Andromeda Tales: Some Sweet Nothings.
Vetra Nyx lay propped up in bed, half tangled in the dark red sheets, skimming through a short novel on her data-pad. Since she and Ryder had started unofficially dating, she'd been spending more and more of her downtime in Ryder's quarters, and whenever they could manage it, her nights too.
Presently Vetra looked around for her to-be-announced boyfriend, and caught sight of the back of his head bobbing up and down over the edge of the bed. She shifted over and found him still doing his press-ups; he'd been at it for ten minutes already, and he never went a day without completing his set.
From her seat above him, Vetra enjoyed a stimulating view of her Pathfinder's tight shoulders, and back muscles that tapered down to his waist. He was covered in a thin film of sweat and his arms were shaking slightly from the exertion; Vetra could watch him all day.
"How long until we reach Eos?" Scott asked as he finished his set and hauled himself to his feet.
"Another three hours. Liam was looking for you, by the way. Something about his movie night I think, he was sorta' vague."
Scott downed a large glass of water from his nightstand and stretched his arms and chest out. Vetra could swear sometimes he flexed and stretched just like that to tease her; she'd made no secret of her admiration for his body since they'd gotten together, for reasons she'd only ever admit to him in the dead of night, when he was entirely at her mercy.
"And when was this?" Scott asked, checking his watch.
"Four hours ago." Vetra answered, kicking away the sheets she'd tangled herself in and scooting down the bed to stretch out. She could be a tease too. "You were otherwise engaged at the time…"
"I've still got jaw-ache, thanks. I better go see what he wants. That's not going to work, by the way." Scott said, raising an eyebrow at her.
"What do you mean, Scott?" Vetra asked with a coy smirk. She made a show for stretching her arms over her head and arching her back slightly. She'd seen videos and images of human women posing like this while she'd been researching...well, Scott.
It was just a shame he knew her so well, and had a quantum of self restraint.
"That pose only works when you have tits, and Turians don't have them. Nice try." He said with a chuckle.
"You'd prefer me with two huge flesh-sacks hanging from my chest then?" Vetra asked, cupping a pair of comically large imaginary breasts before her.
"Erm...not that big, and definitely not on you." Scott said, pulling on some clothes. "Would you prefer me covered in chitin, all lumpy and rough at the edges?"
"I'd prefer you came back to bed, chitin or no. Sure I can't tempt you?" Vetra asked, extending her hand to him. He took it and perched on the bed beside her. He placed a soft kiss on the inside of her wrist and gave her a smile.
"I'll be back in an hour. Wait for me and I promise I'll spend the rest of the trip right here with you. Deal?"
"Spirits, you're a smooth one, Ryder." Vetra said, tracing a sharp talon ever-so gently through his hair. He was often amazed at how gentle she could be. "Okay, go quickly before I change my mind. Hurry back, lover."
"Always." Scott promised, kissing her palm once for good measure and swiftly departing the room.
Vetra secretly hated watching him go. She was starting to feel her age; while she was in fact only an Earth year or two older than Scott, she was nearing the point when most Turians settle down with one partner and start a family. Her mildly promiscuous days were far behind her, and they'd been fun, but never more than that. Scott was infinitesimally more, in every way.
It was safe to say, in Human terms, she'd fallen in love with him.
"Like it was ever a choice." Vetra thought to herself with a smile. She'd take a shower, run back to her quarters for some things, then wait for him, just as he asked.
"I'd do anything that man asks." She mused as she headed for the shower.
oOo
"So let me get this right, you want to host a movie night in the cargo bay?" Scott asked, scratching his head. Liam was practically hopping with excitement at the idea.
"Yeah! We can move the Nomad to the back of the bay, drag out my sofa, and the kitchen is right there so snacks are bound to be plentiful." Liam gushed, gesturing around the cargo bay as he went on.
"Your sofa only seats two, numb-nuts." Scott pointed out.
"I have a container of pillows I scavenged. Don't know who needed seventy Krogan pillows but, here's the point, we have a Nomad. Nomad plus pillows and what do we have?" Liam asked in his slightly condescending way that usually came off as charming. Usually.
"Seating arrangements for all. Okay, I'm down with that. Just make sure the parking brake is on before the film starts. Anything else?" Scott asked. Liam gave him an apologetic smile.
"Yeah, a few issues I need to run by you regarding the Outposts. Beer?"
Scott sighed and checked his watch before nodding.
"To the couch, then."
oOo
Doctor Lexi T'Perro was, at least in her mind, an entirely professional and rational medical professional. She'd treated all sorts of injuries and illnesses afflicting or inflicted to all sorts of people from all walks of life. Species, race, age, sex, it made no odds to her; she treated all with the same professional detachment and exemplary skill.
