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“Boss! Get down here and have a beer with us before Mierin drinks all the dextro ones,” Weaver yelled up at Garrus, who was in his makeshift sniper perch in the crew quarters.
Garrus closed the blinds and got to his feet – making his way downstairs. The place was lively tonight – and well earned, if he was being honest. In the past week, they’d taken down 3 Blue Suns lieutenants, stopped a red sand shipment from the Eclipse, and had blown up a slaver hub all with zero civilian casualties. It was a lot of logistics work to successfully achieve all three of these at virtually the same time. And after their 48 hour no contact buffer, everyone was back together in their home base.
“Sidonis knows we’ve passed no contact, right? Where’s that shifty bastard?” Krul asked as he crushed his empty can.
“It’s nice to see you making friends, Krul,” Garrus teased as he came and sat on the couch with his crew.
Krul scoffed in response as he opened another beer. “Friends my ass,” he replied, but his words had no bite.
“Aww, c’mon buddy! I think at this point, we’re all friends here!” Butler cheerily added.
The room settled into a comfortable humming as multiple different conversations branched off. Even Vortash was chatting with Sensat. As Garrus looked around the room, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of pride in what he was able to build. He also thought of Shepard, and how she was able to pull together her mixed bag crew that stopped Saren and Sovereign.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Butler interrupted as he brought an armful of snacks and put them in front of Garrus. “Seriously man, if you don’t jump in here, Mierin is going to eat and drink you under the table!” The two laughed, and Garrus picked over the snacks before finally settling on chocolates.
“Didn’t peg you for a chocolate kinda guy, Boss,” Butler joked.
“Someone gave me some when I was working C-Sec on the Citadel. I’d gotten so used to eating C-Sec food, that I’d almost forgotten how good our chocolates can be.”
“Tell me about it. I always thought the levo food was terrible on purpose just to piss on us lowly humans. But you’re tellin’ me the dextro slop was just as bad?”
Garrus laughed a genuine laugh then, “oh, you thought we got special treatment because we were turians?” The two of them got a good laugh out of that. Garrus and Butler had gotten close, which was no surprise since they were both former C-Sec and Butler was the first to join up. After their laughter subsided, they fell into a comfortable silence as they watched everyone else having a good time.
“Be honest, Boss,” Butler finally spoke up. “Are we even making a dent here?”
Garrus looked over at him, but before he could respond, Butler continued. “What am I even saying? I know we’re making a difference. I just miss my Nalah, you know? We’re doing damn good work in this lawless hell hole, but I think I’m ready to get off this rock. And stay retired this time.”
“Just going to abandon our mission, Butler?” Garrus joked. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a desserter!”
“Ha! You wish, ya hard ass!” he replied as he nudged Garrus in the arm. “It’s just, I’m not getting any younger. I want to spend more time with my wife, just the two of us. What’s the point of all this cash if I just keep spending it on armor repair and weapon upgrades?”
Again, Garrus found himself thinking of Shepard. He thought he was over her death, but there was definitely still some heartache if he let himself think long enough.
“C’mon, Archangel,” Melenis chimed in, “why do you do it? You know about all of our families and how we came to be here. But what about you?”
Garrus looked around the room to find 10 folks with their attention on him. He was very glad he couldn’t blush. “Alright, alright…” he drawled as he hurriedly finished the beer in his hand.
“$500 credits says he’s here because of woman!” Ripper yelled.
“Say it ain’t so, a turian hung up on a woman?” Krul replied.
Garrus wondered if they’d be so dismissive if they knew specifically which woman had influenced him.
“I left C-Sec and started running with this crew. We got connected because one of the people I was looking into was also a person of interest for them. There was a SPECTRE on this crew; which meant a lot less oversight and more freedom to actually get stuff done. It was a big change from all the C-Sec red tape.”
He looked up and saw that he had everyone’s attention, even Vortash.
“Eventually we caught our guy, but then we discovered it was so much bigger than just him. The crew had humans, a krogan, an asari, and even a quarian. I had never worked with such a diverse group before – until you guys, of course,” he added with a smile.”And everyone got the same level of trust. In fact, this commander helped me tie up a lose end in a C-Sec case that had haunted me for years. They literally went out of their way to help each and every member of the crew. Helped the krogan find an old family relic, and took down a terminus crime lord in the process; helped fight geth and gave the quarian data she could take back to the Floatilla; Helped the asari reunite with her mother, even thought it didn’t end well; and even had to make the hard decision to leave one of their own human crew behind to make sure a mission was completed.”
