[Fic] Mass Effect: Kaidan has a bad day (working title)
Title: Kaidan has a bad day (working title)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Rating: unrated (T or M)
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit work of fanfiction. Mass Effect is the copyright property of EA/Bioware. No infringement is intended.
Characters: Kaidan, Joker, FemShep, and some dead gueststars.
Warnings/Triggers/Notes: Major drug use (arg, bad pun)
Summary: Party in Kaidan's head and everyone's invited. Especially dead people. (Joker can come too)
Status: Open beta - please comment
*
The sky beyond the horizon was hazy purple, glowing seemingly of itself. There was a wind beating through Kaidan's hair, making the thin air feel more substantial than it was. The sky was spinning. Or maybe it was him. There was a shuttlecraft approaching, taking a wide turn to negotiate a landing spot. He followed it until the motion made him dizzy enough that he had to sit down. The gravity sang to him as he drew his knees up to his chin to make something - anything - stop the spinning. It was hard to concentrate. He knew he was supposed to be doing... no, he was supposed to not be doing something, but what, exactly, was escaping him completely, like leaves flowing in the rushing air. The shuttle's doors hissed open.
"Kaidan? Can you hear me?"
Shepard's voice. He'd recognise it anywhere. On Horizon he'd known it was her just by the voice alone even before he saw her. The memory of joy filled him, remembering how it had felt to see her again because...
...the realisation stabbed him in the chest. Because she'd died.
It was suddenly hard to breathe, the air rushed from the hullbreach that exposed the CIC to open space, burning from the impact of the unknown ship's weapons. Shepard's calm voice came over the intercom.
"Alright everyone, tranqs ready, and spread out," she ordered. "Make sure he can't get all of us with one mass field."
Mass field... was he supposed to be making one?
"Aye ma'am. Don't think he wants to be sedated though. He looks kind of... unstable."
"We don't have a choice. We can't let him get back down to the ward in this state, it's just too dangerous."
He flared, the power of dark energy coming to him as easily as the air of the thin atmosphere venting out into space. Gravity was light, but that was okay, he brought his own with a simple mnemonic. Child's play.
A shot rang out, impacting the deck just beside his knee, creating a small crater. He formed a barrier by pure instinct and rolled away, making himself even dizzier. He ended up flat on his back, entirely against his intent. Why was it so hard to move?
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire dammit!"
Shepard sounded pissed. And because he knew her well, he picked up on that tiny trace of fear, too. She didn't slip easily. Something must have her spooked.
He managed to roll over and get on his knees and the world's spinning got even worse, gravity and his eyes not in agreement, everything at a tilt. He raised his hand up so she would help him stand, but she was too far away, he couldn't see her because the flames burning the Normandy's hull obscured his vision, making his chest constrict. Something was moving in the smoke. They started looking more familiar. Husks, all of them. Coming straight towards him. His heart started racing, his heartbeats loud in his ears. They were coming for him.
Speed. Vyrnnus had always taunted his students that human brains were so slow that a turian biotic could have half a dozen fields made by the time a human finished forming one. And then he'd punished them until they created fields as fast as was humanly possible. Kaidan was fast. He knew he was. He forced himself to his feet with an uneven stumble and put all his effort into creating a sequence of large area push fields and flung them at the husks, laughing as all of them toppled over and fell off the table like a deck of cards, which was kind of hilarious because they'd had cardhouse-building contests before lights out after they'd already played enough hands that it got old.
There was stillness, then movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention.
"Niiice Kaidan, good Kaidan, no more people tossing, okay?" Joker was standing over by the escape pod, making placating gestures, looking completely ridiculous as he did, kind of like the time he'd tried fending off a labrador that just wanted to say hello.
"Joker, what're you doing here?"
"Uh... right now? Hoping you don't decide I need a one-way flight ticket too."
"You should get on the escape pod before the ship blows up."
