Chapter Summary
Garrus is team dad, he can't even help himself.
Chapter Notes
Lexicon:
Furca - A dual tined spork of Turian origin (Latin, basically means 'fork')
Torini/Tarini - Turian men/women over the age of majority (plural form of torin/tarin) (credit: MizDirected)
Cubitura - Turian couch built wide and deep, padded and angled to accommodate crest and spur
Familia Notas - Turian facial markings. (Credit: MizDirected, though I've mussed the lore up a bit to suit.)
Lemon, lemon, lemon, lemonnnnnnn. Just, fair warning. :3 It's been made PG for .
EDIT: A big thank you to CristalDePhoenix for pointing out that I'd mucked up my time stamps last chapter. I put 2188 instead of 2168. Ummmmmmm. WHOOPS! That wouldn't work at alllllllllllllllll.
Chapter Soundtrack: Major Lazer & DJ Snake - Lean On (feat. MØ)
What will we do when we get old?
Will we walk down the same road?
Will you be there by my side?
Standing strong as the waves roll over
When the nights are long
Longing for you to come home
All around the wind blows
We would only hold on to let go
Blow a kiss, fire a gun
We need someone to lean on
Blow a kiss, fire a gun
All we need is somebody to lean on
See the end of the chapter for more notes
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Nihlus' vision fuzzed a little at the edges as he worked on washing dishes, a small pile had built up and he was determinedly rinsing them clean and loading them into the dishwasher. His mouth opened wide with a jaw popping yawn. It wasn't that he couldn't stay away for days if he needed to, but his day hadn't exactly been engaging or adrenaline filled, and his body was convinced he should just say 'fuck it' and go to bed. He shook off the feeling and swipped the back of a sponge filled hand across his nose before getting back to work.
The sound of clacking toe talons entered the kitchen, but the Spectre focused on the task before him, determined to do at least this much in thanks for all the hospitality.
"Hey, you don't need to do those..."
"Nah. I wanna. They need done anyways."
Another power-yawn escaped him as he loaded the dish into the washer and picked up a furca to rinse next. The c-click c-click of foot steps came closer, and arms came around him to shut the water off and pull the utensil away. It slid from his grasp, the sponge going next, and tawny brown arms tightened in. He half heartedly tried to turn the water back on, but a hand caught his wrist and trapped it against his keel. The other hand settled firmly over abdominal plates. Garrus' face curled into his collar, not helping the fuzzy sense of sleeplessness.
"The dishes can wait till tomorrow." The Spectre blinked hard, trying to gather clarity. The attempt was only mildly successful, and the warmth at his back wasn't helping matters any. The hand on his abdominals slid lower, slipping under shirt hem and following the trail of interlocking plates. He told himself not to moan. His body refused to listen to his bullshit, and the low sound rolled from him of it's own accord.
The Spectre's free hand suddenly became busy bracing him against the sink edge. His subvocals warbled with a mix of want and distress, and the hand pulled away to curl around his hip crest.
"Do you... want me to stop?"
'Sort of, kind of, you probably should, stop spoiling me...'
"Nooo." Was what came out instead. A small voice in the back of his mind threw up it's mental hands in disgust.
Green eyes fluttered shut as the hand went for a new approach, talons scratching in loose circles against the hide at his leg joint as mouth plates nibbled in curious exploration along the exposed scalp where horns should be.
Mouth plates journeyed lower, down the rough hide of his neck with intermittent flicks of tongue.
Nihlus' head fell forward, black talons scraping on the sink edge and his own keel helplessly at teasing bites. He hadn't expected the sniper to take advantage of the position, but he did; letting the fading-peach wrist go and using that hand to tug him just enough that a tilt of his head made way for a grip of teeth on either side of the Spectre's spinal plates.
Nihlus' breath caught in his throat at the feel of it.
Teeth to neck was always a request for trust, but this form was specifically asking for surrender of one sort or another. In enemies, a bite here would send dagger-like fangs into spinal tissue, killing in seconds. It was a bite of last warning to surrender or die. In lovers it was a question, not a demand. Asking for complete trust, or more specifically, asking the bitten one to give themselves over into the care of the biter. It said, 'let go, I've got you'.
Blue wanted him to let go of whatever it was that had made his subvocals waver with distress. Which was... Blue himself. Damnit.
