Comfortable Old Boots

Notes: Unfortunately, no porn in this one. The aim is for the next chapter.

 

"Comfortable Old Boots"

Chapter Seven: A Fistful of Mud

 

Society had not, in fact, entered a state of collapse when the original Mass Relays ceased to function. Doomsayers had predicted the downfall of the galaxy, howling and beating their chests in time with their proclamations: The army Shepard had assembled would die of starvation in space. The krogan would overpopulate the Sol system, ultimately enslaving everyone else to use as a food source. The Reapers weren't really gone- no one realized they had simply been indoctrinated.

To the best of Garrus' knowledge, none of those eventualities had come to pass.

However, people had become scattered as a result of the Reaper War. The Hierarchy was still finding settlements of turians descended from war refugees or stranded soldiers. More often, military scouting ships found nothing more than bones or empty, makeshift buildings and broken water lines. Settlements becoming estranged from their homeworlds and parent races were now the norm. At barely twenty-six, Garrus had already met krogan musicians, Buddhist asari maidens- and salarians who didn't know the difference between mass and volume.

The short-lived races in particular developed their own customs and belief systems the longer they'd lived away from the center of the galactic community. A common example of this phenomenon were the human settlers of planet Normandy. Shepard Donnelly and her bunch were territorial, somehow fierce, and so inexplicably wrapped up in some imagined past they'd all lived through, that it was like trying to squeeze oneself through the crack in a door that had long been closed.

Aliens not welcome. Please slide your key-card under the door.

The night before Garrus left for Palaven to face a scowling board of military officials, he was finally allowed to see the place his ancestor had been put to rest. He didn't view this small victory as a good sign or bad- it simply was, and reinforced the idea that networking was the quickest way to success. After all, his grandfather had once spent three weeks arguing with some official here to reclaim some of Vakarian's personal possessions, and Lorik Victus had been rather close to the Primarch's seat at the time.

As he recalled from his grandfather's stories, Shepard Greg Westmoreland had been less than impressed by the fact. He'd begrudgingly sent Lorik away with a pair of boots and a battered old Vakarian insignia.

Somewhere between hazy, half-formed dreams and the heavy weight of the now extinct Vakarian name, he'd expected high pillars and polished, rare metals to honor the memory of Commander Shepard's crew. Instead, he was greeted by one large, upright ship wing, battered by the elements and smeared with black char he could make out even by the light of the plasma lanterns driven into the ground. Surrounding the Normandy wing were stones that were harder to see- rock slabs of various size and shape. The effect was plain, crude, and suggested a group of stranded soldiers who spent more time trying to survive than focusing on aesthetics. His first impression of the memorial was... underwhelming, to say the least.

So it wasn't poor vid work on that documentary. I owe Solana a five hundred tab.

He'd arrived an hour earlier than agreed- something he had no intention of telling Tess when her poor, tortured brother ferried her over. (Garrus had long since decided he didn't want to know how she'd convinced him, or how many from the Stand had refused her transport before she'd been desperate enough to pester a sibling recently back from Alliance duty.) Stupid as it was, he felt his first sight of the 'graveyard' was meant to be a private thing. Not necessarily the best of ideas now. Crap. He closed one blue eye and simply let himself... study that wedge of metal, wondering if pillars and shining statues would have been much better, in the end.

After five minutes of standing, staring up at the faded Normandy SR-2 logo etched by a laser at the wing's base, he shrugged off disappointment and gave in to a growing urge to pull off his boots. He tossed them aside and breathed in deeply, taking in the smells he'd learned to associate with the planet. Mold, from layer upon layer of dead leaves packed together over time. Wet earth. Grass and tree bark. Something faint that hinted at a potential rainstorm. Listening to the chirping of hidden bugs, he found himself... walking the perimeter, around the semicircle of stone grave markers and weaving around thick, gnarled trees draped in green fringe.

Garrus wasn't a fanciful man by any stretch of the imagination, though he believed, as most turians did, in the spirits that embodied the galaxy around them. They shone more brightly in some places than others. Once he saw past the tangle of weeds and outwardly-forgotten gravesides, he couldn't help the impression this spot represented the collective spirit of the Normandy crew quite well. Commander Tess Shepard, ill-fated Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, and all the other soldiers who had gone to London aboard that same ship. His ancestor was part of that, ashes having long since mingled with the ground here. If that's the case, what does that make Shepard's Stand?

