Work Text:
They burn the Klatooinian corpses on a pyre built from the barricades.
The Sorgans are rounding up their own dead. He offered help, but Stoke stopped him. It’s a task the Sorgans want to do themselves. There’s only three bodies, and anyway, they have last rites, rituals. The kind of display that makes him itch beneath the Beskar.
So instead he watches the fire, locking his knees to keep from swaying with exhaustion. In a few hours, the pyre will have burned low enough that he can gather the scorched Klatooinian remains and bury them someplace far away.
He’s not alone. Beside him, Cara Dune leans on the pulse rifle. He hasn’t asked for it back; it seems like it’s the only thing keeping her standing. He knows the feeling. The last few hours feel like days.
“Job’s done,” she says at last.
“Thanks to you.” Not even his vocal transmitter can mask his weariness.
“You helped.” It’s wryly charitable. “You’re not so bad, for a bounty hunter. We’d make a good team if I was sticking around.”
Irritation flickers through him. “You going to head back to the outpost?”
She lifts a shoulder, half a shrug, her eyes on the fire. “That’s the plan.”
He shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks to himself. She fled after the fighting on Endor turned to peace. But they fought side by side with the Sorgans, trained them, and they still need help. Their home is in shambles. They’ll need to rebuild. Hell, it was his and Dune’s plan that drew the raiders to the village in the first place. Two dozen Klatooinians retreated into the woods; who knows if they’ll try to strike again. And Omera—something in him twists unpleasantly at the thought of leaving her behind. It’s been so long since anyone’s treated him with such honest kindness. It’s made him easy, unguarded, in a way he hasn’t been in a long time.
Probably why news of Dune’s leaving rankles him so much.
But he can’t think of a single thing to say that would change her mind. So he holds his hand out, shoulder-height. She sighs, but tilts the rifle into his open palm.
He walks away without a goodbye.
*
When he ducks from the barn in the morning, the first thing he sees is Dune, crouching atop the half-submerged AT-ST, helping a handful of villagers shear metal panels off its armor. She sees him approach, and her half-grin flickers to life. Her left arm—what he can see of it—is bruised deep purple from their fight in the Klatooin camp barely twelve hours earlier.
He meets her on the causeway.
“Thought you were headed for the outpost,” he tells her.
“I am.” She gives the welding tool in her palm a spin. “Pretty sure I didn’t say when, though.”
He’s glad she can’t see his mouth twitch into a smile.
*
A week goes by. Dune doesn’t go back to the outpost.
Neither does he.
*
He’s not used to this. Curiosity. The Way didn’t give him time for it, and then the Guild made it clear that questions were as unthinkable as a botched job.
But with Dune—he wants to know.
“So what’d you do,” he asks her. They’re elbow-deep in the engine of the village’s one lousy hover cart. He does not—does not—watch the flex and shift of her muscles. “Must’ve been big, if you’ve got a bounty on your head the Alliance can’t lift.”
She grins, twisting a wrench. “The Guild know you’re this nosy?”
“I don’t have your puck. I’m not breaking the Code.”
“Bet you never do, do you.”
“No.”
“You ever broken a rule in your entire life?”
He busies himself with a snarl of tangled wire. “No.”
“You must be a riot at parties.”
“Wouldn’t know. Never been to one.”
She snorts. “Mandalorians aren't party people, I take it.”
“We’re refugees,” he says. “No." He hesitates, and then adds, "You probably went to plenty, when you were safeguarding Republic delegates.”
“Subtle,” she sneers. There’s a smudge of engine grease on her cheek. It looks ridiculous. “I’m not telling you what I did. Gonna have to get used to it.”
He holds up both hands. “All right.”
“All right.” She blows hair off her forehead. “Hand me that spanner.”
*
He’s a light sleeper. When the kid gives a soft, urgent coo and touches a tiny hand to his face, he’s awake instantly.
This is new. The kid’s never woken him before. Never crawled into his bunk before. But even in the dark, without the aid of the night vision in his helmet, he can see that those wide eyes are wider than usual. Those big ears are down, drawn back and close to his head. The little guy’s practically vibrating.
