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A week after the Collector base, a week of trawling around space and mindless errands and revisiting posts they only passed through, Garrus comes up to her cabin like a man on a mission.
They’ve gone back and forth over the past few days, him coming to her quarters or Shepard to his, passing around fleeting touches that carry more intent and are more explorative than anything they would have exchanged months ago. Sometimes, more often than not, it’s to simply spend time together, just as they always have.
Whiling away hours turns into him reminding her of low-quality vids she’s missed, or her arguing which mods she prefers, just to rile him up. They debate better shots, who has more, and he scratches at his scars and drawls, well, she has some catching up to do.
Other times, it’s her finding out how their hands fit together, or him learning which spot behind her ear makes her stomach clench.
She meets him fresh out of the shower, toweling off her hair, and he seems to be debating something as she drops the towel on her desk in favor of reaching for him like she’s slowly growing used to. He pauses and she’s about to pull away—she crossed a line, pushed him; she winces internally, but Commander Shepard doesn’t wince—and then he moves.
When Garrus drops his arms to wrap them around her, there’s a different shade of relief than the kind from where he’d grabbed her wrist and hauled her back onto the ship as the base collapsed in on itself around them. The yellowing bruise beneath her xiphoid process is a testament to that, and she can still taste the cloying ash in the back of her throat. His keel presses into her chest. He hums, and while it reverberates into her molars she can feel a mandible brush through her hair.
The nearest state to undress anyone else has seen her in is her under armor, or maybe her workout gear. She greets Garrus in her pajamas, feeling too much like exposed nerves and skin. Beneath her shirt, her back warms where he glides his hands across it.
“Did you need me for something?”
“I—ah, yeah,” he says, and she twists her cheek into the dip of his cowl to look up at him. Shepard smooths her hands down his chest, enjoying the twitch of muscle, the minute give of plates where they meet his hide, and his hold tightens.
She rests her chin on his cowl to face him fully, and his gaze flicks around her face. It lingers on a damp bang curled against her forehead before meeting hers again.
His hands settle on her hips and he glances to her bed before asking a curious, “Show me?”
She regards him and his quiet tone—the curiosity in his voice, the slight hesitance that’s crept in between the two of them and the tinge of budding arousal. His gloves flex against her waist as they crawl up her body, and then they linger as she moves out of his embrace.
One step back and then another, and then she’s backed up to the foot of her bed. Garrus makes to follow, never once stepping into her space again, but close enough it would be hard to miss the glimmer in his eye, the expanse of his chest and twitch in his limbs like he’s fighting the urge to grab at her again. That does something too, a flicker of heat between her legs that wasn’t there months ago.
Instead, he rolls out the chair by the desk, slow and careful, and his gaze snaps back to her as she removes her shorts, followed by her sleep shirt. Both hit the floor and his gaze roves over her as she walks up to him again, each footfall measured and even. Shepard stops just shy of him and she tilts her chin up to meet his eyes. They hold there for a second, trading breath in that minute space before she turns her back to him.
He’s a quick study, careful and fumbling only just a little as he unhook her bra, and even without looking at him she can sense his mandibles flaring in a flicker of pride. He ghosts the backs of gloved knuckles down her spine, along scars old and new, and when they reach her underwear he pauses, waiting for her nod. Sliding them down her legs for her to kick them aside, she shivers, and then a hand is clutching at her waist and pulling her back against his warm, plated chest.
His tunic is softer against her skin than she expected, and Garrus ducks his head to press his mouth to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Shepard reaches a hand behind her, lightly scratching her nails along the small plates and the press of his mouth grows firmer. He drops his hand as she pulls away again, and she glances back at him as she climbs onto the bed.
Chair twisted around, his body nearly collapses in on itself as he settles. She makes herself comfortable at the head of the bed, trepidation and arousal dueling in equal measure. She’s no stranger to getting herself off—she’s gotten rather good at it, and, over the last handful of years, fast—but to do it in front of her best friend, her best friend she’s been sleeping with, because he asked her to?
