Fill: It Tolls for Thee 1
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:41:09 UTC
A/N: I... can't even say what prompt this fills except it's one of the Fshep/Garrus/Victus prompts, possibly several of them, and there's a lot of emotional politics like all over the place. It started in one place and then just went like ZOOOM.
Menae was, not to mince words, a fucking hell hole.
Adrien Victus had been stationed there for nearly three years and it had been a prestigious post for most of them given its strategic value to Palaven, however the invasion of the Reapers had turned the moon into a killing ground full of what basically amounted to the undead. It was, in short, probably the last place in the Galaxy where he would have predicted that his life would be changed forever… unless you counted that final immutable destiny that awaited all men.
It started when Garrus Vakarian was attached to his service… or rather, the day he was attached to Vakarian’s service.
The decision came from way, way, WAY up the chain of command. Up until that point, Vakarian had been more of a rumor floating around the enlisted corps; that crazy ex-vigilante with a boogeyman task force that descended upon turian settlements without warning and left them suddenly prepared to resist an undisclosed threat whether they liked it or not. In person Vakarian was brash as hell, reckless to the point of being suicidal, sharper than a knife, criminally lucky -and an unexpected kindred spirit.
War was said to run in the veins of every Victus clan member. Rebellion ran in Garrus’s and no one could quite figure out where it had come from, considering his ancestors. Neither of them were what you would call ‘good’ turians so maybe it was no surprise that a sort of brazen friendship sprang up between them.
The chemistry between them, however, came as a complete surprise.
Whatever one could say about Adrien, he’d never been one for casual flings even within the scope of military service where such things were commonplace. Actually, he’d never been one for intimacy in general. He’d never met anyone with whom he saw himself spending more than a few fevered evenings with and as such didn’t much see a reason to bother. Even his son had come to him through reciprocity contract with one of the cadet branches of clan Victus.
It had been… well, longer than he cared to admit since the last time he’d been intimate, but during a rare lull in the fighting he found a moment to take his courage in his hands and take what might be his last chance with Garrus.
Being turned down had hurt in ways he wasn’t prepared for.
“It’s… not because I don’t want to, Victus.” Garrus rolled his shoulder and got that particular abashed expression young males tended to get when they were about to discuss something particularly embarrassing… like their feelings. “I’ve got someone and -well, she’s not turian. I don’t know how she’d react and I can’t risk it. The spirit is willing, sir, but the flesh is spoken for.”
Adrien had to think hard. There weren’t a lot of species around who had both compatible sex drives and a general lack of savy when it came to dating turians. Salarians weren’t much interested in recreational sex. Elcor, Hanar, and most other civilized species were physically incompatible with turians and asari seemed to feel that it didn’t count if there wasn’t a female involved, which sort of confirmed a lot of Adrien’s private suspicions about asari gender politics. “A human?” He guessed.
Garrus nodded. “A former CO of mine.” He didn’t elaborate on who and Adrien didn’t press him. A lot of Garrus’s background was classified well above even a General’s paygrade. There were rumors that he’d spent some time working as a deputy agent of a specter, but there were no official records of it. “She… she’s very important to me and has been betrayed in the past.”
That was a reason that any turian could respect, although it didn’t much help the curious burning in Victus’s crop. That human, whoever she was, was a lucky woman. He hoped very much that she was worthy of Garrus’s esteem and that they both survived to see each other once again.
Still. There were concerns. “How many people know?”
It Tolls for Thee 2
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:42:17 UTC
“No one.” Garrus shook his head. “We didn’t have a chance to… talk about it before we got split up. I haven’t even told my father or sister yet. I’m hoping that I get a chance to.” He paused. “If you’re going to give me the ‘humans are a bad risk’ speech, you don’t have to bother. She’s different.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Adrien rolled his eyes, but he could understand why Garrus was braced for impact. Humans were a bad risk in terms of a relationship. They couldn’t quite manage the ‘casual’ part of casual sex, but they entered relationships much more easily than a turian would. The Alliance divorce statistics dwarfed those of the Hierarchy and did as much -if not more- than the Relay 314 incident to make turians wary of entering an interspecies relationship with a human. “I hope the spirits guide you, Garrus.” He said and meant it.
He didn’t realize that they might well have been guiding his friend all along until the day Primarch Fedorian’s ship was shot down out of the sky and Commander Jane Shepard stepped into his life.
Adrien didn’t need anyone to tell him that Shepard was the former CO that Garrus had been talking about. The air between them was supercharged and her very presence brought a snap and swagger back into Garrus’s step that had been steadily fading during their brutal campaign. Curiously, his presence at her side seemed to do something very similar to her. Shepard’s back straightened when Garrus was behind it and when they went into action together it was a sight that could bring any turian to his knees.
Saying she was ‘different’ was putting it mildly. There was a wall between her and the rest of the world that only came down briefly to give hints at the woman behind it, but that wall was in poor repair and in the days following his extraction from Menae and promotion to the rank of Primarch he began to see hints of just how much damage it had taken.
The War Room was a technological and logistical marvel, but it was not particularly designed to be soundproof and as such he overheard more of her conversations in the comm room than he would have liked. The Reaper War was vicious and in some ways she was the woman deciding how it would be fought, but Adrien had no time to spare for empathy. His new role had revealed an entire host of potentially explosive bullshit that could spell disaster not only for his race, but for two others as well. For the first time in his career he was alone and shouldering a weight that threatened to crush him and very nearly did.
000
Adrien Victus was a fucking enigma wrapped in a mystery and stuffed into an incredibly formal turian shell.
Jane Shepard had absolutely no idea what to do with him.
In some ways, Primarch Victus represented every single species trait that generally made humans want to punch turians in the face just to see them show a LITTLE emotion even if it was just rage. He was stiff and formal to the point where it felt like someone had dipped him in starch and getting information out of him made pulling teeth look like a pleasant recreational activity.
Were he any other politician, she would have written him off as a lost cause and let him go do whatever the hell it was diplomats did -but he wasn’t a politician, even if he had to pretend to be one for the good of his species. Moreover, there was a quiet voice in the back of her head that insisted that the quiet polite stranger in her war room was not Adrien Victus, the brilliant and unconventional tactician that Garrus called a personal friend.
It Tolls for Thee 2
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:43:12 UTC
Shepard was a good talker. Her father had once commented that she could talk lead into gold when she wanted to, but for once her words had failed her completely. Nothing she could say cracked that icy exterior to let her see the man underneath -and that was a problem.
He was holding something back and the feral sixth sense that had guided her through the Skyllian Blitz, hunting Saren, and eliminating the Collector threat told her that it was something that could end everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.
She didn’t want the Primarch to become an enemy. Having to treat him like an opponent frustrated and demoralized her, especially when she heard Garrus talk about him. In the beginning she’d dared to hope that Victus would be different from the kind of forked-tongue politico that she’d spent so long at war with.
Something was going to have to give and soon. The stakes were too high for Shepard to risk entering battle with allies she couldn’t trust.
000
Adrien jerked awake as the lights in the starboard observation deck flickered to life and he realized, to his shame, that he’d fallen asleep watching the blueshift emissions pass by the viewport. He looked up and then away as he realized the motion sensors had reacted to the hatch sliding open to admit Normandy’s commanding officer and mistress after God, Commander Shepard.
For once, she was neither wearing battle armor nor her dress blues and was instead wearing an ordinary ship suit with a soft hooded jacket thrown on top. She blinked down at where he was slouched on the couch and then gave him an unexpected smile.
The expression transformed her face briefly, chasing away the shadows in her eyes and easing the lines of exhaustion around her mouth. For a brief instant, she was a completely different woman -a woman that Adrien would have tried to buy a drink for in a heartbeat.
No wonder Garrus had no intentions of straying.
“Sorry we don’t have better accommodations for visiting dignitaries.” She said gently and crossed to the bar to pour herself a drink. Ah. She was off duty.
Shepard turned and tossed something in his direction. Adrien caught it on reflex and found it to be a chilled bottle -a bottle of Trebia Select, no less. Why a human ship was stocking artisanal turian beer, he couldn’t begin to guess but it didn’t stop him from breaking the seal and knocking some back on pure reflex. He kicked himself a few seconds later as he remembered that he wasn’t just a military grunt anymore and the Primarch’s dignity didn’t extend to drinking with foreign nationals during the off-hours… but it was too late. Shepard had seated herself in the chair adjacent to his and had her feet up. If he left now it would be rude and -contrary to the Hierarchy’s policy on the first human specter- he didn’t actually want to alienate the woman on a personal level.
“Thank you.” He said instead and meant it. A small taste of home was very welcome and it was small enough that it didn’t remind him of everything that was riding on this damnfool escapade.
“Thank Garrus.” She grinned again and Adrien felt a traitorous little curl of heat deep inside. Shepard needed to smile more often -not that it was his concern. “I don’t know where Garrus found it, but he donated an entire case of the stuff to the communal liquor cabinet. We just had some dusty old brandy in there before.”
