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“Well, how rare to a see a quarian off their fleet.”
Victor tensed at the voice and turned slowly around to face its owner.
The batarian leered, all four eyes clearly sizing Victor up. He’d been warned about them, the Terminus Systems rife with batarian pirate gangs and slavers and it was with a sickening jolt that Victor realized this was one of the latter kind.
Don’t panic.
The faceplate of his envirosuit flashed a warning about excessive heart rate and Victor took a steadying breath. He was on the Citadel, the central space station for all the races using the mass relays, surely someone would notice suspicious activity, right?
The batarian’s firm grip closed around Victor’s wrist, and he could feel the panic fully sinking in; inwardly regretting that he’d not upgraded his suit’s defense systems before he left. But he was a quiet engineer who studied synthetic life forms, not a soldier; equipped to disable tech sure, but could he fight off a batarian twice his size? Not really. And given the prejudices he’d already encountered, Victor wasn’t certain a quarian’s screams for help would attract anything but trouble.
He was about to try frying the receptors in the right side of his suit with an override, hoping a little excess heat and smoke might at least get the guy to loosen his grip so he can slip away, but before he could input it, the world went blue.
Surrounded by a blue glow and pulled as if gravity had been switched off for a moment, Victor floated until he dropped into a pair of strong arms; one of which, now that he looked closer at the right hand, was glowing that same gentle blue.
A gentle blue that now shot out in a burst, latched onto the batarian, and threw him soundly into the nearest wall. Victor turned, expecting an asari with blue skin to match the glow, but was met instead with peach skin and a head of black hair; a tech visor glowing over his eyes.
A human?
He’d not seen a human face to face before, let alone the other aliens that stood beside him all looking quite ready for a fight.
“Leo, let C-Sec know there’s a batarian to pick up down here.”
“Of course, Commander.”
Victor blinked around at the motley crew. The first was a turian, a species Victor had seen in plenty of vids, with their metallic carapace and scaly avian physique; although this one seemed a bit shorter than those he had seen in the videos. Beside him was a salarian, large oval eyes blinking at him from that slender amphibious face, and then there was the angara; a newer race to the system with broad shoulders tapering to a smaller waist and two folds of skin that draped down from their head to their neck.
And last was…
“Are you all right? Do I need to get you to a medic?”
The human. And Victor swore every vid that had ever featured the race only recently being recognized by the Citadel council didn’t do it justice if this was what they looked like; for even without the blue biotic powers, the man (at least Victor thought it was a him) glowed with a warmth that seemed intangible yet made Victor want to touch it all the same.
“I’m… I’m fine. Thank you.”
The human smiled; then, upon realizing he still had his arm around Victor, he quickly let go and stepped back to give him some space.
“It’s very rare to find a quarian alone in Citadel wards,” the salarian spoke up. “Have you been separated from your envoy?”
Victor let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “No. I’m on my pilgrimage.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not as familiar with quarian society as I’d like to be,” the human cut in. “This is… a pilgrimage for your fleet, right?”
He nodded. “Yes. When a quarian comes of age, they leave the ship of their birth and go on a pilgrimage. Once they find something of value, they will gift it to a new fleet which will then become their new home.”
“Quarian ages are often a little hard to tell, what with…” the turian gestured to the envirosuit that covered Victor head to toe, “your suit and all. But you seem taller than most.”
“Don’t mind Guang Hong,” the salarian interjected. “He’s short for his race and is on a desperate mission to find others who share his pain.”
“Phichit!”
“I’m merely stating the truth.”
“Sorry, my team is a being a bit…” the human winced, “insensitive, I’m afraid.”
Victor shook his head. “No, it’s fine. Part of our pilgrimage is a way for quarians to interact with the rest of the galaxy, so questions are welcomed. I am old for my pilgrimage, but I was too sick in my youth to go and only now have they allowed me to do so.”
“So what brought you to the Citadel?” the human asked.
