Chapter Summary
Garrus wakes to a morning that looks like a painting he'd like to own. Nihlus hides his mental quirks behind helpful acts and bright smiles. Saren feels protective, and expresses it in Saren-y ways.
Chapter Notes
Furca - A dual tined spork of Turian origin (Latin, basically means 'fork')
Cubitura - Turian couch built wide and deep, padded and angled to accommodate crest and spur.
Madlis - Traditional Turian clan compound. (Credit: Recidiva)
Vetiver - A type of Indian bunchgrass commonly made into pungent essential oil. Smells something like a forest after a rainstorm, moss/peat, and undergrowth. (Real)
Chapter Soundtrack: Melanie Martinez - Carousel
And it's all fun and games,
'Til somebody falls in love,
But you've already bought a ticket,
And there's no turning back now
Round and round like a horse on a carousel, we go,
Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
Chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
Feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel
See the end of the chapter for more notes
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Garrus woke first that morning, eyes still closed as he breathed in the scents around him. Nihlus still smelled lightly of dried sweat and pheromones, with an edge of the blade oil he seemed to favor. Saren was farther away, but the lingering scent of his vaguely minty body scrub and a hint of ozone that all biotics had were still present.
This was nice. He'd missed having squad mates to curl up with, sex or no sex, after his civic service had ended. Having grown up in the clan Madlis with a never ending supply of other Vakarian children to play with, he'd never slept alone if he didn't want to until moving here. It remained a less than appealing choice.
The Officer finally managed to open his eyes. The bedroom was still mostly dark as the day cycle lights had just barely started their transition phase. Nihlus was face down with his head turned away, looking dead to the world, one arm over the sniper's stomach, the other hand wrapped around the silver-grey Spectre's arm below the elbow. Saren himself was propped into a mild sitting up position on his back, head lolled toward the door, paranoid even in sleep. His snores came out as a quiet sibilance on the exhale.
With careful movements, and the sound turned off, he sent in an order for food delivery from a local dextro place that was cheap and had an amazing variety. He might've ordered too many things, actually, but Garrus decided he'd rather have too many things on offer then not enough. The rest could be saved for later in the chilling unit. He'd have to make a point of it actually, as a come back for Saren's teasing that he never used his refrigerator as intended.
So what if he sometimes stored evidence in it? On the rare occasion his house had been broken into, he'd never had anything hidden in the chilling unit get found, even if it sat plainly on the shelf. It was counter intuitive enough as a hiding spot, and the temperature preserved things nicely.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the disguised Spectre using his stomach as a weight baring point to escape his cushiony indent on the bed. Oof. Nihlus heard his chuff of protest and trilled a quiet apology, coming to sit back on his heels with the tops of his feet to the mattress and his knees rotated slightly to have his spurs stick out by his thighs. He looked conscious, but still comatose, with his lower mouth plates and mandibles open and drooping.
In a fit of whimsy, Garrus took a hold of his collar and leaned forward to dive his tongue in, and lick a trace of the torin's soft pallet. Just a hint of morning Reverie. Well it was supposed to be, except when he went to pull back Nihlus followed right behind and returned the favor with a lap of his teeth before they both wobbled back to sitting positions, slightly more dizzy then intended. He laughed as the faux-silver Spectre hummed happily and face planted back into the mattress with his backside in the air.
The sniper saw Saren's head perk up at the commotion, electric eyes popping open to see what had dared disturbed him. He looked better than he had last night. It might just've been the lighting, but the aloof and regal Spectre hadn't appeared to be in very good health the day before. He seemed alright now though, so whatever mission he'd come from, maybe sleep was all that had been lacking. The resigned sigh at his protégé's antics just made Garrus laugh harder, to which Nihlus joined in, until they were interrupted by the door bell.
Saren was startled and veritably tumbled out of bed in a graceful roll, coming up with a gun and a biotic shield. He bit back another round of laughter, though the reaction and the active danger were no joke, the silliness of the previous moment still colored everything. Best not to laugh at the stoic torin thought, he'd be offended.
