It’s time for me to share what I created for the reverse MASS EFFECT BIG BANG hosted by @mebigbang!! I was lucky enough to get the amazing art of @jubberry and inspiration for a story where a Shepard who never left the Reds has a run in with everyone’s favorite C-Sec detective. I had a few personal issues that meant I wasn't able to finish in time, so I hope you don't mind that I will be posting the THRILLING conclusion next week. I thought this was a better option than rewriting something that had a rushed ending.
BUT ANYWAYS, here is CHAPTER ONE (of two) of
[Cross Posted on AO3]
Skulking. The shop keeper said they had been skulking, and when he had gotten the call from dispatcher Omega Schebler she had shaped the word skulking into a concussive round that said your punishment isn’t over. That’s why Garrus Vakarian, the detective with egg on his face so fresh it could have been salvaged to make an omelet, got the call and not a beat cop who had the time.
“Be nice to the old lady,” his partner quipped as Garrus called up a patrol car. “The Citadel can be a scary place for lonely old ladies, and you know groups of humans are never a good thing.”
Garrus opened his omnitool while Dix blathered on behind him, the human’s self-deprecating jab avalanching into a series of anecdotes from his first days working the Wards. The skycar flashed a green light, accepting his authorization code, and the door lifted with a gentle hiss. Stale cigarette smoke and the stench of unwashed bodies, of all kinds, permeated from the worn upholstered seats.
“I thought they were required to clean these things out more often,” Garrus muttered. With only Dix around, he didn’t bother to suppress the ire in his voice.
Dix stuck his head in the open door and took four open-mouthed and rapid breaths, his stomach caving in and billowing out beneath his shirt. “I don’t smell nothin’,” he said. “But, hey, I only got this human nose.”
His omnitool beeped, an automated reminder that it had been 10 minutes since the call had been logged scrolling rapidly across his screen. With a click, he sent a response that he was en route. He turned back to look at his partner before folding himself into the car. Whoever had sat it in last must have been human, and his bony knees chaffed against the dash before he could adjust the seat. “No one has a nose like you, Lemley. I hear they’re thinking of making it a Citadel Monument, the thing is big enough to direct traffic.”
“Oh har har.” Dix looked over his shoulder to make sure no one from the office was in the lot before raising his middle finger in response. “Have fun on your petty crimes beat, Detective Vakarian.”
Garrus bristled in response, his mandibles pulled tight and his talons splayed across his lap. The joke soured between them. After a moment, Dix leaned close, his hand pressed against the sensor to keep the door from bumping his head on the way down. His brows knitted together and his voice dropped. “Hey, look, it’ll be a lil’ bit longer, so what? Someone will fuck up sooner or later, and Boomie will forget all about - “
“Yeah,” Garrus interrupted, “sure.” It had been said before, by everyone at least once, and by Dix at least once a day since he had been called into Captain Baumvi’s office. That had been two weeks ago, and the captain seemed disinclined to forget anytime soon.
Dix puffed his cheeks up and squinted at Garrus, his not-so-subtle indication that he was hurt Garrus wouldn’t let himself be comforted. “Fine,” he said, letting his mandibles loosen in a display of affable good-faith. “I’ll tell the captain that you and Seegmiller call her Boomie behind her back, that’ll put me in her good graces again.”
“Ehhh that’s the spirit. Okay now fuck off and go wrangle those errant skulking humans.” Dix stepped back from the car, rapping the window with his knuckles as goodbye. Garrus entered the coordinates of the store, and the patrol car lifted off into the orderly flow of Citadel traffic.
Garrus stopped himself from pinching his mandibles, but he couldn’t keep the warble of frustration from his voice. “So you didn’t see them do anything?” he asked Orsant Varana for the second time.
“Well, they were - “
He raised a hand in the air, halting the shop keeper before she launched into another diatribe about what the humans she saw were planning to do. “Again, it’s a yes or no question. Did you see the group of humans do anything besides skulking?”
