Love and War

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"Maggie, you were attacked." Kandros replied firmly, though he still didn't open his eyes. "I never hated you, only what that bastard did to you."

"Brave? That woman?" Quinn snorted. "I hardly think so. She was a brainless idiot who only cared what would make her dear husband happy."

"I don't want to hold the gun." Connor muttered, dropping his on the table. "I like the knife grandfather gave me to dissect with. The gun is too heavy I can't move well with it I'm sure a lumbering beast can't understand."

"What is it with you and gains?" Tyros asked sadly. "Must it always be that way?" The truth was, he knew Quinn had given up on him.
 He was not the monster she longed for. It was no wonder she lumped him in the darkness. "I don't want anything. Does that surprise you?"

"Because you are weak." Brutus replied simply. "And don't expect me to accept it is because of your quarian blood. Either get strong, or die. There is no other choice." He added, picking he gun up and slamming it against Connor's chest.

"Yes." Betty replied simply. "Every creature in this universe wants for something. You most likely told Quinn you loved her, in order to receive her love in return." She added. "That was a gain, something you then traded when I told you you weren't monster enough for her. You didn't question what I told you, which would lead me to believe you never loved her at all. She was a bold and interesting risk in your otherwise mundane existence. You saw she was an unwanted outcast, like yourself, and thought she would simply want the same things you did."

Connor lost his temper quickly. He tossed the gun down and went after Brutus, knocking him to the ground. The gun clattered several feet away.

"I wanted to learn to read. I don't know,what made me think that she could teach me." Tyros snorted. "Seeing as I still cannot. I would call it a failure."

Brutus was laughing as he hit the ground with Connor on top of him. "That's right, boy! Let all that anger flow!" He sneered, aware of how high a price Reegar placed on keeping control at all times.

"You kidnapped the wrong sister for that." Betty pointed out. "Quinn never had any patience for anyone."

The attack wouldn't last long. The butt of Reegar's gun slammed into the side of the boy's head and sent him to the floor. "Stop this. It's not training. It's playing with a varren. Get it right or suffer. Do we understand?" 

"Indeed." Tyros said simply, shrugging. "I will see you in a few weeks, Betty. Unless...there is more?" He headed for the door, looking as if he'd grown bored with the whole thing.

"The kid can't even hold a gun." Brutus growled. "What am I supposed to do with that kind of weak?"

"No, my love." Betty replied, a definite purr to her velvety voice as she rubbed the swell of her belly. "Remember though, I want that girl dead." She reminded him.

"Fix it." Reegar hissed. "Or you will find me fixing something very precious to you." He didn't have to explain himself. He'd finally found a way to break the large turian and he hadn't even been the one to find her. 

Another week had gone by as Tyros say inside a ship that he abhorred. As usual there was no drawing out a creature that didn't want to be. He had all but decided to give up on this vessel and bring it back in.

Brutus was instantly clear in what Reegar meant. "And if he isn't strong enough? A quarian was. It made to withstand turian training."

The ship wasn't as empty as Tyros would think. It was dark, and certainly there was minimal life support. None of the sensors worked. It almost seemed like the perfect kind of bait.

"Then you adjust it." Reegar's tone was curt and thin. "As you well know my ship does not run like quarian so why should my grandson? Fix him or I will fix her. I keep her close to me for a reason., boy." 

Tyros looked over the scans that Betty had sent him, a cigarette bettween his lips. He'd already fallen in love with the girl he'd created in a heated moment of lust.

Brutus knew he could say little to that. "Yes. Sir." He replied, though it was quite clear he held no respect for Reegar.

While he was distracted with the scan, a pistol was pressed to the back of his head with enough force to bruise. "Now why would a spineless assassin be all the way out here?"

"Good boy." Reegar patted Brutus' cheek and turned on heel. "Play nice now." He purred. 
Connor was seated on the floor in his room when the large turian found him, talking on his omni tool. He was unaware that anyone was listening. "The voices aren't as loud today, grandmother. You were right." He said softly.

Tyros knew the voice immediately. He did everything he could not to react to it. "Peace and quiet. You know about that, don't you?" He breathed.

"And Reegar, he doesn't suspect?" Betty could be heard responding. 
Brutus was stood with his back to the wall by the door, not even daring to breathe when he heard the conversation. 

