Chapter Text
To John, looks have never been important. When you’re born with a face that ‘only a mother could love’ you quickly learn to live with the stares and the whispers. Later John earned his looks in the eyes of the public with the nickname of Butcher of Torfan.
It’s easier, he answered when his therapist asked about his lack of real relationship, to not even try to appear something he’s not. He’s not nice, he gets the job done. His face makes babies cry..
“No they don’t,” she protests and John shrugs. Might be an exaggeration but it was true enough in his eyes. Besides he’s fine.
The mission, the Alliance, comes first.
Until there’s a staff lieutenant that smiles at him, talks to him and treats him as he’s just anyone else. There are others when he gets aboard the Normandy and for the first time in a long while, he has a family. But something in the low chuckle, the soft brown eyes make it easier to make excuses to find the quiet corners where Alenko spends his free time. Virmire almost breaks it all, makes John back behind his face that’s served as a deterrent all his life. This time it does not work. Wrex punches his arm enough to leave a bruise and mutters something complimentary. Garrus needles him into an idiotic competition which ends with them agreeing to disagree on the winner and drinks, sitting on top of the Mako. Liara talks his ear off about a new translation she got her hands on and how it changes how she had interpreted another ancient Prothean text over tea. John has no idea what the difference is but the tea is nice and the shine in Liara’s eyes even more so as she goes on and on.
Even nicer still is the whiskey, just a fingers worth that Alenko slides to him when they are both awake during the night cycle. They don’t talk about Ashley, about Virmire but Alenko’s hand is just there and his smile is just sweet enough that John thinks about moving his own enough to hold it. He doesn’t but after a few sips they both move their hands on accident, fingers brush together and stay there. It’s a start.
When John is buried in the rubble after the fight with Saren, aching for a breath, bones creaking under the sharp pressure he almost gives up. Then the weight moves from over him and he’s hauled out by two pairs of hands. The relief when his helmet is taken off, the dusty air in his lungs is one of the best he’s ever taken.
“There you are. The best sight I’ve ever seen,” Alenko breaths out and rests his head, without the helmet (the idiot), against John’s chest plate. He lifts his hand, only a few of his fingers dislocated, and lays it against the sweaty, dusty dark hair.
“Never heard that before,” he wheezes out and gets a soft laugh for a reward. Alenko looks up at him, crinkles at his eyes and a smile that makes John lose his breath once more.
“I’ll make sure to say it again.”
“Not too many times. Don’t want anyone to accuse you of lying,” John mumbles as Alenko helps him sit up before starting a medical check.
“No lies here. Just a face that I'd be happy to see any day of the week,” Alenko grins and thankfully Garrus comes back to them with news and questions and John can go back to being a Spectre and a Commander and not an idiot in love.
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“Broken,” a doctor later says about his fingers, unimpressed with his self diagnosis when she hears it. John very carefully, doesn’t hear Alenko’s ‘told you so’ muttered from the cot beside him.