A/N: Hey, guys. I know I probably shouldn't be uploading a new story when I have others to finish, even within the Mass Effect fandom, but oh well. I've been working on this for a while, it seems to be doing okay on AO3, so I shall attempt to put it here. If you've been following me for a while and were with me in the Supernatural fandom, you will find the beginning of this (the first 6 chapters) very familiar as they are similar to that of 'Hear Me Now', focusing around the Drama Club and everything. This was going to be just an upgraded version of that story but with Mass Effect characters, but I had a ton of fixing to do because dear god, my writing back then was just atrocious. I don't know how anyone could have liked my writing. Gah. Shivers.
As it is, though, the story started getting away from me, everything's going in a different direction, and thus it's going to be a new story, just kind of with that familiar beginning. It's getting darker as the chapters go on, more mentally exhausting than anything, but oh well. I do hope it sounds okay.
QUICK NOTES: Characters are kind of OOC but this is an AU centered around high school and whatnot, so that's to be expected. The clone is now Shepard's little brother (why? Because I said so, that's why), Rahna is Kaidan's little sister and he has an OC big brother. I can't think of what else I was going to say right now so I will put that in later chapters.
Right now I have completed up to chapter 9 which is currently being written. It doesn't really get going until later chapters, so chapters 3 and 4 are kind of boring in my opinion, but oh well. I hope you like it okay :)
Chapter length: 3408
Begin!
Save Me from Myself
Written by Muffy the Dough Slayer
High School AU
Warnings: Slash, foul language, past off-screen death, and I don't know what else. My usual, pretty much. Angst. If that's not your glass of pineapple juice, please find the refrigerator and try for a different beverage. Thanks.
Chapter One
Okay. You can do this.
Telling himself this did little to ease his mind, but he'd done worse than this. This was just high school; he'd handled funerals and bullies and family. He could do this.
Taking a breath, he looked up at the building which stood innocently before him. Nothing about it screamed oh no, and yet that was how he felt inside. Desperate for escape, but the backpack weighing heavy on his shoulders told him there was no escape. The car pulling away from the curb, with a shouted "Have fun, Kaidan!" also left him alone without a way out. The only way to go was forward.
Normandy Central High School – NCHS – was a prestigious school for 'gifted' students. He was lucky to be 'invited' to join it. His grades were not terrible but they certainly weren't great, either, so the acceptance he never asked for came as a bit of a shock. That mixed with bad memories encircling around fallen family members and distant sisters, left him more of a shell of his former self. Moving out here, after his acceptance into NCHS, was only logical at the time. A fresh start. New faces. No one knew him here; he could be whatever he wanted to be.
Nevertheless the large building – all tan walls and a dark red roof, a large gate encircling most of the school – towered over him, a leviathan giant which left him more anxious with every step he took toward the main entrance. Thankfully, there were few students here at the moment; after all, it was late in the day, probably during last period but it was the only time he'd been available, and his counselor had been available.
He would officially start school tomorrow, but would get the gist of everything today. He'd be given his locker, led to it, and told where most of the generic classes would be held. He'd also be given his class schedule for this semester, since the school year was only two weeks underway. That was lucky, he thought, or unfortunate, depending on how you looked at it.
He startled and quickly schooled his expression when a woman pulled open the door with a nice smile and blue eyes. Her white outfit, including a tight skirt, left him swallowing even as he averted his gaze, muttering a soft, "Thanks."
"Hello," she said. "You must be the new student."
Geez, news travels fast.
"Yeah," he sighed, following her into the building, the doors closing behind him with a quiet whoosh, "that's me."
"Kaidan Alenko," she said, looking at a chart she held in her nimble, slim fingers. "Age 17, incoming Junior. Your sister is joining us as well, I assume?"
He sighed, nodding.
Of course. Goes to her immediately.
This wasn't surprising; she was always the smart one.
"Rahna, am I correct?"
He nodded. "Yeah. That's her."
Sweet, once upon a time. Distant these days.
Ever since…
Blood on his knuckles.
Blood on the ground.
Crying.
Anger.
Pain.
Don't look at me like that…
"Is your brother joining us as well?" the lady asked.
Kaidan paused, not because the question bothered him, but because he honestly didn't know the answer.
He and his brother weren't exactly distant, but they weren't particularly close, either. Most of that was on him; he closed off after that happened. He hadn't thought about his brother in weeks. Last he'd heard, he was staying with friends before the move. He was eighteen; he could do what he wanted, legally.
"I don't know," he finally said, and the words didn't burn on the way out, but they might as well have, searing his taste buds.
