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Archer ate his lunch of meat and cheese dumplings as he scrolled through his omni-tool while he was on his lunch break, having started work again a week prior. He didn’t know what meat was used in the dumplings, he even heard rumours of varren being used, but he liked the flavour too much to find out for sure. He was reading news about some research facility on a planet called Noveria being destroyed in some sort of accident that the company who owned it refused to comment on, when he got a voicemail from his mother.

Hey, Archie. Everything’s alright here on Elysium. They finally repaired the last of the damages from the Blitz. Can hardly tell that there was a war here several years ago. Your father’s doing alright too, he’s looking at retiring in a few years. He’s thinking sometime in 2186; I’ll probably retire with him as well. And it’s great to know that work’s going well, and all supervisors are like that. You remember how my old one was before he retired? I’m sorry that your scar is still bothering you; the stretches and ointment is the best you can do. It’d be worse if you weren’t doing them. And fine, I’ll stop pestering you about a boyfriend, but it doesn’t matter if they’re human or not. Just as long as they’re on the up and up, and are right for you.

Archer blushed at his mother’s mention of being fine with a prospective boyfriend not being human. He hadn’t seen Vask since their time together at the gun range that was only a little over a week and a half before. He never got his contact details but the krogan knew where he lived, so if he wanted to get together again, he knew where to go.

He hadn’t used his gun since he bought it with Vask, though he kept it on him after he found out he was allowed to keep a gun on him as long as it wasn’t in a C-Sec building, and somewhere particularly fancy.

“Archer,” called out his supervisor, “Someone’s here asking for you.”

“Who?” asked Archer.

“Some krogan,” said his supervisor. The salarian continued, “He refuses to leave until he talks to you. Can you get rid of him? I don’t need an angry krogan running rampant through the docks and destroying everything.”

Archer stood up quickly at the mention of who he guessed was obviously Vask. He quickly scoffed down the last of his dumplings and dashed past his supervisor, the salarian already yelling at another one of his employees.

Archer entered the small office building that controlled the portion of the docks he worked and found Vask standing at the reception desk, glowering down at the extremely nervous looking asari receptionist.

Archer crossed his arms, “I see you still haven’t learned manners. You’re lucky that I’m on my lunch break, otherwise you would’ve had to wait until I finished in four hours.”

Vask turned away from the receptionist who let out a sigh of relief and mouthed “Thank you.”

“I could’ve just come and found you.” Vask said.

“Yeah,” Archer hissed, “C-Sec wouldn’t take kindly to that. Trespassing tends to piss them off and make them try to arrest people who do that.”

Vask let out a chuckle, “I’d like to see them try.”

Archer looked behind Vask when he saw the receptionist moving to call C-Sec. He gave her a silent signal with his hand to stop and looked back to the large krogan who moved away from the reception desk and closer to him. “So what is it that’s so important that you needed to see me while at work?”

“I’m going to the Armax Arsenal Arena tonight over in the Silversun Strip.” Vask said, bending down and looking the human in the eyes, “And you’re coming with me. You need to practice using your pistol.”

“No,” Archer said, crossing his arms and stepping back, “Not unless you ask nicely”

Vask stood up, crossed his own arms and silently glared at Archer.

“Well?” Archer asked expectantly, “You won’t be able to just drag me away like last time. You’ll get C-Sec on your arse.”

Vask continued to glare down at Archer before he looked away and mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that?” Archer asked, enjoying how easily he could rile up the green krogan. “I can’t hear you.”

“Do you…” grumbled Vask, cutting himself off with a growl.

“Keep going,” Archer said with a smug smile.

“Do you want to go to the Arena with me?” Vask finally asked coherently, avoiding Archer’s eyes.

“I’d love to,” Archer said with an even more smug smile, “Was that so hard?”

“Just be ready outside the docks,” Vask said before stomping out of the building.

Archer watched him go with a gentler smile before turning to the receptionist when she said, confused, “I’m missing a lot of context here.”

“Long story,” Archer said.

“How?” asked the asari, “You were only gone a week. Is HE the reason you’ve been smiling like an idiot all the time despite getting mugged and nearly dying a fortnight ago?”

“I haven’t been smiling that much.”

