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There are rules to her incarceration.
One: no extranet access. They cripple her omni-tool the first day, and block her biometric signature from accessing any terminal.
Two: confinement to her assigned quarters—though they’re hardly anything close to a cell—except when accompanied by Alliance personnel.
Three: no discussing the events as they transpired in Bahak, except to the Alliance high command.
The fourth rule was a bit unofficial, and still she could recall Anderson’s delivery on the comm: For God’s sake, if you see a camera around, at least have the decency to look contrite.
Incarceration wasn’t the right word. It was a bit more like theatre. Still, she’d had the chance to refuse to return to Earth and damn her if she didn’t intend on playing by their rules.
The only thing is… it’s so fucking boring.
The first week passes easy enough. There are people in and out of her quarters on a near constant basis: some to comb over her previously submitted statements on Bahak, others to use her as a fountain of information on Cerberus, and still a few that come under trumped up pretenses but seem to mostly just want to meet her and hear a story or two. She’s got a movie made about her, after all. There’s even some background noise about a sequel.
She sleeps most of the rest of her time away in those early days. It’s her first trip to Earth for any real meaningful amount of time, and she hasn’t lived planetside in a decade and a half. She thought it would feel natural to come to the place that was supposed to be her species' home, that circadian rhythm innate in her body since humanity’s ancestors had crawled out of the ooze, but it’s not quite true.
Like most other things, Shepard adapts and adjusts eventually, and by week three she’s up with the sunrise, watching the clouds part and reveal what the day has in store. She loves the days when she wakes up to the sound of thick fat rain drops the most; it unfurls a memory in the back of her brain she thought had been lost, a reminder of Mindoir and the staccato beat of rain pounding against the metal roof of her parents’ home.
There are books—the hard bound kind she’d never even seen growing up since space was always a premium in a pre-fab—and vids, a plethora of movies and procedurals to draw from to keep her brain otherwise occupied. It’s overwhelming though, this seemingly infinite amount of choice, and no matter what she picks it’s difficult to turn the rest of her brain off. She’s watching television and in the back of her brain she knows the reapers are coming, closer and closer. Kinda dampens the mood. Just a little bit.
The flood of visitors becomes a trickle and the news becomes her only friend, and she watches, trying to read between what’s not being said to see if there are any signs she’s missing. Shepard listens for any word on distant colonies and systems, any irregularities in the world order, but mostly she just hears about conflicts here on Earth, the kind she’d never really known at all since the planet had been just a distant place she’d only learned about in history lessons as a child, the occasional story from her parents, and the required reading when she’d been in basic. The squabbles here are just the same as the ones in space; people are people no matter the location or what planet they’re from, and they all fight over the same stupid shit that’s meaningless while the reapers bide their time.
She finds herself with a new guard once that caged animal sensation starts to set in, and it isn’t lost on her that the Alliance—perhaps Hackett or Anderson, or even that psychologist they’ve made her start seeing—intend this one as more of a companion than the security detail that sits outside the door to her residence.
James Vega’s got that typical jarhead type of look to him, like he doesn’t even need the gene therapy and mods they outfit on every enlisted, and maybe should’ve spent a little more time exercising his brain than his muscles. It crosses her mind that maybe he’s just there to try to ferret out some information they think she’s been holding back, and so at first she keeps to herself, all polite words and mostly withdrawn, never saying more than exactly is required.
But… he’s got one hell of a chip on his shoulder, she realizes. There’s something he’s not saying, something he’s bad at hiding, and she thinks maybe if this was their grand plan to spy on her, they might not have sent this great hulking behemoth of a man with a preoccupied mind to do that job for them.
Maybe he really is just an offering of peace and someone to keep her sane.
Vega’s been her shadow for over a month when she finally lets her mask slip just a little.
“What do you bench?” She asks from across the room, turning her head from where she’s been looking through the great giant pane of bulletproof glass. James is at the small table she takes her meals at, reading through a hard copy newspaper since he’s been bearing her communication blackout when at her side.
“Huh?” Vega doesn’t even look up, an indistinct grunt mumbling from him.
