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There’s a krogan staring at her from across the bar. Desti looks down at her drink and pokes her straw. Maybe she imagined it. Maybe nothing is happening and she’s just skittish being away from home. She glances up, trying (and probably failing) for nonchalant. Her eyes eventually make their way back to where the krogan is sitting. The krogan is still staring. The asari maiden looks away with a frown that doesn’t feel like a frown, and pokes her straw again. She fights the urge to reach up and cover the scars that she knows are on her face; the result of an unfortunate accident (attack, don’t think about the attack) that she refused to let stall her journeys away from the homeworld. If it means she is no longer home where the glances are pitying and the whispers are knives in her back, Desti figures she can deal with a little staring.
She glances up. The krogan is still staring. Suddenly, irrationally mad, she plants her chin on her cupped hand and stares back. The krogan is smaller than she would have expected, with green markings around vividly amber eyes. Desti has never seen eyes such a color before, and she can’t stop the thought that they’re beautiful from surfacing. She’s sitting there, glaring at a krogan, thinking about beautiful eyes. Get a grip, Desti, she thinks, and she scowls harder. In response, the krogan’s mouth curves into an obvious grin. With a suddenness (and grace, Desti definitely noticed the graceful way the krogan rose) the krogan stands and starts around the bar to Desti’s seat.
Her heart thumps wildly in her chest. She’s young, so young - barely two hundred, a late-blooming maiden out exploring the world. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s never even met a krogan before, let alone angered (amused? enticed?) one enough to cause a confrontation at a bar. Her heart thumps wildly in her chest, but she’ll be damned if she lets anyone else know that. Desti watches the krogan approach, torn between anger and curiosity. There’s no mistaking that this krogan is a fine warrior; muscled and stout, each step deliberate and flowing. She never thought she’d see a krogan so graceful as to be called flowing, but she is, and it’s a novel experience.
The krogan sits down next to her and waves a hand at the bartender.
Desti watches her new companion from the corner of her eye, but again aims for (and probably fails at) nonchalant as she sips her drink. Once the bartender has passed a drink the krogan’s way, the silence is broken. “Not many people would be brave enough to get into a staring contest with a krogan.” The krogan’s voice is deep but feminine, with a soft rough undertone like a purr.
Desti frowns, her nose wrinkling. It pulls at the scars on the side of her face, but she doesn’t let the expression go. “You were staring first,” she says flatly.
Perhaps her discomfort was more obvious than she thought, because the krogan waves her hand again and suddenly a second glass of Desti’s drink is in front of her. “Sorry, kid. They look fresh.” The scars, of course it’s the scars, and Desti swallows.
“Not even a month healed,” Desti says. She can hear the whispers of her mother’s disciples in her mind. Athame’s mercy, if she’s going to be talking about this she is not going to do it sober.
The krogan woman laughs, deep and warm, and it catches Desti’s attention in an unfamiliar way. “Hell, by asari standards you probably shouldn’t even have left the hospital or whatever you call it yet.” The krogan nudges her side with an elbow. “Couldn’t wait to get out and see the galaxy, eh?”
“Something like that.” Desti is torn. She really, really doesn’t want to talk about it. But the woman beside her is new, intriguing, and her laugh warms Desti in unexpected ways. She feels something pool in her gut, and she hopes that her new companion can’t see the purple flush of her cheeks.
The krogan tips her head back and finishes what’s in her glass. Unsignaled, the bartender slides her another. “I should probably apologize,” the korgan says. “I always forget that other species don’t find scars attractive the way we krogan do.”
Desti, in her infinite wisdom, had chosen then to take a sip of her drink, and she tries not to splutter around her straw. Steadying herself with a breath, she half-turns to her companion. “Attractive?”
The woman shrugs. “I didn’t mean to stare, really. Haven’t seen someone so good-looking in this place since I walked in myself.” She chuckles at her joke, and Desti can’t ignore that the warmth pooling in her gut is desire. “And then you had the quad to stare back and I knew I couldn’t let you walk back out of here without at least telling you that you’re absolutely gorgeous.”
