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commander-krios · 3 months

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A Safe Place

Fandom: Mass Effect Pairing: Female Shepard & Jeff "Joker" Moreau Rating: Teen Summary: Jeff Moreau is her best friend, her safe place in a galaxy full of war. And he'll always be there to catch her. Words: 2481 Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, Post-Akuze, Mild Gore, Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, Scars, Healing/Recovering Injury, Survivor's Guilt

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September 2177, Tiptree, St. Luke System, Llewyn Nebula

As Aurora Shepard pulled the shirt over her head, her eyes were drawn to the scars trailing down her back. Red puckered scar tissue several shades darker than her skin tone twisted in a gruesome design across her back. Thresher maw acid burned into tissue, muscle. Searing pain that made her claw at her skin. The accompanying sting when she rolled in the sandy dirt in an attempt to rid herself of the acid.

Shaking the memories from her mind, she braced her hands against the sink and watched the water swirl in the bowl. It’d only been a few weeks since Akuze, since fifty marines died in a sandy mass grave, and it still haunted her at every turn.

The sight of a suspiciously flat patch of ground. The howl of the wind. The tremble of the earth beneath her feet.

She’d never be rid of the desperate fear, of the regret she felt every time she glimpsed her reflection, knowing that there were fifty men and women who’d never have the chance again.

Why was she spared the same gruesome fate?

When Shepard glanced in the mirror, a blank expression stared back. Dull yellow light only deepened the dark circles under her eyes, the bruises on her chin. She may have survived the maw on Akuze, but there were far worse scars she carried. She could still hear Toombs’ screams as the maw pulled him beneath the sand, fingers bloody as he tried to pull himself out. Seeing his terror, hearing her name on his lips as the sand choked him-

Shuddering, she turned away from her reflection, letting the memories fade into nothing but wisps. She’d promised Anderson not to dwell on them, fearing that she might lose herself in the past and neglect the present. She tried to heed the advice, but the dark recesses of her mind called out, tempting her back into swallowing despair.

Tonight, there’d be no sleep.

So instead, she walked.

Tiptree was never quiet.

Aurora supposed the colony was comforting in its own way: the bugs chirping in the fields, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the cry of a wild animal in the distance. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. She’d never had the chance to enjoy the stillness of a summer night, not when the majority of her life was spent on space stations and starships. Not when she was shuttled between missions, a helmet on her head and a commander in her ear.

She’d never seen the stars planetside before. To her surprise, they looked the same from a viewport, but that didn’t make them any less beautiful. Bright, burning pinpoints of light she would never tire staring at.

Shepard shivered, the summer wind blowing through her thin shirt. She wrapped her arms around herself, her fingers catching the edge of her raw scars and she flinched, nearly biting her tongue as the pain seared her nerves. She’d been shot, stabbed, burned before in different situations with an array of different weapons. They all hurt like hell, but the pain easily passed with some pills and medigel. Sometimes, she would need minor surgery to remove shrapnel, but the medical technology was the best it'd ever been. Most times it didn’t scar.

But thresher maws weren’t bullets or thermal burns.

She’d have those scars for the rest of her life.

The porch swing was cool against her skin as she sat, goosebumps rising along her arms and legs. She didn’t rub them away, fearing more pain if she nudged her scars. Instead, she rested her elbows on her knees, her face settling in her hands as she fought the urge to cry.

Jeff was so kind. After she’d woken up on Arcturus Station, he was there by her hospital bed, willing to be the one to help her through the pain and trauma.

I owe you, he’d said. For all the times you’ve helped me.

Aurora had wanted to argue with him, but she’d been in agony and beyond exhausted, afraid to sleep alone with no protection against the shadows that lurked around every corner. He’d barely left her side since the Alliance had rescued her, the least she could do was give him the opportunity to feel useful. If it meant something to him, then it did to her as well.

In the end, it didn’t change the fact that sleep still eluded her, the terror that clung to her since Akuze refused to release its claws and let her rest.

There’d been nowhere for her stay while she recovered. Hannah Shepard had long ago sold their apartment on Arcturus, the majority of her time spent aboard spaceships working. Daniel hadn’t returned to the space station since Elysium, preferring the company of his boyfriend and their small apartment in Vancouver. And Aurora…well, she hadn’t called anywhere home for some time.

Mr. Moreau had offered to take her in, assuring her that she could rest in the quiet comfort of Tiptree, that he would make sure no one came knocking. His wife was a doctor if she was concerned about being a burden which was a preposterous thought to begin with.

Then there was Jeff, who didn’t even have to do much to convince her to come stay in his childhood home with his rambunctious kid sister.

Now she was sitting outside of their home in the dark, the rest of the house asleep, while she dealt with the nightmares she saw whether she closed her eyes or not. She didn’t know how long a human could go without sleep, but she figured now was as good a time as any to find out.

Rubbing her eyes, she tried to imagine something else, anything to distract her, but the only thing that came to mind was the friend who wouldn’t give up on her, no matter what happened.

