#m!shep x garrus

[emrisemrisemris]

You know how sometimes you get bitten by an Age of Sail horror AU in the middle of the night and have to write something down before it'll let you sleep

Shepard/Garrus, ME3, right before the Leviathan mission

---

Shepard lit another candle in the heavy-bottomed lantern, and by its light the two men looked at one another over the table. Normandy's timbers creaked and strained around them; things shifted and groaned in the ballast below, and outside and beneath and from every direction came the thudding, throbbing rhythm of the ice-choked sea.

Garrus was drawn and grey in the dim light, the blue tattoos bruise-dark. The leaping shadows made the silvered scars on his cheek and jaw freshly deep and heavy. Shepard's own old scars had started to open again, which meant scurvy, or would have done, but that Doctor Chakwas had found no other trace of it. 

Perhaps simply strain, she'd said.

Strain might tear a new-knit wound, but a year-old one? he'd retorted.

Neither you nor I know exactly what they did to you, Chakwas had said, and of the two people who might tell us, one is the Illusive Man and the other is dead.

Now, in the present, Garrus laced blue-inked, sharp-knuckled fingers through his captain's and said "Don't go down there."

Garrus' people were of the high peaks and did not sail, mistrusting salt water as the domain of death. Following a lowlander captain to sea had lost Garrus his old honours and the regard of his family, and the horrors of the deep had come to their silver mountains anyway. 

"They came from down there," Shepard said. They'd had this conversation three times, four, already, as the wounded ship crawled through the icy waters following Kenson's scrawled map. "There's something. You heard it, we all did. We have to go down." He looked into the eyes of the man who'd thrown over home and family for a sea he still feared, and said "I have to go down."

With T'Soni who did not need to swim, or the automaton who did not need to breathe, or with Alenko who knew the great cold depths from childhood. He would not ask Garrus. If he asked his lover to come down with him into the Leviathan's pit, Garrus would say yes, and that was why Shepard could not ask.

Garrus said bleakly "And if you don't come back?" 

"Normandy passes to Alenko and you carry on," Shepard said, because he had been waiting for the question, had lain awake with it while Garrus slept beside him; was relieved, if anything, that it was a question to which mundane law and custom provided a plain answer. "Find the Cerberus; protect the Crucible."

"Without you, though?"

Normandy had been built for another captain, and her crew had served with distinction through the years he'd been thought dead. They could do without him, and yet insisted superstitiously that everything rested on his shoulders, as if his unwished-for, unnatural second life could be shared between them all. Could they not bear to let him rest?

"I'm one man," Shepard said, with a bitterness that surprised him. "Normandy's got one figurehead already. She doesn't need another."

Garrus had no answer to that, or none he was prepared to say out loud, but looked away. His hand tightened in Shepard's, and they sat while the candle guttered down and the ship bore on through the freezing ocean into the unknown dark.

---

also with other microfics on AO3

[saltysalmonella]

[Part One] [Part Two (you're here!)]

OK, last batch of this set!

[x3no9]

I have been busy! Sketching and writing MORE chapters of Killing Aria, a mass effect fanfic featuring MANY m/m couples. Mostly rare pairs. Right now fixated on General Oleg Petrovsky with Isaac Shepard and Jack Harper. Did some sketches of Oleg and Jack. Jack has a type. 😏😏

Full versions in the link!

[sky-kiss]

G, M and U ❤️

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

I have been around. I’ve been around. I have many OTP’s. All cursed. I think…what was my original OTP…

Cloud/Aerith? Or Link/Zelda? I would have been like 7. If we’re picking more recent OTP’s that don’t involve OC’s or anything, I’d go with like…oh god. What do I like? All the thoughts have left my brain. Raphael/Haarlep in a wretched and twisted way. Geralt/Yennefer. GERALT/YENNEFER. 