It said something about her and her perception of him that she’d reached for the beer over the brandy, Adrien reflected as Shepard sipped her toxic green whatever-that-was. It looked like batarian ale. He hoped it wasn’t …for the sake of her stomach lining if nothing else.
It Tolls for Thee 4
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:44:42 UTC
“Commander, if you are here to…” He found himself brought up cold by Shepard’s finger in his face. He’d been about to bar the conversational doors against another attempt on her part to ferret out either a promise of turian support for earth or more information about the mission on Tuchanka but she brought him up short.
“No ‘commander’ right now. I’m barred from duty for another eighteen hours.” She said reprovingly. “You can call me Shepard or nothing at all.”
“I was under the impression that you were the commanding officer of this ship?”
She snorted. “I am, but someone made a personal request that I take some downtime. I think he had this crazy idea that I might go sleep or something, but… well. That’s not going to happen soon.”
“Garrus?” Adrien guessed, having been on the receiving end of more than one of those ‘personal requests’ which tended to be backed up either by emotional blackmail or a gun.
She nodded. “So what’s the story between you two? I caught the sense that you two were friends on Menae, but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
“He’s a trusted colleague.” Adrien hedged, since he wasn’t about to admit that he’d accidently tried to court the lover of one of the most dangerous women in the known galaxy. “And a friend. However, my duties have changed things. I no longer have the same luxuries than I once did.”
Shepard leaned back in her seat and looked at him. The ghosts were back in her eyes and for a moment he had the sense that he was speaking to an older being so far outside the realm of his experience that he couldn’t even begin to quantify it. “No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” She said at last. “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
She took a drink. “That’s part of an old earth poem. It’s a meditation on man’s spiritual and social functioning as the part of a greater whole. That extends to the leaders of men as well. No one can bear their burdens alone and hope to be successful. You need to learn to delegate if you want to survive being Primarch.” She held up a hand. “I’m not inviting confidences. I know my role prevents you from being able to trust me, but… Primarch. You need to pick someone you can trust to share that load with you.”
“Fine words. Get yourself elected to parliament and then we’ll talk about who gives who advice.” Adrien snorted and frowned at himself. Apparently the beer was working a bit too fast or maybe he was just that tired. Normally he had a better handle on his mouth.
Luckily she found it funny. “Pffft.” She saluted him with her eerie green drink (was that stuff glowing?) “Touche, Primarch. I did learn that lesson the hard way, however.” She looked away. “We might have been better prepared if I’d followed my own advice after Saren was brought down. I took on the burden of proof all by myself and it all went down in flames with me when the Collectors shot down my ship. I think we can all say for certain that I didn’t leave much of a legacy behind that first time.”
There were rumors (only rumors) about the reasons Shepard had vanished for over two years following the destruction of her ship. Turian intelligence paid very little attention to some of the more outlandish tales… but listening to her speak, Adrien wondered if maybe the craziest stories were the real ones.
Shepard looked like someone who had some back from the dead.
It Tolls for Thee 5
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:46:49 UTC
“I think it’s a bit early to tell one way or the other.” He said and drained the last of the cool crisp beer from his bottle. “We aren’t dead yet, Shepard, and there’s a lot of fight left in the galaxy.” He stood and smoothed his tunic into place. “I should return to my work. Thank you… for speaking with me.”
“Any time.” Shepard saluted him with her glass and Adrien caught the sense that she truly meant it.
He hung there, conflicted, before he opened his mouth and something else came out instead of the carefully formulated diplomatic ‘let’s not do this again’ speech he’d pieced together in his head. “You should sleep.” He said and felt like a private just out of basic trying to talk to a girl for the first time. “You have shadows under your eyes.”
“Here’s a deal; I’ll sleep if you delegate something.” She gave him a wry smile, clearly waiting for him to turn her down.
Adrien regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Agreed.” He said at last and was disproportionately pleased when she blinked in surprise. He felt like he’d scored a point in the strange sort of game between them and if there was a prize, he suspected it was the sound of her laughter.
‘So this is why…’ He shook his head.
“Well.” She pushed herself to her feet and crossed over to the bar to discard her terrifying drink. “I’m going to hold you to that, Primarch.”
“Victus.” He corrected her. “I’m not on duty either.”
It was… an odd start and a delayed one, but that evening cracked the ice between them. Adrien returned to his work and Shepard retired to her cabin. Whether or not she slept, Adrien couldn’t say but Garrus seemed inordinately pleased when they spoke later on.
Adrien had some reservations about bringing Garrus more fully into the loop of governance, but there was honestly no one else he trusted to have his back and Garrus had the rank he needed for the job. Plus there was the intensity with which Garrus accepted his commission.
He’d worried the man, Adrien realized with a guilty start. Shepard had been right about the need to share his responsibilities. Garrus claimed that he wasn’t a very ‘good’ turian, but he was a better one than he knew. He’d never question Adrien outright, but he held nothing back when his Primarch finally asked for help and in doing so they rediscovered the easy camaraderie they’d built on the field of battle.
... and if after that, Adrien spent a bit more of his off hours in the lounge no one said anything, least of all Shepard who he encountered there with increasing frequency. You couldn’t exactly call the thing between them friendship. There was too much riding on each of them to allow that and if he were being honest, friendship wouldn’t have been his first choice when it came to the specter even if nothing would ever come of his attraction to her.
At least, that was what he thought before the events on Tuchanka that very nearly took his only son from him.
000
Tuchanka was still a radioactive pile of slag and that didn’t seem to change no matter where you stood. Cerberus’s presence certainly wasn’t enhancing the atmosphere, but Garrus had a solution for that little problem. It looked remarkably like the extremely sexy Widow IV that Shepard had gotten for him out of specter requisitions.
Spirits, he loved that woman. She never stinted when it came to provisioning her crew.
A brutal shockwave ripped through the air five feet to his left and tore into the soldier who’d actually managed to sneak up and flank Garrus. Acting on instinct, Garrus whirled and planted a bullet between the unfortunate human’s eyes. A shockwave was good for knock-back purposes, but it didn’t do much damage when used on a shielded sentinel.
“Mind your own knitting, Vakarian.” Shepard quipped as she ducked into cover next to him, waiting for her amp to cool between vicious biotic assaults on the enemy. “Transport incoming!”
It Tolls for Thee 6
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:47:41 UTC
“I hear and obey, ma’am.” He quipped right back and leaned out of cover to pick a Cerberus grunt right out of the shuttle transport before he could even drop down into combat. Shepard followed up with a nastily placed singularity that battered the soldiers against the interior walls of their own transport. The shuttle bucked in midair, twisted and shook, then went zooming into a spinning crash before it exploded in flames among the Tuchankan wreckage. “Nice, I think you nailed the pilot along with everyone else.”
Adrien’s son came in over the comm unit then and they fell back to the bomb site. Spirits, that bomb.
How long had Adrien known about it? Garrus didn’t even want to think about it. The man had never even hinted at its existence to Garrus and that hurt a bit… but only a bit. If Garrus had known, he’d have reported it to Shepard and that only proved Adrien was right not to share the information.
He knew that his Primarch was still smarting after his last confrontation with Shepard. He hoped that Adrien had some armor installed into his formal wear because Shepard was going to be spitting nails the next time she clapped eyes on him. The existence of the bomb had the potential to drive a serious wedge between Shepard and the Primarch, despite their nascent friendship that Garrus had been watching develop with extreme interest.
‘Eventually, they’re going to learn to trust each other.’ Garrus told himself and bit back a grim smile. It would take a while, but Adrien and Shepard were cut from the same kind of cloth even if they couldn’t see it themselves. One day (hopefully soon) they’d figure it out and on that day the Reapers would know true fear. Garrus personally could not wait. The Council wouldn’t know what hit them.
In the meantime, Garrus had to make sure that they got off planet without the bomb detonating or allowing Tarquin Victus to get his fool self killed. That last wasn’t part of the official mission perameters, but he’d made it part of them as soon as he saw the look on Adrien’s face when they last spoke.
Adrien had never spoken much about his family, although Garrus knew that he’d never married. There hadn’t been much time for it and turians didn’t much like airing out their personal lives unless it was absolutely necessary. Even so, there was a holo of Adrien with a very young Tarquin saved to Adrien’s omnitool and Garrus had caught him looking at it more than once between waves of Husks while they were on Menae.
He regretted not… pursuing things with Adrien, but if he had to make a choice between lovers then he would always choose Shepard. Adrien was a kindred soul and a damn fine specimen of a man, but he didn’t need Garrus the way she did. Shepard had lost too much in her shortened life. He didn’t plan on being one of those things.