The air shifts some, with him fully clothed compared to her nakedness, and his gaze wanders over her like he’s memorizing details he missed before. His gaze snaps back up as she raises her hands, and he follows both as she trails them across her collar bones, over her breasts and he shifts when she gasps, thumb circling a nipple. It fixes on her still as they glide over her ribs and down her stomach before she reaches her waist, then her hips. Her knees fall open as she reaches the apex of her thighs, dragging a finger through the trimmed curls there.
“Can you lower your leg?” he asks, mandibles flaring and voice flanging. If she didn’t know him better she’d say he almost sounds like he’s in pain. In response, she drops her left leg to the bed, bent at the knee. He groans softly at the unobscured view of her pussy. His hands curl over his knees and he watches the V of her fingers dip between her legs to part her folds.
Her free hand settles on her breast, fingertips trailing over the nipple and his eyes dart between that and her fingers. Slowly, she drags one through her folds, unsurprised to find herself already wet. There’s almost something Pavlovian about it at this point, something to be examined later. Her legs part further and Garrus sits forward, elbows braced on his thighs to watch her dip a finger into herself. The sound of mandibles and teeth clicking accompanies the slick one of her fingering herself, quick little gasps eking out of her throat.
The burst of arousal is rather sudden. Garrus eying her, sharp eyes and sharper edges sat at the foot of her bed to watch her shouldn’t turn her on as much as it does. Her finger slips out to circle over her clit as she gnaws at her lip.
“I want to hear you,” he says, more to himself.
Slowly, she slips in a second finger with a groan. Her head tilts back, grip tightening on her breast. “Hah,” comes out in a pant as she curls them. She’s been spoiled by his own—fucking reach, that’s for sure. A muscle jumps in her thigh. She rocks her hips into her own hand, grinding her clit into the heel of her palm. “Garrus,” she moans, twisting her head to glance at him through her lashes.
The chair rolls and he stomps a foot on the floor with a low, “Yes.”
At most he shifts on the chair, mandibles flaring as a groan leaks out before he stifles it. She pulls her fingers out slowly, making sure he can see them as she glides them over her clit again before slipping them back in. Usually, when she’s alone, it’s perfunctory—quick to take the edge off, maybe not as much time or build up as she’d like, and having an omniscient AI had really killed any of the appeal.
“Enjoying the show?” she asks, more breath wrapped around her words than she means for there to be. Garrus hums in response, the sound a little disjointed as his eyes flicker closed and then open again. His hand fall to clasp between his thighs.
She’s not used to having an audience, but something about Garrus, the earnest way he’d approached her, the sharp way he watches her and the flicker of promise and intent in his eye… Like he can sense her watching him, his gaze wanders from her fingers, up her chest, and then settle on hers. There’s no need to perform with him: no wanton moans that are fake around the edges, no contortion for the sake of it.
It’s almost strange in a way that isn’t to have this level of comfort with him, in this way. A week ago she’d seen him naked for the first time; two months ago she’d first broached the idea of them sleeping together. Three weeks ago she’d had his tongue down her throat in the battery as she’d ground against his thigh. She makes him nervous, she remembers, and right now her own nerves are embers that flare and recede. It’s close but it’s not enough.
As her fingers curl again, stroking for a spot she doesn’t quite have the right angle for, her head tilts back into the pillow, and her pant turns into a ha ha ah tinged with frustration that turns into a Garrus, ah—Garrus.
He’s already up and moving, and she can feel the mattress dip under his weight and she nearly jolts at the hot breath at her cunt. The chair goes rolling, clattering against the desk. “Keep going,” he grounds out, voice gravelly in arousal. It’s a tone she’s learned over the last week, and it had made her gut clench in the hours before the Omega 4 relay, just as it does now. His hand closes over her hip, hot and heavy, talons pricking the skin while his other closes over her breast, rough and warm. She can’t remember watching him remove his gloves.
“Nh fuck,” she rolls her hips, his hand following the motion. She does jolt when his tongue slips in alongside her fingers. They stutter as it glides over her knuckles, velvety and slick, and her leg kicks out when he groans. His talons bite into her breast while her back arches, working his tongue in deeper, flicking against spots she can’t reach herself. She drops her hand to claw at his fringe with a low, trembling moan.
Garrus pulls back to hum a “Yeah,” and she doesn’t get the chance to complain about him moving before he plunges his tongue back into her with a fervor. She pants, fingers slipping over her clit as his tongue fucking undulates. He meets her eyes, his sharp, even half-lidded as they are. A mandible flicks softly against her thigh and he tilts his head, mouth plate nudging against her hand.
