Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hell of a day,” she heard him say. His timbered voice releasing in a sigh as she felt the give of the couch next to her. She nodded her head and felt a slight scoff leave her lips in agreement.

“It truly has been,” she closed her eyes and ran a hand down her face, falling backwards until her shoulders hit the cushions behind her. Shepard looked up into the angled room and let her eyes briefly glance through the observation window there before turning and looking at the profile of the Turian by her side.

She remembered when they first met, a lifetime ago -literally for her- it seemed. The side of his face, cheek, and mandible closest to her were now scarred, deep trenches and welts of healed flesh that had bled with the grief and mourning of a life he had lost too. Two years was a long time. Two years was longer than the time she truthfully knew him. It caused her sadness when she thought about what he had had to endure without her. She wasn’t there to protect him. Help him. Burden the weight that had undoubtedly pressed down on his shoulders day after day.

He turned to look at her, grey eyes confident when they held her gaze. A small grin found itself perched on her lips when she remembered their first moments tiptoeing along something far more than friendship. How uncertain they had both been. Almost scared, but willing to take the leap if the other did so with them.

“Udina loses his mind, the Citadel almost falls, and you almost had to put down a friend,” they both recognized the implications there. She swallowed thickly. The adrenaline that had coursed through her on that platform had disentangled itself from her muscles leaving her exhausted at the memory. “And Thane…”

Garrus looked down and then away before he, too, fell back against the cushions. His fringe barely clearing the back of it. Shepard’s heart ached. Her green gaze turning out to the room as she thought of everything that had just happened. Kaidan standing between her and Udina – the councilor turned traitor – pistol to pistol. Glare to glare. Deeper still to the sound of blade easily slicing through flesh that housed the soul of one of the greatest men she had ever had the privilege to meet and to befriend.

His coughing words as he spoke to her, to his son for the last time.

And his last gentle gift to her that made her believe in every fiber of her being that he was truly the greater of them. Lost in a war that he never should have been forced to fight.

She tried to take comfort that he met his death locked in battle. The way they all would want to go.

“He died a hero.”

Her words came out shakily and she looked down just as Garrus’ three fingered hand laid atop hers, squeezing and gently lacing their fingers together. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to. The grief hung in the air like threads of lights flickering their way along the bareness of the room. Later, when they could come up for air they would mourn him. They would say his name in conversation again. Repeat his words of wisdom. She closed her eyes – a soft prayer to a Goddess he served floating along her thoughts – a promise that he would be mourned properly. A life changing loss stood before her and she would never forget him.

She inhaled through her nose, her chest shaking under the deep breath before she looked back over to Garrus, “I let Kaidan return.”

“I know,” he clipped, one mandible slapping against his jaw the only true emotion behind his words.

“You don’t approve?”

A heavy silence fell between them before he finally looked back to her. Garrus was her best friend, her lover, but more than that he was her constant. Her advisor. Where he had once been so hot-headed and full of angry haste to find justice by any means, he had evolved into someone she often sought knowledge from. Opinions and tactics and confirmation. Approval. Reprimands. Even when he didn’t agree with her, she found solace in his advice. Some she took, some she didn’t – but always she valued.

For a long moment he just stared at her. He was hesitating, his brow plates shifted just enough for her to realize he was struggling with finding the words to say. It puzzled her. Garrus rarely hesitated on speaking to her. She waited patiently, green eyes looking to grey before he finally bowed his head and released an intense and confusing sigh, “Approve? I don't know, but he is our friend.”

That…she frowned and tilted her head. A curious brow raising as she urged him to elaborate without asking him to.

“I don’t know, Shepard,” there was something dark lacing the purr of his voice, “Seeing him raise his gun to you…his finger on that trigger….” Garrus’ mandibles flared outward and then vibrated downward baring razor sharp fangs that were always hidden, “It took everything in me to remember that fact.”

It was her turn to squeeze his hand, but she kept the pressure, “He was doing what he thought was right.”

“A trigger finger in your direction is never right.”

