intergalactic gravity

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14], [Part 15], [Part 16], [Part 17], [Part 18 (sidebar)], [Part 19]

--

“Do you know me?” Isaac asks, watching with faint dismay as the small, skinny boy devours the plate of food in front of him. Lucien is closer in age to Luca, but in the places were Luca is soft, Luce is harsher, more abrupt and more than a little feral. He’s distrustful in a way Isaac has never known Luca to be and Isaac finds his chest squeezing uncomfortably in anticipation of his answer.

Luce pauses mid chew and squints at him balefully. “No? Am I supposed to?”

That hurts a little. Isaac isn’t sure where to proceed from there and he glances sideways at Luc for guidance. Luc stands close by, frowning as he watches Luce scrape the bowl clean and then try to lick it. Without speaking, Luc plucks the empty bowl from Lucien’s hands, ignoring the kid’s whining protests, then replaces it with a new one.

Luce is delighted.

“Who was your father?” Luc tries once Luce has scoffed a few more mouthfuls. “Your… biological father,” Luc clarifies, avoiding Isaac’s eye and Isaac experiences that same sickening roll of his stomach.

Luce pauses only long enough to frown before going back to his meal with a shrug. “I dunno. Never met him.”

“Your mother?” Isaac tries instead, recalling only a fraction of a second too late that a mother might not be in the picture. His thoughts go unbidden to Mason before shutting the door firmly on that as well. If he and Mason existed in whatever reality Lucien and Rion comes from, he’s sure neither of them would have let the boy out of their sight.

And that leaves only one other explanation he doesn’t want to speculate on.

Luce puts the bowl down slowly. His brown eyes dart around the room. “I don’t have one of those either. There’s only Rion. Just Rion and….”

The boy trails off, eyes widening slightly before he makes a dramatic shrug and hunches back over his bowl to eat more. Isaac doesn't need to look at Luc to wonder if the other man caught that too and it's Luc that picks through the words unsaid.

“And who?” Luc probes, this time catching Isaac’s eye briefly. “You sounded like you were about to mention someone else.”

Again, Luce pauses mid chew before he answers. Isaac can’t help but wonder if the kid has been coached, but something tells him he already knows the answer to that.

“No,” Luce says, a fraction of hesitation shadowing his answer. He huddles protectively over his bowl but it seems now he’s lost his appetite. It’s almost like he wants to say more and is suddenly miserable that he can’t. Then his dark eyes snap up and the kid is suddenly defensive. “I wasn’t gonna say anything!”

“No, you were,” Luc insists mildly, almost warmly, like he’s trying to share an inside joke with the younger boy. Luc shifts closer, his previously stiff stance loosening as he leans in and smiles at Luce. The same megawatt smile Isaac realizes he hasn’t seen on either Luca for a long time now. “-You were going to say something else.”

It’s a little jarring, Isaac notes distantly. The contrast of years between them. Luc, with his broader shoulders and straighter spine, tamed curls and a reined in countenance that he owes to his years in the Alliance, vs Lucien. Lucien, who looks barely old enough to be doubt digits, his clothing tattered, messy hair and vibrating with anxiety. Yet again, Isaac feels like he’s looking at two sides of a coin – two sides of a coin, a swap of fortunes, born in worlds so far apart. There was some old argument about nature vs nurture that he didn’t have the spare thoughts to dwell on.

Luce shrinks back, eyes dark and sullen and… Isaac’s skin pricks. There it is, the same hostile, stubborn little spark he’s all too familiar with.

“No!”

“It’s alright,” Isaac tries to interject gently. “You’re not in any trouble here-“

But it’s too late. The boy has already leapt up and pushed back from the table. The metal chair tips back, crashing against the floor with a loud clatter. “Rion,” Luce yells, voice panicked and frightened and the man in question is there before anyone else can think to move.

“Told you we should have shoved them in the brig,” Mason says quietly against his ear a few moments later as Rion rages and carts off his boy protectively towards the cargo bay.

--

Later Luc gives Isaac a wan smile. They’re both tired but Luc is trying hard not to show how much this has messed with him. It’s messed with Isaac too.

“Don’t take it to heart too much. Maybe I was the lucky one, the anomaly. I mean, look at Luca.”

Isaac isn’t convinced. It bothers him there’s no other *him* out there, guiding Lucien, that in their world, they never met. He had been increasingly convinced that whatever fates are out there, his and Luca’s are intertwined. There’s something that feels viscerally wrong that he exists in a world where only Blake fucking Ryan is the boy’s only guide.

“But why us,” he’d asked Mason one night in the early hours, cradled against Mason’s augmented body. It had taken him far less time than he expected to adjust to being the little spoon and he relished being close to the phoenix. Their quiet moments together were single handedly the only thing keeping him sane this far out in the black. “Of all the people, all the possibilities-“

Mason stroked his arms, stroked the hair at his nape and kissed his temple with soft lips. “I don’t know. It’s pretty crazy, probably a bit egotistical to think we’re something special and the fate of the galaxy rests on us.”

“Isn’t it just,” Isaac had snorted dryly.

Mason rolled him over to brace himself above him, a comforting weight against Isaac’s lower half. The phoenixes eyes glittered as he looked down at him. “But you know, I’m not sure I care the reasons why, Zac. All I know is that I have you… and it seems like I have you in every life and that makes me happy. I don’t know if we’re the universes favorites and I don’t care – as long as I get to have whatever time left with you.”

And Isaac had kissed him then, and there hadn’t been much talking after that.

“I can’t say I understand any of this,” Isaac says now, pinching his brow tiredly as he stands at Luc’s side. “But it seems like you’ve kicked something into motion.”

“Me?” Luc laughs softly but there’s a hollow edge to it. “I didn’t make the rift.”

“No, but you went through it.”