"...blows up, what? It's not... err... Kaidan. I'm not complaining that you missed me, really, but are you going to blow up the kodiak?"
"No, just had to take care of the husks."
"Husks? What h-- oh. Right. Okay. Shit. Shepard?"
Joker glanced sideways and Kaidan followed his eyes to where Shepard's ghost crawled up from the underground, neatly pulling herself up onto the deck. They looked at each other a moment, as if frozen in time. Then she was moving again, getting between Kaidan and Joker and his escape pod.
"Everyone, stay down. Joker, what are you doing? Get back in the kodiak and go."
Maybe she'd seen what she wanted to see? He didn't know much about ghosts. Didn't used to think they were real, but Ashley had spoken warmly about them; loved ones who protected their family.
"I'd love to, commander. I really would. But notice how he just pushed everyone in a hardsuit off the building but ignored me and the heavily armed shuttle?"
Shepard would protect Joker, she'd get him to safety.
"What're you getting at?"
"You spooked him. That's why he pushed you. He's not afraid of me. I can get to him."
Afraid? Was he?
"...okay. Might work. Got a tranq? I'll cover you. Be careful."
"No shit."
He'd trained hard to learn working through fear, ever since the last day at brain camp. He'd had to learn to not go back to that place in his mind every time he was threatened. He'd done it, it had been a long time since Vyrnnus haunted him.
"Kaidan."
Shepard's commanding tone made him stop and turn around, managing to only sway a little bit.
"Yes, commander?"
"Everything is going to be okay, Kaidan. Listen carefully," not that she had to tell him to. "Joker is going to come over and give you a sedative. For his safety, I want you to release your flare, and put your gun down, okay?"
Gun? He was armed? He looked down and found she was right, his sidearm holstered at his side where it was supposed to be. Was he armed for a reason? He looked up, confused, hoping Shepard had an answer for him, she'd always....
Vyrnnus approached out of the corner of his eye, a glass of water hovering in mid-air in front of Shepard as the three-taloned hand reached for her arm--
--Kaidan pulled his gun and took aim, unhappy with how much his arm was swaying--
"No!"
--and fired, striking the turian dead center, his head snapping backwards as if struck.
"GUN DOWN MAJOR, NOW!"
Shepard had rolled sideways away from Vyrnnus, her ghost still aiming her gun at him. Of course she would be an angry vengeful ghost. How could she be anything else? But she couldn't hurt him, because he hadn't done anything that needed avenging. As messed up as his life had been, he was sure of that.
"It's okay, he's dead."
Rahna sat crying over the turian's corpse. Kaidan wanted to go over there and comfort her, but he knew sadly that she wouldn't accept it. Ashley looked on with a distinctly sour mien, snorted disapproving, then stalked up to Vyrnnus where he lay dead on the floor, head at an unnatural angle and put a bullet in his brain, just to be sure. Kaidan smiled. He'd done the same to Saren and it hadn't worked, but Ashley was always stubborn. And thorough.
"Er... Who's dead?" Joker asked, seemingly oblivious. Couldn't really blame a pilot for having his head in the clouds, could he?
"Vyrnnus."
"Who?"
"Long story."
"And I don't think he should be telling it now. Just keep going, Joker."
"I am, I am. Nice yelling by the way, commander. Don't do it again. C'mon Kaidan, humour the commander and put the gun down. Don't make me say please."
Kaidan shrugged and put the gun down gently. He didn't need it anymore. Besides, Ashley was covering him.
"Very good, Kaidan," Shepard's ghost praised. "Now step away from the gun."
He did, walking away from the mess it had made, gladly.
Joker carefully kicked the gun in Shepard's general direction. Ashley watched it go. Rahna looked sadly at Joker, which Kaidan thought was a bit silly. She would've hated him if they'd ever met... well, as much as Rahna had hated anyone. Joker's abrasive personality would've cut her like razors. Regretfully, he put some more distance between them so she wouldn't be afraid of him. Which just made Joker start swearing.
