#whawhahahfaaaaaaaaa

[thunderheadfred]

Grace/Mordin, Number 7 :3

Kiss Prompt #7 - routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what they’re doing

Shepard wakes up all at once with a jolt and a strangled yelp, choking in the black. Out of that startling darkness, a blinding light, as if a Collector beam has been aimed at her retinas. She thrashes until the glare disappears, then feels the too-soft embrace of her mattress.

A few things are immediately obvious: her hands are shaking, she’s covered in sweat, and someone is sitting on the edge of her bed. The room drifts slowly into focus, a single puddle of dim orange light cast by an omni-tool. After a moment, Mordin manifests as the blurry silhouette the omni-tool is attached to.

“Like clockwork,” he whispers, scanning the space around Shepard’s temples. His voice is slower than usual, soft as the dark. “Right on schedule.”

He’s facing the head of the bed and dressed all in black, a liquid-tight sleep suit that is indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness. As he breaks his scan to smooth the hair from her face with strand-by-strand attention, she feels nurtured by a shadow.

She’s too disoriented to ask what he’s doing, but he’s never been one to require prompting.

“Nightmare. Nightly. O-three-thirty, give or take… ten, twenty minutes. Adding to log. Tonight’s subject: Collectors or Reapers?” Quieter, with a meaningful look into her face, he asks, “Destruction of SR-1?”

She blinks, coughing low in her throat to clear the night’s dryness, unsure whether she considers this compassionate or creepy.

“None of the above.” She finally moans, wiping her forehead. “There was this bug-eyed alien standing over my bed, shining a bright light into my eyes, saying he needed to probe me for science.”

A peek in his direction assures her that he’s smirking in his mad-scientist way, lopsided and disorienting, like some kind of funhouse mirror.

“Hmm. Troubling implications.”

She adds: “He was singing Gilbert and Sullivan the whole time. It was terrifying.”

Mordin’s weight has sunk a small gravity well into the mattress, and Shepard’s body has drifted toward him on pure physical impulse. Her stomach is mashed against his long thigh so tightly that his knee nudges her breastbone. She brings one arm across his lap and pulls him closer.

“Does this mean I’m crazy, doc?”

He resumes his quiet omni-tool scan near her temples, pitching his other arm like a tentpole on the far side of her waist. He leans over, shielding her in his not-quite embrace.

“Certainly,” he whispers. His voice is right next to her ear, tiny and intentional, raising all the trigger hairs on her neck. “Stark raving. No cure.”

She wraps sleepy arms around his waist and traps him in place. Enjoys the easy slide of his  night-suit in her palms, the smooth curves of his ribs and spine revealed as her hands wander, lazy and greedy for his attention.

He continues scanning, but tips his head this way and that, offering his cheek, his neck, his forehead. She kisses him lightly at each designated point of attack, tightening her arms with every press of lips to skin. When she can endure his absence no longer, she drags him under the sheets to join her for the night, forcing him to disengage the scan. He tut-tuts, but returns her embrace all the same.

He gathers her into the hollow of his chest. Surrounds her with his cool, willowy limbs. Whispers against the top of her head. The words run together; vague, unimportant, absolute nonsense. A rote patter of proteins and amino acids, anything to get Shepard’s mind to clear. After weeks sharing her bed, Mordin has an entire arsenal of meaningless lullabies. He deploys them with ever-increasing efficiency.

It only takes a few moments of his voice in her ear. Along her back, one hand traces the outlines of nerves, his fingers long and light. His other hand follows gentle, well-travelled paths through her hair. She drifts, drifts…  disappearing into his arms.

In the morning, he activates the omni-tool once more before she wakes. Recording a rare moment for posterity.

Shepard smiles in her sleep.

AO3 | FFN