AN-I'm sorry for leaving this story alone for so long. I got all caught up in Borderlands 2, then work happened, then I had to move, and I kinda lost interest in writing fanfiction for awhile there. I'm tentatively back again, and if time allows I'll be working on my other works-in-progress, too. For having to wait for so long, I give to you Shep/Wrex smut! Yay!

/SECURE COMMUNICATION 35423: U. Wrex/Cmdr J. Shepard FROM [ERROR], TUCHANKA TO SSV NORMANDY/Urdnot Clan Leader Notice: Do not attempt to intercept our transmissions or we will hunt you down. Don't test us. You've been warned./

UW—Shepard, you there?

JS—Yeah, I'm here. Sort of. I'm assuming you heard.

UW—About what?

JS—About Bahak.

UW—I heard about the Bahak system going up in flames and that there was a connection to one of the Council Spectres. You're saying that was you?

JS—Yep. It wasn't supposed to end that way. There was a Reaper artifact and one very pissed off indoctrinated Alliance operative involved.

UW—Now that you mention it, it does have your signature all over it.

JS—The fact that the destruction of an entire star system can bear my signature is more disturbing than I can possibly describe, Wrex.

UW—Sorry. I said that wrong.

JS—Yeah, you did.

UW—. . . You okay?

JS—Officially, yes. Between you and me . . . I've seen better days.

UW—Do you need me to meet you?

JS—I always need you.

JS—. . . Yes.

UW—I'll be at the Citadel tomorrow.

JS—No, too public. The Normandy will be grounded and the Council will have me detained. Hackett wants me on Earth where the Alliance can fight the extradition orders.

UW—Where then?

JS—Remember that place on Intai'sei?

UW—Yeah. I'll meet you there. Be safe.

JS—Safe. Sure.

The door was unlocked when he arrived. There had been no sign of the Normandy, only a small land rover that was parked outside the house. He knocked softly and went in to find Shepard sitting on the couch looking more exhausted than he'd ever seen her, but she smiled at him all the same. He just stood there, taking her in, until she stood up and came to meet him at the door. Without any preamble, she walked straight into his arms and hugged him with a fierce desperation, like all she wanted to do was crawl inside his armor with him until the whole debacle with the batarians blew over.

"Damn, it's good to see you," she said.

"Mmm-hmm. Been too long." He started to let her go, but she shook her head.

"Not just yet, okay?"

He tightened his hold on her and dropped his head onto hers. "Okay." She'd lost more weight since the last time he'd seen her, before she hit the Collectors. He could feel the knobs of her spine through her uniform shirt and his heart was lanced with the cold spike of worry for her.

"There isn't a lot to do here, but I set up a VI for target practice down the road a ways," she said, bouncing on her toes a little. "Wanna go?"

"You mean there's nothing here worth hunting?" he asked.

"Not unless you're into shooting tiny lizards."

"Mmm. Not much challenge there."

She grinned. "So how about we make it a friendly match? If I win, you make dinner."

"And if I win, I get to eat it off of you," he rumbled. His hand trailed down her torso to palm her abdomen and she shivered.

"So either way, I win."

"If that's how you want to look at it."

"You're on."

They walked to where the equipment was set up through air that was hot and dry as the inside of an oven. The hard-packed dirt was cracked and broken into rusty red scales that gave way to sand and rocky bluffs further into the vast desert. The sun was beginning to set and the low light painted the landscape in blood. It was like some of the uninhabited areas of Tuchanka, all barren and starkly beautiful. Shepard seemed at home here, too, and her hair shone red and gold.

Wrex drew his shotgun and loaded it with concussive rounds as she fired up the targets and set their motion patterns. The spheres hovered in the air and floated around slowly at first, then gradually went faster and more erratically until it was like trying to hit a mosquito that was hopped up on stims. Shepard was a more accurate shot than he was, being smaller and faster, but he was hitting them all just the same because of the spread of his shells. They were throwing taunts back and forth, and Wrex got caught up in the unconscious point-shoot-reload sequence.

On one of the last rounds, Shepard was watching him shoot with her arms crossed over her chest when she leaned over to him and whispered right into his ear canal, "I'm not wearing any underwear." His finger spasmed on the trigger and the shot went wide. He glared at Shepard, who was biting her lip to avoid laughing out loud.

"Looks like I won."

"Only because you cheated," he growled, and moved right next to her until she was pressed up against his armor. "Was it true, what you said?"

