Work Text:
“Why didn’t you trust me?” Ryder’s words rang out angrily in the empty cavern.
Reyes sighed, his face looking more drawn and tired than usual, the hollows of his eyes deep in shadow. “I liked the way you looked at me. I didn’t want that to change.”
“I don’t give a fuck that you’re the Charlatan,” she snarled. “Hell, if I’d looked a bit harder I probably could have put the pieces together myself. We BOTH agreed Sloane was a disaster—and I could have helped you take her down, the right way.”
Reyes threw back his head and laughed. The sound was harsh, and alien to Ryder coming from him. When he spoke, each word was a dagger. “The RIGHT way? Please enlighten me, Pathfinder, with your extensive expertise. What is the RIGHT way to deal with a feared and beloved tyrant?”
Ryder fumbled for an answer. She knew, with resources tight as they were, that long-term imprisonment was out of the question. “We could have... brought her back to the Nexus. Tried her for her crimes.”
He snorted. “And what would the Nexus do, exile her again? Besides, do you really think Kadara would have taken Sloane’s extradition lying down?”
Ryder was silent for what felt like an eternity. She focused on the faint dripping echoing through the dark. The asymmetrical stalactites and stalagmites ringing the chamber. Anything but the man she thought she knew, her refuge in a cold and heartless galaxy. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to picture his face glowing in the sunset, his soft hazel eyes piercing her skin, the taste of single-malt scotch mingling on their lips and tongues.
“Why the fuck would you bring me here just to watch her die?” she whispered.
“With that fancy AI of yours?” he retorted, his eyes cold. “I’m sure you could have stopped my sniper if you wanted. You’re just as guilty as I am.”
“We’re done here.” She spun on her heel, stalking back toward her team and the entrance, though not before hissing, “Maybe Zia was right about you after all.”
She rode back to the Tempest in heavy silence, having rebuffed Vetra’s gentle questioning. Drack, sitting in the back polishing his shotgun, studiously ignored her.
Reyes had a point: why hadn’t she pulled Sloane out of the bullet’s path? The encounter was already fuzzy in her mind, the sequence of events garbled. All she remembered for sure was hesitating, with what felt like a swarm of angry bees inside her brain. Would Kadara be better off without public executions and protection fees? Undoubtedly. But what would the Charlatan bring instead?
The longer Ryder thought, the more she realized that every one of their encounters had been to Reyes’—no, to the Charlatan’s—advantage. He had played her expertly from the moment they met, using her work to weaken Sloane’s hold on the port and consolidate his own position. She couldn’t begin to forgive herself for letting her guard down like that. And even less for the fact that she still wanted him, desperately.
She dreamed that night of Reyes in the cave. She knew she was angry with him, although she couldn’t remember why. But when he stepped close, when she felt the warmth of his breath on her skin, she pulled him in tight, wrapping her legs around his waist. She grasped his hair, tilting his head back and hungrily kissing his neck. “You have terrible taste in men,” he teased, and she stopped briefly to look into his eyes, now sparkling mischievously. “The worst,” she breathed, pulling him into a passionate kiss.