This scene belongs to a bunch of self-indulgent Thane Survives AU moments I'm writing for the Spiritual Shrios Summer challenge. I intended to attempt a slow-burn longfic but I can't get away from oneshot writing. I have some other work percolating in the background. For this fic, Thane is part of Shepard's crew during ME3. And yeah if this seems like mental masturbation, it's because it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Prompt word: "TASTE" | Credit for this summer challenge goes to Rosenkow on Tumblr.
I'll sleep when I'm dead."
Thane frowns at her words as Garrus escorts the Primarch from the War Room.
Since his oath to the Compact, Thane had been honed in body and mind for efficiency, control, and lethality. But no amount of his training had prepared him for a war of this scale. He finds himself on unsteady ground, always looking to her, his warrior angel, for guidance through the storm of senseless loss and violence. They all look to her, and her shoulders are physically sagging with the weight of it all. She pours over the latest on the crucible and war assets, face painted with exhaustion.
She's done the impossible. The genophage cured. Hope for the Krogan, new allies for the war. And the cost - the lives of countless turian pilots, krogan soldiers, and the afamed Dr. Solus. The very man who had coordinated lifesaving medical advances for himself and every single drell living on Kahje had given his last breath to save the krogan. The galaxy is less without him, and the grief hangs densely over their triumph.
Neverthelessless, Shepard is the very portrait of war's bittersweet victories. Dressed in a lightly armored Alliance uniform, Thane can still see the remnants of her hard-won battles on Tuchanka: a split lip, fresh bruises on her arms, forgotten remnants of dried blood under fingernails. Her hair is slightly mussed, hastily combed with little more than her fingers and air-dried. She's beautiful. It pains him to see her stricken with the sacrifices of command.
"Shepard," he says softly. Hands smooth down her sides, cradling her hips as he presses against her back. "What do you hope to gain by poring all night over strategic data?"
She sighs heavily. "While I sleep, people are dying."
"And if you are fatigued, you or those under your command will be hurt in the battles to come. Please, rest yourself."
She turns to face him, to say something, and he meets her with a kiss. Strong and unhurried, as though his love can be passed like medicine through her mouth. She mumbles halfhearted words of resistance against him.
"If you will not rest, at least allow me to ease your burdens."
"Fuck you, Krios." Her breath carries a lick of sarcasm. Still, she allows him to press her back into the war room console.
One hand splays against a keyboard and the display dances between different holos, framing her face in flickering touches of color. He wonders if this is what she sees under the influence of his poison.
"EDI, kindly lock war room doors and disable surveillance."
"Of course, Sere Krios."
"She's on to us, if she takes orders from you like that." Shepard murmurs against his mouth.
"The whole galaxy could be on to us and I could not find it in myself to care."
She groans as he untucks her shirt, unsnaps and lifts off her standard issue body armor. He unravels her as efficiently as he knows how, sinks to his knees, clips open her belt and tugs down her fly.
"I'd rather not fuck in the war room."
Thane places a teasing kiss against the taut flesh below her navel, opening her pants before turning his gaze up her body. He raises a brow ridge.
"No, Siha. I want to taste you."
"Here? Right now? We have a perfectly good bed upstairs... oh..."
Her eyes flutter shut as his fingers hook into her clothes and pull them over the tempting curve of her backside. They settle at her ankles and she struggles momentarily with her boots before kicking them away.
"If you wish me to stop you need only say so," he says, cupping her ass and canting her hips toward his mouth.
Her voice is coiffed with breathless lust. "Finish what you started, soldier."
He smiles. This is what he wanted. To take her right here in the war room - to give her just one memory of this place that isn't saturated with the burdens of her command. She nearly sobs out her pleasure as his lips close over the soaking heart of her arousal, suckling on her sensitive nub before teasing apart her folds with his tongue. She tastes like the spray of the ocean.
"Thane... Thane..." Shepard's voice summons his eyes to her face. She looks gorgeously undone, tension drained from her face to her body where she's braced against the console. And to think he's barely gotten started. Perfect.