His words held such a distinct declaration, she felt humbled by them. She could feel his anger bubbling up and around them and it warmed her in places that were always cold. “We all had our guns pointed on him too, Garrus.”

He shook his head, “Your finger never left station, safety was on…”

“And yours?”

He didn’t say anything, but he dropped his gaze and turned his face away from her, “This war….if it had come down to it…” he looked at her sideways, “Could you have pulled the trigger?”

Shepard realized that this was one of those moments. In this war that had started long ago – before their time – before their species and so many before them – these were always these moments. Would you break and turn on one another? Would you allow the weight of the impending unknown change core reasoning and trust and the utter essence of who and what you were? War did that. Every single time. It was one shot after another. She sighed and thought of the mountains of bodies she had left behind her throughout her career. All in the name of…what ...she didn’t know.

“I don’t see how…” she would say softly, brows pulled tightly downward as she thought of the right words to say. Were there any? “We start killing our friends, then war turns into murder.”

“But it doesn’t always give us the easy way out does it?” It sounded rhetorical, he seemed so tired before her. And she gave his hand a firmer hold, bring it to her lips to press a loving kiss against it, “At least Kaidan didn’t have to join Ash.”

Shepard relaxed their hands back down between them. Following their movements with her eyes. She found comfort in the way they fit so perfectly together. Her gaze lifting to follow his arm back up to his relaxed profile. His eyes were closed as he allowed himself to settle into comfortable silence.

This war…though unimaginable in the weight of it …was beautiful to her.

So many species were coming together to unite underneath one singular purpose. It was terrifying, it was raw and old wounds that festered and oozed were slowly being tended to. One cut at a time, one infection after another. It was echoed out along the stars – the turning of a tide somewhere, pushing and pulling against the horizon that would either take them around to a new world or drop them off into an abyss that no one would come back from.

But this…she sighed softly as she looked back down to her hand in his – this was something she would fight for. Shield and protect. Die for.

“You’re doing it again,” his words cut through the air, pulling her attention back to his face.

“What?”

“You know,” he said and pulled her closer to him, she shifted along the length of the couch, but he pulled further – Shepard angled up onto one knee, gently throwing her leg over his lap and settling down on his large thighs. Their armor keeping them at a distance, but it was no less comfortable. Never anything less than exactly right.

His hands came up and around her shoulders, thumbs tracing the hard line of her armor at the base of her neck. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin down as she felt him find the first clasp that would start the removal of her extra body. This armor or hers – worn too much – too long – too intimately. Long had it been since it was merely equipment. Now it was a second skin, a second home. Garrus always took his time when he did this. As if each little hatch was foreplay and it thrilled her to see the way his mandibles and plates shifted and clicked and vibrated along with each of his movements. His eyes concentrating in on her. She felt exposed to him even fully clothed. His sniper-focus eyes trailing down skin he had already tasted hungrily.

Would it always feel like this?

A little bit foreign, a little too surreal? Too good for someone like her.

She closed her eyes when his hands slid to her waist. Talons under his gloves scraping there dangerously, she knew what they felt like against her skin. When he was lost to the sensations they found together. It caused her breath to hitch when he pressed hard and twisted at the chest piece connection. Cool air immediately flooding into the gap between her leg armor and the torso. He shook and pulled it off of her with knowledgeable ease. Setting it gently down on the couch beside them before pulling her arms free as well. His gloved hands scraping up heated skin – sensitive to the touch – the anticipation of feeling.

He brought her forward with both hands on her upper arms and slanted his mouth against her own. Without her armor they were able to manage this easily, her chest pressing against his armor – morphing so she could fit. He had called her soft once – not so long ago- a whispered confession when he had gripped too hard and rash. Later, after his arms brought her back onto solid ground after a leap that had both terrified her and filled her with a desire to live – he had taken his words back.

She could feel one of his hands move to splay at the back of her neck, fingertips digging upward to tangle in her hair as his tongue danced with hers. They had found that her tongue in his mouth only caused sharp tears and bloodied lesions and so it was always his tongue in her mouth. Thick, but thinner than her human one, long enough to curl to the back of her teeth and forked just barely at the end where he had learned to please her with flicks and twirls that only his kind could manage.