“What do you bench?” Shepard repeats, slower.
This time, his ears seemingly finally open, he sets the paper down to look at her. The corner of his mouth pulls up, a bit of a cocky smirk. “My best’s been a little over six hundred.”
“Oh,” she says simply, then looks back out the window. Shepard can hear, but not see, that her answer rankles him. There’s possibly a huff, then the shifting of the chair he sits on.
“Oh? That’s impressive, you know,” he starts, and now there’s the crinkling of the paper, no doubt as he aggressively folds it back up, “used to be the record back in the day for people that pushed the envelope on that stuff.”
“Back in the day?” Shepard can’t help the tone of her voice, and hopes he can’t see the smile she’s holding back in the reflection of the glass. “When? In the last millennium before people had body mods on every corner?”
“Well,” she hears him toss the paper to the table, “what do you bench?”
She only just rolls her shoulders in a sign of disinterest, then scoffs, “more than six hundred. I’m the two billion dollar bionic woman.”
A frustrated grunt cuts across the room.
“You know, back in basic,” Shepard deadpans, “I actually heard the doc say he was giving me a double dose of gene therapy just because I was so damn pretty.”
There’s no sound, then after a time, finally a sigh. “Oh. You’re fucking with me,” he says, resigned, and perhaps a little relieved.
Shepard glances back in his direction, then with the smoothest kind of voice she could muster, the kind she’s used at a bar once or twice to find a man to take her home for the night, she responds. “Never.”
It’s different after that. There’s a bit of tension eased between them, and little by little, the idea of Vega as that companion becomes more palatable. He manages to secure a daily secluded hour at the onsite gym for her, though Shepard teases him that it’s only so he can prove he isn’t a liar, and before she finishes a book, he’s already on hand with a replacement and the promise that the recommendation isn’t from him. On Thursdays when the cafeteria serves that vat grown fish of the day she can’t stand, Vega starts the tradition of acquiring dinner off campus, and brings it to her for them to share. It almost reminds her of the Normandy. Almost.
And when the weather’s nice, James gets permission to take Shepard out on the grounds to catch some fresh air. Three months good behavior has earned her that, at least.
“Yard time?” Shepard asks when he arrives mid morning.
“You’ve got to stop acting like you’re actually in prison,” he says with a laugh, then waves her on. She’s already dressed, been waiting an hour. “We’re going to the quad,” he tells the pair of officers in the hall when the two of them step out, and they both snap to salute her as she passes.
“At ease,” she orders them, and walks at Vega’s side, though she knows the way by now. It only took once for her to memorize their course.
They end up taking a few loops around the path that connects the series of Alliance buildings together, and Shepard only wastes a little time stopping at her favorite flowers she’s watched grow and bloom from her window over the last few weeks.
“What about that one? You sweet on her?” Shepard asks when they take a seat on a bench to people watch, another one of their routines. She nods her head in the direction of a woman idly pacing, lost in conversation while on a call. She’s objectively pretty, a bit slim, with blonde hair that is let loose, blowing in the wind. She isn’t in uniform, but something still reads military about her.
“Dios, Shepard,” he grumbles, but doesn’t hesitate to take a gander, “this again?”
“That a no, then?”
Vega takes a second look, not at all trying to hide his intentions, then bobs his head side to side, weighing the choices.
“Don’t you dare say you wouldn’t,” she teases, letting her gaze linger another moment longer on the woman in question. Maybe a little too much makeup for her tastes. “I would.”
He laughs, shaking his head, and Shepard spies the slightest flush of his cheeks but doesn’t mention it. “She’s—listen! She’s beautiful, no question there. But not exactly what I usually go for.”
Shepard purses her lips, filing away the information for later. Beside her, Vega checks his watch. She knows what that means and stands before he gets the chance to.
He comes bearing gifts that night, and Shepard’s already got the table set in anticipation. They split a few dishes he’s selected from a local spot he says is Chinese. She vaguely recalls seeing the land mass this food hails from on a map of Earth long ago in one of her required readings about the history of a planet she’d never known.
