*Mature content warning
Chapter 49. Amor
Garrus shut the weapons' crate with an audible click that made both Dubyansky and Pakti jump. The entire ship was wound tighter than a turian general. One hour removed from stealing the Normandy the crew's adrenaline had faded into a thick, heavy blanket of unease that permeated the ship from bow to stern.
In what was proving to be a vain attempt to relieve some of the tension, Garrus had rounded up a few of the crew and herded them to the shuttle bay. Some he put to work running diagnostic and maintenance checks on the Mako. Dubyansky and Pakti got drafted to help sort through the mountain of gear Shepard had purchased that wasn't already being programed and calibrated by their new owners. It wouldn't normally be their job, but the requisitions officer currently had his hands full with all of the other supplies that had been brought on board at the Citadel, and, well. They were down a gunnery chief.
The problem was that instead of conversing and blowing off steam like Garrus had intended, they instead picked through the crates in total silence. Which just made things worse.
"Dubyanski."
The taller of the pair looked up with a start.
Damn. I thought Dubyanski was the other one.
Garrus marveled at how two human beings who looked so completely different from one another, even to a turian, could still somehow seem so alike. One was at least a full head taller than the other, one had a fringe when the other did not, one had lean, sharp features like a turian while the other looked more like a boulder with eyes. They even sounded different. Each spoke with a radically different accent that gave his translator fits.
Yet Garrus, and everyone else on the ship for that matter, sometimes had trouble telling them apart. Not that it really mattered, since by this point they both responded to each other's names.
"Here," Garrus said, nudging the crate at his feet. "Tackle this one next. There's a few mods in there I need to test before we get to Ilos."
"Yes, sir."
Garrus craned his head, looking for signs of movement behind the Mako.
"Wrex," he called out.
The surly krogan's crest appeared.
Garrus pointed. "I think this giant set of krogan armor from Kassa is probably for you."
An interested growl issued from Wrex' throat. He stalked to the crate Garrus indicated and began to dig around at its contents.
No one knew what Shepard had said to the giant krogan before the docking clamps lifted. In the minutes before Anderson sprung them loose, Shepard had kicked everyone out of the cargo bay. Garrus hadn't heard shouting. Shepard wasn't a bloody pulp when he emerged, and Wrex hadn't rearranged the Mako's hull.
Garrus knew because he'd checked.
Whatever bad blood that had festered on Virmire had presumably been dealt with, and neither Shepard nor Wrex seemed inclined to talk about it. Garrus knew better than to ask. He also wasn't going to admit that he was glad the surly krogan remained on board.
"There's a fancy shotgun you might appreciate," Garrus informed him. "Experimental design. Looks nasty. Right up your alley."
"Saren is one dead turian," the krogan declared.
Dubyansky and Pakti exchanged uneasy glances.
"Sir," Pakti started.
"Pretty sure you don't have to 'sir' me, Serviceman," Garrus interrupted. "I'm not technically part of your chain of command, remember?"
Pakti shifted his feet. Dubyanski cleared his throat.
"Sir, does anything like this ever happen on a turian ship?"
They even finish each other's questions. Garrus' mandibles quivered. "You mean mutiny?"
Both of them flinched.
He drew in a deep breath. "You won't find it much. We're so fatalistically attached to our meritocracy that violating the order of a superior is a pretty alien concept, to be honest." A hum of bitterness ran through his subvocals. "We'll follow a bad order right over the edge of a cliff most of the time. Chain of command is everything."
Pakti stared down at the scram rail in his hands. Dubyansky fiddled idly with a new combat scanner. Behind them Wrex grunted.
"You give a hell of a pep talk, turian."
A protesting thrum sounded through Garrus' subvocals.
The krogan ignored him, leveling his beady red gaze on the two humans. "Shepard is your commander. He's going to lead you into one of the greatest battles of all time. Our enemies stand no chance against us. The Council and your Alliance talking heads would have you sit idle while he wants to drag you to glory. This is not a question of loyalty or command. This is a choice between cowards or warriors. Which are you?"
The two exchanged glances, then straightened their shoulders. Garrus flicked a mandible. Well I'll be damned. A motivational speech from a krogan.
"Ok."
"Yeah."