Jeff Moreau was the only person who didn’t care that her mother was Hannah Shepard, or that Admiral Steven Hackett was her stepfather, or that she was a biotic. He saw her for who she was, not what she was, and the more she thought about it, thought about him, the more she realized that she was just a scared girl who relied on those that were so much better than her.

You don’t deserve him, not as a friend, and certainly not as something more.

She roughly wiped a stray tear from her cheek and glanced up at the night sky once more, her fingers drifting to the crystal star dangling from the chain on her neck. It was nights like this when she’d think of her father, of when the two of them would stare out the enormous viewing windows on Arcturus and he’d tell her which solar system each pinprick of light came from. He’d visited some of them once, a long time before she and her brother were born.

She remembered being afraid that he regretted his choice, to stay on the space station with her and Daniel, to relegate his research to a lab and not be out among the stars like their mother was. But he didn’t.

“You and Daniel are my greatest triumphs and most beloved treasures.”

Aurora wondered if he still felt the same. If, wherever he was, he looked at her accomplishments and was proud.

Someone should be proud of her, at least.

The creak of wood planks alerted her that she was no longer alone and she tensed, ready to fight if need be. The glow of the porch light illuminated Jeff in the dark as he leaned on his crutches, his hair a mess of ginger strands, shadows hiding his face but she knew, as she gazed at him in the dim light, that he couldn’t sleep either. She only hoped it wasn’t because of her.

Her heart pounded a painful beat in her chest when he silently sat beside her on the bench, a baggy hoodie keeping him warm in the chilly night. His hands were tucked into the pockets, his gaze on the sky above, the stars a sight to behold on solid ground. Silence stretched between them, comfortable and familiar, and they slipped into it with open arms, neither needing words to feel the connection between them.

“You’re quiet.” He said eventually, breaking through the quiet before it turned awkward. His eyes were hidden from view when she glanced at him, ignoring the painful pull of her scars. “Something on your mind?”

So much. But there was too much pain to share at this point. Besides the fact that she didn’t know where to start, unburdening her worries would only add to the issues he had. With the smallest of grins on her face, something that was impossible not to have around him, she glanced sideways at him. “That’s what my therapist is for.”

He rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, it’s the ‘best one in the Alliance’.”

“Oh, so you’ve met her too?” Aurora sighed, the anxiety untangling its vines slightly from around her lungs. She could breathe a little easier in Jeff’s presence.

“Alliance mandated therapy sessions after my run in with Nate Doyle all those years ago. That was fun.”

There was no missing the sarcasm.

He bumped her good arm with his shoulder, soft enough that she barely moved but the touch was welcome, comforting… she didn’t realize how much she missed their easy comradery. “Come on. Spilling your guts to me won’t result in being discharged from the Navy.”

“I’m a Marine, Jeff.”

“Hey, it’s all run by the same assholes. Just humor me. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people aboard the SSV Benjamin Davis that have no sense of humor… it’s an epidemic, Aurora.”

“My mother commands that ship.” She said with a laugh. The sound was almost foreign to her ears, but the smile stayed.

He grinned at her in triumph. “I know.”

Rolling her eyes, she bumped him back, a bark of a laugh escaping her. It felt good to laugh, so good in fact that she felt guilty for doing so when there were fifty marines who couldn’t do the same anymore. Not when they were sinking into the sands of Akuze, nothing but putrid damaged bodies, nothing left worth recovering-

“Hey.”

Blinking back tears, Aurora realized Jeff was watching her, those green eyes she sought comfort in so many times studying every twitch of her eyes, every wrinkle in her brow, every gasp of breath between her lips.

“I’m here, Rori. You don’t have to do this alone.” He covered her shaking hands with one of his one, pressing down to help still the tremors. “We’re a team, remember?”

“Jeff, I-” She hastily wiped a tear before it could fall, hating how easy it was for her to hide behind the Shepard persona. The very one that her mother so diligently helped craft. Because if Hannah Shepard was anything, it was a woman who didn’t abide weakness in her children.

Life on Tiptree was different from life on Arcturus. It was peaceful, far from the politics of the Citadel or the Alliance military. Far from the horrors of war or death. It was tempting to consider the possibility of disappearing here. After everything with Elysium and then Akuze, she wondered if she’d get away with it… disappearing.

She’d never do it, she knew that. Not when so much of her young life, service to the Systems Alliance had been drilled into her. Not when her father had sacrificed so much to give her a life worth living.

“I’m sorry.”

The words slipped out before she even realized she’d said them. She flinched at how weak her voice sounded, how weak she was, even after years in the military. If her mother could see her now.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

But it was. She didn’t know how he didn’t see that. After everything he knew of her, Jeff still saw the best parts.

“Don’t argue with me. Just look up.” Jeff whispered, pointing to some distant thing in the sky. When her eyes followed his finger, she saw the tail end of a comet as it completed its arc. “Shut up and make a wish.”

She considered her options, knowing what her instincts were screaming at her to say. To wish happiness for the galaxy, for peace or some other platitude that Jeff would immediately wave away with a scoff and frown. He wasn’t looking for a serious answer. He was providing her with a distraction. One she desperately needed like a lifeline.

