TITLE: We Were Together
CHAPTER: 1, Prologue
AN: I was in the mood to read a ManShep/Garrus story and discovered there were no new stories. I remembered the scene from the Leviathan DLC when Shepard returns to the surface. Boom, down on the deck, he goes. Unless the romanced crewmember is there, no one helps him up. Then he's on his hands and knees in the shuttle coughing up seawater. No one helps him. Bugged me. Well, I fixed it.
I present for your inspection, my contribution to the ManShep/Garrus genre. We do love our Garrus, don't we? Truly a Turian for All Seasons.
Adult stuff in here.
"We were together. I forget the rest." —Walt Whitman
I like to think of myself as a simple man. At least, that's what I tell myself. The truth is I was a simple man existing in very complicated and dangerous times. But all that came later.
An obedient child, from a middle class turian family. I never really liked school. Although my teachers assured my parents that I was smart and acted out simply because I was bored. The truth is, I learned most of the information they tried to teach us on my own. I loved the histories of the turian soldiers. I taught myself to read pouring over those stories filled with courage and adventure. It gave me a taste for the world outside Palaven. Math also came naturally to me, all that meant I had no patience to wait for my fellow students to catch up with me.
I dutifully joined the military at fifteen and after ten perfectly normal years became a Citadel Security agent. It's difficult to keep a strict father happy, especially the kind who expected his son to follow his career path, and yet do better than him. It was stay in the military or follow his footsteps into C-Sec. Far too structured for my restless spirit, I was sick of military life. Except for learning some discipline, that I had excellent vision and a talent for sharpshooting, I left the military behind without a backward glance.
Life on the Citadel provided several advantages. One, I was away from home and therefore away from my father's endless ambitions and supervision. Not that the light years stopped him from sending me advice over the Extranet, or from arranging meetings with suitable young turian ladies of good family.
It seems so strange to look back on those simple days, before Saren Arterius, the Reapers, before Commander Shepard and the Normandy and before meeting the love of my life. The one who eventually became my mate.
Today is the fifth anniversary of that bonding, and I'm listening to the sounds of movement from the kitchen. The familiar pattern of footsteps, a knife chopping fruit with efficient strokes and the whir of a blender. I pulled two chairs into a shady spot in full view of the ocean. There's a storm brewing out on the water, but it'll be many hours before it reaches the shore. The early evening is warm, and the sun feels good on my plates. After folding my lanky frame into one of the chairs I allowed my thoughts to wander backward in time.
Those days seem so long ago now. My sniper rifle hasn't been out of the case in months. Don't get me wrong, there are days when I miss the action. The peace and love I found took the place of all those crazy years. Although I am no longer Archangel or even a member of Commander Shepard's crew, I am happy to be back to the life of a contented and uncomplicated man.
I closed my eyes and remembered back to those days of violence, grand adventure, and great sadness. The Leviathan. The Leviathan…Now, that had been a crazy and desperate mission, and I told him so...
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray."
— Walt Whitman