Mass Effect - Cabin Fever

No, it was the Ryncol. That and only that. She bent and opened the fridge, grabbing a packet of rationed water. Time to drink lots of that, get the stuff out of her system. The sound of the door squeaking and popping shut made Wrex nod awake.

"Hrrm? What? I rested my eyes." He groaned.

"Go back and get some rest Wrex, I can take it from here."

"What time is it?"

"Does it matter anymore?"

Wrex shook his head sharply, "I just need a quick nap, then I'll be back."

"Take your time, we're not going anywhere any time soon."

He stood up, shuffled past her close enough to make it even harder to put certain things out of her mind. He slipped into the back, falling onto the cot with a heavy rattling thud. It took less than a minute for the slow rhythmic snoring to start back up.

Shepard dropped into Wrex's seat, feeling the heat where he had been that stood out even in the warmth. Actually, it seemed less bad today, it was somewhat surreal. Shepard could feel herself sweating, but she didn't feel hot.

"Time to play: illness or Ryncol side-effect?"

She took a pull of the water pouches straw tube, considering that it felt like the cool water had come recently from a glacier, she was willing to bet the Ryncol hangover was sapping her body heat. It was a handy thing for a planet built like a furnace, if the stuff didn't kill you.

She kicked the seat back, remote accessing the ship's computer through her omni-tool. She might have liked to use the extranet to learn about just how Ryncol was going to kill her, but they weren't exactly in a signal hotspot.

"Is that what we'd be using the extranet for?"

Down girl, bad, back in the cabinet with all of the other invasive thoughts. Wrex snored in the back, even sleeping like a log this was not the time nor the place to peruse sites like "KroganCockSupremacy" and "TuchankanTourists" with her hands down her pants.

...Not that she knew if those were real sites or anything.

She accessed the emergency dump logs, trying to read through the pre-blackout diagnostics without her eyes blurring over. The computer terminal was limited by the lack of connection to the outside world, and her remote connection wouldn't let her do things like changing the air temperature. She had a double-lobotomized computer on her wrist, she would have to make her fun with that. She quietly cursed herself for using the time before the blackout to do dumb things like take stock and check the life support instead of downloading a video game or something. Here was the boredom, she missed when she was too stressed to sit down.

"Do I have any hobbies that don't involve the internet, self-pleasure, or murder?"

Well, she was a busy person to be fair. Spectre duty allowed very little time to be a person. What time she got off was either spent preparing for time on, knocking out some stress, or kicking back to be exploited for microtransactions. There was nothing to prepare for, no connection to the microtransaction milkers, and no privacy. If she was stranded with the ship's computer, she had saved documents and an AI to talk to. If she were stranded with her own computer, she could try to sneak in some browsing while Wrex slept, but she was stuck with the fucking Mako. A computer that still ran from a command line, a computer with storage space that could be measured without quantum computing. It would probably cough up blood if she put any game made after the mid 21st century in. She didn't have any games old enough that this thing could handle it, games from that time had been very poorly preserved.

Wrex snorted and noisily rolled over in his sleep. The first sign of life support being the only priority had been the slow broil of heart that made the cabin unbearable, the second was that the whole fucking Mako was starting to smell like him.

Granted, she was sitting in a chair he had been in for god knows how long. She was wearing clothes that he had touched and sweated into, even if briefly. The sandy smell had somewhat given way to a far sweatier, almost musky version. She had smelled that coastal smell on him before, this new one was a little more intense. It was hard to say if it smelled good or bad, whichever it was, he smelled strongly. Shepard sniffed herself quickly, she probably wasn't a bed of roses either in this heat. By the time she got out of this sports bra, she might need to burn it. That said, was it bad enough that he would be able to smell it over himself? Did people who smelled this strongly know that they smelled? Did he know how hard it was going to be to focus with what could very well have been alien pheromones in the air?

Her head dropped to her chest, fiddling completely absentmindedly with her omni-tool. She didn't have anything to pass the time on it. It was a bad idea to save personal entertainment of any kind on something that was Alliance property. She bounced her legs open and closed without much thought. She looked at what little she did have saved on her personal device. A frontend for hacking terminals that ran Alliance code, one for galactic translation, a personal payment and banking terminal that would have to lead her to several dead extranet pages, a personal inbox, an Alliance handbook.