The friendship between Shepard and Adrien had taken him a little by surprise… actually no. Garrus had known from day one that Adrien Victus and Jane Shepard would get on like a house on fire; lots of property damage and screaming, but in a good way. Unfortunately, with Victus as Primarch and Shepard responsible for negotiating treaties between pretty much everyone in civilized space there was a lot of politics for them to trip over. Despite that things had been going intriguingly well in ways that opened up a lot of future possibilities, assuming they all didn’t die in the following weeks.
All that was going to go right out the window if the bomb or if Adrien’s son got killed preventing it. Garrus didn’t plan on letting that happen.
However, when the time came things happened too quickly for Garrus to even shout a warning… and it was Shepard who saved the day.
It Tolls for Thee 7
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:48:56 UTC
Afterwards, Shepard wouldn’t be able to explain exactly how she’d done it… not publically and definitely not coherently. The decision to save Tarquin’s life hadn’t been a decision at all. It had completely bypassed her brain and resided solely within the spinal column.
At some point during their interactions, Tarquin Victus had been removed from the list of acceptable losses in her heart. She couldn’t say how or why. She didn’t know the boy very well (and he seemed painfully young to her indeed) and didn’t want to think too hard about how his father played into it, but when she stood on that platform and saw the young turian bodily pulling the pins out of the trigger mechanism her body moved on its own free of any input from her brain.
Biotic energy wreathed her body as the gargantuan trigger mechanism buckled and threw the lieutenant free and she lashed out with the most powerful pull field she had ever managed without being accidentally doped up to the gills on Minagen X.
Tarquin slammed into her midsection and she automatically wrapped her arms and hit the ground in a roll, hoping her shields would protect them both from the blast. If they didn’t at least her armor would stop some of it…
The blast, when it came, lacked the bite she was expecting. Actually, she could hear it but the concussion wave was nearly nonexistent as was the heat. She opened her eyes and found a perfect bubble of intense kinetic shielding surrounding them.
“Keep your head down.” Tarquin fiddled with something on his omnitool and Shepard realized rather late and dopily that the cunning little brat had managed to slave his shield generator into hers on the fly and had used them to create a powerful barrier capable of withstanding the reduced explosion of the fusion bomb’s detonator.
“Damn, kid.” She laughed (it was a hoarse and rusty sound). “I’m starting to like you.”
“The feeling is mutual, ma’am.” Tarquin replied with a dry tone so much like his father’s it was creepy, but the grin on his face as he looked up at the unexploded ordnance hanging over their heads was all his own.
To say Wrex was pissed about the bomb was putting it mildly. He about near dropped a brick in his shorts and immediately ordered the area clear of ‘foreign nationals’. That did not stop him, though, from clapping Tarquin on the shoulder and thanking him very quietly for his service in disarming the twelve hundred year old city buster that had very nearly reduced the Krogan population by a third.
Much, much later it would be the memory of a krogan warlord and a raw turian lieutenant shaking hands in front of God and everybody that inspired Shepard to tell the Dalatrass to take her deal and shove it straight up her cloaca… but before that, she retired to her quarters for a desperately needed shower.
Shepard was halfway out of her armor when EDI’s voice gently interrupted her. “Commander, Primarch Victus is pacing on the landing outside your door. Shall I summon security?”
She straightened up and winced as things pulled and popped in her back. Ugh. Maybe it was a good thing that she probably wasn’t going to live long enough to get old. After all the shit she’d been through, she was going to be one decrepit old granny.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll see him.” Shepard briefly debated putting her armor back on. She’d stripped off her gauntlets, vambraces, shoulder guards, and cuirass and that just left her wearing her thinsuit from the waist up -but whatever. If Victus was that worried about propriety, he wouldn’t have shown up unannounced at her doorstep.
That said it was pretty damn gratifying to see him jump when the hatch opened.
Re: It Tolls for Thee 7
anonymous
April 14 2012, 03:38:31 UTC
Anon, you have no idea how happy this makes me. Excellent writing, lovely characterization AND you soothed a point of frustration for me when my Adept Shepard just WATCHED TARQUIN FALL. If only there were ability interrupts.
It Tolls for Thee 8
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:49:45 UTC
Adrien Victus looked, well, poleaxed for lack of a better term. For some time she’d been hoping to find a way to crack through the politician mask he’d adopted and apparently saving his son had done it. She felt a twinge of guilt, but reminded herself that she hadn’t actually been thinking of anything at all when she lunged for the falling officer. It had been pure instinct.
“Shepard.” Words seemed to fail him and the moment hung, frozen in time before all of a sudden he jerked her into a crushing embrace and buried his face into her hair. “Thank you.” He said, holding her tight. “Thank you for my son’s life.”
Just as she was trying to decide whether the protocol on handing distraught diplomats called for her to punch him or hug back, the elevator hissed open to admit Garrus into their company. He was holding a bottle of wine he’d obviously liberated from the lounge, but stumbled to a halt as he caught sight of what was going on.
Their eyes met over Victus’s shoulder and she mouthed ‘What do I do?’ in his direction, but Garrus just stood there in slack-jawed shock.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Victus seemed to realize what he was doing all at once and released Shepard so fast he nearly dropped her. Dignity snapped into place around him like body armor and he gave Shepard a weirdly gentlemanly bow before escaping down the elevator.
“What…” Shepard tried again. “What just happened here?”
Garrus started to answer, but his omnitool blipped and whatever was there made him burst out laughing. It took a bit, but eventually he showed it to her. It was a short text message from Victus that read: look after her.
“Why is that funny?” She asked and was privately relieved when Garrus looped a possessive arm around her waist.
“I just never expected Adrien to be the broody type, that’s all.” Was his cryptic reply. “Let’s go inside. I think there’s something we should talk about.”
000
Adrien had intended to go back to work, but his attention span had been effectively shattered. Between a need to constantly check his omnitool for status updates from his son and his humiliating lapse with Shepard, Adrien was seriously reconsidering his right to be considered a functioning adult much less the Primarch of Palaven. He could manage to focus for maybe five minutes at a time, but then his mind wandered back to that… incident in front of Shepard’s cabin.
He’d gone up there with the intention of formally thanking her for helping his son fulfill his mission, but when she’d opened the door before he even knocked something broke free inside him and he’d pulled her in close.
As much as he was grateful for his son’s life, he was equally grateful that she was alive. Seeing her half out of her blasted armor with dust, blood, and worse smeared across her face brought home to him that she very nearly hadn’t made it back either.
Nothing could have prepared him for the way she’d felt in his arms. She felt delicate in his arms and far too soft to be the unstoppable juggernaut of destruction rumor painted her to be. For a split second he wanted to do nothing more than to drag her inside and… and…
Adrien clamped down on that thought not only because it was unworthy, but also because there was a second pair of hands lurking in that fantasy ready to help him strip her bare and examine the extent of the damage she’d suffered.
He’d very carefully avoided saying anything to Garrus afterwards beyond the one text message he’d allowed himself. Fortunately, his position gave him access to Garrus’s suit data so he was able to reassure himself that the other half his problems had escaped the mission with minimal damage as well. It was technically an abuse of his position, but just this one Adrien admitted that he didn’t really give a flying shit.
It Tolls for Thee 9
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:50:47 UTC
Adrien froze and turned slightly to see Shepard standing behind him in her normal off-hours garb. He’d deliberately moved to the other lounge, but it was a small ship and Shepard had access to everyone’s omnitool chips for tracking data. She circled around and took a seat on the lounge table in front of it, which put her well within his personal space.
She’d bathed since he’d last seen her and her hair was still slightly damp. Strands of it clung to her cheeks and the nape of her neck. She’d washed away most of the scent of Tuchanka, but the faint scent of hot expended heat sinks clung to her skin… Garrus.
For most species, the scent of another male on a woman’s skin would have been irritating or offputting … and if the scent had been that of any other male, Adrien would have been able to stop himself.
Shepard’s eyes fluttered shut as he reached out and cupped her cheek in one palm. A soft smile tugged and her mouth and she leaned into the touch. “I guess that answers one question I came here to ask.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.” Adrien said that, but couldn’t quite make himself let go. It had been so damn long and she was right there… “You belong to Vakarian.”
“Would you have hesitated if I were a turian woman?” She asked, holding his gaze with her own.
“That’s different.” Adrien finally got his arm to obey a direct order and dropped his hand. “It’s different with turians.” And it was. It really was.
Turians had a severe gender imbalance in their birthrates. There was perhaps one female for every four or five male children born. It had always been that way and their society had developed accordingly. Unlike humans or asari, a male turian wasn’t raised with the expectation that he would one day start a family. Adrien was lucky that his clan had the pull necessary to get him the reciprocal breeding contract that had resulted in his son.
“Yeah.” She nodded, still quite serious. “Garrus and I finally had a talk about exactly how it’s different. So here’s the other question I came down here to ask. Are you attracted to Garrus too?”
