Hello there,
This is my first attempt at writing anything to do with Mass Effect. It's a little experimental, somewhat dark, a lot crazy and slightly Au. While the main story line, the events of the actual game series, will remain relatively untouched, a portion of this is set pre-game, centreing on the events that make Jayne the person we love.
It will start on Mindoir, nothing Au about that, but will taper off course slightly.
My main goal is to put forth the concept of growth through a series of events out of Jayne's control. Mindoir teaches her that hate is energy. A raw energy that can be used and harnessed. While the First Contact War teachers her to move past the hate and open herself up to the possibility of compassion and clemency. And that's where this is slightly Au.
By drawing out the tail-end of the war, my goal is to coax Jayne back out of the tail-spinning, free-fall of negativity and violence she's collapsed into and back to a level footed standing point which will tie back into the game-line perfectly.
If Au's aren't really your thing, then I understand completely.
But, enough of my rambling.
General warnings include: Dark themes, non-consensual intercourse involving minor characters, death of minor characters, death of major characters, questionable decisions, unethical standings, asceticism, and radical mental degradation because of high-stress situations.
However, it also deals with: Fluff, humour, character building, awkward relationship queries, hilarious dealings with new tech and other such ridiculous situations.
Prologue:When I grow up.
You can tell
From the glass on the floor
And the strings that're breaking
And I keep on breaking more
And it looks like I am shaking
But it's just the temperature
If it were any colder I could disengage
If I were any older I could act my age
But I don't think that you'd believe me: -The Dresden Dolls.
Jayne Shepard is fourteen years old when the world stopped making sense. She is fourteen when happy and peaceful stop feeling warm and safe and felt like a trap.
She is obviously an obnoxious, rebellious fourteen-year-old that dreams of the day she can leave Mindoir and see what's out there. Past the stars. Free from the flawlessly tedious calm that was Mindoir and its quiet human colony.
But she is still disturbed by the perpetual amity.
Jayne breaks things in her room to see if they can shatter. And when they do she watches to see if they magically fix themselves, or reappear from nowhere the second she closes her eyes.
When she flies into bouts of irrational fear or rage, she secluded herself and draws lines over her skin with whatever she can find, adamantly believing one day instead of blood and meat and bone, her skin would open to reveal code and numbers.
She screams at her parents. Pushes them with words. Wanting to crack that perfect sense of acceptance calm that always greets her. They never yell or lose their cool. They don't seem to understand her. They don't understand why she suddenly wants nothing to do with them.
And it makes things worse. From their utter acceptance of her 'teenage revolts' to their seemingly genuine curiosity over what has made her feel this way, it only serves to further prove how robotic and fake they seem.
This feels like a program is always just there on the tip of her tongue.
You feel like a program
She never dares say it though. Afraid of the repercussion. Would she be unwritten? Would her parents cease to be? Could she live with that? Being the reason they didn't exist. She isn't sure. Doesn't want to risk it.
But the fear she is surrounded by fake things makes her lash out with anger and disgust while internalising everything she is feeling.
And so she screams at her 'mother' and 'father' more. Watches their faces. Seeking, wanting, expecting emotions ranging from hurt to anger. They always leave her disappointed.
It's not that Jayne hates her parents. She doesn't. She loves them. With their over-enthusiasm for science and the pride they take in each new discovery that can be used for the betterment of the human race.
It's more that every day is the same as the day before, as if she is stuck in some sick re-looping reality. Never changing. The sky was always the same textbook blue. The grass was always the exact shade of lush green. And everyone was always so… obnoxiously happy.
Like something out of a cheesy commercial, so unrealistic the set is basically a print-off from the extra-net.
Didn't they feel the oppression of it all? The suffocating feel of faultlessness pressing down on them like an intolerable weight. She had half a mind some days to run to the furthers plains from the settlement so see it the eerier calm extended out to a point before dropping off into pixels.
She can never get far enough, no matter how hard she pushes herself to get to the proverbial 'drop-off.'
Someday she goes as far as her body can take her and then just collapses, miserable and exhausted, laying on the too flawlessly green and unrealistically soft grass as she flings her arms wide and screams at the universe.
She doesn't like the false sense of serenity. The rest of the universe could burn and she would never know.
Start Chapter One: Growing Pains.
Hold onto sixteen as long as you can. Changes come around real soon to make us women and men. - Jack and Diane.