He looks up at her from between her legs, wedging his shoulders between them until she hooks one over his carapace.
“I thought you wanted to watch,” she says, though that doesn’t stop her from rocking her hips into his mouth. His talons curl into her hip, leaving her skin prickling; they don’t quite break it and she wants to twist, have him leave his mark.
He pulls away slowly and Shepard hisses—both at the absence and the curl and flick of his tongue as he does. “What can I say,” he murmurs, breath hot and damp against her, little more than a pant. Garrus’ eyes are bright as she raises her head, but no less focused. She can count on one hand the number of times he’s looked at her like that, and then his flexes around her hip and yanks her a few inches down the bed. Her breath leaves her in a punch and the fingers not circling her clit scramble for the bedding with a harsh oh, shit. A low hum follows her in response, one she can feel in the calf resting against his carapace. His groan reverberates like a whine. “I’m a very hands-on learner.”
“Well, in that case…” She lifts her hand, tracing a wet fingertip over an indent in his upper maxillary plate. His mandible flicks against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh again. “Got no where else to be for a while.”
“Hmm, good.”
A shiver wracks its way through her, and his gaze darts to her chest, a pebbled nipple and the flare of a scar over her side. The bedding pulls as he moves, better settling himself between her thighs, seeking out her eyes as he breathes against her knuckles, letting it ghost over her clit. His maxillary plate nudges her hand until she moves it out of his way. He groans into her folds as she brushes her fingers along his fringe.
Once, he told her he’s always been very thorough, Shepard. Granted, that often came in a different context, but he’s nothing if not diligent. His mouth is warm and her stomach clenches at the gentle and then insistent prod of his tongue. Without her guidance he’s a little slower now, eyes searing into hers as he watches each twitch and stifled breath.
His talons dig into her side. At least this time they have time—time for him to trace a scar on her flank, not unlike the ones she had Chakwas examine on her face. The slow trail pauses when her free hand closes over his. Not for the first time she marvels at the differences between them: the size of one of his compared to hers, the natural plates versus her acquired callouses and his surprisingly smooth hide where her hands are often dry out here in space.
She keeps her gaze on his, and he curls his tongue and watches her eyelids flutter as she fights closing them. She wants to see him. Her nails bite into his palm.
“How many?” he asks.
“How many what?” she pants, white knuckling his hand. She raises her head a little to get a better read on him and “Oh, shit.”
His subvocals tease the edges of her hearing, but it’s the hum that burrows into her.
Nerves alight—burning through her enough the scars on her stomach have to be glowing—she rolls her hips up with a drawn-out moan. Or at least as much as he will allow, grip tightening like he thinks she might buck him off. He follows, tongue curling, pressing, unrelenting, and she nearly chokes when his upper plate brushes her clit.
Shepard grips at his fringe with the hand that isn’t currently clutching at his.
“Jane,” he murmurs in the time it takes for her to drag in a breath and he nuzzles the inside of her thigh with a wet glide of his plates. He nips at the delicate skin there and her stomach lurches. She shoves up onto her elbows, chest heaving, and his hand lets go of her breast to glide down her side, pricking the skin and muscle over her ribs.
The reprieve is brief. She twitches at the sensation of a mandible against her leg, and the ragged, almost pained exhale, the arousal woven into his subvocals before his tongue flicks out to his lower plate, then the length of her cunt.
“Are you always soaked like this?” he asks, and a laugh almost shreds out of her throat. She meets his gaze and has to look away, because beneath the headiness and arousal there’s something like devotion in his eyes, tucked between her legs.
“You asked that last time. You’re going to be insufferable.”
“I thought you already thought I was.” He presses his mouth plates to the space above her clit in the pantomime of a kiss. She tilts her head and he deliberately pushes back on her hip as she tries to chase him, pinning it to the bed. The heat gathered in her core pulses.
