Shepard was being awfully sneaky lately.
It was the last night of their shore leave on the citadel; nobody seemed to be able to hold the Commander's attention very long. Not even Garrus' propositioning renting a hotel room right in the presidium so they could get away from the crew for just one night could drag her from buzzing around the shops to look for whatever it was she was intent on having. Maybe some new mods had popped up under the table and she didn't want to say anything to anyone until she had her hands on them? Well, whatever it was she was buying, she refused to let anyone see it. And today, she hadn't even bothered to leave her cabin. She locked the door and refused to take any visitors. He worried about her.
Little did he know, Shepard all but flew down onto the crew deck when she was sure everyone who was leaving for the day had left and set to work. She decorated the entire deck from floor to ceiling with Christmas decor, slapping bows and lights onto everything she could. Anyone who stayed behind who dared to ask what she was doing was roped into helping her without much of an explanation (though Gabby and Chakwas needed not ask, familiar with the holiday themselves). Tali gave up questioning it about five minutes in and took to tampering with the lights so that they blinked in time to the festive music currently blaring from the speakers.
The shore-bound crew returned all around the same time, following the curfew given to them prior to leaving. One by one, they flooded into the Mess Hall in a whirl of confusion. Shepard greeted them collectively with her arms open and a cheery, "Surprise, assholes!"
"What's going on?" Wrex stumbles forward, waving his arms drunkenly.
Everyone is perplexed. Shepard asks what everyone is thinking, "Wrex, I thought you were on Tuchanka?"
"TOO MANY FEMALES," he bellows, hitting himself on the chest. "I couldn't take it."
"What's that? Wrex can't keep up with the women?" Garrus' jaw plates flare in a turian smirk.
"Are you saying you can? How about we make a pit stop to Tuchanka then and throw you right into the -"
"SO. As you all may very well be aware, I've spent the afternoon decorating for you dicks." Shepard paused long enough for someone to look like they were about to say something, and then jumped right back into talking. "Now I hear you asking yourself, 'Shepard, why did you hang obnoxious lights all over my foot locker? How am I supposed to get in now?' Well, my little fuzzbutts, the answer is simple: today is December 24th by Earth standards. That marks Christmas Eve."
The only puzzled faces belonged to aliens.
"Is that why there's a tree in the middle of the room?" Garrus asked.
Wrex nudged him with an elbow and leaned in close to him so he could whisper (loud enough for everyone to hear, even over the music), "Yeah. I hear humans wrap intestines around the branches to appease some God or else he'll come down to them and drown their first born with snow." He started to chuckle. The chuckle quickly escalated into deep, gutteral laugh, and he swung his arms around the turian for support. Garrus froze on the spot, torn between the desire to push the krogan off of him and declaring his newfound fear of the human race before waddling into the main battery and refusing to ever come out again.
"Well, yes," Shepard said. "Kind of. But I don't believe in the Christian God. I celebrate Christmas because I grew up celebrating it. The head director of my orphanage was extremely religious, and the caretakers took it upon themselves to make sure we had fun celebrating the holiday every year - and anyway, since Earth is currently undergoing a makeover courtesy of the Reapers and I figure this is probably the last time I'll get to celebrate, I'm going to. And you're all invited to celebrate with me."
"Humans confuse me," grumbled Wrex, releasing Garrus.
"It's a great excuse to get hammered and open gifts."
"What do you mean, 'gifts'? We didn't buy any gifts, Shepard," said Tali.
"I got gifts for all of you." There was a string of protests that came from the crew. Shepard held up her hand to silence them. "Hush. There's nothing I even want if I can't take it into battle, and I have the best the galaxy has to offer already. I'd rather you all spend your money on things you need, or luxuries while you can still afford them. Just enjoy yourselves and enjoy the gifts. EDI's going to pass them out to you, then we can all start drinking. And later we can decorate the tree together."
