#this is what a turian dinner part looks like

[nochiquinn]

campaign 3 episode 28: the chaos gremlin strikes again

oh no

liam just stays like that the rest of the game

cashapp being a sponsor is so weird to me

>>there's still a pandemic >>goes to comicon

NO I'm not done being mad about it

"otohan cruel" freudian slip

taliesin no

link….be careful, link….

BUCK FUCKET

I preemptively want this animated

"I can do it, it's FINE"

the map lighting is making everybody look good

well, better than usual

critrolecloset find me sam's shirt

"best friend" did they get divorced :(

if someone doesn't throw banana peels I'm leaving

YEAH YEAH HELL YEAH

liam gets me

there's no law on the books that says a wolf can't play death race

travis is actively hiding

start chewing on wires

name it regigigas bc it's slow to get going

festivalities

turian clan paint

YOU get a bane, and YOU get a bane

"hold on letTERSSSS"

I DESPERATELY want this animated

"deez nuts draw first blood"

laudna my beloved

beam-beam

the flag comes down and there's just an explosion of magic from the middle of the pack

[extreme southern accent] 'cause I'm a pot-hole~

someday I will find that ad to explain why that line is burned into my subconscious

god bless u sam

TEAM DRYBONES

magnet rage

MEAN MAX

okay I'm zoning out I gotta make popcorn

the car is Bugged

NOT THE BEES

ten and two imogen

ah yes, exploding head syndrome

yessssss

pace car fearne

someone draw Tex Avery Ashton please

some days you just can't get rid of a bomb

does this count as critical role parties vs old people

oranges broke her fall it's fine

tesla self-driving car

hey! rude

"they're IN MY ASSHOLE, so I figure they're grappleable"

THERE'S NO LAW ON THE BOOKS

"to help with the net!"

"SATAN TAKE THE WHEEL"

"we're on a precarious cliffside" turn into a fish

"whore dynamite" gdi I just changed my twitter name

"I'm just gonna throw up in her face" like a baby buzzard

"I don't have a mini for [a banana peel]" "how DARE"

fart gust

action surge ankle hack

I love one (1) halfling

I ME-LEE'D HIM FOR YOU GAN

hsfhdjklsa

this is gonna be a hell of a ride at criticalroleland

SLAMMAGE

"I have no sense of shame left in me"

"I'm also now sitting in your lap"

no fuck a gravity well, imogen sitting in ashton's lap supremacy

what in the deadlights

"let's tame it and ride it"

countdown to travis saying kakarot

"why specifically travis" this man first contacted his future wife to try to weasel his way into a DBZ role bc she was voicing kid trunks at the time

it has a WHAT

did he just call travis fjord

"I think it's laudna bc the left blinker has been on for a while"

is the left blinker just fcg's eye

ah geeze there's almost 2 hours left

as the map blinds liam and laura

I am overly enamored by the maplight reflecting in taliesin's glasses

"meets it beats it" is still the stupidest rule

AKIRA BIKE SLIDE

welp I know exactly which part of tumblr just exploded

we don't talk about the cloud motorcycle fight

"fang-like teeth" matthew they're just fangs

pffft them still being awkward

rude???

it's one bladed barrier, what can it weigh, a couple hundred pounds?

did they rename skronky's ring

D:

imogen presenting laudna to fcg: fix her

oh that's so fucking cute

I feel like there hasn't been as much orym and fearne outside of liam making very sure we know he sleeps curled up in the back of her knee and the Pointed Looks whenever fearne is being fearne

dusk is 0/2

"why hasn't anyone asked you to dinner?" this is the neighborhood watch committee reminding everyone that necrophilia is still illegal

(if you get that reference I hope your back pain clears up soon)

travis and ashley are communicating entirely via eyebrows rn

I have processed none of this. half because it's 2 am and half bc trying to decipher travis and ashley's faces

OH?

imogen no but also OH?

just wii shop music

OH???

dusk what the fuck is up with that

chetney has his arm wrapped around dusk's fingertips

"so much bouncer"

travis senses sus

travis what r u doin

TRAVIS

after watching the old man "I see you" gives me psychic damage

"so you're not trying to kill fearne's parents?" "…nnnooOOOOOoOoO?"

CAST WHISPERS

fearne propositions them both

DUSK

I mean chetney fully did this to himself but D U S K

"kill your whole family" IS a well known idiom

liam's face

liam

LIAM

"I go on a murder spree" "congratulations"

"not in a creepy way"

and imogen doesn't even have chetney's whatever, she's just Jealous

imogen you're gonna get psychic backlash'd

curved walls, CURVED WALLS

jdfksjl dusk rebounded onto fearne

BACKWARDS KNEES

"I don't know what I was expecting but it was that"

I'm just remembering marisha going IS THAT MY MOM when they realized it was vilya

matt's southern accent is the best

oh nooooo

UH OH

OH NO

that's extremely cool but also NO

she has this written down

CHANGELING?

erika you wrote this down

ART

ERIKA

MATTHOLOMEW MERCER

that laugh

DON'T YOU HIGH FIVE OVER THAT

erika u fuckin chaos gremlin

I WAS CORRECT

"I DIDN'T LOOK LIKE THAT"

#critical role #spoilers #crititag #liveblog #reaction post #straight up did not realize I repeated myself abt 'they wrote this down' #I was Engrossed

[baejax-the-great]

Anyway given the paltry 12 14 teeth that turians appear to have, I'm pretty sure they eat like this:

#this is what a turian dinner part looks like #meanwhile castis and solana are watching shep like #what's she doing? #it's called 'chewing' #that's disgusting wtf #don't be rude to the human sol #side note I have like a 9/10 migraine so if none of these words are coherent let me know #you expect me to count under these conditions

[pancake-angst]

Publicity Stunt

Here is my gift for @ar-lasa-mala-revas for @masseffectholidaycheer! Shakarian fake dating be upon ye!

"Okay, you're on, Vakarian. Tali, gimme your straw wrapper." Once she passed it over, Shepard dropped to one knee in front of him, and Kaidan made a strangled noise, which Shepard studiously ignored.

"Did you injure yourself somehow, Shepard?" said Garrus, looking at her blankly.

"It's a human courtship ritual, Garrus," said Tali, after a long slurp of her drink. "This is the part where she tells you she's pregnant."

"I am absolutely not pregnant," said Shepard, deliberately focusing on twisting the straw wrapper into a ring as if that would distract from the blush heating her cheeks.

"She would have to get laid for that, Tali," said Joker, in an overexaggerated whisper.

"Thank you, Joker," said Shepard, in a tone that made it clear thank you meant I will kill you slowly and leave pieces out for the reapers. "Anyway. Focus, guys. Garrus Vakarian." She held up the straw wrapper, now hopefully large enough to fit around one of Garrus's huge fingers.

"That is, in fact, my name, Shepard. I'm glad you haven't suffered head trauma in addition to the knee injury." Despite the dry tone of his voice, there was something odd in his eyes—not the usual giddy, lunatic glee he got whenever he realized they were about to do something ridiculous together. Was he having second thoughts for once?

Oh well, no going back now. "Will you put on a terrible turian suit to match my terrible human dress uniform and do me the honor of accompanying me to a bullshit fundraising dinner?"

Garrus finally seemed to catch on—took him long enough—and let out a hoarse little laugh. "I get it now." He pressed the back of one hand to his forehead and pretended to swoon. "Oh, Commander! This is so sudden! I'm just not sure."

"Aw, Garrus, don't we always have a good time together?" She caught his free hand. She wasn't used to touching him outside of battle, with his fingers bare instead of covered in thick gauntlets. "This way we can actually sit together instead of having to try and mime ways to beg for death all night from across the room."

"And Shepard will keep your dance card full," said Tali. Shepard couldn't make out her wicked smirk through the faceplate, but she definitely heard it in Tali's voice.

Garrus blinked. "Spirits, I didn't even think about the dancing. I might have to say no in self-defense."

"Aw, c'mon! I'm on my knees here! What more do you want? I don't do this for just any guy, you know." Shepard asked. (At this, both Kaidan and Joker burst into undignified laughter. Shepard took one hand away from Garrus's to flip them the bird.)

Garrus looked at her for a long moment, so long she thought for sure he was trying to find a politer way than usual to say no. (In which case, she wasn't sure why he was bothering—it wasn't like she expected eloquence from him. She could make a big damn speech when she felt like it, but Garrus did better with one-liners.) "On second thought," he said, almost hesitantly, "I need to consider the rest of the people at the dinner. If I let you dance with anyone else, you might hurt them, and then we'll have a diplomatic incident to deal with on top of all the rest of the bullshit."

"Is that a yes, Vakarian?" Shepard cupped one hand around her ear.

Garrus put his other hand on top of hers, the same way he had when she first saw him again after six months apart on Palaven. She still thought about that touch sometimes, at odd moments of the day, like if she spotted him at a distance in the Citadel or remembered something she needed to tell him. "Yes, Shepard. I will take on the burden of keeping everyone else safe from your dance moves."

Read the rest on AO3

#shakarian #mass effect #mass effect holiday cheer

[dearophelia]

and some things you just can’t speak about

long live :: the tower :: and some things you just can’t speak about

Quentus is five when the Reapers come. [it’s sad turian kiddo hours here tonight. warnings for war and parent death. i’m so sorry.]

He’s five when they come.

Quentus lingers upstairs against his father’s strict orders to come down to the basement now. Ducking down so he’s almost hidden, he peeks out through the front window as a red laser beam shoots out from the hulking ship. The beam whines so harsh Quentus feels it in the space between his ears. Suddenly, a little pastry shop down the street explodes in fire and brick.

He inhales sharply and drops all the way down to the floor. As fast as he can, he scrambles on his hands and knees for the basement door. His hand slips and he tumbles and bumps his way down the steps. Dad doesn’t even scold him for staying upstairs, just pulls him up from the floor and into a tight hug. His subvocals rumble in a panicked hum that makes Quentus sniffle and start to cry.

Dad holds him, letting him cry before pulling away. He gives Quentus a little nudge, urging him deeper into the basement. Once sure that Quentus is safe, he climbs the stairs to close the door. A simple sheet of metal can’t protect them from the monsters descending from the sky, but it feels safer with the door closed.

“What are they?” Quentus asks, wiping underneath his eyes.

Mom shifts Nico from her hip to Dad’s arms and then kneels in front of him. There’s a soft, calming hum coming from her throat, but it’s choked with worry. “They’re called Reapers,” she says quietly.

“The bakery’s gone,” he says. All those pretty pastries. The lafka and trilap he and Nico like. The kindly older woman behind the counter who snuck samples out to kids when their parents weren’t looking. All gone.

Mom nods and draws him in close.

They’re silent for the rest of the evening. Quentus curls up on a pile of pillows in the corner and tries to sleep. He counts sixteen flashes of red before sleep finally comes.

//

Two weeks pass. Mom and Dad take turns venturing upstairs to bring food and supplies down. They’re both silent each time they come back, subharmonics tight and controlled with what they aren’t letting their sons hear.

Quentus wants to see the sun through more than the small basement windows. But he knows better than to ask. Mom and Dad are so on edge, so hypervigilant, that he doesn’t dare ask, even if he can carry an armful of cans down the stairs.

“We should’ve left with the Initiative,” Dad says quietly one night, his voice full of sharp regret. He hangs his head and stares at his feet.

Mom sets her hand on his shoulder. “We didn’t know,” she says, just as softly.

“Avi had a spot for us. We could have left. All of this…” the rest of his words disappear into a strangled breath. He turns toward Mom and lets her pull him into a hug. Quentus can’t make out their murmured words, but Dad’s shoulders shake as he clutches at Mom, like he can’t hold her close enough.

The mattress shifts beside him and Quentus scoots over, making room for Nico. His younger brother looks up at him with wide eyes, fear rumbling through his subvocals. Quentus settles an arm around Nico’s shoulders and lets him cuddle into his side. He can’t make the same warm, comforting rumble that Dad uses to soothe them after a bad dream, but he can give Nico a hug.

Quentus doesn’t know what the Initiative is, but Dad doesn’t mention it or Uncle Avi again. By the end of the fourth week, all of their belongings that matter have been moved down to the basement.

//

Quentus is dismayed to discover that, despite the Reapers invading and slowly turning their street into rubble, he is not exempt from schoolwork lessons.

Mom works with him on his math one day while Dad’s out scavenging for supplies. The sun sets, Quentus has finished two sets of problems on his own, and Dad hasn’t returned.

She makes dinner – their fresh food is long gone, but she manages a decent dinner with canned vegetables and dehydrated meat – and plays games with the two of them until bedtime like nothing’s wrong. Quentus desperately wants to ask about Dad, but there’s a fragility to the way she’s holding herself. He squeezes her a little tighter when she hugs him goodnight.

Three nights later, there’s a noise upstairs. Mom turns off the lights, grabs a gun, and takes up position at the bottom of the stairs. “Hide,” she orders him and Nico.

Quentus grabs Nico’s arm and drags him out of sight into a closet. He keeps the door cracked and keeps his eye glued to the tiny open space.

The basement door opens, then closes, and a figure walks down the stairs. He pauses at the bottom, in a patch of moonlight.

“Torbin,” Mom breathes. The gun clatters to the ground. “Where the fuck were you?” she hisses, equal parts anger and relief in her voice. She stands up and immediately wraps her arms around him.

The bag of supplies in Dad’s hand falls and he holds her just as tight. “I’m sorry,” he whispers as Mom’s subvocals break, “there was a Reaper patrol. I couldn’t get back.”

Quentus barrels out of the closet, Nico right behind him, and they both rush into their father’s knees. Dad bends down and rests his brow against Quentus’, then Nico’s.

“I love you,” Dad says, desperation thickening his voice as he hugs them both.

Quentus can only whimper.

//

Six months pass and all Quentus wants is to play outside again. To see something other than the walls of their basement. To see and talk to someone other than his parents and younger brother.

He misses his friends.

Some of them might be alive – he’s heard his parents talking about people they’ve met out scavenging, and some of the names are familiar – but he’s not allowed upstairs, much less outside. It’s safer apart, Dad said patiently, when Quentus finally yelled about wanting to see the sun and play with his friends. They’re less likely to notice us in small groups.

So he reluctantly pokes at his schoolwork, tries not to be too annoyed when Nico does his reading lessons out loud, and makes it halfway through an entire math book before Mom realizes he’s been cheating. She gives him a look, sighs, and makes him start over again, this time with the answer key removed from his omnitool.

Mom passes time by building solar battery panels from spare parts she and Dad bring back from scavenging. She trades them for vitamins. Dad sews up wounds and sets broken bones in their kitchen, accepting whatever he can in payment even if it’s nothing more than thanks. Days pass with the rise and fall of sun in tiny shadows on the floor. Quentus has stopped jumping at every horn and blast outside.

