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Dying hurt; but Fennec always expected that.
The part that caught her off guard was the overwhelming sorrow. At the end of all things, she got to see the full measure of her life and it rang frightfully hollow. True, she had had more than most. Success. Skill. Reputation. Respect. She never went hungry, she never felt poor, and she enjoyed the perks of her job. She got to meet interesting people, travel and see all that this beautiful galaxy had to offer. Like the twin sunsets in the desert of Tatooine….
But for all the romantic scenery, and all the people she got to know, she never felt connected to any of it. She never felt beloved, or cherished. And, in a way, didn't that mean she was never really in the world? She had been nothing but an observer of life among the stars, not truly a spark herself….
So, yeah. Dying sucked.
***
At sundown, Boba noticed a dark shape against the desert rocks, and knew at once that it was a human body. He made his way closer cautiously. Any number of things could have killed the person; the unforgiving heat, various wildlife, natives, bandits, or any kind of criminal activity gone sideways. He didn't want to stumble into the middle of something.
But the desert was quiet, calm. He detected no one else in the area, and the only wildlife were harmless womp rats. He was close when the body shuddered--he inhaled sharply.
Still alive.
He knelt down. "Easy," he said, placing hands on dainty shoulders. It was a woman, and she had taken a shot to the stomach. She shuddered and gasped again. Was this the beginning of death throes? Did he have time to save her? All he knew was that he had to try. He knew it deep in his bones, with sudden clarity. He must save her, as he had been saved. It was only right. It was only fair.
"Destiny has brought me upon you for a reason," he told her, senselessly. She was in no state to listen, but he felt compelled to speak in a soothing tone. Perhaps it would help calm her. She seemed quite frightened.
He hefted her into his arms, pleased that he could manage it so easily. She was practically a waif.
It was then that starlight illuminated her face, and her eyelashes fluttered open for the first time. He saw a gleam in her glassy eyes. A spark, fire that seemed to leap from her into him.
Urgency. Drive. Power. These feelings coursed through him as if in a vortex of sand and light. Death paled in comparison to the will to live mirrored infinitely between them. He knew nothing of her but that she was a kindred spirit.
He set his jaw, determined. "You will not die here."
***
Fennec woke in a cool, dry room of bare sandstone and cold steel fixtures. A medical droid posted at her bedside whirred to life when she moved.
"Do not attempt to stand. You have received cybernetic modifications to multiple vital organs. What is your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10?"
She moaned. An indicator bar fluxed to medium height, changing from green to yellow. The droid's optics scanned her. "My readings indicate your pain level to be a 7. Is this accurate?"
She nodded. A needle came out and stuck into her arm. She winced but seconds later the sharp pains subsided. She sighed. "Thank you."
"The physical pain is temporary as your flesh fuses to the machinery. However, many of your species struggle emotionally with being classified as a cyborg. It is recommended that you seek therapy to aid this transition."
She lost her breath. Cyborg? She looked at her stomach. Her clothes had been removed, leaving her in shorts and a loose half-shirt that did not cover the cybernetics that now filled her torso from the ribs down. The artificial guts were shiny and new. "Cool."
The droid optics scanned her face this time. There was a long pause. She smirked. "What's a cyborg got to do around here for a drink?"
A deep chuckle drew her attention to a man sitting at a small table in the corner. He was wearing a robe, boots with spurs on them, and had raider weapons with him.
The droid handed Fennec a cup of water and walked out of the room. She sipped it, staring at the stranger. It didn't seem to disturb him.
"Who are you?" she finally asked.
He was playing a card game by himself and glanced at her. "The man who saved your life. My name is Boba Fett."
She remembered a vague whiff of petrichor and bantha while being lifted by someone strong.
"Why would y--how did--Do you know Toro?"
"Who is Toro?"
"The man who shot me."
"I don't know this man. I came upon you alone in the desert and brought you here."
She recalled slowly dying as the twin suns set, and chills swept up and down her arms as the sorrow returned, somehow worse now that she was going to live. Because she had no idea how to get the things she lacked for a full life worth living.
On the brink of tears, she gulped and blinked and regained composure. Her voice still shook a little. "Where am I?"
"A mod parlor in Mos Espa."
Bitterness welled up in her chest and throat--and no lower than that. She couldn't feel anything lower. "Why would you save me?"
