New banner for my ko-fi page plus an influx of new followers means it’s time for a (re) introduction.
So, hi! Welcome to my page :) I’m Deryn (she/her), a writer and artist constantly at odds with all her ideas vs her current hyperfixation. My tumblr goes through phases, but inevitably they all circle back around.
Irl you could call my two personality traits by the names of Native and Saber. My 8 y/o BLM mustang mare I’ve spent the last 2.5 years restarting from the ground up and my rescue german shepard.
Over on my ko-fi you can find an easy to browse gallery of my art, my current commission offerings, and starting either this month (June) or next (July) I will be creating a monthly illustration in lithograph style highlighting a different BLM herd for my ko-fi followers to download. It’s free to follow, so it’ll be free to download.
I post ramblings, fanfic, screenshots, and fanart here on tumblr. Here are some of my usual rotation:
Thinking about opening some basic portrait or half body commissions to bank for some upcoming job changes and also keep myself sane with the 2 weeks of rain we’re looking at 🤔
One thing about me is that if @sbeep is offering commissions, I will absolutely be throwing my characters her way.
Especially if it means I can get more Ryn art :3 and in a world where the narrative constantly beats down on Ryn, it was about time for me to get some fun art of her!
Don't worry, the punch-in-the-gut fic that goes with this idea will happen eventually
If you've been around my blog long enough, I've mentioned that Garrus used to have a matching Blasto the Hanar keychain with Ryn that she got for them on the Citadel between ME1 and ME2 because she was so delighted to find something so ridiculous.
Sbeep went the extra mile and added a commemorative Blasto plushie, which I think is equally as delightful because look! at! it!! It has a revolving sidearm guys!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Look at the gorgeousness from @captainderyn AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Luicus and his Horse named Unit (don't ask, I wasn't going to give the space cowboy a horse and then she offered the art and now he has one named Unit who is a SPACE EQUUS) I can't wrangle the boy, how am I going to wrangle the boy and his horse?!
One thing about me is that if @sbeep is offering commissions, I will absolutely be throwing my characters her way.
Especially if it means I can get more Ryn art :3 and in a world where the narrative constantly beats down on Ryn, it was about time for me to get some fun art of her!
Don't worry, the punch-in-the-gut fic that goes with this idea will happen eventually
If you've been around my blog long enough, I've mentioned that Garrus used to have a matching Blasto the Hanar keychain with Ryn that she got for them on the Citadel between ME1 and ME2 because she was so delighted to find something so ridiculous.
Sbeep went the extra mile and added a commemorative Blasto plushie, which I think is equally as delightful because look! at! it!! It has a revolving sidearm guys!
Indicating that one's state is no cause for concern, e.g. in response to someone checking on or expressing concern for one's well-being, such as "are you all right?"
The most told lie in the English language. They say ‘I’m fine’ because they don’t want to worry anyone with their problems, and it’s easier than explaining what’s wrong.
Shepard is a war hero, not a child. She should be grateful that she's still Shepard at all.
Garrus has his Commander, his friend, his…something, back after two years of believing her dead. He should be grateful that he has her back at all.
So really, what is there to not be fine about?
TW: Depiction of PTSD/panic attack
Other notes: Implied unspoken ME1 Shakarian feelings
--
Cerberus swore that Project Lazarus went off without a hitch (the early launch, non withstanding).
The Illusive Man was very quick to tote around just how successfully his team brought back Commander Ryn Shepard with cutting edge technology and how invaluable a tool he had saved.
Garrus called bullshit.
Maybe it was the still simmering anger that the Illusive Man hid Ryn’s survival (resurrection? The word sent a wave of nausea though him every time he thought too hard about it) from him for months after he’d first been scouted by their agents.
Or maybe it was that while he insisted to Ryn that she was still the Ryn he knew, (though never in such clear words…everything unspoken between them still languished in the purgatory of regret and grief) and not some complex A.I. wearing her body; there was a part of him that knew you couldn’t come back from the dead completely, totally, the same.
There was no magic switch to undo death.
Garrus raised concerns to Miranda almost as soon as he was up and walking with the parts of his face barely stitched back together. Once he'd had the chance to actually talk to Ryn behind the closed door of the battery and learned exactly what had happened since she'd come to in a Cerberus lab.
