Work Text:
The moment Shepard steps out the lift with her morning coffee in hand and a sinking feeling in her stomach, she knows today is the day.
She’d been expecting this sooner or later, of course, but she thought she had more time. She’d meant to stage more loud conversations around the ship about her planned shore leave, or how she’d given herself a few shifts off to get a good eight hours sleep, or - or something like that -
It’s too late for any damage control now, judging by the scene that greets her by the galaxy map at Traynor’s workstation. It’s unusual enough to see Cortez in the CIC, but it’s the way that Cortez and Traynor are bent over in hushed conversation that really gets Shepard’s hackles up.
Well, the best thing to do now is to just get it over with. She’s always been one for short and sharp over long and drawn out.
Shepard grits her teeth and tightens the grip on her mug as the doors of the lift close behind her.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Traynor is saying, in an agitated whisper. “It just feels a bit… interfering, doesn’t it?”
Steve leans further over the console. “You don’t think he’s right?”
“I’m not sure that’s any of my business, really. Can’t we just say EDI set the AI core on fire again?”
“If that gets her in Port Observation, sure -“
“Morning,” Shepard says loudly, watching both of them jump like startled cats. She takes a determinedly casual sip of her coffee as Traynor just stares at her and Cortez snaps into a polite salute.
“Commander! I was just - um.” Traynor gestures vaguely at her workstation. “Er -“
“Small problem with the Elkoss license, sir,” Cortez says, much more smoothly.
Fine. So they’re still playing this game, then.
“All sorted?” Shepard eyes them over the top of her coffee.
“All sorted,” Cortez says, calm as anything while Traynor nods in relieved and frantic agreement. He wrinkles his nose as Shepard blows absently across the top of her still steaming drink, sending some wafting in his direction. “That’s… a strong coffee, Commander.”
“I like it strong.”
“Oh, good lord.” Traynor leans closer to take a sniff. “Shepard, what the hell is in that?”
“Coffee,” she says defensively, clutching the cup to her chest with a glare. “And… sugar.”
Traynor keeps sniffing after her drink in a rather accusatory manner, Shepard feels. “Why can I smell gravy? Steve, can you smell that?”
“It is a bit meatier than you’d expect from coffee,” Cortez says, at least sounding a little apologetic.
“Fine,” Shepard says, still glaring at them. “I didn’t have time for breakfast, so I mixed in one of those powdered field rations -“
Traynor looks as though she’s just announced she was drinking toilet water, which is unnecessarily over-dramatic. “Oh, Shepardp.”
“You can hardly even taste it once you add sugar.”
“That’s just a sad indictment on how long it’s been since you had either good coffee or a real meal,” Cortez says, sharing a pitying look with Traynor. “You see what I mean?”
“You know what? I think I really do.” Traynor says, looking so smug and conspiratorial that Shepard scowls and goes for another defiant mouthful of her coffee.
The sugar does not, in fact, entirely succeed at masking the culinary delight of ‘chicken style soy meal’, as the ration packet is so helpfully labelled. The trick is not to think about it too much, but her usual technique has been completely derailed by their interference.
Cortez winces as she swallows thickly on the mouthful, not quite managing to mask her own disgust. “Shepard, look, I’m not one for insubordination, but I’ve really got to put my foot down -“
“We can’t let you drink that,” Traynor says, plucking the mug from her grip. “It could probably be considered a war crime in Council space. Let’s get you some actual breakfast, and you’re not allowed to object or I’ll call Chakwas and tell her you’ve been sneaking extra stimulants from her stash to pull report writing all-nighters -“
Which is how, more or less, Shepard finds herself firmly marched down to the Crew Deck in front of an indignant and newly authoritative Sam, and bundled into Port Observation with a cup of deliciously bitter coffee and a nutribar made with actual oats and honey.
And, of course, Port Observation is already full of solemn faces which turn expectantly towards her as the airlock slides open, and Traynor shoos her inside.
Shepard looks around at the faces watching her, human and alien and reflective envirosuit plate, all her friends and coworkers and shipmates wearing a variety of concerned expressions, and braces herself for the inevitable.
She sits down heavily in the space on the couch that she’s ushered towards, and sighs at length as Sam and Steve take their own allocated places.
“Fine,” she says, scrubbing her hands over her face, “let’s just get this over with. I think I know what this is about. I know an intervention when I see one, and -“
“Actually,” Garrus says, calmly throwing something flat and rectangular toward her from where he’s sitting across from the couch. “This is a book club.”
