~Jane~
Almost a week has passed since Jane awoke to Garrus staring her down and promising her a sense of safety. It has been almost a week since she did something she's never done before and it scares her.
After almost frying Garrus with biotics, which she didn't know flare when she dreams, and then all but begging him to stay with her as she fell asleep. Letting someone into the walls that hold in her dark secrets is one thing, but to actually need someone to fall asleep at night? It confused her and it must have shown because since then she was quiet and aloof around him.
She knows he has no clue why she has closed up, but she can't bring herself to tell him the truth about her reasons or to reveal that she dreams of a forest planet and giant beasts that live in the ground. She can admit to herself at least, that she fears what will become of her if those last barriers fall.
Deciding that even though she has chosen to close him off, she doesn't want to lose his friendship, so she declares to herself that the first day he has that gives him some time off, she will figure out something for the two to do to show him there are no hard feelings.
Exiting the bedroom after her morning shower she finds Garrus searching though the kitchen cabinets while two bags of delivery sit on the counter. "Well, well," she walks in smiling at the smell of fresh pancakes. How he found somewhere that delivered pancakes she has no idea, but she isn't complaining. "I wake up to find pancakes and, oh" she pulls a cup of hot coffee out of a drink carrier, "fresh, hot coffee. Somebody is chalking up the brownie points."
He lets out a sarcastic 'hah' and returns with silverware for the two of them. He digs into one and pulls out a small bag with its top folded over and hands it to her. "I had no idea your pancakes came in so many flavors." She opens the bag and finds that it contains a bar of chocolate like the one she had run out of awhile back and was forced to drink her coffees without. She looks up to him with a shocked expression, to which he shrugs. "Figured you needed more because every time you would take a drink you would do that little thing with your forehead where it scrunched up."
"I don't do anything with my forehead, you liar," she jokes as she mixes some chocolate into her drink and he steps over to the fridge to bring her some milk. Adding the milk and tasting the coffee, she hums in enjoyment. The two take their meals to the couch to eat as she asks, "so, what are your hours today?"
He thinks for a moment with a forkful of some grainy food in the air before replying. "I get out around 2100." He takes the bite into his mouth and swallows. "Why do you ask? Thinking of bringing someone to the apartment?" he smirks.
She mock glares at him and takes a bite of her pancakes once he chuckles. He had ordered her chocolate chip pancakes, which thought a bit young for her tastes, she appreciates for the gesture and it doesn't taste half bad. After washing down her bite she clarifies, happy to have fallen into their comfortable conversations. "No, smart ass, I was going to see if you wanted to go out somewhere. Maybe a club or bar or something?"
He thinks it over, then nods through his current bite of food. "Sure, but I might not be much fun. I still have to work, you know." She agrees and they eat their breakfast as they plan out their plans for the night.
~Garrus~
Work went by quickly, though Garrus is pretty sure that the cause has to do with his excitement to share the evening with Jane.
Ever since he woke her from her nightmare and she asks him to stay by her side, she has been distancing herself more and more. He has a good idea that it has to do with the fact that she asked him for comfort.
As a Turian, to ask for comfort is to show a sign of weakness and the need for it was looked down upon. Jane, though, isn't Turian, so he doesn't consider what she had done as anything wrong. Even if she were a Turian, he would've still been happy to offer her the security she requested. Though, their situation would also be much easier to manage if she were a Turian.
Her request to go out tonight was a hopeful sign that she was, with any luck, getting over her perceived sign of weakness around him. Although he didn't really think that going out to a club is what she really needed, he wasn't going to complain or say something to make her retreat back inside herself.
Walking into the club Jane had picked, a place with loud music and the name, Super Nova, he searched for her tell-tale red hair. Spotting her standing at a table halfway between the bar and the dance floor, he makes his way over to her.
She is wearing a pair of casual pants and a shirt that cuts off just a bit over the tops of her arms with a deep cut on her chest. He assumes it's a shirt to attract human males with the specific parts of her it reveals, but he quickly decides not to go down that train of thought. Trying to figure out what each species found attractive was hard enough without considering what each species looked at in a bed partner.
She smiles when he reaches the table and slides over a drink, Turian brandy by the smell and color of it. "I got you the same thing you ordered when we went to that other club. Figured I couldn't go wrong there."
He takes a sip and nods in agreement. "Not bad. Surprised you remembered." He remembers very clearly that night and wonders how she can recall anything that happened that night, let alone the specifics of what he drank.
She waves off the remark with a mock pout of her lips. "Aren't we Mister Comedian tonight? I remember enough about that night." She points to her drink, a bright purple colored liquid in a slender glass. "I only ordered one and I'm slowly drinking it. I'll give it some time before thinking about another."
He laughs. She certainly remembered that, then. "I'm glad I won't have to carry you home again."
"I would hope not," she laughs, "that would look bad. I can see it now," she waves her open hand in front of them towards the crowd slowly, "up and coming detective witnessed carrying an obviously intoxicated young human woman to his home. More to come at 11." She laughs again and he is left to hang his head in exasperation.