“Shepard, don’t ask me that. I…” Somehow without him being able to explain how or when, Shepard had clambered right into his lap. She straddled his thighs with her knees on either side of his hips and cupped his face in both hands.
“It’s ok. Just tell me.”
“Yes, I am.” He said heavily. “I’m attracted to you both.” It was… oddly liberating to finally just say it and get it out in the open.
“Then you should do something about it.” Garrus commented and Adrien’s blood turned to ice in his veins as his friend came up from behind him with no warning whatsoever. He’d ditched his armor somewhere and had changed into civilian gear. It looked… surprisingly good on him. Garrus was the sort of male who looked most comfortable in full armor, but he did know how to fill out a tunic.
“Were you fucking cloaked?” He hissed.
“Guilty.” Garrus held up his hands in surrender. “I borrowed a unit out of storage, but Shepard didn’t think you’d talk if we were both here.”
Shepard’s position in his lap kept him effectively pinned to the sofa, but it didn’t stop Adrien from taking a swipe at Garrus… just to try and wipe that infuriating grin off his cocky face if nothing else. Although -it was getting hard to pay attention to things that weren’t her soft weight on his lap or the way she’d placed her hand on his chest and leaned forward to relax against him or the way her hips fit perfectly into his cupped hands or the way Garrus was watching them both together with an intensity he usually reserved for the battlefield.
It Tolls for Thee 10
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:58:47 UTC
“So… this is a thing.” Shepard sounded nervous, but didn’t actually pull away from him. Instead she arched into his touch as his hands glided up the length of her ribcage. Garrus took her original seat on the edge of the lounge table and reached around to demonstrate the fastenings on Shepard’s uniform. “Mmm, I could get used to it.” She murmured.
However, they all froze guilty when something thumped against the lounge door.
“It’s locked, genius.” A voice commented from the corridor. The AI responded with something that Adrien frankly did not hear.
“Maybe we should take this upstairs.” Garrus suggested and was greeted with unanimous approval.
000
Later -much, much later Shepard lay drowsy in the darkness pinned between two male bodies and reflected that maybe she’d been wrong in her previous estimates about the advisability of threesomes.
Among humans, threesomes sounded great on paper but very rarely worked in reality. Someone always got left out, but that apparently went out the window when you applied turian ‘operational discipline’ to the matter.
They’d started out slowly undressing each other… although Garrus had removed most of her clothes like he was showing her off for Adrien’s benefit.
Making love with two turians was even stranger than having sex with just one that first time. She did her best to leave her preconceptions at the bedroom door, but she’d still harbored lingering doubts leftover from a purely human concept of group sex which amounted to two guys banging one chick, usually in front of a camera. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find her lovers just as concerned with each other’s pleasure.
Garrus had been the one to tease Adrien’s plates apart, but he’d also been the one to press Shepard down onto him and crooned in her ear as he filled her up inch by inch with Adrien’s cock. She didn’t quite have their knack for splitting her attention, but that didn’t seem to deter anyone in the slightest.
It wasn’t until she was pinned between them, filled to the brim with two thick turian cocks, that she really learned to find pleasure in their enjoyment of each other.
“Shepard, that’s cruel.” Garrus complained as she deliberately clamped down on them both with her inner muscles, savoring the way it pressed them close together inside her. The idea that they were thrusting against each other as much as they were thrusting into her was unbeatably hot. “I’m going to come.” He complained and then growled slightly at Adrien’s jeering hiss as he deliberately thrust hard into Shepard and up against Garrus.
“Mmm, good.” She gasped as Adrien drove her hips down onto his. He’d learned Garrus’s trick of catching her clit along the edge of his public plates and had taking ruthless advantage of his position on the bottom to employ it. “I want you both to come in me.”
“Shepard, that’s dangerous.” Adrien groaned, but his pace quickened despite that. His body wanted it even if his better nature decided against it.
“Not for me.” She nipped Adrien along the edge of his cowl. “Garrus comes in me all the time.” Her voice was sultry rather than wheedling. “He came in me yesterday in the shower. It felt so good. I was pinned against the wall as he fucked me from behind, just like he’s fucking us now, Adrien.”
“You’re right.” Adrien adjusted his grip on Shepard hips and thrust into her hard. “She does play dirty.”
“You won’t find me complaining.” Garrus pulled out abruptly and Shepard cried out. He wasn’t done. She could feel his erection pressing into her backside as he pulled her close and pushed her down hard onto Adrien. “I want to see you full of his seed, Shepard.” He murmured into her ear. “Keep riding him and I’ll fill you up, just like you wanted.”
It Tolls for Thee 11
anonymous
April 14 2012, 02:59:47 UTC
Shepard was a light sleeper in general, but compared to two turians she slept like the dead. Their first rendezvous was by no means their last, but it was a rare thing for them to all be off duty at the same time and they didn’t have much time before Adrien’s duties took him back to the turian fleet. Garrus seemed determined to make the most of their time together and Shepard couldn’t begrudge him a second of it.
To be honest, keeping up with the sexual needs of just one turian had been pretty challenging. The combination of the two meant she was hopelessly outclassed. Fortunately, they seemed just as happy to finish things off on their own once she’d been reduced to complete and utter exhaustion. She’d woken up more than once to find herself tucked gently into bed while the sound of chirps and growls just barely covered by the sound of falling water made it crystalline clear what was going on in her shower.
Jealousy was actually pretty hard to come by and she’d long since stopped feeling the least twitch of it.
She rolled over and squinted at the fuzzy shape seated in one of the lounge chairs at the end of her bed. Ah, it was Garrus -that time. He and Adrien seemed to take a tag-team approach to sleep. One of them stayed in bed with her and the other sat up reading or doing something else that just so happened to keep them between the bed and the entrance. It said something about the turian mentality that they had an instinctual need to keep a rotating watch.
Adrien was passed out in the bed next to her with one arm slung across her waist. He didn’t even budge when she sat up in bed and stretched. Turians only slept for an hour or two at any one given time, but they slept hard.
“You two look good together.” Garrus commented. It would have sounded insecure in anyone else, but his voice was husky when he said it.
“Mmm, I’ll accept that but I think right now we’re missing the crucial element that pushes us over the top into true excellence.” She knew better than to actually try and get out of bed and had fortunately learned that lesson long before she’d started sleeping with Adrien Victus. Garrus had a pretty powerful grab reflex when he slept, but it was nothing compared to the former general’s. Garrus edged him out in terms of muscle, but he wasn’t quite as serious about it as Adrien was. Shepard was pretty sure that would be psychologically revealing to another turian, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it meant on her own. Territory entered into it somewhere, but the two men seemed perfectly happy sharing her and each other.
“You’re staring.” Garrus pointed out. “Something on your mind?”
“Just one of those moments when I remember that you’re an alien.” She sighed and smiled. “I bet you get them too.”
“All the time.” Garrus put down his datapad and came over to sit on the edge of her bed so he could stroke her hair. “It’s never bad though. Got a question? He’s not going to let you go anytime soon.”
“Well, that’s one question at the least. I thought this was just one of your bad habits, not something general to the species.” She patted Adrien’s arm and felt it flex around her ever so slightly. It was hard to believe that it was happening with no conscious input from him.
Garrus chuckled. “Kids sleep with their fathers, but they have shorter cycles than adults. It’s just a carryover instinct to keep them from running off in the night so they don’t get eaten by something. I’ve heard -this is just a rumor mind you- that Tarquin was pretty rambunctious as a kid.”
“I think I resent paying the wages of Tarquin’s sins.” She grumbled, but allowed herself to be mollified as Garrus leaned in to nip at her shoulder. The gesture involved absolutely no teeth, just his flexible lip plates. “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me what arcane human things I do that confuse you.”
Re: It Tolls for Thee 11
anonymous
April 14 2012, 03:48:58 UTC
Everything about this fill is beautiful. I'm so happy with the influx of Victus/Femshep/Garrus love on the kinkmeme, and this is another excellent addition. The slow burn, the FEELINGS, the little touches you sprinkle here and there that remind the reader that "yeah, these guys are turian and alien and different but still understandable" are perfect, so perfect.
Maker how I love threeway relationships. Thank you for the fill.
It Tolls for Thee 12
anonymous
April 14 2012, 03:56:58 UTC
A/N: There's more, obviously. :D
Garrus was groundside when Shepard came staggering out of the wreckage surrounding the shroud. It actually took him a few minutes to realize what the bleak expression on her face coupled with Mordin’s conspicuous absence entailed.
“Shepard, no…” He was already moving.
She mustered up a painful looking smile from somewhere. “He said…” Her voice cracked. “He said it had to be him. Someone else might get it wrong.”
The krogans arrived then and the chance to comfort her was lost, but comfort came nevertheless in the form of a gentle golden shower of puffy flakes that fell more softly than snow and quickly blanketed the entire planet. He knew that it wasn’t actually Mordin’s spirit within the downy balls of pollen… but as he looked at the strange expression of peace that crossed Shepard’s face, he thought maybe it was after all.
