Chapter 1: in which fennec has an idea.
Chapter Text
in which fennec has an idea.
“If it keeps going like this,” said Fennec, flopping down on the wide stone steps of an empty house in the Gleaning of Mos Eisley, settling tiredly down next to Boba, “you’re going to be dead before the month is out, you know.”
Boba grunted. She was exaggerating. He could make it another two or three months, probably. The assassins that the Hutts had been sending hadn’t been that good. None of them had managed to kill Boba yet.
Fennec sighed and handed Boba a scrap of cloth, which he gratefully pressed against the shallow wound in his side.
“That need stitches?” Fennec asked.
Boba shook his head. “Just bacta,” he said. This particular assassin – a sharp-faced young Zabrak woman who had come at Boba around the corner of an alley, brandishing a knife – had scored a lucky hit just past the bottom edge of Boba’s armor, but Boba’d moved faster than she had expected him too and he’d turned her aside before she’d managed to stick him properly.
“You sure?”
Boba rolled his eyes, since Fennec couldn’t see through his buc’ye to catch him doing it. “Yeah, I’m sure. Quit worrying about it.”
Fennec snorted. “No,” she said, implacable as always. She and Boba had known each other for fifteen years, and Fennec hadn't been all that impressed with Boba even when he'd been Jabba's favorite and most fearsome bounty hunter. She certainly wasn't impressed with him now, since Boba was bleeding in an alley like a novice out on his first hunt. She looked past Boba to where the Zabrak woman lay, her body cooling in the street, sand already beginning to collect against her legs.
“How’d she get the drop on you?" Fennec asked, tilting her chin in the direction of the Zabrak's cooling body. "She’s about as big as you are.”
“She didn’t get the drop on me,” Boba grumbled back, pressing harder against the wound on his side. It really wasn’t deep; he could feel the flow of blood slowing already. “She just – got lucky.”
The flat look Fennec shot Boba scored him deeper than the would-be assassin’s knife. Fennec was, as usual, mostly right; the Zabrak had surprised Boba, and she shouldn’t have been able to. He should've had his infrared on, scanning the alley around him for threats. He should have been paying more attention.
“You’re slipping,” said Fennec, frankly.
“You’re slipping,” Boba shot back. Fennec had been a few dozen yards behind Boba when the Zabrak’d jumped for him, and she was usually just off of his left side.
Fennec just shrugged, though the set of her shoulders was apologetic. “A bit,” she admitted. “And I think you’re getting even less sleep than I am, so. At this rate, someone is going to get the drop on you, probably within the month, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“Optimistic, aren’t you?”
Fennec spread her hands. She didn’t try to justify her thinking and didn’t really have to, anyway – Boba understood. “We’re stretched too thin, boss,” she said.
That was an understatement. Back in Jabba’s day Tatooine had been packed to the tops of its mesas with every sort of skug-sucking lowlife – Boba and Fennec included – that tended to gather around a crime syndicate like kirik-flies around a corpse, all of them eager to get on a syndicate boss’s payroll. Jabba’d had no shortage of guards to flank his every move, enforcers to clear the streets ahead of a visit to Mos Eisley, hunters to track down his enemies. If Boba'd taken over right after Jabba had died, he would've had half a hundred guards at his disposal.
Bib Fortuna, however, had been an idiot not fit to to run a cantina on Canto Bight, let alone a syndicate as large, sprawling and complicated as Jabba the Hutt's, so by the time Boba and Fennec had come back to Tatooine with plans of their own, the only beings left in the palace had been a handful of terrified slaves, one battered silver protocol droid and three spice smugglers that Fennec had run out before they’d even thought to offer Boba their services. All of the competent skug-suckers from Boba's hunting days – Bossk and Greedo, Black Krrsantan, Durge, Embo – were long gone, all of them either dead or somewhere else, following credits around the far side of galaxy.
Boba had let the slaves go and had scrapped the droid. He and Fennec had still had a few contacts in Mos Eisley who’d been willing enough to sign on, most of them friends from the bad old days under Jabba. Kasyyk, Theran, Ay-Two and his human partner Zero. One of the Twi’Lek women Fortuna’d been keeping around had even signed on, which had been a pleasant surprise, but that still left Boba with a crew that he could count with two hands, and a crew of seven wasn’t big enough to run much of anything, let alone a piece – now an admittedly very small piece, but still – of the Hutt empire.
Kark the Hutts anyway, Boba thought, irritated. He was pretty sure that it was a Hutt who’d been sending the assassins after him, though he and Fennec hadn’t been able to figure out which Hutt it was yet. None of the other syndicates would even bother. Jabba's empire had spanned most of the Outer Rim, pushing out the Black Sun and the Crimson Dawn and the Pykes, but Bib Fortuna had left Boba only crumbs, and what he hadn't gambled or karked away the other syndicates had gleefully snapped up. Boba's influence barely extended past the walls of Jabba's old palace.
Fennec kept muttering about building a network of spies, but Boba rather thought they should figure out how to walk down the street in Mos Eisley – Boba’s city, which he had walked through without fear since he'd been a young man – without getting stabbed first.
“Yeah,” Boba said, answering Fennec. “I know.”
Fennec’s mouth pulled down. Not in defeat or even in annoyance, but in concentration. She was thinking. Boba, still bleeding, let her think. He’d been up all night the past week trying to figure out the same problem and was ready to let her have a try. All Boba's been able to figure out was how to give himself a headache.
Jabba’s forces – his army of bounty hunters and smugglers and guards and legbreakers, his dancing girls and his bartenders, his clerks and accountants and fixers and thugs – had either died with him at the Pit of Carkoon, like Boba had been supposed to die, had drifted off towards other, more profitable work, like Fennec, or had been chewed up and spat out by the galaxy and its endless, grinding gears. Fortuna’d gotten a lot of the old outfit killed. There was hardly anyone left, let alone anyone who could be trusted not to accept a handful of peggats from the Hutts and put a knife in Boba’s back while he was sleeping.
Fennec’s got more recent knowledge than me, though.
Boba had spent the better part of the last five years with the Spotted Anooba far out in the desert, away from all of this. His concerns had been Tusken concerns; the movements of bantha, tribe politics, oases drying. Fennec had been here.
“We’ve only just started digging around under the palace,” Fennec said, after a minute. Boba blinked. She was right – just yesterday they had cracked the code on a door leading into the depths of Jabba's palace, and behind that door had been a mountain of Jabba's hoarded treasures.
Well, not all of it's treasure, Boba thought. Jabba'd been the worst sort of cranky old krayt. He'd collected everything from Rylish wood carvings to vintage street-racing swoop bikes and had piled it all up underneath his palace for centuries.
“There’s – there’s not a lot of credits down there, but there’s plenty of other assets," Fennec continued. "You could raise a tidy pile of clink if you sold some of it off. Enough to hire some mercs, maybe. At least until we get some cargo moving in and out.”
Boba relaxed a bit. “Thought of that,” Boba admitted. “But is there enough down there to raise the clink to win in a bidding war, d’you think? Mercs are hutuun’yc. If we put up a few hundred thousand credits, only for Gardulla or Gorga or Aarpo to put up a few million – ”
“Alright,” Fennec said, tilting her head. “Fair point.” Then she narrowed her eyes, which usually meant that she’d gotten an idea. “So we need more muscle – and more brains, Boba, I don’t care how much you like Kasyyk – and we need someone who can’t be bought or bribed.”
“Good luck finding someone like that on Tatooine,” Boba replied. He let the comment about Kasyyk slide. Fennec was just annoyed that Kasyyk, not expecting a known assassin to show up at his door with a dead man in tow, had tossed Fennec through said door and into the wall behind it. He'd calmed down once Boba'd explained that he hadn't died in the desert and that Fennec wasn't here to kill the big Wookiee.
“We don’t have to just look on Tatooine,” Fennec pointed out.
Boba snorted. “You’ve got time to go wandering around Nar Shaddaa?” Nar Shaddaa was just about the only place where Boba could go without having to worry about the New Republic catching wind. He wasn't sure that he wanted the wider galaxy to know that he was alive, not yet. Not until Boba got himself dug in more securely here on Tatooine.
“Not Nar Shaddaa either,” said Fennec.
The wound in Boba’s side was starting to throb now, the flow of blood slowing but the ache of an injury setting in. He gritted his teeth. “Say what you mean,” he said. Boba could trust Fennec to do that, if he asked her to. She'd never been afraid of giving Boba bad news.
Fennec shot Boba a slightly-less dire look. Her idea was a good one, then.
“Who do we know,” Fennec said, propping her elbows up on her knees, “that’s a good fighter, a good hunter and can’t be bought? Who would probably try to punch whoever thought to try and buy him out of a contract he’d already taken, Hutt or not?”
Boba blinked. There was only one bounty hunter that Boba could think of like that, but that didn't make any sense. He wouldn't come work for a syndicate.
“You don’t mean Djarin,” he said.
“Of course I mean Djarin,” Fennec said, rolling her eyes. “Unless you know any other stubborn bounty hunters who care more about their contract than any credits that could clink in their pockets. Djarin’s good. He got me, you know.”
“I know he’s good,” Boba replied, confused. Djarin’s skill wasn’t at question. “But he’s not the syndicate-joining type, Shand.”
“What, you think he’s the crusading type?” Fennec retorted. Boba and Fennec had left Djarin on a light cruiser with Bo-Katan Kryze and a pair of her fanatics. Boba didn’t know what Kryze wanted to do next and he didn’t care, either, as long as she did it on the opposite end of the galaxy, but he’d assumed that Djarin would band up with her. That was what Mandalorians did, after all. They stuck with their own.
“Well,” Boba admitted, “he did take on the Empire.”
“To get his kid back,” Fennec disagreed. “He’s no Rebellion hero or resistance fighter, Boba. He’s murishani. Like you.”
“You think we’ve got enough clink lying around to keep him?” Boba asked, still skeptical. Djarin had been – tolerable, really, the few days Boba'd spent with him between Tython, Morak and the light cruiser. Djarin'd been competent. He had kept his word with Boba and had been only faintly surprised when Boba’d kept his, which had been a nice change from most of Boba’s interactions with Mandalorians. “I don’t know if he’ll want to fight, Fenn. He took a few good hits on that cruiser.”
Djarin’d been hurt badly enough to need a dip in a bacta tank. Boba’d seen him out of the bacta, feeling oddly responsible for the other man, but that had been a few weeks ago. He didn’t know what Djarin was up to now.
A trained Mandalorian’s a good asset, though, Boba thought, grudgingly. Fennec was right about that. Djarin was a skilled hunter. When Boba'd been tracking Djarin's ship he'd asked around, and had heard plenty about the Mandalorian in silver beskar who'd worked for the Bounty Hunter's Guild out of Nevarro City. Djarin had been the best hunter in that parsec.
And he had connections on Tatooine that Boba didn’t have. Djarin had saved that one town, with the Marshal who’d been wearing Boba’s armor. Had slain a krayt dragon doing it. The ahra of Tatooine moved through Mos Pelgo, which Djarin had saved, and the Tuskens had enormous respect for the Dragon-Slayer too.
If Djarin could be convinced, Boba thought. If he accepts a contract, and gives his word –
Fennec gave Boba one of her knowing half-smiles. She reached into her coat, then pulled out a lump of dark grey metal and slid it to Boba.
One hand still pressed to his side, Boba picked up what she’d offered him and raised his eyebrows.
“Beskar,” he said. He didn’t have to touch the metal bare-handed to know what it was. He would recognize beskar blind. His body knew it, even if he’d never been offered any. Even if he’d had to take what little he had. “Where’d you get this?”
“Where do you think?” Fennec replied. “The worm had a great big pile of it in one of his little treasure-caves. Don't know where he got it, but it's been down there a while. All of it's got the Hutt stamp, not the Empire's. It'd be worth a bit more than a peggat to a Mandalorian, don’t you think?”
Boba stared at the beskar ingot for a second, some of his exhaustion dropping away. He was glad that he’d found Fennec in the desert. She did have a unique way of approaching a problem.
“Alright,” Boba said, curling a hand over the metal. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Chapter 2: in which boba makes an educated guess.
Notes:
Howdy again! Back at it with a tumblr cross-post, this time ft. the single-most requested Boba POV, both here on AO3 and over on tumblr; Boba's POV of his first mini "scene" with Din in the kitchens, set during Chapter 3, "sha'kajir."
Y'all know what you like, huh?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba makes an educated guess.
If Din Djarin wound himself up any tighter he was going to snap in half and scatter beskar all over the floor of Ushib’s tidy kitchen, and somehow, Boba didn’t think that Fennec would be very happy with him if he let that happen.
He wouldn’t be very happy with himself either, honestly. Boba liked Djarin. His side still hurt where Djarin’d gone for a gap in Boba’s cuirass – twice – and he was trying his hardest not to limp where Djarin could see. The mean little lyleck had kicked Boba so hard that Boba was going to need to hobble around with a brace in the morning, though he’d be karked if he let Djarin notice.
The whole point of getting him in the sparring ring was to get him to relax, Boba thought, watching Djarin across the quiet, dim kitchen. He’d found Djarin in one of the old pit fighting rooms, where Jabba and his court had bet on gladiators, and had brought Djarin here after their spar to put Djarin more at ease. To get him more comfortable.
Djarin was not comfortable.
He’d been willing enough to spar, when Boba had finally managed to track him down. For a man in bright silver armor – not even a sensible green, a red that would disappear in low light, a blue that would blend into the sky – Djarin’d been karking hard to find. But once Boba’d managed to dig him up, Djarin had agreed to spar, and during the spar he had relaxed. Boba had been able to see Djarin. To learn about who he was underneath the armor.
Any ease that Djarin’d found in the sparring ring was long gone now. He was staring at Boba, one hand curled around a cup of tihaar that he hadn’t yet touched, like he thought that Boba was going to rush him and stick a knife in his belly. His shoulders were pulled tight. His free hand was twitching for a weapon.
I don’t particularly want to get stuck with the darksaber, either, Boba thought, eyeing the weapon where it hung on Djarin's hip. I’ve already been whacked with that spear. Djarin had only used the blunt end of his beskar spear to jab Boba – he was polite enough, for a Mandalorian, and not terribly bloodthirsty – but still. Sparring was one thing. Sparring was fun. A good way to blow off some steam. Boba’d hoped that the spar had convinced Djarin that while Boba might whack him around a little in the sparring ring, Djarin wasn’t in any danger here at the palace. Boba wasn’t Bo-Katan Kryze. He had no interest in stabbing any of his allies in the back, no matter what they’d accidentally walked in on.
I don’t have enough allies to go around betraying them, or to go around shooting them because I forgot to lock my own karking door.
Boba eyed Djarin for another minute, feeling an echo of Djarin’s stress in his own shoulders, behind his teeth, and then turned away, swallowing the tihaar in his own cup. The familiar smell, sharp alcohol and sweet fruit, warmed his mouth. He watched Djarin out of the corner of his eye. Djarin didn’t move, stiff and wary. It was like Boba’d invited a half-starved anooba into his home instead of one of the best fighters Boba’d ever seen.
Boba sighed. “I thought maybe food and drink would put you at ease,” he admitted, apologetic. Boba had vague, old memories of his father passing around a bottle of tihaar with the Cuy’Val Dar, old grudges set aside while the bottle changed hands. He’d thought that sharing food and drink was a way to set a Mandalorian at ease, but the days of the Cuy’Val Dar were long over, and Boba’d never been very good about remembering what few Mandalorian customs he’d learned at his father’s knee anyway. “But we can do this up in my rooms, if that’ll help.”
Boba hadn’t wanted to corner Djarin. He knew well enough how a cornered fighter would react, and Djarin hit pretty hard. But maybe Boba’s rooms, with their open walls and their starlight, would be better. Boba liked the kitchens, personally. Liked the smell of fresh japoor bread and chuba stew. It reminded him of the simpler days out in the desert, sharing a tent with Ushib.
Boba hadn’t had much to worry about, then. Mostly he'd worried about not getting killed by the Spotted Anooba’s chief, who’d hated outsiders. Not dying of the wounds inflicted by the sarlacc. Life had been easy. Simple.
Then I had to go off and start a syndicate, Boba thought dryly. Though none of this was in the job description.
Boba wasn’t sure what had set Djarin off. What made him so tense and wary here. He had walked in on Boba and Theran, but –
The suggestion – the idea of going up to Boba’s rooms – made Djarin tenser. “Do what,” he said, tone flat.
Kark. Boba poured himself another small measure of tihaar. Looking at Djarin head-on only seemed to put him more on guard. “Talk about what you walked in on,” Boba said. He’d been willing enough to dance around the issue, to use vague terms or euphemisms; most beings preferred it. Boba’d prefer to keep Theran’s privacy, if he could, but he also needed Djarin to be sharp if he was going to stick around with the outfit, and Djarin couldn’t be sharp if he was fretting over what he’d seen.
Djarin was fretting over it. He was so tense that Boba was half-worried that Djarin would fall over.
Is it me he’s afraid of? Boba wondered, and the thought tasted sour in his mouth. Respect was one thing. Boba didn’t particularly mind being feared by his enemies either.
But Djarin – Djarin wasn’t an enemy. Not now, at least. Once he got tired of hanging around on Tatooine and karked off back to the other Mandalorians, he and Boba might end up on opposite sides of a battlefield some day, but here and now he wasn’t Boba’s enemy.
“I’m not Jabba, you know,” said Boba, aiming for a light, unbothered tone. Djarin had said that he’d done a few jobs for Jabba. He probably knew how Jabba’d handled things in his court.
This isn’t Jabba’s court. It’s not going to be Jabba’s court ever again.
Boba had promised the universe quite a few things, when he’d been sitting in the sarlacc’s belly. He had decided, if he lived, that he was going to be better than Jabba. Better than Boba himself had been.
“I’m not gonna have you dropped down into the rancor pit just because you walked in on me enjoying some of my – ” Boba hesitated for a split second, unsure how to describe what he’d been doing with Theran to someone like Djarin.
For a Mandalorian, Djarin was – different. Boba hadn’t figured out just what it was about him that was different, but Djarin was nothing like the few Mandalorians Boba’d run into over the years. Boba didn’t know anything about him. He didn’t know if Djarin understood what he’d seen, between Boba and Theran.
“ – odder pastimes,” Boba finished, wincing internally as he did it. He wasn’t very good at coming up with words on the spot. Odder pastimes wasn’t the best description of what Boba and Theran did together, but –
“Is that what it was?” Djarin asked, sounding tentative. “I didn’t – ” he paused too, and Boba wondered if he was blushing under his helmet.
Boba paused. Pinned that thought down.
Now where, he thought, did that come from?
“How you punish your people isn’t any of my business,” Djarin continued hastily, pulling Boba back to the matter at hand. “I just heard – through the door, I heard what sounded like someone in pain.”
Boba had to blink for a moment, surprised.
Well, that’ll teach us to play on the main floor, he thought. Theran hated Boba’s rooms. He was as brave as a bladeback, Theran, and had been for as long as Boba’d known him, but Theran was terrified of heights and their old arrangement – renting a room in a cantina somewhere in Mos Eisley – was more dangerous now that Boba was trying to set up an outfit of his own. Taking over one of the old, unused rooms off of the throne room had seemed like a good idea this afternoon. Boba's outfit was so small that they were really only using five or six rooms in the palace. Boba'd thought that taking one of the ones on the main floor would be fine. Private enough for a half-hour arrangement.
And I wasn’t punishing Theran, either. Theran didn’t go for punishment. He preferred regular, quick sessions, a few licks of the flogger to take him out of his own head for a little while. That was all. For anything heavier Boba would have insisted on his own rooms, or at least on a different suite. The room Theran’d chosen hadn’t had anywhere for Boba to stash any of his medical supplies, any snacks, anything that Theran might need as he came back up once he’d finished letting Boba bring him down.
“Theran and I have an arrangement,” Boba said, watching Djarin to see if Djarin would understand the difference between the two. Between a punishment and an arrangement.
It was harder to guess what Djarin was thinking with all of his beskar on. That helmet was blank. Unchanging. The set of Djarin’s shoulders told Boba that he was uncomfortable, but little else.
“He knew me before, when all of this – ” Boba gestured at the kitchens, which weren’t really much to look at, but meant the palace above them too – “was Jabba’s. We... have compatible interests.”
Djarin’s confusion was almost palpable. “Compatible… interests?” he asked, still tentative.
Boba tried not to wince. C’mon, Mando, you know what I’m talking about.
Boba’s preferences weren’t necessarily common, but he was hardly the only man in the galaxy who enjoyed wielding a whip. Theran was hardly the only man who liked to be whipped.
“Ni gaa’tayl,” he muttered to himself, hoping it was quiet enough to escape Djarin’s notice. Boba didn’t know enough mando’a to hold a full, complete conversation with a real Mandalorian and didn’t feel much like dealing with Mandalorian ossik tonight anyway, but sometimes the handful of phrases Boba still remembered from his days on Kamino were the only phrases that felt like they fit how he was feeling.
Right now, I need all the help I can get, Boba thought. He studied Djarin, trying to figure out what to do.
Best to just – go for it, Boba thought. Boba had never been very good at being subtle. “Yeah, compatible interests. He likes – to give someone else control over his body,” Boba said, trying to explain his and Theran’s arrangement in vague enough terms that Boba wouldn’t completely run over Theran’s privacy, though Theran himself didn’t much care.
He could tell that Djarin still didn’t understand, though. The Mandalorian had cocked his head a little, listening, like a curious anooba cub. Boba squashed the flicker of amusement and kept going. It'd be best to lay it all out, it seemed. Djarin was a straightfoward sort.
“He likes pain,” Boba said. “He likes… someone to look after him, to decide what he feels and when he feels it.”
There, thought Boba. That’s about the gist of it, without digging into the specifics. Djarin should understand. Boba’d seen Djarin fight. Had watched him come up with plans, with strategies. Djarin wasn’t stupid. He could figure it out.
Djarin, if anything, pulled his shoulders up even higher. “And you…” he said, trailing off before he managed to voice an actual question.
Something about the way that Djarin was sitting – the way that he was looking at Boba, the way that Boba knew that Djarin wasn’t looking him in the eye, even though Djarin was wearing a helmet – scratched lightly at the edge of Boba’s awareness. Felt almost – familiar.
Boba cocked his head and looked harder at Djarin, trying to see the man underneath the armor. “Like to take control, yeah,” Boba said. In for a peggat, he thought. There was no harm in describing his own preferences. Anybody who’d spent more than five minutes in a room with Boba knew that he liked to be in control. Boba’d accepted that part of himself a long time ago.
“Like to cause pain, too.”
Boba saw the moment that Djarin understood. His shoulders twitched, just a little, like Djarin had brushed up against a live wire.
Interesting. The feeling of familiarity scratching at the back of Boba’s head itched harder.
“…Oh,” said Djarin. He set his cup of tihaar, still untouched, down on the counter beside him. He didn’t immediately sneer anything derogatory and he didn’t try to bolt, either. Boba watched him carefully for a second, then relaxed.
Djarin understood.
He was still tense, though.
He said that he thought that he heard someone in pain, Boba thought. He came to help.
Before Boba and Fennec had set off after Djarin – after Djarin had left Tatooine with Boba’s armor, not knowing what it was that he was taking away – Boba’d done a bit of research. He hadn’t been able to find the man’s name, not until Djarin’d shared it, but rumors of a Mandalorian in silver armor fighting the Empire, driving off pirates and rescuing towns from Greater karking Krayt Dragons echoed all over the galaxy. Djarin had helped a lot of people. Had killed a lot of people, honestly, but Boba’d done his own share of killing and wasn’t bothered by it, and anyway all of Djarin’s killing had been pretty straightforward and clean. He wasn’t a torturer. He wasn’t cruel.
He heard Theran cry out, and he came to help.
“‘S not as bad as you’re worried about, Djarin,” Boba said gently, trying to set the other man more at ease. "Theran didn’t notice, and he doesn’t mind an audience anyway. It’s just – it’s a matter of discretion, yeah?”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Din said hastily, and now Boba could hear him blushing. “I’m not – I don’t share other people’s secrets.”
Boba almost smiled. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said, trying not to laugh at Djarin. Boba’d already known that Djarin could be trusted, at least a little. Djarin was the Resol’nare walking. “You’ve got your honor.”
Djarin relaxed a little again.
Something in Boba’s gut twinged. Settled. Like Boba had just rounded a corner in Mos Eisley and come face to face with someone in the crowd, like he’ reached for his blaster and was ready to pull, but instead of finding an enemy had found someone that he could trust, and could slide his blaster back into its holster.
Recognition.
The way that Djarin was sitting – the way that he was looking at Boba – Boba recognized it. Had seen it before.
“But that’s not all I wanted to talk to you about,” Boba added on instinct, though he felt a little bad when Djarin immediately froze. Boba paused for a fraction of a second, debating whether he should follow what his instincts were telling him or just let Djarin go, send him off to work through what he’d just learned on his own, but –
But something about the way that Djarin was looking at Boba – something about the way that Djarin had fought in the sparring ring, about the way he carried himself – made Boba say, “Sometimes, pain is good.”
Later, Boba wouldn’t be able to say what it was about Djarin that told him that Djarin was like Theran. Sometimes there were clues. A certain pattern of speech, a certain look, an intake of breath when Boba stood close. Sometimes beings who wanted what Theran wanted just came up to Boba and karking asked for it, knowing his reputation, knowing that he would give it to them. And sometimes it was just a feeling.
With Djarin, it was just a feeling.
“For some it’s a focus,” Boba continued. “Or a reminder, or a reason.”
“Is that why you were... Was it to help Theran?” Djarin asked. He was still holding himself very still. Boba wondered what Djarin would be doing if he’d let himself move. If he’d pick up his cup of tihaar again, or if he’d try to leave. If he’d put a hand over his thigh, over the plate of armor Boba’d hit with his gaderffii, and try to feel the bruise that Boba was sure was growing there.
A spark of interest licked the back of Boba’s ribs. Trying not to show it – it’d never paid for Boba to play his hand too early, even if he’d had a perfect sabacc – Boba just said, “That’s between me and Theran.”
What Theran got out of a flogging session was Theran’s concern. Boba’s too, of course – Boba tried to make sure that everyone he played with got what they needed – but it was private, even if Djarin would get something similar out of a flogging session himself.
Would he? Boba wondered. He is Mandalorian. He ought to be used to using pain, or at least to fighting through it.
Djarin was a frighteningly competent fighter. Boba knew that the Empire – even the Remnants – had tended to value their own pride over any kind of self-awareness, but if Boba’d been Gideon, he would’ve thought twice before trying to interfere with Djarin’s clan. Djarin had a shriek-hawk’s temper. Precise, cold, relentless.
Most of the best fighters had a more intimate relationship with pain than the average being. It came with being hit in the head – and the chest, the gut, kicked in the knee, grappled, knocked over, pinned down – so karking often. Djarin was one of the better fighters Boba’d seen; he had been, Boba knew, through a lot of pain.
Djarin, fidgeting more obviously now, picked his cup of tihaar again and brought it up almost protectively, though he still didn’t make any move to take his helmet off.
The flicker of amusement in Boba’s chest was brighter now, and it wasn’t as easy to quash as it had been.
He tilted his head, considering.
I can just let it go here, he thought. He’d explained himself to Djarin. Djarin’d promised that he wouldn’t go spilling the details of Boba’s arrangement with Theran all over the palace and would almost certainly be more careful about opening doors or sticking his bucket into rooms without an invitation. Their business with each other, at least for the night, was done.
But that instinct – that recognition, searing and bone-deep – wouldn’t let go of Boba, so he said, “Your buy’ce.” He drummed his fingers over his own helmet almost absently. “Can you take it off?”
He wanted to see Djarin’s face. His eyes. That blush, if he could, though that was a want born more out of amusement than anything else.
Boba knew that there were some groups of Mandalorians who preferred to show their faces only to their families or their close allies. Djarin and Boba weren’t close. They’d known each other for just a little more than a week, and for part of that week Djarin had been unconscious in a bacta tank after defeating a Remnant Moff and upsetting Bo-Katan Kryze’s plan in one swoop. Djarin and Boba weren't clan.
But Boba still wanted to see his eyes.
Djarin clearly hadn’t been expecting the question. He startled, which caught Boba by surprise – he hadn’t seen Djarin startle before. Then Djarin sat up straight, chin up, that fierce lylek look plain even through his armor, and put his tihaar cup back down.
Boba watched Djarin flex his fingers a few times.
Interesting, he thought. He wasn’t surprised, though. Just about any being or beast had two reflexes, when surprised; fight or flight. With Mandalorians – with Boba too, either through persistent genetics, training or plain experience – the response was almost always fight.
Djarin managed to master his urge to punch Boba, though. Boba saw him take a deep breath. Djarin sat up straighter. Boba watched him, intrigued.
“Why?” Djarin asked.
That was an easy enough question to answer.
“Because I want to ask you something,” Boba said. “And I’d prefer to see your face while I do it. If that’s alright?”
Djarin started at Boba for a handful of seconds. He’d gone stiff again, wound tight with tension, and all that energy would eventually have to go somewhere – Djarin titled his helmet a little and Boba could tell that Djarin was looking for a way out.
Boba realized that he was between Djarin and the door and tried not to wince.
Don’t corner him, he reminded himself. That’s going just gonna get you punched again, Fett, or worse. Djarin had already kicked Boba in his bad knee once tonight.
But Boba knew how to manage this sort of reaction too. Moving very carefully, slow and deliberate, Boba shifted over to the side, leaving a clear path between Djarin and the door out into the hall, ready to let Djarin go if Djarin wanted to.
Djarin didn’t move.
Boba let him think about it. He could be patient. He hadn’t become the best bounty hunter in Jabba’s outfit by rushing headlong into things. Boba knew how to wait his prey out.
Thinking of Djarin as prey, something to be caught – tamed – made Boba’s heart beat a little faster in his chest. Djarin’d put up a fight. He would. Boba knew that he would. It’d be fun to work that fight out of him. Boba squashed that feeling too.
This was about Djarin.
Finally, after several tense, frozen seconds, Djarin obeyed and reached up, curling his fingers around the edges of helmet. Most buc’ye – buckets – were the same, even if the shape and the features were different. Djarin released the seals with a hiss of compressed air and tugged his helmet off in one sharp move, like Djarin thought he’d stop halfway if he tried to pull it off slowly.
Djarin blinked in the light, and Boba hid the frown that wanted to pull at his mouth.
The last time Boba’d seen Din Djarin’s face, the man had been fresh out of a bacta tank. He’d looked terrible. The bacta had kept Djarin’s brain from leaking out of his ears – Boba’d seen the hole in the wall where some kind of new superdroid had done its best to kill Djarin – but even bacta could only do so much, and the last time Boba’d seen his face, Djarin had looked half-dead. Pale, bruised and exhausted, the old, half-visible scars on his face stark in the artificial light of the med bay.
Despite the fact that it had been a few weeks since then, Djarin still looked awful. The bruises had all faded, but he still had shadows under his eyes. His hair, a curly, soft-looking brown, stuck up untidily. His face was thinner, more worn, and the scar between his eyes still stood out even in the low light.
What happened? Boba wondered, alarmed. Djarin’d only been on Tatooine for a few days – he couldn’t have been that badly-injured out on his hunt. Boba knew that Fennec had made sure that Djarin had eaten, the night he’d landed on Tatooine. Djarin hadn’t been with them long enough to get this tired. This worn.
Kryze, Boba thought, darkly. He should’ve known that she’d be too busy with her own karking plans to make sure that her guests – her allies – were well taken care of.
Djarin held Boba’s eyes for a second. His eyes were dark too, like Boba’s. Deep and dark and still. Kryze and her people all had blue or green eyes. Kalevalan Mandalorians were fair-skinned and fair-haired. Boba’d gone to Keldabe once, when he’d been younger and stupider, convinced that he could scratch out a living for himself among his father’s father’s people, and had been shocked to see how few Mandalorians actually looked like Jango Fett.
Djarin, though, had more of a Concord Dawn look about him. Brown hair, brown eyes. He didn't talk like he was from Concord Dawn, the accent that had marked Boba missing from Djarin, but he almost certainly wasn't from Kalevala.
Then Djarin’s eyes darted away again, anxiety plain in Djarin’s face.
Boba softened. Djarin’d had a long few days, and he was clearly out of his depth.
“Jate,” he said, hoping that the common language would set Djarin more at ease. Djarin started at the word again, his eyes skipping back to Boba’s own for a second, but he did relax some. He rubbed a gloved thumb absently over an invisible mark on his bright silver helmet, his eyes finally settling on the side of Boba’s face.
Not a big fan of eye contact? Boba wondered. If Djarin kept his helmet on in front of everybody but his clan, Boba supposed that that made sense, though he didn’t like the way Djarin kept looking sideways at Boba, nervous and tense.
“You don’t show your face often, huh?” he asked.
Djarin just shrugged, raising one stiff shoulder and dropping it down. He looked at Boba’s cheek for another second, then met Boba’s eyes again. Djarin’s jaw was tight. He clutched his helmet like he wanted to pull it back down over his ears.
He didn’t, though. He looked Boba in the eye and said, with a bit of a challenge in his voice, “Well?”
Boba blinked at him.
Right, he thought. We were having a conversation.
Boba let himself hesitate for another second, then pushed on. He’d learned over the years to trust his instincts, and this instinct, this feeling of familiarity –
I think, Boba said to himself, that Djarin is – like me. Like Theran. He couldn’t say what it was, exactly, but Djarin has hesitated at the door, when he’d walked in on Boba flogging Theran. He’d stared for maybe a second longer than he should have. He'd asked maybe one too many questions about Boba and Theran's arrangement.
“What’s your relationship with pain?” Boba asked, deciding to take pity on Djarin and cut straight to the point.
It was Djarin’s turn to blink at Boba. “Uh, what?”
He didn’t bolt, which was a good sign. “What’s your relationship with pain?” Boba repeated, keeping his tone friendly and even. “Good, bad, want it, don’t want it? Does it distract you, or does it help you focus?”
“Nobody wants,” Djarin began, tone hot and defensive, but he caught himself before Boba could correct him. He would’ve done it gently, but still. Djarin was wrong. Plenty of people wanted pain. Wanted to take it or to give it. To feel it, to overcome it, to savor it.
