More random stupidity set in ME2. Jaer gave me the idea so blame her, lol.
Chapter 1 – Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Shepard walked into the mess to find Joker and some of the crew playing Skillian Five. "Deal me in for the next hand, Joker. What are the stakes?"
Several of the crew members groaned and put down their cards.
"Uh, no offense Shepard, but no-one wants to play with you." Joker placed his cards face down on the table and grinned at her.
"Why not? I'm not a bad loser."
Joker snorted. "Tell that to the merc you pushed out the window. Sorry Shepard but none of us want to be in the firing line of a warp field. Besides, Donnelly already warned us not to play with you."
"Fine, if you won't play with me I'll just have to find something else to do." She gave him a sideways look and grinned. "Maybe now would be a good time for EDI to teach me how to fly the Normandy."
"It's moments like this when I really wish you had knocked Alenko out and dragged him aboard on Horizon. If he hadn't taken his bat and balls and gone home in a huff you'd have someone to play with."
Her eyes narrowed. "Be careful I don't take my bat to your balls."
Joker laughed. "You have a bat? Shit, Cerberus really stuffed up on the upgrades."
She crossed her arms and stared at him. "Joker, what's my favourite weapon?"
"Aw, too easy Commander. That would be the rocket launcher. I think you're compensating for something, which brings us back to the Cerberus upgrades."
Her voice took on a warning tone that Joker was familiar with. "Do I need to go the armory and show you how well I can compensate?"
Joker decided it was time for a retreat and rapidly changed the subject. "What you really need is a hobby, other than collecting mentally unstable killers that is. Why don't you take up cooking or something?"
She thought about it for a moment. "That's not a bad idea. I'm sure I can whip something up in no time, and since you're all in the mess anyway, you guys get to be the first ones to taste it."
Joker threw his cards down on the table and started to rise. "Well I think that's about enough for me. I'm sure EDI needs me back on the bridge for something."
"Freeze, Joker. That's an order." She grinned wickedly at him, "This was your idea, so none of you are going anywhere till I try my hand at cooking something and you all eat it."
Garrus sighed in relief, "Well that lets me out. I'll see you later, I've got some….."
Shepard stared at him and placed her hands on her hips. "Garrus if you tell me you've got calibrations I will hurt you. Sit. I'm sure I can cook something that you can eat as well."
She ignored the whispering coming from the table as she shooed Gardner out of the mess and set to work finding interesting looking ingredients.
As she dug through the cupboards Joker called out, "Ah, Shepard. Did you ask Gardner for a recipe before you sent him away?"
"Joker, I don't need a recipe. Gardner manages to come up with edible stuff, how hard can it be?"
"You do know that if you poison me you won't have anyone to fly the Normandy."
"That's okay Joker, I'm sure finding a smartass pilot can't be that hard."
Joker and the other crew members continued to play cards unenthusiastically as they waited for Shepard to cook them a meal. The swearing and banging of pots did not help their poker faces at all. An hour later Shepard placed a bubbling pot on the table.
"There you go. Dig in," she said proudly.
Joker looked into the pot and screwed up his nose at the smell wafting from it. "Shepard, it's grey. You can't seriously expect us to eat that. What the hell is it anyway?"
"It's just a little something I like to call Shepard Surprise, and it's suitable for Garrus and Tali to eat too."
"Yeah, the surprise being if we manage to survive." Joker said trying to lean as far as possible away from the pot.
"Tali's lucky she's not here." Garrus said despondently.
"What was that Garrus?"
"I said Tali's unlucky to be missing this," he muttered quietly.
"You'll just have to eat some for her as well," Shepard grinned at him as she spooned a double helping into his bowl.
Garrus stood abruptly. "I'm sorry, Shepard. You know that I'd follow you to hell and back but this is one time when my courage fails me." He made a hasty retreat back to the relative safety of the main battery.
Joker looked at the bowl he was handed with the spoon standing straight up in it. "Congratulations Shepard, you've made industrial strength glue. Should come in handy next time the Normandy's hull needs repairs."
"Stop your whining and eat." Shepard continued to fill bowls. "No one is leaving this table until I see you all start eating." She watched in satisfaction as they all hesitantly brought their spoons to their mouths.
Joker thought about spitting it out but the look on Shepard's face and the smoke that was starting to billow from the kitchen forced him to swallow. "Shepard, I don't mean to alarm you but I think you've set the Normandy on fire."
She turned and rushed to the oven as fire alarms started to sound. "God damn it Joker. This is your fault. If you had just tried it without me having to stand over you I wouldn't have burnt the main course."
"You mean there's more?" He shouted to her. "This is payback for getting you killed isn't it?"
By the time she managed to get the fire out the whole mess was blanketed by smoke and her food tasters had all made themselves scarce.
The next morning she walked into the mess after checking on everyone in medbay to be confronted with a very angry Gardner.
"Shepard what the hell is going on? I've spent all morning working on the plumbing because it was overloaded, now I have to try and clean this crap off my kitchen benches. I know you are a hero and my commanding officer but stay the fuck out of my kitchen from now on and stick to killing Collectors instead of trying to kill your crew."
She patted him on the back. "It's not that bad, Gardner, you just don't like the competition."
"What competition?" He asked as he furiously scrubbed at the kitchen bench. "You've got half the crew down with either food poisoning or smoke inhalation."
Joker's voice came weakly over the comm, "The doc is working overtime. I hope the Illusive Man is paying you well or you find a lot more crates to poke around in because I think you're going to have to spring for a lot more brandy."
She ignored Gardner who was now muttering under his breath and headed for the CIC. "Just remember that this was your idea, Joker."
"You never take anything I say seriously, Shepard. You picked a hell of a time to start listening to me." He stopped and made retching noises. "You've also managed to scare Hawthorne and Goldstein away from their favourite spot."
"Well, at least now they have plenty of time to do, oh, I don't know, their jobs."
"Maybe that advice that you should take yourself Shepard. Just stick to shooting things from now on." Joker said before abruptly terminating the comm.
Next chapter Shepard will try her hand at flower arranging