Massive Disaster 4 - Interlude 1 (Patreon)

Hot water, close to boiling, drummed hard against slate tile, a steady, percussive rhythm that he barely heard. Honestly, it was almost silent against the echoes of explosions, shardfire and screams still ringing in his ears. Steam, thick as a battlefield smoke screen, fogged the reinforced clear glass of the expansive shower, blurring the lines of the man within.

Zedd stood in the center, head bowed under the torrent of hot water, letting it sluice the grime and dried blood from his skin. The water ran pink for a moment, then clear. 

New wounds, thin, pale and already healing over, crisscrossed his back and arms, souvenirs from the fight as he held his hands up against the wall. He had the last set of Blood Pack and Eclipse to thank for them, Vorcha and Batarians fighting like brothers in arms as he broke them on the ground and against each other.

It was almost noble.

Almost.

Not that he could actually use that word for the “pirates” and mercenaries that just happened to find their way to the colony he happened to be on, chasing a “random bounty” someone in the Terminus apparently had placed on his head.

All their stories… 

They all sang the same stupid, bullshit tune. It was like whoever did this thought he was an idiot. Pirates armed too well and paid too much. Mercs loaded out with tech they would never waste on a simple bounty.

It was obvious what happened here, what they had tried to do, and he had figured it out before he even got back to the colony. Raze everything I built… everyth-

The sound of footsteps made hard muscles tense and Zedd’s thoughts fell away, the tall super-soldier raising his head as the door to his personal bathroom slid open. ADAM… what the hell are you…

Even more thoughts fell away as the person on the other side stepped in.

Tan skin, the familiar color of light caramel stood out even through the steam, his shower door sliding open as smoothly as the bathroom door as they neared.

He opened his mouth to say something — anything — and the robe slid to the floor, the naked body of Nina Herra on display, different but just as intoxicating as he remembered, his eyes unable to do anything but trace every inch of her as he drank the sight in.

She walked in front of him, still silent as she passed through the open door, water beating down on both of them. 

His eyes met hers as she looked up at him, taller than he used to be, even more distance between them.

Without another moment of hesitation, she broke that distance, her arms suddenly wrapping tight around his waist, face pressed against the hard muscle of his chest. Her dark hair was plastered to her forehead, first by dirt and muck; all that was wiped away by the relentless heat of the shower, as she shuddered against him.

The hold was desperate, tender, a grounding anchor in the chaos. 

Not a single word left her lips as she simply held on tight, her shorter frame almost completely shielded by his. For a moment, he hesitated, Zedd’s brown eyes wide and unsure, then…Slowly, gently, he returned the embrace.

The door hissed open again and Zedd looked back, confused, only to blink again as he saw a shock of blue hair.

Another pair of arms wrapped around his torso from behind, the familiar trained breathing pattern louder as a chin rested on his shoulder. Kira’s body was more toned, more slender than Nina’s, especially after her N7 training, but he had never been this close to it, and never ever this exposed.

They stood like that for what felt like hours, three figures holding tight to each other in a way that felt new but familiar all the same, the only sound the water and their shared breathing.

Finally, one of them broke it.

“It’s quiet,” Nina murmured, voice muffled against his skin. “I hate it. After all that… noise. The silence is worse.”

“It’s over,” His voice was low when he answered, sure he barely sounded convincing. He couldn’t even manage to convince himself. Damn it. Unsure what else to say, he rested a hand on top of Nina’s head, his fingers tracing the back of her head.

“It’s not over.” Kira’s voice was a low murmur next to his ear, her breath warm against his neck as she grunted out the first three syllables. “This… this was the Council throwing what they thought would work. If they were willing to risk this, there’s no telling what they’ll do, Zee. Next time, and there will be a next time, they’ll come with bigger teeth.”

Hmmm. The mental grunt slid out of his throat as well, Zedd unable to deny that as much as he wanted to. 

“I… talked to Shen and the militia… Martinez and a bunch of the higher ups, they didn’t make it but,” Nina sighed, voice half-muffled as she pulled her head back. “But… we’re under martial law. The Legion… they’re checking every alien on the colony. Anyone with connection to the Council or any alien military or merc group… they’re being sent packing by the end of the week.”

