Hello lovely readers, thank you for following the story.
Garrus and Johnson sat in one of the few cafes that served decent dextro and levo food eating lunch. They each ate something that looked suspiciously similar and was called Burger in Johnson's case and Garlefka in Garrus'. Even though Garrus knew that humans were quite capable of eating with the correct tools, Johnson had decided to eat his Burger with his hands, biting off huge chunks and chewing them. Since his friend usually had his reasons for doing things he didn't question it, apparently that's how burgers were meant to be eaten. He cut another piece off his Garlefka and stabbed it with his talon, raising it to his mouth.
Suddenly Johnson stared wide-eyed at some point to the right of Garrus shoulder, chewing and swallowing urgently. He swallowed so hard that Garrus could see the chunk of food moving down his throat. When he opened his mouth, pieces of food were still stuck to his teeth and Garrus winced slightly at that, he couldn't quite grasp all this chewing humans did if it didn't even get their teeth clean.
"Holy shit! That's the scariest turian I have ever seen!" Johnson almost jumped up from his chair and was straining his neck to look at the turians walking towards of one of the elevators on the Presidium. Garrus turned around to see what got him so exited and Johnson kept on babbling.
"That guy has the whitest plates I have ever seen, did he turn his bones inside-out? And what's with the long bones stretching back, you don't have that." He stared at Garrus like he was seeing him for the first time. "Is that artificial? None of you guys at C-Sec have those. And is that metal on his jaw? I mean mandible? Did he use a nail gun to staple his face back together?"
"Would you shut up for a second so I can answer all your questions?" Garrus grumbled annoyed. Of course he knew who that was, one of the most famous turians out there, he practically grew up on the stories about him.
"That's the most famous turian Spectre Saren. Renowned hero of the First Contact war and famous and infamous to be the most efficient and successful Spectre ever working for the council. He get's the job done no matter what and doesn't shy away from the dirty work." Garrus felt slightly uncomfortable praising the Spectre like that, there were some disturbing stories going around involving him and he wasn't quite sure if the praise was all that justified.
"Oh, I heard about him, never seen him though." Johnson suddenly had a strange look on his face. "You should go over and talk to him, maybe you can still become a Spectre one day."
"Why don't you go and ask him for that?" Garrus snorted, he would not annoy a hero like Saren with his gushing about becoming a Spectre one day like a little boy.
"Yeah, probably not a good idea, he hates humans." Johnson still had this strange look on his face.
Garrus shrugged, "Well, he did fight in the Relay 314 Incident and his brother got killed during that war, it's kind of understandable if he carries a grudge."
Johnson's voice was quiet. "The First Contact War was a long time ago, people need to move on at some point." He took a breath, still looking at Saren and not at Garrus. "My father fought on Shanxi. Died there." The silence was thick between them and he kept looking at the Spectre. "The galaxy is not the same anymore, times have changed."
Garrus stared at him. Johnson had never talked about his family or why he lived here on the Citadel and not on Earth. It had never even occurred to him that Johnson's father could have been fighting against turians in the Relay 314 Incident and how he had every reason to hate him because of that. Instead they had become best friends. A turian and a human. Spectre Saren would think he was crazy, Spirits, his father probably thought that as well.
Which would explain the strained stretches of silence he heard when he told his father about the work he did with Frank Johnson. Kind of obvious when you think about it.
"Who is the reddish turian next to Mr. Scaryface?" Frank asked, still openly staring at the turians. But he looked his normal self again, that unusual serious expression was gone from his face. "Is that a female? She looks pretty!"
Garrus sighed and took a closer look. His eyes widened in surprise. "I'll be fugari! That's Nihus!"
"Did you just say you'll be banished? That's what my translator puttered out."
"Well sort-of. I know that guy, oh and it is a man. Females have shorter fringes."
"Are you sure? Cause the way he walks, damn! You put that swagger in your hips and the whole female population of all species will throw themselves at you."
"I prefer my females not thrown, thanks. And yes, I'm sure. I've met him when I applied for the Spectres." There was burst of grief in the back of his head when he thought back to those talks. He was so hopeful back then and how he had idolized the Spectres. He had been so eager to prove himself to the Spectre and Nihlus was just really friendly, put him at ease and they just talked. Garrus felt like, given time, they could have become friends. And then he came home and his father made it clear in very few words that he would not go to the Spectres. He honoured his father's decision, like a good turian son would. But seeing Nihlus now he became painfully aware that this path for his life had been closed off to him.
