4.
If he's being honest with himself, Garrus doesn't expect to live to be an old turian. He truthfully doesn't foresee himself surviving long enough to have his plates fade and start to peel or his eyesight grow dim, or to have a flock of great-grand-nephews and nieces surround him as he rambles endlessly about days gone by.
It's not that he's suicidal or reckless, it's simple statistics. He's a soldier, in a time of war, who ends up in bizarrely dangerous situations. The odds really don't calculate well in his favor.
But if he does make it to be old and faded, he'll never forget the sight of Shepard being flung through air, biotic energy surrounding her in a blue glow. He'll never forget the sound of Jack cheering when Shepard crashes to the ground on the other side, activating her cloak even as she rolls to a stop in the dirt.
And another memory that will never leave him is the feeling of relief when her cloak times out again, but she's already laying prone behind the questionable safety of the krogan's corpse.
Even the vorcha seem to be impressed. Or at least surprised. It takes them a few seconds to regroup and start firing at her. Garrus manages to pick off two before they remember he's there, and force him back behind the support.
"Headed... tower... mark." Shepard's voice breaks up as the radiation spikes again.
"Copy, ready on your mark," he comms her. "Jack, could use the extra fire power up here. She's got eight seconds on that cloak and eleven seconds of ground to cover. She won't make it before they spot her; she'll need all the help she can get."
Shepard waves a hand and her cloak comes up, and then she's running toward the tower.
"One. Two. Three. Four..." he counts, checking his rifle's thermal clip.
"Five. Six. Seven," Jack says, voice tense as she readies herself to move in beside him. It will take a few seconds to reach his position, and he'll be on his own to protect Shepard during that stretch.
"Eight," Shepard's voice pants in his ear.
He pivots from behind the support, bringing his rifle up in a smooth motion. He can't afford to look toward Shepard and watch her progress as she makes the final push, not when targets are popping up in front of him, the vorcha obviously overjoyed that their quarry has made such a critical error.
Spirits, but there are a lot of them, he thinks, before falling into the easy rhythm of acquire-the-target-breathe-squeeze-reacquire. His visor streams data he doesn't consciously see; he only takes the stats he needs to put down the next trooper.
Then Jack is beside him, Carnifex firing as quickly as she can pull the trigger.
He's heard it said that time slows down in high-stress situations. He's never bought it. If anything, time accelerates as though propelled by a faster-than-light drive.
Later, he'd be able to count the heat sinks at his feet and would know how many times he fired, but in the moment... it feels like only a few. He breathes in, squeezes the trigger, time distorts, and he's put down half a dozen mercs without consciously realizing it.
Then the mercs realize they're being dropped faster than pyjaks on a Tuchanka firing range and time resumes its normal march. The vorcha finally catch on that there are still two fronts to this fight, and half of them shift to firing at him and Jack.
They step back into cover, and this time it's Jack looking up at him.
"Is this where I put my hands down your pants?"
Turians can't roll their eyes either, but he gives a huff of exasperation. "Shepard? You okay?" He didn't know he was so tense until her comms pop with static, he hears her voice, and his muscles relax.
"Yeah. My omni-tool caught a ricochet, though. Think my cloak is out; I'm setting up to the right of the tower. Give me a second... some of these idiots don't think I can get them from this distance."
A series of sharp cracks echo through the scorching heat, the sounds spaced in an overlapping cadence as she eliminates targets. Garrus can't help but smile. It's something only another sniper would appreciate.
"Don't you think it's a little twisted that gunfire turns you on?" Jack lifts an eyebrow with the question.
"Like you don't get off when things explode."
There's crack-boom from the direction of the tower. The metal comes apart, squealing in protest as the explosion tips it, and finally an earth-shaking crash as it collapses. Jack's lips curve into a smile. "Forget what I said this morning. You're okay."
There aren't many places to hide between where they stand and where the end of the tower has come to rest, but Shepard is already picking off targets.
"Jack? Garrus? Any time. I'm down to..." she counts, "...eight sinks, here."
Her Widow barks again, the noise distinct against the background of chattering submachine guns.
Jack shrugs, and without giving any warning, pushes away from him and starts running. Garrus counts off two seconds, and follows her path toward the tower.
It's a longer run than he realized, but apparently Shepard's doing a decent job of distracting the mercs, because he doesn't catch any rounds while he scrambles around knee-high chunks of concrete, dodging twisted rebar and broken glass. As he charges around the end of the tower, behind the cover it offers, he sees Jack waiting. She's bent at the waist, hands on her knees, panting.