With some small irritation, he stooped to pick up what even he recognized as a human condom wrapper, tossing it into the trash vaporizer anchored to one of the trees. Remote, almost sacred location aside, teenagers somehow managed to find their way out here to indulge in certain activities. Some adolescent tendencies were the same across all species. Well. Apart from the salarians.

Batting away fist-sized insects using his omni-tool, picked his way along the hewn stones with their mostly obscured names, trying to make out which grave belonged to which crew member. Hissing briefly as he smacked a toe along the surface of one of them, he lingered, dropping down to one knee to brush a glaze of mud and moss from the half-hidden rock. Any writing had long since been worn down to faint scratches too difficult to read. Instead, he traced the surface with his fingers, flicking away a small, purple speck of a bug resting there.

I  M MO Y:

G R  S   KA IAN ND DI NA A LERS

AUG 218

 

Weakness and searing smoke

Garrus had experienced so much and lived so fully that the idea of death brought no fear

Wildfire scored the landscape. He didn't think of Commander Shepard, who would rightly become a golden idol to the galaxy in the years to come. He didn't think of the woman, all cigarette smoke and wicked humor, who had set herself aside to become that figure. He didn't even think of the promise he'd made- to keep as many of them alive as long as possible if she didn't survive the war. Garrus acted because he was Garrus-Goddamned-Vakarian, because he didn't know how to, or want to die, a useless death.

“Allers! Dammit, where are you? Hold on!”

It was almost funny- with all the death and damage he'd seen in his military career, he'd never realized how quickly grass and wood burned.



 

As if from a distance, he heard the shuttle land. The dull roar of Jimmy Lopez' skycar brought with it an acrid tang of grasses blackened by exhaust heat. He blinked- hard, snapping back to reality with a suddenness that left him dizzy. How long had he been there on that same ground, the Normandy's wing blotting out the light of the two moons overhead? Shit. Not bothering to stand, he fingered a barely-there scrap of letter mark using the tip of one talon. Shit. The second I get back, another head scan to be sure-

“Garrus?”

It was as if two women at once were speaking to him- or as if one was a blurred outline of the other, trailing impossibly close. When he jerked his head toward her, wild-eyed and truly concerned for his sanity in that moment, he could make out a faint sheen of antique armor. Even as a hazy idea, her presence overpowered Tess' own.

Wait. Keep your head on your shoulders. You can do this. Whatever 'this' is- He sucked in a breath of blessedly cool, clear air in an attempt to calm himself. His toes sank deeper into the ground as he shifted his legs to keep his balance. This isn't the first time, he told himself, feeling something else bubble up alongside the sour tang in his mouth. If it isn't the last, I'll keep it under wraps until I'm really a danger. There's no use worrying about the worst until it actually comes to pass.

“I promised you history,” Tess said from where she still stood, behind him and all at once herself, plain and simple. “So, here we a-” Her brows furrowed, brown eyes sweeping over his face. “Garrus?” She said his name slowly, oddly serious without quite being concerned.

Collecting himself as best he could, Garrus looked past her, toward the hulking man in the sleek, hovering skycar. By the expression on his broad-featured face, the driver made it obvious he was the fabled 'Jimmy.' He pointed two fingers at his very human eyes, then pointed them right back at Garrus. That was the universal signal for 'I'm watching you, and I have a gun.' At the moment, he didn't feel particularly concerned by the realization Tess' half-brother was the size of an asari dreadnought.

“You filled that promise a bit late,” he answered, forcing a smile. The expression involved some twitching, a shifting of mandibles and a display of teeth that altogether formed an expression more unsettling than welcoming. Suddenly, the fact that he wasn't going to have sex tonight was more a relief than a disappointment. The thought of her crying his name in that strange, distorted way caused his skin to crawl.

“I don't think you'd have much to worry about if I were late, Garrus.” This time, her voice was her own. There seemed to be a joke in those words, but Garrus didn't know enough about human reproduction to assume she meant anything other than changing into various outfits and making sure nothing was stuck in her teeth. If anything, he thought she was making the sort of stereotypical joke that would earn a man a withering stare and the upraised middle finger he often saw flashed in human bars.

