#[mod is not sayings she calls joker] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

okdeedee · 2 years ago

Text

here i am

cassian andor x gn! reader - 6th installment of latch

masterlist

a/n: alright besties here's another chapter. life day celebrations And other things aka gratuitous party ish scene + Angst + the power of friendship. IN WHICH;;;,,,, cassian andor plays the role of mr darcy for a bit. title from stuck in the middle with you by stealer's wheel because,,, clowns to the left of me. jokers to the right. here i am, stuck in the middle with you.

content? warning?: shara bey and kes dameron cameo x. the introduction of another oc who i Love. she's a 6 foot 9 or 2.05m tall devaronian menace. angst. swearing. ramping up that sexual tension but no smut Probably Ever because i just wont. drinking moderately in a social context, no drunkenness or alcoholism. kissing! amorous touches! this was written with almost exclusively rosalía's motomami album playing in the bg so just keep that in mind. jk.

wc: 10.2k HUH

It’s Life Day, and other than essential personnel, the base is off-duty.

Unless, of course, there is a catastrophe, but everyone has decided there won’t be. You all need a break.

You and some of the mech crew are deemed essential personnel, but just in the morning. There are some Y-Wings that need repair before a mission tomorrow.

You’re working on Shara’s ship – she’s become a fun friend to have around. You hold similar opinions on repairs and mods, and she’s interesting to talk to – always complaining about that soldier Kes, who keeps asking her out.

You know she likes him; she just wants to string him on a bit. The thought of it makes you laugh.

Only a few other mechs are scattered around.

One of them is Lakan, a middle-aged Besalisk who was an engineer before he joined the Rebellion. He helped a lot in your first couple months – he’s endlessly patient and deeply affectionate. It’s sort of like having a father again, and he greets you with his crushing four armed hugs every time you see him.

Another is a younger Togruta individual with vivid blue skin called Eyroa – they’re something of a prodigy, and the sort of being that seems to know what you need before you ask for it. They’re often handing you a different sized servodriver or a drill-bit with a shy smile.

The other mech present this morning is Greda, the Devaronian you have become good friends with. She’s ridiculously tall and covered in tattoos. Her skin is a deep green, her hair is blonde and short – you still haven’t worked up the nerve to ask if it’s natural or not – and she is a complete nuisance.

Greda likes to wear earplugs while she’s working; she says she gets her best work done when she isn’t distracted by other people. Your friendship started on your second day of work as a mechanic, when she approached you right as you were going on your lunch break. You weren’t sure who she was because she’d been holed up working on a Hammerhead Corvette so you hadn’t met her yet, but you were quickly very glad to know her.

Not here today are the following:

Your fellow humans: Yemmi, an older man who is a notorious flirt, Manala and Hasset, the twins who never stop talking, and Riekk, the Bith, who plays a beautiful new genre of music through his speaker every workday.

They’re good co-workers. They were welcoming when you arrived, and you’re fond of all of them.

Greda, however, is being a pain today.

She’s always a pest, but since it’s a holiday, she’s decided she’s going to wreak havoc upon your morning instead of actually getting work done, which is a first for her.

She picks strange hills to die on.

Right now, she’s sitting on top of Shara’s Y-Wing, kicking her feet, and ranting about something. You zoned out five minutes ago and now her deep, resonant voice is just a buzz in your ear.

You hold out a wrench to her so you can root through your toolbox with both hands, and she takes it without thinking, not pausing in her speech.

You find what you need, but you leave the wrench in her hand. If she’s not going to work, she can at least be useful as a tool stand.

A few minutes later, she stops talking and looks at the wrench in her hand.

“Did you give me this?”

“Yeah, like five minutes ago.”

“I’ll drop it on you.”

You laugh. “I thought you were anti-violence. That’s why you’re a mechanic.”

She huffs and jumps off the Y-Wing. “You’re not being fun today.”

You grunt as you pull a panel of the engine off. “I’m more fun when I’m not being interrupted during work.”

She raises her hands in surrender. “Apologies, my liege.”

You swat her with a rag you had in your pocket. “Enough from you,” you reprimand.

Greda starts to walk away, whistling some annoying little song.

“I’ll see you at the bonfire tonight, though, right?”

“Yeah! See you then!”

She disappears into the hull of a G-75, then there is blessed silence, because Lakan works without music.

You find yourself thinking about Cassian, wondering what he’s doing with his day off.

He visits you in the hangars often, just to say hi, or to keep you company for a bit. You feel honoured to receive his individual attention. You’re flustered by it, too.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t quite get used to the intensity in his eyes when he’s focussed on you. You find yourself looking at his lips, or the line of his jaw, or the sweeping length of his eyelashes more often than not these days.

Flustered or not, you cherish those visits – like the one several months ago where you talked about Onderon, and you kissed each other’s hands. It still brings heat to your face and a thrill through your body just to think about it.

Or the one last week where Cassian told you about his childhood and his family.

The hardest are the weeks when Cassian can’t visit at all because he’s on a long mission.

He’s one of the best operatives the Rebellion has. He’s ruthless, efficient, and observant. He’s killed people just to be able to get back home.

You know how good he is at this work, but you’re still terrified that each time he visits will be the last.

A dozen times, he’s come back bruised and battered, and you hold him extra-gently and extra-long in your arms.

Once, he was rushed to the med centre for carbon dioxide poisoning. You stayed by his bedside for a full 18 hours.

You love him wholeheartedly. He’s your best friend. You’re not sure what that means in the long run, but for now it means he has to come back alive from all of his missions, so you get more time to figure it out.

And maybe one day, tell him.

Cassian actually has things to do on this day off. Leisurely things.

He and Melshi are going to sit down and have caf and talk, of all things. They’re both off today, and he hasn’t really spoken to Melshi in a couple months because of conflicting schedules, so that will be nice, he thinks.

A year ago, he probably would have baulked at the idea – Melshi is a friend he made out of necessity; a brother-in-arms – not that he doesn’t like him or enjoy spending time with him.

It’s just that they became friends by escaping a slave-labour prison and establishing trust by clinging on a cliffside together for hours, not by discussing their mutual interests.

He used to do it all the time on Ferrix. He’d walk to Brasso’s work just to catch him before he went home, he’d hang out with Bix, deliver something from Maarva to Jezzi, shoot the shit with Xanwan while he was waiting for a transport.

The rebel base on Yavin 4 doesn’t quite have that same homely feeling yet.

Now, he’s warmed again to the idea of talking, visiting people just to see them, thanks to his constant need to see you.

It’s ridiculous how often he finds time to visit the hangar. The first few times, he pretended it was because he had something else to do and he just happened to run into you, but he can’t be bothered to lie anymore.

You always greet him with a smile and touch his arm with your hand, or if he’s coming back after a mission, you’ll hug him.

What you don’t know is that Cassian comes to the hangar most days he’s on base, but he’ll only talk to you if you’re alone.

Often, you’re talking to Shara Bey about her Y-Wing (or about that ground soldier, Kes, that keeps hitting on her), or chatting across the hangar to one of the other mechanics. Sometimes, you just look like you’re concentrating really hard, and he doesn’t want to disturb you.

He gets embarrassed for some reason and walks away with a little ache in his chest.

Cassian is still bewildered by how obviously overjoyed you are to see him every time he visits. He’s not sure what he did to deserve the smiles you send his way – you smile with your whole being. It’s like being a plant in the sun; like he needs it to get through the day.

He’s pretty sure he’s in love with you.

He doesn’t expect to ever tell you, doesn’t entertain thoughts of crossing the physical boundaries the two of you have. He only dreams of you once every month or so, and that’s out of his control.

He’d rather never tell you he loves you that way than chance losing your companionship. If he made you uncomfortable and you drifted apart, he’d be so shattered that he’d probably become more reckless than usual with his work.

If he dies on a mission one of these days, he doesn’t think he’ll regret that decision.

The rebellion always comes first, now.

It’s evening, and Life Day festivities are starting.

Some of the more artistically inclined members of the Rebellion have decorated a sizeable part of the runway outside the temple.

There are random different sizes and kinds of lamps hanging on wires that are precariously strung between generators and trees, scraps of spare fabric (mostly orange, likely from pilots’ jumpsuits), and a massive bonfire being constructed in the centre of the clearing.

There are a few fold-out tables laden with portions of vastly contrasting foods in mismatched containers or piled on mess-hall trays.

For the last couple of weeks, a lot of the rebels who went off-world for missions or recon made pit-stops to pick up different ingredients for cultural delicacies they wanted to make for Life Day.

You smile to see a couple dishes your pilot friends mentioned in passing on the table.

There’s jaunty music playing at an agreeable volume through the runway PA system.

You watch over the next half an hour as more of your comrades fill the space, bringing food or musical instruments, some not in uniform, all relaxed and happy.

The bonfire is lit, during which there’s a song sung by some of the rebels in a language you don’t recognise, but you don’t mind – you feel a part of it regardless.

You’re basking in the joy and freedom of this night until someone practically tackles you from behind and you stumble.

“Hey, babycakes,” Greda says, a little too loud right next to your ear.

You grunt trying to bear her weight. You shove her off, laughing. “Babycakes?”

“Just trying something new,” she says breezily, “you like it?”

You shake your head, but get distracted by watching everyone mingle, unable to keep the smile off your face.

The two of you stand there, soaking it in, until Greda gets fidgety.

She hums that annoying song from this morning and circles you like a loth-wolf, looking around at everything, until she stops and pokes your shoulder over, and over, and over again.

“Greda, what the hell are you doing?”

“Who’s the little grumpy dude watching you from the corner?”

Your head whips around. “Where?”

She points to a dark corner of the runway, right near a path into the forest. You follow her hand and at the end of it is Cassian Andor. He glances away as soon as you clock him.

Shit.

You yank her hand down and give her your fiercest glare.

“Stars and planets, Greda, are you allergic to discretion?”

She grins. “Oh, calm down. Who is it? So tiny and angry.”

You huff. “Everyone’s tiny to you, you’re almost seven feet tall.”

“Still.”

You turn her away from him and watch him over her shoulder. You feel flustered, all of a sudden. “That’s Cassian. He’s – uh – we –”

“So, you’re on a first name basis with the Captain Andor? Interesting.”

You frown, and Greda has a mischievous glint in her eye, and you’re realising this is probably a set up.

“You just implied you didn’t know who he was.”

“That’s on you. Everyone knows who he is. I was just trying to figure out if you knew him.”

You shove her with your hip. “Asshole. Why do you care?”

Greda grabs your hands and swings them between you like you’re dancing.

“Because,” she says in a sing-song voice, “you’re so mysterious, and I can’t tell if you have any friends. I wanted to know if you knew him because he was looking at you like he wanted to take all your clothes off.”

“I have plenty of friends – and I’ve known you for months now, I would have thought you count,” you say, taking control and swinging her arms more violently.

“You didn’t deny that he looked like he wanted to take your clothes off,”

“I wasn’t planning on dignifying that with a response, you perv. And how did you not notice Cassian and I were friends? He visits the hangars like twice a week.”

“I don’t know, I’m busy. I don’t really pay attention to other people,”

You scoff. “Next time you accuse me of being mysterious, get your head out of your narcissistic ass first.”

She makes an exaggerated sad face. “You’re not nearly drunk enough for me to lead this conversation where I want it to go.”

“I’m stone-cold sober, Greda.”

“Exactly.”

Then Lakan and Yemmi join you, so that conversation trails off.

You haven’t had easy, relaxed fun like this in a long time, so despite her threat, when Greda offers you your first drink of the night (with no repayment in order), you take it.

You dance with all of the mech crew in a big, messy circle, copying each other’s moves and tripping over yourselves. Manala and Hasset try to teach you a dance they made up as children, but it’s really quite intricate. The two women can’t stop laughing at you.

Later, when you get a rush of self-confidence, you leave your crew and go chat to Bassa who’s standing by the fire. She’s gruff, as always, and pretends she’s not happy to see you.

You know she is – you can tell by the extra crinkles around her eyes that she’s doing her version of smiling.

She tells you about a couple of her recent missions, and retires pretty early, bemoaning old age.

Greda offers you a second drink maybe an hour later. You accept.

By about 2100, you’re relaxed, just a little bit buzzed, but you still have top-notch fine motor control.

You’re sitting with Greda, cross-legged on the ground. For all her tomfoolery, you trust her.

She just has a cheeky streak half the galaxy wide.

You find yourself thinking that if she were to ask you about Cassian, you might tell her the truth. You’ve never told anyone about him – your friendship, your feelings.

You haven’t had enough to drink for that thought to be the alcohol talking, so you’re pretty sure you actually want to tell her.

At that moment, Cassian walks by. You say “Hey,” too quietly and reprimand yourself internally, but he hears you and turns his head.

“Hey,” he responds, a little more rigidly than usual.

Silence.

You smile awkwardly and look between him and Greda.

“This is Greda. She’s part of mech crew. Greda, Cassian. Cassian, Greda.”

Cassian acknowledges her with a nod. She grins, nods back.

“What are you drinking?” He asks.

You open your mouth to speak, but Greda interrupts, “Corellian Rum and some kind of soda I nicked. I needed our Wompy to relax a little. You know how it is. It’s been a difficult few months.”

You gape at her incredulously.

“How have I not been relaxed? And more importantly, how do you know about that fucking nickname?”

Cassian smiles, just barely. His dimple is just visible from this angle. Your face gets warmer.

“A little birdie told me.”

You groan. “Bassa?”

“Indeed. A few months ago. I was just keeping it for the right moment.”

You cover your face with your hands.

There’s a pause. You see Cassian’s feet shift through a gap in your fingers, and you hear him sigh.

Your heart sinks just a touch – he’s probably not interested in this conversation, and he’s not super sociable so he won’t sit down and talk to you and Greda.

“Sorry, Cass, you were going somewhere. I interrupted.”

“No, it’s okay – I’m just… I was just leaving.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Ah. Well. Have a good night,” you try.

He nods. “Thank you. You too.”

With that, he walks away.

You sigh out deeply.

Greda starts cackling. “What in the seven hells was that?”

You punch her shoulder. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” you mumble under her laughter.

“No, really. What just happened? You call him Cass? Cute. But I thought you were friends? That was so awkward. And he just stood there staring at you.”

You tilt your head back and look at the stars, trying to find something to get you out of this.

You find nothing, except your mind’s eye replaying the image of Cassian smiling in the firelight.

“I think he’s the love of my life,” you say before you can think.

Greda stops laughing abruptly.

“Oh, my gods.”

She turns to you and her face is serious. You stare back blankly, “What?”

Greda starts ranting in her mother tongue - by the tone of her voice, you think she’s swearing.

She finishes her tirade in Basic:

“Really? Andor? He’s so cranky and you’re so… likeable.”

Something blooms in your chest at the confirmation that Greda, who likes just about no one, likes you. You smile at the ground.

“Why?”

Your mind floods with a ridiculously detailed montage of interactions with Cassian over the last year and you can’t help the beaming smile that appears on your face.

Greda groans in disgust.

“Shut up. Cassian’s been there for me ever since I joined the Rebellion. He’s… intelligent. He’s very good at what he does. He’s easy to talk to.”

“You sound like you’re recommending him for a job.”

You narrow your eyes at her. “You are not making this easy. I can end this conversation whenever I want.”

