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millersdjarin · 1 year

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I Only See Daylight

Chapter Fourteen

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Rating: E

Chapter warnings/tags: injuries, medical stuff, panic attacks, angst, negative self-talk/self-image, flashbacks, past emotional & physical abuse, lots of love despite all that though, violence, graphic (?) depictions of injuries, PTSD, scars, cults

Chapter length: 10k

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notes: SO sorry for the 2 week wait, y'all. the end of march is a crazy one for me, and i'm not all that well to top it off. hope this long chapter makes up for it! grab a drink, settle in, and enjoy❤️

and i can still see it all (in my mind); all of you, all of me (intertwined) i used to think love would be black and white; but it’s golden

Din is woken up by a soft scratching noise against the door.

You’re still in his arms, pressed against his chest now where he lies on his back. It takes him a second after he’s awoken to realise that he’s not wearing his helmet. He looks down at you, fast asleep against him, your head rising and falling with each of his breaths.

The kid coos outside.

He closes his eyes, sighs. The last thing he wants is to let you go.

His underwear is on the floor by the bed. Untangling himself from you as best he can without waking you, his feet hit the floor, and he pulls his boxers on, then opens the bedroom door just a crack, enough to pop his head around it. Grogu is standing there, and seems surprised to see him without his helmet on. Pleased about it, though.

He reaches out a hand like he wants to touch Din’s face.

“I’ll be out in a minute, buddy,” Din promises, keeping his voice low. “I just need to get changed, okay?”

Happy with this, Grogu turns and waddles off into the living area, lifting himself up onto the couch.

Din smiles fondly at him, then turns back to look at you. You’re lying on your side, still asleep and snoring, your hand laying against the mattress where Din just was.

Last night, it was like you thought he was going to leave. And he needs you to know that he won’t.

He wants to get back into bed with you, hold you, never let you go.

Instead, he gets dressed. For the first time, he hesitates before putting his helmet on.

It’s weird, unnerving, and he can’t let himself pay it any mind.

Din has been out most of the morning with Fett and a few of his soldiers.

“It’s just a few Pykes,” he’d told you that morning, pouring you a cup of caf. “Nothing dangerous. Shouldn’t take long.”

He was right about that part. But not about the not dangerous part.

Because now this is happening.

You’d been sitting in Fett’s lounge, enjoying your third mug of caf of the morning while overlooking the town below. Just a regular day, the suns shining, people going about their business in the streets, ships taking off in the distance. The kid is playing with a child-minder in the corner, fascinated by the selection of toys she brought out for him. You’d been enjoying watching the world go by, not worried for a second about Mando’s wellbeing, because you know how capable he is. And he’d told you not to worry.

That’s the last time you do what he tells you to do without question.

You hear a commotion downstairs, including Mando’s modulated voice in the midst of it. You know something is wrong, so you drop your mug, rushing over to the hallway and down the stairs towards the entryway, where you find the group of soldiers that had gone out on the mission, Boba at the front, with an injured and bleeding Mando hanging from his side.

“Mando!” You cry, only just catching yourself before you say his real name.

“I’m alright,” he says, but no, he’s not, he doesn’t even sound like himself, he can’t even hold his weight up—

“Get the doctor,” Fett instructs one of his workers, who nods and hastily rushes off down the hall.

You rush to Din, your hands frantically trying to find something to do, to help him, but all you can do is stare at the place on his thigh that is currently bleeding badly down his flight suit, crimson blood dripping down the beskar.

“I’m alright,” he says again, looking at you, at the fear on your face.

It all happens quickly. Before you can ask what happened, before you can tell someone to fucking get him sitting down and elevate his fucking leg, there’s a crowd of people coming into the room with a stretcher and a doctor in tow. They get him sitting on it, then lie him down, and it takes half a dozen of them to carry him down the corridor, and away from you.

You’re just standing there, your head swimming, and somehow his blood is on your hands even though you don’t remember touching him.

Shand comes to your side, looking like she’s going to try and reassure you, but you’ve already taken off down the hall, following the group of people who are taking Din away from you.

You jog to catch up, following them into a med bay tucked behind a sand-coloured door. It’s substantial, all white-walls, divided into sections with silvery metal dividers, beds between each one. It’s empty in here, Mando the only person currently in need of help.

Which is probably for the best, because he can’t get himself off the stretcher and onto a bed; he can’t put his weight on his leg at all. So everyone has to help him, which you know he’ll hate, you can see it in his body language that he’s not just uncomfortable from the injury, but from all these people fussing over him. From the fact that he can’t help himself.

“What happened?” You rush to his bedside, ignoring the woman who tries to tell you to go away. As if.

Mando looks up at you, his hands clenched tight into fists on his stomach. You stand by his head.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Din says, voice more strained than you’ve ever heard it, pain evident in the set of his shoulders. “I was standing too close to a detonator.”

“You what? A detonator?”

“I—shit,” his gaze moves to the doctor, who is currently looking in detail at the piece of—holy fuck, there’s a huge piece of fucking shrapnel sticking out of the side of his thigh, ripped right through the thick fabric of his flight suit. It’s only an inch away from the armour. Fucking unlucky. And to make it worse, there are smaller gashes around it, where metal has obviously struck him and fallen out, which is what’s causing the bleeding.

There are three people on him, pressing gauze into the open wounds, holding pressure to stop the bleeding. Another person is gathering a blood bag and an IV, readying the transfusion. Someone else is cutting into his flight suit, removing the plate of armour from his leg to allow them full access.

Then his skin is on show, and it’s fucking littered with cuts and bruises, some actively bleeding, some not—

“Holy shit,” you breathe, feeling light-headed again. You stare at his leg, wide-eyed, tears stinging in your nose.

Mando’s hand is in yours, then. Holding tight. “I’m alright,” he says, again, and it’s obviously a fucking lie because he is not alright! He is so not alright!

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I need you to step back,” the doctor tells you.

You look at him, more offended than you’ve ever been. Making a point, you hold Din’s hand tighter.

“I’m sorry, I need to stand where you are if I’m going to help him as best I can.”

“Cyari’ika,” Din’s voice is pained but soft, calling you to look at him instead of glare at the doctor. (Which is probably unfair; he’s only trying to save Din’s fucking life.) “I’m alright. Let them take care of me. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

It takes everything in you to let him go.

Your hands are shaking as you step backwards, pressing yourself up against the room divider.

The doctor moves in straight away. He asks Din if he can remove his helmet, check for signs of concussion; Din says no, of course. But he does accept the heart monitor they want to attach to his finger, removing his bloody glove to clip it on. He keeps his eyes on you the whole time, even when the doctor is asking him questions about what happened, how he’s feeling, if there’s anywhere else he’s hurting.

The room is alive with bustling chaos, but Din’s eyes are warm on you, even through the visor—as always—and you force yourself to focus on it, on the rise and fall of his chest. And then, once the heart monitor is hooked up and beeping away with each beat of Din’s heart, you focus on that, too.

You don’t know how long you stand there for, watching it all happen.

They stop the bleeding of the smaller wounds, stitch up the ones that need it. Then they go to remove the large piece of shrapnel, and the heart monitor picks up speed as they pull it out; you hear the squelch of it against his flesh, see the blood start to pour from the wound the minute it’s open, the way every muscle in him clenches against it. His breath hitches. He doesn’t let out noises of pain, but you can only imagine how he’d feel if you could touch him. How his face must be twisted in pain.

