Hello, new followers! Live long and prosper! Just to be safe, I'm upgrading this to "M" for light adult content. Anyway, in this chapter, you meet a familiar man. Enjoy!
Secrets and Mercs – the Best Combination
Pallin had Garrus working some kind of side job for Enforcement, so I got the office all to myself...figuratively. There were still the other Investigations workers, like Chellik and and Sanchez. Over all, twelve guys in the office to two women. I was one and the other was Pallin's secretary.
It was always difficult, lacking in female companionship. But I could always get Jason drunk and make him wear a dress. Was that technically the same? ...Maybe not.
The day had been pretty slow. I hadn't been able to pin Fist with anything, so I figured that I would need to do some internal work. Someone had to have been paid off. It just wasn't natural! I'd been in Chora's Den myself and saw the drugs and illegal doings, and yet nothing was being done. And then Pallin had told us we couldn't work on the Fist case, so we were back at square one. Unless...
My mind was already planning a whole different investigation, as was the special program on my omni-tool, when a throat was cleared above my desk. Shocked, I looked up into a pair of stunning hazel eyes. They were surrounded by thick black lashes, below perfectly-shaped, thick eyebrows, and a full head of black, military-length hair. His jaw was firm, his nose strong, his lips full, and his teeth perfectly straight and white.
He was wearing his dress blues, which were stretched across the broadest expanse of chest I had ever seen. Multiple ribbons adorned his chest. His name read VEGA. I may have been drooling by the time he said, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, ma'am, but I'm looking for an Officer Bailey?" He was looking at my newly-minted name plate, which read LUNA-BAILEY in bold letters.
I stood up and smoothed my hands over the front of my pants before I reached my hand out to shake his. "Officer Mía Luna-Bailey, at your service. Are you sure you're looking for me, though?" As far as I knew, I didn't have any scheduled appointments.
"James Vega." The man shook my hand firmly and gave me a rather sexy smirk. "I'm looking at you now, bonita."
The blush that came over my face surprised even myself. Hoo...calm down, girl. Friendly piece of meat looking for your father...calm down. "Woah there, chico. This is not the old man you're looking for."
"Right," he said, standing back with a smug look on his tanned face. "But you're the prettiest old man I've ever seen."
I tried to ignore the look from my fellow turian comrades and crossed my arms under my chest. "Can I help you, Sergeant?"
A switch seemed to flip in his brain, changing his attitude. He suddenly stood up straighter and at attention, looking at me seriously. "Apologies, Ma'am. I just wasn't expecting a bonita like yourself." Hopefully my blush was hidden, but I doubted that it was. "I was told to come here to hire an investigation into a drug cartel. They are selling drugs from here to Earth and back."
This was news. A switch inside me flipped as well. I used my omni-tool to bring up a screen and motioned for the man to sit. "Vamanos, compadre. Sit! Tell me all about it!"
"So you'll take the job?" Vega asked curiously, hesitantly taking the seat.
"Yes," I said instantly, programming a new job into my tool and getting ready for a few extra hours a day. Like I need them. "And you're going to tell me over lunch."
He smiled sexily and nodded, leaning over my desk to look me straight in the eye. "I would love to, Bonita."
"It's Mia," I reminded him, a small smile appearing on my face.
He smiled back and placed a hand over mine. My heart fluttered like it hadn't in a while and a blush filled my cheeks. "I know, but you look like a Bonita."
oOo
Garrus had never seen Mia leave early. In the month that he'd worked with her, she'd only ever clocked out on time once. The only reason she'd clocked out then was because Pallin had made her leave when she was supposed to. So, watching his partner squirm in her seat as she watched the clock, Garrus was surprised.
"Hot date tonight, Mía?" one of her friends, Eddie Lang, asked from the set of computers he was using. Garrus wasn't sure he liked this man—his partner was always with the blonde human, and yet she didn't seem to understand that he was undeniably attracted to her. She insisted that Eddie was her 'best friend.'
Mía smiled and gave the blonde a wink, saying, "You could say that."
"I've never seen you leave on time before," Garrus said with a chuckle, organizing his files on his desk. Just like every other day, they hadn't found much. But Garrus had seen something strange in the logs concerning those missing weapons from the smuggling deal. Something to do with the Blue Suns...
"Just ready to get out of here," she muttered, her leg jiggling up and down nervously beneath her desk.
Eddie Lang, a Probee Enforcement Officer, narrowed his blue eyes a little and stared at Mia, obviously trying to figure out what was going on. "Who is he?"