“You’ve gotta—!” Vega tries to warn her, but Shepard’s already digging in by time his warning comes, and then there’s hot soup exploding out of the dough as she bites into it. She lets out a yelp, scalding liquid soaking her shirt front, but still manages to pop the rest of the dumpling into her mouth in a single bite though her throat burns.
“They’re soup dumplings,” he looks at her with disbelief, “what did you think the name implied?”
Shepard’s too busy chewing and trying not to choke to answer. “I didn’t really think about it,” she answers finally when she swallows the last of it down. “I should’ve known better,” she dabs her napkin in her glass of water to wipe at the greasy damp stain on her shirt. “The asari have something like this I’ve had a couple times, but they’re sweet, and not served melt your fucking skin off hot.”
She approaches the next one with more apprehension, learning from Vega as he eats his but manages to both avoid losing all the liquid and burning himself in the process. Turns out it’s far more enjoyable that way.
“What about Andover?”
“What now?” Vega answers, his mouth full of half chewed noodles he shovels into his mouth from a bowl.
“The private outside who’s got first shift on weekends.” She uses her chopsticks as emphasis, holding them up above her head as she’s seated. “Short. Dark curly hair, brown eyes. Big,” and this time, she motions across her chest. “Come on, you know her. She called you Lieutenant Vegas once by mistake.”
He nods his head animatedly in understanding, then takes a drink. “You’re talking about Giggles.”
“Giggles?”
“Yeah, Giggles. Always laughing about something or other. Not my type.”
“Harsh. Didn’t realize laughter was a dealbreaker for some people. Don’t worry, I’m sure even Giggles couldn’t find any of your jokes funny enough to laugh at.”
“Ha-ha. Now, you want the last dumpling or can I?”
As they step into the gym the next day, there’s a man on his way out, his hair a little long for military regulation, the strands sodden from a shower. He’s muscular, but tall and lean, so very unlike Vega’s bulk, and when the two of them finally settle into the empty room, Shepard levels a single raised eyebrow at Vega.
“What?”
Just barely, she nods her head in the direction of the soldier that vacated the room for them. “…Him?” She asks tentatively, testing the waters. Maybe she’s been going about this all wrong.
It takes him a moment, but Vega’s tossing his towel at her and shaking his head. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, just no.”
“Just thought I’d ask!” She says with a smile, then settles in at the mat to start off with a stretch. Sedentary life does not agree with her, and every morning she swears she’s got a new ache.
He’s waiting for her when she finishes her weekly with the Alliance psychologist assigned to her. Dr. Rosenthal’s older, with at least a decade on Shepard, maybe two, and a little more filled out all over. Shepard doesn’t want to talk to Vega about what the doctor was probing at all session, things deep and buried, things the doc must’ve pulled from an intensive read into her file, and so when he enters, she returns to their usual game.
“What about the doctor? Smart girls get you going?”
Vega waves her off. “Not that I don’t enjoy an older woman, but no.”
Shepard pauses, then as she’s zipping up her jacket, squints her eyes ever so slightly at him. She’s got a few years on him, especially if you count the ones while she was dead. “…What about me?”
Vega, well, he’s never been a man of many words, but his immediate silence makes her think for a second that she’s finally gotten it. Maybe he’s just been holding a candle for her.
“I don’t know a single person this side of the galaxy who would say you’re not their type, Commander,” he answers slickly after a moment.
Oh. Despite that meathead exterior, he’s a sweet talker. She should’ve known. Anyone’s his type so long as there’s a chase, and it better be good.
James takes her outside afterward, and rather than sticking to their usual trip around the carefully manicured landscaping, they divert a little further outward to a spot overlooking the bay. This might not have been what her captors had in mind when they agreed to letting her go for a spin around base, but she doesn’t bring it up.
In any case, what a fucking view.
Shepard leans against the stone half wall, a solid thing crafted decades ago to combat the rising oceans, her eyes shut to appreciate the breeze and setting sun on her face. It feels as close to a vacation as she’s ever gotten.
“What about you?” James says out of the blue, while she’s busy listening to the seagulls and the whisper quiet sound of water lapping at the rocks, her head quiet and empty for once. Maybe she’s starting to understand the obsession with Earth. “What’s the great Commander Shepard’s type?”