"Carry on, you two," Garrus said.
Wrex grunted as they resumed their work. Garrus picked up his new sniper rifle, Spirits I still can't believe I'm holding a gun like this, and began syncing the targeting software to his visor.
"Thanks," he said when the humans were out of earshot.
"Idiot," Wrex muttered in reply.
Garrus hummed. He could think of a time not so long ago when the krogan's lack of tact would have wormed its way right under his plates. Now he actually found it a little comforting.
"Care for some target practice? A little not-so-friendly competition, perhaps?"
"You're on."
A small spark of static leapt from Liara's fingers as she probed the new Serrice Council amp Alenko had fitted into the port on the back of his neck.
"Sorry," she murmured.
He waved a hand. "Used to it."
Shepard smirked from his seat across from them in the mess. Between the three of them the table was smothered with hardsuit pieces, guns, and various mods. They'd been working for nearly three hours, and Liara's mind felt like squashed fruit.
She double checked the results of the scan running on her omnitool. "It looks like the neural patterns are syncing better now. How does it feel?"
Alenko flexed one arm, igniting a blue corona that briefly shifted the currents of the room, making her skin tingle.
"Better. Thanks. You know your way around an amp. I mean, even for an asari."
Liara smiled. "My mother insisted I know every last microcircuit and how to manipulate it. You do not want to know how many I have dissected over the years."
"Your mother was a smart woman."
Liara's hands hovered for a moment. She felt Shepard's gaze shift to her.
"Thank you."
She did not look up, and Shepard did not look away.
After a few more adjustments to Alenko's amp she nodded in satisfaction and straightened. When she risked glancing in Shepard's direction he'd turned his attention back to his hardsuit.
"There. The Savants are a little tricky to calibrate sometimes," she said. "They are unusually sensitive compared to other models."
"With good reason," Alenko mused, rubbing his fingers together and watching a blue flare erupt. "Wish I had a chance to test this in the field before our lives depend on it, but with the power differentials between it and my Polaris? Can't afford not to use it."
Liara moved around him and sat down in her seat, picking up the pistol in front of her. Shepard had added a kinetic stabilizer upgrade to her Stiletto. He'd offered her a Spectre-grade pistol, but after a few practice rounds decided to stick with what she'd been using. A better caliber gun wouldn't matter much if she didn't hit the target.
"I do not think it will take long to adjust," she told Alenko. "Your implant will not allow you to spike output to dangerous levels. But I would take an extra ration pack with you into the field, to compensate for any abnormal exertion."
"Good idea." He rubbed his neck with absent fingers, looking at the pieces of his new hardsuit strewn across the table but not really seeing them. Shepard watched him for a moment, expression opaque, but Liara could glimpse some of the gears turning behind the mask. There was little about his crew that Shepard couldn't decipher. It was a matter of knowing when to observe and when to prod. And when it came to Alenko, Shepard never had to do much of either.
"Everything all right, LT?"
Alenko looked up, startled, face flushing slightly with embarrassment. "Yeah. Just caught thinking too much. Sorry."
Shepard's gaze didn't waver. When he asked his question, Liara was fairly certain he already knew the answer.
"Any second thoughts?"
"No," Alenko said quickly. "If we don't do this…well. Saren can't win. Period. And if it's up to us, we're going to stop him." He cocked a half smile. "But you know me."
"Mutiny is a little hard to stomach," Shepard supplied.
"Yeah," Alenko said with an exhale. "Just goes against everything we've been trained for. But it's all right. I'm all right. No regrets. We're going to see this through, Shepard. Whatever the consequences."
Something – maybe even relief – softened in Shepard's countenance.
The elevator arrived at the crew deck, and moments later the young woman from engineering with the brightly colord hair appeared. Tali's friend, Liara remembered, and for a moment her heart twisted.
At the sight of them the engineer froze, eyes darting to the side as she considered whether or not to proceed.
"Grenado," Shepard welcomed. "Sorry. We've made a mess of the table."
"No problem, sir. I just wanted a cup of tea. I won't be in the way."
Alenko cleared a spot for her. "Nah, we're almost done. Join us."
The crease in his brow deepened as Grenado slunk towards the table, and his fingers drummed absently on the tabletop.
