Joker didn't notice what Kasumi was carrying until they were almost at the bar. He did a double-take.
"You brought the hamster?"
The thief grinned. "It must get bored. And Shep did want it out of her room, right?"
"No, Garrus wanted it out of Shep's room." Joker waggled his eyebrows suggestively, which made the brim of his hat dance. "Something about how it was 'always watching with its beady little eyes.'"
"Oh, really." Miranda brushed by them. "You're making this up."
"Nope. Someone has per-for-mance anxiety," he caroled. "Didn't want it to see his slick turian moves. That doesn't mean you have to bring it to the bar!"
Chakwas sighed. "I'm starting to understand why Shepard wanted everyone off the ship."
"C'mon, doc. It'll be fun!"
Chakwas shrugged. "Goodness knows you children need someone with you who has a head for liquor."
Joker scowled. "If you start any sentences with 'In my day...' I'm not buying you a drink."
"In my –" Chakwas paused, her eyes twinkling, and finished, "– clinic, I have better brandy than you could buy here, I'm sure."
"Well, let's get in there and bloody find out. Never seen a crew take so goddamn long idling in sight of a bar." Massani strode through the group and waved the doors open. "After you, Doctor."
The found seats at a large booth near the bar, and by unspoken agreement the rest of the group carefully rearranged themselves such that Jack was as far from Miranda as possible while being at the same table.
–
Shepard had suggested he make friends with the rest of the crew, but Thane Krios was not entirely sure this was what she had in mind. Kasumi and Joker had come up with a very involved plan for inebriation, and cajoled the others into joining. Apparently humans made drinking into some kind of game. It would be an odd memory to come back to, later.
Rotund hamster, frantic. Light glints off the yellow plastic sphere. The ball moves when it does, right, left. Forward, right – the plastic sphere hits a half-full glass. The crowd shouts "DRINK!" and the hamster moves again.
Only Miranda had refused to play, holding her single glass of red wine away from the mayhem on the table. She still smiled despite herself whenever the hamster chose another victim, and before long she was shouting with the rest.
He hadn't actually known what to expect when saving the galaxy, but he was fairly certain hamster-determined drinking wasn't part of it. Neither was arguing tactics with a drunken human mercenary.
Massani's accent got thicker when he drank. "I'm not bloody kiddin' ya, mate." Massani thumped his glass down on the table and bellowed for a refill. "Yer a right stealthy bastard, I'll give ya that. But varieties the spice o' life, innit? Man has to have more than one trick up his sleeve."
Thane's translator stumbled through the accent and the idiom and arrived somewhere near the correct meaning. "Mr. Massani, I am well versed in –"
"All the sneaky pansy-ass ways to kill a man from hiding, yeah, yeah, I've noticed. But sometimes the situation calls for something different. The bold gesture, that's what I'm bloody talking about!"
"You usually shoot everything in sight, then set it on fire," Thane said dryly.
"DRINK!" shouted Joker, and Kasumi knocked back her glass.
"Only one of my many brilliant plans," Zaeed yelled above the noise.
"Yeah, sometimes he sets it on fire first," Jack chimed in from Thane's right.
"You don't know the bloody half of it." Zaeed launched into a tale that started as a hostage-extraction and ended, implausibly, with a song-and-dance number. There were connecting bits in the middle, but the hamster had settled itself firmly on their side of the table, and after three shots in quick succession Thane was having a little trouble keeping track of details.
"C'mon," drawled Jack. "That can't be a real story. Everyone else made it out alive!"
"Well, technically, the hanar window-washer didn't –" Thane started, but Zaeed ignored him.
"Are you saying I bloody make things up? S'all true, girl, all true!"
"Bullshit!" Jack slammed down her drink to make a her point - right on Thane's hand. "Oops. Didn't mean to do that, man."
From Jack, it was quite the apology. Thane shrugged. "It is nothing. There won't even be a bruise."
Joker was having none of it - and he didn't seem to hold his alcohol well. "Doctor c'n fixit, right?"
"There is nothing to fix, I assure you."
Kasumi chimed in. "Yes, Chakwas can fix it! Chakwas, Chakwas, Jack broke the drell!"
"She did nothing of the sort –"
Chakwas had been saying something to Miranda, and she turned at the sound of her name. "She did what now?"
"Absolutely nothing," Thane assured.
Jack downed her shot. "What's she gonna do, kiss it better?"
"Yeah!" Kasumi bounced in her seat.
Chakwas reached across the table and picked up his hand.
"I assure you, I am quite fine -"
"Of course you are, dear." She winked at him and rolled her eyes towards the clearly drunk duo of Joker and Kasumi, who were singing 'kiss-it-better' to two very different melodies. The doctor examined his hand thoughtfully and planted a solid *smack* on the knuckles. "All better! See? No harm done."
The hamster scrabbled madly and the yellow ball wobbled to a stop against Chakwas' brandy glass.
"DRINK!" yelled Jack.
The doctor shrugged and obeyed, rolling the alcohol around her mouth and then licking her lips.
Licking her lips.
The salarian doctor cocks his head, quizzical. Awkward. Information about human physiology, chemical reactions to drell secretions.
