Archive of Our Own ^beta

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“This one?” Oola prompts, sliding her fingers over a splatter of scar tissue that shoots across and under his left shoulderblade. He’s quiet, and for a moment she thinks she’s stumbled over something, some hurtful memory— and then he shifts a little beneath her, moving his elbows out further, and she realizes he’s just not sure. “Some people might say that when you no longer remember where you got all your scars, you have enough.” she tells him, trying to sound appropriately judgmental. She doesn’t think it works. 

“No one you know.” Boba says, sounding a little slurred where his lip drags on the sheets. Oola opens her mouth to protest automatically before thinking of all the people she holds close now. No, they certainly wouldn’t suggest he keep himself away from danger just because he’s seasoned. Neither will she, even if it always kicks her heartrate up for a few seconds when he walks in with new scratches on his armor. She kisses the splatter, leaving a smudge of lipstick over pink and brown, and moves her fingers to the next. It’s a single, smaller pucker sitting a little over his hip she imagines must be from a blaster.

“This one?” Oola asks before her mind can wander too much. “Argument about a bounty. Cristophsis.” That he’s here to tell her about it means he won the argument, Oola supposes. “I’m starting to think you keep bad company.” she tells him, bending down to leave another red smudge. “The worst.” he agrees in a tone so mild she’s almost suspicious; she’s already trying to decide on the next scar when she realizes how she’s set herself up. At least he can’t see how her face darkens with his eyes closed. “See where that mouth gets you, hunter.” she sniffs, pulling on every ounce of ‘haughty heiress’ she can; it slides on perhaps too easily. “Seems like it gets me in your bed.”

That he doesn’t even miss a beat annoys her just enough for her to reach up and flick the side of his face where his stubble is growing again. It scratches under her hand, alien, and he hums quiet and wordless when she feels out along his jawline, skims her fingers over his lips. She’s about to pull them away when he opens his mouth, takes them in and runs his tongue between where her first and second finger are pressed together; she’d done the same for him tonight, and the memory brings more blood to her face. She shouldn’t feel so scandalized, she knows, just to have it turned around on her, but… 

“I think you may have a hard time answering me and doing that.” Oola manages, trying to drag her eyes somewhere safer than the sight of his lips around her knuckles— and promptly remembers there’s not a single safe place on him to look. She settles for his back. He hums again, sucking to bring even more color, before opening his mouth to let her snatch her hand back. “Ask me different questions and I’ll be more interested in answering.” “…what are you doing tomorrow?” That it feels like a daring question after inviting him to her bed is probably absurd, but she feels the flutter of nervousness in her belly all the same. “Meeting someone in Lessu. Come with me.” Oola stares, grateful for what feels like the thousandth time in a minute that he can’t see it. “I will.” He smiles against the sheet, half-hidden. “Good. Bring your pistol.”

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The best part, in Oola’s opinion, is that she doesn’t need something extravagant to catch his attention. Doesn’t need to drop into splits or kick above her head or bend over backwards, literal or figurative, to make his head tilt a few degrees in the corner of her vision. Just a bit of music and a bit of motion, the tiniest swing of her hips, is enough. And how she blooms under the quiet attention, wriggling inside with glee at his eyes on her. It’s enough of a stereotype—maybe a dangerous one—that she feels a little, strangely guilty about it… but no one is here to see. Him, and her, and an empty ship.

A private performance, she thinks, and smiles with the thought as she continues giving what might be the laziest dance she’s ever created, stepping and twirling aimlessly to Zeltron drums. It’s not very long before he leans back a little in his chair, spreads his knees; a silent invitation, and one she takes gleefully. He’s about an inch or two taller than her when she doesn’t count his armor or the roots of her lekku, but in his lap like this she has to look down into his visor. His hand slides, slow and warm where his glove has been shed, up the small of her back.

“Something you were wanting?” Boba asks. Oola pretends to think about it. “Wages.” she decides, seeing the reflection of her smiling mouth in the black plate. “Between jobs. Can it wait?” he says— drawls, really. It’s silly; he’s not that strapped for credit, she’s sure, nor does she ever get paid for her accompaniment when he’s not expecting to get shot at too much. If she were to be paid, Oola thinks… well. It would not be bad, Taesha has taught her that much, was more patient with her about it than she probably deserved. But it would not be them.

