Human Male (Ex-C-Sec Lieutenant) / Turian Female (C-Sec Lieutenant)
C-Sex 2 : In Search of Shelter
by Brioche/Bryoche
Prologue - Threshold
"What am I doing here?" he mumbled to himself, a scowling grimace shadowing his face. His hand was still hovering over the intercom switch, frozen in time as a storm of conflicting emotions roiled inside skull. Why, again, did he think it would be a good idea to come all the way here? Why was he so set on seeing her again, just to tell her goodbye, after all this time? What was he expecting of her... or of himself?
Knowing her, she wouldn't take the purpose of his visit well. She was going to be disappointed, angry, or a mix of both. There was going to be some yelling and screaming involved too, and worst case scenario, he would go to the Citadel Space Transit with a black eye and a few bruises. Why, he asked himself again, would he face his old flame just to bid her goodbye? It would be better for everyone involved if he would just leave in silence and let things run their course. Yes, that was the best course of action. Meeting her wasn't worth the trouble, it would be so simple to just step back from her doorstep. So simple to turn around and walk away, never to see her again. After all, he was never good at saying goodbye, it wouldn't prove too difficult to bury some regrets under a few good bottles of brandy.
But here he was, stuck in place in front of the steel frame of her door like some deranged mime that forgot how to act. One hand seemingly stuck just a few inches from the "Call" prompt on the orange holographic screen, the other rubbing his eyebrow arches in deep circles. The strap of his backpack dug into his shoulder, as if to add a physical and palpable weight to his difficult predicament. "Come on, you idiot, just push the damn button or you're going to regret it forever." he heard himself grumble. "Either forget about her or push the button. Be a man, don't be a coward."
Yet he didn't budge.
Part of him was... Afraid. Of seeing her face again, of being judged by her, of the doubts that could cloud his mind if he saw her again. And maybe, just maybe, he could be scared of the hope that meeting her could bring.
Who in the galaxy didn't have regrets, after all? Better to have regrets than remorse, and he knew he could -probably- live peacefully knowing he left the Citadel like a thief in the dead of night, alone and without saying goodbye to any of his acquaintances.
Was saying your goodbyes to someone you loved really that hard?
He grimaced, shuffled his shoulders around the uncomfortable synthetic strap and still didn't pushed the button. Glancing to the side through his fingers, he watched the shimmer of the hovering cars shooting through the bright neon-lit street, a low, ghostly hum followed each one, barely audible through the thick glass frame of the hallway. He briefly took on the sights and sound of the busy street, diverting his attention away from his infertile mullings as he watched passerbys coming and going across the avenue. Each and everyone going around their own little lives, despite the refugees coming in droves from faraway systems, despite the bad news spewed daily by tired-looking newscaster, despite the absurdity of associating planets with words like "under siege", "occupied" or the ever devastatingly simply... "Lost".
He breathed in deeply, relaxing his shoulders as he straightened his hunched stance. For a moment, he considered turning back and giving up on ever seeing her again. He even managed to muster the will to turn his back to her door and walk away. All that was needed was for him to pry his stupid hand from her intercom. A simple, barely mentionable effort to be made...
"Ah, screw it."
His thumb crushed down on the "Call" button, and a loud electronic buzz resounded from behind the steel frame of the door. He snickered to himself as he twisted his tired arm and wrist around, wouldn't it be a shame if she wasn't even home, after all? All that waiting and drama, just for him to be waiting in front of an empty flat. He absent-mindedly adjusted his stance and clothes, passing a hand over the crease of his C-Sec branded black hoodie and fidgeting with the zipper. He barely registered the sound of steps approaching as he shuffled the strap of his bag onto his opposite shoulder. The steps stopped just behind the door, and he craned his head backward to look at the spyhole camera before giving it his widest grin. Like a comedian putting on a mask before going on the stage, here he was, burying months of frustrations and worry to appear as cheeky and cheery as everyone knew him to be, as she knew him to be. He opened his mouth to say his opening line, but a loud whizz cut him short : the wide steel frame of her door opened apart briskly to reveal a tall and very surprised turian.
