#vetryder

“Turians can blush,” Kandros said placidly as he skewered some chunk of raw meat on a talon and tossed it back into his wide open jaws. Without chewing he swallowed and turned his attention more fully on Ryder who was watching him with a slightly incredulous look, “What?”

“Since. When!?” Ryder slapped her hands against the table and leaned towards Kandros, her eyes wide and searching.

“Since… forever? Do I look like an evolutionary biologist, Ryder? I shoot stuff. I don’t know,” He shrugged and turned his attention back to the biotiball game streaming over her shoulder.

Ryder scrubbed a hand through her short lavender hair and whispered more to herself than Kandros, “Turians can blush.” Oh ho did that give her ideas.

————

“Thank you all for coming to this impromptu meeting, I understand many of you are eager to get back to your shore leave,” Ryder stood at the head of their meeting table, her hands clasped lightly behind her back as she addressed her teammates before her. Six sets of eyes regarded her with interest.

Liam saluted her with the bottle he had quickly grabbed before she had dragged him from the bar, leaving behind a deeply confused Kandros, “It seemed to be of galactic importance, the way you left poor Kandros behind on your date.”

Ryder nearly choked, “It was not! I am not interested in Kandros!”

Drack snorted from his seat directly across from her, “You have the wrong turian, Liam, our ineffable Pathfinder is very clearly ‘over the moon,’, as you humans say, for a different spiky alien.”

“That is not true!” Ryder stammered, “Vetra is my friend.”

“Never said who it was, kid.”

She stamped her foot down, which did nothing to make her less like a petulant child, and huffed at Drack, “Shut up, old man. This isn’t about Vetra!” Then she threw her hands up in frustration, “Well, it is but not like tha-“

“This meeting had better not be about your girlfriend,” PeeBee crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the table.

Ryder shot PeeBee a sidelong glare, “As I was saying, this meeting is about Vetra but that is because as Lexi,” Ryder gestured towards Lexi who flushed and looked for all the world like she would rather be anywhere else, “has mentioned on more than one occasion, Vetra is extremely stressed with her job of keeping this ship running smoothly.”

“And what does that have to do with all of us, Ryder?” Cora looked up from the datapad she had been poring over, her brow perfectly arched up and questioning.

“I want your help coming up with ideas for things that will make Vetra happy,” and will make her blush, she added internally.

PeeBee worked her jaw and clicked her tongue, “Not surprised you need help seducing your girlfriend, you aren’t exactly the most charming person in the galaxy.”

“I am,” Her voice shot up a few octaves and she cleared her throat to cover as she caught her breath, “I am extremely charming.”

She swept pleading eyes across her team, before locking directly onto Jaal. He was sunk so far down into his chair that only his eyes showed from over the top of the table. Ryder leaned forward and regarded him with her giant forest green eyes. He cleared his throat and sat up more in his chair, “I find you perfectly charming, Ryder.”

Her eyes locked onto Drack, who broke eye contact first, “You do have a certain something about you.”

Lexi gave her the smallest, barest, most desperate shake of her head no. Ryder widened her eyes and deepened the upward tilt of her eyebrows, Lexi sighed, “I think most people find you fairly charming, Sara.”

“I want no part of this,” Cora brushed herself off as she stood from the table and made her way back down to her lab.

Liam and Ryder engaged in a battle of wills, Liam refusing to give into Ryder’s pleasing, sappy eyes. “Liam, I’m charming, right? I’m smooth?”

“Like crunchy peanut butter, Pathfinder,” He said as he clapped her on the shoulder and followed after Cora’s path and then down to the cargo hold to rejoin the biotiball watchers at the bar.