For one long, awful moment, John wants nothing more than to take his helmet off.
Cold, clammy sweat is prickling and drying on the back of his neck, trapped by the helmet's hard seals. It would be so easy just to flick the switch, yank it off, and wipe himself clean...
"Shepard?"
So easy just to...
"Shepard?"
The concern in Tali's voice is evident even over the suit's tinny transmitter. John drops his hand from his neck (when did that get there?) and clears his throat more for effect than anything else.
"I'm fine, Tali." His voice is steady and clear enough to surprise even himself. "Just...it's a hell of a view." That much, at least, isn't a lie. He can see Rannoch from here, if he focuses solely on the planet and not the stars pulsing and glimmering in the distance.
"Better than a vid?"
"Much." He has to get moving. If the others don't already know something's wrong, they'll figure it out if he spends much longer frozen to the same spot.
Focus. Breathe. Get your shit together, marine. He starts to walk again, lifting and planting mag-booted feet that feel as though some sadistic TO strapped lead weights to the bottom of them.
Clank-clunk.
John keeps his gaze focused firmly ahead. There's sweat dripping into his eyes, but mercifully the perverse temptation to remove his helmet doesn't return.
Clank-clunk.
The sound of his feet echoing on the bottom of the ruined docking tube is a lie, John knows. A good lie, fed to him by auditory emulators in a well-meaning attempt to keep him comfortable, but a lie nonetheless. In space, you can't even hear yourself screaming when a broken helmet welcomes in the vacuum like an old friend-
Clank-clunk.
No. He can't let himself think about that too much. God knows the dreams are bad enough already-
The docking tube suddenly lurches under him, breaks in two beneath his feet, and John is weightless.
(He's choking, scrabbling at his trailing air hose, trying to breathe space with collapsing lungs...)
The stars wheel sickeningly around him. He has time for a single panicked thought-I'm sorry, Steve-before his magboots find purchase on the other side of the docking tube, grounding him once again.
The familiar taste of metal floods his mouth; he's bitten his lip, fairly badly from the way it feels when he runs his tongue across tiny zing of pain is enough to jolt him out of the unwelcome rush of memory.
He has to run the suit diagnostic three times before he's satisfied there's no breach, ignoring the blinking light on his helmet's display that warns him his vital signs are pushing into the red zone; the dull thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears is enough to tell him that.
"Shepard-" EDI's voice this time.
"I'm fine." Lying to an AI who routinely monitors the vital signs of the whole crew isn't the smartest thing John's ever done, but it's more for his benefit than hers. He needs to say the words out loud to reassure himself that he's here, he's alive, he's not spinning out into the black and leaving Steve behind to mourn another man.
Silence on the other end of the line.
"I'm fine."
"Very well, Shepard." He can tell she's humouring him, but that's better than any of the other options. "There is another docking tube at these coordinates. If you can override the controls, the rest of the team should be able to board the dreadnought."
"Thanks, EDI." He's fine. He has to be. There's no other choice.
He wants to hit Admiral Gerrel so badly that his clenched hands ache. Drive a cybernetically-augmented fist straight into his chest or his gut (or his helmet, a small traitor voice whispers), show him exactly what it's like to struggle for breath and not find it, then do it again. And again. John forces down the urge, as well as the wave of sudden nausea that comes over him. He settles for shouting a few times, and while that isn't as satisfying as the other way it is the far more diplomatic option.
He knows he's not a diplomat when he opens his hands after the Admirals depart and sees the ragged, bloody crescents his nails have dug into his palms.
John doesn't eat with the crew that night. He takes a couple of meal replacement bars from the hoard in his cabin and swallows them mechanically instead, barely even wincing at the terrible taste.
The battered helmet he retrieved from Alchera is back on his desk; it was with the rest of his possessions in the cargo hold when he took control of the Normandy again. John takes it off the stand and turns it over in his hands, ignoring the black flakes that drift down onto his clean bedsheets. Someone (probably whoever was assigned to retrieve his corpse) cut the trailing air hose that killed him. The remaining stub juts out raggedly from the port at the back; John runs his fingers over it, then over the faint lines that are all that remains of the N7 brand.
The helmet is scorched, warped and dented, but in surprisingly good shape considering it went through re-entry before hitting a planet. A fleeting thought-I should probably write to the manufacturers and offer them a recommendation-brings a harsh chuckle from John's throat. What would he even say? 'Hey, good job making the helmet that kept my brain more or less intact! Want me to record an advertisement for you, by any chance?'
"What's so funny?"
Startled, John looks up. Steve is standing at the top of the steps that lead down to the main bedroom area. His arms are folded tight across his chest, and that familiar worry line is back between his brows.
John didn't even hear the door open. He struggles for an explanation, saying something lame as Steve crosses the room and sits down on the bed; it's only when Steve gently prises the helmet from him and sets it down on the bedside table that he realises his hands are shaking. Steve covers them with his own, winding his fingers between John's trembling ones and grasping them tightly.
"What happened today?" Steve's voice is low and gentle, but there's an undercurrent of concern. "Don't tell me you're fine, because I know you're not."
John swallows hard and clasps Steve's hands tighter. He raises his eyes to meet his lover's achingly blue ones. "How much do you know about what happened when the first Normandy went down?"
The story pours out of him in fits and starts after that, as though it's been waiting all this time to be told. Steve doesn't interrupt, doesn't ask questions or probe for more details; he just listens, waiting patiently when John chokes or stammers.
"I tried so hard to fix the air hose, even though I knew it was pointless. And then..." John trails off as he realises there are tears on his cheeks. He reaches up to wipe them away and Steve pulls him close in a fierce embrace. John buries his face between Steve's neck and shoulder , smelling engine oil and gunmetal and starch on his skin; Steve kisses the top of his head and rubs his back soothingly until the shaking stops.
"This is the first time you've ever told anyone about that, isn't it?"
"Yeah. I...there's more to it, but I don't think I can..." John mumbles against Steve's shoulder.
"It's alright, John. I'm here. Whenever you're ready."
I love you. John resolves to say the words soon, no matter how much they make his throat tighten and his pulse race. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I love you.