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yes."

She grinned even wider and put her arms around his neck. "You'll find out later, big guy."

The house was dark when they got back and she started raising the shutters that blocked the sun during the day. The stars were just beginning to come out in the purpling sky and she stood there admiring the view while Wrex stumbled around the kitchen, looking for something he could make. As a life-long bachelor with no interest in food other than MREs or the occasional bag of varren jerky, he was way out of his depth. Shepard joined him and leaned over the counter to watch.

"What are you making?"

"Fried . . ." he squinted to read the package, "chicken. With these round things."

"Those are potatoes, but that's not chicken."

"What is it, then?"

"Powdered chicken flavored gravy."

Wrex huffed and tossed the package down on the counter. "Unless you want to get food poisoning, I suggest you take over."

"But what about my prize? Part of the fun of making you do this was watching you get all flustered, and maybe even break one of my pans." She nudged him out of the way so she could start gathering ingredients.

"You really enjoy making me uncomfortable, don't you?"

"No, I like watching you do mundane stuff that doesn't involve shooting people." She looked like she had more to say on the subject, but stopped herself.

He leaned back on the counter and folded his arms across his chest. "So. Bahak." He saw the tension in her shoulders, but she quickly shrugged it away.

"The batarians are out for blood," she said.

Wrex rolled his eyes. "They usually are."

"Yeah, but this time it's mine they're after. The Alliance is considering the political and strategic implications of handing me over."

Wrex stiffened and growled deep in his chest and Shepard looked up at him with wide eyes. "They can't have you."

"I don't think I'll have a choice, Wrex."

"There's always a choice, and I'm telling you that the batarians can't have you. You can come stay on Tuchanka with me, and if anyone tries to take you away I'll blow them out of the sky." Shepard shook her head, smiling sadly.

"I might have to take you up on that. It sounds way more fun than being holed up in an Alliance detention facility."

"We could go out and hunt thresher maws in my tomkah. It'll be just like old times." She smiled again, but the look in her eyes was far away and unconvinced. He went to her and took her chin with his finger, tilting her face up to his. "If they try and hand you over to those slaving sand-heads I'll kidnap you myself. Fair warning."

Shepard rewarded him with a chuckle, and she took his hand in hers, laying it on her cheek. "I missed you. The ship feels empty without you there."

"Being planetside isn't my favorite thing either." He toyed with a lock of her hair, and she closed her eyes. "I'd have come with you, if I could have."

"I know." She stood up and kissed him, running the pads of her fingers over the ridges in his bottom lip. He'd missed that, being kissed. The feel of her mouth on his was so terribly intimate that it never failed to get his blood up. He let her gently open his mouth so she could meet his tongue with hers, and he began the long process of taking off his armor so that he could be as close as possible to her. He needed to feel her skin on his again. It had been too long, though it always felt that way. There was precious little time for the two of them to be together, and he wished fervently that his brother wasn't such a bloodthirsty little shit so he could hand the clan over to him and go back to kicking ass and taking names with his redheaded spitfire at his six.

Dinner forgotten, she moved on to his neck and bit down on the loose skin at his throat, the sharp pinch sending shivers up his back. Her fingers danced over the clasps in his armor and each piece fell to the floor with a clang. He got his arms free while she worked at the lorica section at his waist and he yanked her shirt off her shoulder to lick at her skin. The gasp in his ear was encouragement enough to start undressing her and he pulled her shirt up over her head, her hair rising and then falling in messy tendrils over her face.

She raced to unhook her bra and tossed it aside, then leapt at him again like she needed him to breathe. Her determination to stay in contact was simultaneously sexy and scary; he knew that they needed to fix whatever had happened to her before too long, but right now he wanted to give her some peace from the thoughts that had been plaguing her. Something had been wrong since before they met again on Tuchanka, but she'd never mentioned it. He had some ideas, but they were probably all wrong.

He dipped his hand into her pants and stroked her, parting her lower lips to feel the slick, warm flesh. "You really aren't wearing any underwear."

"Told you." She yanked her pants down and kicked them off, then went back to kissing his neck.

Finally, finally they were both bare to the skin and she started steering him toward the bedroom. Her hands were between his legs, one cupping his quad while the other stroked him until he was hard enough to hurt. By the time the bedroom door closed behind them, he was ready to fuck her through the wall. He put a hand on the middle of her chest and shoved her backward onto the bed. He was on her even before she'd stopped bouncing, and she wrapped her legs greedily around him. He bent to take her breast into his mouth and flicked her nipple with the tip of his tongue, and he groaned when she arched up against him.

