Smile

Relationships 1.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Of course, for awhile at least, she was the only woman he'd ever seen, but still. There were a few others working at Ovid Outpost now, but Nadeh was still the prettiest, the most amazing, the best. And he got to work with her every day. She always looked adorable with her face all smudged with engine grease at the end of her shift, and her baggy grey deck uniform just highlighted how petite she was. And she had cool hair, and knew how to dye it. Jir wasn't into dyeing his hair like some of his brothers, but bleach blonde with blue streaks looked awesome on her. Made the little horns sprouting from her forehead look extra cute. And those cinnamon eyes! And her voice. No one could ever miss her lilting, honeyed…

"CUTTER!WHAT IN ALL THE CORELLIAN HELLS IS THIS MESS? GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"

…voice like a pissed off drill sergeant. But, you know, one of the ones who only got mad because they cared. Yes, Nadeh was a truly lovely, perfect Zabrak woman, fully capable of taking apart an AT-TE and putting it back together again. She used power tools.

Jir wanted to ask her out. There wasn't a lot on this rock other than a couple of piddling mining towns, but there was a nice little bar in the one not far from the outpost. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to go about asking her to accompany him.

"CUTTER!WHERE DOES YOUR SHIT BELONG? I'll tell you. NOT HERE!"

Fortunately, he had little competition. Though Nadeh was, in his personal opinion at least, the most amazing of all the women on this planet (and certainly in the outpost) most of his brothers lived in fear of being clobbered by one of her hydrospanners and then disemboweled by a deftly-wielded screwdriver. Jir had gotten over this fear within the first week of arriving at Ovid. He worked with her a lot. Clean your shit up, do your job, be polite, and Nadeh was usually happy and not in the mood to eviscerate anyone.

Asking her to spend time with him socially, however, was an entirely different fear to overcome.

Ultimately, Jir turned to the holonet. His brothers all had about as much experience as him, which was roughly none, so he spent what free time he had studying the wisdom offered by the many "dating sites" available online.

He set aside his datapad and shut it down. With a deep breath, he stood. Today he would start with his plan.

Pick up lines. They seemed simple enough.

Dating Wisdom Item#1: Get her attention! A smooth pick up is a good starting place to getting her to notice you.

Her feet were sticking out from under a particularly well-trashed PTB-625 bomber, and there was an oil pan full of fluid sitting nearby her toolkit. Jir took up a place just beside her feet, and leaned his shoulder up against the engine casing, folding his arms across his chest and preparing to look pained. He had to have a good delivery.

He cleared his throat, loudly.

He was rewarded by her aggravated growl of "Keepuna!" and then something that sounded like it was near the sublight controller matrix received the wrath of her displeasure. There was a dull thumping sound as she whacked it with a hydrospanner and her feet kicked in irritation.

Jir coughed. There was another clanging noise, and Nadeh rolled out from under the engine, lifting her goggles up onto her forehead, just under the horns. Her hair was in its usual poofy pigtails and she had grease smudges on her face. He grinned. She scowled. "What, Jir?"

He blinked, then resumed his pained expression. Delivery. He'd rehearsed this at least a dozen times in front of the mirror. "Oh, my heart!" he moaned, clutching his chest.

Nadeh squinted at him, then lifted an eyebrow, concerned. "Jir, are you okay?"

So far, so good. Next line. He groaned, "It hurts! Can you fix it?"

Nadeh wrinkled her nose (she had a smudge across it) and frowned. "I'm a mechanic, Jir, not a cardiologist. This is the flight deck. If you've got heartburn, go see Kura in the medbay."

She then promptly rolled herself back under the bomber and started cursing again.

Jir frowned. Well, that didn't work the way he thought. He scratched the back of his head. Maybe he needed a different line? He hadn't rehearsed any more. He sighed. Back to the holonet.

Dating Wisdom Item #2: Be sure you're paying full attention to her when you talk. Be attentive, make sure she knows your interest. Be bold! Smile! Look her in the eyes, caress her face with your gaze! Look at her cheeks, her chin, her neck! If you want to get her to go home with you, make sure she knows your intent!

He caught her just as she was finishing up her shift, and was walking away from the deck. She looked tired, her shoulders a bit slumped, and one of her pigtails was half out of her hair. Maybe this would cheer her up? He grinned, feeling a little giddy. The first time she was just distracted. This time, he'd be direct, and obvious, and cheerful. Bold!

