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To say that Lieutenants Tiso and Lace are friends would be the overstatement of the century, although they certainly aren’t enemies. Not in any formal capacity, at least.
Regardless, they’re friendly enough that they’re sitting together at a Citadel bar and not actively killing each other. Since their joint mission on Valhalla and recent run-in with their commanders falling deeply, madly, and disgustingly in love with one another, the two lieutenants have formed a bit of an unspoken truce. Neither of them like each other, and neither of them care for the other’s wellbeing, but they’re both willing to let bygones be bygones for as long as their COs are busy warming one another’s beds.
The bar lights shine. Unlike planetside joints, the Citadel cares almost too much about its vanity, which means that Tiso has to squint through the blinding brightness whenever he glances away from his whiskey. Lace seems to have no problem with it, though. She sips serenely at her cosmopolitan, a collection of silver bracelets jingling on her dainty wrist— the same dainty wrist that holds up massive rifles, those absolute body-stoppers.
“You can’t be serious.”
Lace turns in her seat, one hand on the counter and the other on her drink. Her manicured finger points at a corner table and the glittery lacquer overtop glimmers.
“I am,” she retorts. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The table she points at is occupied by perhaps the most famous people in the entire goddamn galaxy: one Commander Shepard and her Lieutenant, Garrus Vakarian. Commander Shepard is, well— she’s Commander fucking Shepard. The first human Spectre, N7, and the woman who came back from the dead to tell the whole Milky Way that she told them so. Tiso doesn’t really need to go into more detail than that, considering she’s basically the biggest name in the entire Alliance Navy. He knows more than a few guys who would kiss the ground she walks on.
Lieutenant Vakarian is a slightly different story. From what Tiso knows, he’s a good guy, works hard, and works even harder for his CO. There are a few rumours floating around that he’s shacking up with Shepard, but that’s probably hearsay— lieutenants don’t sleep with their commanders.
Wait, shouldn’t it be the other way around?
“You’re risking your career here, you know,” Tiso warns. He looks at the expanse between Lace and the legendary commander, fifteen feet of dance floor separating them from a potentially catastrophic incident. “She could get you demoted— or worse.”
Lace waves a hand. Her face is flushed, which is all the information Tiso needs to know that Lace is going to do what she wants, with or without her fellow lieutenant’s input.
“Oh, pssh. Whatever. If anything, she’d be doing me a damn favour.”
“You are insane.”
“And I’m just trying to do something nice for my commander. C’mon. Come. Don’t be a spoilsport, Tiso.”
Whether Tiso likes it or not, he’s getting dragged across the dance floor to Commander Shepard’s table. Through throngs of people, pushing bodies and hot breaths, he slips into the crowd as Lace tugs at his wrist. Her grip is tougher than steel, slim fingers betraying a thick, underlying strength within them. He wonders how many times those fingers have pulled triggers, wrapped around necks, or held her commander’s hands. They’ve no business looking so girly.
Lace is an anomaly to Tiso. She’s thin, waifish even. One good gust and you’d blow her over faster than a dandelion, fluffy white seeds disappearing on the wind. At the same time, a strange power settles just below her surface like a lurking beast. Sometimes, it pounces. Sometimes, it stays. It just depends on when Hornet sends the command.
“Lace, you fucker—”
“Language, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not talking to Shepard— Christ, let go of me!”
But she’s not letting go. If anything, she tightens her hold as a terrible smile spreads across that pretty face of hers, all dolled-up to enjoy a drink on her lonesome— until Tiso arrived, that is. It was complete happenstance that they ran into each other at this bar and now Tiso is sorely regretting ever following Quirrel’s advice to be a good neighbour by saying hi. This is the last time he’s ever going to be polite to a sort-of acquaintance.
Eventually, they make it through the crowd and emerge out the other end. A few asari are bumping hips at the edge of the dance floor that Lace’s gaze lingers on before shuffling onto Shepard and Vakarian, who are both locked in some intense conversation. Tiso already knows this is going to go badly, and yet he says nothing as Lace forces him to fall into line beside her.
They have no security detail; and why would they? They’re Navy members, hardened soldiers. There’s no reason for them to have any kind of people protecting them, although their celebrity statuses make Tiso think that it might be a good idea, if just to ward off stupid people like Lace from interrupting their off-duty time.
Lace strides up to the table like she’s known Shepard her entire life and Tiso tries to kill himself by internally praying for the Reapers to strike down the Citadel. When nothing happens, Tiso becomes one-hundred percent positive that God is either dead or doesn’t exist because who the fuck ignores a prayer as desperate as that one?
