Summary: Grunt would do anything for his favorite niece, even if it means risking looking like a fool in front of his mate. masskink prompt. Complete.
Original Prompt: . ?thread=41649748#t41649748
"Femshep/Liara's little blue daughter loves Grunt and loves playing tea party.
Grunt bravely forces himself into a tiny pink chair and tries not to break tiny cups of imaginary beverage because if it makes her happy, no-one else's opinion matters.
Grunt's LI sees, melts, and rewards him handsomely later - because guys who leave their pride at the door for love of a kid are fucking hot"
.-oOo-.
"I'm going to sit there?"
Grunt blinks down at the tiny, screamingly pink chair next to the child sized dinner table.
"Unca Gjunt sit the'e." His favorite asari in the whole wide world told him and pointed at the chair. "Bens will sit he'e." A blue finger pointed towards the bright green chair across the table. "Tea he'e." The little girl held up a cup, perfectly sized for her hands, incredibly breakable for Grunt's own. "Look!" As if she thought he didn't understand how to play pretend drinking tea, she sat down in the chair, her knees bumping into the table's edge, picked up the cup and raised it to her lips, tilting it and making a sucking sound with her mouth.
That was not the problem really. Grunt understood the parameters set in the game his Battle-master's kid wanted to play with him. The crux of the matter was that he might break the chair if he sat down on it. Hesitating, he looked from the neatly made plastic table, complete with a table cloth and colorful silverware, to the asari child. But when he saw the expectant look on her face he couldn't refuse her.
As gracefully as a tank bred krogan could be, he sat down on the little piece of furniture. His ears tense and waiting for the slightest sound of it cracking under his weight. To his own surprise it seemed to hold.
The beaming smile that entered Benezia's face was worth the risk taken. She got up with a busy look, much like her asari mother would get when she set her mind to something. Grabbing the tiny teakettle in the middle of the table she poured non existent hot water in the pale blue cup in front of him. Grunt had to bend his knees in under his chin, leaning forward to pick up the toy, bringing it up to his lips to pretend to drink. Just a tad bit firmer grip and the thing would squish between his powerful fingers.
"Wait!" The child cried out and he startled, pulling it away again. Tiny blue hands dove down into a toy sugar bowl. Pinching her fingers together over invisible sugar she put it in his cup. "Sugah, must djink with sugah."
"Oh, right, of course," Grunt conceded. "How stupid of me to forget." He couldn't help the grin that played on his lips.
His niece sat down across from him, pretending to drink her own tea, a pinky sticking out. She looked at his careful grip of the cup, her brows furrowing in concentration.
"Like this," she said and waved her pinky at him. "No jight else."
Anyone else might have refused, but not Grunt, the hardened warrior let his last finger point out, sipping the tea gingerly before grinning down at her. She giggled, high pitched, when she saw that he did what she wanted and a warmth that only she could bring blossomed in his stomach.
"Oh dear..."
The playing couple turned their heads towards the rooms entrance. There stood the female krogan Grunt had picked for his mate. They had been an item for only a couple of months, and this was the first time they came to visit Shepard and Liara. Her face had an incredulous look on it, her jaw slightly ajar from the sight of the big krogan and the tiny asari having a teaparty.
Unfazed, because he'd do anything for his niece and if she wanted to be with him she would have to accept that, Grunt lifted his cup towards her.
"Want some tea?" he asked.
"Yeah!" Benezia shouted and jumped up to run and grab the woman's hand. "Come have tea with Bens an' Unca Gjunt!" She started to drag the baffled krogan towards their little gathering.
In two seconds she had procured a third chair, a shiny yellow one this time, and forced the new guest to sit down.
"Uncle Grunt, huh?" His mate leveled him with a look he couldn't quite read.
Grunt just shrugged his shoulders and pretended to drink some more from the cup.
"Just don't forget the sugar," he said.
That made her laugh and she thanked the girl gratefully when she got her own little cup to drink from.
"This is a side I haven't seen in you before, Grunt," his mate told him, one hand reaching out to stroke his cheek. "I didn't know you had a sweet-spot for children."
He gave her a smirk from the corner of his mouth.
"One day I plan on having a whole litter full," he said as Benezia poured him some more tea.
"Really?" Something glittered in the woman's eyes when she looked at him then and he had to clamp down on the roaring fire in his gut that provoked. She looked hungry, and not for food.
"Really," he confirmed.
That's how it came to be that Shepard found the three of them when she got home from her business in town. Two full grown krogans hunched over a thirty centimeter high table, entertaining her daughter in anything she could come up with.