One of Dad’s patients pays him in a media OSD. Quentus smiles for the first time in months when he discovers an entire directory of comic books. Mom lets him skip a day of lessons. He curls up in his tiny bed and devours each issue, even the volumes and stories he doesn’t know.

Math is still stupid, dehydrated meat is still tasteless, and he still misses his friends. But at least he has new comic books, even if he goes through them all in a week.

//

A little over a year into living in the basement, Quentus wakes up to violent red light and unbearable heat. The whole house shakes and glass breaks upstairs.

“Get down,” Dad says, climbing over him to shield Quentus with his own body. He tucks his hands over his head, arching his back so his strong plates take most of the blow.

Through deafening crashes and a demonic horn that grates all the way down his spine, Quentus hears Nico crying beside him. He looks over: Mom’s curled over Nico the same way Dad’s protecting him. She closes her eyes and tucks around him tighter as the ceiling collapses onto them.

The silence that follows is worse. The four of them hold still, waiting for the rest. Quentus tucks his head into Dad’s carapace like he did when he was smaller. Dad hums quietly and Mom joins in – a warm, safe noise, and Quentus tries to pretend that they’re just cuddled on the couch, reading before bedtime. It doesn’t work.

Mom’s breath hitches when the mechanical noises begin. Something’s walking in the remains of the upstairs – many somethings. They communicate with beeps and electric whirs and growls. Quentus slams his eyes shut and doesn’t see the look that passes between his parents.

Dad pulls away. Quentus opens his eyes, lifting a browplate in confusion.

“Hide,” he whispers, gently bumping their brows together. “Take care of your brother.”

“Dad?” his voice sounds so small.

“I love you,” Dad says. “Remember that.” He presses his mouthplates to Quentus’ crest and then pulls away to gather Nico in his arms.

Quentus doesn’t even have half a second to process his father’s words before his mother wraps her arms around him. Her subvocals rumble with deep, aching grief as she hugs him tight.

“I love you,” Mom whispers fiercely. “Stay together. Don’t let them find you.”

Pieces of concrete and stone start to lift away. The mechanical noises grow louder. Something screams and it makes Quentus want to curl up in his mother’s arms and never ever leave.

“Hide,” she urges, letting go. He reaches for her, but she only grabs his hand, leading him toward the closet. “Stay here,” she says, stepping out of the way for Dad to set a crying Nico beside him in the small room. “Keep the door shut,” she orders, “and close your eyes.”

His breath shakes and he starts to cry just like his brother. “Mom?”

She leans in and briefly rests her forehead on his, then Nico’s. “I love you, so much.”

Light shines in from a newly-made hole by the stairs.

“Andi,” Dad says from the other side of the room. He slides a brand new heat sink into his rifle.

“Close your eyes,” she says softly with a smile, just like when he’s having trouble sleeping. She shuts the door, leaving Quentus and Nico in darkness.

With one hand clamped over Nico’s mouth and the other over his own, Quentus squeezes his eyes shut as gunfire erupts in their basement.

And then, after what feels like an eternity, silence.

//

Based on the path of sunlight through the small crack at the bottom of the door, three days pass before Quentus works up enough courage to pop the door open and peek out. He doesn’t see anything, so pushes the door the rest of the way open.

There’s dried blood by the stairs, staining the floor a dark blue. The basement is empty.

They’re alone.

#s:long live #s:words #s:2021 #i've been working on this for like three years i'm so sorry y'all #there are several more disjointed parts to this that'll show up in later cards i promise

[lesserfandomappreciation]

This is like, very specific so if you consider it more like an OC commission, I'd be happy to yeet money in your face for it, but could you write something about Garrus with a civilian human s/o who runs a dextro/levo friendly café at the citadel?

Nah, you’re good!

Garrus w/ civilian cafe human!owner (Mass Effect)

Garrus is not a civilian person in general. Look he’s got enough connections with certain people to make a mobster look like a networking lightweight but you put him in front of your average, down-to-earth civilian who works a 9-5 shift and he’s lost. So he’s not really sure how to interact with this friendly face at the café his friends recommended to him. 

The café owner is a friendly soul, one that went out of their way to build a business that welcomed everyone, regardless of their needs. It was an interesting place to say the least - it’s what had attracted him to it the first, seeing the wide range of customers generally enjoying themselves without having to deal with bullshit.

The other part was the friendly owner that welcomed him every time with a big smile and ridiculous amount of understanding. When he had initially probed them about making everything dextro/levo friendly, Garrus was surprised to get an answer other than “to make money.”

“So that I can meet everyone! I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.” “You got me there...” Garrus wondered if he could drown whatever this weird feeling was with more of this ‘coffee’ stuff they gave him. 

Saving the galaxy does take him away often, but somehow Garrus manages to become a decent regular there. The owner is friendly and they always have a good jab or two to return to him when they start debating. It’s a genuinely enjoyable time. Them giving his discounts or waiving certain fees feels natural (though the turian heavily protests it), a friendly gesture. S/o treats it as such, so why wouldn’t he?

Then he notices they have his order always ready for him. How they make a beeline for him the second he’s there. A big mega-watt smile illuminates their face whenever they make eye contact with him. The cute way their eyes crinkle in the corners when he tells a story - 

Shit he’s in deep isn’t he?

He avoids the café for a bit. This is unfamiliar to him. Where to even begin with this? People forget that Garrus is fairly shy with romance, not getting confident until much later (though always staying his dorky self). This is a lot. It takes Shepard kicking him in the butt to finally get him to get his shit together and actually think of something.

“Uh. Hey. This seat open?” S/o lights up when they see Garrus come in for the first time in 2 weeks. They eagerly greet him but before they can go get an order, Garrus manages to catch them by their sleeve. He’s balancing his face on his other hand, elbow firmly on the counter - it’s an attempt to look cool while he tries to get the words out. 

“’Think you’d be interested in some dinner? With me? Outside of the café, I mean.”

#mass effect #mass effect imagine #imagine

[queercraftingchonk]

Shepard *will* find out what Garrus did with Tali’s chocolate

Garrus barely stepped into the apartment when he stopped in his tracks under the stifling gaze of his girlfriend. She was leaning against the kitchen counter wearing a smirk that could kill. "What did you do to Tali's chocolate, Garrus?" "--!" The turian was nearly slack-jawed, mandibles clicking. He recovered poorly with a cough and double-checking that the apartment door properly locked behind him (as it always did). "Uh, Shepard, did Tali send a message?" "She sure did, and I gotta know what happened. Tali demands sweet reparations in the form of filtered turian chocolate; she's gonna be on shore leave in a few days." "So the Exodus Relay is back online?" Garrus asked. "Yep. That girl works miracles, every time," Shepard grinned. "She sure does. And that must mean...your mother?" At this, Shepard's effervescent grin dimmed slightly. It was difficult to talk about how she felt, as she knew it was unreasonable to be angry at her mother for not being there when she woke up... "Shepard?" Garrus asked. He put down the bags of take-out (Aralakh barbecue) on the counter before turning his full attention to Shepard, naturally resting his hand on her waist. "Sorry, just feeling...a lot," she answered. Shepard sighed and let her head rest against her boyfriend's keel. "That can't be comfortable," Garrus chided. "I don't mind. I have a thick head," Shepard said flatly.

Her partner laughed with warm dual tones. "Like a krogan, sweetie. Like a krogan. And speaking of krogan..." Garrus nodded, gesturing to the bags of food with his mandibles, "...they gave us extra skewers and Tuchanka sauce again. No charge." "Goddamn it!" Shepard lifted her head and adopted a frustrated expression. "They need to let us pay credits. Their restaurant isn't even fully rebuilt yet!" "Then next time, don't put the order under 'Shepard'," Garrus teased. "Oh...right..." Shepard's playful anger fizzled. She kept forgetting that her name was, to put it very lightly, known; the mist of her thoughts seemed to perpetually obscure the actual level of fame and renown Shepard had in the Milky Way. "Hmm," Garrus hummed thoughtfully, "we'll have to get you a codename, too. What goes well with Archangel?" Shepard laughed. "A devil?" "Now there's a thought," Garrus purred. He dipped his head into the crook of Shepard's neck, nuzzling the cool plates of his mouth against her warm skin. "Garrus..." Shepard said softly. The turian turned to look in his lover's eyes. "Yes, Shepard?" His voice was thick with desire. She leaned in to his ear, just below his visor, and whispered: "What the fuck did you do to Tali's chocolate?" Garrus pulled away obstinately, eliciting a hearty laugh and snort (Spirits he loved when he got her to do that) from Shepard. The turian groaned and smoothed his hand against his crest self-consciously. "It was almost a year ago and I...well, it was when the crew made me live outside the hospital. I wasn't keen on leaving your side, but y'know how persuasive everyone can be...or in Jack's case, somewhat terrifying. Then Anderson told me to get the apartment ready for you, so...Tali and I lived here, trading days to visit you." "Wait," Shepard paused, "Tali lived here with you?" "Yeah," Garrus explained, "until she received the invitation to serve under your mother with the Rannoch-Alliance science team. Honestly, I was a little jealous...Tali's as useful as ever in peacetime, while people like us just become wartime relics." "Speak for yourself, Vakarian," Shepard teased lightly. Garrus smiled. "Anyway, Tali had apparently found some quarian-cleaned turian chocolate in some rundown part of the wards and paid a lot of credits for it--" "How much?" Shepard asked. "Too much," Garrus answered. The pair moved to the kitchen to start unpacking the meals for their dinner. Shepard continued to listen intently as she grabbed a beer for each of them. Garrus continued, "But I, uh, didn't realize. One night when I was...well, a few too many brandies deep...I got hungry and found the stash of chocolate..." Shepard's grin was widening by the second. "You didn't." Garrus groaned and held his head in his hand in shame. "She found me passed out on the couch in the morning covered in evidence." "I'll have to thank her for not killing you," Shepard smirked. "And I'll have to find her some chocolate if I want to continue this whole 'being alive' thing."

--Excerpt from How to Love a Biotic God(dess) [Ao3] Chapter 9: Tali’s Chocolate by Queercrafting_Chonk

#mass effect fanfiction #shalibrations #shakarian #tali x femshep x garrus #how to love a biotic goddess #garrus x femshep

[swaps55]

Through the Door

Kaidan hesitates outside the elevator on deck 1 when EDI confirms Shepard is still down in the war room. No telling how long it’ll be before the quarians turn Shepard loose. He should probably go back to the crew deck to wait. Plenty of things he’s putting off already by coming up here at all.

He rocks on his feet, hand half-raised to the lock panel. Just because Shepard gave him the access code doesn’t mean he has to use it. Though, what exactly is he afraid of if he does? Shepard is the one who asked him to come by, after all. Besides, the galaxy is splintering all around them. The reapers take more ground every day. Making himself at home in his CO’s cabin isn’t exactly a transgression that rates high on the anxiety list.

Dammit, why is he thinking about this so hard?

The elevator closes behind him. He mutters under his breath, inputs the lock code, and the door slides open.

He moves inside, eyes going straight for the fishtank. Fish. He never would have pegged Shepard for someone who would care about fish. Why in the world would Cerberus bother with a fish tank in the first place? No less strange than the hamster, Kaidan supposes. It was a gift, Shepard had protested, as it crawled over his fingers and whuffled his palm. Garrus said humans need companions that shed, which was news to me, but whatever. I’m lucky he didn’t bring an actual dog on board.

A small smile crosses Kaidan’s face. He heads for the hamster cage and taps it gently with a finger until the curious nose appears. So. Apparently fish and rodents are in Kaidan’s future. Better than horses, at least.  

So rare that Kaidan has had an opportunity to just…exist in Shepard’s personal space. For someone who’s lived his entire life with the military, it’s fascinating to note what habits are ingrained and where he stops giving a shit.

When it comes to order, Shepard definitely doesn’t give a shit. The desk is a mess of datapads, coffee cups, and MRE wrappers. A jacket lies haphazardly slung over the back of a chair. Peering down at the coffee table below, a tray from the mess and some empty glasses wait for disposal, along with more datapads.  

Shoved in the far corner of the desk is a box with a model turian cruiser, yet to be assembled and added to the collection. Ships, Sam? Model ships? Kaidan had asked. You told me to get a hobby, he’d replied.

The ships are indeed one of the only personal touches in the entire cabin, aside from the mess. Military spacer to the core – Shepard travels light. If Kaidan even suggested hanging something on the wall, he’s willing to bet the response would be a baffled look.

What would they hang, anyway? Funny, for as well as they know each other, some things are still completely unknown. Would they have compatible tastes? Kaidan’s not sure what his own tastes in décor are, if he’s being honest. He’s never…thought about it.

Imagine if their relationship falls apart because they can’t agree on curtains.

Oh well, they’ll just have to live somewhere without curtains, then.

Kaidan goes down the steps. A discarded undershirt lies on the floor near the bed, abandoned in a hurry. Either because Shepard had too much to do to stop and pick it up, or because he’d already forgotten it and moved on before it hit the floor. Probably the latter.

There is at least one personal item on display. A photo of Kaidan sits on the nightstand. He picks it up, tracing the frame with a finger. It’s from the medal ceremony in Vancouver, complete with mussed hair from the downpour they’d been out in that morning. In the photo, Kaidan grins at something off camera. Sam. He’s grinning at Sam.  Where had he gotten it? Who had given it to him?

Shouldn’t just be of Kaidan. They should find one of them both.

He pauses, uneasy.

That’s why.

That’s why he was thinking so hard about coming in here on his own, as if it’s their space and not Shepard’s.

They’ve spent so much time trying not to think about the future they might never have. And yet here it is, unfurling before his very eyes. What their life would look like together when they’re not meeting in Shepard’s cabin off-shift for some time alone, but coming home. To a place that’s theirs. Wherever that might be. Whenever that might be.  

He chews his lip and sets the photo back down.

The gravity well shimmies and the hairs on Kaidan’s arms stand on end as the door slides open and Shepard strides into the room, staring at a datapad and making a note with a finger. He mutters something under his breath before tossing it on his desk with the others. When he looks up he stops and stares like he’s never seen Kaidan before in his life.

“Hey, you,” he says, voice rough, like it takes him a moment to remember how to use it. “You’re…here.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaidan stammers. “You gave me the code. I just let myself in—”

Shepard glides down the steps and sweeps him into an embrace, crushing him to his chest and holding him tight. Kaidan returns it, puzzled.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Shepard pulls away from him, catches his chin in his fingers and kisses him until Kaidan’s toes curl. “This,” he says when they part. “This is what I want for the rest of my life. To come through that door and find you here. Because this is home. And I’m home. With you.”

Kaidan’s stomach flips. He runs a thumb along Shepard’s cheek. “Thought you didn’t look that far ahead.”

“I do with you.”

“Okay,” Kaidan says, slow, measured. “I’m going to need you to kiss me again. Right now.”

