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The first thing she sees when she comes to is the swirling surface of a dying star. For a second, before her head quite clears from sleep, from whatever drug they used to knock her out, she imagines it's close enough to touch, that she could reach her hand out and lay her palm against the bubbling sphere. She wonders why she isn't burning.
Then perspective floods back in, along with the knowledge of what the view of the star outside the glass wall means, of where she is.
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, her focus is clear. A human silhouette is dark against the brightness of the sun, unmistakable. The Illusive Man.
She sits up on the leather sofa where she's been lying, rubs her hand over the back of her neck, soothing the stiffness in her muscles.
"For the record," she says, "I'm getting sick of waking up at your place with no memory of how I got here. You want a date, buy me a drink. You're a smooth talker. You must have better pick-up lines than a shot of sedatives to the arm."
He turns away from the window to face her, the motion unhurried, no hint of him being startled by the sound of her voice or worried about being alone with her now that she's awake. Of course, she doubts they're more alone than that the push of a button would bring armed Cerberus men bearing down on them in seconds, but then she's also certain he doesn't doubt that seconds would be all she'd need. The bastard has balls, she'll give him that.
He takes a drag from the ever-present cigarette dangling from his fingers. This is a space station, the air cleaned and recycled continuously, but she can still smell the whiff of nicotine in the room, the dry brush of it in her nostrils. It reminds her of Earth when she was a kid, of the kind of people she grew up around - old-world human sinners with old-world human vices. It wouldn't surprise her if that association is precisely why he smokes.
"I have a situation I could use your help with," he says, "and I'm afraid you've already heard all my best lines. You don't strike me as the kind of woman who'd be convinced by the same arguments twice. Knowing where we stand, I thought this was the safest way of getting you here."
"Knowing where we stand," she says, "you should know that I'm through furthering your agenda." She stands, turns away and starts towards the door. "You can tell your guards to escort me out of here."
"What is it you imagine, Shepard?" he says. His voice raised just a little, pitched to hold her back. "Our galaxy as a large-scale version of your motley little crew, all species working together, hand in hand for the greater good? Peace, justice, and liberty for all, regardless of their homeworld, ignoring their DNA? You're not that naive. You know the Turians are just biding their time, waiting for the right moment to bring their military might down on us as they did at Shanxi. You know the Asari are cradling their power closer than they'll ever hold any eager human mate. You know the Krogan will raze our colonies to the ground once their bloodlust drives them beyond their borders again, and the Salarians will tinker with us like specimens beneath their microscopes given the first opportunity. If humanity is to survive, if humanity is to thrive and grow and have any say in where this galaxy is headed, then we must fight with every means at our disposal to strengthen our position, to preserve and build on what makes us human. Anything else is folly, you've seen enough of the universe to understand that, even if you don't want to face it."
The rubber soles of her heavy combat boots squeak against the polished floor as she whirls around, anger tight in the muscles of her jaw, in the pit of her stomach. Advancing on him, long strides across the room.
"What do you know about being human?" she spits, and they're face to face, eye to eye when she stops. Another step and she would be forcing him backwards, shoving him up against the glass. "Holed up here in your ivory tower, alone with your little power games? When does humanity ever touch you? Real humanity, not your abstract construct. Flesh and blood?"
His mouth twists, a sneer she can't read. He brings his cigarette up, sucks smoke into his lungs. When he exhales, the warmth of it strokes across her cheek. He taps his finger against the filter, and ashes fall, still glowing, to the floor.
"I could ask you the same question," he says. Up close like this, his voice sounds impossibly rougher, richer. It sets the hair on her forearms on end. "When does humanity ever touch you, Shepard? Haven't you driven all your humans away? Especially the ones you've wanted most to keep, like the dear, upstanding Commander Alenko? Haven't..."
"That's enough!"
She takes that last step, pushes him back. Her arm across his jugular, pinning him against the window, her weight behind it, holding him there.
The cigarette crumbles in his fingers.
He makes no move to defend himself, to stop her.
"Making the right choices, Shepard. Doing what needs to be done when no one else will. That tends to create a vacuum around you, a space that no one quite dares to cross. It's the price we pay for greatness, for the honor of defending our race."
She huffs out a laugh, incredulous.
"Is that what you tell yourself? Have you looked at this place lately?" She waves her free hand in the air, an expansive gesture to encompass the room behind her - the vast, near-empty space of it, the strict lines of the solitary pieces of furniture, the bare surfaces shined to a cold, high gloss. "You might as well blow this window out and let the sun burn it clean, it's so stripped of life. You want to pretend that standing apart is the cost of doing business, that it's some badge of honor, be my guest. But it's pretty damn obvious that you've done your best to keep the mess of human existence well away from you."