April 11th.
"Happy birthday, Jayney." There are pancakes on the table, topped with fresh cream and real strawberries, picked and washed from their crops.
It's her sixteenth birthday and Jennifer, Jayne's mother, is hovering over her shoulder, face lit up in a stunning smile. Her brown eyes gone soft, glinting with tears. The usual tranquil mask is gone and in its place, is enthusiasm for something other than some random relic freshly uncovered from one of the colonies many dig-sites.
"Thanks, Mom." She replied with a forced smile that feels tight and unnatural. It doesn't feel like two years has passed, hell, it doesn't feel like a single year has passed. It simultaneously feels like no time is passing while it races on without her. A wholly vexing sensation to be sure.
It's was also a little disconcerting to be honest.
Even though Jayne has calmed over the last year, there were still moments that shook her to the core. While the easy-going-ness and tranquillity still niggled at the back of her mind like a dirty secret, she accepts the peace it brings, rather than lashing out at it like a rock before crashing waves.
Jaynes hands shake as they unwrap the brightly printed package her mother has just given her.
Within the box is a single item. Small, innocuous, no bigger than a golf ball that had been flattened and Jayne's heart flutters.
Her fingers tingle as she traces them gently over the small electronic devise, following the cool swirls that flare orange under her careful explorations, as if reacting to her presence.
"It's been programed to you already. Blood, skin, saliva and muscle samples used from various visits to the med-bay." Her mother explains, looking slightly apprehensive about sharing this information but hesitantly excited too.
Jaynes first omni-tool.
Jayne swallows, throat gone tight, and she isn't sure what to make of the information her mother has just shared, and tilts the box, tipping the Omni-tool in her palm.
It's light, impossibly weightless for something that has so much crammed into it, and cool in her hand. Orange engulfs her arm and she smiles when it greets her with birthday wishes and a reminder to clean her room. She smiles and presses holographic buttons that close out of the reminder message and then she places it on the table and stands.
Jennifer steps back, features falling for a second, then taking on that irritating mask of neutrality.
Ignoring the way her mother throws up a wall of indifference so easily, Jayne closes the gap between her and embraces her mother, burrowing her face in the warm nook of her underarm.
Her mother laughs, a relieved and delighted sound, then returns the embrace tenfold.
"Why always the armpit?" Jayne hears Jennifer grumble in fake annoyance and ducks her head as she blushes.
While her mother always smelled clean, sweet and faintly of soap, the warmth and aroma Jayne finds under her mother's arm is something different that relaxes every muscle in her body and brings to mind flashes of memories.
Jayne, six years old, sick and burning with a fever while her mother lays in bed next to her, arms tucked around Jayne as she rests her head on her mother's chest.
Jennifer tucking Jayne into bed then plonking down at the edge, her voice whisper soft as she regales Jayne with the tales of Oz, one of Jayne's personal favourite books.
Jayne is thirteen and bleeding on the bathroom floor, left forearm a gapping mess of flesh and tissue. Jennifer is holding Jayne in her arms, crying as she rocks her screaming daughter back and forth.
'It's all right, Jayney, Mommy's here. It's all right.'
It had meant nothing to Jayne. She'd been so wrapped up in her frustration and fear that this was all an elaborate illusion that the moment had slipped past her. But now, older and wiser, Jayne could look back on it and know with certainty her mother wasn't perfect. Her mother had looked horrified when she'd found Jayne carving herself up like a turkey with a shard of glass.
The impression of perfection dropped as Jennifer had run to grab her daughter, eyes wide as she flung the glass away. Yelling in anxiety induced anger at a shaking Jayne before collecting the wailing teenager to her chest.
"What am I going to do with you, Jayney." Her mother's voice croaks, broken and tight with emotion over the shell of her ear.
The memory fades and in its place, something better. An embrace from a mother she'd been pushing away for years.
"Hey now! What's this, you guys started the party without me?" Jaynes head snapped to where her father stood in the doorway, doing his best to smile but feeling awkward and out of place. His lab coat slung over his left arm while his right hand lifted to pull the wide-brimmed hat from his head.
Mark, Jayne's father, face was speckled with dirt and dust and his fringe is wet with sweat, intelligent green eyes guarded and weary behind his spectacles as he observes the tender exchange he's just interrupted.
