Archive of Our Own

Six months. Six months of paying informants out of his own pocket after C-Sec funds couldn’t cover the amount. Six months of poring over reports and docking data whenever he had a free moment, until it felt his eyes would bleed. Six months of hard, punishing, detective work and the bastard gets bailed out not even a second after Scott had finished uploading his name to the system.

“They should at least let me question him!”

Chellick sighed, didn’t even look up from his datapad. “For what? He’s not actually a suspect in anything and has been a model prisoner so far-”

“Yeah, for the five seconds it took for the ‘legal consultant’ to magically manifest as soon as I marched him through the door.”

“He’s shady, yes,” Chellick went on. “And I certainly wouldn’t play poker with him, but if those were the only prerequisites to win a long sojourn in our holding cells we’d be running out of space pretty fast.”

Scott collapsed into his chair and thumped his forehead on the desk. Once. Twice. “Six.” Three times. “Months.”

There was no response from Chellick, he probably hadn’t even looked up from his datapad. According to him, he rarely had time for any of Scott’s shit.

“Do we know who called the lawyer, at least?”

“Nope.”

He had said that in English, no translator involved. It was a really weird sound coming from someone with no lips. “You’ve been hanging out with humans too much.”

Chellick raised his eyes from the datapad for the first time and gave him a long, pointed look.

Long, gloved fingers rapped on the desk, close to his elbow. Scott sharply looked up at the man responsible for six months of sleepless nights and diminishing funds.

Reyes Vidal, ex-Alliance and now a modest and unassuming — as if! — free-lance shuttle pilot stationed in the Lower Wards. On the surface, nothing out of the ordinary, and yet he had popped up on the fringes of several cases, from smuggling to espionage to good, old-natured murder. Nothing too obvious, though, rarely his face and practically never his name.

Scott crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair to glare openly at him.

Vidal, the smug bastard, was looking down at him with a smirk and half-lidded eyes. It was a good look on him and he was obviously aware of it. Scott’s hands clenched into fists.

“Officer… Ryder, was it?” Vidal said with one last tap. He crossed his arms, mirroring Scott, but his stance was confident and relaxed. Scott had barely met him beyond ‘arresting’ him and already he hated him with a passion only reserved for those seemingly innocuous but infuriating things, like socks that slipped past your heel as you walked and people using tones on their Omni-Tools.

Scott’s arms started aching with the effort of keeping them under control and not punching the guy’s ‘I’m sexy and I know it’ face off his… face.

“I’m afraid our time together was cut short,” Vidal continued, as if unaware of the superhuman struggle taking place a mere two feet from him. “All good things must come to an end, as they say.”

“This isn’t the last you’ll see of me, Mr. Vidal,” Scott finally managed, through gritted teeth. “I’m onto you.”

“Oh, I certainly hope so,” Vidal’s voice dipped suddenly in a deep, dark drawl. A shiver slithered down Scott’s back, his legs, the back of his knees, his toes, until everything was pins and needles.

Shit.

The man had a bedroom voice, too, and he certainly knew how to use it.

Scott’s only defense was to renew the intensity of his glare. In front of him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chellick put down his datapad, give the two of them a blank look, and then pick up another datapad.

Vidal’s lawyer, the most unremarkable asari Scott had ever seen, appeared at Vidal’s side. “We will be filing for harassment, of course,” she huffed and, weirdly enough, rolled her eyes. She was wearing a professional two-piece suit. Human fashion, not asari.

“Don’t listen to her,” Vidal said, waving vaguely in her direction. The lawyer didn’t seem too impressed. “It was a pleasure making your acquaintance.”

Deep voice. Again. Traitorous shivers. Again.

Scott felt his left eye twitch and if he kept clenching his teeth any harder he’d probably need dentures by the time he’d be twenty-five.

“We might need you for more enquiries,” he said through jaws that were aching by now. “Leave your current contact information at the reception desk.”

Vidal was already halfway through the door when he turned around and winked.

The absolute bastard.

“I hate him.”

Chellick made a sound that could be interpreted as the turian way of sighing. “You’ve hardly been here a year, kid.” he said, as they stared at Vidal’s retreating back. He was even able to carry off that swagger without being ridiculous. Utter. Bastard. “There are plenty actual cases you can waste your sleep on. You’ll forget him soon enough.”

The next few days were quiet. No signs of Reyes Vidal around the Citadel, as if he had never existed in the first place. His shuttle was still at the docks, though, so he couldn’t have gone too far.

The ‘current contact information’ he had left was the hotline for Alliance recruiting, which was either a fortuitous coincidence or Vidal knew more about him than the other way around, which was certainly a worrying thought.

He hadn’t mentioned it to Chellick, but when he said it to Sara she gave him a skeptical look.

“Scott.”

“Sara.”

“You’re reading too much into this,” she sighed. “I know you like overthinking stuff, but honestly, this is ridiculous—”

“Hey, I don’t overthink—”

“For it to be intentional, he’d have to get access to our records and dad’s records, which are sealed, by the way—”

“I know, but—”

“And have all that prepared before you actually arrested him, Scott.”

A sigh. “I know.”

He could feel the weight of Sara’s gaze on him but he couldn’t really tell what she was thinking, though he could probably imagine. Under the guise of taking a sip from his bottle of beer, he sneaked a glance at her.

She had her ‘poor Scott, what am I going to do with you’ expression on. It was almost motherly, and indeed it had started to appear not long after their mother had died. As if being born a few minutes before him gave her big sister rights.

“Look, it’s just— I’ve been working on this case for so long, invested so many resources… I had him, I could have questioned him, I could—”

Sara stood from the armchair and came to sit on the bed next to him. She knocked their shoulders together. “I know, but from the sound of it, you wouldn’t have gone very far anyway.”

“Yeah, he lawyered up pretty quickly,” he shook his head and, when he felt Sara’s hand coming up to ruffle his hair, he shoved at her playfully. “He was just— infuriating. Who does he think he is? With the deep voice and the bedroom eyes—”

Shit.

Sara went still next to him.

“Bedroom eyes?”

Shit.

“What can I get you?”

Scott finished casing the seating area of the bar — Kralla's Song, it was called. It wasn’t too busy, but busy enough one could meet a contact without being too afraid of prying eyes — and ears.

“I’ll have a whisky—” he did a double-take.

In front of him, on the other side of the bar, wearing cargo pants and what looked like an armored jacket, stood the most unremarkable asari Scott had ever seen.

From the look on her face, she found Scott pretty unimpressive too.

She slammed a steel cup in front of him. “We only serve it neat.”

“I only drink it neat,” He replied, automatically. He tried a sip. Pure rotgut, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. “I was under the impression that lawyers earned enough to make a living wage.”

The asari gave him a blank look. “Do I look like a lawyer to you?”

“Exactly my point.”

“Waiting for someone?”

Scott nearly spit the whisky into the bartender's face. He coughed out the drink that had gone down the wrong way and turned to glare at the newcomer. Somehow he didn’t think he cut much of an impressive righteous figure, sputtering and choking as he was.

Reyes Vidal was still the smug bastard that had left the C-Sec offices a couple of weeks ago. He was wearing a leather jacket and leaning against the bar in too a casual way for it not to be intentional.

He signaled the bartender and, to Scott’s surprise, she refilled his drink too.

“What’s a nice officer like you doing in a disreputable place like this, then?”

Scott tried his drink and made a face, still the same rotgut. “I don’t see how’s that any of your business.”

Vidal smirked, a knowing smirk, as if there was a joke only he was privy to. He stepped closer, leaning over to bump their glasses together with a metallic ‘clink’. In the darkness of the bar, only half of his face was visible, eyelashes casting long shadows on his cheeks.

His mouth was a sharp twist and his eyes slivers of undetermined color. When he had compiled Vidal’s sheet, it had taken him a few minutes to try and pin it down exactly.

(He had decided on brown in the end, because spending five minutes debating whether it was too light to be called hazel was probably a waste of C-Sec resources.)

Vidal just looked at him for a long moment, straight into his eyes. Close as they were, Scott could feel the occasional puff of breath ghosting over his face. He knew he was very likely blushing, but the place was dark and anyway he wasn’t going to chicken out of this. Vidal was a bastard and Scott wouldn’t give him any—

“Chellick sent you here to see me.”

The mention of his partner’s name came out of the blue and Scott nearly spit his drink again. Of course the bastard had waited until he’d been drinking. Vidal smiled and leaned back, took a sip of his drink.

“Chellick sent me here to meet an informant…” Scott trailed off, narrowed his eyes at Vidal, whose smirk was getting wider. Sharper.

“Akshin, at your service,” he saluted with glass. He set it down on the counter and then turned so he was fully facing Scott, leaning on the bar with his hip. His leather jacket opened slightly and Scott caught the glimpse of a holster. No gun, though.

Chellick has indeed sent him to meet with ‘Akshin’, an informant he had only ever heard mentioned a couple of times. Scott had thought this had been a show of trust on his partner’s side, sharing an informant, imagine that!

Chellick had to have been the one calling Vidal’s ‘lawyer’.

“You’ll forget him soon enough.”

Chellick was full of shit.

“Chellick is full of shit,” he said it out loud, for good measure.

Vidal laughed. A deep and rumbling affair that had the hair on Scott’s arms stand up. Oh yeah, now he was definitely blushing.

“You’ll hear no protest from me,” he pushed away from the bar and nodded in the direction of a secluded spot: a table in the far off corner, closed off and suspiciously empty. “Coming, Ryder?”

Vidal sprawled on the sofa and patted the seat next to him. “So, what has the good, old Chellick told you?”

Scott gave him a suspicious look, but the playful behavior was gone: Vidal was relaxed, sure, but his face was now set in a serious expression. So maybe there really was more to the shady, flirty bastard than it appeared as first.

Vidal raised his — hazel, dammit, they were fucking hazel, okay — eyes and pinned Scott with a look. “Are you planning on joining me anytime soon?” It was low and Scott shouldn’t have been able to hear him over the noise of the place, but it was like his brain was tuned to the frequency.

Well, shit.

Scott avoided his eyes, dropped on the seat, cleared his throat. “Some Krogan by the name of Jax, used to be an arms dealer. Chellick made a case against him a few years back, got him arrested.”

Vidal nodded. “Some say a certain human Spectre got involved.”

“Shepard?” Scott was so taken aback that he forgot himself and turned to him. They were sitting apart, but still very close. Vidal had his arms along the back of the sofa, the left one only a few inches away from touching Scott. He could feel the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. “Chellick didn’t mention.”

Vidal shrugged, the movement carrying over to Scott through the cushions and the back. He made a gesture for Scott to continue.

“Last year Jax walked, must have had some connections,” he gave a pointed glare at Vidal, who just raised his eyebrows and offered what was possibly the most unconvincing innocent face ever made. “Now the black market seems to have acquired a new mysterious arms dealer who took over Jax’s old turf. I wonder who could it be.”

“Who, indeed?” Vidal smirked. “Brace yourself for the shock of your life: Jax is your ‘mysterious’ new arms dealer.”

“What a twist.”

“Now the juicy bit. Still bracing? Good.” Vidal reached inside his jacket, holster side. Scott tensed, but what came out was a datapad. His hesitation didn’t go unnoticed and the datapad was offered with an arched eyebrow and a smirk. “Jax is moving a lot more product than he used to, back in the day. Very few buyers, a lot of mods. And now the weird bit: it seems all his buyers are humans.”

“That is weird. Any idea why?”

“Maybe we’re just a race of troublemakers at heart.” He shrugged and checked his Omni-Tool. “Oh, well. It’s time for all good little informants to go and rest.”

“I’ll make sure to tell them if I see any.”

“You wound me, Ryder,” there was a complex pantomime of pretending to be struck through the heart, complete with a dying groan. It wasn’t a very convincing moan of death, but it certainly stimulated Scott’s imagination. “I’ll have something about these buyers for you and Chellick soon. I just need to dig a little more, or maybe Jax could have a little accident. It’s a very accident-prone business, smuggling weapons.”

“You should know.”

“Only hearsay,” Vidal affected a scandalised look, hand on his heart where only a minute earlier he’d been struck by an invisible knife. He stood up. “I’m a very honest businessman and a gentleman.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

“Ah, well. That would be because I’m lying.”

The abrupt honesty had Scott snort a surprised burst of laughter. He shook his head. The man was unbelievable, he— he was now looking down at Scott with an almost... fond look in his eyes. The smirk was gone, replaced by the hint of a smile. Scott’s mouth was suddenly, inexplicably dry.

It was the impression of a moment, gone so quickly that Scott reasoned he had just imagined it. Vidal was already turning on his heels.

“Vidal, wait—” his voice was a croaky thing. He cleared his throat, tried again. “How do I— we contact you? You go through Chellick?”