The salarian blinked up at him, her large eyeballs audibly moist. He wasn’t an expert in xenoculture, but he guessed her body language suggested she was very angry with him. Her tiny frame hunched before him, eyes blinking rapidly, he recalled Captain Baumvi’s warning: I don’t give a fuck who you are, who you think you are, or what you think you bring to the team. Cut the attitude - you’re a detective, not a Spectre.
Keeping a trill of frustration buried beneath his subvocals, he made a conscious effort to uncross his arms. “Orsant,” he tried again, using her first name in a bid to come off as friendly, “I can’t arrest a group of tourists on the Citadel for being in one place for too long. Believe me, I would if I could “ - he broke off and forced a laugh, his arms splayed in a suggestive display that he hoped she would appreciate. Tourists are the worse, his carefree laugh said, I hate them, too!
Orsant looked unimpressed.
“Ahem, anyways.” He looked back at his omnitool, paraphrasing from her extensive complaint. “Despite the fact that they were all wearing red and looked suspicious, I can’t do anything about it unless they actually commit a crime. Did you see them do anything illegal?”
“You can never trust humans who have a uniform, especially when they are in groups,” she warned.
“Yes, well, I’ve never heard that saying,” he replied slowly, hesitant to say that she was wrong because, well… she wasn’t. “But other than that….” He trailed off, hoping she would supply him with the kernel he needed to take her complaint seriously.
She didn’t take the hint. “Mark my words,” she intoned aggressively, gesturing with a long finger up at him, “they’ll be back! They’ve been outside the store every day for a week! They’ll be back!”
Garrus excused himself and exited her store, his omnitool ringing the captain as soon as he was out of earshot of the shop keeper. He was required to check in with her whenever he wasn’t at the station, a condition of his punishment that inconvenienced both of them and kept her angry.
“What is it?” she barked into the line.
“Hey, Captain.” His greeting fell flat and was unreturned, so he rushed to fill the silence. “I’ve just spoken to the shop keeper, Orsant Varana. The group of humans she called in about, although annoying, haven’t done anything.
“Her initial report said they come back every day. Have you seen them yet?”
“Well, no, but - “
“Great. Pull up a seat. Wait ‘em out.”
Silence dipped between them as Garrus searched for something to say. A stakeout? For a group of tourists? She was trying to kill him with boredom.
“Is there anything else you need, Detective Vakarian?” Her voice was almost cruel over the line, and he was glad it was only voice so she couldn’t see his mandibles flare in frustration.
“No, captain, that’s all.”
Baumvi disconnected the line without saying goodbye. He thought about sending an update to Dix, but committing the idiocy of his detail in writing would only further irritate him. Instead, he turned the display off and looked across the sprawl of shops in search of a suitable spot to begin his watch. Across the way, impeded only by a few benches and a shallow pond, he saw a volus cafe with more than half the tables empty.
There was a vidscreen behind the counter playing a news station with CITADEL: ALL NEWS, ALL THE TIME emblazoned in the corner of the screen. The volume was distracting, and Garrus raised his voice to compete with the newscaster. “Do you have any dextro drinks?” he asked, eyeing the menu with trepidation. There were many variations of lattes.
“Just one,” the volus breathed back.
“I’ll take it.”
The volus went to work making his drink, a complicated whir of machinery and shakers adding to the cacophony that overtook the small cafe. There were four others, scattered across three tables, and only the couple in the corner seemed unaware of the ruckus. They seemed oblivious of anything that existed outside the circle of their intertwined arms.
He took a seat close to the door, the spotless glass walls allowing him full view of the gift store across the way.
The news program had shifted stories, a cheerful asari talking over a picture of two humans in matching armor. Garrus’s gut heaved as if he had just been thrown across the room. It was the newest Spectres, a team of humans that the council had entrusted to go after Saren Arterius. He focused on what the asari was saying, although he already knew the story. He had read it every day since the story had debuted just under a month ago.
“ - Kaidan Alenko and Ashley Williams, humanity’s first Spectres, unexpectedly encountered their rogue counterpart on Virmire. Although the total number of casualties has not been confirmed by the STG, sources close to the battle suggest that the numbers would have been higher had the two Spectres not been present. Leaked footage shows Spectre Williams facing off against a charging krogan! The two could not be reached - “
Garrus slammed his fists down on the table, startling the volus who had approached from behind with his drink.