“Commander Shepard,” Lace says, hand extended and prepared to give a handshake. “It’s amazing to meet you. I’m Lieutenant Lace.”
Luckily, Lace interrupted right when a lull in the commander and lieutenant’s conversation bubbled up. Her perfect in was presented, and she took it, Tiso has to begrudgingly admit.
Commander Shepard looks from her companion to Lace, a small smile gracing her lips. Green eyes crinkle, freckles folding in on one another as Shepard takes Lace’s hand into hers. Two firm pumps, a good handshake dispensed.
“Good to meet you, Lieutenant Lace,” says Shepard, and fuck, Tiso is going to start freaking out because now the commander is turning her attention to him and it’s like being caught in the headlights on a launch pad, growling engines surrounding him, pressure growing in his ears until the drums pop.
This is the commander. The Alliance Navy poster child. She’s who everyone either wants to be, wants to sleep with, or wants to kill. There’s no in-between. She’s that woman.
Shepard shoots her hand out and Tiso instinctively catches it in his own, training setting in faster than his nervousness can. He hopes his hand isn’t too sweaty.
“Lieutenant Tiso. Honoured to meet you, Commander Shepard,” he says, willing his voice not to tremble. It probably is.
Tiso isn’t normally a nervous person. He keeps his cool even in the worst of situations, his life thus far being defined by bullets and blood glutting from open wounds. But that kind of tangible danger doesn’t come close to the feeling of being around true strength, making his legs feel jelly-like. Suddenly, the people he’s viewed as untouchable are brought forth into his immediate vicinity, so close that he can see every bump on their skin, every well-earned scar from battle.
It’s jarring. Frightening. An unreality becoming truth.
“The honour’s all mine. I’m sure you know Lieutenant Garrus Vakarian, too,” Shepard introduces, which gets them another round of handshakes and greetings and all those other polite niceties that the military demands. Tiso nods absently through it all. “What can I do for you lieutenants?”
Lace, like her commander, doesn’t wait. She doesn’t hesitate. From her pocket, she produces a pink, ribbon-tied pen and a small notebook. She rips out a page and then slides both it and the pen over the table to Shepard, an expectant smile growing on her.
“If you could, Commander,” Lace asks. “My own CO is a big fan.”
Commander Shepard isn’t really known for entertaining fans. Truthfully, she actively rejects them and drives them away with a single wave of her hand. She’s got no time to sign papers or give celebratory hugs; she’s a woman on a mission, and Tiso respects the hustle she’s got. Nonetheless, Lace must have some kind of innate charisma that makes people lean toward her because Shepard just shakes her head and signs the paper in one quick thwip.
“Who am I addressing this to?” asks Shepard.
Lace’s face shimmers.
“Commander Hornet.”
Shepard adds Hornet’s name to the end in curled writing, with the full thing saying, “Keep up the good fight, Commander Hornet,” joined by Shepard’s own signature at the end. The paper is slid back to Lace with all the tiredness of a woman who’s worked too hard for too long, with benefits that don’t serve her.
Lace takes it back with a satisfied grin. She’s the cat who got the cream, the icing, and the whole damn cake.
“I can’t believe she actually did it.”
“Me either.”
The two of them stare at the small slip of paper in Lace’s hands. The bar is close to closing and most people are filing out of its sparkling doors, drunk and happy. Tiso and Lace stand at a railing’s edge, arms hanging over the side as they continue to marvel at this paper that’s suddenly worth about a thousand-something credits.
Except, they’re not selling it.
“Commander Hornet’s a fan?” Tiso asks.
“Oh, huge,” Lace responds. She widens her arms for emphasis, as if to bring Hornet’s love for Commander Shepard into physical reality. “Like, this much. It was a whole thing back in Basic. We were two of maybe five women there, and she just would not stop talking about Commander Shepard. Although Shepard wasn’t a commander at that time, she was a big enough name that everyone still knew her, what with her family and all. It got annoying enough that I was the only one who ever listened to her after that.”
Tiso has trouble seeing that. Frigid, impassable Commander Hornet, gushing like a schoolgirl over her favourite soldier? Actually, if there’s anything Hornet is going to flail her arms around like a teenager for, it’s going to be military-related. Maybe it tracks, then.
“I’m surprised Hornet’s never met her.”
“She has,” Lace corrects. “We both have. Again, it was back in Basic, but…” she trails off. Her gaze catches the Citadel’s windows, stars shifting in a black void. “But yeah.”
“That’s not a story.”
“It’s not a story for you to hear, Lieutenant.”