Shepard is only too happy to oblige. “And I’m going to need you to lose the shirt,” he mumbles against Kaidan’s mouth. “And the pants.”

“What, no dinner first?”

“Lose the damn shirt.”

Kaidan grins against his lips. “I had no idea domesticity would be such a turn on for you.”

“Less talking, more naked.” Shepard tugs impatiently at the hem of his shirt.

“Suddenly I think we should go curtain shopping.”

“You’re about to be way too naked for curtain shopping.” He whips Kaidan’s shirt over his head, dropping it next to the forgotten undershirt on the floor.

Kaidan catches his hand, kisses his knuckles and exhales, expression turning solemn. “Sam. As long as you keep walking through that door I’ll be here. Every time.”

“I know,” Shepard says softly.

“Sometimes, maybe even without a shirt.”

Shepard grins, then kisses him again. And then Kaidan loses the pants.     

#mshenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect #my fic #word doodling #hell if i can't get anything done on fugue #they can just be cute and happy

[ramblinganthropologist]

MER Week 5 - We are Family

Summary: Visiting family can be tough sometimes, especially when your job involves being the only fucking hope for humanity. Alistair’s never sure what to tell his sister when he sees her, but at least he’s got Bo to remind him he’s an idiot when he gets back. Don’t you just love family?

(ME 2 setting)

---

“So… uh… how are things going?”

Ah, the question he had been dreading for the last hour had finally shown itself. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. Worst of all, his exit was cut off. No way out but through it…

Fuck.

Normally, Alistair Shepard didn’t mind going to see his sister Anora. After all, they had a lot of catching up to do what with 11 years of separation and all between them. However, they usually had his niece as a buffer. Kelly was great for that sort of thing, especially if she wanted to hear parent-approved stories. Unfortunately, her father had custody that weekend. So, it was just the two of them, sitting on the couch and making awkward small talk.

Did he mention it was awkward? Because it was so fucking awkward. Fuck, maybe he should’ve taken a preventative anxiety dose…

The Spectre took a tentative sip of his tea just to have something to do – gross. His sister liked this variety of tea bag that he just couldn’t stand, but she was trying. That was enough to make a good try of things as she watched him over her own cup. What she was thinking, he had no clue.

It was hard to read his sister. Maybe it was because he was so used to military types?

“I mean… it’s going?” He put the cup down. “We were on Illium before we got back to the Citadel.”

Yeah, he had been hunting down an assassin and a justiciar to add to his crew in order to survive killing a shit ton of Collectors. Thane was great – he lived in Life Support so he didn’t die before the Collectors killed them. He hadn’t even mentioned Samara and her centuries of baggage, that was the best part. Reflecting on that, he knew it wasn’t exactly something you told your older sister over really shitty tea. So, he kept mum on the details.

Most of his stories wound up like that. Was that bad?

“Illium… well, at least you’d be easy to spot among the asari with your hair and all.” Anora took a cautious sip. “Did you… need armor for that one?”

Need armor – that was their codeword they’d come up when he hadn’t been sure what to call what he did. Anora had a weak stomach, and he didn’t exactly want to drag up the gory details of his job. Though, was it technically a job at that point? They had literally brought him back from the dead for it – that was nearly a calling. More than that, he wasn’t really getting paid. Cerberus was in a weird gray area…

Either way, it was a useful code.

“Yeah. It got heated at points, but nobody died.” Well… nobody on his side anyway. There were plenty of dead mercs thanks to both his crew and his own two hands. This was something else he wouldn’t tell Anora, mostly to keep her mind at ease. Apparently, hearing your younger brother was really good at killing people tended to put people off.

Civilians, couldn’t live with them…  kind of turned into a war crime if you accidentally shot them.

“Oh… that’s good. I know it…” she paused, frowning. “I know you’ve had it rough lately.  I saw you on the news with your friend Garrus and it looked like half of his face was missing.”

Alistair took another sip of his nasty tea to give him time to think of how to best phrase his possible boyfriend taking a rocket to the fucking face after a goddamn siege. It wasn’t exactly polite dinner conversation as he made the mental edits.

“Yeah… kind of. The implants are healing, though. At least the mandible is still attached and all.”

Judging by the look his sister gave, that probably wasn’t the right answer.

“Omega is not a fun place.” Was his only justification as he took another sip. “I definitely don’t recommend the Terminus system for Kelly’s spring break.”

Another wince – he was just knocking it out of the park with today’s visit. Maybe he should just close his stupid mouth and drink his tea before he gave her a coronary…

Anora at least didn’t drop her cup. Concern was written all over her face though as she rolled it between her palms. There were probably a thousand thoughts running through her mind, and he just had to wait on the final decision. Lucky for him, he was good at waiting.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” A judicious answer. She sipped from her mug, face unreadable. “So… where are you going next?”

To hell in a fucking hand basket, or a least close enough when they managed to get through Omega-4. However, it wasn’t exactly something you shared over tea, especially with your older sister.

When he glanced away, Anora sighed. “Right… top secret Spectre business, then?”

“Something like that.” He frowned. What little good feeling between them was starting to wear down. Soon there would be nothing left but awkward questions and long pauses full of questions neither of them could answer. No doubt it would be time for him to go soon.

Lucky for him, his omni-tool started to beep. Someone was trying to communicate with him. Without thinking, he hit the button and his sister’s living room was soon filled with the sound of the Normandy’s cockpit. If he strained, he could hear EDI softly beeping in the background.

“Commander, you there? Sorry to break up the family visit, but we’re getting a message from Admiral Hackett. I think you’re going to want to hear this.”

Alistair could already feel his forehead throbbing at the thought. “I swear, he just bothered us…”

“Yeah, tried to mute him but you know how he does that thing to get it through anyway.” Joker was priming the Normandy for takeoff in the background. “You should probably get back to the Normandy in case we need to head out.”

Sweet relief.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in twenty. Knowing the admiral, we’re going to be in the ass end of nowhere, so start checking the relays.” He paused, sighing. “Thanks, Joker. See you soon.”

The call ended not long after. He finished his tea in one long swallow. Anora was watching him, impossible to read. She had long since abandoned her tea – it was growing cool on the table. Talk about a bad sign.

“Admiral Hackett contacts you directly?”

Alistair sighed a ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m kind of his go-to for confidential stuff he doesn’t want to do. Call it first human Spectre privilege I guess.”

Anora didn’t exactly look impressed. “I’m guessing armor is going to be needed then.”

“Probably.” He sighed again. “I should go. They can’t exactly leave the Citadel without a CO on deck, can they?”

His cup clinked softly as he placed it back down on the table and stood. Anora stood as well and walked him to the front door. There they hovered, neither really saying anything, eyes not really meeting.

It always ended like that. It was why he preferred Kelly there to help soften things between them.

Her hand reached out – maybe to squeeze his shoulder – but it didn’t make contact. Instead, it fell back to her side, limp. It was hard to read the emotion in her face then, but then again it always was. When it came down to it, Anora was a bit of a brick wall he wound up hitting his head against.

“Well… be safe. I’ll see you when you’re back on the Citadel?”

He nodded, already planning his route back to the ship. “Yeah. Thanks for the tea. Tell Kelly I said hi.”

She nodded, and that was it. No hug goodbye, nothing more than an awkward wave as he walked down the path. Then the door shut, and it was back to work. Maybe he felt bad about the relief that he felt as he turned to leave, like a weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. The more he walked, the easier it was to forget.

He had to anyway – he had work to do.

“Wonder what the fuck Hackett wants this time…” Alistair grumbled to himself as he aimed for the port that would get him back to the docking bay he had left earlier that day. By the time he got there, the Normandy would be ready to leave. Within the hour, he’d be shooting towards the relay. Then – who knew. With Hackett, anything was possible.

“Seriously? He wants something AGAIN? Didn’t we risk our collective asses for him last week?”

Probably because he’d be lost in his thoughts, but Alistair realized he was standing in shadow. He glanced up, unsurprised to find red eyes and a bored expression. Without much thought, he shifted his pace. He needed to – otherwise he couldn’t keep up.

Bo had a bag of snacks in her arms that jingled as she walked. From the looks of things, Joker had paged her during a grocery run. Hopefully she had managed to get the citric acid he had asked for – he was starting to run low, and without it he’d just be eating sugar. That was a line even he wouldn’t cross.

It wasn’t a big line, but every man needed one.

“Yeah, I have no idea what. Joker couldn’t tell me; I was still with Anora.”

His adopted sister winced. “So, which one would you rather have faced: her or first contact?”

“I’d say I’d rather see a turian’s face pointing a gun at me.” He winced at his own bluntness. “Sorry… have to watch my tongue around her. You know she worries.”

Bo rolled her eyes at this as she handed him a smaller bag to carry. From the looks of things, there was a massive container of citric acid inside, buried next to a candy bar he was definitely going to destroy within a few hours of achieving FTL flight. It was nice to have someone who thought of him.

“You’re a fucking N7 level marine, I think she can figure out you’re winding up in some pretty fucked up shit.”

That was another wince on his part. “Yeah, but… I don’t exactly have to tell her how I stood in the line of sight for Garrus’ rifle, now do I?”

His answer got him quite the shove forward – it was a miracle he didn’t hit the ground face first as Bo continued on ahead, bag still jingling. “I’m pretty sure she knows you’re a dumbass with a martyr complex, don’t worry.”

Ah, someone was still sore about that. Well, excuse him for using his head…

Still, attempted face plant aside, Alistair had to admit he felt a lot more at ease as he and Bo continued their walk back towards the Normandy and their continuing fight against Admiral Hackett’s to-do list. Maybe he should have felt bad about that, but he had enough actual bad things to worry about. Something like this, he’d be happy to let slide for the moment. It could get him later, when he was in bed and couldn’t sleep.

“Gee, thanks. Love you too.”

Bo flipped him the bird as he caught up to her. “Can’t help I have a dumbass for a commanding officer brother, now can I?”

“He didn’t shoot…”

“You still got in the fucking way of a sniper rifle, you moron. The ghost of Alec Ryder is going to chew your ass out when you go to bed tonight, and I’m pretty sure that bastard’s still alive.”

The last thing he wanted was Alec Ryder, corporal or otherwise, near his ass. No thanks. That was enough to give him a lifetime of nightmares…

His adopted sister nudged him again as they got closer. “Next time just… don’t be a fucking hero. I don’t even know why I’m saying it, I know you will, and it’ll piss me off and then we start all over again.”

Despite the lecture, he chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

“No, you won’t. You’re a fucking boy scout and it’s the worst.”

At least they had at last reached the Normandy. The yellow still needed painting over, but it was a sight for sore eyes nonetheless. Alistair was happy to hop aboard as decontamination hissed around him. It was humming to life beneath his feet, almost as if it was welcoming him back.

He loved this part.

“Commander Shepard and Commander Shepard have returned. Agent Miranda stands relieved.”

EDI’s robotic voice echoed as they stepped out of decontamination. Off to the side, Joker swiveled around in his chair to greet them. His grin only got wider as he spotted the bag hanging from Bo’s arm, almost reminding Alistair of a kid in a candy store.

“Did you get it?”

Bo snorted as he pulled out a smaller bag and handed it over. “You’re worse than Saren when it comes to snacks.”

“Hey, leave my hamster out of it. Saren is a gentleman.” Alistair still chuckled as he looked out at the Citadel dock from the Normandy’s front window. Soon, it would all be the blackness of space rushing out to meet them.

“Well, can’t be too bad if I’m getting compared to that.” Joker swiveled back around, already starting the procedure for takeoff. “Hackett’s message is ready when you are, Commander.”

Right… ugh. Just thinking about it gave Alistair a headache as he watched Bo head off to distribute her snacks. Still, it was a headache he could tolerate as he felt his mind shifting back to mission mode. At least here, he was in his element.

“Go ahead and play it. Might as well find out what ass end of nowhere we’re heading to…”

And just like that, it was business as usual. Admiral Hackett needed help, and the Normandy was the only ship he could get to do it. Soon, Alistair would be back in armor and ready to face whatever hell awaited them.

In a weird way, it was good to be home. But how fucked up is it that home was a fucking bootleg Alliance frigate hotwired by Cerberus?

#merweek2021 #Alistair Shepard #Bo Peep Shepard #ft his older sister Anora #If you get the joke with their names I have zero regrets

[thelordofdarkreunion]

Magnificent Scoundrels- Man Behind the Curtain

Here, we have the second to last story of the “governments meeting/Citadel” arc.  We finally find out who precisely attacked, any why they did it.  I hope you all liked it.  As always, I do not own any of these characters except Drake and his crew.  

“Pieces on a god’s chessboard are just that: pieces, and if you fail to perform adequately or refuse to play your part, you will be removed and another will fulfill your duty.”

Aboard the IMC Rhodes

The clean black deck rang with the thumps of two pairs of boot soles.  Two pairs of hands ran through their equipment, tightening straps and checking weapons one last time.  Two pairs of eyes scanned the massive Titan deck of the Rhodes.  The two Pilots stepped onto small, circular elevators.  M.R.V.N. robots waved cheerfully at them.  The elevators took them up to the scaffolding around their Titans, cockpits already standing open.  

Pilot Elizabeth Reiner stepped inside her Titan.  The M.R.V.N on the scaffolding flashed her a thumbs up.  With a quick reach back, she stored her carbine in a holster inside the cockpit.  Pilots controlled Titans, to be sure, but you never knew when you’d be forced to dismount.  

“Welcome back, Pilot,” came the A.I. voice of KK-9734.  

“Good to be back,” she replied with a grin from underneath her helmet.  She pressed a button, and the cockpit closed, sealing her inside.  A hologram lit up on the panel next to her.  

“Pilots, you are to deploy and provide fire and heavy armor support here.  There is no need to leave you Titans.  After your mission is complete, our shuttles will retrieve you.”  Standard mission briefing from the general.  Her comms crackled to life.  

“Milk run,” came the voice of her wingman, Pilot Kara Morse.  

“Pilot Morse is incorrect.  This is a Titan heavy armor and fire support mission, not a delivery of calcium hydroxide,” replied KK-9734.  Reiner snorted with laughter.  Many Pilots realized that their Titans were way too literal, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.  

“Very true, KK.  Very true.”  There was a slight thump as the two Titans were lowered into place.  The general’s voice sounded over the comms.  

“Stand by for Titanfall.” 

On the Citadel

“Go!” yelled Vir.  The squad in the next crater up took to their feet as one and started to fire at the machine gun emplacements inside the hotel.  Shepard vaulted the crater he was standing in and took off at a dead sprint for Vir’s crater.  An ATLAS mech fired a burst in his direction, but he ignored it as he slid forward and tumbled, hands over heels, into the safety of the crater.  He stood up and brushed dust off his armor.  

