#sparmij

The ground under Mij’s boots crunches as he steps down out of the fort commander’s office and he surveys the preternaturally quiet surroundings. It’s still early, even for a Mandalorian training base. Well, the base has had plenty of oddities for him—it’s supposed to be a rest day today, so no wonder no one has woken to start handling the inches of snow that have already built up on the walkways and fields, the roofs and porches.

And yet, the fort commander has vanished.

He sighs, aggravated that he’s the one sent out after the wayward Taung hybrid. Being integrated into their household is already its own issue, packing many more duties on top of his work with the other doctors on base and his continued training among the Mandalorians.

He spots faint bootprints in the snow and begins his slog through the base’s buildings. The bootprints become more clear uncomfortably quickly, considering their initial faintness. The commander must not be going very fast, which could mean they’re just meandering or could mean they’re once again not feeling well. The longer they’re outside in this weather, the more likely it will become the latter.

The cold air recently has already been wearing away at the commander’s health in a way he finds baffling on a scientific level. The idea that a being could be so fragile as to have their body’s homeostasis unbalanced by a change in weather and yet be able to pull out feats of strength that even a Jedi finds awe inspiring is discomforting.

And yet their little fort commander remains, as the Mandalore of all people put it, a bomb resting on the side of a blaster fight.

He turns a corner and finds himself on the edges of one of the practice fields on the outskirts of the base, just on the edge of the hill, and finds a figure swathed in furs waiting for him, staring up into the overcast sky and the flakes of ice falling gently from it.

As Mij approaches, the commander turns to look at him. They’re well bundled, at least, but their hair is windswept and the tips of their ears and their cheeks have roughed with cold, their green-brown skin dark and a little warmer in colour. There’s a pleased smile on their face, one that makes Mij’s heart beat harder. Not even the markings on their face, which can so often make them look like a predator, can stoke the usual noise in the back of his head that the fort commander is not his friend.

They aren’t his anything, except maybe his boss, but something about how they look standing in the falling snow—ice clinging to their hair and eyelashes—covered in furs and genuinely glad to see him makes him wonder if being a Mandalorian wouldn’t be so bad.

Maybe he could stay with them and it would be worth leaving Stewjon and the Republic. The Republic is already on his shit list as it is, it’s not a large jump for him to stay here.

To stay with them.

“You need to come back inside, Br’alor,” Mij says, but he lets himself reach out to wrap the furs tighter around their shoulders.

“It’s a rest day, you can call me by name,” the commander tells him slyly.

Mij raises an eyebrow, but only gets a cheeky grin in response. He sighs again, his fingers drifting far too close to their face. “Akaani,” he gives in.

The commander darts close to him, beaming up. “Let’s go back in. I want shig.”

He wants to hug them, but that’s not happening. So instead he nods. “I’ll need to give you a once over, considering this little escapade.”

“Of course, Baar'ur.” They laugh; for once it’s a little sheepish. “I thought I could be back before you woke up and got going.”

He gives them a look that shows them what he thinks about that.

Sometimes Spar regrets his lack of interest in ever becoming Mand’alor. He takes a sip, the bottle half-empty, the glass slick and wet with condensation, and watches Gilamar through his reflection on the window across the room. He’s sitting at a table to Spar’s left, talking as quietly as the rowdy tavern will allow him with a few men Spar knows only by sight. 

He’s not ignoring Spar—not exactly. But he’s trying his very best to keep his distance, and Mij Gilmar’s best is pretty good. Spar has spent the last few hours doing the rounds—playing cards, playing darts, talking to men and women Jango once knew, who stare at Spar like they can see Jango looking through his eyes.

They would follow. If Spar decided to run for the title, they would follow him. Shysa’s still in the sector: a short comm call and Spar would have him back on Enceri, full of plans and ambition.

Now and then he wonders—Gilamar would never forgive him. He’s loyal, if not to Spar to Jango’s memory.

Gilamar knows he’s being observed. Spar allows himself to be caught, smiling at his old teacher in the reflection of the window. Gilamar blinks and looks away, lips pressed tight.

Spar finishes his drink and makes his way through the crowded bar, bucket—buy’ce—under his arm. 

It’s still snowing. Spar breathes in deep, allowing the cold to seep into his bones. He’s pleasantly buzzed, his face hot, his hair still damp with sweat. The street is quiet, the noises of the tavern muffled by its thick walls, by the closed doors. Spar sighs and looks up at the night sky, the clouds heavy and close to the ground. It’s so quiet he can almost hear the snow falling: he closes his eyes and feels a snowflake land on his eyelid, on his cheek, on his lower lip.

A blast of noise. Spar opens his eyes, shaking himself.

