Title: If I Told You I Was Drunk
Summary: Wes and Hobbie take Kyp out for a drink. Jaina's presence throws a hydrospanner into the works. Kyp/Jaina, some Wes/Hobbie.
Setting: An unspecified time after the end of The Unifying Force , but long before The Joiner King on an equally unspecified planet.
Genre: Romance, het, slash, and minor angst.
Pairings: Kyp/Jaina, Wes/Hobbie
Length: Approximately 4,600 words
Rating: 13 and up
Disclaimer: I don't own Kyp, crusty!space or otherwise. Nor do I own any of the other characters, scenes, or events mentioned in this story. Except for the unnamed Amorous Twi'Lek.

Kyp knew they were coming. Knew it, and dreaded it. But a brief assessment of his options found that his only reasonable means of escape was out the window, and twelve stories was a pretty long jump when one's life wasn't technically in danger.

His sanity, however, was another matter entirely. The annunciator chimed, and Kyp reluctantly opened the door to greet Wes Janson and Hobbie Klivian.

"Heya, kid, how's it going?"

Kyp forced a smile. "Wonderful. And you?"

"You know," Wes said appraisingly, "that smile'd be a lot more convincing if it didn't show your molars. You look like a gundark that's been backed into a corner."

"Funny, I kind of feel like one, too. Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?"

Hobbie snorted. "Gentlemen?" he muttered, tossing a skeptical glance at Wes, who ignored him.

"Well, you see, Kyp, we thought--"

"He thought," Hobbie interrupted. "I had no part in this."

"We thought you might like to join us at the Blue Wampa this evening. Drinks on me."

Kyp shook his head. "Thanks, but not tonight."

Wes waved his hand in front of Kyp's face and enunciated very carefully. "I said , we thought you might like to--"

"Wes, are you trying to use a Jedi mind trick on a Jedi ?"

"...Did it work?"

Kyp turned to Hobbie. "Has he been drinking already ?"

Hobbie shrugged. "He's always like this. You've flown with him, you know that."

"And he's not going to go away unless I agree, is he?"

"Even if you do agree, he's not likely to go anywhere. Hell, I've been stuck with him for twenty-five years now."

"That's reassuring."

"The speeder's waiting," Wes interjected impatiently. "And I'm not getting any less sober here."

Kyp sighed. "Well, if I'm going to be stuck with him, best be intoxicated while I'm at it. Let me get my cloak."

-----

The Blue Wampa was crowded at this hour, and almost everyone was halfway vaped already. Wes decided they should waste no time in catching up and immediately ordered three drinks for each of them. He let Kyp finish the first two before judging him buzzed enough to begin the conversation.

"So how've you been, Durron?"

Kyp eyed him over the rim of his glass. "Fine..." he said suspiciously.

"Because, you see, there are some people in the fleet who seem to think otherwise. Hobbs and I--and several other pilots, commanders, Han Solo, et cetera--"

"Han thinks I'm not all right?"

"He just said he was concerned about you," Hobbie covered hurriedly. Han's actual words had been He looks like there's a grutchin in him tryin' to eat its way out, but it probably wasn't necessary for Kyp to hear it verbatim.

"--who seem to think you're depressed," Wes finished.

Kyp snorted. "It figures," he sighed after downing the third drink in a swallow. "If you don't go around smiling and whistling jizz tunes, people think there's something wrong with you."

"Didn't answer my question, though," he pointed out mildly.

"I'm not depressed," Kyp protested, hailing a waiter and ordering himself two more. "We just finished a war , for kriff's sake."

"Won it, actually," Hobbie put in.

"Yeah, tell that to Miko and the fifty pilots I lost over the course of it."

"That wasn't your fault."

"Debatable. But you lose an entire squadron three times over and see how cheerful you feel when it's done." Kyp's drinks arrived again, and Wes took a moment to tug the waiter aside, tip him liberally, and ask him to keep them coming.