"Shit, it's hot here."
"Can't argue with that." He tries to raise Shepard over the comms, but all he gets back is a hiss of static.
"She's fine," Jack says. "Now move your bony ass over this thing."
The long cylindrical base of the tower is bowed from its impact, curving down slightly in the middle, but the ladder that once ascended the side of it now makes a decent ledge that they can side-step along while leaning against the cylinder for support. The base itself is pockmarked with rust, the cancer leaving gaps in their cover, but for the most part they're out of sight from enemy forces.
All in all, it's not a bad escape route.
Except the thing groans and creaks and feels like it's shifting the entire time they sidle across.
"That's creepy as hell," Jack says at one point, looking down into the chasm.
"Uh-huh." Garrus keeps his eyes firmly up. After following Shepard so long, he's become a firm believer in the 'don't look' policy. It's not the height that bothers him; it's just that every time he breaks the rule and does look, husks or scions or something equally obscene appears. It would be just his luck for a thresher maw to rear up out of the depths.
"You two okay?" Shepard's voice hints at worry.
"Yeah. We're good, Shepard." The opposite side is ten feet away and as Garrus shuffles two more steps, he glances down from his vantage point, looking for her.
Her red hair stands out like a target. She's laying belly-down in the remains of the tower's support structure, barrel of her Widow aimed through a long, horizontal tear in the rusted metal.
"How's it look?" he asks.
She glances at him and one corner of her mouth tugs up in a quick smile, then she resumes her watch of the enemy's position. "Better, now that you two are here."
As soon as he and Jack are over solid ground again, they drop off of the tower, ducking low as they join Shepard's position.
When the tower went down, it left an uneven circle of metal behind; the side where Shepard detonated the explosives is only ankle-high, but the jagged portion left between them and the enemy comes to Garrus' waist, making for decent cover. The real bonus is there's shade this time.
She nods at them, then jerks her chin to where the vorcha are holed up. "I think there are two left."
"Two?" Garrus unclips his rifle from the magnetic holds at his back. He drops next to her, on his stomach, sliding his barrel through the same opening. "Couldn't leave any for us?"
She laughs, and sights through her scope. "Jack? I'm not sure how long my cloak will last, and you're faster than I am. You said you wanted to rip some vorcha apart?"
"Hell, yes." Jack doesn't hesitate, crouching low as she moves away. "I get killed, I'm haunting you two."
Jack takes off and the troopers spring back up. Garrus notices that there are three, not two, but Shepard corrects that problem almost immediately by turning one's head into a fine red mist.
And Jack... is doing her thing. A biotic wave hurls dirt and rock upward as it pulses toward the second vorcha. When it strikes the merc, it blows him out of hiding, the force sending him flying into the gorge. Jack ducks behind the twisted shell of a tanker truck, signaling back to them that she's good.
The third vorcha is sidling side to side, firing as it screams random insults.
Shepard sights in on it, but there's no way Garrus is going to let her get the final kill-shot. He shifts his rifle, zeroing in on center mass, and squeezes the trigger.
And blinks when he almost misses.
He'd mistimed the shot, hadn't led the vorcha enough as it ran sideways. The round meant for the trooper's heart went through its shoulder instead, and from the screaming echoing through the rubble, it was a safe bet it was trying to regenerate.
Going in after a wounded vorcha is never a good idea; it's always safer to let them get back up.
He and Shepard lay there in silence for a minute before she gives him a sidelong glance "You rushed that," she says, amused.
"Yeah. Timing was off," he answers with a self-deprecating click of his mandibles. He knocks the spent thermal clip from his rifle, the sink bouncing off his arm, sound barely registering as he presses the next into the firing chamber.
She shrugs. "It's what you get for trying to steal my shot."
He turns his head to look at her. "What?"
"Don't play all innocent turian with me, Vakarian. You do it all the time." She's close enough he can see that she still has the smudge of soot on her nose.
He tries not to grin. Fails miserably.
"Maybe you should learn to get a fix on the target faster."
"Really."
"Yeah. I could probably teach you, sometime. Or, show you some vids, maybe."
"Pass, thanks. I know what kind of vids Joker sends you to watch."
"Can I...?" He reaches up with one finger, wiping at the smudge, but only succeeds in smearing it more. "Huh."
He's not sure he's ever seen the expression she wears as she looks back downrange, but she moves close enough to bump her armored shoulders against his. "We all have days when our timing is bad."
He's been thinking more than he'd care to admit about bad timing. And with that thought, he's back in a feedback loop.