A wistful smile decorates Lace’s lips; it makes her look like a model on the runway preparing for her last walk of her career; the elegant line of her neck cranes as she chases an errant comet gliding past the windows. Alcohol must make her nostalgic. That kind of dreamy drunk that’s always going on about what happened back then, what happened that day.
When Tiso drinks, it makes him quiet. Clam up. He shuts down and lets the world roll over him in violent waves, hands over his head as he braces himself for the next crash. He lets himself be pushed around and prodded, ambitions fully let go because he never really had any in the first place. Maybe he did once, fuelled by another person. But that’s neither here nor there and a drunk mind never conjures up good thoughts about that.
Tiso wonders what Lieutenant Lace and Commander Hornet’s relationship is like past their professional veneers. When the veil is torn and revealed, what lays beneath them cannot be anything so simple as friendship, because the bond of lieutenant and commander is so much more than a hug, a pat on the back. It’s the willingness to risk your life for another’s, and that demands either unwavering loyalty or something far deeper. Fathoms.
He pictures them in Basic together, two eighteen-year-old girls who know nothing about the world and have their entire futures ahead of them. One of them is already breaking regulation standards with her long curly hair. The other one is standing ramrod, spine made of steel, arms locked to her side, but she is also breaking some rule that she’s yet to learn. The drill sergeant yells at them both. Not because they’re fracturing the rules or stepping on toes— but rather because he sees a pair of young women and their very existence in the Navy is an offense to him, a man with a wife who hates him and daughters who despise him just as much.
The recruits don’t miss a beat. Lace and Hornet get on the ground and the drill sergeant screams for them to give him thirty. They give him eighty, both filled with a raging fire lit ever-brighter by the sight of their fellow recruits gathering to watch the spectacle.
Seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine. Eighty. The two girls rise to their feet with sweat-slicked brows and proud smiles, arms like fragile branches in the wind though now with strength effused directly into the muscle. The first lesson. The first of many to come.
They’re nineteen, privates now. Then, their mid-twenties, reaching sergeant and lieutenant. Later, they breach the end of their twenties and one heads into the realm of commander, training until she hits N7. The other remains a lieutenant and watches her CO grow brighter and brighter, hand reaching from the top to haul her into one of the Alliance’s most decorated crews. They’re in this together. Friends. Soldiers. Two women against the galaxy.
Tiso is probably overthinking this. He should really stop drinking.
“Now that you’ve said it, I’m curious,” Tiso says. “You gotta tell me.”
Lace sniffs. “No. I already told you I’m not going to.”
“Come on, it’ll be a secret between us lieutenants. Prove your Alliance loyalty.”
“You’re such an ass.”
“Let me see the signature again, at least.”
“No!”
Tiso reaches, and Lace leans away. They struggle like children as Lace tries to hold the paper away from Tiso’s long arms. He nearly catches it, though Lace’s slimness allows her to slip and slide away, ducking under his arm. She appears on his other side and laughs as she waves the paper up in the air, victorious.
And then, she bumps into the back of a column and the paper goes flying from her hands.
They both quickly lean over the railing, watching as the little sheet floats down through the atrium. Their eyes lock onto the thing and their minds race a mile a minute to figure out how they can get it back. Jumping is a no-go. Neither of them are biotics. And there’s no way either of them can get some kind of fishing rod to hook it and pull it back to them, the laws of gravity and physics aside.
The paper flutters down and lands in the hands of a person on the floor below. They take one look at the sheet and then gasp, looking around.
“Hey, you!” Lace calls from above. “Give that back!”
The person looks at Lace and then sprints off.
Chasing some random guy while drunk off, like, six neat whiskeys is not a great way to spend the only off-duty night Tiso has on the Citadel.
Then again, he’s had worse nights.
He’s stumbling over his feet, vision swimming and blurring around each corner as he tries to keep Lace in his sights. She must handle her alcohol way better than he does because she’s zipping and fucking zooming, careening around corners like a track and field star. Her hand grabs onto a column as she launches herself even further at the signature thief and Tiso just barely manages to keep up with her.
Thankfully, the thief isn’t a soldier, which means that he’s in comparably worse shape than either of the lieutenants. He looks like a kid— probably a teenager. His hair reaches the nape of his neck and he wears a t-shirt decorated in Alliance Navy logos, flapping and flying as he clutches the paper close to his chest. He skids down a long flight of stairs, bumping into the other night owls on the Citadel. And at the bottom, he nearly bowls into a gaggle of krogan who probably would have grabbed him by the scruff of his collar if it wouldn’t have caused some kind of diplomatic incident.