By the time he got back to the conversation, Hobbie had changed the topic, and they spent the next several rounds playing various drinking games and detailing some of Rogue and Wraith squadrons' lesser-known feats, to the amusement of a steadily more jocund Kyp.

"And there was the time Wes got himself betrothed to a Twi'Lek on a mission to--what was it? Some mining planet halfway to the Rim," Hobbie related.

"She tried to strangle me with her lekku," Wes griped.

"Aw, she was just affectionate."

"I had the marks for weeks . My call-sign for the next six missions was Hickey."

Hobbie shrugged. "Served you right for flirting with her like that, telling her you had a tallgrain plantation on Mon Calamari. You think she would have realized that Mon Calamari has no land ."

"Jealous much?" Wes muttered into his pale-green concoction of sweetfruit and Togorian rum. "We got rid of her, though."

"Yeah, but I had to dress up in a skirt and kiss you to make her leave you alone."

"There are worse fates," Wes opined smugly.

Hobbie quirked an eyebrow. "Yes, I suppose there are."

They both realized suddenly that they had lost their audience. Kyp's cheerful expression had faded, and now he was staring morosely into his glass, oblivious to the continuing conversation.

"You see," Wes announced, and Kyp looked up blankly. "This is why people think you're depressed."

"I am not depressed ," he repeated, raising his glass to his lips. "I was thinking."

"See, that's the problem. You don't think in public. It's impolite. The last thing this galaxy needs is another tall, dark, and handsome pilot mooning over Jaina Solo."

Kyp spluttered and choked on his drink. "I beg your pardon?" he said icily, ruining the effect with a series of coughs.

"Don't look at me like that, you've had your eye on her ever since she beat your run in Lando's Folly."

"She was only seventeen then!"

"Yeah, and you were trying to 'recruit' her from that moment on."

Kyp dropped his head into his hands. "I'm too drunk for this," he muttered.

"And any other time, you're not drunk enough ."

Kyp growled something unintelligible.

"Look," Wes said fairly, "there's nothing wrong with liking the girl. I mean, she's a Jedi and a pilot and the avatar of the Trickster Goddess--not to mention sithin' gorgeous. But this pathetic rejected-lover coward stuff has to go. If you're in love with her, do something about it."

"I'm not in love with her!" Kyp proclaimed, a little more loudly than he intended to.

"But you don't want to see her with Jag Fel, either."

"No, I don't," he said shortly.

"And you ever think about why that is? I'm just curious."

"He's not--right--for her."

"Well, who is ?"

"Probably nobody."

Wes snorted. "Kriff, kid, you sound like Han. And I know you don't see Jaina the way Han sees Jaina."

"I'm her friend. I'm allowed to care if I think she's falling for a guy who's not good for her."

"Yeah," Wes reasoned, "but Jag is good for her. He's always being all courtly and chivalrous, for starters."

"Jaina doesn't need chivalry."

"He can fly circles around anybody in the fleet--maybe even Jaina herself."

"He's not a Jedi, though."

"That's beside the point," Wes insisted.

"Is it?"

"Kyp, he kept that girl grounded during the Vong war."

"Not by himself, he didn't," Kyp protested, wounded.

"Looked like he played a pretty big role, at least."

"Making out with her in maintenance closets is not quite what I'd call keeping her grounded."

"Better than lying to her to get her to help destroy a Vong worldship."

Kyp jerked up from his seat, looming ominously over Wes and Hobbie. He struggled briefly for words, then scowled. "I'm going to the 'fresher," he announced stiffly. Then he turned and with remarkably steady steps stalked away into the sea of bar patrons.

It looked like he'd picked up a drink or two on the way, though, because by the time he came back his steps were a little more uneven, to Hobbie's eyes, approaching but not quite attaining a stagger.

Kyp slumped back into his seat. "Are we done with this intervention?" he sighed.

Wes eyed him for a moment. "I suppose."

"Good. Now I'm going to get incredibly drunk and attempt for your sakes to forget that this conversation ever happened."

