I'm Begging You

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

His other hand came up to settle gently on her cheek.

A small smile touched his lips. His thumb stroked across her cheek. Jamie thought of herself as plain looking without make-up, but he couldn't have disagreed more. He liked seeing her like this when she wasn't stressing about her appearance, when she had a thousand different things on her mind besides the way she looked. Maybe it was odd, but Kurt liked it. He smiled and pressed another small kiss against her lips, not lingering for too long.

He didn't want to push it, or make her think he only wanted one thing from her.

"I was at Kaeshanna." He told her quietly, wanting her to know what he'd been up to.

"When the First Order and Alliance fought." He'd heard her talk about the Sith, so it was time he told her of the danger he'd faced. No secrets. "I flew with Rogue Squadron a little bit."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Oh." She said quietly. What was she supposed to say to that? "On The Messa?" That didn't exactly seem safe. She left the insinuation that Kaile was on board unsaid. The less she talked about her the better honestly. "I wasn't there." She had been elsewhere when that whole breakdown had erupted. Though that was likely for the best. "I heard the reports though. What a disaster."

There was a lot they had to tell one another in the time they'd been apart, but she didn't want to bombard him with her own stories right away either, so for now she listened to what he'd been up to with concerned eyes.

"How did you end up there though?"

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Remember a long time ago I found that old bunker?" That seemed like a lifetime. "I told you about that ship I found there."

The Coil. "My dad, Kaile, and I have been fixing it, playing around with it and such."

In truth it had really been more his father than anyone else. He and Kaile had put some finishing touches on the ship, made a few adjustments that had truly pushed it's speed to the absolute limits, but most of the work had already been there to begin with. He smiled slightly, remembering what it had felt like to fly that ship and actually go against someone with real skill.

"I was testing it...the modifications we'd made. Getting my mind off stuff when an Alliance Cruiser showed up." He smiled slightly and stroked his thumb over her cheek. "They thought I was an enemy fighter for a second...so to prove I wasn't I threw out some credentials and they took me aboard. Implied that if I didn't they'd shoot me down."

He chuckled slightly. "There was this...scary elf lady...she implied that if I didn't fight they'd throw me out the airlock...so..."

Kurt trailed off and pressed his lips against her nose.

"Wasn't that bad actually." He told her quietly, a bit of ego slipping into his voice. "Most of the First Order pilots just ran."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"They forced you to fight or they would shoot you down?" Jamie's face recoiled at that. "Why would they do that?"

Wasn't the Alliance supposed to be the good guys?

"That seems...Strange." Maybe I should check into these reports sometime.

Turning a bit onto her side she remained quiet for another long minute. She hadn't been there during that break out. When it all happened she had been on a SIS mission with Aela, too far out of the way to make it in time, and too ill-equipped to risk traveling into the system with what little manpower they had. Instead they had focused their efforts elsewhere, which, judging by the sound of things, had been time better spent where they had gone instead.

"But I guess your new ship held up well?" She tried to keep things from sounding dreary. It seemed a better question than how many died?

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"It wasn't the Galactic Alliance that picked me up." He told her, though he realized that he may have misspoken. "It was those weird elf people...and to be fair my ship looked like a TIE Fighter."

Because it was one. "Either way, the ship was fine and I made it through alive."

He gave her the tiniest shrug, mostly because he didn't really have an answer. Kurt had never gotten the big picture of that particular event, in truth he still wasn't really sure what had happen in the first place. He simply hadn't wanted to be shot down, and when he'd gotten there...well he'd just done what Rogue One had told him to do. It was simple, and the First Order weren't exactly known for their kindness. That was enough to square it in his head.

"It brought back more than a few memories." He admitted to her, sliding down on the bed just slightly so that he could look her in the eyes without her having to crane his neck.

The tip of his nose nuzzled against hers as he gave a tiny smile.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I have no idea who those people are." Was all she said.

Admittedly, she knew almost nothing of the Alliance military makeup, or their offshoots or allies in that regard, so for all she knew Kurt could have been talking about just about any other group and she would have the same confused roll of the shoulders as a reaction to offer him. Though she did wonder about the memories, "Were they good ones, at least?" The question wasn't so much just for the sake of having some feel good vibe, but the fact that in the heat of the moment, during any kind of fight, you needed your wits about you, and a distraction like that might cost you your life.

Such as the one that got her captured by Vrak. But that was another conversation for later.

Her eyes settled on Kurt's in his new, more comfortable position. And for a second she considered pulling one of the extra blankets over them at the foot of her bed. That consideration took only a second before she leaned up and grabbed it, fanning it out over the two, and then once again settling back down.

"Have you been up to anything else besides that?"

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He gently tugged her closer again as she pulled the blanket over them, arm wrapping around her and hand slipping onto the small of her back. He let his palm settle beneath her shirt, thumb tracing tiny circles on her skin as he spoke. "Some."

Kurt said quietly.

