-Garrus-

He doesn't know how much time passes before he finds himself stumbling just at the threshold of their - his - apartment, managing to catch himself on his knees just before crashing into the hard floor of the entryway. His head is pulsing to his heartbeat with a dulled sensation that does nothing to cover the pain of loss and his left hand is clamped tightly around the neck of a heavy bottle that he can only hope offers some relief, even if it only comes from complete dissociation and haze.

His throat burns with the tell-tale sting of most likely spending his missing hours already doing just that somewhere on the Citadel, but he sees no problem in continuing his failing attempt to drown out the high keen that rings in his own ears or the burning turmoil in his gizzard. Looking at his free hand, he vaguely recognizes he is ungloved, his talons chipped and his knuckles raw and tinged with a swirling mix of colors.

He wipes himself off on his chest plate, leaving a smear of fluids that leaves his attentions as quickly as it had come, and bites off the tight cap of the bottle in his hand, dropping the useless trash to be forgotten on the floor. The lip of the bottle replaces it just in a breath and he tips it to let the burning liquid rush down his throat, swallowing until his lungs burn and scream for air.

He gasps, the sound like wheezes around the low growling keen of pain, and drags himself up off the floor, his mind not clear on his destination, but knowing he doesn't want to sit on the damn floor. He nearly falls again, managing to catch himself against the wall as his talons leave long gashes in the plaster, and he clutches nearly full bottle to his chest like a life-line. With clenched mandibles, he pushes off the wall and forces his heavy feet on, the empty feeling in his chest growing the closer he gets to his destination before he washes it away with another long draw of his drink.

Just like his entry into their - his - apartment, he stumbles over the threshold of their -his - bedroom, but its cause isn't his level on intoxication as much as it's the gravity of the room, the shifting of the air that sucks the fetid breath from his lungs and makes his blood suddenly run like ice. Their scents - her scent - hits his tongue and washes the bitterness of drink away, and his gizzard lurches, his throat clenches in dry heaves, as he throws his hands to his temples.

The connection of glass bottle to his plates is completely overcome by the sudden tearing in his chest, the searing burn that runs through his spine and blooms into an inferno under his skull. His right hand presses against his skull as his left tightens hard enough to pull a low crackling from the glass in his grip, but it doesn't help to dull the pain. He growls, he whimpers, he keens, he screams, as reality cuts through his alcohol induced stupor like a knife.

Jane is gone. The only person in this damn galaxy is gone and he wasn't there. He wasn't there to keep the only promise he ever truly wanted to keep, the only promise that meant more than anything in his pathetic life. He couldn't protect her.

He growls at his selfish neglect, the talons of his free hand scratching down his plates – and how he wishes he hadn't dulled them so they would leave some kind of mark – and he throws the bottle in his hand without any clear target. He doesn't flinch at the crash and tinkling of glass, even letting his mandibles twitch in sadistic satisfaction in the fact that the action brought to light the dull ache in his shoulder – most likely from whatever caused the blood on his knuckles – but his twisted sense of joy is short-lived as he's snapped out of it but a distinctly, un-bottle-like crash.

His head whips towards the sound and his eyes widen at the sight of a black shape lying amongst the broken glass and foul smelly liquor just within the doorway of their - his - closet. He rushes to the fallen object with a subharmonic mix of an apologetic chirrup and keen before his drunken mind even recognizes the victim of his rage, falling to his knees in an unsteady kneel.

He pulls Jane's guitar into his lap, running his shaking hand over its surface in any attempt to find damage, but it doesn't take long before his palm becomes heavy and his breaths fast against his vocal cries of grief. How he wishes his unyielding body could shed tears, could try to release the pain that presses outwards against his plates in any attempt to escape as it clenches his body in a tight grip of agony. He drops his head to the smooth surface of the instrument and just lets his hot and unsteady breath pant against the lacquer, creating clouds of condensation as it fans across the surface, but it doesn't help to stop the piercing cry in his throat.

Pulling the life-less guitar to his armored chest he holds it close, wishing – demanding – that it isn't true, that maybe just this once, something in his worthless existence hasn't fallen through his fingers like grains of sand. I curses Spirits he doesn't believe in for taking from him the only thing he could ever love and promises to anything that will listen that he would give anything for this day to have been a lie, for her to walk through that door – hell, even message him that she was fine.

But they can't hear him, they never could, because they never really existed. He knows this, like the heated piercing of a bullet straight through his plates, as he releases the guitar, letting it fall to the floor before his knees. The human instrument is just that, an instrument, an object that carries so part of her and one that cannot replace her in his arms. It doesn't even smell like her, instead like wood and the odd cleaner she would wipe over its surface.