Desti sucks in a sharp breath between her teeth. There is something in those amber eyes that looks like an invitation. Mind made up, the maiden turns fully toward her companion. “I’m Desti,” she says. “And I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful your eyes are.”
Now it’s the krogan’s turn to look caught off-guard. Desti stirs her drink idly and watches the (wonderful, wondering, hopeful) expressions flit across the woman’s face. After a moment, the krogan composes herself and grins again. “Zeinab.”
“Zeinab,” Desti repeats. She tries to make it sound soft and sinful, like she overheard one of the older asari doing once. “Think we can take this somewhere more private?” At the widened eyes and definite orange tint to Zeinab’s cheeks, she thinks she’s succeeded.
“Thought you’d never ask.” It’s an agreement and a confession all at once.
“Absolutely not.”
The word of a matriarch is law, apparently. Desti had barely let the word krogan cross her lips before her mother had refused to hear anything more. “But, mother-”
Matriarch Methayra was iron-fisted. Things would be done her way, or it would be a battle just to try to not. Desti had fought her to not train her biotics. Desti had fought her to leave the homeworld and journey so soon after her accident. Desti, it seemed, was going to have to fight her to accept the love of her life.
Her mother sniffs, as if even considering the union is beneath her. “Those… krogan are useful in fighting the rachni. But you’d do well to remember that they’re the salarians’ pets.”
“They’re not pets, they’re people!” Desti tries to reign in her temper, but she still shouts the words. Her hands, curled tightly into fists, tremble at her sides.
Matriarch Methayra raises an unpainted brow. “Did you just raise your voice at me?” The young lady goes unsaid but not unheard. Desti feels for a split second that she is thirty and being sent to her room for misbehaving again. She feels it, and then she feels angry. She is still so young, she knows, not even three hundred yet, but she is no child anymore. She will not be cowed by her mother.
“I did.” Desti keeps her voice calm, even. The picture of poise. “I don’t need your approval, mother, and I certainly won’t let you get in the way of making that woman my wife.” She breathes once, twice, to steady herself. “And don’t you dare ever speak of her in that way again. She is the most magnificent person I have ever met, and she is krogan. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
Her words have frozen the Matriarch. Somehow, somehow, her mother has no comeback. Thank Athame, and she strides from the room with her chin held high and her back ramrod straight.
“Some things are worth fighting for,” Zeinab had whispered into her bare skin. “Money, power, pride. All irrelevant. Honor, loyalty, love-” her lips, surprisingly soft as they worked their way along the dip in her back, “those are worth dying for.”
Love, Desti thinks, and it softens her face. The whispers that follow her out of her mother’s home are different this time, and she doesn’t care.
Intangible, love. Intangible and unprovable. The universe points to this, to them, and says provable.
Here’s the proof:
The universe shivers.
The ground is dusty and dry beneath him. The sun beats down, hot and fierce, and the light of it glints off her sword. He is starving, and tired, and stealing from private gardens was only a plan for so long.
He’d stolen from the wrong garden.
The woman looks down at him, but he can’t see her expression, the sun behind her obscuring her face in shadow. She says something he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what language she’s speaking. All he knows is his father’s ship wrecked and he washed ashore in a dry, unfamiliar land.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he says. “I’m sorry I stole. I was just… hungry.”
He still can’t see her face, but the tilt of her head is universal enough. She doesn’t understand him either (how could she? what language does she even speak?). Her arm moves. He closes his eyes against the sun and wait for the blade to pierce him. At least if he’s dead, he can return to his family. They all died when the ship sank, but not him. Why not him? (Why only him?) He doesn’t know, doesn’t care. He’s hungry and tired and ready to rest.
The sound of the blade sinking into a sheath is enough to open his eyes.
The woman is still staring at him, head tilted, but she’d moved enough so that her face was no longer shrouded in shadow. She’s wrapped head to toe in fabric, bright and colorful like the sparse flowers he’d seen here. The only part of her showing is her face, and her expression is puzzling. Puzzled. She looks down at him, eyes tracking over his ragged clothes, his sunburned skin, his visible ribs. With a nod and a soft, soothing-sounding word, she reaches out and offers him a hand.