Joker understood the hairline fractures in their Commander. Each time a conversation with the Illusive Man ended in a slammed down receiver or each time they caught Ryn scrubbing a hand over her face, Joker would find Garrus' look with a concerned one of his own.
Questioning the brutal mission pace always got him the same answer: “There’s nothing to worry about” and “We don’t have time to coddle her.”
So Garrus had to bite his tongue and watch Shepard’s six, waiting for the moment it would all go to shit.
A stray clip on a backwater planet with toxic air finally shattered the facade.
The assailant was downed in a plume of red seconds after a shot was fired. But Garrus couldn't shoot a thermal clip out of thin air, and his voice didn't carry faster than a bullet.
Ryn's breathing heaved ragged in his ear piece as he watched her writhe to clutch at the junction where the bullet broke through her armor. His vision narrowed just to her and his feet were already on the move-- no matter what Miranda was shouting in his ears.
All he could hear was her hitching breaths and all he could see was the air escaping her suite in the deadlock of space--her body dancing like a puppet on a string.
But this time he could slam into her, pulling her close and into the cover of the nearest building as a volley of shots fired off. This time he could keep an arm wrapped tightly around her as he slammed the door control code and the whir of the air system kicked in.
Ryn clutched at the break in her suit, the soft hiss of air escaping already fading, her feet scrabbling for purchase against the slick floor as she fought against Garrus' grip.
She was moving and blood wasn't pouring from the gash in her armor. It was just the burned material of her undershirt and the reddened skin beneath, already fading as medi-gel and the suit sealant deployed.
"Breathe, Ryn." Garrus commanded, mostly to her but sucking in a much needed breath himself, using one hand to push hers down from where they fought to tear of her helmet. "The suit self-seals the air system when breached, Ryn, just breath."
But the connection between her body and the situation now seemed severed--her chest rose in rapid, heaving motions, in and out in hollow puffs of air.
"Vakarian, what happened?" Miranda demanded over their comms, even though Garrus could hear her on the other side of the door. "Shepard's vitals are going insane."
Garrus loosened his grip on her and leaned Ryn back against the wall, moving so that he could kneel in front of her. "Shepard's compromised." he said into his comm before focusing entirely back on her.
He'd seen enough turians and C-Sec officers who'd been through less than Shepard to know that this was exactly why it wasn't standard procedure to throw people back into action.
"Ryn, I promise, your suit sealed." he insisted, but his words fell on empty air. Her eyes locked onto his from behind her helmet's visor, frantic and more pupil than iris. The strange hue from her scars echoed like flame in her eyes and across her visor. Her lips moved, but only a strange squeak fought out from between her erratic breaths.
Her hands, both clamped over the hole that the clip had ripped through, might as well have been fused to her shoulder when he tried to move them.
"Just get her up Vakarian, this is ridiculous!" Miranda snapped, "Suit scans show no significant injuries--"
"Call this mission a wash!" Garrus cut her off with a rough edge, eyes locked on the way Ryn's mouth fought around words that couldn't escape. Though the visor of her helmet, he saw tears streaking down her cheeks.
His own heart hammered in his chest, threatening to block his airway; thoughts looping the newfound knowledge that this would've been what those moments in the vacuum of space had been like.
Miranda finally forced the door open and with a shake of her head crouched beside Ryn.
Garrus didn't realize his arm went out to put himself in front of Ryn until Miranda gave him a withering look and shoved him aside, pushing an injector into a port in Ryn's suit.
"Put your teeth away, guard dog." Miranda snapped. "It's an emergency sedative."
Ryn's breathing evened out in his earpiece within a few seconds, her death grip on the shoulder of her armor sliding down.
Garrus' own nerves still felt like livewire, his entire body buzzing.
Miranda heaved a breath and pushed herself to her feet, typing something as she turned away from them.
"Get up." She commanded and tilted her head towards Ryn. "And grab her. We're going back to the Normandy."
---
Garrus couldn't call what he was doing, leaning against the closed doorway of the medbay, anything but keeping guard.
He dug his talons into the meat of his upper arms, trying to pull himself down from the quivering tension that still seemed to pulse through his veins.
