forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

Deal.

[But that's the easy matter. It's not like either of them would even answer the question if asked about who they'd partnered with. The other is the complicated bit.]

I trust you, Tali. I know you can handle yourself. But this isn't like anything we've dealt with before. It's... inside. Insidious. And the people. It's not clan, or... uh. Whatever quarians have. Sorry. It's not ship, either. It's something that doesn't have a head for a clean shot, doesn't have a body to overload or eyes to send a drone after, no neck to snap, not even a gut to punch.

I still don't know how to fight this.

[He still doesn't know how to protect any of them, including himself.]

Edited (These are not the droids you are looking for) 2013-07-22 06:30 (UTC)

[She should have added "only answer the question", but would Garrus be Garrus if he didn't ramble on? It's one of those things she relies on to know him.]

Yes. Exactly.

[Her voice hardens a touch.] I know who my crew are here. Don't you think I know? You're who I fall back on when it gets too rough.

[And then falls back into a mumble.] Even if we survive this, and the war, and peace comes, I... sometimes I don't know what I'll do with myself. But I know I need you to come through it with me.

[There's a stretch of silence. Once upon a time he would have asked how she could think otherwise, because of course they'd make it. But Garrus was living with proof that not all of them would.]

You'll go to Rannoch. You'll build a house. With the help of a dozen Primes who all want to impress Ambassador Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and who remember your answer. There will be parties at your house, and that rock Shepard gave you sits on the mantel of your fireplace until one of Wrex's half-billion kids knocks it over and it hits them on the head so they eat it. It'll probably be the one named Mordin, because we know how Mordins turn out.

And I'll saunter in late. Stylishly so. You know. Hierarchy business delayed me. I'm a bigshot now, don't know if you heard. [It's deliberately teasing; Garrus isn't the most comfortable with his rank change.] But I get there, and I bring the dextro wine because everyone else forgot that tiny detail.

So there. That's what you'll be doing. Building, and ambassadoring, and then partying with everyone... With everyone left. And that's all of the crew. We're not losing anyone else. We've lost enough.

[Her voice is curiously muffled when it finally comes through the link.]

That's Ambassador Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch to you, Mr. Next-In-Line-For-Primarch.

[A deep breath.] Are you home? Stay put. [There's a scuff of movement before the message ends.]

Traitor. And here I was about to change my name to Garrus Vakarandy. You know. Solidarity. But yeah. I'm here.

[When the feed cuts off, Garrus starts nervously looking around and tidying up the place. They don't leave it a mess, him and Thane, but there are a few things left askew here and there. Unfortunately, because it's already mostly clean he runs out of things to do all too soon and he gets to wait a little nervously.

Why is she coming over? Did he answer something wrong? Did he put his foot in his mouth again? All he can do is wait. And have the curtains open for once so that when she comes up to the door he can open it up.]

[Tali does stop to latch her visor back on, but not for much else. She's worked out a few routes to Garrus and Thane's house, so if nothing else, this sprint works as an occasion to test the shortest of them. (It will be good to know how fast she can race that if necessary.)

She's panting by the time she reaches the door, her helmet filter rattling with her gasps. Some descendant of desert runners, her, she thinks with a huff at herself, but the thought slips away as the door is opened. She slinks in through the gap and shuts the door behind her without prompting.

Then she's standing in the hall looking up at Garrus, and her voice cracks with fondness and relief.] Trust you not to let me finish.

[Before he can derail her with another comment, she throws her arms around him as far as they will reach, tucking her helmeted head against his shoulder. Turians may not be quite built for hugs, especially from suited-up quarians, but she'll do her best here.] You great stupid bosh'tet. Will you just... shut up a moment, please?

Edited 2013-07-22 07:28 (UTC)

I'm the bosh'tet, says the one who seemingly ran here?

[His voice is mild, though, and he returns the odd hug. Garrus has no clue what's going on at this point. She's running when she could have just kept using voice, she's telling him to shut up and pausing for him to answer, she's hugging him and calling him a bosh'tet. Every signal is mixed.

He shrugs.]

Talk.

[It's the only way anything is going to make sense.]

Yes, [she insists, then tips her head a little so her voice will carry.] I did run here. We can share the idiocy.

[She could have continued on the chip link, and perhaps eventually worked out enough of an answer against the tide of Garrus's comebacks. Which are appreciated, even if that drowns in the wellspring of other emotions right now.]

I mean. I mean that you--Thane, James, Shepard, everyone--I've spent this war fighting with you. I love my people, I'll do anything I can for them, but there's no one else I'd rather have with me. You understand that, don't you? That... there's something to the fact that we've been together all this time.

[She withdraws, keeping light hands against his upper arms.] We're comrades. You're... you're my unit. Is that what you'd call it? And right now, because we don't have any Reapers to shoot, we have to find other ways to keep each safe. To keep ourselves safe, because danger to one is danger to all.