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Many. Find me a loyal gremlin and you will find someone I’d like to befriend. Dante from DMC, Garrus and Miri from ME, Jaheira, uh…many.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Also asked by @inaconstantstateofchange and @flamemittens. 

Yennefer: my baby girl. Yennefer is perfect. God. I love her. She starts off as seemingly cold and mean, but she’s really just stressed about her daughter. I love, love, love, seemingly frosty characters who are hiding their insecurities behind their power, self-possession, and aloofness. Yennefer is so deeply feeling. She’s unflinchingly loyal. When push comes to shove, Yennefer would fight god, the world, and the natural order to protect the people she loves. When you’ve earned her trust, she’s support you. She’s perfect. (She’s also a dark-haired, mean sorceress and like…that’s my catnip. I collect them like Pokemon).

Garrus from Mass Effect. My beloved boy. He’s perfect. The growth this character goes on. It’s so rare in franchises that we get a character who would be the protagonist if the main character was absent. Garrus could be the MC, but Shep is just that good. Garrus is loyal, determined, dedicated, passionate, playful. His romance is probably the closest to perfect for a M x F ship in games, to me. The progression from intimate friends to lovers? /chefs kiss. He goes out of his way to make you laugh. He’s the one person Shep knows will always be there. There’s no Shep without Vakarian. And god, I love him. 

Raphael. I feel like I’m obligated on this one, haha. He’s fascinating to me? Like. Setting the looks and the voice aside, he has so much potential. His capacity for darkness and humanity, his conflicting nature, his relationships in the Hells…it all has so much room for growth. We had so little of him in game, but he made such an impression. Incredible character.

[seigeocs]

Ships and Characters

Skyrim

My OCs + their ships. Farkas Vilkas Brynjolf

Fallout 3 Butch Cross Jericho Charon

Fallout New Vegas (if it’s not obvious, I really like the ladies in NV) Boone Lily Bowen Raul Cass Veronica

Fallout 4 All of the romance options Deacon Maxon The Raider bosses in Nuka World except the Black siblings

Fallout (TV Series) Ghoulcy Maximus x Lucy

Destiny 1 Any of my OCs Siobhan x Emyr Siobhan x Shaxx Siobhan x Uldren

Destiny 2 Any of my OCs Siobhan x Crow Siobhan x Shaxx

Dragon Age: Origins Any of my OCs established ships F!Cousland x Anora, F!Warden x Leliana, F!Warden x Morrigan, M!Warden x Morrigan, M!Warden x Zevran, F!Warden x Zevran

Dragon Age: Awakening F!Cousland x Nathaniel Howe, F!Cousland/Anders, F!Warden x Varel

Dragon Age 2 I’ll write for any of the characters and ships in DA2.  My favorites are: F!Hawke x Fenris, F!Hawke x Isabela x Fenris, F!Hawke x Varric, M!Hawke x Fenris, M!Hawke x Fenris x Isabela

Dragon Age: Inquisition I like almost all of the ships.  I struggle to write Solas so he’s just not available unfortunately.  Not that I don’t like his character, I just suck at writing him. My OCs and their ships, Dorian x Bull are some of my favorite.  I also love writing interactions that don’t involve smut for the companions as well.

Dragon Age Veilguard (when it comes out as I’m trying to keep away from most of the game information)

Mass Effect F!Shep x Kaidan, F!Shep x Ashley, F!Shep x Garrus, F!Shep x Tali (DON’T CARE IF THEY WEREN’T OFFICIAL, THEY EXIST TO ME).

Mass Effect 2 F!Shep x Garrus, F!Shep x Thane, F!Shep x Zaeed, F!Shep x Garrus x Thane, F!Shep x Tali, F!Shep x Miranda, M!Shep x Jack

Mass Effect 3 Same ship as 1 and 2.  I also write F!Shep x James Vega but in the non creepy Citadel DLC way.  That doesn’t exist in my canon.

