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You should have been more careful. Maybe then you wouldn’t have begun your plummet into the murky lake below you. It would have been no big deal if you knew how to swim, but the more you struggled, the more you realized this was a death sentence.
Swimming was a skill never needed back on Tatooine, but you suddenly wished you had learned the basics before offering to collect water from the lake at night.
Well, there was no changing your fate now.
What a way to die. The water engulfed your every sense, and even as you fought to keep your eyes open you saw nothing. Just the dizzying black abyss surrounding you, making it impossible to tell up from down.
This was it. You were sure of it now.
You felt the numbness taking over, your body going completely lax as you closed your eyes.
Pressure. And pain.
Sensations felt in the strangest way, but you realized you weren’t dead.
No.
You coughed violently, lungs straining as water sputtered from your mouth onto your face. A strong hand guided you to your side, allowing you to heave more water up and only moving you to your back once you had finished. You tried to pinpoint their voice, but all you could hear were fuzzy mumbles.
You worked your eyes open, and you could see the moon shining above you, before it was blocked by a shadow.
Savage.
Sure enough the Zabrak leaned above you, looking wild and panicked in a way you had never seen from him. Finally his words made sense as you stared at the shape of his mouth as he talked.
“Your lips are blue, ” his voice held something a little louder than simple worry, large hand brushing soaking hair off your forehead. It occurred to you that you were freezing, the numbness from lack of oxygen finally wearing off. A shiver shook you form, doing nothing to soothe the ear splitting headache that had settled behind your temples.
You couldn’t answer without another coughing fit, so you just reached for him with a weak arm. He caught your hand in his own, engulfing it in a warmth so drastically opposite your frigid temperature.
“I’ve got you.”
He seemed able to tell of your need for comfort as he immediately hoisted your upper half into his lap. The bite of stones against your back was replaced with his thighs, offering sweet relief from some of the pain in your body. Warmth radiated through his tunic even soaking wet, and you found yourself grasping at it violently, broken sobs escaping as you clutched onto him.
You had survived. No thanks to your own efforts, but obviously by Savage, who had dragged you off the pinnacle of death.
You let him pull you in close, reveling in the warmth as you cried, sensation slowly coming back to your fingers.
A sneeze forced its way out of you soon followed by yet another rough cough, obvious attestment to the cold, moon air doing nothing to aid your state. Savage could only help so much while your soaking clothing clung to your skin. He picked you up easily, showing no real effort in the movement. To him you were tiny, minuscule really, and he had proven his physical abilities time and time again.
You weren’t too far from camp, and Savage made the quick walk in half the strides you would have used. You realized in the back of your mind that he must have been right on the edge of tents when you had fallen in, then hurried over to aid you.
He had saved you without any hesitation, and needless to say, you were very grateful.
As he broke through the first line of tents, you knew for a fact a mix of your Tatooine siblings and Mandalorians would be mingling about. You couldn’t handle them seeing your embarrassment, and you just further curled into Savage, thankful for his much larger frame, and hoped it would be enough to go unnoticed. No one stopped the two of you, and you weren’t sure if it was due to you making yourself small enough to disappear, or the tall, terrifying Zabrak ensuring no one said anything.
The headache’s incessant pounding left you whimpering quietly and unable to fully realize where Savage was taking you. The rustling of an entrance flap alluded to you finally being inside a tent. A quick glance told you that this wasn’t your tent, shared with the other former slaves of Tatooine. This one was much more spacious with a large bed pressed into the corner.
Suddenly it occurred to you.
This is Savage’s tent.
He set you down on the edge of the bed, raised higher and far nicer than the cot you had been given to sleep on. You didn’t like when he pulled away, taking most of the warmth you so desperately needed with him. He kneeled down in front of the in room’s furnace, starting to toss some of the logs stacked up the side into the burner.
“C- cold,” for your first words after almost dying, they seemed pretty obvious and rather stupid. Savage didn’t seem to mind, answering easy.
“I know… gotta fix the fire,” he sounded almost pained to have left you on the bed to fend off your shivers alone. Your arms wrapped around your middle, grasping tightly in hopes to get warm once more, but it did barely anything.
The little fire in the furnace suddenly caught on, and it took everything in you not to fall on your knees and burn yourself on the flame. Savage helped you off the bed, and you couldn’t help but feel bad about the puddle your hair had left behind on the sheets. He guided you to the floor in front of the fire, now crackling pleasantly in the furnace.
You groaned once the heat from the flames wrapped around your fingers. It stung slightly, but the longer you kept your hands towards it, the better it felt. Savage stood at his full height behind you, simply watching you try to warm yourself. Though your hands felt better, a full body shiver alluded to the fact that the rest of your body was still freezing.
“You’re soaking.”
You looked down at your clothes, discolored by water and clinging tightly to your skin, then you glanced up and behind you. Although it didn’t seem to bother him, his clothes didn’t fare any better.
“You t-too.”
He glanced over himself, seeming to finally realize exactly that. A quiet huff left him, and although he never had been extremely keen on words, it said all he needed to. Turning away, Savage started toward the exit of the tent. You found yourself panicking at the thought of being alone so close to that traumatic experience.
“Wait,” you tried to get up from the floor, tumbling back down once your knees gave way. Dizziness overtook your eyesight and you cradled your head with a pitiful whine. He spun back around, immediately ushering you back in front of the small fire. Once more settled, his strong hand caught under your chin, tilting your head to look up at him.
“Stay here. Try to get warm. I’ll find you something to wear,” he finished his sentence with trailing his thumb over your cheek. His nail at the end caught a rivulet dripping from your hairline and he brushed it off your skin.
