~Garrus~

Garrus got home in the early hours of the morning, having been kept at an impasse with his current case before finally giving up and heading home for some rest.

Just as his hands rose to the pressure release of his chest plate when the wailing cry from his bedroom stopped his hands in their motion. He immediately gave up his pretense for getting comfortable to rush to Jane's anguished screams.

She had been staying at his apartment for the past week and the most suffering she was having from her ever present dreams was some tossing and mumbling under her breath. He had hoped that the nights of her screaming awake were long gone, but as he rushed to her panicked form sitting straight up with eyes unfocused, his chest rumbled in pain at his foolish optimism.

"Jane, it's okay. Wake up." He grabs the sides of her face, purring soothingly, and takes it as a small victory that her eyes focus on his faster than she has ever done before.

Her shoulders slump and he lets his hands slide down to her shoulders as her eyes dash across his face, seeming to search for something. "Garrus," she sobs suddenly, grasping against the plates against the right side of his face and neck.

Without warning or a chance for him to question, she pulls him closer roughly, and plants wet, sloppy kisses along the right of his face. She moves from the tip of his mandible, along its surface, up his cheek plates, along the softer hide of his eyelid, and up over his brow. He knows that the wetness that flows across her cheeks and the jagged fear that is so uncharacteristic of her can only mean that the nightmare she has just woken from isn't of the norm, but it also means he has no clue how to comfort her. All he can do is rub along her back with one hand and purr comfortingly while she attends to her frantic assurances.

When she covers his plates with all of her unsaid emotions, she pulls back enough to lay her forehead against the right side of his head, her eyes closed. "You're okay, oh God, you're okay," she says cryptically.

He pulls back so that he can look into her eyes, bloodshot and red rimmed from her crying. "Of course I'm okay. Jane, what's wrong?" He doesn't know how to respond in any other way to seeing her so broken, in so much pain, because he doesn't even know what the cause is. The other thing he can think of doing is to place his hand against the side of her cheek and stroke at the falling tears. She presses against his palm and he can't help the bass rumbling in his chest of love and devotion.

"I need to come clean with you, Garrus." She casts her eyes down, "This can either screw everything up or make things easier for us, but I can't live like this anymore." His heart drops at her words and the rumbling in his chest stutters to a sudden stop. Please don't say you want to end this, Jane he silently begs her, too afraid to speak his fears.

Jane doesn't seem to notice the sudden chill in his veins or the sudden tense of his body. "I don't want this to stay like it is," she looks to his eyes, her emerald orbs wet with her unshed pain. "I can't just let this stay at friends and fuck buddies. I need to know where we stand."

She laughs once, a sort of manic sound that scares him, "I looked up things, but the extranet fucking sucks so I can't be sure what it really means, so I have to just ask you outright." She grabs his face with her hands along each mandible and searches his eyes, "What do you want from what we have between us?"

How am I supposed to answer that? He wishes this conversation wasn't happening right after rushing to her side as she woke screaming from a nightmare that seems to have been something completely different from the ones she suffered from before. Could he really answer her with the truth and possibly suffer from her rejection? Could he not say anything and risk losing the thought of what could have been?

Before he can force himself to answer, Jane sighs and continues as if not expecting an answer in the first place, "I want something more, Garrus. I don't want to just be a nice lay during our time off. I want to be something more for you."

Her fingers caress along his mandibles soothingly and he can't stop the bass rumble in his chest or the feeling of his heart beating against his plates. He can barely fight his subharmonics back enough to be able to speak and his voice comes out strange in his own ears. "I want that too, Jane. You have no idea how much I want something more with you."

For the first time since tonight, she smiles, still with a sadness behind her eyes, but it's a step away from the frightened woman Garrus found in his bed. "I've been trying so hard to find the courage to tell you this, but the entire time I've been away from you, you've been all I could think of. I've never found myself unable to get someone out of my head." She huffs a soft laugh, "I mean, it's not like I had to time to go sleeping around, but even if I did, I never found myself wanting anyone but you to share my bed." Her smile softens, "I know we never said anything about only being with each other and I never expected that from you..."

