Hello there! xD Here's an idea: Jango never died, he and Boba just got separated on Geonosis, and then thought the respective other one is dead, and they finally meet years after, wandering the dunes of Tatooine... (only if you're up to it, of course!). Maybe Boba finds him among a tusken tribe or so? Make of it what you will ^_^
I like this very much! Thank you for the request! I decided they meet up when Jango hears his son was eaten and decides he’s not losing him a second time and comes to the rescue.
Boba was dead. That was the only explanation for how his father was there dragging him out of the now slowly rotting prison of flesh that had been his home for the last month or was it a year? It didn’t matter when every day had been filled with the same endless agony of acid stripping his armor and slowly eating at his skin.
The Sarlacc was dead but it must have taken Boba with it when the rigged Jet pack had finally done its job. Because now he was staring at his dad who was almost glowing in the light of the setting suns. Jango’s hair was silver at its roots now and he was wrapped in several thin layers of fabric to protect him from the cruel heat of Tatooine but Boba knew it was him. He made a broken keening noise at the sight.
“Shhh... You’re okay ad’ika. You’ll be okay.” His voice was rougher than boba remembered. His hand was shaking when he traced a scar on his father’s face. It was something uniquely Jango. This wasn’t another Clone. This wasn’t a trick. Was he really being granted such a gift in his afterlife as to be with his dad again? It was worth the pain thousands of times over.
“I wasn’t ready to die.” Boba whimpered. “I’m sorry. I... your legacy...” He started but Jango cut him off by pulling a flask from his belt and dripping water into Boba’s mouth slowly to prevent him from choking on it.
“You’re not dead. Not yet. Save your strength. I’m going to have to move you and it won’t be pleasant. The armor protected most of you but the acid melted some of it to your body. I’m not going to remove it until we are somewhere where infection won’t make it worse. Then we can talk.” Jango told him firmly but his touch was so gentle. It had been so long since someone just held him he didn’t even care that everywhere his body pressed against his father’s as Jango lifted him out of the sand felt like it was on fire. He would burn forever to be allowed to stay there. However darkness started creeping in and no matter how hard he fought to stay awake, he couldn’t win that battle.
When he woke again there was less fire but he was also alone. He heard the grunting of the Tusken language nearby and wondered if he had hallucinated the whole thing until the flap of his tent lifted and Jango walked in.
“How do you feel? They don’t exactly have bacta, but they did have medicine and shelter.” Jango murmured and Boba shook his head.
“You’re dead. How am I even talking to you? I watched Windu take off your head.” He asked and Jango sighed sitting on the edge of the cot that kept Boba up off the sand so it didn’t get into his wounds.
“When you were sleeping on Geonosis I made a call back to Kamino and got a clone sent over. I had him wear my armor while I made arrangements for a place for us to stay off-world. Took another ship because it would have been too obvious if the Slave was missing. I was supposed to be back in time to collect you before the fighting started but by the time I got back, things were already over. You were gone. I thought you were dead. I went into hiding alone.” Jango told him, starting open a jar of some sort of yellowish gel that had a cooling sensation when he spread it over Boba’s scalp. It was then that he realized his hair had all been shaved off.
“By the time I found out you were alive you were already working with the empire and it was too dangerous to try to contact you.” He continued and Boba sighed.
“But you’re here now. You’re real. You’re not dead... Buir.” He finally let it all come crashing down and started to sob brokenly and Jango carefully wrapped his arms around him holding him close.
“I am. I’m here now Ad’ika. You’re not alone. I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to suffer like I did. Ni cera, ner ad. Ni cera.” Jango cried softly as well the pair letting years of loneliness and sorrow pour out like a monsoon onto the sand until there were no more tears to cry.
“What do we do now?” Boba’s voice was weak and Jango gave him a small smile.
“An old... acquaintance of ours left a rather nice little hut not far from here. I had to trade away the armor to the Jawas for something to give the Tuskens for helping us but we can settle there until you are well enough to collect it again. Then it’ll be up to you what you want to do. I’m getting too old for all this excitement but I can be here for when you need a break and come home again.” Jango offered and Boba nodded. He liked the sound of that. Home.
