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They were on a routine trip to clean up some hold-out Cerberus cells when it happened.
The planet was a garden world near the Skyllian Verge, mostly untouched by the Reapers but for the presence of a couple Cerberus facilities. They’d been conducting their usual range of disastrous and horrifying experiments there, of course, and cleaning up the mess was going pretty much as usual until they got to one of the lower levels of a former storage bunker, and a swarm of modified husks had rushed them by the dozens. The fighting had turned messy and dirty really fast then, the two of them grossly outnumbered and boxed in. Garrus and Shepard were forced to cleave through the horde with sheer determination, falling back to try and stop the ones that got past them from making it out of the facility. Damn shielded facilities. They should have just fired on it from orbit and called it a day, but sometimes these places had information on the whereabouts of other facilities, and that was proving invaluable in routing out the last pockets of Indoctrinated agents.
Cleaning up after the Reapers was almost as dangerous as killing them had been.
About half a dozen husks had made it to the entrance, despite their best efforts. Garrus had been behind her when the rush started, so he had a head start on her when they were forced to fall back, and had made it out the door and after them first. Of course, husks weren’t designed for self-preservation; upon realizing that none of their fellows had overwhelmed the two squishy organics that had unwittingly set them loose, they turned around and started fighting again. Shepard burst from the facility just in time to see Garrus take out two at close-range, then get tackled by the remaining four.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been so bad. Shepard had one in her sights even as they went down, and its head burst like a ripe melon full of blue pudding. But the facility had been built up close to a small ravine, which dropped for several feet of hard, jagged rock before it ended in a deep, still line of blue-green water. Water that was filled to the brim with all kinds of horrible parasites and chemical run-off from the facility.
Water that Garrus and the husks promptly fell into.
“Dammit!” Shepard swore, storming full-tilt after them. Garrus couldn’t swim. On top of that, when she caught up to the edge of the ravine, it became quickly apparent that the husks were taking full advantage of that. Two of them were holding him under, and his rifle was nowhere to be seen. They were too closely clustered for her to get off a good shot without risking Garrus, too. With a mental curse at the both of them for forgoing their helmets in favour of enjoying fresh, planet-side air, Shepard dropped her own gun and dove in after them.
What followed was probably the single messiest fight of her life. Which was saying something. There was water and grappling husks everywhere, the sounds of their eerie groans punctuated by Garrus’ frantic thrashing as Shepard did her level best to rip the cables out of their enemies’ throats. Sparks flew, her shields went down, one of them got in close enough to bite her goddamn face before she snapped its head almost clean off, the scent of rotting, synthetic hybrid flesh flooding over them, and when it was done she was left with the problem of trying to keep Garrus’ head above water. The shoreline was too high for them to reach. His armour was weighing him down, turians didn’t come with mouths that could completely seal out water, and Garrus had already gotten more than a lungful of probably-toxic sludge. He was heavy and still flailing mostly uselessly next to her, trying to fight her off at first, until she closed one arm tightly around his waist and shouted at him to stop.
The water didn’t have much of a current to it. She wound up having to propel them both down and down and down through it herself, until they finally got to a place where they could climb back up onto dry land. By then Garrus was actively vomiting water and bile up every couple of seconds, and even Shepard’s stamina was spent with the effort of holding him up and keeping them moving at the same time. Both of them crawled onto the shore and lay there pitifully for a while, gasping in sharp lungfuls of air. That was when EDI chimed in to solemnly inform them that the shuttle would pick them up, and someone else would have retrieve their weapons and finish up at the facility, because the both of them needed immediate medical treatment for the eight hundred different contaminants they’d just been horrifically exposed to. Especially Garrus, who ended up bedridden for three days over it.
He was mad about the whole thing for weeks.
“Who builds a facility next to a goddamn death trap?” he demanded, while on his fifteenth round of shots from Dr. Chakwas.
“Cerberus,” Shepard replied, just relieved that he was feeling well enough to rant.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you hadn’t managed to swallow half the river,” Dr. Chakwas interjected.
Garrus’ face twitched, his mandibles flexing into a brief scowl.
“It’s a little harder to avoid that when you’ve got three husks holding your head under,” he replied, though there was something a little off about the way he said it. Not like his usual ‘damn, they almost got me’ combat stories, where there was always that edge of pride, too, or relief, that he was still around in spite of everything. Instead he sounded… well, embarrassed about the whole thing.
It got worse when Joker started in.
“Hey Garrus, if you were looking for some swim partners, you should’ve just asked. I hear the husk diving team sucks.”
“Oh, like you can swim,” Garrus grumbled back at him.
“Uh, duh?” Joker replied. “Of course I can swim. Used to do it all the time. Bones don’t matter much in the water.”
“You’re kidding.”
EDI chimed in, then.
“Water sports and activities are a common form of human physical therapy. The water allows for a broad range of movements and exertion at a much lower risk of detrimental impact, permitting patients to exercise their muscles and hasten recovery times in a relatively safe, controlled environment. Many hospitals and therapy centers employ special pool areas for this purpose.”
“What she said.”
