.Semper Fidelis.

Listen here junior, the Alliance is nothing but a few thousand marines and then eight million fucking replacements standing behind them. Quote me on that.

- General Lee Washington

"Fuck man, chili again."

"Like you can even call this chili. It's water with a little bit of meat floating in it. It doesn't even have beans."

"Real chili doesn't have beans."

"Whatever."

Conversation rolled around him like the waves of the sea, but Shepard was finding that easier and easier to tolerate. It helped when there was food, the Mess Hall had become his favorite building in the world almost the moment his boots hit soil in Florida. The other recruits, well fed and accustomed to better fare, had a running competition going to see who could insult the cook most creatively but he'd never felt the need to participate in that particular sport. Even the thin chili and grainy cornbread tasted wonderful to him and he was already mostly done demolishing his lunch by the time Joyous pushed through the crowd and took the seat across the empty table.

"Results are in," Joyous said, barely looking up from his data pad. He put his lunch tray down and shoved it to the side, dialing down the long columns of numbers. "89 on the exam and an acceptance letter. Jesus, am I ever glad you made me run all those quadratic pressure tests. The time limits were ridiculous on those things, I never would have survived."

"Good. I'd like your apology for all the bitching to come in a creative form," Shepard said as he spooned up the last of his watery chili and slipped it delicately between his swollen lips. "I'm thinking haiku. Oh Shepard you are, the smartest man ever and so, very handsome too."

"Whatever," Joyous laughed and finally tore his eyes away from his results. The laughter died in his throat as he took in the fresh bruises standing out across Shepard's cheeks and the split lip, still shiny with fresh blood. "Aw man, Emery again?"

"Of course, who else would it be? He shoved me down the stairs after he was done so the bruising would be consistent if I decided to report him."

"Did you?"

"No," Shepard narrowed his eyes at the other boy, "I'm not a fucking snitch."

"You're going to get maintenance duty for profanity again," Joyous glanced around, but true to form everyone was avoiding them. He leaned in and his voice dropped to a conspiratory murmur. "Not that cleaning the shitter is your main concern right now. What are you going to do?"

"There's only one thing to do," Shepard shrugged and drained the last of his water.

"Which is?"

"I'm going to have to fuck him up. I attached a spy program to his omnitool that'll help me track his movements for the next couple days, there's got to be at least an hour or so that he's not surrounded by his entourage. If there's a pattern I'll find it and then..." He shrugged again.

"Do you really think that's smart?" Joyous raised an eyebrow. "You can only push so hard before this blows up in your face, Shep."

"I don't have a choice. The last time he roughed me up I told him that if he pushed me I'd push back. If I act like nothing happened that'll send a message that I'm not willing to follow through and then he'll really be on me."

"I think you should check your application status before you decide," Joyous pushed the data pad over.

Shepard accepted it with a wince. He already knew exactly where he'd fucked up, he didn't need the official report. Still he logged in and found the message flashing priority in his inbox. He opened it, expecting the worst, and felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise when he saw the score tallied at the top of the column of results.

"Did you score over ninety?" Joyous asked immediately. "Remember our bet."

"I thought for sure that triple firewall challenge had sunk me," Shepard said, scrolling down.

"Don't dodge the question."

"Ninety three point five," Shepard looked up. "You were right."

"I'm always right. You owe me a drink." Joyous drew back a fist for a playful punch.

Shepard shied away from the blow automatically. He wasn't afraid of it, even if Joyous had been a match for him in hand-to-hand he never would have actually hit him, and he knew that. It was just that a touch, any touch, had the power to make his skin crawl, to make him sweat and break down into that suffocating panic. He blushed as Joyous lowered his hand.

"Sorry," he said, "I forgot."

"It's not your fault," Shepard tried to shrug it off, but his shoulders had locked up at the mere possibility of physical contact. He looked away, avoiding eye contact. "All joking aside, this doesn't change anything."

"Maybe it should. A ninety three means advanced placement. Are you sure you want to gamble that in a dick measuring contest with some idiot you're never even going to see again?"

"Who says I won't see him again?"

"Look, Shepard, I don't know how to break this to you but Emery Washington is never going to be accepted into Tech Academy."

