STONE LIONS

I have this sense that Shepard would be in and out of hospitals a lot for the first couple years after the war, either for procedures or just because he was susceptible to every little thing. Kaidan would of course be there at his bedside with his waiting room stubble and some really bad coffee and probably a sandwich.   

spicyshimmy:

art by stonelions. tenth street reds or tenth street blues? either way, he’s the once and future commander.

TRAVEL THE GALAXY. SEE THE STARS. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR FUTURE.

There’s this dumb kid who checks out the newest promotional poster on the station every night around the same time—right when the storefronts close up so punks like him don’t bust the joint open and download the day’s credits in a quick cut and run. He’s got a leather jacket that’s an inch too short on his torso. Long and lean, in the middle of a growth spurt he might not have enough proteins for. He unwraps a bar and tears into it, waiting for the janitor VI to sweep by, for curfew to sound over the speakers.

Nighttime doesn’t mean darkness. In some places, it just gives you more space to see the stars—pretend you’re traveling the galaxy, taking control of your future. In others, it makes the holo-posters stand out brighter, Blasto across the way shimmering pink, Tummy Tingling Tuchanka Sauce bottles dancing to their catchy jingle, the latest hot club showcasing a new asari dancer, and SYSTEMS ALLIANCE signups peppering the main drag. Soldiers in steadfast profile, caps pulled down over their eyes, stiff collars and scarred cheekbones and a kid’s reflection in the scratch-free Plexiglas, fading in and out between flashes in the background.

The kid wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then wipes the back of his hand on the front of his jeans. He could draw that symbol in his sleep, the arch over three stars. It’s a good thing his friends aren’t around to see him—wasting their extra credits on bribing a krogan bouncer to get into Seventeenth Heaven instead.

They’d never let him hear the end of it, ‘cause they think having a dream is the opposite of flying high. Anti-anti-gravity, even. That kind of nightmare.

The kid just got off a transport job—Red Sand for the dusters; he didn’t have to check the goods to know what they were by the price—and his ribs are bruised for his efforts, bone biting into muscle when he shifts the wrong way. His stomach’s growling but that’s not ‘cause it’s empty. There’s a different reason, big and black and limitless. They’re born with an understanding of dark matter. Then, over the years, the pistols they pick up and the rounds they fire and the stuff they need, the codes they break, start meaning more than the rest.

There’s this dumb kid who doesn’t know what it means or who he’s gonna be, or where he’s gonna go. That the promise on a poster isn’t about the future. That his skinny shoulders are gonna get bigger. That tired doesn’t mean the same thing when there’s a bed waiting for you, one you can’t use.

Sometimes, Shepard sees those kids, standing in front of the glow. SYSTEMS ALLIANCE. The arch over three stars. This dumb kid reaching out a hand to touch the sky. Not satisfied with the small picture made out of the big picture. Ready. Steady. The future so damn bright.

You’re gonna go places, kiddo. Just you wait and see. 

spicyshimmy:

SO STONELIONS MADE THIS AND SENT IT MY WAY and now i’m listening to the star wars soundtrack and basically i’m in heaven.

Kaidan Alenko was a Jedi. His father was a Jedi. And his grandfather had been a Jedi, and his father before him. When he was a youngling he’d even thought there were as many Jedi with the name Alenko as there were swamp slugs in the Dagobah system.

Or as many scars on John Shepard’s face.

Or as many lies as John Shepard told in a single day.

‘You know, they call me Skywalker,’ Shepard said.

‘No one calls you Skywalker,’ Kaidan replied.

‘Maybe not, but they could,’ Shepard said, tossing Kaidan a helmet. ‘Now buckle up, master, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.’

*

When Shepard started calling him princess, Kaidan realized he preferred being called master. Hindsight had perspective the present lacked—a lesson only learned ‘the hard way,’ taught by ‘hard people.’

Hard people like Shepard.

