who_is_she | (no subject)

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The music was too loud, the people were too close, everything smelled of smoke and Owen's drink was faintly glowing. This wasn't the type of place Owen usually stepped foot in, especially not when he hadn't bothered to change out of his uniform that marked him clearly as a spectre, but... He'd really needed a drink.

His bottles at home had run dry and stopping at the store meant turning around when he'd almost been home--so, seedy bar it was.

It hadn't been a particularly bad day--at least, not any worse than any other regular day--but still, it had been exhausting. Five years ago, Owen would have balked at the idea of needing a drink after a long day of work, but then, five years ago his mother had been alive. With that thought Owen downs the rest of his drink and motions to the bartender for another, then rakes his hands through his hair.

Being in a place like this made him antsy. It was too much like a firefight, too much noise and movement and Owen's instincts told him to monitor everything for signs of hostility and warning. He just wanted to turn off the training and the instincts and the faint buzzing just under his skin that meant his powers would be available at a moment's notice. But he couldn't, at least, not without more shots than he'd currently ingested. He just wanted some goddamn peace.

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"What the hell is this?" Dimitri's boss shouts, just as Dimitri enters the bar through the back entrance.

"What?" Dimitri asks, startled, giving Ghanim a look of genuine confusion. The batarian responds by grabbing Dimitri by the back of their head and slamming their face into the one-way glass that separated them from the bar.

"Look," he growls, pointing to a man sitting at the end of the bar, "Do you know what that is?" Dimitri stares for a minute, unable to come up with a response.

"That's...a human?" he says, dumbly.

"Don't be a smartass," his boss says severely, pushing his skull so hard against the glass Dimitri was sure he was going to crush it, "That's a spectre. Owen Libbey. I got the bartender to snap a pic of his ID when he ordered his drink. Do you think a Spectre would drop in on our side of town just to have a drink?" Dimitri ponders the question, but before he gets a chance to say anything Ghanim yanks him back and throws him onto the floor, causing Dimitri to yelp in pain.

"Or do you think it's more likely that he's been sent here looking for an Ardat-Yakshi who's been rumored to live in the area? Do you think maybe I've sheltered you long enough, and that your usefulness to me has run its course?" With this question, Ghanim reaches into the back of his pants, drawing the pistol he kept there.

"Wait, wait!" Dimitri cries, frantically waving his hands in a placating gesture, "Let me talk to him, I'll find out why he's here, I'll get rid of him! Please!"

Ghanim considers him for a moment, before pressing the barrel of the pistol against Dimitri's forehead, right between his eyes.

"You talk to him," he says, "Do your thing. Make him tell you everything. If he's here for us, for you, kill him. If he's not here for us, kill him. Make sure there's no chance of him remembering you. If he or any other Spectre trash comes poking around here again..." He trails off, leaving the gun pressed to Dimitri's forehead a moment to make his point.

"Go," he says, grabbing him by his collar to drag him to his feet before shoving him out the side door into the bar. Dimitri tries not to look too shaken or terrified as he approaches the end of the bar, where the Spectre is standing, and orders a drink from the salarian at the bar, like he always did. He looks over at Owen, and gives him a disarming smile.

"Hey," he says, keeping his voice steady, and trying his best to sound flirtatious despite his fears, "You come here often?"

Edited 2015-03-09 04:16 (UTC)

Owen startles a little at the voice, glancing over and frowning at the asari standing there. Being a spectre in a place like this meant people gave him a wide berth, which he'd been counting on. He wasn't in the mood for company, but his manners kicked in before his sour mood made him snap.

"No, not really," he says, giving her a brief nod in greeting, "I usually prefer to drink alone." He shrugged a little, hoping that wasn't too gruff of a response. He certainly didn't want to start any trouble, here.

Owen's response concerns Dimitri, and it certainly fuels the theory that Owen was there investigating. He swallows hard, and turns the charm up a notch; not so much as to try to control Owen, yet, but enough to make him interested in talking.

"You've got pretty fancy armor for a place like this," he notes, giving him a nod and taking a swig of his drink. He keeps his distance for now, not wanting to push too hard and blow his cover.

"Oh," Owen says, glancing down at the N7 logo on his chest, almost like he'd forgotten it was there, "Well, I'm a spectre. I just got off duty." He realizes a moment after speaking that he was trying to avoid conversation, and sighs into his drink as he takes a long pull.

He glances over at the asari again, noticing now that she doesn't look much like the other asari at the bar--at least, not the dancing ones, not that Owen had been looking at them.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, shaking himself a little, "I'm not in the mood for conversation tonight."