"Alenko," he said suddenly. "Got that deck of cards lying around somewhere?"
The lieutenant looked over at him in surprise. "Yeah, in my locker."
Shepard glanced around. "Why don't you grab it?"
"Now?"
Shepard gestured to the table. "We've been over the gear three times. I'm pretty sure Garrus and Wrex are doing the same in the cargo hold. We don't hit the Mu relay until morning. I don't know about you but I'm a little too wired to sleep just yet. Time to blow off a little steam."
Alenko shrugged and got up to go retrieve the cards. Shepard patted the chair next to him. "Sit down, Grenado. I won't let Alenko take you to the cleaners."
The young woman sat down without a word, eyes wide. She hadn't gotten her tea yet, but now looked too nervous to do so. Liara rose, went to the galley, and started heating some water. There were three boxes of tea stowed in one of the cabinets. She selected one that smelled like lavender, and dropped a teabag into two mugs.
She didn't know how any of them were going to settle down enough to play a game, but Shepard knew things about soldiers that she did not. He was already at work clearing the table, with Grenado's help. When the tea was ready Liara poured the water and handed Grenado a mug, keeping the second for herself.
"Thank you!" Grenado said as Liara took a seat. Again, she felt Shepard's gaze.
Alenko returned to the table with a set of round, multicolored chips and a deck of cards. He took a seat, proceeding to fan the deck between his thumbs.
"Liara?" Shepard asked, eyebrows raised in a question.
"I—I do not know how to play."
"I'll teach you." He abandoned his seat and came to Liara's left, dragging a chair close enough that his leg brushed hers once he sat down. He could have moved away once he got situated.
He didn't.
Neither did she.
A moment later Dr. Chakwas poked her head out of the medbay. When her eyes settled on the table she made a satisfactory sound in her throat.
"About bloody time. Deal me in."
Shepard hid a smile. Grenado looked back and forth between her superior officers still in mild shock.
"Joker," Shepard said into his comm. "Your shift ended twenty minutes ago. Why are you still at the helm?"
"Because Ilos, sir. Did you forget Ilos?"
"Not for another seven hours," Shepard replied. "Pretty sure you aren't planning to fly the ship all night, because if you take us in without having slept I'm getting a new helmsman."
Liara heard grumbling on Joker's end.
"If you hurry, Kaidan'll deal you in this hand."
"…be right there."
Alenko chuckled.
Shepard leaned in close to her as Alenko dealt, explaining things like suits, card values and betting. When the game began he pointed to her cards, advising her when to call, when to raise. But the only thing she could concentrate on was the warmth of his breath against her neck. It wasn't an accident how close he was.
Nothing Shepard ever did was accidental.
The mission comes first.
Maybe sometimes it didn't.
Shepard pointed to a card in her hand. Queen of spades, or something like that. She didn't care.
Dr. Chakwas won the hand. Liara didn't know why or how, but it didn't seem to matter. Other members of the crew had begun to drift in throughout the game. Garrus appeared with Adams and Wrex. Joker joined them, dragging Pressly in his wake. By the time they started the second hand, there almost weren't enough chairs.
"This is a stupid game," Wrex declared when Alenko tried to explain a bluff.
"It's subtle," Alenko replied. "Stealth instead of a shotgun."
Wrex narrowed his eyes. "This is a stupid game."
"We could always try poker with shotguns," Garrus suggested.
"That would be less stupid."
"No holes in the ship," Pressly said, never looking up from his cards. "House rules."
"What is this one?" Liara asked, pointing to a card with an ornate looking face on it marked with a J and the shape of a diamond.
"It's a Jack," Shepard replied, voice low. He reached over and touched another of the cards in her hand. "And here's another one. Jack of clubs. You've got one pair. Not bad."
She smiled. It had nothing to do with the cards.
Grenado gained a little confidence once Adams arrived at the table. She tossed a chip into the center and declared her bet, to which Joker winced and Pressly tapped his chin with a finger.
"Joker," Alenko said with a shake of his head. "Your poker face is terrible."
"How do you know I'm not just throwing you off my scent? I could be sitting on a flush. Or better."
The lieutenant laughed.
Within an hour even Wrex seemed to be enjoying himself. Especially after he won a hand – on a bluff.
