AN: This is Garrus and my Shepard from my main storyline. I've been trying to build their relationship up in Labyrinth carefully, but the damn turian keeps making me impatient so I ended up writing this one shot about Garrus' bandage coming off that I couldn't fit well into the main story. Takes place in between ME2 and ME3.
The Collectors were gone, which meant she could now obsess over the Reapers to her heart's content.
Arian Shepard sat on the couch in her quarters, making notes on a datapad, frowning and jostling her foot in a steady rhythm. She was well aware everything she was doing was just the illusion of preparation. There was no real way to prepare for the Reapers and she damn well knew it. But she had to do something.
Arian was not a woman who sat still easily for long, showcased clearly as she swung to her feet and started to pace the length of the room, the datapad still in her hand. She couldn't pretend to be able to think as fast as a salarian but she was swiftly going over and discarding various ideas about what to do next. She could study the Reaper schematic and the information EDI had managed to get from the Collector Base, but that wasn't actively doing something.
She was so distracted by her own thoughts, she didn't notice Garrus come in until she spun around for another turn and caught sight of him coming down the steps. She paused, a smile flitting across her lips- she was always happy to see Garrus –though it faltered when she got a good look at him. He was in civilian clothing, which wasn't so unusual when he was coming up to see her. His armor might have protected him much better, but it was much, much harder to get off him. That could be very annoying when she was eager to have him naked. But something was different and she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was at first. There was something hesitant about the way he was looking at her. She'd gotten good at reading him and he was clearly anxious even if he was trying to hide it. She moved toward him, uneasy, and paused as she finally realized what was so different about his appearance.
The bandage was gone.
As if reading her thoughts, Garrus reached a hand up and laid his fingers across the scarred right half of his face. His mandibles flicked nervously, which finally got her voice working: "That mandible is going to be okay, I see."
"Dr. Chakwas said it was, as long as I'm careful." His voice was coolly neutral as she studied him and he'd managed to hide that anxiety, his eyes never leaving her face. He'd gone tense as she studied him, like he was waiting for something.
Puzzled, Shepard tugged on his hand and felt relief when he let her guide him to the couch. When he sat, she slid into his lap, her legs straddling his. She touched the scarred part of his face lightly and felt him tense up beneath her, withdrawing immediately in alarm. "Does it hurt?"
"No." He sounded terse, almost irritated, which only puzzled her more. She ran a hand over his shoulder, trying to soothe out whatever anxiety was plaguing him, reaching her other hand up to run her fingers over the side of his face again. It was kind of gross looking at first glance. Burn scars were never pretty, she could attest to that one. The plating over his cheek, mandible and one side of his mouth was cratered, the colony markings all but obliterated, leaving only a few stripes of blue at the corner of his eye and beneath it. The unplated area of his face and down his neck was swirled with scar tissue, creating deep furrows in his hide. Not the kind of thing one could simply slap concealer over. He was going to get stares. She reflected he would probably also get some comments and careless remarks, which meant she was probably going to be getting into some public fights in the near future. Fistfights, of course. She couldn't shoot someone for making an asshole remark…often…but she could give them a lesson in manners with her fists.
But it wasn't that bad. Especially considering it had been caused by a rocket to his face. It could have been worse. It could have been much, much worse. He hadn't lost his eye, or his mandible, and they'd balanced out his hearing with cybernetic implants. None of the burns had become infected thanks to Dr. Chakwas' constant vigilance. He was healed up completely with no real complications from such a horrific wound, which was more than a little miraculous.
Her touch became lighter, more of a stroke, as those thoughts passed through her head. She couldn't help the tremor of fear that went through her. When the bandage was on, she hadn't really given it much thought, but now it stood clear to her just how much worse off he could have been, and the thought was enough to scare the hell out of her.
Since she'd tilted his head to the side slightly to get a better look at the scarring, Garrus couldn't read her expression. He hadn't been lying when he'd told her it didn't hurt. On the contrary, the stroke of her fingers along that side of his face was sheer torture because it felt so good. When she ran them lightly down his neck, even his discomfort at the scrutiny couldn't stop the spiral of arousal that went through him. He'd come to appreciate the dexterity of those long fingers in the past few months. A lot.