Medical crater, was his first thought.  This crater was less of a crater, and more of a large trench-like hole.  Lining the insides were dozens of wounded soldiers and the Turian, GA, and Valhallan medics working on them.  Nearby, a horribly battered human, his uniform unrecognizable and chest torn open, writhed and screamed on the ground as Kraiker, the Apocalypse’s medic, worked on him.  Two C-Sec officers stood anxiously over the pair.

“Is he going to be alright?” asked one of the C-Sec agents.  Kraiker didn’t even look up.

“He will be if you shut the fuck up and let me work,” he snapped.  “Shepard. Vir,” he said, still not looking up.  “If you want some of these cases to live, I suggest hurrying the hell up.  Chakwas, Katie, Krill, and whoever the hell is on the Enterprise are probably better than I am, and we can’t get to them unless we clear this area.”  Before either could say anything, there was a flicker behind them.  Cooper’s cloak turned off and he jumped into the trench just as a machine gun stitched a line of mass-propelled rounds above him.  Cooper shook his head and brushed off his helmet.  

“I heard, I heard,” he said, holding up a hand before either Vir or Shepard could say anything.  “I’m calling in my Titan.”  he spoke into his helmet for a moment.  “There we go.  Stand by for Titanfall.”  High above, three streaks of light shone at the edge of the Citadel’s artificial atmosphere.  Cooper looked up in confusion.  “Wait a minute.  There’s only supposed to be one…” he trailed off.  Another voice sounded, this time over the open comms system of the Scoundrels instead of Cooper’s private one.

“This is Commander Briggs,” said a human woman’s voice.  “You asked for armor support, so the IMC decided to reply.  Cooper, you guys are on the same side, so try not to kill each other.”  

“Tell that to them,” Cooper muttered to himself.  The three Titans, two IMC, one Militia, slammed into the ground with enough force to briefly shake it.  Glowing blue domed shields appeared around them, protecting them from all incoming fire.  Cooper activated his cloak, and with a vault, and quick sprint, launched himself at his Titan.  

BT-7274 caught Cooper in mid air, and gently placed him inside his cockpit.  The three Titan’s dome shields dissipated.  Immediately, they started firing on the enemy soldiers entrenched inside the hotel.  Massive cannon shells, 20mm armor piercing bullets, and rockets ripped through the hotel’s outer facade as the allied soldiers beneath the Titans advanced.  

The soldiers inside the hotel panicked at the appearance of the massive war machines.  The remaining ATLAS mechs that tried to stop them were swiftly obliterated as the allied soldiers reached the hotel.  The defenders ran from the outer walls to the back, hoping to get away from the assault… only to find themselves walking directly into the waiting fire of the ODSTs.  

Elsewhere on the Citadel

Drake spun rapidly, lashed out with his boot heel, and broke the ankle of a Cerberus trooper.  The other leg came around, and the errant soldier flew onto the Citadel’s pavement.  Drake snapped his feet together, perfectly timed to the beat of the music playing, of course, and shot the trooper through the head.  He turned once more, and shot another soldier down, the kinetic barriers of the enemy stopping the bullet, but not the plasma infusion that blew a hole in her chest.  

Rocket spun around, machine gun firing wildly.  A maniacal cackle iminated from his mouth as he gunned down Cerberus soldiers, their shields and armor giving way to horrifying amounts of bullets.  

Jack, a powerful human biotic and member of Sheaprd’s crew, snapped the neck of a charging enemy with nought but a thought and flash of blue energy.  She picked up another struggling trooper with a cocoon of biotic power, and threw him through the arches of a particularly ugly metal sculpture.  An Apocalypse armsman slid forward on his knees and threw out his arms.  

“Goal!” he screamed.  Jack smiled.  She liked these people.  They were crazy.  

Nearby, Maverick watched the insanity around her.  Yeah, she could be loose.  A little crazy, especially to Kril’s standards.  But this?  This was a bit too much.  Ramirez skated across a puddle of water, almost fell, and still managed to get his rifle up in time to kill an advancing Cerberus soldier.  

“Maverick!  You’re the only non-crazy one here!” he laughed.  

“Someone has to keep you guys in check,” she shot back.  Drake looked over from where he was repeatedly ramming a knife through the armor joints of a struggling Turian.  

“Well, to be fair, you’re a lot less crazy than everyone else, Ramirez,” he said.

“Hey!  I resent that!” he yelled back.  Ramiriez spun around, only to realize there were no enemies left.  How odd.  Drake turned and walked up to a set of double doors leading god-only-knew where and started to fiddle with the control panel as two of his armsmen kept watch.  He struggled for a moment, only for the panel to give him an electrical shock.  

“Ah!  Fuck me!” he swore as he shook his hand.  Rameirez cocked an eyebrow.  

“Well, usually I’d buy you dinner first, but sure.”  Drake’s neck snapped around so fast Maverick swore she could hear vertebrae pop.  

“I like this one!” Drake yelled jubilantly.  He fiddled with the control panel a bit more, before giving it a resounding kick.  “Dammit.  Stupid thing won’t let me in.”  He motioned to the demolition teams.  “Muelka!  Federer!  Blow it the fuck up!”  The two advanced with positively feral grins on their faces.  

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

Elsewhere on the Citadel

A set of heavy double doors guarded the way into the attackers’ last stronghold on the Citadel.  Apparently, the other landing forces had managed to do quite good for themselves, with a group of traitor C-Sec officers even coming up to Shepard and begging him to take them prisoner rather than face whatever Quill and Drake were doing.  A distant rumbling and pall of thick smoke rising into the air in Drake’s direction gave a good indication of precisely what they were fleeing.  All communications in Quill’s direction were completely shut down, which was rather ominous… for the opposition.  Shepard and Vir had faith that Quill could weasel his way out of whatever was going on over there.  

As for Shepard and Vir’s group, well…  No one was going to stop thousands of the best soldiers in the universe, backed up by three Titans and two living legends.  Simplicity itself.  

As for the door, there was a current argument between the members of Shepard’s ground squad, led by his first lieutenant Miranda Lawson and the Tempestus Scions and ODSTs.  Lawson, backed up by the Normady’s chief engineer, Tali'Zorah, wanted to hack the doors open, which would take a bit of time.  The Scions and ODSTs wanted to simply blow them open.  It was at the moment that the Scions started going for their weapons, disliking that Lawson and Shepard were working alongside “xenos scum,” that Vir decided to intervene.  

“Why don’t we all settle down, huh?  It doesn’t serve any purpose to kill each other, especially since we’ve been working together to take back the Citadel,” said Vir.  He turned towards the lead Scion.  “We’ve wasted enough time already.  Blow open the doors.”  The Scion nodded and gestured to a pair of his troopers carrying bombs.  

“You heard the man.  Blow it open.”  Vir turned to Shepard and Lawson.

“I know you want to preserve as much of the Citadel as possible, but we want to get to the bottom of this attack, and demolition is faster.  I can pay for any damages, if required.”  Shepard shook his head.

“I won’t have you paying for anything if I can palm off the charges to the Council,” he replied.  Vir grinned.

“Fair enough.”  He looked over to the doors, where the Scions had placed their charges.  A mixed group of Scions and ODSTs stood on both sides, guns at the ready.  

“Ready?” called the leader.

“Ready!” came the reply.

“Breach!”  The charges exploded inwards with a massive blast of heat, melting a huge hole in the doors.  Soldiers streamed in, checking corners and moving forward, ready to destroy their enemies.  Of which there were none.  

Vir and Shepard, backed up by a cadre of heavily armed troopers, stepped through the ragged hole in the door.

“Waste of perfectly good melta charges, if you ask me,” opinionated the Scion commander.  

“Move forward.  There has to be someone here,” replied Shepard.  Heavy boots thunked into the cold metal surface of the dimly lit space as the various allied soldiers spread throughout the building.  

“Contact!” someone shouted.  This was followed by a sudden blast of small arms fire from at least twelve different points, and a small explosion.

“I think you got ‘em,” said Vir dryly.  

“Yeah.  The grenade was a bit… overkill,” voiced Shepard as he looked over the unfortunate individual's remains, mostly consisting of bloody smears on the walls.  

“They’re in here!” called an ODST, gesturing to a large open room with several overhanging balconies.  The rest of the soldiers filed in, quickly killing the nine terrified-looking people inside.  

Above them all was a group of blue skinned aliens.  Asari.  The one in charge sneered at the entering soldiers.  

“Well, it looks as if you have come here to die, scum.  Our master was right about this,” she said.

“Master?” asked Shepard to no one in particular.  The Asari gave him a leering grin.  

“The Shadow Broker does not take kindly to your interference, Shepard, and once you’re dead, I’ll give your body to him.”

“Wait.  Why the hell would the Shadow Broker, and information dealer, want to attack the Citadel with every bloody government in existence here?  And why the hell are you, an Asari, working with Cerberus, a human supremacist group?” asked Shepard.  The Scions, Valhallans, marines, ODSTs, and Vir looked back and forth between the two, as if it were a tennis match.

“That’s for him to know, and you to find out!”  The Asari turned to one of the balconies.  “Kill them!”  A group of mercenaries stormed the balcony, and pointed their weapons at the allied forces down below.  Before they could fire, a flurry of shots rang out behind them, and they fell to the ground, stone dead.  

Quill, followed by a very shaken looking Captain Viter, along with their outflanking group, stepped out from behind them.  

“Yeah, well, sometimes it pays to not have a plan, ‘cause if you don’t know what you’re doing, then the enemy certainly can’t know what you’re doing!” said Quill.  He pointed his pistols at the group of Asari.  “Your move.”  

Every individual in the group readied their weapons and started to glow with a strange blue light.  

“Doesn’t matter.  You still have to kill us!” yelled the Shadow Broker’s minion.  However, before they could do anything, more shots rang out.  A group of the Asari fell dead.  Two more were picked up and developed in blue energy, and thrown into the ceiling where they expired with a series of sickly crunches.  The leader’s head was then promptly blown apart, to reveal Drake and his outflanking group.  

Drake twirled his pistol around a finger and blew non-existent smoke from its barrel.

“Well.  That was fun.  Now what?”  All of the different factions turned to look at each other.  

“I’m sure the Council would love to thank you all for saving their station,” said Shepard, with only the barest hints of sarcasm in his voice.  “Hell, they might even throw us a party.”

The Lair of the Shadow Broker

“You have failed me.”  The voice came again, swirling with infinite power.  It was ever-changing, made up of thousands of tongues, thousands of species, individuals, emotions, and languages at once.  The Shadow Broker cringed.  He was one of the most powerful individuals in the galaxy, but the voice brought him to his knees nevertheless.  The physical power he held as a yahg, a species that few knew about, was nothing here.  “You were supposed to destroy the Citadel, along with all of these pathetic mortals!  Instead, a group you did not plan for stopped me!”  All his planning, all the contacts he had in Cerberus, the Citadel, and various species’ militaries had failed.  

“My lord, perhaps if-”

“Silence!”  The Broker cringed again.  For six decades he had schemed and maneuvered behind the shadows.  He had destroyed the original Shadow Broker.  He was confident he could get out of this deal… if he wasn’t dealing with the God of Schemes.  

“My hold upon this reality is tenacious, at best.  My most powerful mortal agent has turned against me and been hidden from my sight.  This is why I turned to you.  But you failed.”  The voice projected a thousand emotions at once: anger, fear, sadness, melancholy, love.  The Broker furiously scratched at his head to dispel the wrongness of so many contradictory feelings at once.  “My power here is weak, yes,” continued the voice, “but not enough to do this!”  

The Shadow Broker screamed.  His body twisted in horrifying, reality-bending ways.  Arms morphed into tentacles, then back again.  His skin flashed through a million colors in the span of seconds, some he’d never seen before.   His eyes shot out of his body on stalks, and fell over his chest.  Skin shed.  Eyes fell out of eyes, and appeared throughout his body.  Bones twisted into horrifying spurs.  Blood transformed into a thousand different liquids at once.  Organs ripped themselves out of his chest, then re-arranged themselves.  His body twisted, turning inside-out, upside-down, then back again.  His massive maw widened further, to terrifying degrees, and teeth grew longer.  Organs mutated, bones contorted, limbs elongated, and internal tissues burst forth from his skin.  

The Shadow broker screamed.  And screamed.  The last thing to change was his sentience.  He went from an individual of ruthless cunning and massive intelligence to a gibbering, mindless, mutated and twisted husk.  Everything was taken from him, his immortal soul devoured by daemons.  

There he would remain, a twisted, soulless, mindless husk until he was found by his minions, who were promptly torn apart.  After half an hour, the thing that was once the Shadow Broker was finally put down by his own guards, erasing the sin of his existence. 

“Arhiman has gone from my sight.  The Shadow Broker is useless.  These… Scoundrels are an annoyance but present an… opportunity.  It matters not what has happened.  This is only the very first move of the Game.  I am Tzeentch, and you are all my pawns that move when I say so.”

#magnificent scoundrels #story #writing #my writing #crossover #fanfic #warhammer 40k #mass effect #titanfall #titanfall 2

[zet-sway]

THE FROZEN SEA CHAPTER 2

I've literally never done a chapter 2 to anything before. It's boring but whatever, I wrote it. Hopefully I can find the stamina to continue. Longfic is so difficult (╥﹏╥)

Word Count: ~3000 Rated: "T" AO3 Link: "The Frozen Sea - Chapter 2" Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: "When they finally disembark, she beelines for the elevator with a painfully stiff spine and heavy footfalls. In that moment, Thane can see the weight of her two missing years more clearly than ever before, her humanity practically seeping through the cracks in her hardsuit."

- - - - - - - - - - -

It's shortly after breakfast when Shepard appears in his room unannounced. Fresh mug of coffee in one hand and datapad in the other, she takes the seat across from him without a word. Her eyes are glued to the screen, worried, but focused.

"Shepard, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Her mug hits the table with a soft thump and her eyes flick up at him from under her lashes.

"What do you know about the collectors?"

Curious, he leans in, hands folded. "I've encountered them before, although not directly."

Shepard raises an eyebrow.

"My work has taken me to some less than desirable reaches of the galaxy," he says dryly.

"Ever killed one?"

By now he's unsurprised by her direct questions, but it's enough of a hint for him to understand there's definitely something afoot. Thane shakes his head. "No, I've only watched from afar. The Collectors have a reputation for black market dealings."

The datapad flickers off as she sets it down and takes a sip of her coffee. Then she summons an image of a planet he's never been to on her omni-tool. Horizon, a human colony.

"This morning I received an emergency directive from The Illusive Man. It's very likely we're about to go head to head with Collector forces for the first time."

Ah, that would be why she's here so early.

"How much longer until we arrive?"

"Sixty minutes. Tell me what you know."

He pauses to consider what might be most valuable to the mission. 

"They fly, like insects."

Shepard visibly chokes on her coffee. "That's different." She transfers the planetary data to his omni-tool. "Suit up and meet me us upstairs in thirty."

