Tag: fic

Fic: Shattered

Here is a fic of what goes through Robin Hawke’s (same Hawke in my Lifeline fic) mind during “A New Path.” Isabela and Aveline are the unlucky two who get to go along on the field trip of doom.

Angst abounds.

“But…if things go wrong…if he possesses me, I need you to strike me down.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Robin asks. She can’t have heard Merrill right. She couldn’t just asked–

“If something goes wrong, you’ll have to kill me.”

Robin isn’t sure what hurts worse, hearing her lover ask her to end her life if she gets possessed or the way she says it as if it would be the easiest thing in the world. Robin crosses her arms so Merrill won’t see the way her hands have started trembling. She looks away for a moment and tries to will her throat to untighten.

How could she ask that? After seeing what happened to Robin when Leandra was killed. After sharing her bed for going on four years and knowing the dreams she still struggled with of losing her mother and Carver. After knowing the nightmares she had of things happening to Bethany in the Gallows. After all those nights of holding Robin when she sobbed…how could she ask this?

“So you’re…sure about risking becoming an abomination? Just for a chance to fix that spooky mirror of yours?” Robin’s voice is lower than usual from trying to keep the waver out. She wonders if Merrill notices.

“Ma vhenan, I have to do this. I owe it to my people to finish this.”

The determination is there, still. Robin looks away, clenching her jaw. She feels ill. But she was never very good at saying “no” to a pretty girl, much less to Merrill.

“You’re the only one I trust. Please, ma vhenan.”

That settles it. Robin, never much for prayer, sends a silent plea to Andraste that it won’t come to having Merrill’s blood on her hands.

“All right. I’ll go.”

———————-

On the path to the base of Sundermount, Robin walks several paces ahead, as usual, with Isabela at her side. But she still manages to hear Merrill conversing with Aveline. Merrill asks the guard captain to look for Hawke, and for Isabela. Robin has to suppress the sudden urge to run behind a rock and vomit. She hates this feeling. It’s too much like the way she felt years ago, running after blood trails in Lowtown looking for her mother.

She feels Isabela’s hand on her shoulder and she glances at her friend.

“You all right, Hawke? You look a bit green.” Isabela raises an eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” Robin replies, with a smile that falters just enough to make Isabela frown. “Just…if anything ever happens to me…keep an eye on Bethany, will you?”

Isabela frowns again and gives her a gentle shove. “Don’t talk like that. You’re Hawke. You fought the Arishok and all his guards. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

Robin manages a chuckle. “I didn’t do that alone, though.”

Isabela gives her another shove, and for just a moment, Robin doesn’t feel so scared.

————————

They reach the altar in the graveyard, and Merrill stops to pray. To the mother of the Creators, no less. Mythal, all mother. Robin’s facade cracks again.

“Would it help if I prayed, too?” she asks, hoping Aveline and Isabela will pass it off as cheek.

Merrill smiles, and Robin’s heart breaks a little more.

———————-

They reach the demon’s cave, but the demon isn’t there. Robin feels relieved. Until the Keeper shows up.

The Keeper let the demon possess her, so that it wouldn’t possesses Merrill. Robin can understand the desire to save Merrill. And she could almost kiss Marethari for it.

Until she asks Merrill to kill her, and Merrill refuses.

Robin wants to shake her, to ask her why, if she can’t bring herself to kill the Keeper when asked…then why in the name of the Maker and the Creators did she think Robin could kill her? She wants to scream and she wants to cry, but she’s a grown woman, and -damned- if she’ll let a demon see her cry.

They fight the demon. It calls up spirits of dead elves–the hunters killed by the varteral, Pol, others–and they call Merrill traitor, useless, a curse upon the clan. It makes Robin angry enough to shove aside her own feeling for a moment. Long enough to finish the fight.

And then Merrill does have to kill her Keeper. Out of the corner of her eye, Robin sees Aveline turn away when Merrill draws the knife.

Merrill is distraught, wishes she could wake up, and this all would just be a dream. Robin knows that feeling all too well. She doesn’t say a word, but she helps Merrill stand and leads them out of the cave.

—————-

The elves meet them, looking for the Keeper. More accusations against Merrill, and the word “monster.” Robin bristles. Merrill tells them the Keeper is dead and they blame her. Robin can’t stand it.