Dr. Chawkwas had looked ready to sedate him when he'd carried Ryn in, pulling her closer when Chakwas had reached for her. It hadn't even been a voluntary reaction, he realized what he was doing only when he and Chakwas had stared at each other for a long beat, both questioning exactly what he thought he was doing clutching his commander close.
Everything was fine, he reminded himself again forcefully, even as the other part of him screamed, not again.
The memory of the Normandy SR1's crash colored his every sense. He swore he could smell the same acrid tear of metal. Over and over again his mind drifted to the way Ryn had grabbed at her armor, and the way her body had contorted in the vacuum of space, bleeding the two memories together into one.
Her wide eyes. The way her voice had contorted around her breathless lungs.
He pressed his back against the door, letting his head thump backwards against the metal. Chakwas wouldn't let him in, she'd said as much.
Besides, who was he to think he should be in there? It was presumptuous, wasn't it?
"I told the Illusive Man that you two would be a liability." Miranda's voice snipped from his right and his mandibles flared in irritation as he lifted his head.
She took the motion as permission to continue, "I told him you would be too much."
Garrus bared his teeth, "I haven't done anything except get my face blown off and do what I've always done for Shepard."
Miranda sneered, "He didn't believe me when I said that as soon as we gave you back to Shepard that we'd lose all leverage. And look what happened. Now we have two feral, pack bonded dogs running loose on this ship."
"What'd you think was going to happen? She was..." Dead. The word lodged in Garrus' throat. Thinking it even set the world spinning around him. Instead he choked out, "She lost everything."
"We should've wiped her clean." Miranda said firmly, "But the Illusive Man said that would strip everything worthwhile from her. But all I've seen is it be is a threat."
Garrus' stomach rolled at the thought of Ryn's remade body being paraded around as an empty shell wearing her face and his voice was strangled as he tried not to dry heave, "She didn't ask for this."
Miranda cocked an eyebrow, "If we didn't do this, she'd still be dead and you'd still be trying to die on Omega. That what you'd rather have?"
His vision went hazy and he stumbled backwards as as door opened suddenly behind him. Chakwas' hand landed firmly at the center of his collar, pushing him back onto his feet.
"If you two are going to argue, do it somewhere else!" she said in a sharp, clipped tone. "You're disrupting the space my patient needs to recover."
Miranda turned her reproachful gaze onto Dr. Chakwas, "Recover from a suit malfunction? She's a war hero, not a child."
Garrus' mandibles flared again, his entire stature seeming to inflate with anger, culled by a warning look from the doctor. She kept her same, cool tone that she always did.
"She's a soldier, who's been through a great deal. It's very common for their nervous systems to be very reactive upon returning to service. Especially when two crew members are at each other's throats right outside the med bay."
Garrus cowed under the doctor's scolding. Really what did he think he was doing, skulking outside the med bay door anyway? Ryn's presence when he woke up after Omega was purely circumstantial. Of course she'd want to check on her old crew member who took a rocket to the head.
He mumbled an apology and after a moment, Miranda loosed a sharp sigh through her nose.
"I need to gather some data, at the very least." Miranda said, "The Illusive Man will want to know details on why we washed this mission."
Chakwas refused to move from the med bay door, "I will send Shepard to you once I've done my own assessments and release her."
Miranda conceded to that with all the sympathy of hearing that a system needed to be restarted.
Garrus turned towards the battery, only for the hiss of the door behind him closing to catch his attention.
Chakwas crossed her arms, looking at him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
"Garrus, I think you and I need to talk." she said, tone much softer in a way that didn't help the way it felt like beetles buzzed beneath his skin.
He looked away, shrugging his shoulders as if he could roll off her stare that might as well be picking him apart piece by piece.
"M'fine." he mumbled. "Nothing to report since you looked over me last."
Had the doctor's stare always been so laser focused? He gave himself a minuscule shake but it did little to shake away the weight of her stare.
So knowing. As if she understood something that he very clearly didn't.
But after a moment she sighed, "Just remember, I've worked with a lot of soldiers who've been through a lot of things. It's my job to make sure everyone on this ship is doing alright. And I don't know that you are."
"I'm fine." Garrus insisted, feeling too exposed, too raw, under that stare. He turned back to the battery, walking away before anymore words could hit him like tons of bricks.