"He?" Mia asked innocently, cocking her human head to the side.
"Your hot date!"
"I have no clue what you're talking about. Oh, look at the time! Time to clock out!"
"I didn't even know if you knew the quitting time," Garrus said with a snort, "you never use it!"
She stood up and seemed to ignore him for a moment as she scanned herself out of the work day. Her distracted voice came back, saying, "I'll have to be leaving on time from now on. I hope you don't mind."
Garrus really didn't mind. Well, maybe he did. They were getting to about the midpoint of their investigation and if she started slacking off...
"Mia, who is he?" Eddie asked again, looking rather impatient and more than a little jealous.
"Bye!" she called out, almost running away from all of them in her haste to leave. The entire office looked after her in shock. They all knew Mia for an overtime worker. Her leaving early meant something strange was going on.
Eddie strolled over to Garrus, leaning his hip on the desk and looking down at him. "Do you know anything about this?" the human asked. He'd never spoken two words to Garrus before this moment. All Garrus knew was that Mia spent time with him the most out of anyone, this man and the two others.
Come to think of it, I've never seen Mia with another female... Garrus thought, wondering why that was. "No. We're just partners. We don't talk much about our personal lives."
The human looked at him as if he were crazy. "I see you two together all the time!"
What, was this human jealous of everyone? "Like I said, we're partners. Every time you see us together, it's because we're working." He couldn't even think about Mia like that! It didn't even seem right!
"Well...if she's getting herself into some kind of trouble...just make sure she's being smart about it, alright?"
"Right...because I always follow crazy humans into suicide missions."
oOo
The next day was the exact same. Except, before she left, she was putting on some kind of pink shoes on her feet and wrapping them up her legs. And the next day. And the day after that. This continued on for three weeks until they came up with a lead, finally!
"Look," she said, laying down the data pad and standing up. They were back at the Zakera Cafe again, where they'd met up with Admiral Anderson. Mia was, once again, working during lunch. Behind her, the news network droned on about lost Medi-Gel in the loading bay areas and how C-Sec was already on the investigation. It was Chellik's mission, actually. "Do you remember the lost weapons that we could never find?"
"Mia, we've been over this before...the weapons are gone," Garrus groaned, eating some rather under-boiled pyjak. "Now sit down and eat. Your ramen is getting cold."
She gave an irritated huff and sat back down, stuffing the datapad back in her purse. "You know what should be a crime? This food. That man is lying about ramen. It is not a delicacy. It costs about a cred per pack! You boil the noodles in water and then add the seasoning however you feel necessary."
"Go do something about it then, Probee."
"I'm not a probee! And stop making me eat all the time. Humans don't eat as often as turians."
Garrus looked over her face, which was like a pouting child, and then over the rest of her body. He was happy to see that she'd gained a little more weight since they'd been partners. "From what I see, humans eat all the time. Now eat your food and be happy about it. If I didn't make you eat, you'd have withered away by now."
She stuck out her obviously-human tongue at him. He was tempted to reach out and grab it to keep her from retracting it, just to get a better look at it. It had been red and round, nothing like his, and slightly thick.
"Did you just stick your tongue out at me?" he asked, shaking his head at her. He was actually slightly amused. It seemed rather...childish.
"Yes," she said stubbornly, "I did. Now, if you'd just look at this data pad..." She hadn't put it away—she'd just put it on her lap. "I found a hidden cache in the warehouses of the Zakera Ward, owned by a known leader of the Blue Suns!"
Garrus narrowed his eyes at her. They were on lunch! "Mia..."
"Don't Mia me," she said with her mouth slightly full of noodles, "the man works for Fist!"
Now this caught his attention. Without telling her, he'd been doing some research on Fist. He was an obvious servant of the Shadow Broker, but no one could prove it. Now, though, his allegiances were turning elsewhere. Garrus was willing to bet Saren. "Go on."
Mia smirked and set her food down, ignoring Garrus's attempt to make her eat and talk at the same time. "I knew that would get your attention. I was looking into some secured newsfeeds of the warehouse and outside Chora's Den. The same man who owns the warehouse was seen meeting up with Fist outside the Den and then again outside warehouse thirty-two. Records show that large shipments have been arriving, but none of them have been checked by C-Sec. These could be the weapons we're missing!" Then, she muttered something under her breath, something about drugs. She shook her head and continued with, "I say we go there right after lunch and try to get as much information as we can without getting caught and then get the hell out of there."
