Kalahira's Domain
Garrus had never given Thane more than cursory acknowledgment until they'd touched down on Aequitas together. Shepard had been strip-mining her way through the Minos Wastelands when EDI had picked up the signal in the Fortis system.
While not the first time they'd been on the same shore party, it was the first time it was an issue.
They'd gone for the same sniper loft in the husk-ridden mine, and were left staring awkwardly at the cramped space.
"Well one of us is going to have to change." Garrus chuckled, slinging his sniper rifle over one shoulder.
"I'll take point," Thane offered, crawling through the small passage and dropping down to join Shepard.
While Thane preferred close-quarters combat, he recognized the necessity of sniper support. Especially when considering the only range Shepard deemed permissible was point-blank.
Bemusedly, he moved to join her when she let out a startled "Damn! Where'd you come from?"
"Vakarian recommended we change tactics," Thane offered.
Shepard stood out against the forsaken corridors, honeycombed in gold and shimmering all the colors of the sea. The biotic cornea around her ebbed and flowed like the tide as she held up a fist to call for a halt.
Mere seconds past before a bone-curdling wail echoed and reechoed off the dripping walls of the abandoned mine.
"Husks." she offered obviously. The first mangled body that pulled itself from a shaft fell from a sniper wound to the head and then they were swarming.
Thane rolled to cover, and Shepard let out a battlecry barely audible over the moans of those long dead. He loosed nine shots from his Locust, three for each abomination, their locations memorized from where he'd seen the shambling corpses start to emerge moments earlier.
A second glance to gather new targets saw two more fall in quick succession to Vakarian's rifle. It also saw Shepard, a blaze of gold and sapphire blurred to an angry teal, charging headfirst to crash against the husks like waves on a cliff face. Her tech shield burst a vibrant crimson, toppling the undead momentarily before they were on her again.
It was a fierce, vibrant display, kinetic barriers bursting and reactivating, armed and unarmed combat laying men to rest a second time...
It was reckless and unnecessary. Thane spent and ejected his thermal clip, reloading as he shouted, "Shepard, get to cover."
"I am cover!" Shepard snarled. She couldn't see shit. The caves were humid as hell, and she was in full body armor. (Not like Thane whose tight leather garb made him look like he was auditioning for Fornax) Her hair had been matted with sweat before the fight started, and it didn't help that the zombies seemed to explode on her out of spite. The caves smelled like ass, and the zombies smelled like zombies, and none of it did anything for her mood.
"Scratch one!" Garrus's voice echoed through the caverns, not that Shepard could see what he'd killed.
"You're exposed!" Thane growled a second later through the comm at her, his voice rattling her teeth in her skull.
"Your chest's exposed!" She snarled back brainlessly, smashing the butt of her shotgun into a husk and shattering its skull. Blood and bones sprayed across her, and both Garrus and Thane went awkwardly silent. Well… good.
A warbling moan pierced across the battlefield, as a macabre construct of guns and flesh slapped together by cybernetics, biotics, and sheer force of will shambled towards their chokehold in the center of the corridor.
"Garrus, scion," Shepard's order boomed across the comm.
"Scoped and dropped," he promised in reply. The horror staggered with his words, a blast from the loft above rattling its head. White and blue fluids mingled with chunks of its skull and ran down its crooked leg, but it pressed forward unphased.
A bulging arm fused with a gaping hand canon raised and pointed at the center of the room, where Shepard stood immobilized amidst the ocean of the dead, a pale mockery of Kalahira's domain.
Thane had to guard the rear and manage as Shepard's support, yet for every one he felled another took its place, and so the biotic blast hit her in full force. Her shields ruptured once more and she staggered, coated in the discharge of eezo the scions used to excess. Thane emptied his thermal clip a fourth time as Shepard bellowed into her comm.
"Garrus, scion!"
"I'm working on it!"
Groaning its displeasure, the scion shambled closer over chunks of its felled flesh and through its dripping blood. Gravity welled around it, deflecting blasts as it gurgled and raised its arm for another shot.
"Shepard." Thane hissed around clenched teeth. The way behind was cleared for a retreat to cover, a testament to his own biotics and the burning gun in his hand.
