"Well, remind me never to listen to you about varren races. Good thing we didn't have to take a cab home," Garrus sighed.

Thane chuckled. "I haven't done that in a very long time."

"That's something of a running theme with you, Krios. What else do you need to brush up on?"

"Indulging a smart-mouthed turian."

"I seem to recall you didn't have many complaints about my mouth that night in Nos Astra."

"Thank the gods for small miracles that you managed to remember anything about it after all the Blue Shifts you drank."

"That's not the kind of thing you forget. Give me another night like that, Thane, and I'll be having one of your drell freak outs."

"Is that a genuine request, or merely more of your bluster?"

"Maybe it's just the gin talking. Does it matter? I'm here, you're here, and there's an awful lot of walls and empty surfaces in this apartment."

Thane leaned in close to Garrus, parting the turian's mouth plates with his tongue, and felt arms wrap about him tightly. He grew warm and flushed, losing himself for a blissful moment in the embrace and the heat of an eager mouth, and it was as though they'd never been apart at all.

"...I've missed you, Garrus," he breathed softly against his cheek plate, after pulling away only reluctantly.

"I missed you too, Thane," Garrus said. He paused only briefly, taking Thane's cheeks into his hands, cradling his face with an unexpected tenderness--unexpected to others, perhaps, but not to Thane. Not after Illium, and promises whispered under the shadow of night. "I meant what I said, that time," he added, stroking Thane's frills with his thumb.

"I know, ash'er," Thane replied, smiling faintly at the memory.

Pairing: Imani Shepard/Thane Krios/Garrus Vakarian

Rating: M (mature content)

Length: 19558 words

Summary: Little did Imani Shepard know that a single encrypted message from Thane Krios to meet him on the Citadel would signal the start of a new chapter in both their lives--and in the life of the turian comrade they both love.

Content Warnings: A lot of relationship processing. And drell food porn.

it actually makes perfect sense that Miri would have worked on the cure with Mordin in my verse

first of all she was on the run from Cerberus and couldn’t exactly go to the ex-Cerb safehouses bc one of her jobs was finding them and shutting them down so nobody trusted her (I mentioned that in the fic I wrote that time)

and an STG facility on Sur’Kesh would be the absolute last place in the galaxy anyone would think to look for her

on top of that Mordin straight up used Lazarus Project data that EDI passed to him, specifically the bits re: cybernetic organ reconstruction

who better than the woman who headed that project and developed that science to help him adapt it to drell physiology

then there’s how it adds to the lovely parallels w Imani and Thane. the same woman saved them

1) both are lone wolf workaholic types

2) both had very high expectations placed on them from a young age, and weren’t really permitted childhoods (recall that Thane was chosen for the Compact as a child)

3) in my verse, Kolyat is dating Oriana (and Mouse)

4) both have a difficult time making connections w others, and begin to open up more bc of Imani

5) both have a dry sense of humor that few would expect from them (see 6)

6) both are very intimidating and seem cold and aloof to people who don’t know them, but they each have hidden depths and are deeply passionate and protective of those they care about (Thane going at lengths for his son and yes Miri with Ori but even way before that, the softness of Miri’s eyes when Shep prematurely wakes up and her yelling at Wilson to up the sedatives)

Who kisses the other on the nose and the one receiving the kiss blushes?

Thane is the magnum blusher like here’s this cool composed assassin all slick and everything and then Imani kisses his nose and then he turns this weird bright ass magenta yellow and forgets what he was saying and then he has to do it back to her and she turns red af and it’s honestly sickening haha (contrary to popular opinion dark skin ppl can turn red! it happens to me constantly!)

Garrus doesn’t blush per se when she does it to him but he gets extremely flustered and his mandibles start flapping like his face is trying to fly away tbh it’s hilarious

They nodded by way of polite, silent thanks, and Thane led Imani around the corner to a private elevator past the main bank, activating it with a nonchalant flick of his omni-tool. She glanced at him curiously as they stepped inside the circular glass tube, shooting high up to the sole floor it went to—the penthouse.

“Just how many aliases do you have...Sere ‘Arainai’?” Imani asked him.

Thane shut his eyes, laughing a bit softly to himself. “Quite a few. That one is merely the most disreputable.” His double lids opened slowly, with a faint twinkle of mischief in them. “It wouldn’t be out of place for him to take a beautiful Council Spectre to the Matriarch’s Suite.”

Imani echoed his laughter, raising her free hand to her mouth, half covering her face as she did. “That why you brought me up here? To be...disreputable?”

She wiggled her sculpted brows at him, and his soft laughter grew louder then, echoing off the glass. It seemed to come so much easier to him now, this unfettered kind of laughter.

"Told you," Imani said, after swallowing another mouthful. "Anyway, it's probably the cybernetics too. This isn't the only drell substance that doesn't have much effect on me, remember?"

She flashed a cheeky grin at him, and Thane coughed lightly, turning a shade of bright violet, while he reached for his water. It was impish of her, admittedly, but she thought he sort of had it coming after grabbing her ass the way he did. Imani always got a kick out of flustering him; it was famously hard to do, given his cool sense of composure, and it made her feel more than a little smug whenever she did.

“I’m not likely to forget, siha,” Thane said dryly, narrowing his gaze, with a faintly ironic smile passing his lips.

“That was bad,” Imani said, giggling softly in spite of it.

“dad put some pants on”

“these are pants”