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Lucian had never been good with his feelings, he had to guess it was a byproduct of being raised the son of Alec Ryder. He learned pretty quickly to bottle his feelings up and stay the emotionless robot he was trying to represent. People were constantly comparing him to the miraculous N7 that his father was, his failures somehow had a habit of reflecting his father’s parenting methods and so Lucian got really good at never messing up. He had perfect control over his life, his biotics and then his mother got sick and everything went downhill from there.
Those feelings that he’s painstaking hidden away for all those years were forced to come to the surface whilst Lucian sat and watched his mother wither and die. Alec Ryder destroyed his career by diving into highly illegal AI research, and thus dragging his children down with him. All those doors that were once opened to the young rising star of the Systems Alliance slammed firmly into his face. Naturally he blamed his father, but when Alec presented the twins with a choice to accompany him to Andromeda, two and a half million years away and six hundred years through dark space, Lucian said yes immediately.
He didn't care that his position would be on the Pathfinder team, he only cared that those orders would come from his father. Lucian took the SAM implant without question and he went to sleep like the good little robotic soldier he was. Waking up to find that their Golden World wasn't so golden and loosing his father all in the same day would have been too much to bare even for him. But he pushed those feelings deep down inside and stepped up to the role of Pathfinder without question. Lilith was in a coma, the only person he could speak to about all those uncertainties was just out if his reach and he had his own missions to complete.
Surprisingly Lucian took to the role of Pathfinder like a fish to water. It was almost like he was made for fighting the Kett, cracking Remnant decryptions to reset vaults in order to terraform and restabilize the planets that could have been their Golden Worlds. He negotiated the best for all parties involved and helped who he could, those doors that Alec Ryder was responsible for closing were just an afterthought. Behind his back, everyone called him the Initiative's Android, emotionless and happy enough to do the bidding of Nexus Leadership like the good little carer soldier he was.
Then Reyes Vidal sauntered into his life with his charming, flashy smile and his smooth accent and all Lucian could think about was his mother's last words to him. Fall in love at least once. He never thought he had it in him but Reyes had a habit of challenging those preconceptions about himself. The times he spent side-by-side with the shady bastard made Lucian's heartbeat in a way it never had before. There was something there, there had to be. Riding through the Badlands, investigating Roekaar murders... the kiss...oh hell the kiss. Lucian had inappropriate dreams about that kiss and everything that could have followed.
And then the fantasy shattered. Reyes was the Charlatan, he used Lucian to further his objective and get Sloane out of the way. It hurt, all those years he'd spent perfecting his emotionless exterior didn't protect his breaking heart. Lucian had let himself fall for it hook, line and sinker despite the best objections from the crew. If Lilith was here she would have smelt his bullshit back in the Milky Way and put a stop to it before it even started.
You aren't the man I thought you were.
Well Lilith wasn't here, Lucian was so he left and went to Elaaden with a promise to never look back. He set out to help Drack with the Krogan and then launching his attack on the Archon's ship to learn about Meridian. Among rescuing Ark Paarchero and saving the Krogan from Exaltation, SAM was forced to stop his heart. For ninety-seven seconds Lucian Ryder was clinically dead and when he woke up, he was more torn up than every. It didn’t make anything clearer, it just made everything messier.
Eventually they ended up making their way back to Kadara on Vetra’s request. The Turian had submitted a request for parts that you could only get in Kadara Port, it all sounded awfully set up to Lucian but he couldn’t exactly say no. Drack wanted his grumpy ass off the Tempest , now that was something a Krogan calling Lucian grumpy. He missed Reyes and everyone knew it, even if his denial was bigger than a Remnant Architect. Their Pathfinder had been pushing aside his feelings by chasing other people’s problems all across the cluster and then some. Frankly the entire ship were at the point of shoving him out of the airlock which grew more urgent the minute he yelled at Suvi for licking yet another rock.
So here he was at the bar in Kralla’s Song flagging down a drink from Umi, after a transfer of credits to her omni-tool, Lucian set himself up with a bottle of whisky and a glass. The air he was giving off was perfect at keeping people away from him, but a small part of him wanted Reyes to pop up with his cheesy pickup line that had him from the second he heard it. You look like you’re waiting for someone.
The more Lucian drank the angrier the Pathfinder became. SAM was monitoring his blood alcohol levels, otherwise the AI was under strict instructions not to curb the foggy feeling booze always gave him. God he hadn’t been this drunk since graduating boot camp back in the Milky Way and that was the first time he’d ever slept with someone let alone being with someone of the same gender. It was all over in a drunken haze and the next morning all he had to show for it was a few bruises on his hips and a dull ache that went away after a few days. He and Issac could never look each other in the face again after that. Thank the powers that be for separate assignments.
