Request: Kaidan getting anxious as he waits for Shepard in Apollos, not sure if the commander would even show up or if confessing his feelings was the right thing to do.
This is a great prompt and before even writing it I know I’d love to do a longer treatment, so thank you! But let’s see if we can gain something from a short treatment, eh?++
You made a request of Shepard and then you waited. That was the way it went--no response, no promises, no email back. You just had to ask something of Shepard, and at some point in the future... he would deliver.
Kaidan had never asked anything of Shepard until now. There were no family heirlooms or outstanding favors he had wanted help with. And when Shepard had said on Horizon ‘come with me’, Kaidan hadn’t asked Shepard to come with him instead.
But Shepard came back, anyway. Maybe not right away, but he came back a better man. Shepard tried not to read too much into that, tried not to feel like one of those struggling colonists Shepard always managed to help. When Shepard came to see him after the mission on Gellix, Kaidan tried not to feel special--Shepard did this for all his crew, for strangers, for criminals, even.
But he had felt special. Special enough, at least, to ask for a meet-up at Apollo’s.
And here he sat.
He told Shepard he’d be tooling around the Citadel, for once, and probably would be ‘around Apollo’s’ at about 13:00. Kaidan showed up at 11:30 and waited. You asked Shepard for something and you waited. He would come, today or next week. He would be there, at least.
It wasn’t until that moment, an hour into sitting and watching the wheel of blue sky above roll around, that he realized he loved Shepard. Was in love with Shepard.
He would be there, always. It was the first thing Kaidan loved about him.
He hadn’t known why he had asked Shepard out, except that he knew he had to. Now he knew why.
‘Will you be with me, Shepard?’
You asked Shepard for something, and then you waited. Sometimes you wouldn’t like the answer, but where Shepard was concerned it was uncanny how often what he gave you is what you needed anyway.
Kaidan was sure he needed this, needed Shepard. He wouldn’t give Shepard time to doubt it. This couldn’t be like a usual favor. He couldn’t be another person asking Shepard for his time. He had to say ‘I want this’. He had to ask Shepard what he wanted.
He chuckled to himself, dark as the plumes of smoke that coiled up from the bombed out shop windows below. Shepard might not show today at all. Kaidan might find himself sitting in Apollo’s every time they made port for the next three months, and he would. He wanted this. He was sure. He would wait for Shepard, he always would.
But he didn’t have to, at the stroke of 13:00, Shepard emerged on the terrace, looking breathless, eyes soft. Kaida felt his whole body tense up, his heartbeat pound. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t nervous, he tried to tell himself he didn’t feel special.
But he was, and he did, and Shepard was smirking when he took his seat. Kaidan breathed-in deep.
@estalfaed requested a writer’s choice prompt for Mshenko, so I chose #33. “You’re really soft.” Because I had a dumb, silly idea.
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Shepard dragged himself out of the medbay, shoulders drooping, eyelids falling closed. Kaidan watched from over the rim of his coffee mug, not sure whether he should gesture Shepard over to sit with him at the mess table or let him slink off to bed. Shepard could be dopey and irrational when he was tired.
Shepard seemed not to notice him, trudged around the wall to enter the lift, and Kaidan smiled. But no sooner had he decided to continue his report and let Shepard sleep than he felt arms around him, Shepard’s unmistakable scarred hands tightly holding him back into the chair. Shepard yawned and buried his face in the Kaidan’s hair, running his nose through the locks.
“You’re really soft,” he mumbled, sounding absolutely out of his head. Kaidan kissed one of Shepard’s hands and gave a little chuckle.
“Shepard, go to bed. You’re exhausted.”
“You’re really soft!” Shepard groaned against, hot breath through Kaidan’s hair. Kaidan was starting to get a little weirded out, he couldn’t really get up.
“It’s this conditioner I found on the Citadel,” he said softly, eyes darting aroudn the room as if someone would hear him. “It’s called Melga Nox. It, uh, styles and conditions.” He felt his cheeks heat up, “Now that you know, let’s put you to bed, huh?”
“Soooo soft,” Shepard babbled when Kaidan finally pried himself loose and pushed Shepard towards the lift.
++
They would only be docked at the Citadel for another few hours, but Shepard had had just enough time to be completely inundated by crew requests, Council meetings, Spectre duties, and the like. By the time he teetered through the hatch into his cabin, he was muttering obscenities under his breath.
Kaidan looked up from his pad, he’d been waiting in bed for the last hour.
“Busy night, huh?”
Shepard mumbled something that sounded apologetic in return.
“I take it we are not having a movie and some sexy times tonight, after all?”
Shepard was peeling off his clothes and looked like death.
Kaidan laughed and scooted over to allow Shepard space to slide into bed. Shepard nestled his face into Kaidan’s chest, laying soft, sorry kisses below his collarbone.
“Mmph,” Shepard moaned, rubbing his face against Kaidan’s skin. “You’re so soft! Mmmmm.” Kaidan rolled his eyes.
“Asari banarit soap. I’ll pick you up a bar next time we’re on the Citadel, now roll over and go to sleep.”
++
The next time they were on the Citadel, though, Shepard received a giant apartment courtesy of Admiral Anderson’s wartime largess.
Shepard was clear-eyed and passionate this time around: kissing Kaidan on the stairs and showing off every room as if it were the master bedroom.
“Never had a place like this before,” he would say, over and over, wrapping Kaidan’s arms around himself. “Never had anyone to share a place like this with before, either.”
When they finally did reach the master bedroom, he pushed Kaidan onto the bed and they kissed like new lovers, the still of the air interrupted not by the sound of engines, but only by their breathless gasps.
“Wait,” Shepard breathed when Kaidan made to unbelt his pants. “I want to take a bath with you first. Wait till you see the tub.”
He took Kaidan by the hand, his pants sliding down a moment later allowing him to step out of them. The tub was enormous, and Kaidan gave a whistle.
“I’ll give it to Anderson, he’s got some eccentric taste,” But Shepard already had him half-stripped.
They were kissing in the tub a moment later when Kaidan noticed a familiar bottle out of the corner of his eye. He wriggled away from Shepard and picked the bottle up--Melga Nox--his shampoo. No, not his bottle from the ship, too full, it was a new bottle. Next to it, a generous bar of asari banarit soap.
He turned to Shepard, who was grinning like a cheshire cat.
“How did you know to get these?”
“They’re your favorite, right?” Shepard waggled his eyebrows.
“Yeah, but--I thought you were--”
“I have a good memory, what can I say?” Shepard ran his fingers through Kaidan’s hair. “I wanted this to feel like home for you, too.”
Kaidan could only quirk an eyebrow and draw Shepard’s body closer.
For the 54 prompts ask - #39 ( "All I want is you.") when Kaidan brings the whiskey and tumblers right before they go after the Reapers.
Thanks so much for the prompt, I love it! I’ve written about this scene so much it’s hard to imagine I could do anything new with it, but here’s hoping!
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Shepard didn’t realize he’d set down his drink, but his hands were suddenly tangled in Kaidan’s shirt. His face and neck felt hot--expensive whiskey swallowed too quickly, impossible to hide his trembling hands on the glass.
“Relaxing will help you focus,” Kaidan had said, and the kiss seared against Shepard’s lips. No one had ever kissed Shepard the way Kaidan did, the way he touched Shepard’s face as if to say ‘I know, I get it, and it’s okay.’ And Shepard knew he did, from the taste of Shepard’s own whiskey on Kaidan’s lips to Shepard’s hand on Kaidan’s waist. Shepard believed him, he believed in Kaidan Alenko.
Shepard felt it like a deep peace: “relaxing” indeed. He still didn’t know how he was supposed to return to reports, strategies, the war, when they parted. Still, even as he thought it, Kaidan pulled away, just a breath separating their faces, now.“I lied, I didn’t come here for a quick drink.”
