Chapter Summary

The hardest part of letting go...

Chapter Notes

Lexicon:

Palvi - Short for 'Palvipyrum', Turian closed dialect for 'Explosives'.

A/N: Sorry for the slower update this time! New expansion of WoW just came out, and my friends are bullying me into leveling with them. Am I the only one who thinks the quest to reforge Frostmourne is a horrrrrible idea?

Note: Most of this chapter was a lemon. Below is the ff dot net pg version... um. Very short. Hahaha...

Chapter Soundtrack: Panic! At The Disco: Emperor's New Clothes

See the end of the chapter for more notes

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Nihlus was very preoccupied when the small team of colleagues finally tried to contact him with the results of the counter-espionage. So busy with what he was doing in fact, though he heard his 'tool go off with a vid com request twice in as many minutes, that he ignored it completely. Blue tried to point it out to him helpfully, but didn't get more then two words out before the Spectre reduced him back to incoherent moans.

Addicted. He was so damned addicted to this. Specifically this torin though...

The reminder of pending vid-call request chimed again.

Questing hands came up over his collar and pulled him down as Blue shifted them backward into sitting. The Spectre ended up sprawled in the detective's lap, angled to the side and held against a keel with one muscled arm as the other came down to take vengeance for all his teasing. Blue's tongue laved at the hide below silvery mandibles.

Nihlus began to struggle lightly, growling with frustrated subvocals like a distant thunder storm. It went unheeded, and the reverse torment kept on.

The dangerous edge to his growls inched higher.

"Yes, Palvi?"

"Stop. Teasing me."

Garrus' mouth came up to his ear as he rumbled with amusement, "No."

The damn reminder pinged again, and the Officer laughed softly.

"You should probably answer that."

What he thought was, "How about eff that?", however the more responsible reply came as, "Mmmmmyeah. In a second." It was only a slightly more responsible answer.

It pinged again five minutes later. Blue helped him sit up against the curved side of the bed, and put the correct arm in front of him. He left the room with a chuckle, calling out that he'd reheat some left overs for them.

It was Saren who answered, assuring him that the five remaining daughters had revoked their intent, and that he had confirmation the kill order was to be removed within a day. There was a little smear of whiteish Hanar blood along his right cheek horn. Nihlus cheerfully thanked him, and sent his 'hugs and kisses' to Riaz, which was met with an unamused stare. The call closed, and the Spectre sat there trying to gather his will. To get up, get clean, eat... and work on how to get his feet to walk out that door again.

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The end of the road came quick. The lanky torin painstakingly removed every trace of the hide dyes and plate coating, and gathered his things together, staring at the small pile of girl clothes and cute accessories. He fingered a set of silver and green fringe clips forlornly. Garrus came up and set a hand on his shoulder with a friendly squeeze.

"I've got some spare room in my closet if you'd like to leave that stuff here for future use of Asla as a cover. Saren mentioned before that you don't keep a hold of different sets of disguises because you're bad at taking care of anything not made of metal." He heard the rustle of cloth as the sniper shrugged dismissively.

It was... really stupid. He should throw it all away, and never be this cover again. He should.

"Yeah, if it's not any trouble? Would be nice to have a ready-made disguise on the Citadel in case I need it."

"Sure. Just leave whatever you want to keep here, and I'll pack it up later."

'You are such a moron, Kyrik. A sentimental moron.', he told himself as he pocketed the fringe clips and turned to thank the Officer with a smile. They walked to the door as Nihlus and Garrus for the first time in weeks. Just two friends, not a close knit couple enjoying a soldier's shore leave. He couldn't stand it when the sniper reached out a forearm to clasp his in goodbye, and instead pinned the torin to the wall by the door with a sudden and stupid press of foreheads and a hand clasped to tawny brown neck hide.

He tried really hard to keep smiling, but it was slipping. Nihlus knew he needed to leave, now.

"See you later Blue."

"Take it easy, Pa-... Hurricane."

"Nu uh, I never do anything the easy way."

"Always have to make it worse?"

"Bingo."

"Then... make it terrible."

"I will."

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Chapter End Notes

A/N: I found something about the relay network on the wiki that partially confirms my theory that the network is point to point. Looks like 'some' relays can aim themselves, if the distance is short and the angle isn't too different. Holy balls, my attempts to have accurate travels times just got a whole lot more complicated. ["When a relay is activated, it aligns itself with the corresponding relay before propelling the ship across space. ... There are two kinds of mass relay, primary and secondary. Primary relays can propel a ship thousands of light years but only link to one other relay, its "partner". Secondary relays can link to any other relay over shorter distances, only a few hundred light years."] I'm assuming the relays in geosync with astral bodies make it so that there are 'windows' of opportunity to get to certain places before you have to wait for the angle to be good again. Can't go through planets and all.

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