Work Text:
_open entry log. Name: Zaeed Massani._
What the bloody hell is wrong with me? I haven’t made this life the way it’s been by being such a goddamn fool. How the fuck was I supposed to know that you had somehow seen that I planned to commit suicide?
How the hell did you see it or know what it said? The son of a bitchin thing was coded! I had nothing to live for after my goal had been met. I planned to end it. Was seriously thinking about it until I got a message, encrypted, that only said “Don’t you think about ending it, Massani. Not after what you did to save the galaxy. There is more you can do if you choose the right path.”
Don’t tell me that wasn’t you.
Only you, Shepard, would care enough about anyone to stop even a former scumbag from ending their miserable life. Especially mine. I have no family. No wife or children. No friends… except you. You knew me, even marginally, more than anyone ever fucking did. You knew that if you told me not to end it… that I would listen.
Fucking life plays a vicious game with its most tenacious players and then screws them hard. Must be why I find myself in such an uncomfortable position of admitting something to a fucking data pad in the hopes you will come across my message like before so I can tell you this without saying it to your face.
I assume that my messages aren’t really secret; that you will see this no matter what code in the Terminus I use. And since I believe you had help getting these messages from my private account from that Broker Asari you are associated with, I can assume you are not the only one who has seen these messages that I have written to myself, Shepard. So if it is you or that Broker, I will just leave it here like this in case I die. Because I am a coward… or I just don’t want to see that rejection or disappointment in your face again maybe.
Only now you can actually hear me rather than reading it… I can try to pretend and make it sound pretty with word you have to use your imagination to hear… but I want you to hear it right from my mouth. No filters or coding.
Where do I start?
Few months back I was asked to do a job for Cerberus- but you know that. Got a lot of cred for it. Still haven’t blown it all yet, just waiting for something really important since my original plan was uh… cancelled. Nothing ever seemed essential enough after the whole shitty business of going through the Omega 4 Relay on that suicide mission. On the other side of that bullshit, everything else, even Vido seemed mundane and worthless.
I could buy all the fucking booze on Omega, all the goddamn hookers I can and I still feel empty compared to the raw charge I got when I helped you, Commander Shepard, take down that fucking collector base and saved the fucking universe. It was the sweetest thing.
I hungered for months for something that would give me that fucking rush again. The only thing I could do was reminisce. And I fucking hate that. I’d be showing my age if I cared to go back a few decades but I didn’t. I was thinking about my time on the Normandy. How I would always be in that bloody room with my sparse belongings and inwardly ashamed that I looked forward to her arrival for idle chit chat. Wishing things would go back to how they were. My life always in danger. But I knew on the Normandy I was pretty much safe. And it pissed me off.
Still… I carry on. Because there isn’t anything left for me to fucking do. Shepard, instead of turning me into the authorities, let me go. I am a bad man, by rights she should have shot me but she didn’t – because she is all honorable and shit – which was the only thing about her that pissed me off. No swing room. Methodical and by the book for a fucking Spectre. Too frigging paragon for her goddamn title.
I can’t fucking believe how much I lost myself as a mercenary… the lone wolf I had always been… when I came to help Commander Fucking Shepard on the Normandy. I forgot what it felt like to not be on edge all the time. I forgot what it was like to sleep with my eyes open and a finger wrapped around a trigger. I suppose almost everyone on that ship had done some soul searching- I don’t do well with that shit, never have- but I never expected myself anticipating her company… even wanting it. I never thought I would actually feel…safe? I am a man carved for destruction. I revel in it. I am not supposed to feel safe. I am a goddamn fool. Lone wolves DON’T want fucking company unless she spreads her legs or opens her mouth, does her job and goddamn leaves.
What? You don’t like that I think of my needs that way? Piss off. I ain’t going to lie to make you feel comfortable. I am doing some real fucking work trying to admit some stupid shit about feelings, I am not going to be bashful about that.
Yet it was something that crossed my mind when I seen her, but never once just wanted her to do it. I guess I am saying this now because apparently she told me at her party that I told her – and I was shitfaced, so I don’t see how it counts because apparently I was hitting on the fucking Justicar too… what the hell- was I that desperate to put myself in the path of a Justicar, dispenser of justice on the wicked? Nah it was the booze I am sure but that was a dumb thing to do- anyway, I told Shepard I always thought she was beautiful. I bet anyone who heard me say that thought I was just trying to get in her panties. They may have been right knowing what they know about me. Only thing is… is I think I meant it.
I did always find her attractive. And in that dress she was wearing, damn didn’t she look fine. I never thought I would like a woman like her. I prefer women to be a little less confident and more pining– makes me feel good. But for the first time I just wanted to… goddamn I am getting fucking weird about it… I wanted to make her feel good with no regard to my own needs. I never made an advance because I know she would never feel the same way, not even as a friend really. I always felt she saw me as nothing more or less than an asset, which is how EVERYONE saw me. So I just gave up trying.
