The Prompt: crackfic: Femshep and ShepLoo are cousins
Shepard's cousin, also and Alliance Commander, is visiting the Normandy.
Neither is happy when the crew start calling them "femshep and sheploo" to tell them apart.
And when the dear cousin starts trying to get into the pants of various crew members, chaos ensues.
(I would really, really appreciate some femshep/liara in this, but do as you please)
The Fill:
John Shepard was a rather thoughtful, caring person. This is exactly what he told himself, syllables blurring to nonsense after another day. But he was a good person, a competent Commander, and thus he trailed after Jane. Bad enough for him to have brought his cousin onto the Normandy without a warning, but it was simply cruel not to follow her around and make sure nothing was destroyed/set aflame in particular/no one was harmed. Not that Jane was a monster.
She was just very controlling, and had problems with anger and refused to pay attention to rank when it came to her own family.
All of that John kept in mind, especially the part about his mercy, as he searched for her. His fellow Shepard, bonded by blood and childhood adventures and both being bad drivers, and getting braces in the same month of each other. His best friend, possibly. Things to remember, that would keep him from ringing her neck if he found her talking to commanders and making orders, and bothering Javik or harassing Glyph or asking too many questions to their dextro-crew members.
Things that nearly made him literally stomp his foot. Because -
That was his job.
Ridiculous, how fast she'd set her things up in the Normandy. Within mere hours, she was making friends and offering a sympathetic shoulder and advice. Also his job.
Of course, she had a different way of helping the female crew members. When he'd asked her about that, found her completely defensive and a little frazzled. "It's been years! So what if I flirt a little? What's wrong with that? Not like you're dating any of them. Right? Am I stepping on any toes? Years, John. Years. And you've got so many hot woman on this ship. It's crazy. How do you get a ship full of such attractive people. Especially-What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
She really had not been seeing anyone either. Another thing they had in common. "Are you drooling?"
"Of course not."
"I'm going to leave now. Please don't tell me anymore about your sex life—I didn't need to hear any of that."
And then later they would hang out at a bar, laughing and exchanging stories and even claiming that they were each other's wingmen. Until someone caught their eye at the same moment, over virtually nothing, truly, and they would begin fighting right there and attempting to break beer bottles over each other's heads. Even when later, John couldn't even remember what that person in the bar had looked like, if it had even been a person or a potted plant for all he knew, and it wasn't simply brain damage. But the spectre status only went so far, John discovered, when C-Sec showed up. At least they had the reassurance of the Shadow Broker, who bailed them out and would not say anything about this to the crew members. Though, she was curious about what had happened at the jail, what the guards had done to the pair, was it really as bad as the holovids implieds?
"Which holovids?"
Liara's face perfectly still. "…you know, we don't have to talk about what happened today."
Jane being on this ship also caused a common sort of confusion. "Shepard, we need you over—not you. The other one. Sorry, Commander." To be fixed with terrible nicknames that offended both Jane and John.
"I guess we'll call you FemShepard. FemShep. And you—what's that comparison Joker made? When Liara did that search thing to look for likely donors, after you got stabbed in the kidneys by that Cerberus sword? And then we were using the face recognition, and that underwear model came up?"
"…what?" Jane had thankfully missed out on that 'fun' little episode.
"I don't remember his full name but." Ashley was laughing. "Vega was calling you 'Sheploo', wasn't it? Maybe I'll ask Liara, since I think she kept all those pictures of the guy."
A headache already entering both Shepards' heads. "Why not just use our first names?"
"That would be disrespectful, skipper."
Then Williams had left, as John and Jane waited for the door to close before turning to each other for their argument again on who had been first. "I'm the Shepard."
"Says who?"
"Everyone! I'm the one saving the galaxy."
"Please. I'm older. You were inspired by me growing up."
"You are older by a month."
"And I've been fighting the Reapers too. Helping the Alliance as well, with the war effort. I didn't even argue that you should be court-marshaled and executed by the Council. Then letting me redeem the family name by giving me control of the Normandy, as no one would really care or notice switching one Shepard for another."
His last defense, the last stronghold of truth that John had and could still believe in. "…I was here first!"
Jane could have come so close to being the Shepard. The one to have died and suffered through so much trauma, but would have gotten a ridiculous VI named and programmed for her. But she hadn't, and she wasn't. So there.
Now he, Sheploo, searched for FemShep as earnestly as he'd looked for any bomb during a mission. She was not trying to flirt with Tali or Samantha or Allers or have another arm-wrestling match with Garrus or Ashley or Vega. There was only one part of the ship John hadn't checked yet, a room that he entered usually for advice or a strange comfort and to make sure that Liara was actually sleeping and preferably in her bed rather than passed out at her desk.
Oh, there FemShep was. And Liara was definitely on her bed, if not sleeping. They kept going at it, for maybe ten seconds after he'd entered and tried not to scream like a small frightened child.
John learned something new about his cousin, something he had never wanted to learn. She was a bottom, a whiny bottom that apparently had a taste for asari. A kind asari that had perhaps harbored a crush on John that had eased through the years. Only to find that this other Shepard had been here and had no problem breaking any codes and going right for the…azure?
That was not his job, at least.
...But it could have been.
Just as it might be Jane who was forced to invite John onto the Normandy.
'Take her onboard the ship, she's already related to you and getting her own branch of stalkers.' Thanks Mom.
Then Liara saw him, and her eyes flicked from black to blue and white and sane again. She fell off Jane, holding sheets and comforters to her chest. Eventually, Jane turned around to see what the problem was.
"Hey. Cous."
He nearly used her new nickname, goddamn the crew. All of them potential traitors who would flock to this Shepard as they hadn't his literal clone. "Jane."
Growing insane fury that made John glad she was on his side. "You just going to keep standing there and making this more awkward?"
Liara was lowering the sheet from below her forehead. Huge blue eyes. Forever he would associate her with his cousin, and them having sex. "Are you implying that John would join us?"
Both Shepards recoiled.
Nice, to be one the same side rather than wondering what it had meant when Jane had come into his cabin, carrying a knife borrowed from Tali- who apparently kept knives on her suit. John, trying to grin, knowing the lengths Jane could take jokes and games. 'You weren't coming in here to kill me, were you?'
'Kill, eat, and replace you? What? No. Never!' Then stepping back onto the elevator, never showing her back, smiling, neither moving their eyes away from one another. Not even when the door closed in her face.
Now she was seeing or sleeping with Liara, who had lots of connections and little pity and presumably her own knives. Though, of course Liara would never hurt him. Still, he made a mental note to send her a muffin basket or a new terminal or something. Just to be careful, and not sleep with his eyes closed so much anymore. Not when you could turn around and find another Shepard right behind you, nearly breathing down your neck as she waited to simply go around changing the name of the commander officer of the Normandy by only a few letters.
"I should go."
"Yeah. You should."
