Pari - Father
Mari - Mother
Pahir - Son
Torin - turian male of the age of majority
"Turn it down."
Cold, shuttered eyes looked up at the torin standing in the door to Garrus's office. "Sure, Pari, come in. Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable," Garrus replied, the words making his jaw ache like chewing on metal foil.
Herros Vakarian strode over the threshold, radiating an officious sublimity that grated against his son's every nerve. "Don't start, Garrus. I'm serious. Saren is a bad risk." He didn't take the offered seat. Instead, he leaned against it, arms crossing, security gates thumping closed over his keel. Even his mandibles pulled tight against his face, slamming a wall up to keep Garrus firmly in his place on the other side. "Tell the executor to pass it to a more senior investigator."
Garrus chuffed and shook his head, swallowing the first five snarky comments that appeared in his head. Opting for number six, he posed behind his desk, a wall of reflective ice meeting his father's demanding, earnest stare. "This investigation is a great opportunity, and a huge vote of confidence in my abilities, so I can understand why you think I should walk away from it." Cocking his head a little, he clasped his hands and laid them on the desktop. "Thank you for your concern, but I won't be doing that." Biting back a cruel grin, he ramped up his nonchalance until it rubbed shoulders with condescension.
His father's speechlessness sparked a glow of victory that warmed the underside of his plates. About bloody time. Five cycles and a hundred arguments stood between them and any guilt that might try to worm through the heady satisfaction. Besides, for his pari's part, it all came down to pride. If Garrus succeeded, the great Herros Vakarian would have to admit that he'd been wrong about his son. Garrus chuffed. Trebia would go nova first.
Herros straightened, freezing still as death, his chin lifting as the missiles hit. "I suppose it was expecting too much to hope that you'd listen to reason." Spinning on his talons, the elder Vakarian strode to the door. "Saren's dirty. We all know that. You haven't discovered rocket propulsion, Garrus." He palmed the control, then buttressed a hand against the door frame. "But there's a reason that none of us have gone after him." Amber eyes flashed with fire, Herros's only outward sign of anger or hurt. "There's a reason this was assigned to you after that debacle with the red sand dealer."
That blow hit hard enough to stagger him. Garrus forced his stare as dead and cold as he could manage despite the rage boiling like acid in his veins. The censure in his father's stare sizzled along his nerves, buzzing in his brain, wasps around a shattered nest. For a moment, the entire office seemed to grow around him, as if he shrunk back into the child who once choked back tears in the face of his father's disapproval.
Shaking his head, Herros let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping, his armour shattering into brittle shards of glass as it dropped away. "Believe it or not, Garrus, I love you. You're my pahir, and I'm not here to thwart your career. I'm here because it will break my heart to see you end up somewhere dark and ugly." Leaning into the hand braced against the door, his head bowed a little. "Saren is dirty, but he's protected too well. He's the council's right hand when it comes to black ops. He's willing to go into a human colony and kill thousands of people to get a beacon for them."
Garrus burst from his chair, surprise exploding through his careful facade as he lunged across his desk, hands braced against the top. "The council sent him?" Anger, confusion, and embarrassment waged an all too visible war across his face and through his sub-vocals before he gripped them both in an iron fist. How did his father know something like that when he hadn't heard even a whisper? Was the old man going behind his back, setting him up?
Herros held up both hands. "I've heard it said, but you know the amount of stock I put in rumours."
Snapping straight and rigid, Garrus said, "Unless they're about me, then you're all over them." The second the words escaped, he regretted speaking, but not because he didn't believe what he said. He just hated demonstrating how badly his father got under his skin. Crossing his arms, he erected armour of his own.
"Saren is too well protected for your investigation to go anywhere, Garrus. You're a sacrificial offering to the Alliance." Herros shrugged, his expression appearing genuinely sad. Garrus didn't trust it. If Herros Vakarian felt sorrow about anything, it was the hit his reputation would take thanks to his screw up of a son. "I know you won't listen to me, but I had to say something." He released the door and stepped through. "Be careful."
Garrus waited until the door closed before he let out the breath he was holding and sank back into his chair. Damn it. He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, and waited for his pulse to stop hammering under both jaw bones and behind his keel. His father was right about one thing: Saren was incredibly well protected politically. If the Alliance wasn't screaming at the top of their lungs about their colony, or it had been a less visible colony than Eden Prime, no doubt the whole thing would have just been tossed off a cliff.
That meant he needed to be both careful and inventive. Confidence pushed aside the anger and doubt, allowing his head to cool at last. Despite what his father thought, he hadn't risen to his current position by being a dumbass. He pushed himself up, grabbed his sidearm, and headed out into the ward. Maybe he'd hear some of those rumors for himself.