She was not about to read Alliance law in her free time, it was best to save that kind of thing for hours when it could be written off as business activity. She wondered if time down here would count as work hours, not worth the risk of having to read Alliance legal-ese.

Her inbox was based on the last time she'd accessed it with an extranet connection on her omni-tool. It turned out that she didn't use it that way much. She made a quiet promise to herself to check her inbox more from her omni-tool, so she would at least have some fresh spam to read. There were old back and forths to Col. Hackett, older ones to Kahoku, christ it had been a while.

She padded her finger along the semi-tangible screen, pushing further and further down into history. Of course, this wasn't the spam, this was the stuff that at least passed for genuine. Most of it was work, some of it was personal with crewmates, old group messages, and the like. It had been different days, different goals, some of the people in those chats were together now, some irrevocably separated. Boredom brought thoughts of the old days and the things that wouldn't be again flooding back.

This was somehow a less productive exercise than just sitting there. All it was doing was bringing her down, she missed the honorable spam box, where was he buried in those menus?

She found the box where the junk and automated messages had been auto-sorted to.

Even spam had changed in the years since last checked. Modern spam was a little sleeker, a lot subtler. Nobody was gullible enough to believe in Nigerian princes anymore, half of the galaxy didn't even know what Nigeria was. There was the spam that she had earned and the spam that had found its way there uninvited. Mailing lists to things she hadn't wanted to be on a list for but had clicked the link of any way alongside advertisements for supplements that would increase the strength and speed of her semen. Called "Super Krogan Vitality" perhaps unaware of the irony that existed in the very name. Having semen with the fertility of a Krogan would be counterproductive for somebody who would need fertility supplements. That was what made them alluring to some, no risk of dealing with the consequences of your size queen creampie.

"There's the windup."

Of course, there were other things to make them alluring. The grumbling voice, the sense of danger, the hulking size, in Wrex's case the wit, the loyalty and reliability, the uh... size of the cocks.

"And there's the pitch."

Yeah, there was a very specific reason why most of the Krogan porn on the extranet existed. It wasn't exactly for their roguish charm or acting prowess, it was because they had the biggest cocks this side of an Elcor and came like a tapped fire hydrant. Shepard had unlimited access to a world of extranet information from the age she could first put on her Alliance uniform. Of course, she didn't spend all of her time drooling over videos on the extranet, she did have to work occasionally. Being made a Spectre had some privileges, private quarters and an unmonitored personal computer for one.

One of the spam emails was for a site Shepard was a little more familiar with. A small smile crept to her face as she opened it.

"The newest installment of Tuchanka Tourist must be seen to be believed!"

Tuchanka Tourist 15 brings the debut of the beautiful Ellen Ryder to the extranet in stunning high definition. From Jump Zero to jammed full of Krogan meat, come see a promising young biotic politician try to pacify a group of sex-crazed Krogan after an escape pod malfunction lands her far from home and surrounded by a welcoming party of Krogans at the peak of their mating season! Like all human women, it's only so long before Ellen submits to superior Krogan cocks, but how far will this promising young diplomat fall before she earns the money to buy her ticket home? Watch Ellen's shock at the size of a big Krogan cock melt away to lust, leaving her a free-use fucktoy for a whole Crush! In the end, she may not want to go back to politics...

It was a particularly trashy series. The acting was terrible, the camera drone needed repairs, and it relied a lot on stereotypes and misused Krogan culture to justify poorly acted and poorly shot scenes. That said, she did keep watching them.

Shepard scrolled down, seeing the dead space where the embedded images should be. She paused for a moment, listening to Wrex snoring. She unhid the image, hoping they had the decency to embed it properly for offline mode. She cursed under her breath when it gave her a dead media link. Stupid company couldn't use a camera drone right, why had she expected them to save an image instead of linking it?

She scrolled down, checking the other image links, all of which were similarly dead. Of course not, of course it wouldn't be that easy.

