Event Horizon || Garrus Vakarian x FemShep

Chapter Eight: Black Hole

His visor was missing.

A relatively innocuous thing on its own; he'd often misplace it in the early morning, half-asleep and collapsed in a heap of blankets on the floor of his garage. It didn't help that he didn't take as much care organizing his tools as he used to, so metal bits looking too much like other metal bits were easily mixed up. However, the floor he was on was most definitely not his hideout's garage; the blue pool underneath him not the velvet of a makeshift bed. He turned his head to the side, normally predatory eyes flared and dilated with shock as his arms floundered for purchase on the floor, or perhaps in search of that damned visor; his thoughts were becoming too muddled for him to decide one way or another.

"Stay... Garrus! Don't-- dare...!"

With effort, the turian tilted his chin up at the voice, blinking against the flashes of orange, blue, and the haze of smoke permeating the air. Above him, a familiar human knelt, switching between lobbing blue-tinted grenades and firing rifle rounds towards something out of sight. She was shouting, glancing to him every now and then, but his hearing was being overtaken by the sound of his quickening heartbeat and drowning her out. He swallowed - tasting salt and metal - but tried to speak.

Shepard.

Her name was garbled and incoherent; one half of his face burned at the movement, feeling as though his mandible was hanging on by a single tendon. His subvocals barely functioned, only managing to scrape out a high-pitched whine. Garrus almost laughed at how horrible he sounded.

She looked down at him as he choked on her name, and he could see her mouth move as she shouted something into her helmet's earpiece. With the press of a button, her visor lifted, and through a worsening blur he could just barely make out the full curve of her lips.

"Garrus."

He couldn't hear her voice in that moment, but he knew she was saying his name, and the thought was comforting; cathartic, even. He could feel her hands rearranging his limbs and moving to put pressure on the wound on his neck; she leaned close, spitting silent curses as his blood clung to the gauntlets of her hardsuit. At this distance, her features broke through the fog closing on his vision: Beads of sweat clung heavy to her brow, and locks of frizzy hair had begun to slip free from her usual style. Now, with a small eternity to simply see her, he noticed bold and jagged lines of orange cresting underneath the skin of her cheekbones and along the hollow of her neck, and her eyes - dark, brown, and reminiscent of rich soil - now burned copper. He was fascinated; he lifted one arm as best as he could, taking advantage of her distractions and running his thumb over the lighting along the median of her face. The orange was replaced by dark, shimmering blue, and the human stiffened, one of her hands grasping the back of his own before forcing his hand down to his side once more. She bit her lip; a clear line melted part of the blue away.

That color suits you.

Another foggy thought tried to reach her, but he shuddered, coughing violently and letting his head roll back. He could feel the tip of his crest pressing painfully onto the floor beneath him, but it and the wound Shepard was tending to were growing numb; his body, cold. A few more shouts burst through his hearing with muffled emotion, but he was losing the fight to stay awake, despite the increasingly rough ministrations of the woman above him. His eyes began to dull and flutter closed.

He supposed there were worse ways to go. He hoped, though, that it wasn't his time yet.

***

I should have known; I should have gotten there sooner. I should have outright destroyed that ship while I could. I should have paid more attention...!