While Jayne had inherited her mother's 'peaches and cream' skin tone, and mane of wild red curls, the freckles that speckle her cheekbones and her bold green eyes were definitely a gift from Mark.
Jayne unwrapped her arm from her mother and flapped a hand clumsily at her father, beckoning him closer.
"We're family hugging, that means you to, Old Man." Jayne said, a little stiffly but with a wide smile. God, how long had it been since she had hugged her parents like this. It felt like forever. She's been so wrapped up in all her own issues she avoided bodily contact with Mark and Jennifer, and soon after, avoided them all together.
Mark didn't even bother hanging up his coat or hat, nor did he take his shoes off as was the family rule, he merely dropped the items on the floor and marched over to his wife and daughter, enveloping both in a tight embrace. Jayne could feel his heart thundering against her back, the cold tickle of his tears on the back of her neck, and a wave of guilt rushed through her.
Fuck, she had been such a bitch to them. A downright fucking ungrateful brat.
"Happy birthday, Muppet."
Jayne's heart -flip-flopped, his words an unknowing punch to the chest of raw emotion. Mark hadn't called her 'his Muppet' since she was small enough to bounce on his knee. Back when she was a bobble head of crazy curls and big eyes and had looked like a Kewpie doll. Back when she hadn't tried to pick apart the world around her, sick with cynicism and rife with distrust.
Jennifer let out a strangled sound, sniffling and wet and Jayne realised with a jolt that her mother was crying. Big, fat, happy yet mournful tears. After a moment, the staunch scientist in her reared its head and Jennifer cleared her throat, wiped her eyes on the hem of her dress and smiled.
"Mark, isn't there something you're forgetting." Her tone suggestive and coaxing.
Mark, who was still wrapped around Jayne is if afraid to let go else she reverted to her former ways, looked up and frowned. As confused as Jayne, blinking luminous green eyes behind crooked spectacles. Jennifer sighed in mock exasperation, but was still grinning when she looked pointedly at the unwrapped present on the table before sliding her eyes to Jayne.
"Oh! Right, yes, I forgot…er I mean, I didn't forget." Mark let go of Jayne, stumbling out of the room before poking his head back in looking ruffled, "Just give me a second, Muppet." And then he was gone again.
Jayne shot her mother a quizzical look, which was returned when they heard the crumpled sounds of paper and the screech of unravelling sticky tape. Jennifer's brow twitched. Jayne chuckled.
Oh, so that's what he was doing.
"I'll be right back, Jayney." Her mother shot her a kind look before storming off to Marks and hers shared quarters, grumbling quietly to herself.
Jaynes jaw dropped.
Holy shit.
Her mother was angry. She was 'I will kick his arse' angry.
How had she missed this? How had she not noticed her parents interacting like people? Actual people. She'd been so caught up in her own little bubble she had ignored everything around her. Adamantly refusing that any of this could be real.
Jayne laughed at herself, feeling idiotic and ridiculous. She'd wasted so much time being annoyed. Oh well, she could make up for it now.
"Are you kidding me, Mark! You haven't even wrapped it?" Her mother's voice flowed from the bedroom hushed and angry.
Jayne snickered and she puttered around the kitchen, pulling out two additional plates, one for Jennifer and the other for Mark, placing them down on the table gently.
"Honey, give me a break. I only just finished crafting it till last week." Mark's voice was indignant but ashamed.
So many emotions, raw unabashed emotions. Human. They were human. She was human, and this was real. She felt scrubbed raw, all the negativity washed away, leaving her new and fresh and revealing in a world of wonder. How could she have been so blind? Wilfully so. How could she be so fucking childish? And how had it taken her this long to pull her head out of her arse?
Jayne would not lie and say that everyday felt like the one before it didn't bother it. And she still though the sky was too blue, too… commercial, but now it bothered her less. It was a tolerable irritation.
"A week. It's been finished for a week and you haven't wrapped it. Honestly Mark, if your head wasn't screwed on you'd forgot that too." Jennifer sounded torn between laughing and chastising her husband.
Jayne smiled, and piled pancakes, cream and fruit onto waiting plates, pouring her parents cups of steaming coffee and a juice for herself.
Just as she sat down, tucking her chair under the table with a pull of her legs, an explosion hit the back-end of their small home, throwing Jayne from her chair and toppling across the kitchen table with a terrified scream.