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"Of course you recovered your couch," Tevos said, running her hand along the plush leather. “Why am I even surprised?”
Aria lounged against the comfortable cushions. She folded one leg over the other, draping both arms across the back of the couch. She couldn’t quite believe Tevos had actually accepted her invitation to visit Omega. To consolidate resources for the war effort, of course. No other reason… as far as the other two councilors and the matriarchs back on Thessia were concerned.
"Actually,“ she said, ”the couch was Shepard's doing. Found it at the bottom of the water in pieces. I'm starting to think there's nothing that woman can't do. An elcor merchant repaired the damage."
Tevos removed her hand, folding her arms and shifting her weight back onto one hip. "I see. Exactly how much did that cost you?"
"Not a damn credit. But I suppose I owe the elcor a favor. Now that I've reclaimed my throne, my favors are pretty valuable."
She sank deeper into her beloved couch and closed her eyes, but relaxation remained elusive. Her muscles tensed, aching to move, to strain against something. She needed a distraction. An outlet. She recalled Afterlife’s pounding bass when it was filled with people. Her people. She missed the noise. The way it allowed her to drown out her thoughts. Hopefully, Tevos would help her celebrate her success and forget everything else that had happened along the way.
Tevos’s voice made her open her eyes again.
"Why am I really here, Aria? Besides sex. You could have sent a report to Commander Shepard documenting the resources you're contributing to the war. Sparatus and Valern think this is more of a diplomatic visit. They aren't aware we’ve done business together before."
"Business?“ Aria snorted. ”Cute way of putting it. And who says I didn’t ask you here just for sex? I've always wanted to fuck a gorgeous woman on my couch. I figured you would do."
Tevos pursed her lips, but Aria didn’t miss the slight purple flush beneath her tattoos. "I'm flattered, but I sincerely doubt I'm the first woman to indulge your... affection for this couch."
"The first one that isn’t a stripper, then. Besides, it's newly repaired. I need to break it back in."
"You mean I came all the way to Omega because you wanted to act out your juvenile fantasy on this couch?“ Tevos rolled her eyes. ”You must be on some kind of power trip."
Aria shrugged. "And?"
"And I suppose I knew this was coming.“ Tevos glided forward and took a seat beside Aria, close enough so their thighs touched. She rested a hand above Aria's knee, leaning in and tilting her chin upwards. "So, what are you waiting for?"
Aria tugged Tevos into her lap with a sharp biotic pull. Ignoring her gasp of surprise, Aria slid both palms up along Tevos’s legs, lifting her dress on the way. "No underwear? That's a risk," Aria said as she stroked Tevos's outer thighs.
"But you approve."
"Definitely." Aria dipped her head and closed the gap between their mouths, swiping Tevos's bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. Tevos opened immediately, but instead of sliding forward, Aria tugged the white stripe that bisected Tevos's lower lip, then pressed another close-mouthed kiss to point of her chin.
Tevos shivered and tilted her head slightly, allowing Aria to continue along the underside of her jaw and down her neck until she reached the hollow just above her collarbone. Aria smirked against the rapid pounding of Tevos’s heartbeat, knowing it was a weak spot. One she fully intended to exploit.
"My little fantasy doesn't seem so juvenile now, does it?" Aria murmured, using one hand to grip Tevos's waist as the other slid between her legs. The slick heat she found there made her own heartbeat speed up. "Goddess, you're wet..."
"Your fault," Tevos panted, rocking against Aria's fingers.
Aria didn't need the guidance, but she appreciated Tevos’s eagerness. Though Tevos liked to play hard to get, her body was all too easy to read. She allowed her mouth to wander back up along Tevos’s jaw before claiming her lips for good, sliding her tongue into Tevos’s mouth and swallowing a deliciously helpless moan.
But Tevos wasn’t entirely passive. She tugged insistently at the sleeves of Aria’s jacket. "Take… it… off…" she murmured between kisses.
Aria was more than happy to oblige. She allowed Tevos to help her out of her jacket and begin unbuckling the straps of her corset. To speed things along, she used her biotics to tear through the front of Tevos's dress with a satisfying rip.
Tevos abandoned the corset and glared at her with narrowed green eyes. "Really? Do you have some kind of kink for destroying my clothes?"
"Your fault for wearing dresses," Aria said, without a hint of remorse. Casually, she slid her gleaming fingers past her lips, deciding that she should make the interruption to remove her jacket worthwhile.
"Think of something better to do with those fingers," Tevos said, grasping Aria’s wrist and tugging it back between her legs.
