Sunburns & Hyperdrive Troubles

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt stopped, though he couldn't help but laugh. Almost immediately he threw himself off of her, not in trying to get away, no it was sadly already too late from that, but more because he knew that she would very likely want to scramble away from him after that. The wide smirk on his face didn't disappear though, in fact, it might have gotten wider. The two of them had shared much of them as roommates, a hell of a lot actually, but that...well that was new territory for even then.

"OhgodkaileImsorry." Kurt said the words so quickly that he could hardly keep track himself. "Ididn'tmeanto."

The Courier sort of half touched her stomach, fingers still latched to where he had been tickling her.

What was a person supposed to say at a time like this. "At least we're next to the ocean."

Kurt cracked the joke in an attempt to help, biting his lip and trying to keep from laughing at the situation.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

....

I...


... I....


Kaile was beyond mortified. She was beyond... well beyond anything right now. Her mouth had fallen open in a slight 'o' of surprise, shock, and a growing sense of dawn that just --

Ohstars.

What was one to do then? Kaile scrambled away, much like crab as she shuffled a couple of feet, leaving behind her full glass of water and a saturated dark deposit in the sand.

Ohstars.

The bright red flush ran all up her breasts, over her chest, up her neck, and settled hotly on her face. She was a bright as an Ukio tomato, with this sickening feeling that came right after.

Well, didn't take much after that. With a push of her hands on the sand, she got to her feet and began to run back to the Messa.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Kaile!" Kurt yelled after her, his face blanching slightly.

He hadn't meant to do that, he hadn't wanted to! Quickly Kurt scrambled to his feet and began to chase after her, trampling in the sand and leaving his shirt behind. He rushed onto the Ship, following after her rather quickly and finding that she had locked herself inside of her room. Kurt bit his lip, the nervous tick that showed he didn't quite know what to do in this situation. His eyes fell on the door, then onto his slightly wet pants. His teeth sunk deeper, eyes closing for half a second as he thought.

He couldn't blame her for running into her room.

That reaction was natural really, trying to get away from the thing that had emberassed her. Slowly he walked up to the door, knocking quietly. "Kaile?"

Kurt asked quietly.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Not right now Kurt!"

Her muffled voice was barely comprehensible through the door. She had locked herself up tight. Inside, she was already smarting tears of embarrassment. She was covered in sand, both dry and wet, and that lingering scent of watered down urine on her.

Ohstars I can't believe that happened.

She immediately began to take off her bathing suit. Wiggling and and silently blinking away tears of abashed dismay. Off when the top, where it sailed over to her bed to flop with a limp thump. Thumbs hooked on the straps of the offending bottoms and she slid them down, scattering wet sand and the damp fabric onto the ground. A toe picked them up and tossed them to the corner of the room, where it plopped down with a sag.

There was no refresher in her room. They only had one. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around her body, lower lip trembling as she sank down next to the far wall and sat on the floor. Her hands came up to her hot face and she just wanted to disappear.

The day had taken a spin for the worse.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt knocked on the door again.

"Kaile." His voice sounded almost begging. "Come on."

What was he supposed to say to comfort her? Or rather, apologize to her. This was entirely his fault, no avoiding that, though truthfully he hardly seemed to mind all that much in the first place. The Courier knocked on the door again, starting to play with the small lock that normally kept the door closed. He realized that she might want to be alone right now, but that would really only settle the embarrassment in further and he really didn't want that. This was her first day back, there was no need to shame.

"It's alright. Not that bad." He continued insisting, leaning on the door so that he could speak back with a less muffled tone.

Kurt shimmied slightly, trying to find comfort as he talked to Kaile.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

All he'd hear would be a sniff.

The back of her hand went sweeping under her nose. It was so embarrassing. She could still feel the heat of shame on her face. Of mortification. Another groan, and she covered her eyes with her hands.

Knees drew up to her chest, and she made herself as small as possible. Tiny as she could. Bobo was on his branch, watching her curiously, claws sinking deep to eat his food. Beside him, the gilded cube sat silent. Waiting.

This wasn't how she wanted things to start out again. This wasn't how she envisioned it. Slipping her hands from her face, she rested her cheek against the top of her knees. Hugging herself, she tried to find a measure of comfort. But it wasn't working.

