Chapter Text
Jaster blinked. Once, twice, then he looked at his drink. He was pretty sure it wasn’t anything other than what he had ordered, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t spiked it with a hallucinogen. If he wasn’t hallucinating however, this was something interesting.
He looked from the downed Zabrak, fruitlessly struggling against the bindings of what looked like an absurdly long scarf wrapped around his chest, pinning the zabrak’s arms to his sides and away from the blaster Jaster could see at his belt, to the being holding the other end of the scarf. Dressed in what looked like a black jumpsuit, a rather dishevelled Human stood braced, easily holding their target down with a foot on the Zabrak’s back.
“Release me! Do it now or I’ll rip your arms off!” The Zabrak snarled, and Jaster studied his face, trying to remember why it looked familiar. He didn’t think he’d met him before.
“Edrik Marth, stay down and come quietly, or I will take great pleasure in breaking all of your limbs.” The Human said, voice quiet but carrying clearly through the cantina nonetheless. “Your bounty only required you to be alive to face justice. There was nothing about all your limbs having to be intact.”
Edrik Marth. Now Jaster remembered where he had seen that face. There had been a notice on the Wanted board at headquarters. A Zabrak that had bombed a school on Mandalore. Rumours had suggested there was a connection to Death Watch.
Jaster rose, setting his drink aside. While the Human seemed to have everything well in hand, there was nothing wrong with adding in an official presence.
He barely had time to stand when the Zabrak twisted in such a way that he got a hand on the blaster, and Jaster thought he was going to have to witness another murder. He reached for his own blaster, but he was going to be too slow, when the Human moved.
CRACK!
The Zabrak screamed, and the Human kicked the blaster out of his clearly broken hand. He was completely steady, seemingly unbothered by the violent curses coming out of the Zabrak’s mouth.
“Last warning, Marth.” Marth snarled again, and bucked. The Human sighed, and brought out a hypo. As soon as it was brought to Marth’s neck, he went limp. Jaster stepped forward before any more moves were made.
“Before you go, I’m going to have to ask for some ID and a puck.” He said, just as the Human put the hypo away.
“And you are?”
“Jaster Mereel, Journeyman Protector.” Jaster stated evenly, making sure his badge was showing clearly. There was a pause, and Jaster thought he might have to bring both of them in, but then the Human nodded, and tossed him an ID chip, followed by an official guild puck. Dark hair swung in the Human’s face, shrouding most of his features, but Jaster met his eyes evenly. They were young, not much more than a teenager, if that. Plugging the chip into his reader, he waited for authentication, and studied the teen.
Shouta Aizawa, the ID read, planet of origin unmarked, and Jaster studied the tired, worn out face of the teen for a moment. He looked like he should be older, like he’d been stuffed into a body too small for his soul. But far be it from Jaster to comment on how the bounty hunter needed to use one of those hypos on himself.
“Here,” he said and offered the puck and ID back. “Thanks for keeping it clean.”
“I wouldn’t call that clean,” Shouta replied and tucked the chip and puck back into his utility belt as he hauled the Zabrak up.
“This is Mandalore space, and there’s not a speck of blood in sight,” Jaster drawled. “That’s clean, Beroya. ”
The man hesitated, his brows furrowing like he didn’t recognize the word, and he probably didn’t. Jaster had no idea what the hell that accent was, but it wasn’t anywhere he recognized. Basic was definitely his second language though, from the way he seemed to pick his words carefully.
“That means bounty hunter, in Mando’a,” he offered, and the teen’s face cleared. A grunt, and then he tilted his head.
“Any flimsiwork you need me to do? Or can I get him on my ship before he wakes up?”
“Take him away, hunter,” Jaster said with a wave of his hand. The teen was attractive, and not that much younger than Jaster, either. Some would say he was wet behind the ears, and those people would get knocked on their shebs for the slight.
With a grunt, the hunter hauled the Zabrak up and over his shoulder in a tremendous feat of strength, and a traitorous, hormonal part of Jaster’s brain idly wondered if he could lift him in his armor. The answer was promptly answered when, without even a hint of strain, the offworld hunter turned and sauntered to the door like he was a sack of particularly inked flour.
Well, then. That was someone to keep his eye on. Jaster hoped he’d come back.
“Yumemu Mahi?” The kind, plump woman was knelt in front of her, caring overflowing in her over sympathetic eyes, and Yumu couldn’t bring herself to look at her.
