Archive of Our Own

Jaster has entirely given up on struggling against his bindings by the time that the door clangs open. He’s moved on to cursing his entire life as he stews and works to catch both his breath and his thoughts in the lessening haze of the gass that had so efficiently knocked him out.

Honestly, great going, Jaster.

Yeah, maybe going out to earn some experience in the wider galaxy as a beroya - a bounty hunter - would help him in his desires to join up with the Journeyman Protectors back on Concord Dawn, but he certainly couldn’t join them if he was dead.

That was likely what his fate would be at the end of this trip, one way or another.

This was his first solo hunt outside his home sector too. He needed the credits to afford the review for the bounty hunter guild proper. He’d been doing reconnaissance when they’d jumped him.

To add insult to injury, his armor is gone. Sure, it’s not that expensive, doesn’t even have a drop of beskar in the alloy because he couldn’t afford that much, but it’s the spirit of it that matters.

At this point, the first flash of fear has just faded into deep-set irritation.

So he glares as best he can at the men who open the door, even if the bright light from the hall outside the cell burns his eyes.

He can only make out the silhouettes of them as well as the figure that they toss into the cell before the hatch shuts with a deafening clang. It takes his eyes time to readjust back to the dark of the brig, his only source of light the tiny struggling diode above the door.

Well, if he hadn’t already decided his captors were scum, he would be judging them so now as his new cellmate uncurls from where he’d fallen and wiggles into sitting up.

He’s a humanoid handful of years younger than Jaster - fourteen or fifteen, maybe a very baby-faced sixteen, gangly and coltish in the way of adolescents all over the galaxy, a creature only growing into its limbs. The silver-blonde hair and glowing blue of his eyes almost make Jaster place him as Kage, but the irises are too wide and the sclera a nearly black grey. His pupils catch the light like those of a tooka.

The teen wiggles and, in a move so swift one would think it practiced, tucks his legs close to his chest to pass them through the hoop of his arms that had been tied behind his back, now bringing them forward.

Jaster’s own execution of that same trick had involved much less elegance and far more cursing.

But unlike Jaster, instead of trying to rearrange his arms in a way that wouldn’t have the heavy chains weighing down the shackles and cutting any bloodflow to the wrists, the teen coils some of the chain over his fingers and then tosses the hoop back over one leg, planting his foot into the middle.

Then he starts to press against it, pulling the chain as he does so.

Jaster is about to warn the idiot that all this will get him is at best cut up wrists or, at worst, cut up wrists and a dislocated thumb or two. He doesn’t get that far, mouth left hanging part-open in a stunned silence.

Because in the fight between the teen’s boot and the chain, the chain is losing .

Slowly but surely, the links deform, stretch, and as soon as the boy lessens the pressure to give the chain a shake, easily separate, a few even clanking down to the floor.

“Oh hey, it worked!” The teen grins down at the ruined metal.

Jaster startles when he turns on him next, acknowledging his existence for the first time.

“Want to help me break out of here?” The teen asks, far too chipper. “Oh, apologies - my name’s Feemor. Nice to meet you!”

It takes Jaster a moment to answer because his eyes catch on the little braid that has now slipped over the teen’s shoulder and into view.

Ah, a pad- pada- what was the word for a jet’ika again? Kriffing hells, he needs to practice his Basic. Shouldn't have delegated it to his fourth language.

In any case, it sure explains a lot of things and makes some a lot more confusing.

“Jaster Mereel,” he finally manages, “You’re a jetii?”

“Yeah!” The teen grins blighty, showing off an impressive double set of canines among otherwise humanoid teeth. Then the smile drops. “Or is that a problem?”

“Not if you break this too.” Jaster responds quickly, raising his own bound hands in an obvious request.

The jet’ika scoots over to Jaster, but sways in a rather worrying way as soon as he does. He looks confused for a moment, then somehow grins even wider.

“They gave me the good shit,” the jet’ika giggles, blinking rapidly. “I didn’t mean to say that. Actually, don’t tell anyone I said that. Master won’t let me go on missions with uncle Averross again and his are always the best .”

Jaster wouldn’t even know who to tell and knows even fewer people who would believe him if he did. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Before he can reconsider trusting an apparently drugged-up jet’ika, Feemor coils his hands in the chains and, now afforded a better grip than he had with his own, twists.

Once again, durasteel loses the fight.

“Couldn’t you break them by just doing like-” Jaster doesn’t know the polite Basic words for what he thinks, so he just does a vague wiggling motion with his fingers to indicate Force use.

He then goes back to trying to rub circulation back into his abused wrists now that he can adjust the shackles somewhat.

“With how everything is spinning, I probably would have flattened half this cell,” the jetii says, “Losing focus is a stupid way to die.”

Jaster freezes. “What?”

“Pretty sure these suppressors are meant for pitfights. Confuses outside stimulus, but body-sense is fine. Can still focus the Force through myself if I don’t get distracted.” The jetii does a little grippy motion with his hands as if to demonstrate. He tilts his head and with his wide eyes and messy hair, it gives him the air of a harmless tooka kitten, not someone who had just claimed they could flatten starship-grade metal plating. “Don’t look so worried, I wouldn’t have risked you if I was unsure.”

Unfortunately the way that he stumbles and has to right himself when he rises to his feet makes that determined statement a little harder to believe.

“...sure.” Jaster says. Well, his hands are now free to move despite the shackles still around his wrists, so it’s not like he can complain. He hurries to stand when the jet’ika takes a step towards the door. “I’ll be taking point.”

If he wasn’t so stressed about the whole thing, Jaster would consider the whole ‘start a jailbreak uprising on a pirate ship’ thing quite fun, particularly since he ends up with a living radar system following at his heels, ruining any ambushes as soon as anyone thinks of one.

Once they break into the armory, the doors that the slavers desperately shut in their path become but a brief delay. Jaster doesn't even need to worry about the poor make of his armor, a blade of plasma always in the way of one blaster shot or other.

Three hours later, Jaster is figuring out the controls to the massive freighter while the jet’ika calls out random suggestions from the co-pilot’s seat Jaster had parked him on. Despite the teen being the one with the closest level of in-sim certs for piloting this sort of vessel, Jaster has barred him from actually touching the controls because he had been following ‘shiny little light dots oooh that one’s orange!’ with his eyes for the past fifteen minutes.