The sharp points of teeth along his spine waited patiently for him to decide with a low trill of concern that was felt more then heard, and Nihlus Kyrik realized that his well honed powers of self denial were no spirits damned match for this torin. The replying hum and subtle press back into the grip were rewarded with a resurgence of attentions and enticing bites at the juncture of neck and collar.
'Fuck it.' was about all the reasoning he could come up with.
He was going to feel very strange when his crest grew back out and he couldn't have fringe bites on the underside anymore. He held out hope for skillful tongues though. Speaking of skill, the new position let Garrus take more of his weight. The Officer made the most of it, drawing a wanton moan out of the peachy throat. Nihlus had a hard time not drowning in sensation.
He would have tumbled to the floor if Garrus hadn't been holding him up when the rush of heat and release spiraled into his core and forced itself way back out.
As the Spectre's breathing evened out, he steadied against the sink and distantly noted that the dishes were now even messier than before. He went to turn and wobbled a step, then found himself being spun into a carried hold before his misbehaving foot could even catch him. He blinked up at Blue, who had lifted him away from his self imposed chores and was walking them back down the hall. Nihlus tried to protest. He wasn't that damn tired...
Garrus just smiled handsomely, and raised an arm to bring their foreheads together.
"I've got you."
Nihlus gave up then, letting himself be manhandled into bed as the little spoon. He faded away, realizing that the only solution to his utter lack of self control was... to get away from Blue, asap. He couldn't tell the torin no to save his life, and it hadn't escaped notice that he'd spent the evening being seduced into letting his tall friend take care of him after the Officer had worked a maximum houred shift.
'Leech... leech... leech...'
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Electric blue eyes idly scanned the latest intel about T'Loak's temper tantrum over his escape. He'd just gotten back from a long bout of radio-silence on a recon mission elsewhere, and had much to catch up on. He yawned lightly, it had been a long haul. Regardless, there was work to be done and these files needed reviewed sooner rather than later. He would have taken a datapad to the breakroom, had a tiny form not plowed into him without warning.
He looked down at the four-foot-nothing Drell that Nihlus adored with a sigh.
"Tio'fore."
"Saaarennnn! Nih is in troubleee!" Silver crest blades flickered in the blue light of the intelligence room's monitors as he turned his head in an avian manner to stare her down with a gimlet eye.
"Precisely how much trouble? The last time you said that, you made it out to be a dire situation, and it was simply food poisoning."
"This time she's not exaggerating the situation by a hundred times. Only two or three." Saren looked up to see the earth toned form of Ankhleas Tithe standing in a pool of shadow by the door, his orange irises and Familia Notas and reflecting the screen light.
"Tithe."
"Arterius."
"You two can compare manhoods later! We gotta get the Compact off Nih's trail!" Both torini huffed at Spectre Tio'fore's usual lack of decorum.
"Explain."
"He pulled off a big one, and they're mad as beeeeees! Took out the jellie that was sellin' them Asari, and now he got one 'o my kind on his trail. S'not a good day, this guy named Ghost is on 'em!" He managed to take the descriptive mess and make out that Nihlus had taken out... ah yes, there was a kill order out on Luminous Azynder, wasn't there? A tricky kill to make, but well within his protégé's skill. Apparently the Illuminated Primacy had been upset, and sent a Drell assassin called 'Ghost' out after him. He snorted at the inane nickname. Unimaginative was the kindest description.
"I see. Do you have a plan to remove the assassin that doesn't involve explosives?"
" ...that's what you're here for?" She smiled up at him with her massive lilac-on-black eyes.
"Specialist Tithe, do you have any further details?"
"Not many. Spectre Kyrik's exact whereabouts are unknown, but his pursuer has been spotted here, so we assume he's on the station somewhere. The last communication we received from a dead drop said that he'd found a bolt hole and to trade whatever favors were needed, even work for the Primacy directly, to get the return kill order removed."
"How does that proceed?"
"The Luminous' followers and family are still too upset to hear us out, though Specialist Korvis has been trying once a day since the funeral."
"It sounds as if everything that can be done, is being done. If Nihlus is in hiding, I doubt the assassin can find him. There is no need for your hysterics Tio'fore." She groaned at him like the world was ending, running her pitch-black scaled hands down her face in a pantomime of complete exasperation.
She really was the strangest Drell he'd ever encountered. They were normally such an elegant, reserved people. Then again, ST&R attracted misfit Turians more often then not, he supposed misfit Drell were... almost as welcome.