Shepard smirked, rose up on his knees and straddled Kaidan’s lap. He settled back into the kiss like the war had never started, and like nothing would ever bother to part them again. Kaidan’s touch soothed the tension in his back, and the next thing he knew, Shepard had been lifted into the air, Kaidan kissing a line along his throat to where his pulse thrummed against his jaw.
Focus.
Nothing ever felt like enough--never enough preparation, never enough will when it came to the Reapers. Never enough time. He had been peering at the numbers like he would see the answer camouflaged somewhere in the pages and pages of reports. Kaidan was always telling him to rely on the talented people he’d brought together...
When Kaidan eased him down onto the bed and pinned him to the mattress with another searing kiss, Shepard closed his eyes. He let Kaidan lift him up again, let Kaidan’s lips brush against his eyelids.
“Shepard,” Kaidan whispered, and Shepard didn’t need to open his eyes to picture the gaze fixed on him right now. “This is okay? What do you want?”
Focus.
He was enough. And Kaidan was more than enough. There would be time enough.
biasfuzzball requested “something with mountains in? Any setting, fandom or background, just needs mountains.”
Yeah, I know it’s not August anymore. blah blah blah, I suck, it’s indefensible. So you know me and stories about death...
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He died, what felt like forever ago. His purgatory was a mountain.
He was asked--he remembered what he was asked, though the sound of the voice or who’s voice it was he would never remember--to choose a mountain from his memory. He’d climb this mountain forever... or what would feel like forever, anyway. Purgatory was the eternity of toil to work up to an eternity of bliss in Paradise.
He would starve and thirst and sweat... the mountain paths were an allegorical maze of the worst sins of his life. At the end of the journey, The Angel would come down from the clouds and collect you. Some people chose the tallest mountain to be closer to the heavens at the end. Some tried to be clever and chose the shortest they could think of. Some penitent souls let the voice choose for them. But everyone got one mountain, forever.
How could he not choose Illiniza?
He knew mountains, he loved hiking, he had never had a better climb than Illiniza. If there was a mountain he had to climb forever, it could be Illiniza. There was a certain defiance to the action, too, which he considered as he stood atop one of Illiniza’s two peaks.
The landscape before him was an unfathomable expanse of mountains: every hue and size and shape imaginable, stretching out to a horizon that did not bow. He had seen a peak here and there as he climbed, but the way the paths twisted and trapped you against a snowpack had kept his eyes on his feet. Hunger and fatigue of listless millennia had made him stumble along. And there was the loneliness.
He reached the summit what must have been weeks ago, and the view still left him gobsmacked. Mountains of absurdly conflicting ecologies with roots twined together beneath shadowed, impenetrable valleys of fog. Off to his right, the red and jagged peaks of some Rocky Mountain transplant, so sharp it seemed to crumble before his eyes as it split the the clouds that wandered overhead.
Further in the distance was a snow-capped summit--a cartoon of a mountain, practically--deep vein-purple and sloped with a slope that was practically concave. At this distance, the sides seemed impossible smooth. The treeline girded the foot of the mountain: the faintest hint of green fading to solid rock.
And all around him at lower elevations there were the low weathered humps of ancient mountains, no more than hills at his present height. Naked trees--cold and early fall or hot winter dried branches--enveloped the mountain from foot to peak like a shadow.
Once in a while he saw The Angel come for someone, lifting them to Paradise in a shaft of pure gold. Each time, it was so distant that it seemed a single blonde hair snaked down from the clouds and blew away on the winter wind. Then the mountain would submerge itself beneath the fog.
It was Dante who had conceived of Purgatory as a single giant mountain. He had always liked that Comedy. But expeditions with crowds were awful, and if it were possible, he was happy at first to find Purgatory so lonely. But, perhaps it was only his Purgatory that was a mountainous waste. Maybe someone else on one of those other peaks saw all this as... a forest... or a highway... or as a single mountain of Dante-esque torments. Perhaps they saw him waiting in some ironic trap. In someone else’s view, he might not be alone, but simply ignorant.
He knew that often the angel often made it’s supplicant’s wait (patience, too, was a lesson Purgatory taught), and so he had waited when he reached the ‘summit’ of his chosen mountain.
But, in his gut, he knew no one was coming for him. He had requested a single mountain that was two mountains--hoping to spend eternity smug with a technicality exploited. He had ascended the taller of the two peaks, even, as if to assure there were no hard feelings. But now, standing atop Illiniza Norte, he knew that salvation was on the shorter peak. But Illiniza Sur was a travesty of a climb... and the thought of wandering back through the winding trails then back up a more difficult peak destroyed him. It would all have been better if he could determine for himself why he had chosen Illiniza in the first place: was it because of his fond memories, or his desire to get the better of the afterlife?
In Dante, the mountain of Purgatory was formed by the impact of a fallen Lucifer slamming into the opposite side of the world. The flat horizon, then, was full of the grave markers of a million personal devils. Illiniza was one mountain with two peaks, and he wondered for eternity how many devils had plummeted down to create it.
shepard-alenko requested a ‘bittersweet’ mshenko fic where one of the boys dies peacefully with the other at his side.
Yeesh. Okay. Here we go...
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Everyone’s very nice, and every race and every person’s got their own variation on that little sympathetic smile as they shuffle past. Our friends and family will wait out in the hall for a while, and I close the door to Kaidan’s hospital room.
My husband’s chuckling back on the bed.
“What’s so funny?” The sun coming through that window was pretty bright, I should close that. Kaidan was probably getting sick of being propped up, I should do that first—
“I guess…” he needed a big breath to finish his thought, “I thought that went alright?”
“Mhm.”
“I’m not the best with goodbyes. But that was a lot more awkward in my mind.”
That makes me feel a little guilty, probably because I haven’t actually played this scenario out in my mind at all: Kaidan, lying in a hospital bed. Blown apart, shot, run through by a Banshee… I’ve worried about all those a lot. But this? It’s been years and years since either of us have even seen the inside of a hospital. I suppose I forgot, or stopped thinking it could happen…
But now? Kaidan’s practically scheduled to die within the next hour.
“You did just fine,” I assure him, supporting his head so I can get the pillows out from under his back. The bed’s inclined all the way, but Kaidan—of course—still didn’t feel like he was sitting up straight enough to say goodbye to everyone—
“Just glad everyone… didn’t leave crying.”
“Not everyone, at least,” I smile, and Kaidan smiles up at me as the bed tips him back prone. He looks tired, but maybe it’s the hospital gown, maybe it’s his hair being out of place, or the oxygen tube. “You can sure give a speech.”
“Speech?” he coughs when he tries to laugh, “I might be dying, but it doesn’t mean I can’t still babble about the tech keeping me alive!”
“Not that,” I pinch his toe as I make my way around the bed to the window. “The other part.”
Since his seizure a few days ago, a combination of machines has been keeping him tethered to life. An hour ago, the doctor acknowledged that, as anticipated, the VI interfaces that were keeping him from going braindead were starting to break down. I had seen the progressive scans, watched the areas of Kaidan’s brain go dark slowly like an ember going cold around the edges. Kaidan and I looked at the scans together for a long time, each afraid to speak.
Kaidan had made a joke about it. I think I expected that, as much as I had expected anything about this day.
“I just said whatever was on my mind,” he weakly waves a hand to dismiss my praise. Even little movements like that tire him out so much.
“And off-the-cuff, too!”
“It’s amazing how freeing it is to give a speech where no one’s going to tell you that you did a bad job,” Each time he blinks, his eyes stay closed a little longer, I swear. “Nobody knows what they’re expecting from a dying man’s final words.”