“You’re smiling like that now,” said the asari receptionist, pointing at Archer’s face, “What do you see in such a brute like him? His face looks like he got into a fight with a blender.”

“His scar isn’t that bad, mine’s worse than that.” Archer said, looking back out the door, “He’s a sweet and helpful guy, he just needs to learn to soften up a bit. Among other things.”

“He has a giant crack in his skull,” said the receptionist.

“And my scar goes into the bones of my neck and shoulder,” Archer said, “Your point?”

The receptionist threw her hands up, “Fine, if you like scarred mercs, then you do you.”

“I’m not into him cause of his scars or cause he’s a merc,” Archer said, crossing his arms.

“Then why are you into him?” she asked, “It certainly isn’t his winning personality.”

“I said it before, he can be really sweet and helpful,” Archer answered. He thought on the asari’s question a bit more before continuing, “He really didn’t need to help me as much as he did. He could’ve just dropped me off at the clinic and left it at that.”

“So you think you owe him.”

“No,” denied Archer.

“Then what?”

Archer, leaned onto the desk the receptionist sat at, “Look, it’s not my place to talk about it. It’s his.”

“What about it would make it his to-?” she asked before she paused and her eyes widened, “OH.”

She lowered her voice, “Are you sure he’s still closeted?”

“Pretty sure,” Archer answered, his voice lowered as well.

She leaned forward, “Does HE know?”

Archer shook his head, “I don’t know. But he’s confused, that much I know. I think this is something new for him and he doesn’t know what to make of it.”

The receptionist nodded, “Just be careful.”

“I will,” nodded Archer, “I can’t force him to do anything with me. So I’ll need him to make the first moves. So that both he and I know it’s something he wants.”

***

Archer clocked out, waving his co-workers goodbye as they headed out to Chora’s Den. The group gingerly walked around Vask who was already at the dock’s main gate, waiting impatiently.

Archer jogged up to him and asked, “Do I even want to know how long you’ve been waiting here for me?”

“Let’s just get going,” grumbled Vask, and walked off towards the nearest CRT terminal.

“So, a while then,” Archer said with a smile, following Vask. “What do I have to look forward to at the Arena?”

“We’ll be fighting against waves of holograms,” Vask said as he reached the terminal. He inputted an address and the pair waited for a taxi to arrive. “They only have pirates, but they said they’re working on more enemy types, and arenas.”

“So I’m allowed to bring this with me there?” Archer asked, reaching for his pistol until Vask grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t unholster a weapon unless you intend to use it.” Growled Vask before letting go of the human’s wrist. “And yes, you can. You just need to use practice slugs. That way you won’t get killed, just bruised.”

He looked at Archer a moment before tapping the human’s right shoulder on his scar, making him hiss slightly and cover it with a hand. Vask said, “Though it’ll probably knock you out if they hit your shoulder. Since you can’t even handle the recoil of a rifle.”

“Will they even let me in because of that?” Archer asked, as the taxi arrived and climbed in after Vask opened the door for him. “Won’t that make me a liability for them?”

“They make you sign a waiver,” Vask said, climbing into the taxi and sitting up against Archer, “They also have a small clinic to handle accidents. Though it’s only ever been used by people acting like idiots in the arena.”

“Sounds fun. I always wanted to spend most of my free time in a med clinic.” Archer said with a roll of his eyes.

“Just do what I say and you’ll be fine,” Vask said as the taxi lifted off and flew towards their destination.

“Yes, sir,” Archer said with a mock salute.

The Armax Arsenal Arena was an extremely boisterous, and extremely loud place. The cheering of a large crowd spectating a match being the first thing he saw, hearing it before he entered the building.

Archer rubbed an ear from the noise, “I thought a merc who does back-alley deals would avoid something as public as this.”

“It’s a good place to practice without the risk of getting killed,” Vask said, pointing Archer over to the front desk, “Gun range targets can only do so much.”

“But how will I know how accurate I am?” Archer asked, while he scrolled through a long waiver the front desk’s VI projected for him to sign, without looking at it.

“You’ll know when you get points. You don’t get any extra points for where you shoot, just that you kill them.” Vask said as he booked in a match.

“How do you get extra points, then?” Archer asked, finally reaching the end of the waiver and signed it.