He settles onto the bed again, letting go of her long enough in order to slip both arms under her thighs. His hands wrap around her hips, talons biting into the skin without breaking it. Her eyes meet his and she watches, breathing uneven, as Garrus slowly slips his tongue back into her. She groans, a fractured sound he matches, each curl and flick deliberate and measured. As always, he’s thorough and methodical in his work, always dedicated to everything he does, nothing half-assed about it. At this rate he might as well be cataloguing each flicker of movement, quickly learning her little tells and moving to match them. His tongue is much more prehensile than anything she’s used to, and he offers her a slow blink before his eyes shutter.
Shepard curses around a pant, a sigh that could be a sob; the sensation borders on overwhelming, something desperate and hungry, and as she tries to twist away his grip tightens, pulling her back to him with a low, flanging note.
She’s close, she’s close, she’s—louder than she usually is, after years of shared quarters and tight spaces, until now when it’s just the two of them. There’s a vulnerable sort of freedom in that, and she tries not to think too much of the walls coming down around it. A muscle in her thigh quivers as her legs try to close around his head. It’s—still too much but not enough at the same time. Her foot hits the back of his carapace and earns her a firm grunt.
The bedding twists around her fingers while her other hand reaches for his crest, chest heaving while she chases an orgasm that eludes her, leaving her just on the cusp. With another attempt to rock her hips, he loosens his hold enough to follow her with it, curling his tongue in a way that has her letting out a keen turned pant. Where others had been reliable but more focused on getting through the task at hand, he’s attentive, chasing after the sounds she makes and the ones she didn’t realize she could.
For something that was supposed to be casual this is anything but. Through the haze of her arousal, the split seconds between her ah ah and his moans, the beginning of an orgasm teases along her fractured nerves before it suddenly hits a wall and only lingers.
Shepard chokes, the bed vibrating under her ass as a low rumble bleeds out of his chest.
“I, ah—”
“What do you need?” he asks, and she nearly shoves his head back down before the tip of his tongue traces along her folds. The words are almost forced out of him as she realizes he’s grinding into the mattress.
“I,” she tries to swallow, though it’s forced and dry, and her moan reaches a new pitch as he continues his ministrations. “I need more. Need you to—ha, your hands, your—” her toes curl, heels knocking against his back.
“Show me.” Garrus hums, leaving a trail of red lines as he lets go of her hip. She rolls them up to him, met with his petulant grunt as he shoves her back against the bed, the insubordinate, cocky bastard. His gaze locks on the hand she slips between them, fingers slipping between her folds and then he nods to himself.
His hand is warm and rough as his fingers dance along her cunt, his breath hot as his fingers part her folds and she draws hers back. She rolls her head to watch him as he licks a line up the length of her before circling her clit with his tongue.
A splintered moan follows as he slips a finger inside of her, and he pants as her walls flex around it. It isn’t long before his other follows, and they curl gently, coaxing, seeking, before taking on a new fervor. His names breaks between an ahh and warbling moans, half pleas she bites back to offer a yes yes yes instead.
“I want to hear you,” Garrus says again, tongue grazing over her clit with a slow drag. There’s a thin, reedy whine in his voice that Shepard doesn’t get to focus on as he scissors his fingers and slips his tongue in between them.
Her back bows and she clenches around him, “oh, god, Garrus,” coming out in such a rush that it’s almost one word. The hand that isn’t trying to shred a blanket paws at his crest, seeking out an anchor. One of his talons pierces her skin as she twists. “Yes, you’re so good, oh, god—ohhh. Curl them like—you just—you’re so good to me, oh, god—fuck!”
Shepard comes with a moan that cracks in the middle, one that’s half breath and half a choked name, orgasm crashing through her as she writhes, caught between chasing that wave and some semblance of her self-control. Garrus groans and her fist slams against the bed, nails dragging at fibers with a forceful pant that raises in pitch. He slows his motions to a crawl and then a standstill, the ghost of his touch and breath washing over her before he swallows back his tongue and extracts his fingers.
Her heart thuds against her ribs, pressing up against the reconstituted bone and cybernetics as if it means to burst through them. The scars blossoming up her side have to be flaring, and Garrus ghosts his fingers along them after letting go of her hip. Under his gentle guidance, her legs fall back to the bed, and she leaves them splayed as the rest of her works to catch up.
The mattress dips as he slips between her knees and she catches the rasp of a sleeve and clink of buckles. Shepard opens her eyes to find him over her, hands braced on either side of her head.