The last he sees of the jet’ika, they’re on the spaceport that has been set abuzz by Jaster openly announcing to air control that he’s coming in on a commandeered slaver ship so maybe please get someone here to deal with all the people?

One moment the jet’ika is happily chittering at a scraggly ithorian in their native tongue and the next the teen is marching rapidly towards a figure in brown robes who, despite holding themselves still and away from the entire chaotic affair, looks about ready to go prematurely grey out of stress.

Probably the Aveross guy that the jet’ika had mentioned.

A noise draws Jaster’s attention and by the time that he turns back to seek out the pair, they’re gone without a trace to mark their passing.

-*-

“Hello again.”

Jaster jumps nearly a foot in the air at the voice that speaks up far too close.

Not that it’s hard to be too close - Kerubrik is full to bursting and Jaster is cursing his future employer for setting their meeting time nearly on top of the city’s yearly parade. It’s an attraction at a sector’s scale, so it’s hard to traverse the streets without brushing shoulders with strangers and also far too easy to get lost.

Jaster turns towards the newest arrival and is taken aback when the stranger, unconcerned for Jaster’s distinct armor and weaponry, grabs his wrist and starts dragging him across the street.

“Come along now!” The stranger calls back, gracing Jaster with a bright smile.

It takes Jaster a second to recognise him.

He has shot up at least a foot in height, if not more. But where he has grown taller, the hair is now shorn shorter if not by much, just to his jaw. It's now an uniform blonde that shines like pure gold in the bright sun. Any remains of childhood fat have been carved away by just a few years, bringing new sharp lines to his face, rendering it more severe.

But then he catches sight of a thin bead-strewn braid, still silver at the end where the decorations are scuffed and scratched.

His grin is the same too, as is the blue of his eyes, though the grey tint of his sclera has faded to a humanoid white.

One of the few near-human species that grow into their ‘humanoid’ designation instead of out of it, then.

“Feemor,” he greets the jet’ika and decides that despite the sudden detour, he’s curious to see where this goes. He also has yet to thank him for the jailbreak. “Where are you taking me?”

“Just proving a point, this won’t take long,” Feemor replies.

He pulls them through the crowd easily, far more easily than Jaster’s intimidation factor as a mandalorian has ever managed. The people part around him like fish around a rock in the river. They don’t even seem to pay the two of them much mind as they do so, always shifting just enough to miss running into either of them, and Feemor appears to ignore them the same, his head on a swivel, barely looking where he actually goes.

Jetii osik, probably. Damn convenient too.

Feemor tugs them down another street and then into a tiny walled-off garden that may or may not be private property, but it's not like there's a gate.

Jaster just enjoys the lack of people.

“Master Qui-Gon! I told you I’d find him!” Feemor calls out.

The person he's addressing is another jetii, one who's sat on one of the benches, looking down at a datapad.

Two travel bags are abandoned by his feet.

Besides the nondescript robes that serve as a distinct marker once recognised, there isn't much to draw attention to the man besides his impressive height.

He looks a little bit older than Jaster, with brown hair that's pulled back partly, though a few shorter strands escape - either the man is wishing for a haircut, or he's in that awkward stage of growing it out, maybe out of something like the distinct cut the jet’ika is wearing.

“Just because I disagree with you is not an invitation for you to run off to prove me wrong, Feemor,” the jetii intones as he finally turns to look towards the two of them.

He finally appears to notice Jaster and his eyes narrow just slightly when they catch the distinct hexagonal metal heart set into his armor.

Then he turns his attention back to Feemor.

“Padawan?” the jetii says flatly. For a single word, it sounds very much like a disappointed sigh.

“Jaster, meet Master Qui-Gon Jinn,” Feemor ignores the look leveled at him entirely, gesturing between the two. “Master Qui-Gon, meet Jaster Mereel. We met on a mission with Master Aveross. There were transport issues.”

That's certainly one way to put it.

Jinn must sense something from Jaster, maybe the burst of amusement, because he turns a questioning eyebrow upon him.

But then that curious expression drops, along with the faint half-smile that previously appeared like a permanent fixture on the older jetii’s face.

“Isn’t this the bounty hunter hired to kill the prince?” Jinn suddenly asks.

Hold up, what?

“Not yet hired to kill the prince,” the jet’ika calmly corrects. Somehow he still manages to give off the impression of a smug grin.

No, seriously - “Hold up.”

Being stared down by two jedi is an unnerving affair. He wonders if all of them have the same eyes, like they’re looking too deep - the jet’ika, like he is waiting for him to live up to some potential, and the Master, like he’s analysing every twist and blemish of history on his soul.

Jaster refuses to flinch under it, only pulls his shoulders back prouder as he demands, “What do you mean, kill the prince? My mark’s some merchant who’s late on his debts with the client.”

“Unfortunately that is-” The jetii master starts.

“Absolute banthashit, honestly,” Feemor concludes and smiles innocently at the disapproving look aimed his way by his mentor. He pulls a commlink out of somewhere in his robes, flicks it on to project an image, “This is the ‘merchant’, yes?”

Unfortunately for Jaster’s stress levels, “Yes, but his background checked out and-”

“The royal heirs on this planet are required to live a decade as common folk with no support from their family,” The older jedi explains. “Prince Kerin is due to take the crown at the end of the year.”

“So do you still plan to shoot him?” Feemor pipes up.

His master briefly closes his eyes like any buir praying for patience.

“Absolutely not.” Jaster replies without an ounce of hesitation.

Not even because he’s pretty sure he’d have two jetii on his tail and, unlike some mando’ade, he considers that ‘probable suicide’ instead of ‘a bucketlist challenge’.

He’s seen what a drugged teen can do to durasteel. He has saved enough credits to consider upgrading to higher-grade alloy beskar’gam, but nothing close to the lot needed for the true stuff. Put a saber to it and his metal skin is slag.

And while a bounty on a prince’s head, at least when not written off as a random debtor, would push him a good chunk of the way there, it’s not the way he wants to go. He has neither the reputation nor kit to withstand that sort of heat. Without guild protection, he'd have a bounty on his own head in a heartbeat and a dozen hunters ready to take it for some easy money.

“I might shoot the person hiring me, though,” he decides. “I don’t appreciate liars.”