“By choosing point modifiers before your match starts,” Vask explained as they headed downstairs to wait their turn at the arena. He made his way to a terminal set into a wall, “Stuff like enhanced enemy shields, enemy damage boost, and no medi-gel.”

“Woah, Medi-gel?” Asked Archer, as Vask pulled up a holographic display, and flicked through different options, “I thought you said I wouldn’t get hurt.”

“I said you wouldn’t get killed,” Vask said as he tapped a few holograms before he turned to face Archer.

“Besides, it’s ‘medi-gel’,” he said to Archer and did air quotes when he said ‘medi-gel’, “They only use practice slugs but get hit enough they’ll end the match. Speaking of which, go switch your pistol to them.”

Archer nodded and walked over to the table Vask pointed at. He pulled his pistol out and set it on it and looked it over. He had no idea how to switch to practice slugs. He turned his pistol over several times, tried to pull at different parts before he heard a groan behind him. He was gently pushed aside by Vask who grabbed the pistol and, in a few quick motions, pulled out a small block of metal and put something else in.

He handed the pistol to Archer and asked, “Didn’t you read the manual?”

“Manual?” Archer asked as he reholstered his pistol.

“The case the Striker came in had an OSD in it that when put in your omni-tool would download the user manual. It’d show you how to install mods, field strip, maintain it, and switch it to the practice slugs.”

“Ohhh,” Archer said as he realised his mistake. “Yeah, I threw that out.”

“Ugh, by Kalros’s…” Vask groaned as he put his head in his hands. He sighed and then grabbed Archer’s arm, activating his omni-tool. He went through his omni-tool for a couple minutes, and even pinned Archer’s arm to the desk as the human tried to pull his arm free from the krogan, ignoring the human’s weak punches and slaps to his back and head. Vask eventually let him go and pointed to the omni-tool. “I just downloaded a pirated copy of the manual. Read it.”

“Okay,” Archer said, going through his Omni-tool to make sure the krogan didn’t do anything else, “I’ll read it when I get home.”

“Now,” demanded Vask.

“You expect me to read an entire manual before our match starts?” Archer asked as he pulled up the manual and scrolled through the different pages, diagrams, and vids.

“No,” Vask said as he turned back to the desk, pulled his shotgun out and quickly changed it over to the practice slugs. “But you need to start somewhere, and doing it now lets me know that you’re actually doing it.”

Archer groaned, stomped over to a bench and sat down to start reading through the long and dull document. After having spent several minutes reading the same page about the gun where it talked about mass accelerators, and magnets, Archer turned off his omni-tool.

“How long until it’s our turn?” he complained.

“Until they die or finish all three rounds.” Answered Vask as he sat down next to Archer on the bench.

Archer looked around the room and blushed when he saw all the other benches in the room were empty. He cleared his throat and asked, “Then they have to be finishing the third round soon, right?”

“With how long they’re taking, probably.” Vask said as he looked over his shotgun.

Archer looked at the gun in the krogan’s hands and asked, “So what kind of gun is that?”

Vask held up his shotgun with a smile, slowly rotating the grey and black gun to show it off at different angles “It’s an Armax Arsenal Avalanche VI that I’ve modded with a Heat Sink III, and a Kinetic Stabiliser IV.”

“What about that mod you wanted?” Archer asked, as he looked at how Vask lovingly stroked the barrel of the shotgun. “The one from the Terminus Systems.”

Vask brought his gun back down and holstered it, “It hasn’t come in yet, and I can’t badger the shop about it. Can’t risk C-Sec catching wind. It’d be a few thousand credits down the drain.”

“And jail time,” added Archer.

Vask scoffed, “Nope. I just need to give them a bit of fake information to make them think they could catch a bigger fish and then leave the Citadel for somewhere else. Preferably somewhere outside of Citadel Space. Like the Terminus Systems. Omega has plenty of work I could get if I have to leave here.”

Archer laughed, “Oh yeah. Just leave the Citadel when C-Sec has an open investigation on you.”

Vask shrugged, “It’s a lot easier than you think. Just gotta know where to go and who to pay off.”

A buzzer sounded in the room and a group of three turians walked, cheering, out from the other end of the room that Archer and Vask came in from.