“Are you okay?”
A laugh stumbles out of her, and his mandibles flare in alarm before pulling back to his jaw.
“Holy shit, where did you learn that?”
He huffs, elbows bent to lower himself instead of looming above her. There’s a sheen to his mouth plates, and then she looks up to his eyes. Garrus leans to the side and the back the back of a knuckle glides along her cheek, brushing hair away from her eye. “Helps that you’re very responsive.”
Shepard hums, almost a sigh. “I thought you said you wanted to watch.”
“I did say that… just didn’t specify what.”
His laugh is that deeper, flanging one, the dual tones warm and heady, and she raises her chin as she catches her breath. A talon traces the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw and a small scar before trailing along the column of her throat. Maybe he can feel her jack rabbit pulse; up close sometimes he likes to watch her eyelashes—says they’re fascinating, and then his eyes slip closed as she runs her fingers along his fringe.
“So, what’s the verdict?”
Little pinpricks of blue look back at her as he says, “Not sure. Another demonstration might be in order.”
“You really are insufferable.”
Garrus leans down to nuzzle the other side of her face. His breath fans out along her jaw.
“I don’t hear you complaining,” he murmurs, and it melds into a low laugh when his tongue darts out to drag up the line of her throat. Shepard tilts her head and it follows down her pulse, to the dip of her clavicle and a scattering of freckles.
“Why, you taking notes?”
“Well…”
Her fingers drum on his forearm. “Fishing, Vakarian.”
He pulls back as her hands come to rest on his cowl, the material of his collar too warm beneath her fingers. He radiates heat, feeling a few degrees warmer than he usually does, and his breath is a little heavier. Slowly, she reaches up to cup the side of his face, catching the slight indentations of the scars beneath the covering he still wears.
Garrus meets her eyes again, and it nearly knocks the wind out of her in a whole new way as his fingers flex and she feels the sheets snag under her head.
When he doesn’t pull away her other arm winds around his neck, and she catches his stuttered pant as the inside of her thigh brushes his trapped erection.
She isn’t certain who moves first—if it’s him leaning to brush his crest against her forehead or her tilting her head, but then his mouth is slotted over hers in that strange way that works perfectly. His plates offer a little give, smoother than she thought they would have been the first time around, and she traces her tongue along the lip of his lower one before he follows suit, slipping his tongue between her teeth. She can still taste traces of herself, and she can’t stifle the moan as his tongue curls around hers. What experience he’d lacked he’d made up for in enthusiasm, and a mandible flicks as she tilts her head and pulls him closer.
This, she realizes, is the first time she’s kissed him since he came up to her cabin tonight. Where other times they’ve been rushed, there’s a thoroughness to it now: how his hand moves to cradle the back of her head, how she catches the edge of a tooth. There’s nothing casual about the way they move around one another. His hand slips between her shoulder blades and he pulls her up to meet him.
Her hands glide down his body, tugging at the front of his shirt and one of the undone buckles.
“Shepard,” he says when he’s pulled his tongue back long enough and she chases it. He lowers himself and she winces at the rough material of his shirt against a sensitive nipple. “Sorry,” he murmurs before lowering her back to the bed. He presses another kiss against her mouth.
“Still think you’re a little overdressed for the occasion.”
Garrus hums with a different glint in his eye, and she watch him careful extract himself, working his way back down the bed. His eyes never once leave her—not as he works his shirt over his carapace, not as she pushes up onto her elbows and he slides his pants and band of underwear over his hips. Getting them off his spurs takes a little more maneuvering at this angle, but the thud and rustle is an afterthought as he slides back between her knees.
Maybe there’s some serious consideration to do, given she’s attracted to someone who her hind brain says is a definite threat with the teeth and talons and the way he prowls back up her body—and why that seems to do it for her. Her thighs part to make room.
Or maybe it’s not that, though it could be part of it—it’s the man underneath that haze of arousal and the smell of sex in her cabin. It’s not that he’s a turian, an alien or novelty. He’s Garrus—he’s endearing but also a nerd, sarcastic and makes her laugh and listens like each of her words have weight. He’s the best shot she knows and can work through math and calibrations at a rate that would make her head spin, but he gets flustered when she hits on him. He's her best friend. Now, a week later, he lets her tuck her feet under his thighs when they’re cold. He knows her favorite snacks and she’s picked up the music he likes to listen to. Together, they named most of her fish. He’s one of Shepard’s favorite people to spend time with.