“Guess I don’t either.” Damn this curtain pull… how does it—
“Luckily, no one knows what to say to me either.”
“Yeah… same.” I have been thinking about that…
“Long as it ends in ‘I love you,’ I’ll be satisfied,” he teases.
“Heh, ‘I love you.’”
“Oh, so we’re done then?” He chuckles, but it’s a small and wheezing sound deep in his chest. I wonder if he’ll try to finish his joke or finally take it easy to catch his breath… “Hope… you brought… a book. ‘Cuz I’m not… quite… gone.”
“Oh stop it!” I manage it like a laugh. I finally get the curtains closed, and head back to his bedside, easing myself back into the chair. He’s looking at me funny, the way he looks when I try on my old N7 jacket, even though it doesn’t exactly fit me these days. “What? What’s so funny?”
“…I’m not going to get a migraine, John.” The curtains. I’m so used to closing them the second company leaves so Kaidan doesn’t get a headache from all the light—
“Oh.”
“These painkillers are pretty amazing… could’ve used these in the field. I don’t feel a thing.”
—Not ‘I don’t have a migraine,’ but ‘I’m not going to get a migraine.’ Ever again.
“Part of me always suspected Chakwas had some in storage,” I manage, but the pause before I chime in is enough to turn his worn-expression suspicious. “She just didn’t ever think any of us were in bad enough shape to need ‘em!”
“Karin,” he closes his eyes for a minute. “I miss her. I guess if there’s anything ‘next’ I’ll see her again in a bit.”
“Tell her ‘hello’ from me.”
“Come on, John,” he’s smoothing his blanket and I quickly stand to help out. Every distraction is welcome. “Don’t you have a little more exciting message to pass beyond the veil of space and time?”
“’Enjoy the brandy.’”
“That’s more like it!” I almost feel the old strength in him when he pats my arm.
I consider re-opening the curtains. Maybe he’d like a view of the outside as he lays here. But then again, whenever I was… in really bad shape, I preferred closed windows. Always felt like I was being watched. We sit in silence for a long while before he speaks again:
“Ugh, I feel guilty now.”
“What? Why?”
“Keeping everybody outside waiting!” He laughs hard and coughs harder. He waves away the hacking like it’s a silly affliction, not worthy of his time.
“Meh, as if they’ve got somewhere better to be?”
“Well, it’s hard for them,” he chuckles finally. “Hopefully these VIs will crash and I’ll hurry up and be on my way. It’s a weird sense of waiting. Twiddling my thumbs. Feel too comfortable to be dying.”
“Well I hope you brought a book then.”
“Feels weird, these VIs... having all this hardware based on Reaper tech in my head. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Now you know how I feel being a Cerberus robot!”
“But Cerberus cleaned you up and made you look all pretty again,” he’s teasing, poking my hand with a shaking finger. “Got any of that fancy Lazarus tech around, huh?”
“Well…”
“Nah!” he pats my hand to shush me, realizing his mistake. “I’m ready to go. And the world is ready to move on without me. Just taking longer than I thought…”
I try to smile, “I’ve always loved how you take your time with everything.”
“Just hope it won’t be boring for you.” We’re both laughing now, Kaidan more than I am.
“Boring isn’t the word,” I say, and a lot of the humor is leaving me. “Anxious. Sad…”
He laughs one more time. “Now you know how I felt the first two times you died! Only fair…” he trails off into an animated chuckle. Feels like there’s a cold weight in my gut.
“Look, Kay,” leaning on his bed with my arms feels good, makes me feel close to him in a way I haven’t since he’s been laid up, “Can we… can we just dial it down, a minute?” I’m ashamed that there are tears in my eyes. I’ve been playing along joke for joke. I’ve been obsessing over the goddamn curtains to avoid this—
“…hey, John? Look at me?” His eyes are clear and strong and beautiful. He speaks so softly, so earnestly, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry you’ve got nothing—“
“John?” I look back at him again. I don’t feel so ashamed. “I am sorry. Truth is… I don’t know how to act either. I feel good. Really, I do. There’s no pain at all. First time in… how many years? And I’ve got you right here with me.”
“I feel so selfish, Kay. I… love you. I didn’t ever think about this…”
“Sure we did! All the time! Seems like every other mission on the Normandy we were saying ‘goodbye’ forever.”
“That was different. That would’ve been… tragic. Part of our duty.”
“And this is…?”
“So damn quiet,” I laugh again, “I shouldn’t be sad. I’m going… to miss you so much. And that feels selfish.”
Feels like I have no right to be sad. On the Normandy, every kiss could’ve been our last. But then I had years and years knowing for certain Kaidan would be next to me when I woke up in the morning. Civilian life felt like cheating, and this was the price. Back then, life and death were uncertain. The only thing I knew was that I loved Kaidan Alenko, and I wanted to live to be with him.
For years, life was as certain as that love. And today, death was just as certain.
“John, you’re the most selfless, giving man I’ve ever known. That’s part of what I love about you. But… there’s nothing wrong with being sad.”
“It’ll distract me from the good memories…”
“It won’t, babe.” He shakes his head, “It really won’t. We’ve both been soldiers for so long… seen so much… you have to quarantine your sorrow to get by. But that’s not the way it has to be.”
“I just… want to remember you the right way… I want…”
“I know you. I know how you think if you let yourself be sad, or look back for a moment that you’ll be lost. Don’t be scared of yourself, John. Don’t you know how much I love you?”
“I know.” Part of me wants to tell him that he should relax, stop talking so much and rest… but there’s the selfish part of me again: wanting him to go on, wanting to hear every last thing he’s going to say to me.
“Think I don’t know you’re human?”
“You know that better than anyone, Kay.”
“Right. So trust me. It’s okay to feel sad.” He’s tugging at my arm weakly, and I finally catch the hint and stand up, hugging his frail form on the bed. “We built a hell of a life. I believe in us. I don’t think a little sadness because I’m gone is gonna wreck the memory of that, do you?”
“…no.”
“Alright.”
“I’m happy… about that life, though. I don’t want you to think that I’m not. Really I don’t.”
“I believe you—“
“—It’s just… I’ve always been so afraid to imagine life without you.” I’m crying now, it feels strange, like tears from someone else’s eyes. “I never planned… I just…”
He can’t hold me very tightly, but I can feel how hard he’s trying. I know him well enough for that. Maybe he knows me well enough to know what I’m saying even though I can’t really say it.
“Shepard…” He hasn’t called me that in years. “This is… this is just right. We’re way past our happy ending. Hell, we’re way past the epilogue to our story, John.”
He’s right. We’ve been here before, at the end, and it hasn’t happened. We both came back alive from mission after mission where we should’ve died: a little worse for the wear, and a little more in love. We started over, a whole new life. We got married. We started a family. Made up our minds we were going to die quietly in hospitals… during the Reaper War, an opportunity to die at Kaidan’s side in a hospital would’ve been a dream come true.
“It’s a pretty good story.” It’s easy to admit that at least.
“Yeah. Being sad isn’t selfish, it’s just human. You taught me that. Don’t cut corners on your life just cuz I’m not gonna be around anymore, huh? Let yourself feel everything.”
I wasn’t ready for today. Kaidan’s been that for me: the one who helped me plan for the future when I didn’t think I had one. The one who helped me live for the moment when I was ready to run my civilian life with military tactics and precision. He teaches me every day not to cut corners. It was the first lesson he taught me, and it’s going to be the last.
“I’ll just… try to keep the deck dry…” That makes him laugh. Good.
“Long as you’re not worried about me. No regrets. I’m so happy with the life I’ve lived. Do you believe me?”
“I believe you… I do.”
“I love you so much, John.”
