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Another hot desert gale rattled the RazorCrest as it sat a few clicks outside town and swept more sand into the ramp grating. That would eventually have to be cleaned out, Corin noted in resignation and sighed. He was really starting to resent these endless desert planets and their lack of variation, but fortunately this one had a decently civilized city center that he could walk around with little trouble while the Mandalorian took jobs and did business. Unfortunately, the oppressive heat never seemed to change no matter what the planet's civilization offered. His luck always seemed to even out that way. He wiped off the sweat dripping down his neck with his collar and pushed his hair back as well as he could before heading out with the child in a sling on his back.
Earlier that day Corin had decided that he and the child deserved some cultural enrichment with the decent amount of credits he had racked up from odd jobs in his pocket. Staying cooped up in the small ship and waiting for the Mandalorian to return from wherever he went was maddening and he had scoped out an open-market bazaar on their initial walkthrough of the town. Perhaps he could find a new toy for the kid, or some new weapon or tech for Corin himself to fiddle around with in the meantime.
With the child peeking over his shoulder, Corin meandered through the busy streets of the bazaar with no real plan in mind and drank in the sounds and smells that surrounded him: frying foods, cloying perfumes, thick pungent smoke slowly climbing from public hookahs, and merchant hawkers shouting to be heard over the loud percussive music that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at all. Thankfully there seemed to be no Imp warlord presence on this planet so he didn't have to keep an eye out for enemy forces for once. It almost felt like he was...normal.
He stopped at a stall with soft playthings and cradled the child in his arms, letting him survey the collection of toys and see what strikes his fancy. The Rodian woman vending the stall fawned over the child, cooing at how adorable he was and stroking his long soft ears.
The child seemed interested in everything. He wanted to touch, to see and feel every item on display, and specifically to put them in his mouth. Corin yelped when he tried to squirm out of his arms to play with the toy blasters meant for older children, much to the child's chagrin. He whined as Corin steered him back towards the toys geared to younger children and folded his ears down in displeasure. He wanted to be let down to explore and Corin knew it, but he wouldn't hear the end of it from the Mandalorian if (when) the little green rascal decided to wander away. So in his arms he stayed.
"Your partner must be very supportive. He seems like such a little troublemaker!" The vendor laughed when the child picked up and subsequently knocked down a row of soft-cornered children's books from a wire rack in revenge.
"You have no idea, ma'am." Corin agreed amid a flurry of profuse apologies as he bent down to collect the books in his free arm and reshelve them. Head held low to hide his face, he secretly blushed at the insinuation that the Mandalorian was his...partner. Well, he was a business partner at least? Sort of. They had never made any formal agreements about it. Crew leader? Captain? No, that didn't feel right either. Friend? Possibly. Corin didn't know what to call their strange relationship. He let the comment slide as he finished picking up the books and hurriedly reshelving them. He placed the child back into his sling, quickly bought a couple of the books and a woolly bantha plush to appease his grabby little hands, thanked the woman and left before Corin managed to embarrass himself any further.
Moving down into the next street warranted the view of what passed as a food courtyard; the food vendor tents were raised around a circular field that was overflowing with tables and families enjoying their meals. Children screamed and played and generally ran amok around the muddy thoroughfare and the ever-present music seemed to be louder here. The overwhelming smells and spices in the air hit Corin like a bowcaster bolt to the gut and made his stomach growl aggressively. He counted back the standard hours since he had last eaten and decided it was well past time for another meal.
He watched the crowd to gauge what seemed like a cheap but popular meal and reluctantly purchased some kind of deep fried waterborne insect on a stick that the locals seemed to love. He took one bite of it and quickly handed it over to the child, gagging at the crunchy, leggy texture. That's what you get for venturing out and trying local food, Corin chided himself as he spit the last leg out into a gutter. As he expected, the child loved it and began to drum the greasy stick on his pauldrons when he was done with the snack. Corin tried again at a different vendor, this time choosing a small curved plate of roasted hot peppers and plant proteins to much greater satisfaction and cleaned it within minutes while aimlessly wandering off into another street.