Let’s face the truth, Massani, you didn’t exactly make yourself popular enough to be seen as a friend.
However… she had me tag along when she took that crazy biotic bitch to Pragia and… she seen something in me I hadn’t even known was there. Good thing Jack was too distracted with the demons in her own head to notice the shit that slipped out of my mouth. Shepard had heard it though. Yeah… she looked at me like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not from Jack but from me. You know those looks of exasperation you share with another when the third person is being an asshole? Yeah that wasn’t what she was doing with me. She was looking AT ME! Because of something I said!
Thing is, is the look wasn’t reproach. It wasn’t really disbelief either. It looked more like… shit, I am prone to knowing what fear, anger and lust look like but I think the look on her face was… reluctant appreciation? I can’t even think of a word to use I am so unfamiliar with it. It’s like she was approving of my “concern” for the little bastards who died for some sick twisted shit that Cerberus crackhouse was hiding, but she couldn’t believe it.
I am a big scary man with an ugly scar on the side of my face and an even uglier disposition and attitude. And there I was, bearing as soft side because I didn’t like what I was seeing. A morgue for the child experiments that didn’t make it; I couldn’t even count the wasted life there. I don’t even want to think of the shit those kids went through so Jack wouldn’t have too. Made me think of my childhood and the shit I went through. Nonesense. All of it.
Shepard – and I’m embarrassed to say it- saw that I had a “heart”-or something close enough to it- deep inside this cold carcass. I know it’s hard to believe. I am cold and cruel… never gave a good shit about anyone but myself for the last 20 years. Kept me alive to be honest. But I hate the thought of innocent children getting hurt.
Oh okay, you’re thinking now about the goddamn refinery. Well everyone does stupid shit once in a while and fucking Shepard reminded me of that! She showed me that I was a better man than my “grudge” dictated. Yeah she held a fucking gun to my head while I was pinned down… she fucking jabbed me in the face too, blacked my eye. No woman ever got away with that shit in my presence. No one until her at least. Needless to say she made me see reason. Not only that I was under imminent threat of death it reconfigured my fucking priorities, so shut the hell up! You bunch of hypocrites.
Anyway… I am getting a bit off track here. I think my feelings changed then. When she took me to take down Vido and end my twenty years of fucking torment. She showed me that there was more than me in this fucked up universe and all the wrongs done to me could be turned to more constructive use. Which is why I still agreed, after the fiasco at the refinery, to accompany her on her suicide mission. I couldn’t help but feel humbled by her.
When you spend so much time around death and destruction you forget there is life in the shadows. She could have left me there to die. She could have put me out of my misery for what I did but she showed me mercy. Something I have never done to better people than me. I feel all sentimental now and its fucking weird and disturbing. And she is the fucking cause of it.
She said to me once “Zaeed’ – she called me by my first name. Another stupid fucking sentimental thing that caught me off guard – “Zaeed… there is more to life than what you make it. You have made yours a hotbed of death, greed and unconcern. Turn that into something constructive and it can change your outlook on everything.” It sounded so… fucking goody two shoes and really, had I been in a foul temper I may have shot her to shut her up but it was off Jack’s fucking ‘piece of mind’ fieldtrip that Shepard popped out with that one and… I haven’t been able to forget it.
I think that’s when I fucking fell in love with her. Oh wait… you can’t be “in love” with someone when it is unrequited. She didn’t feel that way about me. No she was too busy off making goggle eyes at the Drell… or the Turian… I can’t tell which, she looked at them both the same way. So I sat alone in that fucking room, listening to the trash compactor humming. Looking at Jessie and wishing Shepard would come by a little more often so I can tell her detailed stories about that shitty rifle.
I wonder even if I had sat up in the Main Battery with Vakarian or in Life Support with Krios if she would open up to me a little more but honestly why the hell would she look at a bitter old man like me next to the occupants of those rooms?
I bet those rooms smell more like her than my room did.
Fuck now I sound creepy. I mean, more than usual.
So as you can imagine. When I saw her on the Citadel – If I was the sappy sort- I would have tried to go over there and pull a John Wayne on her. What? You don’t know who John Wayne is? You fucking idiot. Only an old Western Icon… known mostly for the way he kisses his ladies. S’all I ever took away from the vids anyway. I am sure there was morals and shit to the story but I never paid attention. Never cared about the content of the films but he had fucking style, he did.
Of course if I tried that she would threaten me with a bullet again. I am definitely sure about that. Somehow the thought excited me rather than scared me off. Citadel contact found, a player unseen talking to the little fat man over his comm and he suddenly says my name. I was interested to see who he was talking too. I couldn’t wait to see who had the balls to stop me from doing my job. Then she came through the door and something funny happened to me.
