Kolyat had never considered himself lucky before, but recent events were starting to change his mind.
He had fouled up an assassination attempt without having to go to jail, he was basically a snitch and hadn't been found out, yet. He had taken the beating of his life, and survived. Yet the event he considered the luckiest was that he was still in Haron's apartment.
He didn't know what had come over him, when he kissed the turian. One minute, he was listening to Haron talk about one thing or another, and the next thing he knew, he was planting one on him, full on the lips or lip plates or whatever turians had. Saying he had done it to shut him up would be a stretch, and it was nowhere near true. Kolyat didn't know why he did it, but in that brief instant, it was all he'd wanted. That, and to curl up next to Haron on the couch and sleep, but he could think of a few things wrong with that idea. Haron had looked as shocked as a turian could when he'd pulled away, and it was then that Kolyat knew that he'd made a mistake. Before he could apologize, Haron had started talking so quickly, his translator struggled to keep up.
The next day when Haron glazed over that part of the evening when they'd discussed their plans. Kolyat wasn't sure if he was relieved or hurt. The kiss had caught them both by surprise, and neither seemed to know how to deal with it. If Haron was going to act like it hadn't happened, it would probably be best if he didn't make waves. That said, he was determined not to fuck up for as long as he could manage, even if that meant sitting here, bored. It wasn't like he could do much, anyway with his fat eye and a broken rib. He hadn't even bothered with getting dressed. The apartment was at a good temperature, and it wasn't like anyone would see him, so he felt no need.
Two hours of lying on the couch, skimming trash television later, he couldn't take it anymore. Haron asked him not to leave, so he wouldn't. There had to be something around that could occupy him.
Poking around on Haron's terminal probably wasn't a good idea. It was invasive, and Haron probably wouldn't appreciate it. Kolyat remembered he wanted to keep the contents of his own terminal back home a secret from his aunt. He kept repeating these things to himself as he sat down in front of it.
There was no password, so it was easy enough to get in, but the contents of the computer didn't even make his attempt at snooping feel worth it. No incriminating pictures, no oddly named folders, no telltale hyperlinks. How could one person be so bland? There were a few games installed, but nothing Kolyat could look at without it throwing up flags.
Kolyat moved to shut the system down, but stopped when a folder caught his eye. There, staring at him from just above the trash icon was a folder labeled Vacation.
Kolyat's mouth twitched. He shouldn't do this. It was obviously something personal and...
Click.
The folder popped open and populated the screen with thumbnail. They were from a vacation that Haron went on with an asari who must have been Shatira. She was a pale blue speckled with purples and pinks. She was pretty to look at, even for an asari, and seemed to know it. They were at some tropical resort, with sand and sea in the background. It reminded Kolyat of Kahje a little bit, not that he got to spend much time on its beaches.
In nearly every picture of her, and there were a lot of them, Shatira smiled, trying to charm whomever was holding the camera. Haron, for his part was just...there. He didn't look thrilled, but he didn't look upset. When he did smile, with mandibles spread apart and eyes squinted to half their size, it looked like Shatira had forced him. He didn't look happy. But kicking up his feet, on a beach, with a beautiful mate, why wouldn't he?
Kolyat shut down the terminal, feeling very guilty. He shouldn't have seen that, but he had. He couldn't recall everseeing Haron happy, really happy. Not at the end of one of their projects, not at the end of the day, when he got to come back here. He didn't look particularly sad, but it was rare for him to smile. His emotional register seemed to be confined to a range of bland beige.
He had a good job, family, a girlfriend, and even without her, the first two things were still pretty good. What was stopping him? Haron was sociable enough around the office, but more than once, Kolyat witnessed other officers inviting Haron out, but he always declined. That night he'd saved Kolyat from eating a punch, had he been in that bar alone?
Why did Kolyat even care?
Kolyat pushed up from the desk and walked over to Haron's shelves, packed with datapads and little action figures. Some of them he recognized off hand, most of the human ones, he didn't. Kolyat thumbed through datapads, arranged neatly on each shelf. He took one down and flipped through its table of contents. This one had several books on it by authors who sounded human: Steinbeck, Orwell, and King. Kolyat put it back on the shelf. He was noticing a trend here.
He searched through the datapads until he found a few that bore names he was familiar with, and brought them over to the couch. He'd seen Nekyia Corridorin theatres, just like everyone else in Citadel space, but the novelization was better.
He'd read it through two times before, on various shuttle rides, but that didn't stop him from sitting down to read it a third time. He knew what would happen, and how it would end, but something about sharing the experiences with the characters made him want to read it all over again.
He read until his eyes started to sting. He set the book aside, and went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Without the distraction of the book, Kolyat's mind immediately went back to his current predicament. What else but luck could have stuck him together with Haron? Any other officer probably wouldn't keep tabs on him. Any other officer wouldn't have let him in after the trouble he'd gotten himself into. Any other officer wouldn't have cared... So why did he?
The front door opened, rescuing him from himself. He toweled his face dry and headed out to meet Haron. The turian stooped over next to the couch, looking at the stack of datapads Kolyat had left there. Haron straightened as Kolyat entered the room. His gaze ran over the drell, before centering on his face.
"Welcome back." Kolyat spoke first, to try to cut the tension. As he came around the couch, Haron gathered up the datapads from the floor.
"I see you've been busy," Haron said, once he had found his voice.
"Yeah... Sorry. I would have asked, but I don't have your comm number." Or a comm….
"No big deal. I just ask that you keep them off the floor, though." Haron sat on the couch and placed the datapads on the coffee table. He picked up the one Kolyat had been reading, and skimmed it. "Nekyia, huh?"
Kolyat flopped into Haron's armchair, that wasn't as comfortable as it looked. "It's a good story."