“You stop right now!” shouts Lace. If Tiso were sober, he’d probably be cackling at the absurdity of the situation. Two Alliance Navy members are racing through the Citadel to retrieve a stolen signature of Commander Shepard from some kid who caught it a floor below. It’s like a Blasto skit. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at the situation), Tiso is well-sloshed, and so he’s taking everything with the utmost seriousness right now. They need that signature back.
They need it because Lace wants it. Because it’ll make Hornet happy. And if Hornet’s happy, Quirrel will be happy. Which means Tiso will be happy, too.
Tiso’s mouth tastes like whiskey and his chest is burning. He’s a long distance runner— not a sprinter. He’s always been in things for the long haul, forever and ever.
Lace jumps over a railing. Oh, my God. She just jumped over a railing and onto the floor below. Tiso follows and he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing anymore as he lands in the fountain below, fall barely broken by the splash of water. His knees wail. His bones creak. Lace blasts off, rocket engine attached to her heels as she gives chase once more toward that thieving kid.
Tiso nearly slips and lands on his ass as he clambers out of the fountain. He puts one foot in front of the other and rounds around another corner in the central atrium just before he sees Lace launch herself onto the kid. They both go tumbling down onto the cool tiled ground as they wrestle for the paper. If there’s anything that’s going to get Lace kicked out of the Alliance, it’s definitely this. It’ll probably also get Tiso kicked out.
Screw it.
He gets down onto the ground and adds his own hands into the tussle. He tries to separate Lace and the kid, arms prying them apart, but these two can sure keep a hold on one another. Though their limbs are flailing every which way, they’re not tugging at the paper, both horribly aware that any kind of pressure will tear it apart.
Lace attempts to swat the paper out of the kid’s hands. She’s unsuccessful the first few times, but now that Tiso is in the fray, she gets the upper-hand and grabs onto the kid’s wrist. The strength of her hold forces the kid’s hand to open and Lace claims her beloved prize.
“What in the Spirits’ name is going on here?”
A flashlight shines on them, though it’s hardly needed under the harsh glimmer of the Citadel’s spotlights above. Tiso’s eyes narrow against the sudden brightness as Lace does the same, arm going up to shield her eyes.
Two turian C-Sec employees are staring down at the three of them. The kid quickly rises to his feet and explains to the officers that he was minding his business when these dangerous Alliance members jumped him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. They’re intoxicated. They’re belligerent. They’re a complete menace to the Citadel’s peace and quiet.
Now, here’s a question: who will the C-Sec officers believe? Some snot-nosed teen with dirt on his shoes and a ratty t-shirt, or two decorated lieutenants?
The teen, shockingly enough.
Tiso and Lace sit in a cell located within the Citadel’s jail. This little hole is meant mostly for troublemakers and other non-law abiding citizens— generally not Alliance Navy officers. Lace has already spent a good ten minutes tugging at the bars through her handcuffs, going on and on about how she’s a lieutenant of the Alliance Navy and deserves more respect than this. Too bad she’s still clearly drunk or else the turians might have glanced her way. Instead, they ignore her completely.
Tiso isn’t sure how long they wait in the cell. It must be close to an hour since his drunkenness has finally worn off, leaving only a slight buzz in its wake. If he could fall asleep, he’d probably be closer to sober by the time Commander Quirrel and Hornet arrive at the jail with just the most elated expressions he’s ever seen on either of them.
The bail is paid, the handcuffs are removed, and the lieutenants are shoved out of the cell with a strict command to not pull that shit ever again, even if it’s against their own species. Lace spits a very colourful string of insults that nearly gets her thrown back into the cell if isn’t for Hornet’s quick redirection, guiding hands on her officer’s shoulders as she pulls them outside.
“I don’t even want to ask,” Hornet hisses, “but I have to. What the hell were you two thinking?”
A chorus of ums and uhs sing from Tiso and Lace. Both of them have lost any semblance of eloquence and are now trying to come up with the best possible answer to Hornet’s very reasonable question. Tiso feels a blade of shame stab through his chest when he glances over at Quirrel, who looks at his lieutenant with disappointed eyes.
“Look,” Tiso chokes out, “we have a very good reason for all of this.”
“You reek of whiskey,” Quirrel says.
“Probably because I was drinking whiskey.”
Quirrel throws his arms in the air. No doubt he’ll be asking Tiso to send him the credits for the bail he paid later tonight. Shit, now he’s going to be down a couple hundred. And his knees are killing him— why’d he think that jumping off a ledge was a good idea?
“I’m being serious, Lieutenant Tiso. This isn’t something the Alliance needs on its record right now— not during a war.”
