Chapter 54: Visited
Disclaimer: This author in no way profits from the writing of this story. All characters, dialogue, or other referenced material from the Mass Effect trilogy belong to BioWare.
Author's Note: This story does not necessarily follow any particular timeline and may not be considered chronologically accurate.
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His mind was a flurry of conflicting desires, inconsistent emotions, and confusing thoughts. Vadix had hoped that returning home would grant him some peace of mind, that seeing his parents would somehow confirm what exactly he should do. But there had been no moment of revelation, no grand realization.
Instead, the chaos within him seemed to have grown.
Dinner was a new experience, having someone with them who was not a business associate of his father nor a "close" family friend of his mother's—there was never a shortage in that department—but still someone who was important, someone who mattered. What made it new was that this person mattered most to him.
It had started off fine and then got weird and then took a rocky turn and then Cassana had departed—bolted was a better word for it—and then she'd reappeared, and his world seemed to right itself once more. For a time, things had been uncomfortable for no reason Vadix could identify, and then he'd noticed his mother and Cassana speaking privately. Trebaana must have purposely chosen to exclude him from the conversation and kept him out of earshot—regardless of how curious he was. But after that, things seemed to return to some semblance of normalcy, so he couldn't complain too much.
Of course he had expected his parents to be civil and kind to the alien sharing their home for the night. They were good people, after all. His father had behaved almost exactly as Vadix had assumed he would, if a bit off-balance, somehow, until partway through the meal. Yet his mother had gone above and beyond the polite requirements of entertaining a guest. He would have sworn Trebaana had treated the woman like a daughter.
Perhaps it was because he had warned them that Cassana was an orphan.
Yes, that must be it. It was nothing more. His mother couldn't possibly want him to mate with a human. He had seen her interacting with peers who had recently attained the status of grandmother. None of them said it in so many words, but it was clear they felt nothing but pride and joy for their offspring and for the offspring of their offspring.
Vadix knew his mother wanted that as well.
And mating with a human, well, there would be no offspring from a union of that sort.
Pairing with another turian, on the other hand, that was the expectation the Ramraka's must have had for their only son. Surely it was the only way he could make them truly happy, second only to adopting one of their colony's markings.
Though he wouldn't be surprised if grandchildren were even more important than his choosing a face tattoo.
He had disappointed them for so long that he couldn't bear the thought of ruining his only other chance at making them proud.
Which meant he must somehow both win the affection of Juvelea and erase all sentiment he had developed for Cassana, mere moments after realizing just how much he cared for the human.
Vadix sat up in bed and looked at the time. He'd lain there for hours, his casuals twisted from all the tossing and turning, and still sleep eluded him.
He needed a drink.
Soft ambient lights began to warm as he exited his room into the central living area of his parents' home. The turian selected a bottle of liquor from the cabinet, noting the name and vintage. He'd have to find something to replace it tomorrow before they returned to the Normandy.
Seating himself at the kitchen table, he drank straight from the bottle, noting no change in his insomnia no matter how much he consumed. So, this is how it's going to be, he thought drily.
Knowing the automatic light would dim if he sat still for too long, Vadix stood once more to hit the manual switch for the bulbs beaming from underneath the cabinetry. Much as he was loathe to admit it, it seemed sleep would not be coming for him anytime soon.
Again he sat at the table, swirling the liquid within the bottle between dragging gulps, the alcohol seeping into his blood and into his brain. It softened the edges of his senses and his emotions, dulling the mental pain he could never truly escape.
It was all he could do to feel numb, to run from his innermost fears.
An unknown amount of time later, the doldrums that had just begun to take hold of him were interrupted by the sound of motion and moaning, drifting into the living area from one of the guest rooms. Unsteadily, Vadix looked toward the source.
It was the door directly opposite his own, across the large main room. The one presently occupied by a single visiting human.
Cassana.
Again, a noise broke through his alcoholic reverie and into his slow-thinking mind.
It sounded like she was in pain.
Suddenly he was overcome with the need to rescue her. Whoever was hurting her would answer to him.
The turian left the bottle and stumbled out of his chair and across the blessedly empty space—thank the spirits his parents were minimalists—until he was hanging on her door jamb.