Her mouth opened a little as her mandibles jittered slightly ajar, expressing clear shock at seeing him again. Her green cat-like eyes quickly darted around his figure, as if she was searching for a minute detail on his face, her startled look quickly changing to a somewhat restrained joy. Amused and touched by her reaction, he couldn't stifle the chuckle that escaped his lips.
"What is it? Never saw a ghost before?"
She was about to reach out to touch or embrace him, but his word stopped her hand in mid-air, her slender taloned three fingers wiggling awkwardly at him.
"What?" she blurted, frowning harshly at him.
"Hello you. Long time no see." he immediately parried with a cheeky grin.
A pause, then a heavy sigh, and her high shoulders finally relaxed a little. Her raised arm fell to her side and she looked down at him, mandibles shut tightly against her jaw as her curved mouth giving the hint of a smile.
"Hello." she softly said. "Long time no see."
They looked at each others in silence for a few moment, but for him, he was already brought back a months ago. The simple sight of her memorable streak of red warpaint across her alien mask-like features was enough to trigger this encroaching feeling of longness and comfort that he didn't know he forgot. Good, warm and even cuddly memories. Her discreet smile and gentle attitude already threatened to shatter his hard-thought resolution, and he felt that what he planned to do coming here was going to be harder than he ever thought it would.
He swallowed hard, hiding behind a jolly "How are you holding up?"
"Tired. Exhausted. And worst of all : I'm all out of Tupari." she answered without breaking her smile. "What about you? You should have told me you were coming, I'd have prepared something for you."
"I was walking around the Ward, figured I could stop by to check on you." he lied, "Been pretty tired and exhausted myself as well, but you know..."
"Life goes on?"
"Life goes on."
"One step after the other?"
He chuckled, "One step after the other."
He knew that both of them just kept repeating this empty, phony sentence over and over without really believing it. That's the only way one could cope and go on, one step after the other, day after day, while the whole galaxy burned around them. Crossing her arms together, she narrowed her alien eyes on him, quickly darting downward from his face. Her mandibles clicked slightly in an almost imperceptible quiver. "You look like you lost weight."
"Didn't noticed so meself, but I'd believe you. And you look like..."
He scratched his scruffy beard, grimacing as he looked for something wrong in his alien friend's appearance to tease her over. She was still her usual turian self : tall, lanky, spiky. As is the lot of most turians, her mask-like bony face was seemingly locked in a perpetual stern expression, even when she smiled and relaxed. He noticed that the otherwise vibrant red streak of warpaint that crossed over her flat nose and tall cheekbones was looking a tad bit duller and slimmer. Her left brow was also seemingly damaged : a few impacts dotted the porous bone-like plate, revealing patches of drab, leathery scar tissue underneath. She furrowed her brow as he scanned her familiar, yet still alien face, not really appreciating being stared at for that long.
"You look like you'd be in need for a fresh coat of red paint now, innit?"
"Humpf!" she scoffed, indignant. "Not two minutes in and you're already being rude, how typically human of you."
He chuckled heartily at her reaction. It was good to meet her again, before putting this little plan of his into action. He smiled at her, but his eyes seemingly showed his true melancolic colors. Her expression hardened, brow furrowing and eyes squinting in an accusatory glare. She didn't seem to buy his cheery and cheeky demeanor, as if she could see the gloom that inhabited him. A nervous shiver traveled through his spine. For a turian all bent on rigorous discipline and the all mighty sense of duty, she was always surprisingly clairvoyant when it came to reading people's emotion. Or maybe he was easy to read. She always seemed to see right through him back when both of them were a thing.
Feels like a lifetime ago.
"How long has it been?" she asked, her tall and slender figure slouching lazily on the doorway. "Since, you know..."
"I was wondering the same thing." he muttered, absentmindedly scratching at his cropped hair. "I know we talked through Extranet some... long time ago... But the last time we met each others face to face? I 'unno."
She hummed, "Can't be that long now, can it?"
