Disclaimer: It's in chapter one.
Everybody, thank DannyBates again. It's not that I forget to write, but guhdamn I have been busy, busy, busy.
Despite Garrus's best efforts, he wasn't quite able to pull himself away from Shepard immediately after their most recent round, even though they both had enough work to do.
It wasn't really his fault, though; it turns out human women were the most comfortable bed warmers he'd ever had the pleasure of sharing covers with. Couple that with her distant, even surly attitude earlier, and he was far too grateful for the break in the bad mood to take what she had to offer for granted. He absentmindedly licked behind the shell of one ear, enjoying the afterglow, as she looked over that poem again from a small, personal display on her omni-tool.
"Maybe I should memorize this piece of literature. There has to be a tactical use for a hard turian dick on command."
He huffed a laugh a little bit into the skin of her neck. "What does it say about my race if I tell you that all turian males fantasize about having his mate someday recite that old thing to them?"
"It makes you sound like a bunch of sappy romantics. Is all turian love poetry like this?"
"Most of them usually talk more about the two moons above Palaven. Sort of, ah, a metaphor for the couple, I guess. Those kind of themes are all over our folklore, too. Satellites falling or colliding like they're romantic, stuff like that."
"Folklore, huh? Makes me want to hear what kind of fairy tales turians made up." She smiled at him. "Now, what was that 'parental meeting' your father was talking about? I don't think you want me to be looking that up on the Extranet as well."
Garrus gave a somewhat surly hum at being reminded about that. He wanted this time to last as long as possible. "There are a lot of stupid stages in traditional turian courtship. I was honestly not even thinking about that since almost no one this day and age does that sort of thing, but I guess I should have known father better than that."
"So, what, this is the old 'meet their family' part? Humans have that, too."
Garrus shook his head. "It's more complicated than that. The Parental Meeting is an ancient practice. The dominant culture on Palaven at the time was forming an alternative to arranged marriages. After the couple has a meeting with the parents, the relationship gains a legal status between 'dating' and 'engaged'."
"Going steady."
"Exactly. The couple or the parents of either could call the meeting to decide if the two families can get along, and if the meeting, well, fails, then they have to meet again to draw up a legal contract if the relationship continues."
Shepard frowned. "Contracts?"
"They're… like prenuptials, I guess, but they only serve the purpose of annoying everyone if only two people involved don't like each other. They were deemed necessary once, but have been pretty much superfluous legal code for a few hundred years now. Most people skip it unless they have an ax to grind."
"I don't get it. The whole point of prenups is to keep one spouse from getting the money of the other after a divorce. What sort of contracts could come from that arrangement?"
"Annoying ones. In C-Sec, I saw the result of one from a Meeting that went so south that the contract was designed to be essentially a restraining order between the couple. Naturally, the kids ignored it, and the whole lot of them ended up getting dragged into the Academy over the dispute. The law is old, but it's still in the Hierarchy even if it isn't Citadel law, so we had to shut up all six of them into holding cells to keep them from attacking each other while Palaven legal aides were called in. The paperwork on that one took hours."
"Six?"
"The couple and each of their parents."
Shepard leaned back onto the low headboard. "Would I be expected to bring someone with me to represent my parents?"
"I believe there are allowances in the system for if the parents are indisposed or dead." He looked down at the sheet over his legs and fluttered his mandibles. "But, this is pretty presumptuous of him, isn't it? We haven't even… I mean, we aren't…" He sighed. "If you don't mind me saying, letting someone force you into something that is basically a political maneuver is very uncharacteristic of you. We don't have to do it at all if you don't want to."
She guessed at what he was trying to say and pulled his head to face her and kissed him again. "I think we can agree we're a little more serious than fuck-buddies right now. And your father seems to like me a lot more than you seemed to think he would, so I think we'll be alright."
You don't know my father. He wouldn't have called for one if it was going to be easy. But instead of voicing his concerns, he huffed and kissed her again. "So… does that mean I get to call you my 'girlfriend', now?" His carapace felt unnaturally light all of the sudden as he said that.
"You'd better, because if I don't start calling you 'boyfriend', I'll have to think up a new officer title to illustrate the clearance into my bedroom and additional responsibilities associated."
"Why, Commander. I have to say, being under your command has to be the most... fulfilling assignment I've ever had."
Jack might not be good at interacting with people necessarily, but she felt pretty confident that she knew how to read them. Shepard didn't seem to enjoy spending a lick of time on Illium, so much so that she ordered Garrus and her to talk to Liara T'Soni in her place while she worked on getting supplies and more on her extended To-Do list.
Shepard's fuck didn't seem to like that. "You're sure? Liara is probably pretty excited to see you, you know. She was… rather famously fond of you, if memory serves."
There was a look on the commander's face the turian probably missed that told Jack there had to be a fun story behind that. "Liara" was the last person Shepard wanted to see to right now, and it looked like she didn't give a damn about the other party's feelings on that regard.
"We don't exactly have a bunch of time for us to waste slumming around Illium, you know. We've got people to gather, Collectors to follow—"
"Right, right." Garrus nodded. "Sorry, Commander. I'll go ahead and talk to Liara while you shop."
The look she shot him before marching to her next appointment wasn't exactly poisonous, but "exasperated" would describe it pretty well. Jack scoffed a little and crossed her arms.