"Yeah," he mutters. She has no way of knowing that he's not thinking of kill-shots, but of her, of the fact that his brain is so muddled that maybe even timing doesn't matter any more.
The vorcha chooses then to shout, "Can't kill me!" and for some reason, this makes Shepard laugh.
Jack's voice crackles over the air next. "Did you even hit him?"
"Can you do some clean-up for us, Jack?" Shepard asks.
"On it."
They watch through their scopes as Jack charges again. The last vorcha shares the same fate as the one before, falling screaming over the edge.
"That should be it? Your visor picking up anything else?" She's waiting to hear from Jack, but from the radiation crackle on the comms, it will be a minute before they can reestablish communication.
He scans, sees nothing, and shakes his head as he grins. "No. Should be clear... and I can't believe this plan actually worked. It was pretty long odds."
Shepard snorts. "Jack? You see anything else?"
"Ju... some varren... chained..."
"Good. Don't mess with them. Maybe I can talk Wrex into sending somebody to take them. Meet you back at the Kodiak in ten."
Garrus looks downrange as though he's doing another sweep and smiles to himself. Only Shepard would spare varren. Then again, if there had been a way to keep Urz on the ship, she would have done it.
Something occurs to him and he gives her a curious look. "In ten? It's five minutes max to the shuttle."
"Yeah," she says and rolls to her side, then up on one elbow so she can look down at him. She deliberately turns her comms audio output off again. "You haven't kissed me recently. Think five minutes is enough time to solve that problem?"
He grins, toggling his audio as well. He turns and pushes up from the ground, weight on his hip and hand. He's above her now, but puts a hand on her hip as he leans in close and says, "I think I can do that."
He brushes his mouth across hers, light and careful. She nips at his upper lip in response, careful little bites without force or direction. Then she pulls back, puts the tips of her gloved fingers in her mouth, tugs off the glove, and drops it between them.
"I hate not being able to feel you," she says, bare hand fitting perfectly against his scarred mandible. Her thumb makes a slow sweep up, so gentle over the damaged flesh and plate that the gesture is almost tentative. The same unguarded affection has returned to her voice and the line between black and white, blowing off steam and falling for, blurs a little more.
"Shepard..." he starts, only to falter. Not something they can talk about here. Her eyebrows arch in a question, and the only answer he has for now is to bend his head down and kiss her again.
Her fingers ghost over the bandage, not hesitating there, slipping to the back of his head, darting up to his fringe. Her nails scratch lightly and he gives a warning grumble; he's trying to be gentle and it feels too damn good when she does that.
She laughs against his mouth and her nails dig in. The jolt that goes through him is enough that he can feel his pelvic plates start to separate, and he knows exactly how uncomfortable it is to walk around in full armor when he's even partially extended. He pulls back and glares at her.
"What?" she smirks. Her lips are red and a little swollen, so maybe he was kissing her harder than he thought.
"Don't play all innocent human with me, Shepard," he reuses her line.
"Well. You keep kissing me like that, Jack is going to have to shoot us both."
"Right. Mercy killing." He leans forward again, but this time simply to press his forehead to hers. The gesture feels right, like it fits as well as her palm against his mandible. She fits, he thinks. Or maybe they fit. Any way he looks at it, the line is getting grayer by the second.
His voice is a little rougher than normal when he asks, "Maybe we should get back to the ship? Where we can take our time, upset the crazy biotic as little as possible?"
"Your plans are so much better than mine."
He sorts through the notes in her voice and he'd be a very dense turian if he didn't recognize the emotion there. Unless he misses his mark, which he seldom does, things are getting blurred for her, too.
Her mouth turns in a wry smile, and then she's scrambling to her feet, scooping her glove and Widow up as she goes. He sits up and grabs the stock of his own rifle, frowning at the grime coating it.
"Going to be cleaning weapons and armor for days," Shepard says, as though she reads his mind. She pulls her glove back on, and out of habit, taps her omni-tool, seeming to forget that it was damaged.
Her tactical cloak flickers, and then her shields spark, and maybe it's the a combination of radiation and screwed-up tech, but without warning she's surrounded by light brighter than a sun going nova.
Garrus isn't normally a poetic type of turian, but even the most literal of minds could appreciate his next thoughts.
She's not a siha, not an angel who must bend her will as a goddess commands. Shepard is a force all of her own. She's a star at it's brightest, burning twice as hot, and spirits help anyone stupid enough to stand in her way.
"Well, that's annoying," she says. "Hope I don't glow like this the whole ride back."
She looks down at him, and offers him her hand.