Shepard just blinks for a long moment, fumbling the thing he threw at her as she tries not to drop either her fresh coffee or the ration bar.
“What?” she says blankly.
“The good news is that we already picked the first book,” Garrus continues, still smoothly but with a hint of a grin, “but the bad news is that Vega’s pick won the vote.” He gestures at the item in her lap.
“Hey, it’s a human classic!”
Shepard turns the book over in her hands slowly, breaking out into an incredulous grin when she reads the cover. “You all voted for Starship Troopers ?”
“He didn’t mention the giant bugs,” Tali says wearily, “or the xenophobia. Shepard, what’s a cold war? I don’t think James did a very good job at explaining it.” She’s holding up a datapad instead of the battered paperback Shepard has, and a quick look around tells her she’s the only one with a hard copy.
“Yeah, well,” James says, both defensive and sheepish. “I thought it'd be more like that old vid.”
“You mean you hadn’t even read it?”
Shepard turns away from their bickering and catches Garrus’ eye as she holds the book up and thumbs through its pages pointedly. She’s always had a weakness for physical books, ever since she was a kid, and they aren’t always easy to get hold of.
“Where’d you get this?”
He ignores her question, but his mandibles flick outwards in satisfaction. Definitely his doing, then. He’s clearly the ringleader of this entire thing, much to her amusement.
“We’ll get to that, Tali. The human Cold War is our second discussion point,” Garrus says, and Shepard raises an eyebrow, grinning even wider.
“You have discussion points?”
“This is a very serious book club, Shepard. Try to keep up.”
“Was this some kind of government sanctioned propaganda?” Liara asks, gesturing at her own datapad. “It has a clear recruitment agenda.”
Cortez snorts. “Unbelievably, not at all.”
“And surely you weren’t still advocating for corporal punishment in the twentieth century -“
Shepard is still grinning as she unwraps her nutribar, settling in for the show. There’s still a thousand messages needing her attention, reports to write, Primarchs to meet, and a war to win.
But it’s the best breakfast she’s had in a while.
“You’re missing the point,” Tali says, aggrieved. She points a lot when she gets animated, which Garrus insists is something she’s picked up from Shepard, who maintains that pointing is a common intra-species habit, whatever he says. Tali is pointing at Joker right now in an especially accusatory way.
“I’m just saying, all he has to do to clear his name in the last chapter is explain the mistaken identity incident, and if Nil’Fisma is just going to hang around in enemy disguise without telling anyone, maybe it’s kind of his own fault for getting shot.” Joker holds up his hands as there’s a general grumble around the table in the mess hall.
“Pretty harsh, Moreau.”
“Yeah, I’ll just start just putting on my reaper suit and strolling through the CIC. That’ll work out great.”
“But the point,” Tali says, punctuating the last word with another matching gesture, “is that clearing his name would get Faela exiled when she returned from her pilgrimage.”
“Fine, fine, but I don’t get why he didn’t tell her that. Now she just hates him for no reason.”
“He’s making it easier for her to accept that she’ll never see him again!”
“But it’s so miserable,” Joker says, stabbing a potato sullenly with his fork. “I thought you said this was a romance novel.”
“Actually, I’m with Joker on this one,” Shepard says, shrugging apologetically at Tali. “Pitching this as a romance was a bit misleading.”
It’s Shepard’s turn to face the disbelief of Tali’s pointing finger. “It’s the greatest quarian love story ever told!”
“It’s actually become very popular with turians in recent years,” Garrus adds, in a very brown-nosing manner, Shepard feels. “Tali, did you ever see that vid, a couple of years back?”
She snorts. “With Nil rewritten as a turian? Garrus, if you’re about to tell me you enjoyed that offensive excuse for an adaptation -“
“Er, well -“
“Thing is, Tali,” Shepard says with a grin, sparing Garrus from whatever feeble excuse was about to follow, “if the turians take to something, that’s usually a pretty good indicator it’s not especially romantic.”
“Ooh, burn.” Joker leans forward on his elbows to crow at Garrus with delight. “Your girlfriend just said your species sucks at romance.”
“Also,” Shepard continues, ignoring him, “human romances always have happy endings.”
Garrus coughs. “Is that, er, a euphemism?”
“Mind out the gutter, Vakarian. It’s just convention that the leads always end up happily together.” Shepard shrugs again. “Not one of them exiled for life and the other thinking he betrayed their people and abandoned her.”
“Well,” Tali says, taken aback. “You mean, every time? Isn’t that… boring?”
“Nah, humans love a happy ending.”