He was being irrational. He knew he was being irrational. He couldn't stop that bloom of anxiety that had started from the moment he'd gotten a good look at himself in the mirror in the infirmary. It was stupid to worry that after all they had been through together that she was going to turn away from him because of this. She'd seen the bandage, she'd known from the start that half of his face was going to be scarred.
But Garrus found it increasingly hard to be rational where Shepard was concerned. If he was rational at the core of him, he wouldn't have been in this relationship in the first place. Hell, if he was rational, he wouldn't have gotten into the situation that gave him this scar.
He had never wanted anyone or anything the way he wanted her. This wasn't something that had faded away once the novelty had worn off. If anything, familiarity had only deepened his desire. He knew every inch of that long, slim body now. He knew exactly where and how she liked to be touched. Knew the sound she made deep in her throat just before she came. And knowing all of that was just as exciting as learning it had been.
The scars were unpleasant to look at and he couldn't imagine they felt any better to the touch. Even worse than the idea she would turn away from him was the idea she would be repulsed and try to hide it every time she touched him.
"Thinking about all the female krogan you're going to have to fight off now?" The joke was a weak one, but he couldn't stand the silence anymore.
Shepard sighed and suddenly rested her forehead against his, startling him. "Actually, I was thinking that if that goddamned rocket had been a millimeter more to the right, it would have sheared half your head off."
Her voice was trembling in a way that told him she was upset. He leaned back to look at her, surprise taking the tension out of his body. She gave him a wan smile. "Makes so much sense, right? After surviving all the shit we have, after everything that might have happened, that's what scares me."
"Arian…"
"I don't want to lose you, Garrus." Her voice was quiet. She ran her hand down the center of his chest. Her hand tightened on his shirt suddenly. "Female krogan…wait, is that what you're so uptight about? The scars?"
He glanced away but not fast enough. Shepard's eyes narrowed into slits. "It is. You idiot." Her hands pinned his shoulders and she leaned down to glare into his eyes. "Did you really think I was going to toss you out because of the scars, Vakarian? Did that rocket scramble your brain, too?" She rapped his forehead with a knuckle, which made his temper flare. He turned his head to glare back at her.
Arian frowned and leaned back a bit, reaching up and peeling the straps of her shirt down so most of her upper chest was exposed. She was not as well developed in that area as Miranda Lawson or some of the other human women on the ship; something that diminished her attractiveness to many human men, he understood, although he didn't care. Along the upper swell of her right breast was a scar that had not faded at all, unlike some of the others. It was long and very thin, curving along her upper chest before branching out into several smaller tendrils. It looked disturbingly like a wire running beneath her skin and- according to Shepard -that was precisely what it was. A sign of the much more extensive cybernetics than his that had been needed to put her back together again. "Remember that?" She touched it before reaching up and running her fingers along a similar one that ran beneath the line of her jaw, disappearing just behind her left ear. She had more on her arms and legs and a network of them fanning along the curve of one hip. He'd seen them all. Her hands returned to his shoulders, her voice softening. "Remember how nervous I was about those, Garrus? How gross I thought they were? And you thought I was crazy for being worried about it?"
He did. He still didn't understand why she had been so shy about those particular scars. They looked odd at first but he barely noticed them anymore.
He got her point. Even more so when she ran a hand along his crest, her expression softening. She leaned forward again. This time she traced her lips along his scarred mandible instead of her fingers.
For such a smart man, he could be a complete moron sometimes.
Shepard supposed with an injury like that, he had every right to be self conscious about it, but he was still an idiot. The fact he'd thought she would care that much about the scarring just went to prove she obviously hadn't given him enough reason to understand how much she adored him. Any weirdness over the differences between them had long since faded. There were times she'd caught his gaze at just the right time that had made her want to pounce on him right then and there, no matter how populated that particular area of the ship might be.
