“Hm? Oh.” Dimmel does feel somewhat uncomfortable being naked in front of a woman; at least Mal doesn’t tower over him like most salarian women do. Still, he goes for the nearest pair of pants and quickly pulls them on, face tightening when the movements are faster than his knee would like.

“What sort of movie?” he asks when he’s decent.

I don’t have any particular approval or disapproval of them. I don’t know much about politics, but I hope their expansion slows down—otherwise there will be trouble. Individual humans I’ve met tend to be somewhat arrogant or ignorant, but I’d consider that a side effect of their newness rather than something inherently human.

I admit I do like their culture—first contact with them was still recent when I was a boy, so there were introductory lessons on them in school. I like how new they are—of course I approve of cultural blending, but human entertainment doesn’t have any of the tropes or traditions that have become standard over thousands of years of contact with other species. Completely different. Watching their old television is an experience.

-scowls, grabbing a shirt and starting to button it- Spare me the theatrics. Even if you knew a thing about salarian anatomy, it’s only you aliens who care about nudity so much.

[TEXT] Yes, of course I have time. It’ll be good to see you again, work has been demanding over the last week. Did you want to get something to eat? Or order out? I just finished cleaning, but I’m afraid there isn’t much in my cupboards.

No. No.

Dimmel has never enjoyed the attentions of the grey men, but this must be something that should be off-limits. It’s been over twenty years since he talked like that—sometimes he still stops and restarts sentences when he gets distressed, and some words he does get stuck on if he’s nervous, but those aren’t terribly strange. Nobody would guess what those habits were artifacts of without aid. He got over it when he was a boy—he’s more than a grown man now.

Closing his omni-tool, he opens his mouth to swear in agitation and—stops. Even just to test, he doesn’t want to hear it again. Maybe he can just be silent for the next five hours…

From her? I can’t think of anything. She’s not a bad person, but she’s very inexperienced. Some of her habits have gotten better lately, and some of them…haven’t. At least she hasn’t made any fatal mistakes while learning.

It tends to be something one of us has heard of before, or sometimes just a popular entry from a certain genre. There’s no strict system. -still slightly awkward over what happened before- Of course you can choose one. What did you have in mind?

Optimistic. And…apprehensive. I knew the Citadel didn’t tolerate the structural violence that was a part of Illium, but I arrived with no plans—no job, no apartment. I had money, but it wasn’t a savings that could be lived off of. On top of that, C-Sec was sniffing around from the moment I stepped off the shuttle. Suspected me of some greater underworld involvement, money laundering or something. No charges, of course, but they wanted to let me know they were around, wanted to show their horns off. Things were uncomfortable for a few days.

Dimmel frowns. That’s where Srikit usually sits—surely he hasn’t sat there so often as to damage the cushioning, has he? He reaches out to touch it, trying to discern if it’s just a coincidental fold.

6. What languages do they speak? Do they have any idiosyncrasies or identifiable patterns of speech, word usages, etc?

Dimmel’s first language is salarian standard; his Aeghor accent is mostly worn away, but when impaired (drunk, sleepy, drugged, etc) he tends to mess up his ‘luh’ sounds. His speech tends to be proper and refined, but not pretentious; he comes off as consummately professional. Slang and simpler words do bleed into his sentences when he’s low on energy or very relaxed, however.

He learned the Terminus trade language as a matter of survival, working in the Terminus systems where translator failure was a serious risk. He knows the tridactyl sign alphabet of the same language, although he’s not fluent in communication. And when he went back to college, he took English for the language credit. His English is significantly rockier than either of his main languages; he sticks to simple sentences to avoid making mistakes, and he doesn’t use it on a regular basis. His accent migrates all over the globe, having heard most conversational English through ancient television.

13. What decision in their past did they most analyze and fret over after the fact?

His decision to leave Nasurn was almost entirely impulse—he had been trying to plan and save and think of something to do with himself with no concrete ideas until seeing an advertisement for cheap travel via cargo flights. He left with little money, no connections, and no prospects; out in the black he learned that his most viable options were indentured servitude, sex work, or mercenary grunt. All three options terrified him, but he chose merc work because of his affinity with tech. Eclipse life was frightening for him in the beginning; a new world, surrounded by aliens, where the penalty for losing his job was homelessness and probable death. He agonized a lot about whether leaving Nasurn was the right choice—before his first combat, after his first kill, after his first critical injury. He wondered if maybe it would have been better to just suck it up and tough out living in the shadow of his family.

As he became more comfortable in Eclipse, he fretted over it less and less, but it’s only recently he’s come to the conclusion that he absolutely made the right choice.