“Yumu,” she mumbled, because that was what Dad called her, was always what Dad had called her, and even if she didn’t get his surname, she had that. Even if she wasn’t an Aizawa, she was still his Yumu.
“Yumu,” the woman said warmly, like anyone had any business being warm. “Are you ready to go?”
Yumu’s black button eyes slid over the clean apartment. The pictures on the walls, the books on the shelves, the lesson plans still on the coffee table, waiting for a man that was never going to be coming home. The abandoned coffee maker on the counter, his second love, and the scrapes on the hardwood floor from the chairs they had never put the little caps on. Her fingers tightened around her backpack straps, and she shook her head no desperately.
“We’re already late, hun. The home is waiting, and we have appointments set up for a new family for you,” the woman continued, which was the exact wrong thing to say, and tears pricked at Yumu’s eyes.
“Can’t I stay? Hizashi is going to be back from America---”
“Hizashi doesn’t have the right license for this, hun. Come on. We’ve got to go,” the woman crooned, and she wanted to hit her. Too kind. Too sad. Treating her like a child, but what child lived through this? This was the only home she’d ever known. You didn’t come out of this a child.
“If I leave, how will he find me?” She asked, a little too desperately, and the woman gave her a patented comfort smile.
“He’s not coming back from that, hun.” A pair of black gloves were extended to her by a hand wrapped in fabric, and tears threatened to bubble up and spill over.
Dad had never made her wear gloves.
Dad would have kicked her out, but here she was, in his living room, on his worn rug, smiling at his daughter she was going to hand off for someone else to raise like they had a right, and…
And Yumu took the gloves.
And Yumu said nothing.
“When did you last sleep?” A glass of water was put in front of him, and Jaster dragged his eyes away from the records he was studying to glare at the interloper. Said interloper merely glared back until Jaster sighed, put the holopad aside, and took the water.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He retorted, because the dark circles under Shouta’s eyes were definitely darker than the last time he’d seen him. Shouta merely smiled at him, that wide creepy grin that Jaster had seen cow more than a few criminals into silence. Jaster raised an eyebrow back, not willing to be the same.
He was able to hold it for maybe thirty seconds before he caved.
“I can’t sleep Shouta. Not now. I just-” Jaster didn’t know how to explain it, this drive to find a code for his people to follow, to do something to fill his life now that his purpose as a Journeyman Protector was gone. He’d lost almost everything, but this, making a new Codex for Mandalorians, finding a way for his people to thrive in this day and age without destroying each other, maybe that could be his legacy. Maybe that could be his purpose.
“If you want your Codex to actually be coherent, you need to be thinking clearly, and that requires you to sleep on a regular basis. It’s only logical.” Shouta was still looking at him like he was contemplating sedating him like he did his bounties. Jaster considered throwing his water in his face to drive him off, and then realized that he really did need sleep if he was thinking like that.
Shouta had no obligation to look out for him, but he had anyway. The semi-frequent comm calls had kept Jaster together after he was exiled, and the man had even pointed Jaster in the direction of a few of the more obscure records he needed. How Shouta knew of their existence was a mystery, but Jaster had seen the man come up with too many of the most unlikely contacts and leads before to doubt him now.
Shouta didn’t have to help him. It wasn’t like Jaster was really helping him out, now that he couldn’t use his connections to law enforcement like he had before, but still, here Shouta was. Jaster owed it to him to concede, even if sleep was hard to achieve.
“Fine.” Jaster sighed, downed the last of the water, and turned the holopad off. Shouta’s face softened back to its neutral cast, and Jaster knew that meant he was relieved. Jaster wasn’t sure whether to smile or scoff at the concern, but did neither. For all that Shouta was a mother hen, he didn’t like being called on it.
“Come. It’ll still be there when you wake up.” Shouta said, extending a hand to him. Jaster took it, and stood, weaving a bit before finding his balance. Shouta didn’t let go.
They were screaming again. The closet was nice. Cool. Quieter than the room. Dark, though if they caught sight of glowing eyes, that might make them more mad.
“ You’re the one that wanted to bring in that demon! I want her out! ”
“She has a difficult quirk! We need those checks! If you just got a job ---”
Yumu sunk down in on herself, shut her eyes tight, and shoved it out of sight, out of mind.
“I want her out!”
“I don’t care!”
Yumu wanted out, too. They weren’t special.