“Stand down, all of you.”

That’s clearly the worst thing Robin could have said.

—————

Robin feels even more ill when the fighting is done. The Dalish camp is littered with the bodies of Merrill’s people, the people she risked everything for. And all for what? There’s nothing left now. Except Merrill. Robin can’t help but be glad of that. Even if she’s afraid to look at her just yet.

She’s afraid she’ll break, or that Merrill will. If Merrill breaks, Robin will break. They’re both covered in blood, and Robin wonders if Merrill will ever forgive her for slaughtering her clan.

She wants a bath and enough alcohol to make things go black.

—————

“I thought I could help them. I wanted to save them. But they wouldn’t listen…”

Robin wraps her arms around Merrill, not knowing what else to do.

Merrill leans back against her. “I don’t know what to do now. You’re all I have left.”

“Stay with me,” Robin murmurs, nuzzling Merrill’s hair. “We’ll…muddle through somehow.” Merrill turns in her embrace and hides her face against Robin’s shoulder and cries. Robin strokes her hair and holds her close. Now they’re both broken, she thinks, but maybe the pieces will find a way of fitting back together better than they did before.

Fic: Coping Methods

The second part of this is a re-write of what happens with the in-game confrontation with Jack and Miranda if you side with Jack. Haven’t run through that mission on a game version of this Shepard yet, but I watched a video of all the options (well, all the option that let you keep both of them loyal) and was annoyed that, if you side with Jack in the initial confrontation, both the Paragon and Renegade responses of explaning your actions to Miranda are really…kind of equally distateful, to me at least, as far as how Shepard talks about Jack. So I “fixed that.”

Pragia turns Shepard’s stomach. Killing colonists and marines in the name of science was bad enough, but what Cerberus did to the children at Teltin…it’s unforgivable. Beyond unforgivable. Watching Jack relive it and realize it had been bigger and more horrific than she’d known it was is painful. And blowing it off the face of planet only helps so much.

It’s so easy to say “your past doesn’t have to control you.” Shepard likes to think she’s moved on herself, and in some ways she has. Most of the time she’s fine. But sometimes she runs into things that bring it back. The thresher maw on Tuchanka, the one on Edolus, finding Toombs, talking Talitha out of killing herself, and now Pragia. She can relate to Jack’s pain, even though it’s different and Jack had it far worse than she did.

So has everyone she’s met who lived through Mindoir or Akuze. It makes her sick, what happened to them. The guilt is the worst part. Shepard knows she’s no better than Toombs or Talitha. It should have been her, not them. There are nights when she can’t sleep for the why’s that echo in her head. Why didn’t she die with her family? Why didn’t she die with her men? It’s driven her to try to make things better, to keep another Mindoir or Akuze from happening. But it’s never enough.

Once the bomb is in place and they’re back on the shuttle, Shepard watches Jack play with the detonator. She wonders how Jack will deal with knowing so many more children were tortured and died in order for Cerberus to do what they did to her. Shepard wonders how the beginnings of Jack’s own survivor’s guilt will effect the biotic.

It’s getting harder and harder for Shepard to take Cerberus’s blood money. Harder to see the group’s insignia on Miranda’s uniform and Jacob’s. On her own clothes.

——————————

The last thing Shepard wants after a mission like Pragia is to have to play referee to Miranda and Jack, as it seems that Jack is, understandably, dealing with the anger part of coping.

What makes Shepard’s blood boil is the way Miranda says Jack was “clearly a mistake.” It’s not apologetic, not saying what happened to Jack shouldn’t have happened. It’s a judgement-you have been weighed and found wanting, you shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t exist. At least, that’s how Shepard heard it.

“Stand down, Miranda.” If Shepard wasn’t so tired, and if this wasn’t so serious, she’d almost be amused at how surprised Miranda looks that she sided with Jack.

“Shepard, she can’t be trusted. She’s unstable, and she’s jeopardizing the mission.”

“As commander of this ship, I decided who or what is or is not jeopardizing this mission, Operative Lawson.”

