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Online dating was a mistake, Castis thinks as he sits at the dextro/levo bakery waiting to meet “A_Vet2124” - a human woman who, judging by her username, is an Alliance veteran. They hadn’t exchanged names, nor phone numbers - all he knows is that she has brown hair that she kept tied in a neat tail (puppy tail? No, that can’t be right…) in her photo and the little dots across her cheeks that Alec’s daughter always had. The same dots Garrus’ girlfriend, Janey, has too.Never has he been skilled at small talk or making friends, and now he’ll be expected to carry conversation with a stranger!Spirits, does he miss his beloved. Wherever she is, she is laughing at him now, delighted that he’s finally decided to start dating. Perhaps it’s because of her that he’s opted to take this step - she always told him that he should find love again if he wishes to. Still, he hopes this woman is better at small talk than he is, because otherwise, this will be a very uncomfortable visit.The door opens and a human woman wearing a black leather jacket with a black purse hanging over her left shoulder walks in, her skycar keys in her right hand and a pair of sunglasses on, even though the artificial light on the Citadel renders such protective eyewear unnecessary, implying that this is merely a stylistic choice. Common amongst humans, to his understanding - he’s seen Janey wear fashionable protective eyewear while wandering the Silversun Strip during their monthly family dinners.She meets his eyes and gives a wave. “Cipritine_Born… and then a series of Palaveni characters? Numbers, if my translator got it right.”He stands up and extends his hand in the human style. “Castis Vakarian.” His date’s eyes go wide and then she starts snickering and he lets out a huff of his subvocals. Is she aware that he used to be a C-Sec detective and somehow finds his presence before her amusing? Or is this entire date merely some form of joke?“Sorry. Shit. This… may not work. Or maybe it will and we’ll have a hilariously awkward family dinner. Hannah Shepard,” she shakes his hand and for a moment he ponders why they’d have an awkward family dinner, until he notices that the brown of Hannah’s eyes is the same brown of Janey’s, and their nose looks like it might be the same shape, and the aforementioned skin dots…Spirits. “Are you Janey Shepard’s mother?” he asks, already knowing the answer. Janey lifts one finger, goes to the bakery counter, places an order and then sits down across from him.“I’m having them put a shot of Bailey’s in my coffee because, well… apparently you’re my son-in-law’s father?”“Does this offend you?” There is the potential for awkwardness here - if they get into a relationship, there is liable to be discord if things do not work out between them. Or, if they do, then, on the most technical of levels, Janey and Garrus will be step-siblings as well as life partners.However, he’s gotten to know Janey well over the years since the end of the war and recognizes that she is liable to find this situation amusing. Garrus… might need a moment before seeing the humour in it. Or a few moments, as it were. “I see no qualms in enjoying a snack and a drink with you and seeing where the day takes us,” he says before standing up to amend his own order to include a shot of whiskey in his kava.“Janey has always spoken most highly of you - thank you for spending time with her at the hospital following the war.” Hannah stares out the window of the bakery onto the bustling sidewalk. “Not to make this about the war, but it was tough to be Rear Admiral Shepard in the wreckage of a broken galaxy knowing that my kid was lying in a hospital bed and needing me to be her mom instead. Influenced my decision to retire. You get it, I’m sure - duty calls, but sometimes your family does too and it’s still not possible to be in two places at once.”Normally, he would keep the heaviness in his life to himself on a first date, and his understanding is that it is poor form to get into such painful topics, but perhaps the Reaper War has changed first date etiquette. “I retired because my wife became dreadfully ill. Corpalis syndrome - a rare neurodegenerative disease. We lost her just before the war.” Hannah lets out a sad hum, murmuring condolences.“Liam died when Janey was 15. It wasn’t service-related - he’d been so convinced that if he went before retirement it would be in the line of duty, but a freak accident. Drowned while snorkeling when we were on holiday in Hawaii. First family holiday we’d taken in six years.” Hannah lets out a bitter laugh. “Last family holiday we ever took. Janey threw herself into work for a lot of reasons, but a desire to avoid leisure travel was one of them.”He’s noticed that about Janey - the family has spoken about taking a beach holiday and, when it was merely theoretical in the aftermath of the war, she was all for it. Now, with beaches across the galaxy opening up, she’s found reasons not to commit to a trip but he’s never asked why and Garrus had pulled him aside and asked him to be patient with her on the matter, as if he could ever be angry that his daughter-in-law felt unready to take a beach vacation. Finding out such a deep, personal pain about his daughter-in-law in this manner has him feeling a measure of guilt; he did not seek this information out behind her back, but it still feels forbidden. Wrong.