Chapter Text
Night in Canto Bight is warm amidst the frenetic energy of myriad species of well heeled revellers. Sitting in the flashiest dress you’d ever worn, sipping sweet Alderaanian liqueur… okay, you could get used to this.
You were skeptical when Fett first propositioned splitting the bounty on a handful of high-profile pucks. Why the hell would someone as notorious as Boba Fett want a partner? Whenever his armoured figure appeared in the usual haunts for members of your profession, the room would fall silent. You’ve heard whispers about his ruthlessness, working for whoever’s paying the highest price and making a habit of taking on impossible-sounding jobs nobody else will touch.
But the few times you’ve encountered him, he’s surprised you. Like that time an enormous Mirialan guy tried to lay his hand on you outside a popular bounty hunters’ bar on Coruscant; you'd thrown the shocked creep over your shoulder… and you could have sworn you heard an impressed, soft chuckle from the helmeted figure leaning against the shadowed doorway.
Or after that disastrous job on Kijimi when you'd made yourself proud with how easily you brought in your target - only for the Trandoshan whose garbage ship you’d chartered to try blasting you in the side to take the quarry for himself. It was pure dumb luck that Fett’s distinctive attack ship was sitting in the same launch bay, and as you ducked behind the side of Slave I to aim a few shots at the traitorous lizard-brain, the man himself stalked easily around behind you.
“Having trouble, little one?” his modulated voice had gravelled out.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” you’d smirked up at him. But he wasn’t fooled by your attempt at bravado, and you saw the weathered helmet tilt down to take in the way you were clutching your ribcage as you slumped against the hull of his ship.
He swivelled wordlessly, blaster drawn in a smooth motion - barely seeming to aim before you heard a hissed exhale and the thunk of a heavy body falling from the other side of the platform.
“I’d offer you a lift, but looks like you just got yourself a free ship,” he drawled lazily, spurs clinking lightly as he disappeared up into his ship and withdrew the ramp behind him.
But it was still a hell of a shock when he approached you sitting alone at that same seedy Coruscanti bar a week ago. His rationalisation made sense, you had to admit. High-profile Imperial officers have started taking precautions amidst a slew of assassinations between political rivals. It’s getting harder to sidle in close enough to these guys to make things look accidental, and you can see why Fett’s… conspicuous appearance would raise an instant alarm. Besides, he wasn’t known for the kind of delicate work you were. As effective as disintegrations were, they were about as far from natural-looking deaths as it got.
Which is how you ended up here, wearing the kind of sleek dress favoured by socialites and consorts as you roll your shoulders back languidly. The plan’s easy; get the target to a quiet enough location to slide one of your specialty syringes into a major artery while Fett monitors the security detail from outside. You don’t know how you’ll get back out past the guards alone if things go wrong, but Fett’s assurance that he’ll be watching is oddly comforting.
Despite initially attempting to stifle your growing curiosity, you've been banking up a little collection of observations about him from the last couple of days on his ship. He was unobtrusive and patient, and he smelled... good at close quarters; something not many bounty hunters had in common. You hadn't been surprised to learn he’s not much of a talker. Though the near-silent journey to Cantonica had felt somehow companionable, you hoped he hadn’t noticed the way your gaze had involuntarily kept returning to the shape of his muscular leg underneath those thigh plates, or the broad line of his shoulders as you wondered exactly what kind of man was underneath all of that metal.
“Target’s entering through the doors to your left,” his low voice crackles through your earpiece. You smooth your hair down to conceal the tiny comm device and arch your spine in a fluid gesture as you tip the rest of the drink back.
“How do I look?” you murmur, glancing up through narrowed eyes towards the man approaching the bar alongside you. You swiped the outfit from a storefront on the way in, and while Fett was supposed to be guarding your back, you hoped he'd had the courtesy not to watch you gracelessly shimmying into it in an alleyway.
You can’t tell if it’s just static, but his response in your ear has a rough quality that makes something hot unfurl low in your stomach. “Like this guy doesn’t stand a fucking chance.”
A statuesque Togruta woman draped in jewels lets out a burst of laughter at the opposite end of the bar and you feel goosebumps rise on your arms and legs. It takes everything in your body to not twist and look out over the balcony to see where he’s watching from. You instead turn your attention to the sweaty-looking figure beside you as he barks his order for a bloodsour at the server droid.
“That’s quite a unique choice of drink,” you offer breathily, allowing one of your crossed legs to slide ever so slightly against the leg of his trousers as you lean over. You have no idea what that fabric is, but it feels expensive.
He appraises you as he takes his first sip, a heavy-looking ring with a black stone glittering on one of his thick red fingers. His gaze feels disparaging, small eyes dragging from the low cut of your dress to the high slit on your leg as though deciding whether you’re a fathier worth betting on. You must pass the inspection because he leans toward you, tone oily.
“There’s a lot about my tastes that some find… surprising,” he says. You suppress the desire to shudder and allow a small smile to lift the corners of your lips.
-
It’s going surprisingly smoothly. You’re fairly sure he’s getting ready to return to his accomodation, the night having slowed to a point where few other patrons remain at the bar. He’s ordered you not to move while he visits the refresher for the third time and you mentally run over the next steps. Your hypo-syringe is strapped to your thigh, far enough from the slit in your dress to be concealed but close enough for easy access, right beside the tiny palm-sized blaster you’ve brought in case things go south. You’ve noticed a handful of heavy-looking attendants which you assume comprise his bodyguard detail but they’re keeping their distance, incorrectly assuming you pose no threat. You haven’t heard anything more from your accomplice, but you’ve felt his gaze on you for the past couple of hours. Every time you’ve run a fingertip over your own lower lip while pretending to be enamoured with some repulsive anecdote, or let your head tip gently back to expose the line of your neck, you’ve wondered whether he’s still watching you.