That puts a fire in Miranda’s eyes that Shepard knows could start a wildfire. Jack leaves Miranda’s office looking a little smug and triumphant, but Shepard’s mind is on putting out that blaze before it burns her and the rest of the crew.

“I can’t believe you let her get away with that, Shepard. She’s a major liability!”

Shepard takes a deep breath. “Do you know who you’re talking to, Operative Lawson?”

That seems to set Miranda off balance. Shepard can almost see the Cerberus operative’s mind whirling, trying to figure out exactly what sort of question that is, and it it requires an answer. And if it does, what kind?

“Shepard-”

“So Teltin went rogue. But they -did- start as Cerberus, and your boss decided that Teltin’s little ‘mistake’ might be useful.” Miranda starts to protest, but Shepard holds up a hand. “He may not have known until now. He may have. Right now, I don’t really trust him. You can tell me it was a rogue facility till you’re blue in the face, but my personal experiences with Cerberus in the past don’t endear them to me.”

Shepard leans against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “I lived through Cerberus’s experiment on Akuze. I dealt with the aftermath of Edolus. I ran into a corporal named Toombs, who wasn’t lucky enough to get rescued like I was, who lived through some of Cerberus’s idea of advancing humanity through science. So maybe I have the remarkable ability to run into every single rogue cell you people have. If that’s the case, you people really need to work on that. If it isn’t the only explanation is that some of those cells weren’t as rogue as you’d like to think they were.”

She doesn’t quite expect the silence that Miranda gives her in return. Shepard just hopes Miranda uses that silence to actually think about what she’s saying.

“The Illusive man got you out of a bad situation. I get that. And I don’t regret saving your sister. Don’t ever think that of me.” She took a step closer to Miranda. “But do not try to explain away the fact that people who have taken Cerberus’s money have used it to victimize other human beings, some of whom I knew personally and care about. Do -not- make excuses to me so you can sleep at night.”

Shepard doesn’t wait for a reply. She’s out the door and to the elevator before Miranda has a chance to find the words for a rebuttal. The elevator doors close, but she can’t decide where to go. Her quarters are larger than she needs, and she hates that stupid, dangerous window that’s right above her bed. She doesn’t want to sit alone with her fish and her model ships. But she’s not sure she should visit jack just yet. She doesn’t want Jack to think she pities her, and she doesn’t want to try to talk about mutual run ins with Cerberus right now. Jack will probably need to vent. If not now, then later. Shepard thinks later would be better. Right now, she’s tired enough to cry, and she doesn’t want Jack to see that. Not now, at least.

Finally, she presses in a destination. When the elevator reaches it, Shepard exits and heads to the starboard observation deck. She glances at Samara, then sits down beside her and takes a deep breath. Shepard closes her eyes, and tries to clear her head.

Fic: Stay With Me

Note: This is the same universe as “Survival.” This is an alternate version of the pre-Omega Relay scene between Jack and Shepard. The original scene is on the iffy side (which is really putting it mildly), and it doesn’t really do Jack any justice. I think it could definitely have been better executed, so I tried to make it less icky.

So here’s what happened with these two before they hit the Omega Relay.

Shepard can’t sleep. She knows she ought to try to get at least a little rest before this mission, but she can’t sleep, can’t stay in that ridiculously large cabin with that stupid unshielded window above her bed. So she took a walk. And ended up down in Jack’s hide-away. Jack looks a little surprised. And a little something else that Shepard can’t put her finger on that makes her think leaving might be better than staying. But she’s got nowhere else to go.

“Shepard…”

“Hey. I’m not bothering you, am I? I just…how are you holding up? Ready for this?” Shepard tries to smile. Hopefully it didn’t look too…what? Worried? Tired? Forced?

Jack raises an eyebrow. “Are you ready?”

Shepard shrugs and leans against a bulkhead, closing her eyes. “As ready as anyone can be when they’re going somewhere no one’s come back from.”

“We’ll come back. You’re Commander Fucking Shepard. You have to come back.” Jack’s voice is teasing, but it wavers slightly. Shepard opens her eyes, frowning a little as Jack starts to pace. She should have just stayed in her room.

“Damnit, Shepard!”

