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Miranda had started it. It frankly had never occurred to Shepard to care one way or the other about her underwear until she’d been resurrected. Before that, she’d mostly worn standard Alliance-issue stuff, plain, practical, and long-wearing, and when she’d had some need to buy something of her own, she just bought whatever fit and was cheapest.
Then Cerberus had come along, and Shepard had found that her new quarters contained an assortment of Cerberus uniforms (since when did Cerberus have uniforms, anyway?), and a drawer full of underthings that were black and lace-edged instead of white or beige.
She’d almost let it go. But she’d been irritated enough by the whole experience, and unsettled enough by the fucking window over her bed, that she’d snatched a few items out of the drawer and bounced back down to Miranda’s office.
“Miranda,” she’d demanded, “what the hell is this?”
The Cerberus officer raised an elegant dark eyebrow. “That’s underwear, Shepard. It hasn’t changed that much in two years.”
“Yes, but—” Shepard stopped herself for a second. “It’s not exactly Alliance issue.”
“Ah,” Miranda said. “No. I took the liberty of supplying you with some higher-end items. We’re able to access goods somewhat beyond the Systems Alliance budget. I think you’ll find that what’s in your hand is both attractive and high-performance, intended for combat use. Adapted from asari designs—after all, their commandos have been doing this for centuries. I wear the same type myself.”
Shepard had left, feeling downright sullen, for no particularly good reason. This just wasn’t what she was used to. She’d stayed sullen right up until she first wore the stuff in a firefight. Then she’d had to concede that Miranda was, in fact, correct (although it took her much longer to admit as much out loud). This stuff stayed put, was comfortable no matter how much she sweated, and was actually attractive.
So she’d come around to enjoying the new underwear, and taking a certain secret pleasure in the knowledge that she was wearing something pretty under her utilitarian black-and-white uniforms. She’d even picked up more underwear in red, her favorite color, on one of their trips to Illium, and ordered herself another set in blue after they came back from the Collector Base— a rather sheerer and lacier set than the others, which Garrus reacted to with exactly the enthusiasm she’d hoped for.
Honestly, one of the most disappointing ongoing aggravations of being locked up by the Alliance was having to go back to wearing Alliance-provided underwear.
Shepard felt a little ashamed of herself for that, for the fact that there were a few things she missed about her time with Cerberus. She tried not to dwell on those thoughts when she was being grilled about her involvement with Cerberus, but the way the elastic on the current set pinched made it hard to forget.
Still, she kept wearing the Alliance stuff even after she was back in action. It seemed awfully self-indulgent to order herself some new underwear from some boutique on the Citadel, when it was wartime and millions were dying. There were a lot more serious issues than whether Commander Shepard was 100% comfortable, or felt pretty under her combat armor.
She wouldn’t have expected Garrus to care, or even notice, but he did, once they’d accomplished the important business of reuniting properly. “So this is, ah—” he said, picking up her discarded beige undies from where they lay on the floor next to the bed.
Shepard laughed. “Boring,” she said. “The word you’re looking for is boring. Toss ‘em here, and I’ll put them in the laundry.”
“Why the change?” he asked, wadding them up and throwing them toward her, as instructed.
She shrugged. “Wartime economizing, you know how it is. I liked the others better, but Cerberus could splurge on that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” he said, and changed the subject.
Shepard didn’t think any more of it, but after their next stop at the Citadel, she came up to her quarters to find a box with discreet and tasteful logos sitting on her bed, and opened it up to find it stuffed full of underwear sets, exactly the kind she’d come to favor, in a rainbow of colors. She stood there staring at the array of colorful fabric and lace—it looked like it belonged to another world entirely than the one where she kept finding Cerberus troopers or husks under every damned rock in the galaxy. Garrus was the only other person who had unrestricted access to her quarters, but she still said, as if there might be some other exploration, “EDI, how did these get here?”
“Adviser Vakarian thought you might like them,” EDI informed her at once.
She picked up a few items, checking the tags. Everything was the right size. “How did he even know what to get?”
“I believe he made some inquiries of Dr. T’Soni.”
Shepard winced at the the thought that Liara knew her underwear preferences, but… she was the Shadow Broker, after all.
“Would you like to send him a message in reply?” EDI inquired.
Shepard thought for a moment before reaching for the blue set. “Just tell him to meet me up here when his shift is over.”