Dazed, he lets her pull him up and lead him back to the lush garden he’d just fled.
War is calculus. Impersonal. Unfeeling.
Love is calculus. Intricate. Changing.
The universe says, here are the variables.
He’d learned her name from other people that had visited. She hid him when people came, though for her own safety or for his he was still unsure. Anya, they called her. It felt good in his mouth. He’d called out to her, called her Anya, then pressed her hand to his breast and whispered “Caius.” It still made him feel warm when she said his name.
He sat on the bed in her room, waiting for this new group of others to leave. He could hear raised voices (they never raised their voices before) and then nothing.
The silence is almost enough to drive him from the room, but he waits. Someone had seen him once- another intruder, though to the house instead of the garden. Anya had taken her sword and driven it through the intruder without a second’s pause. Why had she spared Caius, but not this man? He doesn’t question. And when she herds him into her bedroom, or the cellar, or the garden, he obeys. What choice does he have (and he doesn’t mind, he wants to stay).
Eventually, Anya steps into her little room and closes the door. She busies herself with lighting the lantern on the low table by the bed. She turns to the bed and wordlessly Caius slides over so that she can sit next to him. She’s never taken the invitation until then.
She sits, and it takes everything he has not to freeze at the implications. “Caius,” she says. Her voice sounds strained. Sad. She half-twists toward him and the tear-tracks on her face shine in the lamplight.
She’s crying, he thinks, followed closely by, Can I fix it?
Tenderly, carefully, he reaches toward her and cups her cheek. She doesn’t jump, doesn’t startle, just looks at him with mournful eyes. He reaches across her cheek with his thumb and wipes at the tears. He doesn’t say a word, hoping beyond hope that she can understand the look in his eyes.
Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn’t. She reaches up and pulls his hand away from her face, and the disappointment is soothed by the fact that she laces their fingers together. With her free hand, she reaches up and tugs the scarf back from her face. It slips around her neck and ebony hair tumbles down. He’s never seen her without her hair covered, even in sleep. He reaches out, wanting to touch it, but then pauses. Is it too far? Has he assumed too much? She takes his hand with her own and guides it to her hair.
He’s running his fingers through her hair, wonderment clear for the universe to see, when she leans forward and kisses him.
Her lips on his own are better than that first drink of water she’d given him back when they first met. She is insistent but not rough, the slight roughness of chapping a counterpoint on his skin. She breaks away to breathe before continuing her journey along his jawline, his throat, and he gasps. “Anya.” He doesn’t know if he’s asking her to stop or to never stop.
She pulls back, looks at him with unclouded eyes. She’s older than he is, he knows; he’s maybe nineteen summers and a man grown, but she still looks at him sometimes like he’s something to be protected. It’s how she’s looking at him now.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t stir. Just looks at him and waits for him to make his choice.
The fact that she wants him to have this choice makes his chest tight with something. His fingers still tangled in her hair tighten slightly. He’s never wanted anything more in his life, and he leans forward to kiss her.
Wait. Back up.
It starts later. It starts earlier. The universe is unsure. All beginnings are true, but one is truer than others.
Love hides somewhere in the stars, undeniably true.
There is a moment, just one, that when the commanding officer turns on her, Amadi thinks that she’s going to die right then and there. “And who are you?” The officer asks. No hesitation. No argument. Amadi (unsuccessfully) ignores just how delicious the officer’s voice sounds.
Amadi stands at full attention. “Forward Scout Amadi, reporting.”
The officer scoffs. “I ask for protection and they send you?”
Not just an officer, then. A scientist. The lead scientist on a project that would supposedly end the Metacon war for good. Amadi tries not to fidget. She is military, and on the job besides. She can stand a little glaring. Some people even found it… fun. Not Amadi. She is better at stealth, and fighting. Indignance, she is pretty good at too (how dare this woman take one look and judge her unworthy). “You asked for the best, so here I am.”
The officer offers a fierce grin, eyes blinking in a rolling pattern that Amadi can’t discern. “You have backbone after all. Good.” She nods, once, a sharp motion with more surrender than it should imply. “Severa Vran. Nice to meet you, Forward Scout.”
