Shower, eat, check his weapon, put on his armor, the daily routine soothed him, the only constant in his tumultuous life. Garrus washed the flavor of stale alcohol out of his mouth with more alcohol before he left his apartment. The corridors were lousy with people, jostling each other and him as they went about their daily wretched lives. He tried to calm himself down before he decided to kill them all. Had to remind himself firmly that these were not hardened criminals, that they were only guilty of tiny everyday evils like pettiness and greed. That he had to remind himself at all was a very bad sign.
Every once in a while, a flash of red would catch his eye, he would turn his head to see if that flash was curly red hair bouncing around a heart-shaped face. Impossible he knew, because that face was two years gone, flung from a dying ship to burn in the atmosphere of a planet far from here. It didn't stop his head from turning anyway.
Garrus wondered, not for the first time, if he wasn't coming just the slightest bit unhinged. Maybe more than a bit, Shepard whispered in his ear. He jerked his head in denial, a vorcha bumped into the suddenly stopped turian from behind. The scavenger started to snarl at him but abruptly cut off when Garrus tapped his pistol meaningfully, saw the menacing glitter in his eye. Garrus continued on his way, unwanted thoughts crowding the forefront of his mind, he latched onto the most important one, Spirits, I need a drink.
Afterlife was as loud and garish as ever, he shouldered his way to the bar and ordered a double, then strolled to a low couch and sat with a sigh. Thankfully, this corner was dimly lit, a welcome respite to his overworked eyes. He leaned his head back against the wall, watching the bar around him through slitted eyes. He watched a familiar figure wander over to him and set a fresh drink down on the small table in front of him. He nodded to her, "Weaver."
She sat next to him, sipping on her own drink, a concoction that smelled of that earth fruit, strawberries, "Vakarian."
They sat in silence, just watching the dancers, Garrus drummed his fingers on the back of the couch where he'd draped his arm, "The others?"
"Waiting." For him, her tone implied. He was well aware that it seemed each day, he got moving later and later. His team knew to stay out of his business though. It's not like there was a rush. Plenty of blood to go around. And he was the man with the plan. The others couldn't coordinate taking two shits without him. "Drink yourself to sleep again?"
"Beyond, even." He grinned savagely at her, To oblivion. Not far enough, though for the nightmares to not find me. I'll try harder tonight. He downed his drink and the one she brought for him, then drawled, "Well, let's go find some trouble."
Weaver grinned, saluting him with her glass before tossing it back.
With that the two predators left, to join the rest of their pack.
As operations go, it went smoothly, without the sloppiness that had creeped in around the edges of most of their vigilante work lately. His memory fed him an image of himself smashing a batarian slaver repeatedly in the face, after torturing the man for what had felt like hours. But this, this didn't smack of personal. It felt good to look down the scope into a well constructed kill box and use a single bullet to finish off their objective. The slender salarian dropped almost gracefully as Garrus' shot opened up his cranium. Scratch one more gangleader, he thought with satisfaction and contempt. Really they made it too easy.
A chirp on his omnitool told him that the rest of his team had dispatched the target's bodyguards. Setting this up had taken longer than the actual deed. He enjoyed the meticulousness of it, working through a plan, using the environment to trap the unsuspecting saps that he corralled into it. He did love the elegance in a well executed mission. Wonder if she felt the same...thrill.
The others knew where to find him. He could hear the thump of Afterlife's music calling him, a siren song promising, but never quite delivering, forgetfulness.
It was like he'd never moved, never went out for a quick spell to hunt and murder a man. He was back on that couch, becoming a regular fixture in that corner of the bar, drinking his liquor, trying to lose himself in the beat of the bass vibrating up through his feet all the way up to his fringe. He exchanged knowing glances with the members of his team who wandered through the bar. They never spoke, much, outside of the hunt. Too much risk. They met briefly to hash out a strategy and that was all. Oh, he found out things. Never did like not knowing the people around him, at least the why of how they came to be in his team.
A lot of their stories were quite similar. Weaver used to be a slaver, then she got ousted and got to experience being a slave, which turned an already vicious woman into a vicious, vindictive woman. Erash and Vortash, the batarians, used to be terrorists until Blue Suns mercs recruited the others of their group and subsequently turned them loose on batarian colonies, now they just wanted to kill mercs. Sensat, Monteague and Melanis had all lost someone to the voracious meat grinder that was Omega. Meirin and Butler were ex-Alliance soldiers who believed in the dream, that they could make a difference here on this corrupt piece of space trash. Grundan Krul was just one angry sonovabitch krogan, his reasons were all muddled up in the red sand traffic on Omega. The one who was most like him was Ripper, the asari commando, Garrus wondered briefly if you could really be an ex-commando. Ripper was running away, but she was too proud to work as a merc and had too much dignity to work as a stripper for Aria, so she fell neatly into his troupe, giving them a much needed biotic edge. Then there was Sidonis.