Stardew Valley I’ll write smut about many of the characters in the game.  My one farmer is shipped with Harvey and my other is shipped with Leah.  If you give me characters I’ll make it work.  My only line in the sand is I will not write any cheating.

BG3 *waves hand to OCs* I’ll write whatever for them and their ships.  If you request BG3 just give me some options and I’ll figure it out.

Helluva Boss* Established canon ships!  I am loving the angst with Blitz and Stolas right now.

Hazbin Hotel* Established canon couples, Angel Dust x Husker (mostly fluff for these two because Angel Dust needs it).  I won’t write Alastor in any romantic ships.

My Hero Academia*

I mostly write Reader insert fics for MHA.  I also write ships between characters too.  Platonic fluff, found family, sarcasm, and anything that is G to T rating is for every character.  My main ships: Midnight x Eraserhead x Mic Midnight x Eraserhead Mic x Eraserhead Fatgum x Mirko Fatgum x Hawks Fatgum x Eraserhead All Might x Eraserhead Mirko x Shigaraki (Don’t question it, I love the toxicity of it) Compress x Twice Twice x Hawks Hawks x Dabi

Demon Slayer*

My OC x Rengoku My Demon OC x Muzan Reader Inserts for all the over 18 characters I also write platonic found family for all the characters

Kaiju No. 8*

Hoshina is my absolute favorite character in this show. Kafka Hibino is a close second Narumi (omg the anime did him a disservice so badly) Eiji Hasegawa Haruichi Izumo Iharu Furuhashi Reno Ichikawa

Any any platonic, fluff, cute stuff with any of the characters

Haikyuu

As everyone in the main cast is over 18 by the end of the manga, I’ll write all the characters.  It’s mostly Reader Inserts but I’m open to OCs and character x character ships.

One Punch Man

Saitama Genos Atomic Samurai Blast Zombieman

[ohmypawsandwhiskers]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️

Oh my goodness! I love this idea! Thank you for the message!

Alright, let's see...

Of Devils and Monsters (Attack on Titan; Erwin x OC) Status: In Progress (7/??) This has to be my first one up, because it's one that has my full attention and entire heart!

Summary: Fate brings two old friends together again and sets them on the path to truth. In a last ditch effort to save her own skin, Lozen Daniella Pierce reaches out to an old friend in hopes of gaining her freedom. In doing so, she and Erwin Smith find themselves thrust on a path to truth- the truth behind the walls, behind secret organizations, and the truth of who they turned into. Rating will go up, but I am setting it at M for now. Eventual Levi x OC in later chapters.

Read it here on Ao3! I will probably start cross-posting to tumblr for non-Ao3 users in the near future due to the change in privacy settings because AI and bots are big bags of wet and smelly socks.

2. If It's True (Dragon Age: Inquisition; Solas x OC) Status: In progress, but on hold for the time being This is another one of my babies near and dear to my heart that I plan on picking up soon once I replay DAI.

Summary: Before the veil was erected, the Elvhenan empire was a sight to behold, with towering cities of crystal and gold, plenty of resources to go around, and Elves and Spirits lived in harmony. But there was a dark underbelly rarely acknowledged- at least until Solas encounters a woman who changes his views of his beloved people and puts him on the path to ending the tyranny of the Evanuris.

Read it here on Ao3! Again, if people are interested, I can cross-post here.

The next are drabbles I have posted to reddit in the past for the Dragon Age OC from #2, taking point post-veil. I haven't posted them on tumblr or Ao3- I don't believe, so I can link them below. Please excuse the summaries! I am not great with coming up with them on the fly.

3. Prompt 4: Something that was lost but now regained, regret, a wish, a window, touch. (Nehna x Solas)

Summary: Nehna decides on how to tell Solas that she recovered parts of her memories- parts in which she knew him.

Read it here!

4. Out of Time (Dragon Age)

A bunch of Halloween prompts thrown together for another round of Nehna and Solas!

Summary: In a brief reprieve from war, while she is hiding out from the Evanuris, Nehna awakes to a nightmare

Read it here!

