I'm so glad that people actually read my ramblings and seem to like it. This the first time I've written anything ever and reading that people like it makes me giddy with happiness. So to everyone who put this story on alert or favourited it and especially to my reviewers: Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Garrus crouched and almost crawled around yet another tight corner to peer into the third hidden compartment they've found in the warehouse. The warehouse had looked normal enough from the outside but the more they looked around, the more suspicious the whole thing began to look. There were offices and counters and displays set up and everything practically screamed "normal business" to anybody looking at it.
But Johnson and Garrus weren't fooled by the front displayed. It only took them half an hour of looking around to find the first hidden containers, full of illegal weapons tech and one call to Headquarters later the warehouse was crawling with C-Sec officers. Johnson was leading a team into the basement, gleefully ignoring the annoyed looks of the turian officers who still had a problem with a human leading them.
Garrus took a another team to the second level and already had left half of his team to catalogue the contents of the first hidden compartment they had come across. There had been at least one full container of Red Sand and some other drug they didn't even recognize. Squinting into the darkness of behind the hidden door near the floor he knelt on, Garrus was careful to recheck the filters on his helmet. With this much Red Sand floating around here he had ordered everyone to wear their protective gear and keep the purifiers running inside. His visor didn't show him any life signs but the room he was peering in was huge, and some kind of shielding crackled around the edges.
"There is a big area here but there has to be another entrance, this can't be it. Look around, scan for cloaking tech. There has to be a door somewhere here. I see big containers, they didn't just materialize there."
The other three turians with him lit up their Omni-Tools and scanned the walls, Garrus used the programs on his specialized visor looking for the telltale signs of cloaking. Fizzly edges, ghostly mirror-images, those were the usual signs. The more expensive the tech the harder it was to find it. Garrus began to grow nervous and excited at the same time. How advanced was this tech if they couldn't find it even with the best programs.
The hunt was on.
Garrus could feel it, that stream of adrenaline coursing through his veins, the excitement of the hunt. They were coming up to something big, he could sense it, almost touching his spirit. The rest of his team was humming the same tune as him, subharmonics chiming with each other.
"Batius, check the container over there, I'm getting some strange optical divergences there."
"Yes, there is something ... like the container is there but isn't."
"That's it, we got it! Come on, overload that incanti, go!"
They cued up their Omni-Tools synchronising the overloads when his visor flashed him an alarm about energy signatures flaring up and he could just call out "Trap!" when his vision turned white and for a blink of a second everything seemed to be frozen. He saw Batius trying to shield his eyes as the chemical flames engulfed him, he saw Tarten drop to the ground behind him, scarcely protected by his friend. Tinlenus fell backwards, his eyes fixed on Garrus, looking for help he couldn't give and then he was knocked back from the blast with the force of a skycar hitting him square in the chest.
He felt his armor crack on his back from the force of his crash to the ground and he didn't even hear the sound of the explosion, the crash having knocked him out for few seconds. As his senses came back he looked up to find the room transformed into something like a warzone. He slammed his comm to call for help but could only let out a violent cough as suddenly the pain rushed up and his cowl seemed to constrict around his lungs.
"Medic!" he managed to yell out in between coughs and tried to get up. On his hands knees he crawled over to Batius and Tarten, their armor smoking, their bodies unmoving. Tinlenus had somehow avoided the worst of the blast and was also moving over to Batius, his eyes behind his cracked helmet wide in panic. He was keening in worry, his voices screeching. His subvocals were clearly crying for a mate in danger, Garrus had had no idea that they were so close.
Tinlenus reached for Batius' arm and Garrus stopped him before he could grab onto him to move him. Garrus was no medic but Batius was severely injured and moving him without a containment field around his bones and organs was probably not a good idea. He tried to turn on his Omni-Tool to scan his colleagues but it seemed to be fried. Without his Omni-Tool he could only look over everyones armor. Batius armor was burned all over as much as Tartens but they had no visible cracks. But they both had been much closer to the explosion than Garrus and he already felt like he had been thrown around in his armor by an enraged krogan.