It took them a little while to make it back to the Normandy. Wrex and Eve… or rather, Wrex and Bakara had formal and personal thanks to give Shepard and they also needed to put the barebones plans in place to get Krogan boots on Palaven before they reported back to the Primarch.
Adrien was waiting for them in the war room with his Primarch mask firmly in place. Garrus lurked in the background as Shepard and Adrien played out the formal exchanges that their roles demanded. It wasn’t entirely surprising that Adrien assigned him the task of coordinating troops from the Normandy. Adrien had re-learned the art of delegation, but he was still incredibly choosy about who he brought into his inner circle. Then again, so was Shepard and she looked… bad. Worse than bad.
Getting her to go get some rest took some fancy verbal footwork and a good dose of emotional blackmail, but he managed it without letting on that he didn’t plan for her to be sleeping alone… for long anyway.
‘I talked her into getting some rest.’ He typed the message into the open comm link between his omnitool and Adrien’s. ‘Maybe you should take some downtime as well. I’ll be going off duty as soon as I get some things set up.’
‘On a call with Sparatus.’ The response came quickly. ‘He won’t shut up. I’ll go when I can.’
Well, that was the most anyone could ask for. Garrus hoped that Shepard was actually going to take his advice and do something relaxing like shower or sleep, but he knew her well enough to know she generally needed a minder. So did Adrien, for that matter, but he at least walked his own talk when it came to ‘maintaining oneself as a valuable resource’. Shepard operated under the mistaken impression that piddling things like food and sleep were for the weak or criminally under-occupied. She hadn’t been too bad in the old days (or maybe he just hadn’t been in a position to see it), but the Reaper invasion made her ten times worse.
Solana would laugh if she ever figured out who Garrus had hooked up with. Shepard and Victus sounded pretty darn impressive on paper, but Sol would know to look past their fearsome and unconventional reputations to see the scarred, flawed, and damaged souls underneath. She’d also see their brilliant minds and boundless courage… and she would never, ever let him live it down in a million years.
‘Damn the Reapers.’ Garrus thought darkly. ‘Damn them straight to hell.’
Menae was, not to mince words, a fucking hell hole.
Adrien Victus had been stationed there for nearly three years and it had been a prestigious post for most of them given its strategic value to Palaven, however the invasion of the Reapers had turned the moon into a killing ground full of what basically amounted to the undead. It was, in short, probably the last place in the Galaxy where he would have predicted that his life would be changed forever… unless you counted that final immutable destiny that awaited all men.
It started when Garrus Vakarian was attached to his service… or rather, the day he was attached to Vakarian’s service.
The decision came from way, way, WAY up the chain of command. Up until that point, Vakarian had been more of a rumor floating around the enlisted corps; that crazy ex-vigilante with a boogeyman task force that descended upon turian settlements without warning and left them suddenly prepared to resist an undisclosed threat whether they liked it or not. In person Vakarian was brash as hell, reckless to the point of being suicidal, sharper than a knife, criminally lucky -and an unexpected kindred spirit.
War was said to run in the veins of every Victus clan member. Rebellion ran in Garrus’s and no one could quite figure out where it had come from, considering his ancestors. Neither of them were what you would call ‘good’ turians so maybe it was no surprise that a sort of brazen friendship sprang up between them.
The chemistry between them, however, came as a complete surprise.
Whatever one could say about Adrien, he’d never been one for casual flings even within the scope of military service where such things were commonplace. Actually, he’d never been one for intimacy in general. He’d never met anyone with whom he saw himself spending more than a few fevered evenings with and as such didn’t much see a reason to bother. Even his son had come to him through reciprocity contract with one of the cadet branches of clan Victus.
It had been… well, longer than he cared to admit since the last time he’d been intimate, but during a rare lull in the fighting he found a moment to take his courage in his hands and take what might be his last chance with Garrus.
Being turned down had hurt in ways he wasn’t prepared for.
“It’s… not because I don’t want to, Victus.” Garrus rolled his shoulder and got that particular abashed expression young males tended to get when they were about to discuss something particularly embarrassing… like their feelings. “I’ve got someone and -well, she’s not turian. I don’t know how she’d react and I can’t risk it. The spirit is willing, sir, but the flesh is spoken for.”
Adrien had to think hard. There weren’t a lot of species around who had both compatible sex drives and a general lack of savy when it came to dating turians. Salarians weren’t much interested in recreational sex. Elcor, Hanar, and most other civilized species were physically incompatible with turians and asari seemed to feel that it didn’t count if there wasn’t a female involved, which sort of confirmed a lot of Adrien’s private suspicions about asari gender politics. “A human?” He guessed.
Garrus nodded. “A former CO of mine.” He didn’t elaborate on who and Adrien didn’t press him. A lot of Garrus’s background was classified well above even a General’s paygrade. There were rumors that he’d spent some time working as a deputy agent of a specter, but there were no official records of it. “She… she’s very important to me and has been betrayed in the past.”
That was a reason that any turian could respect, although it didn’t much help the curious burning in Victus’s crop. That human, whoever she was, was a lucky woman. He hoped very much that she was worthy of Garrus’s esteem and that they both survived to see each other once again.
Still. There were concerns. “How many people know?”
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“I wasn’t going to.” Adrien rolled his eyes, but he could understand why Garrus was braced for impact. Humans were a bad risk in terms of a relationship. They couldn’t quite manage the ‘casual’ part of casual sex, but they entered relationships much more easily than a turian would. The Alliance divorce statistics dwarfed those of the Hierarchy and did as much -if not more- than the Relay 314 incident to make turians wary of entering an interspecies relationship with a human. “I hope the spirits guide you, Garrus.” He said and meant it.
He didn’t realize that they might well have been guiding his friend all along until the day Primarch Fedorian’s ship was shot down out of the sky and Commander Jane Shepard stepped into his life.
Adrien didn’t need anyone to tell him that Shepard was the former CO that Garrus had been talking about. The air between them was supercharged and her very presence brought a snap and swagger back into Garrus’s step that had been steadily fading during their brutal campaign. Curiously, his presence at her side seemed to do something very similar to her. Shepard’s back straightened when Garrus was behind it and when they went into action together it was a sight that could bring any turian to his knees.
Saying she was ‘different’ was putting it mildly. There was a wall between her and the rest of the world that only came down briefly to give hints at the woman behind it, but that wall was in poor repair and in the days following his extraction from Menae and promotion to the rank of Primarch he began to see hints of just how much damage it had taken.
The War Room was a technological and logistical marvel, but it was not particularly designed to be soundproof and as such he overheard more of her conversations in the comm room than he would have liked. The Reaper War was vicious and in some ways she was the woman deciding how it would be fought, but Adrien had no time to spare for empathy. His new role had revealed an entire host of potentially explosive bullshit that could spell disaster not only for his race, but for two others as well. For the first time in his career he was alone and shouldering a weight that threatened to crush him and very nearly did.
000
Adrien Victus was a fucking enigma wrapped in a mystery and stuffed into an incredibly formal turian shell.
Jane Shepard had absolutely no idea what to do with him.
In some ways, Primarch Victus represented every single species trait that generally made humans want to punch turians in the face just to see them show a LITTLE emotion even if it was just rage. He was stiff and formal to the point where it felt like someone had dipped him in starch and getting information out of him made pulling teeth look like a pleasant recreational activity.
Were he any other politician, she would have written him off as a lost cause and let him go do whatever the hell it was diplomats did -but he wasn’t a politician, even if he had to pretend to be one for the good of his species. Moreover, there was a quiet voice in the back of her head that insisted that the quiet polite stranger in her war room was not Adrien Victus, the brilliant and unconventional tactician that Garrus called a personal friend.
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He was holding something back and the feral sixth sense that had guided her through the Skyllian Blitz, hunting Saren, and eliminating the Collector threat told her that it was something that could end everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.
She didn’t want the Primarch to become an enemy. Having to treat him like an opponent frustrated and demoralized her, especially when she heard Garrus talk about him. In the beginning she’d dared to hope that Victus would be different from the kind of forked-tongue politico that she’d spent so long at war with.
Something was going to have to give and soon. The stakes were too high for Shepard to risk entering battle with allies she couldn’t trust.
000
Adrien jerked awake as the lights in the starboard observation deck flickered to life and he realized, to his shame, that he’d fallen asleep watching the blueshift emissions pass by the viewport. He looked up and then away as he realized the motion sensors had reacted to the hatch sliding open to admit Normandy’s commanding officer and mistress after God, Commander Shepard.
For once, she was neither wearing battle armor nor her dress blues and was instead wearing an ordinary ship suit with a soft hooded jacket thrown on top. She blinked down at where he was slouched on the couch and then gave him an unexpected smile.