"Nihlus is a good guy, open and friendly. Total opposite to Saren. I cannot imagine how he even puts up with that xenophobe."
"So Nihlus doesn't hate humans?" Johnson kept looking at the red-plated turian with renewed interest.
"No, I don't think he does, as a matter of fact, I saw him meet a human woman back when our appointment was over. They seemed to get along just fine." Fine was one way of putting it, nuzzling and kissing may have been more accurate. But Garrus considered it not his place to tell stories like that about the guy.
Johnson finally tore his eyes away from the Spectres as they entered an elevator. "Maybe the council paired them up with each other for that reason, you know? Have Nihlus counterbalance Saren's xenophobia. I don't envy that guy, Mr. Scaryface looks like a real funbag."
"Funbag?" Garrus translator didn't even attempt to explain that word.
"I meant it sarcastically, you know, like he is fun in bags only not."
"You humans..." Garrus let the rest of the sentence run off, it was a common joke between Frank and him to sigh about 'You turians...' or 'You humans...'
Garrus turned his attention back to his Garlefka and cut off another piece. Johnson had finished his Burger and was now sipping on his drink. Then he looked at him and asked "Have you heard anything about Tinlenus and Batius?"
"No, nothing new." Garrus mumbled, looking down on the table. They both avoided that subject, knowing they couldn't do anything anyway. Garrus decided to stop by the hospital later to see if he could find out more about Batius' situation. For now he wanted to change the subject.
"Alright Frank, tell me what you found out drinking coffee all day down in the wards."
"It's really good coffee actually, best I ever had on the Citadel. That quarter of the wards has a mostly human and salarian population. Hmm, I wonder if the salarians drink coffee too. Man, can you imagine? A salarian on caffeine - oh boy, he would probably talk so fast you'd have to record it with your Omni-Tool and then play it back at half speed!" Johnson almost fell out of his chair laughing.
Garus didn't really get what was so funny, he tried coffee once and decided that is was the most vile thing he ever tasted. And he did not notice that he talked faster afterwards.
"So you had good coffee, what else?"
"That biotech company is called 'Everest artifics', I wonder who comes up with these names... anyway, so far it looks like a salarian-human cooperation and as I said before, they do some impressive stuff with artificial skin. Nothing looked suspicious at first but I kind of befriended this cute girl who works at a lab there. She's really smart and she's paying attention to stuff around her. We talked for about an hour after her shift was done and she told me that they equipped a whole new section of the building a few weeks ago but nobody is allowed to go in. Sarah said she tried to get a look but they seem to have some heavy security going on there. They hired special personnel for the new lab and those guys aren't even allowed to talk to them. Sarah wanted to apply for a transfer but they seem to be very careful who they hire. I asked her if they were looking for people and she said she would ask her boss, maybe I can get hired there and find out more! Sarah said that they're always on the lookout for people who do the clean-up, that would give me nice chance to sniff around there. I could hang out with Sarah, you know, to get to know all her colleagues and the work they do there."
"Does Sarah know that you're C-Sec?" Garrus could hardly stop the grin on his face, he seldom heard Frank talk about a woman so much.
"I may have neglected to mention that..." Johnson said looking contrite. Garrus shook his head at that and looked at his friend "Honestly, Frank, your gushing about this girl and you're already lying to her?"
"Gushing? Lying?" Frank was turning slightly red. Garrus knew that that was a typical reaction for when Frank was embarrassed.
"Hey, I was just doing some small talk with her, I bought her coffee and then we just got along so well and I told her I was looking for a job to hear more about her workplace. How am I supposed to explain to her that I'm C-Sec now?"
"But if you tell her later she will think you only got to know her to spy on the company. That's not gonna end well, you know it."
"Yeah, I know. We'll see..." Johnson leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a minute.
Garrus had finished his meal and cleaned up the table. The waitress was a tiny asari maiden who smiled very pretty from the counter over to their table. Nothing wrong with making a good impression at their favourite lunch place.
But Garrus got distracted by a familiar turian sauntering over to their table. Nihlus Kyrik walked straight towards their table and had his mandibles spread in a wide grin at him. Garrus was confused for a second if he should get up and salute but Nihlus was already in front of him and grabbed his arm in greeting.
