Garrus suddenly didn't feel like partying anymore. Every time his mind wandered, he saw the two of them together—Shepard and what he had assumed was her former human lover—on the bed making love. In his imagination they were naked, and noisy, screwing like the apes he'd seen at the presidium zoo. It didn't help that he knew every sound Shepard would make, every special place that she loved to be kissed, and licked and cradled, her favorite positions and even what songs she liked to listen to during sex. All that just made it easier to imagine her with Kaidan.
"Garrus, Traynor wants to know if there are turian lesbians." Tali said. The Quarian's voice forced his mind to lurch back into the present. He noticed how each syllable Tali spoke was executed with precision, a telltale sign that the girl was drunk. She was tugging on his sleeve with a free hand which was also keeping her from wobbling. It was kind of endearing, but mostly just funny.
"Oh yes, though they are a very small minority. I've never met any myself."
"It's pretty common among humans," Traynor informed the small group of people gathered around her. "Not like Asari or anything, but females are considered the superior gender by pretty much everyone."
"Agreed," James said, raising his glass. "To females!"
Garrus raised his glass and drank good naturedly, but then ducked out of the conversation. He didn't really want to think about females just then. It was too painful. He wandered to the empty study to be alone for a moment with his thoughts and the clenching pain in his chest. Shepard. With Kaidan. Why?
He wasn't even sure why he was taking this so badly. Shepard had never said anything to suggest that they were going to be exclusive. Hell, he was the one who referred to sex as "blowing off steam" as if she was just a fuck-buddy who was conveniently better at satiating his lust than he was on his own. There wasn't really any talk of love or what would become of them after the war, or even going out together on a real date. He had started to show more affection in public, maybe a little possessiveness…was she reacting to that? Or maybe she wanted a human every now and then, something to satisfy her in a way that he couldn't—without the chaffing and the allergies and the condoms. Kaidan could give her that.
Garrus downed his drink and sighed heavily. Now there was no way he was asking her on a date. Dating was for people who had a future together, not fuck-buddies. How could he bring it up now, knowing that she was okay with seeing other people on the side? Even with this rationale, the heartache just refused to go away. He put it out of his mind and wandered back to the party. Someone had just brought out a deck of cards and he was ready for a distraction.
#
Jack and Joker weren't the only one who noticed the hickey. Tali mistook it for a tattoo through her cheese-smeared violet face-plate and declared it the most delightful portrait of Captain Anderson she had ever seen. Jacob asked if she had hurt herself while cooking , and Traynor asked her privately how turians managed to do that without lips.
Garrus just avoided her. The sight of Shepard with that huge red and purple bruise on her neck just infuriated him every time he saw it. It rekindled his lurid imaginings of Shepard with Kaidan, and what he would do and say to Kaidan if he showed back up at the party. It would not be pretty. Just because Garrus had left his gun on the Normandy didn't mean he couldn't do some serious damage to a human, even a Spectre like Kaidan. And he wanted to pound Kaidan to a bloody, pulpy mess. Garrus knew that it was irrational, but a part of him didn't care. His vengeance fantasy was better than the feeling of emptiness he felt when he thought about Shepard with another man.
Shepard, on the other hand, mistook Garrus' jealous anger for disgust with her. Her guilt only spiraled more and more out of control. She couldn't bring herself to hate Kaidan for coming to her the night before a suicide mission, but she could hate herself for not just keeping it platonic. She lost hand after hand of cards, until finally the evening wound down and people began to leave or find places to sleep. She had two extra bedrooms and plenty of couches, after all.
At the very end of the night, Garrus and Shepard came face to face at the bottom of the stairs. The stood apart like statues flanking a doorway. Shepard wanted to reach out to him, to apologize and be held in his strong lean arms. She missed the smell of him and his deep resonating voice. Before she could speak, however, Garrus held up a hand. "Not tonight Shepard. Another time maybe."
