A brief note: this takes place at some point after Grunt is in on Liara's secret
A less brief note: I'm well aware that in terms of certain developments—mainly the fluffy, romantic, nice kind—BTF is a little slow-going. I wouldn't say that's intentional, but it's kind of just the way I write. However, I thought I'd do something this N7 day for Beyond the Fire, and I decided that Nicky deserves to have a nice, pointlessly sweet story which is one hundred percent pure undiluted fluff.
A note briefer than the second, not so brief as the first: This is literally just fluff! Moreover, it is fluff that falls at some point during the second half of Beyond the Fire: DragonRise. So if you haven't read Beyond the Fire or DragonRise, you'll probably not get that much out of this.
"I'm going to warn you all now," Garrus said, as Nicole began to deal cards around the table. "Shepard is merciless."
"We already knew that," Grunt rumbled. He was having some difficulty with picking up the individual cards in his hands which, it had to be said, were not ideally shaped for holding thin paper objects.
"You have only begun to peer into the depth that is the hole Shepard has where pity should be," Garrus said, with feeling. Liara rolled her eyes and shot Nicole a sideways look, raising an eyebrow—or whatever. After a few glimpses into Liara's mind, Nicole's long suspicion had been confirmed: Liara had adopted that gesture from Nicole herself, in an attempt to make her feel more comfortable. So Nicole tried not to smile as she dealt cards. It would perhaps slightly undermine her image as ruthless poker queen.
"I still say that eyepatch isn't fair." Garrus was still muttering mutinously beneath his breath.
"I have an eye condition," Nicole said. This was, technically, true.
"Eh, we all know how this ends," Joker shrugged. He raised the bottle of beer he had on the table and spun it lightly in his fingers before taking a drink. "Us chipless and broken-hearted. I'm just here for the drinks. And the company. Beer, EDI?" Joker reached into the cooler beside him and offered a bottle to EDI's hologram, which was positioned in the chair next to Joker. Somehow, without a face, EDI managed to sigh in a way which sounded exactly like she was rolling her eyes. "More for me, then."
As EDI scanned her cards and duplicated them in holoform, her holographic avatar turned to Nicole.
"Shepard, I am curious about something." EDI was using the tone she sometimes got which Nicole imagined sounded exactly like an intelligent but perhaps overly studious university student asking a question they already knew most of the answer to.
"Fire away, EDI," Nicole said, as the rest of them started their game.
"Everyone else at the table has some sort of alcoholic beverage. You do not. Do you dislike alcohol?"
"Well, it tastes exactly like poison," Nicole said dryly. Beside her, Liara made a noise which indicated some sort of offended dignity. Nicole glanced sideways at the Liara, who was drinking a deep purple beverage called vorolsis, and amended: "Well, that's not fair. Asari alcohol tends to be spicy. Spicy poison." Nicole permitted a very slight smirk onto her face. "Which even by my standards is weird."
"It is not weird! You're all the ones who use bizarre compounds to cultivate your drinks," Liara opined darkly. She got a little more fiercely pro-asari when she had a drink or two. Nicole privately thought it was adorable.
"Anyway, the stuff doesn't affect me anyway, so I don't really see the point. Garrus, yours to call." Garrus made a sound of disgust which indicated he was out. Nicole waited for Grunt to say something, but instead he abruptly stood up and said.
"I have an idea."
"Has that ever preceded anything that doesn't involve guns?" Garrus asked faintly. Kasumi—who wasn't really playing but was hanging around, sipping at a martini—watched Grunt as he left, then shook her head.
"Nope. Not headed to the armory. We're safe."
"Thank the spirits."
"He's headed to the kitchen."
"Someone stop him," Joker suggested cheerfully, now well into his second beer. He generally regarded poker night as a chance to retest his alcohol tolerance. "I nominate Shepard. Then we look at her cards!"
"As a nefarious ne'er-do-well, I feel obligated to inform you that is usually best to wait until the mark has left the room before you announce your cunning plan," Kasumi said cheerfully.
"Besides, Liara would protect my cards," Nicole said. Liara made a show of innocently drinking her weird, bubbling, spicy drink.
"Oh, yeah, of course…."
"Ah, at last, the rift forms between us," Nicole sighed. Liara elbowed her in the side, and Nicole chuckled. "I should've known it was the poker that would do it."
"You can be a very graceless winner," Liara pointed out.
"What? That's not true!" Nicole had never once gloated, she was sure of it. She appealed to Joker for help. "Joker, tell them I'm not a bad winner!"
"You're a terrible winner," Joker said, shaking his head. "You don't even have the decency to brag just a bit. It'd be nice if you pretended it was hard."
"This is a strange conversation," EDI said. Nicole felt a rush of kindship with the A.I.
