#irikah x thane

[drelldreams]

oh my

i just found out

thanirika is the goddess of gold and an angel

thanirika

that sounds just like a mesh of thane & irikah!!

only it is missing an h

my official ship name for them is thanirikah now <3

maybe it’s a coincidence but that’s just so beautiful. irikah has sunset colored eyes (close to gold), and thane sees her as a warrior angel. it’s quite fitting 💛

[dr-ladybird]

This is less a “feminist complaint about mass effect” and more a “feminist complaint about some of the fandom”:

We don’t know much about Irikah.

Things we do know:

She responded to an attempted assassination by jumping in between Thane and his target, and yelling something along the lines of “how dare you” (possibly with more bad words?).

Somehow this turned into her convincing Thane to try being a law-abiding citizen. Also she married him (is it mean to mention the phrase “I can fix him?”) and they had a kid (apparently rather young… by accident? Unclear?).

Thane won’t stop comparing her to a fierce warrior angel.

So, look, it’s not much to work with and there’s a lot of space for people to make her an OC however they like. But how the fuck do you look at the canon facts, and get some kind of Victorian-era incarnation of fragile purity who made her boyfriend stop being evil with her radiant niceness and innocence, and didn’t know what a swear word was?

??? possibly people are thinking of the wrong flavour of angel ?

[imakemywings]

Back to Work (3/3)

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Thane, Irikah, Kolyat

Summary: Thane and Irikah made a pact, and payment comes due.

Trigger warnings: Violence, character death

Part 1 | Part 2

AO3 | Pillowfort

_________________________________________________________

The coin turned over and over in Thane’s hand, flashing in the pale morning light, a kind of golden it had never managed in the dim light below the water. Dock space on Kahje wasn’t extensive—the hanar had no use for watercraft that floated—but shuttles needed a place to land, and Thane was of a sort to know the old places, in disrepair, and the spots he was least likely to be disturbed.

There was a path before him now, stretching out into the horizon, but he hesitated to take the first step. It was such a long road, and he knew what it would give him—and what it would not. He knew the hours that road would take, he knew what it would eat up inside him, what it would demand of him. Once he was on it, there was no turning off, and it was such a long road.

Having no choice was something Thane had long been accustomed to, but Irikah had refused this notion. There was always a choice, she said. You might not like your options, but there was a choice.

This time, he saw that she was right: he had another choice.

His pistol was heavy on his hip, and he thought of the condemnation in Anikah’s eyes when he had given his goodbyes, such as they were. There was no anger in him for it; he could not bring himself to true anger at anyone but himself, and those who necessitated his path. Never before had the return of his battle-sleep sounded comforting. But sleep was temporary—it could be disturbed. And things which one set aside were always still there on waking.

Kolyat is better off without me.

It was true, even stripped of value judgement. Thane had never known how to be a father—he had no memory of his own—and he had never learned. He had just seen proof of what he brought to Kolyat, and it disgusted him. There was—there should be—no room in Kolyat’s life for him.

What light made it through the clouds penetrated so shallowly into Kahje’s fathomless depths. Just below the surface was the dark, frigid embrace of Kalahira. He could feel her cheek against his, hear her whisper in the wind. Thane felt heavy; as if it took effort merely to keep himself upright and on his feet.

“Mistress of inscrutable depths,” he murmured, running his thumb over the face of the coin. The goddess was at his back. How sweet was her voice! Was it possible for death to be a tender thing? Thane fought to push back at the memories threatening to overtake him, and began to tremble. Kalahira’s hands gripped his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut, his breath catching in his throat.

The door is open. We don’t leave the door open. Someone else is in the house.

Furniture smashed, paintings torn down—the smell of blood, everywhere.

In the kitchen—in the kitchen—the bent knife on the floor—

Thane took a sharp breath and broke free, clutching the coin so tightly in his hand its ridges dug into his scales. No. He could not fall into Kalahira’s arms—not yet.

There was a path to follow, and he would follow it. That had been his mistake—in believing he could stray from the road that had been set out for him. He had rebelled against his destiny, against his given fate, and havoc had come down. So he had one last role to play, one last contract to fill, and he would see it done, down to the last bloody second, as was his duty.

With the toe of his shoe, he knocked a bit of debris into the water, and watched its outline as it passed through the light, sinking down into the breathless realm of Kalahira, promising silently that he would follow it as soon as his work here was done.

***

The night was ink black, lightless as the cold water far below the city floor, the dome’s great lights switched off for the day, when the knock came. Qulax turned to Anikah with a furrowed brow, but she shrugged. There was no one she expected so late—perhaps someone lost, looking for directions. She rose from her cushion and unlocked the front door. It was such a simple thing, so automatic, so guileless—she never could have known what she was letting in.

               On her dark doorstep was her nephew, Kolyat, and his father. The wrongness radiated off of them, and Anikah took a step back, despite herself.

               “Kolyat,” she said to the blank-eyed boy. “Thane.” Her eyes shifted back, searching instinctively for Irikah, but they appeared alone.

               “I need to talk to you.” Thane’s low voice always sounded like he was a doctor delivering unwelcome news—Anikah had laughed about it once with Irikah, who chided her gently for poking fun. But now, Anikah had the sense it wasn’t just Thane’s natural affectation making her gut twist.

               “Well, it’s freezing out there, let’s get you inside.” She reached for Kolyat, but he flinched from her hand and stumbled in with a nudge from his father.

               “Kolyat could use a shower,” he said, holding Anikah’s gaze. She fought not to look away, and called out to her husband.

               “Qulax, can you take Kolyat out back?” When Qulax came to lead the boy to the spigot in the yard, Kolyat reached for his father’s coat, his little hands shaking.

               “Go with your uncle, Kolyat.” Tension was coiled in Thane like a weighted spring, and Anikah was half-afraid he’d go off in their house. Irikah insisted she had rehabilitated her Compact assassin, but Anikah found it hard to forget what those hands were trained to do. Thane’s inclinations toward silence and watchfulness did not help. “Just for a minute. I need to speak with your aunt.” Perhaps realizing how cold he’d sounded, Thane gave Kolyat a bit more explanation, and pointed him after Qulax.

               “What happened?” Anikah asked as soon as they were feasibly out of earshot.

               “Irikah is dead.” Thane seemed to vomit the words out, like his body rejected them, and Anikah staggered back against the wall behind her, her throat blanching. There was a throbbing in the center of her chest, as if Thane had just shot her.

               “No.”

               “Batarians,” Thane whispered raggedly. “Slavers. They came for the house.”

               “No!” Anikah felt her heart hammering against her ribs, her breathing starting to come harsh and rapid. “Are they…will they come here? Mercy, what do they—” She cut herself off as the pieces clicked together, and she took stock of how Thane was dressed. “You,” she whispered. “They wanted you.”

               He turned his face away, as rigid as stone, and fury swelled in Anikah’s throat, flushing her neck red.

               “My sister,” she said, her voice rising. “My sister is dead because of you! You—you fucking assassin!” She waited for him to defend himself, to argue with her, so that she could rip his words to shreds and spit them back at him, but he offered her nothing, and rage stopped up her tongue.

               “Yes,” he said at last, when she made no further move to attack. “It was my fault. I was careless, I…” His expression had gone slack, infinity stretching out before his eyes. “I did this.” They both fell silent, each fighting to speak, and Qulax returned with Kolyat, shivering in a towel.

               “He can borrow something of mine while we wash his clothes,” Qulax said, his eyes flicking to Anikah’s face.

               “Yes, that’s perfect. Thank you, dear.” Even to her own ear, her voice sounded like a stranger’s. When she dragged her attention back to Thane, he was clenching his fist around something in his hand, and still looking at her floor as if the answer was buried under the floorboards. “Food,” she said at last. “Dinner. Kolyat should eat.