“I thought it was obvious by now.” She speaks without moving another muscle, or even opening an eyelid. “It’s Lieutenant James Vega.”
“Now I know you’re crazy,” he joins her at her side. “Come on, you’ve bothered me for weeks with this, now you don’t want to play the game anymore just ‘cause you’re in the hot seat? What gets you going?”
Shepard thinks about that nearly seven foot tall turian she invited to bed before the Omega-4 relay, when fear of death had finally been enough of a threat to force the two of them to finally take what they’d been dancing around for weeks. She’ll never admit how nervous she was for it, like she’d been a virgin all over again with only a hint of what to expect.
“Tall, blue eyes,” she answers, giving him just a bit of the truth, playing along.
“Ohhhh,” Vega just about vibrates with the excitement of what she’s shared. “Pretty boys. I thought maybe you’d like ‘em rough and tough, but it’s pretty boys for you. Interesting.”
It’s amusing to imagine Garrus hearing that comment, and she thinks she knows him well enough to know he wouldn’t deny it. He’d revel in it, never able to let it go, especially now with all the nasty scars he wears. Some have called me a pretty boy, Shepard, he would say, teasing both her and himself.
She almost forgets where she is until Vega’s voice joins her again. “Or maybe it’s not pretty boys in general, just one in particular.”
Things here on Earth, or even any of the distant human colonies, are different than they are across the rest of the galaxy’s cities and ports where all kinds mingle together. Hell, she remembers that fateful trip to the Citadel and how it had been her first time coming across some alien species she’d only seen vids of on the extranet. Most humans, she knows, would never leave the planet they were raised, and while she’s no prude—she’s seen Fornax and even some of that robust spread of interspecies pornography—if the general public found out about her actually fucking a turian, it would surely earn her a few less than kind labels. They probably wouldn’t include that part in the second film.
Garrus is a hell of an example of his species, though. Might be worth being known as Commander Turian-Fucker.
“Maybe,” she allows, and turns just slightly away from him so he can’t catch the blood coloring her cheeks.
“Come on, what’s he like? I’m guessing he’s military since you don’t seem like you get out much.”
“He is,” she grants him that, and it’s a half-truth, sort of. He’d been in the military, still carries himself with the air of it, despite his rule breaking streak.
“Older? Younger?”
It takes her a second, and reminds her that despite what she and Garrus have been through together, there’s still quite a number of basics they don’t know. There’s a file somewhere, encrypted by now, that has something so simple as his birthdate—likely two versions, the one recorded in Palaven’s local time and date, and then the galactic standard—and if she was aboard the Normandy right now, it would hardly take a second to suss it out. But she’s not, she’s on Earth, playing the part of war criminal while he’s a lifetime away on Palaven. She can’t even ask.
“Younger,” she says, and she’s pretty sure she recalls there’s a few years difference between them, though not much at all if you account for the differing orbital periods in which their respective planets calculated such things. If you ignored the whole cross-species can’t-even-eat-the-same-food aspect of it, whatever the two of them have got going on is actually quite proper.
“Tall, blue eyes, military, younger,” he repeats, committing it to memory like he’s a detective all of a sudden. “I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”
Shepard laughs, loud and bright, and for once the looming weight of the galaxy and all that horse shit doesn’t quite feel so heavy. “Just from that?”
“Just from that.”
It’s the next night before he brings it up again, and this time they’ve been sharing a bottle of tequila for the better part of the evening. Shepard was never much of a drinker, couldn’t stand the taste or the worry about being caught off guard and inebriated, but here in this place, there’s hardly any spot safer. It’s not like someone’s gonna call her up with a last minute mission from her house arrest, anyway. Then again, her quarters smelling like a back room at Afterlife probably aren’t what the Alliance brass had in mind when they ordered her back to Earth.
“Have you seen that movie about you? Citadel?”
It’s not just the drink that leaves her with an expression of distaste. “I’d soon rather throw myself off a cliff. How bad is it?”
