Two days after Omega
"Eliminating the threat immediately, regardless of the cost."
These words. Words I've talked, words I've walked.
Worn proudly on my sleeve.
It always brought a smile to my face to see others share this mantra of mine.
But now I know the true cost.
One sustained when those you love take these words...
...just a little too much to heart.
"Shepard. I think you may need to feed your fish" Garrus Vakarian says to me, motioning at the capsized remains of an ex-Thessian Sunfish floating at the top of my tank.
"Wasting no time getting right back into mother-mode, huh?" I say, expecting him to next give me stick for the long overdue calibrations of the Normandy's guns.
Instead, a laugh erupts from between the turian's mandibles, a laugh that hits me like the first drag of a long awaited cigarette.
We plop down across from each other in my cabin on furniture I've arranged to mimic the décor on the nights we'd laugh, drink, and smoke on the SR-1 after long battles before I died. Of course, it's not all the same. I couldn't recreate the organically sculpted indents that cradled us in the seat cushions. The Cheerio of the Galactic Alt-Right, the Cerberus logo hangs above us. And the glint from the corner of a plastic Turian Cruiser model occasionally catches our eyes as it hangs above my desk, quietly dancing with the subtle oscillations the SR-2 makes in flight. So it's not the same.
But it's perfect. Now that he's finally here.
All that I've deemed worthy of looking at is now in my view. The mandibles I can occasionally make flex with delight with the foolish jokes I make. Those two, perfect indigo marbles, the eyes I effortlessly lose myself in. His regal crown, a crest of horns I'd grasp to hoist myself up with when I got too drunk to stand. The mouth that produces a silky, intoxicating voice that can to swipe the words right from my broca's area, leaving me speechless.
Though worse for wear as of recent, it was a face I fell deeply in love with ever so long ago, a face that has always left me flummoxed at times when I want to tell its owner of the feelings I have for him. A necessary confession that I took to the grave with me. A mistake born of timidness that I vowed never to make again.
Yet tonight, I'm holding it back, just one more time. Garrus doesn't need that pressure, having spent the last two days underneath Dr. Chakwas' knife. Before that, he merely existed as a pile of blue-stained meat and mandible dropped at her med-bay door, a pile we scraped off the ground back on Omega.
But when we say the Doctor is the best, we mean it. Here he is, sitting across from me, in the flesh, with most of his flesh. Sure a mandible is crooked here, and a chunk taken out of his chin there, but still that same, quirky, lovable face. And best of all, still easy on the eyes.
"They say chicks dig scars."
Don't forget about the men, Garrus.
But it's not the facial scars that leave me most distracted as I stare at him across from me in my cabin, stretching and contracting as we catch up about the good ol' days. It's the scars...no, the festering wounds that lie beneath, ones inaccessible to and left unsutured by any doctor's hands, even those as skilled as Chakwas'.
They're the wounds of his soul, made so apparent by his actions on Omega. This isn't the Garrus I knew. Sure, he was Palaven's best bad cop. A bit vigilante. A bit rebel. All badass.
But this was different. The soul plaintiff in Vakarian v. Omega, the man who sought to single-handedly dethrone the Blue Suns, the Eclipse, and the Blood Pack. Even behind the veil of my renegade streak, I saw him for what he was down there: an endangerment to himself and the innocents of Omega. I've known him to be a bit bold, but this was taken too far.
What had turned this once idealistic and justice-seeking turian into a one-man, suicidal killing machine? That's the question that distracts me, the one I will seek to answer as I attempt to apply some medi-gel to those wounds.
"So Garrus, tell me what happened down there?" I say, setting my drink down, the moment finally ripe for the topic to crop up.
"Well, one second Dr. Chakwas gives me the all clear to leave. The next second, I hear Liara scream 'Oh my God, he got even uglier!'"
This turian's gonna kill me one of these days.
"No! Besides, that doesn't even sound like her..."
"Oh, that was your scream? Man, might want to have Cerberus take a look at your voice-box again, Shepard."
"NO!"
Frustrated, but I can't help but laugh at the fucker. It truly is nice to have him back.
Would be better if he could answer my damned question though.
"I mean on Omega! How the Hell did you wind up with everyone and their mother gunning for your flat ass?"
"You mean, you wouldn't be after this?" Garrus jests, motioning downward.
I mean, of course. Obviously. But he doesn't need to know that. Yet.
"Goddammit, Vakarian. I caught you knee deep in merc blood. What were you doing down there?"
