Dearest @makocartwheels,

I do fancy. Oh, do I ever fancy. Might have gotten carried away with this one… Hope you enjoy!!

(For anyone coming into this fresh, this is my canon-divergent Mass Effect OTP of Aria T’Loak and Reyes Vidal.)

Read on AO3 instead. (It’s a longer one.)

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Aria was stepping out of the shower when her omni-tool bleeped.

She huffed in annoyance as she grabbed a towel, then accepted the call with a careless tap of a finger and began drying her skin. “What?”

“We have a problem,” Anto grunted. “Security issue. Are you available?”

Aria frowned. Anto usually wasn’t one for crying fox, or wolf, or whatever that stupid human expression was. “Yes,” she snapped. “Come now.” She ended the call and quickly pulled on the black leggings and cropped silk tank she’d discarded just before her shower. As soon as she was dressed, the buzzer to her private chambers rang.

He got up here fast. Must be an emergency, Aria thought. She strode over to the door and checked the display to see who was on the other side, and instantly wilted with annoyance.  

As expected, Anto was there… with Reyes, who was wearing handcuffs.

Fuck’s sake, she thought, then opened the door and planted one hand on her hip. “What the fuck is this?”

Anto shoved Reyes into the room. “I caught him trying to sneak out of the armoury with more than his permitted allotment of vests,” Anto said. He glared at Reyes, his four eyes rippling with an angry blink. “Stealing resources from us. You think he might be working with the Blue Suns? Maybe the Talons?”

Reyes laughed. “You really don’t know me at all, do you? I don’t bite the hand that feeds me. Besides,” he winked flirtatiously at the furious batarian, “you’d miss me if I defected. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Anto shoved Reyes until he stumbled to his knees. “Aria, what do you want me to do? Send him for an interrogation?”

Aria stared at Reyes’ smugly innocent face for a moment, then glanced at her second-in-command. “Leave.”

Anto blinked again, in shock this time. “But-”

“I will deal with this. Leave. Now,” she said, and Anto hastily jerked his head in a bow before hustling out of the room.

The door slid shut behind him, and Aria folded her arms and lifted her tattooed brows at the smuggler. “Start talking. What were you really doing in the armoury? Some childish prank, I assume?”

Reyes smiled charmingly up at her. “Ah, see? Anto doesn’t know me, but you do. I’m flattered.”

She flicked a careless finger, and Reyes grunted as a small biotic slap lashed across his cheek. “Start talking,” she said boredly.

Reyes sighed. “All right, all right, but it ruins the surprise. Me and some of the boys are planning a paintball ambush on Anto and some of his so-called friends tonight. I was just collecting some protective gear for us.” He raised his eyebrows in wheedling manner. “I was going to clean it and put it right back, I promise. You wouldn’t even have known it was gone.”   

Aria stared at him flatly. “That is a gross waste of resources and manpower,” she announced. “And irresponsible to boot. Maybe I should throw you in the cells for sheer stupidity.”

Reyes mock-pouted. “And ruin the ambush? That would be the real punishment.” He blinked up at her imploringly. “It’s for group morale, ma’am. It will raise your men’s spirits. I promise it will be worth the cost.”

His teasing tone had melted away, replaced by a careful respect. Even his kneeling posture was more upright, giving the impression of an alert soldier awaiting his next command. Aria shook her head disbelievingly at his act. He was so transparently manipulative, it would have been endearing if it wasn’t so fucking annoying.

She studied him in silence for another moment. Should she punish or permit this small indiscretion? Permitting set a bad precedent; Aria preferred strict discipline among her ranks, reinforced by respect and fear. Camaraderie wasn’t something she valued.

But really, this was a waste of her time. Anto shouldn’t be bothering her with petty matters like this. A serious punishment for such a small misdemeanour would give the wrong idea, making the Queen of Omega appear far too tyrannical.

An image of Anto’s officious face floated across her mind, and despite herself, Aria almost laughed. He was so fucking uptight. He really did deserve to be shot in the face with a paintball.

