Becoming Turian

Chapter 3

Human Culture

He felt a bit embarrassed when he typed it into the search bar. He wanted to know more about Shepard's culture and her people. As a spectre, she knew just about everything there was to know about Turians, maybe even more than he did. He didn't exactly know much about about humans. Aside from their inability to eat his food and the color of their blood.

Human history was splattered with war and blood. It wasn't very often that something good ever happened. Aside from their first time in space, but even that was a form of competition.

Shepard was born in raised out in space, so knowing much about Earth wasn't exactly what he needed. He needed to know more about what they celebrated and believed in, but even that was hard.

There were so many religions, so many different cultures, depending on where you lived and often times, what you looked like. Shepard didn't seem very religious, she rarely ever mentioned any form of creator, aside from the occasional "Oh my God".

Humans celebrated a holiday called a birthday. It was to celebrate the day that they were conceived. Turians did something similar to this, but it wasn't for every year. It was primarily for when they turned 15, the legal age to join the military.

Shepard was born on April 11, it wasn't very hard to find that out. The moment he typed the letter 's' into the search bar, he was bombarded with fan sites filled with everything you could ever know about Shepard. Some things, he were surprised people sven knew.

Her birthday was soon approaching. He needed to time study and plan. He just wanted to put in as much effort as she did. He still found the concept of a birthday rather strange and unnecessary, but it seemed rather important.

Cake. That was a very big part of the party. He didn't know why he would need such a thing to celebrate, but he supposed it was important as well as candles. The candles were what you blew out to make a wish, you got one every year. Turians rarely ever wishes for things. It made them appear greedy and selfish, they were supposed to be selfless. Put others needs before yours and the spirits will repay you. It was almost like the human aspect of karma.

Shepard stayed up in her cabin. Rubbing the spot where she was bitten. It no longer ached and burned, but it was still awfully visible. She stared at the calendar on her omni-tool. Three more days, she thought to herself. Time passed so quickly, she hardly even recalled it being April.

She flopped down on the bed, breathing out a sigh. Her lips pursed as she continued to stare at her now beeping omni-tool.

Garrus. He wanted to meet with her on her birthday. It made her cheeks flush. How didn't he even know what a birthday was? Last she checked, Garrus was absolutely ignorant when it came to human culture. He nearly passed out when she saw her cut her hair because he believed she was cutting off her fringe.

Just three more days.

It seems as though the more you wait for something, the longer it takes to come. She was so anxious and barely had things to do to occupy herself. No more reapers and very few new Cerberus take out missions to do. She was beginning to get bored.

Garrus constantly brushed off her many attempts to find out what her little birthday surprise was. I mean seriously, how long does it take to do calibrations?

"Happy birthday, commander," Joker woke her up over the comm by shouting. If this were any other occasional she would've been angry enough to march down to the bridge and kick his ass, but today, Garrus had a surprise for her.

The door to her room chimed and she quickly stood from her bed. So soon? She wasn't even dressed or prepared. Her room was filthy. She nearly tripped over her pile of datapads that she'd left in the floor while trying to run to the bathroom to fix her mess of hair.

He pinged again. He was getting impatient. Why did she care how she looked around him so suddenly? She and Garrus we're close enough before the whole bonding thing that he was able to see her like this on a daily basis.

She opened the door and smiled up at him. His face was filled with reassurance.

"I was starting to worry when it took you a moment to open the door," he stated jokingly.

She let out a nervous chuckle and gestured for him to come in, "Just take a seat. Don't mind the mess."

"Do I ever?"

She resisted the urge to violently punch him in the scared side of his face, but for some reason, she held back. She wanted to appear even the least bit feminine to him. But why?

He sat down on the couch and relaxed. He always say with his legs spread open and his body leaned back, well at least around her he did.

She sat beside him. Her back was perfectly straight and she looked a bit too uptight around him. Almost like she were nervous.

"Happy birthday, Shepard," Garrus said, then he draped and arm over her shoulders. He didn't take his armor off sadly, but the feeling of the cold metal against her was almost soothing, "There wasn't much to a human birthday sadly. But I did hear about cake. It took me a while to find one, but it should be delivered soon."

"Garrus, you bought me a c-"

"Listen, Jane, while ime here, I want to talk about things that have been on my mind, if that's ok with you?"

She nodded slowly. It was very rare when Garrus got serious like this and actually meant it. It made her worry. What if she did something wrong? What if he found someone else? Why did these thoughts nearly make her heart jump out of her chest?

"Am I your boyfriend?"

"Well yes, I think so," she was taken back by the question, expecting something entirely different.

"Well I don't want to be," he glared over at her with those icy blue eyes and her heart shattered into a million pieces, "I need to be something more than that to you."

She sighed out in relief, "Garrus, you mean you want to be my...husband?"

He nodded slowly and grunted in response. She felt her heart slowly begin to rebuild itself and begin to throb with anticipation. Her mouth went dry as she thought things over. Did she feel that way about him?

"I-I mean I do have feelings for you Shepard, b-but it's uh… It's not like that! It's uh...Turian thing! I...I just want to make sure that no other human can-"

Even she was taken a bit by surprise by what she did. Her lips pressed against his, quickly so that he wouldn't have time to reject. He was quickly silenced by the sudden gesture, but even then his mind was racing.

What would happen if he screwed this up? He didn't want to do any wrong. His body tenses while he let her lips work their magic. Soft and flexible. He was almost memorized.

Slowly, so not to do anything wrong, he wrapped an arm around her waist.