Chapter Text
She was getting stronger every day.
Six months since the Normandy had returned to earth. Six months since Garrus was sure he'd starve to death in the spacious, cutting-edge coffin that he once called home. Six months since he thought he'd never see Shepard again.
How he even had the strength to grip her hand as she lay in that hospital bed, he would never know.
The kisses they forced upon each other had hurt, desperate and ravenous. Love is pain, the humans say, and Garrus could see their point. Even safely tucked into his embrace, he continued to long for her. How could he miss her when she was right there?
After months of surgeries and therapies and late-night nurse visits, Shepard was finally released from the hospital. The Alliance sprang for a small, prefabricated unit for the two of them, a few miles outside of the local refugee camp. It really was the least they could do after all Shepard had accomplished for them; for everyone.
And now they were “home” for the foreseeable future, at least. Spending the better part of the last five years on a ship had prepared them for close living; though neither would have gone far from the other even if they’d had the room. They had almost settled into a routine of meals, physical therapy, and the predetermined time allotted for checking short range transmission messages in the few weeks that had passed since moving in.
The nights were quiet. The only sounds were the ponderous buzz of Earth’s nocturnal insects flitting their wings against the tall, dry grass outside and the irregular gusts of wind that caused the walls of their unit to creak and groan under the pressure. Shepard liked to face the window while in bed and Garrus would tuck himself in closely behind her every night, wrapping tightly around her like a self-indulgent prayer. Sometimes she lay awake for hours, transfixed by the swirling patterns the breeze created in the fields and the momentary blazes of debris set aflame by the planet’s atmosphere, lighting up the sky before vanishing beyond the horizon.
Garrus refused to sleep until he felt her small, willful body finally relent and give up the fight against staying awake. Sleep wasn’t gradual and easy with her - it was abrupt - crashing rather than drifting. The flashing images of the war they had just survived couldn’t paint the inside of her eyelids when her eyes weren’t closed.
He memorized the way her face relaxed as she slept, how her lips would slightly part to release easy breaths and the delicate way her eyelashes fluttered as she dreamt. A sight so agonizingly beautiful that Garrus was sure his heart would stop if he let his gaze linger for too long.
Earth’s single moon was at the end of its cycle, being the brightest and fullest it would be for another month. Wisps of clouds sailed slowly across the sky causing the usually static shadows to dance and play upon Shepard’s body in an otherworldly blue light. Some called it a ‘blue moon,’ Shepard had said earlier that evening, a once rare occurrence that was now more frequent due to the smoke and dust still leftover in the air from the war. Despite the depressing reason for the unnatural light, Garrus couldn’t resist tracing the glowing outlines on her body with the barest touch of his fingers.
"I'm nervous," Shepard confessed as they lay in their bed curled into each other. She was facing towards him, and not away, as usual. Soft hands that normally lay relaxed upon his own, now clenched worriedly at his back.
Garrus nestled closer to brush his forehead against hers and inhale her scent deeply, hoping she found the gesture comforting and reassuring. The bitter hospital smell of antiseptic and artificial fragrances had nearly worn off, leaving behind the warm, earthy, and intoxicating notes that he had fallen in love with almost two years ago.
"We don't have to do anything tonight, Shepard." He softly stroked her hair with one hand and let it glide down her back to rest on the dip of her waist.
"I want to though," she lowered her face and whispered into his throat while curling her fingers around the edge of his cowl. "I've...missed you so much."
"We've been together for weeks," he chuckled quietly, but he knew what she meant. Even when they were pressed together like this, they still weren’t close enough.
They hadn’t made love since before the final push on Earth, which they both assumed would be their last chance. It had been urgent, rough, and desperate. Shepard had asked him to fuck her like one of his kind, and Garrus Vakarian was a very good turian when it came to following Commander Shepard’s orders.
Now he was ready to discover her again, to map her body and seek out the spots that made her whimper and gasp. He wanted to take care of her the way only he knew how, not like a turian or a human, just her.
"My body..." She began to speak but her voice became hoarse unexpectedly. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “Damn it. It's so stupid."
Garrus didn’t say anything as he continued to trail his talons lightly along the raised notches of her spine, giving her space to speak again when she was ready.
"I'm just worried it won’t be what you’re used to… You know, feats of ‘reach and flexibility.’” She closed her eyes and somehow moved even closer to him, tucking a leg safely between his own. “I'm so weak, Garrus, I've never been this weak." She sucked in a deep breath. “And I can’t even imagine how I look to you right now.”