“The commander of this crew was incredible. Defying orders, spitting in the face of conventional methods, and completely unafraid to follow every single lead. I’d never worked with anyone that had such a knack for pulling out the best in everyone. That ship ran like a well-oiled machine, and not one single person had to sacrifice their individuality to do so.”
“I’d never met anyone so tenacious. It was a big shitstorm that ended in cover ups, and the commander being sent away while politicians started a misinformation campaign. I left the crew, tried the SPECTRE route myself, but then wound up here with you bastards.”
There were some murmurs, and Weaver and Mierin (both former Blue Suns mercs) were whispering to each other.
“What happened to the old crew and the commander?” Melenis asked.
“They were reassigned to a deep space recon mission. I lost contact with all of them after their ship was destroyed.”
“They’re all dead?” Sensat blurted, which shocked just about everyone in the room since he rarely spoke up.
“No, most everyone I knew survived. But the commander went down with the ship,” Garrus said, a little more lost in thought than he wanted to be. “But I felt that loss deeply, and couldn’t just sit around on the Citadel not making a difference. So, I came to Omega because I knew people here needed help. I wanted to DO something. I wanted the commander to be proud of the work I was doing…”
Butler placed a hand on Garrus’ shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze, “Were you guys together before she died?”
“Who said anything about she?” Garrus tried to play it off.
The whole room erupted in boisterous laughter. “Boss,” Mierin said through belly laughs, “no turian would talk about another guy like that! You MUST be talking about a woman!”
“I’ve never seen a turian woman – I thought for sure you were like the asari and were just all men,” Krul added fuel to the fire.
“Oh, turian women exist,” Melenis added. “There are rumors that Aria’s got a turian girlfriend!”
“She’s human,” Garrus said, matter of factly.
“Who, Aria’s girlfriend?” Melenis piped up. Garrus didn’t feel the need to respond to her comment.
Monteague choked on his drink and needed a pat on the back from Ripper.
“How does that even work, when you’re literally not compatible on a biological level?” Sensat asked, just as confused as everyone else in the room.
“Spirits, I am NOT having this conversation with you guys,” Garrus said as he got up to grab another beer. “And get off the extranet trying to figure out who it is!” he added as he threw chips at Erash and Sensat, who were on their omnitools.
“Boss, were you and Commander Shepard a thing?” Butler asked.
Garrus was too stunned to speak. He never should have opened his big mouth.
“The first human SPECTRE?! No way, Boss!” Weaver shouted. “She’s mega hot, man!! Or, she was…” He’d barely finished saying the last part when he was walloped over the head by Melenis, who was sitting behind him.
“We weren’t together, so don’t go letting your imaginations run wild,” Garrus said. “She… She’s the real deal. Whatever you think you know about her, she’s 10 times more bad ass in real life. I’ve seen her do things that would be impossible for anyone else. And she’s good at what she does. We used to keep a kill count on during missions, and I only ever beat her a few times. She was almost as good a sniper as me,” he finished with a laugh.
The room, once again, erupted in a cacophony of sounds. Questions, cheers, and jeers all coming at him that he couldn’t make out what anyone in particular was saying. His omnitool pinged just then, it was Sidons. He read the message as he walked toward the weapons locker.
“We got a job?” Butler asked as he got to his feet. “Want back up, Boss?”
“No, it’s just Sidonis. He said he grabbed an informant, but can’t get them to talk. So I’m going to go meet him to see if this is the intel we’ve been waiting on. You guys enjoy yourselves, this won’t take long,” Garrus replied as he finished getting his gear.
“Don’t use work as an excuse to not finish your story!” Melenis added.
“How come Sidonis always needs help? What do we even keep him around for?” Vortash mumbled to Krul. Garrus pretended not to hear.
“When I get back, I’ll tell you about the time I used my talons to cut her out of her clothes in her cabin,” Garrus said over his shoulder as he exited the compound. He laughed as he heard the whoops and hollers fade into silence as he jogged away.