Tapping her chin with a finger, she watched as a smile curled his lips. Good, he was hooked already. “A wish isn’t something to just blurt out into the dark like this, Jeff. It needs to be considered carefully, mulled over.”

“God, you love making games boring, don’t you?”

“Take that back right now.”

“What are you going to do? It’s not like you can tickle me without breaking at least one of my bones.” He lifted his hands, wiggling his fingers mockingly. “And your fancy superpowers are off limits, freak.”

A surprised laugh escaped her and she found that, this time, it didn’t hurt so much. “Ouch. Not holding back tonight?”

“Make a wish, Shepard.”

Sighing, she glanced up at the sky again, realizing that this was what home was. Not the place, not really. But the people she carried with her. In her thoughts and in her heart. Her father: who was now resting after a lifetime of fighting. Her twin: who was out there fighting the same battles she was. And Jeff Moreau, her best friend… the first person she could count on when the shit hit the fan.

“I wish… to have more nights like this.”

With you.

She couldn’t say it, not when it was mushy and Jeff didn’t do the touchy feely emotional shit. But she knew nothing would be the same without her best friend.

“Well, we can but you need to promise me one thing.”

She glanced at him, eyebrow raised curiously, knowing that whatever came out of his mouth was most likely going to be insulting. It wouldn’t be Jeff if it wasn’t. “What?”

“You need to stop trying to get yourself killed, Rori. I’m too young and beautiful for grey hair.”

She laughed, resisting the urge to shove him. He was terrible, but he made her feel normal, accepted, and alive. It was selfish, but she needed him to keep going, however long that was. “That’s a tall order, Moreau. Didn’t you say you wanted to fly my future ship? How are you going to keep your luscious hair doing that?”

“With me at your back, you can’t lose.”

Funnily enough, she trusted him so much that she believed him.

#my writing #mass effect #mass effect fanfic #me fanfic #femshep #aurora shepard #shepard #f!shepard #jeff joker moreau #joker moreau #aurora x joker #akuze

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thatwildwolfart · 1 year

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and you look in the mirror and hate the face that looks back at you

This is a fanart of my fanfic Edge of Yesterday, which is a post-canon amnesia Shakarian story. There's a lot of Shepard looking into the mirror and seeing everything she's not in that fic.

#mass effect #mass effect fanart #femshep #shakarian #mass effect fanfic #my art #edge of yesterday tag

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shittybundaskenyer · 7 months

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✹ ▬ 𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐒

rating: Explicit pairing: Female Shepard x Garrus Vakarian summary: the Mako breaks down in a snowstorm on Noveria. Shepard is stuck with her turian friend after some things went sideways in one of the research labs. warnings: first time gone wrong (but then so right), sex pollen, so much kissing, just pure smut (what do you want from me??), does doing it in the Mako is considered car sex?, interspecies sex, love confessions, so much fluff, Garrus is too sweet for his own good word count: 3831 ��

a/n: I had Mass Effect Legendary Edition on my PC for like a year and I'm now cursing myself why I've waited for so long to play the trilogy. The Bioware brainrot took me once more under its influence so I guess I'm going back to my roots. This is almost entirely is pure smut, I guess I can't write anything else nowadays but I'm embracing it now. So have this very rusty, messy love scene I wrote in a frenzy after finishing the trilogy. <33

MASTERLIST | ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

Noveria is cold and white and still beautiful in that strange way only death can be. It became the noose woven around Garrus’ own neck too, when it twirled his fate and Shepard's own together in form of a messy string.

It only started becoming strange when Shepard started to tear her armor off of her body, but by then all common sense was out, laying dead in the relentless snowstorm. She became feverish, smelling so sweet, like summer, like sun-warmed earth, like arousal that Garrus had realized all too late. They were warned by the dangers of the labs surrounding Peak 15, the tower that was like an old pine ringed by fungi, all the rot and unethical discoveries blooming under the disguise of neat little buildings that twinkled in the darkened landscape—a constellation hiding in a thick cloud of dark matter.

He knows she was curious. He knows she only wanted to help, but Spirits, it will be the death of her one day, N7 or not, she’s only human. And she’s fragile, a goddamn glass cannon that can blow up the whole universe and crumble from hands that grip her a bit too tight at the same time.

Liara’s warning came too late, they had to cut to the chase and there was no time to think about the consequences of Shepard's stray shot breaking open the containment cell of an unnaturally lush, succulent little flower in one of the labs. It didn’t set in until they were in the Mako and she steered the dumb tank even more recklessly than she did it stone cold sober. A boulder came, then the half of the mountain too, raining down thick globes of fresh snow until the Mako was good and well stuck. She was sweating by then, skin hot and wet and her eyes wild and Liara offered to get help from one of the nearby labs, leaving Garrus to protect his commander with his life. From what, he didn’t know. There was nothing, only snow and wind and Shepard’s warmth all around them for miles. But time trickled by like water on a glass window after a storm, slow, sluggish, and Shepard couldn’t keep herself in line anymore.

She pleaded for a caress she always wanted from him and he wanted to give her everything instead.

(Maybe he loved her all along.)

