Curiosity

The three women sitting in Shepard's cabin were giggling like schoolgirls. At least Tali and Shepard were; Jack was just wearing a shit-eating grin. "No, really, Shepard, how the hell do you do it?" Jack asked.

Shepard turned to face Jack. "What do you mean?"

"You're dating a turian, Shepard, you tell me."

Shepard blushed wildly. "Garrus and I are not dating!"

"You kind of are, Shepard," Tali piped up.

"What would you know about it, Tali?"

Tali looked offended. "Did you expect me to know nothing about humans? Just because I've spent so much time around my people doesn't mean that I don't know about other species!"

"Well excuse me!" Shepard squealed. She and Tali giggled again. Jack just smiled and rolled her eyes at them.

"You two should stop your awkward flirting and just fuck already," Jack said. Shepard blushed again. "Seriously. Call him up here or something, Tali and I will leave."

"Stop."

"What?" Jack shrugged. "There is some serious unresolved sexual tension there. Which is the nice way of saying you two need to fuck already. I can't make it anymore obvious, Shepard."

Shepard stumbled to her feet from her cross-legged sitting position and walked a relatively straight line to her private terminal on her desk. "What is it, Shepard?" Garrus' dual-toned voice rang through the comm.

"Would you come up here, please?"

"Are you alright, Shepard?"

"Fine! Totally fine! I just want you to come up here, okay?"

"On my way."

Shepard looked up at Jack and Tali. Jack was wearing the shit-eating grin again, one that said Ha. I win. "He'll be here any minute! Go on!" Shepard squeaked, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture at them.

"Shit, Shepard, a little eager, are you?"

"Shh!" Shepard hissed, pressing a finger to her lips.

The door to the cabin opened and Garrus stepped in. He saw Tali and Jack and then looked over at Shepard. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"Not at all, Garrus, Jack and I were just leaving," Tali answered.

Garrus nodded politely as the two ladies left the cabin. Shepard watched them enter the elevator as the cabin door closed, then grinned stupidly up at Garrus. "Hi," she said.

Garrus looked Shepard over with sunken eyebrow plates and a smirk. He took a few steps toward her and asked, "What were Tali and Jack doing up here? I thought Jack never left that underbelly section down in engineering."

"Just talking," Shepard answered, her voice cracking as she bit off the last word.

Then Garrus noticed the empty bottle standing next to her bed. "You were drinking?"

Shepard giggled. "Yeah."

"And you didn't invite me?" Shepard's giggles intensified and Garrus' mandibles flicked in amusement. "Or was it girls only?" Shepard nodded. "Well what did you talk about? Am I allowed to know?"

"We talked about a lot of things. It was mostly Jack talking about what she had done before she was captured and taken to Purgatory. Then she asked me how I did it."

"Did what?"

"I asked her the same thing! And she said that..." Shepard looked away from Garrus, her cheeks blooming red.

"Yes?" Garrus urged.

With a nervous smile, Shepard looked back up at Garrus, but her eyes couldn't keep contact with his for longer than a few seconds at a time. "She said that I should tell her because I was the one dating the turian." As the words left her mouth, Shepard's cheeks just flared hotter and hotter, making her turn her head down towards the floor. The green of her eyes was intensified by the bright red of her face, and the nervous glances Garrus kept getting made his mandibles flick as he smiled.

Garrus took a few steps closer to Shepard and tried to catch her eyes with his. He had to wade through a small pond of nervous glances, but she finally held eye contact when she saw that he wasn't looking away. "Shepard," Garrus called quietly.

"Yeah?" Shepard's voice was small and more nervous than ever.

"How much did you protest her?"

Shepard giggled softly. "A lot." Some of the color bled out of her cheeks as she spoke.

"And Jack's response?" The low level of Garrus' voice amplified the dual-tonality, sending a shiver down Shepard's spine like the lightest of fingers trailing down her back.

Shepard's cheeks flared bright red again when she merely thought of what Jack had said to her. She wasn't even sure she could repeat the words playing in her head like a bad vid. "She said there was a lot of unresolved sexual tension," Shepard murmured to the floor.

"Were those her actual words?"

Shepard smiled. "Yes. Then she corrected herself."

Another smirk crossed the hard turian face. Garrus reached down and took one of Shepard's hands in his own. "Well let's start slow, okay?"

Shepard grinned down at her hand held by Garrus' and then grinned up at the turian's face. His mandibles flicked again as he pulled her away from her desk lightly. The pair stepped carefully down the few stairs, making sure that Shepard didn't fall as they walked to the bed. "You need to sleep this off, Shepard." She merely nodded as she attempted to sit down on the bed.

Instead, she fell over onto her back right away. She began to giggle uncontrollably as Garrus sat down next to her. When her giggles subsided, Shepard craned her neck to look up at Garrus. "You're upside down."

Garrus laughed, the dual-tonality again amplified. "Come up here to the pillows."

Shepard crawled up to the pillows and laid on her side, away from Garrus. With her eyes closed, she felt one of the turian's arms silently ask to cradle her waist from underneath. She lifted her hips up long enough for Garrus to snake his arm under, but with a second lift of her hips, he took the hint that it was not a comfortable position for her. Instead, Garrus placed that arm in between their heads and stroke her blonde hair that had been let out of the bun. The other arm draped over Shepard's waist, and she smiled as sleep laid over her like a warm blanket.

When she awoke, Shepard's head ached like someone had just fired a concussive round into her helmet. Squinting, she began to roll over, but felt the weight of an arm on her waist. Shepard smiled when she remembered she had called Garrus up to her cabin last night at the direction of Jack and half a bottle of brandy. "Good morning," Garrus grumbled from next to her.

Shepard smiled as she turned over. "So I guess that's how you cuddle with a turian," she remarked.

Garrus responded with a throaty chuckle. "Think you can remember that for tonight?" he asked.

Shepard grinned and absentmindedly ran two fingers lightly over the scar on Garrus' cheek. "I'm pretty sure I can recall it whenever I need it."