Prompt: One day, Thane finds a snake. Its a regular, garden variety garter snake. Not venomous, not vicious, and in fact is a fairly friendly bugger, all things considered. He goes to Kasumi, and asks her what it is. She says its a snake, but doesnt know what kind. They go ask Shep what it is.

And when the greatest fighting force earth has ever produced, someone who has killed a reaper on foot, someone who stood toe to toe with one of the greatest Spectres ever, sees this tiiiiny little guy, Shepard freaks the fuck out. Bolts to the battery, and barricades him/herself in there, and refuses to leave. Take it from there.

Bonus points for Miranda trying to convince shepard to come out by saying "its more afraid of you than you are of it", and shepard responding "no, I am pretty sure its the other way around".

"Miss Goto." Kasumi looked up at the voice and set her eyes on the Drell in the doorway. Thane was carrying something in a container.

"Thane. What do you need?" It was quite unusual as to why the Drell had left Life support.

"Do you know what this creature is?" Thane approached and showed her the contents. Her eyes widened.

"Thane, where did you find a snake?" She asked, cautiously shifting away.

" The...snake...was in a shipment. It apparently stowed away. Is a snake an Earth creature?"

"Yes. Has it bitten you? 'cause some are poisonous."

"No it hasn't. Can you tell if it is? I wish to keep it as a pet.2 Kasumi carefully looked at the small scaled creature that was curled up and staring at her, tongue flicking out to test the air. It was a muddy brown and looked common.

"I can't tell. Maybe one of the crew knows." Thane nodded and they headed into the mess, where they were met with shakes of the head, some people casually moving away and Mordin attempting to disect the poor thing. Then Kasumi spotted Shepard come in and start talking to Gardner.

"Oh there's Shepard, maybe he knows." If Kasumi had been slower in taking the box off Thane and proceeding to place the box in front of Shepard's eyes, Tali may have stopped her. The Quarian correctly predicting what would happen. But alas Kasumi was too fast for Tali and shoved the box into Shepard's face.

"Hey Shep, any idea if this snake is poisonous?" It took a second for Shepard to process what she said and register what was in the box. Brown eyes widened and olive skin blanched.

What happened next was a quite enlightening moment about Alec Shepard.

Garrus was just stepping out of the main battery to grab something to eat. The next moment, he was on his fine Turian ass and the Main Battery's door was locked. Oh and the crew all looked dumbstruck, Tali was face palming and Kasumi seemed to be holding a clear plastic box up high for some reason.

"Oh Keelah." Muttered Tali as the door to Miranda's office opened and the operative stepped out, looking somewhat concerned, she examined the mess then asked:

"Who screamed? And what happened?" There was silence for a while before Tali answered.

" Shepard did. Kasumi shoved a snake in his face." Now it came back to Garrus. He'd entered just as Kasumi put the box in Shepard's face, a second later ,Shepard had let rip with the most girliest scream ever and fled to the Main Battery, practically running over Garrus. This was worse than when they found out about Shepard's problem on the old Normandy. Shepard had leapt into Wrex's arms in front of the whole squad, it'd taken at least three months before Shepard had lived down the embarrassment of it. Knowing Alec, this time he'd lock himself in the Main Battery for three months.

"Why would he run away from a ...snake? It's clearly smaller than him." Asked Samara, genuine emotion appearing on her face, for once.

"Shepard... has a problem with snakes." Explained Garrus, standing up. " And by problem I mean an irrational fear of them." Everyone's jaws dropped, even Miranda's did. Jacob blinked several times then spoke:

"Garrus. Let me get this clear. Commander Shepard. Saviour of the Citadel. The guy who defeated Saren. Survived Akuze. Then died and came back from the fricking dead...Is scared of snakes?" Tali, Chakwas, Garrus and Joker nodded grimly. Kasumi shifted, blushing and looking down at her feet. Thane carefully took his pet snake off the Thief and headed back to his room. Kasumi disappeared after activating her cloak. Miranda seemed to rouse herself from the shock.

"I'll get him out." She strode up to the door and knocked loudly. "Commander? You can come out now. The snake's gone."

"NO! I am not coming out!" Everyone could hear the raw embrassment in Alec's voice.

"Commander. Garrus needs to calibrate. You know he gets tetchy if he can't mess around with his Thanix canon."

"I know! He can come in... when I've died of shame!" His voice became more muffled as if he was burying his face into his hands.

"The snake is more afraid of you, Commander."

"Nope I'm pretty sure it's the other way around." Miranda groaned and rubbed her temples.

"Why do I get the feeling this will be harder than resurrecting him?" She muttered to herself, not noticing Donnelly and the majority of the other male crew members were happily sitting back to enjoy the view.

On the other side of the door, Alec sat with his back against it, shaking with fear.

He hated snakes. HATED them.

"Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes? Why can't Thane get a fluffy bunny or something?"