Zedd frowned at that, unable to help the expression. 

He had placed Dev in charge of the militia command with everything a mess, a temporary measure… hopefully. Still, he wasn’t exactly sure of the evac yet, at least not this soon. Not yet… we could learn so much by going through their records. He narrowed his eyes, heartbeat matching the pace of Kira’s breath. Like… like how they knew where my base was or at least close enough and they were planning this the second I went over there.

Connor’s records already told them a lot, but not everything. More than that, it made them looked panicked, when the real solution could be right under their nose and they’d miss it just because they had to be seen doing something.

“I know you don’t like it,” Kira cut into his thoughts, reading them rather easily. “But the people… they feel safer this way. Seeing us doing something.”

Zedd tilted his head back slightly, resting it against Kira’s shoulder, the disciplined tension in her muscles easing up. “I know.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, head tilted up as water beat down on his face. “Elias… Tommy… they just deserve us doing more than just being seen doing something” It was just two days ago but it felt like hearing the news all over again. 

Maybe it was because he hadn’t slept yet.

“They were good men.” Tommy, who'd made shitty caf and worse jokes but was always down to help. Elias, who'd taught half the engineers on Arkadia everything they knew about reactor maintenance. “They were...”

Before I dragged everyone I cared about into a war they never asked for.

Nina looked up at him, her large hazel eyes clouded with something that wasn’t just water “It wasn’t your fault, Zee. It was his.”

“Was it?” he asked back, the question genuine. “I built the playground. I set the rules. He had his own issues but Connor was just a symptom. The sickness is the jealousy, the resentment… the parts of humanity I keep underestimating.”

Kira’s grip tightened hard around his waist, enough to make him feel it “You can’t carry this. Not all of it. That’s why we’re here.” He didn’t need to think about it to know she wasn’t just talking about the shower.

Zedd turned his head slightly, down to face Nina, but asking them both. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said, the single word carrying a universe of meaning. “Just… So what now? What do we do?”

Kira didn’t say anything, just gripping him tighter.

His hands dropped down from Nina’s shoulders to her waist, and even lower till his hands cupped something familiar. The question was a low rumble in his chest, barely audible over the water. “What do you want to do?”

A shudder ran through her, a seismic release of tension. She leaned into him, her body softening against his, an answer in itself. His hands gripped tighter, fingers kneading flesh like dough, her curves as soft as he remembered but even bigger.Kira pressed closer, so he could feel the fine tremble running through her. Not fear, he could tell, but anticipation.Maybe hunger.She’d been waiting for this. As long as he had, maybe longer.It was the same in him; the red ache in his chest, the thrum in his hands as he held Nina, the way his entire body seemed to become aware of itself under the heat and pressure of the water and the women pressed up against either side. The silence between their bodies was louder than gunfire.

He lifted Nina easily in a single motion, her body weight nothing to what he could do it and she let him, not even gasping in surprise.He didn’t need to mention what he’d done to himself, the changes he’d made, not for it to be obvious after what she… after what they had seen him do.Nina wrapped her legs around his waist. She tasted like copper and salt when he kissed her, her tongue darting against his until the last of the caf was gone from her mouth. She was heavier than he remembered and he liked it, the strength in her arms as she pressed against him, the solidness. Her breasts, already big, were thicker now, heavier, years of nothing but university and classes had filled them out.They crowded his chest and flattened against him as she arched her spine against the steamy glass of the shower. Kira’s hands snaked from his waist, one drifting down and gripping his shaft as it pulsed with heat in her palm.His body jolted at the contact, hips shifting.Her touch was new, uncertain, and that was somehow hotter.

Nina’s thighs clamped harder around his waist. Her lips broke from his, gasping—he felt her breath on his cheek, humid and shuddering. “Y-you’re different…”He smiled at her as he did his best to keep a straight face, Kira still rubbing him with the gentle touch of someone who was a very quick learner. “No, really, w-what gave it away?Zedd used the wall for leverage, pinning her there, his own body a barricade as Kira’s hand worked with unhurried and quickly adaptive coordination, almost clinical in precision. She didn’t stroke so much as claim, her grip relentless and soft all the same.Zedd could hear the tiny, urgent sounds Nina made, the little animal gasps that broke from her throat as Kira’s fingers thrust inside her with her free hand, the space in between his stomach and Nina’s thick thighs just enough. She was wet and dripping and he could feel it already as Kira worked them both, her breath hot and body trembling against his back. 