“I love you too, Kaidan.”
We talk for a while. Well over an hour. I don’t remember what about. I open the curtains, and he smiles. But I’m back at his bedside in a moment. Nothing is distracting me anymore. He falls asleep, stirring once in a while, and we exchange a few words.
“It’s… been a good ride…” he says, swallowing hard.
He says he loves me, and I tell him the same, every time he stirs.
When the monitors report that brain function has ceased, I say it again—whisper it after the memory of my husband.
The doctors come in.
And my kids.
And my friends.
There’s a funeral and a tombstone in the ground.
And there’s years of living in our house alone.
And I’m sad, for a while. In a quiet way none of my friends or family see, only Kaidan would notice.
But what a man I love. What a man I knew. How strange it is to find it in me to miss him every day and to have that ache transform itself into such incredible memories. These are discoveries I wish I could share with him.
mareel requested a fic about David Anderson and Kahlee Sanders, possibly also involving Mshenko.
Of COURSE I had to put Kaidan and Shepard in this, because I love them. This is sorta a related story to ‘Someone’s Waiting,’ which I wrote a while ago. They give context to each other, though could be read in any order. Or alone?
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Tiberius Towers was a nice building. In a nice part of town. Well, sort of: the Silver Sun Strip was obviously not David’s cup of tea, but it was a short walk from the sushi restaurant they tried to visit whenever their schedules aligned. Kahlee had been supposed to meet him downstairs in the lobby to go there, but she had already figured out which apartment was Anderson’s, and went up to ring the doorbell directly.
“Kahlee!” Anderson’s face on the vid-comm looked shocked, “You’re early!”
“Punctual’s what I am, Captain. You said 21:00.”
“…it’s 20:30.”
“Yeah, but everyone shows up a half-hour early.”
“Not everyone,” he looked so pleased on the tiny screen, “Just you…”
“Open up, Captain,” she held up the wine she’d brought. “I didn’t come early to share this with the vid-comm.”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
His hands were on her hips the moment she walked in the door, just looking at her. She couldn’t say it didn’t make her feel nice. She was pretty convinced David didn’t use that smile with anyone else. She rubbed a hand up his chest, touching his face. When he leaned into her touch, she could feel the new wrinkles that had formed around his eyes since the last time they could afford to be this close.
It had been a while since she’d seen him like this: out of uniform, but not quite in casual clothes either. He was dressed in black slacks and a coal-gray patterned button down, the kind he’d wear when they went on a date. It had been months.
“I like the shirt,” she teased, tugging at the collar until David chuckled, “I’m glad it’s soft. I’m going to be wearing it in the morning.”
“Good thing I have other shirts.” He pulled her in, hands behind the small of her back. It looked like there was more to the joke he wanted to say, but forgot about it the minute she winked.
“What’re you looking at, David?” she grinned. It was a game they played. David’s answer was always different: saucy or sweet or teasing depending on how he was feeling—
“The most beautiful woman in the world.” That was new.
“Then you better kiss me, hm?” He did, and it was a kiss straight out of the vids, even though she hadn’t seen any vids since she was a girl. She would’ve liked for it to go on for a while, but holding the bottle of wine was becoming annoying when there was so much else she’d rather be doing with her hands.
“Welcome home, Miss Sanders,” David breathed when she pulled away. She pecked his bottom lip and turned to set the bottle down… but there wasn’t a table in sight. There was no furniture, in fact. Save for the piano in the corner by the window.
“Oh David, how long have you been living here?” She pulled away from his arms and wandered into the empty living room.
“Only about three weeks.” He padded behind, keeping close.
“No furniture?”
“Not yet, I… wanted it to be all ready for you when you visited but,” his hands wrapped around her from behind as she looked into the fire. “Since it’s our place, I figured you’d want some input.”
“You just want me to do your decorating for you,” she leaned her head back as he began to kiss her throat.
“I want you feel like you belong here,” he took the bottle from her hands and set it on the hearth, “I want you to be happy…”
She turned in his arms and took his face between her hands, brought their lips together. “It’s a beautiful apartment, David,” she whispered when they pulled apart. “And I can’t wait to see…” she walked her fingers up his body from belt to collar, “…every inch of it. But you said you had an announcement?”
He laughed, the deep throaty sound he made sometimes only after Kahlee had really softened him up with enough good-natured flirting.
“I’ve just been selected as the first human member of the Citadel Council,” he rolled his eyes, but still beamed.
“David! That’s… that’s incredible news!” She flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him close.
“It won’t be announced till next week but… I wanted to tell you. So you’d actually believe me when I told you I got this apartment so we could be together. I know you have your own thing now that Grissom’s finally happening, but when you’ve got some time—“
“Shh,” she put a finger to his lips, “David… I’m happy for you. I’m happy for us. And I hope you’ve got some wine glasses so we can drink the congratulations I brought.”
“You figured I’d get it, huh?”
“I trusted the Council to do the right thing,” she smirked, picking up the wine and stepping away from David’s arms.
“Well, I may not have furniture, but I bought a full set of wine glasses just about an hour ago.” He turned into the spartan kitchen and produced two flutes. They bickered over how best to open the bottle without a corkscrew, David wanting to fetch his knife from upstairs, and Kahlee finally sawing the top of the bottle off with a clean swipe from her omni-blade.
“We’re drinking the bottle, Councilor.”
++
“Kaidan, hey!”
Shepard sat up, trying not to wince when his skin grafts pulled with the sudden movement. The tiny apartment the Alliance had given him while recuperating was old, but the neighborhood was largely unscathed in the Reaper invasion.
“Sorry I’m late,” Kaidan kissed Shepard’s head, undid his scarf and handed him a bottle of wine, “Wanted to pick up something special.”
“…’54! This is a nice vintage! What’re we celebrating?”
“I’m celebrating finding the bottle,” Kaidan laughed, lightly slapping his cheeks to chase away the rosy hue and the cold. Shepard waved him over and even made like he was going to stand up to make Kaidan hurry. When he stooped down, Shepard kissed his red nose, then pulled him in to kiss him on the lips.
“I’m excited to give it a try,” he said, nipping at the dimple forming in Kaidan’s cheek. “Glad you’re getting to see London a little bit.”
“Most of it’s still rubble, and I’d rather be walking the streets with you,” he stroked a hand down Shepard’s face. “But it is… a beautiful city.”
“Yeah, even from the window, I can see why Anderson liked it so much,” he sighed, staring down at the street, the foot traffic becoming sparser and sparser as the power curfew approached. “But seriously, where did you find this wine?”
“I’ve gotta have some secrets,” Kaidan smirked, “You’re feeling so much better. Thought you deserved a treat.”
They’d been living together here since Shepard had left the hospital. A lot of the time, Kaidan was off on Spectre business, but he had demanded to be stationed on Earth unless he was absolutely needed elsewhere. It didn’t surprise Shepard that Kaidan was so often needed someplace else in the galaxy—not with his record—but it frustrated Kaidan to be away. It frustrated Shepard to have him away, make no mistake, but the kinds of ‘hello’s Kaidan gave when he got back always made it better.
“You deserve the treat, you’ve been doing something. I’ve been sitting by this window, reading all day…”
“Hey hey hey,” Kaidan settled onto his lap, checking his face for any signs of discomfort, “Stop, okay? We’ve been over this.”
So they didn’t go over it again, they made out instead. Shepard couldn’t complain about that.
++
Two glasses of wine later, and Kahlee sat next to David at the piano, leaning on his shoulder as he played variations on one of her favorite songs. They had decided not to go out after all, and they hadn’t been disappointed with their choice.