"There aren't a lot of good memories of battles." He'd never really talked to Jamie about where he'd fought or how. She knew he'd been a pilot and an ace, but more than that he'd always avoided talking about. There was a reason for it of course. He'd lost his entire squadron on a mission, eleven of his best friends gone in the blink of an eye. Those were the difficult memories, the hard ones that he liked to forget about at night. "But some after the landing...we used to have a tradition, guy with the lowest fuel in his tank had to do as many shots as there were gallons left."

He let out a small chuckle. "That got pretty bad when it was a short mission."

Kurt shook his head slightly as the memory flooded back to him, mostly because he'd almost always been the one to drink. Fancy flying took a lot of fuel after all.

'Not really." He answer her other quesiton. "I got that job at the Survey Corpse, and other than that...it's just been steady going."

He let out a breath and pressed a kiss against her lips. "What about you?"

Kurt knew she had a lot more to tell.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie let out probably the first genuine laugh he'd heard since before Pelagon, hearing him talk about the drinking game. She'd never really played a drinking game, at least, nothing like that. It just wasn't something that was really done at the types of events and parties she attended. Nobody was exactly wild at these things. It was more about appropriate social appearances than actual consumption of alcohol. Most just offered it as a way to loosen tongues, more often than not.

"I'm surprised you opted for some kind of steady job. You're not the type."

Were credits that tight for him aboard the ship? Was the courier gig not cutting it anymore?

"I've...." Wow. There had been a whole mess of things she could talk about. "Been keeping busy." The less terrible things first, Jamie... "Oh!" She said, turning quickly away from Kurt for a moment, her hand fumbling around her end table on her side of the bed for a few seconds before feeling the spherical object. She pulled it close, then showed it to Kurt, holding it between them. "I picked this up during a trip with Aela. It's neat! Watch!" The wispy, purplish hue filled with tiny specks sat idle in her hands for a few seconds, the blonde's eyes closing as she focused for about fifteen more. A finger gently tapped the glass, and suddenly, like an eye over the galaxy it appeared to zoom straight in to Borelais. "There." She said, opening her eyes. "Borelais. That is where I found this artifact of the Force."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Woah." Kurt said in amazement.

He'd never seen something like that before, though he recognized the planet almost instantly even before Jamie said something. Borleias was a bit distinctive, the land-masses setting it apart from Spira or other paradise worlds. He stared at the tiny orb in amazement. It was obviously some kind of force artifact, even he could tell that much, but just how it did what it did was a complete mystery to him. He frowned for a second and then touched the orb.

His finger gentle pressed on it's top where Jamie had touched it and...nothing happened. "Does it only work for you?"

He asked with genuine interest.

"Can you make it show you other planets?" It was clear he found this more than a little interesting. "Dac? Muunilist? Tatooine?"

He hadn't seen home in what seemed like forever.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"No, It worked for Aela too." She said with a smile, still holding on to the orb, though her hands offered it to Kurt. "I could see Borelais, Naboo, and Korriban."

It had a funny way of working, last she recalled, back in Vineta. "I think you need to know enough about a planet in order for the orb to find it. I remember when I tried to find Korriban at first it showed a few planets that matched what I was thinking, so I had to really focus."

Part of her didn't think it would work for Kurt, but she wanted him to try all the same.

"Do you want to try? I don't know if you can do it without a connection to the Force, but I just focus on the planet I want to see, everything I know and can visualize for a minute. And then it appears inside the glass."

It was a neat little thing, well worth the credits. "It only cost me around forty-five hundred credits."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Kurt sputtered. "Four thousand and five hundred credits?!"

The Courier gave her a bewildered look, completely ignoring everything else she had said for the time being. Money hadn't really been the focus of their relationship, ever, but it had always been clear that he was substantially less wealthy than she in every way. The fact was really driven home though when she presented him with what was...essentially a trinket that cost about a fourth as much as his last job had paid him. He frowned for a second.

"That's a lot of money." He said quietly. "Does it do anything else?"

He felt like she probably got ripped off.

Kurt could go to any local store and buy a datapad that could do the same thing as this for about one tenth the cost of the little orb. Not to mention it would also do other stuff, like store data and actually let you surf the holo-net.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The blonde lifted her eyes from the orb to Kurt's, reeling back slightly from the sudden outburst.

"Um..." She paused, thinking about it for a minute. "No. I mean, I don't think so? I haven't seen it do anything else yet."

It really wasn't all that expensive. A drop in the bucket relatively speaking. "Aela and I went shopping at Vineta." Among other things that would not be spoken of quite yet. The drunken stupor and stumbling around the site of a massive dam tipsy as can be likely wouldn't go over well. One thing at a time. Kurt seemed to be having difficulty in just processing the cost of the orb she bought.

"I got a really big package of Farrberries too while Aela got some Kray Dragon fruits, but she lost them at some point that night. Oh..." She bit her lip, realizing she had bought more things that day as well. "And we got some new bags, though she bought a pretty ugly backpack."

That was it, right? "I didn't go too crazy though. I think the shopping trip ran about 12,000 credits on my end."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Kurt started hyperventilating a little bit.