“Who doesn’t?” Garrus says mildly, trying to catch her eye.
“Gross,” Joker says, with deep and heartfelt disgust. “Can you not involve me in your weird turian flirting? Shepard, tell him he’s bad at romance again, or I’ll have to get the spray bottle.”
Shepard just grins as she gathers up her tray, with a suspicion she’s already running late for the meeting Chakwas set up to secure more medical supplies.
Usually, she’d have bolted down the last of her lunch and been first in the CIC, ready to take the call ten minutes early. Chalk it down to being so busy that her standards are slipping, maybe, but Chakwas can handle a few minutes without her.
Garrus watches her shrewdly, cocking his head to one side. “So… usual time in Port Observation?”
She shouldn’t, really. She has a million things to do that are objectively far more pressing than listening to Joker insulting Tali’s favourite book -
“You bet,” she says.
“You know, Doc,” Vega says, sounding a little morose, “when you said this book had been banned on Thessia, I kinda thought it might be -“ Everyone in the room turns to look at him expectantly, including Liara, and he clears his throat. “Uh, that -“
“You thought…?” Shepard prompts, leaning back in her chair with a politely blank expression, willing herself not to laugh. “Spit it out, James.”
“Yeah, yeah, like you weren’t thinking it too, Commander.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Liara says, dry enough that Shepard can’t help but break into a grin. “I don’t believe we’ve ever banned anything for sexual content, actually.”
“So what was it banned for?”
“Firstly, I should add that it’s no longer banned anywhere, although it remains mildly controversial. At the time, the portrayal of AI as having a distinct and sympathetic form of personhood was considered against public interest.” Liara raises her eyebrows. “It was all very political, in truth.”
“What, did they think it’d give people ideas?”
“Something along those lines, yes.”
“Yeah, you hear that, EDI?” Kaidan directs this to the ceiling with a grin, as the crew tend to when her mobile platform isn’t around. “No blackmailing senior figures in Thessian government, okay?”
“Of course not, Major Alenko.” There’s a pause. “In which case, I may need to delete some files.”
“Er -“
“That was a joke.”
“I knew that,” Kaidan mutters, which rather makes Shepard think he didn’t. He hasn’t had as much time as the crew to adjust to EDI, and nor has the rest of the crew been hospitalised by her mobile platform-to-be, in fairness.
“Did you like the book, EDI?” Shepard asks, knowing that she’s been a silent member of their gatherings since the beginning. EDI has an understandably different relationship to reading than everyone else, given she can download and process the entire thing in milliseconds. The slow, linear unfolding of a plot isn’t exactly compatible with a consciousness that works that way.
“It prompted me to survey the fictional portrayal of AI across species to look for recurring cultural themes,” EDI says, which Shepard decides is more or less a ‘yes’.
“Yeah?”
“Despite the sympathetic portrayal, T’lann still subscribes to the common asari view that AI is inevitably a danger in terms of digital espionage. The difference is only that her AI is justified in its actions within the narrative, whereas earlier - and later - authors portray similar actions as having malicious intent.”
“Really?” Liara sounds surprised. “I would’ve expected modern asari literature to be more sympathetic -“
Joker cuts across her with glee. “Yeah, yeah - now give us the dirt on the other species, EDI. What about turians?” He shoots Garrus a shit-eating grin.
“Turian literature tends to depict AI as an unethical advantage in warfare.”
“So, boring and uptight? Sounds about right.”
Garrus just flicks a lazy gaze in Joker's direction, entirely unoffended. “How about humans, EDI?”
There’s a very uncharacteristic pause from EDI.
“Well,” she says, after this oddly tense moment of silence, “interestingly, the more sympathetic human literature became to the personhood of AI, the more literature has moved away from the dangers of AI and the more AI and organic relationships have been explored.”
Garrus makes direct and unblinking eye contact with Joker, who is wearing a rather rare expression of regret. “Really. Are these romantic relationships, by any chance?”
Shepard has to hide her grin behind her hand.
“Quite often, yes.”
“And are these relationships also sexual -“
“Great,” Kaidan says, rubbing wearily at his forehead. “We’re the perverts of the galaxy.”
“We’re romantics,” Shepard says cheerfully, slapping a spluttering Joker on the back.
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” Garrus says, giving her a sideways look. Joker lets out a pained noise from between his fingers.
Traynor drops her datapad onto the table in a decisive gesture. “Actually, I think it’s sweet.”
