Chapter 112: An Unexpected Offer

Chapter 112: An Unexpected Offer

- Tyche Central – 310 Days into the Hutt Crusade-

Izuku was pleased as he looked over the results of the attacks on the Hutt Shield Worlds of Mulatan and Gos Hutta. Yes, the casualty figures and ship losses from the two battles were by far and away the worst of the war. For the first time, they’d actually lost a trio of Paladins, and five more had been damaged enough to be forced back to shipyards for repair. They’d lost 12 of the Battleship-refit Lucrehulks too, though those were far less important, and had done an incredibly good job of soaking damage for the Paladins. Combined with the number of smaller ships lost, it was the equivalent of an entire Core World peacetime fleet being destroyed. Not somewhere like Kuat or Corellia of course, but the average Core World defense fleet, at least.

Yet it was still cheap for the price paid.

Those Shield Worlds had been upgraded time and again over the course of a good 20,000 years. Entirely aside from their own ships and static defenses, the Hutts had managed to hit the assaulting fleets with multiple old superweapons that had been mothballed into defensive hard points in the past and brought back online during the Crusade. Yet their own tricks, including bombardment by extremely expensive extended-range missiles fired from far outside the usual ranges to help strip defenses, had still won the day. Arguably the two toughest systems to crack in the entirety of Hutt Space had been taken, the considerable Hutt Fleets defending the two Shield Worlds shattered. Bootana Hutta in general was now open season, even if every world inside was likely to be its own tough morsel to chew on.

It was just as he was closing out the overview of the battle that a quiet knock came on the door of his personal quarters. He immediately keyed the opening command, having been awaiting just that knock, and having already sent Aayla and Zavra to have fun sparring with each other. Padmé and Sabé entered a moment later, the pair having asked for this private meeting. After quick, friendly greetings were exchanged…the pair seemed to stall out. Rather, Padmé did, blushing lightly, even as Sabé looked a bit exasperated. Finally, it was Sabé who broke the slightly awkward silence.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, this is ridiculous! Izuku, Padmé and I both want you to get into our panties. Even better if we get to have fun with Aayla, Shaak, Zavra and Mei in the process. The only reason we haven’t is due to political concerns.”

Izuku blinked, jaw dropping just a little bit at that…blunt statement. He hadn’t been oblivious to their interest, of course. Nor to the reason why they hadn’t followed through on aforementioned interest. The fact that it had grown from rather strong physical attraction to something more than that over time hadn’t been lost on him either. Yet, he hadn’t exactly expected either of them to just come out and say it. From the mortified expression and deep blush on Padmé’s face, she hadn’t intended to be quite that blunt with this conversation either. Sabé apparently wasn’t done being blunt, either.

“I mean, you should have seen how hard Padmé came after getting stuck in one of Aayla’s chastity belts for a few days back on Kashyy—”

Padmé made a distressed noise as she lunged for Sabé, attempting to silence her with hands over her mouth…or perhaps around her neck, it was a bit hard to tell as Sabé dodged and continued.

“—the point is, we’re really interested in a relationship, but not sure how to…oh stop that or I’ll spank your bare ass for Izuku’s viewing pleasure.”

A beat-red Padmé was still struggling, but Sabé had taken advantage of Padmé’s desperation and poor form to get her into a hold. She’d continued to squirm…right up until Sabé’s threat seemed to cause her brain to crash. To Izuku’s empathic senses, she was frozen in a mix of mortified horror at the idea…and extreme arousal at the exact same thought. The conflict was fascinatingly distracting, enough so that he almost missed Sabé continuing.

“Right. We’re not quite sure how to make it all work, but we have…well...part of a plan? Maybe? If you’re even interested…”

It was Sabé’s turn to look just a bit uncertain, and Izuku considered the situation for a moment. Obviously, this was what they’d wanted to talk about, and it wasn’t as if he’d been oblivious to the building feelings between himself, Aayla, and the two women from Naboo. Their friendship went clear back to that first ‘forced’ vacation Aayla had suckered then-queen Amidala into, and their months together since the Crusade started had only brought them closer. In some ways, their existing relationship was honestly still a bit deeper than he had with Shaak Ti, having spent a bit less total time around his newest lover than he had this pair.

