Inspired by a prompt on the Mass Effect Kink Meme that asked for a twist on the events of ME1.

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"Arterius, I understand your concerns about this Shepard business. As you well know I share them, but we had no debatable grounds to deny their request. Donnel Udina is a shrewd bastard and he found all the right loopholes to get Tevos and Valern on their side. And with your protege vouching for the man there was nothing I could do but agree to let him begin training."

A waiter passed by and Sparatus waved him off, swirling his still-full glass. Saren's talons remained firmly templed together on the corner of their private table, his food untouched. The conversation had left him without an appetite.

Nominally this was a dinner between friends but in truth it was a private war summit held over fish and wine. The Councilor knew who to go to for problems that needed to be handled in a more... discreet manner. In return, Saren was very well funded. In most cases he would willingly oblige; Sparatus was a turian through and through and rarely asked for things that did not directly benefit the Hierarchy. But this situation was not as simple.

"I am afraid our previous handling of the matter cannot apply this time. Spectre Kryik has put this human forward, as you said, and I am neither in a position to nor terribly inclined to use the same solution."

"Why not? I could arrange something to give you the opportunity and for Spirits sake you scuttled your own trainee before."

"Only after I had trained a highly successful one. And as I recall Anderson was handed to me, I did not fight for him. My reputation was not on the line in that situation."

Sparatus looked up quickly from plucking meat from around the delicate bones of his fish, surprise in the flare of his mandibles. "Is that sympathy Saren?"

"Spectre Kryik is a personal friend and I will not sabotage his career, even for this." Though it was said entirely conversationally there was a firm edge to his subvocals that made it clear he would not change his mind. The Councilor for his part let the matter drop and dinner continued in silence.

Twenty minute later Sparatus' omnitool pinged and he excused himself to take a call. The relative privacy let Saren shift from picking at his food to checking his own mail.

Saren had few regular corespondents and only one who would contact him without a specific purpose; scrolling through the log showed him a stream of messages from Nihlus ranging from flirting to trying to explain the importance of having a human serving the Council to questions about gun mods to comments on what he'd had for lunch. It was an unusual habit but entirely forgivable. Nihlus was an exquisite Spectre, and his quirks were forgotten at a moment's notice for his duty. He had never served with better.

Odd. Nihlus' last message was more than three hours ago and he hadn't signed out of the log. That was unusual for him.

The sound of shouting across the room had one of Saren's hands immediately drawing a pistol, but when he located the source it became obvious that it wasn't a genuine threat and he put the gun back. The commotion came from another dinner guest who had stew stained down the front of his elaborate robe shouting at the Councilor as he pushed busily past him to reach their table.

There may not have been imminent danger in the room but something was clearly wrong. Sparatus' mandibles were slack, his eyes wide, the normally dark skin of his throat paled.

"Councilor?"

"No time to explain the finer points- we need to leave, now. Something's happened, the Normandy is at the docks, there's been an incident."

Despite the fact that they had been discussing creating an incident less than an hour earlier Sparatus looked disturbed. There was no point in asking now when Sparatus was already moving purposefully between the tables to the exit for the Presidium commons. Saren wasted no time in following him.

It was quite possibly the longest meeting of his life.

The colony was dead. Shepard was gone. One human soldier from the Normandy dead, another moderately injured. Nihlus had been shot at close range and was quite possibly dying in a hospital room while they spoke. He retained the details of the meeting and controlled himself because he was a professional, but it was... difficult to say the least.

The moment they released him with the promise that he would be contacted as soon as they had further information on his upcoming mission he left without even his normal polite formalities. None of the individuals at the emergency Council session had been on the ground and secondhand information was nigh useless to him; they barely understood what had happened beyond casualty numbers. He needed to find someone who had been there.

He needed to find Nihlus.

There were other reasons for going to him of course, reasons that twisted his guts in knots but he refused to address them. Instead he surreptitiously obtained the information on Nihlus' status as it moved from critical to stable and never even once considered why he didn't find the human survivor to question as he let himself into his fellow Spectre's private room well past visiting hours. A sweep with his omnitool confirmed there were no bugs recording them. Then and only then did he look up.

Machinery cluttered the room and hung from delicate hooks coming down from the ceiling around the bed but he was alive. Nothing was disparate from the information he'd accessed in the last few hours so it wasn't a surprise. But seeing him in the middle of it was... something else entirely.

Saren skirted the bed, careful of the myriad of tubes running in and out of him; the most evident of which emerged from his chest where the shot had gone in, removing excess fluids and marring the elegant lines of his torso tattooing in appalling ways. ...He wanted to touch him. It was a terrible idea but the urge was uncontainable, and he freed a pale hand from a glove to lay it on an undamaged area of deep brown chest. The sight was deeply familiar... he had spent a great deal of time touching him in more pleasant circumstances. All the same he couldn't help to look at it. The form under his hand shifted slightly at his touch, and when he glanced back up he was greeted by a set of brilliant green eyes looking back at him.

