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st-writes · 1 year

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Reach and Flexibility Pt. 2

ME2: Shepard gets a peek at the big guns

(Read Part 1 Here)

Shepard sat at the edge of the first medbay cot. Her palms were dry. Everything was dry. She felt like the traditional definition of a husk, her exterior hardened and leathery while inside her soul shriveled up, pulling away from the edges. It left a moat between her and the rest of the world, making everything seem distant.

Two days earlier they’d raided the collector ship. They’d gotten the data they needed and escaped without casualties. It was a success, but only in the sense that the directives had been fulfilled. In every other sense, Shepard didn’t think she’d ever felt like a bigger failure.

Two days earlier they’d raided the collector ship, and she’d been mentally spaced by her own psyche, set adrift in her nightmares while her body was left panicked and vulnerable in the belly of the beast.

“I wouldn’t have sent you in if I didn’t think you could succeed,” he’d said.

Shepard winced as Chakwas’s gloved hands manipulated her cheek, pinching the skin around the growing, glowing fissures. The pain was dull, but still there. Chakwas tutted and stepped away, tugging her gloves off by the fingers.

“Other than a rejection flare-up, you appear to be fine, physically. But I’m a medical doctor, Commander. When it comes to matters of the mind, I can only be a friend,” she said, setting the gloves on her desk.

“I’m not talking to Chambers.” Shepard yanked her sleeves down. “You know those reports are just going straight to the Illusive Man’s desk.” By his account, he’d led her into the lion’s den because he believed she could get herself out. What would he do if he knew his game piece was broken, his weapon impotent, his investment squandered?

“I wish you would talk to someone.” Chakwas slumped into her chair with a sigh. “Your experience is not unique, even if your circumstances are. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

Shepard snorted. “Well, I wish we hadn’t finished all your brandy in one go.”

The corners of Chakwas’s mouth curled upward, but the smile fell short of reaching her eyes. “Are you sleeping alright? I can give you something that will help.”

Shepard ran a hand through her hair before tucking it behind her ears. “I’m sleeping plenty.” Not entirely true. The first night had been a breeze-- she’d barely made it to her cabin. EDI had let her sleep well into what was supposed to be the waking part of her cycle, and she fought a residual grogginess until it was nearly time for her to sleep again. As a result, she waited up the second night until her eyes were raw from pouring over reports and she was forced to lay on her couch and focus on nothing in particular until sleep found her.

“Alright.” Chakwas, with an air of reluctance, spun her chair back slowly toward her desk. “Do let me know if any other issues arise, or… if you want to talk…”

“I know where to find you.” Shepard nodded, moving to the door. “Thanks, Karin.” After a few steps she peered back through the window to make sure the doctor wasn’t watching her, and changed course from the elevator to the mess. She’d need coffee if she was going to make much sense of EDI’s findings beyond the overview.

The pot was empty and Gardner was off doing the other half of his duties that no one really cared to think about, so Shepard set to work brewing a new one. She found herself hypnotized by the sporadic drip, so much so that she didn’t notice one of her team had come up beside her.

“Shepard.” Garrus materialized from the haze of her surroundings to greet her. “It’s good to see you up. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she responded automatically, before realizing who had asked: a good friend with a front-row seat to her meltdown. She glanced at him with sheepish alarm.

His avian eyes, somehow always as enigmatic as they were expressive, watched her for a moment. The good mandible on his left made one idle twitch as he seemed to reach some sort of conclusion. He gave her a small nod. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”

There was something about him not calling her out on her bullshit that made her feel incredibly called out on her bullshit. She tried her best not to look admonished as she turned to face him. “What do you need?”

“I wanted to show you something.” A note close to mischief crept into his voice. “I think you’ll like it.”

Too worn out to have her interest truly piqued, Shepard frowned skeptically as she gestured loosely toward the coffee maker. “More than coffee?”

Garrus’s browplates dipped briefly downward as his eyes followed her hand. “Hm. Can’t say, haven’t tried the stuff.” He looked back at her, mandible tilted in what she’d come to read as a smirk. “But yeah, I think so.”

