#like eventually

Maybe he ought to feel guilty about it; jerking off to his Commander and/or Staff Lieutenant — and let’s be honest, it’s mostly and — but Jokers had a life full of hopeless crushes and needing to look someone square in the eye and fly a ship less than five minutes after rubbing one out, and practice makes perfect, after all. So his hand doesn’t still or stutter, it surges up and down his length, like he owns it — well. Like they own it.

It takes all of not very fucking long. One hand braced against the panel of the shower stall, keeping him upright, the other standing in for Shepard’s mouth and Kaidan’s hands, which is why it’s all so quick and bright. Just a handful of strokes and he is gone.

Joker turns the shower on right after he pulls himself back together enough to manage the taps, weak-kneed, trembling, and breathing like he’d just run a mile. 

He never masturbates in Normandy’s cockpit. He does practically everything else in that chair and he’s not about to risk getting it sticky. Some things in this world are sacrosanct, and Normandy’s flight chair is one of them.

So he stands in the shower letting the water run down his neck and and his back and all the places he’d imagined being touched. He doesn’t get long to savor the post-orgasmic bliss. The water’s always hot — the whole ship’s practically one continuous loop of energy— but Alliance rationing being what it is, it’s on a timer, and if he lingers too long it’ll switch out to subsonic pulses of air that kinda vibrate the dirty right off of you. It’s the blue-balls of hygiene; deeply unsatisfying on every level, which is not how he likes to end a good wank.

(Or a not-so-good wank, which is rare, wanks being what they are.)

(Never pass up a good — or not-so-good — wank.)

So, confession time. Joker watches porn. Not like a lot, a lot. But just. Space is big and mostly empty, and the thrill of piloting still leaves ample free time, and he is a goddamn full-grown adult.

He's into your basic kinks. Threesomes. Anal. Asari in wet tshirts. But the extranet is big and weird and he's wandered into some stuff that he'd never have willingly searched for, like that drell-hanar porno with some really, really unnecessarily complex plot; 100% of all Elcor porn he’s seen; and that one-time he accidentally found Inspectreing the Booty, a porn parody about Commander Shepard steadily banging her way through the Normandy crew.

And that one was weird. Like super, terribly, irredeemably weird. But Joker’s curiosity can easily be described as morbid, so it’s not entirely his fault that several hours after finding the series he’s blown through every single episode.

Figuratively speaking.

Slightly more literally with the one that paired the Commander with her dark-haired, dark-eyed, burly, biotic Staff Lieutenant.

What there isn’t, is an episode where Shepard bangs her abrasive yet irresistibly charming pilot. Which is a little… yeah. You know. Even Wrex gets laid.

Somehow, even just in fantasy, the world knows Joker’s not meant to be with Shepard.

And that’s okay. It is.

Kaidan and Shepard have each other. Joker has the Normandy. And they have a goddamn galaxy to save.

***

Shepard starts visiting Normandy’s cockpit early on.

Not many commanding officers do that. They have the bridge for The Doing Of The Important Stuff, and that’s where he’s used to being summoned for any face-to-face conversations. 

The first time she’d done it he was pretty sure she’d only come to reassure herself that a pilot with Vrolick’s Syndrome wasn’t going to be a liability. He’d had that happen on nearly every ship he’d served — no matter that he'd had to take all the Alliance’s physical fitness assessments just to get his wings in the first place.

(He’d passed, but the Alliance had still ordered additional scans for him to ensure that he hadn’t broken anything from the stress of the tests. You know, just in case. And though no one’s actually said it out loud aside from that one flight instructor he got court-martialed; he’s well aware the Alliance doesn’t really want to employ a pilot with brittle bones. Even one who’d set every flight simulator record with every class of ship he’s licensed to fly — and a few he isn’t.)

But Shepard had just wanted to talk. And though the conversation had been somewhat impersonal and brief, Joker had sweated through his shirt because humanity’s first and only Spectre was intimidating up close, and way, way prettier than she had any right to be.

She’d kept coming back though, and their conversations had stretched. Meandered from professional, to casual, and then into personal territory.

She asks him about his time in flight school, and he tells her that the academy wouldn’t let him sit for certification on ships he hadn’t been formally trained to fly, so he broke into the simulator room and beat all the flight sim records on all available ship classes and models. Then he got stubborn and wouldn’t take the formal certifications, but the Alliance pretty much let him fly whatever he wanted after that anyway.

