#listen. that scene in the ot3 job where eliot pulls hardison in for a headbutt to get him to stop panicking

[dearophelia]

Liv x Garrus, resting foreheads together (I mean, I had to)

“He’s gonna get us killed,” Vega hisses as Garrus calls out for his friends in the destroyed C-SEC office. “They’ll know we’re here.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” Olivia says, though Vega has a point. Cerberus may know they’re here, but they don’t know where they are. “Garrus,” she says.

He crouches in the middle of the hall, knee resting in a puddle from the overhead sprinklers, checking bodies.

She looks at Vega and gives him a little nod toward the malfunctioning door. He nods in acknowledgement and jogs past Garrus to start hacking doors and keep an eye on what might come through them.

“Garrus,” she says again, kneeling beside him. She rests her hand on his shoulder.

There’s a quiet, terrible sound coming from his throat. She’s heard that only once before, when he told her about Omega. He knows the dead man in front of him.

“You okay?” It’s a stupid question. She has to ask it anyway. At least she doesn’t have to worry about her mom - her omnitool lit up as soon as they were inside the station network, with a message from Zaeed that they were okay, and something about joining up with the salarians next door to barricade the block.

“I knew these guys,” he says, reaching out to close the man’s eyelids.

Olivia squeezes his shoulder and wonders what other Omega parallels his mind is drawing right now. “I’m sorry.”

Her omnitool beeps - Vega’s finished with the doors and has a read on the clusterfuck waiting for them in the next room. Sooner or later Cerberus has got to run out of cannon fodder, but not today. “We’ve gotta go, Garrus,” she says. “Bailey will make sure they’re taken care of.” She stands and gives him a nudge upward.

Garrus nods and stands up beside her, but the distress in his subvocals is enough to set her teeth on edge.

“Hey,” Olivia says, and reaches up to curl her hand around the back of his neck. With a firm but gentle tug, she draws him down, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m sorry about your friends. I really am. And tonight, you can tell me all about them. But right now,” he tries to look away, but she forces him back, “right now, I need you to pull it together and focus.”

After half a moment, he nods.

“Okay?”

He nods again, and she feels the subtle shift in his posture as he shuts his feelings off and lets his training take over. Olivia doesn’t like how easily he can do that. Hell, she doesn’t like how easily she can do that. One day, neither of them will have to. He blinks, and the transformation back to soldier is complete.

“Okay,” Garrus says. He gently bumps his forehead against hers and then pulls away. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing,” she says.

”Hey!” Vega shouts over comms. ”You two gonna join this shitshow anytime soon?” A grenade explodes, and a muddled we need a medic! filters through behind him.

With one last glance at Garrus, who nods but pointedly doesn’t look at the bodies on the floor, she clicks into their squad channel. “On our way.”

#shakarian #blackrose 4 #listen. that scene in the ot3 job where eliot pulls hardison in for a headbutt to get him to stop panicking #is one of my favorites in all of television ever #olivia shepard: responsible coffee commander #livfic #otp:one cell in the sea #s:2018 #s:me #s:words