Cabin Fever

[Jamo Jakatta]

The quarters belonging to Rogue Squadron's Three Flight looked about the same as any aboard the Challenger. Four beds, stacked two high, with lockers along the back wall and trunks stashed under the bottom bunks. Carré Inirial slept on one bottom bunk, with Oisin Ocasta above her, whilst Jamo slept on the bunk beneath his wing-man and best friend, Iyar Thiled. It wasn't exactly what you'd call cosy but the four of them got on well enough that it was tolerable.

The rest of Three Flight were out, either on duty or elsewhere aboard the Challenger, leaving Jamo lounging alone in his bunk, a well-thumbed magazine lying open over his chest. It was an issue he'd picked up on Corellia, nothing special, but he re-read it often enough regardless. Restless, he sat up, swinging his legs out of the bunk. The magazine fell to the floor with a flutter of pages, landing beside his footlocker. There was a half-empty flask of Corellian whiskey in there. Joker chewed at the inside of his cheek, debating whether to open it up – but at that moment the door began to groan open.

[Carré Inirial]

Gods, she was tired.

She clambered out of her X-wing and slid down the ladder, her boots landing on the flight deck with a solid thunk. Her helmet had been left behind in the cockpit as she waved off the techs and stalked out of the hangar bay. Carré was exhausted - mentally and physically. If it wasn't patrol, it was a meeting, if it wasn't a meeting, it was Adonis giving her that 'look' of his that spoke of disappointment without him uttering a word, and if it wasn't Adonis...

It was Kelly. Busy or at least pretending to be, she thought bitterly, shoving open the door to the quarters that Three Flight shared. Reason had long since fled her mind where Kelly was concerned, replaced with twinges of jealousy and self inflicted doubt. Blinking, she nodded to Jamo without a word and kicked open her locker. With palpable...and audible...frustration, she stripped out of her boots, gloves and flightsuit, shoving it in and slamming the door closed.

It left her in a pair of tight black shorts (http://www.victoriassecret.com/ss/Satellite?ProductID=1265581652012&c=Page&cid=1312942979065&pagename=vsdWrapper) and a similarly fitted tank-top, both of which left enough of her back bare for parts of her tattoo (http://i45.tinypic.com/2cypugo.jpg) to be visible. Barefoot, she padded over to her bunk with a leather bound book in hand, perching on the edge and finally looking over at Jamo.

"Sorry...double patrol. I'm a little...cranky." she smiled ruefully.

[Jamo Jakatta]

The sight of Carré stripping out of her flightsuit was becoming more and more familiar to Jamo, though never duell. He reminded himself that he was technically her superior, being a senior officer and all, and that – more importantly – no good whatsoever could come from trying it on with (and inevitably pissing off) someone who was supposed to watch his back in a dogfight.

He nodded at the book in her hand instead. “What you readin'?”

[Carré Inirial]

"Hmm? Oh this...na...its not that kind of book. Its one of my sketchbooks. Here. You can flip through it if you like. There's at least a few of you in there." Carré grinned, undoing the silver clasp of the book and removing the pencils tucked inside before handing it over to Jamo.

Page after page was filled with elaborate drawings of their squadron mates, their ships, and other random vehicles and people aboard the Wheel. Some colored in carefully, most were still in pencil-grey, but all of them detailed and carefully wrought. Notably missing was Kelly, who didn't appear in any of the sketches, save for one elaborate and colored-in 'portrait' of his X-wing.

"You can have one of them, if you like. Or I can sketch a different one for you." Tilting her head as Jamo went through the book, she eyed the sleek black leather one laying on the pillow of her bunk and sighed...she hoped it wasn't audible, but doubted her tired self could manage a subtle anything right then.

[Jamo Jakatta]

“Not that kind of book?” Jamo arched an eyebrow. When Carré had first joined the Rogues, there'd been some worry that she was a little too prim and proper to really gel with the rest of the squadron but it hadn't been long before they'd realised that she was just as human (or at least close enough) as the rest of them. Sharing a bunk with three fighterjocks – one of whom was a Zeltron – had a way of stripping away any notions of decorum that you might have.