“I mean… it’s not great, but it’s entertaining at least. I only bring it up because I’ve read the official reports about everything that happened with you and Saren, and they take a lot of liberties, but there’s this part at the end where you—well, your character—she finds herself in bed with an Alliance soldier on her ship right before the big fight.”
If anything, it only piques her curiosity about the film a little more. Who the hell had been the snitch on her ship?
“And?”
Vega seems hesitant, approaching her with caution, though an undercurrent of smug self satisfaction bleeds into his words. “So is that him?”
It makes her want to laugh a little, but she’s calm and stoic. “I’m not not saying it didn't happen, just that it would be very against regulations if it did.” James’ face seems alight, but she doesn’t let it go on too long. “But no. Try again.”
And just as quick, he’s frustrated once more. “Mierda. You had me looking up the SR-1’s crew logs, trying to find someone matching your description.”
Shepard pours herself another drink, grasping at the neck of the bottle. God help her, she can’t resist, it must be the liquor talking. “Not a bad lay, whoever he is, so I’ve heard,” she adds, “but not quite the caliber of the mystery man in question.”
“And what’s the distinction between the two?”
Things with Kaidan had been more straight forward at the time. Two experienced humans coming together to find comfort and companionship, and of course, pleasure. Garrus, despite the fact that they’d likewise been drawn to one another at the height of an equally stressful event, had been a different story altogether, and it would be a lie to say that she didn’t regret doing more research the moment he had set foot in her quarters that evening. There’d been stumbles, plenty of them, but still they’d kept at it, and in the end it had turned out… even better than anticipated.
Shepard smiles tight lipped at the memory, and takes a sip of her drink. “Voracious enthusiasm.”
“Well shit, Commander, this doesn’t sound like a story that you should keep to yourself.”
Is this who she is now? Is this what captivity’s done to her, gossiping like a teenage girl about the latest boy she’s got a crush on? Shepard reclines against the arm of the couch she’s spread out on and downs the rest of her glass in a single gulp. Time to rip the band-aid.
“You’ve seen a fair amount of the galaxy, haven’t you? Someone with your training, they’re not just keeping you near Sol.”
“I’ve seen my share—don’t go trying to change the subject.”
“What I’m asking is, you ever hooked up with an alien? Maybe an asari?”
His face loses a bit of the previous mirth, and Shepard recognizes that expression as one she’s worn herself. She’s tread a little too close to something that still stings.
“There was someone once,” he looks to his glass, lost in swirling the liquid around at the bottom, and then just as she’d done for courage a moment earlier, he finishes the drink. Vega leans forward from his own chair to grab at the bottle, and draws the whole thing to his lips, taking a swig. “Didn’t work out. Wait, have you been been talking about an asari this whole time?”
Her nose wrinkles at the question. “An asari younger than I am? What would that make them, a toddler?”
“Shit,” his head shakes, “I didn’t think about that.”
There’s a silence that spreads across the room, only the soft hum of air circulating through the ventilation that’s so constant and steady it dissolves away in the background, and if Shepard wants out of this conversation, she knows now is the time. James has got that far away look again, no doubt contemplating that someone and whatever painful past they shared. She and Garrus, there’s a lot of pain wrapped up in the two of them too, but this thing between them, whether it goes anywhere or doesn’t, it’s been a bright spot in a dark sky. A rarity.
Vega sighs from where he is, then moves to stand up, tossing in the towel so to speak. He draws deep from the half gone bottle.
“He was good with his tongue,” Shepard says, throwing him a bone.
James coughs, choking on his drink, ultimately laughing in the end. “Here, keep talking, let me get you another.” He tip the bottle to her glass to give her a more than generous pour before he finds his seat once again. This time he relaxes, putting his feet up on the coffee table. “So, tongue, huh?”
More nights than she would like to admit have been spent dreaming about that tongue. She’d taken his cock in her mouth after they’d both gotten one another undressed, Mordin’s words of warning buzzing in the back of her head even as she failed to pull back when she felt him tense just before he came down her throat. Garrus had been left breathless with nary a word to say, and when she’d rolled onto her back beside him, self satisfied that if the night ended there at least she’d been able to give him something good, he hadn’t hesitated to reverse their positions.
