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"Scratched one!"
"Oh come on, Garrus, I had him! You can't just pick off my kills like that!"
The turian laughed triumphantly as he peered through the scope of his rifle at Kaidan, who had taken up a position in a well-secured bunker on the opposite end of the Armax arena.
"Snooze you lose, Alenko," Garrus chuckled into his earpiece. "You ready to admit that you just don't have what it takes to be a sniper?"
"You wish." Kaidan's snort on the other end of the line was indignant, and Garrus could hear the click of another round being loaded into the human's rifle. "I'm just getting warmed up. Start the next round."
Garrus obliged, pressing the tab on his omnitool that signaled the next round of geth holograms to appear on the field. There was silence on the line for a while, as the two men each began to take out enemies with machine precision. As much as Garrus hated to admit it, Kaidan was getting pretty damn good with the Mantis rifle that Garrus had lent him. He'd only been training with it for a couple of months now, since they had begun their weekly ritual of sneaking out to the arena together when Posey was in meetings with especially important (and especially time-consuming) ambassadors and representatives.
They were always very careful to cover their tracks, often enlisting Liara's help to make sure that Posey didn't know they were out shooting things, even if they were just holograms. If she were to find out that they were out handling guns regularly - and explicitly against their doctors' orders - she would probably smack the both of them with all the strength she had... and then demand to join in on the fun. And while Posey was great to be around, vibrant and lively and always encouraging, neither of the men particularly wanted her to be present for some of the conversations that they sometimes had on the field, having ranged anywhere from the sexual conquests of their youths to passing back and forth fond memories and wild stories of their lost comrades.
And though they'd never admit it to her or each other, they really just didn't want to get shown up once again. Because they were both well aware that she could still kick their asses if she needed or wanted to.
Garrus reloaded his weapon quickly, efficiently, relishing the cool metal against his cheek and the heft of its weight in his hands as he stared once again down the scope. He lined up the shot on a rocket trooper, but just before the trigger clicked the geth's head exploded in a blast of sparks and shredded machinery.
"Hey, who's picking off kills now!" he half-growled into his communicator. A laugh was the only response as two more geth went down in quick succession at the hands of the former Spectre.
"Snooze you lose, man!"
"Whatever." Garrus picked off the last two geth left on the field, and the round ended. "Wanna go for one more?"
"Hell yeah, Garrus. Load 'em up." They each took a moment to resupply their ammunitions and check over their respective hideouts, before Garrus signaled for another round. The score remained more even this time, as the geth kept wandering behind obstacles that would obscure them from one man's sight but place them perfectly in the other's. Neither of them spoke as the seconds on the clock ticked down towards the end of their day of freedom from tedious civilian life.
Finally, as the enemies' numbers on the field dwindled down below five, Kaidan's voice came over the comms, with a note of hesitation that caught Garrus's attention.
"So, Garrus, can I ask you something?"
Garrus took out one of the remaining geth and replied as he lined up his next shot. "I don't know Major, can you?"
Kaidan laughed heartily in his earpiece, loud enough that Garrus could hear it from across the field. "Yeah," he chuckled, more softly, "She's definitely rubbed off on you. You've always both been a couple of smartasses, I don't know if I can handle you both being grammar Nazis now. May I ask you a question?"
"Of course you can, Kaidan, I'm just teasing. But you'll have to explain what a 'grammar Nazi' is to me one of these days. What's on your mind?"
A long, pregnant pause followed, and Garrus lowered his gun to better focus on the radio silence. He could just faintly hear Kaidan's slow, steady breathing, his controlled inhales and exhales as he struggled for the right words. Finally, he spoke.
"Have you ever thought about... You know, what happened with Udina?"
Garrus needed no further context to know where this conversation was going. That day had been bad enough, without the added tension of Kaidan defending the former ambassador. His talon had been pressed against the trigger of his pistol despite Posey's insistence to lower their weapons, a fraction of a second from firing, but he had asked himself over and over if he would've actually been able to kill his comrade. Kaidan apparently was wondering the same thing, as he cleared his throat nervously.
"If I hadn't... If I didn't back down, would you have done it?"
"You did back down, Kaidan. That's what matters."
"Please, Garrus. Don’t skirt around it." His voice was firm, not begging or pleading but rather almost demanding a straight answer. One that Garrus wasn't quite sure he could give. "I know that it's in the past now, but things could've turned out very differently that day. She said she wouldn't have been able to take the shot, so I need to know if you would have."
Garrus took a deep breath, pulling his gun back up against his shoulder and knocking out another rocket trooper with its gun trained on Kaidan's location. When it was down, he shook his head and scratched the back of his neck with one talon. "Why is this important now? Why bring this up all of a sudden?"
The last hologram went down in a blast of electricity and quickly fading mechanical noises. Kaidan let out the breath he'd been holding as he took the shot, and then sucked in a breath just as deep, pondering for a few more moments.
"Listen, Posey and I have been... close for a long time now. You know that; you've always been aware of that. Whatever we had romantically is long in the past, as it should be. But that doesn't mean she isn't still one of my best friends. She's done so much for me, and she deserves every happiness this galaxy has to offer. I know that you know that. And I know that she loves you, and you love her, and I... I'm okay with that now. It's good to see her happy, and I've moved on a long time ago. I trust you, Garrus. I'd trust you with my life any day. But I need to know that you will do whatever it takes to protect her, should the worst happen."