Djarin chewed his lip, eyes darting up to meet Boba’s again. He was flushed faintly, the tips of his ears red, and that familiar feeling in Boba’s chest hardened into certainty.
Cyaryc, he couldn’t help but think, amusement uncurling in his belly. Sweet.
“Have you ever thought about it?” Boba asked, gently. Gentleness didn’t come very easy to Boba but he had learned it, over the years. It took more effort to be gentle than to be cruel, but gentleness had its place, even on Tatooine, and Boba found himself wanting to be gentle with Djarin, at least for now. He didn’t know Djarin well enough to know how to push him, yet. To know how far Djarin was willing to be pushed before he fought back.
“About letting someone hurt you?” he continued.
Boba saw Djarin swallow, and satisfaction flared bright behind his ribs.
“Letting someone – no,” Djarin said. One of his hands twitched towards the bruise that Boba knew was darkening across the top of his thigh, but Djarin didn’t touch it.
“Why?” Boba asked, curious. There must be Mandalorians out there who enjoyed dominance or submission. Pain or pleasure. Boba’d never been one of them, barred from them by his father's genetic code, but Mandalorians were beings just like any other. They had the same wants and needs as anybody else, even if they pretended otherwise.
Djarin didn’t answer Boba right away. He shook his head a little, fingers tight around his helmet.
“Why not?” Boba said, pushing just a bit. Djarin could take a bit of pushing. He was strong.
Boba’s persistence got a reaction. Djarin bared his teeth a little and snapped, sharp as a blade, “I shouldn’t need it. The only things a warrior needs are his armor and his courage.”
Boba almost rolled his eyes. Mando ossik, he thought. Djarin wore his armor proudly, though – and took his rules seriously – so Boba didn’t disparage his people to his face.
“Those are important,” Boba agreed. “But a warrior can’t march on just courage, you know.”
Djarin bared his teeth again, studying Boba’s chin intently. “Why are you asking?” he challenged.
Boba rather thought that it was obvious. “You’re Mandalorian,” he said. “A warrior. Warriors have… an interesting relationship with pain. The good ones, anyway,” he said, throwing Djarin the compliment. Anybody who could defeat an Imperial Moff was a good warrior. Boba’d seen Djarin fight on Tython. Kark, he’d seen Djarin fight here. Boba’d be carrying bruises underneath his cuirass for a good few days, and that didn't happen to Boba very often. He couldn't remember the last time he'd fought someone to a draw.
Djarin didn’t soften.
“Not just anyone can push themselves through training,” Boba pointed out. “Some warriors… they get through it because they have to, but others get through it because they like it. Pain helps them focus. Helps them center themselves.”
Djarin’s shoulders went up again, tense and miserable.
In for a peggat, Boba reminded himself. “I think it might help you,” he said, still gentle. He looked at Djarin’s leg. He could almost see the bruise that would be blooming there, underneath his silver beskar. Boba hit hard; he could crush a stormtrooper’s helmet with his gaderffii, if he put enough power behind the swing. He could crack skulls, break rocks. Boba couldn’t break beskar, but underneath the armor was just a man, and men bruised.
Djarin’s flush was spreading. His dark eyes were wide.
“And,” said Boba, laying down the last of his cards, “I think that you want it, though it’s hard to tell when you’ve got your armor on.”
Djarin twitched again, his whole body shivering with the urge to slam his helmet back on. Boba wondered what had made Djarin so defensive. He still wasn’t looking Boba in the eye.
“Just because I want something doesn’t mean that I need it,” Djarin said. It hurt him to speak, Boba could see that it hurt him, but he made himself speak anyway.
Brave, thought Boba. And honest.
“No,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have it, either.”
That won Boba a derisive snort. “I’ve lived this long without it,” Din said. “I’m not – I’m an effective warrior. I provide for the tribe, I haven’t lost a bounty in years, I brought in renown for the Guild – ”
That one sentence had more words in it than Boba thought he’d ever heard Djarin say at one time. Boba wanted to frown again, but managed to avoid it. Djarin was still watching him with wide, wary eyes.
“Yeah,” Boba said, holding up a hand. Djarin was a battle-trained warrior – he knew how to watch for hand signals, how to obey them, and his mouth clicked shut mid-sentence.
“I’ve seen you fight, Djarin,” Boba said, trying to reassure the other man. I just asked him if he liked pain, Boba thought. Not if he was a good warrior. “I know you’re capable.” His knee throbbed helpfully. Djarin had kicked Boba without a second thought. Without hesitation. “I’m gonna have a few bruises of my own when the suns rise.”
Djarin looked at Boba like he wanted to keep arguing, or maybe to kick Boba again, but managed to hold off.
Jate, Boba wanted to say, but held off. Based on everything Djarin'd said so far, he'd probably take the praise as an insult instead. “All I meant is that if you want more,” Boba said, deciding to help Djarin out, “if you want to see what pain could do for you, well.” Boba gestured at himself. “You’re in a good place to try it out, is all.”
“With you?” Djarin said.
“If you wanted,” Boba replied, evenly. He was hardly the only man in Mos Eisley who knew how to swing a flogger, though. Djarin didn’t strike Boba as the type of man to trust that kind of vulnerability – his bare back, his submission – to a stranger, but then he really didn’t know Djarin very well, and had only gotten this far with him on instinct. If Djarin wanted to visit some cantina in Mos Eisley and find a stranger to flog him, that was his business, not Boba’s.
“A few of the palace guards, some beings in Mos Eisley,” Boba continued, determined to give Djarin options. “Fennec, even, though she usually doesn’t play with men. She likes you enough she’d be willing to help out.”
It had been Fennec’s idea to contact Djarin, after all. She liked Djarin. Respected him. She probably would help him out, if Djarin asked her too.
Despite that, Djarin made a face, an open, honest expression, and Boba laughed. Djarin flushed again. The curl of amusement in Boba’s belly broadened.
“Fennec’s out, then?” he asked.
Djarin didn’t say anything for a while. Boba let him have his silence. Djarin was obviously thinking, and that was really all that Boba could ask from him. If Djarin really hadn’t thought of this before – had never considered intentional pain as a tool, as a relief – then Boba’d give him the time he needed to think about it.
“What would it… how would I know?” Djarin asked, tentative again. The flush creeping down his neck was distracting. “If I wanted it? If it would… help me?”
Boba could only shrug, spreading his hands. “I can’t answer that for you,” he said, repaying Djarin’s honesty with his own. “You’d just take it slow, and stop it if there was something happening that you didn’t like.”
Djarin blinked at Boba again. “Stop it?”
“Yeah,” said Boba. “In an arrangement – ” which wasn’t the right word, exactly, but was as close as Boba could get without needing to walk Djarin through a thirty-minute lecture – “either party, you or me, if you wanted to try it with me, or you and whoever else you picked, can stop at any time.”
“Oh,” said Djarin. Doubt still flickered across his face, but there was something else in his eyes too. Curiosity, and something deeper than curiosity.
Hunger, Boba thought, excitement beginning to build in his chest.
Technically, he didn’t need to show Djarin anything tonight. Boba’s sessions with Theran were usually pretty short, but Theran was so used to Boba by now – and Boba so used to Theran – that Theran slid to his knees as soon as he walked into the room and gave up control of his body to Boba without a second thought. Boba was satisfied with that. It had been a good session, despite Djarin walking into it near the end. Boba was comfortable in his own skin. Settled. Between the flogging and the fight, Boba would sleep better tonight than he usually did.
But the hunger in Djarin’s eyes had a similar hunger rising in Boba, an answer to the question Djarin hadn’t yet asked.
Djarin licked his lips, then said, “How would I stop it?”
The faint hunger deepened. “There’s a word, usually,” Boba said. He rattled off a few that he’d used before. “Gev, rahm, luubid, something like that.” A mix of mando’a and tuskra. Djarin ought to know both.
“Gev,” Din repeated. It was mando'a for 'stop.' Quick, clean, easy to remember. “It’s that easy?”
Boba nodded. “It’s that easy,” he said.
The keen hunger in Djarin’s face shifted. He looked –
Ravenous, Boba thought. Djarin looked starved. Like he hadn’t eaten for a week, lost in the desert, and had stumbled across a full feast.
Pushing Djarin now could backfire. If he hadn’t considered pain a tool before, rushing him headlong into a scene probably was likely a bad idea. Boba didn’t know what Djarin liked. What his limits were. He didn’t know if Djarin just wanted pain or if he wanted more. If he’d like to be held down. If he’d want to get on his knees.
But the look in Djarin's eyes, sharp with longing –
Boba decided to risk it. He'd been known to gamble before. As long as a man gambled intelligently, the reward was almost always worth the risk.
And this – the idea of Djarin on his knees, looking up at Boba with trust in those big, dark eyes – was worth the risk.
“Here,” Boba said, taking a cautious, slow step closer. He left his helmet and his cup of tihaar behind. Djarin didn’t bolt. That was good. “Let me show you. Remember your word? Gev to get me to stop, alright?”
Djarin tensed again as Boba got closer to him, but made no move to fight. “Alright,” he agreed, wary as a wraid. He shifted like he was going to stand, but Boba shook his head. He didn’t need Djarin to stand, not for this.
Djarin hesitated as Boba got even closer, but still didn’t pull away.
If he does, I’ll stop, Boba thought. Djarin didn’t really know what a safeword was, not yet. Not like Theran did. If he pulled back, if he tried to leave, Boba’d let him.
Djarin just tilted his chin up. He met Boba’s eyes this time.
Boba grinned. Mando pride, he thought. “Confident,” he said, close enough now for Djarin to touch. Boba got between Djarin and the counter where Djarin had set his cup of tihaar. That way, Djarin could bolt right or left if he had to, and get to the door without Boba blocking his path. Djarin didn’t seem like he was going to bolt now, but Boba remembered how tense Djarin’d been when he’d realized that Boba had been between him and the door. “I like that.”
Djarin shivered a little. He was warm. Boba was close enough now to feel the heat of his body. Moving slowly and carefully, Boba took a hand and did what he’d wanted to do since he’d brought his gaderffii down on Djarin in the sparring ring. He set his hand on top of Djarin’s thigh plate. Curled his fingers around the smooth edges of that beskar.
The metal was cold. Djarin wasn’t. He went still when Boba touched him. His eyes went wide. Boba smiled at him, amused again, and pushed.
He did it lightly enough. Boba couldn’t see what Djarin’s leg looked like, not like this, and he didn’t want to cause true pain. He just wanted Djarin to see what Boba’d been talking about. To understand.
As soon as Boba pressed down, Djarin growled and jerked, twisting like he meant to lurch off the stool towards Boba. It was another, easy instinct for Boba to take his free hand and catch Djarin by the throat.
He did that gently too, or at least did it as gently as he could. There wasn’t really a soft way to grab a man by the throat, and the look in Djarin’s eyes, wild and challenging, told Boba that Djarin didn’t want Boba to be soft.
Still, choking Djarin out wasn’t something that Djarin’d agreed to and it wasn’t the kind of thing that Boba wanted to do without talking to Djarin first – without knowing for sure that Djarin would understand just what it was that he was agreeing to – so Boba was careful to keep his grip loose.
He set his thumb at the corner of Djarin’s jaw. Even through his gloves, Boba could feel Djarin’s pulse hammering wildly. Djarin was still for another fraction of a second, and then his own instincts kicked in and he reached up to try to pry Boba’s hand away from his throat. His helmet fell from his hands, clattering against the floor.
“None of that, now,” said Boba firmly, keeping his grip steady. If Djarin struggled, he’d hurt himself. Djarin stared at Boba, eyes wild, but obeyed. His immediate obedience made Boba want to smile.
“Relax,” Boba added, as Djarin’s heart beat hard against Boba’s thumb. “You can still breathe, yeah?”
Djarin took a few shallow breaths, his throat working against Boba’s palm. Boba didn’t loosen his grip, but he gave Djarin a few more seconds to realize that he was alright.
“I need to hear you say it,” Boba said. “Can you breathe?”
Djarin finally blinked, swallowing. “Yes,” he said. His voice had changed. Without his vocorder, Djarin sounded – uncertain. There was a hesitance to him that his helmet usually hid. He finally looked Boba in the eyes, too, and Boba could see Djarin’s shock. His confusion.
“Jate,” said Boba warmly, immediately rewarding Din’s obedience. Djarin’s eyes widened at the praise. Boba couldn’t help but soften, instinctively adjusting his approach. He didn’t know what Djarin wanted just yet, but praise was usually well-received. “Very good,” Boba said. He didn’t have enough mando’a to tell Djarin to let go of his hand.
Both of Djarin’s hands were wrapped around Boba’s. Djarin had a good grip. A warrior’s grip. He could break Boba’s hold, if he wanted to.
“I want you to let go of my hand, alright?” Boba said, speaking slowly so that Djarin could hear him over the adrenaline, the confusion, that must be crashing through him now.
Djarin blinked. His grip didn’t loosen.
“Grip the edge of the counter, if you have to,” Boba said. Theran didn’t need anything to hold onto during a session, but it was alright if Djarin did. “But I need you to let go. I can make you, if you need me to.”
Boba’d have to let go of Djarin’s leg to break his grip, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing. Djarin had given Boba a hell of a fight in the sparring ring, but here, now, Djarin was off-balance. Unsteady.
Djarin swallowed again, looking a bit like Boba’d punched him between the eyes, and finally obeyed. His fingers loosened, one by one, and Djarin let go of Boba’s hand.
He did grab the counter, one hand on either side of Boba, clutching the wood so hard that Boba heard his gloves creak, but he let go of Boba’s hand.
“Good,” Boba praised again, watching as Djarin swayed towards him like he’d been caught in a gravity well. Like he couldn’t stay away.
Boba liked this part. His own heartbeat picked up, not as fast as Djarin’s, but fast enough. Pleasure sang in his chest.
“Very good,” Boba repeated. “Don’t let go.”
Djarin didn’t say anything. He’d heard Boba, Boba knew that he had. He applied just a bit of pressure to Djarin’s throat. Djarin’s breath caught again, a sweet little sound, and a dark sort of satisfaction preened in Boba’s chest.
Maybe I didn’t burn as much off with Theran as I thought.
“I need to tell you that you understand,” Boba said.
Djarin stirred again, heart hammering, but managed to say, voice thick, “Yes. Yes, I understand.”
Boba made a pleased noise. “This is going to hurt,” he warned. He made sure that his grip on Djarin’s throat was loose, so that Djarin could breathe without trouble, and then returned his attention to the plate of armor across the top of Djarin’s thigh.
Slowly and deliberately, Boba began to push.
Djarin lasted three or four seconds before he made a sound, a low, thin noise of pain. It was as sweet as music. Djarin’s eyes met Boba’s again and his pupils were almost entirely blown, his eyes black in the dim light of the kitchen. Djarin’s mouth parted.
He wanted to collapse against Boba’s body, but he wasn’t letting himself. Djarin stayed straight as his spear, shoulders back, chin still tilted defiantly. That was alright. Boba had some time.
He kept pushing. Pressure bruises weren’t really Boba’s specialty, but he understood the theory, and it’d be a good demonstration for Djarin, one that would show him what Boba meant about pain without scaring him or putting Djarin on his knees.
I do want to put him on his knees, Boba thought, the desire flashing through him. He’d look good on his knees.
This wasn’t about what Boba wanted, though. Djarin caught another thin sound of pain, gritting his teeth, and tried to pull away from Boba again, though he didn’t let go of the counter, so Boba was fairly confident that Djarin wasn’t really trying to get away. He watched Djarin’s mouth closely, ready to let go at the first sign of gev, but Djarin didn’t say it.
“Easy,” Boba soothed, resisting the urge to lean in and nose at Djarin’s temple. Djarin kept fighting. Boba sighed. “You’re stubborn, you know that?”
Djarin flashed his teeth again, snarling at Boba, and another wave of amusement rose and fell behind Boba’s ribs.
He did like Djarin. Djarin was a fighter.
“Easy, Djar’ika,” Boba said, the name falling off of his tongue before Boba could snatch it back. It wasn’t a conventional nickname, as far as Mandalorian nicknames went, but Boba liked the sound of it better than Din’ika, and he hadn’t yet called Djarin by his first name anyway.
Djarin evidently felt otherwise, because he jerked again at the nickname and made a sound like an angry anooba.
Boba couldn’t help but laugh. “Easy,” he said again, trying to help Djarin understand. He didn’t ease up on Djarin’s leg and he didn’t let go of Djarin’s throat, either. “Don’t fight me so hard. Lean into it. Let it happen.”
Djarin showed no sign of listening, so Boba tried something else. For Theran, it was mostly about the pain. Theran didn’t care much for restraints, for being held down, for being made to take a flogging.
But Djarin was Mandalorian, and Mandalorians were peculiar. Proud. Mando ossik, Boba thought. Maybe Djarin would only let himself enjoy this once he realized that he couldn’t get out of it.
“It’s not like you have any other choice, yeah?” Boba asked, following the instinct. He’d made pretty good guesses so far, anyway, and decided that he might as well keep following his luck. “Unless you have something you want to say?” Boba loosened his grip, reminding Din that he could speak, if he wanted to. If Djarin didn’t like this – if he was really struggling, and not just putting up a token fight because he thought that he had to – he could stop it with a word.
Uncertainty flickered across those dark eyes of Djarin’s. He panted against Boba’s hand. He was tense again, wound taut, and his breath came short with fear.
But he didn’t say gev. He didn’t say gev. He looked Boba in the eye, his teeth half-bared in pain, and didn’t ask Boba to stop.
Boba smiled at him. Stroked a thumb against the corner of Djarin’s jaw.
Djar’ika, he thought again. Little Djarin. “I think,” Boba said. “That I can help.”
Notes:
Content warnings: Mild kink negotiation. Pain play. Non-sexual choking.
Words and Phrases:
Cyaryc: Lit. "sweet." The -yc suffix denotes an adjective.
Gev: "Stop it, quit."
Jate: Good, goob job.
Ni gaa'tayl: Lit. "help me, give me help."
Ossik: Shit, bullshit.
Tihaar: A clear Mandalorian liquor. I am incapable of thinking of it as anything other than moonshine.This bit also has art! Created by thefullkamski on tumblr.
As always, y'all enjoy yourselves, and if you have any POV requests my inbox is open even though I am going to be ~~MIA in the woods for the next several days.
Chapter 3: in which boba's buc'ye is transparent.
Notes:
wow sometimes an entire month just. passes you by, doesn't it?
here's more boba, ft. fennec being an obnoxious best friend and boba using the fact that mandalorian helmets are really intimidating actually to his advantage.
set in ch 4, immediately after din and boba's first scene and boba's first attempt at bullying din into accepting aftercare.
Chapter Text
in which boba's buc'ye is transparent.
Boba drummed his fingers restlessly against the side of the cedru wood chair that Fennec had dug up for him and tried not to look like his mind was elsewhere. That was easy enough, in full armor. Boba knew what he looked like, and he knew that beskar never gave anything away. As long as he kept his visor aimed at whoever was speaking, he could let his eyes wander without anyone noticing.
It was better not to be noticed, Boba was learning. The fragile court he’d started to build on the bones of Jabba’s old one was a bit skittish, still, and no one liked it when Boba deviated from his established routine or did something that his guests and staff thought out of the ordinary. Boba’s court liked patterns. Routine. Stability. The Hutts and their retaliation was still a looming threat, but everyone in the palace – the guards by the doors, Noora at the bar, the smugglers and bounty hunters that were starting to turn up like bad wupiupi and the more ordinary people who were starting to trust Boba to handle their problems – was finally starting to settle into a particular sort of habit, and no one wanted to break that habit, or see Boba do something they didn’t expect.
For Boba, checking the corners of a room and keeping an eye on any strangers was an old habit. Checking the mouth of the long, sunlit hallway that led to the turbolift and to Boba’s rooms was not. Neither was looking up at the ceiling like Boba could see through several layers of solid Tatooine sandstone to check if Djarin was still in bed.
Boba couldn’t help but do both of those things anyway, his eyes flickering over to the mouth of the hallway and up to the corner of the ceiling, and he was glad that his helmet hid the actions from view, because if Boba’s court could see what he was doing they’d probably either dive for cover or quietly disappear, thinking that Boba was too paranoid to run a syndicate.
It wasn’t that Boba was paranoid. It was that Djarin hadn’t come down yet, and the last time Boba’d seen him Djarin had been bruised, tired and warier than a wraid, and Boba wanted to make sure that Djarin – Djar'ika, he couldn’t help but think, the half-joking nickname stuck like a burr in Boba’s head – was alright.
Boba hadn’t really expected Djarin to join the morning court, of course. Djarin was new here. He’d only been on Tatooine for a few days. Boba still didn’t know much about him, not really, though he knew more about Djarin than he'd known yesterday. The memory of Djarin’s pulse fluttering underneath Boba’s thumb curled through him, and Boba flicked another glance at the sunny hallway.
I should’ve looked in on him this morning, Boba thought. He’d been arguing with himself since he’d woken up this morning, the memory of Djarin’s wild eyes – of the sound he’d made when Boba had caught him by the throat, pressed down on the bruise across his leg – burning low in Boba’s belly.
That was not a thought that Boba wanted to have while holding court. He tried to focus his attention on his current supplicant – a Devaronian who owned some kind of shop in Mos Eisley and was not thrilled about the idea of paying Boba for protection – and managed to avoid looking at the hall for another few minutes.
He hadn’t looked in on Djarin because Boba wasn’t sure that Djarin would’ve been very happy about it. He’d been less than thrilled about Boba’s attempts to get some bacta on him last night. Less than thrilled with Boba trying to look after him.
If Djarin wanted to rest – if he wanted to hoard his bruises like a krayt dragon with a pearl – that was his business. Boba knew plenty of beings like that, who wanted a hard flogging or harder use and then wanted to savor the marks alone for a while.
And rest, at least, was something that Djarin needed. He’d slept for an hour or so in the kitchens last night, dozing against Boba’s beskar, but the nap hadn’t done much to ease the exhaustion carved into the lines of Djarin’s face.
The urge, not entirely unexpected, to go up and check in on Djarin rose sparked in the back of Boba’s mind again. He flexed a hand against his side, trying to wring out the sense memory of Djarin's pulse underneath his fingertips.
I don’t know what he needs yet, Boba thought, a little ruefully. That was, he thought, the source of his restlessness. Boba hadn’t wanted to overwhelm Djarin with rules or questions last night. He didn’t much want to bother Djarin now. Boba’d seen for himself just how hard Djarin could hit – he hadn’t wanted to corner Djarin, either last night or this morning, because Boba knew what a cornered Mandalorian was likely to do, and since the Hutts were probably going to try an orbital bombardment at some point or another Boba wanted to keep the palace as structurally sound as possible for as long as he could. He didn't need to spook Djarin into tossing a grenade or six.
Still, though. Boba knew that he hadn’t hurt Djarin too badly, but he’d been surprised – and not happy to be surprised – at some of the other, older injuries that Djarin had been carrying around underneath his beskar. With the bacta patch stuck to the back of Djarin’s neck, and with the way Djarin had tried to avoid answering Boba when Boba’d asked him if his head had still hurt.
He was with Kryze and her people, Boba thought. They should’ve made sure Djarin was alright, before sending him off. Kryze had the supplies to make sure that her people were healthy and whole. She’d only taken over an entire karking light cruiser.
But the state of Djarin’s old injuries – that wasn’t Boba’s business. He and Djarin didn’t have an agreement set up, not like Boba and Theran did, or Boba and Tavva, or Boba and Brahms. It was entirely possible that Djarin’d just had a run of bad luck since he’d left Kryze, or hadn’t had the clink or the time to properly treat his older injuries.
It’s entirely possible that I’m thinking about sticking my buc’ye into Djarin’s business for no reason, too, Boba tried to tell himself, but he still couldn’t quite squash the instinct to try to sneak more bacta into Djarin’s room, or to at least make sure that Djarin hadn’t passed out in the sonic or fled into the desert. It itched at him, deep beneath his armor.
Djarin had fallen asleep leaning against Boba down in the kitchens. He’d trusted Boba enough with that. To set down his wariness – his distrust of a stranger, common enough in any Mandalorian and more than earned in Djarin’s case – for an hour, and he'd trusted Boba to look after him. To protect him.
Boba flexed his hand again.
Djarin didn't ask me to check on him, Boba thought. So for now, I should leave him be.
Fortunately Djarin didn’t seem much like the sort who’d go running off into the desert – he hadn’t run from the Empire, after all, and he hadn’t run last night when Boba’d given him the chance – and the Devaronian kept talking, which gave Boba the chance to drag his mind away from Djarin and the memory of his pulse beneath Boba’s thumb.
He did have to have the Devaronian repeat himself twice, which caught Fennec’s attention, but with his buc’ye on Boba knew that he looked impressive and cold instead of a bit embarrassed and inattentive.
“Go on,” Boba said. The Devaronian had been complaining about something. Shuttle taxes, Boba thought. He didn’t particularly care. Boba was hardly going to wade into the middle of the Mos Eisley Pilots’ Union just because one Devaronian didn’t want to pay a protection tax to Boba on top of his other municipal burdens. Boba’d rather face a pack of hungry anooba than the MEPU – the anooba’d take fewer bites out of him.
The Devaronian cleared his throat and nervously kept going.
Once he’d finished, another supplicant came forward, and Boba managed to pay more attention to this one. Fennec helped. Boba’s inattention had caught her interest and she came over from where she’d been leaning against the bar, settled herself on one of the arms of his throne, not to be helpful but to figure out what had pulled Boba’s attention away from his business. She was nosier than a nexu and just as sharp. Boba elected to ignore her. What he got up to outside of the throne room wasn't anything that Fennec needed to concern herself with.
Boba managed to stave off her curiosity for another two supplicants, solving a disagreement over a missing eopie and accepting a protection tax from a moisture farmer out in the sands, before Djarin finally made an appearance, and Boba gave himself away.
Djarin appeared in the doorway in the middle of some Weequay smuggler’s offer of a partnership. Boba caught the glint of his armor out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at Djarin before he could stop himself. Some of the tension in Boba’s hand, in his fingers, eased.
Fennec craned around Boba to look at Djarin too. So did just about everyone else in the throne room. A Mandalorian was an impressive sight. Djarin, used to the way eyes caught on him whenever he walked into a room, ignored the attention. He looked at Boba.
Something in Boba preened a little, to be able to catch and hold Djarin’s attention. He ignored it and studied Djarin instead, trying to settle all of his unhappy instincts.
He’s alright, Boba thought.
Djarin was fully armored again, upright, his chin up and all of his bruises – his exhaustion – hidden away. Boba wanted to smile underneath his helmet, and then he did, because no one could see him do it. If Djarin had any lingering hesitation about what he’d done with Boba last night, he was hiding it well. He didn’t falter at the mouth of the hallway. He just nodded at Boba, cool as an oasis, and made his way into the throne room.
He’s moving well too, Boba thought, tracking Djarin as he made his way across the throne room, aimed at Noora. Djarin wasn’t limping at all.
Must’ve given him enough bacta, then, Boba thought, pleased that Djarin’d kept it on long enough to heal. Boba’d half-wondered if Djarin would take the bacta off as soon as he’d left Boba’s rooms; he seemed the type.
But Djarin crossed the room like a vine tiger, steady and graceful and not at all bothered by the bruise that Boba knew was still there underneath his beskar. Some sleep had done Djarin good. His armor gleamed. He looked every inch the fearsome Mandalorian bounty hunter and not at all like he was going to bolt for the desert or put that beskar spear of his through Boba the next time Boba looked at him. Pleasure and relief flickered underneath Boba’s ribs.
Boba watched Djarin for a moment, completely tuning out the Weequay, until Fennec subtly put her elbow into a soft spot underneath Boba’s cuirass and drew his attention again.
The Weequay didn’t notice. Fennec did. She shifted, subtle still, and drew Boba’s eye down to one of her hands, which she put below the lip of the armrest she was sitting on and out of everyone’s view but Boba’s.
WOW, said Fennec, using smaller signs to piece the word together, moving her fingers with all the scorn that a Tusken grandmother could muster, even though Fennec could really only use Tusken sign to swear or insult Boba. REALLY?
Boba, determined not to upset the rest of his court – or to startle Djarin, who was talking to Noora now, awake and alert – decided to keep ignoring her.
Chapter 4: in which boba and din are definitely having the same conversation, part i.
Notes:
on the first day of fic-mas, iridan wrote a fic:
a surprise ast 'verse snippet!
(gosh i'm lucky that ryehouses and iridan have the same number of syllables! merry chrysler!)
(Set during chapter 6 of a simple thing, “haat,” while Din and Boba start to negotiate the first steps in their relationship. somebody asked me for this pov on tumblr approximately 8,000 years ago, but it has wheeled out of time and memory and my ability to dig it up, et cetera.)
(Content warnings (very mild) in the end note.)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba and din are definitely having the same conversation, part i.
In all honesty Boba’d thought it would be harder to get Djarin on his knees. It had been hard enough to get him to agree to even talk, like trying to catch a grotseth bare-handed, like trying to get a Hutt to let go of a shiny wupiupi coin. Boba’d honestly thought that he’d have to fight Djarin again to get him here, like this.
Not that I’d’ve minded a chance for a rematch, though, thought Boba. His bad knee still ached, the memory of Djarin and his dangerous karking spear as bright as beskar in Boba’s eye. They’d come to a draw, in that fight. Boba was of the opinion that a draw was as good as a loss; Boba hated to lose. Another fight would’ve been another shot at victory.
But Boba hadn’t ended up needing to throw any punches at Djarin at all. A few well-aimed questions had done the trick instead.
Honestly, it had been more of a fight to get Djarin to take his clothes off than it had been to get him on his knees. That was a strange thing to see in a verd – from what Boba remembered, Mandalorian soldiers had no shyness to them.
This one did, though. Djarin’d shed his armor easily enough, which was usually the hard part, with Mandalorians, but then he had fidgeted with the hem of his undershirt like he’d never let anybody see him without it. Like Boba was asking him to peel his skin off too, asking him to stand in front of Boba raw and twitching like a nerve, when all Boba really wanted was to make sure that Djarin wasn't too badly hurt anywhere, before the possibility of play came into the room.
Djarin’s – shy, Boba thought, slowly, taking a handful of seconds to control his own satisfaction at seeing Djarin obey so prettily and fold to his knees – to think – before doing anything else.
Djarin was skittish. That was the only word for it that Boba could think of. Djarin was as fierce as fyrnock most of the time, a right proper verd; Boba’d seen him rush into all sorts of things, including directly into the mouth of a greater krayt dragon, without an ounce of fear. But here in the palace – now, in Boba’s rooms, and before, down in the old fighting ring, in Ushib’s kitchen, in Jabba’s tunnels – Djarin was wary. Easily spooked. Boba wasn’t sure what to make of it, yet.
I’m gonna have to watch that, Boba had decided, down in the kitchens. Skittishness like that didn’t match what Boba knew of Mandalorian soldiers, but maybe Djarin’d just been – stressed. He’d been injured on the light cruiser, after all, and Boba doubted that he was fully healed yet. Maybe he'd had a bad turn or two, in dark and in close spaces. He was beroya, a hunter; hunters ended up with weird quirks, after a while. In the kitchens Boba’d tucked his thoughts on Djarin’s skittishness away into his head for safekeeping, something to turn over in the privacy of his room to consider how best to deal with, and had gone on with his evening, which had ended quite well, Boba’d thought.
A little shyness wasn’t exactly a problem. Boba didn’t always care to coax and cajole his partners, but he could do it, especially at first, when such an arrangement was new, and he’d liked putting his hands on Djarin enough the first time that Boba was more than willing to gentle his approach, if that was what Djarin needed to get started.
So Boba had been prepared, when he’d invited Djarin up here to sound out Djarin’s willingness to more fully experience pain, to have to persuade Djarin to go along with things, at first. Djarin’s hesitation at taking his clothes off – his armor Boba’d understood, since most verde were a bit like beskaryc’ika, unwilling to shed their protective scales – had lined up with that expectation, even if it came out more oddly than Boba'd expected.
But then today, when Boba’d told Djarin to kneel, intending to test out Djarin’s willingness to enter into the sort of arrangement that Boba liked – and that Boba thought that Djarin would like too – Djarin had hit the ground so hard and so fast that Boba’d heard his knees crack against the rough sandstone floor, and Boba didn’t always hear things very well any more. He’d been too close to too many explosions.
Djarin was looking up at Boba now, sitting as pretty as a painting, heels tucked, hands on his knees, tired and a little untidy and clearly nervous, but kneeling there at Boba’s feet like he’d been doing it for years. Despite his nervousness Djarin looked willing to listen to Boba. The apprehension tightening the corners of Djarin’s eyes, which were dark and lovely and shockingly expressive, wasn’t exactly a turn-off; faint pleasure curled in Boba’s belly, appreciation, satisfaction at being so readily obeyed.
Boba couldn’t help but snort a little, amused. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said.
He meant it as a compliment. Boba’d seen enough of the galaxy that it was pretty karking hard to surprise him, these days. Boba liked to think that he knew people, too. Had to, in his line of work. A good bounty hunter got good by watching other beings. Learning what they’d do, how they would react, when they were squaring up for a fight, reaching for a blaster, or when they were preparing to bolt for the nearest door.
But Djarin had surprised Boba, kneeling as easily as he had. He’d been torn between those old instincts, fight or flight, Boba’d seen it. When he’d told Djarin to strip, Djarin had looked at Boba for a second like he was thinking about going for Boba’s throat, and then he’d looked at the open window.
I thought it’d be even odds either way, really.
But this –
“Good,” said Boba quickly, remembering how the fight had bled out of Djarin inch by inch in Ushib’s kitchens when Boba had offered him a little praise. He was pleased with Djarin’s obedience, anyway, and wasn’t afraid to show it even this early in this kind of negotiation.
Even though praise had settled Djarin down in the kitchens, now it sent a strange expression flickering across his face. Not quite a frown, but something very like, which made Boba pause.
Too soon? he wondered. It was almost like Djarin’d never heard that word before; like he didn’t believe it, even though Boba’d offered it without any strings or conditions.
“Thank you,” Boba added, to reinforce his sincerity. He tilted his head a little, looking Djarin up and down. Djarin was tense, still, but he’d been obedient so far, and Boba knew that he was probably getting impatient.