Her room was dark but the kitchen light behind him provided a small amount of illumination.
There was no one in sight.
Perplexed, Vadix tried to reevaluate the possible causes for such desperate sounds.
Then the woman shifted on the bed and he forgot why he'd trespassed in the first place.
White light cast shadows across the valleys of her naked body, the sleeping covers a tangle of fabric beneath her. Letting out the breath he'd been holding, Vadix noted her eyes were closed. She was dreaming.
But then the crease between her brows deepened, her mouth pulling into a shape he'd not seen on her face before. No, "dreaming" wasn't quite right.
Again she groaned in her sleep, her muscles tensing as though preparing for a fight. Or to flee.
What nightmare was this?
And how had he never noticed before?
He slumped away from the wall toward the slumbering form of his partner. Cassana was splayed across the mattress, her limbs thrown wide, cutting the square of the bed into uneven, haphazard shapes. The turian stumbled at the foot of the bedframe, catching one bare ankle in his grip. She made no reaction to his touch and Vadix felt his frown deepen, mandibles taut.
Reaching for her other leg, the man pulled her closer to him until he could reach her shoulders. Then he lifted her into a sitting position, whispering her name.
Cassana shuddered as her eyes began to open, their surface glazed and frozen from the aftershock of the nightmare that had plagued her. Slowly the fear seemed to dissipate from her face, replaced by mild confusion. And then she spoke.
"Vadix."
It was almost a question, the hint of a plea. The motion of her mouth drew his eye and Vadix noticed how her lips remained parted at the conclusion of his name. One half of her profile was bathed in the gentle light wandering in through the bedroom door, while the other half was drenched in shadows, as though the terror of the night still had its talons in her.
He traced the patterns of her skin with his eyes, still holding her shoulders in his hands. Slowly he sank to his knees, visually drinking in the soft expanse of her bare skin. As he looked straight ahead, he noticed the symphony of darkness that played across her chest.
Her chest.
Losing the height from his knee down had brought her captivating breasts into his direct line of sight.
He couldn't look away, fearing that to do so would somehow lead to their disappearance entirely—which would be very unfortunate indeed.
Vadix was consumed by the view and, unable to look away, was drawn toward her as though he were a satellite caught in the gravity of her sun.
When he was less than a handspan away, the turian breathed deeply through his mouth. The air that had caressed Cassana's skin tasted of musk and sweet, like a luxurious meal of smoked steak joined with a light iced dessert, like the thick cloud of a firefight pierced by the slanting rays of rainswept sunshine.
It tasted like temptation.
Would she taste the same?
The query seared his brain and what few sensible thoughts had remained, evaporated. Vadix pulled her closer to him until he could rest the side of his face against her, tilting to fit his larger head between the topography of her body, his hands sliding down her sides until the edge of the mattress stopped his forearms.
Intent on the discovery of his question's answer, the man's tongue flicked out to test her skin, beginning an eruption of small bumps in the vicinity accompanied by the increased fluttering of the tiny organ that kept her alive.
He grinned, satisfied with the result of his little experiment, hypothesis proven correct, and encouraged by the woman's biological response to his proximity.
Vadix wondered what other reactions he could elicit from this human he wanted like no other creature.
Perhaps he ought to try that thing EDI had explained to him, calling to mind the biology he'd studied on the extranet afterwards.
With cautious enthusiasm and no thought for anything but the present, he slid his talons down her legs until they surrounded the bulge of muscle just below her knee joints. The razor tips of his fingers then began their inexorable journey up the length of her body, leaving invisible feather-light lines in their wake, scorching her mind. As their altitude increased, stretching his grasp, he felt her jerk forward against his head and he pulled away to glance at her face, afraid he'd hurt her somehow.
Her expression made him pause, somehow agonized yet enthralled. "Don't stop," Cassana whispered, the tone clearly intended to be a command, but her voice betrayed her wanton desire, exposing her as the beggar she was.
Interesting, the man thought with relish, reminding himself to revisit the concept later as his lower plates shifted with eager alertness at the mental image of the human on her knees, begging. But not now. Right now his role was to chase away the demons of her sleep.