She asks him about his home base, and he tells her he always thinks of his ship as home, but that he’s got a tiny place on the Citadel because, although the Alliance wants their officers to be all-in all the time, they don’t want them to be so obvious about it.

She asks him if he’s got anyone waiting for him, and he lies through his teeth and says he’s got a girl in every port, and at least one desperately heartbroken Krogan out there somewhere. She laughs at that, the sound surprisingly light and bright and he is fuuuuucked. He is so fucked.

Stupid hopeless crush.

Some days she doesn’t ask him anything. She just settles into the copilot’s seat, folds her long legs up to her chin, and just talks. To him. Baffling.

Today she’s folded up like a pretzel, idly tapping through the Normandy’s feeds on a flight screen, which Joker kinda hates — he doesn’t go into her quarters and put his hands all over her guns after all — but not enough to shoo her away.

“You know,” Shepard says, “you’re the only one of my crew whose academy dissertation was classified by the Alliance. Even I didn’t have access to read it until they made me a Spectre.”

Joker chokes on a laugh. “You actually read those? I don’t even think my instructor read them. Did you read everyone's? Did Kaidan write about Canada? Or bacon? Or, wait, wait. Canadian bacon?” 

“No,” Shepard’s mouth does that weird thing like she’s trying not to smile. “He wrote about the biomechanical half-life of L2 biotic implants and why the Alliance shouldn’t upgrade them in active military personnel, as was the plan at the time.”

“O f course he did.”

“And you—"

“A Proposed Redesign of Sanitary Stations on Alliance F-Class Vessels Based on the Traditionally Varying Role of Toilet Paper in Council Species.” Joker tips the brim of his hat at her and flashes a quick grin. “Xenobiology, baby.”

Shepard blinks.

“Um,” Joker clears his throat quickly. “That’s—  xenobiology, baby Ma’am . Damn, that’s worse. Commander. Ma’am. Shepard. Sir.”

Shepard bites her lower lip.

Oh no, that’s hot.

“Uh…” He wipes sweaty palms against his jumpsuit, blundering on. “I mean the research got real interesting at one point. I even added some non-council species for extra credit. Did you know that Krogans—“

“Yeah. I read it. ” Shepard’s smile finally breaks through, and Joker legit stares because holy shit .

He can probably count on one hand the number of times Shepard has smiled — honest to God smiled, not just a smirk or that twisty grin that’s all sharp teeth and danger — and she is transformed.

And well… There’s nothing more terrifying than popping a boner in Shepard’s presence because she has a sixth sense about the world around her and Joker is just a thousand and twelve percent certain she knows.

(And speaking of percentages: it turns out if Shepard smiles there’s an eighty-seven percent chance he’s gonna get hard.)

(Give or take thirteen.)

And yep. There it goes.

Awesome.

Humanity’s first Spectre has dimples.

And Joker is completely screwed.

***

This is the part of the job Joker hates the most. 

Well, no.

He hates writing flight reports. Trying to reduce instinct and awesomeness into a neatly rational and easily defendable set of decisions is impossible at best. All the navy should need at the end of the day is crew safe, ship intact, and half the time he’s not even sure why he does the things he does.

He hates the way his dress blues always bunch up around his balls. He hates his dress blues, in general, but he hates them specifically where they are ball-adjacent. The constriction is always particularly nefarious whenever he has to stand around while some top brass does the sort of tiresome things that top brass always does— like passing out medals or giving great pilots crap for stealing a ship.

And he hates whenever some aeronautical engineering nerd slash twat suggests that navy pilots are a dying breed, and how the future of spaceflight is AI, and how [insert any installation request he’s ever made] is really a waste of valuable Alliance time and resources because he’ll be obsolete in a few years and something something something, Joker doesn’t listen to idiots.

So this is really the thing he hates fourth most.

He hates listening to the comms when Shepard and Kaidan are planetside getting shot up all to hell while he keeps his hands on Normandy’s flight controls ready to evac their asses back to safety –– but he hates the silence more.

(Fifth most? Whatever, he’s losing count.)

The team in the sky follows the team on the ground through a number of feeds: tiny blips and biometrics and bursts of data — but Joker has a direct, active comm link. But when the signal is blocked; or too scratchy to make out, even when Normandy’s computers run them through noise filters and decryption cycles; or when they’re just plain silent and there’s just dead air and tension and waiting and really unpleasant what ifs floating around inside his head. God, he hates that shit.