"Nadeh!" he beamed down at her, edging in close. She leaned back and tilted her head up, bleary-eyed.

"What, Jir?"

Caress her face with your eyes. He took a breath and leaned down towards her, trying to meet her cinnamon gaze with his own, then looked at each part of her face individually. Cheeks, chin, neck, lips…lips…lips…nose! Forehead. Hair. Engine grease in hair. Ears. Jawline. Forehead. Horns.

"Uh, Jir?"

Be bold! He took in a shuddering breath. She couldn't miss the meaning of this one. It was a little forward, but at least she wouldn't think he had heartburn. "So," he said with a gulp – remember to smile! – "Horny?"

She looked at him blankly for a second. Then her face contorted into outrage, and he had about two seconds to realize he said something very, very wrong. Then he had roughly .5 seconds to realize her fist was flying at his face, then another .5 seconds to realize damn she has a mean right hook, and then another two seconds before his face was introduced to the floor.

"WHAT KIND OF SICK SPECIESIST POODOO IS THAT, BUCKETHEAD?" Then there was a long, disturbing string of obscenities in Zabraki that roughly translated into something insulting about his mother and a bantha, from what he could tell. Of course, he didn't have a mother and had no idea where a bantha came into the humanoid reproductive process, but the gist seemed to be she didn't appreciate comments about her horns.

She was actually really pretty when she was angry (she got all pink-faced) but he definitely preferred seeing her pretty-angry at someone else (usually Cutter, the slob) and not at him. It was safer that way.

He groaned, and Nadeh stomped off, still muttering something about banthas.

Dating Wisdom Item #3: Give her compliments! Tell her she's beautiful, especially after a bad day. Women love to know they're attractive to you. Be sincere.

That would be easy. Nadeh was always beautiful, especially when she had grease smudges on her face (which was often). Something about her looking scruffy made him want to reach out and wipe the smudges away, and see her skin underneath. She was a nice, light brown-gold, under the oil. Jir's face softened at the thought of cupping her face with his hands and rubbing off the dirt with his thumbs. This one had to work. And hopefully she'd understand that he liked her horns (which were a nice shade of ivory and looked translucent at the edges in the right lighting).

He found her wandering her way in the general direction of the showers. And it was obvious she'd had a bad day, which hopefully meant the compliment would be all the more appreciated. She was drenched in machine lubricant. Usually, she just had smudges, but it looked like a fuel line had ruptured all over her, and she was caked in grey goop. There were footprint-shaped puddles down the hallway behind her, and she squelched as she walked. She also looked like she had an unfortunate run in with a bottle of dye, and her usually blonde-blue hair was now an incredible shade of neon orange.

Jir stayed a little bit out of punching-range, though, just in case. "Nadeh!"

She scowled. "What, Jir?"

How long had he wanted to tell her this? Sincerity was easy and he smiled, feeling warm. "You look beautiful."

Her cinnamon eyes narrowed into a glare. He started to sweat, and smiled a little wider. Sincerity! Sincerity! He meant it!

"Jir," she said with a terrifying calm, "I am covered head to toe in grease, and my hair looks like I stuck my finger in a power output module. Are you trying to be a smartass?"

He was sweating heavily now. "No, really I think you look beautiful!"

She rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Jir. Now get out of my way so I can rinse off the starfighter puke."

Dating Wisdom Item #4: If the subtle approach doesn't work, be direct! Man up and tell her you're taking her out!

Her door slid open with a whoosh, and for a moment, he gaped. So that was what women's sleepclothes looked like. Purple, functional, with buttons down the front and long pants that puddled on the floor. Not too different from his, but, well, more girly. Nadeh looked adorably sleepy, and her hair was in a giant, fluffy orange halo around her head. He grinned down at her. She looked up at him blearily.

"We're going out for dinner!" he announced, puffing out his chest.

She blinked at him once, then mumbled around a yawn, "Huh? I have the evening shift this week, Jir. Go away so I can finish sleeping."

Then she shut the door in his face.

Dating Wisdom Item #5: Women are always looking for a long-term mate. Show her that you're stable, mature, and have a future planned for yourself. Make sure she knows you're ready to settle down with her and start a family.

Jir frowned and scratched the back of his head. Long-term. Long-term would be nice, but there was always the chance he'd get shipped off elsewhere. He liked Ovid Outpost – it was a pretty good job, overall, and he liked fixing engines and fighters and walkers. He could fight as well as the next clone, but fixing things made him happy. He didn't need the glory of the front lines and battle. He was pretty happy with support work, really. All things considered, he did have one of the more "stable" jobs in the GAR, and there wasn't a big chance he'd be moved anytime soon. Would that be stable enough? Long-term enough?

