You'll Be Kissing This Pretty Face
Mass Effect 2
FemShep/Zaeed M.
A/N:One of (hopefully) many one-shots revolving around Zaeed Goddamn Massani and Renegade Jane Shepard.
"I look like the fucking Terminator." Commander Jane Shepard rubbed her jaw and blinked several times. She was examining her reflection in a small hand mirror while she, Grunt, and Zaeed Massani were sitting in the shuttle waiting to get back to the Normandy. "Red glowing eyes? Really, Miranda? Hasta la vista, baby."
Zaeed snorted. Grunt ignored them both. The Krogan was still jacked about becoming a part of Clan Urdnot. He had no time for human film references he didn't understand. Zaeed nodded at Shepard and asked, "Didn't the Doc offer to fix up your face?"
Shepard snapped her compact mirror shut and squinted at him. Why did the shuttle have such low lighting? "She needs to have the med bay upgraded and it costs a figurative arm and a leg. I'm not wasting that amount of creds just so I can fix up my face." The Alliance never would have approved that shit.
"If you had to look at it all the time, maybe you'd think differently. It's like staring down Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Shepard crossed her legs, frowning. "Uh huh. Where are all your beauty pageant trophies, Massani? And Chakwas said if I stayed calm and thought positively, the scars would heal on their own."
That was a bloody laugh. Zaeed turned his head away, chuckling. "Yeah. Sorry, Shepard, you'll be the goddamn Terminator until you die."
Her eyes light up wickedly and she leaned forward. "Is that a challenge, Massani?"
He shrugged, not wanting to get more involved than he already was. Grunt was over in the corner laughing in that creepy way of his. "Two thousand credits says you couldn't last a week being some kind of-of paragon of humanity."
"Done." Shepard sat back, looking way too fucking pleased with herself. "In one week you'll be wanting to kiss this pretty face. But the only thing you'll be kissing is my ass."
"Yeah, sure." He didn't care how confident Shepard acted. This would definitely be the easiest thousand he'd ever made.
Halfway through the bet, Zaeed decided he didn't even care if he lost. This bet was too damn entertaining to regret making. All week Shepard had dragged him with her on missions, so he could monitor her progress. What had previously been a badass, smart mouthed biotic had transformed into a calm, rescuer of kittens and the weak. And she was hating it.
Every time she stopped herself from shooting or punching assholes, her teeth ground together in a rather painful way. It became habit by the third day. Her jaw hurt worse than when she first had woken up on Miranda's lab table.
Maybe Chakwas was wrong. This acting positively was backfiring. When she had let an Asari merc go when she pleaded innocent (even though Zaeed warned against it) and later learned the girl was a cold blooded killer, she had clenched her jaw and her fists for a very long time. She even smacked her helmet with her pistol a few times before they moved on.
All week Shepard burned with a hot rage, her scars glowing brighter and crimson. But still she stuck with it. Though, whether that was because she trusted Chakwas or just didn't want to admit defeat to Zaeed was unknown.
She kept it up until, to the whole crews surprise, she lost it during a trip to the Citadel.
Garrus had seen it coming first. "Uh oh," he had said when he first spotted the reporter. He tried to steer Shepard away from her (he, like the rest of the crew, had joined in on the bet, too, and he had good money on Shepard), but he failed when said reporter started calling for Shepard.
"Commander!"
Shepard's entire body tensed and Garrus knew a confrontation was not going to be avoided. He sighed. There went his chance to buy a new sight for his rifle. Damn. Massani had no idea how close he was to winning this thing.
Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani introduced herself. She asked for an interview. Shepard, the paragon of humanity that she was, accepted. And after the third rigged question was asked, Shepard punched the reporter in the face. She followed up that brilliant decision by shooting al-Jilani's camera until it exploded.
Shepard and her crew were escorted off the Citadel rather quickly.
Though Zaeed was pleased by the turn of events, he had just won after all, he was also curious as to why Shepard had blown up. She had let mercs curse her out all week, but this one reporter asks a few loaded questions and that was it. She was done.