Someone plotting a coup should know better than to try tricking a mandalorian. It’s a thing many do only once.

“Or you could tell us who your employer is so that they may face justice by this planet’s standards,” the older jedi suggests, though the order is implied.

That tone always makes Jaster bristle. “And what sort of punishment is that?”

“In situations like these? Capital.” The jetii’s mouth curls into a slight smile, like they’re sharing a joke.

Got his wish and no sector security on Jaster’s tail? Okay, so maybe Jinn isn’t all that bad.

Two days later he’s also presented with a hefty pouch of credits as a reward for the coup conspirators’ arrest. Something about the smiles the jetiise trade tells him that such rewards are not normal affairs on this planet.

Guess that armor upgrade is getting pushed forward on his list.

-*-

A plasma blade stops the blaster bolt right before it would have burrowed, lethal and bright, square between the sections of Jaster's chestplate.

Instead it pings back and smacks straight into the blaster it had been shot from, slagging it in seconds.

“You wouldn't happen to have seen Master Jinn around?” Feemor asks as if he hadn't shown up out of nowhere.

“Did you run in here just to ask?” Jaster demands, because they’re three sectors and four months beyond their previous meeting.

“In my defence, he's usually the one finding trouble. A firefight seemed like the right way to go.” The jet’ika shrugs.

With a wave of his hand, the rest of Jaster's opponents are buried under metal scrap, their threats reduced from physical to only vocal.

“I better go find him. Bye Jaster!”

“Ret’, Feemor.”

Jaster watches the jet’ika leap up and out of a skylight and decides that yeah, this might as well happen.

Then he goes off to stun the trapped bastards. The fact that he needs to bring them in alive doesn't mean that they must be conscious for it.

-*-

“What are you doing here?”

The jetii looks up and then his face blooms into a genuine warm smile. “Ah, Jaster! It looks like my off-world transport never arrived.”

As he says that the jedi tilts the datapad he’d been looking at towards him, enough so that Jaster can recognise the dockyard’s public ship manifest.

He isn’t sure what had prompted him to walk up to the lone figure idling by the entrance to the docks. Until he drew close, he hadn’t even been sure that it was Feemor. Brown robes and golden-blonde hair aren’t exactly the most unique traits to go by.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Jaster offers.

“Oh?” The jetii blinks at him, then smiles wider, hands coming up to scratch behind his ear. “Oh, thank you.”

The braid is gone from where it had once hung over the jetii’s shoulder. His hair has gotten shorn down too, practically a military cut, so it’s hard to judge how long it’s been gone.

It’s been, what, a year? Two?

Enough for the jetii to now stand both taller and wider than Jaster. Clearly he hasn’t spent the time sitting idle in the Temple.

He's damn handsome, now that Jaster can take him in without any chaos around them. Though he's pretty sure what he finds most appealing is the quiet confidence that the jetii seems to carry now, knighted.

But that's not the point of their conversation now, is it?

“Are you off to Coruscant? I think there’s a freighter going core-side tomorrow.”

“Off to Makem Te, actually,” Feemor shakes his head. “The sector’s renegotiating how to tax their hyperspace routes. It's getting messy.”

“I’ll give you a lift to Quermia, then. You can take the Perlimian route from there.”

“You’re going there?”

“Not really,” Jaster admits.

“Then why?”

“I guess I’m hoping that if I take the initiative, this won’t end with me dodging certain death,” Jaster shrugs. “Also I owe you one and I don’t like any debts on my head.”

“There’s no debt between us,” the jetii frowns slightly.

“Consider it a mandalorian issue,” Jaster shrugs. Honestly, figures that jetii would be the only people not salivating over the idea of a mandalorian being in their debt.

Like he read his mind, the jetii echoes, “Consider it a jedi issue.”

“Then think of it as me being a good samaritan for the peace of my own heart,” Jaster rolls his eyes. “Are you coming or not?”

The jetii tilts his head, like he’s listening to something Jaster can’t hear.

“Alright, I think I should go with you,” He decides.

Jaster hopes he’s mistaken when he considers why the word ‘should’ is present in that sentence.

When they hit atmo and get instantly caught in a pirate ship’s tractor beam, Jaster is unfortunately proven right.

In any case, while a whole pirate crew could prove challenging to a lone mandalorian, it’s more of an interesting exercise when there’s a whirling shield of plasma - and the man wielding the blade - that he can use as moving cover.

He even switches to stunners when he notices that the jetii prefers to go for disarms - literal or not - as well as knockout hits.

He gets rewarded with a smile and the jetii pointedly looking the other way when Jaster picks through the pirates’ weapons to keep some for himself. Might as well have them pay the idiot tax before they surrender the vessel to sector security.

With a passenger to talk to and play dejarik with, the trip to Quermia passess much faster than it usually would.

By the time they separate, Jaster would even call them friends.

He still steers his ship towards the opposite end of the galaxy.

-*-

Well, this is it, Jaster thinks with the clarity only available to those dying. It’s over.

Because he’s falling between the levels of Nar Shaddaa.

His jetpack is punctured and if the fuel isn’t gone already, it will turn him into a fireball at the smallest spark. His whipcord has been cut. His body is small and squishy and not meant for the amount of energy this impact is about to make him experience.

So he shuts his eyes, accepts the inevitable-

And hits nothing.

A second after he stops moving, he’s deposited almost gently on the ground. The slight jostle makes his eyes fly open to take in the constellation of speedercars and neon adverts stretching up into the support-strut ridden sky.

And also the jetii in his periphery, hands still half-raised.

Sensing his attention, the jetii actually raises one further to wave, then startles and scrambles for his pocket to pull out a comm.

“Fierfek! I’m late for my transport! Later, Jas!”

“Ret’,” he echoes breathlessly and lays back down on the pavement until his heart starts beating regularly again.

Maybe he should take a break from bounty hunting.

-*-

“Jaster!”

Of all the places Jaster had expected to hear that voice, Concord Dawn wasn’t it.

“Feemor?”

He takes off his buy’ce just in case but, sure enough, when Jaster turns away from where he had been considering whether or not he needs to get groceries before heading home, he sees the jetii heading straight for him.

