(ಠ_ಠ) (break_the_cycle) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-10-09 13:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, commander jane shepard, navi |
I dated a guy who stood me up at the altar.
Who: Shepard and Navi
What: Beer dates
When: During the genderbent plot
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13
Shepard’s mood had soured a little at first. But then she decided to not let her ex get her down, and instead she was going to step out and enjoy herself and try to pretend that it wasn’t still hurting. So she climbed into her truck and drove to Navi’s. She wasn’t too nervous, but she hadn’t exactly dated much in the year or two before Regina.
Navi, on the other hand, had enjoyed her day. She’d gone shopping for guy clothes, and was enjoying looking at her broad shoulders and defined biceps in mirrors. By the time Jane arrived, she was wearing jeans and a nice v-neck shirt that showed off pectorals. Navi wasn’t used to having a guy body, but she knew what she liked on guys personally and just wore that.
It was a nice shirt, Jane decided. She grinned when Navi opened the door. “Damn. If this ever happens to me I can only hope I’m as lucky.” She gave Navi a thumbs up. “You’ve got good jeans. And everything else.”
“Right? I woke up, and I was just all ‘dang I’d be a hot guy if I were a guy’.” Navi giggled and gave Jane a wave. “If this ever happens again, I’ll be ready. I’ll keep the clothes, just in case.”
“Probably a good idea. Worse case scenario, a future boyfriend could borrow then if he sleeps over.” Shepard gestured towards her truck. “Ready to go, Navi?”
“Pfft, future boyfriend. I haven’t really dated much lately, too busy with work.” She’d gone out with Logan, but that was it. And she got the feeling Logan went out with everyone.
“All set!” Navi couldn’t help but be bouncy no matter what body she was in; she bounced over to the truck and settled into the passenger’s seat. “Your truck is so pretty.” She pointed to her own in the driveway, a powder-blue ‘78 Chevy.
“I like yours too.” Watching Navi bounce was entertaining to the highest degree. “Something tells me you lucked out in the hotness department today.” She wondered what Regina had looked like, then decided to push that out of her mind. “Food, beer, sexy fun times?”
“Right? Look at my arms.” Navi flexed, visibly ogling herself. Being a guy was okay if you could just watch yourself in the mirror and be pleased. “Yup, but not too much beer for me. I don’t know how my body will react in terms of the sexy fun stuff.”
“Probably not good.” Shepard started the truck and peeled out, nearly hitting a fire hydrant. “How does Texmex sound?”
Navi blinked, raising an eyebrow. “Fine. You know you have to pay a lot of money if you hit hydrants, right? Maybe we can get there and not cause any property damage? I can drive, if you want.”
“Nah,I’m fine,” Shepard assured her. She shot her a grin, swerving to avoid the median and an annoyingly slow Subaru. “Thanks for the offer though.”
“Just because you are doesn’t mean that the rest of the OC will be.” Navi blinked and buckled her seatbelt again just to be sure, leaning back in the seat and closing her eyes tightly.
Miraculously, Shepard didn’t kill them (or anyone else) by the time they got to the tex-mex place. She climbed out of the truck and stretched. She was a menace on the road, and everyone always told her that, but she didn’t particularly believe them. “We should go. Inside.”
“Well, yeah, I’m starving.” Navi’s metabolism hadn’t slowed down for anything with different genitals. She was still on a 5000 calorie a day diet, and that was to keep herself on the slender side.
“Order whatever you want. I’ve got a big salary and not all that much to spend it on.” Her military pension was non-existent, but her pay with the Agency was pretty good. And that didn’t count some of the stuff she did on the side.
“We’ll go Dutch, darnit.” Navi beamed and lifted Shepard’s hand to her mouth, kissing the knuckles lightly. “That way if you hate me by the end of the night, you won’t feel like it was a total wash.” Navi’d been there in her own personal life before.
But then Navi sniffed the air and a happy smile spread over her features. “There’s nothing that smells better than that,” she purred. In her newly deepened voice, it sounded a bit like a lion’s rumble instead of her usual kitten.
“Good point.” Shepard inhaled deeply. “Yeah. Yeah, we picked a good place.” They were led to a seat, and she stretched after sitting down. “When was the last time someone took you out?”
Sitting down, Navi cocked her head to the side as she thought. It was a somewhat feminine gesture for the large, broad shouldered man she’d become, but one that was something she’d just always done. “A few weeks ago, Logan and I went to a bar and had sex on his bike. Does that count?”
“That counts,” Shepard replied. “And that sounds like a lot of fun.” But a few weeks ago (really over a month, but who was counting), she’d been with someone. She suddenly wanted a beer, but figured with her driving it might freak Navi out.
