Your Friendly Neighbourhood C-Sec Officer

Eydis frowned at the sound of his voice, had she come at a bad time? It didn't seem that way, given that he was still going to let her in.

@csecrookie

“Ey there, Green.” Val greeted, holding up a bottle of dextro-whisky and looking a tad buzzed “Just made a huge leap on a personal project of mine. Care to celebrate with me? Got a bottle of the livo stuff in the cabinet.”

“I really wish I could believe that, Eydis.” Val responded as he rested his hands on his mask “I want to be remembered for being an innovator; a revolutionary. Someone who brought positive change to this galaxy…but my past is always gnawing at my brain, telling me that I’ll always be just another scumbag killer with delusions of righteousness.”

Val let out a depressed sigh as he sat down next to Eydis…

“…Every night, it’s the same thing.” He said, looking at his synthetic arm “I live out the same memory in my head. An asari child on the ground, hole in her head and blood pooling out of her, light fading from her eyes…and I’m always the one holding the smoking gun. Every eye on the battlefield suddenly turns toward me, gazes like daggers. I stammer, making every attempt to tell them it was a mistake as the world turns black around me…and I wake up in a cold sweat. Every night. Without fail. For years now.

Good people don’t have those sorts of dreams, Eydis…”

Eydis hated to admit it, but she understood. Her dreams weren’t as common as they used to be but she saw her partner often enough, in a pool of his own blood, his hand still outstretched towards her, consoling her as she held her mangled hand. If good people didn’t have those sorts of dreams then she didn’t want to know what that meant. It had taken years of therapy for her to cope, but Val’Os didn’t have that. He just suffered. And fuck that always hurt to see, knowing she couldn’t help him in any way hurt even more.

“A ex-gang member pretending to be a productive member of society.” Val snarked, plopping a straw into his drink “Truly, I am a quarian Casanova. Green, those words may work in a rehab clinic, but It’s gonna take way more then a living self-help pamphlet to fix me.”

“Don’t really have time for relationships, Green.” Val responded, passing a glass over to Eydis “Too busy building things and wallowing in self-pity. Not that anyone would want to date someone from the slums of Omega.”

“You know how hard it is to find a barber shop that serves quarians?” Val chuckled, heading towards his alcohol cabinet “I’d have better luck surviving smallpox.”    

Val pulled out two bottles of whisky, one of them dextro, and began to pour them both a glass “Managed to find a new way to clean metal.” He sighed “Unfortunately, that’s the high bar.” 

“About as hard as it is to find any sort of shop that serves quarians?” Eydis responded, arching an eyebrow as he made his way towards a cabinet.  A sad state of affairs really, as a rather rich human she never really had that problem. And she was damn thankful for it. 

“Solitude ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Val shrugged “I mean, silver lining, I don’t have to look over my shoulder for vengeful mercenaries. So, yeah, counting my friggin’ blessings there.”

“Understatement. Didn’t you notice it was much quieter without me around? Thought you might’ve appreciated the space,” Eydis teased, eyes still trained on the arc pistol. A part of her wanted to believe that if it had come to it, she’d have been able to use her biotics. But she knew that she’d never quite get into the right mindset to use them, not with him around. 

@thephoenixnomore

“Not going to lie, babe, you wouldn’t be the first man who tried to shoot me and you wouldn’t be the last. I’m a big, bad biotic, I can take care of myself. ”

The pet name passes her lips like it’s the most natural thing and for a moment, all Eydis wants to do is rush forward and embrace the quarian she may have a teensy tiny giant crush on. Instead, she just shrugs, approaching him as casually as she can.