"Relax, Shepard! Like I told you, target practice."
I sigh to the side and sit back in my seat, the aggravation I feel grating on me, a throbbing in my temples. Typically, this kind of talk would feature in the conversational tennis-matches that we would have on the SV-1, the rude and loutish jokes being tossed back and forth, a lot of noise but not much being discussed. However, I'm making it clear that no matter how many times he serves, I'm not hitting it back. He's hiding something.
"One Hell of a firing range you chose..."
"Complete with live-fire ammunition and moving targets. Omega's finest!" Garrus says. He appears chipper, but I can see the facade cracking under my artillery barrage.
If Joker has taught me one thing over the years, a fist full of deflection and a pinch of self-deprecation are all that some people need to delude themselves into thinking they can hide the things truly bothering them. Whether it be the physical ailments, or the emotional.
Much to my vexation, Garrus continues to deflect my questions, like armor to arrows. But even he should know that armor has its weakness.
Fire.
"GODDAMMIT GARRUS. YOU HAD ME SCARED SHITLESS. STOP FUCKING AROUND AND ANSWER MY GODDAMNED QUESTION" I snap, my fist pummeling the armrest, temper flared, flames licking out of my mouth, red-hot from the words I've just fired at my unsuspecting turian friend.
His defenses are down.
"What do you mean?"
"You. On Omega. You killed hundreds. HUNDREDS...of men down there. Not mind-controlled machines, or reapers seeking to advance the extinction of all things organic. No. Hundreds of men, manipulated into throwing their lives away so they can put food on their tables.
"I understand they're not exactly innocent, and I'm the first to fight for a fair punishment, but they didn't all need to make the ultimate sacrifice. And YOU certainly didn't need to make that sacrifice.
"I respect you Garrus, boundlessly. You stand for justice and decisiveness, but this time...you took it too far."
"F...Fine. What the Hell do you want me to say, Shepard?"
"What's happened to you?" I say, my voice cracking.
Momentarily, I fear I may have roused the turian's ire, something I've never seen accomplished. A sudden sinking feeling erupts in my pit, a fight-or-flight instinct inbound. Have I poked the hive too much?
But, with relief, I see Garrus remains true to form. He's simply taking a deep breath, preparing to respond in the calm, professional manner he trademarked.
He looks into my eyes and says the most genuine sentence I've heard all day.
"If you want to know the truth, Shepard. I've been better..."
"Clearly" I quickly respond. He sighs, the sound of a newly opening pressure-release valve to his mind.
"It all started when I got lost" Garrus starts, cryptically.
"Lost?"
"Well, my guide died, so..." Garrus trails off with a feeble chuckle, motioning at me. "I was without a leader. I had no direction, no compass. I felt the rug pulled from underneath me."
"If all you needed was a leader, Garrus, there are plenty, all fighting worthy causes in this tortured galaxy of ours, all needing faithful commanders."
"That's not it." Garrus remarks, the usually charismatic soldier fetching for words. "I don't know, it might be a turian thing. I just felt...inspired, by what you did. Drawn in.
"As I have made abundantly clear, I always grated on C-Sec. They seemed to get off on telling me what I couldn't do, reinventing ways of killing my ability to punish the guilty, killing any sense of swift action. The place was founded on complacency, and they were quick to remind me there was no room there for a man like me.
"But you. You SHOWED me through your raw, calculated, effectiveness. You showed me that to save this galaxy, you need to be willing to bend the rules a bit, much like I suspected at first.
"Justice from the loaded barrel. You demonstrated that when you killed Wrex, when we killed Dr. Saleon, when we killed off the rachni, when we put down the colonists on Feros, when we said 'fuck-it' to the old council and waved their sorry ship goodbye. Let nothing, not even sentiment, threaten to compromise our mission, let nothing stand in the way.
"It flew in the face of what they all wanted, Executor Pallin, C-Sec, the rest of 'em. Either just lazy or hopeful, caring about politics and looking charitable at the expense of the big picture: survival. You were the only one who stood defiant, showing that your way was the only way. When it brought down Sovereign, something no one saw coming, I was hooked on your style, and when we turians follow a leader, that's it. We change our morals, we live by you, and we will die for you. You saw that.
"I'm not a very good turian, but at least I've still got that."
Garrus' inclination for conversational roundabouts versus highways is usually something I loathe. But something tells me I should enjoy the ride for the time being, because I'm not going to like what I see at the end of the road.