…Who made Kaidan feel like he needed to meditate, but also made meditation impossible. These were the contradictions Kaidan’s master had prepared him for—like an uncharted asteroid field at the end of a hyperspeed jump.

*

The humidity in the Dagobah system made Kaidan’s hair do some crazy things.

‘Don’t say it,’ Kaidan said.

Shepard held up his hands, palms forward, blaster scarred fingers and swollen knuckles. ‘Silent as… Well, as the Silent,’ Shepard replied.

*

‘Too bad you’re too old to be a padawan,’ Shepard said.

But Kaidan didn’t need a braid for Shepard to pull.

*

Shepard, on the other hand, was too old to be a padawan. Too old for a lot of things, but that didn’t seem to slow him down. And the Force was strong with him; Kaidan had felt it during their first daring escape mission and by their third, it had already become familiar. He’d come to expect it.

‘He will be an asset to the rebellion,’ Master Anderson said. Then, after a pause, he added, ‘…Though it may be difficult to believe it now.’

Difficult was an understatement. The whole thing was bound to be an uphill battle. Kaidan could just see it now.

Use the Force, Shepard, he’d say, and Shepard would use his blaster instead.

Kaidan bowed his head. ‘Yes, Master,’ he replied. 

“Before you ask, princess, there’s no blaster in my pocket. I’m just happy to see you.” 

“Please don’t.” 

or something like that idk

spicyshimmy:

GREENSTICK FRACTURE, space husbands fic, 6000~ words, mshenko, vancouver space family. david’s the youngest of two; kaidan’s always been his favorite dad. but he and shepard bond when david gets hurt trying to keep up with his big sister ashley, and shepard wears dad plaid for a while. also, the dog’s name is mako. this whole thing is entirely stonelions’ brainchild. i just helped a little. 

Shepard was feeling confident about not burning the grilled cheese sandwiches he’d decided to make for lunch. 

It was supposed to be easy. When Kaidan did it, it was. You put some butter on two slices of bread and you put cheese between them and flopped the whole thing into a hot pan for a while, and tada. Grilled cheese sandwiches. The kids loved them and so did Shepard, but whenever he tried to do it they tended to come out a little blackened. 

“If you didn’t wander off to answer messages while you were cooking, you might get better results,” Kaidan said to him the last time. “Just…a thought,” he’d added while he opened all the kitchen windows to let the smoke out. 

Even Mako had refused the end product of Shepard’s efforts that day. “Well fine,” he’d said. “I save the galaxy and this is the thanks I get, huh?” The dog licked her wet nose and walked away.

MORE @ AO3

On a bit of a dad and bab bender here I guess. <3

spicyshimmy:

teens in the future. art by stonelions. shepard gives kaidan some grief and he goes a little gray. but that’s in the past. cuddles are in the now. 

Shepard doesn’t touch that gray streak. It’s off limits. It’s the one part of Kaidan that is, when even the small of his back and the backs of his thighs and the insides of his knees and the slant of his hips aren’t in the night, warm under the covers. The fever he lives. The fever Shepard keeps trying to catch, catching when he doesn’t try.

That’s the way it goes.

‘Shepard,’ Kaidan says.

Shepard flexes his toes, one of them popping. He knows the gray streak’s there because he isn’t looking at it. Somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty they stopped blaming each other for the marks they left and the changes they made and realized they’d grown up together. Who they were, for better or worse.

In sickness. In health.

In drugstore socks.

‘Yeah?’ Shepard asks.

Kaidan rubs the top of Shepard’s foot with the arch of his own, nudging his ankle. He’s asking about those drugstore socks, why Shepard isn’t wearing the warm pair Kaidan got him for Christmas, but those socks are special, meant for more than a hole in the heel after snagging them on a loose nail. Which is the fate all socks suffer, if they aren’t lost in the laundry first.

But what Kaidan really means is—

‘How’d we get here, anyway? Messed up kid that I was—’

‘Hey,’ Shepard says. ‘Don’t take all the credit. You weren’t the only one.’