               “Yes, Kolyat should eat.” The boy roused them both from their wordless stupor, and Anikah went to the kitchen to bowl up the leftovers from dinner. Qulax brought him down in a shirt that hung down to his knees, as blank and silent as before. Thane coaxed him to a seat at the table, and Anikah presented him with the food. Kolyat looked up at his father, as if to ask why he was the only one eating, but the question didn’t come.

               While Thane tried to convince Kolyat to eat, Anikah took Qulax into the kitchen. Giving him the simple news seemed to require more than Anikah had to give. She took deep, shaking breaths, and clutched her arms against her sternum, trying to summon the strength.

               “She’s dead,” she whispered at last, her eyelids trembling. “My—she’s—Irikah…” Her voice broke, and Qulax pulled her at once into an embrace.

               “Oh, Anikah.” She couldn’t break down, not yet. But she allowed herself to sink against Qulax’s thick frame, shivering and swallowing back her tears as best she could. “What…what happened?”

               “They were there for him.” Into the word she poured all of her vitriol towards Irikah’s killers. “But he wasn’t here.”

               “Mercy.” Qulax glanced back to the dining room and Anikah forced herself from his arms.

               “I can’t believe it. I just…it feels like a dream.” She shook her head.

               “You’re in shock, dear,” he told her gently, touching her arm.

               “I know. But it…how can it be? Irikah, gone? Mercy, what will I tell everyone?” She pressed the edge of her thumb between her eyes, feeling the pressure build behind them. Holding the tears back was easier than she expected—which was perhaps the shock.

               “Don’t think about that now,” Qulax urged. “One thing at a time. Thane and Kolyat will need a place to stay tonight.”

               “Yes. Of course. The guest room.”

               “I’ll freshen it up,” he said, gripping her upper arm briefly before leaving the kitchen. Anikah took a few more deep breaths and returned to the dining room. Kolyat did not appear to have eaten a single bite, and Thane had given up trying: they both sat in stunned silence. The shock must still be on them as well, Anikah realized.

               “Did you come straight here?” she asked, pulling a seat for herself with more difficulty than it should have required.

               “I…didn’t know where else to come,” Thane admitted, his eyes focusing briefly on Kolyat. Anikah nodded slowly. There had been a direction she’d intended with this conversation, but she couldn’t remember what it was now. Instead, she reached out to put a hand on Kolyat’s arm.

               “You were right to come to family,” she said. Through the fog of her own loss, her heart cried out for her nephew, who would never know again his mother’s embrace. Something else occurred to her then and she looked to her sister’s husband. “Kolyat is not hurt,” she said.

               “No. He…managed to hide.”

               “Mercy.” Anikah let go of him and pressed her thumb between her eyes. The visceral image of her nephew cowering somewhere in the house while his mother was slain by savages turned her stomach. She wanted to pull him into her arms and rock him, but in his shock, he seemed to prefer more space.

               “The guest room is all ready,” Qulax announced. “Not hungry, Kolyat? I have some fried sweetmeat, if you’d prefer that?” He offered this treat as a lure to get something into Kolyat, but the boy shook his head. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound escaped, and then he clamped his jaw shut and shook his head again. Such a pain could not be fixed with trivialities, but they had precious little else to offer.

               “You should rest,” Thane said to his son, managing to soften his voice. Kolyat lifted teary eyes to his father’s face, and a thread across Thane’s shoulders tightened. He rose and gave his hand to Kolyat, to lead him up to the guest room. How Irikah had ever expected a person raised in the Compact for killing to parent a child, Anikah would never understand.

               Qulax sat heavily in Kolyat’s vacated seat, studying his wife unobtrusively.

               “I just don’t know what to do,” Anikah said, her voice cracking slightly. “I…what do you do?”

               “Whatever you can,” Qulax replied. “Right now, I think offering them shelter is the only thing we can do.”

               “There will have to be a funeral…I don’t even know if he’s contacted the authorities! How have I not asked that!”

               “One thing at a time,” Qulax reminded her, and Anikah resisted the illogical urge to snap at him. Someone needed to help her keep her head on; clearly she couldn’t do it alone.

               It was only half a surprise when Thane came back downstairs alone.

               “I need to ask a favor.” Part of Anikah wanted to demand to know how he felt he had the right to ask anything of them; the other part cleaved to these remnants of her sister’s family, relieved they had come to her before anyone else.

               “We’ll do whatever we can to help,” Qulax reassured him when Anikah did not speak.

               “I need somewhere to leave Kolyat for a while,” Thane said. “I can cover his expenses, of course, but…I would prefer to leave him with his family, if I can.” Anikah noted that they were Kolyat’s family not our family. Thane’s only family had ever been Irikah, pleasant as he had been with the rest of them.

               Thane doesn’t know how to be a partner, Irikah had confessed to her once over video. He didn’t know how to be part of a family either, but Irikah had been so convinced he could learn.

               “Of course we won’t turn our nephew out,” she said, hearing her voice as if from another room, uncomfortably aware of the beat of her heart. “We will keep him as long as he needs somewhere to go.”

               “If you need help seeing to things…” Qulax began. Thane gave a quick, sharp shake of his head, and Anikah sensed the restless tension in him mounting towards an end.

               “There will need to be a service,” he said, and fixed his eyes on Anikah. “I wonder if you would prefer to do it.”

               “I’ll take care of it.” Thane was not an adherent of the Enkindlers, and Anikah was quickly developing a sense of where this was going. Someone needed to handle Irikah’s funeral; it should be her. Irikah had handled Mother’s, once upon a time; now it was Anikah’s turn. Thane gave a tiny nod, and Anikah could see his exit forthcoming. “I need a word with you,” she said, rising to her feet and gesturing to the entryway.

               Thane followed her out to the front step, Anikah flicking on the porch light on her way out.

               “You’re going to kill them.” Taken aback, Thane blinked both sets of eyelids rapidly at her. “The ones who killed Irikah.” He didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Do you really think,” Anikah asked, a tremor in her voice, “do you really think that more death will help this situation?” Still, Irikah’s husband was silent. “Let it go! Irikah is gone,” Anikah’s voice tore and she could barely get the end of the word out without her throat threatening to close up entirely, “you will not bring her back this way.”

               “I cannot allow them to live,” he said, trying to reel back the harshness of his voice after he’d spoken. “Kolyat will not be safe until they are gone. If they knew the location of my house, they knew about Irikah, they must also know about Kolyat.”  

               “So you’ll leave again,” Anikah said, shaking away the feeling that she would not care to be someone against whom Thane held a grudge. She had never known him to be temperamental or overly driven by personal sentiment—it was, she always thought, one of the signs he had been raised in the Compact: he never killed out of anger, or jealousy, or resentment. Someone, said a voice in the recesses of her mind, had just unleashed Kalahira’s kraken from its chains. “You can better protect Kolyat by staying with him!”

               “And wait for them to come again? No, I can’t do that.”

               “You can’t take the chance they’ll never come,” Anikah accused bitterly. The night air bit into her shoulders through her thin blouse, and the wetness of it hung obtrusively in her nose. Thane gave no sign of discomfort; he moved through the world like a shadow, never truly present, never really definable. Now the sun was down, and shadows would melt away without the light to give them form.

               “I can’t let them hurt any more of Irikah’s family.”

               “It could have been your family too.” Thane was silent again. “Don’t go,” Anikah asked again. “Kolyat just lost his mother; don’t take his father from him too.” Thane’s stone-chiseled face grew heavy, but he did not look away from Anikah’s eyes.

               “Kolyat will be better off if I am gone,” he said. “I have never managed to be a good father to him.”

               “He’s a child, he doesn’t understand that. He will only see that his father is gone.”

               “Someday, he will.”

               “Don’t do this.”

               “I have to.”

