Bit of a point-of-view change for the next few chapters. Hopefully its not too jarring, but I needed to get Garrus to go off on his own for a while~so I couldn't really keep it from Shep's viewpoint unless she was being a serious creeper. =P
And a special thanks to Blausen & ElCapitan18 for all the encouragement! :)
"Sh...Shepard?" Garrus stared in confusion at Shepard's stiff back as she hurried away from him down the hallway. "Shepard, wait!"
As Shepard disappeared around the corner, a door across the hallway cracked open, and an obviously irritated older human blinked owlishly out at him. "For fuck's sake man, some of us do like to sleep you know!" Before Garrus could formulate any kind of response, the disturbed human finished with, "if she's worth it, go after her! If she isn't, go back to bed...either way, do it quietly!" and slammed the door with stern finality.
Freezing for a moment, Garrus was far to aware of the flush of heat along the back of his neck, and felt uncomfortably like he was a child again, toeing the edge of the woven rug in his father's office while enduring one of many, seemingly endless, lectures on parental expectations. Shepard had disappeared around the corner at the end of the hall, and ignoring the fact that he was barefoot, and wearing only the light pants and vest that he slept in, he sprinted after her.
A young asari night-nurse have an undignified squeak of surprise as Garrus careened around the corner, talons skidding in the wet tracks left by Shepard's passing. Desperately snagging the wall for balance he hissed as the action pulled uncomfortably on his shoulder. Expression caught between concern and censure, the nurse reached out to steady him, but Garrus dodged past her, following Shepard out the sliding doors into the storm.
The rain hit Garrus like a solid wall, instantly plastering his thin clothing to his hide and making him shiver in the sudden chill. The driving droplets stung along the right side of his face, and Garrus realized he wasn't wearing his customary reinforced pressure bandage over the mess of damaged plating and cybernetic grafting that replaced part of his jaw. Feeling strangely exposed he raised a hand self consciously to cover the worst of the damage.
"Shepard, wait! I'm sorry!" Garrus cringed as his voice came out shrill with fear-subtonals. Spirits, if only his family could see him now: crying in the rain after a human woman.
Shepard had already climbed into the cockpit of her rented aircar. Garrus could see her mouth words at him through the rain streaked viewscreen, and a helpful subtitle popped up in his visor's matrix, provided by the advanced translation software: 'go back.' Garrus shook his head vehemently, ignoring the way the movement sent a fresh cascade of cold water down the back of his neck.
"You can't leave me here! Shepard, please!" Garrus wailed over the rumble of the aircar's engines, ignoring the way Shepard shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. "I need you!" Panting in distress and agitation, Garrus watched the flash of lights as the aircar disappeared into the melee of Nos Astra's storm-tossed traffic lanes.
Back in his room, Garrus paced in frustration; caught between the high-adrenaline, instinctive fight or flight reaction that came as a natural part of his turian physiology, and the overwhelming urge to curl up in a corner and keen out his desolate frustration. He was all to aware of how nice Shepard had felt against him, the alien smoothness of her skin contrasting with the hardness of the muscles beneath. She had smelled like rain and gun oil, with a hint of sweet alcohol on her breath. With a low growl of irritation, Garrus spun and paced back across the room; 'of course he had fucked this up,' he thought bitterly, 'everything he touched went to shit lately, why should this be any different?'
Garrus had never had a human fetish. Even the asari seemed oddly malleable and unappealing; but Shepard... She had caught his eye almost immediately, she moved with the predatory grace of the women of his own race, eyes alight with the adrenaline of battle. They had been growing closer back on the original Normandy, moving slowly from comrades to friends. Although Garrus had never dared push for more, the thought of her had entertained him on more than one long night. Having her in his arms tonight had been...intoxicating, the warmth of her against him had unplated him as rapidly as if he had been some inexperienced fledge. Her hands were everywhere, seeming to find most of the places he wanted them the most without direction, her tongue slick against his; and then he had made the crucial mistake of closing his eyes.
Without that immediate visual reference, the feel of her hands started to blur, became larger, rougher, colder. He had buried his face against the dip in Shepard's neck where it met her shoulder, both to anchor himself with her scent and prevent the now-instinctive throat exposure of submission. Then she was running her dexterous human hands along his waist and hip, and it was Decker all over again on one of the days when he had engaged in the cruel game of alternating gentle, soothing touch, with unpredictable, explosive violence. It had served to keep Garrus in a state of constant fear, a jittery state of drug-enhanced terror that had nearly served to drive him completely mad.
