Drown Your Sorrows In The Sea | OPEN

[earthborn]

Who| Shepard and OPEN
What| That feel when your boyfriend ain't coming back
Where| Various drinking establishments, and also the Tribute center roof
When| A few days after Thane's death in the arena
Warnings/Notes| Talk about death, crude language, spoilers for mass effect maybe

1; A random Bar, or the Foxhole (your choice):

An hour ago, she'd just been getting started. In three, they'd kick her out of here. Half an hour ago, she'd sized up someone else for a barfight-- and only just barely let him go. There he was in the corner, a big guy with his skin dyed a fashionable emerald-green, daisy-yellow shading to his elbows, and lips painted pink. He looked like he lifted weights and masturbated to Arena footage for a hobby; Shepard amused herself by imagining his day job was something menial, like a janitor, or a sewage inspector. Something too important to give to an avox. Something nasty, and difficult, that he couldn't talk about over dinner.

God damn it, it wasn't worth it-- screwing with capitol civilians was a real easy way to get yourself in real deep trouble. But with every shot she had, it was starting to sound like a better idea. Why don't you slide on in here, stranger, and give her a distraction?


2; The Tribute Center Roof:

Shepard was drunk. She was drunk in a way that she hadn't been in a long time-- perhaps ever. She couldn't remember it ever being this bad, not without the assistance of hallucinogens or bloodloss, without that touch of venom to put an extra whirl in an already dizzy world. She was drunk enough, now, that she could think that far without wincing from it.

She'd been kicked out of three bars today, and turned away at a fourth. Even the fucking pillow fort felt too claustrophobic and so she'd abandoned it for the rooftop and bottles of piss-yellow beer. If she were honest, maybe Shepard could admit that some of this wasn't about how much she'd poured down her throat today. Most of it, really-- even the Capitol couldn't completely kill her metabolism, not this close to a revival.

But even if she wanted to be alone, she didn't really. And that pissed her off too-- so have an angry ginger up on the rooftop, Tributes, chucking bottlecaps and glass over the guard-rails and hating her life. Do with that what you will.

Comments

[gunshiptotheface]

"Yeah, Salarian, never seen one that had skin like his it was such a dark blue it looked almost black." Which had given him a huge advantage on Omega, which led to Garrus thinking about the first time they'd met up with Sensat. He and Sidonis, someone who he thought would be at his side like Shepard had been, but in the end had shown his true colours.

"I was looking for someone to help us get some information on Rhi'hesh Shurta, gang leader, he was one slippery bastard. A bartender that was a loyal contact got us in contact with him, said if there was anyone who had an ear to the ground it was Sensat. Mostly because he was so paranoid he wouldn't sleep without tripwires set up around his bunk." He chuckled at the memory of Sensat and his meticulous sleeping arrangements. "He was a good man."

[earthborn]

"He sounds like a barrel of laughs."

She tried to imagine it, a black salamander of a Salarian, twitchy and nervous and a crack shot, despite those flaws. He sounded like Zaeed, really. Jane could imagine their friendship easily. She could envision the slight shape a Salarian made under the cover of a plastic body-bag with even greater ease.

"Butler's a human name."

[gunshiptotheface]

"Yeah, big guy, used to work for C-sec before his girlfriend ended up dead because of a red sand deal gone wrong. She happened to be working at the restaurant that the deal was happening in. She was one of the casualties and the dealer was never caught." He shrugged, it was a common happening on the Citadel, thugs got away because of all the bureaucracy and long lines of paperwork the police had to fill out.

"Liked his assault rifles, and could always take a joke even though he was as tough as a krogan when you pissed him off. He joined us when we went after Thralog Mirki'it."

[earthborn]

That was good. He was talking and, slowly, more without prompting. That was good. Shepard leaned on him, a little more; she could blame it on the alcohol, if she wanted to. The booze made her not want to.

"Knowing you, that's not just some petty pusher," She knew the story, or some of it-- she was forgetting details, little details of her lies. Little things she shouldn't have known, "How'd that one go?"

[gunshiptotheface]

Having her lean on him made him readjust where his hand had been, letting the arm draped over her shoulder pull her in for a quick squeeze, almost a hug.

"He was one of the main dealers, sending Red sand into Council space. Turns out batarians can overdose really quickly when their head is shoved into a crate of pure uncut sand." It hadn't been pretty, but it had been Butler's call as to how the dealer had died. Garrus couldn't say that Thralog hadn't deserved it, a taste of his own medicine as it were.

"Spaced the rest of the sand we found in his warehouse, Aria was amused, and irritated that she wasn't getting her cut from his operation any more." He was entirely smug about that, any time he could rock Aria on her throne it had been amusing. Although he was sure the matriarch had trillions of credits to her name, a cut of one red sand dealer wasn't going to even put a noticeable dent in her funds.

[earthborn]

"Poetic. I like it."

She fell silent again, trying to remember-- there had been eleven...no, ten? Names swam in her memory, Grundan Krul, Shenyang, Melenis, Ripper, Emden, Sensat, Seoul, Vortash, Butler, Weaver... No, no that wasn't right. None of that was right.

"What about during off-hours? I mean, I know it's hard work, pissing off every merc in the Terminus, but even God supposedly took the seventh day off."