And then the target is back beside you, wrapping his hand around your upper arm as he leans in close to your ear. “Look girl, I’m no fool. You probably think that performance was pretty impressive, but I know exactly what this is.” Your blood freezes in your veins. How the fuck…? Your muscles are coiling to fling yourself behind the bar before drawing your blaster but his next sour words are washing over you and you feel like laughing with relief. “I’ll pay whatever your rate is, but I don’t want to hear any crying or arguing. I have certain expectations and I’m not wasting my time. Is that clear?”
“As crystal,” you manage. You’re feeling vaguely nauseated at the implication behind his words, and you could have sworn you heard a faint hiss of disgust from your earpiece as well, but you’re just thanking the Maker you haven’t thrown the whole plan. You probably should have expected him to reach this conclusion, and it would have made your entire night easier if you’d gone with this angle from the beginning. Oh well, you figure. This is your first attempt at such an… underhanded approach and if it works there’s always next time.
He keeps his grip on your arm and you try not to lose your balance as you step after him towards the doors. One of his attendants is standing beside an ostentatious-looking gilded speeder and as you climb in, you feel a twinge of unease. You’ve been in some pretty hairy situations in your line of work, and one thing you’ve never willingly done is put yourself into an enclosed space with a quarry before. There’s nowhere to run, no room to kick out or wind back to jab his eyes or crotch if something goes wrong. Your could drive your hand through his nose and into his brain, but there’s still the Rodian driving the speeder to contend with. You’re not really prepared to fire your blaster in here in case the shot ricochets back around the cabin and you take yourself out.
As though he can hear your concerns, your earpiece releases a tiny crackle and you hear Fett’s words. “Locked on to the driver. If something happens, you just worry about stabbing the Imp with your serum. I know you can take care of yourself, but if you need to get out of there fast just say the word.”
And despite the reassurance of backup, the part that rings the loudest for you is him saying he knows you can handle it. Like when he didn’t intervene on Coruscant. Or when he only stepped in on Kijimi once he saw that you were hurt. You’ve always wanted to prove to yourself that you’re strong enough to handle this line of work without help. Too many guys have assumed you’re an easy target, either to exploit you or to stoke their own egos as a rescuer. Every time you’ve used their mistake in your favour, winning bounties someone with twice your muscle would have struggled to take down because you’re smarter and faster than they are.
You’re realising now what it is about Boba Fett that feels so different. He respects your competence, but he’s offering to back you up if you ask. As though he knows you don’t need his help, but he’s letting the offer stand there if you want it. The most vicious bounty hunter in the galaxy, the man everyone else is too afraid to talk about, and he’s treating you as an equal. As a partner. It makes you even more determined to finish this job properly, leaving as little evidence as possible. A nameless escort disappearing into the night leaving behind the body of one of the richest men in the Imperial ranks isn’t exactly completely innocuous, but it’s the closest thing to invisible as you can manage.
You’re jerked out of your reverie as the speeder pulls up in front of a glittering building atop the cliffs of the city. Curved and low-set, transparisteel panels make up the entire front of the building and you suppress a grin. This is going to be way too easy.
-
The target ignores you, pouring himself a glass of something dark blue as he wordlessly gestures to the attendant to leave the room. You hear the soft click behind you of the door closing and you cross lightly to where he’s standing.
You feel the adrenaline starting to kick up in your system, silently calculating the distance from here to the open doors of the balcony, bathed in the light of both full moons. You’re not familiar enough with Cantonica’s artificial ocean to know whether the current will tear you up if you try leaping over the edge, but you guess that’s your best exit strategy. Your train of thought is interrupted as the target moves to recline on a wide, padded bench seat facing out over the view.
“Lose the dress,” he orders with no preamble. You try to force your expression into something playful as you step over to hover next to him.
“Isn’t there anything you’d like me to do first? To help you... relax?” You run a hand up his chest and find the heavy gold clasp holding the expensive tunic closed, pressing with your fingertips until it releases. Okay, great, now you just need to get a clear shot at his neck... if you could just get the collar open...
His hand cracks sharply against the side of your face and you’re momentarily stunned. You’ve been shot, stabbed and punched more times than you care to remember. You once had to use your teeth to tie a splint around your own shoulder after rolling out of a moving transport and landing badly. So it’s hardly the worst pain you’ve felt. Still, it catches you off guard, and you taste salt as you gently touch your tongue to your lip where his ring caught you. He’s seething at you.
“I don’t have time for more games. I wasn’t going to cause you any more pain than I had to, but stupid girls like you always seem to ask for it. The dress. Now.”
The second you take your clothes off, he’ll see what you’re really here for and you’ll be completely fucked. So you swing a leg over his hips and straddle him, making a show of reaching for the hem of your dress.
“You’re so right,” you hiss back. “I think I’m tired of playing too.” And as smoothly as you can, you draw the hypo-syringe from the holster at the top of your thigh and plunge it up under the side of his jaw, stabbing clean through the collar of his tunic and depressing the serum with your thumb, your forearm braced over his chest, holding him down. His face purpling with fury and eyes bulging, you use your other hand to cover the strangled noises coming out of his mouth.