The thought of it caused her to moan into the kiss. Her hips rocking forward as her back arched. Remembering every delicious thing about him always moved her closer. Closer to that feeling that only he provided. Indescribable but intoxicating.

When he moved, he moved with her. Grabbing her hips and standing easily, adjusting her legs around his waist, never once breaking the kiss until she felt him lower her down on her bed with a bit of a clumsy fall. Their noses clashed together and he swore slightly as she giggled against the slight pain radiating inward.

“Sorry,” he said and kissed her nose gently.

The frown that followed him when he pulled away made him laugh, she looked to him in confusion, his head shaking at her obvious protest but grinning as her eyes landed on his hands. He quickly lost his own armor – and she thanked whatever engineer who had designed the Turian kind that it was not piece by piece, but two large easily removed chunks that dropped against the floor. His hands found her hips and he removed her bottom half. Hatch after hatch after hatch. She relaxed back down onto the bed, eyes steadily watching him.

This was her favorite part.

But something was different now. As he looked down to her, normally his gaze filled with wild curiosity and barely restraint desire – now they narrowed dangerously along her form. There was something almost sinister about the way his mandibles worked under his gaze as he let one knee fall to the bed and reached out to grab one of her hips.

It was rough, his talons sliding into her skin nearly to the point of puncture before they slashed downward and destroyed her undergarments. She hissed at the feel of him ripping the rest of the fabric off, surely a welt would appear later from that. He looked up to her and all thoughts left her at the predator that crawled up the length of her body.

She felt so small then, entranced by this being that had always looked at her with open curiosity and fevered devotion – but now – now she felt utterly human. Like she was a lamb to slaughter. Some part of her somewhere hackled at the thought. Fight or flight instinct started warring with the lust and love that had always found itself easy within her at the sight of him. “Garrus?”

Her voice didn’t sound like her own, felt like glass tearing against her throat as her body tensed, waiting for the attack that was coming. Memories of a long-ago place tried desperately to invade her mind and she fought them back. This was Garrus. This was Garrus. This was Garrus.

“Look at me,” when had she closed her eyes?

Her lids opened and she looked into his eyes, darker charcoal in their depth now, gone was the grey she was so accustomed to. Her heart raced against her skin, when she felt fear tingle down her spine, slowly mingling with the desire that still vibrated through every part of her. Fight or Flight. This was Garrus.

He kissed her then. One hand coming to cup the side of her face so delicately she almost cried in relief. This was Garrus. His body laid heavy against hers. Familiar. Hot. Hard in places she had only known give before. Alien to her species but mapped and discovered by her. His kiss ended, “Look at me.”

He demanded again and she did. Forcing herself to look into the darkened hues of his irises.

“I would have killed him,” he said, he moved to rest on one elbow, his other hand sliding roughly down her ribs, nails pressed just enough into her skin to leave angry red lines in their wake. “I almost did,” he admitted, and she gasped when his hand shifted to settle between her thighs. He didn’t spread her folds or touch her intimately, but his large hand splayed against her mound and pressed upward. Grasping her core as he growled low and deep, “I wanted to.”

She had no words to say here. Language seemed lost to her. She could understand what he was saying, but she couldn’t speak and when one of his fingers slipped between her lower lips and came to tease at her clit, she didn’t want to speak. Her body instinctively raised towards his hand, and he purred at her response.

“No body,” he allowed his words to be enunciated by a heavy swirl around the bundle of nerves, “Better hurt you – Shepard,” his shoulders sagged just slightly as she felt his finger leave her just to slip downward and curl inside her at a practiced angle. Her little moan was swallowed as she felt herself open up to him, knees parting, back arching, eyes closing at the sensation.

“Look at me,” he bit out and he tore his hand out of her and moved away from her.