“I’ll contact you.” Because, of course. The guy must take his pointers from the Blasto screenwriters. “And another thing.”

Vidal leaned over, close. So close. Dangerously close. Scott was sure his face was frozen in a terrified expression, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off those eyes, that mouth, that-

Vidal veered at the last possible moment, their cheeks barely brushing against each other. Warm breath close to his ear, shivering down his neck, his back. And then an even warmer voice, “Call me Reyes,” he said.

And then he was suddenly gone, Scott’s right side suddenly cold as if Vidal— Reyes had taken all the warmth out of the room. He shivered.

What. The. Hell.

He followed the retreating back with his eyes - yep, still those confident strides - and almost bumped into somebody when he stood up. He stumbled a step back and turned to look at the Asari bartender, her arms crossed.

“You got drinks to pay.”

“What, didn’t he—”

Despite the fact she didn’t actually have eyebrows to arch, the look she gave him was nonetheless very effective.

Scott transferred over the credits from his Omni-Tool and hurried after Reyes.

But when he came out of the bar, the man was gone.

“Can you believe the nerve!” Scott shook his head. “Didn’t even say thanks.”

Sara didn’t even look up from her datapad. “Uh-uh.”

“He just— hey, did you hear that?” Scott frowned and look around. It had been very faint, but it had certainly sounded like a shot. “There it is again!”

“I’m sure C-Sec is taking care of it.”

“I’m C-Sec.”

Sara finally looked up to glare at him. “No, right now you’re my brother and you were telling me about your new boyfriend.”

“What?! No! He’s not—”

“I’m not sure I approve, though,” she scratched her chin with a pensive air. “He’s much older than you.”

“That is what bothers you? Not the fact that he is, I don’t know, a criminal?”

“So he is your boyfriend!”

“No!”

Again the faint crack in the distance. Definitely a shot. He brought up his Omni-Tool and opened his work channel. “This is Officer Ryder,” across from him, Sara rolled her eyes. “Shots fired in the Presidium, can’t pinpoint the location. Is there already a squad responding? Do you need me?”

A male voice crackles on the other end. Human. “Stand down, Officer. It seems Spectre Shepard and Mr. Vakarian are, ah… handling it.”

“Spectre business?”

“It seems they are... shooting bottles, Sir.”

Scott blinked. “I see,” he cleared his voice. “I’ll… stand down, then.” With a quick gesture of his fingers he closed the connection.

He exchanged a look with Sara, who was barely able to stifle her snort. “I guess those must be pretty threatening bottles,” he shrugged. “How are you, then?”

“Busy preparing for the meeting with the guys from Crisis Response. It’s got a longer name, but I can never remember,” she sighed in frustration and scratched the back of her head, messing up her ponytail. “I’m meeting the human contingent because, of course I am. I can’t be trusted with meeting aliens. Never mind I’ve grown up in the Citadel.”

“Hey, it’s the humans who kicked dad out, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.” he bumped her foot under the table. “Maybe you’ll meet someone nice.”

“Right. Just because you met your boyfriend through work, it doesn’t mean we all want to mix business and pleasure.”

“Not. My. Boyfriend. Also a freaking criminal!”

Sara pushed her half-finished drink and sandwich away. “At least it’s not boring,” she stood up and came around to pat Scott affectionately on the head. He only barely managed to evade her hand. “I’ll get the check. See you later, little brother.”

“Eight minutes! Seriously!”

She walked backwards to give him finger guns. Finger guns. “Let me know how the date goes!” she raised her voice, for everyone’s benefit. “Wear the brown henley with the leather jacket.”

“There is no relationship!” He shouted back. “There are no dates planned. Not now, not ever. No dating!”

A week later Jax the arms dealer mysteriously disappeared, and yet his business seemed to be as lucrative as ever, if not more. Whoever it was that was pulling the strings was still unknown.

Not that Scott didn’t have his suspicions.

A week after that, an informant mentioned that Jax had met his grisly end at the hands of the new rulers of Omega, some kind of paramilitary group.

It wasn’t strictly C-Sec business if not only peripherally, but Scott liked poking his nose where, at least according to regulations, it didn’t belong. So he tried requesting an audience with the former, self-proclaimed, queen of Omega, Aria T’Loak herself. She was hiding out in the asari embassy, protected by miles and miles of red tape.

The embassy employee laughed in his face for a solid minute.

He had always been under the impression asari were supposed to be all class and mysticity and sex appeal. Krogan parent, maybe?

It was late as he walked back to the Citadel transport. He debated calling Sara, but she was probably still overwhelmed by the preparations for the meeting with the people from Crisis Response. Not that he felt like talking about his non-existent future dates with Vidal— Reyes.

Vidal.

Maybe he could hit up Vetra, she was probably done with her shift at— wherever she worked. She seemed to be always busy and on top of things somehow, but ever since he’d joined C-Sec a year before he had never really asked nor looked into what it was that she actually did, nor had she volunteered any information.

His Omni-Tool beeped with an incoming transmission before he could call up Vetra’s contact. The handle showed it was Chellick.

Odd.

“Sir? I’m off hours.”

“And using your free time to harass asari embassy attaches , I’ve heard.”

“Sir, I—”

“I don’t really care, Ryder,” Chellick cut him off. “Meet me in Purgatory Bar.”

“But—” The connection cut off. “—I’m off hours.”

Well, it’s not like he had anything important to do.

“I believe you’ve already met Mr. Vidal,” Chellick motioned to the smirking bastard sitting across from him. Sprawled on the sofa, drink in hand.

He twirled his fingers at Scott. “Ah, Officer Ryder,” he sat up and made space for him. “How lovely to see you.”

Scott pointedly sat next to Chellick. Vidal shrugged nonchalantly and downed his drink. He slammed the empty glass on the table. “Now that we are all here, let’s discuss business. I’m sure you’ve heard about poor Jax’s demise.”

Scott glared at him. “And he had such a promising career ahead of him,” he said, dryly. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with it.”

Vidal arched an eyebrow. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Are you sure ‘s’ is the consonant you want, there?”

Chellick cleared his throat in that weird, crackling way turians did. “Can we please get to the point before I die of old age?”

And like a switch had been flipped, Vidal’s sultry eyes and bedroom voice were gone. He leaned forward, his eyes clear and steady, small frown etched between his eyebrows. The epitome of professionalism.

Scott suddenly felt flush, his clothes itching against his skin, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. By the look Vidal shot him sideways, it didn’t go unnoticed. He felt his cheeks heat.

Purgatory Bar. More like Scott Ryder’s Private Hell.

Criminal. Vidal was a criminal, he had to remember it. Probably was even the one who had killed Jax, he’d had a hand in it at the very least. Surely not a huge loss, but murder was still murder. No matter how Chellick seemed to be comfortable, to a certain degree at least, working with him. No matter how Vidal seemed capable at acquiring sensitive information.

“I have an in with Jax’s former buyers,” he was talking in a soft voice, despite the noise in the club, making his accent even more noticeable. “It seems Jax being krogan didn’t help him any when… insinuations about his work ethics were made.”

Did he really have to speak so softly? They certainly needed to be as quiet as possible, but now all Scott could hear was that accent curling around every word. He could have tried and followed the lip movements, but staring at that mouth didn’t seem a good idea right now. That fucking mouth, smirking all the damn time, his long straight nose, those eyes—

He looked away and his eyes fell on Vidal’s hands, one still keeping the glass in a loose grip, the other drawing abstract gestures in the air between him and Chellick, stressing the meaning and the pace of whatever he was saying.

Scott really should have paid better attention, but seriously, who wore gloves everywhere, unless they were super villains?

Chellick’s voice snapped him back into the conversation. “And are you sure the buyers will be there?”

“When have I ever lied to you, Chellick?”

“Every time you open your mouth.”

Vidal smirked a somewhat self-deprecating smile and raised his handS, conceding the point. “When have I ever disappointed you, then?”

Chellick snorted. “I want eyes in there, Vidal.” I don’t trust you, wasn’t voiced, but it hung in the air between them.

“Then it’s just as well that I was planning to bring a plus one,” Vidal said and then looked straight at Scott.

What.

He blinked. “What?”

He really should have paid more attention to the conversation. Bringing who where? Plus one?

The silence stretched into ‘uncomfortable’ territory. Chellick glanced between him and Vidal, then sighed and settled on the latter. “So that’s why you wanted him here,” Vidal had asked for Scott here? Right. Of course he had. “What, am I not your type?”

Vidal laughed softly. “On the contrary, Detective. I’m quite fond of men with easy access to a pair of handcuffs,” he shook his head. “It’s more, you’re not the buyers’ type. They tend not to like non-humans. Not everyone is as open-minded as I am.”

“And yet they did business with Jax.”

“It seems they needed access to those weapons and mods fast. Jax was a necessary evil,” Vidal glanced around them and then leaned forward, lowered his voice even more. “Those weapons have been in the Citadel for at least three weeks now. You haven’t been able to find them, Shepard hasn’t either and, most worryingly, I haven’t found them, yet.”

Chellick growled and punched the table. “I don’t need reminding, certainly not from you,” he sighed. “Fine, take Ryder. Bring me something, anything.”

“Hey! Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No.”

Vidal turned to him, the serious expression gone. He grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll be the perfect gentleman.”

Chellick snorted. “Ugh, tone it down, Blasto, he’s a kid.”

Scott raised his eyebrows. “I can drink, drive and speak for myself, you know. Look at me, adulting all over the place.”

“As he says, Chellick,” Vidal stood up. “Well above the age of consent.”

“I also have a gun,” Scott pointed out.

Vidal grinned at him. “I’ll send you the time and place on your private terminal, better keep this out of the office. Wear something nice.”

“Are we meeting the buyers or your parents? Are they one and the same?” With Vidal, nothing was out of the realm of possibilities. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, how do you know my private e-mail?”

Reyes Vidal, handsome bastard, just winked.

Of course.

“He certainly seems to like you,” Chellick remarked. “He was never quite that… blatant around Vakarian.”

“Lucky me.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, kid.”

Oh, Sara was going to love this.

Not that Scott would ever tell her.

Maybe on his deathbed.

“No, Sir.”

Scott was at the meeting place, an otherwise regular door at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Lower Wards. Nothing remarkable about it, except for the two Blue Suns mercs standing guard in front of it. A human female and a turian male, by the looks of it.

“Beat it, kid.”

“I’m actually on the list,” As usual, Scott had opened his mouth before thinking. Unlikely that Vidal had put him in under his real name. Ryder was a well-known name around the Citadel, after all.

Thanks again, Dad.

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“He’s with me,” Vidal’s voice came from behind him.

A moment’s later, there was a light touch at the small of his back, right where his jacket ended and there was only the cotton of his shirt between them and his skin. Nothing too intrusive, barely the suggestion of fingers. They seemed undecided, trembling slightly, but when Scott didn’t react, the touch became confident, bolder, and Vidal’s hand was now a rapidly heating spot on his back, a shining beacon for his nerve endings.

“Reyes Vidal,” his voice was firm, it expected obedience.

Apparently, he was on the list, because the two mercs let them pass without further questions. The door hissed open and inside they found yet another Blue Suns merc — human male, this time — who escorted them to an elevator.

Vidal’s hand never left his back until they were inside and he turned to face Scott.

“Ryder, you look...” there was a moment of hesitation, the slightest intake of breath as Vidal’s eyes took him in, “nice.”

Score one for leather jacket and henley. It was lucky that Scott planned to keep this from his sister until his death, or he’d never have heard the end of it.

Vidal— Reyes, it was supposed to be a date, after all — had opted for a slight variation of what seemed his regular mise of cargo pants and leather jacket. And leather gloves, of course. His boots were polished, too. His hair combed back and gelled. Was he wearing cologne?

“All I can afford on an officer’s salary,” he shrugged. “I hope it’s adequate.”

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

This elevator ride was taking forever. “So what’s the plan?”

“We mingle, enjoy the party, maybe dance a little.”

“I don’t dance.”

“You’re my date, you dance.”

“Hey, they’re your feet, man.”

The doors pinged open, the hand went to his back again. Scott’s step faltered, but he quickly regained his balance and his next step brought him closer, his shoulder brushing Reyes's. They were more or less the same height. The hand got bolder and moved around to grasp his hip, bringing them even closer together.

Scott shuddered and felt the shiver travel through Reyes's body, too.

Dance. Sure. A piece of cake. It’s not like dancing required physical proximity. If things went on like this, Scott would count himself lucky if he could still walk straight by the end of the night.

Reyes turned his head to whisper directly into his ear. From a few feet away, it’d look as if he was whispering sweet nothings into his date’s neck, in reality Scott couldn’t really say it wasn’t what was actually going on. “Business first, then pleasure. Maybe.” His breath was warm down Scott’s neck.