               Anikah let out a wobbly breath, feeling her eyes start to burn again, and at once, the fight seeped from her, and she had no energy left to bicker with Irikah’s absentee husband. She had no energy at all; there was a black hole at the center of her, a yawning crater where Irikah had once been. My sister.

               “Then Kolyat will stay with us,” she said wearily. “As long as he needs a home, he is welcome here.” She and Qulax had never had children of their own—life had simply seemed full enough without—but she would gladly take in her sister’s only child.

               “I will send you funds for him,” Thane promised. “We have savings.”

               “If you feel the need.” Thane’s job had kept the family quite comfortable, Anikah knew that. The rapid turnaround from Irikah and Thane’s perpetual poverty in the early days of their marriage would have been highly suspect even if Irikah had not been honest and told Anikah that Thane had gone onto freelancing assassination work.

               The conversation had reached the end of its life, and Thane shuffled his feet, looking for his exit.

               “Anikah,” he said softly. When she met his eyes, there was a ghost dancing in their depths, tracing familiar, haunted steps with terrible grace. “I am sorry. I should never have spoken to her.” Anikah could not form a reply: too many things crowded her head, none of them fully formed, and before she could manage anything coherent, Thane took his leave, disappearing into the dark. She heard the sound of the car starting and pulling away from the house, and he vanished wholly into the black night.

               It was the last time Anikah ever saw him face-to-face.

***

               If they had still been communicating regularly when he was off-planet, he might have had warning that something was amiss. Thane didn’t contact his family when he was on jobs for practical reasons, but once he had been in the habit of letting Irikah know when he was on his way home. That hadn’t been the case for some years, so there was no radio silence to suggest anything was out of the ordinary.

               If he had done a better job keeping in touch with his family, he might have had warning. Instead, the open door and broken window hit him like a boot to the gut. So many thoughts crowded his head at once he had to fall back on his training to keep from losing his senses entirely. The bag and sniper rifle he dropped, going instead for the pistol and giving the rooftop a quick scan before entering the house, straining for any sound of movement.

               Silence.

               The smell of blood hit him in a dizzying wave, and Thane swallowed hard. There were bullet holes in the ceiling; paintings had been torn off the walls and broken in half; furniture overturned; vases and dishes smashed throughout. This was not a robbery; he couldn’t even tell if anything had been taken. This was destruction for its own sake. And over it all, the smell of blood.

               Moving quietly in such a mess was difficult, and the hammering of Thane’s heart bade him run, run and find his family, but he forced himself to move slowly. There was a scraping as his foot struck something in the debris, and he looked down to see Irikah’s old watercolor of Kolyat, the protective glass shattered. Fear nearly choked him as he passed through the empty sitting room, the vacant dining room, and then—

               Before he even entered the kitchen he knew it had not been a quick fight. The destruction in that room outdid anything he had seen so far: not a thing seemed untouched, and blood pooled on the floor, splattered up the cabinets, some of which had their doors torn off or hanging crookedly on their hinges, like a clumsy crime writer’s depiction of a suitably alarming scene.

               For the rest of his life, to the very end, Thane would maintain the hardest thing he ever did was entering that room. Everything in him was screaming to turn away, but he pushed himself forward as a penitent raises the lash.

               Her name trembled on his lips and Thane remembered what Olandir had warned him of when he asked to be released from the Compact: Not everyone is destined to be happy.

               I have one skill. Let me use it for you and Kolyat.

               Edging into the room, dragging his feet through shards of china, over discarded pots and pans, studiously avoiding the blood streaks.

               You think the Compact serves to display your skill, his old mentor had reprimanded him, when he sought to impress her by taking out his targets with fists and biotics rather than guns, proving to the others how close he could get to his kills without alerting them. Such arrogance will always get you knocked down a peg or two. In our job, it will get you killed.

               When he saw the first curl of Irikah’s yellow fingers peeking out from behind the island, it broke something in his chest that never healed. The gun hit the floor, and he had no thoughts left for safety or prudence. The emptying of his stomach was convulsive, as if his body was attempting to physically reject what he was seeing.

               “No! No! No, no, no!” Someone was crying out as Thane fell to his knees, dragging himself to the bloodied corpse of his sunshine. The room pounded it into his head again and again: this had not been a quick fight. Irikah’s death had not been swift. His imagination exploded scenes of her torment and anguish across the backs of his eyelids and Thane wailed, grabbing her cold body to pull it onto his lap, cradling it against him.

               “Kalahira, please,” he whispered. “Not her, not her, not her. I will…anything. Irikah, please.” The smell of her scale oils was overpowered by the biological reek in the room, but Thane went on clutching her like a buoy.

               You think the Compact serves to display your skill.

               His shaking fingers touched the ruined mess of her throat, the shredded tangle of her clothing, and slid her outer eyelids closed. He squeezed her against him and shut his eyes, and wondered why Kalahira did not also take him. What was he without her? What was Kolyat—Kolyat!

               Nothing in the galaxy but the thought of his son could have torn Thane from his dead beloved, and at once his was on his feet, pistol in hand.

               “Kolyat!” he shouted, no longer caring if any lingering misanthropists were around to hear. “Kolyat!” He was a hurricane through the house, through each room, and bursting into the yard to bellow. “Kolyat! It’s your father, I’m here! You’re safe!” It seemed a cruel joke to say such a thing, when it was he who had wrought this down on them. “Kolyat!” Wild-eyed, he spun around, as if he might have simply overlooked the boy. It was possible, he thought, that Irikah had gotten him out of the house in time. He might have fled to a neighbor, or to friends. Kolyat’s absence relieved him that he had yet to stumble over a tiny corpse, and set a panic in his chest that was determined to shake his insides into dust.

“Kolyat! Where are you?” Thane’s voice was breaking. Back into the house, to finish ripping apart what the invaders had failed to; even as he realized he was ransacking places too small even for his ten-year-old to hide, he kept going, unable to stop himself from excavating every possible hiding place where his boy might be cowering. The intruders had been through every room: even Kolyat’s room had been ransacked, his toys smashed, his drawings torn to pieces. “Kolyat! Tell me where you are!”

               The bedroom had been utterly ruined; it looked as if someone had set the bedding briefly on fire and smelled like piss. The closet had been torn open, clothing strewn across the floor, the tall clothing hamper lying on its side and spilling its contents. Thane grabbed it and overturned in his quest to empty every possession they owned onto the floor, and the resultant thump caught his attention.

               Kolyat, in a ball of wet clothing on the floor, blank-eyed and shaking like a leaf in the wind.

               “Mama,” he whispered, apparently little comforted by the sight of his father bloodstained and waving a gun around. “Mama.”

               “Kolyat!” Thane fell again to his knees and pulled his son into his arms, cradling him as he had not since Kolyat was a baby. “Kolyat, Arashu be praised.” Kolyat said nothing, but sat trembling in his father’s embrace.

               Anyone who might have malingered in the house could not have missed Thane’s presence, which meant unless they were waiting to get the drop on him, the house was empty. Thane’s mind started to break away from the tumult in his soul, guiding him forward.

               Get Kolyat out of the house.

               Yes. That was the first thing he had to do. He scooped the boy up, balancing Kolyat’s weight on his hip, with his pistol in his other hand, and headed out of the house. In the hall, he paused, and holstered the gun, to press Kolyat’s face into his shoulder. The least, the very, pitiful least he could do for his boy was to spare him the sight of his mother’s mangled corpse and the story of the struggle written across the kitchen walls.

               “I’ve got you,” he murmured, releasing Kolyat’s head when they were through the front door. He carried Kolyat to the car, and set him in the back seat.

               Anikah. Anikah can take him.

               “We’re going to see your aunt and uncle,” he told Kolyat, doing Kolyat’s buckle for him. “I’ll get you something to eat there, okay?” His son continued to stare, and Thane’s inadequacy as a parent struck him sharply against the cheek.