Garrus paused to consider their newest recruit, that Sidonis' bondmate had been sadistically murdered by Blood Pack mercs was no lie. Garrus had overheard reports on the incident himself from what passed as a sorry excuse for a policing force on the station. But the turian killed enthusiastically, so Garrus put aside his misgivings.
As the drinks started to flow more freely, Garrus' mind was getting fuzzier and fuzzier. He welcomed the deadening of his senses as an old friend, but stopped short of falling down drunk. It was never safe to do that in Afterlife and besides, he could always finish up at the apartment. He bought some beverages at the bar and stumbled back to the only place he felt like he could take off his armor, real and metaphorical. It wasn't home, he snorted as he turned down offers of companionship, not by a long shot.
He palmed the biometric lock and fell in as the door opened, not realizing that he'd been leaning on said door. It closed behind him as he lay on the floor, he tapped his omnitool to lock it securely, the green circle turning red. He started removing his armor from where he lay, throwing it to the side negligently. Finally stripped, he lay on the cool decking taking mental stock.
1: Alcoholic beverages, check, he thought, dragging one of the bottles to him and taking a deep quaff.
2: Apartment, check, he thought again, waving his free hand vaguely.
3: One drunk miserable failure of a turian, he took a deep unhappy breath.
Check, Shepard whispered sadly in his mind. His heart thumped painfully, the flash of shame he felt was almost an agony. He dropped his forearm over his eyes, grimacing. But you weren't always this way.
Garrus didn't even bother trying to block her out, answering out loud instead, "What do you want from me, Shepard? You're just in my head. You're not out here, with me."
He went through another bottle of quarian beer before she decided to speak up again, I see you. I am here, with you. That's why you dream about me every night.
"I don't want you here, to see me, like this. Have mercy, Jane. Please." He keened that last word, almost writhing on the floor. He thought of solutions, he could eat a bullet, or find an airlock, or just run into a wall until his brains were dashed out onto the floor of this stinking place.
He stilled when his fevered imagination conjured a feeling of a five fingered hand running along his shivering mandible, Have faith.
His omnitool started beeping. Not late enough to pass off being out for the night, not drunk enough, either. He flipped on the audio link, "Yeah?"
Sidonis' voice in his ear, an urgent edge to it, "Archangel, I found a contact who can get us Garm. He wants to meet tonight, says we only have this one chance."
A pleasant spike of anger rushed along his nerves. Finally, a chance to finish what he'd started in a darkened alley a few weeks ago. Garrus sat up, coughing to clear his head, "Where?"
"Down by the space docks, 0300 hours."
"On it. Good catch, Sidonis." He started to gather his armor up and started strapping it all on. Loaded up on weapons and heatsinks, too...Just in case.
Truly, the Spirits have abandoned me. The thought was almost calm in the storm of rage and guilt that was his mind. He cradled that last surviving member of his team in his arms tenderly, keening as the medi-gel failed to staunch the flow of blood over his hands. Ripper gazed up at him tranquilly, her words coming out around swollen lips, "We got a message to meet you here. Should have known it wasn't you, that something wasn't right. You never want to just hang out."
He took in the cases of beer that littered the floor, most of them destroyed now. They weren't even prepared for a fight. They were just planning on a few drinks like actual comrades. He appealed to every Power that was out there to let him save this one, just this one. But of course, he had never been able to save anyone. If only he hadn't waited so long for Sidonis' contact, if only he'd actually cared enough about his team to know where they were. His fault, his fault.
The dying asari shook her head, "No, Archangel. This isn't your fault. You always were too hard on yourself."
"They...have the perimeter surrounded, Ripper. There's no getting out to find help." He looked down at her sadly, he could see her life ebbing away. She reached up to touch his face, smearing her blood over his mandible. "I-I'm sorry."
"Goddess watch over you, Garrus Vakarian." Her benediction fell on deaf ears, his heart was drumming in his ears so loud now that it drowned her out. Her eyes drifted shut. He lay her down gently, then lifted himself up in a crouch. He stayed there for a while, just looking at her cooling body, its spirit fled. And the longer he stared, the angrier he got and, strangely enough, the happier he got.
He would die here, among them. His guilt at not seeing them for the heroes they were and the friends they could have been if he had not kept them away with his own personal demons was assuaged by the thought that he would fight to the last breath, take as many of the bastards with him as he could. And finally, finally there would be an end.