The kid’s scared.
He’s on his feet in an instant. He doesn’t know much about the Force—still can’t quite believe the Mudhorn incident was anything other than a day’s worth of collective concussions—but he remembers, from somewhere, that Force-users can have premonitions. If the kid’s scared, then something’s wrong.
“Stay put,” he tells the kid, for all the damn good it will do. He pulls his helmet on, grabs his rifle, and pushes the door flap aside.
(He can sleep while wearing his helmet. He usually does. Alone on his ship or back with the tribe, regardless. It’s easier. Safer.
Here, though, he hasn’t yet slept with it on. Part of him wonders if he wants to get caught without. Omera coming by to ask if he’s hungry. Dune barging in to ask for his help with something she could absolutely do on her own. If it isn’t purposeful, if they happen to see him, then maybe—
He knows how pathetic it is.
Hasn’t stopped him yet.)
It’s still the middle of the night, but Sorgan’s three moons glow just enough to see by. Mist hovers in wispy threads over glassy fishing pools. His olfactory sensors let him breathe in the cool, sweet damp of the night air.
And—he stops in his tracks. There’s a scent in the distance that rises behind it all like bile. Dirt and grime, months without baths. Dried blood caked on armor and weapons.
Klatooinians.
Before he can shout a warning, they pour out of the reeds like wraiths.
Somewhere behind him, Dune is hollering for the village to wake up, to get their blasters. He’s already picking them off like practice targets; they go up in gasps of smoking sparks and scraps of charred leather. The village is coming awake, coming alive, as Dune arrives at his side with her blaster in hand.
There’s two dozen raiders, the last of the group that retreated into the woods the week before. He and Dune and the villagers take down a little more than half before the rest flee.
He follows them.
Dune follows him.
They pick off two more raiders in the trees. The last handful, they take down at the raider camp.
It’s brutal. Messy. The Klatooinians remaining are still skilled fighters. One of them clips Dune across her left temple with a heavy elbow; another’s blaster takes a chunk out of the cloth beneath his arm. He nearly lights his breeches on fire when he's shoved backward through a cookfire and catches himself on the rim of a glowing spotchka vat. The reprieve doesn't last; in another second, he’s scrabbling in the dirt with a Klatooinian twice his size.
Though “scrabbling” is a generous word. The Klatooinian has hands the size of a Wookie’s and wraps them around his throat, bashing his head into the roots beneath, ringing his helmet like a bell. The world jolts in and out of focus in agonizing snaps of pain.
Or it does, until Dune kills her last opponent and then shoots his Klatooinian in the head.
It collapses atop him. Fury roars through him; he shoves the hulking carcass off. “I had him,” he snaps, on his feet now. He feels fully alive, every bruised part of him singing with pain and adrenaline. “A few more seconds and I—”
“A few more seconds and you’d be dead,” Dune snaps right back. “You’re welcome.”
“I’ve taken down bigger targets on my own.” His voice is rising. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“Oh, please.” Her dismissal doesn’t even warrant an eye-roll. “You couldn’t find your own cock if the Way didn’t tell you where to look.”
He’s moving before his mind registers the action, slamming her into the nearest tree with one armored hand clenched in the dip of her chestplate.
She’s got nothing for him but a grin as sharp as a vibroblade. Her eyes narrow, sparking with a challenge that crackles against his. “Touched a nerve,” she practically drawls, infuriating him all the more. “Didn’t know it was possible under all that Beskar.”
“Don’t. Presume. To know me. To know who I am.” He’s growling it through clenched teeth. “And don’t take away the kills I’ve earned.”
“Don’t give me that savior-complex kriff,” she spits. “We were working as a team—”
“What do you know about teamwork. Huh?” He can feel the heat of her body, the whole furious surge of it just barely fighting against his. The warmth of her is seeping through the fabric knuckles of his gloves. “Endor, right? You abandoned the Rebellion the second it got tough—”
Her eyes flash; she hooks his ankle, trips him, catches him by the cuirass and slams him against the tree trunk. She grips his throat, pressing into the bruises already blossoming from that Klatooinian tossing his head around. “You don’t know me either,” she snaps. Her jaw is clenched, her teeth gleaming in the moonslight. “Not a damned thing.”
