The bar was noisy. The people were too close together. The beer was too expensive, and her companions smelled.
Her Alliance squadmates had insisted on an outing to drink to celebrate the end of a successful mission—ferrying colony transports, no more, no less—and had woefully neglected to shower since leaving behind holds full of terraforming materiel. The stink of fertilizer and manure was stuck to their uniforms like carbon burns. Impossible.
However, Clyden was buying her a few drinks to celebrate her impending promotion—a new post on a new top-secret ship that everyone Alliance knew about. Shepard was thrilled to finally be rising through the ranks. For a long time, her dedication to the Alliance and her people had been tempered by an increasing need for freedom. Too many rules—not enough choices.
"Glad you came out, Ginnie!" However, once again Clyden was standing too close, shouting in her ear to be heard over the thrumming and scratching of sound synthesizers.
"I can't turn down one last night with my crew, can I?" She replied, tilting her head up to the taller man's ear.
"Can't turn down free drinks." He retorted, clinking his bottle against the one she held tightly against her chest. She grinned, and took several quick swallows of the beer.
"Better order another." She winked at him. Clyden had always been friendly, a joker. A behemoth of a man. As much as she was proud of the muscle on her sturdy frame, no matter how many weights she would lift or how much protein she consumed, men like him would always dwarf her. There was something about it she liked.
She cut her eyes from the view of muscled thighs and an ass wrapped in camo fatigues back up to his face he turned back from the bar, two more bottles clutched between beefy fingers. He paused, grinned and passed her the new bottle.
"Why, commander, were you staring at my ass?" She coughed, the last bubbles of her old bottle caught in her lungs suddenly.
"It's not 'commander' until tomorrow, and I'm finding you a date." As she caught him opening his mouth to say something along the lines of "Why not you, baby?" she cut him off. "A date that isn't me."
"Virginia, baby, this is our last night for who knows how long, you don't want to give it just one go?" He snaked a hand around her waist. This was the closest he had ever gotten to her, and she was honestly surprised. She knew he was attracted to her—he'd followed her like a puppy when he was first assigned to her—but she had never expected him to get handsy. However, she thought she hid pretty well her secret attraction for the dominant male, and the quiet thrill she got from that meaty hand sneaking towards her ass. She knew this feeling though, a distant memory surfaced; sweaty caresses and someone's forehead resting between her breasts.
Something must have shown in her face, because he grinned and pulled her against his groin. She liked it—she liked that feeling a lot—it threw a tingle into her thighs and a heat into the space between her shoulder blades—but she raised a hand to push him away.
"Come on, no strings attached, just the way you like it?" He offered quickly. She glanced up at his thick neck, his desperate, pleading eyes, considering. "Shepard?"
"You got a lot of nerve, Lieutenant." He dropped his hands. "And I like that, but you know that would never work." But she pulled his head down anyways and kissed his thick jaw. "You don't do 'no-strings', big guy." She left one last kiss on his ear and left him. "Thanks for the beer! Safe flights!"
"You know where to find me though, right?" He shouted back as she backed away through the dancing crowd. She waved, and he waved, and he was gone.
Once she figured she was far enough away, she sighed.
Shit. It would always happen like that. Someone would always want to get close to her. James Clyden was a nice man, a good man. He was fun and lively, and damn was he attractive. But attractive and nice and fun and lively had turned out to be otherwise before. She took another swallow of his beer, and started looking around. It really was for his own good.
Nice guy like him shouldn't get stuck with a woman like her.
She leaned against a half wall that divided bar and dance floor from the restaurant. Alone, she grew cold, and took up an old habit of scanning the room. She was determined to get laid tonight.
Humans were no threat except as pick-pockets and lechers. Asari would always try to get too close. She hated the mental connection with them; they always seemed to know too much about her every time she experimented with asari. She hadn't spent much time around turians before, though she usually blamed that on a kind of cultural mistrust. The mix of races in this bar was relaxing though. Humans were dancing with asari and a few turians dotted the mix as well. Lots of options.
There were two young asari on the dance floor near her, and Shepard walked up to them.
"Greetings." She said openly, a smile on her face.
One smiled and ran a hand down her arm, apparently in greeting. The other nodded; less friendly.
"My name's Shepard. I was wondering if you could do me a favor?" She asked, keeping the smile on her face.
"I am Herella. This is Myar. What do you need?" The one who touched her smiled, hips swaying to the music.
"Could you take a message to my friend?" Shepard took the friendly one's hand and turned her to scout out Clyden. "He's the big human in Alliance fatigues. He's a good friend of mine, but he wants something from me that I can't give him. I was wondering if you would just tell him that Ginny is sorry?"