"Spirits Saren, I hope you didn't kill any of the staff to get in here."

Nihlus' voice was thick with sleep and medication but he was smiling with the slight flare of his mandibles and some of the weight on Saren eased off. "I can assure you that I did not. It was a simple matter of observing patterns and avoiding them."

"You've been here all day haven't you?" The smile shifted to a grin but he was careful to move as little as possible, just tilting his head. Saren settled himself on the side of the bed so he wouldn't need to crane his neck to see him. The younger man's features softened at that and after a final check that there were no recording devices present Saren leaned down, settling the side of his face against a tattooed cheek in a very turian gesture of affection.

"Unimportant, Nihlus."

"Spirits you're being affectionate today." He laughed weakly; even the small movement that brought in his chest hurt him, but he did his best not to let it show. "And here you always told me it was just sex. Does this mean you're finally going to admit that you love me?"

"You will hear nothing if you don't heal." Their position meant that Saren got a face full of hospital bed but he could have cared less. The hand still on his chest brushed where he knew without looking one of the long lines of his tattoos was.

"So that's a promise? I get out of here and you fess up?" He tried to lean up to hold his arm at that and his monitors shouted in protest.

"Stop moving for- yes, as long as you recover!"

Nihlus smiled. He didn't see it so much as feel it in his position, a mandible pressing against his cheek in a flare. "That was almost worth getting shot for."

"Kryik-" Saren growled, pulling his head back to sit straight again.

"Alright, alright, yeesh... If it makes you feel any better I promise not to get shot on purpose. You have to admit it is pretty damn hard to get you to be romantic though."

"What happened, Nihlus."

That got him quiet. He raised his head, the humor gone. "How much do you know already?"

"The Council informed me of everything they knew, which amounts to nothing."

"Mh." If he could have sat up straight he would have but that was inadvisable. The change in his face and voice made the formality clear enough. "There was intelligence of an artifact on Eden Prime that matched what we know about Prothean Beacons. I was observing how Shepard functioned in his normal environment with a team; I'd read his reports but as you well know there's a difference to being there in person. What I'd planned... it doesn't matter any more. When we hit the ground all of the colonists were dead and there was this... ship, hovering in the distance. I don't know how to describe it besides evil. The one soldier we met still alive had no idea what had happened. I canceled the exercises and we went straight for the beacon."

His eyes stared off at nothing in particular, mandibles pulled tight to his face. "It did something to him. I don't know what, but it was functional and it did something to him and the ship reacted like it had been waiting and came towards us. I went to help Shepard and he shot me. He tried to do it again but the Lieutenant stopped him and he shot the Corporal instead. The soldier ran cursing after Shepard. After that it gets hazy."

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Their eyes met again as Nihlus looked up, though the lack of expression in his face was in stark contrast to the tenderness of a few minutes ago. "This is the part where you tell me I fucked up."

"It may surprise you but I do not deride you for my own amusement. I read his files Nihlus, nothing spoke of such levels of unprompted violence. Yes I disagreed completely with your choice to pursue this course of action and I expected it might fail... but not in this manner."

Some of the tightness in Nihlus shoulders eased, but not much. "You spoke with the Council? What happened after I blacked out? All the doctors would tell me was to shut up and stay still."

"According to the Normandy's former Commander a large ship was spotted leaving the planet's atmosphere at a rapid speed. The soldiers who arrived at your location found the beacon shattered and one human corpse. There was no sign of this soldier or your trainee."

"Former Commander?"

"The Council has given me command of the Normandy until Shepard is hunted down. The beacon was priceless and attempted murder of a Spectre is frowned upon. Humanity has humiliated itself one too many times playing at Spectre and they know that I will get the job done."

Nihlus seemed taken aback by that, blinking rapidly. "Damn." was all that he managed to get out.

"The manner will be dealt with, I can assure you of that." The hand on his injured chest finally withdrew as he stood again, adjusting his robes carefully.

"I wish I could come."

"You aren't going anywhere for some time. The matter can be discussed when you heal."

As he started to turn to leave he heard Nihlus' voice behind him, quiet but clear over the faint humming and beeping of the machines connected to him. "Could I get a kiss first?"

Saren half turned his head very slowly, giving him a look.

"Come on Saren, just one. Please?"

He should have ignored it. But the look on that young face was... Spirits give him strength it was too much to deny him this one indulgence when he could have died. Three long-legged steps took him back and he tilted Nihlus' chin up slightly with a hand to touch their mouthplates in the alien gesture his friend was fond of for reasons he'd never understood. He finished it by brushing the tip of his tongue down the cream tattoo lines running down his mouth and withdrew, heading towards the docks.