               “It will…” He could not tell Kolyat it would be okay. How could it be? Irikah was dead. Irikah, his beloved one, his treasure, his siha, was gone. And it was his fault. My fault. My fault, my fault, my fault.

               You think the Compact serves to display your skill. It will get you killed.

“I will make sure you are safe, Kolyat.”

               Kill them.

               Kill them all.

***

               It was late morning when the light went off. Thane had arranged a few alert systems around the house after his first several contracts, but for the most part their home life went undisturbed by his work, aside from his frequent absence from the house. So when she first noticed it, while de-bugging some succulents in the study, she had a bemused moment where she thought it must be broken, because it had never gone off before.

               The little flashing light that Thane had put in to warn her of any unexpected presence on the property. Irikah’s next thought was to brush it off. In the earliest days of Thane’s return to assassination, he had warned her about the potential dangers, and had set up systems in the old house as well, but so many years had gone by with Thane’s work no more than a distant unpleasantry of which they rarely spoke that it seemed baffling, patently nonsensical, to think it could have followed him to their neat house with its wide windows and silent dehumidifier.

               Putting the tweezers aside, more puzzled than anything else, Irikah went to the front of the house. Passing by a window, she crossed paths with, of all things, a batarian, stalking around the outside of the house. Her brain felt like it was trying to kick into gear through a bowl of gelatin. Batarians weren’t on Kahje; almost no one came to Kahje—it was simply easier to make the hanar and their drell attendants travel than it was for outsiders to make the trip to Kahje.

               It’s wrong, a tinny voice in her head was urging. This is wrong.

               “Yes…” she murmured to herself. “Kolyat. Kolyat!” She raised her voice to call for her son. “I need you to do something for me,” she said, and the sight of him, all seafoam-green and childishly wide-eyed, started to flush the sluggishness from her mind. “I need you to hide, Kolyat. There may be trouble. Go and find a place to hide in my room, okay? And don’t come out, or make any noise, until I say so. No matter what, okay?”

               “But Mama—”

               “No time for questions, Kolyat. Go hide, I’ll come get you.” She kissed the top of his head and made for the kitchen, where she selected the largest of the knives there.

               The rational part of her brain, the part that knew it was silly to think there could be violent criminals or any other such trouble out on her gravel, told her this was a complete overreaction.

               But the part of her from many years ago, the part that remembered the grimness of Thane’s face taking some of his comm calls, and how long it had taken him to learn to relax, refused to be quieted.

               Thane was not an anxious, panicky man. If he had warned her of the danger, even if it had been long ago, he had not done so idly.

               She would open the door. She would open the door and ask what they wanted and sort this out. Her stomach was crawling into her throat, but there was Kolyat of whom to think.

               Until we’re stable, she’d said. But it had worked so well, hadn’t it? They were comfortable, and Kolyat was comfortable, and they could even sign checks to slide some money to Irikah’s labs on occasion. It was so nice to be comfortable.

               I’ll take care of it, Thane had said. And Irikah had washed her hands of it at that moment, hadn’t she?

               “I’m overreacting,” she said aloud. “Someone has the wrong house.” There was no chance to open the door—the alarm-tripper threw it open, flanked by armed batarians, and turned promptly in the direction of the kitchen. When his small, pale eyes landed on Irikah, his fleshy human face split into a rank grin.

               “You must be Irikah.”

               Breathe in. Breathe out. Irikah gripped the knife by her side and lifted her chin as the intruders let themselves into her home.

               “We’re here to give a message to your husband,” he said, advancing slowly towards the kitchen.

               “Thane isn’t here,” she said, proud of how steady her voice came out.

               “Oh, believe me,” said the door-kicker, the smile curling into something vilely unpleasant, made Irikah’s insides twist into repulsed knots. “We know.”

               “I don’t see the kid,” reported one of the batarians from the living room.

               “He’s on a school trip,” Irikah said, the lie flowing off her tongue like she’d been trained to it. “Whatever business you have, I will have to serve.”

               “First things first, eh?” Stiv Kay shouldered his shotgun, that ear-to-ear smirk still stretched across his face.

               Breathe in, breathe out. Irikah thought of Thane, a thousand light-years away, and the news he was going to find on his return. She thought of the mistakes they had made, in their pride and self-assurance, she thought of that path they had started on so long ago when she stepped in front of his targeting laser.

               If your sea is real, Irikah thought, I will wait for you on the shore.

               Irikah Krios raised her knife.

[bluerose5]

First Kisses: Thane Krios Edition

Thane's first kisses with his different partners...

Irikah: Totally unexpected. Their first date, and Thane didn't even go in for a hug, the fool! Awkwardly went for a goodbye handshake because there's no way this amazing woman wants more, right? She gives him this fond, exasperated look, then cups his cheek so sweetly he thinks he might melt into a puddle. She leans in, asks "may I?" He says yes (of course he does!), yet he's still stunned beyond all belief when their lips finally meet. He's a little too stiff, too formal, and distant at first. However, the second she pulls away and tells him to relax, he doesn't even hesitate when she leans in a second time.

Shepard: They're out on the Citadel while the Normandy is undergoing repairs, people-watching from the maintenance catwalks (Thane's idea). It gives John a break. No worries about being identified or watched. No weird surveillance bugs of any kind. They talk, and John gets so caught up in describing his first visit to the Citadel, eyes bright with passion. Thane doesn't know what makes him do it. He leans in without thinking and kisses him. John doesn't move at first, and Thane assumes the worst, berating himself for the momentary lapse of control. He knows better. He begins to pull away to apologize, but before he can, John grabs him by his collar and drags him back into a heated kiss. Safe to say, Thane is more than willing to comply.

Garrus: Thane has been trying out that new thing that Shepard recommended, where he ventures out to get to know the crew. They're in the Main Battery when it happens, exchanging stories to try and one up each other on their most memorable kills. When Thane's last story has a clear advantage, Garrus huffs and makes a witty joke. It catches Thane off-guard, and he starts laughing. Garrus watches him closely, but then Thane just had to go and place his hand over Garrus'. Knowing how turians are about touch, Thane clears his throat, but Garrus simply turns his hand over before he can say anything and interlocks their fingers. Garrus tugs Thane closer, but Thane doesn't resist, fixated on the turian before him. When Garrus leans his forehead against Thane's, Thane instinctively closes the distance, his lips over Garrus' mouth plates. It takes some obvious adjustments on their part, but Garrus is willing, eager even. They eventually deepen the kiss, tongues exploring each other’s mouths. When Garrus hauls Thane up to sit on the main console, legs wrapping around his waist, the interface beeps beneath Thane, but Garrus pays it no mind. So much for all of his progress on those calibrations, Thane thinks.

Kaidan: One of the rarest of rare pairs. Huerta Memorial. Thane's been keeping an eye out on Shepard’s old friend. When Kaidan eventually does wake, they're still getting a feel for one another, tentative in their approach. During long, restless nights, they get to know one another when they can't sleep. They talk about their respective times above the Normandy and what it was like to serve under Shepard. It's like the calm before a storm, finding peace in a single moment while knowing what truly awaits them beyond those walls. They start to meditate together, mixed in with a little bit of yoga and such. Kaidan's relatively new at it, so Thane has to correct him often. One time, Thane looks up after helping him correct his stance, and their eyes lock. It's undeniable how close they are, and neither one of them could rightfully say who leaned in first. Maybe it was an act of pure impulse, wanting to feel that tell-tale spark when their lips met for the first time. It didn't matter. They kissed, and it felt as if their breath was taken away, probably more literally in Thane's case. They don't know how long they stand there in each other’s arms, lips moving in tandem, until a nurse or resident barges into the rooms with the latest updates, causing the two to jump apart.

[thanekrios]

A desert of his own

Summary: Shepard dreams of a dead planet. Irikah tells Kolyat a myth of creation. And Thane sees a desert.