"Hard to find peace or quite, even in a jail cell, from a spineless coward moaning my own mother's name." Quinn hissed.

"I don't see him much so why would he?" Connor said softly. "I don't think that stupid turian does either. He's too busy with Lori. You asked me if shes happy and I think I can finally answer. Yes. She left for the chart room smiling."

"At least she showed interest in me." Tyros snapped. "And don't talk to me about moaning another's name. Or shall I remind you of the night you forced yourself in the king of the mercenaries?"

"Was the turian with her?" Betty asked, wondering what made turians so special that both of her eldest daughters had found love with them.

"The time I saved your life, or when you ran back to your first wife?" Quinn asked thinly. "Did I make you watch? Were you forced to watch me fuck someone who had brutally tortured and mutilated you?!"

Connor nodded. "He tackled her and he told her he loved her on their cot. I think he is teaching her how to break a hold. But she hasn't learned it yet. Or she wasn't trying very hard. They stayed on the cot for hours." He told Betty.

Tyros sighed. "I don't think it much different when you throw yourself into Ardwin's lap and stuck your tongue down his throat. I was sitting across the table Quinn!"

Betty was smiling, though Connor wouldn't be able to tell. "Oh sweet boy, of course she wasn't trying." She breathed. Already Betty treated this boy much better than her daughters, simply because of his gender. "She is the easiest way to break a proud man like Brutus. Love is weakness."

"Then you truly did flee like a coward, else you would have seen him hit me immediately after!" Quinn hissed. "And for the record, he kissed me! You couldn't love me like you did your wife!"

"So if I want him to leave me alone I need to listen to the voices and see if her blood is the color of her hair?" Connor asked. "I heard grandfather say the General isn't dead. I'm not sure what that means but by the way he was yelling I thought it important to tell you." Connor told Betty, turning his head slightly at the soft sound of shuffling in the hallway. 

"You were drunk when you kissed him. When your thoughts are not held back your true self comes out." Tyros muttered. "You know nothing about me apparently. I worshipped you and it was not enough. If I wasn't a monster it was not enough! It was the same with Ana!"

Betty now was most certainly not smiling. "The general? You are certain that's what you heard?" She asked, worried that things would suddenly go very wrong. She needed Connor to trust her, he was the son she had always wanted.

"I sold myself to keep you alive! I let my own people brand me a traitor to get you your freedom!" Quinn practically screamed, the gun jabbing into his skull harder with each statement. "You're the one who knows shit! You're the one so fucking willing to climb between my mothers thighs while I rotted for something YOU did!"

"I believe his term was the flipin flaming General but yes. Then he made us all swear not to tell Lori. He didn't want to get her upset or ruin his plans." Connor said, again looking toward the hallway. "I'm not sure what that meant either..."

"Something I did to save you!" Tyros shouted back. "I was stupid enough to believe that she would set you free if I accepted the contract to take out the General for her. She tricked me. Every moment was a trick! She never intended to let you go."

"Just do as he says and be careful." Betty warned, knowing how valuable this information was. "You know I can have someone collect you the second you agree to it." She added.
Outside Brutus was almost pinching himself to check if he was sleeping or not.

"After everything she did to me, you were stupid enough to believe her?!" A broken and vulnerable edge to Quinn's voice now.

"What about Brutus? I can't just leave him, grandmother. He...he saved my life. I...i stay for him. No matter how much he hates me." Connor admitted softly, not knowing that the very man he spoke of was listening right outside the door. 
He also had no idea that he was already dead when Brutus retrieved him from Hunter and the other kett. His body simply hadn't caught up with that fact yet.

"What choice did I have?!" Tyros howled, his chest heaving. His vision was beginning to swim as her thrusts with the gun got harder. "Things have changed since Kandros left. That General...is insane...was...damn it, Quinn. I was desperate. I thought I lost you! I was trying to get her to make me a kett! To make me a monster...save you...anything!" He used the edge to her voice to sieze the moment and turn with her. This time she was the one pressed to the monitors. "Don't you dare tell me you didn't want that bastard. Betty told me the truth. How you crave monsters...how when you saw whay really was you didn't want me anymore." Again he turned with her, shoving her against the wall with her arms above her head and his knee between her thigh. "Well, honey, you never gave me a chance before you tossed me aside, did you?" He hissed at her, pressing a firm kiss to her lips. "You deserved to lose me to her."

