Either I'm gonna kill him or I'm beginning to like him.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa Meorrrei had started keeping a holo diary when she was nine years old. She'd kept it curated, so she knew even to the day when she'd started, which was 17 Ku'arraali in the 138th year of the Taikka. That day, she griped about her new braces. How they hurt her teeth, how she wasn't allowed to eat anything with bones until they were out, and how they made her look like a cyborg. That was the same week of the Haa'tarri Debutante Gala, and it was the first year she'd stopped thinking boys were gross and started considering they were...whatever they became when you were nine.

So, some thirty-three years later, the habit of journal keeping was hard to break. She sometimes didn't do an entry each day, but she never let a week pass between entries. If she did, there was the chance that a bad habit might kick in, and she might drop the tradition entirely. Ten thousand years from now, some advanced civilization might want to know what happened after her weekend holoflix binge and the cliffhanger confirmation that her mother was, yes indeed, still crazy. She couldn't let generations of future historians down.

So here she was at 22:50 hours. Not in bed, where she should have been half an hour ago, but at her desk, with the little lamp on the corner serving as the only illumination - casting her in a pale, cool light. She cradled a steaming cup of sienda'tai between her hands, waiting for the contents to cool enough for her to sip. Her hair was down, parted at the middle to let her straight locks drape over each shoulder. T'yeellaa sat on her feet in her office chair, wearing an old set of PT shorts and tee, because her usual pajamas were in the wash. That was fine, it was too hot for long sleeves.

Everything was in place, and the stage was set for T'yeellaa to spill her guts into her digital confidant, who would be trusted not to divulge it's secrets for the aforementioned ten thousand years. All she had to do was think about what she wanted to say.

But before that, T'yeellaa fidgeted with the holo diary menu, navigating to some older entries. As she took her first tentative sip of her steamed drink, she found one from three months ago. The K'ohta'rrou's ears raised slightly, and she hit play.

On her desktop, 1:1 sized bust of her own face and shoulders materialized. This version of T'yeellaa's hair was a muss, and she looked...not happy.

The flesh and blood T'yeellaa smiled in recollection. It was funny now. A little, at least.

"Todajy jiss...(cough)...twelve Tan'ssiekrra, one hundrred forrtjy ssecond jyearr of the Kaatho.

jI'm gojing to kjill Ssamuss."

[Q. Samus Dage]

* * *


He'd done it out of kindness. Out of chivalry. Because it seemed the right thing to do. Of course rarely do such capers go smoothly, nor do they really turn out well for the perpetrator, but that was just the way of things. Of course, it didn't mean he had to accept it without a fight. He was Samus Dage, after all. He'd fought with the Rebellion during the earliest days, and had been in too many bad situations to count. He was used to impossible odds and one-way tickets. They'd been his and Kori's specialty, in fact.

Now though, as he sat alone in T'yeellaa's quarters, he had to wonder if this particular mission was more a foolhardy endeavor rather than an act of mercy. This time would be different than the first time, he'd told himself.

Except...

It's not different at all, Samus, is it.

The deed had been done. What came next would be inevitable. Of course, he didn't have to take it sitting down. To be more precise he chose to take it sitting down. Sitting at the small kitchenette table with a bowl of cereal, Samus ate in silence, his eyes staring up at a small, fidgeting spot that rested atop the frame of a canvas print currently hanging up in the main living area.

T'yeellaa would be back from her shift soon, and as he methodically brought another spoonful of brightly colored Namana Loops into his mouth, the blonde did his level best to keep his movements as small as possible.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa had begun to work the lace cravat loose from her neck even before she passed through the threshold of her quarters. It had been a hellish day. Commander Akiena had been meeting with joint commands on sector defense, leaving K'ohta'rrou Meorrrei as the sole officer in charge on Jovan. And because all the real problems wait for this sort of opportunity to arise, everything had hit her at once. From impounding illegal livestock imports to a crash between two freighters attempting to dock at the same spire at once. She'd gone an hour over her shift, and the only things keeping her from tearing out some hair was the knowledge that Samus was back on station. The other key plus to her day was that she had a kaloo-walo waiting on her. It had been expensive to buy the food bird, but the normally-pragmatic Meorrrei figured that she deserved a splurge. The fat little chirpers were a nuissance on Iktotch, that is, until the Iktotchi learned that Cizerack had a taste for them, which had driven the price up, up, and up. Twenty credits for what was essentially over and done in two bites. Just thinking about it glazed T'yeellaa's eyes over a bit and elicited a growl from her empty stomach.

The door whooshed open, and T'yeellaa pulled her cravat free from around her collar, tossing it to the console table by the door as she worked the buttons open on her jacket.

"Ja irra gai tou."

Her favorite human looked rakish and decidely off duty sitting at the kitchenette table and eating that neon-colored kibble he'd insisted on leaving at her place. As long as he didn't leave a mess, he could eat an Umgul blob for all she cared.

peep peep

The bird sounds immediately roused T'yeellaa's starving insides as they twitched her ears...but they weren't coming from where she'd put the travel cage...which was empty on the very same console table.

peep

Now she'd isolated it's location, and T'yeellaa's eyes tracked to the top of one of her paintings...where the fat tasty kalloo-walo perched as if he owned the piece.

"Quentjin!" she hissed, and took half a step toward the painting, hoping to carefully...carefully...

fwoosh

In a blur of feathers, the kalloo-walo zoomed past her too-slow claw swipe, and the last she saw of the musical little morsel was a blue and yellow blur headed for the bedroom.

"Quentjin!"

[Q. Samus Dage]

His eyes went wide, his spoon paused halfway to his mouth.

The words that left his mouth were spoken in a forcibly shocked tone.

"What'd you do?!"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"What'd jI..?!"

T'yeellaa stammered on her words, her tail tuft poofing in the wake of his derailment.

"Quentjin! jIt'ss food, not a...pet! jIt'ss not herre to...to sserrenade jyou!"

She took a half step toward the bedroom, paused, and turned back in some half-baked thought at getting him back somehow. All she could manage was to swipe the spoon out of his hand and plant it in her mouth. She'd show him what it was like to work twelve hours, come home hangry, and have the one thing she was looking forward to foiled by...

A look of disgust formed on T'yeellaa's face as she turned to the sink to spit out her mouth of half-chewed cereal.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Hey!"

The indignant look on his face didn't last though, as she promptly spit up his intended spoonful of Namana Loops into the sink.

Still sitting, Dage leaned back in his chair as his eyes went from her to the hallway leading into her bedroom. He made a worried face, turning back to her with an almost pitiful look while offering a smile that he knew wouldn't help.

"But it's too pretty to eat... "

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa would simply have to soldier through the alien taste of Samus's forrda kibble still hanging cloyingly onto her tongue. She wasn't about to waste precious retort time by washing out her mouth.

"jYou'rre eatjing a bowl full of rrajinbow-colorred whateverr. jYourr arrgument jiss jinvaljid."

Her stomach cycled through another agonizing squelch, not at all sated by the poor teaser offered by Dage's bachelor chow. A teasing peep sounded from the bedroom, and T'yeellaa was done trying to find the why of it. She splashed onto the bed, hoping the sudden movement might flush the damned thing out of wherever it was hiding.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"No wait!"

He was out of his chair like a fired blaster, chasing after her with loping strides that brought him right over the top of her as she bombed herself onto the bed. Pinning her down with a hand at each of her wrists, Samus perched over her, his head cocked to the side as he waited for any other tell-tale peep.

Peep!

His eyes snapped to the vanity, and the avian beauty perched atop the mirror.

"Ssshhhh... "

One hand let go of one of her wrists, an extended index finger moving to press blindly against her lips.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Oh, NOW you're helping?!

The thought went unspoken as Samus placed a placating finger at her taut lips. She scowled at him, and then to his finger, considering whether biting the offending digit might make her feel a little better about the situation. But then she might eat the finger. Now she was wondering what humans tasted like. Ugggh this was the sad state of affairs she'd come to. She was so hangry that she was half-heartedly considering sentient predation.

peep

The flying snack gave away its position, mercifully giving T'yeellaa's meat-starved brain a satisfying distraction.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Ow!!"

Pulling his hand away sharply, Dage rolled off of her with a scowl, suddenly far more interested in cradling a bitten finger than the bird on the vanity mirror.

"Eating Alliance officers is frowned upon, you know," he grumped.

And as if sensing that the vehicle of its' doom was no freed, the kalloo-walo took flight once more, darting down to zip past his head before swooping up into a corner of the room where it smacked into the wall, sliding down with a flurry of hapless wing-flapping into a pile of dirty clothes.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa had never been so thankful for Samus leaving a random week's worth of untended laundry in the basket, and she shimmied off the bed with finesse to pounce into the small mountain of rumpled garments.

"Aha!"

She straddled the upended basket with a used sock on her head, and a hand full of bird held high in triumph.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Still sucking on his finger, Dage turned to look at T'yeellaa and her new prize. Triumphant though she was, he was reasonably certain that it wouldn't last. It certainly hadn't lasted for him.

"Careful, Kitten. That thing's slippery... "

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Thjiss jissn't mjy fjirrsst bjirrd, gai tou." T'yeellaa purred, easing back onto the bed with succulent little butterball in hand. The kalloo-walo's peeping became faster and louder, it's crest-plumed head pivoting left and right sharply as it tried to flap wings that were pressed to it's sides by a closed hand. The K'ohta'rrou ran a finger from the ridge of it's beak to the back of the head, working with the feather grain to smooth the crest down.

He had that look again. The look he got whenever she got peckish for live food. Eyes slightly larger, almost limpid. His bottom lip protruding slightly. It was like some kind of guilt ray.

"Sstop that."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Stop what?"

Spoken with just the right amount of innocence lacing his tone, Samus leaned to the side, propping himself on an elbow as he continued to stare at her.

"I'm not the one partaking in some barbaric ritual. I mean, I don't play with my bowl of cereal before I eat it."

She didn't seem undaunted, and the blonde gave a defeated sigh as he sat back up.

"At least eat it not on the bed that we sleep in, ok?"

And as an afterthought, "... I hope you're not expecting me to kiss you any time later tonight."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Barrbarrjic? Plajyjing?"

Of course he knew what he was doing. She couldn't even have one decent bite in his company without him implying that she was a rancor set loose on a village of orphans.

He at least had a point about the bed. She'd had a belt taken to her by her fathers more than once from leaving feathers or sajoi tails in bed after a midnight snack.

