Garrus Vakarian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thearchangel) wrote2012-04-12 12:07 am
thearchangel) wrote2012-04-12 12:07 am
18 - [commentlog] | Dreams
[He doesn't dream. Typically, Garrus is just too dead tired to do anything like dream. He sleeps -- he wakes up. There's nothing memorable in between. It's not unpleasant. He doesn't regret it. It's just how things are.]
[Which makes it all the more strange that, tonight, the dream is so vivid, he could swear he is actually there. That it isn't a dream at all.]
[-- that one thing you wanted to do before you died, Shepard?"
She's there and her voice is warm. Affectionate. It's good to hear. They're moving -- the Presidium flashes past the windows of a car. The presidium... and his face. His scars have healed, the angry, dark red faded to motled pink and grey. When he looks at them now, the anger, the disgust and the bitterness are as mellowed as the marks themselves.]
[They're talking. They're... flirting. It's natural, it's easy. Surprisingly easy.]
[And then they're parked. Up high on the Presidium. Where he'd always promised himself he'd go, someday, somehow. There they are. No one else is near. No one but the sound of simulated wind, the whir of passing traffic. She looks more tired than he remembers. Then again, there's good reason for that. They both know it.]
[It's amazing up here -- beautiful, she thinks. Everything and everyone else a million miles away. They're alone. For the first time in ages, they're truly alone with one another. He looks over...]
["The worst part of the galaxy going to hell would've been never getting to see you again."]
[The words that pass between them then are a promise -- a stammering, awkward, heartfelt and honest pledge. And it's the kiss, the should-have-been-impossible "thing you do for someone you love", that seals it.]
[He jerks awake when the last bottle explodes over the Presidium, and she leans against him, taking in the sight of it all.]
[The walls of the Keep greet him when he wakes up, not the Presidium. There's a bed under his bony ass, not armor. It's dark. Quiet. And his heart is racing.]
[What... was that? Any of that?]
- - -
[Later in the night, he's put his armor back on, and taken up a vantage point in the chapel, the higher the better, staring down solemnly at the floors below. A bottle is in one hand.]
[While the other traces the harsh, brutal outlines of broken cartilage across the side of his face.]
[Which makes it all the more strange that, tonight, the dream is so vivid, he could swear he is actually there. That it isn't a dream at all.]
[-- that one thing you wanted to do before you died, Shepard?"
She's there and her voice is warm. Affectionate. It's good to hear. They're moving -- the Presidium flashes past the windows of a car. The presidium... and his face. His scars have healed, the angry, dark red faded to motled pink and grey. When he looks at them now, the anger, the disgust and the bitterness are as mellowed as the marks themselves.]
[They're talking. They're... flirting. It's natural, it's easy. Surprisingly easy.]
[And then they're parked. Up high on the Presidium. Where he'd always promised himself he'd go, someday, somehow. There they are. No one else is near. No one but the sound of simulated wind, the whir of passing traffic. She looks more tired than he remembers. Then again, there's good reason for that. They both know it.]
[It's amazing up here -- beautiful, she thinks. Everything and everyone else a million miles away. They're alone. For the first time in ages, they're truly alone with one another. He looks over...]
["The worst part of the galaxy going to hell would've been never getting to see you again."]
[The words that pass between them then are a promise -- a stammering, awkward, heartfelt and honest pledge. And it's the kiss, the should-have-been-impossible "thing you do for someone you love", that seals it.]
[He jerks awake when the last bottle explodes over the Presidium, and she leans against him, taking in the sight of it all.]
[The walls of the Keep greet him when he wakes up, not the Presidium. There's a bed under his bony ass, not armor. It's dark. Quiet. And his heart is racing.]
[What... was that? Any of that?]
- - -
[Later in the night, he's put his armor back on, and taken up a vantage point in the chapel, the higher the better, staring down solemnly at the floors below. A bottle is in one hand.]
[While the other traces the harsh, brutal outlines of broken cartilage across the side of his face.]
no subject
["I love you, Garrus Vakarian."]
Yeah?
[His voice comes out a little rough.]
no subject
It has not parsed as a possibility that he could have dreamed the exact same scenario. She's no asari. Mind-melding is beyond her. Hell, she doesn't even have an ounce of biotic ability, for all the cybernetic implants have done.
Without sitting up yet, she squints through the dark.]
Just dreamed the strangest thing.
no subject
[It doesn't occur to him, anymore than it does her, that they both could have shared that experience. It was only a dream. A lot of wish-fulfillment. That's all it was.]
[Almost without thinking, he puts a hand to her shoulder.]
Everything all right?
no subject
[The undercurrents in his voice, his body language, those woke her up faster than understanding just what it is that invaded her dreamscape. A squaddie in trouble takes precedence over fantasies she can recall in crystal clarity. Those can be perused on a later occasion.
The lighting may be poor, but Garrus can probably recognize the stubborn glint in these eyes.]
no subject
[Suddenly he wonders if this is what it's like to be their assassin crewman. Flashes of memory that shouldn't be so vivid. Damn, it must be annoying to be a drell. He shakes his head.]
I... it must have been something in the food. Water. I don't know.
[He turns his attention back to the wall.]
... I don't dream, Shepard. Never really have. But... I just had one hell of one.
no subject
So tell me about it.
[No judgment.]
no subject
[It sounds so stupid to him. Now, with Shepard wanting to hear his crazy little fantasy. But she wants to hear it.]
[So out it comes -- the car ride. The Presidium. Shooting bottles. Him winning and celebrating like a giddy teenage idiot. But his voice falters, eventually, and there is a sudden, quiet tension in his shoulders.]
... And I... we talked. About... us.
no subject
The implications are. . . 'unsettling' is close, but too negative to be the word she's searching for. To show solidarity with Garrus while the cogs turn in her brain, Shepard sits up at last and lets her free hand touch his cheek. The unscarred one, simply because it's the one facing her.
No judging and certainly no laughing.]
That's. . . interesting. To put it lightly. Maybe it was something we ate, because I dreamed everything you did.
no subject
[Except the hand on his face. That pulls him back.]
[Not pulling away, he turns to look at her, the undamaged cartilage shifting under her fingers. It's his turn, then, to go a little slack-jawed.]
You... but that's not possible.
[Unless either one of them has some latent biotic ability lying around they'd never known about before.]
no subject
It's a lot easier to accept now.]
Think about what you just said, then think about where we're at.
no subject
I... yeah.
[Once more he falls quiet. Once more he glances over at her.]
Then... what's your take on it?
[All of it.]