Finally, Shepard decided enough was enough when she caught Garrus looking at the lakes on the once-again-rebuilt presidium and flinching, as if they might reach out and try to drag him in.
“Come on,” she said. “Change of plans. I think we’re going to go help with the recovery on Kahje for a while.”
Garrus got a look on his face like she’d just announced they were going to tongue-kiss some banshees, but to his credit, he didn’t voice a word of objection. Nor did he try and stay on the ship when they got there, even though she caught him sending a few longing glances to the main power battery before they left. His willingness to follow her absolutely everywhere never failed to touch her. It also strengthened her resolve. The Normandy helped escort several important supply ships that were at risk from the recent influx of pirates that had cropped up after the war; nobody tried anything, but then, pirates tended to avoid them like plague of late. Their status as potential targets had gone from ‘highly inadvisable’ to ‘oh my fucking god no’ since the war. The hanar were happy to have them help quarantine off some of the derelict Reaper remains that had been left in their oceans, as well, since their risks for contamination were even greater than on most worlds. Reaper nanites could travel the Encompassing almost anywhere. It ended with the hanar embassy inviting them to stay the night, which was exactly what Shepard had been hoping for. Some of the clearest, most beautiful, carefully-filtered water in the galaxy was on hand absolutely everywhere.
“I don’t know, Shepard, turians just really aren’t designed for this,” Garrus insisted, standing next to the pool in their appointed quarters and looking supremely uncomfortable with the current situation. She sighed, wondering if she should have guessed that her days of coaxing an incredibly-awkward-and-naked Garrus were far from behind them.
“You trust me,” she reminded him.
“I do,” he confirmed, reflexive but sincere.
“Then come on,” she coaxed. “If we try it, and it doesn’t work, then I will personally punch anyone who so much as mentions swimming around you again.”
He winced.
“Tell me I haven’t been that obvious?”
“Garrus. I caught you giving my fish tank a dirty look yesterday.”
“…Okay, fine, you might have a point,” he conceded, and she finally managed to get him to wade in up to his hips. Despite his objections to it, Shepard couldn’t help but think that he looked good in the water. His plates darkened and glistened when they were wet, and the blue light from the pool mirrored the markings on his face, the flecks of colour in his eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was made to be in the water. But the awkwardness of his motions and the stiff, rigid set of his limbs betrayed his discomfort. He stared at her where she was wading in the middle of the pool, and she could tell he couldn’t figure out how that was even working.
She swam forward, sloshing a bit as she got to the shallows, and managed to tug him along until he was up to his chest. The water lapped at his collar bones, and he twitched in agitation.
“Turians don’t float,” he reminded her.
“They don’t exactly sink, either,” she said. “I looked it up. You have a lot of water in your bodies, and your bones are pretty light. You’re just too compact to get a lot of buoyancy, and your plates are kind of heavy. Try bending your legs,” she advised.
Garrus gave her a long, unreadable look. Then he did as she asked. Water rushed up over his collar and into his cowl, around the base of his neck, and he panicked, springing up again and moving a few steps back. She caught him by the hand.
“Hey, okay, let’s try something else,” she said, giving his fingers a squeeze.
He took a deep breath.
“Sorry. I’m trying, Shepard, but I’ve got a lot of instincts that tell me this is a bad idea.”
“I know. Wait here a minute, I have a back-up plan.” Before he could ask, she let go of him again and swam over to the far side of the pool, where she’d stashed a few things she’d grabbed the last time they swung by Earth. The people in the used goods shop had spent the entire time stuttering and starting at her, but if it worked, it would be worth it. The gigantic inflatable alligator looked like it had seen better days, but it was also made of a really durable material – which was probably how it got to be so old – so she had hopes that Garrus wouldn’t pop it on any of his many, many pointy edges. The inflatable orange armbands had survived the war relatively unscathed, so that even the company logos hadn’t faded off. Happy little dolphins waved at her from beneath a wavy sun.
Garrus gave her a weird look as she dragged them all into the water with her.
“What’s this stuff?” he asked.
“Pool toys,” she replied.
There was a pause.
“These are for children, aren’t they?” he asked her suspiciously.
“No,” Shepard lied. “No, no, no. They’re just for… beginners.”
“Sure. And at what age do humans learn how to swim?”
“Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of humans who don’t know how to swim,” Shepard evaded, letting the alligator drift a bit while she swam over and carefully fitted the armbands onto him. After a minute, Garrus opted to suffer the indignity with good humour rather frustration, which she was grateful for.
“So how are these supposed to help?” he asked, carefully not poking one of them with his claws. “Keeping my arms above water isn’t really the problem.”
“They add buoyancy,” Shepard replied, catching the alligator by its leg and carefully position it in front of his chest. It dipped much lower into the water when Garrus put his arms on it, but otherwise stayed floating, its big green face grinning maniacally at them.
“This thing is disturbing,” Garrus noted. “Is this an actual animal on Earth?”
“It was,” Shepard replied. “I don’t know if there are any left, after everything’s that happened.”