She flicked her wrist again, and the handcuffs dropped off of Reyes’ wrists and into his lap with a brief biotic flare. “Carry on,” she said, then shot him a warning look. “Do not tell the others I permitted this, or I’ll have our new turian recruits practice their torture techniques on your tender little back.” She jerked her head at the door. “Now go.”

She began to saunter past Reyes back toward the bathroom, but he captured her left hand before she could walk more than a few steps. He smiled down at her as he rose to his full height. “Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate your understanding.”

His tone was painfully polite, and his teasing smile was anything but. Aria curled her lip and tried to pull her hand away, but Reyes only tightened his fingers.

“What the fuck are you-” She broke off suddenly as a cold pressure encircled her left wrist: Reyes had snapped one loop of the handcuffs around her wrist.

A flare of red-hot indignation tore through her, and she stepped aggressively into his space. “You would dare to cuff me? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“A grateful recruit, ma’am,” he purred. “Just looking to show my appreciation.” He placed one impudent hand on her hip and pushed her back towards the center of the room, where the stripper pole she used for workouts stood in pride of place.

She shoved his hand off of her hip, even as she was forced back toward the pole by his confident approach. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “And get the fuck out of my quarters.”

Quick as a flash, Reyes tipped her chin up with one hand, his golden eyes dropping provocatively to her traitorously budded nipples. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked.

Aria glared furiously at him, but she hesitated for a split second instead of replying, and Reyes grinned. “Ah, it seems that I know you, too,” he said smugly. He stretched her cuffed hand toward the pole.

“You’re an arrogant, foolish child, and you know nothing about me,” Aria snapped. She tried to pull her hand from his grip, but Reyes snapped the other loop of the cuff around the pole with little difficulty, and a small, secret part of her mind wondered why she didn’t just blast him with her biotics. She could be free of him in less than a second if she wanted, free to return to her duties with a single flick of her wrist.

Reyes stroked his fingers along the length of her restrained left arm. His thumb slid along her collarbone, then down over her silky tank, his fingers following his thumb over the peak of her nipple. “Do you want me to let you go?” he whispered.

She lifted her chin and stared at him haughtily without speaking, and Reyes smiled slightly. “A silent prisoner. My favourite kind,” he said. “And the most satisfying to… break.”

Aria’s breath stalled in her throat at his shift in tone. His voice was suddenly deeper, flatter, laced with a gravelly tone that she recognized from his interrogations in her basement cells. The smile on his face was cold, reptilian, and oddly familiar.

Reyes ran his nails lightly along the skin of her bare belly, and she forced herself to breathe normally. The sharp inhale that her lungs were begging her to take was too much of a surrender, and she refused to give him the satisfaction.

Reyes wasn’t deterred by her lack of reaction. His face was an impassive mask as he slid his hand up into her tank, then skimmed his fingers gently beneath her breast.

His fingers avoided her nipple, and Aria tensed her back to stop herself from arching toward him. Her nipples were tingling with the strength of her desire, but she swallowed hard and forced herself not to show it.

Reyes smiled more widely, and Aria suddenly realized why his smile seemed so familiar: it was the same one she saw in the mirror every day.

The recognition of herself in this arrogant, handsome human both enraged and excited her, but she clenched her jaw and lifted her chin even higher in defiance, and Reyes laughed. “So difficult and stubborn,” he mused as he slowly walked around behind her. “But I’ll break you eventually. I’ve never had a prisoner who didn’t break.”

Aria ignored his words. She ignored his breath as it fanned across the back of her neck, and she ignored his tongue as it traced the tendon in her neck. He abruptly bit the angle of her neck, and she ground her teeth together and ignored this too.

Reyes wrapped his left hand around her throat and pressed his lips to her cheekbone. “You can keep acting coy, Aria,” he growled. “I know what I’ll find when I slip my hand in here.” His right hand slid around her waist from behind, his palm flat on her belly and sliding low toward her leggings.

His left hand tightened around her throat as his right hand slid into her leggings. His finger petted her swollen clit in a gentle teasing stroke, and Aria allowed her eyes to drift shut as the pleasure of his touch rolled through her limbs. She couldn’t press her hips into his clever hand, couldn’t tilt her head to ask for his teeth on her neck, couldn’t make a single noise; she couldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing his effect on her. But while he was behind her, she could permit herself to close her eyes.

