pancake-angst:

Publicity Stunt

Here is my gift for @ar-lasa-mala-revas for @masseffectholidaycheer! Shakarian fake dating be upon ye!

“Okay, you’re on, Vakarian. Tali, gimme your straw wrapper.” Once she passed it over, Shepard dropped to one knee in front of him, and Kaidan made a strangled noise, which Shepard studiously ignored.

“Did you injure yourself somehow, Shepard?” said Garrus, looking at her blankly.

“It’s a human courtship ritual, Garrus,” said Tali, after a long slurp of her drink. “This is the part where she tells you she’s pregnant.”

“I am absolutely notpregnant,” said Shepard, deliberately focusing on twisting the straw wrapper into a ring as if that would distract from the blush heating her cheeks.

“She would have to get laid for that, Tali,” said Joker, in an overexaggerated whisper.

“Thank you, Joker,” said Shepard, in a tone that made it clear thank youmeantI will kill you slowly and leave pieces out for the reapers. “Anyway. Focus, guys. Garrus Vakarian.” She held up the straw wrapper, now hopefully large enough to fit around one of Garrus’s huge fingers.

“That is, in fact, my name, Shepard. I’m glad you haven’t suffered head trauma in addition to the knee injury.” Despite the dry tone of his voice, there was something odd in his eyes—not the usual giddy, lunatic glee he got whenever he realized they were about to do something ridiculous together. Was he having second thoughts for once?

Oh well, no going back now. “Will you put on a terrible turian suit to match my terrible human dress uniform and do me the honor of accompanying me to a bullshit fundraising dinner?”

Garrus finally seemed to catch on—took him long enough—and let out a hoarse little laugh. “I get it now.” He pressed the back of one hand to his forehead and pretended to swoon. “Oh, Commander! This is so sudden! I’m just not sure.”

“Aw, Garrus, don’t we always have a good time together?” She caught his free hand. She wasn’t used to touching him outside of battle, with his fingers bare instead of covered in thick gauntlets. “This way we can actually sit together instead of having to try and mime ways to beg for death all night from across the room.”

“And Shepard will keep your dance card full,” said Tali. Shepard couldn’t make out her wicked smirk through the faceplate, but she definitely heard it in Tali’s voice.

Garrus blinked. “Spirits, I didn’t even think about the dancing. I might have to say no in self-defense.”

“Aw, c'mon! I’m on my knees here! What more do you want? I don’t do this for just any guy, you know.” Shepard asked. (At this, both Kaidan and Joker burst into undignified laughter. Shepard took one hand away from Garrus’s to flip them the bird.)

Garrus looked at her for a long moment, so long she thought for sure he was trying to find a politer way than usual to say no. (In which case, she wasn’t sure why he was bothering—it wasn’t like she expected eloquence from him. She could make a big damn speech when she felt like it, but Garrus did better with one-liners.) “On second thought,” he said, almost hesitantly, “I need to consider the rest of the people at the dinner. If I let you dance with anyone else, you might hurt them, and then we’ll have a diplomatic incident to deal with on top of all the rest of the bullshit.”

“Is that a yes, Vakarian?” Shepard cupped one hand around her ear.

Garrus put his other hand on top of hers, the same way he had when she first saw him again after six months apart on Palaven. She still thought about that touch sometimes, at odd moments of the day, like if she spotted him at a distance in the Citadel or remembered something she needed to tell him. “Yes, Shepard. I will take on the burden of keeping everyone else safe from your dance moves.”

Read the rest on AO3

of shame(pt II)

@misseffect​ tagged me again lol

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

So my old list is unchanged and I’ll list new files below, but a title from either post is fair game! (lots of repetition in this one but i don’t feel like going through and figuring out which are duplicate files)

Googles Docs (owned by me, last modified)

1. ghost garrus mech
2. ghost!garrus full

Evernote (recently created first)  (v = venom)

1. beach house
   
2. mechs sm
3. mechs
4. gg mechs
5. v convo 2nd
6. v convo new
7. v convo
8. ghost garrus beg
9. ghost garrus end
10. ghost garrus notes
11. v convo
12. v post rocket
13. ghost garrus more

(take a wild fucking guess what shakarian au i’ve been poking at lmao)

I’m not tagging 15 of you let alone 122 of you lmao so no tags this time

meggannn:

Tides, Receding: Chapter 2
Shepard/Garrus | 9k (wip) | teen

With the Hierarchy alliance secured, Garrus submits his request to leave the Normandy and rejoin Primarch Victus’s complement, shipping back to a Palaven set ablaze. Shepard, unraveling at the seams, must make a long-overdue decision.

Chapter 2:

“When do you ship out?”

“Day after next.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the Aethon Cluster, for now,” he said, and her heart nearly stopped. Back to Palaven; back to the front lines of turian resistance. Back into the jaws of the siege she had lifted him from.

How could he go, when to go back would be suicide—and how could she blame him for it, when all she wanted was to direct the Normandy back to Earth, where her own conscious was calling? His people needed him. Her people needed her. This was the unacceptable, unavoidable end of the line. They had their marching orders.