"To Seize the Moment" 1/? (Fem!Shep/Garrus)
anonymous
May 28 2014, 01:28:33 UTC
(OP is doing a self-fill, because this idea grabbed me walking home from work and would not leave me alone. OP would still love to see other people try their hand at this. OP may or may not have a Mshep!/Tali idea that may or may not get written as well. >_>)
Shepard couldn’t enjoy the Citadel shops anymore.
Every time she went to them, she found herself angry at the people around her. How could someone's biggest problem be choosing which flavor of Tupari to get? There were refugees pouring into the Citadel from all over the galaxy and there were so many struggling to survive another day - and yet the sole concern of the turian in front of her was what flavor of sports drink to get, judging by how long he had been deliberating.
Unbelievable.
It didn't sit right with her, but she already had too many battles to fight, so she did the only thing she could: she left.
She found herself, as always when this happened, at the docks. The docks had been, more or less, converted into a new, shambling ward for the poor, the hungry, and the weak. She did what she could for them, but it was never enough, and she didn't need to look at the heartbreaking memorial wall to understand that this was far from the safety net many had expected to find here.
Most of her crew avoided the dock camps whenever possible.
The only exceptions were James and Garrus, who both understood the guilt for being alive when so many were not. James came by to cheer the Alliance refugees every time they docked, and, she thought, purposely lost his shirt every time some of the refugees convinced him to play poker. She saw him at the poker table yet again, nodded, and received a small smirk in response. Their relationship was as simple as that.
Then she saw Garrus, with whom nothing was ever simple but who was, stunningly, so very worth it. His eyes were on her in an instant and, unlike James, he was not content to smirk at her.
“Shepard, good to see you.” he said, before taking a step closer to her and revealing his heart: the words he said were “I missed you” but what he meant was I need you. And he did need her, she could see it in his eyes, the hunger for her, for them, for something that was going very, very right in the midst of a universe made up of a million wrongs.
It almost frightened her how much she needed him, too. Being caged on Earth had bothered her, not for the loss of her freedom but for the loss of him. Now that he was here and they were together again, she vowed she’d never give up fighting, not now. Not while there was still a Garrus, not while he was her One Woman Turian, always watching her six in the unique combination of romantic loyalty and sarcastic badassery that was so very Garrus that it simply defied any other description.
“There's still more dead than wounded, but casualty rates have dropped to 60% now that we've got the Krogan on our side.” He hummed. “Not good news, per say, but better bad news, I guess.”
She loved him, and even if he hadn’t said the words back to her yet, she knew it was mutual. She could feel how much he loved her every time he followed her into hell without question, every time he looked at the overwhelming odds against them and said why the hell not. He was the spark to her flame, and she'd have burned herself out long ago if Garrus didn't keep her going.
Without him, she didn’t think she'd be able to make it through this war. She suspected that, too, was mutual - she could see the drag in him here, on the docks, where he spent all his time organizing the living they didn’t have room for and counting the dead that took up too much space in the morgues.
“If we get many more casualties coming in, well, I don't know where we're going to put them. We've already got nearly all the volus docks converted into a temporary morgue now,” he said.
Re: "To Seize the Moment" 3/? (Fem!Shep/Garrus)
anonymous
May 29 2014, 02:33:45 UTC
The turian had, at last, seemingly found the Tupari of his dreams, but finding supplies for the Normandy still took far much of her time, and convincing the Citadel shopkeepers not to gouge her out of every credit on her chit took even longer. By the time she hit the contamination bay, the clocks on the Normandy were showing 21:00 Zulu time and the CIC was all but deserted.
She did a bare-bones run of the ship, only talking to those she absolutely needed to before heading up to her cabin. She directed Steve and Vega toward the supplies and talked to Liara just long enough to confirm there was no higher priority threat than the extermination of all advanced sentient life.
After visiting Liara, she found her feet moving of their own accord to the battery. Garrus was not there, much to her disappointment. The battery was dark and she suspected he had been waiting on her a while.