Walking until the door hissed closed behind him, and he could brace back against the cold metal to try and ease the burning feeling across his entire body.
Because he was fine. There was nothing to be not fine about.
Indicating that one's state is no cause for concern, e.g. in response to someone checking on or expressing concern for one's well-being, such as "are you all right?"
The most told lie in the English language. They say ‘I’m fine’ because they don’t want to worry anyone with their problems, and it’s easier than explaining what’s wrong.
Shepard is a war hero, not a child. She should be grateful that she's still Shepard at all.
Garrus has his Commander, his friend, his…something, back after two years of believing her dead. He should be grateful that he has her back at all.
So really, what is there to not be fine about?
TW: Depiction of PTSD/panic attack
Other notes: Implied unspoken ME1 Shakarian feelings
--
Cerberus swore that Project Lazarus went off without a hitch (the early launch, non withstanding).
The Illusive Man was very quick to tote around just how successfully his team brought back Commander Ryn Shepard with cutting edge technology and how invaluable a tool he had saved.
Garrus called bullshit.
Maybe it was the still simmering anger that the Illusive Man hid Ryn’s survival (resurrection? The word sent a wave of nausea though him every time he thought too hard about it) from him for months after he’d first been scouted by their agents.
Or maybe it was that while he insisted to Ryn that she was still the Ryn he knew, (though never in such clear words…everything unspoken between them still languished in the purgatory of regret and grief) and not some complex A.I. wearing her body; there was a part of him that knew you couldn’t come back from the dead completely, totally, the same.
There was no magic switch to undo death.
Garrus raised concerns to Miranda almost as soon as he was up and walking with the parts of his face barely stitched back together. Once he'd had the chance to actually talk to Ryn behind the closed door of the battery and learned exactly what had happened since she'd come to in a Cerberus lab.
Joker understood the hairline fractures in their Commander. Each time a conversation with the Illusive Man ended in a slammed down receiver or each time they caught Ryn scrubbing a hand over her face, Joker would find Garrus' look with a concerned one of his own.
Questioning the brutal mission pace always got him the same answer: “There’s nothing to worry about” and “We don’t have time to coddle her.”
So Garrus had to bite his tongue and watch Shepard’s six, waiting for the moment it would all go to shit.
A stray clip on a backwater planet with toxic air finally shattered the facade.
The assailant was downed in a plume of red seconds after a shot was fired. But Garrus couldn't shoot a thermal clip out of thin air, and his voice didn't carry faster than a bullet.
Ryn's breathing heaved ragged in his ear piece as he watched her writhe to clutch at the junction where the bullet broke through her armor. His vision narrowed just to her and his feet were already on the move-- no matter what Miranda was shouting in his ears.
All he could hear was her hitching breaths and all he could see was the air escaping her suite in the deadlock of space--her body dancing like a puppet on a string.
But this time he could slam into her, pulling her close and into the cover of the nearest building as a volley of shots fired off. This time he could keep an arm wrapped tightly around her as he slammed the door control code and the whir of the air system kicked in.
Ryn clutched at the break in her suit, the soft hiss of air escaping already fading, her feet scrabbling for purchase against the slick floor as she fought against Garrus' grip.
She was moving and blood wasn't pouring from the gash in her armor. It was just the burned material of her undershirt and the reddened skin beneath, already fading as medi-gel and the suit sealant deployed.
"Breathe, Ryn." Garrus commanded, mostly to her but sucking in a much needed breath himself, using one hand to push hers down from where they fought to tear of her helmet. "The suit self-seals the air system when breached, Ryn, just breath."
But the connection between her body and the situation now seemed severed--her chest rose in rapid, heaving motions, in and out in hollow puffs of air.
"Vakarian, what happened?" Miranda demanded over their comms, even though Garrus could hear her on the other side of the door. "Shepard's vitals are going insane."
Garrus loosened his grip on her and leaned Ryn back against the wall, moving so that he could kneel in front of her. "Shepard's compromised." he said into his comm before focusing entirely back on her.
He'd seen enough turians and C-Sec officers who'd been through less than Shepard to know that this was exactly why it wasn't standard procedure to throw people back into action.