He dragged his thumb over the flame kissed skin on her face, gently running his fingers down to the dimpled, raised flesh on her neck and then further down her arm. She shivered in response.
"It’s going to be great, because it's us.” He grazed her forehead with his own and though he spoke barely above a whisper, his subvocals were rumbling deep inside his chest. “And you’re beautiful. Always.”
Shepard laughed nervously and there was a catch of uncertainty in the sound, "You have to say that though. You're my boyfriend."
Garrus can't help but flicker his mandibles against her hair, grinning at that word. Boyfriend. Even when Shepard told him the term humans used for committed couples that weren't bonded, he didn’t think it fit them. That word wasn't big enough. It didn't encompass their story, which as far as he was concerned, was a story for the legends. Allies to friends to lovers against a backdrop of impossible odds and an even more impossible enemy to defeat… There was no single word that could effectively capture the experiences they shared, the losses they endured, and the sanctuary they found in each other’s embrace.
Garrus softly scraped his talons against her scalp and listened for the satisfied hum that would inevitably follow. He brought his other hand to cup her chin and tipped her face up towards his. Even in the dim, blue light of the bedroom, he could see his own reflection in her wide, expressive eyes and the stains of tears that streaked her cheeks.
"You are beautiful," he punctuated every word, running his fingers through her thick, crimson hair, "and you will get stronger."
He pressed his forehead emphatically to hers and she greedily accepted his affection, forcefully nuzzling back into him. She enjoyed turian kisses as much as he did.
"You're the beautiful one," Shepard breathed back and brushed her soft lips against his mouth plates. He could honestly say he relished human kisses just as much, as their tongues gently met and rolled along one another. He tilted her head up slightly higher to tenderly nip her chin and jaw line.
"Don't you mean devastatingly handsome?" He hummed and returned to her soft, full lips to kiss her again.
He expected her to either chuckle or playfully scoff at his comment, but instead she sucked in a breath and licked the inside of his mouth plates. He groaned into her open mouth in return.
"We don't have to," Garrus repeated, he struggled to keep his tone measured and controlled, as he was already half hard behind his plates.
Shepard wrapped her arms tightly around him and pressed her deft, little fingers into the back of his neck. She undulated her hips against his, rubbing right against his warm and rapidly spreading slit. "I want to. Please, Garrus."
That was enough for him - and he smoothly rolled her onto her back, quickly positioning himself in between her raised knees. The softest nudge eased her legs open wider to him, and Garrus couldn’t contain the thrumming of his sub-harmonics at the sight. Her hands delicately lay atop each other on her abdomen, rising and falling slowly with the depths of her breaths.
He grazed his thumb through her folds and she whimpered, canting her hips against his pressure. Returning his hands to the junction between her hips and thighs, he pushed her legs flush with the mattress, displaying her fully to him, and breathed in the scent of her arousal. Her legs tightened and she winced slightly.
"Is that ok?" He asked, releasing the pressure he had placed on her legs and using his talons to draw lazy patterns on the delicate skin on her inner thighs. Her left leg had been fractured into numerous pieces and nearly crushed during the collapse of the Citadel and she was lucky to have kept it intact after several surgeries and many painful hours of physical therapy.
She nodded and spoke softly into the dark, "Just a little tight, but it's ok. Keep going."
The intense devotion Garrus felt for Shepard in that moment nearly suffocated him, the sheer magnitude of it threatening to pull him apart piece by agonizing piece. She seemed so vulnerable, opening to him, responding to every one of his touches. The great Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy, Hero of the Reaper War, longing for his affections and blushing under his attention. Garrus wouldn't let her down. Not ever.
Her hands reached out to touch him and he caught them in his own. "Just relax," he purred as he placed her arms back by her sides. "Let me enjoy you."
She sucked in a shaky breath and nodded her consent.
He rumbled in satisfaction at her acquiescence and trailed his thumbs over her nipples. Her left side bore the scars of the burns, skin wrinkled pink; and maybe the full sensation of touch would never return but he would not neglect it. He used the tips of his blunted talons to gently graze and roll the dusty pink peaks until they hardened and her breathing hitched in her throat.