This one seemed more industrial in nature, with booths vending spare parts and reused droids to old speeders and suspiciously unmarked black cases. A terrifying jolt of fear and anxiety froze Corin's limbs and he dropped his empty plate into the muddy street. Any carefree enjoyment the day warranted was killed in an instant—he recognised those cases. They were standard issue onboard every star destroyer.
The embossed white cog insignia had been gouged off the boxes but he would know them with his eyes closed: those were undeniably weapons. Imperial weapons cases. Dozens of Stormtrooper rifles could fit in each box. He had inventoried and moved those boxes more times than he could count. He knew their exact weight when empty versus full and that the handles had a tendency to crack on the hinges so it was better to lift the whole container from the bottom than to rely on them. Facts and duties and commands reared their ugly heads and Corin's scalp itched like there was something crawling in his helmet. His helmet—?
Stars, he could never escape it. He recognized the Empire everywhere. Even when it was dead and gone it still survived; its imprint lingering like a malicious ghost intent on haunting him. His father's cold detached voice echoed in his mind, words from the last conversation he had had with the man before his demise on the Death Star: The sun never sets on the Galactic Empire, CT-113. It would do you well to remember that. Damn him, he was right. Corin half-wished the New Republic would hunt down and destroy every item the Empire had ever touched so the galaxy could be rid of its influence for good. Including the people. Including himself.
Corin was shaken from his downward spiral by three solid blunt claws gripping just above a beskar pauldron. The child cooed inquisitively and cocked his head in a very Mandalorian-esque fashion. Corin chuckled to himself and tickled under the child's ear, resulting in a joyful giggle fit as the child squirmed on his back and hugged tightly to his new plush friend. Corin smiled and turned away from the industrial street back towards the way they had came.
"Thanks, kid. I don't think there's much for me here. Let's go." He slicked his sweaty hair back again as it fell into his eyes and hefted the sling back into position. Corin barely heard another hawker over the sound of the crowd and the child squealing in delight at the sudden bounce.
"Used electronics! Comms, scramblers, datapads, and more! Home goods! Get your home goods here!"
Home goods. Hmm.
Corin had an idea.
"How about grooming supplies?" He approached the booth and the merchant turned towards him.
"Oh yeah, I've got a few of those kits and stuff around here somewhere. You gonna surprise a lady friend of yours with a new look?"
"Something like that," Corin mumbled and looked askance as he surveyed the meager shelf of grooming toiletries the vendor had indicated. One half-open kit caught his eye. It looked familiar. Imperial. Unfortunate, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
"What about those?" He pointed to the kit and the merchant shook his head.
"That? Oh you don't want that, they're rusty! Old Imp junk. I've been meaning to throw them away at some point."
"I can clean it. How much?"
"Shit, kid. However much you wanna pay to take it off my hands."
Corin places some credits on the table, probably too much considering the condition of the item, but the merchant took it from him all the same and handed over the item without question.
"Here you go, knock yourself out. Looks like you need it, too."
Corin blushed in embarrassment as the man criticized his looks but grabbed the item and didn't look back as he left the booth. He hurried back to the RazorCrest with his new prize: a dinged up but passable kit of electric hair clippers.
——
After a good amount of elbow grease and patience Corin had managed to clean off all but the most deep-set rust from the clippers and sharpened the blades with a rasp he had found in one of the Mandalorian's toolkits. It was ready. So why was he so nervous?
"Nothing to it, right? I've had this done a billion times before. It's even the same model. But this time it's just...me. It can't be that hard. Can it?"
The child only cooed and waddled over to pick up one of his new toys. Corin sighed.
"Well. You don't have to worry about this yet, little one. I hope you don't have to anyway. It's a pain."