He was about halfway through the bottle when SAM chirped to life to inform him that he was being watched by a gentleman at the end of the bar. The AI had to hazard a guess that it was one of the Charlatan's men...Lucian wanted to rip Reyes a new one the egotistical jerk. The balls on the guy to think that he had any right to have ‘ eyes on him ’ only served to make Lucian want to punch him.
He left the bottle and a half filled glass of whisky at the bar as he stormed off to Collective HQ where he knew the King of Kadara would be behind his figurehead. Reyes had been keeping an eye on him but Vetra had her ways of keeping an eye on Reyes. The damn Turian always signed her emails off with a smiley face and gave knowing looks as they passed in the hallway. The angaran guards at the entrance were left with little choice but to let the angry Pathfinder through the doors. He was glowing blue very subtly across his skin as his biotics flared in and out of control. The facade of emotionless robot was slipping and Lucian didn’t give a flying fuck at this point.
“Ah, Pathfinder...it is good to see you again,” Keema preened from her throne, the one that was once occupied by Sloane a lifetime ago. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your cheerful company?” The Angaran didn’t seem the least bit worried about the glowing drunk Pathfinder about ready to destroy her throne room, in fact, she seemed rather amused by the whole situation.
“Where’s Reyes?” Lucian demanded to know, spitting out his question through clenched teeth. His normally immaculate pitch black hair was standing up at all angles like someone had been running their hands through it all night.
Keema waved her hand at the wall beside her. “Follow the stairs up, he’s working. You won’t kill him will you, Pathfinder?”
“That depends,” Lucian snarled, pushing the wall with his biotics to open it. “Not that you’d care anyway.” He stalked up the stairs and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket, the Pathfinder was wearing his casual clothes even though Cora insisted on him at least wearing something that he could protect himself with. Lucian refused. If someone was gonna stab him he doubted they’d get too far. He counted the steps as he stomped up them, ignoring SAM as the AI tried to get through to him with all kinds of threats, threats that Lucian ignored.
At the top of the stairs Lucian turned a left and found himself in front of the door that had to lead to Reyes’s private chambers, doors that the former specialist had no qualms in hacking to get inside. Lucian raised his shields when the doors swished open and let himself in, eyes automatically landing on Reyes as the man sat on a sofa wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a loose white shirt with a datapad in his hands. “What the fuck kind of game are you playing at?” he demanded to know, biotics dying down. “Who was the guy watching me at the bar?”
Reyes lowered his datapad as he watched the furious Pathfinder in the open doorway. It hated to admit it but the ache was back at the sight of Lucian standing there, chest heaving up and down angrily. “An agent of mine.” There was no point on lying, lying had gotten them both to this point in their relationship. “I have eyes all over Kadara, you’d know that by now Lucy.”
The innocent little nickname that Reyes had murmured in between that night after Sloane’s party had Lucian ready to knock the bastard into the wall...it also made his heart race in his chest and red blossom in his cheeks. “You lost the right to call me Lucy the minute you lied to me Reyes!” he all but shouted. The Pathfinder clenched his fists, torn between staying to chew him out or leaving and directing all future Kadara Port business to Vetra. “You lied to me!”
“I told you-” Reyes objected, getting to his feet, “-I liked the way you looked at me Lucy. I...was worried I’d lose you...but I lost you anyway.” He noticed Lucian tense up right away, making sure to approach him the same way one would approach a wounded animal. Lucian was mad, and rightly so.
Lucian wanted to have told Reyes that nothing had changed, fuck he had dreams of the cave and how it should have gone if he’d told him the truth. Instead he chose to follow his wounded pride and mourn the loss of a woman who would have brought war to Heleos. Sloane Kelly wasn’t a nice woman but it still went against the Lucian Atticus Ryder Code of Moral Conduct. A sniper being used in a one-on-one duel should have been against anyone’s morals. Sloane Kelly should be rotting in a jail on the Nexus for the rest of her life. “You liked the way I looked at you,” he mulled over, spitting the words out like rotten fruit. Oh he was angry, really angry.