She has the decency to look a bit sheepish. “Sorry.”

“We trust each other. He’s got a very gentle heart underneath it all. And… he’s – he’s very-”

“What?”

Your whole body feels warm. “I like his face.”

She snickers. “He is pretty. In sort of a depressed, haunted loth-cat way.”

“I can’t stand you.”

You shove your foot into her shin, but it doesn’t hurt her. All it does is throw you off balance, and you topple backwards and end up flat on the ground.

Her giggling turns into fully fledged booming laughter.

“You are such a child,” you reprimand through your own giggles.

Greda doubles over and slaps your leg repeatedly, laughing so hard she’s silently shaking.

Fucking Devaronians.

Cassian comes to see you in the upper hangar two nights later and thank the stars, you’re alone.

He’s pretty sure you’re working on Shara’s astromech, an R5 unit.

There are droids that do that sort of work so you don’t really have to, but he remembers you saying you were happy to help and you needed the practice, and Shara was happy to lend a her droid to you.

The speaker next to you is playing soft music, and you’re sitting cross legged on the floor in the lamplight.

Cassian can hear you talking the astromech gently through what you’re doing – it’s powered down, so talking to it is completely redundant, but he’s endeared by your kindness.

He doesn’t want to ruin your peace, but he needs to ask you something.

He’s about to greet you when you turn to get something and see him approaching.

You give him a tired smile and his heart races.

“Hey, Cass,” you say. You reach out your hand up him and he instinctively takes it. You give his hand a squeeze and sigh contently.

“Hi,” he says, trying to keep his voice soft.

“What brings you here? It’s so late,”

He takes a fortifying breath and says what he came here to say.

“Would you do me a massive favour?” He asks.

You nod immediately. “Yeah, ‘course.”

“I just – I need a mech, for an operation next week, and they said to pick anyone I wanted, and I want you,” his face flushes, “I mean - I wanted to ask you. I know you don’t like active combat. You’re not gonna be in danger.”

Wariness takes over your face. A mission?

“Tell me more.”

The plan is to land near a city on Numidian Prime. Cassian will go into the city undercover, into one of its many gambling hubs, and try to gamble information from someone who knows someone who’s supposed to know the whereabouts of a Rebel informant who’s recently gone missing.

This informant is vital to the function of the Rebellion, it seems.

The mission is somewhat complicated for Cassian, but your role in it isn’t too stressful. The Rebel Alliance has an old U-Wing model that, with a little paint job, can pass as the sort of vintage ship a rich gambler might own instead of an Alliance ship – the latter of which could cause a lot of problems. The only shortcoming is that because of its age, it can really only survive one trip into hyperspace before repairs have to be made.

Which is where you come in.

As soon as Cassian leaves the ship, you need to get to work on repairing it, replacing any parts necessary (which might require a trip into town yourself) and making sure it’s ready to fly back to Yavin 4.

Despite the importance of the operation, it isn’t particularly intense. No one bats an eye at another souped-up looking ship on a planet filled with smugglers and gamblers in hiding, and Numidian Prime doesn’t have a government or law-enforcement agency that might enforce a parking fine or impoundment – or even check the details of ships that land there.

Cassian looks like he’s worried you’ll say no.

The thought did cross your mind, but you’d much rather be with Cassian on a mission in a non-combat capacity than stay on Yavin 4 and hope he’s alright.

Your only qualm with the whole situation is really his choice of mech.

“Why me?”

That seems to be the last thing he was expecting you to say. “What do you mean?”

You shrug. “Lakan has years more experience than me, Eyroa’s practically psychic when it comes to ship diagnostics. Riekk is much more efficient than the rest of us.”

There Cassian goes again, with his earnest face. He strokes your hand with his thumb.

“Because I trust you.”

You chew on your lip.

“Okay.”

There are a couple meetings over the next three days. You, Greda and Eyroa spend your spare moments detailing the old U-Wing, painting and buffing so it attracts normal, ship-enthusiast attention on Numidian Prime.

It’s interesting being part of mission briefs again, after a year and a bit off. You listen raptly and are incredibly thankful you don’t have to do what Cassian does.

His alias is a man called Dimik Kayo – a man who frequents the casinos of Canto Bight but is looking for more high-stakes and tucked away places to make money. Thus, Numidian Prime.

They gave him some clothes to wear during the mission, and he won’t show you, but he doesn’t seem pleased. You’re sort of morbidly excited to see how bad the outfit is.

The day comes, you get in the U-Wing with as many tools and parts as your mech team can spare and get on your way.

The flight is relatively short, only a day and a half. Cassian spends a fair amount of it sleeping; he’s just off the back of a last-minute mission and hasn’t slept for a couple days. You amuse yourself by watching him or going through the Mechanic’s Manual for the U-Wing.

As expected, the landing on Numidian Prime is easy. You’re a couple kliks out from the main city in a clearing, surrounded by trees. No one comms in and asks for identification – one of the perks of dodgy planets.

Cassian’s getting changed. You wait in the copilot’s seat, your back to him. You’re completely silent - you feel anxious about the mission and just nervous in general.

Then you hear the click of dress shoes walking towards you.

“This is as good as it’s gonna get.”

You turn around, and as soon as you set eyes on Cassian, you’re filled with an all-encompassing want.

You’ve always thought of Cassian as attractive. He’s a beautiful man and a good person, and those big brown eyes of his definitely don’t hurt.

But the difference between this moment and every other time you’ve interacted with Cassian is that - it’s just -

It turns out that Cassian Andor is hot.

He’s tried to comb his hair back, but it’s still pretty messy. His facial hair is grown out at the moment, but he’s just trimmed it, so his cheekbones and jaw look extra sharp.

And the clothes he’s wearing. A muted, dark blue suit jacket with a high rounded collar, with the top two out of six buttons undone. You can see the entirety of his clavicle and some of his chest. The sleeves are tight, and they make him look particularly built.

The same with the legs of his trousers. They’re snug around his thighs, and you have to tear your eyes away. You can hear your pulse in your ears.

‘As good as it’s going to get’ is … very good.

Stars, he’s so hot your tongue feels numb.

He’s talking, but there might as well be static in your ears.

His hands.

There are rings on his fingers.

Half of your mind is taken up by a montage of all the places you want his hands to touch you, the other half sounding the alarm that it is not ideal to desire your best friend carnally, it will lead to a wealth of problems.

He takes a step closer, and you can smell him, the cologne he just put on, and if you weren’t already sitting your knees would give out from under you -

“Are you listening?”

You snap your mouth closed. “Hm?”

“I’ll call you ‘Wompy’ just to annoy you into paying attention.”

You’re sort of thinking he can call you anything he wants when he looks like that, but instead you say, “I’ll kick you in the shins if you do,” uncharacteristically combatively.

He frowns, a little concerned.

You curse internally; you’ve been thrown off your rhythm.

“Sorry,” you wave a hand in the air vaguely, “lost in thought. What were you saying?”

You’re acting weird.

You’re fidgeting in a way Cassian hasn’t seen from you since that first time you spoke in the forest of Yavin 4 after Nar Shaddaa. The last few things you’ve said have gone just a touch past your usual level of banter into defensiveness.

While he was talking through the order of operations, it seemed like you were zoning out.

Cassian’s attaching his comm to his inside jacket pocket, tucking a blaster in his boot, watching you in his peripheral vision. You look deep in thought, one of your legs bouncing up and down.

Nervous?

He turns slightly towards you, debating on whether to talk to you or not.

You glance up like you feel his eyes on you. He watches your eyes scan his body from head to toe, and he feels his face heat up.

He feels ridiculous in this getup, it’s a lot less coverage than he’s accustomed to wearing when he’s working, and it’s like half of his torso is on display.

Cassian was already feeling unsettled, and now you’re acting strange, and he needs to sort this out, otherwise he’ll just be worried about you for the whole mission.

He runs a hand through his hair (freshly gelled, which feels slimy and disgusting) as he makes his way over to you. Then there’s residue on his hand and he can’t wipe it off on his trousers, so he just stares at his hand, standing in front of you.

Force, what is going on today?

“You want a cloth for that?” You ask, cutting through his mile-a-minute thoughts.

He nods. “Please.”

So you stand up to get a cloth without factoring in his proximity to you, and suddenly you are almost chest to chest. You put your arms out in front of you to brace yourself and they land on each side of the deep V of his suit jacket.

He’s warm. You stare at his neck for a second to gather your wits, which doesn’t work very well because his neck is just as nice as his…everything else.

Then you look up, and he’s already gazing intently at your face.

He’s very close. And his eyes are so beautiful.

You have the compulsion to chew on your lip out of pure stress, but what if that’s weird and Cassian notices, so you just purse your lips in to stop yourself from doing anything stupid with them.

Cassian immediately looks at your lips and you feel your entire body go stiff.

He frowns, and the hand that isn’t covered in hair gel comes up and squeezes your upper arm.

“Is everything alright?” He asks softly. You can feel his breath on your face.

You let out the most stupid, timid “yep” of your life and you want the ground below you to cave in.

He searches your face. “Come on. Tell me.”

You let out a sharp sigh. You have no idea how to get out of this.

His hand moves from your shoulder to the side of your neck, and it practically sends sparks through your entire body. “Are you nervous?”

Silence.

Cassian starts to stroke your cheek with his thumb without thinking. He just wants that eopie-in-the-headlights expression on your face to fall away. “This is an easy mission. Plus, I’ll have you in my ear the whole time. You don’t need to be nervous-”

“Maker, Cassian, don’t do that!” You push him away, and that comforting warmth of your hands on his chest disappears.

He’s scrambling, trying to figure out if he overstepped - he doesn’t think he did, he’s touched your face before.

You rub your hands over your face vigorously. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

Something in his chest aches to see you out of sorts like this. You laugh a little bitterly, which confuses him even more. Then you look at him and take a deep breath.

“I am nervous. Not about the mission. It’s fine. I’m sorry I’m being so weird. Don’t worry.”

“What are you nervous about?”

You look flustered, and you indicate to him with a vague wave of your arm.

“Me?”

You cringe. “Yes.”

His mind is racing. “Did I do something wrong?”

You can see Cassian is panicking that he’s made you uncomfortable, and you shouldn’t have said anything, but he needs to know he hasn’t done anything wrong, so you say:

“You -” you gesture uselessly, “you look… You look really good and I’m…just sort of…”

Realisation dawns on Cassian’s face, but he’s still and silent.

You can’t stop yourself now that you’ve started. “Like, stars, Cassian, do you think they made your sleeves tight enough? And those stupid rings? And they really picked the right colour for the suit, didn’t they?”

Cassian’s got a tiny, incredulous smile on his face as he looks at you. His eyes are bright.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you say in an embarrassingly weak voice.

That smile turns into one of those stupid little smirks he does.

There is a long pause, where you’re just looking at each other.

“You really like this outfit?” He asks.

You groan and cover your face with your hands, muttering a muffled “I hate you.”

Outside, he looks calm enough. Inside, his heart is racing, his body feels too hot, and he thinks he’s going to lose his balance.

You, the most gorgeous, radiant person he has ever seen, are flustered by him in formal wear. You think he’s attractive, so much so that you’re stumbling over your words.

He can’t help but laugh for the pure elation the idea brings him.

You cringe and peek at him through your fingers. “Don’t laugh!”

He schools his face. “I’m not-” You glare at him. “I am, I’m just. I’m not laughing at you.”

You roll your eyes, set your jaw. There is a tiny hint of a smile on your face. “I’m getting you a cloth for your stupid hand.”

He watches you walk away, eyes the lines of your body, the movement of your hips. It’s not the first time he’s done it, not by a long shot.

You return with the cloth and hold it out to him, arm completely outstretched for maximum distance between the two of you.

He takes your hand anyway and pulls you toward him, which makes you gasp. Cassian desperately wishes he didn’t have a mission to do right now.

You shove the rag into the centre of his chest and yank your hand out of his grip.

“Go be good looking somewhere else.”

Cassian feels like he’s about to jump out of his skin.

Neither of you move.

Cassian wipes the gel off his hand and tosses the rag on the floor.

You lean closer in.

Stars above.

He knows physical intimacy. He’s plenty experienced, but his hands are shaking anyway, because it’s you.

Instinctively, Cassian reaches out, wraps an arm around your waist, pulls you against him.

“Cass,” you warn, but you’re sliding your palms up the front of his suit jacket anyway. Cassian shudders and reaches his hand up to the side of your face. You press your cheek against his hand, and the movement exposes the wide expanse of the other side of your neck.

He can’t hold back, not anymore, so he leans in and kisses you in that soft space just above your collarbone, once, before he can even think about it. You gasp softly, and one of your hands moves up to the back of his neck.

He knows this is a good sign, so he kisses you again, a little higher. You make a gentle, breathy sound in the back of your throat that makes his heart trip. Another kiss, lingering, a little higher. You tilt your head further back for ease of access, and his hands squeeze involuntarily on your waist. He feels like it’s his first time kissing someone.

This time, when his lips meet your neck, he sucks on your skin for a second or two.

Your mind is ridiculously hazy, overwhelmed entirely by the situation, but when he sucks on your neck you have a moment of clarity.

The mission.

“Cassian Andor, don’t you dare start something you don’t have the time to finish.”

It comes out much more breathily than you would have planned - in your head you were more authoritative, but his beard feels so lovely against your skin and you can’t quite breathe.

Cassian just shushes you, the bastard, and kisses along your jaw, getting closer to your lips. He pulls away, about to kiss you again, but you grab his chin and make him look you in the eyes.

He looks flushed, his eyelids are half closed, and he’s breathing heavily.

Whatever you were about to say goes into hyperspace and exits your mind. You open and close your mouth a few times, trying to come up with something to say.

There’s a lazy smile on his face, like it’s fun for him to watch you struggle. You grip his chin a little harder and he laughs, breathy and low.

“Cass-”

“I know,” he murmurs, drawing back. He doesn’t move his gaze from your lips, though.

You pull his bottom lip down gently with your thumb. He makes a little pleading sound, which is probably the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.

You let his lip go. “Kiss me again after the mission, gorgeous.”

His jaw drops and you laugh deliriously in shock at yourself.

“Sorry. It slipped out,” you push him away and he takes a couple of wobbly steps backward.

“Off you go.”

“You can’t just call me that and then tell me to leave,” he appeals.

You’re still laughing. You cover your mouth with your hand. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can come back.”

He stares you down affectionately with those ridiculously intense eyes of his, and it’s hard not to cave in and fall back into his arms.

He shakes his head at you minutely and he’s trying not to smile.

You’re still grappling with the events of the last five minutes, but you’re so elated it’s hard to focus.

“Stop loitering,” you tease.

He scoffs good-naturedly and walks backwards in the direction of the shuttle ramp. His gaze meanders up and down your body, which makes you feel like you’re on fire.

Flirting. That’s new.

“I’ll be talking in your ear for the entire mission. You won’t even have time to miss me.”

He meets your eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure, angel.”

You freeze, bewildered by his chosen term of endearment. Cassian’s rendered you speechless and he knows it, so he grins. A mischievous, joyful smile that makes your knees weak.

He turns and walks down the ramp. Then he’s out of sight.

Angel.