Sometimes he marks her up on accident and apologizes and tries to kiss them but has mouth plates instead of lips and it’s sweet. Two nights ago, he’d started with his head on her shoulder, and then it was in her lap during a vid and he dozed off to her stroking along his fringe and lines of his face like this was something real between them. And maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t, but it’s real enough for her, here.
Garrus trails his way up her body, brushing a maxillary plate against a scar here, a freckle there. Makes his way up her thighs, her stomach, lingering at the bruise that separates it from her chest.
He’s her best friend, the first solid sign of relief since she woke up, and he’d never doubted her.
He asked a few times, but never really pushed—she didn’t always want to talk because who would, but when she did he listened. He didn’t try to solve all of her problems: he acknowledged them and offered to walk into hell at her side. She spent time with him and felt like Shepard again. He saw her scars but he saw her too. How does she tell him that?
“Jane, don’t think I didn’t notice,” Garrus says, tongue gliding along her clavicle. Before, the touch wouldn’t have done anything for her, but his good mandible flicks in a grin. The skylight blazes behind him, the stars their silent audience, and for a moment the sight doesn’t fill her with a glimmer dread. “You never answered my question earlier.”
As he slots himself between her hips, she curls her leg until she can kick him in the ass. He grunts.
“What question was that?”
“How many?”
His voice is a little rougher as his cock smears precum and his lubrication against the inside of her thigh and Shepard shakes her head. Sweat tacks hair to her neck. So much for that shower. “Ha—do you intend to find out?”
“Hmm…” he draws it out, nuzzling the side of her face. “You did say before that you had no where else to be for a while…”
A muscle spasms in her stomach.
He did research but she did some of her own, too. Found a few diagrams and then did, indeed, feel clinic and dirty. Doesn’t stop her from reaching for his chest and snaking a hand between them, only to be met with a firm grunt that stutters into a groan as her fingers close around his cock. He thrusts into her grip, at first loose and then tightening around the base, and his crest falls to rest in the crook of her shoulder. Shepard drags her nails down his chest, all the plates and the warm hide between them.
His hips jerk and he pants into her clavicle, mandible twitching against the overheated skin. Tilting her head, she presses a cheek to his temple and glances down between them. She feathers her fingers down his side, tracing the smooth jut of a plate and then follows along his waist with a slow drag.
The moan that slips through his teeth reeks of pain, something desperate choked back, and his teeth click as he thrusts.
“S—Shepard,” he starts. He rocks into her grip, and she can feel his subvocal in her side, her chest. “Inside you. I want to—can I?”
She nods, giving him one last stroke before spreading her legs as he takes hold of his cock. He hisses through his teeth, an almost whistle escaping the gaps between his mandibles, and a moan tears through her throat at the first glance of his cock against her folds. Still warm, still sensitive, she bites on her tongue and he pauses before the tapered head slowly slides into her, his first thrust shallow.
“Ohh you feel so good,” he says. Garrus only murmurs to himself sometimes—often when he’s focused, glowering at his console before his talons drum against it and he calls a string of numbers slippery little bastards. He’s cocky on the field too, but often with good reason. In her bed, bowed over her, he speaks with a vulnerability to his inflection she isn’t fully prepared to deal with.
She closes her eyes, rocking into him and forcing him deeper. He lowers himself to his elbows.
But that vulnerability had been there too when he said he wanted something, this, to go right, the silence drowning out the last notes of club music. They’d lost any preamble of being casual when she kissed him.
He thrusts again, ridges dragging along her inner walls and he huffs.
“Oh, god,” she grounds out, nails biting into the unplated skin of his waist. His crest nudges her chin.
A hand settles on her side, gliding up ribs and scars, pausing to run the rough pad of his thumb over her nipple and she gasps. He does it again, chasing the sound, and his mouth plates close over her lower lip. The first time had been an accident, and once again his tongue snakes out to soothe over the sting. His hum is a low vibrato and she swallows back the sound on her next inhale.