“If it must.” she allows; the joke could go on, but she’s finding her interest in banter shortening the longer she feels his thighs between hers, the smooth pressure of his breastplate against her chest. Oola curls her fingers under the rim of his helmet, lifting it enough for a kiss. His teeth find her lips almost immediately, and even though they’ve done this a hundred times she still gasps against his mouth. She likes it with the thing off, but… she likes it with it on, too. (She doesn’t imagine there are a lot of options she wouldn’t like, really, if he were there for them.) She gets her fill, bites his lip in turn enough to hear him sigh, pleased, before putting her hands on his shoulders and letting the helm slip back down.

She’s not vain enough to draw pleasure from her own reflection, but it is nice to see herself smiling, imagine him smiling back under it, before she closes her eyes and bumps her forehead to his. “Undress me.” Oola says, just for the joy of having someone else do it, and hears him snort quietly under the metal before he starts trying to figure out her beads.

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“I’m gonna kill you.” Cara promises, even as she butts her forehead to his; not hard, because she doesn’t want to crack her skull right in half on the beskar, but enough. “Thought you’d want more of a fight.” her idiot of a crewmate says under her, croaking. “I’ll live with the disappointment.” she tells him. He’s unsurprisingly heavy when she levers him up onto slightly wobbly legs, getting her arm under his to help keep him vertical, but she can take it. 

He doesn’t say a word to that, which is how she knows he’s either doing better than he looks, or much, much worse. Fucking shrapnel. She’s seeing a lot of slapping bacta patches on him in her future, assuming they make it that far.

“Wait.” he rasps after about fifteen feet, his hand gripping just under the edge of her pauldron, and she has to bite down another curse. “What?” Cara says, maybe hissing a little in stress. “Just— just wait.” he repeats, fingers digging in harder. Din leans over, and for a horrifying split second she thinks he’s about to pass out and she’ll need both hands to carry him out of here, leave her back wide open— but he just presses cool metal to her face. Holds her there with his free hand on her hair for a moment before settling back to leaning on her shoulder. Kind of a sap, Cara thinks, for a man with so many guns. She wishes she liked the first part of that less.

“Come on.” she reminds, making them both walk a little faster; he hisses quietly at the change, but doesn’t try to slow down. “Gotta get you back to your woman, Mando. I wouldn’t wanna piss her off, you know?” “Other.” Din says, slurring a little. It mystifies her for a second, before it clicks and only the blood soaking out of his clothes and into hers keeps her from cackling. Other woman. Goddess, he doesn’t even know what that means, does he? He wouldn’t say it, if he did. “Save your breath ‘til we get to the ship.” Cara tells him, setting the white-hot flood in her chest aside to deal with later. 

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“You did it.” A stupidly obvious thing to say, he knows, but he has little else on his mind— and no time for anything more before she’s standing in front of him and his hands find her waist, lifting her to his level as his mouth finds hers. Even trying to kiss back, the smile of victory sticks stubbornly to her lips, and Galen has to break away when he finds it to be too contagious. 

“Group effort.” Juno returns after taking a breath, jerking her head at the pilots clustered in their own celebration—a wiser decision than he’d thought Carr capable of—and he snorts. “Should I go congratulate them, too?” The raising of her brow tells him what she thinks about that, and he kisses her again, slower. Her hair is pinned up to fit under the Alliance-issue flight helmet, making it easy to raise a hand and curl it around the back of her neck. He’d like to stand here… forever, really, but they’ve got work to do. “Next planet?” Galen asks through the wash of longing, and she shakes her head. “Holo-call with the local cell first; five minutes. The admiral’s angling for something more permanent.” 

Juno kisses him this time, cradling the back of his skull in her spread fingers. As if he’s something delicate, which is absurd when he still smells like smoke, still has fresh blood on his sleeve and plastoid chips in the tread of his boots from the distraction he’d pitched to give the squadron an opening for the satellites. Absurd, and not unwelcome. “I’ll remind them not to touch your ship while you’re away.” “Your ship.” she says instantly, but smiles. “Go stand by the wings and look surly if you want; I should be back soon.” 