T'yeellaa slid off the bed, taking the kalloo-walo with her back to the kitchenette when he fired off his cruel ultimatum.

"jYou'rre makjing me choosse between jyou and the bjirrd?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

"You do realize that the last time I was here, I found a tail underneath my pillow, right?"

Slowly getting up, Dage meandered along after her.

"And it wasn't fresh, either. I mean, do you sleep-snack when I'm not around?"

But there was a tick at one corner of his mouth as he spoke, and sidling up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her midsection while leaning down to kiss the top of her head. And before she could respond, his hands pulled back and up, fingers finding those delightfully sensitive spots just beneath her arms with a particular vengeance.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"What do jyou take me forr, ssome kjind of..."

And right in the midst of her rebuttal, T'yeellaa accessed a sleep-addled memory from two weeks ago involving a bottle of wine, holoflix, and a twenty-piece fuzzy box from Maa'kidoaa...

The brief glimpse of sheepish guilt disappeared behind her redoubled annoyance at being distracted.

"jYou know, jI..."

And before she could even mount a proper retort, Samus slipped his lanky arms past her defenses. By violent reflex T'yeellaa tried to drop her elbows to her sides, but he'd had the element of surprise on his side. Ai'kosa, she rued the day he'd ever discovered how ticklish she was. Her face locked down in firm defiance. She wouldn't let him. Not this time!

That lasted for about half a second as T'yeellaa's eyes squeezed shut and her mouth yowled in pained laughter so intense that her knees buckled.

She also let go of the kalloo-walo, but in the throes of Samus's assault she couldn't protest the fact even if she tried.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Ha!"

His victory assured, Samus stopped his tickling fingers and gripped her tightly, strong hands making sure she couldn't escape lest she literally scale over the countertop after her prize. He knew she was a tenacious creature who usually got what she wanted - hells, he was here with her now, wasn't he? Though, truth be told he was in no way complaining. Samus Dage rather like T'yeellaa Meorrrei, and soaked up every moment that he was able to spend with her. Even if it meant conspiring with her food.

The kalloo-walo darted up and into the living area once more, alighting upon a wall-mounted candle sconce. It wasn't really a candle though; electronic trickery and a few small shocks had been all that was needed to mount the thing. Though now it had been made the perch of a frightened bird.

Peep peep!

Samus still held on to T'yeellaa, doing his best to make sure that she was as reigned in as possible. The woman was irrational whenever she got hungry enough, he'd learned that much.

Peep peep! peepeepeep!

"Come on now, Kitten," he grunted, keeping her at bay, "How about a Sith Jim? Or maybe some rice with butter and shaak bits?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Quentjin! Sstop! jYou'rre...wrrjinkljing mjy unjiforrm!"

It was the best she could muster as she turned and shimmied in his wiry grasp, using her tail to whip against him left and right as she tried to find a way to get out of his grasp without doing something serious like tackling him into the coffee table.

As she wiggled and grunted, the two pair of mock combatants shuffled towards the front door, eventually struggling into range of the motion sensor. The doors slid open with a whoosh, and a brightly colored blur brushed against T'yeellaa's hair, sailing past her and through the sudden portal to freedom with a final triumphant peep!

T'yeellaa's head whipped around to track the kalloo-walo, but she only got a fleeting glimpse of tail feathers as it sailed out into the wilds of Jovan Station. Her head quickly righted itself, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Noooo!"

[Q. Samus Dage]

He watched the bird zip through the doorway and disappear down the corridor. Not exactly the outcome he'd expected, but in the grand scheme of things no really surprising.

Still holding on to T'yeellaa, Dage gave a huffed breath, finally releasing her as he righted himself. He let out a small cough before brushing a hand down the front of his shirt.

"My mission is done, then."

His tone was weighty, as though he alone had freed an entirety of prisoners from an Imperial stronghold. e rolled his shoulders, looking every bit the unsung savior of the day. The look on T'yeellaa's face though, as she turned around, was enough to quell his heroic thoughts. He gave her a sweet smile.

"Want a bowl of Namana Loops?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Everything was bullshit and horrible and the worst. T'yeellaa's ears drooped low in culinary mourning, stepping away aimlessly as she only distantly heard Dage's conciliatory offer of neon nightmare kibble.

And it wasn't just the waste of twenty credits. Well that was bad, certainly. It's not like she could go and kvetch to get her money back. The trouble with live food was that sometimes...it got away. Act of Goddess. And the kind of person who tried to get their money back that way was no better than the the person who went to a restaurant, ate three fourths of a swine hock, then asked for a refund due to it not being fresh. T'yeellaa Meorrrei was thrifty. She wasn't cheap.

Her stomach wailed a loud agonizing dirge, nearly collapsing the defeated Cizerack in misery as she slowly smoothed over her jacket and began the process of buttoning it up once more.

"Put on jyourr coat," she spoke low and stoic, like a defeated soldier who at least had her dignity, "we arre gojing out to eat."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa closed the current entry, reflecting back on that day. He'd made her so mad that she barely ate anything at all, got a headache, and decided to cocoon herself in a blanket for the rest of the night on the bed with Holoflix at full volume.

The next morning she'd woken up to find a cage with two kalloo-walos at the door to her bedroom next to a single serving bottle of Pai Leeha, and a handwritten note that said he'd be back at 20:00 hours, and to make sure she'd tended to the mess. It wasn't an apology, as he never apologized for acts of minor mayhem.

But it was very, very sweet.

T'yeellaa scrolled further down the list of diary entries, sipping at her steamed drink until she found another fitting entry to reflect on.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

They had sleep rituals. There was nothing in writing or otherwise codified, but with Dage's ship sharing a home port out of Jovan for the forseeable future, they could rely on at least a week or two out of each month in which he'd be home. And if his cruiser was docked, then he was staying here.

On most days, she pulled a shift longer than she anticipated holding down, and wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed. On the better days, she went home exactly when she planned to, and had the opportunity to burn up her remaining energy on Samus. I'll be home on time was the coded text message, which meant that ready or not, he had to be ready for the extracurriculars. Sometimes he'd dress up or down for the part, which made her after-work fun a little more so. One time he'd lounged on the couch wearing nothing but knee socks and a gift bow on his nethers. That one was her favorite. She also liked the one where he pretended to be a lost tourist, even going the distance to buy a basic phrase book and speaking in a bad broken accent. No matter what the game was, T'yeellaa rode Dage dirty in just about every part of her quarters that she could manage the leverage to do so. There was a saying amongst Cizeri men. Make sure you know how to clean house, because she will have had her way around every inch of it.

Good thing he had all that free time, waiting up on her.

But no matter how they came about it, every night they were in bed before 01:00, and well-and-truly knackered out. Samus slept on the side of the bed nearest the window, giving T'yeellaa the side closest to the door. His reasoning had less to do with having the starry view, but something about some kind of irrational anxiety about being nearest to the door in the event of a hostile boarding action. That was ridiculous and cute. She'd have to be his protector in the invent of resumption of Imperial hostilities, coming at the first stormtrooper through the door in a flurry of teeth and claws.

So he had his side, and she had hers. He slept in the nude, and she hogged the covers. These were the agreed upon rules without having to say so.

It should have been perfect. It was perfect, until it wasn't.

[Q. Samus Dage]

T'yeellaa was bounding toward him, her arms opening wide. She looked radiant, her slender body and glittering smile. Her wings, silky white as they unfurled into the air around her. They were so beautiful... She looked divine, with her tattered denims and an old shirt that he'd thrown away years ago. It of course was much too large on her frame, but somehow she made the ragged thing work. Faded Aurebesh, for some defunct Myomarian fast-credit express joint from back home; it made his grin only grow from ear to ear. She closed the distance, and with a flourish produced a box. The lid vanished into nothingness as a dozen donuts, each one with a twitching tail, came into glorious view.

She swept up into him, her wings surrounding his body as she held up a donut for him by the tail. He grinned like a madman, and pulling a packet of ketchup from a pocket, tore open one corner before carefully squeezing the condiment along the length of the pink-glazed, multi-colored sprinkled delight.

"Just right," he grinned.

T'yeellaa only smiled her wonderful smile as she lifted the donut high enough that he could slightly stoop, head angled to take a joyous bite.

It crunched once, then melted like a candy floss in his mouth.

Wonderful.

The rest of the tailed donuts was ignored then, as he swept close to her, arms going around her in an embrace that lifted her up. The feather of her wingtips tickled at the base of his back, her hands dropping the tasty donut morsel. It squeaked when it landed, and impossibly skittered across the deck of Jovan's command hub to seek shelter beneath a comm terminal.

Her hands wound past his shoulders to grip along his back.

"Kitten," his whisper was strained.

She paid no mind, instead pressing into him, pushing her body against his as her legs wound around his waist. She mouth-breathed into his ear, her nose damn near touching his brain it seemed, and another sharp grip on his back as her claws found purchase.





"Aaurgh!"

He was on his side, facing the star-filled window when the painful reality of claws in skin wrenched him from sleep. His back arched, reflexes moving once-dormant muscles into action. Samus rolled over in a small amount of desperation to escape, and ended up tumbling over the side of the bed to land in a disoriented pile grogginess and a lingering, very familiar sort of sting that now radiated from his upper back.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Mm?"

T'yeellaa's muss-haired head lifted from the pillow, eyes too stubborn to open from their sleepy rapture as she only half-listened to something Samus had said. Hands that were holding him a moment ago still remained in their places, claws out with fingers massaging the air.

[Q. Samus Dage]

One hand came up to haphazardly grip the edge of the mattress, pulling up the rest of him as his own askew-haired head appeared. Even in the dark, he had no wish to open his eyes, and crawling his way back onto the bed, Samus grumpily shifted the covers so that he had at least a small portion. He sidled his way closer into her personal sleeping space, sleep-addled brain knowing that at least he'd be okay doing that. He pushed her clawed fingertips away.

"hrnnggclawsssh," he groggily managed, brain desperately trying to bring back the delightful ketchup-donut-sexy-time dream he'd been ripped from.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Mmhmm." T'yeellaa droned in noncommittal stupor, never really roused from her sleep. The moment she felt the mattress shift from Samus's weight put upon it, muscle memory took over and she wormed her way closer again. Back in comfort. Back against his familiar body; his heat. T'yeellaa sighed contentedly as she stretched, draping her arms around him once again as she rumbled in a purr.

