[Citadel, Zakera] Benchwarmers (Open)

Lower Zakera was as crowded as it always was and species of every sort were going about their daily business ignoring each other as best they could. Just because they had to live on the same station doesn't mean they have to acknowledge or care about each other outside of the most base instincts.

This sensation would be odd for most quarians. But not Kari. Not only did she apparently lack (or lose even) the social 'drive' that almost every quarian had. She seemed to have thrive on being as selfish as possible.

And right now she was ignoring the hell out of the passing crowd like the best of them as could be seen by how she was currently occupying one of the benches placed in key spots in the wards, the tall brightly colored quarian tinkering with her omnitool and muttering to herself. If there was one thing you could count on to break at the worst moments it was omnitools, especially ones with all sorts of add-ons that probably voided the warranty a hundred times over.

Hopefully no one bothered her. She wasn't in the mood for that right now.

Fateful words. Kari should have known better - because at that moment, another quarian appeared. Well... technically. Yes and no. In Kari's eyes, probably not a quarian but an ungodly abomination of geth sympathy. Or something. The short answer is that it was Kai, having finally adjusted after his operation enough that he could get around without handrails.

With a new lease on life and actual money to spend, the young Pilgrim had decided to return to the Citadel and see the sights with new eyes. Without a visor in the way, for one. Not hungry and homeless, for another. He'd had to leave his drone behind (because it was a Transgression mech with several kills to its name that is) and he missed its comforting presence, but really he doubted that would have made the looks any easier to handle.

It had started at customs. He'd been detained, just like everyone had expected. He'd been searched, scanned, questioned. Nitasha had provided him plenty of documentation for his medical frame, but there had still been a few heart-stopping (not that he actually had one any more) seconds when he'd been sure C-Sec would throw them out and arrest him as an exotically-designed geth infiltration platform or something. But no, after an agonizingly long wait he'd been released into Zakera a free man.

Nitasha had done her best with the frame's design, and it showed. Kai had a face, not just a visor. For the first time it wasn't just his body language conveying anxiety - synthetic musculature bunched under artificial skin as he struggled to keep his composure. From a distance it looked pretty damn good - the false skin was the same shade of lavender his body had once been, the swirling tattoos left by his cybernetic implants from long ago, even the luminosity of his eyes. Unfortunately, close examination revealed that the artificial skin had no pores, leaving it looking a little plastic-y, like a well-rendered video game character. Short black hair that was quite obviously a wig. And, of course, the actual overtly artificial parts of the frame. Kai was wearing a human-made T-shirt and turian-designed trousers (for the spurs, of course), but his feet and his arms from about the mid-bicep down practically glowed with the pure whiteness of the synthetic muscle fibre. Cream-coloured plastic casing completed the look around his feet and hands.

He was, to make a long description short, rather 'in-quarian'-looking.

Which made it very, very unfortunate that he chose the fellow quarian, Kari'Zar the Exile, to ask "Um... excuse me... do you know what street this is? I'm a little bit lost and my 'tool map is really out-of-date..."

Kari didn't even look up from her omnitool though she did let out a loud, frustrated sigh before speaking. "No", she said. "Maybe you should learn how to not rely on that app so you won't get lost the very moment it doesn't work. Go bother a C-sec officer. If they don't throw you in jail for some reason they should know where you are."

She apparently hadn't even noticed that the person she was belittling was some kind of cybernetic abomination yet. She was just too wrapped up in her own little world right now.

"... oh. Um. I already had to talk to C-Sec for a while when I came in. I don't really want to try my luck again..." Kai replied awwkardly, rubbing the back of his neck and flicking his gaze back and forth. Boy was Kari in for a surprise if she deigned to look up from her 'tool. She'd probably have to upgrade dismissive irritation to full-blown hatred.

"... did you get lost using the app too?"

She sighed again still looking down and trying her best to ignore him. "No I did not get 'lost'. My omnitool is just busted. So don't..." she finally looked up from her omnitool to continue but found herself looking 'face' to 'face' with some kind of abomination. She was, for once in her life, utterly speechless. Her eyes growing wider underneath her visor as she struggled for something to say.

"..."

Kai wrung his hands nervously, his eyes flicking this way and that as they suddenly had a very hard time meeting Kari's visor. Eventually, at a loss for what else to do, he raised a hand. Stippled, cream-coloured, rubberized pads on his palm for extra grip. He waved.

