#milkywrites

Though he’s not always in the mood for talking, not always able to accept her company when he can’t even accept his own, he tries because he can tell she needs it too. They start acting like friends and then suddenly there’s no difference to actually being friends and from there it grows organically until he finds he can’t conceptualize his existence as separate from hers, and it’s become the most important relationship in his life.

But he doesn’t think about what that means. He’s never had a relationship like this, especially not with an alien. He doesn’t know what’s possible between them, what’s expected. He doesn’t waste time thinking about what they could be, only what they already are. He follows her lead as he has since the moment she barreled into his Omega stronghold as a changed but alive woman.

He’s shocked when she propositions him, but once again: it doesn’t feel wrong. Suddenly, this too is possible. Risky, terrifying, but possible. And it doesn’t take long from there, this moment that prompts him to think about what exactly they are and what exactly they are doing, to realize that he is already in far deeper than he ever planned to be. 

He knows he has feelings for her before he ever makes it up to her cabin, but he might never know how long he’s had those feelings. 

And as for Shepard — she’s always liked him, always found him charming, and seeing him again so unexpectedly when she’s got no one and nothing, not even herself — they’re suddenly in a position where he’s the closest confidante she has. She doesn’t need a subordinate, she needs a friend. It’s not a conscious decision to just abandon all decorum and treat him like they’ve always been friends first, coworkers second. It’s easy to do away with all of that and jump to the next stage because that’s what she needs them to be, and she doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth and the patience to get there at a slower pace.  

And then they are friends, but that doesn’t stop the urge to get closer, and she realizes she’s set something in motion that she would’ve never, in her right mind, intended. It doesn’t help that he lets her. He’s the steadfast presence that she needed to see her through this Cerberus nightmare, but she knows now the kind of man he’s become in her absence, and she is drawn to that man not out of emotional necessity but genuine intrigue, and she knows that’s too much. Too much for either of them to deal with, in their dire situation.

In truth, she thinks maybe if they just work it out in bed, if he’s amenable to that, she can finally get her head on straight and focus wholly on the mission. 

And if he rejects her, then that would also do the job.

But then he’s saying yes, and he’s fretting, and he’s pacing, and he’s saying ‘This is about us,’ and she has to wonder how long they’ve been an ‘us’ to him — several steps farther than she’s ever let herself think about them — and god damn it, if she pulls the panic cord and rejects him now, there’s a chance she’ll break his heart on top of her own.