His talons continued climbing as he rested his chin under the overhang of one breast, its nipple stretching toward his face plates. Carefully he opened his mouth, exposing the canines within which matched the sharpness of his talons. These he pressed onto her skin, hinting at a nibble, not daring to mark her. Not yet.
One mandible touched the hollow of her chest, held in place by increased pressure as she leaned forward, into the embrace of his mouth, her hands now on his shoulders, her grip tightening. The sensation created by this trapped mandible was a dull ache, increasing in poignancy the longer it remained in the grasp of her nude body, drawing out his subvocals in an erotic growl, somehow vengeful but pleased.
Trying to ignore this growing pain, the turian opened his mouth wider, scraping his teeth along the tender curving skin, meeting the erect nipple in a collision of hot air and steely plates. His warm breath, centered over her breast, invited a shiver to overtake her skin. The movement pressed his teeth suddenly deeper against her, nearly pushing past that last physical barrier.
Neither participant was sure if they were more relieved or disappointed that there was no bite.
The wistful moment was soon engulfed by the scrape of his tongue and she cried out in surprise, fingers digging into the only relatively soft place she could find on his shoulders, demanding more while seeking reprieve.
The exploratory party ventured from the certainty of his own mouth to the foreign terrain of her skin, sailing across her, leaving pebbles in its wake. Before he really knew what was happening, the man's tongue wrapped around her waiting pink tower, elongating the nipple further, tugging her deeper into the heady depths of his mouth.
Again Cassana cried out, this time echoed by the lower timbre of her partner's own want which was quickly spiraling into the realm of need. This desire gripped his own passion even as he gripped the portion of her buttocks not engulfed by the bed's surface, clenching without realizing as he mentally tried to force back his emerging cock.
"Vadix," she breathed his name again, surprised by the tingles which now accompanied his hands.
She wasn't sure how much more torture she could take.
Determined to have some say in her demise, the woman took advantage of his momentary lapse of attention on her and pressed down with all her strength, forcing the alien to sit on his heels. Effectively removing just over half his height, it was only too easy to introduce him to her sex.
If the unexpected stature reduction hadn't caught his attention, this new scent surely would have. If her skin had tasted like temptation, surely this aroma was sin itself, sharp and tangy and addictive.
Without any encouragement his head dipped closer, breathing her in until all other senses were drowned out by the sheer smell of her arousal. The turian had nothing with which to compare, but he was convinced in his naivety that this sweet intoxication was matched only by the bitter edge that tried to drive him away, to convince him that she was not his for the taking.
But her hands told a different story. She pulled him even closer, twining her fingers in his head crest, eliciting another growling moan from deep within him. With virgin eyes, in one sweeping glance he took in the surprise of her dark curls, a different shade than the hair on her head; the alluring glistening edges of these same locks, dripping with anticipation; and the inviting folds of deep pink skin, protected by the wet forest of coils even as they gaped open to greet him.
He pressed even closer, now unsatisfied with only the sight and smell of her, desperate to touch her, feel her, taste her. His physical salutation was rewarded with the most perfect combination of moan and sigh, folding him in a verbal embrace as she widened her stance to allow his shoulders as close as she could stretch, just as eager for his entrance as he was.
Now he really breathed Cassana in, relishing the feel of her foreign sex against his face plates, mandibles pressed tight against one of her thighs while her other leg leaned against his shoulder.
Her fingers tightened on his fringe, arms straightening into taught lines as her back arched, seeking his deeper entry within her. His body understood the invitation before his brain, receiving it with gusto as his tongue once more dipped outside of his mouth and onto her skin.
Now the adventuring party tangled with the native foliage, caressing while traveling, the promise of greater pleasure yet to come surging against her engorged lips. The turian, still learning the alien terrain, traversed the length of his partner's fur—the best description he could give from within the sexual haze overtaking his mind—learning her ins and outs, her ups and downs, while the woman's moans became a breathless, ceaseless murmur. Until, having grown nearly accustomed to the scratch of his tongue against her, it dove into her depths and she fought a scream, pitching against his solid body with a force that surprised both of them before she fell back, inert against the bed.