Her time away from Kurt had evoked in Kaile a deep need for physical comfort. It was because the distance had made her realize that she needed that. She needed to feel arms around her. She needed to feel comforted. To feel... wanted. To know that someone was there.

And now.. now she couldn't even do that anymore. It wouldn't be fair for him. Not with how confused Kurt was with Jamie and...

Why did everything turned so complicated now?

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Luckily, the locks on the doors of The Messa weren't exactly the greatest thing in the galaxy. They weren't really meant to keep people out, more as a privacy measure so no one walked into one another naked. It was how the ship was built, the inside meant to be comfortable but not really all that secure, it was just an escort freighter after all, not a military vessel. After a few more moments of simply fiddling with the lock, Kurt managed to pop it open

"Aha." He said quietly.

Kurt was intruding, being selfish again, but he didn't care right now. There was no way that he was going to let things with Kaile get awkward over what essentially amounted to just a little bit of water. The truth was he didn't mind at all, it happened once in a while and sometimes, there were unintended consequences.

The door slid open, Kurt pushing the thin metal into the wall.

As soon as the door fell open The Courier shimmied his way inside, walking with long steps towards Kaile on the bed.

 

[Kaile Vera]

"Kurt not now."

The mewl was rather pitiful sounding coming from the curled up woman at the far end of the cabin. Her dyed dark brown hair hid her face, and she gave another sniff. She didn't want to see him right now. She just wanted to disappear. It was so mortifying.

And, and...

Just made her feel terribly small. The past two weeks have been the most emotional Kaile ever had to experience. She didn't know how to handle it. Didn't know what to do. How to act. What was right. What was wrong. The boundaries she knew she had to keep in place for Kurt's sake and the selfish desire she had to hold onto him more.

"Please."

The low, strained beg from the woman who used to be so jovial and bubbly and optimistic was heartbreaking to see. It was growing pain season for the agent.

Welcome to life.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Kaile." Kurt said quietly, his hand reaching out to cup her chin and tilt her head. "It's fine."

It was.

He didn't mind, it wasn't a big deal, and it certainly didn't change the way that he thought about her. Sure the moment had been embarrassing for Kaile, but in the end it wasn't the apocalypse. The galaxy kept on spinning, they kept on living, and Kurt discovered something new. "Really."

Kurt said with emphasis on the word.

The Courier didn't want her to be upset, didn't want her to cry or be sad, he wanted her to be the Kaile that he knew, the fun one, the one that just wanted everyone and everything to be okay. That was why he had tickled her in the first place, why he acted the way he did. Kurt didn't want things to change between the two of them, he didn't want things to become any different then they had always been. He was selfish that way, always thinking of what he wanted, always wanting what he wanted, and nearly always getting it.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


The first thing Kurt would see would be the red-rimmed eyes, blurry for the tears of mortification that had collected there. Her face was still a bright pink. She was still embarrassed by it all, even more so because Kurt was trying to comfort her to say it was okay.

But it wasn’t. At least Kaile didn’t feel that way. Honestly, the roller-coaster of emotions wasn’t helping with how she was dealing with new situations.

Opening her mouth to speak, she took a breath, “No isn’t... you don't understand." What I felt. About you. About me. About everything.

He was a blurry blob of colors, and it was hard to keep her eyes on the pilot because of her sense of shame. Yet he held her chin firmly, and ultimately, she had to blink her tears away to see him clearly.

"I'm just so --"

There came the small break in her voice. A pause. Then the embarrassment turning into quizzing confusion. With Kurt crouched in front of her, there was no avoiding the pilot in his entirety. Maybe that’s why he did what he did deliberately. Kalie slowly closed her mouth, only to open it back up to say something… and then to close it again.

Her hand came up to rub her eyes, wiping the tears away. They left red-rimmed chocolate brown spiky black lashes staring up at Kurt with growing puzzlement. There were few things one could miss from Kurt Meyer, this particular circumstance wasn’t. No, it was pretty persistent.

The Lorrdian’s growing confusion didn’t wane her current predicament. That being that she wanted to hide in a small hole still. However, Kurt had managed to cut through her own sense of turmoil to get her attention.

What did that mean?

Her fingers went curling into the fluffy blue towel over her knees, nervousness bleeding out in a tense body language that didn’t need a trained Lorrdian to understand.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt let out a loud sigh.