With that, she gets up and walks out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

They load up into the shuttle. Shepard is nearly silent but Garrus seems to be in good spirits.

"So the Collectors can fly? Is that right?" the turian asks, checking the safety on his rifle for the 6th time.

Thane nods in his direction.

"I guess we're about to find out. We'll give em' hell, Commander."

Shepard merely hums her approval. Her mind is elsewhere.

When the shuttle touches down, she's the first one on the ground, motioning for the others to hold position inside the shuttle until she gives her signal. It's not until she's confident that Mordin's protection against the seeker swarms is effective that she allows them to press forward.

While she forges ahead to clear the proverbial brush for them, Thane wonders about the duality of her. Kalahira's messenger, making every attempt to prolong their lives. The goddess does not take life for the pleasure of it, she needs them for the battle ahead. 

He wonders if she, too, will be swept up in the coming tide. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fighting the Collectors makes her skin crawl. 

The drone of seeker swarms and collector wings never seems to fade out from her mind. Their flesh is… wrong, somehow. Filled with fluids, too soft, with unseeing alien eyes. Garrus bolts one on her flank and its head bursts like overripe, rotting fruit. She cringes and presses forward, Thane by her side tearing down barriers. He’ll have biotic burns after this mission if she’s not careful.

They’re armed with particle weapons - unsurprising given their intel. The air singes in the wake of each shot as they move from cover to cover. The deeper they move into the colony, the more horrors they unearth.

By now, Shepard is accustomed to the knowledge that husks were once people. But two years gone has brought frightening new context to that idea when she sees what other horrors the Collectors have in their arsenal. Grotesque amalgams of... things. People. Other creatures. What is she even supposed to call this four legged thing with a mass of human heads below it's carapace? Is this what the Collectors are doing with these people?

They manage a small number of survivors. Too few. But among them is Ashley Williams - a fucking sight for sore eyes if Shepard’s ever seen one.

"Ash, it's good to see you," she says, face splitting into a grin. It takes all her self control to not throw her arms around the soldier. 

Ever the professional, Ashley stands resolute among her Alliance compatriots. She's grown into a strong soldier, and Shepard beams with no small amount of pride.

"I didn't want to believe it was you. It really is you, right? Shepard?"

"It's me, in the flesh." Shepard says, arms outstretched in a proud gesture.

Ashley looks incredulous, her expression is hard to read. "And you too, Garrus - what happened to your face?"

Garrus flares his mandibles in a characteristic turian smirk. "Just a scratch, really. A rocket to the face will do that."

"Jesus, Shepard..." The way Ashley's tone trails off immediately makes the air turn sour. Her smile twists away into nothing. "You're really with Cerberus, then?"

"It isn't what it looks like, Ash." The words are thick in her throat. Even if it's true, the phrase sounds utterly hollow.

"I thought you died. I… we… had a funeral for you. People don't just come back from the dead,” Ashley says, eyes like daggers.

"I didn't believe it myself until I saw the final report. You can read it if you like," Shepard’s face scrunches up in discomfort. The photos still haunt her. "Meat and tubes, Ash.”

"I'm disappointed you'd even let yourself believe that." Her voice is rising, eyes narrowed in accusation and contempt. The look on her face is every bit as painful as her words.

Shepard chews on her lip, trying to think of something to say, anything at all, because after everything they’d been through, Ashley is one of the last people she’d have expected....

“Cerberus,” she mutters. “Shepard, I trusted you.”

Shepard loses focus rapidly after that, her mind forcibly shrouding the words in a fog if only to get through the moment, second by agonizing second. Some days it's like she's been resurrected into a living nightmare. The sting of rejection after two lost years burns like her lungs in the vacuum of space. 

"I woke up on a Cerberus operating table," she interrupts, loudly. "They told me the station was under attack, so I grabbed my gear and got the fuck on with it. And then they told me I'd been dead for two years." She takes a step back, eyes flicking out across Horizon's dull gray sky. "I didn’t ask for this. For all I know, The Illusive Man put a fucking chip in my head set to blow the minute I disappoint him."

She can feel their eyes on her. Garrus looks lost, Thane is stone still and motionless. The heavy silence threatens to crush her heart into a hundred cybernetic pieces.

"I'm just as confused as you are. But I'm trying to stop this ," she gestures around at the disquieting emptiness of the colony, the grisly remains of slain Collectors. Her heart is racing, her head seething with the heat of indignation. She can taste the bitter words that sling past her teeth, regretting them the moment they hit the air.

"I wish you the best, Ash. If someone ever undeadifies your fucking corpse against your will, I’ll try not to hold it against you."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

No one speaks as they board the shuttle back to the Normandy. Shepard's eyes are glued to the floor, her shoulders slacked in an uncharacteristic display of upset.

Thane and Garrus exchange glances but neither dare to break the silence.

When they finally disembark, she beelines for the elevator with a painfully stiff spine and heavy footfalls. In that moment, Thane can see the weight of her two missing years more clearly than ever before, her humanity practically seeping through the cracks in her hardsuit. Garrus looks just as worried. They part ways at deck three. Shepard's eyes are distant as the elevator doors snick closed.

When she doesn't appear for dinner, Thane tries - and fails - to knock loose the worry. It's certainly no business of his, and if she wanted his counsel she'd have sought him out by now. Still, he's compelled.

He fixes a fresh mug of coffee, and a mug of tea for himself, before boarding the elevator.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

He finds her sat on the couch, smushed into the corner with a datapad in her hand. Eyes ringed with fatigue, she looks so much smaller than she had on the battlefield. This close to the hull, her cabin is colder than the rest of the ship.

"You didn't show for dinner. I brought you some coffee. May I sit with you?"

She heaves an audible sigh, as though reluctant to accept. "Sure."

Maybe he’s invading her privacy, but there’s something about the way she looks that’s more vulnerable than he expected. Her hair is mussed and she’s wearing a black sweatshirt. The zipper is pulled low enough for him to see her dog tags glimmering against the bare skin in the valley of her chest. If she notices his wandering gaze, she doesn’t seem to care. She's tending to her own needs - without the requisite to prove a damn thing to anyone, least of all him. 

He seats himself in an adjoining chair and passes the mug to her. At least she seems to enjoy the warmth in her hands, bringing it close to her face to inhale the scent of it.

"About what happened on Horizon-" he begins.

She sits up to face him. "Thane, I know you mean well. But please don't concern yourself." 

He can see the pain etched into her features, though. It's hard to imagine, but if he looks close enough, she’s there. This unguarded human, the same woman who put the fear of god in him just days ago. He decides it’s better to respect her boundaries, and stands to depart.

"I understand, Commander. I’ll leave you be.”

“Wait,” she says, tiredly. Thane pauses, waiting on her next words. “Sorry, it’s just been… a long day.”

Slowly, he eases back into his seat to wait in silence while she gathers her thoughts. 

"Did you hear about Eden Prime, two years ago?"”

“Yes, a Prothean beacon was destroyed there,” he nods.

“Yeah. That’s where I met Ashley,” she sighs, leaning back against the cushions. “A lot of things happened on Eden Prime. Video feeds caught Sovereign just before touchdown. We lost Jenkiens within minutes of landing, and Nihlus not long after. The Geth were there, Saren was there. The beacon exploded and knocked me cold.” Life changed pretty fast after that.”

The way she recalls the memory is disorienting. He reminds himself that it probably is confusing for her - and she’s probably better off for it. Sometimes life without perfect recall sounds like a blessing.

Shepard takes a tentative sip from her coffee before continuing.

“Ashley was with me when we stopped Saren. She’s a great soldier, and a good friend. The things we saw together, the people we lost... I never expected her to be so cold.” Another sip, and she closes her eyes. “Shit hurts.”

“I see,” he says, two nearly meaningless words in the storm of his own memories. He thinks of Kolyat, so small all this years ago. Somewhere, he's now a man with accusations and hurts of his own.

Thane shifts in his seat, refocusing his attention on Shepard. “What changed?”

“Cerberus,” she frowns. “She’s angry, and she has every right to be."

"The way you spoke on Horizon gave me a different impression."

"You're right, and I regret what I said to her. But I..." Shepard chews on her lip. "I don't want to... talk down on other soldiers. But I'm not surprised she doesn't see this the way I do. We didn't see eye to eye when Kaidan died, either. There's a reason we aren't all special forces."

Kaidan, Jenkins, Nihlus - Thane hasn’t heard these names before, but he decides now isn’t the time to pry. Instead, he asks, "You believe her military rank cheapens her understanding of what happened?"

Shepard shakes her head. "Not her rank. Her training."

That piques his interest. Thane sets his elbows on his knees and leans in. "You're both Alliance, how was your training different?"

Shepard stares at the ceiling as if searching for the words. Idle fingers trace her dog tags against her chest, holding them out to him. 

"This symbol, N7," she begins. "It's from the interplanetary combatives training program. N is special forces, and 7 is the highest rank of training. The duties and privileges are different, but N7 is... kind of like the Spectres, in terms of a kind of exclusivity."

She lets the tags drop against her chest, and this time she zips her sweatshirt, like she wants to forget about them. 

"You had to be selected?"

"Yeah, for candidacy." She stares into her coffee and downs the rest of it before lacing her fingers behind her head, eyes fixed firmly on everything but him. "No one leaves ICT unchanged. I thought it would be like a fucked up version of boot camp. It kind of was, but that's not what made it so hard. We were thrust on to the front lines, thrown into impossible situations. There were people who…" she leans down on her elbows and sighs, restless. "People die during these promotions, Thane. People depend on you for their lives and you-” she laughs, sort of, "You depend on them not to be stupid.

"You don't feel proud of what you've done. You just... you change how you look at the world. Every wink of sleep, every moment of rest, whatever. It has to be earned. They give you a mission, and you can't go home until it's done. Sometimes you know you're sending good, honest soldiers against fatal odds. It's fucked - it really is, but you're the last line of defense for that mission. And it has to get done, or even more people could die. So you fight - dirty, if you have to - anything to complete the mission without losing more of your men. Sometimes that means…" Her mouth twists into a lopsided half-smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "...the enemy of your enemy is your friend.” 

The enemy of their enemy - Cerberus. The entire ship understands this, but Ashley had not. Polarizing moralities, indeed.

"By the time I was promoted,” Shepard continues, “I got why every N7 I've ever met never stays in one place for long."

"I think I understand,” he says quietly.

A moment of silence passes before she glances at him, curiously.

"Was training like that for you too?"

Thane shakes his head. "Not quite. It was intense for different reasons. But I never knew anything else. Our entire lives were training and discipline. I rarely socialized outside of our…" he pauses, thinking. "I think the closest word would be 'monastery.'"

"Monastery?" Shepard asks, finally meeting his eyes. "Was religion part of your training?"

"No, but the… asceticism of our lives bore resemblance to a monastery." He holds her inquisitive gaze with a smile. "I started going to services just to get away from my studies, but eventually I found comfort in them.” 

The memories are pleasant, actually. Stealing away from the others for prayer service was like a special privilege. 

She smiles. "That's kind of nice, I guess."

He recalls the scent of incense, the chanting, the faces of trusted mentors, and when he speaks there's a hint of nostalgia in his tone.

"The priest became like a father to me, in some ways. At least, I thought of him often when..."

The words almost slip his mouth, but he catches them, freezing them in his throat.

When Kolyat was born. 

Slammed with the realization that he hasn’t felt this glib with another person in years, he fidgets uncomfortabltly. It’s a disquieting change in how he’s used to conducting himself. 

"Another time, perhaps,” he says. If he's lucky, she won't bring it up again.

Shepard raises an eyebrow, but there's no judgement in her gaze. She wrings her hands where they hang between her knees. "I get it. Some things are too painful."

Painful isn't quite the word he would use, but it’s close enough. In truth, the guilt is what withholds him. Like the more time that passes without his son, the less he deserves the memory of him.

"Sorry for all this. Honestly I... It's been two years for everyone else, but a few months for me. Sometimes it can feel isolating.”

He offers a kind smile, standing and collecting her empty mug. “I can relate. Those of us forged under extreme circumstances seldom find others who understand us.” 

She smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes. "Thanks for thinking of me, Thane."

"You're quite welcome. I enjoy your company, Shepard," he says, his voice warm. "I'll let you rest."

"Likewise." She stands to see him out, bidding him goodbye with a grateful hand on his arm. She seems more like herself. "See you at PT."

He leaves, back to the silence of his makeshift quarters to mull over their conversation. The ghost of her handprint lingers on his arm until sleep claims him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is the biggest fanfic yolo I've ever done. Send help writing is hard lol ┐(‘～`;)┌

#zet writes things #thane krios #thane #fshrios #shrios #the frozen sea au

[bloedewir]

Mass Effect issues

Kaidan at the dinner on Citadel: I understand why you cheated on me but I forgive you.

Me, my femShep, my cat watching my playthrough, and a random c-sec officer who stands behind Shepard:

Cheating? Forgiveness? You're going to be a stand-up comedian, Kaidan, aren't you?

You met the commander you slept with two years ago, called her a traitor and a terrorist lover. And now you talking about forgiveness?

Before the meet on Horizon, it was a break, okay..

But then it's over.

Not because of hot turian Archangel. Because (it's my canon) after Horizon Shepard reprioritize the importance of trust.

I believe it's one of the most important things to Shepard. Since commander found prothean beacon at Eden Prime and get those reapers visions, nobody believe its warnings. Apparently it's annoying to be a "local alliance weirdo", esp if you're right.

Anderson doesn't count. He's kinda a father to Shepard in some ways, and stays on its side anyway. But Anderson mostly in the backgrounds, so it's hardly can be called an actual support.

When Shepard dies and spend two years at Cerberus spa centre, Reapers threat didn't disappear. And then the Collectors joined the party. No one listened.. again. Alliance and Council left commander without support, so, yes, Illusive Man was an only acceptable option.

Returning to Kaidan. What was he said? GFY, Shepard, I don't work with terrorists.

What was Garrus said? Cerberus, huh? Okay, I'm with you, Shepard, no matter what.

Vakarian was a part of Normandy SR1 crew. He saw the Thorian, saw Cerberus experiments, Rachni.. he perfectly knows who he going to work with.

But. He trust Shepard.

They're supporting and looking out for each other. Cerberus or not, commander can always count on Garrus. It's a respectful and truthful relationship based on friendship, what is much more important than an upcoming Shakarian thing.

So, no, Kaidan, it wasn't a cheating on you. You should've trusted Shepard, and see a person, not a Cerberus mercenary. That's a consequences of your decisions. Deal with it.

I like Kaidan as a companion and a friend actually. And I was pleased when he said that he wasn't right. I don't "hate" him as a character, not at all. But that dialogue on Citadel just pisses me off.