Through much of her training and, indeed, working life, she had shunned social skills and "bedside manner" in favour of technical brilliance.
"If I can fix them, they won't need me to coddle them." She had said to a teacher once, so very long ago. It stuck with her, and she reminded herself of it every day. It was her mantra.
And yet there was one member amongst the crew who had her feeling entirely upside down. Professionalism aside, she was still an Asari in the prime of her life, and like all Asari, she had her urges. A somewhat recent break-up from a long term partner had left her disillusioned with romance; she remembered telling Ryder this after politely turning down his offer of dinner. Normally she'd have counted herself lucky to be wined and dined by such a strapping example of homo sapien, but she simply didn't feel anything there. Not until Nakmor Drack came on-board.
"Oh wonderful. Here we go again." Lexi thought to herself, sat in her office chair as she poured over medical reports and test results. Her mind had wandered to Drack for a brief moment and suddenly all through of work deserted her. It was easiest, she had discovered, to simply indulge herself for a few minutes, and then force herself back to work.
Drack was indeed a mystery, and one she would love to spend an age or two solving, so long was his life and his well of experience. Lexi imagined sitting up all night, laying in his lap, while he regaled her with stories of epic battles he'd won and impossible worlds he'd seen. He was a marvelous living relic from a bygone age, but where he would see himself as such and take from it a feeling of redundancy, she saw him as something to be treasured and cared for, to be learned from and aspired to. She'd always been attracted to older males, in any case.
He was so...blunt. That was something that she often found herself at odds with; where she was reserved and calculated when conversing with others, at least under normal circumstances, Drack would just let it all out. He shocked her, on occasion, with his brutally honest comments and musings. She found him utterly rough and crude and damn her she liked it.
It didn't help that physically he was just as impressive. He was a beast of a Krogan, made strong and hard by centuries of combat and hardship. Even though, sadly, age was taking it's toll on him, and his prosthetics could only carry him so far, he was still a mightily impressive specimen.
Lexi forced herself from her fantasy and back to her work. Drack would be round for a routine check-up in a few days, she would have that to look forward too. Presently she was due for some shore leave on Eos, once they landed, and until then had scan results from Liam, Vetra and Gil to go over.
"Oh Vetra...you're going to wear the poor boy out." Lexi said to herself with a smile. Nothing got by the resident doctor, and Lexi didn't need to see heightened hormonal levels or traces of Human DNA within her system to clue her into Vetras nightly activities. She'd sussed it out the moment she'd seen Vetra walk past her office window some weeks ago; sometimes such acute perception was a curse.
oOo
After a smooth landing on Eos, the crew disembarked and went about their own business. Scott and Liam went off with Cora to attend to issues that needed resolving, while Lexi headed for the outpost science station. Drack, in his wisdom, had decided to walk off into the desert for a few hours.
"I'm gonna go find some raiders to play with." he'd called over his shoulder with a sadistic grin, hoisting his obscenely large shotgun onto his back.
Lexi enjoyed a wonderful hour scouring through all the latest research projects and discoveries from the outpost. She was particularly enthralled with the ongoing Kett studies and, oddly, the geology surveys. Although it was well outside her area of expertise, Lexi always found data to be relaxing; there was something about the way it all fit together, the order rising from the chaos of the unknown, it put everything in perspective for her. While she immersed her conscious self in science, her subconscious went to work freeing itself of worries and stress, embracing the calm waters of eternity.
As all good things must, Lexi's immersion came to an end when an engineer burst into the science station, gasping for breath.
"Just...a head's up...Doctor!" he wheezed. The man clearly needed to stop smoking.
"Take a moment, catch your breath, then tell me what the problem is." Lexi said, putting down her data-pad. The man gave her a grubby thumbs-up as he stood there, bent at the waist, panting like a dog.
"There is...ahem...sorry, there's a Krogan just wandered into the bar, totin' a scatter-gun bigger than a cow." The man said in a thick Texan accent. "Fella's bloodied up pretty bad, I think he's one of yours."
"Drack." Lexi sighed in despair. She gathered up her things and moved to follow the engineer out into the road.
"He uh...insisted on having a drink. A whole bottle. Ordered our hardest stuff...basically paint-thinner...I figured he might need some seein' to."
"Thanks you for bringing it to my attention, Mister…?"
"Oh it's Jake. Jake Sunders, at your service ma'am."
"Thank you Jake. I'll take it from here."