"Liiiiisten, okay, this Ghost guy? He's got a perfect KO record. All shiny and spotless. If he's on Nih's trail, it's bad news. Com'ere I'll show you his dossier in the archives." She pulled up the Citadel Archives access screen and went digging for the file, coming up with a very scarce amount of data. The folder had a blurry holo shot of half a face and a shoulder of a Drell male with vivid green scales. There were about five sentences with a handful of estimated data points below it.
"There is nothing else on this Compact agent?"
"Nooope!" She popped the 'p'.
He supposed that was a bad sign. The intelligence teams for the ST&R offices were normally able to get a great deal more then that, especially if they were trying to get ahead of someone hunting one of their own agents.
"Very well. I will find Nihlus. You will find the locations Ghost has been spotted, and plant cameras not connected to any network. A lack of image data indicates some sort of self-propagating selective image deletion virus, which is likely on the Citadels networks. Place them in similar locations to other camera view points, and retrieve data manually. Have the intel office come up with a program to compare the two views, and seek what is missing."
"See? I knew you'd have an idea to go on! See Ankh? I told you he would. Okay! Cameras, lots of non-transmitting cameras. We got this!" Out the door the indomitably cheerful woman went, her mild mannered shadow trailing behind.
As a first step to finding his erstwhile mentee, Saren sent a ping to his Omni-tool, and another to the Widmanstat. The first went unresponded to, no surprise. The second however returned a line of characters:
[9dcjh3kd8v gh23929fui2wms 929719dcma m38xcjw9ixybvm4 39x7gmakxyd4vu]
It was a cipher, of course, and translated roughly to, "Deceit, Avarice, Decay, Sadness, Remorse." Ah, the card suit used to win the game they had played with Vakarian. Odd, that seemed like a blatant place to hide. Usually the carmine plated Spectre was much trickier. Not a toilsome place to check to be certain, he just needed to ensure he did not leave any breadcrumb trails to follow. Also not difficult, particularly near the end of the night cycle when the station was nearly devoid of activity to blend into to actively follow anyone.
Still wearing his previous mission's enshrouding hooded cloak that hid the entirety of his crest, and non-descript armor beneath it, Spectre Arterius trailed out of the ST&R offices, and began to pathfind an arduous trail to follow. It took him through keeper tunnels, cargo storage areas, and quiet corridors where he looped around a few times checking for signs of being followed. There were none to be found, and he came out of the Citadel's undercroft of maintenance passageways one skyrise over from Vakarian's building. Saren took the stairs, and crossed via sky bridge, slipping inside the door without knocking.
He listened. Two breathing patterns coming from the back room. There was Vakarian's low rumble, and Nihlus' usual hum. He trailed down the hall like a wraith, avoiding the proximity alarms he could see overlaid on the floor by simply biotically floating over them. Entering the open room, he approached the bed. Ah, it smelled as though Nihlus had finally seduced the sniper. He had suspected they would fall into bed together eventually. Nihlus was something of a sex addict, and Vakarian was too easy going to say no for long. At least the Officer was trustworthy and Turian, unlike many of his protégé's other lovers.
He idly inspected Nihlus' strange coloring and winced at the crest trimming in evidence, it seemed he had opted for a 'hide in plain sight' strategy at the cost of comfort. The clever torin always had gone the extra kilometer of pain to pull off his covers. The full body dying was not so torturous, but he could not have enjoyed being barefaced and short crested for however long. Saren leaned closer and reached out a hand to shake the disguised Spectre's shoulder, but did not get halfway before his throat was in a tight grasp with talons pushing at his jugular.
He froze, only his eyes turning to look at the owner of the hand.
Icy blue eyes fluttered slowly to wakefulness. Interesting. It had been an automatic response? He took a deep breath while Vakarian took a moment to recognize him. They did not smell bonded. That was not it then... Ah. He remembered now, the Officer's time with a hastatim squad. Likely he'd had to earn those reflexes the hard way from guerrilla fighting saboteurs coming for him or the squad mate next to him in the darker hours.
Recognition dawned and curiously enough, the sniper smiled at him, changing the grip from menacing to a friendly grasp at the back of the neck, with a light and apologetic squeeze before letting go.
"Hey." The sniper offered simply in a whisper quiet voice. "Good to see you. Things have been kind of a mess."
"I have just returned. Colleagues ambushed me upon arrival with what news was available. Were you aware of the assassin?"
