Digressions on Tali
Tali's part of my digressions series, in which each ficlet starts with the same line. Thank you to Agin, over at Archive of Our Own, for the opening line, which is 'Tali walked into the room'.
Decontamination
Tali walked into the room… and immediately wished she hadn't. What was that smell?! She edged cautiously further into the apartment, following the smell to the kitchen…
"Oh, Keelah… Jack! Jack, where the hell are you?"
"What?" Jack came sauntering around the corner, looking as relaxed as could be, despite the smell of… it was like rotting fish mixed with bad eggs.
"What is Eezo eating?" The varren was sitting on the floor in the middle of a pile of slime, bones and unidentifiable body parts. And if he had just gotten on with eating whatever it was, it might not have been so bad, but it seemed he was also trying to paint the floor with the thing's innards before licking the mess up again. Oh, that was just disgusting…
"Oh, that's one of Shepard's eels. It died yesterday, and instead of just throw it away, I asked if Eezo could have it."
Tali wondered for a moment if she was going to be sick. Which, given the limitations of her suit, was an even more unpleasant experience than it was for most species. She backed away quickly, retreating to the living room.
"And he let you borrow his apartment to feed it to him?"
"Yeah. Well, sort of. He said he'd leave it here in the fridge for me to collect. And then he said he wanted to talk later this afternoon, so I figured hey, why not hang out for a few hours."
"…Right…" Tali wasn't going to argue with Jack. Despite mellowing in the last few months, she was still a quick trigger. And completely bat-shit insane, at times. "Great. Well, I just came over to drop off an upgrade for his sniper rifle. I'll leave it… here." She went to put it on the coffee table, then thought better of it, and put it on the mantle piece instead. Out of reach of a certain varren's sharp teeth. "I'd better get back to…" To what? Where had she been headed next? "Garrus wants to meet me in…" Where? She racked her mind for a decent sounding excuse. Oh, Keelah, she had to get away from that smell… "…at the embassies," she blurted out finally. "I'd better go." Without waiting for a reply, she hastily left the apartment, trying to hold her breath until the door closed behind her.
And then she sent an urgent message to Shepard. Maybe he could reschedule his meeting with Jack to another location. And hire a decontamination crew to clean out the stench.