The scion fired, staggering Shepard, and a husk flung itself onto her back. Hollowed cheeks dripping saliva and blood stretched to sink into her head, when a shot from Thane's gun left the corpse at a lack of a head, let alone a mouth.
"Thane," Shepard growled back, smacking her hand on her omnitool with enough force for the haptic feedback to hurt. Her shields flared back into life and she climbed over a pile of corpses, shotgun blasting, to assault the construct herself.
By then most of the husks had met their end, and the three of them focused their fire to bring the creature crumbling down on top of itself.
Shepard let out a deep breath as Garrus jogged up to regroup from the sniper loft. Her shotgun dangled from her grasp, dripping eezo and blood, when she turned to fix Thane with glare. She was panting, or she would have yelled at him. Thane wasn't even breathing hard. Fucker.
"Your tactics are more than a little disquieting, Shepard." So he was pissed enough to pull out the last name card. She was pissed enough to punch him in his pretty face. No one gave her orders.
"Should I leave you two alone?" Garrus interrupted. Shepard snorted and shook her head, about to reply when another pissy wail rang through the catacombs. Fuck this. Shepard locked her shotgun onto her back.
"Uh, Shepard," Garrus blinked at her, mandibles flaring in confusion, "I'm all for diplomatic solutions, but I doubt they'll listen to-"
Shepard yanked the Cain off her back and pointed in down the corridor, where the wailing was growing louder. Garrus dove for cover and Thane closed his eyes as she pulled the trigger. The resulting blast ricocheted the entire complex.
"-reason." He finished.
"Shepard," Miranda's voice came in over their frequency, from where she was safely back on the Normandy, "Tell me Edi is joking, and you didn't just destroy the indoctrination device with an untested nuclear weapon."
"Now it's a tested nuclear weapon," Shepard shrugged, then felt stupid. Miranda had an audio feed, not a video one.
"Impressive," Garrus murmured.
Shepard chuckled. "Sometimes you get lucky,"
They grinned at each other until Miranda continued, "Well I hope you're happy, because you completely destabilized the mine. You've got less than a minute before I have to start a second Lazarus Project."
"I really wish you'd told me that sooner," Shepard snarled. The three of them spun and ran for the exit, sliding down halls, vaulting over crates, and trying not to trip on the husks they'd killed to get here. Shepard purposefully ran next to Garrus; the small spiteful act was soothing. She knew she'd be too tired to fight with Thane when they got back to the Normandy, and would just want a shower and a nap. By the time she woke up, she wouldn't be angry anymore, so she planned ahead.
Of course, running next to Garrus meant Thane wasn't there to catch her when she slipped on a chunk of bone glazed with blood, and went careening into a shaft that led deeper into the mine. "Damnit!" She screamed what she felt were adequate famous last words, before everything went black.
Garrus echoed her cry when he realized his armor was too large for him to fit down the same shaft. Thane twisted around him and dove after her without hesitation. His hand managed to grab the piping as he did so, and slowed his descent down the tunnel. The lighting above dimmed and then died, leaving him in a black that rivaled the dark between the stars.
By Arashu's grace, he landed on flat ground, and not on her warrior angel. "Shepard?" He called into the dark, and nictated both sets of eyelids. He brought up his omnitool, invisible to any who could not see bioluminescence, and scanned where they'd fallen. The twisting corridors of the mine revealed no secrets, Shepard failed to respond, and the gods were silent.
Shepard groaned, an annoying light flashed in her face and refused to move when she batted her hand in its general direction. It took her longer than she would have liked to realize she couldn't 'bat away' light, and when she did, she swore and struggled to sit up.
"Amonkira reveals you," Thane's voice echoed bemusedly in her ears.
"Your flashlight reveals me," She muttered at him, smacking away his helping hands. Her head was killing her. "Damn, how much did I drink?"
"For once, your unconscious state was not brought about by inebriation."
"Fuck you."
"A tempting offer."
"… you did not just say that." Shepard massaged the migraine growing in the back of her skull, and glanced around. She couldn't see shit. Shepard blindly smacked at her omnitool, and dropped two techmines before she managed to turn on her flashlight. Random corridors greeted her, with no guiding lights or wall maps. "Where are we? Where's the exit?"