“It was, he’s funny.” Not dating material, at least not for Navi, but he was a nice guy and Navi hoped they’d be friends. And the sex had been okay. She looked down at Shepard, amused that she had to look down at anyone (normally Navi was the one looking up), and noticed that Shepard seemed upset. “Hey, you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine, just letting things get to me that shouldn’t get to me.” Shepard smiled and waved her hand dismissively. “There are more important things to worry about.”
“What was she like? Your ex, I mean. Besides pretty.” Navi had spoken with her a bit online, and found Regina to be one of those women who used her intimidating presence to her advantage.
“A world class bitch,” Shepard said, fondly. “But I like a little steel in my partners. She’s not evil, even if she thinks she is. Practical. But kind and caring underneath the exterior. But fatalistic and stubborn.”
“Fatalism isn’t really good in relationships,” Navi smiled. It was a sad little thing. “Relationships are a leap of faith, and fatalists don’t want to jump. I dated a guy who stood me up at the altar.” Which was probably why she hadn’t really dated anyone since. Slept with, sure, but it was a little hard for her to trust again.
“That’s rough, buddy.” Jane patted Navi’s hand. “But it’s in the past. Live, learn from it, grow from it. Of course it’s easier to say that than to do it. Or tell someone else.”
“Well, that’s what I’m saying. I took some time to heal, but now my heart’s open again. It’s normal to close off for a while and be grumpy around the house with scotch and pizza and yelling at the neighbors to hush.” Not that Navi had done that, nope.
“That I managed to avoid. Mostly.” Bury herself and work and what amounted to war preparation. After all, who knew when Orange County would throw something horrible at them. Or Reapers. Reapers could happen. Shepard wasn’t above preparing an Apocalypse Bunker. “Mostly, just kept busy.”
“That’s the trick. I own and operate my own business, so I don’t have a lot of free time to mope, even if I wanted to.” Navi waved down a waiter, ordering tequila shots and a margarita for herself. With her metabolism, any tipsy would be out of her system by the time they left. She also ordered two appetizers, an entree, and two desserts. What? She was hungry.
“If you could pack that away in your regular body, color me impressed,” Shepard said. She stuck with water, and two appetizer. None of the entrees interested her tonight. “What kind of business do you run?”
“Oh, I have a hummingbird metabolism in my regular body too.” Navi beamed and leaned back, clapping when her booze came. “I have a flower nursery. So I’m on my feet all day, lifting stuff and watering things. I do all the paperwork stuff at night at home, which I hate anyway because it’s boring.” She was good at it, and a savvy businesswoman, but she hated it with a passion. “What about you, what do you do?”
“Flitting about like a fairy?” Jane hoped she got that right. She remembered something like that and nursery and Navi sounded like something she’d picked up from the network during one of her snooping around moments. “I’m was a marine, but I got discharged. I do … readiness and prepwork for anything heavy the county might throw at us, among other things. So still a soldier.”
Navi’s eyes went wide. “You can tell I’m a fairy?” Were her wings out? She had to admit, she looked pretty goofy as a dude with her wings.
“Oooh, that sounds fun. My grandpa was target acquisition for the Marines before he retired.” Navi smiled at Shepard, feeling a bit closer to her upon finding that she worked for the Marines; she always felt more comfortable around people in the Corps, or soldiers in general. “Well, thanks for your service. The least I can do is donate a few orgasms. You know, for Uncle Sam.”
“That’s the best offer anyone has ever given me,” she replied. Her eyes darted to the bathrooms and she wondered if it was too soon to get started with that. “Just try not to call out for him, that would be a mood killer.”
Navi wrinkled her nose. “Uh, ew.” She offered Shepard one of the tequila shots before taking her own and leaning back. “Am I helping distract you?” Navi doubted they’d fall in love or something, but friends were good, and friends you could get off with were awesome in their own way.
Shepard smiled at her, taking the shot and knocking it back. “You’re distracting me nicely, and I mean that in not just a sexy way. Though I’d like to sample a Navi in her usual form some time.”
“Hopefully this won’t last too long. I had to invent a cousin so I could go to work, and I know I’ll forget all the little things I’m making up about him.” Favorite color and so on; Navi was a good liar, as long as she could keep things straight in her head. Random, not real facts tended to max out at about 30 unless she wrote them down. Which would be suspect.
Jane nodded. “And it would look suspicious if you kept referencing a little notebook.” She flagged someone down again, for another round of shots. She figured they could use another round of shots.
“Exactly. ‘Oh, what’s my favorite color? Let me check.’” Navi giggled at her pantomime, and grinned big at the suggestion of more shots. Shepard was fun, but Navi suspected she had a more serious side whenever she was working. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the breaking up thing.”
“Thanks. I wonder if maybe it was pretty much inevitable. We’re both fucked up in our own ways and not in the ways that mesh well long term.” Didn’t make it hurt less, but at least she was starting to understand. She smirked. ”But I’d rather concentrate on you.”
“Well, like I said. I’ll distract you.” Navi beamed and leaned forward, kissing Shepard firmly. Hey, Navi liked to help.