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Loyalty and Limerence
Part 1
Chapter 15
The SSV Normandy
Hours later, Garrus still lay in his bunk, eyes wide awake and mind methodically working through the last few weeks of interactions with Jane as he rolled from side to side trying to get comfortable. The sounds of sleep around him did nothing but make him more frustrated, and finally, with a groan, he flung his feet out of bed and onto the cold floor. Quietly, he made his way out of the room and down the hall to the quiet, empty mess hall. The night shift crew generally kept to the CIC and engineering, so he wasn't terribly worried about being bothered as he grabbed a bottle of water and sat down at the table.
What, exactly, were his feelings for Jane? He admired her, sure. She was a fantastic soldier, clever with her hands and good with tech, and kept revealing new skills the more he got to know her. He enjoyed her company, she was witty and intelligent, and her confidence was infectious. He trusted her, there was no one he'd rather have at his back, she would always go out of her way for her teammates. None of this was particularly new to him.
But apparently, he was also attracted to her. To a human. To humans in general, though? Or just her? With a sigh, he figured there was only one way to figure that out. Pulling up his omnitool, he accessed the extranet and started a quick search. Feeling awkward, he furtively checked to make sure the room was, in fact, empty. Finally, he started a pretty vanilla search for human pornography and started flicking through the results with mixed feelings. Besides filling in some of his knowledge gaps regarding the general physiology of humans, he didn't feel much interest. At least, not until he came across one model with pale ivory skin, forest green eyes, and fiery red hair, and for a split second he could imagine it was her.
As his heart sped up, his face flushed and he quickly put away his omni tool. So, he hadn't developed a human fetish, at least. However, he was definitely attracted to one human in particular, there was no getting around that, apparently. But what did he want from this? From her? Was this a 'have a fun romp in bed and get it out of your system' kind of infatuation, or something more? Suddenly, he was imagining introducing his father to his human girlfriend and he had to jam his jaw shut to stop the manic laugh that wanted to burst out.
How did the physical aspect of it all work, anyway? Joker said it was one of the more rare pairings, but there had to be stuff out there he could look at, figure out if it was really something he wanted to pursue. Hadn't they mentioned an issue of Fornax?
A few more quick extranet searches and he realized that there was, in fact, some material out there, but he could see what they meant about it seeming a little fake. Every image seemed to display the same stereotypes: a small, soft, submissive looking human woman being overpowered, taken, by the larger, strong, dominant turian man. Was this what human women preferred sex to be like? He tried to imagine Jane like that and had to laugh. Besides when rank was pulled, Jane was anything but submissive. Honestly, that was part of what he liked about her. She had so much spirit, so much confidence, it just oozed off her.
This train of thought led him down a whole rabbit hole of research into what human women's preferences were, specifics of their biology, and human courting and mating rituals. Very quickly, he realized he was completely in over his head. There was far too much information out there, and sorting through it all was going to take hours. With a groan, he shut off his omni tool and leaned back in his chair, pinching his eyes shut in frustration.
"What am I doing? This is insane." Garrus muttered to the empty room. After sitting with no one but himself for company for awhile, he stood up and went back to bed.
The next few days were a little rough. He found it agonizing to be in Jane's presence for a million different reasons. He couldn't stop thinking about her, it was like she'd infected his brain, she'd climbed right in and made herself at home. Being around her caused his heart to pound in his chest, and his ability to speak coherently flew out the window. Absolutely terrified he was going to do something stupid, he found it easier to just avoid her when he could. He felt like a preteen with his first big crush, and it was absolutely mortifying.
Which was how he found himself in the CIC, a place that was not his usual stomping ground during his time off. He ended up in the cockpit looking out the windows silently. After a few minutes, Joker turned in his seat to glare at him.
"Can I help you with something, Vakarian?" The pilot asked, his voice sarcastic and peeved at the intrusion, and Garrus sighed.
"No, just stretching my legs. Need a hand with anything up here or are you all good?" Joker raised an eyebrow at him, before turning back to the controls.