On to business, then, Boba decided. He’d sort out Djarin’s issue with the word ‘ good’ later, assuming their conversation tonight was fruitful. Boba hoped that it was. He found that he liked Djarin, as odd as the man was.
The first thing Boba needed to know, he decided, was how comfortable Djarin would be with this kind of arrangement. He’d gone as wide-eyed as a tooka in headlights the other night, when Boba’d brought up the idea of pain having a use. Djarin probably didn’t have much experience with this kind of arrangement at all.
We’ll start with the basics.
“How long has it been,” Boba asked, watching Djarin’s face, “since someone’s touched you? Without your armor on?”
Again Djarin surprised him; Djarin looked at Boba like he thought that Boba was, perhaps, a little stupid. “Only a few days,” he said, slowly, tilting his head in the direction of the chair, where Boba’d patched Djarin up the other night after their spar.
Boba almost rolled his eyes. He knew that. “Someone who isn’t me,” he clarified.
“Oh,” said Djarin. He thought for a moment. “One of my – one of the other warriors in the clan stitched me up last year after I got stabbed,” Djarin said, sitting up taller, like he was trying to present himself for inspection in a verd line, preparing to go off to battle. “But before that… maybe another year? Two? I didn’t, uh,” and here Djarin faltered a little, “I wasn’t around in the covert much,” he said. “Always working.”
Boba paused. Wrestled with his face for a moment, because Djarin was watching him keenly – anxiously, almost – and Boba didn't know what to say to that, but didn't want his surprise – his disquiet, which flickered into existence like sparks thrown from clashing metal – to show. “No one,” he said, slowly, “has touched you in more than a year?”
That was – that couldn’t be right. Djarin was mando’ade. He had a clan, didn’t he? Kryze had recognized Djarin as a Mandalorian, anyway, in a way she'd never recognize Boba as one – not that Boba wanted her recognition, but still – and that meant that Djarin was a son of Mandalore. Mandalorians didn't spring up fully-formed from the ground; they were clannish to a fault, Boba'd found, and were affectionate with their children.
But Djarin only nodded, stiff and uncomfortable. “Not – not without my beskar on,” he said.
A year, Boba thought, baffled. “I didn’t realize,” he said quietly. No wonder Djarin’s so skittish. He’s acting like this is new to him because it is.
Do some clans – do they not touch? Boba wondered. He supposed that he knew kark all about Mandalorian clans, really. On Kamino the Mandalorians Boba’s father’d brought around hadn’t been shy about scruffing their recruits like loth cat kittens. Had clapped Boba’s dad on the shoulders, tousled Boba’s hair even when Boba had puffed up to hiss at them. They’d been comfortable touching each other, and being touched.
But that was on Kamino. If all I know is Kamino mando'ade... What about the Mandalorians on Keldabe? Boba thought, frowning a little. Had the Mandalorians on Keldabe touched each other? He couldn’t quite remember. He’d been there for such a short time, and everyone had worn their armor, and anybody who’d reached out to touch Boba had been doing it with the intention of hitting him, not ruffling his hair.
But they must've touched each other. They must have. Boba'd looked at the Mandalorians on Keldabe with just bitter longing, at their clans and their tribes and their fathers and their sons, that he'd left before that want cracked him down the middle, before it had riddled him through with rust.
“It’s… not uncommon,” Djarin offered, which didn’t really tell Boba anything at all. But Djarin didn’t sound angry, just confused. And he’d let Boba tend to his injuries the other night, so –
“No,” Boba said, offering something of his own. I need to pay more attention. Just because I know some Mandalorians doesn’t mean that I know Djarin. He scratched the back of his head, unsure if Djarin wanted a proper apology or not. He hadn't snapped or growled at Boba when Boba'd touched him. And he'd known how to get Boba to stop, if he hadn't really wanted Boba to be touched.
This is a complication I didn't expect, Boba thought, mildly annoyed. It was already done, though. The only thing Boba could do was move forward.
“But I would’ve taken a different approach, I think, if I’d known,” Boba said.
Djarin scowled. “I’m fine,” he said. He’d said that before. Boba wasn’t sure that he believed that, but the look on Djarin’s face said that if Boba tried to apologize, Djarin might try to bite him or something.
“Fair enough,” said Boba, slowly, wondering if he’d miscalculated, but when he took a step towards Djarin, Djarin only eyed him, didn’t turn and bolt, so Boba figured he couldn’t have messed things up too badly. He hadn’t violated some sacred Mandalorian law by touching Djarin. Djarin was alright. He was here. He was willing to listen to Boba.
Forward, Boba thought.
“I’m gonna touch you again,” Boba added, giving Djarin a moment to brace himself, since it had been so long, and then peeled off his gloves. He waited for Djarin to ready himself – Djarin nodded, to show that he understood – and Boba reached out, settling his hand against the back of Djarin’s neck.
Djarin was warm, but not feverish. He was tense, too, the muscles in his neck bunched up tight underneath Boba’d hand. That was alright, if it had been a while since he’d been touched.
I probably should’ve asked that first, Boba thought ruefully, keeping his hand still for a second so that Djarin could get used to it. Going slow – going slow was the right approach, Boba decided. Going slow would give Djarin time to think, to understand, and it would give Boba time to sort through his thoughts. I would’ve – well. I dunno that petting his hair or something would’ve helped him much, that night. He needed something else. But the first time I touched him was violent.
I wish it hadn’t been.
Boba’d clapped a hand to Djarin’s shoulder before, of course. Had brushed elbows in the hallway once or twice. But every time they'd touched before that night in the kitchens, they’d had their armor on. Boba’d been wearing his gloves when he’d put his hand on Djarin’s throat in Ushib’s kitchen, so he supposed that the first time he’d touched Djarin skin-to-skin had been after, when he’d been wrapping up Djarin’s leg, but still.
Too late to do anything about it now, though.
When Djarin didn’t bolt, didn’t buck like a ronto and throw Boba’s hand off his neck, Boba took that as permission to move, cataloging Djarin’s body to get a better idea of what he’d be working with, if he and Djarin came to an agreement.
(Despite the awkwardness between them, despite Djarin's skittishness and Boba's confusion, Boba thought that he and Djarin might still come to an agreement. Something in Boba's gut told him that Djarin wanted this, too.)
The first thing that he found, after he took his hand off of Djarin’s neck, was a scar. Boba resisted the urge to whistle. This was –
Well. Boba’s body was covered in scars too. The sarlacc hadn’t helped with that, of course – it had actually covered up some of Boba’s oldest scars, scoured them away, ate them up with its own acid from the crown of his head to about halfway down his back, his arms, his chest – but even before the pit Boba’s body had been a map of all of his misadventures. He’d had neat round weals to remind him of blaster bolts he’d failed to dodge. Some ragged, jagged tears, the marks of claws and teeth he’d earned by sticking his nose into the wrong den or cave. Long straight knife wounds from fights that he’d let get too close, scars across his back and the edges of his flanks from his time under a lash, burn scars, a brand, discoloration from chemicals or wind or whatever else Boba’d put his body through over the years.
Boba’d never really paid attention to his own scars. They just – were. It wasn’t like he could avoid them, living like he had; as a boy on Kamino he’d had bacta available for any of childhood’s ordinary cuts and scrapes, but out in the wild, after –
For some reason, though, the sight of a similar map of misadventure on Djarin’s body was – disconcerting. That was the word for it. Incongruous, a jagged edge where Boba’d expected a smooth one.
Djarin has a clan, Boba thought again, puzzled. I know Mandalorians are proud of their scars, but this seems excessive, even for pride. Has no one from his own clan cared for him?
The scars, the lack of a friendly touch –
Boba traced the edge of one of Djarin’s most obvious scars, a big, ropey lump of skin on the back of his shoulder blade. A puncture wound of some kind, Boba thought, like Djarin had fallen hard on something. The wound had healed pretty ugly, though Djarin seemed to have a good range of motion in the limb still. The scar was old enough to have faded, a brown knot instead of one that was raw and pink and fresh.
Was he always mando'ade? Boba wondered. Most clans prefer their foundlings young enough to teach, but maybe he was taken in older? The thought flickered more jealousy, faint and old, somewhere at the bottom of Boba's ribs. He pushed it down.
The shoulder scar was old, but many of Djarin's scars were newer. Maybe some scars were from a previous life, if Djarin'd had one and hadn't been born mando'ade, but not all of them could be, and most of them showed signs of poor care or rough healing.
“Your clan’s not a big fan of modern medical care,” Boba said, striving for neutrality.
Why did no one heal that for him? Boba wondered, smoothing the edge of Djarin's shoulder scar with a thumb. Djarin didn't even twitch, that time – Boba doubted that he had much feeling in the wound. Was there no bacta to be found? Is it from around the time of the Purges?
Djarin glared at Boba, shifting a little on his knees. Boba's eyes flickered over Djarin's other scars. Blaster burns, knife wounds, the jagged mark from what Boba thought was a badly-broken bone. Some had been better-cared for, their edges softer, but too many others were in a similar state to the one on Djarin’s shoulder, ropey and tough, like all Djarin had done for them was slap a bandage over the wound to stop the bleeding and let it go.
“Bacta can be in short supply,” Djarin said, an edge in his voice.
Ah, thought Boba. Must’ve been from around the Purges after all, then. He supposed that a clan on the run might not have been able to care for its warriors as well as a settled clan, but still. Boba’d always been under the impression that Mandalorians took care of their own. The state of Djarin’s scars, combined with how long it had been since he’d been touched –
“True,” Boba allowed. He took advantage of Djarin’s distracted irritation to feel out the base of Djarin’s skull, checking for any swelling or obvious injury. Djarin’d been hit pretty hard by those strange droids on the light cruiser. He’d had some time in bacta over it, Boba knew, but still, a head injury was nothing to laugh at, even for a Mandalorian.
No lumps or bumps, Boba thought, though Djarin hissed like Boba’d stuck a finger in his eye. Maybe just a bit of soreness, then.
That bore watching, too. It’d been some weeks since that fight, but a bad head wound could linger for a long time.
“How’d you hold up out in Mos Pelgo?” Boba continued, using the conversation as an excuse to keep touching Din, probing very carefully for any old injuries he’d need to watch or to work around.
Djarin paused for a second, like he was choosing his words, and said, “It was alright.”
“You get hit by that sandstorm out there?” The palace had only caught the outer edges of it, what the Spotted Anooba had called dahal krayt, the tail of the dragon. The winds and the sands at the edges of a proper sandstorm were rough and dangerous, sometimes had a cutting edge, but they could be survived.
“It did,” Djarin said. Every time Boba touched him he tensed a little, so Boba did his best to keep his hand on Djarin in an unbroken line, moving from Djarin’s head to his shoulders, where an ugly knife scar puckered Djarin’s skin, to his back, down his arms, down his sides. As Boba went Djarin settled some, though chillbumps had risen in the wake of Boba’s touch.
“We waited it out in the town bunker,” Djarin continued. “It wasn’t too bad.”
Boba made a soft humming noise, like soothing a falthier before a race, and felt more of the tension drain out of Djarin’s shoulders. That was good.
Djarin had a warrior’s body. He was leaner than Boba thought he ought to be – he knew how heavy a full set of beskar’gam was, after all, and knew what kind of strength it took to carry it – but Djarin was still plenty strong, with muscles that shifted smoothly underneath his scarred skin. Nowhere that Boba poked and prodded drew more than a sharp breath or a hiss out of Din, so Boba was pretty sure Djarin didn’t have any torn muscles or damaged joints or anything like that.
“Good,” Boba said. He wouldn’t have wanted to spend his evening trapped in a storm bunker with the freedmen of Mos Pelgo, but Djarin was more welcome in that corner of Tatooine than Boba’d likely ever be. Obviously Djarin had been fine; he didn’t have any fresh bruises or scrapes that Boba could see.
To reward Djarin for letting Boba check him over – and to get him used to touch again, since Boba was hardly going to flog Djarin senseless and then leave him, without smoothing over those hurts – Boba brought his hand up off of Djarin’s back and into Djarin’s hair instead, trying to soothe some of those tangled curls as gently as he could.
Djarin stiffened again – it was odd that affection did that to him, when some of the other ways Boba’d touched Djarin hadn’t – but allowed the fussing. Boba hid a smile.
“How’s the leg?” Boba asked. He could just barely see the edges of the bruise he’d left with his gaderffii – with his hand – around the edge of Djarin’s thumb. The bruise was dark, still, and healing.
That got more of a reaction out of Djarin. His hands twitched. “Can’t you see it?” Djarin asked, sharply.
Boba made another humming sound, deeper this time, and stopped fussing with Djarin’s hair. “I can see it alright, Djarin,” Boba said. He didn’t match Djarin for sharpness – there’d be no point, and would likely just get Djarin’s back up – but he did put a bit more beskar into his tone.
It was better, Boba’d learned, to start this sort of thing with clear boundaries, so that everyone involved knew what was expected of them. That way no one would get hurt in a misunderstanding. Boba didn’t mind a little sharpness, especially when a situation, like this one, was uncomfortable, but he did mind disrespect.
“I didn’t ask you how it looked,” Boba said. “I asked you how it was. The truth, please,” he added.
Fortunately Djarin was the responsive sort. He struggled with himself for a second, clearly uncomfortable, but said, “It’s sore. But it hasn’t bothered me since I took the bacta off.”
Boba didn’t ask Djarin when he’d taken the bacta off. Judging by the color of that bruise, Djarin’d only left the bacta on for a few hours, maybe a night at most.
He likes to savor his bruises, then, Boba thought. Knowing that was a relief – Boba could work with that.
Rewarding Djarin for going along with all of this had worked well so far, so Boba resumed his attempts – probably useless, but still – to smooth the tangles out of Djarin’s hair.
“Did it help?” Boba asked.
He very deliberately didn’t look Djarin in the face, as he asked it. Boba thought that he knew the answer already. But he wanted to hear Djarin say it, and wanted to give Djarin the space to realize that it had helped on his own.
Djarin was brave enough to say, in a rough, hushed voice, like he was giving up a secret, “It did.”
Delight, as deep and as dark as the oceans of Kamino, thrilled through Boba, a satisfaction that he felt in his bones.
I was right, he thought. It helped him.
Knowing that it had helped Djarin – what they’d done in Ushib’s kitchens, the hand around Djarin’s throat, the bruise pressed into the meat of his thigh, giving all of that up to Boba, even for just a few minutes – made Boba bold, and he abandoned his attempt at smoothing down Djarin’s curls entirely.
Instead Boba tangled some of those curls in his fingers, gripping a little tighter, and tugged. It was mostly instinct, but Boba trusted his instincts, and Djarin moved with his grip, following Boba’s hand easily, tilting his chin up, offering Boba the long, bare column of his throat.
Djarin’s pulse fluttered. His pupils were blown. He was afraid, a little, but Djarin’s face didn’t hide much; underneath the fear, behind it, Boba saw a raw want glittering in the depths of Djarin’s dark eyes, a mirror of Boba’s own.
Boba didn’t hide his smile, this time. There was no point – Boba and Djarin were standing on the same clifftop, here, for all that Boba was standing over Djarin and Djarin was on his knees. They both wanted the same thing.
“Good,” Boba said, tasting the word. He almost used the mando’a one, jate, ori’jate, but didn’t want to risk mispronouncing the words to an actual Mandalorian and destroying this new understanding that he and Djarin had built. It was – this was going to work, Boba thought. He'd been right in the kitchens – Djarin wanted this. Boba wanted it too.
“You asked me, before, what I get out of this,” Boba added, just to make sure. He thought that he and Djarin understood each other. His instincts said that they were the same.
But it was best to make sure. Boba – Boba wanted to do all kinds of things to Djarin. Djarin wanted to let him. But it was best to make sure.
“Do you understand now?” Boba asked, keeping the tension in his hand. Keeping Djarin’s neck bared.
Djarin let him. Djarin let him. He looked at Boba with those dark, expressive eyes, his fingers twitching where he clutched his knees, his pulse hammering in his throat, fighting some kind of war in his own head, and then Djarin said, in a voice like Boba’d torn the words out of him, rough and raw, “Control. You get control.”
Yeah, Boba thought, something fierce and bright kindling in his chest, like a flame that had just been given a forest for its feast. We understand each other. We’re gonna get along just fine.
Notes:
Content warnings: slight painplay (hairpulling,) some Mandalorian cultural misunderstandings, mentions of injury.
Notes:
-A grotseth is a predatory fish from the planet Baralou. They can be up to thirteen feet long and are covered in sharp shells, so they’d be pretty tricky to grab.
-Technically we don’t know if Boba was watching the Mos Pelgoans + Din take on the krayt dragon in Mandalorian S2, but I’ve decided that he was, because he was a) looking for his armor and b) thought that that was fucking crazy.
-It was weird to go back to having Boba refer to Din as "Djarin," but this is set pretty early in ast before they're each using each other's first names (or... whatever; remember Mando S3 does not exist here). They're not even really friends yet, more like colleagues with benefits.
-I think that “It was better, Boba’d learned, to start this sort of thing with clear boundaries, so that everyone involved knew what was expected of them. That way no one would get hurt in a misunderstanding” is maybe the funniest line I’ve ever written of anything, ever.Some Mando’a:
Beskaryc’ika: On-the-spot invention of Mandalorian beetles or similar insects; literally translates to “little armored ones.” I have missed inventing Mandalorian nonsense words on the fly.
-Verd: “Soldier, warrior.”
Chapter 5: in which everybody could use a few more hugs.
Notes:
I haven't forgotten about this little catalog of Boba POVs!! Here's a snippet for an anon on tumblr, who requested some aftercare. The original post can be found here.
Set during Chapter 7, "evaar'la," after Din and Boba's first proper scene. Yes, like 80% of my Boba POVs were an excuse to have Boba being secretly either a) soft as fuck or b) head over heels, without realizing it, while Din was muddling along through his feelings in the actual fic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which everybody could use a few more hugs.
Din Djarin, Boba discovered, was a cuddler.
I don’t know why that’s a surprise, Boba thought, as Djarin collapsed against Boba’s side and tucked his face into Boba’s shoulder, pressing in close like Boba was the only fire in the dark of the desert. Maybe it’s the armor.
A lot about Djarin had been a surprise from the first time Boba had met him, so it made an odd sort of sense that even this wasn't what Boba had expected. Boba'd expected – well.
Doesn't matter, Boba thought. Surprise or not, this was the most demonstrative and easy to read that Djarin had been all night, and Boba was happy to give Djarin what he needed. He didn’t think that Djarin had heard a word that Boba’d said since Boba had peeled him away from the wall, but that was alright too.
“Kandosii,” Boba murmured, reaching back into his memory for the scraps of mando’a that he still remembered. Even if Djarin wasn't aware enough to parse what Boba was saying, Boba thought that Djarin would draw some comfort from the tone of Boba's voice. He had the first time, under the kitchens.
Djarin didn't pull away, at least, so Boba offered another "kandosii," deep and slow and even. Every word tasted like the air on Kamino. Not the stale, recycled, clean-scrubbed air of Tipoca City but the air outside it, salt and rain, engine fuel, the rare taste of sunlight warming cool metal. Boba remembered more mando’a than he’d thought. Something about Djarin made it easy to recall.
“Gar moti jahaal’yc,” Boba said. Djarin had taken that flogger well. Better than Boba’d thought that he would, for a man who’d never taken a flogger before.
Another surprise, thought Boba wryly.
He smoothed a careful hand down Djarin’s back, rubbing in the last of the bacta he’d brought over. Boba hadn’t given Djarin much – Djarin had resented the kark out of Boba’s attempts to look after his bruises before – but he’d hopefully struck a balance between letting Djarin keep his bruises and making sure that Djarin could move in the morning.
Djarin pressed his nose deeper into the meat of Boba’s arm and made a grumbling noise, as unhappy as a wet tooka.
Boba smiled and had to resist the urge to hide that smile in Djarin’s hair.
We’re not that familiar with each other, yet, Boba thought. He was wary of pushing Djarin's boundaries, both because Djarin himself didn't seem terribly sure about where his boundaries were and because Djarin was heavily armed and rather well-trained. Boba didn't want to piss Djarin off. Teasing the Mandalorian was one thing, but rousing real anger –
Boba settled for tugging his fingers through Djarin’s hair, shifting his amusement into the safer urge to soothe someone under his care, loosening a few of the sweaty tangles that had gathered at Djarin’s temples.
“Still with me, Djar’ika?” Boba added. The endearment fell off his tongue just as easily as the other scraps of mando’a had. Boba decided not to examine that ease too deeply.
Djarin repeated the grumbling sound.
He’s not sitting up on his own, Boba thought. Most of Djarin’s weight was tipped against Boba’s side. Djarin hadn’t reached for Boba. He was clutching the edge of Boba’s work table instead. Djarin was trembling faintly.
That’s an easy enough fix. Djarin wasn’t back with Boba, not yet. Boba didn’t mind. Djarin could take his time – he’d certainly earned a bit of a rest.
I had to flog him senseless to get him there, Boba thought, settling himself more firmly in his own seat so that he could support Djarin without having to worry about Djarin toppling over, moving his fingers through Djarin’s hair again, since Djarin seemed to like the touch, but that’s alright. It’s – it’s been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to work someone over like that.
Boba’s own blood was still singing. The sounds Djarin had made – the ones he’d kept behind his teeth and the ones he’d given up, the ones that had been torn out of him – echoed somewhere in the bottom of Boba’s chest.
Yeah, he’s earned some time to rest.
“Udesii,” Boba murmured, shifting so that Djarin’s forehead was pressed against Boba’s shoulder. He tugged a few curls at the nape of Djarin’s neck and was rewarded with a soft groan. “Gar morut’yc.”
The words were still easy to reach. Boba hadn’t bothered with this much mando’a in years and years, but the words were there waiting when Boba reached for them.
“Gar morut’yc,” he repeated. Djarin hummed in agreement. He was huddled against Boba’s side like he thought that Boba would shove Djarin away at any second, like a krayt dragon curled up around a pearl. Skin-hunger like this was common enough after a heavy session, but something about the way that Djarin was hiding his face against Boba’s body – about the way that he clearly wanted to touch Boba, but was clutching at the table instead – made Boba want to frown.
He carefully set that feeling aside and kept the frown out of his voice. Djarin’d be sensitive, like this; Boba didn’t want him to think that he’d been anything but good.
He told me that no one had touched him in more than a year, Boba remembered, wanting to wince. Boba wasn’t sure what clan Djarin came from, but the Mandalorians Boba’d grown up around had always been touching each other, clapping shoulders, ruffling hair, scruffing each other like anooba cubs.
Another surprise.
A surprise that Boba didn’t particularly like, either.
This isn’t about me and what I like, though. Boba’d have time to parse his own thoughts and feelings about what had happened tonight later. Boba’d gotten what he needed – now it was time to make sure that Djarin got the same.
Boba shifted again, settling Djarin more firmly against his side. They were pressed together now from shoulder to hip and hip to knee. The tremors in Djarin’s arms were starting to fade.
“Gar morut’yc,” Boba said again. His mouth was full of salt. “N’tayli gar.”
Notes:
Content warnings: Non-explicit references to BDSM activities, including flogging, which happens off-screen (for this snippet, anyway; the HD version is available in the text of ast itself). This whole scene is aftercare. Boba has some sinking suspicions about Din's tribe and the way that they treat/ed their people.
Some notes:
-One of the reasons why I never shared any Boba POVs while the fic wasn't finished was because a lot of them are like this, lol. AST!Boba is secretly a softy, despite his temper.
-Aftercare is important!!!
-"Skin-hunger" or touch starvation is a documented condition. Humans are hard-wired for contact. Physical touch -- and not just intimate touch -- is incredibly important for our physical, mental and emotional health. In the ast 'verse, Din's covert doesn't WITHHOLD touch; they hug, Keldabe kiss, slap each other on the back, etc, but it's almost always done with armor on, so skin-to-skin touch is minimal and Din isn't very familiar with it.
-Boba has some opinions about that, specifically.Some mando'a:
Djar’ika: “Little Djarin.” Affectionate nickname.
Gar morut’yc: “You’re safe, you’re alright.”
Kandosii: “Nice job, well done.”
Gar moti jahaal’yc: “You stood well, you stood strong.”
N’tayli gar: “I’ve got you.”
Udesii: “Relax, take it easy, find respite.”
Chapter 6: in which boba realizes that he wasn't quite prepared for this, honestly.
Notes:
Happy Star Wars day, y'all!
This POV has been out on tumblr for a while, but it's still one of my favorites and I thought that I'd cross-post it here!
An anon on tumblr asked me to post my favorite Boba POV that I'd written during the course of writing ast; picking a favorite is entirely too hard, but this one is one of my top five, so it's close enough! Originally posted here.
This piece is set during Chapter 16, “tingaanur,” while Din and Boba are having their little wrestling match after Din comes back upset from Mos Entha.
CW for the usual stuff, including grown men wrestling, some blood and the quintessential Mandalorian ability to both gain and sublimate feelings through emotionally-charged physical violence.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba realizes that he wasn't quite prepared for this, honestly.
Boba'd half-expected Din to turn him down, when Boba’d offered Din a good fight instead of what it was that Din had really wanted.
Din had come back from Mos Entha jumpy and upset, teeth bared like an anooba about to bite. Mos Entha, Boba’d gathered, hadn’t gone well, though from what Din had said he’d managed to keep Lady Valarian from killing him, which was an achievement. Valarian was a stubborn old gutkurr, set in her ways and suspicious of outsiders, and she had no reason to like Boba or anybody working for Boba. That was why Boba’d sent Kasyyk along after Din to help Din out, if he’d needed it, even though Din hadn’t been in Mos Entha on Boba’s business.
Din had gone to Mos Entha to look for other Mandalorians. For his clan, he’d said.
He didn’t find them.
Din had come back to the palace wound up so tightly that Boba’d been half-worried that Din would crack in two down the middle. Din carried his tension tight, high in his shoulders, and looking at him standing there at the edge of Boba’s room – at the edge of the desert – had made Boba’s own shoulders ache in sympathy.
It had been easy enough to pull Din away from the edge. Underneath all of the anooba growls and bristling beskar Din was obliging enough, at least with Boba. He trusted Boba enough now to listen to him, and so far he’d been willing to let Boba manage some of his tension. His unhappiness.
I didn’t know if he’d agree to fight or not, though.
Honestly, Boba’d been hoping for a calmer night. His own day had been long – though not as long as Din’s, since Din had been all the way out in Mos Entha, which was on the other side of the Great Dune Sea – and his left knee’d been aching all day. Boba liked to blame the ache on the sarlacc, but the truth was that that knee had bothered Boba for twenty years, and it ached fiercely in the chill of a desert night.
Boba set the ache aside. Din had finally asked for something that he wanted – which was a small miracle, considering how stubborn he'd been so far – and Boba intended to give Din what he wanted. So far getting Din Djarin to admit that he wanted or needed something had been a bit like trying to pull a rancor’s teeth while the rancor was still awake. Boba was determined to reward this particular bit of honesty.
Din hadn’t asked for a fight, though. He’d asked Boba to hit him. Boba wasn’t sure that any of that would be on the table tonight, not with Din as tightly-wound as he was, but a little pain, a little distraction – Boba could give him that.
A fight’d go over better than a flogging, I think.
Din was clearly struggling with something. Boba liked to think that he knew Din pretty well, by now – Din’d fallen asleep on Boba often enough – and he could see the way that what had happened in Mos Entha was eating at Din.
He said that he’d failed, Boba thought, straightening up and surveying his handiwork. He had painted an aza’gad ring on the floor in green armor paint. Boba was pretty sure that he’d gotten the size right. In his days with the Spotted Anooba Boba’d drawn a fair few aza’gad rings, always willing to fight to prove his place.
It was a good thing that Boba didn’t bother keeping much furniture around up here. The bed was on the other side of the pillar and Boba’s workspace was a bit beyond that. He had plenty of open floor space. He was half-tempted to go off in search of some kind of padding – Tuskens fought on sand, which was a bit more forgiving than the hard sandstone floor – but didn’t know where he’d find some at this hour of the night, and Boba knew that if he went looking for a rug or six, Fennec would hear about it and laugh at Boba in the morning.
I’ve got bacta, Boba thought. That ought to take care of any bruises.
A few bruises might help Din, anyway. He was fighting something inside his head. When Boba had asked him what had happened in Mos Entha, Din had said that he’d failed. His clan had been in Mos Entha but they’d left in a hurry, and Din was worried that they were in trouble.
Boba had tried to help Din figure out what to do, but some kind of frantic, furious energy still twitched through Din’s jaw. Words hadn’t been enough. A plan of attack, of how to go about locating his missing clan, hadn’t been enough.
Maybe a few bruises will be, Boba thought. He hoped that it would be enough, anyway. Boba wanted to help Din out. To give him what he needed to sleep through the night, so Din’d be fresh and strong in the morning, clear-headed.
Happy.
Boba paused to examine that thought. The desire to give Din what he wanted – what he needed – wasn’t new, not really. Boba was too old to learn new things about himself; he’d known about this part of himself for a long time.
He wanted to help Din out. Din’s bleak tone – his anger, his desperation – when he’d come back from Mos Entha had bothered Boba. The bleak look on Din’s face had cut Boba like a knife.
I want to fix it. Or – ease it, if I can.
Troubled, Boba left the circle of wet paint and went about the business of shedding his armor. Once he’d gotten all of that off and set aside, stacking his armor neatly, he peeled off his kute too, and his Tusken robes. The robes themselves were light enough and easy to move in, but Boba didn’t want to give Din an extra handhold or advantage. Knowing Din, he’d probably try to strangle Boba with any loose fabric he could get his dangerous Mandalorian hands on.
Boba settled for a loose pair of fabric pants, then padded back over to the aza’gad ring just in time to catch the turbolift as it chimed softly and opened, letting Din pad back out into Boba’s rooms.
He looks steady enough, Boba thought, looking Din up and down again. Like Boba, Din’d shed his armor and his stiff flightsuit, opting for a similar set of loose fabric clothes that he could move in. He looked softer like this, outside of his armor. Not gentle, exactly, because Din moved like a fighter no matter what he was wearing, but less like the edges of him would cut Boba to pieces if Boba didn’t move carefully.
Din saw Boba as he came out of the turbolift, and Din paused. His eyes flickered over the room, took in the aza’gad ring, the night sky, Boba himself. His eyes lingered on a few of Boba’s scars.
Boba half-smiled. He’d had so many scars for so long that he barely noticed them any more, but Boba knew that he looked rather like a lightning-scarred cedru tree. Sarlacc acid had left webbed scars across his shoulders, his head, the backs of his hands, and hard living out in the wider galaxy had left Boba with old blaster burns, knife wounds, skinned elbows, claw marks. There wasn't much unmarked skin left to Boba.
Din caught Boba watching him back and flushed, the tips of his ears reddening. He looked away.
Boba smiled again, hoping to set Din more at ease. He didn’t mind Din looking. “The life of a bounty hunter, eh?” he said.
Din had plenty of scars of his own. Boba’d been surprised to see them, the first time he had. Din had been wide-eyed then too, he remembered. Wary, but willing to listen. To learn. Din’s body was a patchwork of scars just like Boba’s was, even though Din had grown up with a clan and Boba hadn’t.
Bounty hunting was hard and dangerous, though, and anyone who’d been in the business long enough collected scars. Boba would’ve thought that a proper clan would’ve taken better care of one of its warriors, like the little pods of clones had always tried to take care of each other on Kamino, but Boba didn’t know very much about Mandalorian clans, not really.
“Could tell you about them some time, if you want,” Boba said, meaning his scars. He laid a hand over a long, wide patch of discolored skin just above his hip. Boba’d gotten it falling off a speeder on Nar Shaddaa; he’d hit the ground with enough force and speed half-skin himself there, and the wound hadn’t healed cleanly.
Din had a similar scar on one elbow, if Boba remembered right.
“We could trade,” Boba offered. “I’m sure you’ve got a few stories of your own.”
Din snorted, but some of his discomfort faded. The defensive curl of his shoulders loosened. “I do,” he admitted. He made no move to step closer.
Still skittish, then, Boba thought. He sighed. “Well?” he prompted, aiming for a gentler tone. “Ready?”
Din hated to be coddled – or to even think that he was being coddled, regardless of Boba’s intentions – and a hardness crossed his face, a bit of the fierce bounty hunter, the beroya, coming into Din’s eyes.
Halfway to glaring, Din tugged his shirt off artlessly and tossed it to the side, like Boba’d thrown a verd knife down at his feet in challenge instead of just asking him if he was ready to start the match or not.
Boba suppressed a smile. Affection twitched through him. He was getting used to that; something about Din just made Boba fond of him, and the fondness was only deepening as Boba and Din got to know each other a little better.
No point in teasing him now, Boba thought. Over the last few weeks he’d found that it was fun to tease Din, but Boba’d rather fluster Din in the middle of the ring, when being flustered might get Din to trip or drop his guard.
Unlikely, Boba thought. Djarin was good in the ring. The first time Boba’d coaxed Din to spar, Din’d fought like back-alley brawler from some dark underbelly on Coruscant or Corellia. It was actually probably a good thing that they’d be wrestling on stone – Boba wouldn’t put it past Din to toss sand in Boba’s eyes, if he thought it’d give him an advantage.
Still, Boba could hope. He deliberately smothered the curl of affection in his chest and said, instead of teasing, “You look better.”
Din did. The first time Boba had seen him without his armor on, Din had been pale and stretched thin, lean as an anooba coming out of high summer, when food was scarce and the desert terrible and harsh.
A few weeks of Ushib’s cooking had filled Din back out some. He looked every inch the fighter now, strong and steady on his feet. His eyes were sharp and watchful. Boba’s blood began to hum, anticipation rising in his belly.
This should be fun, he thought.
“Ushib’s cooking’s done you some good, looks like. How’re you feeling?” Boba asked. He knew that Din was still tense. Djarin carried stress in the set of his jaw. His eyes were still pinched with worry.
But Din just shrugged and looked Boba up and down, eyes skipping over most of Boba’s scars, no doubt looking for any obvious weaknesses that he could exploit in the ring.
Boba approved, and shifted to make sure that he wasn’t favoring his old, sore knee where Din could see him do it.
