Fill: Juxtaposed 2a/?
anonymous
October 17 2014, 05:38:48 UTC
It wasn’t until she thought about it that Jane Shepard realized she found herself back at the same bench the next day, and coincidently around the same time she had met the Turian C-Sec officer. She shrugged it off to the fact that for once during her time of her leave on this whole station that she met a friendly Turian. Well, friendly enough not to spout BS about how humans are overstepping their boundaries, she thought. Like I need a politics lesson while I try to relax. It was certainly a nice change to the usual way her leave went.
That and the fact that since her childhood on Earth she never thought she’d find herself speaking to any kind of law enforcement without it feeling like she was being interrogated. He spoke to her like a human being, figuratively speaking, and not like he was already taking a mental note of all the charges he could lay on her. Of course that could also be credited to that fact that she isn’t known here as Jane Shepard, the gang member, but just some creepy tourist. Good enough for me to call it a win.
She sings some song whose name or words she can’t remember under her breath, putting the last touches on the sketch of the Asari groundskeeper tending to the flowerbed below she’d been working on, and wonders if she’ll be lucky enough to catch the same Turian on duty again. Maybe she could act suspicious again and see how her luck turned out, but how do you act suspicious without looking like a complete lunatic? Yesterday she hadn’t even been trying, she’d just really got into her drawing and was trying to keep the flow.
As she was deep into contemplation, her hand at a standstill with the tip of the charcoal still on the page, a throat clears to her right. Jumping, she catches the very Turian she was trying to find a way to lure out standing in the same spot he occupied close to twenty-four hours before.
“Why, Officer Vakarian,” she starts as he takes the, what she believes to be, relaxed stance with his arms loose to his sides and his weight shifted to one side and slightly back. “Here to check up on some suspicious activity? Still don’t have my other notebook, though if you’d asked, I could’ve been more prepared.”
He chuckles and shakes his head, one of his mandibles lifting slightly from where it normally rests like it did yesterday giving Jane the guess that it means he’s at least someone amused. “I’ll take your word on that, but I do have to ask what brings you hear for the second day in a row.”
Jane, answering his mandible tilt with a smirk, lays her sketchbook to the side and leans back against the bench. “I thought you said I wasn’t doing anything illegal, unless the rules have changed,” she says as she tilts her head downward looking up to him through her lashes.
If she wasn’t looking at his face she wouldn’t have noticed the subtle shift upward of that same mandible as he responds, “I don’t know, you have already admitted to owning material of an illicit matter and had offering said material to a Citadel Security Officer…”
“Oops,” she cuts off innocently, shamefully having fun with some innocent banter.
“...and,” the mandible tilt that she hopes is playful remaining, “normally I’d have to confiscate said material to make sure the proper permissions were obtained for whoever’s, or whatever’s, consent.”
Fill: Juxtaposed 2b/?
anonymous
October 17 2014, 05:43:00 UTC
Hoping his mood isn’t up for a dramatic flip and he is just collecting enough to legally cause her problems, she continues their game. “And does that mean you’d be taking me in along with it?”
“If you decide not to go quietly, Miss...” So far this guy plays a good game, she thinks while wishing she knew if what he’s doing with his mandible is the same as her smirk. If not, she’s just digging a deeper hole by all but admitting she has some very inappropriate drawings in her things back at her hotel room.
“Shepard,” she answers warily, unsure if this is a good spot to stop her teasing and make a quick exit. Best to leave with a good impression than stay and ruin the gentle and friendly peace she has probably ever had with any law enforcement figure.
“Just Shepard?” Now she’s almost positive that mandible, the one that hasn’t really moved from its titled and slightly lifted position, means something good and he takes a step closer. Not enough to come within her bubble of personal space and not even enough that she’d notice unless she was already a bit on edge.
Fighting her urge to bolt she consciously relaxes her stance. Probably best not to bolt around a species who’s known and looks every bit like a predator, she urges. Deciding what the hell she responds, “Jane. My name is Jane Shepard.” He hums but it stops as soon as it begins and his outward appearance doesn’t falter. She feels as if she imagined it, but she feels slightly less intimidated because of it, but because she doesn’t really know when to quit while ahead she adds, “tough I never got your first name, so I feel a little left out,” and she can’t help but let her smirk sneak out, “or is that against regulations to give your name out while on duty?”
“And what’s to keep me from giving you a wrong name?” He crosses his arms over his chest and falls back onto his right foot.
Jane has to give it to the guy, unless she’s reading him wrong he can bullshit like some of the best conmen she had met back home. It definitely feels like home when she used to play marks on Earth, flirting with them to get them complacent or making them think they were following her to someplace quiet to continue before robbing them blind. This shore leave was definitely shaping up to be entertaining and this is familiar. The tension drains completely as her relaxed stance becomes genuine. “I guess then I’d just have to trust you.”