"I'm not a ma'am," Dimitri corrects, reflexively, a slight hint of anger in their voice. Besides asari, humans seemed to be the worst about assuming the gender of others around them, particularly in regards to other asari. He usually kept it to himself when people referred to him incorrectly, calling him "ma'am" or referring to him as being in his "Maiden" stage of life, but there was something about this guy, how he was trying so hard to be polite to him and still got it wrong, that really got to him.

"I'm...nothing. Male words are better," he says, glaring at his cup as he realizes he's probably screwed himself on getting anything else out of this guy. He resists the urge to dig himself a deeper hole by trying to explain himself in terms humans would understand.

Owen blinks at first, then his eyes go wide and he flushes crimson as he realizes his mistake.

"Oh... Oh! Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," he says, turning towards the asari to give an earnest look, "I didn't realize-- I shouldn't have assumed. I'm sorry." He bows his head, reaching back to scratch the back of his neck, ashamed and mortified.

"Don't worry about it," Dimitri says quickly, a little surprised by his response, "Nobody knows about that shit, the asari Matriarchy makes sure theres no...awareness, or whatever, about us, so...you couldn't have known."

He takes a big swig of his drink and slams it back down on the bar, scrubbing his face. The more he drank, the more he realized wanted to drink. His hands were still shaking, and he was surprised he was having this conversation instead of breaking down into fearful tears.

At least he was still talking to him, sort of.

"Oh," Owen says, frowning a little, and mulling that over for a moment before looking up with a bashful smile, "Still, though. I'd offer to make you some cookies or something as an apology but I think that might be a little, er, inappropriate. Seeing as I don't even know your name." Owen laughs a little, turning back to his drink, but as he does he looks over and sees the asari's shaking hand as he lowers it from his face.

Now that he's really looking, he can read stress and panic all over the asari's posture and body language, and he frowns slightly, sitting up a little bit straighter and realizing he should be more aware of his surroundings, especially in a place like this. He buries his concerned expression in his drink for now, not quite sure what to make of the situation yet.

"Cookies?" Dimitri half-laughs, bewildered, "No, I mean...seriously, don't worry about it." He looks down at his hands gripping the glass, and moves a step closer to him.

"It's Dimitri, by the way. In case you were wondering," he says, opting not to use a pseudonym; since he was going to have to kill this guy anyway, there was no sense in lying, too. He looks over at him, making direct eye contact, which greatly aided the process of enthrallment, and he finds himself taken aback by the heartbreaking gentleness of Owen's expression.

"What's yours?" he asks, keeping his voice stable despite the way his emotions were swirling, and giving him a slight, inviting smile.

"Owen," he answers easily, returning Dimitri's smile and finding himself appreciating Dimitri's large, beautiful eyes. After a moment he shakes himself, flushing again as he realizes what he'd just been thinking and looking down at the bar. He mentally ran over the things Dimitri had been saying to him and realized belatedly that they were hitting on him, and he swallows at the realization.

He'd never been good at this--at the flirting, or casual attraction, and now that he'd realized it it was all he could think about. Was Dimitri trying to pick him up for a one night stand?

Then he remembers his shaking hand, put together with the flirting and... Owen couldn't help but kick himself for getting so distracted by carnal desires; now he's suspicious that something else was going on. He looks up, giving Dimitri a shrewd look before pasting on a wide, fake smile and leaning in close, putting his hand on Dimitri's shoulder to turn them towards the bar and away from anyone who might be looking. He pretends like he's flirting back, but his thoughts are firmly on Dimitri's shaking hands and stuff posture.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" he asks, the fake smile falling off his face the moment they're turned away, "You're shaking and you seem scared. And you're..." Owen's grimace is honest, and he drops his voice to an almost inaudible whisper, "Hitting on me?"

Dimitri swallows hard, the false, charming smile on his face disappearing, replaced by a look of terror. Fear and hopelessness sets in fast, and he gives up entirely on trying to seduce him.

"Yes, I'm...I'm in trouble," he admits, in a whisper, "Big...huge fucking trouble, so are you, I...come outside with me and...act like we're hooking up, on the way out, I'll explain once we're around the corner."

He smiles again when they turn back around, but his flirtatious posture is more clearly strained, now, as he places an arm around Owen's waist and ushers him out the door. His chest is tight, and he feels like the fear is going to strangle him. He holds on tighter to Owen than he should, until they're out the door and out of the sight of the bar, at which point he quickly releases him to look over his shoulders.