“Shh, shh. It’s okay,” you whisper, holding him as still as you can while you feel his body beginning to seize under you. Your revulsion for him forces you to keep talking, straining to hold him still while the serum races through his body. “Hey, I don’t know who you pissed off enough that they put a price on you. But we’ve only been friends a few hours and I can see why. You’re a real fucking monster.”
His chest has stopped heaving and his eyes are rolled back in his head, frothed spittle at the corner of his mouth, jaw hanging slack as you relax your grip. You need to get out. You step up and around the bench, straightening the dress back over your thighs and leaning over to glance out the arched opening into the night.
“Fett?”
“On the roof,” comes the modulated reply in your earpiece. “Five guards in the courtyard, I’ve got eyes on them. Climb up the side of the building but keep flat.”
You step outside onto the balcony and hear the sound of footsteps crunching somewhere below you. There’s a lattice of spiked, ornamental-looking fruit growing nearly to the top of the building, and you step back before jumping lightly and grabbing hold of the lowest vine. It feels good to be out in the fresh air and as you always do after a job, you let your body take over, muscles in your back and shoulders burning pleasurably as you pull yourself towards the edge of the roof. You’ll let your mind catch up with what happened later, for now you're just relieved you were successful, and you’re kind of... exhilarated. You don’t want to admit this to yourself, but you were petrified at the prospect of fucking everything up on your first job with someone as legendary as Boba Fett.
As you reach to swing yourself over the lip of the roof, a gloved hand grasps your forearm and pulls you the rest of the way up.
“You okay?” he’s asking before your feet are even on solid ground.
“Fine,” you gasp back. Stars, he just pulled you up here one-handed like you weighed nothing. His hand hasn’t left your arm and you can see his helmet is tilting towards you, looking into your face. You suddenly remember the slap, and you automatically reach to touch the edge of your lip. “Oh, this is nothing. Really. I actually think it went pretty well.”
He releases a low chuckle and the sound of it makes you even more acutely aware of your close proximity up here. “You’re selling yourself short there. That was flawless. And fast. I can’t even take a cut, that was all you.”
You feel your face heat up and you can’t stop the goofy little smile creep over your face. “Well... yeah. But thanks for the lift.”
“About that,” he responds, and his hand on your wrist slides up around your shoulder while his other arm smooths down to support your lower back. “Hold on.”
The breath leaves your body in a strangled intake as you both rocket straight out over the edge of the rooftop, his jetpack surprisingly quiet under the wind whistling in your ears. You screw your eyes shut as your hair whips around your face and your hands tighten involuntarily against him, aware of how solid he feels. It’s thrilling, and yet the pounding of your heart is slowing from the urgent state of hyperalertness you always feel during a mission as your breathing syncs up to the rise and fall of the chest you’re currently pressed against.
This whole thing has been… weird. You know Fett’s worked with other hunters before, he mentioned it briefly as you agreed on the details of your arrangement before leaving the Core. Maybe it’s always like this for him; the easy camaraderie, the sense of security that comes from having someone watch your back. Somehow you don’t believe that’s the case though. You’ve seen what he’s like around other Guild members and it’s easy to see what earned that reputation for being cold-blooded. Gruff and monosyllabic, he’s never stayed to socialise any of the times you’ve seen him stalk in to collect a job or payment. You’ve heard about the time he somehow got away with silently blasting some smartmouthed hunter in the head for an insolent comment about removing his helmet. So why does he feel so different with you? Despite being betrayed or threatened by nearly every other hunter you’ve come across, you can’t seem to help the way your mind drifts back to the sound of his voice and the way it feels like… security.
-
Back onboard, things are strictly professional again. Boba’s disappeared into the cockpit to set course for the next target, leaving you to squeeze into the tiny fresher. You have a wild, inexplicable urge to look through the metal locker over the sink for any clues it might offer about what's underneath that helmet. Does he shave? Surely there's not a beard under there? What about cutting his own hair? Get a grip, you’re acting like a kid. This guy could vaporise you if he wanted to. Sighing, you finish cleaning yourself up and drag yourself back into the practical yet decidedly unsexy flight suit you normally wear when traveling.
Climbing up into the cockpit with two bowls of veg-protein, your eyes take a second to adjust to the dizzyingly blurred lines of your velocity. Boba’s leaning back in the pilot’s seat, reading a string of aurebesh projected from the holodisplay on his wrist gauntlet. “Next target’s in the Tungra sector. Barely any details on the guy; another high-ranker judging by the size of the bounty. And another kill job, just need to deliver proof of elimination. You need to stop anywhere on the way?”
You shake your head. “I travel pretty light. I hope you don’t mind I checked out your ration stores. Here, I rehydrated you a pack.” He seems to pause for a second before taking the bowl from your outstretched hand. There’s an awkward silence, then - oh shit. You realise your mistake and practically leap back out of the co-pilot’s seat. “I’ll go down to the hold, let you eat in peace.” But he’s already reaching a hand up to the back of his head, then there’s a quiet hydraulic hiss as he lifts the helmet off, leaving a headful of thick wavy hair standing messily in tufts.