"Eat it, human," he growled, taking a pile of chips from Alenko.
Liara leaned over to Shepard as laughter erupted around the table. "I thought you said he was quite skilled at this game."
Shepard smiled. "He is. But he also knows when everyone just needs to…relax."
"He's losing on purpose?"
"Not…on purpose. He just left his A game at home."
Liara nodded, not entirely sure she understood, but still content with his answer.
"Mr. Moreau, I believe we're lucky your skill at the helm is rather better than your skill at poker," Dr. Chakwas commented.
"Thank you."
She raised a silver eyebrow. He shrugged.
"Considering I'm the best pilot in the fleet, it's understandable my poker prowess is closer to that of mere mortals."
Alenko made a noise in his throat. Pressly sniggered.
Shepard smiled, then straightened a little in his chair. "Personally I'd rather have the pilot than the poker player. We're going to need you tomorrow."
A subdued quiet fell over them. Shepard rested his arms on the table. His casual poise had shifted effortlessly from friend back to commander, and the entire room felt it. Ilos, for a brief time pushed to the back of their minds, came raging back to the forefront.
"I know what you've all sacrificed to be here," he told them. "You've put your careers on the line. Maybe your lives. I don't take that sacrifice for granted."
Several of them stirred. Garrus' mandibles quivered. Alenko straightened in his seat, eyes never leaving his CO's face. Pressly set his jaw. Joker's fingers flexed in his lap. At the far end of the table Wrex dipped his large head, lip curling ever so slightly. Grenado looked from face to face, eyes wide, but Liara watched as very slowly her hunched shoulders raised, spine unfurled, chin lowered. By the time her gaze settled back on Shepard, she wasn't the same woman who had sat down at the table, too nervous to get her own tea.
"It hasn't been an easy road for any of us," Shepard went on. "I think we all know who isn't here with us tonight. Ashley Williams gave her life so we could destroy that base on Virmire. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya had to stay behind on the Citadel. And we'll never miss them more than we will tomorrow."
Shepard focused on each one of them in turn, expression stoic but blue eyes bright with staunch conviction.
"Captain Anderson told me upon transferring command that I had the best ship with the best crew. He was right. On all counts. All of you are the reason we've gotten this far. The reason we'll see this through. We're going to stop Saren, whatever it takes. The galaxy is counting on us, even if they don't know it. We can't let them down. We won't let them down. And whatever happens, I'm damn proud to have served with each you."
Murmurs of agreement echoed around the table.
"Sir," Garrus spoke up. "If I may say, there's no one I would rather follow through that relay."
Pressly got up from his seat. He offered no words. Just a salute. One by one, everyone present did the same. Even Wrex dipped his head and bared his crest in a krogan show of respect.
I'm not who you think I am, he'd tried to tell her.
No, Shepard, she thought. You're more.
Shepard rubbed the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. Despite his words to the crew, alone in his quarters it was a lot easier to think about the odds, and just how high the deck was stacked against them.
In the end they were headed to a destination they knew nothing about, tasked with stopping something they didn't yet know how to stop. Even without a plan, Shepard would find a way to put a bullet in Saren's skull. The problem was he had no idea if that would be enough.
One bullet wouldn't avert the genocide replaying over and over inside his skull. Assuming a bullet would even be enough to get the job done, considering how little of the real Saren remained.
So he would lead a team into the unknown with the hopes of accomplishing the unknown, to either win or die trying.
No pressure.
And yet it wasn't why he couldn't sleep.
With a sigh he let the datapad in his hand drop to the desk with a clatter and rubbed his eyes.
This wasn't about Liara. It was about the mission. It was always about the mission. Always had been. That was the problem. But for a few moments in the docking bay…it had been about something else.
He'd been surprised at how…much that meant.
At the sound of his door chime he looked up in mild surprise. "Enter."
When the doors slid open his heart skipped a beat. Liara stood on the other side, expression solemn, hands clasped in front of her.
"May I come in?"
He got to his feet, one hand gripping the back of his chair. "Of course."
She stepped inside, allowing the doors to swish shut behind her. "Shepard…" she started, kneading her fingers. "About what happened in the docking bay."
"I'm sorry," he interrupted. "I shouldn't have put you in that position."
