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"Come on, again?" Vetra watched someone use the improper carrying procedures when taking a crate up the Tempest ramp. The said individual lost their grip in an almost comedic fashion as the crate slipped off the ramp and spilled onto the tarmac. Vetra groaned and shook her head in disappointment.
"You know, you could help them out if you want them to do it right?" Came the taunting voice of Ryder walking up behind her.
Vetra turned, looked down, and was immediately greeted by her short human kissing her mandible. She barely had time to react beyond a flustered flare of her mandibles before he started sauntering away, whistling innocently as if he hadn't just ambushed her. She wouldn't stand for that, no way.
Ryder barely made it a few feet away when he felt the strong arms of a turian spin him around.
"Nuh-uh, you don't get to do that without giving me something in return." She gave him a playful look as her eyes lit up, still keeping a firm grip on his hips.
"Oh? What do I owe you for the trouble?" He returned a sheepish grin.
The turian retaliated by sweeping Ryder off his feet, lifting him up so that he was eye-level with her, and planting a voracious kiss on his lips. While delectable and enjoyable, with Vetra briefly slipping her tongue down his throat and Ryder slightly suckling it in a manner that made her hum lustfully with content, they refrained from their usual oral routine and broke soon after, both giving each other a sultry look that said 'We'll continue this later.'
"That's a start," Vetra said while setting him down. "Ambush me like that again, and you'll owe me more than that." She flirted.
"Sounds more like encouragement than a threat to me." Ryder came up and took his place next to her on the railing. Vetra gave him a smirk before putting an arm around him, pulling the Pathfinder into her side whilst they gazed at the Tempest together.
"So," Vetra began after she witnessed another attempt at hauling the crates up the ramp go spectacularly wrong. "Why don't you tell me why you're really here?"
Ryder shrugged and let out a soft chuckle, both at the incompetent display in front of them at the Tempest and at whatever reason he had come up with to see her. "Do I need a reason to see you?"
"Well, no. You never need to." She smiled nervously. "But you know I prefer people watching, right?" She placed her hands on the railing for a moment. "And I can tell you want to ask me something by the way your hands are fidgeting." She turned her attention to him and smirked.
He stopped the twiddling of his thumbs and smiled back. "I wanted to ask you to get ice cream with me?"
Vetra was confused. "Ice cream? That stuff comes from cow, right? Earth cow?"
"That's right." He nodded while still smiling.
She turned her attention fully to him. "You know I can't eat that, right?" The turian was quite confused by the request.
Ryder leaned in, not dissuaded by her question. "Not human ice cream, no. But the Nexus just opened a shop not far away from here, they sell dextro ice cream."
Vetra scoffed, clearly not convinced of its legitimacy. "You know how you humans say 'bullshit'? That sounds like bullshit to me."
In response, Ryder grabbed her hand and tugged her in the direction of the shop. "We won't know unless we try! C'mon, the show here is getting stale anyway!"
The turian sighed in defeat whilst following his lead. "Alright, fine, but if this turns out to be bunk, I'm giving Kallo his soap opera vids back and letting him play them in our room."
Ryder let out a mocking gasp. "You wouldn't dare?"
Vetra chuckled. "Oh, I would, but don't worry, I'll make it up to you if it's too much melodrama for you to handle." She winked as her subharmonics lowered to a seductive growl. Ryder, in turn, shivered in response as his mind raced at what she could possibly mean.
The couple made their way to the ice cream shop. The staff was majority human, with a few asari and, shockingly, a couple of turians. They were all wearing funny blue paper hats on their heads.
Ryder nudged her and snickered. "How much trouble do you think I'd get in if I put that hat on Drack?"
Vetra gasped at the idea. "Ryder, I'm not attending your funeral for something as stupid as that." She continued pondering the thought before slyly smirking in turn. "However, I'd be willing to help you get away from him before he wakes up."
He returned a similar sinister expression. "Maybe we could pin it on Liam?"
She raised a thumb in agreement. "Oh yeah, Drack would believe he'd do it more than us, for sure."