Jack’s embrace nearly knocks the wind out of her, it’s so sudden. Shepard hugs back tightly, stroking one hand over the stubble of the younger woman’s head. She feels Jack’s tears against her skin, and her heart aches. Then she feel’s Jack’s lips on her neck. The room is suddenly warmer that it should be. She starts to ease away, only to have Jack’s lips pressed hard against hers. There is desire in the kiss, but there’s enough of…something else that makes it’s wrong. The timing is all wrong.

Shepard pulls back, gently pulling Jack’s hands away from where they’d started under her shirt. “Not like this, Jack,” she says softly as their eyes meet.

Jack grits her teeth and balls her hands into fists, but she doesn’t jerk them away. “What the fuck, Shepard! We could fucking die.” She looks away, and Shepard can’t remember ever seeing her this vulnerable.

Then she adds, softly, “You could die.” The fear in her voice makes Shepard’s heart ache.

“I know. But that’s…I said I’d be ready if you ever decided you wanted more, but not like this.” She wipes at the trail of eye-liner that was starting to run down Jack’s cheek. “You don’t have to feel like you have to do this.” She sighs and wraps her arms around Jack. “I don’t ever want you to regret anything that happens between us. And there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t regret it, if we did it now. Before everything.” She’s learned her lesson about intimacy when connected to suicide missions; she doesn’t need any repeats of Horizon.

She feels Jack take a deep breath. “Don’t fucking die, okay?” Jack sighs, her breath tickling Shepard’s skin. “Just…stay with me? Until we have to get ready?”

Smiling, Shepard relaxes. “Yeah. I was gonna ask to stay, anyway. Don’t think I could take being alone right now.”

Fic: Survival

So. I’ve been linking to my ff.net stuff when i post more of my femShep/Jack short fics, but I’m going to start actually posting the text of the fics here, too. So the next three posts are dedicated to fic.

Notes on this fic: Jack says “fuck” a lot. This is not anything knew to anyone who’s played ME2, but i warn for it on ff.net, so I’ll repeat it here. This one takes place after Grunt’s loyalty mission. This femShep is a Colonist Sole Survivor, and a lot of my writing covers ways missions specifically relate to those backgrounds, because it doesn’t get address, really. Also, in these fics, I do my best to handle Jack-related things in less cringe-worthy manner than the game sometimes did.

They’d killed a fucking thresher maw. Just the three of them, on foot. That was a high. All the fucking krogan wanted to kiss their feet, or at least Grunt’s and Shepard’s. Jack was just glad she’d gotten to be there for it. Now that was a good fight.

She watched Shepard on the ride back to the Normandy. Something was wrong about the way she held herself. There was something Not Shepard about it, and when they stood to get off the shuttle, she noticed a slight tremble in the Commander’s hands. The fuck was going on with Shepard?

Back on the Normandy, Jack started digging around, searching the extra net for anything that might explain the mission seeming to shake up the unshakeable Shepard.

[Search: shepard thresher maw]

Shit. Akuze, 2177. Whole fucking lot of dead marines and only one left to tell about it. That was Shepard. Jack knew Shepard was some kind of Alliance badass or whatever, but damn. That wasn’t just one thresher maw, either. More digging led to more information about the attack, and another thresher maw attack on Edolus. More dead marines. That time, Shepard blew the thing up in a M35 Mako.

And fucking Cerberus did that. How the fuck could Shepard work for them, knowing that? Fuck.

Jack heard the thud of boots on the stairs leading to her bunk. Shepard. No one else bothered to come down, but Jack knew Shepard’s step anyway.

“Jack?”

“Why the fuck do you work for Cerberus? They fucking used you and other marines to fucking study Goddamn thresher maws. They nearly killed you, Shepard.” Jack caught a change in her own voice. The way she says they nearly got Shepard fucking killed. And she knew why. Because she’d been thinking that fucking Cerberus almost kept Shepard from being alive to break her out of Purgatory. Not ever meeting Shepard…the idea bothered Jack more than she wanted to think about.

Shepard leaned against the wall by Jack’s bed, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not because I want to, Jack. Cerberus…they’re the only people who’ll let me have the resources to do what I need to do. To keep the galaxy safe. The Alliance doesn’t give a shit about me anymore, Jack. Not past using me as a figurehead. Or a scapegoat, depending on how they’re feeling.”