She doubted she could find the words to convince him of that, even if she'd been any good at it. She leaned into him instead, running her lips over the line of his right mandible, feeling the rough edges of the scars. Knowing they were nothing compared to the ones left on his soul from the whole ordeal. She trailed feather-light kisses over that half of his face, careful not to miss a spot. By the time she moved down his neck, he was trembling beneath her, his hands tight on her hips. She smiled, running her lips up to nip lightly at the spot where his mandible met his jaw. "Though slapping some face paint on there probably won't work, now that I think about it."
"Well, damn. And I thought it would be that simple." Garrus' voice was dry now. He slipped his hands up from her hips and pulled her shirt down the rest of the way, ducking his head down to run his tongue along the scar on her upper chest. Shepard sighed, one hand moving to the back of his head, stroking up beneath his crest softly. He turned, laying her out on the couch and peeling the rest of her clothes off. The wire scars weren't terribly obvious, no matter what she thought. He ran his hands and then his mouth over each one, feeling her tense and arch up softly in response. When he finally slipped up and settled on top of her, her breathing was coming short. He let his forehead rest against hers for a moment, one hand resting on her hip over the largest wire scar. She lifted her free hand and laid it over the scarred side of his face, simply looking at him for a long moment. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you," she murmured. "If only for a minute."
"That's probably the most poetic thing I've ever heard from you, Commander," he teased, using humor to cover up the fact her tone had everything inside him twisting up in emotional knots. She'd go for weeks without saying anything dramatic and suddenly slam him with a line like that.
"Your fault." She tugged at his clothing.
"Is that right?"
"You turn me into a sap, Vakarian, and that's a fact."
Garrus chuckled and pressed his face against the curve of her shoulder where it met her neck, an area that continued to fascinate him. He could have shredded that slender, delicate throat with one swipe or a single bite, but when he ran the edge of his mouth and the very tips of his teeth lightly up the line of it, he knew it wasn't fear that made her shiver. "Don't blame me for that. It's not my fault you can't resist me."
"I really can't." Arian tugged lightly on his crest until he lifted his head and she could kiss him, her tongue stroking his. She was pulling at his clothes again and made a soft purring sound of satisfaction when she got his shirt open and ran her hands over his chest. He didn't think it was too egotistical to find that gratifying; his armor had protected most of his cowl and chest from the rocket but there were a few pockmarks in the plating.
Her movements were sharper and more impatient now, the way she nipped at his tongue and mandibles a demand that made his blood thrum in his veins. Garrus caught her hands and pinned them above her head. He didn't have the patience to tease her until he made her beg- something he could do far more often than she would ever admit –but the sound she made when he flicked his tongue over one of her nipples and ran it up her throat was more than enough for the moment. He was aching; he had to have her. The word desire didn't even cover it in these moments. It was need. By the time she'd helped him strip the rest of his clothes off, she was trembling, and the clear fact she wanted him as badly as he wanted her only made him wilder. When he dragged her hips up and drove into her, she cried out, her body arching up. Arian pushed herself up on her arms, levering herself up to drive her hips harder and harder against his, her eyes burning as she stared at him. He met her gaze, sliding his fingers into her hair, talons scraping lightly against her scalp. The silk of her hair against his palm almost did him in and he struggled to hold back. Her breath was starting to come out in harsh, desperate pants. She reared up, grasping his cowl suddenly. "Yes…Garrus…"
His hand tightened around her hair, his other one digging into her hip as she clenched around him, every muscle in her body drawing tight, making him shudder and drag her tight against him as he came.
She fell back against the couch, panting wildly. Garrus held himself up on one arm, nuzzling her throat again. She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "Fucking hell…I am going to have to fight off a bunch of krogan females to keep hold of you, aren't I?"
Garrus laughed. "I'm sure you're up to it. You've taken on worse."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Officer." She dragged him down for a kiss, and then ran a finger along his right mandible, cocking her head as she looked up at him. "Well, fine then. You look worth it."