"I see," she said, making a note on her clipboard. "Your mother called; she told me she wants you to join a club."
He winced. "Um, she didn't mean that."
The woman settled him with a look like she'd heard this all before. She probably had; just because this was a prestigious school didn't mean it was perfect. There were troublemakers here, too, he assumed.
"Okay," he breathed, "maybe she did."
And maybe I kind of promised her I'd try.
He wasn't expecting her to call ahead, though. That was sneaky.
Sneaky and clever because he would have brushed it off otherwise. She knew him too well.
A burst of irritation mingled with the burst of affection he felt for his mom; she put up with him these past two years, attempted to mend broken fences where it wasn't possible, but at least she tried. His father, on the other hand…
Thoughts about that were better left in the dark.
"All of our clubs are full at the moment," she said regretfully, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief before she continued. "Except one."
Dammit.
"What's that?"
"Drama Club," she said. "It can have up to thirty people."
He sighed, scowling at the thought. "Um, no thanks. I don't… That's not for me. Sorry."
Drama? Is she serious?
He couldn't even talk to his own family without getting flustered and leaving the room; she expected him to get in front of strangers and talk?
The smile she gave him wasn't happy or condescending; it was simply the smile of a woman who heard it all before. "Unfortunately, you need an extracurricular activity," she said. "Your sister has been listed for Choir if she chooses to attend with you."
Why does she get a choice?
He didn't get a choice in coming here; he was simply told to come. Had his family move all the way here from Vancouver.
That was a long way to go for a school, even if it was only a little more than an hour away from their old home. It was still technically in a different country.
Passports were a bitch.
"Fine," he said, the word more like stinging fire than anything else, bitterness burning his tongue, "I'll join Drama Club."
The woman tossed him a quick smile. "Excellent." She held her hand out, then. Kaidan stared at it as though it were foreign to him. It almost was. "I'm Liara T'soni," she said, and he blinked at the name. Come to think of it, she did have a bit of an accent though he couldn't particularly place it. Accents were never his forte.
People weren't his forte.
Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed her hand and shook it. He could at least be polite; his mother raised him right. "Kaidan," he said quietly.
"Come," she said, spinning on her heel. "I shall show you where the room is."
Room?
Great, his club was so small it was only in a room. At least that meant there wouldn't be a lot of people. Maybe this would be okay.
They walked around corners and down long hallways, the echo of kids talking through some open doors to various classrooms and lockers closing down nearly abandoned hallways. Then they came to an abrupt halt and he nearly ran into T'soni's back. He frowned and looked at the door in front of which they stood.
"There you go," the lady said.
Ah, there. Room 124. Kaidan took a moment to breathe before he closed his eyes and pushed open the door to the room that would soon change everything in his life.
"Goddamn it – Shepard! Those aren't toys!" a voice shouted. It was the first thing Kaidan heard. "Get back here!"
The second thing was the sound of "ack!" before a body slammed into him and he was knocked to the ground. The breath whooshed out of him as he lay there, struggling to get his lungs to expand enough to breathe, as the person who crashed into him lay on top of him, groaning.
"Ugh…" the person groaned before they stiffened and quickly jumped off of him. It became a little easier to breathe. "Shit, I'm sorry."
Kaidan looked to see a pair of bright blue eyes staring at him apologetically, sincere and amused all at once, a combination he wasn't sure was possible until now.
"I didn't know you were going to be coming in at the exact moment I was trying to leave, but-"
"Shepard!" a voice snapped. He recognized it as the original voice shouting at the man.
The guy flinched. "Aw, um, I'm outta here! Sorry about crashing into you! Have fun!" He jumped up and started to dart out of the still-open door, but before he could, a hand snatched out and grabbed hold of the back of his shirt, yanking him to a halt. "Busted," he muttered half dejectedly as he was turned around. Kaidan sat up and watched the exchange, confused and amused all at once. It had been a while since the amusement; the confusion was perpetual, it seemed.
"I should say so," said a girl with narrowed eyes. Her long black hair flowed down over her shoulders and Kaidan stared up at the two of them from his position on the ground. "Now you get back over there and get slapped. It's your scene."
"But-" the guy - Shepard, Kaidan presumed - started to protest.
"Now," the girl snapped, cutting him off, but there was an almost-smile on her face, hidden in her voice. He got to his feet, continuing to watch them. He was good at that; at watching people from afar, never noticed but there all the same.
Shepard's shoulders slouched in defeat. "Fine. Who died and made you Mommy Dearest?" he muttered before he stalked away, moving toward a group of people who were watching with amused interest. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up! Kasumi! You'd better not hit hard! I did nothing wrong!"