He put a card down and looked at her once again. "Why not?"
"You don't even know me."
It was as much of a test as it was a statement. If he had saved her in order to collect the bounty on her head, then she was going to have one hell of a time escaping this one. She still couldn't move from the chest down.
He swelled with breath. "You're right. I don't. All I know is, it wasn't your destiny to die out there…" their eyes met, and Fennec felt as if she was falling into them. "And you want to live--not just on the world but in it."
The air punched out of her lungs. How did he know that? She couldn't remember speaking past the pain and the darkness smothering her as she lay dying. Her skin rose in goosebumps.
He moved cards around on the table as if he hadn't said one of the most profound things of her life. After a beat in which she struggled to speak, he glanced at her and said, "I know that because I felt the same when I was eaten by a Sarlacc."
Fennec balked and scoffed. "You were eaten?"
He smirked. "That might be too fine a point on it. I fell in, got swallowed whole, got out alive."
"You got out," she repeated, on the verge of humor. Who was this man? "Just like that? You just 'got out'?"
A real smile took years off his face and Fennec realized he couldn't be more than forty. In a flash, she saw how he must have looked before the scars, with a full head of hair. He was handsome.
"That's a story for another time." he said. He grew serious again, and reshuffled the cards. His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "They assumed you were my woman when I brought you in; to keep them from asking too many questions, I didn't correct them." he paused, mouth tilting in the corner. "I assumed you would prefer it that way."
She cleared her throat. "Yes. Um… Thank you."
He sat there staring, not speaking. Was he waiting for her to tell him who she really was? She selected one of her aliases and opened her mouth to speak but he broke the silence first.
"Where would we find this Toro?"
She blinked and shrugged. "He's local. Trying to become a bounty hunter. Why?"
"Revenge," was the plain and simple answer. No qualms about the whole murder thing. No need to know who she was or why someone shot her in the gut. This was no humble desert nomad. She narrowed her eyes.
"I wouldn't mind getting revenge at all, but something tells me we won't find him alive. He was in way over his head."
He chuckled, comprehension making his eyes shine. Fennec mentally kicked herself. She shouldn't have called Toro a bounty hunter. That just confirmed that there was a bounty on her head. Scrambling to change the subject, a question slipped out on its own, after having danced on the tip of her tongue since he uttered the word. "You believe in destiny?"
It surprised him, his breath caught. His gaze locked on hers. "Don't you?"
She gulped. Nodded.
Something fizzy percolated in her chest cavity-- she was a cyborg. That was really starting to sink in. And if she believed in destiny, then it meant she was always going to become a cyborg. Why didn't that make it any better?
Before she knew it, she was crying. Fett came to the bedside and gave her shoulder a gentle pat pat pat. She lifted heavy arms and clutched his hand. "Thank you."
He tried to pull away but she held tighter and looked deep into his eyes again. "Thank you for saving my life."
"Yes. Well. It was clear you wanted to live."
"I owe you a life debt," the words burned her throat with their power. She had never felt anything so pure and righteous. "I will follow you anywhere, Boba Fett."
***
She clutched his hand with strength quickly becoming characteristic of her, and Boba Fett felt a series of strange sensations under his skin: a quiver; shortness of breath, warmth, dizziness. Was this… anticipation? Zero gravity? Food poisoning?
Had he been in the dune sea for too long? Perhaps her eyes had this effect on him merely because he had not made direct eye contact with another person for so long. Tuskens never removed their protective headgear. What a marvel to read facial expressions again. Was that the source of his excitement? There was of course, the glaring fact that he hadn't been touched skin to skin by anyone in years --tragically longer even than his time on this godforsaken planet.
To top it all off, a life debt had been sworn. He didn't know what to say. With no enemies in the desert except for the occasional wild beast or desperate bandit, she wasn't going to get much chance to even the score. If he allowed it, she would likely be with him for the rest of his life. And he did not hate the idea.
A human man stepped into the room. He was the modifier who had fixed her without asking too many questions. The manner in which they separated must have made an innocent hand on a shoulder look like something more intimate, because the young man grinned wickedly now.
"Sorry to interrupt. I thought that now that she's awake and out of danger, it would be a good time to get more information for our records."