He let his hands fall lower and lower, scratching softly and leaving white trails of electricity in his wake. As his fingers slightly dipped into every crevice of her pronounced ribs, part of Garrus’s instinctual, turian brain likened her thinness and newly acquired sharp edges to a female of his species. While this did not disappoint him, necessarily, he also enjoyed the roundness and curves that she previously had. Furthermore, he knew she’d feel more comfortable with the layer of hard muscle beneath her soft skin that she was accustomed to. Shepard was Shepard, and he’d love her in any shape.
Garrus lingered on the cutting jut of her hip bones before moving lower still, ghosting his talons down her legs just to feel the goosebumps prickle her skin and watch her move underneath him. Every whimper and sigh he pulled from her was a symphony that only he could compose. He leaned down to lick the raised knotted skin of her scars, even if the touch made her tense for a moment. He needed her to have no doubt that every single inch of her was perfect.
Her back arched and her full, red lips parted with a gasp when he finally ghosted the pad of his thumb over her clit. She rocked into him with an invitation on her breath. “Please.”
She was absolutely soaked now, and Garrus tempered his urge to take her and fuck her until she sobbed. He purred with satisfaction that he still knew how to please her, how to set every nerve on fire before he relented and gave her what she craved. He dipped a finger in her folds to coat it in her wetness before dragging it upward towards her clit, overwhelmed by the strength of her arousal. Leaning down to kiss her one more time, he moved down her body, tracing a line with his tongue.
Other times, he may have chosen to tease her further. He could drag her so close to the edge that a single swipe of his raspy tongue would shatter her. They both knew a quicker release was what she needed now though, and without any further deliberation, he settled between her legs and flicked his tongue against her clit.
Shepard cried out and bucked against him so hard that she almost pushed him off completely. Garrus realized he might not have returned to his full strength either.
"You don’t have to. I just want you inside of me," she whined and grasped at his arm in an effort to pull him away, voice low and breathless and almost lost to the dark.
Garrus paused and looked up to consider her. Her chest rose and fell in short puffs, and her eyes were half-lidded and dark with devotion. She reached out to delicately trace his mandible and then place her palm affectionately against his face.
He leaned into her touch and took a deep breath. “Do you really want me to stop or are you feeling self-conscious?”
Shepard glanced toward the window, weighing the options he had presented her with as the wind continued to howl outside and hard, fat drops of rain began to pelt against the pane. True to herself, she chose wisely for the team, and nodded, using her hand to slightly push his head back down to her center.
“Good girl,” he praised and he couldn’t help the way his mandibles flickered in a grin against her inner thighs as she groaned and let her legs fall completely open again.
“Mmm,” he hummed against her as he returned to gently lap at her. “I’ve missed this taste.” And oh, how he did. Nothing compared to the taste of her pleasure on his mouth; salty, bright, and his.
Shepard shuddered and moaned underneath him. She lifted her hips to be closer to his face, her body asking a silent question.
Garrus answered as he slowly slid one finger into her. He crooked it back towards himself to touch that soft spot inside of her that made her beg and writhe. She eagerly pressed herself down on this hand as he continued to circle her swollen bud, applying slightly more pressure and increasing the speed of his rotations.
His aim was exquisite, naturally, and it wasn't long before Shepard was a moaning mess underneath him. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of sheets as she arched off of the bed, using her feet to bear her weight and pressing her shoulders into the mattress. Garrus placed his other hand under body to support her as she lifted into him, pressing as close to his jaw as possible. He squeezed her ass and growled into her. His only task now was to hold himself steady as she rocked and gyrated against his face, taking her pleasure from him just as he hoped she would.
Her first climax was part of their foreplay, because another would follow, and it would be even stronger than the first. Multiple orgasms were another thing Garrus could add to the list of things he loved about his human mate.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she gasped before Garrus felt her movements against him stop and her whole body tensed. He glanced up to see her mouth drop open in a soundless scream before releasing a long and halting moan.
This is a long one, the thought threatened to push him over the edge before she had even touched him. This wasn’t new, he always felt like he was going to come whenever she did.
He continued to devour her through it, as the rolling waves of pleasure rocked her body; held her tightly as her muscles slackened and her legs shook around him. Garrus groaned loudly as he imagined his cock was inside of her when she tightened and clenched around his finger, the pulses drawing him in further.
He coaxed every shudder and every whimper he could out of her before the spasms slowed and her body melted in his arms - only stopping completely when her fingers brushed against his brow plates. He pulled away after he had lowered her back down to the mattress.
