"Hi, Mom."
"Hello, dear. This is a nice surprise. Are you back on the Citadel?"
"Yes, I am."
"That's good. You look well."
"Thanks."
Shepard bit her lip.
"About the Citadel. I heard there was a Navy Ball not too long ago."
"Oh, yes, there was! I'm so sorry you had to miss it. I think I have some nice pictures if you want me to send them over."
"That'll be great. So. I also heard the Councilors were there."
"Yes. Between the speeches and the eating and dancing, I just didn't have any chance to speak with any of them. I did meet some fun STG, though."
"They can be," Shepard agreed. "I called because of one of the Councilors, actually. Sparatus."
"Which one is that?"
"The turian Councilor."
"I think he was at my table. Yes, he was. What about him?"
"I heard some talk. It looks like, well, he might call you."
"Oh, dear. Does it have to do with you? Because if you're in trouble-"
"No, no. I'm not. I just heard that he might have thought that you were flirting with him and that he'd call."
"Well."
Hannah pursed her lips, trying to recall if she in fact did flirt with him.
"I can't say that makes sense. I only just said hello, when we were all seated. Didn't say a word otherwise."
"That..." Shepard winced inwardly. Keep it broad. That's it. "Turians have certain gestures that they interpret as flirting, so-"
"Oh. Oh, is it like accidentally bidding on something at auction because you scratched your ear? Oh, dear," Hannah laughed a little.
"Something like that."
"If he calls, then he calls," Hannah shrugged. "It's not like I even know the man."
And because no matter how long they've been apart, Shepard's dubious facial expression caused Hannah some alarm.
"Is there something I should know about him?"
"He's a little rigid-"
"Only a little?" Hannah raised an eyebrow.
And then, her daughter's face went blazing red and Hannah couldn't help laughing.
"... Mom!" Shepard wailed, trying to regain composure.
"... Go on, then," Hannah put a hand to her mouth.
"I mean," Shepard set her mouth in a line. "That as a Councilor, he's not too much on compromising. Though he has gotten better about it and trusting my judgment. I just know him as one of my bosses. He- He's not Garrus. That's what I wanted to say."
Hannah nodded. He wasn't Garrus. She hadn't gotten to know Garrus too well, but there was more than enough time to see that he had a sense of humor and made her daughter enormously happy.
"We'll see when we get there. He might not even go through with doing anything. Right?"
"Let's just say I've worked with turians enough to know when something becomes an action item."
"Alright. Then tell me what to expect. You seem nervous. Have I offended him by accident?"
Her daughter shrugged.
"He wouldn't be rude about it. You're my Mom," Shepard grinned. "He'd be in trouble. No matter that he's one of my bosses."
Hannah smiled back.
"Then in that case, I'll just use my own judgment. Can't say I've been dating, but I'm sure I haven't forgotten all of it."
"Mom, are you okay with the idea of him calling you?"
"I don't know, actually," Hannah replied after some thought. "Maybe I wouldn't be if I didn't have your example."
"Fair enough."
They then chatted some more before saying goodbye. All in all, it didn't turn out to be quite the ordeal Shepard thought it would be.
After the call, Hannah took the time to look Sparatus up on the extranet. The photos jogged her memory. He was striking to look at and actually, now that she was looking, it was just too bad she didn't have an opinion of him from the Navy Ball. She was also not insensible to what an occasion it was to have a man in his position pay attention to her.
"I still got it," she smiled to herself.
It was in fact, such a rare sort of occasion that she couldn't quite believe it all the way, though her daughter was such a truth teller. Hannah shrugged to herself. Until he calls, it's all rather hypothetical.
Sparatus doesn't want to remember. He's spent too much time, actually, remembering. On some sort of strange autopilot, he'd just sit and his eyes shut and he's back in that room again.
He has been aware that he moved in a rarefied bubble, where he encounters few humans and of those humans, he has only known the extraordinary, by way of skill in the case of those in the military, or by way of raw ambition when it came to politics.
Here, all rank levels of the Alliance Navy were represented. He has the opportunity, like he has never had before, to observe humans of the military; he knows the insignias of rank.
They are like and unalike, familiar and not to turians. Here, a small group of enlisted who were friends, and they moved like the strong young men and women that they are. There, an even smaller line of the higher ranked officers, standing with their spouses. They are greeted by those below them in rank, as is proper.
It is all rather ordinary. Except that in a way, even the lowest ranked guest here is not ordinary, for they were of the 3% of humanity who volunteered.
He makes his way to his table. He is sharing the meal with Admirals, some STG and asari commandos. He makes just the slightest pause when he is introduced to Admiral Shepard.
While they sit and go through the first speech (first of many, if he knew formal occasions) he looks at her. There is something of Spectre Shepard in her looks. She is not in dress uniform. She's chosen to appear in a long gown and he is suddenly curious as to why she chose to be different.
There is a ceremony involving flags.
There is a somber ceremony, wherein the humans honored the spirits of the dead from battle. It is yet another thing that Sparatus had not known would feel familiar to him.
There is, unfortunately, another speech.