"I wouldn't hit a girl," Kasumi giggled. It was this strange accent he, yet again, couldn't place and she was covered in a veil of dark hair and a black hoodie, the hood up so what he could make out of her face was otherwise shadowed.
"Then you can hit yourself, 'cause you sure as hell aren't one," Shepard muttered mostly to himself, moving closer to them.
The black-haired girl looked down at Kaidan. Kaidan froze, having momentarily forgotten about her. "You must be Kaidan, right?" she asked, reaching a hand out to shake from where she now stood on the stage's edge. "I'm Ashley, Ashley Williams." She nodded in the direction Shepard had gone and began walking that way. Kaidan followed after her silently, looking around in… he didn't want to say 'awe' or 'wonder', but that was exactly what it was.
The room was… larger than he would have pictured. There was a stage in it, after all, and curtains, and side doors that boasted 'PROPS' and 'COSTUMES' in proud, bright, curvy letters. A few people were seated at one of the two long tables near the far corner, in the light, the stage mostly covered in darkness as people stood up on it, including Shepard, the guy who had toppled into Kaidan when he'd first entered the room. The girl, Kasumi, stood there too. Kaidan slid his gaze away from the stage to further investigate the room, when he heard a shout.
"Ow! Woman!" Shepard complained as a loud 'slap' resonated through the room. Various people started laughing and Kaidan turned his head to see Shepard standing on the stage, holding a hand to his cheek as he glared at the girl, Kasumi, who all but giggled at him. "Was that necessary?" Shepard drawled, frowning at her.
"Yes," she told him matter-of-factly. "Yes, it was. You had a bug on your face. I was trying to kill it. With my hand."
"Uh huh, and how's that working?"
"Very well."
"Right." Shepard shook his head and then glared at the guy standing next to him. "You did this!"
"I did no such thing," the guy said. He had black hair and dark skin, but his voice was upbeat despite the accusations thrown at him.
"Liar, I know you planned this. It's because I refuse to acknowledge your prowess at poker, isn't it?" Shepard grumbled accusingly, pointing a finger at him.
"You're paranoid," the guy, James, told him.
"You can sit here if you want," Ashley said, dragging Kaidan's attention away from the stage and its various characters, too many thoughts swirling through his head to decipher. He could feel a headache approaching. "I'll round everyone up shortly and you can meet them."
Kaidan nodded, unsure as to what he was supposed to say. What was he even doing here? It seemed like everyone was comfortable here but him. His parents thought this was a good idea, but he couldn't see how or why. Sighing, he sat at the end of one of the two tables, away from everyone else in the back of the room.
He looked around the room, in parts he hadn't noticed before, the areas closest to him. A body-length mirror stood off to the side. He took notice of his reflection, half hunched over the table, clothed with a blue jacket which was a little too big on him, and dark blue jeans. He looked up toward his face, at the boyish curve of his chin, the slight spike of his black hair atop his head which came naturally – no matter how much he tried to smooth it out, dammit – and finally his gaze landed on his honey brown eyes. All in all, he surmised, he looked unintimidating and uninteresting. Part of the background. Hidden, out of sight but in plain view all the same.
Shepard jumped down in front of Ashley, dragging Kaidan's attention back toward the front of the room, toward the stage. "Never again," he declared, "am I going to be slapped for absolutely no reason."
"It's a skit-" Ashley started.
"By James!" Shepard told her, like that meant something important and to be followed.
"We don't discourage creativity, Shepard," Ashley chided. "And he is one of the captains."
"Point?" Shepard asked innocently, rocking back on his heels. Kaidan could almost hear him whistling, his eyes wide, blue, and innocent. Though why he took notice of that, he wasn't entirely sure. He was sure he had a concussion from being knocked to the ground or something.
"Wait until you see his next idea," Ashley said, chuckling suddenly.
"Oh, God. I'm scared. What's it about?" Shepard asked with a frown as he started to take a step back as though that might stop whatever words were about to leave Ashley's mouth. Kaidan watched, vaguely amused, which was something he hadn't been in a while.
Years.
"He has you fainting."
"Me. Fainting." Each word was said with a somewhat puzzled blink, horror dawning on his face, at least from what Kaidan could tell.
"Yes." Ashley nodded as though she just told him the sun was bright or the sky was blue, like it was something commonplace and he should know better.
Shepard blinked momentarily. Then he growled and spun around. "Vega! I'm going to kill you!"
"Gotta go!" James said before he darted off stage, disappearing into the darkness beyond the curtains. Shepard leaped onto the stage and chased after him.