He’s been hired to help destroy the trust the Republic has in it’s sainted Jedi guardians. Jango is an assassin, a merciless killer, and a father to one. He’s raised Boba to be the legacy that Jango could never be, to carry on Jaster’s memory where Jango has only been a disappointment.
His hate burns in his chest like a second heart, and his fury tastes like ash in his mouth. He’s given so many pieces of himself to his mission that he no longer knows who he is, but still he gives more, pushed on by the memories of his people’s bodies scattered in the snow of Galidraan and the phantom smell of burnt flesh in his mouth. He remembers snow crunching under his boots, stained red by his people’s blood, and the feeling of bones breaking under his hands.
Tyranus has offered him the perfect way to get the vengeance that has been pushing him to survive all these years, the vengeance that had kept him warm those cold nights in chains.
Jango hates the Jedi, and he hates himself too, for what he’s become.
He’d avenge his people; he’d destroy himself to give them the room they needed to live free, and Boba would succeed where he’d failed. He’d raised Boba to continue what Jaster started, he’d raised Boba to be better . Jango would tear himself apart thousands of times over, millions more than he already had, if it meant that Boba would lead the people Jango had failed. He’d destroy the Jedi so that the Haat Mando’ade could grow and flourish once more without the threat of them. He ignores the pain he’s causing, he ignores the millions of children with his face and blood, if it means that his mission is complete.
Jango is not a good person.
He’s the survivor who never should have survived, the Mand’alor who had no people to lead, the leader who led his people to their deaths. He’s a coward who left the shredded remains of Jaster’s people to flounder on their own, because he had lost all semblance of honour when his armour had been stripped from his living body, he had lost any right he had to lead through his failure.
Jaster would hate the man he had grown to become.
When Jango meets him, he’s a shadow of the man he once was, fueled by the burning hatred in his heart, and by Manda does he hate .
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jetii. He comes to him soaking wet and completely at a loss. He has no idea of the plots in motion to destroy him; he’s naive, and too charming for his own good, and Jango hates him. Hates the cultured accent that rolls off his tongue, the mischievous sparkle in blue-green eyes that reminds him too much of Myles. He hates the way he talks circles around everyone, like Jaster had once done, and he hates that this Jetii reminds him of the people he had lost.
He hates himself too, for the faint stirrings of attraction he feels the moment the reckless jare di’kutla Jetii kicks him with enough force to knock him right over the edge of the landing platform, despite the cord that attaches them. He hates himself for the thought that crosses his mind as the Jedi follows him to Geonosis, the one that whispers to him that Jaster would like this man, the one that tells him that he’s Mandokarla. It stings of betrayal, that he’d actually find himself hesitating as he stares down at the redhead chained up to die, wondering about his choices.
Kenobi is young, Jango can tell at a glance, smooth features hidden by a beard like it was an attempt to make himself appear more mature. He wonders how old the Jedi had been when Galidraan happened, and he knows deep down that the man had had no part in it. Looking at him, looking young and hurt, chained to that post and trying to keep up a mask of bravado that so many young warriors wear, strikes Jango like an electric shock, chasing away the fog of rage and pain and hate that had been seeping into him over the years since Galidraan. It makes him remember that the Jedi aren’t just some shadowy organization at the beck and call of the Senate, not just leashed dogs to be set on innocents - they’re a culture too.
He remembers late nights listening to Jaster read from ancient histories, of the texts his Buir liked to read and study in an attempt to rebuild the Mandalorian culture that had been gutted by the Republic and the New Mandalorians, and rebuild it for the better. He remembers the respect his Buir had had for the Jedi Order, not just as another warrior culture, but as another warrior culture so much like the Mandalore he wanted to build. There were children in the Order, Foundlings adopted into another multiethnic culture much like they were as Mando’ade. Children, and the old and sickly, the infirmed; they weren’t all the bloodthirsty monsters from Galidraan.
Jango doesn’t know how he could have forgotten that.
It’s like breaking through a wall, and when fighting breaks out, Jango sides with the Jedi and fights alongside them and the clones that arrive to rescue them.
Jango survives Geonosis; he survives the battle and finds himself fighting side by side with Kenobi. The Knight he had almost killed and led into a trap vouches for him when he’s confronted by the other Jetiise. Jango is one step behind Kenobi when they go to confront Tyranus, one step behind when the man’s Padawan nearly abandons him for the pretty Senator Jengo had been hired to kill, and one step behind him when he learns Tyranus’ true identity.
