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Garrus wandered out of the battery in the middle of the night after a long shift to get something out of the mess. Whatever his original plans, they flew out of his head when he found Shepard, standing in the dark in her pajamas with a can of insecticide in one hand and the other on the light switch. Gardner’s post was swathed in shadow, and the rest of the lights were so dim he could barely make her out. Garrus stopped in his tracks and watched his commanding officer stand motionless just outside the kitchen area, as if waiting for something.
“Uh, Shepard? What are you doing?”
“Waiting for the little bastards to come out of hiding.”
“What little bastards?”
“Shhh!” she hissed, never taking her eyes off the kitchen area. “You’ll scare them off.”
“Are you still freaking out over the roaches? Compared to the insect life on Palaven, they’re really not that scary. I could—“
“Look, Garrus, I know you’re trying to help, but you don’t get it. If you don’t get them all immediately, the fuckers will take over everything. I’ve been seriously considering letting EDI take the ship up by herself to space the lot of them.” She paused for a minute, her eyes straining to see her tiny adversaries in the shadows. “But then they could probably survive that, too. I wouldn’t be at all surprised . . . resilient sons of bitches, they are.”
“I think you might be over-reacting, Shepard.” Her trigger finger twitched over the button of the can as she prepared to make her move, wondering if she should go get her gun. Maybe she should just kill one, impale it on a toothpick and set it out as a warning to its friends.
“Just watch, okay?” She counted down from five and flipped on the lights. There were about twenty of them on the countertop and another dozen or so spread out on the floor and the cabinets. Shepard attacked them with a throaty war-cry, spraying down the whole area before the bugs could retreat. Garrus looked on in awe as the normally very reserved commander went completely unhinged and tore open cabinets and drawers, hunting down every last roach.
“Okay,” she said finally, the astringent smell of Raid heavy in the still air. “I think that’s all of them.”
“Now that’s settled, permission to enter the war-zone?” She chuckled but stopped abruptly when she turned to look at him, her eyes wide. “Honestly, you and Chakwas are the worst—“
“Garrus?”
“—although I can understand her concern, she needs to maintain a clean environment—“
“Uh, Garrus?”
“—but you humans have been going nuts . . . what’s wrong?”
“You’ve got one—“
And that was when he felt something small hop onto his face and crawl beneath his mandible. He hollered loud enough to drown out a thresher maw and scrabbled at his cheek, flaring out his mandible as far as it would go to get at the roach that was getting dangerously close to—
“It’s in my mouth, oh fuck it’s in my mouth!” He tore his gloves off and dug in his mouth, sputtering and spitting until the bug landed on the floor. It tried to run toward the safety of the cabinets, but Garrus lashed out with one foot and stomped it until it was an unrecognizable brown smear on the floor. He scrubbed at his face and pushed Shepard aside to run his violated mandible under the tap, swishing water as best he could and spitting it into the sink. When he turned the faucet off and stood there, braced on the counter and panting like he’d just run a marathon, he realized that Shepard was leaning against the wall, laughing with her arms clutching her stomach.
“Shut up, it’s not funny.”
“The hell it isn’t! ‘You’re over-reacting, Shepard,’” she said, complete with air quotes, before bursting into fresh gales of laughter.
“It was in my mouth.” He shuddered and wondered if spending the next six hours in decontamination would be considered a waste of resources.
“Oh my god, the look on your face!” She slung her arm over his shoulders, fighting back giggles and wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Garrus, but I did try to tell you.”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” He looked up at the ceiling and said, “EDI?”
“Yes, Officer Vakarian?” came the computerized voice from the intercom.
“Would spacing the roaches kill them?”
“They would be unable to sustain life in the sub-zero temperatures and negative atmosphere of space.”
“Good.” He grabbed the can of insecticide and headed back to the battery, grumbling while Shepard continued laughing behind him. When the doors were shut, she called EDI.
“Yes, Shepard?”
“Tell me you got that on camera.”