Note: I wrote this many years ago. Posted it here when I was galifreyas, so the original post is lost. This is still up @ my much abandoned AO3.

Let us start with a planet that has been dead for centuries. Let us tell some fictions and some realities about it. It is up to you to believe which ones are true.

What about a woman who dreams of the deserts of Rakhana? Deserts carpeted with purple weeds that are inhabited by silvery lizards she has named the afa’el. In her dreams, the afa’el sing – no, that’s not what they do, the old melodies once sung by burning stars echo in them. Sometimes it sounds like they are humming and others, they appear to be reproducing three songs at once. She watches the ira, cactus-like succulents, glowing in announcement of the dawn of a new season as the cavernous voices of an ancient creature or a sinking sun make their way across the planet, from afa’el to afa’el and finally they reach her. She hears and understands their wordless mellow stories.

They tell her of the Endu, the biggest flower to ever exist in any world, which according to legend had bloomed in an unforgiving desert and was encountered by a group of nomads who sought it as a symbol of Arashu and built the biggest civilization around it.

She learns of how Rakhana came to be. How it was once a frozen egg, drifting away in the Sea of Stars, and how a maiden made of gold nourished it back to life.

The woman, whose name is Shepard, visits the great desert of Alasere religiously. She enjoys standing there, sinking her feet in a golden ocean, listening to the afa’el murmur words in Rakhani long forgotten.

She learns of fihanda, which roughly translates to the guilt a child feels when they recognize dishonesty in their parents or in an older authority figure. There is amuefto, the gift of finding beauty in a person and seeing it reflected in their faces, regardless of their looks. Taverena, an expression of gratitude only used when someone has made a true impact one’s life, making it out of the ordinary. And then, tah-sehe.

“I will miss you, Shepard. Tah-sehe,” had been the last thing she heard from Thane’s lips before he left the Normandy. For a while, she whispered tah-sehe to herself while embracing the mundane. It would fill the room in the form of a silly melody muttered while she watched the rain pour; or as a gurgling sound while she took a shower. It was imprinted on her mind. It isn’t until the afa’el sing morosely about the last chapter in their planet’s history, that she discovers tah-sehe is not a word to be said lightly.

She comes to understand why Thane, who turns the simplest of sentences into splendid verses, had felt it necessary to utter that word – because I will miss you was but a fragment of what he wished to convey. Tah-sehe meant more than to miss someone; it was a profound emotional state of infinite yearning, of not being able to experience life to the fullest, of having lost the most significant part of oneself. The concept originated during the great exodus of the 1980s, as the first generations of drell settled in Kahje carried the name of the tah’sehen, the ones who dwell in what’s lost.

It didn’t matter whether those were dreams weaved by longing. Tah’sehe migrated from her head to her heart.

During the days, as the Vancouver rain attempts to wash away her dreams, she convinces herself that if she can capture at least a fraction of the beauty of the deserts she wanders in and if she can translate it into a form, any form, the dormant planet of Rakhana will be awaken.

For a while, Shepard considers writing about every beast, plant and insect she has come across in her journeys but she has never been one to confuse her desires with her abilities. Writing, just like dancing, does not come naturally to her. And while she is a gifted saxophone player, she was never much of a composer. Yet, she tries.

Thane had caught her once practicing one of her unpolished pieces, one she referred to as “if calluses were a song, this would be it.” He had asked her to play it for him. She knew he’d listen, he’d truly listen, and not just that…he’d remember.

“Ugliness is abundant in this galaxy. Let’s not add up to it.” She said, putting down her sax.

“When you play, I hear a reminder of beauty and laughter and life. What you do is extraordinary, siha. To transform the dreadful slices of the universe, its eruptions and its vast darkness into a stream of ecstatic sounds, a blast of playful rhythms. You create things when there is but destruction around you. There is value in that. I hope you see it someday.”

Encouraged by his words, she composes a few songs that don’t come to even faintly remind her of the fierce and dry winds scattered across the planet. She can’t feel its vibrant colors in her slow and melancholic tunes, as they are permeated by the city she sees through her window and a sky that won’t stop weeping.

That is when she starts making terrariums resembling the deserts she visits. She thinks, if she is ever lucky enough to see Thane again, she’ll hand him a desert of his own. She can still hear him:

“I would much like to see a desert.”

* * *

After Kolyat leaves Huerta Memorial, so does Thane. He sees him walk away in a pristine white hallway and at the same time, a young Kolyat attempts to step on his father’s footprints. He can smell salt and iron and antiseptics and detergent, and hear machines beeping and waves crashing. Kolyat is saying something, he wants to be heard, but what might have been the most important words ever spoken are drowned by the roaring of the sea. He just stares at him and waits for his father to react and after a pause, disappointment is written all over his face. Thane asks him to hurry up and a young Kolyat walks reluctantly towards him, this time ignoring the trail of footprints left by his father.

He wishes his recollections were malleable, he often hears of humans enriching their past with fictions; or of conflicts among them springing from a poor recollection of events. But a drell’s memories are unforgiving –they can, on occasion, overlap with reality–but never be rewritten.

His mind takes him to that same evening, after Kolyat asked him to dance with him but he refused, as he was getting ready to go to work. He doesn’t see blighted hope but despondency in his child. Kolyat still wishes him a pleasant journey, as he always does, and runs to his room. He should have kissed his forehead. He should have made him feel like he was the brightest sun in the Zahel Sea cluster, the most vital spring of energy in his life.

As he is lacing up his shoes, he hears Irikah’s voice. Whenever she puts Kolyat to bed, her voice is soft and gentle. Like most nights, she is telling him a story. Irikah was always the better storyteller. Irikah was always the better everything.

“Now as everybody knows, the Land of Whistling Dunes was the child of a maiden made of gold, whose heart’s one desire was to drink from the Sea of Stars” says Irikah.

“The Milky Way” Kolyat mouths the words as his mother speaks them.

Irikah nods gently before continuing her story:

“The maiden, who shoned in silence in the skies, knew her womb was barren for a blazing flame lived inside of her. She watched the ages pass and her younger sisters descend to the Sea and drink from its starry tides; and one by one, they all bore and gave birth to the Sea’s children. And as eons passed, the children danced around their mothers; and the mothers swayed gently in the Sea.

The maiden, lonely and scorching, continued to long for the Sea’s kiss, until the day all eyes turned to the death of her older sister, whose cries of pain were carried by the waves, scattering them across the galaxy. And with her passing, her children came to perish too. It was then the maiden dove into the Sea of Stars and gulped its darkness greedily, for she desired children of her own.

The waves whipped her mercilessly as punishment for her insolence, tearing her flesh open. But the maiden didn’t yield; she drank until no more fire dripped from her mouth, she drank until the tides had dragged her sisters and nieces and she had swallowed them whole, she drank until the radiant sea was almost pitch-black.”

Irikah pauses. Something is happening.

Thane hears a gasp that doesn’t fit in their house, it doesn’t belong in the past. A horrified gasp. He recognizes the padding of shoe soles brushing against the floor and the sharp rhythmic piercing sounds of heels. There are many of them. Nurses, patients, visitors, doctors. They’re gathering near him. A man raises his voice, demanding everyone to be quiet. Another voice protests, only to be followed by Doctor Michel shushing the crowd and asking someone to turn down their hand terminal’s sound, so everyone can listen to the same thing.

Then, Irikah’s narration comes to him in long, heavy echoes.

He wants to be home as much as he wants to discover what is happening around his body. He can feel reality piercing its way through, the white pristine light of Huerta Memorial filtering through a crack in the wall he always meant to fix. Another voice slides in, distant and resonant, and he can’t make out what it says. He ignores it. He needs to hear the end of Irikah’s tale. That memory must remain unspoiled, uninterrupted. It’s the last story he ever hears her tell.

He hangs onto it; everything else must wait just a little longer.