“Yeah, his blue tongue.”
She catches Vega’s stiffening, the quizzical furrow of his brow and pursing of his lips as this data point settles in. Shepard expects his outburst any time now, letting him mull it over, but it’s damn near a minute gone by and still he’s got that same expression. She sighs aloud.
“Jesus Christ, Vega. It’s a turian. I fucked a turian.”
The gears click into place, wheels spinning like her space-faring hamster is the sole occupant inside his empty skull. Man, she hopes someone is taking care of that thing for her.
“Wait,” his head cocks, “a turian?”
She doesn’t answer, but the ever changing expressions on his face give her a good enough show. Somehow she knows he’s backtracking through all her commentary, putting it into new perspective now that the image in his head’s been corrected from two human bodies to one human woman, one very alien male.
“Is that even possible? Are you guys,” there’s some vague sweeping gesture in the general area of his crotch, “compatible?”
She wants to laugh, but holds it in. “I assure you—“
“I mean like—what do they even have down there? Do they have cocks?” His questions come quick, a rapid fire stream of conscious. “Does it look like a human one? Does it fit? Or do you guys just have to you know—go acoustic?”
“Acoustic?” Her head inclines, questioning.
“Acoustic. Hands and mouth stuff only.”
“Mouth stuff,” Shepard repeats as if tasting the words, letting her head fall back against the arm of the couch until she’s looking up at the ceiling. “What is this, grade school? I’m thirty two years old, I think we’ve graduated to being able to say oral sex. Or if you want to get spicy, blowjob.”
She’s still just as relaxed where she is, but Vega is sitting up on the edge of his seat, the star pupil at the front of the class eager and ready to listen.
“I can’t believe you haven’t done like everyone else and just searched the extranet for alien dick to quell your curiosity, but he very much had—has—a penis. Trust me, I’ve seen it, tasted it, fucked it, thinking about writing the book on it.”
It’s the liquor talking, she tells herself once more.
“I’m not doubting you, but I’ve seen enough of them in armor, there just doesn’t seem like there’s anything between their legs, comprende? It’s all weirdly shaped pelvis and a space so wide you could fly a cruiser between their stick legs.”
“They’re not sticks,” she hears herself start, defensive. Truth be told, she’d been kind of curious to see a naked turian body up close and feel it under her fingers. Photos only did so much, the tactile experience was something else entirely. “I don’t think body fat’s even a thing on them, it’s just lean muscle all the way down plus all the thicker parts and plates.”
“You’re avoiding the real question.”
“I’m not avoiding it, it would just be easier to watch a vid—“ Shepard instinctively raises her left arm to activate her omni-tool but nothing happens. Oh, she’s forgotten. “Shit. Well, I mean, you’re right in some ways.” Shepard sits up now, sliding to the end of the couch closer to him. “When I first got him undressed, it was all… Ken doll down there.”
Vega’s brow lowers, face pinched.
“No dick,” she clarifies, at more of his speed. “Do you know anything about Palaven?” Shepard doesn’t wait for him to answer, continuing on. “There’s a bit of a low level radiation that they’ve adapted to. Their carapaces and plates are laced with metal to protect them from it, so it would be safe to assume their reproductive organs would likewise need protecting. Therefore…” Shepard draws her two hands up flat in front of her, back of the hands up and thumbs tucked away, and presses the sides of her hands along the index fingers together. Then she rotates them, hands turning outward slightly, pivoting on the points of contact at her index fingers and heels of her palms, creating something of an enclosed opening between her hands.
Vega stares. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m trying to show you!” She repeats the motion. In her mind’s eye it makes perfect sense, a crude imitation of the way Garrus’ plates had been forced apart by the pressure of his cock building behind them. In reality, she supposes it’s a little harder to imagine with a blank slate. “You know how some men are grow-ers, some men are show-ers? Turians are grow-ers, except their reproductive organs are completely tucked away so they don’t produce three armed irradiated offspring, got it? Like a human penis grows hard, so does theirs, and when it’s hard enough it pushes out through the opening in their… I don’t know, crotch plates, and comes out.”