You stare openmouthed as he quirks an eyebrow at you. He’s… young. Still a few years older than you, but younger than you expected from his voice and that reputation. Handsome, even. Apart from the faint frown lines, his deep skin is perfectly smooth - another rarity for bounty hunters, as your own recently busted lip reminds you. You wonder dazedly if the helmet is just to protect his looks and immediately dismiss the silly thought; there’s something incredibly fierce in his black eyes despite the relaxed way he’s gazing back at you, like he's waiting for something. You’re reminded that this man is every inch a warrior. There’s something else though, something you can’t exactly put your finger on… he’s so familiar, as though you’ve seen him before on a holodrama, but you know there’s no way that could be -
“You’re probably too young to remember. But I figured out a long time ago my face raises a few too many questions. You meet some of these Mandalorian guys and they’re fanatical about keeping their helmets on. Better people assume I’m just a religious headcase than dig any deeper.” He takes a bite of food as he talks, the words casual but the tone guarded.
“You’re not Mandalorian?” He glances at you sharply. “Sorry, I just… the armour.”
“It belonged to my father.”
You consider this as quiet settles again, breathing through the bland taste of the starchy ration food. His father mustn't have been around for a long time, then. He's been working in that armour for years, the stories among Guild members stretching back to before the Empire. And he’s shown absolute respect for bounty hunting rule number one: no questions. In fact, he’s been nothing but respectful. You should have known better than to pry. He took a risk bringing you out here with him, he could’ve asked any number of tougher, more experienced hunters instead. Are you trying to fuck this up? He interrupts the introspective self-flagellation by standing and moving to the ladder down to the hull, helmet under his arm.
“Coordinates are set. We’ll drop back to realspace in about nine standard hours. There’s a bunk there, above the cockpit.”
Something in your brain slips out of reality long enough to let you rest your hand on his elbow as he passes, and you hear yourself before you know what's happening. “Boba… thank you. For setting me up with these jobs.”
You have no idea what possessed you to touch him without needing to. But now that you have, something shifts. The stilted tension in the cabin feels charged with meaning, and you watch the way streaks of starlight cross his features. Those dark eyes are inscrutable, and you wonder what kind of things he’s seen… or done. Your chest hitches as he reaches a gloved hand down and gently cups your chin, tilting your face up towards him. You lean unconsciously into his hold, restraint slipping sideways as time expands around the moment. Despite how intimidating you know he is, you haven’t felt any fear towards him, which makes the way your heart has just started pounding thoroughly disconcerting. You take a shaky breath and the rough leather of his covered thumb brushes the edge of your parted bottom lip lighter than a whisper.
“I’ll get you a micropatch for that.” Oh. Right. The lip. He’s gone, boots ringing on the ladder down to the hull. You feel warm all over, your face and chest prickling as pure liquid heat settles low between your legs. This isn’t what you were expecting. You were expecting him to be brusque, dismissive at best. You thought he’d be making you carry his gear around, ordering you not to touch anything on his ship then ignoring you completely. You’re beginning to understand how badly you misjudged the situation, misjudged him, and with an involuntary throb somewhere below your navel something clicks into place: the realisation that you are absolutely fucked.
-
The Tungra job doesn’t go well.
Your hands are clumsy, trying to get the top off an ancient-looking medkit and ending up ripping it completely open, dropping the lid with a clang. “Hey, sit down,” Boba’s saying somewhere behind you. You’re digging around in the kit, balanced on one leg as you use your raised knee to try to support the weight of the pack. A quiet metallic thunk against the grated durasteel floor where he’s sitting and his voice comes back, unmodulated. “Calm down, wait a second. Come here.” There is no cauterizer in this medkit. Why is there no cauterizer in this medkit? You whirl on him.
“Take off your pants.”
Despite the ashen sheen to his face, he manages to leer at you. “All you had to do was ask.”
You don’t crack a smile. There’s a chunk of polyfibe as long as your hand sticking out of his calf, and you can already see the surrounding fabric of his pants beginning to darken with blood. You kneel in front of him and seize one of his boots, yanking it off and tossing it haphazardly behind you. You reach for his other foot and he catches your hand in a firm grip, making you pause.
“Careful. You’ll end up with a knee dart in your face,” he groans, dragging the boot off his injured leg gingerly and reaching to unlatch the fastenings on his knee plates. You watch him, gnawing the inside of your cheek and scowling. This is all your fault.
If it weren’t for the armour, he would be dead. You'd watched an entire panel of a building crash into him midair. You weren’t fast enough, too busy watching where Boba was to notice the armoured walker shoot the platform you were both standing on into a million pieces. If you’d just managed to catch onto something, if you’d rolled out of the way of the mess of debris smashing over you, if he hadn’t launched himself after you, if, if, if… the possible scenarios spin jerkily around in your head. So much for a fucking stealth mission. Luckily the skirmish that had already been in full swing between the Imperials and the local people had caused enough chaos that you were able to shoot the target in the head before you jetted the fuck out. Natural? Maybe not. But hopefully it would appear accidental what with everything else that had been going on.
He’s gritting his teeth, chestpiece already off as he slides the gauntlet off his wrist, taking the glove off with it and your heart lurches with a strange endearment watching how carefully he places each piece of armour down, arranging the pieces beside him. How much he must revere those pieces of metal, you think. This is the same man you just saw smash a trooper’s helmet clean off his head with the butt of his rifle. Impatient, you wriggle forwards and unsheathe the vibroblade from the belt of your flight suit. Before he can stop you, you’ve cut jaggedly up the side of his pants and ripped the fabric back from his leg wound.
