Chapter Text
It starts off innocent enough, or as innocent as anything ever is with Shepard. Just her wandering the halls at in the dead of night as she is wont to do—prowling, even—indulging in the quiet of the ship and jumping at shadows. The Normandy never truly sleeps, not really, and certainly not with this many warriors on it with their burdens of past battles. Still, there is a time in the night where few people want to speak to each other, preferring silence or a mere nod over conversation. A mutual agreement for some peace and quiet, so to speak.
Which is why Thane’s offer to join him for tea at the mess table at well past midnight is so unusual.
She considers the pot of spiced tea, fragrant steam unfurling from the spout. He made an entire kettle for himself—why? Was he greedy, or expecting her?
“Tea’s not really my style,” she says.
He inclines his head at her. “If you would prefer conversation, I may provide that as well.”
So formal. She snorts. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asks.
“Shouldn’t you?”
She clicks her tongue. “Nah, you don’t get to pull that kind of turnabout. You were clearly prepared to be here for a while. This is more than just a midnight snack.”
He blinks at her. His eyes are huge pools of liquid darkness, dark as the space outside. “You roam this ship at all hours of the night,” he points out. “It is a common occurrence.”
Shepard rolls her eyes, then resigns herself to the situation. She grabs a packet of cookies and slides herself into the seat across from him. “So what if it is?” she challenges, tearing open the packet and shoving a cookie into her mouth.
“Humans require rest, just as any species does.” He rests his elbows on the table and steeples his fingers, resting the tip against his plush lips. “And yet, you are awake.”
“Again, I have to point out that you’re awake, too,” she says. This close, the tea does smell good, but she doesn’t want to stoop so low as to pour herself a cup.
His mouth quirks into a hint of a smile. “May I at least express concern for my Commander not being well-rested, and perhaps not as clear-headed on missions? It would present a danger to my own health.”
He’s teasing her, she realizes. “And, similarly, I’d prefer my ground team not be sleep-deprived.”
He hums and helps himself to a cookie from her packet. He considers it, not yet eating, before saying, “It appears we are of the same mind, then.”
And then it happens again! Two nights later, after a truly obnoxious mission that resulted in a badly sprained ankle for Shepard and few injuries for anyone else, she’s limping around, grumpy as hell and brain buzzing, and Thane’s sitting quietly in the mess with the same damn teapot and a different tea that smell of pine trees.
“Tea?” he asks, very simply, and Shepard just grouses at him wordlessly before flopping into the seat across from him.
Her ankle hurts. All the nanites and accelerated healing in the world can only speed things up so much. “I hate sprains,” she says, crossing her arms and refusing to drink the tea Thane pours into a little white mug for her.
“I saw the footage,” he says. “It was quite the fall.”
“Hmph,” she says. “Just glad we got what we came for.”
“It is usually considered unwise to attempt to draw the fire of multiple YMIR mechs.”
“It fuckin’ worked, okay? Saved all the merchandise, and Aria loves me now,” she says with a groan, leaning back in the chair and throwing an arm over her eyes. “I don’t need your sass right now, Thane.”
He chuckles, and it’s deep and warms her to the core, like his stupid tea no doubt would. She ignores what it does to her in favor of stewing in her bad mood.
“Do you require assistance?” Thane asks, sounding genuinely concerned.
“No.” She lifts her arm a little, just enough to see him sitting with his hands clasped and looking at her with something like he’s trying to figure her out. She doesn’t want to see this, she decides, and she drops her arm again. “I’m in pain,” she clarifies.
“Ah. Perhaps Dr. Chakwas has an analgesic?”
She snorts. “Takes a lot to have any effect on me anymore. Not even sure I can get drunk. Haven’t tried, not properly, but let me tell you, nothing I take is working like it should.” She thinks for a moment, considers the idea of drunk Thane. This could be amusing. “Hang on, we could both be onto something. Copious amount of alcohol might do it. It’s worth a shot. Thane, fetch me some vodka.”
“I will not be doing that.”
“Jackass,” she mutters. “Your commander is in pain, and you can’t even help her out. What do I even have you around for?”
“You tell me, Shepard,” he says, and from the sound of his voice, he’s still smiling.
