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It had begun with a memory.
Before the title of Primarch had been thrust upon him, a general was stationed on Menae, watching his world fall apart before his eyes.
Before the news of Fedorian's death had reached him, Adrien Victus had begun to lose hope. He'd seen the writing on the wall. But he’d never let his men see it.
The young reaper advisor, though, had seen it.
The general and his advisor had had each other’s backs, had become attuned to each other’s needs in battle, and when their forces had been overwhelmed, Vakarian had marched into his tent and stated simply, “Don’t worry, sir” with such conviction, seeing through the veneer of confidence and clever tactics, that Victus had felt instantly like a 17-year-old recruit again, looking up at another Vakarian.
It was something about the way he moved. Confident, reassuring, a tilt of his crest broadcasting that he knew what he was doing–-even if you knew that he didn’t.
Because who could, in this situation?
The soldiers following them across the rocky terrain of the moon with a front row seat to the destruction of their people had needed to see a general composed and in control. And somehow, the reassurances from the young Vakarian had given him the persistent reminder needed to put on the mask for his men. He'd found himself relying on this support as tensions ran high and morale was worn down.
Early one morning, three weeks into the battle for the moon, he'd found himself squatting behind a large piece of shrapnel as a fresh horde of reaper forces spawned at the base of a nearby butte, a brute charging its way into the front lines.
“Vakarian, where are you?” he'd called, hand thrown up to his earpiece. “What happened to those shields?”
At that moment a stone had skidded to Victus’s left, causing him to jerk his head up toward its origin at the peak of a small cliff, upon which he could just barely spot the tip of a sniper rifle and the top of Garrus’s fringe, flanked by a flock of eager specialists setting up their scopes.
“Right up here, General,” had come the immediate response, a familiar voice accompanied by a wave. “You know, they say the best armor is staying out of gunfire.”
With a flare of his mandibles, he'd yelled his response into his Omnitool, loud enough for his men to hear. “Is that so, Vakarian? So those elcor-sized cuisses you’re wearing are just for show then?”
“Intimidation’s nine tenths of success,” had come the immediate response as a nearing marauder received a headshot between the eyes. The kid had his father’s aim.
“Just get that thing the hell off my men,” Victus had replied with a nod of encouragement at his Command Sergeant, the spirit of battle returning its gaze to the looming brute.
He'd developed a report with Garrus, the two of them easily slipping into jokes and reassurances that kept appearances light in the face of civilizations’ twilight. The men had needed it. But Victus needed it too.
And then the human commander had appeared, heralding the death of the primarch and his own ascension into the role. Circumstance had taken him away from his men and flung him into orbit, forcing him to act with a bird’s eye view, in command but out of sight. Up there, with no one to perform for, no delusions about their situation, he'd found it difficult not to despair.
Days went by with tunnel vision, voice coming out hoarse as his throat constricted and threatened to give away his crumbling resolve. He'd kept himself shut away in the Normandy’s war room. He'd tried speaking to the Commander, and though he found their talks enlightening and their shared sentiments encouraging, the Normandy's crew was often in the field. This left Garrus out as well. He'd thought of turning to his wife, but she was busy commanding the Seventh Fleet, and as much as he needed a friendly ear, he needed a focused general more.
So he'd kept his worries to himself, hunched over the war table late into the night where he was bombarded by the constant static and sensory information provided by the open commlinks across the galaxy, afraid to retreat to his makeshift quarters for fear of what the silence would bring.
It was on such a night that it happened. The silence became too loud and the noise was too much. And before he had time to overthink it, watching Garrus retreat to the lower decks surrounded by his strange human family, he’d reached out to the advisor’s father –- Castis Vakarian, his battle buddy from their field unit days.
The night he learned of the bomb on Tuchanka, he sent his old friend a desperate call for help disguised as a simple consultation.
He didn’t know why he did it, really. There was so much that was classified that he couldn’t share with his old friend, Castis's perspective could never be complete anyway. But the idea had wormed its way into his brain and he couldn’t ignore it.
Perhaps it was seeing Garrus, putzing around the human ship, hell bent on making sure things were in order in a way that was so Castis that his old friend wouldn’t leave his mind.
Thrown back into endless memories of their field unit days, he felt simultaneously reassured of his situation and even further in over his head. How could he be both a fledgling playing pretend at war and the Primarch of Palaven?
The fact was that he’d never been very good at his job. A career made on reputation and luck. If he was being honest with himself, much of his cavalier style and clever tactics in the field had been developed out of sheer adolescent performance, a fledgling smitten with the young recruit next door, throwing caution to the wind just to hear Castis reprimand him. Fedorian had known that. Had seen right through him. Had called him out on more than one occasion, sending the two of them to the sparring ring.
No, he certainly wasn’t the man for the job. But the man for the job was now dead, and he had to act.
Perhaps that was the reason he sent a message to Castis. An act of desperation. One of grief for Fedorian. One of pretending this was just another juvenile instance of Castis pulling their asses out of a fire he’d lit.
He needed perspective. A reality check. Tough love and for someone to tell him not to act rashly.
And spirits, every time he saw Garrus he caught himself imagining the moment Castis got the news that he, Adrien, had been made primarch. What must his face have looked like?
That was why he'd reached out to Castis.
But where he’d hoped to find austerity about his situation, a reminder that he was not infallible, an exhaustive list of all his weaknesses, a please-spirits-let-them-have-me-committed, he found only support. “You’re ready for this,” Castis had said. Not knowing what to do with such a response, he’d left the message without an answer for two days.