He shouldn’t be here. He should have told Chellick that no, he definitely wasn’t good at the adult and professional thing. There he was, hanging from the arm of a criminal and a suspected murderer, being reduced to a hormonal mess with nothing but a sensual voice and a hand on his side.

Then again, he was twenty-two and hadn’t got laid in a long, long time.

They stepped into a huge room. It wasn’t too crowded, there were maybe thirty, forty people. There was a DJ in a corner, some people dancing. Scott spied half a dozen Blue Suns mercs, standing guard near all the accesses of the room. They seemed to be the only people armed in the room, but looks could definitely be deceiving.

Scott pitched his voice low. “So, what now?”

Reyes steered him towards the bar. “Let’s get some drinks.”

“I hope you intend to pay for your own drinks, this time.”

“It was only a clever trick so you’d remember me.”

Scott rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help a chuckle at Reyes's too innocent expression. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? You seem the type who enjoys a chase.”

“Hardly. I’m a very shy man,” Reyes signaled the bartender over, a turian, tall even by his race standards.

“Right, and I’m an asari matriarch.”

As Reyes ordered them two whiskeys — neat, he certainly had a memory for details — Scott let his gaze wander around the room.

It looked like any other private party Scott had ever been, some people lurking in the shadows, some drinking like it was a race, people talking among themselves in small groups, people laughing. Except… Except he was positive he had seen that batarian in the corner in a C-Sec bulletin. And there were a turian and a human speaking quietly in a corner who, Scott was almost sure, had concealed weapons under their clothes, and they were eyeing another human several feet from them, dividing their attention between him and the closest Blue Suns merc.

Chellick would have probably been recognised as soon as he’d stepped into this room, but Scott had been with C-Sec less than a year, he hadn’t had many opportunities to make himself known to the local criminal populace.

So maybe there was another reason for Scott’s presence here, other than their buyers’ racism and Reyes's libido.

Next to him, Reyes was staring as the batarian Scott had noticed earlier. Said batarian was very studiously not looking at them. Reyes grabbed his barely touched drink and pushed both his and Scott’s on the bar, away from him. “Let’s dance.”

“Hey, no. I don’t—”

But Reyes was already leading him by the hand to the small cluster of people gather around the DJ. She was playing electronic stuff, generic enough, but with a nice beat. Reyes abruptly turned around and Scott stumbled into him. The hand already grasping his adjusted its grip and Reyes's other hand went to his hip and then slid to the small of his back as Reyes stepped into Scott’s space.

“Let’s dance,” Reyes repeated, but his voice lacked the usual playfulness. His eyes slid sideways and Scott followed the direction to the batarian, who was now looking at them. At Scott, specifically.

“I see,” He swallowed and raised his arm to rest on Reyes’s shoulders. He stepped even closer. Reyes’s breath was a light touch on his face. Scott’s whole body buzzed, all the places where they touched almost numb, his knees didn’t feel too stable either.

Reyes’s eyes snapped back to his. This close, Scott could see his dilated pupils and he had a feeling it had little to do with the dim light in the room and a lot with the tightening of the hand at his back, the tongue darting out to wet those lips, the hitching in Reyes’s breath.

They were screwed.

They slow-danced a semicircle. “I’m not an expert,” Scott said softly, “but I don’t think this goes with the music.”

Reyes lead him a couple of steps to the right. “What music?” he asked, then his voice became a soft rumble. “The only thing I can hear is the beat of my heart at the sight of you.”

“Eugh. Man. Just— Shut up, please,” not even the Bedroom Voice could distract him from that kind of cheesiness.

Reyes chuckled quietly and then settled into a small smile, blessedly silent. The smile, however, looked too real in the way it reached Reyes’s eyes, made them wrinkle at the corners. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought that Reyes was really, actually fond of him.

Oh, yeah. Screwed.

Scott swallowed and looked away. Well, at least the batarian didn’t seem interested in him anymore.

“Why ‘Akshin’?” he found himself asking. Anything to distract himself from thinking about his current predicament.

“It’s Asari for ‘mouth’.”

“I have a translator, I know what it means. You don’t look asari.”

Reyes chuckled. “Nothing gets past you,” he shrugged. “The person who gave it to me is. It stuck.”

“You don’t seem to like it.”

“No, not really. I have many talents, and some of them aren’t even related to my mouth.” He grinned down at Scott. It wasn’t one of his usual smirks, sharp and dangerous, it was a playful smile, as if it were an inside joke between them. “It serves its purpose.”

Scott swallowed around the sudden dryness of his mouth. “Oh, yeah?”

“It took you six months to even find me.”

“Six months for a rookie cop with an unhealthy obsession and too much time on his hands. That’s not very impressive for a supposed spy.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide from you.” Reyes arched an eyebrow. “But tell me more about this unhealthy obsession you have with me.”

Scott’s palm were clammy against the leather of Reyes’s jacket and glove. “I thought this… ‘date’ was supposed to be only a cover,” his voice was fainter than he would have liked.

Reyes stopped abruptly in the middle of another of their semicircles around the dance area, causing Scott, who had finally managed to find a rhythm, to stumble and step on his feet.

“Crap, sorry—”

“You’re right, I—” Reyes eyes looked up and at once his whole body snapped to attention. Scott only noticed because they were still in contact and he felt the thrum of energy and the tension suddenly coil in the muscles of his shoulders, in the fingers grasping his. “Here are our buyers.”

Scott made to turn, but Reyes’s fingers on his jaw halted his movement. “Now, now, don’t look,” his other hand patted Scott’s side. “You go have another drink, I’ll be right back. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“I’m supposed to be working here, Reyes,” Scott hissed, angrily. “I’m coming with you.”

Reyes’s eyes became suddenly hard, the fingers on Scott’s jaw gripped more firmly. “These are dangerous people, Scott,” he said. “And they don’t trust very easily. They’ll already be on edge on account of Jax, I’m not introducing a new face to the mix.”

“Chellick—”

“Chellick would know I’m right.”

And here it was, another reason for Scott’s presence here. What Chellick didn’t know, he couldn’t disapprove.

Reyes sighed, gave one last squeeze to Scott side and stepped away. “There’ll be other occasions to meet them,” he said. “Let me do my job.”

‘Yeah, but what is actually your job?’ Scott didn’t get to ask.

He watched as Reyes reached a group of three humans. Nondescript clothing, similar enough among the three of them to look like a uniform. Dark-tinted helmets prevented from making any kind of positive identification. Fucking useless.

Like him.

Scott made his way back to the bar.

By the second whiskey, Reyes hadn’t returned yet. Did he treat all his fake dates like that? Well, Scott certainly had had enough of standing around waiting for him. He pushed away from bar and made his way towards where Reyes had disappeared with the ‘buyers’.

There was only one merc guarding that doorway, and getting rid of him wouldn’t be too difficult. Scott aimed straight at a batarian and a human engaged in what seemed like a heated conversation. Checking that no one was looking in his direction, he aimed a small, biotic push at the turian standing right behind the batarian.

He wasn’t a competent biotic by any means, but he’d certainly practiced this move on Sara plenty of times when they were kids.

By the time Scott had reached the doorway, a brawl was well underway and the Blue Suns merc had left his post to try and bring back order to the chaos. Scott didn’t have particular sympathy for mercenaries, but dealing with a drunk turian and an angry batarian certainly didn’t seem easy from where he was standing.

He checked once again that no one was looking and slipped quietly out of the room.

He never went anywhere without his Omni-Tool, and with the new (non-regulation) mods that Vetra had got him, hacking the doors in his path was child’s play. He didn’t know how long he had before anyone noticed he’d disappeared, so he went through the rooms quickly.

The first two didn’t have much, the third looked more promising. Judging from the numerous boxes and crates stacked on top of each other to cover virtually every inch of the room, it looked like storage. Specifically storage for stolen or contraband goods. He checked some labels and found some that belonged to Jax. Not enough to be a full shipment, but maybe samples? Had Reyes been here before meeting him? Was he actually taking over Jax’s turf?

He scanned the labels as well as a few other random ones, as many as he could. Then, hiding behind a huge crate with an ominous “Live specimen. Handle with care.” label, he found a console. He dropped next to it and quickly started hacking his way in. He didn’t have time to check what was on it, so he just set his Omni-Tool to download any data it could.

The process was almost done when someone behind him loudly cleared his voice.

Scott jumped and bumped into the big crate. From inside it, came some shuffling and a low growl. Scott hastily scrambled away and looked up to find Reyes staring down at him with an amused look.

“Here’s my wayward date,” he said. “I thought I told you to wait for me.”

Scott stood up, straightened his clothes. “I’m not good at following orders, just ask Chellick.”

“Ah, the rebellious youth.” Reyes took a couple of steps inside, looking around himself curiously. His eyes lingered with a frown on the big crate where the growling had slowly died down to silence.

He walked around the room, trailing his fingers on boxes, stopping to inspect this or that label. At some point, he climbed on a sturdy crate to check on some boxes piled on top of each other.

“Just how much of an in do you have with Jax’s former buyers?” Scott asked, without bothering to leave out the accusing tone out of his voice. “Have you actually taken over his turf?”

Reyes jumped down, a boxed bottle cradled protectively in his arm. “Scotch whiskey! I knew that bartender was lying to me,” he patted the box, almost affectionately, then he turned to Scott. “Let’s just say I have my fingers in different pies. I’m keeping an eye on the… traffic. I make sure nothing disappears, for when we need results.”

Scott grabbed hold of his jacket and made to slam him against crate. With a quick movement and a flick of the wrist, Reyes had dislodged the grip on the collar of his jacket. However, the momentum carried them sideways and they both stumbled against the crate.

Reyes almost let the bottle fall.

The crate snarled.

They took a couple of step away from it.

“Reyes, if you don’t give me a straight answer, I swear—”

Reyes’s head snapped up in alarm. “Someone’s coming!”

He tugged Scott behind some crates and pushed him against one that was big enough to hid both of them as they crouched behind it.

Not two seconds after, there was the sound of steps entering the room. “Anyone in here?” came a filtered voice. Helmet. Likely one of the Blue Suns merc. Likely armed. Shit.

Whatever was in the big crate was still snarling and growling and hadn’t settled down this time. The merc took a couple more steps into the room; if he did a sweep, they were both fucked. Their bodies would never be found.

Reyes’s body keeping him against the crate certainly didn’t help him in trying to come up with a way out of this. His warm breath against Scott’s neck sent shivers down his spine with every exhalation, his smell was intoxicating. He was about to be killed very painfully, and all he could think about was that he’d die sporting an erection.

He turned around to face Reyes who was, so, so close and who gave him a startled look. His mouth was slightly open and Scott didn’t miss the lighting quick look that went to his own lips. He licked them.

“Kiss me.”

Was that him, had he really said that? Judging by the way Reyes’s eyes widened even more, how he blinked owlishly at him a couple of times, yes. Yes, he had.

And to think that had been all he’d had to do to struck him silent.

“Oh, for—” Scott grabbed the back of Reyes’s neck and pulled him in. Their lips met, a hitching of breath, not sure whose, maybe both of theirs.

Like a switch had been flipped, Reyes seemed to suddenly get on with the program, the bottle of whiskey tumbling from his fingers, he encircled Scott’s waist with an arm, his other grabbing the outside of thigh. His gloved fingers were burning through his clothes.

Reyes sighed against his mouth and bit his lower lip, and then the tips of their tongues met, almost shyly.

Scott buried the fingers of his right hand in Reyes’s hair, the other hand scrambling to find a hold on his shoulder as they both tipped over and landed on the floor with a heavy thump. Breathless and lightheaded, he blinked up at Reyes who had interrupted the kiss and was now gazing down at him, his eyes burning full of wonder.

“Ah,” said the Blue Suns merc.

Scott had forgotten about him. Way to be a competent C-Sec Officer, Scott. Make out with criminals while hiding behind stolen cargo. That’s a pro, right there.

“Um, make sure you don’t upset the varren,” he cleared his throat and then beat a hasty retreat.

“Did he just say varren?” Scott’s words trailed off in an unintelligible mumble as Reyes’s mouth came down to kiss him again.

The hand on his thigh trailed up to his hip, gloved fingers stole underneath his shirt and came into contact with his skin. They felt heavenly cool against his heated skin. This was torture. Scott tried to squirm away from them, but the movement served only to remind him just how painfully hard he had become.

He couldn’t breathe.

He pushed insistently at Reyes’s shoulders and suddenly the body above him was gone, allowing the cool, recycled air to settle on Scott’s body in a wave of relief that shivered throughout his body, leaving him gasping and quivering.