One let out a loud woot, “Yeah! New arena record!”

“Well, that explains why they took so fucking long.” Archer grumbled to Vask in a hushed voice. “Think we can beat their record?”

Vask shook his head and stood up, “No, I have it on the easiest settings. So you can learn to hit a moving and hostile target.”

Vask made his way to the door the group of turians came in through and Archer quickly followed after. Archer took in the arena looking over the plain bridges and waist high walls.

“I expected something more interesting looking,” Archer said unimpressed.

“I told you that they’re working on getting new maps,” Vask said, pulling out his shotgun. “People come here for the combat experience, not the maps or enemies.”

Seeing the krogan pull out his gun, Archer pulled out his own pistol. He jumped when the pistol let out a loud bang and kicked back into his hand.

Vask slowly turned his head to glare down at the human who gave a sheepish grin in return, and took his finger away from the trigger.

Vask pushed Archer in front of him as a timer started to count down, and grumbled, “Stay in front of me. I don’t want to get shot.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Archer said guiltily.

A buzzer blared and three glowing fractals appeared floating above the ground in different places in the arena. Vask pushed Archer again and commanded, “Get to cover.”

Archer ran to a nearby waist high wall and crouched behind, holding his pistol to his chest as the enemies spawned. His arms got pulled away from him when Vask reached around him to point his pistol to the ground.

“Point the gun to the ground when not using it while unholstered, moron,” Vask told him as he fired his shotgun over the wall they were crouched behind.

Archer followed the krogan’s command and kept the gun pointed down as he peeked over the wall. His eyes followed a turian running with their gun pointed towards the pair who yelled, “Go, go, go! Enemies everywhere!”

Archer brought his pistol up, fired several times, and missed each shot.

“Don’t fire wildly,” Vask shouted over his shotgun, dispatching three turian pirates, “Choose your shots.”

Archer fired several more shots, missed each shot again before he yelled, “Fuck this!”

Archer stood up and threw his arm out, pins and needles rushed down his arm as he channelled dark energy. He flicked his wrist up, enveloped the pirate he had been firing at in a mass effect field and lifted him off his feet. The turian pirate floated in the air for not even a second before Archer brought his pistol back up and fired.

The hologram of the pirate evaporated and Vask gave out a cheer, “Great shot.”

Archer took his eyes off the enemies and gave Vask a huge smile. His smile was immediately wiped off his face when he felt something hard punch his left shoulder and sent him to the ground, clutching his shoulder.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” he yelled in pain and surprise. He felt a hand on his back, brushed it off and quickly got back to his feet. He threw his arm out with a yell, enveloped a turian in a mass effect field, and sent him flying back into the rest of his comrades, bowling them over. He fired his pistol at them, dispatching them all. His pistol started letting out a loud beeping tone and he looked at a small flashing red light on its side. He remembered from what little of the gun’s manual he was made to read before the match that it was overheated and that it could damage the gun if he kept firing in that state.

He looked over the arena and there weren’t any more enemies for this round. He heard a snicker next to him from Vask. He looked at him and snapped, “What are you smirking at?”

“That was a good use of your biotics,” he said approvingly.

“You said not to use my biotics,” Archer replied, confused.

“I said not to rely on them,” Vask said. “What you did is a great way of using your biotics. Supplementing them with a gun. That’s why your military keeps hounding you.”

He continued, explaining, “I said not to rely on them so you don’t overexert yourself. Using a gun with them will let you last longer.”

Archer smiled at Vask’s compliments. He decided to be a bit cheeky and rile the krogan up but was tackled by him to the ground before he could get a word out.

“I will destroy you!” yelled one of the enemies that had spawned while they were distracted talking.

“Ah, that’s why you did that,” noted Archer.

“You were distracted and would've gotten hit again and lost us the match,” said Vask.

“Fair enough,” nodded Archer, blushing. “But why are you still on top of me?”

Vask quickly got off of the human and took a couple steps back from Archer. Archer laid on the ground smiling up at the krogan who refused to look at him but would occasionally glance his way before firing at the enemies making their way to the pair.

Archer finally got up himself and joined Vask with a smile, firing at the holographic enemies, and occasionally using his biotics. He looked forward to fighting in the arena more often with the krogan.