Her eyes snapped open, focusing first on the ceiling, and then falling on the Turian who perched on both knees before her. It gave her the barest of moments to allow her gaze to drop to admire him. Wide shoulders that housed strong arms, his carapace strong and sharp around the softer parts of his neck and shoulders, the plates of him all sharp angles of ‘v’s that seemed to point downward towards the muscular thin waist that was strong and sturdy. His hip bones flat out against them, with legs that were thick with muscle and bones that angled differently but provided him with the ever straight unyielding hold of his spine that never faltered and never broke. He was beautiful in his own right – had always been.

He grabbed her legs and twisted, the motion foreign and rough and when her hips followed them he grabbed them and pulled her rear backwards to him as she settled on her knees and elbows. This wasn’t exactly the first time this angle had been explored. By now they had tried so many different ways to experience on each other, but this was something entirely different.

It was an unknown. The human in her wanted to retreat. The basic instinct for survival clear on knowing that this man was not a friend. But the Commander in her never retreated. And the lover in her knew he was. It left her body shaking before him, her chin on her shoulder as she tried to watch him.

“I…” his voice faltered, the plains of his body coming down to mold along her back, a small delicate kiss was given to the base of her neck, “I have to…” he was struggling and she didn’t understand why, this was not something she knew how to nagivate through. But the way one of his hands gripped her, talons digging into her and ripping the skin at her hip she was slowly becoming aware that this was…deeper…significant. This was all Turian without any trace of control or humanity playing at his edges. This was every bit of his nature that she had never been privy to because they were different and sometimes the great divide really was too far to travel.

Shepard moved backwards against him. Just a small tiny movement of…consent. Of understanding. Of trust.

He snarled against the back of her throat, a sound she had never heard before and she closed her eyes and dropped her head to rest her forehead on her forearm. Her body relaxed, but her shoulder’s tense as the warmth of his body peeled away from the gentle slope it had just been settled into.

His hand between her legs was not gentle.

Sharp talons spread her wide, they didn’t tease at her or prepare her for what was to come. Nothing about this was familiar or careful. But she kept her eyes closed and felt it. Felt it all. Felt the sting of nails tearing skin, of rough callousing gripping so tight and stretching too far against flesh that would bruise with ugly blacks and blues and yellows. Her breath caught when she felt the tip of him, normally he would take time to let it slide along the wetness he always found there.

This time, her arousal – though still coursing through her in a subtle and submissive undertone, was not so lubricative. Inside she was wet, hot, but it didn’t provide much assistance to the brutal way he connected with her. His length sliding into her with a growl, a sharp crack of his mandible and the sound of ripping skin as his hand freed itself from her hip and grabbed at her side.

It was an unrelenting shift of body to body. He pulled out and slammed in against her with with a force that jarred her. Raw and quick and demanding. Dominating. His hands found her wherever they could hold. Her sides, her breast, her shoulders, the back of her neck, fisting her hair so tightly her back arched as he pulled at it and she was lifted up off her elbows and suspended in front of him. The other arm curled around her torso as he fucked her. His breath against her shoulder was like an anchor being tossed into the great void she was being held in. It was too real, too familiar, too much like the Garrus that always had tenderness behind his touch.

It caused her body to tense and begin to respond. A little hum of need fluttered through her and she felt her own hand move to find her hooded nerves between her thighs. Skillfully she played there, fingers knowing her own form expertly and she marvelled at the wave of ecstasy that released within her when his speed increased painfully behind her, his crisscrossed arm across her torso tightening its hold. Her ribs contracting at the angle and she found it harder to breath. He pulled her back against him, his knees shifting forward as her legs slid to either side of his hips – this angle odd and compressing, as she felt both suspended and held down.

His free hand found the column of her throat and he laid it there, his grip tight as he pulled her head back onto his shoulder. His chest was tight behind her shoulder blades, his lips hovering over her exposed neck. When she felt his mouth opened and spread against the top of her shoulder, just over the muscle that blended upward into her neck, she felt her fingers speed up against her own core. She…wanted…God what did she want? She needed him…

Tears formed behind her eyes because she didn’t know. She didn’t understand. She was everywhere and no where all at once. She was the past and the present and they were the future. He was kind and caring and dark and scary and she wanted every part of it. Desired the good and the bad.

“Garrus,” she all but cried into the room.