The speaker crackles to life in the cockpit, and it’s just Cassian laughing over the comm. You're somewhat embarrassed, but you feel like you’re about to take flight or something. His laugh.

“And you had the audacity to complain about me calling you gorgeous. What the fuck, Cass.”

He’s still laughing as you pull out your toolboxes.

You both focus entirely on the mission, after that. You're both good at compartmentalising.

Cassian plays the role of a sleazy, womanizing gambler, and you hurriedly repair the ship.

Several hours later, the comm crackles on again.

“Success?” You ask.

“Yeah. Coming back now.”

“Alright. I’m just replacing a floor panel, otherwise, I’m done.’

He makes a satisfied “hm.”

You grumble into the comm as you replace the floor panels of the shuttle, “That was fast on your end, though. You should dress up as a money hungry man-whore more often.”

“Hey,” he reprimands.

“What was this character’s name again?” You ask as you search your toolbox for a wrench.

“Dimik. Kayo.”

“Yikes,” you grunt as you put your bodyweight into tightening a bolt.

“What’s wrong with ‘Dimik’?” Cassian asks.

“Oh, you know…”

It dawns on you while you’re talking with Cassian that this is all brand new. The comfortable, easy friendship you’ve developed has changed irreversibly, regardless of how things go when he gets back to the ship.

You trust Cassian. That’s the easy part.

But romantic relationships are not particularly familiar to you, and you’re in the middle of a war, and the what ifs start piling up. You’re not sure you really want the newness when everything around you is already changing all the time.

Cassian notices you trail off mid-sentence. He figures you need to concentrate fully on your work for a second.

But after a minute or so of silence, he checks in.

“Hey, are you okay?”

A pause.

“I’m gonna ask you something, and you have to answer me honestly,” you start softly.

His heart thuds like a death knell in his chest. You sound solemn.

“I would never lie to you.”

“Are we going to be alright? After…” everything that just happened.

Cassian’s steps almost falter. “We are,” he says.

Do you regret it? Do you want it to be a one-time thing? You said he could kiss you again when he gets back, but was that a joke? Heat of the moment?

He realises that the idea of not getting to kiss or hold you again is a source of stress, which throws him into a panic.

He’s not ready for this. You’re his best friend. Knowing you is easy, and integral to his life. Kissing you was easy – he enjoys it, he’s good at it. And he… likes you.

But those two components together are –

They’re daunting. He’s never wanted to give all of himself to a person before. He never felt he had much to give.

Your voice is timid as you say, “I can’t lose you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You won’t. I - you won’t lose me.”

You hum, deep in thought.

Cassian is still making his way to the shuttle. He waits for you to speak.

“Okay,” you start, voice uneven.

His heart just about melts. “Yeah?”

“I - care about you a lot, okay, and I’m not sure I’m good at relationships. Romance.” You sigh.

He wants to run back to the shuttle and wrap you tightly in his arms, but he thinks if he saw the look in your eyes right now, he wouldn’t know what to do, so he keeps walking at the same pace.

“This was so much more coherent in my head. I just want - I don’t want this to be weird. I don’t - I don’t want anything to change. Between us.”

Cassian tries to stay calm, but his heart is sinking. So you do regret it?

He asks in a very neutral voice, “As in, you don’t want to be more than friends?”

“Shit, no - sorry - stars, I’m doing a terrible job of this,” you mutter, “let me start again.”

Cassian takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

You curse quietly.

“Okay. I love you, Cass. And I want you. Every part of you in any way I can get. But I’m not so familiar with dating or partnership and I really don’t want to fuck it up. Would we just be the same we’ve been but with … new physical aspects? Or is there something else I’ll need to be? I’m bad at flirting, I think I just turn mean. I don’t know how to be…sexy, or attractive, I don’t know. I think I’m scared that that’s what I need to bring to a relationship, and I won’t be able to, and you’ll leave eventually, and I will have lost my best friend. So.”

It’s like he’s floating in antigrav. Or like he’s high off some top-quality spice. “You love me.”

You sigh gently but exasperatedly, “Yes, of course I do. Did you hear everything else I said, though?”

Whoops. “Yes. I-” The shuttle comes into view. Shit. “- I did. I heard you.”

“You don’t have to respond right now. If you need time to think.” You’re making a valiant effort to accommodate him, but your voice is wobbly.

The thing is, at the heart of all his worry, Cassian knows this:

No one’s ever been as kind to him as you. No one’s ever been so considerate. No one’s as steadfast, as non-judgemental. He has never trusted a person like he trusts you.

He knows he doesn’t deserve you. It’s selfish, but that won’t stop him from holding onto you until his dying breath. He decides in that moment that he wants to do whatever it takes to keep you by his side.

He reaches the hangar the ship is docked in.

“I don’t need time to think.”

He hears you take a shallow breath. “Okay.”

You’re waiting for Cassian to speak when you hear footsteps up the ramp. You whirl around, about to grab something from your toolbox as a weapon, when you realise it’s Cassian, which in this very moment is scarier than if it was a random attacker.

You stand stock still. He takes his comm out and puts it in his pocket.

Your pulse is racing, and you can hear your blood in your ears.

The two of you stand there a metre and a bit apart for what feels like a little eternity.

Then Cassian takes a few purposeful steps towards you and takes you in his arms.

He’s so warm, and he smells so good, so you tuck your face into his neck. His hand moves up to cradle the back of your head.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hi,” you say, muffled.

You can’t lose this. The feel of his arms around you, the warmth of his chest against yours.

But you need an answer now, so you whisper, “You said you didn’t need time to think.”

Cassian’s fingers sift through your hair. “I don’t.”

There is a pause.

Then Cassian says gently in your ear;

“You don’t need to be anything you aren’t already. I love you because of who you were when I met you, who you are now. Who you’re always gonna be. Nothing else.”

He loves you. You’d fall to your knees if he wasn’t holding you up. You don’t know what to say, but you can’t leave him hanging.

“Cassian-”

“If it helps, I always thought you were attractive. Sexy.”

You think you might die with his soft, raspy voice in your ear saying that.

“And hey, if the physical stuff takes some time, I don’t mind. I want you, too, but I’m ready when you are. Any way you want me.”

You tilt your head and whisper in his ear, “Andor, I’m gonna do something indecent if you keep talking to me like that.”

He smiles, and you feel it against your cheek. “Like I said. I’m ready when you are.”

He runs a hand through the hair at the nape of your neck, and you release him from your hold to put your hands on either side of his face.

His expression is so soft. You can see the dimple on his left cheek, and his eyes are catching all sorts of light.

This beautiful man.

“You love me?” You ask, trying and failing to hide a smile.

He lets out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I do,”

You make this funny sound, like halfway between a single laugh and a hiccup, because your body can’t quite process the joy you’re feeling.

Cassian snorts. “What was that?”

You shake your head giddily, grinning. “I don’t know!”

“Stop making weird sounds,” he murmurs. His eyes don’t leave your lips.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you mumble as you close the distance between you.

His lips are ridiculously soft, and they’re moving languidly against yours like you’ve got all the time in the world. His facial hair is a little scratchy, but in a pleasant way that makes your face feel hot.

It goes like this for a minute or so - until his tongue runs across your lips. You gasp, and your hands fall from his face. You sling your arms around his neck while he licks into your mouth, filthy and slow.

You try to give back as good as you get, but stars, this man can kiss.

Suddenly, his lips aren’t on yours anymore, and he’s walking you back into the wall of the ship. You hit the wall with a soft thud and then Cassian starts kissing your neck again.

You feel like a teenager again.

“Cassian,” you manage to choke out.

He grunts in response.

He lingers on one spot on your neck for so long you’re pretty sure there’s going to be a mark, which will be fun to explain when you get back to base.

Cassian’s hands start to roam all over you, and you’re getting a little restless. You pull his face back up to yours and kiss him again as fervently as you can manage.

You’re there for Force knows how long, exploring each other in this new way, until the pace slows and you’re both breathing heavily. You start to pull away, but Cassian bites your bottom lip and tugs on it a little.

You make a soft, surprised sound and he chuckles, low and gentle. You feel another wave of heat rush through your body.

He gives you one more searing kiss, steps back with a smug little smile on his face and starts to get the ship ready for take-off.

You flatten your palms against the wall. Your head falls back in a haze.

You look over at Cassian.

It seems like it’s his personal mission to make you swoon today, because he’s sitting in the pilot’s chair with his headphones on, his hair all messy, still in that suit. His posture is relaxed, his eyes are focussed on the switchboard before him.

You love to see this man in his element.

You stand there leaning against the wall of the ship in a daze while he goes about his work.

He’s about to take off, so he turns to you to tell you to take a seat, but he sees your expression and he stops. There’s a quizzical look on his face.

“What?” He asks.

His shoulders look so broad in that suit.

You have too many thoughts in your head to be able to pick one to say, so you stay silent and just keep following the lines of his body with your eyes.

He fiddles with his hands. He looks embarrassed or even a little shy, which sends a thrill running through you.

“Are you gonna sit down?”

You’ve succeeded in flustering the notoriously stern and unflappable Cassian Andor, and it feels fantastic. You do take a seat, but you don’t stop blatantly watching him. You can’t look away.

He shifts under your gaze, but he manages to take off and get the ship into the atmosphere without any issues.

You let yourself get lost in thought.

It’s been silent for a while, and Cassian is calculating the hyperspace route on a datapad. He’s finally feeling like he has control over the situation when you ask, “Are you planning on keeping the beard? It felt so nice on my neck.”

Cassian drops his stylus, but he manages not to choke on air, so he thinks he handles that pretty well.

He leans down to grab it, but you get there first. You offer him the stylus and your hand lingers on his for a second.

His hand shakes as he types in the coordinates. This is a lot to deal with.

“Uh, maybe? It’s sort of annoying to take care of.”

“Hm.”

Is it warm on the ship? He checks climate control.

Maybe it’s just him. He undoes a button of his jacket and rolls up a sleeve.

He looks over to you while he’s working on his second sleeve and you’re still staring at him, a little dazed. Your eyes meet and you quickly look away.

Cassian feels powerful, that he can make you look like that. He’s also terrified – did he make the wrong choice? Are you better without him?

The screen flashes to notify him that the engines are ready, so he pushes the lever forward and the ship launches into hyperspace.

He watches as the inside of the ship is washed in faint blue from the streaks of light out of the window. Watches the colours playing on your skin.

It occurs to him that the two of you are alone on this ship now for an entire cycle.

A silence stretches out between you, punctuated by accidental eye contact when both of you try to sneak a glance at the other and get caught.

At some point, Cassian stands up, walks over to his pack and grabs his water canteen.

Out of absolutely nowhere, you say very nonchalantly, “I wish there was a shower on this ship.”

Cassian’s mind goes to about fifteen very naked places it’s not supposed to be, and it almost gives him whiplash. “What?”

“Your hair’s all crunchy from the gel. If there was a shower you could wash it off.”

The hair gel isn’t bothering him, so he’s a little confused. “I’ll be able to wash it off tomorrow,”

You nod. “I’ve just always wanted to run my fingers through your hair because it looks so soft, and I figure you’d let me do that now. But the gel is in the way of that right now.”

Suddenly, the hair gel is bothering him. A lot.

“I thought you said you were bad at flirting,” he manages to rasp out.

“You think that’s flirting?”

Cassian thinks he might not survive this flight. “What do you think it is?”

“That’s just my stream of consciousness.”

‘Stream of consciousness.’ Stars help him.

Cassian’s still a little drunk on you saying you love him and feeling your hands and mouth on him, so his self-preservation skills are lacking.

Plus he’s never been one to think much before he acts.

This is what leads him to ask; “What else is in your stream of consciousness?” as he takes a sip from his canteen.

A contemplative hum.

“I was thinking you look hot with your sleeves rolled up.”

He chokes on his water.

You watch him, alarmed, as he coughs up his lungs. It’s embarrassing, but he can’t stop coughing, to the point where you rush over.

“Shit, are you okay?” You reach out to touch him.

Cassian waves your hand away as he tries to get his breath back.

Once he manages to take a few blessedly uneventful breaths, and you take the opportunity to stroke the side of his face. Your eyes are so wide, so concerned. You’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

His chest aches. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve you.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

And now you’re apologising. For complimenting him. For calling him hot.

“- Stars, Cass, I thought you were dying for a second there, is there anything I can-”

He rushes you backwards against the wall of the ship again and does his very best to kiss you breathless.

Before he can even think, he’s pushing his knee gently between your legs. You let out a very soft moan.

He can’t stop. He’s kissing every bit of your skin he can find, and your hands are roaming everywhere on his body.

Maybe if he makes you feel good; if he pleases you, keeps you happy that way, you won’t notice how wrong he is for you.

“I love you,” he murmurs as he moves to kiss your lips again, “I love you,” as he pulls away to take a breath, “I love you,” before he bites your earlobe.

You gasp and grip his shoulder.

Something dark and possessive runs through him.

He can’t lose you. He can’t.

But he knows he shouldn’t do this to you, either.

Cassian’s moving with reckless abandon, his lips and teeth and tongue are everywhere he can reach.

The tenderness and joy of the first few kisses you shared are washed away by this intensity, this focus.

And it’s not that you don’t like it, the urgency, but when you catch Cassian’s expression, it’s as stern and intense as he is during a mission.

Something’s wrong.

You brace your hands on his chest. “Cass, are you okay?”

He ignores you and presses his lips to yours.

You try a couple more times with gentle coaxing, to figure out what’s going on with him, but he doesn’t respond, so you grab his face, press his forehead against yours, and say, “Stop, baby.”

His eyes fly open and he wrenches himself away from you without a word.

He paces the length of the ship over and over again, and you watch the furrow in his brow get deeper.

Slowly, you slide down against the hull of the ship and sit on the floor.

You’ve known Cassian long enough to be able to identify some of his habits and patterns of thought. You trust him enough to know he didn’t lie when he said he loved you, but there’s something stopping him from giving himself to you.

He’s the sort of person that will give love, but not accept it back.

He stops and looks at you. “We can’t do this.”

Twenty minutes ago, you would have allowed this, given up and nursed a bruised heart for months.

But this is now, and you’re not letting the man you love forfeit something that could make him happy because he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

He’s obviously not expecting the calm expression on your face, or how you say, “Sit down.”

He sits immediately, leaning against the other side of the hull.

“I’m gonna say some things, and then I’ll give you time to think, and you can come back and respond, okay?”

Cassian nods, dumbfounded.

“If you don’t want this, you tell me that. Otherwise, don’t make my choices for me. You haven’t tricked me into loving you. I’ve loved you since you walked over to our table in the mess hall, dead on your feet with your grumpy face, looking like you were about to kill someone. There isn’t an expiry date or a condition on that. I’m not going to wake up one day and decide that I don’t love you because of what you’ve done, or who you are. You’re a good person. You deserve to be happy. To be loved. I’ll love you regardless of whether you’ll accept it or not,” you smile a little, “if you look at it that way, you could find that you may as well make the most of it.”

His eyes are shiny - more than normal - and you realise there are tears there, waiting to spill over. You want nothing more than to go over and hold him, but you don’t need physical contact to keep distracting you from conversations that need to be had.

“Make sense?” You ask.

He nods.

