"I honestly don't know why I bother with either of you!" peeled the last of the bloody bandaging from Garrus' face and slammed it into the bio-disposal unit considerably harder than was necessary. "I might as well just set up permanent beds for you in here and be done with it."

Leaning her hip against the counter, Shepard shook her head with a laugh. "Sorry, I'm too attached to my own shower~plus, I snore."

Garrus rumbled a laugh at that. Mandibles flicking outward in a toothy turian grin, disrupting Chakwas as she tried to spray an antiseptic foam over the exposed cybernetics in his jaw.

"If you don't hold still, you're going to get a mouthful of this," Chakwas waved the antiseptic ampoule in Garrus' peripheral vision. "And I can assure you it isn't going to taste nice."

"Sorry!" Garrus muttered, or rather, tried to. With Chakwas holding his head tilted up to the light, effectively clamping one mandible to his jaw, the word came out as an oddly toned slur.

"Well at the very least you haven't done as much damage as I first thought, most of this is superficial," Chakwas nodded to herself in satisfaction as she wiped cerulean tinged antiseptic away with sterile gauze. "I am going to check some of these cybernetic connections though, so I'll just use a local anesthetic for that." Shepard could see the doctor purse her lips at Garrus' automatic flinch back from the hypodermic, and her eyes meeting the commander's were tinged with sadness.

Shepard hated the embarrassed mottling of blue across Garrus' neck almost more than the reaction itself, and was infinitely glad of Chakwas' calm patience as she waited for Garrus to jerkily lower his head for her ministrations. The procedure was blessedly short, but even so Shepard could see the exhaustion creeping into Garrus' eyes as Chakwas pressed a clean pressure bandage over the injury and professed him fit to leave the med bay.

"I assume your throat is still sore?" Chakwas didn't even wait for Garrus' slow nod, as he hauled himself upright with Shepard's help. "I've given you an imuno-booster, so that should ease off in the next few hours, I'd like to see you back here if you have any complications," the last was said mostly to Shepard, who nodded in compliance.

"Come on, lets get you to bed," Shepard ushered Garrus out of the med bay with a hand on his lower back. He seemed steady enough on his feet, but was starting to move with jarring, heavy movements that bespoke of complete physical exhaustion.

As the elevator began its laborious ascent to Shepard's quarters, Garrus prodded experimentally at the bandaging on his face. "How bad is this really?" he queried, his multi-tonal voice curiously flat. "Are people going to start confusing me with Saren yet?"

The forced nonchalance in Garrus' voice surprised Shepard, he had never seemed the type to worry about his appearance, but the worried vulnerability in his eyes told a very different story. It seemed the most natural thing in the universe for Shepard to rise up on her toes, resting one hand on the pronounced keel ridge of Garrus' armor and press a kiss to the scarred edge of his mandible. "You look pretty damn good to to me."

"Then that's not..." Garrus paused as the door hissed open, and followed Shepard into the blue-tinted light of her quarters, "that's not a reason why you left?"

"Why I left where?" Shepard asked distractedly, wadding up some scattered dirty laundry and tossing it into a corner.

"Illium," Garrus clarified softly.

Shepard froze, turning around slowly, wishing Garrus didn't look so damned lost and confused, because it made her physically sick with guilt. "You thought..." Shepard cleared her throat, "you thought I left Illium because you had some scars?"

Garrus shrugged, as if it were somehow to be expected. "I'm kind of a mess Shepard, I just figured you had realized you could do a lot better."

"No! No, dammit, look at me," Shepard moved forward to cup her hands under Garrus' jaw, forcing his eyes up to meet hers, "I have never thought that! Ever!"

Garrus leaned into her touch automatically, but he still looked skeptical, confused. "Then why?"

"To begin with I was drunk, and you deserve a lot more than some drunken fumble...and I never even asked, I just assumed...ah." Shepard trailed off as Garrus turned his head to nuzzle one of her hands, taking it gently in his teeth and licking a slow hot path across her palm. "Oh... Ok then."

Garrus tilted his head to rest his forehead against hers, and Shepard took the opportunity to run her hands across his face, as if mapping the feel of his facial plates into her mind. His crest was smooth and warm under her skin as Shepard ran her fingers along the sensitive cartilage, knowing enough to keep her touch away from the sheared off spine on the left side. When she dragged her fingernails lightly across the thin hide at the back of his neck, Garrus arched his head back with a soft, guttural noise.

Leaning forward to press her lips to the arch of his throat, Shepard murmured "is this ok?" against his skin, tongue finding the thin line of scar tissue over the pulse point at the base of his neck.

"Ye-esss" Shepard smirked at the slight hitch in Garrus' reply, and tugged lightly at the chestplate of his combat armor.

"Can I take this off?"

"Uh, yeah," Garrus raised a hand to start unsnapping the seals, but Shepard caught his hand and with a gentle kiss on his palm moved his hand until it rested against the desk behind him.

"Let me do this, ok?" Shepard carefully started working on the buckles that held Garrus' shoulder guards in place, "I want this to be about you...so just relax and let me make you feel good, alright?" Waiting until Garrus gave her a wide eyed nod, Shepard added "and if I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me to stop, right away."