"It's just the breakfast I promised, ordered it a little while ago." Saren looked only half convinced and motioned them to follow him. He pointed them both into cover with military hand signals, which had Nihlus grinning like an idiot armed with nothing but his stolen knife behind the corner that turned into the kitchen, and the sniper along the entry wall in a flanking position armed with fists alone. The electric eyed torin opened the door to a bored looking Asari, who handed him two large plastic bags, thanked them in the voice of the underpaid-and-up-at-dawn, then left.
The paranoid Spectre still scanned the bags and taste tested everything for poison before he let them eat. Garrus couldn't be convinced it wasn't just to get back at them for having the temerity to laugh like children so early in the day. Saren Arterius wasn't a morning person.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Saren left after breakfast, and they didn't see him again until it was over. Just had mysterious packages appear on the low kava table in the living room some mornings. Hidden shield generators in jewelry. A small chemistry set made for mixing antidotes and antivenins, with an attached formula for the especially potent venom of Compact Drell. A kit to touch up Nihlus' disguise. A better sensor suite for the apartment's vents and entries.
A small fortune of Spectre-grade devices showed up over the next few weeks, including an armor set for each of them and a new pistol for the undercover agent. Saren, or those who did his bidding, left presents on the table like a cat leaving dead mice on the porch steps.
It was a long few weeks for Nihlus, or maybe... it was instead too short.
He played the charade of fun loving soldier girl on shore leave with a doting cop of a boyfriend, -who spoiled the shit out of 'her'-, to perfection. A flawless performance when they went out to eat, underplayed combat abilities at Armax Arena when they went out for a night on the town, no small detail went unsupported, no hints that Nihlus was Asla or that Asla was the agent that had killed the Luminous.
He was in his element, wearing the face of an imaginary tarin, but any spook who did deep cover missions could tell you that if you played at being someone else for long enough, one day you'd wake up and it wouldn't be quite so pretend anymore. The trick to a really good infiltrator was that they could put the 'mask' of their old self back on when their job was done, and could stick with it until they stopped having to pretend to be themselves again. Nihlus had switched who he was enough times to be considered one of the best even at such a young age, but he'd never had the transition into a different person sit so well on his shoulders, smooth over so fast.
The false-peach and fake-silver Spectre could smell it as that transition sank into his plates. Or maybe that was just the pervasive scent of Blue on the air, in his clothes, on his plates from curling up together at night. Gun oil from the sniper's obsessive care of his firearms. Vetiver from the salt scrub he showered with. A hint of Kava's savory perfume always on Blue's tongue and floating from the kitchen, from long days taking care of the Citadel's people and late nights spending time with Field Medic Asla Lyria, his Palvi.
Their blended pheromones clung to everything. From hand jobs and making out, though neither pushed for more then that. An unspoken understanding that going farther wasn't needed for the cover... and doing it under false pretenses would color anything they might have after. Still, the smells drove Nihlus nuts, like delicious wafts of baking cookies that would make everyone around hungry.
It made him constantly aroused.
He thought he might be a scent-o-phile or something with how much it got to him, but the Spectre became so sick of the very air poisoning him into keeping Garrus up late at night to pay attention to him that he actually cleaned.
Everything.
Twice.
It only helped for a few days before the enticing smells were everywhere again, but it did get the Officer a few better nights of sleep. Two or three days where they went to bed at decent hours of the evening in a variety of sprawls, talking about C-Sec as they faded off.
Apparently Garrus was known as a disrespectful and meddlesome hot-head at work, but the Spectre couldn't see it. Officer Vakarian seemed to have a sniper's patience with a tech-junky's curiosity and problem solving when met with any issue. He was certainly handling suddenly having a live-in deep cover ST&R agent with hospitality and grace. Why was being honest, creative, and unafraid to act so discouraged in C-Sec? He didn't know, but it sounded just as soul-sucking as Hierarchy civil service.