"Ah. Yes." Boba rumbled. He and Fennec traded a look. A mod parlor in Mos Espa had no need for detailed record keeping, this was clearly a ploy to gather information that could be sold to other interested parties.
The modifier consulted a data pad. "What is your name?"
Her lips quirked and her eyes shone at Boba. "Darling, didn't you tell them anything?"
He laughed, self conscious of how this role play was giving him butterflies. He knew better than to believe the answers she provided. So did the modifier, who probed here and there, trying to catch her in the lie. "And what is your home planet?"
"Alderaan," she said, eyes downcast. The perfect answer. No one could cross check those records anymore. The administrator sighed and closed the tablet. "Okay. Get some rest. As soon as you can feel your toes, you'll be free. But take it easy."
"Thank you."
The droids had left her clothes folded neatly on a shelf in the corner. Boba fetched them when Fennec announced she was ready to go.
"How do you feel?"
She took the pile of her belongings and shrugged. "I knew this job was dangerous when I took it. But, I'll be honest, if I ever imagined becoming a cyborg, I pictured robotic limbs, maybe an eye. But cybernetic guts? It's just not sexy."
Boba's air left through his nose. A laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he had done that either. "It is something hidden from sight. That is plenty sexy."
She tilted her head. "Well when you put it like that…"
Their eyes met. There was that strange vortex feeling again. He gulped and wasn't even aware that he moved closer. "What is your name?"
"Fennec." She stopped his pressing in with a hand on his chest which they both looked at. His heart was pounding. Her fingers were trembling. Did that mean she felt it too?
She looked at his lips. All he would have to do was push through her one armed, half hearted resistance, take her up in his arms and--
He stepped back. "I will let you dress."
He left the room to wait in a narrow, unadorned hallway of the mod parlor. The blank canvas of the sandstone walls had been pressing in on him for days, painted with memories he would rather forget. But outside in the chaos of Mos Espa was no better for him. His time among the Tuskens had not been as healing and cleansing as he had imagined. His past and true identity remained; he had merely been hiding from it.
No more.
The latch of her door brought him out of the epiphany. She stepped out fully dressed and grinning. The black and orange outfit would need to be repaired. There was a burned hole in front from the blaster bolt. She brushed the spot and attempted to tug the gap closed before giving up.
"Where to, boss?"
He considered their options, which were few. He did not belong in the desert, but his heart wasn't in hunting bounty either--not without his suit. So that would have to be their first mission. "My ship."
She appraised him. "I thought you were a desert nomad."
"Does it change your oath to me?"
"Not in the slightest. You just got more interesting."
***
When Boba once again wore the battered Mandalorian armor of his father, Fennec saw something in his eyes, a spark like the birth of a galaxy. He was no longer a humble nomad, steeped in tradition; he was a ruthless gladiator of the stars, steeped in spoils. It felt like recognizing a long lost friend, like meeting a member of her tribe.
After the battle, Fennec appraised the ship. It was old. Pre-clone-wars old. And she had sworn herself to a life onboard. At least it appeared to be in one piece.
"Welcome aboard Slave One," he said proudly. "She was my father's before she became mine."
"Ah. So this is home?"
He did not reply but the expression on his face said plenty. Fennec was a little surprised by the sentimentality. His ruthlessness had suggested more apathy than that. She couldn't say it was a surprise that he had more layers, but whether it was a relief she didn't yet know. On one hand, the sudden potential for the kind of connection she had longed for as she lay dying thrilled her. But on the other hand, working with a man with a heart could be more dangerous.
Fennec lay in her new bunk as the ship slipped through hyperspace with intermittent shimmies that kept her alert. It would take some getting used to the idea that this old relic wasn't about to scatter into a hundred different star systems. Boba Fett was in the bunk across the room; his breath steady, even bellows as he slumbered like a baby.
She lay in the quiet, thinking how very nice it would be to not feel alone, and to not have to cheapen her next connection by walking away from whatever man of the moment it happened to be… What if the next man she had, had her? What if they blazed through this lawless stretch of blackness and light together?
Boba Fett treated her like an equal, a partner in all things. He listened when she spoke, and he offered things about himself. But that was all he did--except for a full body sweep of his eyes from her head to her toes and back each time they met and every time they parted…
Why didn't he touch her? Why didn't he take her? Perhaps he was just not inclined. It was a varied galaxy and all sorts could be found in it. Ah well.