“Of course there were people on the Citadel who don’t think I’m the best person to represent humanity. Can’t say I blame them, I’m not exactly crazy about the idea of being a politician either. They’ve all had their say,” David said, playing a tinkling arpeggio to take a moment to sip at his wine.
“But after a recommendation from Commander Shepard, who could say no?” Kahlee supplied.
“That’s about right,” David’s playing never wavered, but the smile had faded from his face.
“…are you alright?”
“Getting selected for the Council made me think about Shepard all over again.”
“I’m so sorry, David. I know how important he was to you.”
“Last official act as a Spectre is his letter officially recommending me to the office? How could I say no?”
“He’s gone too soon,” Kahlee kissed his shoulder softly, gently running her hand up and down his spine. Shepard was always a sore subject, but Kahlee needed to ask about him every once in a while to make sure David was coping. He’d lost people before, but no one like Shepard. “He knew you didn’t want the job, why do you think he recommended you?”
“I fail to make first human Spectre, get made first human Councilor instead. I think Shepard appreciated the irony in that,” David laughed. “I don’t think he ever wanted to be a Spectre, but he knew he was the right choice, knew what it could do for humanity. For the galaxy. And he wanted to help people. He knew I would make a good councilor. And I will. So he made the recommendation.”
“He made a good call, there.”
“Shepard was full of good calls.” He stumbled over a few notes, but recovered immediately: spinning the mistake into a jazz progression.
“He got that from you, David. You believed in him, supported him when everyone thought he was unstable after that thing with the thresher maws. Supported his candidacy for Spectre. Gave him the Normandy. You rubbed off on him, Councilor.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he stopped playing, stared deep into his wine glass as he picked it up. “He was like another son to me, Kahlee. And to bury an empty casket…”
Kahlee kissed his cheek and let him drink his wine. “He’d be proud of you, David.”
“I certainly like to think so. Lord knows I was proud of him.” Anderson kissed her forehead, “Got a message the other day from Commander Alenko—he served under me on the Normandy, the biotic? He was there on the Citadel, still bleeding in his armor when Shepard recommended me. Message was wishing me luck, thanking me for the recommendation for his promotion. He said the same thing.”
“That Shepard would be proud of you?”
“Yes,” he played a stray snatch of an old melody on the low-end of the keyboard, “I’m glad he’s picked himself up. Hadn’t seen him since the funeral—Shepard’s funeral, that is. The private one. All in the family. I think he and Shepard were in love.”
“Really?” Kahlee remembered a few stories about the biotic.
“Nothing outright, nothing either of them would admit to, I’m sure,” he grinned and Kahlee rolled her eyes. “Sound familiar?”
“Did you talk to the Commander about this?”
“Shepard? Alenko?”
“Either.”
“No, not my place. Was a wound I wouldn’t want to open at this stage. Still, I feel for him. Those two would’ve had a good chance together.”
Kahlee watched the cars shoot past the window while David returned both hands to the piano, singing gently under his breath as he played. She could never get him to actually sing, not like he did when they were younger. It was a shy half-voice, most of the words mumbled rather than sung outright.
“Of course, you don’t buy a couch, or a dining-room table: you buy a piano, first.” Kahlee laughed and pulled him off the bench.
“Couldn’t help myself. I’ve always wanted my own. I’ll have a lot more time for all the things I’ve wanted in my life, now,” he whispered. David settled his arms around her and, humming the song he had been playing, he swayed to the music, sweeping her about the empty apartment. Kahlee laughed.
“Tell me you at least bought a bed?”
“…not exactly…” he said after a moment, dancing just a little slower as they neared the fireplace. She chuckled again and leaned back to unbutton his shirt.
“Good thing this rug is so comfy…”
++
Shepard and Kaidan toasted just as the snow started to fall. The wine was incredible—better than Shepard was used to, better even than his sky-high expectations. The way Kaidan had opened it, reverently poured it, told him all about how wine was made and the work and the love people like his parents put into it: it all helped banish the feeling things like this always stirred up in Shepard. Survivor’s guilt. The wine had survived the war when so many friends hadn’t. A bottle of wine. He had survived. And he was drinking the wine.
Normally that idea would cripple him, but as they sat watching the snow fall, the wine was just wine. Kaidan was just his boyfriend, and not a hero. And he was… just John. Kaidan knew how to set him at ease.
“I’ve got a couple free days coming up,” Kaidan said, tapping Shepard’s foot with his own. When they had to sit in separate chairs, Kaidan tended to get impatient, needing to at least be touching feet. “I figured we could go visit Anderson’s grave?”
“Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
“I know a place that still sells flowers, maybe a wreath.”
“Yeah.”
Kaidan chuckled, “Would you believe I actually sent Kahlee a message at Grissom to ask her what kind of flowers he liked?”
Contacting Kahlee Sanders was something Kaidan never did lightly: she would doubtless try to talk him out of his Spectre and Alliance duties and into a teaching position at Grissom Academy. But, since Shepard had told him about Anderson’s last words aboard the Crucible, he’d been a bit less evasive.
“What did she say?” Shepard chuckled.
“She had no idea!” He sipped at his wine, “But she said that she loves freesias…”
“Then I bet Anderson would’ve loved them!”
“She also mentioned she needed a picture of you for her scrapbook,” Kaidan cast him a sidelong look.
“Oh really?” Shepard smirked in return, “last I talked to her she wanted a picture of us for that scrapbook.”
“Dammit,” Kaidan scowled playfully, “When did you talk to her?”
“I’ve got a lot of time to write these days.”
“You’re healing. You’ve earned it.”
“Maybe. Wish I could be out there with you.”
The power shut down abruptly, only the heaters remaining on. With all the generators off, the night was quiet as the snowfall, and the city-shine off the heavy clouds softly dissipated as the city went dark. It would be another moment before the emergency lights went on, but for a moment the darkness was absolute outside the window. And, in the light of the single candle Kaidan had lit when he opened the wine, he saw the reflection of Kaidan and him. They sat, tired bodies sprawled out in separate chairs.
“Look at those guys,” Shepard mumbles under his breath, pointing at their mirrored forms.
“I’m looking,” Kaidan replied, smiling at Shepard’s reflection in the glass. “They look like they’re doing alright, don’t they?”
“They sure do. They look tired,” Shepard grinned, sipping at his wine. The emergency blue streetlights activated along the street.
“Come on, soldier,” Kaidan stood, took both wine glasses and set them on the counter. It must have been a special occasion for Kaidan to leave the cleaning for the morning. “I wanna go to bed with you. Been waiting too damn long.”
He pulled Shepard out of the chair and kissed him deep, all but dancing him over to the bed.
++
The floor was soft, and perfect for making love like teenagers. But afterwards, dozing there for a few minutes, David and Kahlee had switched off the fireplace and climbed the stairs to the bedroom.
“Oh David,” Kahlee laughed when she stepped into the bedroom. “You crack me up.”
David had very obviously been sleeping in the middle of the giant bedroom on a regulation Alliance cot. But on the floor next to it was a vase full of fresh-cut freesias.
“Like I said, I would’ve rather had everything ready for you,” he said, looking apologetic, “But I haven’t had a lot of time and… was hoping you’d help make some of the decisions. You take the cot, I’ll be just fine on the floor.”
“No, David, no.” Kahlee’s perfect evening was not going to end this way. So, a few minutes later, she had David wrapped in her arms, each of them trying their best to share the tiny cot.
“This takes me back,” David chuckled, and Kahlee could feel the deep rumble in her own chest, pressed to his back.
“You can take the man out of the military…” she teased.
“You’re not going to be comfortable like this.” He shifted, “I’ll just sleep on the floor.”
“David,” she squeezed him tighter. “I haven’t seen you in months, and nothing is going to make me more comfortable than this. So stay!”
“Alright,” he sighed. “…what do you think of our apartment?”