Morons, all of them, for not appreciating what they had. Nihlus sure did, and he was pretty sure that the sniper liked him well in return. Pretty sure.
Truthfully, Nihlus was half afraid that Blue would be so sick of his presence by the end of this that he wouldn't want to see him for a long damn time after he was free. The knife loving Spectre laughed at his own mental waffling. Did he want to get away or not? Did he want to be welcomed back, or did he want to stay away until he was inside his own head space again? It was hard to say. Just so long as Blue didn't kick him out and ask him not to come back ever. Spirits, Nihlus didn't want that. The sniper's friendship had already been becoming precious before all this. Now? It was... was...
It was all starting to feel like reality, and sometimes Nihlus disappeared into the shower to be alone, to just to shake himself for clarity under scorching water. Breathe in the steam, breathe out the conflicting emotions.
'Remember what's real. Remember what's not real. Your name is Nihlus Kyrik, you're a Spectre, your pari was a merc and your mari was a cold murderous bitch, you liked Blue before you were Asla. Remember. Saren Arterius was your mentor, he saved you from death by boredom after your third squad transfer. You like Saren too. And explosives. And poison. Remember. .ber.'
He cleaned the apartment again to reduce the alluring scents, resulting in Blue's assurances that she didn't need to clean so much, and why doesn't she instead spend her pretend shore leave relaxing? Garrus had no clue what he did to Nihlus. No damn clue. When the cleaning wore off again the subtle tug of pheromones and Blue's handsome smile had him leaving lingering touches he didn't notice he was making until the sniper turned and paid attention to him for hours and hours.
He tried to hide his addiction to Reverie and orgasm. It didn't work well. Subvocals made it hard to lie.
When he opened the door to Saren, Riaz, Ankh, and Korvis... he was a mess on the inside, but he smiled brightly for them and welcomed them in to plan out how to smooth the mess over so he could get back to work.
The mask of the cheerful protégé fitted smoothly over his features, and no one noticed a thing.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Chapter End Notes
So fun fact time! A 'scent-o-phile' has a real term, it's called 'olfactophilia', and is a sub category of 'paraphilia' or 'likes that cause arousal'. Olfactophilia can also be used with Osmolagnia, or 'lust from smells'. Strangely enough, a particularly strong sexual arousal from scent is classified as a mental disorder, apart of the parosmia grouping, specifically euosmia. In other words, it's considered an incorrect neurological response, and deviant.
Ummm... Hi! I think I'm a deviant! Who's with me?!
Fun fact number two: If family members have Sleep Apnea, people can sometimes develop a finely honed sense of their breathing patterns, something that will wake them suddenly in the middle of the night if that pattern changes. It's a known phenomenon, actually. My husband has some mild sleeping disorders, and if he quits breathing suddenly, it's like waking from a nightmare. My adrenaline levels go nuts and I sit right up, immediately conscious. Living with him has schooled my hind-brain into paying attention to breathing noises, and now I do it with everyone. I'm also difficult to sneak up on while sleeping because of it. A new breathing pattern entering my space is registered as different, and if it is distressed, or rapid, or quits, it disturbs me awake.
Weird, right? But neat! Thanks Hind-brain!
I've given Garrus that ability, but sadly it's because of the rigors of being in a kill squad for rebel forces and not just a mild sleeping disorder. Awww, poor Garr-bear. /hugs/ I'm so mean to you.
HEY DUCKIES! I've made a repository for all these neat facts, the lexicon entries, the codex entries, and some other research and fact gathering I've done for EDaH. It's over here:
Manifesto of Mindcanon and Plothole Fills
No more trolling through chapters looking for codex entries if the reference each other and stuff. Also, some interesting stuff on canon character ages and heights. I'll add more to it as I go. 3
Fanfic Recommendation (Brought to you today by CristalDePhoenix, who recommended to me a day or so ago. It's huge! And gooooood.): Crucible (550,600 words) by SirArthurNudge