Something in that statement has him chuckling as he responds, “Garrus Vakarian.” He uncrosses his arms and steps once closer to her, still respectfully outside her bubble. “So, Jane Shepard, of all the things someone visiting the Citadel…”
“You’d know that how?” She defends before she can catch herself, internally wincing at how it must’ve sounded but he doesn’t falter.
“All of your artwork are of locations that are frequented by those not local to the Citadel while there are numerous other places that have a way better views but are somewhat unknown. Also, I heard and caught a glimpse yesterday of what I assume are your dog tags. Unless I’m wrong?” He tilts his head to the right as his right mandible lifts up and away from his head. Definitely a smirk, observant ass.
Fill: Juxtaposed 2c/?
anonymous
October 17 2014, 05:45:02 UTC
At least that question is answered. “You are not wrong. Sorry, as you were saying?” She tilts her head with her smirk, mirroring his movement. He hums that quiet hum, gone just as quickly as it appears.
“Of all the things to do on the Citadel, go to clubs, try exotic foods, or hell, even shop, what brings you here to draw the scenery? Why not spend your time elsewhere?” His questioning is similar to the act she’d play with marks for The Reds, but he hasn’t moved into her space or made any other movement forward. He maintains his respectable space from her and she feels out of her element.
Normally flirting for her either stops before the personal questions and just become something to look back at and laugh or they accelerate much faster than this. If she ever used her flirting to take it farther it usually happened when she was at a bar and in need of a quick one night stand with some guy she’d never see again. Unsure, she decides to go with straight answers. “I guess I like the quiet of just sitting around and sketching. I don’t get to do that with my job.” She hesitantly touches her chest where her dog tags lay beneath her shirt.
He nods at her completely vague answer and shrugs while stepping back, the concentrated energy in the air between them she hadn’t noticed dissipating and she finds herself shocked to admit she now misses the feeling, and with it, the pressure from the conversation’s turn into serious waters. “I guess I’ll let you go Jane. It was nice to finally, how do you say, have a name to the face?”
She chuckles, which almost covers a repeat of that peculiar hum of his, and nods an affirmative to his use of a familiar human term, unique sounding coming off his alien tongue through her translator. A sense of levity rests on her shoulders once again. She gives him a genuine smile, he earned it with his ability to throw her for a loop which is something no one has ever been able to do. “I’ll be here again tomorrow, I heard that a Hanar prophet is planning a reading of some Enkindler writings,” and because she never quits without a good fight, even when teasing, “Will I be seeing you then or do I need to bring those other drawings I was talking about?”
That got a laugh out of him, which she took as a success, and nodded the affirmative. “See you then Jane.”
That and the fact that since her childhood on Earth she never thought she’d find herself speaking to any kind of law enforcement without it feeling like she was being interrogated. He spoke to her like a human being, figuratively speaking, and not like he was already taking a mental note of all the charges he could lay on her. Of course that could also be credited to that fact that she isn’t known here as Jane Shepard, the gang member, but just some creepy tourist. Good enough for me to call it a win.
She sings some song whose name or words she can’t remember under her breath, putting the last touches on the sketch of the Asari groundskeeper tending to the flowerbed below she’d been working on, and wonders if she’ll be lucky enough to catch the same Turian on duty again. Maybe she could act suspicious again and see how her luck turned out, but how do you act suspicious without looking like a complete lunatic? Yesterday she hadn’t even been trying, she’d just really got into her drawing and was trying to keep the flow.
As she was deep into contemplation, her hand at a standstill with the tip of the charcoal still on the page, a throat clears to her right. Jumping, she catches the very Turian she was trying to find a way to lure out standing in the same spot he occupied close to twenty-four hours before.
“Why, Officer Vakarian,” she starts as he takes the, what she believes to be, relaxed stance with his arms loose to his sides and his weight shifted to one side and slightly back. “Here to check up on some suspicious activity? Still don’t have my other notebook, though if you’d asked, I could’ve been more prepared.”
He chuckles and shakes his head, one of his mandibles lifting slightly from where it normally rests like it did yesterday giving Jane the guess that it means he’s at least someone amused. “I’ll take your word on that, but I do have to ask what brings you hear for the second day in a row.”
Jane, answering his mandible tilt with a smirk, lays her sketchbook to the side and leans back against the bench. “I thought you said I wasn’t doing anything illegal, unless the rules have changed,” she says as she tilts her head downward looking up to him through her lashes.
