@psiamie // plotted for a starter !
between all the tedious back-and-forths with the asari consort, being sent here and there and back again — like some sort of messenger boy — by tantrumming generals who weren't up to the task of managing their own needlessly complicated affairs, the encounter here with Finch, too, and now this ... just hearing the name Chora's Den is enough to spring bitterness on his tongue. ( Maybe not so bitter as much as coppery and — ah, no. That was just the taste of his blood in his mouth. )
After a long afternoon looping about the Citadel ten times over, and that was counting just on foot, Shepard wanted a drink in quiet. No crewmates, old or new, to be forced into casual chatter with. Just a chance to now think over this whole SPECTRE business in private .... Evidently, that wasn't in the cards.
How did the fight even begin? He remembers swirling a glass in restless circles on the bar counter, leaning over as he idly scanned the dancers, his eyes occasionally lingering. They were all right, nothing special — he had too much on his mind right now to think much of anything but the imminent hunt for Saren. Still, he had enough drink in him that the wild swaying of their dancing was enough to entrance and entertain. But that's what it had been, hadn't it: One moment he was glancing from woman to woman, and the next, another patron had snatched him by the shoulder, screeching until he was blue in the face about Shepard eyeing his girl. And Shepard hadn't come here looking for a fight, but...
Shouting escalated rapidly to physical shoves and louder yet screaming from the instigator. Shepard thinks he remembers throwing back the words Vakarian had said to Oraka — 'this is pathetic. What could a woman do to put you in that state!' — and thinking, right after, that the other man's face looked much too red and much too tempting to not throw a punch at, too. So he did, and all hell broke loose then.
And here he is now, tossed right by the inside of the entrance to Chora's Den, leaned against a wall and waiting for C-Sec to arrive. The other guy, whatever his condition — in the all-out brawl that ensued, Shepard lost track of who exactly he was pummelling after the fourth or fifth swap in faces — was being held somewhere on the other side of the club.
He squints at the two krogan security guards hovering near him, and for a moment he ponders his chances in shoving his way out. But starting another fight seems more of a headache than necessary. So does simply explaining his position — he'd rather they go through the trouble of waiting on C-Sec, only to be told there's little that C-Sec can really do.
His head is pounding, and there's a sharp ache above his brow. Someone got a good hit in. And maybe it's the adrenaline still wearing off, or maybe he's been thrown against one too many a table or wall today, but even the pulsing low light in Chora's Den seems overwhelming.
He presses the pads of his finger and thumb firmly to his eyelids. The thrumming of the club's music is loud enough that he allows himself to let out a quiet groan.
