~Garrus~
Garrus' day at work was long and seemed to drag on endlessly, the only time that helped to pass the time was the knowledge that in another week he would have close to a week of off time. It's not like he had planned it out, but when his supervisor can into his office and put it plainly that he was to either take some time off or lose the free time he acquired, he wasn't going to just miss out on the opportunity.
He finds it somewhat funny that the one thing he seems to have in common with his father is the ability to frustrate his superior because he's too diligent at his work. Unlike his father, though, he is definitely going to take full advantage and revel in the chance to sit at home and enjoy himself, not to mention his hopeful company.
As his apartment door whirs and unlocks, he flicks out a smile at the sound of the vidscreen. Sounds like Jane shares the sentiment, he muses, thinking back to his previous thoughts. The door swishes open and he doesn't hesitate to enter, letting it close at his back.
He can see Jane's green eyes look over the back of the couch, the crinkled skin around her eyes the only thing he can see from this angle at points to her welcoming smile and he flicks a mandible with a soft purr in response.
"Hey, you're home." She moves her attention back to whatever she's watching, her voice risen to make its way to him across the room. "Just in time for the next vid. You should join me, these are great. I thought Turian movies were all boring documentaries, but these are awesome."
He call tell in the tone of her voice and how it seems to become low and drift that she isn't really paying much attention to her words, focusing intently on the screen. He crouches down to unsnap his boots, not wanting to wait any longer in the torturous things than he has to, and stands up to lean against the wall as he pulls them off.
She softly snorts and he glances up to see her peaking over the couch top. "You are such a woman…" He can't help the confused hum and tilts his head at her proclamation. "You shouldn't wear those if they keep hurting your feet. Comfort before beauty, my friend."
His only response is a snort and head shake in dismissal but she has already turned back around and he doesn't even think she hears, which only makes him huff in mock annoyance. He takes his now removed boots and heads to the bedroom to put them away, glad that he didn't wear armor today, instead deciding on the soft C-Sec casuals, because all he wants to do is drop his weight on the couch next to Jane and stay there for the rest of the night.
On his way to do just that, he stops behind the couch and leans down to her neck, flicking his mandible playfully against her sensitive neck. He chuckles at her reaction to squirm away and he notices the container of chocolate ice cream in her hands. "Are you really just eating that out of the container?" She smiles innocently over her shoulder at his question. "At least you're eating, I guess."
She scowls and huffs out a breath before looking back at the screen, clearly not in the mood to play his game and finding whatever she's watching much more entertaining. He softly purrs and nuzzles against the back of her head in silent apology, taking in her scents but tensing at a sudden unmistakable smell on her.
She must notice his shocked confusion because she raises her hand up to stroke the side of his face. "Hey, I'm not really mad. Just come sit with me."
She must not know, he thinks to himself. He has no idea how she couldn't and takes a stronger intake of her scent, opening his mouth slightly to let it drift across his more sensitive tongue just to be sure.
Now he knows he wasn't imagining it as he now tastes the scent from before, blood. She is injured, despite the fact that she looks fine, and he knows she wasn't when he left this morning.
He quickly draws back from her and moves to the front of the couch, directly into her know worried gaze. He doesn't like to think that she feels concerned for him when she's the one who is injured and a comforting rumble escapes his chest as he kneels down before her. She smiles at the sound, but her eyes still have that open confusion in them.
Is she hiding the fact that she's hurt? Why would she need to? He stares into her emerald depths, silently searching for the answer or a way to ask her without upsetting her need to keep it to herself.
He is pulled out of his confusion by an uncomfortable cough from Jane. As he blinks, breaking the intense stare, she silently offers him a spoonful of ice cream, clearly trying to ease the unexplainable tension. He shakes his head and decides to just come out and say it, figuring that that conversation can't possibly be more awkward than the tentative silence.
"Jane," he starts when she takes the spoon to her own mouth. "Are you bleeding?"
If he wasn't so tense he would've found her quick wide-eyed expression comical, but soon it gets replaced by obvious confusion. "Eh?" she blurts out around the metal utensil, her lip curling in puzzlement.
Garrus huffs, so she doesn't know, and pulls himself up on the couch beside her. "You smell like…well, blood…your own blood, to be specific. Are you hurt?"
During his stumbling explanation she has removed the spoon from her mouth but it still hovers in her hand before her as she's lost in thought, her eyes narrowed and mouth working on silence, draw out words. Garrus rumbles in confusion at her expression, taking the spoon and container of food from her hands to put them on the floor, but sees that her expression has softened a bit, hopefully in understanding.
Suddenly, Jane's eyes light up in realization of something and she immediately lets out a sharp laugh. Garrus feels completely left out of this new discovery and his mandibles flicker in confusion and anxious discomfort as her sudden outburst.
He's starting to seriously question if his curiosity is worth it and thinking it'd be best to try and change the conversation when she smiles and takes his hand, stroking her thumb over his plates. "Wow, this is awkward. Sorry if I didn't automatically know what you were talking about."
Well, at least she knows something about it, though she's still horribly vague. "Are you hurt? Do you need something?"
She snorts. "Not much to do besides let it run its course."
He jerks his head back in shock. "'Run its course?' Jane, what's wrong with you?"
He internally cringes at how his words sound to his own ears but she only chuckles softly. She looks off to the side, her lip quirked to the side that usually means she's deciding how to state something. "Let's see here…" she seems to think aloud, then turns to him. "I'll try to make this easy to understand, but I have no clue how to explain this to another species, let alone my Turian boyfriend."
He nods in silent acknowledge to continue and she takes a deep breath. "Every human woman has a span of their life where they are fertile and able to have babies. During that time, if they don't get pregnant they have what's usually referred to as a period, but its clinical term is menstruation."