“Good. I’ll be here for you. I’ll still be here for you when we land back on Yavin, no matter how long it takes. Just take your time, sweetheart.”

If anyone else called him ‘sweetheart’, Cassian would start a fight, but when you do, you say it like you mean it. Like you think he’s good, or precious.

You put the meaning of the two words in it. ‘Sweet’ and ‘heart’. It would be enough to make him cry on a normal day, let alone this one. He clears his throat to keep himself under control.

After a while, you move to the bench in the middle of the ship and lie down on it. You didn’t get much sleep during the flight here, so Cassian isn’t surprised when your eyes fall shut almost immediately.

So he sits on the floor of the hull in silence, and he thinks.

A few weeks pass and Cassian hasn’t visited you in the hangars once.

You assume he needs space away from you to think. You said you’d give it to him and you are, but you’re not endlessly patient, and doubt is creeping in.

You trust Cassian, you do, but what if he said he loved you because he felt obliged to, or because of the heat of the moment? What if he’s never going to visit you again? What if those kisses were the only ones you were ever going to share with him?

Greda, for once, is being tactical. She seemed to notice something was off, but she hasn’t mentioned it except for asking you how you are once or twice.

You’re entering the lower hangar with a late-night cup of herbal tea when you hear the alarm for an emergency landing going off on the runway.

You and Riekk are on the night shift tonight, which means you do some mech work or personal projects, but mostly you’re on call for any emergencies ship-wise throughout the night.

You run up the stairs to ground level, your tea left on the bottom step.

When you get to the runway, there’s a BTL Y-wing half in flames, haphazardly landed.

Through the smoke, you see two figures making their way out of their seats on the ship.

K-2 and Cassian.

K-2 might be a little banged up, it’s hard to see from here, but Cassian is hunched over, holding his side. His other arm is limp.

You comm the med centre and ask for the medics on call to bring a med-rig.

The med team arrives while you and Riekk are putting out the last of the fire, and Cassian is taken away on the rig before you can see him.

In the adrenaline rush and anxiety, you manage to convince yourself that Cassian won't want you there with him in the med centre. You need to keep giving him space. He's not dying, just injured. You'll only be an annoyance in the med centre anyway.

So after you've gotten a couple of the bigger maintenance droids to tug the Y-wing out of the middle of the runway into the upper hangar, you trudge back downstairs to work on some carbon scoring that's built up on one of the Corvettes.

You pick up the tea you left on the bottom step and take a sip, but it's been steeping too long, so it's bitter and cold.

#cassian andor x reader #cassian andor x gn!reader #cassian andor x gn reader #cassian andor x you

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fandoms-of-a-random-existence · 2 years ago

Note

Is this that thing that you like? (/j but also where would I be able to find it it looks interesting)

FSJFHSKFJSKHH I-

okay I will admit i was not expecting anyone to ask but holy shit/pos

Okay, so confession time, Kings in the Corner is actually a closed discord ARG that is actually on hiatus right now because of IRL things, however the mods decided to leave it as a sandbox for the players and we have steadily been descending into madness and brainrot (dreamscapes arc my beloved)

And so, I don't actually remember how we got on the topic but eventually a bunch of us came to the conclusion "being insane about the blorbos on the discord isn't enough, we need to subject the rest of the world to our brainrot, what if we posted on tumblr like it was an actual fandom with no context" and well I am giving context now but shhh don't worry about it sorry I took so long to reply, I just. there's so much...this is gonna be long- anyways since there really isn't any way to get kitc content besides the players brainrot spilling over, here~! (apologies for the way this is. not likely all that comprehensible)

The basic plot is you/your character has been invited to the Kingdom in the Four Corners where we have a King, Queen, and Jack for each card suit, and each player is/was assigned a suit based off of your vibes, and later on, just got shunted into diamonds due to the uh. tragedies. Anyways! Because of the way the invitation works, all the characters have the potential to be from different worlds and universes which has led to the colorful cast of characters including [looks at notes]

-Fallen London OC

-Twisted Wonderland OC

-An actual Warriorcat

-Doctor Who x the Beatles OC

-Charas from players own original worlds <3

-The personification of healing from grief who is also from pathologic now

-AND FUCKING HOMESTUCKED

All I really have to say about the last one is don't take any orange pills the Jokers give you. (The Jokers are... actually I should preface this with the information none of us take drugs irl, but they are the closest thing to medical doctors we've got so uh, if you want to take some joker drugs to get a funky hallucination to learn more details about the rebellion/experience the previous Ace's executions for yourself as a side effect for your stomach ache, well are they they guys you wanna see! Apparently Jokers start their training at age 10 and it's very fucked up and also there are domestic and feral jokers??? I am concerned.)

Honestly so much has happened in a relatively short period of time I don't think I could summarize all the important bits but some of the highlights so far include: -The Bitchless Allegations: King Dani of Diamonds (Incredibly Bitchless, the Universe told me-) accosted a group of candidates (Ash, Hugo(ne), Raevyn, and Riyo iirc) who proceeded to get his ass. He stabbed Hugo in retaliation with his fancy magic sword that he shouldn't have even really had, Hugo was spitting up red jewels for a while, and almost died. All Spades got free access to Diamonds tower though so uh,,, winning I guess??

-There was a bit more lore in the interim and some puzzled solved but to be honest I don't remember much-

-The Bear.

-Also the Hearts' resident gays Salem and Luci (Saluci beloved <3) (admittedly not together yet) hatched a plot to fake a fight so the could befriend everyone despite the wild and horrific state of relationships between the candidates. They fucked it up. Luci and Riyo's friendship will never return. Esp after the Hugone incident-

(And oh yeah, Riyo punched Luci at one point, breaking her face revealing the fact she's an artificial being made of porcelain and some sort of magical energy and I may be getting the lore wrong but she's so cool-)(Salem helped patch up the hole in her face with a pretty glass mosaic and waaaaa)

-At one point the 8 year old Diamond, and 11 year old Club stood on each others shoulders wearing a trench coat and called themselves "Painsley" (Paeden-Ainsley) to try and get joker drugs. They failed and only got glitter, and it was hilarious

-Olive the scientists experiments with almond water, I genuinely have no recollection of the details alas, but i have been told it was very neat and was unknowable by science. Also he got an entire almond out of it.

-One of the Most Days Ever: our small 8 year old boy made of clay had been recently possessed by a 45 yr old catholic man, who, while he was cooperative at first in helping getting Paeden back, soon realized if this went through he'd die, and so he ran off into the woods after burning the notes, and so candidates were sent to chase after him. It. Did not go well. (while the chasing him down and catching him went quite well, after the catching... not so good)

+There is a dice mechanic for certain actions, and uh. well. Two people rolled to toss knives (and like. intimidation. slight limb removal. he'd already reattached an arm, it would have been fineeeee aha) at Frankenpaeden, and both rolled nat 1s. Bye bye clay boy </3

(Knife to the head </3. Dw Salem resurrected him later on via sacrificing a bit of vasts life force and the boy is back!)

+But it doesn't end there! Oh no! That'd be too simple! Good ol' Queen Dorset of Diamonds himself (the grandmilf in the flesh) who originally sent the candidates out, tells them to head back to the castle and not leave their towers for the rest of the night. He then proceeds to head to the cave in the woods where one of the former candidates (who withdrew to go and become a Joker, changed his name and everything, incidentally also one of the people most attached to the now dead small child) was busy having visions in his emo cave. They did joker drugs mixed with bits of clay from the boy's body to try and bring him back, and well. They did not bring him back. Also Kane/Jahan rolled a 100 on the d100 for the joker drugs, becoming immortal and also insane and kinda possessed by the universe. The player may have left the server, but the guy is apparently still in a joker larvae stage in one of the cupboards. The life cycle of Jokers is deranged (i want to say affectionate but. man)

+if you thought the night's insanity ended there, you'd be wrong! Meanwhile with the candidates, they're all handling the death of the small child in very different ways! Ash, for example, the actual killer? No remorse whatsoever, a simple "Oops," vs Riyo who is very traumatized by all of this, Hugo's who's a little manic about it, and Raevyn, who for context is a and inherently tragic sort of character who literally cannot feel emotions past a certain threshold otherwise their biology fucks them over and purges it, is making smores up in the rafters, and Luci cannot believe these people, "A child has just died-!"

+Oh my god this next bit needs even more context, but up until this point Raevyn and Hugo have been in a very fucked up twin relationship despite not actually being related where Hugo is unhealthily codependent and Raevyn is simply incapable of returning the trust. The players had a cool plot in the works with lots of dominos that were half set up, what with Hugo using a machine from the future to turn his emotions into rocks so he didn't have to deal with them, and eating rocks made from Raevyn's emotions in an effort to be closer to them. Unfortunately, the partially set up dominos fell fast and in wrong directions.

+So anyways, Luci, already having negative feelings toward Hugo, who admittedly doesn't like her either, takes out her own feelings on Hugo along the lines of "What the fuck is wrong with you, eating smores so happily while a child has just DIED, what the fuck, you just stood around giggling as Riyo had a breakdown in the woods!" and then it devolved into a "I had to make sure Raevyn was okay" "OH, FINE job of that you've been doing! Do you know about their breakdown from two days ago? Would you care? Or do you plan on just shoving all your feelings into pebbles and never thinking about any of it again" and one thing leads to another, Hugo devolves into self hate and starts lashing out, accidentally ripping Raevyn's worldview out from under them, and now instead of 1 imminent mental breakdown, we have 2.

+Long story short, things get fucked up, lore is surprisingly hard to summarize, uh, Hugo eventually does die, Raevyn biology hijacks the way they can't feel emotions and shunts the Hugo(ne) memories in that hole and so now they have Hugo-specific amnesia, and the Hugo is replaced by another time travelling version of himself (Newgo).

(It. it sure was a day.)

-And so! The next day dawns! "Man," we think to ourselves, "Yesterday sure was wild! I hope nothing too wild happens today so we can process everything!" and then Otterson takes an orange pill from one of the Jokers and gets turned into a Homestuck troll, via hallucinated autocanabalism. I sure wish I was making this up-

(I was in vc when this was going down. Cannot coherently explain the mixture of emotions I felt that day.)

-So now Otterson is a troll! Who eats glass! The glass bit is now a very important part of their character, much in the same way Riyo is pals with The Bear, Raevyn is the Bearer of Baked Goods, and Diego is our four-eyed forest friend who brough mud into Club Tower to sleep in.

+She breaks into all of the towers except Spades to eat their windows, only thwarted by Raevyn bribing it with homemade stained glass so as to not eat the very cool stained glass windows that Spades Tower has.

+Fellow Club, eldritch forest being Diego, is interested in this window-eating endeavor, and the two of them put on silly hats and become "Jeff" and "Codeline Sealson," very impressive window inspectors!

+Having wised to "Jeff's" tricks, it is especially funny when Otterson comes in, rolls a high enough persuasion, causing Luci to believe that Otterson has indeed gone to window-school, and is actually quite experienced in these issues!

+Anyways it turns out there was a gas leak in Clubs Tower. Classic KitC /hj +I also want to share the glory that were the matched statuses from that day:

-as a Raevyn with wings i speak for the birds. please don't eat our windows </3

-gasleak gatekeep girlboss

-gasleak glassbreak, gayboss.

-i have pelicans in my brain (also, why is there So Much Glass in the courtyard???)

-Out of sight, out of mind, What windows?

-windows ar3 sooooo tast3y!!!! >:)!!!

-[Looking over at the from afar.] Clubs are getting carbon monoxide poisoning?

-So! Sideplot time! Raevyn, Newgo, and Otterson are all down bad for one of their respective royalties, Queen September of Spades, King Shams of Spades, and King Caius of Clubs. Otterson seduces Caius with pipebombs, gifts of rat-children, and simply by being herself. Caius is captivated by her cowtroll swag. Hugo fails miserably by playing into Shams insecurities. Raevyn's crush never gets off the ground due to a mixture of denial, and also the mod in charge of September's tupper being very busy. Otterson is the sole winner!! Royal Romancers you were such fun up until the hiatus was announced </3

-Oh yeah Otterson also set a bunch of bear traps out once. It was great, even if none of the character appreciated it. She also got caught in one of her own traps fhdjfhdskfhs

-other fun things to note, there are a lot of animal companions, The Bear, which is actually an unfathomable eldritch creature who knows everything and likes baked goods (although it does seem to have gotten a taste for meat recently... goddamn it ottey/j) Ollie the mouse <3 who was orignally gifted to Luci, but she couldn't keep it bc Salem's raven Omen, technically a part of themself, would have eaten Ollie, so Ollie lives in Spades Tower with Page now. There is also a tiny cat-shaped fluffball named Acheron who goes by "Ghost," bc he's a bitch and hates everyone and only lets Raevyn know its name. Not actually a cat, but who really knows what they are. There is also some funky magic dog named Charon who is attached to and protects Otterson, and has a very charged hatred and rivalry with Acheron, it's very funny. Olive also build an android spider who became sentient an unionized <3 love to see it <3 Arsenic my beloved <3

-dreamscapes arc <3

-Now that the server has been placed on hiatus, the players were given free reign. I do wonder if the Universe (the mods) hide in fear of what they have inadvertently created- And so now it's time to bring in the other ocs~! Starting with Zoran my beloved, Luci's wretched brother the dreamwalker <3 (Entertainingly, ae was teased during a previous Luci-Raevyn conversation, where Raevyn promised they'd run aer over with their motorcycle if he ever showed up. Unfortunately for Luci, Raeven and Zoran have since developed a gay relationship. I and Raevyn are regularly bullied for our bad taste, as though it's not all going to go spiraling anyways smh /hj)

"zoran is great because for the first hour of knowing him aes charming and funny and normal and then out of left field he says some shit like “it’s not MY fault her best friend got stabbed. idk why luci was so upset about it” and your like Oh. Bastard." -quote from kitc server

+Salem, our eldritch bird person who is also the personification of healing from grief and has some powers over dreams is visited by this silly little gayass who judges the forest, and then kidnaps Salem via dream to meet his mother, the evil mad scientist dr. milf /j (please I don't want to call her that why must everyone continue saying it-) who tries to experiment on vast, but is thwarted by Salem being cool and having dream powers. Justified grudge against Zoran is held. +Meanwhile~! Little gayboy is off having fun and poking around other people's dreams, goes around causing mayhem and eats glass with Otterson, visits a cool tea house with Hugo, gets lots of enrichment from Raevyn's unhinged dreamscape with a alice in wonderlandesque chase scene, and a fancy tea party where they are attacked by a giant monster and card soldiers, and then take him to see the wishing tree. They also give aer the crown from the monster they defeated before waking up. gay people <3

+And so Zoran returns to visit Salem, where ae is promptly cursed to feel all the grief he's ever caused via doing his mother's dirty work and killing a lot of people. I should also mention he feels no remorse and is just kinda like "You gotta do what you gotta do, people die all the time." Salem fucking hates him. Sorry gayboy, welcome to The Horrors. It will not get better for you from here.

+Anyways so now Zoran is utterly haunted by The Horrors (Grief) and in aer efforts to ignore it, he goes off to hang out in dreams. He visits Otterson, and ae ends up finding out a little too much about their trauma, and she is not thrilled. He also is a bitch who is far too blasé about the corpse of her son he finds in the dreamscape. He is evicted from the premises.

