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1-25-2186
[ CRESCENT NEBULA | TASALE SYSTEM | ILLIUM | VISTA COVA | MARA HORIZON'S LUXURY SUITES | MANSION 14 ]
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"Good morning." John mumbled with a dry whisper. His eyes had been jailed shut for nearly eight hours. So when he tried to pry them open, he blinked in high spun staccatos in some hopeless attempt to compensate for his sleep swollen face.
"…Morning." She replied with her own small murmur. She kissed him on the cheek, yawned, and rubbed the hazy feeling from her eyes just to make sure the previous night wasn't just some crazy misconstrued fantasy.
The ceiling's sky light centered above their bed allowed Illium's hot sun to spread its soft milky tendrils of orange light into the dark maroon colored room.
"Sleep well?" He asked before taking a deep breath and letting his diaphragm stretch against Tali's weight.
"Yes." She slowly rose from his chest until the sheets slipped delicately from her frame. Still straddling him, she drowned her face under the sun's welcoming and radiant glow.
John, having been absorbed with the stunning display, noticed that her iris had been snuffed of their pale glow because of the sun's warm ruby colored rays.
"What about you?" She finally asked when she messed with the locks of her hair to get them under some semblance of control.
"Like a brick." He replied before adjusting his pillow to enjoy the show she was giving him.
She bathed herself in the sun and closed her eyes before smiling.
"How's it feel?"
"Amazing." She answered before opening her eyes and deciding it be best to finally separate from him.
But John stopped her.
"It's pretty crusty down there." He said with a small grin.
She looked down and giggled. "I noticed. Sorry about that." She shrugged before fiddling with his member still stuck inside her, "God. It's like we're glued together."
"Yup. Guess we'll be like this forever."
She rolled her eyes before slapping him on the shoulder. "Oh stop. Carry me into the bathroom and we can take a shower together?"
"Thirty more minutes." John reached for the blanket they had both used earlier.
"John, I'd love to, but we should get ready soon. We have errands to run, remember? And we're leaving to go back to the flotilla late tonight."
"Fine, fine." He grumbled with a witless grin. The answer for her invitation into the shower should have been blatantly obvious. "Okay. You ready?"
"Mhmm." She reached around his neck to anchor herself. "Be careful… I'm—uh—a little sore."
A 'little sore' was a tragic understatement. She'd have to take a low dose of painkillers to walk straight without wincing at every step she'd take today.
Totally worth it.
"I'll be careful."
He grabbed for her bottom and carried her into the bathroom. She gave the large room a good once over. Yesterday night, John had rushed his shower so she wouldn't get lonely in the kitchen. Which made her wonder why his expression mirrored hers.
"Whoa."
'Whoa' was an appalling word to describe the alarmingly beautiful number of features the bathroom contained within its Asari Oak walls.
The amenities that came with the bathroom were far too many to count. The shelves that lined the walls were stocked with toiletries the quarian couldn't even put a name to.
The shower itself, centered in the middle of the room, had glass walls as clear as any crystal she'd ever seen. The damned thing could easily house twelve occupants inside its ample space. It called to her dark and dirty desires by offering luxury she'd feel ashamed for even sampling. With its five heads mounted at every corner with one directly above for maximum aquatic coverage, it called to her with another elated echo to step into its comforting embrace.
Topping the ludicrous size, the floors were finished with smooth chiseled stone inked with dark earthy grays, browns, and greens.
It was nauseatingly beautiful.
Did she mention it came fitted with motion sensors and conduits for conditioning the water to desired levels instantly with total accuracy?
He slowly stepped in under the steaming stream of water.
"Feel good? Is it too hot? I set the shower to yesterday's setting." He asked while still carrying her.
"No. Not at all. It's perfect." Her grasp tightened around the man as the steaming water poured over them both. "Keelah, I haven't taken a real shower in ages. And doing this with you makes it a million times better."
"Good. There's some soap over here." He gently put her down until she could properly balance herself on her feet. He passed the lilac scented soaps before helping himself to some lavender shampoo.
"I love you." John whispered with a smile before putting it on top of his short hair.
"I love you too."
They spent the rest of the shower cleaning with tender kissing in-between the scrubbing. When they were done, they took turns using the toilet before putting on some robes and deciding on ordering food from room service.
As he looked through the menu, he gave Tali a big beaming smile and kiss before looking at a clock.