"Dammit Kaidan, stop walking away from me. And stay away from the edge of the building, wouldja? I have height fright."
That made Kaidan laugh. "No you don't, Joker. You love heights."
Joker smiled, more like a grin, still walking closer, holding the tranq in his hand like a talisman. "Okay, you got me there. I love heights. I just don't like my friends close to edges that might lead to great falls from those heights. So stay away from the edge. Or, you know, just come over here instead of making me haul ass all the way around the roof for you. You're really tripped out, and I need to fix that."
Was he tripped out? He wasn't supposed to be, it didn't sound right. Kaidan didn't do drugs. Not voluntarily anyway. Ashley grinned. He turned to her to ask, "Am I tripping out?"
"You're high as a kite, LT," she confirmed. "And you know you are. Listen to him."
"It's major," he corrected, but without heat. He'd never cared about lack of formality from subordinates, long as the respect was there.
"...ohkay, major. Yeah, you're tripping out, bad. And definitely not talking to me... that's not good."
"No, I'm not talking to you." They weren't on talking-basis anymore. Hadn't been for over a year because.... "You joined Cerberus."
Joker rolled his eyes and held his hands up. "Shit, your brain's dribbling out your ears and that's the thing you remember. I only joined them because they had great leather seats, okay?"
That made Kaidan pause. "Leather seats? Joker, that doesn't make any sense. I don't think I'm the one tripping out here."
Joker grinned his trademark grin. "Hey, at least you're still making fun of me. Glad something's working the way it's supposed to. But I'm telling you, I'm right this time. I have no idea what's going on in that overstuffed head of yours, but," he wiggled the tranq "I do have the cure. Let me give you this. It's a sedative. Will put you right to sleep, and when you wake up everything'll be back to normal. Sounds good, yeah?"
Was he right? Kaidan knew he was imagining Shepard. She'd been so many things to him, he wasn't surprised her ghost was haunting him still. Even alive, he'd dreamt about her a little too often.
But Joker had always been too random for him; impossible to predict. Not incomprehensibly so, he'd worked up a decent ability to predict when Joker would do something unpredictable, but not what he'd do. He wasn't sure his brain was even capable of imagining Joker with any kind of accurate detail even when drugged...
...so there was good reason to believe Joker was right and telling the truth. Kaidan nodded, brain feeling like it was dangling in rubber cords inside his skull as he did.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Joker's look was almost comical. Guess Joker didn't have monopoly on unpredictability. Kaidan chuckled.
"Yeah, okay."
"Uh... okay. I'm just gonna come over and give you this, and you... and you just stop moving away, and if you'd stop flaring that would make me feel so much better," he said, edging towards Kaidan like approaching a caged and violent animal, and if Kaidan hadn't killed Vyrnnus just a few... hours? Minutes? Seconds? ago, he might've been offended. As it was, he was glad Ashley's arms were protectively wrapped around Joker when he approached. She wouldn't let anything hurt him. Somehow the Normandy's flames didn't seem to touch him. That was good. Joker hadn't died on the Normandy, it would be very sad if he ended up going down with the ship just to save Kaidan, especially when Shepard had braved the burning ship for him in the first place.
She was burning now.
Kaidan couldn't help it, he glanced sideways to where Shepard's ghost was standing. Her hardsuit was on fire, half melted, and leaking oxygen, and her hair was glowing like embers, but the gun in her hands, pointed steadily right at him, was real enough. He stood between her and her target. It made sense. Shepard made sense. She protected her own. She wouldn't let him hurt Joker either.
"It's okay," he promised her when their eyes met over the barrel of her gun. "Ashley's watching over him. I won't hurt him."
"That's good, Kaidan," she smiled, but it looked strained. "Now stop flaring so he can give you the sedative, okay?"
Stop...?
He looked down at his body, swathed in his biotic corona. Now that she mentioned it, he could feel his biotic ability at his fingertips, ready to be released at will. He hadn't even noticed when he'd flared...
