#and this too is Zofia and Elliot

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Do they explain the whole secret Krogan lover thing to Eve or does she just hear this and roll with it as a way to dunk on Wrex more? Does she claim if he's got one she's claiming Elliot? What happens here?

I think Zofia would explain it to Eve just because - okay, so when you're busting her out on Sur'Kesh, she asks why Shepard is doing this, and you can either answer that this is all for the political gain of an alliance with the krogan, or because the krogan deserve to have a future. I obviously chose the latter, but Zofia would probably add when chatting with Eve later: the krogan do deserve a future, and Zofia trusts Wrex as someone who will have a better idea for the future than starting and ending at "destroy the salarians and batarians in retaliation." Wrex is her friend, and she trusts him as a person and as a leader, and so she has fewer reservations than many do about curing the genophage, such is the strength of her belief in Wrex.

"And somehow back at the very beginning of this, back after when I first met him, my admiration of how he kicks ass and takes names became a joke that I'm secretly in love with him and we have a clandestine relationship."

"That's unfortunate," says Eve. "He has enough of an ego as it is, even without you bolstering it by pretending he's worth an illicit affair."

"I like you," Zofia says.

Later I would like to imagine that Zofia takes Eve on a tour of the ship, and she goes up to Elliot and slaps a huge hand on his shoulder and is like, "Well, by what you have explained to me, Zofia, this one is my human, then?"

"Huh?" says Elliot.

"Sorry, El," Zofia says with a wink. "Mordin was getting ideas, I overheard him telling Eve all about Garrus, so to prevent my boyfriend from ending up in an arranged marriage I had to do something. Anyway you have your own illicit krogan love affair now too!"

The only thing that gets past Eve is that while Zofia may be joking by calling Wrex her secret lover, Zofia is not joking when she calls Garrus her boyfriend. That one is not actually a joke. The krogan, yes. The turian, no.

#brotp: shepard and shepard

[runningwolf62]

kicks open your door HAPPY N7 DAY HERE’S TO ANOTHER YEAR OF COUSINS’ SHENANIGANS and ideally me finishing the games so we can do even more angstposting and/or CitaDLC posting.

Why not both!

“Z,” Elliot began slowly, watching the party continue around them, “is it just me or does this party seem too calm to be-”

Zofia’s hand clapped over his mouth but not in time because something exploded in the kitchen.

“You had to curse it El. We could’ve had a quiet night.”

“We have never had a ‘quiet night’ in our lives and this was not going to be one either. We have two krogans at this party.”

#Epard and Zepard

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

I was playing the Normandy Crash Site mission the other day. 

@runningwolf62

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

The question is impulsive and more befitting a child, and Elliot stops, maybe confused, or maybe pondering it to give her a serious answer. He stops in the snow with one foot propped up on a higher pile, looking ahead, all the image of some old Artic explorer from hundreds of years ago, if the icy landscape rising in front of them was untouched and not littered with the metallic skeleton of their Normandy. Her gray ribs stretch up to scrape the sky, illuminated as it is by its ribbony green auroras.

"I can't say I do, no," Elliot says, tactful, carefully phrased, the way he does when he isn't sure if he's going to run afoul of one of her religious beliefs, the way he does when he's trying to disagree with the Council without setting either them or Zofia off. "Why?" His voice is edged with the crackle of comms, the persistent reminder that however close they are, here on this planet they are separated by armor and helmets and all they can see of each other are their eyes, his green and as dark and unobtrusive as any human's eyes should be, and hers just wrong, illuminated orange, once flecked throughout the brown but now swallowing it up the same way her face has begun to split apart, the same way the Normandy split apart and dragged them out into the void to die.

"This feels like a place for ghosts," Zofia says. Faint white motion in the corner of her eyes is the wind gusting the snow about, or perhaps something else. "Like we aren't alone here."

Elliot doesn't say anything. His head slowly turns to scan the landscape, looking over the wreckage. She watches his back, because that is what she is here to do, to make sure no one's bullet or blade lands. If they strike for his back they will find her heart first. 

His omni-tool beeps to alert them that a set of Alliance dog tags are in the area. They could almost make this search without mechanical assistance; the tags shine brighter than anything else in the landscape, gleaming silver to be retrieved from the rest of the ruin. Zofia pats the Mako on a tire as they pass it. Perhaps one of the sets of tags they find will be hers, or Elliot’s, because Cerberus never returned them -- Alliance tags, so why would they? -- and they might have fallen from orbit, crashed to ground like an angel from heaven. (Like Zofia.)

