I like your question, so I'm going to ask you the same thing! what is one of your favorite things about shakarian? what drew you to them?
haha! (see archer look) thank you!
prefacing this by saying i've only played through the trilogy once so far, and i very much so went in with a plan with garrus. mostly i just knew he existed and some vague, nebulous things from the games. and then i met him and you know what? i got it.
at the very heart of it what gets to me most about shakarian is that they are friends before they are anything else. rooted in all of that—their interactions, they way they speak to one another, how they seek out their opinions, their relationship, is their friendship. frankly i don't think they would have worked out if they weren't friends to begin with. this wouldn't have happened otherwise. it couldn't. it's the crucial part of their relationship and gives them room to develop that, with trust and respect, in all of the jokes and banter and rapport and teases and hints of concern. they work because they know one another as people, see one another as that. ME1 was a bit of mentor/mentee, both teaching one another things about the universe. they could have so easily clashed but they didn't. it lays the groundwork to friendship beyond that. a balance to one another.
ME2 they come back and it's a lot of relief compounded with grief because here are two people who are alone in the galaxy. shepard has joker and chakwas and is clinging the vestiges of herself, the bits she hopes came back with her. garrus lost his entire squad and joins her because he has nothing left to lose and why wouldn't he? here are two traumatized people who only have a small handful left they can trust. here is a spectre who's haunting herself and the archangel who says i got you. joker and chakwas are here, but i am too. (i also think there's more of an ease with her sliding back into her friendship with garrus and some hints of strain with joker given his guilt over her death, but i digress!) he's one of the few familiar faces who welcomes her and then she's watching him choke on his own blood and she can't do anything to staunch the bleeding. she gets told he isn't going to make it. one of the few friendly faces and she's trying to hold his together.
this friendship is a grounding factor too—in a galaxy where the only people who believe in this mission are on this one lone ship—where they can serve as anchors for one another. can't get spaced with your tether on your six. there's banter and jibes back and forth. he always has a smart remark and sometimes all she can do is stand there and go damn, that was pretty good and come back with one of her own. it's making rounds and lingering in the battery. it's telling him she'll do whatever he needs and the willingness and inherent, overwhelming trust to stand in his sights and know he'll never pull the trigger on her. it's her looking back down his sights and saying i know you. sidonis isn't the one i'm looking out for. and it's him embracing that anger and saying i'm not you.
even when they do address the prospect of sleeping together, it isn't because they've always found one another attractive or have been dying for the chance to. it's founded in "i don't want something closer to home. i want someone i trust." "you're the only friend i have left in this screwed up galaxy." it's super casual, of course. of course it's absolutely not because these two have never been casual about anything in their lives. and i think it's important that it doesn't happen until close to the end of the game, right before they put their lives on the line, because they're about to risk their friendship too. (how do they come back from that?) if this thing works between them. if it doesn't. and yeah, it works.
in ME3 you have garrus who's a little more sure of himself, who holds himself a little straighter. he takes her hand on menae but he holds it too—pulls her in and takes her hand with both of his. it's the most affection he can allow after six months of silence, of hearing word that earth has been attacked without any way of knowing if she made it (she had to, he knows this, would have known if she hadn't, but that eats at him) and her heading to menae (and what if he wasn't there? what if he was and she missed him? what if he hadn't made it out of that scar burning its way across palaven?) hoping for the best. he's "hard to kill, but you should know that." and doesn't she. relief compounded with grief all over again. his hands are warm around hers.
he's a little more sure of himself and their relationship, but he's still her friend too. still offers insights, still has something to offer for this mission. who ribs her and she him but there are layers to their words, different undertones. neither play favorites but there are undercurrents of affection—he's seeing some wear and tear and knows where she sleeps. she offers him platitudes about his family. taking her to the presidium is full of good-natured back and forth that are two friends establishing that actually, we're a little more than that now. can you throw like you mean it this time.
it's a relationship where their friends don't meet it with "of course, saw that coming from a mile a way" or "it's about time." it's "that makes sense." it's an organic progression that wasn't quite intended to happen but did anyway. they've always been close, things just clicked together in a way they hadn't planned on. they do make sense, they do work well together, and at the heart of it, above all, they're friends. is she kidding? he's right behind her. something closer to home? turns out home's right there. there's no shepard without vakarian but it goes both ways and it's founded on trust. i trust you to watch my back just like i'll always have yours.
