A/N: If you've read any of my other Shrios fanfics, be warned. This pairing is completely different and no relation to my other stories. Thane and Shepard are both dark renegades who have no desire to change. There will be no soft fluffy feels here. Here there be vengeful, angry dragons. Enter at your own risk. Rated M for strong language, graphic violence and graphic sexual content. Trigger warnings for breath play and potential dubcon.
Seriously, if you're under 18 or don't like rough themes, stay out.
It took a while before he trusted her enough to tell her even a fraction of his life story. She wasn't surprised. No one with his skill set would go around bragging about their achievements. So when he admitted he needed her help, it came as a shock. The reason for it was an even bigger one. The assassin she thought she knew had once had a family, a wife. Still had a son. He hadn't seen him in years, barely knew his son anymore, but still felt enough guilt and remorse that he didn't want the kid following in his own footsteps. She agreed. Without proper training, Kolyat would probably end up dead within six months.
They were headed to the Citadel anyway, so it was no skin off her nose to go along with him. Tracking down the kid proved easy enough; he made a piss poor hit man. She never knew what they talked about in that interrogation room. She asked him about it one night when she stopped by. His response? "I do not wish to discuss it, Shepard. It is done." She held up her hands in apology. She never brought it up again and neither did he.
A couple days later, EDI found a batarian slaver transfer point, and Shepard grinned wickedly. Ever since batarian slavers had killed her family on Mindoir, she made it a personal goal to kill as many of them as possible. As she ran through the roster to decide who to take with her, Thane came to mind. She wanted to see his face when she asked him, to see if there was any fire still left under his cold demeanor. She rather suspected there was and had been trying to figure out how to kindle it back to life.
She found him in the hangar bay practicing some sort of drell assassin karate moves. She leaned up against the wall and just watched him. He knew she was there but ignored her. He was poetry in motion, and she loved watching him. She had been attracted to him since he dropped from Nassana Dantius' ceiling and dispatched three guards and Nassana herself with ruthless efficiency. Just thinking back to it gave her little shivers of appreciation. Stealth and attacking from the shadows was her specialty, and she knew immediately that Thane Krios was something special.
It took him another twenty minutes to finish his exercises, and she blatantly watched him the entire time. Mostly she was critiquing his moves. With his bigger build and greater muscle mass, he could rely on strength moves that were beyond her. However, she picked out several moments where she could have isolated a joint of his and taken him down. Maybe. They hadn't seriously sparred each other since she had recruited him. Looking at him now, she thought they needed to rectify that. But that would be for another day. He had finished up and was headed her way.
Thane stopped directly in front of her. He had stripped to a pair of loose pants for his exercise and nothing else. Without his black leather, his chest appeared much broader, and she could see the iron muscles in his arms bunch and flex. "Did you need something, Shepard?"
Her lips twitched. There were a few things she needed now that she was looking at him half-clothed. Instead, she put it out of her head and asked her original question. "EDI found a batarian slaver base. I plan to destroy it. Want to help?"
She hadn't been wrong. There was a flicker of eagerness in those dark eyes, and he stood just a little straighter. "I would be honored to accompany you, Shepard," was all he said, but she thought his voice was a touch deeper. That deep, gravelly voice was another thing she found attractive, and the thought of hearing him in her ear for the next several hours was not unpleasant.
"Good. Suit up and meet me in back here in ninety minutes."
He stepped into the elevator with her, and she leaned back and closed her eyes as the strong scent of drell filled the small space. It was spicy, earthy, and a little bit smokey. She opened her eyes when the elevator stopped to let him off. She caught him looking at her with those enigmatic dark eyes. She let the barest hint of a smile touch her lips as he stepped out.
There was nothing she loved so much as killing batarians, especially batarian slavers. She loved stealthing up behind them and shooting them at point blank range only to fade away before their companions could even open fire. Even more, she loved slipping behind one and sinking her blade into the soft tissues of his midsection and twisting to inflict maximum damage.
Thane was more measured about his kills. He claimed a sniper's perch early on and was dropping them quickly. Grunt simply looked like he was having fun charging up to them and discharging that heavy shotgun he loved to use. Every once in a while, he'd simply use it as a club.
All too soon it was over. There were three batarians still alive in the furthest room, but they had thrown down their weapons and pleaded for mercy. Shepard sent Grunt back to the shuttle after telling him he did a fantastic job. As he left, Thane watched her with curious eyes. She beckoned him closer as she walked back to the captives, and he stepped to her side.
She turned to Thane and started speaking in a casual tone. "You once told me you were nothing more than a weapon, Thane." He nodded agreement. "So you didn't take any pleasure whatsoever in killing these bastards?" There were many lying dead on the ground with head shots. There were fewer where he'd taken his killing shot in the chest.
