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It had started with a bet, as most things did. Garrus had destroyed another bra - not even in a sexy way, he’d just happened to put it in the dryer. When Jane had pulled the laundry out, it had sat crinkled and misshapen on the top of the heap as a monument to his shame.
‘Sweetie, that was my last nice bra,’ she had pouted.
‘I think all of your bras are nice,’ he had said, incorrectly.
Jane’s eyes narrowed. ‘Garrus Vakarian, can you not tell the difference between my bras?’
Garrus had walked into several traps over the course of his career. He knew when the mechanisms could be deactivated, and when it was better to just focus on minimizing the damage.
'Of course I can. Some of them have . . . structure.'
'Structure.' She tilted her head.
'And . . . colors.' He paused, then nodded. That was true, some of them were colorful.
She pulled the bra out of the pile and opened the garbage chute. 'Tell you what. We land on the Citadel in an hour. I have a meeting with the Council tomorrow. You know bras? You replace this one.' With that, she let it flutter down the chute. 'EDI, make sure that item is incinerated.'
'Of course, Shepard.' A brief roar of flame, then silence.
'I absolutely will replace it.'
Shepard lifted a brow.
'And it will fit perfectly.'
'Oh, it'll fit perfectly?' It didn't sound like a question.
'And I will even be able to take it off of you once you're done with the Council.' Damn, that was probably an overpromise - the clasps were still proving difficult for his taloned hands, and that had been the downfall of her second-to-last nice bra.
She smiled widely and Garrus suddenly remembered that he wasn't the only apex predator in the room. 'And honey, you know I believe you. But what happens if you aren't able to replace it in time?
So that was how Garrus found himself pulling bras out of Shepard's drawers, looking for any hint of a size so he wouldn't end up writing her Alliance reports for a month. One of them, a stretchy item with a wider band, said 'large.' That was a size, right? He opened the extranet on his omni-tool, searched 'bra sizes,' read the first page that popped up, and passed out.
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GVakarian: help
TaliZVN: What did you do now
GVakarian: what do you know about bras?
TaliZVN: you bosh'tet
TaliZVN: WHAT DID YOU DO
GVakarian: this isn't helpful :(
TaliZVN: Do you think I wear a bra under the suit? Idiot.
User TaliZVN has left the chat.
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GVakarian: Hey, EDI
EDI: I have been instructed to not provide any assistance in this matter, Officer Vakarian.
GVakarian: yeah that's fair.
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ShadowBroker: I also will not help you with this bet.
GVakarian: you could have at least pretended that you don't read our messages.
ShadowBroker: Aren't you glad that I'm honest, though?
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GVakarian: Heeeeeeeeeeeeey Ash
GVakarian: that was weird
GVakarian: sorry
GVakarian: Hey Ash
AWilliams: Hi, Garrus….?
GVakarian: so I maybe made a mistake today. And that maybe turned into a bigger mistake and maybe now I have to write her Alliance reports for a month if I can't buy her a nice bra.
AWilliams: ……
GVakarian: and you're a human woman, and you have sisters, and maybe you could help?
AWilliams: …..
GVakarian: she needs it for the Council meeting tomorrow.
AWilliams: You're killing me, Vakarian.
GVakarian: please please please
AWilliams: Fine. Presidium Commerce District. 0200. There's a human shop there that should do. Bring one of her other bras.
GVakarian: she vaporized the only other good one
AWilliams: ……….
AWilliams: You're buying drinks after.
GVakarian: fair.
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Garrus didn't want to make Ash wait, so he got there thirty minutes early. Then he realized, after the third human woman glared at him, that it was probably odd for a male turian to stand at the front of a lingerie store. So he got himself a coffee, drank that, decided he should get a coffee for Ash as well since he was there, and then chugged that because he obviously wouldn't be allowed to bring a latte into a lingerie shop. None of this helped his already-creeping anxiety.
He spent those thirty minutes researching bras in between sips, starting with the history of their development on both Earth and Thessia. From there he had learned about the different types and what they might be worn for, how to launder them (he bookmarked that page), and how a bad bra can cause back pain and soreness. This research led him to determine that Shepard mostly wore sports bras. In turn, that made him suspect that she did not consider a sports bra 'nice.' Which was a shame - when she wore a bra, they seemed to make her the most comfortable. 'Nice' seemed to fall under the items that looked more like architectural supports, pieces that had names like 'push-up' or 'plunge.'
'All right, Vakarian, let's do this.' Garrus was glad that he'd already finished both coffees, because he nearly knocked one of the paper cups onto the ground. Ash was standing over him, hands on her hips. Garrus was still learning the intricacies of human facial expressions, but he believed hers was probably best described as pained.
'Thank you again.' He stood up and stacked the cups together, jogged them to the nearest trashcan, then jogged back.
Ash rolled her eyes, which she must have waited to do until Garrus was back from the trashcan and within sight. 'Here's the deal. Shepard doesn't need a new bra for this meeting.' She started walking back toward the lingerie shop.
He tried to follow her as close as possible without crowding her. 'What do you mean?'