“Didn’t get into any trouble in Mos Entha?” Boba pressed, looking Din over for any sign of a new or especially-tender injury that Boba should avoid. Din still had a faint bruise across his side where A’Shek had walloped him in the desert – Boba’d met the business end of A’Shek’s gaderffii more than a few times, and was very familiar with how deep those bruises went – but Boba didn’t see anything that was red or raw or bleeding.
“None that I had to fight my way out of,” Din said evasively. Boba snorted.
“So you’ve got some energy to burn,” he said, trying to figure out how much effort he was going to have to put into the ring. He hadn’t wrestled or grappled with Din before, but their spar in the training room above the kitchens had been fast-paced and ferocious. His sense of anticipation built.
Din nodded in answer, his fingers flexing restlessly. Some of the frantic edge he’d had coming back in had finally faded, shifted over into sharp-eyed focus. Smooth muscle moved underneath a faded tattoo that spanned one of Djarin’s shoulders.
Boba let himself grin, the fight rising in him, moving his weight around to loosen his limbs. Din, just as ready to brawl as Boba, stepped carefully over the line of still-wet paint and inspected the makeshift aza’gad ring. Boba followed, the urge to tackle Din from behind – to sweep his legs out, and to follow him to the floor – burning brightly in his belly, but Boba wrestled it back.
Rules first, he thought, and prompted Din with the same question. He rolled his shoulders out, determined to banish the tension that always built there after a day in heavy armor.
I already said ‘no biting,’ Boba thought, watching Din. But I’m curious to see what else he came up with.
As Boba watched him, Din’s eyes sharpened further. His gaze was clear and all of his attention was focused on Boba. Boba ignored the way that holding Din’s focus made him want to show off like a pylat bird, preening feathers to catch the light.
“No maiming,” Din replied, repeating what Boba’d said earlier. “No serious injury, either. We both need to be in fighting shape.”
Given that Fennec had caught wind of a small Hutt force creeping out in the sands yesterday, Din had the right idea. Boba inclined his head, though a wave of amusement – of affection, not the first Boba’d felt looking at Din Djarin, and probably not the last, either – swept through him.
“That it?” Boba asked, keeping his tone light. No biting, no maiming, no serious injury. Most other fighters that Boba knew would be scrambling to add rules about going for the groin or the face, rules about pins or illegal holds.
But not Din.
Another wave of affection pushed its way through Boba’s chest. Djar’ika’s got some shereshoy, that’s for sure, he thought.
Din shrugged. “Unless you thought of anything else?”
Boba grinned, showing Din all of his teeth.
Boba had thought of something else. It wasn’t a rule and he told Din as much, but Boba was learning more about Din every day and he thought that Din would probably like this. That it’d give Din the challenge he was craving, that it would pull his mind away from Mos Entha and his missing clan, and fix his attention here instead.
On me, Boba thought.
“I’ve got an idea,” Boba said.
Din froze. Something – hunger, hope – flashed across his face and his dark eyes met Boba’s. Din didn’t look Boba in the eye all that often, too used to the barrier that his helmet gave him, but when he did the connection that snapped between Din and Boba was always alive, crackling like lightning in the summer sky. It flickered between them now. Din understood what Boba was offering him.
Boba wasn’t used to being understood without effort, but he didn’t mind that Din could do it. It made things like this easier to manage.
“I’m listening,” Din said, hoarsely. Boba’s grin broadened.
Not many men were brave enough to stare Boba down when he smiled at them like this, the way he smiled when his bloodlust was rising, when the thrill of a good, hard fight was beginning to thunder in Boba’s blood. But Din was brave enough. He didn’t look away.
“I’ve been thinking,” Boba said, watching Din carefully, “about what you wanted.”
He knew that he didn’t have to clarify what he was talking about. The naked hunger that crossed Din’s face told Boba that Din hadn’t forgotten.
“About… hitting me?” Din asked. His voice was softer outside of his helmet.
“If you want me to,” said Boba easily, studying Din again. Din’s body was looser now, some of his tight, terrible tension bled out by just the promise of a good fight. As long as Din kept that tension at bay, Boba didn’t have too many reservations about the possibility of a session of some kind tonight.
I’m not gonna flog him, Boba thought. Not like I did before. Even if the wrestling managed to wring Din out, that kind of intense session could still go bad. Din was so karking stubborn that he’d be able to take a bit of a beating, if he really wanted to, but a hard session –
No. That’s off the table for tonight.
“I was thinking,” Boba continued, enjoying the full force of Din’s attention. Din turned to Boba like a mala’ayy turned up towards the light of Tatooine’s three moons. Boba’d never been a vain man, not really – it was hard to be vain with a nose that had been broken as often as Boba’s had – but he liked the attention anyway, because he knew that Din was honest about it.
“If you win,” Boba said, “you can decide what you want to happen next. If you want me to flog you after we’re done here, I can do that. Within reason,” he added, to make sure that Din knew there’d be a limit on anything that happened tonight.
Din took a flogging well. Really well, if Boba were being honest. The thought of getting to watch Din take hit after hit, to watch him struggle to hold still, to hear those bitten-off sounds of pain again made a different, darker kind of heat rise in Boba’s blood.
But Boba wasn’t going to hurt Din tonight.
Not much, at least.
“The same rules will apply,” he said. “Nothing serious, no matter how much you want it. I don’t think you’re up for it tonight.” Din flashed his teeth a little, pulling a face. He hated to feel like he was being coddled unless he’d been hurt first – after those first few sessions, Din had cuddled up to Boba like a tame tooka and had sleepily protested any time Boba’d shifted away. He had a skin-hunger to him, Din, but he wouldn’t let Boba touch him with gentleness unless Boba hurt him first.
That was hardly the strangest thing about Din Djarin, but it was something that stuck to Boba like a burr underneath his armor, prickling and close.
Din didn’t puff up like an offended loth-cat or protest, though. He grimaced, clearly disagreeing with Boba’s words, but he didn’t try to argue. Din didn’t say anything for a second, then five, then ten, moonlight filtering in across the room and dappling the aza’gad ring.
Boba waited, pleased that Din was showing some patience. That was good. That meant that his head was a little clearer than it had been.
“And if you win?” Din’s voice was strong, but still hoarse. Fierce desire shone in his eyes.
Boba shrugged and got into a proper stance. “That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” he said.
Now I can tease him. Din and Boba were both in the ring now. Flustering Din now would give Boba an advantage, and he intended to press every advantage that he had.
“If you’re so sure that you’ll lose, we can skip the formalities,” Boba added.
Din huffed and rolled his eyes. He slid into a ready stance too, crouched forward on the balls of his feet, the muscles in his shoulders flexing, and watched Boba.
He’s trying to figure me out, Boba thought, recognizing the sharp gleam in Din’s eyes. Din was a smart fighter. He was comparing the two of them, looking for weaknesses, trying to decide what to do. How to win.
Din was taller than Boba and probably faster too, especially without his armor. Boba knew that he had Din beat if it came to a contest of raw strength – few men were as strong as Boba – but Din was still plenty strong himself, all lean muscle, and he was a dangerous fighter. Pinning him was going to be a challenge.
Boba shifted his weight again, excited now, the promise of a good fight singing in his veins. He was just about ready, and it looked like Din was ready too. Boba pulled in a deep, slow breath to steady himself.
Alright, he thought, planning to go for Din’s right side, where his arm had been broken by that darktrooper and his grip would be the weakest. Ready –
But Boba didn’t get to count them down and start the spar; before Boba could open his mouth and plan his first move, Din lunged, fast and hard, for Boba’s own right side. Boba swore, leaping sideways just in time to avoid getting tackled, and took a few steps back to put more room between himself and Din.
It was a close call. Din’s hand brushed Boba’s side as he passed, the rough, calloused skin of Din’s fingertips grazing Boba’s ribs. Heat sparked at the touch.
Boba dodged him, though, and Din overshot, though he recovered quickly and pivoted to follow Boba. His eyes flashed and he showed Boba a smile that was all teeth. Boba laughed. He liked that expression much more than the one Din had been wearing when Boba had come up here and found Din staring out over the desert. The ghul was gone. Din was ready for a fight.
“I didn’t even say ‘go’ yet, you menace,” Boba said, still chuckling. Din had plenty of courage. Gett’se, the word was. Boba resolved to teach it to Din later. “Where’s your sportsmanship?”
Din snorted, nose wrinkling like Boba’d called him something impolite. “I want to win,” he said.
A helpless sort of affection bloomed behind Boba’s ribs.
Mandalorians, he thought. Usually the word was a bitten-off curse, but it was harder for Boba to feel the same sort of hot disdain towards Din that he usually held on the rare occasions when Boba’d been forced to interact with Mandalorians. Any ideas that Boba might’ve had about Din being like the rest had evaporated on Tython. With Din, Mandalorian wasn’t a curse.
“Fine,” said Boba, laying out the rest of the rules quickly before Din could jump him again. “First one pinned – and I mean really pinned – loses. You can tap out by hitting the floor three times or by calling ‘yield.’ Ya’sta." Tuskra might be easier for Din to remember than mando'a, especially in the heat of a fight. "If you go out of the ring, you also lose. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Din, and then he did lunge for Boba again, pressing his advantage shamelessly. This time he managed to catch Boba, grabbing Boba by the arm, but Boba’s stance was rooted and it wasn’t hard to shake Din off. This early in the match Boba didn’t want to burn through all of his energy grappling when he could dodge or avoid an attack instead. Boba shook Din away and then backed up, keenly aware of where the edge of the aza’gad circle was.
“What,” Din said, a challenge bright in his tone. “There’s no word in Mandalorian for ‘I give up?’”
“Mando’a,” Boba said, correcting Din on instinct. Boba didn’t have much of the language, but he knew enough to know what it was called. Din mirrored Boba, backing off, shaking his hand out.
That arm does bother him, Boba thought, narrowing his eyes. Din wasn't favoring either of his knees, had turned fast and fluid without showing any weakness, but he was flexing his hand.
“And no,” Boba continued. He didn’t want to be a sitting bantha so he started to move, pacing slowly around the inner edge of the aza’gad ring. “There’s ‘pel,’ which can mean ‘soft’ or ‘yielding,’ but that’s about it.”
Mandalorians weren’t big on surrender. Even Boba knew that.
Din mirrored Boba again, circling from the opposite side of the ring, his eyes glittering in the bright silver light. He looked nothing like he had just twenty minutes ago, when he’d been bleak and angry and anxious. Now Din was fierce and confident, his attention fixed on Boba, and anticipation thrummed hotly in Boba’s blood.
Alright, Boba thought. He’s had the first two tries. Now it’s my turn.
Boba wasn't likely to out-dodge or outmaneuver Din while Din was this sharp and focused, so Boba decided that it was time to take an ingot out of Din's forge and play dirty.
“You ever hear of Ubardian oil wrestling?” Boba asked. Ubardian oil wrestling was a fairly obscure sport, but Din knew some very obscure things. While he talked, Boba feinted, probing for weaknesses in Din’s defense. Din eeled gracefully away.
“No,” Din said.
Boba grinned. “Participants strip down to a ceremonial loincloth,” Boba explained. He flexed, rolling his shoulders to show off his strength, because he’d caught Djarin looking at him before.
Din, perhaps predictably, flushed red.
“And fighters are covered in Maridunish oil,” Boba continued. He’d only ever seen an Ubardian oil wrestling match once, as a much younger man traveling through the galaxy before he’d gotten comfortable and set in his ways on Tatooine. At the time Boba’d been more focused on his target, but he’d appreciated the way the wrestlers had moved nonetheless, the strength in their arms, their grace, the way their bodies had shone in the light.
Din’s flush deepened, his eyes on the smooth muscles in Boba’s shoulders, his biceps, his broad chest.
Got you, Boba thought, amused. Din wasn’t the only one who could cheat. He lunged again, just like Din had, but Din skipped back and bared his teeth.
“I have seen a naked man before, Fett,” he growled. Din coiled up like a spit viper, ready to strike.
“That blush you’ve got on could’ve fooled me,” Boba returned, mostly just to see that pretty flush coloring Din’s face deepen. When Din was embarrassed – which was often, Boba was finding – Din blushed down his throat, down his chest to his nipples. His ears went red.
Another steady beat of affection went through Boba’s chest, tangling with the adrenaline still burning there.
“You know how you win a bout of Ubardian oil wrestling?” Boba asked. He should probably stop teasing Din like this, but he liked seeing Din blush and the lives they lived were often hard and thankless, and Boba’d decided in the sarlacc’s belly, acid eating at his face and his hands, that if he was going to live, he was going to karking enjoy it, and he was going to do what made him happy.
“I bet you’re going to tell me,” Din grouched, and then Boba realized that he’d left himself open just as Din rushed him a third time. Boba was able to avoid Din’s hands, but Din swept his foot out and yanked on Boba’s ankle, trying to overbalance him.
It worked.
“Kark,” Boba grunted, more out of surprise than pain, and fought to keep his footing. He managed it for just a moment, keeping his balance, but then Djarin, shameless and fearless in equal measure, came at Boba again, and this time he dropped a shoulder and caught Boba in the chest.
That blow did hurt. Boba went with it and fell backwards, Din coming down with him, and wheezed for breath when he hit the ground. Red and white light blurred at the edges of Boba’s vision.
They grappled on the floor for a few frantic seconds, Din trying to pin Boba down, but Boba had seen an Ubardian oil wrestling match before, had cut his teeth on fights like this one, first in the Republic’s custody on RepJud and then later, when Boba’d been young enough and wild enough to think himself invincible and the clink that he could win in the fighting pits had been worth the bruises and broken noses.
Boba wasn’t invincible and he knew that now, but he was smarter than he’d been back in those days, and he knew how to shake off a pin.
Most of Din’s weight had fallen on top of Boba. Boba let out a breath and planted both of his feet against the floor, then shoved up with all of the strength that he could muster.
Din was plenty strong, but he wasn’t quite as strong as Boba. Din yelped and pitched over, losing his grip. Boba shot back up to his feet, his sore knee protesting, and made to try and pin Din back, but Din managed to get an arm up to block any hold that Boba’d planned to put him in, and fought against Boba wordlessly for several long seconds.
It’d been a long time since Boba had been able to fight like this. Tuskens as a rule weren’t fond of wrestling or grappling and in the days before the sarlacc Boba had been too busy to head off-planet whenever the itch for a fight came up on him in search of a like-minded partner. He hadn’t dared to indulge himself like this when Jabba had ruled, not on Tatooine.
But Jabba was dead in the sands and Boba was here, alive, pitting his strength against Din’s, and Boba’s whole body sang with it.
If I can just pin him, Boba thought. Din put either a boot or a knee into Boba’s ribs, winning a hiss of pain. Boba couldn’t tell which it was, not like this, and Boba decided to put a stop to that before Din could try and kick him away again. He hooked a hand underneath one of Din’s knees and pulled, getting the limb out of his way. Din struggled to free himself, but he couldn’t break Boba’s grip.
Got him, Boba thought. He looked down at Din and saw that Din’s pretty blush had faded.
“So,” Boba said, missing it already, panting a little now, exertion burning in his arm, his chest. Din tried to wrench away again and nearly managed it. “About Ubardian oil wrestling.”
Boba changed his grip. He leaned down over Din, close enough that Boba heard Din’s breath catch in his throat, that he saw the hunger in his eyes, sweet as summer rain even as Din bared his teeth and kept trying to pull himself free. Boba shifted his hand, moving from Din’s knee to his thigh, feeling the strength gathered there, the tension, and Din stilled.
“You win a bout of Ubardian oil wrestling,” Boba said, watching Din swallow, his eyes wide, “by getting the best… grip on your opponent and forcing his belly towards the sky.”
Din understood all at once, that pretty flush coming back, his mouth parting in surprise. Din stared at Boba for a split second, tense as a terecon, and then he surrendered, the fight going out of him all at once.
This – the moment that Din stopped fighting so karking hard, that he gave in – was one of Boba’s favorites. He liked it almost as much as the fight itself, as much as he liked wielding the flogger while Din’s shoulders shook and flexed or the way Din liked to curl up against Boba afterwards.
Din dropped his head back, showing Boba the long line of his throat, and Boba couldn’t help but lean closer. The urge to press his mouth to the pulse fluttering there – to nip at Din’s jaw, even though Boba’d been the one to say that there would be no biting tonight – surged in Boba’s belly.
Then Din shifted again, and Boba too late realized that Din hadn’t actually said that he yielded. He’d only been playing at defeat, relaxing against Boba so that Boba dropped his guard, and Boba would’ve been impressed, almost, if he hadn’t seen Din rear his head back, the gleam of battle bright as a star in his eyes, and surge forward in a mirshmure’cya.
Really, Boba shouldn’t have been surprised. Any Mandalorian worth their besk knew how to make good use of a headbutt, and Din’d had a thin, silvery scar between his eyes for as long as Boba’d known him. Boba should have seen the attack coming.
As it was, he had a split second to jerk his head back, which he did, so Din didn’t break Boba’s nose. Instead he smashed his forehead as hard as he could against Boba’s chin.
The world went white, for just a moment. Pain burst behind Boba’s eyes and he bit off a shout, catching his tongue in the process. Boba tasted blood. His ears rang and he lost his grip on Din, flinching back reflexively.
Din Djarin, Boba thought, blinking white out of his eyes, blood running down his chin, has a hard karking head, doesn’t he?
Din didn’t immediately try to rush Boba, though, so Boba shifted further back, balancing on his heels, and shook his head again to clear it. When his vision came back he saw that Din had scrambled away, crouched down like a krayt in a canyon ready to strike. He was bleeding too, from a thin gash across his forehead, and blood trickled down the side of his face and gave Din a fearsome, wild look.
Din’s eyes were wild too. He was looking at Boba and his eyes flashed in the dark, bright as beskar. A strange feeling had lodged itself behind Boba’s ribs, stuck in his chest like a knife. Boba wanted to bare his teeth right back. He wanted to lick the blood off of Din’s face and cage Din's body against the pillar in the middle of Boba's room. He wanted to put a hand around Din's throat. A hand on his hip, on his belly.
“Alright,” Boba said, wiping his chin. He could feel a bruise forming there already, hot and throbbing in time with Boba’s heartbeat. “Fair enough,” he said, giving Din a little victory. Din’d earned it; it took gett’se to pull off a move like that, but Din hadn’t even hesitated. “I should’ve seen that one coming. Good hit.”
Din smiled. Not one of the quick, half-certain little smiles he’d given Boba before, not one of the amused glances Boba’d sometimes caught Din giving him out of the corner of his eye, but a real, true smile, wide and happy and bright.
Boba’s heart stumbled. He froze. That strange feeling in him shivered, and then like a night-blooming flower opened wide.
Oh, he thought, recognizing the strange feeling in his chest for what it was, no.
Notes:
Subtitle: Boba's "Oh. Oh." moment.
Mandalorians, man. Gotta love 'em.
Chapter 7: in which boba does not look a gift bantha in the mouth
Notes:
FINALLY, SOME NEW CONTENT!
set between chapters 16 and 17 ("tingaanur" and "pel") of a simple thing, for somebody on tumblr who asked specifically to see boba's thoughts during/after din kissed him for the first time. i cannot currently find that ask in my tumblr inbox, because my inbox is about nine months out of date, but it's okay, anon, i love you, thank you for your patience!
this snippet is probably rated e. content warnings in the end note.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba does not look a gift bantha in the mouth.
The first time that Din kissed Boba, Boba had blood in his mouth. Din had fought like a karking vine tiger as Boba’d borne him to the floor, snapping and snarling, kicking at Boba’s sore leg and smashing his forehead against Boba’s chin. Din fought dirty. For all that he looked like something out of one of the old folktales Jango’d whispered to Boba after he’d gotten well and truly lararyc on Kal Skirata’s tihaar, Din fought like a back-alley brawler. He fought like he’d come up in the fighting pits of Nar Shaddaa. He didn’t fight at all like a proper Mandalorian warrior.
Boba liked that about him. He liked the way that Din kissed him, too, quick and sweet, though the kiss itself caught Boba by surprise.
Boba’d decided, back when he’d been hammering out the rules of their little arrangement with Din, that he would let Din make the first move for anything beyond an evening with one of Boba’s floggers. Din was still pretty karking awful at articulating his wants or his needs to Boba without Boba dragging them out of him by the hair first, so Boba’d decided that he’d spare himself the second-guessing and self-doubt and just let Din come to Boba on his own, though Boba had assumed that Din admitting that he had wants and desires would take a few years.
Din had kissed Boba, though. He’d risen up off of the floor of his own accord, chased Boba’s mouth, and pressed his lips to Boba’s.
Din’s lips were soft, despite the way his patchy beard scraped against Boba’s chin. He tasted like beskar and blood too.
Boba, caught entirely by surprise, made a soft noise and forced himself to hold very, very still.
He had Din pinned to the floor. Din’s body was hot underneath Boba’s own, warm as a fire, and Boba’s hands spanned Din’s ribs on either side of his chest.
Boba held so still that Din pulled away. Boba stared at him, processing, and saw Din wince.
Kark, Boba thought.
“Sorry,” Din said.
Kark.
That was not at all what Boba wanted Din to think or feel.
Pull it together, Fett.
Boba’d kind of wanted to kiss Din for weeks. He’d held off, of course, because Boba was a professional, despite the fact that he and Din had become something like friends over the last several weeks, despite the fact that Boba’s heart had kicked against his ribs when Din had smiled at him across the aza’gad ring, blood running down his face, but he’d wanted to.
“You’ve never done that before,” Boba said, carefully.
Is it – is it just adrenaline? Boba wondered. He and Din had been fighting, after all. Their blood had been up. Fighting and fucking weren’t so far off from each other, especially not for someone like Din. Din was Mandalorian. A good spar and a good fuck were probably normal for him.
But Din had always been strangely shy, at least as long as Boba’d known him, and he was shy now, his confidence stuttering, his head ducking down to his chest like a torton seeking safety inside of its shell.
“No,” Din muttered. He tucked his face into the curve of Boba’s shoulder, which made something twist hard in Boba’s chest.
I’m going to kark this up if I’m not careful, Boba thought. But if Din had just kissed Boba out of adrenaline – out of proximity – if this wasn’t what Din wanted –
Stop, Fett, Boba told himself. Boba’d been surprised, but he could recover. He could handle this. A kiss from a handsome man – from a handsome man Boba’d been jacking off to in the ‘fresher, no less – was hardly a kiss from a rancor.
“Djar’ika,” Boba said, moving a hand from Din’s side to the back of his head. Din’d liked it so far when Boba’d run a hand through his hair, so Boba did that now, tugging gently at the curls at the back of Din’s head.
Din’s hair, like his mouth, was soft. Din, his face still tucked up against Boba’s shoulders, winced again.
He’s embarrassed.
Embarrassed was alright. Boba could work with that. Panic, however, was something he'd rather avoid. Boba wasn't sure that he could win another wrsteling match against Din tonight.
“Din,” Boba said, aiming for the calm sort of voice he used when talking Din down after a flogging, when soothing away Din’s hurts. “You don’t have to kiss me or anything, if you don’t want to. I – ”
Boba meant to say, “I’m a grown man, cyar’ika, and I was mostly kidding about the winner of our little match deciding what to do to the other one anyway,” but Din gathered some of his stubborn courage and said, “Wait.”
He peeled his face away from Boba’s shoulder and looked up at Boba, his cheeks stained with a faint blush but his eyes as sharp and intent as always. “Do you want to?”
… Kark, thought Boba, again. “Want to what?” he asked. There was more of an edge in his voice than he intended, but he just didn’t want to – didn’t want to break this, didn’t want to upset what it was that had been steadily growing between him and Din over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know what you want, Din,” Boba added. He’d gotten pretty good at reading Din’s face, his body, at guessing what it was that Din wanted, but for something like this, Boba didn’t want to guess. He wanted to be sure. He wanted –
“I,” Din started, then paused.
Oddly enough, that was more reassuring than Din saying right away that he wanted to kiss Boba. That he wanted more. Hesitation meant that Din was thinking, not just reacting.
Boba relaxed a little. He tugged at the curls on the back of Din’s head again, then set his hand back against Din’s flank.
“I’ve never – not with anyone,” Din tried to explain, looking up at Boba earnestly.
Boba stared again, surprised. Din’s – he’s never kissed anyone? Boba wondered. He’s never done – he’s never done anything like this?
Before he could work himself up over that, though, Din added, “Not like this. Not – ” he gestured at himself, at Boba, at the way they were laying on the floor. Boba relaxed again. He supposed that he could see that this sort of thing, dominance and submission, the way Boba wanted Din, wasn’t common among Mandalorians.
The wide-open, honest look on Din’s face made Boba groan. The kiss had been pretty chaste. Nothing more than a brush of their mouths together.
This, though –
This had arousal beginning to swell in Boba’s belly, hot as a fire. He almost leaned down and stole another kiss for himself – this one significantly less chaste – but refused to kiss Din without being asked. A kiss wasn’t a lick of the flogger or the bite of a cane. Wasn’t anything that Din had agreed to as of yet.
Boba looked down at Din.
“What do you want, Djar’ika?” Boba asked.
This time, there was no hesitation. “I want you to kiss me again,” Din said.
Getting Din to admit that he wanted anything had so far been a bit like pulling rotten teeth from a bantha, so Boba decided to reward Din immediately. He could admit to himself in the privacy of his own head that he liked to keep Din guessing, so instead of devouring Din immediately like he wanted to – instead of pining Din’s hips down, instead of biting, instead of getting his tongue between Din’s teeth – Boba stayed gentle.
He shifted, taking most of his own weight up on his elbows, and pressed his lips to the corner of Din’s mouth as sweetly as he could manage.
Sweetness didn’t come easy to Boba, but he could tell that Din liked it; Din softened underneath Boba, the tense lines of his body melting into the floor, and Boba felt Din’s pulse ease a little against his fingertips. They were touching at the hips and the chest and the belly, Boba settled quite contentedly between Din’s legs, and the closeness settled Din just as much as it made a krayt dragon stir in the depths of Boba’s belly, greedy desire raking like claws against Boba’s ribs.
Easy, Fett, Boba told himself, pulling back to check on Din. Din was looking up at Boba with wide eyes, the brown of them almost completely swallowed up by the black of his pupils. Din looked dazed. Drunk. There was a bruise forming on his forehead and his lips had parted a little, and he was looking up at Boba like he’d never seen Boba before.
Easy, Boba thought, but couldn’t help himself. He leaned down again and this time he kissed Din with his teeth. He caught Din’s bottom lip and nipped him just enough to draw a hiss of surprise. Din’s mouth parted wider, his pulse kicking against Boba’s fingertips, and Boba greedily pressed his advantage.
Din was a bit clumsy, as he let Boba lick over his bitten lip and into his mouth, their teeth knocking together, but he didn’t try to pull away or stiffen against Boba’s body.
If anything, Din relaxed even further. He let Boba deepen the kiss, surrendering to Boba entirely. He kissed Boba like he’d never been kissed before. Tentative and shy, a little, but eager. Responsive.
Someone’s had to’ve kissed him before, Boba thought, running his tongue over Din’s bitten lip again, gentle and conciliatory, and swallowing the little sigh that won him. He’s too –
Boba didn’t know what Din was, aside from here and in Boba’s hands, but he was certain that someone must’ve kissed Din like this before. Boba couldn’t imagine who wouldn’t want to. In his armor Din was strong and dangerous, confident. He must’ve had half the Nevarran Bounty Hunter’s Guild panting after him, and out of his armor, at least with Boba, Din was – cyar’yc. Sweet. Trusting.
I’ve wanted to kiss him since the first time he let me flog him, Boba thought, thrilled that he finally got to do what he wanted now.
Not everybody who wanted Boba to hit them also wanted to fuck him. Boba was fine with that – it wasn’t like he wanted to fuck everyone that he hit, either. Boba was more than happy to keep all of the separate little pleasures of his life separated out into tidy, neat boxes. That way he couldn't lose them all at once.
But Din –
There was something about Din that Boba couldn’t help but be drawn to, hadn’t been able to help being drawn to, and whatever strange and wonderful quality that it was that Din had had Boba now fully in its grip. Boba’d won the spar, had managed to pin Din to the floor, had managed to get him to yield, but Din had won something too.
My indulgence? Boba wondered, parting his own lips so that Din could tentatively kiss him back.
He couldn’t help but think of the way Din’d slammed his forehead against Boba’s chin, as they’d fought. The way Din had grinned at Boba with blood running down his face, wild and happy. Boba’s stomach lurched. Warmth filled him.
No, Boba thought. Not indulgence.
He wasn’t about to name it, though, the warmth, so he focused on kissing Din absolutely senseless instead. Din’d come to Boba tonight because he’d been overwhelmed. His thoughts had spun out of his control.
And I suggested a fight so that we’d both get to stop thinking, Boba thought. A good spar was a great way to shut out the noise in one’s head, Boba’d found; he’d been fighting his way out of thinking too hard for the better part of forty years. This – Din’s body against Boba’s, his skin warming all the way up, the sounds he made as Boba kissed him, the way Din’s fingers were twitching above his head like he wanted to reach out and touch Boba, but didn’t want to break the rules – could be like that.
I think we’ve both earned a night to ourselves.
With that goal in mind, Boba kissed Din until Din started to shift restlessly beneath him. Until Din was kissing him back just as avidly, his tongue chasing Boba’s, his heartbeat hammering against Boba’s hands.
There you are, Boba thought, spreading his hands out against Din’s ribs so that he could feel the way Din breathed, the way he trembled, the way his hips twitched against Boba’s, arousal beginning to burn through them both.
He could just keep kissing Din like this, languid and lazy until both of them were drowsy with it, but something in the way that Din leaned into Boba’s every touch told Boba that Din might be open to more than just kissing, tonight. More than just a good spar.
Boba had kind of wanted to drag Din into his bed since the whole mess on Morak. And Din –
“Alright, Djar’ika?” Boba asked, finally managing to tear himself away. He propped himself up on his elbows again, giving Din some space to breathe, though Din raised his head like he wanted to chase Boba anyway.
“Am I – yeah,” Din panted, his mouth red and bitten. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Boba tried not to preen too obviously. “Good,” he said. He was sure that he looked just as debauched as Din did, though Boba didn’t have any hair to muss or tug. Din was flushed across the bridge of his nose, down his throat. His collarbones were sharp and bitable. His chest, mostly unbruised aside from a great big handspan of blue and green that looked like it came from the business end of a gaderffii, heaved.
Easy, Fett, Boba reminded himself. It’d be easy to swallow Din whole. To take him right here on the floor, in the middle of their makeshift aza’gad ring. Din’d probably even like it. He’d only reached up to kiss Boba, after all, after Boba’d pinned him to the floor.
Din’d also had a panic attack – or something pretty like one – in Boba’s rooms less than half an hour ago. He was sweet and happy now, whatever demons he’d brought in from Mos Entha quieted by getting his shebs kicked, but it’d probably be easy enough for Din to tip back over into a panic, if Boba didn’t handle this carefully.
‘S a good thing that I get off on being the responsible one, Boba thought wryly. He resisted the urge to roll his hips against Din’s.
“Din, before anything else happens, I have to ask,” Boba started, intending just to check in with Din like he would during a scene, between the strikes of a flogger, but Din interrupted by pulling a terrible face, grimacing like Boba’d offended his mando’yc pride.
Boba narrowed his eyes. He was feeling indulgent – more than indulgent – but that didn’t mean that Din got to be a little mir’sheb.
Fortunately Din wasn’t a sheb’ika by nature. He caught Boba’s expression and sweetened back up immediately, like a massif puppy rolling over to show its belly.
“Sorry,” Din said, abashed. “It’s just – more talking?”
Boba rolled his eyes. He knew how Din felt about talking. Talking was important, though, so Boba pinched Din just underneath the bottom of his ribs, not hard enough to break skin or even to bruise but hard enough to get his point across. Din yelped.
“Manners,” Din wheezed. Boba let him go and rewarded him by smoothing his thumb over the patch of skin he’d just worried. Din was hot and flushed everywhere, now. His eyes were as bright as stars.
“I remember,” Din added. “Sorry.”
Hunger clawed at the bottom of Boba’s belly. He wanted to drop his head down to the junction of Din’s jaw and his throat and bite. He wanted to flip Din over and fuck him through the floor.
There’ll be time for that later, Boba thought. Hoped. But if he karked all of this up now –
‘Hmm,” Boba made himself say, wrestling with his desire. It was almost harder to pin down than Din had been, and Boba’s desire couldn’t actually punch him in the face. Din was still looking at Boba with his eyes gone black, his heartbeat still hammering against Boba’s hands.
Better not kark it all up, then.
“How far d’you want this to go, Djar’ika?” Boba asked, his voice hoarse. Boba would do whatever Din wanted, right now. He wondered if Din knew that.
“I – what do you mean?” Din asked, some clarity coming back into his face. He was just as hoarse as Boba though, which was a relief.
Din wants this as much as I do, Boba thought. He’d gotten pretty good at reading Din, these last few months. Not that Din was hard to read outside of his armor – Din was probably one of the most genuine beings that Boba’d ever met. There was no dishonesty in him. He couldn’t hide what he was thinking from Boba any more than he could hide his silver beskar.
Still, knowing that Din was just as affected by a little kissing, that he wanted Boba too, even if Din hadn’t figured out how to say that yet, soothed something in Boba’s chest.
That was dangerous, being soothed. Boba shouldn’t trust it. He shouldn’t. No one had ever wanted to get this close to Boba without some ulterior motive, some secret they carried in their hands like a knife, and Boba doubted that he’d gotten lucky now, after forty-some unlucky years, and had managed to find the one strange karking Mandalorian in the galaxy who wanted to be near Boba for his own merits.
Boba pushed those thoughts out of his head too. It didn’t matter what Din’s reasons for drawing so close were. Didn’t matter what he wanted, really, beyond that he wanted this. Boba might’ve been stupid enough to fall in love with Din – a realization he’d had about twenty minutes ago, when Din had slammed his head into Boba’s chin and then smiled at Boba after – but that didn’t have to mean anything beyond the pair of them indulging in each other’s bodies. Indulging in – in affection, in touch, in closeness, if nothing else.
Din blinked up at Boba for another moment, lips parted, and then he said, “Are you asking if I want you to – if I want – ”
Cyar’yc, Boba thought again. “If you want me to fuck you, Djar’ika,” he said, mostly just to see Din blush from the tip of his nose all the way down to his nipples.
