#tali || smokedanced ( nihlus )

[anderwhohn]

@smokedanced asked: [pin] - Sender and receiver are caught in a small space, causing their bodies to be close together. / tali for nihlus????????????

💌 seggsual tension! [ meme - accepting ]

Spirits! What-- Those are Saren's men!

While not entirely an unusual sight for Nihlus, it is strange seeing them outside of the Terminus Systems - stranger still to see them on the Citadel, chasing after a quarian. It's this reason that he doesn't even truly think about it as he grabs the quarian, shielding her with his own body as he pulls her into the small alcove leading into one of the keeper tunnels, his own height and bulk a challenge to not crowd her overly much as he tries to get a sense of what exactly is going on and check her for injury and damage to her suit.

"Spirits... Are you alright? Are you hurt?" he asks quietly, gloved fingers curled carefully over her shoulders as he keeps her close - though there's not really room for her to get any further from him as it is, with the tunnel firmly sealed off and only his Spectre access allowing him to close the entry panel off from the assassins.

[anderwhohn]

@smokedanced asked: “Go. Sleep. That’s not a request.” / garrus for izzy in triad hierarchy verse nihlus had better back him on it lol

Two pairs of green eyes turn towards Garrus, and for a moment, both human and turian manage nearly the same expression as a single brow is raised high at the younger turian's demand. Though there's notably far more amusement on Nihlus's part, his mandibles fluttering with barely restrained laughter as he knows their human is going to try to resist such an order, despite her not having slept in nearly 72 hours that's he's noticed so far.

Isabela's emerald green gaze narrows sharply as she catches the amused rumble of agreement in Nihlus's subvocals, turning to glare at him briefly before focusing once more on Garrus, clearly set on being stubbornly defiant. "I'm fine," she insists sharply, pointedly ignoring Nihlus's scoff to the contrary. "It's not like engine maintenance can be left half-finished, dammit."

Nevermind that she has a full team in Engineering, or that Tali is back on board and more than capable to handle most anything that might come up in Izzy's absence. But after the destruction of the original Normandy in the midst of a space battle, she's all the more determined to keep things in optimal condition, even if it means spending days on end to rebalance the systems after the latest upgrade.

Starting to stand from the table, she nearly stumbles when Nihlus swiftly grabs the back of her envirosuit, effectively halting her progress before she can run back off to Engineering to disappear into the maintenance shafts.

"Isabela," is Nihlus's only verbal warning, the look in his eyes making it clear that he's on board with Garrus's order, and that he knows her well enough to stop her from getting away from either of them before she can hide to lose herself in her work.

Frowning at them both, she switches to their shared tongue as opposed to the Galactic Standard that she usually uses around the mixed species crew. "Don't 'Isabela' me, Nihlus. Spirits, I'm not some pup that needs to be looked after."

There's a notably haunted look in her eyes as she looks away then, even as she lets the older turian tug her back into her seat. She's silent for a long moment, seemingly working through her own thoughts before hesitatingly admitting, "I can't sleep because of the nightmares, alright? I didn't want them to wake either of you, and I can't sleep in the bed alone, so..."

[anderwhohn]

@smokedanced asked: 14) sender wakes receiver from a nightmare. / tali for izzy

Edolus had been a nightmare in itself for Isabela, especially as thresher maw acid ate through part of the Mako's hull and dripped onto her arm, leading to her having frantically tore open her own envirosuit before it could reach her skin, slapping omnigel on both the resulting suit damage and the hole in the Mako even as she continued to drive to keep the damn monstrous worm in sight and range for the guns and cannon until it was finally dead, only to learn the fate of the missing Alliance marines with the distress beacon used to lure them there...

Between herself and Tali, it took little enough time to disable the beacon, scanning it and taking it apart to ensure there wasn't a tracker anywhere in it before loading it into the Normandy for further investigation. But once back on the ship and back in space, the stress of what occurred groundside clearly started to take its toll on her as she shouted at both Garrus and Nihlus in Palaven Standard, the latter nearly resorting to picking her up to carry her to the medbay when she tried to refuse, given how the emergency patch with omnigel had essentially glued that part of her suit to herself.

