#like reasonably it's just the meds and nothing tragic and it's mostly just annoying and i'm not in pain or anything

[theehighwarlock]

just gotta love the "this kinda weird thing is happening and oh shit wait it's been multiple weeks now actually i thought it was like one week tops but hey my doctor is on holiday until next week and it's probably just my meds but what if i'm dying actually?" feeling i'm having atm

[makkoskafanfic]

WIP fic release

In which one Madara is the manager of the black metal band called the Akatsuki and shares a History with the Mayor of Konoha. 

@enquiringangel this might be slightly cheating as this one’s fairly recent and I might actually continue it if my brain cooperates. 

Madara wakes to a harrowing headache. He squints against the light, doing his best not to be sick and wishes he remembered to draw the curtains closed last night. It takes him some time to realise the pounding doesn’t only come from inside his skull - someone is knocking on the door of his hotel room as well.

He lurches to his feet and stumbles to the door to jerk it open.

“What,” he barks “is so urgent?”

“Wow, boss. You look like hell,” Obito takes a long look at him as he stands there in nothing but his boxers. “I could have lived without this sight.”

“Then go and bother someone else,” he tries to slam the door in the younger man’s face, but Obito holds it open with a hand. Madara feels too sick to fight, so he just wanders back to the bed and slumps down on it. “Let me die in peace.”

“Can’t do,” Obito says cheerfully. “It’s 10 already, we need to check out in an hour and we have to discuss the next steps of the tour before.”

Madara groans and pushes a pillow against his face. He then remembers it’s a hotel pillow, and who knows when it had been properly washed, so throws it away.

“Aren’t you supposed to be my assistant? Do something on your own for a change. I’m dying.”

“Are you hungover?”

“I wish I was. I hardly got to drink anything last night, as Kakuzu and Kisame got into a fight at the bar and I had to smooth things over.”

“A migraine then.”

“You don’t say.”

“Where are your meds?”

“Small bag in the big bag.”

Obito fishes the pills out and pours him a glass of water. He also wets a towel and handles it over to Madara, to lay it on his face. Madara likes him a bit more than he usually does in that moment. 

He approached Madara about half a year ago, asking him to hire him. He was family - which was a good enough reason in itself to decline him in Madara’s opinion. But he had that kicked puppy look in his eyes when the older man told him to get lost. He just couldn’t go back home, he said. Not after all that happened. 

He would have been a handsome guy, if not for the ugly scar on the right side of his face. There was some tragic love story in the background. In the end Madara was weak and offered him a job if he promised he would never again bore him with the details. He doesn’t want to be involved in the woes of a twenty-two years old. He has never really gotten over his own heartbreak from his early twenties, so he was hardly a suitable person to give any advice. 

“You will get over it,” he told him. “Or maybe you won’t. Either way, I couldn’t care less about this Rin and Kakashi, so never mention them again. Here’s your contract. Money is shit, but then, I don’t really have anything for you to do.” 

Obito signed without any questions and here he was now, giving Madara his painkillers, proving to be useful in the end. 

“Are the circus freaks awake yet?” me mutters from under his wet towel.

“I heard Hidan’s yelling, so probably they are.”

“Go and check on them, won’t you? It would be great to keep the schedule for once.”

“I’m more concerned about you. Have you considered you are too old for this life?”

Madara pulls the towel off his face and raises his head with an effort to glare at Obito.

“I’m forty-seven you disrespectful little shit. I’m not old.”

“Whatever you say, gramps. Do I need to help to get you into the shower?”

Madara scrunches the towel into a ball and throws it at Obito. It hits him on the neck with a satisfying wet smack. 

“Keep your hands to yourself and run me through the schedule.” 