Aria clenched her jaw. Normally, she enjoyed the way Tevos fought for dominance. It was a delightful struggle that made her eventual victory all the sweeter. But not this time. Not tonight. Perhaps it was because she’d let Petrovsky live after all the humiliation he’d caused her—Shepard’s disgusting influence—but she wasn’t in the mood for a power struggle. She wanted control. And what Aria wanted, she had no qualms about taking.
“Fine.” She lifted Tevos from her lap with a surge of biotics, flipping her onto her back and pinning her none too gently against the couch. She lifted Tevos’s arms well above her head, trapping her wrists with a small singularity field. “Better?” she asked, enjoying the way Tevos squirmed as she tested the biotic bindings.
Tevos stopped struggling and went limp on the couch, staring up at Aria with wide, dark eyes. "Please..."
Normally, Aria would have savored that word as it fell from Tevos’s lips. Tonight, she was already beyond 'please'. Without bothering to remove her pants, she slotted her hips above Tevos’s and began grinding forward.
Tevos hooked a knee around her waist, running the sole of a foot down along her calf. “Aria…”
Aria shoved her hand between their overheated bodies. She sank two fingers inside Tevos without any preparation or warning, savoring the tight, fluttering grip. A mild sting pierced her shoulder, and she realized Tevos had bitten down, probably hard enough to leave a mark. Aria began moving in response, without waiting for Tevos to adjust. She used her pelvis for extra leverage, hooking her fingertips into the well-learned swollen spot against Tevos’s front wall.
Tevos whimpered into her shoulder, obviously approving, but didn’t release the bite-hold. Instead, her teeth dug in deeper.
Aria welcomed the pain. It felt right, somehow. Like something she deserved. She positioned her thumb over Tevos’s clit, groaning as the councilor’s hips jerked beneath hers. She curled her fingers harder, and Tevos’s entire body tensed, pulling taut as a wire…
Warmth. Pressure. Not around her fingers, but probing the edges of her mind. Tevos’s consciousness brushed against hers with surprising gentleness, inviting Aria in rather than throwing open the door to Aria’s thoughts and feelings. Eager to taste Tevos’s helplessness and desire, Aria accepted the connection, drawing greedily…
A flood of emotion. Triumph, frustration, sadness. Squeezing someone's throat, tightening her grip as she felt life beat and begin to die beneath her hands—then Shepard was there and...
Revenge. Fuck, she hadn't gotten revenge! Until that moment, she’d actually thought about kissing Shepard. Partially to piss Liara off, but still.
Crack-crack-crack!
Turret, get down!
Whistles. Vibrations. Loud. Deep.
Hum of biotics. Plumes of smoke.
Smooth, layered voice. 'Actually, Aria, I'm target Alpha.'
Red walls. Burning! Burning around her hands… pulling…
That spark, that electric thrill of enthralling thousands. The pulse of the crowd, the shouts and cheers.
'People of Omega, I have returned! Cerberus believes they have beaten you. They believe they have you under control. They are gravely mistaken.'
A ghostly face. Turian. Red-daubed with clan markings. 'I guess I wasn't the only one that didn't like your little speech, Aria.'
Monsters. Adjutants. Shitfuck! Too many! Blue or purple or dead, slick gray. Low, creaking howls.
Ashes. Death. Too late. Death is inevitable, but failure is unacceptable…
Aria’s eyes snapped open. She recoiled from Tevos’s mind, horrified by all of the ugly memories and feelings that had gushed out of her like pus from an infected wound.
“Fuck,” she grunted, out loud this time. How had that happened? Why had it happened? Sloppy, disgusting, losing control like that… spilling her guts so easily, at the smallest provocation…
She wanted to believe Tevos had breached her mental barriers, forced it out of her, but that was exactly the opposite of what had happened. It was like she hadn’t even had barriers to begin with.
Somewhere beyond her anger and self-loathing, Tevos’s voice sounded in her head. A gentle caress. It's all right. Do you want to share?
Aria froze. Her hips, her fingers, her very breath. There was only the uncertain pounding of her heartbeat and Tevos’s heartbeat alongside it.
No… I don’t.
Tevos didn’t protest. She didn’t demand. Instead, she offered a memory of her own, presenting it as a gift.
On the edge of a desk, not caring about the uncomfortable way it dug into the backs of her thighs. Sobbing her release against a naked, slick purple shoulder. Knees hooked around the most enticing pair of hips she’d ever seen.
Aria latched onto the memory Tevos offered like a lifeline, losing herself in it. Anything was better than her own thoughts.