He’d already tried to explain what he’d found to some of the embassies there on the Citadel, but no one had wanted to listen to a quarian. Especially on the topic of the geth, the synthetic lifeforms the quarians created in their own image that had since gone rogue. It was why the quarians didn’t even get a representative in the embassies and so far, everyone viewed Victor’s information as just a crackpot theory that some sympathetic quarian had created to try and shift the blame.
But something about the look in the human’s kind brown eyes made Victor feel like, maybe this time, someone would listen.
“I’ve found what I believe is evidence to show that the geth’s neural network is being controlled by another lifeform. Which might explain why they suddenly turned against us and became so hostile.”
Those brown eyes grew wide, and for a split second, Victor feared he was once more going to be dismissed; but suddenly those strange five-fingered hands reached out to take his and clutch them tight.
“You’re serious, aren’t you? Absolutely serious?”
Victor nodded.
And he wasn’t sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t a human almost tackling him over in a hug as he squeezed him tight.
“I knew it! I knew it and they didn’t believe me!” he stated loudly, pulling back to hold Victor at arm’s length. “Will you help me convince the Council? I’ve got the resources to go and disable the signal, but they won’t give me clearance without proof.”
Victor’s eyes went wide. This human had been trying to prove the same thing!
“Of course. But I’ve already tried and they…”
“We’re going there right now, I won’t let them turn us away,” he stated firmly, starting to walk down the corridor.
“Yuuri, you don’t even know the poor guy’s name,” Phichit reprimanded, grabbing his armored arm and holding him back.
Yuuri - that was apparently the human’s name - turned back around with an odd pinkness now across his cheeks.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Yuuri Katsuki, Commander of the Earth Alliance ship Yu-Topia.”
He held his hand forward and Victor vaguely remembered something about certain races showing comradery by shaking hands; so he extended his three fingers forward and accepted the gesture.
“I’m Victor’Tasi nar Mizpah. Or Victor, for short.”
Yuuri clutched his hand tight. “Victor, ready to go prove these Council members wrong?”
Victor could feel the blush on his face, but knew thankfully with his helmet on it was doubtful anyone could see it. “Lead the way, Yuuri.”
Human spaceships were too quiet.
Victor, far too used to the quarian ships that were often salvage jobs with odds and ends for parts, was used to a ship where a quiet engine meant it had probably stopped working. He wasn’t that surprised that he’d been unable to sleep in the room aboard the Yu-Topia he’d been given, drifting to the starboard observation deck in hopes the scenery and being directly above the engines might calm him down some.
So far, it wasn’t working.
Space was just so vast, stars and planets twinkling like glitter strewn across the galaxy; all of them but pinpricks that held entire worlds and civilizations upon them. It made Victor feel so small and insignificant, as if his treatment on the Citadel hadn’t done that already.
He curled in on himself a little more, clutching his knees to his chest. Maybe he should’ve just let the commander take him back home and let them deal with the geth since they were clearly more qualified.
The door slid open at that, its soft hiss like everything else on the ship- too quiet .
Victor looked up and realized it was the human commander. He looked quite different now, no longer in his armored suit, pale peach arms visible and a skin tight black shirt with the stripes of the ship’s insignia across one shoulder. Victor felt his heart skip a beat, for a human without bulky armor was probably the closest any alien came to quarian physiques; and, well, at least by quarian standards, Commander Katsuki was gorgeous .
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Victor offered a smile before remembering the opacity on his helmet’s faceplate was probably too high for anyone to see in. He held up his hands instead.
“No, it’s fine! I was just thinking it was too quiet, anyways.”
Yuuri quirked an eyebrow- such a small but useful gesture these humans had!- and quietly moved to sit opposite Victor.
“Is everything all right? I know today was probably pretty stressful.”
It had indeed been rather eventful, for once Victor had given his data to the Council they’d authorized him to work with Yuuri and his crew to see if they could disable the signal controlling the geth.
“I think I’m still kind of in shock that anyone listened to me.”