#bioware #mass effect trilogy #mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect 3 #mass effect garrus #mass effect kaidan #mass effect romances #shepard x garrus #mass effect shepard #shepard x kaidan #shakarian otp

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Jfkdjilgkfg I didnt see this when you posted it! If you're still answering:

For your Gabriel Shepard ♒ - cooking/food♦ - quirks/hobbies

And if you want to, for Shakarian ✿ - Sex 👀👀

Oh hell yeah.  If anyone wants more of my Extensive Thoughts on Shepard, the o blessed gabriel series is like...30K of those, and also is the source of Gabriel Shepard.

♒ - Cooking/Food Headcanon

I’m trying to think of a nice way to phrase this, but--

Gabriel Shepard is Not A Good Cook.  She’s serviceable, in the sense that she has never once given anyone food poisoning or lit anything major on fire.  If you hand her a recipe and a reasonably compelling reason to use it, she’ll probably produce something that’s perfectly fine.  Exactingly correct, because she’s a perfectionist.  But she has literally never cooked something more complex than pre-made spaghetti sauce heated in a pan and non-instant noodles for herself.  She just doesn’t see the point.

She explains this to Joker, when he asks why the hero of the ongoing galactic war is eating Cup Noodles in a very expensive Council-funded apartment on the Citadel, and he buries his face in his hands and whispers, “I hate you so much.”

“I’m your best friend,” Shepard says as she crumbles some reserved noodles over her dinner.  For the crunch, she told Joker when he asked.

“I’m demoting you.  Please at least put a vegetable in that.”

“Do you want vegetables?  I could get some.”

“No, I already--please focus, Shepard.”  She makes a point to shove the biggest possible bite into her mouth as she blinks at him, and Joker makes a mildly aggrieved noise.  “When was the last time you ate something that didn’t include the word ‘instant’ on the package?”  She shrugs at him and slurps some broth.  “You’re the worst person I know.”

♦ - Quirks/Hobbies Headcanon

While she’s spending six months on Earth in what she calls a glorified drunk tank, Shepard learns real fast that, apparently, almost everything she previously considered ‘a hobby’ was like...technically part of her job.  And that she’s not allowed to have anything that might be classed as a weapon of any kind (she makes it an entire month before she tells a guard that he’s stupider than he looks if he thinks she couldn’t kill him with a chair just as easily as a box cutter, and honestly she thinks she should get a prize).  She doesn’t have a particular gift for studying and there’s only so much time in a day that a person can spend reading up on current events and turian linguistics.  No, she hasn’t been allowed to send letters, even and possibly especially to Palaven.  How did you guess.  Mostly she just works out a lot.

She’s hit the start of month three by the time she cracks completely and downloads some video guides on building models from scratch.  She liked the models she found sometimes, filled her cabin on the Normandy with them, but they didn’t take too long to assemble and she needs to fill time so starting from scratch it is.  

Apparently she’s terrorized her guards suitably into submission, because when she corners one and says “You can get me cardboard, right?  That’s not considered a deadly weapon?” the rookie squeaks out a “yessir” and doesn’t ask any questions.  Three hours later Shepard has a nice assortment of carboard types and some kitchen shears that she took the pin out of so that she has two loose blades.  The guard walks in on Shepard sharpening one and does not say anything as she sets down the cardboard on the table and books it.

By the end of six months, Shepard wouldn’t consider herself particularly competent, but her little cardboard structures are certainly recognizable.  The whole lot of them are lost in the attack, of course.  She barely remembers.  There are bigger fish to fry.

✿ - Sex Headcanon

I really want to be applauded for how hard I’m working not to make a “what that tongue do” joke here and leaving it at that.  This is a Herculean labor.

Anyway, point is, there are Logistical Problems(TM) with turian/human relationships.  It starts with “human skin is pretty delicate, compared to the turian equivalent of keratin” and goes from there, but.  Just because Shepard isn’t in a rush to be cornered by her subordinates and given pro tips (she is, in fact, avoiding Mordin, thank you for asking, Jacob, don’t tell him she was here) doesn’t mean she isn’t aware of it.  And Gabriel Shepard is a soldier first, a tactician second, and everything else including human and alive somewhere below, ask anyone, so she uh--

Does research?

Some of it is from what she would personally consider accredited sources, although probably not for their intended purposes.  Interspecies relationships aren’t unheard of--with the asari in the mix, they’re not even particularly rare--but if there’s a human-turian guidebook, not even Spectre clearance is dredging it up.  Shepard thinks (after three solid evenings dedicated to way, way more research than she’s ever put into sex before, including the first time she gave bondage a whirl in basic training) that there’s a nonzero chance that they’re the first to try it.  Not a high chance!  But nonzero.  So--

Listen, what the Alliance doesn’t know about why a Spectre is accessing their old wartime surveillance data won’t hurt them.  Shepard takes it all with a grain of salt for obvious reasons, but it’s the obvious starting place because it’s in her own language.

Then she starts hitting EDI up for help finding a turian sex ed book and it’s all pretty much an uphill slog through half-useful translations, dictionary definitions, and really questionable porn from there.  

And actually, it’s not even the research that’s the problem.  It’s a little embarrassing, sure, but at the end of the day, Shepard is pretty determined NOT to have this be a terrible moment of interspecies awkwardness, because--well, she doesn’t have to interrogate that thought.  That’s the beauty of a probable upcoming suicide mission.  She has rights, as a recently dead woman now looking at another, probably more painful death, and those rights include not having to think about her own feelings more than absolutely mandatory.

No, see, the problem comes once she’s done all the research she feasibly can and she’s walking to her door to let Garrus in and being confronted with the fact that now she will have to admit to doing that research.

She makes the tactical decision not to say anything until after she strips.

(Garrus actually doesn’t say a damn word until the next morning, when Shepard is waking up, when he bumps his jaw fondly against her head and says, “You really are the brains of the outfit.”)

(”Mmph,” Gabriel mumbles into her pillow, and adjusts his arm over her waist so that it settles a bit lower, where the edge of his plating won’t poke at her.  “And don’t you forget it.”)

#shakarian #commander shepard #garrus vakarian #gabriel shepard #mass effect #starlight writes stuff #headcanon meme #ask meme #this got LONG but listen hey they just announced a remaster so i gotta FINISH THIS BITCH #i still haven't finished the games #i got SAD ABOUT THE TRILOGY ENDING OKAY #i have this problem with media i watch or read or play something i ADORE and then freeze up because i don't want it to end #but anyway probably i'll finish it and then restart it with exactly the same character #because i understand that 'replay value' is a thing but i don't actually care about it i made my choices and i like them #ANYWAY yeah listen that last one is basically 'gabriel shepard is thinking about writing an anonymously published book so no one else has t #if i ever get my life together and finish the game i will write a post-canon fic #where gabriel and garrus deal with the political nuclear fallout of their relationship being public #because they're not FLASHY during me3 but also Literally Everyone They Meet Knows (Plus Some People They Don't) #every single idiot on palaven who spoke to garrus while shep was gone knows #she hangs out in the refugee camp and does inventory with him and so the whole refugee camp knows #shepard personally has told very few people but It Is Known #and eventually! eventually! they will have to deal with being basically the only high profile human-turian romance in the galaxy #anyway loved this ask great choices thanks babe #anonymous #asked and answered

[big-ass-magnet]

When History Comes Calling, Ch 5/14

art by @snuffes

Fandom: Mass Effect Rating: Teen Pairing: none, some background Fshep/Garrus

Summary: In 2170, Mindoir was attacked by slavers. Hundreds were taken  captive, hundreds more were slaughtered. Kiryn was the only Shepard to  make it out alive. For years, he buried his grief, kept his head high,  and did whatever he needed to survive.He survived Mindoir and the batarians and when the Reapers came he survived them too.

But  when the war ends and he escapes his batarian masters to the Citadel,  the discovery that his twin sister is alive and well might just be the  thing that breaks him. The Hegemony's greatest assassin will remember  what it means to have something to lose.

AO3 link in notes!

Silversun Strip was…certainly something. Kiryn had been through his fair share of space stations, and this riot of shining glass and neon lights made them all look like space-bound towns. Actually, now that he thought about it, the Strip outpaced quite a few cities he’d seen, too.

This was another one of the few barely-scathed areas, although less because it had been well protected and more likely because it contained nothing the Reapers would have considered vital to survival. Clearly the genocidal synthetics from beyond dark space had never heard how important enrichment was for an organic’s mental wellbeing. Even here, though, there were signs of a struggle -- unpatched bullet holes in the walls and ripped up floor panels roped off as tripping hazards.

Nowhere to get away from it, Kiryn thought, even on your days off.

Kiryn moved with the flow of the crowd, letting them carry him down the streets as he planned his entrance. The easiest way to get inside an apartment building was through the service entrance. Half the time someone had propped the door open and you could stroll right in.

When he reached the right alleyway, he extricated himself from the crush of people, turned the corner, and scrapped the plan because there were two undercover officers hovering outside the building. They were doing their best to stay hidden, and their Citadel janitorial staff outfits looked legitimate. But they watched the doors a little too closely, kept their hands a little too close to their jackets, stood a little too warily.

So he ducked into the nearest building, which did have the service entrance propped open. He strolled down the corridor, through the lobby, and back out into the street. No sign of anyone watching the front entrance, which was interesting. Likely they were putting their trust in the building’s electronic security system. No trouble there; Kiryn knew his way around those, too.

This would be a little trickier, though. There was no way to avoid being seen, so he had to rely on not being remembered. Kiryn stuck his hands in his pockets and relaxed his shoulders, arranged his expression into one of mild interest. Nice and casual, everyone is supposed to be where they are. He strolled past the furniture store, pretended to be briefly intrigued by the sale on bed frames (five hundred credits off full size or bigger!), and finally approached Tiberius Towers’ front entrance.

He hit the call button for 15B. No response. Good. His assumption had been a safe bet: anyone who would have been in the apartment would be with Shepard. With Keris. With his sister.

Find the moment.

Stay focused.

He hit the button again.

Kiryn heaved a sigh, put on an expression of exasperation, and leaned on the button. If there had been anyone in the apartment, they would have answered by now just to make the noise stop. He pretended not to notice the turian woman approaching until she was right next to him.

“Um, excuse me.”

Kiryn glanced up and hurriedly stepped aside.

“Sorry,” he said, with an embarrassed smile. “My friend isn’t picking up.”

“That’s okay, I can let you in.”

He filed away the code she keyed in as he said “appreciate it.”

She gave him a little half-wave as she entered the elevator; he returned it as he opened the door to the stairs. Instead of climbing, however, he ducked into the shadows beneath them and took a look at the security system.

It wasn’t bad, not by a long shot, but he’d gotten around harder systems for less important people. It took less than thirty seconds to slip under the security firewalls and upload a virus that would loop the video as he went by. Anyone watching would see empty stairs.

All fifteen flights of them.

Maybe he should have taken the elevator.

Fifteen flights gave him a long time to think. He should upgrade his omni-tool. Top-of-the-line in the Hegemony tended to be middling quality anywhere else, even if you went through the black market. He should find a more comprehensive map of the Citadel, and find which areas were the dangerous ones. Experience told him that the law was likely concentrated at the Presidium, and got more diluted the further away you went.

Equally important was finding an easy way in and out of the refugee camp. Sarah had been right about the Citadel’s priorities. The guards at the doors were very concerned with who came and went. Security reasons, they claimed, when anyone could tell it was because they didn’t want the grubby little refugees actually on the Citadel, just in case they bothered the locals or, god forbid, started to think they could make a home here.

Dad would have had a conniption, he thought, and nearly missed a step in his surprise.

Perhaps he should be less surprised. Keris was alive. Of course that would drag those thoughts to the surface.

Thomas Shepard had very strong opinions about duty and responsibility, especially in regards to officers of the law. Kiryn had heard quite a few rants about what should happen to public servants who did not serve the public. Dad didn’t much approve of soldiers, either. Armies were built on the promise of protecting the people, and politicians turned them into tools for their own ends.

What would he think of his daughter joining the Navy?

Soldiers hunt soldiers, but Shepards hunt--

Kiryn stopped, midstep. He couldn’t remember. It had practically been the family motto, and he couldn’t remember. He could remember sitting at the table during dinner, his father gesturing with his fork, a four-way eyeroll between the Shepard children…

Shepards hunt...

This was pointless. What did it matter? He had more important things to do than try and remember things like that.

Besides, he was on the fifteenth floor. He checked again that the video was still looping correctly. That was a lesson you only had to learn once. As soon as he was sure it was safe, he pushed open the door and stepped confidently into the hallway. Not that it mattered -- but if anyone opened their door unexpectedly, he didn’t want to appear suspicious.

The door to apartment 15B opened as soon as he touched it.

Genetic sequence recognized.

It was a paranoid individual who used gene coded locks on their front door. He supposed Commander Shepard would have a lot of enemies.

Kiryn stepped inside and stopped dead, eyes wide. Oh, this was very, very far from the prefab housing on Mindoir. Filomet’s estate had been quite high status, thanks to the work Kiryn did for him, but it seemed downright spartan in comparison to this.

Filomet certainly didn’t have an indoor waterfall, that was for sure.

Or a hot tub.

For a few minutes he didn’t do much searching, just wandered around taking it all in. When he did start, it was a little disappointing. The apartment had a strange, semi-empty feeling that had nothing to do with it being new. Like a hotel, he thought. The art was tasteful and impersonal. All the furniture matched.

It was a place to stay, not a place to live.

The apartment was definitely inhabited, though, and by more than one person. There was food in the fridge and the cabinets, chirality carefully delineated by colored tape and, on occasion, sharpie. DEXTRO COFFEE, DO NOT DRINK, KAIDAN THIS MEANS YOU promised a very interesting story. The beds were made, but rumpled; there were a variety of products in the (three!) bathrooms.

The master bedroom felt no more lived in. There was a credit chit and a datapad on the bedside table, but no pictures, no clutter. At last Kiryn hit paydirt in the walk-in closet: a weapons table and an armor locker.

From the scattered mods and spare parts he could see she carried multiple firearms, but favored assault rifles and shotguns -- she liked it up close and personal. There were a few melted pieces that suggested she had a tendency to push her thermal clips a little too far. Kiryn felt a warm sensation in his chest. Fondness. In this way, at least, Keris had not changed.

Kiryn opened the locker. Her armor was black, but a deep black that would stand out anywhere but a sealed bunker underground. The crisp white and red stripes seemed to glow in contrast. Kiryn picked up the chest plate and nearly dropped it again. It was hard to imagine Keris could walk in this, let alone fight!

He tilted the chest plate this way and that, watching the lustrous finish shine in the light. Keris was the target. She sacrificed speed and mobility for armor that could brush off anything short of cannon fire, drawing the attention and the danger to herself, hitting the enemy head on like a battering ram.

Yes, that sounded very like Keris.

Kiryn nearly smiled as he put the armor back in place.