There were other emails from the same address, she could hope that any of them were better formatted, but she knew better. She opened a few, checked a few images, got the results she expected, gave up.

"There's nothing stopping you from getting your guts rearranged by the real deal."

Incorrect, there were several things stopping her from doing that, most of them informed by the rational part of the mind currently doing battle with the horny brain. Fantasies were one thing, biological realities at times were quite another. That and there was no telling that Wrex would have any sort of similar ideas about what his junk should be doing. Despite what the extranet might say, not every alien was horny for humans.

"But you would like it if they were."

Okay, Ryncol seemed to be making the whole inner narrative thing particularly self-shaming. There was always shame in it, but some days it was worse than others. That was the nature of having taboo tastes, that was always going to be the nature of having taboo tastes. There was that little nugget of shame down at the core of fetishizing another living being, even if they did consent. It was always based on stale ideas, old stereotypes, poorly-shot skin flicks. The girls and guys involved were paid to be there, that wasn't how life was.

"They looked like they were having fun."

Well, yeah, it was a fucking porno. Most people didn't go out of their way to find porno where the people weren't having fun. Not well-adjusted people at least. It was an act, they were actors. Military life was also a kind of acting. Most things were acting. That's why the lines were easy to forget. Well, all except one of them. That you were out there, and the actors you watched were part of their own little scene. Easy to remember in a movie, a game, a story, harder to recall in a video of two people shuffling with evolution. Maybe that's what made the trashy ones enjoyable, the obvious fakeness. The poorly-focused shots and whir of a drone motor could pull you out of a scene, remind you that this girl wasn't really stuck in a Tuchankan bar restroom. Of course, you could still believe what you wanted to.

"They looked like they were having fun."

And that was the rub, wasn't it? That was where the lie crept in and kept you coming back. The lie made the urge real. At the core, the people in the porno looked like they were having fun. The act was the act, the roles were the roles, the characters were the characters. But you came back because they looked like they were having fun, and you wanted to have fun with them.

Shepard got up out of her chair, the sweat was going to soak in wherever she sat, whatever she was doing. It was in the chair, it was soaking her sports bra, it was making the legs of her pants grate her skin. Of course, it wasn't the main reason she was squirming in her seat. She needed a quickie, just to help her sit still. It didn't matter if she didn't have any pictures or anything, she was primed enough that she could go without. She slid to the bathroom, checking to see if Wrex was still snoring before locking the door behind her.

She sidled onto the toilet, there wasn't much room to do anything, but she was an Alliance girl, she'd found some truly inconvenient locations to rub one out in, and rubbed one out in at least half of them. She opened her legs as much as she could, barely getting them wide enough to comfortably fit her hand into her slick thighs and rub herself. She covered her mouth with her other hand, she and Wrex had both already heard the other taking a leak enough for her to know that these walls didn't stop much. The first touch of her slender fingers against her clit made her shudder, the spark it caused like a small popping release of pent-up energy. The longer she took, the more she risked, but she moved her hands quickly and with purpose.

With one hand clamped firmly over her mouth, she worked her clit furiously, whimpering softly into her palm. The smell of sex started to overcome even the smell of sweat as she worked. Perhaps she had underestimated just how used she was to having "inspiration", as her build was far slower than she would have thought with how ready to pop she felt before even starting. It was agonizing, considering how much more intent she was on the destination than usual. This was not a situation to savor the journey, this was a "get one out before the drill Seargent catches you" situation. Even if Wrex wasn't about to make her run laps, the embarrassment was going to be far worse than being caught by some low-ranked officer barking at you.

Thinking about Wrex was helping, hell even thinking about getting caught by Wrex was helping. What he'd do, how he'd react. Maybe he'd be so turned on he would come barging in and-

The snoring outside stopped, Shepard jerked frozen, heart jumping into her throat.

She waited an agonizing amount of slow-crawling seconds, waiting for another sound. She didn't take her hand out of her pants, keeping her other hand pressed over her mouth as well. Her finger, even stationary on her clit, made her tingle in heightened anticipation. When she heard Wrex grunt and plant his feet heavily on the floor, she squeezed her eyes shut, quietly compelling him to do anything but knock on the bathroom door.