At first, his gaze on you had been for your own comfort. But now, as he stares at you, you can tell that he’s the one seeking the reassurance.

So, you don’t look away. You hold his eyes like you wish you could hold his hand. You clasp your hands over your heart, feeling it racing just as fast as his, and try as hard as you can to make yourself look reassuring. Comforting. Familiar.

At some point, the crowd of doctors and medical assistants thins out, only a few of them remaining now that the bleeding has stopped.

His leg is stitched up in seven places, bandaged to within an inch of its life. They had to cut through the entire leg of his flight suit. The armour that sat upon it is on the floor, kicked beneath the bed. It feels wrong. He removes it so methodically, treats it with so much respect and care. Now it’s just been haphazardly kicked beneath this hospital bed, and it’s covered in blood, and you know that that will upset him just as much as the injuries themselves.

But, he’s alive.

Covered in blood, cuts, and bruises, yes.

But alive.

“Can I…?” You take a tentative step closer to Din, looking at the doctor for affirmation.

He gives a polite smile. “Yes. Thank you.”

You’re at Din’s side in a minute, reaching out to grab his hand. You nearly knock the heart monitor off his finger. Your other hand lays flat on his chest plate as if searching for his heartbeat.

He holds your hand tightly, looks up at you.

“What the fuck happened?” You whisper, feeling suddenly weak in the knees. You’ve been holding back from him for the last fuck-knows how long, but now you can touch him again, now he’s here, and all the fear that you’d kept locked away for his sake as he looked at you for comfort is coming back.

“It was a bigger cell than we thought,” he explains, “they had detonators.”

“Fuck,” your head falls, presses against his chest plate. You take in the rise and fall of his lungs, the breathing you can hear through his helmet.

“I…saw one of Fett’s soldiers standing too close when it landed. Pushed them out of the way.”

You shake your head. “Of course you did,” you say.

He takes a breath to say something, but you’re both momentarily distracted by the doctor coming back into Din’s space, holding a chair out like an offering.

“I thought you’d like to sit down,” he says, smiling and placing the chair behind you. You feel bad for glaring at him now. “He’s stable, as you can tell. I’ll be back shortly to check his vitals, but for now, just rest.”

“Thank you,” Din says, so sincere and earnest that it hurts.

You sit down, pull the chair in as close as it can get. Your face hovers above his helmet, gazing right into his visor. He lifts his spare hand and brushes it down your temple and cheek, cradling your jaw in his palm.

“I’m okay,” he says.

“You’re not okay,” you protest, laughing humourlessly. “You’re very much not okay.” The blood bag is hanging above him, half empty.

“I will be,” he promises, brushing his thumb over your cheekbone.

“You told me it wouldn’t be dangerous.”

“I…believed it when I said it.”

A surprised laugh comes out of your mouth. You shake your head, disbelieving. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.”

For another second, you look down at him. Then, shaking your head again, you lean in and rest your forehead against his cowl. It smells of sand, blaster fire, and burnt metal. There are tears in your eyes, hanging painfully in your nose and throat.

His gloved hand carts back into your hair. “I’m okay,” he says, again, this time in just a soft whisper. “I’m here. You don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” you say, “I think I should have been.”

Footsteps enter the room then, and you both look up to find Boba and Fennec standing by the divider, both of them carrying their helmets under their arms.

For a second they look like they’re worried they’ve interrupted something. But you lean back from Din, sit in your chair, and they step closer.

“Just came to check in,” Boba says, looking guilty.

“The doctor says I lost a lot of blood,” Din explains, then gestures to the bag above him, “but I’ll make it.”

Boba nods once. “I’m sorry. I should have known it would be worse than it was.”

“You didn’t ask me to come along,” Din reminds him.

“No, but you saved one of my men. I owe you much.”

“You owe me nothing.”

“At least let me buy you a drink,” Boba says, then, with a glint in his eyes, “Well, once you’re up and about again, at least.”

“How long’ll that be?” Fennec asks.

“The doctor said a couple of days at most. But I heal fast; I’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“We can get you in the bacta tank,” Boba offers, but Din shakes his head.

“Can you get me in there in my full armour?”

“…We can clear the room,” Boba smirks.

“There’d still need to be someone to take him out,” Fennec points out.

Boba sighs. “Make sure you rest,” he says, abandoning the bacta tank idea. “If you need anything, either of you, you know where I am.”

Both you and Din nod. “Thank you,” you smile at him.

Boba and Fennec nod too, then turn to leave.

You look back at Din. “You’re not planning on resting for a few days, are you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

“Have you?” You raise an incredulous eyebrow.

As if it’s his answer, he lets go of your hands and starts to push himself to sit up. Like a fucking idiot. He grunts with the exertion, and you roll your eyes, putting your hand on his chest.

“Stay there,” you tell him.

He stops. Looks at you. “I don’t do well lying down.”

“You don’t do well filled with shrapnel, either, but here we are,” instead, you reach down to the bed’s control panel, and push the button that lifts the top half of it up. He rises with it, slow, and you let go when he’s finally sitting up. “There. Happy?”

He takes your hand again. “Better.”

The door opens again, more footsteps coming close. Then, the child-minder pokes their head around the divider, and you see a glimpse of Grogu’s big eyes. “Sorry to interrupt,” they say, “but the Child has heard about what happened…”

Immediately you stand from your chair, rushing over to take Grogu in your arms. You turn him away from Din at first, and thank the child-minder, excusing them from their duty. “Alright, kid,” you say, holding him up in front of your face. You look over his shoulder to Din. “He’ll want to see you.”

Grogu cranes his neck, trying his hardest to look around and see Din. He protests when you don’t let him, an angry babble as he throws his fists down against your hand.

“It’s okay, Grogu,” you say softly, “you can see him. It’s going to look a little scary, but your dad’s okay, and you don’t need to worry. Okay?”

Grogu’s ears turn down a little, but he blinks, softens in your hands.

You walk back over to your chair, and place the kid on the bed beside Mando, who immediately scoops him up into the crook of his elbow.

“Hey, kid,” he says, obviously smiling beneath the helmet.

He looks at Din’s leg, then back to his helmet. Reaches out one hand, brushes it down the beskar, like he’s saying Are you okay under there?

“I’m alright, kid,” Din assures him, pressing his forehead into Grogu’s. Grogu closes his eyes, his palm pressed to the cheek of Din’s helmet. “I’m alright. Yeah, see? You can feel I’m alright, can’t you?”

Grogu coos sadly, his ears still turned towards the floor. But he relaxes at Din’s soft assurances, and leans down to press his head into Din’s cowl.

Din pats his back comfortingly, turns to look at you. You offer him a sad smile.

He reaches for your hand just as someone else comes in. This time, it’s the doctor again, and he’s carrying a clipboard.

“Alright, sir,” he says, “your vitals are looking good. But you’re going to need a couple day’s bedrest before you can be up and at ’em again.”

“I can’t do that,” Din protests. Because of course he does.

The doctor glances at you for just a second. “You’re injured,” he says to Din, cautious, like he’s maybe just a little bit afraid of his patient.

Which, you can’t blame him for, because when Din speaks again, he’s using his Don’t fuck with me tone (which, ironically, isn’t all that different from his I’m going to fuck you voice, but you digress), “I feel fine. I’ll be alright in a couple of hours.”