“You will be charged for anything you break,” she warned, placing the glass cylinder in front of him with extreme care.
“Can you turn that off?” He motioned to the news, the asari still gushing about the fine work of humanity’s greatest assets.
The volus shrugged and lowered the volume, but the screen stayed on.
“Not a fan of the news?” a voice from behind inquired.
There was a leaden ball bouncing beneath his carapace, and the question irked him more than it should. “Tired of hearing about their exploits,” he responded with venomous disdain.
“Tell me about it. Blah, blah, blah, we get it, they’re saving the world. Let me know when it’s about to blow up, that’s all I care about.”
With a huff of amusement, Garrus turned in his chair, his eyes connecting with a human woman sitting the table over. Her feet were propped on a chair across from her, a crumpled jacket and bag thrown across the other two. A little human taking up a lot of space. Typical. But her smile was easy and engaging, and she seemed keen on conversation.
“I’m Shepard,” she supplied without him asking. She stuck a hand out, leaning forward to reach across the table. Hunched over, he could see the couple in the corner table, an asari and a human man, were sitting knee to knee and staring intensely into each other’s eyes.
Garrus took the offered hand, focusing back on the least weird of the strange things in the cafe, and gave it a stiff pump, up and down, before letting go. Dix was also a fan of handshakes, he handed them out everywhere they went, but they felt strange to Garrus. Maybe it was because humans had such small, soft hands, and even with gloves on, he could feel how fragile they were. Yet he had witnessed Dix attempt to shake not one but two krogan’s hands. “Vakarian.”
Dead silence filled the space between them. Shepard smiled blithely, unaware or uncaring that his introduction was wooden. She gestured to his drink and asked, “What’s that?”
“Uh.” He looked at the untouched beverage in front of him, then took stock of the four empty glasses in front of Shepard. “Dextro, I don’t think you’d like it.”
“Ah, right.” She nodded, a curly red ponytail bobbing behind her, and tapped her temple with a finger as if she had been given the missing piece to a puzzle. “Different biology.”
“Very.”
The volus was busy behind the counter helping a new guest, her machines chugging away as she ripped open fridge doors and slammed them back shut. The amount of noise she was making seemed impossible.
Shepard smiled wide enough to bare her teeth, and she jerked her chin towards the volus. “She’s always like that. This place, too. Super loud, impossible to have a conversation. Or concentrate. Forget about making plans,” she said with a laugh as if she came here often to make plans.
Then why are you trying? he thought, but he managed to say, “Must be bad for business.”
“Could be why it’s so slow.” The human shrugged and readied herself to say more, but a beep from her omnitool cut her short. Her brow furrowed for a moment, but she looked back up at him with another quick and easy grin. “That was work. I’ve got to run.”
Garrus tensed his mandibles as she began to gather her things, but nodded as if he understood her rush. He thought about his own work, the monotonous task that brought him to the cafe in the first place and had by extension trapped him in an awkward conversation.
The woman breezed past his table, her unfolded jacket revealing a brilliant crimson geometric pattern on the back. “It was nice meeting you, Detective Vakarian.” She paused mid-step to glance back at him, her smile morphing into something wicked. “It’s usually better to make your calls to the captain in private. Never know who could be listening.”
Shit.
He rose to his feet, but before he could make it around the table, she had pitched her bag at him. He raised his arms, expecting something hard to pelt him, but instead, the limp fabric bounced off his carapace and clumped at his feet. A crude but efficient distraction; it bought her enough time that she had made it out the door, pushing through a crowd at a full sprint.
The volus yelled something after him, but he was out the door in pursuit. Even at this hour, the Citadel was crowded, and he could see Shepard fighting her way through a crowd near the stairwell.
“Citadel Security!” he shouted, his voice carrying over the din of conversations. “Stop that human woman!”
Shepard had just worked her way through the crowd and was rocketing down the less congested stairwell. She jumped down the last few steps, stumbling before correcting herself and turning the corner, descending out of sight.
“Hey, officer, which human?” someone shouted back as he ran by.
“Forget it,” he hissed between clenched mandibles.