The slow footfalls stumbled to the door, he tried pulling it open, then knocked.

"You uh... you in there?" He asked drowsily.

She slowly pulled her hand from her mouth, swallowing heavily and trying to keep composed. Finally, she squeaked back a "Yes!"

He paused, then "Well... can you not be?"

"Do you need to go?"

"Yes, mother, I do." He grumbled back, clearly annoyed.

"Right, just a sec!"

Shit! Fuck! Shepard pulled her hand out of her pants, ignoring her body screaming in protest. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands to give herself a cover, but realized pretty instantly that the venting to clear out the smell of sex was secondary functionality, not something that was going to happen. She waved her hands at the vent like she could force the smell of it out, but she was well aware she was pissing in the wind. Her last hope was that Krogan female sexual fluids smelled different than human ones. A pipe dream, but there wasn't much else on the table.

She opened the door, trying to look casual. "Wrex."

He nodded back, not looking her in the eye. "Shepard."

He shifted into the bathroom quickly, almost forcing himself past her. Shepard's eyes barely had a chance to look at him, but she caught a second of what she was pretty sure was a poorly-tucked erection in his robe. It wasn't going to make her blue balls any easier. She heard a single pronounced sniff before the door closed. When he stepped out later after an excessively long piss, the bulge had disappeared. He didn't make any comment about the smell, but slumped down into his seat and grabbed his flask again.

"I need another drink, you interested?"

"Right after waking up?"

"Calling anything we do here sleep is generous."

The continuous ache in Shepard's neck agreed with him. "You said it gets better?"

He took a drink and grimaced. "I said it gets less bad."

Shepard unsealed her flask, "I'll drink to less bad."

Clearly less bad didn't refer to taste, it still felt like a sucker punch going down.

"It's... an acquired taste."

Wrex chuckled, "I like it. I like tastes that can punch me in the face."

"Maybe you should try tasting things that aren't food."

"I've had Turian food before, that's gotta be pretty close."

"Can't relate, it's basically poison to humans."

"Same to Krogans."

"Why'd you taste it then?"

"I wanted to know how it tasted."

"How'd it taste?"

"Like poison."

She blinked and watched her hand as she curled and uncurled her fingers, they seemed to move in slow motion, but she was more ready for it. The slow-burning heat of it spread out through her body, starting at her throat and firing every nerve as it passed down through her limbs and out of the tips of her fingers and toes. It made her feel like each limb ended in a supercharged catalyst, spewing energy out into the air. The whole effect was like every space between the atoms of her existence was being filled with power, a power that wanted to come pouring out of her. The aching burn between her legs went away, then came back with uncomfortable intensity. Her pussy was alive, every atom of it was burning up. Neurons all firing at once. Her whole body was tingling uncontrollably, but between her legs especially it felt like she was holding back a landslide with a picket fence.

"What the hell is this stuff?" She muttered.

"Bad for you." He grumbled back. His voice was so low and so powerful it felt like it was coming from inside of her.

"You like things that are bad for you?" She could feel herself merging with her chair.

"Those tend to be the fun ones."

"Better to try something once and rip the bandaid off, right?" She sputtered, suddenly a little too eager and forward.

"Sure, if it doesn't kill you."

Shepard lurched out of her chair, taking another drink of Ryncol before sliding out of her pants and stumbling over to Wrex's chair. He looked up at her, confused and a little wary, still too sober to be stupid like she intended to be. She half-sat and half-collapsed into his lap. Wrapping her arms around his strong neck for support, she pulled her lips against his. He was too shocked to respond for a moment but kissed her back as best he could with their mismatched mouth shapes.

"I've been thinking about you, Wrex." She whispered when she pulled her lips away sloppily.

"You're drunk."

"And crazy horny." She exclaimed, throwing her legs over the arm of his chair and sprawling in his lap. He looked down at her with an expression that was hard to read, one that was unusual on his stony face. It was almost nervous. She grabbed one of his massive hands and set it on her thigh.