He got his curiosity sated when she stomped down to his quarters in Engineering and slammed her hand on the door's keypad, shutting them both inside. Shepard's eyes quickly found Zaeed's own and she looked down at her clenched fist.
"So," she started first. "I've wired the credits to your account."
"I know." Shepard was acting strange. Fidgety. She had come down there for something other than to simply admit defeat, but she wasn't spilling just yet. He really didn't want to be any more involved than he already was...but damn if he didn't want to know. Shepard losing that bet had honestly surprised him. When she decided to do something, shit got done. Period. How did that reporter get under her skin so quickly? Zaeed didn't want to straight out ask. Shepard avoided personal inquiries better than anyone else on the ship. The last time he had asked her something 'private' back on Horizon, he hadn't received much of an answer.
"Hey, what was up with Elvis back there?"
"Elvis?!" Shepard had turned to him with a smile that was broken up with scars and bruises. His kind of smile. "Oh god, do you mean Alenko?" She had laughed and laughed at that and never actually answered his query.
Not wanting to repeat the experience, he started with small talk which she answered suspiciously. Eventually, though, they eased into it until she asked him what he planned to use her credits for.
"Oh, I don't know, Shepard." Booze. Ammunition. What else did he need anymore? "Maybe try to fix up ol' Jessie again."
From her sudden grin he knew she approved. "Nice, but I should go before you start telling me about that one time you and Jessie kicked ass, took names, and got some tail. We'll talk later."
She made it halfway to the automatic door before Zaeed asked, "What about that reporter made you crack, Shepard?"
Her hand hovered in the air, reaching for the door. After a moment she retracted the arm and stomped over to the table the Normandy's security footage was stored. She hopped up atop the table and rested the tips of her boots on the floor. "I shouldn't have hit her."
"No shit. But you destroyed the footage so there's that at least."
"You're such an optimist, Massani." Shepard squinted at her boots, noticing a spot she had missed during her earlier spit shine. Damn. Did she really want to get into this with Zaeed? Well, at least he had asked. Everyone else was too busy collecting or giving up creds due to her mistake to wonder why she did it.
The words tumbled out. "She wanted to make me sound like a liar." Wow, that sounded even more childish out loud. From Zaeed's irritated, raised brow she knew he thought so, too. In a panicked rush she attempted to explain. She didn't want Zaeed, the crew member she was sadly most like, thinking she was a functioning moron. "The Reapers," she started because, hey, when weren't the sentient mass-murderers not the best way to start a conversation? "You believe they exist, right?"
He was still looking at her like she was the fucking village idiot. "Of course I bloody do."
She stopped him before he could go on. "As you should, but when I first discovered what the Reapers were and what they were planning... Let's just say Sovereign almost destroyed the fucking Citadel and there's a Councilor that still uses air quotes whenever he has to talk about the 'Reapers'." She made the air quotes herself, scowling. "The Council thought I was suffering from PTSD. Fuck, I thought I was, too. It didn't matter how much proof I had. I was told it was a dream, a lie, a conspiracy to ruin a good Spectre's reputation. I thought I was alone, trying to save a galaxy that didn't want my help. And then," her voice lowered, put on more grit, "this reporter shows up, claims she wants to help get my story out there." Shepard's laugh could be a cold thing. "I should have known, right? I didn't hit he that time. Instead I answered her damn questions and she made me sound even more fucked up than I already was. Said I was wasting Council and Alliance funds chasing dead nightmares."
Zaeed spat off to the side to show what he thought of that. "Goddamn Paparazzi."
Shepard jumped off the table. "Joke's on her. I wish I was making this Reaper shit up. Guess we'll just have to start with the Collectors. Work our way up to the Reapers. Anyway, when I saw her again I couldn't pass up the chance to give her the "fuck you" I should have gave her years ago."
Shepard's red eyes flashed, watching his face for any reaction. Damn, he had a fucking great poker face. His face remained blank before lighting up mischievously.
"You know, Shepard, there are other ways to induce a "positive outlook" on life." His mischievous smirk told her what he was getting at without him having to actually put it into words.
"You mean sex?" she was laughing. "I can't believe that never occurred to me." If a little mindless intercourse couldn't make her think positively on life, she had no idea what would.