Brutus was shocked to hear those words coming out of Connor's mouth. He hadn't even thought the boy remembered much of anything before his time on Reegar's ship. 
"Uh... you ready yet, boy?" He finally shouted through the door, trying to sound no different than he had any other day. Suddenly it wasn't about training Connor for Lori's safety, it was training him so Brutus had back up when the time came to get Lori out of there.

If possible Quinn hated herself even more in that moment. She hated that her pulse raced as Tyros took control of her like he had, and that her blood was on fire from that one hard kiss. Despite this feeling, Quinn knew she had to play her part. She had to be the cold, heartless monster Tyros and the rest of the galaxy now believed her to be. "She's welcome to you." She spat. "A pathetic lapdog is no use to me, and that's all you are. Betty's obedient little puppy." The parts of Quinn's skin that were visible were no longer the pale human complexion Tyros had once explored. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but she was beginning to look a little more quarian in the way her flesh looked more of a very pale amethyst.

Connor said goodbye to his grandmother in a soft tone and again promised her he would call her if the need arose. 
Then he opened the door, giving Brutus a brooding look. "It's Eos, you know. It's been a year since we were there last." 

"More proof that she was right about you all along." Tyros responded bitterly. "You never loved me, only the monster you thought I was."

"Not gonna cry, are you?" Brutus asked, maintaining the same gruff attitude he had always had towards Connor.

Quinn was easily able to force her non organic arm free and was quick to slide the cool fingers around Tyros' throat before reversing their positions with him now slammed to the wall. "You're fucking the evil queen, and have the balls to tell me I'm the one with a monster fetish?" She sneered. "Don't think you're special. You're not the first sap to fall for her royal bitchness. You believe everything she tells you about me, which makes it pretty damn clear that you're the one who never loved me."

"I'm actually excited. Grandfather called it shore leave. He said there would be things to enjoy. He said you would teach me." Connor grinned. 

"You have no right to turn this on me." Tyros muttered, shaking his head. "This is all on you, Quinn."

Brutus nodded in agreement. "Sure kid, 'bout time someone taught you about fun." 

"If that makes falling asleep beside her at night easier for you, sure, pin it all on me." Quinn sneered.

"He said that he isn't allowing Lori to go."  Connor said as they passed the chart room. He actually took pleasure in the forlorn expression the young woman worn. 
"Are we visiting a bar or two? Maybe an asari?"

"Your mother is pregnant." Tyros said softly, knowing the news would tear her apart. He felt like a monster again. "And yes, it's mine."

"You're too young for that!" Brutus insisted. "We will train, and perhaps do a little climbing. If Lori isn't permitted shore leave, then there will be no fun had!"
"Hello Connor." A distinctly female voice greeted the young man, and an equally young quarian girl could be seen waving from a few feet away. 

The raw pain was right there for Tyros to see before Quinn could hide it behind a mask of indifference. "Don't flatter yourself." She managed to growl. "Once she realises she is again pregnant with a female she will either terminate it, or use the body for her sick experiments." She added, quite aware of how much her mother had longed for a son just as much as the general had.

Connor returned the wave, ignoring Brutus completely. "Loralie likes to hunt for ancient tech. Grandfather said to take her with us so..." He missed the body language of the female quarian completely. He saw her as nothing but a friend. "I don't see how we'll have time to go climbing." 

"She is aware that she carries a female. We have named her Kali." Tyros said softly. "You have shown your feelings for me. Perhaps this child will find it in her heart to love me when no one else could..or perhaps you will end my suffering. "

The girl waving wasn't even of pilgrimage age yet, so was clearly the daughter of someone on board. She giggled when Connor returned her wave, and even though she wore her helmet, it was clear she was most likely blushing too.
Brutus saw the reaction and smirked. "Who's that? Your girlfriend?" He teased, though it was much effort on his part not to grin at the news that Lori would indeed be joining them.

Quinn was again expressing her own pain in her eyes as she continued to hold Tyros against the wall. "It's pretty obvious how much you want a family, yet something else Queen Betty took from me." She breathed. They could hate each other all they wanted for past misdeeds, but Betty's actions meant they would forever have a link.