“…With respect, sir, you’re on painkillers at the moment, which will be making you feel better…”

“Great, so I can get up soon.”

“That’s…not exactly what I meant…”

“I have things that I have to do,” Din insists, almost growling now, “Do you understand? Are you going to chain me to this bed?”

“N—no, sir, I—I can’t force you to stay here, only recommend—”

“Right. So I’ll decide when I feel well enough to get up.”

Wide-eyed, the doctor glances between the two of you, holding his clipboard with white knuckles.

You offer him a smile that you hope is reassuring, and place a calming hand over Din’s. “Thank you, doctor,” you say. “I’m sorry, he’s just not used to being…well, still.”

The doctor relaxes just a little. “Yes, I understand. You were very lucky, Mr Mandalorian, sir, that the shrapnel didn’t hit any bone. So maybe you’ll be better sooner than we think.”

Din nods once, curt. “I heal fast.”

“Right,” he smiles, nervous. “The IV is giving you fluids, but it’s important that you drink enough when the transfusion is complete. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call.” And then he’s gone, leaving just a little too hastily for it to be casual.

You turn to Din, and give him a Look.

“What?” He asks. “You were the one staring daggers at him earlier when he asked you to step back.”

“Because I was worried about you,” you protest, “and I was having a crisis. You have no excuse right now. You’re pumped full of painkillers.”

His voice is lilted with a smirk. “You were rude to the doctor.”

“So were you!” You find yourself smiling despite yourself. “You were very rude to him. He’s just trying to help.”

“I don’t appreciate people telling me I have to stay chained to a bed for days.”

“He literally told you that wasn’t what he was doing.”

“I’m a Mandalorian. Being able to fight is part of who I am.”

“Oh, so you’re the first Mandalorian to ever be injured?” You challenge, quirking an eyebrow. “You’re allowed to rest, Mando. In fact, you kind of have to, if you ever want to be able to fight properly again.”

He sighs. His helmet turns away, facing the ceiling. When he speaks again, he sounds surprisingly bothered. “I can’t afford to be hurt right now,” he says, so quietly.

“Hey,” you run your fingertips over his arm. “We’re safe here. You can recover as long as you need to.”

“I don’t need long. I’ll be fine in a few hours.”

You sigh. Gently, you take hold of his helmet, turning his gaze back to you. You stare at him for a long minute, taking him in, hearing the gentle beeps of his heart monitor. Tears sting at the backs of your eyes again, as memories of the last few hours come back to you. “You scared me,” you whisper, staring into his visor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back.

“The fact that you’re okay is the most important thing,” you say, “you know that, right?”

He shakes his head. “You and the kid are the most important thing.”

You look at the kid and smile. He’s still got his face against Mando’s cowl, and you can hear him breathing, just soft little puffs of air. He’s so content to just be here in Din’s arms and beside you, not even looking for mischief like he so often is.

“We’re all here,” you look back to Din and smile. “That’s what matters.”

Din nods. He’s about to say something, taking a breath, lifting his hand to brush against your face—

Bang.

A flash of orange light down the hall.

Rubble clatters all around, scattering across stone floors, falling into the medbday doorway.

Metal beams fall outside.

Screams.

It’s the loudest thing you’ve ever heard.

Din has shot up in his bed, leaning across to throw his arm over your body, cradling the kid between both of your chests. You look up at him, wide-eyed, and it seems like this little corner of the building is the only one untouched by the dust and rubble, by whatever the fuck just happened, the explosion—

“Are you okay?” Din asks you, running a hand over your face, searching for injuries.

You barely hear him through the ringing in your ears. Frantic, you nod. “Are you? Grogu, are you okay?”

He’s peering up at you with wide eyes, but he’s okay. All three of you are uninjured—at least, not from that fucking blast—but you can hear shouts and cries coming from the rest of the building, and then, a voice above them all—

“It’s an ambush!”

Fett.

Your hand flies to the blaster at your hip, dread dropping deep into your stomach.

Because you just know.

You know that Fett has enemies, that there are many people who still want to take him down. But you also know that a large portion of those people were taken out just this morning, and it’s really unlikely that anyone would launch an attack of this scale just after he and his soldiers took out a rogue cell mere hours ago.

So, naturally, your mind goes to places you wish it wouldn’t. That you wish it didn’t have to. And you just know you’re right.

Din is moving, trying to get down from his bed. He grunts and strains and you reach out, holding him down.

“You can’t move right now!” You argue, keeping your voice hushed, because you don’t know who—or what—is out there. “Din, you can’t.”

“I have to—”

“No. You have to stay here, and watch the kid.”

“I’m watching you, too,” you can hear the frown in his voice, “You’re not going out there.”

You’re about to say that you won’t, that you’ll stay to protect him and Grogu, but then there are footsteps running down the hall, and you see through the window one of Fett’s men, running towards the where the explosion came from. They trip, probably over some of the rubble. You hear them cry out and you stand, rushing to help them before you can even think twice.

Din shouts after you, tells you to come back, but you ignore him.

The man is on the floor, crawling backwards towards the wall.

“Are you okay?” You ask him, crouching down to his level. He’s got a cut on his eyebrow, and he’s clutching his arm to his chest, pain creasing his face.

“My arm, I—I think it’s broken,” he grits out.

You take hold of his good arm, help him towards the medbay door. “Come on, come in here,” you say, and he follows gratefully. “What happened?”

“There was an explosion at the front gates. A dozen people are trying to get in, saying something about—” he gasps in pain when he stumbles again and instinctively catches himself with his bad arm—“something about a girl.”

Oh, fuck.

Once he’s settled against one of the room dividers, you look across at Mando and Grogu, who are still on the bed, looking really fucking vulnerable and helpless and, kriff, you can’t let anyone hurt them—Mando can’t fight for himself right now—

Your hand finds its way to your blaster.

“It’s them,” you say to Din. “It has to be.”

He nods. He’s still trying to get up, keeping the kid in one arm, using his other hand to try and swing his injured leg over the bed. Blaster fire starts up down the hall, shouts of battle making their way through to you. “We have to get you out of here. There’s a back exit—”

“They’ll have covered the back exit!” You exclaim, feeling desperation rise in your chest and your voice, because they taught you that. You think back to the day Mando arrived on your doorstep, when you thought he was sent by Them. You didn’t bother using the back door, because you knew they’d be waiting for you.

Your heart is hammering in your chest. Mando has ripped off his monitor, so it’s just one long beep now, and flashing red on the screen above his head. He’s about to try and rip out the IV, but you stop him.

“You need that blood,” you say.

“No, I need to get you out of here—” He’s cut off when his foot lands on the floor, and it must send excruciating pain up his leg because he cries out, pulling back like you’ve never seen him do before.

“Stay,” you instruct, holding him down. “You have to stay here. I’m going to help them. I can fight.”

“No!” He grabs your arm before you can walk away, hard and tight in his gloved hand. His voice isn’t demanding. It’s desperate. “No! You can’t—stay with me, I can protect you here—”

You shake your head. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“They’ll take you!”

“No they won’t. Fett has a whole army. I’ll be fine.”

He says your name, both a warning and a plea, but your mind is made up.

If They get any further down the hall, they’re going to find Mando, and they’re going to find Grogu.