Even in pieces, weather-worn and battered, they recognize the cockpit, and Elliot freezes up first, like a statue, like the monument that the Alliance said they should place. This is where we died, Zofia does not say, because they know, they both know, and she felt this crushing feeling in her throat the first time she walked up the bridge of Cerberus' Normandy. She felt like a ghost then too. Among the bones of their ship, the first one, the only one that is in her heart theirs, the ghost that is the most real is that of a woman who is nominally alive. (She spoke with Thane for a while about his religion, about the divide between body and soul, how they fall out of balance, are not Whole, and how the body can wrongly overrule and control the soul -- and she thinks hers have broken apart. The soul departs the body in death, and hers did not find its way back to her. It stayed here, or whatever pieces of it that were not left on Torfan.)

She touches the base of her neck where her crucifix hangs and wonders about it, how, if Cerberus had to rebuild her body from the bones up so that she does not so much have bone as there is metal, did the little gold necklace survive. It probably didn't; it probably burnt up and dissolved as much as her armor and flesh did. It is probably a Cerberus imitation, just like the Normandy, just like her, this body that is all new and wrong. 

(Her heart tells her that if it is a recreation, a ghost, just like everything else -- if it isn't the only thing she has left of Mindoir, if she has nothing left of Mindoir but the scars on her brain -- then someone, probably Miranda, had the heart to know it was important enough to Zofia to be worth the time to rebuild. The rest of her balks at that thought.)

"I think we're the ghosts," Elliot says. He tilts his head back to look at the twisted wreckage far above their heads. "We're the ghosts."

If she is just a hollow imitation, then so is he -- but he is alive, and real, he has to be, and she is dead enough for the both of them. "Udina would certainly think we're haunting him," Zofia says. Elliot snorts.

They both died here. They both came back to life in a lab. And they are alone here -- they, the two of them, alone, an oxymoron, a truth. Is there a way to disentangle them? Is Elliot someone separate anymore or just Zofia's beating heart? They leave a pair of footprints in the snow. Ghosts don't leave prints.

#i couldn't quite figure out how to wrap it up but whatev #i like how on discord it's shitpost 'n' suffer: lawyer edition and over here i'm preparing to drop this #brotp: shepard and shepard #zofia shepard #roddy plays me2 for real

[runningwolf62]

My favorite part of talking about Zofia and Elliot is vacillating wildly between shitpost and angst. I mean that's true for Brennan and Esti too but you fucked me up with the whole line of "whatever else she might be, she's family" and then you immediately jumped to "also heelys" without giving me time to process any of it.

Much like Elliot and Zofia in heelys wielding shotguns I too spin wildly. It’s the ADHD.

But I think part of it is also Bioware’s treatment of the protagonists is because Shepard is meant to be tragic while the Inquisitor is meant to be triumphant. And we took the tragic Shepard and gave them someone to be friends with. And we took the Inquisitor as a challenge and made sad children, shoved them in the same universe and doubled the sadness and memes.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Hey, hey in the AU where Elliot dies but Zofia doesn't, how long does it take her to stop turning to ask his opinion?

Hey hey, rude.

FIRST 18 HOURS:

Times turned, reflexively, to ask for his opinion: 4. (Turning like a flower faces the sun, looking for something golden, warm.)

Comment spoken aloud: 1. (”You think they’ll ever give us another ship to command after this catastrophe?”)

FIRST TWO WEEKS:

Times turned, reflexively, to ask for his opinion: 22. (She keeps track, pen in hand, etching ink along her thumb. It gives her something to do other than scream each time it happens.

Comments spoken aloud: 3, 2 within the same hour. (“The kind of speeches at these things are always bullshit” and “Just make my funeral a drunken party”, and “Shit, look at that skycar, whoever’s driving it’s worse than you.”)

Comments thought but unsaid: too many to count.

FIRST FOUR MONTHS:

Times turned, reflexively, to ask for his opinion: count lost after three weeks. (Garrus took the pen away and hurtled it over a balcony. She still turns and sees her face, sad-eyed, but almost hopeful, like perhaps this time he will be there, reflected in Solo’s helmet.)

Comments spoken aloud: unknown. (Garrus usually answers her. He knows the remarks aren’t meant for him until one day they are. She does not know when the shift happened.)

Comments thought but unsaid: everything.

Times the Council has tried to invoke his name to make her do something: 8.

Times Solo has looked around as though searching for someone who isn’t there with them: she does not want to know.

FIRST YEAR:

Times Garrus has reprimanded her for charging into a firefight alone: 12. (She still thinks that there is someone at her back who will be charging right after her, right with her, always at the same pace.)

New scars collected from said 12 incidents: 4. (One through her lip. They would be mirror images now. They were always mirror images anyway.)

Friends parted ways with: everyone but Garrus and Solo.

Cerberus agents punched: 1.

Ambassadors Udina punched: 0, disappointingly.

Council members punched: 0, disappointingly.

Reporters punched: 0, surprisingly.

C-Sec Officers punched: 2. 

C-Sec Officers almost punched: 5. (Solo has learned to anticipate her right hook and can weigh her arm down enough that the target can pull out of range in time.)

Mirrors punched: 1. (She saw the scar through her lip and something snapped.)

