Chapter Text
Heat shimmers above the dunes. While the far distance wavers he stands stock-still. Above, the screech of a carrion bird. Beside him, the shutter-click of a blue womp-rats’ eye and a woman, wrinkled but smiling. Her voice echoes as she hums, a lullaby – one he has not heard for many many years. The suns catch on hair: a gleaming blonde under the suns. Or was it brown? Then, night. Dark. A wet-cold sweeps through him; a melted-plastic chunk of ice slides into his mouth. It warps him out of shape. With bared needlepoint teeth, the womp-rat leaps at him. A pupil-less red eye is the last thing he sees before he burns. Cold. Cold.
Cobb jolts into consciousness. Pinned in place, he thrashes, eyes cycling wildly. Pictures jumble – a mismatch of sparking wires and clear blue and the compress of black to his skin – until it slides together. With a racing heart and stinging eyes, Cobb stares through the liquid that suspends him. Outside is warped, hazy. The breathing tube presses against his back teeth painfully, forcing his tongue down. Only his left hand obeys, twitchingly, a slow spider-creep up his chest to yank it out of his mouth. There is only a second of reprieve before the liquid floods forward, filling his nose and mouth and he chokes. A blaring whine of alarms kick up, muted through the tank. A pressurised hiss. Arms yank him by his biceps, and he gulps down a breath.
Then overwhelming pain. It slashes across his body, and he doesn’t know where it’s coming from and then he can’t breathe again and Cobb burns.
Fire rages. Devours him, licking and biting with blackened gleaming-red teeth. Then enveloping cold, ice piercing his right side. Torn wrists under heavy shackles. Scattered dead in a bed of sand. The cavernous maw of a charging dragon. Flesh and bone. Metal and rust. Sand and sweat.
Starbursts of red and black and blue flash in front of his eyes as he jerks awake. Breathe Cobb, he thinks, uneasiness settling into his chest. His vision focuses. The room is darkened and unfamiliar. He doesn’t think it’s the one he initially woke in although he isn’t entirely sure that wasn’t a nightmare.
With the heel of his left hand coming up to press against his heart, bare skin and rough fabric under his palm, Cobb takes a quick scope of his surroundings. He’s lying in a medical cot – not particularly soft but comfortable enough – a thin white sheet pulled up to his chest. Beside him, a tall gleaming-silver table graced with a roll of bandages, bacta patches and a curved pair of scissors.
He’s not in Freetown, that’s for sure. Everything looks too new and there’s a distinct lack of sand. Nothing about the room gives him a clue to where he is. Or if he’s even on the same planet.
After a few minutes, the pain returns. With each breath, it increases, thumping behind his eyes and jackknifing into his guts. Worst of all, radiating bone-deep from his right shoulder.
Cobb drops his chin enough to see the thick white bandages that wrap around his naked chest to pin his right arm to his stomach. Despite himself, his left hand creeps across to his right. With an aching breath held in his lungs, his fingers slowly move to where the pain is centralised. When his fingers brush by the joint of his shoulder the air escapes his mouth involuntarily at the sharp pain. Like he’s been punched.
It comes back to him in flashes: The blue man in the wide brim hat. The Deputy’s shifting eyes. The blaster bolt burning him from the outside in.
And suddenly Cobb needs to know. Needs.
Single-mindedly, with a weak fluttering body, he struggles out of the tight tuck the covers have him in. Desperately, fighting against the tangle of blankets and kicking legs that feel hollow, Cobb wriggles enough to get himself free but with his right arm immobilised, he slips off the soft sheets.
He tries to twist before he hits the ground but lands on his right side, and pain so intense rushes over him. He blacks out for a second. Comes to with an awful reflex punching from his stomach. Cobb gags. Curls over himself as his throat and stomach heave. Nothing comes up, but his eyes stream with the taste of metal and bile. The pain across his shoulder echoes, prickling like his flesh is being eaten away like carrion birds.
No one comes to help him.