It turns into this stupid little routine, with her wandering the ship when sleep fails her yet again and running into Thane who inevitably has his pot of tea that she never drinks, and then they chat for a few minutes before she wanders away again to go pine after Garrus or do something else pointless.
“Why can’t you sleep?” he asks one day.
She regards him from her spot across the table. “I’m not answering that,” she says flat-out, raising her chin. From anyone else, she’d expect a challenge to her words, but not Thane. Never Thane. He’s seemingly more knowledgeable about her boundaries than herself.
So it’s not a surprise that he merely nods. “Do you wish to spar?” he asks after a long moment.
“I’ll get my ass handed to me.”
“I will be gentle,” Thane says, smiling slightly. He stands, offers a hand to help her up.
Shepard considers it for the space of a few heartbeats before she takes it, immediately fascinated by the warmth of his scales. They’re smoother than she would have imagined, and she can’t help but wonder if this is what it would be like to hold a dragon’s hand. “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want pity points.”
He releases her hand once she has been tugged to her feet, and she finds herself thinking about his grip on the short walk to the elevator. He’s strong, like all drell, but there’s a suremess to his movements that’s born of his training.
She decides in the space between two cognizant thoughts that she wants to feel those hands on her body.
But he gives her a respectful distance in the elevator, and she’s not totally sure how to bridge the gap. He did ask her to spar, though, so she has to assume that the opportunity will come—physically, at least.
This is Thane, though, and no matter how curious she is about how his strong grip would feel on her waist, the question remains of if he is interested at all. He doesn’t seem the type to desire a quick romp on the mats with someone he’s not emotionally tied to, but Shepard’s been wrong before. She hopes she’s wrong here.
“Any ground rules?” she asks as the elevator descends.
“I believe we should stay away from biotics. Aside from that, typical sparring conduct should suffice,” he replies, gaze fixed on the door with far more calmness than Shepard has ever felt capable of, especially now. “I presume you are capable of adhering to those?”
“Sure,” Shepard says.
He makes a noncommittal noise, apparently not believing her, and he’s right not to, because as soon as they exit the elevator, she lets her biotics come loose from that boxed up little place inside her where she stores them. They wrap around her trapezius and whisper along her collarbone with their soft, shielding hum, buzzing ever so slightly along her nerves and skin. Her old friends, she thinks. She misses them every time she must sheathe them, which is often. They are weapons, just as her blade is, and they must be treated as such.
“No biotics,” Thane reminds her, something flaring in his eyes as she lets them bloom around her in an act of reunion.
“I can’t do that, just as you can’t stop breathing,” she says.
He arches one brow at her.
“I meant what I said,” she says, furling and unfurling her fists and languishing in the feelings of her biotics as they wreath and dart around her fingers. “Neither of us wishes to stop either thing. So rather than try and persuade me here, why not join me?” She cocks her head, shows her teeth in a hint of a grin. “I’ve seen your skills, Krios. You can take me, with or without biotics. May as well give me a bit of a fighting chance.”
“It is bold of you to assume you have a chance at all,” he says with a great deal of amusement, taking two steps back on the mat and letting his own biotics shimmer around his form in his usual barrier. If he adheres to his own rules, he won’t use them further than that.
She points at him. “You. I like you when you’re cocky. You should do it more often.”
He smiles at her, something just this edge of predatory. She rarely sees this side of him, though she’s always suspected it exists. There’s too much sharpness in his tone at times, too much of an edge and an utter lack of wryness, an easy confidence to the way he’ll toy with other crew members. Deep down, he’s a hunter. Shepard just doesn’t often get to see that turned on herself, much less in a playful context like this.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
The first round is clearly him learning her, testing her. They’ve sparred together before—everyone has sparred each other by this point—but without an audience, it feels so much more private. More intimate, if you will, and Shepard’s sure he can hear how her heart hammers in her chest from sweet, sweaty anticipation.
She doesn’t use her biotics properly, not yet, just lets them shield her when Thane suddenly throws her to the ground with a truly terrifying speed.
“Goddamn,” she says, wheezing. The barrier was enough to protect her skin from bruising; they cannot stop the wind from being knocked out of her.
Thane just looks at her with a faintly amused look, his hands loose behind his back as he steps away. “You can fight better than this, Shepard.”
“Please, longest I’ve ever lasted with you is twenty seconds,” she says, picking herself up off the ground.
