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James is yanked unceremoniously from a lovely dream about a beach by a solid punch to the face. He tries to sit up and roll away at the same time, only managing to fall off the edge of the bed instead. He lands on his hip with a loud thump, just as the blinding white pain fades. Hand still clasped to his throbbing eye, he turns to get his bearings and is greeted by the sight of Avery Ryder’s bare legs running away from him and into the bathroom.
He hauls himself back up onto the bed just as Avery begins to vomit, and the sound has him springing to his feet to follow her. He finds her bent over the toilet, shivering with her knees on the tile floor, and he steps up to her side to scoop the long strands of her hair out of her face. Her forehead is damp with sweat and warm under his fingers, but it isn’t unusually so given her biotics.
Her whole body shakes as she heaves again, and then she punches the wall by her head without opening her eyes. She groans, but she sounds annoyed rather than in pain, and she pushes herself to her feet.
James gives her room to stand, stepping back into her bedroom as she flushes the toilet and moves to the sink to wash her face and drink water straight from the tap.
“Feeling okay?” He keeps his voice low, not wanting to upset her or overstep his place. He already overstayed his welcome by falling asleep in her bed. She looks at him in the mirror and her gaze falls to his naked chest -- then lower, and he feels his cheeks warming. His clothes are still on the floor behind him. At least Avery managed to put on an oversized shirt before she fell asleep.
She shuts off the water and dries her face before speaking. “I’m fine.” She pauses, then adds, “Well, I’m not sick. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
James shrugs and steps back so she can leave the bathroom. “I’ve seen worse.”
She snorts and glances up at him, but her eyes aren’t quite focused. They dance away from him, flicker at the green light dancing over her skin. She closes her eyes and exhales shakily.
He pulls his pants back on but leaves his shirt off, uncertain about how to help or if he even should. He can see her hands shaking when she lifts them to wipe her eyes, and he steps into her space without thinking to wrap her body in his arms. She stands stiff for a moment before she melts against him.
She rests her hands on his waist and presses her face into the center of his chest. The steady thumping of his heart against her forehead helps her control her breathing even as she continues to shake, and James holds her tighter and runs his fingers through her hair until she finally pulls away. She takes a step back, head still down, and James catches her face in his hands before she can get away. He tilts her head up and presses his lips to the center of her forehead in a lingering kiss.
They’re both blushing when he releases her, though neither mention it. Instead, she takes another step away and wipes at her face before asking, “Are you hungry?”
James cocks his head to the side. “Are
you
hungry?” His tone sounds incredulous, and Avery huffs out a quick laugh.
“Yeah, I’m not--” She cuts herself off and sighs. “Come on.” She waves her hand at him, and he follows her down the stairs back to the kitchen. She turns on all the lights as she goes.
In the kitchen, she puts on a kettle and starts rummaging through the cupboards. They’re nearly empty, even with the grocery stores still pretty much full again, and James frowns at the sight.
He’s trying to figure out what to say -- or if he should just finish getting dressed and going back to Sam’s -- when Avery slams the last door closed and turns back to him.
“Okay, all I actually have is those meal-replacement bars they give you -- what the hell happened to your face?” She’s staring right at the eye she’d hit just a few minutes ago. It still stings, but in the face of everything else, he’d nearly forgotten.
He touches it with gentle fingers and winces when he brushes over the blooming bruise. “Uhh…” he offers eloquently. “I think you were asleep. Right, uhh, right before--”
“Shit,” she says, interrupting him. “I was dreaming, well…” She sighs and goes to the freezer to grab a little ice pack for him. She wraps it in the towel hanging by the sink and then walks over to press it against his bruise. He closes his eyes and leans into her touch, letting her take care of him even though he has a growing suspicion that he should be the one helping her instead.
She continues after a long silence: “It was husks. In my dream, I mean. My biotics wouldn’t work -- I was trying to use a nova, and I couldn’t, so I just, uhh…”
James opens his good eye. “Punched one in the eye?” He grins, and she smiles back. Her eyes still look a little watery, a little far away, so he puts his hand over hers on his face. “I’m fine,” he says, and he puts his other hand on her waist over her shirt when she doesn’t respond. He rubs his thumb over her hip bone in what he hopes is a soothing circle. “You didn’t hurt me.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but the kettle begins to whistle, cutting her off. She pulls away from his touch, leaving the ice pack in his hand, and pours water into two mugs. Her hands are still shaking, but he stays silent as she drops two teabags into the mugs and puts one on the table in front of him.
He doesn’t even like tea.
He thanks her anyway.
She sits down at the other chair and winces. The cat jumps up on the table and rubs its face against her chin.
James puts the ice pack down on the table and cups his mug in both hands, staring at the steeping liquid so he won’t stare at Avery. The cat starts to purr, and Avery kisses the top of its head before she speaks again.