Suddenly Johnson was screaming in his ear.
"Garrus! Garrus are you there? Come on man, talk to me!"
"Yeah, I'm here, I'm..." Another cough and a surge of pain made him fall flat on the side of his fringe again. "Just get here, get a medic here..."
The sound of footsteps and the sight of many blue C-Sec armor assured him that things were taken care of and he let exhaustion wash over him and welcomed the darkness of unconsciousness to take away the pain.
Garrus woke up to a bright light shining in his eyes and the smell of medigel. A doctor with green markings on his face looked at him disapprovingly and Garrus wondered vaguely what he could have done to make the man so mad at him.
"We'll keep him on the monitors and the pain meds until his cowl has healed. Please keep me informed of his progress, Dr. Michel." The turian doctor spoke to a tiny human woman standing next to his sickbed.
The first doctor turned away and Garrus followed him with his eyes and saw him turn his attention to Tarten in the bed next to him. He looked around but couldn't see Batius and Tinlenus anywhere. He looked at the tiny human doctor and tried to make a friendly face.
"I'm not sure what I did to make him so mad." He was relieved that his speech didn't sound slurred. The turian doctor left the room with determined steps.
The human doctor answered with an unusual accent. "Oh, despite from getting yourself injured you didn't do anything wrong. You had your team all wear helmets and that probably saved everyones life, at least ..." She stopped and looked over through the glass door into another room. Garrus followed her look and saw the two other turians from his team on sickbeds. Tinlenus was sitting up, looking worried at his friend or mate or whatever in the other bed. Garrus trilled a question and caught the confused look from the doctor. He coughed and hesitated to actually ask the question but he had to know.
"How are Batius, Tarten and Tinlenus?"
"Tarten is here in the room with you, he has many broken bones and some burns, we sedated him to protect him from the pain. Tinlenus is a little better off, he only broke his arm and burned his left leg. Both will most probably be fine after they healed for a few weeks. Batius ..." She hesitated and Garrus braced himself for the bad news.
"He is injured very much, almost all of his skin - eh plating - got burned, his armor fell off him like ash. He has a head injury and is in a coma. We are not sure if he will wake up. Even if he does, we are not sure if he will make a full recovery. I'm very sorry, Mr. Vakarian, we do what we can."
Garrus fell back to his side. "I should have been more careful, I should have known that there would be traps." Garrus groaned and closed his eyes. He was startled by the small human hand on his upper arm trying to comfort him.
The doctor had a shy smile on her face and her voice was high. "I don't know about the situation that led to the explosion but without the helmets I'm sure none of you would have survived. And you didn't try to move Batius, that was good as well. You should sleep now, you broke a rib and have a crack in your cowl, you body needs some time to heal. "
Garrus closed his eyes and fell asleep after a few minutes.
When he woke up again, the Citadel was in it's night cycle. He looked around the room and saw his friend Frank Johnson sitting on a chair with his head resting against the wall. He seemed to be asleep. Garrus tried to sit up but his cowl was clearly not agreeing with him. A sharp stab of pain had him slump back on the bed and the noise woke up Johnson.
"Easy man, don't start any gymnastics just yet. You got a pretty bad crack on your front thing there!"
"It's called a cowl, you should know that."
"As if you guys bother to know what my body parts are called. Tinlenus still calls my hair fur."
They both fell quiet for a few minutes, both worried about their colleagues.
"What happened after I fell unconscious?" Garrus asked, knowing that his friend would have started to investigate right away.
"Well, after you fainted like a precious flower ..." Johnson grinned and Garrus let out an annoyed trill.
