Written for the Mass Effect kink meme. Content warnings: Slash, gets R-rated, late-night HBO / Skinimax-like near the end.

Chaptering for readability's sake and some minor revisions done based on Kirjailija's feedback. I debated with myself over it since I think it flows better as a single document, but the more I stare at it the more the bland and annoying page-break looks awful and cluttered. (Also, whoring the entry back to the top of the page is a nice bonus. Not that I let that influence the decision at all. Nope.)

Mass Effect © Bioware / EA et al, not for profit work.

Dylan felt like a virgin all over again.

This feeling made him feel completely foolish, starting a terrible cycle that went nowhere but downhill into more self-deprecation. "Twenty-nine years old," technically thirty-one, he reminded himself, with the two years he'd spent on the Lazarus table added on. "Survived Threshers, Reapers, Collectors, first human Spectre...and I feel worse than a sixteen-year-old with first-time jitters." Pausing his informal summary of the situation to himself, Dylan sat up on his bed and moved to the the edge, intent on getting up, but finding that his legs didn't really agree with him. Leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, he thought out-loud, "Big damn hero. Right."

It'd been so long, was the problem.

Not that Dylan was above one-night stands or had any particular trouble making them happen. Just because he took being an Alliance Marine seriously didn't change the fact that the uniform made it really easy to pick up guys. It was more of a blessing than he would ever admit out-loud, because the uniform and the shape he kept himself in didn't just make it easy to get laid, it made it easy to have standards. Poking at the empty pockets on the side of his leg, he thought about what must've gone into the Cerberus uniform he now wore; Miranda had said they kept a structure similar to the Alliance, the uniform seemed to go along with that, like a standard Alliance Class-A but sleeker, more impressive.

Soon enough, Dylan's mind stopped wandering. No, the real problem was actual human companionship, or lack thereof. That Dylan had to spend time thinking back to remember his last honest-to-god steady boyfriend instead of having a memory on the top of his head was telling. Of course, there was a reason for it; honest love and commitment didn't always survive half of a relationship having the responsibility of military service. Sometimes it did, but Dylan wasn't one of the lucky ones in that respect.

That he always seemed to be the only goddamned homosexual in any given star cluster didn't help matters, either. He'd have figured that he'd have met someone in his travels that might actually return some interest. Maybe one day, if Alenko ever spoke to him again, he'd confess to the man that he chose to save his life over another because of personal feelings that had no place influencing a decision like that, personal feelings that sure as hell weren't reciprocated anyway. If Alenko didn't hate him even more for it, he'd probably hate him for being much weaker than everyone thought, too weak to keep something personal like that away from combat.

If Ash was up there looking down at him right now, he didn't think she'd be very amused, either.

Not that Dylan believed in such things. No, definitely not.

The door chime went off and Dylan's head twisted around to look at the entrance to his quarters, like his trained reflexes expected a not-Legion Geth to be standing there, if not worse.

This would, he thought, have been so much easier if Joker had just propositioned him for a quick fuck. But no, there had to be dialog and choices to make and consequences to consider. This just had to mean something. Not being Alliance military anymore and thus, not breaking regs despite everything else wasn't much of a comfort.

When the door chime went off again, Dylan Shepard forced himself to have some resolve and stood up. He wasn't in this situation because he didn't want to be, he reminded himself. It was a fact he'd reminded himself of every time he didn't think he could survive one more day at boot camp, or one more day at Advanced Infantry Training on Titan, or another go at practicing the biotic charge that Cerberus' cutting-edge L5n implants enabled him to do until it wouldn't give him a nosebleed.

When Dylan reached the door and opened it, years of experience in the field and the training that he'd gone through to get there in the first place were the only reasons he didn't let his shock slip out in any kind of gesture or uncontrolled words. Joker was still halfway hunched over like usual, standing in his best approximation of parade-rest. It wasn't anything about that Dylan almost let his mouth go slack over.

It was the fact that Joker was clean-shaven. He'd actually shaved. And knowing him, he was probably well aware of how surprising this was, he just chose to be an ass and pretend everything was perfectly normal. "Booze?" He smiled after he'd had enough of the awkward moment with the awkward staring and really awkward silence.

When he pulled his hands out from behind his back, one holding a pair of glasses stolen from the galley, and one holding a bottle of wine, Dylan finally snapped out of of his Joker-induced trance and smiled. "Sure."