#me1verse

It was a glorified punishment putting him on the Presidium, more so putting him on something so... utterly basic as this. He was waiting outside the Consort’s facility, pistol holstered, eyes on the water. Escort. An escort for an escort. Ironic, but that’s what he got for getting caught bending the rules. Sniffing around the wrong laundry, like he was supposed to do. 

A girl who’d endured a break-in not long ago, who still felt unsafe. Unfortunate, but not his problem. Not until Executor Pallin had made it his problem.

Garrus Vakarian was bitter, but at least it didn’t show too terribly on his face when his target stepped outside. His arms folded over his chest. “You called for a C-Sec escort, miss...?”

Garrus Vakarian had been escorting her home from work for a couple days now; he didn’t need to, but it was becoming a pleasant part of his routine. Something quiet after a day of beating his head against a desk. 

The agitation that had put an uncomfortable spring in Garrus’ step seemed to be slowly bleeding out of him once they left Doctor Saleon’s ship. His rigid posture was faltering, he wasn’t so often checking his sight lines. They left his body for Alliance pickup. 

Garrus was quiet during debriefing. The first words out of him that weren’t pulled came when Shepard found herself alone, after his talons tapped the wall next to her in an announcement of his presence. “Commander.”

“Can we talk? If you’re... not busy.” He paused to look at the ground for a moment, his hand returning back to rest on the opposite elbow. 

He’s standing awkwardly, neck craned back, walking up extremely carefully-- mostly because there’s a tiny hairy thing poking its eyes out from underneath the lip of the cowl of his armor. Two tiny ears. A cat. 

“I was going to space it, but... it’s made itself hard to dislodge now.”

Granted he hadn’t expected to get separated from the rest of the ground team. Geth signal jammers were doing their damn job, and his visor was showing nothing but moving static. Exploration quickly turned into fumbling around in a white haze of a blizzard, and Garrus did his best to get to cover in an abandoned camp; probably Geth, he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel his feet.

The Turian curled up a bit, talons shaking in a vice grip against his rifle as he tried for the radio again. “Vakarian to Normandy. I’ve got nothing out here. Map is jammed, I’m all... I’m all turned around.”

“Also I think I’m freezing to death. Nothing crazy, but... an evac would be nice. You know, before I freeze to death.” He felt his chest aching. There was no response, and Garrus coiled tighter.

It was a strange party, to say the least, in the now overstuffed crew quarters of the Normandy. No party could be held on the Citadel, still in ruins along with quite a bit more of the Galactic fleet. Sovereign’s attack was a scarring one, but they’d still won.

So they threw a party, right before cleanup could begin, in the one place that remained unscathed-- the Normandy SR-1. 

So help him, Garrus still didn’t really know how to act around Humans. And yet here he was, catching Kaidan in the break lounge, or... being caught in the lounge himself.

"Looks like it," which was probably why he was less-than-enthusiastically booking her to a temporary C-Sec holding cell.