Jamo thumbed through the sketch book, turning it this way and that.

“You get double patrols and you've still got time to do this? Spasst, woman.. when do you sleep?”

[Carré Inirial]

Emerald eyes lit with amusement as they followed the pages' path. "I sketch pretty quick on the whole, really, so any few minutes will do. Not that I sleep much though...Sin snores and Flipper talks in his sleep." Carré replied, her grin still evident.

She leaned over and pulled the black leather bound book into her lap, opening it to her favorite sketch of Kelly lying sprawled in his bunk. Asleep in a tangle of sheets that seemed to frame his physique and the Old Alderaanian script etched into his upper arm.

Lifting her gaze to Jamo as she heard the flipping pages come to a stop, she tilted her head. "Plus, it helps take the edge off of...things. Not nearly as much as drinking does, however!"

[Jamo Jakatta]

His eyes flicked up to meet hers, Jamo grinned at the mention of his wing-mate.

“You ever listen to Iyar when he goes off like that? Pretty entertaining stuff.”

The Zeltron had an over-active imagination to say that least. From the looks of what were in her sketch book, Carré might have too.

“You got a lot of pictures of Perris in there.”

[Carré Inirial]

She responded with a soft laugh and a nod of assent. Iyar's late-night ramblings were always highly entertaining...even if they did occasionally keep her up late.

Carre's eyes fell back to the book in her hands, her cheeks warming slightly in spite of her efforts to the contrary. "Well yeah...I can't help it. Kelly's a good..."

Emerald eyes lifted back to Jamo's with a wicked grin.

"...subject. Get your mind out of the gutter."

[Jamo Jakatta]

Joker matched her grin with an arch smile.

“I hope his ego's the only thing you've been massaging,” he replied, lounging back onto his bunk. His eyes fell naturally on the underside of Iyar's bunk – the roof over his bed – where he'd pinned into place a postcard of the Coronet City skyline that read 'Wish You Were Here.' Jamo closed his eyes and folded his arms behind his head.

“So... everything all right between you two now?”

[Carré Inirial]

"Mister Jakatta, a lady doesn't massage and tell."

Carré did her level best to keep her expression as prim and haughty as it had been when she'd first gotten to the Wheel. It didn't work however, as her expression melted from proper to...not-so-proper. She sighed faintly and sat back on her own bunk, trailing a fingertip along the line of Kelly's sketched shoulders.

Jamo's question was a bit loaded, and a whole lot complicated, she thought, wondering how to answer.

"Things are...complicated. Made more complicated by the fact that I have Adonis watching every single move I make. If you ever hear that I've been tossed in the brig, its because I hit my damn brother." Carré muttered. Finding time to spend with Kelly between his duties and her own was hard enough. Doing so under supervision was beginning to fray her nerves even more than her doubts about her relationship were.

[Jamo Jakatta]

“If I knew my little sister was knocking about with shit-heads like yours truly, I'd be watching her night and day too.”

Jamo opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to see Carré tracing her fingertips over what he could only guess was one of her sketches of Perris.

“You can fight and fuck 'til the bantha come home... but you know you can't get sweet on him, Carré.”

[Carré Inirial]

An almost guilty look flitted across her face as she pulled reluctant fingers away from the sketch. She closed it quickly without buckling it and threw it over onto the top of her footlocker. Avoiding Jamo's gaze entirely, Carré stretched out to lay on her side, propped up on one elbow. Fingers absently smoothed out the rumpled blanket beneath her, before picking at a loose thread.

"I know."

[Jamo Jakatta]

“One day we'll get some shore leave and you can wrestle it out of your system with some Outer Rim meat-head who you'll never see again.”

It was a a nice thought – the shore-leave, not the meat-head – but given that they hadn't had a real day off since Life Day, that 'one day' looked to be pretty far in the future.

[Carré Inirial]

"Oh gods...shore leave..."

Carré shifted over to lay on her stomach, her head pillowed on her hands. Emerald eyes were bright with mischief as she cast them towards Jamo.

"...could you imagine the trouble we could get into? That's almost better than the prospect of a...wrestling match or two."