So I guess this is technically my first sorta kinda NSFW story ever, and the first time I ever felt comfortable writing and posting something like this. No sex is actually depicted in the story, but it is strongly referenced that it happens. With thanks to my roommate, Nicole, for reading over this and reassuring me on my writing ability. Also, in the tradition of me giving everything a name, I have declared my pyjak to be named "Bonkers".

It's a little shorter than I wanted it to be because I wrote it in the time while I was waiting for the PS4.

A quick note on my opinion of Mass Effect Andromeda (just skip below to the story if you don't care): Let's ignore the glaring animation and interface issues, copious amounts of bizarre glitches, and the writing's clear inferiority over the original trilogy, but I actually love this game. Like the Citadel DLC from ME3, it's a big bag of laughs. I absolutely adore Peebee as practically everything she says and does both onscreen and off makes me laugh (fire drill, anyone?), and even after thinking the squadmates (sans Vetra, but I might be biased because Garrus made me love turians) seemed a little bland going off of the information given before the game's release, I'm glad to announce that I actually don't dislike a damn one of them (noteworthy especially because I disliked Peebee and Drack the most before actually playing the game, but now I love that they actually have hidden depths and are both likable in their own way). Scott occasionally becoming a keet, like when he's talking to Jaal about human vestigial organs, is especially adorkable, particularly when you compare him to the usually more stoic Commander Shepard.

Having said that, I can't help but get the feeling that this game was made only for fans of the original trilogy. It goes in assuming that you already know pretty much everything there is to know about the game's universe with few explanations about what is what (maybe that stuff's in the codex though, I don't usually bother looking at the codex because it's easier and faster to just check the wiki if something confuses me), so I will say it's really a bad starting point for anyone new to the series, but if you're already a fan, you'll probably get some enjoyment from the continuity shout outs and whatnot, animation issues aside. The gameplay itself is also a lot improved over the trilogy's gameplay, so even if you don't like the story, it has that going for it.

Also [MINOR SPOILER ALERT] Zaeed has a son...holy hell, I was expecting a relative of someone from the original trilogy to show up as an easter egg at some point, but Zaeed was the absolute last person I expected them to be related to.

Scott Ryder woke up an hour earlier than he normally did in the mornings. Despite going to bed late and waking up early, he didn't feel tired in the slightest, at least not yet. He knew he would be feeling it later in the day. The heated body next to him moved when he did before once more falling idol in sleep.

There was nothing quite like waking up next to the warm, naked body of a turian to remind you that even in an alien galaxy, you weren't alone. Vetra was sprawled on her side in his arms, head propped up on his left arm, jaws open slightly, and mandibles quivering as she breathed. He carefully moved his head forward, trying not to jostle his arm too much, and placed a kiss against one mandible. While doing so, his eyes briefly diverted to notice the sharp, carnivorous teeth in her open mouth, teeth which could easily bite off certain parts of his anatomy if they so wanted to, but which were nonetheless as gentle as a golden retriever towards him. His right hand grazed across hers and touched the sharp tips of her talons at the end of each finger. He already had the beginnings of scars on his shoulders after she held him just a little bit too hard one night. He'd been too embarrassed to tell Lexi about it, knowing she'd either pry about how it happened or figure it out herself, so he didn't have access to any anti-scarring treatment.

Scott didn't care that the arm under her head had gone numb or that Vetra's higher turian body temperature felt almost feverish to the touch. He didn't want to ever get up again. If he could, he'd just give the wider galaxy the finger and stay in bed with her like this for the rest of his life, or at least until his numb left arm fell off from the lack of blood flow.

Sadly that wasn't to be, and eventually Vetra began to stir herself. "Mmm...Scott," Vetra mumbled as she began to come to. "What time is it?"

"What does it matter?" Scott asked her. He kissed her mandible again and was rewarded with a catlike purr. He never knew turians could purr until he met Vetra. He logically guessed that they only did so in rare, unguarded moments like this one.

