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The sun on Palaven wears down James’ shield integrity faster than anything he’s ever seen, save for a bullet. Taking cover in a crater of a building one klick from the city’s outer garrison, he glances at the suit diagnostics on his HUD. The readout - more limited than he’s used to - ain’t lookin’ good. The fine mechanical anatomy of his power assist is close to overheating and his nav computer flickers and spurts. Now that they’ve reached their checkpoint, it’s time to reevaluate strategy.
He grits his teeth and peers around the edge of the crumbling wall and his display highlights the figure of the man he’s waiting on. Keeping low, he creeps toward James’ position, crouching with sure and liquid movement upon those long and lithe limbs as he steadies his rifle toward the action ahead. Strange thing to notice at a time like this, but then again, James has noticed it before.
Stealth has never been his specialty, but it’s magnetising to watch. That careful breathing, his confidence in the shadows, a thing that might sneak up on you at any time and -
“Scratch one!”
For a moment, the jubilant war cry dampens all other sound in James’ earpiece and he grunts. “Fuck, Scars! A little quieter maybe?”
Garrus leaps over the half-wall in one fluid movement, gives a jaunty tilt of his helmet, and settles next to him. “Come on, don’t take all the fun out of it,” he says, noticeably quieter this time, the pitch of his voice sliding back on that low turian rumble. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
They both scan the battlefield ahead, littered with enemy transponders at waypoints leading up to the garrison. The skyline of Cipritine rises in the background, a tall thicket of imposing buildings so inlaid with silver that they’re nearly blinding under the Trebian sun.
James scrunches his face, a simple reflex. “You guys sure do like your metal fortresses, huh? Did you have to make everything so shiny? Visibility’s shit,” he complains.
Garrus makes a clicking sound from somewhere in his throat, a sound that James hasn’t quite figured out how to interpret yet, though it feels dismissive. He gestures toward a row of barracks along the eastern approach, roofs blown off from earlier air support that has, for some unknown reason, abandoned them now. “Good vantage point from those buildings, we can pick them off as we move up.”
James groans. “Look at what the radiation’s doing to shields, Scars. Hell, that’s some damn good defence if I’ve ever seen it.” He spares a laugh for the idea that humans could ever have taken Palaven, back when tensions were at their highest. Only now, when the reapers have banished those old jingo fantasies, do they really understand what it would have cost.
Their backgrounds couldn’t be more different, but fighting with Garrus feels right. Perhaps it’s their love of big guns and bigger bullshit. Or perhaps it’s the shared intuition, earned through failures that neither of them ever discussed. Whatever the reason, Garrus had quickly become James’ corner man, whose companionship on the battlefield produces a certain feeling of invincibility.
“Wanna do something stupid?” On their shared display, James highlights a path through the centre of the field.
Garrus makes an effort, at least, though James would bet he hates the plan. He peers over the rubble at a shallow trench leading to the garrison’s main entrance, placing an armoured hand on James’ shoulder to steady himself. It’s only the haptics that James feels, servos in a suit translating some digital gesture, but he finds himself leaning into it nonetheless.
“Well, that will get you a spirits’ welcome, for sure,” he mutters. This one, James understands. A spirits’ welcome, an imminent greeting in the here-beyond. Certain death. James wonders briefly if the turian spirits would indeed welcome him were he to die here, but a slight squeeze on his shoulder drives the thought away as Garrus continues. “See that barrier right there? They’ll be dug in, waiting for us.”
“Not for long. Picked this up.” Smirking so broad it jostles his visor, he produces a missile launcher and a bandolier of power cells. “ML-57, earlier model to those ones we’ve seen all over the Terminus. Old school.”
Garrus runs his hand over the mid-century barrel, taking a moment to appreciate the deadly machinery before laughing. “Do you plan to fire this thing from the hip?”
Before he has a chance to answer, a scuffle at their six draws their attention. James pulls a shotgun and shifts to the balls of his feet. Next to him, Garrus stands, assault rifle already drawn, and takes a few tentative steps forward. Another scuffle, this time to his left, tells him they’ve been flanked. This is no good. Taking their time, the enemy could have put half a dozen men on their ass while they’ve been strategising. His finger caresses the trigger, ready for any movement, as he scans the rubble.