Not that the man looks much like a jedi right now. Gone are the familiar robes. He’s instead in clothes fit for a spacer - hardy pants, tall boots, a shirt that has been washed one too many times to remain white and a heavy duty jacket that has clearly survived long enough to prove indestructible. The outfit hugs him in all the right places, drawing attention to the blade not so secretly tucked into his left boot or the blasters that ride his hips like they’re meant to be there, no distinct saber in sight.

Jaster instantly decides that he prefers him in his jetii clothing. He probably wouldn’t be able to tell if he hadn’t spent time around the jetii before, but he can tell the man isn’t entirely comfortable in his disguise.

He stands tall and easy, but not at ease. It doesn’t fit him.

That leads to one question. “What are you doing here?”

And should he evacuate the square before the shooting or some other mess begins. After all, there has been a trend to their meetings so far.

“I was in the Meerian sector to negotiate the set-up of an agricorps outpost,” Feemor explains. Maybe speaking of jedi matters in mandalorian space quite so openly may be stupid, but people rarely listen to conversations that someone can’t be bothered to hide. “You talked so much about this place and I was nearby, so I thought I’d come see it for myself.”

Jaster blinks a couple times as he tries to process that remark. “You came to manda’lase just because I told you about it?”

“You clearly loved it and I was curious.” Feemor shrugs. “It’s always good to satisfy curiosity. Either you learn something, or you learn there wasn’t something worth learning.”

Ah, jetii being jetii, then.

“Let’s hope you didn’t bring trouble.”

“I believe it’s always trouble finding you,” Feemor points out. “Plus, considering I came here on purpose, maybe our little curse will cancel out.”

“And what are the chances of that?”

“Well, we have a saying,” Feemor’s lips quirk into a humorless grin and he sighs, “When a jedi laughs, the Force laughs louder.”

“Then I guess I better not let you out of my sight,” Jaster decides, “Come, I’ll give you a tour.”

Though he meant it partly as a joke, Jaster does fall into the role of a tour guide. After all, the jetii hadn’t been wrong - Jaster loves his planet, his hometown, and his duty to defend it as a Journeyman Protector.

So as they idly traverse the streets he points out all his favorite corner stores and noodle stands, greets the people he has known for most of his life and, since mando’ade are incurable gossips, is forced to introduce Feemor to them.

“Met a while ago. Transport issues,” he tells them and swears he sees the jetii’s lips twitch into a wider smile.

The jetii unluckily proves capable of charming even the curmudgeonly ba’buir Uvri who has probably been around longer than the town itself and Jaster mentally prepares himself for at least a month of pointed questions about his ‘friend’.

He all but drags Feemor away once the conversation turns to ba’buir Uvri insisting on telling one of his infamously long and droning stories.

“Who’s that?” Feemor asks suddenly.

There is an imperceptible shift to his stance that nevertheless makes Jaster almost reach for his own blaster.

He calms that impulse and instead follows Feemor’s gaze as well as the faint gesture that directs him.

Jaster doesn’t like what he finds at the end of the path.

Well, not quite - he likes the man well enough, he just doesn’t like the implications of him having the attention of a jetii he’s never even met.

“Sylva. He’s the leader of the Protectors in these parts.”

“What is he like?” Feemor asks. There is something to the way he turns his head slightly, like a strill that caught the scent of blood.

“Good man, good Protector, likes to do shit his way but hasn’t steered us wrong. Can be a bit of a hardass when it comes to drills, so he’s probably half the reason I despise jetpack training.” Jaster tells him truthfully. As he does so he watches the jetii’s frown deepen and tracks where along his speech it had stopped. “Is there a problem?”

He’s watching the jetii closely, but that doesn’t grant him many answers. When the jetii want to hide their thoughts, few people are better. The only hint of trouble that Jaster gets is the uncharacteristic moment of hesitation before Feemor speaks.

“Nothing I could confirm. Just… keep an eye out around him?”

“Sure,” he agrees at once. “It will be a nice change of pace to save someone else from trouble.”

Of course even when the jetii departs, the conversation troubles him. And after all, he's mandalorian - whether for information or for a bounty, he can't exactly leave a hunt alone.

It takes him less than two weeks until he has irrefutable proof that his words to the jetii had been an unknowing lie.

It takes him less than two seconds to decide on the sort of justice this sort of corruption demands.

He leaves Concord Dawn as an exile, but never does he regret putting that slug through Sylva’s head.

-*-

Jaster collapses back to the ground with a pained groan.

Above him, the sky seems to spin and subside. It’s framed by the walls of the ditch Jaster has been struggling to get out of. The sandy surface mocks him.

Kricking double-faced huut’un leaving him here! He will-

Jaster’s thoughts white out for a moment as he forcibly jerks his left foot, trying to shift it back into a position from which he can lever himself up.

The wound isn’t immediately dangerous - the blasterbolt had grazed his thigh away from any important blood vessels, but heat-shock is a hell of a thing and the burn has buried itself deep. Nothing a skilled doctor can’t fix, but that is a concern for future-Jaster. Right now, ever attempt to maneuver his leg sends the damaged muscles twitching, only making the pain worse, drowning out the stims in his system.

Jaster glares at the slope in front of him, at the meager shadow that still offers shelter.

His time is running out. Once the sun reaches zenith he will have no shade in which to cower from the heat. While the temp-control in his armor is good at cooling him down - a necessity when he’d decided to paint it nearly all black - the power supply is finite.

So Jaster levers himself into a start position from which he hopes to stumble into standing, takes a deep breath to prepare.

Foolishly, he thinks of Feemor. The few times he’d met the jetii, it was in situations that would have inevitably led to some ruin or other. It was only after the fact that he realized exactly how bad the consequences could have been, always diminished in the moment by the good cheer that the jetii seemed to maintain out of sheer spite against the cold of the galaxy.

He could use even a moment of positivity right now.

While he has survived a fair number of troubles on his own, an unavoidable fact of life for a bounty hunter making their way through the galaxy, he has a feeling he won’t make it through this one alone.

“So, you come here often?”

“Why are you like this?” Jaster demands.

Yet when he looks up, he can’t help the smile that grows on his face, its mischievous counterpart looking down at him from the ditch’s edge.

Climbing out is far easier when all he has to do is not struggle when an invisible force gently scoops him up and deposits him on the sand-strewn shale of E’ronoh under the guidance of Feemor’s hand.

“What are you even doing here?” Jaster asks while they shuffle along. 

