Comfortable Old Boots

 

"Comfortable Old Boots"

Chapter Four: Two Consenting Adults

 

The initial plan had been to meet in the middle. There was probably some metaphor to be derived from that, but Garrus didn't care to turn geography into an allegory for interspecies social conflict. The area between Urdnot OP and the crash site where Garrus had taken a hopefully superficial blow to his military career was all rugged hills and crags. The entire stretch dotted with lush, green plants and blood-sucking insects large enough to drop a krogan in the middle of a mating frenzy. Thousand year-old trees stretched toward the sky, interlaced with numerous streams and waterfalls. Because of that, getting from one place to another was tricky and slow for the battered old Mako reconstructions the Stand preferred to use for travel. Air travel was preferred, but rarely used 'for the fun of it.'



When one didn't know when the year's supply of fuel replicators would arrive, long pleasure drives that used up precious resources were discouraged. He'd suspected that Tess using one of the Stand's few shuttles would be out of the question. From what he could see, very few of the human colonists even had personal shuttle cars for use. His situation was different. Urdnot being a small military outpost, it nonetheless had all the trappings and outfitting one would expect. If a captain wanted to go out for fresh air, the captain would damned well fill out the paperwork for a shuttle car and go get some air.



War is in the Victus blood. Remember that when they start shooting. The car hissed and steamed its way to the ground, tilting a bit awkwardly on uneven terrain. He could see Tess off in the distance- he'd discretely run a scan on her with his visor when they'd first met and one of the stats flung back at him was an impressive 'SIX FEET TWO INCHES/187.96 CENTIMETERS.' Her height made her very hard to miss. Being 'hard to miss' made it hard 'not to stare', in his case. Gawking the way he had in lockup was out of the question- he was a man of action, not a man to stand on the sidelines and wait for someone to hold his hands when it came to a potential liaison.



She looked dead at him- not at the shuttle, as if she were sighting him down the scope of a sniper rifle. Target acquired. Tess didn't smile. She didn't tilt her hip in a flirtatious way or even wave. She simply moved for him, unstoppable as a tungsten round and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the drizzle of rain from above.



“Shit,” he heard Geoffrey Moreau say. Was his name Geoffrey? “Can't you just take up kakliosaur hunting? Or knitting?”



Garrus popped the door and waited, pointedly ignoring the wary looks aimed in his direction by overworked people heading home after a long day of laboring in greenhouses and tending to the large, native beasts that provided most of their meat. He counted one, two, threefourfive colonists who clustered together, unable to hear their speculative whispers and not particularly caring unless firearms were about to come out. He recognized another- Miranda Donnelly, who somehow managed to remain pristine and lovely in her rather human way.



Tess strode past her- probably not a beauty by human standards, and towering over the Shepard in a way that made Garrus feel that Donnelly's title fit her better. She walked like a woman who had places to be and didn't care to hide the fact from the rest of the world. 'Shepard' was a damned stupid name for a political figure, but he didn't want to think about 'Shepard' too long with Shepard this and Shepard that written over everything about the Stand.

She was dirty as any of the others and like them, she sported a small firearm on her hip in spite of the fact they'd all been digging around in the dirt all day. Somehow overdressed in his civilians, he regarded her from the corner of one eye as the door slid closed from above. The shields and windows partially obscured the faces of the Stand's citizens from view. For many reasons, Garrus wasn't sad to see them go.



“'dontcallmecommander'?” he asked. She'd been in the shuttle little more than seconds, but the silence had become oppressive the moment the door had closed. There was a faint sort of... static in the air, probably a sign the shuttle needed to go in for repairs when he returned to base. The hairs on her arms were standing up, though damned if that wasn't a pointless thing for him to notice. Not just my imagination, then. The air feels strange. “You don't strike me as...” He rumbled low in his throat. Shifting the shuttle to flight provided a rather convenient reason to stop gaping at her. “Hmm. A woman who is anti-military. You know. Considering the circumstances.” Spirits. 'Circumstances' is one way to put it.



“'vigilantesalary?'” she countered wryly, crossing her arms over her chest and tipping her head back to smirk at the shuttle ceiling. If he had trouble not watching her, she was having problems looking directly at him. She smelled faintly of sweat, sun-browned skin a sharp contrast with garish red hair that probably didn't occur naturally among humans. He wanted to pull the tie from it and run his fingers through the whole, tangled mess. “We're not doing anything to jeopardize your career. No laws being broken- just two consenting adults going out to appreciate some history.”



'Two consenting adults.' Those particular words floated there between them, somehow heavier than the quiet.



The battered duffel bag she’d settled on to her lap was telling. Garrus did his best to keep two and two from adding up to four in case this once, the number actually happened to add up to five. “Huh,” he said.



“Huh,” she echoed.



“So.” Rain was still pattering down from the gray sky above. He turned on the rain shield without doing much more than feeling around for the button. Once again, his tongue felt like lead in his mouth. “The weather is nice.”



“Yeah.” She flexed a dirty knee. He tried not to glance down as the skin there drew tighter over the joint, the angle making it look a little knobby- as if she were a turian female and not a human. There was a light dusting of hair on her bare legs. He thought about complementing her on her 'fringe' and then decided against it. “It's nice we're actually get some rain out here right now. Good sign for the crops.”



Compliment her fringe. It had been very easy to do just that with Lavinia back at the base. What he said instead was: “Do you... do much in the way of farm exports at Shepard’s Stand? I hadn't realized it was an agricultural community. Maybe I should have, since I've never read reports of... mining or research outposts on this part of the planet.” Dammit.