“EDI,” she asked, “Present location of Officer Vakarian?”
“Officer Vakarian is in on Deck 1, Commander.”
Well, that gave her all the motivation she needed to try to rush through the rest of the check-ins. She halfheartedly checked in with Traynor, Allers, and Chakwas and, at long last, nearly an hour after she’d arrived back on the Normandy, finally moved her exhausted body up the stairs to her room.
She opened the door to the room and there he was, pacing back and forth in their quarters. His duffel bag from Menae was flung haphazardly over her bed, seemingly forgotten by her agitated turian.
She wondered if something had happened on the docks to put him in this state, and her heart fell when she thought about what kind of news might have come from Victus. The news they received lately was rarely good.
When he saw her, he abruptly stopped moving and stared at her. “Shepard.” He whispered, and his voice was so soft she could barely hear it. “I was afraid you'd changed your mind.” She’d never heard him so quiet, and the nerves that had started to twist violently in her chest plunged deep into her stomach. Somehow, she had upset him. Was it because she was so late?
“Changed my mind about what, Garrus?” She walked over to the couch and sat down, motioning for him to follow.
He kept walking. “About, you know, seizing the moment... Are you sure you want to do this?”
She blinked. She had no idea what, exactly, Garrus meant by seizing the moment, but he was certainly nervous about it. “Garrus - “
“It's ok, if you don't, you know. I wouldn't, uh, want to make you feel like you had to.”
“Garrus -”
“I mean, if you do, I do, and I even did some research into human customs for this sort of thing, I - “
“Garrus, sit.” She hit the cushion next to her. “Talk. What’s going on?”
He walked over to the couch and, almost hesitantly, sat down and turned to her. “I just...” His head slumped. “I’m not sure how to do this. I mean, I want to do this, but I’m not sure how humans...” He got up again, this time grabbing the duffel he’d thrown over her bed, before returning to the seat next to her. “Your people aren’t like turians. If you were turian, well,” he huffed, “we’d be done. But humans have so many different ways of doing this...I don't know if I'm picking the right one.”
Shepard had no idea what he was talking about, but Garrus looked more lost than she’d ever seen him, even topping never knew you had a weakness for men with scars.
Shepard couldn’t enjoy the Citadel shops anymore.
Every time she went to them, she found herself angry at the people around her. How could someone's biggest problem be choosing which flavor of Tupari to get? There were refugees pouring into the Citadel from all over the galaxy and there were so many struggling to survive another day - and yet the sole concern of the turian in front of her was what flavor of sports drink to get, judging by how long he had been deliberating.
Unbelievable.
It didn't sit right with her, but she already had too many battles to fight, so she did the only thing she could: she left.
She found herself, as always when this happened, at the docks. The docks had been, more or less, converted into a new, shambling ward for the poor, the hungry, and the weak. She did what she could for them, but it was never enough, and she didn't need to look at the heartbreaking memorial wall to understand that this was far from the safety net many had expected to find here.
Most of her crew avoided the dock camps whenever possible.
The only exceptions were James and Garrus, who both understood the guilt for being alive when so many were not. James came by to cheer the Alliance refugees every time they docked, and, she thought, purposely lost his shirt every time some of the refugees convinced him to play poker. She saw him at the poker table yet again, nodded, and received a small smirk in response. Their relationship was as simple as that.
Then she saw Garrus, with whom nothing was ever simple but who was, stunningly, so very worth it. His eyes were on her in an instant and, unlike James, he was not content to smirk at her.
“Shepard, good to see you.” he said, before taking a step closer to her and revealing his heart: the words he said were “I missed you” but what he meant was I need you. And he did need her, she could see it in his eyes, the hunger for her, for them, for something that was going very, very right in the midst of a universe made up of a million wrongs.
