#commandcrshepard

HE F I S T

This one only stayed in my askbox for a month before getting posted, which, if we’re keeping track, is one day better than the last prompt I filled *insert crying emoji here*

70. “You’re warm.”

Casey yawns as he steps through the door into his cabin, hishands already grabbing for the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head.He tosses it on the chair as he walks past, and stumbles down the steps to hisbed, rather noisily. He freezes when he sees the shape of Steve under thecovers only a few feet away. Creeping over to the bed, he sits on the edge andkicks off his boots before negotiating with the buttons on his pants and shimmyingthem off. He takes a breath now that he’s only in his boxer briefs, readjustshimself inside his underwear, and turns to lie down, slipping under the covers.

“Mmm, look who finally showed up,” Steve murmurs from acrossthe bed, reaching a hand behind his back to find Casey’s.

Lacing their fingers together, Casey moves their hands sothat his arm is wrapped around Steve’s chest and intertwines their legs.

“You wouldn’t believe how much paperwork there is to doduring a war,” Casey mumbles against the skin of Steve’s neck, placing a gentlekiss right in the curve. Steve hums softly as Casey’s lips brush across him.

“I tried to wait up but my eyelids were closing bythemselves,” Steve explains, “I was asleep until your graceful entry over there.”He nods his head slightly in the direction of the stairs.

“Sorry to flake on you like that,” Casey mumbles as he nuzzleshis chin against Steve’s shoulder.

“It’s fine, I’m just glad you’re here now,” Steve liftsCasey’s hand to his face and kisses it softly, “besides, this room is freezing,and you’re warm.”

Casey stifles a laugh by kissing Steve’s neck again but alarge smile still manages to find its way to his lips, “I love you too, even ifall I am to you is a space heater.”

as a writer for mebb this year i can def confirm we’re in dire need of artists! stories are in beta processes now i think, but the snippetes/summaries won’t be beta’d as they’re published before the main beta process begins iirc.

same. I’m just gonna get it out that I love domestic shit so much. it’s like. yeah that’s right. you settle down with the love of your life. that’s the stuff.

9. do they act different in public and at home?

scott’s a little more professional, a little less likely to let on how much reyes means to him. reyes likes trying to get him to break that, get him to let loose a little and act as smitten as he actually is.

reyes, meanwhile, can’t shut the fuck up about how much he loves scott to anyone that’ll listen, anytime. he might play at the ‘eh, you’re all right for a pathfinder I guess’ when it’s just the two of them but it never lasts long, because in spite of it all, he actually cares a lot about scott.

10. big spoon/little spoon?

scott’s almost always little spoon. I can’t get over the idea that he’s desperate for touch and feeling safe, especially after the archon and meridian and all that. something to ground him. reyes likes to nuzzle a nose into scott’s neck–scott likes feeling that sort of invincibility that comes from being so wrapped up with someone else and reyes is happy to give it to him.

44. do they feel they see each other enough, or do they have activities that take too much of their time?

absolutely not. scott’s got a great big mission that takes him all around the place, and he doesn’t get to stay long when he is on kadara. there’s only so much future-skyping you can do with someone before it starts to weigh on you. they make it work though, and the fact that scott keeps planning tasks so they’ll have reason to stop on kadara helps.

47. how do they make up after a fight?

scott’s definitely an apologizer, just right off the bat–not big on the emotional confrontation (alec ryder was his father) and prefers to own up to the screw-ups so they can get on with the making up.

reyes is more inclined to make some sort of gesture that really… is not romantic to get scott to talk to him again–like, scott’ll always know he’s ready to apologize when he finds something expensive and probably stolen on the tempest. he does get around to apologizing, eventually.

if it’s something where neither of them are wrong and emotions are high - one of them eventually breaks, and the night either ends in sex and/or massages.

Ever since Scott woke up from his coma, he hasn’t been the same. His sister blamed it on the fact that his pod was damaged when they hit the Scourge and maybe that did some damage to his brain, but everyone knows the real reason: he felt scammed, conned, betrayed by the Initiative, and decided he wanted nothing to do with it. A couple days after recuperating, Scott moved to Kadara to become a merc-for-hire, much to Sarah's dismay.

While wandering the harsh springs and blood-lusting outlaws, he spotted the Initiative mining outpost that his sister set up. Scott stared at it for awhile, and then cursed under his breath. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.” he sighed while making his way towards the outpost.

As soon as Scott was close enough, he could see the hard glares certain people were giving him. He shot them a look right back. 

“Yeah, c’mon bud, try me.” he whispered to himself in a husky voice. Apparently, his low voice attracted two young men who immediately made their way over to Ryder.