“You only have Republic-issue medkits here, these things must be at least twelve years old. And they’re half empty,” you try not to sound as shaky as you feel. “We’ll need to do this the old-fashioned way… I can hit you with a micro-dose of one of my stims, it’ll help with the pain and slow the bleeding.”
His stare feels like it’s cleaving you open, a plasma bolt to the chest, dark brows creased over that burning black gaze. You press your knees together to stop from squirming. Your offer is insane, insulting even. You’re asking him to let you stab him with a mix of potent drugs - drugs he’s watched you kill with, and he’s already in a vulnerable position… you could throw his body out the airlock, steal his ship, raid that impressive weapons locker. And his armour is probably worth a small fortune… His voice sounds somehow, impossibly rougher than usual. “Do it.”
You nod once, swallowing down the crazed sudden urge to brush your lips over the back of his clenched fist. He’s trusting you; undeservedly, inexplicably. For some reason the intimacy of this affects you with a nearly-painful surge of heat. You feel warmth on your cheeks, your lips, as you work quickly with a handful of delicate stim cylinders from your belt, adjusting the dispensers in minute increments to set the dosages.
Syringe in hand, you line up the needle tip to the side of his thigh, just above the site of the protrusion. You flick your eyes back up to read his features for a sign to continue, and his face looks strangely relaxed against the pain you imagine he’s feeling. He’s just watching you, breathing slowly, dark eyes softened into something gentle, and as he tilts his head back the light catches a warm brown cross-section through his iris. The openness of his expression emboldens you, and you shift closer, hovering your body over his and resting a tentative hand over his on his lap.
You try to make the injection as smooth as possible, slowly depressing the solution as you concentrate on numbing the area. You can still see him watching you from your peripheral vision, and you focus on keeping your face serene as you size up the task at hand. He should be pretty well anaesthetised now, but you still hold back a flinch of empathised discomfort as you work the jagged polyfibe shrapnel out, not as smoothly as you would have liked. Luckily the tranex you hit him with is working; the blood oozing slower than before despite the blockage being removed.
The hold is quiet under the hum of the hyperdrive. You don’t look up from packing gauze into the wound at his murmured voice. “I never asked if you even wanted to do kill jobs. I just assumed. Those serums, I’m guessing they come in handy for live bounties.”
Your tone is light. “They do. Pretty hard to bring them in without a ship. That Trandoshan’s piece of junk left me stranded in Hutt Space with an escape pod that was malfunctioning. But that’s not what you’re asking.”
“No.”
You wait. His breathing is still steady as you work around the exposed skin and you think he won’t continue, the pause growing until his lips move again.
“I’ve been doing this a long time. Since I was a kid. Before my father died… he used to take me on jobs so I could learn. Met a lot of hunters. And some of them just love the work itself. Bloodthirsty, get a kick out of ripping someone apart. Or greedy; a lot of these guys feel like the galaxy owes them something.”
You meet his gaze for the briefest moment in a pause between wrapping a length of bandage. “You’re still not getting to the question.”
He tilts his head further back, leaning against the hull of the ship. “You’re good at this. You’re tough, and smart. Get in, get the job done. No complaints. But it doesn’t suit you.”
You let a handful of seconds pass, then a few more. His praise thrills in your chest, and you decide to let the compliment settle despite the urge to point out your current situation and how you both ended up there.
Pressing your lips together, you measure each word carefully.
“I was still a kid when the Republic fell. The war on the holonet felt like something happening in a story. My parents didn’t let me watch, but I still heard what people were saying in the streets. Talking about them and us, being for or against the Republic like two seperate sides of a chit with no way they could ever overlap. When the war ended, things started getting messy. There was a man who used to import meilooruns to sell in the square… I saw him yelling at one of our neighbours, calling her a Separatist. People got paranoid - you’d walk through an alley and hear voices pause behind doors, waiting for you to pass. None of it mattered in the end. When the Imps moved in, they said it was to protect us. But then they started mining. They devoured everything on the planet to build ships and weapons. Seized property, land… food. Pretty soon even the loth-cats were starving to death.”
You finish tying the bandage in place, leaving your hand to rest on his knee. Your next words are lower, your gaze still focused on his leg. “My mother was the one who taught me how to splice serums, altering them to make something new. They caught her smuggling in medicine: just bacta, and some low-cost stims the Empire’d taxed up until nobody could afford them. Antibiotics and vaccines. I used to help her run supplies out to her contacts in Jalath. That’s why I wasn’t at home when they came.”
You realise you’ve been talking for far longer than you meant to and sit back, self conscious under his intense scrutiny as you examine the floor. His hand reaches out slowly and you hold perfectly still, heart thrumming as he lifts your chin with the barest touch of his fingertip. “Why are you doing that?” his voice coarse. “Why won’t you look at me?”
You’re startled, and automatically you meet his gaze as though to disprove his point. You don’t know how to answer him without leaving yourself horribly exposed. You can’t say it’s because every time you do glance at him you get caught on the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, or the way he doesn’t bother to conceal any emotion that passes over his face; a product, no doubt, of rarely needing to guard his expressions beneath the helmet. And yet he’s never betrayed any hint of a smile - you wonder if he has dimples, if the corners of his eyes crease when he laughs; if he laughs.
