Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all its characters belong to Bioware

"People who…who just see the helmet can't see my expression, so I have to make it clear…what I'm…"

Shepard lifted away Tali's mask and froze.

This…this thing…was Tali? Shepard's gaze hung on Tali's eyes, large, bulging, and giving off their characteristic silver fluorescence. Inches below them were her nostrils, opening and closing with a sickening rasping, like fish gills when out of the water. She had no nose or ears, and the only human-like part of her face was her thin lips. Yet even those were pale and barely contrasted with the doughy colored skin of the rest of her face.

Shepard had lost track of how many times he had declared he loved the young quarian, and how many times he had assured her that he didn't care what was beneath her mask. But he couldn't stop the feelings of disgust that welled within him now, and he hated himself for it.

Whatever he felt, he must've been cloaking it well, for Tali didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps she, in her nervousness, was too blind to see it.

"…feeling…" Shepard heard Tali finish her sentence, but her voice seemed so distant. He was so preoccupied with trying to keep down that day's rations and trying tomake himself feel the way he was supposed to feel - that light-headed, dizzy, crazy in love feeling - that he could barely hear her.

It wasn't working, and seconds later it got worse. Tali sprung onto Shepard, in a way he associated more with overeager pets than passionate lovers, and pushed him back against the bed. He felt her open mouth press against his lips, a long snake-like tongue invade his mouth.

"Ta—" Shepard grabbed her shoulders and tried to call out her name. She didn't hear him, instead continuing her frenzied caressing. Shepard felt his stomach churn and his core muscles twitch and convulse. "Tali!" Shepard pushed her to the side and rolled in the other direction off the bed. He quickly stood up and went to the wall, placing one hand against it in an attempt to preserve his balance. His stomach convulsed again, and Shepard squeezed his eyes shut and put his right hand across his mouth.

"Shepard?"

God, it doesn't even sound like Tali. Indeed, without her enviro-suits voice modulator, Tali's voice seemed completely alien. Shepard collapsed into a crouch, completely silent.

"…I can't do this," he said in a small voice.

"W-what do you mean? I thought you said—" Tali was still on Shepard's bed, staring at his hunched back.

"I know what I said!" he roared. Shepard squeezed his temples in frustration. Tali was an alien. He knew that. He thought he had accepted that. But it wasn't her appearance that made him so disgusted. It was the thought of being with her…with that.

It made him feel bestial.

Somehow, he had expected for Tali to be like an asari: distinctly alien, but strangely human. Familiar. But she wasn't. He couldn't understand her facial expressions. Her eyes weren't the addicting, mystical silver pools he thought they'd be. Instead they were painfully bright to observe and almost insectoid in nature.

He wanted to be okay with her appearance. Maybe if he had been with a quarian before, maybe if everything weren't so goddamn alien, he would've been. Maybe if he hadn't been so attracted by the mystery and more by the woman, he wouldn't have created such impossible standards for her appearance. But he had, and the reality of it all made him nauseous.

There was no way he could tell her, no way he could communicate to her that the idea of being with her made him feel like he would be fucking some oversized, part amphibian part insect creature, or that she wasn't, in short, as pretty as he thought she'd be.

The worst part was that he still loved whoever it was he had come to think of as Tali'Zorah vas Normandy: the young, full of life engineer he had laughed with, held, and shared so many of his deepest secrets with.

Shepard convulsed again, and this time he couldn't hold it down.

A/N: As a note, this was written prior to the release of ME3. Yes, I saw the final version of Tali's face. I also saw the concept designs, which imo were vastly superior. Quite frankly I'm disappointed with what was in ME3. Not because it was ugly, and not even because it was basically a slightly edited stock photo. Because it was so human.

I appreciate reviews, but not flames. So please, if you don't have something constructive to say, just don't click review.