Title: Over Your Shoulder
Author: mpissott
Game: Mass Effect
Pairings: Adriana Shepard/Thane Krios
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware.
Today is the end of the world.
Or, rather, it was the end of Commander Adriana Shepard’s world.  She awoke to the shocking realization that the only person she ever truly loved in her life, was dead.  Thane always said that she awoke him from a slumber, but it was her who had felt awoken when she met Thane.  He gave her the confidence and will to continue fighting--whether the enemy was the Collectors or the Reapers--and she did not know what to do.
And now she was sitting precariously on a ledge in the Presidium Commons.  She made sure to sit in an obscure part, where no one could see her if she actually decided to “slip” off the ledge.  Bottle of wine in hand, she contemplated for hours the idea of simply joining her love across the sea.  The world was so full of pain and destruction

    What. The. Fuck. There is really no other appropriate reaction to the sight in front of me. How the hell did this happen?
    Two hours ago we were in Shepard's apartment after finding Kahn dead, with me mourning the loss of my evening with Lola. I sighed. I really needed to let go of this whole thing with dessert.
    Or perhaps not.     
    Shepard came walking out of the far room after checking on Liara and gave me a coy smile, one that was instantly mirrored on my face. Perhaps I wasn't the only one that was thinking we could sneak away for half an hour to get changed. When she winked at me I knew I wasn't alone. 
    "Careful, Commander," I told her as she approached, "a girl takes a guy out on a hot date..." She moved close enough to kiss, close enough that I could feel her body's warmth through our clothes. "He starts getting ideas," I finished in a gravely voice.
    She leaned in so she c

Title: Forgive the Insubordination
Author: mpissott
Game: Mass Effect
Characters/Pairings: Garrus Vakarian/Femshep (Noelle Shepard)
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware.
Shepard just stood in the shower for a few moments, contemplating everything that happened within the last 24 hours.  Kaidan’s death was obviously the most important, and the most difficult to swallow.  But, at the end of the day, putting your life on the line for the cause was part of the job.  Everything that happened afterwards was more confusing.  Shepard was extremely grateful for Garrus’s help.  If it weren’t for him, she probably wouldn’t have made it out of the shower last night.  He was a perfect gentleman about the whole situation.  But everything that happened after...Noelle didn’t know what to do with that.  They cuddled, fell asleep holding hands...he even made her two meals.  And what was he trying to accomplish

    An hour later I'm grinning my head off as we stand at the head of the red carpet. The casino has set up a pretty fancy party tonight, complete with a celebrity entrance, and Lola looks amazing. She's wearing the same cocktail dress and heels that blew me away on our first date a few weeks ago. When she came down the stairs a half hour ago I had to bite my tongue so hard it bled to keep from whistling. 
    "Looking fine, Commander," I told her, taking her in head to toe. 
    She shot me a wicked smile. "You clean up nicely, James." She winked at me as she passed on her way to the shuttle. 
    Now she slips her arm through mine, waving at her admirers as we walk down the carpet. My grin hasn't faded even slightly. 
    "What are you smiling at, Vega?" she asks. 
    I lean down and whisper in her ear, "I'm just remembering what happened the last time you wore that dress, and how fantastic it looke

    Lola glares at me. How am I going to get out of this one?
    "This may take awhile," says Liara, not looking up from her omnitool. She must know her way around this place since she doesn't so much as glance up as she makes her way to the dining room. Shepard turns her attention from me to the rest of the crew.
    "Might as well make yourselves comfortable guys." She walks towards where Joker has settled himself on the couch, not sparing another look at me. I hold in a groan. This is not good.
    "Hey Vega," says Ashley, appearing beside me. Damn it!
    "Hey, uh, Ashley," I say, stumbling over my words. How the hell do I get myself into these things? I glance over at Lola who's talking to Joker, stone faced, and I have a moment of clarity. If I don't fix this, and I mean now, I'm going to lose her. I turn my attention back to Ashley, no longer torn on how to proceed. "We need to talk."
    Ashley's brow furrows.