FIRST TWO YEARS: 

Gangs on Omega pissed off: 3. (That is all of the biggest ones.)

Times Solo has reprimanded her and Garrus for recklessly charging into firefights: 4.

Friends who’ve joined Cerberus: 1.

Friends doing better without her, probably: everyone but Garrus and Solo.

Funerals planned: 1. (It is her own. Elliot would have hated his; she does not want to hate hers. She wrote down instructions and gave them to Hannah. They both know that Zofia will die before her.)

Stories to tell Elliot when she sees him again: all of them. 

Years until she sees Elliot again: at the rate she’s going, probably about 2. (Except he went up and she’s probably going down. The Hero and the Butcher aren’t meant to spend Eternity in the same place.)

Years until she sees Elliot again: -------------------

Years until she sees Elliot again: 0

TWO YEARS

Ironically and distastefully named Cerberus projects: 1.

Old scars, missing: all of them

New scars: 6, at least. (Little nicks in the skin of his face that glow.)

Cerberus agents almost punched: 2. (Elliot has always known when to anticipate her right hook and can hold her back.)

#brotp: shepard and shepard #runningwolf62

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

9 for the mass effect children. *chin hands*

9. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not leaving you.”

a third of the way through writing this I thought of an alternative idea for this prompt: the prompt being repeated twice, first between Zofia and Elliot as they go together through the burning Normandy to rescue Joker and then end up both dying together, and then between Garrus and Solo either when Solo follows when Garrus runs off to Omega, or after Garrus’ squad is all killed and he tries to tell Solo to leave before Garrus can get him killed too.

and I like those ideas so I’m putting it out there for everyone’s consideration and suffering, but I’m pretty fond of what I came up with first.

"I almost wish that the Illusive Man hadn't tried to rebuild the Normandy's exact specs," Zofia says. It's the most irrelevant comment that Elliot has heard her make since they were revived, and Garrus and Solo as well stop and turn to listen to her. "Because I know that ship was destroyed, I watched it burn up before I died, and then I'm walking around a bridge set up exactly the same and I feel like some sort of fucking ghost."

"I mean, to the two of us, you look like ghosts, too," Solo says. 

"The glowing probably doesn't help," Elliot says. He doesn't know if he's been imagining it, looking in the mirror, but he thinks the shape of his scars might be changing, shrinking. He should ask Zofia if she's noticed that as well.

"Not particularly, no," Garrus says. 

"And you know what's worst?" Zofia asks as she taps in the code to open the door to the captains' quarters. It's the one part of the ship that Elliot really notices the change, because the original Normandy obviously wasn't designed for two captains. Now they have a small shared sitting room, with a fishtank, before it branches into each of their own quarters. "The fucking AI."

"Hello, EDI," Elliot says to the glowing orb that marks one of EDI's terminals. Neither Zofia nor Joker has been open to the idea of an AI wired through the ship, so Elliot has tried to at least be polite to her, to make up for it.

"Illusive Man, if you're listening, go fuck yourself," Zofia calls. She collapses onto the couch like she has melted. "I feel like there's nowhere on this ship that we can talk. Fucking Cerberus." She sits up a little more, leaning on the arm, squishing herself over so that Elliot can sit next to her, and Solo next to him.

"For whatever it's worth," Solo says, "Cerberus did some good. They brought you back." His shoulder is leaning against Elliot's and the familiar weight is comforting. 

"So they can kill us again," Zofia says. She looks at Solo and then over to Garrus. "Or throw us through the Omega 4 Relay. Same difference."

No one has ever come back through the Omega 4 Relay, and the Illusive Man holds their leashes like a noose, but for however long they have until then, to have a second lease on life - to be here, with Solo, with Zofia, with Garrus - this one moment here with the four of them again -

And then Elliot thinks of the crushing weight of the memory of being sucked into space, no more breath in his lungs and his chest tight and the cold and the worst was seeing Zofia falling after him, trying to reach for her like he could push her back. He didn't want to die alone but he thinks watching his cousin die with him was worse. And he thinks of the moment the missile made impact and Garrus fell like a corpse, he remembers the moment his own heart stopped. He pictures Zofia with blue turian blood on her armor and her face as the medbay door slid shut with Garrus inside and her out, her eyes gone empty and if there was ever a moment when Elliot thought that she looked like a ghost, it was then.

He died with Zofia at his side once; he can do it again. But to bring Garrus into it - to bring Solo, next to him now like the way they always were, into the abyss - into Hell, Zofia said, when she had explained her thoughts to him, planned the conversation that now she seems to be leading into.

"We're dead walking on borrowed time and Cerberus has us by the throat but you don't have to," Zofia says. She looks at Elliot like she's waiting for him to speak and he wonders what his face looks like, then, striken by memories of dying and the thought of it again. "Damn whatever the Illusive Man said about needing Archangel for this mission - Solo, you aren't even a soldier, you didn't have to stay with us, you don't have to come with us, either of you, on a goddamned suicide run."