Shepard raised her eyebrows; he didn’t know what a high bar he’d just set for himself. “Alright, Vakarian. I’ll bite. Show me.”

“Great.” Garrus straightened and started toward the corridor to his usual haunt and makeshift quarters, beckoning her along. “Follow me to the battery.”

She fell in line behind him, with some small, distant amusement taking note of an energy in his stride--a “spring in his step”--she hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the gait of a younger iteration, a Garrus Vakarian eager and excited, impatient for whatever comes next. What could possibly merit that?

Once inside the battery, he pressed a tablet into her hands before stepping over to his console. She looked down at it, trying unsuccessfully to find enough focus to read the scrolling data. “What am I looking at?” She asked.

“You asked, before, if a turian patrol could’ve disabled the collector ship. We know now that’s not what happened… but it got me thinking. So I did a little poking around.” Shepard looked back up, then looked again. The interior of the battery was overlaid with a hologram- new holographic parts integrated into the current, physical setup.

“These are Thanix Cannons,” Garrus said, spinning back toward her from where he’d been queueing up the hologram at his console. “They fire a liquid alloy core suspended in an electromagnetic field that’ll tear through just about anything. Our military reverse engineered them from Sovereign’s main gun. Reaper-grade weapons, Shepard. Those Collector bastards try anything again, they won’t know what hit them.”

Garrus’s energy was contagious. Shepard felt her mouth pulling into a smile as she looked over the data with refreshed eyes. The back of her neck prickled as understanding began to sink in. “And we can make this happen?”

“Definitely. Easy upgrade.” Garrus stepped to her, tapping the tablet and clearing his throat. “Once we get the parts, of course. But I can’t imagine Cerberus won’t write this check.”

Shepard’s grin had grown so much it was hurting her scarred cheeks. The corners of her eyes began to burn, threatening tears. For the first time since she’d been brought back, the phantom Collector ship in her mind was paired with imagery of its own destruction, not hers. “Vakarian, I could kiss you.”

“Easy there, Shepard. I don’t want you to have to sit through that vid again on my account,” Garrus chuckled, taking the tablet out of her hands. He regarded her for a moment before tapping it gently against her arm. “You’ve had a long, hard couple of days. I thought you could use a win.”

Wearing a tempered smile she brushed him away, for a moment the touch of his forearm against hers almost eclipsing her other senses. They joked, but she could actually kiss him. She could do more than kiss him. Her eyes swept over him, gaging the feasibility of a whim her fatigued brain would not let pass. “Speaking of, um, Turian ingenuity...”

“Hm?” Garrus, who had just begun to move back to the console, stopped himself.

She re-crossed her arms. “I’ve been thinking about what you said-- about relieving tension.”

Garrus mirrored her gesture. “I uh, didn’t think you’d feel like sparring, Commander.” He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “You look a little tired.”

And she was: too tired to mince words. Shepard tried to smile, but it ended up feeling more like a grimace. She watched his eyes. “Yeah, not what I meant.”

Realization dawned slowly over his face. His mandibles went slack for a moment before flicking back up with a thoughtful tic. The plates on his nose flexed, his browplates tilted upward. “Oh! I didn’t… Huh.” Garrus shifted his weight onto his back foot and tugged at his collar. He turned his head toward the console, then back toward her, mandibles twitching restlessly. “You said I was ugly,” he reminded her, more confusion in his voice than reproach.

Shepard shrugged helplessly. “Looks aren’t everything,” she said. Had he taken that playful ribbing to heart? She hadn’t meant it. Though she hadn’t thought him particularly attractive then either, now she found her interest… piqued. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

Garrus was visibly floundering, his fidgeting more pronounced. “Is it the scars?” he joked, taking refuge in humor. “Never knew you had a weakness.”

“Sure as hell wasn’t your lines.” Shepard smirked. She glanced over at the hologram, still shimmering over the battery’s machinery. “Might’ve been the gun talk.”