Just a sliver of exposed armour…
Just a glint off a weapon…
Don’t think, just react. His focus burns like a laser in his skull, his world reduced to -
Turian backside fills his field of view as Garrus steps in front of him, the crunch of detritus underfoot finally unleashing the firefight. Shots ring out, rounds landing in the dusty steel composite on either side of his head, and he swears in frustration as he grasps in vain for some semblance of what the hell is going on. In front of him, Garrus dances side to side, avoiding shots or absorbing them for all James can tell, and between his legs he sees a flash of -
CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE
The red words swell in front of his eyes as the rest fades to black.
“Mierda!” James shouts, tearing off his headset. Disoriented, he grasps for the edge of the workbench as his eyes adjust to the cold blue light of the Normandy’s cargo bay. Beside him, Garrus is still plugged into the virtual reality sim, shuffling in place and swiping at unseen enemies. His mouth hangs open, mandibles flexing, expression vacant where it’s not hidden by the bulky visor of the video game console, and James laughs. Steve is the only other person on deck at this hour, and it’s a good thing.
The two of them must look so stupid.
A minute later, Garrus makes a dramatic exit from the game, clutching at his chest like he’s been shot. He gingerly removes headset, sliding it over his fringe and stowing it in its case like it’s a piece of treasured weaponry, and settles onto a crate.
“That must be your favourite level. You manage to die before the next checkpoint every time.”
“Hey, maybe if I didn’t have your tail feathers in my face every time…” James sinks onto the cot he keeps in his little corner. The evening is growing late, but he feels like he could linger.
Garrus looks relaxed too. The way his legs fall open wide, one foot propped on a dumbbell, he doesn’t look keen to leave.
Music warbles from the headset he’d tossed aside, the theme to Call of War: First Contact sounds like a brass band on Hastings Green rather than something you’d hear on a dreadnaught, but it wasn’t made for people who know the difference.
“Hey, man, it ever feel weird to you, playing this game?”
Garrus tilts his head and the planes of his face shift and settle. “You mean with everything going on around us? Almost feels like a comfort, doesn’t it? Going back to a time when war was just war and not the impending destruction of the galaxy.”
“No shit,” James agrees. “But the whole…turian-human thing. All that old-fashioned war rhetoric, making us out to be enemies. Don’t it feel a bit weird?”
Garrus leans forward and studies the noise coming from the headset before turning it off. “That’s ancient history. When did this game come out?”
“Uh. Couple years ago? Pretty sure the Alliance used it to drive up recruitment after we got that Council seat.”
A slow, amused trill reverberates from Garrus’ throat, the kind that James can feel under his skin. “All right, maybe not so ancient after all. At least we can use the numbers now. Anyway, it reminds me those old Earth vids. Know what I mean, Vaquero?”
Out of the corner of his eye, James catches a glimpse of Steve’s face, fighting to contain a smile, and it unleashes a swell of warmth in his chest.
Ah, hell.
It’s not for nothing that Garrus has adopted the nickname in special reference to James, considering the effort it had taken to arrive at an understanding of the term. First, he’d had to convince Garrus to join him for a marathon of old Earth vids. Solar Surf and Luchador de la Luna, and then his favourite, Dos Vaqueros. Eventually, some adjustment of translators had become necessary, as Garrus insisted that the modern-day gunslinger duo had nothing to do with titular livestock. When James explained the meaning of “cowboy,” Garrus had wanted to hear the word in its original context, at which point his face had lit up.
“Vah-kare-oh,” he says, actually, like the secret language of one’s own name.
“Know what you mean, buddy,” James says, just a little softly. “Wish I could see Palaven for real, though. Does it really look that?”
Garrus leans his head back as he thinks, and James watches as he drags a thin talon along the soft tendons of his neck. “Well, they got the architecture right. The Unification Arch and the Valluvian monuments. The metal has too much shine to it, though, not like Cipritine foundries cast it. And the steps,” - he stretches his leg toward James - “the steps are made for human legs.”
James laughs. “Doesn’t seem like a big deal.”
“Doesn’t seem like it because there aren’t any turians walking around. Tell you what, I’ll show you sometime.”
“Don’t know how you’re gonna pull that off, Scars, but I’d love to see it.”
“Just wait, Vaquero.” Garrus nudges James’ foot with his own, and when they settle against each other, neither of them moves away.
Some Time Later
Time marches on, but it’s easy to get caught in a loop.
