Two women, neither of them naked, stood somber within the mess hall's amber lighting. The first, a hooded quarian, stared into nothingness with her arms folded. The second wore the neutral tones of an academic, eager eyes trained on the medbay door. The only crewmember seated at the table was a krogan, and this was a rare occasion since he was not the most unsettled individual in the room. Wrex grew agitated by the turian's ceaseless pacing, the pointless strides which took him around the dining table four times in the past few minutes. It seemed as though the investigator was closing in on a guilty krogan suspect, hoping to sweat the truth out of him. It wasn't scaring anyone, but Wrex thought it was weird as hell.
After a heavy sigh, the krogan decided he could bare the silence no longer. He shattered it without shame.
"Shouldn't you be fixing some stupid car?"
The turian froze, but shook his head in response to the krogan's rhetoric.
"Only when you go back to skulking in a dark corner, Wrex".
Crimson eyes rolled sickeningly in their deep sockets, and the turian averted his gaze from Wrex's yellow hide. He would not be provoked so easily; if he could withstand incessant taunts on Eletania, he would certainly not be baited by a single crabby krogan. Garrus knew he was just one of many people who fantasized about placing a micro-mass accelerator round right in the center of a krogan's fleshy face.
They were just so ugly.
"I don't get it", Wrex admitted casually, though his voice rumbled in the turian's chest like a fusion drive core. "I figured everyone would be happy. Saren is dead. Shepard is alive. Hell, I never liked dancing, but if you think Flux is still open-"
"Don't give us that, Wrex", the turian rudely cut him off. "You were there when this whole thing happened. Why did Shepard get so severely injured while you toddled off with barely a scratch?"
The krogan frowned. He rose from the table, tremendous bulk amplified by the blunt hump on his back. Tali flinched apprehensively, and even Liara's stalwart attention had been diverted to the speaker. Despite his distance, Wrex's shadow stretched halfway up the arrogant turian's body.
You want an answer? I'll give you one.
"I was fighting right alongside her. We bled together. I can't help it if my skin is a little thicker than hers, but if I had gotten torn up, I would wear those scars with pride. I could ask for no better battlefield to die on".
Look long and hard upon this face, turian.
The turian blinked his beady little eyes. Wrex always knew when his facial gashes were being scrutinized. They bore an ancient power, though his combat suit concealed old favorites. Images of Saren's broken body cycled through the krogan's mind, but he did not stop to savor them.
"A huge chunk of Sovereign smashed into the tower", he paused, crimson eyes now distant. "We thought we lost her. I have never lamented the death of a human" his eyes fell hard upon the turian's, "and I don't intend to break that record".
Peaceful silence returned to the room, and Garrus stood motionless. Satisfied, Wrex seated himself.