A/N: Thank you to those of you who read, reviewed and/or messaged me – I appreciate any and all feedback. As of last night, I finished the last chapter of Skin and Bone, so with a few edits, the rest should be up relatively soon!
Chapter Six: Black Sweet Blood Mouthfuls
James wishes he could figure Shepard out. Here she is, arguably the most dangerous soldier in the Alliance (if not the entire galaxy), and she's taking everything people are doling out. Every time one of those stupid news reports starts to drone on, James wants to rip the console off the wall. They paint her as some overly violent, brutish character – especially the batarians, and who are they to talk? James might have an opinion or two it batarians had ever sacked a human colony.
Oh wait, they had.
And that's maybe what makes him the angriest. It's not that Shepard is lying down and taking the abuse, it's the fact that she's a goddamned hero. Sure, destroying Aratoht was a fucking shame – even James can admit that, and he doesn't even like batarians. But where was all this press coverage when it was human colonies disappearing? Shepard was one of the few who stood up and said that it was the Collectors, and the whole galaxy turned their backs on her, claiming it was the work of slavers. Batarian slavers, at that.
And because the Council didn't want war with the Terminus systems, they left those bastards alone. And yeah, in the long run, it wasn't the four-eyes' fault, but that wasn't the point – the point was that everyone deluded themselves into believing it was... and they still did fuck all.
So why is Shepard being subjected to any of this to begin with? Because she actually admitted to destroying Aratoht. She showed up and took responsibilities for her actions. That she saved millions doing what she did means nothing to the suits. They just want a pretty story for all the press vids.
It's been near two months since the beginning of her trial now, and the tribunal is still dragging its heels about charging her with anything. Shepard has long since stopped attending, because they don't ask her shit anyways. Meanwhile, they're recruiting everybody and anybody that has any opinion on Shepard to give some sort of testimony about her character – everybody except Anderson, that is. Expect him to tell the truth, most likely, and that would ruin the perfect little lie they're putting together.
They haven't asked James himself yet, either. Too bad. He could do with making his opinion known.
He collects Shepard's dinner tray and brings it to her room, later than usual but Shepard is rarely hungry before eight. She's sitting at her desk, but throws him a casual wave before glancing back at her console. An attractive woman is standing before a batarian with a microphone. The batarian glowers down at the smaller human, then at the screen, as though the whole set up isn't his idea.
"What's your opinion on Commander Shepard's trial?" the reporter queries.
The batarian scoffs, all four of his eyes narrowing. "The Commander killed three hundred thousand batarians without thought. She broke into a secure facility and killed a number of batarian patriots, before blowing up the Alpha relay to destroy an entire colony. I'd say she's a criminal of the worst sort."
"And what of those who say that that the batarian slave trade has decimated human populations since our foray into the galactic scene?"
"Slavery is a part of our society," starts the batarian, before the console clicks off.
James sets down the tray and can't help but study the Commander. She's sideways on her chair, one arm draped over the back. One nail is going to be a hell of a lot shorter if the way she's going at it is any indication. She isn't angry, only thoughtful. When she turns those too-blue eyes on him, he has to struggle not to break contact.
"Lieutenant," she says, "I need you to tell me something."
"Shoot," he says.
"Are they talking about the Reapers at all out there? About an invasion? Anything?" Her brow is crinkled with worry, bottom lip bloody from before she switched the abuse to her nails.
It would be really great to be able to say yeah Commander, defensive manoeuvres are being put into effect as we speak and we've mobilized all the fleets and put the biggest Reaper killing gun on the moon. The truth is ugly. The tribunal has probably heard of Reapers by now – Anderson has made sure of that – but beyond that, it's pretty much just the three of them on board the invasion train. Life's going on as per usual with everyone else. James has to admit that if he weren't constantly around Shepard, yeah, he might be chilling too.
He knows she won't appreciate the lie though, no matter how comforting it might be. She's like him – give it raw and bloody if that's the truth. So he says, "No, Commander. As far as anyone's concerned, you've got a mean streak towards batarians and that's it."
Shepard nods like that's exactly what she expected, pulling a hand over her face. "And what do you think, Lieutenant?"
James crosses his arms. "I believe you and Anderson, ma'am. You said Saren and Sovereign were a threat – and you were right. You said the Collectors were a threat, and you were right again. Excuse me for saying so, but just because some people have their heads so far up their asses they can't see daylight doesn't mean we all do." He pauses and adds, ma'am as an afterthought.
The smile she gives him causes his heart to swell in his chest. "Thanks LT."
"You know, Commander," he says, even has his brain is shouting that he's a colossal idiot and shut the fuck up Vega and what the hell are you doing, "it's okay if you call me James."
How can someone have such an intense look? James squirms, and can't help but remember being called out by some teacher or another for... hell, he can't remember. Fighting? The teacher had an intense look too, but it was nothing to Shepard's. The Commander has it down to an art form. It lasts about a minute before she sighs, her body going loose, and James wonders why he has the impression that he's put before her some sort of challenge. It's not that hard – call him by his name or ream him out for insubordination. He's just sick of being Lieutenant during their every interaction.