Across from him, Reyes was sitting on his haunches, his eyes wide and dark, his lips wet. He seemed to have trouble breathing too. His fingers went up to comb his hair back into some semblance of order. They were trembling.

Scott covered his face with his right arm, his left hand on the floor, fingers splayed as if to reassure himself that he was on solid ground. His head was spinning. “I’m sorry,” he swallowed. “I can’t— I’m sorry.”

Reyes’s voice, when it came from beyond the protective darkness provided by his arm, was soft, with a hint of tenderness. “Of course,” he said. No, not tenderness. Almost sadness. “It was just a distraction. It worked.”

Oh, it had worked all right.

Scott swallowed, his mouth was so dry. His trousers were on the baggy side, but it must have been apparent that he’d more than enjoyed their ‘distraction’.

There was a creaking of leather as Reyes stood up, steps passing him by on his side. Stopping.

“You are good at thinking on your feet.”

Scott decided not to point out that any thinking involved in… whatever had happened hadn’t certainly be done with his brain.

It felt like an hour before his body had settled down enough that he wasn’t afraid to remove his arm and check the mess he’d made of himself. His shirt was halfway out of his trousers, his jacket askew, one shoulder bared. The wetness left behind by his now long gone erection was unpleasantly cool in his underwear.

A couple of feet from him, a boxed bottle of whiskey lay on the floor, forgotten.

Scott spent two weeks going through the data he’d transferred from the console.

On the surface it looked like he had hit the mother lode: cargo index, a list of shuttle call signs, coordinates. As he worked through them, however, it became increasingly obvious that these were only partial data, that the shuttles in the list didn’t exist or were code names for the real ones. The cargo index had a suspiciously high amount of goods marked as “seeds” of various plants and flowers from all over the galaxy. Either criminals and smugglers had a hitherto undiscovered propensity for gardening or this was yet another code that would take months to crack.

The only ping he got were the nav-points to Horizon, a planet off in the Shadow Sea cluster. From what he’d found, there didn’t seem to be anything of note about it, except that it housed a human colony.

That is, until a couple of days later none other than Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, dropped down into C-Sec offices, flanked by a snarky turian Chellick called Vakarian and an unnamed Alliance major with soft eyes and an even softer voice.

Shepard had many questions on where and how he’d come by such data and wouldn’t take ‘it’s part of an ongoing investigation’ for an answer. At that moment, Chellick casually mentioned Reyes’s code name and hs involvement.

There was a lengthy silence, meaningful glances were exchanged and then Chellick and Shepard went to have a private chat in one of the interrogation rooms.

“Ah, they repainted,” said Vakarian, looking around the office.

Two minutes later, they came out. Shepard nodded at Chellick, requisitioned all of the data Scott had downloaded from the smugglers’ terminal and stalked away, Vakarian and the major following dutifully.

Everything had been resolved in under ten minutes, Scott’s head was still spinning. For a moment he couldn’t decide whether he was more impressed or angry at all that Spectre efficiency.

He quickly settled on angry.

“Can they do that?!” he turned to Chellick. “It was my case— our case!”

“When our cases become Spectre business, they’re not our cases anymore,” Chellick shrugged and tossed him a datapad. “We work for the Citadel, it’s right there on our badges. Why don’t you do some actual work instead of sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”

“This was your case as much as mine!” He tossed the datapad back at Chellick. It bumped into his mug and upturned it, luckily it had been empty. “What did the two of you talk about in there? What did Shepard tell you?”

Chellick looked down at the datapad and his mug, then back up at Scott. “Kid,” his voice was steel, a barely contained growl. “This has gone into well above my paygrade territory, not to mention yours. Whatever you found while you were out ‘meeting buyers’ with Vidal has raised all sorts of flags.”

“How did they even know to come look for me?”

“Vidal told them.”

“Reyes? What? How’s that possible? Why would he—”

Chellick gave him a long look. Sighed. “You do realize our ‘liaison’ with him is by no means an exclusive relationship.”

Scott had realized. Reyes was after all a criminal and a smuggler mostly after his own interests, but an agent for the Citadel? Was he tied to the Spectres, too? No, too involved in the criminal scene, and anyway they’d have known if there had been another human Spectre. Though Scott had to concede that all that publicity kind of went against the purpose of having a SpecOps group tasked with important and high secrecy missions.

For the third time that day only he checked his private terminal, but it was conspicuously void of any messages from Reyes.

He could feel Sara’s eyes on him, judging him.

“You are a moron.” She said, finally, with an air of someone dispensing the absolute, inescapable truth.

Scott threw his wadded up napkin at her. She dodged easily and the napkin continued along its trajectory to hit a man sitting at the table next to them.

When he turned, Scott recognized him as the soft-spoken Alliance major that had been with Sheppard when they had raided his office and stolen away his case.

The major frowned, evidently recognizing him from somewhere. Scott muttered an apology and kicked his sister’s shin. Sara’s barely restrained giggles were interrupted by a cry of pain.

“So, how’s… Kosta, is it?” Scott hissed.

Sara kicked him back. “Shut your mouth.”

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT:

Your not really a Spectre are you?

FROM: N/A
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
SUBJECT: Re:

Ryder,

*You’re.

Are you drunk?

And “humanity’s second Spectre” doesn’t sound too exciting now, does it?

Drink plenty of water and go to sleep like all good C-Sec officers.

-R

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT: Re: Re:

Shepard stole my case but you knew that, u damn snitch

Csec officers never sleep

FROM: N/A
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal.
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re:

Ryder,

How insensitive.

There are more pieces other than C-Sec on this particular chessboard, I’m afraid outside intervention was necessary.

Unfortunately, handsome and mysterious smugglers do need their sleep.

Goodnight.

-R

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Yeah yeah your still a damn snitch.

I have your whiskey and you owe me a proper date

[MESSAGE SAVED AS DRAFT]

Four more days passed before he saw Reyes again.

He told himself he wasn’t looking, but he found himself scanning each shadow attentively, double checking all shuttles that came and went from the dock. He combed through the vid footage from the cameras of the transport closest to Kralla’s Song every day.

It was like Reyes had fallen off one of the arms of the Citadel, never to be seen again.

That is, until he stepped into Flux to follow up on a harassment complaint and found him sitting at a table with a white-clad asari, sipping on colorful cocktails with little umbrellas.

He took care of the complaint (“No, ma’am, bouncers aren’t escorts. Not that inappropriate touching would be fine if they were. No, ma’am! I’m not an escort either.”) as quickly as he could, all the time shooting glances at Reyes’s table. Each time, Reyes was looking back at him, first amused then frowning when the highly intoxicated woman’s hands began wandering.

Damned tourists.

Scott opted to send her back to C-Sec HQ so she could sober up in a holding cell. Two days would be enough to rethink her views of just how much was too much alcohol.

The turian bouncer clapped him on the shoulder and told him that he had earned a drink on the house, to come back after both their shifts, maybe they could have it together?

Scott looked past the bouncer’s shoulder — Macen was his name — to Reyes and his asari companion, who were now both looking his way, Reyes with his eyes narrowed, the asari with open curiosity.

He mumbled a vague, meaningless apology and pushed past the bouncer.

He reached their table and gave a somewhat awkward nod to Reyes. It was reciprocated with a wave of leather-clad fingers — of course he was wearing gloves. Again. Still.

Scott had been having dreams about those gloves.

And now he was staring.

He raised his eyes to meet Reyes’s, who simply arched an eyebrow at him. Scott’s cheeks heated and he snapped his eyes away from that questioning, judging eyebrow to look at Reyes’s table companion. Who also had eyebrows, or facial markings, or whatever they were called. One of them was arched, following the muscles underneath, in an elegant, puzzled line.

Scott cleared his voice.

Reyes finally seemed to take pity on him. “Ryder,” he gestured to the asari. “Meet Dr. Liara T’Soni. A… business associate, and a friend. Liara, meet Officer Scott Ryder, with C-Sec. A… friend.”

Two short pauses, seemingly insignificant, and yet. Business associate.

Friend.

At least, Scott was reasonably sure he was standing in front of the reason for Reyes’s asari codename. But had she been a business associate at the time or a… friend?

He shook Dr. T’Soni’s proffered hand. “Pleasure,” he said. “I didn’t know Reyes had friends.”

“Ouch.”

Dr. T’Soni smiled imperceptibly. “Neither did I,” she said.

Reyes gave a weary sigh and shook his head, his face the perfect picture of martyrdom. “Next you’ll say I’m a dishonest and untrustworthy scoundrel.”

“I’ll always trust you to be dishonest, Akshin,” Dr. T’Soni smiled once again, a soft, private smile. “It’s honesty I’m wary about.”

“Indeed a last resort tactic, I’m not ashamed to admit,” Reyes smirked and then looked up at Scott. “It was nice catching up with you, Ryder, I wondered how you were faring. Chellick still the same ornery bastard?”

Right.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugged. “Chellick is Chellick.”

Reyes nodded sagely. None of his winking, none of his smirking. At least, none directed at Scott.

I haven’t seen you in three weeks and every day that goes by I regret stopping you that time, he didn’t say, because Reyes was a criminal at worst, a person with a questionable record at best.

It was the hottest thing that ever happened to me, he didn’t say, because they had an audience. That almost happened to me.

You are the hottest thing that ever happened to me, he definitely didn’t say, because he wasn’t that pathetic.

“I’ll let you get on, then—”

“I should go—”

Their words tripped over each other, Dr. T’Soni’s smile widened.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Officer Ryder,” she said with a nod of her head.

“I’ll see you around, Ryder.”

Scott was certainly perceptive enough to recognize an obvious dismissal as that. He nodded at both of them, his mouth tightly pressed in a thin line and turned on his heels sharply. The turian bouncer was shooting him covert glances so Scott made for the back exit.

Back at their table, Dr. T’Soni and Reyes were talking in soft tones, their heads close together. Scott only caught some scattered words and fragments of their conversation. A puzzle he couldn’t quite piece together.

‘Omega’.

‘Cerberus’?

And ‘Shepard’?

Not much to go on, but maybe he could try another visit to Aria.

Aria T’Loak was too busy to see him, or at least that’s what the attache — a different one — told him.

He told her that it wasn’t a problem, that he would wait. So he sat down and waited. His Omni-Tool went off more or less every half-hour, messages from an increasingly pissed off Chellick asking, then demanding where the hell he was, until one last, ominous ‘you better be dead and not harassing certain asari diplomats’.

Diplomats. Right.

He waited for hours, the attache shooting him increasingly nervous glances. By the third hour she was clearly out of her depth.

She smiled tightly at Scott and disappeared in one of the rooms.

A couple of minutes later she came back out but stopped on the threshold. “Aria will see you now.”

Aria T’Loak was tall, even though sitting down it was evident. Everything was long about her: long legs, long arms, long nose, long face. She was wearing black leather, supposedly so no one would mistakenly think that she belonged here.

She didn’t look happy at all.

“C-Sec is hiring children now?” she sneered up at him.

“My mother always said I was a precocious boy.”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “You have thirty second to justify your presence here,” she said. “After that I will call C-Sec, the real one, and have you taken away.”

He decided to go fishing. “What’s your relation to Akshin?”

Her eyes narrowed still, almost imperceptibly, but it was there.

“Is this a joke? What’s my relation to my mouth?” she waved at him. “Piss off.”

“What’s Cerberus got to do with Omega?”

She sprung up and in two steps she was nose to nose with him. His assessment had been right, she was definitely tall, maybe even taller than him. It was difficult to tell in the way she loomed and made him involuntarily cower before her. Aria’s mouth was twisted in a snarl and the air around her shimmered blue.

Right. Anger the biotic Queen of the Underworld, Scott. Great move.

It looked like Chellick was about to be proven terribly right on both options regarding his mortal demise.

“Piss. Off.” It was growled in his face.

Scott pissed off.

“Piss off,” Chellick had said as soon as he’d set foot back in the office, one day later. “You’re suspended.”

Scott had turned around and left without saying a word. He’d punched the elevator a couple of times on his way to the Lower Wards, but all he’d got out of that was an aching hand and a feeling that maybe, yes, he was that much of an idiot.

“And that’s how I found myself in your lovely company at,” he squinted at the numbers on his Omni-Tool, “half past eleven in the morning.”

Umi Henon — because that was the name of Reyes’s bartender/’lawyer’ friend — stood leaning against the business side of the bar, her arms crossed on her chest. “Who even asked you?”

Scott pushed away from the bar and stood up from his stool. “I’m going to the toilette,” he announced.

“Again, who asked you?”

He relieved himself and splashed cold water on his face, the shock enough to sober him up. When he had come up with the plan of getting soundly drunk, he’d thought it had been his best idea in a very long time.