[He listens, trying to keep his mouth shut, ignoring the split-second-long temptation to mention that if she needs him to hush they have something for that, because talking about that could only go poorly.

At first he doesn't get the point, and he reaches up to rub the scar on the side of his face while he thinks. Of course they're a unit. They should really have their own record-keeper at this point. Maybe EDI counts. But then, maybe, he thinks he sees it. Ourselves. She's telling him she can take care of herself.

Garrus sighs.]

I know.

[His voice is quiet.]

I know. I've seen you fight. I've seen you take a stand against your admiralty board. ...But I've seen Krios fight, and I've seen him fall. I've seen a lot fall that I know can handle themselves. Menae...

[Omega. Thessia.]

I don't know how to stop trying to protect people at this point. I don't know if I even want to. The last thing I want to do is drive you away, or fight with you. But I can't figure out how to relax. This place doesn't have weaknesses that I've found, but we do and it knows some of them. It knows us well enough to chip us and... Ah. Hah. Yeah. Right. Shutting up.

[She reaches up to put a hand on his shoulder, if only because it seems to ground her, the contact, the physical reality. I don't know if you're my Garrus. But you are Garrus and that's--the same thing. Near enough. I don't know. Countless worlds in parallel... She shakes the nagging thought from her mind.]

It's not about taking care of myself. I mean that I need to protect myself to protect you. As do you, for the rest of us. Because we're going to be caught up in the same trouble.

[None of us can afford to die for one another.] I was angry, but you won't be rid of me that easily. I... hope the same works the other way.

[Garrus is taking things a lot more simply. This is Tali. They have Thane, and they have Vega. It's them. He'd know them anywhere, and no matter the differences, these are his team. His unit, as she'd said.

Though now he hears the undercurrent too, or he thinks he does. If he goes Archangel, if he starts acting out and going rogue... he puts them at risk. They'll all be watched more, no matter how well they're integrating or seeming to cooperate. He half-turns, looking past her for a moment before shaking his head.]

You're not going to lose me. Nothing you're capable of doing could drive me away. [There's a short pause.] But I can't not act. They've got kids. Hostages, same expectations as everyone else - integrate or face the consequences. If I don't find something to do... Some way, some difference to make, I don't know if I can live with myself.

I know. [The word has force to it but her voice is soft--not gentle, but tinted with shared purpose.] I'm not asking you to sit by. I'm asking you to go slow for now. We need groundwork, and...

And as aggravating as it is, part of that groundwork is me trying to stay out of trouble--and re-ed--so we can work out something to do that actually has impact.

I want us to go home. If we can do that with a few of the others here, topple a few things while we're at it, you know I'm with you. Only it's a long game to play.

I'm not telling you to not do that. [Garrus sounds a little tired.] I don't know what you want me to say, Tali. I said I was sorry. I mean it. I know what this place requires and I'm not going to shoot someone for replying to your ad. I said before that when I went to Omega I didn't just go at it. I...

[He shrugs.]

What else do I add?

I'm sorry.

[She takes half a step back--any more and she'll collide with the door--and drops her jaw against a hand, fingers curling and then opening again.]

Maybe you need to hover less, but I... I need to stop trying to prove myself so much. Nobody ever came out and said it, and I know I'm trusted just the same, but I... know I was always sort of the little one on the squad. The engineer girl on her Pilgrimage, the rookie researcher who scraped by on Haestrom by the skin of her teeth. [Not who got her team killed, not to Garrus, not here.

She sighs, the lifts her eyes to him, her voice genuinely softer now.]

Apology accepted. You don't have to say anything.

I thought that was Liara.

[His voice is gentle, with the barest hint of teasing, and it's Garrus' turn to reach out. He rests a hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes.]

You're one of the smallest on the squad, sure. We'd have to stand you back-to-back with Kasumi to know for certain which was the shortest. But you've never been weak. Hell, you and I make half the group that's been there the whole time.

You don't have anything to prove, vas Rannoch. Not to us, not to your people. [And then, because serious is something he can do, but he prefers to break it up a little...] Well. You could always try to prove your shotgun is better than my sniper rifle. But you'll lose that one, so I suggest not even going there.

Edited (Redundancy sucketh.) 2013-07-22 23:28 (UTC)

She's one hundred and nine, that's hardly fair. [Her shoulder slumps fractionally under his hand, some held tension going from her. Her eyes narrow in the helmet, but she sounds tartly amused.]

Don't go there indeed, Vakarian. I can always start counting how many shots I've set you up for by sending Chatika to flush some hapless merc from cover.

[She pauses.] You know, when you opened the door I didn't know if I was going to hug or kick you. [And she'd continue I think I picked the right option, but it's audible enough in her tone.]

