forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Look at you being all fancy

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Please don't tell me you're off in hostile territory right now

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

I refuse to collapse in camp when this hits.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

They can jerk me around with rank, with giving something and taking it right back, with games, with the pain of this, but I am not doing that.

[GARRUS GODDAMN VAKARIAN, MAKING EVERYONE WORRY BY FALLING OFF THE GRID: THE LIFE, THE MEMOIR.

She wants to ask if he's prepared, if he has nanites left, if he at least has a fall back position if something goes wrong (wronger than he knows it's going to be, apparently). But that's patronizing. So she doesn't.]

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Just try not to get eaten by anything while you're out there

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Be careful Garrus

[DAMN STRAIGHT.

He appreciates the lack of probing. She trusts him, even when he's acting to spare his own shattered pride.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

This isn't how I go out, Shepard.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

I mean, I've gotta top curing the genophage or saving a whole people. Cuff going out isn't gonna cut it.

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Guess that's true. Just don't go too far in case I have to haul your broken ass back. I'm sick of hiking and you weigh a goddamn ton

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

You run a bootcamp, and you're gonna have trouble carrying one turian? Damn, Lydia, you're losing your touch.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Maybe when you're getting Joker into shape, I can help you get back to shape.

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

It's not my fault you're so fat

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Yep. That's me. Been eating too many flowers, not enough humans. I'll see about remedying that. Balance out the diet a little more.

[It's good to joke around when the inevitable is approaching. He can't ignore it, but he can pretend he's all right.]

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Good. I've been seriously worried about your fiber intake for a while now

[That's what she's here for. Bitching and bullshitting.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Hell, Shepard, if a janitor can be a cook, why don't you give a shot? Worst case scenario you do as bad as Gardner did with dextro.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Which was awful, by the way. Really don't know why I let a Cerberus guy try cooking dextro cuisine.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Wait, no. Now I remember. It was to get Chambers to stop offering to cook me something 'nice.' It didn't work.

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm an expert chef

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

1: Unwrap food product
2: Place in microwave
3: Cook for desired doneness
4: Enjoy

[There's a long delay, hours, before there's an answer. It doesn't take a genius to know what that means.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

So what you mean to say is you should have opened up your own restaurant instead of wrecking the nicest sushi joint on the Citadel.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

We all liked that place, by the way. And then you went through the fishtank/floor. End of that.

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

There's still time, though. When we retire. Somewhere warm, somewhere with umbrellas in the drinks, somewhere you can open up a place people will eat at no matter the reviews because

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

Commander Fucking Shepard cooked the food. They just have to watch out for Wrex's thousands of young running everywhere.

[That she doesn't text him again in the interim is a force of will. Suffice to say she spends a significant portion of the delay between one and the next pinging his personnel tracking ID-- just in case. It doesn't actually tell her anything, doesn't give her any life line stats. He could be perfectly fine in the same spot or he could be a corpse and she wouldn't know the difference. But it goes a long way to settling her and that counts for something until his message eventually rolls in.]

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Whatever. I'd rather eat pad thai than sushi anyway. You should all be thanking me

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

And hello no. When we retire I'm hiring a personal chef for us all so all I have to be responsible for is drinking my requisite number of mai tais and making sure no one litters on my awesome private beach

[He's rarely been this thankful for how their relationship works. He's not okay and they both know it, but he doesn't have to acknowledge it.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

I like the sound of that. Make sure they're trained in both cuisines, yeah? Don't wanna have to haul my own along when I come to visit.

[Retiring had always been a long shot in the first place. Now he knows it will never happen. None of them who are here will have a happy ending. They won't even have a purposeful one. One day, they just won't be what the CDC wants anymore, or they'll make a tired mistake; something meaningless will take them out.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

I'll let you get on with planning menus for your chef, unless there was something you needed me for.

[He's tired, and he doesn't know how much longer he can keep the jokes going.]

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

Will do

FROM: shepard.lydia@cdc.org

And I'm good. Do you need me for anything?

[It doesn't - or shouldn't - really read like a break in this stupid charade they're putting on, but it's a real question.]

[There's a delay before he answers. Garrus wishes there was anything either of them could do, but the truth of the matter is that there isn't. And he also doesn't want to be seen like this before he's gotten a little rest. He's a limping, hurting, mess.]

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

You know me, Shepard. Let me know when you've got someone mixing drinks for us and I'll be over.

IC Contact - Consignment

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