His teeth sunk into her deep and angrily. Her mouth falling open in a silent scream that should have been pain but was only pleasure as her fingers stilled and she felt explosion after explosion of nerve endings throughout her own body. A kaleidoscope of desire and release or love and fear or pleasure or pain – or maybe it was everything all together in a beautiful arrangement of color and sensations and sounds.

He curled them forward, his long arm a cage still around her as his other braced the both of them onto hands and knees before she felt him press his hips against her own, jerking only once before she felt the thickness of his base gripping her insides. The small notches resting just inside her entrance, trapping her to him and he to her as his body released inside of her deep and victorious.

Shepard found her breath then. It came in sharp into her lungs, and she let her mind reel gratefully for the much needed oxygen as the room around them slowly began to come to focus and both of them retreated downward from the peak of a world never visited before. She hummed in pleasure as his cock vibrated inside of her, it always took a moment for it to detach and she had always enjoyed the foreign sensations of it gifting her with every last drop of his seed before relaxing and slipping out of her.

“Spirits,” she heard him say just as his arm released her and she fell forward onto the bed in a sated mess. “Shepard,” her name came in a horrified whisper when she landed on her side and sighed contently onto the softness of the bed below. “Shepard…I…” his hand found her face, soft and gentle as he moved into her field of vision. “I…” he swallowed and looked down her body. She could only assume it looked…bad. She could feel the wounds against the sheets. The tickling of blood trailing down her form wasn’t lost to her, but it added aftershocks of a pleasure that was so indescribable she wouldn’t disrespect it with trying.

Garrus grey eyes were light again when she lifted her green one’s to look at him. Her hand coming up to rest against his flared mandible, brow plates loose as worry and guilt flooded his features, “I’m okay…”

“No…no you aren’t,” he shook his head and almost pulled away from her touch. She grabbed his carapace softly, but firmly to prevent him from leaving her.

“Garrus,” she looked at him steadily, wishing that she could vibrate her meaning the way his subvocals tried to explain things to her. “No one better hurt you either.”

There is was, a dark glint in his eyes flashed and he looked at her with dawning realization that she had allowed all of it. She waited patiently for him to mull over the thoughts and meanings and to come to an understanding within his mind. Garrus was a thinker, a tacticion, always three steps ahead and never blind sided. But this...she knew in her bones that he would have a hard time believing her. Who would ever want to be ravished with so much dangerous abandon? And though fear had tried to prevent her, her acceptance of him won in the end. She had invited it. Wanted it. He trilled gentle into the air between them, leaning his forehead down to rest on her own. The tips of his fingertips traced his bitemark on her shoulder and he grinned when she winced at it. “You really are mine, you know.”

She hummed, gladly. “I thought I already was.”

His eyes dipped to her bite mark, and she smiled softly up to him, “Turians and humans are so different.” It was all he said before he shifted and twisted away. “I’ll get the medi-gel..”

“Leave the shoulder,” she told him before he stood. He looked back to her. She grimaced as her body was finally coming down from her orgasm. The pain that radiated along her marred skin and brutally taken core was becoming more and more evident. But the mark on her shoulder was delicious. It tingled and spoke to her in a language she had only ever heard when her translator was off. It was him against her, promising and declaring and claiming. “Just leave the shoulder.”

Garrus’ familiar deep subvocals filled the air as he stood and left her vision, and she relaxed her head back in an odd angle to look up and out into the stars above her. When she was five years old, none of this had been thought of. When she was five years old, no one knew about what laid behind the stars. In her lifetime she had flown through the galaxy a dozen times over in this war. Because of this war. It was such a strange twist of something that she was here now.

When Garrus came back with a wet cloth and started delicately tending parts of her that she willingly allowed him to destroy – she realized that even amongst the stars and the endless possibilities there were some things that were fated.

That were just too resolute to be chance.

“I love you,” she told him then. The first time ever to utter those words to anyone.

He stilled, his hands frozen in movement, before she felt him move back up her body to place a gentle kiss just beside his mark, mandible tickling her pulse point, “I know you do. And I you.”

She smiled at the words, “I know.”