Late N7 Shakarian snippet: Post Omega-4 relay
“I wasn’t sure it was gonna work all that well,” she said, staring at their hands. “I was hoping it would. You’re not the only one who wanted something to finally go right.”
There was silence, after that, and no movement from him. She was about to withdraw her hand when he raised his, interlocking their fingers. It was a little unusual, a curious meeting of five on one side and three on the other, but she knew what to do. He’d been the first to try, hours before, fingers quickly finding hers in the soft cabin light as soon as she'd started moving with him towards the bed.
This the kind of research on humans you’ve been doing, Vakarian? she’d asked, voice thick, looking at their weirdly intertwined fingers. Turians didn’t hold hands like that. He’d only smiled, and let her finish leading him to her bed.
He was smiling then, too, as he looked at their joined hands. Very faintly against the hum of the ship, she thought she could hear the low rumble of subvocals.
“I don’t know about you, Shepard, but it did go right, for me.” He looked up at her, letting go of her hand. “There’s no one else I’d rather have done this with.”
“Me neither.” She smiled back, letting go of a deep sigh. “Thank you for this. And for listening to what I was actually trying to say when I made that… questionable proposition.”
“What do you mean questionable? I just recall you confessing an uncontrollable attraction to my scars. Oh, and a very smooth metaphor about sparring.”
He was wearing one of his smuggest grins.
“Now you’re just being an ass. It was your terrible metaphor.” That did nothing to wipe out his smirk. “And if you really wanna talk about sparring, I did come out of this one on top.”
He let out a little appreciative hum, eyes half-lidded. “That you did.”