slid them off.
He cleaned Shepard up after; he was always good like that. Shepard let himself get comfortable with Kaidan’s hand on his stomach, possessive the way only gentle things were, and fell asleep to the shapes Kaidan made with his thumb: up and down, back and forth.
When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t move.
He’d thought that too many times to be surprised, but the ceiling wasn’t white like a med bay or tented like a field hospital. Kaidan shifted next to him, all the warmth and pleasure of the night before like a third party in the bed with them, and Shepard grunted.
‘Huh?’ Kaidan asked, barely awake.
‘Nothing,’ Shepard said. ‘It’s nothing. You’re still asleep.’
Kaidan seemed to agree with that, breaths evening out, one arm still slung around Shepard’s waist. Shepard reminded himself of how comfortable it was, how many reapers he’d killed, that one time with the thresher maw, and how he’d taken James more falls out of any James was able to take him. He was Commander Shepard, and this was his favorite bed in the galaxy.
But he still had to get out of it eventually.
Kaidan was heavy, enjoying the one morning they had to sleep in the whole week, and maybe he’d stay that way. It was the slowest Shepard had ever gone, even counting that one time he still dreamed about—only moving because he didn’t know how to stop. When he thought about it, his joints ached even worse than usual, and he didn’t have time for that old problem given the new one.
Actually, it was the best strategy he had in his arsenal.
The bed creaked—then, Shepard’s back answered—but he managed to swing his feet over the side, searching for some kind of solid ground. It happened, just not as fast as it should’ve, and he was sweating as he leaned forward, elbows on his thighs.
‘Ugh,’ he said again. It just came out, like he’d been headbutted by Wrex right in the ribcage.
Krogans always aimed low. You’re one lucky bastard, Shepard, Wrex would’ve said. ‘Cause I always go for the quads.
The hand on Shepard’s back, between his shoulder-blades, tugged him out of the moment—fond and painful, like all the best ones were. ‘Everything okay?’ Kaidan asked, and he definitely sounded awake now.
‘Uh-huh,’ Shepard said. ‘Everything’s better than okay. Everything’s great.’
‘You were groaning,’ Kaidan told him.
Shepard grinned into his hands—and it was a good thing Kaidan couldn’t see his face, because it felt closer to a scream than a smile. ‘Just thinking about last night.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Kaidan echoed. He curled his knuckles, fingertips against his palm, and started kneading down Shepard’s spine. He came closer and closer to the trouble spot, but even knowing it was on its way didn’t stop Shepard from flinching when Kaidan finally rolled over it with the ball joint of his thumb. ‘And that’s…that’s great too, right?’
‘Well,’ Shepard said, ‘define great.’
*
Kaidan spent a while looking things up on the extranet, calling Shepard’s old doctors, having conversations Shepard didn’t want to listen to. Kaidan probably didn’t want to be having them, either, and Shepard wished for just a second that the altruism that’d carried him through humanity’s darkest days would quit for a while. Go on the road; take a holiday.
Then, he realized that was probably how most people he knew felt about him, so he shut down that line of thinking.
Kaidan let him lie on his back while he checked out a few common home treatments. ‘I’ve got this diagram open,’ he said, helping Shepard turn over onto his stomach, and Shepard imagined how nice it’d be if he could enjoy Kaidan kneeling on his thighs, the push and press of his body as he rubbed the small of Shepard’s back. ‘There should be a spot right in here…’
Shepard opened his mouth, but no sound came out, until finally he managed something that sounded closer to ‘Grunt’ than to ‘Kaidan.’
‘Yeah, I’m guessing that’s making it worse,’ Kaidan said.
God, but Shepard loved him.
*
It wasn’t that bad, Shepard added, while Kaidan was bringing in hot compresses and some oil heat-on-contact oil. He even had some medigel but that didn’t do much for the deeper problems, something inside the muscle and the synapses.
Shepard’s body was fine.
It was just his back that was the trouble.
He knew how easy it was for a fleet to fall apart with one ship out of formation, how a single soldier could let an entire deployment down. Maybe it was the same with bodies, a smaller version of what Shepard had been grappling with all his life.
Keeping it together. Holding on tight.
The hot compress felt good and with Kaidan rubbing the oil in, it felt even better. Shepard groaned some more but it was happy and ended with Kaidan kissing him at his shoulder, the base of his neck, somewhere between tendons and muscles. Shepard said I love you more that afternoon than any other time, more than on their wedding day, over and over while Kaidan’s hands made him feel like Palaven mud or Omega sludge or something.