I felt… what the fuck… I think I felt joy at seeing her. Yeah that can be possible I guess. Although joy usually came from watching one of my targets going up in smoke or their brain matter splattering the floor. But there I was, unflinching on the outside but damn on the inside wasn’t it good to see that badass bitch waltz through the door.
So I played it cool. Seemed uncaring and aloof but damn didn’t she sizzle in that uniform. It looked more soldier’s uniform than the sleek black unparticular Cerberus number she wore when she was fighting the collectors. This ensemble showed more although there seemed to be more material. Yeah… I may be older but that doesn’t mean I don’t know sexy when I see it. I ain’t fucking blind yet.
I offered her my help because even after we blew the collector base all to shit, she didn’t return right to the Citadel and turn herself in as was expected of her. No, she fucking did clean up after that. Tied up loose ends with some of us. She made sure everyone was squared away. She promised that she would help me find Vido again. It didn’t take long. She just pointed me in the direction and I went. I think she feared having to put me out of my misery again.
I personally don’t give a rat’s ass about it but on my honor, it was just him. And some slut. But who gives a fuck about the slut? I would have left her alone had she not pulled a fucking knife on me after I enjoyed and endured Vido begging for his life for a while. I told her to leave but she obviously didn’t understand what I said. So… her ashes are in an incinerator along with what was left of Vido.
Why am I telling this shit to a datapad? Mmm’well… as I am sitting in Shepard’s apartment, its about 2:35 C.T. in the morning after the party. I figured I am at least important enough to her to be included in this get together. I suppose we all have messages for her that we want to give in person. I saw her watching a vid from that assassin Krios last night. I walked by while she was viewing it. I didn’t linger because I didn’t want to let her know someone saw her crying. I guess he is dead. Shame. He was a good guy.
My head is fucking pounding from too much music and booze and I am on an uncomfortable couch, unable to sleep. Across from me is some engineer named Cortez. The gimpy kid is sleeping at the bar. The A.I. I think is standing sentinel over him like she thinks someone will hurt him- well you are!! It’s creepy!- I can hear someone in the next room talking. I think it’s that walking muscle Vega. I only met him tonight. Seen him a few times down in the cargo hold but never had the opportunity to say anything to him. I think Jack is still on the table. Maybe I can go over there and hit her up for some ‘unwind’ time. But since she called me ‘grandpa’ I don’t think she would be interested.
I was going to ask Shepard but she went talon and hand to a room upstairs with the Turian. Well that is off the table. I ain’t got a means to get laid tonight so I have to sit and soul search. I fucking hate doing that. And the fact that I am leaving a message for Shepard isn’t a way for me to say “I love you” without saying it to her face. I wouldn’t. Why place that much more burden on her shoulders? S’matter of fact… why would that be a burden, its not like she felt the same way and was torn between me and Vakarian.
It’s obvious who she wanted. As it’s not me up in that goddamn room with her. So I guess I will just have to say… Shepard, you’re a damned good woman. Brave. Strong. Honorable as fuck. Something I will never be even with helping take down the collector base. You have a way to make people see the error of their ways. While I am still a cold blooded mercenary you had a knack for ironing out the rough spots and even though you tried to with me, there was too many for you to flatten before we went our separate ways. But you did iron out some of it… At least now I think about others before I act. I feel all soft now.
You stopped me from killing innocent people. No one has ever stopped me from doing exactly what it took no matter the cost to kill the grudge that had been dogging me for two decades. Despite the man I was, still am, I would have carried the weight of those dead people in my head until I died. Maybe you saw that, I don’t know. I am sure I am not going to be alive after all this shitty mission with the Reaper invasion is over. So I think now is a good time to be honest.
I never said thank you before. Not to anyone. But you deserve that because you were the only one who ever gave me a chance to work for something outside of my own needs and for someone else’s dirty issues. For the greater cause. I don’t know if I would ever be considered a hero. I suppose it would be nice. To have my name on the same wall as yours and all the other’s on the Normandy.
Fuck… I never even had ‘friends’ until I agreed to help you. Some of those friends aren’t even here anymore. This goddamn war has taken them from us. From you… from me… from the galaxy really. Krios, that Geth bastard, the Salarian doctor… I know I am not mentioning everyone, the scope is too wide. It just made me realize I can feel pain for the fallen. Our fallen. I didn’t think I could. It’s nice to know I am still human under this thick skin. I didn’t know how dead I was until I met you. But you brought me back. You brought all of us back.
Shepard. Thank you.
Now I need to go take a piss. The A.I. is looking at me funny. Where’s the bloody toilet?
_End entry log. Name Zaeed Massani. _