Characters & Pairing: Shepard, Garrus Vakarian. Shepard/Garrus
Genre: Slice of life, humor
Disclaimer: I own nobody
Notes: For the prompt “Pumpkin” on
100_colours Timeline: Set during ME2
Summary: Shepard drags Garrus out in the streets to let him witness firsthand a very old human tradition
For the occasion, the city’s lights had been extinguished. Streets were lit by lanterns in suspension in the air, slowly moving and casting weird shadows around them. Garrus ducked out of the way of a small human, dressed with an old-fashioned cloak, in a black seemingly-heavy-but-soft material. He gazed at the funny markings on her face as she passed. Usually, humans didn’t wear such bold and flashy patterns: they never seemed inclined to show their clans. However, tonight, many younglings were out, noisy and agitated as ever. For a some peculiar reason the turian couldn’t fathom, they were also wearing strange costumes.
Shepard was walking next to him, grinning like the madman he was while he was carrying an ridiculously bright orange crate. He hadn’t told him what was going on there: why the hell he had insisted to drag him there in the crowd of what felt nothing else but tiny crazy humans, attacking the intercoms of the buildings in their way.
“Are they playing to some sort of war game?”
Garrus asked as from the corner of his left eye, he saw a child throwing an egg at an adult. He couldn’t decide what was the weirder, the fact the grown-up apologize, like the brat’s action was justified, or said brat’s blue make-up and prothesis that made him-or her, he couldn’t really tell with small humans-look like an asari. Well, minus the breasts and butt but the idea was there. The kid wasn’t wearing much either.
Now that he payed attention, similar scenes were happening all around: the little humans would go to adults, chanting and screaming and moving their hands in the air until they were given things. When they didn’t receive anything, they would just throw food back while laughing their asses out.
“What the hell is happening there, Shepard?”
“You’re all pussies, I’m gonna ask them!” A high-pitched voice made Garrus wince-how could humans stand the shrill of the younglings was still a mystery to the turian-nearly followed by a cupped hand that stopped too close to his mandibles to his liking. “Trick or treat!” A grotesque sewn yahg was in front of him, much smaller than the real deal and its mouth full of fake teeth-not scary at all-opened on a child with brown skin splashed with a nebula of dark dots on his face. Big eyes of the color Palaven’s sand staring at him with determination. “Trick or treat!” The kid repeated, moving his hands like it should mean something obvious to Garrus.
He turned to Shepard for help. The commander’s grin was now so large it was plain goofy. In addition to the malicious glow in his eyes and the way he had rose an eyebrow at him, Garrus knew the smug bastard wouldn’t lift a finger to help him.
“Okay, then! Gimme a big bad trick for the big bad turian.” The human in yahg disguise said, before turning to the children cowering behind-probably friends-clearly afraid to approach him. They passed to the kid a round thing of the same orange of Shepard’s crate, almost as larger than a head and definitely bad smell. “TRICK FOR YA, TURIAN!” The false yahg hurled while smashing the thing on his clothes. It exploded on him, orange goo mixed with bits of hard flying everywhere. Garrus hands instantly flew to protect his mouth when he identified the sour odor of rotting food. “That’s so going on the Extranet!”
Before Garrus could grab her by the hood of the costume and scold the brat, Shepard nudged with his elbow. He opened the crate, revealing it contained nothing but sweets, then took a handful of it and give it to the small humans around. They squealed in delight.
“Trick or treat, Garrus. That’s Halloween for you.”
“You could have warn me.” Garrus replied, examining a long fiber of the food-thing that had now ruined his clothes. “This food-thing stinks and could easily be as sticky as your grenades, Shepard.”
“Field experience, Garrus, there’s nothing better. The food-thing is called a pumpkin by the way.”