Owen's not quite sure how to act like they're hooking up, but he follows Dimitri's lead, putting his arm over his shoulders until they're out of sight. The coast is clear, but Oen still pulls Dimitri into a nearby alley, narrow and deserted enough to keep their cover, should they be discovered. Owen presses in close to Dimitri but relinquishes his hold on him, so he's standing close but not touching.

"Tell me what's going on," Owen says, one hand on the pistol strapped to his waist more out of habit than anything else, "I can help you. Did someone threaten you?"

"No," he says immediately, "Well, yes, but, i-it's my fault, I --"

He presses his hand to his mouth, trying and failing to hold back from crying, but a few tears spill out of his eyes nonetheless before he can stop them.

"I'm an Ardat-Yakshi," he blurts out, staring at Owen's hand on his pistol, "But I'm not -- I never hurt anyone, I swear, please don't shoot me, I just -- my boss, the bar owner, he's a big crime...ringmaster, or whatever, in the area. He's, like, the king around here. I used to work in the bar...dancing, but when he found out about me -- there's a bounty for all escaped Ardat-Yakshi, and he figured he'd kill me and cash in, but I...I can make people do things, and I got him to see that that was more useful to him than --"

He hangs his head, his hands pressed against his eyes.

"When a Spectre came into the bar it scared him. He figured they were after him, or me. He sent me to...find out what you were doing. And kill you. I swear, I wasn't -- he put a gun to my head, he's going to kill me."

When Owen realizes he has his hand on his gun he startles and immediately moves it away, holding his palms up in front of Dimitri. His heart aches for the pain and fear in Dimitri's voice, and the tears, and he wants badly to comfort him.

"It's okay, Dimitri, it's okay," he says gently, slowly putting his hands on Dimitri's shoulders, "I'm not going to hurt you, I swear, I'm sorry about the pistol thing, that's just... A reflex." Owen stalls a little, turning Dimitri's words over in his head and coming up with a plan.

"I can help you, okay? You can... Give C-sec information on him, and I'll protect you. He won't get anywhere near you," Owen promises, and then pulls back a little, frowning to himself.

"Man, did I pick the worst place for a quick drink or what?" he says, attempting to lighten the mood a little.

Dimitri laughs nervously, before swallowing hard as he considers Owen's words.

"I...I don't know if I can talk to C-Sec," he chokes, "They'll...they'll turn me over, I'll be executed, I --"

He hangs his head, laughing a little, somewhat bitterly.

"Maybe it's not worth running anymore, huh?" he says, bleakly, "If all it got me was a place like this."

"Hey, don't talk like that," Owen says, but he gets a little stuck on how deeply he can understand what Dimitri means, "Sometimes-- sometimes standing up and fighting isn't--isn't all it's cracked up to be," he says, not exactly sure why he wants to share this with a relative stranger when he hasn't spoken to anyone about it. He's been dreaming about running away for months.

"You... You didn't choose to be what you are. You didn't hurt anyone. Maybe they'll see that."

Dimitri stares at the ground for a long time, before nodding his head and looking up at Owen.

"Alright," he says, but his voice is flat and hopeless, "I'll talk to Citadel Security. I think...I think dying would be better than where I'm at anyway."

Owen swallows thickly, Dimitri's response makes his heart ache but he doesn't have any words of comfort to give him, and anything he could say would be empty. He puts his arm around Dimitri, ostensibly to keep up their cover as a lustful couple but if he was honest, it was about more than that.

Owen leads Dimitri to the C-Sec offices through the most deserted path he knows, his heart in his throat the whole time. This is the only thing about his job that makes him feel like less of a weapon or tool; helping people. He can see an innocent person in trouble and has the resources to help them, or try to help them at least. He's a little apprehensive about how the c-sec officers would react to Dimitri. They might be hostile at first but he was reasonably sure they'd agree with him after he explained the situation.

As soon as Owen ushers Dimitri into the offices and starts to explain they take Dimitri off into an interrogation room, and Owen lets them. They say they're going to ask him questions, and Owen nods and sits off to the side to wait.

Inside the room, one of two officers deposits Dimitri roughly into a chair as the other draws his rifle and points it at Dimitri.

"Tell us everything you know about Ghanim," says the first officer, a turian, who draws his gun as well.

As soon as they ask Owen to leave, Dimitri knows he's in trouble. He flinches nonetheless when he gets a gun in his face, and he raises his hands defensively.

