The Citadel DLC finally got me back into Mass Effect fic.
I like Shepard/Vega but not the way it played out.
Shepard is Vega's hero. He doesn't want to change that.
First human Spectre, he thinks as she walks away from him, and she was just giving me the fiercest bedroom eyes in the world. Why's it making him feel dirty instead of delighted? Why can't he play with this - chase the idea around on his tongue, like it, order it some pizza?
She's his commanding officer. She's untouchable. She's noble.
He wants it to stay that way.
The Alliance is good at cracking down on creeps, really - discipline is quick and if morale is good they always get found out. James Vega is no stranger to superiors abusing their power and their people, drawing their subordinates into something that feels satisfying but is ultimately draining and poisonous. He's not vain - vain implies a veneer, a fake pride, and James Vega knows he looks good.
Shepard, though, doesn't try again.
Vega shakes her off like a varren shaking off rain.
In the morning he wakes up on a couch with the smell of his own armpit in his face and a cottony mouth and thinks that he's sleeping in a war hero's house next to a beautiful Spectre. Ash's dark hair is spread all across the couch opposite, bottles littering the table and poking up like a mountain range paralleling her spine. Good kid, Ash.
Breakfast. Hot food is never far from James Vega's mind and he stands up blearily, feeling but fighting a weak headache and aching shoulders. Nothing that can't be cured by eggs and toast and bacon, wonder if Shepard's old CO left anything spicy in the cabinets.
When he walks by the master bedroom he sees the commander's still asleep. More bottles on the floor. Her head is turned away from him and her body swathed in the lumpy black quilt but he can see one paper-pale hand stretched out on the sheets. He wonders what that quilt feels like, how heavy it is.
There are already early risers: of course, the Normandy crew keeps to schedule. Garrus and Jacob are talking by the window. The Strip never sleeps, just casts that red-orange advertisement light. Nobody's in the kitchen. The floor feels cool and surprisingly clean on his bare feet, but down here there are more empty bottles, and smells; drink, sweat, alien tangs. Somebody's moving around in the bathroom and he realizes he heard a panic in the night that his sleepy brain now deciphers as Kasumi helping Grunt while the krogan threw up. That's gotta be nasty.
In search of more pleasant smells he moves the deflated pizza box off the counter and gets to work. Eggs. Eggs are easy. Add some salt, instant crowd-pleaser. Who doesn't like eggs?
Tali. Tali might not like eggs. Jack curses at him gregariously as she heads toward the back of the apartment with Jacob in tow and the smell of frying is starting to fill the kitchen and wake James up now. Other people trickle in, Traynor yawning and Tali hopping onto the countertop. "Sorry chica, they aren't dextro eggs," is James' first complete sentence of the day, and Garrus steps in to explain where there's food he can digest. The air fills with smells of butter, pepper, the egg yellows liquifying. The little stove is clean and hot, newer than the Normandy's big one.
Lola comes down the stairs in the same clothes she partied in, and joins in the conversation naturally while James starts trying to dish out his artful breakfast. Looks at him, he looks at her, she waves.
Hair messy and embarrassing stories to tell and tired.
And heroic.
He wonders if she'll ever ask him out again, and blushes while she walks toward the windows, and hides it turning to find the plates.