You imagine suddenly what he would have been like as a child, so proud and tough, worshiping a father who would leave him alone in a galaxy with nothing but ugliness and evil: inheriting a warrior’s armour and a belief that killing was the only way to survive.
You wonder how many other people have seen him like this. You wonder why he’s letting you.
Now that you are looking at him - really looking, he looks almost pained. He’s looking into your face like he’s expecting some kind of answer there. Like your confession - revealing yourself to him that way - has given him an invitation. That intangible something hanging between you holds you frozen there, heavy on your limbs as the weight of Sirpar but thin as a thread of silk, so delicate you’re almost afraid to breathe lest you shatter the moment.
And then his hand is in your hair, pulling you toward him with a savage urgency and you gasp into his lips against yours, awkwardly repositioning and trying not to collapse your weight onto his leg. He’s growling into your open mouth, “Stop worrying about the fucking leg”, as straight fire is bolting down the centre of your chest, from the base of your stomach to a keen point between your legs.
You’re in his lap, facing him as you straddle his waist, and you’ve been here before; you’ve had a handful of quick, grasping, fumbled liaisons with other hunters between jobs and it always felt convenient, fulfilling an urge like any other, but this - this is like running for your life from a crowd of firing enemies, every nerve ending bolting with electrified adrenaline. The need to feel his hands on every inch of you feels more desperate than your own survival, and that terrifies you.
His mouth on yours is like being devoured, his tongue pressing into you, tasting and groaning, rough hands cradling the back of your neck in a hold that feels practised and secure. The unbidden thought bursts into your head that this is routine for him; you’re one in a string of women who’ve been here, and your mind rejects the idea as quickly as it came, but the possessive itch lingers. You bite down on his lip and he hisses, fingers tightening in your hair, and you’re dragging yourself against the hardness you can feel even through the bulky flight suit you wear.
You reach down between you, ripping open the fastenings at the front of your suit, leaving your chest exposed to the navel as he breaks off from your lips, holding you at arm’s length to look down at the deep v of your skin. He brings a hand down to slide underneath one side of your body and his thumb brushes the concealed swell of your breast, his hand broad enough to cup your entire ribcage.
You’re too impatient for his exploration, and you’re already bringing your hands down to slide beneath the waistband of his pants as you use your thumb to pop open the fastenings. You palm him through his pants; he’s fucking hard, and you can feel the breadth of him, but then his other hand is on your wrist, lifting it gently away. For a moment you feel a stun of dejection, is he stopping you? Does he not want…? But he’s peeling your opened flight suit back over your shoulders, trying to free your arms and you lean back to help him push the heavy canvas off until you’re naked from the waist.
His hungry gaze is reverential. You resist the urge to cover your breasts with your hands, watching him watch you, shivering. His large, rough hand keeps you upright, holding your lower back, and he leans in. Before your frantically sparking brain has had time to register what he’s doing, he’s pressing his mouth to your nipple, taking you into the heat of his lips and dragging his tongue up with a warm languidity. You can’t stop the slow moan from deep in your throat and, encouraged, he presses harder against the base of your spine, arching your back up into his mouth.
Keeping the furnace of his mouth around your breast, he slides his grip down, trying to push the bunched flight suit past your waist, made awkward by your spread legs on either side of his body. He leans forward, supporting your weight with his arms and pushing you both back until you’re laying flat on the floor of the ship’s hold. He’s leaning over you, practically ripping the jumpsuit off the lower half of your body - you’re careful not to kick him in the face as he pulls your legs out and leaves you propped back on your elbows, panting up at him in your underwear.
You feel undone, wanton. Your chest is heaving with each gasped breath and your hair is loose around your hot face, your parted lips tender and eyes wide. You wonder how deranged you must look as he studies you, that same fierce expression - so severe, he doesn’t take his gaze from your face as he hooks his fingers into the sides of your underwear and slides them down the curves of your thighs in a smooth motion as you collapse onto the flat of your back.
You almost don’t hear his rasp, “Beautiful. Fuck… you’re, - beautiful…” and you feel your walls clench hard, your cunt exposed in front of him, and you know he must be able to see that you’re glistening with arousal. Your arms are thrown up over your head on the floor, fingers splayed, waiting, gasping, for him to touch you. He balls your underwear in his fist, as though he can’t decide what to do with it, and then you feel like you’re going to completely fucking combust when he presses it to his face, eyes on yours. The intake of his breath is shuddering, and he brings a hand down to press against the growing bulge in his pants.
“You have no idea - No. Fucking. Idea how good you look. How good you smell,” and then a thick finger is sliding between your folds, feeling the slick of your heat, his pressure light but firm enough that the brush against your clit jolts through your entire body and you nearly choke.
He moves down your body, a hand sliding beneath you and shifting to cup your ass, encouraging you to lift your hips slightly. His other hand is still testing you, feeling how soaked you are as he slides his fingertips over your clit, and you’re so overwrought, your sensitivity dialled up to a thousand that your hips jerk up with each pass. You squeeze your eyes shut, whimpering, and his hand withdraws from your throbbing, desperate cunt to cup your jaw in his large hand. His thumb is beneath your ear, a finger pressing against your lower lip until you take it into your mouth, first one, then another.
“Keep your eyes open. Let me see you,” and you can’t respond, mouth open under his hand, tasting your own arousal on his fingers and watching helplessly. He withdraws and then, excruciatingly slowly, he’s pressing them against your opening, feeling the responsive arch of your body at the slow intrusion. He releases his own roughened breath as though he can’t quite believe how hot you are, how wet, how tight as he begins to work the slick fingers inside you, pressing up hard against that aching spot.
