V Shepard ~fanfics~

The Space Between (angst) Kaidan notices a familiar voice, though it sounds different from what he is used to.

The Space Between II (NSFW) Shakarian get all naughty 🤭

Promise me (angst) Shepard needs comfort and Garrus has her back as usual.

Shepard had been in a coma for several months already.

The injuries she had sustained when the rescue teams found her beneath the rubble were such that anyone else would have succumbed to them. The fact that she had survived was nothing short of a miracle.

So Garrus couldn't afford to complain. At least, she was still breathing. That was what he kept telling himself over and over, like a mantra.

She's alive.

Yet the months went by and her condition remained unchanged. Seeing her like this, trapped in this leaden sleep, her eyes closed, her face motionless, her body still... it was truly heartbreaking.

Chakwas had assured him that humans were sometimes capable of hearing what was said to them even while in a coma. So he kept talking to her. Even if she remained silent. Even if she no longer reacted. Even if she no longer laughed at his sarcasm.

"The repairs are progressing quickly," he said softly. "It seems the horror of these past months is pushing everyone to look toward the future... now that the Reapers are gone."

No reaction. Her face remained the same, distant, unreachable.

Maybe Chakwas had only said that to lift his spirits. To keep him from losing hope. So he ventured into more intimate subjects. Things he usually kept buried deep inside. Shepard had always known how to listen. And yet, even to her, he had never dared confide the heaviest burdens he carried.

"I received a message from my father. It must have taken weeks to get here. There aren't many communication relays still functioning."

He paused, his gaze lost on the blurred silhouette of Shepard lying on the bed in this makeshift hospital.

"My mother didn't survive."

The words scraped at his throat.

"Her condition was already... complicated before the Reapers arrived. She never had any chance of escaping them."

Silence fell once more.

Garrus remained still, his eyes fixed on her. His mind involuntarily conjured an imaginary version of Shepard sitting across from him. He imagined her solemn gaze, the way she would say his name. She probably wouldn't say anything else. Because there was nothing to say. But her presence would have been enough. Her attention. The simple fact that she was there with him.

His eyes drifted toward the starry sky beyond the window.

Up there, his mother had joined the spirits of her ancestors.

And he couldn't help imagining her final hours: alone amidst the chaos of the invasion. No one to reassure her. No one to say goodbye.

She belonged to the stars now.

As sleep began to claim him as well, his thoughts drifted.

Memories rose to the surface, mingling with the images of this silent room. The way his mother had died… It was like when Shepard had disappeared years ago. When the Normandy had been destroyed.

Garrus relived the scene with painful clarity.

The rescue shuttle had just been recovered by an Alliance frigate. Admiral Hackett had come in person. Other shuttles were arriving as well. Many crew members had survived.

A relief.

Then a final shuttle had emerged from the darkness. The only one still transmitting a signal.

Joker stepped out of it. Alone.

All eyes turned toward him.

"And Shepard?"

Joker hadn't dared meet Hackett's gaze. He said nothing. He simply shook his head. His face conveyed everything else: anger, anguish, disbelief.

Garrus had refused to believe it. It was impossible. He had convinced himself that he was misreading human expressions. That he was mistaken. The illusion hadn't lasted long.

Hackett immediately ordered a search. Just in case she was still out there somewhere. Lost in the cold vastness of space.

They found nothing.

The days passed. Then the media stopped talking about a disappearance. They started talking about a death.

He remembered perfectly the moment they heard it for the first time. They were gathered around a table in a bar on the Citadel. In silence. And the little hope they had left shattered in just a few words.

Kaidan was the first to stand up. He muttered an excuse before walking away, his shoulders slumped.

Wrex drained his glass. “To the most formidable human I've ever met.” Then he left as well.

Tali and Liara stayed. Frozen. As if moving might make the news real.

Eventually, Tali spoke.

She talked about the fear that had followed her when she left the Migrant Fleet. The stories she had heard about how quarians were treated throughout the rest of the galaxy. She told them how Shepard had taken her in with high expectations. She was ruthless, unforgiving. But also with respect. She treated her as an equal. As a full-fledged member of her crew. And that said more about Shepard than any medal ever could.