You’re being ridiculous, he’d told himself. Castis and Fedorian had been closer than he’d ever been to either of them. The grief for Castis was likely still fresh, and he was being selfish. He had no right to ask for Castis’s help. It was his command, his burden to bear. His initial message to Castis had been riddled with Forgive me’s and My sincere apologies'. But Castis, all business, had told him that Garrus had brought him the news before he’d seen it in the vids. That he had his full support. That there was no better man for the job.
He’d wanted someone to be frank, and instead, he found his old friend softened. By age or by grief, Victus dared not guess. So he didn’t respond.
But the night he’d sent the Ninth Platoon –- and his son –- to Tuchanka, the impulse was back. He found himself checking his omni-tool every time no one was facing him, looking for a message from Castis he knew wouldn’t come, because he hadn’t had the stones to respond.
Wracked with guilt and stress, a bottle of whisky in his hand, he decided to turn in early for once after he’d snapped at Urdnot Wrex in the middle of a diplomatic discussion. He returned to his quarters and pulled up Castis’s message. Lying on an uncomfortable Alliance standard-issue cot that was both too small and lacked support for fringe or carapace, he stared at the words until his vision blurred. Until new words appeared and he almost thought he’d imagined them.
As if his mind had been read, Castis had sent another message. A simple “What do you need?” and something inside him shattered.
They’d talked every night after that.
It became a routine, the Primarch only able to fall asleep at night by reading Castis's words over and over until his eyes became sore and he lost consciousness to a reverie of being a young recruit, unable to confront his feelings for his friend breathing quietly across the room. The tactical advice and reassurance that he wasn’t leading their entire species to their doom was welcome, but so was the distraction. However torturous the pining was, it was familiar –- a respite from it all, a few minutes to pretend there was nothing beyond the screen upon which Castis’s words were displayed. And spirits, he'd missed the playful banter and the tension of "did that message mean what I think it did or am I imagining it?", drifting off into dreams that were more memory than imagination.
Nineteen consecutive evenings they talked late into the night, discussing mobilization of troops as if they were back in Basic tackling a training problem from a textbook. The absurdity of the situation settled in and strategy became intertwined with memory, making way for stolen laughter and bittersweet nostalgia for days gone by.
Victus had found himself waking up with a fluttering in his gut, eager to check his messages from Castis, a few quiet moments of respite before gravity brought down the crushing weight of reality once more.
And then all hell had broken loose. Garrus and the rest of Shepard’s crew had touched down on Tuchanka, at his request, to handle the bomb. To save his son. Leaving Victus behind to contemplate how he’d asked Garrus to clean up after Tarquin, the same way he’d expected Castis to clean up after him.
For six hours, he’d paced around the empty war room, condescending the ship’s AI when she responded that she had no updates, a mere two minutes after he’d last asked for a status report.
Digging his talons into his palm, he’d refreshed his inbox continuously, hoping for word from Castis –- for reassurance that both of their sons would return to them: safe, healthy, young, and so much left to live for.
It didn’t come.
The evening that his son was taken from him, Cipritine was attacked. They lost all communications with the capitol. He didn’t know if Castis had survived. He didn’t know where to turn with the weight of loss crushing down on him. Didn’t know how to balance the dizzying sorrow at the loss of his only child with the sheer terror of the unknowable.
Garrus had knocked on his quarters that evening. Not wanting to burden Castis’s child with his own anxiety, and unable to face the pain, he withdrew inward. He commanded entire platoons back to Palaven, requesting any possible update, working around the clock and refusing to acknowledge what had happened until the Commander came around, and he donned the mask of the Primarch once more.
“The hardest lesson I’m ever to learn,” he’d told the Commander.
The end of the war brought no relief. The hollow feeling in his stomach, the unspoken grief remained as they declared victory, a dull ache in his chest that grew every time he received news of a missing person. Living, deceased, it didn’t matter. It all fueled the expansion of the growing darkness inside of him. And for the second time, not knowing where to turn, communications down across the galaxy, he sent a message off into the void of space, hoping someone was listening at the other end.
Castis,
I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take for QECs to be up and running again. I’m having my assistant route this through the nearest comm buoy. I hope it reaches you and that you’re safe. I’ll be back in Cipritine to help clean up this mess in two weeks’ time. Would you meet me at the primarch's office? We have a lot to catch up on, and I’d like to thank you for your support these past months.
- Adrien
“We’ve touched down, sir.”
Pulled from his reverie once more, Victus looks up at his assistant. Three weeks have passed since he set out on a post-war tour of the turian colonies across council space, and the real work has not yet begun. He gazes out the starboard window to see the ashes of his home.
“Thank you, Belaris.” The Primarch is weary, a haze fogging his vision, his thoughts clouded by anxiety and exhaustion. “Do we have anything tonight or can I retire?”
“No meetings, sir,” Belaris shuffles across the bridge towards him, outstretched hand offering a datapad. “But you have a visitor.”
Taking the pad, Victus’s chest lurches as the security footage from his office materializes. In the center of the screen is Castis Vakarian, quietly smoothing the front of his shirt as he stands at attention.
“Thank you, Belaris,” Victus repeats, subvocals conveying life that was not present the first time. He wastes no time getting to his feet now, eager to greet his old friend, and he makes his way across the ship’s bridge to the exit that will take him directly to his office.
A ringing begins in Victus’s ears. His tongue suddenly feels swollen as he stands in the decompression chamber and begins the long walk down the skybridge toward the Primarch’s chambers, his extremities going numb as feet propel him forward unaided, as if he were floating through the broad corridor. He draws in a harsh breath and swallows, steeling himself against the gripping pain in his chest that hasn’t loosened its hold in weeks. There will be time to grieve for his son, but it is not today.