“And I’ve seen how you move on the battlefield. You are magnificent with your sword. You can fight better than that.”
“My sword?” She tilts her head to the side and begins sauntering around Thane. He turns slowly with her movements, careful step by careful step. “You actually like that?”
“It is difficult to not. It is unconventional, but you wield it well. It is admirable.” He pauses. “It takes great patience to learn those arts. I must admit, I did not think you were capable of that patience.”
She grins. “Well, it’s a pleasure to prove you wrong. Regardless, you and I both know that good swordsmanship does not directly translate to skill in hand-to-hand combat.” She chooses this moment to lunge, going for his legs, and he merely hops backwards, forced to jump when she follows up with a pulse of her biotics aimed at his feet.
“I believe I said no biotics,” he says, landing in a crouch. His eyes glint. Shepard likes the look of that.
“And I believe I told you to join me with them rather than adhere to that little rule. What, afraid you won’t match me?”
It is the one remotely equalizing factor. Thane is far and away better at hand-to-hand, but Shepard knows she’s a stronger biotic. He’s definitely not weak, per say, but Shepard’s got more oomph behind her. The only ones on the ship stronger than her are Samara and Jack. Miranda, she’s dead even with, much to both of their annoyances, but everyone else is not as strong.
He chuckles, the sound dark and low, and the sound goes straight to her core. “I have my techniques,” he says. “It will be interesting to test them on you, should you insist on proceeding in this way.”
“Come on, then,” Shepard says. She holds her arms wide, an invitation. Her barrier blossoms into a bubble around her. “Come at me, pretty boy.”
He raises a brow ridge at her, but does acquiesce and comes in with a sweeping barrage of punches that has her barrier flickering with every blow. It holds strong, though, and eventually she lets the bubble pop, sending him flying backwards with the burst of energy. She doesn’t give him time to hit the ground before she charges him straight off the edge of the mat and into the side of a storage crate.
Or rather—that’s what she tries to do, but it’s like she glances around a river stone and she careens into the crate without Thane in her clutches. She stares at the dent she’s created, trying to figure out what the hell happened, and then he’s on her, his forearm around her neck, guiding her to the ground. She lashes out with another burst of her biotics, and Thane jerks away at the sensation, but doesn’t let go, his own biotics wreathing around him with renewed strength in an instant to shield him from the blow.
It’s an impossible thing to explain to a non-biotic, how the biotics feel, how they feel like her pulse, like a second nervous system, both part of her and something else entirely, simultaneously symbiote and parasite. She doesn’t know how she could explain how she can feel someone else’s, how they feel like perhaps the same species as her own, but still entirely a stranger to her.
So when Thane grabs the back of her neck, controlling without hurting, it occurs to her how entirely impossible it would be to explain to anyone else how fucking weird it is to feel Thane somehow dig his biotics under hers, snapping her control over them.
“The fuck?” she spits, writhing in his grasp. She’s powerless to resist as he guides her to the floor, laying her on her stomach and sitting on her hips to keep her pinned down. She thrashes, or tries to, but he’s stronger than her, and besides, she’s too busy trying to sort through the bizarre sensation of feeling her biotics still there, still responsive, but just beyond her reach of being able to do anything.
“It’s a neat trick, is it not?” Thane says. His weight shifts as he leans down, his breath suddenly caressing her ear as he murmurs, “I can show you.”
She shivers, and he has to feel that.
He must be doing this intentionally. No fucking way would Thane Krios of all people not do anything in his life without the utmost intention. Did he really see through her that quickly? She supposes she’s never been subtle about a thing in her life, particularly not about anyone she’s had interest in, but still.
Even with all her intent to get into his pants, this is still a lot to process in a short period of time, and so she taps out with a, “Get off me.” When she rises to her feet, she’s certain she’s not imagining the heat in his gaze.
She’s breathing harder than she thought. His eyes track the rise and fall of her chest.
After a long moment of staring him down, she steps forward, puts two fingers under his chin. He’s taller than her, but she still pushes his chin up, just a little, feeling the warmth of his pulse under her fingers. “Later,” she says. “We spar again tomorrow?”
“Is that what you want?”
“I think you know what I want, Thane,” she says. “See you tomorrow?”
“I look forward to it,” he says, and that’s as close to a certain answer as she’s ever gotten from him.