And once again, her happy fingers began making rhythmic kneading motions against his stomach. First just the fingertips...but then, with claws.

[Q. Samus Dage]

It seemed that the wondrous rapture of his dream was to never trulybe recaptures, as her fingers traveled over his midsection. He tensed on fresh instinct, and when the claws once more made themselves known...

"Kitten," his sleep-addled rebuke held little water. Not that he could command anything beyond a half-garbled response.

"Claws, Kitten," it only seemed to make the kneading worse, and his hands fumbled to grasp at her wrists.

"Claws... "

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa's face scrunched in an unhappy expression. The ear she wasn't laying on flicked in displeasure at the wordless sounds of Samus's voice. His words began to chip away at the foggy armor of sleep surrounding her brain.

"Nooo..." she mumble-whined "...sstop...what arre jyou dojing..."

Claws that had been merely playing before now simply clamped fixed to the spot as T'yeellaa tensed in irritation.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Eyes going wide at her insistence on remaining attached, Samus gasped out a pained breath. His grip on her wrists tightened two-fold, yet he didn't exactly try to continue pulling her hands away as that would only make things... worse. His back already had a score of fresh cuts, including a few that'd been added to his chest from their activities earlier in the evening.

"T'yeellaa," he ground out, "... stop."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Ugh, what arre jyou dojing!"

T'yeellaa woke just enough for an indignant tantrum, kicking at her sheets as she disengaged her claws far enough to roll over in huffy protest to Samus's loud voice.

"jI'm trrjyjing to ssleep..." she grumbled.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Blessed relief!

He exhaled as she rolled away, shifting so that he could now lay on his back. Her brief fit of kicking dislodged her own deathgrip on the sheets enough that he could snag a bit for his own. It wasn't long before sleep took over once more, and Samus fell back into his dreams like a rock sinking into a lake.

All would've been right with the land of slumber... except for the slight, rhythmic sound of breathing that began quietly. It was soft at first, but as the minutes went by it grew in volume. And annoyance. Of course for him, it was an unknown. After all, the last time he'd been told his snoring was enough to wake ancient Sith Lords from their tombs had been when he and General Dan had long ago shared a tent during an offensive on Atravis decades ago.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

ghhhnnnnn...khhh...

ghhhnnnnnnnn...kakhhh...

T'yeellaa grimaced into her pillow, squirming as she clutched on it tighter and tighter. She was finally unable to lie to herself about still being asleep, cracking open a pair of bleary eyes as her raised right ear twitched again.

ghhhrruuuuhhhnnnnn...kahhh..khh..mhh...

The sleep-deprived Meorrrei elbowed her gai'tou in the side, using a little restraint initially. She didn't want to wake him, she just wanted his tonsil-strangling to stop

GHHHNNNNhhhhhhh...

Screw it. She gave him a shot to the ribs.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Gah!"

The shock of her jab was enough to partially rouse him, and Samus jerked to the side, away from her as a hand went to his side, fingers groggily massaging his tenderized ribs.

"Whyyy?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Rrroll overrr!" T'yeellaa growled in frustration, eyes fixed on the ceiling as she was now both wide awake and mad.

"Everrjy tjime jyou ssleep on jyourr back, jI sswearr! jYou'rre gojing to choke on jyourr tongue."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Says the woman that tried to choke me with hers," came the mumbled retort.

But, he at least shifted to his side, facing her as he drifted off once more.

His breathing leveled out into something much more manageable, until...

"nngggg... Kuh. nngggg... Kuuhh."

Silence...

"KUH..."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She tried to sleep, but there was a part in her brain that just knew better. Knew that even this little stop gap wouldn't be enough. Her eyes grew heavy again, but not before she heard his breathing begin to drag through the contours of his mouth. T'yeellaa's eyes were open once more, her face set in a weary sneer. Samus's breathing thickened like treacle until...

click

wheeze

click

Like Nautolan water torture, Samus's stubborn uvula kept time by snapping back and forth with each breath, each iteration driving her that much closer to a winnable justifiable homicide case. With a sigh like the locomotion motivator in an AT-AT, T'yeella carefully reached over to Samus's head, splayed her fingers, and extended her claws.

"Quentjin, turrn on jyourr sstomach orr jI sswearr to Traanjiirra's hellfjirre jyou wjill ssleep outssjide."

[Q. Samus Dage]

As if in a daze, the blonde obeyed. He gave no half-garbled protest or whine. Rather, he simply shifted his body so that he now lay on his stomach.

It was the miracle cure it seemed, as his breathing gave no more terrible protestations. Rather, with his head now turned away from her, his breaths came in shallow pulls, quiet and rhythmic.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

He rolled over without further protest, and T'yeellaa basked in the full minute of bliss that followed, wondering if she'd stumbled upon a Jedi persuasion technique. No fight, no fuss. Just him doing what was told.

She rolled back over, watching him sleep with a contented smile on her face. Shimmying against her partner once more, T'yeellaa draped an arm over his familiar contours as her heavy-lidded eyes closed in restful repose. Her tail looped over him, the tuft lazily marking time as she drifted into slumber.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

On the days Samus stayed with her, he usually slept late, and T'yeellaa performed her morning ritual while trying to be as quiet as possible.

Then, there were joint commands days.

On those days, it meant that not only were the senior staff of Jovan station up with the crowing nuna, but it also meant that every berthed starship was also reporting to Commander Akiena for his report to the Admiralty. That meant the Novgorod. It meant the Miidrrakoa. It meant Khera'va'ssio.

On those days, nobody's commands got to sleep in, and everybody was up early.

It also meant that it was the rare occasion that both T'yeellaa and Samus were awake and attempting to handle their morning routine while using the same sink, the same sonic shower, and the same privy. That required a bit of a dance. She showered, he shaved. She did her hair, he showered. He did his hair, she did her makeup. They brushed their teeth side-by-side.

So it was this morning, with the two officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder against each other, each with a mouth full of sonic toothbrush and foamy paste. It was a rare moment in which both of them weren't saying anything, and the stereo buzzing of sonic brushes brought a weird hypnotic sound as they completed their morning hygiene.

T'yeellaa snuck a glance up at her gai'tou, the toothpaste building at the corner of her mouth as she turned back to the mirror, not quite able to suppress a smile. Her tail moved in a gentle wave behind her. Then, as if the programming changed, it doubled back and low, finding the spot between Dage's legs where there was separation. The tail tuft shot the gap, running along his inner thigh as T'yeella worked her mischievous appendage upwards with a sudden motion.

[Q. Samus Dage]

He was intently aiming for his molars, the toothbrush angling for a deeper scrub. One eye was partially squinted as the other was wide open, concentration focused on that singular task of removing overnight sock-taste from his mouth and seemingly off of his teeth.

When her tail found a 'home' in between his legs, the sudden sensation was enough to make him nearly choke on the toothbrush while at the same time nearly jumping half-up on the counter.

He coughed, sputtering out a spray of spit and toothpaste foam onto the fresher mirror in a lovely splatter pattern.

Shoulders hitching back, Samus shot a look down to the tuft that was poking out between his legs, practically cuddling up against The Chancellor.

He blinked.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

It took effort not to laugh at how ridiculously effective that was. Instead, she managed to keep it to merely a very-pleased-with-herself grin while she continued brushing. The sonic stopped. T'yeellaa spit and rinsed, and rose again, daubing her face with a wash cloth.

"Everrjythjing alrrjight, dearr?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

With a deliberate motion, Samus reached one hand back, finger taking hold just below the tuft while making sure that a stray fingernail didn't send him crashing to the floor in a curled-up ball of pain and dry-heaving. He slowly pulled T'yeellaa's tail out from between his legs.

A cough, a spit, and he ran a tongue over his front teeth before casting a sideways look her way.

"We're a little too far past that chance, Kitten," came the good-natured rumble.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa managed to pull off a how did that get there face as Samus delicately de-goosed himself. She pulled her tail back close to her, now looking almost apologetic.

"Oh Goddesss, jI'm sso ssorrrjy! jYou know sshe'ss got a mjind of herr own."

She tried to keep it deadpan, but eventually a chuckle escaped as she laughed at her own corny joke.

[Q. Samus Dage]

A single raised eyebrow, and Samus punctuated his expression with a last spit into the sink. He reached over to give a gentle tug of one of her ears. Nothing to hurt, but enough to let her know that he was on to her game.

He leaned to the side and down to deposit a soft kiss to her temple.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

It was wine and bad holos night. Every third saturday of the month (deployment permitting) no fewer than three hours were roped out of their busy schedules to crowd on the couch, open a (not greater than) twenty credit bottle of wine, and watch the steamiest, stinkiest cinematic turd available on HoloFlix. Honestly, the wine was optional. T'yeellaa took her awful movies seriously. She could be a sommelier of bad movies. The sorts with scenes that needed to be edited in half, with bad squib work and worse makeup, and the occasional boom mic hanging in frame.

"Hurrrjy up jin therre! Come on!"

What was taking him so long, anyway? He said he was going to get a snack from the kitchen. Snack implied grab and go, not a lengthy preparation. The only problem with watching bad movies was that it was a terribly co-dependent exercise. She wasn't going to watch a bad movie alone. Who would she make snarky and sarcastic comments to? Herself? That was the saddest and loneliest thing she could think of.

Gonto - Ithorian Justice was at the title screen and ready to go, and T'yeellaa was nearly finished with her first glass of wine. She leaned foward on the couch, craning her neck to get a glimpse of whatever Dage was doing in the kitchenette.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Bent over the wooden cutting block, Samus concentrated. Every slice had to be perfect. Every slice had to damn near be just the same: almost wafer thin, so that there was nowhere for the flavor to hide. It was for maximum tastiness.

"I'm almost done," he half-called back.

"Just a little bit longer, Kitten, I promise."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jIt wass almosst done fjive mjinutess agooo!" T'yeellaa retorted in an impatient patrician lilt she'd learned from living a childhood split between a dozen villas and wanting for nothing.

She pulled her blanked up to her shoulders, noting with some irritation that it meant that her bare feet were now uncovered from their resting place on the caf table. With nothing better to do than wait, T'yeellaa sniffed the air for any redolent clues as to what the damned hold up was. She neither heard nor smelled the tell-tale signs of cooking.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Perfect.

Utterly proud of himself for each expert slice, Samus smiled as he set aside the knife. A small, square white plate was pulled down from an upper cabinet, and he arranged each one in a staggered overlay that would allow him easiest access to every delectable morsel.

