Responsibility

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

It was just as much a kiss powered by urgency as it was one desiring to savor it. As if Kaile wanted to kiss him in every way possible. From a deep stroking sweep of her tongue to the gentle, lingering nibbles that she softened with in between.

His body was warm, and Kaile's skin tingled from his nearness. Her head became all fuzzy again, and everything faded away once more.

It was the scent of him. That must be it. The way that it seemed to float around her from his hair. Up her hands went, sliding over his chest to lock up and loop around his shoulders. Soft curves pressed against his lanky body and then it just became so hard to brea---

Bobo had enough! A tiny flash of green, the sharp pinpricks of small claws, and he darted from under Kaile's hair. He went scurrying up from the Lorrdian's shoulder, crossing her arm and then lunged at Asmus' collar.

The tiny little claws that dug into latch onto his shirt were likely a most unwelcomed interruption.

 

[Asmus Janes]

"Ah!" The surprise caught him before his faculties grasped what was happening. He stumbled back away from Kaile as Bobo regained his footing.

As his mind put everything together he turned his head to Kaile and shook his head slowly, chuckling. He looked down at Bobo, who had now taken up position on his shoulder to give him a stern glare.

"Alright, alright, that's fair," he said, but there was a faint trembling of his lower lip as he shot Kaile a needs expression.

"But...now you can stay with me!" Asmus proceeded to turn to head down the corridor, fussing Bobo despite the look he was receiving. The ysalmiri turned to Kaile in confusion, not entirely sure how this had ended up the result of events.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile watched him amble off, unlike him needing a few seconds to gather her bearings. Bobo was just being Bobo, but truth be told, there was a tiny part of her that would have rather not had that interruption.

Licking her lips, she couldn't help the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth. Asmus managed to flow pretty easily from the situation. He didn't seem to be bothered too much. Adaptable. That's what he was. Adaptable.

He was at that age where there wasn't much that could knock the winds off his sails. Still had his entire life to live.

Yeah... He'll be okay, she quietly thought to herself, seeing how he went on to fuss on Bobo and continue on his way. Still jovial, still able to make do.

To a point, Kaile was jealous of that. Not a month ago that was how she viewed life. Did things.

If only I could get that back...

Then again, would everything have happened as it had? Honestly that was a sobering thought that the Lorrdian rather not delve into.

Pushing herself off the bulkhead, Kaile followed Asmus, quickening her steps to catch up.

Bobo was bobbing up and down upon Asmus' shoulder, and his eyes were a bit wide, arms outstretched with his claws lightly digging onto the fabric of his shirt. There was a particular expression on his face -- one that said, 'Get me off him, woman!"

Truth be told, it only made her snicker.

 

[Asmus Janes]

Everything felt confusing to the scoundrel. Nothing was normal, the usual flow of things was off. It was in flux, on the knife edge. They were coming upon the point where everything would suddenly change.

"No point doing that, you made your choice to ruin the moment now you're stuck with me," Asmus laughed as they went. "I'm going to steal you from Kaile!" he added in a hushed whisper, though at a volume Kaile would hear.

"Alright, alright, not the ear!" he was laughing a moment later, before bundling the ysalmiri up and passing him back to Kaile.

"Oh well, maybe he won't try that one next time."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile took Bobo in between her palms. There he wiggled, walking a small circle before bursting forward in a flash of green. As expected, he went straight to his perch upon her right shoulder.

"That wouldn't be nice," Kaile said, all aware that Asmus' was jesting. Perhaps it was to impart some lightheartedness to the situation? Reading him was both easy as it was difficult. In some ways she could get him, in others... it was like looking through a filter.

Maybe her game was off. With her emotions all up in the air and then crashing, perhaps her ability to really capture intent and emotions behind body movements was affected. A small grimace and she brought her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. A little ache lay there.

"I told you he liked earlobes." she joked, trying to smile as her arm fell away.

Maybe he won't try that next time.

Well, that brought to mind other images and the ache in her head faded to the rush of blood that colored her cheeks.

"Right.. sensors...." she told herself as if the reminder would prevent her from doing anything silly.

Although truth be told, when had that ever stopped her before?

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Part of the problem for the bemused Lorrdian was that Asmus was swinging back and forth in confusion. This morning he didn't know if he was coming or going. Much of the time if felt like watching events unfold from outside the experience, watching these minutes tick by through stained glass.