-----

Kyp was markedly quiet for the remainder of the evening. Wes and Hobbie drifted into their own conversation, only peripherally aware that Kyp's head was drooping nearer and nearer the tabletop. It was just after midnight when they looked over and realized that Kyp was asleep, his head pillowed on his crossed arms.

Wes poked him experimentally, and got an irritated grunt in response. He poked him again. "Hey, kid?"

"Mmph. Dizzy."

"Kyp?"

"Kriff you, Jansssn. 'M sleep."

"You want another round, kid, or are you through?"

Kyp moaned a long series of what sounded like complex nonsense.

"Did you get any of that, Wes?" Hobbie asked.

"A little. He says if we buy him another drink, he'll hunt us down and kill us in the morning. Slowly. Possibly with a hydrospanner. He also says that if we do happen to buy him another drink, thereby sealing our fates, he'll have a Corellian on the rocks, because this sweetfruit whatever-the-kriff-it-is tastes like Ewok vomit."

"I didn't know you were fluent in drunk Jedi."

"Who do you think got the farmboy vaped after Yavin?"

Hobbie blinked. "...Wedge."

Wes glared, affronted. "Well, yeah, but I helped. And I kept him from comming some highly embarrassing things to a diplomat who turned out to be his sister anyway."

"Good thing then."

"I'm not so sure," he admitted with a reflective grimace. "I've heard rumors about that botched mission to Circarpous that I don't particularly care to think about."

Hobbie shuddered. "So, the question remains: do we buy him another, or not?"

"I'm not afraid to die," Wes grinned, and gestured to the waiter. Something else in the vicinity of the bar caught his attention, though, and he turned to Hobbie excitedly. "Hey, look over there. Cute little thing in a jumpsuit, standing by the bar, looking this way," he whispered, eyeing the woman in a way he probably thought was subtle.

Hobbie peered in the direction Wes was gesturing. He could see a flash of brown hair over a dark outfit, but other than that all he could tell was that she was young . "Wes, she could be your--"

"Relax, Hobbs, if she's in the cantina, she's legal, right? I'm not going to get arrested for a little flirting at the local watering hole." Wes raised his voice to call across the cantina. "Hey, short stuff, come on over here, we'll buy you a drink!"

That was when Hobbie caught sight of the very familiar cylinder hanging at the cute little thing 's belt. "'Arrested' is no longer what I'm worried about," he sighed.

Wes lowered his voice again to something resembling a conspiratorial whisper as she meandered over, glancing back at her to make sure she was still coming their way.

"Military-issue jumpsuits shouldn't be allowed to look that good on--aw, kriff, it's Solo !"

Hobbie couldn't help but laugh at Wes' stricken expression. "Isn't that the second time you've done that this war?"

"Yeah, but not on purpose . I didn't know it was her. Either time, and you can tell that to the court when Han goes on trial for murdering me. Anyway, might do Durron a little good to have a normal conversation with her."

"Except he's asleep. Or unconscious."

Jaina was still approaching their booth, meandering through the crowd. Wes had just enough time to come up with a stunningly witty pickup line before she arrived at their table.

"So is that a lightsaber on your belt, or are you just--"

"Lock it down, Janson. I've heard that one three times tonight. Plus 'You can handle my lightsaber,' and the ever-popular 'hey, baby, wanna play with my flightstick?' The answer is, as always, no ."

"Just trying to get your attention. Worked, dinn'it?"

"Oh, sure. I thought of six different ways to incapacitate you on the way over."

Wes raised an eyebrow. "I'm flattered to command that much of your attention, ma'am." He frowned blearily at the half-full glass in her hand and switched to parental mode. "That had better be fizzpop, young lady."

"Oh, it is," Jaina assured him pertly. "Plus about three tails of Old Selonian and a shot of Diamalan Blue. Want one? On me?"

"No thanks, the last time I let a Solo buy me a drink was...well, I can't remember. Which probably means it caused me to black out."

"I wouldn't be surprised. How are you, Hobbie? Still stuck with this monkey-lizard, are you?"

"Ah, it's not so bad," he shrugged, casting a sidelong glance at Wes. "He's usually worth the trouble."