Looking forward to it, he does not say, but barely. Returns the smile instead as her boots hit the hangar floor again, watches her make a brisk line for the briefing room. Carr is smiling entirely too smugly at him for someone who lost their last game by four and a half, and even halfway across the hangar she’s clearly mouthing ‘you’re welcome’ where her helmet bares her mouth. He makes a personal note to win the next by at least five.

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The chasm… well, it’s a chasm, the apprentice concludes, stepping back from the edge. The white rapids at the bottom are so far away that their roaring has become a whisper, and no amount of Force would keep them from batting him around like a ragdoll. He can’t allow that, not when he still has a senator to guard. “I can’t make that. We have to find another way.” he informs him, before seeing how close Luke has gotten to the edge and holding in a sigh. He doesn’t think his master fully understands how his son—sometimes quite literally—runs towards danger at what seems like every opportunity. “Yes, you can.” Luke says with utter confidence. It’s as much flattering as annoying, which the apprentice is starting to suspect will be a recurring thing with him. 

“No, I can’t.” Starkiller repeats, trying to sink as much command into the words as he can. “We can.” Luke insists, raising his hands to wiggle his fingers in the gesture he associates with the Force for reasons the apprentice can’t even begin to parse. “…you’ve been practicing.” he realizes; as soon as he says the words, he knows them to be true, and they settle in his stomach like lead. Running towards danger, again. Dosh, he thinks tiredly, and closes his eyes for a second. “Fine.” the apprentice grits out. “I’ll jump. Push when it looks like I’m losing momentum. If I do land, I’ll extend the bridge from that side.” “You’ll land.” 

It’s said with the same calm confidence, and for a moment Starkiller wonders if it’s from that ever-elusive foresight he’s never been able to grasp. He almost stumbles when Luke fists his hand in his sleeve, pulling until he bends at the waist; to look at the scratch sliced just over his ear again, he assumes, until he feels lips on his cheek. Soft, for a boy that should by all accounts have been chafed and chapped by blowing sand. “For luck.” Luke says into his ear; the apprentice has no idea why he suddenly flushes, only feels the heat flooding his face and down the back of his neck. “Push.” he manages when he pulls away, backing away from the edge and getting ready for a running start. 

Luke is beaming in the corner of his vision, and he allows himself just a second to enjoy the foolish fancy that it’s about him, and not because they’re about to be one step closer to getting off this miserable, sodden little mudball of a planet.

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“This is your chance to make an impact, commander.” Theron says. Shyo resists the urge to swallow in front of a camera, pulling on scraps of every diplomatic speech she’s ever had to make in readiness to stitch together a new one— then Arcann drops beside her, and for a moment her head goes blank as her heart leaps into her throat, because when did Vaylin manage a strike she didn’t even see— But he’s steady, calm. Just holding himself on one knee, looking up at her without even a sliver of gold in his eyes. She braces herself automatically for whatever cruel thing Valkorian will say to that, and hears... nothing at all. Just the faint humming of the city, and Theron murmuring a word she didn’t think he knew behind her. Arcann reaches out, and she doesn’t think to stop him, just staring mystified as he grabs her hand in her own and brings it to his mouth. The back of her glove is kissed— barely, so lightly she doesn’t even feel the pressure, only knows it’s happening because she sees it— before he moves her fingers to rest between the left side of his mouth and the camera.

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“Oh.” Desmond says faintly, feeling suddenly, immensely stupid; it’s very far from the first time and he’s usually able to brush it off, but it burns worse, here, standing in front of Savage and feeling entirely caught off guard. He can feel the heat in his face. It’s not like he’d thought he was perfectly subtle or anything, not to someone entwined with space definitely-not-magic, but he’d tried to... keep it out of Savage’s way, more or less. The polite thing to do, keep it small and out of the way until it left. He hadn’t expected in a million years for the man to take him aside, look him in the face, and ask what he wanted to do about them.