“You were an investment, Shepard,” he said as their feet began to take lazy, perfectly measured steps in time to a nonexistent beat, the heels of their shoes resonating against the room’s circumference. The sun outside the long window roared in silence, the vacuum of space stilling any sound that might’ve occurred.

“You know that. You’re still an investment, even with the Collector base neutralized. But you’re my greatest asset, you’re humanity’s greatest asset. You’re not easily replaced. To me, Shepard, you’re just business. But to me, everything is business.”

For a moment, there was a smile in his cyber-blue eyes. Or perhaps it was just the way the red sunlight danced on his smoke-worn skin.

“It’s up to you to decide what that means.”

A scene from a friend's fanfic, Erebus.