5. Smoke, Gun Fire, and a Sense of Deja-vu (Mass Effect; Garrus x OC)

Summary: As Kei and her team work against the clock to save the colonists of Horizon, she struggles to separate past from present.

I will put this one below a read more, since it's not officially shared anywhere else besides discord, I believe. It will be part of a story or series of one-shots I eventually share, but for now, it remains in my drafts!

2170

Acrid odor assaulted her senses as Makeda pulled her friend along through the burning prefab building, hard spilling out of the corners of her eyes as smoke stung her eyes. Gunfire and screams took over any thought as instinct kicked in- where that instinct came from, she had no idea, but Makeda wasn’t about to question it now.

“What the hell is going on?” Cindy screamed as they scrambled over rubble. 

“Why would I know? Just run!” Just as they rounded the corner, they were met with a beeping followed by a force that sent the pair flying.

Present 

“Shepard! Shepard! Kei-” A hand pulled her down beside a hedge as a cutting beam narrowly missed her left ear as  she was brought back. Horizon, the Collectors. Abducted colonists. Everything was a blur since they touched down.

Specks of blue cleared the fog from her brain just enough for her to pick up on the worried twitch of mandibles. “We’re pinned down, Shep. Any ideas?” 

Kei peered over the barrier to be greeted by a line of husks ambling beside a praetorian. She took a shot at one of the mindless puppets before taking cover. It crumbled to the ground, twitching just a moment before it went completely still. “What’s the heat clip situation?” Kei asked as she summoned her drone to distract the enemies. With a beep and a whirl, as if it was assenting to unspoken orders, it was off, zooming the crowded field to distract their enemies for a moment. 

“Would advise using abilities as much as possible until another cache,” came Mordin’s voice over comms. “Did find particle beam dropped by assassin drone- could be useful against biotic barrier of the praetorian.” His efficiency with words always brought a smile to her face in the heat of battle. 

“Right, Garrus, cover me. Mordin, get that gun prepped.”

2170

“Mark, get down,” Cindy hissed from their hiding spot under the rubble, trying to get their classmate to hide from sight. Her voice didn’t carry over the conflict around them, and Mark fell right before their eyes. Before Cindy could scream, Makeda covered her mouth. 

“You want them to find us?” Makeda whispered, trying her best to stop her voice from shaking. “We need to keep moving. If we make it to my place, we can at least defend ourselves.” 

Silent tears streaked through the ash on her friends face as she nodded. 

“At least he can be a distraction. We need to move, and quickly.” Without waiting for an answer, Makeda began to belly crawl from under the fallen wall. The Batarians wouldn’t get her or her family. 

Present

The vibration radiating from the particle beam made the aiming difficult as Makeda tried to balance not dropping the damned thing while evading the constant stream of deadly energy from the last remaining enemy. In her periphery, she saw Mordin and Garrus alternating their shots in an attempt give her a break from the seemingly singular focus of the Praetorian. For a brief moment, the enemy’s beam was interrupted, giving her time to duck behind a crate and quickly catch her breath.  “I think we have it,” she yelled. “Just one final push. When it’s back in the air, I’ll take down its biotic barrier with a taste of its own medicine, and then Mordin and Garrus, throw everything you’ve got at it.”

2170

The ground beneath her shook as the bombardment against her house continued. Cindy’s body remained unmoving from it’s fetal position- any sign of life had left hours ago. It had been a mistake coming here to try and find her family. All that had greeted them was an empty house, already rifled through for any supplies or survivors. 

Crisp air and soot made her eyes water.

Makeda hugged her knees into her chest, rocking back and forth as though it would be the only thing keeping the sobs at bay.  Should she wait or continue in hopes of finding her family?

Present

Makeda lept from cover sending the remaining power of the gun careening into the floating creature. One final push. That was all it took until the creature shuddered and then evaporated into dust. Feeling uneasy, Makeda’s legs gave away beneath her, and she welcomed the thud of reality. The visions would stop. 