James watches the holographic wheel on the terminal display spin at the same speed it always does before returning a negative result to his query. Maybe, he thinks, maybe it had spun for just a little longer this time. Maybe just long enough to be worth another shot. He glances around furtively. There’s a line at his back, but no one he recognises, and the sense of monotonous impatience in the docking bay takes hold of him. He tries one more time.
He comes here often these days, often enough to have made some friends. Well, acquaintances, anyway. The group of civilians in corner gambling expired rations and half-used medical supplies don’t ask him why he hits the terminal so often, and in return, he doesn’t ask them where they get their goods. Truth be told, though, his eyes are scanning a bit higher above the crowd as the wheel begins to spin again.
Garrus is down here all the time too. Not wasting time like the rest of them, but coordinating supply efforts for turian refugees from a post in the far corner. James had thought about offering to help, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about turian supply lines, so instead he watches him work from the convenient vantage point of the card table. Fortunate, since James is awful at cards.
Garrus has his rhythms too. Periodically, he leaves his post at the refugee camp and heads for the elevator, returning after an hour or so. It must be personal business, since he always leaves his datapads behind, and although he maintains his collected air, James notices an urgency in his stride.
Not that he’s been watching too closely or anything.
“I thought I’d find you at the card table,” a familiar voice says at his shoulder and James jumps. Garrus towers over the crowd of human refugees, his head tilted to the side.
“Nah, Dhorval cleaned me out,” James lies, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “That’s the batarian guy.”
“Oh?” Garrus’ eyebrow plates twitch up and the lights dance in his eyes. “Glad to see you’re contributing to their cause.”
The crowd around them condenses, some commotion up at the C-Sec desk, and Garrus steps closer, but James plants his feet, keeping the terminal at his back. Like a stone in the river, he stands still, until Garrus is pressed against him, an arm raised and hovering just above his shoulder. James’ heart pounds a little and a small voice in his head says, lean closer.
Lean closer? What?
“Well, listen. This place is a bit crowded and two big guys like us are only making it worse. I was thinking I might show you something.” He peers past James toward the terminal. “Unless you’re busy here?”
James waves a hand, colliding awkwardly with Garrus’ chest. “Nah, it’s nothing,” he says quickly, but his words are drowned out by a robotic voice from behind them.
“Systems Alliance Personnel and Family Database Query Result: Negative. Please enter a different name or try again later.”
They’re both silent for a moment as the frustrated swears of some human colonist cut through the din. Garrus catches his eye and holds his gaze and briefly, the talon that had been hovering near his shoulder comes down to rest. He looks like he’s about to say something but then, abruptly, he turns toward the exit.
“Come on, Vaquero.”
—
The rest of the Citadel is only slightly less packed than the overflow docks, with part-timers and anyone who’s got the means to be here claiming their spot. Sky-cars are caught in a jam so thick that even Garrus’ connections can’t break through, so they ride the public tram to Zakera’s mid-ward station in a humid heat sink of a car, pressed close to one another. When they finally exit into the comparative neon peace on the twenty-eighth floor of some building, James lingers at Garrus’ side.
“So what’s this you wanted to show me?”
“Well,” Garrus starts, the confident timbre of his voice now diminished. “It’s not much. But I thought, if you want to see a little bit of the homeworld…”
The way ahead is gated, though turians move through the doorways with ease while groups of humans, elcor, and volus mingle at the threshold and cast curious glances inside. Above the doors, a holographic sign cycles through a series of alien alphabets: first the angular glyphs of commercial turian, then a curly Thessian script, and then in roman letters.
“Palaven,” James reads aloud. “Always wondered what this place was.”
“It’s something like a subdistrict. Built generations ago by turian immigrants. You see, some of us don’t mind sharing space with aliens…” - he bobs his head toward James and his crest flutters - “…but some people missed home too much.”
James keeps pace, expecting some sort of martial bureaucracy to confront them as they reach the doorway, but to his surprise, the entry policy is no more restrictive than the bar around the corner. It must be intimidation that keeps folks like him lingering outside.
The feeling inside is immediately different. For one thing, the temperature rises almost ten degrees, and the lights above mimic the particular hue of the Trebia sun. James has to remind himself that it’s no more real than it had been in their video game, just holographic lights and artificial atmosphere, yet it shines down on hundreds of turian families, dressed in silks and leathers and woven panels of a dozen different styles, like nothing he’s ever seen on the Citadel.