"Several meters above us, collapsed in rubble before you awoke."
"Oh good." Shepard brought up their frequency, and turned on her comm. "Shepard to Normandy. Come in Normandy." Static greeted her, and she frowned. Thane was staring at her with a small smirk on his face. Asshole.
Shepard turned away from him and took a step forward, intent to start scouting out the area, when white hot pain seared up her leg and burst into a thousand stars in her skull. She collapsed to the ground, swearing and cursing and clutching her leg. She must have broken her ankle in the fall. Thanks to her skeletal lattice, it would heal in a few days, but for now she was useless.
Thane knelt down next to her, but knew better than to touch her, "Do you need me to carry you?"
"Please, I'd crush your skinny ass."
"A tempting-"
"Don't." Shepard took a deep breath and resisted the urge to rub at the injury. Thane was most certainly not going to carry her out of here. Garrus would never let her hear the end of it. She waved her flashlight around her for a makeshift crutch and found nothing, until she settled on Thane and the sniper rifle strapped to his back. Genius.
She almost told him to 'give her his gun' until she caught herself. Instead she snatched it off his back without warning. The rifle expanded to its normal state, and Shepard flicked on the safety and pressed it into the ground. Staggering to her feet, she smiled smugly to herself.
Thane had pursued his lips and was squinting his eyes, staring at her with what she took to be his, 'Siha, you are such a dumbass,' look.
Picking a completely random corridor, Shepard limped towards the middle passageway. Thane walked beside her with his hands locked behind his unerringly straight back. He apparently wasn't going to dignify her genius with a comment. When they ended up back in the same room, the shaft they'd fallen through waiting politely in the corner, he finally spoke up. "Your sense of direction is most disquieting, Siha."
"I don't see you offering any suggestions," Shepard rolled her eyes, hopping on her make-shift gun crutch. "You think you know the way out?"
"… perhaps." He smirked down at her. Shepard was tempted to lift the sniper and shoot him in the foot with it to make them even.
"You just want me to wear myself out so you can carry me." She huffed.
"For someone who missed the 'Exit' sign above the southern passageway, you are very perceptive, Siha." Shepard glared at him, the effect sorely dampened by her constant bouncing. After she grew tired of feeling like she was having a staring contest on a pogo-stick, she glanced at the southern passageway. With an awkward wobble, she shined her omnitool flashlight at it. There wasn't an 'Exit' sign.
"Asshat," Shepard tried to suppress a laugh and ended up snorting instead. It was terribly unsexy, like most (all) of what she did, but Thane never seemed to care. "Let's just… let's sit down for a bit," Shepard flopped to the ground and dropped the rifle next to her.
"I agree. We've made a great deal of progress." Thane teased, sitting cross-legged beside her.
"You think maybe someone will just come find us?" She groaned, falling back onto the ground and throwing her hand over her eyes. She heard him shuffle to sit behind her, before he pulled her head into his lap and started massaging away her migraine. Fucked if she knew how he could always tell.
"It's always a possibility." He allotted, scaled fingers cool against her skull. Shepard sighed.
"That means no."
"It means no."
Shepard rolled her head to the side and buried it in his leg. One advantage of him being an assassin was that he knew every human pressure point, and even an idle massage was amazingly relaxing. Maybe she'd just close her eyes for a minute…
An angry wail woke her up an indefinite amount of time later and brought her migraine back at full strength. "Damn, Thane, if you want me to move just say so."
"While both my legs are in excruciating pain, I cannot pitch my voice in such a fashion." He shifted out from under her as she struggled to sit upright. "You may wish to arm yourself."
"You've gotta be shitting me." Shepard mumbled, activating her assault armor and pulling her shotgun off her back. He was in pain? She'd fallen asleep on a shotgun.
Thane rubbed feeling back in his legs, and started gathering dark energy for a biotic attack. He grinned over his shoulder at her, "No, I am not shitting you."
Shepard debated standing, and then decided against it. It looked like she was immobile cover like she'd claimed. She propped her shotgun against her shoulder, and waited for the first husk to appear.
Thane beat her to it. The first husk came screaming out the tunnel Shepard knew was nothing more than a loop, because they'd walked it earlier. How the zombies had managed to get there was beyond her. Thane flung the creature back with a biotic push, and a second husk followed in its footsteps. It was burning red and a testament to why she never used incendiary rounds on zombies. Then you just had flaming zombies.