"Yeah, he was watching us the other night, had Nihlus' bugged to hell. We had to play at a little improv to confuse him into backing off."
"... He was here?"
"Yeah, in the vents. Knocked on the door under false pretenses as well. I got a 'business card' from him that might have prints or some bio-data, it's in the chilling unit in the kitchen."
"I see. You finally make use of the device for something at least. Did you test it for any samples?"
"No. I figured you'd have better equipment then C-Sec does, and I didn't want to have loose mouthed lab techs give any thing away. Even if I ran it myself, they'd chatter about me being in there in the break room."
"Prudent. I will take the card with me when I go, and see what information can be found from it. Has he returned since then?"
"No. I've been checking on thermal and electromagnetic spectrums for tails or bugs frequently, and I haven't seem him. Then again, I've also been at work the past two days. Nihlus came with me for the first day, but he was gone all the yesterday, out shopping."
"Shopping?"
The C-Sec Officer pointed to a pile of bags in the corner.
"Yeah, he hasn't been able to access anything of his own, so I sent him out to get some clothes with my card. We didn't know how long we'd need to keep up the charade of his cover before... whatever reason it is that the Drell got sent after him for is resolved."
"He did not tell you?"
"No. Said he couldn't."
"Correct, and I am relieved that he kept silent, as he normally has the terrible habit of oversharing everything that is not top-secret." The Spectre looked down at his still sleeping protégé with narrowed eyes. "Why is he sleeping so deeply?"
"He's been a ball of stress since he came, and something happened yesterday with some gang members that had him up overnight trying to solve it."
"... ah. I should let him sleep then. When he wakes tomorrow, you can tell him that Tio'fore is running around the station hunting for the Drell, and I will be back with supplies for him." Saren pulled back to leave, but a hand caught his wrist.
"Hey, don't go. He hasn't said anything, but part of his stress was not having you around. If you just got back, why don't you stay? You look like you could use the sleep too."
"While the offer is appreciated, it is more crucial that steps are taken to deal with the active threat."
"Sounds like there are others on the job already, and you shouldn't be out hunting Compact agents right now anyway. Your reaction times are slow."
Saren's jaw tightened at the criticism. His reaction times were fine, th-
"Oh, don't give me that look. You know I mean well. You're tired, stay. Just for a couple hours, we'll eat breakfast and share news, and you can disappear back off to do what you need to with a fresh mind."
He was trying to find a way to convince himself that such a plan did not sound as appealing as it did, and turn the sniper down, when the hand at his wrist slipped down and kneaded into the meat of his palm pleasantly. Apparently the Officer was attempting to bribe him.
"Vakarian."
"Mmmhmm?"
"My reaction times are within acceptable tolerance."
"Sure, but doesn't an hour or two of rest sound good? It would put Nihlus' at ease..."
The silver-grey Spectre snorted at the blatant attempts at coercion. The hand rubbing his own and the promise of mutual safety that came with sleeping near trustworthy company finally tipped the balance.
"Very well. It cannot hurt, I suppose. I will be out on the cubitur-" was as far as he got before a swift yank pulled him down. Nihlus stirred.
"Huh-whaaaa- Sarennn! When'd you get here?"
"He just arrived a few minutes ago. He hasn't slept either, so he's staying." The stubborn sniper tossed a blanket over him with a determined grin, and he glared in return, half off the bed and still wearing his cloak. Saren was about to reiterate that he would sleep in the living room when Nihlus made, -there was no other word for it-, a disgustingly happy chirp and pulled him further into the mess of limbs.
He let out a growl at the unwelcome molestation, but he was entirely ignored by his protégé in favor of nuzzling into the voluminous cloth at his collar. Vakarian seemed pleased with his cohort, and scootched back on the bed, pulling Nihlus back to him by the stomach, who of course drew the cloak with him like a security blanket in the grip of a tenacious toddler. Oh for spirit's sake.
Saren pulled the cloak from the false-peach grasp, and drew it up over his head and off. He used a small thread of biotics to hang it over the door, and gave in to the their incessant 'invitation'. At least the bed had room enough for him to not be pressed into Nihlus as they had when he had been injured. That was far and away more contact then he wanted to maintain while sleeping. This was... still too close, but better.
Sufficient.
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Chapter End Notes
Fanfic Recommendation: The Phenomenology of Shepard (62,771words) by Elana S (Thane/FemShep)