Then again, in the past month alone he’d been socializing with criminals, disobeying orders, harassing ‘diplomats’ and pissing off very powerful, very dangerous underworld leaders. Not to mention getting himself suspended from C-Sec, the only ones who’d taken him in after his father had burned all Alliance bridges for him and his sister.

And Sara always said he was boring.

When he stepped back into the bar, there was someone sitting in the stool he’d just vacated. Someone very familiar.

So maybe Scott wasn’t done drinking.

He slid in next to Reyes, as smoothly as he was able, with his head pounding from the alcohol. “Waiting for someone?”

Umi rolled her eyes, but Reyes’s shoulders stiffened. His eyes met Scott’s and there was something in them, something honest, something that was in the neighbourhood of regret, but it was gone in a fraction of a second. Maybe it was the alcohol making Scott see things. Wishful thinking.

Reyes’s mouth twisted in a smirk. It was raw and tight, the usual mirth conspicuously absent. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the alcohol. “That’s my line.”

Umi scoffed and slammed two empty glasses in front of them. “I swear I’ll give you a round for free if you two stop with this bullshit.”

“I believe Officer Ryder has had enough.”

“I believe he hasn’t actually,” Scott grabbed his glass before Reyes could snatch it and give it back to Umi. “Also, haven’t you heard? It’s Former-Officer Ryder, now.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.” Now that he couldn’t reach Scott’s glass without wrestling it away from him, Reyes waved Umi away and with her, Scott’s source of whiskey. He watched the bottle go back onto the shelf with a forlorn look. “I heard it was just Suspended-Officer Ryder.”

“Wait until it’s Formerly Alive Officer Ryder.”

“While I’m sure Chellick is extraordinarily pissed off at you, I doubt he’ll resort to murder.”

“Ah, but I made sure to piss off Aria T’Loak, too,” he shrugged. “I’m thorough like that.”

He saw Reyes shoot a sharp glance at his bartender friend— business acquaintance? Whatever.

“Perhaps it would be prudent to take this somewhere else.”

“Perhaps.” came Umi’s icy reply.

Scott almost protested that all the alcohol was here, but then he remembered he had a precious whiskey bottle at home. It sat, unopened, on his table; in full view of anyone who’d enter his small apartment. Not that he received many visitors, really.

Reyes slid off his stool and tugged at his elbow until Scott was standing too. His hand went to the small of his back and pushed him towards the door. Through the thin material of his t-shirt — he had left his uniform in the office — Reyes’s hand was warm. It slipped sideways as Scott stumbled and the tip of his fingers touched skin where the t-shirt had lifted for a second.

He wasn’t wearing any gloves.

The contact was like an electric shock. His nerve endings came alive and Scott’s entire body went cold and then hot an instant later, a searing hot wave that rippled outward from that tiny point of contact between them.

He shuddered and was instantly, painfully, hard.

Reyes flinched and jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned.

A deep breath. “Let’s get out of here,” the words were quiet, a precise and controlled calm that clashed horribly with the behavior that Scott had witnessed so far.

Scott didn’t trust his voice right then, so he limited himself to a nervous jerk of his head that would’ve been a nod of assent, had he not been desperately trying to get his body to cooperate with him. He would’ve even settled for leaving the bar without getting arrested for indecent exposure.

They stumbled out of Kralla’s Song, Reyes with his shoulders in stiff line that continued down the arms to end with his fists clenched and hidden away in his pockets and Scott following a few steps behind, hunched down with his arms crossed defensively across his chest.

They walked to the transport in silence.

Once inside, Reyes seemed to have relaxed somehow, leaning on one elbow as he looked outside the window, his other hand resting on his knee, fingers splayed. Reyes’s fingers. Such a mundane thing, and yet until now precluded from Scott’s perception. It felt like a treat, it felt exciting.

“Where are we going?”

Reyes shot him a look and then went back to staring out of the window. “You’re going home,” he said.

Scott glanced at the destination Reyes had set and found out that, indeed, they were heading towards the transport closet to his apartment. Of course Reyes knew where he lived.

“And where are you going?”

Scott watched Reyes like a hawk, but the other man didn’t even face him. He just let a sigh escape, shook his head.

The transport came to a stop and Scott shot out. Between the shock of adrenaline from the sudden arousal earlier and the anger bubbling up inside him and threatening to spill over, his head wasn’t muddied anymore.

Reyes followed him out, walking slowly but surely in the direction of Scott’s apartment. Hands again in his pockets, Scott noticed, glancing everywhere but at him.

“Should I be worried you seem to know where we’re going?”

“Not everyone is as good as me in digging up information,” Reyes grinned, a fleeting thing, gone a moment later and replaced by a carefully neutral expression. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“If that was meant to be reassuring, it wasn’t.”

Reyes straightened up and this time he met his gaze steadily and didn’t drift away. “It was what it was,” his eyes were calm even though his voice seemed weighed down by regret. Or perhaps that was just Scott, hearing things when there were none. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Well, fuck that.

“Okay, stop. Stop this,” he gestured between the two of them. “Whatever you’re doing. ‘It was what it was,’ seriously.”

“Scott—”

“No, let me say my piece, because I’m probably out of a job and you dragged me away from the alcohol place—” Reyes arched his eyebrows, formed the words ‘alcohol place’ silently with his lips. “—Up until the other week you were all... smarmy—”

“Smarmy?!”

Really, you’d think you had just insulted his mother. “Yes, but in a good way.”

“... You mean ‘charming’?”

He dismissed Reyes’s fixation with his own sex appeal with a wave of his hands. It’s not like that was in question, anyway, quite the opposite in fact. “Whatever makes you sleep at night. The thing you do, you know, with the eyes and the bedroom voice and the winking and the eyes.”

“You said eyes twice.”

“You have eyes, okay.”

Reyes crossed his arms over his chest, he was grinning now. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Yes, because you needed the ego boost,” Scott shrugged and scratched the back of his head, then immediately regretted it when the move ruffled his carefully combed hair. “I just— And now you’re doing this… what is this?”

And like that the grin was gone and the serious look made a comeback.

“We kissed, you said no. I don’t go where I’m not welcome,” his eyes were steady, clear. This time it was Scott that had to look away. “I’m a bastard, Ryder, but not in this.”

For all he liked to cloak himself in shades of gray and varying degrees of lying and plausible deniability, Reyes certainly didn’t seem to shied away from honesty.

How had Dr. T’Soni put it? It was honesty one should be wary about.

“You’re a very peculiar space pirate.”

“Space pirate?” Reyes laughed softly and shook his head. “I’ve always wanted to be someone special.”

“You certainly are.”

Reyes gave him a sharp look. “Scott—”

“Reyes.”

“I’m starting to think that whole thing in the storage room wasn’t just a distraction.”

Scott took a step closer and then another, when Reyes uncrossed his arms and visibly relaxed his stance. “Look at you, being all intuitive.”

“I’m not a good man,” Reyes said as if to discourage him, and yet he too had moved closer.

So close, in fact, that Scott felt the words ghost over his cheek. He raised his hand, his fingers barely touching the cuff of Reyes’s jacket.

“I’ve known that since the start.”

Reyes twisted his wrist and tangled their fingers together. He took a step closer until he couldn’t take anymore and they were chest to chest, nose to nose, right there in the streets. Reyes ducked his head, brushed his lips along Scott’s cheek, to his ear.

“You have horrible taste in men,” the words were barely above a breath, a warm shiver that washed over him and down Scott’s body in a trail of fire.

Reyes tugged their hands up, his other going to the small of Scott’s back, encircling his waist in a mockery of slow dancing. He led them in a slow quarter turn.

Maybe not that much of a mockery then.

Scott chuckled, but with the breath at his ear and the hand at his back, it got stuck in his throat. “Oh yeah, I’m the king of bad decisions. Just ask my sister. Or Chellick.”

Reyes drew back and Scott involuntarily leaned forward, a groan of protest pushing against his lips to get free died right then as hands came up to his cheeks, bracketing his face. Thumbs stroking the soft skin of his cheekbones.

All Scott could think right then was that he probably should have shaved properly.

“I don’t want to talk about your sister right now.” It was a whisper against his lips. “Nor Chellick.”

Scott swallowed. “Thank fuck for—”

Reyes smiled and kissed him.

It was almost chaste, unhurried, and yet Scott’s hands scrambled to find a hold as Reyes’s thumbs kept stroking his cheekbones, as his teeth lightly bit his bottom lip and then the tip of his tongue brushed over the sting as if offering an apology.

Scott finally managed to grab a handful of jacket and held on, as if he were afraid of being taken away from those lips, those hands, the whispers and the smirks of this man. As if he were afraid of being pushed away.

Reyes drew back leaving both of them breathless, their foreheads close together. A peck on his lips, then another; then a longer, proper kiss.

Scott could feel that indecency charge looming closer and closer.

He pushed Reyes gently away, but not so far that they wouldn’t be breathing in the same air. “What now?”

Reyes stroke his cheek, his ear. He dipped his eyes to stare blatantly at his mouth. “Up to you.”

Scott tightened his grip on the jacket and pulled himself forward. “Let’s go to your place.” His arm went to encircle Reyes’s shoulders.

Reyes didn’t push away, if anything he seemed to push further in, despite the fact that there was virtually no space left between them. His mouth went to Scott’s left ear. “But yours is right there,” his right hand trailed down his back and settled firmly just above the belt of his trousers. Clever fingers slipped underneath his shirt, not by accident this time, and drew abstract shapes on Scott’s skin. “So, so close.”

“You said—” he had to swallow the dryness away from his throat. The fingers got bolder, nails scratching lightly and Scott moved back into them, encouragingly. Just because it was an obvious diversionary tactic, it didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it. “You said it was up to me.”

The fingers stilled, the hand now resting fully on his skin. Reyes drew back and met Scott’s gaze. His eyes were dark and they studied him at length with a look that was difficult to pin down. It was somber and yet clear, calculating in a way and yet the fondness that seemed to be ever present when he looked at Scott hadn’t really gone.

Whatever Reyes was looking for, he seemed to have found eventually. He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and sparkling with fondness. “So I did.”

“Can’t go back on your word.”

Reyes conceded the point with a nod of his head. “That would be dishonorable.”

“Right up your alley, then.”

“Honor gets people killed.”

“Not bragging or anything, but I’ve been told I’m satisfactory in bed,” Scott arched an eyebrow, because two could play that game. Also, he had practiced a whole week in front of a mirror. “I swear it never ended with people getting killed.”

“‘Satisfactory’?” Reyes took a step back, the hand at Scott’s back traveled up to his shoulder, then down his arm, until it had their fingers tangled again. “I guess I’ll have to be an honorable gentleman, then.”

“Who said anything about being a gentleman?”

Who was this crazy person who put words into Scott’s mouth? The cop and the criminal and ridiculous cliché lines, when had his life turned into a sordid romance vid?

Reyes’s voice dropped in pitch. “That can be arranged.”

Well. Okay.

Sordid romance vids weren’t so bad, actually.

Reyes shifted the hold on his hand and pulled him along to the transport. “I’m kind of between places at the moment,” he threw over his shoulder as he selected the destination. “Don’t expect much.”

Right. Of course he was.

Inside the transport, they sat separate from each other and it suited Scott just fine. He knew that if they started anything right now, even the most innocuous of touches, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and public transport was video-recorded.

Their earlier situation was reversed; they were silent, Scott looking out the window, trying to ignore the weight of Reyes’s gaze on him and failing.

“What is it?” he asked the window.

“Look at me, Scott,” he liked the way Reyes said his name, half a second of hesitation right before the S rolled out on his tongue.

Scott turned to look at him, leaning back against the seat, arm throw along the back, feet firmly planted and legs wide apart, he was the full picture of a relaxed and confident man, and yet his eyes— that searching look that Scott couldn’t quite name was back.

“Are you sure?”

Scott scooted closer, moving into his space, slipping under Reyes’s arm, sealing the outside of their thighs together. Fingers played with the short hair at the back of his neck.

He was twenty-two, a little exibisionism had never killed anyone.

He threw a leg over Reyes’s and leaned over. “Let me make my bad decisions in peace, Vidal,” he said it against Reyes’s mouth and then kissed it. “Just—” Another kiss, the fingers in his hair tightened. “C-Sec can’t know about this, I’m on thin ice as it is.”

Reyes pulled him in to fully sit in his lap, he stroked his thigh, his waist, his chin. For a normal human with two hands, they certainly seemed to be everywhere.

“An illicit liaison, how... exciting.”

Scott woke in the late afternoon, naked and alone in the bed that was allegedly Reyes’s in an apartment that was bare except for a few necessities — that unfortunately didn’t include condoms and lube — and the latest Blasto vid, funnily enough.

He was slightly sore in places that hadn’t seemed to appreciate a beard burn as much as Scott personally did.