His Locust and biotics kept the creatures back. None of them made it within her range, which was to say, none of them were crawling on top of her. Thane had forced them back into the tunnel, with his strange acrobatic combat style that seemed more like dancing than fighting. Shepard tapped her foot. She wanted to kill something.
Trying to distract him so a husk would slip past, she let out a loud catcall. He didn't pause, didn't even seem to notice. Shepard sighed loudly and pulled her knees up to her chest, draping her arms across them. A wicked idea struck her, and she kept the whistles up and shouted, "Take off your top!"
She'd expected him to ignore her, or slip up. She hadn't expected him to flip over a husk, fling his jacket off, and shoot the creature in the back of its head. His jacket fluttered and toppled down in front of her. Shepard blinked in shock, then let out a wild cheer and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
They slowed to a trickle and then stopped all together. She hadn't killed a single one, and she didn't care. Thane brushed off imaginary dust, and glanced at his jacket. Shepard scrambled forward and snatched it up before he could retrieve it.
"Siha…" He clipped his pistol back onto his belt, and walked up to stare down at her. "I feel as though I've more than earned my clothing back."
"You'll have to trade me for it."
"… My other layer is a single piece."
"So?"
"My only other layer."
"Oh." She fingered the leather idly, and locked her shotgun back onto its holster. "Well, you can't expect to sell your body and keep your dignity."
"… Siha…"
"Look at it this way, only your body will be naked. Your soul is safe."
"The level of faulty reasoning you can pack into a single conversation never ceases to amaze me," He sat down and seemed content to abandon his jacket, which he knew took all the fun out of keeping it. Shepard flung it at him and rolled her eyes. As he was easing back into it, he coughed. Then didn't stop coughing.
"… Thane?"
"I'm fine Sih-" a cough cut off his words, strangled and wet. Shepard crawled over to him in a panic, not knowing what to do. Her hands hovered over him ineffectually; her mind froze. She was out of medigel. She couldn't even repair her ankle. What did she do? Damnit, what was she supposed to do?
Shit. Shit. Shit. He covered his mouth as he coughed, and blood freckled across his palm. Shit. Not here, not another attack. They were already six feet under, and she didn't appreciate the fucking irony. She clawed at his at his jacket, pulling it back off, and unzipped his vest, trying to give him room to breathe. Chakwas had said there was a medical reason for his man-cleavage, and she had better not have been joking.
Shepard cupped his face in her hands and forced him to stare at her. He couldn't tell her anything. He couldn't get enough air to breathe, let alone talk. What the fuck was she thinking?
Shepard clawed through her memory and cursed herself for being a human. Pulse, but insufficient respiratory effort… artificial respiration. Shepard crawled into his lap and kissed him, breathing for him. He stiffened, shocked, then relaxed as much as he could. She struggled to match their patterns, breathing out when he breathed in, breathing in when he breathed out and eventually worked out a rhythm.
She didn't know how much time had passed, she didn't want to keep track. She just stayed in his lap, holding him and making him breathe. Everything else dissolved. Nothing else was important. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
She felt his hands finally wrap around her waist, and let herself relax. He wasn't suffocating. He could breathe again. She hated this. Damnit, she hated this. It wasn't a fair fight. It wasn't a battle she could win. Some day she was going to try to breathe for him, and he wasn't going to breathe back.
A scaled thumb ran over the corner of her eye. She wasn't even aware they'd started to water. The tears wouldn't fall. They never did. Breathe in, breathe out.
"Shepard! Thank the spirits I found you," Garrus's voice broke through the heavy silence, and his omnitool's flashlight settled on the two of them. "I-" He stopped, seeing them wrapped around each other and Thane's jacket tossed aside, "'ll just go out the way I came in." He dropped a flare at the right exit and scuttled out.
They barely noticed him, save for a nagging feeling that they had to leave now. Eventually, they pulled away from each other, but only so she could wrap her arms around his shoulders and bury her face in his neck. Selfishly, she felt like she was the one who couldn't breathe. "The sea is still waiting," Thane reassured her, "I am still here."