Ryder extended his hand. "We got a deal, Nyx?" He showed a mocking formality, mimicking some of Vetra's contacts.
Vetra laughed and shook his hand. "Yes, we do. So long as this 'ice cream' doesn't poison me."
Their banter was interrupted by the cashier at the front, beckoning them to come forth.
"Next!" The asari worker shouted in a tone that indicated annoyance. The duo looked forward and noticed quite a large gap between them and the front, as they had not been paying attention to the movement of the line. Ryder rubbed the back of his neck whilst Vetra's mandibles twitched in embarrassment as they made their way forward.
While approaching the counter, Vetra grabbed Ryder's arm and panicked. "What do I get? I don't know anything about ice cream!"
Ryder rubbed her arm soothingly. "Do you like turian chocolate?"
"Yeah. Do they have that?"
He pointed up at the menu above the counter. "Well, I can't read turian languages, but that looks kinda chocolatey to me."
Vetra followed where his finger was pointing, and when she saw the picture, she burst out laughing.
Ryder looked at her, confused.
"That's not chocolate, Ryder." She giggled. "That's a soup. They have soup-flavored ice cream."
"What?!" He exclaimed as his breath left him, he did a double take at the sign and noticed a bowl with whatever substance the ice cream was made of present inside. Ryder wheezed in amusement whilst slapping his knees, joining Vetra in a laughing fit.
They continued laughing with each other before the cashier glared daggers at them.
"Hey!" She shouted impatiently. "Are you two gonna order or not? There's a line!" She aggressively pointed behind them.
Vetra and Ryder seized up, once again flustered at the situation they were in. They decided it'd be best to try and maintain a semblance of professionalism at least until they got their ice cream.
She leaned down to his ear. "They do have chocolate, though, you were right."
That gave Ryder some semblance of reassurance as he placed his order. The shop had gotten permission to use some Earth berries from hydroponics in the creation of their ice cream. He had a preference for strawberries and jumped at the chance to order strawberry ice cream in a waffle cone. He asked for some whipped cream and sprinkles, with a cherry on top.
"Where'd you get the milk for this?" He asked the salarian scooping the ice cream from a bowl.
"We synthesized milk from those cow creatures the Hyperion brought. Ever since you humans settled Meridian, they've started grazing. For the turians, we got those bovines from Ontarom back in the Milky Way; their milk is dextro. Works just as easily." The salarian explained while topping Ryder's order with whipped cream.
Vetra, meanwhile, was quite perplexed by the whole thing. It looked tasty, for sure, but she hadn't ever seen a frozen turian dish that wasn't an industrial block of ice that housed what she could only describe as nathak popsicles.
The two took their orders and sat down on a nearby bench. Ryder dove into his ice cream immediately while Vetra prodded the soft serve dish with a plastic spoon, curious as to what she was in store for. She turned to see Ryder voraciously diving in and raised a brow plate.
"Is it really that good?"
"Uh-huh," Ryder nodded with his mouth full. Vetra found the sight and sound amusing.
"What are you waiting for?" He aggressively pointed at her still uneaten food with his spoon. "At least lick it before it melts!"
Vetra stuck her tongue out and placed it against the ice cream. The cold sensation startled her as she withdrew, holding her tongue in shock.
"Spirits! That's really damn cold!"
Ryder didn't seem phased, and wordlessly beckoned her to continue.
She leaned in again, placing her tongue hesitantly on the ice cream. She shivered, the frostiness of it reminding her of Voeld before Ryder had activated the vault. Though after a little more contact, she had to admit the taste was pretty good, if unfamiliar to what she was normally accustomed to. Vetra turned to look at Ryder, who seemed to be slowing down, making eye contact with her while licking over the scoop, silently teaching her what to do.
Vetra followed suit, continuously licking the ice cream. It wasn't her favorite food in the world, but she could see the appeal. Her long tongue made it easier to prod more of the ice cream, doing her best to catch up to Ryder while she tried licking some of the bits that were melting.