The expression transformed her face briefly, chasing away the shadows in her eyes and easing the lines of exhaustion around her mouth. For a brief instant, she was a completely different woman -a woman that Adrien would have tried to buy a drink for in a heartbeat.
No wonder Garrus had no intentions of straying.
“Sorry we don’t have better accommodations for visiting dignitaries.” She said gently and crossed to the bar to pour herself a drink. Ah. She was off duty.
Shepard turned and tossed something in his direction. Adrien caught it on reflex and found it to be a chilled bottle -a bottle of Trebia Select, no less. Why a human ship was stocking artisanal turian beer, he couldn’t begin to guess but it didn’t stop him from breaking the seal and knocking some back on pure reflex. He kicked himself a few seconds later as he remembered that he wasn’t just a military grunt anymore and the Primarch’s dignity didn’t extend to drinking with foreign nationals during the off-hours… but it was too late. Shepard had seated herself in the chair adjacent to his and had her feet up. If he left now it would be rude and -contrary to the Hierarchy’s policy on the first human specter- he didn’t actually want to alienate the woman on a personal level.
“Thank you.” He said instead and meant it. A small taste of home was very welcome and it was small enough that it didn’t remind him of everything that was riding on this damnfool escapade.
“Thank Garrus.” She grinned again and Adrien felt a traitorous little curl of heat deep inside. Shepard needed to smile more often -not that it was his concern. “I don’t know where Garrus found it, but he donated an entire case of the stuff to the communal liquor cabinet. We just had some dusty old brandy in there before.”
It said something about her and her perception of him that she’d reached for the beer over the brandy, Adrien reflected as Shepard sipped her toxic green whatever-that-was. It looked like batarian ale. He hoped it wasn’t …for the sake of her stomach lining if nothing else.
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“No ‘commander’ right now. I’m barred from duty for another eighteen hours.” She said reprovingly. “You can call me Shepard or nothing at all.”
“I was under the impression that you were the commanding officer of this ship?”
She snorted. “I am, but someone made a personal request that I take some downtime. I think he had this crazy idea that I might go sleep or something, but… well. That’s not going to happen soon.”
“Garrus?” Adrien guessed, having been on the receiving end of more than one of those ‘personal requests’ which tended to be backed up either by emotional blackmail or a gun.
She nodded. “So what’s the story between you two? I caught the sense that you two were friends on Menae, but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
“He’s a trusted colleague.” Adrien hedged, since he wasn’t about to admit that he’d accidently tried to court the lover of one of the most dangerous women in the known galaxy. “And a friend. However, my duties have changed things. I no longer have the same luxuries than I once did.”
Shepard leaned back in her seat and looked at him. The ghosts were back in her eyes and for a moment he had the sense that he was speaking to an older being so far outside the realm of his experience that he couldn’t even begin to quantify it. “No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” She said at last. “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
She took a drink. “That’s part of an old earth poem. It’s a meditation on man’s spiritual and social functioning as the part of a greater whole. That extends to the leaders of men as well. No one can bear their burdens alone and hope to be successful. You need to learn to delegate if you want to survive being Primarch.” She held up a hand. “I’m not inviting confidences. I know my role prevents you from being able to trust me, but… Primarch. You need to pick someone you can trust to share that load with you.”
“Fine words. Get yourself elected to parliament and then we’ll talk about who gives who advice.” Adrien snorted and frowned at himself. Apparently the beer was working a bit too fast or maybe he was just that tired. Normally he had a better handle on his mouth.
Luckily she found it funny. “Pffft.” She saluted him with her eerie green drink (was that stuff glowing?) “Touche, Primarch. I did learn that lesson the hard way, however.” She looked away. “We might have been better prepared if I’d followed my own advice after Saren was brought down. I took on the burden of proof all by myself and it all went down in flames with me when the Collectors shot down my ship. I think we can all say for certain that I didn’t leave much of a legacy behind that first time.”
There were rumors (only rumors) about the reasons Shepard had vanished for over two years following the destruction of her ship. Turian intelligence paid very little attention to some of the more outlandish tales… but listening to her speak, Adrien wondered if maybe the craziest stories were the real ones.
Shepard looked like someone who had some back from the dead.
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“Any time.” Shepard saluted him with her glass and Adrien caught the sense that she truly meant it.
He hung there, conflicted, before he opened his mouth and something else came out instead of the carefully formulated diplomatic ‘let’s not do this again’ speech he’d pieced together in his head. “You should sleep.” He said and felt like a private just out of basic trying to talk to a girl for the first time. “You have shadows under your eyes.”
“Here’s a deal; I’ll sleep if you delegate something.” She gave him a wry smile, clearly waiting for him to turn her down.
Adrien regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Agreed.” He said at last and was disproportionately pleased when she blinked in surprise. He felt like he’d scored a point in the strange sort of game between them and if there was a prize, he suspected it was the sound of her laughter.
‘So this is why…’ He shook his head.
“Well.” She pushed herself to her feet and crossed over to the bar to discard her terrifying drink. “I’m going to hold you to that, Primarch.”
“Victus.” He corrected her. “I’m not on duty either.”
It was… an odd start and a delayed one, but that evening cracked the ice between them. Adrien returned to his work and Shepard retired to her cabin. Whether or not she slept, Adrien couldn’t say but Garrus seemed inordinately pleased when they spoke later on.
Adrien had some reservations about bringing Garrus more fully into the loop of governance, but there was honestly no one else he trusted to have his back and Garrus had the rank he needed for the job. Plus there was the intensity with which Garrus accepted his commission.
He’d worried the man, Adrien realized with a guilty start. Shepard had been right about the need to share his responsibilities. Garrus claimed that he wasn’t a very ‘good’ turian, but he was a better one than he knew. He’d never question Adrien outright, but he held nothing back when his Primarch finally asked for help and in doing so they rediscovered the easy camaraderie they’d built on the field of battle.
... and if after that, Adrien spent a bit more of his off hours in the lounge no one said anything, least of all Shepard who he encountered there with increasing frequency. You couldn’t exactly call the thing between them friendship. There was too much riding on each of them to allow that and if he were being honest, friendship wouldn’t have been his first choice when it came to the specter even if nothing would ever come of his attraction to her.
At least, that was what he thought before the events on Tuchanka that very nearly took his only son from him.
000
Tuchanka was still a radioactive pile of slag and that didn’t seem to change no matter where you stood. Cerberus’s presence certainly wasn’t enhancing the atmosphere, but Garrus had a solution for that little problem. It looked remarkably like the extremely sexy Widow IV that Shepard had gotten for him out of specter requisitions.
Spirits, he loved that woman. She never stinted when it came to provisioning her crew.
A brutal shockwave ripped through the air five feet to his left and tore into the soldier who’d actually managed to sneak up and flank Garrus. Acting on instinct, Garrus whirled and planted a bullet between the unfortunate human’s eyes. A shockwave was good for knock-back purposes, but it didn’t do much damage when used on a shielded sentinel.
“Mind your own knitting, Vakarian.” Shepard quipped as she ducked into cover next to him, waiting for her amp to cool between vicious biotic assaults on the enemy. “Transport incoming!”
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Adrien’s son came in over the comm unit then and they fell back to the bomb site. Spirits, that bomb.
How long had Adrien known about it? Garrus didn’t even want to think about it. The man had never even hinted at its existence to Garrus and that hurt a bit… but only a bit. If Garrus had known, he’d have reported it to Shepard and that only proved Adrien was right not to share the information.
He knew that his Primarch was still smarting after his last confrontation with Shepard. He hoped that Adrien had some armor installed into his formal wear because Shepard was going to be spitting nails the next time she clapped eyes on him. The existence of the bomb had the potential to drive a serious wedge between Shepard and the Primarch, despite their nascent friendship that Garrus had been watching develop with extreme interest.
‘Eventually, they’re going to learn to trust each other.’ Garrus told himself and bit back a grim smile. It would take a while, but Adrien and Shepard were cut from the same kind of cloth even if they couldn’t see it themselves. One day (hopefully soon) they’d figure it out and on that day the Reapers would know true fear. Garrus personally could not wait. The Council wouldn’t know what hit them.
In the meantime, Garrus had to make sure that they got off planet without the bomb detonating or allowing Tarquin Victus to get his fool self killed. That last wasn’t part of the official mission perameters, but he’d made it part of them as soon as he saw the look on Adrien’s face when they last spoke.
Adrien had never spoken much about his family, although Garrus knew that he’d never married. There hadn’t been much time for it and turians didn’t much like airing out their personal lives unless it was absolutely necessary. Even so, there was a holo of Adrien with a very young Tarquin saved to Adrien’s omnitool and Garrus had caught him looking at it more than once between waves of Husks while they were on Menae.
