When do you think/headcanon Garrus and Shepard realized their feelings for the other became romantic?
I don’t think there’s a singular moment you can point to, for either of them.
Garrus had admired Shepard during the hunt for Saren. He’d seen her as a role model, a worthy mentor, one of the most impressive individuals he’s ever met. And those feelings, as positive and as strong as they might have been, are always foremost about yourself and what the concept of them means to you, not really about a reciprocal relationship. Affection and admiration from a polite distance.
It’s different when they meet again. They’re both barely alive, and she greets him like an old friend, and then he thinks maybe they had been friends after all — something rattles in him at the thought, something about the chain of command, about respect and battlefield chemistry, about the way he’d let her change his mind like he’d never let anyone before or since — but they certainly hadn’t had the type of friendship that she’s acting out now. They hadn’t been close.
In the moment, during the reunion itself — her arms flying wide in the biggest display of emotion she’s ever seen her make — it doesn’t feel wrong. He’s tired, he’s grieving, he doesn’t have the energy to think it through. She was dead, and now she’s not. He talks to her like he would a long lost comrade, not a superior — he hasn’t had a superior in a while — and she doesn’t seem to mind it at all.
It’s after that that he starts to wonder. Her jokes, her grins, her open concern. It’s different from how she used to act, the distance between them disappearing in an instant, like they were something else than what he remembers, back before she died. But it’s nice. He doesn’t mind it. It comes easily to both of them, and he won’t turn his nose up at a friend when he needs one most, even when he doesn’t deserve it.
He decides to just keep it up.
Though he’s not always in the mood for talking, not always able to accept her company when he can’t even accept his own, he tries because he can tell she needs it too. They start acting like friends and then suddenly there’s no difference to actually being friends and from there it grows organically until he finds he can’t conceptualize his existence as separate from hers, and it’s become the most important relationship in his life.
But he doesn’t think about what that means. He’s never had a relationship like this, especially not with an alien. He doesn’t know what’s possible between them, what’s expected. He doesn’t waste time thinking about what they could be, only what they already are. He follows her lead as he has since the moment she barreled into his Omega stronghold as a changed but alive woman.
He’s shocked when she propositions him, but once again: it doesn’t feel wrong. Suddenly, this too is possible. Risky, terrifying, but possible. And it doesn’t take long from there, this moment that prompts him to think about what exactly they are and what exactly they are doing, to realize that he is already in far deeper than he ever planned to be.
He knows he has feelings for her before he ever makes it up to her cabin, but he might never know how long he’s had those feelings.
And as for Shepard — she’s always liked him, always found him charming, and seeing him again so unexpectedly when she’s got no one and nothing, not even herself — they’re suddenly in a position where he’s the closest confidante she has. She doesn’t need a subordinate, she needs a friend. It’s not a conscious decision to just abandon all decorum and treat him like they’ve always been friends first, coworkers second. It’s easy to do away with all of that and jump to the next stage because that’s what she needs them to be, and she doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth and the patience to get there at a slower pace.
And then they are friends, but that doesn’t stop the urge to get closer, and she realizes she’s set something in motion that she would’ve never, in her right mind, intended. It doesn’t help that he lets her. He’s the steadfast presence that she needed to see her through this Cerberus nightmare, but she knows now the kind of man he’s become in her absence, and she is drawn to that man not out of emotional necessity but genuine intrigue, and she knows that’s too much. Too much for either of them to deal with, in their dire situation.
In truth, she thinks maybe if they just work it out in bed, if he’s amenable to that, she can finally get her head on straight and focus wholly on the mission.
And if he rejects her, then that would also do the job.
But then he’s saying yes, and he’s fretting, and he’s pacing, and he’s saying ‘This is about us,’ and she has to wonder how long they’ve been an ‘us’ to him — several steps farther than she’s ever let herself think about them — and god damn it, if she pulls the panic cord and rejects him now, there’s a chance she’ll break his heart on top of her own.
“Give it back!” Four yells, and Legend simply holds the bag of rupees up further from his reach.
“No! I won fair and square,” the Veteran retorts. In a fit of stunted rage, Four does the only thing he can think to do, which is reach out and pinch Legend’s sides as hard as he can.
His anger is overshadowed by surprise as Legend reacts—by letting out a sharp squeak, wrenching himself away from the offending fingers. Four raises his eyebrows, evil intentions welling up in him as he makes a realization.
*does research for fic* huh...artemis doesn’t sound so bad...reads about how she transformed Callisto into a bear and exiled her to the wild after Zeus...pulled a Zeus and used Artemis’ form to impregnate her.
Welp, at least it’d make sense for Artemis to do what I am planning for her to do, right, @donaldtheduckdad?
Greek gods were too human. Greek gods are basically humans if they had...you know...god like powers.
milkywrites replied to your post “im 2 sad to send sad things”
i started typing one out 4 woojin but then i was like "no :("
our whole friendship as writing partners was built upon angst and you’re betraying it rn icb this...and u called me weak when i didnt want the dday event in rescue squad bc too much sadness but you’re doing this????