He tightens his fists at his sides, his talons biting into the already raw skin of his palms, and his ragged voice bursts out of his chest in a stuttered growl that mixes with his hurt vocals in a way that grates against even his own ears, but he doesn't care to clamp down on himself. What good is it to hide his grief? What good had self-preservation ever been? How many chances had he lost – and will never get back – by keeping himself tightly controlled?

The only time he ever truly felt happy was with her and that solitary truth burns like bile in his throat and makes his heart beat unsteady in silent threat. A threat to follow his bondmate into the void and he can't really see much of a reason not to let it, not to take the initiative to hasten the process. It isn't uncommon for Turian bondmates to follow each other in death when there is nothing to hold them to live, and what else is there for him here without her?

His eyes gaze at the hanging clothes he once wore in a life that once had someone else in it, with a body that had a second soul and a soul that had a second body, and he struggles to keep his mind from just seeing the shreds of cloth as anything but ceremonial robes of corpses. His heart may be beating – for however long thatwill last – but he is with her and he can't bring himself to see anything before his eyes as something other than a line in a declaration of possessions of the deceased.

All except for a single shred of white at the far end, nearly pressed against the wall. He recognizes it immediately and drops his head into his hands, wailing high and loud at the memories that flood through the fragile barrier he had created with hours of suspected alcohol and violence. He is up on his feet before he knows it, before he can stop his shattered mind for the better good, and he's stunned at the speed his drunken body makes it to the article of clothing to run the smooth fabric over and through his trembling hands.

This was her dress when we were wed, he thinks with quaking mandibles and vocals. She was absolutely beautiful. She was happy. Iwas happy.

He groans at the lurch his heart makes, like it's trying to beat its way out of his body in a suicide attempt to free itself from the anguish, and he holds the fabric to his muzzle. His voice is as shaky as his hands as he pulls the dress from its hangar and clutches it to his body to try and speaks nonsense into the white fabric in a futile attempt to call to his mate from beyond. His breaths aren't fluid, short gasps coming in time with heavy whiffs, as he tries to surround himself with the scent of that day as he tries to desperately fool his broken heart and mind.

He collapses against the surface at his knees, falling into the tormenting smells of their shared bed, and he cries out with both vocals until his voice is hoarse, his lungs burning as he nearly hyperventilates to catch air. Her dress is still gripped tightly in his talons and he lays, his knees pulled as far up to his chest at the cumbersome armor will allow, among the pillows and blankets that drown him in an entirely different intoxication. The alcohol seems to finally be hitting his system enough to overpower his inconsolable misery as he begins to drift to a frantic sleep, surrounded by her scent and his useless memories that will never compare to the reality he has lost.

V.v.V.v.V.v.V

The pain doesn't get better over the days between losing half of his soul at the posted date of her public funeral – which he is sure is just some stunt to further Jane's image for the Alliance and humanity – and Garrus has taken to not returning to their - his - home after the bars kick him out for causing a scene or intoxication. He can't take the constant onslaught of memories that break through his meticulously created drunken haze the second he steps through the threshold or the dreams her scent brings to his disjointed sleep.

Any C-Sec agents seem to give him a wide birth, possibly due to his unmasked vocals quickly explaining more than any words would, and he usually finds some new place to black out for a few hours before starting all over again. It's a curtesy he neither wants nor needs, but he'll accept the fact that it limits his interactions with anyone that doesn't consist of ordering a refill from the bartender so he'll just ignore the knowing looks from the Turians he once called co-workers.

It's in some bar he doesn't remember the name of that a familiar group of aliens approach the dark corner he has tried to claim as the location of today's attempt to see if he can succumb to alcohol poisoning. He growls as the shapes take a more recognizable form into his former squadmates - hersquadmates – and he tightens the hold on his glass as he glares up at all of the colors of eyes in a mix of pity, sympathy, and even disapproval.

"Don't you have a funeral to go to?" he barely gets in a raspy, underused voice that he barely recognizes as his own and makes a few of the younger intruders wince.

"We were," the former Gunnery Chief says sternly, her arms crossing over her chest. "But we thought you'd like to attend, seeing as how she was yourcommander just as much as she was ours."

He isn't moved by the clear distaste in the woman's expression and voice, knowing Williams may have only tolerated him for the sake of their shared mission and not really because of any real comradery, and his answer is to only finish his glass in a single pull, his eyes never leaving hers. She scoffs in short-fought defeat, remarks something about proper respects, and doesn't hesitate to leave the Turian to soak in his sorrow, her hand griping the Lieutenant that seems lost in his grief – which Garrus is much too drunk to stand and question at the moment.