"Alright, alright. You passed out right when my team and me came running in. For once those racist bastards listened to me and didn't move you guys, Gestver just applied medigel all around and I had the other guys scan the fuck out of everything. They found another bomb trap that would have killed all of us if we hadn't disarmed the detonator. The medics showed up with this cute little doctor from a clinic in the neighbourhood, a human woman, maybe you saw her, has a sexy little accent."
Garrus stopped his gushing, "You can flirt with her later, tell me more about the warehouse."
"Ok ok, this room you found behind the vent flap or whatever that was, well - we eventually found the door, an honest good old-fashioned secret door hidden behind a closet. There wasn't even electronic cloaking shit, I found it by scanning for airflow of all things. All the cloaking stuff was just there to cover the fucking bomb traps. The room was stuffed full of boxes and containers with drugs and weapons and all the illegal shit you could think about and we actually found a list of suppliers and buyers. Jackpot! Oh and get this, you remember that we wanted to look for cooling agents? Well, guess what we found?"
Garrus sat up with his weight on his elbows, despite the pain in his cowl. "They supplied the cooling stuff from that warehouse?"
"Lots and lots of the stuff. And tons of other medical supplies as well. Delivered to different names but all in close proximity to each other. Kind of stupid actually, trying to hide it but not really hiding it."
Garrus sighed, "If the bad guys never made stupid mistakes we would never catch any of them." He leaned back against the raised part of the bed.
"Yes, you're right. I checked out the area, had a coffee, talked to the store owners, you know, just sniffing around. Nothing obviously suspicious going on but the coffee guy told me about a biotech company in the area with lots of foot traffic, people of all specie walking in and coming out shortly later."
"Nothing wrong about that, Johnson."
"I know birdy but coffee guy is quite the observer and he saw the same people come back a few weeks later, looking sick and exhausted. Some of them he never saw come out of the building again."
"And you think those could be the dead bodies we found?"
"Hey, you never know! Coffee guy mentioned some of the people working there have lunch at his place every day, so I thought I'll hang around there for few days and see if I can chat up someone."
Garrus snorted. "You just hope for a cute girl to flirt with there."
"Cute or not, I will find someone to talk to. Find out what that company does besides what the sign on the front says."
"What does the sign on the front say?"
Johnson scrunched up his face. "It's a biotech company, working in artificially grown skin and cartilage. Quite successfully actually, they provide good skin supplements for humans, turians and others. Our friends Batius and Tarten may owe their life to those skin substitutes." They both looked over to Tarten in the next sickbed, still asleep. Batius had been moved to another room, Tinlenus was alone in the next room.
Garrus keened softly. His worry about his colleagues slowly turned into anger, someone needed to pay for this. "If they have something to do with this, we'll find a connection. We have to. Go ahead with your plan, find out what this place really does. But be careful, they could have legitimate reasons for all the cooling stuff." Garrus critically looked at the dark circles under Franks eyes.
"Oh, they get coolants on a regular basis, but it's not much. The difference is in the numbers." Johnson looked pleased about his work but he was clearly tired.
"Johnson get some sleep, you look like you're about to fall asleep right where you're sitting."
"Since when can you read humans so well, birdy?"
"Ever since you pyjak keep hanging around me."
Johnson grinned. "Monkey, birdman, monkey! But you're right, I'm gonna crash at home and get some sleep. You better get well, I get bored without you around."
Johnson took his hand in a strong grip and then left. Garrus closed his eyes, his mind turning all the information over and over in his head until he fell asleep.
Three days later Garrus was released from the hospital as the first of the injured group. Johnson kept him updated with messages while he was confined to bedrest at home. Now that the heavy duty painkillers from the hospital wore off and he could just take the normal stuff, his whole body ached all over. So Garrus spend most of his days and nights in his bed, raised to a half-sitting position and watched vids and read stuff on the extranet. He caught up with some popular shows and concluded that he hadn't really missed much.