“Are you the human pathfinders brother?” one of them asked in a stern tone. His body language suggested that he was ready to fight and Scott prepared for it.

“The name’s Scott Ryder,” he snarled, “and yeah, that’s me. What the hell do you want?” 

The man got a couple inches closer to Scott. “I want you to explain why you’re a goddamn traitor.” the man spat in Scott’s face. “You betrayed your sister, hell, you betrayed your own father to become a useless gun for a bunch of worthless exiles.” Scott’s face and body tensed up and his face flushed crimson red. “And now you have the guts to come to this outpost? How do you feel, Scott Ryder, about betraying the Initiative and your family?”

Scott had enough and grabbed the man hard by the collar of his pristine gray shirt. He got within a few inches of his face and growled, “You wanna know how much I care? You wanna know how many fucks I give? Zero. Fucks. Given.” Scott shot a piercing glare at the man beside the nuisance. “Next please.”

The man that Scott grabbed and the man beside him were speechless and their faces were as white as the snow on Voeld. Scott released the man he was holding and began walking away. Behind him, he heard the two men run away to a building where the mayor resided.

“Shepard?”

No answer.

They tried again. “Cade?”

“What.” The word ground out of him, and Duke was half-certain that they could see the same red in his breath as they saw in his scars and glowing in his eyes.

“Wanted to catch up. It’s been two years.” Duke stepped quietly into the captain’s cabin and let the door slide shut behind them. “How have you been?”

“Dead,” Cade answered frankly. “I was dead, Duke. Getting spaced and then burning up in the upper atmosphere isn’t really a survivable thing.”

“Then…how…?”

“Cerberus sunk billions of credits into it. And you know how it is–put enough money into something, it’ll work no matter what.” There was a bite of sarcasm to his voice, harsher than two years ago, and Duke paused.

They brushed it off. Nostalgia’s a liar. He was always kind of an acidic bastard, wasn’t he? “Great. Now I’m in debt to Cerberus. Not somewhere I ever wanted to be.”

“You’re in debt?”

“They brought my best friend back, didn’t they?”

“Best friend?”

“There an echo in here? Yeah, my best friend. You, you nimrod.”

They were expecting him to snort, to make some snarky remark back. They were not expecting the glowing red glare to be fixed on them from where Cade sat on his bed. “I’m still not sure what they brought back,” he said, “but it wasn’t your best friend.”

–

Gunfire was familiar. Gunfire didn’t change. They thought biotics wouldn’t either, but the blue coating Cade on every charge felt different when it reached Duke’s teeth. It felt more…streamlined. More efficient, more precise. Like a scalpel or a razor rather than his old machete or the sword of Duke’s own biotics.

“Did they give you a different implant?” Duke panted as they crouched with Cade behind a cargo container, taking brief cover from the fight. The words were out of them before they realized Cade wasn’t looking at them and wouldn’t be able to read their lips.

“Fuck if I know. All I know is it works.”

Duke froze for a moment. “They didn’t give you new ears, did they?”

“They gave me new everything, Wilder.” Cade stood up to let out a hail of assault rifle fire into the enemy’s flank.

Wilder. Their own last name was a slap to their face. They hadn’t been Wilder since Eden Prime. Not to Cade.

“Duke, watch your three!”

Garrus’ shout came too late; Duke had barely snapped out of their shock before the blast from the Collector’s gun punched into their side.

In a haze, they heard Garrus yell, “Duke!” again and somehow registered him vaulting his cover to get to them and Cade. But the thing they noticed most was Cade, bent over them, the angry glow in his eyes for once not masking his worry as he said one word.

“Duke.”

–

“I do not need a soldier who’s going to get distracted by the slightest thing on the battlefield and get shot over it!”

“Well excuse the fuck out of me for not knowing you could hear me when you weren’t looking at me!”

“Do you want to get dropped off at the next planet we enter orbit of? Inhabited or not?” Cade demanded. “Because keep mouthing off at me, and that’s where you’re going.”

“Oh, please,” Duke scoffed. They didn’t quite know why they were arguing with Cade. It had been their mistake down there. “As if I couldn’t send a signal to any Alliance ship passing through.”

“They wouldn’t want to pick you up after hearing you disobeyed a direct order on Virmire.”

It clicked into place. Duke stared at Cade, dumbfounded, for two seconds, before asking, “Is that it? Is that what the fuck is going on here? Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said?”

“No,” Cade said curtly. “Only the ones that nearly got someone killed.”

“Then I’m the one that should be yelling at you for Virmire, Shepard.”