Garrus laughs, a dark sound, and then he winces and moves a hand toward the injured side of his face. "I'm offended that you say you don't need me," he says.

"I need you to not die at the Illusive fucking Man's word, is what I need," Zofia snaps. Her fingers are curled tight and digging into her leg. "Fucker thinks he's got the Shepards on puppet strings and maybe he's right but he sure as hell doesn't have to get you."

Her complaints about the ship, about a Cerberus AI always listening, seem suddenly relevant now, telling one of the dossiers that the Illusive Man so carefully selected to run, run away, get out of here while you can.

"I would have died if you two hadn't showed up," Garrus says, nodding at Elliot, but his eyes are still fixed only on Zofia. "What was it you said? 'Dead walking on borrowed time'? So am I."

Zofia is quiet. Elliot thinks of the moment the missile made impact and Garrus fell like a corpse, and Zofia screamed and Elliot's heart stopped but he thinks that was the sound of Zofia's breaking.

"Solo," Elliot says, and he doesn't know what to say that Zofia didn't, how to say that it's the most comfortable thing at the world to have Solo at his side and that he doesn't want him to leave but more than that he doesn't want him to die. How does he apologize for dying and leaving Solo, only to now tell him to leave so that Elliot can die again? 

"No," Solo says. "Don't bother. It doesn't matter, I'm not leaving you."

And Elliot can't explain how the words can make his heart leap but constrict with terror at the same time.

"You stubborn bastards," Zofia says.

#i hope that i am returning solo to you and elliot to wolf mostly in-character #i stole elliot for the pov bc i like having him pick up on things about zofia that she would not realize herself #this is 992 words and i'm laughing because i somehow managed to scrape JUST under 1000 #hey if it's under 1000 it's still a 'short' prompt response right? right?? #trash kid writing #zofia shepard #brotp: shepard and shepard #and solo! #wizard-caleb

[runningwolf62]

Hey I just had the sad thought that Hannah Shepard is a starship captain and what if her ship was one closest to the area where the Normandy went down and so was the one to pick up and respond to its distress signal. She’s down in the hanger as they’re picking up escape pods, hoping desperately that maybe THIS one will have Elliot (and Zofia), until they find Joker and he tells them. (Also then since Pressley was lost too, the squad has no idea who’s in charge. They all probably nominate Kaidan)

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS RODDY.

#Epard and Zepard #BUT WHY

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

8 for Zofia and Garrus

8. “You’re so drunk.”

I love that we’ve ascended Elliot and Zofia, heroes of the galaxy, first human spectres, to idiots who get smashed and then either get arrested or get hitched to their alien boyfriends and don’t remember it.

"Hey," Zofia says, giggling in the way that she only does once she'd downed a bottle of red wine, "hey, hey Garrus, watch this."

"No," Garrus says automatically. Watch this, for Zofia, is only a prelude to flipping the Mako down a mountain to ram a thresher maw, or before Kaidan biotically flings her into a geth enclave, or before someone has to bail her and Elliot out of jail again. "Don't do it."

He told Elliot and Solo that having an open bar at their wedding was going to be a mistake. He told them.

"Nonono it's gonna be like..." Zofia throws her shoulder into his arm and then she knocks her head against his shoulder. "Gonna be cool."

She has her hand out, glowing with biotics, directing a fork hovering above a slice of cake. "Watch," she says, and then like a bullet the fork drops straight down into the cake, making a horrifying screech as it scrapes across the plate. "Shit. Okay." The entire fork is coated in cake. "I've got this."

Garrus reaches out and gently pushes her hand down. "You're so drunk. You're going to miss your mouth and stab yourself in the eye."

Her head flops against him again. "I could do it when sober. I could... I'm gonna - you know what? When we get married I'm gonna get a machete and I'm gonna cut the cake with biotics and a machete. It's gonna be so cool."

"No one is going to trust you with biotics and a machete," Garrus says. Well, Zaeed and Jack might, and Grunt probably too, and that combination is a bad combination. "You --"

His brain comes screeching to a sudden halt. He forgets what he was going to say. 

When we get married.

#zofia stays sober until she's given her best man speech and then she just gets a whole bottle of wine from the bar #and that's when it starts going downhill #trash kid writing #ask games #zofia shepard #runningwolf62

[runningwolf62]

50 for your choice of Brennan/Dorian, Elliot/Solo, or Luke/Zevran

You mean all of them right?

50. “This is probably a bad time, but marry me?”

Brennan tackled Dorian onto the massive bed he’d been given, grinning down at him, Dorian looked a bit disgruntled at his situation, which only made Brennan smile wider.

“Hello to you too Amantus,” he pulled Brennan down into a kiss, Brennan smiled into the kiss, relaxing.