If she wasn’t looking at his face she wouldn’t have noticed the subtle shift upward of that same mandible as he responds, “I don’t know, you have already admitted to owning material of an illicit matter and had offering said material to a Citadel Security Officer…”
“Oops,” she cuts off innocently, shamefully having fun with some innocent banter.
“...and,” the mandible tilt that she hopes is playful remaining, “normally I’d have to confiscate said material to make sure the proper permissions were obtained for whoever’s, or whatever’s, consent.”
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“If you decide not to go quietly, Miss...” So far this guy plays a good game, she thinks while wishing she knew if what he’s doing with his mandible is the same as her smirk. If not, she’s just digging a deeper hole by all but admitting she has some very inappropriate drawings in her things back at her hotel room.
“Shepard,” she answers warily, unsure if this is a good spot to stop her teasing and make a quick exit. Best to leave with a good impression than stay and ruin the gentle and friendly peace she has probably ever had with any law enforcement figure.
“Just Shepard?” Now she’s almost positive that mandible, the one that hasn’t really moved from its titled and slightly lifted position, means something good and he takes a step closer. Not enough to come within her bubble of personal space and not even enough that she’d notice unless she was already a bit on edge.
Fighting her urge to bolt she consciously relaxes her stance. Probably best not to bolt around a species who’s known and looks every bit like a predator, she urges. Deciding what the hell she responds, “Jane. My name is Jane Shepard.” He hums but it stops as soon as it begins and his outward appearance doesn’t falter. She feels as if she imagined it, but she feels slightly less intimidated because of it, but because she doesn’t really know when to quit while ahead she adds, “tough I never got your first name, so I feel a little left out,” and she can’t help but let her smirk sneak out, “or is that against regulations to give your name out while on duty?”
“And what’s to keep me from giving you a wrong name?” He crosses his arms over his chest and falls back onto his right foot.
Jane has to give it to the guy, unless she’s reading him wrong he can bullshit like some of the best conmen she had met back home. It definitely feels like home when she used to play marks on Earth, flirting with them to get them complacent or making them think they were following her to someplace quiet to continue before robbing them blind. This shore leave was definitely shaping up to be entertaining and this is familiar. The tension drains completely as her relaxed stance becomes genuine. “I guess then I’d just have to trust you.”
Something in that statement has him chuckling as he responds, “Garrus Vakarian.” He uncrosses his arms and steps once closer to her, still respectfully outside her bubble. “So, Jane Shepard, of all the things someone visiting the Citadel…”
“You’d know that how?” She defends before she can catch herself, internally wincing at how it must’ve sounded but he doesn’t falter.
“All of your artwork are of locations that are frequented by those not local to the Citadel while there are numerous other places that have a way better views but are somewhat unknown. Also, I heard and caught a glimpse yesterday of what I assume are your dog tags. Unless I’m wrong?” He tilts his head to the right as his right mandible lifts up and away from his head. Definitely a smirk, observant ass.
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“Of all the things to do on the Citadel, go to clubs, try exotic foods, or hell, even shop, what brings you here to draw the scenery? Why not spend your time elsewhere?” His questioning is similar to the act she’d play with marks for The Reds, but he hasn’t moved into her space or made any other movement forward. He maintains his respectable space from her and she feels out of her element.
Normally flirting for her either stops before the personal questions and just become something to look back at and laugh or they accelerate much faster than this. If she ever used her flirting to take it farther it usually happened when she was at a bar and in need of a quick one night stand with some guy she’d never see again. Unsure, she decides to go with straight answers. “I guess I like the quiet of just sitting around and sketching. I don’t get to do that with my job.” She hesitantly touches her chest where her dog tags lay beneath her shirt.
He nods at her completely vague answer and shrugs while stepping back, the concentrated energy in the air between them she hadn’t noticed dissipating and she finds herself shocked to admit she now misses the feeling, and with it, the pressure from the conversation’s turn into serious waters. “I guess I’ll let you go Jane. It was nice to finally, how do you say, have a name to the face?”
She chuckles, which almost covers a repeat of that peculiar hum of his, and nods an affirmative to his use of a familiar human term, unique sounding coming off his alien tongue through her translator. A sense of levity rests on her shoulders once again. She gives him a genuine smile, he earned it with his ability to throw her for a loop which is something no one has ever been able to do. “I’ll be here again tomorrow, I heard that a Hanar prophet is planning a reading of some Enkindler writings,” and because she never quits without a good fight, even when teasing, “Will I be seeing you then or do I need to bring those other drawings I was talking about?”
That got a laugh out of him, which she took as a success, and nodded the affirmative. “See you then Jane.”
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Thank you so much for this A!A. I don't mind slow build at all. In fact, it'll make the result even sweeter. lol
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