Somewhere beyond the heavy doors, a clock chimes.
“The Primarch’s shuttle has just arrived,” his secretary is saying. “He’ll be with you momentarily.”
“Thank you,” comes the sound of his old friend’s voice –- older than the last time Adrien had heard it, and strange, after spending months hearing his son’s near-mimicry of a young Castis.
Rounding the corner, Victus catches a glimpse of the back of Castis’s head, clearing his throat before letting his hand fall into place at the small of his back.
“Castis,” his mandibles twitch into a weary smile as he closes the distance between them.
Vakarian pivots to face him, eyes darting first to the jacket stashed casually under Victus’s arm and then up to his eyes. He looks older, too –- tired, but his expression is warm.
“Primarch,” Castis nods. His shoulders are broader than the last time Victus had seen him, nearly as broad as the padded pauldrons his son favors. His face, worn from years of life Victus has not witnessed, bears new crevices and scuffs, lending him an air of intensity and wisdom that his mind had long been prepared to age into. Victus can’t help but offer a warm smile, mandibles flaring out as a hot coal settles in the pit of stomach.
“It’s still just Adrien,” the Primarch hums, pivoting on his feet to place a war-weary palm on Castis’s shoulder, catching his eye, practiced and steady. Formal as ever. “It’s good to see you, my old friend.”
With a sidelong glance at Victus’s dark eyes, Castis tilts his crest forward in acknowledgement as Victus waves at his secretary to hold his calls before leading the way into the Primarch’s suite, closing the doors behind them.
He glances out at the wreckage of Cipritine through the large windows, ignoring the slight rumble in his chest as he drapes his jacket over a chair with a sigh. He’s suddenly nervous to face his friend, a peculiar fluttering in his gut.
“Strange to call this office mine,” he shakes his head. “I’ve spent barely more than a few hours in this room.”
“I’d say you’ve more than earned a place to rest, sir.”
At that, Victus shoots him a look. Of course Castis would insist on formalities, despite the thirty-odd years they’ve known each other. In defiance of this show, Victus leans casually against the side of his desk, though he wonders idly if the current discrepancy in their hierarchy standings –- and their advanced age –- allows for his intent to truly show through. He has to remind himself that they are old men now.
He hadn’t really known what to expect, inviting Castis up here. They hadn’t spent much time alone since they were young recruits on overnight firewatch together. With a glance up into the fervent gaze of the man in front of him, he tells the flutter in his gizzard to settle. He feels a tightness behind his weary eyes.
Finally, the silence breaks.
“I wasn’t sure that you’d received my message. I was surprised to see you when we landed.”
“Your secretary delivered it to the hospital where Solana was treated. How was the tour?” Castis inquires, his tone serious but his question full of genuine curiosity.
“The tour was fine. Palaven can offer support in aid of rebuilding efforts where they’re most needed, but of course we need to restructure here first before we can do that. I understand why it was important to be seen visiting the colonies, but I should have been here.”
A default response. He knows that Castis’s curiosity is genuine, but he is eager to leave behind the restructuring for now. It can be addressed later. So before his friend can respond, he pushes forward.
“How is Solana doing? And Garrus?”
Castis visibly settles a little at the mention of his children, his knee jerking slightly forward into a more relaxed stance.
“Good -- they’re good,” he scratches absently at the front of his carapace. “Solana’s leg is mostly healed. She’s doing physical therapy here in Cipritine from home. Garrus is… Well, I don’t know exactly where Garrus is right now. But after everything he’s been through, I think he deserves a little trust from me. He’s doing his part.”
The tightness behind the Primarch’s eyes has returned.
“They’re good kids,” he offers.
“They are. I-- thank you.”
“Of course.”
Castis’s eyes linger on Victus, who feels his vision glaze over again. He isn’t ready for the pity he expects to see in Castis’s face, clenches his gizzard in anticipation, wondering what they’re doing here, how they can skip past the formalities, the condolences. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Castis returns to business.
“How’s the infrastructure plan coming along? I stopped by the civic building yesterday and saw the plans.”
Victus exhales.
“About as well as you could expect, at this point. The krogan tried to send continued support, believe it or not. I told them to take care of their own. They’ve got a world to rebuild. We’ll manage. I’m sure once we get it off the ground we’ll find a rhythm, but people are tired,” he glances back over his shoulder at the window. “In some ways, I think my biggest challenges as primarch are still ahead of me.”
“Commanding the field is one thing,” Castis nods knowingly. “None of this was covered back in Basic.”
“No. It wasn’t. It’s strange to think that history will remember me for everything I do now, after the war. In some respects, our victory was only incidental.”
“For what it’s worth,” Castis shifts his weight again, “I don’t think that’s true. The odds were never in our favor. But I admire every move you made. I saw you agonize over the endless decisions. And I saw you make the right ones.”
Victus blinks at his old friend. “Were there any right decisions?”
“Maybe not. But there are always wrong ones. The entire galaxy had everything to lose. I’m not so sure that Palaven would have gotten out under a different primarch.”
Victus swallows the implication of Castis’s words, a bittersweet confession.
“I wish Fedorian were here,” he says.
“He was a good friend,” Castis agrees, “A good primarch.”
Gazing intently at Victus’s orchestrated stance, Castis crosses his arms across his chest and leans forward slightly.
“But he’s not the primarch we had. You did what you could with what you were given. You’ll be remembered for that. Not just for winning the war. Or for curing the genophage. But for the way it felt to be on the ground here, on Palaven, knowing you were calling the shots. Even when things were hopeless, I saw it every day. People trusted you to get us out of it.”