A too-brief moment later, Reyes released her body and stepped away, and she snapped her eyes open and took a measured breath as he walked around to face her. “Very stubborn,” he said pensively. In a brisk motion, he grabbed her leggings and dragged them down to her ankles.

Aria didn’t move. She continued to stare flatly at him as he perused the pearls of her nipples beneath her cropped top, the flat planes of her violet belly, and the treacherous moisture that was trickling slowly along the inside of her thighs. Her pussy was throbbing for him, a pounding beat of thwarted pleasure and aggravation that clamoured ever more loudly as his eyes traced the slick lines of arousal between her legs, but Reyes didn’t need to know that.

He continued to stare at the apex of her thighs, his gaze stern and clinical, and she could swear her slick folds were swelling from the sheer heat of his stare. Then he slowly kneeled at her feet. “The most tender flesh is the most prone to pain,” he informed her.

His hot breath ghosted over her desperate moisture and a shiver ran up her spine, but she bit her tongue and kept her chin raised. If she refused to look at him, she could pretend more easily that he wasn’t there.

Unfortunately, her lifted chin provided no protection against his touch. He leaned forward and dropped an open-mouthed kiss on her inner thigh, and Aria pressed her lips together hard and tensed her thighs to stop her hips from bucking toward his face. He slicked his tongue against her tender inner thigh as he shucked off his jacket, then leaned away and pulled his shirt over his head.

She tilted her chin higher, but she could still see him from the corner of her eye. As she surreptitiously watched, he unzipped his pants and pulled his erection out. He took hold of his cock and looked up at her, and Aria turned her head to the side and pointedly ignored him.

He chuckled, a low dark growl of a sound that made her inner muscles clench with desperation. “Why bother resisting?” he purred. “I can see how wet you are. I can taste it. You can ignore me all you want, but you’re only punishing yourself.”

His face was just close enough to her pussy to feel the breeze of his words against her exposed flesh. Finally she deigned to speak. “I get wet sometimes when watching elcor productions of Hamlet,” she retorted. “Usually when I’m imagining doing something much less boring.”

She delivered her insult in a completely flat tone, and Reyes burst into laughter. “All right, fine. That’s how you want to play it?” He leaned forward and slid his tongue along the length of her cleft just once – fuck fuck fuck, she thought desperately, don’t breathe, don’t react, don’t move – then he rose to his feet and grabbed her chin roughly.

“Look at me,” he demanded, his voice dark and cold again, and by complete accident, Aria obeyed.

That aggravating reptilian smile lit his face again, and he jerked her chin down so she was forced to look at his cock, still gripped in his strong fist. “You can have this if you say please,” he growled. “Just one little word. Say ‘please’.”

Aria laughed in his face at the sheer ridiculousness of his suggestion, and Reyes released her chin and stepped back. He tucked his shaft back in his pants and lifted his shirt from the floor. “Fine,” he said indifferently. “Then I’m leaving.” He turned on his heel sauntered toward the door.

Aria smirked and leaned casually against the stripper pole. She watched patiently as he approached the door, then lifted his hand to hit the door release.

His hand hovered over the release, then he leaned against the wall instead and dropped his head in defeat. He slowly turned to face her again, his face painted with exasperation. “You’re a fucking stubborn bitch, you know that?”

Aria finally smiled: the same kind of cold, reptilian smile he’d been mimicking all this time. She shrugged one lazy shoulder and kicked her leggings aside. “I told you, Reyes. You know nothing about me.” She reached between her legs and swiped two fingers over her own slippery arousal, then inspected her wet fingers with idle interest as she spoke again. “If you think you can play games with me and win, you should go see Mordin for a neurological exam.”

She slid her fingers into her mouth, and Reyes groaned in frustration. He strode back toward her, then dropped to his knees. “I hate you. You know that, right?” he complained.

Aria huffed with amusement at his juvenile petulance, then craned her head back in pleasure as Reyes grabbed her hips and delved his tongue into her heat. She lifted one leg and rested her foot on his shoulder as she gripped the pole with her cuffed hand for support, then thrust her hips demandingly against his face. Now that she’d shown him who was boss, she could enjoy the spoils of her victory.