"Nope, all good here." The silence stretched on, and Garrus felt the awkwardness building to the point of pain. He flailed about for a conversation topic, dreading going back to the lower decks in case he ran into her. After a few more moments, he finally landed on a rumor he'd encountered soon after joining the Normandy.
"So, tell me, is it true you stole the Normandy before the Eden Prime mission?" Joker looked back at him, this time his eyebrows raised in surprise and, if he wasn't mistaken, pride. Bingo.
"Who told you about that?" Joker asked, a small smile tugging at his lips.
"Oh, just some rumor I overheard. Takes balls to steal a military vessel, perhaps even quads to steal a brand new, state of the art stealth ship." Garrus felt some self satisfaction as Joker grinned at him before turning back to his work at the controls.
"Well, did you hear that that was how I got this posting? One of your turian generals, Invectus, took a shine to me after that and insisted that I be made the pilot. Anderson agreed, and here we are."
"No shit?" Garrus felt legit surprise at that. "Now this I've got to hear."
In the following days, the cockpit became a regular hide out for him during his off hours. He had to be careful, as Jane had a tendency to visit Joker up there, too. But generally she made that part of her work hours, as she helped with maintenance on the controls and other equipment. She and Joker had been fast friends from the start, and the more he thought about it now, Garrus wondered if this was part of the reason why he'd avoided the cockpit and Joker as much as he had. Had he been jealous of Jane's other good friend aboard the ship? Perhaps.
It was about a day before their arrival at the Citadel to meet with the council when his fledgling friendship with Joker took an unexpected and uncomfortable turn.
"So," Joker started after a few minutes of companionable silence, "Did you know that I have access to all the communications coming and going through the ship?" Garrus turned to the pilot, confusion written over his face. It seemed like something of a non sequitur, a random topic to bring up, but he decided to see where Joker was leading.
"No, I didn't. Don't we have a communications officer?"
"Sort of, yes, but it all passes by me, too. I'm in charge of getting uplinked to the comm buoys when we're far enough out from the relays. That's when we get the data dumps and I upload any outgoing information. But you see, here's the secret." Joker grinned, looking at him with an almost predatory gleam. "If I do a little digging, I can glean all sorts of nifty information before that upload. I learn all sorts of interesting things about the crew."
"Wait, you read our mail?" Garrus' eyes shot open in surprise. He was pretty sure that was illegal.
"No, no, nothing like that. All messages are encrypted, I can't see anything but data packages. However, I can see traffic from open channels, the ones that nobody encrypts, game downloads, online purchases… extranet searches…" With a sinking sensation in his gut, Garrus was glad he wasn't drinking anything at that moment, else he probably would have choked out of shock.
"I- what?! Ahhh…" Garrus did a quick mental recap of the various searches he'd conducted over the past week since they'd left Virmire, and after a moment, he groaned. "So, should I just jump out the airlock now, save myself the embarrassment?" He grumbled as he slumped into one of the empty seats. Joker laughed before returning his eyes to the controls before him. "So, is this, what… blackmail or something?"
"No, no nothing like that. I just thought your preferences lately have been, I don't know… Interesting." After a few minutes of mortified silence, Joker continued. "You really like her, don't you?" Garrus turned away to look out the window, refusing to answer, his complete mortification gluing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Look, your secret is safe with me. I'm not going to tell anyone. Well, I'm pretty sure half the crew knows about…" He waved his hand in the air vaguely before continuing, "But I promise I won't go blabbing about your extranet shenanigans."
"Gee, thanks." Garrus sighed as he flicked his mandibles in irritation.
"I mean, you are kind of obvious."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, sorry Casanova."
"Huh?"
"Sorry, just a human reference. Does she know how you feel?"
"Are you trying to play matchmaker or something?"
"Pfft, hardly. Just being nosy, that's all."
"I'm not even sure how I feel, there's not really anything to tell." Garrus snorted in derision.
"I think you should tell her." After a moment of awkward silence, Joker turned to find Garrus staring at him. "What? I'm just sayin', what's the worst that could happen? She's not really the sort of person to be cruel about stuff like that."
"Well, first off, I know almost nothing about human relationships and honestly, the extranet has been no help, quite the opposite. Everyone contradicts each other."