James at least looks like he’s following along. “Do their balls come out too?”
Oh, she wasn’t ready for a follow up of that caliber. “No, they’re internal I think. At least I didn’t see anything. It’s just dick.”
Come to think of it, she’s not sure what they’re packing in that department, but she vaguely recalls some teasing between Garrus and Wrex from back in the day, and Garrus at least seemed to understand the concept of testicles when it came to mentions of the infamous quad. If there's a next time, she'll have to take a better look.
She catches Vega slyly mimicking the movement of her hands from a moment ago, trying it out for himself.
“Was it…” He raises a brow, but keeps his eyes on his hands. “Equivalent?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen a human one,” she says, words flat, “pull yours out and let me compare.”
“Easy, easy, Commander.” His cheeks color, even more so than the liquor alone had already drawn the blood to his skin.
Shepard considers the question seriously, however, lips pursed. “Similar,” she says in the end, “but not the same.” Close enough, at least, to get the job done and still offer satisfaction in the end, not that she’d had any doubt Garrus would have pleasured her in other ways if what he was packing didn’t prove useful in the end. “Bigger than the average human, I’d say. And it’s tapered, thicker at the base, slightly more narrowed at the tip. Gives you this kind of incredible stretch when it’s fully inside.” Her thighs press together tight without thinking, trying to quench an itch she forgot was there. It was kind of like the sex itself—she never felt noticeably empty in her day to day, but once Garrus had slid inside that very first time, her body taking its fill of him and his cock in particular, some part of her had seemed to sigh with pleasure and say: yes, this was the piece you didn’t know you were missing the whole time.
And Christ, she was missing him right now.
“You know what?” Vega says, almost startling her to be pulled out of the memory of that night on the Normandy. “That actually sounds pretty nice. You can’t imagine what it’s like to jog with a dick swinging between your legs.”
Her head shakes with laughter. “That’s what you got out of that?”
Vega’s just got a lazy, drunken grin for her when he shrugs a single shoulder. “So, you were saying something about voracious enthusiasm?”
If she stills herself for long enough, she swears she can even feel him on her. From those first, tentative touches to the more confident ones once they’d gotten one another undressed and fully committed to the experience. “I had to… give him the full tour at first, but he was a good listener with even better instincts. He even had the foresight to, uh,” she coughs, clearing her throat, “file his talons down beforehand.”
Vega glances at his own fingers, thumb grazing over the edge of a blunted short fingernail. His ring and pinky fingers fold in, middle and index together with thumb splaying wide. The two fingers crook slightly, and a well practiced motion to his wrist rotates the hand underhanded for just a second. “Right on.”
“He had good reach,” she offers, recalling the exact sensation of one of his larger fingers inside her providing just the right pressure while his thumb had circled around her clitoris in synchronicity, like she was his favorite trigger that needed to be coaxed just so. “And realized if he breathed just right, his subvocals gave his tongue the tiniest bit of vibration on my—“ Shepard cuts herself off. “I don’t know what kind of lover you are, Lieutenant James Vega, but sometimes partners are less than giving when it comes to eating pussy.”
Vega raises his hands, a silent defense of himself.
“If they even bother, sometimes it’s just for a minute like they’re going through a checklist of foreplay, hitting all the major notes before they feel like they earned sticking their dick in you. Finding a man that wants to spend the time down there and looks up at you after with half his fucking face slick…” Still she can see him, the flat segmented plates of his nose glistening with just as much of her fluids as his mouth from how deep a dive he’d taken into her. Her tongue presses up against the roof of her mouth behind her front teeth, and she can almost taste herself on his lip plates too. “That’s the definition of voracious enthusiasm. The gold star standard.”
“This calls for a toast,” Vega says, standing and taking a few unsteady steps to retrieve a secondary bottle of alcohol from his bag. He sips the rest of his glass down until its empty, then without thought tosses the half an ounce of liquor in hers onto the carpet.
“Watch out—“ Shepard shouts.
