#also i don't get to write about me2 shep nearly enough

[swaps55]

Writing prompt: Staying up half the night to finish a game with them.

Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”

47. Staying up half the night to finish a game with them.

At first, Miranda think that Shepard’s relentless insomnia is her fault. Something she overlooked. A miscalculation somewhere that has created a serotonin imbalance, or maybe something has gone wrong with his cortisol or adrenal levels.

She first notices the problem after leaving Omega. She’d emerged from her cabin for a cup of tea to find Shepard sitting at a table in the silent mess, toying with a few crackers and scrolling through a datapad.

Concerning.

Since then it’s followed a pattern. He spends some nights in Mordin’s lab. The salarian needs so little sleep he’s almost always awake, and the two seem to get on rather well. Either that or his endless prattle leaves fewer silences to fill.

Other nights he stays in his quarters. She doesn’t have cameras in there, but EDI confirms he spends hours at his desk, sleeping in his chair – if he sleeps at all – as often as he does the bed.

She asks his permission to run tests. He denies it, growing more and more defensive each time she brings it up. So she stops asking. Once she goes to Mordin for his professional opinion, to which he good-naturedly replies, “Don’t discuss patient matters without consent.”

That at least suggests Mordin has discussed it. But judging from Shepard’s continued insomnia, he does not have a solution.

“Has he always slept poorly?” she asks Moreau. If it’s a chronic issue, that is at least new information she doesn’t have. She’s gleaned much from his service record and the intel the Illusive Man had provided her with, but behavioral patterns leave a large hole.

“I’m not his nanny,” Joker had replied, annoyed. Miranda knows better than to ask Dr. Chakwas. If the salarian won’t discuss it, Shepard’s physician certainly won’t. But she also isn’t helping him sleep.  

They treat Miranda like the enemy when she just wants to help. This was so much easier when she had full control. But he is not her project anymore. He is a fully functioning, stubborn and vexing individual.

And he’s not sleeping.

She’d been so thorough. Why is this one thing so out of place?

The deck of cards appears after Horizon. Miranda strategically gets a cup of tea right around the time Shepard usually wanders into the mess, and tonight he’s right on schedule. But Vakarian and Moreau are already sitting there, playing a game of War almost like they’ve been waiting for him.

“This is a stupid game,” Garrus tells Joker. “It’s pure chance if I can’t look at my cards. There’s no strategy. It’s mindless.”

“That’s the point,” Joker replies. “Play your card, coward.”

Miranda is baffled as to why either of them are still awake. After everything they dealt with on Horizon her body feels like lead, she had been in the lift when the turian fantasized in great detail about the sleep he planned to enjoy that night.

Shepard turns the coffee pot on and leans against the counter to watch them. His eyes are bleary and there’s a tremble in his hands that suggests a dose of stims.

Wait. Is he keeping himself awake?

Garrus’s glance shifts Shepard’s way. His mandibles quiver. “This is only a two-person game, right?”

“Yeah,” Joker says.

“Perfect, Shepard, care to join us?” Garrus gestures to the open seat beside him.

Shepard sits – more like oozes – into the seat, posture slouched with weariness. He blinks, listening but unfocused, as if keeping his attention in the room or even on the Normandy is too great a task. “What do we play?”

Joker eyes Miranda warily. “If Lawson joins in, we can play Horse.”

“What?” Garrus asks.

“Never heard of it,” Shepard says.

“I’ll teach you.”

Garrus flicks a mandible. “What’s a horse?”

“Kind of like those shifty cows we saw on Ontarom,” Shepard replies. “Only less likely to steal your credits.”

“Why not poker?” Miranda asks, cautiously taking a seat. Not because she wants to play, but because the chance to observe is not something she’s willing to turn down. Poker is at least a game she knows, and poses less risk she’ll make a fool out of herself.

“No,” Joker and Garrus say in unison. Joker shoots her a dirty look. Shepard stares at the table and scratches the back of his neck. Miranda shifts in her seat. She doesn’t know why the suggestion was offensive, but doesn’t argue. She’ll investigate it later.

“Teach me Horse,” Shepard says.

It’s a stupid game with too many nonsensical rules. Even though no one but Joker understands how Jacks work in this context, Shepard quickly proves his luck isn’t just confined to the battlefield.

“There’s no way Garrus had both rights,” Joker laments when Shepard successfully “horses” and takes every trick. She is still lost as to which Jacks are lefts and which ones are rights – she swears they change – or why Garrus gets to pass Shepard cards. But Shepard has something that might pass for a smile on his face, which is at least an improvement even if it doesn’t solve the sleep problem.  

When she finally bids them goodnight it’s 03:00 and she still can’t figure out why a Jack of clubs is sometimes considered a spade.

She’s exhausted, sore, still hasn’t completely evened out her electrolyte levels after her output on Horizon, and after that unpleasant confrontation with Shepard’s former crewmate, now has to do some digging into the significance of Commander Alenko before she can finish up her mission report for the Illusive Man.    

Shepard looks exhausted too, and this time she thinks he might actually go to his quarters and finally rest. But when Joker makes the suggestion he waves them off.

“You need sleep, friend,” Garrus says. There’s a gentle thrum in his subvocals that even Miranda finds soothing.

“There are so many stars,” Shepard murmurs, digging at his neck with stiff fingers, right where the seal of his helmet would be. His nails leave red streaks against his skin.

Miranda’s heart lurches as she finally understands. His cabin. The open shutters. Alchera. Shepard had died alone in the stars, the same stars that gleam down upon him while he tries to sleep.

So many pieces she had put back together, recreated with near flawless perfection, but she’d never once given thought to perhaps the most important ones. Ones she can’t touch and can’t repair.  

But his friends have.

She’s tolerated Vakarian with a vague sense of wariness and even disdain, mistrustful of his intentions, afraid of the influence he might have. But as the turian gingerly rubs Shepard’s back with his talons and some of the tension leaves the commander’s shoulders, she realizes just how greatly she has undervalued his presence.  

Likewise, she’s made the foolish miscalculation that Joker is only here for the ship.    

The pilot’s eyes are bloodshot, he can’t stop yawning and he needs a shave as much as he needs a good night’s sleep. But instead of calling it a night, Joker picks up the deck and starts to shuffle.

“My deal.”