"Hello."

Kari continued staring at Kai dumbfounded for several, several awkward moments before she regained some control of her senses. "What the hell are you!?", she nearly screamed (and causing a few bystanders to look) as she scooted to the edge of the bench trying to get as far away from this abomination as she could.

"Go. Now."

Kai flinched as if Kari had struck him - which, honestly, she kind of had. He had an expression somewhere between 'kicked dog' and 'on the verge of tears'. He took a moment to steel himself, curling his hands into fists and taking a deep breath.

"I'm a quarian," he replied eventually. "I got hurt, I needed surgery to get better, but I'm a quarian just like you."

It sounded a little rehearsed - which it totally was, considering he'd said similar words in the mirror multiple times before even leaving [REDACTED] grounds - but baby-steps.

"Man, I am gonna have to sit down before I fall down.'

"Your own fault bro," Thaedi Nemanovan chuckled at his slurring companion, "I tried telling ya you were too dead to be hitting sivva. You know what you said to me, bro? You told me exactly what I could do with my dick and my own fine ass. Hurt my feelings, dude."

"Fuck you, I would not... would not have said 'fine'."

"That's 'fuck you, sergeant'." Thaedi shot his fellow turian a glance of exaggerated disapproval, channeling the energies of the company sergeant major.

"Well that's '"fuck you, sergeant", sergeant' you fuckstick."

"Shit, I forgot they promoted your ass." Thaedi lied "Who the fuck dicked that up?"

"Yeah, still going with the 'fuck you'. Dude, lets go over there, I gotta find... gotta find, like, a bench or something I can't feel my fuckin'... feel my feet." The two Hierarchy NCO's inane banter was interrupted, as they crossed a bustling thoroughfare into one of the Ward's few islands of calm. Scanning around for public seating that didn't look as though it had recently played host to an overweight elcor, both turians' eyes settled on the bizzare, sterile frame of a heavily synthetic hybridized quarian nervously hovering by a bench.

"Oh dude. What the fuck is that? Is that a fucking geth?" Thaedi winced. His friend's elbow had been rammed sharply into his prominent thorax, and the drunken turian's words were far louder than he had probably intended. There was no way the poor fuck hadn't heard.

"Shut the fuck up, bro. It's probably some vet got torn up too bad for surgery." Thaedi hissed. To no avail; the other turian started staggering towards the beleaguered quarian. He opened his mouth, doubtlessly to yell more alcohol-fuelled expletives, but was halted by Thaedi cuffing him in the back of the head. "Look bro, chow's up in two hours and if the CO catches you wasted, he's gonna ass fuck you till all your meals taste of his junk. Go grab a cab, and sleep it off, you dig?" Bodily, Thaedi hurled his drinking buddy towards a nearby taxi terminal, and awkwardly tip-toed towards Kai, suddenly aware there was a second, very much suited quarian sat by him.

"Sorry... bro, about my buddy?" He started, trying his damndest not to flinch. The uncanny valley was not a phenomenon known by name to Sergeant Nemanovan, but he was certainly in the throes of a reaction to it now. "We just got back from exercise, pretty ruined, you feel? Drinking even a few on that... Yeah, and he's a lightweight anyway and... shit," Thaedi's three clawed hands were everywhere as he struggled for a closing remark, "so, sorry."

He tried a smile. "I'm just gonna leave you and your pal here to it, have a good one, you dig?". He gestured in a random direction, and made to leave. As he did so, he took full stock of that plasticky, unreal quarian face and his mandibles flared visibly in discomfort. It was all Nem could do to hope the transquarian was not so hot on turian facial expressions.

"No you aren't", Kari hissed, her eyes narrowing. "You are an abomination" if she even noticed Kai's pained facial expression or body language she didn't seem to care. If anything she seemed to be actively avoiding staring Kai in the face at all. Finding it far too disturbing.

"Get it away from me", she said glancing at Thaedi. "Please."

'Abomination'. 'Geth'. 'It'. Kai's day was not shaping up to a fun one. And while he wasn't exactly an expert on turian facial expressions, it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that he was getting unsettled by his face too.

"It's fine," he replied quietly. The skin itself may have fallen squarely into the uncanny valley, but the humanity (for want of a better word) in his face was self-evident. Mostly because the teenage Pilgrim was quite clearly trying not to cry. He didn't have tear ducts or anything, so it was very easy battle to win, but that didn't change how he was feeling.