Title: Forgive the Insubordination
Author: mpissott
Game: Mass Effect
Characters/Pairings: Garrus Vakarian/Femshep (Noelle Shepard)
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware.
After her speech, Noelle Shepard returned to her cabin to prepare what she is going to say to each member of her crew.  She took a deep breath to compose herself.  If this really was almost the end, it certainly didn’t feel like she’d thought it would.  Her stomach was in knots and she felt like she was on the verge of tears.  She thought she would feel victorious and celebratory.  She was just afraid of what was to come.  It was all so uncertain.
Shepard shook her thoughts and began inviting crew members up.  First she spoke to Tali, Wrex, Liara, and Ashley.  She discussed formal matters, like strategy, but she also spoke about personal matters.  They all spoke about family, youth, and many other seemingly trivial topics.  It made her fee

    A good old fashioned Krogan air drop, and just in time too. The force of Wrex's impact with the shuttle knocks it out of the air and it lands hard on the landing pad. The mercs have no idea what hit them, but Lola does. When I glance over at her she's grinning. I turn my attention back to Wrex just in time to see him throw one of the mercs out the side of the shuttle and over the edge of the landing pad. He picks up the modified hand turret and tosses it to Shepard, nodding in my direction before turning his full attention back to her. She checks the ammo on the turret, then grins at Wrex.
    "Nice to see you haven't lost your edge sitting on that throne. What are you doing here?"
    "Butting heads with the Council over Krogan expansion," he says, double checking one of the mercenaries is dead. I'd like to ask how he got to us so fast but before I get the chance there's an explosion behind us. More mercenaries drop through the ceiling into the skycar

Title: The Merchant Diaries
Author: JayCaesar12
Game: Mass Effect Universe
characters/pairing: OC's.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and the Mass Effect Universe all belong to Bioware and EA, this is just a work of fan-fiction made for entertainment purposes.
Chapter II
In comparison to the markets on other stations and planets, the merchants and sellers on Noveria made no attempt to try and pretend to be your friend. They were capitalists through and through. If they could find something else to charge you, they would. It would take a lot of persuading to get them to charge a fair price.
“A thousand credits for a hundred spools of asari cotton? That is a bit steep,” Gnaeus admitted to the supplier.
The supplier, a middle aged human with a thick New York accent, tried to convince the turian captain that the silks were made on Thessia herself rather than on some colony world.
“I’m just not convinced it’s worth a thousand credits.” Still, Gnaeus knew he could

Title: The Merchant Diaries
Author: JayCaesar12
Game: Mass Effect Universe
characters/pairing: OC's.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and the Mass Effect Universe all belong to Bioware and EA, this is just a work of fan-fiction made for entertainment purposes.
Chapter I
The loud noise buzzed, waking the cranky turian up from his light sleep. He had been up late the night before, and got only a handful of hours of shut-eye before the work day began again. He half-heartedly flailed his arm around on the end table by his bed, trying to reach the alarm.
The human-made alarm clock blurted out in a robotic Virtual Interface voice, “Today is Tuesday, April third, year two-thousand one-hundred and eighty-three, 9:15 Citadel Standard Time. Noveria internal pressurized weather remains at a stable seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit.”
The turian cracked his neck as he sat up, rubbing his face with his hands. He would need to be cognizant in the future of how many long nights he can pull in a row.

    No sooner does the shuttle touch down on the strip than I'm out the door and making a mad dash towards Ryuusei. I plan on pushing my way through to the front of the line- there's not much a big man in heavy armor can't barrel through- but find that's not necessary. I'm nearing the restaurant when the crowd around me starts to thicken and I hear snippets of conversations.
    "-she just fell right through the floor."
    "Commander Shepard-"
    "-such a shame too. I loved that place!" 
    I groan and take a step back from the crowd. It's obvious Shepard isn't here anymore and she somehow managed to destroy their fish tank floor. So much for that second date I had planned. My omnitool pings, another call from Joker.
    "James? Did you make it to the sushi place yet?"
    "Yeah, I'm here but Shepard's not. You might want to swing by and see if that analyst is still here. I'm going after Shepard on foo

Title: Forgive the Insubordination
Author: mpissott
Game: Mass Effect
Characters/Pairings: Garrus Vakarian/Femshep (Noelle Shepard)
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware
If there’s one thing Commander Noelle Shepard is known for, it’s not her cheery nature.  Sure, she was nice to members of her crew, and generally okay as long as people didn’t piss her off, but she was always a little rough around the edges.  So, as she walked up to meet with the Citadel Council, a scowl was plastered to her face.
That scowl remained when she ran into two turians on the way up the stairs.  Humans and turians did not get along.  Ever since the First Contact War, relations had been strained; she didn’t see that changing anytime soon.  Turians were too strict and rigid for Shepard, personally; they always had to follow the rules of their superiors and never question anything.  But when she arrived closer to the turians, she was not pr

Title: Forgive the Insubordination
Author: mpissott
Game: Mass Effect
Characters/Pairings: Garrus Vakarian/Femshep (Noelle Shepard)
Disclaimer: All recognizable content belongs to Bioware
Garrus was stuck in a corner of the Med Clinic.  He was waiting for a distraction so he could save Dr. Michel from Fist’s thugs.  A few minutes later, that distraction came in, in the form of Commander Shepard, the human Lieutenant, and the other human that looked at him like he had two heads.  The Commander made eye contact with him immediately, and the smirk he had seen once already today reappeared on her face along with a wink.  Then, Garrus knew, was the time to strike.  He lunged out of cover and shot at the man holding a gun to Dr. Michel’s head.  He wanted to continue his assault but was enraptured by the Commander’s skills in battle.  He soon realized that she was skilled in tech abilities, watching her overload one thug’s shield whil