Her logic was sound enough to keep them all quiet - that was, until each of them opened their gifts. Hideous, festive sweaters tailored to each of them lay forlornly in their green and red wrapping paper-lined cardboard boxes. When they looked up from their gifts, they weren't very shocked to see Shepard donning one. EDI, on the otherhand..
"I guess I was horribly, horribly wrong," Garrus said, lifting the garment from its nest to further examine it. Some of the crew had given in already and put it on over their civvies and work clothes. "To expect some kind of sniper mod."
"Oh, shut up, Vakarian. You know Shepard probably has something else for you," Tali grumbled, carefully navigating her own sweater over her head. It was an ugly puke green with fat little kittens in santa suits knit to the front. Under the kittens read her name in defiant gold font. It was like Shepard had put effort into making sure they were the most ridiculously ugly sweaters she could possibly make them.
Garrus, reluctantly, tugged his own on. It snagged on his spikes briefly, but with the help of an eager Shepard, that was quickly remedied. He looked down to observe the damage and, well, truth be told what he seen gave him a mild case of diarrhea.
The sweater was mainly black, but accented with giant, glittering snow flakes and little bare versions of the tree standing center of the room. At least a dozen of them. The sleeves were a repulsive pastel rainbow. In the center, where the sweater came to button (oh, it had buttons - really big gold ones) together, a snowman peeked his head out at the world. His face resembled John Lennon if John Lennon had shit his guts out and turned into a snow man whose fascination lie in wearing hats as tall as his body. Because that's what the snowman was wearing. And it resembled the kinds of party hats you get at a kid's birthday party with the irritating elastic strap that hooks under your chin and catches all of the hairs and, when it snaps, hits you on the side of your face. Or your eye, if you're unfortunate enough. The hat was trimmed with hot pink fuzz, and tipped off with it too. The fuzz was so plentiful it tickled his mandible. Spirits.
Wrex turned to Garrus and screamed. "LOOKING GOOD VAKARIAN."
"Shut up," Garrus replied, not looking up from his gift. There was a hell and he was inside of it, and that realization was hitting him far too hard for him to pay a drunk krogan any mind.
"You have one, too, Wrex," Shepard said smugly, her hands finding their way to her hips while Edi presented another box.
"How-"
"Shh. Don't spoil the surprise with questions of how or why. Just enjoy, big boy."
Wrex clumsily unfolded the sweater. It was an ungodly large thing - which mean more room for guady fixtures. He took one look at the front - to him, a blur of bright blues and pinks and some fat old man in a suit with fuzzy eyes reindeer guiding his space ship - and stuffed it in his mouth. Before anyone could protest it disappeared down his throat. "Thanks for the gift, Shepard. It really hit the spot."
Garrus snickered into his hand. Shepard scowled for a good half a minute before spinning around and heading over to the make-shift bar (the kitchen; Vega was playing the part of bar tender and seemed quite happy about it) and got herself situated with some eggnog. Tali wandered over, refused the dextro drink James offered to make her, and sat next to Shepard.
"So what is that concotion? Looks, ah.. Hmm. Interesting...?" Tali motioned to the nog that sloshed around in Shepard's glass like curdled milk. There was no disguising the disgust in her voice.
"Eggnog," Vega chimed in while mixing an especially strong drink for Ken. "You've never heard of it, Sparks?"
"No... What's in it?"
"EGGS. Tali. Eggs are in eggnog," Shepard said, jostling the contents around haphazardly. "Vega, this needs more rum."
"Aye, aye," he said, tipping an unhealthy amount into the drink. Tali could see the alcohol resting on the top, and winced when Shepard threw it back into her mouth.
"Raw eggs..?"
"What else?"
Tali was silent. Her curiosity now satiated and her stomach quite upset, she turned away and slowly walked off. The hard lights were dimming and leaving the crew deck to be lit only by the Christmas lights strung up on the walls and such. The volume of the music went up a little. Shepard took this opportunity to jump out of her seat with another drink her hand to go hunt down her other squad buddies and tell them awful stories of yore.