He regretted not… pursuing things with Adrien, but if he had to make a choice between lovers then he would always choose Shepard. Adrien was a kindred soul and a damn fine specimen of a man, but he didn’t need Garrus the way she did. Shepard had lost too much in her shortened life. He didn’t plan on being one of those things.
The friendship between Shepard and Adrien had taken him a little by surprise… actually no. Garrus had known from day one that Adrien Victus and Jane Shepard would get on like a house on fire; lots of property damage and screaming, but in a good way. Unfortunately, with Victus as Primarch and Shepard responsible for negotiating treaties between pretty much everyone in civilized space there was a lot of politics for them to trip over. Despite that things had been going intriguingly well in ways that opened up a lot of future possibilities, assuming they all didn’t die in the following weeks.
All that was going to go right out the window if the bomb or if Adrien’s son got killed preventing it. Garrus didn’t plan on letting that happen.
However, when the time came things happened too quickly for Garrus to even shout a warning… and it was Shepard who saved the day.
000
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At some point during their interactions, Tarquin Victus had been removed from the list of acceptable losses in her heart. She couldn’t say how or why. She didn’t know the boy very well (and he seemed painfully young to her indeed) and didn’t want to think too hard about how his father played into it, but when she stood on that platform and saw the young turian bodily pulling the pins out of the trigger mechanism her body moved on its own free of any input from her brain.
Biotic energy wreathed her body as the gargantuan trigger mechanism buckled and threw the lieutenant free and she lashed out with the most powerful pull field she had ever managed without being accidentally doped up to the gills on Minagen X.
Tarquin slammed into her midsection and she automatically wrapped her arms and hit the ground in a roll, hoping her shields would protect them both from the blast. If they didn’t at least her armor would stop some of it…
The blast, when it came, lacked the bite she was expecting. Actually, she could hear it but the concussion wave was nearly nonexistent as was the heat. She opened her eyes and found a perfect bubble of intense kinetic shielding surrounding them.
“Keep your head down.” Tarquin fiddled with something on his omnitool and Shepard realized rather late and dopily that the cunning little brat had managed to slave his shield generator into hers on the fly and had used them to create a powerful barrier capable of withstanding the reduced explosion of the fusion bomb’s detonator.
“Damn, kid.” She laughed (it was a hoarse and rusty sound). “I’m starting to like you.”
“The feeling is mutual, ma’am.” Tarquin replied with a dry tone so much like his father’s it was creepy, but the grin on his face as he looked up at the unexploded ordnance hanging over their heads was all his own.
To say Wrex was pissed about the bomb was putting it mildly. He about near dropped a brick in his shorts and immediately ordered the area clear of ‘foreign nationals’. That did not stop him, though, from clapping Tarquin on the shoulder and thanking him very quietly for his service in disarming the twelve hundred year old city buster that had very nearly reduced the Krogan population by a third.
Much, much later it would be the memory of a krogan warlord and a raw turian lieutenant shaking hands in front of God and everybody that inspired Shepard to tell the Dalatrass to take her deal and shove it straight up her cloaca… but before that, she retired to her quarters for a desperately needed shower.
Shepard was halfway out of her armor when EDI’s voice gently interrupted her. “Commander, Primarch Victus is pacing on the landing outside your door. Shall I summon security?”
She straightened up and winced as things pulled and popped in her back. Ugh. Maybe it was a good thing that she probably wasn’t going to live long enough to get old. After all the shit she’d been through, she was going to be one decrepit old granny.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll see him.” Shepard briefly debated putting her armor back on. She’d stripped off her gauntlets, vambraces, shoulder guards, and cuirass and that just left her wearing her thinsuit from the waist up -but whatever. If Victus was that worried about propriety, he wouldn’t have shown up unannounced at her doorstep.
That said it was pretty damn gratifying to see him jump when the hatch opened.
“Primarch.” She said with a nod.
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Thank you.
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“Shepard.” Words seemed to fail him and the moment hung, frozen in time before all of a sudden he jerked her into a crushing embrace and buried his face into her hair. “Thank you.” He said, holding her tight. “Thank you for my son’s life.”
Just as she was trying to decide whether the protocol on handing distraught diplomats called for her to punch him or hug back, the elevator hissed open to admit Garrus into their company. He was holding a bottle of wine he’d obviously liberated from the lounge, but stumbled to a halt as he caught sight of what was going on.
Their eyes met over Victus’s shoulder and she mouthed ‘What do I do?’ in his direction, but Garrus just stood there in slack-jawed shock.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Victus seemed to realize what he was doing all at once and released Shepard so fast he nearly dropped her. Dignity snapped into place around him like body armor and he gave Shepard a weirdly gentlemanly bow before escaping down the elevator.
“What…” Shepard tried again. “What just happened here?”
Garrus started to answer, but his omnitool blipped and whatever was there made him burst out laughing. It took a bit, but eventually he showed it to her. It was a short text message from Victus that read: look after her.
“Why is that funny?” She asked and was privately relieved when Garrus looped a possessive arm around her waist.
“I just never expected Adrien to be the broody type, that’s all.” Was his cryptic reply. “Let’s go inside. I think there’s something we should talk about.”
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Adrien had intended to go back to work, but his attention span had been effectively shattered. Between a need to constantly check his omnitool for status updates from his son and his humiliating lapse with Shepard, Adrien was seriously reconsidering his right to be considered a functioning adult much less the Primarch of Palaven. He could manage to focus for maybe five minutes at a time, but then his mind wandered back to that… incident in front of Shepard’s cabin.
He’d gone up there with the intention of formally thanking her for helping his son fulfill his mission, but when she’d opened the door before he even knocked something broke free inside him and he’d pulled her in close.
As much as he was grateful for his son’s life, he was equally grateful that she was alive. Seeing her half out of her blasted armor with dust, blood, and worse smeared across her face brought home to him that she very nearly hadn’t made it back either.
Nothing could have prepared him for the way she’d felt in his arms. She felt delicate in his arms and far too soft to be the unstoppable juggernaut of destruction rumor painted her to be. For a split second he wanted to do nothing more than to drag her inside and… and…
Adrien clamped down on that thought not only because it was unworthy, but also because there was a second pair of hands lurking in that fantasy ready to help him strip her bare and examine the extent of the damage she’d suffered.
He’d very carefully avoided saying anything to Garrus afterwards beyond the one text message he’d allowed himself. Fortunately, his position gave him access to Garrus’s suit data so he was able to reassure himself that the other half his problems had escaped the mission with minimal damage as well. It was technically an abuse of his position, but just this one Adrien admitted that he didn’t really give a flying shit.
“Hey.”
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She’d bathed since he’d last seen her and her hair was still slightly damp. Strands of it clung to her cheeks and the nape of her neck. She’d washed away most of the scent of Tuchanka, but the faint scent of hot expended heat sinks clung to her skin… Garrus.
For most species, the scent of another male on a woman’s skin would have been irritating or offputting … and if the scent had been that of any other male, Adrien would have been able to stop himself.
Shepard’s eyes fluttered shut as he reached out and cupped her cheek in one palm. A soft smile tugged and her mouth and she leaned into the touch. “I guess that answers one question I came here to ask.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.” Adrien said that, but couldn’t quite make himself let go. It had been so damn long and she was right there… “You belong to Vakarian.”
“Would you have hesitated if I were a turian woman?” She asked, holding his gaze with her own.
“That’s different.” Adrien finally got his arm to obey a direct order and dropped his hand. “It’s different with turians.” And it was. It really was.
Turians had a severe gender imbalance in their birthrates. There was perhaps one female for every four or five male children born. It had always been that way and their society had developed accordingly. Unlike humans or asari, a male turian wasn’t raised with the expectation that he would one day start a family. Adrien was lucky that his clan had the pull necessary to get him the reciprocal breeding contract that had resulted in his son.
“Yeah.” She nodded, still quite serious. “Garrus and I finally had a talk about exactly how it’s different. So here’s the other question I came down here to ask. Are you attracted to Garrus too?”
“Shepard, don’t ask me that. I…” Somehow without him being able to explain how or when, Shepard had clambered right into his lap. She straddled his thighs with her knees on either side of his hips and cupped his face in both hands.
“It’s ok. Just tell me.”
“Yes, I am.” He said heavily. “I’m attracted to you both.” It was… oddly liberating to finally just say it and get it out in the open.
“Then you should do something about it.” Garrus commented and Adrien’s blood turned to ice in his veins as his friend came up from behind him with no warning whatsoever. He’d ditched his armor somewhere and had changed into civilian gear. It looked… surprisingly good on him. Garrus was the sort of male who looked most comfortable in full armor, but he did know how to fill out a tunic.
“Were you fucking cloaked?” He hissed.
“Guilty.” Garrus held up his hands in surrender. “I borrowed a unit out of storage, but Shepard didn’t think you’d talk if we were both here.”