It’s weird, seeing Shepard look…vulnerable. It made Jack uncomfortable. Shepard being tough or a hard-ass she could deal with. It kind of hurt, and not in a fun way, either.

“Look, Shepard-”

Shepard held up a hand. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, Jack. I…didn’t really keep an eye out for you, or Grunt, once the…once the thresher maw popped up.”

Jack remembered watching Shepard during that fight. It was like nothing existed except Shepard and that fucking thing. She’d never seen Shepard be that quiet during a fight before. That explained it, though.

She shrugged. “You wanted to stay alive. I get that, Shepard. I do.”

Shepard pushed off from the wall and paced for a moment, pausing with her back to Jack. “I shouldn’t have let my memories get in the way like that. If something had happened to you because of my selfish need to survive-”

“Don’t you get all fucking mushy on me,” Jack growled, jumping to her feet. “I can take care of myself.”

“But what if you couldn’t, Jack?” Shepard turned to face her. “Everyone slips up, sometime. Everyone. You’re on my team. I’m not leaving anyone behind this time.” Something in her eyes softened, just for a moment, and Jack’s heart jumped unexpectedly. “Especially not you…”

Shepard reached out like she was going to touch Jack’s face. Jack stiffened slightly and Shepard dropped her hand; she looked like someone had just fucking kicked her puppy. Fuck it. Jack grabbed the front of Shepard’s uniform and kissed her, hard. Shepard kissed back, hands settling on gripping the fabric at Jack’s waist after some hesitation. Commander not knowing where to put her hands. Cute.

Jack pulled back from the kiss, hand still clenched in Shepard’s uniform. “We get done saving the galaxy, we steal this fucking ship and fuck Cerberus up with it, okay?”

Shepard laughed, and Jack couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “I’ll think about it.”

“You fucking better.”

Fic: A Proper Bath

I was messing around with the DA Prompt/Pairing Generator yesterday and actually got some that piqued my interest.

One of them was Shianni/The Warden – blood in the water, so since I hadn’t done anything much for my Tabris as far as fic or playlists go, I wrote a moment between her and Shianni set after the slaying of the Arch Demon, but before the big coronation-y shindig thing.

The house was a little worse for wear after the battle, but it was still standing. And the tub was still intact.

The rest of the Alienage was quiet. The survivors were busy seeing what could be salvaged, tending to the injured, or retrieving the dead. Now and then someone would pause and look at her, but they seemed to know she wished to be left alone.

Aeren made her way to the well and, after several trips, drew enough water for a bath. It wouldn’t be warm, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was that it was water and that it was home.

She shut the door behind her, carefully, since it seemed it might fall off its hinges at any moment. Slowly, Aeren unbuckled her armor. She tossed the gore-covered pieces to the floor one at a time. She did not relish the idea of cleaning that mess. But a bath? She could handle one of those. Maker, how she needed one.

She stepped into the tub and sank down into the water, sloshing some of it over the side. She splashed her face and rubbed off the soot and blood. She watched the blood swirl away into the water as she washed it off. She wondered how much of it was hers.

It was finally over. Well, the fighting was over. The Alienage needed rebuilding, as did the rest of Denerim. And she had to make an appearance at some shem ceremony because now she was “the Hero of Ferelden” or some shit like that. If she never had to deal with another noble in her life, she could die happy.

“Want me to get your back?”

Aeren jerked her head toward the door to see Shianni standing there, looking just as tired as Aeren felt.

She hadn’t seen Shianni since the battle. There was so much she wanted to say now that they actually had time to talk. So much that she’d been holding inside for a year, things she hadn’t told even Zevran or Morrigan. And now here they were at home again, and it was overwhelming; tears welled up in Aeren’s eyes.

Shianni sat down beside the tub and Aeren wrapped her arms around her tightly, clenching her hands in Shianni’s blouse. Shianni hugged her back and stroked her hair.

“You were amazing out there,” she said. “You’ll be a legend, and every elf in Ferelden can be proud of that.”

Aeren forced a laugh, though it came out as half a sob. “I don’t care what every elf in Ferelden thinks. Just what you think.”