This time, Garrus sticks close to him as they advance into the subdistrict, and they walk in silence for a while as James takes it all in. The wide square is rimmed by alleyways and steep staircases. Every bit of open space is occupied by stalls and partitions, temporary structures and areas demarcated only by some vague coherence of activity. To the four sides, levels rise up several storeys at odd intervals, and James can tell they don’t align with the architecture of the building around them. There’s little of the sleek Cipritinian artifice that he’s seen in the vids, but it buzzes with life.
James lets out a slow, whistling breath. “Sure is something. Come here often?” He grimaces. Had that sounded like a pick-up line?
Garrus hesitates. “No, not anymore.”
“So what’s good here?”
“Well.” The air between them is suddenly stiff and an uncertain hum escapes Garrus’ throat. “There’s the Cipritine Academy over here. Civil service training so that kids raised on the Citadel can get a job back home.”
James raises an eyebrow. “You wanted to show me a school?”
“Ah. No.” Garrus scratches at his fringe with a long talon. “There’s a small harta arena in the corner. It’s a popular sport on Palaven.”
“Is this a ball kind of sport, or the fighting kind?” James asks, craning his neck toward the neon sign he can’t read.
“Both, actually. But, um. With the war on, the teams have disbanded.” Garrus swivels his head right and left. “Oh, over here is the marketplace. Food and drink mostly, from every continent.”
“Now we’re talking. Anything you’d recommend?”
“Not…for you, unfortunately. It’s all dextro.” He lets out a low rumble of subvocals, cut off by a frustrated sound. “I’m not much of a tour guide, am I?”
“Nah, come on. What about that place?” James points to a storefront plastered with glowing holos on every visible surface, though strangely empty of people.
“Travel agency. Or at least, it was.” Garrus stays flatly. “But the insurance broker next door? Used to be the biggest money laundering front in Zakera Ward, in deep with the illegal arms trade. I spent a year on that case before we finally took them down.”
“Nice.” James says with a genuine smile. The air around them feels easier all of a sudden. “Must have had some more busts, Sherlock.”
“I have no idea what that is. But see that vent over there? I once chased a pick-pocket into that hole. My first real rookie mistake, almost got stuck. And here” - he points to a nearby restaurant adorned with yellow colony banners - “a cell of Facinus sympathisers used to operate here. Joint case with Blackwatch…”
And just like that, the tension is gone, the cloud of questions banished, and in its place, nostalgia. Garrus talks about his early days at C-Sec, his tough cases and his off-duty trysts, and James follows his bead, constructing a picture. It’s not the intricacies of cop work that fascinate him - hell, if he thinks about that for too long, unpleasant memories surface - but the closeness of the past, like a vid Garrus could enter and take James with him, if he wants to. He almost seems like he wants to.
“I used to think it was never enough,” Garrus sighs as he finishes up a story about a missing person. “That all the small victories don’t mean a damn when the biggest, baddest guys are still out there, causing harm. Guess things look a little different now.”
“Know what you mean,” James mutters solemnly.
He’s never told Garrus about Fehl Prime. Hell, he’s barely told Steve, and Shepard had to drag it out of him one blow at a time. But he has the unnerving sense that he could, right now, or maybe that he doesn’t have to at all, that Garrus would still understand. He opens his mouth, not sure what’s going to come out, but then -
“Vakarian?” They’re strolling past a busy row of terminals now, with an anxious crowd gathered around. A woman with familiar blue colony markings waves at them - waves at Garrus. He stiffens and makes like he might not have noticed her, but she walks over, scrolling urgently through a datapad.
“Final headcount from today’s arrivals, there were six from the outer Cipritine borough.” She lowers the datapad and gives him a solemn look. “No word.”
Garrus nods curtly and thanks her, avoiding James’ gaze.
He knows better than to pry, but something doesn’t add up. “You said you don’t come down here much anymore. Sure seems like they know you.”
Garrus shifts uncomfortably, an uncertain rumble in the back of his throat before he demurs. “I drop by, just to…check up on things. Coordinating refugees, that sort of thing.”
“Uh huh.”
Garrus gives him a look that ought to come with its own translator. There’s a shadow swimming beneath the surface, a shift of facial planes, even as his eyes meet James’.