"Garrus Vakarian, it's good to see you. How have you been?" Nihlus was way more friendly than Garrus would have anticipated. Johnson also seemed to think something along those lines and raised his eyebrows in question. Nihlus seemed to notice him now, turned around and grabbed Johnson's hand enthusiastically. "I'm Nihlus Kyrik, Spectre in training, a friend of Garrus. And you are?"
Johnson looked slightly amused at the turian and raised his eyebrow at Garrus again. Garrus trilled involuntarily a confused reaction back before he realized that Frank couldn't really understand that but Nihlus could. Johnson turned to Nihlus and shook his hand with a friendly smile, "I'm Frank Johnson, C-Sec."
Nihlus flopped down on a chair and trilled apologetic with his subvocals and Garrus answered with a questioning trill. Johnson looked confused from one to the other and mumbled "Would you stop chirping like birds now?"
Nihlus rested his fringe on the back of the chair and closed his eyes for a second. "I'm sorry Frank Johnson, that was rude of us. It's just where you guys do that raised eyebrow thing to ask 'what the hell is the crazy turian doing?' we use our subvocals. I can assure you, Garrus is just as confused as you are."
"Yeah, I figured as much, I may not understand your subharmonics completely but I've been hanging out with Garrus for a while, I think I got the basics down."
Garrus was a bit surprised by that but he decided to leave that revelation to later. He looked at Nihlus, trying to figure out what was going on. "Nihlus, I am glad to see you and it's not that I'm complaining about your friendly greeting but we've only met for that interview and believe me I thought we got along very well. But still, sympathy aside, we are not exactly close friends, I think..." he shut his mouth before he babbled even more.
"Yes, you're right Garrus. I may have been a bit overenthusiastic. It's just ... I'm a bit starved for friendliness." Nihlus sighed and looked at Garrus and Frank again. "Can you imagine what my days are like, hanging out with Saren?"
He sighed again and his talons made light scratch marks on the table.
Frank snorted a laugh at that remark and said to Nihlus "You know we were just talking about what a funbag Spectre Saren must be."
"You called him a not-funbag, I called him a xenophobe." Garrus grumbled and then listened for any reaction from Nihlus telling him if he overstepped. But Nihlus actually started laughing.
"You guys have him figured out. I would add ruthless to that and then we'll have a complete description." He suddenly looked around as if he was looking for someone. Then he turned back to them and sighed. "Look at me, looking around like a child afraid to get caught by his father, I expect him to jump up behind me at any moment, scolding me."
Garrus shook his head, "Can't you ask for a transfer?"
Nihlus sighed again. "Saren is the best of the best, he get's the job done and I learned immensely from him. Getting along with his personality, well I consider that part of the test, you know? It's a challenge and I'm not walking away from that. I just need a bit of a break once in awhile."
Garrus looked at Nihlus again and he realized that he was not much older than him. He wondered if Nihlus would have listened to his father if he had asked him not to go to the Spectre-training. Garrus had not been ready to face a challenge like that but today? Could he face his father today and disobey his orders? It's a challenge and I'm not walking away from that. Maybe it's time to face my challenge.
Frank had apparently decided that Nihlus needed a good distraction and they were talking about the various clubs and bars on the Citadel they could go to. Suddenly his eyes lit up and Garrus knew that Frank just had had an IDEA!
"Have you guys ever been to a rock concert? I mean real rock, Metal, hard and loud?" Frank had a mischievous grin on his face and Garrus wasn't sure if he liked that. But Nihlus looked excited, "I'm open for anything!" he said.
"Alright, birdmen, there is a concert, a small festival going on tonight in an empty warehouse in lower Quedgin. Three human bands play there and it will be wild! I promise, you guys have never seen anything like it!"
Nihlus jumped up and smiled at Frank "Sounds exactly like what I want, let's go!"
"Hold your horses man, it starts in about three hours." Frank said with a smile while Garrus thought what four-legged animals you could ride on had to do with anything. "Garrus and I actually have to finish some work first. How about this, we'll meet here again in three hours and take a skycab together from here."
Their Omni-Tools lit up as they exchanged contact data and then they departed with some friendly greetings. As they walked away, Johnson turned around again and called out to Nihlus: "Bring ear-plugs!"
The hell?
Garrus had to do an Extranet search to find out what ear-plugs were and he looked confused at Frank. "I thought we wanted to listen to music, why would I plug my ears?"