+He then visits Olive the scientists dream! Finally someone who is normal about death! There is very cool floral imagery growing from the body of an unkillable patient. It's so cool

+Zoran's ass gets kicked by the personification of creation and art, physically (got yoinked out of the mirror) and also psychologically. Rip little gayboy you really are suffering The Horrors.

+Afterwards he visits Raevyn dreams once again, to fulfil their promises of stealing another crown so the two of them could match, there are so many fun visuals I'm so sorry I can't just show them all, but commit crime and theft in fancy outfits and they dance again, but the roles are switched from the tea party where Zoran dipped Raevyn, and now Raevyn's the one spinning aer around, I am so normal about Raeran I promise- So they get the crown, Zoran places it on Raevyn's head the way they did the same for him previously, and then that one wakes up, leaving Zoran along </3

+Soothed slightly from Eminence-induced horrors, Zoran visits Hugo again! But instead of a nice little tea shop, welcome to a warped coliseum where you get to watch a twisted memory from the shade of Hugone! For context, the memory was Hugone and Raevyn having to fight "to the death" (planning on faking it, bc of Raevyn's regenerative ability) to escape this planet they were stuck on, but as is the way with dreams, things get a little fuzzy around the edges, and the Hugo in the arena ends up graphically murdering Dream!Raevyn. Good lord poor gayboy, so sorry about you having to witness this- Newgo also ends up losing lucidity, and ends up in Hugone's place, where the Raevyn's corpse comes alive in a nightmarish way and rips his heart out. Newgo takes this very well, and calls the actual Raevyn a heartless bitch in responce. The twins are not okay.

+So now Zoran is really just out here having a time, huh? Honestly I tend to forget how terrible he is simply bc he's just out here taking L after L, but now he's poking around the mirrors and he mimics Page's reflection but moves differently, and scares Page. Admittedly it is not hard to scare Page, but still. Zoran is captivated by Ollie the mouse who hates him <3 what can I say the animals hate his vibes. During this, Page inadvertently gives Zoran a link to the world of kitc so he can come out of the mirrors in the form of a rubber ball... whoops? Dw Zoran does not have the time to use this power for evil, busy as ae is with The Horrors +Zoran then facilitates a shared dreamscape between Otterson, Hugo, Raevyn, and also Otterson's recently mentioned cousin Bunnyman. Hugo and Bunnyman spend the dream flirting via eating grenades and blowing up castles. Raevyn and Zoran spend the dream flirting via eating lit grenades and also liquid stardust. Turns out that stardust was the real deal aha and now Raevyn's biology has integrated it and so that one has glowing freckles and their hair is starting to be streaked a glowing white. There are more consequences that are yet to be seen. Poor Otterson spends the dream sad and alone as the 5th wheel </3

+Time again for Zoran to visit the waking world! Luci has learned about her wretched brother visiting and Is Not Happy About It. She heard through the grapevine her good friend Raevyn who is kind and desperately needs help, is friends with Zoran. And also likes him. If she hadn't already been one of the main receivers of Raevyn lore she'd probably be wondering what on earth happened in that one's life for them to like Zoran. Unfortunately, she's got a pretty good idea.

+It's through her that Page learns he's given Zoran a link to the waking world, and he freaks out, and manages to trick the ball out of Zoran's grasp, by suggesting a game of catch. Special catch... Where you catch the ball in your mouth. By some miracle, he manages to catch the ball, and then sprints away, before immediately getting caught by one of Otterson's bear traps. Rip.

+It's also fun to note that all of Page's effort was for naught, as Raevyn, horrified by the knowledge Zoran hasn't ever really eaten sweets, living mostly in mirrors and eating dream food as ae does, and bakes up a storm in the kitchen, actively using themself as an anchor to get aer out of the mirror, before feeding him many baked goods and decorating a cake together in a very gay way, before Luci crashes the part, physically drags Raevyn away, and shoos Zoran back into the mirror. you go girlboss

+Zoran's back to dreamwalking again, there's a shared dreamscape between Otterson and Roulx, resident Ghost who is unaware of that fact, and also Eminence is there. He is sunk into the ground bc no one there likes him </3 +oh yeah he also visited an Eminence dream at one point and got owned again (dropped in a void) I admit I am focusing a lot on Zoran here but also man. Ae's got his fingers into almost every pie, and also all of them are hitting him right in the face

+So let's take a break from Zoran for a bit, Salem and Luci are very cute and very gay together, and now that the divorce arc is over (wait did i mention divorce arc??? fuck i'm tired it's fine just know that it happened) they're on their engagement arc! Otterson enables and also helps get the ring for Salem, Raevyn helps Salem pick out an outfit for proposal date, and then!! Saluci proposal!!! Gay people <3

-There's another Raeran dream <3 They get to go see a bit of Raevyn's past, there is a teaser to the upcoming events where those two will venture into the depths of Raevyn's trauma to hopefully help undo all the damage and make it so they can access their emotions again, Zoran triggers a pop-up event and gets kidnapped and Raevyn goes and saves him <3 They have another cool fight scene, and then,,,,, and then,,,,, The Horrors start to catch up to Zoran and we get the dialogue: "You should go. I'm- [he laughs] I'm fine, really!! There's got to be more fun things for you to do than this!! I wouldn't to keep you waiting!" "My dear 'Ran, it's you that makes the adventures fun [Ae can tell that they mean it sincerely] I'm happy to wait with you as long as you need" (I am so normal about Raeran I promise, so so normal-) +okay man so it's been hours and I'm tired so we're gonna go a little faster, but Zoran visits more dreams, meets the Hugo family, and then stumbles into Otterson's dreams and makes. all the wrong decisions. and accidentally kills Otterson bc he was told if he killed this [Otterson first name reveal] ae'd get to know where Otterson was, and also she looked the way she did when she was human, and not homestucked. So yeah, he goes to apologise IRL and is vibed checked by Charon the magical dog, who Zoran thinks is a cat. I will never get over that/pos +Charon hates him. Zoran's terrible vibes continue to annoy the animal companions <3 Oh yeah and I think Page bit Zoran around this time as well- +But anyways! Meanwhile, with Saluci, everything was going a little too well and the evil writers couldn't have that! So uh whoops, Luci's memories of Salem have been stolen, just as she once warned could happen.... time to go track down the little gayboy and threaten him until ae spills the beans ig

+Salem uses dream powers to go mucking around looking for Zoran with Luci, and they eventually find him in Raevyn's dream, doing some very gay flirt-sparring. Raevyn's taste is once again insulted, and Zoran is dreamnapped from their arms.

+Salem then proceeds to torture Zoran with the grief curse in hopes to get aer to give back the memories. It doesn't work, but hey! Luci was into it! Salem is morally opposed but too gay to care. Anyways, seeing as how this isn't going to work, Luci kills Zoran, the third Luci sibling shows up, and they work out a deal to get Luci's memories back in exchange for a favor from Salem. The gay people are back in action!! Rip to Zoran though ae's just Not Having A Good Time, and it'll only get worse!

+So you've just been killed, and now you want to go hang out with a friend in their dreams! Well, sorry gayboy but you really picked the wrong friend.... Zoran back to making the wrong choices in Ottey dreams, culminating in Otterson fucking losing it/pos and eating him alive, which is neat bc as an artificial being the squishy insides as a result of aer being bound by the dreamscape was very cool and evocative,,,, Anyways his death summons the third of the sibling Kier again, who calls him cringe as he's picking back up the body to be repaired, again, who Otterson promptly flirts with over Zoran's dead body. Zoran is naturally offended by this and complains to Raevyn later on. "She murdered me. Utterly ruined my outfit with blood. Ate a bit my face, too. And worst of all!!! I think she was hitting on Kier!!! Over my dead body!!"

+But yeah! It's finally time for the regularly scheduled break from The Horrors! Welcome to Raevyn's very cool masquerade dream~! More delightful imagery, I can't stop thinking about the color coordination of Raeran, Raevyn with their white and lavender ombre dress and silver mask contrasting to black hair, vs Zoran white hair, black mask, black and dark purple suit and cape and WAH

(I'm sorry that i don't have the energy to go into it rn, but they're so narratively compatible and their motifs and outlooks fit so well and they make me insane)

But so that's more or less how it's going in kitc-verse! I'd apologise about the info dump but I'm afraid I'm not actually too sorry about it, and the brainrot has me by the throat, I can't wait to see how all the things unfold Hope you enjoyed the un-asked for infodump in exchange for the tragic news kitc is not actually a piece of consumable media no matter how much I wish it was!

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queenbol-of-baldurs-gate · 3 years ago

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Will be finishing ME3 tonight, and since I've got Audemus' Happy Ending mod I don't have to get all sad about my beautiful Shep dying- however! It did get me thinking of what happens to my Shepard in the control ending.

As I imagine it now, Shepard chooses to control the Reapers rather than wipe them out with all other synthetic life in the galaxy, and effectively uploads her consciousness to the Reaper consensus as it were, leaving her body essentially empty. She ran the numbers, she knew that such a feat would irrevocably change her- she could even go insane, the experience of splitting her mind into a hundred thousand parts erasing "Shepard" from the universe.

The force of this process and the energy it took to propel the change across every system, every single Reaper, unsurprisingly leaves the Crucible in pieces, raining the galaxy's greatest collaboration known to intelligent life down on central London and reducing it to rubble. A small sacrifice for this hopeless war to end. And the very things that birthed such despair, such overwhelming hopelessness- were changed. When they finally stopped shooting at them, the people realised that the Reapers made no moves to attack, the monsters that tormented their streets dropping dead where they stood, and for the first time in a long time, everything stood silent. And then they started to rebuild what they destroyed, and they knew that Shepard had achieved yet another impossible feat.

They find Shepard's body weeks later, broken and still and malnourished- but still breathing, thanks to the extensive cybernetics running through her body. When she's rushed to the best hospital still standing, the survivors laugh to themselves that of course she would survive that fall, who else could? When she's stabilised, the call is put out to the Normandy, inbetween the bizarre reports of Reapers and their mechanical drones piecing cities and planets back together at such a shocking speed, all the Alliance could do it keep watch- just in case.

The crew arrives as fast as they can, all safe, all alive. They are told Shepard is in a coma. Another one? Joker laughs, his hands clenching each other so tight his knuckles go white. When will she wake up? Liara asks, barely able to look at Shepard as the past bombards her with her mistakes. What do you mean you don't know? Garrus demands, looming over the poor doctor unwittingly, eyes burning.

Kaidan doesn't say a damn thing. He just takes a seat by Shepard's side, clasps her only remaining hand between his, and for the next few months barely leaves her side. Duty pulls him away the few times where his friends fail to convince him to go outside- his family are able to draw him away a few more. But he won't leave her- never again. Sometime in between life and death during their crazy war she had registered him as her next-of-kin, and to him that was like a binding oath.

Shepard healed as the galaxy did, the sight of the now friendly Reapers becoming an every day occurance, silent and methodical as they rebuilt. But she never woke. A wall in their suite was piled to the ceiling with flowers, photos, gifts, letters- the galaxy's gratitude overflowing for their hero, even as desperate as they are to return to their normality. The crew visited when they could, even Hackett carved out some time between endless diplomatic meetings to see the both of them. She never woke.

Over a year passed. Her wounds were all healed a lot of her muscle had been lost. Kaidan kept her growing heir neat and as beautiful as before, the act of brushing it out therapeutic to him now. He had started sleeping in his own bed again, had been eating his meals outside the hospital for a few months now- was even letting his family convince him to take a trip home to Vancouver to see them (and what was left of their family). He was kissing Shepard across her brow the morning he was due to take his flight when the news cut across the movie playing on the TV above.

The Reapers were leaving.

En-masse they were all pouring through the relays on the outskirts of the galaxy, according to multiple reports, with little warning other than one singular message from their old foe.

"Our task is done."

Kaidan stared up at the screen and watched with what was probably millions of others as those unfathomable beings returned to dark space as one and he could the galaxy heaving a sigh of relief. He almost didn't feel the light pressure tightening around his fingers. He glanced down- then stared dumbly at the pale white curled around his own, reaching across a thin body. In a jerk, he clamps his hand around it, lungs snatching in a breath, and he snaps his gaze up the bed- and feels his body begin to tremble like a leaf in the wind.

"Morning Kaidan." Her voice was but a hoarse croak, a year of disuse almost making her unrecognisable, but he would know that smile blind. "What did I miss?"

#WOOF this got long but i wanted to get it out of my system #shenko #kaidan alenko #femshep #commander shepard #control ending #the ending where NOBODY dies becuase i SAID SO #my writing #mass effect #mass effect 3 #me3

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pikapeppa · 4 years ago

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Garrus Vakarian x f!Shepard: Crick

Hello friends and loved ones: I am dipping my toe into Shakarian fic. Haven’t quite decided yet how much to commit to writing this pairing in detail, so here’s a little oneshot set just after the Horizon mission in ME2. ~2400 words. (Tumblr only for now, but I’ll post on AO3 if I decide to write more.)

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Garrus sighed as he made his way to the main battery room. There was a stiff feeling in the left side of his neck and shoulder when he tilted his head, and he was annoyed by it. It was his own fault, really; he’d fallen asleep at his weapons modification table again last night and woken with this crick in his neck that wouldn’t go away.

It was one of those times when he really wished he could get a proper hammer massage. There was that one place on the Citadel that did real Palavenese massage, the good kind that you really felt vibrating all the way through your carapace into your bones, but Garrus wasn’t sure if Shepard would be ordering them back to the Citadel anytime soon.

It’s just a crick, he reminded himself. It could be so much worse. The fight they’d just gone through on Horizon had been… a tough one, to say the least. Any fight with an unfamiliar new enemy could be unnerving, but seeing that Harbinger thing jumping from body to body during the fight had almost been enough to make Garrus pause.

Almost, but not quite. Archangel never hesitated or missed his shot.

He stepped into the main battery room and took a deep breath, then released it in a satisfied sigh. The air in here smelled like clean plastic and a hint of metal, and he savoured the relaxing smell just as he did every time he stepped into this room after a hard fight.

He flicked on the monitors and cracked the joints in his fingers, then started his usual routine of checking the gun settings – a routine that was more for comfort now than necessity, if he was being totally honest. Cerberus might be a pack of crazies doing their twisted human experiments, but they sure made a mighty fine canon.

He finished up his calibrating routine, and he was just about to move on to studying the Collector particle rifle that Shepard had salvaged when he heard the distinct beep-and-shunk of the door unlocking. A second later, the doors slid open, and Shepard stepped through.

She nodded briskly. “Garrus. Just checking in. You doing okay after that fight?”

“I’m just fine, Shepard,” he assured her. “I was about to start looking at your new toy here, actually.”

“That’s great,” she said. “It looks like a powerful little piece of tech. Something we can turn to our advantage, you think?”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “There’s nothing I find more satisfying than using the enemy’s own weapons against them.”

A small smile crossed her face, just as he’d hoped it would. He hadn’t seen a smile on her face all day, not since the Collectors had gotten away with the population of Horizon’s colony. Kaidan’s angry lecture probably hadn’t helped things, either.

She huffed and leaned an elbow on the weapons mod table. “That’s pretty bloodthirsty of you, Garrus.”