Twelve thousand credits? That was more than half of the last job he'd pulled off for Sif, and that had been dangerous enough that he'd seriously worried about his life. He could feel his heart rate spike a little bit, and he couldn't help but feel sick. The idea of spending twelve thousand credits in the course of a single night? That seemed all but impossible to him unless you were buying starship parts, and even then...

"That's..." He frowned. "Insane."

He told her quietly, his lips breaking out into a little bit of a smile. The expression was mostly there because he couldn't quite believe what she was telling him, but of course, he didn't really judge her. In the back of his mind he always knew that Jamie was richer than him, a lot richer. The fact had always been one of his primary concerns about whether or not he was good enough for her. In all practically he was poor, and she...well could buy whatever she wanted. "That's a lot of money."

Kurt suddenly felt very small.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

In a way it was a lot of money, depending on how one looked at it. It wasn't a lot of money to her, but it was quite a bit of credits in general. Credits that were most definitely better off being spent elsewhere, but, well, desperate times and desperate measures. This little excursion had in part been to help Jamie deal with the whole Kurt Situation. She would hold off on telling him that detail though.

"It's not that bad." She argued, it could have been so much worse. He hadn't seen a really bad Jamie shopping spree yet. If he ever took a look at the closet in her bedroom, the tags on the clothing, so much of it she had never worn, he would understand that she could have very expensive tastes. This? This was just a sample of how much she could spend on a spontaneous trip. "I could have done a lot more damage if we didn't get drunk halfway through the night."

The casino really slowed them down, not to mention nearly got them into serious trouble with the bouncers.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He tried to not focus on the money.

Doing so would either just upset him or bewilder him beyond any thought of comprehension. Their vast difference in wealth was something they would likely eventually have to have a serious conversation about, but for now they could at least avoid it. "You got drunk?

Kurt asked with a bemused smile, once again wrapping his arm around her to pull her close.

"I don't think I've ever seen that." The small orb that had been in her hand was placed onto the nightstand, Kurt being somewhat weary of the thing just because it cost as much as the last modification that he'd made to The Messa. When something was that small he felt like he could break it in an instant. "Did you fall down a lot?"

She already did when sober, he couldn't even imagine her drunk.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

She hadn't quite meant for the drunken bit to come out, nor did she mean for it to suddenly become the topic for discussion. But sure enough that was what Kurt latched onto. "It wasn't my fault." She felt the need to immediately defend her actions. "We went to a casino after shopping." Also not her fault. Jamie didn't want to play any gambling games, it wasn't her thing. "I watched her play a few games and we ordered drinks." That was about when things started to go off the rails for the rest of the night.

"I ordered us a few shots, intending them to be spread out over the course of watching her play. Instead the dummy took them all at once, so I had no choice."

And then they finished their drinks on top of that.

"Everything else was kind of a blur after that. Although I do somewhat remember walking to a dam at some point during the night."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

He let out a laugh. "I can't imagine you drunk."

Kurt said honestly.

"You'd be falling all over yourself." A small smirk touched his lips. He himself had a fantastic constitution when it came to alcohol, mostly because he'd been secretly drinking from a very young age. Growing up on Tatooine there weren't a lot of rules, and the few that his parents did impose upon him were often broken due to child mischief. Drinking was incredibly common on Tatooine, and getting a hold of alcohol as a kid?

Easy as pie.

He smirked at her, brushing his lips against hers. "Your morning must have been terrible."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

A loud 'Psssssssssssssssh' came from Jamie as she pushed Kurt away from her a bit. "Nooooo! I was quite composed!" At least what she could remember. Perhaps everyone around her and Aela may have disagreed, but she liked to think Aela was the worse off of the two. The girl had never drank without cheating her way through the Force. It had been incredibly comical to watch.

The morning after though? Yeah, that was bad. They also had to return to their work. A subject she would simply gloss over in hopes that he wouldn't notice.

"Just because I don't do it often doesn't mean I can't handle myself."

She squinted her eyes towards Kurt. "I was just fine."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Mhmmm" The noise came from Kurt with no small amount of amusement. "I'm sure."

Jamie drunk was something he'd eventually like to see.

"I'm sure you were a picture of handling yourself." There was sarcasm in his tone, just a little bit. He highly doubted that Jamie could handle her liquor all that well, if only because...well she was quite tiny. He knew she drank wine every now and again, a fruity or flowery drink, but that was entirely different than actually getting trashed. Kurt was no stranger to the latter, having done it many many times back on Tatooine and during the Navy.

His finger slowly traced down her spine.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Okay, maybe I was a little silly." She admitted, "But only a little! Aela was way worse!" That was probably a lie, they both did end up crying like children in public. That was rather embarrassing, though thankfully being drunk made it substantially less embarrassing, if only because the self-awareness aspect was taken away almost entirely.

"I think we nearly got thrown out of the casino, but we left I think right before that happened."

Aela had been afraid to talk to the woman behind the counter to cash out her chips. The thought amused her, bringing another smile to her face.

"It was a fun time, even though it was a little bit expensive."

[member="Kurt Meyer"]