He whispered in Nina’s ear, “You want to go first?”Nina nodded quick, breathless, and squeezed him tighter with her legs. Her hands went up, fists knotting in his drenched hair, and she buried her face in his neck. She didn’t look at Kira, not even once, just kept her eyes on Zedd as if she was afraid he’d vanish if she blinked.

He shifted his grip along Nina’s ass for a better grip and, hauling her up, lowered her onto him, and damn near regretted it. 

The sensation hit him all at once—heat, pressure, the slow, molten give of her body—and he nearly buckled at the knees. The years hadn’t dulled her at all. If anything, she was so tight he saw white behind his eyelids.

Nina’s nails dug into his scalp. “Shit,” she whispered in his ear, her voice a hiss. “Y-y-you’re bigger.” “You… you knew that, though,” he hissed back.“Y-y-yeah, it’s a b-bit different knowing than kn-knowing, you know?”Her legs flexed and her ass tensed in his palms as she arched her entire upper body away from the wall and into him, driving him deeper until he felt the soft pressure at the end of her. She gasped and shuddered again, then her eyes fluttered shut, and her teeth caught his shoulder and bit down hard. 

It almost hurt, but he would have liked it even if it did.Zedd set a pace that was relentless, his thighs flexing with the movement, and Nina moved with him, meeting every thrust.It was all heat and slick and grasp and him losing the sense of where her body ended and his began. Nina’s chest heaved against his, the slipperiness of her skin and the steam making it hard to keep hold, but he didn’t fucking care. He could drown in this and never come up for air.Kira’s hands slid up his back, nails raking along old scars and new. She pressed her body flush against his, the twin points of her breasts pinning him between impossibilities—Nina’s softness in front, Kira’s sharpness behind. Her lips found the base of his neck on the right, biting hard enough to blister.For more than just a few seconds, there was nothing but the violent, raw beat of flesh on flesh, wet furious slapping, punctuated by the sound of water, nothing but a rough, broken percussion as Zedd let go of the world outside the shower. 

He let go of the colony, the corpse count, everything else he had on his shoulders, it was just him and her and her.Nina bit down again, as hard as she could, as she tightened around him, her inner muscles squeezing hard enough he saw that white in his eyes. He held it and thrusted again, again, and again, Nina screaming loud enough that he could hear it even through her mouth clamped on his shoulder.It wasn’t even about coming.Nina nearly sobbed as it hit her all at once, and Zedd barely muttered a warning before he followed; the rolling contractions tearing through him and her at once, the walls of the shower rattling with the force of it, the glass fogging over so hard it was as if they were sealed inside a pod about to be jettisoned into cold vacuum. He didn’t stop moving, not until Nina’s hands unclenched from his hair and her body sagged, heavy and limp, in a way that was new to her, too.He braced her with one hand until she got her footing again, easing her to the ground as her legs shook and knees buckled. She leaned into him, forehead pressed against his leg, hair dripping with more than just water, and her breaths came out in little, shaking bursts that made him want to crush her fiercely, then tenderly.“Did you miss me?”“…everyday.”He looked up directly into the showerhead, water bearing down on him, and let out a low breath.For a few seconds he forgot Kira was there, until he felt something touch his tip.Zedd glanced down and saw a head of blue hair, pigtails disappearing as they drifted over small pink-tipped breasts.His breath came out low again, shuddering as more than his tip felt it; warm, soft, sucking.He reached down and traced the rim of her lips with a thumb. It was weird, he was pretty sure Kira had never done this before, never done anything except with Nina, their little secret on the vacation like he wasn’t smart enough to put two and two together.