“Do you know how you feel?” she asks, pressing a fleeting kiss to the prong of a mandible. “You’re so good to me, so,” her brow pinches as he thrusts, “thorough. No one else makes me feel like this. There’s no one I trust more than you.”
Garrus groans and oh, she likes that sound and could get used to it. The flanging quality of his voice, the different timbre of it, the revelation that right now she’s the only one who gets to hear it. He’s the only one who gets her too—the pieces she hands over, the ones he’s already seen. Miranda may have rebuilt her, but Garrus is still the one who knows her best.
Her toes curl.
She rests a hand against his face covering, angling him to meet her. She clenches and his next thrust is slower, ridges catching again before he repeats the motion on the way back in until he’s grinding his hips into her. Tracing her lips over the gap between his maxillary plates and slipping her tongue into his mouth, her legs tighten around his waist as that wave builds again, tugging at her core in a way that never really abated. When he drops his hips the base of his cock drags across her clit and she gasps. His thumb stutters over her nipple again.
“Jane, I want to feel you,” he manages as she forcibly clenches around him; the sound he makes is akin to a growl, a sound forced out of his chest, carrying a hint of pain and—“I want to see you, can I—” Garrus doesn’t shiver, but he does rub his crest against her forehead like he means to meld the two of them together.
“Inside,” she whispers to him, voice no less firm and his subvocals thrum against her sternum. She hikes her legs up his side, heels locked together against his ass. “I want you to.”
He groans again, and then his tongue is in her mouth and Shepard’s nails dig into him, carving into the outer layers of chitin; maybe enough and she can leave a mark and take him with her, carry around little traces in her nail bed. Garrus pauses with his tongue at the roof of her mouth with a few last thrusts and comes with a low moan, a keen she can feel in her teeth. The pillow is yanked out from under her head.
She grinds up into him, drawing out his orgasm and chasing her own, and slips a hand between them. Her fingers slide over her clit, teeth knocking against his mouth plate, and then he’s pulling away, eyes half-lidded and sliding into and out of focus as she circles her clit.
Their eyes meet, her teeth closing over her lower lip as the wave fractures apart, dragging her with it as her head falls back. Her cunt spasms and clenches around him, and her hand falls away as she rides out the static shocks down her to toes. His breath pants over her throat as Garrus tucks his head into her neck with soft moan at the oversensitivity and weak thrusts.
Shepard pants, ragged and hoarse, and allows herself to sink into a boneless lull for a moment. Her arms hang loose around his neck, his pulse thrumming under her biceps.
He lets out a grunt when she nudges him, and then another, more annoyed one when she tries to push him away. Shepard might not be weak, but he’s heavy. He hasn’t fully drawn his tongue back into his mouth as he slides it up her own hammering pulse, giving her one last flick and she shivers. Her chest rises and falls as she catches her breath, her heart pounding beneath his knuckles.
“Fuck,” she says as he moves, slipping out of her with a hiss from both of them. Her thighs ache and feel like a mess.
“Mhm. Tapping out, Shepard?”
She breathes out a laugh, an exhale and a groan all in one. Her knees knock against his hips and she drags her nails down the plates on the side of his neck. “Not on your life.”
He lowers his head to nudge his crest against her forehead. She pants softly into his mouth and his tongue flicks at his upper plate. “I wasn’t done.” He sighs, mandibles falling out in that content way they seem to lately, behind closed doors and around corners. “Just, uh, give me a minute though.”
Her fingers trace where his neck meets the swoop of his cowl. “Sounds like you were all talk then.”
Garrus scoffs, eyes flicking in a learned roll. “You know me, since when have I ever been?”
Shepard glides her hands down his arms, the places where hide meets plate and the muscles coiled beneath them. She gets to his elbows and pats them both with open palms.
“As cocky as ever. I’ll hold you to your word,” Shepard says. “Let me up?”
It doesn’t take much, and then Garrus rolls over to flop limply to her side, an ease to the motion and his breathing. He’s comfortable, so he doesn’t see her wince as she scoots to the foot of the bed. At least the floor is cool beneath her toes, contrasting the way the rest of her still feels overheated, and pads her way back to the bathroom. She can feel his eyes on her, lingering on the stretch of muscle along her back, and she stops at the top of the stairs to look at him over her shoulder.