Garrus took her data pad, glared at her until she grudgingly started eating again, and then looked at the information she'd gotten. He hated that she'd figured out basically the same thing he'd been trying to prove since the start of the investigation. And then he thought of something. "You know, this may run over. Are you willing on working overtime?" For the first time in almost a month?
Noodles stopped in mid air on the way to her mouth. She slowly set the fork down, clearly uncomfortable as she cleared her throat. "Ah...no, actually. I can't be late."
"To what, Mia?" he asked exasperatedly. He explained that the rest of C-Sec was taking bets on her whereabouts, ranging from a spicy man to bad deals on the side. "Even Pallin wonders where you go."
Her lips were tight, obviously a sign of anger. She put down her fork and angrily stood up, her chair screeching against the floor. "I don't have to take this." She grabbed her bag and snatched her datapad from him, shoving it in her purse and turning to leave.
Garrus cursed under his breath and quickly paid their tab before getting up to follow her. She'd made it pretty far before he caught up to her. "Mia, don't just walk away. They're worried about you."
"Worried about me?" she asked incredulously, her brown eyes looking up at him in disbelief. "You're serious?" She turned and stopped running away. They were at a viewing area of the Ward and it spread out behind her. Her fringe was whipping around her face, having been pulled from its ponytail as cars whipped by at high speeds. "When did my personal business become a part of the force's morning over-the-coffee gossip?! What is so wrong with me wanting to have some time away from the office?!"
Garrus sighed and didn't even try to comfort her. He wouldn't even know where to start. He leaned against edge of the outcropping, looking down onto Zakara Ward's traffic lanes and bright cityscape, and relaxed there for a moment. It truly was beautiful—not in the way that Palavan was, but in its own way. But he knew that dark things were lurking underneath the pretty exterior. The Wards were still filled with crime, politicians were still corrupted. Would there ever be a time or place where none of those things were true?
"I'm going to check out that warehouse now," she said softly, leaning against the railing too, except with her back to the view. "With or without you."
He sighed once again and leaned his head down, his shoulders tense. What would it take to show this woman that he could work just as well as she could? That she didn't have to fight him every step of the way?
A voice in his head told him that he was doing the exact same thing to her. He wanted to punch the voice. "You're not going in without backup. You don't even have a weapon."
When he looked up, a small smirk adorned Mia's face. "I always have a weapon."
Garrus pushed up off of the railing and stepped in front of her, trapping her between the railing and himself. He felt the heat from his body being pulled into hers from their close proximity. For a brief moment, he saw a flash of fear in her eyes before she blocked it out. "Fine. We'll do this your way. But if you are in any trouble outside of work, I need to know about it."
It must have taken a moment for those words to sink in. She stood up straight, tilting her head up to look him in the eye from her shorter position. "Listen to me when I say that if I need help, I'm not afraid to ask for it. Unlike some people I know." She then pushed away from him and started walking toward the Warehouse district.
Garrus furiously stormed after her, grabbing her shoulder and turning her back around to look at him. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't need help with anything I'm doing, Garrus. What I'm doing is personal. As for you, you can't even stomach having a partner long enough to ask for help with your plan to infiltrate Chora's Den."
He grabbed her arm again, keeping her from leaving. Part of him enjoyed her flinch as he tightened his grip. The other part of him wondered how the hell she'd gotten that information. "Well, I have a partner. And she's acting like a child."
"Then stop treating me like one! I'm a full-grown adult, Garrus." She tore her arm from his grasp and turned to keep walking. They were almost there. The streets were starting to become darker and shadier people were walking around, making him nervous.
They came to the outside of a tall, black warehouse with very few doors or windows. He instantly got a bad feeling as she started hacking a side door with omni-gel. "Mia..."
"Look, just stop pestering me about it, it's my business! What do you care where I go on my time off? It's not like I'm leaving early!" She pushed past him and continued working on the door. Barla Von must have given her instructions. "It's not like my personal business is endangering me or anyone else in any way."
" Mia, wait, don't—!" Before he could grab her arm, she pushed open the door of the warehouse and walked in like she owned the place. The room was dark with a few overhead lights, lots of boxes, and at least fifteen pissed-looking mercs. She wasn't armed, prepared, and she didn't even understand that she'd just walked into a merc stronghold and was about to be shot point-blank.
Garrus rushed forward and tackled her to the ground just as the first shot rang out. He pulled her over to a few sturdy crates and shoved her to the ground for protection. "Are you crazy?!" His legs were straddling hers, his body pushing her torso up against the boxes. He pushed his mouth next to her ear to be heard over the ringing gunshots. "What the hell were you thinking?!"