He gets to his feet, feeling marginally better as the painkillers start to kick in. He definitely feels the age in his back and he stretches, but he is careful not to wince as Obito is watching. He leaves the bathroom door slightly ajar, allowing the voice of his so-called assistant to carry through. He doesn’t listen as he knows everything by heart, but he might as well let him play being important. Madara, as the meticulous person he is, doesn’t forget the details of the tour plan. It’s a useful trait to have for the manager of the band, although it probably would come as a surprise to the fans who remember Madara as a chaotic rock star.

He used to be quite famous, being on the stage for a good fifteen years. He had a carefully built image, with everything in the book - the sometimes sensual, sometimes rude and shocking lyrics, the wild guitar riffs, a voice that had a classical education but was put to the best use when screaming into the mic. He used to have the looks, with his long mane of hair, the wiry muscles on his chest and arms that made him look good shirtless on the stage.

The rumours, the gossip and scandals that came with that lifestyle never bothered him. They had very little foundation - outside his stage persona, Madara has always been a reserved man, but that wasn’t what the fans wanted to see and in his opinion everybody was entitled to the illusions they preferred.

Madara has always been a smart man, too. As he passed fourty, all that came with the show, the tours, the gigs, the albums, the photo shoots started to get too much. So he just quit it, without any plan in place with what he wanted to do with his life. 

He didn’t enjoy retirement, but then, it lasted about two months. He was approached by Yahiko, or as he became known on his stage name, by Pain, offering him the role of the manager for his newly formed black metal band, The Akatsuki. He already had the members, he explained, just needed someone with experience in the industry to help them break through.

Madara agreed to meet the band and realised that Yahiko-Pain, with his numerous piercings, spikey carrot-red hair and well formed messiah-complex was the least weird of them all still. He thought they wouldn’t last a month, but out of boredom he agreed to be their manager. It would be a laugh, he considered, some trash band with a manager who had no idea what he was doing.

Almost seven years have passed since. The Akatsuki have become surprisingly successful within their genre and Madara is still managing them. He didn’t even like them - on some days, like today, he outright loathes them - but he couldn’t figure out what else to do with the rest of his life.

By the time he checks out in the lobby, he feels mostly human again. The horrible migraine quilted down to an annoying, but bearable headache. He has his jacket zipped up to his chin, his hair up in a ponytail and large sunglasses covering most of his face, and nobody spares him a second glance. 

“Madara, you fucking bastard,” Hidan, the guitarist shrieks at him when he approaches their bus. Madara doesn’t even wince - he has accepted years ago that Hidan is incapable of speaking in a normal tone or without unnecessary swear words. While his skills on the guitar are mediocre at best, he is a vital part of the show.  One can always count on him to be shocking, offensive and obscene. He’s a considerable contributor to the spotlight the band gets on the media. “Last night was fucking awesome, man! The crowd just ate it all up! Where are we up next? Iwa? We will rock them! Haha! Kakuzu, you limp dick, do you get it? Rock them, as Iwa is…”

“Actually we’ve been in Iwa half a year ago,” Obito interrupts, as he still didn’t learn to just ignore Hidan. “That’s where we started the tour, remember. Our next stop is… Konoha,” he looks sour and Madara makes a mental note not to sit next to him on the drive. It’s going to 

be a long one and he can’t bear listening to him go off about Rin-Kakashi-Rin-Kakashi-Rin-Kakashi again.

Especially as he’s not the only one upset by going back to Konoha. It’s not the first time Madara will be back of course - he has left over twenty years ago, and the town has become too prominent to miss out on tours. He was a nervous wreck on all occasions before and he’s not sure this time will be different. Well over two decades have passed, but Madara is not very good at moving on.

They all climb into the bus, which is getting rather small or rather, their team is getting too big. The four members of the band, Madara, Obito, Pain’s lethargic girlfriend slash occasional keyboardist and the “arts” team who are responsible for everything that happens on the stage that’s not music, from pyrotechnics to setting up equipment.

