Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Talk and Dance

Part One: Rhythm

Vega pressed his steps and held a swear back, trying to keep up with the Commander and the turian. Despite his previous lithe answer about the atmosphere being a little thin, making it hard to breath, he couldn’t actually point out what was wrong and why it was so hard to stay beside them now. He had no problem of the kind before – not when they hit the ground and were swarmed by husks and not when they were fixing the Comm tower...

“Damn!” he cursed, seeing the fireballs that carried the reaperized ground forces they’ve been fighting since stepping on Palaven’s moon hit the compound where they hoped to find the Primarch. “That sounds bad!”

“Double time it, people! No Reaper is taking this Primarch from me!” The Commander ordered, increasing her pace and making him swallow yet another swear, but this time it was to save his breath. “James, I want you to take point and deal with CQC, but fall back to mid-range if you see another of those big ones...”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am!” he acknowledged stepping ahead of her and taking cover at the entrance of the compound.

He heard the Commander say something to Vakarian, though he couldn’t make out the words. He was almost certain he heard the turian chuckle lightly, saying ‘Just like old times!’ before they entered hell.

It still took him a few more minutes before he could come up with an explanation for the odd feeling, though.

He’d been fighting ahead of them, pressing their way into the camp when he saw the big monstrosity and fell back into cover, changing his shotgun for the assault rifle in a swift movement. It was then that he registered that the Commander had done the exact opposite.

He felt his stomach freeze and watched in awe as she moved from cover to cover, nearer and nearer to that brute of a monster, unloading her shotgun between the covers. Around her, the turian things, husks and other smaller reaper-forces fell to the ground in waves as their heads exploded with precise shots. The ‘big one’ fell shortly before it could reach the Commander.

He blinked over and over again, feeling his heartbeat increase as she danced around the battlefield to a tune he couldn’t hear... But Vakarian was clearly able to.

He’d seen her fight before, but she never had that fluidity in her movements. He could try and justify it by saying they hadn’t been fighting together long enough to create a fighting rhythm of their own, but that wasn’t true with the Major and Doc - they had History, too, - and even with them, she hadn’t been that... Lethal.

He woke up from his gawping onto the Commander’s fighting style – and went back to shooting things – when a husk dropped dead near his feet. His head gone. “You alright there, Lieutenant?” The turian asked, sounding slightly amused as if he knew exactly what had him distracted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually did...

James’ last thought before focusing back on the fight was how long it would take for him to learn how to sing in key with Shepard and Vakarian.

Chapter Text

Talk and Dance

Chapter Two: Idolatry

James finished reassembling his shotgun and placed it along with his heavy armor. He looked around the shuttle bay and exhaled sharply, staring at the empty space left by the Kodiak.

He was upset and bored. He’d gotten really pissed off back at Mars when Shepard ordered him back to the shuttle after meeting Doc. He really hoped the Commander wouldn’t make a habit of leaving him behind now that the turian had joined the ground squad. She’d taken Vakarian with her for all the missions she had undertaken since Menae: both EDI’s hot platform’s test-drive on Sanctum and this protean artefact thingy not half an hour ago.

Damn, I’d like to go to Eden Prime, too! He thought heading to the elevator.

But, well, once he was stuck on the Normandy at lunchtime, he should probably grab something to eat. The elevator stopped briefly on the Engineering Deck and one of the Engineers they’d picked up last time they went to the Citadel stepped in.

What was the guy’s name again? The one who asked Cortez to look for that fancy booze... He wondered, hoping the redhead wouldn’t try to start a cover-

“Hello, there,” the other said happily – and of course I wouldn’t be so lucky – making Vega try to desperately come up with a nickname for the guy.

“Hey, Islay! Going to the mess?” said he after a heartbeat, in which he mentally kicked his own ass. He really had to work on that “remembering names” problem. Giving people nicknames was okay, but only when he picked them by choice and not by necessity. You’d never see Lola forgetting people’s names, he considered, thankful that the guy didn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah, though I’m not really looking forward to have that standard processed garbage again. At least while we were chasing the Collectors, we had a real cook on the ship...” he said, picking up James’ interest.