“Bloodthirsty? Me? Never,” he said. “Thirsty for justice, on the other hand…”

She laughed — a husky rolling sound that always reminded him, for some reason, of brandy-filled chocolates. “What a line. Did your time on Omega inspire you to dip your toe into writing noir mystery novels?”

“What if it did?” he said playfully.

“Then I’d tell you stick to your dayjob,” she replied.

It was Garrus’s turn to chuckle. Shepard smiled at him once more, then straightened up and nodded at the particle rifle. “I know you just got started here, but I’m interested to see what you find. Mind if I watch you working for a while?”

“No problem,” he said. “Might ask you to throw up a barrier for your own protection, though. This thing doesn’t use conventional heat sinks. I’m not sure yet if it can even be fully turned off.”

She nodded and cast herself a barrier with a quick clench of her fist, and Garrus got to work studying the Collector rifle. He scanned it to build a schematic and explained the exploded view to Shepard, and she frowned thoughtfully and asked questions about the weapon’s uses and disadvantages, and all the while, as he often did, he wondered what she was really thinking.

By any objective standards, it had been a bad day. They’d just watched most of a human colony get taken away by the Collectors. Her former lieutenant had accused her of crimes against her race right after a really tough fight, and when they’d boarded the Normandy once more, the Illusive Man had told her that he’d actually incited the Collectors to target Horizon.

If Garrus was in Shepard’s place, he’d be vibrating with anger by now. But here she was, watching him dismantle a gun with the calmest look on her face.

A solid half hour later, when he’d finished thoroughly surveying the rifle, he tapped his visor from its analysis mode back into its resting mode and looked at her. “I think that’s about all I’m going to do with this rifle for today. You need me for anything else?”

“Nothing else for now,” she said. “Thanks for the demonstration. I’ll talk to you later.” She stepped back toward the door.

On a sudden whim, he opened his mouth. “Shepard, hang on a second.”

She turned back to him. “What is it?”

He hesitated. Now he was wondering if the question at the tip of his tongue was too personal. He and Shepard were friends, sure, but his question might touch a bit of a sore spot, given what had happened today. If Garrus knew anything about Shepard, it was that she wasn’t much of one for talking about her feelings when missions didn’t go as expected. Not that Garrus was a talky-feely sort of guy, either, but still…

She raised her eyebrows expectantly, and he shook himself. He’d called her to turn around; he had no choice but to ask now. “Are you doing okay?”

Her eyebrows rose higher. “Sorry?”

“This whole Collector business on Horizon,” he clarified. “I know it didn’t go down the way we wanted, and then with the Illusive Man being, you know… illusive.” He lifted his shoulders. “It can’t have been easy.”

Her blue-black eyes crinkled at the corners. “You worrying about me, Vakarian?”

“A little, maybe,” he said. “You’ve only taken a dig at me once today.”

Another smile flashed across her face, but it was gone a second later, smoothed back into her usual businesslike expression. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s a hit to have lost the colony, but we’ll save the next one. I’ll make sure of it.”

He nodded. “Seeing Kaidan was a bit of a shock, huh?”

She huffed and folded her arms. “It wasn’t ideal, but that’s the way it is. He’s got his mission, and we’ve got ours. We can’t lose our focus over personal feelings.”

Garrus nodded again. Everything she was saying was reasonable and true, and her calm attitude was envious, really. If Garrus was able to keep his calm like Shepard did… well, he’d tried to channel Shepard’s calm while he was on Omega, but it had only gotten him so far. Garrus had never known anyone, human or otherwise, who kept their cool all the time quite the way Shepard did.

And yet, for some reason, he just… he wasn’t sure. Her manner struck him as a little bit off, somehow, like the feeling of the crick in his neck.

She lifted her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

“How do you do it?” he said bluntly.

She blinked. “Do what?”

“Keep it together all the time,” he said. “You never seem uncertain. You always seem to know what you’re doing, even if you can’t possibly know. I have to admit, I envy you,” he admitted. “How is it that you always manage to keep it together?”

She didn’t reply right away. Instead, she just stared at him without speaking, and Garrus started to feel a little awkward. It was hard to tell from the look on her face, but he thought that maybe she was… was she angry? Surprised? Bored, maybe? He couldn’t quite tell. Human expressions were usually easy to interpret, with their fleshy lips stretching and pouting and their eyebrows leaping up and down. But when Shepard was in her ‘commander’ mode, she could be so damned hard to read.

She glanced at the closed door. Then, to his surprise, she walked over to him and sat in his chair.

She raked her long black bangs back from her face and looked up at him. “You want to know my secret?” she said.

“Secret?” he said blankly. “To what?”

“To staying calm all the time,” she said. “Can I tell you my secret?”

“Um, sure,” he said.

She leaned toward him, and he instinctively stooped down a bit to hear her better — a good thing that he did, since her voice was low and conspiratorial when she spoke.

“I cry in the shower,” she said.

His guts twisted in a funny way. “What?”

She leaned back in his chair. “I cry in the shower,” she said. “When something really fucked up happens, I get in the shower at the end of the day and I cry like hell.”

He stared at her wordlessly. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t this.

A little smile curled the corners of her lips. “What’s wrong? Not the answer you were hoping to hear?”

“It’s — it’s not that,” he said. “I’m just, uh, surprised. You cry in the shower?”

“Yep,” she said. “Not bullshitting you, I promise. This is not a bet with Joker or anything like that.”

He tried to gather his wits. “So… what, you cry in the shower, and then you just… get back to being Commander Malin Shepard, saviour of the Citadel and resident Reaper conspiracist?”

She chuckled. “Exactly. It’s like a purge. Works perfectly every time.”

He nodded slowly, feeling like he needed some time to process this, and Shepard huffed and punched his arm in a friendly manner. “Not so impressed with me anymore, huh?”

That wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t that he was unimpressed. But now he was actually worried about her. In all the time Garrus had known her, he had never once imagined her crying about anything. If what she was telling him was true, though…

Hang on. How often did she cry in the shower, exactly? No, he couldn’t ask that — it would definitely be overstepping.

He scrambled to find a clever reply. “It’s not that,” he said. “Actually, I’m jealous.”

She laughed. “Jealous? Why?” Then her eyebrows rose. “Wait, can turians cry?”

“Sure,” Garrus said. “But we don’t do it often.”

“Is it hard for you to cry?” she asked.

“Well, the turian military doesn’t exactly encourage you to curl up in the corner for a little weeping time,” he said dryly.

She snorted. “Not what I meant. I was more wondering if, uh, since you have deep eye sockets, maybe your tears collect in there somewhere…?”

He flared his mandibles in amusement. “Tears don’t collect in a little reservoir under our eyes or something, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he drawled. “But yeah, we can cry. It just doesn’t happen much. Which leads me to the jealousy,” he added. “You get to sit in your shower crying whenever you feel like it? Forget the private cabin: that’s the real luxury of being the commander.”

She laughed again, more heartily this time, and the husky warmth of her laughter was such that Garrus could almost taste the sweet bite of brandy and bittersweet chocolate. “Well, if you ever want to try it sometime, let me know.”

“Try what?” he said. “Crying in the shower?”

“Yep,” she said. “You can borrow my private shower instead of using the shared showers down here, if you want. The walls are soundproof, so nobody can hear you wailing.”

For a split second, an image flashed across his mind: Shepard’s private shower. No, not just Shepard’s private shower: Shepard’s private shower, with Shepard in it. Shepard naked in the shower — what did her body look like under those clothes, he wondered? — and he, Garrus, joining her in the shower —

Wait. Wait a second. Why was he thinking about that? He shouldn’t be thinking about that. It was Shepard, for crying out loud: his friend and his CO. Who did he think he was, to imagine his human female CO naked in the shower?

He scrambled to get his thoughts back on track. “I’ll, uh, let you know,” he said. “Might have to train my eyes how to cry, it’s been so long.”

She smirked. “Nice try, Vakarian. Something tells me you’re not quite that heartless.”

He chuckled — a little weakly, to be truthful, but Shepard didn’t seem to notice; she was rising from his chair with a smile. “Well, I should go. I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” he echoed, and he watched her surreptitiously as she left the room. Once she was gone, he sat in his chair and closed his eyes.

Crying in the shower… he honestly wouldn’t have guessed it. He’d expected her to give him some kind of encouraging advice or bolstering words of wisdom, like the sorts of things she said to the team before they set off on a mission. But somehow, hearing her say she cried in the shower was… interesting. It made him think about her in a different way. He was worried for sure, but also… comforted, somehow, to know that even Shepard got overwhelmed enough to cry. It seemed that under all that heavy N7 armour, she really was a regular person, too.

Under all that heavy N7 armour… A flash of a thought projected itself on his closed eyelids: Shepard stripping off her armour, her slender human fingers raking her sweat-dampened bangs back from her face, the small bare patch at the nape of her neck where her short spiky hair faded into light golden-brown skin…

He snapped open his eyes. Was he drifting off? He must be more tired than he thought. No other reason that he’d keep thinking about Shepard like this.

He rose from his chair and rolled his shoulders, then clicked in his mandibles in annoyance as the crick in his neck announced itself once more. “Really could use a damned massage,” he muttered. Well, he’d just have to suck it up and wait until they got back to the Citadel.

In the meantime, he’d just have to cope with the strange nagging feeling of the crick in his neck.

#garrus vakarian #garrus #shakarian #garrus/shepard #garrus x shepard #garrus x femshep #Fun fact: Garrus is actually my OG videogame husbando from back in the day #but when i first played the ME trilogy i wasn't a writer #so i could not process my feelings like a thirsty madwoman with too many emotions #I AM A WRITER NOW HOWEVER #AND MY FEELINGS CAN ONLY BE PROCESSED BY BARFING THEM ONTO A SCREEN #pikapeppa writes

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theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years ago

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Friday Night Stabby best quotes (Tango birthday edition) part 18 (16/04/21)

Impulse: *zoomies into admin and stands by the table for about 3 seconds* Impulse: OH I don’t even have [the swipe card task]. *laughs* Etho: Uh… Impulse. I did kinda notice that. Impulse: I zoomed in here so fast I didn’t know I didn’t have a task. Etho: You ARE zooming around. Okay, I’ll let it pass. Impulse: *dashes to shields and does the task there* Etho: Actually, I dunno if I’m gonna let it pass. *leaves* Impulse: What?! I just did shields! Impulse, running after Etho: Etho! Love me! LOVE ME!

...

Endless: I think I might be invisible. Etho: Oh no, I was just ignoring you, Endless. Sorry. Skizz: Somebody say something?

...

Skizz: It has to be Mrs Tango. Mrs Tango: Why?! Skizz: It doesn’t have to be, I just feel it.

...

Impulse, running up to Skizz and Etho standing together on a task: Are you lovers? Are you lovers? Should I leave? Skizz: You know what, this is a monogamous relationship, buddy. Impulse: Do you need- Do you need help? Etho, if you are in need of help, wiggle twice. Skizz: *laughs* Etho: Well, he hasn’t killed me YET...

...

Evil: I found a dead Impulse in upper engine. Skizz: Cuz you killed him. Evil: Nope. Skizz: Cuz your partner killed him. Evil: Nope. Skizz: Cuz you called in a hitman and had him killed. Evil: ...Do you WANT me to vote for you, Skizz? *pause* Skizz: Cuz Joker killed him. Joker: Wow. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, there, Skizz. *pause* Joker: Just like that hair.

...

Joker: I wanna say it’s Skizzle cuz it looks like he’s wearing the head of Geoffrey the Giraffe’s sister. Skizz: Alright, listen. Listen. ‘Kay? You’ve gotten across how superficial you are. I know my hair is not to your liking, clown. Okay? You just sit over there and lemme be beautiful. Tango: Yeah, don’t be judgey.

...

*Brody’s body is reported* Endless: Aww, we miss you, Brody. Skizz: Eh. Let’s not get carried away. Joker: *laughs* I approve of this message.

...

*Skizz has a sheep accessory on his head* Evil: Skizz, are you feeling sheepish? Joker: DANG IT! I was gonna say that joke!

...

Skizz: Alright. I’ve disclosed myself as the spy so if I die, you know it was the imposter. Tango, laughing: If I die, an imposter killed me.

...

Astro: Can we vote for Joker for many reasons? But mostly because- Joker: What?! Why?! Tango: Oh, Etho’s the snitch! Astro, continued: -he just zoomed by Etho. I just saw Joker swoop by Etho and kill him. Joker: I did not! I did not do that! Tango: That’s the first time we’ve seen snitch. Joker: I’ve been running this whole time! What’re you-?! Astro: Yeah, you ran right by Etho and killed him! Impulse: Wait… Tango- Joker: I DID NOT! Impulse: Tango, Tango. How do you know? How do you know we saw snitch? Tango: Cuz it says… snitch next to his name…? No…? Astro: Okay so Tango’s the other- the other imposter, cuz- Impulse: Ohhhh!!!! Tango: OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Impulse: Technicality!! Joker: Well it’s Tango but it’s not me! Tango: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WHYYYYYY?!!!!!!!!! Endless: Why’s it- Where does it say snitch? Tango: I mean- No, guys, we should work this out. There’s a chance- *mumbles* I got nothing… Astro: I still think it’s Joker but it’s definitely Tango. Tango: WHY?! STUPID MODS! Impulse: You’re the only one that saw the snitch reveal! Tango: WHYYYYYYYY?! Endless: C’mon, let’s do Joker first, and THEN get Tango.# Joker: NO, it’s NOT me! Endless, why are you pushing to kill me so quickly?! Endless: Because Astro called you out! Astro: But- But Tango called HIMSELF out, so I think he kinda deserves this. Impulse: Tango snitched himself!

...

*after the round* Joker: Goshdarnit, Tango! Tango: That was the dumbest round ever and it’s full of dumb and you’re all dumb. Impulse: Ouch. Joker: Tangooo! Impulse: Yeaaah, the snitch callout was pretty bad. Tango: I assumed that once it was revealed, everyone knew it. Astro: It’s revealed to the IMPOSTERS and- Tango: I GOT THAT. GOT IT. THANKS. GOT IT. Joker: Happy birthday, Tango :)

...

Mrs Tango: I just walked into the room and I watched [Tango] stab Astro. He didn’t even care that I walked into the room. Tango: Nope! Nope! Do NOT let her trick you, okay? Do not let this happen. I’m not saying anything else. Impulse: I’m gonna trust Tango cuz it’s his birthday. Mrs Tango: You should NOT trust Tango. He’s a dirty liar. Skizz: Oh man, she-! Impulse: And this is why I will never play this game with my significant other.

...

*Etho is claiming that Evil and Joker are lovers* Impulse: How do you know that, Etho? Skizz: Yeah, how do you know that? Joker: Yeah, how DO you know that, Etho? Etho: They confessed their love. Joker: I love everybody. I love you, I love Impulse. Dunno about Skizz, but… Skizz: Come ON, Joker!

...

Joker: Impulse, would you like to say what happened with Brody after you guys left together? *pause* Impulse, in a small voice: I know it looks bad…

...

Evil: So we start the game voting Tango out, right? Tango: Wait, what?! Why?! Brody: I’m down. Sounds good. Tango: Listen, I got a finger on my head and I’m not afraid to use it. Endless: You put that finger away, sir!