Din didn’t disappoint. He made a sound like Boba’d started to sink his cock into him right then and there, punched-out, greedy. Boba couldn’t help but put a little more of his weight onto Din, craving his warmth, craving the feel of his skin. Din’s body was a lot like Boba’s. Solid with muscle, scarred by a lifetime of fighting, almost always hidden away underneath his armor, his clothing. Boba’d figured out the trick to manaigng his own skin-hunger years and years ago, starting in the Dragon’s Tail out in Mos Eisley, but Din was still getting used to being touched, and he shivered all over when Boba’s skin touched his.
Boba couldn’t resist. “‘Cause I’ve gotta say,” he added, “I like the idea of flogging you, of watching you take all of that hurt, watching you use it, and then fucking you after.”
He felt the arousal jolt through Din’s body, then, like Din had just been struck by lightning. Din’s whole body shuddered. His dick, which was pressed up against Boba’s hip, twitched and began to harden.
It was unfairly attractive. Din was unfairly attractive, really. If he hadn’t been so karking honest, so open, Boba might’ve thought that Din was some kind of nexu-paw, some kind of krayt bait, a sweet morsel laid out at the threshold of the palace to get past Boba’s defenses.
‘S not like I’ve always been discreet, with my preferences, Boba thought. He could be pretty discreet now, he thought – though Fennec tended to disagree – but as a very young hunter in Jabba’s court Boba’d partied too hard and too often, had taken too many sweet-faced men and women to his bed, to the Dragon’s Tail. Boba was sure that whichever Hutt had been targeting his operation could find out just what cranked Boba’s hydrospanner, if they dug deep enough.
Din was too loyal to be bought out by the Hutts, though, and if he’d really just wanted to get Boba into bed so that he could try and stick a knife in Boba’s belly while Boba’s guard was down, Din wouldn’t have had to work so karking hard.
No, Din’d only ended up here, underneath Boba, sweet and willing, because he’d fought like that vine tiger every step of the way.
Din had, so far, fought Boba on nearly everything that they’d done together. He was so avoidant of his own pleasure, of his own needs, that Boba was half-convinced that Din wasn’t a flesh-and-blood man at all but rather a collection of beskar and besk’haat, armor and promises, some old Mandalorian oath brought to life and set loose on the galaxy.
Only half-convinced, though, Boba thought. He could feel Din’s flesh and blood beneath his hands.
Din looked up at Boba, his expression hungry, but vulnerable too. Unsure.
That fragile expression didn’t do anything to dampen Boba’s arousal, unfortunately. Never really had. Boba liked that vulnerability too much. The urge to bend down and nip Din’s chin rose up again and was only pushed aside with great effort.
“You – you can’t say things like that,” Din said, voice breaking. He still had his hands crossed at the wrist above his head. Boba hadn’t been holding him there since they’d started kissing, but Din had kept his hands there because Din wanted desperately to be good, even when he fought Boba tooth and nail.
He wasn’t fighting now.
Boba waited to see if Din’d tell Boba what he wanted on his own, or if Boba would need to drag it from him. He didn’t mind doing that either, not really. Not if it was what Din needed.
But I can make this easy, too. It didn’t always have to be a fight.
“I don’t – not want to,” Din finally managed, his heart fighting like a startled bird against Boba’s hands. “But it’s just – ”
Ah, Boba thought, softening. Teasing Din was fun, up to a point, but he didn’t want to tease Din past what he could take. Not like this.
“It’s a lot to think about,” Boba agreed, rubbing soothing circles against Din’s flanks with his thumbs.
As always the touches settled Din again, soothed him. Some of the raw edges in his eyes faded.
Then Din’s head came up. “Wait,” he said. Boba lifted an eyebrow. “You said – you’re going to flog me?”
That, of course, was something Din’d agree to more readily than any kind of tenderness. Boba almost snorted, affection rising helpless behind his eyes, but he managed to stop himself.
“Well, yeah,” Boba said. “I am. Not as hard as we did the first time, maybe, but yeah.”
Boba hadn’t been sure that that was what Din had needed, when Din had been panicked at the edge of Boba’s room. Sometimes a flogging did help settle a man like Din, but sometimes all of that pain would only push a man past what he could take. Floggings weren’t easy to bear, not even for somebody who liked them. The instinct to get away from a hurt like that – to run, to fight – was coded in, even in someone like Boba, who’s genome’d had a bunch of slimy kaminii fingers in it.
Now, though –
Now the fight-or-flight’s been wrestled out of Din, Boba thought. Din had yielded. He had calmed. Now flogging him would just make both of them happy. Boba didn’t see any good reason to deny themselves.
This is Tatooine, he thought. Life’s karking short.
“And – and you want to – you want to fuck me after?” Din asked, voice ragged, tripping over his own words. His eyes had gone dark again. His pulse fluttered in his throat.
Boba couldn’t bite back a groan, then. He couldn’t help but mirror Din’s desire. “Yes,” Boba said. “Yes, if you’ll let me. If you want to. You can take the flogging.” Din, Boba was pretty sure, could always take the flogging, even if the flogging wasn’t what he needed. Din was atin’yc like that. “But sex – ”
Din tore his eyes away, staring up at the ceiling instead of Boba’s face. Boba almost reached up and took him by the chin. He almost made Din look.
But he didn’t move. He kept his hands plastered to Din’s sides, to his ribs, feeling every tick of his heart and every breath. He didn’t want to scare Din. Not like this. Not like this.
“Sex is different,” Boba said, just as ragged as Din. “It’s – ”
He couldn’t describe it. Not what it would mean to Boba. Not what it would be like tonight, like this, with both of them so flayed open. Boba’d won the wrestling match against Din, managed to pin him, but Din had gotten a few good hits in too. He’d disarmed Boba just as thoroughly.
Maybe this is a bad idea, Boba thought. Another night – another night might be better. Safer.
This is Tatooine, Boba thought again. We’re never safe.
“I won’t,” Boba still made himself say. He wanted to make sure Din at least knew that he had an out, if he needed one. “If you’re not ready, if you don’t want to. You don’t have to use your word to make me stop. But, Djar’ika,” Boba said. “If you want to – ”
Din made a soft sound. He was shivering, a fine tremor, and for a moment Boba thought that Din would say no, would pull away, and prepared himself to tuck his own disappoint back behind his chest where Din couldn’t see it, couldn’t touch it, and then Din tore his gaze off of the ceiling and looked Boba in the eyes again.
“I trust you,” Din said. It took every scrap of self-control that Boba had never learned, every drop of patience he’d gathered in the sarlacc’s belly, to keep from dropping his mouth down over Din’s again and kissing Din senseless. Boba managed it, of course, because his control, like Din’s honesty, was beskar, but he came as close to losing his self-control as he ever had.
“If you – I don’t do this,” Din admitted. Boba couldn’t help but smile. That much was obvious and had been obvious from the start. Din had only ever accepted pleasure, accepted comfort, after he’d been hurt.
“But I trust you,” Din said. His voice was strong. “You won’t – harm me,” he said.
No, Boba thought. Never. Not if I can help it.
“And I have my word,” Din added. He was a quick learner, after all, and though he’d grimaced and growled about having to pick a safe word, he had remembered it. “If I need it.”
Boba’s desire came roaring back full-force. His belly was full of fire. He wanted to touch. He wanted to taste. He wanted –
“You have your word,” Boba agreed, and finally gave in to everything that it was he desired.
Notes:
Content warnings: Makin' out, kink (kind of) negotiation, mention of flogging, caning, other BDSM acts, dominance/submission, et cetera. A little bit of light grinding. Boba makes Din ask to be fucked, but not as a power play, more as a "hey I would LOVE to do this with you but I'm trying not to freak you out" kind of thing.
Notes:
-Boba, 17 chapters in: “Wow I’m in love with him.” This is why the whole fic was from Din’s point of view, lmao. Boba is only subtle and sometimes inscrutable to Din because Din’s an emotionally-stunted ex-cultist. To everyone else, Boba is transparently enamored with Din.-”Just what cranked Boba’s hydrospanner” is a fun little callback to one of my favorite Boba moments in all of a simple thing, during chapter 11, when he sees that Din is monstrously uncomfortable with his own feelings and decides to make a bunch of dick jokes about it. He’s an awful man. I love him.
-Boba kind of needs to be needed, at least in the ast ‘verse. In that respect Din’s like, #tailormade for him. Domming isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing for everyone who has dominant urges or acts as a dominant in a scene, but for Boba in particular, he gets as much out of providing for his subs, in any context, as he does out of taking control or delivering pain. This is part of why he’s so militant about aftercare.
Some Mando’a:
-Besk’haat: Lit. “iron truth,” colloquially “promise, oath, vow.” It is bananas to me that we don’t have a canon mando’a word for a promise/vow/oath, because Mandalorians LOVE swearing them.
Kaminii: Kaminoan.
Lararyc: “Drunk, sloshed,” lit. “carousing.”
Tihaar: A clear Mandalorian liquor. I personally headcanon the Fett family’s recipe as, like, basically mezcal, but feel free to imagine any sort of clear, strong alcohol.
Chapter 8: in which boba fett gets what he wants.
Notes:
On the fourth (even later) day of fic-mas, iridan wrote some fic:
a smut chapter!
Somebody on tumblr asked me a million years ago for some Boba POV from any of the "good, good smutty bits" of ast. I no longer have that ask or remember who asked it, but I did have the request saved on my Boba POV spreadsheet, so. Merry Christmas, random citizen.
Set during Chapter 17, "pel," in which Din and Boba have sex for the first time. Specifically set after Din and Boba's spar, after a small flogging session and during a handjo that Boba gives Din because Din is a little too nervous for penetrative sex.
Obviously this chapter is explicit. See end note for content warnings.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba fett gets what he wants.
Boba’s problem had always been greed. He was a hungry man. Always had been. Somewhere, back in the dimmest hallways of his memory, the ones that smelled like bacta and salt, sterile but still, somehow, alive, Boba thought that he remembered being content. Full. Satisfied.
But those old memories were tricky ones, faulty, like the wiring in an old ship; Boba had a good memory, could usually trust it, but sometimes looking too closely at those very oldest memories made them spit sparks or short out, so it was best to leave them alone.
Easy to be hungry, Boba thought, desire yawning wide in his gut, when a starving man stumbles on a feast.
Din, not quite pinned underneath Boba’s weight but close enough that they were touching, heat against heat, bacta tingling where Boba’d carefully worked it into the welts and bruises rising on Din’s back, shifted a little.
He’d already given Boba plenty tonight. A good fight, a good flogging. Boba didn’t need anything else, no matter how welcome a good fuck would be. But even with the sounds Din had made still ringing in Boba’s ears – the way he’d laughed, dodging Boba’s punches in the ring – the low thrum of Boba’s flogger moving – Din’s bitten-off cries, low and sweet – Boba wanted more.
What other noises could I get him to make? Boba couldn’t help but wonder. He’d wrung a few new noises out of Din already tonight. He was in the process of learning what kind of bitten-off noises Din made when he was trying not to come too early right now, actually, working his hand over Din’s cock, smoothing a thumb over the head of it to watch Din jolt with sensitivity.
Could I get him to make proper ones? To stop hiding?
Din made another half-swallowed little moan, his hips twitching like he wanted to buck.
Boba smiled, pleased. He was hard too, had been for a while – since he’d slammed Din against the floor, honestly, since he’d brought the flogger down against Din’s back, since he’d smoothed bacta into those bruises and settled over Din in the bed – and the steady build of want was good, like a flame that was climbing higher and higher, brightening as it went.
“There,” Boba said, solicitous, as Din wriggled beneath him, chewing his lip to keep from crying out. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Boba’d already almost forgotten about what he was half-scolding Din about. “You’re allowed to enjoy this, cyare. Some might argue that that’s the whole point.”
Oh, yeah, Boba thought, flicking his wrist, wringing another half-moan out of Din, the sound as sweet as music. Din’s giving himself – and me – a hard time about admitting that he likes this. That it’s good.
If Boba hadn’t been in the middle of working Din up towards an orgasm, he might’ve rolled his eyes.
Stubborn, he thought. Really, Boba’d think that Din would be tired of fighting, after everything that had happened tonight, but Boba was starting to think that Din would never be tired of fighting. He was inexhaustible, especially when it came to denying himself things.
He wasn’t denying Boba, though. Well, he was denying Boba the full sound of a proper moan, of a cry of pleasure, but that was something that Boba thought that he could remedy.
He’s had enough of a warm up, I think, Boba decided, checking down at Din’s expression. Din’s eyes had gone a bit hazy with pleasure and he was looking up at Boba like he’d never quite seen Boba before. Open and soft and hungry too, wanting.
Boba grinned.
Yeah, he’s ready, Boba thought. He let go of Din for a moment.
“Stay here,” he said, confident that he’d be obeyed, and heaved himself out of the circle of Din’s thighs for a moment, just long enough to root around for a bottle of oil.
Leaving Din, even for less than a minute, was difficult. Boba wanted to be on top of him, inside of him. Boba wanted to pull Din into his arms and onto his cock and –
Slow down, Fett, Boba told himself, reining in his appetite. There’d be time for all of that later. For now –
Aha, he thought, finally securing a little bottle of oil, and then Boba returned to Din, who obediently opened his legs again to let Boba settle between them. Fond affection tugged at the bottom of Boba’s ribs.
Boba slathered his hand with oil, making a proper mess – though, between the bacta on Din’s back and the precome that had already dripped on the sheets, Boba’s bed was already a lost cause for the night – and soothed a hand down Din’s flank, checking in again.
Din looked – good. Debauched. A little nervous, apprehension tight around the corners of his eyes, but good. When Boba touched him again, on the side first, settling a palm against the bottom of Din’s ribs, Din relaxed.
“You’re doing well,” Boba added, because Din opened up to praise like a night-blooming flower opened up to the moons, and Boba didn’t mind stacking the deck in his favor, getting Din to settle. “You’ll like this,” Boba said.
Din eyed him, unaccountably wary, but gave Boba a bare little nod, which was all the permission that Boba needed to start touching Din again.
Boba contented himself with a few minutes of exploration. Din’s cock plumped back up after just a little attention, hot and slick. The muscles in Din’s belly, in his hips, twitched and flexed. Din bit back another moan, shifting restlessly against Boba’s sheets.
Boba grinned down at him. “See?” he said. “I told you you’d like it.”
That won him a huff, disbelieving, which wasn’t quite the sound Boba’d been hoping for, but then that was Din; he seemed to like surprising Boba, and Boba liked being surprised.
Still, Boba wanted something different, so he gave Din’s cock another stroke or two to keep him squirming, pupils dilated with arousal, before slipping his hand lower and exploring other parts of Din’s body too.
Running a fingernail against the soft underside of Din’s balls made Din twitch like an eopie about to kick, so Boba caught him by the hip to keep him pinned firmly to the bed and kept going, sliding a thumb down behind Din’s balls to spread some oil between his legs.
Boba watched Din’s face. Din had said that he’d had sex before, but if he hadn’t been touched in a year before he’d come to Boba on Tatooine, Boba was assuming that it had been at least that long since Din’d done something like this.
Well, he thought, putting just a little bit of pressure against Din’s asshole, watching Din go tense and wild, eyes snapping to Boba’s face, I don’t think he’s ever done anything like this.
In somebody else, maybe the tension that had come over Din would be arousing. Boba was aroused, couldn’t hide it and didn’t want to, his dick bobbing hard against his belly. On somebody else, Boba’d enjoy pushing through the tension.
With Din, though –
With Din, Boba didn’t care much for the hint of wildness around Din’s eyes. The look that told Boba that Din would let Boba push through, that he’d let Boba do whatever Boba wanted, even though Din was afraid.
A little nervousness is fine, Boba thought. But fear –
“Still nervous, are we?” Boba asked, softly. He kept his hand where it was, to see if Din would get used to the touch there, to the pressure, if he’d master whatever he was wrestling with in his head on his own, or if he needed something else.
Din didn’t say anything. His jaw worked. His flanks shivered. Boba added a little more pressure, just to see, and on either side of Boba’s hips Din’s thighs tensed. A sort of wild animal look flickered across his eyes.
Boba let up on the pressure immediately.
I don’t want him to be afraid, he thought.
“Nervous. That’s alright,” Boba said, taking that kind of sex off of the table. That was alright – Boba knew half a hundred ways to get Din off. “Maybe next time, yeah?” he said, encouraging. “We’ll start slow.”
“You don’t need to – need to coddle me,” Din grumbled, that argument they’d had a few weeks ago echoing in the space between them. He shifted a little beneath Boba, but Boba couldn’t tell if Din was trying to get closer or to move away.
Din doesn’t like to feel like he’s weak, Boba remembered, brow furrowing a little. But – he’s not weak, and he knows that. Me looking after him – me taking things slow – isn’t treating him like he’s weak, it’s just being responsible, especially since he’s so new to all of this and I’m not.
“Maybe not,” Boba said, watching Din’s expression closely, trying to see how he was really feeling. If this was just some apprehension, Boba could handle that. But if it was genuine fear –
“But I can if I want to,” Boba added. Coddle Din, he meant. “I won the spar, remember?”
Din’s whole body shivered, even though his expression twisted and he said, harshly, “Are we still on that?”
Boba leaned back a little, thinking hard.
It’s not – it’s not really fear, I don’t think, he decided. Din was nervous, tense, but he wasn’t stiff and he wasn’t trying to get away. His eyes weren’t darting around the room, looking for exits. Din was focused and present. He was keenly paying attention to Boba. He was just –
Shy, Boba thought again.
“If that helps you get your head around this, then yeah,” Boba said. “Sure. We can be on that, if you want. Will that help?”
If remembering that Boba’d won the spar, and therefore got to do what he wanted with Din, helped Din come around to the idea of taking things slow – of being cared for –
Din bared his teeth a little, made fierce by discomfort. “What will help,” he said, “is if you moved.”
Boba narrowed his eyes. “That’s not what I asked you, Djarin,” he said. Nervousness – nervousness was fine. Discomfort was fine. Kark, even fear was fine. Being a shabuir, however, wasn’t.
“We have a rule about you watching your manners, don’t we?” said Boba, pointed and sharp. He was feeling indulgent, but that didn’t mean he was going to let Din use his discomfort to be rude.
“We do,” said Din, wincing a bit. “I’m sorry.”
“I can put all sorts of things in your mouth, Djar’ika, y’know,” Boba pointed out. “ I only need my hands right now, after all. Is that what you need? Something to keep your mouth occupied, so that you can stay out of trouble? So you can follow the rules?”
Boba’d meant a gag. Something for Din to chew on or fight against, maybe, if he needed that kind of thing to help him get through whatever barrier he had about things like this. Din, though, blushed all over, going red from the tip of his nose all the way down his chest, and it was cute enough that Boba couldn’t resist taking things just a little farther.
“Ah,” he said. Din’s heartbeat skittered against Boba’s hand where it was pressed against Din’s side. “I’m gonna guess you’ve never had a cock in your mouth, huh?”
One of these days Boba was going to say something like that – something silly and outrageous, designed entirely to embarrass Din – and Din was going to catch fire, like the hara’alli spirits that the Tuskens said dwelled deep in the desert.
Today, though, Din only flushed deeper, entirely mortified, and managed to stutter out a shocked, “N-no.”
“Pity,” Boba teased, just a little, not entirely able to stop himself. It was just – Din made such faces, whenever Boba said something like that. Scandalized, like an old jida out in the desert, hearing a youngster swear for the first time.
Din finally managed to scowl, getting over his mortification enough to be prickly about being teased.
“Alright, alright, back to my question,” said Boba, trying not to laugh. “Would it help you to have something in your mouth?”
Almost immediately, Din shook his head, his eyes going wide and a little wild. He didn’t say anything, but then Boba supposed that he didn’t need to – Din’s answer had been clear enough.
“Fair enough,” Boba soothed, rubbing his thumb comfortingly over Din’s ribs. The frantic edge around the corners of Din’s eyes faded. He thought for a second, then settled on another approach.
“Would it help to think of this as my reward?” Boba asked, remembering how Din had been beneath him in the aza’gad ring, the tension in him, the way that tension had melted away as soon as Din had realized that he was well and truly caught.
That I’d won, and he had no choice but to give in, Boba thought.
Boba could work with that.
“Take a second,” Boba added, wrangling his own arousal under control. He was hard enough to hammer beskar, or felt like it anyway. Boba’s belly ached. Din was right there, warm and alive, sweet and a little scared, and Boba wanted –
Boba held off. He didn’t lean down to touch Din again and he didn’t kiss him. He didn’t do anything but breathe, and wait, and think. Patience, he reminded himself. Din wasn’t used to this kind of thing, and rushing him might cause him more harm than good. A little patience would make sure that it was good.
Finally Din said, “Yes. Yeah. It’d – it’d help.”
“ Very good,” Boba praised, his voice a deep note of desire, and settled himself more comfortably between Din’s spread thighs. That had been hard for Din to admit, so Boba had no problem praising him for it.
Din was paying more attention to Boba’s face than anything else, eyes wide and dark, and a thousand things flickered across his expression. Boba tried to catch them all, determined not to kark this up. He saw nervousness, yes, but anticipation, too, and hunger, and trust.
Din trusts me, Boba thought. He saw trust and no fear.
Boba skimmed a hand down Din’s flank again, brushing the crease of his hip. The remaining sliver of brown in Din’s dark eyes disappeared entirely, swallowed up by his pupils.
Alright, then, Boba thought, an echoing desire surging up in his own belly. That’s what he wants. I can do that.
“This is what I won,” Boba rumbled. Din’s breath caught. His dick twitched. His lips parted, sweet and surprised, and Boba –
Well. Boba’d gone hungry too often to ignore a good meal when it was laid out in front of him, and he had won this, hadn’t he? That had been the agreement they’d made, when they’d started their little spar. Whoever won the spar won whatever they wanted, and Boba had won, and Boba wanted this.
He wanted this. Din laid out beneath him, a little afraid but trusting, willing to see what Boba could offer him. Din’s surrender.
“Keep still, sweetheart,” Boba said, his heart rate picking up in anticipation. Boba was hard enough that it wouldn’t take much, he thought, to tip over, but he knew that he could still make it good for Din first. “Just for a little longer, alright?”
“What,” Din began to ask, though he obediently held still, his thighs on either side of Boba’s hips, his hands curled tight into Boba’s sheets.
Boba raised an eyebrow, silent. Din swallowed, his pulse fluttering in his throat, but obeyed again, falling quiet.
Boba rewarded him immediately. He curled his own hand around Din’s erection, angling his hips so that he could get his cock in his fist, too. Din made a choked-off sound, high and moaning, and Boba himself groaned lowly.
Yeah, he thought, his cock twitching against Din’s, just holding them both there for a moment, wet and messy, oil trickling down to where Boba’s hips were pressed flush against Din’s, before Boba started to move his hand.
Din whined. The sound thrilled through Boba like a slug of tihaar, sweet but with an edge, and Boba decided that if he didn’t hear that sound again he’d burst, so he tightened his grip, almost to the point of pain, and moved his hand again.
This, Boba thought, dizzy with desire, his attention fixed on Din like an akk hound on its quarry, ears pricked for every sound, isn’t gonna take long at all.
It didn’t. Boba moved his hand, the glide of it made nearly frictionless by the oil, and Din’s whole body shuddered, once, twice, and then he bit off a sweet cry and came first, his cock twitching against Boba’s. Din’s eyes were closed, lashes fluttering. He chewed on the corner of one lip. Boba drank in every detail, committing it to memory, and only had to work his hand up and down another time or two to follow Din off the edge and into his own orgasm. Come spilled over his hand and splattered against Din’s belly. Din made another sound, thin, and curled his hands tightly into Boba’s sheets.
Boba braced his hands on either side of Din’s flanks and breathed, heart hammering, electricity flickering up and down his gut.
“ Ori’jate,” Boba said again, panting, because it was true; Din had done exactly what Boba’d wanted.
Din didn’t react, this time. Boba wondered if Din could hear him. Sometimes Boba’s partners got like that, after they’d come; their bodies got too busy sorting through everything else that noise became meaningless, nonsense.
Boba didn’t mind. Still holding himself up so that he didn’t smother Din entirely, Boba leaned in and nudged his forehead against Din’s.
“ Ori’jate,” he murmured, against the ridge of Din’s cheekbone.
Din was trembling faintly, his forehead pressed against Boba’s. Din’s forehead was faintly sticky, sweat and scrapes and bacta. Boba was half-tempted to collapse on top of him, to pin him still beneath Boba’s weight, to see if that would help with the shivering, but he didn’t think things were that bad, yet. Din had had a good time; he wasn’t panicking. He was just – gripped by sensations, if Boba’d had to guess, and his body was trying to sort through them.
Boba could feel Din breathing. He wasn’t gasping or stuttering, and his heartbeat was coming down to a slower, steadier pace against Boba’s fingers. Din was alright. A little overwhelmed, maybe, but that was kind of the point, and Boba had him now, so Din would keep being alright. Boba purposefully slowed his own breath down, deep and even, and was pleased when Din matched him automatically.
Having another person’s forehead pressed hard against his own was – nice. Boba didn’t do things like this, usually. No one else he passed time with would understand the significance.
Din, though, did; he knew what a mirshmure’cya was, and even though this was much gentler than the headbutt he’d given Boba earlier – Boba’s face still hurt, even with all of the endorphins buzzing through him – it was no less intimate.
Odd, Boba thought, breathing for just a little bit longer, as the tremors he could feel against his hands began to slow, sweat cooling between Din and Boba both, that this feels like the most intimate thing we’ve done tonight.
Boba’s come was still cooling on Din’s belly. Boba wanted to laugh. Pressing their foreheads together, sharing breath – that wasn’t that intimate, not compared to the bruises Boba’d put in Din’s back. Compared to the oil-slick heat of Din’s dick in his hand.
Still, though, Boba thought, fond. He was still braced up on his elbows, covering Din while he came down, guarding him from – well, from whatever it was that made Din so nervous, sktitish as a falthier and twice as likely to kick – but Boba wasn’t twenty any more, and bracing himself like this was starting to make his shoulders ache.
Boba carefully broke their – it wasn’t quite a mirshmure’cya, not really, there was no violence behind it, but Boba didn’t know enough mando’a to name it anything else – and rolled off of Din, hiking his knee up to he didn’t whack Din with it as he tipped to the side and collapsed, groaning faintly in satisfaction.
Din didn’t even stir.
Poor son of a strill’s tired, Boba thought, allowing himself to be affectionate in the quiet of his own head. Din had had a day. There was no harm in that, surely. What Boba’d felt in the sparring ring – that feeling like a flower in his chest, opening its petals beneath the light of the moons, silver and strange – that was something to worry about tomorrow.
He should be. He’s had a long day, I think. Whatever’d happened to Din out in Mos Entha was hopefully put to rest, for now. That wild, desperate look in Din’s eyes was gone, replaced by a hazy contentment that had Bboa resisting the urge to puff out his chest like a preening junda bird.
Din turned those hazy eyes to follow Boba, wrung-out but happy, and Boba suppressed a smile.
Good, he thought. This helped.
Boba wanted to throw an arm across Din’s middle and pull him close. Din’d liked that, before; the first time Boba’d flogged him, Din had nearly fallen asleep mashed against Boba’s side even though they’d both been sitting upright. Kark, the first time Boba’d touched Din like this at all, in the kitchen beneath the palace, his hand around Din’s throat, Din had slept after. He seemed to like touching Boba and being touched, even though he never asked for it. It soothed him.
Boba was willing to soothe Din.
Before I do that, though, he thought, eyeing the mess he’d made of Din’s belly, I’m gonna have to upset him, first. He’s not gonna want to move.
That was alright. Boba could do the moving for him. Din blinked again, some clarity returning to his gaze, even though the edges of his expression were still round and bleary with exhaustion. He looked like a drowsy anooba.
Cute, Boba thought.
The Mandalorian word for that was ‘copikla.’ Boba was half-tempted to call Din that, mostly just to see what he’d do, but held off for now. Teasing – teasing had its place. What Din needed now was steadiness and comfort, was to feel safe enough to fall asleep.
Still, Boba couldn’t help himself, just a little. He propped his head up on his hand and raised an eyebrow at Din. “If I ask you how you’re feeling,” he asked, teasing, “are you gonna try to break my nose again?”
Notes:
Content warnings: Sex! Boba gives Din a handjob. Reference to oral sex. Din is uncomfortable for much of this experience because he's not got a lot of experience, and Boba makes some assumptions about what Din is and is not comfortable with. They're in an established BDSM relationship at this point and Din has a safe word.
Chapter notes:
-I have not written smut in like. Two years. Feels weird. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but IMO you do forget any non-cringe synonyms for "dick."
-Boba is probably the only person in the galaxy rn who thinks that Din is sweet, but he is 110% convinced and will not be persuaded otherwise.
-I think writers putting bits and pieces of themselves into the characters that they write is pretty common. AST!Din, for example, got so much of me that I think I should be paying his therapy bills. Boba gets a little bit of my bad habit of going “hmm that’s a problem for future Hal,” as a treat.
Chapter 9: in which a conversation has more edges than usual.
Notes:
I'm trying to remember how many Boba POVs I will actually end up posting and it's very nebulous, so here's a bit set during Chapter 19, "pirun," for an anon on tumblr, who wanted to see any Boba POV that I had set down in Boba's little mini-oasis!
Happy Tuesday!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which a conversation has more edges than usual.
Din took to the bath like a karking colo claw fish took to a pond full of minnows. He teased Boba a little about the extravagance of building a bath like this first, of course – apparently, Din’s people didn’t believe in indulgences, but Boba’d learned a bit about Din’s people these last few weeks, and he’d decided that he didn’t particularly care what they thought anyway.
Life in the desert is hard, Boba thought, surrounded on all sides by warm water. This bath – a pool, really, a little oasis that Boba had carved carefully out of the depths of the palace, once he’d managed to get rid of the scum and sludge that Jabba had left behind – was fed by the palace’s aquifer, the water clear and clean. It was naturally cold, like most of the oases that dotted the Great Dune Sea, but Jabba’d been a creature of expensive tastes and he hadn’t thought twice about installing temperature controls beneath the pool to warm the water to his liking.
Boba hadn’t liked Jabba much, but as he swam deeper into the pool, warm water lapping at his sides, he couldn’t help but agree with the old worm, just a little.
Life in the desert is hard, Boba thought. There’s no reason to make it any harder by denying myself a little bit of pleasure. A little bit of comfort.
Cleaning the artificial oasis up had taken some time. Jabba’d done his best to make it a perfect replica of a weekoona, a Nal Hutta wallow. The smell, after said weekoona had been locked up and left alone in the five or six years between Jabba’s death and Bib Fortuna’s, had nearly knocked Boba back on his shebs, the first time he’d opened the door.
Now, though, the pool was closer to what Boba could remember of a wahat, a Tusken oasis. He'd only ever been welcome at the one, the Spotted Anooba's oasis far out in the Great Dune Sea, but he'd spent enough time there remember the strange peace that had grown there, nourished by sunlight and water. Boba'd done his best to bring a shard or two of that peace here. Dappled light softened the edges of the room and Ushib had gifted Boba with long mashoo reeds and a few hardy tamur trees, tough thorntooths and even a long, trailing safi tree. Now the room smelled of clean water and growing plants, damp and earthen and safe.
Boba swam out into the middle of the pool, confident that Din would follow him. When he reached the center, Boba stopped swimming and stood, the water lapping against his chest. The bottom of the pool was textured, so Boba didn’t have to fight to stand. The warmth eased some of his old aches and pains, took pressure off of his sore knee; Din had tackled Boba pretty hard last night and while it hadn’t hurt at the time, adrenaline and the fierce joy of a good fight blocking out something as insignificant as a bruised knee, Boba was too old now to wake up the morning after a spar spry and free of pain.
Din kept swimming, circling Boba easily. He didn’t struggle in the water, which was a pleasant surprise – Boba hadn’t been sure if Din knew how to swim. Mandalorians in general didn’t have much use for it. Mandalore’s waters had been poisoned for a long time, and swimming in beskar was difficult at best.
But Din, always a surprise, could swim well enough to circle Boba, his shoulders working smoothly in the water. Boba was content to stay where he was and just watch Din. Watching Din had become something of a hobby of Boba's.
Another indulgence, Boba thought wryly.
Despite the flogging he’d taken last night – despite everything that Din had taken last night – Din moved easily. Out of his armor, Din was pale. He’d started to get a bit more color on his face and his neck, now that he went around the palace without his helmet sometimes, but the rest of him was usually hidden from the suns. He never left the tower that housed Boba’s rooms without his beskar’gam.
Like Boba, Din was mostly made up of scar tissue. None of Din’s scars were as extensive as Boba’s – Din, at least, had not ever had the bad karking luck to end up in a sarlacc’s mouth – but he still had more than a few. Some of them, like the shiny, pink weal of a blaster burn scored across one of Din’s biceps or the white, straight slash of a knife against Din’s ribs, were easy to identify. Others, like a tangled knot of scar tissue underneath Din’s right shoulder or the uneven web of raised skin on the outside of one of Din’s thighs, were harder to guess at.
For a man who’s always covered in armor, he’s also got a lot of ink, Boba thought. In addition to his warrior's scars, Din had all manner of proper, if faded, warrior's tattoos, most of them softened to a bluish color with time. Boba liked tracing them almost as much as he liked tracing Din’s scars. Din didn’t tolerate the contact well outside of a flogging but after a flogging he leaned into every touch, and he seemed to like the repetitive motion of Boba following each branch of the wroshyr tree tattooed around Din’s bicep or the bui’tsad symbols across his back.
“Where’d you learn how to swim?” Din asked, still cutting gracefully through the water. Ripples lapped at Boba’s belly, his chest, as warm as a hand. “Not here, probably.”
Boba smiled. Tuskens didn’t swim, even though most of them had at least on oasis on their tuskbal. Even tribes that had rivers moving beneath their sands stayed out of the water.
“No,” Boba said, weighing his answer in his head. He hadn’t brought Din down here with the intention of talking much.
It’s Din, though, he thought. Getting Din to talk about anything was a bit like trying to get a krayt dragon to give up its pearl. If he wanted to talk now, Boba could probably put up with a little discomfort. Maybe talking a little would put Din at ease, make him easier to persuade later. Boba’d come down here with a few ideas for how he’d like to spend the rest of the morning, but all of them were indulgent and Mandalorians like Din, as a general rule, treated indulgence like most other beings treated a live concussion grenade.