That's over three times my age. A hundred and nine times Grunt's.

[There's more amusement in his voice now that what he's said has gone over well.]

I'm glad you didn't kick me, personally. I wouldn't want you breaking your toes and having to limp around. People might start asking questions and I get enough frightened looks as it is.

[He's sounding smug. Yeah, they'd fought. But they've fixed things. And he hasn't gotten kicked. It's a pretty good day, in his books.]

So exactly how attached are you to your kneecaps? [She lifts one booted foot to poke him lightly in an unarmoured shin.] I can still make good on the other option.

[Then she sobers.] There was something I wanted to mention, though. You... know someone named Darkleer, right? One of the trolls, the ones who all write in different colours.

Kneecaps are a bad thing to threaten on a turian.

[His voice is mild. Garrus isn't upset, just telling her. It wasn't like Tali was going to use the knowledge to go around hitting one of the few rather weak spots on a turian body. He reaches over and taps her faceplate, mandibles widening as his mood fully returns to normal.]

You're on my turf, quarian. You might want to be careful. And yeah. I know Darkleer. Met him a couple of times now. Scientist, helped me find a coupe of dextro things here before I discovered I... didn't need that anymore.

[And then the cheer fades, and Garrus crosses his arms.]

...Did he do something?

[He likes Darkleer. But Tali is crew.]

[She closes her eyes, accepts the rebuke. Sometimes they coast around dangerous things in their joking. If it was anyone but Garrus putting a hand on her visor, she'd have gone for her gun or the offender's wrist in a snap. So they understand each other.

And thus, she can return to the other topic.]

He spoke of you like he knew you, but I wanted to be sure. It wouldn't be that hard to work out we know each other.

Scientific curiosity is all well and good. I certainly don't mind talking about my world, or... even things like my immune system. I mean, everyone knows that back home, too. But then he asked for the schematics of my suit.

Asked for them, Garrus. Like it was nothing.

[He gets the problem in an instant, but he also catches the drift of why it would have come up.]

Anyone from home would know how stupid that was. Pointless, rude, and almost threatening. But I don't see how he'd know that. They've also got something of a handicap, his race. Trolls. They're the top of the foodchain, from what another one was saying. Defeated everyone else in their galaxy. Prothean-like. So being considerate of other races' vulnerabilities isn't going to naturally occur to them. Not that he's fully excused. If you need me to talk to him, I can. I will. But...

[Garrus shakes his head.]

If you can explain it to him, work it out, he's on the short list of people I'd consider strong ally material. I've seen him shoot. It's impressive, and he does it with a bow and arrow. But if he refuses to understand, well. Any name on the list can be taken off the list.

[She listens, letting Garrus explain, because his perspective sheds some much-needed light on the situation. While the wariness doesn't quite leave her demeanour, she nods.]

I'll keep it civil, don't worry. I just wanted your take on the situation, since you apparently had some idea of who he was. I'm not sure I'm ready to make friends, but allies might work. If... if you have plans, I'll accommodate them.

[Plans. The word has an echo both exhilarating and ominous. She doesn't think she wants to go further down that path at the moment.]

By the way, do guests get asked in from the doorstep in this house? Even if it isn't as nice as the one a dozen busy Primes are building for me on Rannoch.

He's one of the highest-ranked people in a culture where rank is everything, and entirely dependent on your blood color. So he's... I wouldn't call him the easiest to befriend, but there's plenty to respect there when it comes to skill.

[He doesn't have anything set yet, still trying to consider ins and outs, but the other question knocks him out of those thoughts and he blinks, half-turning and looking at the living room as if it had just snuck up on him.]

...That was stupid, sorry. I'm not exactly used to hosting. Come in. Drink? Snack? Don't touch the coffeemaker or the one painting on the wall, but you're safe to sit anywhere. Uh, probably don't want to jump on the couch, though, there's some stuff under it.

Someone's been busy doing cultural exchange. [She pokes him gently.] If you start making noises to the effect of "by the goddess!" then I'll know you've spent too much time with Liara.

[Genuine, merry laughter bubbles out of her, until a wedge of incredulity jams itself into her mirth.]

Garrus. Are you telling me you booby-trapped the coffeemaker? And if I may be so bold as to say, the couch is an incredibly obvious gun cache.

If she ever gets here, she's going to kill us both. [There's a very short pause.] Worth it.

And yes. The coffeemaker has a timer. It was the work of moments. Plus it's not the gun under the couch. That's in the umbrella stand. Keep up.

[He's close to laughter himself, both with the joking around and the pure relief that things are fine with Tali again.]

I can offer the leaf water stuff, Thane's obsessed with it. We've got regular water too, and some apple juice because I was curious. Half the fridge is because I was curious.

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