Shepard worked her way quickly through Garrus' upper body armor, it was similar enough to her own, even built as it was for a totally different body. The sturdy combat fatigues underneath resisted her questing fingers until she discovered that they fastened along the side with a series of clips, and as she eased the fabric back off Garrus' shoulders Shepard followed the flowing lines of natural dermal armor with her lips and her fingers. Extricating Garrus' arms from the sleeves, Shepard walked him backwards a bit, until he was leaning a lot of his weight on the desk as she folded his fatigues down to his hips.

"This alright?" Shepard could feel the first quiver of tension under her fingers as she ran her hands along the thinner skin of Garrus' waist.

Garrus nodded wordlessly, and Shepard kept her eyes on his face as she sank to her knees his eyes met hers, pupils dilated with arousal and trepidation. The blood pack brand that marred the tan smoothness of his hide made something angry clench and snarl in Shepard's stomach, and she pressed her lips to it, feeling Garrus shiver violently under that touch, a soft keen breaking his silence. "Easy, easy, shhh," Shepard soothed, backing off slightly and running her hands up the small of his back. "You're alright, they can't touch you now, it's just me."

The muscle tension slowly eased under her touch, shivers easing off into nothing, until Shepard's fingers could press more firmly into the dip of muscle and bone; making Garrus arch into her touch with an odd multi-tonal groan of appreciation. Shepard was no stranger to some of fornax's more...adventurous publications, and knew damn well that the sensitive muscles and skin on a turian's waist and stomach were one of the more commonly exploited erogenous zones. Turning her head to run the edges of her teeth along Garrus' skin, as close as she could get to turian foreplay, Shepard smiled to see his hands tighten on the edge of the desk until his talons scored deeply into the wood.

Unbuckling Garrus' leg armor gave Shepard a bit more trouble than expected. Unfamiliar components like the spur guards driving her to frustrated muttering, while Garrus laughed breathily at her, one hand reaching out to card through the strands of her hair. Finally the last bit of interlaced armor clicked free, and Shepard carefully unsnapped the closures that held the fatigues fitted over Garrus' spurs and digitigrade feet and cast them aside.

Turians were predators built for speed and power, but there was an odd vulnerability in their slender limbs, in the deceptively delicate sweep of the bone spurs - vestigial legacies of a more violent time. Shepard could feel the thrum of Garrus' pulse under her hands where they rested on his thighs, and his eyes when he looked down into her face were hazy with want and confusion.

"Shepard...not that I'm complaining, but what are you...oh...oh!" Garrus broke off that line of questioning with an arching gasp as Shepard moved closer and ran her tongue along the seam of his pubic plating.

Shepard could feel the muscles under her hands beginning to ease apart, and pressed her tongue harder into the widening slit; Garrus was breathing hard, and a thrum of subvocals added an odd resonance to his panting. Shepard had suspected that anything Garrus had suffered at the not-so tender mercies of the mercenaries would not have included any intimacy meant to bring pleasure, and judging from his slack-mandibled expression of stunned pleasure, he didn't have any previous experience with human or asari partners either.

Garrus' protective plating eased back quickly under Shepard's mouth, connective tissue twitching as his cock filled and hardened under her gentle ministrations. Shepard could feel the muscles in Garrus' thighs and legs beginning to shake, and his panting breathing had ramped up as his heart rate soared. As much as she wanted to take her time, Shepard knew that Garrus was already on the verge of exhaustion, and that this was about relief and healing~not about tantric love making. Taking him in her mouth, Shepard relaxed her throat, taking him as deeply as she could; pulling him forward with her hands resting on the back of his thighs.

Garrus gasped out her name, then a rush of multi-tonal dialect that Shepard's translator didn't even attempt; but she hummed an encouragement, feeling him buck helplessly against her. As Garrus came with a sharp gasping cry, Shepard had to half catch him as his knees buckled, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck as he gasped and shuddered, forehead resting against her collarbone.

Garrus' rasping breath was hitching into a series of wrenching sobs, a kind of explosive emotional hysteria that spoke of exhaustion, fear, and far too long without any kind of gentle or intimate touch. Knowing there was little she could do about it, Shepard held him tight, crooning a babble of what she hoped was soothing noises until eventually Garrus' breathing evened out and he went slowly limp in her arms.

"Hey big guy, you awake?" Garrus blinked hazily back at Shepard as she levered the almost dead weight of his head off her shoulder, "think you can get up long enough to make it to the bed?" At his slow nod Shepard rested a hand on his cheek, thumb rubbing over his colonial markings, "long day, huh?"

"...Long year," Garrus muttered, "though I have to admit today wasn't all bad," he added with a slight mandible twitch of amusement. Then blinking himself slightly more awake he peered at Shepard, "wait...you didn't? Did you?...I mean did you..ah...get anything out of that?"

Trying not to laugh at his stuttering embarrassment, Shepard levered herself to her feet, "how about we save that for round two, come on, up you get." Even though he was still slightly underweight, Garrus was heavy enough now that Shepard was glad she only had to support him for a few steps before tumbling him into bed.

"Round two huh?" Garrus obviously wasn't going to move from where Shepard had dropped him, his eyes were barely open, "I'd... like that..." Heaving a deep sigh Garrus seemed to be asleep, Shepard pulled the comforter up over him as best she could, and was padding away when Garrus reached out and tentatively grabbed her hand. "Would you stay...just for a while?"

"Yeah, I can stay." Shepard had to swallow down the lump the simple request brought to her throat as she eased herself down beside Garrus. "I'm not going anywhere."