“That cannon is a sexy machine,” Garrus agreed. When Shepard looked back, she found him watching, studying her. “Sorry. I’ve just never considered--- seriously, anyway,” he corrected himself after catching her look.

“Right, sounds like a no.” Her smirk tensed into something more like a grimace, and she rubbed at the spot between her eyebrows with a knuckle, as if she could smudge the whole idea out. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not-! I—“ He huffed helplessly. “You don't ever have to worry about making me uncomfortable. Nervous, yes... but never uncomfortable. I just… I know you can find something a little closer to home.”

She squinted up at him through her hand. “Like who? Jack? Miranda?”

“Jacob?” Garrus suggested meekly. “...Joker? Zaeed? I mean, even Thane has…”

“Garrus,” she cut him off, waving away his suggestions like gnats. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my best friend, one of the few people I can trust. I never feel closer to home out here than when I’m with you.”

If she’d had more sleep, if she wasn’t raw and burnt out she might’ve been surprised at her nearly embarrassing earnestness. But if she wasn’t raw and burnt out she probably wouldn’t have been embarrassingly earnest.

Garrus straightened a little, regarding again with a look that was…softer. “I get that.” He nodded, his mandible twitching. “You’re about the only friend I’ve got left in this screwed up galaxy. I’m not going to pretend I’ve got a fetish for humans, but… If this is about us?”

His head tilted and he took a step back. “You know what? Yeah. Why the hell not.”

Shepard let slip an incredulous laugh. “‘Why the hell not’?”

“What?”

“Garrus! ‘Why the hell not’?” She stared, waiting for the penny just wouldn’t drop. “I mean, I think that’s everyone’s favorite response to putting themselves out there.”

“Definitely,” he corrected himself, sounding almost resolute before he kept on talking. “If we can figure out a way to make it work, then… Definitely.”

“It’s not uncharted territory, Big Guy.” Shepard shrugged sympathetically. She wasn’t familiar with any turian-human couplings herself, but there were definitely asari who took turian partners, so it couldn’t be too far a leap. All it took was knowing your own body, communication, and a can-do attitude, as far as she was concerned.

“Right… So… I’ll do some research,” he proffered, obviously coming from a very different, more cautious philosophy. “Find some music…?”

It was a little adorable. Shepard patted his arm supportively, feeling the fatigue creep back in. Excitement and nerves had invigorated her, but the wave of relief that came over her as their conversation settled seemed to wash her energy away with it. She never did get her coffee. “Do what you need to do, Vakarian, and nothing you don’t want to.”

His mandibles and mouthplates twitched as a series of responses died silently on his tongue. She’d broken him, she thought with distant amusement, but he’d bounce back.

“And please, PLEASE, forward those specs for the cannons to Lawson as soon as possible.” Her intention had been bringing their conversation to a merciful close, not to reignite the hot bloom of gratitude within her, but there it was. She found herself staring at that spot on his forehead.

“Can I…?” She gestured hesitantly.

“Hm?”

“Kiss you. Actually.” A light laugh bubbled through her voice. There was a giddiness now, amusement at his bafflement and her own persistent ridiculousness floating like flotsam on whatever emotional mess churned in the depths of her psyche.

Garrus sighed, a quiet exhale with a stutter at the end that could have been a laugh. “Alright.” He opened his arms and lowered his head for her.

Placing her hands on either side of his head, she guided her face to his and pressed her lips gently to that spot where the three sections of his forehead plating met. “Thank you,” she murmured against the cool, hard surface, and felt him shudder beneath her. His hands found her wrists and encased them in a soft but firm hold.

Did she stumble over a line again? She pulled back, watching him carefully as he watched her. There was something intense about the look in his eye, not alarm or reproach but… something.

“Well.” Shepard gave him a half apologetic smirk and an ineffectual pat on the hard plating that seemed to essentially form an exo-cheekbone. “I have some reports to look over, and gallons of coffee to drink, so… I’ll leave you to it?”