"Of course I will, Kaidan. I'd take a bullet for her any second."
"Good. Now please, tell me. Would you have taken the shot?"
Garrus took a long moment to choose his words carefully. During the past two years that they'd been back on the New Citadel, totaling almost nine years since the Battle of London, they had become fast friends, near enough to brothers that Garrus knew he could be completely honest with Kaidan here. The biggest issue was that Garrus wasn't completely sure himself whether or not he would've done it, would've put a bullet between Kaidan's eyes or in his chest or even just in his arm to disarm him. He clamped down on his subvocals, threatening to reveal more distress than he cared to share with Kaidan right now. When he got his voice under control, he cleared his throat quietly.
"All right, Kaidan. Here's the truth. I knew that Posey wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger on you. As much as you two had been through, as much as she'd lost already in that damn war, she wasn't ready to cause the death of another friend. She took every death personally, but can you imagine how bad it would have been if she'd been the one to pull the trigger herself? On you, of all people? It... that would've broken her, I'm sure of it. But me?" He paused, steeling himself to say the words that he knew were true, in his very core. "I.... I could've done it. Would've done it, if you had waited even a few more seconds to back down. I held a great deal of respect for you, Kaidan, even then. I knew you were a good man, an incredible soldier. Posey's friend. But knowing that she couldn't take you down, knowing that you were a twitch away from putting a bullet between her eyes... Yeah. I would've taken the shot."
There was a heavy exhale on the other end of the line, and Garrus winced at how harsh his own words sounded coming out of his mouth.
"For the record, Kaidan," he continued, his tone softer than before. "I'm glad I didn't have to."
A hand on his shoulder startled him, making him instinctively go for his pistol at his side. But it was just Kaidan, looking down at him and offering a hand to help him stand up. He must have made his way across the field when Garrus wasn't paying attention, lost in the thoughts of how the Cerberus coup could have turned out. As they walked together out of the arena and set their rifles down at a workstation to clean them, Kaidan turned to Garrus with a kind, soft smile.
"That... that means a lot, Garrus. You're a good man. For what it's worth, I'm glad she at least chose you, if it couldn't be me." The human's odd, too-many-fingered hand extended towards him and Garrus took it, putting his other hand on the biotic's shoulder.
"You too, Kaidan. Truth be told, you're a much better man than I." Kaidan had come to recognize some of the more prominent turian facial expressions, and his eyes squinted up in a smile to mirror the flick of Garrus's mandibles. "Besides," Garrus said with a wry smirk, "things could've been much worse. At least she didn't end up with Wrex. Spirits, they'd have three dozen adopted krogan kids running around terrorizing everyone by now."
Kaidan's and Garrus's eyes both went wide with horror at the mere thought of a combination of Wrex's offspring and Posey's penchant for hoarding rescue animals. They both laughed heartily, and Kaidan shook his head as he slung his equipment bag over his back.
The men were still chuckling at the thought when the doors of the arena slid shut behind them. Their laughter fell silent though, Garrus letting out a startled choke as he recognized the woman sitting on the bench across from the Armax entrance. Still in her Council uniform, her hair piled in the braided crown she favored for business meetings, and her crimson brow cocked up at the sight of them. She'd been waiting for them for a while, by the looks of it - two empty coffee cups sat beside her, along with a large packing crate on the floor at her feet. Garrus could hear small sniffs and whimpers coming from the box, along with the scratch of claws. He quirked a brow plate at her, more concerned with what was in the box than with how angry she was inevitably going to be with them.
Even more unsettling was the slow grin that spread across her face as she stood and beckoned him over, bending down to take the lid off the box with a grand flourish. Garrus peered inside, closing his eyes in defeat as he realized that what was in the box would be his punishment.
Three little varren pups looked up at him from the shadows, wide-eyed and instantly yapping for his attention. Garrus groaned and turned to look at her, but was stopped dead when he met her lavender eyes, daring him to question it.
"Here's the deal, Vakarian," she said in a terrifyingly quiet voice as she pointed her index finger threateningly at him, though there was no hint of malice in her words. The other hand she placed on her hip, sliding it up to rest just below her waist in a move he knew was meant to distract him. It was working. "You let me keep them, I don't tell Belen that you've been out shooting at Armax. Do we have an agreement?" As he sighed and shook his head up and down, accepting his fate, Posey squealed with delight and wrapped her arms around him, breaking off when she realized that Kaidan was still standing right beside them. Her cheeks tinted the color of roses, the tops of her ears turning the same shade as she glanced down shyly. To distract herself she reached into the box and pulled out the smallest pup, a little dirty-dishwater colored scrap of a thing with the biggest, blackest eyes Garrus had ever seen on a varren. But Kaidan just laughed along, nudging Garrus with an elbow as he began to stride away towards his own apartment building.
"Remember Garrus, could be worse. At least they're not krogan toddlers." The biotic's words left Garrus with a vigorous laugh in his throat, and Shepard was left with a confused expression on her face as the turian whispered quietly to himself,
"Thank the Spirits for small miracles."