Too late now. Surely whatever his skin produced wasn't that potent.
There was a slight shift as Miranda stood up. "Heading to the powder room. I ordered dessert – none of you even think about touching it!"
A waiter delivered a tastefully presented crème brulee just as Miranda passed the bar and vanished in the crowd.
"Dare someone to lick it," Joker whispered theatrically.
"Lick what?" Jacob's gaze had been riveted to Lawson's swaying rear-view.
"Jacob!" Kasumi snagged the plastic ball containing the poor hamster and tossed it at him lightly in rebuke. He wasn't quick enough; the ball bounced off his chest and landed on the table.
Neither of them noticed that the plastic had cracked. Thane was about to say something when Chakwas jumped up from her seat.
"The hell, woman?" Zaeed reached up for her arm, but the doctor shook him off.
"There are bugs – there were bugs on me, I felt them!" She gave a little squeak and hopped onto the seat, looking wildly around her feet. "They're all over! Ugh!"
Oh dear. Thane leapt to his feet as well. There had to be something he could do for her. Would water flush out the toxin? He stepped onto the table to get around Joker and Jacob.
"That's right, get on the table!" Chakwas hurriedly followed him up, then grabbed his arm to steady herself. "Urgh, I can still feel them. Here, hold this!"
Thane could only stare in bemusement as the doctor handed him her shoe.
"What in bloody hell?" Zaeed's curse was muffled; the doctor's tunic had landed on his head. He pulled it away from his good eye, which widened in appreciation. "Oh. Well, don't let me stop you."
"Shit, guys, where's the –" Joker's query cut through the confusion. Thane looked down at him just in time to see the hamster escape it's battered ball. It ran to the nearest object, which happened to be Joker's current beer, and tried to hide behind it. It only succeeded in knocking the cup over – right onto Joker's lap. "SHIT!" the pilot grabbed a napkin and peered at his own crotch, trying to assess the damage. "That looks bad. And it was my beer!"
"But where's the hamster?" Kasumi asked.
Thane was more concerned about the doctor, who'd finally managed to undo her other shoe and was dumping the 'bugs' out.
Jacob jumped in his seat. "Little bas –!" he cut himself off, looking sheepish. "I think it just ran over my foot."
Kasumi jumped up eagerly. "I'll get it!" She went right over the table in her haste to seek out the hamster under Jacob's chair. The Cerberus operative leaned back, face a mask of astonishment, as the thief ducked between his legs.
"Where'd it go?" Her voice was muffled.
Thane took that moment to bolt for the bar. He wasn't sure what he'd find there – water? Towels? Sanity? – but it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It was only a few yards away. He arrived just in time to see the door the restroom open.
Time itself seemed to slow, as if he were in the midst of battle. With perfect clarity he saw doctor Chakwas, stripped to her underwear and bra, standing on one foot on the table. Joker, pants looking like he'd just had an embrassing accident of nature, was trying to convince her to come down. Zaeed was trying to encourage her to wiggle more. Jack was taking the opportunity to drink all of the remaining alcohol. Kasumi and Jacob – surely that position was as compromising for humans as for drell. And there, on Jacob's back, a dark brown shape moving over his shoulder and along his outstretched arm –
The hamster landed with right in Miranda's crème brulee. He heard the 'crunch' as it cracked the hard sugar shell as clearly as if the room had been silent.
Miranda was walking in the door.
In a moment, she'd see Kasumi. Worse, she'd see Jacob.
Oh, Arashu, she'd see the hamster.
Thane thought, furiously. These were his crew, his friends. Surely he could save them all an ugly scene. He'd taken out krogan, batarians, asari – but only one idea bubbled up through his alcohol soaked-mind.
His scarred face is animated. All look to him when he tells his tale. He is the center. The mercenary laughs: "The bold gesture."
The bold gesture.
Thane leapt to the bar, heedless of the patrons' curses, and ran along the top to intercept Miranda. Partway there he dropped to his knees, sliding the final few feet and flinging his arms wide open.
Lawson stopped short, staring at him in baffled silence. "What the...?"
Bold gesture.
Thane burst into song.
–
Joker was careful to hold his jacket in front of him as they left, it's casual drape disguising the beer down his front. Chakwas was wearing her clothes. Zaeed had a tight grip on her waist (and her tunic, and her belt) to make sure it stayed that way. Jacob clutched a pilfered pint-glass containing the sleeping hamster. Jack walked with Kasumi's help.
They could all hear the 'quiet' conversation that was going on behind them.
"I can't believe it. Of all people, I thought that you were sensible, Krios. Reliable, serious-minded. Do you know the damages we'll have to pay for broken glass-ware at the bar? Cerberus funds are not unlimited. And I'm sure I'll never know where you got that song, that, that... do you even know what 'ragtime' is? And as to me being your baby, I, I –"
Joker snuck a peek over his shoulder just in time to see Miranda flush at the word 'baby', then hastily correct herself.
"I just don't understand you, Krios. I never would have expected this."
author's note: This was my secret-santa fic for Regeener on DeviantArt – and yes, her prompts specified "Hey, Hey, Ma Baby."