Just a silly little thing that came to mind a while back. It has been laying forgotten on my computer forever but someone recently read it and asked me to publish it, so here goes! Let me know what you think :)
Shepard leaned forward and took the cigarette from Joker's hand to take a drag before she offered it back. He smiled at her from under his cap and took it just as Tali made a disgusted noise.
"Keelah, Shepard, that's gross!"
Both Kat and Joker turned their heads and stared at Tali.
"What's gross? Smoking?"
"That too, but I was talking about you putting that thing in your mouth when it's been in his mouth!"
When Kat just kept staring at her without any reaction at all and a completely blank face, Tali elaborated with a tone as if she was talking to a three year old.
"It had his saliva on it and you put it in your mouth"
Kat and Joker looked at each other for a few seconds before they both burst out laughing. The rest of the humans in the crew were chuckling as well, but the aliens seemed to lean towards Tali's take on the whole thing. It took just about a minute for Kat to compose herself enough to speak.
"Sorry Tal, it was just really funny"
She still chuckled and Tali put her hands on her hips to show that she was not amused. Quarians made sure their tone of voice and body language were very expressive, probably because no one could see their faces. Why wasn't their helmets seethrough? She had to remember to ask Tali that when the young quarian wasn't so agitated.
"It's just saliva. And it's just Joker!" She gestured to the man himself, sitting beside her. "Wouldn't share a cigarette with say... TIM!" She said the last part at the exact same time as Joker blurted out
"Udina!"
They looked at each other and said in unison
"Yeah, him too"
Both grinned, but turned their gaze to Tali as she made the same disgusted noise again.
"Whatever, it's still gross"
Kat looked back at Joker and he watched her while wriggling his eyebrows and leaning closer. She caught his meaning and shrugged. Messing with Tali, why the hell not. They leaned into each other at the same time, angling their heads to keep Joker's cap from falling off and Kat closed her eyes as she could feel the heat of his skin. Open mouths met and tongues twirled around each other instinctively. Even though it was just for show, she felt as if her nerves were on fire from the contact with his lips and tongue, wanting to press herself closer to him. Lucky for her, her mind won that contest and she pulled away instead, trying to cover up the fact that she was completely breathless. As soon as the contact was broken she could hear the noise around them. The larger part of the crew seemed to be cheering and laughing and Tali was uttering a string of something in a language that her translator didn't pick up.
She glanced up at Joker, their faces still only a few centimeters from each other, and was a little relieved to se him looking as flustered as she felt. His eyes were dark and intense and his lips looked swollen, even though the kiss only lasted a few seconds. She smiled at him and pulled back even more and received a smile in return, but the moment was interrupted by Zaeed's cat calling.
"Encore! Don't stop for us!"
Kat couldn't help laughing, embarrassed as she was, and Joker joined in as well. Soon the entire crew, Tali included, was laughing hard. When they finally calmed down, Kat tried to smooth the thing over by stating their previous point.
"As you could see, Tal, a little saliva isn't so bad"