And now, now Liara is gone and has been gone for hours, and Garrus pushes Shepard into the Mako's seat, his forehead meeting hers, something akin to a kiss only lovers do. Her skin is damp, her hair sticking to her face in messed up crimson ribbons and he tries to trace the constellations under her eye with a blunted talon when blood floods her cheeks, making them twinkle like stars adrift a sea of nebulae. The Mako is dark but not dark enough to hide the fire flickering in her gaze, shielded by a series of curved, dark lashes. Humans and their strange hair—eyebrows and lashes and thousands of fair fuzz that stand up as he moves his hand lover, to the vulnerable skin of her throat, swiping a thumb over her pulse that jumps wildly at the touch.

"Kiss me," she whispers, barely audible for the translator to pick up, and it almost sounds like music like this, a series of hisses and high notes, so he nuzzles his way closer to hear it once more, now pleading, the sound buzzing in her throat.

It's beautiful in a way.

"How?" he whispers against the side of her jaw, warm plates against cooler skin, and she puts a hand to his face, five fingers splaying over his colony markings, urging him upwards until her lips can brush over his mouth. It's strange. It's unbelievably soft. Then— wet as her tongue darts out and tries to coax his mouth plates apart.

He takes the leap and lets her in. Even if he has all the sharp teeth, even if it's wildly different from his own experiences. And Spirits, it feels good. It's tender—even though they started to tear at each other's armor before this, even though he has to clench his fingers into a fist before he scratches her in his hurry. This has to be gentle where nothing in the world is.

His tongue meets hers, and now he understands why humans like kissing so much. He does now too. Shepard makes a sound as he tastes the inside of her mouth, the blunt edge of her teeth and sucks in a breath when Garrus pulls back to gaze down at her and find her looking dazed.

"Alright?," he checks, always, afraid of fucking this precious thing up and Shepard has the audacity to smile. Full of teeth and curving lips, a flash of white in the darkness.

"I'm good," she knocks her forehead against his, nuzzling him, "really good."

Garrus kisses her again as an answer, bolder now, so much braver, and he kisses and kisses her until there's no more left to give, until there's no air in her lungs. Something new shines in her eyes, in the pool of darkness that is her pupils, dilated beyond belief, ringed by a thin strip of wild green, a black hole with a halo. Want. Need. Something more. Something unbelievable.

Garrus rumbles deep in his chest, a sound so low she can only feel its vibration against her sternum, the crook of her neck where his face finds a home. His subvocals sing so many things at once, a confession she can't understand, not yet. Contentment. Gratefulness. Lust. Love.

(Maybe I love you.)

She drags her hand across his face again, that delicate, soft hand that is only calloused in places where wielding a gun made the skin harder. She touches his fringe, and under it, where plates turn into the most vulnerable patch of hide he has on his body. His voice grows louder, more like a growl than a purr, and she smiles again, so pretty something under his keelbone jumps and bursts and flickers—a star being born.

"That's—," he starts and he's not proud of the way his voice trembles. "That's one way to give the night a quick start."

Shepard's fingers stop in their movement, but before she could pull away he takes a hold of her forearm and soothes a thumb over the inside of her wrist, guiding her back to that spot.

"Am I hurting you?"

"Spirits, no," he flicks a mandible at her, his way of smiling, and Shepard puts her mouth to his jaw as her confidence grows. Garrus can feel the plates at his sheath slowly parting and somehow he's hyperaware of her body trapped against his, her knee brushing his own, warm even through metal and ceramic plates.

They have to strip down that damn armor, like, right now.

But Shepard knows this, feels this too, and her hand disappears so she can grab the waist of his pants and tug on it, even though turian armor is not designed in a way that it could make it come off easily.

"Help me, will you?" she asks against the side of his mandible, face and incredibly soft lips still so close, her eyelashes brushing his jaw as she looks down between them in the dark and Garrus desperately wishes that he could feel that fluttering. Instead, he's stripping. The rest of his undersuit that was hanging by his hips goes lower when he unfastens every little clasp and belt he has around his spurs.

Shepard licks his mouth. He rumbles again, louder when the thin fabric of protective weave finally pools on the Mako's floor, and he's right up there against her, pressing close, so close, until his keel digs between her breasts and his side is framed by her knees and he kisses her the human way, with so much tongue and want it leaves her breathless.

"How much time do we have?" he asks against the underside of her ear, finding a soft spot there, one that pulls a whimper from her.

"Barely any," she hisses and lets him nibble on the curve of her neck. "Gonna make the most of it?"

"Trying to," he smiles, mandibles catching her messy hair, blood red on silver, hands going up to cradle her nape, to get lost in that soft sea of crimson.

Shepard likes this, likes the feel of his hide on her skin and she wants more, wants no barriers in those minimal, quiet gaps the differences of their bodies create. Negative space filled with heat and some unintelligible emotion, something like summer, something like home. She melds her body to his and Garrus can't help the low resonance his subvocals start to make.

"Am I hurting you?" she whispers as she lays tiny kisses on his neck, just beside the edge of the plates shielding his spine. "You're trembling."