“Spar?”

Spar lets go of his blaster. He turns around, his boots making a mess of the thick layer of snow.

Gilamar’s flushed and sweaty. He’s so pale it shows even in the dark, his light eyes too bright and reflecting the light coming through the tavern’s windows and the streetlamps. 

“Trainer Gilamar,” Spar replies. A muscle in Gilamar’s jaw twitches, his shoulders stiff. “Tired of acting like I’m not here, then.”

It’s not that Gilamar doesn’t care: again, he may not be a good man, but he is loyal. Back on Kamino he tried his best for Jango, and his best has always been very good. Now he sighs, his shoulders dropping. He looks away from Spar, down at his feet.

He’s just a man. Red hair and freckles, eyes so light they look like glass. Grey on his temples and on his stubble, laughter lines and broken nose. He’s just a man, nothing more and nothing less, perfectly fallible, and Spar resents him and misses him in equal measure.

Later, Gilamar will blame the alcohol. Spar approaches him, hooks a finger in his belt and goes on his tiptoes to kiss him, drinks his surprised gasp right off his mouth. He tastes like netra’gal, and his hand is hot and damp with sweat when he cradles Spar’s jaw, fingers shaking. 

He smells the lake before he sees it. He then catches the reflection of the sun on the waves, the noise of the water against the rocky shore, and then he’s stepping out of the shadow of the trees and into the sun again, his boots sinking into the black mud of the edge of the water. Mij breathes in and out, trying his best to kill the dread at the root. 

Spar won’t be happy to see him: of this, he has no doubt. Mij has made his peace with it. He can’t find it in himself to regret agreeing to Jango’s plan, not when that plan saved the boy’s life. Spar has thrived on Krownest—unlike the rest of Jango’s clones, he’ll have a full life.

He knows Mij is there, but he takes his sweet time. Mij exhales, annoyed despite himself, and steps back under the shade of the trees. He takes a seat on one of the big rocks strewn all over the shore and rubs his face with his gloveless hands, his buy’ce watching it all at his side.

He’s a good, strong swimmer. Mij watches his dark head disappear the lake’s surface and pop up again, and when he finally reaches the shore he just stands there, at ease with himself and  barely breathing hard, dripping lake water back into the waves, his curls in his eyes.

It’s been almost two years since the last time they saw each other. Mij’s intimately familiar with how fast they all grow up, how fast they grow old, but he finds he isn’t quite ready for the knowledge that Spar no longer is that scrawny seventeen year old he helped smuggle off Kamino. 

Spar’s mouth quirks up and then he looks away, ignoring Mij in favour of the ratty towel that waits for him on a nearby rock. He pads barefoot out of the lake, his bare feet sinking in the mud like Mij’s boots did earlier. 

He’s taller and broader. Mij feels himself falling into that old, familiar mindset and tries to shake it off, but it’s too late: Spar looks healthier than he ever did on Kamino.

He can’t help but notice that it looks good on him, and that Spar knows it. He’s browner and more freckled, his hair almost too long, his dark eyes sharp. He perfunctorily dries himself and then he turns to look at Mij, arms folded over his chest.

He’s still smiling, a tiny, knowing thing that reveals very little. It occurs to Mij that he doesn’t look like Jango at all.

It’s in the way he holds himself, in the set of his shoulders and in his bright eyes; in the freckles on that familiar nose and the flash of white teeth when his smile grows.

“Gilamar,” Spar greets him. Even his voice has changed—it’s rougher, deeper. “You here to take me back home?”

Home. Mij raises an eyebrow. His Mando’a is better—he sounds like a native. 

“No,” he replies in Basic. Spar scoffs. He turns around, starts reaching for his clothes. His dark swimsuit clings to his thighs and to his ass.

It takes him a bit too long, but then it all clicks into place. Mij makes himself look away, back at the lake. His mouth is dry, and his heart is trying its best to beat itself out of his chest.

There’s a long, long silence.

“What?” Seventeen asks again, but this time the word comes out broken, comes out sounding like he really is just a twenty-year-old boy who has already watched his friends die in a war that is crushing through them all without cessation. “Bajir said…”

“Jango and I arranged for her to be brought to Mandalore,” he says, still not looking at Seventeen.

“She’s…” When Mij finally turns his head, Seventeen’s eyes are wide and staring out the starshield. “She’s here.”

“She’s waiting for us.”

Seventeen is trembling.

“Come on,” Mij says gently. “Let’s go.”

Telling Seventeen that Spar was alive was necessary, and it results in Mij amusedly dragging him through Keldabe while he alternates between excitement and anxiety. The one thing that Mij didn’t tell him will only amplify that, he realizes, but at the same time...it’s going to be funny.