She tilted her chin. "And I should not have let you stop."
His hand tightened against the chair back, whatever words he wanted to say drying up in his throat.
Liara drew in a deep breath, posture reforming around it. "We do not know what is going to happen once we reach Ilos. I have every faith that we will succeed, but I find myself…unwilling to take the chance that we will not."
Shepard swallowed. "Liara, I think you know how I feel. But I don't want to presume anything. I'm not asking for anything." His fingers curled into the chair. "You're too important to me."
"And you think, that because of what we've shared, I might not feel the same?"
The noise that issued from his throat sounded bitter, laced with irony. He dropped his gaze. "I think I'm afraid that you will."
When she didn't answer he glanced back up, found her keen, unwavering gaze studying him carefully.
He swallowed. "Look, I—"
It didn't register that she'd started moving until she reached him, effectively silencing whatever he'd hoped to say with the crush of her mouth, an unexpected salvo that caught him with shields down.
This wasn't the docking bay. There was no hesitation. It wasn't timid. Hopeful. It was reckless, urgent, an order effectively signed, to be executed at all costs. And the costs were high. They always were. Shepard was used to that.
But he wasn't used to this.
Before his brain could get a chance to catch up to his body he locked her to him, chasing away the remaining empty space and kissing her back like his life depended on it.
In some ways, it did.
Her hands linked behind his neck, fingers brushing its nape with a touch both cool and electric that pooled heat at the base of his spine. When he leaned in deeper she pressed back with such force he had to brace himself on his heel to keep his balance. It didn't stop them. It didn't even slow them down.
For two people who had danced around each other all this time with such grace, the choreography now turned decidedly muddled. There was no cadence, no familiar rhythm to them – not yet, not this soon. Right now they were groping along in the dark, no guide and no destination but each other, and in too much of a hurry to care if they got lost along the way.
Next to her slender, elegant shape he was clumsy and inept, the parts of him that so effortlessly wielded a weapon suddenly fumbling and unsure when it came to something that mattered. He slid a hand up the length of her spine, unable to suppress a groan when her hips pressed against his pelvis. Her breath caught when she discovered the inevitable arousal there.
He pulled abruptly back, heart thumping in his ears, adrenaline racing with the same tenor it did when he found himself exposed on the battlefield.
How much…exactly…did she know about…?
"Liara," he said when he'd caught his breath. "Um. Before we let this get…further." He swallowed, almost wishing for the geth to invade his quarters to spare him what was surely impending humiliation.
To his surprise, Liara smirked, eyes drifting below the cut of his waist and lingering until a hot flush built up in his groin and washed through his limbs.
"Shepard, I am aware that human anatomy is different than asari."
She dropped one hand, fingers gliding along the juncture of his pelvis and inner thigh. Shepard jumped, air vacating his lungs. The corner of her lips turned up in an impish smile that was so new, so…unexpected it caught him completely off guard.
"I'm actually…looking forward to the experience."
"Okay," he said when he found his voice again. "Then here's my next idiot question. Because of our…um, differences. How exactly does this…work? I mean, assuming that's what you want. If it's not that's fine, I just. If I'm reading this wrong I need to know now or I'm going to make the biggest mistake of my life."
Her smile grew fuller, eyes dancing with amusement but mired in warmth. "I do not believe you're reading anything wrong."
"Thank God," he said with an exhale.
She laughed, the sound transforming her facial architecture, for a moment giving him a glimpse of what they might be like without Saren. Without Noveria. Without Ilos.
"The physical pleasure itself is not so different," she said, errant hand finding its way back to his neck. He couldn't help but wish she'd left it where it was. "Just…the means of obtaining it. We use the same control over our nervous system that enables our biotics to merge with a partner. We literally feel through each other. Because we are monogendered we do not require insemination to reproduce, therefore penetrative copulation is unnecessary. We merely adopt genetic material through the meld to procreate, and therefore—" She stopped, smile dissolving into wide-eyed mortification. "I am so sorry. Goddess, if there was anything less romantic I could have said I do not know what it could be. Shepard, I—"
Now it was his turn to laugh, nervousness dissipating. He leaned in to kiss her once more, this time gentle and unhurried. "Ever the scientist," he murmured, lips straying to the line of her jaw before dropping to her throat. The soft sigh that escaped her sent a thrill through him.