"No, I just—," his breath hitches as those kisses turn into gentle nips. Right where a bondmark would go. Spirits, he's slipping. She can't know this, she can't— "You just found all the good buttons to push."

He feels her smirk on his hide. He wants to have her mark here, even though the thought terrifies him.

(Maybe I love you.)

"You know I'm good at pushing buttons."

Garrus chuckles but it comes out rasped. He doesn't care. Not when he can feel her body vibrating, shivering as his hands finally roam downwards, onto her sides, her hips, the soft of her belly that is so blessedly bare.

He slides a talon along the muscles leading down, around the small divot in the middle, lower still where Shepard's already lifting her hips up to let him free her of her undersuit pants. There's still some fabric that remains, covering her most intimate parts but she grabs his hands and makes him grip the fabric of it in a hurry.

"Pull this down too," she whisper-commands and he obliges, skims the tips of his blunted talons over the jut of her hipbones, a feature all too familiar on a body made of infinite curves. It traps his gaze, the small hills and valleys, freckled here too, and hairy when he gazes lower, a trail of tiny red curls disappearing between lush thighs as he reveals more of her skin.

The undergarment only gets down one leg, dangles on the other by her knee when he pries apart her thighs, makes himself at home right in the cradle of them. This is all too fast and all too hot, but none of them complains as they meet in another heated kiss. She smells different like this, stronger, sweet and tangy and something else, pure arousal he realizes, and Garrus can't hold himself back any longer, can't will the swollen edges of his sheath to stay closed.

"Show me how to touch you," he asks, almost pleads, because damn, he can't be selfish with her, not when he trusts her with his life and wants all the happiness the world can offer for her. That too, is a confession he's not ready to make, not for himself and not for her, but Shepard stops him in his thoughts as she puts her hand back right under his fringe, driving him wild.

"None of that right now," she pants, breathless as his hands go bruising on her hips. "I just want you inside me."

Fuck, this was not the way Garrus thought he would die.

"I don't want to hurt—" she interrupts him with another kiss, then a hand on his stomach, low enough to almost graze the plates on his groin.

"Please, Garrus," it's a plea. Broken and rasped. Raw, like a fresh wound. Why is she suffering?

"Don't let me hurt you. I could not live with myself and the consequences."

"You're sweet," she smiles quietly, looking up at him from under the shadow of those long lashes, eyes burning with fire and want and that same thing that eats his heart alive, while it still beats a wild rhythm only for her.

Garrus touches a hand between her legs, follows the trail of fascinating hair to where it parts in a seam of flesh, soft folds hiding a hot, wet warmth. It's familiar enough, so much more slick and so much smaller, but there's give in the muscle lower, where his finger finally dips inside her. Spirits, that’s—

She angles her hips, and moans, right beside his ear when his finger slips deeper, almost to the last knuckle in one go and damn if that's not something he'll remember for the rest of his life.

"C'mon," her lips brush the word against his mandible. He puts his forehead to hers and pulls his hand away, moving her instead, three fingers splayed on the jut of a hipbone.

It takes a little more shuffling, a little more angling and gripping for him to slot himself right at the apex of her thighs, her warmth scorching here, a sun, a red giant star, her wetness smearing on the bare hide of his stomach and then he's holding her firm and letting his sheath finally, blessedly open, his cock sliding out and into her in a slow, perfect motion.

Shepard doesn't breathe. She can't. Garrus can feel her shuddering against his keel as he keeps filling her, making way for himself inside her even though there's barely any. He never thought she could— that she would have all of him, like this, with her leg cramping up around his hip, with her throat full to bursting with unsaid curses and whimpers. His subvocals scream, his mind fogged by the feeling of her oh so close, so perfect, so beautiful like this, with her hands bruising his neck and her lips open on some silent shout.

"Fuck, Garrus I—," there's a hitch in her breath, then a fluttering squeeze right on his cock, her muscles clenching up. He's gonna lose his mind just like how he lost control of his voice.

(I love you.)

“I got you,” he murmurs instead, eyes half-closed, hands still gripping her waist. “I got you sweetheart.”

Shepard squirms, pulls his face right down to her, then lower, into the crook of her neck and a deep urge surfaces in him, an instinct buried deep under centuries of civilized life and culture, yet it was never erased from his genes. He evolved like this, with the want, the need, to bite, to mark something that he wants to forever keep his own. Turians mate for life. If she leaves now, he thinks he will die. Can another soul be ripped from his own? He would gladly lay in a cold grave with her. Would follow her to the end of the universe and back, just so he can protect her. Shield the one that wants to keep the world from crumbling. Travel through all the stars and Mass Relays laying dormant, see all the wild emptiness and beauty of the galaxy and it would still be nothing compared to the way she looks up at him now.

There’s water collecting at her pinched brows; sweat, he remembers, and he lifts a hand there to swipe it away. Her eyes are wet too, glossy, glinting in the low light like a starry night sky over home.

“Garrus—” she presses out between her teeth, her face scrunched up in a frown of pain-pleasure he assumes, because she never makes a move to push him away, to halt this perfect joining. He hopes it’s okay. He hopes he’s not fucking this up. Losing her after this would be a killing blow. A heart-shaped bullet hole right on his heart.