That should’ve been it—the idea that Kaidan could be the one, not a volunteer nurse or a doctor or Chakwas or anybody, to heal something in Shepard as fundamental as what kept him supporting his own weight. He went to bed on his side and in the morning he was able to pretend all the way to the bathroom that he was fine, if not great.
But Kaidan knew him. Not necessarily better than anyone else—there was always Garrus to contend with on that front—but in all these different, clear-eyed ways. He saw right through it by breakfast.
‘Walk it off,’ Garrus suggested over their private line, while Kaidan was ringing up a handful of specialists. ‘A few miles and you won’t even feel it. And don’t worry—I won’t tell James.’
Well, Loco, Shepard could practically hear James saying, like the same cocky upstart Shepard had been once, looks like one of us is finally getting old.
‘Thanks, Garrus,’ Shepard said. ‘Always a big help.’
‘I’ve got your back, Shepard,’ Garrus replied.
Now if only he meant that literally.
*
The drell shiatsu masseur wasn’t as intense as the krogan chiropractor, but neither of them was someone Shepard wanted coming back for a repeat performance.
‘That krogan definitely helped,’ Shepard said. ‘Please don’t ever make me do that again.’
Kaidan almost laughed, but he looked like Shepard felt whenever he was down for the day with one of his headaches. Shepard felt like he was about to get one too, starting at the base of his spine and traveling all the way up to his skull.
And he didn’t feel like he’d earned it. The back or nothing else, he told his body, but when had it ever listened?
‘We can’t just keep going like this, though,’ Kaidan said later that evening. Shepard drank a protein shake through a straw and tried not to think about how much it reminded him of being in the intensive care unit, getting his calories through a tube. ‘You can’t keep going like this.’
‘I’ll keep going,’ Shepard promised.
Kaidan lay down on the bed next to him, head near his shoulder, mouth on Shepard’s bicep. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
Shepard he knew that and he said as much. But it was the truth anyway, and that was how they both slept.
*
‘Hey,’ Shepard said. ‘At least I’m up and walking again, right?’
Kaidan didn’t look impressed, although Shepard had made it all the way into the kitchen before he had to lean on something and wish he was still flat on his stomach or stretched out on his back. Pain shot from the base of his spine straight to the cap of his knee, one constant line of hell given and received, but not the kind Shepard usually worked with. If he leaned too much on his other leg, it only threw him off balance.
‘So, Liara’s coming over,’ Kaidan replied.
‘Just tell me she isn’t bringing James with her,’ Shepard said.
Kaidan got him onto the couch—which Shepard couldn’t help but blame for starting everything in the first place, although it could’ve been the cement planters he was moving earlier that day, or the cooler refill he carried up the stairs before that. Hell, it might’ve been anything; no use pointing fingers if you didn’t know who or what was at fault.
‘Thinking about that planter I told you not to take on your own, right?’ Kaidan asked.
‘No,’ Shepard said. ‘Maybe.’
‘Shepard…’ Kaidan paused, then kissed him on the cheek again, lower, over to his throat by way of his chin. ‘You know that even when you aren’t moving big stuff around you’re still going to be incredible, right?’
‘I’m going to be that guy who used to be incredible,’ Shepard said. ‘But thanks all the same.’
Kaidan shook his head, almost like he was rubbing his nose on Shepard’s pulse, and of course that was when Liara let herself in.
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get myself something to drink and you can buzz me when you’re finished.’
‘We’re good, Liara.’ Kaidan stood, stretching out the small of his back as he went. ‘He’s all yours now.’
Liara crossed the room, already looking like the hero of Shepard’s galaxy. Or at least the real savior in the room. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, Shepard, but I’m not going to be kissing your throat like Kaidan was.’
‘That’s too bad,’ Kaidan replied. ‘I would’ve liked to see that.’
*
Shepard only let Liara teach him yoga on one condition.
‘Don’t tell James?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Shepard said, already sliding into position. ‘Don’t tell Garrus.’
Liara told him it was a deal and she even shook on it. Shepard knew he could trust her, at least most of the way. And after that, sometimes, he caught Kaidan watching him while he stretched, kneeling on the bed, Kaidan in the doorway.
‘Don’t worry,’ Kaidan said. ‘I’m not going to tell Garrus, either.’
But he did wait until Shepard was rolling onto his back on the mat to get down there with him.
‘Pretty sure this isn’t yoga anymore,’ Shepard said.
‘Huh,’ Kaidan replied. ‘Really? No kidding.’
END