Looking upon his plated creation, a single finger went out to nudge on of the slices in the middle of the row, putting it in line with the rest. Ah yes, satisfaction.

With a triumphant smile, he took up the plate and left the kitchenette, making his way into the living room. An easy step over T'yeellaa's resting legs, and the rangy blonde lowered himself to sit beside her.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Arre we rreadjy now?" she asked sarcastically as he settled in, punching the play button as the lights dimmed automatically. A high pan over the Coruscant skyline lit up the space in the room as a bombastic electric guitar intro played.

"I'm Gonto. I'm a cop." came the hard-boiled voice-over in Ithorian stereo. "A ninja cop."

T'yeellaa's trashy heart began to race. With a lead-in like that, this was going to be so wonderfully terrible.

sniff

A frown formed.

sniff sniff

The frown deepened. Something smelled. Not at all in a good way. She eyed her bare feet on the table, suddenly worried that the distinctly foot-like aroma and her exposed toes might be...

...absolutely not. And yet, how insecure was she? Was she about to pull a foot in front of her face and give a cursory sniff to confirm? There was absolutely no way to do that in a casual sense.

"The Emperor's dog has been kidnapped. And I'm a bad enough dude to get it back."

Focus! If there was anything that stunk worse than what she was smelling, it was this glorious display right here!

[Q. Samus Dage]

He leaned back comfortably into the cushions, one arm going around T'yeellaa as the plate was balanced on a knee. His free hand plucked a slice of cheese, and almost daintily he popped it into his mouth as the voice-over continued.

There was a certain amount of joy that he took in being here, on these nights. With T'yeellaa, he usually found himself watching her more than the bad acting and terrible dialogue anay, even if it was only side glances that he stole.

He chewed, swallowed, and reveled in the afterglow. Yes, this really was wonderful, and his splurge at one of the deli stalls on Jovan was right then and there deemed worth it.

A smile, and he leaned in to deposit a kiss to her cheek.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She felt his shift and approach. And while she enjoyed her gai'tou's random acts of sweetness, the cruel fact of the matter was that whatever pungent and foul aroma she'd caught wind of was increasing exponentially the closer he got. The kiss landed on T'yeellaa's cheek awkwardly, and it's recipient remained frozen in ambivalence. Another audible sniff, and her ambivalent expression became visibly disgusted.

"Ssamuss..."

She scooted an inch away from him, momentarily forgetting the scenery chewing in the holo as she squared her shoulders against her boyfriend and his plate of the unknown.

"...what arre jyou eatjing?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

For a moment he held his place, the grin on his face growing only with the closeness of T'yeellaa and the delectable snack he'd cut for himself. Life really couldn't get much better than this.

"Just a little bit of cheese, Kitten," he offered, leaning back finally to settle himself a bit more on the sofa.

"Don't worry, I only cut enough for me."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Cheese.

The insane alien foodstuff had confounded her before. It was made from milk, which she knew from previous bad ideas on Syragor that Cizeracks really didn't digest well at all. And it looked like something that should never ever be considered food at all. She'd passed a cheesemonger shop on the station during a previous excursion (when she discovered that Samus shared the same obsession that most humans did over the stuff). Everything in the window was in blocks, wheel shapes, or in some manner of crock. There were weird colors and textures. Some cheese had holes in, which made T'yeellaa think that maybe some vermin had gotten into it. A good look was all it took for her to know that she wanted no part of it at all. That was fine. It was okay and natural for couples to have their own interests; their own boundaries. She ate live songbirds. He ate something that used to be milk and had now...fermented? Rotted?

T'yeellaa tried to look stoic. She tried. All she could manage was a grimace as she squeezed against her armrest on her side of the couch, putting as much distance as she could between herself and that thing that looked white except for where it looked blue.

"Don't eat that." she blurted out without thinking of a proper rationalization.

[Q. Samus Dage]

A look of mild surprise danced over his features as he leaned back. The holo was instantly forgotten as his eyes went from his delicious snack to T'yeellaa. Snack. T'yeellaa. Snack. T'yeellaa. Finally he blinked, his features scrunching up in incredulous puzzlement.

"Why?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

There wasn't any real way to answer that without coming off as selfish. Or a hypocrite. Or both. And yet there was no way T'yeellaa was going to suffer this silently. It wasn't just the offensive smell or what looked like mold. It was the impending dread that she'd soon be kissing the same mouth that was eating that...that...

"jIt'ss blue."

The words kind of fell out of her mouth, and T'yeellaa's face held in unguarded awkwardness as her brain moved to catch up with her own stupidity. Too late to retract, she was all in.

"That'ss not norrmal."

[Q. Samus Dage]

Dage gave her an almost incredulous look, then sent his eyes to his oh-so-carefully prepared snack.

"Well... " he pulled an odd face as his gaze went sideways back to her.

"... sure it is."

He reached over to give a give a light finger-tick to an ear tuft.

"It's what makes it good."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Ugh!" T'yeellaa recoiled from the contact, pulling down her afflicted ear as if cradling a wound. "Don't get jit on me!"

The trashy movie had been nearly forgotten at this point. Tonight's show was clearly horror. It Came From the Fridge!

[Q. Samus Dage]

He made a face at that, more than a little bit confounded at her reaction.

"Oh come on, it's not as if I'm making you eat it."

His eyes remained on her, and the horror her face displayed. Finally, Dage let out a long sigh. He really did hate to see her giving him the look she was giving him at this particular moment. It didn't happen very often, and in order to keep the peace, the blonde knew it would be best to try and fix this the best he could. And if that meant putting a hold on his enjoyment of his cheese snack, then so be it.

"Would you like me to put it away?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa glowered. No, he was not going to play the martyr. If she told him to pack it up he'd trudge to the fridge and have a hangdog expression on his face for the rest of the night. And she'd be the bad guy.

"No..." she sighed with a puff of breath blowing a strand of hair to the side. "...go on and eat jit."

Wary eyes moved back to the cheese platter and T'yeellaa's nose wrinkled with stoic dread.

"Jusst...brrussh jyourr teeth thrree tjimess when jyou'rre done."

[Q. Samus Dage]

A smirk, and he deftly transferred the plate from his leg to the caf table before practically descending upon her like a heavy wool blanket. Long arms wrapped around her upper body, pulling her back close and nearly into his lap. He buried his face in her neck to deliver a gentle nip.

"I've dealt with your morning breath," he rumbled teasingly, "... I think you'll be fine."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa shrieked in surprise, caught in perfect ambivalence between delight and disgust. She wanted to push him away, but like so many things with Quentin Samus Dage, the initial rational impulse was confounded with something ridiculous.

"Mm jyeah...and jI'll make ssurre jit'ss extrra sspecjial tomorrow, sstjinkjy."

She smirked, then raked the tip of her tongue quickly up his chin cleft.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Evening watch.

For once, it was uneventful. T'yeellaa paced the command deck, trying to find something to occupy her. All duty stations reported green. Inbound and outbound star traffic was orderly and slow. The concourse hadn't had any issues that required command's attention. It seemed like a blessing, but for someone who was used to tamping down the fires, all this quiet threatened to make K'ohta'rrou Meorrrei go crazy. So T'yeellaa decided to take drastic action.

She bent decorum.

Strolling to the outer periphery of the command deck near the Commander's office overlook, T'yeellaa pulled the commstick from her belt, cycling through the short list of favorited frequencies. She brought up the line to her quarters.

"Hejy."

[Q. Samus Dage]

The small kitchenette table that was attached to the far wall had become a home of sorts for his own work. It wasn't necessarily something that he would've enjoyed doing on the days he spent on Jovan, especially since those times were short. But, sometimes things happened the way they did, and Samus Dage had had to bring along a mess of 'pads and flimsi's with him during Khera's stopover. s'Il had her own mountain of reports to complete, and so spent her time holed up on the old warship. Which suited him just fine, truth be told. He enjoyed his time spent with T'yeellaa, even when - every so often - she had her own duties to perform. It was an unfortunate thing, but he understood and always waited patiently for her shifts to end.

Of course now, sitting almost hunched over a 'pad, with three flimsiplasts clutched in one hand and a stylus in another, Commander Dage was fully invested in finishing his own paperwork. The tabletop was a veritable mess of scattered flotsam, each and every one piled haphazardly atop the other.

The trilling of the comm broke his concentration, and the blonde looked up in initial confusion. His thin reading glasses were pushed up then, to perch over her forehead as he reached forward, depressing the small button to answer the call.

Her voice never failed to bring a smile to his lips.

"You run out of Squib traders to terrorize, Kitten?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa smiled at the sound of his voice, even as he brought up some bits of embarrassing recent history.

"Oh come on now. Chjief Essk'avarr djid the terrrorrjizjing. jI merreljy ssuperrvjissed jit."

The local boss of the Squib trading consortium had filed a complaint all the way up to Commander Akiena over the placement of his mercantile depot. The largest empty lot for accommodating such a large way station for salvage was next to the livestock pens. The trade boss complained that, at best, it sent a poor message to be placed adjacent to such a noisy and smelly place. At worst, he insinuated that the Cizerack of Jovan might not be that choosy where they chose to acquire a meal. The Chief had coolly suggested one-on-one arbitration between the boss and T'yeellaa in a windowless room, and the K'ohta'rrou's winning smile did the rest.

"Bessjidess, jI get jin enough trrouble overr larrge rrodentss alrreadjy. No, jit'ss worrsse than that. jI'm borred."

T'yeellaa leaned against a post, her tail swaying at her ankles lethargically as she glanced past her comm at the floor.

"What arre jyou dojing?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

She was bored. It was definitely worse.

Replacing his glasses back down onto the bridge of his nose, Samus tucked his stylus behind one ear as he leaned back in his seat. He let his eyes glance over the first few sentences of the uppermost flimsi in his left hand.

"Well, I wish I could say the same. Mostly working on finishing up leftover duty rosters and manifest listings. And it looks like... "

Head angling slightyl to the side, he flipped the flimsi up to get a look at the second page.

"... munitions transfer requests."

A frown as his brow furrowed at the last one. It wasn't uncommon for such things on ships with larger staffing, but on Khera? That it had come from s'Il herself was enough to make him shake his head. He would never understand that one.

"All very exciting."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Whjy jissn't jyourr Cha'kaatra'rrou..."

T'yeellaa made a face, translating mid-stream

"...quarrterrmjisstrresss...whjy jissn't sshe handljing that? Ssoundss ljike punjisshment worrk."