Ashley chuckled and began talking quietly with the dark haired girl, Kasumi. Then she broke off and whistled shrilly. The sound was loud, bouncing off the walls to echo through the room, and Kaidan fidgeted even more as everyone quieted. The chatter which had been shoved to the background as he listened to various conversations suddenly vanished, and Shepard and James appeared from the shadows, Shepard grumbling with his arms crossed, James looking amused as he thumped Shepard on the back of the head.
Ashley led them, along with several others, toward the table Kaidan had chosen to sit at and he realized she was bringing them to him. He didn't panic; that wasn't him. He just… lost his breath for a minute and his fight-or-flight response kicked in, that was all. He looked up at the ceiling in the hopes of distracting himself from the fact everyone was moving toward him like one giant herd, probably looking at them. He almost felt their eyes watching him, scouring over him, assessing him and judging him. He didn't like being looked at by so many people; he preferred to become part of the background, silent but watching, there but unnoticed. It was so much easier.
"Hey," Shepard commented as he plopped down in the seat next to him, grinning this idiot smile which shone of carefreeness. Kaidan glanced at him and nodded in greeting, not knowing what else to do or say. "Sorry for crashing into you like that."
"And?" Ashley prompted, thumping him on the back of the head. Shepard groaned and glared at her.
"And I should have stayed and helped you up."
"And?"
"Dammit, woman, don't rush me! I'm getting there," Shepard growled at her, smacking her hand away when she moved to thump him again for good measure. "You're worse than James and Kasumi. Anyway." His gaze focused on Kaidan once more. He didn't want to say he froze under the sincerity and humor he found there, but he came pretty damn close. He just wasn't used to people looking at him like that, or at all. "Sorry. I'm Shepard."
"Good. See? He can be kind!" Kasumi commented with a laugh.
"I will smite you!" Shepard told her.
Kasumi snorted and Ashley rolled her eyes. "Everyone, this is Kaidan Alenko. He's new to the school and to this club, so everyone be nice to him."
"Why do you look at me when you say that?" Shepard grumbled. "I'm always nice. I'm so wonderful I make myself sick."
"Good, throw up and leave," said another guy with a smirk.
"E tu, Steve?" Shepard asked as though truly upset, even though there was an amused glimmer in his eye. "What is this? Gang up on Shepard day?"
"Yes," everyone said in unison.
"Damn. I must not have gotten that memo, or I would have stayed home today," Shepard said.
"Anyway," Ashley said, dragging the focus back to her. "We want you to feel comfortable here, Kaidan. We're all like a family here, right guys?"
"Sure," Shepard said with a smirk, tossing him a quick look, "a family that slaps you, makes you faint, and… I'm forgetting something, I know I am."
James and Ashley both smacked him upside the head at the same time. Shepard grimaced and rubbed at his head.
"Yeah, that. A family that likes hit you, repeatedly, in the head and then they wonder why you can't remember anything," Shepard told him with a nod, as though that answered everything. "Yeah. A nice family."
"Oh, shut up," Kasumi said, rolling her eyes which Kaidan now realized were dark, but there was still that glimmer of amusement which everyone here seemed to wear. It was as… comforting as it was unnerving. Yeah. Comforting. That was the word. Right?
Shepard shrugged. Kaidan almost thought he said those things aloud until he realized Shepard was shrugging at Kasumi's statement.
"Anyway," Ashley said, "like I said, I'm Ashley. That's Kasumi, Shepard, James, Tali, Steve, Garrus, Tawny, Logan, Kelly, and Hunter. Everyone, this is Kaidan, say hi."
"Hi," everyone chimed.
"Oh, um… hi," Kaidan murmured stupidly, feeling uncomfortable. Why was Ashley making such a big deal of his arrival? He was perfectly happy in the background, where no one noticed him. He liked the background; there were no expectations there. He expected nothing from anyone and in return nothing was expected of him, either. People were the same everywhere; why did they think they could change that and be different?
"We hope you have fun in Drama Club," Tali said, speaking up for the first time. She also had dark hair, but her hair was darker than Kasumi's, and she was shorter, probably a year younger than Kaidan if he had to guess by her innocent sounding voice.
"Er… thanks," Kaidan said.
What would be different about this year from any other at any other school? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was nothing to cheer about. In a day or maybe a week, everyone would go back to ignoring him. They would forget his name, forget he was there, and he would be free to be part of the background.
The thought relaxed him a little. Back to the background; familiar territory.
And then Shepard grinned at him. "You're gonna wish you'd never joined. Welcome to the family, Kaidan."