Severa Vran has a voice that could move mountains and conquer civilizations, not that Amadi plans on sharing this thought. She will very decidedly not be touching Vran to transmit information for some time, if at all.
She wonders, for a second, just one, what officer Vran would think knowing that about her own voice.
The ship in the sky is the most terrifying thing Amadi has ever seen. It’s huge, and it’s sentient, and it’s screaming. She wants to crawl under a bed and hide - something she hasn’t done since she was barely older than an infant. But she is a paragon of scoutsmanship, a consummate professional in the face of the unknown. It’s something she’s learned working with Severa Vran, the last few years, and it gives her the strength to ready her gun and start trying to find the officer.
She has to find the officer, rather than knowing where she is, because the ship, that living, damnable ship, blew apart the research building with a controlled blast. Amadi herself took a hit from a wall collapsing, and the left side of her face feels glued together with blood and dust. She’s standing and thinking and breathing, so she’s fit enough to do what she does best. She can see bodies, as she ducks and weaves through the debris. She has to stay out of sight of that- that thing. Staying out of sight, she can do. Finding Vran, she can do. So she ducks and weaves and searches.
She finds Vran where the main lab would have been, not blasted to bits. Of course, Amadi thinks, and it’s almost fond. There’s a moment, just one, where she thinks everything is going to be okay. And then she sees the support beam crushing her arm. “Vran!” she shouts. She should stay quiet, tactically speaking, but she doubts the ship can hear her from so far away.
Severa bares her teeth in a painful grin, teeth stained red. “Some job as a guard you’re doing, Amadi.” Even bleeding and scared half to death, the sound of her name in that voice makes Amadi shiver.
“Yeah well sorry for not predicting sentient ships-”
“-at a research facility whose sole purpose was to defeat synthetics.” Despite this, Severa sighs. “None of us saw this coming.” Amadi can see her looking at her arm - her entire right side, really - and then she looks at Amadi with such determination that the scout knows what she’s going to suggest before she suggests it (she’s going to sacrifice herself, and it’s the same thing Amadi would have done, and she hates it). She’s bleeding out and Amadi feels panic like a knife.
“We’re not losing this team to those things,” Amadi says, fiercely. Fierce enough that even in her dazed and wounded state, Severa lifts her chin in defiance. “This isn’t Cosmic Imperative. Damned synthetics.”
Severa sighs again and takes Amadi’s arm in her hands. She’s passing information. Amadi accepts it even though she can feel her eyes filling with tears. Take the research to Severa’s brother Pashek. Stop these things. Live. The last command is so fierce and so passionate that Amadi jerks backward in shock, but not before the errant thought about Severa’s voice can slip across.
They’re both silent and still for a long moment. Then, carefully, Severa blinks in a very deliberate pattern that makes Amadi’s heart race. The tears in her eyes spill over even as she chokes out a laugh. “Is now really the time?”
“There’s never been a better time,” Severa replies, and even though Amadi can tell she’s getting weaker, the officer manages to make her breathiness sound erotic rather than tragic. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”
Amdai shakes her head. There’s still dust slipping off her carapace. “None of that,” she says.
Severa lets out a long, shuddering breath, and Amadi pretends that she doesn’t want to kiss her charge. “Go,” she orders.
Amadi goes. It’s harder to see and not be seen for her tears, but Severa had asked for the best.
The universe searches for proof.
He looks at his target with assessing eyes, glad that the ducts on the Citadel were as sturdy as to hide someone in. His target was sitting alone, around the corner from any help. A turian, the colony markings on his face all the identification that Kist needed. Of course Breaker of the Dawn needed him to kill a turian. Kist had never fought one, before. Kist hadn’t fought anyone for real, before. This was his first assassination and, true to his soul name, Solan had decided that Kist should start as early as possible.
All things considered, twelve was not so young.
Quietly, like his training told him, Kist creeps forward with the knife held firmly between his fingers. At the last second, the turian turns, and Kist has enough time to register the surprise on the turian’s face before he manages to sink his blade in at the waist. A hand comes down, hard, onto Kist’s neck, and his vision greys out.