He hated sitting around, resting his fringe on the top of his pillowroll. He needed to do something, anything, the stress from the last week had piled up and needed some release. Masturbation only took some of the edge off and it didn't really help that his "favourite" hand was still covered in a bandage.
Garrus had just found another vid with turian-male-human-female porn and he was slowly and a bit awkwardly working with his off-hand on his erection. Turian-human and turian-asari had quickly become his favourite porn after he had started to "research" the various alien sex deviations out there.
After the great experience with 'Alliance-Red' Garrus had decided that he should broaden his horizons even more. He didn't sleep around every night but he definitely had his fair share of sexual adventures. He tried sex with different species, many asari, some human females and there was some groping with a human male that never went anywhere. He also had a fling with a turian female but there were only a few living on the Citadel and most of them were already bonded. He even had an affair with a Salarian female who showed more sexual interest than some turian females he had met. There was also one adventure where he put on half of an enviro suit and linked it with a quarian who ran her nerve stimulation program between them. While feeling quite technical the sensations were not all that different from asari mind-pleasure.
He stayed away from Elcor and Hanar though, that would have just been weird. He almost had sex with a drell man but after falling unconscious from the hallucinogenic salvia and having to spend a whole day on a bad trip just from a bite to his neck he decided that he didn't have a gender barrier but he definitely had a species barrier when it came to drell.
He did like sex with asari but most of them didn't allow penetration, they found it unhygienic. They could give and receive pleasure with their minds so penetration wasn't really necessary. But Garrus liked the feeling of his penis enclosed in warmth and thought that pure mind pleasure was lacking something. Still, he didn't deny the "Embrace eternity"-sensations when he came across them.
Garrus kept watching the vid, slowly rubbing his erection. It was another First Contact War setting, a stable when it came to turian produced porn involving humans. A female sort-of-Alliance looking soldier had her hands bound behind her back and was interrogated by a turian commander. He was trying threats to get information from her but was unsuccessful. After a little while he changed tactics and started to lick her neck and her breasts with his tongue and the female shuddered with pleasure. Her hands were still bound and Garrus waited for the turian actor to release her hands, fondly remembering those deft and soft fingers on his plates. There was really no point in tying them up. Finally the commander released her hands and after a short struggle where she halfheartedly tried to escape she eventually submitted to the pleasure his tongue gave her and started to kiss him.
Garrus kept his eyes on the screen while his hand worked faster and his talons occasionally scratched the seams of his retreated plates. On the screen the actress went down on her knees and Garrus froze at the sight of the tiny woman with long hair kneeling in front of the turians impressive erection and kissing and licking his penis. So that's what they meant with "Special deviant moves" on the description.
He almost couldn't believe his eyes and vaguely wondered if the woman didn't get hurt when she took part of the turians erection in her mouth. Whatever she was doing must have been amazing because the turian actor growled out his intense pleasure in some very real subharmonics and suddenly pushed her away to thrust into her and the look of desire in his eyes was too real to be just an act.
Garrus was fascinated by the display and had forgotten for a minute why he was actually watching the porn. His hand had stilled but his erection kept throbbing just from looking at the couple on screen, both of them now panting and screaming. Right when he remembered to move his hand again the doorbell chimed and he cursed loudly as he pulled up the camera picture.
Outside he saw an asari with white markings on her face that looked like they had been applied with a thick brush. Garrus knew her, she was one of the more regular night flings he had, a friend and sometimes a lover. They cared about each other but they weren't in it for a relationship, she was still a young maiden, eager to experience everything the galaxy had to offer.
Garrus send the key code to the door to open it and called out to the asari when she entered. "I'm in here, Dalinia, come in!"
He turned off the screen and threw a blanket over himself. He wasn't embarrassed at the state of his arousal but he thought it to be slightly impolite to greet her with with his member standing to attention like that. She saw the state he was in right away and gave him a wide smile. Not wasting any time with small talk she licked his mandible and climbed over him. Garrus hissed in pain, even her slight weight was too much for his beaten body.
