Chapter Text
Tali hasn’t been to many nightclubs in her life. They didn’t really have them on the Flotilla, and it wasn’t like Shepard traipsed around in them often unless they were looking for someone—so it’s weird, tonight, when Samara comes up with the plan to lure her apparently crazy, murderess of a daughter out of hiding. Shepard is upstairs in the VIP section, pretending to be the live entertainment, and Garrus and Thane had gone with her, just in case, probably both strategically positioned should something go wrong.
The rest of the crew has been left up to their own devices for the night. “Shore leave,” Shepard had called it as she tugged a little at the hem of her tight black dress. “Have fun. Come back in one piece.”
Everyone else had murmured their agreement, but Kira had rolled her eyes and said, “Still think I should be in charge of luring in the sex demon, considering the fact that, you know, I wouldn’t be interested if she were to try anything anyway.”
But Shepard had just shushed her, waving a hand lazily and repeating, “I’ve got it. Go enjoy yourselves for a few hours.”
And that was that.
And that was how Tali, Kasumi, Kira, and Jack ended up at a table in Afterlife, with various alcoholic drinks, listening to the bass and unsure of what to really do with themselves. Zaeed and Grunt had wandered off towards the Markets, Miranda and Jacob went back to the Normandy (she thinks, anyway). Kira and Kasumi had convinced Tali to come to Afterlife with them, and Jack…
Well, Tali isn’t really sure why Jack is with them. Especially since she doesn’t really seem to be having any fun at all—not that Tali is either, but still.
Jack is sort of glaring at the dance floor, bouncing her legs under the table, when Kasumi sighs and says, “So, are we going to sit here all night?”
“Fuck, I hope not,” Jack replies dryly, turning back to the group. “Any of you ladies dance, or is that too—I don’t know, fun?”
Kira laughs a little, shaking her head. “You don’t wanna see me dance. Those rumors about Shepard not being able to dance? They’re probably actually about me.”
“Why do you say that?” asks Kasumi.
“Because Sun wanted to be a singer when she was growing up? She took lessons and stuff in high school, I know. I can, at best, sort of—hop to the beat. I can follow a waltz, if I try, but—nobody is gonna play a waltz here.” She pauses to take a rather large gulp of her drink, wincing a little as she looks back out on the dance floor. “I think I’ll just stay over here and get happily drunk.”
Jack rolls her eyes, turning to Tali and Kasumi now. “I’m guessing neither of you are into it, either?”
Kasumi shrugs, and Tali can’t see her eyes, but she’s pretty sure she’s eyeing a table of rather wealthy-looking humans across the room. “I’m more in a ‘make a few quick credits’ mood, I think.”
And then Jack is looking at her, and all Tali can do is splutter, “I—I can dance, but I don’t know if—“
“Okay, well, I’m gonna go find someone more fun to do, then. Catch you guys later,” Jack interrupts before she can finish her sentence, standing and leaving with her drink, drifting towards some of the asari dancers on the floor. Tali loses her in the crowd in the next moment, and turns back towards Kira with a quiet sigh.
“And, there goes Kasumi, too,” Kira says, propping her chin up with one hand and gesturing to the spot beside Tali.
Kasumi has apparently disappeared entirely, she discovers when she turns to look at the empty chair beside her. Wonderful.
Tali wants to scratch at her face, but she can’t, so she settles for fiddling with the straw in her drink nervously. Kira looks a little disappointed, eyes unfocused somewhere near Tali’s face. After another beat, she straightens a little and meets Tali’s eyes, smiling as she asks, “You wanna get out of here?”
“And go where?”
She shrugs. “We could try to sneak into the VIP section and catch Sun’s little concert.”
Tali snorts. “Pfft. They won’t let me in there and you know it.”
Kira purses her lips, considering, and then nods, sighing again. “Right. What if we went and explored some of the lower reaches of this place?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to find somewhere dark and vaguely secluded so I can make out with you,” Kira says so plainly that Tali chokes on the breath she’d been taking, making Kira grin apologetically. “Sorry. That was a joke. I just thought it might be interesting—I’ve only ever been to Omega a handful of times, and never really in here. Better than sitting here and drinking the night away probably, yeah?”
Tali valiantly manages to answer with something like, “Sure,” instead of the incoherent stuttering she usually manages after stuff like this. Her mind is only too quick to conjure up images in her head of a dark hallway and a world where taking her suit off is no big deal, where it would be easy for them to get a little more drunk and end up in each other’s arms, giggling and carefree. Kira’s hands on her hips—“You have great hips, you know? Quarians, I mean.”—and Tali’s arms around her neck, breathing the same air and not worrying about the germs for once as she leans against the wall. Kira’s lips are probably warm and soft, she imagines as she lets her friend pull her to her feet. Warm and soft and sweet, just like the way she smiles sometimes when they’re both up too late and talking about nothing as Tali puts in overtime on the drive core and Kira keeps her company because the Normandy is too quiet for her to sleep, too.