You nodded in his palm, the warmth coming from his hand enough to stop your teeth chattering if even for just a moment. His touch lingered a little longer, and you let your eyes shut just to enjoy the sensation. Finally, he pulled away, leaving you and the flames alone.
You tried your best to focus on the way the fire danced in front of you, rather than the relentless shivers and the weight of being alone after such a scare. It helped a little, and the familiar rustling of the tent flap had you looking up from your current fixation.
It hadn’t felt like more than a few minutes, but Savage had changed. His soaked tunic and pants had been replaced by a dry get up, including a sleeveless top. You wondered if your blush was obvious as you saw more of the intricate tattoos on his skin than ever before.
He helped you to your feet, handing you a pile of clothes that felt warm in your hands after he had carried them to his chest.
“Take all the time you need, I’ll be outside.”
It gave you comfort that he would be a call away, and would keep everyone out. As he left, he turned away, leaving his back to cover the slit in between the tent flaps.
With shaking fingers, you pulled your clothes off, letting them slap onto the floor in sopping wet, heavy piles. Savage had brought a towel in with what looked like a larger than needed tunic and a pair of pants with an adjustable waist.
After wringing as much water as possible out of your hair and patting your skin down with the towel, you pulled the dry clothes onto your body. Instead of tossing the damp towel down with the rest of your soaking clothing, you wrapped it around your head, trapping your hair and rubbing it around in hopes of getting it dry as soon as possible.
“S- Savage?”
His form turned in your eyesight, but he made no effort to move past the threshold of the tent. You looked in his direction, confused while you continued to wring your hair into the towel with shivery hands.
He seemed to be waiting for… oh!
“You can come in.”
At your permission, he rentered. His eyes landed on your form, as you shivered and stared up at him expectantly, waiting to be politely sent away. After all, he had already given you more help than you felt you deserved after an unsafe mistake that almost cost you your life.
Instead of giving you any more immediate attention, he leaned down and swiftly scooped your damp clothing off the floor before laying them over the back of his larger than normal chair. It faced the fire enough that you expected your things to be dry in a few hours.
Though it was a wonderfully sweet gesture, it confused you. Maybe he would let your clothes dry for the night with the knowledge that your large, shared tent had a very small furnace for almost two dozen people. You suddenly were overwhelmed with the need to verbalize your gratitude towards him before leaving.
“S- Savage?”
He crossed the short distance, taking your icy forearm in his warm hand while you swayed unintentionally. You didn’t know how you would get back to your tent, but you didn’t want to impose on his time any longer.
“Thank you… I’ll come get my clothes to- tomorrow?”
His expressions dropped into confusion, then something akin to disappointment.
“You want to leave?”
You felt a blush rise into your cheeks at the embarrassment that came with accidentally implying you no longer wanted his company. You tried your best to relay what you had been intending.
“D- don’t you want me to leave?”
You shivered and he shook his head.
You blushed harder now, just barely feeling a warmth beneath your skin, still not enough to make a significant difference.
Another shiver shook you to your core before you could stop it.
“You’re still cold...” he sounded baffled really, reaching out and holding the side of your face in his hand again after you didn’t show any sign of wanting to pull away.
He continued the thought, sounding so worried as he lifted the now wet towel from your hands and tossing it aside.
“Can’t let you leave while you’re still cold.”
He sat down on the floor, still almost as tall as you when he did so. He began ushering you to sit between his legs, facing him while he scooted you both towards the fire with no effort made at all.
You weren’t sure why he didn’t let you face the fire until you felt him begin to comb through your hair with his large fingers. You stared up at him, completely dazed by the wonderful sensation, and leaned back in his hold. Savage beared your weight easily, allowing you to relax your muscles while the fire slowly dried your hair.
This was intimate in the purest and most innocent of ways. This dangerous Zabrak was second hand to one of the feared leaders in camp, yet he treated you with such gentleness and kindness. At this moment you could barely believe that initially he had intimidated you. The more you spoke with him, the more you realized that he didn’t fit in with the rest of the leadership at all. He even sometimes stood out against Maul, though they seemed close. Where his brother was harsh around the edges and bitter towards the universe, Savage was patient, kind, and full of hope that this would lead to a better life.
His true colors shone something brilliant in the low light of the fire.
You found it admirable.
You found it attractive.
Before you knew what you were doing, you leaned in and pressed your lips to his. It was sweet, chaste, and before you could regret it you pulled back and away, closing your eyes and awaiting for him to finally send you away.
But instead you were met with silence.
Upon shyly opening your eyes a few silent moments later, you saw that Savage looked shocked. He obviously didn’t know how to react and had no significant time to prepare for it.
You suddenly had to wonder if that had been his first kiss.
That caused you to feel slightly guilty.
“I’m sorry Sava-”
He cut you off with another kiss, still gentle, but far more intentional than the initial one had been.
You leaned into it, happy that he reciprocated your feelings. It spread a warmth through your body that you had been craving since you had tumbled into the icy lake. When you pulled away from each other, you sucked in a deep breath, knowing that there would be no doubt of him seeing how flushed your cheeks had become.
Savage gently cradled your face, pushing aside the slightly damp pieces of hair that still stuck to your forehead in order to place a kiss there.
“I’m glad you saved me,” you lowered your voice to a soft whisper, “I- I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
It was genuine gratitude, from the deepest part of your soul. Savage’s lips quirked up into something like a gentle smirk as he stared down at you as if you were the only being in the galaxy.
“I’m glad too.”
You’d do anything for him so long as he looked at you like that.
You cuddled into Savage’s chest while he continued to brush through your hair, hoping this quiet moment would never end. Lord Maul would have to pry his brother away from you at this point, and you’d like to see him try.