‘They will, won’t they?’

Footsteps from either side of her came running up to her position as Mordin began applying medi-gel to the burns sustained from the Praetorian’s beam. She welcomed the cold the medicine brought in hopes it would just serve as additional grounding to reality. 

“Good call on the Collector’s gun, Mordin,” Makeda said, and her eyes flickered over to Garrus, hoping he didn’t catch the waiver in her voice. 

Mordin went to respond, but was interrupted by the cowardly colonist they had run into hurling curses and insults their way. Garrus helped her to feet and tried to keep a steadying talon on her shoulder to be brushed off as Makeda rounded on the mechanic. 

“What the hell did you want us to do, huh? Most of the colonists were gone by the time we made a dent in their forces. I wanted to save them as much as you did-”

“Bullshit! Why would you care about a bunch of colonists out in the sticks?”

A voice stopped all of them in their tracks. “Show some reverence, Trevor, you’re standing in the presence of a ghost.”

That voice. She knew that voice. 

All anger dissipated as she turned to see the one face she needed to see. Needed to know was alright. “Kaidan!”

[spurious]

R, X for the ask game

Ship asks!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

So I’m playing Mass Effect as m!Shep for generally silly SGA roleplay reasons BUT. I really enjoy the sort of best bro/right hand man thing m!Shep has with Garrus. Also bickering with Liara in the Shadow Broker DLC. In SGA I love John and Teyla’s friendship, how she’s looked at this absolute feral cat of a man and gone “I shall be his friend” and then just. Did that. John had no chance. The mutual respect and total lack of “will they won’t they” that you’d expect from a male and female lead is a bonus.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Oh man. “Didn’t know we were dating” is one I love, along with “seemingly unrequited pining” and, relatedly, “we’re fooling around and I’m in love but they don’t have feelings for me (GASP THEY ACTUALLY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)” I like pining and obliviousness ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[findroleplay]

✨ Commander, you've received a new message at your private terminal. ✨

Hello! I'm looking for +21 writing partners for Mass Effect the trilogy. Currently looking for something easy to reply to that gets us hooked, with a balance between angst and fluff. Can roleplay either on tumblr or discord! Please, only interact if you're interested.

Unfortunately I don't double, but I'm open to suggestions. These are the ships I'm looking for (the character in bold is the one I'd prefer to write as, in some cases I don't mind!):

F!shep x Liara

M!shep x Kaidan

Tali x m!shep

Tali x Garrus

Tali x Legion

Miranda x Jack

Joker x EDI

-

[luffenmeihn]

Somewhere warm and tropical

[justa-birb]

*Shep leaving for a mission*

Shepard: "Bye Garrus! Bye Wrex! Bye Garrus~"

Ashley: "You said 'Bye Garrus' twice...,"

Shepard: "I like Garrus" :)

[emrisemrisemris]

Words: 630

Rated: G

Shepard dreams long, disjointed, crimson-tinted dreams.

[commander-krios]

ethan shepard & garrus vakarian

“there’s no shepard without vakarian”

[ramblinganthropologist]

So as it turns out, both Shepards basically met their LI on the same mission.

Garrus and Alistair met on the Citadel when he went to speak to the council. Read Meeting and Parting to know how that went. (Hint: not great.)

Bo and Tali? Met during the Tali recruit mission. You better believe she hauled gay ass to find this pretty purple lady. They hit it off pretty quickly, or at least Bo hoped so. Went better than her bro.

Falling in love: sometimes it’s a look, sometimes it’s a body check.