"I know that, asshole," Shepard glared, "but that doesn't mean I'll never see him again. I did some research after our last encounter, Emery is a Washington. As in Admiral Nolan Washington, and General Lee Washington before that. His family is going to get him into Command Academy even if his combat stats don't, then he'll get a commission and a command posting. It's entirely possible I'll wind up running into him again, and if it's on a battlefield I can't afford to be the stupid punk he beat on in Basic training."

"Can you afford to get discharged for Conduct Unbecoming?" Joyous asked pointedly, glancing over his shoulder at the table where Emery and his cohorts were clustered, shoving each other and braying stupid laughter. "You might be too honourable to snitch, but I don't think he is."

"Honour has nothing to do with it," Shepard replied, his voice flat. "You're not going to be able to talk me out of this, Joy. I'm not going to let some waste of oxygen like Emery Washington make me into a victim again."

He'd never said the word out loud before, it slid up his throat like an acid bubble and burst in his mouth, burning his tongue. He glanced up and saw Joyous watching him, recognizing the power of that word and everything attached to it. He didn't need to know the full story, which was one of the things Shepard liked the most about him.

They stared at each other for a long moment, the air between them silent as though it was cut off from the rest of the world.

"Alright, fine," Joyous said with a long-suffering sigh, running both hands through his hair. "Being friends with you is more trouble than it's worth."

"What did you say your final exam score was? There was something about quadratic hacking pressure tests if I remember right."

"Shut up. If we're going to do this we're going to have to be careful and bloodless. Brains, not fists."

"We?" Shepard raised an eyebrow. "When did this become we?"

"Emery has six gorillas to watch his back," Joyous pointed out. "I know I'm pretty shit as far as muscle goes, but I also know you don't have any other friends so I'll have to do. And I'm going to need you at Tech Academy," he smiled, "I'm going to make you do all my homework."

"That sounds fair," Shepard laughed, "I guess you should get something for putting up with me. What is this brilliant brains-over-muscles plan you have, then?"

"Oh, I don't have any plan," Joyous spread his hands helplessly in the air between them, "other than keeping you from shooting yourself in the foot, which I'm sure will be a mighty feat in and of itself. I say we go do our drills and then conspire over that drink you owe me."

"Is there a bar on base?"

"There's a guy who smuggles in rum, which is cheaper and therefore better," Joyous grinned, the expression unfamiliar to his lean, mournful face. The prospect of alcohol gave him delight Shepard had never expected he was capable of.

"I don't really drink..." He said, careful not to attach the 'anymore' to the end of it.

"You don't really drink yet," Joyous corrected him. "I grew up in a po-dunk south Florida town where there was shit all to do. I'm like the you of drinking, and I'm going to educate you just as well as you have me."

"It doesn't sound like we're going to get much planning done," Shepard said.

"Have a little faith. I'm pretty sure that even blind drunk we can come up with a way to outsmart Emery Washington."

He was right about that. It took them two hours and half the bottle of cheap rum to come up with their remarkably simple plan. It was, Joyous explained, a simple matter of balance. They'd never be able to match up to Washington with muscle, there simply wasn't enough of them to make such a plan feasible. Instead they had to rely on what they had and he didn't, which was brains and hacking talent.

They decided to celebrate with the rest of the rum.

"That's Jupiter," Joyous said as they settled back in the grass with the empty bottle beside them. He raised one hand and pointed, then frowned. "No, wait, damnit. That's Jupiter. That's where we're going to be this time next month."

"Have you ever been off planet before?" Shepard folded his arms behind his head and squinted at the little dot of light, so alike the millions of others turning slowly overhead and yet so different to him now. It was hard to imagine that he was actually going to go there.

"Just once. My parents took me to Zegema for a vacation when I was twelve."

"What was it like?"

"Tourist-y," Joyous shrugged, "it was a resort more than anything, we never left the hotel grounds. It was a lot like Earth, except the sand was purple and all the plants looked weird. Oh, and there was this bioluminescent plankton in the water so the ocean glowed at night."

"Really?" Shepard sighed. "That's... disappointing."

"I know. I was expecting this big adventure, but it was pretty boring. I spent a lot of time watching vids in the room."

"Damn."

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. All I want to do is get off this rock, and it's not because I want to explore or fight for humanity or any of that recruitment flyer garbage. I... just want something different. Completely different," Shepard sighed again, his disappointment palpable. "I'm so sick of this planet, Joy. I'm sick of all the petty greed and cruelty and human bullshit. I'm sick of people. Except you."

