Work Text:
Vriska dodged as soon as she shut the door of the helmsblock behind her. The glass hit the wall next to her head and shattered into half a dozen glittering pieces. She sucked in a sharp, annoyed breath and took a sideways step away from the debris before continuing deeper into the block. She would deal with it later, or better yet, get a low-ranked crew member to do it for her. A legendary captain of her caliber had way too many important irons in the fire to spend her time sweeping broken glass off the floor. She could, however, always spare the time to give the culprit a piece of her mind.
“What has your panties in a twist this time, Megido? What’s your fucking deaaaaaaaal? It’s getting seriously annoying having to micromanage your moods like this in between all the actually important things I have going on. You’re going to have to learn how to, oh, what do those whiny auspistice for pay types say? Self regulate? Yeah, you’re gonna have to get real good at that real fast, got it?” She snapped her gum between her fangs for emphasis, blowing a bubble and deciding that it was beginning to taste stale. All the delicious fruit flavor had faded. Vriska spat it into the trash.
“Whyever should I learn to be obedient and easy to deal with for your sake, Serket? To make you feel less inconvenienced about your decision to profit off my body?” Aradia’s voice was the same deadpan monotone as ever, exactly how she’d sounded every night since their ship set off from the helmsprocessing facility for the first time, when she was newly installed by the best techs Vriska was at liberty to order around.
Vriska gritted her newly unoccupied teeth and snarled right in Aradia’s face. Her helmsman didn’t even blink.
“Sure, whine, whine, whine, like you have the worst lot in life there is. You know perfectly well that you could’ve ended up with faaaaaaaar worse than me, honey. With another captain, you could be dead and tossed out the airlock by now, or at least so out of your mind that you might as well be. I give you mental stimulation, I keep you clean and in clothes that don’t look totally loserish. Why the hell are you so distant? What more do you want?”
The answer was obvious: Megido didn’t want to be helmed at all. She wanted to be free to prance around the galaxy doing whatever she pleased, conducting archaeological studies or whatever it was she’d always been so fond of. The way she could have if she’d been hatched with colder blood, but she hadn’t, and there was nothing Vriska could do about that. Evidently reading in her expression that she was anticipating such an outburst, Aradia just shrugged as best she could, wires moving with the motion like a zillion grisly worms.
“I don’t want anything. I don’t care about anything,” she informed her flatly. If not for her mouth moving, her whole face would look flat, dead. Almost. Vriska saw a spark in those eyes that damn near made her growl again.
“Bullshit. I’m sick of this. You’re supposed to be my ally in this place! I own you, Megido, and that means you live to please me. Maybe you should have a chat with your buddy Captor once in a while, let him teach you a lesson or two about how you oughta treat your captain. I hear he’s the perfect little lap pet for Eridan now, isn’t that cute?” Vriska didn’t think it was cute. She thought it was sickening that those two had taken a perfectly good kismesissitude and ruined it by mixing in other quadrants, but she knew it would wind Aradia up for her to say so.
She was right. Her reward was a tiny little grimace, one lip curling just enough to give her a peek of silly, blunt teeth, not threatening at all. To show how impotent the attempt was, Vriska made a point of laughing loudly and heartily. A real belly laugh, complete with tipping her head back and exposing the full length of her throat to Aradia’s eyes. Not like she could lay a single finger on her when she was trussed up on the helmscolumn.
“There’s a difference and you know it, Vriska. Sollux and Eridan are quadrantmates. They discussed it together and decided that Eridan buying him as his helmsman was the best way for them to stay together without inviting excessive scrutiny from the empire. That’s not at all the same thing as you deciding on your own to stake a claim on me.”
“Would you rather have ended up with a stranger? Someone with no vested interest in keeping you alive?”
Aradia remained silent at that. Vriska liked to think she could see her lower lip jutting out just barely more than usual in a hint of an unconscious pout. She liked to think she could elicit that sort of reaction from her helmsman without trying too hard. It livened up her imagination when she was in stupid, bureaucratic meetings.
“Aww, are you cranky now that you can’t think of any decent arguments? Need your wonderfully generous, sexy, and intelligent captain to make it better? I know you do,” she cooed, reaching out a hand. The real one, so she could feel the softness of Aradia’s hair when she wound her fingers in it and pulled. Not too hard—she didn’t want to risk actually injuring her neck—but the strain on her ports must have hurt.
Aradia made a quiet, pained noise. A muscle in her jaw twitched. “No.”
“Oh, but I think you do. Maybe some maintenance will do the trick? Been a while since you’ve been washed up properly and gotten your wires pruned, hasn’t it? Those stupid, emotional boys do it all the time. Captain Serket will take care of you,” Vriska crooned. She took her time with the necessary preparations—pulling up a chair, grabbing gloves and pruning shears and soap, filling a basin of warm water for her sponge bath. It prolonged the mortifying anticipation, but it also allowed her a chance to protest.
Aradia watched the whole time in silence, right up until Vriska was loosening her restraints and moving to start undressing her.
“I hate you.”
“Oh, baby, I know you do.”