“I am sorry - for the both of you.”Hannah takes a sip of her coffee. “Sorry. You didn’t know any of that, did you?” He shakes his head - a human gesture he’s grown used to after spending so much time around humans over the years. “Blame me, though I don’t think Janey would get upset about you knowing. She’s just not the sort to open that window into her soul. So much like her father in that respect. Me? I never shut up.” Hannah gestures to herself, forcing a smile to her face.“I suppose I have more in common with Janey and your husband than with you. It used to drive my own wife mad - she was a talkative woman who disliked silence.”“Funny how the talkative ones always end up with the quiet ones, isn’t it?” A staff member brings over a flaky human pastry for Hannah and folded Cipritinian flatbread filled with jam for him and sets them down on the table. Hannah glances at it curiously; long ago he grew accustomed to human food and its dextro adaptations, so none but the most obscure human dishes generate any interest in him. He takes a bite, finding a perfectly inoffensive citrus jam and offers his plate to her.“Presuming you don’t have an allergy. I’m curious what the jam tastes like to you - it’s made with a citrus fruit grown on Palaven around the equator.”Hannah takes his plate, lifts the flatbread to her mouth and takes a bite, flinching as she chews and he lets out a low chuckle. “Sour?”She swallows and reaches for her coffee and takes a sip from the mug. “No. It was bitter - not the pleasant sort like coffee, but do you know bitter apple spray? The stuff you spray on cords to keep your cats from chewing the cables. Horrid stuff. That’s what it tasted like to me.”“Companion animals on Palaven are dissuaded by spice spray. Unpleasant to get in your eye, as you can imagine. My parents bred varrens when I was a boy so I was on the receiving end of it more than once before I learned not to rub my eyes after spraying the cables.”“My mothers breed Yorkshire Terriers.” Hannah pulls up photos on her omni-tool of several small tan and grey dogs with long, flowing fur. “Between you and me, they’re the worst dogs. Bratty, loud and dumb as rocks, but Mom and Mama adore them.”Janey and Garrus have talked about adopting a dog if they opt to move to Earth so he expects Janey to have already warned Garrus about the characteristics of this specific dog breed which, to him, looks more like a plush children’s toy than a dog. Did someone breed them to look this way on purpose? He asks Hannah who gives him a wry grin. “They were initially bred to hunt rats in factories.”Such a long coat seems counter-intuitive to that purpose, but long fur is completely unseen on Palaven, so perhaps he may not fully understand its value. He pulls up photos of the varrens his parents bred - the striped silver and blue variants descended from a breeding stock meant to act as companion animals, ensuring they have a gentler temperament than the breed on Tuchanka. “You notice how the scales glisten? That’s a particularly valued trait amongst those who show varrens professionally.”So many years ago, humans and turians were in conflict and to find such a benign commonality would have seemed insurmountable. There’s something he likes about discovering a woman from the other side of the Milky Way also grew up with parents who bred companion animals. He says as much and Hannah nods, looking down at her half-eaten pastry. “I was Alliance Navy and served on Shanxi. Will that be a problem?”“My closest friend served with the Alliance on Shanxi. For whatever it's worth, I left the military as a young man, opting to do my service in C-Sec, as my own father had so I did not serve in that particular conflict.” He doesn’t mention the Andromeda Initiative, or that he’ll never see Alec again; a bittersweet prospect, because he’s pleased that Alec and his children avoided the war entirely, but misses him terribly.They finish their pastries and drinks, opting to order a second round of drinks, discussing their favourite foods, what sort of vids they like (he’s pleasantly surprised to discover Hannah is also fond of war documentaries - to be expected, he supposes, given her former career). “Is this the first you’ve dated since your wife died?”“It is. My family has been my priority in the years since the war. You?”