But then.
Then they took the Hutt palace, and traded in the fully operational Hutt-sized bacta tank for a more state of the art human sized one. In just a handful of healing sessions, the worst of his scars were gone. He seemed so much younger--not even out of his forties, surely. And that spark in his eye was a blazing sun now.
She began to feel the heat of his gaze when he looked her over. His appraisal was not merely observant anymore, if it ever was. It was savoring.
Fennec welcomed the lingering looks and more… but still Boba did nothing. It was frustrating. Fennec liked men who went for the things they wanted. The gentlemanly game was cute for a gal in her twenties. But she was over it. Plus, she died once--from a shitty shot taken by a shitty kid in a shitty desert on this shitty planet--and so she figured she was due to have things the way she wanted them for a change.
Usually, the way her love life went down was that she picked a guy and told him what to do. It was easy and effective. She had little patience for boys pretending to be men. Much easier to just take charge…
But, for once, she felt like letting someone else set the pace. Boba intrigued her. Why not have a little fun? See if she couldn't tempt the beast without direct orders?
She picked a suite in the palace in line of sight from the bacta tank and forgot to close the door a lot as she changed her clothes or moved from the thermal baths to the fresher wearing nothing but scented water dripping from her body...
It pleased her to observe that these teasing glimpses of her affected him. But not, so it seemed, to the point of him doing anything about it. He let his eyes sweep over her, sometimes exhaling as he did. Sometimes his voice had something extra in it when he spoke to her. He told her more about himself. He gave her direct orders to come back to him alive, and then, when she brought an assassin back to him alive having misunderstood his order, he gave her a fond little grin and told her it was her pet and she could do to it what she liked.
Then a sandstorm blew in over Mos Espa and decided to linger for longer than the standard duration. Hearing the sand and the wind against the protective shields, Fennec got lost in a contemplative mood and forgot to time her daily naked tease with the end of Boba's healing session. She sat instead on a cushion, looking out through the extra enforced energy shield, watching the dark swirl of dust and debris blow past her… relentless… unceasing… there was something so clean about its ruthless destruction...
Warm hands settled on her shoulders, startling her from her thoughts. Boba's voice was rich and soft by her ear. "No teasing today, little fox?"
Fennec sighed, leaning back into him. He was in his robe. His body had that clean bacta scent, his skin was warm and petal soft. They'd never touched like this. She craved more. He put his arms around her, so his forearms barred across her chest. She liked it, settling more into his embrace as she asked, "Who said I'm not teasing?"
"Hmm," his voice was low and he sat on the cushion beside her, facing away from the windscreen and dropping an arm around her waist like a speeder restraint belt. "You are either more wicked than I imagined, or you do not trust me enough to tell me what it is about a sandstorm which troubles you."
"Troubles?" She shook her head, "No troubles… just…" she searched for words and sighed. "I adore sandstorms, actually. Well, all kinds of storms. I always have." His expression was so intent, so focused on her with that little fond grin, she continued, "Whenever possible, I will sit and admire them. If you can get inside one--like we are right now--the sheer power that washes over you is so..." She trailed off, not knowing the word she needed there. Nothing seemed to fit the biggest, strongest, most eternal thing she ever knew.
"You like power."
"Very much."
The arm across her lap tightened and with hardly any effort on his part, she was in his lap, straddling him. She enjoyed putting her arm across his robed shoulders, cupping his face with the other hand. He was completely without the scars now and she missed them, somehow. When she lightly ran her nails over the dome of his bald head, his eyes shuttered a little in pleasure.
She felt him engorge against her thigh. "Oh! Hello, captain."
He chuckled and she could swear there was a blush on his cheeks. "You thought the Sarlacc took it from me completely, didn't you?"
She blinked. "Oh. I… hadn't considered that."
"No? Why else would I wait to have you?"
"I," she gushed the word on the front of a rather uncharacteristically bashful laugh. "... I don't know. Gentlemanly courtship?"
His laugh was loud and full and so, so free. His already handsome face became like a beacon of warmth. "If I was a gentleman, you were far from being a lady."
She scoffed and shoved him, "I was curious about your preference."