“Just tell me how,” he takes her cheek in his palm, angles her so that he can kiss her. Slowly. Softly. It’s a fleeting thing that ends with her nipping on his mouth, his tongue, just to get his attention. Like his every nerve was not focused on her anyway from the start.

“Please move,” she murmurs against his mandible, her body squeezing him tight, making him groan. He pulls back a little, testing, careful, always so afraid of hurting her, his tough girl, but Shepard smiles and it’s enough to make him thrust shallowly into her. “Yeah, you feel so good.”

Garrus’ vision whites out for a second as her insides tug him back inside, so warm and so wet that a messy patch is already forming between their bodies, his sheath hitting her folds, the friction blinding, and the sight even more as he looks down, fringe tangled into her hair, and in the darkness he finds himself nestled deep, her cunt stretched around him, glistening in their combined want.

He moves, spirits, he moves. And his chest rumbles and his hands shake and his mandibles twitch at her cheek and his heart aches so damn hard it makes his breaths get stuck in his lungs like trapped creatures in a bone cage.

(I love you so damn much.)

She moves with him like a tide, like water rising on an endless black ocean alight with stars, then falling back, and even though he knows she's the most horrible dancer the galaxy has, she follows the steps of this tango by heart. Maybe because it's wanted. Maybe because it's with him. He desperately wishes that it would be true.

"I won't last long like this," his voice is barely picked up by the translator and he knows this, hopes that she doesn't mind the sounds he makes. They're real. So perfectly clear in their meaning, so sure in expressing something he's not yet ready to say when she can understand.

(I love you, I love you, I love you.)

She puts a palm to his stomach, just above his sheath, five lithe fingers mapping out the narrow lines of his sides, and damn, it makes his cock twitch, makes him thrust in roughly for the first time. There's a sound of delight. It comes from her, head tipped back and lips smeared with spit and red strands of hair, like fresh blood after a good brawl.

"Yes," she breathes out, dragging him down to her, clinging to him tightly as he finally moves his hips in a hard, steady rhythm. His knees are gonna kill him later but it doesn’t matter because he’s with her, joined like lovers, like mates.

She takes his hand, leads it over her body, to the divot of her collarbones, her sternum, the dip of her stomach, then the soft of her belly where she makes him press down a little, makes him feel the distinct shape of him moving inside her. That's something entirely new.

It makes him even more aware of the fact that this small, fragile woman would take up a krogan in a fistfight and come out alive. It makes him lose his mind. It makes some sick, posessive part of him growl and rumble and hold her so tight he's sure her hips are gonna bruise.

"Shepard," he hisses, one hand gripping the seat behind her to find more leverage, her sounds getting louder, out of breath and high-pitched, his name a silent mantra only muttered with gaping lips. “Show me how to make you come.”

She whimpers, clutches his fingers tighter on her navel. The talons of his other hand tear the Mako’s seat behind her. She drags his palm over the mound of hairy flesh where they join, and he enjoys carding his talons through the curls, then she takes a thick finger and places the pad of it just above where he’s stretching her open with his cock, on a small bundle of swollen flesh that instantly makes her tighten around him. This is something he could never get used to—the tight warmth clinging to him like a second skin under Palaven’s unforgiving sun. He swipes his thumb over it, then draws a slow circle. The tightness becomes almost unbearable. He keens.

“Damn clever turian,” she hiccups, grinding into his touch, into his unsteady thrusts, her hand gripping his wrist instead, not guiding but trying to steady herself. “I’m so close, Garrus.”

He nuzzles her jaw at that, forehead meeting forehead after, then lips with plates, tongue with tongue. The kiss breaks off in a series of desperate gasps, and Garrus murmurs against her, “let me come with you. Senna, please I—”

“Love you,” she pants into the crook of his neck, teeth grazing him, and then biting in when he pushes his whole length into her, the stretch unbearable, her words ringing in his ears like endless echoes in a hallway made of dark matter and stardust, and he claims her, puncturing her shoulder and filling her cunt, his tie growing, the taste of her blood bursting on his tongue. Sweet. Salty. Iron. Just like her.

She tightens on him impossibly so, and then there’s a fluttering, her muscles spasming violently in an orgasm that makes her legs shake and her stomach jump. His thumb slowly stops moving on the bundle of flesh she showed him when her short nails dig forcefully into his forearm.

(I love you, I love you, I love you—)

Subvocals screaming, his whole body trembling, he finally releases her flesh, knocks his nose against hers until her eyes flutter open, dazed and unfocused, brimmed with tears, pupils dilated to infinity. She smiles, blunt teeth flashing white and blue in the low light, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that it’s his own blood on her lips.

He leans down to lick it off, to embrace her tighter, to feel the taste of her tingle in the back of his throat. She bit him. She marked him for life.

“I love you so damn much, baby.”

It’s out and it’s his own shot right through his heart, a shard of metal carved out just in the shape of her, and Garrus knows that nothing ever will be the same. The marks, the blood, his tie cradled by her fluttering warmth, his heart laying bare out in the snow, thawing in her warmth.