Victus narrows his eyes at Castis, his words familiar while his sentiment somewhat foreign for the rigid retired officer. The war had certainly changed them both.
“Unconventional times call for unconventional command,” Castis clears his throat. “Fedorian would be proud.”
“It's hard to believe... That of the three of us he was the first to be lost,” Victus muses, pushing off the desk. “I thought Fedorian was unbreakable.”
Castis is quiet for a moment, lost in some memory. “Do you remember the reception? At his inauguration?”
“Of course,” Victus exhales, “I remember meeting with Fedorian the night before. How he seemed so normal about it all... He was always going to be primarch.”
Castis gives him a curious look. “We had no idea, did we? Spirits, the memories…”
“The Admiral said out loud in his speech about Fedorian that he was surprised I’d made it far enough to be on the invitation list,” Victus recalls, unable to stop himself. “Something about riding on the laurels of my name.”
“It was just after Solana started Basic,” Castis interrupts, not letting Victus wallow in his inadequacy. “She was so excited when I brought her as my plus-one. Even more thrilled when Fedorian told the story of the time our field unit got caught in that avalanche trying to save those civilians hostages on Altakiril.”
“Spirits,” Victus chuckles, shaking his head at the ground in reverie. “That was a long time ago.”
“Fedorian at the helm trying to outrun an explosion, he kept barking at us in the back of the shuttle…”
“‘You fledglings done bickering yet?’” Victus offers his best impression of their former commander, their deceased primarch, their old friend. Of course, those hadn’t been Fedorian’s exact words. What he’d actually said had been ‘Victus, you done bickering with your boyfriend? ’ and in the three decades since, the memory hadn’t faded.
Castis’s mandibles actually flex into a grin, much to Victus’s surprise, sending a jolt of electricity through his weary bones.
“Honestly not sure how we all survived that one.”
“Well. You were the one that lit the fuse,” Castis prods.
“Yeah. Fedorian wouldn’t let me forget it either. He finally told me on the day he became primarch that my ‘stupidity’ is what got those people out of there.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Castis bows his head to one side.
Victus gives him a hard look and a tilt of his chin. “Do you remember sleeping in that tree on Invictus?”
“You mean do I remember when you got us locked out of the base and forced me to sleep on a tree branch because you were scared of the wildlife on the ground?” Castis says. He pivots on one foot and turns his body to the side, humoured eyes watching with relentless intent. Victus wills his own gaze to remain still and not glance over his friend’s body.
“I stand by that decision. Invictus is a nasty place,” Victus hums. “And I didn’t get us locked out; it was your complaining that made Fedorian lock the doors.”
“That’s funny, because I remember you trying to steal the captain’s pants during a field exercise to hurry him into a tactical retreat a little differently.”
Victus’s subvocals are taunting now, youthful. “But did it work?”
Castis shakes his head at the ground incredulously.
“I saw that tree, by the way,” Victus says before Castis can respond, hoping his tone doesn’t come across as too wistful. “On the tour. It’s still standing somehow –- right outside the entrance to the base.”
Castis gives him a pointed look. “Those were good times,” he admits.
“I wish there were more of them.”
“Hm. Yeah. Life happens, and then you… lose touch,” Castis's mandibles hover in a curious manner. His eyes are hazy now, and Victus finds himself wondering about all the parts of Castis’s life he has missed out on. He swallows the feeling.
“A shame,” he says instead. “I always told myself we were all where we needed to be.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not so sure.”
Castis is quiet for a moment, shifting his weight before he speaks.
“Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have listened to you more. When we were younger.”
“Regrets, Vakarian?”
Castis shakes his head. “Not much use in regret. But I do wonder if I wouldn’t have learned more… I don’t know. Creativity? If I hadn’t been so determined to do the opposite of whatever you were doing in Basic.”
Victus chuckles again. “I didn’t realize I’d had quite the effect on you, Vakarian.”
“Are you joking?” Castis muses. “I lost sleep over it. I was sure one of your plans would get me killed one of those days.”
Victus thumbs at the side of his desk, idly thinking about his own sleepless nights in the barracks, held hostage at the thought of the man in front of him. “But here you are.”
“Here I am,” Castis shrugs in his stoic way. “And you were a hell of a lot more useful during this war than I was.”
“More incidental circumstance,” Victus replies curtly with a glance over his shoulder. “And from what I hear, you helped countless refugees get out of Cipritine.”
Castis gives him another hard glance.
“Besides, it was your staunch refusal to look outside of the rule book that made me reach out to you. I’ve spent most of my life getting lucky and being rewarded for it. I thought you would give me the bitter truth of the situation.”
Castis searches for a response, coming up only with a vague “Hm” before fading into thought once more.
“It was Garrus, actually,” the Primarch remarks, and Castis looks up. “Being stationed on Menae... The annoying sound of your teenage voice reminding me of our mission, of what we were doing out there…. It’s strange... I was watching our world burn in front of my eyes, being in charge of all those men… But part of me felt like a cocksure kid again, being scolded by you.”
Castis’s mandibles flex out, his pale eyes glazed over with an emotion Victus can’t quite read, and then he speaks again.
“I wish I’d been there,” he says simply. “For Garrus.”
“You’ve got a good kid,” Victus repeats. “I wouldn’t be standing here without him.”
Castis nods. “He’s… Well. He’s more like you than he is me in some ways. I don’t know that I was ever the right person to be his father,” Castis is quiet for a moment. “But I did my best… Cipriana has always had a way with him.”
“How is Cipriana? Any word?”