He didn't want things to change.

That was the very key point of this, that was at the center of everything that he was trying to communicate to her. Kurt didn't care about embarrassment, he didn't care how anything looked, he didn't care about any of that. All he wanted was for things to be the way that they always were, that was what was important for him. Their relationship was complex in a simple way, that might have seemed like an oxymoron, but it made sense when one looked at how Kurt and Kaile actually operated.

They weren't in love, but they cared about each other, they cared about each other a lot.

"Kaile." Kurt said very seriously. "Listen."

He looked down at her, his eyes wandering over to the bed, then around the room. "It's okay. It's alright. There's nothing to be embarrassed about, Okay?"

Kurt reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"You know I don't care about that stuff." He said quietly. "You know I just want things to be like they always were."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Pearly white teeth would bite at the fullness of her lower lip. They would chew on it, mulling. In the year they were almost together, Kurt was exactly as he said. He didn't care about such things. Wasn't something really to be concerned about. However, there was a difference in that it came out of the blue, and her emotional state that likely only enhanced what she was feeling now.

That that made her all the more sensitive to things that made the young agent even more self-conscious. Things were easier back then, when she didn't have to worry about it all. How did things get so complicated?

​

You know I just want things to be like they always were.​

No, it was more than that.

Brown eyes fell, stopping at where his hand was squeezing her own. The sight made her heart ache. Her lips gave a wobbly smile, and her other hand came to rest over the hand that held her own. She gave it a squeeze. Was she now comforting him?

"Kurt." this time, she was talking about something else. And no, it had nothing to do with the persistence between them. Although that would warrant some questioning in a bit. "I'm not sure how to."

Her throat began to work. Where do I even start?

"I..." she opened her mouth only to close it. By now, the heat of her embarrassment had waned, leaving only twin spots of color on her cheeks. Her towel awkwardly wrapped around her torso, her knees tucked tight against her chest. She felt like a hot mess of emotions and she was still trying to work through them.

"I don't know."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt shifted slightly, adjusting his pants and sitting himself down on the side of the bed. He knew that Kaile was confused, he could see it in her. One thing about Lorrdians was that they were an expressive folk, they talked with their bodies as much as they talked with their mouths. Kurt didn't quite know how to read people, obviously, but he knew Kaile. He had spent months together with her, and that time had bred a familiarity between them.

He knew what she was thinking.

Knew what she wanted.

"Then don't try." Kurt said quietly. "Just be yourself, that's all I want. I don't want you to hold back around me, restrict yourself or stop being who you are. I like you because you're you, Kaile, not because you can pretend to be someone else."

She was his best friend, what more could he want from her besides being herself. "Just be yourself."

Maybe that was asking too much of her, maybe he was demanding too much, but Kurt was selfish. He wanted his friend, he wanted her happy, and he wanted her to enjoy the life that she was living. There wasn't a point in having her back if she wasn't going to be herself, if she wasn't going to be his Kaile. The Courier knew how that would sound, he knew it even without saying it, but truthfully, it was the best thing for her. Kaile was so bubbly, so happy, so on the verge of life that he couldn't imagine her any different.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Kaile but her lower lip even harder, deep enough to draw blood. When he said it like that. With that look in his sapphire blue eyes. When he encouraged her to simply just be herself, that it was all he wanted. That he just wanted to go back to how they were much like she did, it was hard to contain herself.

"Are you sure?" There wasn't anything between them that she wasn't aware of. At least, the important bits he had made sure to tell her. The bits she was okay with. Connecting with others was a wonderful thing and Kaile didn't want to take that from him. She just wanted him to be happy and to be there.

Her fingers twitched to touch him, her body thrumming as if held back by a string.

"are you sure?"

She asked again, voice quivering. Oh she should do what was best, but right now, all Kaile felt was weak.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

He nodded. There wasn't anything else to it. Kurt wanted his best friend to be herself, he didn't want a cleaned up version of Kaile. That was really it. "I'm positive."

"I like having you be yourself." Kurt said with a shrug. "I need someone to be bubbly, makes me look more serious."

The Courier grinned at her.

That was actually true in a way, though the two of them actually made quite a duo when they tried. He remembered fondly when Kaile and he had fooled that security guard to gain entrance into a pod-race, the man had been rather bewildered and Kaile had played the part perfectly. The Memory brought a wide smile to his face. It was exactly why Kurt wanted Kaile to be who she was, not to hold back or stop herself from being bubbly and kind, touchy and nice.