Aayla, he was pretty sure, had been angling to at least have some ‘fun’ with them since that weekend on Naboo. Izuku himself had to admit that he wasn’t against it, either, even if the odd situation he was in with so many women seeming content to share a relationship still weirded his sensibilities out from time to time. Mei had felt almost natural to include, his close friendship with her easily morphing into more when she was all he had left from home. Zavra had been weirder, but the logic behind the unique situation with her was such that he hadn’t been able to deny the idea of including her being sensible. Shaak Ti had genuinely taken him off guard, but Aayla had very obviously wanted to include her, and he’d grown to like the Jedi.

Somehow, he’d found himself in a harem anime. More accurately, a harem hentai, a part of his brain insisted on noting. He still wasn’t quite sure how, other than suspecting it was somehow Aayla’s fault. It had crept up on him in a way that somehow felt like it made sense, despite objectively being very odd when he took a mental step back to wonder how he got here. It had also, he was pretty sure, destroyed his sense of normality in ways that not even being dropped into another universe with casual space travel on tap had done. So much so that the idea of including Padmé and Sabé into his already odd relationship left him only with a feeling of ‘well, obviously that’s going to happen and is a great idea,’ instead of the uncertainty he really felt it ought to. Pushing past the feeling of surreality that came with that realization, he slowly nodded in Sabé and Padmé’s direction. Perhaps it was time for some bluntness of his own to see where this goes?

“I admit, I’m still not quite sure how you two got so interested, but I admit the feeling is mutual. Aayla is all for it, Zavra gets a dreamy look and mutters about ‘twin fantasies’ whenever you’re brought up, Mei thinks having more ‘kinky sex friends’ is fun, and Shaak Ti seems okay with things, at least. I was leaving all of that be, however, as I understand the awkward position the two of you are in…and I don’t mean the way that you’re currently holding your boss.”

Considering the suggestive pose that had resulted in the hold Sabé was using, with one of her legs firmly between Padmé’s thighs and the senator’s arms held behind her, his comment caused Padmé’s nuclear blush to return in full force. Even Sabé developed a light dusting of pink at the comment, but she bulled right through it, tone teasing as she replied.

“Oh, we really got interested when we accidentally spied on your absolutely railing Zavra for what I think was the first time? After the two of you sparred back on the Knight Errant? It was super hot.”

Izuku blinked, then made an ‘ah-ha’ noise unconsciously as a few things clicked into place. He’d wondered why the pair had avoided him and went on a spree of ‘questioning his crew’ back then. Aayla had seemed to figure something out after a few days, so perhaps she’d already made the connection? Blinking, he realized he was blushing a tiny bit himself, even if most of it was suppressed by the satisfaction of solving a mystery. Clearing his throat, he pushed down the blush.

“Ah. I suppose that makes some sense. You…uh…were saying something about a plan, though?”

Sabe nodded and let Padmé go. The senator sort of flopped back into her own chair, seeming to have lost the will to brutally murder her minion. Possibly due to Izuku admitting his own interest?

“Padmé can’t be seen to be involved with you, in even a casual fling sense. Not while she’s still a senator, at least. It would radically weaken, possibly even outright destroy, any belief in her ability to be neutral in regards to the League. You and I might know better, that she’s more stubborn than a tusk-cat when it comes to her beliefs, but the Senate would never believe it.”

While Izuku wasn’t quite sure what a tusk-cat was, the sentiment was obvious from context, and entirely accurate. Padmé wasn’t the type to be moved by anyone or anything when she felt she was doing the right thing. The only way to shift her stance on anything was to prove she didn’t have all the information, such as what she’d learned about the opinions of the Republic in the Outer Rim and less influential Mid-Rim worlds. Sadly, Sabé was also right about the odds of the average person believing that. For that matter, even if someone in the Senate did believe she couldn’t be so easily swayed, it still wouldn’t prevent them from slinging mud for their own benefit anyway.