Still smiling, he brushed hair from her cheek, trailing his finger down her neck. He rolled his hips under her and she felt his arousal even more prominently. "Still curious?"
"So you waited because it wasn't gone just…"
"I was swallowed whole. Sat submerged up to my ribcage in stomach acid for nearly five minutes before I got out. I had my armor and several layers of clothes for some protection, but the damage was done. Bacta is a miracle medicine but it takes time on the more delicate parts of anatomy."
"Of course." She wriggled, "But now?"
He kissed her. A gentleman would be tender, he was not. He was hungry and demanding, even harsh. Fennec was truly overpowered for the first time, no pretending. He manhandled her to the cushion and tore open her pants.
She couldn't stop him if she wanted to. Her strength did not match his but her passion did, and it washed over her just like the storm outside, utterly beyond her control. The sheer power took her breath. She gasped and ripped away his robe.
He growled with need and put his fingers inside her. She was wet so he skipped foreplay (unless the last several weeks counted) and thrust his hard cock into her. The brutal stretch made her moan. Something deep inside, unnameable, broke and she felt freed.
Her ecstatic cries bounced off the palace walls as he ravished her. She clutched the cushion under her head and took the pounding thrusts with her teeth clenched around screams.
Then he jerked her up off her back, into his lap. He sank deeper as she spread on him, and they kissed. His hips bucked erratically. She flexed on his throbbing cock. He let out a shaky exhale and pulled her braid, forcing her head back, mouth open. He kissed her and she clawed his back, riding his dick to the beat of the tempest howling outside.
He laughed. She screamed. His dick twitched and he clutched her. Had he come? Or was he on the edge?
She broke the kiss to see his eyes. Still hungry. He threw her down face first and pinned her there. She felt considerable slick oozing out before he reentered from behind, still hard and throbbing. Fennec braced herself against the floor and admired the sight of the storm beyond the glass as he bounced her ass against him.
The pleasure built, and built. She spasmed from the inside out. He only slowed down but didn't stop. She couldn't take the oversensitivity and forced herself backwards into his arms. He thrust deep and then just held her like before. Their hearts were thrashing, breaths roaring. He smelled her hair and kissed the shell of her ear. His voice was rough, "I want you in my bed."
That would be much easier on the knees. She smiled. "Yes, sir."
He spooned her in the silk wonderland of his bed, and moved in her with a lazier hip roll until they both came undone. It wasn't often someone unstitched her twice in a row. Fennec made sounds she never had before, embarrassing ones she hoped were muffled enough in the pillows that he didn't hear. But the way he pet her spine and kissed the back of her neck meant he probably had.
She liked the way he scooped her now loose hair off the back of her neck for her without having to be asked. She liked the sound of his heart heavy in his chest beneath her ear. She liked the way he put butterflies in her belly even though it was all cybernetic parts in there.
She could still hear the storm but couldn't see it. Boba's room had solid metal windscreens...
"Have you ever been to Kamino?" He asked her.
"No."
"I grew up there. It's an ocean planet and it storms every day. The module where I lived had glass walls. The storm was a constant companion."
She snuggled in with noises of inquiry.
"The sky is every shade of gray you can think of. Clouds rolling on clouds. Thunder coming in from two, sometimes even five, directions at once. The lightning is blue or yellow or purple. Winds are fierce and the rain never lets up. The ocean all around you is always dark and choppy, wave after wave breaking on the pillars beneath the floor at your feet."
Fennec exhaled, "Sounds beautiful."
"And if you want to watch power, you have to see the way a wave builds. It starts slowly… swelling…. And swelling… growing closer and closer and higher and higher…. The biggest ones block the sky, a wall of carbonite-gray water pressing toward you and then--" here he simply paused, a single beat and squeezed her hard. "It comes down around the facility with the sound of a planet coming undone at the bolts. The glass never cracks, but every single time , for just a second, I swear you think it will. You think it must, because there is so much water."
"Wow…" she breathed in awe not just from the picture he painted her but from the velvet comfort of his voice, the rich seduction of his touch as he traced her body as if adding gilding to his picture. She lifted her head. "Will you take me there?"
He kissed her. "I will take you everywhere, little fox."
Outside, the sandstorm billowed and gusted, and inside, two kindred spirits forged a connection and became another burning light in the galaxy.