Suddenly Reyes was in front of him and before Lucian was able to react, the smuggler had both his hands on his chest, one hand over his heart to feel the fluttering organ. “Lucian...I never wanted that to change. I admit, I flirt and I am rather good at it. But with you-you didn’t bite once but the more time you were around Kadara, around me, you opened up. You laughed at my terrible jokes...your crew member Peebee told me once she’d never heard you laugh before.” He had to do this right, Reyes had to explain himself in a way that the Pathfinder would understand. He didn’t want Lucian to walk out those doors and never come back without hearing all the facts. “Please Lucian.” Apparently Reyes wasn’t above begging him.
“My mother told me to fall in love at least once in my life,” Lucian spoke, not making an argument against Reyes. “Fucking hell Reyes. You don’t get it, my whole life I’ve pushed down my emotions and let myself become the perfect little soldier, Alec Ryder’s perfect biotic weapon because I didn’t want to be a disappointment to him. The one time I listen to my feelings you lie to me and break my heart.”
“You’re angry-”
“Of course I’m fucking angry!” Lucian snapped, cutting him off. “You lied to me! You didn’t trust me! The worst fucking part about all of this is that I still miss you but you lied to me and you took the cowards way out!”
Reyes arched an eyebrow ever so subtly. “Lucian, I would take the cowards way out every time as long as it kept you safe. Sloane would have done everything in her power to destroy the Nexus. She was stockpiling weapons, planning. She wanted to attack the Nexus.” He kept his hands on Lucain’s chest, afraid to take them off the trembling human in case he vanished. “You’ve been gone for three months Lucian and not once have I been able to get you out of my head. Perhaps the reason you’re so mad at me is because you feel the same. I had a sniper take out Sloane, yes, but I won’t apologise for what I did. Kadara Port belongs to the Charlatan and the Collective.”
The Pathfinder bristled, the bastard was right and he damn well knew it. One night in the bio lab Cora pulled him aside and they sat there watering the plants together before talking well into the night and the next morning. Whilst the former huntress didn’t approve of the methods, she was glad that Sloane was dead, after everything she’d done and was doing she deserved it. It was a outlook ninety percent of his crew shared. “SAM?”
“ Mr Vidal is not lying Pathfinder. You and I share a symbiotic relationship; I learn from you and in return you learn from me. Whilst Mr Vidal is what you have frequently described as a Shady Bastard, you still harbor romantic feels for him. ”
Lucian blinked, his cloudy blue eyes were trained on Reyes’s smoky brown ones...he could get dangerously lost in those hypnotic eyes. “Reyes...you didn’t trust me.”
“You looked at me and saw a better man,” he answered. “The choice is yours Lucian. If you want to leave I won’t stop you. I promise-”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Lucian put his hand over Reyes’s and squeezed hesitantly. “You’re the King of Kadara now, you’re gonna have to lie to me sometimes. Like I’m gonna have to lie to you. Just...don’t lie to me about the little things Reyes.”
“Do you forgive me, cariño? ” the smuggled questioned, searching the Pathfinder’s eyes for something to give him the answer they both needed.
“Forgive you...yes…” he breathed out, shoulders slumping like a massive weight was just lifted off them. “The rest...is just gonna take some time Reyes, but I...I don’t want this to be just a one night thing, the occasional itch that has to be scratched. If we’re going to do this I want to do this all in.”
“Ever since you left Kadara you’ve been all I can think about,” Reyes confessed. He smirked a little at the sight of Lucian’s pupils as they dilated, chasing away all the blue.
“All that time?” Lucian mulled over. “SAM, send a message to Cora, tell her I’ll be a little late back.” He leant forward and let his forehead rest against Rayes’ with a deep sigh, “I want this. I want this...this love that my mother told me to chase...damnit Reyes I fucking want it so much I’m...I died. For ninety-seven seconds I was dead and when I woke up it just made everything so much messier. I fucking missed you so much.”
Before Reyes was able to catch onto the fact that Lucian had died , the Pathfinder’s lips were on his in a bold gesture. He tasted like whisky and smelt like cinnamon, his tongue swiped at the older man’s lips and Reyes moaned at the feeling. “Shit Lucy, you really wanna do this?” he managed to get out in between fevered kisses.
“Yeah,” he rasped, pulling back to study the other man’s face. There was almost no blue left in Lucian’s eyes but his cheeks were a healthy shade of red, a blush that certain traveled down his neck and under his shirt. “SAM, tell Cora I won’t be back till morning. Then enact your privacy mode. I don’t wanna hear from you unless the Kett are about to attack Kadara. No Tann. No Addison. No Evfra.”