Immediately he wishes he could take the words back. He forces his eyes to remain steady as he watches the gears turn in his friend’s head, considering his wife.
“More of the same,” Castis says with the air of a man who is far too acquainted with discussing the deteriorating health of a person he loves. “Sur’Kesh was lucky, all things considered, but…”
He trails off and Victus quickly inserts himself, assures Castis that it’s all right, but Castis continues anyway, a less practiced control of his subvocals underlying his words now.
“I’m not sure how much they can do for her anymore. She’s barely lucid, spends most of the month in a medically-induced coma. I’m not even allowed in the facility it’s so classified, whatever experimental research they’re doing…"
“I’m sorry,” Victus offers uselessly. “If there’s anything I can do, any support I can offer…”
Castis’s stance is tense again, his broad frame shrinking and imposing all at once. “The salarians told us to ‘get our affairs in order’...”
“That means-–”
“She told me to find happiness. We’ve already said our goodbyes…” His eyes are cloudy when he adds, “I’m not ready to let go.”
An ache forms in the Primarch’s chest as he watches his old friend stand there with his arms limp at his sides, more vulnerable than Victus can remember ever seeing him. He pictures Castis’s face, warped with grief, leaning over a hospital bed, and in the same moment he finds himself wishing he could fix it, he feels a pang of guilt at wondering what finding happiness means.
He’s pulled from his self-flagellation before he can collect his thoughts to respond, when Castis suddenly shifts his weight, clearing his throat. “How’s Regula? The Seventh Fleet was quite an impressive asset according to the vids. Guarding the crucible from the front-line reaper advances…”
At the mention of his wife, Victus nods, his throat constricting. He swallows and attempts to backtrack his way into safe territory. “She’s the best general a primarch could hope for. I am grateful for the support and levity she brings, especially in those first days… The day that–- when I was promoted, Regula was still on Palaven. She must have heard before I did, because she called me–- spirits, she called me in the middle of a firefight. She was laughing her ass off.”
“That sounds like Regula,” Castis nods. “How does she feel about being married to the Primarch, now that the dust has settled?”
A lump forms in the Primarch’s throat. “I... haven’t spoken to her yet. I sent her a message--when I sent one to you--but with comms mostly down, there hasn’t been a chance, and I…”
His voice catches as their eyes meet and they both realize the weight that Castis’s question bears. How can he tell him that he hasn’t been able to speak to his wife because he’s afraid? Afraid of seeing the grief in her eyes? Of hearing her voice accuse him of killing their son? Of the truth in those words? Their marriage had been one of political strategy, and though they had always been friends and carried a certain love for one another, it was Tarquin that had been the link between them while they’d lived their separate lives.
Castis’s tone is knowing when he responds. “I’m sure that she knows that you did everything that you could. She’s a good person -– and a better general. And she knows you. Like I do.”
Victus clears his throat loudly, unable to meet Castis’s gaze, to face the familiarity or the guilt that would come with it. Instead he says, “So, Garrus the problem child? You wouldn’t know it, seeing him out there today.”
“I don’t know,” Castis admits, averting his own eyes now. “He just had this idea about the way the world worked. He moved too quickly, focused on the details, didn’t stop to see things for what they are… I had to dredge up memories of dealing with your stubborn ass more than once when he was a teenager.”
Victus’s nose twitches. “Was I a cautionary tale in the Vakarian household?”
“You were until you started climbing the ranks. He’d see you in the vids, and his eyes would light up. At some point I realized my tactics were backfiring.”
Victus is touched and amused, imagining the look on Castis’s face, exasperation complimenting Garrus’s bright-eyed wonder at the world. He catches himself wishing he’d been there to see it.
“It’s a shame I only got to know him because of the war," Victus hears himself saying. "You raised a strong man.”
And then, because he can feel Castis’s eyes on him, feel the weight bearing down on his shoulders again, his heart beating to the tune of Tarquin. Tarquin. Tarquin. he adds, “It was an honor to see him at the tip of the spear. I feel certain that Commander Shepard would say the same.”
Castis tenses at the mention of the human Commander -– a slight movement, not of discomfort -– curiosity, perhaps, and his tone is less measured when he says: “You worked with the Commander.”
“I did,” Victus says, relief filling his gut at having postponed the inevitable once again, his own curiosity piqued at the twinkle in Castis’s eye.
“And you found that partnership effective?”
“Yes. For my part.”
Castis doesn’t respond, so Victus continues, happy to alleviate whatever unspoken worry has clouded his mind.
“He runs a tight ship. Does things the way they ought to be done. But I’ve never seen a Commander care more for their crew.”
He leans forward slightly to see the response in Castis’s eyes as the sun’s light begins to fade.
“He was in the right place, Castis,” he adds, voice warm. “I never saw a field mission from the Normandy War Room where Garrus didn’t take point. And he was off to the refugee camps every time we docked at the Citadel… That son of yours doesn’t miss a trick. Just like his father.”
There’s silence for a moment, both of them nodding with uncertainty.
“I’m so damn proud of him,” Castis admits, voiced strained as he looks out of the corner of his eye at nothing in particular. “I’m not sure that I can take credit for it, though. Garrus… Garrus has always forged his own path.”
Victus shakes his head firmly. “You haven’t heard the way he talks about you when you’re not there. The way his words are taken right from the book you wrote. You’ve always been his hero, whether he’s said it to your face or not.”
Castis’s mandibles pull in close to his face. “He’s had plenty of heroes in his life.”
“But you’re his father. You’re the person he went to. It was his word that you took to Fedorian, Castis. You say the war might not have been won without me, but I say that there might not have been a war -– only pointless slaughter -– if it hadn’t been for your son.”