“The Sea, heartbroken after witnessing the death of so many of his kin, felt conflicted as he desired retribution but didn’t wish to feel emptiness any further. He then presented the maiden with a choice: he would spare her life if she looked after an egg that had lost its guardian centuries ago; and if she was able to give life to a daughter who existed suspended in a shell of ice and yearned to see the light, her crimes would be forgiven. As the maiden accepted his offer, the pale egg rose up out of the sea. She held it tight, keeping it warm until the day it hatched and came to love it. And so, a winged silvery lizard was born. Her name was Rakhana.”

“Reports are coming in from the cities of London, Seoul and Vancouv—“

She is almost done. Let her finish.

“It’s said that Rakhana’s mother could not stand her daughter flying far away from her, for she was terrified that her only companion would abandon her. So Rakhana, who very much loved her mother and wished to make her proud, danced near her despite the sultriness she felt around her. Eventually, her entire body blushed with red desert flowers and her skin blistered and turned hot and dry. The lizard curled up and fell into a deep slumber as her skin turned to soil; and her breath became wind; and from her backbone a mountain range was born; and while she gave life to many, she failed to save them from the maiden’s fire. And so, Rakhana’s body continued dancing around her mother and her mother swayed gen...”

He sees a large group of people gathered a few feet away from where he is sitting. It takes him a moment to put together the pieces of the situation, of what it is being broadcasted through every terminal, of why Doctor Michel is shaking while she buries her face in her hands.

A myth of creation is replaced by news of destruction.

* * *

Thane always enjoyed looking at her fish. Once more, he sees them travel with glee from one side of the tank to the other. He used to feed them whenever she forgot, which was more often than she would care to admit. Half a lifetime ago.

He presses one of his fingertips against the fish tank’s glass and draws small invisible circles. A Thessian Sunfish follows his finger, even when he begins to trace unpredictable shapes. Shepard can’t see his face but she likes to think he’s grinning, greeting his old friends.

From all the stories and words that spun inside her head, tah-sehe is the only one she has felt pounding violently inside her. She wonders, even if she doesn’t know its true meaning, if perhaps there’s a word that encases an opposite feeling, the sensation of her chest being cluttered with emotions; and the impulse she is struggling to oppress, of talking about everything at once, the things she has seen and done and felt. And on the same time, she doesn’t want to talk at all, she wants to reach out and touch and caress and experience.

So, she asks.

“Is there a word in Rakhani for…this? Say…what you feel when you are reunited with someone? Like you with the fish right now.”

Thane turns around slowly; his hands are behind his back. The hint of a smile turns the corners of his mouth.

“I believe the closest word is sehifa. Even though I wouldn’t use it to describe my reunion with the fish. Is there a similar word in human language?”

“I don’t know if there’s a word for it in one of the human languages, but there isn’t one in English. At least the translator didn’t find an equivalent.”

“Ah. I see. Sehifa is a hard concept to condense into a single word. Perhaps it can be defined as the dusk of missing someone. Although it means more than that. It also refers to what you feel and what you do when you are reunited. The emotional closeness that is rekindled. Perhaps even physical intimacy. The warmth you feel in your chest. And what is exchanged. A memento or a present perhaps. Even the stories that your loved one wished to tell you for a long time, when they are finally said out loud and heard by the person who was meant to hear them. How each action or touch is meaningful.”

The dusk of missing someone. That’s it. That’s what it is.

Her cheeks feel warm and her heart full. She smiles the brightest of smiles and starts to laugh. It is a deep, explosive burst of laughter. The sort that seems to pour out like liquid gold to illuminate an entire room.

When Shepard runs out of laughter, she holds his gaze:

“I have something for you. A memento or a present or something of sorts.” She disappears for a couple of seconds and emerges from the bathroom holding something round made of crystal, around the same size as a fishbowl. “Remember what you told me? About creating? It’s funny. All this time I believed all I could ever make were bad songs. But in truth, there were worlds I could create. I can’t really share them with you, not with words at least, so I made a thing. It’s not really finished and it’s not as pretty as what it looked in my dreams but reality rarely pairs up with your expectations, right? I wanted to work on it for a while longer but, after what you just said, I just can’t wait anymore. Here.”

She shakes her head and hands it to him.

Thane holds it up.

It’s a terrarium.

She had created a harmonic ecosystem, filled with lively-colored succulents and cacti, each of them she handpicked herself to resemble the desert of Alasere. She knows that Rakhana will remain arid and dormant; and the worlds that live inside of her aren’t supposed to be more than just dreams. Yet, somehow, Thane is holding a slice of one of them between his hands. One of the things he wished he could see with his own eyes has come to him. In a way, a dream they dreamt of together became real.

He puts the terrarium down with care, next to her terminal, and he reaches over and cups her cheeks with both hands. He calls her by her first name, as he rarely does. He leans down and presses his forehead against hers. He smiles a very rare smile. He is somehow doing it with his entire face. His eyes are deep pools of bliss and warmth and tenderness.

“A desert” he says. She can even hear the smile in his voice.

She nods calmly. He knows Shepard is good at locking her nostalgia away behind more curtains than just her eyelids, but right then, her voice breaks.

“I really wanted you to see that desert, Thane.”

He utters a word in Rakhani used to convey a specific form of gratitude. And while taverena escapes from his lips, Shepard hears him say:

“Thank you for giving me the extraordinary.”

[omegastation]

thank you for mentioning irikah!!! i'm not used to people talking about her or acknowledging her existence at all hfjsjfs my mutuals and i actually had an appreciation week event for her at the beginning of the month, she's my favorite character in the whole series which i realize is BIZARRE without the context of my canon where she lives and she and thane are squadmates together and a polyamorous romance option lmao. anyway thank you

Aaaah I wasn't there at the beginning of this month so I missed the week :'( I'll check the posts now!

And I can sort of see why someone might think it bizarre because we never saw her on screen but it's not that bizarre to me personally.

A lot of people have this real affection for her because Thane made her shine so bright! I really reaaaally love what it says about grief, about what we leave behind and the impact we can have on people, and how it all matters in the end, all our actions. My only worry is that sometimes I think I idealize her a bit too much and she probably wouldn't like that :D

But yes to the headcanon, honestly would love that poly romance option a LOT.

(I also happen to be very invested in Mouse, and Thane as his father figure. I wonder how Irikah's presence would change that relationship)

[sexysideoftheforce]

Okay but also Irikah and Thane being interested in Kat’s boobs bc Drell dont have them and their like “…squishy” and so shes just lying in bed with one partners hand on one tit and shes like this is the height of luxury

[ihavebeenmassaffected]

This doesn't get written a lot but for the otp meme Thane/Irikah?

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

Thane is the werewolf and Irikah is the hunter, she catches Thane just before he turns back and when he does Irikah finds herself struggling to pull the trigger.

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Irikah was just out for a leisurely fishing trip when she finds herself suddenly in the water as her boat had capsized. Thane, who accidentally knocked her boat in, helps put everything back in her boat and leaves a nice seashell for her as an apology, then swims away. Irikah finds herself making fishing trips more often just to see him again.

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Irikah is the witch and Thane is her very protective familiar who very few get close.

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Irikah is the very peppy and kind barista, and Thane is a very sullen, stoic regular who comes in everyday to drink coffee and work on something, Irikah finds herself very curious as to what this is.

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

Thane is the professor and Irikah is his TA who finds herself more and more charmed by his stoic persona and charm.

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Irikah is the princess and Thane is her protective knight, if Thane is not by Irikah’s side, you can assume something is very wrong. Irikah defies her parents and marries Thane in the end even if he is as they say: “a commoner”. She thinks he is anything but common.

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Irikah is the teacher and Thane is the single parent who tries his very best but is struggling to take care of his child, Irikah finds him very sweet and endearing.