The notable exception, right up until Bobo's intervention, was the time spent entirely immersed in Kaile. His fingers twitched, wanting to find her again instead of some perceived problem in the secondary conduit.

He stepped out onto the mez floor above the engineering deck. Placing both hands on the railing and looking down across the small chamber.

"Those panels there," he said, pointing to a row of panels on the port side of the room. "The sensor is behind panel three or four I think. Probably quicker to take them both off than check the manual."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile's fingers went curling around the railing, leaning forward to get a good view of where Asmus was pointing towards for the panels.

"I" ll take three," she said, hand coming up to tuck wayward strands of strawberry blonde hair behind her right ear. A peek of green and black beady eyes popped out. Bobo again, surveying the scene.

With a small swing, Kaile ducked down, moving to jump from the ramp down below. She did so with such ease it would make one wonder at her physical condition. Then again, maybe it only brought to mind her flexible nature.

A small thump, and she landed, giving a half bend of the knees before she stood up.

"Alright." she began, flashing a half smile back up as Asmus.

"Shouldn't take too long."

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

I'll erm, climb down myself," Asmus mumbled. He turned to the ladder and swung himself down onto it, placing his feet against the outside and sliding down. Kaile seemed to walk away from her acrobatics without even having turned her ankle. Bobo must have had a good grip on her.

Unfortunate in some ways that taking panel four from the wall was such a mandrolic task. It left most of his brain to start thinking again. As he fetched a small stool and a hydrospanner it started to think that asking Kaile for her holonet details would be a good idea. Because that had all gone down so well before. As the hydrospanner whirred and he took each of the bolts away in turn he took the time to look over at Kaile. Asmus would have given almost anything to get inside her head right now. To unravel what was behind those sad eyes and guarded words.

She has clung to him so tightly when she'd allowed herself to let go. She wanted him, felt a great deal for him. If only there was more time.

Asmus abruptly realised that he'd stopped working and become lost in thought. It happened frequently when doing mundane tasks and was an unlimited source of frustration for Kairon.

"Have you been to Denon before?" he asked as he slid the heavy hatch down from the wall. "Oh, the sensor must be behind three, but I'll leave this open for now."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

"There it is."

Indeed, the sensor was behind panel three. Setting the panel to the side, Kaile barely began to get to work at troubleshooting the sensor when Asmus asked her about Denon.

She bit her lower lip, nibbling on the soft flesh as she inspected the sensor. No wires were charred. Nothing loose.

"Yeah." she finally answered, her voice quiet. Bobo went scampering from one shoulder to the next. Every now and then, his tiny face would peek out.

"It's a common stop, what with it being at the crossroads of the Corellian Run and the Hydian Way," she added, explaining. "Got even busier after the Protectorate took over.. then the Republic," she commented. Kaile was trying to keep some measure of noise and discussion between them. The safe kind at least.

"Wouldn't be surprised if that be one of ya'lls common stops right?"

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Oh yeah, we know Denon pretty well. I'd love to...I mean there isn't time today...but another time I would show you some of my favourite spots. A short speeder ride from the freight spaceport there's this great club split over four levels. They always have some Rodian electrobob and Malastare speeder smash playing. If you like that kind of thing."

Asmus was considering rather foolishly offering to stay on Denon a few days, but he knew it just wasn't practical. He dropped down from his footstoop and moved to a workbench. "No one ever puts it back in its place I swear...oh wait...I think I left it here."

He picked up a small yellow box with lots of cables hanging from it. Before he went to Kaile he walked to the intercom.

"Kairon, secondary conduit is definitely disabled?"

"Yup."

"Right then," Asmus mumbled. "If it looks alright take the sensor off and I'll run some signals through it and see if it's reacting proper."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Kaile carefully observed Asmus through her peripheral vision as he talked to Kairon on the comm. Watching him stand there with the yellow box close to his mouth, hair falling over his face again and the lanky stance that he took was making her heart thump all over again. A quickening beat that followed the slight ache of hearing him mention his favorite spots on Denon.

Yeah, but I won't be on Denon for long...

"Everything good?" she asked him, waiting for his go-ahead. Once she got a quick nod, she set to work.

