Kit and Caboodle

Posted on Mon Sep 7th, 2026 @ 5:18pm by Lieutenant JG Alexander Mayweather & Ensign Siat-or-iian Elkovais

2,378 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: ARYL 1X07: Feeling Like a Kid Again
Location: Alex's Quarters

Alex had finished showering and picked up the dermal regenerator he'd 'borrowed' from Sickbay. It was getting awkward explaining how he kept winding up with bite marks, and easier to just treat himself. In only a few weeks, he and Torii had not only made up for her five-and-a-half-year dry spell, but also developed a good rhythm together. Unfortunately part of that rhythm involved him learning what it meant to date a hunting species. He wasn't complaining though. He was rapidly finding himself enjoying it, and her. He wrapped a towel around his waist and quickly healed the dozen small punctures on his shoulder and chest before he realized his room was suspiciously quiet. It wasn't like Torii was constantly making noise, but total silence was rare...and suspicious.

He stepped out of the bathroom cautiously and looked around. "Torii?" he said. He wondered if she'd gone back to her quarters, but had a sneaking suspicion she was waiting for him to cross her path. It wasn't the first time she'd surprised him and pounced. He didn't mind as it usually meant something fun was in store, but he wasn't looking forward to more punctures. He walked slowly through his modest quarters and as he passed by his couch, something caught the side of his eye. He reacted on instinct, turning towards the movement and seeing a large ball of fluff sailing right at him.

Her stealth was perfect and he walked in oblivious to her presence behind the couch, in shadows and all extremities tucked away. Finally was right in her sights and in one explosive move she pounced, a happy glee-ridden snarl coming from her. The light came just as soon as she left her feet, Suddenly, even in mid-air, she knew her balance was off and she could no longer control her angle, even as she furiously lashed her tails, her snarl going into a higher-pitched buzz.

His view of her was washed out, however, by an extremely bright light that made it feel like his brain was being squeezed. He felt Torii slam into him and wound up on his back. Something felt different, though, He looked up and saw an adorably beautiful young version of his...girlfriend? Situationship? He'd figure that part out later. "Torii?" he said cautiously, looking concerned and how odd his voice sounded in his ears.

Her eyes were open wide as she looked into his with her hands on his shoulders. The shirt she'd put on felt like she was swimming in it, her knees now inside the fabric. Her ears twitched and her entire head felt like it was moving with the movement of those fluffy things that were now almost dwarfing her head. Her tailed flicked around and she nearly fell off of Alex at their movement. "Wha-What's going on?" She squeaked in a very high pitched voice, then covered her mouth as her tails all twitched hard at once and threw her off balance completely and off of him.

Alex rolled over and tried to catch her, keeping her head from hitting the deck. He looked at his arm and froze. He wasn't a gym rat or anything, but he kept in good shape. His arm now, though, looked skinny. Impossibly skinny, like it did when he was...

He looked down at the rest of him and tried not to have a panic attack. He looked scrawny, and his knees were far closer to him than they had been in the shower. He quickly grabbed his towel and pulled it back in place, trying not to think about how things looked. If he didn't know any better, he'd say he was half his age, less. He looked like he did when he was eleven or twelve. Eleven...I hadn't gotten taller yet...figures, he thought.

He looked back over at Torii and realized she looked that age as well. "All right," he said, slowly in a squeaky voice that was far too high-pitched for his comfort, "whatever we do...we don't panic...."

“We don’t panic.” Torii squeaked, but her voice trembled with the words as she righted herself, then toppled over as her tail stitched too far the other way in overcompensation, her eyes wide in surprise and rising fear. She scrambled to all fours again, then fell across Alex as yet another ‘balancing’ twitch form her oversized tails sent her sprawling again. Her breath was coming much faster now, her heart pounding like she’d just been running a race while she tried yet again with the same results, this time ending up on the opposite side of him.

Alex immediately rubbed his nose against hers and held her tight as she squirmed, taking her ear and rubbed it gently. Every panicked feeling he had he could see twitching in her tails. "Do me a favor and don't freak out because I'm really close to freaking out and if we both freak out I'm pretty sure you're going to bite me again, and not in a fun way," he said in a rush.

A high pitched mewling sound came from Torii as she forced herself to stop trying to get to her feet, but her entire form trembled in his grip as her tails just seemed to have a life of their own trying to put her back to rights. She hadn't felt this way since she had been learning to remain on just her two legs. Instinct had always controlled her balance through those tails, but ever since she’d grown into them properly, the awkwardness of youth had been left behind. “Not freaking out.” She whispered in a panicked voice, “Not freaking out, not freaking out.”

He let her waist go and rubbed both of her ears with his hands and her nose with his. "Not freaking out," he said, his voice already calming, if not lowering in pitch. He looked into her now relatively huge eyes and grinned. "Your eyes are still really cool, if that helps." He blinked as he said it. Really cool? What am I? Twelve? Oh...right...crap...

The whine from the back of her throat told him that she was still not okay, but the twitching of tails had gone from intense to limited towards the tips, the eyes were slowly contracting from the wide of outright panic to just alarmed. Her hands began moving automatically, in a kneading pattern, the pinpricks that the tips had reverted to making contact with his skin gently. It was as if she didn’t trust herself to speak.

Alex winced as skin that was far softer, more tender and more sensitive than it had been in a long time was poked over and over by the sharp claws, but he didn't stop rubbing her ears. "Okay," he said, his voice catching as she hit a tender spot. "We're safe, we're here, we're just...young." He rubbed her nose again. "Just...be honest...am I still 'adorable for a human?'" He smiled at her.