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

Thane is the writer who works touches Irikah in a way she never expected, in all her years of editing, she’s never seen a work that has truly shown her what the person behind the book is truly like. With every word she falls more and more in love which makes it hard for her to focus on what she be doing which is editing.

[mass-effect-galaxy]

In the Afterlife

In the afterlife, there are Irikah and Thane, and there is no Shepard

In the afterlife, there are Shepard and Thane, and there is no Irikah

In the afterlife, there are Kaidan and Shepard, and there is no Thane

[variantia]

Anonymous asked : So (just rattling off a few) Thane, Jasper, Mother, Vesper... anyone got a Type?   /   JASPER.   &   MOTHER.   &   THANE.   &   VESPER.

My muse has to tell nothing but the truth for 10 asks.   /   accepting !

          “   You’re asking me to compile everything I’m attracted to into ONE TYPE ??   Well.   Fuck.   I don’t know !   I like ... people who are smaller than me, I guess ?   People with a good sense of humor and a pretty face ?   Shit, people I can RELAX around.   ”

   It’s Lapis.   She’s literally just describing Lapis.   (   And Amber.   And maybe a few other people, but who’s keeping track ??   )

          “   Oh, how thought-provoking !   Hmm.   I like ... well, I like MEN, I know that for certain !   What kind of men, ah ... men with a broad body type.   Maybe an interesting or unconventional hairstyle.   Facial hair would be nice, as well ?   Annnnd ... oh, I need someone with strong convictions and A WINNING SMILE !   ”

   Of course, the first choice of her life was Homunculus ; Father.   But the second man she has for a lover, Alex Louis Armstrong, is possibly the best choice she’s ever made in her life.

          “   I have known my own ... type ... for quite some time.   Someone who is fiercely PROTECTIVE of those they care about, with kind eyes and ready hands.   Who is loyal and will defend when they feel the need to, but is gentle when they have no reason to fight.   A SIHA.   ”

   His first love was Irikah, gone too soon thanks to his own mistakes.   And now he has someone else, Morgan, who is different but equally, beautifully determined.

          “   Goodness, haha ...!   Oh, who has time for any of that ?   Who would even look at me in such a way ?   I ... suppose to me it does not MATTER what gender a person is, for me to be attracted.   It seems I’m often drawn to ... those with curves, and shorter hair ?   But ... to be perfectly honest, anyone who’s kind and soft, maybe a bit BOLDER than I am, catches my eye.   ”

   He has no one in his life as a constant yet, though he’s had a few flings in the past.   Despite that nobody has stayed, he’s simply waiting for someone who will.

[drelldreams]

masterlist of my rarepairs (romance version)!

bc i’m crazy

under the cut

Shepard rarepairs

Femshep x Shiala

Femshep x Tevos

Femshep x Aria

Femshep x Samara

Femshep x Adrien Victus

Femshep x Nihlus

Femshep x Jack

Femshep x Miranda

Femshep x Zaeed

Femshep x Wrex

MShep x Thane

Shepard OT3’s

Femshep x Samara x Thane

Femshep x Jack x Thane

Femshep x Garrus x Liara

non-Shepard M/M ships

Thane x Garrus

Garrus x Zaeed

Thane x Zaeed

non-Shepard F/F ships

Miranda x Aria

Miranda x Liara

Miranda x Samara

Jack x Samara

Jack x Liara

Tevos x Liara

Aria x Liara

Shiala x Liara

Tali x Liara

non-Shepard F/M ships

Miranda x Garrus

Miranda x Zaeed

Jack x Thane

Wrex x Samara

Samara x Thane

Garrus x Liara

Thane x Irikah

Wrex x Bakara

Wrex x Aria

[aceghosts]

Whumptober 2021 Day 6: Touch and Go

Prompt: Touch Starved

Fandom: Mass Effect

Rating: G

Summary: In their own ways, Thane and Shepard are touch starved.

Warnings: No warnings.

Words: 713 words.

Ship: Commander Rooney Shepard x Thane Krios

AO3 Link

Rooney didn’t understand how touch-starved Thane was until the pair were relaxing in Rooney’s bed one night. The soft glow of Rooney’s fish tank illuminates the dark green scales on Thane’s back, twisting a striking pattern down his spine. They trace the dark scales, their touch feathery soft. Rooney is content to share space with Thane, to be with him in the here and now. As Rooney reaches the middle of his back, they hear Thane inhale sharply. “Thane, are you okay?” They ask, worried that Kepral’s might be causing him trouble.

Thane rolls over to face them, seeming nervous. He seems unusually vulnerable, something Rooney wouldn’t normally describe him as. “I’m sorry, Siha. I realized I missed…” He trails off, his tone tight. Thane swallows as if he is trying to hold back the emotions that might overwhelm him. Rooney immediately understands; the desire to be touched by someone you love is a strong one. For a long time, Thane has lived a solitary life, especially after Irikah’s death. Thane is a man who has closed himself off from the world and forgotten what it is like to live. In some ways, Rooney feels they’re looking in a mirror.

They take his hand in their hand, giving him a gentle squeeze as they hold his hand. He breathes deeply, relieved by Rooney’s response. “I miss being touched so…”

“Gently?”

He nods, a hint of tears in his eyes. “The last person who touched me like this was Irikah. When I returned from my work and we had put Kolyat to bed, we would lay together.”

Thane inhales sharply. “We were in bed, the windows open. A night time breeze floats in. The smell of salt water in it. Irikah touches my cheek. Her touch so light, draws me back.” He jerks back into the moment, swallowing. “She reminded me that I was more than an assassin in those moments. I was a husband and father as well,’ Thane continues, slightly troubled, ‘After I went into my slumber, I thought I was above the need for such things.”

Rooney leans forward, pressing a kiss to his head. “Thane, don’t be ashamed of that. We all want to be touched, to be loved. There is nothing wrong with that.”

He smiles. “Thank you, Siha.”

--

To most, Shepard appears to be a beacon of stability, the one person who will be standing even when the world is ending. To the few who have the rare pleasure of knowing Shepard better, they get to see past the air of stability, sharp edges, and blunt speech. They find the places where Shepard is soft, the one who looks after those who would be forgotten. And, Thane sees another side of Shepard, one that is equally as touch starved as he is.

The pair relax on the couch in Shepard’s quarters, a quiet moment between them. Shepard is working on a report, frowning deeply. They must be working on a report to the Illusive Man. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be glaring at the datapad so fiercely. Shepard leans forward from the couch, rolling their right shoulder. On yesterday’s mission, while grabbing a mine worker from falling, Shepard overworked their shoulder. “Sore, Siha?”

They smirk back at him. “If you’re going to attempt to drag me away from work, you’ll have to do better than that,’ Shepard sinks back into the couch, ‘I’m a little sore, but I’ll be fine.”

“Sit up.” He orders as Shepard raises an eyebrow. They sit up, turning their back to him. He can feel the curiosity radiating off them. Shepard is always so curious. Thane reaches out, fingers gently working into the muscle. Shepard freezes up under his touch, spine stiff. Their shoulders scrunch up. “Did I hurt you, Siha?”

Shepard shakes their head. “No,’ They reply, taking a deep breath as their shoulders relax, ‘I’m just not used to being touched like that. It’s been a while since anyone touched me like that. I’m more used to people trying to punch me.”

Thane understands. It can be difficult to understand kindness when you are used to roughness. He presses a kiss to their shoulder as they look back towards him. “I will always touch you kindly, Siha. Now, and until my death.”