"Scott, I have to get back to my room before anyone wakes up," she protested. She tried to sit up but was stopped when he put another arm around her and pulled her flush against his body. "Scott," she laughed. "That's not fair. I have to leave."

"Why not stay? Who cares if anyone finds out anyway?"

"Do you know how they'd react?" she asked. "I shudder to think what will happen if Peebee catches wind of this. Everyone in the Andromeda galaxy would find out in a matter of minutes."

Reluctantly, Scott allowed her to get up. She didn't immediately scramble for her clothes and instead shambled over to a display of plastic dinosaurs that Scott had been unpacking the night before, right before Vetra walked through the door and accosted him. Reaching for a rather odd looking one designated by a worn inscription in the plastic as a "Dracorex", she sighed contentedly at the childhood toy in her hand.

"They tell you to pack essential things for the new galaxy, so you bring these?" she stated, giving him an amused aside glance.

"Hey now, I had those since I was a kid! Some of those were Sara's," Scott pointed out. "Be careful with them!"

"Scott, this one has its fingers chewed off," she pointed out, holding up an Allosaurus. "And this one looks like its face was removed with a sandblaster," she added, holding up a faceless Dimetrodon. "Any damage I could cause to them would be an improvement."

"It was a belt sander, actually," Scott corrected. "Sara and I got into a really heated argument when we were ten."

"Was this one one of hers?" she guessed.

"No, that one was one of mine! Sara was vicious back then!"

Vetra chuckled a little at that. Scott was never short on stories about how unfairly treated by his sister he was when they were younger. She and Sid had had their own share of melting each other's electronics with solar panels and setting clothes on fire when they were younger. Maybe it was just a girl thing to be so vicious when they were spited or maybe Scott was either leaving a few things out or had just been an oddly docile kid compared to others his age.

Surprisingly, despite her earlier urgency regarding leaving, Vetra returned to the bed with a plastic Velociraptor in hand. "I had a human once tell me that us turians look like these things," she said of the raptor. "I never knew what he was talking about before, but now that I see what they look like I can kind of see the vague resemblance." She reached over her head and set it down on the headboard. "Except we don't have feathers."

"So if not the dinosaurs, what do you think I should decorate my room with, then?" Scott asked her. The way he put his arms back around her and leaned in closer hinted that he wasn't really interested in interior decorating advice from his girlfriend, but was instead trying to distract her from the way he was slowly moving in for a kiss.

She seemed to catch on quickly and moved in closer as well. "Oh, I don't know. What do you think this place needs?"

"A fish tank, maybe?" he suggested.

Vetra chortled in response to his unexpected answer. "A fish tank, Scott? Really?"

"Hey, every space explorer needs a fish tank."

"You'll forget to feed them and kill them."

"No I won't."

"It happens more often than you think."

"I hear Commander Shepard has one."

"Who?"

"The Spectre?"

"Oh, that guy. I bet he had trouble keeping them too."

"So are you saying you wouldn't trust your boyfriend with a fish?"

She leaned in and kissed him. "No, I wouldn't trust you with a fish," she admitted. Vetra turned her head away slowly as he moved his mouth to her neck. "Mmm...Scott, did you by any chance have a secret cupcake stash hidden in that cabinet over there?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he asked. "Why?"

"Because you don't anymore."

Scott sat up and looked across the room to his cabinet. Sitting in front of the open door on a pile of torn cardboard packaging and empty plastic wrappers was none other than their pyjak passenger himself.

"Bonkers!" Scott shouted at the pyjak. "Get out of there!" He grabbed a pillow and tossed it at the pyjak, prompting him to run for the door, a trail of cream filled chocolate footsteps showing his path of trajectory as the door opened slightly to allow him out before shutting behind him again.

Vetra was laughing at his misfortune at having his cupcakes stolen. "Serves you right for hiding stolen cupcakes in your room," she teased.

"Oh come on, you remember the Blast-Ohs?" he pointed out. To his disappointment, Vetra pulled out of his grip and started to gather her clothes from the floor. "Wait, don't go!" he pleaded with her.