"Listen," she says, "you get extra brownie points because Anderson chose you special, but in the eyes of everyone around here, that's a strike against you. You and I, if we start getting buddy-buddy, it won't bode well for your career if this all goes sideways." She jerks her thumb towards her console. "And since we're already on a steep incline, it might not be in your best interests."
James thinks that's bullshit, but he can't find a way to tell her so. Yeah, yeah, he has a lot of thoughts about brass and their wheelings and dealings, but part of being a soldier is knowing when to keep your trap shut. He's been thinking a lot about her lately – in more ways than one, if he's being honest, even if that's so inappropriate it's like the punchline of a off-colour joke – and he's pretty sure he's got her partway figured.
Shepard at least believes she's doing this for his sake. Really, she's doing it for herself – she likes to keep herself separate, isolated.
She thinks she deserves the meat grinder they're putting her through. Like he said, bullshit.
He shrugs it off. "Whatever you say, Commander."
Shaking her head, she stands letting him get a nice view of her shapely legs. She would never be a supermodel, that's for sure, not with muscles like that. Her shorts and t-shirt show that she has muscles on every part of her, tight and toned. She's a marine, not a Barbie doll, and James can only admire the view.
"Do you know if Hackett and Anderson are doing anything about the Reapers?" she asks.
"Scuttlebutt says that Hackett's got the fleets going through formations around Arcturus," replies James, dropping onto the loveseat. "And Anderson's been beating his head against the wall with the brass. Beyond that, don't know much. I'm not important enough to be kept in the loop."
"I hate this," snaps Shepard, slamming an open palm against the wall. James' eyebrows slide up to his hairline. It's the first time she's been angry. "Those Reapers are going to get through eventually, and nobody's doing a damn thing to stop them. People are going to die. Lots of people." When she turns to James, his blood runs cold at the haunted shadow in her eyes. "You didn't see that Collector ship, Lieutenant. They meant to come for Earth."
He's a badass marine, ready to take on any shit that comes his way, but the thought of Earth being harvested makes him sick. That frustration she feels? He's in the same boat. What he wouldn't give to just kill something.
"We'll stop 'em," says James with confidence.
Shepard quirks her mouth at him. "Of course we will," she agrees, and damn, if that's not the sexiest thing he's ever heard come out of a woman's mouth. "Mind you, it would be easier if people would believe a damn thing I said. They keep latching onto the Cerberus angle as a reason to discredit everything I say."
He's never had a hard-on for Cerberus himself, but he can't deny that their help was invaluable in taking down the Collectors. Okay, yeah, he and his squad, they got the data they needed – data that might have helped end those bug-eyed creeps once and for all, but that was if (big if) the Alliance had listened to them. Brass only really started paying attention after too many colonies were hit to ignore. A few hundred thousand people was way too many for simple slave trade; James didn't need to be economist to tell you that one.
"I don't blame them though," continued Shepard. "I hated every second I spent listening to the Illusive Man." She opens the drawer of her desk and pulls out an OSD. James starts to see it, but Shepard flips it over in her hand all casual. She looks up at him through her lashes, faint smile on her lips. She tosses it to him.
"What's this?" he asks.
"Can you get it to Anderson?" is her reply, only it doesn't tell him a damn thing.
His fist closes around it, and he nods, once. "Yeah," he says, "sure thing." Then, because he can't help it, he asks again, "What is it?"
Shepard's eyes go distant, that blue seeming darker somehow, and she's clearly seeing something he can't. She turns her back on him, just like she turned her back on that Toombs guy (and coincidentally or not-so-coincidentally, the camera) and so he knows there's something on her face she doesn't want anyone to see. Her hands are clasped behind her back, loose, because she thinks that will hide the fact that something is wrong. Little does she know, he's a fast learner when it comes to her, and he's damn glad she doesn't, because that would bring up a load of uncomfortable questions.
"That," she says, "is my time with Cerberus."
James leaves then, knowing somehow that was his dismissal.
He's relieved by another marine – Glenn, this time, not Breckett, the asshole who wasn't paying attention during the Toombs debacle – and he makes his way to Anderson's office. The receptionist tells him that Anderson's left for the night, and is this an emergency? No, he guesses it isn't, but he still leaves her with a message for Anderson to contact him asap, because the Commander trusts him to put it straight into the Admiral's hands.
Forty minutes later, he's downing a beer in his own pad. It's not in the nicest part of town, but it's his for now. Give him a bed and a fridge, and he'll make do okay. He slumps down into his faded couch and switches on the vid screen. One of the last hockey games of the season is on, and while it's not really his thing, normally he'd watch because there's no boxing at the moment and he'll take what he can get. Tonight, James slips that OSD out of his pocket and tosses it, once, before inserting it.