Castis seems to consider this, absently rubbing his hands across the tops of his thighs before responding.
“I never listened to him,” he shakes his head, as if he mistrusts his own memories. “Until it was almost too late. When he showed up at my door unexpected one day, he had this look on his face, and I… I just knew.”
“Knew?”
Castis pauses, and Victus can see that he’s weighing the decision to press onward heavily in his mind. They both know they’re getting closer to the hour of reckoning. It’s clear they aren’t going to get through this night without circling back around to it.
“You can say it,” Victus prods.
“That I might not get another chance.” Pale blue eyes meet honey brown.
Victus suddenly remembers that he has a body, and he shifts his weight, refusing to break eye contact, refusing to let his own inability to face his guilt keep his friend from voicing his.
Castis tilts his head in inquiry and Victus nods.
“I… You saw his face. I still don’t know what happened to him,” Castis looks at the ground now. “There are only bits that I can piece together. And then he disappeared again, and I… When he came home, I knew I had to swallow my pride and listen to him.”
“You’re a good father. You did right by him,” Victus offers, taking a timid step toward his friend before settling back into his stance. Castis looks away.
“I was too hard on him. His whole life I tried to push him to be what I needed him to be, instead of meeting him where he was.”
“Being a father, it’s… It can be a selfish thing,” Victus swallows.
Castis’s subharmonics roll like thunder just beneath the surface, asking a silent question. Feeling the rising tide of danger in his gut, Victus doesn’t give him a chance to speak.
“You have to accept that they are who they are, and it’s our job to help whoever that person is grow.” Victus’s voice is practically nonexistent now and he feels naked at Castis’s gaze, but he can’t tear his eyes away as he hears himself say, “Sometimes you have to let go.”
Castis takes a step forward, and the silence in the room rings deafeningly in Victus’s ears. “Maybe it’s about time we both let go.”
A violent heaving wells up in Victus’s carapace as his jaw trembles and he becomes lightheaded, exhaustion crashing over him like a tidal wave.
“I miss him, Castis,” Victus croaks, his voice –- the Primarch of Palaven’s voice –- nearly cracking.
“I know,” Castis murmurs, holding his gaze, waiting.
Victus brings a hand up to his face, inhaling a shaky breath, and he looks down, studying Castis's spur with furrowed browplates.
“He wanted to be an architect. I remember taking him on a tour of the capitol when he was young… And at the end of it I told him how disappointed his grandfather would be if he didn’t continue his training,” he shook his head at the tainted memory. “My father loved Tarquin. It was me that didn’t want to be a disappointment."
Castis steps forward again so that he’s standing directly in front of Victus now, close enough to touch, his gaze unavoidable.
“What happened is not your fault,” he says firmly, each word spoken as a complete sentence. “This war took everything from so many people. There was no way for you to know... Tarquin was a good kid. A good man. And he’ll be remembered that way.”
“'He died with honour. This war might not have been won without Lieutenant Victus,'” the Primarch quotes from the endless speeches he’s had to endure across dozens of planets over the past weeks, his subvocals wavering, his gaze pleading as he lets their meaning fall upon his ears for the first time. He doesn’t want a war hero; he wants his son. “No parent should have to bury their child.”
“No,” Castis agrees, gaze steady, “But there are billions of people around the galaxy right now thinking the same thing, and they’re alive to do that because of you. And because of Tarquin. You’ll honor his memory, and carry it with you.”
Victus’s head is swimming with images of Tarquin, his big black eyes gleaming in the brilliance of a Digeris sunset, a child unaware of the horrors of war.
The ticking of the clock is growing louder in his ears when he whispers, “My son died with the knowledge that I’d sent him to his death.”
“No,” Castis says without pause, crest lowered in a display of respect. He takes a step forward. “Your son died knowing that you believed in him. The spirits were with him -- he knew that you loved him.”
Victus takes a wheezing breath, wondering what Garrus has told his father, what words were exchanged among that platoon on Tuchanka between their sons that he’ll never know, never hear.
Castis swallows. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you that day.”
Victus blinks at him, his eyes dry. Castis had been on Palaven that day, seen the worst of the war on the ground. How could he tell him that not having Castis there to ground him when Garrus brought him the news of Tarquin had made him feel that he had lost his very tether to reality?
“You were taking care of your family,” he says simply. It would be foolish to wish otherwise. Pointless. Against the cause they so thoroughly believed in.
A twitch of Castis’s nostrils and he adds, “Was anyone taking care of you?”
Victus’s mandibles flare out involuntarily and then fall slack as he lets out a barely audible hum.
“I thought we’d lost everything,” he murmurs. “That I’d lost everything.”
His shoulders curl forward, and suddenly Victus realizes how long they’ve been standing there. The light in the room is now nearly diminished, the last rays of sunlight disappearing beyond the scorched horizon, lighting up Castis’s eyes. He observes idly that he should have offered his old friend a drink, but then he wonders when he would have done so. There had been no lull in their conversation; they’d both needed to say everything that was said.
But now here they are. Painfully sober, feeling everything.
“Perhaps that’s just getting old,” Victus wonders aloud with a heavy sigh, hoping to alleviate the tension he now feels growing, wishing he could bottle it back up.
“We’re not that old,” Castis reminds him, and despite himself, Victus feels his mandibles twitch into a smirk.
Technically-speaking, with advanced medicine, they’re only halfway through their long years. Pain and loss had done a number on both of their weary bones.
He rubs at the back of his neck, tongue darting out to tap a mouthplate. A nervous tick. He worries suddenly that Castis is going to take his leave, and he rapidly racks his brain for something to say –- Spirits, say something -– but comes up empty.
