#that i want to wear mark hoffman as a weighted blanket

[dgaftilwedie]

headcanoning hoffman as being like 6'2 because im horrible

[solitaireships]

Marks

So a fun fact about this fic is originally I was going to have this come out before Fantasies bcs it takes place earlier in the timeline of Mark and Shepard's relationship, so if you've been keeping up with my one shots for them, this is set between Bad Idea, Right? and Fantasies. I think a lot about the scar that Mark has on his chest bcs they don't really talk about what caused that in canon, so have a little hc moment about that

Rating: Teen

Genre: Fluff

Words: 1188 words

Divider by saradika

Content warning: Discussions of car accidents, death, hospitals, and severe physical injuries

Shepard’s sitting in bed, waiting for Hoffman. Why he always takes so long getting ready for bed is beyond her, but she doesn’t mind waiting. It’s not like he gets a lot of space right now— that’s one of the many downsides of being on the government's most wanted list— so she’ll let him take whatever moments he wants. 

But she’s glad when he comes into the bedroom, ready to go to bed with her. 

Tonight Hoffman opted to sleep in nothing but a pair of black gym shorts. Shepard always likes getting to see him shirtless. There’s dark hair across his chest and his belly, and his love handles peek out over the waistband of his shorts. It’s always a nice view, but now her eyes are drawn more than usual to the scar that goes down the middle of his chest. She’s noticed it plenty of times, of course, but for some reason she finds her attention locking on it now.

Hoffman doesn’t talk much about his scars. The only one that he’s told Shepard about is the one that cuts across his cheek, stretching from the right corner of his lips up to his ear in jagged lines. That he got from a reverse bear trap that tore his cheek open as he tried to escape, stitching the wound up himself. When he talked about that the first time, Shepard wished she was there to stitch him up so he wouldn’t have had to do that alone. But then she reminded herself that’s an overly sweet thought to have given how he's talking about having part of his face ripped open. 

Hoffman can handle himself. But Shepard does have to wonder what the story is behind his other scars. There's the one on his chest, and his back is littered with several smaller scars.

Hoffman settles down on the bed, the mattress shifting a bit under his weight. He pulls the blankets aside, climbing into bed and then getting under the covers. His chest is still visible over the top of the blankets, though, leaving Shepard’s eyes to wander again to the scar.

“Hey,” Shepard says.

“Hey yourself,” he replies.

“How did you get that scar on your chest?”

Hoffman looks at her, almost surprised. She was probably more direct than she should have been. But her curiosity got the best of her here.

“It was back when I was a beat cop,” Hoffman says. “Got involved in a bad car accident when I was pursuing a suspect, some metal from the wreck got me pretty good on the chest.”

“God. That must’ve gotten close to your heart.” Shepard cuddles close to Hoffman’s side, letting him put an arm over her shoulders. 

His hand rests on her back, massaging it through her t-shirt. “Yeah, but obviously it missed. Still hurt like hell, though. Wearing shirts was rough for a while even after I left the hospital with it healing.”

“I bet.”

“No joke about how I should keep my shirt off all the time?” Hoffman teases. 

Shepard rolls her eyes but says, “I’m so sorry, I think you should never wear a shirt ever again, Hoffy.”

“Thank you.”

Shepard shifts under his arms, propping herself up with one hand on his chest. She leans over him to reach over and turn off the lamp, leaving them in the dark. But even through the dark, she can still see Hoffman’s scar. So as she moves back, she gives him a quick kiss on it. 

She’s glad he’s still alive. She might be the only person who is. But she hates the thought of never having met him. 

“What about the ones on your back?” Shepard asks, moving back to lay on her side, tucked under Hoffman’s arm. 

“They’re all from the same thing,” he says. “It was a trap— the glass coffin. Think a rectangular box made out of glass and with a bunch of jagged glass shards at the bottom of it. It was part of Strahm’s test. If he got in it, he would’ve lived. Instead he shoved me in. Getting a bunch of glass stuck in my back was better than what happened to him, though.”

“Damn.”

Shepard never knows quite what to say when Hoffman talks about the traps he made. Part of her is curious, but it’s strange to hear him so casually talk about putting people in deadly situations. She doesn’t think he’s going to be a threat to anyone anytime soon— and, privately, she likes to think that she’s part of the reason behind that. But he still talks about the traps he made like he’s describing something regular, like he’s talking about something that happened at work that was part of his day-to-day. 

She guesses it’s easier to talk about if you can disconnect from it. Hoffman mentioned that— John had told him that you had to leave emotions out of administering tests. 

Shepard knows it’s probably equally weird that she’s glad that’s how Hoffman talks about it. It’s better than him sounding like he enjoyed every death he was responsible for, and it makes it easier for her to hear. 

Maybe that’s part of why he talks about things so casually with her too. It's some attempt to not scare her.

“Getting all the glass out of my back was a pain in the ass,” Hoffman says.

“I would’ve helped you if I were there,” Shepard says. And, for some reason, she’s sure as she said it that she would have. 

Hoffman laughs. “Thanks.”

He moves his arm from around Shepard, rolling onto his side so his back faces her. She takes that as the invitation it is, instantly moving to spoon him. She loves the way the two of them seem to fit together, his back pressed against her chest. 

Shepard strokes one hand down his side. “You know I’d always be happy to help you, Hoffman.”

There’s a silence, and Shepard assumes that means that Hoffman’s ready to go to sleep. But then he says, “We’ve been dating for over a month. When are you going to start using my first name?”

Shepard’s hand pauses along his side for a second. If she’s honest, she never really thought about calling him his first name. It’s not that she never wanted to call him Mark, but it never felt right. He’s always just been Hoffman. 

“I don’t know,” Shepard says, resuming stroking up and down his side. She presses a quick kiss to his back, her lips brushing against one of the scars there. “Do you want me to call you Mark?”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t mind if my girlfriend called me my name,” he replies. 

“Okay. I love you, Mark.”

“I love you too,” Hoffman replies, and the words come off of his tongue easier now than they did even just a month ago. 

“Good night.”

“Good night, Shep.”

And as she holds him in her arms, drifting slowly off to sleep, she hopes that she’ll get plenty more chances to show Hoffman— to show Mark— how much she appreciates every part of him.