Once more, with feeling

[mm_lettie]

For quite some time now, Tali'Zorah had been feeling under the weather. She hadn't taken the necessary precautions with a hole she'd torn in her suit (well, that a stray bullet had torn in her suit) and she had been illThe problem with this wasn't the fact that she felt sick, for quarians spent a distressing percentage of their lives feeling 'under

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[turiansnarker]

“Heard you caught a bug,” said a low flanging voice from her blindspot to the left behind her. The speaker was the Normandy’s only other dextro-amino based crewmember, Garrus, who’d been waiting patiently, arms folded, shoulder braced against the corner of the wall by the medbay doors. He pushed himself off the wall, smirking amicably at the clearly ill-tempered quarian, his next words slanting audibly toward less humorous concern. “Nothing Yeoman Chambers should start wringing her hands about, right?”

Garrus chose not to bring up the circulating rumor that Shepard had had to break up a near gun-fight between Tali and Legion after the geth had pulled some decided unsubtle inorganic data mine on the quarian. The other members of the crew had, for obvious reasons, all mostly sided with Tali’s ‘shoot-the-goddamn-geth’ strategy, but the Commander had other ideas. If he knew Tali, and he liked to think he still did, their leader’s disapproval - however brief - wouldn’t sit well with her.

“You know how she worries about you.”

[gofor_theoptics]

"She worries about me because it's her job, Garrus, not because she really cares about how people are doing." That might not have been true, but at this point she didn't want to have to discuss Yeoman Chambers -- she was still too upset. "I would not have anything to complain about if Shepard wasn't so insistent that having that conniving, slithering machine about was a good idea!" Tali threw her hands up into the air, turning to face Garrus fully.

She knew that Garrus had also mentioned her sickness, but again -- it wasn't something that bothered her too terribly. "How can the Commander take its side after it tried to steal from me!" She might have hated the geth, wanted them wiped out of the universe for what they had done to her people, but she hadn't tried to steal from it.

She scowled underneath her mask. "I should have jammed the doors to the AI core," she muttered with a shake of her head, looking down.

[turiansnarker]

Garrus wasn’t willing to take any side in particular without the details from both, but because it was Tali he was inclined to take her side just a little bit right off the bat. He tilted his head slightly, considering her. Tali’s temper was generally difficult to kindle outside of doing openly mean or threatening things, but a geth taking data of any kind from her so soon after the events at the Migrant Fleet… well he could understand her shoot-first-forget-questions-later attitude toward Legion. It was a bizarre creature to all of them and Garrus had advised Shepard against bringing it aboard in the first place

[gofor_theoptics]

Talking about what her father had done was -- embarrassing, to say the least. Garrus didn't seem like the sort of person who would judge her for it, but it was still not something that she wanted to discuss in public. She glanced to the elevator as it opened.

"I -- come on. We can talk somewhere else." She was still irritated and twitchy, and it showed. She took a few quick steps toward the main battery, hoping that Garrus would join her because -- well, at least he was half-agreeing with her. If he knew the whole story, would he still agree? The thought of him thinking badly of her bothered her much more than she had anticipated it would. Wasn't that lovely

[turiansnarker]

“Yeah, let’s meet back at my room. I think I left my rifle out for cleaning anyway.” He started to head out of the forward battery alcove with her and, as they parted way to their separate rooms for the moment, he added, backhanded, “and don’t get cold feet and back out. You’ve started this rolling and there’s nothing so rude as backing out of drinks with a turian. You’re committed now, vas Normandy.” He waved as he turned down the hall. “See you soon

[gofor_theoptics]

That was the hard thing about knowing that most of the Fleet probably didn't trust you with a grain of salt - you didn't really have that many people to go back to. Sure, the woman who had practically raised her -- her 'aunt' -- would grieve if she was gone, but she didn't have family to worry about. The suicide mission seemed almost more bearable when she thought about it, even if she was starting to feel as if she was more worried about everyone else's survival than her own. She couldn't help it, not really - she'd grown up putting the needs of the many before her own needs.

After Garrus' comment she was tempted to back out of this whole thing. Drinking, according to everything she'd seen and heard, involved lowering inhibitions. She wasn't sure if she was even capable of that.

Still. She gave her faceplate a quick polish before she headed out of her room with the purifier under one arm, taking a deep breath and knocking on Garrus' door. It sounded louder than it really was in the relative quiet of the halls.

[turiansnarker]

“So you didn’t back out,” Garrus laughed by way of invitation. The door opened and the quarian entered holding a strange looking devise that could have been either some kind of vacuum or a small bomb with a cocktail shaker attached to it. Come to think of it, Garrus hadn’t ever seen Tali eat or drink anything or if he had, he hadn’t noted is as anything worth remembering. He’d always figured they had an internalized system within their suit for that and never thought more about it

[gofor_theoptics]

That made her laugh. She shook her head, choosing a foot locker next to Garrus but not sitting on the same one as him. That would be presumptuous, and he had invited her here as a friend - she didn't want to assume anything. "I wouldn't be able to tell you either way, but I do not think that it would change the quality of things much. I could purify some for you as well, if you're curious."

She wouldn't even have to waste time sterilizing the purifier, since it did that itself. Tali glanced over to Garrus then.

"...you probably haven't seen me eat much. Or drink." She tried not to do it publicly too often, honestly, if only to save her the hassle of explaining it to random members of the crew. She wouldn't mind if Garrus asked, though - friendship had its privileges.