“I’m just admiring the view,” he says, and she snatches the towel she left on her desk to pitch it at him. One mandible flares in a sly grin as he grabs it.
“Smartass.”
The bathroom door slides shut behind her and she takes the moment alone to close her eyes. She scrubs her hands down her face and then sets about cleaning herself up. As she washes her hands she gauges her reflection in the mirror, the redden spots when his plates dragged against her skin, the dotting along the column of her throat from his mouth instead of proper hickeys—or at least the kind she’s used to. Over the flush of the toilet, she catches the sound of movement in the cabin and her gaze darts to the door.
When she steps back out he’s setting the pillow he threw back on the bed. Her pajamas are folded on the low table and the towel over the back of the chair he’s righted. Garrus turns to watch her come back down the stairs, watches her approach him until all that’s left between them is the space they’ve put there.
“I should probably get going,” he says, in the same way he talks about anything he doesn’t necessarily want to do. She thinks of last time, of how remarkably cold the room had felt. How cold it starts to feel now.
“Or you could stay,” she says. And he stills, half dressed by her bed, and she reaches to tug her sleep shirt back over her head. Put them on even footing at all—plus, this way she doesn’t have to see his face when he shakes his head and says no. Again. He hasn’t stayed any other time—she tries not to think about that too much.
Garrus turns to look at her for a long moment, fluffing her hair out of her collar. She really should wash it again. “Do you want me to?”
The note in his voice, between the dual tones and the subvocals, is something too raw and vulnerable. He’s looking at her like he’s waiting for her to say she was just kidding, now get the hell out so she can go to sleep.
“I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise,” Shepard says after a beat, after the silence has pressed on long enough between them. The aquarium gurgles, the Normandy hums, and the air cools as it’s recycled.
Garrus pauses again and dread creeps up her spine because she just ruined whatever this was between them. He takes a step, and then another, and she meets him as he bends to press his crest against her forehead.
“Are you going to kick me in your sleep?” he asks, and it almost startles a laugh out of her.
“Only if you deserve it.”
“Am I allowed to kick back?”
“If you want to get kicked out,” she says, tugging her underwear back on. The armor locker flickers to life as she steps around her bed and turns the sheets down. She doesn’t hear him move, and then his belt clinks before he’s folding his pants and placing them on her desk. Shepard passes him a glance and his gaze lingers on her old helmet, hand curling before he draws it back to his side.
It takes a bit to settle, finding an arrangement that’s more comfortable than convenient, but soon they’re facing one another, and she tugs the blanket up to her chin and he’s warm under the covers. Garrus digs an elbow into a pillow, jamming it into his cowl in a way that looks miserable but passable. Maybe she should get some new ones for him. Maybe that’s more than she wants to think about.
Her hand slips under the sheet until it finds his, palm spread across the mattress, and he freezes. Her fingers slip around his to squeeze before drawing her hand back, and then he’s reaching out to wind an arm around the small of her back and pulling her closer.
Somehow sharing a bed with him is more intimate than anything else, and he was inside her only a few minutes ago. It feels like a mistake in every way that isn’t.
She sighs into his chest, eyelashes he likes dragging against a plate until she turns her head for something more comfortable. Her fingers drum along his side with, “If you steal all the blankets, I’m definitely kicking you out.”
“Dammit,” he mutters, talons softly dragging along her skin where her shirt’s ridden up. “That was my whole plan: steal blankets and commandeer your shower.”
“Okay, go sleep on the couch.” She snorts.
She can feel his laugh against her cheek, the gentle rumble of it as he settles. It shouldn’t be easy, with someone who is all hard edges and rough skin, but his embrace is warm and secure without being too tight. Shepard rolls to rest her head on his bicep, his elbow bent across her stomach. She listens to his breathing even out, the shift in the arm holding her that slackens only fractionally. His breath whistles softly through his mandibles and she has to suppress a snicker.
In the morning, she decides, watching how some plates flex while others don’t, the small twitches of his nose plates. Tomorrow, she will tell him that Joker’s already plotted a course for the Viper Nebula, that she’s due on Aratoht. For now, this feels real enough, and he’s warm and asleep beside her, and she looks up at the skylight, watching the stars. She doesn’t sleep.