Either way, she looked up at him with the same unflinching steadiness she brought to everything else, her tongue already tracing the length of him with more curiosity than fear. Kira’s mouth was different—soft at first, then insistent, like she meant to memorize the shape of him with her tongue. Zedd had never been with her—never been with anyone like her—but part of his brain had always guessed, in the idle spaces between firefights and admin paperwork, that she’d take to this like she took to everything else: with a kind of tactical brutality that left nothing to chance. 

She used her tongue with just enough suction—first experimental, then tuned and methodical, every bob of her head calculated for maximum effect. He braced one arm on the slick, cold tile and the other instinctively cradled the back of her wet scalp. He could feel the noise she made as she savored the taste, the vibrations running up his body and giving him the odd desire to let go, to surrender control in a way he’d never allowed before. 

Nina glanced over, still panting and bone-flexed with exhaustion, and something lit up in her eyes as her hands drifted down to her open legs.Kira was still going as she took more, cautious at first, and Zedd let his head fall back, bracing one palm against the slick wall. 

He could still feel the aftershocks of Nina’s body clenched around him, could still taste her on his tongue, but Kira’s was different, more energy to it, a pulse of bright electric blue alive in the heat of the shower. 

The pressure built, a slow, steady, focused, tension, Kira hollowing her cheeks and bobbing her head in a steady rhythm that matched the pace of her breathing. Every so often, she’d break rhythm to glance up, and he understood she was watching his reactions for feedback, adjusting with military precision to every twitch and tremble, tongue tracing the vein like she was trying to memorize the thing.“F-fuck!” The word came out of him in a grunt, shattering the last thread of composure. 

It wasn’t even the pressure or the novelty so much as the look Kira gave him every time she glanced up—calculating, furious, unblinking. She wanted something from him and he didn’t know what, couldn’t puzzle it out in the second before her tongue flicked over the tip, so light he jerked. She smiled with her mouth full and then did it again, slower, watching his whole-body reaction like it was a data point.Then she bobbed back down.The water beat time against his skull, drowning out the splintered staccato of his own gasps as Kira drew another inch of him into her mouth. She wasn’t half-assing this; she was loading the muscle memory the way she loaded rifles, piecing together the best methods from pure observation and then improving upon them. Her hand braced him at the base, twisting with a slight grip that sent a tremor up his thighs. She looked up again, waiting for the flicker of his eyelid, the draw of his hips, then swallowed him deeper, breath flaring from her nose.His free hand slid down and cupped her jaw, thumb brushing the delicate hinge there. Kira’s skin was fever-hot, her cheeks burning pink underneath the soaked blue of her hair. He wondered, distantly, how much of that was effort and how much was the way she got when she was locked into something, a dog with a bone, pure kinetic purpose.“J-jesus, Kira…”“No.”He blinked as she stopped and he looked down, blue eyes looking back up at him; demanding, serious even. “You call me Blue. Blue. Like you used to.”Blue, he nodded, barely able to say anything as she didn’t stop working his shaft as she said the words, and he couldn’t deny her. Not now, not ever.She dropped back down and he saw stars.He didn’t want to last long, not with her, not right now. The idea of drawing it out, of mastering his body like he usually did, that was for another time, another mood, maybe a different life. 

He let himself lose control, allowed his body to let go, emptied his brain of everything but the slide of her lips, the drag of her palm beneath, the slow hypnotic orbit of her tongue. When he finished—hard, sudden and raw, hand knotted in blue hair like a lifeline—he let it happen. 

Blue didn’t gag; she just kept her eyes up as she took it all, didn’t flinch, did not stop, didn’t so much as blink. 

Just riding it out with a professional steadiness, then let him go free with a shivery sigh. For a second, she rested her cheek against the top of his thigh, breathing hard.

Zedd sagged, not from exhaustion, just surprise, at how thoroughly she’d wrung him out. 

A second later, the military girl rose to her feet, the water tracing the hard, clean lines of her body, and stuck her tongue out at him.

Nothing to show.Nina, still breathless, had slumped onto a bench that ran the length of the shower, her knees wobbling apart, one hand still between her legs as if searching for the next aftershock. “She’s so… so competitive.”Blue leaned forward with a smile on her face, arms wrapping around his neck as she whispered two words. “Now me.”