“It’s big,” Kahlee muttered, letting her eyes close. “It’s nice.”
“Yes. Plenty of space…”
“For a family…?”
“I’d thought about it.”
“Me too.”
“…Although,” David said, yawning wide. “It’s strange having my own place like this. Makes me think about London.”
“Oh yeah,” Kahlee smiled into his back. She had good memories of London, one of the first times they’d ever gone on a date. Before they even dated. Seeing David open up and show her around his hometown. He was in his element, there. “I miss London, once in a while.”
“Me too. Haven’t been there in years…”
“Go to sleep, Councilor. Tomorrow I’ll order some furniture. Maybe we can plan a trip home for you, hm?”
She always thought they’d end up in London together, someday. Anderson would never admit it, for now. Meanwhile, buying this apartment was a big step towards him settling down seriously. It would never quite feel like their home. But for now, on the small cot, it was a stepping stone, and Kahlee was sharing it with the man she loved.
++
Shepard finally felt like he could really sleep: he and Kaidan shared the tiny twin bed the Alliance had provided for him in the apartment. Both of them were big men, and the bed was too small for either man individually. But with the way Kaidan tended to hold him all through the night—pressed right into his body no matter how big the bed—it didn’t matter too much.
“Can’t wait till I’m healed. Spend all day doing nothing and I can’t get to sleep,” Shepard whispered in the darkness.
“Liar,” Kaidan muttered sleepily against the back of his neck. “You’re already half-asleep.”
That was true.
“Least I’ll be out of this place.”
“It’s just a stepping stone, till you get back on your feet.”
“Then it can be you and me. Finally.”
“Finally.” Kaidan’s arms squeezed tight around him.
“Want to see London with you tomorrow, at least,” he yawned. “I hope it’s everything you hoped it would be, back when there were Reapers crawling all over it.”
“It’s nice…” Kaidan sighed. “But, if I’m honest, I miss your apartment on the Citadel.”
“Our apartment.”
“…our apartment,” Kaidan agreed at last.
“You just miss the big tub. The big bed…”
“I miss the way it made you smile when we were there on shore leave.” Kaidan yawned again, kissing the back of Shepard’s neck after, “Big smile.”
“…go to sleep, lover,” Shepard whispered, and it seemed Kaidan complied almost instantly. They’d both sleep well tonight, despite the tiny bed and the abysmal apartment. And, in the morning, Shepard would wake up to Kaidan’s face for the first time in almost two weeks.
But, at the same time, he couldn’t wait for the time where he would wake up to that sight every morning in their bedroom on the Citadel.
The constant staring he had received all day had been bad enough, but to hear a familiar voice actually catching him at this conference would be truly insufferable. Still, he might have known: as a beacon of Shepard’s idea of galactic cooperation, the entire crew of the Normandy had been invited to the symposium.
“Quarian.” He crossed his arms and leaned against a pillar immediately outside the large lecture hall from which he’d just emerged. He did his best to appear as if he had been standing this way for some time.
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” there was a sly grin in Tali’s voice. “I wouldn’t have thought the ‘First Symposium on Galactic Culture and Inter-Species Cooperation’ would really be something you’d be interested in.”
“You are correct,” Javik said disdainfully. “Commander Shepard suggested it to help me ‘fit in’ with the primitives of this cycle.”
“Shepard always was an optimist…” Tali quipped, folding her arms. Javik hummed scornfully. “I don’t think you need any help: you served on the Normandy for months, you learned from the best!”
Javik remained impassive, “The only mercy I have had since awakening in this cycle is discovering that none of you are good representatives for your species.”
“Bah!” Tali laughed, “You love us!”
“I have told you, I need you functional to…” he trailed off.
The Reapers were gone. He no longer ‘needed’ anybody, in that respect.
“Is to…” Tali hesitated, “Keep you company at your next workshop?”
It was obvious she was trying to placate him, and it was a pathetic gesture.
“To serve as an object lesson for the need of a restored Prothean Empire,” he finished.
“Well,” Tali’s voice was thickly sarcastic, “I guess you should be presenting at this symposium.”
“I was invited many times, I refused them all.”
She still stood there though, idly adjusting her shawl as the crowds of aliens swarmed around them.
“So…” the humor was back in her tone, “I wouldn’t have taken you for a poetry lover!”
“I… am not.”
“Come on! You just walked out, and I saw you sitting in the back of the hall! It’s nothing to be ashamed of: Dr. Fionavar’s workshop on galactic poetry is probably the only enjoyable session I’ve gone to at this thing. And I’ve been here for two days.”
“I find the poetry of this Cycle to be lacking substance. In my Cycle, an epic poem could take two solar days to recite.”
“Wow, I didn’t actually know that protheans valued poetry. Is that true?”
“No.”
“Keelah,” she buried her face in one hand and shook her head, “Why do I bother?”
Javik and his team were camped on the highest level in the ruin—what had been a skyscraper towering over the rest of the metropolis. Once this city had wrapped around the entire planet: a major hub of galactic trade populated by billions of protheans. It had been devastated before Javik’s birth, and was nothing now but a ruin. Still, for tonight, three young prothean warriors waited for daybreak, watching the stars wheel overhead.
“Javik,” said Shineer with a yawn. “Go on and recite some poetry so we can pass the time.”
That piqued D’zok’s interest and she was on him in a second.
“You recite poetry, Javik?”
“No,” Javik rolled his eyes and finally got the fire lit. “Shineer, as usual, thinks because his mother was a blood-tracker that he is able to spy on me.”
“Could be if I wanted to be!”
“You are only barely a soldier!” Javik laughed, and though Shineer threw a pebble at his head, Javik’s companions laughed as well.
“I saw you reading some when we were camped out last week!”
“You saw nothing.”
“I should’ve known,” D’zok stooped next to Javik and added some dried sticks to the fire. “Memorize any poetry and it might knock out your sense of humor.”
“Humor is just telling the truth with a sense of timing,” he said it dryly, but the firelight caught his composure crack into a smile when Shineer balked again.
“I hear that our people’s poetry was very sad, even before the war,” D’zok sat cross-legged and warmed her hands over the fire.
“It wasn’t,” Javik said mildly, poking at a flaming stick with a stick of his own until it crumbled under the heat. “Not all of it. We wrote love songs and comedies and tragedies just like the primitives.”
“Aha!” Shineer plopped to the ground and punched Javik’s shoulder. “How would you know that if you weren’t reading poetry?”
“You have a rock’s attention to detail. I said I could not recite it, not that I hadn’t read it. If you ever learn to read, Shineer, you may read all kinds of things.”
Even Shineer laughed. D’zok always thought it was a gift that Javik could make even the butt of the joke laugh at himself.
“Come on,” Tali said at last, “Let’s meet up with Garrus and we’ll all go to that martial arts demonstration together.”
Javik hesitated for only a moment before following after. The number of species at the symposium was truly impressive, in larger numbers and more varied than he had met on his time aboard the Normandy. And certainly more sentient races than he had ever known in his own cycle.
And most of them stared at him as he passed.
Liara had asked him to present the lecture on prothean culture, but he had refused for exactly this reason. The presentation was based on the book he and Liara had co-written anyhow. He had said as much as he had cared to say there, why should he repeat it all again for people too lazy to read it or too stupid to understand it?
“So,” Tali said hesitantly when they’d been walking in silence for some time, “Other than the poetry lecture, most of the sessions I’ve seen today have been pretty boring. I’m supposed to present later on today at the ‘Rannoch Reborn’ panel, and I can’t help thinking that I should have prepared some jokes or something. I don’t want to be boring like these other presenters.”
“Anyone attending a panel where they hope to understand another culture for any reason other than to vanquish it is destined for a fate worse than boredom.”