The human’s expression became sympathetic at that and before Victor knew it, he’d reached over a hand to rest it upon Victor’s arm.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m always willing to listen. Whether it’s about your research or anything else.”
Victor stared at the hand, wondering if human skin was as soft to the touch as it looked; but he began to ramble before he could dwell on it any further.
“Thank you. I think it’s because of our suits. I guess it’s hard to trust someone if you can’t see their face.”
Inwardly, Victor thought even kind Yuuri probably didn’t find the envirosuit a good look, but what could they do? Quarian immune systems were far too weak to handle living anywhere but on Rannoch and the geth had driven them from there ages ago.
But Yuuri’s eyes swept from his head, with its magenta tinted helmet faceplate and ceremonial tallis hood wrapping around it, to his feet, his lower legs bowed back further than humans and leading to only two large toes. To Victor’s surprise, Yuuri gave him a shy smile.
“I’ve not seen a quarian’s suit quite like yours before. Is there a special reason for it?”
It was an honest question. Victor was well-aware most envirosuits were in shades of gray or black with colored accents; a stark contrast to his which was silver and white with only a splash of black. Then again, most quarians didn’t have Victor’s extra-sensitive immune system.
He sighed. “I need an advanced model for my health. That’s why I started my pilgrimage so late.”
“Oh. Well.” Yuuri suddenly darted his eyes away. “It’s very… princely. I think.”
This time, Victor was eternally grateful for the opacity, for he was sure that his pale lavender skin had surely blushed scarlet at his kind words.
He quickly changed the topic to the technical specs of the spaceship, hoping that thinking about that might get his heart to stop racing; but somewhere along the line, Yuuri changed the topic back to Victor and his life, for the good commander was incredibly interested in the cultures and lives of other aliens and wanted to know everything he could about Victor.
The pair were found the next morning by Phichit, both of them having fallen asleep on the observation deck, slumped into one another; and as flustered as that made Victor, he noticed that Yuuri’s cheeks were equally so, in that adorable rosy pink hue upon his pleasant peach skin.
Had you told Victor a few weeks ago that he’d be hacking geth destroyers and a fairly decent aim with a shotgun, he would have laughed at you; but Yuuri had insisted that he be able to be a part of this mission on all accounts. This was their mission and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. There were three transmitters on the edges of the galaxy and all they had to do was shut them down.
Their first target in the Ismar Frontier on the volcanic planet of Zeona had been perhaps deceptively easy; the hardest part of it being finding a way to get to the signal without falling into the nearby lava. But Antibaar, which was not only freezing cold with high winds, was another matter entirely. The location of the signal was crawling with geth, all of them beyond any reason with this murderous override controlling them like a deadly hivemind; and Victor had reluctantly admitted that the best course of action would be to kill the guards for the greater good of the geth as a whole. It had honestly been rather thrilling, once you got past the fear of death that is.
Yuuri, who was normally kind of quiet and reserved, had been surprisingly enthusiastic when he realized the amount of geth they were going to have to take down; for even though he’d only served as commander for about a year, he had a deadly focus when the time called for it. While Leo and Guang Hong went after the geth snipers with their own sniper rifles and Phichit whittled down the shields with his incendiary rounds, Yuuri pulled everything from the smaller geth troopers to the massive geth colossi up into the air with his biotic powers and Victor used his skills to hack their systems and overload them, shutting them down. But the problem with a synthetic enemy that shared a neural network of information was that the moment these units went down, more units arrived to take their place; a dropship unloading a small legion of them right when they thought they’d made it through.
Victor sent out his combat drone, Makka as he called it, to draw fire and did his best with his shotgun while his tech skills reset. He honestly thought he was doing rather well at it too. But of course, nothing could be quite that easy, could it?
Just when Yuuri and him made a break through the carnage, both racing towards the signal in hopes they could reach it and shut it down before any more reinforcements appeared, a large explosive set by one of the shock troopers went off. Victor had done his best to push Yuuri away from the blast, hoping all the upgraded systems on his suit would protect him better than Yuuri’s light armor did, but the explosive was strong enough to rip a tear in his suit and immediately expose Victor to not only the sleet and cold, but whatever else was floating around in Antibaar’s air that was no good for his poor immune system.