"Yeah." Shepard shrugged her shoulders and smiled carelessly, and then went up to her bed alone. She thought that she wouldn't be able to sleep, but the alcohol in her system wouldn't let her stay awake any longer than it took for her to kick off her heels and lie flat. She was out in an instant.
#
Garrus went back to his bunk on the Normandy that night rather than sleep at Shepard's apartment. He had assumed they would be spending most of their nights together on shore leave and so hadn't arranged to get a hotel room on the citadel. It was strange sleeping in the quiet, resting ship without the hum of the drive core and the clatter of other people about. In dry dock for the retrofits, it felt like sleeping in a tomb. He was restless too, thinking about Shepard. What had she meant by sleeping with Kaidan? Was it just old tensions come to the surface this once, or was Garrus her turian on the side when she couldn't be with Kaidan? The thoughts seemed to stab at his mind like little pricking needles, keeping him from relaxing.
Maybe what he needed was a break from Shepard, and from romance in general. He could go to Chora's Den and get some much needed release from an unknown Asari. He used to do that every now and again, back on Omega before he and Shepard had even considered romance. It might help him think straight if he wasn't so sexually charged.
#
Shepard woke up with a hangover that rivaled the ass kicking she had gotten from Kai Leng. Her stomach felt like a snake pit and her head felt like it had been stomped on by a herd of angry Krogan. She squinted in the dim light of the apartment and glanced at the clock. 0600 ship time. She staggered to the bathroom to empty her bladder and then went back to bed.
The next time she woke up, it was to another cool cloth on her forehead. "You don't have to do that Garrus," Shepard murmured before opening her eyes. Liara's sapphire eyes looked down at her sympathetically. Her head felt better, but still tender. Her stomachache was gone.
"It's me Shepard. I'm sorry, but Garrus left last night."
"And you didn't?' Shepard asked. She sat up slowly and looked around, as if expecting him to pop out of the closet laughing.
"I wanted to make sure that you were okay. I slept in the other bedroom, but I checked on you periodically. It wouldn't do for Commander Shepard, hero of the citadel, to die of alcohol poisoning." She fiddled with some bottles and handed Shepard some pills and a glass of water.
Shepard took the pills and silently agreed, until her memory of the night before came flooding back to her. Oh yeah, there had been a really good reason for all that drinking.
"What were you thinking, Shepard?" Liara's voice was a mix of admonishment and exasperation.
"I wasn't thinking. I was drinking." Shepard growled, as much at herself as at Liara. The Asari pursed her lips and shook her head.
"You told me the whole story in the bathroom last night Shepard. I imagine you hurt Garrus' feelings terribly by hooking up with Kaidan, no matter what your reasoning."
"You think I don't know that?" Shepard asked. She was trying not to be angry with patient, understanding Liara, but her own self-hatred was beginning to overflow onto her friend. She took a deep breath and gulped down the rest of the water. She realized what she was implying by acknowledging that she'd hurt Garrus and quickly changed her tune. "Thanks Liara. But…I don't think that Garrus wants to be anything more than friends."
"Friends don't wake up next you in the morning, Shepard. They aren't hurt when you sleep with another man." Liara said. "Faithfulness and jealousy are for lovers."
"Can you really call us lovers if there's no love there?" Shepard got up off the bed. She felt disgusting. A shower was in order, and then maybe food. And possibly more pain meds. "It's just sex. Surely you understand that, as an Asari. "
"What are you implying, Shepard?" Liara's brows were furrowed. It was angrier than Shepard had seen the doctor in a long time.
"Nothing. I'm just trying to keep you from implying things about my life that aren't true." Shepard shucked off her dress and went into the bathroom to clean up, ignoring Liara's offended look. Shepard know that she was being a galaxy-class bitch, but she didn't care. Lashing out at Liara was keeping her from having to feel the horrible ache from the empty place in her heart where she usually thought of Garrus.
Liara was gone when Shepard finished with her bath. The commander felt bad about what she had said, especially since Liara had only been trying to help her. Shepard had been catty, which was unlike her. Shepard prided herself on being level-headed and fair, but this romance bullshit had her doing things she never would have thought possible. Like fucking Kaidan when she really only wanted to fuck Garrus. That was the heart of this whole thing. She never realized how much she liked him…maybe even loved him…until there was a possibility of losing him.
