Joker opened the docking bay to the Normandy and watched with some distress as James and Liara dragged Shepard from the inferno behind them. He watched the Medical facility burning with the ashes raining into the snowy land. It was supposed to be a easy task, a side job. Shepard got notice of some crazy wackado of a scientist running experiments on women in the Alliance so easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Not this time. It was until he heard the explosion from ported a mile away did he begin to worry. He was surprised how worried he actually was. The other day when he made a comment about Shepard's stress that caused the two of them to go into a all out shouting match and ending with her storming out of the room they hardly said three words to each other. Dr. Chakwas raced down to the docking bay with him and he could feel the air thicken when Shepard could barley hold herself up. By the time the doors to the Normandy clothes Shepard was trying to stand on her own and collapsed into him. She smelled strongly of sweetness which even overpowered the sulfer burning on their suits. Her eyes were glazed over and he saw only a flash of red hit them before she attempted to let herself up.
"Shepard you need to go to the medical bay." Dr Chakwas warned her.
"I'm... I'm fine..." Shepard mumbled waving off the doctor, "Really I just need some rest."
"Shepard-" Liara began to warn to her but Shepard wasn't listening as she took off herself to the elevator with Dr. Chakwas hovering over her. They waited and watched as their Commander didn't even bother to take off her helmet as she leaned against the walls of the elevator ignoring her dear friend examining her.
"The crook threw some gas at her, had a tear in her suit she couldn't move after." James sighed pulling off his helmet.
"What was it?" Joker asked as they watched the elevator door close with their Commander hardly breathing on the other side.
"It is ridiculous actually." Liara groaned leaning against the cold steal of the wall as they waited for the elevator to come back down. "The an was trying to create a 'love potion'. It was all a ruse."
"Yeah they dude was loco man. He did all this to lure Shepard in. Get this: had pictures of her everywhere." James chuckled, "You should have seen her face. Was some guy who use to always try and take pictures with her, followed her into bars when she first became Commander of the Normandy, boy was she pissed."
"It isn't funny." Liara scolded him.
"So some psycho poisoned her?" Joked asked a little confused as the elevator door slide open and they made their way in.
"Attempted love potion is what were calling it." Liara shook her head, "I need to run some more tests but from the looks of the lab he was...mediocre at best. Most it would do is make her hallucinate but we won't know for sure for a couple hours."
"Will she be okay though?" Joker asked trying to hide the worry in his voice.
"She is ignoring her pain which how she normally handles it." James shrugged, "Got some balls though."
It was 2:33AM even in space it was late in the night when Joker's comm went off. Normandy, he didn't fall asleep in his chair...usually. But since Shepard had gotten back his priority was getting back to the Citadel even if it felt like it was taking half a century to get across the galaxy. EDI tried to calm him by looking up jokes involving probing and hanars but it didn't work. Everyone was a little on edge. He finally opened his comm system but there was no noise.
"H-Hello?" Joker paged back.
"Joker?" the voice was soft.
"Commander? What's up? You okay?"
"I need you to come see me in my quarters." Shepard replied but before he could answer she shut the comm off.
"No it's fine, I don't have plans, I wasn't sleeping." Joker waited for the room to Shepard's quarters to open.
"Commander Shepard will see you know Jeff." EDI hummed as the doors slid open. The lights in Shepard's quarters were dim with most the light coming from the glow of her aquarium from the fish she always forgot to feed but thank god they bought that automatic feeder. He didn't notice til he was further in the soft music playing, soft jazz like music huh. Never pictured Shepard for smooth Jazz.
He found her sitting on her couch flipping through a giant screen projecting from her coffee table.
"Joker." she looked up at him with such pleasure in her voice her smile so wide he thought she'd break her face. She patted on the seat next to her and he took it nodding at her as he took her seat. He looked at her and this was not the woman being dragged onto the Normandy earlier. She had a glow on her face so bright for a woman trying to save thousands of lives on earth. Her brunette hair was loose over her shoulders her green eyes almost glowing.
"Are you alright Commander?" Joker asked nervously. "Liara said you'd be asleep for at leas a day you know, from all the drugs your lover gave you?"
"Yes well as much as having a stalker go to such level for me makes me so excited." Shepard replied her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I know my body and just because my estrogen levels tripled-"
"Wait what?" Joker interrupted.
"Liara said they should go down soon." Shepard waved him off. She poured out two bottles of red wine and where was this? Had this been sitting there the whole time? Joker felt his stomach turn but took the wine out of courtesy, confusion, and he was sure this was a dream and he was still in his chair with his hand down his pants. Wait the hell she say?
"One more time?" he choked the wine down feeling the heat in his breath as he put the glass down.