"Well, you guys have pretty sensitive ears, right?" Johnson looked at him with a sheepish grin. "Compared to you guys, humans are hard of hearing and even we plug our ears to protect them at a metal-concert. It's gonna get pretty loud man."
"They make the concert so loud that it could damage your ears?" Garrus knew that humans sometimes disregarded basic health concerns but that sounded just ridiculous.
"Yeah, kind of stupid if you think about it." Frank shrugged and went on. "You don't want to close your ears completely just dampening the sound a bit. You don't have to wear armor but you should wear some sturdy clothes. And don't bring any weapons, oh I'm gonna write that to Nihlus as well, you won't get in with weapons. Oh, it's gonna be great."
Garrus wasn't so sure about that but he decided to just roll with it.
Three hours later they met Nihlus again at the cafe and got into a skycab. The turians both wore armor, anything else was just unthinkable. Frank Johnson wore jeans and a very old leather jacket and he almost beamed with excitement.
The warehouse they arrived at was huge and thousands of people were already inside. Garrus got nervous instantly, big crowds always made him uneasy. Johnson suggested a place up above on a gallery, overlooking the crowds. He told them that he didn't want to overwhelm them and from this point they had the best view.
As they looked over the crowd, Johnson suddenly got very excited, "Look, over there, that's Lieutenant Shepard!" Nihlus suddenly seemed very interested and Garrus tried to find out who they were looking for. They pointed towards a tall female with black hair that had a bright blue streak on one side. She looked strong and confident. She was surrounded by equally strong looking men and women who were all clearly alliance marines.
"What about her?" Garrus asked confused. Nihlus and Johnson both looked at him like he just asked the stupidest question ever.
Johnson smiled and made a big movement with his arm, "Lieutenant Shepard is the Alliance's rising star. She has just been accepted into the N7 program, the youngest marine to enter ever. She did some incredible stuff on..."
Right that second the concert started and the noise was so intense that Garrus felt like he should curl up under a protective cover. He remembered his ear protection and hurried to put it in his eartube. Nihlus and Frank did the same thing and Frank started to bop his head to the music. Garrus and Nihlus looked at each other confused. Turian music and dances were formulaic, arranged set of repeating melodies with defined steps to go with it. Some human music was like that as well, Garrus had seen a performance once but this was completely different.
He had a hard time to hear any kind of melody at first but after a while he noticed that the one string instrument seemed to lead with a melody, another string instrument laid a darker bass under it and the drums seemed to drive the music forward in a fast rhythm. A singer was screaming and roaring over all that and his translator didn't even attempt to get what he was singing about. Garrus looked over the humans in front of the stage, they weren't dancing, they were jumping and shoving and bopping their heads like Frank did. He noticed a few krogans on one side looking over the humans with an amused look and they were bopping their heads like them.
Frank noticed it too and yelled over the music "Krogans love metal!" Garrus remembered that Frank had told him that this music was called 'metal' for whatever reason. He noticed that the whole lower floor was now jumping in the same rhythm, moving like a body made of hundreds of cells. His eyes caught black hair with a blue streak, jumping high, higher than the others. Her whole body was like a spring and her mouth was open screaming or breathing he couldn't tell.
It had gotten hotter in the warehouse and not surprising the air got heavy with human sweat.
The music came to a fast crescendo and the band left the stage. Garrus realized that he hadn't even noticed that the band had played several songs. He couldn't see Lieutenant Shepard anymore as the next band came on stage and a huge guy with tattoos took the center of the stage and let out a long scream. The audience answered with a scream and Garrus heard the krogans join in. Then the music started again, fast and loud, the drummer beating his drums so fast, Garrus couldn't really see it.
He noticed movement next to Nihlus and was surprised to see Lieutenant Shepard there. Nihlus smiled at her with his mandibles spread wide and Garrus had a feeling that they had met before. The music was too loud to talk anyway but Shepard yelled "Wall of death" at them and then pointed down and Garrus looked back down. Something strange was happening there.
The drum was beating out a rhythm but it was more quiet and the other instruments were quiet. The singer was separating the humans to the sides so that an empty gap was left in the middle and told them to hold till he told them 'Go'. Garrus looked at the humans facing each other over the gap. They looked feral, dangerous! He remembered that the teachers in basic had talked about the humans being predators on their world and how they were all amused by that. The tiny, soft humans predators, really?
