If Garrus had ever wondered what his stern and ascetic father sounded like when broken down in hysterics, he did so no more. His was the first missed call he tried to return, but when the connection were made, Vakarian the elder was sitting at his desk gasping for air between fits of laughter, unable to string three words together. Garrus quickly disconnected. He couldn't deal with a fatherly breakdown today.
Tali'Zorah on the other hand was fully comprehensible, and quite furious. How in the name of the spirits they had managed to read that travesty from cover to cover already he would never know, but Verner had apparently based his knowledge of quarian sexuality as described in chapter 7 on some rather seedy porn vids that would have made Joker proud. According to Verner, the Flotilla grew its own sex pollen on every ship, and the quarians only took off their suits for ship wide orgies. When the Normandy had been "lumbered" with a quarian, the good commander had to explain that an Alliance ship were no place for such depravities, and this had caused Tali'Zorah vas Normandy to purchase a retrofitted geth sexbot called Legion to keep herself from sexually harassing the regular crew.
Tali ranted at Garrus for a full hour, almost threatening earth with an invasion of geth assassins and mentioning her shotgun thrice before cutting the link. Luckily he had managed to stop himself from saying "assassins, not sexbots?" to the enraged quarian. He hoped Kal'Reegar would calm his wife down before she actually sent the geth or arrived with the entire flotilla herself. The image of Verner now appeared in his mind with the subtext "is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" He forced the image away. Stupid human poets. Garrus slumped in his chair, looking mournfully at the now very cold kavah. Conrad Verner might turn out to be more debilitating to the galaxy than the reapers themselves.
He couldn't muster up the willpower to call the shadow broker right after Tali, and instead picked up the datapad again to continue his descent into Verner's written insanity. He took a quick glance into the mailbox. Yesterday it had been empty, now 492 unread inquiries awaited his attention, the headlines on the last 50 being: VS: Commander Shepard's Secret lover.
Conrad Verner's dratted book spread faster than scale itch, and was in Garrus' opinion most likely equally unpleasant. He gave a low distracted keen and pinched his nose plates before resuming to read.
Jane Shepard-Vakarian had been woken by a call from Liara, whom apologized for disturbing so early, and said she couldn't get a hold of Garrus.
"That's no wonder," Shepard drowsily replied, "he never answers calls before his work day begins."
"Well, he and you should make an exception this time." Liara's voice wavered.
Shepard thought she seemed upset, but she also thought she heard a low snort coming from the asari. She struck it from her mind, figuring it must be very early.
"So?" Liara ventured, apparently awaiting some sort of reaction.
"So what exactly? I don't mind the early rise, Liara, but the mysterious asari maiden act you can pull on someone else."
The asari sighed. "I thought as much."
She cued up a miniature live feed of today's news reel, and the headlined book release. Shepard rubbed her eyes slowly.
"You're starting a book club? Really? 101 ways to shake your ass, asari style?"
Liara gave her a livid glare. "Remind me why we are friends again, Shepard-Vakarian. And yes, this book is about ass shaking. More accurately, how you've been grinding yours against Conrad Verner!"
Shepard blinked her eyes several times as her brain struggled to shift itself into gear, but despite it's best efforts the response was still a hesitant "What?"
Liara coughed. "Shepard, Conrad Verner has published an autobiography where he purports himself to be your longtime lover."
"What?"
This exclamation was uttered with dead calm, and was the reaction Liara had feared most. The next would be an eruption of-:
"The man is dead! I'll have Grunt tear his arms off! I'll hand him over to the geth for live target practice! And then I'll have his carcass displayed on a spike next to the krogan statue on the presidium!"
"Shepard.." Liara tried to sound soothing.
"Don't Shepard me, Liara." Her eyes narrowed. "And how come the shadow broker couldn't pick up on this sooner?"
The asari sighed. There it was.
"Shepard, I never thought the book would be released, considering it is factually wrong on almost every level. What I can offer now is damage control."
"Oh, there'll be damage all right." Shepard leaned back and rubbed her temples. Her implants felt like they were on fire.
"No, Shepard!" Liara's voice rang with the commanding tone she probably used on her subordinates.
"This time you won't charge in like a deranged bovine inn a Chinese People's Federation shop of fine crackleware."
As she had predicted Shepard had to take a few seconds to wrap her head around this reinvention, and Liara pressed her advantage.
"If you get out there now, it will be a case of the lady doth protest too much."
"I should never have encouraged you to learn more about human culture," came Shepard's dour reply, now having caught up with the asaris blatant hijacking of earth references.
Liara had one more card up her velvet sleeve.
"Shepard, information is what I do. I can defuse this relatively easy unless you complicate my job by being, well, yourself."
Shepard opened her mouth for an angry reply, but Liara continued;
"And what about poor Garrus? How do you think he feels about this?"
That seemed to the trick. Shepard deflated immediately, looking concerned.
"Oh. Right. I should probably go check on my mate."
Liara hid a smug smile. That was almost too easy.
"You do that. I'll run interference on my end. And I'll send you a copy of the book. Might as well know what you're in for." She cut the link.
Shepard shuffled out of bed into a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt and padded barefoot towards the stairs. Halfway down she overheard Tali's voice shrieking about slander and sex pollen, and Garrus' attempt at a calming rumble. After a moment of listening and consideration she figured her upstanding and solid husband, whom she assured herself she loved deeply despite abandoning him at the mercy of the quarian admiral, probably had a handle on things, and snuck back upstairs.
Shepard stared at the blinking transmission message from Liara and picked up the pad. How bad could it be, really?