"Where've you been?" she asks, as Garrus joins her, leaning against the wall overlooking the Presidium courtyard. He looks entirely too innocent to actually be innocent.
"Shooting a gun from the top of the Presidium," he replies easily. "You?"
"Stalking a C-Sec officer."
He stares at her for a long moment, his mandibles flaring. Tali tries not to give herself away by laughing as he tries to figure out whether or not she's joking. Either way, she can tell he's impressed. He's so damned easy to read. She wonders how he ever survived the killing streets of Omega. Or hell, even C-Sec.
"Really?" he finally says, his voice full of dry amusement and practically swimming in subharmonics. It's the voice, that's what she loves about him. And the body. She lets her eye run an appraising sweep over the turian: tall, strong, all hard and sharp and deadly. Except for there are soft bits, parts of him that are sensitive to the slightest touch or tickle... yes. It's definitely the body.
She relaxes against him as he wraps his arm over her shoulder, and she can't tell if it's a friendly gesture or... no. He's never done this quite so boldly before. He knows, along with everyone else, that like all quarians, she doesn't let just anybody touch her, even with the suit on. She wonders then, how he makes the action seem so casual, when she suddenly feels several degrees warmer. Maybe it's a fever? A suit rip she hadn't yet noticed, or an allergic reaction to something she's encountered off of the Normandy, in the wider and more dangerous environment of the Citadel. Garrus traces one of his talons down the seam of her suit where he knows she'll feel it, and she blushes, grateful for the face mask that will prevent him from seeing it. No... it's definitely not an illness that's got her feeling warm. She hasn't felt this good in... well... ever.
She'd never imagined touch could feel like this: like something to want, not something to be avoided at all costs. From the first time he'd accidentally traced a taloned finger across her shoulder the way he would another turian; jerking away immediately as soon as he'd realized what he was doing... she couldn't stop finding excuses to pull him back. Whenever they're together, which is often, these days - he comes to Engineering, or she goes to find him in the Main Battery, always with some half-assed, perfectly legitimate reason figured out: some tinkering project or calibration - she always drifts close to him, inviting him to touch her. She still doesn't usually reach out first, the old habits and cautions are far too ingrained to kill. But once he presses his body against hers, she relaxes completely, in a way she never has before. She begins to understand the meaning of the words she's tripped over, trying to explain: intimacy, and trust.
"You know I could've helped you with that?" Garrus growls.
Tali blinks, her mind racing as she tries to remember what they were talking about. She shoves him away gently, reluctantly, and hums a kind of laugh that vibrates into her voice modulator. "I didn't need your help. I had it under control."
"Right. Your shotgun."
She continues laughing as she steps into the elevator, trusting Garrus to follow her. Which he does. He practically trips over her as the door slides smoothly shut behind him. Tali glances around at the emptiness around them. Odd, that a place as crowded as the Citadel should have such unpopulated elevators. She tries to study Garrus from the perspective of a stranger and nods. She might not follow a turian with a sniper rifle and half his face blasted off into a confined space either.
"Didn't you threaten to shoot me here one time?" Garrus asks, as the soft piped-in music starts to become unbearable.
"No," she replies immediately. "I simply reminded you that I have a shotgun. And that an elevator is exactly the kind of very..." she sidles up to him, wrapping her body tight against his. "Close..." Hand dead-center over his armored chest, pushing him backward until he runs into the elevator wall. "Quarters... that make such a weapon... effective."
Garrus lets his tongue dart out from between his mandibles, tasting the air, the flickering static charge of need that pulses between them. The elevator rumbles gently, vibrating up through the soles of her boots.
"I had no idea this was something that you wanted, Tali. Always figured sex in an elevator was a human thing."
She laughs again, as he leans in close to her. She can feel the weight and warmth of his arm wrapped around her waist even through the suit. She lets her eyes slowly drift closed, tries to calm the rushing wave of panic that rings in her ears, the awareness that dropping her protections will lead to disaster.
Garrus' touch disappears. She groans, and squirms. Her eyes fly open. Her arm reaches out for his, yanks him down. His wide, startled eyes are mere centimeters from hers; she holds his gaze even through the visor. Neither of them blink.
"Your heart rate's off the charts," Garrus tells her. "Sure you're okay?"
Tali reaches up to swipe uselessly at his visor with its stupid readouts. This isn't combat. "I'm fine, Vakarian."
"Just checking," he rumbles. She feels the sharp pressure of his talons scraping against her suit, along the curve of her neck. "Because we can stop, you know."
"No!" she practically shouts.
Garrus actually laughs at that, a barking hiss that explains why so many find the turians intimidating. She can't remember ever being afraid of him though. Cautious, maybe, a long time ago, when she was a kid just taking her first steps out into the great big galaxy. But never afraid.
Garrus rests his three thick fingers flat on the edge of her face mask. "Tell me again about your immune system," he whispers.
She shakes her head, the slight movement pushing him away. "I want you, Garrus. I want..."
"I heard you talking to Shepard, that one time. About linking suit environments. And I bet you thought I wasn't paying attention."
"Keelah," she groans, remembering how embarrassing that conversation had been. And she'd been stupid enough to bring it up in the middle of the crew mess, where just anybody could listen in. Back then she'd still been adjusting to the way things worked on the human-run Normandy, so different from the ships she'd grown up on. She'd still figured nobody would care about what she had to say; that they'd actively avoid coming close to her the way the people on the Citadel did, looking down on her as just another suit-rat. Or else that the ones who didn't run away would block out conversations that didn't involve them the way that every quarian living in the crowded Flotilla learned to do. The thought that Garrus might've been eavesdropping, intentionally or otherwise, had never crossed her mind.
"You said you'd never trusted anybody enough to do it," he adds.
"Yeah, I um... yeah." She stops talking, searching his face for any hint of a reaction, but she feels worlds different than she'd felt that day with Shepard. She feels calm, fearless... ready.
"D'you trust me?"
"Yes," she insists, the word practically flying from her mouth.
The elevator door slides open abruptly, spilling them into the docking bay where the Normandy waits a short walk away. Tali curses the abominable timing, feeling an unsettling fluttering sensation flowing through her body. She'd never have thought she'd wish for the Citadel's famously interminable inter-station elevator rides to be longer.
"Lucky for you, I know how to override the Normandy's elevator safeties. I can hold it on Engineering deck for as long as we want."
"Really, Vakarian?" she teases. "And what legitimate reason could you ever have had to learn how to do that?"