There were spare clothes in the drawers, but only two items hanging in the closet: a dress uniform, and an actual dress. Beneath them, shiny parade shoes and a pair of sensible black heels a full two inches higher than he’d ever seen Keris wear in his life.

The dress was the only really nice piece of clothing Keris owned, although Kiryn personally thought she could have found a nicer one. (The neckline alone was fifty years out of date, and he wasn’t even going to touch on those red highlighting lines.) There were a scant few articles of non-regulation clothing; by the looks of things she wore her crewman’s uniform even on her days off. That was...worrying. He didn’t remember her being much of a peacock, but she wouldn’t wear the same outfit twice in two weeks, let alone every single day. Kiryn never cared--

No. No, it was the other way around, wasn’t it?

Kiryn was the one who had cared. He’d spend an hour in the bathroom just doing his hair. He was the one who made sure his shoes matched his outfit; who complained about pale skin making it impossible to wear yellow without looking jaundiced. Keris would just throw on whatever her hand touched first, and dutifully go back and change when he told her for the fifth time, Ker, you can’t wear two kinds of stripes at once!

But she’d always liked it when they matched.

Kiryn looked down and brushed a hand over his shirt - dark gray, long sleeves, close fitting. It wasn’t all that different from what he wore on a job, minus some padding. He didn’t have much room to judge, did he? You could argue that slaves didn’t exactly have access to the latest fashions or the funds to buy them with. But he hadn’t been a slave for almost a year, and he hadn’t changed anything about his appearance.

He even still shaved his head.

Kiryn closed the drawers and walked away, not liking the tightness in his chest those thoughts brought on.

The first bug went in the office by the computer, before he tried to crack Keris’ password. It wasn’t any of the ones he remembered, so he had to let his omnitool take over. While he did so, he poked around in the boxes scattered around the room. Keris -- or someone else -- was halfway through taking down or putting up a collection of books and medals. He looked at the medals, but they didn’t match the accolades Keris was supposed to have earned. One of the books looked heavily used; he flipped it open. To David, so you can have another kind of adventure. Love, Kaylie.

David. Who was David? The tabloids made enough of a fuss over Keris’ imaginary paramours, surely they would have mentioned it if she was actually seeing someone.

For that matter, who was Kaylie?

His omnitool flashed, notifying him that the hack was complete. He checked to see the password -- I<3Garrus. Hopefully the contents of her computer would be able to solve that little mystery.

Kiryn set his program to download anything not labelled confidential, urgent, or as being sent from the Alliance. He had no interest in top secret projects and black ops missions. The program cheerfully informed him that it wouldn’t take long, as his requests filtered out almost the entire backlog.

Most people would advise against poking around in your sister’s extranet browsing history, but Kiryn was willing to risk it. No luck there either. The last time she’d used the computer was almost a month ago, mostly to read news articles and browse furniture catalogues.

Kiryn wasn’t sure if it was more frustrating or concerning. His sister didn’t seem to do much outside of… being Commander Shepard. Even saviors of the galaxy had to have free time. Didn’t she ever take shore leave?

What do you like to do?

It didn’t seem right. It was… logical that he would end up this way. But Keris was free. She had been able to choose. Why would she choose to be like...like him? If he had been free, would he still have ended up like this? No life, no purpose, no existence outside of his work?

With a whole galaxy on her shoulders, maybe she’d felt there wasn’t time for anything else. Maybe now that it was all over, things would be different for her.

Maybe they should be different for him, too.

The rest of the apartment was unhelpfully empty. He left his last bug in the kitchen, and made a mental note to get more. Alcohol loosened tongues; it would be good to have an ear at the bar. Feeling a little disappointed, Kiryn could only hope that the emails would be more enlightening.

He forwent the shuttle to the refugee camp in favor of walking. He had some things to pick up, after all. And it was harder to be introspective when he walked. Too much to focus on in the real world.

A new omni-tool, as he’d promised himself, although it would take a few hours of voiding the warranty to get it to do the things he needed it to do. Some mods for his sniper rifle -- the Hegemony was wrong about a lot of things, and the superiority of Batarian State Arms was now very high on his list. He’d have to find someplace out of sight where he could work on his gun, though.

Kiryn was pondering whether renting a hotel room for a few hours for the privacy to work on his very illegal rifle was as ridiculous as it sounded, when he saw something that made him stop.

The store was called Terran. It sold clothes. Nice clothes that looked to be good quality, from this distance. Suits and dresses and casual wear. And leather jackets.

He’d been saving up for one before…before. Had it all picked out, knew exactly what he wanted. It cost a lot of money to ship out to little colonies in the middle of nowhere. He’d barely been halfway to his goal when…

Why shouldn’t he buy one now? He had the money. He could wear whatever he wanted to, now.

Kiryn began to walk towards the store, but a few feet away, he froze.

He didn’t need another jacket. It had no tactical advantage over what he already had. And how could he explain it when he got back to the camp? Refugees didn’t wear things like that any more than slaves did.

Kiryn stared at his reflection in the storefront window. The pale, drawn face so carefully free of emotion. Placid eyes like green glass, hooded and empty. There was no way to tell by looking at him that he was one of the most feared assassins in batarian space. The blood on his hands was invisible to everyone but himself. Everything about him faded into the background, and that was by design and necessity.

He turned on his heel and headed for the shuttle. The sooner he got back to the camp, the sooner he could check Keris’ emails.

#mass effect #commander shepard #femshep #dudeshep #twin au #alternate universe fic #i'm sorry it's so late i got sick orz

[theoriginalladya]

Can one request from your recent prompt list please? “This can’t be happening again. No. Please. You are all out of control.” MShenko please