Kakuzu, their bassist, is behind the wheels as he claimed a driver is just a waste of money and the others couldn’t care less about who was driving. Madara sits down next to him on the front seat as the man at least doesn’t talk much. They all settle slowly, Pain and Konan in the back, so they can make out as they usually do, Hidan bickering with the blond arts kid, Kisame, the drummer, grumbling something about ergonomy as he tries to fold his tall frame into the seat. Obito sits next to him, seeming ready to start off his tirade about his bloody annoying love triangle. 

Madara puts in some music so he doesn’t have to listen to any of them and decides on feigning sleep on the majority of the trip. He can already feel anxiety setting down inside his very bones. Going home isn’t something he looks forward to.

[incorrectly-quoted-queers]

Biotic Freckles

Chapter 1: Seeing You How much longer could Kaidan Alenko spend brooding over the fact that the woman he loved saw him as an annoying puppy?

In theory, forever. But he was a soldier, so probably he probably wouldn’t make it that long. Maybe she’d finally notice him if he died a noble sacrifice.

That went darker than he meant.  

Who was he kidding? Staying hung up on her would be dumb, and thinking like that was pathetic. Commander Anya Shepard clearly didn’t have any feelings for him. 

He fell for her because she saved his life and she fought everything with a fire in her eyes, a beacon on the battlefield. But she was also kind and treated her subordinates like friends; family. Every CO he’d ever had was interested in his L2’s and the headaches, mostly for intel reasons. But none of them asked how he got them and how sometimes it felt like he wasn’t a lucky survivor, but a cursed leftover. 

Shepard understood that, the cursed thing. She said it was how she felt about Akuze, the mission that made her famous. He never knew someone like her could feel like him. 

Hell, Kaidan could still remember the first time they met. Anderson brought him onto his ship as a new lieutenant and was touting him around, giving him the grand tour. Everyone was respectful and saluting, some making a few quips, but they all were the typical soldier types. He’d seen so many of them, passing around from ship to ship to be the resident biotic for X, Y, or Z mission. The whole process felt like old news. 

But then they got to the cockpit, and instead of classic Alliance garb, there was a woman with long, brown hair bandaging up the shoulder of a shirtless pilot. Her thick brows were furrowed, her sweatpants were practically falling off her hips, and she just had a sports bra on top. Not exactly military standard. And when she glanced up at Anderson, she didn’t look flustered like she got caught doing something wrong, just kinda annoyed. 

Kaidan was horrified and also instantly wanted to know everything about her. 

She went back to the pilot’s wounds, saying, “Joker cracked his bone while high-fiving his co-pilot. Just mitigating the damage.”

Anderson chuckled, like this was the norm here. “Lieutenant Alenko, the one with the chip on his shoulder is Joker, the best pilot you can get. And next to him is my second in command, Commander Anya Shepard.” 

After she tucked the bandage into itself, she straightened in front of Kaidan and extended her hand. He took it, rough calluses under smooth skin, but still couldn’t adjust to the fact she was like... this. “Nice to meet you, Alenko. Not to hi and bye, but I was just brushing my teeth when Joker graciously called my ass up here, so I’m going to finish that. She gave a wave and then walked off the bridge. 

He didn’t even get to say anything to her, and he was mesmerized. 

Anderson filled in the empty space. “Shepard is my best officer; an infiltrator. You’ll be working closely with her on ground missions, but you’ll have to keep up. She’s a great shot but she’s not a very patient one. Her teams move quick. We can have a more formal introduction later.”

“So she’s always like that?”

“Only the best could ever get away with it.”

And Anderson was right. He learned more in those first few days with her than he ever did running practical drills on other ships. Shepard liked the unconventional, and it made her a stronger fighter and leader. 

With how informal she was, he also caught a lot more of that sweats look than he ever meant to. But Kaidan had to admit, he liked how she looked with her hair down.

Looking around the bunks, he was one of the only people there at the moment. Only essential personnel to run the ship were left. It was kinda sad, how even though she broke his heart he was the one sticking around for so long. Guess he couldn’t get over her just yet.