"Show me what to do," he whispered.
She placed a hand flat against his chest, pushing him backwards towards the bed.
"First," she said, the tilt of her chin and light in her eyes informing him that he would be taking point on this mission, "I think we need to investigate a few of these anatomical differences you're so worried about."
"Human men do have a rather startling preoccupation with them," he said solemnly.
Her smirk returned, canny and clever, carrying a poise utterly divergent from her usual demeanor. For the first time, he wondered if he wasn't seeing the real Liara. Not the scientist. Not the warrior framed in a halo of blue fire.
Just Liara.
He found the edge of the bed with his heel, felt for the mattress with his hand, unable – unwilling – to tear his gaze away. As he sat down she knelt in front of him, hands coasting up the length of his sides, tugging at his shirt until she'd exposed his skin. He reached behind him to pull it over his head, chin momentarily getting caught on the collar. The cloth muffled her laughter, and when he finally shed himself of the offending garment, with it went a weight even heavier than the one he carried when wearing a hardsuit.
No one had ever looked at him the way Liara looked at him now.
He shifted on the bed, suddenly acutely aware of every ding, every dent. Shepard's skin was anything but smooth, anything but whole, each scar a confession, some he'd buried, some that still burned.
"I'm, um. I'm a little beat up."
Her fingers splayed reverently along the musculature of his abs, eyes drifting over every peak and valley with careful studiousness.
She shook her head. "No, Shepard. You're you."
At her tender but persistent insistence, he shucked off the remainder of his clothing, kicking his boots aside and tugging off his socks with as much dignity as he could muster. Then, not to be outdone, he reached around her neck and fumbled for a zipper, clasp, whatever fastener he could find. With a demure smile she rose to her full height, taking her time and shrugging out of her uniform one shoulder at a time as he watched with baited breath to see what secrets she had concealed beneath.
He wasn't disappointed.
Her cerulean skin changed its shade across the canvas of her body, lighter across her breasts and darker across her thighs, a tapestry of flesh that changed its hues with the light. Tentatively his hands came to rest on her hips, guiding her back towards him, hoping for the opportunity to do some curious roaming of his own.
But Liara had other ideas.
With one hand she pushed him down onto the bed, then bent low over top of him to continue her slow, measured exploration. He watched, scarcely daring to breathe, unused to being exposed to such meticulous perlustration and finding it strangely exhilarating.
Her lips traced the dip of his belly button, curving into a smile when the flesh proved more sensitive than she expected. The warm gust of her breath raised goosebumps along his stomach. At the sight of them her fingers hovered in surprise, then ghosted across the newly unevened surface with unconcealed relish.
"I did that," she said, wonder in her voice.
"Yeah," he corner of his mouth quirking in a crooked smile. "Along with a few other, uh. Notable reactions."
One flick of her eyes told him she'd noticed.
She just hadn't gotten there yet.
Liara apparently didn't like to be rushed.
When she found the tract of hair meandering south of his waist she paused, gently swirling her fingers through it, marveling at the way his body jumped, the way his breath hitched, such small electric touches eroding away at his control until it swayed precariously along the edge of a knife, hers to do with as she pleased.
Another piece of the puzzle. But just one. One wasn't enough. She wanted them all, no matter how small.
Liara was thorough.
Every inch of him intrigued her, and he denied her nothing as she traversed his unfamiliar topography, charting her own maps and discovering each new artifact with unfettered joy, as though each finding unearthed a new trove of stories, many of which he'd long forgotten even belonged to him.
She found a scar near his hip, one earned from a piece of shrapnel on Elysium.
One on his forearm, where a varren on Torfan had chewed through the ablation of his hardsuit and bit him down to the bone.
Another near his collarbone, the remnant of a burn, to which he blushed and stammered something about boiling water gone wrong in the galley.
Her laughter rang like bells. "You know there are dermal regenerators for those kinds of things."
"Yeah, but then I'd have to explain why," he protested.
She graced it with her fingers, passed her lips over each aggregation of repaired skin, slow, steady, measured, exposing it, exposing him, turning the things he sought to hide into vital fragments of a greater whole, an utterly unfamiliar shape for which he had no blueprints.