But looking down at the two groups staring at each other, prancing, breathing hard like they could barely control themselves he could see it. They were wild, ferocious, snarling at the people on the other side. Then the music started and the singer told them to hold. Another instrument joined in and the singer called out again "Hold!" And then the drums started to get loud and fast and as all instruments sounded out together the singer screamed "GO!" And the humans on both sides of the gap ran! They ran towards each other at full speed, crashing into each other and Garrus couldn't believe it. He expected people to fall down with head injuries but everybody just kept slamming into each other and they were jumping again.
He saw a few turians and salarians, some of them C-Sec, on the sides looking just as bewildered as he felt. The humans were still slamming into each other for fun, jumping and running. How could they do that without any injuries or fights?
The singer now ordered the krogans to do the same but insisted on only krogans against krogans, a smart move. A krogan smashing into anybody other than another krogan tended to end badly. The about 20 krogans left a gap and waited till the singer yelled "Go!" and they crashed into each other head first and Garrus heard them roar happily like only krogans could and the humans were joining in. The krogans and the humans were now jumping to the rhythm, shoving each other.
Krogans and humans. It looked like they could get along really well. There was an old joke about what would happen if you locked a turian and a krogan in a room and depending on who told the joke only the turian or the krogan would come out alive. Garrus wondered if you tried the same with a krogan and a human if they wouldn't come out as best friends.
He noticed that Shepard had moved to other side of the gallery and had a hose in her hand and was fiddling with a vent. Suddenly water came gushing out and she started to spray the people on the floor with cold water. The crowd seemed to be very grateful for that, the humans were raising their faces towards the spray and the krogans let the water run over their humps.
The band had finished and the crowd, cooled down by the water, went to get something to drink and Garrus saw humans and krogans joking and laughing with each other. Shepard had turned off the water and came back to them. She nodded in greeting towards all of them and Nihlus gave her a warm smile and she returned it. Garrus thought she looked beautiful and was startled by that.
She looked directly at him and asked "So what did you think about the 'Wall of death'?"
Garrus had to take a breath and couldn't look away from her eyes. "That's what it is called? How fitting." He shook his head. "You know, I never saw it that way but krogans and humans, you seem to really get along well. If the krogans and the humans ever decided to form an alliance, I think the galaxy wouldn't stand a chance."
Shepard grinned and started to say something but the last band started to play and while the music wasn't quite as wild it still was too loud to hold a conversation. She waved apologetic and went back down to the main floor. Garrus tried to keep the black hair with the blue streak in his sights but at some point she disappeared.
Garrus felt that he needed to get out and indicated as much to his friends who pointed to their Omni-Tools. He nodded and typed out a short message that he would stay outside for a while.
The cold air outside of the warehouse was refreshing and he walked around the building just to stretch his legs. He let the earplugs fall into his hands and enjoyed how clear the world around suddenly sounded.
Before he went around some containers he stopped because he heard a human female gasp and sigh and he carefully bent around the corner of the box to see what was happening. He almost let out a trill of disbelief as he saw a krogan sitting on the ground with a human woman. She was strong and muscular but still looked fragile compared to the krogan. Her clothing was open at the front and her pants hung on one of her legs at the side next to parts of the krogans armor. Garrus thought that he had to interfere, how could a human survive sex with a krogan?
But then he saw how gentle the krogan touched her and when he licked her breasts fondly with his tongue Garrus felt like his world got turned upside down.
Krogans could be gentle? And this krogan apparently knew about foreplay, did all krogans know that?
A krogan? Gentle? A gentle krogan?
The words just didn't work together.
The woman moaned loudly and one look confirmed to him that, yes the krogan had traveled lower with his tongue and had found that magic nub. Oh - Garrus remembered that nub well.
Before he got lost in those memories, Garrus decided to retreat and leave the couple alone. If they had gotten this far they would surely be able to figure out the rest. Two adults having consensual sex was none of his business and it wasn't like he was an expert at krogan sex.
And he wasn't on duty tonight anyway.
He decided to go back inside, maybe he could find a female interested in him and have some fun himself. Looking over the heads of all the humans he didn't even realize that for the first time in a long time he didn't look for bright red. He looked for black with a blue streak.
If you wonder what I tried to describe there with the 'Wall of death' at the concert, search for 'Extreme wall of Death Wacken Metal Festival 2010' on youtube, then you'll know what I mean. I bet krogans would love that!
Thanks to TheLadyKellet for betareading.