“ Yes Pathfinder. ”
Lucian pulled at his own shirt, dragging the seemingly offensive fabric over his head and casting it to the floor. The soldier smirked at the feral groan stuck in the back of Reyes’s throat, his dark, silky brown eyes roaming over his chest, taking in every curve of muscle, every scar, every tattoo. “Like what you see?”
“Definitely,” Reyes smirked. The man had about six different tattoos over his chest and arms, all of varying shapes and sizes as well as symbols. Some of the marks were Asari but the one over his heart was an odd symbol of some kind. Reyes definitely had to ask about that one later. The smuggler surged forward to capture Lucian’s lips which proved somewhat difficult when it came to take his own shirt. He groaned inwardly at the sound of ripping fabric, chuckling slightly at the half-assed promise from the Pathfinder to get him a new shirt. Lucian’s fingers traveled over his chest, lightly ghosting around his nipples, only faltering when Reyes hissed at the contact. “We need-shit we need to-” It was hard to think with his cock half hard already and Lucian’s hands roaming all over his body, a gesture Reyes was more than willing to return as he yanked at the younger man’s belt buckle.
“I’ve done both,” Lucian breathed, moving his lips to Reyes’s neck. He had plans to leave many a hickey there to warn anyone away from his Shady Bastard. “But I want to be in you.” He wanted Reyes, fuck he wanted him so bad, he wanted to feel him, he wanted to be surrounded by him but there was a certain vulnerability to sex and Lucian wasn’t sure if he trusted Reyes to surrender that just yet.
Reyes seemed to understand. “Bedroom,” he responded huskily. The smuggled pulled the Pathfinder’s belt off in a single move, he flung the offending leather to the floor as hungry hands did away with his zipper. Lucian’s actions were frantic, almost rushed but there was an art to them. He half-shoved Reyes towards the only other door in the room, moving this into the bedroom.
He only let his hands leave the other man’s body to get the last of his clothes off. Lucian nearly tripped over his jeans as he shoved them off which earnt a slight chuckle from the smuggler in question. Once Lucian was naked, he turned to Reyes and froze, the sight of his lover {?} standing there as naked as the day he was born had every word stuck in his throat. Reyes was fucking perfect. Lucian’s cock twitched at the thought of being able to spend hours letting his tongue and fingers explore every inch of his honeyed skin.
The Pathfinder pushed Reyes onto the bed, crawling on his knees to straddle the other man’s lap. Sex he’d had before but this…Lucian pressed light kisses against his jaw, moving to his neck and letting his tongue trail down Reyes’s chest. A moan vibrated in the man’s chest as Lucian flicked his fingers over his nipples, catching one between his fingers and pinching it. “Lucian…” Reyes hissed, hands running through Lucian’s dark curls. He continued to travel lower, moving further and further down his body until he was positioned between the man’s legs. “Lucian…” A single word and it said so damn much.
“Lube?” he rasped.
Reyes reached under his pillow and handed him a half used tube of clear liquid. Seeing the questionable look on Lucian’s face and the tug that pulled at his lips made the man chuckle. “I said I haven’t been with anyone since you left. I didn’t say I didn’t have thoughts about what I would do to you if you ever came back to me cariño .”
“Like what?” Lucian dropped the lube on the bed beside him and wrapped his hand around Reyes cock. He leant forward and ran his tongue over the tip of his shaft, smirking as the smuggler gasped beneath him. “Like me on my knees? Worshipping you like the king you are?”
“Fucking hell Lucian,” Reyes breathed. It took every ounce of concentration he had to prop himself up on his elbows, eyes stuck on the human Pathfinder as he took to debauchery like a fly to honey. He shouted out when Lucian swallowed his cock, his deft fingers massaging his thighs. “ Shit… ” And they called him Shena...Lucian's mouth should have been considered a weapon in its own right.
The Pathfinder swirled his tongue and pulled back, licking pre-cum off the tip with a little twisted smirk on his face. “Fucking hell Reyes you've got no idea how sexy you are.”
“Oh I have an idea,” the smuggled breathed. “ Cariño I want you...I need you.”
“You beg so pretty,” the soldier chuckled deeply. Lucian snatched the lube off the bed and poured a generous amount on his fingers. “Here's the deal Reyes, you might be the Charlatan and the King of Kadara but right now it's just you and me. Reyes Vidal and Lucian Ryder.” He circled his fingers around Reyes's hole, watching as the man's cheat hitches as a single digit penetrates his chanel. “And I'm in charge. You don't get to cum until I say you can.” Lucian had to admit he got a beautiful sense of pleasure out of the raw arousal sparked in his lover's eyes.