“…you’re such a ray of sunshine.” She looked as if she was going to continue when Garrus waved to them from across the atrium.
“Javik, you’re the last person I expected to see at this thing,” he said as he walked up and slid his arm around Tali’s shoulders.
“Then you lack imagination.”
“…ummm. Uhh. Hmmm.” Garrus carefully glanced down at Tali.
“Ignore him,” she put her arm around Garrus’ waist, “He’s in a bad mood because he had to sneak out of his poetry lecture early to avoid being seen.”
“Poetry?” Garrus chuckled, “I always knew you had a poet’s heart.”
Javik scowled and turned to Tali.
“You are much funnier when inebriated, quarian.”
“You’re much funnier when I’m inebriated,” she retorted, and the three began walking across the atrium toward the martial arts expo. “Well, it’s a good thing for both of us I didn’t come empty handed.”
There was a slurping sound from inside Tali’s helmet and she giggled. Javik blinked.
“You… you have alcohol inside your suit?”
“Had plenty of time to plan,” she said smugly, “keelah there’s no way I was going to stand another boring day of this symposium sober.”
“You’re so bad.” Garrus pulled her in tightly and nuzzled into her shawl and she giggled, slapping his chest. Javik’s eyes narrowed and looked up at the clock: there was another 7 hours of the conference to endure, and after Liara’s presentation next hour, there would doubtless be even more gawkers in the corridors.
“If you share your alcohol with me,” Javik said quietly, “I will tell you the secret of the Prothean Death Stare.”
“Prothean Death Stare?” Tali and Garrus said together.
“A technique so secret in the Empire that only a few knew it at the height of the Empire’s power,” he confided. Tali and Garrus exchanged a skeptical look.
“Even if I believed you, it’s dextro alcohol,” Tali shrugged. “It would kill you.”
“I used to eat quarians,” Javik growled. “I will be able to ingest their alcohol.”
Her stare was impassive through her visor, and there was another long slurping sound from behind the glass.
“Were we at least a delicacy?”
“Wait,” Garrus held up a talon, “Did you ogle them or eat them? I thought you said that protheans considered quarians to be attractive.”
“I did say that, but not to you.”
“We trade ‘Javik’ stories,” Tali said brightly.
“Amusing.”
“Oh no, not just the amusing ones…” Garrus smirked.
“Cheer up, ‘Prothy.’” Tali handed him a pouch of warm alcohol, “You’ll have to find your own straw.”
The martial arts demonstration was certainly well executed, if not actually interesting. Javik found it difficult to concentrate. Clearly, the majority of these techniques were not for him. Javik, on reflex, began observing the techniques in order to plan a counter; but almost immediately he realized there was no point. He was not going to be reclaiming the galaxy in the name of the Prothean Empire. And he shouldn’t want that either.
So instead he was merely bored.
James Vega had met them at the lecture hall—himself actually set to demonstrate Alliance weaponry at the ‘Tools that Won the Fight’ exhibition tomorrow—and sat next to Javik the whole time.
“Interesting,” Javik said, surveying a batarian grappler demonstrate a famously brutal hold meant to be performed while chained.
“Hell yeah!” James exclaimed, having missed the sarcasm in Javik’s voice. “Saw a batarian slave-trader try that move once on a vorcha. But the vorcha was pretty slippery. Wouldn’ta slipped away from this guy.”
“He is a poor slave-trader if he is enchained.”
“I mean… you don’t have to be chained,” James said, scratching his nose. “This guy’s just showing off.”
“If he would show off for a crowd, his enemies will already know how to defeat him.”
“Still, I mean, hand-to-hand with a vorcha,” Vega ignord him, “Tough. They’ve got a lot of stamina.”
“That is because in my cycle we used them as part of a complicated delivery system. They ran beneath our cities in underground tunnels delivering sensitive files to high profile members of the Empire.”
“Whoa! Really?”
“No.”
“Uhhh…”
“I had never heard of a vorcha till I saw them in the Commander’s mind,” Javik folded his arms as a turian hand-to-hand specialist took the floor. “…he greatly admires their voices…”
“Whoa!” James had already stopped paying attention as the turian executed a series of stunning bobs and kicks on a number of movingtargets. “Come on, Buggy! Even you gotta admit that was pretty awesome.”
“An able defense for countering the deficiencies of having only two eyes.”
Several bystanders finally turned to give him a nasty look—though one batarian nodded approvingly—though all went wide-eyed when they saw who was speaking and pretended they hadn’t noticed him.
“So none of this impresses you?” James shook his head with a chuckle.
“Would you be impressed if you were watching the pyjak cinema?”
“Varen ballet…” Garrus mumbled darkly under his breath.
“Thresher maw musicals…” Tali chortled.
“…okay that’d be a little weird,” James said at last. “But impressive’s still impressive.”
“Forget it, Vega,” Tali patted him on the shoulder, “Javik’s never going to be impressed with anything when he knows the secrete Prothean Death Stare.”
“The what now?”
“Death Stare,” Garrus leaned forward to talk past Tali’s helmet, “An advanced practitioner of the technique could kill a thresher maw from a hundred paces away with nothing but his stare.”
“’PING!’” Tali flicked her fingers out from her eyes, then made a jabbing motion at her chest “’WHOOSH! GRUUUK!’ Dead. Just like that.”
Javik smiled darkly.
“Really?” James swiveled around and Javik let the smile slide from his face.
“It could turn a man to powder.”
“That’s… you’re fucking with me, right?”
Their team had finally gotten the station operational again. 33 of the 40 decks were still open to space; but seven decks was still enough room to regather their forces—and the ore refining facilities were still operational.
Sixteen hours later, Reapers were swarming everywhere.
“I sent the warning signal,” D’zok called, diving behind cover where Shineer and Javik were ducking.
“Unless they have indoctrinated troops with them, they could send any message. Lure the fleet in.”
“Then we blow it up. We—“ before Javik could finish, a Collector leapt over their barricade and pinned him to the deck, his rifle skittering away. In an instant, Shineer dove into the fray. He snapped the neck of the monster just as it had raised its hands to tear at Javik’s face.
“Javik,” Shineer panted as he dragged Javik back behind cover, “Are you alright?”
“I—Yes.” Javik picks his rifle back up with a resolute growl. D’zok tossed a grenade over the barricade and after the explosion, there was quiet for a moment.
“We need to move, now!” she barked. And they ran toward the reactor level.
“Well, Shineer,” Javik said dryly as they ran. “I was going to say that, at least, if the Reapers indoctrinated you, they’d be getting more trouble than they bargained for.”
“He’s fine, alright,” D’zok cackled as they entered the elevator.
“Very funny, Javik. You’d think I hadn’t just saved your life.”
“You’re so guarded, for all we know about you after this many years, I doubt you’d ever tell us any more if we were indoctrinated anyway!” D’zok laughed.
“That’s certain!” Shineer slapped Javik on the back. “Only person you ever have a long conversation with is yourself when you think no one’s listening!”
“It is my only opportunity for intelligent conversation.”
The two laughed as they inspected their weapons, the elevator crawling down the derelict station to the reactor room.
“Place is going to be swarming, Javik,” D’zok grinned, “This could be the end. If you were ever going to teach us the Secret Biotic Death Stare, now’s the time.”
“There is no such thing,” He leaned back against the wall.
“I knew it!” Shineer shook his head smugly, “I knew it all along!”
“You believed it for seven years.”
“Fool enough to trust you!” Shineer chortled.
“No, just gullible.”
“Excuse me?”
Javik blinked, an asari with an icy expression stood before him.
“You are Javik, the prothean, correct? How do you do?”