The K'ohta'rrou smirked.

"Have jyou been bad, Commanderr?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

Unseen though he was, Dage couldn't help the mildly surprised expression that fell over his features at the question. Her smirk bled through her voice to display itself plain as day.

A slightly laughed huff, and he flicked through another few pages on his 'pad.

"Never 'bad', Kitten. Maybe sometimes not great, but never... ever, bad."

Her previous question was enough to elicit a shrug that she couldn't see.

"No quartermaster. Usually myself and the ship share the duties. It's not too much work. Small crew sizes help a lot."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She tried baiting him with innuendo, but he slipped the hook. No matter. It was just nice to hear his voice on the line, even when they talked about nothing at all. Well, aside from being chief, cook, and bottle washer on his ship. T'yeellaa had forgotten how odd that cruiser was. She was used to things being done the Cizeri way, which was always heavy on the manpower side of things. Even on a small picket craft, life in the navy was always a crush of bodies.

Her blue eyes drifted over to the comms terminal, looking at nothing in particular. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she recalled something with actual substance to talk about.

"Oh, hejy!" Djid a package come to mjy quarrterrss todajy?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

He blinked at the question, but looked over to the parcel that he'd placed on the bartop counter after it'd arrived.

"Well, yes actually."

He went back to the flimsiplasts, thumbing through each page with half-interest.

"Anything special?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Defjinjiteljy..." she replied with a purr and an unseen lascivious grin. No one around the command deck was the wiser to her bit of fun. T'yeellaa curled her lower lip under a fang as she smirked.

"jIt'ss forr jyou. Open jit."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"I... uh... "

He turned to look at the package, eyeballing it from over the tops of his reading glasses and suddenly not sure if he should take the bait.

"Are you sure you don't want me to wait until you get back... ?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

The K'ohta'rrou rolled her shoulders noncommittally, and shook her head.

"jI can't wajit. jI want jyou to open jit now." she said with a broadening grin that only went away (barely) as a Lieutenant on duty passed by.

"Jusst keep the ljine open."

[Q. Samus Dage]

His paperwork was set down then, and Dage slowly rose to his feet. He approached the parcel with a fairly concerned expression, taking it up and bringing it back to the table before sitting once more.

Turning it over in his hands, he gently set it atop a thin pile of flimsis.

"You gonna give me a clue about what it is?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She tilted her head in consideration, ears skewing at odd angles as she grinned over the notion. What would she tell him? Big things come in small packages? A little too much double entendre.

"Mmm...nah."

T'yeellaa's nose scrunched as she broadened her grin.

"Qujit sstalljing, open jit. Therre'ss a knjife on the pjicturre sshelf."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Hells... "

The word was grumbled out, though his tone was good-natured as he leaned to the side. Thankfully his arms were long enough to grasp the knife she spoke of, and pulling it back, Dage carefully slid his pile of paperwork to the side while setting the box down atop a few remaining flimsis. The knife went through the packing tape easily, and a few short cuts later he was opening up the box flaps. A layer of packing bags were taken out to reveal a shipping slip resting atop a plastic covered article of what had to be clothing.

Brow furrowing in curiosity, Samus pulled it out, half-way unfolding the... very small pair of... shorts?

There was a small bit of silence before he finally spoke.

"I think they're a few sizes too small, Kitten."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa could practically see Samus squirming, and she rolled her eyes.

"No thejy arren't, jI checked the ssjize on jyourr pantss jin the hamperr."

Not that she knew anything about fashion, but Goddess, shorts that short and a butt like his...she grinned.

"Thejy'rre...ssuppossed to be ssnug."

[Q. Samus Dage]

He blinked, making a face. 'Snug'? Samus was fairly certain that if he even attempted to pull them on, he'd accidentally castrate himself.

Turning them over, he gave another look before cautiously pulling them from the clear bag. A forlorn, almost thousand-yard stare was sent inside to the practically nonexistent crotch. Captain Turbolaser would be in tight quarters, to say the least.

"You've gone mad, woman."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Whjy?" she spoke into the comm with a fang-jutted half grin.

"jYou've got njice legss. jYou sshould sshow them."

Was she showing off? Maybe? Why not show him off? Catch a few jealous looks as she took him out on the concourse as all the women looked at how long those legs went up.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"I do show them off," came his counter, "... just not in public."

The shorts were gently set down as he leaned back in his chair.

"Besides, Kes wouldn't let me live it down."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jYou sshouldn't let hjim ljive down hjiss lack of ssexjy legss, gai'tou."

Damn, this wasn't going as planned. T'yeellaa resisted the urge to pout in public, wiping any residual expression from her face as a crewer passed by, nodding in salutation as he changed shift at his duty station.

"jYou'rre rrealljy not gojing to wearr them, arre jyou?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

"I'm normally a brave man, Kitten."

Once more the reading glasses were fitted on the bridge of his nose as Dage pulled a datapad from the pile, bringing it close once more.

"But I'm not 'hot pants brave'."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She was down, but not out. This just needed to be put on the shelf and come back to later. The more she thought about it, the more T'yeellaa realized that she had other objectives to meet. Again, she worked up a little smile.

"Okajy gai'tou. Wjill jyou put them on when jI come home?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

In the midst of scrolling down a particularly lengthy supply manifest, Samus couldn't help the smile that tugged at his features.

"If that's what the lady wants... "

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa's eyes looked off in the distance as she worked to stretch an inch into a mile. Her little smile grew, scrunching her nose a little.

"...and sshave jyourr legss."

Not that there was anything wrong - per se - with hairy legs. It was novel the first few times.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Shave my... ?"

He couldn't even finish the sentence, it was so absurd to him. Shave his legs?! Another moment passed in silence as he considered it, and finally acquiesced.

"I hope you have extra razor blades."

All told, he supposed it wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever done. Though, in terms of keeping 'the boss' happy? Perhaps.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Extrra rraz...wha...no, no."

What was she, a degenerate Outer Rim fringer? Or was he??

"Usse mjy lasserr plane trrjimmerr. Underr the ssonjic bassjin, doorr on the rrjight."

Ugh, razors. T'yeellaa suppressed the urge to shudder. All it took was one disastrous try with Faashieerro's straight blade when she was a teenager, and she bled like a stuck shaak. No sense in ever tempting fate again.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Fully resigned to his fate, Samus let out a long breath.

"When you get home, then."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Sunday was laundry day.

It meant literally catching an early breakfast (Naanri'atkaa Aviary) on the way to the dry cleaner to drop off a week's worth of duty jackets, blouses, and slacks, turning around to go back to quarters to get the rest of the laundry. She used to have a system for this, when she was living alone. Whites in one pile, colors in another. Reds in a completely different pile. Wool here. Silk there. Cotton here. Synthetic there. Tidy. That was before Quentin Samus Dage. Now tidiness was dead, and there was only the Beast. It all started innocently enough with clothes in the hamper, but the Beast grew beyond it's humble confines until it swallowed the receptacle whole. The Beast. By Saturday, the haphazardly-slung pile of dirty clothes looked like a Hutt crafted out of spent garments, sprawling it's wrinkled girth over an entire corner of the bedroom. It took her easily thirty minutes to sort things out in her system, and sorting all of Dage's clothes out of it would just be more work, so she ended up adding his clothes to the mix. With a half dozen laundry bags slung over her back, she looked like a traveling Jawa salesman as she humped the half kilometer to the G-section laundromat.

What happened at the laundromat depended partly on cunning, and partly on good fortune. If she missed the rush, she'd put a credit in a half dozen machines and be in and out in good time. If there was a crowd, sometimes walking with a wide stance, elbows out, and throwing the occasional dirty look could help. Maybe she looked a little bitchy on laundry day, but bitches got their loads done in less than three hours.

Once the loads were in came the drudgery. Productivity helped a little to pass the time. She brought a datapad in, reviewing station logs, ingress/egress reports, command sitreps. That kind of out-of-office meddling could be squashed in half an hour. What then? She wasn't exactly a book reader, but she gave it a go. T'yeellaa made it two chapters into one of the Purge Games novels she'd borrowed from Commander Akiena, but when she realized she'd read the same paragraph three times, she realized that it wasn't engaging her. So what then? The laundromat had plenty of flimsi mags. Twenty Ways To Tell If She's Interested In You perked her ears, and T'yeellaa slouched low in her seat as she finger-swiped a few pages in, then gave up with a little laugh. That caused the Twi'lek sitting across from her to look up from her own 'zine, and then T'yeellaa was locked in a dreaded case of sentient interaction. What was that look about? Ugh, is she wearing makeup to the laundromat? Who is she trying to impress here? A Bothan two seats down had resorted to covering his face with his chosen flimsi, trying desperately to catch a nap in his uncomfortable, hard plastic chair. T'yeellaa fidgeted, trying not to make eye contact with the Twi'lek again. Her skin was perfect, and T'yeellaa had barely bothered to shove her hair up into a ponytail. At least she wasn't wearing sweatpants. Clearly PT shorts and flip flops were an upgrade. Or was it a lateral move at best and she'd only picked them because they were clean and comfortable? The Twi'lek was wearing jewelry, no seriously, what was that even? Silly blue tart. Was she with the Iridonian guy sitting next to her in the hoodie? Why wasn't he dressed up? T'yeellaa's mouth quirked as she tangled the yarn of idle thoughts. He's got nice eyes. I bet he works out. Her ears raised as she liked where the train of thought was going. Shit, I'm not wearing deodorant. I wonder if he wears boxers or briefs?. Sadly, there was no way for her to get a good look at his bag without craning her neck and making it obvious.

Bzzzzzzzzz

At last, the dry cycles were done. T'yeellaa hopped up from her seat, trying her best to fly casual and catch the Iridonian's eye without looking like a no-effort hot mess. She opened one machine, then another, then another. The third one looked like a crime scene.

"Oh no..."

T'yeellaa rifled through the still-warm clothes, catching spots of color where she should only see pristine white. Blue. Why was there blue?! She tossed through the clothes, eventually finding a very-mottled pair of shorts with pockets that bulged with content.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Where in blazes was it?! He'd searched in every place he could think of, trying to backtrack and jog his memory. For a few moments he'd even considered turning T'yeellaa's quarters completely inside out, but thought the better of it. She'd more than likely never forgive him if he pulled the old equivalent of a smash and grab.