Her hands pressed into the mattress on either side of him as she drew herself up to the level of his chest. He traced the lean muscle of her arms, gaze never leaving her face when she reached the one mark she already had context for – the knot of misshapen flesh across his sternum, damaged skin stretched over damaged bone, an ever present reminder of something he'd spent years trying to evade and destroy.
She probed it gently with her fingers before tracing its contours with her lips, leaving no part untouched, no part unloved. As she did one hand drifted low, trailing back down over previously explored terrain until it sought out his arousal and gave it slow, careful consideration. He closed his eyes, tremble running through his body, arching his back and surrendering without resistance – utterly vulnerable, utterly human, and strangely content to be both.
She gave him one more languid stroke, eliciting a sound from his throat he didn't know how to identify. But it didn't matter, because somehow or another she did, as though now that she'd given him such a thorough inspection she understood the machinations of his own body better than he did, tested its mettle and learned where it was strong and where it was brittle, where it would bend and where it would break.
His flank was exposed and she had all the artillery, and what's more he'd given it to her readily, trusting her to protect him.
"Don't stop," he gasped.
Her breath washed against his ear. "We're just getting started."
Breath hitching, he circled his arms over her back, pulling her down like gravity snaring a celestial body, leaving tracks of light across the sky as she descended to earth. Her breath caught behind her teeth, the weight of her body against his ratcheting up his own internal pressure until it skirted the borders of pain and blurred the two sensations into something potent, biting and raw.
He planted desperate kisses along the top of her head, her temple, her jaw, until he found her lips and turned some of her own ammunition right back against her. His legs hooked around her calves, and with a twist of his hips he rolled her on her back.
She wasn't the only one who could do this.
But even now she hadn't stopped her careful navigation, fingers skating across the sinews of his shoulders as he delved along the swell of her chest, the slim but firm muscle of her back, the flat plane of her stomach and how it shivered against his lips.
"I still feel like I'm having all the fun," he mumbled into her collarbone. "Not fair. What is it that makes Dr. T'Soni squirm?"
"Mmmm."
She snatched one of his roving hands and guided it up the back of her neck, pressing his fingers against the soft juncture of skin where her crest met the nape. Her back arched, lithe and luminous, backlit by subtle flicks of biotic energy, a moan falling from her lips.
Shepard explored the sensitive spot to its fullest, fingers, tongue and light nips of his teeth until the air around them crackled with life, blue fire limming her curves and lighting her up like a naked star.
A dizzying sensation of weightlessness took over, and suddenly he once again found himself pinned beneath her.
"Think you're clever, Commander?" she purred.
"Well…not when you say it that way."
She lowered her head until her lips brushed against his ear. "Would you like to know what that feels like?"
His affirmation came in the form of a groan – any words he might have formed stuck behind the inarticulate sounds building in his throat. The relentless slide and slither of her biotic halo and hurried skew of her fingers catapulted his body towards its fever pitch.
Liara enveloped him, coils of dark energy generating a warm buzz that pervaded his skin and roamed beneath its surface. Subtle cants of shifting gravity tugged against his equilibrium, like a slowly building static charge yearning for an outlet.
"That's you," he said with a gasp. "Liara, I feel you!"
The hum of her corona intensified, the small shifts deepening, alternately weighing him down and sending him into freefall. He sucked in a breath, clutching her tighter, as though she were a tether anchoring him to atmosphere. It was like having a sixth sense awaken for the first time – the first sound in a silent world, the first breach of color and shape in a formless night.
Gravity – reformed, remade, all according to her desires.
"Is this what it feels like?" he breathed. "Is this what dark energy feels like?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"It's…amazing."
Fluctuations of mass, inversions of density – through Liara the space around them became a living breathing thing, a hidden fractal dimension heretofore unimagined.
She pressed a kiss against his lips. Her shiver ran through him. Another oscillation. Another connection.
"Do you trust me?"
He nodded, wordless, and once more she guided his hand to the sensitive fold behind her neck. This time when she writhed Shepard cried out, the sudden rush of sensation like a shock of lightning to his veins. Heat and arousal dawned from a completely unexpected source, a part of his body he thought he knew coming to life in ways his mind didn't quite know how to reconcile.