But something’s burning in his chest all of a sudden and it isn’t confusion. He knows that look, the soft that creeps into your edges when too many uncertainties swirl around your head. Days like these, he’s shared that look with his own reflection more often than he’d like, longer and longer each time until he steels himself and hardens up. And now, he looks a little longer than he ought to at Garrus, unable to break the spell of recognition in an alien face. But this is war and they’re both soldiers, so he breaks the gaze before it becomes a question.
The simulated homeworld sun beats down on them, and it reminds James of something.
“So this is Palaven, then,” he says, trying to swallow the roughness in his voice. “Think it’s time I showed you California.”
—
The sim parlour isn’t far and it’s a lucky thing, otherwise James might have to explain that it’s not so much a whim, that as soon as the idea lodged itself in his head he couldn’t wait to show Garrus his own piece of home away from home. A few floors down and tucked into a corner of the tower next to a storage depot, it’s not exactly an inviting facade.
Garrus stands stark still, arms hanging at his side and head cocked. “Dick’s Virtual Arcade and Old Earth Panorama,” he reads slowly and skeptically. “If you’re looking to show me some illegal quasar machines, I’m off the force now.”
“Hey, don’t judge a book by its cover, Scars.” James gestures and Garrus reluctantly follows. Inside, the arcade is packed with jangling pachinko machines and combat simulators offering bouts with classical Hollywood villains. A flashing holo of a giant reptile spits a plasma beam onto the dingy carpet; the letters Biotic Berzerker peel off a shabby pod and a tinny speaker boasts “the closest thing to red sand!” But Garrus trails him with curious resignation toward the back of the shop, where a pair of domed beds sit against the wall.
“We have one of these on the Normandy, you know. Newer model too,” Garrus says as he inspects the machines.
“Yeah, yeah, but that one doesn’t have the older sims. Trust me.” James scrolls through the terminal until he finds what he’s looking for.
Garrus dips his mandibles and something sparkles in his eyes. “All right, Vaquero, I trust you.”
At first, James tries to ignore the vibration in his chest at those words, the way it spreads to his fingers and makes it just a little harder to queue up the right settings. Then he tries to hold onto it, some semblance of that floating optimism, as Garrus manoeuvres into the unit clearly designed for humans. A disinterested employee is summoned and several adjustments are made before James switches on his own unit and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he’s home.
The beach materialises around him, the full-body buzz of the haptic calibration fading as his feet sink into warm sand. The still and stale air of the the space station is gone, replaced by the salty breeze of the Pacific. Above his head, clouds float and seagulls glide in familiar patterns and the sky holds no surprises. James feels light.
To his right, someone makes an irritated sound, and when he turns his head, James nearly chokes with laughter.
What Garrus is wearing could not quite be called a loincloth. The small, loose garment hangs off the spurs of his hips and flutters in the breeze, clinging to the plates on his thighs and leaving little to the imagination. Garrus crosses his arms and casts a deeply annoyed look at James.
“Whoever programmed this sim clearly hasn’t met a turian,” he grumbles.
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short, big guy. You look great.” James feels heat prickle his cheeks, the sensation of a very real blush seeping through the haptic matrix. He hadn’t meant to say it so earnestly. “Besides, what do turians wear to swim?”
“Nothing,” Garrus says bluntly. “I mean, we don’t swim.” He eyes the ocean cautiously.
“You’re missing out. Anyway, welcome to Pacific Beach, mi casa.”
It’s not quite as James remembers it. Cleaner, for one thing, and the clapboard houses along the old boardwalk are a little sturdier than the real thing. He knows - from experience, though he wouldn’t admit it - that if he opens the door to one of them, he’ll find it empty, nothing more than a shell. So instead, he leads Garrus along the beach and tells him about hot days and warm nights, how the city had grown so tall you could only get around by skycar but here, you could walk for days. The sim is empty save for the two of them, but he tells Garrus how in reality, people live here, ones he’s known his whole life. He lists them off, as many as he can remember, but avoids mentioning the ones who matter most.
“I can see why you didn’t want to leave it behind,” Garrus says, his voice soft and tinged with familiar ache.
James swallows a nervous feeling and wonders if this was a good idea after all. Too many things here he’d rather not talk about. Luckily, Garrus’ curiosity for alien mundanities is endless, and their conversation drifts easily from crabs to seaweed to the potential weaponisation of beach umbrellas as the sun starts to dip in the virtual sky.