Shepard’s position in his lap kept him effectively pinned to the sofa, but it didn’t stop Adrien from taking a swipe at Garrus… just to try and wipe that infuriating grin off his cocky face if nothing else. Although -it was getting hard to pay attention to things that weren’t her soft weight on his lap or the way she’d placed her hand on his chest and leaned forward to relax against him or the way her hips fit perfectly into his cupped hands or the way Garrus was watching them both together with an intensity he usually reserved for the battlefield.
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However, they all froze guilty when something thumped against the lounge door.
“It’s locked, genius.” A voice commented from the corridor. The AI responded with something that Adrien frankly did not hear.
“Maybe we should take this upstairs.” Garrus suggested and was greeted with unanimous approval.
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Later -much, much later Shepard lay drowsy in the darkness pinned between two male bodies and reflected that maybe she’d been wrong in her previous estimates about the advisability of threesomes.
Among humans, threesomes sounded great on paper but very rarely worked in reality. Someone always got left out, but that apparently went out the window when you applied turian ‘operational discipline’ to the matter.
They’d started out slowly undressing each other… although Garrus had removed most of her clothes like he was showing her off for Adrien’s benefit.
Making love with two turians was even stranger than having sex with just one that first time. She did her best to leave her preconceptions at the bedroom door, but she’d still harbored lingering doubts leftover from a purely human concept of group sex which amounted to two guys banging one chick, usually in front of a camera. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find her lovers just as concerned with each other’s pleasure.
Garrus had been the one to tease Adrien’s plates apart, but he’d also been the one to press Shepard down onto him and crooned in her ear as he filled her up inch by inch with Adrien’s cock. She didn’t quite have their knack for splitting her attention, but that didn’t seem to deter anyone in the slightest.
It wasn’t until she was pinned between them, filled to the brim with two thick turian cocks, that she really learned to find pleasure in their enjoyment of each other.
“Shepard, that’s cruel.” Garrus complained as she deliberately clamped down on them both with her inner muscles, savoring the way it pressed them close together inside her. The idea that they were thrusting against each other as much as they were thrusting into her was unbeatably hot. “I’m going to come.” He complained and then growled slightly at Adrien’s jeering hiss as he deliberately thrust hard into Shepard and up against Garrus.
“Mmm, good.” She gasped as Adrien drove her hips down onto his. He’d learned Garrus’s trick of catching her clit along the edge of his public plates and had taking ruthless advantage of his position on the bottom to employ it. “I want you both to come in me.”
“Shepard, that’s dangerous.” Adrien groaned, but his pace quickened despite that. His body wanted it even if his better nature decided against it.
“Not for me.” She nipped Adrien along the edge of his cowl. “Garrus comes in me all the time.” Her voice was sultry rather than wheedling. “He came in me yesterday in the shower. It felt so good. I was pinned against the wall as he fucked me from behind, just like he’s fucking us now, Adrien.”
“You’re right.” Adrien adjusted his grip on Shepard hips and thrust into her hard. “She does play dirty.”
“You won’t find me complaining.” Garrus pulled out abruptly and Shepard cried out. He wasn’t done. She could feel his erection pressing into her backside as he pulled her close and pushed her down hard onto Adrien. “I want to see you full of his seed, Shepard.” He murmured into her ear. “Keep riding him and I’ll fill you up, just like you wanted.”
And, so help her, he did.
000
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To be honest, keeping up with the sexual needs of just one turian had been pretty challenging. The combination of the two meant she was hopelessly outclassed. Fortunately, they seemed just as happy to finish things off on their own once she’d been reduced to complete and utter exhaustion. She’d woken up more than once to find herself tucked gently into bed while the sound of chirps and growls just barely covered by the sound of falling water made it crystalline clear what was going on in her shower.
Jealousy was actually pretty hard to come by and she’d long since stopped feeling the least twitch of it.
She rolled over and squinted at the fuzzy shape seated in one of the lounge chairs at the end of her bed. Ah, it was Garrus -that time. He and Adrien seemed to take a tag-team approach to sleep. One of them stayed in bed with her and the other sat up reading or doing something else that just so happened to keep them between the bed and the entrance. It said something about the turian mentality that they had an instinctual need to keep a rotating watch.
Adrien was passed out in the bed next to her with one arm slung across her waist. He didn’t even budge when she sat up in bed and stretched. Turians only slept for an hour or two at any one given time, but they slept hard.
“You two look good together.” Garrus commented. It would have sounded insecure in anyone else, but his voice was husky when he said it.
“Mmm, I’ll accept that but I think right now we’re missing the crucial element that pushes us over the top into true excellence.” She knew better than to actually try and get out of bed and had fortunately learned that lesson long before she’d started sleeping with Adrien Victus. Garrus had a pretty powerful grab reflex when he slept, but it was nothing compared to the former general’s. Garrus edged him out in terms of muscle, but he wasn’t quite as serious about it as Adrien was. Shepard was pretty sure that would be psychologically revealing to another turian, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it meant on her own. Territory entered into it somewhere, but the two men seemed perfectly happy sharing her and each other.
“You’re staring.” Garrus pointed out. “Something on your mind?”
“Just one of those moments when I remember that you’re an alien.” She sighed and smiled. “I bet you get them too.”
“All the time.” Garrus put down his datapad and came over to sit on the edge of her bed so he could stroke her hair. “It’s never bad though. Got a question? He’s not going to let you go anytime soon.”
“Well, that’s one question at the least. I thought this was just one of your bad habits, not something general to the species.” She patted Adrien’s arm and felt it flex around her ever so slightly. It was hard to believe that it was happening with no conscious input from him.
Garrus chuckled. “Kids sleep with their fathers, but they have shorter cycles than adults. It’s just a carryover instinct to keep them from running off in the night so they don’t get eaten by something. I’ve heard -this is just a rumor mind you- that Tarquin was pretty rambunctious as a kid.”
“I think I resent paying the wages of Tarquin’s sins.” She grumbled, but allowed herself to be mollified as Garrus leaned in to nip at her shoulder. The gesture involved absolutely no teeth, just his flexible lip plates. “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me what arcane human things I do that confuse you.”
“Never.”
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Maker how I love threeway relationships. Thank you for the fill.
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Garrus was groundside when Shepard came staggering out of the wreckage surrounding the shroud. It actually took him a few minutes to realize what the bleak expression on her face coupled with Mordin’s conspicuous absence entailed.
“Shepard, no…” He was already moving.
She mustered up a painful looking smile from somewhere. “He said…” Her voice cracked. “He said it had to be him. Someone else might get it wrong.”
The krogans arrived then and the chance to comfort her was lost, but comfort came nevertheless in the form of a gentle golden shower of puffy flakes that fell more softly than snow and quickly blanketed the entire planet. He knew that it wasn’t actually Mordin’s spirit within the downy balls of pollen… but as he looked at the strange expression of peace that crossed Shepard’s face, he thought maybe it was after all.
It took them a little while to make it back to the Normandy. Wrex and Eve… or rather, Wrex and Bakara had formal and personal thanks to give Shepard and they also needed to put the barebones plans in place to get Krogan boots on Palaven before they reported back to the Primarch.
Adrien was waiting for them in the war room with his Primarch mask firmly in place. Garrus lurked in the background as Shepard and Adrien played out the formal exchanges that their roles demanded. It wasn’t entirely surprising that Adrien assigned him the task of coordinating troops from the Normandy. Adrien had re-learned the art of delegation, but he was still incredibly choosy about who he brought into his inner circle. Then again, so was Shepard and she looked… bad. Worse than bad.
Getting her to go get some rest took some fancy verbal footwork and a good dose of emotional blackmail, but he managed it without letting on that he didn’t plan for her to be sleeping alone… for long anyway.
‘I talked her into getting some rest.’ He typed the message into the open comm link between his omnitool and Adrien’s. ‘Maybe you should take some downtime as well. I’ll be going off duty as soon as I get some things set up.’
‘On a call with Sparatus.’ The response came quickly. ‘He won’t shut up. I’ll go when I can.’
Well, that was the most anyone could ask for. Garrus hoped that Shepard was actually going to take his advice and do something relaxing like shower or sleep, but he knew her well enough to know she generally needed a minder. So did Adrien, for that matter, but he at least walked his own talk when it came to ‘maintaining oneself as a valuable resource’. Shepard operated under the mistaken impression that piddling things like food and sleep were for the weak or criminally under-occupied. She hadn’t been too bad in the old days (or maybe he just hadn’t been in a position to see it), but the Reaper invasion made her ten times worse.
Solana would laugh if she ever figured out who Garrus had hooked up with. Shepard and Victus sounded pretty darn impressive on paper, but Sol would know to look past their fearsome and unconventional reputations to see the scarred, flawed, and damaged souls underneath. She’d also see their brilliant minds and boundless courage… and she would never, ever let him live it down in a million years.
‘Damn the Reapers.’ Garrus thought darkly. ‘Damn them straight to hell.’
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