The amethyst eyes blinked a few times as she focused on him, “Well, yes?” She squeaked out, “Just… smaller, than before that is, but since I’m smaller, we’re both going to be adorable.” Her ears twitched in his grip, an amusement twitch though, her trembling lessened significantly.

Alex took another breath as they both calmed and he felt her start to nuzzle against him like she usually did. "All right," he said, "I'm going to stand up and figure out something to wear, and then we'll work on getting you on your feet, and we'll report to our stations and figure this out. Okay?"

“All right.” Torii said as he began to extricate himself, leaving her to draw her knees up to her chest and hugging them while the tips of her tails began to twitch wildly again, but they didn’t cause her to rock anymore. Almost as if they were slowly resetting to match her new, smaller form. “My Chief should be on the bridge, so I’ll be heading there.”

He nodded and gave her a brief scratch behind her ears for comfort, then stood up, grabbing his towel to try and maintain what dignity he had left. He went over to his dresser drawers and wondered what he had that would fit him. He finally settled on an old pair of swim trunks. They were still loose, but he could draw them tight and they just barely stayed on. He pulled on a small tshirt and he knew he looked ridiculous, but at least he could go out in public. He didn't even bother with his boots.

He came back over to Torii and knelt down, holding out his hand. "Ready?"

She reached up and took his hands, climbing to her own feet as the shirt she wore now looked like a sleeveless dress on her, falling down to below her knees as she swayed to the side, tails moving to correct her balance and she weaved a couple steps to that side before leaning on him to stay fully upright, “This is bad, this is really bad..” Her breathing accelerated from the calm she’d been in before, “The Chief is going to be thinking I’m drunk unless I can get this under control.” She looked down at where her hands had a nearly death grip on his arm, then released and reached up with one hand to feel one of her big fluffy ears, “Where’s a mirror?”

"The bathroom," he said, holding her up as she steadied. "But, fair warning? It's probably not going to make you feel better." He helped her walk, feeling her shiver nervously as she stumbled, and he nuzzled her cheek comfortingly. He didn't bring up the disturbing fact that instead of being several inches taller, they were now almost the same height, but just helped her along, hoping they could actually see their own reflections.

Once in front of the mirror, her eyes opened almost unnaturally wide in shock as she looked herself, and then him, over. “I’m a kit again? Nine? Maybe ten?” The ears went to the side and faced down, making her look pathetic and sad, which combined with the wide eyes was one of the natural defense mechanisms of her people. “This is really bad.”

"Well, we can look at some of the good sides," Alex said, shrugging.

“I fail to see anything good about this.” Torii said quietly.

"Whatever it was seems to have stopped, and we don't seem any worse off in any other way," he said. "And...we're still together and...stuff." He shrugged, helplessly.

“This is bad enough.. I hated this time of my life, no one took me seriously and I was too old to be considered a young kit to stay at home and just play… I was expected to practice hunting every day for hours and present whatever I caught to my dad.” She seemed to wilt in front of the mirror, “I can’t wear this, can I? It’s just a shirt!”

Part of Alex was pretty sure he should have a certain answer to that, but all his brain could come up with is, "I take you seriously. I promise. Everyone else will too." He kissed her cheek awkwardly.

She still looked downcast, but was trying to force herself to improve.

"As for clothes, I can loan you shorts, but we'll have to pin them or something," he said. "That or we turn your shirt into a dress for now."

"Do you have a... Really small belt I could use?" She asked hopefully, but shook her head, "Dress will have to do, but I really wanna put on something like shorts too, if you don't mind.. After all... I'm... um...." She looked around in panic, "Naked," She whispered, "Under this shirt."

"You were naked under it before, technically," Alex whispered, then laughed at the idea. He made sure she was steady standing there and went to his dresser, pulling out an old pair of shorts, a belt and a small knife. He came back over and knelt down in front of her, holding the shorts up against her. He eyed it carefully twice before he put the knife into the back of them, making a large slit. He then held them open in front of her. "Okay, he said, "get in carefully."

She tentatively tried to step in, but kept getting thrown off balance each time as she grumbled in frustration. She gave him an apologetic look as she reached up and placed her hands on his shoulders, trying to be as careful as she could, but felt her claws dig in to keep her from falling over. "One foot..." She said, "Second foot." She turned around as he tugged them up on her and held them while he helped with her tails.

He winced as her claws dug into his shoulders, but stayed still as she stepped into the shorts. He helped adjust them and carefully reached in to gently feed her tails through the slit in the back. When he'd gotten her into a relatively comfortable situation, he put the belt on her, measured where the notch should be and cut a new hole in it. He locked the sorts around her and grinned in amusement at how she looked. "Well, at least they won't fall," he said.

"Which is much better than before." Tiny Torii leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek and nuzzled his nose with hers, "So... The Bridge? Or where else should we go?"

Alex blushed a bit and rubbed her nose back, then scratched his head, trying to think. "I suppose I should get to Sickbay, in case I'm needed there," he said. "You should maybe try the bridge and make sure everyone's okay?"

Torii nodded, "And later on, we meet back here?" She squeaked.

"Def," Alex said. "At least here we don't have to worry how we look." He took her hand and let her get used to standing again, then helped her walk out the door into the corridor.

Alex Mayweather
Shy Tween Nurse

Siat-or-iian Elkovais
Unsteady Security Kit

 

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