Well, he’s the one shuffling along, Feemor is just supporting him in his endeavours. He refuses to be carried.

“Speeder got blown up.”

Jaster blinks a couple times. “What?”

“It won’t be a problem as long as we get back to town,” the jetii brushes him off. “Will you be alright there?”

“Oh yes, as long as I can wring an idiot’s neck for double-crossing me and the guild. Want to help out?”

“Jedi don’t deal in revenge.”

“Then how about some justice?”

“I could possibly be persuaded.”

-*-

“Maybe reconsider.”

Jaster freezes before his foot can hit spaceport durasteel. He puts it back down on the ramp of his ship. “What is it this time?”

“Well there’s a bit of a hostile element against hunter guild members-”

The jetii is cut off by the repulsion field that keeps the hangar from the void of open space beginning to noticeably dim.

Had Jaster been walking across the suspiciously empty docking bay like he was meant to, he wouldn’t even have noticed the silent warning. 

“Get on the ship.” Jaster sighs.

“Gladly.”

-*-

“This is starting to get irritating,” Jaster groans.

The jetii had only just stepped over to his side, surprising him with a greeting, and then a bomb went off.

The only reason Jaster's head isn't spread across the pavement is because the jetii swatted away the concussive force of the fireball up into the sky.

“I actually find it quite pleasant,” Feemor replies.

He's sitting on the ground now, letting Jaster fuss over his hand where he'd cut them up helping the locals clean the rubble.

Jaster's gloves had taken his brunt of the damage.

Jaster stares at him flatly for a moment before he goes back to applying the bacta on the slashes, probably the only part of Feemor that isn’t covered in dust and soot. “How is any of this pleasant?”

“Jedi missions can be so tiresome to untangle since so many people try to use us for their devices and don’t take ‘no’ all too nicely. It's simple with you,” Feemor shrugs, “See the mando, save the mando, maybe have a nice conversation in the meanwhile.”

That’s a little depressing, Jaster thinks. “Would be better if I didn't have to get saved all the time.”

Not that Jaster didn't appreciate his continued survival, but he was still mandalorian. The implication that he had to be helped without being given a chance to go through the act of asking was irritating.

Mandalorians always put a lot of weight on action.

But so do Jedi, he has realised, and it soothes the sting somewhat. They are supposed to offer their time and energy to the whole galaxy. Feemor didn't mind taking a detour to offer just that bit of it to the mote that was Jaster.

And it seemed that all the reward he took from it was friendly conversation.

Even now, Feemor grins, and doesn't flinch as Jaster coils plasters over the wounds his bad luck had put there.

Instead he says, “But then I wouldn't have an excuse to talk to you.”

Jaster snorts. “Is that a way of asking for my comm number?”

“Actually, I was about to offer you mine.”

Well, three of them actually end up typed into the ‘link that he hands over later. They’re labelled, in order, ‘Feemor’, ‘Fee lost comm #1’, and ‘Fee didn’t charge comm #2’.

The jetii says nothing to Jaster’s judgemental look once he finally gets the commlink back and reads the names, only grins innocently and hurries off with the excuse that he's now late for the meeting with the heads of the system’s trade conglomerate.

You'd think that late nights spend chatting with a jedi would involve some discussions of history or philosophy, and it's not that they don't have any, but Jaster finds it surprisingly pleasant to wake up to a slew of messages that are nothing but pictures of local tookas, wherever Feemor is at any given point in time.

Of course one day he sends the jetii a picture of a decorated busy street and receives back an image of his own back in that same place.

He turns around and prepares himself for the next minor disaster.

His bounty turns out to be the crime lord the jetii’s looking after instead of some common thug.

On the bright side - it triples his bounty.

He treats the jetii to a drink before they part back on their own ways.

-*-

“So, are you on any somewhat suspicious mission I should know about?” comes a question from his left.

It would be extremely odd coming from anyone else in this ragged spaceport cantina, but as Jaster turns to face the familiar jedi, he answers honestly. “Not any that I've been informed of. You? Someone on your tail?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Feemor shakes his head.

The jedi slips into Jaster's booth like he belongs there. His long legs knock against Jaster’s and stay there, comfortable to them both.

They look at eachother like they're trying to catch the other in a lie, then smile at the same time, both in on the same cosmic joke.

“So you're not openly in trouble, I'm not openly in trouble…” the jedi starts.

“Want to make bets on who it turns out to be?” Jaster suggests.

The jedi laughs. “Oh absolutely. I’ll treat you to dinner if it's me?”

Good offer, but - “Or we could just go get dinner while we wait and face whatever it is on full stomachs.”

“I like your plan better.” Feemor nods. “Shall we just bet on bragging rights?”

“Or you just pay the tab next time.”

Knowing them, there will be a next time. Jaster has come to accept that as a rule somewhere along the way without even noticing.

“Fine by me.”

Pointedly ignoring what might come in the future feels like a sort of spiteful rulebreaking, which makes it disobedience of the most amusing sort. They garner more than one baffled stare when either of them wonders out loud if some disaster or other is about to go down in the next two seconds.

Over the course of the night, Jaster learns that the jetii doesn’t flinch at spicy food but has an incurable sweet tooth and can put away an amount of sugar that makes Jaster vaguely nauseous to even consider. They also get banned from two separate cantinas despite the fact that Feemor insists that he wasn’t cheating at sabacc and nobody is able to prove otherwise.

Somewhere along the line ‘can we get dinner before disaster’ turns to ‘can we get a drink or two before disaster’ and then that turns to Jaster maybe sharing some unjustified beliefs on whether jedi can handle their liquor.

After Feemor proves him wrong he doesn’t remember much besides music, laughter and a few angry half-familiar voices calling his name.

He isn’t sure whether watching the jetii rip a blaster out of someone’s hand with a thought and throw it back at their head was real or just something he imagined.

“I guess what you’re saving me from is this damned hangover,” Jaster grumbles as the jetii shoves a glass of water into his left hand and a couple pills into the other. He’s resolutely refusing to open his eyes because the world is too loud and bright, and his head feels like an acklay is tapdancing on it.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” the jetii sounds far too cheerful, even with his voice pitched barely above a whisper.

Jaster prays that the meds kick in soon. Pride wants him moving. The rest of him would almost prefer to be dead. “How are you functioning right now?”