It’s Castis who breaks the silence.
“Could use a drink,” he says with a tilt of his crest, but Victus suspects he says it for the benefit of his floundering Primarch.
“Of course,” Victus exhales with another timid flex of his mandible, retreating behind the desk. He pulls out a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer, an old fashioned glass bottle with an ornate stopper in the Earth-style, along with two glasses.
“This was Fedorian’s,” he remarks while pouring them each a glass. “A peace offering, I believe, from the Relay 314 Incident. The whiskey's from Oma Ker -- the man did have taste.”
Castis takes the glass from Victus with a nod and retreats toward the couches as Victus takes his first sip. It’s rough, and it scorches his aching esophagus.
“To Fedorian,” he manages.
“To Tarquin.”
Castis raises his glass toward Victus before taking a sip and settling in against the arm of the couch.
Victus remains standing, turning his back to his old friend to gaze out the window at his ruined city.
“I never thought I’d see Palaven like this,” he says, whiskey voice distant with memory. “I remember the first time I saw Cipritine from above… My grandfather was a pilot, you know. He brought me here one day at dawn when I was just a fledgling, and he said to me, ‘This is what it’s all for.’ I’ve never forgotten that… Look at it now.”
He turns back to Castis.
Swallowing another sip of whiskey, Castis tilts his glass in the Primarch’s direction. “I should point out that with you calling the shots back in Basic, there were many times I thought I’d see the city in exactly this state.”
Finally, after what’s felt like a lifetime, Victus lets out an alcohol-induced laugh, Castis’s dry sense of humor matching the whiskey. It comes out hoarse, his subvocals crackling. His head is spinning, time is speeding up, he misses his son.
Castis is looking at him. With a quiet gulp, his gaze steady he says, “You look tired, old man.”
Victus lets out a weary chuckle that’s more of an exhale as he turns back to the window. “There isn’t much time for rest or stress relief for the Primarch.”
It’s true. While he’d been thankful for the many distractions, in some sense, since he’d lost Tarquin, it meant that he could practically feel himself aging, his plating cracking, the skin around his eyes wrinkling. His only consolation is that he couldn’t possibly look as old as he feels.
His train of thought is broken to the clink of glass being set down on the table. He’s suddenly aware that Castis is closer to him, and he thinks wildly about the fact that his act of turning his back to Castis was one of implicit trust, one they’d never have been allowed during field training. He half-turns his body towards his old friend without facing him.
Castis’s subvocals gently meet his ear as he hears his friend say, “What if there’s time now?”
At that, Victus jerks his head around, jaw going slack as he looks at Castis. He stares at the gray plated face, taking in the scars and textures that he hasn’t seen before, new with age and only now revealed in the growing light of Palaven’s moons.
Castis’s gaze is fixed, asking a question as he reaches out and, with a gentle hand placed over Victus’s wrist, takes the glass of whiskey from his hands and leans over to place it on the desk with a dull thunk, before turning back and looking at the Primarch.
Victus swallows, the rough skin of his wrist tingling where Castis’s touch lingers.
“Let me help you, Adrien.”
It’s the first time Castis has used his name all evening and it sends chills down his spine. After a long moment of being unable to speak, mouth still hanging open, eyes feeling stretched to their limits, Adrien nods slowly.
With the briefest of hesitations, Castis’s hand is sliding up the Primarch’s forearm, floating between them as if the glass of whiskey were still there, his other hand coming up to stroke the side of a mandible with the back of his knuckle, and Adrien gasps, leaning into the touch.
His breath is caught in the back of his throat, his eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of his head from a sudden release of sinus pressure, and there’s a tightening in his core as he watches his old friend’s face, pale blue eyes tracing the contours of Victus’s own griseled visage.
Adrien shudders with a start as strong hands roam from his shoulder to his chin and neck, cupping it lightly with warm and calloused palms as their eyes meet. How many years has it been since he first wondered what those hands would feel like on his body? How long has that dusty thought sat in the back of his mind?
Castis’s movements are deliberate, heavy with intent. He always was to-the-point, Victus thinks as those hands move across the rim of his cowl and down his torso, causing the tender flesh between his plates to prickle, pulled like magnets towards Castis’s attention as fingers trail further south, pausing to skim around the fabric at his waist, drawing a contented hum from deep in the back of his throat. Castis isn’t interested in prolonging the Primarch’s limbo a moment more. Pinpricks of sensation sprinkle his skin as, without preamble, a finger reaches for the hem of his pants, talons skimming his waistband lightly before slowly dipping a finger in, eyes asking Victus for confirmation.
“Castis,” he whispers, the word catching in the back of his mouth. It sounded headier than he’d intended for it to, as deliberate as when he’d uttered it at the beginning of the night. His mind feels as though it’s made of plasma, unable to keep up with itself. This is a dream. A dream he’d been having for thirty years. No, it’s a friend helping a friend ease tension, that’s all; he doesn’t want you, he wants you to mourn, he wants to help you, help the Primarch, and yet–-
His body lurches forward as a pair of deft fingers stroke at his seam, causing his hips to spasm, his body having not been touched for, spirits, who knows how long? Even by his own hand.
He’s suddenly wide awake, and his arms fly up. He knows this is beyond the pretense of what is acceptable for two soldiers, two friends “easing tensions,” but somehow he isn’t worried about what message this sends as he grasps at the back of Castis’s head, pulling him close and grazing crest against crest, fingers stroking under fringe as he purrs out a sound of approval at the nimble fingers exploring his most tender spots, feeling all the blood in his body rush toward that one point of contact where he’s becoming unsheathed.