And then, there was the ludicrous creation of something he would not even deign to consider a cocktail, called the Ceremonial Punch. The humans present laughed and whooped and made great fuss as more and more varieties of alcohol were added to the mix. There was some pretense towards tradition for each choice, but it clearly must be a tale, as actual tradition would be more proper, surely. He was mildly shocked when in what seemed like ritualized torture, the youngest lieutenant in the room was marched up to the concoction and made to sample it. As a test. He drank.
And collapsed backwards towards the floor.
Sparatus nearly rose in alarm, when one of the STG operatives sitting next to him put a hand on his shoulder.
"No worry. Pantomime. Traditional. Establishes a symbolic baseline toxicity of the Punch."
Sparatus had only a moment to compose himself when one of the Admirals at his table stood up and made their way to the punch. He spoke what seemed to be a rehearsed speech, a boast about how no mere green stripling could take measure of the Punch; this was to be done by a seasoned warrior.
How absolutely krogan this whole spectacle was, he thought, as the Admiral was given a mug of that stuff and the whole room made a cheer that was near deafening as he drank it all down without stopping for breath. The Admiral slammed the mug down and emitted a short bark of a war cry, which the room immediately echoed.
After this feat of strength, an actual line formed from guests vying for a cup of the Punch.
Sparatus could see that the Admiral who was the example was already turning an alarming shade of red and was tilting a little in his chair. He waved off any assistance, laughing that all he needed was some protein and he could go back for seconds.
What insane bravado. Sparatus was mildly impressed.
He listened with some interest to the guest next to him elaborating that in gatherings like these, it was all secure part of tradition; the youngest LT and the highest ranking officer the organizers of the gathering could get their hands on. This particular Ball was large, in celebration of the Alliance Navy as a whole. Smaller affairs were down to ship level; frigates like the Normandy.
… Given the way the guests were downing cups of the Punch, he suddenly gained epiphany behind the catastrophic antics of Shepard's horrid Normandy Reunion Parties.
He looked across the table to Admiral Shepard, in her beautiful gown, and the knowledge that even she, as ladylike in that moment as Tevos, at least once a year, would as a duty of her rank, guzzle down something akin to ryncol made him stare incredulously.
When the line was dispersed, their food was served and people settled into eating and conversation.
It was an unfortunate constant with catering that the food was merely acceptable. His steak had the odd audacity to be both under and overcooked, which he could not account for. Well. Unless precisely half of the grill was working, he thought. That would explain it.
He got most of it down, to a comfortable level of fullness, when he had the grave misfortune of looking up.
It wasn't as if Admiral Shepard made any move to explicitly gain his attention.
No, he'd gone over it enough to make a drell bored; she wasn't even looking at him.
She'd brought one hand to her wrist and undid a button.
What was the meaning of this?
He watched, as she continued, bit by bit undoing those buttons, flashing a little bit of slim wrist as she went.
He glanced around, fearfully. Nobody was noticing. How was this possible?
She had no more buttons to undo.
Sparatus glared at her, most severely, but she didn't even look up, as she, and Sparatus remembered that he was quite choking from surprise, started teasing open her other glove.
Oh. Oh, Spirits, this was just too, too- too much!
The heat of the room started to overcome him, the droning of the speech, the dull roar of conversation all around him, the flickering lights from the dining table centerpieces, it all made a surreal cushion on all his senses.
Except for sight, and he was bewitched by what he was seeing.
She was undressing-!
One pull, one more, and that long glove slid right off of her arm and she was so exposed, he felt a lurch in the whole of his body. He could've whimpered.
She kept up her tortures, the cruel temptress, and he remembered just a glimpse of her other hand, naked, right before he made his escape.
Oh, he cursed mentally, as he looked down. He'd gone and undone his pants while thinking about it.
Stop right this moment, he chastised himself.
It wasn't any good.
His seam was parted already and he let go, feeling terrifically dirty as he traced it, parted it more, and pretended that when his cock slid out into his grip that it was actually in her hands.
Why? He cried out wordlessly as his eyes dropped shut and he sped up, tensing up in the thighs.
He knew. It was like some ridiculous, unbelievable scenario out of Fornax; something about being in public, it was always in public, and- and the lady, because she was the height of propriety, would lead you on, get your guard down, make you think nothing was untoward, but it was all a delicious trick, because she'd get you in the end, she'd start by stripping out of her gloves, and she'd come to you and touch you, you must not move or make any sound, they'd notice and it would be so shameful- so awful they'd see you in her hands- you don't want anybody but her seeing you when you come-
"Hsh-!" Sparatus arched hard as he shot.
He lay still, only his mandibles making little twitches.
But it was real, he treacherously remembered. Not something in a magazine, he had known life before seeing her hands and now he knew life after seeing them. And right now? His mind spun out, deliriously greedy for the possibilities, the many ways it could've played out, imagination and memory making a kind of special Punch all on its own to blow his sensibleness away.
He stretched and rolled over, slowly.
How am I ever going to get any work done now, he thought, as he fell asleep.
tbc