15. Where in their body do they keep stress or tension? 

When he was young, he kept it in his legs. Bouncing his foot, tapping, pacing. Agile and ready to move at the first opportunity. It’s become less of an option these days, though he still paces when he’s very upset—he just pays the price in aches and twinges from his bad knee for doing it. Now his stress builds in his back, shoulders, and neck—he holds himself much more stiffly, and tension headaches are common.

20. Do they like to travel? How do they pack and prepare?

Dimmel has never actually been on vacation—on the rare occasions he does take time off, he doesn’t leave the Citadel, doesn’t see a point in going to strange places alone. Technically he travelled all over the Terminus Systems as an Eclipse mercenary, but it was all hot landings and combat drops unless it was security work—in which case, exploration still wasn’t an option. Dimmel doesn’t think of it as proper traveling. When he has to pack, he’s an efficient packer and a good planner, likely to remember the basic, essential items others may forget. He’s the type to use checklists and make schedules to be sure of catching the transport on time. Annoying to have nagging you about extra socks, but you probably wouldn’t have remembered socks if he hadn’t asked, so it’s more or less worth it.

7. What clothing do they like to wear, and what do they wear most often?

Dimmel’s broad distaste for salarian culture manifests in little rebellions, clothing being one of them. He dislikes typical salarian chest bars, finding them clunky and gaudy (and many of them are just a little too wide for his shoulders, making them uncomfortable to wear without tailoring), and has a fondness for human-inspired fashion. Suits, button-downs, ties; when it comes to more casual clothing he still prefers a classy style, though he also liked wide-necked shirts. It’s rare that he shows more skin than his forearms, and it’s a matter of practicality as well as preference—Dimmel gets cold easily, and his legs are quite scarred.

27. Do they have children? Do they want children? What names would they choose?

Dimmel has no children; he would never have been considered contract material when he was young, but even before he became wealthy he washed his hands of salarian society. Although he is technically on his family register, he is not accepting contracts. However, the only real barrier he has with children is the restrictive salarian family sytem; while he refuses to play into that, he has nothing against the idea of children. But, he has accepted that it’s effectively impossible for him to have any, and doesn’t allow himself to want them.

30. Do they have any allergies or chronic conditions?

Dimmel has no allergies; in fact, he has a wider range of food tolerance than most salarians, having adjusted well to alien foods like caffeine and dairy out of necessity. His chronic issues are mostly a result of his history and lifestyle rather than genetics. Mercenary work left him with a crushed knee, overwork, stress, and space station life leads to his weak immune system, and a chronic aversion of proper sleep makes him rely on coffee and power naps to get through the day.

His stomach churns at the topic that he tries not to think about every day, but sneaks into his mind like a stagehand behind the curtain when he sees the plates for dinner, the reminders in his omni-tool for doctor’s visits every other month, the clothes in the dresser Gawmer doesn’t wear because they no longer fit. “I…”

Sometimes Dimmel tries to budget their time together appropriately, manage Talm’s with the same ruthless efficiency as his own work schedule. They can’t just lay in bed together—they should be out doing something more worthy with the time they have, some new experience or adventure. But that isn’t what Gawmer wants—he wants to do things that make him happy, and sometimes that is lying in bed when they don’t need to sleep. It’s not always a comfort to Dimmel, but sometimes he can touch the arms around his shoulders and feel it’s alright for now.

But he worries. Does Gawmer have to bend down farther than he used to when they kiss? Are two kilos in a month natural variation, muscle weight, or something they need to take to the doctor? His throat tightens and his hands shake whenever Gawmer has a nightmare—because now Gawmer’s body swelling and rotting is his nightmare, too.

Dimmel does his best to trap his fears, cage them with logic and science and planning. But he knows that no matter what he does, he will look back one day and say, “I should have done more.”

Is it still fear if the final outcome was always certain?

“If you’re ready to despair, fine. But I’m not. The Miracle of Palaven, at Tuchanka, the millions of extra forces gained at Rannoch with the geth.” He doesn’t look personally cheered by the participation of the geth, but he’s willing to accept their military advantage. “And the Citadel is still the most well-defended place in the galaxy. Life as we know it will survive.”

“Would I still be here if I thought the galaxy was doomed?” He shakes his head. “I’m not saying there won’t be casualties; there already are. But the galaxy won’t end.”

“W-what?!” It’s more shock and confusion than fear; Dimmel keeps his money in a few separate accounts, and never more than the bank is insured for. The accounts should only be accessible by his own omni-tool, which is gene-locked to him, and so—?

Still, he breathes a sigh of relief when his omni-tool shows his accounts intact. “What was the point of that?”