capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Tali and Garrus
WHERE: Tali's apartment!
WHEN: Now-ish?
WARNINGS: Uh, awkwardness?
SUMMARY: After a relatively short dinner date, Tali and Garrus end up falling asleep on the couch. Yep.
FORMAT: Prose to start!

She was sure they'd both meant to do something a little more exciting after arriving in her apartment than fall asleep on the couch, but the fact was that the last few days had been extremely draining on them both.

They'd settled in and turned on the television in order to fill the silence that came up now and again, and before she'd known what was going on, she was snoring quietly. She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she woke up, but she was acutely aware of how poor an angle her neck was at.

"I suddenly feel old."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"...at least we made it through dinner before falling over," Garrus said, shifting slightly-- he rubbed the back of his neck, wincing. He'd still been human when they dozed off, and hadn't reverted back. Stupid humanity-required-to-eat clause.

"Been a hell of a couple of weeks, hasn't it?" he offered, shifting -- an arm slung around her shoulders awkwardly. He never really knew how to sit as a human, and they'd got from companion to draped together in the stealth nap that had taken them down. "We-- we'll have to do this again. When there's not a crisis on the horizon, or -- one we're fresh out of."

Cthulhu might rise again before that happened, but hey. It was worth a shot.

She still wasn't sure what to do in this situation either -- being close to someone was nice, even if it was something she had no real experience with. She leaned into his side a tad, tugging a strand of hair between her fingers. Old habits died hard.

"I didn't think I was all that tired, but I guess it makes sense. Between Times Square and the space station..." She shook her head.

"Never a dull moment in this place. And here I was, hoping it would be a paid vacation." Right.

"That's like calling the two years without Shepard a sabbatical." They both knew it just wasn't so.

He shifted, got comfortable, but didn't resume his Turian form. He knew very well which body had less plates and more padding and it was the vaguely Italian looking gentleman with the scars beside her.

"We'll -- try again. Soon," he said, though his lips quirked in a grin. "If, ah, my company wasn't so taxing that you passed out rather then endure it."

"If you want to blame anyone for my passing out, you can blame the Skrulls." She laughed quietly, shaking her head.

"I'd like that, though." Dinner had been nice, and even if they'd just slept -- that had been pleasant too. They'd both needed it, and she slept better just being near to people that she was familiar with.

"I think the Skrulls have enough problems," he replies. "My blame will be pretty trivial in the long run, though."

But he nodded once, and then shifted. "Going to change back--" and did so --he got less comfortable, more scaled, and half a head taller. "Ah-- better." He still looked weird in the morphing clothes Edna had made for him before she vanished, but -- oh well. It was what it was.

That was one thing she hadn't had to worry about, since shifting meant that she would be back in her enviro-suit. She did the same, though, if only because it was a little strange to have only one of them looking like they should.

"I'm sure you're right. Vulcanus seems to be the bigger problem, anyway."

"I wish--Shepard were here. We'd figure something out, go on a mission to handle this, and it'd be handled." Grunt's loss bothered him, too. Mordin and Grunt had come and gone, and -- so far, so good, he was still here with Tali...

No use worrying about the maybes. He might vanish next, leaving her on her own. Then what? Tali could take care of herself-- but the thought of her support structure... Who would she be with? Who could she count on? Ghost and his band of spooks? Yeah, right.

"Or Grunt." His departure had hit her harder than Garrus, she was sure, if only because she'd felt at least as if she could be useful, trying to help teach him what was right about the human world. The only real comfort had been seeing him disappear right in front of her: knowing that he wasn't taken and turned into a Skrull or worse.

"Shepard being here would mean no Shepard at home, though. I don't -- know how well the Commander would take to being pulled away from the mission, you know?"

"Or Mordin -- yeah, I miss them too." He knew where that was going-- and he slung and arm around her shoulders for it, and damned the consequences. They were what they had, and -- we wasn't about to lose it.

"Time stops or changes," he says. "We'll go right back to home, right? Though I doubt Shepard would care."

"It will be strange if we end up going home and not remembering anything about this place. Months and months of our lives just -- gone."

Which was a concern too, honestly. She'd made friends and contacts with people here that she didn't want to just forget about at the drop of a hat...

"Only to return when he come here. If we come back with them at all." He sighs, and then says, "Sometimes I still think the bizarre idea that this is a Geth or Reaper sim is actually more comforting than the reality of it."

Garrus found odd things comforting.

"I'd rather take my chances with thinking we just need to reprogram Lachesis than be in some sort of -- geth entertainment zone." There's some biases that are going to be hard for Tali to get rid of, and not wanting to be a slave to a machine race is definitely one of them.

"Yeah, I know." And he didn't mind her biases, since he understood and even shared some of them. After all, the Geth were trouble.

But that was something new.

"Do you really think she can be programmed? I mean, teleporting rogue AI-- how do you even get close?" You can't reprogram her if she teleports you to the middle of the Baltic Sea with no boat.

She sighed, shaking her head. "It's less that I think it will be easy to reprogram her and more that right now destroying her is a physical impossibility." She had some ideas on who would be able to get in close to Lachesis, but bringing him up right now seemed like it would spoil the mood.

Yeah, one could only guess who that might be-- and his inclusion into a night where they're supposed to be... ...well, he's sometimes nto sure, but-- close?-- Yes, Ghost would certainly bring the mood down.

"What was that line in that awful movie? 'Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure'? Course, than we're all stuck here."

"And I don't think that's something any of us want." Even if it was nice to think about sometimes, being trapped in a place that didn't rely on you to keep the end of the world from happening ... she couldn't really just shrug off that responsibility, knowing it was there in another universe.

Garrus was even less able to -- it was simply a part of him, down to hi Turian bones. You just didn't forsake duty. Just as there were no Turian civilians, the likelihood of finding a Turian oathbreaker (alive and in one piece) or a Turian deserter was fairly low.

"No, it isn't." He considers, and then says, "Maybe we're all clones! Nah, that's a little too bad-movie-night for me, even."

Not that cloning wasn't possible--but on this scale? Whatever.

"I don't think that mentioning cloning after all the Skrull problems is really good taste, Garrus." She shook her head.

"I think you're right, though. Precise cloning is hopefully far too complex for Lachesis." Or at least there would be some sort of ... evidence, she'd hope.

"No, I suppose it's not," he says, mandibles fluttering in a grimace.

He paused, and then reached up, tugging briefly on her hood the way she often did on her hair. "You want to walk? I could stretch my legs a bit." And clear the air--both of dark thoughts about things they couldn't affect, and the things they could.

"Might be a good idea. Get some fresh air, at least." Or as fresh as it could be when you breathed it through a mask.

She slipped off the edge of the couch and motioned toward the door. "Maybe we can get something while we're out." Frozen yogurt was always welcome.

"We could," he said; he didn't feel too much like freaking the norms -- and slipped back into his human form. "What's around here, anyway? Anything tasty? Gotta say, the human tastebuds are growing on me. Though I still can't stand barbecue."

Go figure.

"Any meat other than fish still makes me pretty ill. There's one of those make-your-own sundae places that's got all sorts of good toppings, though."

It wasn't difficult to be tastier than nutrient paste. She slipped back into her form as well, grabbing her jacket on the way out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only