"Fuck me, Wrex, please just fuck me," she pleaded while taking his cock in her hand and pulling him toward her warm, wet opening.

"It's gonna hurt if we skip the foreplay, you know that."

"I want it to hurt." He frowned down at her, and he realized then that this was the first time he'd ever been on top of her. She was giving him control over her, and that wasn't something she granted lightly. Her ankles crossed behind him and she gripped him tighter with her thighs.

"Shepard—"

"Please, I need this, I need you. I need to feel all of you, right now."

He nodded and hooked his arm behind her knee to pull her leg up higher and spread her open for him, then began to slowly push into her. There was more resistance than he remembered and he concentrated on stretching her, thrusting into her slightly before pulling almost all the way out, then sliding back in a little further. Shepard threw her head back, her eyes shut, her chest heaving as she took his cock, and he could feel the muscles in her legs quaking. He bottomed out inside her before their hips met, and still she kept pulling him closer. The next time he thrust into her, he kept pushing until she threw her head back and cried out.

"Oh my god, yes," she whimpered through gritted teeth, her fingers digging into his biceps. He gathered her wrists in one hand and held them above her head while bracing his weight on the other. At her urging, he pulled back and slammed into her hard enough to make steal her breath. Again and again he thrust his hips forward while she writhed under him, at times murmuring his name or crying to god or pleading for more, and her legs squeezed his waist in a vice grip. She closed her eyes and tears streamed from the corners to pool in the cups of her ears. She struggled a little against his grip on her wrists, but it was all for show. She needed this, to surrender and allow herself to be swathed in a mix of pain and pleasure. He needed this, too, to claim her and mark her, to make her his own again.

Her words turned to incoherent vowel sounds, moans that chased every breath and mingled with his own. He let go of her wrists and slid his arm under her back to lift her up with him as he sat back on his heels. Her arms went around him, trapped between his hump and his neck, and she buried her face in his throat to suck at his skin. He felt her teeth a moment later and it spurred him on as he lifted her and brought her back down on his cock, fucking her as hard as he could. Always before, he'd held back for fear of hurting her. The fact that she could take all of him and like it came as a welcome surprise; she seemed too small for someone as big as he was.

Her panting changed, became higher-pitched, and the way she scrabbled at his scales told him that she was close. Her inner muscles tightened around him and she gasped into his ear, then she stopped breathing for a full five seconds as her whole body went stiff and tense. The orgasm broke over her with a crash and she bucked against him, clutching at any part of him she could reach as she fell apart. His own climax followed right after and he shuddered as he came, pouring into her and filling her until his cum spilled out of her. He wrapped his arms around her and felt wetness on his collarbone that dripped in slow rivulets down his chest. She absently wiped them away.

It was a long time before either of them moved, and even then he left the heat of her body reluctantly. He laid her down on the bed and she stretched with a pleased groan, her eyelashes still damp. Wrex lay down beside her and rolled onto his side. He studied her face, which was as peaceful as it ever got, and then reached out to stroke her cheek. She went very still, then opened her eyes to look at him with something like wonder. He spent a long time tracing the planes of her face, feeling the smooth skin under her eyes and memorizing the curve of her cheek and jaw. More tears slipped from her eyes, but she didn't even deign to acknowledge them.

"Wrex, there's something I want to tell you. I'm . . . not really sure how to say it, though."

"So don't say it," he said, but she shook her head.

"No, this is something I need to tell you, and I think you need to hear it." She propped herself up on her elbow and looked into his red eyes. "I'm sorry I never told you before I died that I . . . that . . ."

"It's all right."

"No, it isn't. I died, Wrex, and my last thoughts were of you, and they were full of regret. Regret, because I never told you how much I love you."

Although he knew and had known for a long time, the word was still a bombshell in his brain. Love. She loved him. And now she was waiting for an answer, or for him to say something. "Shepard, you know that krogan don't usually go in for all that fluffy stuff." She ducked her head abashedly, but he lifted her chin again. "But you're turning me into a terrible krogan." He looked up at her, wanting to say the words out loud for once, but it was as though they were stuck in his chest. She laid on his chest and settled her head under his jaw.

She knew what he meant, and that was enough for now.