"I'm sorry, but I have work that needs to be done," she apologized.

He watched her get dressed and leave, blowing a parting kiss towards him on the way out. He looked in disbelief at the pile of garbage that had once been his cupcake stash and then more fondly at the Velociraptor on his headboard. "SAM, do you by any chance know where my pants are?" he asked.

"I believe you threw them somewhere over by the couch," SAM replied.

Scott sat up and leaned in order to see past it. "Oh yeah. There they are."

Vetra felt so stiff and tired that morning. Perhaps they'd been going at it just a little too long last night. She leaned back in her chair until she heard her spine pop and stretched her arms overhead until they did the same.

"You look a little sore," a smug voice said.

"Go away, Peebee. I'm busy," Vetra said as she settled back down in her chair.

"I'm surprised you aren't busy with Ryder."

Vetra's head spun around so fast that she almost gave herself whiplash. "Come again?" she asked in a dangerous tone.

"Well you certainly have," Peebee replied. "Every night for the past week and a half, actually."

Vetra glared at her and spun back around, trying to busy herself with her paperwork. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh don't you?" Peebee pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards beside her. "I think you do," she replied. "Anything that you might want to confess to right about now?"

"Again, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Well then, since you're pretending to be so confused about it, I'm talking about how you're nailing Ryder every night."

Vetra suddenly did look genuinely confused. "Nailing him to what?"

Peebee forgot turians sometimes had difficulty with idioms and slang terms. "I meant you're sleeping with him, Vetra."

Vetra suddenly went back to looking offended. "I am not!"

"Then why do you spend so much time in his room?" she asked. "You bring him food sometimes. You're in there every night for several hours...you rarely sleep in your own bed anymore..."

"We happen to have similar interests, Peebee," Vetra insisted. "That's what friends do. They spend time with each other."

"Then why can't you both spend time with each other out here instead of behind closed doors?"

"This conversation is over!" she said firmly before turning back around and writing something furiously on a datapad.

Peebee stood up and left the chair where it was. "Well, suit yourself."

She was gone for a while. Vetra thought she finally had rid herself of the asari and was starting to relax once more when Peebee reappeared through the door, hauling something behind her. "Now what?" she demanded.

"I made a life sized replica of you out of all of the discarded clothes you forgot on Ryder's floor."

Vetra was amazed at the level of detail that Peebee put into making her clothing sculpture, but at the same time was annoyed and embarrassed. She leaned in and looked closer at it. "Oh, I was wondering where that scarf went..." she mumbled. "Wait, why were you stealing my clothes off of Scott's floor?"

"Why are your clothes on his floor if you aren't sleeping together? What could you possibly be doing that makes you take them off?" Peebee retorted. When Vetra stumbled and stuttered out a half answer, she added, "I even recorded audio of you guys last night. Want to hear?" She reached for a playback button on her omnitool.

Vetra grabbed her arm and stopped her from hitting the button. "You recorded us having sex?!" She shouted angrily.

"AHA! You admit that you are sleeping with him!"

The turian suddenly had a stunned, space cow in the headlights look on her face when she realized what she had just said. She glared and grabbed Peebee, pulling her in closer until their faces were almost touching. "Do not tell anyone about this, do you hear me?!" she threatened.

"Why, what's wrong with the rest of the crew knowing?" Peebee inquired.

Vetra realized that she was talking a bit loud and looked around for any nearby ears. Fortunately it seemed that they were the only ones awake so far. "You know what's wrong with the rest of the crew knowing!" she whispered harshly.

"Hey, the way you scream, I wouldn't be surprised if they already know," Peebee shrugged. "You know all I had to do was stand outside the door to record that, right?"

Vetra once again had a space cow in the headlights look. She went from shocked to angry in a matter of seconds. "I have to go..." she said, abandoning the unfinished datapad on the table before her.

It didn't escape Peebee's attention that she was headed straight for Ryder's quarters.

