This isn't right, he thinks. It's not him—all teeth and talons and pure aggression. It's something Garrus only saves for the battlefield, this ruthlessness, but...

No, this isn't right at all.

He was, like most turians, born and bred under duress of discipline and restraint—always in control of his emotions. It is an honor to do so, the pride of his militaristic race, but this...this is something entirely different. There is nothing restrained in this. It is purely a primal instinct—this mating—rough and snarling and pure adrenaline.

This isn't the first time he's taken someone like this, unrefined and animalistic—pure, raw fucking. Restraint had nothing to do with it. But he was young then—didn't know any better.

He remembers, in his youth, that it was nothing more than a stress-relief from the day to day pressures of his environment—it was encouraged, even—taking a female of his species, throwing her down on the nearest table in the empty C-Sec mess hall and rutting her raw, totally uncaring of whoever stepped in. But turians are aggressive by nature when they are not running a tight ship, and she had scratched and clawed and fought him every step of the way, even when he had his hand wrapped around her throat, pinning her to the edge of the table, the taste of blood and skin and scales still fresh in his mouth. They were both uncaring of the other's wants and needs—driven purely by lust and testosterone—and with the air thick with their pheromones, he relentlessly pursued his own orgasm until he came with a halting, shuddering snarl.

No one questioned when he came back to his post with claw marks on the side of his face or when he went to med bay to get the bite marks on his shoulder bandaged.

But Shepard...she deserved better than this.

"That...unh! That all you got, Vakarian?"

She's looking at him over a sweat-soaked shoulder, gaze haughty and sure—wrists pinned against the wall in his three-fingered grip, her muscles rippling under the damp skin.

"Fuck you, Shepard," he snarls back, talons digging into the skin of her hip. "If you had let me take the shot, you would have seen Sidonis with his head blown clean off."

Shepard's tried to engage him in this kind of sex—rough and full of insults—but each time, he had turned her down, fearing he'd revert back to something more ancient and primal—far beyond his time. Fearing he'd revert back to that mindset that screamed at him to treat her like a beloved enemy—engaged in a combat of passion.

But Shepard was smarter than that, and Garrus should have expected it—should have noticed the warning signs...

But he didn't.

He had found her in the cleared out cargo hold, mats lining the floor, sinking her fists into a make-shift punching bag hastily strung to the ceiling.

One, two. One, two. Right hook. Uppercut.

Beads of sweat glistened on her brow, stained the underarms of her white undershirt and the inner thighs of her standard-issue PT shorts. He could smell the perspiration, both new and stale on the mats, her bare feet leaving sticky footprints for the briefest of seconds before being absorbed by the cheap blue plastic.

Jab. Cross. Left, right. Left, right.

He cleared his throat and she turned, still swaying lightly on the balls of her feet.

"Garrus."

Her tone was sharp and crisp, punctuated by her short, rhythmic pants for breath, her chest rising and falling with each exhalation. It was not a question—merely an acknowledgement.

He snapped to attention, executing a sharp salute before standing at ease, hands held behind his back.

"Dr. Chakwas requested I look for you, Commander. She worries you might overexert yourself after your last mission."

"Merely burning off stress, Vakarian. Care to join me?"

He held his hands in front of him, fingers spread.

"As tempting as the idea may be, Commander, I do not believe that would be very wise."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? But didn't you say that's how turians release their frustrations—through full-contact sparring?"

"Well, yes, but..."

But you're human, he wanted to say. It was difficult for a human to injure a turian with bare hands alone, but a turian engaging in full-body contact with a less...armored species... The chance of damage was just too great. He could mean a simple punch only to accidentally gouge an eye out with one of his talons.

"Don't make me word that as an order, Garrus."

He could taste the refusal on his lips...until her fist smashed into his jaw.

He's still not sure what changed in him at that moment, but something snapped—clicked into place—and he was upon her, talons gleaming in the lowlight as he kneed her in the gut, grabbed the top of her head and pinned her face-first to the nearest wall.

The sound of the bones in her nose crunching under the force of impact seemed oddly distant to him, even as he breathed into her ear, "Is this what you wanted, Shepard? Someone to throw you around like a child's rag doll?"

There was a ripped growl from her throat as she hooked her leg around one of his, taking it out from under him and pinned him to the mat with a forearm bearing down upon his neck. He could see the blood—could smell it, even—running in rivulets from her nostrils down to the crease in her lips, then further, staining her blunt, bared teeth.

She made a fearsome picture. She was pure, raw aggression then. Pure turian. He had no other word for it.

But she was human.

His hands curled into fists as she looked mockingly down at him, hot puffs of air blowing onto his face.

"I'll see to it you'll no longer wear the Normandy's uniform for that remark."

"I'd like to see you try."

Fingers wrapped around her throat in an almost delicate embrace before tightening over her vocal cords, pushing her away from him. Reach and flexibility—it always came down to such.

The fighting was all fists and claws and leg spurs, teeth and straining muscle—and he reveled in it. Reveled in every glorious inch. It was more than a release of control, more than a relief of his pent up stress and frustrations—it was also terribly arousing.

It was inevitable, then, that they had wound up like this, buried inside her up to the hilt, thrusting with nothing short of wanton abandon as she hurled insults at him each time her breasts rhythmically pressed up against the wall.