"I'm sorry" she whispered and slid to his right side.
"No, I'm sorry," he mumbled, "you have no idea how much I need that right now and I just can't!" he groaned his subvocals in annoyance. Dalinia put her hands to sides of his face and looked at him with a friendly smile.
"Relax, Garrus, let me help you. I'll be careful and you won't get hurt at all. Just relax."
She kissed his right mandible and Garrus let his shoulders relax and rested his fringe back on his pillowroll as her as eyes turned black and she whispered "Embrace eternity!"
The sensation of her mind rushed through his body, her touch from the inside igniting his nerves. Behind his closed eyes lights were rushing towards him, enclosing him, wrapping him in the feeling of a single touch engulfing his whole body. He felt her pleasure mix with his and her mind touched his inner desires, pulling them to the forefront, fulfilling them with bright intensity. Waves of pleasure rolled from his head to his loins and he felt her mind swimming through his veins and he saw his body alight with colorful streams of light and felt a warmth around his penis so intense that it almost hurt and a simple touch of his own hand was enough for him to spill all over his stomach and he felt and heard his asari friend moan as she reached the height of her pleasure herself.
With a sigh Dalinia's eyes returned to normal and she laid her head on his arm. Garrus stretched, he felt pleasantly satisfied and knew that he was now finally able to relax. He smiled at his friend "Thank you Dalinia, that was just perfect."
The asari looked at him with serious eyes and said "Garrus, I was worried about you."
"Huh? Didn't know you cared." Garrus looked at her slightly worried, their relationship had been pleasantly easy going and he really didn't want to change that.
Dalinia grinned, "Don't worry Garrus, I'm not ready for my matron years with you just yet." She nudged him on the side of his fringe and sat up so that she faced him.
"I was just ... you know the galaxy is a big place and we just sit here on the Citadel, shielded from everything. Why do we stay here? There is so much to see out there and we just sit here."
"Well right now you sitting here is quite enjoyable ..." Garrus stopped her hand from punching him on his arm and grinned at her, "... but I know what you mean. Why do you ask yourself that?"
She straightened her back and said resolutely "I'm going to leave, Garrus. I'm going to leave this safe haven and I'm going to see the galaxy. I found a position on a trade ship and I'm going to find out what I want from life. I just wanted to see you again before I leave tomorrow and you almost got yourself killed." She looked quite mad and Garrus thought that he should probably change the subject.
He leaned his head back and looked out the window to the artificial clouds on the artificial Citadel sky. "So you're trying to find your consilium."
"My what?" Dalinia looked at him questioningly.
"Your consilium. Every turian is raised to find his or her consilium and follow it. Finding your consilium, finding your calling in life and trying to achieve it is the noblest goal of all."
Dalinia smiled, "Yes, that's what I want, to find my consilium, my purpose." She jumped up from the bed as if she was going to run out to the galaxy right away.
Garrus spread his mandibles in a wide grin, he was happy for his friend, happy that she was doing something with her life. He didn't know what his consilium was but one day he was going to find it. Maybe he should leave the Citadel as well, travel the galaxy.
But first he had to solve this damn case that had put him on bedrest, aching all over.
There! Action and sex. Phew, I hope you like it, that was a beast to write.
I promise Shepard will turn up soon, I haven't forgotten her. And Saren and Nihlus... you will see.
Another thing:
Does anybody have any idea how to describe time frames in MassEffect? I still use hours, minutes, days and stuff but all of those are based on this measly planet spinning and turning around our sun and that really doesn't work for a galaxy. So what do we use? Until I hear something better, I will use seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months and year as fractions of time from each other but I will just assume there is a base system for these fractions set in a galaxy wide time frame. So an hour is not necessarily 60 minutes long (a base on 100 minutes per hour and 100 seconds per minute would make much more sense) and would not have the same absolute length in time. Yes, I worry about things like that.