Vetra stood in the doorway and seemed less than amused. "Uh oh," Scott said when he saw her. He quickly scrambled his brain to see if he'd forgotten any important events or anything that might have upset her. SAM reassured him that there was nothing on his schedule that he was missing. When he turned up with nothing he asked, "What's wrong?"

"The crew can hear us having sex," Vetra mumbled.

Scott looked baffled. Perhaps he'd heard that wrong. He was a little sleep deprived from their nightly activities, so he sometimes misheard things. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that again?" he requested.

She leaned over him and propped herself up on the arms of his chair so that her face was in his. "The crew. Can hear us. Having sex."

Okay, so he had heard that correctly. "I...uh..."

"Peebee has a recording of us."

Okay, now that was definitely not something he was expecting to hear from her that morning. "Wha-who else knows?!"

"I don't know, but Peebee definitely does. That reminds me, I need to go get my clothes back from her..."

"Why does she have your clothes?" he said in confusion. "Never mind. We have to find out if anyone else knows!"

Vetra sighed. "I hate to admit this, but we probably should just tell everyone. They're going to find out eventually, if they don't already know." When she noticed the shocked look on his face, she added, "Didn't you say just this morning, 'who cares if anyone finds out'?"

"Well yeah, but I had you in my bed with me and wanted to keep you there, so obviously I wasn't thinking clearly at the time," he admitted. "Well, maybe if you're a little quieter, no one will hear us?"

Vetra looked less than amused. "Turians don't do quiet," she growled.

"Clearly..." he mumbled under his breath. "Well, we have to do something!"

"Scott, just tell them," Vetra urged. "It's okay. Maybe keeping it from them was just a bad idea to begin with."

"I...I...I'll think about it," he conceded.

"Well think about it fast, because if Peebee knows, she's bound to tell someone." Vetra leaned over him once more and nipped at the side of his jaw in the same affectionate way that turians would do to their lover's mandibles, the turian equivalent of a kiss. "In the meantime, I have to get back to work."

He watched her go and suddenly felt a pressure on him that he hadn't felt since being declared the new Pathfinder. The following days were going to be long and awkward, weren't they?

There were several times he could have told everyone. While breakfast and lunch was usually a free-for-all, the crew would typically take turns making dinner for everyone, which they would then eat together in the same general area of the ship. The only one who was usually absent was Peebee, who preferred to eat alone in her escape pod, and whose only attempt at cooking for everyone had resulted in something so horrifying that even Drack couldn't eat it, and they unanimously voted her out of the rotation as a result (though some of them noted that she seemed to do well cooking for herself, making it likely she had done badly on purpose so they wouldn't ask her to do it again).

While they sat around a bowl of whatever it was that Drack had made with yesterday's leftovers (sometimes it was best to just not ask when it was his turn cooking), Scott noticed Vetra looking at him periodically, urging him to say something, but he couldn't bring himself to do so.

Not yet, he mouthed at her. She huffed and went back to eating some turian meal she had microwaved to avoid risking that whatever Drack tried to make for her might not actually have turian-friendly ingredients. She was a lot more careful after the day he accidentally mixed up a box and gave her a swollen tongue.

The crew usually had some downtime later in the day, assuming they weren't needed elsewhere, and while they typically scattered, on this day they were instead gathered around the Nomad, swapping stories of adventures past, teasing each other's cultural differences, and telling off-color jokes that inevitably needed to be explained to Jaal when he couldn't figure out why they were apparently funny.

At one point Peebee nudged Vetra less than subtly towards Scott, which would have been a perfect time for him to have said something to the crew, had he not suddenly discovered why it was a bad idea to eat Drack's mystery dish when his sudden bout of nerves caused it to come back to say "Hi!" all over the side of the Nomad. He couldn't help but notice that Vetra wouldn't stop sighing while she helped him scrub the side of the vehicle off.

The last chance that he had that day was when everyone was waiting in line at the bathroom so they could get ready for bed.