"Ryn, I promise, your suit sealed." he insisted, but his words fell on empty air. Her eyes locked onto his from behind her helmet's visor, frantic and more pupil than iris. The strange hue from her scars echoed like flame in her eyes and across her visor. Her lips moved, but only a strange squeak fought out from between her erratic breaths.
Her hands, both clamped over the hole that the clip had ripped through, might as well have been fused to her shoulder when he tried to move them.
"Just get her up Vakarian, this is ridiculous!" Miranda snapped, "Suit scans show no significant injuries--"
"Call this mission a wash!" Garrus cut her off with a rough edge, eyes locked on the way Ryn's mouth fought around words that couldn't escape. Though the visor of her helmet, he saw tears streaking down her cheeks.
His own heart hammered in his chest, threatening to block his airway; thoughts looping the newfound knowledge that this would've been what those moments in the vacuum of space had been like.
Miranda finally forced the door open and with a shake of her head crouched beside Ryn.
Garrus didn't realize his arm went out to put himself in front of Ryn until Miranda gave him a withering look and shoved him aside, pushing an injector into a port in Ryn's suit.
"Put your teeth away, guard dog." Miranda snapped. "It's an emergency sedative."
Ryn's breathing evened out in his earpiece within a few seconds, her death grip on the shoulder of her armor sliding down.
Garrus' own nerves still felt like livewire, his entire body buzzing.
Miranda heaved a breath and pushed herself to her feet, typing something as she turned away from them.
"Get up." She commanded and tilted her head towards Ryn. "And grab her. We're going back to the Normandy."
---
Garrus couldn't call what he was doing, leaning against the closed doorway of the medbay, anything but keeping guard.
He dug his talons into the meat of his upper arms, trying to pull himself down from the quivering tension that still seemed to pulse through his veins.
Dr. Chawkwas had looked ready to sedate him when he'd carried Ryn in, pulling her closer when Chakwas had reached for her. It hadn't even been a voluntary reaction, he realized what he was doing only when he and Chakwas had stared at each other for a long beat, both questioning exactly what he thought he was doing clutching his commander close.
Everything was fine, he reminded himself again forcefully, even as the other part of him screamed, not again.
The memory of the Normandy SR1's crash colored his every sense. He swore he could smell the same acrid tear of metal. Over and over again his mind drifted to the way Ryn had grabbed at her armor, and the way her body had contorted in the vacuum of space, bleeding the two memories together into one.
Her wide eyes. The way her voice had contorted around her breathless lungs.
He pressed his back against the door, letting his head thump backwards against the metal. Chakwas wouldn't let him in, she'd said as much.
Besides, who was he to think he should be in there? It was presumptuous, wasn't it?
"I told the Illusive Man that you two would be a liability." Miranda's voice snipped from his right and his mandibles flared in irritation as he lifted his head.
She took the motion as permission to continue, "I told him you would be too much."
Garrus bared his teeth, "I haven't done anything except get my face blown off and do what I've always done for Shepard."
Miranda sneered, "He didn't believe me when I said that as soon as we gave you back to Shepard that we'd lose all leverage. And look what happened. Now we have two feral, pack bonded dogs running loose on this ship."
"What'd you think was going to happen? She was..." Dead. The word lodged in Garrus' throat. Thinking it even set the world spinning around him. Instead he choked out, "She lost everything."
"We should've wiped her clean." Miranda said firmly, "But the Illusive Man said that would strip everything worthwhile from her. But all I've seen is it be is a threat."
Garrus' stomach rolled at the thought of Ryn's remade body being paraded around as an empty shell wearing her face and his voice was strangled as he tried not to dry heave, "She didn't ask for this."
Miranda cocked an eyebrow, "If we didn't do this, she'd still be dead and you'd still be trying to die on Omega. That what you'd rather have?"
His vision went hazy and he stumbled backwards as as door opened suddenly behind him. Chakwas' hand landed firmly at the center of his collar, pushing him back onto his feet.
"If you two are going to argue, do it somewhere else!" she said in a sharp, clipped tone. "You're disrupting the space my patient needs to recover."
Miranda turned her reproachful gaze onto Dr. Chakwas, "Recover from a suit malfunction? She's a war hero, not a child."
Garrus' mandibles flared again, his entire stature seeming to inflate with anger, culled by a warning look from the doctor. She kept her same, cool tone that she always did.
