A/N: I had a bad day. This is what I wrote. ME2, Pre-suicide mission.
Posted on AO3 first, then realised I had neglected and felt guilty. So I gave it a special 'new to ff'net' spruce as an apology and here it is. Small, pointless and slashy, but here.
Rated for a couple of f-bombs, and the slash, but it's non-explicit. Also, do Turians have eyelids? Not convinced, but I'm assuming for this that they do.
Summary: It's meant to be a comfort, but Garrus can read between the lines.
Constellations
It was a moment of weakness.
As he wakes, too-soft body warm against him, he knows this to be true; it was weakness. Loneliness. Fear.
The room smells wrong, foreign, alien and the sheets are too thick : used to protect fragile, scaleless skin from the cold. Shepard breathes in a pattern that is unfamiliar, rhythmic in ways he does not recognise; Garrus keeps his eyes firmly shut, as he listens. As long as he doesn't open them – just – as long as he doesn't open his eyes -
There was alcohol involved, that much he knows; alcohol and Shepard with his enigmatic smile and one long look up and down, a predatory appraisal.
No, it had been a challenge, and Garrus doesn't back down from a challenge.
After that...all he can remember is soft-soft skin, a body too pliable and an over-abundance of digits - too much sensation, overwhelming.
Garrus lies with his eyes closed and listens to Shepard breathe. What if it should stop? That's what drove him to this, after all. Don't ever let it stop. He'd been afraid of dying – Shepard had already been dead two years, real dead, non-breathing dead. Draw a tether between us, he'd thought, something tangible, something to stay not-dead for.
So idiotic, as if surrendering to the most primal of all bodily desires could somehow change the fact that they are going on a damned suicide mission. Weakness. That is what it had been then and that is what it is now. He is still afraid. He is afraid of dying, afraid of Shepard dying.
The human hums in his sleep, huffs, blissfully ignorant. How long until they reach the relay? Two hours? Three? However did the man learn to sleep with all that weight sitting on his chest?
Garrus opens his eyes on instinct and curses himself for it.
Constellations are mapped across the roof of Shepard's cabin. He loses himself in the pin-prick of Palaven, a simple dot of black – he doesn't think about the stakes, or death, or sleeping with his commander. He thinks about home, hard metal and heat and no skin where scales should be.
Moments past, unmeasured. The bed is soft, and the stereo plays soft music, and Shepard's skin is soft on him. It becomes hard to imagine what a hard carapace might feel like. He should remember, it hasn't been that long.
"It doesn't have to mean anything." Shepard whispers, drowsy, and Garrus looks him over – all angular planes, jagged scars and dark, rough hair. He was young once, not so long ago; so much younger than this.
The words are meant to be a comfort, but Garrus can read between the lines. He does not hear it doesn't have to mean anything but this could mean something, if you want it to and he doesn't know if he really wants it to.
Weakness. There are too many things he is afraid of and Shepard...he's always been one of them. Death seems comparatively far away when Shepard and his emotions and his human fascination with talking about them is right here.
His eyes map constellations, the worlds they have seen together, and those that they have not.
These things, they always mean something, Garrus thinks, but he says,
"All right."
Shepard sits up – hard muscle flexing, rubbing at his sleep-glazed eyes – his smile is barely there, tired and defeated and Garrus wonders, not for the first time, if the universe has finally broken him. Another thing of which he is so terribly afraid.
He avoids eye contact.
"All right." Shepard echoes but it is hollow, and Spirits, they are both fools.
It isn't comfortable and it isn't familiar but does that make it - bad?
All he has to say – all he has to ask – what if I want it to mean something? Stupid and sentimental, a few stumbling, awkward words, all it would take -
But he is afraid, and he is weak.
"ETA?" He asks, and Shepard turns to him, out of bed and already half-dressed, eyes bright like metal refracting light, silver-blue, betrayed.
The human's eyes flicker to the clock, assessing, no hint of fear or hesitation.
"An hour or two, give or take."
And – fuck – Palaven is familiar, childhood familiar, but it isn't home and Shepard – with his odd smells and his too-many fingers and his strange, peach-white skin – he is home. Garrus spent two years without direction; he had been lost, Shepardless, homeless and – an hour or two, there is no time to be afraid.
"Shepard." He says, and those eyes, so achingly familiar – heat and hard metal, home - turn on him. His mandibles twitch, flatten, and it takes time to realise that these are signals his human cannot read. "I like the constellations."
Shepard cocks his head slightly, confused, frowning.
Got to keep him on his toes.
"The entire universe, scaled down to suit the eye. Palaven, Earth – so close together, up there." Shepard swallows, looks up. When their eyes land on the same focal point its almost like they're looking at each other.
"Garrus." He says, voice haggard. Garrus nods, stands, folds his arms.
"You know it meant something." He murmurs back; its an accusation and Shepard barks a laugh, stepping closer – the tiny, fine hairs on his arms prick up with cold and his breaths are long, heavy. He is tired and older than his age, has every right to be.
"I know what it meant to me." He says softly, holding Garrus with the weight of his gaze. "You're hard to read."
Garrus scoffs aloud at the hypocrisy. He doesn't have a follow-up; doesn't know the words to say, how to explain exactly what this is and what it means and what he wants from it. The following silence is hideously conspicuous.
Shephard sighs, shakes his head and the moment slips away, just like that.
"We don't have to talk now. In a couple of hours it might not -" even matter. The fact that he chokes off the end of the sentence is worse somehow – makes it so much more fucking hopeless. "I have to get down there." His voice is steel-hard, lips drawn in a tight line and Garrus wants to reach out, wants to grab his human and promise him things he couldn't possibly hope to provide.
Instead he says, strong as he can,
"We'll figure this out - after."
Shephard's eyes say that there is no after but he smiles a real smile – too affectionate, too fond - before he leaves, and somehow that is worse.
Somehow, that makes it so much more fucking hopeless.