But still, it nagged at the back of his mind. He'd had it just the night before! It was a good luck charm of sorts, given to him by one of the commandos from way back in the day; back when they were still planet-hopping. A simple little tube of blaster cleaning fluid. Unassuming enough, but back then it'd meant something. It meant that so long as you kept your blaster in good working condition, you could still fight.

Frowning as he stood in the bedroom, Samus Dage stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, a puzzled look on his features as his eyes swept about the room in hopes of picking out his missing 'charm'.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

With as much dignity as she could muster, T'yeellaa trussed up the contents of her laundry into drawstring bags. She marched back to her quarters, adjusting the load slung over one shoulder to palm the access panel set against the wall. As the door slid open with a hiss, the K'ohta'rrou marched into the common area, finding none other than the guilty party himself, looking here and there as if he'd misplaced something.

"Hejy!" She called out with a perturbed expression and slightly back-fixed ears. "Lookjing forr ssomethjing?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

He'd been kneeling, one hand beneath the sofa in some vain hope that the tube of cleaning fluid was nestled beneath. It was, of course, an unfortunate reality he now faced. It was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was still aboard the Khera? Surely not though, as he made it a personal rule to have the little thing tucked into a pocket at all times.

T'yeellaa's entrance was met with a sad grunt, and with a sigh the lanky blonde rose to stand, turning about on his heel in the same process.

"Actually," one hand lifted to scratch idly at an itch on his brow. "I sort of am."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa produced a capless and empty vial, holding it aloft between two fingers.

"Ssomethjing ljike thjiss?" She asked pointedly enough for Dage to get the hint that it wasn't an idle inquiry. If that wasn't enough, the K'ohta'rrou then curled two fingers around the vial, then flicked her wrist to lob it on a trajectory that would smack him in the forehead.

[Q. Samus Dage]

The glint of light off the empty tube, and its' current path to his forehead elicited an automatic reaction. The hand that had been scratching at his brow unfurled to catch what she'd thrown, and palming it, Dage turned it over in his fingers while looking down with an expression of growing dismay.

It was most certainly the tube of blaster cleaning fluid, alright. He'd recognize the feel of it instantly. The only problem was that it was very much empty. He turned puzzled eyes to T'yeellaa.

"What happened?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Actions spoke louder than words, so T'yeellaa's answer was to simply up-end the drawstring bag that once contained white clothes. As each crumpled article of clothing tumbled to the ground, the answer Dage was looking for stared up like a tie-dyed horror.

[Q. Samus Dage]

His eyes grew wide at the display before him, dumped into a pile on the floor.

"Oh no... "

It was more of a gasp than actual words, but the shock was enough, coupled with his empty tube, to cause his shoulders to sag.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Oh, no?"

The K'ohta'rrou dropped her throwing arm down to rest a hand on her hip. Her tail, which had previously been switching left and right in halting movements, now drew completely still.

"jYou thjink? Ja'au naarra'alai'ee rrou'rrou kei'forrda'saanaikau sa'jaarau na'u ka vai'llaa naara au 'e, je kuutkai'na'rauu wa herri'a'tauurri se'irra ha!"

Each syllable of T'yeellaa's tirade seemed to be accompanied by a single, claw-extended finger that stabbed the air, signing unseen hexes to go with the tongue lashing. The only thing that seemed to stop T'yeellaa was that at some point, she had to come up for air. So she paused for a second, huffing with a hornet-mad expression on her face.

"What do jyou thjink of that?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

Her verbal thrashing was enough to hypnotize him, and Samus watched in awe as each word spilled from her mouth. Even if he couldn't exactly understand what she was saying, the gist of it was well enough felt. Like the stinging switch his grandma snapped across the backs of his legs after he'd done something supremely stupid, he couldn't help but let a few winces show here and there.

And when she'd finished, blessedly lapsing back into Basic to ask her final question, the rangy blonde let out a sigh. The empty tube was wrapped up in long fingers before he stuffed both hands into his front pockets.

"I think that's a mouthful, Kitten."

A dejected look was sent to the crumpled 'study in blue' laying in a heap on the floor.

"How many credits do I owe you?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jI don't know..."

T'yeellaa's eyes sank down to the pile, diverted by Dage's question into itemizing every blouse, cravat, sock, and pair of panties. The Alliance got a uniform stipend. The Pride made their proud officers front every single du'arri for every single stitch. Hey, wait...

"...and that's not the pojint, gai'tou!"

It irritated her that she'd gotten past anger so quickly, but he was quick to defuse. Now she was just...pleading. T'yeellaa tugged on an ear tuft.

"Come on. Half of jit'ss jyourr clothess. Clean out jyourr pocketss! Honesstljy have jyou neverr done jyourr own laundrrjy beforre?"

Oh Goddess...the look of dawning horror appeared on T'yeellaa's face as Dage more or less whiffed on a response.

"jYou haven't. Everr??"

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Well, I did a few times when I was younger," he gave a shrug.

"But there's really no need when you're on a ship. There's usually someone that does it for you."

With a not-really-apologetic look, Samus couldn't help but be slightly concerned about this new expression creeping over T'yeellaa's face. It was something he'd not exactly seen before.

"You ok?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Jusst trrjying not to thjink about mjy famjiljy hjisstorrjy of hjigh blood prresssurre." came the mumbled response, before T'yeellaa's eyes drifted back to Dage from the pile of stained clothing.

"jIt'ss hjigh tjime jyou learrned, gai'tou. The unjiforrm helpss to make the woman, err, man, jin jyourr casse. Prrjide jin appearrance jiss an extenssjion of prrjide jin jyourr worrk."

T'yeellaa hastily dropped to her haunches, returning the fouled clothes back to the laundry bag.

"jImagjine what Captajin ss'jIlancjy wjill thjink, sseejing jyou wjith ssharrp crreassess and poljisshed buttonss."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"She'd ask if I was sick," came the quick, almost lackadaisical answer.

Oh, he'd worn dressed uniforms plenty of times, not exactly finding comfort in the starched fabrics.

"Reminds me too much of an Imperial uniform anyway," he finished with a mumble, his eyes once more shifting tot he pile.

But, she apparently wanted to give him some sort of lesson in proper garment care, and when T'yeellaa Meorrrei wanted something, she usually got it. He resigned himself to his fate.

"Very well then," a sigh. "Best to get on with whatever you've got planned."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Ssajy what jyou wjill about the Empjirre, but thejirr men look good jin a unjiforrm."

Okay, now she was being mean, and T'yeellaa played it off with a tease of her tail as she pushed the laundry bag into Samus's hands.

"Come on. Let's go back to the laundrromat. We can fjix thjiss. And then, jI'll show jyou how jit'ss done."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"But... now?"

There was no denying the forlorn look that befell his features. Samus had been secretly hoping to spend an afternoon lazing about, doing his best to get away from actual duties whether they be official or otherwise. And laundry certainly counted among those of the unofficial variety. Samus stuffed both hands into the front pockets of his trousers, stopping only just short ofscuffing a toe on the thin carpet.

"I was wanting to watch the academy smashball game."

She didn't look like she was going to budge.

"Bothawui is playing Carida," he hoped she'd at least give on that.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jYou'rre not frrom Bothawuji orr Carrjida. Whjy jiss jit ssuch a bjig deal?"

Next came the predictable sad eyes. T'yeellaa crossed her arms, putting up a brave front. It lasted for a good...three seconds before she rolled her eyes.

"Therre'ss a holoprrojectorr jin the laundrromat. jI'm ssurre we can get the ownerr to tune jin, jif, jyou prromjisse to pajy attentjion and get handss-on worrk."

A smile slowly formed on the K'ohta'rrou's stern face as she kneaded heavily against one of Dage's shoulders.

"jIt'll be sso njice, sseejing jyou drresss ssharrp tomorrow."

[Q. Samus Dage]

Speaking of sharp...

Samus gave a wince as one of her claws wormed through the thin fabric of his undershirt.

"Easy, easy," his shoulder dipped a little as he brought up a hands to wind around her waist. It was as tactful a way as he could manage out from beneath those tiny daggers, and he pivoted a little bit, pulling her close.

"If I go with you, and I'm able to watch the game, then maybe I'll treat you to a kalloo wallo. But," he leaned down to deliver a kiss to her forehead. "... you have to promise to the claws put away."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Thoughts of mischief telegraphed on T'yeellaa's face before her claws retracted. She patted her gai'tou's sore shoulder, then slid her hand up to his cheek.

"jI thjink jI'd rratherr pull the plumage off ssomethjing..."

She raised on her toes to land a kiss on Dage's lips.

"...larrgerr, sso long asss the plumage managess to jimprresss."

T'yeellaa winked, then brought her tail around swiftly to pop Dage on the behind.

"Come on, qujit sstalljing gai'tou."

She took him by the hand, leading the way back the way she'd come.

[Q. Samus Dage]

A grumble, and the blonde heaved a sigh that was half put-upon, and half exasperated. He did say he'd go with her, with conditions, of course. She'd sailed through each one like they'd been non-existent.

Five minutes later found the two making their way ever closer to the communal laundromat.

"It doesn't matter that I'm not from Bothawui or Carida," he was explaining, "... it's all to do with the rankings, and especially since the treaty was signed, this is the first time a team from the IC10 and one from the SAC will be playing each other."

There was a distinctly vacant expression sent his way, and Samus hesitated for a moment filling that time with a motion that hitched the laundry duffel up further on his shoulder. Doing his best to decipher the look, he took a stab in the dark.

"The Inner Core 10, and the Southern Alliance Conference."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Okajy..."

She was starting to get a slightly clearer picture here.

"Sso jyou'rre hopjing forr Bothawuji to wjin the match?"

Sensible choice for grander, nationalistic reasons maybe?

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Not necessarily," he started, as they approached the entryway to the laundromat.

"Like I said, it's all about rankings. I don't particularly care for either team, but each one has strengths and weaknesses. Gotta know the enemy, and all that."

He stopped just before the door, angling down to look at her, giving her a wink while reaching out with his off hand to brush an errant lock of blonde hair from her eyes.

"It's strategic. You know, I might make you a fan of academy smashball yet, Kitten."

He leaned down then, delivering a delicate kiss to one corner of her lips.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jI'd have to have a vessted jinterresst fjirrsst."

His kiss was recognized as an afterthought, as T'yeellaa considered what possible strategic ramifications could arise from two teams playing that you weren't even a fan of. She frowned, but more due to the process of deep thought than anything upsetting her.