“I think I couldn’t ask for a stronger, braver cousin.” Aeren eases back to look at Shianni, who smiled softly. She stroked Aeren’s face and sighed. “You were my hero before you were theirs. I’ll never forget that.”

“But–”

“Shh. No ‘but’s.” Shianni stood, and Aeren could see where the blood tinged water had stained her cousin’s blouse. “I’m getting soap and a sponge and giving you a proper bath, O mighty hero.”

Somehow, Aeren couldn’t help but smile at that.

Fic: An Interlude at the Rose

This tiny fic grew out of the idea of a Hawke somewhere in Act 2 (prior to “All That Remains”) who has fallen for Isabela and feels the need to tell someone, but doesn’t see telling her companions as a good idea. As she sees it, Varric might write something and Isabela might see it; Merrill might slip up and say it; Anders is too busy; Fenris doesn’t seem the type to talk romance with; Sebastian would give her a sermon; Aveline does not need to know her love life, and neither does her mother; and she obviously can’t tell Isabela.

So she tells Serendipity. And I would say in this scenario, that would be start a shift where this Hawke starts seeing Serendipity more to talk with than for sex.

Anyway, on to the tiny fic.

————————————————

Serendipity ran her fingers through the dark hair of the woman sprawled across her. She’d have to tease Hawke later about how often she fell asleep almost immediately after sex lately. But if even half what the gossip-mill had to say about Hawke was true, she couldn’t blame her. Running all over Kirkwall slaying bandits and Coterie thugs. And there were rumours of dragon slaying, too. That would make anyone tired, if they managed to live through it.

Hawke was a better customer than most, anyway. Everyone in the Rose could attest to that from personal experience. Hawke wasn’t a skinflint, and she didn’t talk down to the prostitutes. She gave Sabina’s brat some coin once, which had managed to keep him relatively quiet for the rest of the day. Hawke also hauled that sleazy uncle of hers out of the Rose once when he was drunk and refused to believe Viveka was just a waitress. Hawke also seemed to manage a bath on a fairly regular basis, which was highly appreciated.

Lately, though, there had been something different about Hawke, as if her mind wasn’t always in the same room as her body. Serendipity wasn’t one to pry; if Hawke wanted to talk, she’d talk. If she didn’t, it was her business. She did have a theory that it had something to do with the way Hawke looked at Isabela when Isabela wasn’t looking. That could certainly be interesting.

Hawke stirred, groaning softly. Serendipity chuckled, and Hawke shifted to look at her, bleary-eyed, not yet moving her head from its resting place on the elf’s stomach.

“Is it morning already?”

“Mm-hmm. Sleep well, blue-eyes?”

Hawke grunted and buried her face against Serendipity. Serendipity smirked and waited to see if the other woman would fall back asleep or decide she had bigger and better things to do than spend all day in bed with a prostitute.

After a few more minutes, Hawke’s muffled voice emerged: “I love her.”

Serendipity didn’t need to ask who this ‘her’ was. “That’s just asking for heartbreak. But I can’t blame you at all.”

The pirate captain–well, former captain–really was a lovely specimen of a woman. And even though it didn’t pay to fall in love her line of work, she could sympathize. The heart was a mystery, and you couldn’t guard it every hour of the day. Things slipped through.

“I know. I laugh it off, when I can. I can live with it being just sex. That’s something, at least. But she’s my best friend, too, and as often as we end up drunk together I’m afraid it will just…slip out some night and she’ll run away.” Hawke went silent for a moment, then added, “I don’t think I could live if that happened.”

Serendipity clucked her tongue at Hawke. “You have it -bad-, that’s for sure. Don’t get so hung up over this that you lose what you do have, though. And on the off chance you get more than you expect, don’t be a stranger. We’d all hate to lose you. Or her.” She gave Hawke a smug grin and a wink when the woman turned to look at her again.

Hawke managed to chuckle. “Me? Stop dropping by to see you? Perish the thought.”

New experiences

Posted fic to ff.net for the first time. Their uploading and posting system is odd when one is used to posting on journal sites.

Should anyone be curious, it’s here. Colonist Sole Survivor femShep and Jack with discussion of thresher maws. Sole Survivor Shepard’s really should have been able to bring that point up in conversation at some time, in my opinion.