The thought of settling down with Nadeh made him stare off into the distance with a rather silly smile on his face. He particularly liked the idea of rolling under a bomber with her to fix the engine, and trading kisses in the process. They could share hydrospanners. And he could wipe smudges off her face. And she'd smile at him. More than usual.

He cornered her in a turbolift.

"…I should be at Ovid Outpost for awhile. Maybe even the whole war. And I'm hoping to reach up to Petty Officer, first class, sometime next year." He finished with a rush. Had he forgotten anything? He frowned, looking down at Nadeh, whose eyes were enormous in her face. It was clean today, she hadn't gone to work yet. She'd also fixed her hair back to normal blonde, but now she had green tips. She was pinned into one of the turbolift's corners, almost curling in on herself. Her mouth was slightly gaping. What had he forgotten? Oh! Family! "And I like kids! I think. I've never actually met any, except for some of the younger cadets back on Kamino."

She blinked up at him. "Jir?"

"Yes?" he asked hopefully. Had it worked?

"You're seriously freaking me out. Why are you giving me your resume and talking about kids?"

He managed to keep from groaning, but not from hanging his head. Why did nothing work? The holonet sites always had lots of positive reviews in the comments. Granted, a lot of them were misspelled and had some really strange grammatical errors, but they all seemed so hopeful. Was he not following the directions on the holonet right? "I thought you'd want to know?"

Nadeh grimaced, and he sighed. He'd done something wrong again. Was Nadeh just too special for these tactics? "Jir, seriously, back off before I slug you again."

He closed his eyes. Back off. It wasn't that the tactics weren't working – she just wasn't interested in him. He nodded and stepped back with a sigh.

When the turbolift doors opened, she bolted, and when they closed, he turned to the wall and began to bang his head into it.

Opti Lunn was a grizzled old bounty hunter that occasionally swung through Ovid to drop off his "catches". He was mostly small time, and stayed pretty local, meaning he was generally somewhere within a hundred parsecs and chasing petty criminals. But the old human man had been around for awhile, and wasn't a brother, and so was much more likely to have experience with women.

And Jir at least knew him. He didn't know many local men, at least not in any substantial capacity. He'd at least traded a few jokes with Lunn, when he needed his rattletrap excuse for a transport ship fixed so he could go find some other spice racketeer to bring in.

Maybe the old man would be able to impart some advice. Face-to-face. Man-to-man. Jir asked him if he'd like to get a drink, after work.

"Women," Lunn sighed deeply, nodding over his ale in the outpost's tiny cantina. It was late, and it was just the two of them and the serving droid behind the counter. Lunn was nodding thoughtfully, humming to himself. It looked promising. Obviously, he had some great wisdom to impart. Eager, Jir leaned forward, elbows on the table, his face intent on the old man.

"There's one thing I've learned about women…." Lunn intoned sagely.

Jir nodded earnestly.

The old bounty hunter leaned forward, dark eyes intent. "Don't talk about killing shit with them. They don't like it." He nodded once, in satisfaction, then picked up his ale and began to drink.

Jir introduced his forehead to the table, several times.

Dating Wisdom #6: If you follow this advice, you'll surely win the heart of the girl of your dreams! But if she somehow manages to decline your charms, face up to her like a man.

Nadeh was sitting at one of the benches near her work area, cleaning one of her larger hydrospanners with a cloth.

Jir dropped down onto the other end of the bench. Nadeh glanced at him, nodded curtly in greeting, then went back to her polishing. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Hm?" Nadeh paused in her cleaning and looked at him for a moment. "For what?"

"The last couple weeks."

"Oh, so you realized you were acting like an ass."

He frowned and hung his head. "Can you at least tell me why? Do you like one of my brothers better? It better not be Cutter."

Nadeh blinked at him once, hard, then gave him a bewildered look. "Cutter? What are you talking about?" Her rag and 'spanner hung loosely in her grimy hands. Her nose was wrinkled up (Currently free of grease, but there was some on her chin. Almost as good.).

But had he failed that miserably? Jir hung his head.

"Jir, spit it out, you're acting weird again."

"I've been trying to follow the directions, but it never works."

Nadeh made an aggravated noise, and put her hydrospanner back into her toolkit and tossed the rag on top of it, before sliding a few inches closer. "Directions for what?"