James is caught up in his own share of curiosities. As they walk, he can’t help stealing glances at Garrus, at the scars that extend from his neck down his right shoulder and across the crested plates of his chest. He’d heard how Garrus had taken a full blast of shrapnel, back when Shepard had found him and scraped him off rock bottom. He often talks about his time as Archangel with bravado but James knows that it was his lowest point. Funny thing, at that same time, on a rock just one jump away, James had been at his lowest point too. His eyes rove over Garrus’ body, marvelling at how the scars had healed.
“Something on your mind?” Garrus asks, interrupting his reverie.
Shit. Had he been caught staring? Maybe turians don’t think it’s rude to look, and it’s not like he was looking, anyway. He searches for a distraction.
“Just thinking. I know you said turians don’t swim, but hear me out. It’s not real water. How ‘bout it?” He jabs Garrus with his elbow.
Garrus makes a sound that James distinctly remembers hearing when Shepard had summoned the mother of all thresher maws back on Tuchanka. He takes a few tentative steps, following James to the point where the waves wash over his taloned feet. “I don’t know about this.”
That voice is back in James’ head, seeming less like a stranger and more like his own. Grab his hand, it says.
Who knows where the impulse comes from, but James seizes it before he thinks better of it. It’s not real anyway, not the feeling of his skin against the surprisingly soft palm. It’s just haptic feedback from a machine, pixels repositioning as he figures out how to slot his five fingers into Garrus’ three. When Garrus grips his hand back and steps deeper into the water, it doesn’t matter whether or not the turians have a similar concept of “mixed signal”, because it’s not real.
A dull chime rings across the beach, briefly muting the sound of the waves and the birds: two minutes remaining on the simulation. They might as well jack out now, but instead, Garrus holds his hand tighter and takes another step into the water.
Tomorrow
On the Normandy, you’d hardly know it’s shore leave. Every boat James has ever been on cleared out the moment it reached port, but not this one. Maybe the crew is just that tight knit, or maybe the Citadel just isn’t that relaxing anymore. Whatever the reason, it makes it hard for a guy to catch an afternoon nap.
James has barely left his nook of the cargo bay since he burned last night’s oil doing reps and cleaning his rifles. Sometime around oh-nine-hundred, the little cot started calling to him, but he’d slept restlessly all day as crewman filtered in and out. Only now, a short time after the dinner bell, have things started to quiet down.
Shit. Shepard’s party. James drags his hand down his face. Maybe he can get a few more winks in before he has to show.
Just as he’s about to turn over, a shadow falls across his face, and he cracks one impatient eye, ready to tell off its maker. His attitude changes when he sees Garrus standing over him, backlit against the harsh lights of the cargo bay.
“I was going to see if you’d like to spar,” he says flatly.
“Right now? It’s dinner time.” James rubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up. Garrus is dressed in the light tunic and trousers he normally wears for PT, but he doesn’t look ready for a fight. His shoulders droop and he picks absentmindedly at the hem of his shirt.
“You’re right,” Garrus says awkwardly, looking at his feet. “I just had…nevermind. I’ll see you at Shepard’s party.”
“Hold up.” James puts a hand up as Garrus starts to turn away, then pats the space on the cot next to him. “Something on your mind, Scars?”
Garrus pauses, uncertain, then sits next to him and pauses for even longer, even more uncertain. James is just about to say something to nudge it out of him when he breaks the silence. “I got a call.”
“A call?”
“From a transport on Palaven. My father…” Garrus looks straight ahead, avoiding James’ gaze, and the story spills out of him. About his father, the last time they had spoken and the many bridges they had yet to mend. About his sister, whom he’d missed for years and barely knew how to face after everything that happened on Omega. About the day the Reapers showed up on Palaven and the choice that Garrus had made to leave them behind and accompany the Primarch to Menae. It had been the last time he’d heard any news of them, though he’d hoped every day since then.
Garrus turns to face him and James leans closer on instinct, wracking his mind for something appropriate to say, but Garrus continues.
He talks about how hard it was to leave, for a million reasons. Turians are a communal people, shot through with duty. They fight for the ones left standing, whoever they are, so he kept it to himself that he was holding out hope for the ones he’d left behind. And besides, what could he say? Everyone around him had left their homeworld, had left their people and kept looking forward, no matter how angry it made them.