Crash! Shattered centerpiece. Broken shards on the tiled floor.
Are you really going to destroy my kitchen? I have a perfectly serviceable bed.
Can't wait that long. I need a flat surface. Unless you want to use the wall...
And they had used the wall, so the centerpiece was broken for nothing.
At some point, Aria realized her body had picked up the abandoned rhythm. Somewhere along the way, she’d released the singularity on Tevos’s wrists, because a pair of warm hands rubbed circles along her back, clinging to her, urging her to keep thrusting.
Soft, warm tongue. Working between her legs.
Best I’ve ever had… Can’t let her know… She’ll never let me forget…
It was enough. They stiffened as one, finding each other's lips as they shuddered together. Warm heat spilled into Aria’s gloved hand, and with the small part of ‘her’ that she’d managed to keep isolated from the joining, she wished she’d taken the time to remove them. To feel Tevos wholly and completely.
The aftershocks took over a minute to fade, and the meld took even longer. In the end, both of their minds were pleasantly empty. Numb, almost. But that was a positive. Aria preferred numbness to what she’d felt before. She relaxed, letting out a content sigh. She didn't even care that the leather of the couch was sticking to her skin or that her pants were ruined.
Vaguely, she wondered if she should thank Tevos for what she had done. Tevos’s presence within the meld had been reassuring, without placing any sort of demands upon her. But as Nyreen often said, she wasn't big on thank you's...
Nyreen.
The peace ended.
Tevos seemed to sense the shift in her mood. "Aria?" she asked, turning her name into an open-ended question. Her expression of concern was so sincere that Aria had to turn away. Her stomach dropped as she realized with brutal clarity that, if Tevos died, she would grieve.
Death and loss had been part of her life for so long that their effect was muted now. But there were a few exceptions. Liselle had been one of those exceptions, Nyreen another. Nyreen’s death had made her careless. She’d fallen right into Petrovsky's trap. Shepard was even becoming something of an exception, much to Aria's annoyance. And now Tevos...
Never again.
That was what she’d promised herself centuries ago. Before Omega, before Liselle, before Petrovsky, before Nyreen, before Shepard and her seemingly impossible war against the Reapers. Everything she had ever cared about seemed to die or disappear. It would be so much easier not to care about anything. And she didn't. Usually.
Yet here she was, breaking her own rule. Caring about something meant it could be used as a weapon. Aria knew that from painful experience, but the lesson never seemed to stick.
"Who was she?" Tevos asked. "The turian I saw in the Meld?"
"Does it matter?" Aria lifted off Tevos and sat up, deliberately turning away as she stretched her arms overhead. "She's dead."
"It matters to you. That means it matters to me."
"Just because we're fucking doesn't give you the right to pry into my personal life." The words were an obvious dismissal, but the force behind them was weak, and Aria knew it. Tevos would keep pushing, and she would eventually give in, but she had to keep up appearances.
Warm, naked flesh pressed against Aria’s back. She didn't pull away, but didn't relax either.
"Aria..."
Guilt churned in Aria’s stomach. At first, she’d been exhilarated and energized by her victory. She’d recaptured Omega and reclaimed her throne. But then that energy had become poisoned with anger. Petrovsky was still alive, although in Alliance custody. Nyreen was dead. A far cry from the perfect victory that she had imagined. Now, she just felt empty.
"We were together once. She couldn't handle how I lived my life." Aria hadn't meant to start talking about Nyreen at all. She had thought those wounds were long gone until the turian's reappearance a few days ago. Tevos's arms tightened briefly around her midsection and warm breath moved against her shoulders. "My lovers, the ones who aren't just one-night stands, never stay for long. The ones with a code of ethics leave. One day, you'll do the same. The others usually get themselves killed."
"We never said this arrangement would last forever, but I know what you do, Aria. I won’t run screaming into the night because of your illegal activities."
Aria felt her anger resurface, her biotics pulsing once around her fists before flickering out as she turned to face Tevos once more. "What will you do when you discover I’ve murdered someone? When I sacrifice civilian lives for something I value more? If you can't handle that, you should leave now." She gestured at the large, empty club with a wave of her hand.
"You aren’t the only one who’s had to sacrifice civilian lives. And leaving Afterlife naked hardly seems appropriate."
"Damn it," Aria muttered, scanning the ground for her jacket. A hand circling her wrist prevented her from reaching for it.
"Don't. Stay."
And even though she knew it was a mistake, even though she knew she was falling into yet another mess that would only end in disappointment and regret, Aria allowed herself to be led back to the couch and into Tevos’s arms.