"She's a soldier, who's been through a great deal. It's very common for their nervous systems to be very reactive upon returning to service. Especially when two crew members are at each other's throats right outside the med bay."
Garrus cowed under the doctor's scolding. Really what did he think he was doing, skulking outside the med bay door anyway? Ryn's presence when he woke up after Omega was purely circumstantial. Of course she'd want to check on her old crew member who took a rocket to the head.
He mumbled an apology and after a moment, Miranda loosed a sharp sigh through her nose.
"I need to gather some data, at the very least." Miranda said, "The Illusive Man will want to know details on why we washed this mission."
Chakwas refused to move from the med bay door, "I will send Shepard to you once I've done my own assessments and release her."
Miranda conceded to that with all the sympathy of hearing that a system needed to be restarted.
Garrus turned towards the battery, only for the hiss of the door behind him closing to catch his attention.
Chakwas crossed her arms, looking at him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
"Garrus, I think you and I need to talk." she said, tone much softer in a way that didn't help the way it felt like beetles buzzed beneath his skin.
He looked away, shrugging his shoulders as if he could roll off her stare that might as well be picking him apart piece by piece.
"M'fine." he mumbled. "Nothing to report since you looked over me last."
Had the doctor's stare always been so laser focused? He gave himself a minuscule shake but it did little to shake away the weight of her stare.
So knowing. As if she understood something that he very clearly didn't.
But after a moment she sighed, "Just remember, I've worked with a lot of soldiers who've been through a lot of things. It's my job to make sure everyone on this ship is doing alright. And I don't know that you are."
"I'm fine." Garrus insisted, feeling too exposed, too raw, under that stare. He turned back to the battery, walking away before anymore words could hit him like tons of bricks.
Walking until the door hissed closed behind him, and he could brace back against the cold metal to try and ease the burning feeling across his entire body.
Because he was fine. There was nothing to be not fine about.
Indicating that one's state is no cause for concern, e.g. in response to someone checking on or expressing concern for one's well-being, such as "are you all right?"
The most told lie in the English language. They say ‘I’m fine’ because they don’t want to worry anyone with their problems, and it’s easier than explaining what’s wrong.
Shepard is a war hero, not a child. She should be grateful that she's still Shepard at all.
Garrus has his Commander, his friend, his…something, back after two years of believing her dead. He should be grateful that he has her back at all.
So really, what is there to not be fine about?
TW: Depiction of PTSD/panic attack
Other notes: Implied unspoken ME1 Shakarian feelings
--
Cerberus swore that Project Lazarus went off without a hitch (the early launch, non withstanding).
The Illusive Man was very quick to tote around just how successfully his team brought back Commander Ryn Shepard with cutting edge technology and how invaluable a tool he had saved.
Garrus called bullshit.
Maybe it was the still simmering anger that the Illusive Man hid Ryn’s survival (resurrection? The word sent a wave of nausea though him every time he thought too hard about it) from him for months after he’d first been scouted by their agents.
Or maybe it was that while he insisted to Ryn that she was still the Ryn he knew, (though never in such clear words…everything unspoken between them still languished in the purgatory of regret and grief) and not some complex A.I. wearing her body; there was a part of him that knew you couldn’t come back from the dead completely, totally, the same.
There was no magic switch to undo death.
Garrus raised concerns to Miranda almost as soon as he was up and walking with the parts of his face barely stitched back together. Once he'd had the chance to actually talk to Ryn behind the closed door of the battery and learned exactly what had happened since she'd come to in a Cerberus lab.
Joker understood the hairline fractures in their Commander. Each time a conversation with the Illusive Man ended in a slammed down receiver or each time they caught Ryn scrubbing a hand over her face, Joker would find Garrus' look with a concerned one of his own.
Questioning the brutal mission pace always got him the same answer: “There’s nothing to worry about” and “We don’t have time to coddle her.”
So Garrus had to bite his tongue and watch Shepard’s six, waiting for the moment it would all go to shit.
A stray clip on a backwater planet with toxic air finally shattered the facade.
The assailant was downed in a plume of red seconds after a shot was fired. But Garrus couldn't shoot a thermal clip out of thin air, and his voice didn't carry faster than a bullet.