"You are my employer, Shepard. If you order me to fight, I fight. If you order me to kill someone, it will be done."
"And I appreciate that, Thane. I really do. But I think you and I have something unique in common. It was scum like this that took from each of us the only things we ever cared about. When I close my eyes at night, I see a batarian fucker just like this one drag my little sister away right past the dead body of our mother. I see another of those unholy assholes shoot my dad in the stomach and leave him to die slowly as he watched his little girl be dragged off into slavery. He never knew if I lived or not. He died before I could get to him. So you might understand why I'm not inclined to be very merciful when it comes to batarians." She ignored the shaking of the captives.
Thane watched her closely, obviously wondering what her plans were. She continued. "Something similar happened to you. Batarians seeking revenge but too cowardly to go after you directly. So instead they destroyed your family. Let me ask you, Thane. How merciful are you?"
His eyes narrowed as he glanced at the quivering captives. One of them still had a shock baton shoved through his belt. "I am your weapon, Shepard. Mercy is not a quality I consider anymore." She had cracked something inside him, though. She could see it in the way his hand clenched around his pistol grip and the way his full lips thinned out as he stared at the three.
"Really? Because I think you've shown a great deal of mercy here today." She gestured at the closest dead batarian lying on the floor. "Head shot." She pointed to another. "Head shot." Another. Another. "They didn't even have time to realize they were dead. One second they're living, breathing, fighting. The next...oblivion. You are very kind, Thane. Much more than I am." Whirling suddenly, she whipped a thin blade from her hip and shoved it up and into the nearest captive's armpit. He screamed and collapsed to his knees as dark brownish-red blood streamed down his side. "This one has about five minutes left to live, maybe as many as fifteen if he can calm down." She stepped back and cocked her head to the side as she watched him bleed and sob. "What do you think of me, Thane? Does my bloodlust disgust you?"
His head jerked to the side and she saw him bite his lip. She'd seen something similar one night in his room when she'd triggered a memory of his. He must be going through one now, fighting to keep the words inside. "No," he breathed as he, too, looked at the blood pooling on the ground. When she moved around to look at his face, there was a fire in his eyes that had been hiding since he boarded the Normandy.
"You know the best thing about being a Spectre, Thane?"
Mutely, he shook his head.
"As long as I get the job done, I can do anything I want and no one can do or say anything to stop me." She stopped in front of the second captive. All three men were staring at her as if their lives depended on her. For two of them, they did.
Again, she stabbed forward. This time the blade buried itself in the batarian's soft gut and he let out an anguished scream. She leaned in and stared into his eyes. In an ice cold voice she said, "That was for my mother." She jerked the knife sideways drawing another throat-rending scream as he slumped to the floor. "And that was for my sister." She kicked him in the gut, tearing open the knife wound enough for glistening entrails to show in the harsh overhead light. "And that's for my father, you goddamned son of a bitch!"
The third captive tried to run in spite of the fact that she'd handcuffed him to the piping. He was sobbing, and by the smell of it had pissed his pants in fear. Ignoring him, she turned to Thane again wondering if she'd pushed too far. "What about you, Thane? Are you ready to take your vengeance for what they did to you?"
"I've already taken my full measure of vengeance, Shepard," he said, but his voice sounded regretful. When she compared it to the avid way his gaze latched onto the batarian writhing in pain on the floor, she didn't think it sounded like the voice of a man who regretted his past actions, but more like a man who was sorry he didn't have a reason to continue.
"Are you my weapon, Thane?" He nodded and followed her gaze to the third batarian. Her voice was harsh and cold. "Your employer has not had her full measure of vengeance. Your employer wishes for her weapon to finish what she started."
Finally a smile touched those full lips. It was a smile that promised death, slow and painful. It was a smile that said he had done this in the past and liked it. "Your weapon is pleased to obey, Shepard." His pistol rose and shot the last batarian in the groin.
She smiled grimly. It wouldn't bring her family back, but each small measure of justice calmed the hysterical monster of hate and grief inside her for a short while. She looked at Thane, wondering if he felt the same.
Her breath caught in her throat when he looked back at her. There he was! The predator was finally showing himself. Now to draw him out a little further. She grinned at him wolfishly. "I knew we had something in common. Stay by my side, Thane, and my weapon will get everything he wants."
She headed back toward the shuttle, stepping carefully to avoid getting any more batarian blood on her than was necessary. Thane didn't say a word, but she could feel him like a cold, dark shadow at her back.
Special thanks to Stacey218 for doing a beta read and encouraging me to post this. Because without her, this would still be sitting on my hard drive.