She quits down and nudges his leg with her foot, "aw, don't worry big guy, I'm sure that happens to lots of guys." She breaks out laughing again.
"Just how many of those have you had, really?" he questions. The liquor must be hitting a lot harder because of her lack of sleep. "Maybe you should take it easy."
"Calm down." She dismisses his concern with an up and down waving of her hand. "I'm not drink, just a bit hysterical from lack of sleep. I can still see straight and remember my name." He accepts her explanation but resolves to keep an eye on her.
Over time, the two begin to share small stories as they work on their drinks. It starts with stories of friends they have had during their military postings or from his work and her life in the Earth gang.
Somehow, their conversation leans towards their various bed partners, though he admits it probably had something to do with Jane asking how Turians go about dressing for a club and him questioning her own outfit. It was after her explanation that he found himself telling her a story from the military about an encounter with a recon scout.
It is right as he finishes his retelling that Jane bursts with giggling which turns into laughter. He can't seem to figure out what's so funny about his story and when she sees his irritated expression her laughter only grows into guffawing. Some patrons even look over to scowl and eventually she quits enough to speak. "Reach and flexibility? With those charms it's no wonder your apartment isn't stickier."
He scowls at her, "that's gross, Jane. I never said that I said those words at any time when I was with her and you know it, Miss Cherry Stem Mishap."
She laughs at his reminder to her story and he can't help but join her with a soft thrum wavering through his own laugh. Even if they were making fun of each other's stories of conquest, as she put it, he is happy and she looks the same.
Finishing up her drink, Jane motions towards the dance floor. "Okay Mister Reach, want to have a go on the dance floor?"
He drinks the last of his drink and motions into the order kiosk for another figuring he can sleep off the second in time for work tomorrow. "Ah no, I'm not a very good dancer to begin with. Add the armor," he motions down to said armor with one hand, "and I'm an absolutely horrible dancer."
She makes some noise by blowing air past her lips and sighs exaggeratedly. "You know, I'm starting to think all these stories of some fun-loving Garrus Vakarian are just that, stories. You're just some big grump." His drink comes to the table and their two empty glasses are removed. "Well, I'm going, so when you feel all alone and left out, just know, you have only yourself to blame."
She heads out to the dance floor and places herself between a group of dancing Asari and humans. She takes a moment to listen to the beat playing and, once done, begins to move her body in tune with the music.
Garrus watches with interest as her hips and shoulders twist with the rhythm. As she gets more into it, she starts to swing her head and her hair sways back and forth. She seems to lose herself and she raises her hands to run down her pulsing body. She tosses her head and attracts the nearby Asari, who join her as they dance together.
He could've guessed she could dance from her stories of working as an entertainer on Earth, but he never would have guessed she'd be as captivating as she was now. She moves fluidly and he can tell that right now, she feels nothing else but the song in her ears and the movement of her body. He doesn't notice he is completely captivated until the song has ended, and he only guesses that because she is now making her way back to him with a smile on her face.
"Feeling bad about not taking me up on my offer?" She asks slyly and he suspects that she caught him staring.
He isn't ashamed as much as he is confused at the fact that he found her so mesmerizing. He understands that Turians can find Asari attractive, and that their bodies are much like a human woman's, but he was never a man to go outside his species.
He definitely never imagined he'd be staring down his best friend, who happened to be a human, from across a club, and was he growling when he was watching her? Thank whatever higher force that she wasn't near if he was.
Deciding that this train of thinking was best left to another time when he wasn't slightly drunk he shook his head in denial. Downing the rest of his drink to hopefully aid in his task he answers her. "Just waiting for you to get done."
She mock scowls, but then breaks out into a smile. "Well, then, let's go." She leads the way out of the club and to the transit hub that will take them home.
That night marks another nightmare.
Garrus rushes in to find Jane surrounded in a blue glow as she screams and claws against the skin of her shoulders and back. Objects from his room are thrown about and he quickly composes himself and gathers strength before moving into Jane's biotic aura to wake her.
The first thing he does is grab her wrists and retch her arms away from the tears in her shirt and flesh. The burning in his veins is ignored as adrenaline pumps through his body and she starts to kick and thrash in his grip, crying out incoherently.
He is extra careful to curl his fingers so that his talons do not rest against her skin so that her thrashing doesn't cause him to rip her wrists open. The blankets come off of her body and one of her legs fly out and manage to hit his unplated abdomen through his sleepwear.
With that and the punch to the nose plates from the first night, she has the uncanny ability to hit at just the right weak spots, he thinks as he buckles over. He maintains his grip on her wrists and she falls from the bed with him. She hits the ground with a loud thump, but her kicking persists so he moves to gain more control over her.
He has no other choice but to straddle her body to keep her legs from hitting anymore of his weak spots and the biotic energy pulses between the two of them, flowing like fire throughout his body.