"Garrus, please. What are you trying to say?" I continue, plowing forward regardless. "Because it's sounding to me like you're blaming me for what happened to you on Omega. I never taught you to do this. If you wanted to be like me, be a Spectre. Whatever happened to the Spectre training you told me you were going to apply for?"
Garrus' gaze quickly shifts away from mine.
"I never bothered."
"Don't tell me it's because of your father. Don't give me that clap-trap..."
"It's because of YOU!" Garrus snaps, more tersely and emotional than I had ever seen the typically collected man. "Haven't you been listening?" Garrus asks, bringing the boil down to a simmer, gaze shifted back. "Maybe I'm not explaining it right. I followed YOUR ideology, not the Spectres'. Making me a Spectre wouldn't have solved the problem. Besides, being the 'right-hand' of the council was the last thing I wanted after witnessing their dangerous idiocy.
"I missed YOUR guidance, your input. I tried to follow what you said, the best I could..."
"BY MURDERING HALF OF OMEGA?" I scream, in disbelief of what I'm hearing.
"I WAS PISSED, OKAY? LIVID, ENRAGED, RUINED" Garrus cries back, the gravel in his voice replaced with sandpaper and his gaze burning right into mine, repelling me firmly into the back of my chair. His healing mandible also screams, but with pain. He holds up a shaking hand to it, trying to soothe it, now understanding the physical limits of his newfound ire, an ire I wish I never unearthed.
"You were the best thing that could have happened to this galaxy. And what do you get? A smack from a petty pot shot, one that rips open the Normandy like a tin can and jettisoning your cold body out into space without as much as a salute for all your hard work."
Garrus resets the grip on his mandible a bit, tending to his wound and giving himself a moment to replace the anger with grief. He grows more distant with each passing second.
"The one I followed, the one I would die for...what's a lost turian to do? Still follow your orders, your ways, the best I could, even if you were gone. I needed an enemy, and I found one. A worthy enemy, disrupting the greater good of Omega. Leave no prisoners. Kill all those who may harm again.
"I killed for you.
"At the time, I thought it's what you would have wanted from me. Maybe...you would have even been proud, if things didn't get a little...out of hand."
His voice falters with these last three words as his head drops. A moment to lick his wounds, a moment to wallow, a chance to recover after reliving the past two years' worth of despair in a span of thirty seconds.
It's at this moment that I forget why I'm mad at him. In fact, I'm wishing I could forget this conversation. I'd prefer the benign tennis match, playing on a court that once paved over the hulking monstrosity of this topic.
But I've broken ground, and seeing this crumbling former C-Sec agent tells me no easy repairs are to be had here.
I'll choke up if I think about this too hard. I must remain strong. I cannot falter. Not now.
Instead, as I normally do at times like this, I reach into my front pocket for my packet of release. With an unsteady hand and eyes gasping for air amidst the rushing moisture seeping in, I clumsily pull out a cigarette from the crumpled pack.
I mindlessly place it in my mouth and futilely pat my pockets.
An outstretched, taloned-hand holds out a lighter in front of me. I give a knowing nod as I take this silent offering, an offering that's been made to me many times before, one that shouldn't feel any different now.
As I bring the lighter to my face, I notice I've forgotten to place the filter-side in my mouth.
A simple mistake. Don't let this fluster me, I think to myself, concentrating ever so hard on the task at hand. All I've got to do is take the cigarette out, flip it in between these shaking fingers of mine, and….
Drop it on the ground.
With the lighter soon following.
"Commander. I wanted to thank you"
"What for, Garrus?"
"For everything. For taking me with you, for letting me be apart of your team. I've learned a lot. I thought about what you said, about eliminating the threat immediately, regardless of the cost. You were right. And you were right about Dr. Saleon too. Killing him was the only solution."
"Words mean nothing until you put them into action, Garrus. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to reapply for Spectre training"
So, Butcher of Torfan. This is your legacy, the way your people will remember you by.
Is this what you wanted? Is it all you ever hoped for?
The batarian preacher laughs at me as he fades quietly back away.
I lean forward, burying my face deep within my hands, my index fingers shoveling into the corners of my eyes.
"Garrus..." I say, breaking up the silence, voice muffled through my palms. "Why choose Omega?"
"The place was a cess pool. In case I missed a shot, odds are, it was gonna hit some other criminal" the turian replies, all too smoothly.