Shots rang out around them as she looked up into his eyes. Her breathing was deep and ragged. "I was going for something dramatic, actually. I think it worked." A sparkle was in her damned human eyes.
Frustrated, Garrus pushed up off of her and threw her his old Striker pistol. "Stay down and keep yourself safe. You have no..." Suddenly her omni-tool popped up and her entire body was covered in glowing yellow tech armor. "...armor."
Her chocolate eyes glared at him from under her dark hair. "Don't underestimate me, Garrus." She changed out the heat sink on her gun and peeked out from behind the boxes. "I know what I'm doing."
"I have yet to see proof of that."
The glare she sent his way was only marred by the merc's scream as she shot him through the back of the neck. She stared taking them down left and right, bullets pinging off her tech armor. They got into a rhythm as they took down mercs, never both changing their heat sinks at the same time.
"Uh-oh," Garrus said as he watched mechs come out from the back of the warehouse. He tried taking one out, but when he shot one in the arm and it flew off, the machine still kept coming.
"Don't worry about them," his partner said, suddenly ducking behind the boxes. "Keep the mercs occupied. I'll deal with the synthetics." Her omni-tool glowed from the corner of his vision.
Garrus didn't ask questions—well, he wasn't going to yet. He took out mercs, trying to find a way away from their endless supply, when suddenly one of the robots started taking out men. He couldn't believe his eyes. "Where did you learn to hack a synthetic?" he demanded, ducking back down to pop a heat sink.
"I'm a tech specialist!" she yelled at him, ducking to rest her sore body. Multiple concussion shots had hit her at once. "Just because I know how to fight doesn't mean I don't know the technical side of combat."
He was silent for a moment over the comm as he took out an enemy merc with his sniper. "Well do it again! We just lost our little friend."
oOo
I smirked and gave a little exhale, glad that he wasn't going to question me. I was under pressure, under fire, and damn it if I wasn't PMSing. I was pissed off and I actually had some hostile mercs to take it out on. "You got it, compadre."
I straightened up and brought up my Savant X, the one thing I'd gotten before going onto Akuze. It'd saved my ass many times, and now it was going to again. I instantly started imputing programs, crazily moving my fingers across the screen.
"Any time now, Luna," Garrus said through the comm unit.
"Don't rush me! I'm a little rusty."
"Says the female who barged into a merc hideout!"
"Shut up, you're distracting me!" I quickly brought up a mass effect field around us, momentarily giving us a reprieve from the firefight. "Field up. And now for the offensive... Garrus, don't you dare shoot Drone!"
A small, floating purple combat drone popped up near him, starting to attack the enemy. "You named your combat drone Drone?"
"Don't judge me. I was six."
Garrus ducked once more, rolling over to me and changing his heat sink. His graceful movements distracted me for a moment, as did his proximity. "Where the hell did all this come from?"
"All what?" Ignoring his question, I stood on my knees and started taking out a few of the mercs who had advanced.
He nudged me over a little, ready to take a shot, when he noticed that I'd taken out the last of them. "Your tech abilities! Why haven't you told me what you can do?"
I looked up to his turian face and stared at his blue markings for a moment. I really couldn't come up with a good answer for it, so I simply said, "You never asked."
oOo
In the end, they'd never gotten the information. There were so many groups of mercenaries on the Citadel, not even belonging to the three big groups, that who knew where the actual stash of cargo was? They'd ended up taking the leader back to C-Sec for questioning and discovered that he'd been stealing from Huerta Memorial Hospital. The Medi-gel that had gone missing recently? It was his group of Blue Suns.
Now that all of that paperwork was over, Mia had gone back to leaving as soon as the day was over. She wouldn't tell anyone where she was going, still, and started to seem jumpy and much more tired. Garrus would never admit that he was worried about her, but he was worried about her performance on their mission.
So, one day, he decided to follow her. He realized that he had no stealth, but Mia wasn't exactly the golden child of recon, either. She had no clue that she was being followed and she didn't seem to care. He'd have to tell her to be more careful in the future.
She was making her way down to the lower wards, shedding her uniform as she went. Underneath seemed to be a thin piece of material that left her shoulders bare but covered her neck, back, and front. She was left in her work pants, but even her shoes had been changed into some strange human flesh-colored thing.