Dooku.
The man he had been working for, the man who had hired him and promised him vengeance for his slaughtered people, for the bodies of his siblings that had been left abandoned in the snow, had been the very man who had led the slaughter against them. It’s a lightning strike of clarity in the muddled world of vengeance and hate he had been living in for over twenty years.
He’s been tricked.
Jango survives Geonosis, he survives to take his son and share what he knows with the Jetiise . He doesn’t like it, he clenches his teeth through the whole thing, vibrating with sickening anger at the sight of the circle of space wizards surrounding him, staring down at him with dispassionate eyes, and he keeps a protective hold on Boba through the whole thing. Kenobi stays at his side, a calm rock in the storm of his emotions, with his furiously compassionate eyes that Jango hated.
He survives Geonosis, survives the unmasking of the Sith Lord hiding in the Senate, and he keeps surviving as the Clone War rages. He keeps meeting Kenobi too, the younger man makes a name for himself as the best warfront tactician the Jetiise have. He works well with the clones assigned to him; Kote had always been good, competent, and if Jango had let himself think about it, he’d even say he had Mandokarla. Jango watches their progress on the holoweb, keeps bumping into the Jetii, and eventually, Kenobi becomes Obi-Wan.
He seeks him out, and eventually, he realizes that Obi-Wan has been seeking him out too. They bump into each other when the Jetii is on shore leave, and Jango finds that he likes the younger man, likes being around him. Jango finds himself falling in love with the man.
A rustle of movement pulls Jango from his thoughts, bringing him back to the pleasant ache in his body, and the former Mand’alor blinks his eyes open, chasing the fog of sleep from his mind. Obi-Wan is sitting up on the edge of the hotel bed, pale back facing him, an expanse of freckles and scars and red marks that Jango had very smugly left there the night before. “Leaving already, Mesh’la?” He asks, voice rough and deep, and he watches the way muscles ripple as Obi-Wan pulls on his boots.
Jango sits up, sheets pooling around his bare waist, as Obi-Wan turns to him, offering him a gentle smile. “Some of us have work to do, my dear.” He teases playfully, and Jango huffs, reaching out to curl a hand across the Jetii’s hip, absently tracing a bruised bite mark, a flame of smug pleasure kindling in his gut.
He wears his marks so prettily.
“Thought you were on shore leave.”
Obi-Wan chuckles, twisting to press a sweet, lingering kiss to Jango’s lips, and the bounty hunter finds himself melting into the touch as his lover’s long, graceful fingers brush across his jaw. He doesn’t want him to leave, wants to pull him back into the bed and keep him there.
“Well, responsibilities wait for no man.” The Jetii says cheerfully as he pulls away, and Jango carefully doesn’t flinch. Obi-Wan watches him with blue-green eyes, gently tracing across the scar on the Mandalorian’s cheek, expression soft, with a wry twist of his lips. Jango grumbles, shifting towards the red head, and he tugs him closer, other hand moving to trail across his waist and up his ribs, tracing the scars across his chest and more bite marks. Obi-Wan coos teasingly at him, ruffling dark curls when the older man presses his head into his shoulder. “Still tired, my dear?”
“Well,” Jango says, petulant, “most people sleep in during their time off.”
“If I were most people,” his Jetii laughs, “I’m sure we wouldn’t be in this situation. You don’t seem to be the type to fall into bed with just anyone.”
“One of a kind.” He teases, pressing a kiss to the side of Obi-Wan’s neck, feeling his beard drag against his temple. Jango grips at him protectively, and when he speaks, his voice teeters towards pleading, “Stay?”
Obi-Wan sighs, and Jango knows the answer even before he says anything, “You know I can’t, Jango.” His hands tighten on his lover’s torso, sliding across planes of packed core muscle, the Jedi’s skin chilled against his own, and Obi-Wan’s hands press against his own. They’re silent for a long moment, curled together, before Obi-Wan gently lifts one of Jango’s hands to press a kiss against his palm. “Ask me again after the War.” His voice is quiet, slow, like he’s trying the words out, playing with them on his tongue.
“After the War.” Jango repeats like a promise, like an oath, and he feels his Jetii smile against his skin.