"I'll just, um... I-I think I remember where I was going now," he lied badly. "Sorry to bother you..."

He turned away, shoulders hunched and hands clasped tight around stomach level, and started shuffling away.

Kari's outburst caught Nem mid swerve, and he pulled up, bringing a claw under his chin as he took brief milliseconds to make a decision. He spun back on his heels, his chin jutted out towards the suited quarian, and his mandibles raised ever so slightly in a subconscious threat gesture.

He may have been uncomfortable with near total prosthesis, but he had seen what the unforgiving touch of war could to do to living tissue. Worse, he had seen how those injuries spread into their victim's mind. He was not without sympathy.

"Woah-ho-ho." He stepped over to the seated quarian, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, claws clenched and held loosely around his mid chest. "'It'? That ain't real polite, hon. You maybe wanna apologize to my man here?" He gave a single, affirming nod to Kai. Without waiting for a reply, a clapped a heavy hand on Kai's shoulder and held it there in a firm grip. "Hold up a sec, bro. I'm gonna sort this."

It seemed the universe was once again scheming against her by planting this idiot turian here. And just when she was feeling relieved that the thing that used to be a quarian was leaving... and then the idiot turian decided to try and bring it back. Saying a bunch of nonsense about 'apologizing'

Apologize? Why should she be apologizing for anything.

"What are you doing you idiot?" she said to Nem, glaring the death glare of all death glares at him as she tried to get up and leave herself. She wasn't going to deal with this at all.

Kai probably could have just kept walking right out of Nem's grip, but instinct took over and he lurched to a stop. He most definitely did not turn around and attempt to face Kari again, however. The turian could only force him to do so much.

"It's fine," he mumbled. "I was bothering her and I probably startled her, don't need to make her apologize or anything..." His hands were in constant motion, wringing, clenching and unclenching, clasping, worrying back and forth. Really he was a few hairs from just bolting back to the docks and never going out in public ever again ever after all these dire goings-on.

Nem tucked his mandibles in and sucked his teeth noisily for a second or two, before parting his mouth into the widest grin the turian's narrow features allowed.

"Mm!" He intoned "Well you are just a bucket of sunshine, huh?" He shadow boxed off to the side, a few sharp jabs into the air. "Damn. Listen, sweetheart, I don't know this dude," he thumped Kai lightly, affectionately in the stomach, "but I already like him. I got a simple rule for guys I like: I got their backs, you feel? You hear that, bro?" That last was said directly to Kai, his face the stern encouragement of an old drill sergeant.

He turned back to Kari. "And hey, I don't discriminate, I'm sure I could like you, you know? I can ignore that little swipe of yours at my intelligence," he flashed another toothy grin, "fuck, it's probably true, you dig? You'd better believe I'd have your back as good as any of the brothers I seen action with, not that I reckon you think you need that. All you gotta do is apologize. All you want is for me 'n' him to leave, right? Well, all I want is one little word. Shit, you don't even have to mean it so long as I think you do. Your move, hon." He spread his arms wide, waiting for Kari to bring it.

The tension in the air could have been cut with an omniblade as Kari continued glaring at the pair. Mostly the turian because she still had an incredible time even glancing at the 'quarian' that was next to him.

"I will not apologize", she hissed. "I do not need to apologize for anything because he bothered me first" she waited a few minutes to judge their expressions before speaking again. "Now leave me alone before I get angry. Please."

A passing Vorcha saw the increasingly annoying quarian, and dialed C-Sec. "Yeah, C-Sec? There's a quarian harassing a Relicae's case here. She's dressed in a ratty-looking robe, has a black enviro-suit, and is taller and more muscular than the average quarian. Where am I?" The Vorcha added into this mess was beginning to cause a scene. People who were already watching intently began calling others over, ready to watch an exotic fight break out.

It was only a love-tap, but the punch to Kai's stomach was like hitting a steel wall. It may have (ostensibly) been a civillian frame, but it had been built to last. Shame it was being operated by the brain of the most weak-willed quarian in the galaxy.

"I hear that," he replied noncommittally. Keelah what was he even thinking, going out in public like this. What was he thinking asking for the procedure to begin with? He was just going to... no. No no no no stop thinking that. You're breathing air. You aren't wearing a suit. Don't let her ruin this.

"I won't leave until you apologize," he said quietly.