Chapter 25- Assumptions
There are many ways one can wake up in the morning. Some good, some bad, some downright awful. Waking up wrapped in the arms of your semi-naked best friend may either be the best or the worst way to start your day ever. It all depends on the context. Which made the fact that I couldn't remember a damn thing about how I wound up in my room, mostly naked, with Garrus sleeping (passed out?) beside me in bed all the more panic-inducing.
After a quick assessment of my surroundings I managed to piece together a few things. One, I wasn't in my room. Two, my left wrist was handcuffed to the headboard. Three, I was actually still wearing my bra and panties, so I wasn't completely nude. And four, I wasn't entirely sure my initial assumption that Garrus was only mostly naked was correct.
How much did I fucking drink last night? Since the first time I'd ever imbibed, no matter what happened, no matter how much I drank, I had never blacked out. Whenever someone told me they couldn't remember anything from long periods of intoxication, I had laughed at them. Now, it appeared it was finally happening to me, which made absolutely no sense. At all. I had drank a krogan under the table very early in my military career. Regardless of prior ability to the contrary, whenever I tried to recall events from the last twelve hours, there was nothing. Nothing. Except. . .
Ohfuckohfuckohfuck... the dance... I knew better. I never should have flirted with that bartender at Lapsus. Half my drinks had been on the house, I remembered that much. Kaidan hadn't skimped on his own share of purchases for me, either. Smarmy bastard thought he'd get laid twice in one week. Still, I'd played his game, and if I'd been singing "U + Ur Hand" in the back of my head the entire time, he'd have been none the wiser.
None of that changed the fact that I hadn't planned on screwing around with, or screwing, Garrus. Assuming that was what we had done. The dance had been my lame attempt at messing with him, but I'd allowed the rum to take control of my imagination. By the time I was done, it had been his hands that had roamed my body instead of my own. It wasn't as if I wasn't attracted to the man I'd been performing for. It's just...it seemed selfish and wrong to manipulate him like I did every other man in my life. The pure power trip that I fed off of when I used my skills to change the thoughts of the people around me seemed too dishonorable to use on him. He was probably the only person I'd ever known that had faced all my demons basically head on, and barely even blinked. But in the end, I would always be too jaded to let anyone all the way in. I was a cynic when it came to love, and he was a romantic. A poor combination, and not a fair thing to inflict on him. He was too good a person, too good a man for that.
Contemplations aside, regular morning needs called. In spite of how comfortable I was, damn if I didn't have to pee. I glanced around, momentarily nonplussed by the notion that I may have to check to see if he were completely naked under the sheet in order to find my prize, before finally spying it on the nightstand.
On his side of the bed.
If we manage to get out of this with our friendship intact, I'm keeping a master key with me from now on.
I stared at the object as if I could will it into my hands. I think that chick from Gerald's Game had it easy... How the hell do I get to that without waking him up?
I half-heartedly reached over his sleeping form, knowing there was no way I'd ever be able to touch it, and was rewarded by the shifting bed causing Garrus to stir. Not enough to actually wake up, but enough to wrap one claw around my waist, snuggling me into him as he wrapped an arm over me. Yelping softly, I realized that my fears about his state of undress were (thankfully) mostly wrong. I sighed, allowing myself a brief moment of weakness as I pulled myself closer into his hold, knowing I was going to have to try to set things right when he finally did wake up.
The sad part was, deep down, part of me wanted to just say, "Fuck it," and let things run their course. But...I wouldn't betray him that way. Our friendship was too important to devolve into him being just another notch on my very worn bedpost.
The irony of the matter, I thought as I ignored the small discomfort of necessary bodily functions, was that being in his arms felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"I'm so not a snuggler..." I had told him. The truth? I actually thoroughly enjoyed the physical contact. I just didn't fucking trust anyone enough to fall asleep with them next to me. I usually kept one hand on my switchblade in my sleep, and it was even within reach during sex, a fact that would terrify many of my past partners if they knew.
Old habits die hard, I guess.
Speaking of which, where was that damn thing? I spied my clothes in the corner. They hadn't been the most difficult thing to take off that I owned, at least not the top I had been wearing. It was a loose silk piece of art that only saw the light of day when I partied, low cut and slit down the sides in a way that left little to the imagination. The jeans would have taken an effort to remove, due to how tightly they fit me, and the fact that they were still in one piece made it pretty clear I had been the one to remove them. Another deduction about the proceedings of the night before. The fact that I still maintained at least a few garments made me suspect that things may not have gone too far. And yet, if that were the case, why had Garrus stayed?
