As we rolled up on the taco stand, I knew for sure that my life was a wish fic. Most people would wish for some superpower to trivialize the dangers and struggles of life, others would ask for some reality warping system to control their afterlife and make them slaves, I'd wish to be able to eat at Pedro's again.
The little taco shop looked different when built on the high tech terraces of a vertically built up sci-fi world, but the inside fully captured the spirit of the original and my heart almost stopped when a little red tray came out with the thinnest chips ever to our table still hot from the fryer. Reverently, I mixed the house salsa with their hot roasted chili sauce and took a chip between my gargantuan fingers. A single taste brought me back to my youth, eating lunch with my father in the middle of the work day.
"Damn, that is good." Jack grinned after she dipped a chip in my bowl.
"You ain't seen nothing yet." Draug barked a laugh.
The krogan bounty hunter looked pretty average despite the extra ridges on his face plate and short neck. The guy looked a bit like a crusty ball sack stretched over a turtle. Between the two of us we'd dropped over three hundred creds ordering a mountain of tacos and when they arrived I felt a deep satisfaction looking at the thin and crisp shells containing finely shredded cheese and lettuce and underneath, the beef of the gods.
I'd been known for inhaling these tacos before I could fit six in my mouth, but I settled on eating them one at a time after drawing a line of hot sauce on each. Draug grunted his approval and Jack moaned in pleasure as they ate theirs, but I remained silent and lost in the memory of my best friend and I driving 25 miles on the weekend in a blue pick up truck as old as I was just to get the tacos you could get nowhere else. I realized what I had to say at that moment. RIP homie.
"This beef is making my dick hard!" I shouted, disturbing the family restaurant during the dinner rush.
"Damn straight brother!" Draug roared his agreement.
"Fucking weirdos." Jack sighed as people stared at us.
Let them stare. I just recreated one of my favorite memories in my new favorite place in the galaxy.
After finishing our meal we left in an introspective haze, or at least I did.
I spoke to Jack, "The collectors, the reapers, I would have fought them because my blood demanded it, but then you came and I had a personal reason to destroy my enemies beyond the pleasure and satisfaction of looking down on the broken bodies. Now my feelings are grounded, there is a place I must defend. Sacred ground I cannot allow to be desecrated."
"Neat." Jack deadpanned but her face looked concerned.
"I feel the same." Draug announced, "When I survived the Rite of Passage for Nakmor, I thought I had found my place in life, and when I had my daughter I had found my person, but Tuchanka… the longer I stayed there the more I felt my hope fading away. I set out across the stars battling for credits with the Bloodpack, then I went independent when that stopped feeling right as well. Then I found the beef, and my heart knew its true home."
"Live for the beef, die for the beef." I stated firmly.
Draug parted with us after that and Jack and I made our way back to our accommodations for the stay on Illium.
"The fuck was that back there?" Jack demanded while damn near radiating emotional heat.
"Beef?" I tossed out unsure of my answer.
"Not your new cow worship!" Jack snarled, "The shit before that, about destroying your enemies because of me. The fuck was that about."
"Hmmm. That?" I said. "Love."
I nodded my head sagely.
"Love?" Jack growled.
"Love you." I nodded.
"You love me?" She asked seemingly offended.
More nods from me.
"Bullshit!" she spat.
"Bulltrue." I defended my declaration.
"And how would your scaly ass know what love is?" Jack demanded with a look on her face halfway between murder and running as fast as she can.
"I am not afraid of anything." I told her, "Not even my feelings."
"What the fuck does that even mean?" Jack yelled in frustration.
"You love me too." I told her and should have turned back on my shields, "You can't admit it because you are afraid that I am going pull off my mask someday and reveal that I was using you all along, or that I am going to die and you are going to know then that it was real and you are all on your own again. News flash, I am who I am without lies or pretension, and I am way harder a target to kill than you soft little earthlings."
"Fuck you!" Jack shouted as she threw me with a pulse of biotic power that fortunately launched me into the nearest building rather than over the nearest ledge.
I caught my breath as she ran off and remembered something that years of happy marriage made me forget. Women have a huge problem with the truth. Lie you dumb mother fucker, lie so you don't get slapped, or chucked through the air by a glowing blue telepath.