He scratched his itchy belly and pulled a face as he found out why exactly it was itchy. Hopefully there were shower supplies, he did recall hearing running water in his sated dozing.

He patted the empty space next to him, but the sheets were cold by now.

On the nightstand, the alert on his Omni-Tool wrist wrap was blinking. He reached over and activated it without looking.

“Believe me when I say I deeply regret having to dash out, I’d have rather stayed in bed with you.” came Reyes’s tinny voice. “But I did so carrying with me the image of you so delectably relaxed in my bed, as well as the highlights from the past few hours. I’m sure I’ll be so distracted by such thoughts that I won’t be able to carry out any of the mischief you always accuse me of causing.” Scott buried his head under a pillow, despite the fact that there was no one there to witness his flaming cheeks. “Till we meet again, Scott.” The hesitation, the rolling S. “Oh, I think your sister called a few times.”

Scott shot up as if somebody had dunked a bucket of ice on him. He scrambled to grab the wristband and finally got a proper look at his Omni-Tool.

32 missed calls.

6 messages.

Shit.

“And you just… had sex with him?”

Scott fell on the couch and buried his face into one of Sara’s pillows. He groaned loudly.

His sister gave him a resounding slap on the arm. “Scott!”

Scott groaned even louder. He felt around blindly and when he found the other pillow, he grabbed that one too and covered his head with it. Maybe he could smother himself to death and never have to face his sister again.

“What’s dad gonna say?”

Scott shot up, pillows were sent flying and he almost smacked Sara in the face with a flailing hand. “You’re not telling dad!”

Sara bent down to gather the fallen pillows, twisted her head up and glared. “Of course not! But you know he has friends in C-Sec.”

“We’re keeping it a secret, no one in C-Sec’s going to know,” he shrugged. “Not that there’s likely ever going to be a second time.”

One night stands he could deal with. One late morning/early afternoon stands. Maybe now that he had it out of his system, so to speak, he could deal with the whole thing rationally. Treat Reyes like the criminal he was, follow up on the cases that involved him, maybe even arrest him one day.

Snap handcuffs around his wrists, lock him up in a cell, likely never to see the artificial light of day again. Never to be seen again. Never to aggravate Scott with the smirk and the eyes and the voice. Never to kiss Scott’s mouth, his throat, the inside of a knee again. Never to trail his fingers down the inner part of his forearms, scrape his nails up the soft skin of his thighs.

He shifted in seat.

Sara snorted, rolled her eyes. “Right.”

Scott sighed and hit his head against the back of the couch. Once. Twice. “Okay, so I might not have thought this through,” he rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes. The movement brought the collar of his jacket closer and he caught a whiff of Reyes’s smell. His senses snapped to attention and a jolt of adrenaline had him suddenly on edge.

One night stand. Right. Who the hell was he kidding?

“No, really. What gave you that idea? Getting suspended? Getting involved with shady types?” Sara grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. It hit him squarely on the face and then fell on his lap. “Going to fucking poke Aria T’Loak?!”

“Shit,” he really, really didn’t want to discuss that. “Who told you?”

“Vetra, who did you think?! I must have called you a billion times! I thought you got shot out of an airlock!”

32 missed calls.

Scott grabbed his sister’s flailing hands and then pulled her into a hug. She slapped him on the back of his head, but then returned the hug before letting go and leaning back back to knee on the sofa.

“I’m sorry I made you worry.”

Sara punched him in the shoulder. It had been playful, but it stung. His sister might have have been tiny and looked innocuous enough, but she could still pack an impressive amount of strength in her body. Not that she’d ever let him forget.

“Just be careful with your man there, okay?”

“He’s not my man.”

“You know what I mean. He’s not exactly a knight in shining armor.”

Scott glared at her. “So now you have a problem with this. Not earlier?”

“I was just teasing. I— Don’t get hurt, okay?”

He nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

Sara gave him a long look, then her eyes narrowed and her smile acquired a mischievous curl. “You are being careful, right? I mean, he’s much older than you and it sounds like he’s… experienced.”

Scott gaped at her.

“As your older sister—” she got cut off when Scott smacked her in the face with a pillow.

“Eight minutes older!”

“—I feel responsible for my younger—”

“Shut up!”

A small biotic push sent her toppling backward against the armrest and off the couch in a whirlwind of limbs and laughter.

Somehow, she still managed to throw Scott’s pillow back at him on her way down. It bounced painfully off his nose.

Scott didn’t expect to see Reyes for some time, and indeed for the next three days it was so, but he certainly heard from him.

The first message had caught him by surprise.

He’d been catching up on books and TV series during his week of suspension, when his terminal had pinged to signal a received e-mail. The sender had been encrypted and once he’d opened it he’d fervently hoped that the content had been too.

The e-mail had only contained a picture of an unmade bed — one he knew so very well, despite having only seen it once — with the caption, ‘Fond memories.’

Scott remembered having let out a nervous chuckle, horribly loud in the empty room.

More e-mails arrived in the following days, at all times of day and night, each time from a different, encrypted address. They were mostly composed of cheesy lines, but they offered clues so as to Reyes’s whereabouts and doings.

‘I’m currently guarding some cargo in a storage room much like ours.’

‘I found this brandy you might like.’

‘Thinking of you always.’

He didn’t reply to any of the messages, not that the replies would have even gone through in any case, but he hid them at the bottom of several subfolder trees for later view with a vague feeling of shame.

It was in this general atmosphere of reliving his first crush that Vetra’s e-mail came one late afternoon like a bolt out of the blue.

He’d asked her to keep an eye out for Reyes and the mysterious buyers that he’d glimpsed at the ‘party’. She’d now finally come through, with some footage timestamped only 10 minutes earlier. It showed three men wearing helmets and those peculiar white and black uniforms rounding a corner on their way to the Docks.

‘It’s the only video I have of them,’ Vetra’s e-mail went on. ‘It seems they hacked every other camera, but this one is one of my personal ones.’

Bless Vetra and her resourcefulness.

He shot a quick message back telling Vetra to meet him at the Docks and come prepared.

Vetra, being the very resourceful turian she was, arrived only five minutes late, with an extra gun and a personal shield just for Scott.

“You’re the best,” he clipped the holster to his belt and adjusted so his jacket and shirt would partially cover it, then he connected the shield to his Omni-Tool. “You don’t have to come, you know.”

“And face your sister’s fury when you get drilled full of holes? Right.”

Scott grinned up at her. “It’s like you don’t have any confidence in me. I’m a C-Sec officer, you know.”

“You’re suspended, that’s what you are.”

“Everyone keeps bringing that up.”

“Heads up, Ryder,” Vetra nodded towards the end of the corridor at the three shapes making towards the outer Docks. They were moving swiftly, but not so fast that they’d be suspicious. At this pace however, they’d lose them before the backup Scott had called had any time to get there.

“Come on, Nyx, double time!”

At first, Scott was sure that they hadn’t been seen, but the illusion was quickly dispelled as he rounded a corner and was met with a volley of bullets, courtesy of the smallest of the men they were following.

Bullets hit the wall next to his shoulder, pinged off his shield and pushed him to dive behind a bench. Vetra was right on his heels, she swore and dove behind the water cooler at the other side of the corridor. Bullets impacted the plastic container and it exploded, drenching Vetra completely from head to toes.

Her curses were only drowned by the terrified screams of civilians. Fortunately, there were only a handful of dock workers and no one else, but the corridor was narrow and the escape routes severely limited. For now they were huddled behind some plants, looking terrified.

“Vetra!” across from him, she was still cursing. “We need to shield the civilians!”

“You’re crazy, Ryder!” she shot back, but the way she changed her posture assured Scott that she would be ready for his command.

“C-Sec! Drop your weapons!” He got a volley of rifle fire from the mysterious ‘buyers’ as a reply, but it produced the intended effect when he saw the workers snap their eyes to him. “Hey you, ready to run?”

One of them, a human woman with short-cropped hair, nodded frantically.

He primed his Omni-Tool and checked that across the hallway Vetra was doing the same. “Ready? Now!”

In one perfectly synchronized move, they rolled out of cover and activated both their shields so that they spread out in a wide area in front of them, providing a protection that spanned the whole width of the corridor.

Bullets pinged off the shields, stretched so much they wouldn’t last long, but they only needed to last until all the workers had scrambled away behind them.

“I think that’s all of th—” Vetra was suddenly cut off with a cry of pain, as her shield failed and she got hit. Scott tackled her down so they’d end up behind a bench just as his shield flickered out too.

He patted her down, but the hit seemed nothing more than a graze along the bone plates of her upper arm. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I’m fine, I think,” she coughed. “But I really want to shoot you right now.”

Scott risked a glance beyond their cover and saw that their quarry was running away, but at the same time he could hear the sound of boots and shouts coming from behind them. Backup was on its way.

He got up from his crouch, looked down at Vetra. “You should probably get out before C-Sec asks where you got all these military grade gear.”

Vetra stood up too, she holstered her gun. “I have to say, Ryder, you certainly know how to make a girl’s life exciting.”

“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As long as you don’t take it as encouragement for repeat performances,” she grabbed his wrist. “Be careful.”

He nodded, saluted with his gun and took off after the three men. When he found them, they were hurriedly loading crates on a shuttle. He could only see two of them, but the third one was probably working on pre-flight routines. The shuttle engines turning on confirmed his theory.

Weirdly, the area where they were was completely empty, and even the skeleton crew of workers they’d met on the way here couldn’t be fully explained with just the late hour. It was as if these three men had somehow had arranged this whole thing when they were sure there would be no one around.

“How the hell did they know we’d be here?!” one of the men dropped his last crate on the shuttle and then jumped on. “I thought you said you’d killed all cameras.”

Before the other man could reply to him, Scott jumped up from behind cover and aimed his pistol at them. “You know, maybe avoid wearing easily recognizable uniforms if you don’t want to be recognized?”

“Shit—” the one that had already boarded the shuttle aimed his rifle at him, but was jostled as his companion jumped in and bumped into him. The shot went wide, hitting the floor to the right of Scott.

The one who had unwittingly probably saved his life, or at least spared him an embarrassing injury, shouted at the pilot to take off and then had to quickly duck as Scott squeezed a couple of shots his way. The shots impacted the side of the shuttle and did nothing but slightly chip the paint.

Scott holstered his gun and took off at a dead run.

He heard C-Sec come up behind him, someone ordering the shuttle to stop, or maybe they were yelling at him.

There was now a gap of at least 10 meters between solid ground and the shuttle, but Scott had still a few meters to go. He willed his legs to go fasters, concentrating on that gap, counting how many steps he had left before the jump.

He’d only done this once before, but unlikely the previous time, one slight miscalculation and he’d be falling to his death.

“What the hell are you doing?!” the yelling came from one of the men on the shuttle, his rifle idle at his side, his other hand holding on as the shuttle was forced into a sharp maneuver. “It’s too wide, you won’t make it!”

His companion didn’t seem as worried about Scott’s well-being and aimed his rifle up.

Not now, not when Scott was almost there—

Once again the taller of the two stumbled into the other and the shot went wide, but it didn’t matter anyway, Scott had taken his last step, his leg pushed and he was in the air.

“No!”

He had to time it perfectly, just as he got to the moment before the artificial gravity dragged him down, right before he reached the peak of the parable, right—

Now.

With a burst of biotic energy he propelled himself forward the remaining distance.

He collided with the man who had shouted at him, felt hands grabbing him around his waist, his forearm, in a vain attempt to steady them. They went tumbling, Scott landing on his back, the breath knocked out of him. At least, the arm of the man tangled with him had ended up between his head and the metal flooring of the shuttle, providing a somewhat painless fall.

The daze from the fall lasted only a moment, the adrenaline prompting Scott to scramble away from the tangle of limbs, going for his gun— his gun was gone. He had a flash of the sound of metal scraping against metal in the scuffle.

He glanced quickly around the shuttle, and there it was, against the bulkhead to his left. It was only a few meters away, but it might as well be in another galaxy for all the good it did to him.

Especially since the man who hadn’t been involved in Scott’s acrobatics now stood planted in front of him, rifle barrel aimed straight at Scott’s head. There was no way he’d miss this time, even if he got jostled.

Sara was going to kill him.

“End of the li—”

The man’s neck exploded in a spray of blood and before Scott had anytime to even process what the hell was happening he found himself with a lapful of dying guy, neck gushing out blood at an alarming rate. With a yelp he pushed him aside and scrambled away.

The dying gurgles of the man on the floor faded away to nothing, his body stopped twitching and Scott’s back his the cold metal of the shuttle wall. Only then he tore his eyes away, to see the two remaining uniformed guys wrestling for the gun between them.