Corin ran a hand over his face and hesitantly flipped the device on. It whirred violently as it started up but settled into a steady, too-familiar hum. Corin tested it out on an inconspicuous patch of arm hair and found it to be in working order. He clipped on a guard that felt right and with a deep, calming breath he got to work on his temples and the sides of his head.
A couple grueling minutes later Corin heard the soft clanking of feet walking up the boarding ramp. Uh oh. The familiar silver helmet came into view over his shoulder and he flushed bright pink as he held the Mandalorian's long stare in the small 'fresher mirror. He was making a kriffing mess of the floor and he knew it; not knowing how to use the tool had warranted quite a lot of redundant passes over the same areas.
"Oh! Hey, you're back. I'll, uh...clean it up." He glanced down to indicate the shaggy clumps of hair around his feet.
"You missed a whole part in the back." The Mandalorian commented idly as he hung up his blaster and rifle in the weapons cabinet and locked it with his pin code.
"Did I?" Corin reached back and felt around for a tail of uncut hair at the base of his skull. "Oh yeah, guess I did…" He angled the clippers and tried to attack the errant lock but skipped the whole section and once more went over an area he had already done.
"You're missing it completely," The Mandalorian chastised, grabbing the clippers from Corin's hand. "Here, let me do it."
"Oh? Okay," Corin gave little protest as the tool was lifted from his possession. "I've never done my own hair before. We had monthly hygiene and physical exams and the barber always fixed our cuts."
"Let me guess, one standard length for the whole corps?" The Mandalorian rested a hand on Corin's shoulder to steady him as he shaved back the offending lock then set to fixing the complete hack job Corin had attempted. Foundlings could cut their hair better than this, the Mandalorian mused while he cleaned up the choppy transition line.
"Yeah. That guard is longer than the one he would use. I think it feels better."
Corin appreciated the warmth of the Mandalorian's steadying hand on his shoulder as the other skillfully ran the clippers in lines across his skull. This was...nice. Intimate. Everything unlike his monthly cut from the Imperial barber: a gruff man with equally gruff control over the razor. The monthly hygiene exam would routinely conclude with an assembly line of Stormtroopers that winded down the hallway from the barber's station, the whole process taking less than three minutes per Trooper. Walk in, sit, hold still, walk out. Like clockwork. If he nicked your ears then you would say nothing and bear it and wipe away the blood once you left the room.
But the Mandalorian was different. He took his time, making sure to get every errant long lock and trim it perfectly. He folded Corin's ear forward to arc the blade behind it, the gloved finger warm against his skin as he held it down. The buzz of the blades didn't rattle his head like it used to but felt rather like an electric massage in the skilled control of his companion.
"I see you got the kid some new toys. Thank you." He didn't look up from his work, but the soft tone of the Mandalorian's voice sounded...touched.
"No worries. We were both getting bored in here. Something new to entertain him."
"Not for long," wry amusement now bled through the vocal modulator.
"No. Never for long," Corin agreed with a smile.
He watched the mirror in silence as the Mandalorian worked, the helmet angled in concentration and Corin smiled appreciatively. The quiet, metered breaths filtered through his vocal modulator, the meticulous attention he was paying to something as unimportant as a haircut, their physical closeness, the soft metallic clinking as his beskar plates shifted over his body, everything was enticing in a way that he hadn't had the chance of appreciating before. He shifted slightly into the man's back only to be repositioned by the Mandalorian's free hand.
"Stop moving." The command held little bite but Corin instinctively stood at parade rest all the same. "Please."
"Oh, s-sorry," Corin mumbled, too focused on the way the harsh lighting reflected off the curves and angles of the helmet's face to pay attention.
"Do you want a full buzz cut or keep the top longer?"
Corin thought it over for a moment, ruffling his bangs in the mirror and playing around with the shape. He did enjoy the freedom this shaggier length warranted. It felt unique enough to distance himself from Imperial conformity.