“Innumerable are the mysteries of the Force,” replies the smug bastard.

"I hate you."

“You love me,” Feemor shoots back without hesitation then just as easily adds, “I have to go, I’ll be late for my transport.”

In the following days, Jaster refuses to acknowledge how much that offhand remark haunts him.

-*-

“What are you writing?”

Jaster types out the rest of the sentence before looking up to check that, yup, the speaker is still the one and only jedi who tends to just show up in his life.

“Eh, you can call it an essay? Article? Codex? One of those,” he replies. “Why does Basic have so many words for the same thing?”

He then relentlessly mashes the delete button because the sentence he had just finished sucks .

“Probably to make the name of the language all the more contrary,” Feemor chuckles quietly. He drops into the second seat across the little table.

Jaster had hoped that parking himself outside a caf shop would either provide inspiration via novelty or through unhealthy amounts of caffeine. It's been a bust. He doesn't growl at the damned datapad, but it's quite close.

“Need someone to look it over?”

“Couldn't hurt,” Jaster admits, “but it's in mando’a.”

“Oh, good. Give it here.” The jetii all but sprawls across the sun-warmed table, making grabby hands for the datapad.

Jaster's foul mood can't quite last at such an uncharacteristic display and by the way that the jetii’s lips twitch into a wider smile, that was entirely the point.

Then a thought hits him. “You know mando'a?”

“I thought it would be prudent to avoid any further issues,” the jetii shrugs, straightening himself into a far more dignified sprawl, though he still has his hand open in a wordless request. Then, at Jaster's questioning look, he explains “Wanted to ask someone with a sigil like yours if they knew you. I think there was a misunderstanding.”

A sigil like his? Must mean the aliik. That's a short list of people, and he's pretty sure they all know his stance on jetiise, even if he never does explain why exactly he holds it.

Guess he'll be having words with someone. “Who?”

“Jaster, peace,” Feemor sighs, “I’m sure the fault was on my part.”

“What did they do?”

“Nothing that isn't expected by jedi,” Feemor rolls his eyes, “Now give me the datapad so that I can see why you look like you want it to catch fire.”

Fine, Jaster can drop this topic, but he'll still be having words with his friends in general, particularly if this damned thing he's writing actually goes to publication.

“It's fifty two pages,” Jaster warns.

“Nothing compared to some mission dossiers. Give.”

Much like he has gotten used to doing to any of the jetii’s requests, Jaster gives.

Feemor settles back into his chair, apparently determined to actually go through the codex draft, and starts to read.

Jaster expects him to give up within five minutes but he does not. Then another five minutes pass and now the jetii has begun to flick between pages, probably cross-checking some of Jaster's more convoluted portions. Jaster settles in to wait.

Somehow sitting there, just idly watching the crowd while the jetii reads through his datapad, Jaster finds himself content.

It shouldn’t be surprising. He’s mando’ad - finding joy in the moment is kind of the entire philosophy, if you ask some people. He wouldn’t live the way that he does if it rendered him miserable.

The success of a hunt, the time spent trading stories with fellow mercs, the rush of a plan going down without a hitch, even just finding a good meal in some port he has never been to before and might never visit again - it makes him happy.

This feeling is gentler, but more insidious. It doesn’t feel like a high, but it feels like it could last. It’s something warm, sheltered behind his metal heart.

This too is not an unfamiliar feeling, more common these days than not. It often rises like a trained habit when he hears his commlink chime a very particular ping, or follows his footsteps after he spends hours whiling way hyperspace travel by arguing some idle point of philosophy over an unstable channel.

Surprisingly often it comes after he has cheated death once more, but only in the times when there’s another body next to his, equally delighted by continued survival and already asking which of them is going to pay for dinner.

He looks over towards the jetii.

The man has his eyes fixed on the text that - and Jaster is the primary expert on this matter - is unrefined and somewhat dull. He is still smiling, the same way that Jaster is.

‘You love me,’ the jetii had joked.

‘Well shit, I think I do,’ Jaster thinks.

Then he suddenly scrambles for his chorono as he realizes that enough time has passed and he should be hurrying to meet with a contact, shit, he shouldn’t even be hurrying but running because he’s five minutes late.

The comm he has set to link to local security networks helpfully chimes that a shootout is currently in progress in the warehouse he’s supposed to be in.

Jaster puts the comm back down and cringes slightly under the jetii’s equally amused and concerned look.

“I’ll go fetch us both caff. Any preferences?”

-*-

Jaster is being a coward, he knows.

That doesn’t stop him from taking one look through the cantina doors and turning on his heel before anyone gathered there can spot him.

What started as a small band of allies and people who he hoped to call on if a hunt required it has inevitably begun to balloon into a sizable force.

He had seen most of them there, gathered in the meeting spot to which he had been called for some reason or other, Munin hadn’t been clear on the matter but the di’kut never was.

So he does a solid U-turn and then smacks into a solid chest.

As soon as he and his obstacle both right their balance and Jaster realizes just who he had walked into, he grabs the man by the wrist and drags him away.

“You are not going in there.”

“Alright,” Feemor agrees easily, letting himself be pulled along. Both of them are quite good at going with the other’s whims. “Why?”

“Nothing you should concern yourself with.”

“Sure doesn’t feel like nothing.”

“Stay out of my head, shabuir.”

Jaster is nearly yanked off his feet when the body that had so obediently been following him suddenly stops. He lets go of Feemor in the stumble, only for the man to catch him in a grip he has no chance in breaking.

“Right, this is the first time you’ve called me names, so something’s definitely wrong.” For once, the jetii isn’t smiling. “Spill.”

Jaster yanks his arm, but it does nothing besides make it move within the gauntlet Feemor has a solid hold on, and it’s not like Jaster will leave it behind, even on principle.

“Fine, just not here.”

So they end up in a park, the place dark and entirely deserted at this late hour.

Though he dances around the issue, in the end, Jaster spills his guts.

A runaway series of events, like a snowball triggering an avalanche. Speaking to this person, then another, sending his codex out into the void of the holonet on a whim, then not realising the consequences of openly defending it whenever another mando or merc wished to discuss it, helping this woman train as mando’ad, then this man to learn the ropes of the hunter’s guild under his tutelage, so on, so forth.