Yuuri was at his side in a second, his hand briefly pressing over that breach as his eyes focused on Victor. “Can you seal it?”
Victor nodded. He was shaken, certainly, but he still had enough of his wits about him to pull up his omnitool; the orange hologram appearing over his arm and providing him with a computer interface to input the directions to his suit’s microfabricator to repair the hole. Within seconds that soft brush of Yuuri’s glove was sealed out, and he gave him a smile he hoped given his proximity, he might be able to see.
He’d begun to help Victor to his feet, but on realizing his leg’s injury was severe enough that walking was not going to be easy, he swept his arms down under Victor’s legs and lifted him up into his arms.
“I can’t shut this signal down without you, so you’re going to have to fight off the geth as I get you to it,” he murmured, his voice almost swallowed up by the howling wind and the mechanical screeches and shots fired by the geth.
Victor looked to what stood in their way and nodded, quickly telling Makka to distract a group of geth primes while he focused on hacking the destroyers and using his control of them to fire upon the colossus. With the backup from the rest of Yuuri’s squad, they made their way through, finally reaching the signal, and with Victor’s talent, easily shutting it down.
It was then, as all the geth promptly deactivated and fell down, that he felt it. For Yuuri had not only given him as best a hug he could considering he was still carrying him, but he’d also pressed a joyous kiss to the top of Victor’s faceplate; the nerve simulation features of his suit transferring the sensation to him.
“You did it, Victor!” he said, spinning him around as if they weren’t standing in the middle of a snowstorm.
He found himself giggling despite himself, his heart suddenly light and his worries lightyears away.
Once they’re safely back on the Yu-Topia, Yuuri reluctantly allowed Phichit to step in and look over Victor’s injury in the now resterilized medbay. Too many germs , Phichit had argued when Yuuri tried to follow behind him, but Victor was touched by his attempt all the same.
Phichit was singing some showtune under his breath, something Victor knew he’d heard in a vid about a king and a skater, and clicked his tongue as he opened the suit around the injury and inspected it.
“Shrapnel in your leg, should have guessed,” he muttered. “I’ll have to pull out each piece one at time and then pump you full of antibiotics. This could take awhile.”
Victor sighed, his eyes drifting to where Yuuri was hovering outside the medbay window; Phichit followed his gaze.
“Here,” he pulled up his omnitool and began typing, “I’ll give you some relevant reading material to peruse while you wait.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later, his own omnitool notified him of the files; but it was the titles of them that had his heart doing a somersault.
Diagrams of male human body
Comfortable positions for you and your human partner
Erogenous zones of the human body
The sexual use of biotic mass effect fields
If Victor didn’t already feel woozy from the blood loss, he certainly did now; his eyes wide as he stared at the salarian.
“Are you… messing with me?”
He gave a knowing smile. Too knowing.
“Stress before the last mission is sure to hit a breaking point, and both quarian and human species are apt to relieve stress in similar manners. Given today’s excursion, I’m merely preparing you for the inevitable.”
Victor took a deep breath. “Has Yuuri… said something to you?”
While they had certainly gotten closer, both of them often finding the other unable to sleep and lingering about the observation deck just like that first night, their relationship was still firmly in the friendship stage and, Victor feared, permanently stuck there. Then again, there was today when Yuuri had pressed that kiss to Victor’s head. Maybe he didn’t realize how intimate kissing Victor there might be, but for a quarian, your suit was basically your skin. It would have been no different than if someone had kissed Yuuri on his head.
Phichit had gone back to pulling shrapnel from his leg, humming to himself again, before finally answering.
“You two are like two objects in orbit, slowly growing closer and closer without realizing that you’re destined to impact. Victor, be honest with yourself and with him. Yuuri might be brave about many things, but he respects you too much to risk losing your friendship in exchange for something more.”