Joyous was quiet for a long time, the two of them just staring at the stars.

"What happened to you, Shepard?" He asked, finally. "I know I shouldn't ask, blame it on the liquor, but I just can't let the question go. Where did you come from?"

"The worst place on Earth, or at least the worst place I've ever seen," Shepard replied. He desperately wanted to be honest, Joyous deserved that much from him at least after everything he'd done, but the words stuck in his throat like tar. "I have these flashbacks sometimes, and it's like the whole planet is shrinking in around me. Anything familiar and it's like I'm right back there... on the streets. I can't breathe here, there's not enough air."

"There's no more air in space, Shep. There's actually less of it, since we have to bring it all with us whenever we go anywhere," Joyous was looking at him. "You can run away from Earth, but your past is always going to be a part of you. It made you who you are and, I don't know, it seems like it made you pretty strong. That's good isn't it?"

"Not good enough to be worth it," Shepard replied, his voice darkening as memories threatened to overtake him again. "Jesus, I can't wait to get up there. I'm never going to come back, either. There's nothing for me here."

"I'll be here," Joyous said, hitting him lightly on the arm with the back of his hand. He froze as he realized what he'd done, his face going pale under the starlight. "Fuck, man, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Shepard rubbed his arm on instinct, but he'd barely even flinched. His skin wasn't even crawling. "I'm pretty drunk. Maybe that's all it takes."

"Yeah," Joyous sighed with relief, "rum is great."

"Totally."

Shepard found Jupiter again, cut it out of the sky with his eyes like he could will himself there with his mind alone. The stars looked very different all of a sudden, real in a way that Earth wasn't. The buildings silhouetted against the sky, the grass under his back, the wind on his face, it was all meaningless. The only thing that mattered was getting up, into the sky.

That, and taking care of Emery.

"We should head in and sleep this off," he said, pushing himself off his back, "we've got a bunch of programming to do tomorrow morning, after all."

"Right," Joyous followed his lead and the two of them staggered to their feet. He swayed dangerously as he tried to take a step. "I don't know if I'm going to make it all the way back."

"Come here," Shepard wasn't much better, he grabbed his arm and pulled him close, looping his arm around his shoulders. After a moment of shock, Joyous copied him.

"You never stop surprising me," he said.

"Good. Just don't expect me to put out."

"Gross," Joyous laughed, leaning hard on him. "Well... no, it's gross."

Shepard laughed and the two of them set out, leaning against each other on their treacherous journey back to the dorms.

It was shocking to remember that the next morning, when woke up sober with his anxieties intact. He went and took a shower, it was light and lukewarm but he stayed under for a long time letting the clean water rush over him. He had been filthy when he arrived at Basic, the water had run brown through three layers of hard soap. He'd had fleas. Their bites putrified all over him, and he had scratched at them like a dog. Shepard loved being clean, he would have taken three showers a day if he could.

He shuddered and turned the water off, then he trimmed his hair and nails and flossed his teeth, avoiding eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. His new uniforms were three sizes bigger than his first ones and they fit perfectly. He spent ten minutes measuring cuffs, smoothing down seams and adjusting zippers. He felt looked like himself again, or at least like the person he wanted to be. He looked like a soldier.

He still felt dirty. Joyous' innocent touch lingered on his skin like oil. Shepard shifted uncomfortably and turned away from the mirror. He felt his heart flutter and his breath hitched in his throat until he braced his hand against the wall and closed his eyes. He grabbed hold of his vibrating thoughts and started to count, multiplying up by seventeen.

17. 289. 4,913. 83,521. 1,419,857. 24,137,569. 410,338,673. 697,575,4... 49?

Shepard frowned as he stumbled.

697,575,441.

He opened his eyes as his heartbeat steadied and his breathing grew even. He straightened up, readjusting his uniform and running his fingers through his clean hair.

118,587,876,497.

He counted his entire way back to the dorm, until he had to strain to process the numbers. It felt good to think so hard, like he was stretching his brain the same way he stretched his muscles before he ran an obstacle course. The code he and Joyous had planned required flawless execution, or it would end up getting them discharged instead of Emery. When Shepard sat down on his bunk and pulled out his data pad he was hungry for it.

