#zero shepard

[bearlytolerant]

Happy Valentine’s Day

[bearlytolerant]

Fandom: Starfield

Rating: M

Pairing: f!Spacefarer x Sam Coe

Word Count: 777

bright and new

“You’re coming with me to that gala.”

She says it so matter of fact. Her voice is muffled behind the bathroom door in the captain’s cabin.

“Why me?”

“You’re Sam Coe. Your name is well known. You make the most sense.”

What does he expect her to say? Something along the lines of, you’re my favorite Sam. Or I’m in love with you Sam. Maybe not that. He’s not ready for words like that but what’s his imagination for if not fantastical thinking?

He’s perched on the couch, stuck reading and rereading the last paragraphs in A Tale of Two Cities. Eventually, he gives into his preoccupations and sets the book down. “Walter makes more sense if you ask me.”

“Good thing I didn’t ask you.”

She reappears from the bathroom and he’s never seen her like this. Well, he hasn’t seen her in a lot of formats, really. She’s usually grimed up (and she grimes up good) or in a bulky spacesuit. But this black bodycon dress with one slit up the side accents all the places that are soft. All her curves. Curves that would be accentuated wearing his hands as an accessory.

She adjusts her purple dangle earrings. “You’re staring. You okay, Sam?”

He clears his throat and lets out a small little laugh. “Just, I—well, uh.” He breathes deep. “This sounds stupid but,” he pauses and smiles, “you leave me speechless.”

“That was a whole hell of a lot of words for a speechless man.” She beckons him over. “Help me with this?”

It’s maybe two steps before he’s got the necklace in hand, fumbling with the clasp on her neck. The exposed skin is a distraction. Not to mention she smells real nice too, something light and floral.

“A thank you would have sufficed,” he blurts.

And he’s very proud of the way his voice doesn’t crack as his eyes keep roaming where they shouldn’t.

The dress is cut low—and he means very low. It would be so easy to bend her over the desk she’s already bumped up against. Shove that half of her dress aside and—

The necklace slips and he’s on hands and knees. The rim of his hat catches on her ass and tumbles to the floor too. Trying his best to recover, he smoothly snatches up both, replacing his hat and chuckling.

“Whoa, slippery little thing,” he says.

She’s got a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. He tries again with the necklace. The angle he holds himself at does not help his case when it comes to getting the damn thing on though. He’s lucky it remains in one piece, somehow. Finally, after a few long and awkward minutes, the delicate and simple chain drapes around her neck.

“There,” he says while thinking about stepping away from her.

But he just wants to linger a moment. Aka, calm himself down before she sees, very obviously, where his mind has been. She spins to face him and he’s caught in her gaze. Thankfully, there’s at least an inch between her and him or his carefully timed breathing would have been all for naught.

“Walter already has a date, by the way. I don’t know if you remember her? Gorgeous gal, goes by the name of—“

“His wife.”

“What? That’s very sexist of you Samothy Coe. Her name is Issa Eklund.”

“Uh, not fair. I was answering the first part of your question. You know, the one about remembering.” He tilts his head a little and pulls at his collar. Then lets his hand fall naturally to his side, flexing his fingers a little to gain some sense of inner composure. “And that’s definitely not my full name.”

“Hmm, I’ll keep guessing then.”

She’s reaching up and just barely brushes his face, thumbing something away. He stills under her touch. Forgets to breathe.

“There was a little piece of oatmeal in your beard. It was distracting me. Gone now.” She smiles. “I’ve got an appointment at Enhance to do my hair and makeup and I've got a suit for you ready to be picked up at the lodge when you feel like. I’ll meet you there at five and we’ll make our way to the gala.”

“I don’t have any say in this at all?”

“Of course you do. Do you object to any of my instructions? Or have a request?”

He shifts from one foot to the other, stuffing a hand in his pocket. “Well, no but—“

She kisses his cheek then, leaving him truly speechless. “I’ll see you at five, Sam.”

Gaping after her, he remembers to breathe when the door hisses closed.

[bearlytolerant]

It is a gift to make the Hunter laugh.

[bearlytolerant]

Tagged by @eridanidreams thank you ☺️ and tagging anyone who sees this.

I’ve been thinking too hard about black holes and time paradoxes and now my brain is short circuiting on who to tag!

Anyway, here’s some Shepcoe flirting on their unofficial accidental first date in the upcoming chapter of Renegade:

“This is my usual haunt,” Shepard says as she leans against the railing, eyes drifting to the horizon where the stars glisten against the murky waters.

“It’s not a bad haunt.”

“No. I suppose Neon’s not all bad.”

“Yeah,” Sam let’s out a soft sigh while hooking his fingers around his belt buckle. “Neon’s not all bad.”

“But mostly bad.”

Sam chuckles. “Can’t argue with that.”

They settle into a silence as Sam leans up against the opposite railing. The waters stir and a great chasmbass breaks the surface, showcasing its fins and tail before returning below the surface again.

“Wow, beautiful isn’t it,” Shepard says, eyes still focused on the spot the chasmbass disappeared.

Sam’s gaze falls on Shepard.

“Yes, certainly beautiful.”

Shepard catches him staring and throws him one of her charming smiles. She unhooks her fingers from the railing and shifts so she’s leaning her back up against it, elbows casually steadying her on the rail as she gestures at him.

“So, you and Cora’s mother still an item or—?”

He’s not sure if he’s blushing and if he is, she probably can’t tell too much in the shit lighting. “Starting off with the hard hitters, huh?”

“Not to be that person, but it’s kinda the elephant in the room.”

“What’s that mean anyway?”

“Let me rephrase. It’s the uh, chasmbass—yeah let’s roll with that— in the room. The large, both of us know it exists but don’t want to talk about it subject. Cora’s mother, in this case, is the chasmbass.”

“I’m not getting that image out of my head anytime soon,” Sam says with a laugh.

“Have you always been adept at evading questions involving your personal life or is that a recently acquired trait?”

“My life is an open book. Well, mostly open.”

“Mostly open my ass”, she scoffs. “More like displaying the middle of the book so you can read two pages but the rest of them are all glued together. Have to carefully pry them apart if you want to read.”

Sam laughs. “Alright, alright. I hear you. Just figured Cora would’ve already told you about it.”

“We don’t really touch the subject. Chasmbass.”

[bearlytolerant]

[bearlytolerant]

[bearlytolerant]

Shepard, on the run from her past, seeks asylum on Neon. With the funds from a few odd jobs and a shady loan, she purchases a small bookshop. Though her shop is practically failing, she can always count on her favorite customer, Captain Cora Coe to make a weekly purchase. But when she can’t make a loan payment on time, her life gets turned topsy turvy and she’s forced to depend on friends for help.

Chapter 1 excerpt:

Washed up, worse for wear, and wasting away in the underbelly of Neon, Shepard sips from her fourth cup of Terrabrew. They forgot the syrup in this one. The black bitter burns when she takes the next long swig. It’s been two—no, three days since she’s had a customer. Granted, she’d decided to open a bookstore, full of books, in a rundown back corner of the biggest hub for entertainment and pleasure in the galaxy. Not exactly her best decision. But it was her only decision at the time.

Bobbing along to a lofi track playing through her desktop speaker, Shepard scrolls through and deletes emails. A notification lights up on her computer screen and she perks up. A fresh wave of fish spills into the room, thick and heavy. It swallows the air up and spits it back out over salted and slimed. She holds her breath, counting to thirty, then exhales.

[more on AO3]

[bearlytolerant]