"What'd this 'Liara' do, huh? Flush the commander's armor-cleaning solution down a drain?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure. She didn't seem to like Liara two years ago, either, but there were rumors all over the ship that, ah…" Garrus shook his head. "Nevermind. No reason to resurrect old gossip."
"She and Shepard were fucking, I take?"
"No. I mean, I don't know. Nobody knew. And this isn't important." He pulled up his omni-tool to look at a map. "Let's go ahead and see her instead of standing around and chatting about it, okay?"
"Come on, Shepard's attached to your dick, now, right? If 'Liara' was an old lover, shouldn't I know to be prepared in case she's the jealous type?" At this point, Jack didn't even really care—who really gives a shit about who fucked who, anyway?—but it was obviously bothering Garrus, so she couldn't help the prodding.
His answer was to start moving in the direction they needed to go. "Jack, even if I was inclined to tell you, I don't have anything I could say. They were just rumors, and they were complicated by the people involved. I did my part by staying as far out of it as I could."
She smiled, even as she matched the wider turian stride. "So, you weren't chasing after her back then?"
"I wasn't."
"Ever regret that?"
That one hit a nerve. He almost stopped his march from the shock, but instead it only fumbled as if he was trying to physically avoid the implications of it in his path before he set on his pace again. Either he didn't expect such a question, or he never thought of it before, but he didn't answer, so she let it go.
When they came to the asari's office, they found Liara in the middle of a business disagreement, and she came off as the sort of cold badass a lot of asari aspired to be at first. For a moment, Jack could imagine Shepard going for a chick like that.
The illusion was broken when she heard them come in. "Shepard!" she whirled around like a princess meeting her Prince Charming, only to have her joy immediately (and, as far as Jack was concerned, comically) smashed. She made a big, awkward struggle of retraining her face to still show some happiness in seeing someone from the previous Normandy, now all the demure fragility of a young girl who had no real experience with the world. It make Jack laugh a little. "Ah, Garrus. I had been told of your arrival. It is good to see you."
"I'm sorry, Shepard couldn't make it; she's been on a tight schedule whenever we hit ground."
"I understand," she said, and she was all disappointment and clear emotional frailty, but she tried her best to keep friendly appearances with the turian. Jack kept a mocking smirk to herself and didn't say a thing as she looked over the office, thinking over what sort of situation the SSV had between the asari and the commander. It had to have been rich, whatever it was. Jack'll have to rig up a meeting and be there just to see what would happen.
They made their discussion and departed with new information. Garrus and the asari seemed genuinely happy to see each other, but Jack went ahead and spoke her mind when they left. "Well, that was awkward for you, wasn't it?"
Garrus sighed. "Despite that, it was good to see her. I'd think most people'd understand seeing a friend, but I don't suppose you have as much experience in that."
"Ooo, nice one," she laughed. "Well, I don't like her that much, if that takes the pressure off of you. I bet she's worse than Mierin whenever she's in a funk. And just as sloppy."
Garrus looked at her levelly, then a brow rose in amusement. "Are you talking fighting or sex?"
"Hey, I didn't screw your little asari. I just beat the shit out of her."
"Right."
"I'll tell you what: I'll even take video if I do fuck her, that way you can know all about it instead of trying to say shit you don't know about."
"Please don't. Your tattoos make me dizzy enough. Watching you through a viewscreen sounds nauseating."
When Garrus tried to bring Liara up with Shepard later, she seemed several modes of unamused by the line of questioning.
Nevermind that when he found her, she was talking to an asari bartender about spirits knows what. Sure, she had done a list of tasks at the same time, but her wish to get things done and continue with the main mission, though not an unusal drive for her, seemed... exaggerated. As much as she only cared about her main mission, she had before at least persued questioning on her own to get as much detail as possible to the situation first-hand.
If someone happened to have lit a fire under her ass, he'd like to know about it, and not only because he preferred her ass without charr. Maybe the Illusive Man gave her a time restriction?
He didn't have much chance to bring it up; after Thane was obtained, he was switched out so she can test his skill while she went to pick up the Justicar. He ended up in the Main Battery, mulling over how he should approach her later while he cleared out junk code and restested the guns against different sets of data. It didn't take him long to get carried away with the numbers and before he knew it, Shepard had been on the ship hours before he pulled himself away from his console.
She was already burrowed under her sheets when he came to her cabin, but she stirred and blinked at him sleepily when he came in. He sat down beside her and smoothed the hair out of her eyes.
"Coming back in and not even telling your boyfriend?" he teased.
She smiled a soft, sleepy smile that absolutely didn't belong on her cold, chisled features and she caught his hand to kiss the palm. "I was pretty beat. Forgive me?"
"Of course." He slid in beside her and placed a light peck of a lick on her cheek. Her lips curled in a little grin and she huffed. "You know, Liara missed you when we came in."
She hummed, but didn't offer an explanation, so he combed his fingers into her hair and made her face him. "Is something wrong? You've seemed very pressed lately. And... I don't want to say moody, but..."
"I just have a lot on my mind," she murmured, then wrapped herself around him. He wanted to argue further, but when her head was tucked into his collar like that, it always made him feel like he should lay back and relax if only to let her rest with him.
He dozed like that for maybe twenty minutes before a slight vibration from his omni-tool jarred him awake. Shepard shifted in his arms away from the wrist, but otherwise seemed unaffected. He slowly, with great care to keep the blaring orange light of the interface from waking her, brought up the message that had woken him.
It was a contact from C-Sec that he was cashing favors on. He had found Sidonis.