Nodding to acknowledge he understood the problem, Izuku gestured for Sabé to go on, curious where she was going with this. He certainly didn’t see any real solution to the problem beyond waiting it out. Even that possibility assumed that Padmé would choose to leave the Senate when her current term was up, rather than seeking reappointment. Which wasn’t at all a given, to his thinking. She wouldn’t have agreed to become a senator, if she hadn’t felt she could make a difference. Worse, she now had enough of a power base to argue that she realistically could. Her power bloc wasn’t huge, but it was much larger than should have been possible for a senator so early in her career to form around herself.

“The thing is…we eventually realized, when brainstorming solutions, that such isn’t the case for me. Many in the Senate already think she uses her Handmaidens as honeypots to manipulate others. If they caught a hint of me slipping in and out of your bed, or something similar, they would almost certainly assume that Padmé is using me to render you more…pliable. Idiocy, of course, but misogyny is surprisingly strong in the Republic Senate. You’d think, with the number of powerful female senators and rulers around, that such wouldn’t be the case. But somehow it still is, and we’ve even taken occasional advantage of that fact before.”

Izuku blinked. That was…not a direction he’d thought the conversation would go? It was true that he’d been surprised to see misogyny was still a thing in a 20,000+ year-old star faring society. Yet, while it wasn’t as common as it had been on Earth, he’d still run into far more of it than he would have expected. That such things crept into even the halls of power and influenced thought processes there shouldn’t surprise him, even if it did a little bit.

Once he got past that momentary mental whiplash, he pursed his lips as he started to get the general thrust of their idea. Or, more likely he thought, Sabé’s idea that she’d somehow gotten Padmé to go along with. If people assumed Sabé was acting on orders to ‘incentivize’ him, and Sabé was Padmé’s body double, one accurate enough via body sculpting that she could legitimately fool even security software meant to recognize faces…

“You could both easily pretend to be you, so long as you weren’t both caught at the same time. More, instead of being a risk to your powerbase, it would be more likely to enhance it if you do get caught. After all, they would think you had managed to get leverage on the Sovereign of the League of Free Stars, or at least an inside source.”

Sabé was nodding enthusiastically, even as Padmé was blushing again at their suggestion being put out into the open.

“Yes! I mean, it wouldn’t be perfect. I wouldn’t get to be around to watch you ravish Padmé, or maybe see her squirm as you left her tied up and had fun with me and Aayla while she was forced to watch! But it would be something…and we really kinda want there to be something? I mean, it could be awkward, and maybe even risky a little, but otherwise…”

Sabé trailed off and Izuku almost flinched at the emotions abruptly wafting off both women. Uncertainty, fear of loss, frustration. Padmé had years left before her term was up, assuming she did leave the Senate even after her first term there was over. It was pretty obvious, based on what he was feeling, that the duo were afraid of what that would mean if they just…waited. Afraid that he might lose interest, that a door they both very much wanted to open would be shut by the time they could act more overtly. Personally, Izuku didn’t think that would be the case, but he couldn’t promise that.

People could change, did change, over that much time. It could be that his relationships with Aayla, Mei, Zavra and Shaak solidified to the point they didn’t want to risk adding another element, let alone a high-profile one with strings potentially attached. Possibly more likely, he thought, absences from each others’ presence might cause the embers of interest to snuff out over time. Though, if that were going to happen, the fact that they’d been separated for months at a time already likely would have done it. Given her status as an Ambassador, it would be unlikely Padmé would be separated from their group for the length of time needed for feelings to fully cool, and where Padmé went, so to did Sabé, as a general rule. Sabé was still primarily a bodyguard and body double, where the other handmaidens now filled other roles that took them away from time to time.

On the one hand, bits of this felt wrong. Naughty too, in a way that he was all-to-familiar with from some of the fun times with Aayla, but also a little wrong in that they would be outright hiding their relationship with misdirection. On the other hand…he was effectively still doing the same thing with Aayla, even if the cover there was threadbare at best, and mostly unintentional at this point. They no longer really cared what the Jedi Order had to say about their relationship. Frankly, the only reason they hadn’t publicly held a joining ceremony of some sort to formalize things was the same sort of political complexity that Padmé and Sabé were dealing with. That there was no reason to ‘rock the boat,’ so to speak, when there were a number of other issues straining their relationship with the Jedi Order and Republic.