They were making good on time. Nine thirty-two A.M. (According to human calculation for Illium). The planet's orbit took one extra hour over Earth's… so he guessed it made up the difference by adding another 0100 hours. That meant they'd have to meet back up with Prazza's team at the airport at around eight. He shrugged at the pandered thought before deciding he'd satisfy himself with a hearty helping of country fried steak with a side of some salted hash-browns. He didn't even try to guess what Tali was ordering.
"So…" Tali began as she flipped through the paper menu, "whatcha getting? Some eggs like you usually do for breakfast? Maybe some squiggle things you call hash-browns?"
"Yup." He muttered lamely with a smile. "You?"
"Something turian. I'll spare you the details."
"Good. Everything you eat looks purple."
"Everything turian is purple. And everything you eat looks like our blood." She nudged his shoulder before kissing him on the cheek.
"Fair point." He relented with a small chuckle.
She sipped her glass of water after tinkering with the cup's rim.
"You ready for a real exo-suit? Think you can handle it?"
He turned the vid screen on before turning to her with a small shrug. "We're going to find out. Think you'll still be able to pick me out from the crowd when we finally get to the Neema?"
"Of course. We'll put a nice little N7 symbol on your suit… maybe even a realk for your helmet! You're going to have to let me pick the color scheme though."
His brows furrowed worriedly. When she saw his tawdry, albeit completely fake, expression, she slapped him lightheartedly on the chest.
"Oh stop." He winced pitifully at her. "I'll pick something you'll like."
"Okay, okay. I trust you." He shoved her softly into the plush couch before she got up from the chair.
"I'm going to order our breakfast then." She said while she relished the feeling of her bare feet scuffling lazily across the clean wood flooring.
Tali sent the requests for food on the refrigerator's data screen before putting the wine away from yesterday night. Her smile grew when she picked up the rumpled robe on the tile she had so eagerly taken off of him prior to their love-making. She took a deep whiff of the fabric and sighed.
She'd have sex again had she not been so sore. They'd had to try oral next time. She spared herself a moment to glance at the man she loved watching Illium's news broadcast. He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the asari news anchor who spoke out of ear-shot. She stole herself a little chance to pretend that this was her life with John, inside their mansion ordering take out because they had been too lazy to cook this morning.
Someday.
But right now, they had a slew of problems to worry about…
Cerberus…
Collectors…
Reapers…
She didn't dare mention any one of those names out loud here. She was happy with spending her time here blissfully. She knew John would agree.
"Oh, shit."
"Huh? What?"
"Tali… look. We're on the god-damned news." He grumbled a lowly 'Christ' from his lips before setting his head into the palms of his hands lamely.
'After careful analysis of the audio and video taken at the South Star Café, it has come to the utmost conclusion that Commander Shepard has returned from the dead! But that's not all! His quarian counterpart, now identified as Tali'Zorah nar Rayya—'
Shepard rolled his eyes at the obvious mistake. "They got your name wrong Tali. What a surprise."
Tali hurriedly walked back into the living room. "Keelah."
She was fairly shocked. But then mentally chided herself for remembering that Illium, despite its lucrative lax of legality in anything involving munitions development and pharmaceuticals, was shrouded with surveillance cameras to help 'ensure' its tourists and civilians alike receive adequate 'protection and safety' from Illium's law enforcement. Consequently, it also meant Illium's news companies could cover stories hotter than the planet's own surface. (Which was pretty damn hot.)
'—could even be more than just a friend. Let's take a listen.'
The scene had switched to an elcor whose head had been cut clean from the top of the screen. Tali scoffed quietly at the terrible camera angle.
'Flabbergasted: It can only affirm our assumptions that there may be a possible love triangle. It cannot get any more obvious than this.'
Tali, soon after John, held her own head embarrassingly before sitting down next to John in a horrified heap.
The screen had again changed to view John and Tali standing outside the South Star Café talking animatedly.
'That blue f*cking bitch.'
Tali grew pale and watched her voice through the vid's speakers. Hearing the colorful human expletives she had used to describe Liara made her shoulders sag lower and lower until they felt like detaching.
'Tali! What are you talking about?' Shepard replied just as she remembered. Then the screen jumped back to the Elcor, where his head had now been visible.
'Descriptive and informative: The quarian seems to have a grudge against another former member of Commander Shepard's team: Liara T'Soni who now lives on Illium providing her services as an information broker.'
On que, Liara's cold azure face appeared at the corner of the screen.
They both watched in horror when Tali's face reappeared on the TV screen.
'Liara knew about this the entire time…?' Tali watched herself in the vid shake her head in anger.