"Right." so she plucked her hydrospanner back from her belt and began to take the sensor off. Asmus wouldn't miss that she didn't mention whether or not she enjoyed that sort of scene he'd described earlier. It was so hard for him to read her now, but Kaile was trying her best. That was evident enough in the way she was avoiding looking straight at him.

Doing that made her weak.

"Don't see nor smell any sort of burn out." usually, you could tell straight off it that was the case.

A few bolts out later and Kaile had the sensor in hand. Taking a step back, she gave it a quick visual.

"Let's see if sending some signals through it will narrow down what's wrong."

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kaile seemed to be becoming even more distant. Perhaps that was just his imagining playing with him. He took the sensor from her and laid it out on a workbench. He plugged it into the yellow box in several places before tapping the screen a few times.

"Hmm, the response seems alright. I can't see anything...oh hang on," the oscillation on the screen flickered. Asmus went and got a datapad and plugged it into the sensors dataport and repeated proceedings, sniffing the traffic it output.

Several lines of gibberish appeared on the datapad. "Right, so the messages into the health monitoring system are encrypted so I can't read them. However I'm pretty sure it's generating warnings when the power fluctuates quickly. It shouldn't do that, I'm not generating anything outside of normal parameters.

"New sensor?" he asked, turning to face her square on.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

It would have been easy to simply dive into the sensor and see how Kaile would be able to fix it without having to use a new sensor. She had a knack for being able to do such things with whatever was easily available for her to utilize. Generally, she’d wave Asmus off and say, ‘Nah, we can figure it out!’ take the next half hour or so to take the sensor apart and look and see what was prompting the warnings.

However, things weren’t quite so easy right now. Kaile was off her game. Her mind wrapping around the ever dwindling time she had left with Asmus and the fact that she was trying her best not to show her increasing anxiety over it.

“Yeah, best to just replace the sensor.” she agreed, giving a slight frown as she read over the encryption. Had Bobo not been there with her, she’d have used the Force to make this go even faster. But using the Force again was something that she’d only recently embraced again. For the past five years, Kaile had rarely ever been far from the tiny ysalamiri. Now that he was able to move away from his nutrient tube more, it allowed the Lorrdian more wiggle room for that.

Taking the sensor, she began unhooking the cables. “You got an extra one?” she asked, turning her head sideways to look at Asmus in a query.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Nope!" Asmus replied. "Will have to pick one up at Denon I suppose," he added. Maybe she'd offer to go with him to get one? That was likely a long shot.

He thought on what they could do as an interim measure, but again his thoughts were swept off course as he watched her unclip the sensor. Without warning he reached out and laid his right hand across hers, thumb gently stroking the back of her fingers.

"We'll plug it back in," he said. "We'll just set those warnings to informational and hope we don't blow the conduit. Should be fine for...for just a couple more hours..."

He trailed off at that squeezing his lips together tightly and looking to her. The corners of his eyes betrayed the strain he felt at admitting that again.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

That.. wouldn’t be good. If Asmus lingered long on Denon…

“I..” Kaile, swallowed hard, feeling the light brush of his thumb run over her knuckles and then back up over her hand. That was nothing compared to the strained expression that now lined his face. The slight tension at the corners of his eyes, the way his hair was falling forward again.

Without her realizing, her free hand came up. Fingers went grazing over his temple and carefully tucked the wayward dark strands behind the shell of his ear.

“Always gets right over your eyes,” Kaile murmured quietly, her forefinger tracing the curve of his ear before she froze. Her fingers curled back in realization, and she gave an apologetic half smile,

“Sorry... “ she said,

“I can see what I can do,” she added quickly, only to turn to Bobo. Yeah, I know what I could do.

“Do me a favor?” she asked him. “Mind taking Bobo back? I’ll work on this real quick and see if I can make some sense out of it. Rather try that then blow the conduit…”

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"No need to say sorry for that all a sudden," he said. Leaning in to plant a gentle kiss on her cheek, he lingered until Bobo made his move again. As the lizard went to get in the way he was summarily scooped up and carted out of jumping distance.

As far as Asmus concerned this was the best course of action. Stole a kiss and then some time with Kaile without being interrupted by the Ysalmiri, as much as he'd grown fond of the reptile.