She let out a low whistle as she flicked a glance down at his two-toed feet, taking in the boots he'd tossed aside to walk about the area. He cleared his throat. “I was... getting in touch with all of this nature.” Even to his own ears, he sounded stilted.

The time to feel ridiculous around her had long since passed, left behind after the first, clumsy fumbling that night in the car, or the second time, when they'd intended to fly to the spot Vakarian had died his hero's death. They'd pulled over after an hour's flight instead, flinging blankets to the ground and pulling off clothing, while he worried about rubbing against her too hard and she'd bitten his neck with enough ferocity she'd nearly chipped a tooth. They were here, just- later than they'd intended, and at a time when it seemed sex was almost expected if not for location and Jimmy Lopez, whose presence seemed to hang about the place in spite of the fact he'd flown off to do whatever it was he was supposed to do while he waited. Check on kakliosaur migration or surveillance drones most likely.

“Put your head between your knees and count to ten,” she gave him the bemused order while leaning forward to pull off her own boots. She wore layers of thick, heavy socks beneath them, the metallic tinge of insect repellent smoothed on her skin mingling with the sweat-tinged cloth. He smacked another huge mosquito from the air, blithely ignoring her. She didn't seem to mind, only adding, “mind you don't sit right on your own grave, though.”

Garrus tensed all over again, fingers clenching and furrowing out a fistful of mud in the process. “It isn't my grave,” he pointed out, more sharply than he'd intended. Everything I'd read growing up about the Reaper War made it clear there weren't any remains to return to the Hierarchy. Even if the ashes had been stored away in some sort of mausoleum instead of scattered, Vakarian's would be mixed with those of the woman who had died alongside him.

Tess paled, though he couldn't see it with only the dim lighting of the plasma lanterns flickering along her face. He did see her falter, as if struck in some strange way by his words. “I know,” she told him, her voice low and a little- flat, somehow. Garrus shifted even further from the stone and patted the ground beside him, his moment of temper dying as soon as it had sparked. She gnawed on her chapped bottom lip, making him sweat a moment before she joined him in the dirt. Tipping her head back to study the looming wing of the Normandy, she went on. “Captain Victus is better company than some dead legend, don't you think?”

He watched her long legs instead of the wing, which made his head throb if he studied the damned sheet of metal more than a few seconds at a time. She slid one leg to the side, placing the bottom of her foot on top of his. They were a slipshod study of the differences between human and turian anatomy, his foot dwarfing her own. When she slid her big toe between his, he didn't bother to hide his brittle amusement. “Come to Citadel-II and you won't hear my name said that way.”

“Mm,” she replied noncommittally. She arched her back, twisted in just the right way that popping noises filled the air. He couldn't help but swallow, settling a hand on the small of her back and running a sharp-tipped finger along her spine. He felt her press into him then listened for- something in her, feeling foolish and relieved all at once when only 'Tess' answered back.

Sitting there on the ground without his boots on, it seemed absurd to ask a woman more concerned with living a carefree, almost lazy existence what she'd do if she saw images of war every time she shut her eyes. Would she toss out a careless joke if he told her that now and again, he saw another woman's face behind her own? After all, Tess was vaguely xenophobic- somewhat selfish and more than a bit temperamental. She was certainly willing to inconvenience family members and put them in uncomfortable situations to get her own way. The last time he saw her face to face, she'd smelled enough of cannabis smoke that he'd been coughing for days after.

“Scratch right there-”

Damn, but he was going to miss her.

The words were there on the tip of his tongue, but he never said them because it was too soon to mean any of it: 'Come with me.' It would be a disaster. They would separate within days of leaving the port. She'd spend weeks waiting for the right transport to take her back to planet Normandy, with the entire crew watching the drama until they stopped off at the nearest spaceport.

He turned his face into her hair instead, even if it did smell a little like smoke. There was something else, too. It was a little floral and made his nose run. She went very still, studying him from the corner of her eyes. “I thought you'd be all over this place,” Tess told him haltingly, gesturing with one arm to the ship wing that reached toward the sky like the dragon teeth people across the galaxy still used in horror stories. “Hell, we're sitting on our relatives.”

Our relatives. “Hah,” he breathed against her temple. “I may even have a handful of Garrus Vakarian right here.”