"Your eyes." Shepard sipped her wine watching the muted news on the screen in front of her. I didn't realize how bright they were til I almost passed out on you. I guess setting off a bomb does that to someone." she shrugged.
"That literally makes no sense." Joker shook his head, "Shepard why did you call me up here?"
"I wanted to thank you for everything you had done." Shepard swished what was left in her drink before setting it down. "You followed me with Cerberus, you have followed me into every mission... I just wanted to find a way to thank you."
Her smile was sweet. He feared it. He took the bottle from the table and finished off what he could. He remembered a couple weeks ago he had a dream where he was a teacher as the Alliance and Shepard was his student. He invited her after class for some 'extra credit' in the teachers lounge and where was he going with this?
"Shepard I did it because I believed in you. I always have." Joker admitted.
"No other reason?" she asked.
"Uh...you kick ass?" he attempted.
Shepard shook her head moving herself so her body was faced more to his. He noticed she was wearing a black robe and how did he not see this before? Could it be he had become so use to being around her that things like this were just background noises, sounds, and ideas? Did she always listen to soft music? Were her quarters always this dim? Was she a avid wine drinker? Joker couldn't remember. He tried to think about baseball, the war, literally anything else but it wasn't working. How was he not awake yet because this was obviously not happening.
"What are you watching?" he tried his best to hold a topic of conversation that wasn't about either of them.
"Just some news clip from the Citadel. It's all fluff pieces since they still are refusing the belief were at war." She answered but he could feel her moving closer that smell form earlier, flowers or something, was intoxicating him. Or it was the wine he wasn't sure at this point.
"I should go." he found himself announcing as he pushed himself off the couch. He attempted to stagger around the coffee table but god what was in that wine he felt like he had a head on collision with a Reaper.
"Are you sure?" Shepard followed him taking his arm guiding him to the bed and this wasn't the direction he was trying to go. But, there he was sitting on her bed now gripping the bottle of wine he had taken off the table? When did he do that?
He was drunk.
"Oh this is that news clip about that protesting Hanar at C-Sec." He tried to make any conversation but he could feel her breath on his neck and it was making him tingle.
"You told me the other day that I was too stressed." Shepard commented.
"Yeah well...Because...You know..."
"I was stressed?"
"Yeah. Didn't mean to piss you off Commander-"
"Oh No..." Shepard put her hand on Joker's shoulder. He could feel her lowing her hand down his back giving him the chills.
"Shepard can we just cut the shit." He tossed the empty bottle to the floor. "The hell is going on?"
"Hm?" she gave him a puzzled look and he tried not to watch her legs cross as her robe split open over them showing her bare thigh. "Oh the music? The wine?"
"The attire?" he finished for her feeling bolder.
"Joker...sit back a minute." She pushed back towards the bed like all of his strength was gone until he felt the cold of the headboard on his back. He watched her shift herself into his lap and why wasn't he stopping her.
"See the 'poison' in my system was actually well made. See, not only have my sexual hormones tripled but it also affect my body and my mind. See I can sense what a person wants...desires...needs..."
When Shepard untied her robe he thought of all the porn vids he had seen. Yeah girls with huge tits, real easy girls. He always like those ones but girls he had been with never been like that always really flat-chested not that it was much of a problem he was getting laid. He also thought about all those times Shepard had leaned over his chair or when she wasn't in uniform yeah she had a okay rack but.. this...damn. It was obvious she had been enhanced a lot and not in the cheap looking was, they were large, round, perfect, ink and everything he probably could dream of. He wanted to think of a comment, something funny to say or witty just something.
"How long does it last?"
He wasn't gentle with her. He had nail marks in his back and her hair was in his tight grip as she bounced in and out of him. He watched her bounce in his lap biting her lip, her freckles on her body shining. Her breast were covered in hickies and his hand that wasn't full of her hair was nail deep in her tiny waist. She pulled at his short hair begging him for more just a little more she was moaning for it and it was making him grit his teeth to keep going. She pulled at him more knocking them back as her backside hit the hit the bed and he towered over her he bit into her neck muffling her name and he pushed himself deeper inside of her. She grabbed the back of his neck pulled his lips to hers. She tasted like sweet candy, she smelled of a garden and sweet wines, and she passionate and she groaned his name into his mouth. Joker felt himself release inside of her her hands gripping herself harder against himself biting into his shoulder as he pushed deeper.
They waited a moment for the high in their bodies to die, for the momentum to fade, and the strongest voice in the room was the music playing in the background.
Shepard released herself from his grip and collapse into her bed. Her fingers glided over to the exhausted pilot and fiddle with his hair until the two drifted off to sleep.
Joker woke up hours later and didn't stick around for the possible reprimanding that could follow. He crawled his way to elevator and passed out back in his chair piloting the Normandy where he belonged.