...

*a meeting is called, interrupting Joker and Endless’s conversation* Joker: What proposition? Endless: You missed out on the proposition. Joker: Endless is propositioning me and I dunno how to feel about it.

...

Joker: I’ll be honest, [Skeld] is my least favourite map. I absolutely hate this map. Tango: What?! Impulse: Skeld?! Joker: Yup. Tango: Joker, you are dumb with a sprinkling of dumb. Skizz: This is my favourite map. I like actually knowing where stuff is. Tango: Skeld is AMAZING. It’s so balanced. Endless: Joker’s favourite map is MIRA, so… Tango: Yeah, he just wants to get lost and press buttons and ride riders. Joker: I just don’t like this map. It’s too easy to find people together. I like it when people are spread out more. Tango: It’s perfect. Joker: No. I hate it. You’re dumb.

...

Skizz: You know what, Joker? I hate your hat. Joker: What? Skizz: I hate your hat. Joker: *scoffs* I don’t care.

...

Skizz: *changes his accessory back to the hair Joker hates the most* Skizz: BOOM. That’s just for Joker! Joker: OH! Oh come on, Skizz! NO!!! Skizz: You crawl inside this hair! Joker: Oh GOD no! Why would I do that?! Skizz: It stinks in here. Come on in, the water’s fine. Joker: Skizz, that’s the WORST thing you’ve ever said!

...

*body is reported* Evil: Why were you screaming, Tango? Tango: I just wanna say that when I see Evil approach me now, I pucker and I- I wait. It’s just- I have this thing now. Every time Evil approaches me, I assume I’m going to die. Joker: Hey Skizz? Can I use your hair to scrub my brain so I don’t have to hear Tango say “pucker” again?

...

Tango: It wasn’t Etho. I feel bad now. Skizz: You shouldn’t. I hate Etho.

...

Astro: *calls a meeting* Astro: I hit my button cuz at least I can now for two seconds use a non-vanilla role and be Button Barry. Tango: I like that the button was actually three feet away when you pressed the button there. Astro: Yup. Didn’t care. Tango: Nice, that’s- Well done. All you had to do was take three steps. Astro: I wanted to use that button. That’s it, that’s all I got. *pause* Astro: Enjoy the 40 seconds we’ve got left.

...

Brody: Astro, what are you doing? Astro: I’m following you. Brody: Why? Astro: I dunno. I’m done with my tasks. Impulse: Are you his… Are you his lover? Are you his LOVER, Astro? Astro: Nah, I did that once. We broke up. Brody: Awww, we did??

...

*after Astro sheriffed Skizz* Evil: But nobody died, so why are you trying to pin something on me? Tango: I’m tryina pin something on somebody. Brody: Ahh, that’s not a good thing. Astro: I killed someone. Evil, laughing: Well yeah, nobody died this round except the guy Astro admitted to killing.

...

Skizz: I hate Joker, Endless, Brody, and Impulse. Oh I’m sorry, I was talking to my chat. Joker: I didn’t vote for you!! Endless: Joke’s on you Skizz, I also hate me.

...

Tango: I’m trying to scan my bitties and you guys are all pressing buttons. Joker: Nobody wants to hear about your bitties. Tango: Well, they’re being scanned. Joker: I don’t care about your bitties, dude.

...

Astro: Did Impulse even say where [the body] was? Impulse: It’s between office and storage. Joker: I thought it was between electrical and office. Impulse: Electrical, storage, office. It’s kinda like in the middle there. Tango: What are you even saying right now? Impulse: Okay, okay. Pull up your maps, make a triangle between electrical, storage and office. The body’s RIGHT in the middle of that triangle. Tango: The triangle’s pointing to your name and *votes* OH! WHOOPS! Impulse: Isosceles triangle. What? Tango: Sorry, I made a triangle but clicked your name by accident. Impulse: Oh my gosh. Joker: I’m clicking your name, Tango. Cuz that’s weird. Impulse: What is happening…?! Evil, laughing: I don’t know, we’re jumping the shark. *everyone has skipped except Joker voted for Tango and Tango voted for Impulse* Impulse: Are you mad that you can’t make a triangle?! *everyone laughs* Joker: Tongo don’t make triangle! Etho: Tongo smash triangle!

#friday night stabby quotes #friday night stabby #impulsesv #tangotek #skizzleman #etho #misterjoker #brodyman #mrstango #theendless #evilnotion #astrozoan

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aricazorel · 4 years ago

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"Are you jealous?" "No...Maybe." suggested by @russian-dumpling

pairing: Kaidan Alenko x Rebecca Shepard; set during ME1; word count: 1759

Noveria was cold. There was no doubt about that. It was a planet full of constant snowstorms. Nearly an ice planet.

Just like Hoth, Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko thought, unable to help the Star Wars reference. He glanced up at the thick transparent steel windows above that kept the raging winter storm out and the heat in. At least it was warmer than the Rebel Base…

“Hey, Alenko! You still with us?” Shepard’s voice called from beside him.

He glanced over at his CO noting that Ashley and Garrus had disappeared. “Don't you mean you, ma'am?”

“Oh for crying out loud! Don't ma’am me when we're alone,” she chided, a hand on her hip.

“We're still on the job, Commander.”

“Kaidan, is there a reason you're always so formal?”

“Habit it, ma'am, and it keeps me out of trouble.”

“Trouble? You, Alenko? Never.”

The Lieutenant snorted. “You don't know everything about me, Shepard.”

“Not yet,” the red head smirked with a wink.

***

While waiting to meet up with Gianna Parasini, Shepard unsurprisingly had elected to visit a few of the shops for tech and weapons mods. In truth it was the weapons mods that the Commander was really interested in. She only mentioned the tech mods to entice the Sentinel to tag along. In reality she didn't need to bribe him with anything other than herself.

He knew shortly after the Eden Prime mission that he was in trouble. Romantic entanglements with anyone he served with had always been a no no in his book. Falling for a superior officer was definitely not something he had ever seen himself doing. Yet there it was or rather she was standing outside yet another shop staring at the display in the window.

The Lieutenant was definitely in trouble.

He'd once told her he liked adventurous women. Kaidan would be lying to himself he didn't admit that Shepard fit that description to a tee. And that taste in the opposite sex is what would land him in trouble by the end of their current mission. Especially if the glances she was throwing over her shoulder towards him were any indication of things to come.

And there it was. The flirting grin she'd shoot him when she thought no one was looking. Of course Ashley had caught glimpses of it and teased the fire out of him about it. Despite his misgivings about the feelings he knew he was developing for his CO, Kaidan returned the smile as she motioned for him to join her at the display window. And of course he did.

As the Lieutenant walked over to her, Shepard motioned to a cluster of omni tool mods and one very specific omni tool. His eyes lit up as she casually mentioned, “I can open a line of credit with this store. You know. Get the license for the Normandy’s requisition officer so we can access their inventory anytime we want.”

“Really? Alenko asked excitedly as he looked from the Logic Arrest omni tool to Shepard.

With the amused look on her face he couldn't be sure if she were serious or not. Remembering himself he said, “I shouldn't ask you to use Alliance resources or your Specter status just to get me a new ‘tool.”

“But you didn't ask, Kaidan. I offered,” she corrected as she entered the shop. “Besides they have weapons mods too.”

Alenko cocked an eyebrow as he followed. She was his CO, a fellow officer, a friend. Yet he couldn't help but think she might harbor some feelings beyond all of that for him just as he did for her. Should he say anything? Should he let her make the first move? Should he see how things played out?

He sighed as he watched a salesman approach Shepherd with a broad grin. There were regs against fraternization. They were on a mission to stop a rogue Specter and his synthetic army. There was no place for romance, yet his feelings remained.

In an effort to distract himself, he focused his attention on the Logic Arrest Shepard had pointed out. In truth he did need a new omni tool, especially with the current mission. A part of him however couldn't shake the feeling that if he had said yes just a few minutes ago he'd already have a new ‘tool instead of looking at it in the display.

Kaidan let out a low growl. He should be able to focus on things without his thoughts circling back to Shepard. On a mission, in combat, doing his duties. Those instances were too problematic to allow that. The only acceptable exception was if Shepard was in danger.

But his down time? Sure she was nice to look at, athletic, red hair, nice smile, gorgeous eyes, great personality, honest, compassionate, amazing sense of humor, humble, firm. Anyone would be lucky to be the focus of her attention. Yet in the reflection of the display glass he saw her glancing at him as the salesman went on about various mods for her weapons the other man had were noticed Specter issue.

Apparently her status as a Specter had made the rounds rather quickly. Of course salesman wanted to land a large purchase from her then. Either way the Lieutenant could have sworn he saw the Commander wink at him in the reflection before she turned her attention back to the very friendly salesman.

“I can see the Specters have outfitted their newest agent with the latest weapons. Of course you can never go wrong with modifications,” the blond-haired man said smoothly. “Surely having the best mods on the market would help keep your lovely self safe.

“They certainly wouldn't hurt,” Shepard replied an even tone.

“Well, what is your primary weapon?” the man asked. “Maybe your favorite?”

“Those are two different things,” Shepard smirked with her arms folded across her chest.

“Really? For most customers those are one in the same,” the blond man muttered.

“I'm not most customers,” the Commander assured him confidently.

“I see,” the salesman muttered as he opened his ‘tool, showing the inventory available. “Perhaps something for your assault rifle first. We can't have our first human Specter being mowed down by rogue Geth. Protection is everything especially for a beautiful woman such as yourself.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes at the man's blatant attempt to flirt with the Commander in order to make a sale. Fundamentally the Lieutenant knew why the other man was doing it but that didn't deter the desire to tell the man off for disrespecting his CO. If he was totally honest with himself he had to admit that it wasn't just the man's lack of professionalism that bothered him.

He shifted, resisting the urge to go to Shepard’s aid. If she needed help, she would say so.

“I have plenty of protection already,” Shepard said as she gestured towards him. “My Lieutenant over there is an accomplished soldier and biotic. He's covered my six more times than I can count.”

Kaidan knew he was smirking as he caught her eye in the reflection once again. Whether she had intended to or not she had just padded his ego though he would never admit that. “Biotics will only get you so far,” the salesman muttered, his mood souring much to Alenko's delight.

“Oh but you haven't seen the Lieutenant train with his biotics,” Shepard mused with a big grin. “It's …quite the sight.”

Kaidan knew he was blushing as the salesman said, “I can provide you with top-of-the-line weapons mods. I'm afraid I am not licensed for biotic amps.”

Shepard made a noise of acknowledgement before she said, “You know what? I think I'll take that Logic Arrest in the window…and any mod you have for it.”

“Oh well, what about the weapons mods? Surely you need –“

“I already have the most advanced. Me being a Specter and all. But my Lieutenant needs the best omni tool available,” she insisted as she turned to Kaidan.

“I understand but you are his superior. Doesn't that mean –“

“If you can't sell me what I want, I am sure another shop can,” the Commander interrupted as she walked over to the Lieutenant.

“No. No. I can accommodate that,” the salesman said conceding that his sale to the first human Specter would not be as large as he originally thought.

Kaidan couldn't help the shit-eating grin as the salesman was forced to wait on him instead of Shepard.

***

Half an hour later Kaidan sat on the retaining wall of one of the many reflection pools near the shopping promenade as he fiddled with his new omni tool. They were waiting for Ashley and Garrus to rendezvous with them before taking the next step of their mission. For whatever reason, the Commander had spent her time watching him program his preferences into the new Logic Arrest.

He did his level best to ignore the attention until she said lightly, “Are you jealous?”

The Lieutenant paused in his motions as conflicting emotions demanded his answer one way or another. “No …maybe.”

She crossed her arms as she asked in surprise, “Really, Lieutenant? Of a weapons mod salesman?”

Kaidan knew he was blushing as he glanced at the nearby fountain. Was he that obvious? Was she going to give him a dressing down or just tease the crap out of him? Maybe even enlisting the help of Ashley and Joker?

“Hey, Kaidan?” Shepherds voice call to him as he felt a light pressure on his forearm from her hand. The use of his first caught his attention more than her touch.

He glanced back at her, seeing a tender smile. “I can promise you there is nothing to be jealous of. All my attention is on a certain L2 biotic. You might know him.”

Kaidan smiled as he replied, “Yes ma'am.”

Shepard opened her mouth to say something else when she heard Ashley and Garrus call out to them. She shrugged at him as she turned to greet them but not before she winked at the Lieutenant.

He watched as she walked over to their teammates as he finished setting up his tool. Any doubt he had about being more than comrades-in-arms or friends had evaporated. He was more certain than ever that things between them were more complicated than the mission parameters allowed.

But he didn't care. He was definitely in trouble, but he found himself not giving a damn about that either.

He liked adventurous women, and Shepard was definitely that. And so much more.

#trilogyappreciationweek #mass effect #kaidan alenko #rebecca shepard #f!shenko #femshep

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teentitansheadcanons · 5 years ago

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I've received 595,223 notes

Mod Temples here! I got a little bit bored and a little bit curious, and thought it might be interesting to see what our most popular submissions are!

1). 2,414 notes - Aug 15 2016

5761. When Mar'i was born, a package arrived at the tower that bore all the hallmarks of a Joker trap. After weeks of analyzing the package with every known scientific test, Nightwing finally opened the thing to find it was just a harlequin-themed baby outfit and a note from "Aunt Harley" wishing the new parents well.

2). 1,397 notes - Jan 10 2017

6125. There is a YouTube channel called “SuperMetaFails” dedicated to public recordings of superheroes doing epic fails. Some of the videos include Superman accidentally shattering a window with a sneeze and Wonder Woman tripping over her own Lasso. Much to the annoyance of the League, the Titans are some of the most featured heroes. Popular videos of them include Aqualad trying to dive into frozen water but not breaking through, Starfire face-planting from a 3 story height, Beast Boy farting at a public commemoration and Kid Flash accidentally running off a cliff and having to be saved by Raven. The channel has yet to get video of any of a Bat Family member, since they mainly work in the shadows. Robin is annoyingly smug about this fact, but the others know it’s only a matter of time.

3). 1,186 notes - Apr 30 2018

6362. Batman legit wonders if Raven has a special Robin-based power that he can only classify as "Robin Affinity". Over the years she has made a mental bond with Dick, became exceptionally close to Tim, actually managed to calm down Jason and genuinely got Damian to like her.

4). 913 notes - May 29 2016

5444. Beast Boy enjoys sending "Unsolicited Dick Pics" to the female titans. These photos are nothing obscene, they are actually just pictures of Robin with the caption "Unsolicited dick pic". Even Raven gets a chuckle out of them.

5). 909 notes - Oct 11 2015

4829. One time when Robin was kidnapped, Starfire joined forces with Batman to find him. When they were interrogating a thug together, it was one of the few times in his life where Batman found himself playing the good cop.

6). 881 notes - Dec 16 2014

3307. Cyborg and Starfire are total gym buffs and like to lift weights together. Cyborg has yet to outlift Star but he hasn't stopped trying yet. They usually try to lift at least 3 times a week in between marathoning trash TV and fighting crime!