[gunshiptotheface]

"Most of it was spent preparing," he sighed, thinking back to those long hours of looking for leads until his eyes ached and his stomach reminded him that their meagre supplies didn't go too far.

"On a rare occasion we'd go to a bar, most of the time we played Skillian Five, or did a really bad job of trying to pick up women." He sounded a little embarrassed by the last one since that never went well on Omega, but it had been fun to attempt anyway. "Most of the time we just...talked."

[earthborn]

She was quiet for a long time. The sun finished setting, and the native fauna of the Capitol started their night-time rounds. No songbirds, here, no stars either, not even the cold comfort of skycar engines and atmo exhaust, but after three years, it was a familiar skyline. Too much light pollution for stars-- she like to think that the Capitol was too proud to let itself be rivaled by mere heavenly bodies, but Shepard knew better. Nothing more sinister there than simple human callousness, nice and universal. It was, in every meaningful way, the exact opposite to Omega, a place where the daily murder rate was so high that even an ardat-yakshi could vanish into the statistics.

Shepard preferred Omega; at least they were honest about the odds, there.

"They sound like a really good group. I wish I could've met them," Garrus had been her first stop, as much to piss in Lawson's soup as for any real reason, and even so she'd only missed the reality of Archangel by a few days. There truly was no justice in the world, "It's been... Shit. Four years? Seven since we met, I guess. Chasing down Saren fucking Arterius."

[gunshiptotheface]

"A long time," he agreed, staring off at the skyline. It didn't feel like home, too human here for him to ever be entirely comfortable. The architecture just never felt right to him, and the lack of aircars and the tang of ozone always reminded him that they were far from home. "Seem like another lifetime ago." At this rate they'd had so many lifetimes worth of tragedy, loss, and hardship, that it was a damn miracle they kept putting one foot in front of the other every damn day.

"They would've liked to meet you, Shepard. They were a good group, some of the best, you would've found them as loyal as any of the crew you have now." It was not something he said lightly, knowing all the times he'd shared stories about her that left his men amazed and in disbelief at some of the things they had done in going after Saren.

[earthborn]

"I would've taken them, y'know," she's too far gone now, to remember why this is a shit idea, "Miranda would'a had a fucking temper tantrum about it, but I'd have taken every last one of them, if they'd come. God, I can just hear her now."

She barked a laugh, and it sounded painful, but that was nothing compared to the accent she put on for the act, "We don't have the resources to take on ten heavily-armed unknowns, shepard be reasonable!"

Be reasonable. Be sane. Be.

"Like I ever need a voucher beyond your good word. Damn. I'm sorry, Garrus."

[gunshiptotheface]

"The look on Miranda's face would've been worth it." Although it was her impression that sold him on it, a deep chuckle coming from him. If only she had been there sooner, if only he had realized the trap. It made his crop clench and sometimes he just wanted to break something thinking back to how he didn't realize it had been a set up.

It was in the past now, always there behind him, but he knew nothing could be changed.

"The best way to honour them is to remember them and not sit on what could have happened." He murmured, reaching for his beer and having another drink. It was hard thinking about them, about his men, his friends, the people he failed the most.

[earthborn]

"I keep thinking. If I'd been faster. Or if... If we'd just had more time," She laughed at that, a little too thick, down where the current ran bitter and dark, "Stupid. Had years I should've had."

Wasted time. In the end, even Commander Shepard's no better than the clods back on the Admiralty Board. No better than the council. Time. Time-time-time. She laughed again, and it was freer, if no less bitter.

"Thanks, Garrus. For checkin' up on me. I know I'm not good at this shit. Never have been," she nudged him, companionably with her shoulder, "You're my best friend, y'know that?"

[gunshiptotheface]

"We can't think like that, or we'll never get anywhere." He replied,voice warm and tone light despite the power behind the statement. They really couldn't constantly reflect on the past or it would eat them alive.

Her nudge was returned, a grin on his face as he finished off his beer.

"I'm not much better for it, Shepard. But I'll let you in on a poorly hidden secret, you're my best friend, too." Then he laughed, reaching out to ruffle her hair, "Guess we can't get rid of each other now."

[earthborn]

"No time for regrets," which is an agreement, if you know her well enough, "I still kinda wanna keep drinking until I die of alcohol poisoning though. No offense."

And, the hair ruffling. This asshole, why does she put up with him again? Has to be his aim, and his intense, indecent devotion to forcing Turian designs and Cerberus systems to cooperate.

"That's not funny, Garrus," The nudge is now a proper shove, "You better fucking take care of yourself. I am not burying another member of my ground crew, got that?"

[gunshiptotheface]

"I'm not going to make it easy for someone to take me down Shepard, you know that." It was as good as a promise from him that no matter what he'd fight as long as he could to stay alive and stay with her. "A gunship didn't kill me, neither did the reapers, so I'm planning on keeping myself firmly above ground." Although the shove did have him simply messing up her hair even more, partially to piss her off and partially to get his point across in his affection for her.

"And as great as a though of having you dying of alcohol poisoning is, if I have to stay above ground, so do you."

[earthborn]

"Alright. Alright, deal. You stay, I stay. No Shepard without Vakarian," It was as good as a promise, and a terrifying one, given the circumstances. Neither of them had any say in whether either of them stuck around, or left, "But we've gotta get smarter about this. No more going for broke. No more screwing around. Yeah?"