When the pain settles enough to move, Cobb rolls himself onto his stomach. With a groan forced out from behind teeth he manages to pull his knees up under him. Body shaking from the effort, sweat tracking down his forehead, he crawls one-handed across the floor to the wall, patterned floor swaying beneath him.
Propping his good shoulder against the wall, he slides himself up, weak muscles screaming in protest. With weighted feet slower than a dying bantha, palm and shoulder against the wall to take his weight, Cobb stumbles to the door. Rests there with a pitted stomach, trying to slow his hiccupping breaths. Sweat pours down his forehead. His shoulder pulsates to the beat of his heart.
He almost lunges forward to open the door, tendons in his wrist and forearms trembling in his effort. He misses, and his hand slips off the control panel. It takes too much time to regain his energy for another try. First lifting his shaking arm to wipe the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, Cobb manages to press the correct button.
The door slides open. Beyond it, the wide pale-stoned corridor is empty.
Cobb chooses left. The rooms are widely spaced, and he loses minutes, potentially hours, moving pressed to the wall with a punch-drunk body and an almost tunnelled vision.
The first two doors swish open to empty, undecorated rooms.
At the very end, before the next seat of doors, the door slides open to a fresher. The pad of Cobb’s bare feet almost echo in the cavernous room. In the corner there’s a mirror, full-length, with glass sweeping from wall to floor, the width spanning at least five of him either side. (The opulence makes him snort. It echoes in his ribs).
Dunes, he looks like shit. Ashen skin covered in a sheen of sweat, with purple visible veins and eyes sunken-bruised. Hair messed and greasy, pressed flat on one side and stuck up in all angles on the other. His ribs stand starkly out in the harsh white light, a singular hand would be able to span the entire breadth of his waist. How long has it been? Seeing the bare hollow of his throat prickles. He itches to cover it. With a trembling hand – the thatch of scars around his wrist catching the light – Cobb picks at the bandages around the sling. Gets his thumbnail hooked underneath the wrap around his right wrist.
The desert, the Deputy’s frantic eyes, and blue skin and sharp teeth flash back behind his eyes as the bandage around his hand falls away.
Gunmetal gleams back at him. As if mirroring his thoughts, the exposed pistons of five spidery digits shudder in their confines.
Shoulder burning anew, the ground rushes up to meet him.
**
Cobb wakes again in the cot, alone, with an awful hiccupping in his chest, burdened by the knowledge that flesh is now metal. From shoulder to wrist, his right arm, his trigger arm, is gone. Replaced by a hunk of metal.
For who knows how long, Cobb drifts between sleep and waking, barely able to tell the difference. No one comes for him. For once, unable to compartmentalize, he lays there and wonders who did this to him? Why they did this. Wonders if Freetown is even still standing.
When the space between his shoulder blades becomes too uncomfortable from the one position, Cobb rolls himself onto his uninjured shoulder slowly, to stare at the wall.
His throat scratches. Was it the breathing apparatus or has he been screaming in his sleep? He wheezes. The waves of nausea roll over him without reprieve. It only worsens if he closes his eyes so the spaces between sleeping and awakening only start to stretch. Like thickened speeder oil.
After who knows how long, Cobb hears the door whoosh open. He almost dismisses it but for a pillar of light turning the wall in front of him a lighter shade of grey. “Not takin’ visitors at the moment partner,” he croaks, voice rusted with disuse, leaving his back vulnerable almost in defiance. “I’m sure that’s understandable.”
No reply. The door doesn’t click shut.
“I ain’t gonna ask so nicely the second time,” he says, managing to push himself over to see… nobody. Nothing.
Cobb’s eyes flicker to the stand in the corner where his blaster rests.
Then a wrinkly green head appears over the side of the raised edge of the cot.
“Kid?” Cobb hears himself say. Maybe he is dead. “How are you here?”
The kid waddles closer. Close enough for a three-fingered claw to pat at the gauntness of his cheek, large dark eyes with very little whites staring into Cobb’s own blue. (He could be wrong, but there’s something of a wisdom looking back at him).
The pain lessens.
“No kid don’t run off,” comes a modulated but clearly exasperated voice.