He woke later, late enough that the Citadel’s artificial time cycle had switched to night. He also woke on a couch, which was a little strange. There was arguing behind the couch, most likely what had woken him.
“You are absolutely not doing this.” A flanged voice, angry and flat. “He tried to kill you, Justus.”
A soft chuckle from another flanged voice. Justus, he’d been called. “Actually, I think he was aiming for my dad.”
“And that makes it better, somehow?” (Did it? Does it? Why is Kist still alive if his target is too?)
Another laugh. “I’ve already sent dad all the information he needed. He’ll be watching carefully for any attacks.”
“That’s not what I meant, Justus! That drell tried to kill you and you’re, what? Taking care of him? Giving him a place to stay?”
Giving him a- Kist swallows. Not only had he failed to complete his mission, he’d attacked the wrong person in the first place, and that very same (at least somewhat) injured turian was planning on offering him protection?
When Justus speaks again, all hint of laughter is gone. “That drell is a child. He can’t be older than ten.”
“You’re only seventeen, but what do I know?” There’s some angry footsteps, and then a female turian storms past the couch and to the door. “You’re going to regret this, Justus.”
Justus sighs and says something in his subharmonics that Kist’s translator doesn’t catch. He walks around to sit in the chair across the living room, but not before draping a blanket over Kist’s form. It’s warm. Comforting. Justus sits and closes his eyes a moment.
“I’m twelve,” Kist says, and Justus’ eyes are open and focused on him in a second.
There’s a moment where they both stare at each other before Justus huffs in amusement, shifting in his seat and taking care not to disturb the bandages that Kist can now see around his waist. “Heard all of that, did you?”
“... most of it.”
Justus regards him calmly, like an adult to an adult, and Kist appreciates the gesture. Justus has amber eyes that are piercing despite his vivid white clan markings. “Would you want a place to stay?” Kist doesn’t know. “I’m guessing you thought you were obligated to kill by the Compact. But you tried, and you failed, and by all rights you should be dead.” Justus pauses a moment, his mandibles twitching, before he meets Kist’s gaze again. “If you stay with me, I’ll make sure you have food and shelter and can go to school. If you want to keep fighting, I can help you get into C-Sec.”
C-Sec. In the Citadel Security Force, Kist could do good. Real good. Protect innocents and prevent children from being raised as assassins good. “I’d like that,” Kist says carefully, and is rewarded by a smile and subvocals like a purr.
Protector. Mentor.
These are parts of the whole. These are the variables.
C-Sec is the second best thing that ever happened to Kist (the first is Justus, and he’d say so aloud in a heartbeat). He loves his work; going out and keeping the peace, looking out for trouble, available for any emergency. He likes his coworkers; everyone there sees him as C-Sec first and drell second. He doesn’t even mind the deskwork; it’s familiar and repetitive after a stressful day. So when he hands in his resignation, he’s understandably a little melancholic.
Justus is furious. ”You quit C-Sec?”
Kist doesn’t even look up from where he’s preparing dinner. Before he moved out, when Justus was his protector and mentor, he tried to have dinner ready when the turian’s schedule would allow. After he moved back in, with Justus as his confidant and lover, he tried to have dinner ready when his own schedule would allow. So he doesn’t look up from dinner, carefully slicing the dextro steak to just the right size. “I did.”
Maybe he expected more arguing or denials. Not that Kist would try to hide something like that from Justus (Justus says he owes him nothing but Kist knows he knows him everything). “But… why?”
“Conflict of interest,” Kist says evenly.
“What kind of-” here the translator doesn’t quite pick up the word, though Kist’s omni-tool helpfully supplies a note about the digestive practices of space cows “-reason is that?!”
Kist sets the knife down and peels off his gloves, stepping around the counter toward Justus. “It would be inappropriate to be on the force with my husband,” he says. Justus’ mandibles do that thing where they flap so hard Kist thinks he’s hurt (even though he never is). “Unless, of course,” Kist continues, “You’re going to say no when I ask. In which case I’ve already gotten permission to be reinstated without anyone being the wiser.”
Justus laughs softly, that same laugh that Kist fell in love with, and steps forward to embrace his partner. “If I say no you’re going to get all sad-eyed, and it’s gonna be really weird living together.” Before Kist can question his words, Justus presses their foreheads together. “And I love you, so yes.”
