Chapter Text
The first thing Irdak had noticed had been the cloak. In his admittedly limited experience of working the upscale side of the Coruscant streets, nobody wore a cloak without being a worthy target of his charms. And he was in sore need of a worthy target since his current sugar daddy was beginning to show the first telltale signs of tiring of him. When the frowns about the wrecked state of the pillows started eclipsing the smiles brought on by remembering how those pillows had got to be as wrecked as they were (and really, that was what you got when you invited a Zabrak into your bed), it was generally time to move on.
He had a fallback solution, of course, and he kept the business card with the handwritten note on the back in his pocket for emergencies - but if he could stay freelance rather than join an existing establishment, well, he would.
All told though, that was not the only reason he’d chosen Mr. Cloak as his target. Sure, he’d be happy to run his hands all over the inside lining of that nice drapey fabric in a delicate suggestion of what those hands could do to its wearer. But the man in the cloak was doing things to him already, and he hadn’t even gotten his hands on him yet.
And that, Irdak was certain, merited further investigation.
Because amnesiac or not, he’d picked up quickly on the fact that he could make people feel good with more than his admittedly skilled body. And usually, folks were more than appreciative of the extra touch. A select few were capable of reciprocating, and that was always worth the party trick (that one time with the AgriCorps undersecretary had been especially enlightening!), but nobody had yet managed to make his blood tingle quite like this from across several lanes of traffic.
Ah, yes. Good. He was slowing down. Tall guy, long legs. Taller than Irdak himself, which was saying something. For a Zabrak, he was amazingly lanky, although the Healers at the Jedi Temple - the ones who had patched him up out of charity and then slapped an apparently random Zabrak name on him that he might as well keep for all it was worth (it allegedly meant ‘confluence’; personally, he’d wondered if they’d intended it to mean ‘guy who washed up here’) - had told him that that was because he was actually mostly human. Not that your average Coruscanti looked far beyond the cute set of horns on his forehead, and apparently he had managed to acquire at least a partial set of tattoos as well, in the life he’d summarily forgotten. Both of which were good for business because a pretty mostly-Zabrak who would bottom if required was a hot commodity.
The tall man had slowed to a halt, the colorful foot traffic on the walkway across the Temple City’s premier business district continuing to flow around him. He stood like a rock in his coal-gray cloak, a head of short and perfectly white hair well above the crowd.
Irdak had to resist the urge to scratch himself all over. He felt like his skin was itching from the inside. Instead, he put on his best come-hither smile, drew himself up to his full height, put a little extra swing into his hips, and went in for the kill.
The tall man turned around slowly and skewered Irdak on his dark brown gaze.
And it felt good.
He’d never felt this much… feeling from someone just looking at him. Like his blood was singing. Like he remembered. Which obviously he didn’t - not even the Jedi healers had managed to patch that part of him back together - but still. His eyes told him the man was old for a human, probably easily three times his own putative age, but he seemed to have no trouble holding himself upright with a regal bearing. The inner lining of his cloak, Irdak thought randomly, matched his eyes. And the inside of his mind matched Irdak’s own in a way that was scary and incredibly attractive at the same time.
“What?” said the stranger, and Irdak had to suppress an altogether unprofessional shiver at how deep that voice went. Deep into the part of him that usually busied itself with making other people feel good. There was a real question in that voice though, and a minute widening of those eyes, as if the strange sense of recognition went both ways. Promising.
“Would you care for some… company, sir?” Irdak said smoothly, dropping his own voice to a sultry baritone to match his target. “You seem criminally alone for a man of your tastes.”
A minute smile quirked the man’s thin lips and made the neatly groomed white beard twitch. “Can’t say I’ve been propositioned like that in at least forty years,” he replied coolly. “And my answer is ‘no’. Though I would be interested in your name at least, seeing as you appear bold enough to accost me in the street.” A pause. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to report you to the authorities. I’m just… curious. You remind me of someone.”
“I… I knew it!” Irdak grinned triumphantly, recognizing enough of the familiar dance of courtship. Of course men of that generation (and, likely, social status) wouldn’t dream of just responding to a simple pick-up in the street. “There’s something special going on here, isn’t there?” He winked. “I know a nice place where we can chat over a drink or two, sir. Get acquainted.” Get my brain caught up with what my body clearly remembers about you, he thought. And get on with the fucking because damn. Old but magnetic, aren’t you?
With hindsight, things had gone downhill from there. Really quickly.
To an outside observer it would probably have looked innocent enough - the young whore who’s had one or two too many drinks already and was now crawling all over his prospective customer in an effort to make a sale before succumbing to the alcohol and passing out in said prospective customer’s lap - but Irdak had been there, and that was definitely not what had happened.
He’d had iced tea, for a start.
And he remembered with crystalline clarity what had happened after the usual awkward introductions: the man professed to being an ex-Jedi - interesting in itself, Irdak had had no idea people left that revered organization alive - whose dead former apprentice had apparently somehow contributed to Irdak’s own genetic pool. Again, file under ‘things you didn’t know about Jedi’. Apparently they fucked around.
Then, he’d held up one hand, and Irdak’s entire skin had felt like it was ready to combust from the inside. He was choking, in the most pleasurable possible way, gasping for breath, every cell in his body craving the touch of that hand. It had been glorious.
It had also been the last thing he remembered before waking up here, wherever ‘here’ was. A pretty featureless room. Probably the strange tall ex-Jedi’s base of operations. Dooku, that had been the name he’d given. The name that his singing blood knew was real. Count Dooku. So much for cloak-wearing.
Irdak was feeling slightly numb, and it took him a while to realize what was causing that. The singing in his blood had stopped, leaving behind a silence he was decidedly not accustomed to. Taking stock of his body, he found himself physically unharmed, fully dressed (well, as fully dressed as he would ever be while working. Dressed enough to not get arrested, anyway.), and outfitted with a collar so thin and elegant it would have passed for kinky jewelry in the circles he typically moved in.
Not something that would usually have fazed him - the fantasy of the submissive Zabrak boy was common enough for Irdak to have developed a rather effective routine - but there was one piece missing from the picture, and it was the strange Count himself.
Irdak was alone. And that was just not right.
He’d just opened his mouth to shout ‘hello?’ when the door to his room opened, and the missing Count Dooku walked in.
“Apologies for the somewhat rude transport,” he said matter-of-factly, gesturing at the collar. “Getting a Force beacon like you to safety without attracting undue attention is not easily achieved.” He smiled indulgently. “Especially not a rather… clingy one like you.”
He snapped his fingers, and the collar split open into a snake-like chain that hung limply around the base of Irdak’s neck. The song of his blood returned with overwhelming power and clarity, and his face flowered open in a huge beaming smile.
“Shall we begin, my young apprentice?” Count Dooku asked softly, and Irdak needed no breath to answer in the affirmative.