By the time she had finished telling her stories, she was shitfaced and found herself talking only to a bowl filled with red, foamy liquid. She had decorated it with a pretty red bow. "Oh, Kelly. One day - uh. One. One day I'll find out how to reverse your juice into a body again and you can uh... Yeah. Be you- HEY WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, PUNK?"
One of the crew members had dipped a ladle into the liquid and spooned it into a glass. "Commander, this isn't Kelly Chambers," he explained. "This is a bowl of punch."
"You can't tell me how to live my life."
"I- I wasn't trying to, Commander," he said, backing up away from the bowl of punch. Garrus swooped in and gathered Shepard in his arms.
"Alright, Shepard. That's it, stop harassing the punch bowl. Come sit down with us. We're about to decorate your tree," he said, bringing her over to the box of brand new decorations Shepard had bought several days ago. He was relieved to see no intestines. Just garland, white and fuzzy. Probably took the place of intestines.
"Okay, fine. Merry Christmas Kelly," Shepard called out.
To watch them decorate that tree was to watch a perfectly executed Broadway Play - if by perfectly executed, you mean an absolute disaster. Shepard and Wrex both knocked over the tree and tried to headbutt each other ("It was just for fun's sake," Wrex declared, irritated when Garrus is practically pecking at him like a protective mother hen). The tree set on fire when one of them, probably Shepard, accidentally triggered their incineration blast from their omni tool. The bowl of punch was used to extinguish it, and Shepard let out a blood curdling scream about how they were all murderers. She could only be pacified with a gingerbread cookie, which she suckled on until she passed out right there in Garrus' lap. She woke up long enough to crawl under Garrus' sweater and rest her head in his cowl, about halfway through Joker telling a few stories of his own Christmases (all of which were hilarious, but dear reader you shan't hear them because that means effort). By three AM, everyone but Shepard and Garrus had cleared out. He, too, had passed out. And nobody bothered to wake them because they were all drunk as fuck. Except EDI and Tali. But they were being assholes.
Something did rouse them both, though. They woke up to the jostling of the tree's decorations.
"Am I still drunk?" Shepard slurred, and wiped a strand of drool from her mouth.
"I think I am, too.. Unless.. Are you also seeing the fat, bearded man in front of us?"
Shepard let out a short but high pitched scream. "SANTA."
Santa Claus laughed heartily, his belly shaking and his cheeks the color of a freshly spanked bottom. "That's my name, don't wear it out."
Garrus stared at the man skeptically while Shepard wriggled out of his sweater. From what he'd heard last night, Santa was a mythical creature who delivered gifts to all of the children in just one night. What was he doing on board the Normandy? In the middle of the Terminus System, no less (they had reached the mass relay late last night, no thanks to Joker (coughEDIcough)).
"You get one Christmas Wish, Commander Shepard. Because you had the highest Christmas spirit than anyone in the entire universe tonight."
Shepard bounced around like a child.
"Shepard-" Garrus tried to say, but she cut him off.
"I wish I had an orgasmic sandwich. I'm so fucking hungry."
Wait, what was she doing? "Shepard-"
"Are you sure, little one?" Santa asked. Shepard nodded.
"SHEPARD."
"What?"
"If this is real - I don't know if it is, but if it is - shouldn't you wish for the Reapers to disappear? Or something?"
Shepard gaped at him. He was right! She spun around, "WAIT I CHANGE MY MIND."
But Santa was gone. In his place, there was a sandwich with a note attached to it. It read - 'It's too late to take it back, sorry. xo - Santa Claus'.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."
Shepard fell to her knees and hit the ground repeatedly with her fist. "WHY IS THE GROUND SO STICKY?!"
"You set the tree on fire and we had to put it out with the punch."
"KELLY, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."
The sandwich was the most delicious sandwich the universe had ever beheld.
The end.