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Sniper Buddies – Relationship Effect
Setting: AU in which there are no Reapers and Shepard and Garrus are both Spectres.
"…I mean you'd think that two up and coming, highly skilled, and extremely good looking Spectres would be on the front line, leading the op. But no! Because we're still "green" we have to sit off to the side playing bird watch!"
"Yes, Shepard, I get the point," Garrus said tiredly. "In fact, I already got your point about five minutes into your rant. Another fifteen minutes of ranting have done little to alter my opinion further."
While he did sympathize with his human friend, Garrus still understood why Saren and Nihlus kept them in the background for this mission. The warehouse they were targeting was pretty much the central hub for all drug trade on the Citadel. Saren and Nihlus were two of the best Spectres out there, so it was natural the Council would trust them to lead the assault. Besides, while they didn't want to admit it, Garrus was a far superior sniper, even among Spectres, so it wasn't a bad idea to put him up high and play over watch.
But perhaps it was not as wise a decision to make Shepard his spotter. "All I'm saying is that our skills could be put to much better use elsewhere."
"Mmhmm," Garrus grumbled. He continued to survey the warehouse, looking for anything that might say the cartel inside might have been tipped off to their attack, which was set to commence in little more than ten minutes.
Shepard harrumphed indignantly and finally fell into merciful silence. John Shepard was one of his closest friends, but Garrus really could not stand his over inflated ego right now. Not on top of the mission and his… other problems.
"Are you okay?" Shepard suddenly asked.
Ah. So apparently the barrage of words had only paused, not ceased. Great.
"I'm fine," Garrus returned shortly.
Garrus couldn't see it, but he knew Shepard too well to know how the human was reacting. Right now he was probably setting his binoculars aside and giving Garrus that look. The one where Shepard got that glint in his eye when he found a chance to make someone spill their guts and feed his insatiable lust for knowing information about other people's lives.
"Alright, Vakarian, spill it. What's eating at you?"
Garrus shifted his armor nervously, starting to become uncomfortable from lying prone for so long. "There's nothing 'eating at me.' Spirits, you humans and your strange sayings."
"Oh come on, Garrus, you gotta forgive me for being curious. The last time you were like this was when you were going out with that…"
Garrus hoped Shepard didn't see the way he winced while Shepard let out a long, "Aaaaaahhh." He could practically feel the shit eating grin the human was giving him.
"Don't give me that bullshit," Garrus told him dismissively.
"So what's her name?" Shepard asked cheekily.
Garrus sighed. "You do realize we're in the middle of a mission right now? Now's not exactly the time."
"Now is the perfect time! Com one, Garrus, I tell you about all of my girlfriends."
"And I repeatedly ask you to stop," Garrus whined. "Spirits, I still have nightmares about the one seriously demented tattooed chick you went out with for a while."
"Please Garrus?" Shepard asked in that overly innocent voice. "I already have to sit out of a mission babysitting your Turian ass. Throw me a bone here!"
Another sigh, accompanied with rubbing his hand over his eyes. Shepard could be a persistent son of a bitch. If Garrus didn't curtail him now, it was likely Shepard would keep asking even after the shooting started.
"Alright, fine. Her name is… Ashley Williams."
Shepard was quiet for almost a full minute. 56.8 seconds, to be exact, if the count timer on Garrus' visor was to be believed. A new record for him, actually.
"That's an… awfully human name for a Turian gal," Shepard said with an uncharacteristic amount of bashfulness.
"Well… it would be if she were actually a Turian."
Shepard was silent for another 33.5 seconds. "Alright, you're going to have to give me the full run down here."
Garrus rolled his eyes. For such a smart human, Shepard could also be rather slow on the uptake. "Do you remember Dr. Saleon, that Salarian geneticist I chased to Eden Prime? The Alliance wasn't too keen on having a Turian Spectre in one of their colonies, but far less so about a mass murdering organ dealer. Thus was why they assigned me an N7 operative as my handler."
"And I take it that N7 happened to be Miss Williams?"
"Yup. And we did not like each other. At all. She's general Williams' granddaughter, you know, the one who pushed the Turians out of Shanxi during the war way back when. Definitely not racist against other species, but very slow to trust them."
"How'd you go from hating each other to in her pants?" Garrus finally pulled back from his sniper scope and gave Shepard a bland look. "What?"
"Nobody got into each other's pants." Garrus had an afterthought as he readjusted his aim. "Unless you count the time one of Saleon's men tried to smuggle a kidney in their pocket."
Shepard snickered, and Garrus thought back to the month he spent on Eden Prime. "Saleon and his group weren't exactly a violent bunch, so there wasn't much action to be had. Most nights we did stake outs with nothing much else to do besides watching a suspicious building and just… talk."