“Two months ago I was planning my own death,” Javik replied dryly, “Now I am watching primitives celebrate how primitive they are. I could be better.”
The asari narrowed her eyes.
“Sorry lady,” James leaned over in his seat to arrest her attention. “This is actually my friend Tommy. He’s is constume—“
“I am Matriarch Rekalah. I am about to attend Dr. T’soni’s talk about prothean culture.” The way she spoke Liara’s name was thick with scorn. “I myself am an expert in your people. Am I to understand you will not be available for questioning at this panel?”
Garrus cleared his throat, “You’ve got the wrong—“
“—Yes,” Javik said, making eye contact at last. “I will not be at Dr. T’soni’s conference.”
“Hmph,” Rekalah crossed her arms with a haughty sneer, “Leave it to T’soni to put together such a shoddy lecture! I might have expected this from such a haphazard author! Very well, I will ask my questions of you now.”
“Look, Matriarch Rekalah,” Tali said mildly, “My friend here is enjoying… erm… tolerating the martial arts exhibition—“
“Please, girl,” the Matriarch held up her hand in Tali’s face, “In nine hundred years I have learned not to waste my time with impudent children.”
“I’m an admiral of the quarian fleet, bosh’tet,” Tali murmured under her breath and there was another slurping sound from inside her helmet.
“Ask your questions, asari.”
“It recently surfaced that evidence was found in the temple of Athame that the representation of the goddess is based on protheans. To what extent did protheans influence early asari religious development?”
“We founded it entirely,” Javik folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Your people used to worship a venomous cat native to your world. They would smear mud onto their skin and cover themselves in its fur.”
Tali and Garrus exchanged a reserved look, and James went wide-eyed, trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone. And so, for the next ten minutes, Javik ‘answered’ all of the matriarch’s questions:
“Protheans live for three thousand years, but must frequently drink the blood of subject races in order to do so.”
“All prothean children emerge from the womb utilizing a mass-reducing biotic field. For prothean women, birth is virtually painless.”
“Our biggest holiday was called ‘Klibbet-Blika-Bloothy-Goobidy-D’lu’ and—yes I’ll wait while you write that down. On this day we would gather together and force a krogan to fight a salarian in a vat full of fruit juice. Then we would eat the victor.”
“I was known to the asari as the deity Pro’lar—Hm? I am not surprised, your religion seems to have softened very much since your people were useful to us—Yes. Pro’lar: god of true testimony.”
By the time Rekalah was content, James had practically bitten into his skin to suppress his laughter. Tali, on the other hand, was leaning back into Garrus’ chest, taking in the show with undisguised relish.
“Thank you, Javik,” Rekalah said proudly. “I am presenting a lecture on pre-historic asari culture, and with these new details, I’ll certainly distinguish myself among my peers on the panel!”
“Amusing.”
“And afterwards, I’ll stop in at T’soni’s lecture and make sure that your story is represented accurately when I pin her to the wall in the question and answer portion!” She switched on her omni-tool, “I’ve downloaded my contact information into your omni-tool, should you wish to speak with a real researcher! I would be honored to show you how truly advanced scholars preserve the past!”
With that she swept away, and James’ omni-tool bleeped.
“…she downloaded it into mine,” he snickered. “Should I… Is she trying to tell me something? Should I go for this?”
“I do not use these primitive devices.”
“Every once in a while,” Garrus laughed, “not often—but every once in a while, I forget what a bastard you can be, Javik.”
“She is so screwed when she goes to Liara’s talk,” Tali was in stitches.
“More so,” Javik allowed himself the faintest smile, “Since I have answered all of the questions she asked correctly in the book Liara and I produced. It is obvious she did not read it.”
“That’ll add some spice to the conference,” Garrus laughed.
On the mat, an asari hand to hand expert was demonstrating biotically amplified martial stances. Her movements reminded Javik of Shineer, his clunky footwork always putting him in the right position to return fire.
How, even in their final fight…
No. D’zok and Shineer were ghosts. He was still alive.
“How can we be sure you ally did tell the truth when you were writing the book?” Tali giggled, gently slapping his shoulder.
“You can’t,” he smiled wickedly.
“I trust Liara.” Garrus shook his head, “Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”
Javik frowned.
“I’m certainly very excited to be working with you, Javik,” Liara said brightly, letting Javik into her apartment. “Our first session was so productive. I’m sorry, let me pick up some of Feron’s things. There, that’s better. We’ll sit at the kitchen table.”
Javik grunted casually and sat in the stiff chair. Liara, however, continued to bustle about the kitchen.
“I know you don’t usually accept dinner invitations, but I’ve just cooked quite a bit and figured I would offer it to you anyway.”
He raised his hand to dismiss the food, but she plopped the tray down in front of him.
“Plukaran radishes served on a bed of rucksi-ting,” she said triumphantly indicating each dish as she pointed, “And over here we have masserk berries and a groclah broth.”
“But…” Javik blinked at the food, “All of those ingredients are extinct…”
“They were extinct,” she planted both hands on the table and gave a victorious smile. “Until a particularly industrious information broker found preserved pollen samples and cloned them. And only she has access to them. There’s some salarian oranges in there too, since you seemed to like them at that restaurant two weeks ago. Oh and let’s not forget the main course!” She all but dropped another tray on the table in front of Javik, “Fish.”
“I do not—“
“—and now,” she sat across from him at the table, folding her napkin casually on her lap with supernatural poise. “I would like to discuss the fact that more than half the information you gave me in our first session was false. See, I actually have done quite a lot of research on protheans. And it’s true we still know next to nothing about your people. But, the questions I asked you last time I know the answers to.”
“A spy and a chef, if only you had focused this hard on archaeology our conversations would not be necessary,” Javik quipped, but felt taken aback by the whole encounter. The asari clearly had him at an extreme disadvantage.
“See, Javik,” she forked a large helping of the rucksi-ting onto her plate, “I didn’t want anything to cloud our working relationship, but I’m a very busy person. If you are serious about helping to write this book then I expect your cooperation. I don’t have time to try a lot of different tactics to earn your trust. So let’s get everything on the table:
“Working with me can be very advantageous, as the food in front of you demonstrates. And there’s plenty more where that came from. I even promise not to poison any of it.
“We don’t know much about the prothean people, but unless you want to read all 430 texts archaeologists have written about your people, you’ll never know which questions I already know the answers to.
“Next, I may not know much about your Cycle, but I know absolutely everything about this one. If you go or say anything in this galaxy, I promise you I’ll know about it. Your past, your secrets. But in this Cycle, I know everything. So if you don’t want to do this, walk away. But if you agree to help me, we’re going to write this book together, and it’s going to be good scholarship.”
Javik could tell she wasn’t used to the intimidation tactic, but had clearly had some practice with it. She gobbled down a forkful of rucksi-tiing for effect. Very likely she had practiced the whole monologue before he arrived. Still, she knew the power of her information was largely not dependent on the way it was delivered.
“In the Empire, it was considered dangerous to rely solely on enemy intelligence.”
“Good thing we’re friends, then.”
“…the rucksi-ting is undercooked,” he sad dryly. “But I accept your offer. I will help you write this book.”
“Wonderful.” Her demeanor immediately returned to one of demure courtesy, “Then we’ll begin just after dinner.”
“In my cycle—“
“Wait,” she leaned hard on the table, “One more thing: the differences between the Prothean Empire and the species of the Citadel races are CULTURALLY different. When you say ‘in my cycle’ what you mean is ‘this is the way protheans did it.’ The way one behaves versus the way the other behaves is based on their divergent cultures, not merely the fact that they are separated in time by ‘cycles.’”
She huffed a sigh and regained her composure almost immediately, smiling with a pleasant air.
“…in my cycle, these differences were based on cycles.”