He wanted to stay, but want was irrelevant when there was work to do.

"You can't replace the whole crew Saren."

"If it is to be my ship I need a free hand in it."

Sparatus eyed him over the vid link, frowning. "I'm well aware of your dislike for humans, but these ones know how to run your ship. Bring on additional crew if you like but you can't throw all the humans off just to suit your tastes."

"Then I will use my own ship that does not necessitate a crew."

"That's where I'm going to have to stop you. This is politics Saren and completely out of your hands. You'll command the Normandy, you'll keep the humans on board and you'll find this lunatic and bring him in."

"Or kill him."

"At least try to bring him in" Sparatus sighed with near pleading in his subvocals. "I know he shot your student but Kryik will live, and the Council would very much like to know what in seven hells made him snap like that. It's possible we could even clear the mark against Kryik's judgement if it proves to be something unforeseeable. After all, who in the last 50,000 years has had contact with an intact Prothean beacon? Spirits know what the damn things even do."

"This could have all been solved if a search team had been sent out to capture Shepard after it occurred."

"If they hadn't left when they did Kryik would have died. The Normandy's Commander made a judgement call and you're lying out your ass if you try to say he should have done different."

Point taken. Saren gritted his mandibles to his face, looking up from the schematics he had spread out around him of his new ship's layout towards the digital Councilor projected in an alcove. "And this mystery ship?"

"Geth most likely. There was a quarian mechanic onboard who they wired footage of tracks and dead colonists' injuries and she identified them."

He avoided retorting that geth were impossible because he had seen far too much in his twenty-four years as a Spectre to discount it. Instead he focused on another comment. "There was a quarian on an Alliance ship?"

"A krogan as well. Shepard picked them up for the crew before leaving the Citadel."

"Mh." The files had spoken about his having a propensity for aliens. A gesture dismissed the screens of blueprints and crew reports as he stood. "Councilor, thank you for your time but I have business to attend to." Sparatus managed to give him one last warning look before the link was disengaged, leaving the Spectre alone in the Normandy's conference room.

So he was being forced to keep them. Saren's face twisted momentarily in disgust before fading back to his neutral expression as he strode towards the door. It hissed shut behind him as he began to trace out the interior of his new ship, a pale shadow in the low light. She was quiet now with the crew on leave for the time being. He preferred her that way, a shame it would not last. And a shame the humans had held her so long; she was a beautiful vessel and he doubted they could appreciate her sleek turian aesthetics.

This was perhaps the fifth time he had walked the course of the Normandy. He knew her halls, the specs of the IES system, the service histories of her crew, how much time it took the airlock to cycle, any minor element that could become important. Perhaps there was overreaction in it but he had flown his giliath-class strike craft for the entirety of his Spectre career and he knew her every inch. He could not hope for that familiarity with the Normandy but he could try. Especially with the unpredictable elements being forced on him.

He was examining the galaxy map when the first irritant showed itself; a clanking behind him that let out a yelp when it turned the corner into the CIC. "Who the hell are- Hey, that's classified shit in there! Turn that off!" the human called, hopping towards him on crutches.

Saren didn't bother turning his head or injecting anything resembling pleasantness into his tone. "This is my ship, I believe that grants me access."

It took a moment for it to sink into the man's brain who he was, and it was clear by the way he nearly lost his footing and tumbled down the ramp that his reputation had proceeded him. The human clambered back down to the floor but didn't leave, 'insubordinate' written into the lines of the hairy face.

"Pardon, sir, but I don't see why it is your ship. We already have a Commander and he's damn good at his job. That Spectre shouldn't have been here in the first place and it's not Anderson's problem what happened on the ground."

"He was in command. That makes it his responsibility." Did he have to explain even the simplest concepts to these aliens?

"Pardon my French but that's bullshit. That guy should have watched his own ass, and I don't see why we need another Spectre on my baby as soon as we get rid of the last one."

In the low light of the frigate the galaxy map was brilliant; reflecting back up into his eyes and painting his face paler than it was. Saren was aware of himself enough to know that his features were unsettling to humans, the lighting making it even more so as he slowly turned his head and locked eyes with him. "A shame you will find me much more difficult to remove then, Mr. Moreau. You would have fared better with Nihlus Kryik. Now if you would return to your job."

Good, that seemed to properly cow him as he limped back to the bridge. Regrettable the human was talented. It would have been so easy to break him with none the wiser.

He would not suffer this mission surrounded by humans. Sparatus had said he could hire additional crew and by the Spirits he would have proper turian soldiers. Orange light flared across the room with the activation of his omnitool as he put through a call to an old friend. The conversation with Orinia was short, pleasant and productive; yes there was a Special Ops team that could be there within six hours, and yes her niece was faring much better since his intercession in her little problem. That dealt with, he ran the keystrokes to issue the order to the crew to return to duty at 0900 the next morning.