Jake Sunders tipped his hat to Lexi and wandered back to his work, taking a short white stick from his pocket as he went. Lexi shook her head to herself and entered the bar.
Drack was indeed in residence, almost crushing a bar stool with his enormous weight, and gulping from a glass bottle now nearly drained of a pale yellow liquid. He was on his third bottle.
"Oh hay, Doctor!" Drack called as she entered the small bar, waving with his massive hand, sending drops of blood hurtling to the floor and bar.
"Drack. You are...injured...to put it mildly. Can you walk?" Lexi asked as she approached him.
"I'm fine. Got into a pinch...stuck between some Kett and those robot things Peebee loves so much. You should see the other guys, ha!" Drack let out a booming laugh which, normally, Lexi would have quite enjoyed. He had an infectious laugh.
He also had a sucking chest wound.
"Drack, those aren't bullets in your chest, they're cannon shells! You need medical attention right now." Lexi stated firmly.
"What I need, girl, is to have another drink and for you to have one with me. Here, come into the chapel." Dreck said, patting the stool beside him.
The problem with Krogen is,once they've set their mind on something, they follow through; everyone else be damned, they follow through. So it was with some reluctance that Lexi mounted the stool and accepted a tumbler of whatever foul substance Drack was drinking. Knocking it back she briefly wondered if it would serve as an antiseptic agent, then she discovered she could no longer feel her tongue. She calmly took the bottle from Drack and sniffed it.
"That's my girl!" Drack grunted with a lopsided grin. His grin soon vanished when Lexi upended the bottle over his torso, dousing the worst of his wounds in the alcohol.
"What the...OH! Oooooooooo….that'll wake you up!" Dreck gasped, gripping the bar hard enough to splinter it, eyes and face bulging in alarm.
"You. On the ship! Right now!" Lexi demanded, all but stamping her foot. The slightly-drunk Krogan shook his head and hoisted himself from his stool, grabbing up his shotgun as he stomped off towards the door. Lexi glanced around at the other patrons, all of whom were staring at the commotion, before hopping briskly off her seat and departing.
oOo
"I hope you know you're making it very hard for me to enjoy my shore leave." Lexi said calmly as she pulled on her surgical gloves. "Can you strip or do I need to cut you out?"
"I've got this, Doc. Lookin' to avoid blades at the moment. The whole lot?" Dreck asked, pulling his armour off.
"Every stitch. I need to do a full examination. On the table please."
Lexi frosted the glass of her office window with the privacy controls and waited for Drack to finish undressing and clamber onto the examination table. Once he'd settled she began her examination, scanning him from head to foot with her omni-tool. From her preliminary findings it appeared that the damage was confined to, as misfortune would have it, his remaining biological components. He wouldn't have to wait for replacement parts at least.
"You have a lot to be thankful for, Drack. Redundant organs are saving your life right now." Lexi said, finishing up her scan. It looked worse than it actually was, she could repair the damage easily enough, but it was another knock Drack could ill-afford.
"I'm going to put you out now, and when you wake up we're going to have a serious talk."
"Oh crap. Best not wake me up then." Drack muttered with a grimace.
"Funny. Good-night."
With that she administered the anaesthetic, enough to knock out twenty humans. He was out in an instant. Lexi gathered her tools and went to work, starting with a generous helping of MediGel. Once the goo had settled, she picked up her bio-grafter and went in.
oOo
Drack was in pain. Nothing new there, he was always in pain, but this pain was new. It was white hot, searing and throbbing all at once. Every breath brought a fresh flash of agony; it would have been terrifying had he not encountered this pain before. He'd been shot a lot over the years.
The pain began to subside as, there in his periphery vision, a beautiful blue goddess administered a hypo into his neck. His vision started to clear, bringing a very pissed-off looking Lexi into focus. He was in for it now.
"You're grounded and confined to the MedBay for a week. I've repaired the damaged tissue as much as I can, the rest is up to you. I'll be taking daily scans to monitor your recovery, and you'll eat a tightly controlled diet. You will not be drinking. Do you understand?" Lexi asked, looking down at him a little more coldly than Drack would have liked. He'd seen that look before.
"Yeah. I got it. You gonna' chew me out for the whole week?" he asked with a sigh.
"Do I really need to?" Lexi asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Heard it all before Doc. It's not like I'm gonna' change my ways at this point. A whole week, huh?"
"Depending on your recovery. You're not leaving until I'm satisfied so you might as well get comfortable. You're not healing as fast as you used to Drack."