Luc raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly at him. Isaac feels the weight of that look and something about it reminds him so startlingly of Mason that it almost takes his breath away. He can see it sometimes, the echoes. The same gene pool this Luc had been built from even if there's little left in the man he loves.

“Well, if you really want to get picky, technically it was you who went through first.”

Isaac finds himself snorting again. “Not me. I’m smarter than that. I don’t go looking for trouble.”

“Says the man with a contingent of super soldiers on his ship,” Luc mutters but amusement winds through it. “Floating around out here in the ass end of the galaxy. Why did you get picked for this assignment anyway? Who did you piss off?”

Isaac thinks of Hackett, of the reapers, of how the floor of his world dropped out of him when he had heard of Arcturus station blowing apart, the decimation of humanity’s birthplace and all the other worlds like it.

It sits like a lead weight on his chest and lately, it had been becoming almost too hard to breathe.

“Put Zeus on them,” he orders abruptly, turning on his heel. “I’ve played cards with Blake Ryan. The man knows how to bluff.”

(somewhere near the beginning)

The alien club in an alien city on an alien planet is loud and colourful and teeming with the crush of warm bodies writhing on the dance floor yet Luca has no difficulty locating his pilot in the crowd.

Ryan is in a darkened corner, leaning against the edge of the bar and he’s nursing a drink of amber liquid. His eyes glow with warmth as Luca finds his gaze through the crowd and Luca pushes forward, ducking around the celebrating patrons to fall against his chest, wrapping his arms around the older man’s neck and planting a sloppy kiss to his bearded cheek.

“Hi,” Luca yells over the music, somewhere in the vicinity of Ryan’s ear. It’s some alien beat he knows will get stuck on repeat in his brain later but it’s at least easy to talk over. “I found you.”

Ryan chuckles, his arm heavy around Luca’s waist. “Aye, yer found me. Where have you been, bonny boy?”

Luca preens a little at the endearment and presses himself closer. Shore leave for the crew had technically started the moment they stepped of the ship, but Luca’s had been delayed before meeting Ryan at the club. There was one official Alliance business pick up he’d had to do, just some tools and parts… but there had also been another small, little pickup that was more private but no less important in his eyes.

“Just had to run a few errands for Cap,” Luca says blithely, hoping Ryan doesn’t notice his blush under the pulsing purple and blue lights of the club as he thinks about the small collection of lace and shimmering silks he had sent back to their quarters. His stomach flutters slightly with anticipation. He's almost positive Ryan will approve but while he isn’t entirely sure if there is some kind of pipeline for boys to become wives, he really hopes there is... and that somehow, this will help.

He cups his pilot’s face and presses a kiss to his mouth, chasing the taste of whatever spiced, sweet notes of the latest whiskey Ryan had been drinking.

Ryan kisses him back.

He would have been happy enough to stay in the club. It had been far too long since he’d had a chance to really let loose, but as Ryan’s heavy hands settle on his hips and he feels the hot, heavy throb of Ryan’s aroused state pressed against his side, he realizes there is nothing in the club he wants that he can’t enjoy alone in the rented hotel room he’d found for them.

He whispers in Ryan’s ear. “Wanna get out of here, LT?”

“I’d thought ye’d never ask.”

--

The hotel room is at the closer end of fancy, just shy of being out of Luca’s Alliance credit’s reach but Luca doesn’t tell Ryan that. Ryan has already given him so much and while this seems like a shift in their usual dynamic, Luca nervously hopes Ryan doesn’t mind.

It’s important for Luca to do this. It’s always been Ryan taking him places, showing him things, spoiling him… worshipping him. It’s high time Luca flips the narrative, even if it’s only for the next few hours.

He watches anxiously as Ryan prowls the room, taking in the expansive and colourful city skyline beyond the glass, the wide bed, the plush sheets and dim lighting. It’s a room clearly designed for seduction and a far cry from their small slice of paradise back on the Berlin.

“Is… Is it okay?”

Ryan doesn’t answer straight away, continuing his inspection. Luca almost wrings his hands where he waits by the door but forces himself to dispose of his boots instead. When he looks up, Ryan is watching him, eyes dark with heat.

Luca shivers at that look.

“Yer really finished with the job for the captain then?” Ryan demands gruffly. He’s found the bar and pours himself a glass. There’s almost a sulky note to his tone and Luca has to hide his grin at the pilot’s annoyance. The lingering animosity between the captain and the pilot is mostly faded now, but Luca feels a little guilty for dredging it up to complete his personal mission.

Luca slinks close, one grabby hand reaching for the glass because he’s nervous as fuck and could use a shot of liquid courage himself. As usual, Ryan has only poured one glass. No sense in wasting glassware when they shared spit and cum and everything else happily anyway.

He takes a gulp, hissing as the burn hits his throat and flushing at Ryan’s low, disapproving tsk as he takes the glass back. “Easy, boy. Dun waste it like that.”

“Not wasted,” Luca wheezes. “Needed the boost.”

“And why,” Ryan cocks his head, the lines across his face deepening as he studies Luca, “would ye be needing that?”

Luca swallows, his words failing him as a sudden roar fills the space between his ears. All his nerves fall over themselves, a chorus of voices in his brain suddenly screaming that this is a stupid plan, to abort and run away before Ryan realizes he’s really nothing worth keeping and discards him away.

His throat has almost closed over by the time the pilot hooks a finger through the loop of Luca’s uniform and yanks Luca to him. Luca is startled enough he doesn’t resist, and like bugs scattering in the light, so do his nerves. This is Ryan, for fuck's sake. There’s nothing to be nervous about here.

He lands against Ryan with a breathless giggle, delighting in the older pilots rough hands as they roam over his body and remind him exactly who he is and who he belongs to. They’re both still in their Alliance BDU’s but underneath, Luca is secretly wrapped in silk like a gift.

He can't wait to be unwrapped.