"I agree. Fine, Joker, if it makes you feel better, I'll make fun of you every time you're making an obvious tell."
"Nicole, you couldn't make fun of someone if you tried," Liara snorted, happily drinking from the tall, fluted glass that she'd had specially brought aboard the ship. The glass was a function of necessity—vorolsis tended to congeal if you kept it in a squat glass. "You're too honest."
"That," Nicole said dryly, "Is the first time anyone has ever accused me of being honest. Where the hell is Grunt?"
"You're much more honest than I am," Liara continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that Nicole had said anything, or that anyone was listening. There was a very faint purple color in her cheeks which was extremely cute. "You only lie to keep people safe. You're a positive sweetheart, Nicky."
"Nicky? Do I get to call you that?" Kasumi said hopefully.
"You absolutely do not."
"Can I call you a 'positive sweetheart'?" Joker said, in a low enough voice that Nicole pretended not to hear. She was saved the need to defend herself any further when the thudding sounds of Grunt's steps preceded his return to the briefing room—Nicole had specifically chosen this place because she enjoyed the thought of the Illusive Man grinding his teeth if he knew a bunch of aliens had played cards on his big fancy quantum entanglement table. Nicole turned to see Grunt returning, with two large, poison-green bottles of what had to be ryncol. He was grinning very broadly.
"Grunt, how do you have alcohol?" Nicole asked, blinking perhaps a little too politely.
"When we spent all that time on Illium. I spent the money you gave me. Heh." He looked incredibly pleased with himself. "I think undiluted ryncol is supposed to be poisonous to humans though…."
"Not to Nicole," Liara said. Nicole had to hide a grin; Liara had reached the 'trying very hard to sound formal and proper' stage of the evening. Also very cute. "She can drink anything."
"Good." Grunt thrust a bottle at her. Nicole stared.
"Grunt, Wrex doesn't drink ryncol straight from the bottle."
"Who is Wrex?"
"Very large. Flames on his crest. You'd like him," Nicole said. Grunt nodded.
"Flames…." He sounded as if he were very seriously considering the idea. Actually, Nicole had always thought that part of Wrex's appearance had been hilarious, until he had once confided to her that it was a strange genetic defect. Nicole hadn't had the heart to mention old-Earth hot rods. "Fine. I'll go get some glasses."
"Tiny glasses, Grunt. Shot glas—you know what, Joker, you go help him find some bottles. And some ice. And some water."
"How do you know how to drink ryncol?" Liara asked, momentarily forgetting her deliberate composure and leaning over at Nicole eagerly. For a moment, she reminded Nicole very strongly of the archaeologist she'd met a couple years ago.
"Oh, just, you know. Learning about things. Thought it seemed useful."
"You're so interesting."
"Hey, Shadowbroker, your crush is showing," Kasumi said, the hologram under her hood switching to the devilish grin she liked to use. All at once, Garrus groaned, Joker choked on his drink, and EDI turned immediately towards Liara. It was startling to realize that even their friends were a tiny bit afraid of pissing Liara off.
Is it wrong that that's a little cool?
"I do not have a crush," Liara said, very precisely. "I have a partner. You do not all need to be jealous that I am in a relationship with the most interesting woman in the world. Galaxy. Universe." Apparently, that was that, and Liara lapsed into a dignified silence as she sipped at her drink. Everyone, including Nicole, was staring in open shock. Nicole was also blushing a colour very near scarlet. It was with some wry amusement that she realized no one was going so far as to mention that, yet.
Well, now I'm literally the Red Dragon.
XXX
At some point in the evening, Miranda joined them—she explained that she'd been "busy," though Nicole was fairly certain she'd been contacting Oriana, since whatever communication feed she'd been using was one of the ones that Liara had made sure wouldn't be monitored. Miranda, it turned out, was quite an excellent poker player, which was about as surprising as the rising of the sun. It was after two hours—and several shots of ryncol later, when Miranda actually brought up the drinking.
"I thought you didn't drink?" The question was polite, but Grunt, who was apparently a very effusive drunk, took it on himself to answer. Despite Nicole trying to warn him several times, he'd decided to take his ryncol straight. Consequently he was in a state which presented a fairly realistic danger of falling so hard that he left a dent in the floor.
"Trying to get Shepard drunk. Not working."
"You should've said so." Miranda sounded deeply amused. "Shepard, you should know, no amount of watered-down ryncol is going to get you drunk."
"Really?" Nicole was a little surprised. She'd assumed that ryncol—which, legendarily, was supposed to knock humans out—would be too much even for her system. Miranda nodded.
