Chapter Text
“Damn it…” Garrus mutters.
He swipes through the many portfolios he has been sent, trashing every single one as they pop up. They’re all very pretty – he has to give his dad that much – but he isn’t interested. Every single one of them gives off the same kind of feeling he isn’t ready for yet:
That want to settle down.
“Ugh…”
That one just seems too desperate. ‘Fertile and ready for breeding,’ he reads. Garrus shakes his head, wondering if those words belong to her or his dad. And what are those dates on the side? Narrowing his eyes, he understands it once those dates seem to be spaced out by three months; their heat cycles.
“Oh, for fuck’s-”
“You okay over there?”
Garrus looks at Shepard, realizing that she has been overhearing him muttering to himself. The redhead looks at him with a cocked brow, an expression he always finds endearing with humans. That’s their skeptical or confused expression and he always thinks that gesture is very expressive.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s nothing,” he says, trying to assure her. Her eyebrows change their shape then, furrowing towards the space between them and she smiles a little bit, making it clear she isn’t buying it. “Some turian parents…” How does he explain this to her? “Well, they like to have a hand in who their kids end up with.”
“Like an arranged marriage?” Shepard surmises.
“Uhm… Kinda,” he answers.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Does he?
Turians moved away from arranged marriages millennia ago. That’s old-fashioned and a tradition that has, thankfully, died out completely in his culture. No, this isn’t an arranged marriage at all. An arranged marriage would have, arguably, been the preferred situation, Garrus believes.
This is simply his dad being nosy and overbearing, something Castis Vakarian is known to be particularly good at.
Shepard has nothing to do with his personal life, but they’re friends, or, at least, friendly. On top of that, she’s his commander. Turians come to their commanders with personal issues all the time, looking for guidance and support, and are given it freely. Therefore, he decides to open up to her.
Maybe this crazy little human has some magical tricks up her sleeves that he can use to help his predicament.
“It’s my dad,” Garrus tells Shepard, sighing. “He wants to control my life. If it’s not my job he wants a say in, then it’s my personal life.”
“Don’t you want to settle down someday?” she wonders.
“Sure. But not right now,” he emphasizes heavily. “I’m twenty-seven, Shepard. A bit too young for kids and a bond mate. But dad seems to think that since he did those things young, I have to do the same.”
Throughout his life, Garrus has been stepping in his dad’s footsteps. Now that he has been working for Shepard for some time and they have broached the topic of his dad, he has realized something slowly: While he certainly started out wanting to follow in his dad’s footsteps, Castis has played a hand in him doing that, actively.
He talked his son into not receiving Spectre training. Instead, he got him sponsored for C-Sec. He worked hard to make sure Garrus succeeded in his career and would oversee everything he did, personally. Garrus had been a talented C-Sec Officer and he had wanted to be a cop at one point. But now that he has had the chance to step back and view the situation from afar, he can tell that everything he has ever done has been in an effort to please his father.
And now he’s meddling in the one part of his life that Garrus wants full control over. Of course, it doesn’t help that Castis and Valeria – his mom – want grandbabies they can spoil rotten, nor that they mention it often. That simply adds to the pressure.
“Have you told him to back off?” Shepard questions.
“A million times,” Garrus answers. “He won’t stop until he knows, for sure, that I’m actively looking for a mate.”
“Can’t you just tell him that you’re dating someone?”
“Done that before, too.”
“And?”
He sighs, finding what he’s about to reveal a little bit embarrassing. “He made one of his underlings follow me around the same day I said I was going out on a date,” he says and shakes his head. “Wasn’t too happy when he learned that I spent the evening at home, playing video games.”
“Yikes.”
“Mh,” Garrus hums agreeingly. “He’s made it clear that until I’m dating someone seriously, he won’t stop bugging me about this.”
“That’s, uh…” Shepard searches for the words she wants to use for some time and chooses to settle on, “very overbearing.”
“Yup. Fits my dad to a tee.”
Garrus knows that a lot of the behaviors Castis is showing isn’t normal. Taking an interest and joking about getting grandkids soon? Sure. He can see that being somewhat cute. Sending his son files upon files of women that are available and in his area, even going so far as to add their heat cycles?
Absolutely not.
“What does your mom think about this?” Shepard wonders.
“I don’t think she understands how annoying it is. In her eyes, I’m an adult and can just say no to his suggestions,” he answers and rubs his brow plates, closing his eyes. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Garrus has tried to figure out a solution to this predicament for a long time. For example, he has thought about threatening to go no-contact if Castis doesn’t stop. But Garrus knows he isn’t able to uphold that. However overbearing his dad can be about certain aspects of his life, he wants a relationship with his family. Having a serious talk with his mom has also crossed his mind, but he has tried that before; she always dismisses him by saying his father is only trying to help.
He’s stuck in this situation, then, being forced to receive endless amounts of dating profiles from his father that end up being trashed.
“Well… What if you told him that you’re dating someone, but also found someone that was in on it?”
Opening his eyes, Garrus freezes for a second and looks at his Commander, feeling puzzled.
“In on it?”
“Yeah. Someone that would agree to go on ‘dates,’” she does air quotes the turian way, using one finger on each hand, “with you, knowing full well that this was just a coverup? If your dad sees that you’re taking it seriously, then he’ll back off, right?”
“Huh.”
Immediately, Garrus thinks it sounds like a weird suggestion. This is lying, only bringing someone else in on the lie, too. Telling white little lies from time to time in an effort to get his father off his back is something he has done before. But this feels different.
On the other hand, Shepard has a point. That is his dad’s condition for getting off his son’s back. But Garrus can see problems with an arrangement like that. Problems that will, thankfully, address themselves as soon as he approaches anyone.
“Would anyone even want to agree to something like that?” he questions.
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s not an ideal situation for anyone,” she answers, shrugging. “But if your dad won’t stay off your ass until that term is fulfilled, then looking for someone willing to do that might be worth a try.”
He wants to trash the idea immediately and tell her it won’t work. That his dad isn’t so stupid that he will get fooled by something like that. But, as he quickly realizes, there is a good chance going about it this way will work.
But it doesn’t tempt Garrus – why date someone he won’t want a future with?
Politely, he says, “I’ll think about it.”