At the pumping of her hips, Reyes devoured her pussy with even more zeal, his lips and tongue moving across her clit in a series of firm wet kisses. Aria arched into him, her pleasure enhanced by her smug sense of satisfaction, and after a few minutes of Reyes’ delicious swirling tongue over her clit, her orgasm flared and flickered through her limbs, a rippling of triumphant rapture that reached the tips of her toes and the backs of her eyelids.

She arched back against the pole as her pleasure shuddered through her, then pushed Reyes away with her foot against his shoulder. “All right, now fuck me,” she said. “Clearly I have your balls tucked in my pocket, but you can still use your cock.” She turned around to face the pole, then gripped it with both hands for support and bent forward.

She barely had to wait for two seconds before his hands grabbed her hips and his cock drove into her in a hard stroke. A groan of pleasure tore from her throat, but Aria didn’t mind; she’d earned the satisfaction of this fuck with sheer willpower, and she planned to enjoy it.

Reyes slammed into her in a fast and furious rhythm, and Aria cheerfully accepted his fucking for a while before wanting a change. She reached back with her free hand and scratched his hand hard. “Slow down,” she commanded.

Reyes hissed at the scrape of her nails, then obeyed her order. He changed his angle slightly until his cock slid against her inner walls at just the right angle to stimulate that little bundle of nerves inside of her, and Aria gasped with uninhibited pleasure. She was so enraptured that she almost missed his words.

“I need to get you out of my system,” he panted. “You’re – you’re so… You drive me fucking crazy, Aria. Why…” He trailed off with a groan as he slid deep into her heat, then kept on babbling. “I don’t know why I keep coming back,” he complained.

Aria gasped as pleasure rippled from her inner walls through her limbs, but her enjoyment was dimmed by his talking. His words were so naive, and uncomfortably close to some kind of confession. “Shut up,” she moaned. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

He burst out a breathless laugh then pumped into her again, and Aria cried out uninhibitedly. Every smooth stroke of his cock was hitting her G-spot just right, and if only he would keep it up and keep his mouth shut for a few more strokes…

She got her wish: Reyes didn’t speak any more as he fucked her hard and slow, and finally she came for the second time with a convulsive full-body shudder. Reyes grabbed her hips and resumed his frenzied fucking, and a few moments later, he gasped his pleasure and collapsed against her back.

Aria permitted him to relax against her for a few moments, then shrugged her shoulders irritably to shake him off before straightening up. Reyes obligingly stepped away, and Aria jerked her chin at the bathroom as his seed began its slow trickle down her leg. “Get some tissue,” she ordered.

He obeyed without a word. Aria twisted her left fingers deftly, and the cuff around her left wrist snapped open and fell useless to the floor with a blue flicker of her biotics.

Reyes came back with a wad of tissue in hand, and Aria pointed imperiously at her messy thighs. A slow and disbelieving smile lifted the corner of Reyes’ lips. “Are you serious?” he said, but he knelt at her feet again and wiped his semen from her thighs.

Aria idly rubbed her chafed left wrist until Reyes was finished, then dismissively nudged him away with her foot as though he was an overeager varren pup. “All right. Now get out.” She pulled her top off and dropped it on the floor as she headed for the bathroom. She would have to take another shower now that he’d spilled his cock all over her.

“Aria…” Reyes’ tone was soft and pensive, and Aria didn’t like it. Yet something still compelled her to turn and face him.

He stared at her wordlessly, and Aria frowned as a squiggle of discomfort writhed in her belly. His whiskey-bronze eyes were darker than usual, heavy with words that she had no interest in hearing.

She jerked her chin toward the door. “Get out,” she said, but a bit more gently than usual. “Anto would look good in pink paint, by the way.” She stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

A moment later, she heard the sound of the doors shifting open and then shut, and she glanced back into the main room.

Reyes was gone, and so were the handcuffs. Aria narrowed her eyes, then retreated back into the bathroom. She stepped into the shower and made a mental note to get the cuffs back from Reyes the next time she saw him.

It wouldn’t do for him cling to such bonds.