No, talking to Din here wasn’t going to hurt anything. It might even help deepen the trust between Din and Boba both.
Despite that, Boba hesitated. He’d learned to swim the same way he had learned most things – from his father. Boba never talked about his father, not if he could help it. Jango Fett occupied a peculiar place in Boba’s memory. Boba’d call it a scar, like the ones decorating Din’s back and sides, like the scars on Boba’s hands, the back of his neck, except scars were wounds that had healed, and what had happened to Jango never had.
It’s not like Djar’ika means any harm, though, thought Boba. Din was looking at him expectantly now, his face open and honest and utterly without malice. He didn’t know what he was doing, prodding at old, raw wounds. Din had trusted Boba with a lot, these last few days. He had followed Boba into the water. Boba could trust him with this. It’d only hurt a little. The wound was old enough.
“No,” Boba repeated, tucking his thoughts away in favor of watching the long lines of Din’s body. “Not here. I – the planet I grew up on was an ocean world. Kamino. Ever hear of it?”
Predictably, Din shook his head. He hadn’t slipped all the way under the water yet and Boba kind of wanted to reach out and dunk him, just to see what kind of face Din would make when he surfaced. He held off, for now.
I can always dunk him if this conversation gets too serious, Boba thought. He'd had a lot of success flustering Din before and could probably easily fluster him again. I brought him down here to have some fun, after all.
“The entire planet was water,” Boba said, reaching back through his memory for Kamino. His home world – in so much as he had one – was always there for him, easy to reach and touch and recall. Salt air, driving rain, the stark hallways of Tipoca City. A rumble at night that could have been Jango’s voice or a peal of far-off thunder.
“It – I didn’t learn how to swim in the ocean,” Boba continued. The water had always been too rough. Boba could count the number of calm, clear, sunny days he’d seen on Kamino on one hand.
Din didn’t interrupt. As always, his rapt attention – the way that Din looked at Boba, wholly focused, like Boba was a star that Din turned around – made it easier to talk to him than it should have been.
“There were too many storms,” Boba said. If he closed his eyes, he could still see them. Thick, heavy clouds and gashes of lightning. Rain drumming down on the walls like soldiers marching. “But my dad thought that I should learn, so I did. There were – training facilities there. Kamino trained soldiers. They could conjure up just about any environment that you could imagine. Dad taught me how to swim in a pool like this one.”
Boba gestured at the room around them. The mashoo reeds rustled, stirred by a current of air moving from one room to another. He could remember one of his father’s big hands pressed against Boba’s chest, then small and thin and unscarred. Jango’s voice as he held Boba’s head out of the water.
“He’d turn the bubbler on when I got bigger, so I could practice swimming against resistance.”
Swimming lessons in beskar’gam probably would’ve followed, if Jango had lived. He’d wanted to prepare Boba for anything. Being able to swim when most other beings had expected Boba to sink like a karking stone had been pretty useful, over the years. Jango’d been oddly prescient like that. He had known that the galaxy was not kind and had tried to anticipate anything and everything that Boba might have come up against.
Except for the sarlacc, Boba thought, pulling away from the wound in his heart that was his father. Nobody could prepare for the sarlacc.
“Oh,” Din said, floating now instead of actively swimming, bobbing just out of reach. The bruises from the flogger curled around his shoulders, his hips. Boba wanted to touch them. Press down on them. Watch Din's face as he took in more pain. “I think I learned how to swim on my home planet too. I remember… hands. My father’s hands, I think.”
A pang went through Boba’s ribs at that. Din’s voice was soft. He spent too much time underneath his helmet to hide what he was thinking or feeling, and Boba could track his memories as they flashed across his face.
His home world? Boba wondered, curious. He’d never asked Din where he’d come from. Boba had assumed that it had been Mandalore, or one of Mandalore’s outpost worlds. Concordia, maybe, or Kalevala, since Din had known Bo-Katan Kryze. But the expression on Din's face made Boba think that Din hadn't come out of the Mandalore sector at all.
An odd sense of kinship, of likeness, itched underneath Boba’s skin. He wasn’t sure he cared much for the feeling. Boba was used to being – singular. Genetically he was one of millions, but no one was really like Boba. Fennec was like enough that she and Boba understood each other without words, but Din –
He’s Mandalorian, Boba reminded himself, sternly. I’m not. We’re not – we might share some things in our pasts, but we’re not the same. Boba needed to remember that. He needed to remember that Din was his own man, that what he wanted and needed wasn’t the same thing that Boba wanted and needed.
We can help each other, but I need to remember that this – the closeness deepening between Boba and Din with every passing week, the affection that grew and grew in Boba’s chest, the way he’d felt looking at Din last night, after Din’d slammed his forehead into Boba’s chin, their blood mingling together – is an arrangement, for Din. He’s here to get what he needs. He’s not here to – to –
“Our village would flood during the rainy season,” Din continued, still swimming. Boba wrenched his thoughts away. Thinking about what Boba couldn’t have was likely to open another wound in his chest, and Boba had enough of those already. “When the rains passed, we’d swim out to the fields and look for anything that the rains had left behind.”
So he’s not from Concordia, then, Boba thought. That moon had been almost as barren as Mandalore. “Where are you from?” he asked, curiously.
Din shrugged. “I don’t remember,” he said, and Boba could see the honesty in his face. Din had just about as much guile as a baby tooka, which was to say that he had no guile in him at all. It was – refreshing. Charming, though Boba was still doing his best to avoid thinking about Din that way. Din wasn’t trying to be charming. He was just trying to be himself.
Don’t take more than you’re being offered, shabuir, Boba reminded himself. He had a responsibility to Din. Din was trusting him to uphold it. Had trusted Boba, with his vulnerability. With his pain.
“Somewhere in the Outer Rim, I think,” Din said. He shook his head a little and gestured at the water. “The older warriors kept teaching us kids how to swim whenever we lived somewhere that had enough water.”
Boba could understand that. Not every aliit had been welcome on Mandalore in its waning days, in the days of Satine Kryze, and fewer still had been welcome after Gar Saxon had sold the planet out to the Empire. Many clans had been forced into hiding.
Twenty years ago, when Boba’d been younger – angrier – he’d been almost pleased, about that. He’d never had anywhere safe to lay low for longer than a month or two, not after he’d left Kamino for good, not after Geonosis.
Why should any of the cowards who abandoned my dad get to be safe? he’d thought at the time.
Now, though, Boba looked at Din – at a Mandalorian – and wished that Din hadn’t been forced to leave his homeworld, wherever it had been. No kid deserved to grow up the way Boba and Din had grown up, always on the run. Never safe, alone even surrounded by other people.
Kark, Boba thought. Maybe I did go soft, in the sarlacc’s belly. Maybe the acid had eaten away more than Boba’s hair, than the skin across his shoulders, the backs of his hands.
“You live in a lot of places?” Boba asked, curious despite his better judgment to learn just how similar a childhood he and Din had had. Din had a lot of the skills that young drifters tended to pick up. He spoke several languages. He flew ships with ease. He ate quickly and always cleaned his plate. He was skittish, sometimes, and when Boba flogged Din out of his own head Din was skin-hungry and shy, uncertain, like he half-expected to be shoved away instead of pulled close.
“Yeah,” Din said, easily enough. He wasn’t shy or uncertain now, was comfortable in Boba’s presence, and Boba counted that as a victory. “Did you?”
He’d swum farther away than Boba wanted him to be. Boba pushed off of his feet and followed, parting the water easily. Din, sometimes just as playful as he was shy, didn’t move away.
“Yes,” Boba said honestly, after thinking about it for a moment. He’d lived across half of the karking galaxy, really; after Geonosis, the longest Boba had stayed in any one place had been the year or so he’d spent in prison.
“And no,” he added. “Mostly I lived on the ship, once I got it back.”
Hyperspace had been safer for Boba than Tatooine or Nar Shaddaa or Corellia. When he hadn’t been able to pass days in a hyperlane, sailing from one side of the galaxy to the other, Boba’d spent weeks anchored in asteroid belts, leaving only to earn enough credits for the next meal, for the next canister of hyperfuel.
Din bobbed a little closer, his expression thoughtful. He looked better, these days. When he’d first come back to Tatooine, Din – Djarin, then, an ally but nothing more – had been worn and haunted, his face thin and pale and creased with pain.
A few months of Ushib’s cooking had filled Din back out, and he was at least sleeping some. He’d slept in Boba’s bed last night, his body warm and familiar. Boba himself was a light sleeper, but he hadn’t felt Din so much as twitch in the night.
Din had even cut his hair at some point, the ends of it now damp and clinging to his neck. These days he looked less like a stray akk dog and more like a treasured massif, sleek and powerful and always ready for a hunt.
Looking at Din made affection bloom behind Boba’s ribcage. Affection was dangerous. Was too close to what Boba had felt for Din last night, looking at him across the makeshift sparring ring, too close to something that Boba didn’t have a name for, didn’t know what to do with, didn’t know how to use.
But Boba couldn’t quite manage to make himself crush that feeling of affection. Pulling away now, he thought, would hurt Din. Boba didn’t want to hurt him.
Din, catching Boba looking at him, blushed a little, color creeping down his neck, across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. Boba had traced that blush with his tongue last night. He wanted to chase it again.
“What?” Din asked, dipping his chin deeper into the water.
Boba smiled. “Nothing,” he said. As much fun as it would be be to reel Din in, to call him Djar’ika, to kiss him, Boba had come down here with an idea of how he wanted to spend his morning, and it was probably safer than letting himself entertain ideas of – of intimacy, maybe, with Din Djarin.
Affection was one thing. So was fondness. But anything deeper than that –
Anything more, Boba thought, is outside of what we agreed.
So Boba said, “Nothing,” and flicked a bit of water at Din to reassure him. The urge to dunk Din all the way in the water rose again. “I’m just thinking,” he said. The tips of Din’s ears, still above water, stayed stubbornly red.
Din had been willing to try just about everything that Boba had suggested, so far. Boba’d brought a few things down from his rooms. He’d had an idea last night, after the flogging, as he’d been soothing Din, carding his fingers through Din’s hair. As Din’s beard had scraped roughly against Boba’s face.
He’s been willing to try everything, even a flogger, Boba reasoned. He’d probably be willing to indulge me in this, too.
“I’ve got something I’d like to try, if you’re interested,” Boba said. He kept his tone light, trying not to spook Din while the other man was naked and slippery. This pool was a big one – if Din decided to be hard to catch, Boba would be after him for a while.
Din didn’t bolt, but he did narrow his eyes. “What is it?” he asked.
Boba grinned. He’d never guess. “Trust me,” he said. “You’ll enjoy it, I think.” So far Din had only enjoyed a bit of pampering – a bit of care – after Boba had literally beaten him into submission, but Boba held out hope that Din’s indulgence would extend even this far.
“You just need to wait here for a minute,” Boba added. He’d brought a shaving kit down with him, just in case. It wasn’t that Boba thought that Din needed a shave. That Boba had minded the rough texture of Din’s beard.
It is, Boba thought to himself, honestly, that I think he’d get off on being underneath a knife, if I was the one holding it, and I want to see if he trusts me that far. If he’ll surrender that far.
Din had been vulnerable to Boba before. He’d let Boba wrap a hand around his throat. He’d let Boba bring a flogger down across his back. Had let Boba kiss him, and touch him, and fuck him, and sleep beside him. But letting Boba hold a razor to his throat –
Boba’s heart sped up just thinking about it. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to know what Din looked like. He wanted to know what Din would let him do.
Din’s expression was wary, but Boba knew him well enough now to catch the glint of desire – of curiosity, which was just as dangerous as desire – in his eyes. Din lifted his chin out of the water, throat flexing, and said, “What is it?”
“Just trust me,” Boba said, still smiling. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise, and honestly he did like it when Din got a bit nervous beforehand. Those nerves made Din’s surrender, when it came, even sweeter. “You’ll enjoy it,” Boba said again, because Din would. So far Din had loved letting Boba have his way; he’d melted into it every time. “You just need to wait here for a minute.”
Din scowled a little, annoyed that Boba hadn’t answered his question, but even here he was willing to trust Boba. A thrill of pleasure, heady and dark and as smooth as papuur’gal, licked against the bottom of Boba’s ribs.
“Fine,” Din said, his curiosity winning against his caution. “I’ll just… float here, then.”
Positive reinforcement had so far been the trick with Din, disarming him just as effectively as a blaster bolt to the wrist, so Boba said, “Ori’jate,” and told Din to stay put in the middle of the pool while Boba himself swam back to the edge of it.
The water was still warm. In quieter times, Boba’d like to come down here and just float for a while, his eyes fixed on the pricks of light high above the pool. Maybe after they dealt with the Hutts he could come down here and float. It would be nice to relax.
He didn’t want to leave Din alone for too long. Boba rarely was apart from Din these days, just like he was rarely apart from Fennec, and if he was being honest with himself, Boba didn’t mind. It was good to have people that he could trust – that trusted him – close at hand.
He stepped out of the water when he reached the edge of the pool and quickly prepared what he would need. Boba – like Jango – was traditional. He didn’t use Kashyyyki clippers or depil cream to cut his hair or trim his beard and never had. He’d used a straight razor since he’d become a man and still used one, even though now, after his stay in a sarlacc’s belly, Boba didn’t have any hair on his head and could only grow his beard in patches.
Getting ready took only a minute, maybe too, and then Boba was back in the water. Anticipation made it easy to set some of Boba’s thoughts, some of his doubts, his wariness about letting Din get too close, about getting to close to him in return, aside.
Boba swam back to Din, who was now floating on his back in the warm water, moving just enough to stay afloat. His belly and chest didn’t have as many bruises as his back did. Near his hips he still carried faint, crescent nail-marks, where Boba had taken him by the hips. A bruise spanned part of Din’s side where Boba’d crashed into him while they had wrestled. But that was it.
Boba wanted to leave Din with a few more bruises. Wanted to run his tongue over a silvery scar at the bottom of Din’s ribcage, to press a kiss to the pulse Boba could see jumping in Din’s throat, wanted more.
I’ll start small, he thought, almost near enough again to touch Din.
Din, sensing that Boba was near again, righted himself, turning to face Boba. His expression was open and relaxed, trusting; some of the stress Din had carried with him over the last few weeks – kark, last night, when he’d returned from Mos Entha without finding his kin – had been worn away.
Desire cooled in Boba’s belly. There was no reason to rush anything. Din didn’t need to be devoured right here, right now; Boba could take his time.
“Enjoying yourself?” Boba asked, crowding into Din’s space. Din righted himself, standing up again, water sloshing between their bodies, but didn’t pull away.
“It is nice,” Din admitted. He blinked at Boba, his expression still open. If they’d been up in Boba’s rooms, Boba might have called him cyar’yc. Sweet. At their closeness Din’s expression faltered, some of that shyness or that wariness kicking in, but Boba didn’t want Din to pull away and reached out to stop him. He took Din by the chin, loose enough that Din could pull away, if he wanted to, but tight enough that Boba could feel Din’s pulse leap against his thumb.
He kept that thumb against the corner of Din’s jaw, his palm against Din’s chin, and tucked his fingers against Din’s throat. Din’s beard tickled Boba’s skin. Like Boba, Din had bare patches here and there, skin smooth where no hair had grown, but unlike Boba, Din’s face was mostly free of scars. The only one he had was that line between his eyes, only really visible up close.
Din had split his face open against another Mandalorian’s helmet, he’d said. A mirshmure’cya. A brain-kiss.
Warmth lit up Boba’s belly. He told himself that it was just the water.
“What are you doing?” Din asked, though he didn’t fight Boba’s hand.
Boba smiled at him. “I’m thinking,” he said. He tilted Din’s face to the side, still gentle enough, and Din let him. Din’s wet curls clung to his cheeks, to the nape of his neck, to his forehead, and his skin was warm and damp.
“About?” Din asked. Boba felt his pulse pick up, hammering harder against Boba’s thumb.
Din and Boba had promised each other honesty, when they were together like this. Boba knew that they’d blurred some of the lines between them, had started to spend perhaps too much time in each other’s company, had started to fail to keep their arrangement separate from their feelings, from their lives, from their business together, but here in this warm pool, fed by fresh water, decorated with rare plants, a testament to Jabba’s indulgences and to Boba’s too, since he’d restored the karking thing, Boba couldn’t bring himself to care much about how bad of an idea this all could turn out to be. How close he’d let Din get. The knife that Boba had put in Din’s hands and aimed at Boba’s belly.
Life, he thought, in the desert is hard. There’s no reason to make it any harder by denying myself a little bit of pleasure.
Boba told Din the truth. “I think,” he said, looking Din in the eye, “that I want to kiss you.”
Notes:
-Me, heaping this with Boba angst: “Delicious. Finally, some good fucking food.”
-Y’all, I don’t know why my brain Jaime/Brienne’d ast ‘verse Boba/Din, but it did and I can’t shake it. Yes Boba WOULD jump in, weaponless, to save Din from a bear if he had to.
-Not to be all “a softer world” literally, like, seven years after it finished, but Din has big “I think I’ve got fireflies where my caution should be” vibes.
-All of the plants that Boba mentions are proxies for desert-dwelling trees. I've mostly based Tatooine's ecology on the greater Arabian Peninsula ecoregion, with pinches of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and Gissaro-Alai open woodlands.
-I change my mind about what tattoos Din has literally all of the time, but he definitely has them!
Some words:
Aliit: “Clan, tribe.”
Bui’tsad: “Family, lineage, bloodline.” Taldin is also used to refer to a bloodline, with the implication that bui’tsad is a bit old-fashioned or outdated. For Din’s lineage tattoos, I’m imagining a lot of symbols and sigils and shapes, kind of like heraldry.
Cyar’yc: “Sweet,” adjective form.
Mirshmure’cya: “Headbutt,” literally “brain-kiss.”
Papuur’gal: Mandalorian wine.
Shabuir: Asshole, motherfucker, etc. An insult.
Chapter 10: in which boba has a bone to pick
Notes:
hey y'all good news i'm pretty sure that this is the last boba pov that i'd posted on tumblr and not here, which means that next time i post an update for this silly thing it will be brand new content, shock, awe, et cetera.
for poibynt on tumblr, who asked what boba thought of din's creed and/or tribe. this is less about boba's thoughts re: din's creed and more about boba's BOILING dislike of paz. set after chapter 22 of a simple thing, after din and boba have collected paz, strill, jaig and the kids from arkanis but before din and boba have the whole dar'manda bomb dropped on them.
cw for mandalorians being mandalorians at each other, which means that they're all awful to each other a not-insignificant amount of time.
ast!boba and ast!paz were. not ever gonna be friends.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba has a bone to pick.
There wasn’t much honor in kicking a man with a broken leg. There wasn’t any honor at all in kicking a man half-dead with fever. If Boba really thought about it, there wasn’t any honor in tackling a – a good friend’s beloved brother, either. Din hadn’t said much at all about his brother, this half-dead Vizsla, but it was plain to see that Din loved him.
But, thought Boba Fett, holding onto the thin and fraying threads of his temper with both hands, no one’s ever accused me of being honorable, have they?
Paz Vizla leaned heavily against the big verd’ika and stared at Boba, swaying dangerously on his feet. He was covered buc’ye to boot in beskar, but Boba could tell that it took all of Vizsla’s strength to keep standing.
It wouldn’t be hard to take him. It wouldn’t be hard to take the verd’ike either, though they were both in better shape than Vizsla. Jaig, the big one, had handled himself well on Arkanis and Strill’d had enough mandokar to come to the palace alone and ask for Din’s help. They were tough kids.
But they’re kids.
They were inexperienced. Jaig was a bit in awe of Boba and Strill’d go to protect the kids, not Vizsla. They might put up a bit of a fight, if Boba went for Vizsla’s murderous karking throat, but Boba –
I could take them, Boba thought, his field of vision narrowing. Fury, hot and wild, boiled inside him like a belly full of acid. It gnawed at Boba.
I could take all of them.
These Mandalorians – or at least Paz Vizsla – were Din’s family. His aliit. Din had called Vizsla his brother.
And Vizsla, very clearly, had just said that he was going to kill Din.
If Boba had been in a more rational mood, he would’ve been able to let the threat slide without wanting to pull out Vizsla’s throat with his bare hands.
Probably, Boba thought, wrestling with the rage boiling behind his ribs. A bigger revelation – a deeper anger – hung threateningly just out of reach. Boba could almost touch it. He had most of the pieces. If he put them together –
“What,” said Boba, slowly, staring hard at Vizsla, “did you just say?”
The pieces that Boba held were as sharp as knives. He didn’t want to think about it. About any of it. Boba’s day had started so well. He’d woken up with Din’s face mashed into the crook of Boba’s shoulder. They’d jostled for space and then fucked in the ‘fresher. It had been – good. As good as anything Boba’d ever thought to expect, for himself.
The pieces available to Boba now – several hours, a few arguments and an extremely unpleasant conversation about just what branch of mando’ade had sprouted Din – didn’t fit together in a pretty, neat holopuzzle.
Din’s Death Watch, Boba thought, still staring hard at Vizsla. Din’s admission on the ship had punched Boba in the throat. Or – something that grew out of Death Watch. There was a Tusken story about something like that. A krayt dragon shedding his scales as he flew over the desert, each one burrowing into the sand like a seed. Everything that had grown from the krayt dragon’s scales had grown with teeth.
Din had teeth, and Din was avoiding his brother. He hadn’t said anything about it to Boba, but on the shaky flight back from Arkanis Din had gone to talk to Vizsla, and when he’d come back something in him had changed.
Boba’d still been trying to sort through the revelation that Din was Death Watch, but he wasn’t stupid. Vizsla’d been happy to see Din, on Arkanis. Relieved. The little verd’ika, Strill, had sought Din out specifically. She had needed his help. Vizsla had needed Din’s help.
But sometime between climbing back aboard Strill’s battered old ship and landing on Tatooine, something on the Huntress had gone wrong. Din’d gone to talk to Vizsla and then he’d come back, and when he’d come back, he’d been like a ghost. A ghul, a desert spirit, stripped of something bright and vital.
Boba didn’t know what Vizsla had done to hurt Din like that, but he could guess at the shape of it. Boba didn’t know Vizsla personally – not this Vizsla, at least – but he knew enough of Death Watch to know that it was Vizsla who’d hurt Din, not the other way around. Din, after all, had saved Vizsla’s life.
Mandalorians, Boba thought, curling his lip behind his helmet.
He supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised, not really. This Vizsla was like the others. Like Tor Vizsla, who had ruined Boba’s father’s life. Like Pre Vizsla, who’d sold his own people out to Darth karking Maul in the middle of the Clone Wars.
Boba didn’t know what it was, exactly, about most Mandalorians and their willingness to chew up and spit out the best of them, and he knew that Din was among the best of them, because Boba knew Din. Din had thrown himself wholeheartedly behind Boba. Din was fierce and stubborn and surprisingly sweet. He cheated during wrestling matches and spat blood at Boba’s feet, but blushed whenever Boba called him pretty and leaned into every gentle touch like each was the first kind hand Din had ever felt.
And here, Boba thought, is Din’s brother.
Boba – well. He wasn’t ready yet to name what it was that he felt towards Din. The thing that was growing, carefully sheltered, underneath Boba’s ribcage. Behind his armor. It wasn’t something Boba’d ever expected to feel. All his life his armor had been too tight around his chest. Boba had guarded his heart very carefully.
But Din –
Din has armor, too, Boba thought. He wears his just like I wear mine. He knows where all of my armor’s weaknesses are.
If Boba hadn’t been so angry – so confused, because Din was Death Watch, but how could he be Death Watch when Boba thought that he loved him? – Boba might’ve been wry or fond. Now, though, with what Din had said on Strill’s dus’gora ship rattling around inside Boba’s bucket, Boba was just bewildered.
He didn’t like being bewildered. Anger was better. Anger was cleaner. Easier. Boba could do something about his anger, usually.
I don’t want to be angry at Din, Boba thought. Anger uprooted things. Tore at them, like a sandstorm lashing a sapling cedru tree. Being angry at Din, scouring that fragile thing that was growing in Boba’s chest, something he’d rather shelter than uproot –
No, I don’t want to be angry at Din.
Fortunately, a better target stood right in front of him.
Vizsla didn’t answer Boba right away. He was swaying on his feet, still, like he’d had too much drink over a hand of cards, and he was moving his head from side to side like he couldn’t quite manage to focus on Boba.
Boba didn’t care.
“What,” he repeated, in a low, fierce voice, “did you just karking say?”
Boba’s tone finally caught the attention of the verd’ike. Strill threw a hand out, keeping the three younger kids behind her, and Jaig took a half-step back away from Boba, pulling Vizsla with him.
But Boba had caught Vizsla’s attention, too.
Vizsla’s focus sharpened. He was injured, near-dead, but he wasn’t so badly hurt that he was deaf and blind to a threat in front of him.
Good , thought Boba, darkly. That means that I don’t have to be the honorable one. He curled his hands into fists, and realized that his fingers were trembling with fury.
Vizsla shook his head slowly, swinging his helmet around like a bladeback preparing to charge. “I said,” Vizsla rumbled, his voice rasping and slow, “that I have to kill him, now. For – for his honor. For all of us”
Neither Vizsla nor Boba needed Vizsla to clarify who he was talking about.
Din, Boba thought. He’s talking about Din.
Din was a stubborn, prickly little vornskr, but he knew the law of the desert. In their tribes and war bands, one Tusken protected another. There were no exceptions; a tribe at each other’s throats was a tribe that would die in a raid or against a krayt dragon, a tribe that would starve to death or die of thirst.
Din loved his brother, but he’d understand, probably, if Boba killed Vizsla and told Din it was because Vizsla’d gone mad. Vizsla had threatened Din. He’d even done it in front of witnesses. Boba’d be within his rights, to kill him; Vizsla had threaned Boba’s clan.
“Right,” Boba said, taking a step forward, and he would have put Paz Vizsla on the ground then and there, if it hadn’t been for the verd'ike .
Notes:
no notes, only vibes. posting this revision puts me officially over the 50,000 word mark for nano 2023, so that's nice.
happy turkey day to all who participate!
Chapter 11: in which a lazy morning is had.
Notes:
coming out of my cave, i’ve been doing not fine, gotta gotta post this before i forget about it!
to all 155 of you who are subscribed to this fic who saw a notification and went "!!!! new content!!!" i'm sorry. this snippet has been on my tumblr for like, six months and is in no way shape or form new. i'm just finally punting it over here as part of my "cross revisions off your to-do list or ELSE" challenge.
happy monday. here's some bobadin shower sex.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which a lazy morning is had.
Boba’s ‘fresher was probably too small for this sort of thing, but Boba didn’t care. Din didn’t care much either, if the tiny sound that he made – a huff of breath, warm against the shell of Boba’s ear – was any indication.
Greed climbed lazily up Boba’s spine and made him dig his fingers into Din’s thighs, made him set his mouth against Din’s neck and roll his hips. That wrung another noise out of Din, this one a little louder, and Boba made a pleased noise of his own against Din’s throat.
He wanted more of those sounds. There wasn’t enough room in Boba’s cramped sonic for him to lay Din out like he'd prefer. Boba wasn’t a small man and neither was Din. Boba banged his knee on the sonic’s door. Din grazed his elbow on the sandstone wall behind them. Neither of them had enough room to turn around. But there was enough room for Boba to press Din back against the sandstone, crowding in close, and Din was happy to let Boba manhandle him.
Idly, Boba wondered what Din’d be like a few days after a flogging. If he’d still be this sweet, this open, this easy to coax into pleasure. Most of the time Din was pricklier than a bladeback, reluctant to let himself enjoy much of anything, let alone anything like this, but today –
Today Din let Boba press him against the wall of his sonic despite all of the work that awaited them in the throne room below and threw a long leg over Boba’s hip when Boba prompted him to. They’d started kissing back in bed and hadn’t really stopped even as they’d stumbled across the room and into the ‘fresher. Boba hadn’t even stopped now; Din’s head was tilted back, his shoulders pressed to the wall, but Boba’d kept on trailing kisses from the corner of Din’s mouth down his jaw, his neck, had nipped Din’s collarbone and laved his tongue against the hollow of Din’s throat.
Din seemed to like the biting kisses the best. Boba rolled his hips again, friction sparking between him and Din. In this position Boba was really only dragging his cock against Din’s, but the pressure was more than good enough to keep them both moving. Din shifted in Boba’s grip and rolled his hips to match Boba’s pace.
“Cyar’yc,” Boba murmured, salt stinging across his tongue.
Din huffed. Boba had Din by the thighs, supporting most of Din’s weight. Din still had a foot braced on the floor, but Boba’d take all of his weight if Din wanted him to. Boba wondered, less idly this time, if Din was still loose enough to take Boba without much preparation.
“I’m not sweet,” Din grumbled. Boba had him by the thighs but Din had Boba by the arms. His grip was strong. His thumbs would leave bruises.
Good, thought Boba, that greed rising in his belly again. ‘S only fair, after all.
Din wasn’t carrying too many of Boba’s bruises today. Boba closed his teeth over Din’s collarbone to remedy that, and that finally won him a full-throated moan. Din’s grip tightened. His dick was hard, trapped between his belly and Boba’s. Boba thought about letting go of Din’s thigh so he could wrap a hand around them both, but couldn’t quite bring himself to change his grip.
“Sure you are,” Boba murmured back, laving his tongue over the red bite that was blooming on top of Din’s collar bone. “Like this, you’re plenty sweet.”
Boba shifted, his own cock slipping between Din’s thighs, and groaned with satisfaction when another roll of his hips dragged the head of his cock against the soft skin of Din’s inner thigh.
“You’re just about the only person who thinks that,” Din said, his voice tight with strain. With pleasure.
If he can still talk, I’m not working hard enough, Boba thought. He shifted again, using his grip to spread Din’s thighs wider, settling himself inside the space he’d made. Like this Din’s balance wobbled dangerously, Din hissing as he had to arch his foot, but Boba didn’t relent. He took more of Din’s weight, using each shift to peel more control of the situation away from Din.
“That’s alright,” Boba said, rocking his hips again. Pleasure sparkled low in his gut. He liked that no one else knew Din well enough to know how sweet he could be, once he was given the right motivation. That no one else, apparently, had ever been allowed to see Din like this. “I’m used to being right.”
Din snorted, probably about to make some mir’sheb remark, then yelped when Boba bit him again, this time at the corner of Din’s jaw.
“Manners,” Boba rumbled, after he'd held Din between his teeth for a moment, Din's pulse thundering underneath his tongue, more amused than anything else.
It was surprisingly easy to be with Din, like this. The teasing, the huffs of laughter, the build and build of pleasure. It might have even been too easy. Too much of what Boba wanted. He had always been greedy – for credits, for infamy, for control – and he’d seen what greed could do. What it had done.
But Boba couldn’t convince himself to let Din go. If anything he pressed closer, skin to skin, touching Din everywhere that he could. Satisfaction rumbled like a content krayt dragon in his chest.
“Manners,” Din agreed. The gust of his breath over Boba’s ear made chillbumps pebble down Boba’s neck and shoulders. White sparks flickered up and down Boba’s spine. The sonic washed over them both.
“You want it like this, Djar’ika?” Boba asked. He could get them off, like this. Lazy and indulgent and slow. So far Din had responded best to pleasure that mixed in a little pain, but he was responding beautifully to Boba now. Boba thrust again and felt Din’s cock jump where it was trapped between their bodies.
Din’s fingers tightened on Boba’s arms. His nails pricked against Boba’s skin, little starbursts of hurt that Boba savored. Boba’d always liked a little pain with his pleasure too.
“Whatever you want,” Din said. He didn’t let go of Boba’s arms. “Whatever you want.”
Pleasure kicked Boba in the chest like a runaway ronto. “Ori’jate,” Boba said, voice ragged. He managed to make himself let go of one of Din’s thighs to wrap a hand around Din’s dick, tugging roughly. Boba’s palm was dry, the glide of his hand unsteady, smoothed only by the fluid beading up from the tip of Din’s cock, but the punched-out, shocked noise Din made told Boba that Din didn’t mind. Din’s pulse thundering wildly against Boba’s mouth. “Ori’jate, Djar’ika, that’s it, just like that.”
The praise seemed to flay Din like another stroke of the flogger. He shuddered, clutching Boba’s arms, and titled his head back to let Boba press another biting kiss to the long line of his throat.
Boba kept up his pace, pleasure sparkling in the base of his spine. He flicked his thumb over the head of Din’s cock and Din choked on a whine, the sound high and thready.
“Boba,” Din said, clutching at him. “I’m – ”
“Go on,” Boba encouraged. He flicked his wrist, only a little cruel, and the sharp tug had Din spilling over Boba’s knuckles with a choked cry. All of the muscles in Din’s belly, in his chest, in his shoulders and his arms and his thighs, which were tight around Boba’s hips, tensed at once.
“Ori’jate,” Boba said, savoring Din’s cry as it echoed all around them. Boba thrust his hips again, and again, and again, and on the fourth thrust he came too, groaning into Din’s neck and bracing a hand against the sonic’s wall to hold himself upright.
He kept the other hand on Din’s thigh, kept his hips angled so that Din wouldn’t fall. For several seconds neither of them said anything. Din’s breath came in shallow pants. His pulse still hammered in his throat. The salt of his skin stung Boba’s lips. Din wasn’t trembling, not like he did after a scene, skin-hungry and dazed, but he was nearly boneless against Boba’s body, loose and relaxed, utterly sure that Boba would keep holding him up until Din could get his legs back underneath himself.
Boba recovered first. He eased his grip on Din’s thigh and helped Din upright, a hand on Din’s hip while Din steadied himself. The sonic pulsed, washing away most of the mess that they’d made.
Din braced himself against the wall and looked at Boba. His expression was – something else. Fond, Boba thought. Grateful. Content.
Boba stepped away and let Din stand on his own.
“Good?” Boba asked, looking Din up and down. Red fingerprint bruises bloomed on the insides of Din’s thighs. His chest was flushed. His eyes were warm.
“Good,” Din said. “You?”
