Face It
Quiet
There were several kinds of quiet in your life time.
When you were on a mission, quiet was never good. Quiet meant that people were dead, or you were about to be close to dead. There was probably an ambush, or something waiting to pop out at you. Civvies always thought it was scary on the vids. They had no idea what it was like to be the soldier with the gun, surrounded by unknowns. The deafening silence right before the deafening shots. Shepard didn't like the quiet much.
Off the field was quite different. When you aren't afraid of getting shot, the quiet could be rather relaxing. That was the time to read, or plan the next battle. Or drink coffee, in Shepard's case. She spent a lot of time up in her room, drinking and scrubbing herself in a nice hot shower.
Like all people, she couldn't handle it all the time. That was when she usually made her rounds. It was a good way to waste time while doing something productive. Incognito time wasting.
Awkward silences were bad, too. Shepard had never figured out what you were supposed to say during silences like those- maybe that was why they were awkward... of course, there were times that the awkwardness was cute.
"You know me. I like to savor the last shot before I pop in another heat sink."
The young woman had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggles. She walked into the forward batteries as such.
"What's wrong with you?" Garrus asked while turning back to his calibrations.
"I was just thinking. You're so cute."
Garrus seemed to tense, "Cute?"
"Awkward."
"Are you insulting me?" He asked, confusion very clear in his voice.
"No! No, nothing like that. I just- never mind. It's a human thing." She said, quickly adapting to her excuse. Garrus nodded, as if he understood.
"See you later, Garrus."
"Hey, did you know that Elcor official* isn't making the results public?"
"What, seriously?"
"Yeah. I had...no idea." He cleared his throat.
This time, Shepard had no control over her giggling. She fell to the floor in a fit of laughter. Her sides hurt horribly. This had to be the funniest thing she'd ever heard Garrus admit.
"Sorry, Garrus. That..."
"I'm not sure what he means by it. He could just be...what's the...pulling my arm?"
"Leg, and maybe." Shepard laughed darkly, "But I doubt it."
He stared at her. And the awkward set in.
This is a reference to "The Garrus Vakarian List" made by LockDown. If you haven't read this, you need to. It's incredibly funny, and makes more sense when you read this chapter. ^_^ (And yes, I asked permission to reference their works)
I think this is a link to the exact chapter:
.net/s/5802009/6/The_Garrus_Vakarian_list