She might be the easiest to get off my back, he admits with a mandible flick and questions if the blatant racism didn't just come in his favor. He looks to the others expectantly, his eyes clearly stating that they should either hurry up and spit out their meaningless pleas or get the hell out of his space and let him continue his drink alone.

"Garrus, don't you want some peace? It's supposed to be a way to say goodbye, of closure." Tali's hands are clasping and unclasping before her and her breathes are light in what he's sure is half-managed tears, but even the young Quarian he has come to admit as seeing as a sister-figure doesn't seem to cut through his mood.

He sighs, trying to calm his growl enough so that his voice isn't as harsh as the disuse is already making it. "No," he says flatly, "I don't want to go. They aren't honoring her as a person, they're honoring a symbol." Tali drops her head and he waves for another drink from the bar across the way and continues. "It's dishonorable to use her as a means to an end. They did it when she was alive and I won't be a part of it now." He stops himself from saying too much, his vocals already shaking and starting to whine and he doesn't care to see the knowing looks of pity in their eyes.

"But Garrus-"

"No," he snaps and she flinches at the discordant mix of high keen and low growl. "Turians don't mourn over a body – or lack there-of. I will not go to the Alliance's funeral." His voice lowers to just above a whisper, the short-lived fire in his belly dissipating back into that emptiness. "I don't need some political ploy to mourn my wife." The young girl seems to accept that, which is fine because he's tired of explaining himself, and steps back for the waitress to hand over his whatever numbered drink.

Liara, however, has at least one more thing to try and he subtly clenches his grip on his glass to still himself from losing his already shaky temper on the woman. Seeming to see this reaction, she holds up her hands in placation. "I won't try to convince you," she offers with a wavering smile, her lips trembling with the pain that shines in her blue eyes. "I just want to offer something that may ease your pain."

He raises a brow, not really expecting that but still not to the point of caring what the Asari has to say, and she drops her eyes to the ground with her hands moving behind her back. "When I had melded with Shepard," she offers, "she had given me something that was not mine to possess." She lifts her eyes up and smiles weakly, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "It was for you."

He blinks at that, the glass in his grip stopping half-way to his lips, and he narrows his eyes at the young Asari. He remembers Jane telling him once of the way the two had come up with a solution to the melding of minds back on their mission so that she didn't feel like her thoughts were being invaded, but even she didn't actually know if the Asari had managed to see anything. She had said that the woman told her to 'think of something pleasant' as a cue to withdraw, and the concept of something pleasant added to the fact that their relationship had become known to the doctor can only led in one direction.

"No," he says, startling T'Soni in the middle of saying something that just sounded like static in his ears. "I don't want it. As you can see," he raises his glass and slouches the liquid around to prove his point, "I am trying toforget." She drops her eyes to the floor, her shoulders sagging in defeat, and he takes a victory drink that only burns his near-constant raw throat.

"Leave him," Wrex grunts out, standing between the group and the table. "The man doesn't need you telling him out to grieve." The Krogan glances over and Garrus nods in silent appreciation for the only person who seems to see what he really wants. "Now go. Or you'll miss it."

The few remaining stranglers don't put up much fight, between their weakened states from their sadness to his large size, as he herds them away. As Garrus' eyes drop to his glass to glare at the dark liquid that hasn't yet managed to help him to forget as he has been wanting in the days he's been living on it, a loud slam vibrates the surface of the dingy table under his table and sends ripples through his drink.

He growls low in his throat in warning, but doesn't look up in hopes his visitor will get the threatening message and leave him. The sensation of someone in his space doesn't dissipate, so he is left with no choice but to turn his glare upwards, and into the bright red gaze of the Krogan he just thought left.

I'm starting to decidedly lose my respect for this annoying menace, he thinks as he can't help but lower his head and lets his mandible's flare in silent warning that his patience is growing thin. Why can't they just leave me to my guilt?

"Easy, boy," Wrex says which a tone in his voice that actually sounds like sympathy. His eyes drop away from Garrus' stunned expression, the drastic change he never expected from the older man cutting some of his intoxicated haze away, and hands over a credit chit. "Krogan share grief over Ryncol. But you aren't Krogan and you don't want to share anything, so take this and drown your sorrows." Garrus takes the offered chit. "Just don't expect it to work. It's never that easy."

He doesn't stay to let Garrus come up with a remark, his responses still dulled from drink, and the Turian is left to watch the retreating back of the one person since pain and loss took residence under his plates to ever just accept his reasoning and leave him to his suffering. Clutching the chit in his hand, he downs his glass and calls over the waitress so he can begin to see just what kind of allowance the old Krogan has left him. He claims that the burn of alcohol won't numb the pain, but Garrus isn't yet willing to take the man's claim without his own field-testing and he might as well start now while the galaxy seems adamant to bury his wife in a symbolic grave.