Warnings! This story contains swearing and lemons later on between Garrus and MShep, just a warning so you can turn away now. Shepherd will remain vague so this story can still be enjoyed for the most part, hope you have fun reading!
"... I'd wait if you're okay with it. Disrupt the crew a little as possible. Take that last chance to find some calm just before the storm. You know me, always like to savour that last shot before popping the heat sink." Garrus said in a bit of a hushed voice, it could have been either seductive or secretive but all I knew was I just loved to hear him talk; even if it was just because of his exotic voice.
Catching on to his horrible innuendo I shot a smirk at him and his smile faded as it dawned on him. He looked around to himself as if waiting for his translation to kick in, but it came to him as he suddenly became evasive.
"Wait. That metaphor just went somewhere horrible..." Garrus tapered off as if trying to hold off a chuckle, I gave him a quick pat to the shoulder and tried to move on with our conversation.
-Two Days Earlier-
"Commander, you have been requested down at the main battery." EDI chimed and swiftly disappeared. I laid down my rifle that I was cleaning and gave my hands a quick scrub before heading to the lift, thinking to myself what Garrus would want after he refused to talk to me earlier after helping him out with Sidonas. I gave a mental shrug to myself as I just had to remind myself not to bring it up.
Arriving on the crew floor I gave a wave to everyone on my way through, only getting one salute from Joker who was nursing a bowl of soup; I assumed he was just trying to twist my chains so I let it slide just this once, but shooting him a frown in the hopes of my message of a warning would get through. I stood outside the main battery and gave the door a knock, it opened after a moment and I let myself inside.
Seeing Garrus on the floor while tampering with loose wires was a little strange so I ducked down to see what he was up to. "Shepherd, I need to make a formal complaint." Garrus said calmly as he bit through a green wire, as if he didn t even register the wire with his sharp teeth. I wondered to myself if he had permission to go tampering with the ship without asking me first but he knew what he was doing when it came to altering weapons; without his pointers my rifle would never hit straight after four hundred metres.
"Is it that you need tools?" I asked jokingly to which he sat himself down on the floor and tried to cram the wires back into the console, closing up the console and launching it up to see if it worked.
"No, I need a softer bed. If I keep sleeping on that thing I'm going to need morphine for every time you need me for something besides standing still." Garrus said with a serious tone as he continued to fiddle with his terminal, pointing an idle hand towards his cot. I went to inspect his bed and it felt allot flatter than a normal cot, as if someone had left a Mako tire on it. I gave a hum in thought but I knew that we wouldn't be able to pick up anything new being stuck in the middle of nowhere.
"Well, I do need to drop off at the Citadel to deal with a few things..." I began, hoping that he would be willing to wait until we get there. But Garrus soon spoke up as he turned to me looking shocked, "That's a three day trip at the least, what am I going to use as a bed until then?" Garrus sounded upset like his problem couldn't be solved at all; I knew this new Normandy could get there in a day as long as we didn't have to do many transfer jumps.
"There's nothing I can do Garrus unless I offer you my own bed?" I said somewhat rhetorically but it just seemed to make Garrus more shocked, he asked me if I was serious and I told him back that he was welcome to borrow it as long as he promised to feed my fish after every mission. We shared a good laugh and thanks, shaking hands at the end to make it an official deal. I didn t mind in the slightest, I had sleeping trouble since being dead so I would only need it for a few hours every night or so; either way I would be glad to help out a friend.
As I left and made my way to the lift again a strange thought struck me, 'Turian s don't shed their skin or anything do they? I better do some research.' I hummed to myself in thought as I waited for the lift to ascend, thinking of just asking Mordin but deciding to just search it up on the extranet on my terminal once I get back to my cabin.
After a short ride in the lift I slumped down on my couch and stared blankly ahead at the rifle I was cleaning, I left it for now and grabbed my tablet that was lying next to me. Opening up the extranet I went for the clinical approach to start off with, searching for 'Turian biology' but when nothing came back except for Turian schoolwork I tried anatomy instead.