Her lip quirks in a cringe and Garrus flickers his mandible in confusion. He's not exactly privy to everything about different species' forms of reproduction, he's never needed it, but he doesn't know what could possibly be in store for her to show such discomfort.
She huffs lightly. "We shed our inner lining of our uterus when we don't get pregnant. It's pretty messy, so that's probably what you're smelling." She turns to him with a weak smile.
"Wait, you're bleeding right now?" His vocals are going crazy with tones of confusion and exasperation as he desperately tries to grasp what she's saying. "Do you need bandages?"
She laughs and pats his hand clasped with hers. "Don't worry, I'm not dirtying the couch or anything. We have things to take care of that."
He sits, deep in thought as he distantly notices his visor scrolling information on 'Human Menstruation' across his peripheral, but decides to ignore it and instead shifts his attention back to Jane. "How come I never smelt this on you before? Does it happen often?"
"Yes and no. You haven't smelt this before because this is the first time I've been around you while on my period." She shifts a bit on her seat and he notices her free hand move to her abdomen to rub softly. "A woman will menstruate every month for about a week, but we have different aids now that help to limit the frequencies. I'm on a six month plan so I only get one every year."
"Do you suffer from anything else?" His vocals have calmed considerably and he relaxes. "Besides the bleeding, of course."
"See, that's where the aids come in." She smirks. "The usual symptoms include cramping, bloating, fatigue, headaches, and serious PMS, or bitchiness as many call it, but the aids really help out on most of those things."
He purrs at the knowledge that she doesn't have to go through all the symptoms she listed, but her hand on her abdomen draws his attention again. "Does it hurt now?" She stops her mindless motion and her brows raise in silent question and he nods to her hand lying still on her stomach in equally silent answer.
She lifts up her hand and huffs a laugh. "Yeah, it hurts right now…It usually always does on the first day, but rubbing it usually helps keep it manageable."
At that, Garrus pulls the hand in his own as he shifts to sit against the couch's arm rest. Jane follows willingly with a raised brow, but he leaves her unanswered with his words and instead pulls her to lay between his legs, her back against his chest.
He lowers he head to her ear and purrs soothingly, taking their still clasped hands and laying them over the same spot she had been caressing just before. "Show me what to do…Maybe I can help you feel better."
From this angle he can only get a glimpse of her smile but she gladly removes her hand from his, only to replace it on top of his. The moments are quiet as he lets her show him how much pressure to use and the speed that best eases her discomfort.
Once he takes control and works in time with his rumbling purr, she moves her hand to relax against his thigh with a soft sigh. "I hope you don't mind that I'm eating all the ice cream."
He chuckles and pulls the container off the floor with his free hand. "It's not all gone."
She gladly takes it and pats the melting substance at the bottom with the flat of her spoon, making little splat noises. "That's another thing…we eat lots of sweets during our periods." She chuckles softly. "I have no idea where it all goes…I started with a whole container and now I'm almost done." She shifts the container to one hand and strokes his mandible with the other. "Don't worry, I'll try to hold back on ripping your head off. I promise. If I slip, just bring me candy."
"Sure thing," he softly agrees and she drops her hand, shifting to fit more comfortably against his plates. He rubs his head against the side of her own, his subvocals singing in contentment. "Is this helping?"
She hums deeply and lets her head drop against his shoulder. "Yes, you're so warm it's like a heating pad with the added bonus of pressure."
Garrus looks down at the woman in his arms, her eyes closed in bliss from his actions. "We clearly underestimated humans on Shanxi," he jokes and she squints open one eye, her laugh hoarse from the angle of her neck.
"You're damn right, you did." She softly agrees. "You should always know not to judge a book by its cover."
"You also can't judge then by what they say because odds are it means the exact opposite." She laughs again and shifts to place the ice cream on the floor, no longer hungry for it, it seems. When she returns, she quietly places his hand back to her stomach in a silent request and he gladly grants it to her, starting again with his soft, but firm, message.
He doesn't know how long passes before he notices that her breathing has slowed and her heart beats in a relaxed rhythm. He softly chuckles at the seemingly uncomfortable position, but finds that he doesn't really want to move, especially if she found it comfortable enough to fall asleep.
He looks down to the woman in his arms, careful not to disturb her, and smiles softly at warmth her closeness brings. She was obviously uncomfortable with telling him earlier about this 'period,' as she calls it, and he now realizes that it wasn't because she was in pain. Despite his disbelief, she seemed to be ashamed of letting him know about something out of her control.
Did she think he would be squeamish of her blood? He had often overheard human coworkers talk of distaste for anything that seemed messy or that involved bodily fluids, despite the fact that it was a natural occurrence. Even though they clearly hadn't been talking about this- at least he doesn't think they were- it seems that it had to go along with human's views of their sexual natures. It must just be another thing that, though natural, was looked down upon in society for humans, despite how strange it must seem.
His pulled from his thoughts by a soft murmur and the feeling of her rolling to better ley against his chest. His chest rumbles in affection and love for the woman in arms, so strong and beautiful despite the ways she may view herself, and he dips his head to nuzzle against the top of her red scalp.
How he wishes he was strong enough to tell her that though she was right about the deep bass of his subharmonics, that they meant so much more than just the love she thought. He wishes he had the courage to tell her that whatever may come, she already had his heart even before he realized it himself.
His eyes shoot open with sudden realization and he pulls back to look down on her sleeping form; he knows a way to show her everything he feels. Though it may cause an unimaginable amount of fear to wrap itself around his chest if she may not share his feelings, he owes it to this woman to tell her everything and let whatever consequences come from her response.