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It all starts without warning during a shitty stakeout, as Boba’s slouched in a seedy cantina trying to sneak sips of caf while no one’s looking.
That part’s going more or less okay — lean back into shadows, tip helmet up to chin, tilt caf, drop helmet, grin internally at the confused expressions of fellow customers trying to pretend like they’re not staring every time they think his t-visor’s not pointed their way. He relishes in the minor fear and confusion it achieves.
It’s going more or less okay, until the com call pings.
“Shit,” Boba mutters, fumbling the cup of caf. He manages to retain his dignity, but only just. His drink, unfortunately, slops over the lip of the cup.
I can see your chin, the text reads, scrolling across his visor in bright Aurebesh. Encrypted. Heavily.
Another message pings, this time with a location flag. You’re not very subtle.
Boba’s gaze flicks around. But he doesn’t need to sight the coordinates to know who sent it.
Skywalker, Boba returns, encryption? And here I thought we were getting along.
Boba can almost picture the boyish grin that comes with the reply. They say never to trust a Mandalorian unless you’re paying him.
Boba snorts. He almost dashes back a quick response — probably something crass about how Skywalker never followed that advice with Din, unless there’s something their mutual boyfriend hasn’t told him, Boba hasn’t fully worked it out yet — when he stops himself.
This is banter. He doesn’t banter with Luke Skywalker. They’re not friends. They’re not even enemies, really. They’re just — dating the same man. They fell asleep on the same couch, all three of them, just a few weeks ago. But that doesn’t mean the Jedi can com him when they run into each other in public.
Metamour line is for emergencies only, he types at last, after deleting the fledgling joke.
What, I can’t just want to talk?
Well, no.
I’m working, Boba returns. A cloaked, slight figure lounges easily a few booths away, posture so relaxed that it seems like he owns the place — despite the absolutely contrary energy that a black shroud and hidden face should convey.
Trust Luke Skywalker to be the only man who can look like he’s not hiding in dark-as-space Jedi robes.
Not unlike the man’s father, in that sense.
So am I, Skywalker returns. But looks like I owe you a cup of caf. After?
Boba looks at the dark, drying splashes of caf on his foot. A replacement cup would be nice. But he remembers the slow rise and fall of Skywalker’s chest in the earliest hours of dawn, cramped as it was on Din’s couch.
Boba doesn’t want to get to know Skywalker. He knows all he needs to.
He unslouches from his corner, adjusts his helmet, and strides for the cantina door, brimming with purpose. Drinkers and bounty hunters recoil in his wake. The entire cantina ripples with fear.
Except for the cloaked figure, which just tilts its head. Amusement? Derision? Simple curiosity? Boba can’t tell. He’s not going to glance behind him to find out properly, either. He refuses to look at the 360-degree view in the corner of his visor.
Luke Skywalker doesn’t have anything to do with him.
The message blinks in Boba’s com, unanswered.
Boba thought that would be the end of it. But every time their paths cross — which seems to be suspiciously frequently, this month — he gets a new com. Caf? comes the message as he’s trying to disarm a deadly laser-based security system. Bet you could use a pick-me-up after this, comes another, as Boba is attempting to flip a furious Wookiee onto her back.
Terrible timing, every time. Almost… deliberate.
The third miserable, horrible time, Slave I somehow gets sucked into a mid-swamp sinkhole. Skywalker appears out of nowhere. “Ah!” he says. “I’ve done this one before.”
Boba tries not to sulk as the Jedi lifts his hands. Slave I follows their motions with a loud slurp of suction, then alights on more solid ground.
“Thanks,” Boba says, grudgingly. The man did save his ship. Skywalker steps forward, as if to run a hand along the hull.
“Don’t touch,” Boba snaps.
“So, now we could say that you owe me a cup of caf,” Skywalker says.
“Not likely.” Boba stomps up the ramp and takes off. Skywalker’s dark cloak flutters in the jets’ wake as his figure gets smaller and smaller against the planet’s surface, then eventually disappears.
“So when are we getting caf,” Skywalker says, apropos of nothing, for the tenth time that month.
Boba scrambles around in his brain for some response. It’s easy to ignore com messages. It’s harder to respond to the in-person entreaties, especially when there’s no quick escape at hand. He settles on taking Grogu from Skywalker’s arms, trying to give himself a few more moments of plausible deniability.
It’s one of those increasingly frequent times where Skywalker is going, and Boba is coming home, and Din is sleepy and at ease as he waves farewell to Grogu and kisses Skywalker on the cheek. The steady flow of their lives isn’t anything new, but the overlapping timing is. Boba has seen Skywalker as many times in the last month as he has in the entire previous year put together.
For the first time, Boba wonders if it might be deliberate.
“I don’t want to go on a date with you, Skywalker,” he says at last.
“Oh, Force, no.” Skywalker looks disgusted. Din’s lips press together and thin, and his eyes look bright, and he turns away to hide an expression that looks suspiciously like glee. Betrayer. Skywalker continues, “Absolutely not. You’re not my type. Too…” he gestures, and Boba finds it in himself not to be offended. “...too. But I do want to get you back for that caf, and —”
Boba cuts him off. “Skywalker.”
“Fett.” A raised eyebrow, and a sparkle of amusement in his blue eyes.
“We’ve known each other for how long?”