It’s strangely comforting when they’re actually fighting. The first spatter of gunfire always makes his heart leap, but over the months he’s learned to read the sounds of the firefight. All the Alliance soldiers carry the same base assault rifle, but Shepard’s got hers modded halfway to hell, and it has this pop to it, where every round sounds almost bouncy. Kaidan’s heavy pistol has this distinct thundering sound, kinda slow and measured and broad. Joker's even learned to identify the soft fizzy static of Kaidan’s biotics, which he tends not to use unless he needs to. But as long as they're shooting and flinging little blue fireballs, they're alive; and he can breathe a little.

But now, right now, Joker sits in the silence with a weight on his chest, hands gliding over the ship's controls restlessly, imagining all the terrible reasons it might be so damn quiet.

And it's quiet for so long.

Too long, maybe.

Too too long. Fuck, this is his second least favorite for sure.

So when Shepard’s voice finally comes through with a burst of static and gunfire, Joker’s relief is so profound he almost misses when she says.

“—us up. And make sure Chakwas is ready.”

“Dr Chakwas?” Shit. His hands are already flying over the controls. “Roger that, Commander. Bringing the Normandy in. Evac, three minutes five.”

Worry spikes through the relief, though Shepard’s voice was steady enough. Of course that doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t lost a leg, or anywhere between one to three livers.

Wrex was with them today, so if he's down three, he’ll still have one to spare. The others, not so much.

Joker doesn’t like the atmosphere of this particular planet. It’s too slippery. The Normandy handles like it’s coated in oil. He’d rather a sluggish stick than one that slides around unpredictably, but he gets the Normandy down at speed and manages not to clip the side of the Cerberus research facility in the process.

The video feed switches to the hangar doors, letting in a cloud of smoke pierced with a scatter of laser fire as they open. He feels the tremble of rockets bouncing off the Normandy’s shields and resists the urge to belly-flop the ship directly on top of the Cerberus troops because how fucking dare.  

“Hurry it up Commander, they’re targeting the Normandy! There’s only so many rockets up the backside a lady should be required to take!”

He knows from the crackle of the comms switching to internal channels that they’re on a moment before the VI notification.

“Crew onboard .”

“Sweet,” Joker lifts away from the planet immediately, taking care to make sure Normandy’s burners are running extra hot, cuz fuck those guys. He hopes he melts every last one to the tarmac. 

As soon as they are out of the atmosphere and are moving into deeper space, Joker passes the Normandy off to one of the on-duty flight crew, barely waiting to be formally relieved. He dashes to the stairs — though it probably doesn’t look like dashing — and then has to force himself to take it slow. A tumble down the stairs would be the stupidest way to end his military career.

He meets the ground crew coming up from the cargo hold. The smell of a firefight hits him first. Smoke and that peculiar electric burn of spent thermal rounds are nearly eclipsed by the sharper reek of human blood and Krogan sweat.

Shepard and Kaidan are both wounded.

She’s walking easily enough, but she’s got an arm slung over Kaidan’s shoulders, and a long, vicious-looking scorch mark down her flank and across her back. As they pass, she smiles at Joker with such an easy, sharp grin that it should make him feel better about the whole thing, except that Kaidan shoots him a dark look over the top of Shepard’s head. Or at least he tries to. Joker can’t see any obvious wound but half of Kaidan’s face is awash with blood, the eye beneath, squeezed tightly shut. 

“Dodged a rocket,” Shepard explains. Her eyes are wild and a little bloodshot. Green irises eerily ringed with red.

Joker frowns. 

“Well, mostly,” Wrex says, coming up from behind them with Shepard’s helmet and assault rifle in hand. He chuckles, low and gravelly. “Didn’t dodge the explosive crate it hit, though.”

“Still counts,” Shepard mutters.

Joker frowns harder and follows them into the medbay where Dr Chakwas is waiting.

“Commander Shepard, that’s a nasty-looking burn.” Dr Chakwas pats one of the medical beds. “Hop up. Wrex, is any of that blood yours?”

“No,” Wrex snickers.

“Well done you. Now, if you’d be so good as to take the Commander’s guns away so they’re not cluttering up my medbay, thank you. Kaidan, sit down. I want to take a look at that eye.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my eye,” Kaidan protests.

“Excellent. Then it’ll only take a moment.”

“But—”

“Sit. Jeff, get the Commander out of her armor.”