Maybe Mij is a bad person for thinking that. But then again, that’s only if Kamino isn’t counted.

Yeah, he thinks, he’s a bad person. And trying to be better, but…

This is going to be funny.

And possibly adorable.

Seventeen is practically vibrating in place by the time they get to the house.

Spar is throwing open the door before Mij can even knock—she was probably waiting for them—and she deposits Dara into Mij’s arms so she can throw her arms around Seventeen’s neck.

Seventeen clings to her and buries his face in the side of her neck. “M’sorry,” he says.

“I wish I could have told you,” Spar tells him, almost at the same time, teary eyed. “I missed you.”

Seventeen breaks, a little, and whines and squeezes her tighter, picking up her and twirling her around on the walk. “I missed you too.”

Dara gurgles in Mij’s arms, patting his beskar’gam even as they look with big, dark eyes at their buire. They know, Mij thinks fondly. They know that Bubu is happy and that the person making them so is familiar.

Dara’s noises draw Spar’s attention, of course, and she pulls gently away from Seventeen, catching his attention too.

Spar accepts Dara back into her arms with a smile. “I wish I could have told you about this too,” she murmurs, looking at her child. “Dara, cyar’ika, this is your buir.”

Seventeen stares at this child who could pass as any clone at the same development but who is chewing on their own fingers and who has a mole by the corner of their mouth like the one Seventeen has under his eye, who is chubby and healthy and out and about. “Oh,” he says, like he’s been punched in the gut. “Su cuy gar, ad’ika. Jate’urcir.”

Mij watches as Spar folds Dara into Seventeen’s arms, teaching him how to hold the nearly-one-year-old, and feels like his heart is melting. It feels like a disgrace when he makes himself say, “We should get inside.”

Mij hums. He hasn’t ever asked either Fett about memories of the past—he knows only what he’s picked up from overhearing or what Spar’s told him about. “It bothers you.”

Cort groans. “’Lek. It does. It isn’t right, it isn’t natural.”

“It’s the Force,” Mij drawls. “It’s tra and kar. It’s natural, it’s right. It’s just not normal.”

“You say that as if the Force cannot be used for unnatural things,” Cort shoots back.

“Do you think either of them would have made it do this?” he counters. “It’s something that would have had to be done purposefully, if it was unnatural.”

“This entire place is unnatural.” Cort sighs. “I just worry that it’s something about here that did it.”

Possibly, but Mij considers the likelihood of that. And the likelihood that Jango didn’t investigate just that chance. “I trust them, that they can tell there’s no one else playing with their minds. The only tigaan’ad we’ve seen from the outside has been Jango himself. And I don’t think he likes himself enough to do this wilfully.”

Cort grumbles, but can’t say anything against that.

Quietly, Mij adds, “I’d never heard Jango speak of his past, before Spar.”

Cort knocks back half the glass of tihaar. “I hadn’t heard him do so since we were teenagers,” he agrees. He looks over at Mij. “So what’s the story with you and Spar?” he asks.

Mij flushes. “I’m just his doctor.”

Cort scoffs. “You know, you light-skinned humans always flash back and forth in colours so face. You want to run that by me again, Gilamar?”

Mij glares at him. “I’m not going to risk my professional relationship with Spar just because I’m attracted to him.”

Cort raises an eyebrow. “Just Spar?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes. Just Spar. I have no interest in Jango or any of the other clones.”

Cort huffs. “Jango knows about your thing for his tat’ka?”

“Yes,” Mij says tersely, focusing on his own cup again. “He thinks it’s funny.”

The bark of laughter Cort lets out is, Mij thinks, the first bit of humour he’s ever heard from him. “And what does Spar think?”

“Spar doesn’t know.”

“You really think Jango’d not discuss it with him?” Cort asks.

Mij pales. Of course Jango would; he’s an idiot.

Cort laughs again. “Back and forth,” he mutters, grinning. “Really, kid. If Jango thinks it’s funny, he’s probably talked it over with him, and he’s probably okay with it. It wouldn’t hurt to communicate with him a bit.”

“Like how you communicate with Jango?” he counters.

Cort goes quiet. “Kid,” he says, tone dangerous.

“Don’t ‘kid’ me,” Mij hisses back. “You’re in my apartment, drinking my tihaar, and if you’re going to bring up my relationship with one of the siblings I’m damn well going to bring up yours with the other.”

Cort finishes the tihaar and sets the cup down on the table.

Mij watches him walk out without a goodbye.

He’s expecting that to be the end of it, but the next morning Cort puts him in a headlock in the kitchen.