Jaina shook her head. "I really don't want to know, do I."

"Nope." Hobbie grinned roguishly.

Jaina turned to the third member of the party. "And has your handsome companion had too much to drink, or just too many old battle stor--Kyp !"

The Jedi Master in question grunted, but didn't move. Jaina turned on the two pilots across from him. "What did you do to him?"

Wes and Hobbie turned to each other. After a short and unnervingly wordless conversation, they turned back to Jaina. "Nothing," they chorused decisively.

"The hell you did nothing! Look at him!"

"We needed to have a talk with him. He needed to be drunk in order to listen. It really all follows quite a logical path," Wes said, and Jaina wondered how such an insane series of events could sound so reasonable put that way.

"He's too drunk to listen to anything at this point."

"Well, the conversation took place quite awhile ago, and as you can see, it didn't quite go as well as we'd hoped."

"Why didn't you cut him off while he was still conscious?"

"He's a big boy, Jaina, he can decide when he's had enough. Besides--he needs this."

"He does not need to be vaped drunk and sleeping on a cantina table," she hissed.

"No, he needs to get laid," Wes returned acidly, "and if you'd like to volunteer for that service you're welcome to, but we got sick of seeing him moping and decided to give him the next best thing: alcohol."

"You're hopeless," she snapped. "What could you possibly have to say to him that he would have to be drunk to hear? Never mind, that's another thing I don't want to know, isn't it?"

"Probably," Wes muttered.

Jaina sighed. "Hobbie, how can you let him--"

"Hey, I'm not in charge of him!"

"Well, someone ought to be."

"I've called the local zoos, they say he needs to be neutered. And I've never been able to get him drunk enough to sign the paperwork."

Jaina smirked in spite of herself. "I guess that's all right. Somehow I don't think we have to worry about him fathering another generation of crass, immature X-Wing pilots, do we, Hobbie?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," he deadpanned, blush visible even in the dim light.

"So what'd you do, Wes?" Jaina asked, poisonously pleasant. "Insult his manhood? Dare him?"

"No dare! What Kyp drank, he drank of his own accord--and on my tab, too. Vapin' expensive date, he is. I just bought the drinks, I didn't make him sit there and drink them--"

"Yes, you did, you--urk --" Hobbie's face froze in the peculiar pained expression of one who's had his foot stomped and his gut elbowed simultaneously.

"After all, Jaina, you can hardly argue that we corrupted him," Wes pointed out. "Kyp can make his own decisions. And if his decision tonight was to drink himself under the table, then who are we to tell him not to?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe friends who care enough to stop him before he passes out?" She sighed. "He's not even going to make it back to his room, is he? No, don't get up. Don't bother. Even if you two were sober enough to support him, you're nowhere near sober enough to walk in a consistent direction. If Hobbie forgets his left and right again, you'll probably give the man a concussion when you drop him on the durocrete outside. I'll take him home." She nudged the intoxicated Jedi Master. "Kyp? Kyp, wake up. Kyp !"

Kyp bolted upright in the booth and peered at her. "Oh, hello, Jaina, we were just talking about you," he said dazedly. Then he jumped. "Wes, you kicked me," he whined. He turned back to Jaina. "Anyway, we were talking about you, and I can't remember much else, but--hey, is that mine?" he asked as the waiter deposited a glass of Corellian on the table.

Wes shoved the glass towards him. "Yes, yes! Drink up," he said, desperate to derail this conversation before Kyp remembered anything in better detail.

Kyp tipped the glass back and finished it before Jaina had a chance to take it away from him. He set the glass down, blinked muzzily, and laid his head back on the tabletop.

"Huh-uh. No way," Jaina said, shaking him lightly. "We're going to go home now."

"Is that really necessary?" he said petulantly.

"Yes, Kyp. It's very necessary. You can't sleep in a cantina."

"Not when people are poking at me, I can't," he sulked, and Jaina was hard-pressed to believe he was really fourteen years her senior.