She then turned into an old warehouse that Garrus had never heard of. He cursed under his breath and waited a few moments before following her into the awful-looking, dark, black...warehouse?
He wasn't greeted with mercs, or crates, or crazy assassins. Instead, he was met with...females. Lots and lots of females of different species, all talking at the same time, laughing and giggling. He even caught one turian smiling and laughing with a human. There were lots of pink, baby blue, and yellow colors draped around, trying to make the place look brighter. Past all of the giggling girls, he saw a large, open area with actual wooden flooring. It was surrounded by mirrors.
What the hell? Garrus wondered, moving around a group of young human females to stand in a dark corner and watch.
"Alright, girls!" he heard Mia call loudly over the tops of their giggling. "Listen up!" The room got deadly silent and all eyes turned to Mia, who was standing on the wooden floor. She was now in long black tights to match her top, with a pink sash around her hips. Her shoes were pink as well. "We've had a good few weeks of practice. Today, we will have a mini show in front of everyone in the classes. First up will be my adult class, just to demonstrate. Everyone sit down and we will get started."
The girls obediently sat down, crosslegged, on the floor. A total of ten adults stood up next to Mia, consisting of one turian and two asari. The rest were human. They looked at each other as Mia imputed something in her omni-tool and music started playing.
"Chloe Michel, Gabriella Daniels, and I are the main choreographers for the upper class. We will start off."
All of the women started moving their bodies in ways that Garrus had never imagined. Legs twirling, arms swirling. Their bodies were completely flexible, flowing and gyrating to the rhythm as the children ooh-ed and ahh-ed.
Garrus felt as though his jaw was permanently on the floor. He hadn't realized that this was what Mia was doing. These children were duct rats and jail bait. And here she was hosting a free class for them?
He felt kind of...bad, now that he thought about it. She was doing something good for the Wards and he was questioning her. Even though she should have been working, at least she was getting out and doing something on her own. She'd even found some female friends.
Garrus sighed, ashamed at his bigotry, and made his way out. He'd had no reason to question her, especially when what she was doing was...well, it was actually good.
But that was when he bumped into a man coming into the room. "Excuse me," Garrus said, moving out of the way of the very large human.
"No problemo," the human said, in the same way that Mia always talked, in that strange language. The human didn't look back, instead intent on Mia, who was directing a group of young human children onto the wooden floor.
Garrus wouldn't have any problem with this, except that he watched the large human sweep Mia into his arms, twirl her around, bend her low, and start eating her face.
oOo
His body was hot against mine, pushing me up against the wall as his lips nibbled against my earlobe. "Bonita," he whispered, his hands running up my shirt, his thumbs rubbing against the under side of my breasts, "envuelve tus piernas alrededor de mí."
I moaned again and did as he said, kicking up and wrapping my legs around his firm, thick waist. "God, that's so sexy..." My hands pulled his face to mine as I opened my mouth to him, our tongues dueling and mapping the other's mouth. I hadn't had Spanish spoken to me in years, and having him order me in it...
He smirked against my lips and thrust against me, his hips flush against mine. "I try, Bonita."
I loved kissing James. He was so strong and encompassing, so it made sense that his kisses were the same way. He showed attention to every part of a girl – and I mean every part. He made you feel wanted and cherished...
And he was cherishing the upward movement of my shirt.. I instantly grunted and pushed him away from me, setting myself on the ground and righting my clothing. "I, ah...no, I'm sorry."
His puppy-dog hazel eyes looked at me in a pitiful way. "Everything okay? We can slow down if you want."
My body wanted anything but to slow down. I was just that it had been a while since I'd been with anyone...and James and I had only been seeing each other for a few weeks. And, well, I wasn't exactly the most comfortable with my body. "I just...it's been a while."
His perfectly male lips went up in a smirk and he brought a hand to my cheek lovingly. "We don't have to do anything you aren't comfortable with."
I leaned my face into his hand and then entered his arms for a comforting hug. I could feel the fact that his body wasn't saying the same things as his lips, but he was still stopping because I asked. Why am I turning away this perfect man? "It's not that, it's just..."
My body is damaged.
My mind is in shambles.
I'm damaged.
You deserve better.
"You don't have to explain," James said into my ear, holding me close to his heater-of-a-body. "I think I understand. We can just sit and watch that movie you were talking about. Sound good?"
I held back tears and nodded into his shoulder. No, you don't understand. I'm hideous. I'm scarred. And I don't think that I can show you in the near future. You'll just have to understand and stay close...but I always push people away... "Yeah...sounds good."