Oh, no, she thinks as she follows Kira towards the doors that lead further into the depths of the nightclub. Oh, no. Keelah, this isn’t the time.
But that doesn’t help at all, because Kira’s hand keeps brushing hers, and they are wandering down dark hallways, pulsing distantly with the bass from the club. She can’t help but think about how much she’s come to enjoy Kira’s company, how implicitly she’s come to trust her—as much as she trusts Shepard, even. Kira’s so easy to be around, so easy to joke with, she trusts her with her life.
Or, at least, enough to be really, really curious about what it’d be like to kiss her breathless—curious enough to seriously consider it.
“Are you okay?” comes Kira’s voice softly, after they’ve been walking for a few minutes. The music is quieter here, but the buzz of the alcohol hasn’t left yet as they slow to a stop. Kira reaches up and rubs at the back of her neck as she says, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with that joke back there. I get kinda—uh, weird when I drink sometimes.”
Tali laughs quietly, shaking her head. “I’m not uncomfortable, Kira. You’d know if I was uncomfortable.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d have found some excuse to go back to the Normandy if I was really uncomfortable.” Feeling brave, she turns and meets Kira’s gaze, smiling even though she can’t see it. “It’s not such a bad thought, anyway.”
Kira’s brow furrows, but she smiles anyway. “What—making out with me?”
Tali just tilts her head, fiddling with the latch on her hood as she nods.
She thinks Kira might be blushing, given the way she laughs breathlessly and brushes her hair back from her face where it’s fallen loose from where she’d pulled it up—but it’s hard to tell in the low lighting. Smiling, Kira cocks her hip and says, “That’s kinda dangerous for you, isn’t it?”
Tali scoffs, shaking her head again and mimicking Kira’s posture, crossing her arms. “If we could all get sick and die from something like that we’d have died off ages ago. Sure, we might get a fever for a few days or a week or two, but that’s usually the worst of it.”
Kira shakes her head. “Living your whole life in that suit must be hard—or at least, it must get annoying sometimes.”
Tali’s eyes drop to Kira’s lips as she thinks, You have no idea. Instead of vocalizing that particular thought, she shrugs and says, “We spend our entire lives in these suits, so we don’t really know any different. We’re in our suits even among family. The most intimate thing we can do with another quarian is link our suit environments—sure, we get sick at first, but then we adapt. It’s our most important gesture of trust, of acceptance…”
Kira tilts her head. “Doesn’t sound very enjoyable.”
Tali laughs a little. “No, not particularly. I’ve never trusted anyone enough for that, though—or, well, no quarians, um,” she stumbles over her words, glad for once that her face is hidden behind her mask. Her entire face is hot now—how is it that both Shepards have gained her trust so implicitly in such a short amount of time, anyway?
“But,” Tali continues, clearing her throat, “there have been plenty of moments, since starting my Pilgrimage that I wished I could just—take it off without risking serious infection.” Like now. “There’s a lot of things I don’t get to do that other species can do without a second thought.”
Kira smirks, quirking an eyebrow as she asks, “Like kissing girls in dark, unfamiliar hallways?”
Tali laughs. “Not just girls. Kissing boys in dark, grimy, germ-ridden, unfamiliar hallways also has its appeal.” She fiddles with her fingers then, eyes on the wall instead of her friend’s face as she adds, “Kissing anyone really. If I weren’t worried I’d catch my death…”
She can feel Kira looking at her, and her face is getting warm beneath her mask, but she forces herself to meet her gaze anyway. Some unreadable emotion passes over her face and then—“Is this real? Like, are we flirting for real or are we joking around? Not that—not that that’s a problem, I just want to know…what page I’m supposed to be on.”
Her mind runs over moments from the past several months, moments when her stomach had flipped, looking at Kira.
The time they’d gotten pinned by mercenaries, pressed right up against each other as they both hid from the flying bullets—how she realized that Kira was just that much taller than she was, how her breath had caught in her throat at how close they were even as Kira joked about how cozy it was—before Kira had grabbed a loose bit of piping nearby and stepped out into the spray of bullets. Barrier up, her biotics had flared up blue as she launched the pipe like a damn spear, apparently hitting and impaling three different mercs in one go, when Tali had peeked her head out from cover.
And there was the time she punched that guy for calling her “suit rat”—or, that was a few times, actually. Every time it happened, Tali always got a flutter in her stomach, because really, no one had ever stood up for her quite like that before. Quarians weren’t exactly highly regarded, so whenever aliens stood up for them, it was always a little jarring, but—Kira did it every time. Sometimes before Tali even really registered that it had happened.