They’ll know who they are. They’ll take them, just to get to you.

And you cannot let that happen.

You lean in, press your forehead to Din’s. “I’ll be back,” you promise. “Stay here. Protect the kid. Please.”

And before he can protest, before he can grab you again, you’re running away and heading down the corridor.

The lounge is full of dust and rubble, the blast having come from just below it, blowing a hole in the floor. There’s no one in here, but the blaster fire is coming from downstairs, from the gate. Good, you think, They haven’t made it inside yet.

You drop down through the floor and land behind a pillar, using it for cover. Fett’s soldiers are dotted around the room, leaning out from cover every few seconds to fire their blasters. You take a second to peek around the pillar, trying to see who they’re shooting at, and where they are.

Your stomach drops when you see them.

Not your family. They’d never come to do their own dirty work.

But their people. You’d recognise them anywhere. Their faces, their clothes, their voices. Though you don’t know their names, you’ve been surrounded by them your whole life.

Fuck.

It really is them.

“Hold the line!” Fett shouts as he comes running down the hall from the gateway. “There’s only three left! Let’s finish it!”

His soldiers advance towards him, firing with newfound confidence.

You’re frozen in place.

Your heart is beating wildly, so loud in your ears that it almost blocks everything out.

They’ve found you. They’ve found you, and they’ve caused all this destruction, all this damage, probably taken innocent lives just to get to you. Din and Grogu are upstairs in the medbay. Din is hurt because you had to come here, because of you.

You should have just gone back when the blackmailer gave you the chance. You could have been the only damage done. Now, the damage is all around you. They’ve not only found their way into every corner of your life, but into every corner of everyone else’s, too. Everyone who has only ever tried to help you.

You can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t focus.

Before the final blaster shot, something lands in front of you. Something small, round. A blinking red light on top of it.

It takes your mind a second to catch up to the fact that it’s a fucking concussive detonator.

You’re just about to jump back, about to scream, when all of a sudden there’s a wall of beskar on top of you, throwing you across the room and into one of the glass windows in the interior walls. You hear the glass shatter, don’t even feel it piercing your skin, going so deep into your flesh. There’s metal too, the structure of the window.

Your body falls to the ground, landing with a loud shout, and you’re not sure if it came from you or from the Mandalorian on top of you—in the haze, you don’t even know if it’s Din or Boba, just that it’s someone very hard and very heavy, someone very strong who has literally tackled you twenty feet away from the detonator—

Bang.

Not as big or loud as the initial blast.

But it sounds it. It feels it.

Pain spikes and spreads across your back. It’s blinding, white-hot, black spots appearing over your vision. The room is black and then it’s not, it’s dusty and then it’s not, it’s blurry and then it’s not—

The person on top of you rolls away. Someone is screaming, panting desperately for air.

It’s you.

Screaming at the top of your lungs.

The pain is like nothing you’ve ever felt. Not even close to everything They did to you, not to the knife in your shoulder by Din’s target, not the branch that stuck in your leg.

It’s fire against your skin, deep in your flesh. Every single one of your nerves is alight with it. You almost expect to not be able to feel your legs, but you can, the pain spreading right to your toes.

There are people rushing around you. If you could hear anything other than your own screams, you’d hear that the blaster fire has stopped, the fight is done.

You try to roll over, the pressure of the floor on your injured back more than you can take, but people are holding you down, someone’s hands on either side of your head to stop you moving your neck—

You try to push everyone away because you’re suffocating you can’t breathe you can’t see—

They slide something underneath you, a stretcher. The pain is indescribable.

Everything goes black.

You’re in a field.

It’s serene. Green pastures, rolling hills. Shindl birds fly overhead. A creek is flowing nearby. The sun shines in a clear blue sky.

When you sit up, you expect to see him there. A shiny wall of beskar, soft just for you. A green child, staring at you with wide, beautiful eyes.

But instead, you see Them.

Your parents. Standing beside you, looking down at you with nothing but disgust on their faces.

“Look at you,” your mother says.

You do. You look down at yourself, and are horrified by what you find.

Your arms, bleeding fresh, crimson blood. Cuts all the way up them. Your stomach, just open flesh. You feel welts on your back, warm blood dripping down your spine.

It’s the day that they did it to you. The Ceremony. No one else will ever want you, now. You are his forever.

“Don’t look at me—” You beg, and then, Mando is there in front of you, staring at you with his helmet on, covered in blood—“Don’t look at me, stay away, I—”

Gasps pull into your throat over and over, and it’s too much air and not enough all at once.

Then you feel it. The glass. It’s falling out of your back, coming from your flesh like it was made there, scattering around you in the grass and into the mud and over your skin—

You wake with a gasp.

Or, maybe you don’t.

Either way, you’re not in that field anymore. Instead, you’re lying on your side, staring at a metal wall. There’s a bright light above you. Not the sun. It’s white, harsh.

“Can you hear me?” A familiar voice says. You frown, trying to place it. Then he comes into view, the doctor from earlier, peering down to look at you. “It’s alright. You’re just coming around from some anaesthesia. Can you hear me?”

You nod. The movement stretches the muscles in your neck, sends pain shooting down your back.

The scars. Your family. They—it’s the day it happened—

No. You’re not there. You’re at Boba Fett’s home.

“I hear you,” you manage to say. “What happened to me? Why am I—why can’t I—”

“You’ve got injuries on your back and your right arm,” he tells you softly, pulling up a chair to sit by your bed so you can see him. “We had to place you on your left side. I understand it will be disorienting, but please, try not to move.”

Panic strikes your chest, but you do as he asks, staying still. It’s only because you know him from before that you don’t immediately suspect him of working for the enemy.

The enemy.

They found you.

“Grogu—Mando—are they—”

“Everyone is okay,” he assures you quickly. “No one was killed in the fight. Just some injuries.”

You look around as best you can, craning your neck despite the pain it sends through your nerves. You realise you’re in a private room, not the one that Din was in. It’s much smaller, dimmer.

The air is cold on your back. It matches the cold dread that hits you—a familiar feeling today, it would seem—when you realise that your back is bare. “I’m—what—what happened—”

“You fell through a window,” he explains, gently. “Mr Fett saved you from a concussive blast, but the window’s glass and metal framing injured you significantly. Some debris had to be surgically removed. Due to the…scarring on your back and arms already, some pieces were hard to remove, and many were too stubborn to be sutured.”

You screw your eyes shut. The scarring. The fucking scarring.

You’ve avoided it all these years. You don’t even look at yourself when you wash. You can’t remember the last time you properly looked at your arms, let alone turned around to look at your back in a mirror, looked down at your stomach.

And now, you’ve been scarred again. And you’re bare here in this room. Whoever treated you has seen you. All of you.

“Where’s…where’s Mando?” You ask, not daring to open your eyes.

“He’s just outside,” the doctor says.

“He got up?”

“He was there, when you were injured.”

Your eyes fly open. “What?”

He smiles just a little, shaking his head in disapproval. “It seems he’d tried to follow you into the entryway,” he says, “but didn’t get there in time.”

A heavy exhale slips past your lips. Your throat is raw. You remember, then, the way you’d screamed. The excruciating pain that went right into your spine, down every nerve. “Am I on painkillers?”