“You're bossy,” Reyes gasped, pushing lightly onto Lucian's finger. The man simply responded with an amused grunt as he pressed a second finger into him. He scissored them, watching carefully like it was the single most interesting biological study in the history of the human race. Lucian was quiet but took note of every little moan and his from the man sprawled out on the bed. He wanted to sear that image into memory, Reyes Vidal spread out covered in a sheen of sweat with the Pathfinder's fingers deep inside him.
Two fingers soon become three as the infamous Reyes Vidal is a puddle on the bed begging Lucian to end his misery. God he wants to cum so bad his cock aches, but Lucian is taking his sweet time moving his fingers in and out of him. “Fuck…” he hissed, mourning the loss when the soldier finally withdrew his fingers. “Lucian…”
“I got you,” Lucian replied, hand on the smuggler's knee as he spread lube over his own aching shaft. He didn't want to admit but he hurt, his own cock was as hard as nails and he desperately wanted to be nestled inside Reyes, he had to feel...to make sure that the feelings were still there. Lucian lined himself up and pushed into his lover's willing body.
Reyes hissed at the initial burn, it had been too long since he'd had anyone inside him that wasn't his own fingers. Lucian had a look of determination on his face that screamed warrior but whispered lover, he took his time, pausing when he bottomed out, his hands on the other man's hips with an iron tight grip. “Move Lucian,” Reyes rasped, trying to keep the begging out of his voice. The thought of seeing Lucian like this went straight to his straining cock and didn't help when the biotic started to move.
Lucian's movements were slow at first, he wanted to savour it, take his time and make the man beneath him come completely undone. Reyes felt so damn good wrapped around him, taking him like they were made for each other. The Pathfinder kissed him, hips moving, bodies wrapped completely around and inside each other was all he needed as they pushed and pulled. He bit at Reyes’s lips, enjoying the thought of the Charlatan and his kiss swollen lips who ached every time he sat down for the next week.
His movements became move brazen, Reyes pulled Lucian against him, wrapping his arms around the soldier’s body to hold him. There was a hardness in the Pathfinder’s eyes that existed alongside expressions of hope and love but all Reyes could see was desire. Raw, passionate, burning desire. Lucian could set the cluster ablaze if he wanted to with just a single stare but Reyes knew the ache was just for him and him alone. “Reyes...fuck Reyes I’m close…”
It was like he was asking for permission before he finished. Reyes bit at Lucian’s lips, the Pathfinder relented and opened his mouth, letting the other man explore him with his tongue. “I trust you Lucian.”
Lucian damn near melted as his heart leapt in his chest. There was nothing but the truth in those words...they were both so vulnerable. “I love you Reyes,” he whispered against the smuggler’s skin as he came deep inside him. The Pathfinder wrapped his hand around Reyes’s cock, moving as he rocked his hips, light kisses were pressed against the sensitive flesh. “Cum for me lover…” he ordered tenderly, pulling back to watch the expression of bliss that crossed the other man’s face.
Heat coiled in his belly, like a cobra ready to strike. Lucian’s words were like honey, silky smooth velvet across his flesh and around his soul. Reyes fought against his better nature, allowing himself to come undone in the hands of his soldier. White heat burned across his vision, the arms wrapped around him were strong and vice-like but the words whispered in his ears were warm, loving.
The Pathfinder pressed a soft kiss against his forehead before he pulled out slowly, not wanting to hurt Reyes. He disappeared out of the room and came back a few minutes later with a warm washcloth that he used to clean them both. Reyes half expected Lucian to pick up his clothes and take off but the soldier crawled back into bed with him and practically spooned him. “You’re staying?” he asked incredulously.
Lucian nodded. “Yep. We can...talk more in the morning Reyes.” He nestled his face in the smuggles hair and inhaled the scent of sweat, leather and machine oil with a deep sigh.
“Lucian…” Reyes swallowed thickly and rolled over so that he was facing the younger male. “Did you mean what you said about...you love me?”
He sighed, it went against his better judgement, but maybe that was Lucian’s problem, he always went with what he knew, he never went with his gut or followed his heart. “Reyes, you don’t have to say it to me but I just want you to know that despite everything...I love you...just don’t shut me out again.”
“Never,” Reyes hummed, kissing him. “Pathfinder...you have bad taste in men.”
Lucian smirked, his eyes burning with want. “
The worst.
”