She let out a humiliating groan. One loud enough for him to hear.
He took notice and offered a comforting hand by slipping it into her grasp. "Hun. It's fine. Who cares…?" He insisted by patting her hand several times to try and give his words more sustenance.
Even then, he knew they'd remain hollow. He knew exactly who would care and why they would. The avenues of embarrassment for their little outburst in public were far and plenty, but they'd have to pick one and stick it out until the end. He slowly sighed to himself; This certainly wasn't the best way to make a reentrance back to the living… and to have the news 'accidentally' (which he used loosely) falsify the talk into looking like there was some kind of sick triangle of love between Tali, Liara, and Him.
Call him shallow. but the idea of dating someone eight to nine times older sounded like nothing better than statutory rape. Did it make sense? He didn't much ponder on the insignificant matter.
"Liara? Since she lives on Illium? Cerberus?! Since you ditched them? The Alliance? The Council? Or the whole Milky Way for that matter? And I sure bet the Reapers would be positively thrilled knowing that the man who led an entire fleet into killing Sovereign, is alive again!"
Obviously he snipped too many strings.
"You're right. We're kind of over our heads here."
They both turned back to face the vid where Tali's helmet and John's face consumed the entire screen.
'That stupid wh*re kept you away from me. Why? Why would she do that?'
Tali winced at her fiery and hateful words. Liara would definitely be made very aware of her choice of vocabulary.
It didn't feel any better hearing half of her voice silenced with the amount of swearing she used.
'With half-merited honesty: The ensuing argument between Shepard and Zorah provides evidence against Liara's possible infatuation with the Commander. With Finality: We'll provide more as the story and study progresses. Back to you, Alania.'
John didn't feel much like listening to whatever remained on the vid… and neither did Tali for that matter. He turned the screen off and forced the quarian to sit closer to him.
"It's fine, Tali. Don't worry about it."
"Ugh. I know. I can't believe—I should have watched my mouth."
"It happens." He grabbed for her ankles and placed her legs over his lap. "Hey. You're okay." He chuckled and drew a line with his fingers down the curves of her calf. "You got some great legs, you know." He took in a deep breath to make his point. Hopefully his distracting comment would repel the negative feelings Tali was feeling.
"Hope they were good enough for last night?" Her snarky aptitude pushed aside whatever anxiety remained.
"Yes. Very. Best damned legs I've ever laid eyes on."
She snorted obnoxiously at his equally obnoxious compliment. "They're all yours."
He took a sip from her cup of water before giving her a slightly worried frown. "How're you feeling?"
"Sniffy. That's about it. Took some painkillers and anti-inflammatories though after the shower. I think I'll be fine."
"Good. I'm off to a good start with your friends. I'd hate having to explain that we had sex and put you down for a week."
"I don't think that's going to happen, John. If every stray microbe could put us down, we'd all be dead."
Just to make her point, she took the glass of water from his hands and downed whatever remained in the cup.
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"Ugh…" Juel's eyes bead open at an alarmingly sluggish rate. The overcasting shadow from a slow moving industrial fan from above him told the partially sober man it was probably time to wake up.
Now if he only knew where he was…
Several wrappers of some sticky type of candy adhered to his visor and clothes. He brushed them off as he saw them with a look of serious disapproval.
"P—Prazza?" He asked aloud through a painful groan. It took a long moment to get a reply.
"Nope," Olasie answered with a low belched grumble, "just me."
"Where—where are we?" Juel mumbled with his belly still on the cold hard concrete floor.
"The hell if I know." The sounds of discarded trash could be heard falling off the woman when she got up to a sitting position. "Ancestors… Keelah, Juel… we're in an alley…?"
"Next to a dumpster…" Juel added with a crass mumble.
They turned to each other.
"Well… I suppose we're living up to the stereotype."
"Yeah." Juel scoffed, "Here. Let me call Praz—" He fumbled for a button that wasn't there. "...my omni-tool's gone." His arm fell lazily back down to ground. Had he been more awake, he might have cared more.
"Same. I had a lot of good stuff on there. Almost feel sorry for the poor sap when they find out it wipes when it gets farther than a kilometer from me."
"You wired yours to wipe too?" He scoffed lamely. "Damn dude." He slowly rose to his feet and felt the pounding headache he knew would come. "What happened last night? How'd we end up here?"
"Asking the wrong girl." Olasie said as she checked herself. She felt her breath leave her at the cool touch of her fingers on bare skin.
