Chapter Three: Dusty
He leans casually against the bar, subvocals humming below the loud club music. The female in front of him, thin wavy colonial marks painting her facial plates in a deep purple, spoke as he watched. One of his gloved fingers trailed up and down her arm, the tip ghosting between the plates on her arms to touch the smooth, soft skin that he knew was sensitive.
Aemilia was her name, if he remembered correctly. A new intern in his section of C-Sec. He was so glad he had taken Velio up on the offer of applying to the Investigations sector. The first few months had been uneventful, mainly nothing but petty crimes and paper work for the higher detectives, but the day he got his first good case, there was no stopping him.
His father drilled him worse than his immediate superior did, but Garrus took what his father said like a grain of sand.
Aemilia continued to talk, her mandibles flicking in amusement as he shamelessly flirts with her.
It had been a simple 'want to go for drinks after your shift' and here he was trying to seduce her back to his apartment.
And it was working, if her subharmonics told him anything.
They paused, however, as well as her spoken words, and her amber eyes looked past him across the bar. His own mandible twitched in question, and she hummed in amusement.
"Garrus, look at that human."
He followed her eyes, surprised by the smugness that was laced in her voice. It wasn't a good surprise.
Across the bar, sitting at a small table, was a female human with long dark hair and a bottle of Asari tequila in hand. In her other hand was the fist of a Krogan, a Batarian between them, counting down before letting go of their fists and watching as muscles strained. The human laughed, throwing back her head. He could see the strain in her body, the tension drawing up her neck and coating her face in red.
She drops the bottle on the table and uses her now free hand to grip the edge, putting all her weight on her feet as they press into the floor under her boots to keep her balance.
He can't help but notice the dark ink rolling down her left arm, the side facing him. How could he have not recognized her sooner?
"Garrus?"
He turns back to Aemilia, eyes blinking quickly as he clears his mind.
How long had it been since he'd see the Lieutenant? A year, at the least.
This happens every year.
He wants to chance a look, just to make sure it is the same woman, but Aemilia doesn't look pleased with his longer-than-necessary gaze. At the sound of loud cheering, he takes the chance for one last look.
She lost the arm-wrestling match, but she doesn't look discouraged. She laughs just as loud, slaps the Krogan on the back and walks to the bar for his victory drink. The bartender takes the order and goes about making the round of drinks.
He catches her eye, then. They're dark brown, the same shade as her hair, but in the shadow of the strobe lights they look black. The same endless, deep vastness of space. She doesn't look surprised to see him, and grins as she lifts a shotglass in his direction, tilting her chin up before taking the ounce of straight liquor.
"Garrus!"
The Turian then realizes that he can't wrangle himself out of this one.
"I'll see you back at the office, Aemilia," he tell her, standing and skirting around the bar.
She doesn't seem surprised, either, when he walks up to her.
"Hello, Officer. I swear, I'm going to be an outstanding citizen tonight," she says with a laugh, taking the three large glasses of colored liquor. "I don't think your date appreciates you leaving her," she says, nodding toward Aemilia.
Garrus doesn't even bother looking back at his date, already feeling the glare and angry trill she is sending his way.
"What are you doing here?" he asks her over the music, following her back to her table. She sets down two of the glasses in front of the Krogan and Batarian, before sipping at her own cold drink.
"Trying to hustle these idiots out of their credits," she replies, grinning drunkenly at him. He didn't notice it earlier because of the strobe lights, but now that they've changed color, he catches the pink. "You?"
"Making sure you're not going to start throwing chairs again."
She has small droplets of liquid coming from her eyes, she laughs so hard.
Around final call, and when she had reached her night cap, Garrus finds himself with one of her arms around his shoulders, pressed against his cowl. He only had two drinks, knowing better than to drink the night away when he had an early shift the next day. The Lieutenant – sorry, the Commander – had her fill and outdrank the Krogan she had made friends with.
She giggled under her breath at every stumble, making him shake his head at her as he came up to a transit kiosk. Garrus paused, now realizing he didn't know where she lived.
"Shepard," he grumbled, positioning her arm into a more comfortable spot. She mumble something about blue stars and red birds. "Shepard, I need your address to put into the car."
"Shore leave," she said, stumbling again, pulling away from him and pushing her hair off her neck. He could almost taste the sweat in the air. "Max went back to Earth. Just take me to the docks."
Garrus wasn't idiot enough to do something like that.
"Forget it, I have a couch. Just don't vomit like you did last time."
She giggles again, saying something about how he looks like an angry 'shark'. What's a shark? He would look it up on the extranet when he got the chance.
The ride on the transit was a tricky one. She kept unbuckling her harness – "Too tight, makes my stomach hurt." – and whenever he took a sharp turn she would either slam into him or the window. The transition only took a few minutes at most, but by the time Garrus had landed the car, she was looking greener than was normal. He wasn't an expert on humans, but even he knew that.
"Where are we?" she mumbled, words slurred and it took his translator some time to catch up. He grunted as he lifted her from the car and helped her stumble to his apartment complex. "We were just at the bar. Why'd you leave your date?"
Good question, Commander.
Garrus didn't answer, simply swiped his keycard across the keypad beside the door and it opened almost immediately. Most days he would take the time to put in the code manually, but he didn't have that spare time.
One elevator ride and a long hall way of stumbling later, she was spread out on his couch, cheek pressed against the cold leather. It felt nice against her hot skin, if her humming told him anything.
"What's the '49' mean?" he asked, setting a glass of water down on the coffee table in front of the couch, moving her legs over so to sit on the edge of the cushion. He felt a flash of the same thing happening last year.
"Did you get my card?" she slurred, eyes half-lidded and ears bright pink. His finger reached out and slowly traced the curve of her ear before falling on the slightly raised skin. 'Tattoo,' he remembered them being called. Some humans had them, some didn't. Very popular with military and manual labor workers. Once controversial in more civilized societies, but the art of it had been around for thousands of years.
He nodded and she smiled, but her eyes finally closed and her breath evened out.
"Thanks," she murmured, the word barely leaving her throat.
49.
The number stared at him, and he tried to decipher what it could possibly mean.
"You need to clean up," she said lastly, the tease playing in her tone, but eased into the beginnings of sleep. He would let her rest. She needed it.
He took in a huff of breath, put off by her remark. Garrus looked around his apartment. It was spotless, save for the small flecks of dust that sat on the top of the vid screen. He moved away from the couch and turned off the lights, leaving the hall light on dim in case she woke up in the middle of the night. He found his room without pause, but found it almost impossible to sleep.
Taking his personal data pad in hand, Garrus first researched what a 'shark' was – he looked nothing like that! – before typing in the Commander's name.
He felt his throat clench at the first link that popped up.
Fifth Anniversary of Akuze Attack – Remembering the 49 Marines We Lost.
Garrus looked up, eyes watching the empty hall as the dim light filled every available crack. He looked for her silhouette, looked for her figure sprawled out on his couch.
She was just some human with an alcohol problem, at least that's what he told himself over the past year whenever she would slip into his thoughts. But now?
Now she was beginning to prove him wrong.