Rogue's mental state after 54 years since her toxic, manipulative, sexist, drug addict,unloyal,egoistic, abusive boyfriend died because of his stupidity and fucking gravity, but she still blames herself for it, for no FUCKING reason
Wakako Okada's mental state after killing her five husbands
Shepard makes a choice in the Crucible that shouldāve cost her life. But also should have suffocating in the depths of her spacesuit and falling off from a planetās atmosphere like a falling star.
Or: In which Commander āI donāt die easily cause Iām pretty much immortal at this pointā Shepard refuses to leave and Garrus hopes thatās enough for them.
Hi! Haven't been posting here in a while, but life has been a bit difficult lately and my creativity is suffering consequences. However, last saturday my friends and I went to a thematic Mass Effect party (surpirse! I'm a Mass Effect fan, too) and I had the urge to post this very short oneshot that has been on my laptop for like...two years, I think? Nevermind. I'm Shakarian trash and still in denial about the ending of Mass Effect 3, so, enjoy!
"I'm falling
In all the good times I find myself
Longing for a change
And in the bad times I fear myself
Iām off the deep end, watch as I dive in
Iāll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they canāt hurt us
Weāre far from the shallow now
In the shallow, shallowā
Sheād been told she would die. He said sheād die.
Death and she were old friends. Close enough to know how the other behaved, smelled, felt.
But she was Commander Shepard. Cheating death, escaping from its claws, was something sheād became pretty good at.
She had to admit that, for a second, she thought she would.
And then, collapse came. Her bodyās, that just couldnāt support the burden of her devastated system; the platformās, that was swallowed by the weight of her decision.
She felt everything. The burning in her skin, her cells ripping apart, the shocking wave. And the fire. The problem had been the fire. It licked the shattered pieces of her torn, ripped armour, burying her in an indistinguishable mass of ravished flesh, metal shards and broken pieces.
So no. Not this time.
While the rumbling started, the Citadel exploded and the Crucible fell apart around her, Shepard found herself remembering Garrus. His jokes and his warm voice, the purring of his subvocals, the ones he thought she couldnāt hear, the soft stroking of his talons in her back during late hours of the night, when sleep was too stubborn to arrive, or the feeling of his words whispered under breaths in her hair when he thought she was too asleep to notice.
She thought of everything she was going to miss.
Before everything went black, Shepard thought that maybe, this was really it.
It isnāt.
Sheās pretty sure sheās dead.
She canāt see anything.
She canāt hear anything.
She canāt feel anything.
Until the pain hits, so sudden she canāt help but gasp.
Sheās breathing.
āIām sorry. Weā¦we havenāt found her.
Admiral Hackettās words feel deaf, hollow in his brain.
āShe has to be somewhere!
Jokerās reply is a bit louder, like a voice suffocating under dark waters.
Garrus canāt force himself to worry. Or care.
Was that what she had felt? That first time, after the Collectorās attack, with her damaged suit, suffocating, trying to breath but not finding air, wandering around with nowhere to go. That second time, when the Crucible crumbled over her while the Reapers suddenly stopped in their trays and fell to the ground like lifeless puppets whose strings are suddenly cut.
āThe ruins are still there.
āDoctor TāSoniā¦
āIf the remains of the Crucible are there, that means Shepard may be, too. Weāll dig her out. Give me a shovel, Iāll do it myself.
Of course she would.
āEven if sheāsā¦still thereā¦thereās no way she could have survived.
Thatās obvious.
Even if the explosion that had ended with the Reapers had not killed her, the fall of the Crucible should have.
But sheās Shepard.
Sheās been dead before.
And not even Death has been able to stop her.
āSheās not dead.
His voice sounds strange to him. Hoarser. Fiercer.
āVakarian. I understand-
No, he doesnāt. No one else does.
āSheās not dead.
Commander Shepard made him a promise. And she has never failed him.
So, Garrus hopes.
Why? He doesnāt know.
Itās only during the long scanning of the battlefield, over the battered ground covered in ashes, blood and broken dreams, searching for her in the place he saw her for the last time, that he realizes itās because he knows that their first canāt be their last āI love youā.
EDI finds her first.
Her radar catches the soft, minimal thumbing of her heart, so mild that other sensors would have missed it.
She races towards the spot, transmitting her position to Tali, Liara and Garrus, falls to her knees, and starts digging. By the time she finds her arm, three more pair of hands, one with five fingers, two with three, have joined her.
Tali radios Joker, tells him to get Doctor Chawkas ready for them and set a course to the nearest medical centre. Liara stabilizes her vitals with such an amount of medi-gel she may had gotten high on it wasnāt she so outside her body, and EDI connects herself to the implants that have kept her alive despite death to make sure they donāt stop working.