Castis’s fingers are practiced but nervous, betraying a sense of volition, of denouement. Absurdly, Adrien wonders if Castis has ever touched himself like this while thinking about Adrien himself. Back in their field days? In the long absence of their camaraderie? Amidst the flames of their world burning? And his body comes alive at the mental image of it, his nerves on fire as his fingers twitch against Castis’s skull with each stroke, strong hands squeezing gently around him. Stars float before his eyes as fingers pulse and dance over his length, twisting, pulling, kneading in a steady rhythm, other hand moving to Adrien’s hip to support him, guiding thrusts into Castis’s warm hand, eager and welcoming, demanding comfort and respite for the weary soldier.
Not wanting to lose himself in the moment, he forces his eyes open, only now realizing they’d been squeezed shut. He finds Castis’s still on his face, tracking every twitch, every spasm, guiding him through the sensations, eyes hungry and yet somehow softer than he’s ever seen their icy blue gaze, and Victus feels like he should do something in response. He suddenly recalls hearing rumours about Castis decades ago in their field days, rumours he’d pretended not to care about at the time –- that Castis, so rigid and commanding, generally relinquishes control behind closed doors, and spirits, he should do something, but all he can do is watch and feel and give in to the bucking of his hips as Castis pulls him along, works out every point of tension he’s been holding onto, and Adrien can’t help but to let out a sob of both pleasure and pain, loss and coming home as he stands there uselessly holding onto his friend for dear life.
He’s vaguely aware that the only thing keeping him upright is Castis’s hands as he clings to the rim of his cowl, hips jerking into his grasp as Castis’s pace increases, stroking him faster as he leans forward and nibbles at his chin, triggering a chirp of surprise from Adrien that morphs into a groan, Castis's flanging subharmonics joining in a throaty moan -- a response to a twitch of Adrien's length. Spirits, how he’d longed to hear that sound.
His mandibles are starting to clench close to his face as his muscles tense, threatening to collapse and release, and he can see Castis’s eyes tracking the movement, responding by supporting his weight even more, holding him upright, encouraging him to ride it out, to not let go quite yet. But at the sight of Castis’s jaw trembling, mandibles twitching, seemingly captivated by Adrien coming undone, he’s unable to bear it, throwing his head back and clenching his eyes closed, subvocals going wild as he gasps out “Castis.”
His pace is feverish at this point as their mandibles tangle and their breath intermingles, and they’re gasping each others’ names into one another’s mouths. Adrien’s hands slip, gripping at his carapace, his fringe, his arms, and he knows he’s close.
“I’m here. I’m here, Adrien. I’ve got you.”
That’s all he needed to hear. As Castis’s hand maintains the unabating pace, his other hand firm and supportive at his back, Adrien involuntarily jerks his hips forward, one last push into Castis’s warm grasp, and he cries out as his climax washes over him, galaxies bursting before his eyes, twitching in Castis’s fingers as his old friend releases the pressure slightly without breaking his rhythm, carrying him through it, talons digging into the fabric of Castis’s shirt, one hand at his cowl, and one grasping his now tired and spasming forearm muscles.
He’s whimpering quietly at the oversensitive sensation as fingers continue their ministrations, a promise that he can handle it, that he’s not quite relinquished control fully as every muscle in his body seems to collapse into a singular point until finally, Castis lets him collapse into his arms, still supporting the weight of the shaky and unsteady Primarch. He’s spent, all the tension that’s been welled up for months spewing out of him as he lets out dry-heaving sobs and Castis, heart racing and hand covered in Adrien’s release, envelops him, the purr of his subvocals impossible to ignore.
“Let go for me, Adrien,” Castis whispers.
Helping the Primarch toward the couch, Castis never relinquishes his embrace, pulling his broad frame down on top of him, curling his body around him. He guides Victus’s face to the warmth of his cowl as the sobs continue. Shaky breaths and mucousy bellows for Tarquin, for Palaven, for all the lives and days lost at his hands.
He can’t imagine the stress that Victus has been under. He can’t carry the burden for him, but he can give him this. He can take him apart and put him back together again with his hands, letting him ride it out for as long as it takes.
And spirits, the feel of Victus, even now, the twitch of his groin, the weight of his body, the whisper of his breath against Castis’s neck and mandible… The sounds of his whimpering, his moaning and pleading, the way his subvocals have a distinct flanging when he groans “Castis” reverberate in Castis’s mind as he watches the shifting colors of the aurora dance outside of the window of the Primarch’s office, dulling the stark image of the destruction below. In the spaces between the phantom colors, he sees Victus’s face, the look of him melting, trembling, eyes clenched tight, mandibles alternating between slack in pleasure and clenched to his face in frustration and wild anticipation, every groove and bump on the aged and scarred plating that is so beautiful, so Adrien, so full of life even all these years later after the end of the world… Well, he wants to ride that out as long as possible too.
He hasn’t let himself think those words until now, didn’t dare let himself imagine what would happen in the Primarch’s office until he arrived, but now, watching the horizon for the first inklings of the sun’s reappearance, after what must have been hours of Adrien calming his breathing in Castis’s cowl, Castis suddenly realizes that time will continue from this moment, and he wonders where they go from here. But spirits, it doesn’t matter. This would be enough. It would be enough to hear Adrien say his name just one more time. To hear those sounds again, in joy without sorrow. His heart is flipping in his chest as he listens to the quiet breathing of the sleeping primarch, the first deep sleep he’s had in months, and he wonders what tomorrow will bring.
But they could talk about it in the morning. They’ve got the rest of their lives.