A foolish mistake, Dorian twisted so he was now pinning down Brennan, who smiled up at him happily, it was good to be back at Skyhold, back home. Back with Dorian.

For all the trouble Dorian was giving him, he seemed happy to have Brennan back as well, his hand gently cupping Brennan’s cheek, as though he couldn’t believe Brennan was here with him.

Brennan’s chest hurt with how much he loved Dorian, let Corypheus burn the world, he just wanted to stay here like this with him. A place where they both belonged.

“This is probably a bad time, but marry me?” The words were out before Brennan had thought about them, which was far too common for how he lived his life. Dorian looked like Brennan had just magic, stunned but also amazed.

“Maker Brennan, you’re always full of surprises aren’t you?” Dorian shook his head at him, Brennan shrugged as best he could still pinned down.

“It’s part of my southern charm right?”

“I suppose it is,” Dorian traced the scar over Brennan’s jaw, “oh, I suppose I should actually tell you my answer. It’s yes of course.”

Brennan grinned up at him, “hmm, aren’t we just the scandal?”

“Someone has to give Orlais something to talk about.”

-

Honestly nothing, nothing could top Solo/Elliot canon for terrible timing but…

Elliot tried to smoother his laughter as he buried his face in Solo’s neck, the cool metal off suit felt nice, why was the room so hot?

“Solo, babe I’m trying to be…” he started laughing again, where was Zofia when he needed her? Probably off somewhere with Garrus. 

“This is probably a bad time, but marry me?” He felt Solo stiffen, and then he giggled.

“That’s a great idea Elliot,” he shifted around, Elliot felt his face flush from more than just the alcohol, as Solo continued, “let’s get married right now!”

-

Luke lay draped over Zevran, eyes closed and breathing slowly. Hopefully people would assume he was asleep and leave him alone. After killing the Archdemon you’d think his problems would be over.

But instead he’d been running all over, making sure Alistair’s reign started off successfully, trying to run Highever only to find out Fergus was back, there���d been a good period of him and Ceria crying on their brother. And saying good-bye to so many companions, 

But it seemed like the dust had settled. And Luke wanted to do nothing more than lay here on Zevran and enjoy it.

“My dear Warden. Mi amor.”

Luke opened one eye to look up at Zevran, “hmmm?”

“This is probably a bad time, but marry me?”

Luke let out a quiet laugh and leaned up to kiss Zevran, “the answer is still and always will be yes.”

#Wolfy Writes

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

@runningwolf62 this got way too long for an ask

I accept your terms for the Vegas Marriages AU. The gang all get smashed at their last Citadel party and they’re staring down the threat of possible death-of-the-universe by Reapers so what the hell else is there to do but get hitched and so Elliot and Solo end up married. None of them remember it happening but Zofia finds the certificate first and wakes up everyone because she’s shrieking with laughter. After it’s all over (and everything and everyone turns out FINE, fuck off Bioware) Elliot and Solo have to plan an actual ceremony to appease Elliot’s mother, and they’re just going to pretend that ceremony is the only one and not let Hannah find out that they’re already married.

If Hannah finds out from anyone it’s going to be from Zofia because Zofia thinks this shit is hilarious and hasn’t let Elliot live it down yet. Elliot has to threaten Zofia that if she tells his mother, she won’t be his best man anymore. Zofia’s like “oh sure throw me out of your wedding party because you did something silly that one time and I didn’t.”

At least two full years after the Citadel party, Zofia tries to marry Garrus and runs into the major complication of the fact that she is already married to Wrex.

Wrex knew the whole damn time. He found the certificate and took it and never told Zofia because he knew it was gonna be absolutely hysterical when she found out. He can’t believe it took this long. He figured the records would have turned up somehow or at least Zofia and Garrus would have gotten married sooner god you two.

Zofia tweets at the pope for an annulment and forgiveness for utterly destroying the sacrament of marriage. Elliot is going to hold it over her head forever.

#brotp: shepard and shepard

[runningwolf62]

Zofia to Elliot: You say 'please don't die to get out of paperwork' like I already haven't once died to get out of paperwork. Like the amount of forms I'd have to fill out and tribunals I'd have to face because I got the one-of-a-kind Normandy destroyed AND my cousin, the human Spectre Shepard that everyone likes more than me, killed? No fuckin thank you. Of course I'll take the sweet embrace of the void over that.

Elliot: Okay, uh, do we need to have a talk about our relationship and how people view because I’d like to remind you I’m now seen as a terrorist too and I have a counter point to all of that. Garrus.

#Epard and Zepard

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Does Zofia hack Elliot's twitter account to tweet "Elliot Shepard was dead for two slutty, slutty years" or does she do that on her own account and just @ him?

“EDI.”

…

“EDI, please.”