It's hours later after she'd been released to her quarters from the medbay that everything truly takes it toll, lulled into sleep by the medication the doctor had given her while removing the omnigel, only sleep now clung to her nearly as strongly as her suit had.

At first, only quiet whimpers can be heard, soft enough that most people might not notice them if they were to pass by her small, private cabin. But it isn't long before those whimpers turn more desperate, half-choked cries in languages not usually heard from a human - in both Palaven Standard and Khelish - barely muffled by the closed door, pleas for help, for her very life, as she relives a horror even worse than the one they faced only hours before, instead thrown back to six years prior while she had been 'on loan' to the Alliance for a mission on the human colony of Akuze...

It's only the jarring realization that some of her cries are being answered that brings her back to the here and now as she startles awake, sucking in a large, gasping breath as emerald green eyes stare unseeingly at first with fear before she seems to realize that she's on a ship and not on that forsaken colony world, and that the voice she heard is still in the room with her.

There's no hiding her trembling then, nor the obvious signals of distress her body language is broadcasting, her own mannerisms almost alien given her species, and yet clearly adapted from years spent around quarians when acquiring her suits and adopted as second nature when dealing with turians. While she's clearly changed into a new, undamaged envirosuit, she has left her helmet off, stored in her locker nearby.

"Tali, hey," she breathes, trying to calm herself from her own panic, the screams of the dead still echoing in her head. She can't quite meet the young engineer's concerned gaze, her own hands wringing anxiously in front of her as she looks anywhere but at the quarian. "I... Did I wake you? I probably should have slept with my helmet on..."

[anderwhohn]

His mandibles pull tight against his jaw, green eyes studying her closely for a moment nodding slowly. "I know of a clinic nearby. The doctor is human, but she's trained to deal with all other species. I've been to her a few times myself," he notes, absently giving her shoulders a reassuring squeeze before letting go.

It's a struggle, in the confines of the access point, to open his omnitool, having to work over the quarian's head as he hacks into the door controls. "It's too risky taking you back out the way we came. We'll get you to the clinic, and I'll deal with Saren's men while you're getting patched up."

With a hiss, the access panel into the keeper tunnels opens, and Nihlus gives her a gentle nudge to get her moving into them. Something's not right - he can feel it, deep down - and while this quarian has undoubtedly got herself into some kind of trouble, he has his doubts that whatever she's done warrants the death Saren seeks for her.

"I'm Nihlus, by the way," he offers casually, mandibles flaring in a small smile to her before doublechecking their route on his omnitool, guiding them through the tight corridors deeper into the inner workings of the station towards the lower wards. "I don't think I've seen you around before. First time on the Citadel?"

Not that he'd know everyone on the station, but quarians tend to stand out more than most, and given the... issues some tend to take towards their species, he makes a point of at least being aware of how many are on the Citadel at any given time, mostly to ensure nothing untoward happens to them. And given how young this one seems, he's guessing she must be fresh from the flotilla, probably on her pilgrimage.

"Once you're patched up, there's a restaurant nearby that's equipped with a sterilisation unit. We can go there, and you can fill me in on why those men were after you. Arterius's methods tend to be... extreme, but this isn't typical, even for him."

@smokedanced asked: [pin] - Sender and receiver are caught in a small space, causing their bodies to be close together. / tali for nihlus????????????

💌 seggsual tension! [ meme - accepting ]

Spirits! What-- Those are Saren's men!

While not entirely an unusual sight for Nihlus, it is strange seeing them outside of the Terminus Systems - stranger still to see them on the Citadel, chasing after a quarian. It's this reason that he doesn't even truly think about it as he grabs the quarian, shielding her with his own body as he pulls her into the small alcove leading into one of the keeper tunnels, his own height and bulk a challenge to not crowd her overly much as he tries to get a sense of what exactly is going on and check her for injury and damage to her suit.

"Spirits... Are you alright? Are you hurt?" he asks quietly, gloved fingers curled carefully over her shoulders as he keeps her close - though there's not really room for her to get any further from him as it is, with the tunnel firmly sealed off and only his Spectre access allowing him to close the entry panel off from the assassins.