"Peebee, you've been in there for fifteen minutes already! What's taking you so long?" Cora shouted as she banged on the door. "I had to pee an hour ago!"

"This pyjak's in here and he's staring at me, so I can't go because it's weird!" she replied.

"Screw this, I'm going in one of the plants," Drack excused himself.

Vetra cocked her head at Scott. "What? I hardly think that it's an appropriate time to talk about this when half the crew is doing the pee-pee dance!" he whispered harshly at her.

"What are you both talking about?" Jaal asked curiously.

"Nothing!" Scott quickly shook his head.

He later collapsed on his bed, still wearing his clothes and not even bothering to remove his shoes. He was half asleep when he heard the door open. Like Pavlov's dogs, the sound that late at night usually alerted him to one thing, and he quickly woke up enough to smile at the turian standing in his quarters.

"I noticed you still haven't told anyone about us yet," Vetra said in an accusational tone of voice.

He suddenly looked guilty. "I'm sorry. I just haven't found the right time," he apologized.

She crossed the room and sat down on his bed next to him. "So...when do you think will be the right time?" she asked.

"I don't know...maybe when Drack's not cooking?" he suggested.

"Drack's not cooking tomorrow," she pointed out.

"Tomorrow might not be a good time either. See, we need to stop at the Nexus, and that's always exhausting, so..."

"Uh huh..." she replied skeptically. She uncrossed her legs and started to stand up. "Okay. Well. Maybe I should just go back to my room until it is a good time..."

"Wait, no!" Scott sat up and grabbed her arm, pulling her back down beside him. "Okay, what if I tell them tomorrow...night..." he suggested.

"Morning," she insisted.

"Afternoon."

"Deal." Vetra flopped down on the bed next to him. "But if you don't, remember that my people are deadly carnivores and your people only survived their first thousand years of evolution because they cheated and used sharp sticks."

"You're going to kill me if I don't tell anyone we're in a relationship?"

"Kill you? No. I'm just going to bite your dick off."

Scott instinctively shielded himself with one leg. "You drive a hard bargain, Vetra," he admitted.

"Yeah," she nodded before rolling on top of him. "So I've been told."

When the next day came and went without Scott telling anyone, Vetra once again returned to his room annoyed at him. The rest of the crew were baffled when he ran and locked himself in the Nomad all night and were even more baffled when Vetra continued to jump up and down on top of it and bang on the doors screaming at him to open it up.

"You can't stay in there forever, Scott Ryder!" she shouted at him.

"Well there's emergency food provisions in here, and I found a magazine. And I'm pretty sure I can just drive off at anytime I want, too," Scott shouted at her.

"What about when you have to go to the bathroom?!"

"Cup holders," he suggested.

"Whenever my people ask me what you aliens are like, I usually just reply, 'Good, how are you?'" Jaal whispered to Liam.

After a week of Scott still having reservations against telling anyone, Vetra seemed to have all but given up on it. He wondered why she didn't just tell them herself if she really wanted them to know and considered that maybe she felt uncomfortable outing them both if he wasn't a hundred percent on board with the idea.

It was Vetra's turn to cook dinner, and while he normally helped her on her days the same way she helped him when it was his turn, today he felt nervous doing so, almost like it was a big admission to everyone else that they were together. That and he was still fairly certain that she might have been serious in her intention to bite Scott Jr. off and wanted to keep some distance between them.

He then noticed the annoyed look on her face and immediately felt guilty. Was she mad at him for not helping? Was his hesitation to tell anyone about their relationship still pissing her off? He wished he knew what was going on in her head so that he could know if it was something he'd done wrong.

Doesn't anyone know how to do the effing dishes around here? Vetra thought to herself as she stared at the counter and sink full of dirty dishes, not even noticing that Scott was standing nearby watching her anxiously.

Coincidentally, it was also Vetra's turn to pick the movie for movie night, and she of course had to choose Fleet and Flotilla. Scott had never actually seen it himself, but quickly realized that she had chosen a movie about a forbidden interspecies romance that featured anxiety about the lovers' telling their respective families as a central plot point.