Garrus and Liara listened. Everything felt unreal. Just a few hours earlier, they had still been fighting at her side. Now they were speaking about her in the past tense.

Tali left to rejoin her people.

Then Liara let out a long sigh. A sigh laden with everything she couldn't bring herself to say. She seemed just as lost as he was.

Liara asked him to take care of himself. To stay in touch.

He nodded. Without believing it for a single second.

Then he found himself alone with the empty bottles and abandoned glasses. And a special broadcast dedicated to the first human Spectre playing on the screen above the bar.

He should have left. Yet he stayed.

They talked about her achievements. Her troubled past on Earth among the gangs. Her elevation to Spectre status. Saren. The Battle of the Citadel.

But nothing about the real Shepard. Nothing about her relentless determination. The way she pursued a goal with the stubbornness of a varren on a trail. The enjoyment she took in driving the Mako at full speed. The music she liked to listen to while sniping Thorian creepers and competing with him. Or the meals and nights of sleep she often skipped.

Everything that made her real... Human.

None of it was there.

Nothing of the woman he had followed. Nothing of the woman who had given him the opportunity of a lifetime: to get out of that bureaucratic hell and finally act, make a difference.

How many people in this galaxy had truly known her?

The thought imposed itself despite him. She had left the way she had lived. Alone. Garrus immediately felt disgusted with himself for thinking it. But the question remained.

He knew her file. Like many others did. The childhood in the poor districts. The violence. The Alliance as the only way out. Yet one day, Shepard had told him another truth. A truth that appeared in no report. “I tried to kill Anderson when I was a kid.” She had spoken the words with unsettling calm. “He was on a mission in my streets. I still don't know why he spared me, even to this day.”

Garrus had never claimed to fully understand humans. But he had seen something in her eyes that day. An immense weariness. An ancient loneliness. Like a light that had gone out long before he met her.

Then the image returned. Shepard drifting alone through space. Vanishing into the darkness. As if the galaxy had swallowed her whole.

Garrus woke with a start in the chair beside the hospital bed. The oppressive silence of the room was still there. And so was Shepard.

But this time, he wasn't dreaming.

Her eyes were half open.

Another nightmare. Again.

Shepard jolted awake, drenched in sweat. It was becoming routine.

She had always been a light sleeper, but never this restless. Not even during the darkest periods of her life.

Back then, her nights had been nothing but darkness, empty of dreams and visions alike. She would close her eyes and open them again hours later, never truly aware of the time that had passed.

But ever since the war began, ever since she'd been forced to leave Earth behind, she hadn't had a single peaceful night's sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, images, voices, and memories came back to haunt her.

And if she was honest with herself, she missed those dreamless nights.

She wandered through the Normandy's corridors.

There was no real day-night cycle aboard the ship, but the crew did their best to maintain an artificial schedule, preserving at least the illusion of a normal circadian rhythm. A skeleton crew was always on duty to keep the vessel running, but at this hour the decks felt almost deserted. Without even thinking about it, Shepard headed for the maintenance bay. Her feet carried her there of their own accord.

Or perhaps she knew exactly where she was going.

Maybe she simply needed to see the person who mattered most to her. The one who listened without expecting her to be a symbol, a hero, or a savior. The one who still saw her as a person.

The door slid open with a soft hiss.

Just as she'd expected, Garrus was still awake.

Shepard wondered what could possibly be left to calibrate on that cannon. Unless he simply couldn't sleep either.

He looked up as she stepped inside.

"Shepard. Can't sleep?"

A faint, tired smile tugged at her lips. "Looks like I'm not the only one."

"It's easier to keep your head clear when you're busy. When the silence sets in..." He glanced away briefly. "Well..."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

Garrus studied her face for a few seconds.

"Bad dream again?"

Shepard immediately lowered her gaze, as though an immense weight had suddenly settled on her shoulders.

"I feel more on edge when I'm alone with my thoughts than I do out in the field."

His mandibles twitched slightly. "I know the feeling. In the middle of a fight, everything's simpler. You know what needs to be done, and you do it. No time to think. No time to second-guess yourself."