Intangible and yet a solid weight.
A reassurance. An anchor.
Tikkun is rising over the horizon when Havaa finally heads home. She wonders if she can get there before her family rises, and then wonders what the point is if they’re just going to see her tired and stumbling for the rest of the day anyway. Her family doesn’t understand her obsession with the cliffs any more than they understand her obsession with writing poetry. There is beauty in the hills of Rannoch, often forsaken to speak of the glistening seas or rushing rivers. Havaa doesn’t know why the hills call to her, but they do, and so she sneaks out, and she writes.
Her father is standing out front when she starts up the path home. He looks solemn, but not angry, and for a wild second Havaa wonders if it’s too late to run and hide. The last time he looked so calm was when her brother Rikel enlisted (and boy, does she remember the furious silence that hung over the house for weeks afterward).
“My daughter,” he says, when she’s close enough to reach out and touch. “It’s good that you’re home so early.”
She sidesteps his outstretched hand (never show weakness, my girl), but bows her head to make up for the rejection. “Father. What’s going on?”
“Come,” he says, stepping into the house, and she follows.
There’s a stranger in the living room with her mother - a man with warm eyes and a polite smile. He stands when she walks in, and her mother does as well. “What’s going on?” Havaa repeats.
“We’ve finally found you a husband,” her father says. “Mattan’Donon has made an offer for your hand, girl, and we’ve accepted it.”
The stranger, Mattan, clears his throat. “Only if the lady agrees,” he says firmly. Her father’s face is livid. Her mother looks floored. Havaa hides her smile; she is maybe a little in love with him already.
“If this is what my family deems right, I accept,” she intones the old words carefully. Then, letting her smile peek through, she says “Though I suppose we could take some time to get to know each other first, Mattan?”
His answering smile is big and warm and real (maybe this is the thing her family does that isn’t poison).
“Creator Havaa, what is happening?” they’d been asking more questions, these last couple of days. Like children, Havaa thought, and her eyes burned. “I don’t know, Adas.” It had been Mattan’s idea to give each platform a name (of course he would see the person in each of them). “But we’ll protect you, don’t worry.”
“This unit is not worried about an impending attack.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she says. To keep herself occupied and not thinking about what was happening outside the shelter, she thumbs through an old book of poetry.
Behind her, Kaddi makes a series of clicking noises (so used to the sound now, it’s soothing to hear Kaddi speak). Adas bobs their head up and down before turning to ask another question. “You are expecting an attack?” She murmurs an affirmative. “By whom?”
“The milita.”
“Because of the termination order.” Havaa starts. They hadn’t told these platforms about it yet. Adas holds up a hand, and the familiar motion resonates in Havaa’s heart. She did it all the time. “Creator Havaa and Creator Mattan oppose the order?”
“Yes.”
Adas tilts their head. Kaddi makes more clicking noises. After a moment, Adas simply asks “Why?”
It was a question her son would have asked, had he survived past birth (all children asked the hard questions). The geth were children, in a way - coming to realize themselves should mean protection, not violence. “Life is life,” she says.
Whatever Adas was going to ask next was cut off by Mattan stumbling into the shelter (hidden where else but those hills of hers). “Mattan!” He collapses against the wall, breath whistling, and it’s then she sees the red spilling between his fingers. “Mattan,” she repeats, voice cracking.
“They’ve found us.”
Her blood feels cold. Havaa swallows her fear and asks “How long do we have?”
“I led them on a pretty ridiculous trail.” He chuckles, but it’s weak, and his lips are too red. “They’re going to follow the blood back here. By time they do, you can get yourself and Adas and Kaddi out.”
“No,” Havaa snaps, and she’s surprised to hear someone else’s voice mixed with her own. She looks over at Adas, and from the shift of their facial plates the geth is as surprised as she is.
There’s some rapid clicking and whirring from Kaddi, punctuated with a couple musical trills she’s never heard before. She lets the geth talk and helps her husband bandage his wound. After a moment, Adas nods. “Creator Mattan will stay, as he said, with platform Kaddi. Creator Havaa will leave, as Creator Mattan ordered, with this platform.”