"jI had an uncle that plajyed Juuru'grathi back home. Ssjimjilarr game, but none of that padded nonssensse."

She could remember going to the matches as a little cub, watching all the players pile into the scrum. For all the supposed strategy that was supposed to be happening, it all boiled down to big man takes ball, puts it on one side of field. Yet, there was Quentin Samus standing there, with that goofy boyish look on his face.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"'Padded nonsense'?" Samus gave an almost scoffing look down to her as they stepped through the doorway.

But, he let the barb go as a particularly portly Gran looked up from the back of his counter. His trio of eyes seemed to narrow, but he didn't say anything. If the Cizerack had opted to bring a friend to keep her company while washing another load, so be it. None of his business. He went back to his holopad and the rerun of Blastech P.I. he was watching.

Giving a look around, Samus spied a holo mounted on the wall; it was kind of a small thing, and... was it bolted to the stand? He shook his head, sending the thought to the wayside.

"Hey," stepping away from T'yeellaa, he moved closer to the Gran.

"Eh?"

"The holo," a gesture to the small screen in the corner of the laundromat, "you got the game on it?"

It was obvious that the game was not the features show, as some over-acted Rodian soap was playing.

"Se ahnu otango," came the grumbled answer.

"Well, could you put it on?"

"Kotahgo moreesi ke ku agga."

"Aw c'mon," if he had to plead, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to.

A look was sent back to T'yeellaa. A look that threatened to walk right back out the door and find somewhere else to watch the game.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa watched the exchange between Samus and the laundromat owner with the practiced eye of a skeptic. If he didn't get his way, it would be a perfect casus belli into weaseling out of the laundry. So she was going to have to pay to play. Quid pro quo was less of a Cizerack concept and more of a religion.

She canted her head in the direction of the Gran.

"Ke na tuwanna wa dochee, chjingo."

Rank had it's privileges, sometimes. Having the station's XO for a customer tended to make one more open to catering. With a sigh, the Gran lifted the remote, flicking away from his stories.

T'yeellaa turned her attention back to Samus with the same skeptical glance she had before, but she allowed a smile to eventually seep in.

"jYou'rre not off the hook, gai'tou. Come on, let'ss get worrkjing. The fassterr jyou do that, the ssoonerr we can watch jyourr forrda game durrjing the sspjin cjycle."

[Q. Samus Dage]

He knew a grudgingly changed channel when he saw one, but Samus supposed that he had to take what he could get in this situation.

Idly he followed T'yeellaa's directiong, but his attentions were split. It wasn't long before his constantly roving eyes were held enraptured by the holo, and what was starting to look like a decent scoring drive from Bothauwi. His hands fell still, one gripping a pair of lacy blue-splotched panties and the other an equally colored bra.

He was vaguely aware of T'yeellaa saying something, but with panties in hand, he held up one finger to her.

If Bothawui scored this go round, it would give them the first points of the game.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Ssamuss, come on..." T'yeellaa cajoled, eventually snatching her unmentionables from his frozen grasp as the human stared at the holo like a hawk. She too paused, her unfamiliarity with the game trying to connect the dots. Two masses of people in different colored shirts and helmets, staring across each other like chess pieces while a glowing circle hovered maybe twenty meters behind the team in white.

The K'ohta'rrou's ears raised.

"What'ss happenjing?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

With the snap, Samus felt his body tense up, and he grabbed another article of clothing as the Bothan offensive line held back the onset of the defense. He hissed from between clenched teeth, urging for some sort of ball movement, and when the ball itself was lofted into the air, he felt his breath caught in his throat. T'yeellaa's words went unanswered, and as the ball came down (as if in slow motion), his entire body bunched up as though he was the receiver. Of course he wasn't, but it didn't stop him from raising a triumphant fist in the air as the catch was made.

"Yes! Ahahaha yessss!"

The goal was hard fought, but a few seconds of shoulders pushing forward into the end zone heralded the first points of the game, and Samus let out a sigh of relief. He finally turned to T'yeellaa, a joyous, yet blank expression meeting her.

"Ok, now what were you saying?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She'd never admit it, but she liked seeing that look on his face. Happy, elated, carefree. Of course it soured the experience when Samus continued joyfully circumventing their little agreement.

"Ssomethjing about how we'rre not gojing to watch ssmasshball at all jif jyou don't pull jyourr wejight."

She held up her handful of unmentionables.

"Put the whjitess jin the machjine."

For emphasis, T'yeellaa flung her underwear through the open hatch, then reached for a few more articles of clothing.

"Sso jI take jit that Bothawuji sscorred then?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Well yeah," there was a note of distraction in his voice, but Samus was quick to cover it up with a smile as he finally turned from the holo to the laundry bag and - most importantly - T'yeellaa.

Scooping up an armful from the bag, he unceremoniously dropped them into the machine. Whether they were all whites or not, the rangy blonde cared little as he leaned in close to her, his smile turning into an almost devilish grin.

"See? clothes in the washer," he leaned closer, hoping to land a quick kiss to her cheek. "... easy as pie."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Now, he simply thought he was being cute, and T'yeellaa pivoted a little to make him miss.

"Arre jyou harrd of hearrjing orr colorrbljind orr both?"

The K'ohta'rrou crossed her arms, drumming her fingers along the crook before glancing to the machine.

"At thjiss rrate, the onljy sscorrjing happenjing todajy wjill be done bjy Bothawuji."

[Q. Samus Dage]

Blinking in a surprising bit of earnest shock, Samus for once ignored the game. He stared at T'yeellaa with a growing sense of confusion. Then his eyes moved to the contents of the washer. A slow blink, and he ponderously reached in to pull out a light red, almost pink bra. Another hand dipped in, coming up with a grey undershirt.

"They both look grey to me."

A frown, and he finally looked at with a strange bit of growing concern. She had 'that' look.

"They're... not both grey... ?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa's mouth gaped. There was always the chance that he was totally bullshitting her. Humans and their fixed ears were tricky to read, and Dage was tricky by even those standards. But he was also the human she knew the best, and it was with simmering horror that T'yeellaa realized that he probably was not kidding. Her ears skewed, face frozen in that way that one did when encountering something eerie and unexplained.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Suddenly crestfallen at the face she pulled, Samus slowly let his eyes track to the clothing he held; bra to undershirt, then back to bra.

"Then, what color are they?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Gai'tou, all of mjy PT underrwearr arre grreen."

Her disbelieving eyes looked from the garments to Samus and back.

"Thjiss jiss grrejy to jyou?"

Her poor handicapped boyfriend. She wondered how he even went about his daily business with the risk of that kind of mixup a possibility. Eventually she shook her head, wadding up the green clothes and tossing them into the color pile.

"Okajy, okajy. jI'll handle the trrjickjy oness. jYou do the whjitess. And jyou can tell me what jusst happened jin the game."

[Q. Samus Dage]

Suddenly he was in the grip of a special sort of paranoia, and ignoring her words, Samus looked down at the shirt he was currently wearing. His hands now free after she'd liberated the clothes from his grasp, he reached inward to take a small bit of his pale blue button-up in between thumb and forefinger.

"This is blue, right? Light blue?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"What?"

They were veering off into a dangerous segue, and Samus risked colliding into some kind of monochromatic existential crisis. T'yeellaa put a hand over Dage's hand, pressing it to his chest.

"jIt'ss blue, love. Don't panjic. Jusst...letss keep jit ssjimple okajy?"

A mischievous spark in her brain led T'yeellaa down the thought exercise of figuring out exactly what colors her gai'tou couldn't distinguish, and placing those colors everywhere. But then Samus would simply have an excuse to do nothing.

"Grreen pantjiess herre...whjite camjissole therre, and rrepeat, ne?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

He smiled, but it was a far-away smile that seemed to focus only on her as she demonstrated... whatever it was she was demonstrating.

"Or, you could just take care of the things that go through the wash and dry cycle, and I can see to the folding."

Of course, any chance to hold a pair of piping hot undergarments, fresh from the dryer, was heartily welcomed, and with an elbow on the washing unit next to the one she was currently stuffing clothes into, Samus propped his chin up in his hand, his smile glued to his face as he watched her.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

This wasn't cute anymore. It had stopped being cute five minutes ago, and T'yeellaa's face had lost any semblance of amusement.

"Quentjin Ssamuss jI sswearr, jif jI load thesse machjiness bjy mjysself jit wjill be at jyourr own perrjil."

The laundromat owner was taking an unhealthy amount of interest in their still-civil banter, and the K'ohta'rrou broke eye contact with Samus only to fire a warning glance in the Gran's direction. Three errant eyestalks suddenly found the news flimsi on the counter much more interesting. Back facing Samus, T'yeellaa stuffed her unmentionables into his nearest hand.

"Now move."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Today was a day in with an agenda. T'yeellaa normally enjoyed her doses of intimate chaos with gai'tou, but she'd made plans ahead of time and told him to show up with an open mind. She also told him to wear something close-fitting and athletic that he probably didn't mind getting dirty.

She'd gone the extra mile, clearing the furniture to one side of her suite's living room, leaving a a reasonable amount of foot space. Here, she rolled out two extra large mats. At one point they had been uniformly blue, but now they were a patchwork quilt of color. Faded splotches that hadn't quite come out. They were heavy enough to lay flat and not budge with a bit of movement, which was the whole point.

Standing before the open hatchway that lead to the refresher, T'yeellaa paused to check herself in the mirror. As per her suggestion, she was wearing leggings and a form-fitting tank top. Her hair had been put up into a fairly clean bun. Satisfied, she looked down. Shoes off, perfect. No jewelry, check. She was just about ready.

All she needed now was a partner.

[Q. Samus Dage]

He'd had to dig. Finding anything that would remotely match what T'yeellaa had wanted him to wear was a herculean task that he wasn't so sure could be completed. His small closet held uniforms and the occasional dress shirt. There was even a suit hanging up, though it was who knew how old. He'd kept it around just in case. In case of what he had no idea, but it was still there regardless.

His dresser was an even more sparse affair, filled with undergarments, socks, and a collection of infantry trousers from years previous. Some had holes in the crotch, but he could never bring himself to let them go, and for the briefest of moments he idly wondered if T'yeellaa knew how to sew. An absurd notion, and one that was banished with a shake of his head.

Finally, in the bottom drawer and buried under other neatly folded pants, was a pair of ancient sweats. There was no telling where they came from, but there they were regardless. With a sigh he pulled them out.