Aayla and Izuku knew what they were to each other. They couldn’t not know, given how they were bonded.

They didn’t feel a need to formalize that, when doing so could do nothing but harm.

All of which meant that what the pair across from him were presenting as a plan wasn’t all that different than his relationship with Aayla had been almost from the start, didn’t it? The subterfuge was a bit more calculated, which is probably what made it stand out in comparison, but it wasn’t really significantly different. Nodding slowly, he spoke after the long few seconds of pause it had taken him to work through all of that.

“I can see it working, possibly. It’s something everyone involved would have to agree to, though. Why don’t the two of you join us for a casual dinner tomorrow night? I’ll cook my best attempt at my mother’s Katsudon, which will lure Mei over from her personal station, and we can all talk this out together. Assuming we can all agree on how it would work, I can personally say I’d be okay with giving things a try. I do find the two of you attractive and interesting, even if I admit I’m still puzzled how well such an…unusual…relationship seems to be working out so far.”

Sabé’s smile was huge at his agreement, and even Padmé was giving him a very hopeful look through her blushing. Yes, Izuku decided, this might just be worth trying to make work. Though he was pretty sure he was going to have to put his foot down about picking up any more entries into their group if it did work out. It was getting a little unwieldy, given all the complications involved and how busy everyone in the relationship was. Of course, that was probably part of the reason it worked at all, as well.

Still, he was pretty sure there was a balance to be found before even the Force thought he was being greedy…

… … …

“Huh, this is actually really good.”

Izuku beamed at Sabé’s comment, his smile only growing as Padmé seconded it a moment later.

“Katsudon was my favorite food back on my homeworld. It’s a regional dish even there, so it took me years to find good enough replacements to come at least close to duplicating my mother’s recipe.”

Aayla nodded at that, from where she was enjoying her own serving with gusto, putting in her own two credits between bites.

“I can attest to that. Izuku tried, and he’s hardly a bad cook, but some of the early attempts were…dubious. He had a lot of trouble duplicating the broth stock used for it, something he called ‘dashi,’ I think?”

Izuku nodded, indicating she’d gotten it right.

“Yeah. Dashi is, itself, made from a mix of kombu, a type of edible kelp, and fermented fish that were common around the island I was born on. It took dozens of attempts to get a decent substitute, and that in turn was only one of several things that needed replacement. A few things I was able to surprisingly find one-for-one. Still amazes me that the galaxy has chicken, given they originated on my homeworld, to the best of my knowledge.”

Padmé and Sabé blinked at that, with Padmé voicing their joint surprise.

“Really? So far as I know, no one knows where chickens are from, they are so common. Isn’t your world in the unknown regions? How in the galaxy…”

Izuku had the decency to look sheepish.

“That’s not…quite…accurate. The reality of where Mei and I are from is a little more complicated than that. We usually claim the ‘unknown regions’ because it’s honestly more believable than the truth, while still getting the general idea of how thoroughly we are outsiders to most of the galaxy. Still, that’s a story for another time, given it would derail what we intended to talk about pretty thoroughly.”

The visiting pair looked intensely curious, but the reminder of what they’d actually come to discuss tonight also brought a blush to Padmé’s face. Something which was enough to get things back on track as an amused-yet-serene Shaak Ti spoke into the conversational gap that reaction created.

“Yes, I do think we should get on to the obvious. As inevitable as it clearly was that the two of you would join us, do you believe you will be comfortable living a double life, as it were? I myself took a fair bit of time to evaluate exploring my own addition, even taking some time away on Ossus to meditate and seek wise council.”

Even Sabé blushed lightly at Shaak’s casual mention of inevitability, the Togrutan having managed a teasing lilt to the words despite her serenity. Still, she predictably rallied faster than Padmé could manage. At least when it came to this sort of thing, she was pretty obviously the more confident and outgoing of the pair.