--

The bulge of Ryan’s arousal is unmistakable as the pilot sprawls on the wide couch by the window. His uniform shirt is untucked and the top button of his pants are undone. There’s a wet patch forming and Luca’s mouth starts to water in anticipation.

“Take yer uniform off, boy,” Ryan orders, motioning Luca to stand on the square patch of carpet in front of the couch. Luca obeys, ducking his head to hide his smile. This is it, he thinks and his heartrate goes so thunderous that his hands start to tremble as he begins to undo the buttons and buckles of his clothes.

Ryan settles back, ready to watch the show and beyond him, the dark glow of the alien cityscape throws a wash of silver and amethyst into the room.

After the initial fumble, Luca yanks apart his buttons with his usual urgency, but then turns his back to look coyly over his shoulder as he reminds himself to slow down. His skin is on fire, super sensitive to the foreign sensations of the lace scratching against his chest and lining the crack of his ass. He couldn’t have guessed such tiny scraps of material could alter the way he feels so much.

His nipples peak unbidden despite the warm room but surprisingly, the lace against them feels so soft and sensual. He closes his eyes and slowly peels his shirt from his body and unclips his pants, sliding them down his legs and stepping out of them with a deliberate effort to bend in a way that offers Ryan a perfect view of his ass. He’s left in nothing but a few thin straps of black lace and he holds his breath, ears straining for any hint of Ryan’s reaction, and then he gets one – a sharp inhalation, a low growl, the sound of a zipper that isn’t his own. A low, grunted, “Fook, yer so pretty boy.”

“Is this… okay?” Luca turns slowly, his face hot. He’s somehow aroused and terrified and exhilarated all at once. Too many emotions for his dick to get too hard, but that was a good thing when it came to the thin lace and silk that covered his crotch.

Ryan stares up at him, one inked hand grasping his thick cock jutting out proudly from the confines of his pants, the other clenched tight on the armrest of the couch. He stares at Luca for a long moment, hot eyes travelling the length of him and Luca feels his skin come alight in a whole new way. He’s virtually naked, save for some small strip of nonfunctional lace, and Ryan is still mostly dressed. Even his boots are still on.

There’s something about that that has Luca’s knees weak. He feels exposed, vulnerable, and vividly conscious of the power balance it mimics yet somehow doesn’t. The way Ryan watches him makes him feel brave and he shifts his stance slightly, raising dark brown to meet blue..

“Wanna be a pretty, bonny boy for you, daddy,” Luca murmurs, turning it into a purr when he spies a bead of precum already forming against the purpled tip of Ryan's head. He’s ready to go to his knees, ready to lap up every salty drop of the man he needs so much. “Wanna be so good for you. Wanna give you everything. I love you.”

tbc?

--

Luca Moreno has spent a good portion of his life trying to imagine he’s somewhere else. Wrapped up in his music, focused on his tinkering and his bots, clowning about and being a nuisance when the all too familiar teeth of his insecurities try to bite and snap at him and drag him into the dark. He had been this way for as long as he could remember, right up until a grouchy blue eyed pilot with patterned skin, too many years and whiskey in his blood had caught him up and forced him into the present.

And sex had always been an escape too, just another distraction, but with Blake Ryan, it’s simply… home.

He falls into it now - every warm sensation, every shared breath and soft prayer of devotion that comes with the touch of Ryan’s body against his own. They shift together, greedy and naked against the sheets, all hungry hands and insatiable desire. No two times are quite the same – Ryan gives Luca space to run, caught up in the rush and needs of his flighty emotions, taming him by letting him ride out release after release. Other times, Ryan knows Luca needs more, and he tugs on the leash to rein Luca in, forcing Luca’s chaos into submission and molding the bite of the things that scare him into a kiss instead. Luca will never fully understand what drew Ryan to him. He’ll never understand what it is about him specifically that keeps Ryan coming back, but he knows he needs it now. Like he needs air to breathe.

“That’s it, boy,” Ryan rumbles, low and proud, his lips hovering under Luca’s mouth as Luca sinks down and swallows Ryan up inside himself. A gasp tears itself from Luca’s chest. Ryan is so deep inside him, hot and hard and thick and Luca can hardly keep his eyes open against the assault of pleasure radiating through every single nerve ending of his body. He shudders, chest heaving with each inch he lowers himself down. It feels so fucking good it’s a struggle to open his eyes and look down.

“Ry,” he manages to grind out, splaying one narrow palm against the Celtic designs that cover one side of Ryan’s chest. He’s dimly aware of a soft fuzz under his palms and the burn in his hips. “Fuck. So good. You’re so big-“

“Aye, and ye take me so well,” Ryan croons. His rough hands skim up Luca’s lean, trembling thighs as Luca bucks halfheartedly. He’s not ready to ride yet, his dick still limp after Ryan milked him earlier. It doesn’t take away from his enjoyment, savoring the zing that shoots through him with every gentle rock of Ryan in his ass. He cracks one eye open, looking down to find Ryan’s eyes locked on his face.

Ryan’s hands sweep up his thighs again and settle loosely on his hips. “Yer beautiful like this.”

The way Ryan says it, something almost awestruck in his tone, makes Luca fall forward. He greedily seeks out Ryan’s mouth. The older man’s lips are soft but demanding and Luca yields under the onslaught of his kiss. It’s not just a simple press of his mouth, its teeth and tongue and the invasion Luca craves. Luca kisses him back, not quite surrendering to Ryan’s kiss with total passivity when he latches onto Ryan’s tongue and offers a brief suckle before returning, smiling, to their kiss.