Turians don’t like the cold, but Shepard scorches and it's just the right way.

“Thank you,” she whispers, weak now, entirely spent, but not influenced by the poison of want anymore. “I know this was… not how a first date should’ve happened but…” she bites the bruised swell of her bottom lip and he smooths a hand over her cheek, brushing away sticky hairs from her face. “Can we… have a next time?”

Garrus flicks out his mandibles in a smile and hugs her tighter, reassuring, eyes full of hope and wonder and her own disheveled reflection, “I want all the next times with you.”

“Good,” her grin tickles his hide, mischievous now. “I’m looking forward to it.”

(I do too. I do, I do, I do.)

#mass effect #mass effect fanfiction #shakarian #shepard x garrus #garrus x shepard #garrus vakarian #commander shepard #oc: senna shepard #mass effect 1 #mass effect legendary edition #mass effect fanfic #shakarian fanfic #so um i wrote this while being sleep deprived #i'm so rusty #but heyy new babies i can obsess over #i cried so hard at the end of the trilogy i had to do something about it #you call it coping i call it the writer's muse

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lilmissnatcat24 · 7 months

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I read something along this vein in a romcom recently, and I want to do a Lil shakarian drabble with it. ((It's probably not going in turn left, but maybe that heist fic I'm planning)) ((the book is you again by Katie Goldbeck btw)) please enjoy

The space between Shepard and Garrus was shrinking faster than her common sense and her ability to think and act in a productive manner. She noticed the tiny things about him she's only dared to peek at before-- the way his eyes caught the light overhead of them, the way his mandibles dripped down his jaw like water on a windowsill, the way his subvocals grumbled deep within his chest.

"You're getting awfully close there..." she managed to whisper out, because if she tried to talk any louder she was sure her voice would shake.

"I am."

"Are you..." her voice failed her. She cleared her throat. He was so close she could take a deep breath and touch his carapace. "Are you going to kiss me?"

"Yes."

"It's-- it's just going to be a quick kiss? A little peck? Something casual like that?"

"No."

"And we're just going to be friends afterwards, yeah?" Shepard asked desperately, trying to justify everything that her body was screaming at her to do. "Because that's a thing that friends do sometimes, right?"

"It's not."

"Can you say anything other than monosyllables?" She gave one last effort to stop what was about to happen; not because she didn't want it, of course, but because she was terrified on what the other side will look like.

Garrus just brought a hand up to her cheek, his thumb brushing over her lip. He looked intently at it, as if it was his very first time ever seeing a human before.

"Will you shut up already?" He half whispered, half laughed, half pleaded.

#mass effect fanfiction #mass effect #mass effect fanfic #shakarian #shepard x garrus #femshep #garrus vakarian #drabble

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diaphanouso · 16 days

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✨Spec Reqs 2024 - My Fic!✨

Creators have been revealed!!! Here's what I wrote for my giftee:

Shelter from Storms Within | Liara T'Soni/Feron | Explicit

Even after taking on the mantle of Shadow Broker, there are still some things Liara is uncertain about. Like whether she did the right thing, handing Shepard over to Cerberus. Whether Shepard will ever forgive her, if she even deserves it. Whether Shepard and the Normandy crew will come out of the Collector battle alive. But how much she cares for Feron? That may be the only thing Liara is sure of.

Check out the rest of this year’s collection here! ❤️ Thanks for another wonderful event, @spectre-requisitions-exchange !

#spectre requisitions 2024 #spec reqs 2024 #spec recs 2024 #my fics #liara x feron #asari mind meld + drell eidetic memories #mass effect fanfic #mass effect rare pairs #liara t'soni #feron #liara t'soni x feron

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thatwildwolfwrites · 24 days

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one of my favourite passages from Edge of Yesterday [AO3]

#mass effect #shakarian #garrus vakarian #garrus #mass effect fanfic #edge of yesterday tag #am i still plugging this fic months after finishing it?#yes i am #it's my blog and i make the rules

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that-wildwolf · 6 months

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So uh how do you post fic to tumblr?

i wrote a thing and it's not a fic but it's not not a fic and uh yeah

────────────

Pain lasts.

It's something that Shepard has learned long ago but that always surprises her when she realises it. Pain lasts long after its source has disappeared.

She can still feel the leg she lost, still feels ache in what is no longer there. She wakes up in the middle of the night, clutches the empty sheets where it should be. It still hurts.

She can still feel the raw despair of losing Anderson, of losing Thane and Mordin and Legion and Miranda and Alenko and everyone else she's lost. Years pass and they're still gone, and it still hurts.

She can still feel the pain of leaving Garrus behind whenever he looks at her the way he did that last time in London. She feels his pain, and she feels her own, and they don't speak a word. It still hurts.

Pain lasts. Shepard knows that and she sees it in herself and she sees it in Garrus, and she still doesn't understand it. She doesn't understand why everything still hurts even long after it's supposed to stop. She doesn't understand why years pass but the pain doesn't.

