#mathematique

I am losing my goddamn mind! How is this so good?! Holy fucking shit dude Mathematique has got it going on!

I never knew I wanted Rush and Shepherd together until this fic. There is just something fundamentally compatible between the two of them that I feel like would be healthier relationship. (Don’t get me wrong, the Rush/Young dysfunction is what I’m here for). Both Shepherd and Rush are driven enough to impress one another, but Shepherd’s naturally unassuming nature just wouldn’t trigger Rush’s defense mechanisms. The battle of the wills would be short lived because Shepherd just wouldn’t care until it really mattered, and then he would fight to win.... which is what Rush expects and wants.

So, anyway, I have this whole head cannon now for chapter 61 and on that my brain will not let me go.

The fact that Rush kept Shepherd’s CLEARLY flirtatious note indicates that he is interested. Naturally. No duh. But also the reason Rush didn’t call is because something else is occupying his mind. Maybe it’s the seemingly-permanently injured neighbor, the grief from his wife’s death, or the fact that he is slowly driving himself mad. It’s probably all three, because he likes to multitask like that.

But Rush without these memories is a different person.Well, not totally. He’s still pretty gruff, incredibly driven, and calculating, but he just doesn’t have that manic edge he is constantly trying to leap off.

So, he finds this note in his wallet that is clearly asking him on a date in clever way, and he’s intrigued. In his head, without much evidence, he decides Shepherd is the good guy despite not really knowing that for sure. Of course, Rush has to reassess when he finds out Shepherd is with the Air Force, who he naturally thought were the bad guys.

Anyway, this is where I start to canon diverge from this already canon divergent fic. I imagine Shepherd and Rush in the midst of the gun fight where the Air Force and the Lucian Alliance both try to kidnap Rush, and Shepherd just says, cool as a cucumber, “This was not what I imagined for a first date.”

Shepherd gets them out and Rush thinks that maybe past-him was on to something, because this man is eminently dateable.

So Rush intimates after they escape the Lucian Alliance that maybe he would like to go on a date, and Shepherd just smiles and says that it’s very validating that this Rush without memories is interested, but he doesn't think that will be the case when Rush gets his memories back. When Rush narrows his eyes questioningly, Shepherd just shrugs. “I’m just not really into being in a love triangle is all.”

That’s when Rush pieces together that maybe he and Young are an item pre-memory wipe.

Then I branch into three directions from here. Divergence A: He never gets his memories back and he and Shepherd end up getting together. Divergence B:  Rush get his memories back, but retains the memory of the month where he wasn’t aggrieved by disseminating governments, ghosts of his past, and cryptography and that sort of changes the trajectory of his personality. This could mean he has a healthier relationship with Young. Or Divergence C: Everything in Divergence B happens, but he realizes he doesn’t like who he was when he was interested in Young, so he decides instead to give Shepherd a chance.