Then there was the time Tali got a little too drunk after everything that happened with the Migrant Fleet, and Kira sat with her for hours, just—talking. She didn’t pry or try to get Tali to talk about her feelings, she just told her stories until Tali stopped wanting to drown her sorrows in liquor. She still isn’t sure how Kira knew just what she needed, but by the time she’d finally let Kira basically carry her to bed, she was in a much better mood—though, it’s possible that might have had something to do with what Kira had said, somewhere in that conversation.
“Whatever my problems with my dad, I’m at least glad he didn’t screw me up for good. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got to meet you.”
Plus, Kira’s arms were very strong, and for her to have been able to lug Tali and her suit back to bed was quite a feat, and she's always had a weakness for muscles.
There was also the vid night they’d had about two weeks ago, where Tali had ended up laying her head in Kira’s lap and watching the way the lights from the vid screen played on her features rather than watching the actual vid. At some point, Kira had gotten tired of keeping her arm where it was slung across the back of the sofa, and had dropped it to rest on Tali’s stomach for the longest 22 minutes and 15 seconds of her life. She completely missed the entire end of the vid, too focused on the warmth of Kira’s hand she could feel through her suit, and what did this mean? Was it a come on? Was it platonic? Did Kira even like women? What was happening?
Kira clears her throat and Tali’s pulled back to the present, blinking and shaking her head a little. “Sorry. I get a little—when I—it’s the alcohol.”
Kira’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t smile, eyes still clouded with something Tali can’t identify. “Yeah. You should probably start going easier on that.”
They stare at each other in silence for another long, awkward moment, before Tali forces herself to look away and ask, “Do you even…you know…like…women?”
“I—yeah. I do. Do you?”
Tali’s gone back to fidgeting, but she meets Kira’s gaze again. “I…think so? No, I mean, I know so, but it never—I’ve only ever had actual crushes on guys until now. Though, I definitely became more aware of—women in general, when I left for my Pilgrimage. Probably because I could actually see alien women’s faces and—well. You know.” Kill me.
“I don’t blame you,” Kira says conversationally, crossing her arms, obviously trying to ease the tension. “Asari are really pretty.”
“So are humans,” Tali answers, a little too quickly. “I mean, um…”
Kira laughs, shaking her head. “Human women are beautiful, definitely. Not gonna argue with you there.”
“Present company included,” Tali mumbles without thinking, only to immediately start backpedaling because oh no. “I-I mean, I—I—!”
Kira’s really laughing now, reaching out and taking Tali’s hands in what she must think is a calming gesture, but only serves to kick her heartbeat up another two notches. Keelah. “Relax, Jitterbug. It’s just me.”
That seems to work better than her fingers gently working out the tension in her hands, but only slightly. Tali’s shoulders drop from where they’d tensed up, and she looks up at her friend now, aware that if she weren’t wearing the mask, she could probably feel her breath on her lips.
But she’d said…
“Jitterbug?” Tali repeats, dazed.
Kira chuckles, low and warm. “Yeah, you know—cuz of how jittery you get when you get nervous. You start rambling and it’s cute.”
“…cute.”
Kira grins and Tali wonders where her nerves have gone, why she’s the only one that’s nervous now. Kira looks down at their hands to apparently try and match up their fingers, but Tali’s still unable to look away from her face—from her high cheekbones and her kind eyes and full, soft-looking lips.
She’s still watching her lips when Kira starts to speak again, watching the words form. “I don’t want to pressure you, but I’m also...not going to say no, if you wanted to—to give this a go. I think you’re sweet and you make me laugh and I love spending time with you. I’m down if you are.”
That makes Tali bring her eyes back to Kira’s. “You are?”
She nods. “Not tonight, if you don’t want, but…we ever get some free time and you ever feel like taking a bunch of medicine just because it could be fun to try? I won’t say no. What happens next is entirely up to you. I’m good with—whatever you want. No pressure.”
No pressure, Tali thinks and she wants to laugh. Making the first move sounds like quite a bit of pressure to her.
After a brief pause, Kira blinks and adds, “Also, there’s nothing to like—I don’t do the sex thing, so it would just be kissing if we ever…made that step. So that’s probably safer for you, right? No need to take your whole suit off or anything. Not a lot of chance of—ah—allergic reactions.”
Tali snorts. “Well, I mean, there would be whatever new germs are in the room and your skin and your mouth, but I suppose that’s still less than…than that would expose me to.”
They fall into silence again, staring at each other, still holding hands. Smiling a little, Kira stage-whispers, “How do we end this conversation?”
That finally, finally breaks the last of the tension as Tali snorts, shaking her head and dropping their hands, but still holding tight to one of Kira’s. “How about we go check out the marketplace?”
Kira squeezes her hand, grinning. “Sure. Lead the way.”