For a moment, the Illusive Man doesn't respond.
His eyes holding hers are disturbingly blue, the unnatural patterns of his prosthetic irises eerie at this close range. She doesn't look away from his scrutiny, but she leans on him harder, instinctively trying to force his hand.
The tip of his tongue comes out to wet his lips.
"And this right here," he says at last, and his body shifts beneath her, their legs brushing, their hips. "Wouldn't you call this messy?"
And suddenly, that's all she wants. To mess him up, to break down his cool exterior, wrinkle up his perfect suit, leave him panting, bleeding, out of control. Human.
"Not yet," she says, and lays her hand on his cock.
"Shepard," he breathes, and his entire body surges forward, slams back against the glass with a sound like a slap when she pushes him down. He's already more hard than soft, thicker in her palm by the moment. His lips part when the air rushes out of him, and it's pure instinct to put her mouth on his. More bite than kiss, and he's biting back, bruising, twisting so that his leg is between hers. She grinds against it, taking.
The need between her legs is painful, savage. She always plays nice because she's always the stronger, fucking those she wants to protect. There's nothing nice about this, though. The Illusive Man deserves no one's protection, would never need it, and if she hurts him, so much the better. If they hurt each other, that's only par for the course.
She grabs him by the front of his shirt and throws him to the floor.
He skids over the mirror-smooth surface of it; where he grabs for purchase, his hands leave prints across the shimmering reflection of the burning star.
She tears at the fly of her pants, yanks them down, yanks them off, over her boots, too impatient to deal with the laces.
"Yeah," the Illusive Man says, "come on," and his hands are on his own pants, getting them open, shoving them down just enough to get his cock out.
Thick and hard, and she wants it, is breathless with the need to ride him into the ground.
There's blood on his lip where she bit him and his gray hair is standing on end, and she starts coming as soon as she sinks onto him. She presses the heel of her hand against her clit, her other palm in the center of his chest, forcing him still, and claims it. Her hips jerking in quick stabbing motions, her pussy clenched around him, and when the first surge of pleasure ends, all she wants is more.
His hands are on her, hot and rough, digging marks into her hips, pushing her shirt up to get at her breasts. Squeezing them tight in his palms until she can't tell if she's panting from pleasure or pain and when he tries to sit up, she lets him, lets him run his tongue over her nipple, lets him follow through with his teeth.
Her fingers twist in his hair, making him bite down harder, clutch her tighter, one arm wrapped around the small of her back, his grip stronger than she would have expected. Her hips rise and fall on his cock, rise and fall, fast and relentless, and she wants to keep going until she's fucked them both raw, until he can't drag himself up off the floor.
There are no words between them now, and she likes it that way. She's heard all his arguments, just like he said, and he's heard all of hers, and while agreeing to disagree is not in their blood, she also knows neither of them will ever convince the other. Better to fight like this, then, in silence, without weapons, politics and philosophy and moral imperatives distilled to the grind of their bodies, to friction and sweat and the scratch of her nails on his scalp, the blunt press of his cock on her g-spot.
It's all the anger and determination and the frantic, white-hot urgency and dread of the last few years let loose, and when she comes again she can't seem to stop shaking, stop moaning, stop shoving down for more.
She lays her hand on his throat, her thumb pressing in against the week spot underneath his Adam's apple, and he rears up beneath her, suddenly as wild as she feels, his cock jerking inside her, and he's pushing them over, rolling her onto her back to fuck into her, his throat driving into her grip with every thrust of his hips, and she'll have bruises inside to match the glaring imprints on his neck, and she wants them, wants every mark she can leave behind on him, rhetoric written on his body to remind him of every point where she objects.
When he spills inside her, growling her name, the last vicious twist of his cock drives her over, one final time. When her head tips back against the floor, her face towards the window, there are solar flares dancing at the edges of her vision, bright against the dark of space like the spikes of her heartbeat against the black pall of all the things she's had to do.
She pushes him up, with her hand on his throat, her hand on his shoulder, rolling them over again. As she pulls away from him to get to her feet, he stretches beneath her, self-possessed and confident, and says:
"That messily human enough for you, then, Shepard?"
She shakes her head. Gives him a smile of battles won.
"Not human," she says. "Alive."