You feel a slow, steadily building core of pure sensation registering with each touch and your scrambled thoughts are trying desperately to maintain some element of togetherness; you’re biting hard on your lip to try to stop the sobbing, animalistic noises threatening to burst from your chest as shockwaves of pleasure ripple up into your stomach.
He leans down, roughened thumb pressing directly over your clit, the pressure with each pass deliciously agonising as he strokes you with a torturous focus. His pace is both too slow and too fast: too much and not enough, and you’re holding your breath without meaning to, unable to take in the sensation wracking your body - you feel simultaneously frozen to the spot and desperate to move, muscles locked and straining to writhe against his touch.
How is he doing this to you? He’s breaking you. Your brain doesn’t feel like it belongs to you anymore; there’s not a single coherent thought in there, just a chorus of moremoremorefuck-icantstopdontstop. But then his head ducks lower and his tongue dips out to flick a hard, hot line in a stripe along your clit as his curled fingers drag hard against the spot inside you, and you’re fucking done. Whiteness explodes beneath your eyelids and you feel your cunt flood with an exquisite wash of agonising bliss. Your released breath is a jagged thing, your hands involuntarily curled into fists, your elbows coming up together to shield your face as your hips jerk in his hold and your muscles contract around his buried fingers.
He doesn’t even give you a second of rest, using your complete loss of control to slide a third finger inside to join the first two, and you moan around the stretch, blunt fingers so thick it feels like his entire fucking hand is inside of you, the graphic image tearing unbidden through your mind as he’s splitting you open through the contractions of your orgasm. You can hear his fingers scissoring inside you, the wetness obscene.
His tongue has slowed its ministrations, lapping slowly but firmly against you, until he closes his lips and sucks your clit into his mouth, and you’re gasping nonsensically, “I can’t, I’m gonna.. fuck, I can’t -“ and the heat of the press of his tongue drives you into another orgasm before the first has even receded; the dual pleasure cresting over you and your thighs shaking uncontrollably as your cunt clamps down, your muscles clenching and pushing against the sensation as your hands unintentionally fly down to uselessly clutch at his thick, dark hair.
He releases his hold on your hips, and you collapse back onto the floor, a trembling mess as he sits back into a kneel, throwing off his shirt one-armed and pulling his ripped, bloody pants down carelessly over the bandaged wound and - fuck his cock, like the rest of him, is beautiful, thick and broad; the head flushed a deep shade of berry and a pearl of precum glistening at the tip. He’s so hard it looks painful, his arousal obvious as he wraps his hand around himself to squeeze lightly - you’re transfixed at the sight of him touching himself.
“Is this what you want?” his voice sounds strained, and despite his obvious need he’s waiting, restrained, watching you. And like watching him set down his armour, your heart lurches with a strange, tender emotion; something you can’t account for, watching this indurate warrior literally kneeling at your feet, bloodied clothes ripped away. You haven’t yet recovered the use of your voice, instead you bring a trembling hand up slowly, and his expression is wary as you trace your fingertips across his furrowed brow and downturned lips.
How to smooth away that expression of such guarded tension? you wonder. His eyes are dark, soft, searching under his hard brows - watching you and waiting. You decide in that moment that even if this is standard procedure for him; even if every other bounty hunter he’s worked with has also ended up flushed with sticky pleasure on the floor of his ship, you don’t care.
You don’t know if his desperate hold on you is because he recognised the kernel of truth in your story; that hidden, shameful secret that you suspect he knows too - there is a yawning, lonely terror that comes with fighting in this galaxy; there is no softness, no tenderness. There is only survival, in this moment, and then the next one, until time runs out. And in this moment you’re together, wounded, needing, reaching.
You lean up on your elbow and kiss him, letting your hand slip around to the nape of his neck to feel the secret way his hair curls there before tracing down that broad muscled back. You pull him down closer, pressing your breasts up to meet his sweat-filmed chest as you try to close the space between your bodies, and he understands - lowering his hips down to yours. He breaks the kiss to watch you, eyes hard as he lines his cock up with your entrance and - Stars, you’re so soaked from your orgasms you can feel it on the inside of your thighs, and there’s no friction as he presses in, breaching you; just a slow, shearing stretch as you try to relax to accomodate his thickness, your thighs shaking from the intensity as he splits you open millimetre by millimetre.
An arm roped with muscle slides underneath your back, holding your body off the floor and to his chest as he finally, agonisingly, bottoms out impossibly deep inside you. His lips drop to your face, open mouth pressed inelegantly to your temple as he releases a low, long groan. You realise you’re holding your breath again and let out your own juddered exhale into the side of his neck as he moves so slightly inside you, and you‘re no longer aware of the hard coldness of the durasteel floor underneath you or the smell of hydraulic grease from the engine room, you’re utterly drunk on how warm he feels, how solid, and the masculine spice of his skin; soap underneath sweat.
He’s dragging the length of his cock achingly slowly through the grip of your tightness, and through half-lidded eyes you can see the muscles of his shoulder flexing with his restraint. You imagine he holds the immense pleasure of simply feeling you squeezing his cock warring with the desire to take you apart entirely. And oh, you want him to move - you lift your hips to meet him, trying to speed his movements; every inch of you burning with want, to draw him deeper, for him to hold you harder, hard enough to bruise. You want to rake your nails down his back, sink your teeth into him, make him savage - make him show you why you’re supposed to be so afraid of him. You want him to ruin you.