He thought hard about it, but could only give a curt answer. "Both of us got the short end of the stick when it came down to emergency transfers and reinforcements. I got the Zakera Ward and Lower Docks job."
"Guard duty at Huerta Hospital and around the Presidium on my end."
He winced, inadvertently remembering how many friends and colleagues got sent to Huerta Memorial Hospital, lying on a stretcher instead of guarding some big-eyed salarian doctors. "Intensive care?"
"No, thankfully. They had enough guards there." she blurted out in apparent relief. "I was actually watching over the room of that famous turian general that was stabbed, you know the one?"
"Wasn't he the one that got poisoned during...?"
"This very one. Recovered thanks to some kind of antidote given by an anonymous donor. I was beside his door when they woke him up."
"Lucky guy."
"Indeed. Not everyone got so lucky during the..."
Her flanged voice trailed off and died down in a whisper. Emotional scars ran deep, and the simple fact of referencing what happened on that fateful day, when white and gold uniforms shook the core of the Citadel, bringing with them the war and ruin that consumed the rest of the galaxy.
C-Sec and its members got bled dry that day. Stabbed in the back, shot through the heart and left scrambling to save what could be saved. Nobody left that day unscathed, not even the survivors, it was a wake-up call to make them realize that -even during a doomsday scenario of galactic-wide extinction- terrorists, fanatics and murderers were still operating just under their nose. He remembered the chaotic aftermath. Counting the wounded while licking your own wounds. He remembered reading through the long, terrifyingly long obituaries. Searching for the names of absent friends, of missing colleagues, of simple acquaintances sometimes.
Searching in the hope of never finding what he was looking for.
Searching for her name.
He grimaced, the sour taste of that anguish still fresh in his mind. "We didn't see each others face to face since before the Coup, innit?"
Her solemn visage shook from side to side. "No. I don't think so."
"That long?" he murmured in disbelief.
"Too long." she gently whispered back.
"Damn."
She sighed heavily, her gaze dropping low and far-off for just a moment before she straightened her stance and lifted her chin up. She nodded towards the strap on his shoulder, before slightly frowning at him. "Didn't hear anything from you for a while now, what are you up to?"
She was already onto him. He grinned widely, trying his best to look as self-assured and cocky as he thought she always knew him to be. "Ain't you a little curious now?"
"Come on. For what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you on my doorstep?" she retorted with a mocking snicker that opened her mandibles wide, making the previously gloomy atmosphere disappear.
Seeing her smile made him swallow hard. Part of him wanted to keep her smiling a little longer, a little wider.
There was no use telling her everything right now, on the threshold of the very place where both of them shared a lot of happy memories.
No use turning those happy memories into bittersweet ones yet.
"Bribe me." he joked, craning his head backward in playful defiance.
She gently tapped the tip of her talon on her chin, raising an eyebrow plate at him. "Maybe, just maybe, I still have something a levo like you could drink without passing out."
"I thought you were all out of Tupari."
"Maybe I lied."
"So?"
"So what?" she teased, seemingly content in making him wait for her invitation.
"So when are you going to invite me to your damn flat?" he retorted with a grin. Her mandibles clicked, and she swiftly spun on her heels to give passage.
"I thought you'd never ask." she threw over her shoulder. "Come, no use staying on the doorstep like a lost pyjaak."
He watched her moving away further into her apartment, but he still didn't budge from from her doorway. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the familiar perfume of her place fill his lungs, bringing with it the memories of comfortable, warm and oblivious times. He already failed at saying his goodbyes without even realizing it, and now he's going to dig his own grave deeper and deeper for each minute he spends in her home, in her company. He felt like he was on the brink of something bigger than he anticipated, something that would probably wreck both their minds and hearts if he didn't lie about the purpose of his visit, about the truth of that little plan of his.
It was a terrible tragedy in the making, and he was going to go full steam ahead, for the simple sake of hearing her voice a few minutes more.
Better to have remorse than regrets, right?
With a heavy sigh, he lifted his leg and passed through the threshold of her apartment, a familiar feeling of comfort slowly curdling into an acidic apprehension of what would happen next.