It almost frightened her how much she needed him, too. Being caged on Earth had bothered her, not for the loss of her freedom but for the loss of him. Now that he was here and they were together again, she vowed she’d never give up fighting, not now. Not while there was still a Garrus, not while he was her One Woman Turian, always watching her six in the unique combination of romantic loyalty and sarcastic badassery that was so very Garrus that it simply defied any other description.
“There's still more dead than wounded, but casualty rates have dropped to 60% now that we've got the Krogan on our side.” He hummed. “Not good news, per say, but better bad news, I guess.”
She loved him, and even if he hadn’t said the words back to her yet, she knew it was mutual. She could feel how much he loved her every time he followed her into hell without question, every time he looked at the overwhelming odds against them and said why the hell not. He was the spark to her flame, and she'd have burned herself out long ago if Garrus didn't keep her going.
Without him, she didn’t think she'd be able to make it through this war. She suspected that, too, was mutual - she could see the drag in him here, on the docks, where he spent all his time organizing the living they didn’t have room for and counting the dead that took up too much space in the morgues.
“If we get many more casualties coming in, well, I don't know where we're going to put them. We've already got nearly all the volus docks converted into a temporary morgue now,” he said.
He was always good at logistics.
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She did a bare-bones run of the ship, only talking to those she absolutely needed to before heading up to her cabin. She directed Steve and Vega toward the supplies and talked to Liara just long enough to confirm there was no higher priority threat than the extermination of all advanced sentient life.
After visiting Liara, she found her feet moving of their own accord to the battery. Garrus was not there, much to her disappointment. The battery was dark and she suspected he had been waiting on her a while.
“EDI,” she asked, “Present location of Officer Vakarian?”
“Officer Vakarian is in on Deck 1, Commander.”
Well, that gave her all the motivation she needed to try to rush through the rest of the check-ins. She halfheartedly checked in with Traynor, Allers, and Chakwas and, at long last, nearly an hour after she’d arrived back on the Normandy, finally moved her exhausted body up the stairs to her room.
She opened the door to the room and there he was, pacing back and forth in their quarters. His duffel bag from Menae was flung haphazardly over her bed, seemingly forgotten by her agitated turian.
She wondered if something had happened on the docks to put him in this state, and her heart fell when she thought about what kind of news might have come from Victus. The news they received lately was rarely good.
When he saw her, he abruptly stopped moving and stared at her. “Shepard.” He whispered, and his voice was so soft she could barely hear it. “I was afraid you'd changed your mind.” She’d never heard him so quiet, and the nerves that had started to twist violently in her chest plunged deep into her stomach. Somehow, she had upset him. Was it because she was so late?
“Changed my mind about what, Garrus?” She walked over to the couch and sat down, motioning for him to follow.
He kept walking. “About, you know, seizing the moment... Are you sure you want to do this?”
She blinked. She had no idea what, exactly, Garrus meant by seizing the moment, but he was certainly nervous about it. “Garrus - “
“It's ok, if you don't, you know. I wouldn't, uh, want to make you feel like you had to.”
“Garrus -”
“I mean, if you do, I do, and I even did some research into human customs for this sort of thing, I - “
“Garrus, sit.” She hit the cushion next to her. “Talk. What’s going on?”
He walked over to the couch and, almost hesitantly, sat down and turned to her. “I just...” His head slumped. “I’m not sure how to do this. I mean, I want to do this, but I’m not sure how humans...” He got up again, this time grabbing the duffel he’d thrown over her bed, before returning to the seat next to her. “Your people aren’t like turians. If you were turian, well,” he huffed, “we’d be done. But humans have so many different ways of doing this...I don't know if I'm picking the right one.”
Shepard had no idea what he was talking about, but Garrus looked more lost than she’d ever seen him, even topping never knew you had a weakness for men with scars.
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http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/7799.html?thread=39561335#t39561335
You can read the whole thing. There was indeed a part 2 that was written that got lost in a formatting error!
We're actually up to part 10 now so lots to read!
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