He kept his head down, but balled up his fists. Face rejection like a man. He grimaced. He could still be manly looking at his feet. "Asking you out."

"You've been trying to ask me out?" she asked, sounding confused, then peeved. "By doing what? Telling me you have heartburn, insulting my species and ogling me?"

He winced. It sounded like such a good idea on the holonet. "The holosite said the pickup lines were guaranteed."

There was a snort, and he glanced over at Nadeh, who's eyebrows were near to her hairline and her arms were folded. "And being a smartass?"

"You did look pretty." She rolled her eyes. "Really!" he insisted. She looked at him skeptically, her mouth puckering and twisting to the side.

"Waking me up in the middle of my sleep cycle?"

"The holonet said I should be more manly and just tell you we were going out."

For a moment, she just goggled at him, then she covered her face with a hand and breathed in deeply through her nose, releasing it slowly. "Jir, you're a 1.8 meter tall musclebound mechanic trained since birth to blow shit up and rip droids apart with your bare hands. You're trying to be more manly? Seriously? Who the hell's telling you what manly means?" She rolled her eyes. "Oh wait, the holonet, right?"

"Well…" he trailed off. When she put it that way, it did sound kind of lame. Though it was nice for her to imply he was pretty manly already. That made him feel a little bit better.

She sighed again, and gave him an exasperated look. "And the part where you scared the shit out of me in the turbolift? Cornering women alone and acting like a nutter is not attractive, Jir."

He looked at her, confused and a little dismayed. A sick feeling started to well up in his gut. Scare her? Corner her? She was Nadeh, she wasn't scared of anything. He'd screwed up. He hung his head again, this time burying his face in his hands. "The holonet said women want to settle down with someone serious who wants a family."

It started off soft, the noise. Then it got slowly louder, until he realized it was a chuckle, and by the time he turned his head to look back at her again, she was laughing outright, and her face was turning that shade of pretty-pink, except this time because she was laughing, not screaming at someone. There were tears starting to leak out of the corners of her eyes, and her head was tossed back, showing the fine line of her neck, and her green-tipped hair was shaking in its pigtails. Then she doubled over, and the tears made it down onto her cheeks as she howled.

Jir started reddening with embarrassment. He'd tried so hard. He didn't know rejection would involve this much laughter, though. It kind of hurt even more than he expected.

She laughed his name. "Jir." When he didn't respond, he felt her close the remaining space between them, her arm pressing against his. Then his hands were being pulled away from his face and she was tugging him towards her. Her face was still pink (with the smudge on her chin) and there were tears on her cheeks that were just starting to dry, and her lips were quirked into something like a smirk. "You're cute, you know that?"

He blinked, confounded, and it took several seconds for him to register that something soft was pressing against his cheek. Lips. Nadeh's lips. She was kissing him on the cheek. Nadeh was kissing him on the cheek. With her lips. Her lips.

"Kind of an idiot," she continued, once her lips left his cheek, "but cute." She was still holding his hands in hers. She squeezed his once, before releasing them and standing up.

She kissed him on the cheek with her lips. Jir's eyes glazed over and a lopsided grin started to spread over his face. He got a kiss from Nadeh. On the cheek. But a kiss from Nadeh. And she hadn't gutted him with her screwdriver, bashed him in the head with her hydrospanner, or slugged him with her monstrous strength (because damn she had a mean right hook).

"Nadeh?" he asked, a little dazed, a little tentative.

"What?" she closed the lid of her toolkit, grabbed it by the handle, and straightened.

"Will you get dinner with me?"

"No."

The galaxy came crashing down between one blink and the next. He stared at her, a little gape mouthed, but she still had her lips quirked in that smirky-smile of hers. "No?"

The smirk spread into a grin. "No. I'm just taking my break now, I've got the evening shift this week, remember?"

Crestfallen, he sighed. Still no good.

"But I get off at 22:00." She turned and started to walk away. "I can meet you in the cantina for a drink then. Later, Jir." She waved as she moved off. He stared after her. Was something wrong with her legs? Her hips were swaying more than usual. He grinned. Maybe she hurt her foot. He could ask her later…on their date.

Nadeh was just walking through the arch leading towards the break room when she heard a triumphant war whoop from behind her.

Quietly, she laughed. "Idiot."

But, apparently, her idiot.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. There will be one more Jir and Nadeh (mis)adventure coming up next.

~Queen