"Like that?" she asked, and he didn't see her smile. He felt it.
Shepard voiced his approval with a supple strum of his fingers, body arcing in tune with hers as another vibration of pleasure echoed between them. With each caress he fine-tuned their instrument, perpetuating the feedback loop until he couldn't distinguish between what was real and what was the echo.
When her hand reached low, searching for his own erogenous zone, a fiendish smile came over her face.
"Let's see what the fuss is all about."
Her fingers danced across his length, feather touches that settled into measured, rhythmic strokes. He held her hips as she jerked, eyes wide, pupils dark, his own euphoria mirrored in hers. The effect was akin to lighting a fuse under his skin.
"Shepard," she gasped. "Shepard."
Liara slammed her body against him, sensing his urge without fully understanding the context, none of it diminishing her pleasure.
It was too much.
Shepard went over the edge first, dragging Liara with him, melded together by electrical impulses, synapses and neurons working in tandem. The subsequent eruption of nerve endings hit him like an overamped grenade.
It took a lot of effort to remember how to breathe.
Echoing coruscations reverberated through them. Slowly they became fainter and more distant until his sense of Liara retreated. All that remained was the feel of her skin against his, the warmth of her breath against his neck.
He clutched Liara tighter. She wrapped her arms around him, face buried in the crook of his shoulder, body shuddering.
Shepard tried to speak, managing only an incoherent tangle of syllables as his heart rate retreated from the stratosphere. For a few minutes he laid limp, eyes closed. When at last he felt a little more control over his own faculties, he opened his eyes to find Liara propped on her elbows, peering anxiously down at him. Her skin was skin radiant under a sheen of sweat.
"Was it…too different from what you are accustomed to?" she asked, and he caught a tone of worry in her voice. "Was it…did you enjoy it?"
He linked his arms around her, tugging until she collapsed on top of him in a heap, damp skin against damp skin. "Enjoy it?" he asked, mumbling into her neck. "Liara, I'm seeing stars right now."
Something dangerously close to a giggle issued from her lips. He pressed a kiss to her throat, running his fingers over the rills of her crest.
"I understand humans connect…differently," she said. "We can try something similar if you would prefer. I know it can be done, with the proper…accessories."
He grinned. "Believe me. We can do things your way for now. I'm very much okay with your way." He shifted his hips, felt something dribble down his thigh and regaled her with a somewhat guilty expression. "Just don't be surprised, by. Um. A little excess fluid."
That unexpected slyness returned. "I'm not afraid of your fluid, Shepard. Though I have to admit I have a little greater understanding for your…preoccupation with your own anatomy."
Shepard glanced unabashedly down at himself, then back up at her. "You have to be impressed I get so much done with an appendage that sensitive right there in my pants all the time."
There was that near giggle again. "So you're saying I shouldn't…take advantage of that during debriefings?"
"Not unless you want me to cuddle up to the underside of your crest when you're collating data in the CIC."
She kissed the tip of his nose. "Noted."
Shepard's gaze softened, and he cupped her cheek with a tender hand. "Stay with me tonight."
"Anything."
He got up long enough to grab a handful of tissues, offering them in bumbling apology to help mop up the mess. After some awkward shuffling of limbs he tugged at the rumpled sheets until he managed to yank them over their still naked bodies. She sought for his hand until their fingers entwined. He felt heavy, leaden, but deliciously relaxed, tension, at least for now, granted a temporary reprieve.
"Shepard?"
"Mmn."
Her muscles shifted ever so slightly, a nuanced reshaping of sinews he might not have detected before the meld, but now sensed as clearly as if she'd voiced her sudden unease. "About tomorrow…"
"Don't," he said, tightening his arms around her. "Don't worry about things you can't control."
"Please. This may have been the first time for us…but I do not also want it to be the last."
He nuzzled her neck, the warmth of her body like an ember against his chest. "It won't be. We're going to win this, Liara. I promise you."
"I will hold you to that."
A contented sigh issued from his throat, the warm buzz still filling his extremities gently tugging his body deeper into drowsiness. "You won't have to."
Shepard slipped gradually into a restful slumber, and for once he didn't dream.