“Where were you?” she asks. After a breath, she clarifies: “When the Reapers…”
“Vancouver.” The cat’s ears flick toward him, but it doesn’t turn around. “Alliance HQ. I’d been assigned to Commander Shepard before, and I continued to serve on the Normandy.”
“Ohh…” Avery looks like she’s just figured out a problem that’s been bothering her for a while. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re
that
James Vega.”
He flashes her a grin. “That would be me. Nice to meet you.”
She smiles back, which is what he wanted. It falls as she says, “I was in London. The whole time. It was… a lot.” She pauses, takes a sip of her tea. Her eyes dance around the room. “I’d been out for a couple of years. My mom was sick, so I took care of her until… anyway, I went right back to the London base and reenlisted.”
“You were on the ground the whole time?” It fits with what little Hackett said, but hearing it from her at 0300 after she woke from a nightmare… he, at least, had downtime on the Normandy and the occasional shore leave on the Citadel. When she nods without speaking, staring down into her tea with clenched jaw, James offers a heartfelt: “Well, shit.” Her lips twitch into another brief smile. “No wonder you have nightmares. Are you, uhh, seeing anyone about them?”
Avery takes another sip of her tea before she answers. “Yeah. I usually just go once a week.”
“Is it helping?” James makes sure to keep his voice gentle as he pushes for more information, torn between politely ignoring the problem and the absurd urge to make sure this woman he’s met twice is going to be okay.
She doesn’t seem upset when she answers, “Yeah. I used to sleep in ninety-minute spurts with all the lights on. Now I can usually get through six hours or so before I wake up.” She pauses, then says, “Thank for helping. You didn’t have to.”
James stares at her in silence for a second too long before he finds his words. “Well -- I mean -- I wasn’t going to just leave you like that.” What kind of guy would -- she presses her lips together and her cheeks turn pink, and suddenly James knows she’s been abandoned in the lurch before. “Do you want me to stay until morning?”
Avery hesitates, chewing on her lower lip as she considers. He can see the yes in her eyes before she works up the courage to say it out loud, so he stands up, puts both mugs of tea in the sink, and offers his hand.
She hesitates again, but accepts, letting him pull her to her feet and through the house back to her bedroom, shutting the lights off as they go. She pauses at the front door, holding James’ hand rather than releasing it, and lets the cat out into the night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s her turn to take the lead, and she climbs the stairs with James behind her. He runs his thumb over her knuckles, and she squeezes his fingers right back. She releases him in her room and steps into the bathroom, brushing her teeth as James pull his pants off once more.
He settles down on his side of the bed -- the one he’d been sleeping on before, farther away from the bathroom -- and pulls the sheet and blanket up to his waist. Avery steps out of the bathroom and pauses with her hand on the doorframe. Her eyes flick from the window to James and back again before she seems to make up her mind.
She pads over to him and pulls her sleep shirt off over her head. It flutters to the floor as she lifts the blanket and climbs into the bed and into James’ lap.
He rests his hands on her thighs and speaks softly. “Hey, you don’t have to…”
She leans down and brushes her full lips across his. “I want to,” she murmurs. She kisses him again and rests one hand on his cheek, rasping her fingers through his growing beard. She tastes like minty tea and toothpaste, her lips and skin soft where their bodies meet, and he gives in as her bare breasts press against his chest. He groans softly, and she smiles against his lips, kissing him harder as he accepts her.
He slides his hands up to her back, fingers tickling up her spine and then back down, a gentle pattern that leaves her relaxed against his chest and smiling against his mouth. He rolls onto his side and she stretches out next to him, one leg still hooked over his hip. He keeps their kiss slow, intimate, as he slips one arm under the pillows and uses his other hand to rub over her thigh and ass. She gasps when he cups her breast, squeezing her flesh with careful fingers.
She clings to him like she never wants to let him go. Her free hand roams over him, always touching his chest or his arm or his back; the arm between their bodies clutches reflexively at his shoulder as she begins to squirm in his arms. She nibbles at his lower lip as she starts to move her hips against his, and he grows hard with his cock between their bellies as he begins to rock into her with more insistent movements.
She drags her lips away from his to catch her breath. He rests his forehead against hers and just breathes her in, holding her close.
Her voice is shaking when she asks, “Condom?”
He wants nothing more than to bury himself inside of her right now, to really feel her hot and tight and so perfect around him. He twitches at just the thought of sinking into her scorching heat, but aloud he says, “Yeah. Yeah.” Neither of them moves, still clutching each other, breathing hard.
Avery pulls him back to her for a kiss, and he follows her with a soft groan when she rolls onto her back and lets her thighs bracket his hips. From here, he can reach the bedside table with the condoms in it, so he reaches over and pulls the drawer open as Avery continues to kiss whatever skin she can reach.