"I'll be back in a minute then," he said, carrying off a distinctly bemused Bobo. Asmus would never suspect what Kaile had planned or why.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

“Okay.” Kaile replied, watching him turn to leave. Her large chocolate brown eyes followed him an a bemused Bobo, who was eying with an expression of ‘WhaaaatttWhyareyoulettinghimtakeme!!??’

“Just taking you back to your nutrient tube, kiddo.” Kaile called out after, watching Asmus climb up the ladder and move well on his way. The Force came back to Kaile with that prickly sensation of having ones limbs in an ice bath for far too long.

Everything tingled and pricked at her nerves, like a thousand tiny needles as sensation came back to her. It took a few seconds to get her bearings again, but the end result was the same. Kaile’s eyes snapped open, and she squared her shoulders.

Technomancy with the Force wasn’t too difficult at this stage. At least for figuring out what was the real issue behind the warning errors. Learning the encrypted language and actually becoming one with the sensor had its perks.

Taking the sensor in between her hands, Kaile shut her eyes. Had to do this within the few minutes she had before Asmus would return. The Force came in like a wave, then went surging down her arms and into her fingers, where the sensor lay. In her mind, she was pouring that energy within, learning to see exactly what there was that she could do. No short-circuits. Or stripped wires.

A deep frown of concentration wrinkled her brow. This would take a minute. But once she figured out what was wrong, fixing it would be a lot easier.

Maybe it was the calibration instead...

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Bobo's little feet dug deep as he made his way up the ladder. "I wonder what hunger feels like for you," he mused as he made his way onto the mez floor and headed into the spinal corridor. He idly fussed the lizard as he walked. It was almost a calming influence as he tried to replay the series of events leading up to now. It was hard. So many feelings intertwined with the memories that seemed to shift fluidly through time until he struggled to put them in order. The moment she had discarded his shirt without a care seemed to mix with the very different time he'd hoicked her up onto the laundry machine.

"Do you know what's up with Kaile little guy?" he asked softly.

​

"Fair enough."

Mai and Kairon could be heard arguing on the bridge, so he slipped down from the galley and headed into his room. With extreme care he helped Bobo back into his nutrient tube. The ysalmir turned about and looked around, as if checking no one was watching. There was a very brief affectionate nuzzle back into Asmus' hand before he crawled back inside.

Asmus chuckled, placing his hands on his hips. His gaze turned to regard Kaile's belongings. A low sigh escaped his lips at the sight of them all packed up. She travelled so light. And he had continually complained to Kairon that he didn't have enough room for his clothes on the ship. It suddenly made him think of her interest in the fashions of Eriadu he'd shown her. With a slow nod he turned and headed back for engineering.

---

"Kaile?" he asked quietly as he approached her back by the open panels. "You're not...not in any kind of trouble are you? Nothing we could help with?" It seemed a long shot, but he just wanted to make sure in case it was the truth. She was awful cagey about Denon and had seemed so sad at the beginning of the journey and desperate to get off that space station.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Asmus Janes"]

Asmus would see the Lorrdian give a small pause at his question. Her back was to him, barely an edge of her profile. Her hair hung from her ponytail, wayward strands fanning lightly with her breath. He'd she the slight set of her shoulders, and her fingers curl just a little bit tighter around the sensor.

Her chin lowered a bit, eyes falling on the sensor as she slowly began to set it back into place.

"No more than anyone else would with what I do," she told him. It was both an answer as it was a method to deflect. As honest as Kaile could be.

"Got it fixed," she added quickly after that, still unable to look at him. Not quite willing to do so. Doing so would mean she'd see the expression on his face and to be honest, she wasn't quite sure she could handle what she'd see there without getting a bit more control over herself.

"Should be good. Won't need a new one," she added, taking a few of the bolts and twisting them finger tight. The hydro spanner would be next.

 

[Asmus Janes]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Sorry," Asmus replied. "I just started thinking and worrying is all. Silly, I know."

He canted his head to one side, aware of the fact that she was keeping her eyes forward. Asmus took a few steps forward, dropping down onto his haunches next to her under the pretence of picking his hydrospanner back up off the floor. She was upset, but that was expected. He was upset.

Turning towards her, she still didn't meet his eye. "What was up with it? I'm impressed, should have beefed up that recommendation. Shall I close up the other panel?"

He stayed there, eyes searching. It was almost an olive branch. I'll stop probing just as long as you look at me.