It was another evening, and it was the end of the week. Marik decided he didn't like the cold emptiness of his apartment, and asked Vuren if he wanted to drink again. Vuren said he could possibly bear another night of serious drinking before calling it a day, or perhaps a week. They ended up in the exact same bar as the night before, much to Marik's protests.
"Cheaper than the Dark Star Lounge," Vuren had said. Marik begrudgingly went along, but in reality he was just waiting for the next drink.
"Another, human," said Vuren, pushing his glass hard enough that it glided across the surface of the bar. It was an hour later, and they had four drinks so far. She caught it in her hand angrily and put it into the dirty washing rack.
"Another what, turian?" she snapped. Her temper was being provoked.
"Talk to me like that again and I'll have to file in a complaint like those asari," warned Vuren. Marik realised he'd been studying her a little too closely. Her hands looked strange, as he watched her make the drinks. He'd seen human hands, but hers didn't look like all the others.
"I have a name, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me 'human,'" she said now making a round of cocktails for a salarian/asari group after cleaning up. There was no reply from Vuren, and she took her time in making the drinks for the other group before returning to them. By the time she'd returned, Marik wanted another round.
"So what awful human music is playing now?" he suddenly asked her. She froze a little, before continuing.
"It's not human," she stated, unscrewing the lid of a large bottle and pouring it into the glass on the bar. She ignored him after that.
Five drinks later, Vuren made his goodbyes, and left, making excuses. Marik didn't blame him. Everyone knew he was prone to alcoholism – his greatest shame and the root of his 'polite' dismissal from the military. They gave him an advisor's job to the politicians and he hated them for it. Some bastard knew this, some bastard wanted to see him squirm in a distinctly un-military setting. Some lone salarian an hour later set near him at the bar and ordered something he'd never see before – something disgusting and large in a tall beaker. He began talking animatedly to the female bartender, who was trying her best to ignore everyone and everything.
"I've been studying human physiology for a while now. Fascinating. Genetically diverse," he said to the bartender.
She didn't say anything as she continued making a cocktail, shoving the citrus fruit onto the side of the glass with barely-concealed frustration. This intensely annoying salarian kept talking while she 'hmm-d' and 'uh-huhed' until he mentioned her fingers that were busy currently cutting up more citrus fruit.
"Those misaligned bones in your fingers. I can re-set them. Potentially problematic in human medicine, but not for a salarian. How long ago did it happen? Hm. Very interesting. In the past human medicine had to break malunionised bones in order to realign them. I can do so without…er…the painful re-breaking."
"Thanks but no thanks," she said to him. "I don't want to talk about it."
"It looks like they were broken under force. I can also advise that you-"
"You hear me, baldie? I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, and went to take the cocktails to a human/asari group.
Marik frowned into his drink. He'd see plenty of broken human bones in his time, ones that had broken under the strain of his own body. Their bone structure was too weak, as well as their skin. He never understood the evolutionary need for four fingers.
He had an odd feeling that he'd previously known her - that she'd been someone that he'd come across her in the 'war' as humans termed it. There was something too familiar about her voice and eyes. Humans looked all the same to him. But not this one.