…

“EDI, I’m sorry I snapped at you. That was wrong at me. I am angry at the Illusive Man and I misplaced that anger and tried to take it out on you because you are the omnipresent and nearest symbol of Cerberus’ hold over my life. You’re just doing your best with what Cerberus programmed you to be and what they’re forcing you to do with your life, the same as I am.”

“Insightful, Shepard, but I still am not allowed to give out access to personal information about any of the crew.”

“EDI please. I’m begging you.”

“I am sorry, Shepard, but my answer must be no.”

“EDI, I need his password and I’m shit at hacking. I need your help. You’re all I have. EDI please.”

fuck cerberus @.z7shep.eshepardn7 Elliot Shepard has been dead for two slutty, slutty years.5 Dec 2185, 08:28|Lazarus Cell Lieutenant @.lazarusltWe spent 8 billion credits for this.5 Dec 2185, 08:54|fuck cerberus @.z7shepi mean no one told u to do that5 Dec 2185, 09:32

fuck cerberus @.z7shep.eshepardn7 Elliot Shepard has been dead for two slutty, slutty years.5 Dec 2185, 08:28|Normandy Jokester @.bestdamnpilotwhat does this mean?5 Dec 2185, 08:33|fuck cerberus @.z7shepfuck if i know my guy5 Dec 2185, 08:40

fuck cerberus @.z7shep.eshepardn7 Elliot Shepard has been dead for two slutty, slutty years.5 Dec 2185, 08:28|Captain Shepard @.captainhshepardReported. How dare you desecrate the names of the dead in this way. For shame, hacking the account of a dead hero.5 Dec 2185, 11:14|fuck cerberus @.z7shep I’m sorry ma’am. 5 Dec 2185, 12:43

fuck cerberus @.z7shep .eshepardn7 DUDE FUCKING TELL YOUR MOM WE’RE ALIVE WHAT THE SHIT MAN5 Dec 2185, 12:44|Fuck Cerberus @.eshepardn7I was writing her an email! Before you did THAT!5 Dec 2185, 12:51|fuck cerberus @.z7shep i thought you had done it already the FUCK dude how long does it take to write “hey ma i’m alive good talk”5 Dec 2185, 12:53|Fuck Cerberus @.eshepardn7You can’t just drop it on people like that!5 Dec 2185, 12:54|fuck cerberus @.z7shep .captainhshepard your son is useless and im super sorry that u had to find out thru my shitmemeing5 Dec 2185, 12:57|Z. Massani @.zmassaniI think it’s either shitposting or memeing.5 Dec 2185, 14:07|fuck cerberus @.z7shep A. fuck off massani. 2) why are either of those terms in YOUR vocabulary5 Dec 2185, 14:26|Z. Massani @.zmassaniA and 2?5 Dec 2185, 14:58|fuck cerberus @.z7shep fuck ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooffff5 Dec 2185, 16:33

fuck cerberus @.z7shep .eshepardn7 Elliot Shepard has been dead for two slutty, slutty years.5 Dec 2185, 08:28 |Captain Shepard @.captainhshepardReported. How dare you desecrate the names of the dead in this way. For shame, hacking the account of a dead hero.5 Dec 2185, 11:14|fuck cerberus @.z7shep I’m sorry ma’am. 5 Dec 2185, 12:43|fuck cerberus @.z7shep wait6 Dec 2185, 01:42|fuck cerberus @.z7shep me, hero?6 Dec 2185, 01:45|fuck cerberus @.z7shep thanks, aunt hannah.6 Dec 2185, 01:45

fuck cerberus @.z7shep .captainhshepard Again, I’m really sorry.[posted is a picture of two individuals who resemble the commanders Zofia and Elliot Shepard. she is grinning lopsidedly but has all of her teeth and is missing the large scar on her left cheek. his grin is more shameful, and he too is missing the distinct scar through his lip. he is holding a handwritten paper sign that says “Hey Mom, I’m alive. I’m sorry for not writing you sooner.” she has an arm around him and is pointing at the sign with both hands.] 

#brotp: shepard and shepard #GOD I LOVE THE TWITTER MEMEING THANK YOU FOR BRINGING IT BACK #trash kid writing #zofia shepard #elliot shepard #runningwolf62

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Okay but... does this mean Cerberus has to spend 8 Billion credits and they bring back two alien fuckers that flip Cerberus off constantly?

hOLY SHIT THEY DO

They are all sitting quietly, in separate stages of grief and guilt, trying to figure out how to grapple with the words “Commanders MIA, presumed dead.” All of the debris of the Normandy, still exploding after the escape pods had cleared, meant that there was almost no chance that their flight suits escaped without damage that rendered them nonfunctional; most of the wreckage is gone from the area now, fallen far through the atmosphere of the planet below, and even the smallest falling stars burn up on entry.

