Prompt: Renegade Shepard finally letting her guard down.
Mass Effect and all associated characters belong to Bioware. I make no money from this fanfiction.
Being nice never got her anywhere.
She remembers being a small child on Earth, attending school and being taught the values of kindness. She'd tried, being polite to the other children, the older kids who'd bullied her. She still remembers their mocking laughter. The true lessons she'd learned were that kindness meant being stepped on and used – kindness meant vulnerability.
She was getting tired of being strong. In recent months, there were times when she wondered - thought to herself that it might not be so bad to be taken advantage of. It might not be so bad to be vulnerable.
Like now, with an assassin in her arms. Of all the times in her life that she's been faced with tears, with the task of comforting a distraught teammate, this is the one time she hasn't thought it a burden. The most lethal man in the galaxy has turned up at her doorstep at his weakest moment and she's humbled in a disquieting way.
He's crying. With every one of his tears that fall a tiny piece of her shatters, like stones chipping away at her time-thickened armor. Perhaps it's she sees a small part of herself in him, scared and otherwise alone in a world full of people who frown on any form of weakness. Being strong slowly ceases to be important, because if he can cry, so can she.
His desperate confession of fear shatters her, and before she's even thought about it she's reaching for his face, fingertips brushing the soft ribbing at his throat. A moment hangs between them. In this moment, painfully aware of her mortality, she allows herself to share in his weakness. She's never felt so liberated. If ever a display of kindness, of heartfelt emotion has been appropriate, it's now. She tries to forget that she might not have another chance.
So she kisses him. Pulls his shaking body close and hopes she can take away the pain and the fear. His lips are warm and the texture is different than what she's used to, but he's wonderful. Her heart breaks as they cross this threshold of only now fully realized desire. What if they don't make it? What if their first kiss is also their last? She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him with everything she has, trying in vain to hide the tears already stinging her eyes.
Their sadness and lust is bittersweet on their eve of the unknown. It doesn't matter that he's not human. Every gentle and exploratory touch dulls the pain bit by tiny bit until all that matters is his body against hers, moving in time to every hitched breath, every pleasured sigh, until there's nothing left in the galaxy but the two of them. She inhales him like the freshest, cleanest air and nothing is more clear than the climax rushing upon them both.
The quiet that descends upon them in the aftermath of their lovemaking is soothing. Shepard rests her head on his shoulder and breathes deep, doing what she can to etch this moment in her mind forever. In the silence, she thinks to herself that they damn well better get out of this alive.
Because she needs this. She needs the one man who doesn't see weakness in tears. She needs the one man she can share kindness with.
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoy my fanfiction, please consider entertaining yourself on my Thane and drell-centric blog, featuring fan art and fanfiction by many other talented fans.
- My blog may feature NSFW content -
DRELL BLOG - username zet-sway.