All of my searching proved useless up to this point so I typed in a simple question of 'Do Turian s shed their skin?' The results were mixed until I came across a helpful site detailing ever part of a Turian. I could tell it was at least written by a Human because of the simple question and answer format, I scrolled along to my answer and to my surprise Turian s don't shed but apparently they can develop a form of dandruff that flakes from them if they are under constant stress, this at the very least peeked my interest to keep searching to see what else I could find on Turian s.
Now curious and intrigued I continued my searching until I came across a video with no description, it was under a section about mating and my mind was swimming with what it could be. Clicking the video it took in my screen before revealing a silver Turian and a human sharing a bed completely naked, they were whispering something to each other out of the range of audible sound but before long they hugged one another and the human got pinned.
Shrinking the video slightly I took a glance at the link only to discover that the site I had been using was a porn site dedicated to humans with Turian partners, I gave a grin to myself at the idea of it all but kept on watching. After a strange scene where the two tried to kiss it looked like it was time to move on, with the Turian pinning the Human at the wrists he got into position and looked as if he was lining himself up.
"Commander?" EDI spoke out causing me to jolt up and snap the tablet in two over my knee to cover up what I was doing. There was a horrible silence before EDI spoke again, "Mordin is requesting to see you, and should I let him in?" EDI asked, sounding as formal as ever. I gave her the go ahead as I sat back down and tried to calm myself.
Mordin walked in with a clipboard and a black bag on his shoulder, saying that he just needed to show me something as he set the bag on the bed. He pulled out a small blue bottle and passed it to me, "That one is the sample I took on the last planet and with just a few more key components I think I can cure a problem with the galaxy." He stated at his normal break neck speed as he took the bottle back, leaving me just enough time to ask what he was talking about before he passed me a green bottle into my hands and told me to drink it.
I did as he asked, knowing that he wouldn't give me anything dangerous without testing it vigorously on something else first. I drank the bottle and licked my lips, "It just tastes of mint." I said, hoping that he wasn't planning of competing with Garner over worse tasting food. "Yes! It was my new creation. A cure for dextro acid allergens. got it working completely. No more divide in food and culture of food, and now I get to find out what bak'sharies tastes like." Mordin sounded proud of himself and I was damn well impressed, he had only been on the ship a couple of months and he invented something that could change the galaxy.
I asked how he managed to do it and got a lengthy talk about how he broke down everything edible that he could find to make acid molecules not react in certain ways, stating that the only downside was not everyone is a fan of the flavour of the vaccine. I was tempted to ask why it tasted like mint but before I could get a breath out he began talking again, "Heard you and Garrus are sharing a cabin, not going to judge or leak to the crew but should let you know a few things. Forwarding helpful booklets, pamphlets on Turian habits and some other things that may help."
"Also may need this." He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a small tube of gel, handing it to me as he packed away his things. "New vaccine should work with Turian fluid. Not sure. Must send me the results when done, yes?" And just like that he was off; I was at a complete loss for words and my head completely blank. I looked at the tube I had been handed to find it was nothing more than a soothing gel, more confused than ever I walked over to my table and began working on my rifle again.
-A few hours later-
After cleaning out my rifle I took it down to the command deck to place it back in the armoury and to set a new course while I was there. Handing over my gun to Jacob with barely a word from him I showed myself out and went to visit Joker, I could see him down at the helm from the map and thought I may as well catch up while I was down here and maybe have a word with him constantly trying to annoy me.
"Commander on deck!" He shouted jokingly as he turned around, throwing up a salute just to annoy me yet again. I pinched the bridge of my nose and reminded him yet again that there was no need to salute me. "Are we plotting a new course, because I bet you pissed something off in this sector?" He stated with a snicker, almost as if changing the subject before I had chance to yell at him properly. He spun himself around and messed with a few controls on his console, bringing up his personal terminal for plotting around areas or whenever we needed to get somewhere in a hurry; which was allot more often than I would like to think on.
"I doubt Klixen can hold a grudge, but we are going somewhere. Set a course for the Citadel, I think we need some shore leave and a bit of celebrating." As soon as I finished Joker mapped out a course, I saw on his console that estimated time was just twenty seven hours. Joker had to ask as he continued making alterations and manoeuvring the ship.