He released it along with the barrier, and the fire on the Normandy seemed to burn a bit brighter. It took some concentration not to flare right back up again. He focused on Joker, who finally closed the distance between them now that he wasn't afraid of the corona anymore and pressed the tranq to Kaidan's neck. He felt the familiar sting and pressure as the drug entered his body. Hopefully that would make everything better, and soon.
"See? That didn't hurt at all," Joker's breathed out, relieved. His bedside manner was piss-poor, Kaidan decided. Joker peered up at him, then at the empty tranq in his hand. "Okay, so, uh, how long do you suppose it takes for this stuff to kick in?"
Kaidan looked at the tranq Joker held up for him to read. He couldn't read the text itself, the letters just swam away when he tried to focus, like bugs scattering in the wind. His skin started crawling. But he recognised the image labels. "Not long, a couple of minutes."
"Oh, that's good. No offense, but this has kind of dragged on way too long." He smiled a completely fake smile. "Maybe you should sit down so you don't fall over?"
That made sense. He looked at the floor and found a spot near the edge of the building that wasn't on fire or covered in ashes and sat down. Gravity on Jump Zero was far from constant, the further in you got, the less it was. He'd climbed up to the upper levels near the inner axis where gravity barely applied loads of times, spending hours like this just looking down at the rest of the research platform.
Joker joined him, the two of them staring out over the blinking cityscape and traffic below.
Come to think of it, it was a long drop down to the ground. The Normandy's CIC didn't have a walkway, did it? No, no it didn't. He'd memorised the Normandy's blueprints the same day he'd received the posting. They were still clear in his mind, even when nothing else was. Which meant....
"I think I pushed Shepard over the edge," he confessed, a chill running down his spine. He'd hurt Rahna, and Ashley was dead so he could live. And now Shepard. He was confused, he knew that, but reality was returning ever so slowly, if in scattered pieces. Ashley had shot Saren, not Vyrnnus. Vyrnnus had broken Rahna's arm, not Shepard's. Shepard was alive and stronger than he'd ever been. The memories swam in his head, tentatively pairing themselves up like a jigsaw puzzle. But most still felt like a jumble of too many pieces and not enough places to put them.
He focused on Joker, the probably only real one, who shrugged. "You pushed the entire squad, including Shepard. But they're okay, hardsuits and low gravity helped. Nothing bruised but their egos. And you know Shepard. She climbed back up again. She's right over there, see?" He pointed, and Kaidan followed his finger with his eyes. And sure enough, there was Shepard just a few steps away, standing over the corpse of Vyrnnus, gun still steadily pointed at Kaidan. Rahna was hanging on her arm, giving her longing looks, her head resting on Shepard's shoulderpad.
"No, that's not right," he muttered sadly. "She never looked at me that way."
"Like she's not sure whether or not to put a bullet in your head? She totally has. At least three times now."
"Yeah. I don't think she saw anything other than a monster."
"...riiight. Er, you know she's just doing that because I'm sitting right here, yeah?"
Ashley sporfled with laughter. Kaidan raised an eyebrow. "You don't even know her Joker. What're you talking about?"
Joker ran an annoyed hand over his face, then smiled that stupid fake smile again. "I have no idea anymore. So, you feeling sleepy yet?"
"Yeah, I am." There were little black spots at the edges of his vision, and the maw of sleep was wide open. The ground was hard, but he laid down on his back anyway, hands under his head, just like stargazing.
There were boots stepping nearby, followed by the creak of a hardsuit. The sky above them swam and spun. It didn't make him queasy though, just peaceful because it meant sleep was coming soon. Ashley gently stroked her fingertips over his temple. He smiled weakly. He wouldn't see her again when he woke up, he knew that. He tried taking her hand, but ended up getting Shepard's instead. That was okay, too. Ashley laid her hand on top of theirs.
"Look after them?" he asked her.
"I will."
*