And Garrus picks her up, prepares her for transport, keeping her torn and exhausted body (or whatās left of it) together.
Shepard breathes.
And Garrus breathes with her.
Miranda works with the doctors. She pushes them, screams at them, sometimes, when they donāt do as she commands, when they say thatās simply not possible.
Bullshit.
She brought Shepard back from the dead once.
They donāt get to tell her whatās possible from whatās not.
Thereās nothing impossible to her.
Kaidan, Hackett and Vega are fighting with the Council for resources to keep Shepard alive.
They say sheās not going to make it.
But the Alliance is not giving in this time.
Because they did once, and Shepard paid the consequences. Because sheās in an operating room fighting for her life as they speak because they did not support her. Because sheās dying cause the Council refused to listen, refused to believe.
Because Shepard is a hero.
The discussion ends when Urdnot Bakara arrives to the Normandyās communications room and menaces with unlashing a horde of angry krogan if they donāt pay. By her side, Urdnot Wrex growls in a signal of support.
And then, the Council decides to pay.
Grunt is a bit disappointed, but, well, he can handle it.
Because Shepard is going to survive.
Theyāve done everything they could, they said to him.
Now, all thatās left is waiting.
Garrus is a sniper.
He knows about waiting.
Heās good at it.
So he sits down near her bed, counting her breathings and taking note of all her heartbeats, eyes fixed in the bandages that cover her body.
Heās made a mental list of her wounds. Knows is not healthy, but he just couldnāt help it. Burns, cuts, bruises, broken bones, destroyed tissue. A lot repaired, but also a lot permanently scarred.
She needs time.
He sits and listens, in the quietness, the fear that creeps in his chest, but also the blind hope. He asks the spirits for a chance, the last chance, because theyāve come too far to end this way.
Doctors says sheās a fighter. She refuses to leave.
And Garrus hopes. He just hopes. He chuckles a bit, too, because of course Shepard is a fighter.
Of course sheās stubborn. Of course sheās not leaving.
She promised.
So, the afternoon he feels her hand moving in his talon, her eyes fluttering lazily awake and the light smile she gives him in the haze of pain-killers, analgesics, skin grafts, needles and gauzes, he thinks he shouldāve known better from the beginning.
Her voice is low, barely a whisper, but Garrus hears her as she had screamed in victory.
āSoā¦a human-turian baby, was it?
He smiles.
Shepard and Garrus deserved better. Hope you liked it!
A/N: Team effort to save Shepard? Sign me the fuck in.
I kinda invented my own ending for this because I'll never get over the three ones we are given in the game. Also, are you really telling me that Cerberus tech could bring Shepard back to life in ME2 but not after ME3? Not buying it, Bioware.
Shepard's strolling around missions, and from my six I see Garrus doing "the thing"- I goo ohh BIG STRETCH!!!
Look at him go!
BIGGG STRETCHHHHH
I find it so amusing that the animators spent alot of time perfecting this idle pose of him just stretchingg!
Here's another angle I'd like to contribute.
It is now an unspoken rule that if Garrus stretches you say-
yeah WELL MAYBE I WANT VANILLA OKAY- MAYBE IM DEPRESSED AND JUST WANT THIS KIND SOFT BIG MAN TO BE A GOOD BEAN TO ME AND TO JUST RELISH IN THE CUTE SEMI-DOMESTICITY I CAN GET FROM IT OKAY?
Did you break but never mend?
Did it hurt so much~
Ā you thought it was the end?
Lose your heart, but donāt know when~
And no one cares,
Ā Ā thereās no one there~
But did you see the flares in the sky?
Were you blinded by the light?
Did you feel the smoke in your eyes?
Did you see the sparks filled with hope?
Ā Ā You are not alone~
āCause someoneās out there,
Ā Ā Ā sending out flares~
Kyle Crane, the man who saved my life.
Iāve been looking for an artist to bring this to life for me for years. Then @drawinglinestoconstellations happened. And I found peace.Ā
People talk about how disassociating is distressing and yeah, in the beginning it is, and sometimes that can still happen, but when you've been consistently disassociating for years you get used to it and it just gets... sad.
You go out with your friend and you play and chat and laugh, but you can never quite feel that it's really happening, never quite achieve 'having fun'.
You cuddle with your pet and you wanna feel like you're there and be present and enjoy what's supposed to be a really cute, pleasant time, but you just... can't.
You sit in a beautiful garden or forest and you want so badly to immerse yourself in nature and the feeling of being close to it, but it never happens.
It feels like you keep missing out on life even when you're doing things that are exciting or fun. No achievement or win is ever truly satisfying, because no matter how much you feel, there's always a layer between you and your happiness that says 'none of this is real' that you can't puncture.
gracieabrams
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
titsay
gamechangershow
romaincrisis