"Mmhmm. It's the way your body processes alcohol. Your metabolism is too fast." Nicole felt a little uncomfortable when Miranda mentioned her 'body.' Somehow, Miranda seemed to notice, so she hurried past the point. "If you want to, um, enjoy ryncol the traditional way, you'll need to drink quite a bit at once. Shock your system, as it were." Miranda raised her own martini—which Kasumi had made for her at her request. Apparently, Kasumi was very good at that sort of thing. "That's what I have to do, actually." And she downed the martini in one long swallow.
Nicole eyed the bottle of Ryncol that was positioned on the table between her and Grunt.
"How much do you figure?"
With surprising efficiency, Miranda reached across the table, snapped up the four shot glasses Nicole had already accumulated, refilled them with pure ryncol, and lined them up in front of her.
"That was amazing," Joker said fervently. "You and Kasumi should open a bar. Call it 'Scary Bartenders Wearing Coats.' " Joker spread his hands apart as he said this, as though he were spelling out the idea in mid-air. "I'll only want a small percentage for the concept."
"Shut up, Joker, I want to see Shepard get drunk," Garrus said. Nicole realized that everyone was staring at her, all of a sudden. Nicole shrugged and downed the shots, one after another. Ryncol tasted like ass, of course, and it burned like it was actually on fire—but even after waiting a moment, Nicole wasn't sure she felt anything.
"Nothing," she decided. Out of the corner of her eye, she actually caught Liara pouting.
"Shepard," Grunt said solemnly, "You can have the whole bottle if you want."
"I doubt we'll need to go that far," Nicole said.
XXX
And so the night proceeded thusly: Nicole would drink several shots of ryncol. Her friends would watch eagerly for some sign of inebriation, and when none showed, they all returned to their cards. As the night wore on, the poker game became forgotten as everyone's attention was fully turned towards whether or not Nicole really would work her way through an entire bottle of ryncol.
Finally, when nearly three-quarters of the bottle was empty, Nicole blinked.
"I feel strange."
"And just think, it only took enough ryncol to irradiate Mars's food supply," Miranda said dryly. She was the only one who still seemed capable of forming complete sentences; Garrus had straight-up fallen asleep on the poker table. Liara was leaning heavily on Nicole's shoulder. She was still awake, but that was only out of sheer force of will. Joker and Grunt were in similar situations.
"Wuzzit like?" Joker asked. Nicole wasn't sure if he was slurring from tiredness or all the beer he'd had.
"My hands feel strange. Tingly." Nicole held one of her hands up to examine and frowned, wiggling her fingers.
"Ha!" Grunt said, though whatever he meant by this was left a mystery, as he then immediately passed out asleep on the table next to Garrus. Nicole presumed he considered any noticeable signs of inebriation as a victory, and was now allowing himself to succumb to what was, even for a krogan, probably a little too much ryncol.
"Does it always feel this strange?" Nicole asked. She glanced at Liara, who was still leaning into her shoulder, and felt her head shift a little as she turned. She wasn't sure she liked it.
"I think you're what most people would call 'buzzed,' " Kasumi said. Kasumi, unlike Joker, Garrus, and Grunt, had demonstrated some restraint. Miranda had left long ago, after winning a few hands of poker and declaring that taking advantage of four drunks was unsportsmanlike. "Trust me, it gets stranger."
"Mmmf … you're not fair," Liara mumbled, from somewhere in Nicole's shoulder. Nicole laughed, looked at the remaining bottle of ryncol, then decided to hell with it.
"Bottoms up."
XXX
Later that night, Liara—who kept insisting she was 'just a little tipsy'—was leaning heavily on Nicole as they left the briefing room to head to their quarters. As they were at the threshold (leaving Garrus, Grunt, and Joker still sleeping in their chairs), Nicole stopped.
"Liara."
"Mm?"
"Forgetting something?" Nicole said dryly.
"Oh, right, tip."
"No, Liara." Nicole waved her hand in front of her face to demonstrate, then blinked in surprise. Her hand felt strangely … heavy.
"Oh! Right, the hologram," Liara said, sounding surprisingly businesslike all of a sudden. She tapped a button on her omnitool, re-enabled the hologram, and stood up straight.
"Think you can make it to the elevator?"
"I'll manage," Liara said, sounding much haughtier than she probably would have ordinarily thanks to the filter on her mask. Nicole rolled her eyes and opened the door.
As they walked to the elevator, she realized that there was something just a little off with her every movement. She was habitually used to tracking her own physiological state, a leftover of her training in Shadowhill all those years ago—realizing now that she wasn't fully in control felt a little strange, and if she was honest with herself, unpleasant. But it had been a good night. Everyone had needed it. She had needed it, if she were honest with herself. And having fun with her friends, even being gently made fun of a little, was something she'd never thought she'd be able to have. So she tried not to let her thoughts spiral into some weird obsession about her inability to control everything.