[baejax-the-great]

Burnt Card

Nadia Shepard x Garrus Vakarian | M | 6739 words | AO3

cw: hurt/comfort, major injuries, happy ending

~

The mission went south before the shuttle even touched down on Gei Hinnom. Well, Garrus supposed it went south because the shuttle didn't touch down, instead exploding about twenty meters off the surface. In what felt like a reenactment of the SR1 destruction he never saw, Shepard shoved him and Grunt out the side door that she didn’t wait to open all the way. Blasted it off the ship with her biotics while shouting, “Go, go, go!” and Garrus was airborne before he could even process what was happening.

She must have felt the missile’s mass effect field coming.

Still too slow, because she only had one foot out the door when missile made impact. Garrus saw it happen this time—falling through the air as the shuttle erupted into flames and twisted metal shards raining down across the planet.

The pilot was lost—no way to survive a direct impact like that, and he wasn’t wearing armor—but Garrus was pretty certain one flaming piece of debris that scattered toward the west was Shepard, her vitals still blinking in his visor.

At least he didn’t have to worry about Grunt breaking anything on impact.

“Joker, we need an emergency medical evac,” he heard himself calling before even getting back on his feet. Not that he could do that much with AA guns that just took them out somewhere on the planet. Sensors didn’t pick them up. No hostile presence had been detected at all, but with the thick jungle foliage, scans had been patchy at best. Someone was going to have to disable them on foot, and given the fracture in his ankle his suit was now blaring about, it wasn’t going to be Garrus.

Grunt pulled him to his feet as the medigel deployed, and after a few tentative steps—left leg could bear weight with the armor support and patch job—Garrus started running.

His visor honed in on a pile of smoking, red debris in the center of burnt-out vegetation. Shepard was trying and failing to get to her feet, slipping on what he hoped was mud and melted foliage, but probably contained a good portion of her own blood.

“Stay down, Shep,” he called into his comm.

Growls in the underbrush from every direction—varren circling—and a dead one next to her. Visor indicated its skull was crushed in, and it would be just like her to punch something to death while bleeding out. She should have spent that energy on deploying her own medigel, which he did for her now.

As soon as he reached her, he dropped to his knees at her side. She wasn’t moving at all now. “Throw this thing as far as you can,” he ordered Grunt with a gesture to the dead varren. That would buy him time for Shepard to get to her feet as others tore the corpse to shreds. Grunt grabbed it by the tail, swung the varren and himself around in a circle, and launched it into the forest.

Come on, Shep. Her vitals weren’t changing. Breathing rate rapid, heart rate rapid, blood pressure too low. All the red was blurring into one big, bad sign. It was like the medigel had no effect at all. Shit.

He switched his omnitool from medical to technical, scanning over her armor to diagnose the problem. That couldn’t be right. With a quick apology to his silent commander, he flipped her over from her front to her back.

The fact that she didn’t or couldn’t bother to joke about or at least curse him out over his manhandling was bad.

It was worse than bad, and Garrus shoved down the note of panic in his subvocals. Didn’t really need advanced tech to find the problem—her armor was shredded. Melted, blown off in the blast, it didn’t matter. Even her undersuit was torn away in places, and her bare, burnt skin was exposed and a lot redder than it should have been. Blood, human blood is red, he reminded himself. A quick scan told him the medigel port was still intact by her hip, but the tubes that ran the lines through her armor for administration were broken. His deployment had resulted in the medigel being dumped into the ground to mix with her blood.

Fuck.

Read the rest on AO3

[dulcidyne]

Fic Author Recommendations

When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love.