Ryn's breathing heaved ragged in his ear piece as he watched her writhe to clutch at the junction where the bullet broke through her armor. His vision narrowed just to her and his feet were already on the move-- no matter what Miranda was shouting in his ears.
All he could hear was her hitching breaths and all he could see was the air escaping her suite in the deadlock of space--her body dancing like a puppet on a string.
But this time he could slam into her, pulling her close and into the cover of the nearest building as a volley of shots fired off. This time he could keep an arm wrapped tightly around her as he slammed the door control code and the whir of the air system kicked in.
Ryn clutched at the break in her suit, the soft hiss of air escaping already fading, her feet scrabbling for purchase against the slick floor as she fought against Garrus' grip.
She was moving and blood wasn't pouring from the gash in her armor. It was just the burned material of her undershirt and the reddened skin beneath, already fading as medi-gel and the suit sealant deployed.
"Breathe, Ryn." Garrus commanded, mostly to her but sucking in a much needed breath himself, using one hand to push hers down from where they fought to tear of her helmet. "The suit self-seals the air system when breached, Ryn, just breath."
But the connection between her body and the situation now seemed severed--her chest rose in rapid, heaving motions, in and out in hollow puffs of air.
"Vakarian, what happened?" Miranda demanded over their comms, even though Garrus could hear her on the other side of the door. "Shepard's vitals are going insane."
Garrus loosened his grip on her and leaned Ryn back against the wall, moving so that he could kneel in front of her. "Shepard's compromised." he said into his comm before focusing entirely back on her.
He'd seen enough turians and C-Sec officers who'd been through less than Shepard to know that this was exactly why it wasn't standard procedure to throw people back into action.
"Ryn, I promise, your suit sealed." he insisted, but his words fell on empty air. Her eyes locked onto his from behind her helmet's visor, frantic and more pupil than iris. The strange hue from her scars echoed like flame in her eyes and across her visor. Her lips moved, but only a strange squeak fought out from between her erratic breaths.
Her hands, both clamped over the hole that the clip had ripped through, might as well have been fused to her shoulder when he tried to move them.
"Just get her up Vakarian, this is ridiculous!" Miranda snapped, "Suit scans show no significant injuries--"
"Call this mission a wash!" Garrus cut her off with a rough edge, eyes locked on the way Ryn's mouth fought around words that couldn't escape. Though the visor of her helmet, he saw tears streaking down her cheeks.
His own heart hammered in his chest, threatening to block his airway; thoughts looping the newfound knowledge that this would've been what those moments in the vacuum of space had been like.
Miranda finally forced the door open and with a shake of her head crouched beside Ryn.
Garrus didn't realize his arm went out to put himself in front of Ryn until Miranda gave him a withering look and shoved him aside, pushing an injector into a port in Ryn's suit.
"Put your teeth away, guard dog." Miranda snapped. "It's an emergency sedative."
Ryn's breathing evened out in his earpiece within a few seconds, her death grip on the shoulder of her armor sliding down.
Garrus' own nerves still felt like livewire, his entire body buzzing.
Miranda heaved a breath and pushed herself to her feet, typing something as she turned away from them.
"Get up." She commanded and tilted her head towards Ryn. "And grab her. We're going back to the Normandy."
---
Garrus couldn't call what he was doing, leaning against the closed doorway of the medbay, anything but keeping guard.
He dug his talons into the meat of his upper arms, trying to pull himself down from the quivering tension that still seemed to pulse through his veins.
Dr. Chawkwas had looked ready to sedate him when he'd carried Ryn in, pulling her closer when Chakwas had reached for her. It hadn't even been a voluntary reaction, he realized what he was doing only when he and Chakwas had stared at each other for a long beat, both questioning exactly what he thought he was doing clutching his commander close.
Everything was fine, he reminded himself again forcefully, even as the other part of him screamed, not again.
The memory of the Normandy SR1's crash colored his every sense. He swore he could smell the same acrid tear of metal. Over and over again his mind drifted to the way Ryn had grabbed at her armor, and the way her body had contorted in the vacuum of space, bleeding the two memories together into one.
Her wide eyes. The way her voice had contorted around her breathless lungs.
He pressed his back against the door, letting his head thump backwards against the metal. Chakwas wouldn't let him in, she'd said as much.