He presses you down hard, pinning you in place with one hand on your waist as his lips brush your ear, his breath making you shudder deliciously as he hisses “Easy, little one,” and Stars, his voice is so rough, like gravel, juxtaposed with his movements so slow and deep as he controls the pace.
And though you’ve begun to realise that his contradictions are endless, this one is the greatest surprise so far: you never would have imagined this man would hold you down and fuck you - so slowly.
His hand slides up from cupping your ass to your thigh, until he’s hitching your knee up and deepening the angle of your hips and you didn’t think it was possible but you feel even fuller, stretched to your limit. You’re absolutely trapped within the feeling of his cock - you can’t move, you can’t think, you only feel him, and as his long strokes are pressing so hard against that same deliciously aching spot you feel almost feral with desperation for him to move as you sob.
“Boba, I need… fuck, please, I need… - ,” and you feel his lips twist up against your neck, as though your torture is satisfying to him, until he raises up to look down at you, spread beneath him on his filthy floor, hair tangled, flush burning underneath your face all the way down to your breasts, tears sliding from the corners of your eyes, begging him.
His expression is total obliteration; the intensity of a man watching prey, but awed, worshipful, and he’s drinking in the sight of you wrecked beneath him; savouring this moment as though he’s being presented with the purest quality of spice. You know immediately that for him, as is it for you, this is an indulgent ecstasy - no sloppy, frantic rut up against the wall of a cantina fresher between bounties but instead a rare, luxuriant coming apart.
Your impatience wars with your desire to stay here forever (fuckthebountiesfuckthe-Empireletthewholegalaxyburn) but then his thumb is rolling on your clit, wide hand cupping your hip as he does, and your breath stops with a strangled sound, eyes rolling back until they’re closed, absolutely lost, back arching off the floor in pleasure, and you’re tipping over again, cumming around him, clenching until he growls, squeezing his cock.
And that does it; he seems to no longer be able to hold back. He flexes his hips backwards in a fluid motion, pulling almost completely out of you, before driving back inside in a savage thrust which would have hurt if he hadn’t prepared you so thoroughly, but your drenched, fluttering cunt is still riding the crest of your orgasm and you feel as though you’ve transcended the limits of clear thoughts, reduced to a creature of hot, roiling sensation as you cry out against his unleashed pace as he begins to drive into you.
And this, this is the man who has never bargained with a quarry. Who has vaporised other hunters for ill-considered comments. Whose silent, stalking presence warns of no escape, no mercy, no hesitation. He has both hands around your hips, raising your ass off the floor to pull you against him as he tears into you, the rhythmic wet smack of your bodies a violent sound under his harsh, gritty exhalations, and your head is limp; neck tipped back as stars explode behind your eyelids.
You can’t breathe, entire body engulfed in roaring heat as your hands claw helplessly into fists on the floor above your head, teeth clenched to prevent them from rattling in your head with the force of his movement. His ruthless motion stutters, rhythm falling out of time as you feel him shuddering, his cock pulsing inside you as he hunts down his own climax with exacting brutality.
He orders, “Open your eyes,” and you do, meeting his gaze through the fog of dizziness in your senseless head. And he snarls, falling over the edge as you feel thick ropes of spend filling you, throbbing out his climax in drawn out bursts as his shaky arms release your hips and he slumps over you, gasping.
You don't know how long it takes before awareness of your surroundings returns. You're staring dreamily at a transparisteel panel in the ceiling over his shoulder, covering a tangle of wires and sensors as you work to slowly replenish your oxygen stores, brain fizzing in an amber afterglow.
You’re both still joined, mixed sweat cooling on each others’ bodies, the hold hot with the smell of your combined sex. You realise you’re laying on scraps of discarded clothing, some of it torn and bloody, as he withdraws from his position between your legs and stands up, leaning his weight heavily on his uninjured leg.
A horrible twang somewhere in your chest tells you that he’s going to leave you there without a single word, slump up to the cockpit and disappear, and you curl onto your side around the thought that you could be so quickly discarded... but he unlatches a concealed compartment over the weapons locker, pulling out an armful of worn, soft fabric. He slides his weight heavily back down the wall, unrolling the bundle and spreading the blanket over you gingerly shifting down to ease himself down behind you, his posture mirroring yours, arms almost… hesitant before sliding around your body and pulling you flush against his front.
You're frozen, mind racing despite the heaviness of your eyes. You're both filthy, bruised, bloody and sweaty from the job before as well as your bodies' exertion. You should go clean up, you think vacantly, check your weapons, make sure you don't have broken shards of plasticrete in your hair.
But instead you're loosening, feeling his torso begin to slowly expand and then exhale against you. His face is in your hair as though he’s drawing the scent inside himself, despite your state of griminess and destruction. Gradually his movements slow, and you assume from that chest-deep breathing that he’s already asleep, unsurprising with the painkillers you gave him. You try to breathe slowly too, telling yourself you'll figure this out when you wake up. Clean up then, reassess your situation. Figure out what's supposed to happen next; how you're supposed to navigate the inevitable awkwardness of the next day. And as you slip into unconsciousness, you dream that you can feel his lips, ghosting through your hair, pressing the lightest touch imaginable to the nape of your neck.