“Very much so,” he nods. “We kept you under until they started working. I…should tell you, ma’am, that your injuries are quite significant. It will take a while for you to recover, and you’ll need to be on medication for some time. Fett has offered use of the bacta tank, but we will need to get you more stable before that will be an option.”

Your mind is reeling, racing. All you want is to see Din, to see Grogu. To hold their hands and know they’re there and hear their voices.

But your skin. It’s on show. Some is bandaged up, but you still look a mess.

The kid alone would be traumatised by the sight of you, even if your existing scars weren’t bad enough. You can’t do that to him.

“I don’t want you to worry,” the doctor says softly. “Mr Fett has assured me that the threat has been neutralised, and security has been tripled. Not to mention the Mandalorian outside who hasn’t dropped his blaster since it happened.”

You almost smile at that. If you weren’t in so much pain, and at war with yourself over if you can handle seeing him or not, you’d smile.

“He’s been asking to see you,” the doctor says. “But…before we took you in for surgery, you were…talking.”

“I was?” You have no memory of it.

“You…didn’t want anyone near you.”

“…Even Mando?”

“It would seem so, yes.”

Oh, shit. The words you said in your dream weren’t just in the dream.

“He very much wants to come and see you. I…told him I’d ask your permission first.”

You screw your eyes shut. Guilt hangs heavy in your chest. You know that if the roles were reversed, you’d be fighting everyone who dared to stand in between you and Din. Hell, the roles were reversed just earlier today.

“You’re all bandaged up,” the doctor says carefully, sounding like he’s dancing around the topic of the aforementioned scarring, that he and the other doctors have not only seen, but had to operate through. “I can pull the blanket over you, if that will help.”

Kriff. He knows why you don’t want Din in here.

“Did he hear?” You ask, keeping your eyes closed as though that’ll keep all of this darkness away. “When I said I didn’t want him to see me?”

“I’m not sure.”

You’re surprised he hasn’t fought his way in here, actually; just barrelled right through everyone in his way. Though, if he heard that it was truly your wish to not have anyone near you, he’s probably respecting that over anything else. Despite the fact that he’s probably desperate to see you, as you would be him.

“He gave me this,” the doctor says into the heavy quiet.

You open one eye and see his hand in front of you, holding the commlink that Din gave you the day you took off with them. You stare at it. The doctor doesn’t need to say anything else. There’s a light blinking on the comm, signalling that someone is trying to get through it to talk. Tears hang in your throat and you don’t have the strength to swallow them down.

Despite the painkillers, your back and arm are throbbing, stinging, and aching. Your skin is covered with bandages, but there are still parts of your back exposed to the air, your wrist and upper arm out in the open for everyone to fucking see. You can’t even look down at yourself. You know that some scars will be visible. And, even those that aren’t, you’re still a mess. Wounded, bandaged up, lying here unable to move or roll over or cover yourself without it hurting. Just like you were back then.

“I can’t see him,” you find yourself whispering as a tear falls onto your cheek, sliding down to the pillow.

“He said he just wants to talk to you,” the doctor says softly. He’s still holding out the commlink. “We have more to discuss regarding your injuries, but I think seeing, or even just talking to, someone you care for will help your morale. I can give you a moment alone, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

You look at the commlink. To the doctor. Close your eyes.

You’re in pain. Your entire body feels like it’s on fire. You feel trapped, caught, and worst of all—hideous.

But you need to hear his voice.

With a trembling, weak hand, you reach out and take the commlink, grasping it in your fist. You tuck it up in front of your chest, hold it to your lips.

The doctor gives you a sympathetic smile. As he stands, he says, “I’ll be back soon. If you want to let him in, just tell me through the commlink. But you don’t have to.”

You give him a shaky nod before your eyes are closed again, and you wait until his footsteps have gone and the door is closing behind him before taking a long, deep breath.

You press the transmit button.

Your voice is thin and reedy, see-through like wet paper, ready to fall apart with the next tear that falls. You’re trying so hard to stop yourself from crying, even though the tears are forcing past your defences. “Mando?”

“Cyar’ika?”

The sound of his voice sends a rush of relief through you. “Hey,” you manage, weak.

“Hey, I—are you alright? How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been chewed up, digested, and shit out by a bantha,” you close your eyes in your best attempt to hold yourself together. Your throat hurts from the effort. Your hands are shaking. You hurt. It all hurts.

You just want to hold his hand.

“Sweetheart, can I…” his words fade. Through the distortion of his modulator and the commlink, you can only just tell that his voice is strained. When he speaks again, it’s just a whisper. “Can I see you?”

Even though he won’t see it, you shake your head vehemently. No words come that you can speak. You can’t say no. It feels like you’d be rejecting him.

“Cyar’ika,” he whispers, and you imagine him out in the hall, sitting down or standing against the wall, holding the commlink to his helmet and trying to speak quietly, keep the conversation just between you. Like it’s just you in the cockpit of the ship, in the middle of hyperspace where no one in the Galaxy can find you. “Why can’t I see you?”

A shuddering breath surprises you as it pulls into your lungs, loud and jarring. Tears release alongside it, a sob escaping your throat before you can stop it. “I—” you can’t, you can’t, you have to, he deserves to know—“You can’t see me like this,” you confess, a broken whisper. “I—I look…I can’t wear clothes right now. There are…parts of me you can see…I’m really injured, Mando, and I can’t…you don’t want to see me looking like this…”

“It’s more worrying to me when I can’t see you,” he says. “No matter how bad it is.”

You sob again. You press your fist against your mouth. Get it together.

“I understand not feeling ready to show me yourself,” he speaks again, this time even softer somehow, quieter, “I do. But—”

“You’ll be disgusted,” you manage to get out from behind gritted teeth, the effort of holding back every single sob that wants to wrack through your chest now hurting your wounds, spreading across your skin. “You’ve never—Mando, I’m scarred, okay? Not just from this. Before this, I am covered in scars. My family, they...” You don’t have the strength to hold back the truth from him anymore. If you’re not going to let him in to see you, he deserves to know why. Deserves to understand, to agree that he doesn’t want to see that, because why the fuck would he want to? How could he stand it? “It’ll work,” you breathe shakily.

“What will work, sweetheart?”

“What they did. My family. To make no one else want me. If you see me like this, with the scars they gave me, it’ll work.”

Silence.

Good, you think. He knows. He agrees.

But then, “There is nothing,” his voice is low, “you could ever show me about yourself that would make me want you less. That would change how much I—how I feel about you.”

Tears stream down your cheeks, salt pooling on the corners of your lips. Your eyes are screwed shut so hard that it hurts. Your back hurts, it’s on show, your scars both new and old, the most vulnerable parts of you…

“Please,” he whispers, all fuzzy and distorted through the comm, “let me be there for you. I promise, I won’t look at your wounds, any of them. I don’t need to see them. I just need to see you. Please.”

You’ve never heard him like this before.

Through the modulator and the soft buzz of the comm, you could swear it sounds like maybe he’s crying.

And the thought of that breaks your heart. Hearing him but not being near him is breaking your heart.

You think of the pain in your arm and back, feel the bandages. The shame that comes with every single scar; the shame you have carried for so many years, that will probably take the rest of your life to fade away. It certainly won’t be healed if, by some miracle, Din sees you and decides he still wants you. The shame is your own. It’s yours to work out. And you don’t see that ever happening.