Cobb turns his neck so sharply his neck cracks. The kid’s presence makes the Mandalorian’s logical. Logical-ish, because he thought they were separated.
A man who he hasn’t seen in almost an entire trip around the suns, stands there in full armoured glory. The helmet dips in greeting, “Marshal.”
The rasp of the man’s voice reverberates through his head. This is not the same beaten-down man he saw off however long ago it has been, and while Cobb ain’t a bettin man he would say this shift has everything to do with the child currently trying to climb up onto the cot.
“Not much of a Marshal at the moment,” he replies, but the tiredness takes the fun out of the quip. It falls flat.
The child babbles, lifting his arms and, after looking up at Mando, Cobb extends his arm – his only arm – letting him clamber up and leaning back against the pillows. It’s odd, but it’s almost as if the child knows where not to tread as he clambers around the space Cobb’s body leaves on the bed.
Both men watch the kid silently, even as he turns his fascination to Cobb’s bare skin. It has the corner of Cobb’s mouth ticking up. Especially when little claws poke at the spot just above the bandages. His little forehead is even creased a bit.
Mando’s wrist comm beeps.
A muted murmur comes through it and Mando replies, Cobb watching him from under his eyelids while the child pats at the bandages circling his chest. The words go in his ears without really hearing them.
Then, “We’ve been summoned.”
Cobb tries to play it calm. Like he’s not fallin’ apart. “Gonna need a bit more than that partner. Don’t exactly remember a whole lot.”
“We’re in Mos Espa,” Mando says, after a pause. “We defeated the Pikes here. Boba Fett is the new Daimyo of Tatooine.” As if reading Cobb’s mind from the way his eyebrow arches, the Mandalorian sighs. “He would like to speak with you.”
Right now? Cobb feels eyes watching him from behind a helmet as he manages to sit up properly, slowly turning himself to get his legs out of the blankets. Feels the weight of a gaze on his feet as they settle on the tiles: nothing out of the ordinary about them, just as long and skinny as the rest of him, and the left missing the tip of his third toe.
Mando reads his next look correctly, again, coming close to scoop the child from his lap. “I’ll be outside.”
“Promise I won’t try to escape,” Cobb says solemnly, affixing a grin that looks more like a grimace. He feels as if he’s headed to the gallows.
The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything, but the look Cobb receives is distinctly unamused. It’s amazing how expressive a helmet of Beskar can be.
Once the door slides shut behind the other man, Cobb lets the smile slide off. Setting his jaw, he pushes himself onto his feet. Puts one foot in front of the other, trying not to sway with the effort as he crosses the room to where his belongings are piled on the table in the corner. Thankfully, he’s already in his trousers, although they now gape at his waist. Already. He buckles his belt with a bit of trouble, trying to swing it around his hips and then feed the loop through and set the pin into the hole with one hand. Cobb picks his blaster up with an exaggerated care, settling it to rest in the holster which sits on the opposite hip than usual. It bumps against his side as Cobb battles the dark green long sleeve left for him over his head, mourning the loss of his red shirt – it isn’t with his belongings, and he assumes he lost it with his arm. (It was a good shirt. An old one). The right sleeve hangs and Cobb, with a loss of what else to do, tucks it into his belt. At least the neck of this shirt sits high. Finger combs his hair flat against his head and smoothes the edges of his beard down.
Then he looks down at his boots, sitting innocently clean, side-by-side. He sighs. Hooks his fingers into the back of them and limps back over to the cot. Clunks them down and lowers himself to sit. The socks are easy enough. The boots, however, are slow going, trying to shove his feet in, to pull them on with only one hand, but he eventually manages to wriggle them on (he’s grateful that there are no laces, only clasps) with an effort that has him warm and breathing slightly harder.
Then Cobb crosses back over the room, to pass a gentle hand over his red scarf. It lay folded neatly in half, almost as if it was washed and straightened with care. Cobb folds himself so he’s kneeling on the tile, joints creaking. Manipulates the material so the ends touch, painstakingly folding them over one another into a knot. Sets his fingers of his left hand on one end, and using his teeth on the other end, pulls it tight. Pulls the bandana over his head, settling it around his neck, the end damp from his mouth, looser than it would usually sit. It’ll do for now. It covers what he wants it to.
