There's No Party Like a Spectre Party

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Who: Cloney, Shepard, Tali and Nihlus.
When: Right after they get the hell away from Del Pascia, so 29/04?
Where: The lounge!
What: A very late birthday party for the Sheps.
Warnings: Alcohol consumption and bad movies.



It's near the end of a long and decidedly unpleasant month and Nihlus has finally managed to gather everything together for a party.

There are drinks on the table, weird alcohols of various kinds with two dextro friendly options to one side, cups, eating utensils, plates, a carafe of water and a hunk of meatloaf to one side. Next to that was a smaller plate of dextro friendly... things (they looked kind of like casserole, but a weird grey-purple color) and then some snacks he'd grabbed from the cafe.

Above the TV is a beautifully pinstriped red and black, scrap metal sign that reads 'HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAYS SHEPARDS'.

Nihlus has already sent out pings to all the relevant people and can now be found standing in front of the TV trying to understand the remote. The screen is currently stuck on some weird and complicated sound menu.

Comments

[petridish]

Already dressed for bed, she's not actually pleased to be pinged to the lounge, let alone by an alien who would have been Shepard's mentor, but she makes her way there anyway, the identity she's using and the tags clicking together as she moves necessitating it.

Her eyes fall on the sign first, and for a moment, she's lost for words. Brooks probably wouldn't have celebrated either her real birthday or Shepard's.

And then she finds the words again. "Thank you, but I had a happy birthday." As happy as she can be on a ship full of aliens, two of whom know Shepard, and the real thing, anyway.

[beautifulspaceraptor]

"Consider it an apology for missing it," Nihlus offers, pausing in the circuitous menu navigation long enough to peer at her. "Besides, I figured it'd be a chance to get everyone from our universe together for a cozy night of movie-watching. Wouldn't you like to get to know Tali and the alternate Shepard in a more relaxed setting?"

Of course you do, because you're Commander Shepard.

"It's been such a hectic month," he adds, quietly concealing the amusement in his tones and turning back to the screen. "It'll be nice."

[squadgoals]

There's a sudden, loud laugh behind the two of them — this Shepard, adorned in her stupid hoodie, at least, is totally tickled.

"You make that yourself, Kryik? I knew you were working on something in that corner." She strides in, completely comfortable with the environment, and gives her counterpart a pat on the shoulder. "Hope you like alcohol as much as I do."

Catching a glimpse of the video menu, she laughs again, and gestures to Nihlus. "I'm no engineer, but I bet I can work a remote. Throw it here."

[keelahselai]

Tali walks in right as Shepard's saying those last words, taking in the room at a glance before, "You're an engineer now. I'll be judging everything you do."

Somehow it's already easy to tell the two apart. The whole way they carry themselves is different sometimes, in ways she can't quite explain. And, slightly shamefully, she already knows which she likes better.

Rounding out the N7 outfit trio, Tali has her own N7 zip-up hoodie...which she's wearing over a giant sweater and some baggy sweatpants; she's gotten good at keeping herself warm and comfortable, if not at all stylish.

Then she perches herself up on the edge of a table, gestures at alternate Shepard to go ahead and says to Nihlus, "I don't know why I didn't think turians celebrated birthdays. But I didn't."

[petridish]

Her suspicions were correct: Shepard's a drinker. So really, she should drink too. It might even make this little party more tolerable. But she needs her wits about her, so she just eyes the snacks instead, and then helps herself to a small cake.

(Maybe later.)

"I'm not really a movie fan," she says truthfully, since she can't say that the only thing she thought about turians was how to kill them. Squeezing over a decade of combat training into six months while plotting identity theft doesn't leave a lot of time for movies. "Don't know why I got that OSD of Blasto movies in the mail."

[beautifulspaceraptor]

"This is honestly the least intuitive UI design I've seen in a while," Nihlus grumbles as he tosses the remote at Shepard. Have at, Commander!

"Birthday celebrations vary from place to place. The colonies and the motherworld all have extremely different cultures," he explains to Tali, going over to pour himself a cup of one of the dextro friendly drinks. "A lot of places don't celebrate it annually, but all cultures at least celebrate the birth of the baby. On Aephus and Carelia, the celebration is more mother than child oriented. Predominantly, it's the Palavenians and more Hierarchy friendly colonies who celebrate their children turning fifteen. Military eligibility age."

Almost everyone else tended to dread it.

Settling down on one of the couches, Nihlus readjusts his scarf and peers at the... other Shep.

"I suspect it's part of the mail-related conspiracy to cause random, unwary crewmembers various stages of annoyance or distress," he sips his drink and makes a face at the taste before taking another. "Probably for a mysterious someone's sadistic entertainment. The delivered items are oddly precise in their connection to the person sometimes."

[squadgoals]

Shepard catches the remote easily, and, throwing a glance at Tali, navigates seamlessly from the sound options screen to the menu screen proper. On the screen a dramatic clip of a Hanar and Elcor in an all-out firefight plays, under the dramatic title of BLASTO 6: PARTNERS IN CRIME. She wiggles her eyebrows at Tali, as if waiting for her score.