The hands that had been against his hips find their way into his sweat-slicked curls and time slips away with every push of Ryan’s tongue into his mouth. Their kisses become long and slow, unhurried and consuming. Luca matches them with lazy rolls of his hips that Ryan echoes with the occasional thrust. He kisses Ryan’s beard, his neck, nibbles his way along a bare shoulder, listens to the way Ryan’s breathing hitches with each one of his movements. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed this – just him and Ryan alone, soft and lazy. There has been far too much happening and too much between them for Luca to feel totally settled… but this. This is how Luca imagines their life might look like after the war, when Ryan takes him home to Scotland and there’s no more Alliance looking over their shoulders and no reapers and no rips into alternate realities.

It’s the unbidden thought of what’s waiting beyond their sealed paradise that makes Luca subconsciously clutch Ryan harder. His mouth grows hungrier and his thighs clench against Ryan’s hips as he picks up his previously lazy pace. His painted fingernails turn to dull claws, digging into Ryan’s shoulders with a slow building urgency. His dick, dragging sloppily against Ryan’s furry stomach, starts to thicken with the increased fiction.

“Need you to cum in me,” Luca finally mumbles against Ryan’s mouth, half outside his body, half too far sunk into it to form anything coherent. He’s a writhing mass of nerve endings, swollen lips, saliva and unmet need. “Need you to fill me.”

A sharp tug against his scalp almost makes his eyes water but it’s only Ryan drawing their faces closer. Ryan kisses him again, firmer this time. Dominating, unlike his lazier kisses just before.

“Ride me then, boy.”

Luca shivers at the command, steals a kiss that morphs into a slight bite against Ryan's bottom lip before he sits back, revelling the hard length of Ryan’s cock throbbing inside him. He ignores his own dick completely and runs damp fingertips over Ryan’s nipples, pleased when a low hiss escapes between the older man's teeth.

“Yes, daddy,” he murmurs with false submission, fluttering eyelashes briefly, enjoying Ryan's low, disbelieving sort. His ruse isn't working but it doesn't matter when he lets out a moan and tosses his curls.

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14], [Part 15], [Part 16], [Part 17], [Part 18 (sidebar)]

--

“I dinnae want ye near him,” Ryan mutters, shoving Luca ahead of him into their quarters. Ryan’s movements are jerky and sharp, brimming with a frustration Luca fully intends to work out of him later.

Luca throws a thoughtful glance over his shoulder. “You’re not even a little bit curious?”

“Nae,” Ryan growls, his displeasure making his brogue thick and his voice deep. “And ye shouldn’t be neither.”

The door slides closed and locks behind them and Ryan turns away to kick off his boots and Luca does the same. He’s tired. Another fucked up day in this new fucked up version of events he really didn’t think could get any weirder but somehow has.

Although now he has a better understanding of what Luc has been going through. His thoughts drift again to a startlingly familiar face – familiar, but not quite right – staring back at him and suddenly, in that moment, Luca understands down to his bones what it must have been like for Luc to meet Ryan.

From what Luc had shared, Blake didn’t sound much like Ryan, and in the few holos Luc had shown him, he looks different too. But Luca gets it now. Watching the way Rion moves, the echo of familiarity but something sitting not quite where it's comfortable in the sphere of Luca's awareness. He can see the building blocks of the man he loves, the same twist to their mouths, the same vivid blue of their eyes and the shade of red streaked with silver in their beards – but Rion holds himself differently. His eyes are harder, his fists more clenched and he hunches his shoulders like he’s permanently braced for a fight.

“Stay away from him,” Ryan says again, and it’s only then Luca realizes he’s become lost in thought and Ryan had tracked exactly where those thoughts had taken him. That he’s unhappy about it is clear by the way he takes Luca’s arm in a grip that’s just shy of painful. There’s an edge to his hold that reminds Luca nothing of their romps between the sheets. This hold skirts something like unease.

But Luca can’t help himself, even if he wants to. Curiosity burns in him like a wildfire that can’t be stamped out. “But why?”

Ryan’s eyes are almost like ice, but they’re distant too. Luca knows it’s not for him. “I just dinnae want you near him.”

Luca is almost tempted to poke at Ryan, see if he can rile his boyfriend up enough that he’ll throw Luca against the wall and fuck him hard how he likes, but he doesn’t need to piss Ryan off to do that. He hesitates only briefly before sliding close and wrapping his arms around the stockier man. “What are you so worried about?”

Ryan’s answer is only a grunt but he pushes out of Luca’s embrace to strip down and stalk across their small space to park himself on their wide bunk. Behind him, a nebula in shades of deep purple and gold shimmers in the far distance, framed in the Berlin’s circular viewport. Pilot’s privilege, Ryan had whispered to him once, back at their start when Luca had been on his hands and knees in front of it, his body filled with Ryan as he moved and his vision filled with the view of stars.

That, or possibly Ryan had won it from the captain in one of their infamous poker nights. Both Ry and the Captain have been tight lipped on that.

Luca takes a moment to admire the way Ryan’s solid thighs with their artistic ink look against the cool sheets. Barry peaks out at him and Luca wants to smile with warmth at the memories that little cartoon fish brings. His gaze roams over more ink and soft muscle before he catches the guarded downturn of Ryan’s mouth.

Luca follows him over, shucking off his uniform pants and tugging his white Alliance issue tee over his head until he’s naked too. It musses his curls and he absently runs a hand through his hair, tugging ineffectually at them before he sinks to the floor at Ryan’s feet.

He sighs and leans his cheek against Barry. “Is this because of me, or… because of him?”

Ryan’s hand had been reaching for Luca’s head but it pauses in midair. Ryan seems caught off guard by the question. “What? What’r ye talkin’ about, boy?”

Luca pauses only long enough to kiss the fuzzy skin of Ryan’s thigh before sitting up and shuffling his way in between Ryan's knees. Luca gazes up at Ryan, his chest tight with a sudden influx of emotion.

“Remember how worked up I was when Luc showed up?” Luca asked him nervously. He’s a little embarrassed by the memory. “I kinda know how it feels, remember?”