‘That’s what I’m saying.’ Kaidan’s streak of gray falls on the other side of his forehead from where his hair tickles Shepard’s skin. Even on the nights when Shepard stares at the ceiling and thinks about crawling inside of love, about eating it whole or letting it eat him, hard for Kaidan the way he was when he was sixteen and even stupider, hiding the evidence under one of the Alenko’s foreign entities, the throw pillow—even then, he gets where it is and why it has to be there. Separate from him, even though he’s the one who caused it. ‘I mean, Shepard, I would’ve thought for sure that you’d have at least one ticket for reckless driving.’

He’s not that bad. Kaidan’s hand is over his chest, on his heart.

‘Hey,’ Shepard says. ‘You want some ice cream?’

Maybe they could even get some with a swirl to match the gray streak, yeah, but also the tangle of their legs locked together in the night. 

Shepard really though those socks are ridiculous. 

semi-abstract garrus (sorry that you look like an 80s ski jacket garrus, sorry about that)

spicyshimmy:

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. stonelions drew some cuddles. the teenagers warm themselves up.

Shepard finally got a pair of gloves that winter, but only because he got paid extra to shovel the snow in front of Apollo’s. Kaidan didn’t have to reach over and take at least one of Shepard’s hands to rescue it from the cold, sneaking it into his coat pocket, covering it with his own.

He didn’t have a hat. He didn’t borrow a scarf. His socks were the thick kind that came in twelve-packs at the drugstore but they were old enough to have holes in them. His best pair of boots wasn’t waterproof.

‘And don’t get me started on that jacket,’ Mom said, watching him disappear into the night before letting the curtain fall back into place. ‘I don’t think that thing’s even warm enough for fall.’

It wasn’t. Kaidan had worn it once in the rain and his t-shirt was sompletely soaked through after. It was one of Anderson’s, a hand-me-down, weathered at the elbows, with the pockets patched up on the inside, paper-thin lining made delicate with age. Liara called it retro. And it was, but it was also cold in there; Kaidan lay it out to dry over the back of his desk chair and peeled off his wet t-shirt and turned around to find Shepard watching him, so…

Honestly, Kaidan even liked the jacket. What it stood for, more than the actual fabric itself. What it reminded him of when he wasn’t squinting at Shepard sideways through eyelashes heavy with snow.

If you liked somebody, you had to accept their choice of winter wear. But Shepard didn’t make things easier on himself and when snow came down, even guys who rode motorcycles got cold.

Kaidan had tried offering his scarf, but that didn’t work. Shepard shrugged off the idea of a hat. Shepard’s gloves made Kaidan’s chest feel like an eggnog latte—until he realized that might be the only inch Shepard would ever give. Stained, an old pair that looked like they might’ve belonged to Anderson too, just the right size on Shepard’s big hands.

It was a problem. A tough one. The kind that followed you out of an exam and into the real world, kicking you in the chest in the middle of the night when you worked out the solution. That x was a derivative. Or that there was only one way to warm Shepard up.

‘I’m… Shepard, I’m pretty cold,’ Kaidan said, stamping his feet on the corner by the bus-stop, Thai basil still burning the back of his throat from dinner. It’d be another fifteen minutes before their bus showed up.

Fifteen minutes, and Shepard’s nose was already pink, breath disappearing on the air as it froze.

Shepard opened up the edges of his jacket to let Kaidan in without saying a thing. At least he was wearing a hoodie underneath, even if it was a thin one. Kaidan rubbed his gloved hands over Shepard’s chest and stomach until they were both warm. Friction could do that because science was awesome.

Kaidan’s hat covered Shepard’s mouth. His warm breath wrapped like a scarf around Shepard’s throat. The heavy snow kept falling—and Kaidan smiled, eyes happy-shut, into the collar of Shepard’s old coat. 

Kaidan is sneaky but let’s face it, Shepard needs all the help he can get.