"Exactly."

A silence settled between them.

"If talking about it would help, I'm here, Shepard."

She smiled. She already knew that. But hearing him say it made all the difference. He had always been there. Always. He had understood her when no one else did. Stood by her when others walked away. Even when she'd made the hardest decisions.

There was nothing more constant in her life than Garrus Vakarian.

"Ever since Eden Prime... ever since that beacon put those visions in my head, I was never really afraid."

She spoke slowly, as though every word cost her something.

"I knew what I'd seen. I knew what was coming. I knew what I had to do." Her gaze drifted into the distance. "And deep down... dying in battle never really frightened me."

She fell silent.

What came next suddenly felt far harder to admit. Especially to him.

She let out a long sigh.

Garrus waited in silence. Patient. Never trying to fill the void.

"But now... now that it's all real..." Her voice wavered slightly. "I think I'm scared."

Another pause.

"Now that I have something to lose."

This time, she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. Her chest tightened painfully.

"I shouldn't have said that. Not to you."

And yet she wanted him to know. It was selfish. And what made it even more selfish was knowing he would accept it anyway.

"Shepard..." His deep voice gently broke the silence. "You really think I don't feel exactly the same way?"

She looked up sharply. Of all the responses she had expected, that wasn't one of them. The sincerity in Garrus's eyes was disarming.

"Spirits... I didn't hesitate for a second to go to Omega and make enemies of the worst criminals in the galaxy when you were..."

The word refused to leave his lips.

Dead.

"I try not to show it. Because I already know how much you're carrying. Because this war matters more than my feelings."

He paused.

"But every time we hit the ground and I watch you charge straight at a Reaper army..."

His mandibles tightened and his gaze darkened.

"Believe me, I can't afford to miss a single shot. Because I'd never forgive myself."

An impossibly gentle smile appeared on Shepard's lips. A rare smile. A smile only Garrus had the privilege of seeing.

"You've always had my back, Garrus."

"And I don't intend to stop now." His voice softened. "Whatever you're facing, my rifle will be right there behind you."

"Yeah..." She held his gaze. "I know."

For a moment, everything felt lighter.

Then the memory of her nightmare resurfaced. Her smile gradually faded. Tears shimmered in her eyes, though she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

One hand rested against the edge of the monitor, clenched tightly. Without a word, Garrus placed his own over it. Her hand disappeared completely beneath his fingers.

"What if it was me?"

"What?"

"What if I became the one I had to fight?"

Concern flashed across his face.

"Shepard..."

"If the Reapers took control of my mind. My will."

"I don't want to think about that."

"But it could happen."

"No."

"You know it could."

Silence fell once more. Garrus's mandibles shifted uneasily.

"Then I suppose we'd all be doomed. And the Reapers would only have to finish what they started."

"That's not what I meant, Garrus."

This time, he was the one who looked away. His hand slowly slipped from hers.

"I don't want to end up like Saren."

"That won't happen."

"But if it did..."

She drew a shaky breath.

"I want you to put a bullet between my eyes."

A low sound escaped him, somewhere between a growl and a snarl. The very thought made him want to tear something apart.

But he swallowed his anger. For her. Always for her.

"You won't end up like Saren."

His voice was firm. Unshakable. He met her gaze without the slightest hesitation.

Shepard found herself growing increasingly playful. With the tips of her fingers, she traced Garrus’s arm while his large hand rested on her knee, hidden beneath the hem of her evening dress, gently massaging it. Shepard’s leg was draped over his, and their contact seemed to multiply with every passing second.

Gradually, her touches grew more confident. As the tension between them rose, Shepard leaned closer to him. Her face was now only a few centimeters from his, and she absentmindedly bit her lower lip, unable to hide the desire burning in her eyes.

A low purr rumbled in Garrus’s voice. “Is the alcohol starting to get to you, my love?”

His hand almost completely enveloped Shepard’s knee. His long, clawed fingers brushed her leg with surprising gentleness, slowly making their way up toward her thigh.

Shepard gave a mischievous smirk. “I get the feeling I’m not the only one who’s a little tipsy.”