"Right. And the cantina will close soon, and they'll make you leave. Might as well get out while you've still got some, uh, dignity, right?"

"Fine," he sighed, but didn't move.

"Kyp, you have to get up."

"Why?"

"Now , Kyp," she snapped, putting the Force behind her words, and Kyp scrambled out of his seat.

"You didn't have to shout ," he complained, rubbing at his temple.

"Yes, actually, I did. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse us, we'll be going." Jaina set her empty glass on the table and stalked off, Kyp weaving unsteadily through the crowd behind her.

West watched them go. "Huh. That went well."

Hobbie stared at Wes. "You call that well ? Kyp passed out and Jaina almost killed us both!"

"Yeah, and now they're together. In a speeder. And if Kyp stays conscious, he might just loosen up enough to get whatever he's feeling off his chest."

Hobbie stared. "I can't decide if you're brilliant or insane."

"Both, my friend. Both. Makes life much more interesting. Ready to go home?"

"If by that you mean, 'Do I think I can stand up and comm a transport unassisted?' Yes. If you mean 'Am I ready to crawl into bed and sleep through the hangover?'...Not yet."

Wes's eyes glimmered. "In that case, I'd better get you home real quick--before whatever you drank wears off."

They paid for their drinks and, supporting each other a little more than was strictly necessary, made their way out of the cantina.

-----

Jaina signaled for an aircar with the practice of a woman who had spent most of her life on an urban world. She let Kyp clamber in before sliding into the aircar beside him. She told the pilot where to go, and then sat back, shaking her head. "I swear, I will never forgive them for this. What did they think they were doing, dragging you out to that cantina just to get you vaped? Sure, they wanted to 'talk to you' about something. I'll bet. That's just about the weakest excuse I've heard in my life. What could you possibly have to be drunk to hear? It doesn't make any sense--not that anything Wes does ever does make sense. That man is never going to grow up, is he? I don't know why Hobbie puts up with him, or what made you think it would be a good idea to go out with them tonight..."

Realizing that Kyp was being uncharacteristically silent, she glanced over at him and sighed. He was asleep, his head resting awkwardly against the window of the aircar. Jaina resisted an inexplicably tender urge to brush the hair out of his eyes.

He looked different when he slept. Not younger, precisely, but peaceful. More relaxed. This was Kyp Durron as he could have been--a Kyp who had never seen Kessel or Carida, who had never felt the Dark Side or fought the Vong.

A Kyp Jaina never would have met.

She wondered if he woke up some nights with his brother's name on his lips, if he was as haunted as she was. But Kyp was a Jedi Master, and Carida was twenty years in the past. Surely he had found his peace. Surely she would, too.

It really was amazing how different he looked when he was asleep. Jaina bet that in the moment between waking and full consciousness, he would look like an entirely different man. Brighter, perhaps, and a little less jaded, just before his customary arrogance settled over his features. She wondered what color his eyes would be.

Of course, watching a man wake up necessitated somehow being in his presence while he was asleep. And Jaina could think of scant few ways to manage that--none of which were particularly appropriate.

They weren't particularly abhorrent, either, and that was worrying. She really wished she hadn't added the Diamalan to her last drink. She always thought strange things when she'd been drinking Diamalan.

The aircar slowed to a stop in front of the apartment building Kyp lived in. Jaina woke him--more gently than at the cantina--and studiously avoided watching his eyes as he woke up. It wouldn't be fair to catch him unguarded like this. So she paid the driver instead, and when she finally looked up at Kyp she saw with satisfaction (and a twinge of regret) that his defenses were back in place.

They did seem a little shaky, though. Rather like the rest of him. If she left now, he'd probably curl up in the turbolift and fall asleep, if he even made it that far. She started for the door, then realized that Kyp wasn't behind her anymore. She turned around. "What are you waiting for?"

Kyp jumped and frowned at her. "Oh, you're still here."

"Yeah, I thought I'd walk you up. So you don't fall asleep in the lift."

"But the aircar just--" he gestured vaguely into the distance, where the vehicle was rapidly shrinking.