She flexed her leg again, then rolled a wide shoulder. It drew the white cloth of her shirt tight across her chest, emphasizing bits of her Garrus mostly ignored in human women. However, there were times in his adolescence when he'd wondered if he might have a thing for humans. Those were moments when light hit a female's garish, dyed hair, or when some of those same Alliance women dropped their blockier, male counterparts in a way that was particularly vicious. He particularly noticed them when he went to the firing range on Omega. Five-fingered hands, smooth and practiced.

“Not much. Normandian cannabis, mostly.”



“Hrm. That explains why David kept offering my men something to eat.”



“Anderson's a good man,” she told him simply, and with the unshakable sort of conviction that actually gave him pause. She said that as a statement of fact. The grass here is green. It is raining outside. Anderson David is a good man and nothing in the galaxy will goddamned change that in my eyes.



Then, wordless space stretched before them again. He somehow imagined that the quiet grew taut, threatening to snap. There were numerous things he could say to break the ice: 'I thought redheads had gone extinct,' or perhaps, 'What's it like, growing recreational drugs on a jungle planet?' Last but not least, 'You're a very large woman. Have you considered joining the Alliance military?'

No, Garrus. I don't think so.

***

Tess never had trouble being the initiator. She was from a long line of initiators and general shit-stirrers. She'd whip off belts, set weapons to safety and see to it that everything was properly holstered before the night was out. If she was lucky enough, she'd be out the bedroom door before whoever it was who happened to be visiting the colony woke up to an empty bed and the realization that 'wait, man. She used me for sex.' It was a useful strategy, one most of the men she'd slept with had appreciated unless being left first stung overblown male pride. Kai Lin Xiu was another story that seemed dirty, unfinished- and hopefully with some sort of ending where good triumphed over evil and dogs came back from the dead.



“I was going to take a bath,” she admitted to Garrus, not particularly apologetic, but self-conscious enough that she wanted him to understand she was going to make some effort for him. 'I was going to take a bath, but I got distracted by something more important than a date.' No. That wouldn't end in a particularly good night for either of them. The truth would have to be thrown right out the window. Increasingly irritated with herself, she searched for a more appropriate segue than 'pull over and fly your ship through my Omega-4 relay.'



Whatever she would have said to him- some pickup line about what he might have washed his pants in- was clearly best left unsaid. It helped that he chose that exact second to found his own verbal footing. Mostly. “No. It's fine. Your hair looks good,” he rumbled, the sound reverberating upward. Her hair was tied back, curly and frizzed from the humidity. “And your waist is-" The turian coughed once. "Very supportive.”



Hm. She inhaled a ragged breath, prodding at the bag of clean clothing, oils, instructional pamphlets and precautionary medicine in case of ingestion or particularly enthusiastic... drippings. Everything had been nice, neat and prepared but for Tess Shepard Jane Helen KcKay herself. Her legs hadn't been shaved, she was wearing 'work' clothes and underwear that had small holes in it. She'd had just enough time to dart behind a tree when she'd heard the shuttle-car to yank off her bra and stuff it into the bag, believing it to be a signal universal among the species. But her hair looked good. And her waist was very supportive. “Oh," she said flatly. "Thank you?”



Conversation fell flatter than her response. Again.



Taptaptap. Her fingertips bumped rhythmically against duraweave mesh. It was the same sound as the rain pattering against the shuttle. Taptaptap. She stifled a rather obvious 'yawn', stretching just enough to arch her back and 'unintentionally' put a few things on display. He'd started talking again, something she ought to be paying attention to instead of trying to find her balls and take what she wanted from Garrus Victus.



He looked at her again, in that corner-of-the-eye way men used when they felt they weren't supposed to look but had to before their heads exploded from the strain. It shouldn't have taken so little to cause her nipples grow tight against the worn cloth of her shirt, but that really was all she needed to get going. I watched instructional videos, you bastard, she thought darkly, drumming her fingertips along the buckle of her seatbelt now. Instructional videos to prevent potential injury-



“That's why..."



She could see the bead of sweat running down the back of his neck. Eyes narrow, she frowned at the single, offensive droplet, stretching her arms above her head a second time. She inhaled deeply, holding the breath longer than was necessary before letting it out. Take the bait, damn you.

"... the, ah, the... scope of O-Sec operations is unfortunately limited on-" He gave the steering wheel a sudden jerk, causing the shuttle car to sputter and bob in protest. He quickly righted them, though his teeth were quite suddenly bared. "Tess, I'm drowning. Come on and throw me a bone here.” Garrus was exasperated, which struck her as far damned better than clumsy and fumbling.



Not a chance we're both going to let it play out like a damned prom date. She rolled her neck about on her shoulders, slow and precise enough that she heard several little pops. A dull, insistent ache was growing in the pit of her stomach, causing her to shift very deliberately into the seat.



Sex was like war, she'd once heard from some person in some place she couldn't rightly recall. Sex was like war because in the end, someone always had to make the first move. She unfastened her seatbelt with rain-damp fingers, pulled her shirt right over her head and pretended it didn't get caught on her hair band, leaving her to struggle beneath the tent of fabric before she succeeded in tossing it to the floor. Her skin was splotchy from all the twisting about, but the last thing she wanted him to notice her right now was her complexion.



“Garrus? You throw me a bone.”

Sometimes, the worst lines were the most appropriate for the situation.