He let go of her with a wry chuckle, running his hands up over his own fringe. His blue eyes shot her a good-natured glare. “Riiight. 'Cause I'm in a great place to optimize firing algorithms right now. “

She shrugged, sympathetic but impotent, as she triggered the door control. Sounds from the mess filtered in on the heels of the door’s mechanical hiss. Garrus straightened, his blue eyes sliding warily over the scene behind her before meeting her gaze again. He shook his head and waved her away with the casual gesture of a good friend.

Shepard nodded in acknowledgement and turned, remnants of a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth. Two days ago, they raided the Collector ship, and the same specter that killed her two years prior had unmade her again. The Lazarus’s time, money, and scientific genius all brought to ruin with the sharp sting of betrayal and the unsteady lurch of a platform. Two days ago she was, in some ways, as two years ago- meat and tubes, raw and exposed, a lost cause. Today, healing began again. Not on a gurney, not under a knife, not with stitches and cybernetics, but in the arms of a friend, under their protection, with kindness and caring—and some very big guns.

Everything was going to be okay. And even better with coffee.

#shakarian #fanfic #mass effect 2 #there i did it

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derfisch-draws · 1 year

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OC Masterpost

probably good to have a quick reference there of all my Guys, both for my sanity and perhaps yours too. will probably add more later, either as they become relevant again or as I create them. I'll try to keep all info and reference images as up to date as possible

my sonas

not much to know about these guys, except they're both me. goodra is a little more outgoing, but is a couch potato, while tanuki keeps to themself more, but likes the outdoors

a docile lil typh. imagine every fujoshi stereotype, and map it onto a nerdy gay boy, and you've basically got an's personality lol. he has a maybe-boyfriend grumpig who I haven't really developed yet. he's based off this picture though:

zoroark & lucario

these two are the guildmaster (lucario) and second-in-command (zoroark) of a guild in a pmd setting I've been rolling around in my head for a while. pokemon civilization exists in a region within the greater pokemon world, and is surrounded by some sort of protective barrier that keeps out humans. lucario fled there from an abusive trainer, and met zoroark there, who was living as a bandit. the two bonded, became mates, and founded a guild together as a safe haven for exiles and refugees like themselves. the armbands they wear serve strategic functions when they fight, but were mostly picked to match each other's color as a sign of their relationship

lucario is stern, but soft-spoken and reserved. his aura sensors having been removed by his previous trainer, he's unable to consciously control aura, and relies mainly on physical attacks and agility when fighting. in a pinch though, his body goes into desperation mode, and a whirlwind of destructive aura energy surrounds him, hurting him in the process. he wears a focus band just in case. this also can activate if he's incredibly stressed or angry, so it's best not to get him upset! thankfully, he's very good at emotional management, and he has a sweet tooth, so the best way to calm him down is to have a mago berry on hand

zoroark is impish, and has a habit of toying a bit with those around him. he doesn't let anyone know his emotional state except lucario. he doesn't even let anyone else see his eyes, always keeping them in a near-shut squint. only lucario has seen his eyes fully open. as someone who avoids conflict when possible, he attacks in a single strike, and uses the improved speed from his choice scarf to flee as quickly as possible, potentially lifting some goods in the process

gatsby

gatsby is a protogen in a setting where cyborgs like him are treated as products to be sold. I've written up a whole doc about his backstory here, but in short, he's escaped life as a slave, and is trying to live life on his own terms now

chiki & avillon

these two are the mascots of a rhythm game concept I've had in mind for a while called "beast beat." as rhythm game characters, I haven't given a ton of thought to their personalities, but I do know that they're best friends. they live in a utopian setting with a retro future aesthetic. they're both djs, though chiki does more actual dj work, while avillon only does it occasionally, and focuses more on music production. also, avillon has a cool hover moped, and chiki has a hoverboard, but I haven't drawn either yet. woops

also, they're both hella gay! and chiki is trans

#oc masterpost #there I did it

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