She doesn't understand it, but she has always accepted it. Both she and Garrus have learned to live with the pain.

There is no innocence between them, no hoping for the best, no naiveté. There is no hope that things will get better. They just… get through every single day. Sometimes with ease, sometimes without ease, but always, always with dread that things will get so much worse. For every good day, there is a bad day. For every smile, there is a tear. For every good news, there's bad news.

But for all the hate and all the sadness, there's love. For every panic attack, there is love. For every tear, there is love. For every moment of loneliness or fear, there is love. Love is what prevails. Love is what keeps them going. Love doesn't disappear. Unlike everything else, love lasts. What they have... lasts.

Shepard's never known relationships to be like that. She subconsciously waits for the moment it implodes. That's what happens when people are in love, right? They fall out of love. They grow tired of each other.

It doesn't happen this time.

She treads carefully, not sure when this will end. It's got to end eventually, right? They can't just... stay in love forever, right? That's not how life works. That's not...

She doesn't understand it. She doesn't understand why love lasts this time. Why she doesn't grow tired of him. He's always there. Shouldn't she find that infuriating? Shouldn't he resent her for her mood swings and panic attacks? Shouldn't she find his depressive episodes too difficult to deal with? Shouldn't they be tired or even exhausted of being in this painfully co-dependent relationship?

Shouldn't they have fallen out of love by now?

"What are you thinking about?"

Garrus looks up at her, tiny brush in hand, for the moment looking away from his current task of painting her nails.

Shepard closes her eyes. A small smile spreads across her face as she holds his face in her free hand. The soft skin on the underside of his chin always surprises her. It's nothing like the usual roughness of his hide. Of course, as soon as she rubs her fingers on that spot, he starts purring. He always does. He does it for her, because she likes it, because it makes her smile, because she told him once that she liked it. So now he does it every time.

"You're going to laugh if I tell you," she chuckles.

"Shepard, honey, I promise I won't laugh at you." Garrus flicks his mandible — a small, lopsided smirk.

"I was thinking about how I love you."

He smiles, but now it's nothing like that sly smirk. Now, his whole face brightens up and his eyes sparkle. This is a genuine, happy smile. This is the best expression she's ever seen on his face. Every time he smiles like this, Shepard feels her will to live replenish completely. Fuck it, she's willing to do anything, to give up everything, as long as he continues to smile like this. She's ready to do whatever it takes to protect that smile.

"You were?" Garrus looks at her with that beautiful, genuine smile plastered all over his face and she wants nothing more than to hug him so tight it hurts.

"Yeah, I... was." Shepard bites on her bottom lip. His joy is out of place here. Her thoughts were not as pure and kind as he probably thinks they were. They weren't... nice. "But it wasn't... It's not what you think."

He wrinkles his nose. That smile she loves so much is gone within seconds. She hates being the thing that takes it away.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she says quickly. "Yeah, I'm... fine. I just... One of those days, you know."

"Alright." Garrus sits up in front of her, all business now. "Remember your breathing exercises. It's all about mindfulness. Here." He takes her hand and places it on her chest, over her heart. "Deep breath in. Feel the air in your lungs under your hand."

Shepard smiles. She's far from a panic attack, far from anxious enough to need this exercise right now, but... She might just indulge for his sake. If it will help set his mind at ease.

She takes a deep breath, and keeps her eyes on their joined hands as her chest rises. When she glances up at Garrus, she finds that he’s entirely focused on watching the rise and fall of her chest — she doesn’t doubt for a moment that he’s counting the seconds, measuring each of her breaths, because that’s just how he is. It takes her another second to recognise that the way he’s holding her hand allows him to keep his thumb on her wrist, to feel her pulse.

Shepard frowns when she sees that complete focus in his eyes. He always gets like this. As soon as anything even remotely upsetting comes up, he needs all the physical evidence he can possibly get to believe that she’s alright. Touching her chest has stopped being sexual — it is now just a sign of worry, of trying to reassure himself. Holding her hand is no longer romantic; it’s just him being scared. He doesn’t trust her words anymore, doesn’t believe her when she says she’s alright. He needs to know for sure, needs to check for himself.

Maybe, Shepard thinks, he’s lost her too many times now. Maybe he won’t ever be able to be calm about this, about her.

But — and that thought is comforting enough for her to actually grab his hand and gently move it off her chest — he still loves her.

Despite it all, despite the darkest and messiest parts of her, he still loves her.

Through the worst the galaxy has thrown at them, thrown at her, he still loves her.

For all the pain he’s had to endure, for all the difficulties of being with her, he still loves her.

He still loves her. She still loves him. Shepard is under no illusion about them: they’re extremely messed up, extremely damaged people. Maybe Garrus is the only person who could love her now. Maybe she’s the only person who could love him. She’s not so stupid as to say that what they have is what they wanted, but she’s not pessimistic either. She can see that the love is there, she can see that love lasts.

She still doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t understand why he still loves her any more than she can understand why she still loves him.

No, she doesn’t understand it.

But she never doubts it.

#shakarian #mass effect fanfic #mass effect not fanfic #i dont know what to call this

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