She did this on purpose, he thought with dread. She's trying to tell me something. Oh god, what if she's getting really angry with me because I won't tell them?

800 times… Drack thought. She has seen this movie 800 fucking times...can she not pick something different for once?!

Liam similarly seemed bored out of his mind by the chick flick on the screen, as indicated by the fact that he grabbed a throw pillow and screamed into it.

"SHHH!" every woman in the room scolded him.

Vetra didn't come to his room that night. Scott worried that she wasn't here because she was annoyed with him. He paced back and forth nervously, fidgeting with the plastic Velociraptor in his hands. He checked his emails, hoping maybe she sent him something indicating that she wasn't upset with him, but everyone in the crew had sent him an email except for her.

To him, everything that had happened today indicated that she had something against him. She'd burned his food at dinner, which obviously was on purpose and not because she accidentally left the heat up too high again. She didn't save a spot for him on the couch at movie night, which clearly had nothing to do with the fact that Drack sat down next to her and took up both his own space and the one that she had tried to reserve for him. And now she wasn't here, which totally had nothing to do with the fact that by coming here every night for almost three weeks now, she was putting off all the work she normally did late at night when everyone else was asleep and was now behind.

He couldn't take it anymore. He had to speak to her. He set the plastic dinosaur down with the others and went to find her.

Vetra was reading over a form to check for errors and was absentmindedly stroking the head of the ship's resident pyjak while she did so. The pyjak had many names, depending on who you asked. Scott called him Bonkers. Peebee called him Chim Chim. Suvi called him Mr. Bananas. Everyone else called him "No! Stop! Don't pee-pee on that!" Right now he was "Vetra's Personal Attack Pyjak", and he launched himself at Scott's face the second he saw him come in.

Vetra smirked as she watched Scott shriek and stumble backwards at the surprise of having a space monkey latch onto his head like a xenomorph facehugger before letting go and running away. He stood there in shock and could only proclaim, "Uh...I think Bonkers might actually be a girl..."

She turned around and opened up a new form on the datapad to start filling out. "What brings you here, Scott?" she asked. She didn't sound angry, but he knew clearly she was playing it cool, hoping to make him sweat it out a little.

"Okay Vetra, I'm sorry!" he blurted out. She was a little taken aback by his outburst. "I'll tell everyone about us first thing in the morning! I promise! I love you so much, more than anything I've ever loved in my life, so please don't be mad at me anymore!"

Vetra looked away for a second, her expression a mixture of confusion and amusement. She looked back at him and cocked an eye. "Okay..." she replied. "I promise I won't be angry with you anymore..."

Scott instantly looked relieved. He sat down next to her in the chair that had been in that spot since the day Peebee began her quest to tease Vetra. "So...how much of that do you have to do?"

"Well I typically have four or five forms to do a night, most of which is arranging for supply trades and shipments which we desperately need right now because Drack eats for five people," she explained. "And considering there were several days where I was otherwise occupied and not doing my work, I've only chiseled off a few rocks from the mountain..."

Scott looked at her sympathetically knowing she'd be spending the next few days on paperwork because of him. "Want me to help?"

"Since you're offering, grab a datapad," she nodded.

Scott was relieved that she was no longer angry with him, even though she was never really angry with him to begin with, but after looking over how complicated the forms she had to fill out were, he realized that he'd be there more than half the night with her, even with SAM's help filling out parts that he didn't quite understand. The things he did for love…

The crew were a little alarmed at having been summoned so bright and early the next morning and were initially worried that something had gone wrong that they needed to know about. When they noticed that Scott was taking his time showing up and Vetra was patiently waiting for him, they realized that it was some other matter entirely, something that was probably bothering him that he wanted to tell them.

Liam looked around and noticed that someone else was missing. "I thought Peebee would be here," he said. "She owes me money..."

"Peebee already knows what this is about, so she opted not to come," Vetra explained. She started looking a little impatient at Scott's hesitation to show up and was about to go looking for him when finally he arrived, looking nervous at what he was about to do. "Go on," she motioned towards him. "Tell them."