Zaeed rolled his mismatched eyes. "I'm not surprised. The only thing on your goddamn mind at night are those Collectors."
"Well, they may not be the only thing."
Goddamn it all, the girl was checking him out. He certainly hadn't expected that. Shepard's eyes lazily drank him in. Zaeed turned away and snorted. "I wasn't talking about me, Shepard."
"Then who else?" she complained, waving a hand. "Oh, I'll just use Cerberus's money to pay a consort a visit. I'm sure the Illusive Man will understand."
"That AI mentioned there was a Krogan on Tuchanka that would be more than willing to-"
Shepard paled. "EDI was lying. No Krogan would actually fill out a breeding request for me. It-it-it," she stuttered, punching the keypad to open the door. She fled back up to her cabin, shouting after him, "It was one of Wrex's pranks, shut up."
Later while leaning against the back of the elevator, Zaeed crossed his arms and waited to make the slow trip up from Engineering to the mess hall. He was goddamn starving. He had gotten so lost in nostalgia that he missed the call for dinner.
The elevator doors came apart to reveal Shepard standing in front of it, a different sort of hunger in her eyes. She marched inside, using an arm to push him back up against the wall he had been leaning on previously. Shepard used her other hand to punch to elevator keypad, shutting it down and closing the doors. "I've been thinking," she started nonchalantly, like this was an everyday occurrence. "About what we talked about earlier."
"You don't say," he replied gruffly, glaring down at the arm across his chest that was pinning him to the wall. She didn't make any further moves. She just stared back at him, waiting. Zaeed shifted a bit. "Well, are you going to do something about it or not?"
Shepard paused before she backed off him. Nodding to the keypad, she instructed, "You tell me where we're going. You can either go back to the mess hall alone or..."
Before she could continue Zaeed reached over and tapped the button for the top floor, the Captain's loft. Shepard grinned. "Excellent fucking choice."
She was already tearing off his armor in the elevator. Or was trying to. "How the fuck does this come off?" Shepard tugged at his chest plate, using it to drag him into her quarters. "Ignore the dead fish. Help me with this."
"Dead fish?" he repeated, sliding his armor off. Shepard's hands started wandering lower, eventually finding his flask. She brightened immensely.
"Ooh, what's in this?" Without waiting for an answer she took a long swallow and handed it back pleasantly surprised. "Damn, that was good. Where's it from?"
"Scotland," he replied gruffly, taking a drink himself. When he put his flask down Shepard tackled him, causing them to both tumble backwards onto her bed. She was obviously done talking. Her mouth messily slid over his and the only words she spoke afterward were his name and some rather creative swears.
"Hey, Commander." Joker, smug little shit that he was after winning quite a bit of creds from Garrus with that damn bet, sat down at her mess table. Shepard gave him a nod and the pilot looked surprised. "Commander, you look less like a robot. Did Chakwas fix you up?"
Before Shepard could come up with a lie, Zaeed interupted with, "It wasn't Chakwas."
She tried to kick him under the table as he was sitting next to her, but with his chunky armor the action was proved to be futile. "Massani means they healed on their own," Shepard snapped, visibly bristling.
Zaeed chuckled on her left. "Careful, Commander. If you're scars reappear you'll have to start all over trying to heal them. You don't want that, do you?" His eyes hinted at what he was trying to really say with that question.
Shepard actually considered that. "You mean we'll have to, ahem, do it all over again?"
"That's right."
There was a pause. Joker felt very out of the loop.
"Fine." Shepard plastered a shit eating grin on her face before she turned and punched Zaeed in the face.
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Shepard?" Zaeed cradled his jaw and cursed.
"Oh, relax. I don't keep you around because you're pretty, Massani." Shepard traced her fingers over her own jawline. "Hold on. I don't feel any scars returning. Get back over so I can punch you again."
"There are easier ways to get me back in bed!" Zaeed shouted irritably, trying to fend her off. Joker spat out his drink all over the mess table.
"Back in bed?!"
Shepard ignored Joker and cracked her knuckles. "Now, Massani, when have I ever done anything the easy way?"