Half expecting to hear that despised, raspy voice against his ear: "you want this, ugly? C'mon, tell me you like it." Garrus had lunged backwards from the touch, eyes snapping open to see Shepard staring at him in shock. He had just been opening his mouth to try to explain, when the look on Shepard's face had silenced him. The sadness and pity he expected, loathed, but expected~but there was something else. Disappointment? Disgust? Guilt? Garrus wasn't sure, but the hesitation cost him, and the door had shut with a startling finality.
Stopping to rest his forehead against the windowpane, Garrus stared sullenly out at the rain. Shepard didn't understand, he needed to go to Omega, needed to find out who was carrying out the executions of the gang leaders...needed to find Nalah Butler and...Shaking his head, Garrus forced his thoughts away from Nalah, her name caused a sick ball of guilt and anger to build in his chest, and he needed to think clearly for this. He gasped in a deep breath, then another, trying to remember how Lanastia had taught him to breath to calm himself.
Back when he was a part of C-Sec, Garrus had often joined his fellow officers for an after-shift drink, or a turn at the games tables. Once, during a game of human poker in which Garrus had been overly cautious, a fellow detective had finally told him to "put up or leave the table Vakarian, its all in or nothing!" The last time he had followed that advice, he had taken Shepard's death as a catalyst and dragged eleven good people down with him. Now was another of those moments, a choice to follow orders... or throw himself back at that hellish station, and try to make right his previous mistakes.
Reaching a decision, Garrus padded over to the comm console and keyed up the coded emergency channel Liara had left for him when she took on her new role of Shadow Broker. It wasn't unexpected for the channel to flash immediately to voice messaging, and Garrus hesitantly laid out his request, activating the code to send the message before he could stall and rethink the whole idea. Decision made, the frantic endorphin high of adrenaline began to ease, and Garrus sank to the floor, resting his back against the bedframe. He felt shaky with reaction...healing muscles protesting him headlong dash through the facility, and other parts of his anatomy protesting the abrupt end to the encounter with Shepard.
Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten, faint motes of a distant sunrise turning the raindrops silver. The metal strut of his visor was cool against the pads of his fingers as he automatically traced the engraved names. Whispering a plea to the spirits he knew must hold him responsible, Garrus watched the city slowly light up around him.
The adrenaline of the night's excitement wore off around midday. Garrus was bleary enough during warm-up that Cole, his physical therapist, eventually exiled him from the gym with the irritated instructions to either get some stims or sleep it off.
"What?!...uhh, who?" Garrus stared in bafflement at the salarian sitting on his bed. Blinking one eye to switch his visor specs to a full biometric readout, Garrus breathed a slight sigh of relief as the heart rate, body temperature and infrared views scrolled past. That at least that proved that he wasn't having some kind of weird salarian hallucination.
"Mr. Vakarian , I assume?" the salarian blinked liquid eyes at him, flicking imaginary lint off the cuff of his impeccably tailored formal wear. "My employer requested that I deliver a few items to you."
Nobody ever called Garrus 'Mr. Vakarian ', and for a second he considered asking if the salarian was perhaps lost, and had got him mixed up with his father. "Your...employer?" he questioned instead, leaning his hip against the door frame in an attempt to regain his composure.
"The Shadow Broker sends his regards," the slender alien intoned blandly, gesturing languidly to a sturdy and well filled backpack, and an expansive weapons case resting on the floor at his feet. "I think you will find everything is in order, if you have any difficulties with the merchandise, please do not hesitate to contact me. As per my employer's request, I will remain in Nos Astra for several days to provide you will any additional services you may require. My contact information is downloaded into your omni-tool" the salarian added, pacing past Garrus and out into the hallway. "Good day, Mr. Vakarian... and good luck."
"That was...creepy," Garrus muttered to himself, watching the salarian stroll around the corner and out of sight.
