Work Text:
Fuck .
The room was tilted.
And red.
Shepard didn’t even try to get up.
After emptying half of the bar and switching to the pills he’d gotten on Omega, he was finally feeling something . There had to have been some red sand in there somewhere, too. Why else would everything be so fucking red?
God damnit. He had been rebuilt by his enemies– had somehow let himself get convinced to work with them, now– and he hadn’t even been able to get drunk about it. It had been years since he’d done any drugs. Not only were they a pain in the ass to come by when you were a second gen Alliance brat, the come-down was always too hard on him. Even now, he felt more sick than drunk or high, but he couldn’t manage to pick himself up to make it to the bathroom.
So he just lay there and let the room sway unpleasantly, flattening himself more and more so that the maximum surface area of his body was in contact with the cool, lightly vibrating floor. He just lay as still as possible, as he’d already accidentally trashed some of the lounge with his enhanced biotics. He’d have to apologize to Kasumi later. And she was probably watching him now, shaking her head. Shit.
As he realized that his spiral was probably being watched and even documented, the door hissed open and he struggled to focus on the tall, dark figure that strode in, looking around frantically.
“Commander, what the hell are you doing?” Garrus Vakarian crossed the room in two steps and picked Shepard up with relative ease.
Holy shit.
He still felt sick and the room was still swaying, but being picked up by Garrus, hearing Garrus chastise him in an unfamiliarly stern voice… it made him all tingly.
Must be the hallex. Hopefully not something he’d need to unpack later.
“Shepard?” Garrus said.
Oh shit, he’d just been stupidly grinning for– how much time had even passed since Garrus had picked him up? He forced himself to look down at the empty glass in his hand, which he raised for Garrus to see.
“I’m celebrating our cobbab- cowwab…” he mumbled, and then gave up. “Toasting Cerberus!”
He lifted the glass and struggled to focus on Garrus’ face again. He could feel the stupid grin return to his own face.
“ Spirits , Shepard,” Garrus mumbled, putting him down on one of the stools. Shepard keenly felt Garrus’ warm body supporting and guiding him to lean on the counter. “ I’m supposed to be the one who’s a mess, here.”
“Ugh, Cerberus…” Shepard muttered, doing his best to defend himself. He put the glass down on the counter, but as he slid it forward to make room to put his head down, he instead accidentally biotically threw it into the wall behind the bar.
Garrus’ eyes widened as he looked from the place on the wall that the glass shattered back to Shepard.
“So you must have been drinking some new biotics-enhancing, Cerberus-exclusive alcohol, I assume?”
Shepard shrugged.
“Surely you didn’t do red sand?”
“Wha’re you, my dad?” Shepard rolled his eyes and waved his hand in dismissal of Garrus. Something that he couldn’t see hit the wall behind Garrus.
Garrus sighed and shook his head.
“I di’n’t mean to red sand! They said, they just said hallex.”
“ Hallex ? What the hell, Shepard? What is wrong with you? I was on Omega all that time trying to stop people from getting their hands on that stuff! Now I find my CO high on it?”
There was that stern voice again. He focused on Garrus’ mouth as he was chastised, seeing his blue tongue move around with Garrus’ words. He wondered what it tasted like.
Damned hallex.
“Are you hearing me at all? And can you stop grinning like that!?”
“...Make me,” he slurred, knowing on some level that this was maybe the worst possible response that he could give, but unable to stop himself from teasing Garrus.
“I- Wh- what? ” Garrus spluttered. “I can’t believe… Ugh. Whatever. Get up, Commander.”
Shepard shakily pushed himself to his feet, and quickly became aware of the ground rushing up to meet him.
“Whoa!” He heard Garrus yell before his momentum was stopped a few inches from the ground. “Gotcha.”
Garrus helped him up and then supported him while they made their way to the elevator.
“I’m taking you to bed,” Garrus muttered.
“Yes, sir ,” Shepard responded suggestively.
“Ok, will you stop?”
“Stop what?”
“Somehow even though I’m helping you with whatever the hell it is you have going on, you’ve been laughing at me the whole time.”
“’m not laughing at you. I’m trying to seduce you.” He was sure that he didn’t have any real control over what he was saying.
“Shepard you can’t even stand up on your own.”
“You mean it’d work if I could, if I could stand up?”
The elevator door slid open. Garrus was silent as he walked Shepard to his bed and gently helped him get into it.
“Get some rest, Commander. And next time you’re feeling… whatever it was that put you in this state… would you just come see me first?”
Garrus started to get up, but Shepard grabbed his wrist.
“How did you know to come get me?”
“EDI told me, actually. She’s not all bad, if I’m being honest.”
Shepard was satisfied with that answer, but didn’t want to let go yet. Instead, he started pulling Garrus towards him.
“Commander-” Garrus began, but at this point he was close enough that Shepard could put a finger on his mouth to silence him.
He pulled him even closer, staring into his blue eyes. Without thinking, Shepard tilted his chin upward. He could feel Garrus’ breath on his face.
“Shepard,” Garrus finally said quietly, pulling back. “I can’t- with you like this, it- it just doesn’t… I should really go. Come find me after you’ve slept this off, and… and we can talk.”
After Garrus left, Shepard slowly dozed off into a restless sleep, full of dreams of Garrus talking about calibrations.