From this prompt list

On AO3 here

Thank you for the prompt!  This one took me all day to write, but it was so much fun!  Have a bit of Caleb and Kaidan as parents, post war! :D  (below the cut because again, over 1300 words! lol)

~~~

Caleb exits the storage barn and heads up to the main house, a smile on his face and a sigh of satisfaction with a day well-lived. It’s a bit of a surprise, it always is these days, but he can’t help it.  After so many years focused on just surviving from one day to the next, simply living hasn’t come easily or cheap, yet he will never argue that it hasn’t been well worth the wait.  A day doesn’t go by that he isn’t reminded of the past – physical aches and pain have a funny way of doing that – but it’s like breathing; something he can live with. Especially with what he now has to live for.

He shucks his jacket off as he enters the house through the back door, barely through before the mad scramble begins. By the time the jacket hangs on its usual peg and he takes a seat and lifts a foot, Tadhg and Niamh apparate from seemingly thin air and start the daily battle over who will win the race to unlace a boot first.  They squabble a bit over microseconds while Caleb slides his feet into more comfortable shoes.

Standing isn’t quite so much of a challenge as it was in the months immediately after the war, but still requires him to brace his arms against the wall as he pushes himself to his feet.  Tadhg, now ten, slides under his arm without being asked to offer support.  They share a quick look and a warm smile, ending with Caleb tousling his son’s dark hair. By rights, he should use his cane, but it’s hidden away again until Kaidan can find his newest hidey-hole or the winter chill stalks him down, whichever comes first.  Caleb hopes it’s the latter this time and not the former like last year.  So far, his luck has held, but he swears Tadhg and Kaidan have some sort of arrangement between them.  It’s difficult to deny the affection in the offer, though, and Caleb may, upon occasion, lean on Tadhg’s shoulder just a bit longer than necessary.

Seven year old Niamh, not to be left out, climbs onto the bench and wraps her slender arms around daidí’s neck from behind.  This, too, is routine, and Caleb slides his free arm behind him to support her small frame before hefting her upwards into a better position.  Only then do they enter the house.  Together.

The kitchen is warm and welcoming and the mouth-watering aroma of the Irish stew he started that morning leaves Caleb drooling. At least until a towel is unexpectedly tossed at his chest, landing with an unceremonious thud before dropping to the floor because Caleb’s hands are currently occupied.  Niamh squeals with laughter and even Tadhg giggles softly though he tries to hide it.  But then Kaidan saunters across the room, turning it into a group hug and everything starts all over again.  Somewhere in the process, Caleb manages to lean over to steal a kiss, but it comes at the cost of one of Niamh’s elbows, or maybe it’s her knee, in his kidney.  He can’t hide a grimace or keep from doubling over, at which point she scrambles down to the floor and both children scamper out of the room, content that both parents are home where they should be.  

Straightening, Caleb’s arm shoots out, hooks around Kaidan’s waist and he pulls him in closer for a proper welcome home.  “Wasn’t expecting you until the end of the week,” he murmurs afterward, his previous pain giving way to a sigh of satisfaction.

Kaidan laughs.  “Not all Spectres get distracted with side missions,” he replies.  “Some of us are more … efficient.”

Caleb snorts softly and follows him across the room. He accepts the drink he’s handed and leans his hips against the counter while Kaidan checks on dinner’s progress. “How long this time?”

“Couple weeks.”

One brow rises when Kaidan grins in his direction, but it doesn’t take him more than a few seconds before he guesses, “Requested time off, didn’t you?”

“Sort of.  Figured I’d take a few days for the memorial.”

Caleb’s mood grows somber.  It’s been two years since the end of the war, and this year Admiral Hackett wants them both to be a part of the service.  Last time around, he was still recovering from another surgery on his hip.  This year, he doesn’t have that excuse.  It isn’t that he doesn’t want to go – he owes that much to people like Ashley and Anderson who gave their lives to defeat the Reapers – but the idea of facing the ghosts of those lost never sits well with him.

He changes the topic with a nod at the stovetop. “Hungry?”

A slow, lazy grin spreads across Kaidan’s mouth and he opens the cupboard.  “Took you long enough to ask.  Gather up the troops; I’ll dish it up.”

Caleb ducks his head into the hall and calls for Tadhg and Niamh to return and just manages to move out of the doorway as they come barreling in … along with the army of toys that accompany them.  Dinner is always an adventure in their house, and neither Caleb nor Kaidan would have it any other way.  Taking their seats at the table, they settle down to good food and even better company.  

Somewhere around the end of his second bowl of stew, when Kaidan has finally brought him up to date with his latest spectre mission, Caleb glances over at Niamh.  She sits with a slice of buttered bread in one hand, and in the other one of her dolls.  His lips twitch as recognition sets in; it’s the krogan plush doll Grunt sent for her birthday.  She mumbles something he can’t quite make out because of the food in her mouth.  That raises a concern or two, so he reaches over to pluck the bread from her hand and set it back on her bowl.  Her eyes dart to his, a sharp look of accusation that only the young can pull off, before she grabs another doll that looks suspiciously like …

Caleb dart a look over at Kaidan who is deep in conversation with Tadhg.  With a tilt of his head, he asks, “Where’d she get that?”

Kaidan spares a moment to glance over at Niamh. A moment after, he shrugs.  “Liara thought she might like it.”

Strangely, that knowledge doesn’t help.  “Why does she need a doll when she has me?”

The question apparently requires Kaidan’s full attention because he turns completely toward him.  Meanwhile, Niamh grabs a third doll, this one a turian.  Confused and wondering what on Earth his daughter is up to inside her creative little head, he jumps when Kaidan’s hand wraps around his and squeezes.  “Feeling a little neglected, Shepard?” he asks, the smug smile coming back in full force.

Caleb’s eyes darken and he’s about to reply when one word Niamh says reaches his ears clearly.  Spicy.  It’s more than enough to yank Caleb backward in time which lasts but a fraction of a second. When his focus returns to the present, Caleb takes a deep breath and surveys the scene in front of her once more.  

A krogan, a turian and a human walk onto the Silversun Strip …  

“A stór,” he murmurs softly while reaching over to lightly tap her nose, “what are you playing?”

Eyes wide and innocent, she looks up at him.  “Spicy noodles, daidí,” she replies in a soft lilting voice.  

Behind him, Kaidan nearly chokes on a laugh.  Somehow, Caleb manages to keep a smile in place to reassure her everything is fine, but as he sits back in his seat, his eyes close. “This can’t be happening again,” he mutters beneath his breath. “No. Please.”  There are only a select number of people who know about events that day, and all of them are well acquainted with his daughter.  “You are all out of control…”

A chair scuffs against the floor, and within seconds, Kaidan is behind him, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head.  Caleb glances upward as Kaidan teases in a voice just loud enough for him to hear, “How much did Grunt’s little escapade set you back?  You’d better start saving up now.”

Caleb groans…

#writing prompts #ladya writes #when the muses attack #mass effect fanfiction #caleb shepard #kaidan alenko #mshenko #post war #children #mshenko parents #Citadel DLC reference #because I just played it again and I love that scene! #elenilote

[crqstalite]

love style quiz.

thank you for tagging me @mimabeann​ <3 it got long so i had to stick it under a cut lol.

quiz!

Recklessly, like a horse running as fast as he can.

You've been told that the way you love can never last, and that heartbreak is inevitable. But you don't want to love carefully. You want to love with reckless abandon. You want to love with everything you have, and you want to be loved the same way. You don't want them to worry about tomorrow. Make today worth living for.

Kodee is afraid of losing those she holds dear -- whether it be familiar, platonic or romantically. Over and over and over again she has fallen apart without someone to put the peaces together. She has lost too much, and she is afraid to love again lest she lose it all this time.

Nothing has ever been particularly certain for her -- who would be on her crew, who the true enemy was. No, that would be much too easy. She was, actually, surprised when Kaidan pursued her first. To think someone who gotten to know her so recently could’ve been the person that she thought that the rest of her forever would be with, well, it shocked her. Someone so kind, so passionate willing to give what they had to complete her, losing him was painful. Horizon destroyed a part of her, and it took a lot to rebuild, even if she knows pieces are still missing. With a war on, she knows she doesn’t have much time left. If that means falling into the abyss with Kaidan by her side in preparation for the inevitable, then so be it. She’s afraid to lose him, afraid to lose what he stands for -- stability and a place to rest her head when things becomes too much. She doesn’t care that they’ve known each other for little over three years (or in her case, a year and a half), only that she loves him, and he loves her.

Casually, the same way you love to breathe.

You want someone who will see your favorite flower and will give it to you, without even thinking about it. You want someone who will remember all the little details about you, the things so seemingly unimportant but that matter more than you thought they did. You want someone who will still be there, thirty years down the line, holding your hand while the two of you do two separate things. You want the intimacy of being known by someone who makes you feel safe. You don't want expensive dinners or grand proposals. You want someone who will love you consistently.

Citlali has never found someone that is specifically for her, a few have come close but none that were truly special. People were more concerned about the hunk of metal on the nape of her neck than the mind that lie beneath -- she needs someone who can see past the blue glow and see her for the silly, the sarcastic and sensitive soul underneath.

Between the death of her sister and the kidnappings taking place across the galaxy, she had resigned to this being a suicide mission. Sidelined because of her unstable biotics, Citlali was expecting Jeff would attempt to become quick friends, even though she’d shown a clear disinterest in the pilot for his actions regarding her sister. Yet, he didn’t pester her. Not in the way plenty of men and women before him had. He wasn’t interested in what was beneath her suit, and instead was fascinated by pressing every button she had and subsequently, learning everything about her in the process. She doesn’t know when the begrudging friendship became something more, when she couldn’t imagine not being in the same cockpit as he was. When she was willing to lay her life down for him, she believes that was the ‘oh shit, I’m in love’ moment for her. The safety she feels in his arms -- she’s afraid she can’t recreate that with anyone else, and doesn’t intend to. She loves to feel loved by him, he doesn’t make her feel inadequate, doesn’t pressure her into things. They are simply two lovers wandering through life together, a few kisses here, a few nights there. She doesn’t need anything special, she just needs him.

Carefully, like a gentle rain on dry Earth.

You've been left beaten down and by someone you really trusted and loved, so now love doesn't come easy for you. You want it to. You want to love and be loved, but you're not sure you remember how. So you need someone else to take the lead. They have to be gentle and sweet and patient. They have to watch out for you, and make sure you’re doing okay, because most days you feel a little fragile, if not totally shattered. But someone will come along who will put those pieces back together again.

Brione has had a long time to figure herself out, a whole thirty four years in fact. She knows what she’s wants, she knows what she needs. She’s had the experience to know what works -- and what doesn’t. That puts people off, and has left her isolated from many of her peers for ages now. She hides behind the icy exterior because she can’t afford to be shattered again.

Garrus was something different from Brione, a complete variable and wrench thrown into her very carefully planned and thought out life. Then again everything starting in 2183 wasn’t ever planned. She hadn’t known at first how to approach the man after two years. People didn’t usually come back to her after that long. At first friends, then finding they had more in common than she first thought. She found that while she was falling apart from the person she’d once been, that he was there for her every time it felt like too much. It took a long time for her to open up to him properly, afraid he’d only hurt her in the long run if she let him get too close. Yet, then she found herself in the battery a lot more often. Helping each other work through demons that terrorized them for years, she chuckles at the thought of how Ashley had once told her kissing Turians would not be necessary. Now fighting a war from a desk instead of looking down the barrel of a gun, Garrus is till always there for her. Putting her back together just a little more crooked than before, but still perfectly happy here.

Deeply, like the vastness of the sea.

You are a very passionate person. You feel everything so intensely, and that definitely includes love. You need someone who will match that passion, that intensity. You need someone who will care about you as much as you care about them, but you have a hard time finding that. You're usually the one who loves more, and it's sad sometimes, but it's okay. But you will find someone who loves you just as much as you love them.

Annika is special, she’s always been told that. Sensitive, but strong. Compassionate, but reckless (or at least on the surface). However, she knows she that anyone who falls in love with her needs to be someone who can put up with her -- someone who can enjoy her differences  rather than nitpick or be put off by her. Someone who’s willing to take the plunge with her.

Annika has never been afraid to be the one to bite the bullet, both literally and figuratively. People describe her as reckless and sometimes cold -- though that’s often because she can sometimes overlook certain cues about people. When she first met Ashley, she hadn’t been looking for her. She was simply someone that she found as a very good friend, someone who would listen to her rattle off every model of shotgun that she liked and how to take each one apart just enough that the warranty would still be active, but give so much more. Someone who didn’t mind her happiness was more physical than most. It always felt like Ashley was there for her, even though Horizon destroyed a part of the trust she had for the woman. Now with a war raging just outside her window, she needs someone like Ashley, who’s willing to give as much to her as she’s willing to give to the woman she loves.

tagging @sheyshen​ + @rainofaugustsith​ + @naaklasolus​ + @verbose-vespertine​ + @gayvakarian​ + @jedirangerpenguin​ + @that-wasnt-so-bad​ + @sexy-sewer-mage​

#meme #kodelyn velasquez #citlali velasquez #annika johansson #brione petrakis #im hopeless #i took this #and ran with it #because its been a bit since i wrote about these ladies #oc #mass effect oc #original character

[anunquenchableflame]

Horizon’s Ghost

Setting: ME2, right after Priority: Horizon Characters: Rani Shepard, Garrus Vakarian Content: F!Shepard x Kaidan / SFW / 99% written to get one stupid joke out of my system

Shepard didn’t deal well with failure. Turned out she wasn’t great with disappointment either.

Also on AO3

Horizon had been a nightmare. 

Oh, Mordin’s upgrades had protected them from the swarm, just as he’d said they would. They’d taken down everything the Collectors could throw at them and driven them away with their harvest incomplete. But ultimately they’d been too late for most of the colony, and that counted as mission failure in Shepard’s eyes. 

Shepard did not deal well with failure.

And then there was seeing Kaidan again… nothing could have prepared her for that. He’d always been in a corner of her mind, ever since she awoke. She’d quietly imagined countless scenes of their reunion: Part of her kept an eye out for him every time they went to the Citadel, hoping happenstance would see them brought together. They’d laugh, they’d kiss, they’d cry, and they'd pick up right where they'd left off, as if it had been nothing but a few weeks apart. It was soppy and ridiculous, and all that was missing was the swelling soundtrack.

None of her idle imaginings had included the sweat, the blood, the stink of eezo, or the look of confusion that had turned to utter wounded betrayal when they finally stood face-to-face. She hadn’t imagined the clipped accusative tone of his voice, the hardness in what had always been such soft warm eyes. She hadn’t imagined how much it would hurt. They couldn’t have left the colony quickly enough after that and she’d refused to meet anyone’s eyes in the shuttle, lest they see how hard she was struggling to build a dam against her welling emotions.

Turned out Shepard didn’t deal particularly well with disappointment either. 

-

She’d been fending off call-me-Kelly ever since they’d returned to the ship. No, she didn’t want to talk about the mission; no, not about seeing Kaidan either; no, definitely not about her attitude to failure; NO. She did not want the interfering naive busybody taking notes and reporting back any more than she already did. What she wanted was to take a hot shower, cry for about an hour, eat dinner, go to bed, and maybe cry some more. Maybe hit something, should a target present itself.

She’d managed step one of that plan. Hot water had washed away the dirt and sweat of the mission and eased her tense muscles, but not her mood. She’d dried off and wrapped up in her dressing gown–warm and soft and totally devoid of Cerberus emblems, courtesy of their last trip to the Citadel–and was squeezing the moisture out of her hair when someone tapped at the door.

“I told you it’s none of your fucking business, Chambers!” Rani snapped.

“Shepard, it’s me.” Garrus’s drawl was unmistakable even through the bulkhead. She paused in towelling her hair for a moment but then went on with renewed intensity, resolutely ignoring him.

A minute later: “Still here, Shepard.”

Rani let out an exasperated sigh. She went to the door and glared at the interface for a moment, then opened it to transfer the glare to the persistent turian on the other side.

“Not now, Vakarian. It’s been a long day.”

“I know. I thought you might want to talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about,” she said, with a shrug that wasn’t convincing anyone.

Garrus slipped past her and sauntered into the cabin while she made ineffectual protesting noises. He noted the photo frame face down on her desk. Though it was his first time in her cabin it didn’t take any great leap of deductive reasoning to guess whose face had been slammed into the desktop. He picked up the frame, which lit up at the contact, and found exactly the portrait he’d expected on the other side.

“You know,” he began casually. “I went to your memorial. Nice ceremony, if a little pompous. Everyone was very complimentary, especially the people who’d never met you. No-one who had could have said such nice things, not with a straight face.” Shepard couldn’t help but smile a little at that, despite her determination to stay disgruntled. “Anderson was more realistic, said you were a pain in the ass but you knew how to get the job done and we’d all be a little weaker for your loss, though he may have said it more politely than that. He asked Alenko if he’d say something too, but I don’t think he had the words. Not for that crowd anyway. Now, I don’t know much about human mourning rituals but getting extremely drunk seems to be important, so as soon as we found a bar that could serve a dextro beer, I obliged. You know Kaidan starts to glow when he’s drunk a lot? At least I think that part was real, hard to tell in hindsight, there really was a lot of alcohol…” Garrus shook his head. “In any case: we talked, the way men who are very drunk and very sad do.” He carefully placed the frame back on Shepard’s desk with Kaidan’s shy smile pointed right at her, the sniper’s precise shot to the heart as unerring as ever. “He’s angry now, but I don’t think he could hate you even if he tried.”

Rani regarded the portrait for a moment, her eyes downcast, before speaking. “I know.”

“You do?” Garrus’s mandibles did the thing Shepard had always interpreted as turian eyebrow raising. “Damn, I was all prepared to talk you round. I had a speech ready and everything.”

Shepard shrugged. “I suppose I should have expected his reaction. If our roles were reversed it… would not have been so dignified. There’d be yelling and broken things. Probably no colony left at all.” She hugged her arms close to her chest. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I hoped he’d be glad to see me, that he’d understand and everything would go back to how it was but it’s… more complicated than that. And after you and Tali took it all in your stride, I guess I–” She stopped and shook her head, dismayed at the insane unlikelihood of her situation. No-one was equipped for the dead coming back to life, not the bereft nor the departed themselves. Kaidan had called her a ghost, and that didn’t seem far off. It should be a wonder that anyone was coping. 

“Oh, there was some processing to be done, believe me,” said Garrus. “But it had to wait until after the siege and the rocket to the face and the lifesaving surgery, after which Commander Shepard being not so dead didn’t seem like such a stretch.” He paused. “Also I’d had a message from Tali right before that all went down, the gist of which was ‘What And How The Fuck’.”

Shepard huffed a half-hearted laugh. “Good question.” She flopped back against the illuminated glass of the fishtank and slid down until she sat on the floor. After a moment Garrus hunched down next to her.

“I guess he told you all about us then?” asked Rani, looking down at her hands as she absently picked at her fingernails. “Our illicit affair.” That sounded dramatic, but it was true enough. They’d both known how much trouble there’d be if they were found out, but that had seemed less and less important as time went on.

“Didn’t really need to, Shepard.” Garrus sounded apologetic, but also slightly amused.

“Oh.” She winced, not sure if she wanted the answer to her next question: “Did everyone know?”

“Not everyone. But I think most of us realised there was a little more going on than you wanted us to see.”

She shook her head ruefully. “We thought we were so discreet.” 

“Oh, no, you were pretty good. No-one ever caught him sneaking out of your cabin or anything. But you couldn’t hide some things: The way you looked at each other, or stood a touch closer together than normal, the way he’d help you with your armour, or all those little wordless agreements. Anyone who spent much time with the two of you could tell how close you were. And you forget- I was a detective. May not have found anything solid on Saren but you two were a much easier case to crack.”

“I’m not sure that comforts me… Who knows, maybe there’s a court martial waiting for me if I ever get back to the Alliance. Though I suppose fraternizing with a fellow officer might be quite low on the list of my offenses. Did kind of mutiny and steal a ship even before I was a traitor.”

“You saved a colony from being totally wiped out. You’ve saved a lot of people. As far as I can see you’re doing the same job you always did, how’s that make you a traitor?” 

“Oh, maybe because it’s Cerberus paying the bills? They’re the enemy, and here I am working for them. With them,” she quickly corrected herself. She grew quiet again. “Kaidan certainly thought it did.”

“He’ll come around. Right now he doesn’t have all the facts.”

“I’m not sure that I do either. I just wish we’d had more time to talk. Explain, in as much as I can.”

“Think you could have talked him into coming along?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know... Maybe it’s best that he’s not involved. They’d only find a way to use him to manipulate me. Again.” The last word was bitter in her mouth. Clearly her old crew weren’t the only ones to put two and two together. They’d known exactly how to invest her in Horizon. No, the further away Kaidan was the better it was for both of them. Not that all of her was on board with that conclusion. “I just wanted more time to talk. For him it's been years but for me it feels like only a few months. He's worked through it all and gotten over me, while I'm still- I’m still newly in love.” Her voice wavered and tears suddenly welled up, the carefully constructed floodgates of her composure finally bursting open with the admission. She buried her face in her arms. “It's so stupid.” Her shoulders shook and her words were muffled as they were forced out between sobs. “I’m a goddamned marine. N7. The first human Spectre. I won the Star of Terra when I was twenty-two. I’ve come back from the dead, faced geth and collectors and husks and reapers and rogue Spectres and- and I'm sitting here in my dressing gown crying over fucking Kaidan Alenko.”

There was a thoughtful pause.

Turians could not, technically, smirk. They didn't have the mouths for it. You needed lips and different cheek muscles. But there was a way that they tilted their heads and did a thing with their mandibles that was close, and Garrus had a voice that was basically an aural smirk anyway. So when he spoke next Rani assumed that his words were delivered with a smirk.

“Isn't this about… not fucking Kaidan Alenko?”

Her mouth formed an indignant O as she looked up, red eyed, at Garrus and smacked him on the arm. It wasn't hard and he probably couldn’t feel it through the armour and carapace, but it certainly made her feel better. “I am heartbroken and in tears, Vakarian, and you're making shitty jokes!”

“Oh come on, Shepard, I couldn't leave that there. And now you're laughing and crying, that's an improvement, right?” Shepard knew a shit-eating-grin when she saw it no matter the shape of the face it was on.

“I saved your life and this is the treatment I get?” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, a small grudging smile fighting the urge to resume crying. “I can’t believe I let you back on my crew, you’re terrible.”

“True enough.”

“Of all the people I could have had back I had to get the smart-arse turian.”

“Humans tell me that beggars can’t be choosers. Also something about the use of projectiles in glass structures that I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly.” Garrus looked down at her very seriously. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you, but you’re kind of a smart-ass yourself.”

“You’re just trying to rile me up so I’m not miserable anymore.”

“Well, I know how to deal with you when you’re angry, I’m… I’m not sure what to do with sad,” he admitted. “I’m not very good at this.”

The fight went out of her in one breath. “Me either.” She wiped her nose again and pressed her lips together as the tears threatened to well up once more. “I miss everyone. Not just Kaidan- Wrex, Tali, Liara–” she paused and sniffed “–Ash. She’d have some things to say right now, I’m sure.”

Garrus chuckled. “Spirits, can you imagine? She’d be even more pissed with you than Kaidan was.”

“No doubt. Maybe if I’d had both of them glaring at me I’d have stayed right there and given Cerberus the finger.”

“I have no idea what that means but it sounds extremely intimate.”

Rani snorted. “I’m really glad you’re here Garrus.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Terrible as you are.”

“Hey, someone’s got to watch your back. And without the rest of the old crew around, I guess it had better be the smart-ass turian. Now, what does giving someone a finger mean?”

“With those talons, I think it’s best you don’t know.”

#mass effect #commander shepard #f!shepard #garrus vakarian #shenko #fan fic #rani shepard #rani x kaidan #fic:rani #this has been lurking in my drive almost finished for like a year #my art is speedy in comparison to my writing #it may be awful #the joke certainly is