His expression is unreadable but his eyes search James’ face.
“You’ve been looking for them this whole time?” It comes out less like a question, more like a revelation. “All your time spent at the refugee camp, that woman on the Citadel, you’ve been helping everyone else and hoping they’d turn up.”
Garrus nods.
“How come you never said anything?”
“With the way this war is going, how long can you talk about hope before you start talking about fear? Wasn’t willing to give up on them.”
James’ heart jumps to his throat. Something’s changed, he can feel it. The same pieces are there between them, but now they’ve started to fall into place. If only he can say the right thing.
“Well that’s…good.” Sonofabitch.
“Thanks for listening, James.” Garrus shifts his weight, leaning forward, and suddenly that voice is back again.
Don’t go!
“My uncle,” he blurts out, squeezing his fist until the knuckles turn white.
Garrus freezes, and then settles back. The cot sags until they’re pressed against each other. Neither of them moves away.
“My uncle’s been MIA since we left Earth. He was a marine, he woulda been called back up. If he was…”
Garrus lifts his hand, gesturing in thought, and when he lays it back down it rests on James’ thigh. “That’s why you’ve been hanging around the docking bay. Checking the terminal, hoping for a clue.” He waits for the affirmative nod. “Tell me about him.”
So he does. He talks about the people that hold you back and the people that pull you forward. About how he’d followed his uncle into the military in order to be someone, but he’d always nursed that fear that he remained his father’s son. Fehl Prime had made him wary of leadership and Shepard had made him believe in second chances, but his uncle’s face loomed in the back of his mind. The commendation to the N program, he hadn’t told anyone about that yet - Garrus’ hand grows heavier on his knee - and if he did, would that mean putting the people he’d left behind out of his mind forever, to focus on what’s in front of him instead of what’s behind?
He drags his hand through his hair, hoping to banish the haze of emotion. “Everyone’s lost something. Didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to hear about it. Until…” He turns back and finds those blue eyes for a second before they trail down his face. “Garrus…”
James leans forward, heart in his chest and some small part of his mind screaming that he has no idea how to do what he’s about to do, but desire has already taken control of him and he parts his lips. That fear that he might be left hanging in the balance is driven away when a gentle talon lifts his chin and Garrus leans into the kiss.
Kissing a turian is strange, shaky mouths trying without knowing if they even can. The plates of his mouth are not soft but they are flexible, and soon their shy movements become bolder and then Garrus makes a soft trill and James learns that they are sensitive. He shifts on the cot, freeing a hand to grasp his neck, fingers seeking gently around his crest, and James pulls Garrus in tighter and opens his mouth.
He had wondered at first if this was going to be one of those kisses they’d have to talk about, if they’d opened a door only to stand on the precipice. He stops wondering when Garrus’ tongue meets his, thick and slightly rough, pulling back to trace his lips before filling his mouth. He tastes sweet and salty, like ocean air, and James lets out a soft moan.
Hearing the sound of his own desire is enough to jog him out of his haze ever so slightly and James pulls back. The cargo bay is silent, but he leans out to check. The last of the crew must have left while they were talking - how long had they been talking? - and the chronometer above the elevator reads twenty-one-hundred. Shepard’s party has already started.
James could give damn. For now, the Normandy is theirs. He traces a thumb along the edge of Garrus’ mandible and looks into his eyes. They’re darker now, a deeper blue surrounding the sharp point of his pupils. James has seen this look before. Adrenaline.
“Wanna do something stupid?” he mumbles, his breath heavy on the words.
In answer, Garrus seeks his mouth again, this time more insistently, and runs a hand over James’ chest. He shivers at the sensation of sharp claws tracing his muscles through the thin material and mumbles against Garrus’ mouth.
“What was that?” Garrus says.
“It’s real.”
Every rush of elation when they’ve stood back to back in the field, every feeling of warmth when they’ve sought comfort in each other’s company, every unspoken question that’s hung between them as they’ve helped each other through the war, all answered now. He can feel Garrus’ pulse pumping underneath his skin, racing his own heartbeat, and even as they fumble at each other’s clothing in inelegant pursuit of more basic needs, James is overwhelmed by how real it all is. If Garrus has come this far, and so has James, and there just might be a way for them to come out of it all together.