Refuge of the Incompetent - 1/?
anonymous
March 26 2013, 19:53:21 UTC
She's lost better friends. Mordin with a bang, Thane with a whimper.
(that is your influence)
Doesn't matter.
This is how it happens each night: she drops into a snare of twisted white sheets to sleep. The warmth of the body next to her is sticky and stifling-- opressive. She'll dream that she wipes all the blood from her eyes, but when daylight creeps in everything will still be washed red.
Garrus stays, Liara leaves. Wrex comes and goes and Joker doesn't say a word in the tens of hours they sit shoulder to shoulder, hunched in the gloom of the gutted Normandy, where engineers and mechanics labour endlessly around them.
She wants to tell him.
Hasn't told anyone.
When she's not there, she wanders ravaged London. The bodies of humans and aliens --they decay or are repatriated, flung to wherever in the galaxy is home for one last goodbye. Only do the geth remain, strewn in the streets like so much litter.
(do the geth deserve?)
(does this unit?)It's the life she chose, so she inches along
( ... )
Refuge of the Incompetent - 2/?
anonymous
March 26 2013, 19:58:02 UTC
Garrus finds her in the mud. She is trying a combination of biotics and brute strength to flip the geth prime she's found onto his back, but the harder she pushes the deeper she sinks.
He offers to help, and that's Garrus all over, blindly following the Good Shepard to each insurmountable task. She thinks of the SR-1, Saleon and Saren, the difference between right, wrong, and right or wrong for the wrong or right reasons.
(I do not take moral stances that conflict with--)Garrus's flanging voice stutters even as he adopts a cocky pose. Alliance engineers have seen promising responses from Edi's unit. Movement in the legs, and arms, and she's opening her eyes though there's no real communication yet. She should get back soon because Joker's putting everyone's teeth on edge and Garrus can't reign him in, not anymore. She does not miss the naked worry darting in his eyes. He reaches out to pull her out of the mire like a hundred times before, but she rocks back on her haunches instead, wipes the grime across the thigh of her hardsuit
( ... )
Refuge of the Incompetent - 3/?
anonymous
March 26 2013, 20:03:15 UTC
It's back to her sojourn after that, and Garrus buzzes around her like a gnat for days. He mutters each time she stops at another fallen geth, questions her when she tries to salvage memory from their central processing, rails against her in one-sided debates. The worry in his eyes is looking more like fear day by day. At night be becomes tender, and that is worse. At night he breathes the same reassuring lie said a hundred different ways
( ... )
Refuge of the Incompetent - 4/?
anonymous
March 26 2013, 20:04:36 UTC
At daybreak of the fourth day she swallows two bites of ration bar and a gulp of water before packing up and heading out. Wild dogs roam the streets and she sees the occasional civilian, flitting from building to building like shadow. An hour's search turns up a pair of pryos, a seven rocket troopers and a hunter. She is transfixed by the hunter's sleek black body, a medkit instead of the usual plasma shotgun in his cold hands. She rolls him, and beneath she finds the remains of an unclaimed human girl's corpse, badly decomposed and crushed beneath his weight
( ... )
Refuge of the Incompetent - 6/?
anonymous
March 26 2013, 20:16:53 UTC
She laughs. She laughs, long, hard and unhinged. She realizes Wrex isn't laughing with her and she doesn't care, not a damn bit. Abruptly, she turns to stare him in his blood-red eyeballs
( ... )
Re: Refuge of the Incompetent - 7/7
anonymous
March 26 2013, 20:51:43 UTC
Post destroy ending stories like this are rare. While I still don't like the canon endings, the headcanoned happy ending was getting a bit overused and boring, so this fill was very interesting. I liked the storyline and how it ended, Wrex's advice was perfect, something like that - only he could've said it. It did feel like Shepard was acting like a child at some parts, but after all the stress she'd been through I guess it makes sense.
Re: Refuge of the Incompetent - 7/7
anonymous
March 27 2013, 00:58:49 UTC
A!A here. Thank you! I'm glad it made for an interesting read. And a good point about Shepard-- that's something I'll re-examine if/when this is archived elsewhere. Thanks for your kind words and your critique!
Re: Refuge of the Incompetent - 7/7
anonymous
March 26 2013, 21:14:04 UTC
Agreeing with the above anon that after all the first aid super happy ending stories, it's great to see fills like this. Very well written, a!a, thanks for sharing.
Re: Refuge of the Incompetent - 7/7
anonymous
March 26 2013, 23:11:13 UTC
I really, really love its Wrex that breaks her out of her fugue. So fitting.
I also wish more writers (including myself) would work with the canon endings a bit more. Although my Renegon Shep wouldn't be quite so cut up about things. Genocide? Bitch please, I killed the rachni off twice...
Reply
Mordin with a bang, Thane with a whimper.
(that is your influence)
Doesn't matter.
This is how it happens each night: she drops into a snare of twisted white sheets to sleep. The warmth of the body next to her is sticky and stifling-- opressive. She'll dream that she wipes all the blood from her eyes, but when daylight creeps in everything will still be washed red.
Garrus stays, Liara leaves. Wrex comes and goes and Joker doesn't say a word in the tens of hours they sit shoulder to shoulder, hunched in the gloom of the gutted Normandy, where engineers and mechanics labour endlessly around them.
She wants to tell him.
Hasn't told anyone.
When she's not there, she wanders ravaged London. The bodies of humans and aliens --they decay or are repatriated, flung to wherever in the galaxy is home for one last goodbye. Only do the geth remain, strewn in the streets like so much litter.
(do the geth deserve?)
(does this unit?)It's the life she chose, so she inches along ( ... )
Reply
He offers to help, and that's Garrus all over, blindly following the Good Shepard to each insurmountable task. She thinks of the SR-1, Saleon and Saren, the difference between right, wrong, and right or wrong for the wrong or right reasons.
(I do not take moral stances that conflict with--)Garrus's flanging voice stutters even as he adopts a cocky pose. Alliance engineers have seen promising responses from Edi's unit. Movement in the legs, and arms, and she's opening her eyes though there's no real communication yet. She should get back soon because Joker's putting everyone's teeth on edge and Garrus can't reign him in, not anymore. She does not miss the naked worry darting in his eyes. He reaches out to pull her out of the mire like a hundred times before, but she rocks back on her haunches instead, wipes the grime across the thigh of her hardsuit ( ... )
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Moar!
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Great story overall, thank you for sharing!
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I also wish more writers (including myself) would work with the canon endings a bit more. Although my Renegon Shep wouldn't be quite so cut up about things. Genocide? Bitch please, I killed the rachni off twice...
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