“Good,” said Boba, offering Din a smile. Boba was going to have fingerprint bruises of his own and wanted to examine them more closely, to watch them flush from red to blue and green, but he wanted to do that alone, without Din watching him. He knew that sometimes Din was the same – Din preferred to study his own marks in private.
But Din was looking at the marks he’d left on Boba too. The imprint of his thumb. Boba’s mouth, which was swollen from kissing.
“Still think I’m sweet?” Din asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Boba chuckled. “Cyar’yc,” he said, in mando’a, so Din could learn the word. “And yeah, a bit. Now come here. You’ve got sweat and bacta in your hair, and if you leave it like underneath your bucket that you’re going to look like a drowned womp rat before the day’s out.”
Din smiled. “Alright,” he said, and obeyed.
Notes:
Content warnings: shower sex. Biting. Din's got a praise kink.
For an anon on tumblr, who asked for a Boba POV of ~some spice.
None of the notes I had attached to this snippet told me when exactly this scene is supposed to take place, but it’s probably set between the raid on the palace and Boba and Din’s “wait you’re not Mandalorian” falling out. It’s fine. Sometimes having sex in a shower doesn’t have to be anchored in a larger narrative and can just be sex in a shower.
Chapter 12: in which boba really hates those fucking pants.
Notes:
/sneaks in, drops POV, sneaks away
I got a lot of writing/revision of some of these Boba POVs done during NaNo, and I'm on vacation for a while so let's see what I can get up here on AO3, eh?
This snippet is set during Chapter 35, "grati'e," and is for queenjules907 on tumblr, who asked to see what Boba was thinking while Din and Fennec were off playing super spy in Mos Eisley during Chapters 35/36.
Mostly: Boba's grouchy, and he doesn't even know about the Jedi yet.
Content warnings: Boba v Mandalorian ideology, a little bit. Description of injury. Boba's temper, which has always been impressive.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba really hates those fucking pants.
Boba had, he reflected, staring at his master assassin and his – well, whatever Din was – been having a pretty decent day, all things considered.
Decent days were a rarity on Tatooine. Rarer still when one was, like Boba, trying to run something like a syndicate in Hutt territory without any Hutt permission. Most days Boba was up to his chin in bantha shit. Granted, nobody’d made Boba come back to Tatooine and drop a chair down where Jabba had once had a couch, but still.
Boba hadn’t even had to fend off any assassins today. The only fighting he’d done had been a brief scrap with Vizsla, and unlike dodging a knife in the dark or taking a concussion grenade to the chest, punching Vizsla had felt pretty good.
Kicking Vizsla out of his palace had felt pretty good, too. Boba’d sleep easier now that he knew Vizsla was half a day’s trip away in Mos Pelgo, away from Din. He’d barely forgiven Vizsla for wounding din with just word on the shuttle flight over from Arkanis, let alone for actually wounding Din here in the palace.
But the Mandalorians were gone and out of Boba’s territory. No one else had tried to assassinate Boba today, Gorga hadn’t sent any more mercs to knock down the front door and nobody’d even tried to cheat Boba during morning court.
It should have been a great day.
And then Tavva, one of Boba's palace guards, had come running in pale-faced and grim, nearly tripping over herself to tell Boba about an explosion and a firefight that had erupted in Mos Eisley.
At first Boba'd just been concerned, not afraid. Mos Eisley was, for better or worse, still Mos Eisley, and firefights broke out there all the time. Boba'd insisted on the city behaving with a little less lawlessness than Jabba ever had, but in the Gleaning, fights flared up three or four times a week.
Then Boba'd looked around to get Fennec's or Din's opinion on whatever was happening out in the city, realized that both of them were gone, and had gotten afraid. That fear had turned to terrified rage when he'd brought up Fennec's map, seaching for the little red dots that marked wherever Boba's right and left hands were, and hadn't been able to find either of them. Fennec's trackers weren't particularly high-tech, but they were biosensitive. If Din and Fennec's trackers were dark –
Kolburn Defthand, who was getting a raise after all of this, had commed in a few scant minutes later and confirmed that he and his crew had eyes on Fennec Shand, who'd evidently started a brawl in some tiny cantina out in the business district, and confirmed through her that Din was also alive. Both of them were alive. No one had managed to kill them. Boba'd let out an awful, tense breath.
And then he'd taken himself over to the bar, growling at the rest of his court to scatter for the evening, and waited. He hadn't had to wait too long, all things considered, but he'd waited long enough that his fear and his worry'd had plenty of time to shift over into bristling rage, because Din and Fennec hadn't been assigned out in the city tonight. They should have been here, in the palace, and that they hadn't been but had been together meant that they'd left on purpose, and hadn't told Boba.
Their trackers had gone dark. He'd thought, for at least a few minutes, that they had died.
When Din and Fennec stumbled back into the throne room, Boba couldn't help the way his shoulders dropped, just a little, in stark relief. Kolburn had said that both of them were alright, but hearing a report over a crackling comm wasn't the same as seeing them, and Boba could see them both now.
They both looked terrible, frankly. Boba wasn't sure that he cared much. Din came down the stairs first, Fennec following close behind, and paused when he saw Boba by the bar. Boba knocked back the mug of tihaar that he'd been nursing – just the one, because while he had wanted to blunt the edge of his anger, Boba hadn't wanted to overdo it in either direction – and stalked over towards Din.
“So,” Boba said, in a tone that was, in his opinion, much milder than either of the two reckless idiots in front of him deserved, “you’re both alive, then?”
Fennec’s expression was cool and calm, still, deep water. She was singed and sooty, but otherwise in one piece.
Din looked worse. His hair was matted and one of his cheeks had been torn, raked by something that had left bloody furrows from his cheekbone to his jaw. There was a bruise at his temple and another underneath one eye. Up close Boba could see that not only had Din left off his beskar, he hadn’t even bothered with katarn or a kute or anything like armor at all.
In fact, he was wearing ordinary clothes. Boba’d seen Din outside of his armor before, of course – he’d brought Din clothes to sleep in and lounge around the palace in, even – but he’d never seen Din dressed like this. In a loose shirt that had once been white, in a tattered spacer’s vest, in blue pants with a yellow stripe that looked, now that Boba could see them properly, almost obnoxiously familiar.
The ordinary clothes, the bloody furrows on Din’s face and the soot staining Din and Fennec both did not come together to form a pretty, neat little holopuzzle.
Boba narrowed his eyes.
Why does what Din’s wearing look familiar? Boba wondered. What did he need to go around looking like a spacer for?
Somebody – probably Fennec – had at least had the good sense to slap a bacta patch at Din’s temple, which meant that Din had taken another sharp blow to the head. Boba scowled. If Din was concussed again –
“Yes,” Din said, taking a step towards Boba. His expression was earnest, his face open and sincere.
Din was honest, usually. He had not, as far as Boba could tell, ever lied to Boba, at least not on purpose. That Din and his people were Death Watch – that had been a misunderstanding. Din hadn’t intentionally hid it from Boba.
But something about the way Din looked right now – something about the way he was standing there in dusty clothes, bloody but upright, hands spreading like he just wanted a moment to explain –
Boba’s eyes widened.
He knew why those pants looked familiar now.
Where did Din, Boba thought, so surprised that he forgot to be angry for just a second, find Han Solo’s karking clothes?
Solo hadn’t been around the palace in ten or twelve years. Some three or four years before Jabba’d sent Boba after Solo – after Boba had brought the shabuir back to the palace encased in carbonite, like a prized falthier pelt – Solo had kept a room somewhere in the palace, overeager as always for a share of Jabba’s work, Jabba’s profits, but Boba would’ve thought all of the old rooms long cleared-out and picked-over by now.
Solo’s gone, Boba thought. I don’t know where he is now and I don’t care. But how did Din get his clothes? Why?
Din took advantage of Boba’s momentary silence to look around, peering past Boba to catch sight of the state of the throne room behind him.
“We’re both – ” Din started, no doubt trying to placate Boba, “ – wait. What happened here?”
Fennec leaned around Din to see what he was talking about.
Boba knew what it looked like. Plasma didn’t leave just a scuff or a scratch that could be buffed out of the floor with a little armor polish, after all. He grimaced, unwilling to be shaken from his anger.
“Nothing,” Boba said. “Minor disagreement, that’s all. ‘S all fine now.”
Din just stared at Boba. Fennec whistled. “Noora’s gonna kill you,” she remarked. Boba rolled his eyes. Noora – well, she wouldn’t be happy, but she’d get over a little bit of melted stone.
Din, though, looked like Vizsla had punched him in the nose instead of trying to punch Boba’s.
Ah, he’s figured it out, then, Boba thought. He should’ve guessed that Din would put it together. He must not’ve been hit too hard – Din knew Vizsla, likely knew what kit Vizsla carried, and likely knew Vizsla’s temper, too. Even with bacta stuck to his forehead, Din was plenty sharp.
“Paz attacked you,” Din said, stricken, and the concern on his face managed to puncture a hole in Boba’s temper.
He doesn’t think that I’d start that fight, Boba realized. He knew, in his head, that Din trusted him. It was hard not to know that – Din had put his life in Boba’s hands time and time again now – but knowing it and hearing it, seeing the sincerity stamped across Din’s battered face –
I’m trying to be angry with you, Djarin, Boba wanted to say. You and Fennec scared the kark out of me. The least you could do is let me be angry with you.
But the bleak expression on Din’s face tugged at something soft in Boba’s chest, so he said, gruffly, “Don’t worry about it. It was a minor disagreement. A… misunderstanding.”
Din peered around Boba to study the slag of burned wood and stone behind the throne more closely. “That’s not very reassuring,” he said.
Boba sighed. Fennec was eyeing him too, though she was more subtle about her concern than Din was. Boba spread his hands, showing Din and Fennec both that he wasn’t hurt.
Really, Vizsla hadn’t managed to even dent Boba’s armor, though he could punch like a karking gundark. Boba’d seen the plasma cannon coming up and had ducked with plenty of time to spare, and Vizsla’d been easy enough to get onto his back. If either of the verd’ike had bothered to intervene Boba might’ve had a harder time managing Vizsla – Strill was a quick little warrior, and her brother Jaig was enormous – but they’d both stayed out of it, and Boba had been knocking Vizslas down for years.
“I’m fine,” Boba said. He wasn’t the one who had been, judging by the soot smeared on Din and Fennec both, uncomfortably close to whatever explosion had caught Kolburn’s attention. “It’s not even the first time I’ve had to duck a plasma cannon before, actually.”
That caught Fennec’s attention. “A plasma cannon? ” she hissed, like she had the right to be mad about the stupid ossik Boba had pulled today.
Din’d known what Vizlsa was armed with, though, and only lifted his chin, bracing himself for another blow. “And – and Paz?” he asked.
Boba huffed. “He’s still alive,” Boba said. Really, he would’ve been within his rights to kill Vizsla, following Mandalorian law – Vizsla’d thrown the first punch. That had rendered any agreement between Boba and Vizsla – any expectation of hospitality, though Boba'd only sheltered Vizsla because Din had asked him to – null and void.
But, thought Boba, with a sliver of something that he was refusing to acknowledge as guilt, I didn’t talk Vizsla out of throwing the first punch.
If anything Boba’d goaded him into it – Mandalorians, especially Vizslas, were proud, preening sons of strilli, easy to prod into violence. Boba had wanted to punch Vizsla for weeks. He’d only needed an excuse, and he'd only needed a few minutes to rile Vizsla up into giving him one.
“And only a little bruised, I think,” Boba added, trying to soothe that sliver of not-guilt in his chest.
Din’s shoulders dropped. “Thank you,” he said.
Boba grunted, irritated with Vizsla. With Din. With himself. “The verd’ike had things under control,” he grumbled. “That Strill…”
Oh, she’d let Boba tackle Vizsla to the ground – and had called Vizsla a karking idiot while Boba’d done it, too – but Boba knew her type. She wouldn’t’ve let Boba kill Vizsla. She probably wouldn’t have let Vizsla kill Boba, either.
Din’s throat worked for a moment, the edges of his jaw just as stained with soot and dust as the rest of him. “What was – why did Paz come at you at all?” Din asked. “He’s – I didn’t think that he wanted anything to do with you.”
Boba snorted. He didn’t want to talk about Vizsla. “He doesn’t,” Boba replied. “And I think he wants even less to do with me now that I’ve rung his bucket. Don’t worry about it, Djarin.”
“Don’t worry about it?” That got some traci’ka back in Din’s expression. “But – ”
“It’s a matter between verda,” Boba interrupted, before Din got mad enough to ask Boba directly what he and Vizsla’d been fighting about. Boba wasn’t – he wasn’t ashamed to have been fighting over Din, because Din had sided pretty firmly with Boba over these past few weeks and the least that Boba could do was guard Din’s back – his name – when Din needed him to, but Boba knew Din well enough now to know that Din would hear that Boba and Vizsla’d gotten into a scrap over Din’s loyalties and blame himself.
It wasn’t Din’s fault that Boba and Vizsla’d tried to tear each other’s heads off. It was Vizsla’s fault, for being a presumptuous karking sheb’urcyin, and it was Boba’s fault, for thinking that he and Vizsla could talk to each other without erupting into violence. Boba didn’t want to argue with Din about that.
And besides, Boba thought, reminding himself of what he was really trying to argue with Din about, even though we scrapped a little, Vizsla and I didn’t make the stupidest decisions here tonight.
He could see that dark space on Fennec's map in his mind's eye. “It’s settled,” Boba said, firmly. “And it’s not gonna happen again. Kasyyk returned from Mos Pelgo; Vanth’s willing to quarter your people, and your people are willing to be quartered somewhere quieter than here. Kasyyk took them off an hour ago.”
Din blinked, the spark in his eyes dimming a little. “They’re – they’ve left?”
Boba nodded.
“That’s good,” Din said. The fight went out of him all at once, Din’s shoulders slumping, the cuts on his cheek, the bruises on his face, stark even in the throne room’s dim light.
Anger – what little Boba’d manage to muster up in the last handful of seconds, anyway – slipped through Boba’s fingers like sand.
“You’re hurt,” Boba said, quietly.
He waited for Din to deny it. Din was the type to lose an arm at the elbow and claim it as a scratch. Even after Boba’d flogged Din out of his own body Din never admitted that he was in pain. He’d complain about accepting bacta even if his head was falling off.
Din hesitated, though, which made real, true concern flare behind Boba’s ribs, until Fennec intervened and said, quickly, “He’ll live.” She tore her attention off the mess Boba’d made of his throne room and met Boba’s eyes.
“I checked him over,” she added. “No one’s too badly hurt. Well, a few of our prisoners are – Djarin here’s pretty dangerous with that lightsaber – but we’re fine.”
She put enough emphasis on the word that Boba knew she was telling the truth. His people – Fennec, Din, the crews out working Mos Eisley tonight – were alright. Din had been forced to draw the darksaber – had been forced to fight – but Fennec thought that he'd live.
Then Boba caught the rest of what Fennec had said. “Prisoners?” he asked, baffled.
Just what kind of operation were they running?
Fortunately, Fennec caught the expression on his face and realized that Boba would, if he didn’t start getting answers, probably start shouting. Like a good soldier, she straightened her back, lifted her chin, and started to fill Boba in.
As he listened, Boba’s eyebrows climbed higher and higher up his forehead. The fury that had drained away when he'd realized that Din was hurt surged back in in fits and starts, mounting and building like steam in a sealed room. Surveillance, a cantina, a Hutt spy, an underground slaving ring. An explosion, because when Din was involved there always seemed to be an explosion, and then a karking firefight in the middle of the city.
“We managed to capture the ringleader,” Fennec continued, every word clipped and precise. “If the information Kolburn started pulling out of her den is right, she’s not only the ringleader of her little sorrowlanes operation, she’s the one who’s been reporting on us to Gorga, too, which should at least put his eyes out for a while.”
Boba bared his teeth.
Objectively – well.
Objectively, Fennec and Din had run a good op. Boba’d never call it tidy, because they had dragged in Kolburn and his whole unit, had spooked the spaceport crews and torn up a bit of Mos Eisley, but if this Zygerrian woman was Gorga the Hutt’s spy –
Subjectively, though, Boba was furious.
Din went into that cantina for surveillance, Boba thought, and somehow brought the whole karking place down around his ears – his unarmored ears – anyway. They were alone. They only went in with each other as back up. I didn’t know.
“Definitely seems worth the risk of going off on your own, then,” Boba said, showing teeth. Fennec winced, but kept her shoulders up. She’d have an argument as to why their idea had been a good one, Boba was sure. Why it had made sense to leave Boba here, to go off quietly, to slip past whatever eyes Gorga had on them and strike before a spy could notice and report that Boba’s master assassin and his tame Mandalorian were missing from the palace.
But they’d gone, and they had, from what Fennec wasn’t saying, nearly died.
I wasn’t there. I couldn’t protect them. They didn’t let me protect them.
Boba opened his mouth again, ready to spit some real venom, but Din, who had a habit of throwing himself on concussion grenades, cut in.
“It was my idea,” Din said. Boba’s eyes cut to him like a knife. He saw Din see that edge, but Din didn’t flinch.
“It was my idea,” he repeated, stubborn as always. “I got some intel from Siolo. From one of Gida’s friends. I thought – it was the only lead on Gorga’s spy that I had, so I thought I’d check it out.”
Boba could understand that. Din was a hunter. A predator. Predators were always seeking their prey.
But no vine tiger bites off his claws before he goes out on the hunt.
“Without your armor on?” Boba challenged, fingers itching. He wanted to – well.
What Boba wanted to do and what he was going to do were different things. He wasn’t a vine tiger, to snap and snarl and sink his claws into somebody just because Boba was angry. He held himself still through sheer force of will.
Dressed like Han Solo? Boba wanted to say. Like an idiot who only survived through luck?
Solo’d been quick on the draw, sure. Wily, anooba-clever, an admittedly good pilot. But even all of that anooba-cleverness hadn’t kept Solo out of a Hutt snare forever, and now the Hutts wanted Din, and Din –
“Why?” Boba asked.
Din’s expression flickered. For once Boba couldn’t read him. Usually Din was an unlocked datapad, but now there was something Boba couldn’t parse in his face. Confusion, determination, something rawer, something bloody and fresh –
“Ah, no,” said Fennec, gently elbowing Din out of the way. “You wanna have it out with Djarin later, Boba, that’s fine.”
Boba narrowed his eyes at her this time. Fennec knew enough about what Din and Boba were to each other – what they did together, in the privacy of Boba’s rooms – that she was usually very careful not to bring it up, aware that Din was shy, that Boba was jealous of Din’s privacy.
“But it was a good op, boss,” Fennec continued. “It worked. No one knows what Djarin looks like without his armor on. He was able to infiltrate a Hutt front. We bagged three prisoners.”
“Three?” Boba said. He heard the rebuke in Fennec’s tone. The warning.
Be careful with Djarin, she’d told Boba once, a few weeks ago, after Boba and Din had come back from Arkanis with Din’s battered clan in tow. Don’t hurt him, Boba. He deserves better than that.
She wasn’t saying that now, but she might as well have been. Boba tried not to bristle. He was – he didn’t need to be told to be careful with Din. Boba knew him better than Fennec did. Boba didn’t want to hurt him. Not in the way that Fennec was implying that Boba might.
“Kolburn said that he was bringing in four.”
“The Devaronian’s not actually involved,” Fennec said, waving a hand. “I’m just teaching him a lesson. We got the crew leader and two of her underlings.”
“While storming the business district?” Boba couldn’t help but growl, unwilling to back down.
“There were complications,” Fennec allowed. “I’ll have a full report for you tomorrow, boss. But it was a good job. As neat as anything is, these days. Neither of us died. Kolburn pitched in.”
Boba scowled. He heard the rebuke clearly now – too clearly to ignore, because men who ignored Fennec Shand’s warnings usually ended up dead – and understood why she was doing it, too, but there was still an awful, bristling energy in Boba’s hands. There was still something chewing at the bottom of his ribs. His temper was alive and writhing in his belly, and Boba had to wrestle with it for a moment.
“Don’t try to manage me, Shand,” Boba finally growled, once he could speak without snapping. “I’m not Jabba the Hutt.”
Fennec’s expression was as cold as a night in the high desert. “Don’t act like him, then,” she said. “This was a good op. You trust us, right? Our judgment?”
Boba had never gone under a flogger or a whip willingly. He’d never been able to trust someone like that, the way that Din trusted Boba. But if Boba had –
If he had, he thought that the only person he might have trusted like that was Fennec. She weilded her words just as sharply – as skillfully, and with as much ability to draw blood, and focus, and clarity – as Boba could wield a reed cane.
She cut him to the bone.
But she did it for a good reason.
Din was looking between Fennec and Boba with wide eyes. He’d be aware, Boba knew, that Boba hadn’t actually answered Fennec’s question yet. That Fennec had thrown it at Boba like a knife. A challenge.
You trust us, right?
“...Yes,” Boba said. The word hurt, was pulled out of him, stubborn, but it was true. Boba trusted Din and Fennec both. Maybe that was stupid, jare’la, because he was trying to run a syndicate and a syndicate boss couldn’t really trust anyone, but Boba did trust them. He couldn’t help it. Both of them had shown him such loyalty that the least he could do was return it.
“So accept the results of that judgment,” Fennec said. “Neither of us died, or even got that badly hurt.” Then, seeing that Boba’d calmed down some, she added, mischievous, “I know that you like Din’s face, Boba, but it will heal.”
“Hey!” Din cut in, reaching up to prod one of the scratches. “They’re – they’re not that bad.”
“Shand,” Boba said, putting his anger away with great effort. Fennec was right. He wasn’t Jabba the Hutt. He was – well, he was angry, but he wasn’t angry because Fennec and Din had gone off without his permission. He was angry because they could have been hurt. Because they’d taken a dangerous risk.
But they shouldn’t – they shouldn’t be afraid to take risks, Boba thought. That was what did for Jabba, in the end. All of us were too worried about what Jabba might do if we made him angry that we did our best to keep him from getting angry.
Fennec finally relented. The cold desert in her face eased. “You and Djarin wanna have it out on your own time,” she said, more gently, “you’ve got a private room.”
They did have that.
“But this room’s for business,” she continued, reminding Boba of the rules he’d agreed to with Din, the first time he had taken Din up to rooms and flogged him. Boba cared about Din, wanted him to be safe, wanted to tuck Din firmly against Boba’s side and keep him there forever, out of the line of fire, but that wasn’t what Din had agreed to.
Din’ll let me look after him upstairs, Boba thought. But down here – down here he’s beroya. I need to trust his judgement.
“So,” Fennec said. “On business: Djarin here has potentially identified Gorga’s accomplice. Even if Jaasa turns out not to be the Hutt contact down here, she’s a slaver with an active operation. Bringing her down will send a message to the rest of the skugs who think that they can worm their way around your edict. Sounds like a productive day to me.”
Boba said. Boba and Din were both massifs, keen to hang on to something for as long as they could, but Fennec was a shriek-hawk. Precise. She never missed her mark.
“Point taken,” Boba said.
“It was my idea,” Din cut in again, worry still etched around his eyes. “Fennec backed me up. We were – there was a bit of fighting, but he had it handled. And we’re both fine.”
“Like I said, you’ll get a full report tomorrow, boss.” Fennec rubbed her chin. “And some useful intel out of all of this too, I think. Djarin here’s quick on his feet. This was a good op. Djarin – I’d ride with you again. Okay?”
Din smiled at her, obviously pleased. Boba bit back another sigh.
“Now,” Fennec continued, “I would like a drink and a chance to look at some guard rotations, since I’ve been out all night. Djarin could use some proper medical care. I think he’s got bruised ribs.
That got Boba back out of his own head. He whipped around to glare at Din, who had said not half a minute ago that he was fine.
Din blanched. “My ribs aren’t – they’re definitely not broken, ” he said, talking fast. “I don’t think they’re bruised, either.”
Boba didn’t particularly care what Din thought. Din’d thought that walking around with a stab wound after Gorga’s raid on the palace had been a good idea.
“Come with me,” Boba instructed, firm. He had plenty of bacta upstairs and knew how to tape ribs, but if Din was hiding bruised ribs, Boba’d have to check him over for anything worse, too, just to be sure.
Din rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue and he didn’t shy away, either. He moved towards Boba. That soothed something in Boba’s chest. Salved the cut Fennec had left, reminding Boba to mind his temper.
He does trust me, doesn’t he, Boba thought.
“Fine,” Din said. As soon as he was close enough to touch, Boba reached out to snag him, pulling Din to his side and hooking an arm underneath Din’s shoulders. Din returned the gesture, curling his arm behind Boba’s neck.
Having him close settled Boba even further. At least if Din was here he wasn’t getting blown up halfway across the city.
“I want that report first thing tomorrow, Shand,” Boba said. Fennec, already rooting around behind the bar, just waved a dismissive hand in his direction. Boba began to tug Din – gently, he hoped – towards the tower.
“I am fine, you know,” Din grumbled, though he leaned against Boba’s side.
“You don’t look ‘fine,’” Boba said, trying not to growl too loudly at him just yet. If it turned out that Din didn’t have broken ribs, then Boba would growl. “You look like – ” he broke off, irritation swelling under Boba’s skin like blood from a wound.
Irritation was better than fury, though. Irritation – Boba could work with irritation.
You look like Han Karking Solo, he didn’t say, and Han Karking Solo was an idiot who probably should’ve died a long time before I caught him, and I don’t want you to die like that, cyar’ika. I don't. I know that any of us could die at any time, but I don't want it to be you.
Din probably had no idea who Han Solo even was, for all he was wearing the man’s pants. Din might, if Boba told him that he looked like a two- wupiupi, vac-addled, bantha-brained fexsnatcher of a smuggler, even say ‘thank you,’ because when Din was uncomfortable or confused he was often polite, wearing good manners like armor.
Boba wrestled his irritation back with some effort.
Shand’s gonna have a full report for me in the morning, he reminded himself. If there was anybody that Boba needed to kill, after tonight, Fennec would give him their names.
But, Boba thought, that doesn’t mean I can’t see what Din’s report looks like, while I’ve got him here.
Boba took a breath. Slowed his temper. Pressed up against Din’s flank. “Where,” Boba said, asking the question he’d wanted to ask since Din and Fennec had stumbled into the throne room, “did you even find those clothes?”
Notes:
Happy holidays, everybody!
Chapter 13: in which boba and din are definitely having the same conversation, part iii.
Summary:
“You’re not Mandalorian,” Din said. His mouth had gone numb. “I – I thought that you were Mandalorian.”
“That’s not my fault,” Boba snapped.
And it wasn’t. Din could see that now. Boba hadn’t told Din that he was Mandalorian. He’d only said that he was the son of Jango Fett. The rest of it – everything Din had thought that he’d known about Boba, that he’d understood – all of that was color Din had painted onto Boba himself.
Realizing that didn’t do anything to ease the hurt of it, though. The sudden, searing pain. It was like breaking a bone. It was like getting pummeled into the wall by the darktrooper again. Din felt it spike behind his eyes.
“I don’t know you,” Din said, his voice breaking.
Din couldn’t see Boba’s face. He could only see his own reflection in the black of Boba’s visor. His eyes were wide and red. His face had crumpled.
“Maybe you don’t, then,” said Boba, roughly. “Maybe you should – you want other Mandalorians, is that it?”
Notes:
On the third (slightly belated) day of fic-mas, iridan wrote some fic:
so much angst!
This is one of the few pieces I have that I don't think anybody has requested, but that's okay! I'm posting it anyway. Only a few more POVs left in this collection!
Set immediately after Chapter 39, "jehaat." This is kinda angsty. Content warnings in the end note. Jango kind of fucked up this house.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which boba and din are definitely having the same conversation, part iii.
Boba regretted the words as soon as he said them. Of course he did. Of course he did. He didn’t mean them, not really, not for more than the flash-fire second it had taken to actually say them, but –
But Boba did say them, the words clanging through him like struck iron, and as he was saying them he meant them, even if the meaning faded as soon as he was done, and Din –
Din obeyed.
“I want you to leave,” Boba said, roughly. He was trying not to shout. “ Gev, ” he said.
Stop, he meant. Stop, stop, I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear this. I can’t –
Din stared at Boba for a long moment and the look on his face was like being shot, carbon searing, hot pain, was like watching the bright blade of a lightsaber fall through the air, separating Boba’s life on either side of it as it fell, and then a door closed in Din’s expression.
Din nodded. Bent to pick his helmet up off of the floor. Boba was still wearing his, metal cool against his face, which was hot and stinging, the world – the room – Din’s face, pale and creased like he’d been the one hurt, not Boba – narrow through the cut of Boba’s visor.
Din left.
As soon as the door closed behind him – as soon as Boba couldn’t see him any more – Boba gave in to the worst of the feelings that were howling through his chest like a sandstorm in the desert, picked up the nearest stool and hurled it against the nearest wall.
The rage in his chest was awful. Boba couldn’t breathe around it. He couldn’t think. Shards of wood went everywhere, shattered, and Din was gone, and Boba was not a Mandalorian and never had been, and –
And –
And Boba was bleeding.
He shouldn’t have said what he’d said, and he was bleeding. A spar of wood had pricked him just beneath the hard line of his helmet as he’d thrown the stool, and now blood was dropping down into the collar of his robes. Smearing across his yellow pauldron, as red as the mythosaur that was stamped there.
For the first time in a very long time, Boba wanted to tear his father’s armor off and throw it away.
The way that Din had looked at Boba, when Boba’d told him that he wasn’t Mandalorian, that he’d never been Mandalorian, cut Boba deeper than that little shard of wood had managed.
Boba hadn’t been looked at like that before. Not by someone he – not by someone like Din, who’d let Boba draw him close, who’d fit into Boba’s life and at his side, into his bed. Plenty of beings had looked at Boba like he was the scum of the karking galaxy, of course. Most of the other Mandalorians Boba’d ever met tended to look at Boba with disgust.
He was used to that. Used to disgust, to disrespect, to dislike, distrust, outright and open hostility.
But Din had looked at Boba like Boba had broken his heart, in not being Mandalorian, and –
And rage was easier to feel than pain. Boba shouldn’t have said what he did. He shouldn’t have sent Din away, even for a second or two, not with the enormity of Din’s misunderstanding standing between them, but if Din had kept looking at Boba like that, Boba would have gone insane, skewered by it, and it was easier to send Din away and stand here, shaking with rage, that it would’ve been to try to explain.
Din, Boba thought distantly, trapped inside his body and locked outside of his mind at the same time, had cold anger. Water-anger, like a river that ran beneath the crust of the earth, slow until it was a flood.
But Boba’s own fury had always been hot, flash-fire, as deep in him as magma at the heart of a star, and the look on Din’s face had made Boba so angry that he couldn’t think past it.
Betrayal? he had wanted to shout. I betrayed you? By not being Mandalorian?
Boba’d double-crossed his fair share of skugs and sleemos, in his day. He’d had to, to survive. But Din – Boba had never betrayed Din. Wouldn’t. Had never intended to betray Din, anyway, to break the trust they had held between them, that tender and fragile thing that Boba’d sheltered in his ribcage for weeks and weeks now, unspoken and unacknowledged but there, precious and treasured. Boba had done many awful things over the course of his life, but he’d never wanted to do anything that –
That –
He couldn’t even think it. Couldn’t say it, either; Boba was alone now, like he was supposed to be, Din sent away, but even alone Boba couldn’t put words to it.
Anger churned in his belly.
It’s not my fault that I’m not Mandalorian, Boba thought. It’s not my fault that you thought that I was. I’ve never claimed to be. Never. Not even to you.
The way Din had looked at him – the way he’d choked out the words, “I thought that you were Mandalorian – I don’t know you – ”
Get karked, Boba had wanted to snarl. Instead he’d snarled, “Why? Because another Mandalorian is the only one who can understand you? Who can know you? ”
Boba knew Din. He did. Boba had put in the effort. He’d held Din in his arms, had brought Din into his counsel, he’d hurt Din and he’d soothed Din’s pain. They’d sparred and fucked and argued and made peace. They’d eaten together.
Is that the only reason that he’s been with me? Boba wondered, wildy. Because he believed that he was with another Mandalorian?
Another swell of anger, helpless, scoured the inside of Boba’s chest. Chewed at his ribcage, burned through his lungs, replaced his heartbeat with a tide of fire. His hands shook. He wanted to hit something. Break something. Din had slashed the table apart, shouting down Koska Reeves. Boba’d thrown one stool.
But smashing some wood wasn’t enough. Boba wanted to hit something. He wanted the crunch of bone. He wanted blood. He wanted out, out from underneath the weight of his armor, out from underneath everybody else’s karking ideas about who and what Boba was, out of his body, out –
Boba had never been able to get out. He’d only ever been able to make others leave. The only word he could speak right now burned on the tip of his tongue.
Gev, he thought. Gev, GEV –
That awful pressure built and built inside of Boba until it broke, and him with it; instead of tossing another chair, he threw a punch, slamming his fist against solid sandstone. Tears sprang to his eyes.
Boba was tough, but Jabba the Hutt’s stupid karking palace was, unfortunately, built to withstand being bombed for orbit, and not even Boba at his most furious could match that kind of firepower.
Boba broke his hand, not the wall. The pain was immediate, sharp, and didn’t help at all. Boba hated that too. What was the point of pain, then, if it didn’t help him think?
“I want you to leave,” Boba had said, and Din had left.
That was – in his right mind, Boba’d call that setting an important boundary, probably. Gev, he’d told Din once, was a word that worked both ways. Din could say it and then Boba would stop; Boba could say it, and Din would do the same.
But Boba was saying that stupid karking word now, a marching beat inside his head, and the pain – the anger – the look on Din’s face – none of it was stopping.
Boba’d just broken at least three of his fingers, but he decided that he didn’t care and punched the wall again. It hurt badly enough that the sensation swooped through Boba’s belly, sickly and hot.
He needed to stop. To think. Anger – anger had always been Boba’s problem. He’d said as much to Din before, hadn’t he?
As a younger man, Boba’d let his kind of anger, magma-deep and hot, rule over him. Had let it fuel him, drive him. He had plenty of scars from the fights he’d gotten into when he’d been younger and had felt like this, cornered by his anger, trapped inside of it, when he’d been so kriffing angry at everything that anything else inside of him had been eaten away by it.