“Military life made it tough to date. The Alliance is strict about fraternization - I’ve heard it’s looser in the turian military?” He snorts, explaining that sex tends to just be expected and that, so long as you aren’t involved with a direct subordinate or engaging in sexual harassment, there are no regulations disallowing it. “I dated a couple civilians but they didn’t like the distance. It’s tough, and I get it. We don’t have the service expectations that turians do, so many people never have to contend with the realities of a long distance relationship. Eventually I figured I’d just wait until I got sick of work to try to date seriously.”He notices a strand of brown hair has slipped out of her ponytail and as soon Hannah notices his stare, she reaches up and tucks it behind her ear, and he ponders what it might feel like to run his talons through her hair.“Castis?” He clears his throat, his neck warming because evidently he was pondering a little too heavily there. “Shall we exchange comm addresses?” There’s a knowing smirk on Hannah’s face so all he does is open his omni-tool so he can send her a message. “Would you like a ride home?”This bakery is close enough to walk to his apartment, but he relishes the idea of a couple minutes more with Hannah before departing, so he accepts her offer gratefully and she walks him out to a silver compact skycar, pointing to the lever to adjust the passenger seat, offering him a little more legroom, though he’s still hunched over in the seat. “Sorry. It’s, uh… human-made.”“I had not noticed,” he deadpans and Hannah lets out a cackle.“Janey inherited her father’s driving… deficiencies, so you need not worry. You’ll make it home safely.”Garrus frequently teases Janey about her driving skills, but he’s never actually been a passenger with his daughter-in-law, who has always seemed happy to cede the driver’s seat to him, Garrus or Solana. It’s a mere three minute drive back to his apartment; hardly enough time to judge her driving skill on a professional level, but nothing concerns him about her skills, either. She cuts the engine and climbs out of the vehicle with him, ignoring his initial protests that he very much does not need assistance making it to the front door, before he realizes that Hannah is likely looking to exchange some sort of affectionate gesture.His wife would be in hysterics now and tell him that he hasn’t changed one bit, because he did the exact same thing to her when they first began dating.“Ever kissed a girl before?” Hannah coos just to the side of the front door of his building, her hand wrapped around his middle talon.“Turians traditionally do not kiss as humans do,” he says, stoic, though his racing heart threatens to shake off the calm he’s attempting to maintain.“Well,” Hannah gives him a smirk, “lucky me.” She gets up on the tips of her toes and he bends at the waist. Hannah rests her hand on the side of his face and presses her soft lips on his own hard, plated mouth and when she breaks the kiss, she pauses and leans in for a second kiss. “You free Thursday?” she murmurs against his mouth.“I believe so,” he says, realizing that checking his omni-tool at this precise moment would be a prime example of “breaking the mood” that used to get him lovingly teased by his wife.If he does have an appointment or obligation he’s forgetting about, he can cancel it for the sake of a date. Unlikely though, given that he is now retired and generally his volunteer duties with an organization dedicated to helping young turian refugees occur on Mondays and Wednesdays. Normally he has dinner with Solana, Garrus and Janey on the third Saturday of every month too; irrelevant since it is a Thursday in question…“You can check your omni-tool, Castis,” Hannah says, taking a step back, chuckling, and his neck grows warm once more. Was it really that obvious? “My husband used to have his nose in his before confirming any plans. Fair warning: I’m… not and Janey accuses me of being disorganized now that I am retired and don’t actually need to have my shit together, professionally or otherwise. She set me up on the online dating website in the hopes that I would find a boyfriend willing to manage my schedule.” Hannah grins at him. “That’s mostly a joke. In truth, I’d been lonely and decided it was about time to get back on the horse after Liam’s death.”He’s unsure what an Earth transport animal has to do with dating, but perhaps he can look it up once he gets inside his apartment. Quickly, he scrolls through his omni-tool, confirming that Thursday is open, as he’d expected and Hannah gives him one last kiss before turning to get back into her skycar, only to stop and turn around once more. “Shall I pick up the condoms or would you prefer to buy them?”Well. He’s always appreciated women who are straightforward in such matters. “I can purchase the condoms if you wish to purchase your preferred brand of anti-chafe cream?”“Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a date.” He watches as Hannah gets into her skycar and takes off, pondering the fluttering sensation in his belly; a pleasant sort of feeling he hasn’t had in many years.Once, he’d have assumed himself too old to feel the jittery nerves and excitement of a fledgling faced with the promise of a night of passion with an object of desire. What a pleasant realization to have been wrong.