“What, that you discover a new form of consciousness and immediately find a way to -“
“I’m officially nominating The Bicentennial Man as my next pick for human classics,” Shepard says loudly, “and then, when you’re all done crying -“
“Speaking of,” Cortez says, “are we voting on next week’s book?”
“No need,” Garrus says, shooting Shepard another amused look. She looks back at him curiously, but he only adds: “I’ve got one picked out. I’ll send it round.”
“Great, but, hey -“ Cortez lowers his voice with a grin. “If we do that elcor one, I’ve managed to get my hands on a pheromone simulator marketed specifically for human use, they’re out of production due to bogus health concerns but I pulled a few strings with a contact on the Citadel -“
“Esteban, there is a war on, man.”
“These are the same ones Kitt used in all his productions! Don’t you think it would be fascinating? It’s supposed to be a deeply immersive experience -“
“I think,” Traynor says slyly, “he's just worried it’ll awaken something in him.”
James scoffs. “Uh, no, I just don’t need to be huffing elcor sweat or whatever when I read -“
“Do you even know what a pheromone is?”
“Course I do -“
Shepard is biting down hard on laughter as the last of them file out the airlock, still bickering, leaving only her and Garrus behind. She takes a seat at the bar next to him still shaking her head with amusement as he slides something across the table top towards her.
“Next week’s assignment,” he says, and flares his mandibles out into a grin. “I’d just like it on the record that finding a human paper copy of a turian book isn’t exactly straightforward.”
“Yeah?” Shepard taps at the book in question playfully. “So why go to the trouble?”
“Well, I thought it might be your type of book. Just doing my part in mending the romantic reputation of my species,” he says, prompting a laugh from Shepard. “And I know you prefer it to reading on a screen, so…”
“I do,” she says fondly, taking the book and looking down at the cover. There’s a faintly ridiculous illustration on the front of a turian crouching behind a burnt out piece of metal, evidently in a firefight, and holding a sniper rifle in a way in which absolutely no sniper rifle was ever meant to be held. “So this is my type of book, huh?”
“That’s the main character, Sernis,” Garrus says, pointing at the turian. “He’s a Spectre tasked with unearthing a dastardly plot to take down the Hierarchy. He’s kind of a loose cannon, naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“Pretty good shot, too. Very deadly at range.”
Shepard squints at the cover. “Hmm. I don’t see any scars, though.”
“Ah. So not your type?”
“Afraid not.” She shakes her head solemnly. “I like my turians rugged, Garrus.”
“Understandable.”
“And kind of mouthy,” she adds with a sideways look, letting herself grin at last.
“Is that so?”
She leans in a little, reaching out to grasp his hand and watching his face intently. “And if he sets up an entire book club just to give me an excuse to make room for some downtime, that’s even better.”
Garrus lets out a quiet huff of amusement, gripping her hand back. “Maybe I’m just an interspecies literature enthusiast.”
“Uhuh.”
“It’s for anyone on the crew who wants in.”
“Sure,” she says, smiling at him warmly. “But does everyone else on the crew get a personal book delivery every week?”
He pretends to give this some thought, though the effect is spoiled slightly by his continuing smug expression. “You know what? I don’t think they do.”
“Weird,” Shepard says, with even more exaggerated mock-thoughtfulness than him. “It’s almost like this whole book club is, in fact, an intervention.”
“So, are you saying that you don’t want to read what The Palaven Times readers voted ‘the most outlandish and self indulgent collection of plot holes ever published’?” He places a hand on the book and starts to drag it back across the table. “Because I could just return this -“
Shepard slams her hand on top of his with a grin, stopping the book in front of her. “I didn’t say that.”
Another smug twitch of his mandibles. “I thought so.”
Shepard gives him her best stern glare, no doubt considerably less effective than usual. “It’s still an intervention, Vakarian. I’m onto you.”
“I’d call it a romantic gesture, personally.”
Shepard looks around at Port Observation, the table still littered with empty glasses and wrappers, the book beneath her palm, and listens to the faint sound beyond the airlock of Cortez and Vega still talking. She thinks about the small stack of paperbacks from Garrus now shelved neatly in her cabin, beside the reports she hasn’t thought about in hours, and the calls Traynor rerouted subtly on her omnitool and Shepard pretended not to notice. The full bowl of honest-to-god rice and vegetables she ate as they started the meeting, and the pile of unopened dehydrated meal packets she hasn’t touched in weeks.
And Garrus, the mastermind behind it all, as if there isn’t a pile of reports on his desk just as high as hers.
“You know what?” she says, looking at him with a fond smile. “So would I.”