He stares into the light and her outstretched hand, and knows without a doubt he'll walk beside her as long as he can because he's gone way past falling for.
His heart thumps in his chest.
"Coming with me?" she asks.
Always.
The light goes out as suddenly as it flared up, but his heart is still hammering. He takes her hand and stands, pulling her roughly to him.
He registers her surprised expression, but this time he isn't trying for gentle. He tilts his head down and kisses her, open-mouthed and demanding, tongue pressing into her mouth. She makes a small noise, her tongue meeting his as she tries to respond in kind and trace the harder lines of his mouth.
He's not having it; this is his show.
He kisses her harder, not yielding, humming low and dangerous. This isn't like earlier, against the bridge support, a thing constructed between them, made of give and take.
This is all him. Sharp, zeroed in.
He loves her.
He loves her and he's not sure he's ever wanted anything more than he wants her right now.
His arm wraps around her shoulders, other hand somehow managing to clip his rifle behind him so he can rest his fingers on her waist.
I hate not being able to feel you, she'd said, and he finds himself agreeing wholeheartedly with that sentiment.
He groans in frustration, because he doesn't want to lose contact, but the gloves have to come off. He jerks back and the movement startles her; her face is flushed, confused. He starts yanking off his gloves and she understands in a flash, and begins tugging at hers.
He's done before she is, and he cups one hand behind her neck. He's not as careful with his claws as he could be, but it's not like they're razor sharp, and past experience has taught him the feeling of them on her skin is something she likes as much as he does.
"Any time, now, Shepard," he says, voice rasping in the air between them.
Her right glove is stuck, partially melted to the sleeve of her armor, and she's struggling with it, but Garrus has run out of patience. He steps in close again, trapping her hands between them as she works at the glove.
He slides the tips of the claws on her neck up, dragging them through her hair until he can wind the strands around his fingers. She's cursing in frustration, so he drops his head, touching his lips to the skin of her neck.
He breathes in, smelling dirt, and smoke, and sweat. He flicks his tongue out, and tastes sharp salt, and then starts a line of small bites toward her ear.
She mutters something that sounds like fuck, yes, but he can't be sure because it's said around a sharp gasp of air as he scrapes his teeth over her neck. There'll be a red mark there, but he's beyond caring.
He digs his claws into her waist, knowing he can't hurt her through the ballistic cloth. It's something he can't do when she's unarmored, something that he could do if she were one of his own species. He'll never regret she's not turian, but this? Knowing he doesn't have to hold back?
Forget being uncomfortable on the walk back; he's so far extended against the inside of his armor, it's painful.
"Shepard," he pants against the curve of her ear, "...we need to stop. Either that, or I plan on going much, much faster."
She's finally got her hands free, and she wraps them behind his head.
"God. Your plans really are better," she says, her nails sinking into the softer hide below his fringe. The jolt that goes through him this time makes him reflexively dig his claws into her waist. She drops a hand over his, and at first he thinks he has hurt her, but instead of pulling his hand away, she curls her fingers against his claws, increasing the force.
A dim part of his brain fires. When had she figured out exactly how much that would turn him on?
Her hand flexes on his again, and he moans in response, the sound lost in their kiss.
She's going to bruise. Her mouth, the place he grips her. They both know it. Neither of them care.
If perception of time is altered in battle, that's nothing compared to the way it buckles now.
Everything around him seems to condense, collapse, until it's only Shepard fitting against him. Her mouth, her lips, her nails, her teeth. All he can focus on is her and the way she challenges every move until he's not sure if he's groaning or growling.
He uses the hand on her waist and his greater weight to push her backward toward the metal wall.
Her back hits the wall and they break apart, out of breath, staring at one another. His claws are in her hair and she's gripping his fringe, and the way she's looking at him makes his blood feel like it's burning in his veins, because he's seen this in her eyes before.
He knows exactly, precisely, without a doubt, what she wants.
She wants to make him break apart, into a million jagged shards under her hands. She wants to push his limits until he screams her name. She wants to meet his every advance with aggression he'd only expect in another turian. And then she wants to give him control. Every breath, every heartbeat, every moment, and he's having a hard time not pulling off her armor and taking it right there.
A tremor runs through him, and he can't help the way his eyes narrow on her or the low hum that he makes.
"Jack?" she says, voice surprisingly level. "Make that fifteen."
There's a long hiss of static, but Shepard's already popping one of the seals on his lower armor.
"Shepard, my plans may be better, but I love the way you think," he says, reaching to help her, and -
The varren that leaps over the wall hits her with the force of a grenade.