But…

“Please,” he says again. “I just need to know you’re okay, Cyar’ika. I need to hold your hand, I need to tell you…” his voice chokes. “I thought I’d lost you today. Please, Cyar’ika. Gedet’ye.” The Mando’a falls from his tongue like a prayer, ged-et-yay. You don't know what it means, but you know he's pleading.

Another sob forces its way past your tear-soaked lips and onto your fist.

You don’t know at what point you decided.

In fact, you don’t even know if you have.

But still, the only word that you can form, “Okay.”

He’s there in less than a minute. You hear the familiar sound of his footsteps, heavy boots along the vinyl flooring. The door closes behind him and he’s limping hastily towards your bed, coming from behind you, which really just adds insult to injury—

You expect him to stop, to catch sight of your back and your arm and the fucking state of you and then turn and leave, but he doesn’t. He keeps coming closer, and soon he’s beside you, sitting in the chair that the doctor had been in.

You can’t open your eyes. Tears are pushing violently past your eyelids.

“Hey,” he says, so soft and worried and shaky. “Hey, sweetheart, I’m here. It’s just me.”

You know that. You know him, trust him. And yet you still can’t look.

Gently, his gloved hand reaches out, and eases your grip on the commlink. He carefully takes it from you, places it on the table by the bed, then replaces it with his hand, holding so tightly that you can feel his concern through the grip.

“Cyar’ika,” he says, his voice so close to you, “Kriff, sweetheart, I…you’re okay. You’re okay.” He breathes out, heavy and relieved.

One of your eyes cracks open. It’s blurred entirely by tears, but you can just about make out the outline of him, shiny silver beskar in the harsh, white light of the room. The sight of that alone is enough to open your eyes completely. Because he’s here.

Shit, fuck, kriff, he’s here. He’s not looking at your back, or even your arm, despite the fact it’s right in front of him, his hand holding yours. He’s just looking at you, at your face, hovering right in front of you as if he can’t ever look away from your eyes again.

“Hey, there you are,” he says softly and reaches out his other hand to brush pieces of hair from your face. They’re soaking wet, either from tears or sweat. Your pillow is soaking wet, come to think of it, and so are Din’s gloves now as he reaches out and wipes your tears away—

The dam breaks.

He’s here. He’s touching you. He’s looking at you with anything but disgust; even though you can’t see his face, you know that’s true.

Because it’s Din. You know him. He knows you.

A loud, harsh sob comes from your throat and hits the silence like a tank. It’s the first of many. The tears become too fast for Din to wipe away quick enough, so instead he leans in, puts his face right in front of yours, uses his spare hand to smooth over your hair. You cry, and cry, and cry, violent sobs wracking your chest, shaking your entire body.

Everything comes over you at once. The blackmailer from Coruscant, how you were going to leave Din and Grogu behind, then when Din found you and you confessed some of your darkest secrets to him. Every panic attack you’ve had since you escaped your old life, every moment that has been tainted in your memory because all you felt was fear. Din’s arms around you, his lips on your skin, how you wanted so badly to see him and let him see you but you couldn’t because of what they fucking did to you—

And then, today, Din getting injured and then the explosion, the ambush, your family’s people coming to get you no matter what they had to do. People fighting for you, Din fighting for you, even though you’ve given him every opportunity to say no and walk away, to decide you were too much—

And now your body is bleeding and scarred, and you’re never going to be the fucking same ever again.

Din lets you cry. You can’t let yourself think about how hard it must be for him. About how much you wish he could take his helmet off, kiss your forehead, hold you in the dark with no clothes separating you.

“I’m here,” he whispers as your loudest sobs begin to subside, quieting down to soft weeping, the tears still flowing just as freely. “It’s alright, Mesh’la. It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

Mesh’la.

Even now.

Even like this.

“Din,” you reach out for him suddenly, hand scrambling to find his shoulder. You just need him. Need him close, need him here.

“I’m here,” he says like a promise, “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

You don’t know when the crying stopped. When your body decided it was done shaking you with sobs so harsh that they drew dry wretches from the back of your throat.

But you’re just lying here now, feeling like you’re in a pool of your own tears.

Din wipes them away with his gloved hands. Then, his hands move from your face and your hair, and it’s only because you’ve got your hand against the cheek of his helmet that you feel him go to take it off, his hands clasping over each side—

Your eyes fly open. “Din,” you say, stopping him, “What are you doing?”

“I need to see you,” he admits, and his voice is so husky and strained and filled with tears—

“You can see me like this. I’m here. You don’t have to take your helmet off.”

“I—” he falters. “I…I want to kiss you. I can’t—I can’t let you lie here like this and just be sitting here like some kind of droid while you need me…”

“I’ve got you,” you promise him. “I know I’ve got you.”

“I want to,” even though he’s whispering, he sounds more sure of this than he ever has. “I want to. Just for a second. Just—just to touch you. To see you with my own eyes. For you to—to see me.”

“I don’t want the first time I see your face to be like this,” you whisper, bringing his hand to your lips to kiss his knuckles. He nods, understanding. “But I can do this.” Then you close your eyes. Because you’re only human. If Din Djarin wants to kiss you, you aren’t going to say no.

Moments later you hear the soft metal thunk of his helmet sitting on the floor.

Then, warmth. The smell of his skin, sweaty after everything that’s happened, so familiar and perfect and comforting. He presses his forehead to yours, strange at this angle where he’s upright and you’re on your side. He’s taken his gloves off, too, and it surprises you when he brushes the backs of his bare fingers down your sticky, tear-soaked cheek.

“Cyare,” he breathes, shah-ray.

“What’s that mean?”

He shakes his head. “Beloved.”

Oh.

Your heart lurches, warmth blooming beneath and around it. Your hand finds the back of his neck, his hair, its favourite place to be. He’s so warm. Sweaty. Lovely.

“I was promised a kiss,” you whisper into the space between you, earning a near-silent chuckle from him.

He shakes his head again, fond this time, and then fulfils his promise: presses his lips to yours, his nose pressing into the hollow of your cheek. It’s a strange angle, and you can’t really open your mouth for him. So with both of your lips closed, you just linger there for a long moment, tasting your own tears pressing against his lips. It’s maybe one of the chastest kisses you’ve ever shared with him, but there is nothing but passion in it. You can feel the wrinkles in his forehead, his frown against your brow. He’s breathing slowly, carefully, like he’s trying to drink you in with every second that passes.

Kriff, you’re so grateful. That you get to have him like this. That this is something he wants as much as you do.

You’re probably never going to get used to that.

When he pulls away, he presses your foreheads together again, strokes his finger over the curve of your neck. “I want you,” he tells you. “All of you. No matter what.” It’s not suggestive, sultry. It’s a statement. It’s, I want you all the time.

Your heart hurts with the weight of it. It pulls on your scars, fresh wounds and old ones. More tears start to sting in your eyes, and you don’t have the energy to cry again, so you just kiss him instead of letting the incredible meaning of those words hit you any longer.

“Once you’re feeling up to moving around more, bacta is an option, if you feel comfortable,” the doctor—who you’ve only just learned is called Dr Garidan—tells you, standing at your bedside, right next to Din who’s still in the chair with his helmet back on. He hasn’t left since he came in hours ago. It’s the middle of the night.

“Did the debris hit any bone, or…her spine?” Din asks, not looking away from you.