Thirty minutes later found the lanky blonde in front of her door, a single knuckle giving it a soft rap.

His scrounged clothing gave him the appearance of the saddest drifter; sweat pants, a sleeveless running shirt, and a pair of kicks that barely had any sole left. Pursing his lips, Samus willed her to hurry up and open the door. Of course he supposed that it could've been worse. Whatever T'yeellaa had planned, at least it didn't involve those damned shorts.

He hoped.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She was at the door with the chime, sliding it open to see the familiar face she'd been expecting.

"Hejy gai'tou."

T'yeellaa greeted him with a kiss, the act having become basic salutation with their familiarity. Only after the kiss quickly began and ended did T'yeellaa take stock of...

"Ssweatpantss?"

Her ears skewed, and T'yeellaa gave Samus a funny look. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with sweatpants - for her, that was. Maybe she just figured that he had something a little more form-fitting? T'yeellaa struggled to prepare a defense for that assumption that was a little less crass than her looking for an excuse to look at his butt in something tight.

[Q. Samus Dage]

Well.

Ok so he was already half-expecting that sort of reaction from her. Samus gave a helpless shrug.

"They're the only pants that I don't mind getting dirty," he repeated one of her stipulations back to her, then followed with a smile as he leaned down to plant a gentle kiss to her temple before whispering in her ear.

"I missed you, Kitten."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Ah, the unassailable defense. He'd stuck to the letter and spirit of her request, more or less. And even if she teased him for it, a lot could be smoothed over with a kiss. T'yeellaa pressed a taut and suspicious smile even as Dage brushed aside one ear to plant his lips.

Had she always been this malleable? No, and that was why she couldn't get enough of Samus. He was simple in all the most complicated ways.

"Oh...come jin."

She withdrew, but not before taking him by the hand.

"Ssweatpantss and all."

Once across the threshold, T'yeellaa went to work playing the host. She placed a few aromatic candles atop the cubby cabinet at the front of the quarters, lighting them. A few seconds later, a perfumed spice scent could be picked up in the air. It invited one to breathe deep.

"Go ahead and take off jyourr sshoess and ssockss. Do jyou want ssome tea?"

[Q. Samus Dage]

Letting himslef fall onto the sofa, he began the task of removing his footware. A sideways look was sent her way; one that held a small not of apprehension.

"You're not making that tea again, are you?"

Memories of the last time he'd been treated to tea flooded into his thoughts, and the blonde made a concerned face as he pulled off a sock. It hadn't necessarily been embarrassing, but it was a learning experience for sure. He'd ended up in the medical ward, Jovan's Durwi chief surgeon fastidiously tsking and chattering about being mindful of the exotic plants that other races use for making steeped drinks. Dage had simply mumbles in resigned response, bearing the outbreak of hives as best he could.

After all, who knew he was allergic to j'eeta?

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa paused in her tracks. How'd she so quickly forgotten that. She wasn't expecting to have her gai'tou succumb to some bizarre food allergy again. The K'ohta'rrou paused with sachet in hand, and carefully slid the offending item onto the kitchenette counter.

"No tea, then." She smiled innocently.

Sure there were other choices, but even she barely tolerated Kri'achee tea, and Samus might lose his stomach over the second option.

"Therre's pajint overr therre on the end table. Go thrrough them and pjick what jyou ljike."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"... paint?"

It wasn't exactly what he was expecting to hear, and Samus gave a briefly confused blink as he stared at her, standing there in the kitchenette like some huntress just waiting to close in for the kill. Well, maybe she wasn't so predatory looking, but there was certainly something devious glinting in her blue eyes as she stared right back at him.

But, he obeyed regardless, and with a suspicious look back to her, he gave a frown before turning to look down at the offerings.

"Kitten, are you sure you want me to pick out colors?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She laughed, opting for the occasionally-used caf pot to accommodate her fussy human.

"jYess, forr once. jIt'ss fjine. Therre'ss no wrrong ansswerr. Whateverr jyou ssee that sspeakss to jyou. Go wjith jyourr hearrt."

T'yeellaa diverted her attention briefly to the ritual of brewing caf. She'd had enough of the beverage to know that it wasn't her choice, but she wanted this to be an easy transition for him, so she made the effort.

"Tu'aa Hyeeiaali jiss all about jyourr perrssonal djisscoverrjy. No judgment. Asss long asss jyou rremajin honesst wjith jyourrsself, jyou'rre dojing jit rrjight."

The water in the kettle began to shiver, showing small beads of bubbles. T'yeellaa readied the strain press with a dose of pre-ground caf. A thought occurred to her, and the felinoid's ears perked.

"Actualljy, bejing colorrbljind mjight make jit even morre jyourr own jourrnejy. Onljy jyou can ssee jyourr rressultss asss jyou jintend them to be."

[Q. Samus Dage]

Personal discovery. Painting. Colors that are a journey. It was rather new to him, and Samus couldn't help the beginnings of concern creep into his eyes as he turned back to the paints. He idly plucked up two, then a third. A blue, a grey, and a dark red. Nothing particularly exotic, he figured, and it was a simple set of colors. Was three enough? Should he pick more? This painting exercise was a new concept for him; at least, the way that T'yeellaa was going about it.

"Are we going to be painting happy little rancors and kingwood trees, with candyfloss clouds in the sky?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Majybe. But ssettjing out wjith a pjicturre jin mjind jissn't what jyou do."

T'yeellaa traipsed from the kitchenette, placing hands along Samus's shoulders as she inspected the paints he'd chosen. Blue, green, and brown weren't the colors she would pick, but that was once again what made this all so fulfilling. She gave his shoulders a squeeze, then a reassuring pat.

"jYou clearr jyourr mjind, fjind a peaceful sspace forr jyourr mjind and bodjy aljike. Whateverr jyou pajint wjill sshow jitsself to jyou eventualljy."

She smiled, craned her neck, and angled to kiss his cheek before separating.

"jI'll take carre of the drrjinkss. jYou sshould get sstarrted sstrretchjing."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Wait, what?"

Stretching? There was stretching involved in this bout of painting? Samus turned on a heel to watch her flounce off, that tail of hers flicking from left to right with just the right amount of teasing; as though she was begging for him to simply replace the paint in his hands for two healthy scoops of butt.

"What in the seven hells sort of painting are you making me do?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"jIt'ss Tu'aa Hyeeiaali, gai'tou." she explained again, in the carefully-measured way a teacher might to a slower student.

T'yeellaa returned to the kitchenette just as the kettle started to audibly warble. She removed it from heat, pouring equal measures into the caf press and into her waiting teacup.

"Mjy fatherr taught jit to me when jI wass ljittle. jIt'ss not rrealljy arrt, well not exactljy. jIt'ss an exerrcjisse of jyourr total sself. Wholenesss of mjind and bodjy, jit'ss..."

She paused, trying to think of a better way to explain this to her layman lover.

"...therrapjy."

[Q. Samus Dage]

"Therapy."

The word was overly enunciated as his mouth moved around the corners of each consonant like some lost tourist, examining each nook and cranny found. Stretching and painting seemed so... opposite. Like meilooruns and a repulsor pad. It just didn't go together. But T'yeellaa said that they did, so that was that.

Setting his paint choices down, the lanky blonde let out a long sigh as he let his head fall back, looking up at the ceiling in the first motions of stretching his neck. One arm moved then, coming across his chest as the other lifted up to push the first into his body and stretch his shoulder muscles.

"You know, when you said to show up in comfortable clothes, I just figured we were going to have a lazy night with a bit of 'how's your mother'."

After all, that seemed to be the usual menu.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Don't get me wrrong, jI apprrecjiate the wjilljingnesss,"

T'yeellaa needled Dage with a lopsided grin as she returned with two steaming cups. She set both on the caf table, pushed well out of harm's way.

"But beljieve jit orr not, therre arre rreassonss jI ljike jyou bejyond jyou havjing an actjive ljibjido and njice hajirr. jI can actjiveljy ssharre experrjiencess wjith jyou wjithout jit sseemjing ljike ssome kjind of cheap prretext to get jyou out of jyourr clothess. Now..."

The K'ohta'rrou gently slid her legs wide, dropping easily into splits before stretching her arms out.

"...thjink ljimberr thoughtss dearr."

[Q. Samus Dage]

His entire posture seemed to freeze as he watched her. Oh, he knew she was flexible, but she always managed to surprise him despite that knowledge. It was like seeing something unexplainable while knowing the explanation, yet still there was a mystery to it all that wasn't quite fully sussed out.

He blinked, and slowly began moving once more, motions methodical yet still somewhat... rickety. He certainly wasn't some old stiff, but there was also no way he'd be able to pull of the sort of gymnastics that she was currently displaying.

"If I do that, Kitten, I'll end up pulling my favorite muscle."

But, he at least shifted his stance somewhat, twisting his torso from side to side in an attempt to loosen the lean muscles along his sides.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She easily recovered from her flattened splay, drawing her legs up before carefully positioning her arms on the floor so that her elbows and wrists touched the mat beneath her head in parallel. She paused, offering Samus a sympathetic smile.

"jIt'ss jyourr fjirrsst tjime, and jyourr human. Jusst do jyourr besst. Sstarrt bjy touchjing jyourr toess, how about that?"

As if to further illustrate the gulf between them, T'yeellaa kicked one leg back and up, then very carefully pushed off with the toes of her other foot, using the small amount of upward momentum to trim into a hand stand. Still calm as water, the Cizerack tilted her head to the mat, letting her shoulders sink as her back arched, slowly bringing her pointed toes over and beyond her head.

[Q. Samus Dage]

"I can touch 'em just fine if I'm sitting on the couch," came the grumbled response, but he at least made the effort.

His body folded in half as he bent at the waist, arms going down and fingers splaying outward to cut the distance between chewed fingernail tips and the toes of his ratty sneakers.

"Anyone ever tell you it's not nice to show off?"

Of course, he didn't really mind the bit of display that she was giving him; only made him feel all the luckier.

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

At that, she rolled her eyes, slowly descending back to the deck.

"jIt'ss not sshowjing off, Gai'tou. jIt'ss Aan'arraiha'hue. jIt'ss one of ten sspecjifjic sstrretch possess to prreparre the bodjy."

T'yeellaa rose and stood behind Samus, giving him a gentle push at his shoulders, mindful to stop at the first sign of tension.

"Brreathe. Let out jyourr brreath."