It took them two days to get the code right, and then Joyous insisted they run tests on it for a week straight. After that it was almost too easy, it took barely an hour for their plan to run its course.

Joyous was ever cautious and took pains to be in the middle of basic drills when it went down, but Shepard couldn't stay away. He'd been assigned maintenance duties in the detention block before, and he knew exactly where a thick pool of shadows gathered on the cat walk above the cells. He had been hiding there for ten minutes when Major Ingles marched Emery in.

The Major was probably the only man on base without a tan, his pale skin shot through with the purple and red veins of extensive alcohol use. Shepard had never seen him before, except at a distance, and he took in the rumpled, sweat stained uniform and sagging jowls with a grimace, an acid wash coating the back of his tongue as his stomach twisted. Was that what being in the Alliance was like?

"I don't understand," Emery moaned. He was sweating, Shepard could see the fat droplets catch the overhead lights, they sparkled as they ran down his face.

"I don't understand it either," Major Ingles sighed like the weight of the world was grinding down on his shoulders. He opened one of the cells and directed the two guards flanking Emery to escort their charge into it. "I have to get in contact with my superiors and see about setting up a court martial. This is all I need."

Emery let himself be led into the cell. There wasn't an ounce of fight left in him, he lumbered along in shock, his mouth open and his hands balled into fists against his chest. Without cohorts at his back and a smirk on his face he looked five years younger, a big stupid child crammed into a soldier's body.

Shepard bit his lip. He could feel the scar Emery's knuckle had left between his teeth, a tender white line that split his bottom lip. His hands were clean, or at least they weren't bruised and covered in blood. He hadn't let himself slip backwards into violence, but he still felt like he had broken the other boy, still felt like he was standing over him in the aftermath of a fight. He had destroyed Emery's life, the only difference was he hadn't done it with his fists.

"Enjoying the show?"

The voice made him jump, his heart slamming up his throat into his mouth. Ingles and the guards didn't hear, they were already out the door, and Emery had retreated to the back of his cell, immersed in his private catastrophe. Shepard turned away from the sight to find a uniformed soldier watching him, a tall black man with a crooked smile on his craggy face.

"Sir?" Shepard reacted on instinct, drawing his shoulders back and his heels together, his hand snapping up to his forehead in salute. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I don't think that's been true of anything in your life, Recruit Shepard. At ease."

Shepard relaxed as much as he could, folding his hands neatly in front of him and tilting his chin up in subtle defiance. He was resolute, he would reveal nothing and if all else failed he would at least make sure Joyous' name stayed out of it. He kept his features schooled, his face smooth and calm as a tide pool.

"Good," the soldier nodded and took a step forward. He leaned casually against the safety railing and looked down at Emery pacing his cell. "We're going to have a conversation now, and it'll go much better for you if you don't even try to play me the way you did these other assholes. I'm not like the other uniforms you've met around here, consider me bullshit proof."

The tag on his chest, neatly stitched under layers of citation bars, said his name was Anderson. The bars on his collar said he was a lieutenant commander and his insignia that he was Alliance Marine. His muscles rippled under the thick fabric of his uniform, the hands folded lightly over the steel rail were long fingered and strong, covered in a thick layer of calluses. He was the first man who actually looked like a soldier that Shepard had ever seen outside of a vid.

Shepard didn't join Commander Anderson at the railing like he was clearly expected to. He kept his back straight, his body humming with energy for the coming confrontation. He was ready for anything.

Anderson just stared at him for a moment.

"If you're eighteen," he said, turning away again, "then I'm the Queen of France."

Shepard didn't say anything.

"Well?"

"You said no bullshit," Shepard shrugged, "so here's me not bullshitting you."

Anderson smiled.

"Good. That's good. So why don't you tell me about Washington?"

"Emery H. Washington was born in Miami to a strong military family. Blond, brown eyes, two point zero five meters, ninety-nine point seven kilograms." Shepard paused, "do you want his combat stats? Academic stats? One of those is a really short list."

Anderson laughed.

"I see you've studied your enemy."

"I don't have any enemies," Shepard said, keeping his voice light. "I study everyone."

"Maybe you think everyone's your enemy," Anderson didn't miss a beat. "That's not what I was asking for, though. You must have a personal opinion about him, and that's what I'm interested in. Permission to speak freely, Shepard. Let's hear it."