"Not deserving...hunh!...of that rank I gave you. Should...strip you of it right now."

"You wouldn't do that," A pause punctuated by a short, sharp grunt. "would you, Shepard? I'm far too valuable for that."

"Since when?" It is a hiss through gritted teeth.

"I can think of a few things." His tongue snakes out to lick at his mandibles and as if to emphasize his point, he grinds his hips into the back of her buttocks.

"Fucking cocky turian!"

She snaps her head back, striking his nose with the back of her skull and Garrus can feel something crack and break. The grip on her wrists loosen, and she frees an arm, elbowing him in his unprotected abdomen, dislodging him.

Foreplay that was nothing more than sex. Sex that was nothing more than foreplay. There was no dignity in what they were doing, both standing there exposed and naked. He's slick with her fluids, he knows, and yet he feels no shame about it—instead there is a sense of masculine pride, both turian and otherwise, that she was putting up a fight—didn't let him finish. There is nothing more erotic than someone who would fight you tooth and nail until the end, never giving in only because you didn't either. Shepard was always pushing him—to work harder, faster, better, taking him past his own limits—and even in this, she still coaxed him past what he was felt was a hard line.

Her fists are in front of her, held slightly away from her chest and she's back in her classic kickboxing stance he's seen her in so many times before in training, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, her breasts following the motion with the delayment of inertia. His eyes trail upwards from her toes to her knees to the sweaty insides of her thighs. Her hip is covered in bloody scratches, deep gouges that flex with the skin's movement. And when he comes to rest on her face, there is a streak of dark blue marring the hollow of her cheekbone—his blood.

Mine, he thinks. This is mine.

"Come on, Vakarian! You giving up?" A hand reaches up and she snaps her broken nose back into place with a thumb. She doesn't wince at the pain, even when the bone is reset with a terrible crack and pop.

No. No, of course he's not giving up. The only time you'll see a turian's back is when he's dead, and he is not dead yet. He is far from death, actually—feels wholly alive—the blood coursing through his veins, a rushing sound in his ears.

Turians can't smile—not really—their jaw structure is far too pushed back for it. And yet, there is something eerily reminiscent of the emotion when Garrus' mandibles flex up and back for the briefest of seconds showing sharp pointed teeth right below his cheekbones—a bastardized version of a grin.

"Never."

Roundhouse. Hook. Knee Strike. One, two. One, two.

His talons dig into the mat, shredding the surface as he finds purchase on the floor, twisting her arm around her and pinning it to her back before putting his weight into her, both of them falling to the floor.

"Should have...left you with the collectors!"

Her cheek is pressed against the mat, trying to take pressure off her injured nose.

There is a harsh snarl that vibrates up from deep in his chest.

"You're saying I'm worthless, Commander Shepard?"

"Damn straight. Can't even fuck a woman correctly."

His free hand grips her shoulder, snapping her upper body against his chest and he pushes roughly into her once more, forcibly spreading her legs with the outside of his thighs.

"Shit!"

It's certainly not the most traditional word to be called out during penetration, but then again, Garrus supposes that's what he likes about his commander—makes her that much more attractive. Shepard's never been traditional by human standards anyways, taking a mostly male-dominated position and caring little about beauty. He's knows, by human standards, hair is supposed to make the female species desirable, but she—she opted for something more practical, taking on the standard military buzz cut route instead. Tactical advantage, she had called it. Gave her opponent less to grab on to.

Garrus always did like practical women.

Her knuckles are bruised from where their hitting the armored plating of his abdomen due to his continuous thrusting, but he doesn't release grip or slow the pace—doesn't want to give her one single chance of an advantage. This isn't lovemaking—it's sex, pure and simple.

With her head thrown back on his shoulder, he sees the scarred column of her neck—such a smooth, delicate surface that cannot even escape battle in its vulnerability—and somewhere in the back of his mind, some forgotten instinct, he registers it as a submission—a weakness to be exploited. And then the scuff of her neck is in between his teeth, small daggers breaking the skin.

"What the...ugh!...What the fuck do you think you're doing, Garrus?"

He can't think of a sharp retort for that—not when he's tasting human blood in his mouth, thick and metallic—and he bears down, watches almost in a detached way as she catches herself on elbow. They way he's taking her, on the ground, heaving over her—it lights a fire in him and he crashes over the edge, unrestrained, his thighs tensing in his release.

He supposes, had he taken her properly, he should feel shame for not letting her reach her own fulfillment, but not with her—Shepard wouldn't allow then, and she never gives him the chance to.

She shoves back upon him, rocking on his flaccid length, relentlessly pursuing her own orgasm as she grinds downwards. With his loose grip on her arm, she frees it, pushing herself back to give herself better leverage.

He groggily traces lazy patterns on the bone of hip with a talon.

"Nn...Better work fast there, Shepard."

"Screw...you."

Maybe it's because she can feel the rumbling chuckle he emits from that, or maybe it's because she's found some new source of stimulation that she reaches her peak, muscles clamping down around him, teeth gritted together—and she comes with a sharp, short grunt.

It seems almost cold when she pulls herself away from him, methodically checking herself for injury, her hands coming away red-stained and sticky.

She's fierce like that—a true warrior. A warrior with blood-stained hands.

The perfect turian.