The taller one — the one he’d crashed into? — finally managed to push the other one away from him and shot him in the knee. The man went down with a yell of pain that was abruptly cut off when he was summarily kicked out of the shuttle.

“What the—” Scott dived for his own gun but the crazy man got there before him. He stepped on the barrel and then slowly crouched to pick it up.

Scott cornered himself away from him and concentrated on calling up all the dark energy he could muster. His biotics would be pretty depleted with the stunt he’d pulled earlier, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Blue energy curled around his arms.

The man holstered Scott’s gun. Then— His own?

“I thought being suspended would keep you away from this,” the man’s hands went to the back of his head. Scott heard the release of the pressure lock. That voice— “But I should have accounted for your stubbornness.”

The helmet was removed and tossed on the nearby bench and Reyes was staring down at him. “Nice tricks you have there, by the way. Didn’t know you were a biotic.”

The blue glow of his biotics snuffed out. “What. The. Hell.”

Reyes bent over the dead man on the floor, stripped him of his weapons and supplies and then rather unceremoniously rolled him off the shuttle. “Rest in peace.” He punched the door closing mechanism and took a step back. “Well. Pieces.”

They were still in Citadel airspace, somebody was going to have a nasty surprise.

Scott was still trying to process the whole thing when Reyes disappeared into the cockpit. From his position on the floor he saw him drop into the pilot seat.

He jumped up and followed him. “Turn this shuttle around.”

Reyes sighed and shook his head. “You know I can’t do that,” Scott saw him punch in some coordinates, engage the automatic pilot. They were now escaping the Citadel space at high velocity. No one was following them, which meant that the shuttle was probably cloaked. Of course, somebody could have just looked out of the fucking window.

“Reyes—”

“I have a rendezvous to make and I need to drop you off somewhere.”

“Turn this shuttle around.”

Reyes turned to face him. He let go of the controls, and lay back in his seat projecting a relaxed image that Scott knew had to be deliberate. “Or what?”

Scott surged forward and grabbed the collar of Reyes’s armor. It was light armor, not too bulky. “You unbelievable—” he tried to get his other arm around Reyes’s neck, tried to get him out of the seat with one of the moves C-Sec nonviolent neutralization training had taught him.

Hand to hand in the army had been more direct, but when you had to subdue drunks you couldn’t afford to accidentally snap their necks. Reyes wasn’t drunk, though, and he must have had some kind of training too, because he was slippery and kept evading his hold, trying to get one on Scott at the same time.

They fell off the chair and ended up scuffling on the floor, like a pair of stubborn children. Reyes had planted a knee on his chest and was trying to disentangle them, but Scott had an ace up his sleeve, or rather his belt.

He relinquished the hold he had on Reyes’s wrist, throwing their balance to the right and giving Reyes the momentary upper hand.

His hand went to his belt and Reyes’s followed, thinking perhaps he’d be reaching for one of the guns. A flick of the wrist and the band went around both their wrists, activating with an electronic beep and a tiny static discharge.

Above him, Reyes stilled.

“Scott…”

He brought their bound wrists up, a bright orange band sealing them together.

“Scott!”

He shrugged. “What was it you said? You always appreciate a man with easy access to handcuffs.”

Reyes twisted his wrist experimentally, the movement bumping and rubbing their forearms together. “These would have been appreciated three days ago. Not so much now.”

Scott tugged on the cuffs, jostling Reyes. “Turn the shuttle around.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Scott, open the cuffs.”

“Or what?”

Reyes looked away. “Or I’ll be forced to do something that neither of us will like.”

Scott shoved him away — or as away from each other as they could go — and sat up. “Right,” he gave Reyes another shove. “You’ll what, kill me?”

Shove.

“Scott.”

“Seems a bit stupid after you went through all the trouble of killing your associates so they wouldn’t kill me.”

Reyes growled in frustration and slapped the floor. His hair was in disarray, standing in every which way, he was sweaty and dirty from the fight. He’d never looked less smug and totally in control and all it had taken was Scott ruining his plans.

“You look pretty happy with yourself, there,” Reyes scowled at him. “You don’t even know what’s at stake, and you just—” he trailed off with a frustrated gesture.

“I only know that you guys were making trouble in my Citadel.”

“Right, C-Sec always get their men,” Reyes rubbed his face with his free hand, passed it through his hair, settling it somewhat. “And don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that stunt. You just fucking— jumped.”

“Hey, I knew what I was doing.”

“But I didn’t! You almost gave me a heart attack,” he cradled Scott’s face in his hands. His eyes were serious now, there was a hint of fear in them.

Scott twisted his cuffed wrist and tried to cover Reyes’s hand in reassurance, but only ended up awkwardly patting it. “Hey, now. I thought we were fighting,” Reyes leaned his forehead against Scott’s, bumped their noses together. Scott’s could feel his breath against his mouth. “Don’t think you can distract me from—”

Reyes’s tongue darted out to touch Scott’s upper lip and just like that they were kissing.

The hands moved to hold the back of his neck, to stroke his hair, with Scott’s right hand trapped by the motion, having no choice but follow. His left scrambled along Reyes’s armored shoulder pads, caressed an ear. “This is cheating,” he mumbled against Reyes’s lips before biting them none too gently.

A grunt and then Reyes surged forward, tightening the grip on his hair. He trailed his lips along his jaw, biting, kissing, until a final bite to the lobe before burying his face into Scott’s neck. Reyes whispered his name there, like a secret. His breath came in wet pants and left his skin shivering, his voice was low and hoarse, fanning the heat that pooled in Scott’s belly.

He groaned loudly, his hips squirming, trying to find come contact, but they were still kneeling in front of each other and besides Reyes was still pushing him to bend backwards. Scott unfolded his legs and they both went toppling backward. He grunted as his right arm was forced in a painful position, then it didn’t matter because finally, finally Reyes’s whole body was within reach and Scott could finally grind up against him, but his armor was hard and had no give.

“Off. Take this,” His fingers scrabbled at Reyes’s waist to find the release, but they were batted away by Reyes’s hand.

He raised himself on one arm, putting some distance between their bodies, but not quite getting off. Scott whined in protest and tried to bring him back down with his free hand pulling at back of Reyes’s neck and one of his legs hooked at the back of his thighs.

“You’re unbelievable.” Reyes gave a sound of frustration. “We need to find a place to drop you off.”

Scott mouthed the line of his jaw and shifted the grip of his leg. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” bit the corner of a lip. “You’re under arrest.”

“You’re suspended, Ryder.”

He licked along Reyes’s lower lip, dipped the tip inside. Reyes gave a grunt of frustration and responded to the kiss, sucking on Scott’s bottom lip.

The kissing was getting him worked up, but the grinding against Reyes’s armor only succeeded in making him more frustrated. With a twist of his hips, Scott managed to roll them without any permanent injury to their cuffed arms.

Now that he was on top, he was able to grind down more easily and set on a fast, desperate pace. Reyes’s free hand grabbed his bottom and squeezed hard, forcing him to stop. “Slow down, you’ll rub your dick off.” He gave another squeeze and Scott moaned against his mouth.

The hand went to his zipper, but opening it proved to be an impossible task to carry out one-handed. Reyes gave out a frustrated sound and slapped Scott’s thigh. “A little help here?”

Scott sat up and slid further up Reyes’s chest, he brought both his hands — and Reyes’s cuffed one — to assist and in a moment his zipper was open and Reyes’s hand sneaked inside and brought him out.

He drew in a sharp breath at the contact with the cold air. He was already fully hard, the tip wet and red from the dry humping. Sitting as he was, it quivered with Scott’s every breath and shudder, pointing at the hollow of the armor where it became collar and then Reyes’s throat.

He glanced at Reyes and was met with eyes that were dark and wide with arousal and nothing that looked like refusal. It was just a matter of sliding slowly upward, until he was almost seated on Reyes’s chest, but with his own thighs taking most of the weight.

His erection hovered just above Reyes’s chin, Scott closed his eyes and swallowed, squeezing himself at the base to try and keep himself in check. It wouldn’t do to come right now, like a teenager on their first night out.

“Taking advantage of a prisoner?” Reyes’s fingers spasmed on his right thigh, before clenching down hard enough to bruise. Scott gasped and almost buckled off. “I thought that kind of thing was frowned upon.”

“I’m suspended, you’re not actually under arrest.”

“I suppose it’s fine, then,” Reyes said and then swallowed him whole.

Scott cried out and curled up, fingers scrambling, scratching for any kind of handhold. His left hand, cuffed, was grabbed by Reyes and kept firmly to the floor; his right slapped against a crate, keeping him from crumbling down on top of Reyes.

“Shit— Fu— Reye—”

Reyes’s tongue was a wicked, evil thing, spouting lies and cheesy lines when he spoke and even managing to torture him like this when his mouth was full. It swirled around the head, traced the slit and then pressed underneath, taking him closer and closer and then leaving him right at the door of his orgasm when it stopped.

It flicked the tip and then Scott was swallowed whole again, the tip of his cock touching the back of Reyes’s throat, the tongue moved around him, Reyes swallowed and the pressure was almost too much—

Scott sobbed when he stopped suddenly and let him slip from his mouth. His tongue once again flicked out to lap at the tip almost timidly.

“Reyes, please—”

He was swallowed again, Reyes’s head bobbing up and down as much as his position allowed him, he sucked him in, his tongue swirling delicious patterns from base to tip and Scott was so close and if Reyes stopped he might actually die or maybe just cry pathetically—

A finger, despite their positions, had managed to sneak behind Scott’s balls and had pressed right below there—

Scott gasped and actually buckled, his dick slipping out of Reyes’s wet, bruised lips and it was just as well because the orgasm took him completely by surprise, tearing a strangled cry out of him, and he came in violent spurts on the floor right next to Reyes’s head, on the crates behind him.

He shuddered and swayed.

Reyes supported him gently as he slid off him to lie on his back. His breath was still coming in gasps and his body was still quivering. He was staring at the ceiling in amazement, trying to find the words. Any words really.

A kiss on his throat, another on the underside of his chin. Scott was still shivering with the aftershocks of orgasm and being touched anywhere was almost too much at the moment, but when Reyes tangled their fingers above Scott’s head and kissed him, he responded eagerly.

“You’re something else, Ryder,” a deeper kiss now, pressing him down, one of Reyes hands left his, there was a weird flick of a wrist and then—

“Reyes, what are you doing?”

Reyes only grinned down at him, kissed the tip of his nose and then stood up.

Away from him.

Scott could feel the cuffs now around both of his wrists. He gave a tug and found out that he was cuffed to the shuttle bench.

“Reyes!” he tugged on the cuffs again, forcefully, but they had no give. “What— How?!”

“Override codes.” Reyes crouched next to him and petted his hair. He checked the handcuffs, then stroked a finger down his cheek.

“Where did you get them?!”

“I’m a very resourceful man.”

Reyes bent down to press a kiss on his lips, but Scott pressed them together and didn’t give him the satisfaction of reciprocating. There was a chuckle against his mouth that widened into a smirk when Scott silently glared at him.

He was tucked back into his pants gently and then Reyes patted his flank. “Stay put.”

Reyes stood and went back to the cockpit. From his position on the floor, Scott couldn’t see him, but he heard him have a couple of conversations in a tone of voice too low for him to make out anything.

Scott hid his face in the crook of his elbow and groaned.

His arms had started to go numb when Reyes finally came out of the cockpit. He knelt by Scott, evading his half-hearted kick with a chuckle. He massaged the feeling back into his arms, making them tingle with pins and needles.

“Sorry about this,” he added a kiss to his brow to soften the apology. “Couldn’t risk you to try and change the course.” He reached over and unlocked the cuffs.

Scott’s arms fell to the ground and he sat up quickly, rubbing his wrists and checking them for bruises. He glared at Reyes and kicked his ankle. “Where are we?”

“Too far from the Citadel,” he sighed. “And our little… diversion ensured that I can’t drop you off anywhere in good time.”

“What the hell are you doing, Reyes?”

Reyes sat back on his haunches. “I’m trying to keep you alive,” he sighed. “Some collaboration wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I’ll make sure you to commend for a medal.”

Reyes snorted, shook his head. “In about an hour we’ll board a ship,” he tapped the logo on his armor. “Cerberus, the people I’m currently working for.”

“Jax’s buyers.” But that wasn’t correct, was it, they were Reyes’s buyers now. He’d had Jax ‘disappeared’ and taken over his turf.

Reyes nodded. “They’ll be expecting three of them and none of you,” he glanced at the dried spatters of blood on the floor. “I guess we’ll tell them the truth. You jumped on board, a fight broke out, I just barely managed to overpower you.”

“And why am I still alive?”

“Because I’m a greedy bastard and there are wealthy people in high places that would love to have you back.”

“Ransom?” he rolled his eyes. “Right. Great plan.”