Herella turned back to her, keeping their hands joined. "Of course. Would you like me to tell him goodbye, too?"
"What?" Shepard asked.
"Well, you are running away from him, aren't you?"
Shepard nodded. A chill ran down her spine at the asari's words. She felt the urge to buck, respond with violence, but at the strangely piercing gaze that caught her, she calmed. Okay, yeah, she was running. Was she really that obvious? She took a deep breath as she held an uncomfortably long look with the Herella. "Yeah. I guess I am." She paused. "If he needs to hear it, tell him." Herella nodded, and stepped away, pulling Myar with her.
The quiet asari waved, as her friend pulled her away, bright eyes spearing Shepard. She was rooted to the spot until those eyes were gone.
Was she really that obvious?
No. Shepard doesn't run; Shepard stands her ground.
She turned and retreated to her previous position between dance floor, bar, and restaurant. She startled herself when she remembered she had a beer in her hand, and surprised herself when she took a sip and realized it was still nice and cold.
Seemed like days since she had walked away from Clyden already. That had to be a good sign, right? Already moving on to the next phase of her life, the next big thing. This post on the new ship—the Normandy, she thought it was called—would give her some great opportunities, she was thrilled to be posted with Anderson, and to be something like second in command.
But she sipped her beer and looked for someone to escape with. She refused to let her last night of freedom turn into a disaster. Or self-reflection, as she realized she was mulling over her beer.
Luckily, something caught her eyes. Two turians stood up in the restaurant. They clasped forearms. Soldiers. Both were wearing light armor, had pistols on their hips. The darker one made a gesture towards the bar near where she was standing, and the lighter one shook his head and stalked away.
Shepard turned away, waited for the dark turian to pass, and then watched as he waded through the crowd, at least a head taller than everyone else there. When he settled at the bar to order a drink, she pushed off the wall and headed towards him emptying her beer.
He looked interesting.
She gently slid her hips into the space between him and the human woman next to him, and slowly pressed her way to the bar. She ignored a huff from the woman, and ordered a new beer.
When the bartender dropped another in front of her hand, he spoke.
"What are you doing?" His voice was calculating, slow, like she was a child with a hand stuck in the cookie jar. She met his eyes, and then slowly brought the bottle to her lips, hoping she was daring him to comment. When he didn't, she dropped the bottle back to the bar.
"Name's Ginny." She offered a handshake, and then belatedly wondered if the turian was familiar with the human gesture. He didn't move for a moment, but then the hard plates on his face shifted into an incredibly human expression, one she recognized. She couldn't look away from his face, fascinated. The plates on his face where a human's eyebrows would be tilted and shifted, one raising one falling, the one mandible quirked up a bit, and as he placed a warm hand into hers she felt her alcohol buzz settle back into her thighs.
"Pleasant to meet you, Ginny." His eyes darted down and then back up. She narrowed her eyes. He just checked her out. She hoped that the Alliance military digs weren't an immediate turnoff.
"You have a name?" She asked when she decided he had been silently staring at her for just a bit too long.
He took a sip of his drink and then answered. "Yes. Not too sure you should have it, though." She was about to be taken aback and move on to another likely companion for the night, but then she realized that the parted mouth was a grin. His sharp, predatory teeth gleamed in the colored lights of the bar and she relaxed. She settled herself so that she was leaning on the bar and facing him.
"Well, what do I have to do to earn it?"
He glanced at her, then laughed, and she decided that the sound was delicious. It was a deep grumble, and a bright chuckle at the same time. She could feel the sound in her ribcage above the boom of the bass in the music and her pulse in her pelvis.
"I don't know, Ginny. What can you do?" Now it was velvet, curling around her ears and down her neck. She knew this feeling. She knew this feeling and she liked it.
"Well," she slipped a hand up his arm and onto the soft body suit beneath the armor plates there. "That really depends on how long you want to stay in this bar."
His mouth was open just a little bit, those mandibles tilted at mismatched angles, and as she studied his face, she realized he was scarred just like she was. The plates on the left side of his face were broken and jagged beneath the white markings that curled around his deep black eyes. Slowly, he smiled again, tilted his head down to her level, which was quite a ways down. He was taller than Clyden was, but narrower, and as small as Clyden had made her feel, this sharp alien made her feel delicate. Some primal urge was pushing her to test him. To make him fight, and then to make him fuck.
"I want to buy you at least one more drink." She grinned. Yes, she knew this feeling.