They’re nose to helmet, and his breathing filter won’t hide the sound of his own panting. Or hers. Adrenaline still pulses through him like a spotchka buzz, sweet and sharp and unraveling his limbs. He squeezes his eyes shut. Some distant part of him registers that he’s fully hard. Something's changed, here, and he's not sure he knows what it is. He just knows he wants it. Badly.
And she must know it. His pulse is hammering hard enough that she can probably feel it through his cowl.
His voice is low, dark, when he says, “I know you’re running from your own mistakes.”
She laughs, fierce and wild. “And you’re not?”
He opens his eyes. “Not running now.”
Her grin is a forest fire. She takes her hand from his throat and slides it down, pausing above his belt.
He doesn't stop her. Just watches her, breathing hard.
Her hand slides further down, over his belt, over leather and fabric, slow, her eyes searching the dark slash of his visor. When her grip curls over the hard, thick jut of him through his breeches and kneads, he groans, loud and helpless, helmet thunking back against the tree.
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s what I thought.”
His hips arch into her touch. It’s skilled, blissful torment, the way she shapes her palm and digs into the fabric with her fingers.
Reality claws into his throat, out of his mouth: “I can’t.” But he doesn’t stop her. Kriff, he doesn’t stop her.
“Yeah?” She’s stilled, but doesn’t take her hand away. “Why not?”
He’s still panting. “It's not coming off.”
Her smirk might kill him. “You think I’m doing this because I want to see your face?”
His laugh is shaky with relief, and it turns into a moan as she works her hand up and then down again. She says, “Take that glove off and touch me.”
They both moan when he finds her wet. Her velvet folds part at his touch, and she closes her eyes, brows furrowed, when he rolls two fingertips over her clit. She pants, “The Way teach you this?”
“Not on purpose.” Oh, stars, she shivers when he slides those two fingers back to curl into her entrance.
“Mmh. I heard you tell Omera how—how long it’s been, since you had this thing off. Around somebody else.”
Guilt tumbles through him at the thought of Omera; he pushes it aside. “And?”
Dune’s eyes are dark. “You’ve never tasted anyone, have you.”
It takes him so aback that all he can do is stare. Even his fingers have paused.
She takes his silence for an answer. “You’ve got no idea what you’re missing. A woman who wants you, twisting on your tongue—there’s nothing like it.”
He manages, “Then tell me.”
She leans in close, where the helmet’s auditory sensors are the most perceptive. At the same time, her hand dips into his waistband. When she wraps a hand around him, still gloved, he thunks his head back against the tree again, shuddering, helpless to the way his hips arch. She murmurs, “Whoever it is—you’ll make a mess. You’ll love it.”
He rasps a curse.
“You'll hold her open and breathe her in, and trust me—you'll want to rush it, dive right in, but you gotta take your time. Start slow. You’re gonna think you’re in control. But you aren’t. She’ll thrash and she’ll moan and she’ll beg, but then she’ll put her hands in your hair so she can ride your face. Then you can’t breathe, and you don’t care. You’d die for it if it meant you could keep going.”
If he thought for a second he could do it without regret, he’d be on his knees, helmet long gone, Dune’s breeches halfway down her thighs and his tongue buried as deep as his fingers. Which he works deeper, harder. His mouth is watering at the thought. He can’t—he needs—
“Stop talking,” he pants. “Just—just touch me.” He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, adds a please so pained and quiet that he’s not even sure his vocal transmitter will relay it.
It doesn’t. But she’s close enough to hear him anyway. Mercifully, she doesn’t tease. She just gives him what he wants.
When she gasps, “More,” he adds another finger to the two already working, corkscrewing them in and out with the scant space he’s got. She moans, and moans again when he croaks, “You don’t have to go so easy.” She pulls her hand free, tears her glove off with her teeth, and spits neatly into her palm.