Drack tried to sit up but all strength had left him, all he could do was flop limply to the table. As a younger Krogan, his pride might have been in danger, but he'd accepted his diminishing capabilities long ago.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm an old man, gotta take it easy, I'm not as spry as I used to be. Heard all that before too. Any chance you helpin' me get some pants on?" Drack asked, glancing at the neat pile of cotton scrubs Lexi had prepared for him.
"Now, now, Drack. No need to be bashful." Lexi said with a slight smirk. Drack rolled his head back and laughed mightily.
"You might not have noticed, Doc. I don't have anything to be bashful about. Still doesn't mean I should be giving away the show for free." Drack said with an air of great self-assurance. Lexi had seen Drack naked many times since his arrival on-board, but she'd never looked. It wouldn't be professional to look.
"Yes Drack, you're an impressive specimen. Nothing I haven't seen before." Lexi muttered, taking the draw-string pants and partially dressing her patient.
"Hah! By the shell, that reminds me. I was working out in the Kepler Verge…" Drack started off on one of his stories, and Lexi had to wonder briefly if he was in some small way psychic.
"Well, I'm not curled up in his lap with a glass of wine and those arms around me but this will do." she thought to herself. "Not professional Lexi."
"...tracking down some arms dealers for Citadel Security. They sent a rookie along…"
"Besides, I'm his Doctor. Nobody has feelings for their Doctor…"
"...Garrus something. Good kid. Anyway, it all went south and we ended up pinned down by a whole bunch of my countrymen."
"He's my patient, it's unethical! Nice to think about but no. Never in a thousand years."
"This C-Sec grunt looks at me and tells me to grow a quad and start shooting. So I took off all my armour right there, leaped over the cover and charged the mercs. Ha! They took one look at me and ran for the hills. Know what's scarier than a charging Krogan, Doc?"
"Do tell." Lexi said with a patient smile.
"Being run down by a quads-out Krogan who's really happy to see you. Hah!" Drack boomed.
"Hold on, are you saying you were…
"There's no point carrying a massive weapon if nobody gets to see it. Fully engorged! Ha-ha-hah-Oh fuck...my ribs." Drack bellowed in high spirits, despite the hole in his lung.
"Sounds like you had quite the adventure." Lexi said with a smile.
"Oh shell, you have no idea Doc. Before your time this was. I had it all; days spent quad-deep in blood and bullets, getting the blood flowing...then back to my apartment and a beautiful Human woman or Asari, whoever the client had hired, for a long, slow...massage." Drack grumbled happily to himself, reliving the memory. After a moment he snapped back to himself and frowned. "Sorry Doc, you didn't need to hear that."
"It's quite all right Drack, I'm sure you have many fascinating stories, and again, I'm your Doctor. You can tell me anything. In confidence. I took an oath and everything." Lexi said reassuringly. Drack just grunted to himself.
"You don't need a wrinkly old sack like me talking your ear off." he muttered with a frown.
"We have seven days together ahead of us and, strictly speaking, I don't have ears. I'd be happy to hear your stories, Drack. In fact, I'd consider it an honour. I have to go to check in on Liam, sprained ankle, would you like me to put you out for a few hours? " Lexi asked, holding up a hypo. Drack nodded with a warm smile.
"You're a peach, Doc."
"Drack, when it's just us...you can call me Lexi." Lexi said kindly, taking one of his massive, rough hands into her own and pressing the hypo to his wrist. His eyes flickered closed and he went to sleep with a contented smile. Lexi hesitated for a moment, unsure of herself for the first time in over a hundred years. She steeled herself and gently stroked her fingertips across the sleeping Krogans cheek before departing swiftly.
The coming week would a trial, she could tell.
oOo
Vetra groaned in pleasure and wriggled slightly on the silk sheets of Ryder's bed, as her enthusiastic Pathfinder worked on her further down.
"Oh fuck...Scott, right there...ah...just like that." she gasped, bunching up the sheets in her hands. Scott knew exactly where to press, where to dig his fingers in and where to stroke to bring Vetra to the point of insanity. "H-how...hng...how do you do that?"
Scott smiled up at her from his perch on the end of his bed. He was sat at an angle to her with her feet propped in his lap; he had discovered some nights previous that Vetra very much enjoyed a foot-rub after a long day, and he was more than happy to oblige her. It gave him a perfect opportunity to learn more about his lovers body, which was secretly a big thing to him. The sex itself was amazing, but he wanted to know every inch of her. It was his kink, in a way; an ardent devotee of the female form. At least, this female's form.
It amazed him how wrong his preconceptions had been, regarding Turian physiology. While the males of the species were indeed nearly covered in hard, rough carapace, the females were so much less so. He only had Vetra's to go on as an example but he very much liked what he saw and felt.