With the ease of habit, she climbed onto him, straddling his lap. Her hands braced against his shoulders as she pressed herself against him. Her chest met his torso, and her bent legs naturally wrapped around his hips. Instinctively, Garrus let his hands slide along her sides before settling at the small of her back.

It was a dance they knew by heart. A familiar, comfortable position for both of them despite their difference in size. It allowed them to meet eye to eye, without Garrus having to adopt an uncomfortable posture for his height, or Shepard having to bear his full weight. A simple balance, forged by habit.

Shepard buried her face in the hollow of his long neck, raining kisses and teasing touches along his skin. A deep purr rumbled in Garrus’s throat, his mandibles vibrating with pleasure.

And then they kissed with passion.

She had grown used to his rough lips, and he to the warm, wet softness of hers. Over time, they had learned to adapt to their differences, even developing a few private games of their own. Garrus slid his blue tongue between her lips; it was slightly rough, carrying that bitter, anise-like taste. Shepard loved to catch it with her mouth and play with it. Driven by rising arousal, his long tongue pushed further, brushing her uvula and drawing a muffled gasp from her.

That simple sound was enough to affect Garrus, and Shepard quickly felt his desire grow between her thighs. His weight pressed against her, strong and impatient, but the layers of clothing between them still kept him from taking her completely. A hungry growl rumbled in his throat, his mandibles twitching with agitation.

Shepard couldn’t wait any longer. Her mind raced, unable to slow down. She could already imagine him deep inside her, and the thought left her practically breathless. She placed her hand on the prominent bulge straining against his pants, the fabric pulled tight around him.

She knew it must be painful for him. In his arousal, his member would mechanically extend from its cloaca, only to be trapped again by trousers far too tight. 

She moved to undo the fastening to free him. But Garrus caught her hand before she could. 

Their eyes met, and without a word, they understood each other immediately. They were still on the couch upstairs, in the middle of the party, while their friends continued enjoying themselves downstairs. Shepard then removed her leather jacket and tied it around her waist, the fabric covering her backside and the upper part of Garrus’s legs.

It wasn’t perfectly discreet, but it gave them at least a semblance of privacy.

With a simple look, he asked her if she was sure. Shepard nodded softly before finally freeing him from his restraint. Garrus let out a satisfied growl, relieved to feel the pressure disappear. It didn’t take anything more for Shepard to part the fabric of her underwear and finally take him where he belonged. As if every second spent without that connection had been pure torment they could finally ease.

Their shared groan of relief echoed in their ears as he filled her completely and she finally felt him inside her. The satisfaction of being united hit them with almost brutal intensity.

“Just wait until we’re alone… I won’t let you go,” Shepard whispered, breathless with pleasure as she began to move against him.

“Alone… when there are places on the Citadel far more crowded than this?” 

Shepard let out a soft laugh, lost in her breathless sighs.

The slow motion of her hips allowed them to savor every sensation and his long member firmly enveloped by her burning warmth. He was far harder than a human’s, yet also infinitely more supple. For Shepard, the feeling was exquisite. She had to bite her lip to hold back the sounds threatening to escape her and avoid drawing attention from their guests. But the struggle was futile. Every movement set her thoughts exploding like an endless fireworks display. All rational thinking seemed to have abandoned her mind, and she clung desperately to the last traces of control she had left.

Garrus, for his part, struggled just as much to contain his growls of pleasure, sometimes forcing his breathing steady to keep his voice low. His hands gripped Shepard’s hips beneath the jacket as her movements became more forceful, more unpredictable. His claws left faint marks on her skin, though he still struggled to control his strength. That constant effort between restraint and desire only made him more unsteady.

Shepard clung to him, arms locked around his neck, her face buried in the hollow of his shoulder. Only fragments of thought still managed to break through the haze in her mind. Nothing else existed but that overwhelming sensation: his immense form, marked with ridges into which her body seemed to melt with every movement. Nothing compared to it. No human could ever rival Turian physiology. And his tip, shaped like a blunt arrowhead, pressed against her in relentless rhythm, sending uncontrollable shivers through her.

It was more than addictive. It was euphoric.