Harder to when she’s the best boss you’ve ever had, and you’d be a fool to quit one of the best military jobs in the galaxy. 

But just as he was settling down in his bed of tragic misery, his omni-tool pinged. On it, there was a message from Liara T’Soni. Come by my room later, please. 

Kaidan was a tad perplexed. They’d never been super close, but it was her last night on the Normandy, so maybe she was just saying her goodbyes. She said later, but Kaidan had nothing better to do. Swinging off his bed, he pulled on some pants, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked over to the med bay and her science office. 

She had never been comfortable, sleeping with the soldiers. He couldn’t blame her; it wasn’t her scene. His parents would say it wasn’t his, either, but they were kind-hearted Canadians. They never really got the military in the first place. 

Maybe they would’ve done a better job swaying him if they hadn’t sent him to that biotic school.

When he made it to Liara’s door, he gave it a simple knock. She opened it within seconds, but she looked all flustered. “Hello, Kaidan.” She scratched her head and then added, “I thought I asked you to come later.”

With a smirk, Kaidan couldn’t help but laugh. “I mean, it is later.”

“You’re... correct.” She glanced behind her and seemed a little distressed. 

“Do you need me to actually come back later?”

Liara shook her head at him like he’d said something absolutely absurd. It was kinda adorable. He had to admit, her absent-minded professor schtick was kinda refreshing after all the keep-it-tough soldier energy he’d been stuck with. “No. I apologize for the mess. I had hoped to be more packed when you got here.”

“A little mess doesn’t bother me.” Liara gave him a tortured look and let him in. Safe to say, a little mess was an understatement on his part. Her desk was covered in Prothean Artifacts, her clothes were haphazardly falling out of a bag, and even more artifacts and books were littered around the room. Only some of them were properly boxed up. “Never knew you had so much stuff in here.”

Scanning the room, Liara looked overwhelmed. Her hands kept twisting and knotting, which seemed to suggest this wasn’t how it normally looked. He kinda wanted to grab them just to save her from dislocating a finger. “I didn’t either. I had everything catalogued and organized on the shelves and under the bed so I didn’t see them, and we just stopped so many places with Prothean tech... I guess I collected a lot more than I thought.”

She gave the room a couple more frantic looks, and Kaidan made a decision. “Okay, whatever you want to talk about can wait. I’m going to help you pack.”

“You don’t have to--”

“I insist.” 

Liara gave him this soft, thankful smile, but she also kinda looked at him like she pitied him. She didn’t need to know that it was this or thinking about Shepard’s brutal rejection. Prothean Artifacts would always seem better. So he just asked, “Okay, so how have you been organizing things?”

For a few minutes, Liara explained her process. Then, they got to work. They bantered a bit about missions and crewmates, but otherwise they focused on the task at hand. It was nice to do something that had absolutely nothing to do with Shepard. Instead it was just him, Liara, and all these pieces of history. Liara even explained a few of them to him, and they were cooler than he’d thought they were. 

And then everything was put away.

And then it was just them, the air, and whatever Liara had to say. 

She suddenly looked all grave and patted the metal chest in front of her bed like it was a seat. Well, guess they were using it as one. Kaidan didn’t know how to feel, sitting down next to her with her looking at him like that. Her deep blue eyes were so sympathetic and sad. 

When they were side by side, she placed her hand on his knee. “Kaidan, I know Shepard finally told you. And I’m sorry she didn’t feel the same way.”

“Why are you giving me a speech?”

“Because I thought you might want a friend who knows how you feel.”

Kaidan swallowed, looking at the scientist in a new light. That melancholy in her blue eyes was familiar; he saw it in the mirror. “You had feelings for her, too.”

“Yes. But, like you, she wasn’t interested. And I know how much that must hurt, because I’m hurting as well. I figured I might be able to support you better than your soldier friends, before I go.”

