Written while listening to Dog Days, By Flourence+The Machine
Shepard sighed as Javik stormed out of the Med Bay. As if being stuck in a toothpaste tube isn't enough... With a groan, he beat his head against the inside of the pressure chamber. According to Chakwas, he'd have to stay in here for quite a while. And, to make things even worse, not everyone was agreeing with his decisions regarding the Leviathans;
Javik had made it quite clear how ticked off he was.
Liara was 'understandably peeved' they had to work with the creatures that built their Xenocidal little problem in the first place.
James thought it was creepy.
Garrus had a few suggestions about contingency plans... ones that Shepard asked him to detail in a report and send it to teams working with the Leviathan's artifacts.
EDI assured him that there was, without a shadow of a doubt, 99.99% chance that if they managed to defeat the Reapers, the Leviathans would become a problem, perhaps even repeat history.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't a 'not everyone agrees with this' situation, and more of a 'nobody likes this you F'ed it up big time, Shepard' situation. The worst part? Despite telling himself that it would help with the war efforts immensely, he couldn't help but agree with some of them. This was an IMMENSELY bad idea that was asking to backfire with a side order of catastrophe as a bonus.
It wouldn't be so bad if Javik would just calm down and see why they had to work with the Leviathans. Not that he could fault the prothean for being angry in the first place; they were talking about the creatures who built the Reapers, and one did not simply 'get alone' with the people who created the doom of your species.
Not even for the sake of destroying said doom, apparently. Shepard sighed. No doubt, their most exotic resident was about to pay Garrus a very grumpy visit regarding those contingency plans.
He just hoped his best friend would come out of it in one piece.
"He is a fool!" Garrus jerked awake, sitting bolt upright in his cot at the sound of the doors to Main Battery opening, and the enraged voice that followed. Javik paced a furious path back and forth in front of the Thanix's control console. "The Leviathans created the Reapers; they betrayed the galaxy once, and will do so again!"
"Go ahead, invite yourself in. Just, sleeping is all, nothing really important going on here." Garrus yawned sarcastically. The prothean ignored him, continuing his rant as the tired sniper fixed him with a half-dead stare.
"The Commander is playing with fire, and does not seem to be concerned about being burned. He will no doubt feel it when the creatures indoctrinate his species and use them as they used the ancients of this galaxy!" spit was nearly flying at this point. He whirled to fix the turian with a glare. "And you? From what I have seen you are supposed the be the sensible one, yet you have said little to nothing on the matter!"
"Javik." the turian began slowly, as if talking to a small child. "It's two in the morning. I haven't said much, because most sensible people are asleep right now."
"Protheans are nocturnal." Javik waved this off and continued pacing.
"Yeah, well the rest of us are... well, not." He swung his legs off the cot, and yawned again, scratching at his scars. They always itched when he was in his nightshirt; maybe it was the fabric or something? "You know I'm an insomniac, right?"
"I do not care. We have a problem." the pacing didn't quit.
"Yeah, and what's your solution? Blow up the planet?" Garrus joked. Javik halted and gave him a look that said that was exactly what the prothean wanted to do. Garrus sighed, and threw himself back into the folds of his cot.
"How can you dismiss this!?" Javik demanded.
"Let's see here; you woke me up at two in the morning to tell me you're ticked off. What are you, five? Second; I've already put in my two words with Shepard. Third; I'm on the verge of an existential crisis if I don't get any sleep for the third night in row. Fourth: I'm working up a post-war contingency plan for what to do about those... ball... orb... artifact thingys that do the stuff. The brain-frying stuff." That got the prothean avatar's attention, quickly erasing the 'I'll kill you for that first comment' look. "It's on the desk, third datapad on the left corner."
There was a clatter as Javik sought out the specified datapad and began reading intently. Garrus tried to get comfortable again, but the 'perfect position' he'd achieved earlier simply couldn't be reclaimed. Some crew mates just had to make things difficult... and his scars wouldn't stop itching.
"I should have expected explosions from you." judging by the fact his crewmate's voice was much calmer now, the rough sketch of his 'clever plan' had earned some merit. Too tired to say much else, he merely grunted in response. Ahhh... explosions... Serious explosions. Awesome explosions. Aside from that time he blew up the when he was five, that was not awesome, that was terrifying...
"But it does not change the fact that we are working with the enemy." Garrus sighed. He was going to have to give a 'talk', wasn't he? And without warning? And half-asleep? Dammit, Shepard, how do you do it!? With a heavy sigh, Garrus heaved himself up, stretching slightly.
"Necessary evil. That's what the humans call it, anyway." he explained, scratching his scars again. "Something you really don't want to do, goes against everything you've been taught, but you gotta do it anyway for the long game."
"Long game? War is no game. Despite what this cycle may think." with a look of disgust, he tossed the datapad back on the desk.
"You think this isn't hard for the rest of us?" Garrus challenged. He nodded at the desk. "You know what I did, just a few days ago? Why I haven't slept since then? A few days ago, I told the Primarch he should abandon Palaven."
"You gave up your own homeworld? Why?" for the first time since he'd known the prothean, Javik actually looked horrified, though his expression was schooled quick enough that Garrus might have just been seeing things. Knowing someone had actually suggested giving up their own species birthworld to the Reapers? He'd be freaked out living a ship with someone like that, too.
"You were born late into you people's war, weren't you?" Garrus guessed. "Believe it or not, someone probably made the same decision for the prothean homeworld at some point. The fleets we were losing were drawing thin. What were we going to do? Keep throwing ships at the Reapers until we didn't have any left? It's like that... 'chess' game Traynor plays; sometimes you have to sacrifice a piece in order to kill the king. The Reapers still have their weird little obsession with Earth, and yeah, maybe I'm mad we aren't bringing Shepard's dream fleet to Palaven, but if Earth is where the party's at, then we need to conserve our fleets for that push."
"I will admit; the battles in my home system were... small-scale compared to total galactic war." the prothean folded his hands behind his back. "I was taught in preparation to retake the Empire's old territories. I know much about waging such a war. But I had also learned 'knowing' and 'doing' were very different things."
"Expectations versus reality? Yeah, we've got that in this cycle, too." Garrus chuckled. "Like, how I expected a full night sleep, but the reality was one of my squad-mates was monumentally ticked off and needed to vent."
Javik shuffled his feet in the closest thing to 'guilty' his expression would likely ever reach. Garrus yawned and, yet again, fell back on his cot. "Just remember we aren't all nocturnal, huh?"
All he heard next was the opening and closing of the door. Firm attitude, meet firm hand. He thought triumphantly. He'd just had a conversation with the worste conversationalist on the Normandy, and won! Now that was what he called a-
Wait... music. Maybe that would help. The next few minutes found Garrus fiddling with his visor, and half an hour later, he managed to fall asleep to the sweet serenade of AC/DC.
Um, yeah, why wouldn't Garrus be an AC/DC fan? Originally, this was going to have Tali in it, and it wasn't going to be two in the morning... but it was actually two in the morning when I wrote this, so Garrus wound up channeling me. Then, I was too lazy to change it because it was already done an written, and I couldn't think of any lines for the other squadmates.
Also, my solution to the whole 'Leviathan problem', so I don't have to address it later in Out of Tricks.
sooooooooo...
Fare Thee Well!