Garrus was losing all sense of restraint. Time and space blurred into an unreal haze, his thoughts focused entirely on one thing: Shepard. Nothing could pull him out of that trance, nothing but the relentless dance she led, seated on his lap. She was unbearably hot and tight, her interior both surprisingly soft - so different from a Turian’s - and yet strikingly firm. He was still amazed by the intense pressure gripping him.

His tongue traced along her temple, tasting her sweat, sliding down her throat, then over her bare shoulder, which he bit with restraint. He could feel the moment approaching: she was tightening around him more and more, while he continued to fill her completely. 

It was coming.

One of his hands left her hips to slowly travel up her back until it reached her shoulder blades. She tried to muffle her moans against his neck, buried in the hollow of his carapace, her teeth brushing against his skin at times, hard as leather.

Then one final movement, one last decisive thrust, was enough. A muffled groan escaped from deep in his throat as he let himself go inside her, his release spilling deep within her. Shepard held back a sharp gasp as the orgasm crashed over her like a wave. The force of his climax shook her violently, her hips pulled into his powerful rhythm. As a human, she had to endure what Turian physiology seemed naturally built to handle.

Shepard panted in ecstasy, sighed in relief, trembling with satisfaction. No human man could ever compare. It would be unfair, really, given how incomparable the pleasure Garrus gave her was.

She shivered in his arms. He ran his hand through her long dark hair, the strands slipping between his claws.

Gradually, they both came back to themselves, reason slowly reclaiming its place. Music was still blasting downstairs, mixed with laughter and conversation.

They hadn’t been discovered, after all.

They had taken a reckless risk, carried away by desire and impulse. And yet Garrus was used to it by now, after all this time with Shepard. She was impulsive, sometimes a little reckless, but he loved her for it. She lived everything at full intensity, without restraint. He loved her to the point of losing himself in it. Nothing ever seemed capable of stopping her, and certainly not him. From the moment they met, he had let himself be pulled into her chaos without ever trying to resist it.

Kaidan climbed the stairs without any real destination, seeking a moment of quiet away from the crowd as the beginnings of a migraine pulsed behind his temples. But as he reached the landing, voices caught his attention.

He stopped abruptly behind the wall. He didn’t need to see them to understand.

Shepard’s voice was instantly recognizable and yet different. Softer. Warmer. Stripped of the sharp hardness she usually wore like armor.

A tight ache settled in his chest.

They sounded deeply in love. Intimate in a calm, effortless way, as though this closeness had always existed between them. Far more than anything he had ever truly shared with her.

Jealousy rose despite himself.

Kaidan had always loved Shepard. Yet he had never managed to move beyond this stolen moment. Never broken through the defenses she kept wrapped tightly around herself, never reached the closeness he could now hear in the faintest shifts of her voice.

Even when they flirted, an invisible distance had remained between them, a gap he had never learned how to cross, one that had slowly worn him down.

Horizon came rushing back at once. His doubts. His accusations. The moment he had turned away from her instead of following.

While Garrus had stayed. He had stood at her side throughout the mission, supporting her without hesitation.

Even during Udina’s coup, when everything had fallen apart, when doubt had frozen him, when he had hesitated to believe Shepard, raising his weapon against her. Kaidan could still see it with painful clarity: his finger tense on the trigger… and Garrus already moving, stepping between them, ready to defend her without a moment’s hesitation.

Where he had doubted, Garrus had chosen.

Kaidan clenched his jaw.

He envied him, and the thought filled him immediately with guilt. Because he knew all of this was his own doing. Garrus had taken nothing from him. He had simply succeeded where Kaidan had failed.

He tried to show none of it, to behave as though their relationship didn’t affect him. He had no right to jealousy. Not after breaking the trust Shepard had once placed in him.

And yet…

Kaidan remained there despite himself, hidden behind the wall, listening to their whispers. He knew it wasn’t right, but he found himself unable to leave.

Shepard’s voice reached him clearly now, softer, warmer than he had ever heard it before. She, usually brutal and sharp-edged, cynical and overwhelming in her intensity, sounded different. Gentle, playful, almost vulnerable.

And that version of her existed only for Garrus.

Only for him.