Mando is leaning back against the wall when the door slides open, and Cobb does not apologize for the wait. Compared to his last stroll, getting dressed was almost a breeze.
The green bundle tucked in the man’s folded arms waves at him.
“Lead the way Mando.”
Dressing himself drained whatever energy he had conserved, and Cobb follows Mando – the opposite direction he went last time – trying to match his already slowed down strides. Thankfully, they don’t move very far.
Mando holds the heavy doors open for him, and Cobb pushes into a large circular room. White walls, with a relatively high ceiling (compared to the low sweep of Freetown’s), and three other sets of doors, all parallel to one another. On a dais, a man clad in Cobb’s borrowed armour stands. (His armour fits, suited to his bulk, compared to the large gaps it had left on Cobb and he knows this is the armour’s true owner). Beside him, a woman all in black, with a long braid falling down her back, facing a bacta tank that holds a large, black-furred creature.
“Boba. Fennec.”
At Mando’s low greeting, both of them turn.
Cobb has just taken a place against the nearest wall, letting his good shoulder take his weight. The walk here was short, but it had taken it out of him despite how slowly they’d travelled. Despite the sweat that beads at his forehead, he’s cold. He has questions.
He looks up just as the man, Boba, takes off his helmet and tucks it under his arm.
Cobb flinches away, but neither the woman nor Mando (when he turns to check) have turned their faces. Odd. Is this guy not a Mandalorian? Do the rules change? With what he feels is permission, Cobb looks back. The man is bald, with light brown skin and a scarred, somewhat familiar face.
“We apologize for calling on you so soon,” he says. Fennec’s dark eyes stay affixed on Cobb, and she dismantles and reassembles one of the many blasters he assumes are on her person.
Cobb sucks at his teeth. Is he? He tries to put all his focus on Boba, as he starts speaking, but his stomach twists itself into knots. Hollow. He breathes slowly, hoping no one can hear the effort it takes. Or the rattle beneath his teeth.
Boba speaks about the Pike war and the slavers. About ‘wiping out the scourge of villainy running rampant on this planet.’ It’s a pretty speech. Poetic and passionate and would-be rousing.
But to Cobb it rings empty. Falls into the abandoned space of the mines, in the parched beds of the Freetown people’s throats. Thuds at Cobb’s boots, still shimmering with a dusting of spice. “Sounds like you’re fighting the good fight here.”
“But?” The serious-looking woman says, black-lined eyes narrowed, her mouth drawn into a thin line. The brains of the operation then.
“I have no interest in joining a war that you started,” he points two fingers in Boba’s direction. “An' I doubt my town does either.”
“No offence here friend,” the bald man says calmly, hands outstretched in a show of peace. “But I did save your life.”
“By endangering it in the first place,” Cobb throws out, not entirely sure but willing to bet on it. “Not to mention this,” he says, pointing to the arm pinned to his chest. How many days has it been?
“I respect your decision not to fight.”
“Do ya?” Cobb shoots back with a raised eyebrow, not even trying to hide his bared teeth.
“Well, you’re definitely not a Mandalorian,” Boba replies smoothly, countering the attack that it was, passing an arm over the red-and-green vambraces.
Cobb bristles. “Nah, but I sure as hell take care of my things enough to not lose ‘em.”
“Enough,” Fennec snaps. She looks like she’d want nothing more than to roll her eyes.
Mando, who has neither moved nor spoke since after his greeting, says nothing when Cobb raises an eyebrow at him. (Old fool, Cobb had thought about himself, watching the Mandalorian leave for the second time. Before the blaster bolt had burned him from the outside in anyway. Old fool, he calls himself again).
“Well,” Cobb says, letting his disappointment and good shoulder knock into Mando as he strides out. “If you’re done tryna get me and my town hurt, I’ll take my leave.”