“I only need to buy enough time to get you to an escape pod.”

“What kind of stupid plan is that?” he pushed against Reyes’s chest, but the armor didn’t give under his fingers. “Two of their men disappear mysteriously while in the presence of the new guy, who is holding a nobody for unspecified reasons—”

“Money.”

“And then suddenly the nobody what, evades your custody and miraculously manages to escape a ship of armed and trained operatives?”

Reyes shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a plan.”

“It’s a stupid plan! They’ll know something’s up and you’ll be killed approximately twenty seconds after you set it in motion.”

“Careful, Ryder, I’ll start thinking you care.” The only thing that made Reyes’ smugness even more aggravating was the fact that he was right.

Because Scott did. Against his better judgement, despite the fact that the man had probably shafted everyone at C-Sec with this little stunt, despite the fact that he had killed — to save Scott, sure — without hesitation, Scott fucking cared not to see him spaced or drilled full of bullets or whatever these Cerberus people were going to do to him. Because they would kill him, there was no way that Reyes would get away with his stupid half-assed plan.

“I’ll be fine,” Reyes smiled at him. “I’m a very careful man.”

That was a fucking bold-faced lie and they both knew it. If Reyes had really been a careful man, he would have never slept with a cop just for what, cheap thrills? The satisfaction? A careful man would’ve let that man in the shuttle kill Scott. A careful man wouldn’t have let a rookie cop shove spanners in the works every step of the way.

Scott scowled at him. “Sure, but how stupid will you look, floating out there with no air.”

“I’ll make sure to wave as I pass by your escape pod so I can give you the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so.’”

Reyes enacted the first part of the plan over comms as they approached the Cerberus ship, and once they docked inside the cargo bay, they were greeted by four armed men.

Reyes waved them in the direction of the crates as he pushed Scott — back in cuffs for the sake of their charade — off the shuttle.

One of them stepped away from the others as they got to the unloading of the shuttle cargo. “Fredricksen,” he nodded at Reyes and then pointed at Scott with his rifle. “Captain said we lock him up on Deck 2, nothing much there.”

Reyes bowed his head in acknowledgement and gestured him to step in front. “Lead the way.”

Scott shot a worried glance at Reyes once he was sure their chaperone wouldn’t see, but the other man had a carefully neutral expression. Scott’s worry must have started edging on panic after a minute or so because next time he darted a look at Reyes he winked at him.

Well, he certainly wasn’t worried anymore now, just annoyed.

Fredricksen stopped abruptly in front him, causing Scott to almost bump into him, he tilted his helmeted head on one side, as if listening to something. After a moment, he turned around and shoved Scott out of the way.

“Captain said everything went dark in this area,” he spoke to Reyes, who simply shrugged. His body language communicated a bored ignorance so genuine that Scott felt he’d be swimming in credits by now if he’d opted for a career in acting instead of criminal activity.

Reyes pointed at a console terminal which they’d just conveniently happened to pass by. “Want to take a look?” he wiggled his fingers. “I’m not good at that technical stuff.”

Fredricksen shrugged and went to the console. Reyes stepped behind him without making a sound and Scott saw him bring up his Omni-Tool interface.

Fredricksen hummed. “That’s weird,” he started, but Scott never got to hear what is that was weird, because what looked like a whip of energy originated from Reyes’s Omni-Tool and hit Fredricksen full on. It crackled like thunder and left behind the smell of ozone and burnt hair.

Fredricksen dropped to the ground without a sound.

Reyes cleared his voice and then opened a channel on his Omni-Tool. “Seems to be an isolated malfunction,” he toed Fredricksen’s foot but the man didn’t move. “Fredricksen will stay here to fix it and I’ll escort the prisoner.”

A voice crackled their assent and Reyes closed the channel. He signaled Scott to turn around. “I’m scrambling the sensors in this area for the time being,” the handcuffs fell from Scott’s wrists. “It’ll buy us some time and will cover the pod launching, but we have to hurry.”

Scott nodded at Fredricksen on the floor. “How are you gonna explain that?”

Reyes shrugged. “He got electrocuted,” he took Scott’s hand and led him down the corridor to where the escape pods were.

He stopped at the first and unslung the pack he’d been carrying since they left the shuttle from his shoulder. “The pod should have enough rations, but here’s some more just in case,” he tossed the pack inside. “There’s also an emergency beacon set to an encrypted frequency. Someone will come pick you up.”

Silence fell, awkward and heavy. Scott fidgeted and stared at his boots.

“Hey—”

“You should—”

They stopped abruptly and chuckled. Reyes gestured for him to continue.

Scott swallowed against the knot in his throat. Nothing felt so horribly final like jumping into an escape pod, leaving your— Well, Scott really didn’t have any name for Reyes, except Reyes. Goodbyes had never been his strongest suit. His last words to his mother had been ‘See you tomorrow, mom.’

“You… saved my life,” he settled for the truth. “Thank you.”

Reyes smiled softly, his hand rose and hovered as if to stroke his cheek before settling at the side of his neck. “Doubt everything I say or do if you must, but not this: I never meant to cause you any harm, nor put your life in any danger.”

The knot in his throat got tighter, Scott swallowed desperately. “Well, I did that last part myself, I suppose.”

“That you did,” the thumb gently stroked the soft skin right under Scott’s jaw before Reyes took a step back and the hand was gone. “You’d better be on your way.”

Reyes turned to scope out the corridor and there was no way, no fucking way, that the last thing Scott ever saw of him was his back — glorious as it may have been.

“Reyes!” the man froze and turned to face him. “Are you really with them? What is it that you’re doing here?”

Reyes threw his arms wide. “Sometimes there’s need for people like me—”

“Shady bastards, you mean.”

The point was conceded with a nod of Reyes’s head. “But handsome ones.”

“Reyes.”

The smirk fell off Reyes’s face and his eyes went soft. He walked back to Scott and this time his hands came up to his cheeks, thumbs drawing light circles on his cheekbones. Reyes’s eyes darted around his face, as if to try and map Scott’s features, to memorize every little detail, every freckle, every hair.

“I lie and I cheat and occasionally kill for a living. Sure, sometimes it’s for a good cause. Peace and stability and kicking supremacist bastards out of our damn galaxy. But sometimes it’s for personal gain,” he swallowed and touched their foreheads together, before letting go, one hand falling. His left thumb traced his cheekbone one last time before retreating too. “I’m not a good man, Scott, nor a honest one. But the way you look at me sometimes… it makes me wish I were.”

And suddenly, just like that, the knot was gone from Scott’s throat, words pushed against his teeth to tumble out in an avalanche. “I’m a C-Sec officer, Reyes, but I’m capable of seeing in shades of gray. I understand that not everything can be done in the light of day, I understand that sometimes you need to get your hands dirty. If you couldn’t trust me until now—”

“Scott—”

“Then trust me now, damn it!”

Reyes’s head snapped up, his eyes wide and surprised and oh, shit. Hopeful. How could he had ever thought that this man right here was any good at lying and deceiving when he stood there, staring at Scott as if he’d just promised him his most coveted wish.

They surged towards each other, Scott pulling him in and Reyes pushing them backwards until Scott’s back hit the wall and they were kissing, hands grabbing and scratching everywhere, biting and then soothing each other’s lips, panting in the same air.

Reyes tore away with a gasp. “I’m infiltrating Cerberus on Omega to gather as much information as I can,” a confession, a secret, whispered in between more frantic kisses. “I’m paving the way for Aria T’Loak to take back her little station. With Cerberus gone, the Pirate Queen fucks off my Citadel and owes me a favor, everybody wins.” A kiss on Scott’s neck, just the hint of teeth. “Finally, I’ll make my way back home, a common smuggler, an unknown, and sell all the intel on Cerberus to the Council or maybe to the Alliance. At high price, of course, making them pay for kicking such a promising young man out is a plus.”

“So you knew I was Alliance.”

A flash of teeth, a sharp grin. “I know a lot of things,” A gloved hand insinuated itself under Scott’s shirt, fingers ghosting up and down his spine. He was on the fast track to developing embarrassing and inappropriate reactions to gloves. To Reyes wearing gloves, specifically. “Many of them exciting.”

Scott’s head was spinning, he was getting hard, he need air. He needed— He pushed at Reyes’s shoulders until they came apart, but still with only a couple of inches at most between them. He looked up and met Reyes’s eyes, bright and full of wonder. “Come with me,” he gasped against his mouth. “You’re not safe here.”

Reyes smiled down at him, with mouth and eyes alike, and it was the most breath-taking view Scott had ever seen.

“Keep looking at me like that, Officer Ryder, you might make a good man out of me.” Reyes’s mouth was once again on his, his hips twisting against Scott, drawing a moan out of him.

Reyes’s hands planted firmly against his chest and pushed.

Scott stumbled, tripped and then toppled backwards. It took him a moment to understand what had happened, but it was already a moment too late: Reyes had already activated the pod release mechanism and the door was closing.

Scott sprung forward and collided with the sealed doors. “You bastard!” his voice cracked, he punched the door so hard it sent spikes of pain down to his elbow. “Reyes!”

The pod was shot out and away from the ship and the last Scott saw of him was that fucking grin of his and a little wave of his fingers.

FROM: Mailer-Daemon
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
SUBJECT: Undelivered mail returned to sender

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

*** ENCRYPTED ***

Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error. Domain name not found.

----- Original message -----

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT: ASSHOLE

You asshole! I was picked up by fucking raiders! AFTER TWO WEEKS.

I had to pretend to be a smuggler with an in in the Citadel so they wouldn’t slit my throat.

I gave them your name, btw.

FROM: Mailer-Daemon
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
SUBJECT: Undelivered mail returned to sender

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

*** ENCRYPTED ***

Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error. Domain name not found.

----- Original message -----

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT: ASSHOLE (Cont.)

Forgot to mention: we were intercepted by Commander Shepard and long story short, I guess you don’t have to worry about those raiders looking for you now, you lucky bastard.

I did wonder how Shepard knew where to find me, so imagine my surprise when the answer to that question was ‘we followed a Spectre distress beacon and found you’.

Don’t think you’re quite forgiven, yet.

You should also probably look out for my sister. And my dad.

FROM: Mailer-Daemon
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
SUBJECT: Undelivered mail returned to sender

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

*** ENCRYPTED ***

Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error. Domain name not found.

----- Original message -----

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT:

I’m slowly going through all your addresses, hopefully this one will reach you.

Aria T’Loak is conspicuously absent from the Citadel and there are rumors that Omega is back in business. I guess your plan worked out in the end, then?

I saw that asari friend of yours the other day, Dr. T’Soni. She hasn’t heard from you in a while, you should probably let her know you’re safe.

FROM: Mailer-Daemon
TO: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
SUBJECT: Undelivered mail returned to sender

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

*** ENCRYPTED ***

Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error. Domain name not found.

----- Original message -----

FROM: Scott Ryder’s private terminal
TO: N/A
SUBJECT:

Where are you?

The last few days at C-Sec had been a nightmare, Scott hated night shift and he still had two more days to go. There was nothing to do except try not to doze off at his desk and herd drunk people without getting puked on or groped in sensitive places.

He spent more time than usual in the shower, letting the water wash over him so that when he finally crawled into his bed somewhat resembled a human being. Tired as he was, he was out as soon he hit the pillow.

He came awake all at once.

A glance at the clock on his nightstand told him that he had slept maybe two hours at most. It was nowhere near the time of his alarm, but something had certainly woken him up, his heart was beating fast in his chest as a result of the shock of adrenaline.

With a sigh he sat up. He might as well go have a glass of water, his throat was parched and he’d forgotten to prepare one on his nightstand.

He stepped into the open area that was both his kitchen and living room. The blinds were shut tight, throwing the room in complete darkness, except for the light coming digital clocks and the emergency light in one corner. He didn’t bother switching the lights on, he knew the layout by heart, every sharp edge potentially harmful to shins and little toes, every shadow—

A shadow that didn’t belong moved.

Someone was in his apartment and his service weapon was in the bedroom, locked up with the rest of his C-Sec gear.

Blue energy curled up his arms and the shadow chuckled warmly.

Scott’s breath got stuck in his throat and the dark energy dispersed with a sharp crack.

The shadow moved forward until, in the faint white-blue of the emergency light, it acquired a body, shoulders, hair, eyes, a mouth twisted in a sharp smirk, and in front of Scott, three months after he’d last seen and had any news of him, Reyes Vidal stepped fully out of the shadows.

Without taking his eyes off of Scott, he tapped the lid of the boxed whiskey bottle that was the centerpiece on Scott’s otherwise bare table.

“Waiting for someone?”

“Not anymore.”

Heart stuck in his throat, Scott crossed the space between them

The whiskey stood unopened and forgotten for several hours.