"Keep the top longer, I think. Although the ends still need to be trimmed so it's not in my face."
"Got it. Wet your hair." The Mandalorian clicked off the clippers and stepped away to hunt for another tool. Corin already missed his warm presence at his back but did as he was told like any good soldier. He turned on the small sink to the left and got just enough water on his hands to dampen the top of his head. He ran his fingers through until everything was well saturated and dried his hands off on his shirt as the Mandalorian made a small triumphant grunt upon finding the items he was searching for.
The Mandalorian resumed his place behind Corin, now with the slim scissors and flat comb he had extracted from a cargo container in hand. He ran the comb through the crown of Corin's hair to the ends and caught the section between his fingers (now bare! Corin noted) before trimming the excess cleanly, then repeated the process a small ways over and referencing the edge of the section he had just cut. He steadily began to make his way from the back to the front of Corin's head and making sure that everything was even and smoothly cut. Corin was amazed at the dexterity and ease the Mandalorian had over the scissors, but of course he would have mastery over any blade, wouldn't he?
"How do you know—?"
The Mandalorian looked over Corin's shoulder and definitely glared at him in the mirror. Although his voice didn't match the glare, Corin thought. "I still have a hygiene routine under here too." He nodded his chin to call attention to the helmet. "And I would've let you borrow my clippers if you had asked."
"I...didn't know you had any," Corin said lamely. He hadn't thought much about the Mandalorian's hygiene routine, although he knew the man had one. His meticulous attention to cleaning his weapons and armor and the time Corin had almost stepped in on him washing his face in that village suggested as much. But he hadn't thought much about his hair maintenance. His hair, though, Corin had thought about many times. Imagining its texture between his fingers, its color (Corin was convinced he was brunette) its length now that they were on the topic...his moans when Corin tugged on it in his dreams...
"Well now you have your own. And can get used to doing it yourself."
"Yeah. O-okay." Of course the Mandalorian wouldn't regularly stop whatever he was doing and cut Corin's hair for him. He expected him to learn, adapt, not be as useless as Corin obviously was. Corin made a resolution to figure this out by the next time his hair grows too long.
By now the Mandalorian had reached the front of Corin's head and tapered the front forward, quickly referencing the length from Corin's brows to where he trims. Long enough for styling but short enough to stay out of his eyes. His bright blue eyes like a cloudless sky…no, focus. There.
He swept the stray hairs off Corin's shoulders and neck and stepped back to assess his handiwork. Corin turned around to give him a front-face view, then turned his head side to side for him to check. He ruffled the new cut this way and that to get a feel for it and smiled at the sensation.
"Good?"
The Mandalorian didn't respond and Corin worried that he had somehow overstepped yet another boundary, but a grunt and a curt nod was all he got before the Mandalorian climbed up the ladder to the cockpit.
"Clean it up, we're departing soon," he called down, and if Corin noticed that his voice sounded oddly strained then he wisely made no comment as the hatch doors whooshed shut.
Up in the cockpit, the Mandalorian flopped down into the pilot's chair and hung his head in his hands. Why had he just done that? It's as if something came over him, the urge to help his foolish idiot, to have his hands on Corin….
Unbidden desires reared their lusty heads and he violently squashed them down before they took over his thoughts. Those fantasies were relegated to his dreams and nowhere else. He had to focus on the mission at hand. Kriff, how had he become so weak for Corin?
Running on muscle memory alone he flipped the appropriate switches and buttons for takeoff prep and the RazorCrest shuddered to life beneath him. He piloted the ship out of atmosphere and punched the hyperdrive before he allowed himself to relax and think. Slightly.
He had been cutting his own hair for decades, and had experimented with pretty much every combination of hairstyles and facial hair he could think of. He had worn that style about ten years ago but the process was still fresh in his memory like a battle drill. It was a nice haircut, but Corin pulled it off better than he ever had.
Corin looked...cute.
Very cute.