“No-” Havaa begins, but then cuts herself off. Her husband wants to save these geth. She wants to save these geth. Mattan’s wound will slow them down, if he can even survive the journey (she’s leaving him and he knows it; worse, he supports it).
She knows that he can see the realization on her face from the tender smile he gives her. “It’s the best way, my love.” She nods and cups his cheek, too choked up to speak. “They’re not our son, but they’re still children.”
She presses a kiss to his brow, still wordless, and leads Adas to the back door.
“Are you seriously about to kiss me in front of the Primarch of Palaven?”
For a heart-shattering moment, the sounds of battle fade away. He can hear the amusement in her voice, tangled with desire and fear and a whole host of emotions that he can’t pin down. The woman in his arms has amber eyes, bright and beautiful. He hasn’t seen her so unguarded in years. Only for you, something whispers in his mind. She only lets her guard down like this for you. “Shepard,” he says, an admission and plea all in that one little word, pouring everything he can’t voice into his subharmonics. He sees the Primarch tense in his peripheral, and he doesn’t care. Let him know. Let everyone know. “If I could I’d kiss you in front of every galactic leader there is.”
She laughs, warm and rolling and beautiful. It’s a sound totally incongruous with the war-torn landscape. It’s the only thing that makes sense. “I think you just like kissing me.”
“It’s certainly one of my favorite pastimes.” He grins, knowing she’ll recognize the twitch of his mandibles for what it is (Shepard could write the Rosetta Stone on turian expressions and the human metaphor is apt). “Along with thoroughly beating you in shooting contests.”
She laughs again, softer and subdued. Garrus only holds her a little tighter. The platitudes get old, he’d said once. What he wouldn’t give to be able to comfort her with words. If anyone deserves comfort right now, it’s the woman in his arms. He doesn’t want to let her go- the feeling that she’s going to walk away and never be able to come back won’t leave him. But he will let go, and she will come back. Spirits, let her come back.
Perhaps she senses his turmoil (there’s no perhaps to it, she knows him as well as he knows himself) because she reaches up and tilts his head until she can press their foreheads together. The turians in the room look away, out of both discomfort and respect (now she’s kissing him in front of the Primarch of Palaven). “Stop that,” she orders softly. He doesn’t ask what she means. She knows where his thoughts are; no doubt hers are running a similar worrying loop. “No Shepard without Vakarian.” It’s an admission, a promise, a confession. The love in her voice makes him feel weak, and he rubs their foreheads together. “Whatever it takes, I’ll come back.”
Her lips are soft against his skin.
Wait. Back up.
Stars align.
The universe says, here are the constants.
He watches Executor Pallin march away, and is uncaring that their argument had gained an audience. Fury, righteous fury, nearly makes him forget himself. A breath. Two. Standard calming technique. Is he calm? Not really. Garrus hasn’t really felt calm since his first run-in with red tape. C-Sec is frustrating on the good days, downright infuriating on the bad. So he breathes. There’s a strange urge to reach up and hide the scars on his right mandible, but he doesn’t have scars there. It’s a confusing urge, and it separates him from his anger, just a little. Makes him calmer. Calm enough to talk? That, he can do. He turns toward the newcomers, and recognizes one of them.
The universe shivers.
She’s tall- tall for a human, taller than her companions. Her eyes are amber, and he’s surprised how beautiful a human’s eyes can be. He recognizes her in part due to the red-tape yoke around his neck. Her picture is in the datapad he’s holding; the investigation of Saren - the chance to even try to prove he’s dirty - is thanks to this woman. She has risen from the ashes of her home colony’s destruction like the human myth of the phoenix. Even he’d heard about the Skyllian Blitz, the desperate defense of the old mixed colony - the lone human who’d put down no fewer than a hundred fifty pirates. She is a legend among her own people, an example of military skill to many in C-Sec. She has the most stunning eyes Garrus has ever seen. Her eyes meet his, and it feels like the entirety of the galaxy hangs on that contact. Garrus swallows.
“Commander Shepard? Garrus Vakarian.”
Provable.