#help.. writing this made me feel so mean... gales done nothing to shepard. just the second he started talking had shep going 💢💢

[shepcdr]

@weavrot ∗ first impressions.

PICKING THROUGH CORPSES FOR MEDKITS isn't exactly shepard's idea of a good time — it doesn't take long for him to kit up once he hits the ground. it's not so much entertainment as it is work, but years spent watching the games has its perks. he knows the sound of all the various ammunition types, the charging and cycling of individual guns ... how to identify what he wants from a distance or in the very midst of a sudden firefight.

most of the opposition had taken care of itself before he even showed up, but scouting ahead of his surviving squadmate did secure shepard a few kills of his own. the dozen or so bodies littering the dunes just outside skull town don't intimidate him in the least; he stepped into the midst of them, eyes quickly catching the glint of a prowler beneath a nearby corpse. he extracts it, turning it over in his hand. it's equipped with a select-fire receiver ... perfect. that was the sound that he had followed here and the gun he was looking for.

shepard holsters it and keeps digging through the bodies. despite his careful concentration, the sound of chatter starting up again reaches his ears. his eye twitches.

he doesn't know what the deal with this guy is. ( ... what's his name again? it was something that started with a g, right? ... or maybe a v. ) just that he looks like death, and so soon after drop.

and that, for some damned reason, he's not healing.

shepard knows well that qualifying for the games doesn't always equate to having common sense. but he's feeling non-judgemental today — maybe the guy's just lacking supplies.

shepard presses hands over the trouser pockets of a dead medic, pausing when he feels what feels like the telltale lump of frag grenades beneath the fabric ... two, three, four of them. jackpot. he slips them into his own belt, tugging on the medic's bag — yanking hard, with a hissed curse, when it catches under the man's head for a moment.

shepard turns, the medic bag balanced on one hand, and watches the other man. ( veil? no, that didn't sound right. bale? ... maybe. ) waits for him first to finish looting, and then for the talk to die down — whenever he notices shepard's unresponsiveness and the humourless stare.

the moment comes at last. shepard lifts the bag, packed with a handful of syringes and bandages, and tilts his head towards the squadmate.

" you need supplies? " the implication's clear. should have been ages ago, with how sickly the man's looking.