Your in his room, idiot. Where else was he going to go? You locked your room down tight before you went out, remember?
Just what the hell had I done to this poor guy?We'd been working so hard at NOT screwing this up. Then again, he had been the one I'd slated to keep me from doing anything stupid when we realized the Normandy wasn't up for the trip to the Argus Rho cluster, and my apartment. Oh god, there were all kinds of people at the hotel bar... and I basically did a strip tease without the stripping for all of them. One batarian had been staring like a lunatic, and most of them hated humans to their core. And that volus...
Oh, god damn it!I almost would have laughed if it wasn't so embarrassing. The vids in the morning would probably have me plastered (great choice of words, that) all over them, including my little almost-burlesque show. Hey, I warned them all this might happen. Can't say that I didn't. Part of me had enjoyed cutting loose, I had to admit, but the solid, comfortable warmth at my back negated any good that could have come out of that.
Why was it really so bad, if things had gotten a little out of control? Kaidan? Nah. He was just another obsessed guy, one I held very few actual feelings for. The fact that Garrus was a turian? No, because I'd never given a damn about anyone's species.
So...why did I care so much?
"Because he deserves better than me," I muttered to myself, only then realizing that Garrus' breathing had changed.
The warm girl snuggled up to me wasn't nearly as warm as she should have been. In spite of that, I groggily reached up to bring her closer, figuring maybe that would account for the temperature change. What I hadn't counted on was encountering skin that was MUCH too soft. The fact that my hand was now cupping something even softer than that completely woke me from all sense of security.
What in the fuck? BY THE DAMN SPIRITS! Memory came flooding back almost immediately, and instinctively, I kept my eyes shut. I kept them shut because as long as I couldn't see her, or her reaction, everything would be okay. Cowardly, I know, but self-preservation does funny things to a man.
Stop acting like an adolescent and man up, part of my mind scolded. You're both adults.
The other, less coherent part of my brain countered with, Yes, we're both adults, but only one of us was tasked with keeping the other one out of trouble, and I sort of fucked it up.
And shit happens. You can't avoid her forever. I took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't kill me before I could explain.
Play it off. Just play it off as a joke. "Good morning, gorgeous. Uh, how did you sleep?"
Her response was a hand in my face and a single word uttered: "Key." I couldn't decipher her mood from such a short response, so I did as she asked, groggily managing to recall it's location. She applied the piece of metal to the lock, removing the restraining band. Then she rolled away from me, elbowing me in the gut as she did so.
I suppose I deserved that, I thought as I rolled onto my front, managing to gasp out, "Wow, you're not a morning person are you?" She ignored my jab, frantically trying to cover herself with the sheet without exposing my lower body at the same time.
Her embarrassment at the situation was kind of cute, all things considered.
"I thought you were supposed to keep me from doing anything stupid," she said angrily, glaring at me.
"Since when am I stupid?" I knew the joke was lame, but it was the best I could do in my hungover state. "And in my defense, you made that rather hard." The look on her face told me the double meaning hadn't been lost on her, and that she was none too pleased with my attitude.
"You know what I mean, asshole."
I had gotten used to her use of the turian phrase, as she'd gotten in the habit of using it more often than not. Her using human slang was very telling, and it made me nervous.
Very nervous.
Play it cool. Gather more information before you make a plan of action.
"What do you remember about last night?" I asked, genuinely curious about how the woman handled the two bottles of rum she'd downed with no overt signs of damage to her system. I didn't even think a krogan would have been able to drink that much and still remain standing, much less the petite woman sitting across from me.
"Not much beyond the bar," she admitted almost sheepishly. "That I remember more clearly than I want to."
"Like the asari that tried to make out with you?"
"Unfortunately. I've never been a Katy Perry fan after all, even if I've had to pretend to be one for missions on occasion."
"You're going to have to explain that one, Teandra. I've got some of your sayings down, but not all of them." The fact that we were both down to our underwear, talking about her kissing on some asari chick, should have been way more uncomfortable than it was, but oddly, it wasn't. And, since she wasn't trying to kill me, far be it from me to interrupt her to say so.
"Katy Perry. Wrote a song about two girls kissing."
"I was actually more interested in the missions part of that statement. The song thing I could infer. I am a detective, remember."
"You didn't think all the gang leaders were male, did you?"
"So, wait a minute..." I wasn't sure before that statement if lesbianism was as much a social taboo as it was in my own culture, but the fact that she had a mischievous glint in her eyes when she said it made me pretty sure she, at the very least, thought of it as something naughty. "You seduced your way into another woman's bedroom?"