“Wai-... Wait a minute there, Islay! You were part of the Normandy during the Collector mission?” The marine stared at the skinny man uncertain about whether he should be excited about having an information source about those days of the Commander’s life or be suspicious because of the guy’s Cerberus connections.

“Me and Gaby, both!” He confirmed, shrugging nonchalantly. “It was totally worth facing some brig time to work with Shepard!”

“You signed up with Cerberus just to work with Shepard?” James’s eyebrow went suspiciously up as he stared the engineer. That was downright idolatry!

“Damn right, I did! She’s always been right, after all!” Both men got out when the elevator door opened at the crew deck and Vega contemplated those last words.

“Hey there, Copeland! How’re you doin’ Campbell?” Islay greeted the two officers that were at the table.

The guy is really fast at getting to know people! Vega nodded to the officers a little amused as he went to the food container.

“Hey, Donnelly, you must know something ‘bout this...” – Donnelly! That’s his name. It was Campbell, the chica James used to see standing guard at the War Room scanner, who addressed the engineer with something like incredulity in her voice. “Is it true the Commander’d gave that turian clearance as Gunnery Chief?”

“Watch the bigoted tone, Private!” James snapped, making the officers in the room instantly shape up. “That turian is Officer Garrus Vakarian. The very same turian who served with Commander Shepard on the SR-1 and fought alongside her to take down Saren!” He could be annoyed about being left behind, but it wasn’t because of Vakarian’s species. “Plus, he also fought beside Shepard to take down the Collectors while the Alliance brass ignored and back-stabbed her!” Some little part of his mind, ironically came up with: Talk about idolatry, alright, but he quickly cast that aside. It was still too fresh in his memory the time he’d spent on guard duty outside of Shepard’s room – cell – back on Earth when they should be preparing for war. Man! He hated politicians!

The room remained in silence for a few minutes, Campbell’s face turned into a bright red and Copeland shifted uncomfortably in his chair, while Vega went back to the task of heating his meal. Donnelly was the first to come around the awkwardness in the mess hall.

“It shouldn’t be that surprising, really. That’s been Garrus’s official role in the Normandy ever since Shepard recruited him on Omega all those months ago,” he informed as he seated and shrugged slightly, facing his plate with a sigh.

“What do you mean by official role?” Copeland asked, putting his juice glass down.

“He also was kind of our unofficial XO, back then. Shepard didn’t really trust the Cerberus Operative officially assigned to the position; not at first...” Donnelly lifted his fork and stared Campbell briefly. “They have history and he’s one of her closest friends, you know...” He grinned mischievously and turned back to his plate – muttering “He’s a lucky bastard, that’s what he is...” in an amused tone just loud enough for Vega, who had seated at the chair next to him, to hear.

Whoa! What’s that? For a second Vega just stared blankly across the room, feeling there was something really odd about that last comment.

“But what Kenneth really means is that Shepard wouldn’t take such an important decision if it weren’t the best choice she could make, in spite of her personal feelings...” They were all startled by Gabby’s sudden appearance and Donnelly looked at her sheepishly. “Garrus knows the Normandy’s weapons systems better than anyone, except for EDI...” The engineer added heading towards the kitchen.

“That’s not completely accurate, Gabby...” the AI’s voice sounded through the room, scaring the hell out of everyone but Donnelly and Gabby, who were obviously used to it – Her. “I’d say he knows those systems even better than I do, if the improvements made at the cannons since Officer Vakarian rejoined us are to be taken into consideration...”

“There you go!” Donnelly smiled, as that statement from the ship itself closed the issue and returned to eating, leaving James with an unanswered suspicion.

Chapter Text

Tattoos jumped the window, softening her fall with biotics, and walked towards Lola like a wildcat. The woman had sexy exhaling out of every pore.

"That a teacher?" James lilted to Garrus. "My teachers were never that..." He stopped talking when Tattoos punched the Commander...

In the face.