But he continued to dive and dive and dive, climbing up to her core, the length of the cord originating from his mouth astounding her, her visceral reactions astonishing him. Then, when the rope could go no further, it was drawn back, its roughness clawing at her from the inside and again she yelped, the sound of her groan drawn out as long as it took for him to retreat.
"Fuck." She breathed the word like a prayer, like a desperate benediction, like he was consuming her very soul.
Beyond words himself, again the turian dug into her core, drawing a mental map, inordinately proud of his ability to affect her so—perhaps his research hadn't been in vain. His arms reached toward her again, dipping beneath her legs and extending up her torso. His knuckles dragged against her velvet skin, keeping the tips of his talons parallel to her body, until they were stopped by the anatomy shared by the human females and asari.
But it wasn't enough to meet their edge. Never enough. Vadix palmed her breasts, pushing up with enough force to edge her entire body away from the ministrations of his tongue, then pulling down until he had speared as deep inside as he could go. Her body seemed to press into him at all points of contact, desperate for more.
He felt the exact same way.
As he withdrew from the depths of her sex, Cassana breathed a single word, this time a demand unmarred by the anguish of absence.
"Faster."
He buckled to her will, enslaved by the magnitude of this woman, desperate to do this right, to please her, to be invited to her like this again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
With this creed to guide him, Vadix did as commanded, listening to her crescendo, his own pleasure eclipsed by the raging storm he was creating at her feet. He disregarded the dull throbs which connected his mandibles to the rest of his face, the increasing ache against his lower plates, focusing only on the tightening of the woman's inner passage as she bucked against his face. Finally, when his own discomfort threatened to overtake his delight, he pressed even closer against her, nuzzling the woman whom, he could no longer deny, he had somehow come to love.
Cassana's reaction changed after what seemed a moment, filled by eternity. Muscles, both inward and outward, clamped as her body convulsed.
Fearing the worst, Vadix looked up. Her hands gripped the bed sheets, her face clenched as tight as her inner organ, eyes closed against the wave ripping through her. Then the human's mouth dropped open, corners pressed into the ghost of a smile, blocking out the world around her, consumed by the world within.
She was beautiful.
This strange, unexpected, human woman was beautiful. Even the slight sheen of sweat across Cass's naked form made her glow in the low light that penetrated the room. How he had ever gotten lucky enough to have her in his life was a mystery. Vadix knew he certainly didn't deserve a partner like her.
A partner.
A work partner.
He sucked in a breath, the realization of what he had just done crashing into his hazy brain. The turian wanted to blame the alcohol, the darkness, the trickery of light and shadows.
But that would be unfair. He had wanted this.
He had wanted her.
And he'd taken advantage of her.
In her half-asleep mind, could she really have consented to this?
The question hadn't even fully formed before guilt flooded his foggy thoughts.
"Cassana, I'm so sorry," he murmured, unwilling to meet her gaze. Instead, he stared at the inside bend of her knee, hanging at his side off the edge of the bed.
Vadix heard her sit up and he knew she was watching him, likely coming to the same realization at which he had arrived mere moments before.
Still, she said nothing.
Coward that he was, the man refused to look her in the eye, afraid to see the censure, the anger, the wrath that was sure to be present. If only he hadn't misinterpreted what few words she'd spoken to him earlier. If only she would release him from this torment by saying something, anything, now.
When she did, he was once again surprised.
"I'm not," Cassana proclaimed, her voice as clear and strong as the day they'd met.
His head whipped up, his gaze speeding past the beauty of her body, stopping only when he could see her grey eyes peering deep into his soul.
"I'm not sorry," she clarified, her tone challenging him to contradict her.
Somehow, though he was clothed and she was not, Vadix felt naked before her scrutiny. And though the feeling should have discomfited him, instead he felt at ease, whole, known in a way he hadn't yet experienced.
If she's not sorry, then…
"Spirits," the word slipped out before he could stop it.
Eyes wide, the man fell back, afraid of the revelation that sat a mere meter in front of him. Two human heartbeats later, he scrambled from the room, his mind as muddled as it had been when he'd entered the kitchen that night.
This time the confusion was tinged with fear that with one inviting word from her he was going to succumb to his selfish desires.