Drabbles Challenge Entry #1 - Idle Gossip
Title: Idle Gossip
Rating: T
Universe: Mass Effect cir. ME2
Characters: Tali, Kasumi
Synopsis: Drinks and chatting about boys.
starpanties requested a fluffy Tali and Kasumi friendship fic for my Drabble Challenge Meme.
Hope it's to your liking, starpanties . :)
The last thing Tali’Zorah expected after lunch was for Kasumi to jump her in the hallway. “Jump” was being kind. Mauled by a rabid nathak looking for gossip was more accurate. Well, not the “looking for gossip” part… just the “mauled by.” No nathak Tali had ever heard of was interested in gossip, or doing anything other than eating its prey.
“Girl gossip!” Kasumi announced like that explained anything and everything as she latched onto Tali’s arm and tried to drag her away from the elevator.
“Keelah!”
“I want to know everything! Come on, I’ll make you a dextro-amino drink.”
“I… what? But…” Tali finally relented, and they walked down to Port Observation (if one could call it that-the deck painting still needed retouching after Tali’s gloved hands scored it).
“So!” Kasumi said as soon as the door slid shut behind them. She rubbed her hands together.
Tali made a mental note to check all her pouches before and after leaving Kasumi’s den. After the day they’d had, a little chatting and a drink sounded fun, so she found herself relaxing, a small smile at Kasumi’s enthusiasm turning her mouth up a bit.
“You and Joker, eh?” Kasumi asked, giving the quarian a nudge with her elbow.
The small smile quickly turned into a look of dismay. “What?” Oh, Keelah, this was not the type of gossip she was wanting.
Kasumi frowned. “Huh. I thought I smelled that chemistry all the way planetside.”
Tali shook her head and took a seat as Kasumi mixed the drinks. “No. Mass accelerator vapor, engine lubriant, and possibly ramen, but there is no chemistry.”
“But I saw you two in the mess! You bumped into him.” Kasumi’s eyes lit up as she slid Tali’s drink to her. “It was like fireworks. That one perfect moment where you gaze into each other eyes for what seems like forever.”
Tali’s eye twitched and she gave a rasping snort. “First,” she gestured at her helmet and envirosuit, “Joker can't see my eyes. Second, there wasn't any kind of moment. Third, Joker and I didn’t “bump” into each other -we ran headlong into one another getting out the way of Grunt’s running for Mess Sergeant Gardner’s special cookies. And fourth, the only fireworks were the swearing and rude gesturing when Joker realized that I'd broken his arm.” She made the finger gesture Joker had given her as they had untangled from the deck. “I had to look this up on the extranet. Do you know what this means? It’s only meant for the five-fingered. It has no meaning among my people or the krogan and the krogan databases were the first places I looked. Whenever the turians do it, it's part of their claw salute.”
Kasumi nodded. “Yeah. I get that a lot from humans. Usually after I’ve filched the priceless item the guy's trying to protect, and he usually doesn’t even know who he’s flipping off.”
Still to go:
alice_the_raven - Anderson/Garrus
sinvraal - Wolverine in Japan
starpanties - Wrex and Ashley shoot the breeze (and ignite a war the likes of which has never b---wait, wait, that can't be right)
korinacaffeine - Thane, Garrus, femShep triangle
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