Prompt 052. Pills
Fandom: Mass Effect 2 Characters: Garrus and F!Shepard. Mention of Joker, Grunt, Miranda, and Doctor Chakwas. Word Count: 737 Rating: PG Summary: Garrus hadn't really noticed that Shepard took so many pills...
”What do they all even do?” Garrus never knew about the transparent pillbox sitting in Shepard’s nightstand. She took them before going to sleep, which probably explained why.
“Hell if I know,” She glanced at the box in her hands before stuffing it back into the drawer. She was sitting on her bed, kind of staring at Garrus expectantly. She wanted him to sleep next to her. Mostly so she could hear the noises a turian made while sleeping. She couldn’t imagine he’d be too nice to cuddle with, what with all the plates and metal and serrated edges, but opportunities like this were few and far between. He usually found a reason to leave her quarters before she went to bed, but tonight, the pillbox got him to stay.
“You don’t know what they do?” He crossed his arms and said matter-of-factually.
“I don—” Shepard gasped and her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. She crawled frantically off of her bed and into Garrus’s arms. “Oh God, I don’t know what I’ve been taking!” She screamed. “Just… Miranda just gave them to me and said like ‘here, these are so you don’t die again’ or whatever and I didn’t even ask any questions!” She looked up at him. He could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. “Garrus, am I retarded?”
“Probably not.”
“I don’t know what I’ve been taking! I just took it from her like ‘well, shit, she seems trustworthy enough to accept pills from!” She paced away from him, grabbing at her hair.
“Do you think anything bad is happening because of them?”
“I don’t know! I started taking them after I was brought back to life. I don’t really have a frame of reference, you asshole.”
“If you haven’t noticed anything happening, I doubt they’re harmful.”
“But what if they’re like eating my brain right now? As we speak?” Shepard strode back to her bed and buried her face into her pillow. “How would that make you feel to know that my brain is being eaten by Cerberus-issue pills right this very second and you’re shrugging it off as nothing?” She sighed emphatically.
“Relax, Shepard.” He sat beside her, stroking her back in a way that she said usually helped her feel better when she was upset. Garrus learned that about her after he began rubbing his fringe against her face when she left her favourite rifle (“The one that shot the bullets and killed everyone!”) on the Citadel and was a wreck for a couple of hours. (“Joker can we please go back? Grunt punching everything can wait! I’ll give you a handjob, I promise!”) It was what turians did. How was he supposed to know that he was going to shove something into her eye? He didn’t know any better!
“This reminds me of that one time when I died!” She cried out. “In that it’s really bad and I don’t know what’s gonna happen next. Except this time I’m sentient and have the capacity to consider the future and how it’s going to suck.”
“Aw,” Garrus cooed. “If Cerberus brought you back to life, I’m sure they’d be able to help you if something’s happening.” He sat her up. She wasn’t crying, thank God. “They wouldn’t feed you something dangerous after spending so many credits bringing you back.” That was a point Shepard never let rest. In a debate about the place of the hanar in today’s galaxy with an asari on Illium, she used the point ‘hey, Cerberus spent a whole bunch of credits to resurrect me. You’d best show some respect.’ It got the asari to leave her alone.
“I guess.” Her posture was slumped.
“We can go see Doctor Chakwas in the morning if you’d like.” He had both of his hands on her shoulders. That always calmed her down. “Is there anything I can do for you now?”
“No…” Shepard could have sworn she heard the schwing of a brilliant idea landing in her head and looked up at Garrus with huge, watery eyes. “A-Actually, could you sleep here tonight? With me? Pretty please?”
“Why?” He asked curtly. “I can’t imagine why you’d want t—”
“It’ll make me feel better!” She tugged on his arm desperately. He agreed and Shepard grinned victoriously. She was good at getting what she wanted.