"I'm all for some shore leave after being stuck here for three weeks but what are we celebrating, Garrus finally pull that stick out of his ass?" He asked with a chuckle, luckily he was still facing away so he wouldn't see my blush from such a lewd prospect and after seeing a Turian as bare as ever I couldn't help but imagine the mental image deeply. I set him straight by telling him that Mordin had sorted out dextro acids so that they can now be swapped with no negative side effects; but Joker just made a crude joke about how he didn't want to spend any more time wishing he had something other than rations.
I gave my goodbye and wandered off to take a nap before lunch seeing as nothing else needed my attention, barring Miranda needing me to sign more paperwork. I got in the lift and headed up to my cabin but to my surprise the doors to my cabin were wide open, taking a glance inside I saw Garrus sat on the edge of the bed taking his shirt off but he noticed me before I even had chance to speak.
"S-Shepherd, sorry!" He interrupted himself as he covered himself back up with his shirt, after a bout of silence he spoke up again. "Uhm, from my experience Humans consider nudity to be some kind of taboo; I hope I didn't offend?" Garrus said rather rushed as he stayed frozen in place, hopefully he at least knew a bit behind what he considered to be taboo. But it was most likely drilled into his head during some kind of course with his time in C-Sec.
"It's only bad if we see another human naked," I started as I made my way into my room "So you're fine unless you try to watch me in the shower." A said with a chuckle, it seemed to ease him a bit as he dropped his shirt; but before taking off the rest of his clothes he did asked me what brings me up here before lunch.
"Thought I'd take a quick nap, have lunch and then go for a card game down in engineering." I stated with a shrug as I sat down on the couch. Garrus looked around a bit nervously before asking, "I feel a little bad about taking your bed then, wanna share?" Garrus asked as he slipped a boot off, trying to look concerned. I had no idea how bright my blush was with the lights being dimmed, I only hoped that Garrus hadn't seen it. Trying to sound like I didn't really care one way or the other I began taking off my own boots and clothes.
"Need me to look away Shepherd?" Garrus asked as he still dared not look over to me stripping.
"It's fine. But I sleep on that side of the bed, I like to keep an eye on the door just in case of trouble" I said as I pulled off the rest of my clothes until I was in nothing but my boxers. Garrus shifted over and I walked around the bed, we both climbed in and got under the covers; both on our backs just staring up at the ceiling. I turned down the lights until the only visible thing in the room was whatever happened to be in front of the fish tank, I took a glance over at Garrus who looked ready to drop off at any second. I had asked if my bed was up to his comfort level.
"Best bed ever, may have to become a Spectre myself..." Garrus mumbled as he drifted off remarkably quick, leaving me with just my ever twisting thoughts as I tried to fall asleep.
I tried closing my eyes tight to drift off but just knowing Garrus s presence was behind me kept putting me off sleeping, it was as if I had to do something but I didn t know what. Silently rolling over to face him I could tell he was sleeping like a log but only made a very slight hum from his chest instead of snoring, carefully giving his leg a poke with my toe I gauged that there was no waking him up in the slightest. Using all my stealth tactics I very deftly took his hand under the cover just to know what Turian skin feels like but only finding out it felt like another Human only considerable warmer, the small scales on the back of his hand did leave me curious to investigate further.
About to take my hand back and attempt sleep again but Garrus flexed his arm and our fingers ended up intertwined. I would have just yanked my hand out of there but as soon as he started murmuring something I decided to leave it where it was and just attempted to sleep as is. Even if my back was to the door I still felt surprisingly safe, I don t know what it could be but just being this close to someone just stopped all the thinking in my head and calmed me immensely.
All of my What-if thoughts and best course of action just slipped form me as I just drifted off naturally for the first time in about three years.
End of chapter one-
A/N. I know this first one is remarkable short for a mass effect story but I just wanted a little bit of time to introduce what my Shepherd was like, that and to make sure I knew what I was writing about.
I also left Shepherd surprisingly vague so if you want to imagine him as a girl you can, so I ll try to accommodate that as best I can. Ten points to you if you can guess what planet they were on.
See you next chapter party people!