Victor’s eyes drifted once more to the door where Yuuri still waited, his expression tense with worry, and he gave him a small wave to let him know he’d be fine; and like a star bursting to life, his face immediately brightened as he returned the wave. Maybe Phichit was right, maybe all those little things Victor pushed aside assuming it was just Yuuri being nice were laced with the hope of something more. And now that he thought about it, it wasn’t like he acted this way with any of the others, even if he was clearly their friend too.
“Phichit. What would I need to do if I wanted to take off my suit safely?”
The salarian blinked before a smile tugged at his lips. “It’d be a big risk, Victor.”
Victor turned to him, wondering if he could see the determination in his eyes.
“He’s worth it.”
They’d just made it through the mass relay, the Milky Way Galaxy’s interstellar transit system, into Sigurd’s Cradle, the Yu-Topia now making its way towards the final signal originating from a small planet called 2181 Despoina. With current fuel resources, it’d be about a day or two before they arrived. Victor decided, after spending the last few days talking himself into or out of the idea, that it was now or never.
“Victor?” Yuuri seemed rather surprised to find him knocking at his door, but he quickly recovered. “I mean, hi. Did you need something?”
He took a deep breath. “Can we… talk?”
Yuuri nodded, stepping back to allow Victor into his room; the commander’s quarters a bit bigger than his own with a large fish tank along one wall and a large queen sized bed that Victor nervously walked over to and took a seat on, Yuuri following suit.
“Is everything okay? No more side effects from your injury, I hope?”
Victor shook his head. “No I’m… fine. Phichit’s given me enough antibiotics, herbal supplements and immuno-boosters I should be able to…”
He met Yuuri’s eyes and hoped he could see his expression now that he’d intentionally lowered the opacity on his helmet as far down as it would go; he must, for he put a reassuring hand on Victor’s wrist.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing better. I was… worried. Living in a suit like that must be so challenging.”
“We’re in them our whole lives, even with family.” Victor paused, gathering his courage, then pressed on. “The most intimate thing we can do is link our suit environments with another quarian. Sure we get sick at first, but we adapt. It’s our biggest sign of trust. I’ve never considered it before, at least… not with a quarian.”
And maybe Yuuri understood where Victor was headed with this, or maybe he was merely hoping, but he slid his hand down until his five fingers entwined with Victor’s three.
“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Victor.”
“I know… I just…” he took a shaky breath, the room suddenly far too warm. “You see, the tradition also um… signifies a willingness for intimacy.”
Yuuri’s brown eyes go wide, his cheeks painted pink. “Victor, are you…”
“Suggesting?” he let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, a quarian finds himself rescued by a dashing commander who takes special interest in him and his research; of course he’s going to develop feelings for him. But… I never thought anyone could see past… this.”
Victor gestured to his helmet before finally raising his eyes back up to Yuuri; and keelah he’s never seen someone so beautiful, especially as that shy smile curls at his lips.
“I think I know now why Phichit insisted on giving me a such a thorough sterilization procedure this morning,” Yuuri replied, his hand reaching up to brush alongside the edge of Victor’s faceplate. “But if it’s not safe for you, I won’t make you.”
“I know. But… I want to feel your skin on mine. I want the first person to ever see my face to be you.” Victor’s fingers brushed along the side of his helmet, a soft pop as the seal was disengaged, and he pulled the plate away from his face.
Yuuri let a small gasp slip free before a smile full of love and fondness split across his lips.
“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” he murmured breathlessly, hesitant fingertips tracing across Victor’s skin; across each little purple mark on Victor’s lavender face, and into the cascade of silver hair that had slipped forward now that the helmet wasn’t holding it back.
Desperate now to return Yuuri’s reverent touch, Victor unlocked the seal on his glove and yanked it off; his fingers quick to press across that beautiful peach skin.
“And you’re even softer than I thought,” he managed, both of them giggling as their happiness overtook them.
Something shifted in their eyes then, both of them pausing as they leaned closer; and they stopped just a breath away, words tumbling off their lips.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Is it all right to kiss you?”