“Yes. We already talked it over and, frankly speaking, any sort of relationship while Padmé is senator is one we would want to keep low-key anyway. If not because of the numerous political angles involved, then because ending up as a target of the paparazzi and slush news sensationalists would be hard on both parties, no matter who they were. The fact there’s more reason to keep it quiet with Izuku specifically is really more a matter of degree than concept.”

Shaak nodded, but narrowed her eyes as she noted Sabé had only answered on Padmé’s behalf.

“That explains the Senator having thought this through for herself, but not you. You could have a more normal relationship, if you wanted.”

Surprisingly, it was Mei, of all people, who snorted at that and spoke up from where she’d been doodling blueprints on a napkin.

“She looks identical to her boss, at least with their clothes on. If she started a relationship without having some sort of excuse, the idiots would just use pictures of her to pretend Xena is having fun with someone on the sly.”

That got more than one person around the table to blink at Mei. Partly because it was sort of an obvious observation in hindsight, but mostly because Mei wasn’t normally the one to pick up social details like that. Nor to actually pay attention at all when having discussions like this in general. More curious than most and sitting right next to the pinkette, Zavra leaned over  Mei’s shoulder and looked at the blueprint she’d been doodling…then made an amused noise at what she saw.

“You’re paying attention because you’re planning all the kinky ways to have fun at long distance, aren’t you? I have to say, that’s a somewhat inspired reuse of some of my implants, and the streamlined designed for your portal chastity belt looks fun.”

Mei beamed excitedly at Zavra’s approval, even as realization and bemused acceptance settled on Izuku, Aayla, and Shaak Ti’s faces. Sabé looked startled…and Padmé was blushing all the way down to the neckline of her collar, if not farther. Lips twitching, Izuku tried to get the discussion back on track.

“Well, if Sabé is sure for herself as well as for Padmé, the real question comes from everyone else, I think. Mei’s clearly alright with this if she’s already planning experiments. What does everyone else think?”

Zavra, possibly predictably, was the first to pipe up.

“Can we require they wear some of Mei’s gear to keep them honest while away? I mean, I’m happy either way, but it would be super hot.”

Padmé somehow managed to blush even deeper, while making a choking noise. Aayla didn’t help with her own response.

“Hmm, that does sound fun. It’s almost traditional, too. I mean, I first met Izuku that way, Mei made her portal belt not long after joining us, and Zavra came pre-installed with control chips that do some of the same things. Really, only Shaak has missed out. We could include her too, to make it a proper tradition.”

Even Sabé was a little wide-eyed, with a light blush on her cheeks, as Shaak’s amused voice added to the fire.

“Hmmm, I don’t see a problem with it, really. It could be a fun experiment, so long as safe guidelines are established. I wouldn’t want to be caught distracted in combat, though even there it might make for an interesting control exercise?”

Taking pity on poor Padmé, who looked like she was about to discover spontaneous human combustion, Izuku tried to keep the amusement out of his voice as he cut off the joke. Well, probably only mostly joke, given some of those involved.

“I think we can save details like that for later, even if Padmé is radiating a lot of interest in a room with a bunch of Force sensitives.” He couldn’t resist, really he couldn’t. “For now, I think we can settle for it being safe to say that everyone is onboard with this plan, yes?”

There were affirmatives all around, even from Padmé, managing to get her confirmation out past her embarrassment. Clapping his hands together, Izuku rose and headed for the small kitchen attached to their shared quarters aboard the station.

“Right! I made a new attempt as some wagashi for dessert! I tried a bunch of different fruits to see what would work best! We can sample some while we talk details about how to make this all work out…”

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Mwhahah, did I manage to catch you by surprise? I imagine a lot of people thought Padme sand Sabe wouldn't get involved until nearer the Clone Wars...mostly because that was actually my original plan. The more and more they interacted with Izuku and Co, though, the less and less it felt right to hold off that long. Aside from Mei, Padme and Sabe have actually known Izuku and Aayla longer than the others involved, and have been dancing around interest for years at this point. With a few of the escalations I already added, it felt unreasonable to drag it out for more in-universe years. Thus, I came up with a bit of an unorthodox solution!

A/N 2: Everything I know about Katsudon, I learned from Wikipedia. I have no idea if my details were right or not.