Understanding that Jane tended to ramble when she was treading into uncomfortable territory of emotions and feelings, Garrus interrupts her. "Since we've started sleeping together, I haven't taken another into my bed." It was true that they hadn't defined their relationship and usually he wouldn't have found it odd for either of them to have other partners, but for him, his heart and mind were set the moment his subharmonics began to sing that one uncontrollable song.

His words seems to sooth her rushing thoughts and she rests her forehead against his own, smiling at the feeling she must get of his singing bass harmonics. "I love you, Garrus," she says so softly as her green eyes bore into his own blue.

He swallows thickly and fights against the sudden loss of his voice. He purrs a deep bass note that sings with more emotion and love than he can ever hope to put into words, but he rubs his plates against her skin and tries, "I love you too, Jane."

She exhales a huff of a laugh in relief, "You don't know how happy I am to know I didn't make a complete fool of myself."

He chuckles and pulls back a bit with a smirk, "You make a fool of yourself? Never." He knows that her statement is an attempt to lighten the heavy pressure that has settled over them, and though he can't complain about what said tension has brought to the surface, he knows she doesn't like feeling so exposed. The two of them never seemed like the kind of people to sit and go into deep philosophical conversations.

"Well, if I found myself reading my best friend wrong, then I guess I would have to admit I'm not at good at gauging people as I thought," she tilts her head, her eyes silently thanking him for lightening the mood. "That would mean that my person skills would only involve my fists and shotgun." He shakes his head with a mandible flick and she takes his hand, the lighter mood dissipating a bit. "So, what are we now? Boyfriend and Girlfriend?" she asks with a distasteful look on her face that makes her nose scrunch up, "that sounds so juvenile."

He chuckles, "A bit, but Turians don't really have an equivalent. Mates would be the closest thing." Though he knows that the term is a much more serious statement than her own example, he can't seem to bring himself to correct the statement. Selfish, maybe, but if he can at least fool himself with the thought than he'd take it.

Jane twists her lips and looks off in silent contemplation. "I guess we can always go with both. I never did get to use the terms boyfriend and girlfriend as a kid because I never had one." She smirks over to Garrus, "Might as well get it out of my system now."

She laughs at his exaggerated eye roll, but can't help the smile at her enthusiasm over the sudden shift in their relationship he had been yearning for. I'm glad one of us has the guts to finally come out and say what we want, he thinks to himself.

As her laughter comes to a close, he pulls her to him, pressing his lips plates against her soft lips. She hums in approval and softly opens her lips to suckle on the edge of his lips.

He growls in his own approval, and moves the kiss into deeper territory with his long tongue snaking out to lap under her top lip. She moans and responds with her own tongue coming out to caress against his own, her plumb flat surface against his thinner and rougher muscle.

Their tongues tangle until they have to pull apart to desperately gasp for air, their foreheads pressed together as their pants mix and echo together. He wishes they could take this further and he almost ignores the tiny voice in the back of his head that warns he needs sleep to move back in when an uncontrollable yawn escapes.

He pulls back from her, his traitorous mandibles and jaw opening wide to let his tired yawn escape while he silently curses his luck. As soon as he gains control of his stupid body, he snaps his jaw shut and shakes off his exhaustion, only to find Jane chuckling.

"Our serious talk got you all tuckered out?" She smiles sweetly, her eyes sparkling with mirth and something else he likes to think is love. "You should get some sleep, you had a long day."

His is fixing to protest when she moves her hands to the catches of his armor, pushing slightly on him to get him up off the bed so she can help him get more comfortable. "At least let me undress myself or else this will go in an entirely different direction."

She chuckles but releases him, leaving a soft peck against his cheek plate before she leaves the room, returning once he is down to his undersuit with a glass of water. "Are you going back to bed?" he asks as he pulls his suit off to climb into bed.

She shakes her head as she swallows, "I don't know if I can sleep, but I wouldn't mind laying with you?" she tilts her head in a silent offer and unsure question.

He raises the blankets up on what they've come to think of as her side of the bed.As if there would be any doubt, he thinks to himself. He can see her happy smile in the dark of the room as she climbs under the blankets and settles against his side.

He drifts off to an exhausted sleep with her head cradled on his shoulder, his muzzle against the crown of her head, one hand holding her shoulders to him while the other lies against her hip, and her hands softly stroking against his chest in a soothing, senseless motion.