His hand wraps around something that is decidedly
not
a condom, so he pushes himself up onto one hand so he can see what he’s doing. There’s a bottle of lube and a couple of toys at the front of the drawer, the condoms spilling out of a torn box at the back. The woman doesn’t have any food in her cupboards, but she has enough to do up here, apparently.
He snags what he was looking for and sits up so he can apply it properly. Avery stays reclined on her bed, feet on either side of him, and watches him with a soft expression even as she dips one hand between her legs to play with herself.
He strokes himself slowly as he watches her fingers moving in lazy circles, spreading her arousal over herself, but he can’t resist for long. She reaches up with her free hand for him and he leans into her, helpless to do anything other than what she wants, and he settles between her legs again with his weight on his elbows.
She reaches between them and grasps his dick with gentle fingers, guiding the tip of it inside of her so he can slide inside of her without trouble. She arches and gasps as he fills her, stretching her, and he waits once he’s fully inside of her for her to relax. She runs her fingers into the close-cropped hair at the back of his head, gently stroking over the strands he knows are long enough to be soft to the touch by now, and spreads her thighs a little wider so she can take him deeper.
He leans down to brush his nose against hers, and she smiles up at him. “Okay?” he asks, pushing in a little more before relaxing his hips.
Her breath catches in her throat, but she nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, just… be gentle at first.”
He hesitates, considers pulling out completely, then remembers this was all her idea in the first place. “Tell me if it’s too much?”
When she nods again, he kisses her and begins to move his hips. She parts her lips and kisses him back as he slides out of her at a torturously slow pace before pushing back in again just as slowly. She moves with him, ignoring sore muscles in an effort to focus on the pleasure he can bring her.
James keeps his weight on his elbows, careful to keep from crushing her with his weight even though she seems to be drawing him ever closer with slow kisses and pulling hands on his back. Each time he pushes fully inside of her, she catches her breath only to sigh as he begins to pull out, an even response he can count on even as he buries his face in the crook of her neck to press kisses against her heated skin.
She’s so responsive, every little movement from him drawing a matching one from her -- a gasp or a groan, a tightening of her fingers on his back or her pussy around his dick. She keeps her eyes closed even when he sits up a little to look at her face, to see the way it’s showing her pleasure in kiss-swollen lips and eyes tight shut.
The green light shimmers under her skin and flows from her hand into his bicep where her fingers are clutching him. He watches their bodies passing the glow back and forth between following her lead and closing his own eyes against the sight, tucking his face back against her throat where it belongs.
He can feel his pleasure building, an orgasm rising slowly but surely with each pump of his hips into her. She shudders and clenches around him, making him move faster in response, unable to hold back from the increased pace for one more second.
She gasps in his ear and lifts her legs higher around his hips; it feels deeper this way and he groans into her skin.
“James,” she gasps. One of her hands moves to the back of his head, tapping without rhythm. “James, please, I need…”
He lifts his head and presses his forehead against her temple, breath hot against her cheek. “Tell me,” he says, voice rough. “Anything.” He’s not sure
why
he means that so utterly and completely, but balls-deep in an increasingly desperate woman isn’t the time for introspection.
“Kiss me,” she manages, finally, digging her heels into his ass. “Just kiss me. Please, James.”
Maybe another time -- if there is another time -- he’ll hear her beg for real. Right now, all he wants to do is give her whatever she needs to make her come before he does. He sits up and kisses her hard, too hard; their teeth clack together and she grunts in pain before he soothes her lip with a swipe of his tongue.
She kisses him back, lips parted and tongue against his, and her little moans grow in pitch until she’s whining into his mouth as she comes. She clenches too tight around him and he can’t even hold back long enough to fuck her through it. He gives her a few more erratic thrusts as his balls draw up to his body and the pleasure makes his vision whiteout, and then he’s grinding as deep into her body as he can as he follows her over the edge.
Her hands are still on him when he comes back down, one resting on his back and the other brushing through his hair. Her legs have fallen away, but she doesn’t make any noise of discomfort or irritation at the pressure of his weight against her chest.
He has to force himself to pull away before he goes soft, pulling the condom off and tying it before collapsing back onto the mattress. A bone-deep weariness overcomes him, and he can’t help but silently hope that Avery is still up to letting him spend the rest of the night.
She seems to be; she doesn’t even bother getting up to clean up this time. She just curls against his side and burrows her face into his shoulder until he turns over to gather her in his arms. She sighs and relaxes, a sleepy mumble falling from her lips that he can’t quite interpret as his own brain starts to shut down for sleep.
James Vega doesn’t know what she said, but he does know exactly one thing: when it comes to this girl, he’s fucked.