She shrugged. "I can comm another one. Come on."

Kyp followed her, trying to shake an unsettled feeling that, he was afraid, had nothing to do with alcohol at all.

He stayed awake all across the lobby and all the way up the lift. In fact, he seemed a little steadier as he trailed her to his apartment, so much so that Jaina wondered exactly why she had thought he needed help. She stopped in front of his door. "What's your passcode?" she asked, not quite trusting him to enter it without mis-keying it and bringing the building's security down on them.

He leaned pensively against the wall and didn't say anything.

She looked up at him and found him staring at her expressionlessly. "Kyp? What's the passcode?" She turned back to the door expectantly.

"It would be a bad idea to kiss you right now, wouldn't it?"

Jaina's hand froze over the keypad. "You're drunk, Kyp," she informed him gently.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Yes, Kyp. It would be a bad idea. Passcode?"

"But I'm drunk, it would be a perfect excuse. You can take advantage of me, I don't mind."

"If you're sober enough to think that way, you're not drunk enough for it to count. What's your passcode?"

"Six-two-" he yawned, "-four-four-two."

The door slid open and Kyp stepped half-steadily into the darkened room.

"You going to be okay in there?" Jaina called after him.

"I think I will sleep on the floor," she heard him say decisively.

She sighed and stepped into the room behind him. "Kyp, the floor is not a good place to sleep," she began patiently, groping along the wall for the glowpanel switch. She stumbled in the darkness and with a muttered curse--

--fell straight into Kyp's arms. "Woah there. I thought I was the drunk one," he chuckled softly.

"You are," she reminded him when she had regained her balance. She pulled back a step, but his arms tightened around her.

He hesitated. "You can hate me in the morning, Goddess," he whispered. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

His kiss was warm and light and tasted like sweetfruit and good Corellian brandy, and several long seconds passed before Jaina even thought of pulling away. And when she finally did, pushing gently against his chest, the first thought in her mind did not involve either "monkey-lizard" or "nerfherder."

It was If that's how he kisses drunk...

She could feel her cheeks burning, turmoil racing through her brain. She knew the darkness prevented Kyp from seeing the former; she hoped the alcohol would keep him from sensing the latter. "Good night, Kyp," she muttered, and then fled.

She was halfway to the turbolift before her rational mind took over with outrage. How dare he! Using alcohol to screen his intentions. And how dare she fall for it like that! Not half an hour ago, she had been thinking of how peaceful and relatively innocent he looked, and now...damned if she would ever let herself get caught up in her thoughts like that again.

It had only happened because he'd surprised her. He'd exploited the fact that he knew she cared too much to let him collapse on the floor. He was good at that, after all, exploiting people. Exploiting her .

And to think she'd been considerate of him. To think she'd taken him home when it was clear he wasn't going to make it on his own. She should have left him with Wes and Hobbie to suffer at their hands; it was no more than he deserved, and probably less.

She slammed the turbolift button, fuming. What gave him the right to even consider something like that? There was no excuse for that kind of behavior, no matter how drunk he was. None at all. He was setting her up, probably ever since the aircar, certainly since they got to his apartment. What was he expecting? That she would melt into his arms, spend the night with him? Jaina wasn't much one for melting, and even if she had been she doubted that Kyp's arms could have supported her weight long enough for any melting to occur. And what was taking the kriffing turbolift so long?

As if by command, the door opened, and Jaina stormed onto it, slapping the ground-floor button and slumping angrily against the back wall. The next time she saw Kyp, she was going to hit him. Not slap him--she'd done that once already, and it hadn't had much of a lasting effect. Hit him. She pondered the effect a broken nose would have on that smirk he always wore.

She sighed and closed her eyes as the turbolift continued down. Sith, she was going to kill that idiot, that stupid vaping nerfherder... She pressed her fingers unconsciously to her lips. None of this should ever have happened, and she remained firm in her resolve to murder Kyp at the nearest opportunity.

But still.

It was a nice kiss.