He hums appreciatively when she pulls one foot up on the counter for him, splaying her knee outwards to give him access to her naked center. He leans into her body, pushing his tongue into her depths before joined fingers slide effortlessly into her heat. The sounds she makes when he touches her make his pulse quicken, blood thrumming expediently toward his groin in anticipation. But this isn't about him. There will be time for him later. This is for her.
He slides one hand up her quivering abdomen to yank down the zipper on her bra and palm her breasts. A shame he hadn't undressed her enough to watch them shake with her wanting body - but the feel of her is enough. Her fingers looping through his crest, the clench of her muscled thighs, the vulnerable column of her neck as she tilts her head back. Her chest heaving under her standard-issue undershirt. Her blanched knuckles gripping the edge of the counter.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck-"
His cock throbs with every thirsting syllable of her voice.
He can feel how close she is, but he's not finished. He won't be finished until every thought in her mind is replaced with senseless lust and she pleads for what only he can give her. Hilting his fingers within her, curling them against her walls - she shouts his name, clenching around him - but withdraws his mouth, denying her in a move that he knows full well will make her throat hot with indignation. He wants her weak in his arms, breathless, lost for words so when they fall in bed together she will have no option but to let sleep claim her.
Perhaps if he's lucky she'll let him claim her, first.
Her hips quake against him. Her voice is hoarse. "Don't stop."
"Not yet," he smirks. He blows against her slick, glistening flesh to make her shiver and her foot slips off the console for just a moment. He hooks it over his shoulder and she sags gratefully against him. She's heavier than she looks, all muscle and metal beneath her soft, scarred skin - but he would gladly bear her weight to give her this. Broad, teasing strokes of his tongue against her clit, firmly pumping fingers, the scent of her arousal enveloping him. The memory of joining with her lives behind his eyes as he plumbs her depths with the singular goal of making her cry for release.
"Oh... fucking god-" The sound of her is so desperate with need. "Thane."
"Beg for me, Shepard," he rumbles. "Tell me how badly you want this."
An audible hiss escapes her throat. "You're not going to make me beg in my own fucking command center," she bites out through clenched teeth.
She's lying, offering herself to him with every thrusting roll of her wanting cunt against his lips. He sucks on her flesh, greedily taking as much of her as he can, grinning at the slick pop her skin makes when he releases and the strangled moan that follows. "I can and will keep you here all evening," he says before flattening his tongue inside her crease. Fingers tighten on his scalp - she wants to keep him still so she can grind on him. He won't let her.
"Oh my fuck-" her words blend into the keening sounds of her pleasure. "Thane please-" the litany of curses and nonsense that spills from her desperate mouth threatens to shred his self control. "Don't stop, oh god please don't stop-"
"Give yourself to me, Siha," he growls, "Come for me."
He pumps his fingers roughly through her release and she clenches out a cry so loud he's certain the entire CIC can hear her. He doesn't care. Let them wonder. Let them stare while he escorts her back to their cabin, let them avert their eyes when he dares to meet their gaze.
A powerful feeling of possession washes over him. This is his privilege, and his alone. Ripping her attention from the war - a few selfish, stolen minutes to obliterate her authority, to make her come screaming against his mouth. To taste her victories. To lift her burdens.
Each cinching ripple of her insides sings through his fingers and straight to his achingly hard cock, but what a vision she is before his eyes - all parted lips, flushed cheeks, panting and slumping into the flickering holo of the crucible behind her. The sigh that slips her mouth is like her soul escaping the final, heavy shackles of the mission. Relief. Satisfaction.
For each word, she offers up a single breath. "Jesus, Thane,"
He sets her trembling on the floor and dresses her. Collects her in his arms. He can't help but press his body against her and his lips to her neck, hands carding through her hair.
"You said you would sleep when you're dead. Care to retract that statement?"
"I am dead," she murmurs. "You just killed me."
"Ah, the legend herself, assassinated in the fortified heart of her own warship?"
"Mmhm," she nods into his shoulder. "I hope you were compensated well for your services."
"Handsomely so," he whispers. "I have you."
A tired hand presses against his chest. "You're gross." A kiss, a smile against his scales. "And I love you. Take me to bed?"
"Gladly, Siha."
Thank you so much for reading! The Shrios fandom is amazing. I'm zet-sway on tumblr :)