[bluerose5]

Bedtime Headcanons

Shepard laying in bed with Thane and Irikah. Usually Shep lays in the middle because she's like their own personal space heater, and they soak up her warmth like a sponge. Thane and Irikah compete on who's the last to go to sleep because they are both the types to stay up late into the night reading. Of course, Thane focuses more on the classics, poetry, the likes. Meanwhile, Irikah dives deep into research articles and scientific literature (although she has her "guilty pleasures" like fanfiction and interactive novels). Irikah will often comb her fingers through Shepard’s hair, her head in her lap, until she drifts off to sleep. Eventually, they all figure out each other’s habits, such as who hogs the blankets (Irikah, 100%), who snores and/or drools in their sleep (Shepard), when they're on the verge of having a nightmare (Thane will shift around and furrow his brow, whereas Shep will shift around and mumble under her breath). Depending on who wakes up first, sometimes they'll even have breakfast in bed together. Shepard and Irikah make the best cups of coffee, but Thane is a pro at making tea. Each meal, they alternate between some common drell and human dishes, teaching each other how best to make them.

And of course, the second they have downtime, they'll set up a vid link to check in on how Kolyat is doing on the Citadel. 🥰

[spookyvalentine]

Mercy J + X!

aw hell yeah. i can talk about mercy til i die. i hope my dying words are about them

J: Joy

1. what makes them happy?

listening to music--being introduced to new stuff, or a rare find. visiting new planets and being able to have the time to explore and meet new people.

mercy's got a very developed sense of justice--so maybe not quite happy, but there is a bone-deep satisfaction to stopping cruel people from inflicting pain on others

2. who makes them happy?

kasumi for sure. she was their first ride-or-die as dreadful teenagers, and even more still as adults. grunt, jack and tali are mercy's kids, and their antics brings them a lot of delight. and thane, of course :)

in sports coach au, irikah is like the sun. the hottest mom of their soccer kids, and dead clever to boot.

3. are there any songs that bring them joy?

OOOOOh, thats a real toughie. they love music. it's like magic. when they made it to space they started devouring as much music from other planets and species as possible. has a huge soft spot for old earth music. i'm about to make you a mini playlist you did not ask for

let's get it on, marvin gaye

i'd rather go blind, etta james

gimme a little sign, brenton wood

try a little tenderness, otis redding

dont you know, della reese

aint that a shame, fats domino

4. are they happy often?

hmm. thats a toughie. maybe? i'd say more often they're pleased or amused, even smug, if we're going for positive emotions. they know how to take pleasures in the world, but they're just so... busy. and then the war. i imagine theyre the happiest after the reapers are gone

5. what brings them the most joy in the world?

seeing their people happy. and a damn good heist

X: Xylophone

1. what is their favorite genre of music?

they dont have one!!! everything is an expression of the soul, so all of it is enchanting

had they not been arrested, had they not been in the alliance, mercy absolutely would've ended up as a record producer/music label on top of being a crime lord :)

2. do they have a favorite song?

they do not! however, this is the song that inspired the title for my mercy collection on ao3

3. do they have a favorite band/artist/singer?

also, no! it all depends on their mood what they end up listening to

4. can they sing well?

maybe one of the absolutely average things about mercy. they're not a bad singer, their voice is sweet and low, but it also is not a special one. their talking voice is far more inspiring

5. can they rap?

mercy can be a fast talker, but rapper that does not make

[zet-sway]

@the-wip-project day 34:

Do you prefer to write fluff or angst?

Fluff. I used to write more angst but then I lost a bunch of people and now I don't want to write angsty shit anymore.

Personal rambling and whatever below.

Content warning: emotional abuse, cancer, surgery, deaths in the family.

When I came back to tumblr I learned about something called "whump" style fanfic in which the writer imposes circumstances they're struggling with on to their characters in order to process them. I think this is great, and in fact I used to do it.

I had this idea when I arrived at writing again that I was going to write one of these, but it was going to be horrible.

!!! Content warning starts here !!!

I've sorta posted about this before, but I lost someone important to me. They didn't die. I was forced to remove them from my life because they refused to respect my boundaries. I'm still nervous posting about it because my tumblr is a public thing and for all I know, that person reads it every day - in fact that's one of the reasons I was off tumblr for so long.

It was such an intense betrayal. They lied about so many things. I can't express how deeply I cared about this person, there really are no words. It took years to move past the grief. I'm NOT trying to imply my grief is any worse than anyone else's, if anything - I had it easy. But I know a lot of abuse survivors say this kind of thing so I try to accept that my grief is valid in its own right.

I was going to write a fanfic about it, about Thane and Shepard, that ends with her betrayal of his boundaries, and his difficulty rationalizing that he loves her, but she's hurting him, and there is nothing left to fight for between them. That awful moment when you realize things can't be salvaged no matter how hard you try, and you're about to lose someone you desperately don't want to lose. I figured this would take the form of Shepard telling him never to speak of Irikah again, and other insults to his marriage. Because - that's what happened to me.

Anyway here's some of what I had to listen to:

"It's not you my death wishes are for, it's for him." (about my husband).

"Change your fucking disgusting FB profile picture or I'm never talking to you again (a photo of me and my husband). I can't believe you would show the face of a monster next to yours."

"If you take his name, I will never speak to you again."

"If you have children with him, I will never speak to you again."

"I don't understand why you need to spend the day with random people's moms." (It was mother's day, I was visiting my mother-in law.)

There were other abuses, too. I don't really want to continue talking about them, though. Because they somehow were worse (self harm) and I didn't even want to include them in my fic.

Anyway I was chewing on this idea for a while and I decided it wasn't fucking worth it. In order to write something angsty, I have to reach inside myself to pull that angst out. I have to search for those feelings. They're in there, I know where they live, I can grab them if I want to - and I don't fucking want to. This shit happened four years ago. I've moved on substantially. I am still angry and hurt but I've experienced so much of this pain, and I don't desire to live with it anymore.

That's why I'm curing Thane. I'll write about other forms of angst. I'll write about Shepard's difficulty with their resurrection, I'll write about Kolyat's struggle to accept his father back into his life. Whatever. But I have no desire to write about loss right now. Every night I lay in bed and hug my husband, trying to chase the fear from my mind that everything could be taken from us in a split second.

Immediately after I removed my abuser from my life, my brother-in-law was diagnosed with an extremely rare type of tumor. I'm actually not certain if it's cancerous or not, all I can say is this kind of tumor does not spread throughout the body but it's known to be very stubborn and slow growing, with a high rate of recurrence. But we didn't know this at the time of diagnosis. All we knew was he had a mass the size of a fucking cantaloupe over his lung in the x-ray, and you don't need to be a doctor to understand the bad news when you see an x-ray like that. In the beginning they gave him such a horrible prognosis. It was a terrible time for our family. Then later they revised the diagnosis but there was still the issue of removal. He had open thoracic surgery, he was in the ICU for two weeks, he had to be defibbed, put on a breathing tube (not a ventilator), and he came to live with us for months after. TLDR the tumor cannot be fully removed due to risk of mobility complications. He will be dealing with this for the rest of his life.

And then because that wasn't enough, my father-in-law had a series of strokes that robbed him of nearly all of his mobility. He passed away during the pandemic, and my mother-in-law was not far behind. We found out she had lung cancer, and didn't tell anyone. She was also struggling with advancing dementia. I sincerely hope none of my followers need to endure explaining the death of a husband to a grieving widow with dementia. Truly I don't wish this on my worst enemy.

I don't blame my abuser for this, but I think often of their threats against my husband, and I want them to know about these terrible moments for our family. I want this person to quiver in guilt and regret for ever wishing harm upon us. And then I want to scrub myself of my abuser's memory forever.

I did not write this post to seek condolences. I wrote this because I wanted to get it off my chest. Releasing it into the void feels better than explaining it to someone's face. We are all dealing with grief in our lives, please believe me when I tell you we are dealing, and we are getting the support we need.

For my sake, please do not reblog.

Anyway that's why I want to write fluff. I'm gonna take a shower and think about my latest smutty WIP. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[sexysideoftheforce]

Okay but proud spouse Shepard going around like have u heard abt my wife and my husband