Staring at the space between his legs, between his hands, Kaidan was still stunned by the revelation of Liara being his romantic rival. And worse, the fact neither of them got the girl. Guess Shepard really just wanted to be alone, huh? At least in that way. Instead of musing until his brain bled, he said, “Thanks for thinking of me.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

He shrugged, picturing his future on this ship, one without loving her. “Yeah. It’ll take time, but I’d rather be on the Normandy than anywhere else.”

“I wish I was as strong. Anya offered to personally ferry me from dig site to dig site, but I couldn’t. I feel bad, she wants so desperately for none of us to leave her. But she refuses to just ask us to stay instead of giving all these elaborate offers. I hope she learns to open up to people, even if it’s not me.”

Listening to her, Kaidan felt the weight of her words weigh on his shoulders and bury into his heart. “I was hoping I could be that person for her.”

“Me, too.” Liara laughed, and it was so soft and light. It didn’t make him feel patronized; just heard. “I wanted someone who wanted to share who they are with me. I thought it was her, but she shares stories, not who she is. I just--”

“You just wanted to be seen. And get to see them, too.”

Liara’s eyes met his, and they were still wistful and hurt, but they were also filled with hope and softness. Her freckles laid across her cheeks like the constellations of her world. Where Shepard kept hiding away from him, Liara was a soulful, open person filled with emotion and kindness. 

And while he admired everything about Shepard, he found he couldn’t look away from Liara. 

“Liara, we--”

She pressed her fingers against his lips and scanned his face. “If you’re feeling what I’m feeling, that should be enough for us tonight. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Kaidan didn’t need more prompting than that. His arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled Liara close, pressing his lips against hers. And unlike his last attempt, she didn’t pull away or punch him. Instead, her hands cradled his face.

How good it felt to be wanted. 

He didn’t know if whatever was happening between them was real or just the byproduct of sharing heartbreak. But with her mouth on his, Kaidan finally felt like he was getting a taste of what he had been trying so hard to make Shepard give him. 

Getting as close as he could to her, he didn’t try to think about tomorrow or what would be next. Kaidan just held her tight and enjoyed the next few hours of being wanted, all of him, by a beautiful woman he also admired. 

It didn’t matter if it wasn’t love. For tonight, it didn’t need to be. 

Hours later, he wasn’t so sure what he felt anymore. Liara’s freckles were still laying out the map of her soul on her face, her shoulders, and beyond, and Shepard was still someone he loved so hard it ached. The woman next to him was beautiful and genuine and he couldn’t help but see her in a new light. But it didn’t change the fact that Shepard changed his life. 

And he was the one that had to live with that dichotomy. 

But for now, he couldn’t make things complicated by spending all night with her. This wasn’t some bar hook-up on the Citadel; he just slept with the Asari researcher who was leaving tomorrow. And it was on the ship of the woman he once, or maybe still, loved. 

So for now, he couldn’t stay.

Shaking Liara’s shoulder, he said, “I have to go.”

Initially, she groaned. But as her eyes opened, softened, and then filled with concern, she nodded. “Yes. Probably. This is already a very complicated situation.”

“Agreed.” Kaidan pulled on his clothes, trying to stop his mind from racing about all the ways this could go terribly wrong and how maybe, this was also a terrible mistake. Then he glanced back at Liara, though, wrapped in her blanket and giving him an awkward, hesitant smile, and he knew even that was more complicated than just good or bad. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Be seeing you, alright?”

Liara didn’t look so sure, but she nodded anyway. “Yes. I’ll be seeing you.”

And that’s when Kaidan left her room, like none of that happened. It was really late at night- or early in the day, depending on who you asked- but all he had to do was get across the mess and then he’d-

“On a 4 am stroll, Alenko?”

Kaidan’s stomach dropped out of the goddamn ship to see Commander Shepard, dark hair tied up in a ponytail, sitting at one of the tables with this bemused look on her face. 

Dammit.

///