"Shit!" Shepard swore colourfully as she darted to the right, dodging a Mako that crashed past her, bursting into flames, and kept running. Their forces was being completely wiped out, making a mad, desperate dash to the Conduit as Harbinger blasted everything that moved with a deadly red beam. Shepard, along with Garrus and Tali, had been lucky enough to avoid any shots or direct hits with flying debris but they were still a distance away from the Conduit and their numbers were decreasing rapidly by the second.
"Don't worry, Shepard, I got this!" yelled Garrus over the chaos and the next thing she saw was a bulky figure in blue armour rushing forward and breaking off to make a direct path to the towering Reaper. She felt her heart stop and blood chill to ice in her veins.
"Garrus, no!"
"Come back here, you bosh'tet! What are doing?!"
He either couldn't hear them over the sound of Harbinger's baying and gunfire from the ground team or he just didn't care. By some miracle, he reached Harbinger's very feet without it noticing him. Shepard and Tali had stopped dead in their tracks to watch with horrified expressions – though one was hidden behind a mask, seeming to have forgotten about the danger of doing so. The Commander was vaguely aware of Anderson yelling something in her ear over the comm but she was too fixed on Garrus to care. For a brief moment, she thought he had a master plan, some ace up his sleeve.
But then she saw him shoulder his Black Widow then crane his neck to look up and yell, "Hey, hey you!"
And suddenly, the murderous red beam was cut as Harbinger tilted, pointing its reticle downward and finally noticed the turian practically standing on its toes.
"Yeah, you!" Garrus continued to shout, punctuating his sentence with a pointed finger. "The tall one!"
The entire force had stopped to observe with slack jaws as well now, not even bothering to find cover. The entire battlefield was in a standstill. Every soldier could hear Hackett's voice coming over the comm channels to inquire their status and why they weren't moving, but nobody answered.
"Kee'lah," Shepard heard Tali whine anxiously beside her. "He's going to get himself killed!"
"Who's going to get themselves killed?!" demanded Hackett. Again, nobody moved to answer him.
Indeed, they were either going to witness a spectacular defeat of Harbinger, King of the Reapers, or a spectacularly pathetic death of one hot-headed turian.
"I am Garrus Vakarian," he yelled, voice echoing throughout the field in the new quiet and very clearly audible to everyone present. His jaw was wide open, mandibles stretched to their fullest extent. "and you are hearing the sexiest damn voice on the Citadel!"
Tali was rendered speechless at her friend's brave and utter stupidity. Shepard had no idea what to say either – except that she could completely agree with his statement. But Garrus wasn't done yet.
"And this voice is also the voice that services Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy!"
As one, the eyes of every soldier on the field somehow magically found her among the sea of figures and turned to stare at Shepard, who could feel a fierce blush rushing up on her cheeks. Did he really have to say that now? Here?
Tali remained the only one not openly staring at Shepard, as this was old news to her anyway, and instead focused on glaring at their turian companion from behind her mask. "Spirits… What is he doing? And why isn't Harbinger attacking?"
The Reaper had indeed ceased its assault on the soldiers and was still staring at Garrus through its single red eye.
"And did you also know," roared Garrus, deliciously flanging tone like honey to the ears. "That she can get off with just the sound of my voice- "
"Garrus Vakarian!" Shepard finally shrieked, face completely beet red by now. She heard Tali cough awkwardly before turning away from her. The ground team all appeared gobsmacked yet grotesquely fascinated at this insight into Shepard's love life.
"-because I'm just that good!" finished Garrus with that cocky mandible-flare that Shepard both loved and hated so much. But damn if she couldn't deny it. Hell, Garrus could read the damn phonebook and she could still-
"So, you want a piece of me, huh? Do you?" his tone was tantalising, alluring. Listening to it felt like pure sin, a criminal offence. The mere sound of his flanging, smooth voice caused shameless eargasms. Shepard bit her lip and made a mental note to jump him at first opportunity when they were alone. If they even got out alive after this stunt of his.