'Shepard is planning to wear a sports bra to that meeting, just like she has to every meeting.' They crossed the threshold of the shop and Garrus was nearly barreled over by a wave of fragrance. 'None of them would ever say anything to her face about it except maybe Udina, and he's dead.'
'What?'
'You almost certainly said something stupid and Shepard marked you for an easy prank.' Ash pulled him to a row of inconspicuous black bras (t-shirt bra, his research suggested). 'She wasn't going to make you write her reports,that would be against Alliance regs. She just wanted to make you sweat a bit.'
'Oh.' That sounded more like her, to be honest. 'Wait, so what are we doing here?'
'Still buying Shepard a bra.' Ash grabbed one of the black t-shirt bras off the rack and put it in a small pink basket. 'Maybe two.' Garrus felt even more lost now than he had a few minutes ago. Ash pushed the basket into his armored keel and moved toward something blue and lacy. 'We are buying Shepard two bras because she has never, in the past three years, worn one that actually fits her and it has been driving me insane.'
That stopped Garrus in his tracks. 'How do you know that?'
'Three sisters.' She paused and held up the lacy blue thing. It had straps and cups, but Garrus couldn't possibly imagine how it supported breasts. 'Does she wear blue?'
His response was automatic. 'No, that's my color.'
She smirked at him as she threw it in the basket. 'What, are you worried you're gonna mix up hers and yours?' He blinked at her and she threw the lacy thing in the basket. 'Anyway, half of her bras are too big and half of them are too small. They've been gapping and spilling and I'm over it. Come on, we're getting some good sports bras, too.'
Garrus had a million more questions, most of which were some variation of the word 'what>' He settled on one he felt might be most pressing. 'How do you know these will fit her?'
'Remember when you all were hopping around the galaxy with Cerberus?' Did he ever. 'Shepard was right, I was investigating her for the Alliance. It was in her personnel file, so I went back and looked.' She shrugged, seemingly in response to his dropped jaw. 'We talked about it, almost shot each other, talked some more. We're good now.'
Garrus looked at the woman in front of him. They had been collegial, if not exactly warm, on the SR1. He'd seen her actions on Horizon as a betrayal, and he'd been ready to kill her during the Council standoff a few weeks ago. Now she was helping him pick out lingerie for his girlfriend and was behaving as though this was normal. Was it normal? Was he crazy?
'You're thinking too much.' Ash's voice cut through the confusion.
'I do that.'
'Less than you used to.' She led him to a row of black, white, and red sports bras. They looked a lot like the ones that Shepard usually wore. A handful of them landed in the basket he was still holding. 'You used to look like that all the time back on the original Normandy. Like you thought Shepard was going to kick you out via airlock if you weren't being helpful at all times.'
That made him lift a mandible. 'I think I was mostly scared of you, if we're being honest.'
'Not Wrex?'
'And Wrex,' he conceded, then paused. 'And Shepard, yeah.'
'Well, look. I was too hard on you back then, and I've been too hard on her, too. You both deserve my trust, and you have it.'
'That's . . . ' He tried to think of something worthwhile to say. 'That's really nice, Ash. Thank you. And you too, I guess.'
She smiled at him. 'Great. Well, this is probably enough bras and feelings for today. You go take this and pay. I've got people to meet.'
Garrus said a quick goodbye to her and took the now-overflowing basket of bras to the checkout desk. He nearly passed out for the second time that day when he saw the total pop up on the kiosk. Before the stuffy, stiff-haired human cashier wrapped them in tissue paper and put them in the bright pink bag, he took a picture of the label on each so he had the size and care information stored on his omni-tool.
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'Well, Garrus, these all look very nice, but they're not the right size.' Shepard faked a pout. The bed in her cabin was strewn with bras and tissue paper.
He held the blue one out to her. 'Are you sure? I think you should try it on.'
'In your color, Archangel? Kinky. Fine, but then I'll show you how it doesn't fit.' She removed her tanktop, then the (sports) bra she was wearing. Garrus didn't know how he'd missed the incorrect fit all those times before. Her skin was creased with red lines where the elastic had clearly been too tight. He made a mental note to send Ash a thank you card.
Shepard clasped the bra in front of her and rotated it around her waist, then pulled it up. Each strap fell against her shoulders with a snap, and he suspected she was playing up the whole thing for the drama. He just nodded, pressing his mandibles close to his mouth. She ended her little performance by pressing the cups up toward the breasts in a little shimmy motion. 'See, how it…' She trailed off.
'See what, sweetie?' He asked as innocently as possible.
She narrowed her eyes at him. 'What the fuck did you do?'
'I bought you some very nice bras, which appear to fit you perfectly.' He gave her an approximation of the toothy grin she'd shot him that morning. 'What? I said I could and I did.'
She gave her breasts a few pats, as though she was checking that they were still there. He certainly could have told her that they were. The lace appeared to have small cutouts where her skin peeked through. Maybe he'd been right that it wasn't the most supportive piece, but all of a sudden that wasn't his primary concern.
'Well, I suppose you did. But you're forgetting something, big guy.'
He was pretty sure he remembered, but he played along. 'What's that?'
'You said you'd take it off me, too.' Her sentence ended in a laughing shriek as he pounced.