A shared smile was all they needed in confirmation before that last space between them was finally breached; Yuuri’s lips even softer than his skin, and his tongue even softer than that.
Victor had a nasty fever, his sinuses were clogged, and he’d been coughing off and on all morning. And well, it was totally worth it.
Yuuri had been fretting over him terribly, but Victor reassured him that the side effects were minor and that once he felt better he would very much like to spend time with Yuuri again without his suit in the way. It was the best way to acclimate himself, after all.
They soon arrived at 2181 Despoina, and the readings they were getting from the water covered planet were incredibly strange, the data inconclusive about the exact location of the signal. The best course of action was going to be sending down a two person submersible to try and track it on the surface. Yuuri had worried that they should wait a few days for Victor’s symptoms to ease, but he insisted that as long as he was with Yuuri he’d be more than fine.
And so they found themselves being dropped down into the murky depths of the water, only a small headlight shining into the darkness and the only sound the beating of their two hearts. The descent was going smoothly, but they had yet to encounter any lifeforms and it had set Victor’s nerves on edge. Something was… off about this planet, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint that had his already foggy mind feeling like there was another pressure there aside from just his sinuses.
“Victor. The comm link, it just… stopped.”
He tried everything to bring it back online, every override possible, but nothing. Something was blocking their contact with the surface. They shared a look between them, Victor having kept his opacity down now just so Yuuri could see him better, and the look of fear that had crept into Yuuri’s eyes had surely been echoed in Victor’s own.
That’s when he heard it. Not aloud, but a voice speaking as if from inside his own mind.
Turn back. You have been warned.
“Did you hear that?” Yuuri asked. Victor nodded. “Should we?”
Victor thought of the geth, thought of how many they’d had to kill to reach that second signal; why all their lives would be in vain if they didn’t see this through!
He told Yuuri to press on, and their sub sank lower, the inky blackness swallowing them up as they dove deeper. But just when he’d about given up hope, the radar he was running on his omnitool detected a weak signal just a bit further down; and so they went towards it.
It was then, something reached out from the depths and with a flick smashed out the headlight, plunging them into total darkness; leaving only Yuuri’s tech visor and Victor’s faceplate’s glow for lighting.
Suddenly, a rock shelf appeared below, jostling them into one another as it hit with a lurch; the emergency lowlights of the submersible flickering on weakly. That’s when Victor saw it first, a monstrous creature of gigantic proportions, its bony, heavily ridged plates glinting as two sets of three eyes the size of Victor’s head hovered before them, several large tentacle-like appendages wrapping around the sub.
You have come too far . That voice spoke once more, low and gutural.
Yuuri reached down and took Victor’s hand, clutching it tight.
“We have to stop the signal.”
This is not your domain. You have breached the darkness.
“We need to stop whatever is controlling the geth,” Victor called out.
The entity paused, eyes focused on him.
You are a quarian. It is your kind who created them and turned your backs on them.
Victor knew that. He had poured through the history of his people and found all the dark secrets they’d tried to bury. That was why he was so determined to free the geth and set things right.
As if it could read into Victor’s memories, the entity spoke once more.
A geth dared ask, "Creator, do I have a soul?" It created panic. The quarians turned to violence, all over an innocent question, and the stronger geth stood up to defend their weaker brethren. The quarians deemed this an attack and sought to destroy them. We could not allow this to pass.
“I know,” Victor replied, heart in his throat. “They came to us for understanding and we betrayed their trust.”
He could feel the piercing gaze of the creature narrow.
We are Leviathan. The apex race. We have lived beyond the span of time as you know it. We have always used the lesser races as our thralls. They serve us and hide us. But we have seen many organics destroyed by the synthetics they create. This time we have controlled the synthetic race and used our power to drive the organics away. This way they will not be destroyed.
“You did it to protect the quarians?” Yuuri asked.
Yes. If the war had continued, they would have been obliterated.