She sent Garrus three messages that day, and he returned none of them. There was no way to know if it was because he hadn't checked his terminal, or because he didn't want to talk to her. She turned on vids of the fighting sim and lay on her bed in sweat pants and a tank top. Other than venturing to the kitchen for a protein shake, she had no intention of moving until she got a call that the refit of the Normandy was complete.
#
Though recently renovated and reopened, Chora's Den was just like Garrus remembered—dark and loud and full of men looking for an anonymous lover to ease their tensions. Criminals huddled in the darker corners, but Garrus was no longer C-Sec and so ignored them. He knew that they knew him—turians with half of their faces blown off weren't as common on the citadel as they were on Omega—but he didn't care. If he wasn't in an exclusive relationship with Shepard, which she had made clear to him was the case, then he had nothing at all to hide.
Almost as soon as he sat down he was approached by a nameless young Asari wearing almost nothing. He ordered a drink and watched the girl dance. Sweat gleamed on the midnight skin of her ample cleavage, and her hips undulated seductively. Garrus ordered a drink with a hand gesture at the bartender and was shortly served by another busty Asari maiden.
The dancer moved in closer after he threw back the drink and put her hands on his knees. "Would you like a more…private show?" she asked. Her eyes were deep green and looked incredibly young to him, despite the fact that she had probably lived twice as many years as he had. She looked genuinely interested in him, and Garrus didn't care if it was because of his credit chit or his reputation.
"Why the hell not?" he asked her. He ordered another drink and followed her to one of the back rooms reserved for that specific purpose.
The Asari performer resumed her dancing, this time with more emphasis on the taking off of her clothes. Garrus sat back and tried to enjoy himself. Every time guilt crept into his conscience, he took a long swig of his drink and rubbed himself through his pants to try and encourage this encounter along. The Asari was very well endowed. Her breasts swung and bounced as she rolled her body to the music, and Garrus couldn't take his eyes off of them—but not for the reason he had hoped when he came here. He couldn't help and compare them to Shepard's smaller, paler, more pert breasts. He couldn't help but remember how Shepard would moan and writhe when he trailed his rough tongue over them.
The dancer noticed his erection and sunk to her knees between his legs. "Do you want the ambassador treatment or the full on councilor?" she asked. Her hand snaked up his thigh and lingered on the bulge in his pants.
Garrus closed his eyes. He should do this. Shepard didn't want him, and he didn't want to want her so much. But he wasn't sure if he was ready to do as she did and fuck someone else. "Just…the ambassador," he said. He leaned his head back and kept his eyes closed as nimble blue fingers expertly opened the fly of his pants and withdrew his member. His mind couldn't help but see Shepard's cocky grin, imagine it was her fingers around him, stroking and pulling. He heard her chuckle in his ear and imagined her hair brushing against his leg. Until he felt the Asari's hot breath on him though, and her wet mouth around him, and her strong tongue lapping at him. There was no imagining himself away from reality then. He was in a grimy back room at a strip club getting head from an Asari dancer. It was too different. This dancer didn't use her tongue just so, didn't grip him as hard, didn't laugh and smile and banter with him.
Garrus tried to enjoy the resulting orgasm, but it was one of the most lackluster of his life. He hadn't felt so let down sexually since he was a teenager jacking himself off in his bunk at basic training. What made it worse was the knowledge that he could have fought harder for Shepard to be with him. If he had said something different before, or asked her on that date, or hell if he had just offed Kaidan…
The dancer was looking at him expectantly. Garrus stood and straightened his clothes. "Thanks," he said absently. He swiped his credit chit on the slot next to the door and strode out without looking either at the price or the dancer. Neither of them meant anything to him. He passed the bar this time without stopping for a drink. He had to get out of there. He had to find Shepard. His denial of his feelings were over. He had to tell her how he really felt.