He cries out when her grip returns. The glide of it, the heat, the roiling pleasure swirling just beneath his skin, the inescapable, borderline-painful tight circle of her fingers—hell, he’s gone, he’s lost to it. She thumbs at the head, murmurs, “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you. Hooking my leg over your shoulder and taking everything you can get.”
“Yes,” he breathes, and comes hard, arching into her wet grip with a tremor that wracks him top to bottom and back again. She moves with him, her spare hand locked in the loose fabric at his shoulder, watching him with dark, dark eyes.
He collapses back against the tree as the last spasms of pleasure leave him. The sound of his own hammering pulse thunders in his ears. They stare at each other; she’s panting heavily. Waiting. His fingers are still buried deep inside her.
He flips them both around. She lands with her back against the tree, triumph blazing in her eyes, and he pins her there, his other hand locked back in the dip of her chestplate. “Thought you’d forget about me,” she says, all challenge again.
A twist of his fingers and he’s circling the pad of his thumb gently, carefully, against her clit. Over her moan, he says, “I don’t leave jobs unfinished.”
She wants to retort; he can see the spark of it, the words she can’t help but forget as he fucks his fingers deeper, still corkscrewing, spreading and narrowing, his thumb smoothing against her the whole way. “Yeah,” she manages. “Like that. Don’t—aah! Don’t stop.”
He releases her chestplate, slides his gloved hand to the bare stretch of her arm, rakes his touch across the tattoo. Up her shoulder. Into the wild dark of her hair. Her forehead thunks against the brow of his helmet as she pants. Her arms circle his neck, her one shining fist held tight. When she comes, she shouts so loud, he’s half afraid it’ll bring creatures running—including Sorgans. But her shout turns to a moan, her eyes screwed shut, her brows furrowed, her mouth open and soft. She tightens around his fingers in long, rolling spasms, grinding her hips down against his thumb.
She’s shaking when she opens her eyes, sweat starting at her brow, but that half-grin comes back shining. “Mmh,” she says as he draws his hand free. “Not bad for someone who’s never done oral.”
“Never given it,” he says. Their foreheads are still pressed together. His gloved hand is still in her hair.
“Got women lining up for the privilege, do you.”
“Not just women.” He wishes he could nuzzle at her nose. “It’s a big galaxy out there.”
She laughs. “That’s what I like to hear.”
They agree: they’ll come back for the Klatooinian bodies in the morning, when they can bring a crew to comb the camp for supplies.
As they follow a hunting trail back to the village, Dune says, “Hope you don’t expect a storage locker at my place, or anything.”
He scoffs. “You beat me to it.”
“But I was thinking,” she says. Not looking at him. “I’m gonna stick around a while longer. Help the Sorgans get back on their feet. Make sure there’s no more raiders holed up in the woods.”
“That’s the plan?”
“That’s the plan.”
He nods. “Good.”
“Good,” she agrees.
He’s once again grateful for the helmet that hides his smile.
*
Dawn is just beginning to touch the sky when they make it back to the village. The kid’s waiting for him at the perimeter with a handful of others, Omera and Caben among them, the latter’s arm in a homespun sling.
He’s in a good mood; he hoists the little guy on his shoulder and lets him ride there back to the barn. Dune splits to her own lodging—the barn next door—but not before she arrows him with a wink so lecherous that his cheeks heat.
The kid coos in his ear.
“Tell me about it,” he mutters. He ducks into the barn and lets the flap fall shut behind him before he slips his helmet off. He sets the kid down in the cradle. “Get some sleep,” he says. “Been a long night.”
He waits until the kid’s out cold before pulling a glove off. Letting his fingertips graze his own lips. A careful, guilt-laced touch of his tongue.
Salt. A muskiness similar to his own. A slickness he thought was long gone. He clenches his hand, lowers it.
Maybe someday.
Maybe even with her.
For now, this is enough. It’s more than he ever thought he’d get.
He can live with that.