He made the stairwell in half the time she had, his long legs carrying him a greater distance and making it easy for him to vault down double the steps. The floor below was slightly less crowded, but the red-headed human was nowhere in sight.
That’s not a problem, he thought. He opened his omnitool and turned on the pathway that allowed his visor to pick up bio-signs. Not strictly legal and not something the captain would be happy about if she found out. He had promised to use it only with prior authorization. Baumvi claimed it amounted to illegal use of monitoring equipment, but he had a point to prove.
Tiny heat signatures flooded his field of vision, and with a few more taps he had limited the readings to include those that belonged to “xenobiology: human,” increased heart rate, and perspiration. The pinpoints of activity reduced to a more manageable number.
He took a brisk but controlled tour of the floor, matching the signatures to anyone he could see. There were a lot of sweaty humans, but only one he was interested in.
His tour stretched past the show floor and into what should have been an employees-only loading dock. It contained the back product and newest arrivals for all the stores, restaurants, and cafes in a specific floor range. The door was coded, but the friendly green light indicated this one had been unlocked recently. And just inside the room, no more than a few feet from the door, a panting, sweating human.
Got you.
Garrus wasn’t interested in a shoot out - though he had no idea if she had a gun - and wrestling with a suspect never looked good. The room would be full of crates and shelves, and though she looked low to the ground, he couldn’t tell what she was behind, or how much stood between them. There were too many unknowns, even if it was just one human. He opted for the more peaceful route, rapping the back of his hand on the wall before hollering, “If you come out now, all I’m going to do is ask you a few questions!”
The signature bobbed, a sign that she was shifting her position in some way, but the distance remained fixed. She wasn’t coming out and she wasn’t running.
“I’m going to come in,” he warned, and after a pause, he stepped into range of the automatic doors.
A few things happened all at once, but before she smacked into him, he noticed with unease that the room was empty. There had been nothing between her and the door, and as soon as it opened, she lunged at him, her arms wrapping around his waist and her legs dropping between his. She was falling to the ground and taking him with her.
He was dense and under normal circumstances, she shouldn’t have been able to take him down, but she had the element of surprise. He was unsteady on his feet from the shock, and she dragged him down before he could correct his stance and stand firm.
“Ooof.” The fall knocked the wind out of Shepard, and she lay still beneath him, a look between mild amusement and frustration playing across her features.
“Didn’t think that out did you?” Garrus rose quickly to his feet, alleviating some of the pressure she was feeling. She had managed to take him down alright, but she hadn’t been prepared for the weight of a turian.
She regained her composure quickly and rejected his offered hand. “No,” she admitted as she stood, her knees still a little shaky, “but I thought it was worth a shot. Did the job well enough.”
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he unholstered his weapon. “Did what job well enough?” he inquired. Though it was all beginning to make sense.
She took a few steps away from him, her lips pinched together as she eyed the gun in his hands. Then her face relaxed, the now familiar grin pulling at the corners of her lips, only this time he saw how fake it was. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. You’ll get a notice that there’s been an armed robbery, and it will be awful embarrassing when it turns out you were at the scene of the crime, chatting away in a cafe.”
“We were talking for two minutes,” he spat. Two minutes was all it would take for professionals, he knew that, especially if they had already started by the time he sat down. It was just enough time for them to slip out, and even without alarms, he would have clued in on a group of humans leaving. Would have looked enough to know that something was up even before the alert was sent.
Shepard knew what he was thinking, and the grin reached her eyes as she looked up from the gun, her chin tilted back in defiance. “Plenty of time,” was all she said.
I’m never going to hear the end of this.
A quick sweep of the room confirmed that they were alone, but there was nothing more he could do with her here. He was going to have to take her in and face the wrath of the captain. “Alright,” he began, holstering his gun again and pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “You’ll be coming with me.”
The ease with which she submitted should have raised a few alarm bells. If not that, then the toothy grin she offered up as the handcuffs tightened over her wrists. Everything pointed to a reckoning. But all Garrus could think about was how angry Captain Baumvi was going to be.
Orsant was right; groups of humans couldn’t be trusted.