Tess didn't take the bait, failing to answer with her typical, boisterous laugh. He found her a little strange that night, a glint of color slicked over her thin, determined mouth and normally wild hair smooth and loose around her shoulders. “This was a fling, wasn't it.” A statement, not a question. He had no doubt she'd said those words to many men in the past, utterly unashamed and likely more callous than necessary to every one of them.

“Probably,” Garrus admitted, finding it all too easy to let his arm slip about her waist so that he could draw her in closer. They sat in silence that was more comfortable than awkward now, the quiet occasionally pierced by the screech of a distant pyjak or the roar of a kakliosaur. Now and then, he could make out a glinting speck in the distance that was no doubt her brother's skycar. In spite of the soft press of her body, the aftermath of the hallucination left him cold.“Who knows when I'll be back? If ever.”

They should be rolling around on the ground at this point, no matter how uncomfortable the ride back with her brother would be for her, no matter that it was next to impossible for a human or even an asari to hide the scrapes when they'd been with a turian. He should have his fingers in her hair and a hand on her breast as she rubbed her thigh between his legs. If that had been their intention for the night, neither one of them would have agreed to this particular location.

“All we are is dust in the wind.” She shifted out from beneath his embrace, surprisingly hard to hold on to for a woman of her size. He had some vague memory of an old human song he 'just totally had to listen to', of her hips swaying and a little glass pipe in one hand as she'd abandoned the vid-comm in favor of a battered holo-radio. “Throw me my bag?”

Bag. So. She'd dropped it next to them while he'd been wrapped up in his own thoughts. Garrus grimaced, watched her from behind. He kept a hand on her so that as she slipped away, his palm slid along her hip, down her thigh and along her knee. She smiled over her shoulder at him, enough of her hair in her face that he could barely see her eyes and mouth. He tossed the satchel lightly in her direction, vaguely impressed that she managed to catch it by the little loop on top while balancing on her knees and one hand.

“I'd be lying if I said part of me didn't hope you had 'the usual' in there.”

She gave an unladylike snort and pulled a little, metal storage cube from the duffel, just big enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “No,” is all she said to that, gesturing overhead toward the small dot of Jimmy Lopez' shuttle car. Garrus experienced only a brief pang of male disappointment, as he hadn't quite managed to shake off the memory of that phantom woman dogging them both. She flicked the cap of the box upward, bag stuffed under one arm. Skimming a hand through the soil so that it gathered into the palm of her knobby-fingered hand, Tess hummed singsong under her breath. Her fingertips brushed the gravestone with its mostly-gone names--it was impossible for him not to notice. Soil trickled from her clenched fist, marring the slick, glossy interior of the box. He heard the dull thunk of a tiny pebble inside.

The closest thing to the remains of Vakarian I'm going to get, he realized. She stopped her little half-song all at once.

“Your folk died on this ground, just like mine,” she said evenly, looking him straight on, just the way she had the first day he'd gone to pick her up from Shepard's Stand. Sighting down target. Acquired. “So, you take this with you and you remember your Vakarian blood when they're staring you down on Palaven.” She passed the box to him, closed his fingers about the small, primitive keepsake that probably meant more to the humans on this green tangle of a planet than it did the turians or krogan living alongside them.

For all of a moment, he saw past the blithe selfishness to something true- and loved her. “Come with me.”

She sputtered and dropped his hand as if she'd been holding on to a hot coal. Garrus froze, forced a laugh and gave her a slight prod with his elbow to play it all off as a joke. Her smile was quick and crooked as she drawled, “You going to give up your career for a colony girl, Victus? You'll be a public figure one of these days. We both know how that story'd end.”

“No,” he admitted, having regretted the request as soon as it was out of his mouth. He closed his fingers over hers again, still holding the smooth, shiny box. The seed of discontent that had driven him to join the military grew just a bit more, though he failed to realize it at the time. It was better to have this and take away a few good memories instead. The hell it is. “I'm too by the book for that sort of stunt.”

“Good,” Tess said simply, settling beside him once again. She allowed him to draw her back to his side, his free hand settling on her bony hip even as the other gripped that scrap of ground that shouldn't hold the slightest bit of meaning to Garrus. “The more you follow the rules, the less likely you are to run off and splatter-paint some back alley with bits of your face.”

Those were the last words they were to share, face to face, for the next three years.