"Nicole?" Liara said, having removed her mask now that they were up on their level. "The elevator stopped. I want to go to sleep, please."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Nicole had been lost in her thoughts—which again, was the kind of thing which couldn't help set her on edge a bit. But … with Liara leaning on her and yawning, it was hard to feel too hard done by. They made their way into the room, and Liara made a beeline for the bed, before Nicole steered her back to the bathroom. "Brush your teeth. You'll thank me for it in the—you know. Morning. Weird."
"What's weird?" Liara asked, still sounding half-asleep.
"I lost my train of thought. I never do that," Nicole insisted.
"Well, you did just drink a bottle of ryncol," Liara said. This very reasonable explanation was slightly diminished by the fact that she was trying and failing to fill her toothbrush with water. Well, it wasn't really a toothbrush, but the asari equivalent—which sprayed water mixed with some sort of toothpaste-like material into the mouth. Asari could close their throats to keep water from getting in anyway, so it was trivial for them to spit the water back out. Humans who tried using an asari 'toothbrush' usually wound up swallowing a mouthful of water, toothpaste, and debris.
"Here, let me help with that," Nicole said.
"Oh no you don't! You just drank an entire bottle of ryncol!"
"Grunt helped. And besides, you heard what Miranda said about my metabolism—"
"You're so interesting," Liara sighed, which was such a rapid change of tone that Nicole was taken completely off guard. Liara finally finished filling her toothbrush. "See?"
"You sure showed me," Nicole said, as Liara accidentally fired a spurt of water-toothpaste into the mirror. "All right, Shadow Broker, I'll go get you your pyjamas."
XXX
Getting into bed, by now, wasn't actually too difficult. Nicole always climbed in first—this ritual had started without conscious acknowledgement by either of them, but they both knew it was for Nicole's benefit. It was easier this way.
Though now, surprisingly, she found she didn't feel quite as tense as she normally did. Even with Liara, it took a little while for her to prepare herself for the thought of lying down next to someone for the night. But now, she didn't feel that tension in the way she usually did. It was kind of nice. And for once, Nicole decided to allow herself to just let herself feel that.
Somehow, Liara snuck up on her and she suddenly felt the shifting of weight in the bed as Liara climbed in clumsily behind her.
Okay, maybe she didn't sneak in. Maybe I'm just a little drunk, Nicole admitted. Even now, Liara was very careful, taking her time to get into bed—Nicole was on her side, facing away from her, which made things easier. As always, Liara moved a little closer and started to ask,
"Would it—"
"You don't have to ask," Nicole said quietly. Liara froze for a moment, then reached around her, holding her gently from behind. "It's never hard because of you. I have all this … stupid stuff. But it's not you. It's nice with you." Liara didn't say anything, but she buried herself in Nicole's shoulder.
"Your hair smells nice."
"You always smell nice," Nicole murmured, without thinking. She felt the beginnings of a blush that never properly came. Slowly, she turned herself around in bed so that she was facing Liara, who looked incredibly sleepy, with one cheek pressed up against the pillow. Nicole smiled and took her into her arms, too. It felt nice. "You make everything better…."
"You're being very sweet," Liara murmured. Her eyes were closed, but a very small smile was on her face. "I didn't say stop."
"I'm not being sweet, it's just true," Nicole protested. "I like being around you. You make me feel good." Nicole paused. That wasn't right. She pulled Liara a little closer. "You make me feel safe."
"Don't worry," Liara said, now clearly half-asleep. "I'll always protect you."
Liara meant it as a joke, but the truth of it felt obvious to Nicole.
XXX
"Nicole."
Huh?
"Nicole."
"Five more minutes…." Nicole heard herself saying. She was so comfortable…
"Nicole, you're, uh cuddling a little intensely."
"Oh! What?" As reality came back to her, Nicole realized she'd fallen asleep with her arms around Liara—and that quite accidentally her grip had become a little less restrained than she'd meant it. She immediately let go. "Damn, I'm sorry Liara, I didn't mean to—"
"I didn't say let go," Liara murmured. Nicole's internal clock told her they were still well into the night-cycle of the ship's artificial day. "Just maybe don't break my back." Liara said this with the perfect sincerity of someone who was still half between sleeping and waking. Nicole smiled, as Liara quite gracelessly wrapped her arms around Nicole again and went promptly back to sleep. A little lower on her waist than was normal—but strangely it didn't make her feel uncomfortable, the way that normally might. At first she thought it was still the alcohol, but then she was certain it wasn't that. As she looked into Liara's face, she realized that this was the one person who she could trust with anything, no matter what. The one person who would be by her side through everything. Forever. The one person whose touch could never hurt. The one person who understood that Nicole wasn't a fraction as invincible as the rest of them thought she was.
As she fell asleep in Liara's arms, Nicole realized that she had found her protector at last.