7). 814 notes - Jul 22 2015

4390. When Beast Boy and Raven first started dating, one of the very first things Robin did was take Beast Boy aside and say “I swear to God, Garfield, if you do anything to break her heart, I will force-feed you your own kneecaps”

8). 728 notes - May 26 2017

6208. Robin realized that Red X was actually Jason Todd after he responded to the quip "What rock were you under?" with "My headstone." The only person with the skills and the fatalistic humor of those levels was the Former Second Robin.

9). 671 notes - Jul 30 2014

2722. Slade noticed that Starfire would always call him this weird word in her language. After years of searching, he finally learned what it meant. The following day, Robin received an anonymous e-mail: 'Tell your girlfriend to learn proper etiquette as calling someone a 'd***less pedo who probably wears a mask because his face looks like a Flarnop's a**hole' is inappropriate and very rude.'

10). 659 notes - Dec 2 2016

6019. Starfire taught Robin to speak Tamaranian. He became the first human to become fluent in it, and was amused when someone pointed out it was something he could do that Batman couldn't.

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k4romis · 4 years ago

Text

Hajime fluff A-Z headcanons

i’m giving him fluff ^o^

◈ ━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━ ◈

Hajime Hinata Fluff A-Z Headcanons

(under the cut for length)

◈ ━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━ ◈

A = Attractive what do they find attractive about the other?

My man is so smitten with you, he loves every part above you he doesn’t prefer anything 🥺

B = Baby do they want a family? why/why not?

He probably would, but only if you 100% want it. He respects you

C = Cuddle how do they cuddle?

I couldn’t describe it in words,, sorry ^^’

D = Dates what are dates with them like?

He loves going on walks in the park and/or picnics!

E = Everything you are my ____ (e.g my life, my world…)

You are his world 🥺

F = Feelings when did they know they were falling in love?

He’s a little tsundere, he doesn’t like admitting it but it becomes obvious when he starts fiddling with his fingers, blushing and stuttering around you

G = Gentle are they gentle? If so, how?

Yes!!! He doesn’t want to do anything you aren’t comfortable with

H = Hand/Hold how do they like to hold? how do they like to hold hands?

Before marriage? disgusting!

He doesn’t like initiating it because he’s tsundere, but if you grab his hand to hold he likes running his thumb over your fingers

I = Impression first impression/s

He probably thought of you as just another person at first.

J = Joker are they into pulling pranks?

Never, he doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you

K = Kisses how do they kiss?

He likes kissing your forehead but if he gets jealous then the lips

L = Little things what little things do they love/notice?

He loves your laugh. Even if he’s feeling down, hearing you laugh makes his whole day turn around 🥺

M = Memory their favorite moment together

Your first date, he absolutely cherishes it and refuses to forget it

N = Nickel do they spoil? do they buy the person they love everything?

He doesn’t spoil you spoil you, but he does give you small gifts every now and then

O = Orange what color reminds them of their other half

what color is apple juice? whatever that color is, it reminds you of him cuz he loves orange juice and he thinks orange juice and apple juice go well together

P = Petnames what petnames do they use?

head empty only Hajime Hinata. I am simping so hard rn-

but yeah he calls you his love

Q = Questions what are the questions they’re always asking?

How you feel. he never wants to hurt you and wants to make sure you’re a-okay all the time, the sweetheart

R = Remember their favorite memory of each other

When you asked him out or vice versa,,, he was soo happy that you returned his feelings!

S = Sad how do they cheer themselves/each other up

He hates seeing you sad and will do anything to cheer you up.

T = Talking what do they love to talk about?

How much he loves you,,,

U = Universe use a metaphor, what are they to each other? (e.g he was the universe, ever-changing and mysterious)

LMAO what does this mean i’m stupid.

V = Very ___ they’re thoughts about each other (e.g she’s very smart, he’s very stubborn, they’re very annoying etc.)

It’s his tsundere side when he says “S/O is very annoying”, but when you two are together he will not stop complimenting you

W = Why reasons why they love each other

Because YOU accept him for not having a talent.

X = Xylophone What’s their song?

From me to you too, by Ibuki Mioda

i’m not a musical person and i don’t know many songs, use your imagination here

Y = You the ___ to my ___ (e.g the cookies to my milk, the macaroni to my cheese)

Orange to my juice???

Z = Zebra if they wanted a pet, what pet would they get?

OH probably a dog.

◈ ━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━ ◈

Istg I love this man so much why isn’t he real

-A sad Mod Tsumugi because Hajime isn’t real

#Hajime Hinata #simping hours #Mod Tsumugi #Fluff #A-Z Alphabet

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mai-nonsense · 4 years ago

Note

Basics: 2, 6. Appearance: 4. Personality: 3, 8,9. Background: 1, 5. Relationships: 1, 3, 4, 7. Fun facts: 1, 7, 10.

*claps hands together* Alright! I'm going to do the answers for my Shepards, otherwise I'll be here all week.

2. What does their name mean? Why are they named that?

Jane: The original reason she's named that is because I was too lazy to think of a name so I just went with the default (she was my first ever Shepard), now I Headcannon that she went by Shepard until she joined up with the alliance, so she chose the name Jane because it's the only one that came to mind

Cassidy: I don't really pay attention to what names actually mean when I name characters, but I named her that b/c it's pretty and she just kinda looked like Cassidy

Henri: Henry is a family name on both sides of my family, but I wanted to use it as for a femshep b/c I like androgynous names (partly because I have one, but also because I think there should be more of them in circulation)

Damien: His name was originally Darren but I changed it b/c my sister and mum pointed out that Darren's a bit bogan. And instead of owning it I covered it up like a coward. I renamed him Damien because my favorite Robin is Damian Wayne and litteraly no other reason

Vance: named after the singer Vance Joy, b/c his songs have a lot of emotional significance to me and I like the name

Ryan: he's my only actual Canadian Shepard and my mum and I have a running joke about all Canadians being named Ryan (b/c of Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling etc.) So he's Ryan.

6. What's their star sign, birthstone etc? Does it hold any special significance for them?

All of them besides Vance have Shepard's canon birthday and none of them besides Cassidy have any belief in that kind of thing. Cassidy is a quietly spiritual kind of woman so she likes the whole star sign/ birthstone kind of thing, but she'd never admit out loud.

4. Appearance- How do they carry themselves? What is their default expression?

Jane has resting bitch face. She walks around like she's going to go beat someone up, probably because she usually is.

Cassidy has a very casual, approachable demeanor about her. Her go-to expression is either concern or pouting.

Henri carries herself shoulders back, chin up and head held high. Her usual expression is a mix of serious and thoughtful

Damien carries himself like a serious soldier but with a hint of sadness, he has resting sad face

Vance also walks around like he's looking for a fight and he's usually scowling

Ryan has a cocky swagger and usually has a sideways smile on his face

Personality 3. What are their hobbies and interests?

Jane: Is gun-modding a hobby? Because if so then that's one of them. She genuinely enjoys the combat part of being a soldier and enjoys training herself to be a deadly weapon, a side effect of growing up in the reds most likely. She doesn't really have many interests outside of being a solider, and doesn't really eat anything outside of protein bars and ready-meals.

Cassidy: she likes to mod games in her spare time, and practices her hacking skills a lot in order to keep herself sharp. She has a fondness for Turian and Salarian pop-culture, video games especially.

Henri: Henri likes hard copy books, with old-fashioned dust jackets and everything. Even with new release publications, she'll always go out of her way to find a hard copy if she really wants to read it. She usually reads non-fiction but she's a sucker for a good romance novel.

Damien: Also throws himself into his work so much that he barely has any free time. On the rare occasion that he does, he likes to build things, usually model ships or card towers (which he knocks down immediately after)

Vance: Vance actually really enjoys cooking, it's something he used to do with his mum when he was little so it's his way of keeping her alive in spirit

Ryan: Ryan has a penchant for old earth comic books and music from the 20/21st century, he likes to draw and regularly carries a sketchbook

8. What are their manners like? Any habits?

Jane's manners are atrocious. She's straightforward, tactless and blunt, which gets her in trouble quite a bit. She's not a fan of sparing feelings, if you're doing something that's pissing her off, she'll let you know

Cassidy is also pretty blunt, but has a lot more tact and isn't as crass as Jane. She's nice whenever possible but she doesn't skirt around issues

Henri is anxious people-pleaser that always looks for the best in everyone at heart, but has a polite but proffesional exterior.

Damien varies depending on his mood, Mass Effect 1 Damien is polite and proffesional but that drops as time goes by. By the time ME:3 rolls around he is 1000% done and doesn't have time to put up with anyone's shit and reacts to social situations accordingly

Vance goes in the opposite direction to Damien, starts off rude and aggressive but gradually softens as time goes by.

Ryan has decent manners, but can often be inappropriate in social situations

9. What are they most afraid of?

Jane: before falling for Kaidan, it's falling for Kaidan, because she hates having intense emotions about people that she can't control. After falling for Kaidan, it's anything bad happening to Kaidan. She doesn't really care for her own well-being but she constantly worries about and will protect her friends and loved ones at all costs.

Cassidy: Dying. Specifically, dying again and Garrus continuing down the dark path she found him on after her resurrection. She'd hate for him to completely lose hope like that again.

Henri: dissapointing those around her.

Damien: Also letting everyone down.

Vance: Everyone he cares about dying painfully.

Ryan: spiders.

Background, 1. Where were they born, what was their childhood like?

Jane was born in Brisbane, believe it or not, she gets carted off to one of her aunts in America at age 4. After that it's foster home to home for her until she ditches them for the reds at 10. Needless to say, her childhood was rough.

Both Vance and Henri were born and raised on Mindoir. They both had good childhoods until Batarians killed their families.

Damien was born in Chicago. He spent his childhood being bandied about from alliance ship to alliance ship. He spent a lot of his childhood alone.

Cassidy was born in New York, but has the spacer background. Her mother had a much more caring presence then Damien's however, so she grew up well.

Ryan was born in Montreal, spent his childhood in and out of foster homes until he was 14, when he joined the reds for protection. Despite this, he views his childhood in a positive light, as he knows he's come a long way since those days.

5. Where do they currently live? What's their place like?

I'm going to skip this one because I don't have a good answer for any of them at the moment lol.

Relationships, 1. Do they have any friends? Who would they consider their best friend?

Jane has more friends/people who care about her then she thinks she does. She considers her best friend to be either Miranda or Liara.

Cassidy gives off chill older sister vibes and treats her crew as family, so a lot of people come to her for support or just for an ear. She loves talking tech with Tali and considers her to be her best friend, with Ashley coming in as a close second.

Henri initially has more colleagues then friends, but she learns to loosen up and to have a more relaxed approach to the people she cares about. She considers her best friends to be Kaidan and Joker (though her feelings for Joker develop into something more ever time)

Damien has the ruthless background, so he's more feared then loved. He's also quite socially awkward so it's hard for him to make friends to begin with. Despite this, the people who do call him friend do so wholeheartedly. He considers his best friend to be Garrus.

Vance, despite being an asshole, actually has a lot of friends. Because he's a loveable asshole. His best friend is either Liara or Jack.

Ryan is very likeable, and is often the life of the party. But people more look up to him then actually consider him a friend. He considers Kaidan his best friend. (who he's also secretly in love with, but shhhhhhh we'll get to that)

3. What's their love life like? Do they have any kids?

I'm currently using Jane as my "Kaidan as subject zero AU" Shepard, because I think she fits so well with subject0!Kaidan, as I love writing stories about two hardened badasses who just want to be loved, falling in love. Non-au Jane also ends up with Kaidan, and have a daughter named Astra

Cassidy is one of my two Shakarian Sheps, who gets the more 'traditional' happy ending out of the two. That is, she retires somewhere nice with Garrus and they adopt a bunch of orphans together.

Henri is my one and only Joker-mancer, one of these days I will write their story (once I finish planning it out lol) but I currently have other projects at the forefront. As for kids, neither Henri or Joker want them because there would be to many medical factors/lifestyle changes they'd have to consider and they couldn't put that burden on a kid.

Damien's life motto is: no kids, only dogs and he manages to stick by that pretty well. When Vance (his half-brother) has kids he settles into the role of cool uncle though. Though Damien thought he wasn't one for romance at all, he somehow fell in love with Kaidan without realizing it and they eventually end up together.

Vance and Ashley fall hard for each other, and after many hardships and triumphs, they eventually marry and have three kids together

Ryan sleeps around a bit but spends the duration of ME:1 and 2 pining for Kaidan but never saying anything b/c he doesn't want to make it awkward™. Naturally they end up together but it takes a while. Am currently undecided on whether they have kids together or not.

4. Who do they look up to? Who do they trust?

Jane: Anderson. He took her under his wing and believed in her when nobody else did. She comes to trust her inner circle in time. That consisting primarly of Kaidan, Miranda, Jack, Liara, Garrus and Wrex.

Cassidy: Her mother, as she managed to give her a good childhood while in the military as a single mum. She trusts Garrus and Tali with her life.

Henri: Anderson and Hackett both, as they've always pushed her to do her best. She trusts in her crew, as, in her eyes, they've never let her down.

Damien: Hackett, as he gave him a second chance after Torfan and promised him that he wouldn't let him down. People don't trust him on impulse so the people whose trust he earns always have his in return.

Vance, Anderson and Samara. Anderson because he helped him after he lost his family on Mindoir and Samara because she's a powerful biotic with a commanding presence and he learns a lot about discipline from her. Vance eventually learns to trust Damien after not wanting him anywhere near his life for a long time.

Ryan: He tries to find a way to learn at least something from everyone he encounters, good or bad. He doesn't really trust anyone for a very long time but gradually comes to trust in his ME:3 crew

7. Are they good with kids? Animals?

Jane: Surprisingly, yes. Though it can depend on the kid or animal in question *cough star child cough*. She strives to protect those who can't defend themselves and improve lives for future generations.

Cassidy: Very good with both.

Henri: She grew up a farm girl, so she's pretty great with animals. She's good with kids until they start screeching and then she promptly nopes out.

Damien: Good with animals, dogs in particular. Is okay with kids, but doesn't really like interacting with them unless he has a good reason (like them being his niece and nephews).

Vance: Despite growing up a farm boy, he's not too big an animal lover. He loves his own kids, but isn't too big on them in general.

Ryan: Used to hang out with stray cats as a teen. Decent kid-wrangler™.

Fun facts, 1. Which tropes do they fit? which archetypes?

Jane fits the "does bad things for a good goal" trope and potentially fits the stereotypical "bad girl" archetype as well

Cassidy fits with the "protective matriarch/sister" archetype/trope

Henri gives me "girl next door", but with a gun, vibes

Damien fits the "everyone thinks he's evil, but he's really just misunderstood" trope

Vance is def an "asshole with a heart of gold"

Ryan's a himbo

7. What languages do they speak?

Vance knows a tiny bit of Mandarin, and Ryan speaks okay Canadian French, everyone else speaks English and only English for now, though that may change as I find out more about them.

10. What songs remind you of them?

Jane: Missile, Dorothy

Cassidy: Dead Weight, PVRIS

Henri: CHAMPION, Bishop Brigs

Damien: The Phoenix, Fall Out Boy

Vance: What's Up Danger, Blackway ft. Black Caviar

Ryan: You're Gonna Go Far Kid, The Offspring

WOW. I just did a big old-fashioned info dump right there. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the ask!!!

#ask meme #oc asks #crqstalite

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