Ryan shakes his head. “No, lad. There’s…” Ryan’s exhale cuts off the rest of the words. There’s a troubled look in his expression that Luca has never seen before, not even when Cap was threatening to airlock him when he’d learned of their relationship in the beginning. Luca has always loved the irreverence Ryan bore in his bones. He didn't care... until he did.

But this only serves to make Luca uneasy. “Ry? Talk to me. Please, tell me what’s going on.”

Ryan’s eyes drift shut for a brief moment, like he’s trying to compose himself. He cups Luca’s face in his hands and leans down, forcing Luca to strain on his knees as they become eye to eye. “I love ye, boy. I love ye more that I’ve ever loved anythin’ or anyone, more than I ever imagined I could.”

Luca’s eyes prick and his nose stings. A sense of overall rightness unfurls in his chest, almost overwhelming him with the knowledge this is where he has been born to be.

Ryan loves him, and he loves Ryan. They belong together.

“I love you, too.”

Ryan pulls him up a fraction higher, and for a moment Luca thinks Ryan is going to kiss him but instead his mouth hovers and their foreheads press together. “And I would do anythin’ to have ye, and keep ye, and remind ye that yer mine, boy. Mine. I own ye-“

The husky, low pitch of Ryan’s tone is like an electric shot right through Luca’s blood. His dick, already half awake as it usually is in Ryan’s presence, suddenly grows so hard Luca feels lightheaded. He’ll never get sick of hearing Ryan’s growled declarations of ownership. Of hearing how badly Ryan wanted him. Needed him. Him – Luca - who no one ever really wanted.

“Yes,” Luca breathes, smiling dreamily, although if it is an agreement or a request for more, he can’t say. He's transfixed, his back starting to strain, his knees aching from the cold floor, his neck arched, his head caught in Ryan’s grip and his air flavoured with whiskey and smoke. “Yes, LT, only yours.”

Ryan’s crooked nose brushes his cheek. “Ye know what I would do to have ye, don’t ye, boy? Who and what I’d go through t’make you mine?”

Luca wants to nod but he can’t. “Yes.”

Ryan’s lips continue to ghost over his mouth. “And that’s why I dinnae want you near him.”

Ryan releases him then, allowing Luca to sink back and blink into his realization. It’s slow going, pushing through the arousal he is feeling, the evidence of Ryan’s own arousal right there in front of him. He almost had to shake his head to focus his thoughts.

“Wait. You think… You think Rion will want me?" Luca squeaks. "But he’s already got me… The other me-“

Ryan looks away in disgust. “Ye didna see the way he was lookin’ at ye. Both of ye.”

“That was him?” Luca wrinkles his nose, a brief memory of heat on the back of his neck as he inspected Rion’s odd craft in the shuttle bay. “I thought it was you-”

Ryan swears, something low and harsh and unintelligible to Luca’s ears and Luca panics. “No! That’s not- That’s not what I meant! Ry!”

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14], [Part 15], [Part 16], [Part 17]

--

Mason sits still under Kate’s ministrations as she checks him over after pinning Rion and Luce down in the cargo bay. They’ve been here a thousand times before and just like all those other times, there’s a limit to what she can do.

It frustrates both of them.

“There has to be a better way,” Kate says, tense with frustration. Her cool fingers linger on the synthetic skin weave that covers his left forearm. It’s high quality, almost indistinguishable from human skin and it scars like human skin too.  

And it was purely a Cerberus construct.

“Ajax says his girl found something,” Mason tells her, lifting his hand to his temple and rubbing. “Some distress beacon with a Cerberus signature. Not even just Cerberus but… Phoenix.”

Kate’s head snaps up sharply. “One of the research labs?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing. It’s wasn’t one of our tactical bases, it wasn’t a station either. Not from what we can see. This one is clandestine. Black ops.”

“… Which is exactly what you phoenix boys are.”

Mason meets her hazel eyes knowingly. “Exactly. It's a marvel Ellis managed to catch it in all the corrupted data it was woven into.”

"You said it was a distress beacon. Shouldn't it be easy to locate?"

"No. Not a beacon for just anyone. This one is a beacon, but only for us. Like recognising like, if you catch my drift."

“Oh.“ Kate frowns. “But Aren’t there standing orders to-“

“An orbital strikes to wipe any Cerberus remnants from existence? Yeah, that’s what the Alliance brass want but by that reasoning, I wouldn't still be here."

"They need you."

"They need canon fodder, and we're tougher than most. Let's not sugar coat it, Doc."

"You didn't have to defect," Kate reminds him gently.

Mason snorts. "It was either that, or spend the rest of my miserable short life on the run - from the Alliance and Reapers. Anyway, this beacon... it could be nothing, or-“ Mason looks down at his arm. “It could be everything.”

Kate pauses for a moment, chewing her lip thoughtfully.

“What does the captain say?”

Mason thinks about him. About his captain, and his chest tightens with a feeling too big to contain in the shallow space behind his ribs. It’s all-encompassing. Every breath he takes has Isaac’s name written across the inside of his lungs. Mason doesn’t know how he could live without those dark eyes and knowing hands entwined with his anymore and what they've built is new and fragile, and this beacon has the potential to break their fledgling bond wide open.

“He doesn't know. I… I haven’t told him yet,” Mason finally exhales. He pulls himself up off the biobed, stalking the small medbay. “Ellis went straight to Ajax with her data but she’s a good comm officer. I don’t doubt what she’s found.”

Kate seems as surprised as Mason had been by that. It’s clear where the Ensign’s loyalties now lie but Mason isn’t sure the Captain’s followed suit. Given the choice between the Alliance brass and their standing orders to destroy whatever was left and his ex-Cerberus lover, Mason guesses he might have a good idea of the outcome.

The Alliance had possessed Isaac’s heart for a lifetime… Mason only held it for weeks.

