Small Surprises

Aboard the Normandy, it was often difficult to find a private moment. Although technically speaking places like the sleeping pods and the shower cubicles afforded some privacy, Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko never felt comfortable utilizing them; he always had the uneasy feeling that someone might just be listening in, even unintentionally, and in a close-knit environment like this, he couldn’t afford to be unable to look anyone in the face for the weeks at a time that being caught in the act, as it were, would lead to.

No, it was definitely a blast of cold water for Alenko and his hormone-induced desires... most of the time, anyway. Once in a while, if it was early enough in the morning and he was quite sure no one else would be around... well, you can’t blame a man for indulging, can you? It was a natural urge, even if it was an embarrassing one.

This was one such morning; Alenko was fairly sure that -- apart from Joker, who was unlikely to be taking a jaunt by the showers at this time -- he was the only person awake amongst the crew. Well, that was fine by him. It had been long enough since he’d been able to indulge himself like that.

As he slipped under the stream of warm water, his mind began to wander to all matter of sexual things, his fingers first lightly caressing, then gripping more tightly, his increasingly engorged member. Aided by the slippery soap (though not for any length of time – the useful lather dissipated far too quickly under the steady flow of water), his hand ran up and down the full length of his shaft. Eventually, he leaned back against the wall to steady himself, his breath catching in his throat as he came closer, and his eyes closing and mind still wandering, covering all his most carefully guarded secret fantasies in exquisite detail...

He imagined coming back, sweaty and exhausted, after a mission, slipping off his sodden armor and collapsing into the arms of another, their bodies rubbing against each other furiously, a hand snaking down to wrap around his erection, followed by a bawdy wink and the sliding sensation of the other man lowering himself down and beginning to lick, then suck, at the engorged organ, taking it deep into his mouth as Alenko could do nothing but cry out in response – “oh yeah, that’s the way, you’re fucking master, Shepard...”

In a way, he felt a bit dirty thinking such thoughts about the Commander, and he smiled a wicked smile to himself. As long as he kept the thoughts carefully locked up inside, there was no reason it had to effect their relationship – not that there was any to speak of, beyond the professional.

As his pleasure mounted and his orgasm grew closer, Alenko quickened his pace, biting his lip to keep his pleasure being heard all around the rather echoey bathroom area. He came, with a barely concealed groan, and his eyes flickered open –

The Commander was watching him.

Alenko’s pulse was already humming from his own sexual pleasure, but now he felt like his skin was about to burst from the power of his heartbeat alone. It suddenly felt altogether too hot in this enclosed space – not from lust, just sheer embarrassment. And yet, Commander Shepard was still standing there, unmoved.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He hadn’t physically moved, but Alenko could detect something in his stance, in his manner, that he’d never seen before, even fleetingly. He could put a name to that ‘something’, too, he realised – after all, he was feeling it so acutely himself.

Embarrassment.

A part of him had always assumed that immunity to embarrassment came with the promotion: a firm manner, the ability to make hard decisions, and an inability to ever be caught doing the wrong thing. Now he was looking for it, he could tell, Shepard was positively mortified – at what he had witnessed, or at the fact that he had been caught watching so intently?

With a sudden cold rush, Alenko realised that he knew the answer to that.

His heartbeat pounding in his ears, not thinking – deliberately not letting himself think about what he was doing, and not even quite aware of what he was doing until it was too late, Kaidan Alenko stepped forward to close the distance between them, and pressed his lips to those of the Commander. The contact was barely a second long, but that was plenty. Their eyes met, and with a horrible sinking feeling, Alenko waited on the Commander’s reaction.

The first words spoken were loud, harsh, and not at all the pleasant response Alenko had been praying for.

“What the fuck was that, Lieutenant?”

For a moment, Alenko was torn, not knowing what his answer could possibly be. Eventually, he just murmured, “You were just standing there – I figured you would have walked away, or shouted, if...” He trailed off in silence, staring at Shepard in pure shock, waiting for the inevitable bellow of disapproval.

Instead, the Commander was silent for a maddeningly long moment. Eventually, he responded, gruffly, “I suppose I must be more transparent than I realise.”

Alenko’s heart leapt and, for a moment, standing under the persistent shower flow in astonished silence, he wondered if he’d misheard. But no, now Shepard was approaching him, and his open-mouthed stare of astonishment was met with the Commander’s warm lips, his body pushing him back into the cubicle and against the wall again.