Tagged by the wonderful and talented @crescentbunny! I’ll tag @otemporanerys, @dispatchwithlove and of course, any of my phenomenal mutual authors <3 Experiments in Diplomacy (F!Ryder x Jaal, T) - Mass Effect Andromeda. A series of vignettes set in the Tempest tech lab about working through grief, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and falling in love despite being a mess of a human being. It’s also a bit of a love letter to learning and discovery that I wrote before, during and after grad school and during my first year in medicine. I got the opportunity to include a lot of my own sci-fi concepts, like how to use a VLF radio to communicate with your bioelectric boyfriend. Big, Dramatic Love Confession (F!Shep x Garrus, E) - Mass Effect. Featuring one of my favorite personal headcanons about why Garrus doesn’t say ‘I love you’. It’s effectively a look into the different ways Shep and Garrus deal with the looming despair of the war with sex as the language they are both using to communicate and convey their respective points.  Portrait of a Man (Inquisitor x Cullen, T) - Dragon Age Inquisition. The Inquisitor deals with the implications of her legacy and flirts with Cullen while he sits for a ridiculous portrait.  Two strangers reunite at the edge of the galaxy  (F!Shep x Garrus, E) - Mass Effect AU. It’s a WIP but I’m having SO MUCH FUN writing this, I have to hype it. It’s Oceans 11 meets Blade Runner meets film noir. Shepard is a pirate queen femme fatale working with Archangel to infiltrate a seedy Omega casino. Features a heist, steamy elevator hijinks, and obscure Omega headcanons about who exactly is running station sanitation (spoiler: no one). Ghost in the Machines (F!Shep x Garrus, M) - A Control ending fic. Shepard’s god self reconstructs her physical body atom by atom to act as its avatar and stop the brewing scarcity war threatening to destroy the fragile remnants of life in the galaxy.  Another WIP and possibly the fic I’ve put the most of my time and effort into. There are some fics that are just your writing darlings and this is it for me. I get to have so much fun with it, stuff like identity authentication with carbon dating, terraforming with pseudomonas and how everything would smell like grapes, gas giant deep ‘sea’ monsters, characterization, mutual pining and *~trauma~* 

[thetrashbagswasteland]

WIP Wednesday!

Tagged by @korblez who'll certainly enjoy this and open-ended as always identify yourselves for anyone who fancies doing this! Fic: The Idealist (Chapter 5: Indecision) Rating: M Pairing: Background Fem!Shep x Garrus Current Word Count: 22,521 total (4012 in chapter) Warnings: Sad Castis Vakarian hours because Garrus' decision making skills were inherited from somewhere, mild interspecies dislike because we also need someone to come with some prejudices born out of ignorance. Also I'm a blatant Geth apologist and y'all should heed that warning well. Also also Avitus Rix features in this fic at large, which warrants a warning on its own. Sneak peek:

“Negotiations are going well, then?” He asked, finding that he was genuinely curious. “Seem to be.” Wrex grunted in answer. “Not as if we can do anything to help if they go wrong though.” That was… not encouraging. “If we had landed, we could have sent down a secondary team to watch their backs.” He suggested, thinking tactically. “From a suitable distance, of course.” “None of us suit distance work.” The krogan shot down, instantly. “Liara’s a civvy, I like to be able to punch my enemies and Mordin’s confined to quarters.” The salarian was still being detained? Well, Garrus had suggested as much, had he not? But that did not answer everything. “I could have helped.” It sounded weak, almost a plea to be part of this. Both laughed, though the krogan’s was definitely more mocking. “Problem there, brood-bleeder, is that nobody wants you at their back.”

Brood-bleeder. Castis was no expert in krogan culture but that insult was an easy one to parse the meaning of; one who harms their own young. In a society that was rapidly falling apart at the seams over a fertility crisis that left natural-born children rare and highly prized, there could be no greater crime than attacking one’s own offspring. Well, technically it was correct. And he would never be able to take back what he had done, would he? He knew some of the regret and pain that he felt about that slipped out either in his expression or in his subvocals from the way the others scarred face contorted into a self-satisfied smirk before he continued. “Besides, Shepard said no backup, no landing. Got to trust’em if they’re to trust us.” “Trust is not something that is easy to associate with geth, however.” He pointed out, determined not to let the krogan know just how deeply the insult had cut. “Hostile isolationists do not engender or offer trust easily.” “Neither do krogans.” He replied mildly. “Lotta similarities between krogan and geth. But y’get out what you pay in.” The problem was deciding how much he really wished to invest.