“Crap, I wasn’t even thinking.” His words slur but then he’s pouring them both new drinks. Vega forces a cup into her hand, then clinks it with his own, holding it high. “To your man—Shit, wait, are they still men? Or is that a human only thing?” His head shakes, taking a little too much of his body with it, some of the alcohol sloshing out over the rim. James licks at the outer edge of the glass, even his finger, not letting any go to waste, then lifts his glass again, starting where he left off. “To your turian, and his magical vibrating tongue.”
Shepard tilts her head for a second. “Not really what I said, but yeah, I’ll drink to that.” She draws the cup to her lips, hesitating. “I’ll drink to him.”
“You sound like a lucky woman,” Vega says as she’s finishing her drink. “Though I still don’t understand the appeal what with them wearing their bones on the outside.”
Shepard collects his glass with hers and the first bottle they’ve polished off the better portion of, heading to the small kitchenette. “Do you really think they don’t have an internal skeleton? Consider what you’re saying.” She’s laughing to herself as she sets the glasses down in the empty sink. “You think they have no bones.”
“Eh, who knows, they’ve got all those pointy parts. Looks like an exoskeleton to me.”
“It’s not like sex with a human, I’ll give you that. Parts are…” She slides a hand over the meat of her inner thigh, soothing the memory of a gentle ache she’d once had after their liaisons. “Abrasive. But they’ve got plenty of soft spots, and the hard parts aren’t so bad. When you lay on top of them it’s like… like laying on a hot rock that’s been under the sun all day.” Warm, comforting. All the good things in life.
He was, wasn’t he? One of the few good things she had left. Or ever had, if she was honest.
Shepard stops in front of the window rather than return to the couch. Outside, the lights of the city blink in the distance and all around them. The water in the bay is calm, almost like glass, reflecting the image and light of a near full moon that hangs low over head. Up in the dark sky, the light pollution drowns out every single star.
As nice as the creature comforts have been, this isn’t her home. Not that she’d had one in half her lifetime, but this place… it isn’t it.
“He's big, not like you, but tall, lanky, solid. I guess you wouldn't understand but he's got some height on me so it was like he was everywhere, all over me,” she continues out of the blue, perhaps this for just herself to bring the thought back to life, “touching me, licking the sweat off my skin, made me even—“ Shepard turns her head back in Vega’s direction, but James is already dozing, collapsed awkwardly in the arm chair. “—Forget who I was for awhile.” A smile, small and reserved, finds its way to her lips as she gazes back out the window. Maybe the closest thing she has to a home is standing on Palaven looking up at the sky and thinking of her, too.
Come morning, Shepard expects to find James in the exact place she left him, but he’s gone, left sometime in the night to stumble on back to wherever it is he goes when he’s not with her. The living room is askew, a sticky ring left on the coffee table that matches the size of the glasses in her sink, and the cushions and pillows out of place, all equal reminders to Shepard of the previous night’s conversation and that her lips are far looser than she’d previously believed.
She makes coffee and reads the daily paper that is slid under her door each day at first light. The drink has gone cold when she hears someone enter, but she doesn’t look up.
“Thought you’d be ready to chew me out for showing up late,” James says, then settles in at his usual chair at the table across from her. “But you’re not even ready.”
Shepard glances at him for only a moment, enough time to take in the heavy eyelids and mottled discoloration beneath his eyes that she’d seen something similar to in her own reflection. “I half expected someone would find you in a ditch this morning.”
He slumps, the energy gone out of him. “Heh. Almost.”
“Maybe we should skip the gym today.”
Vega nods in agreement, summoning the energy to get up and help himself to some coffee. He takes a sip before Shepard can warn him of its temperature, and he puts it down just as quick, a guttural sound of disgust. “Let’s go for a walk at least, then. Fresh air will do us some good,” he suggests.
Shepard dips her head in a nod, leaving her mess scattered across the table to be dealt with later. She’s lacing up her boots when Vega heads to the door.
“I might have followed your suggestions about doing a search on the extranet late last night…" Vega says, his hand stilled before he hits the door release, "and I’ve got a couple more questions.”