It could have been an eternity that they spent there, the Commander in his increasingly sodden civvies, and Alenko completely nude, their bodies pressed tightly together as they kissed with a ferocity neither had expected. Still unsure of what was happening, Alenko entertained the thought that he was still dreaming, but no – this was real, wonderfully real.

And yet, a thought occurred to him, and he twisted his head away from Shepard’s, barely able to speak but finally uttering the single syllable, “No.”

If Alenko had been afraid before of the response his actions would earn, it was nothing compared to what he felt now, as Shepard glared at him icily, gruffly observing, “Maybe I’m imagining things, Lieutenant, but I thought you were the one who started this. Care to explain why you’re suddenly backing off now?”

“I think you started it by watching me, sir,” Alenko shot back, though he shook his head and raised a hand, as though to wipe that off the record. “I just – you think this is wise, Commander?”

“Don’t question me,” Shepard growled in turn, though he stepped back now, out of the range of the shower spray, and folded his arms across his well-muscled chest. “You have two options: I walk away and we pretend this never happened – all of this - or you get whatever objection this is off your chest and we continue like I know you want to.”

His eyes flickered briefly downwards, a smirk playing at his lips, and Alenko was very aware of his meaning; despite his tension-relieving masturbation effort of mere minutes ago, he was getting hard again under Shepard’s wicked stare. Objections flooded his mind – their mission, their future, the rest of the crew, their inevitable courts-martial, just to name a few - but he eventually found his voice long enough to mumble, “No objections, sir.”

“That’s what I thought,” Shepard all but purred in response, though he made no move to step forward again; this time, he let the Lieutenant come to him again, claiming the higher ranked officer as his own. And oh, Alenko didn’t disappoint; once he had made the decision to throw caution to the wind, his lust overtook him again and his fingers clawed at Shepard’s civvies, ripping them from his body as he kissed the man, deeply, biting at his lower lip possessively. The Commander responded in kind, throwing his body forward and pinning Alenko against the back wall, their nude chests sliding against each other as they both fought for dominance.

To his intense shock, and not for the first time that morning, Alenko won the battle and forced Shepard against one of the walls of the cubicle, his hand sliding lower to work his Commander’s own huge erection in his hand. Shepard bit into Alenko’s neck in what seemed almost like a protest, but possibly the most erotic example he’d ever experienced – he could feel the man respond, now, his hands clutching at Alenko’s back all the more roughly to keep from falling as his knees grew weaker and his pleasure grew greater.

Alenko could feel Shepard drawing closer to orgasm, could feel the pre-ejaculate, but was too hesitant to end it like this. He pulled away a little, and – just as he had imagined it happening to him, he winked and lowered himself down until he was kneeling on the hard tiles, first licking at the swollen head with just the tip of his tongue, then sliding the full length into his mouth, his hands gripping Shepard’s hips tightly as the Commander first moaned, then whimpered, his hands now buried in his subordinate’s short hair, plainly trying to resist the urge to push the man deeper, gain all the pleasure he could.

His orgasm came without much warning, and Alenko rather indelicately ‘disposed’ of the resulting fluid down the drain, before he rose back up to look his Commander in the eye. Both men were flushed, and perhaps a little confused; not knowing where they stood with each other now, nor where to go from there. Shepard acted first, leaning forward and, shying away from his Lieutenant’s lips at the final moment, planting his kiss instead on his jawline, nibbling at the man’s sensitive skin, and murmuring, “I’m not sure if you deserve another; you seemed to take care of yourself quite nicely.”

His thigh brushed Alenko’s renewed erection, and he pulled back and, with a surprisingly tender touch, reached down with one hand to take care of that, never allowing his gaze to shift from Alenko’s eyes. It was possibly the most intimately sexual thing that Alenko had ever done – no penetration, no moans and groans of pleasure, just the thrill of Shepard bringing him slowly but surely to a crescendo of an orgasm, and all the while, their gazes locked, just drowning in each other, their bodies pressed together as tightly as possible without compromising their position. It was only when Alenko began to get close that Shepard broke the eye contact, leaning forward to hiss in his ear, “Come for me, Kaidan.”

His breathing grew more ragged, his hips kept thrusting in time with Shepard’s expert strokes, and his fingers dug into muscled shoulders. Alenko tried to keep himself quiet but he couldn’t resist it altogether; as he finally orgasmed for the second time, it was with a soft, low-pitched moan of nothing in particular. They remained in that position for some time – perhaps seconds, perhaps minutes – before finally they extricated themselves, smiling almost shyly to each other, and moving to gather their clothes in silence.

It was eventually broken with the soft words, “See you tomorrow morning.”