Garidan glances at him like he’d forgotten he was there, then back to you, seeming uncertain. “I’m sorry, I should have said. I…will need you to step out for a moment, Mr Mandalorian, sir. I can’t give out information…”

“It’s alright,” you assure him, smiling tiredly. Exhaustion is weighing down every inch of you, your back and arm throbbing so much that it’s becoming simply annoying as well as painful. “He can hear it.”

“Alright, then. Well, nothing hit the spine, though it came close. One piece of metal did graze the shoulder bone, not quite fracturing it.” He gestures to the bandage brace you have wrapped around your shoulder that’s keeping your arm nice and steady.

“How long will it take to heal?” Din asks, and you’re honestly grateful Din is asking these questions for you; you’d been too scared to ask them yourself.

The look on Garidan’s face is not exactly comforting; he’s clutching his clipboard again, propping it against his stomach, and though he tries to hide it, he looks rueful. Bad news is written all over him. “…Many of the fragments went deep, as you know, hence the need for surgery. That, combined with all the damage to the skin that the smaller fragments caused, could mean that it takes months before the skin repairs itself.”

Your heart sinks into your stomach. You close your eyes, whisper, “How…how much damage is there?”

He hesitates. “A lot,” he says, soft. “Some parts of your arm nearly required skin grafts. If it doesn’t heal over on its own, then that will be the only option.”

Oh, fuck.

Tears are stinging at your eyes again. You’re so fucking tired. Your entire body is throbbing. You can’t deal with this right now. Skin grafts? Things not healing on their own? As if you weren’t already mutilated enough.

“Can we let her rest?” Din requests, sounding tired, too, but almost like it’s on your behalf. “Talk about this later?”

“No, it’s okay,” you force yourself to open your eyes again and look back up at Garidan, who looks genuinely sorry for all of this. “I want to know. Just get it out the way.”

He gives you a grateful, apologetic smile. “The good news is, if you spend some time in the bacta tank, the chances of healing on your own go up to around ninety percent. Not only will it help to fight off any infection, it will also give your skin the boost it needs to heal over those patches where it's been damaged or removed.”

Fucking hell. The window fucking removed your skin. It’s amazing, in the worst way, that They managed to find a new way to hurt you, to scar you, to ruin any semblance of self esteem you might have had, without even touching you this time.

“I understand that use of the bacta tank is…tough for you. We can make sure that only one assistant is in there with you to help you, and I can assure you that they are only interested in your safety, not the extent of your scarring.”

You blow out a slow, shaky breath. Mando’s hand is still in yours, gloved again, and you can feel his eyes on you even through the visor. So familiar. Comforting, even though all you can think about is how he must be seeing you. About the idea of taking your clothes off, being put in a tank, watched, helped out and clothed by someone else.

“You can take some time to think about it,” Garidan assures you softly. “There is no rush. For now, you should get some sleep. I’m about to swap shifts with my colleague, but don’t worry, you’ll be in good hands. How is your pain?”

“Fucking terrible,” you answer honestly as a tear slips down your cheek. You can’t wipe it away, your arm too sore, too restricted.

Din reaches out, wipes it away for you, and leaves his hand on top of your head, stroking his thumb over your hair.

Garidan leans over to the controller for your IV, and presses a couple of buttons. The beeping is loud in the quiet of the room. “There,” he says, “I’ve upped your painkillers for a few hours. That should help you get some sleep.”

“Thank you,” you say, giving him a weak smile. “For everything.”

“Of course. Hang in there. I’ll see you at noon when I’m back in.”

Nodding, you and Din watch while Garidan heads out, closes the door softly behind him.

You turn to Din. “Where’s Grogu?”

“He’s being looked after,” Din assures you.

“Does he know…?”

“That you’re injured?”

Dread hitting you at the idea, you nod.

“He does. He doesn’t know how serious it is; I told him that you needed to sleep, like he does after he uses his powers.”

“Kid’s been through enough already,” tears are still falling from your eyes, and they just won’t stop, even though you don’t really feel like you’re crying. “He doesn’t need this on top of everything.” Neither do you, you don’t say.

Din shakes his head, swiping his gloved thumb over some tears on your cheekbone. “He’s okay, I promise. He wants to see you, of course, but he knows he’s safe and that we aren’t far.”

You nod. Your eyes fall closed, and you nuzzle the side of your face into Din’s hand, pressing a kiss to his palm. “’M glad you’re here,” you murmur as a sudden wave of sleepiness washes over you, the painful throbbing in every single wound starting to dull. Painkillers. Great things.

“Me, too,” he agrees. “Thank you. For trusting me.”

You’re still nodding, because it feels a bit like it’s lulling you to sleep, like Din is rocking you back and forth. You push into his hand, then pull it right up to your mouth, snuggling his forearm into your chest. It’s probably uncomfortable for him. If you weren’t rapidly falling into a drug-induced sleep, you’d tell him he doesn’t have to stay, that he can go and sleep in the actual bedroom you have upstairs, in the proper bed.

But he’s here, and you need him here. That’s all you can think about. If you could, you’d pull him into the bed, and hold him.

“For the record,” Din says, so soft and quiet that you could be imagining it as you tumble towards sleep, “you look just as beautiful as ever.”

Maybe you don’t literally fall asleep with a smile, but it feels like you do.

notes: apologies again for the wait, but i hope it was worth it! thank you for all your comments on the last chapter, and also for the birthday and well wishes on my update post last week. i appreciate you all so much. thank you for being here, for reading, for letting me know your thoughts, and for enjoying this story as much as i am ❤️ as always your comments help more than you know. all the love, always. xo

Mando'a translation:

Gedet'ye - Please

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kaysfanficcorner · 2 years

Text

Out of This World Chapter 2: Getting to Know You

Author’s Note: Hey all! Welcome to chapter two. Thank you to everyone who read chapter one! I’ve been excited to share this, so I hope your enjoy!

Summary: The Mandalorian and his new shipmate make their way to a few planets as he hunts for quarries. In the meantime, they start to slowly get to know more about each other and conflicting feelings arise.

Pairing: Din Djarin X Female Earthling Reader

Warnings: Light sexual tension. Light reference to masterbation. Cursing. This story is eventually going to have NSFW scenes so please no one under 18 interact. If you are under age, you are prohibited from this work of fiction.

AO3

*****

It takes a few weeks for things to fall into a comfortable routine around the Razor Crest, and for you to get your “space legs” as you like to call it. Being a nanny to the child quickly becomes a second nature to you. You’ve started to learn his moods, his habits, what makes him giggle or cry. You spend your days catering to the baby’s every whim, and you’re absolutely in heaven. He’s a curious little boy and if you’re not watching him all the time he tends to get himself into mischief, yet even so you can’t help but feel he’s one of the very best children you’ve ever been hired to watch. Perhaps you’re biased because of how stinking cute he really is, but he’s genuinely just a sweet little being in need of the same love and attention that any child of any species needs in order to grow up happily.

The Mandalorian turns out to have more of a personality under that helmet of his than you’d originally expected him to, and he’s more of a hands on father than you’re used to dealing with. Most of the kids you’ve watched in the past came from slightly toxic homes, much like the one you grew up in, and you’ve usually been the one responsible for fulfilling those absent parental needs where you were able.