Skywalker shrugs. “Depends on how you count. Since you captured and froze my friend? More than a decade. Since I actually got to know you… a year?”
“You still don’t know me,” Boba snipes, then rubs a hand over his forehead. “But. How long have we been dating the same man?”
“Unclear,” Skywalker admits, “but maybe… a year? Vaguely?”
“Right,” Boba says, ignoring that the Jedi now watches him with an amused smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Vaguely. And… in any of that time, have I made any overtures of friendship?”
“No…”
“Attempted to spend time with you?”
“No.”
The effect of Boba’s stern voice is somewhat ruined as Grogu wriggles free from his arms and crawls up onto his head, pulling at his eyebrows, but Boba continues on valiantly. “Okay. So why do you think I want to get caf?”
Skywalker shrugs. “I owe you, don’t I? I thought you were big on contracts. Fairness. The letter of the law. You spill a man’s caf, you get him back. It’s an unwritten social contract.”
Boba blinks. That’s not a terrible argument. He casts his gaze to Din, seeking help, but the man has angled himself away, a look of feigned obliviousness on his face. He looks up at Grogu, whose big ears now hang upside down over his forehead. The ears twitch.
No help from any quarter.
Boba opens his mouth to say no. He really does. But it's a small thing, isn't it? One cup of caf.
“Alright,” comes out instead.
Luke Skywalker sets down a cup of steaming caf on the table. Boba’s helmet picks up the chemical notes from the aroma — acetylaldehydes, guaiacol. The smell of heavy spice, with just a hint of fruitiness.
Boba wishes he could smell it with his nose, instead of just processing the chemical compounds through his viewport. But no way in hell is he removing his helmet for this. The cafe is too full, bustling and upscale, the sort of place where his full armor stands out instead of fading into a sea of mercenaries. Brightly lit. Cheery.
He won’t be drinking the caf. Instead, he sits with his back straight, his arms folded, leaning away from the table and Skywalker’s sunshine-bright grin. This is — insulting, is what it is. Being dragged out to socialize against his will, like a poorly behaved child. Get along with your boyfriend’s friends, blah blah. Nevermind that his father always did the opposite, really, pulled him away from any potential connection. Nevermind that he didn’t have friends and was discouraged from making them.
Anyway, he has Fennec. And Bossk, by a certain definition. He doesn’t need… more friends.
As the extended silence grows longer, Skywalker’s expression doesn’t change. There’s something placid and unyielding, behind the disarming grin. “Go on,” he says. “I’ll even look away.”
“Hm,” Boba says.
“You spill a man’s caf, you must repay him in kind,” Skywalker adds. “It’s a Jedi proverb. You’ll be insulting my Jedi hospitality if you don’t drink.”
That pulls a snort from Boba, against his will. “Like no Jedi I’ve ever met.” More like, kill a man just doing a job and stick your nose in places it doesn’t belong and protect only those your government deems worth saving.
Skywalker’s eyes grow impossibly brighter, and Boba knows he’s made a terrible mistake. “Well, I’m the only one around these days, so far as I know, so I get to decide what the new proverbs are like.” And then, all pretense of calm thrown away: “You’ve met Jedi? Who? What were they like?”
Boba tightens his grip on his arms and leans forward, not hiding the snarl in his voice. “Wouldn’t know. Not much chatting before I killed them.”
He expects Skywalker to be, he doesn’t know — offput. At least vaguely insulted. Instead, he just grins. “I could see where you wouldn’t have gotten along with Master Yoda,” Skywalker just says.
Boba finds himself shaking his head. “Never met the baby’s dad.”
A shudder passes through Skywalker. “I like to think that they’re distant cousins,” he says carefully.
Boba knows a weak spot when he sees one. Skywalker’s a gossip. Boba won’t have to say a word about himself, if he plays his cards right. He unfolds his arms, splays his hand out on the table, and leans in.
“What if I told you,” he says, voice low and grim, “that word on Mandalore is that Obi-Wan Kenobi’s got a secret love-child.”
“No,” Skywalker says, leaning in to catch the quiet words.
“And that he’s Bo-Katan’s nephew.”
“Prove it,” Skywalker challenges.
At the end of it all, the caf sits untouched on the table. But somehow Boba has another appointment, vaguely scheduled in the future, for the same pot of caf in the same kitschy cafe. With the same Jedi.
And over the months, one becomes two, then three. Skywalker becomes — something like a friend. Though Boba tries not to admit it. He doesn’t mention to Din, either, that he and Skywalker are meeting like this, trading tales like gossipy midwives. (They even took a trip to Mandalore, absolutely not just to see if Korkie Kryze looks anything like the late Kenobi around the age Boba knew him.)
It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t change anything. It’s not important enough to tell Din about.
And that’s how it goes on for a while, until one day, he lets slip in front of Din. “Luke mentioned that Ahsoka —”
Din’s helmet tilts toward Boba. Anyone who didn’t know Din better would call it a slow, considering movement. But Boba can see the whiplash instinct in it, restrained behind careful awareness of observation.
Boba stops talking.
“Luke, huh?” Din asks.
Boba could say a million things, here. Instead, he just nods. “Luke,” he confirms, avoiding Din’s steady gaze.
Din looks away. Nods.
And for now, that’s enough.