Shepard lay in the quiet hospital room, her head pounding loudly in her ears.
How long had she been out?
Pushing herself up on her elbows, she reached down, grabbing the itchy hospital blanket she was draped in and peeling it back to assess the damage. Her entire lower torso was bandaged but at least the bandages were still clean and white. She could only hope that was a good sign.
Her head still hurt like hell and every attempt to think about her past felt like a dagger in her skull but here she was alive. She hoped that was better than nothing.
She turned her head and saw that she was set up next to a window overlooking a huge expanse of grassy field, darkened with night but alive with people, camping in small tents and huddled around dying fires. No, they weren't campers. Refugees, crowded and cold and sad looking. Human, Turian, Salarian, Asari, Krogan; all huddling by the same fires, all in the same rugged, makeshift tents. Why?
This was Earth, this was home some part of Shepard k

The hospital was cold and sterile. Very white. The people it catered to were black and red; ash and blood. They looked up as she was hurried past. Their eyes filled with hope at the sight of her, even as bloodied and beaten as she was. Too bad she didn't know why. She smiled back. It hurt.
The hospital staff brought her into a room; her armor was carefully peeled off, layer by layer. Each of her wounds were cleaned, some needed to be stitched. She lay still and quiet as the doctor worked away at her wounds. They'd offered localized anesthetic but she'd quickly denied it... She'd seen the others. They needed it.
It was quickly decided that the damage to her body was too much to handle while she was awake. Surgery was needed. She caught a few of the words but she felt... blank. She was quiet as they applied the anasthetic. A moment later, she was asleep.
Everything was cold.
It was dark.
What was this? This nothingness?
Cold, empty, blank.
She shivered.
Her head... hurt.
She closed her e

Shepard stood at the foot of her bed, arms crossed over her mostly bare chest. Her cabin was usually a comfortable temperature but standing around in your underwear isn't exactly cozy. "Li, really, what the hell are you doing to my dress, lacing it was strands of eezo?"
EDI eyed Shepard critically. "That would offer very little to the dress, aesthetically or conventionally. Why would you ask this?"
"I was exaggerating."
"Obviously. But I find this comment to be a failed attempt at witticism."
With a sigh, Shepard decided to ignore this. "Liara, please, can you hurry up?"
"Sorry, Shepard, I'm just trying to fix a small tear." Liara looked up from her place on the couch, bent over the mess of white fabric that was Shepard's wedding gown.
"A small tear?" Tali'Zorah shook her head. "Shepard, when you tripped you tore almost the entire side of your dress. It's going to take time to fix."
"We don't have time." Shepard blew a lock of red hair out of her face. "They're already set up and ready

Ash and bone. Smoke. The smell of death and burnt metal. Burning bodies. Rotting flesh. The ruins of a great city.
A breath.
A single, shaky intake of smokey, blackened air. The breath was followed quickly by a low whimper from a form, coiled on her side.The form shifted, stirring the dust in which it lay. Another breath, this one more jagged and wary, was drawn from the air, and then a gasp. The breath burned in the lungs of the woman in the ash. She clung to her waist, feeling the warmth of blood seep through her bare fingers. She tried to sit up, assessing the damage to her body. Broken ribs, at least two of them, a gash in her side that was covered in blood, and a headache that felt like a dagger in her skull. She'd had worse. But who was she?
She couldn't remember.
Who was she?
The headache got worse when she tried to think. She looked around. She was in the middle of huge piles of wreckage as far as she could see. Burnt corpses and ruined buildings for miles. And then the flash o

    It's been two weeks since I woke up in Shepard's apartment, alone in bed. I reached out for her only to find her missing, her side of the bed already cold. It couldn't have been a dream since I was laying in her bed, not mine, for which I thanked my lucky stars. If I had woken up to find I had dreamed the whole thing I would have really been pissed.
    The smell of fresh coffee wafting up the stairs quickly answered the question of where she went. I swung my legs to the ground and stretched with a satisfied smile. Last night was incredible. Let's just say the hot tub was only the opening act. I pushed up off the bed and to my feet, retrieving my boxers from the floor and slipping them on before heading down the stairs and towards the kitchen. 
    I turned the corner into the kitchen and stopped short, a smile curving the edges of my mouth. Shepard was standing in front of the stove dressed in her panties and a tank, swaying and singing along to