"Emery Washington is a piece of shit," Shepard was surprised by the emotion in his own voice. He paused, taking hold of himself, forcing the angry flush away from his face. "He's a violent bully and an idiot who relies on his name to open doors instead of his skills."

"Washington is a good soldier."

"He's good at shooting things and following orders. That's not the same thing."

"I know certain people who would disagree with that sentiment," Anderson said, his voice tight. A flicker of something played across his face, furrowing his brow and drawing his lips down into a grimace.

"Then those people are just as stupid as he is."

"Right," Anderson nodded and rubbed at his jaw. His face was unreadable, his dark eyes wandered between Shepard and Emery in his cell below.

"What's going to happen to him?" Shepard asked, to break the silence more than anything else. He was used to being scrutinized, drill sergeants combed over him inch by inch every time he ran a drill or an obstacle course, but Anderson was different. He saw the immaculate uniform, the precisely trimmed hair, the straight back and the scars on his temples, but that wasn't what he was really looking at.

"I doubt that the brass will press any real charges, but he'll probably be discharged and banned from reapplying for service."

"That's not so bad."

"Isn't it?" Anderson's voice was light but his voice cut. "You know he's from a military family, how do you think this is going to affect the rest of his life?"

"He deserves it," Shepard replied, his voice getting hot again.

"Oh right, of course," Anderson nodded. "Because he's a bully, right?"

"He's the one that broke the rules," Shepard shrugged, and rubbed at his side, remembering the vicious bruises that had only just finished fading away. It wasn't exactly a lie, he just hadn't said precisely what rules had been broken.

"We all have to accept the consequences of our actions," Anderson agreed. He straightened up, looking away from Emery, and faced Shepard directly. "I'll have your transfer changes filed."

"What?" Shepard felt himself go cold, like he had been plunged into an ice bath. His jaw fell open and he heard his own voice like it belonged to someone else, brittle and thin as it sliced the air.

"Yeah. Your application to Tech Academy was very impressive, Shepard, it sparked a lot of interest. You probably don't know this, but certain outfits really enjoy poaching high potential uniforms off of each other. We all have our success stories, but the Marines have always sort of prided ourselves on always managing to get the best of the best. That's you. I've been watching you for the last couple days and you've impressed me, so you're in."

"But..." Shepard hesitated.

"But?"

"I was looking forward to Tech Academy."

"Sorry, son. If it makes you feel better, I have a feeling you would have been a shitty engineer. They're not front lines material, they don't get to see the fruits of their labours up close and personal."

They both looked down at Emery in his cell, and when their eyes met again Shepard knew he was trapped. His presence here, while not enough to be damning in and of itself, would surely arouse suspicion were Anderson to report it. At the very least it would give Emery's flunkies a clean target to focus his vengeance on. Being trapped was not a feeling he enjoyed.

"Alright," Shepard said with a final sigh. "I'll do it. I just have one question."

"I wasn't really asking," Anderson laughed, "but go ahead and ask your question."

"Why me?" Shepard locked eyes with Anderson, keeping his back and shoulders straight. "And my own bullshit detector is pretty well developed so don't say it was just exam scores.

"Of course not. Your Basic scores came into play too, your friend Silverman wouldn't make a very good marine and he's almost as smart as you are."

"Silverman?" Shepard blinked. "Oh! Right, Joyous. No, I guess he wouldn't."

"So that's part of it. But really, if I'm being honest... it's just you, Shepard. The way you talk, the way you hold yourself, that look in your eyes. Recruits these days... for the most part they're all the same, all like Emery. They all come from the same social bracket, they all think the same way, and they all have the same perception. You're different, you see the world differently, and any outfit needs to have a little of that to make it strong."

"Okay," Shepard nodded. He had gotten used to anything in a uniform lying to him, the Alliance might have held honesty up as one of their founding virtues but Shepard had yet to see anyone of them live up to it. Until Anderson, at least.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. You didn't bullshit me, so okay."

"I never actually asked you if you agreed to any of this, you realize?"

"Do you really think you can force me to do anything I don't agree to?" Shepard set his jaw. "I put a cap on that stage of my life, I'm done with it."

"I get that," Anderson nodded, "so I'm glad you're on board. Though, just for the record, I do think I could force you if I really wanted to. Now go get your shit, you're taking off for Arcturus Station in three hours."

Today's quote adapted from one taken from Sebastian Junger.