"Bedrooms. Plural. And there was usually a third partner, if memory serves..."
"And if my memory serves, you were there to kill them. So the third person...?"
"Had a really good time before he died?" She said with humor, in spite of the subject matter. "Damn it, it is still way too early in the morning for this shit." She stopped for a minute, as if realizing where she was again, and growled, "You asshole, stop changing the subject! We were talking about your screw up, not my supposed sexual preferences."
"No, that was part of our discussions last night, actually." I laughed in spite of myself. A dangerous move, all things considered, but since I currently knew where her switchblade was hidden, I did have a small sense of security. "And I'm pretty sure it's past noon, so it's not morning anymore."
She shook her head, somewhat disarmed by the comfortable back-and-forth banter, and I chuckled again at her shifting emotions. It was quite plain she had no idea what had occurred once we left the bar, a fact that I wasn't sure if I was grateful for or not. Unbidden, a phrase from one of Shepard's favorite movies came to mind. A man, saying in an Irish accent, We've gotta fuck with him. That quote cemented my decision: I was not going to tell her one way or another what had happened. Not yet.
She must have read the resolution in my face, because she intoned, "You aren't going to tell me, are you? Then fuck you, I gotta pee." She stood, dragging the blanket with her, then stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of my boxers.
Smirking for the first time since the whole conversation had started, she raised auburn-colored eyebrow at me. "Pink sniper rifles? Really?"
Her sarcastic tone made me defensive, though why exactly, I couldn't say. "Hey, I'll have you know they're red."
"No, they're pink." She smirked as she started to cross her arms, only to lose the expression about the same time she lost her grip on the sheet. Laughing, I snagged the trailing end, almost uncovering her completely. She shot a glare at me, and I reneged in favor of discussing my underwear.
"Red," I said insistently. "They're my favorites, so they've been washed a lot."
"So what you're saying is that they're actually lightish-red."
I must have missed the sarcasm in her voice at the time, because I responded, "Exactly."
She barked with laughter a moment before saying, almost sounding as if she were quoting something, "They already have a color for that. It's pink." It would be almost a year later before I would have any idea what she found so amusing.
"So, what? I don't see the big deal. Yours are silver."
The grip she had on the edges of the sheet tightened as she tried to pull them more tightly around her. "Why are you looking, you perv?"
"They're SHINY. They kind of catch the eye." What I had no intention of telling her was I'd already gotten more than an eyeful the night before, about the time she was throwing herself at me. Plating or no plating, I'm pretty sure she might find a way to remove some body parts I was rather attached to if I brought that up at that moment. "While we're on the subject, what's your excuse for staring at my crotch?"
Her hands instantly flew over her eyes as she turned, promptly smacking into the wall in her attempt to get to the bathroom without embarrassing herself further.
"I knew that was there... yeah. Bathroom. Right." She actually managed to make her way into the adjoining room without any further incident, allowing me a good, long (albeit silent) chuckle at her expense without the threat of losing said body parts. When she came back, she had done away with the sheet in exchange for the robe provided by the hotel, and almost seemed completely within her element again. Well, except for the permanent flush that had colored her face since she'd woken up.
"You could have brought the sheet back, you know."
"Not a chance. I think I'm going to make you suffer until I get some information about why I woke up damn near unclothed in the arms of my half-naked best friend."
"Fine, your call. But I am a guy in a room with, how did you say, his half-naked best friend. If you get a show..." I emphasized my point by moving as if I meant to get up from the bed.
She fairly squeaked, "Okay, okay! I'm going." She blushed even harder and almost ran to the bathroom for the requested covering, her panic evident.
God, it's so fun to mess with her. Even if I know I'm going to pay for it later. With that thought, I was suddenly back in front of the third-floor elevator, carrying a very drunk Teandra over my shoulder...
Giggling? Teandra Shepard did not giggle. I must have hit my head when I fell against the door. "You're going to pay for that later, Little Spectre."
More giggling. "Is that a promise?"
"And now I'm ignoring you."
"Aw, poor Plate-Face. Letting a puny little girl get the best of him!"
Now who's getting the best of whom, I thought with an evil grin, a look she saw as she returned for the second time. She tossed the sheet at me, plopping back down on the other side of the massive bed (as far away from me as she could manage while still remaning on the matress) before fixing me with her stern gaze.
"Okay, no more games. Spill." Her tone was quiet, all of the vehemence and teasing from earlier conspicuously absent.
Sighing, I shook my head and relented, filling in the holes in her memory.