He stopped his pacing long enough to look over at the doctor. “If it is a phoenix lab… and if there is someone still alive down there…”

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14], [Part 15], [Part 16]

--

X

It’s easy enough to corner the intruders in the cargo bay.

Mason had to give them credit – the moment they realized their small craft was on the move, they had abandoned their infiltration attempt and headed back towards their ship - even if it was now ensconced firmly in the Berlin's belly.

And Mason had been waiting for them.

He flicks his wrist, spooling his biotics and savouring as always the faint little thrill that rolls through his augmented body as he unleashes the blue energy barely a foot away from the curly haired boy. The orb forms and sucks the kid off his feet and he yelps, messy curls flying and limbs flailing as he becomes airborne.

He laughs in surprised delight. “I’m flying!”

The response is so reminiscent of the Luca that Mason knows that for a moment, it feels like he’s glitching. The grizzled older man in the tattered coat and unkempt greying hair at the boy’s side, lifts the muzzle of his weapon high and his face morphs into a dangerous scowl. His voice when he speaks sounds like gravel and his focus is solely on Mason.

Mason can feel the hatred and fury roiling from him in waves.

“Let my boy go, or so help me I’ll destroy ye right now.”

Mason keeps his eye on the boy, watching to make sure the boy doesn’t venture too close to the orb. Ordinarily, Mason wouldn’t care if a target burned, but he only had orders to incapacitate, not kill.

Besides. This was Luca. Or some version of him.

“Put the weapon down,” he orders an increasingly irate Rion. The man looks ready to kill and Mason’s senses flare into overdrive when Rion’s fingers tighten on the trigger and he shouts, “Put it down!”

Rion snarls again. “I dinnae ken who yer think yer are but I willnae say it again. Let my boy go-”

Twisting in midair, the boy looks anxious. His eyes flit between them. “Wait. Ri. It doesn’t hurt-“

“I dinnae care-“

“He’s right,” Mason interjects sharply. He can feel the edges of his control starting to fray and it frustrates him. Years ago in his Cerberus prime, this would have been as effortless as reaching for a glass of water, but even with Kate’s best efforts, he wasn’t functioning like he once could. “It won’t hurt him… as long as I’m controlling it. Shoot me, and he’s on his own."

Mason throws Rion a challenging look but instead of backing off, Rion only steps closer, lifting the barrel of his weapon into a better position. His colourful inked fingers curl tighter around the weapon in his hands. “Yer dense, Eejit? I said, let him the fook go-“

Rion doesn’t give Mason a chance to respond, firing a shot directly at Mason’s head. Mason quickly catches it in a biotic field, a sharp pain flaring at his temple at the effort and speed it requires. He snarls.

“Alright, now you’ve just pissed me off.”

“What in the fresh hell is this-“ Rion mutters just as the Captain emerges from the turbolift behind them.

“Our uninvited guests, I presume.”

“Yes, sir,” Mason responds, still holding the boy and bullet in midair. He glances sideways at the captain who nods once, just a tiny jerk of his head and Mason sucks the mass effect field back to him. The kid and the bullet drop to the ground. The chink of the bullet hitting the metal deck seems loud in the cavernous space and Mason makes a mental note to give Ryan a wider berth in future.

Without warning, Rion jerks forward, grasping the boy hauling him up to his feet with one hand, his other still gripping his weapon, his face a mask of wary ferocity. This version of Blake Ryan might be the most volatile and hard-headed of the lot and that was saying something, Mason thought.

Rion drags his eyes away from Mason to look down at the kid pressed up against him. “Luce. Ye alright, boy?”

“Yeah,” Luce presses himself closer into Rion's side. Now that Mason has a chance to look at him, he’s once again struck by the similarities. The boy wears fingerless gloves, a long black coat, and sports a familiar riot of dark curls. But his eyes... In each face there are subtle differences, yet their eyes are always the same. “My butt is kinda sore from the landing though.”

Rion drops his guard further, his attention only on the boy and he says something low Mason has overheard between Ryan and Luca many times before. He can’t help but glance at the captain beside him, knowing that the sight makes Isaac’s stomach churn at the best of times.

“Captain?” Mason queries, low and quiet.

The tightening of Isaac’s jaw seems to be the only answer he’s going to get for the moment.

“Now,” Rion says eventually, straightening up and waving his gun again at Mason and Isaac once he’s assured Luce is alright. “Someone better tell me what the fook is going on here.”

There's a heartbeat of silence before Luc pushes forward from behind Isaac. The look of surprise on Rion’s face is almost comical.

“It’s a long story, so get comfortable,” Luc tells him. “And maybe you can stop pointing the gun in our direction too, huh?”

Then Luca shuffles out on Luc’s other side and Rion’s jaw pops open in shock.

“What the fook.”

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14], [Part 15]

--

Luc watches as the captain gives Luca a command that has his younger counterpart sliding into the terminal not far from the helm. Ryan continues to growl and cuss as he tries to wrestle with the ship’s controls.

“What are you doing?” he demands urgently, leaning over Luca’s shoulder. Luca’s face is lined with concentration.

“Deploying Hex,” Luca tells him, distracted as he taps out a series of commands. The word means absolutely nothing to Luc.

“What? What’s Hex?”

Luca frowns but doesn’t pause to spare him a glance. “We’ve been attacked like this before. A long time ago. I promised Ry it wouldn’t happen again. And I… I promised Cap,” Luca finishes in gritted frustration and beside them, Ryan’s head turns sharply.

Luc catches the tightly controlled fury radiating under the pilot’s skin. There’s a deep red glow across his console and Luc realizes with a sinking dread that the bridge is starting to be locked out of the systems – the first being flight control.

For a pilot, there was not greater frustration. There was little Ryan could do but continue to sit there and spit curses but his entire focus in that moment was on Luca. “It’s not yer fault, boy.”