From the way his insides are clenching, he knows that he's a complete dick for watching this without Shepard's permission. He hasn't accompanied her to the court proceedings in weeks now, but even without those, he already knows more about her than he probably should from Anderson's briefing, from her media spotlight, from the early testimonies as to her character. But he doesn't really know her. He has absolutely fucking no right to look at this footage, and yet he can't help himself. In those stupid questionnaires where they ask for three characteristics that describe you, curiosity has never been high on James' list (his three were usually something like, strong, loyal, practical – though his COs usually changed that last to reckless) but all that went down the drain when it came to Shepard.
What the hell is it about her that gets under his skin? She's been his hero, sure, and he beat up all those batarians back on Omega when they disrespected her name. But now she's not just a name, or a face on the screen, or even a list of the most impressive credentials in the Alliance military. Now she's a person.
It's clear as the footage starts playing that Shepard's just accumulated a series of shorter vids and woven them all together. The first one shows an admittedly gorgeous woman making a verbal report, talking about costs and tissues and cellular damage and all the rest of the shit James ignored in school. He skips forward until he comes to what appears to be an x-ray – Shepard's x-ray – and holy shit, he's never seen a body so broken before. He's no doctor and he pretty nearly failed biology back in the day, but that sort of damage usually means you're...
His heartbeat jumps into his chest, and he skips forward.
That woman appears again, talking about how the subject being space preserved cellular integrity or something, and then there's a segment where this skeletal body lies hooked up to tubes and wires on a table. He can't tell who it is, what gender, nothing, but he'd guess female from the way the blanket drapes. This body (James can't think of what else to call it), it has no hair, not even any eyelashes, and the scars that ripple over that flesh look a few fingers deep. To James, it looks more like some alien from a classic vid than anything he's seen out in the galaxy. The body suddenly gasps, chest arched into the sky, and the woman from before snaps something at the – doctor? But that doesn't matter because the lashless eyes open and they're blue and where has he seen them before -?
He's lucky to make it to the bathroom before he starts to vomit up the few swigs of beer he just drank.
Every fantasy he's ever had about Shepard goes down that toilet. It's not fair and he knows it, but he stumbles out of his clothes and into his civvies, flipping off the screen without another glance. He leaves his apartment behind, going to some club down the block where the music is loud enough that he can't hear himself think. Tequila helps too, and he drinks as much as he can swallow. He's not sure how long he stays in that club, but at the end of the night, he goes home with some sultry redhead. When she moans, when she looks in his eyes to tell him yeah just like that, her eyes are brown and he can't help but feel stupidly grateful.
o-o-o
Shepard's breakfast always consists of two pieces of whole grain toast and black coffee. Today, they come with a special side order of Vega-is-hungover. She's doing situps in nothing but some yoga pants and a sports bra today, her body shining with sweat and normally this would be hot as hell, only, fuck, today his stomach just rolls as he notices for the first time the faint lines that weave their way down his body. He sets down her plate and mug and then tries to leave as fast as he possibly can.
"Rough night, Lieutenant?"
He feels like that time when his abuela caught him eating his mom's birthday cake before the party, all electric shock and panic. Shepard's got this knowing, amused smile as she leaps to her feet, taking a piece of toast and shoving it in her mouth. He must look like a fucking moron, because she points to her own neck. His hand goes to cover it up, and he remembers the hickeys that redhead left on him last night.
He licks his lips. "Uh, yeah."
"And they put you on the morning shift," she says with mock sympathy. "Those bastards."
Normally, this would be the part where he smiled, where he felt the flutter of something deep in his belly, but today all he can see when he looks at her is that ungendered body, gasping awake and the way the flesh was so pale and covered in lines and those blue eyes and... He stops himself, eyes on the ground. He waited so long for her to start opening up to him, and this is the most conversational she's been, only now he just... can't.
Fucking universe. She deserves better. Better than him. But he still can't look at her.
"I – I gotta go, Commander," he stammers, taking steps backwards towards the door.
He's almost free when she calls, "You watched it, didn't you?"
The woman is a goddamned psychic. It's the only explanation. The OSD burns a hole in his pocket – Anderson hasn't yet gotten back to him. Now he's the one that can't look at her, that has to hide the emotions on his face. He nods.
She doesn't yell, or swear, or anything really. She just eats her toast like a regular human being, chewing thoughtfully. He risks a glance at her, but she's caught in her own head. After the last bite, she says, "Well, just – just make sure it gets to Anderson, I guess."
James can't help himself. "Aren't you going to get pissed at me? Yell? Something?"
She sips her coffee like the world is fan-fucking-tastic and the birds are singing and whatever. She sighs, her shoulders rising and falling. "I think seeing that was punishment enough."
"So it's real?" he presses, even though every one of his few brain cells are telling him to shut up.
Now she's frowning, with a what the hell do you think expression. It morphs into a smile that's really more of a snarl, and James pities anyone who crosses her on the battlefield. "That's me," she says, voice full of self-deprecation. "I'm Frankenstein's monster." She shakes her head. "Go on, Lieutenant. Get the hell out of here and drink some coffee or something. You look like shit."
He does. It's not until later when he's got his head on straight that he wonders: what must Shepard have felt, seeing that?
Next Chapter: Joker has no problem making his opinions known.