A somber mood threatened to drop over them completely, and she could tell that Garrus regretted saying anything. But it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t hers, and she didn’t want all her planning to get ruined by one poorly-timed reminder of just how much the galaxy had lost. So she moved up behind him, and started guiding him into the deeper water again, pressing one hand against the plates on his back. Soon he was standing on the tips of his toes, and then not even that; he made a vaguely alarmed sound when his feet left the bottom of the pool, and his grip on the alligator tightened. She could hear him breathing carefully through his nose.
“Okay,” she said. “Just move your legs slowly back and forth, now. Like what I’m doing.” She took her hand off of his back so the she could swim around in front of him, demonstrating. He watched her legs through the water.
His attempts to mimic her started out shaky and awkward, a little bit too uneven, but they didn’t stay that way for long. Garrus had always been a fast learner, and quick to pick up body-language and physical gestures. Soon he was following her along in slow circles, paddling the alligator in front of him, and Shepard had to bite back a laugh every other second because he looked ridiculous. He really did. But he was doing it, and that was also really impressive. All of the research she’d done on the subject pointed to turians just really not doing the swimming thing. At all. It was get out of the water before you drowned, and that was that. Most turian words for ‘swimming’ literally translated to ‘struggle so as not to die’.
“You’re doing great,” she told him.
He snorted.
“Really, I mean it. You want to move on to the next stage?”
“No,” he replied, with a sigh of resignation.
With a small snicker she couldn’t quite suppress, Shepard carefully moved herself between him and the alligator, pushing it away until Garrus had his hands on her shoulders instead of its back. He dipped lower into the water, and his eyes widened, but between his kicking and the armbands only a little bit of water managed to leak onto his cowl.
“Shepard,” he said, after a few awkward moments of trying not to dig into her with his talons. “What’s the point of all this? Even if I do figure out how to swim, it’s not like I’m ever going to enjoy doing this recreationally.”
“It’s a good skill to have,” she pointed out.
“There are a lot of good skills to have. I don’t go chasing after all of them just because of one fluke situation.”
One of her eyebrows curved up at that.
“Since when?” she asked.
“Since they involved swimming,” he assured her, but a trace of good humour slipped back into his voice. Their proximity in the water was a little awkward, yet Shepard couldn’t help noticing how warm he was, how smooth the plates on his body felt underneath the surface. On impulse, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his right mandible.
“Maybe I’d just like to know that if I’m little too late next time, you’ll still be able to come up for air,” she admitted. His grip on her shoulders tightened for a second, and the corners of his eyes softened.
“Shepard…”
“Besides,” she continued. “Tough guy like you can’t afford to be hydrophobic. You’ll lose all your street cred with James.”
He snorted, but the moment didn’t die off completely. He was quieter, after that, as she got him to take one of his hands off of her shoulder and move it carefully back and forth along the top of the water. No more serious objections. When he got both arms going, she transferred her own grip to his waist. The muscles under her hands tightened reflexively, and Garrus let out a little growl of surprise.
“You know that’s, ah, that’s very distracting,” he grumbled, nevertheless keeping his arms in motion. She grinned at him.
“I know. But your chest is too wide for me to get a good grip on, and if I go for the armpits you won’t be able to move as well. So…” she shrugged, flexing her grip a little bit and earning herself a tiny groan and a suspicious look. But he really did feel different under the water. Not better, per se. Just interesting. The softer skin between his plates seemed to absorb moisture the same way hers did, making it pliable and probably more sensitive. She ran her thumbs across it, and he shivered.
“Okay, now I know you’re doing that on purpose,” he accused.
“Hmm. True. Keeping you distracted seems to be working,” she replied.
“What?”
“Well I’m not holding you up anymore. Haven’t been for almost a full minute now.”
To his credit, Garrus didn’t freak out at this revelation the way that some might have. He tensed up, but kept going through the motions, looking down at his own limbs and the small pool of water above his clavicle in something close to astonishment. Just to prove her point, Shepard carefully, slowly, let go. He didn’t so much as dip in the water, even though his mandibles flared in agitation, and the plates above his eyes twitched. He managed to keep it going for a few mostly silent minutes, too, before he mentioned how tiring it all was for him, and they worked on forward motion a bit more in order to back to the shallow end.
He sat in the lowest level of the pool as Shepard peeled off his armbands, still dark and glistening, his expression once again inscrutable until she’d tossed the orange plastic off to the side. Then he gave her arm a tug, and she went willingly, straddling his hips as he fixed his own grip around her waist. Out of habit, she moved her left hand to rest against his face. His breath puffed against her wrist, and she could feel the beginnings of an erection peeking through the plates on his crotch, pressing against the inside of her thigh. An answering heat ran through her.
“So,” he said. “I guess we can add ‘teaching a turian how to swim’ to the List of Impossible Things Commander Shepard Has Done.”
“Hmm,” she replied, slipping her right hand down across the skin on his stomach. “I guess we can add ‘learning how to swim, despite being a turian’ to the list of Impossible Things Garrus Vakarian Has Done, too.”
“Sounds fair,” he breathily agreed, before he leaned forward to run his tongue along the wet skin of her neck, and thread his fingers through her hair, and both of them forgot entirely how to speak for the next little while.
Water wasn’t such big deal after that.