Garrus looked upon her and admired his work; she was a beautiful fucking mess. Beads of sweat glistened like dew on her skin, tears crested the corners of her thick lashes, and the blushing of her neck and chest were unmistakable as she swallowed greedy breaths to lower her heart rate.
Before Garrus could tell her again how beautiful she was, her hands flew up and covered her face, locking her elbows against each other over her chest. He heard her swallow a sob and the sound sent him into an immediate, reflexive panic. Had he pushed her too far?
“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” Garrus reached for her hands, but she twisted and shook him off easily. There was no chance she didn’t hear the worried trill to his subharmonics. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no… It’s nothing." He could barely hear her while she dragged her hands up and down her face, the words escaping her in mumbling, disjointed sounds.
She rubbed her eyes especially hard with her palms before taking a deep breath and pulling her arms away to reach towards him. “See? It’s ok.” She smiled sweetly and swallowed, but Garrus could read the intricacies of human facial expressions well enough to not be fooled by that.
Garrus contemplated her silently, momentarily relieved that she didn’t seem to be in any physical pain. They held eye contact in the silence as he willed his heart to stay in one piece in the wake of her pain. Though his pulse was pounding in his throat with anxiety, he waited for her to speak. This was a common interrogation technique that always worked on Shepard. And she knew it too.
“I don’t know why I’m crying, really,” she sighed and raised a hand to his face to stroke his mandible. “Come here.”
Garrus moved to hover over her, resting his weight on his forearms on either side of her head. He brushed his cheek against hers, soaking up the hot, fresh tears that had carved their path over her cool skin.
He stopped to press his forehead against hers. “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it.” He wasn’t asking.
“Yes,” she whispered and placed her hands on either side of his face to meet his unfaltering gaze. “I knew I loved you. I just didn’t know how much.” She took a wavering breath before continuing, “There’s no war, no fight, no distractions… Only you.”
And now it was Garrus’s turn to be overwhelmed. He felt frozen as she moved her face closer to place delicate, feather-like kisses along his colony markings; all the way from one side of his face to the other.
Shepard’s fingers inched their way up to the sensitive hide below his fringe and began to massage all of his favorite spots. He moaned and his subvocals rumbled as he rested his face against her shoulder, letting her clever fingers play him like a practiced instrument.
“I love you too, Shepard,” he mumbled into her skin, letting his mandibles flutter against her. Such simple, uncomplicated words when translated into Galactic Standard. The depths and layers of his language would never be summarized so simply for her ears. He was determined to show the profoundness of his love to her instead.
Garrus rolled his hips against her, pressing his still aching erection against her. She instinctively raised her legs to rest on his hip spurs. “Do you still want to do this?” He nuzzled his mouth plates against her lips until they parted and muttered into her open mouth, grazing the inside of her lips with the tip of his tongue.
Shepard whimpered and shuddered against him, nodding her head without hesitation.
Garrus met her mouth for another deep kiss as he pressed his cock harder against her core. She was just as soft, warm, and welcoming as he had remembered.
He held his breath and pushed into her slowly, clearing just his tip before pausing to give her time to adjust. She was as tight as ever, and he couldn’t hold back a snarl as she clenched around him.
He was barely inside of her before he could feel her muscles tensing uncomfortably beneath him. She had closed her eyes and a slight grimace tightened her features. Garrus pulled his forearms closer to her sides in an effort to lift more of his body weight off of her, but his larger than average carapace prevented any further relief in this position. And she was clearly in pain.
"Shepard," he spoke softly to coax her to open her eyes and look at him, "Do you want to be on top?”
“Yeah, I think that might be better." She looked away and chuckled nervously, “I think you might be too heavy for me right now, Big Guy.”
“Hey, it’s ok.”
She nodded and sighed, but he knew she was spiraling, stubbornly damning her inability to be invincible even after surviving a fall from the sky and being crushed under a space station.
Maybe a little encouragement was in order.
Garrus dropped his subvocals down to his lowest, most vulgar registers - the ones she loved that vibrated through her entire body - and ran his tongue along her jaw up to the shell of her ear. He purred and nipped her hard. “I wanted you to fuck me, anyway.”
Shepard trembled as his words washed over her, and she lifted her hips to meet his, her body pleading with him to fill her. “Oh… fuck,” she whispered. “Okay.”