“Uh…” Joker hesitates, feeling oddly caught out. His shoulders hunch up around his ears.

Dr Chakwas makes an exasperated noise. “Shall I call Wrex back for assistance?”

“Not unless you want the Commander’s arms to fall off,” Joker mutters grumpily, already reaching to help.

Modern ceramic plate armor is designed to be easy enough to get into and a bit of a bitch to get out of, and Krogan’s aren’t well known for patience. The word gentle doesn’t even translate properly in their native tongue. Wrex’s idea of assistance is likely to amount to pull real hard.

Joker steps closer to Shepard. Even Spectre quality gear follows the same basic design as all Human-Asari models. Joker runs his hands across the seam at her wrist until he finds and unhooks the interlocking clasp on her gauntlet. There’s no bare skin to be found, Shepard is clad in sleek black under-armor shot through with sensors to support haptic feedback during combat. He works his way up both arms, as Dr Chakwas tends to Kaidan, hesitating only when he gets to the plating on her torso.

The front plates are nearly undamaged bar some surface-level scuffing that would likely buff right out. But the back section is melted in spots, bubbled and cracked from both the heat and sheer impact of the explosion.

Years of piloting have stripped the uncertainty from his hands. He’s as careful as can be, fingers slow and steady, but sure as he cracks her breastplate apart. This isn’t at all like any of the times Joker has fantasized about undressing Shepard. There’s more medi-gel involved, for one thing. And for another—

“You have very pretty eyes, Joker.”

Joker snorts, startled, and can’t quite brace himself for the nonsense his stomach does in response. “Look who's talking,” he mutters, ears flushing bright red.

“We’re both talking,” Shepard says, and there’s something in her voice that raises every hair on the back of his neck. She looks up at him but the green in her eyes is almost gone, swallowed by impossibly, unnaturally huge irises, and the whites of her eyes are red red.

“Uh, Doctor? Off the record? It sorta looks like the Commander is tripping balls right now.”

“Oh?” Dr Chakwas’ voice is even enough, but she looks alarmed rather than surprised.

“Um, yeah. Big Krogan ones, too. The whole quad at once.”

Kaidan tries to stand and join them, but Dr Chakwas shoots him a look of withering disappointment that has him retreating back to his corner. In another life, Karen Chakwas would have made an incredible Alliance Admiral. After all, she’s the only person with the balls to bully Commander Shepard. She only does it in the tiny dominion of her medbay, but still. That’s some Gold Star Commendation for Bravery-level shit right there.

“I can feel all of my fingertips,” Shepard says, seriously.

Joker grimaces. “Good for you. So,” he asks, turning to Dr Chakwas.

“The crate must have been near a cache of red sand,” Dr Chakwas takes a breath and shakes her head. “It may surprise you to learn that Alliance ships are not stocked with anything that might readily prevent a narcotic overdose. I can fabricate something in a few hours, of course, but…”

Joker feels something swoop in his gut, but he tries not to look too alarmed, for Kaidan’s sake. “That's too long,” he says quietly, finishing her thought.

“I don’t suppose the Alliance had anticipated the application of red sand via combat burn. I’ll have to author a medical paper — another one — on the extremely creative ways the Commander has tried to get herself killed,”  Dr Chakwas makes a thoughtful noise. “There’s no help for it I suppose. Joker, you wouldn’t mind a detour to an old friend of mine, would you?”

“Any friend of yours, Doc.”

“Friend may be a bit of an exaggeration. So might acquaintance. But I don’t think he’ll shoot at us very much. At least, not unless he knows Garrus is on board. Not a big fan of C-Sec.”

“Relatable,” Joker activates the comm on his omnitool. “Flight, this is Joker. Incoming primary coordinates from Dr Chakwas. Anticipate mild to moderate hostility. Somebody tell Garrus to go hide in steerage. Somebody else tell Navigator Pressly he’s got command of the Normandy.”

***

It turns out Dr Chakwas was right, there was a limited amount of gunfire involved in their terminus-adjacent supply run.

There was some yelling, a handful of threats, and one truly superb volley of insults that almost made Joker wish he’d been there to see the ground crew’s expressions in person.

Not for the first time, Joker wonders where Dr Chakwas picks up black market contacts in a life spent as a prim and proper Alliance medic.

Her shore leave must be wild.

Shepard survives her trip. Kaidan keeps his eye. And Garrus is removed from time-out.