A bit of history, easier to explain than his own mess of actions, since it’s two steps removed. The migrant nature of his people - those who call themselves mando’ad, not just those born in the sector - how often they fled across the galaxy before joining together again. Clans and their holdings, how regulation and law in the system is more a reasonable suggestion than a rule because of it.

Consequently - the reasons why such forces would gather - to name a leader. Not some appointed ruler, but a voice of reason they all agree to listen to and allow to regulate disputes.

The only tie all those people he saw in the cantina have in common.

“Having connections is important.” 

“Aren’t jetii supposed to be all ‘no attachment’ or something?” Jaster grumbles.

“Jaster, that argument was weak even for you.” Feemor’s shoulders twitch in a way that lets him know the man is silently laughing.

He looks up at the sky and somehow Jaster knows that, without a map, the jetii is still seeking out Coruscant or, more precisely, what the planet carries like a leftover of a grand age.

“No attachments doesn’t mean no community. It simply means that we walk our paths, come what may, and we let others walk theirs, whether we meet for just a moment or for our entire lives.” He explains. “There is no need for bindings to make sure we are there to catch each other when we fall, to be a waiting hand when someone wanders out too far for too long. There's a good reason we never grant mastery for the sake of raw power, but for understanding. We are an order, an impossible variety of people led by a single creed. A family found scattered across the stars.”

The jedi looks down then to smile at Jaster, and his eyes then drift back in the direction of the cantina he had sought to escape.

“I just think you should go out there and see if you can find yours.”

“It’s a responsibility.”

“We all have those.”

“A very big responsibility.”

“And what is life but a chance to grow?”

His eyes may have changed over the years, keeping little of their alien nature besides their reflective glow, but the look is the same. That gaze that looks deeper than mortal eyes should, carrying an undying warmth that Jaster has seen aimed at anything from people to tiny seedlings digging their way through pavement.

Like everything has potential, the jedi is just waiting to see it be fulfilled.

It hadn't carried as much weight then, when Feemor was some random teenager causing trouble by getting Jaster out of trouble. Someone to be forgotten once their paths parted.

Now there is history behind that look, history shared, either through brief joint adventures or written down on commlink datastreams. The weight of knowledge.

Somehow Jaster has yet to disappoint.

So Jaster goes.

The next morning, he checks the news. Tracks the flight path he could have taken, the route back to his ship. Listens for reports of crime, of fire, of death, and finds nothing.

There was no horrible thing the jetii had kept him from that night, except maybe one.

So he pushes that thought away from his mind, gets to his feet, and goes to fetch breakfast for the gaggle of hungover ramikade that have piled into his ship.

-*-

The past few days had been a mess that had all but run Jaster off his feet.

He’s exhausted and hurting in more places than he’s not, but at this point writing a list is far beyond his list of priorities. It has been one sabotaged piece of equipment after another, one fight after another, and now he and his ramikade are on Concord Dawn, trying to catch their breath when they’re standing on the precipice of what Jaster can feel will be a momentous shift.

Such is the way of mandalorian history - just some reasonable fool marching head-first into trouble and a people who decide that honestly, they may as well join. 

Tired to the bone, he had fallen unconscious practically as soon as his head had hit the pillow of the hotel room he had spent credits on instead of spending even a minute longer in an effort to get back to his ship.

An indeterminate amount of time later, his eyes fly open to the sound of the latch to his window shifting, something which should be impossible considering that the lock is on the inside.

Jaster fumbles for the blaster at his bedside, half-hoping that the noise and motion would dissuade whoever was intruding.

“I’m so kriffing sorry,” comes a familiar voice, pitched low enough that it barely carries over the sound of the window swishing open in full and then the shuffle of cloth, “Had to find a way to lose a stubborn tail.”

Jaster drops his blaster and, in lieu of watching the jetii clamber in, slumps back into bed. Cold has crept in under the covers in the few moments he had been sitting up and he all but buries himself in them to reclaim the previous warmth.

He can hear the window swish shut and the lock click shut.

Adrenaline hasn’t had the time to fight through the dregs of sleep and he refuses to let it. Everything hurts and he has definitely not gotten enough shuteye.

“Lock the door on your way out,” he orders, though it must come out half-muffled by the blanket he pulls up to his chin.

“Thank you.” It’s said with feeling. “Sorry to disturb.”

Quiet steps cross the room at a cadence of a sure path. Jaster has seen the jetii move quieter than wind, so the faint noise must be made entirely for his sake.

Something about that idle thought makes his irritation at being woken bank better than even the comfort of his bed.

The slight rattle of the cover being lifted from the door controls. Jaster tucks his face further into the blanket to hide from the irritating glow that makes it through his closed eyelids. No sound of the door opening follows.

“One question - those mandos in blue and grey, white stripe accents. They yours?”

Jaster’s nose wrinkles. Nobody he’d call a friend would be stupid enough to wear those colors.

“Kyr’tsade,” he grumbles, then tacks on a translation more appropriate than ‘death watch’. “Bastards.”

“Ah,” A huff, maybe a soft laugh. “Goodnight, Jaster.”

“Ret’, Fee.”

The door swishes open then shut, taking away the jedi and any disturbances with him.

Jaster burrows happily into the sleep-warm spot he occupied before his sudden waking, ready for the bliss of unconsciousness in a way only those truly exhausted can manage.

Then the conversation catches up to him and he sits up so fast the bed creaks.

“Wait, kyr’tsade?!”

-*-

Okay, it’s not that Jaster regrets his somewhat impulsive decision - it was the right thing to do - but he’s realizing the scope of the responsibility on his shoulders now and, honestly, it feels heavier than when his ramikade started calling him mand’alor.

There’s a dozen people he knows wouldn’t mind if he turned up on their doorstep looking for advice, even now in the middle of the night. Still, there’s someone that never fails to dig him out of trouble.

So he pulls out his comm, hisses when the bright light of it nearly blinds him before he can dim it.

Their last topic of conversation was the two of them roasting some old mandalorian poetry the jetii had dug up in the archives. Who knew Canderous had a hobby? 

Luckily their talks never needed much preamble, so Jaster simply types, ‘How do I care for a somewhat traumatized spitfire kid?’

The reply doesn’t take long to return. Wherever the jetii is, he’s awake and not actively fighting.