“Things are different now,” Victor said quietly. “At least, I want them to be. I want to work with the geth again as not master and servant, but as friends.”
You are an anomaly .
“I’m well aware,” he replied, “but I still want to try”
The Leviathan seemed to study him, and Victor felt a chill run down his spine; his mind went blank, then he was on a planet vaguely familiar, and standing before him a geth that seemed slightly different than any he’d seen before. The geth, with the voice of the Leviathan, spoke.
Victor’Tasi nar Mizpah. An orphaned quarian who found comfort in the synthetics around him. Are you strong enough to change the fate of your people?
Victor thought of his quiet life before now, how sheltered he’d been from the world around him until he left the fleet, how his pilgrimage had given him wisdom and courage; and he thought of Yuuri, so open and accepting of anyone, no matter their race.
He held a hand out, in that very human gesture of friendship, to the geth.
“For the sake of my people and the geth, I will find the strength to change fate.”
The geth accepted his hand.
Thank you. Victor’Tasi nar Mizapah. You are what we have been waiting for.
Victor woke up to Yuuri’s voice, his panicked plea cutting through the darkness in his mind, and he gasped as if he’d stopped breathing. Maybe he had.
“Victor! Stay with me, Victor!”
He flickered his eyes open and found Yuuri’s face hovering over his own.
“Yuuri… what happened?”
It’s the touch of Yuuri’s hand upon his cheek that made Victor realize he was in the medbay on the Yu-Topia, his faceplate off, and Yuuri beside him clutching his other hand tight. He gave it a squeeze back, just to let him know he was okay.
“You blacked out, your body temperature plummeted, I rushed us back up here as fast as possible.”
Victor frowned. “What about the signal?”
At that Yuuri had a hint of a smile beneath all his concern.
“I don’t know what you did, Victor. Or what you said to that thing, but it worked. The comm link came back online, the signal was disabled. Why, I’ve already gotten a call from the council saying a geth unit has requested to meet with you and discuss a peace agreement between the geth and the quarians.”
It was then, as Victor went to reach for Yuuri’s hand, that he realized he was not in his envirosuit. He held up his pale lavender hand and stared at it before looking to Yuuri with a question in his eyes.
Yuuri’s smile surfaced then, like a rainbow after a storm.
“The geth wanted us to meet them on Rannoch. We arrived maybe half an hour ago and filtrated the natural air into this room for you. Phichit wanted to get you into something warmer since you’d been so chilled.”
He was in one of Yuuri’s hoodies with the ship’s colors down the arm and it felt like heaven against his skin; soft and loved and so very human.
And all he had to do was open his arms before Yuuri fell into them and held him tight.
The geth representative was a slightly different model than any other geth he’d seen before, oddly enough, exactly like the one he’d seen in that vision standing on a planet he now realized was Rannoch. The council had told the admiralty board for the quarian fleet that despite Victor not holding any title on the fleet, he would be the one to make the agreement with the geth; and so, on friendly and hopeful terms, Victor and this geth, one who asked to be called Legion, changed the fate of their two races forever.
Victor was just standing now, looking across the vast expanse of his home planet, and soaking in the feel of the wind against his skin. Yuuri stepped up beside him.
“Trying to decide where to build your house?”
He shook his head. “Maybe someday, but… right now, this isn’t the place for me.”
Yuuri was clearly shocked. “Why not?”
Victor just smiled and quietly nuzzled against his side, taking his hand and watching as peach and lavender twined together into a blend Victor thought might be the most beautiful. He looked up at that, his blue eyes sparkling in the setting sun.
“Because I already have a home, with you.”
There were tears welling in the corner of Yuuri’s eyes as he replied. “Victor… I… wouldn’t you have to change your name?”
Victor leaned his forehead over, loving the feel of his hair and Yuuri’s brushing together in the wind. “Victor’Tasi nar Yu-Topia. I love it already.”
And even the sunset on Rannoch couldn’t compare to the warmth of Yuuri Katsuki’s smile.
“Me too.”