"There were times when the thought helped me sleep at night."
My right thumb, a windshield wiper that bats away a single, small escaping tear. I drop my hands and clasp them in front of me, eyes drifting to the lone cigarette, my reminder of my inability to keep it together at times like this. My weakness.
What I haven't looked at for some time, though, is Garrus. I can't bear the shame.
"Goddammit Garrus. I'm so sorry" I pathetically proclaim with heavy breath.
"Don't, Commander. Don't apologize. I'm the one who screwed this up, the one who had to be saved after all" he responds. I shake my head, staggered at his selfless ability to throw himself in the way of blame.
A slow creak from the seat cushion across from me makes my head snap back forward, alert to the start of the turian's sudden but uncertain departure.
This moment can't end like this, not this soon. The thoughts chaotically cycling through my head, me too dazed to funnel them to my hurting comrade. He's leaving me too soon.
I stand up quickly, leaving my head spinning and me approaching the man but unsure of what I plan to do.
I think back, to times when others held my hand through times of pain, and immediately a thought of my mother comes back to me. The only person in my life who could ever dream of soothing a pain of this magnitude.
I know exactly what she would do at a time like this.
I follow her lead, and give Garrus a hug.
I imagined me having to kick myself for this, being sure the gesture would be odd for me, even odder for him. After all, I've never embraced the man before, too arrested by fear of approaching him with any such affectionate display.
But now I know, both of us having cheated death in spectacular fashion and the cards telling of how much I mean to him fanned out on the table before me, I realize now is not the time for apprehensiveness.
Now is the time for decisive action.
Now is the time for comfort. My hug, a soft, down pillow compared to the glass shards scraping at his heart for the past two years.
"You've been through a lot." I say, arms not fully circumnavigating his towering, dilapidated, wide-bodied armor, it's jagged scar from the rocket impact the perch for my chin. Garrus' body remains pointed strait on towards my cabin door, at an angle from my own, neither reciprocating nor resisting my hug. The grief is still there, but now life paints his eyes, with a slight undertone of surprise.
"And I'm sorry I wasn't there when it mattered" I continue.
"Don't mention it. Dead people tend not to be very punctual" he weakly replies, a gentle smile of his just now piercing the clouds, the feel of three talons now lightly gracing my back, sending life-bearing shockwaves up my spine.
I squeeze Garrus a bit too hard with this, softly grinning and pleasantly reminded of the turian's odd but persistent sense of humor. Something I went far too long without.
I look up at Garrus' wounded face, a face refusing to make eye contact with me, not out of anger or hate but of shame. He may not be saying anything, but I get the message. He feels guilty that he dare connect me to his anguish, selfish that he dare burden me with a share of this baggage.
A baggage I've saddled him with.
"Well, no need checking the clock. I'm not going anywhere, Garrus" I say, assuring him that this conversation was not a mistake.
"Glad to hear it Shepard. It's...good to have you back" he says, giving me a hesitant but warm glance before pulling himself quickly away, perhaps feeling better but still needing time alone. My fingertips are all that follow, lingering on the rear of his armor before they, too, are torn away.
I stand in place, watching the now empty doorway for far too long. I eventually turn to take in the view of my cabin, a cabin I now find so uncomfortably empty.
I always figured Garrus saw me as a bit of a mentor-figure, but I never imagined having an impact like this. Now that I see what's become of my protege, I can't say I'm too pleased with my performance.
If I knew what was good for him, I'd keep him at arm's length, not letting my destructive influence seep any further into that turian carapace of his. It's an awful, terrible, eye-watering, gut-wrenchingly sobering reality.
But shunning the man who's feverishly grown on me like a disease without a cure since the day we've met is impossible. If I can help it, I can't not have Garrus Vakarian in my life, as selfish as I know that to be.
I've been given this second chance, this second go at life. If I can't leave the man I love, I'll promise to fix the mess I've made for him, to guide him down the right path, for reasons that extend beyond just my attraction for him. And seeing our fates intertwine amidst our galaxy's unceasing propensity for plummeting itself straight to Hell, I'm sure I'll get the chance to.
It's the least I can do to repent.
It's this last thought that crosses my mind as I bend down to retrieve that long awaited cigarette.
Author's Notes
My first, serious attempt at fanfiction (I've actually posted before, but took it down after realizing how much ass was in it. And not the good kind.) Hopefully this is a bit better! Most importantly, though, I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time out to read it! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did making it :)