"I-I don't know if I can tell you anything you don't already know!" he says, his voice shaking, "He's a batarian, he runs that bar, Fringe, but he never shows his face there, just does deals in the back room. There's a one way mirror he sits behind where he does like...I don't know, deals and shit, I think he's laundering money through the bar. I-I'm trying to help, honest, I used to dance at the bar but he found out...he found dirt on me and blackmailed me into helping him rob people."

He swallows hard, hoping the officers hadn't already run a background check on him.

"Dirt, huh?" The other officer, a human, says incredulously, then pulls something up on his omnitool and shoves it into Dimitri's face, "Dirt like you being a soulless freak?" The page displayed on his omnitool shows Dimitri's face and the words EXTREMELY DANGEROUS in red block letters, as well as a reward.

"That's a nice story you got, but there's one thing that doesn't make sense to me--why you, a cold blooded killer, would bow to some piss-poor Batarian scum, when you could kill him just by looking at him?" says the turian, keeping back a little, "So why don't you tell us the real story?"

"And you even think about mind controlling us and you'll be dead before you can make either of us scratch our noses," adds the human, poking his gun threateningly into Dimitri's shoulder.

"That is the real story!" Dimitri shouts, shutting his eyes tight, "It doesn't work like that, I don't...I don't do that, I-I've only ever killed one person, my...boyfriend, the first time we...and it was an accident! A total accident, I swear. Please, they were going to put me down or lock me up forever, so I ran away. Ghanim found out, and I can't really...I can't manipulate people who know what I am, who are expecting it, so I couldn't...he was going to kill me and bring my corpse in for the bounty."

Dimitri opens his eyes, looking at them with desperation.

"That's the truth, I swear."

The officers share a look and then the turian swings back with his rifle and hits Dimitri with the butt of it, sending him sprawling across the floor. The other officer raises his rifle too, aiming vaguely for the bottom of his legs and shooting.

The moment he hears the bang Owen's on his and banging his way into the interrogation room without ever lifting a finger. He sees Dimitri on the floor and clenches his hands into fists as he starts faintly going blue.

"What the hell are you guys doing? He didn't do anything!" Owen yells, immediately stepping between Dimitri and the officers.

"No! No, please!" Dimitri screams, but before he can say more he hears a bang, and feels an indescribable pain in his left leg. He looks down, and immediately regrets it; the shotgun blast had blown off chunks of his skin, the bone was clearly broken, and his purple blood is spilling out onto the floor.

He opens his mouth to shout, but he can't seem to find his voice. He crumples onto the floor, clutching his knee to his chest and struggling to breathe.

"H-Holy fuck," he wheezes, eyes wide but still barely registering that Owen was in the room with them.

"She's an Ardat Yakshi, Spectre," says the human officer, and Owen snarls at him, the faint blue glow growing in intensity and making both of the officers take a step back.

"He's innocent," Owen says lowly, dangerously, feeling like he's on the cusp of a break. These are the people he's supposed to call friend or ally? These people who make as little differentiation between right and wrong as the so-called enemies Owen was supposed to lead the fight against.

"There's a warrant out for her arrest," the turian says, sounding unsure and raising his rifle towards Owen, "If you're protecting her you're harboring a fugitive. What's the big deal, anyways? She's just some freak!"

Owen feels himself snap, feels fury cloud over everything else as he lets himself unleash his biotics on the officers. The turian slams into the ceiling and then falls limply to the ground, and the human scrambles to shoot Owen but the shot is harmlessly absorbed by his shields. He pulls out his pistol and shoots the officer in the same leg he'd shot Dimitri and then launching him into the air as well.

When both officers are lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor Owen stands there panting for a long moment before he startles, remembering Dimitri behind him and whirling around.

"Oh, God, Dimitri, hold on," he says, falling to his knees at Dimitri's side and fussing with his omnitool to use a medigel on Dimitri.

Dimitri reaches out for Owen's shoulder, gripping it tight and whimpering helplessly as Owen treats his leg. The medigel helps speed up the healing of his tissues and stops the bleeding, but the pain doesn't fade, and his leg is still slightly fractured in several places.

"What are you doing?" he asks, hoping that talking will keep him from falling unconscious, "Why...you'll be stripped of your position, why are you helping me?"

He scrambles across the floor as soon as he's able, grabbing the unconscious turian officer's pistol and checking to make sure it's loaded. He glows faintly blue as he puts a protective shield around himself and looks wildly around the room.

"We...wh-what the hell are we gonna do?"