Besides, who was he to think he should be in there? It was presumptuous, wasn't it?
"I told the Illusive Man that you two would be a liability." Miranda's voice snipped from his right and his mandibles flared in irritation as he lifted his head.
She took the motion as permission to continue, "I told him you would be too much."
Garrus bared his teeth, "I haven't done anything except get my face blown off and do what I've always done for Shepard."
Miranda sneered, "He didn't believe me when I said that as soon as we gave you back to Shepard that we'd lose all leverage. And look what happened. Now we have two feral, pack bonded dogs running loose on this ship."
"What'd you think was going to happen? She was..." Dead. The word lodged in Garrus' throat. Thinking it even set the world spinning around him. Instead he choked out, "She lost everything."
"We should've wiped her clean." Miranda said firmly, "But the Illusive Man said that would strip everything worthwhile from her. But all I've seen is it be is a threat."
Garrus' stomach rolled at the thought of Ryn's remade body being paraded around as an empty shell wearing her face and his voice was strangled as he tried not to dry heave, "She didn't ask for this."
Miranda cocked an eyebrow, "If we didn't do this, she'd still be dead and you'd still be trying to die on Omega. That what you'd rather have?"
His vision went hazy and he stumbled backwards as as door opened suddenly behind him. Chakwas' hand landed firmly at the center of his collar, pushing him back onto his feet.
"If you two are going to argue, do it somewhere else!" she said in a sharp, clipped tone. "You're disrupting the space my patient needs to recover."
Miranda turned her reproachful gaze onto Dr. Chakwas, "Recover from a suit malfunction? She's a war hero, not a child."
Garrus' mandibles flared again, his entire stature seeming to inflate with anger, culled by a warning look from the doctor. She kept her same, cool tone that she always did.
"She's a soldier, who's been through a great deal. It's very common for their nervous systems to be very reactive upon returning to service. Especially when two crew members are at each other's throats right outside the med bay."
Garrus cowed under the doctor's scolding. Really what did he think he was doing, skulking outside the med bay door anyway? Ryn's presence when he woke up after Omega was purely circumstantial. Of course she'd want to check on her old crew member who took a rocket to the head.
He mumbled an apology and after a moment, Miranda loosed a sharp sigh through her nose.
"I need to gather some data, at the very least." Miranda said, "The Illusive Man will want to know details on why we washed this mission."
Chakwas refused to move from the med bay door, "I will send Shepard to you once I've done my own assessments and release her."
Miranda conceded to that with all the sympathy of hearing that a system needed to be restarted.
Garrus turned towards the battery, only for the hiss of the door behind him closing to catch his attention.
Chakwas crossed her arms, looking at him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
"Garrus, I think you and I need to talk." she said, tone much softer in a way that didn't help the way it felt like beetles buzzed beneath his skin.
He looked away, shrugging his shoulders as if he could roll off her stare that might as well be picking him apart piece by piece.
"M'fine." he mumbled. "Nothing to report since you looked over me last."
Had the doctor's stare always been so laser focused? He gave himself a minuscule shake but it did little to shake away the weight of her stare.
So knowing. As if she understood something that he very clearly didn't.
But after a moment she sighed, "Just remember, I've worked with a lot of soldiers who've been through a lot of things. It's my job to make sure everyone on this ship is doing alright. And I don't know that you are."
"I'm fine." Garrus insisted, feeling too exposed, too raw, under that stare. He turned back to the battery, walking away before anymore words could hit him like tons of bricks.
Walking until the door hissed closed behind him, and he could brace back against the cold metal to try and ease the burning feeling across his entire body.
Because he was fine. There was nothing to be not fine about.
Howdy Howdy!!! Spring is wrapping up and so it's time for my summer YCH!! I decided to reuse my single character YCH and update it for summer since so many people liked it!:)
Form Below! 💕
Spring is coming to a close so it's time to move onto summer!!😁💕
Rules:
Any gender for either character
Body types are changeable as well
More Complex Additions (Wings, Armor, Etc will cost extra)
Heights are mostly changeable but the left cant be taller than the right
Payment upfront in USD but a payment plan can be discussed!
ETA: 2 Weeks-2 Months depends on whats going on at the time but i'm closer to 2-3 weeks these days!:)