"Yeah, well that's par for the course with humans." It was Joker's turn to snort in amusement. After a moment, Garrus continued.
"I really don't want this to turn into some sort of interspecies awkwardness thing. I value my friendship with her too much to mess that up because I made a stupid mistake."
"Well, maybe I can help with that." Garrus raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.
"Are you planning on becoming my human culture tutor or something?" Garrus asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"No, but I can probably send you some pertinent information, both about human courtships and about… other stuff. Like I said, I have a pretty sizeable collection." Joker pointed out with a grin, causing Garrus to laugh, feeling some of his tension melt.
"I would appreciate that. But if you say anything to anyone about this, you'll be the one becoming intimately acquainted with the airlock."
"Yeah, yeah, you and your stick up your ass."
"My what?" Garrus stared at him, wondering if his translator was on the fritz.
"Human phrase, don't worry about it."
As Garrus finished drying up in the showers, he took a look down at his omni-tool. They were due to dock at the Citadel in just a few hours, but from what he understood, they were not making time for shore leave. The plan was to convince the council to send a fleet to stop Saren at Ilos, or failing that, to convince them to send Shepard in after him. He felt nervous about how it was going to go down, however. He'd never been able to shake the feeling that the Council didn't want to convict Saren.
After redressing, he wrapped his towel around his neck, grabbed his bag, and jumped as the door opened all on his own before he could reach for it.
"Hey there, Big Guy." In the doorway stood Jane, her arms crossed and brow raised with no smile in sight. "Long time, no see." Garrus swallowed, looking down to notice she was wearing nothing but a tank top and a very short pair of shorts. The outfit left very little to the imagination, but it certainly didn't stop his from trying. Glancing away, he coughed before replying with an even voice.
"What do you mean? I saw you earlier when we were both working down in the cargo bay." He could feel her eyes on him and his mandibles fluttered nervously.
"I mean in the morning, before work hours. You haven't been coming down early like usual." Garrus had nothing to say to that, the accusation was true. After a moment, she sighed and stepped into the cramped bathroom before closing the door and leaning up against the sink. "Sorry for cornering you in here, but you've been avoiding me."
"I have not."
"Yes you have." She snapped in a voice that brooked no argument and stared at him with deadpan eyes. Then she sighed again, and her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. "Look, I want to apologize." He looked up at her with surprise. Did she somehow know about… whatever it was that he felt for her? Had Joker blabbed on him?
"Apologize? For what?"
"For talking about all that the night after Virmire, about the turian I slept with. Between the high of having survived, and then the alcohol, well, it wasn't very classy of me." He felt himself relax slightly, finally able to look her in the eyes. Spirits, they were so green…
"You don't have to apologize for that."
"Well, I made you uncomfortable, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to objectify you in any way. I know how it feels, and it sucks."
"You don't ever have to worry about making me uncomfortable. Nervous, yes… But never uncomfortable." He couldn't help the smile as he gazed at her, feeling his heart skip a beat.
"Nervous? How so?" This time, her raised brow was accompanied by her provocative smile as she crossed her arms, which only helped to emphasize her breasts. And as he now understood those to be somewhat important to human sexuality… Swallowing again, he decided the conversation needed to be derailed before he completely put his foot in his mouth.
"Weeeell, you've demonstrated on numerous occasions that you can wipe the floor with my face with both arms tied behind your back, and given that I like my face the way it is, that's enough to make me nervous." Garrus shot back at her with a grin, deciding that getting back to their usual banter was probably the only way to handle this with his pride intact.
"Don't worry, I'll spare your devilish good looks," She laughed as she pushed back against the sink, walking back toward the door, "But only if you stop avoiding me. It gets boring around here without you."
"Okay, point taken. I am the most interesting person on this tin can, afterall." This caused her to laugh again, and he took a moment to bask in the warmth of the sound.
"So you forgive me for being an ass?"
"There's nothing to forgive, we're all good." Jane grinned at him before turning and leaving, and Garrus couldn't help but watch the sway of her hips as she walked away. Spirits, he was a lost, hopeless cause.