“I know,” Luca mutters tightly but he throws Ryan a grateful look anyway before turning back to his work. He slaps a few more buttons, swears, slaps more then after a beat holding his breath, he finally yells out in triumph. “There! Woo! Cyberwarfare protocols engaged, courtesy of my little VI Hex. We’ll have control back shortly, Cap-”

The lights flicker and Luca frowns briefly, chewing his lip. “Wait. She’s fighting it. Come on, Berlie…”

Ryan releases a sudden crow as his controls blink then return to their usual orange and blue hues. He leans over in his chair towards Luca seated at the console beside him. “Have I told ye how proud I am of ye, sweetheart? You’re a star, boy.”

Predictably, Luca’s face flushes with pride and he grins. “You can tell me again.”

Ryan chuckles and a familiar, dark look passes between them. “Aye, and I will. Later.”

The tension on the bridge lifts palpably with the return of full control throughout the ship. Luc, still unsure what exactly happened, manages to gather up enough of his wits to realize Hex was a chain code of command injected into the ship’s computer systems – clearly prepped and ready in the event of an attack - narrows his gaze speculatively at Luca.

“Did you write that code?”

Luca gives him a preoccupied glance. “Well. Yeah.”

“I can’t code,” Luc says, almost conversationally. He’s once again trying to hold up pieces of Luca to the light to match them to his own and feeling oddly uneasy when they don’t line up. “I never thought I had the aptitude for it.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Luca spins in the chair, looking up at Luc from under his too long, messy curls. He seems surprised. “Code, I mean? Most of us here can code as soon as we can walk. Well, at least, that’s what it was like on the Citadel.”

“I grew up on a farm,” Luc reminds his younger self ruefully. “There wasn’t a lot of time for coding. My parents had me mucking out stables and fixing fences in my down time.” Luc deepens his voice in imitation of the one in his memory, reciting words he’d heard repeated more times than he could count. “’Son, hard work like mucking stables builds character. Embrace it, for it shapes who you are’ my dads- particularly Isaac, would always say.”

Luca snickers and glances over at the captain and there’s affection in his gaze despite his snort.

“Yeah, that sounds like something he would say.” Luca pauses, growing serious. Remembering something, or imagining a childhood under wide blue skies, Luc couldn’t tell. “Manipulating VI’s and code on the Citadel was the only way a lot of us didn’t die.”

“Flight Lieutenant,” the captain barks, drawing them both back to the matter at hand. There was no telling how many intruders were onboard – none of the phoenix teams had radioed in yet. “Do we have control?”

“Aye, cap. Berlin is back in my hands where she belongs. Thanks to our boy, here.”

Luc doesn’t miss the tightening of the Captain’s jaw at Ryan’s reference to ‘our boy’ and almost has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from responding. Ryan didn’t share the deference Blake had, instead maintaining a kind of belligerent tolerance for the captain that clearly goes both ways with Luca the only bridge between them. It’s an odd dynamic to Luc.

The captain’s expression gives little away but there’s a glint in his eye that signals to Luc that the man has a plan. Luc straightens up. “What are you thinking, Captain?”

Isaac pauses for a moment and it’s only then that Luc notices the doctor is nowhere to be seen.

“If they want to be on our ship so badly,” Isaac says, hands curling over the CIC’s railing. “Then let’s give it to them. Cargo bay 2 should fit that monstrosity outside nicely. And whatever they’re trying to achieve, they’ll be less likely to try it if means taking out their only means of escape too.”

Isaac waits for a beat, and Luc can see him running over his plan one more time in his mind before he fixes his stare on Ryan.

[Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5], [Part 6a], [Part 6b], [Part 7], [Part 8], [Part 9], [Part 10], [Part 11], [Part 12], [Part 13], [Part 14]

--

Not Blake Ryan, but Rion and that is all Isaac can get before the connection flickers out abruptly.

He rounds on his communication team and snaps out an order. “Ellis, Malone, hail him again. I want him back on the com-“

“I’m trying, Captain,” Soraya says, hands flying over her holographic interface. “But he’s not responding.”

Isaac’s jaw clenches. “Keep trying. I need to know more about what’s going on here.”

It’s a disturbing revelation. Having Luc spat out of the jagged tear in space was one thing – an alternate reality was a stretch, but he could somehow believe it with Luc standing in front of him. But to be faced with this – it felt like something else entirely and he didn’t like the implication there were more. More worlds, more of them, more lives he’s lived that he’s not privy to and couldn’t hope to know.

He turns to Luc, out of place in this one but with enough of a footing now that they can all make themselves believe he belongs. He’s staring intently at the rotating schematics the Berlin has built from its scan of the other ship, his brow furrowed and he’s thinking hard.

Isaac can’t wait for whatever revelation will come to him. “What is it?”

“The ship is empty,” Luc murmurs just as Luca’s voice crackles over the com in a misshapen echo.

“Security breach, Captain. Someone is in Berlin’s systems!”

No sooner have the words found voice, every single console on the Berlin shimmers and flickers and fizzes out. A second later, the Berlin goes dark.

It’s a heartbeat of silence and a sickening lurch as the artificial gravity fails. The ground under his feet disappears and all he can hear is a handful of terrified gasps from the bridge under the emergency klaxons and a few distant screams. Then the abrupt, sickening slam of his stomach as the gravity reengages with a vicious yank that has the air rushing from his lungs and his boots slam back onto the deck.

“Report!” he bellows as the ship flickers back to life. The incessant blaring alarms tell them what they all already know and it’s a fading echo of the geth penetration that should never have happened in the first place.

A multitude of voices call back to him, teetering on the edge of panic but his crew are well trained and Isaac trusts them to keep calm.

The calls overlap each other.

“Multiple systems off line.”

“Hull breech on deck 10-“

“My console is locked out!”

“Mine too!”