Amazingly, incredibly, Harbinger abruptly folded its legs with a mechanical screech and dropped down as low on the ground as possible, leaning toward Garrus with a digitised keening sound. Unbeknownst to all those present, at that precise moment every Reaper all around the galaxy had stopped dead and was no longer moving; as though listening intently to something. All the while ignoring the constant stream of gunfire being pelted at it, like it had more important things to do.
Back on Earth, Harbinger was still staring at Garrus like a snake before its charmer. "Oh, yeah?" the challenge was evident in his voice as he crooned. "Think you could take it?"
Another baying noise as the Reaper's plates seemed to shift and quiver and its reticle glowed a brighter red.
"Oh?" his mandibles twitched in a way that Shepard knew equated to smirking. "With your infinite stamina, I could calibrate you all night and fit you with my special canon…"
This proved too much for the King of the Reapers, as it let out a final, drawn-out whine before seeming to fall apart and crumble into bits of machinery and metal parts with an almighty crash.
A moment later, the air was filled with the same screech of metal on metal as every Reaper on Earth simply stopped in its tracks and imploded on itself, leaving entire battalions standing in an empty battlefield, clutching their now-useless weapons and wondering what the hell was going on. Similarly, all around the galaxy, Reapers were falling in one fell swoop and nobody had any idea what was happening.
As Harbinger fell, Garrus stuck a mysteriously acquired cigarette in his mouth. As Shepard watched, the turian turned his back on the pile of metal debris. Seconds later, what was left of Harbinger imploded and burst into flames - further warping the remnants of the Reaper beyond recognition. A spark of flame jumped from the pile to light the cigarette between Garrus' lip-plates with unerring accuracy and he took a drag from it, embers glowing orange.
Because cool guys walking away from explosions is a boring, old action genre rule that has prevailed even in Power Rangers. The universe deemed that Garrus Vakarian exceeded mere 'cool' and so things imploded around him rather than explode.
Shepard herself was wondering the same thing as she jogged up to her turian, smoking his cig with the pile of scrap metal that had once been a bringer of death and hell burning behind him as everyone else gawped.
"Garrus?" she questioned uncertainly when she was within earshot. "What… what was that?"
"Well Shepard," said Garrus, taking another drag from his cigarette before pulling it from his lip-plates to blow a smoke ring – Shepard briefly wondered how he managed that without actual lips. He turned to her with a twinkle in his eye and gently took her hand. "I guess you can say the Reaper War is behind us now."
"But- but…" Shepard stammered. It was uncharacteristic of her, but his earlier comments and now his hand-holding and his goddamn distracting voice was making it hard for her to concentrate. "But how? How did you know…"
He chuckled and put an arm around her to pull her closer, obviously not caring about their audience. The smoke from the still-burning cigarette travelled in a spiral around their forms. "That's just it – I didn't."
Before Shepard could throw a fit and launch into her predictable tirade about his recklessness, he pressed his forehead against hers. He grinned that cocky turian grin of his as he spoke in that very special tone reserved only for her ears. "So… what do you say to a little celebration later? Your cabin. I'll bring the drinks."
After a startled pause, Shepard smiled and brought up a hand to his mandible. "Only if you make it up to me after saying all those things to a Reaper."
"Jealous?"
"You wish."
As fatally sinful as his voice could be, only Commander Shepard would ever get to hear the ultimate sin of the sound of his bedroom voice whispering in her ear.
A/N:
What the fudge did I just write? I'm not sure myself. xD
The idea came during a chat in the Afterlife forums when the topic turned to Garrus' awesomeness and somehow I was suggested to write something with Garrus defeating a Reaper with his wiles and "walks off-screen smoking a cigarette, having ended the Reaper war with his **."
Well, while not quite what the... ahem, doctor ordered, it was the closest I could come up with without turning this fic M-rated. :D I hope it fulfills your expectations, though it probably fell a bit short.
And yes, I can't resist sneaking Shakarian everywhere. This is my first attempt at actual crack and I'm not really satisfied. I actually finished ME3 two days ago and am in the mourning/denial period right now. Watch me write headcanon ending later. xD
- Kasumi