"Oh, it is, it is. I just didn't peg you as the type." Haron bit off the last word, realizing his faux pas.
"What 'type' did you peg me as?" Kolyat figured he didn't really mean anything by it, but it still stung. He probably saw him the same way everyone else seemed to; just some thick, boneheaded—
"You just strike me as a man of action. You seem like you'd rather be on the move, rather than...read." He added, "You could have just watched it."
"You can't move all the time. It wasn't practical to bring a holo projector with me. It could have been stolen. I didn't have an omintool." Not to mention he couldn't afford one. Why did it seem that all their conversations came back around to point out just how much he lacked? He pressed on. "Datapads are easy to shove into the bottom of a bag, and there's plenty of open domain stuff floating around the extranet." Kolyat shrugged. "And sometimes I like to use my imagination. What's your excuse?"
"Me?" The question caught the officer off guard, and Kolyat couldn't help delighting in his confusion. If this was the real Haron, where did that cock-sure facade he put on at the station come from?
"I never would have pegged you as the type to have the movie, the book of the movie, and the poster. You've got a lot of things I never would have suspected." Kolyat gestured to the wall hangings that were tasteful and ridiculous at once. A promotional poster for Blasto the Jellyfish Stings hung on the wall between two large windows, another for Nekyia Corridor clung to the opposite wall.While beautifully done, they looked painfully out of place with the carefully chosen furniture, which smacked of an asari's influence. The posters had probably gone up after she'd left. It was hard to imagine there was such a huge gap between the officer he was outside, and the geek he was in his home.
"I don't need an excuse. It's my apartment; I'll put what I want in it," Haron huffed, indignant.
"Yes, sir," Kolyat said with an imitation of the salute he'd seen C-Sec officers give their betters. Blue-gray eyes narrowed in annoyance, and Kolyat tried not to laugh aloud.
"I've got some news," Haron said, purposely ignoring Kolyat's triumphant grin. "I cleared up your living situation."
"Oh," Kolyat said crestfallen. He had hoped he could stay a little longer. Haron's was the first decent place he'd stayed since he'd left his relatives, and started out on his ill-fated quest to find answers. Thinking back on it now, he should have stayed where he was. He made a mental note of where his belongings were. When Haron said the word, he'd try his best to get out of his way with a minimum of fuss. He just hoped he'd at least let him spend one more night. "So where am I headed?" He tried to sound nonchalant about the whole affair, still considering himself privileged to have hung around this long.
"Bailey thinks it would be best if you stayed here."
Kolyat looked over at Haron, surprised he'd even told Bailey that he was in his place to begin with. "What do you think?"
Haron watched him, his face as neutral as Kolyat had ever seen it. He clicked his teeth together in what Kolyat suspected was agitation. "It's alright."
Kolyat wasn't convinced. Haron's mandibles flapped like tiny wings along his jaw, in a way that Kolyat had never seen before. When their eyes met, Haron quickly looked away, staring at the stack of datapads.
"If you don't want me here, I'll go." Kolyat had no idea where he would go, but if Haron didn't want him here, he wouldn't stay. He felt guilty enough for all Haron had done for him so far, he didn't want to be more of an inconvenience to him if he could help it. Besides, Kolyat would probably make a terrible housemate.
"I'm okay with it, really." Haron cleared his throat, finally looking at Kolyat again. His expression softened; his mandibles stilled and his teeth didn't click together this time. Kolyat relaxed. "Since you'll be here for a while," Haron said, returning to his normal self, "we're going to have to lay down a couple of rules." Kolyat raised a disapproving brow to have Haron ignored it. "But first things first; we've got to you off this couch before you wear a permanent groove in it."
They went to the one door in the apartment that had remained closed since Kolyat had come there. The door glided open and the two were met with a mound of discarded clothes, old OSDs, and about a million shoes all covered in a fine layer of dust. A private terminal and all its peripherals were set against a wall.
"This was a guestroom at some point, but Shatira used it as her workspace. She considered herself a designer or celebrity dresser or something. I don't know what she goes by now, though." He shrugged. Haron didn't seem keen on talking about her, or himself much, so Kolyat had never asked, but now that he was talking, Kolyat let him, trying to glean what he could from their conversation. Haron nodded towards the mess. "I figure it's about time to get rid of this stuff, and you can stay in here." Haron put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room. "I know there's a bed buried in here somewhere."
Guilt zipped through Kolyat again. This looked like a huge undertaking, and they were going to do this, now, just so he could stay here? "I'm fine on the couch."
Haron sighed. "We've been over this. Anything I do for you, I do because I want to, not because I'm obligate." He crouched down and rooted through a box with large, black and green feathers poking out of it. "It's not like I'm going to do all this work myself. You'll have to earn it. Now help me move that machine out of here." Kolyat didn't argue again.
A few tiring hours later, all of Shatira's things were boxed and in the foyer by the front door, and Kolyat was alone in the room, his room. He hadn't had a space he could call his own in a long time. To have the feeling again actually felt pretty good.
He flopped back against the fresh sheets and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. They had discussed a few rules over dinner: Kolyat could do whatever he wanted to make the room his own: that meant painting, hanging posters, whatever he needed. He could use the terminal, too, if he wanted, after Haron cleaned it out. The information on it was probably no longer relevant, anyway.
In the morning, Haron would add Kolyat's profile to the security system so he could come and go as he pleased, so long as he was back by the curfew the Spiral Arms had set.
Kolyat didn't think he'd be staying here with Haron long enough to feel at home, but the invitation made him hopeful, despite the voice in his head warning him otherwise.
Drifting off to sleep where he'd collapsed, he had a smile on his face.