"I only saw the previews for this one, but the trailer gave away most of the plot. Hope it's better than the sequel." She purses her lips at the final sentence, as if tasting a particularly astringent fruit. Spinning the remote in her hand a few times, she places it on the table, swapping it for an entire bottle of whiskey, and two glasses.

She listens to Nihlus' mail theory as she pours out a careful dram, downing it handily before replying. "This mail system — it's all coming through the Ingress, right? So, hypothetically, our own universe is missing the things we're getting. So what if things are just being... called to us?"

Pouring out another measure into both of the glasses, she waves one at her copy. "Love the onesie, by the way. Who's making all this stuff?" Shepard pulls at her own hoodie, thoroughly bemused. She'd had the hoodie in her closet on the Normandy, and didn't know how that one had gotten there, either. Turning to Tali, she nods at hers. "Where'd you get yours?"

[keelahselai]

She pulls an uncertain sort of face and waves her hand vaguely. "B+," she calls over, though she's fighting a grin.

Nihlus's theory makes her huff with laughter as she grabs a - levi-amino - snack from the table and bites into it without a hint of caution. When the conversation turns to her hoodie, she looks down at it for a second and hurriedly swallows.

"I had it when I got here, so it didn't come through the Ingress. The last ship I was on got deliveries, too, once or twice. But I don't think they used an Ingress."

She picks at the N7 logo with her free hand, then looks to each Shepard in turn. "I'm not breaking some kind of Alliance law wearing this, am I?"

Not that she's going to care much if she is at this point.

[petridish]

Though she takes the glass, she doesn't drink just yet, finishing up her cake and taking a snack from the same plate as Tali instead. If whiskey's anything like wine or beer, she's not going to enjoy it.

"It's against regulations, but not illegal," she says, frowning. "The tag on mine says 'made on Bekenstein' - the manufacturers probably weren't thinking about that when they made it." It might be slightly hypocritical for her to wear it, and the dress, but at least the person she's being is fully qualified N7. Tali has no such excuse.

She goes to eat her new treat, but then glances at Tali. "Should you really be eating that?" A sick alien is certainly one way this little party could get worse for her.

[beautifulspaceraptor]

When Shepard successfully navigates the menu in no time at all, Nihlus puffs air through his mandibles and slouches somewhat petulantly against the couch. It's an awful UI design and he's standing by that.

The introductory scene has him sitting right up again though, because this looks like his sort of terrible movie in all the ways. Man, what he'd give for some proper Turian snack foods right about now.

"From a scale of 'Ruck Humpers' to 'Confederates', how bad are we talking?"

And should they make up a drinking game or will this end in horrific alcohol poisoning?

He doesn't bother adding onto the discussion of the mail system because oh boy does he not want a reminder of Saren's head cloth. It was a good excuse as any to knock back the rest of his drink though.

[squadgoals]

"B+!" Shepard scoffs in a mock-rage, throwing her hands into the air. "Were you even watching my smooth button motions?" She shakes her head, eyes crinkled with silent mirth. "Anyway, onesie-me is right — it's against regulations, but who cares? I'll give you a heads-up if an Alliance regulations officer comes through the Ingress." Now she really is chuckling.

It's been a hell of a ridiculous month, and somehow, this really is relaxing. The circumstances have all been ridiculous, the whole situation a hell of a trip, but as things settle down into just "bizarre", it feels nice to get to know everyone better in a situation like this. And speaking of "bizarre"...

"Tali, hold on, that was definitely levo." But what was she saying? Tali wasn't even wearing her mask right now. The known constants of their universe were not the absolutes anymore. "Is this the same as your enviro-suit?"

To Nihlus, she frowns. "Think I might've been dead when those came out." Or in N-school. Or on active duty. Keeping up with pop culture, any pop culture, was a challenge at the best of times, but lately? If it wasn't in an auto-talking ad on the Citadel, she didn't know it.

She had strong suspicions of it slowly becoming of her Normandy squad's running jokes.

[keelahselai]

She waves away the two Shepards' concerns, mouth still full. It's a few seconds of literal waving around of food and chewing before she can swallow and say anything, though.

"This is why I went into a stasis a while back," she explains - not that one Shepard was here for that, but now she know. "So I could eat levo food and..." Not end a romantic evening with anaphylaxis on both sides? She doesn't say that. "Well, I don't even know what they did, but it had me in stasis for a month and now..." She waves the remains of her food. "Your food is a lot better than ours."

It's a little weird to hear Shepard casually talking about being dead. Considering the Moira's medical staff can bring people back from that like it's nothing, maybe she's the one being weird for thinking anything of it, but she still remembers a long time of grieving, of the pain lessening in nanometres at a time until it was possible to forget. Not forget Shepard, no - but the pain of losing her, at least.

...Time to focus on the movie and not on people dying, how about that. It's been a grand total of under two minutes, and she's looking thoughtfully at the closest bottle of alcohol. She'd probably suggest a drinking game herself if the thought would only occur to her.

"This is probably a bad time to mention I'm more of the romantic drama type, right?"