An idea came into the turian's mind, she nudged Ryder's shoulder and gave him a sly wink. She took her tongue and started licking from the base of the scoop, slowly dragging her tongue upwards to the top in a way that mimicked how she liked to lick certain parts of him when they were alone. She could see Ryder blush and laughed huskily, knowing she had managed to fluster him.
However, as soon as she got to the top, a particularly cold part of the ice cream snagged her tongue. Her eyes widened in fear, and also in annoyance, as she had gotten herself into a particularly stupid situation.
"Uh, Rydeh?" She stammered as her tongue remained stuck to the ice cream. "I tink my tongue ish shtuck."
Ryder got up from the bench and stood in front of her with a taunting smirk. He clicked his teeth in amusement.
"You are adorable." He smiled. Vetra wasn't as thrilled, though.
"Cahn ya help, pleash?" She glared.
His idea of helping was to grab the ice cream and pick the chunk that was stuck to Vetra's tongue out of it so that shed at least have free range of motion.
When she was free, Ryder surprised her by putting the attached chunk in his mouth, which included her tongue. She had to admit, she should have seen this coming. But she had no complaints as she moaned at the surprise kiss. She was, however, careful not to drop her ice cream while she used her free hand to grip his hair.
They kept kissing while the ice cream melted in both their mouths. Vetra knew that Lexi would be freaking out if she saw this, fearing that Ryder would get sick eating turian food, but she knew, for a host of reasons that made both of them blush, that they'd both be fine.
Ryder broke and smiled, wiping away the melted ice cream that had dribbled at the corners of his mouth.
Vetra giggled. "That's one way to do it, I guess." Then her expression lowered. "Please don't tell me that's a common thing."
"Well, not unless you lick it like you just did!" He laughed while placing a hand on the back of her cowl.
She simply scoffed in response while finishing the rest of the half-melted meal. Vetra looked over after clearing out the cone and saw Ryder take a bite of his cone.
"What are you doing?!" She shouted, worried that he had resorted to barbarism.
"What?" He replied nonchalantly. "You can eat the cone, you know?"
Vetra took a careful bite of the edge of her cone and didn't find the sensation to be nearly as pleasant as the ice cream. She spat out the piece she bit off and contorted her face in a grimace.
"Ugh. No, not a fan of that." She moved the cone away from her while opting to watch Ryder finish his food.
After wiping off both their mouths and throwing their trash away, Vetra took his hand in hers and guided him back to the docking bay.
"I'll admit that was one of your better ideas, despite what happened with my tongue." She stated. "I don't trust the ice cream, though."
Ryder was shocked at her statement. "What's untrustworthy about ice cream?"
"The source."
"Cows?"
"No, the dextro source."
"What's wrong with it?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Those cows have arms. And I don't trust anything that can milk itself."
He broke out laughing in response, and Vetra smirked in return while they continued walking to the docking bay.
At Vetra's usual spot now, they saw that most of the crates were gone, presumably now on the Tempest. There were still a few people working down there, so the couple stood at the railing to finish people watching.
Vetra suddenly turned to face Ryder and stared at him with a slight smirk.
"What?" He asked, as she didn't say anything for a moment.
"Nothing, just thought I'd look at my guy." She placed an arm around him and rubbed his shoulder before hugging him into her side and placing her head against his.
"Your... Guy?" He asked, recalling a similar conversation the two had in the past.
Vetra feigned being upset as she pouted while crossing her arms. "Are you saying you're not? That's very upsetting."
"If I belong to anyone in this galaxy, it's you." He said earnestly.
She placed her arms around his waist again, pulling him very close to her. She could feel his breath tickle her chin; the sensation excited her, and she grinned down at him.
"I'll keep that in mind." She purred, breath tickling Ryder's skin, causing his hair to stand on end. "The feeling is mutual, in case you forget." Vetra placed her forehead against his in a turian kiss, putting a hand behind his head to keep him against her.
"I love you." She happily whispered.
Ryder responded by kissing her softly on the lips. Vetra responded in kind. They found the taste of each other to be sweeter than that of the ice cream.