"Tell us what?" Jaal inquired.

"Well...I...we...wanted to tell you guys that..." Scott felt three fingers wrap around his hand and realized that Vetra was holding his to give him some encouragement. "Okay," he took a deep breath. "I know that some of you are probably starting to speculate, so we're just going to come out and say it. Vetra and I are...we're together," he finally admitted. "As in...we're in a relationship."

"Is that what this is about?" Cora asked nonplussed.

"That's not exactly news to us," Jaal pointed out.

"Wait, what?" Scott replied. "Who told you?!"

"No one did. We can kind of hear you both," Liam stated. "Neither of you exactly are quiet."

"Some of us with more sensitive hearing, who might be trying to sleep by the way, can hear you better than others," Drack admitted.

"I would have offered you both birth control already, but you kind of don't really need to worry about that," Lexi added.

Scott looked at Vetra, who didn't seem all that surprised that they already knew, especially compared to him. "See? You were worried over nothing," Vetra said to him calmly.

"Why didn't anyone say anything if they knew?!" he demanded.

"I had no idea it was supposed to be a secret," Jaal admitted.

"I'm amused that it was supposed to be a secret," Drack added.

"I didn't talk about it because it's generally impolite to do so?" Cora suggested.

"Didn't stop Peebee..." Scott mumbled.

"Peebee has no class. Did you know she recorded you both?" Liam asked.

"Oh great, that's common knowledge now too?!"

"She played it for us last night when we were trying to sleep while you were having your dry spell," Cora nodded.

Vetra quickly stepped in before this could go on too long. "Okay, well unless anyone has anything else they want to bring up, you can all go back to your regularly scheduled tasks."

Vetra and Scott were the only two remaining after everyone else had left. She looked at him with a smug smile on her face. "I still think you could stand to be a little quieter..." he mumbled.

"I told you, turians don't do quiet," she replied.

"So everyone on the ship has noticed."

Scott stood on a ledge overlooking the outpost. It was quiet as the sun set on the horizons, turning the towering cliff sides and monoliths a glowing red-orange color, and most of the colonists had since made their way indoors for dinner. Voices could still be heard laughing and sharing stories from within the various dwellings. Eos was finally starting to look like a home.

He jumped when a three fingered hand unexpectedly groped his rear and turned to see who it was, his lips meeting Vetra's mouth before he even fully registered it was her. With one arm around the other and heads resting against each other's shoulders, together they watched the sun setting behind the various cliffs in the distance.

"It's rather peaceful here now," Vetra said with a contented sigh. "I wonder if the other outposts are looking as lovely right now."

"Nothing could possibly ruin this moment," Scott hummed in agreement.

They suddenly heard Cora shouting something that sounded like, "Peebee, get back here with my bedsheet!"

Peebee ran by just under the ledge, a white bedsheet wrapped around her, the end flowing behind her like a phantom on the move, and proclaimed in a spoopy sounding voice, "I'm not Peebee, I'm a ghost! WOOOooooo!"

"Except for that," he added without changing his contented tone.

I like Vetra. So much so that if I ever finally move out on my own, I'm going to have to get another dog and name her after her.

As of writing this, I seem to be the first person to ship Vetra with Scott instead of Sara in a fanfic (I waited to post this due to a little bit of self doubt in posting a more sexually suggestive story, so I'm the first to write one but not the first to actually post one, though). I relate better to male characters for some reason, so I only ever play as male characters in games that give a choice, so therefore I personally ship her with Scott. It also helps that, animation issues that often make him look high aside, I think default!Scott Ryder is kinda cute while default!Sara just seems a little too uncanny valley for me (but that might just be because a lot of the female characters in this game in general look off model).

A note from Nicole: In regards to naming her dog Vetra, she will. Her other dog's name is Garrus and she names every frog she catches in the backyard Mordin. This girl is crazy about Mass Effect.