Boba had killed men, when he’d been angry like this. Had nearly been killed a few times too. Anger had been Boba’s armor and his sword and his stars-damned bed, some nights, had been the face staring back at him in the mirror, in the cracked visor of his father’s helmet. Anger was still with him now.
Boba’s hand throbbed.
Din – Din doesn’t need to get yelled at, Boba thought. He doesn’t need to see me like this. I don’t want him to see me like this. Gev was – gev was the right thing to say.
So why does it feel like I should have said something else?
Maybe it wasn’t gev. Maybe it was everything else Boba’d spat. The words echoed around the room, scattered like shards and splinters.
If that’s what you think, then you know where to find other Mandalorians, Din. Other Mandalorians. Other Mandalorians.
I’m saying that I want you to stop. I want you leave. Leave.
Another wave of agony. Getting slowly digested in the belly of the sarlacc had felt better than this. Getting shot, getting stabbed, a broken bone –
Gev, he thought, bewildered. I want it to stop. I want it to stop. I’ve been trying to make it stop.
In the belly of the sarlacc, Boba’d sworn – well. He’d sworn a lot of karking things. But the most important tuning he’d sworn – the foundation that Boba had been building this new life on top of – was to be better than he had been, and Boba didn’t know how to do that now if he couldn’t stop.
Din was helping me, with that, Boba managed to think. He was – I wanted to be better for him. To help him, to protect him, to give him what he needs. I don’t – I didn’t –
Boba was, he realized, in a slow, dim sort of way, like the thought was a whisper at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel, more the idea of a sound than a sound itself, angry with Din.
Maybe that was why Boba couldn’t get his fury under control right now. It was – he had been ambushed, he thought. Jehavey’yc, a Mandalorian – a real Mandalorian – would say.
Attacked from behind, where Boba had expected protection. Din had been watching Boba’s back for weeks. Boba had let him in. Let Din as close to himself as Boba had ever let another living being, and Din –
“I don’t know you,” Din had said.
How could he think that? Boba thought. He nearly pitched his hand at the wall again and only stopped himself through sheer, bloody-minded force of will. The effort of holding still cost Boba more than he could stand, but moving – throwing more stools, punching the wall, storming off into the palace while spoiling for a fight – would cost Boba more.
How could he think that I’m Mandalorian? Why would he think that I’d want to be?
Boba had – well, if he’d ever wanted to be a Mandalorian – a proper one, not just a man in Mandalorian armor – it had been so long ago that Boba couldn’t remember the shape of that desire, not now. He could recall only the vaguest outline of it. A suggestion of a shape.
It had been a stupid dream that Boba had followed to Keldabe, years and years ago. The Clone Wars had been over and Boba’d run out of Jedi to revenge himself against. Mace Windu had died in the Purges. Jango Fett had been years dead. And Boba –
Boba’d wanted to be closer to his father’s people. He’d – wanted to see, that was all.
He had learned, in just a few short days on Mandalore, that his father hadn’t had any people, and if he ever had then they’d all been long dead before Boba’d ever set foot on that miserable dustball of a planet, and that there were no people there for Boba, either. He’d learned that if he had wanted to make his way through the galaxy, it would have to be on his own.
A hard lesson, Boba thought, looking down at his hand. He was wearing his gloves. His whole kit, actually. Tusken robes and Mandalorian armor. A Corellian blaster, a Tusken gaderffii, a Mandalorian knife. Boba’d bought his boots on Canto Bight and he’d bought some durasteel to replace parts and pieces of his armor on Baatu. Everything he had was a bit or a piece or a scrap from somewhere else, all of it cobbled together with scuffs and scrapes and dents.
But – but it was an important one, Boba thought. His dad’d always said that Boba would only ever be able to rely on himself.
“And on you, Dad,” Boba’d said back then, confident in the way that children always were when they were looking up at their parents, and Jango had said, “No, son. Not even me.”
He’d been right about that, too – he’d died just a few weeks later.
A hard lesson, thought Boba again.
He flexed his fingers, mostly just to feel the sick jolt of pain lurch through him again, anger and hurt bubbling up together in his belly. The hurt was winning out now, edging past the anger, an ache that Boba had always been afraid of, that he'd always tried to avoid. He could kindle more anger pretty easily – had always been able to draw up more fuel for that fire –but what would be the point? The damage was already done.
“I don’t know you,” Din had said, and Boba had said, “ Stop.”
Stop what? Boba wondered now. What had he wanted Din to stop?
It had been right to send Din away for a minute. It was alright to need a moment. To want to keep this awful anger here, where the only person it could hurt was Boba.
But everything else that Boba’d said –
He had wanted Din to stop talking. Everything that Din had said, every word, had been another wound, a tiny cut, a slow and mounting realization that, for this entire karking time, for every spar and every fuck and every kiss and every meal, Din had thought that Boba was Mandalorian too.
He had wanted Din to stop thinking of Boba as a Mandalorian too. Boba wasn’t. He didn’t want to be. Boba was only himself, and that was all he could be. Being Mandalorian –
Being Mandalorian came with too much hanging off of it. Too many expectations. Too much history, blood feuds and drama, with too much honor that strangled a man and chained him to a doomed karking cause. Mandalorians were idealistic fools.
I’m not.
Boba was practical. Boba was grounded. And Boba had thought that Din knew that. That Din liked that about Boba, respected it; that Din had been drawn to Boba, in part, because Boba was solid and grounded and steady, most of the time.
Because I’m not Mandalorian, and can offer him a different perspective, Boba thought, a little bitter.
Being Mandalorian was awful for Din. Boba’d seen it. Being Mandalorian had, at least lately, only caused Din enormous pain.
I don’t – I’ve never – I’ve hurt him, Boba thought. He had. Din liked being hurt. But I never wanted to harm him, not like I saw his Creed harm him, and if he thought that I was Mandalorian too –
Something else was beginning to well up in Boba’s belly, slowly trickling in to fill up the emptiness left by the rough sandstorm scrape of Boba’s anger.
Was Din only with me because he thought that I would hurt him?
Everything in Boba’s body shied away from that thought.
No, he thought. No, I can’t – I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I hurt him today, but I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t on purpose.
It wasn’t Boba’s fault that Din had thought him Mandalorian. And – and maybe it wasn’t Din’s fault, either. Maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Boba wore Mandalorian armor. Spoke a little mando’a – more than Din, as it turned out, because Din had grown up in some awful little tribe out of the way, and only knew what they had told him.
This has all just – it’s been a misunderstanding, Boba told himself, struggling his way through the wildfire in his belly, the howling voice that demanded some kind of answer for his pain. A misunderstanding.
Has it been a mistake?
Boba thought about that for a moment. Had it been a mistake, drawing Din so close? Unlike Din, Boba’d known exactly who and what Din Djarin had been, when Din had first crossed into Boba’s throne room. He had known that he was looking at a Mandalorian. Letting a Mandalorian in had been risky. Dangerous.
But I don’t regret it, Boba realized, stomach twisting. Does Din?
Only Din could answer that. His face had crumpled, when Boba’d told Din that he wasn’t Mandalorian. His expression had closed like a door, when Boba’d told him to get out.
But doors – doors can be opened again, Boba thought. And it’s Din. He’s been – he’s been helping me. I’ve been helping him. I like him. More than like him. I have more months now. I –
None of those thoughts, each one loud and clamoring, finally, finally drowning out the roar of rage in Boba’s belly, finally puncturing through the haze of hurt that had triggered all of this in the first place, led Boba to decide that what he’d been doing with Din had been a mistake.
The opposite, actually, Boba thought. He looked across the wreckage in the room at the door Din had closed.
So what happens next?
Boba couldn’t suddenly become Mandalorian, and even if he could, he didn’t want to. Mandalorians had never wanted Boba, and Boba didn’t want anything to do with them. He didn’t. All he wanted was Din.
I told him that he should go find other Mandalorians, if he wanted to be understood so badly, thought Boba. But as soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.
Boba swallowed. That was – well, it wasn’t a thought that Boba could hide from. It wasn’t a thought that he could bury or ignore. As soon as Boba’d told Din to leave – as soon as Din had left – Boba had wanted to snatch the words back. He’d wanted to follow Din, to pull him back, to apologize.
I was only surprised, he’d wanted to say. I just didn’t know what to say. How to understand. I was hurt, and when I’m hurt I hide it with anger. I learned it from my dad. It’s kept me safe for this whole time, and I –
And I –
Boba hadn’t said any of that. The words were still stuck in his throat, behind his teeth. He couldn’t get them out.
I’m sorry, he’d wanted to say.
Boba’s shoulders tensed. Most of his rage had drained away, now, leaving only an empty sort of cold behind. Boba made himself breathe, slow and deep and even. He knew how this part of it worked, too.
I’m sorry, he thought again, tasting the apology. That felt – better. More right than the anger had, more right than the immediate sensation of betrayal. That felt like something that Boba could build on.
Everything else – well. Boba couldn’t do anything about what had already been said. What Din had believed.
But I can apologize.
Boba set his jaw. He could do that, at least. Din would – well, even if he didn’t understand, Boba owed him an apology anyway. Even if Din decided that he did only want to share his bed and his heart with another Mandalorian, Boba owed him an apology. That was – that was the first step. Everything else would have to come after.
Boba flexed his broken hand again, and this time the pain did have a point. It buzzed through him, sore and raw. Banished doubt. Opened a door.
Mind made up, Boba tapped on the commlink at his wrist, calling the one person he could rely on to help, whenever Boba made a hopeless karking mess of things.
“This is Shand,” said Fennec, her tinny voice filling the room. “What’s up, Boss?”
“I need you to find Din,” Boba said, his own voice rough and raw. He curled his broken hand into a loose fist. “I made a mistake.”
Notes:
Content warnings: God, Boba's fucked up. UNADDRESSED JANGO FETT RELATED TRAUMA, folks. Unhealthy coping mechanisms. Self-harm (Boba punches a wall and breaks his hand.) Glancing mentions to some of the awful shit Boba did as a bounty hunter.
Notes:
-The title of this POV is "in which boba and din are definitely having the same conversation, part iii," but the subtitle is "and din's not even in the room for this one, which is how we got into this mess in the first place, boba."
-One of my very favorite fics recently described its primary narrator as "having less self-awareness than most horses," which I have realized also kind of applies to ast!Din and ast!Boba. Introspection is NOT a Mandalorian strong suit, bless them.
-Boba is deliberately ignoring the other bantha in the room, which is the whole riduur thing -- right before Boba kind of blacks out and sends Din away, Koska Reeves casually reveals to Boba that Din has been inadvertently telling all of the Mandalorians for several weeks now that he and Boba are married. Boba has an entirely separate breakdown about that later, because he's only got so much bandwidth at any one time.
-There is one more introspection-heavy Boba piece that goes in this POV collection. It's just. Not very good, and I have had trouble making it come out the way that I want it to, lol. Taking two years between the end of ast and right now to edit it probably has not helped. Oh well!
Chapter 14: in which bribery is an acceptable form of parenting.
Notes:
Happy New Year! Here's some fluff. There is no plot to this, just vibes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
in which bribery is an acceptable form of parenting.
“Fierfek, Boba,” said Fennec, propping herself up on the bar with an elbow, the corners of her eyes turning up in a smile, “Djarin’s got you collared like a prize akk dog, huh.”
“Shut up,” Boba groused. “And watch your mouth around the kid, will you?”
He gingerly set the source of Fennec’s amusement down on top of the bar. The kid spotted a bowl of fusta nuts and waddled over with a burble of delight, immediately shoving his hands into the bowl.
Boba checked to make sure that the fusta nuts hadn’t been tossed with dried joloko spices or anything else that could hurt or startle the kid, then let the kid have at it. He wasn't sure that the kid'd even be bothered by joloko. Grogu’s dietary habits were horrifying, and that was coming from Boba, who’d spent a not-insignificant part of his younger years choking down Rep-Sec rehydrated gruel and Imperial ration packs.
“Is Djarin still worried about that?” Fennec asked, still amused. “He knows it’s too late, right? The kid’s first word is gonna be ‘ossik’ or ‘kark,’ or maybe just ‘dank ferrik,’ if Djarin gets lucky.”
Grogu already could say ‘poodoo’ and seemed to know what it meant, too. Din swore like a Corellian spicerunner, so he only had himself to blame if the kid picked up half a dozen curses before he learned how to say anything else, but that didn’t mean that Boba had to contribute to the kid’s vocabulary. He tried to convey that to Fennec with just his face, unwilling to actually say it out loud. She rolled her eyes.
“And how are you this morning, O mighty and fearless king of Tatooine?”
“In the market for a new master assassin,” Boba growled back, one eye on Grogu as the kid tottered to the end of the bar. Grogu could fly – or at least float – but that didn’t mean Boba wanted to see him topple off of the table. “So I’m ka – kri – I’m great.”
Noora, who was behind the bar and had dropped the bowl of fusta nuts on the table in the first place, snorted delicately. “First time with a toddler, huh?” she said. She sounded sympathetic, which made Boba immediately wary; Noora looked as mild as a maramu, pretty as freshly-dyed wyyyschokk silk, but even the prettiest silk could be used to hide the shape of a knife.
“...No,” Boba said, honestly. Noora lifted an eyebrow, surprised. Boba grimaced. He knew that he didn’t exactly look like the type of man other beings handed their children off to, and he wasn’t, not really, but he had come across children a time or two. Boba’d been around for a long time. There was very little left in the galaxy that he hadn’t experienced.
“He’s full of bantha shit, Noora,” Fennec said, offering Grogu another nut. The kid took it and cracked it between his claws, his ears twitching in delight. “He’s held a kid before, maybe, but I’d bet you a hundred credits that this is his first time being trusted with one.”
Boba scowled at her fiercely. Fennec grinned.
Noora, though, snorted again. “Don’t tease him, ma sareen,” she said. “Or I’ll have to tell him about the first time you met my boys, hmm?”
It was Fennec’s turn to scowl. Boba raised an eyebrow and thought about asking for that story – he could imagine what Fennec Shand, master assassin, might do when confronted by her lover’s children – but Grogu chose that moment to abandon his breakfast and hop nimbly over the edge of the bar.
Boba lunged for him, aiming for the back of the kid’s shirt, but the little voorpak was fast and slipped through Boba’s fingers.
He can fly, too, Boba groused to himself, as Grogu floated down to the floor like he was made of junda bird feathers instead of something more substantial.
“Where’re you going, eh?” Boba said, pushing himself away from the bar and standing too. Grogu flicked a cheerful ear at him and said, helpfully, “Eeh!”
Boba sighed.
“Chin up, boss,” Noora advised. “They’re all wanderers at that age. Maybe take him out into the courtyard? There’s still a few minutes before court starts.”
“He’s fifty,” Boba muttered, paling. He hadn’t even thought about that – how was he supposed to run court, which was sometimes violent, with Din’s kid hanging around? Boba could probably give Noora the morning off and have her take care of Grogu for a few hours, but –
But Din left him with me, Boba thought, following Grogu as the kid trotted off across the throne room floor with intent, zipping towards something that had caught his attention. Boba wasn’t sure what that was, but there were half a hundred things in here that could catch a curious kid’s eye.
The palace was mostly back together, now. The damage left by Gorga’s final raid had all been patched over, the ceiling repaired, blood and carbon scrubbed off of the floors. Noora’d taken the opportunity to not only replace her big tapestry, which had hung behind Boba’s throne until Gorga’s mercs had blown it up, but to dig up all sorts of things from Mos Eisley and hang them from the walls. Boba’d never had much use for or interest in art himself – and had sold off quite a bit of Jabba’s karking hoard of bantha shit months ago to raise some spare credits – but Grogu, evidently, had an opinion.
The kid trundled over towards a bright brass disk made in the Rylish style, polished to a golden shine and stamped with story-symbols. Boba’d never had the mouth for languages that Din had, but he knew a little Rylish.
Din left him with me, not Noora. I want to keep Grogu where I can see him.
“Where is Din today, anyway?” Noora asked, calling over from where she was still polishing glasses at the bar. “It’s not like him to miss morning court if he can help it.”
“Off-world,” Boba replied, grouchily. “Mandalore Sector.”
The Mandalore Sector wasn’t impossibly far from Tatooine, all things considered – Kryze could’ve dragged Din off to Batuu or Felucia, Boba supposed – but Boba didn’t like that Din was so far out of reach.
When Din was attending to Mandalorian business on Tatooine, he was only a few ridges over. Under Fenn Rau’s direction, the dozens and dozens of Mandalorians who kept turning up on Boba’s planet were even building Din some kind of house or morut of his own; Din never stayed there, but he’d started using it as a sort of proper citadel, meeting with clan heads and feuding warriors and ka’ra knew whoever else wanted his attention there instead of Boba’s palace.
Since Boba still didn’t want much to do with the mando’ade – and most mando’ade didn’t want much to do with him, either – he was happy enough to surrender Din for a day or two of business at a time, because if something did go wrong out on Ben’s Mesa, it’d be the work of a few hours at most to get out to Din’s side to help.
Vorpa’ya’s more than a few hours away, Boba thought. He wasn’t sure why anybody was bothering with the Mandalore Sector, either. The Empire’d scorched most of it down to the bedrock, and what they hadn’t scorched Mandalorians themselves had destroyed. Boba was pretty sure he’d been to Vorpa’ya. If he was thinking of the right planet, the whole thing had been nothing but dust even before the Empire had started to hunt Mandalorians.
I’m not much of a farmer, thought Boba, but even I know that you can’t grow something from nothing.
“Boo-ah!” the kid called, snapping Boba’s attention back to him. He peered up at Boba, then pointed an imperious claw at the disk on the wall.
“You wanna get a closer look?” Boba guessed. The kid had just demonstrated that he could float at will, but maybe he thought it’d be rude to start levitating.
“Eeeh!” said Grogu.
Deciding that that meant ‘yes,’ Boba obliged and scooped the kid up off the floor, bringing him up so he could get a closer look at the Rylish disk. Grogu crooned, reaching out to tap the disk with a claw. The chime he made sent him into a fit of giggles. The story-disk told its tale in a great spiral, starting at the outer edge and winding in towards the middle. Grogu cocked his head farther and farther, following the pattern.
“Eeeh,” he said again. This time, there was a questioning note in his voice, or at least Boba thought that there was.
“It’s a story,” Boba said. He tilted his head a bit too, translating the symbols in his head. “‘Beyond seven rivers, beyond seven seas, there lived a woman who caught the eye of the king, and gave birth to a boy with the moon on his forehead.’”
Grogu’s ears twitched. “Moo-nah?” he said.
Boba couldn’t help but smile. “Close,” he said, pointing out the symbol for moon, letting the kid trace the shape with a careful claw. “‘Moon.’ Doesn’t say which one, though. Ryloth’s got five.”
The rest of the story was probably too graphic for a kid as small as Grogu, whether he was fifty standard or not. Boba’d grown up on some pretty gruesome tales – Mandalorians didn’t have many bloodless ones, and Jango Fett had had even less – but he doubted that baby Jedi got the same kind of bedtime stories as young Mandalorians.
Best not to scare the kid, Boba decided. Boba'd heard a few stories as a boy that had curled his hair. He could still remember a handful of tense, terrified nights on Kamino while his dad had been away, curled up tight in his bed and watching the door, waiting for the aden'wha to come crawling out of the ocean to eat him. He couldn't remember now which of the Nulls had told him that story – Kom'rk, probably. He'd loved to spook the younger clones with stories like that.
Yeah, I don't think that Din would be very happy with me if I freaked his kid out. Din loved Boba – a fact that Boba still had trouble believing sometimes, in the dark of his own thoughts – but he utterly adored his children, and Boba had no intention of triggering any of Din's overprotective instincts.
"'S a story for when you're older, kid," Boba told Grogu apologetically. "Or a story for your Auntie Noora to tell you, eh? She speaks better Rylish than I do."
"Don't drag me into this, boss," Noora called. Boba grinned. Grogu, aware that he was being denied something, flattened his ears back like an angry falthier, his lip starting to wobble, but Boba'd seen Din head off a tantrum before and knew what to do.
"None of that, now," Boba said, turning around so that the kid could see the rest of the throne room and not just the story-disk. "There's plenty to look at, isn't there? No reason to get upset at the first thing you see. Then you can't see anything else, and it's about to get interesting in here."
One of Grogu's ears twitched back up, like the kid couldn't help himself.
Boba raised an eyebrow, aiming for enigmatic. "In fact," he said, dropping his voice low, like he was sharing a secret, "court's gonna start soon, and if you're quiet and well-behaved, you'll get to see all sorts of things."
Grogu's other ear twitched.
"Last week, somebody even brought me a zakkeg calf," Boba said. "Went all the way to Dxun to get it. I don't know what I'm gonna do with a zakkeg calf, but it was pretty funny to watch the smugglers try to get it in here."
"Daah-haa?" the kid asked, suspicious.
"On my honor," Boba said solemnly, shifting the kid so he could press one fist against his cuirass, right over his kar'ta beskar.
Grogu eyed Boba, as shrewd as any grandmother bartering for rare spices during the maraat hayma, and said, "Gee neh?" Boba'd never heard a clearer "What will you give me for it?" in his life, and he'd grown up fighting over scraps with smugglers, spicers and scrum rats.
He didn't learn how to barter from Din, then, Boba thought, amused. Din was terrible at barters and bargains, at least with Boba. He tended to fold like a bad hand at the sabacc table any time Boba wanted something from him these days, unless what Boba wanted was for Din to take proper care of himself without being bullied into it or tied up first.
“Hmm. Tell ya what, kid,” Boba grunted, lifting Grogu so that he was eye-to-eye with Boba. “You behave while I’m running court – and I mean behave, no eating anything, no floating and no weird Jedi business – and we’ll, uh, do something fun when the work’s done, yeah?”
Grogu’s ears twitched. He narrowed those big eyes at Boba. “Ahh?” he asked. There was a decidedly judgmental pitch to his voice.
Boba snorted. The kid hadn’t inherited Din’s reluctance to ask for what he wanted either, then. “Not good enough, huh? What d’you want, then?” he asked. “Something specific?”
Grogu twitched an ear again, this time more thoughtfully.
“Good snacks?” Boba guessed.
The kid shook his head.
“A visit to the garden?”
A dismissive ear flick.
“You drive a hard bargain,” Boba said. “What about – ” he cast his mind around, searching through his memories for things he’d seen Din do with the kid. Boba hadn’t actually seen Din and Grogu interact all that much. Din visited the Jedi pretty often, but seeing as Luke Skywalker was in charge of the Jedi, Boba’d never been invited along. When Din was here with Grogu, on Tatooine, he usually just let the kid ride around n his shoulders, tag along on business, visit with the Tuskens, unless the weather was particularly nice, and then –
Ah, Boba thought. I’ve got it.
“What if,” he said, raising an eyebrow at the kid, “we go flying later, hmm? You and me.”
“Faah?” Grogu said, perking up. He wasn’t good at hard sounds yet, Boba’d noticed – he could stretch a vowel out and warble out a bunch of softer sounds, but the hard constants were still a bit beyond him.
It was cute. Boba couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought that anything was cute. Din was cute sometimes, copikla, when he was just waking up and his hair was mussed with sleep, but –
Boba shook himself slightly. He was getting off-track.
“On my honor,” said Boba, solemnly. “You make it through court without causing some kind of incident and we’ll go flying. What d’you say? Elek?”
Grogu’s face scrunched up, obviously weighing Boba’s offer, and then he said, “ Eyyk – leek – eyy-lee – ek.”
Boba smiled. “Good enough,” he said. “‘S a vow, kid. Besk’haat. A promise, yeah?”
“Eeeh,” Grogu agreed.
“Good,” Boba said. “Now c’mon. And do your best to look intimidating, eh? I have a reputation to maintain.”
The kid flicked another ear again. He probably didn’t give a womp’s tail about Boba’s reputation. As long as he didn’t fling any of Boba’s visitors across the room or wander off and cause a panic, Boba didn’t mind – there was plenty of time for Grogu to learn Boba’s business, if he wanted to.
Boba carried Grogu over to his throne – his third one in about a year, which was probably a concerning trend – and set the kid down while he finished kitting up. Boba still held court in full beskar. The assassination attempt had dropped off considerably after Gorga the Hutt had died by sarlacc, but Boba knew that he was more intimidating in his armor, and that just because one Hutt had died didn’t mean that Boba was entirely safe.
He tugged his helmet over his head, fixed his gauntlets – one green and one silver – more firmly around his wrists and then peered down at Grogu, who had settled into the middle of Boba’s throne like he was the king, not Boba.
“Up, little voorpak ,” Boba said, amused. “You’re heir to one throne already, hmm?”
“Patu,” said Grogu cheerfully, but he let Boba sit down without any further fuss, then settled himself firmly on Boba’s lap.
Boba froze for a moment, startled. Grogu was small, hardly weighed more than a sack of poonten seeds, but the weight of the trust he’d just put in Boba pinned Boba to his seat.
The kid felt – safe, here. Content. He was happy enough to go along with Boba. To do what Boba wanted.
That’s – good, Boba thought. He couldn’t really think of anything else, not even as Fennec stood up from her place by the bar and the rest of the morning’s guards started to shuffle in, taking their places along the walls and at the mouths of the hallways, the morning court streaming in behind him.
The kid trusts me. That’s good.
Din and Boba hadn’t really talked about what it would look like, their clan. They'd said their vows to each other. Decided to spend their lives together, however long or short those lives turned out to be. But they hadn't talked about a clan. About kids.
"Heads up, boss," Fennec murmured, moving her way across the throne room to her customary place by his side. She smiled down at Grogu, who gave her a gummy grin back. "First group's coming in. You good with the kid?"
It probably wasn't Boba's best idea, keeping Grogu with him while he held court, but he didn't want to hand the kid off to anybody else and Din had taken Grogu into more dangerous places. The kid was a Jedi. He'd be fine.
"Nah, we're good. Aren't we, kid?"
Grogu craned his head around to look up at Boba. "Patu," he agreed.
Boba smiled.
The first few beings who trickled into the throne room were less confident. All of Boba's people were too well-trained – and too used to strange things happening around Boba or his inner circle – to say anything about the small green child watching from the safety of Boba's throne, but the rest, the shopkeepers from Mos Eisley coming with their protection money, the smugglers looking for a new job, the hunters for prey, ordinary people for help or justice, had probably never seen Din playing with his kid, let alone Boba.
Whispers swept into the throne room along with the day's petitioners.
Boba, used to whispers, ignored them. He just sat on his throne, calm and unreadable, and to his amusement Grogu crossed his little arms across his chest and sat upright, as imperious as anything.
The first of the morning's petitioners, a blue-skinned Devaronian who owned a shop on Mos Eisley, eyed Grogu nervously. He looked between the kid, Boba and then the kid again.
Say something about it, Boba silently dared, pinning the Devaronian with his flattest glare. Even though he couldn’t see Boba’s face, the Devaronian paled. Just try it.
This Devaronian was a bit smarter than some of the other businessbeings who came to Boba’s court looking to cut deals or buy favors, though, and wisely kept his mouth shut. He didn’t even look at the kid again, actually, even when Grogu reached up and began examining the layers of Boba’s baribis.
Across the room, Noora grinned.
Boba ignored her. He ignored Grogu too, as best as he could while also making sure that the kid didn’t go tumbling to the floor. Grogu didn’t seem to mind. He was fascinated with Boba’s desert robes, tugging at the fabric experimentally, following the drapes and creases. Din never wore anything like a set of baribis. He was either in a stiff, proper warrior’s kute or in his armor. Gogu was also interested in Boba’s armor, of course, because most of it was a different color than the plain silver that Din still prefered, and as the Devaronian finished his business and retreated with a nervous bow, the kid continued his exploration. He balanced on Boba’s leg and reached for Boba’s gauntlet. Boba let him, surreptitiously angling his arm so that if Grogu pressed a button, he wouldn’t launch a rocket or anything directly into someone’s face.
The Devaronian swapped places with a pair of Tusken scouts from the Shaking Mountain Tribe, who gave their reports with quick, precise movements, utterly unbothered by the child sharing Boba’s chair.
Their studied disinterest – children played around all sorts of meetings in the tribes, always kept close at hand and out of the mouths of krayts or other hungry predators – put most of the rest of the court at ease. The muttering persisted, scraps of conversation that buzzed just past the edge of Boba’s hearing, but he let them go.
Grogu eventually lost interest in Boba’s gauntlet and moved on, examining his chest plate next, then clamoring up Boba’s chest to perch on his shoulder and play with one of his pauldrons.
He didn't cause any more of a fuss than that. The tantrum that had been brewing when Boba'd stopped telling the story about the boy with the moon on his forehead was entirely forgotten. Nobody came before Boba with another zakkeg calf, but some smuggler out of Klatooine did have a pet ro-roo clinging to his shoulder, and Grogu squealed with delight when the smuggler had it do tricks.
Other than the ro-roo, court was quiet enough. Still full of new people and new colors; Devaronians with their horns polished to an ivory shine, Tuskens with krayt teeth and chips of gemstones sewn into their robes, tall Ithorians and brawny Wookiees, people from every corner of Tatooine. Grogu was plenty entertained.
He really was a good kid. Curious and clever, for a toddler that couldn’t speak. Grogu had some mischief in him and the Jedi thing wasn’t ideal, but Boba supposed that it wasn’t the kid’s fault he’d been born with powers. Aside from that, he was brave enough to explore new places. He listened to Din pretty well and to Boba almost as closely. He didn’t seem afraid of any of the weapons Boba carried, not even his gaderffii, and he’d even mastered the trick of looking imperious and imposing despite the fact that he was sitting on Boba’s lap.
Boba kept half an eye on him as he went about the business of the day, but aside from occasionally getting up to prod at a different piece of Boba's armor or to balance on one of the throne's armrests to get a better look at someone or something new, Grogu kept his word and didn't throw a tantrum or get into any trouble.
Finally, after a good hour or two of striking deals, settling disputes and making credits, the last of Boba's morning petitioners stepped back and Grogu stood again, stretching and shaking himself like an akk dog getting up for a nap.
Or like Din getting up out of bed in the morning, Boba thought, fond. The kid was a lot like Din.
"Well, that was uneventful," Fennec remarked, leaning against the throne. "I was expecting somebody to throw a punch, at least."
"With the kid here?" Boba said, dropping a hand down on Grogu's head to give the kid an affectionate little shake. Grogu took it well enough. "Nah. He's scared 'em all into good behavior."
"Eeeh," Grogu agreed, sagely.
"I'm sure," said Fennec, smiling. "Still, though. If the afternoon's gonna be just as tame, you might as well call the whole thing off. Take an afternoon, yeah?"
"Morning court being more bloodless than usual doesn't sound like a good reason to take the afternoon off, Shand," Boba said, rolling his eyes. He knew what Shand was up to.
"Sure it is," she said. "The morning was so tame that the afternoon's gonna be crazy. That's how it works, right? Might as well skip it today and start fresh tomorrow."
Boba snorted. "Shand," she started, but she shot him another grin, sly as anything, and said, "It's nice weather out. Sunny, but not too hot. The rains'll be coming in in a few days. Wouldn't want to waste such a good day to go flying, now would you?"
Boba narrowed his eyes at her. He tried not to cancel court all that often. It tended to spook people, Boba deviating from his established routine, and though it had been a few months since Gorga's final raid, Boba didn't want to spark a panic.
But –
"Fleh?" Grogu said, getting the sound right that time. He looked up at Boba, his eyes wide and guileless.
Fennec grinned.
“Kark it,” Boba said. He knew when he was outnumbered. “Why not. Yeah, we’re done for the day. C’mere, kid. Wanna go flying?”
“Got it, boss,” Noora called from the bar, already starting to collect the glasses and other detritus. Fennec rolled her eyes and mouthed something that looked a lot like ‘prize akk dog’ at Boba, which he ignored. Taking the afternoon off had been her idea – she didn't get to poke fun at Boba for it. “Have fun, yeah?”
“Ah?” the kid said, flicking his ears.
“Yeah,” Boba told him, standing, scooping the kid up to set him on Boba's shoulder. “Your dad’s taken you, right? ‘S a good day for it, apparently. We try not to waste good days here on Tatooine."
“Boo-eeh!” Grogu agreed excitedly, patting Boba’s shoulder with enthusiasm. He blinked up at Boba wth his wide, happy eyes, smiling, showing off one sharp tooth.
Boba paused. “Boo-eeh?” he repeated, muttering the word. That had almost sounded like –
“Ah!” Grogu confirmed, waving his hands like he’d just done a particularly impressive trick. “Boo-eeh. Boo-eeeehr. Boo-eer!” he finally got the sounds right, finishing the word, and then pointed up at Boba. “Boo-eer!”
Boba paused again. Buir. “Yeah,” he sad slowly, his thoughts skipping and spitting like an engine that had been dragged through a sand dune. “Your buir’s off-planet right now, kid.”
“Eeh!” the kid disagreed. “Boo-eeeer.” He patted Boba’s shoulder again, more insistently. He knew, it seemed, what it was that he was saying.
Boba groaned. “Kid,” he said, though his voice was rasping hard in his throat, though something strange – something soft, and warm, and fragile, something Boba had long ago decided he’d never feel or experience – though he’d automatically brought a hand up to keep the kid secure against his chest, “your dad’s gonna kill me.”
Notes:
-Vorpa’ya is a Legends/EU planet in the Mandalore Sector. Its name is derived from vorpan, “green,” and it was one of Mandalore’s agricultural planets until overproduction and increasing Mandalorian conflicts caused the ecosystem to collapse and turned the planet into a big ol’ dustball.
-Boba’s “I’m not much of a farmer” line is a sly in-joke between you and me; “Fett” comes from vhett, which is the Mandalorian word for “farmer,” and was Boba’s grandfather’s (Jango Fett’s biological dad, not Jaster Mereel) profession.
-”The Boy with the Moon on His Forehead” is a Bengali folktale. Much of my internal Twi’lek culture worldbuilding was inspired by various Indian subcultures.
-Kar’ta beskar: Literally “iron heart,” this is the geometric centerpiece of most Mandalorian chestplates/cuirasses. Given its prevalence in Mandalorian art as seen in The Clone Wars, I’d make the argument that it’s a sacred shape as well.
-Maraat hayma: Tusken, “Festival of Tents.” A quiquennial (I did have to google that) festival in which all of the tribes gather to exchange news and other things.
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