He may or may not have once admitted to texting Jaster during particularly tedious negotiations, so whether or not he’s on an active mission isn’t something Jaster can guess at.

‘Did you find a lost padawan?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I was too. Give me a sec.’

The comm rings. He answers.

-*-

It must be a good sign that their encounters have been delegated to idle chats over the wide expense of the holonet besides a time or two on Jaster’s solo venture where they had come together like two migrant comets, leaving each other’s orbits as quickly as they’ve met.

Maybe Jaster’s luck is turning for the better, something he won’t complain about now that he has Jango following at his heels more often than not, as well as a whole clan’s worth of mando’ade to watch his back.

But despite what it means for his future, Jaster can’t help but feel unreservedly happy when a man steps up to him, wearing familiar robes and a bright smile.

Nothing immediately collapses, so they fall into the same comfortable song and dance, whiling away the day watching each-other’s backs.

There’s a glaring spot of self-sabotage - Jaster has a whole warship he could bunker in, a small army he could call for back-up, but he doesn’t. Feemor, though he has been told exactly why Jaster is on this planet, doesn’t call him out on it either.

They’re on the top of a roof they probably aren’t allowed on, the highest point of the entire city, having watched the sun set at the jetii’s insistence. He liked to see the different colors on each planet, the man had admitted. Jaster had seen no issue in indulging him since it was hard to fear falling when someone could catch you with a single thought.

Jaster watches one of his ramikade pass far below and wrestles away the idle urge to test his aim by tossing a pebble at their bucket.

It’s peaceful, he likes it.

Feemor is all but pressed into his side, nominally to make sure that Jaster doesn’t tumble off the roof with his far-from-jedi sense of balance, one that's certainly not helped by that old leg wound.

When he looks at him, the jetii is smiling at the life carrying along so far below. Then, most likely sensing the attention, he looks up and that smile only widens.

“No trouble yet?” Jaster asks.

“No,”  Feemor shakes his head.

The last of the reds and pinks are being swallowed by the horizon, and the fading light casts him into sharp relief.

Maybe it’s the time they’ve spent apart or the day they’ve spent together, but Jaster gets a foolish idea.

“Think we’ll avoid it if we make some ourselves?”

“You have something in mind?”

“Yes,” Jaster says. “This.”

And he kisses the jetii.

Feemor kisses back.

“Wait, is this allowed?” Jaster asks when they part for breath.

The jedi pulls back, staying just out of reach while Jaster chases the contact, not that he can move far with how they're pressed together.

The man is looking at him, one eyebrow raised in a way that shouldn't be as charming as it is. 

"Is this really the situation where you want to hear a lecture about why healthy emotional and/or physical closeness doesn't equal dangerous attachment and how isolation or celibacy are personal choices that may even be unhealthily dogmagic depending on the personal mindset behind them?"

Jaster huffs. It sounds a little interesting to that academic portion of his mind but when he's close enough to count the jetii's lashes, close enough to feel his breath and see where his lips have reddened- "No."

A second eyebrow climbs to join the first and those lips curl into a satisfied smirk with a hint of teeth. "Then shut up with the commentary and put that mouth to good use."

Jaster can't help the responding smile as that grin presses against his own. "Sir yes sir."

There isn't much speaking after that.

“So is this the trouble?” Is the question he wakes to the next morning.

He’s warm and comfortable, very much satisfied, and honestly quite happy to put away any higher thinking for at least another hour or two.

He’s very happy to discover that the jetii is content to act as a very comfortable pillow for Jaster’s cuddly tendencies. Looks like the main reason the jetii complains about the cold is because he runs warmer than a furnace.

But unfortunately the word ‘trouble’ is practically a ringing bell when said around the jetii, so Jaster cracks open an eye to give the world some attention.

Nothing immediately comes to mind. They’re in his cabin, in his bed, the jetii doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to shake Jaster off, particularly judging by the solid arm holding him close, so what.

Ah.

Jaster lets his head thunk down.

It starts to shake with Feemor's laughter, considering that he plants it back where he had once had it pillowed on the jetii’s chest.

“I forgot about the morning departure.”

Sith hells, he himself had warned his ramikade to be back on the ship bright and early so that the pilots could take them up the moment the airspace opened. This way they could drop down to Korda VI and return with the lost defence force to planet Korda by dinner, if all went to plan.

His armor must have pinged his location as on-ship after Feemor had snuck them back in - Jaster can’t be bothered to debate whether he wants to rearrange security to be jetii-proof - so nobody had bothered to check for his okay, since he had already given the order the day before.

Jango has been running high on the promise to have a nominal leadership role over a group of ramikade, so the boy was probably too busy annoying his friends to come look for him, even if he often found it funny to wake Jaster with as much noise as possible.

“Do you want me to stay in?” Feemor asks. “I can keep out of sight until we land.”

There’s something small in his voice.

Jaster pokes him in the side to stop him from being an idiot. “No. Either they’ll deal with it or I’ll deal with them. Plus, I need to introduce you to Jango.”

They get distracted somewhere along getting dressed and when Jaster blames him for making them late for the briefing, Feemor declares that if Jaster is bringing along a surprise jedi, he might as well make it a suitably dramatic entrance.

They're the exact same brand of bastard, so Jaster can't even argue with that. In fact, he sets his buy’ce to record the HUD.

The looks on everyone's faces when he strolls into the meeting room and doesn't even acknowledge the robed figure at his heels earns him blackmail material for the next decade.

The briefing goes startlingly quick despite it, what with the plan already decided on. This is mostly just a reminder to make sure nobody has any bright ideas - actually bright or ‘bright’, whichever.

When the commotion of everyone rising to their feet starts, to disperse to their posts or, more likely, question Jaster in the few extra free minutes they have, the jetii leans in to speak into his ear.

“Remember that mando I once met and didn’t get along with?” Feemor asks quietly.

Jaster hums curiously and tries not to make it too obvious when he seeks out the figure Feemor’s attention directs him to.

Well, figures.

Were it anyone else accusing the man without as much as an ounce of evidence, Jaster would consider them fighting words. After all, Montross has been his second for years.

But Feemor has been saving his skin for many years more.

“He’s on my strike team,” Jaster points out. “Stay close?”

“Where else would I be?”

-*-

Tor’s expression when his tank’s laserfire is thrown right back at him is a memory Jaster will treasure forever.