Fanfiction Scribbles #35274809

Kaidan blames the state of the galaxy for the state of his evening.

Casey’s flushed with her hair down, and he has her by the shoulders, each one leading the other to the taxicab step by stumbling step. When they cram themselves in there and take off, he tilts his head back on the seat with an aimless sort of smile because getting tipsy wasn’t on his list of Things That Would Happen After One Steak Sandwich and Several Bottles of Batarian Shard Wine in addition to having the good doctor join him in insobriety as well.

“Where to?” he abruptly asks, just now remembering that they can’t stay here for the rest of the night-cycle no matter how cushy the seats are.

She gives an exaggerated shrug. “If I recall correctly, my apartment’s closer.”

“That’s where we’re going then,” Kaidan decides with a certainty that he has never shown sober.

“Ever the gentleman,” Casey says, “You even paid for dinner tonight.”

“You covered my drinks last time,” he points out, but finds that his finger is gestured to the ceiling.

She grins. “I’m surprised you remember. How long ago was that? A year?”

“Nine months, so yeah, almost.”

Casey doesn’t comment on the fact that he counted. “Why the sudden invitation anyway?”

“I needed someone to celebrate my newly minted Spectre status with.”

With a snort, she notes, “And I’m the first person you thought of?”

“What can I say? I’ve been feeling nostalgic.” What Kaidan doesn’t tell her is that he was thisclose to asking Shepard the very same day, but knows that she would have pursed her lips in that special way of hers and gently, but firmly, turn him down. That, and he wouldn’t have proposed the offer regardless. The rational part of his mind refuses to call this dinner anything other than a casual, platonic offer to reconnect with someone who isn’t Shepard.

“I see,” the doctor says carefully and leaves it at that.

-----

From what he knows about Casey (and it’s far less than some might assume), she takes her job as a doctor seriously, but manages to maintain a home life that results in her apartment looking lived-in—and amusingly messy. There are multi-colored datapads scattered across a desk shoved to one corner, plates stacked on an otherwise clean countertop, and long, bare-backed dresses thrown over the arm of an elegant couch. These are just the details Kaidan spots on first sight, but he has no time to catalogue them because the woman draped on his shoulders is laughing into the curve of his neck, breath hot and damp on his skin. 

“Christ, my apartment,” she wheezes, “sorry you have to see this.”

Softly shushing her, Kaidan shakes his head. “S’fine, really. The place looks homey.” He sidesteps a stray shirtsleeve poking out from underneath the table leg. “I like it.”

“Shut up, you hate it, and so do I,” Casey replies so blithely that he winds up laughing too. “I’ll do some cleaning after you leave.”

“Let’s get you to a bed first,” he suggests, to which the doctor hums in agreement and the subsequent vibration Kaidan steadfastly ignores.

Naturally, her personal quarters lie in the same state of affairs as the rest of the apartment. He can’t help but stare in wonder, silently comparing Casey’s situation to Shepard’s own room, and how spare and orderly the other woman keeps her things and by extension, her life. Kept. Still keeps?

She waves her hand in front of his face. “You okay?”

He blinks slowly, pushing Shepard away. “Yeah.”

Casey grabs his shoulders to look at him. A beat. Like flicking a switch, her gaze suddenly becomes shuttered and half-lidded. “No you’re not.”

He tries not to squirm. Since when has he become this easy to read? The part of Kaidan that’s still drunk urges him to drop the pretenses for once because honestly, with the way this war is raging, what are the chances that he will ever see her again after tonight? Can there be at least one other person besides Sh—her he allows inside? Hasn’t he had enough of holding everyone at a distance?

“No I’m not,” he sighs and feels the weight rising from his chest.

Nodding wordlessly, Casey the Citadel doctor leans against him, hands cupping his face. “It’s alright,” she says, her words made slurring and gentle by the wine, “She’s not someone you just ‘get over.’”

“It isn’t over though,” Kaidan insists, a delayed protest that sounds too much like a question.

“Of course,” she says.

“It’s not.”

“I know.”

“She won’t give me a straight answer—“

“Women never do—“

“And it’s my fault she won’t anyway—“

“Impossible—”

“But how could I trust her after Horizon and G—?”

“Stop thinking,” Casey hisses and covers his mouth with her own.

Kaidan freezes for a moment, more shocked than dismayed, but murmurs a pained, “I can’t” before kissing her back.

-----

Kaidan can taste the perfume leftover from Casey’s dress on her skin. It’s tart and slightly bitter, mingling with sweat; intrigued, he maps where the taste-scent has trailed off from its original location on the curve of her neck to across a protruding collarbone, the band of flesh between her breasts, and on down to the dip of her belly, where his hands have gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises—he’ll kiss those later. She makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a laugh when he tongues a circle around her bellybutton.

With the lights dimmed, it’s easy to imagine her with thicker, kinkier hair and broader, rougher palms whose nails leave marks down his back. Unlike Shepard though, Casey’s vocal, making her feelings known with every “yes” and “god” he wrings out of her—that, he can’t imagine away. Just as his mind begins to stray, her legs hook around his waist and pull so she’s pressed flush against every available inch of skin. In response, he kisses the hollow of her throat, bucking into her impatient fingers—or is he used to slower hands?

His smile comes out more like a grimace that the shadows hide. Even now, with Casey writhing beneath him, Kaidan can’t stop processing the differences and similarities between who he has and who he misses. 

Eventually, he comes quietly, breathing harshly into her ear as she clutches at him, riding out the aftershocks of her own release. The air seems to drop several degrees while they collect themselves in each other’s arms. In a moment of tenderness, Kaidan brushes back the locks of hair matted to her forehead, limp from their exertions. Unexpectedly, there’s no instant feeling of dread or guilt, but only a hollow ache in his chest to keep his conscience company. On cue, Shepard winks in and out of his mind like the spectre she is, and when his eyes open to find Casey staring back, he knows she knows it too.

She thrums her fingers against his cheek, as if deciding what to do with him. Kaidan isn’t sure how to answer if she asks him to stay the night.

“Are you going?” she says instead.

“Well,” he starts. “I mean—“

“Go home, Kaidan.” She sits up, pushing him back until he’s leaning on his knees. “Then tomorrow, send her a message and ask her to come see you.” Her mouth twists. “Go on a date.”

“Casey, you don’t have to—“

“Oh but I do,” she says, shaking her head, “I really do.”

Kaidan blinks stupidly at her. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “Don’t be.”

Curling an arm around her waist, he gives her one more kiss that says more than he’s able to on his own. She responds in kind, sighing and telling him all about it, but nevertheless is the first one to break it off, licking her lips as they pull away. Kaidan dresses himself, closes the door, and leaves without another word.