Ren’s body went rigid for the briefest second when Ryo’s weight settled against his shoulder, more from surprise than discomfort. Then recognition followed. He knew this particular performance. The loose limbs, the softened voice, the way Ryo made himself look as though the only thing occupying his attention was the man beside him. Anyone watching from across Afterlife would see someone who had already had too much to drink and had decided he was considerably more comfortable than the booth. He allowed the tension to leave his shoulders, shifting just enough to make room for him. One arm came up along the back of the seat, his fingers brushing casually through the other man’s hair before settling at the side of his neck. “Mm. Very convincing,” he murmured, dry amusement beneath the words. “Though you were always better at pretending to be drunk than actually drinking.” His gaze remained on the room over the man’s head, but his thumb moved once against the skin beneath his ear. Affectionate, absent-minded, exactly the sort of touch nobody would question between lovers.
When Ryo rearranged himself completely and dropped his head into Ren’s lap, he looked down at him with the first genuine crack in his composure. One brow lifted as those fingers found the underside of his chin. “Subtle,” he said under his breath, though the hand that came up to catch his wrist did not remove it. Instead, he turned his head fractionally into the touch before releasing him, his own palm sliding along Ryo’s cheek. It was easy to fall back into the rhythm they had once established. Ren remembered the colony immediately. The cramped rented room, the neighbors they had needed to convince, the other man draped over him everywhere they went as though physical distance between them was intolerable. Cerberus had encouraged whatever sold the cover. Operatives slept together often enough; nobody cared as long as attachments did not compromise the mission. Ren told himself that night had been no different. Yet he remembered the hours of casual touches beforehand, the tension building underneath every kiss meant for someone else’s benefit, and the way Ryo had slotted against him once the door finally shut and neither of them needed an audience anymore. One of the best nights Ren could remember, if he allowed himself to think about it for too long. “I remember,” he said, his thumb tracing lazily across Ryo’s cheekbone. A faint smile touched his mouth. “You were extremely committed to maintaining our cover.”
The smile remained when Ryo mentioned Cerberus knowing he was here. It had to. Ren’s fingers continued their slow path along his face, fingertips disappearing briefly into his hair, his posture no different from that of someone indulging an affectionate drunk. Only his eyes changed. Something sharpened there before he deliberately lowered them to the other again. He had heard the stories about Shepard and the Illusive Man – heard that Cerberus had finally been dealt the blow everyone had been waiting for. He had never been certain what to believe. The Illusive Man had spent too long building contingencies beneath contingencies, making himself more idea than individual. Could a man like that really be killed simply because someone finally reached him? Perhaps. Ren hoped so. But Cerberus had never depended entirely upon one man, no matter what its propaganda suggested. Ryo’s little metaphor made that uncomfortably clear. “Three heads,” Ren murmured, his thumb brushing beneath Ryo’s eye. “I never convinced myself the other two would lie down and die with him.”
He let his hand curl beneath Ryo’s jaw, tilting his face upward, obscuring his lips from onlookers. The movement was slow enough to appear indulgent, and Ren allowed his gaze to flick briefly across the room before lowering again. The human near the rail was still there. The salarian had finished his drink. Perhaps neither meant anything. Ren was not interested in giving either of them a reason to wonder why two men supposedly wrapped up in each other had suddenly become very serious. So he bent down and kissed Ryo. It was not hurried. Ren had committed to covers more complicated than this one, and anything too chaste would look more suspicious in Afterlife than simply acting like he wanted him. His palm remained warm against his cheek as his mouth moved against his, familiar enough to bring back that colony with uncomfortable clarity. He let the kiss linger for a beat before speaking without properly pulling away, the words disappearing between them beneath the music. “How do you know?” Another brief press of his mouth, buying them another few seconds of privacy. “Did you take something when you ran?” His thumb slid along Ryo’s jaw. “Files? Data? Anything that tells you what survived?”
Ren pulled back only far enough to look at him, expression still softened for anyone watching. Whatever answer Ryo gave him, they were not staying here long enough to discuss it properly. He had never assumed Omega made him untouchable. Nobody was. Still, there had been a calm since Aria took the station back, enough of one that Ren had begun cautiously believing his precautions were holding. He changed routes, compartmentalised clients, scrubbed his systems, fed false information through channels Cerberus once used to track defectors. Nothing he had checked suggested they had positively identified him. If Ryo knew otherwise, Ren needed to know where that information came from before deciding how badly compromised his operation was. His fingers dragged affectionately back through his hair as though nothing more consequential than deciding where to spend the night had passed between them. “Whatever you know, you can tell me somewhere without half of Omega listening.”
He lifted his glass with his free hand and took an unhurried sip. There was a staff corridor behind Afterlife that opened into a service level running beneath the commercial district. Ren had access through an arrangement with one of Aria’s people, but he would not take Ryo directly to his recovery office from there. Two levels down, across an old maintenance bridge, through the market, then double back through the residential blocks. If anyone followed, he wanted to know before they came anywhere near the hideout. His attention returned to the other man, the briefest trace of amusement returning as his hand settled once more against his cheek. “Keep practicing your drunk act for another five minutes.” His thumb stroked once across the skin there. “Then you’re coming home with me.” The words hung between them for half a second. Instead, he leaned down once more, brushing a shorter kiss against the corner of his mouth before murmuring close enough that nobody else had a chance of hearing. “We leave through the staff corridor. Don’t look toward it when we stand up. Let me do the watching.” His fingers slipped beneath Ryo’s chin again, turning his face back toward him in something that would appear almost possessive from across the room. “Once we’re inside, you tell me exactly what happened after I left." A colder smile touched the corner of his mouth. “If they really are coming, I’d rather know which head I’m cutting off first.”
When the five minutes were up, Ren shifted beneath him with a quiet murmur, one arm sliding securely around Ryo’s waist as he coaxed him upright. He did not hurry it. If anything, he made a show of it, drawing him close against his side until their bodies slotted together easily, his hand settling low and steady at his waist beneath the fall of his jacket. “Come on,” he murmured, the words softened for anyone close enough to hear. He dipped his head as they stood, his nose brushing briefly into Ryo’s hair as though he could not quite resist the closeness, lingering there for half a second before straightening. He guided him away from the booth with an arm still wrapped around him, letting the man lean as heavily as he liked while his own attention quietly tracked the room around them. Near the edge of the floor, he finally loosened his hold only to catch his hand instead, threading their fingers together without hesitation. His thumb passed once over his knuckles as he led him toward the side corridor, looking for all the world like a man taking his drunk lover home rather than someone already calculating which route would expose a tail.
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