"No, I bet they weren't," was the turian's amused answer as he swaggered his way – James could swear he'd never met a turian, or anyone, with so much swagger – to where the two women were talking. "As charming as ever!" he taunted the biotic as manner of greeting and James couldn't help but shake his head. Sometimes Scars had no self-preservation instinct.

"Bite me, Garrus!" Tattoos sneered at him. "Better yet, biteher..." she nodded at Lola with a lopsided grin and added suggestively, "Probably how she likes it..."

Vega stopped in his tracks just a few feet away as the Commander and Garrus exchanged a brief knowing look – their stances almost a mirrored image of each other: their weight on a leg, the dip on a hip and crossed arms – an almost unnoticeable smirk on her lips and his mandibles were fluttering in a way he'd learned to identify as amusement.

'Whoa! Lola's kinky...'  his mind helpfully supplied before the meaning of the scene fully sank in. Two heartbeats later he went slack-jawed.

Haphazardly, his mind rewound every moment he spent with the two of them ever since Vakarian joined them on Palaven's moon. He found himself going through their chat on the mess hall not six hours ago, and wondered how it was possible that he hadn't seen it before. It was pretty obvious when you knew what you were looking for – Wrex's guffaws, Doc's coughing fits and the Primarch's looks seemed to indicate that everyone could see what was going on.

And Scars left the room just a few minutes after the Commander, too.

'I never thought Lola liked them spiky...'  He shuddered. 'I really didn't need to know that...'

He shook his head, taking the few steps necessary to reach the trio and watched as Shepard opened her mouth to reply to the tattooed woman. Shepard's shoulders tensed and she took her hands to her comm, instead.

"What is it, Cortez?" she stepped aside to talk to the pilot and James found his attention divided between what she was saying and the conversation between Scars and Tattoos. His duty battled his curiosity, until ultimately his curiosity got the better of his duty.

"You looking out for her?" Tattoos frowned, looking at Shepard. "She looks like shit..."

James noticed that, even though the turian was talking to the biotic, his eyes followed Shepard closely. "Well, she is stretching herself thin..." he sighed with a tired note of his own.

The Lieutenant glanced at the Commander again looking for any of the telltales signs of exhaustion the other two seemed to identify, but could see none.

"Sanders, this is Shepard," the Commander approached them again. "The students are safe, but the shuttle's a no go." And that got them back at attention. She looked at Garrus while listening to what the Academy's headmaster had to say. "A jamming device you say..."

Without any other word Scars activated his omni-tool and started typing a few commands. His tool beeped a couple of times before he nodded at her.

"James, stay close to Jack in case more Cerberus soldiers show up." She didn't even need to say anything before Vakarian fell into place behind her.

James huffed. There it was again.

And James still had it in him a way to get amazed at how there seemed to have a whole set of codes between the two of them that nobody else could hear or understand. Somehow, though, he didn't believe that the nature of their relationship was the reason to that. Not completely, at least.

Actually, if he had to guess, he would say that their own language was somehow older than whatever they had going on. You just needed to look at them now – when they were perfect professionals and every sign of a personal relationship disappeared – to be able to see that.

'Hell, I even thought the Commander was with Major Alenko..."  He wondered if the intel – or maybe it was just scuttlebutt – the Alliance HQ had managed to get about that was wrong too.

"So, where did Shepard picked you from?" Tattoos asked getting him out of his reverie.

"I'm Alliance; was on Earth with the Commander when the Reapers hit." he explained feeling her measuring look.

"I'm fu– sure that now you bastards are regretting not listening to her before, right?" her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Not everyone on the Alliance doubted Shepard, you know." Vega found himself trying to justify his stand on the whole Shepard situation. "The problem is that most of those who believed her had no clutch to do anything about it." he suddenly felt it was difficult to swallow and decided to change the subject. "So, how do you know the Commander?"

"She got me out of prison." was her blunt answer followed by a wicked grin.

For a few seconds, James just stared, unblinking, at the woman in front of him trying to figure out whether she was serious or not.

"You know," he said heavily, seeing her arch an eyebrow. Every time he thought he was getting to know what Shepard was about, something happened and he found himself back at the start. "You'll have to tell me about that sometime."