The backpack was heavier than expected, and Garrus flicked the closure buckles open with trepidation; he had hoped Liara would lend him the credits to grab transport to Omega, but this delivery was a surprise. The top layer in the pack proved to be nothing more sinister than a few pairs of light weave military fatigues, and the frame for a surprisingly high end omni-tool. The body armor below it was completely unexpected; lifting the pieces out, it was quickly obvious it had been custom made, and Garrus wondered how Liara had managed to commission work like this so quickly. The only explanation was that somehow she had anticipated his request...
The base was a lighter armor than he was used to, but Liara had shown the foresight that the heavy combat armors Garrus favored would put undue pressure and weight on his healing shoulder. As well as the armor mesh weave, with its imbedded biometrics and combat suite, heavier sections had been integrated throughout the chest and legs, adding protection without adding undue weight. Sliding a hand into an armored gauntlet, Garrus was unsurprised that it fit perfectly. Somehow he wasn't shocked that Liara had the intel to get bioscans detailed enough to have armor made that fit him exactly, but he cringed to think of where that particular data could have been mined from.
Tucked into a folded underweave shirt, was a small handful of credit chits, one DNA coded one had an amount generous enough to make Garrus twitch a browplate in appreciation, it would easily cover the cost of a commercial flight to Omega, and anywhere else he wanted to go. A handful of smaller, disposable chits with smaller set amounts made him grin in a flash of sharp teeth, it showed just how far Liara had come from the naive maiden she had been a few years ago. Anyone flashing a personal credit chit on Omega would find themselves thrown in an trash burner with their throat cut. The smaller amounts could be used as food money, for ammo, even for bribes, without drawing undue attention.
Hauling the weapons crate up onto the bed, Garrus stared at it for a long moment, he deliberately hadn't handled a weapon since the night the mercenaries had stormed the apartment complex on Omega. The catches seemed to resist his fingers for a while, but eventually they unlocked with a satisfying pneumatic hiss. The weapons nestled in the protective foam were obviously high end, far beyond anything Garrus could have afforded on his own. Balanced on top was a simple message, written in elegant asari cursive and underlined with enough force to crease the paper it was written on: 'be careful!'
Running an appreciative talon along the barrel of the sniper rifle, Garrus hefted it gleefully. Muscle memory made handling the weapon second nature. That familiarity had been years in the making, Garrus could still remember endless target practice sessions with his father, the ones that had continued until he was exhausted and shaking, hardly able to even pull the trigger. Retracting the barrel and locking the rifle into its compact storage mode, Garrus tucked it back into its casing, and stared bleakly at the heavy pistol laying next to it.
Folding his hand around the grip of the pistol made Garrus shiver, and he had to force the joints in his fingers to lock until his hand stopped shaking. Raising it slowly to his shoulder, he stared down the scope, trying to sight in on a line of joining on the wall... but all he could see was the way Sidonis had stared up at him, trying to breath through the blood in his throat until his eyes had gone glazed and blank. Staring at his own hand, all he could see was Garm's massive paw forcing his arm up, blunt fingers digging into the tendons in his wrist, forcing his finger to the trigger...
A tap at the door made his hand spasm, and the pistol clattered to the floor, leaving Garrus panting in shock, a bio-query flashing from his visor stats warning of rapid heart rate.
"May I come in?" Lanastia smiled up at him from the doorway.
"Do I have a choice?" Garrus didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of voice, although he did fold his hands behind his back to hide the fact that they were still shaking.
"Not really," the diminutive asari smiled, stooping to retrieve the pistol, setting it carefully in the open case. "Nice gear you have there," she added blandly. "Although you may want to rough that armor up a bit before you get on the station, I'm sure the denizens of omega would be happy to take gear of this quality from you otherwise."
"O...Omega?" Garrus tried for an innocent grin that came out more as a grimace. He had never been a good liar.
"Oh Garrus," lanastia laughed, "I am glad you don't have to rely on your inability to dissemble! Of course I know where you are headed, and why you are going there. News reports of the gang killings on Omega are quite frequent now, and I'm not to old to know how to use the extranet."
"So you're going to stop me" Garrus stated flatly.
"This isn't a prison, child," Lanastia chastised gently, reaching up to rest a hand on his shoulder, smiling as he bristled at being referred to as a child. "I can't say I think you are ready to face that place yet, but I certainly won't stop you, if that's where you are determined to go."