"Jane, snap out of it." He demands, but her only response is to thrash and moan painfully. He knows his pin isn't the cause of her pain, so he doesn't get up. Instead he takes both of her wrists in one hand and leans on the other to look down into her blank eyes. "Wake up, Jane."
She cries and the biotics flare, making his teeth grind and a growl erupt from his chest and his free hand digs its claws into the floor. He can't physically sit here all night for her to snap out of it and figuring that talking to her isn't helping, he decides to do the only thing he can think of.
He sits up and with his free hand slaps Jane across the face. Almost immediately, the biotics fade and the fog in her eyes clears with realization.
She looks up to him, the two both breathing hard from the struggle, and before she can apologize he waves her off. "Don't bother, Jane. We both did things while you were asleep that neither feels particularly good about."
He releases her and stands, pulling her up once he's up. She stands with her arms crossed and looks around the trashed room as she rubs her forearms. He goes into the bathroom and brings out a package of Medi-gel for her wounds. She silently accepts the tube and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
He is too tired to clean up the room and his muscles burn as if he had just run an obstacle course because of her biotics, so he heads to the living room instead and sits on the couch. He is running through how he can make her talk and how to help stop the nightmares when he hears her walk into the living room and sit down beside him on the couch.
"I will try to find someone to talk to tomorrow," she quietly assents. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I'm all sorts of fucked up and I've been ignoring you when you have been telling me to do something about it." She leans her elbows on her knees and looks to the floor at her feet. "I guess I'm just a frightened fool."
He leans to her and places a hand of comfort on her shoulder. "I'm sure whatever it is that has got you like this is nothing to be ashamed of. I know you and what you've lived through, there is nothing that can scare you that you should be ashamed of."
She snorts a futile dismissal and he pulls her shoulders back to rest against the back of the couch. They had only gotten a little over an hour and a half of sleep tonight and just pulling her back feels like he is dealing with an entirely different person than the woman he was fighting on the floor for control.
They sit in silence with her resting against his side and his arm over her shoulders, just listening to the sounds of their slowing breathing and differently beating hearts and lost in their own thoughts. He hopes that her admission is truth and not just something she has said to appease him and the demons in her head. She really needs to do something or he fears he may wake up and not be able to stop her from killing herself or him, and he doesn't think he'd be the same if it was the former.
She has given his confidence that he was never given as a child from his father. As a child, his actions were never good enough or entirely wrong, but with her, he was treated like an individual with his own thoughts and opinions. She wasn't shaping him like a protégée like his father seemed to do, she treated him as a friend who if she didn't agree with, she still let him make his own decision. Everything she did also went against Turian upbringing for an individual, but he never really found himself much for the uptight ways of his people. He guesses that makes him a bad Turian, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.
Feeling her head rest on his shoulder, he looks down to find her sleeping softly. He shifts a bit to see if she'll wake up and when she doesn't he thinks about his options. He needs to get to sleep sometimes tonight and try to get the rest of his four hours in before work but he also doesn't want to wake her to make her walk into the other room.
Seeing that his only real option lies in moving her, he shifts to position his left arm under her knees with his right still behind her shoulders. He gently lifts her weight from the couch, shocked at how light she feels in his arms considering the power she contains, and stills when she stirs a bit. Once she settles he walks her slowly to the bedroom and places her down softly on the pillows, covering her with the blanket before moving away.
As he is leaving the room, he happens to step on something. Picking it up, he originally thinks it is a datapad, but feeling it a bit in his hands he finds that it is Jane's sketchbook she had when he first met her on the Presidium. He closed the door and heads to sit on the couch, the drawing pad in hand.
He opens the book and flips through the familiar sketches that he remembers and comes across the ones she must have drawn since then. A few of the different Presidium fountains, a few of various groundskeepers, a Hanar evangelist, the Salarian music group, the Krogan statue on the Presidium, the children's entertainment park outside the apartment complex, but stops short when the images take a drastic change.
Where most of her images where black and white copies of what she saw, with accurate shadowing and light effects, these were dark and almost entirely black and entirely consisted of imagery of Thresher Maws. Page after page depicted the horrors that were the voracious beasts, a total of thirty pages contained the visual pain Jane must be going through.
Realizing that her dreams must be about an experience with the creatures, Garrus understands some of why Jane must be so ashamed. There was no way that she ever came in contact with a Thresher Maw during her childhood on Earth so she must have encountered it when she was with the Alliance.
That means she must have had a squad with her and by her stories of her fellow soldiers, any squads she had were like family to her. If a Maw were in the mix, then odds were she lost someone at least to the creatures because he had learned the way the creatures hunted and attacked what they thought of as prey. Thus, she probably felt responsible for the loss and, though he knew better, she was subconsciously punishing herself for it.
Sighing and placing the book aside, Garrus hopes against his cynicism that she will keep her word and find someone to help her wade through her internal guilt. He would gladly be the one to help her, and be given the guarantee that she was talking, but it was ultimately her decision.
Admitting that nothing more can be done tonight and that he needs to get some amount of sleep or he'll regret it at work, he lays down and tries to block out the racing thoughts about Jane.