"Oh shit. Juel. I've got a suit breach."
Juel suddenly felt a lot less tired. "You okay? Are you bleeding?"
"No… weird… just a clean sliced piece on my inner thi—Oh KEELAH... somebody put a tattoo on my thigh!" Sure enough, Juel saw a sizable patch of skin through her breach with a small tattoo of some pathetic looking flower that looked native to Illium.
"Oh my god."
"Oh my god is right!" She played with her open skin frantically hoping she could rub the ink out of her leg, "JUEL! It's a TATTOO."
"I get it! You'll be fine, Olasie… it's—it's okay…" His hands wrung anxiously as he continued to look at Olasie's naked flesh. "Damn... that's an atrocious tattoo…"
"Shut up, Juel? Please?" She grumbled like a little girl being refused chocolate, "Help seal it up for me."
"Alright." He pushed himself closer to her and gave the artist's atrocious representation of a flower a good long once over as she smeared an anti-biotic gel over her open patch.
He prepped a long string of tape he'd furnished from one of his pockets and massaged it over her leg for good adhesion.
"That should do it, Olasie." He said with a sad smile, patting her thigh. Had the tattoo been any higher, he'd have flushed a bright red from touching so dangerously close to her crotch.
"Yeah." She said in slight disbelief.
"And your leg looks fine." he began with his sad smile still on his face, "You'll be okay. Just mild irritation."
"JUEL. It's a TATTOO." She repeated through an angry hiss, "and a real shit one at that."
"It'll give you character. You good?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"You're welcome." He got up and offered her a hand of which she gladly accepted.
"Probably a good time to find the others. How hard can it be to find forty more of us?"
"Don't know. I hope they didn't end up like us?" The stare at the nest they made in the grimey litter.
"Time will tell. Let's find out where the hell we are first."
Olasie and Juel, like two kids having lost their parents, walk out from the alley into the street. It seemed they weren't too far from where they had ended up drinking the night away.
"Look. We should just make our way back to dock. Our omni-tools are gone. And I got a tat on my leg." She fussed with a grumble. Who the hell thought giving a drunk quarian some tattoo was a good idea? The same people who probably thought it was okay to share needles too. "This is some shady shit. I'm surprised I didn't die."
"You're lucky." He admitted before picking a direction to walk in, "Of all places? Your thigh? Good luck telling that to your future boytoy."
"STOP reminding me about this thing. Please."
"Okay, okay, okay. Fine." He paused at the walkway's corner before pointing in the direction of where the dock was at. "Down this way, I think." They cross the street onto the sidewalk with the occasional passerby walking passed them.
Juel, having now labeled himself to look no better than a drunken loser, shook his head loosely from left to right. Juel fortunately—or rather unfortunately—ended up with a partner of which to share the terrible burden of waking up in an alley with a rotting trash receptacle to greet you.
The tattoo on Olasie's leg was bad enough. But he couldn't shake the idea the night before was an adventure really worth forgetting.
"Damn dude..." Olasie started, putting both her fists at the side of her head, "Number one rule about tourism is to never lose it for the locals to take advantage of you."
He nodded in agreement before replying. "I don't remember drinking that much. Do you?"
"No. And now I'm worried about the others." She intoned while crossing her arms.
"There were forty of us… there's no way—" Juel caught the sight of one of their own leaning against a pillar as if his life depended on it.
"Prazza?"
"The one and only." He murmured, never taking care to look at either of them.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"Too… many turian escaupee shots…" His words were waxed with nausea.
"Where is everybody?" Olasie asked while leaning on the column herself.
"Inside… getting breakfast… ugh… where did you guys go? Where's the rest of you?"
Juel's eyes narrow into slits. "...The rest of us?"
"You had two others with you…" Prazza's hands went up to brush some of the grease that marred his clothing, "Did you lose the bosh… erhm… 'tets?"
Olasie and Juel groan after looking to each other.
"...It looks like we did." She sighed and tried to look behind her in the unlikely hope of spotting them.
"Who were they?"
"Juel… how could you forget?"
"I don't know, Prazza." Juel stared up at the sky and cursed its bright migraine-inducing glow. "We woke up in an alley next to a dumpster, Prazza. That should give you an idea of how wasted we got."
"You what?"
"You heard me. We lost our omni-tools. I had candy stuck to my face, and Olasie ended up getting a tattoo. On her leg."
Prazza's eyebrow curled to an unfashionably high degree. "Keelah, guys… you fucked up."
They all groan simultaneously.