He just wanted Kaile.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


It was like she expelled a breath she had been holding in for so long. Her shoulders fell, her arms sliding from around her legs to give herself purchase. Was it needy of her? Yeah. Should she think it through a bit more? Very likely. Yet all of this and all of what made sense and logical didn't compare to the deep ache she had felt being away from him for so long. She had been able to pretend for a bit, but it wasn't the same.

It hadn't been Kurt.

Her knees went sliding down, feet spreading as she rolled herself up to her knees. Nothing needed to be said, not yet at least. The towel may have shifted but that didn't matter. Her hands went snaking around his ribcage, tugging him closer to her, sinking herself against him. Needing his touch. There she buried herself along his chest, pressed her face against the crook of his neck.

Held him close.

Then shuddered in relief.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt squeezed Kaile gently.

Perhaps now she would go back to being herself, she would be able to just be Kaile. That was what Kurt wanted really, and it was what he needed in the end. A smile pulled across his lips as he thought about all of the things they still had to do, of all of the things that they could do together. Raxus Prime wasn't far off, and once they fixed The Messa and got on their way they could do whatever they wanted. One more job, one more job and the ship would be paid off.

That idea, that thought made him happier then anything else.

They would have so much more freedom, the capability to go where ever they wanted and do whatever they felt like. Kurt had always wanted that, it had been why he'd left Tatooine in the first place. He had joined the Navy out of necessity, had become employed by Sif because he needed money, but now...now he and Kaile could do whatever they wanted.

Kissing her forehead Kurt smiled. "Soooo."

Kurt said quietly.

"We all good now?" He asked her.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

All good now?

Maybe it was just how Kurt asked it that made Kaile laugh through that. It was a short burst of laughter, more meant as a nervous explosion than true humor. Were they all good? Maybe. Things for Kurt were just so simple. In his mind all Kaile had to do was just be herself and that would be it. But things were so easy; although Kaile could understand Kurt's desire for them to be.

He would be able to feel the curve of Kaile's smile against his neck. For the present time, Kaile simply enjoyed feeling Kurt's embrace. Were they all good?

As much as she could imagine them to be.

"Only if you do the same as well." Kaile finally said, realizing that she didn't just want to be the one acting things out. She wanted Kurt to be open about things and act around her without anything to hid.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

He let out a sigh.

"Alright." Then it was time, finally. He had kept this from her long enough now. "Then there's something that I need to tell you."

He had told Jamie, he had told his parents, but never Kaile. There was a danger in letting her know, not to her person, but to the fear of her leaving him. Part of the reason that Kaile was with him, even if she didn't know it, was to act as a companion. She was his friend, his only friend. If she found out about this and decided that he wasn't a friend worth having anymore? What if she decided that she wanted to leave him? What if she decided...decided to turn him in.

That was a real fear.

That was a terror that he didn't even want to consider. "It's about what happened...what I did in the war."

"It'll change how you think about me." He looked down at the floor. "I know it will."

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Kaile could feel the change in him before he even spoke.

That was the thing about the human body. It was a sensitive organ in the whole. From the beat of the heart, the spike of breath, the way muscles and sinew tensed and flexed under Kurt's skin was an early warning sign for the Lorrdian. For a brief moment, her own nervousness would show with the jumpstart of her own heartbeat. However, this wasn't about her.

This was about Kurt.

Kaile knew that whatever it was that he had kept to himself would be elaborated upon when Kurt was ready. She would never push him otherwise. That he now wanted to talk to her about it, to explain, was a big step for the pilot. Concern and fear lanced through his very core, an in an effort to perhaps provide comfort, Kaile gave him another squeeze, drawing him close. She place a soft kiss on the side of his neck, nuzzling her face there. It was all a way to try and help comfort him.

Would it change what she thought of him? Honestly she didn't know. She wouldn't until he told her what it was in its entirety. But what she did know was this.

"Kurt..." she drew back, lifting her face up to meet his.

"I'm right here." her hands came sliding down to interlock with his. After everything that they've been through together. Despite her own confusion, there was that. He could take his time. As long as he wanted. Regardless of it, she would be here every step of the way.