The first sound is from Ashley. “Look, I know we’re all thinking this,” she starts to say, quietly, but with some sort of harsh, angry edge to her voice. Wrex and Liara look at her; Joker and Solo stare at the far wall, Garrus at his hands, Tali at the ceiling. “How the hell did the two of them both manage to get themselves killed at the same time?! What - friggin chances -”

“Ash,” Kaiden says, and nothing else.

“You were thinking it too, LT, I know it,” Ashley says. 

“Now’s not the time,” Kaiden says, not denying her charges.

“Isn’t that what they’ve always done, though?” Liara asks. “Charging one after the other into danger?”

Joker rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, staring at the floor. The silence returns.

-

“Where is the Illusive Man going to get eight billion credits?” Jacob asks, looking over Miranda’s shoulder at the expense reports. “Or does he just have it already, somehow?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Miranda says, in the tone that means I don’t actually know. 

“That’s an entire economy, eight billion credits,” Jacob says. He shakes his head. “Of course they had to just both go and die right at the same time. Inconvenient for us.”

“Inconvenient for everything,” Miranda agrees. “I suggested looking into just one of them” - Jacob chokes on air - “but I don’t think that would do us any favors with the one we chose.”

-

“Where were you?” Joker calls up from the cockpit. “Didn’t you guys say you’d be back sometime last night?”

“Then we got arrested,” Elliot calls back, heedless of all of the Cerberus personnel who all freeze in the midst of whatever they were doing to stare.

“We graffitied the human embassy on the Presidium,” Zofia says cheerfully. She turns to Elliot. “I’m thinking that ‘fuck Cerberus’ would look good somewhere in here - or maybe outside, that would be nice.”

“We spent eight billion credits on them,” Jacob says. Miranda sighs.

#mood improving #anyway #kaiden and ash both survived because reasons #but GOD yeah this is what cerberus gets for two years of work and 8 billion #two spiteful idiots with a grudge and with alien boyfriends #elliot shepard #zofia shepard #runningwolf62 #brotp: shepard and shepard

[runningwolf62]

Consider: Normandy squad paintball fights. E Squad versus Z Squad. Zofia and Elliot fighting about which team gets Garrus because neither of them can aim worth a damn. (Okay, Ashley can snipe too, but Garrus is more exclusively a sniper. They fight over Ashley just on grounds that she's badass) Anyway, is there any one of them that wouldn't take it deathly seriously?

Elliot took sniper rifle training...

Also no. Have you looked at this crew? Over the top drama queens the lot of them. This has the most over acted dramatic ‘death’ scenes any paintball fight has ever had it’s frankly ridiculous.

[runningwolf62]

@wardencommanderrodimiss

My turn. God it has been so long since I played ME1.

They both step forward, Zofia can see Nihlus studying them, and she knows what he sees. Elliot Shepard, the Alliance’s favorite child, hero of the Blitz, he wears his legacy as easily as he wears his armor, born and raised for this moment. And then there is her. A survivor twice over, but one time she butchered them right back. Her legacy is farm dirt and blood. She presses her tongue against the back of her teeth, the hollow space where the tooth should be.

Her eyes drift over to Elliot, he looks much like what she remembers from N7 training, when they’d first met and it had been like seeing some alternate version of her. He smiles, something about it is off, and she places it after a moment, a scar tugs his lower lip down, causing a slightly crookedness.

Anderson and Nihlus give them the run down of the mission, they stand side by side to receive the report, occasionally asking a quesiton or making a quip.

The moment Nihlus and Anderson leave them to their own devices, Elliot turns to her with his new crooked smile.

“Hey Cus,” he greets her like it had been days rather than years, and she smiles back at him. Of all the people to have at her side, she’s glad it’s the last person who still calls her family.

She lightly slugs his arm, “Ready to go be Spectres?”

“Born ready.” And he was. But somehow, as Zofia grins at her cousin, she can’t help feeling she was too.

#Epard and Zepard

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Please picture, Elliot convinces Zofia to spare the council in ME1. So in ME2 he's talking to them and the council are being dicks so Zofia pushes him out of the way and yells "Fuck you you can shove that bullshit back up your ass" and ends the transmission.

Pfff like she didn’t do that in ME1. The Council is giving them grief for sparing the rachni queen (since I’m guessing Elliot as paragon did and that was one of Zofia’s biggest paragon moments) and Elliot is calmly trying to explain and Zofia’s half a step behind him rolling her eyes and snarking and then she just cuts the transmission and Elliot is looking at her like. stop doing that.

“Commanders,” Anderson says, his tone a kind of false lightness that suggests whatever conversation he was just having was a tension-laden one. “We were just speaking about you.”

Definitely something bad, but then he does sound sincere when he tells them that it is good to have them back. Elliot is pleased to see him; the barest crinkle of a smile reaches Zofia’s eyes as she says hello. Strange to think that for Anderson, it has been years; and them, just a few months. To his credit, his eyes don’t seem to linger on their glowing orange scars left from the work Cerberus did. Elliot’s have at least begun to fade; Zofia’s have not.