"Captain, reports of gunfire on deck 6!"

There’s an unmistakable cursed snarl from the pilot’s seat but Isaac ignores it to spin on his heel. His mind is already scrolling through the possibilities and each one he likes less than the last.

With clenched hands, his eyes find the trio of phoenix, standing stock still among the chaos of the bridge. If the momentary lapse of gravity had caught them, they didn’t let it show, and as usual, Mason is right there at the forefront, his face tense and arms folded across his chest. There’s a tang in the air that Isaac puts down to the dark haired phoenix spooling up his biotics in anticipation of a fight.

It shouldn’t make his dick twitch like it does at a time like this.

“Huntsman,” he orders but he only voices the command for the benefit of everyone else in the room. Mason anticipates him, as he always does.

His eyes, that odd pale greenish grey that Isaac has spent too long lost in, glitter as he lifts his chin. The movement is fluid despite the stillness of his form, no longer the captain’s soft lover but a phoenix. A walking weapon more than a man.

“Neutralize or destroy?”

Isaac thinks about the face on the screen and for a brief, shining instant, he’s almost tempted but he's more than aware of the sharp look Luc turns on him, the hint of desperation in Luc’s face. Isaac wants to warn the kid that this isn’t going to be a version of his husband he’s going to like, but Isaac doesn’t know how to articulate that.

He sets his jaw, ignoring the bitterness. “Neutralize.”

Mason gives him a sharp nod then he’s striding out of the CIC with the rest of the phoenix, save Ajax, left falling in behind him with precise movements.

Ajax notices the captain’s attention and his gaze skitters sideways to the back of Soraya’s head. “Not leaving.”

Isaac has seen that look too many times to know he won’t win that fight. “If the bridge is breached-“

“Then I’ll be your first line of defence.”

Isaac nods once, ignoring the crack of bone and the savage grin from the phoenix behind him and already turning back to the readouts spewing across the screens. He looks from them, to crackling screens of the bridge and frowns.

“Where are our intruders? How many are there?”

“Unknown, captain," the nearest crewman responds. "Our sensors can’t see them. But there are multiple breaches along the hull-“

Isaac swallows down another curse. What had been a blessing when Luc had taken out the reaper was a curse for them now. “So we’re effectively blind,” he mutters, mind whirring through the possibilities before he straightens. Fuck, he's tired of this shit.

“Ellis. Open a ship wide channel.” “Sir,” Soraya says quietly. Isaac’s ears ping with the low urgency in her voice. “You should see this.”

"What is it?"

He stands behind her chair as she enhances an image on her screen and pulls it up close. There’s a glimpse of a shadow in the background and an unmistakable head of curls that leaves Isaac cold.

Luca. He has no doubt. Or some version of him.

At once he’s glad he didn’t give the order to destroy. But he’s madder than a cut snake at the attack on his ship. He knows what Luca is capable of and he knows they might be in real trouble here.

“There’s something else,” Soraya continues, her voice solemn and low. Isaac leans closer, trusting the girl's instincts. Whatever she's discovered, she's smart about sparking a panic.

"Tell me."

“The transmission. It didn’t come from their ship.”

The hairs on the back of Isaac’s neck stand on end. “Ship wide channel, Lieutenant,” Isaac orders again.

“Aye, Captain.”

He straightens, lifting his chin as he ensures he speaks loud enough for the entire ship to hear him. “All hands," he begins. "This is your captain. A short time ago, the Berlin was attacked by an unknown force. We have reason to believe there are intruders onboard but our ship’s sensors can’t see them. We have no way to know how many, or where they may be. All crew are instructed to remain in place and barricade yourselves against intruders. Phoenix Knight and his team are sweeping the ship – stay out of their way. Cerrillo, out.”

The crew jump to follow his instructions but Isaac carries himself to where Luc stands, staring out into the void, his jaw ticking.  Luc, with dark eyes so similar to Isaac’s own, the line of his brow eerily reminiscent of a father long dead, straightens from his half-staggered slump. The young man had crumbled when older Ryan’s voice crackled out of the com, and he meets Isaac's gaze with unease now.

“What makes you think they’re onboard,” Isaac asks him, voice low. “How do we know this isn’t some kind of ploy to distract us from something else?”

Luc stares back at him. “Because it’s what I would do.”

“He’s right, Captain,” Kate says, her voice quiet but loud enough to catch his attention. Isaac rounds, surprised and more than a little pissed to see the doctor out of the medbay.

“Doctor Lyons. What are you doing here? You were told to stay in place.”

“I was already on my way here,” she flushes, ducking her head. Her cyborg hand flexes at her side. “I arrived outside just before your announcement.”

“You should be in the medbay. We may have injured. I’ll have Ajax escort you for safety-“

“Captain, wait. You have a unique advantage here.” Kate gestures around the bridge, encompassing the situation. His crew are still frantically trying to regain access to their systems, including Luca who had slid into the empty seat on the helm’s starboard side and works furiously at the console.

Isaac narrows his eyes at Kate, impatient. “Explain.”

“If this man, this intruder - is another version of Blake Ryan,” and Isaac can still see the lingering discomfort Kate held, “then you know him. You’ve read his psych evals. You know how he ticks-“

“That is not a Blake Ryan I know-“ Isaac cuts in with more harshness than he intended. His feelings about his old friend were more conflicted than ever. It was a tough pill to swallow that Luca had taken up with a man almost twice his age, almost tougher still to realize there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it in any reality either.

“I know, I see it too,” Kate concedes softly but she pushes her case, urgent. “But at his core…. You know him. Ryan has only ever cared about two things in this world. Only two. One of them is Luca. The other is-“

Isaac felt the pieces shift. Saw in his mind’s eye what Kate was trying to tell him. “Flying. His ship.”

Photo album over the years? Idk they just seem like that hot young married trendy gay couple with the world at their feet type vibe together