#thank you...

Garrus nods, his hands glued almost diplomatically to his hips. “Yeah,” he agrees. A low noise, not quite a grumble but still in her mirror, rolls between them as he looks over his shoulder. Shepard frowns as she realizes he doesn’t meet her eyes. “Found myself thinking the same.” Something burns: the back of her neck, her heart, or maybe the brush Garrus is staring at instead of her is about to burst into flames. For a fleeting moment, she wonders if she would rather he drag it out of her. Put all that C-Sec interrogation training to good use. Ask her what’s wrong with her, why she can’t get it right. What happened? But if he did—would she even know what to say? The burn cools, porous and black and solid, to wait for another day.

it's lava - it cools, but that doesn't mean it can't erupt again. it's lying in wait, a pressure cooker, for the perfect conditions to blaze down the hill again.

also a fun fact about the above scene: originally I was going to write this fic from garrus' pov. unfortunately I searched my scrap files and it turns out I didn't save any of it, but it started from him closing the trunk and thinking of how to cautiously approach shepard. I decided to switch it for a few reasons, but the biggest is for the challenge. with a garrus pov, even if he isn't reading her body language, I would hope my readers can. but with a shepard pov, we no longer have purely human language to go off on. it adds a little mystique. a little question - do we REALLY understand how he feels? while I do still tend to lean on usual human gestures with him, because at the end of the day I want it to be understandable, often I try not to. and when I don't it's very much on purpose.