And then the Council speaks and anything like good humor that filled the room was gone. Zofia’s face snaps back into stone and her mouth twists in the barest hint of a snarl. Elliot finds himself frowning, too. He hopes his cousin will be satisfied to let him speak for the two of them and so avoid any sort of diplomatic incident.

“We’ve heard rumors surrounding your unexpected return. Some of them are… quite unsettling.”

“We called you here to explain your actions, Commanders. We felt we owed you that much, as you did save our lives in the battle against Saren and his geth.”

There’s an I told you so in there for Zofia about the political benefits of saving the Council, and Elliot turns his head just slightly to look at her from the corner of his eyes. She is already looking at him. She snorts.

But something isn’t quite right. “Saren and his geth?” Elliot repeats. “The Reaper, Sovereign, was the one commanding the geth.”

“Ah, yes,” the turian councilor sneers. “The Reapers.” He makes an air quote with his fingers. Zofia’s breath hisses out from between her teeth. “A race of immortal sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space.” He waves his hand as though flicking aside a fly. “We have dismissed such claims.”

“You’ve what?” Zofia demands. 

“Shepard.” Anderson knows her well enough to head this off immediately. He explains the situation. No one but Shepards’ inner circle spoke with Sovereign. There was no outside evidence. Elliot has questions, tries to poke holes through their excuses, but everything they simply whisk away with another explanation, hollow theories stuffed with willful denial. The asari councilor at least has the grace to be tactful about it. The turian councilor is not. “You have been manipulated - by Saren, and now by Cerberus, and your insistence on clinging to this ‘Reaper’ myth continues to prove your fragile mental states!”

“What?” Zofia repeats.

Sometimes, Elliot would like to do what she does, and just yell at people. It might be cathartic.

“You put us in a difficult position,” the asari councilor says, simply glossing past the fact that did the turian councilor just call us insane? “You are working for Cerberus - a known enemy of the Council. This is a capital offense - this is treason.” 

Anderson interrupts before Zofia can. The councilors step back from you’re committing treason to we can’t support you or investigate the missing colonies, but if you stay in the Terminus Systems, we’ll allow you call yourselves Spectres again. 

A show of good faith, they answer when Elliot asks what that means. A show of good faith that requires no effort on their parts. They can keep looking the other way. They can keep doing nothing.

“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” Zofia snarls. “Take your offer and cram it back up your ass, and mark that down for both of us. We didn’t need you to stop Sovereign. We had to fight you to stop Sovereign. Steal our own fucking ship back! We sure as hell don’t need your help now.”

She has a way with words. Elliot has always admired that and her boldness, because however he ends up having to smooth over the paths that she tears up, what she says to the Council is usually what he is thinking.

“Clearly our attempts to be reasonable were misplaced,” the turian councilor says. Zofia laughs, actually laughs, one sharp shriek, and she shakes her head. “If your actions become a threat to the security of Council space, we will take action.”

“What would you do? Quietly send some new Spectre after us, like you did with us and Saren? You’d put us through the revolving fucking door of Spectre promotions and falls from grace! But don’t worry, we’re not after your fucking Council space, we’re just trying to save people’s lives, thanks!”

They hang up after another word of warning, as Zofia looks around to figure out where the mechanism to terminate the call is.

“Well,” Anderson says quietly, “that didn’t go as well as I had hoped.”

“I’m sorry,” Zofia says, and she sounds like she means it. Not regret for yelling at the Council like Elliot can only bring himself to do in his imagination, certainly, but regret for Anderson’s disappointment. They almost seem to have smoothed it over, and then the door slides open and Udina walks in.

“What are you doing here?” he snarls.

“Correction issued for the ranking system of people I hate the most,” Zofia says. “The Council is third.”

“Your return is a bureaucratic nightmare.” Udina’s face twists like something out of a nightmare. “Believe me, your feelings are mutual.”

Bless Anderson for being willing to get in the middle of them. Elliot doesn’t know what he could say that wouldn’t encourage Zofia but wouldn’t be a lie, either. How is it possible for a person to be as truly unpleasant as Udina is? He turns on Anderson, too, glancing at the stands where the Council’s holograms appeared and then turning back, snarling, “Do the words political shitstorm mean anything to you?!”

Zofia snorts. “Anderson is Councilor, not you. If he wants us to meet with the Council, then the fuck is your say?” She folds her arms across her chest. “Want a shitstorm?” she asks mockingly. “The Council offered to reinstate us as Spectres. I told them where to shove it.”

“What the HELL is wrong with you?!”

#honestly i regret not being able to say this to the council bc i let them die #like i watched the transcripts on youtube and GOD i wish i could do this but alas #mass effect #trash kid writing #brotp: shepard and shepard #zofia shepard #elliot shepard #well i guess this is an oc tag #runningwolf62