He regarded her left foot as an example. The top of her foot was adorned with hard, smooth plates that reminded Scott of ornate steel armour worn by European knights in Earth's ancient past, in the way that they overlapped each other in a neat, symmetrical pattern. They did not stand proud of the surrounding skin, and so did not catch on any material or Scott's fingers as he worked. Her two toes were tipped with dangerous claws that could shred flesh like paper; she'd nicked him a few times by accident before taking a file to them, for his sake.
The exposed skin, too, was contrary to his expectation; along the underside of her foot, from her toes to her ankle, the skin there was smooth and supple, if a little firmer than human skin. It reminded him of high-quality and well maintained leather, and most importantly, it was receptive to his stress-relieving touch.
Above her ankle, or what Scott equated to an ankle, her skin became much softer and human-like, while still retaining that odd, slightly metallic quality that made it cool and pleasing to the touch. The plates that adorned her shins, knees and upper legs became thicker, more pronounced, but still just as smooth and full of lustre. He could go on, he could admire her all night, but presently he dug his fingers into the sole of her foot and rubbed small circles into the joint between her toes, which curled in delight.
"Okay you need to be up here now, before you get too excited." Vetra said with some regret. He was damn good at that. Scott sighed and looked up at her contented expression. He placed a quick line of kisses along the arch of her foot before scooting up to embrace her.
"Says you! Messing up my best sheets and everything." Scott declared indignantly.
"Hay, if you care so much about your sheets you shouldn't have offered." Vetra pointed out.
"But you like it when I rub your feet." Scott defended himself. Vetra let out a short chuckle.
"No, I like having someone take care of me. You like rubbing my feet." she countered
"Yeah, okay you have nice feet." Scott confessed. Vetra gave him a sly grin, the the way Turians did, before rolling over onto her front and swinging her legs up behind her. Looking down, Scott was treated to a view of her narrow waist, the crest of her strong, rounded backside, the expanse of legs that went on for days and finally the soles of her feet, which she flexed teasingly once she caught him looking.
"It's not a fetish, Vetra." Scott said with mild annoyance.
"I never said it was." she countered innocently.
"You've been reading up on human sexual practices again, you left the article open on my terminal. And you were staring at my shorts most of the time to see if I was enjoying myself." Scott pointed out sternly. "I do not have a foot fetish. That been said…"
Scott took her moment of confusion to sit up and lean down her body, pausing briefly to place a tender kiss on her backside. He took one of her her feet in hand and traced his tongue in a small circle on her heel, before tracing a long, languid trail up the her sole, over the ball and along one of her toes. He was slow about it, and nibbled gently at the ball over her foot when he was done; she tasted like metal and sweat.
"...that doesn't mean you don't have one."
He looked her dead in the eye and saw the skin under her facial carapace had turned to a deep midnight blue; the Turian equivalent of blushing. Her breathing had become shallow and laboured. Her jaw hung open slightly. Scott had found a new button to press.
Vetra's hand shot out and hit the lighting controls on the bedside table. As the room plunged into darkness, she flipped onto her back and pulled Scott on top of her, drawing him close and bringing her mouth to his ear.
She softly whispered to him, making a request she'd never made before, using words she'd only ever read before. He leaned back to look at her, wide eyed and somewhat stunned. When the trance broke he pressed his lips to her mouth, letting her long, slender tongue explore his own. She pulled his shorts down his legs as far as her arms would allow, before drawing her legs up, hooking the material with her claws, and pushing them down the rest of the way, caressing his legs with hers as she went.
Vetra had made some odd requests of him in the past, and Scott was fine with all of them, but on this occasion something stuck in him. Sure, he and Vetra had been together only a matter of weeks, a month and a half at best, but for all the sneaking around, stolen kisses in the storage room, frantic fucking in the showers after a fire-fight, and their softer night of simply holding each other, nothing had him prepared for those words in his ear.
Maybe she just knew him too well.
"Scott, what's wrong?" Vetra asked gently, noting his hesitation despite her own quickly rising need for him.
"It's just...no one's ever um...indulge me? Would you just...ask me that again?" Scott asked, feeling somewhat like a fool. Vetra licked his jaw lightly, and drew his head to rest next to hers. She gave his earlobe a playful nip before murmuring the sweetest words he'd ever heard.
"Make love to me Scott...please?"
oOo
AN: These are going somewhere. I'm not sure where yet, I'll tell you when we get there.
Also, cheese, anyone? I'm getting a cheesy whiff. Let me know.
Toodles x