"What about?"
"A lot, actually. We had more in common than I thought we would. Both from families with prominent military backgrounds; both grew up with annoying younger sisters; both really good at handling a sniper rifle. She's a really good shot if drinks are on the line."
"Well, she can't be better than me!" Shepard boasted.
"Oh, whatever happy little lies you want to tell yourself, Shepard." Garrus didn't miss the petulant look the human gave him.
"So what exactly happened to shift you two from reluctant coworkers to potential couple?"
He didn't answer immediately, still trying to figure that out himself. "I don't know, really. Somewhere along the line we went from glares and clipped sentences to laughter and smiles. And it was… nice. Because I'm a Vakarian I always have to act a certain way around other Turians. And as a Williams there was a certain way she had to act around other humans. But when it was just Ashley and I, there weren't any expectations. No guidelines we had to live up to. It was just us.
"We took Saleon down without much fuss. Before I shipped back to the Citadel to lock him up, I asked her if she wanted to keep in touch. Pen pals, as you humans would say."
"Those are usually reserved for third graders, but go on."
"Well, we definitely stayed in touch. For the three months between then and now, we traded text messages, vid chats, the occasional bit of mail. To be honest, I had no idea why I was still talking to her, but I liked talking with her so much I didn't want to stop."
"Dear lord, it's like I'm watching some sappy rom com," Shepard observed.
Garrus grinned unabashedly, before turning nervous again. "Well, I think I started to catch on I liked her as more than a friend a few weeks ago. And around the same time I started noticing these… looks, she gave me. Ones that seemed a little too intense for friendly conversation. A lot more awkward silences and bouts of awkward laughter have cropped up too."
"Well we both know you've got awkward down in spades," Shepard jabbed, eliciting a chuckled from Garrus. Shepard tsked himself. "Your mission to Eden Prime was over three months ago. I can't believe I hadn't noticed until now you've got a girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," Garrus defended, perhaps a bit too quickly. "At least, not yet she isn't. Besides, like I said, it started out being pretty casual, and it didn't start getting intimate until a few weeks ago. And right now I'm more wound up than usual because, well, she's coming to the Citadel."
Shepard's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yup. In our last vid chat she told me she has some shore leave, so she wanted to check out the Citadel instead of the usual human haunts. I… well, I asked if she wanted to go out to dinner with me while she was here and… she said yes."
Shepard let out a long, appreciative whistle. "Damn, Vakarian. It only feels like yesterday you were sticking it to your old man and signing up for Spectre training. And now you're even dating a human! You're like a pioneer among Turians."
"We haven't even been on a single date yet," Garrus dismissed. "Besides, we're just going out as friends. Nothing more."
"Sure, keep telling yourself that Garrus," Shepard told him with that stupid grin. Garrus rolled his eyes and flipped him the Turian equivalent of the bird. "So is she hot?"
Garrus gave him a queer look. "I'm afraid I'm a little rusty when it comes to human beauty standards. I talk to Ashley for her personality, not her looks."
"Come on, Vakarian. I've seen the way Turian women, Quarian women, and even some Asari look at you. You're a looker. And you cannot tell me you'd date a human who was unattractive. Just give me some details about her."
He pondered that for a moment. If Garrus were being honest with himself, Ashley certainly was much nicer to look at than a lot of humans he's worked with over the years.
"Well, her skin is a nice tan brown color, not pasty white like yours." That got him a grunt of disapproval from the human Spectre, but Garrus didn't take to heart. "Her fringe is nice, and her waist is… rather supportive."
"Human women liked to be called curvy, Garrus, not likened to ladders."
"Alright, she's very curvy. And I noticed her breasts are bit large than the average."
"That's never a negative trait. What else?"
"Hmm. I really like her nose."
Now it was Shepard's turn to give Garrus a dumbfounded look. "Her nose?"
"Yeah. Most humans and Asari have these small, weird looking noses. Ashley's is larger and curved, and I… kinda want to feel what it's like to nuzzle with it."
Shepard blew out a breath of air. "So apparently Turians get off on noses. Who knew?"
"Oh shut up," Garrus scolded playfully. A red light suddenly popped up in Garrus' visor, alerting him Saren and Nihlus were on the way. "Alright, we are a go. Alpha team is moving."
"Roger that," Shepard told him.
He was only quiet for 9.9 seconds. Another new record.
"So you've never actually slept with a human before, right?"
"I am not having this conversation now, Shepard. Please just spot my targets."
"I only bring it up because I don't want you to hurt yourself, big guy."
"Please shut up, Shepard."
"I got this guy, Mordin, and he's got all kinds of educational videos about inter species... relations."
"Spirits, Shepard, if you do not stop talking I swear I will take this sniper rifle and beat you to death with it!"