The title. God, the title. Tiso wants to throw his head back and scratch his eyes out. The chagrin in Quirrel’s voice is almost too much to bear, a leaden weight placed upon Tiso’s back as he hunches over, forced close to the ground, kissing the tile with chapped lips.
“You two should just be glad that you’re not being demoted,” Hornet spits. “Lace, you know better than this. You’re a grown woman, for God’s sake— who the hell fights a random kid on a night out?”
They’re all grown. Each and every one of them, adults. They’ve been adults for the majority of their lives now, and yet it seems like only Tiso and Lace are the ones who feel like they’re still stuck in Basic, still eighteen, still stupid and young and chasing the thrill of their CO’s compliments. Or maybe Tiso just thinks that way because he and Lace are both lieutenants who clearly need to get over something in their lives.
Or he could be wrong.
Whatever.
Lace produces the paper from her pocket. Without a single word, she steps up to her commander and pulls Hornet’s hand close to hers. Lace places the paper in her grip, folds her fingers over it, and says, “Look.”
Hornet narrows her eyes. Tiso sees it before Lace does, the commander’s fingers crunching down on the already-folded sheet. A wretched crinkle echoes out into the Citadel, sounding more like the cracking of bones rather than a paper being creased.
“Oh, my God. Hornet, just look at it!” Lace exclaims, hand going over Hornet’s. But Hornet just pulls her arm back with the paper still in her grasp.
“You’re irresponsible—”
“Hornet—”
“Childish—”
“Hornet!”
“And barely a lieutenant!”
“Commander, look at the fucking paper!”
The paper flies from Hornet’s clutches into Quirrel’s. His fingers grasp the edge, unfolding the crooked fold to read what’s written on it. Understanding blooms on his bespectacled face, and he passes it back to Hornet with a nod. Then— and only then— does she look at the signature.
Her eyes widen. First minutely, and then by leagues.
“You didn’t,” Hornet whispers.
“I did,” Lace huffs. “And you were about to tear it.”
It happens in an instant. Hornet throws her arms over Lace’s shoulders and pulls her lieutenant— no, friend— tight. Lace doesn’t delay as she follows the action, smiling wide with her face still full of that warm, cosmo-caused blush. The two women embrace as the Citadel drones on, the wailing whines of engines sounding off in the distance. Hornet shoves her face into the crook of Lace’s neck and says something against the lieutenant’s collar, which Lace replies with a laugh.
It's strange to see both Lace and Hornet so unguarded like this. It's as if the world has faded from their view, shattering into imperceptible fractals; nothing else matters at this moment because right now they're both laughing about some story, some secret, that only they know as best friends from Basic.
Whatever Lace and Hornet have, it’s something Tiso will probably never know about. Although, there is one thing he can identify with certainty about the Alamo’s commander and lieutenant. He can pinpoint it in the way Lace holds Hornet: hands clasping her sides, fingers digging into the small of her back, eyes closed shut, as if she’s soaking the moment in her cold commander’s clutches, now warm and affectionate. She knows this second will end, as fleeting as it is. He questions how often they actually hug like this. Or do all women hug over something so minute, like receiving a gifted signature from a celebrity commander?
No. Not these two. These are women with walls as high as the atmosphere, unbreachable. Only they know one another's weak points to make the barriers come crashing down.
Tiso and Quirrel stand awkwardly by as they watch Lace and Hornet hold one another. The two aren’t separating anytime soon and they keep talking through the embrace, which probably means that the Warsaw’s head officers should go back to their ship and get ready to head out the next day.
Quirrel makes no sign of moving.
“Gonna stick around, Commander?” Tiso asks.
“Yeah,” Quirrel says with a nod. “Hornet and I were out when C-Sec called us.”
Translation: we want to get back to whatever we were doing together after you two dumbasses got yourselves thrown in jail; and while one of you got something out of the debacle, the other looks like an idiot with nothing to show for it.
If that’s the case, then there’s no reason in lingering, Tiso thinks. He makes the futile attempt to not seem petty as he sniffs, patting his commander on the shoulder before he spins on his heel.
The whiskey turns cold in his stomach. He might have another bottle stashed somewhere in his footlocker. And if he doesn’t, he’s gonna be pissed.
“Right. I’ll get going, Commander.”
“You’re not going to head back with all of us?”
“Nah. You have fun with the ladies.”
Tiso is three steps away from Quirrel when he hears his commander’s voice ring out through the Citadel. It ricochets against the steel walls like a bullet, poised to strike him directly in the soft part of his head— right in the temple, the skin thin and delicate.
“Have a good night, Tiso.”
Tiso salutes, but doesn’t turn around.
“Yessir.”