The Mandalorian, however, spends every moment that he’s not flying the ship, using the fresher, hunting, or sleeping, to try and pay any attention he can to the kid. He may not know what he’s doing sometimes, but it’s undeniable that Mando is a really good foster dad. He truly has the natural instincts of a father.

So far, there’s been a single stop on one planet for Mando to hunt the first quarry on his list. The hunt only takes three days, but the planet is deemed entirely too dangerous for you and the kid to be left without supervision, so the two of you stay behind with Jupiter on the tightly locked up Razor Crest.

From your view of it up in the cockpit, you can see that the sky of this planet is a swirling mixture of navy blue and bright purple, even during the day. At night there are not one, but four moons. One of which is so close to the planet itself, that a majority of the lower half of the sky is taken up by its cratered, blue-green surface. It’s truly a sight to behold for your Earthling mind. Aside from that, the forest of dark blue, almost black piney looking trees is relatively quiet aside from the odd looking bird or animal that passes by.

You only go slightly stir crazy in that seventy-two hours. You and the kid try your best to patiently wait for the bounty hunter to return, but the little guy gets somewhat restless without the presence of his dad and you miss having another adult to talk to. Eventually you do manage to learn that the kid likes your taste in music, and that he’s completely enthralled by it when you do yoga. He even learns to mimic a few of the easier poses, which is probably one of the cutest things you’ve ever seen.

His big eyes closed as he sticks his arms out in warrior pose, is a sight to behold.

“Mental note,” you say to yourself out loud as you fiddle around with painting your nails at the beginning of the third day, “get Mando to bring us some arts and crafts supplies. Maybe the kid would like making things.”

In the background, a soft techno song is playing and the kid is bobbing his little head to the beat while the cat tries to knock a few things over.

Once the Mandalorian does return a few hours later, slightly bloodied but no worse for wear, you finally get to learn what carbonite is. He shows you how he freezes the bounty alive in a block of the gross looking stuff. The poor bith, a bug-like creature to say the least, is stuck with a look of terror in its gigantic eyes. This process can apparently cause hibernation sickness which results in weakness, dehydration, dizziness, memory loss, and temporary blindness.

“That’s horrifying,” you emphasize with a hand on your chest. The kid, who is cradled in your other arm, apparently disagrees and practically claps his hands at the foggy sight of the freezing process.

“Beats having to make conversation with a criminal,” Mando responds with a small shrug, “the ones I bring in warm usually never shut up.”

Mando shows you that he brought back a fair amount of fresh food from the local market just as you’d requested. Several exotic fruits and vegetables you’ve never seen before but are excited to try. One fruit in particular seems the most enticing, mostly because Mando tells you it’s one of his personal favorites. He also informs you that he asked around about any sort of black hole phenomenon, but was mostly met with incredulity from the locals.

After getting cleaned up and changing his clothes, the Mandalorian allows you a few hours on the outside of the ship so you and the kid can get some fresh air while charging the iPad. The bounty hunter sits with his back against a tree trunk as he keeps a close eye on your attempt to get the kid to exert some of his energy, but after awhile you’re willing to bet that Mando falls asleep for about forty minutes.

When he eventually wakes up, he stands and makes his way over to where you’re laying in the grass with the kid sleeping on your stomach.

“Hey,” you say with a smile up at him. The sunlight bounces off of his helmet and blinds you for a moment before his head moves to block the sun from your eyes entirely.

“Hi,” he says back, holding a hand out to you, “Let him rest for a little while and let me show you something.”

Careful not to wake him, you gently move the baby off of you and take the offered hand. He pulls you up with ease, as if you weigh the same as the kid, and that’s the first time you realize how strong he really is.

Then he hands you a blaster. You look down at it with skepticism, before looking back up to the man with curious eyes.

He answers your unspoken question, “I’d like to teach you how to use this. For now, I want to see how well you can shoot. We’re going to start off easy and work our way up from there. When we have some down time later, I’d also like to teach you how to properly clean it and care for it. These weapons are useful, but if you don’t know your way around it then you’re just endangering yourself and others. Do you understand?”

You nod, wanting to take this new level of trust that he’s extending to you very seriously. “I understand. Thank you for trusting me.”

He nods in return, “Try not to make me regret it. Hold the blaster how you think you should and show me your stance.”

You’ve never shot a firearm before, so after pulling from your memories of what you’ve seen in action movies, you spread your legs slightly and hold it out in front of you with both hands. Your right hand is holding the blaster itself, with your finger on the trigger, and your left hand is steadying your arm.

The Mandalorian makes a clicking sound with his tongue, “Not terrible, honestly. But you need to fix your footing. Like this.”

He shows you with his own feet and you mimic him. When he’s pleased with how you look, he comes to move behind you. His body is so close to yours that it’s distracting, but you try to focus as he keeps going. Your insides are squirming feeling him this near to you.

“You never want your finger on the trigger unless you’re about to take the shot. Keep it elongated down the side, so you can slip the finger in an pull the trigger in a moments notice.” As he says this and you comply, his arms circle around you and he adjusts your elbows slightly.

Your hands begin to sweat horribly.

“Much better,” he says, taking a few steps back to observe you. You miss the physical presence of him as soon as it’s gone.

“So not a lost cause?” You ask, trying your best to hold the pose he left you in.

“Not a lost cause,” he agrees, “Why don’t you try firing at that tree?” He points to one that’s a few yards away.

You slip your finger into the trigger and pull. There’s a soft click but nothing happens. “Did I mess this up already?” You ask.

“No, I wanted to see if you would remember that the safety is on.” He replies, there’s a hint of a smirk in his voice and you narrow your eyes at him.

“That was a cheap trick,” you say with a huff. It feels slightly like he’s picking on you and your shoulders slump a little.

“I didn’t meant anything by it, I just wanted to test you. There’s no harm in having a gap in your knowledge. All that matters is the willingness to expand it.” He shows you how to turn the safety off, and steps back again. “Sorry, I wont do that again.”

“I forgive you,” you reply with a little more confidence in your voice and you take the shot. A bright blast of red goes flying into the thick woods and you watch as it disappears into the tree line.

“Try again, you can go until you make the shot. Don’t hold your breath and keep both eyes open.” He moves to lean against the tree a few yards away from you so he can keep an eye on both you and the sleeping kid.

About fifteen minutes later, you hit the tree trunk dead on. A cheer erupts from you and you do a little victory dance. You’re sure you can hear a low chuckle coming from within the beskar of Mando’s helmet, and he claps his hands in applause.

“Congratulations,” he says, “You’ll be taking down Storm Troopers in no time.”

You turn the safety back on and look at him with a raised eyebrow, “What’s a Storm Trooper?”

*****

It’s probably another few weeks of space travel, with the occasional fuel stop at a star port and a trip to an aquatic planet for another quarry, before you’re finally ready to admit to yourself just how attracted to the Mandalorian you really are. There’s no use in denying it. You felt the initial spark of attraction for him when you’d met on Nevarro, and that fire has only burned brighter every day that you’ve lived on his ship and nannied his child. Will you act on this attraction? That’s an entirely different matter all together. It’s one thing to harbor a crush, its another to act drastically just because you’re a horny mess around him and it only seems to be getting worse.

You’re attracted to a man who you cannot, and will very likely never, look into the eyes of. A man you can’t actually see, nor do you know his age or true name. What a trip.

At first you try to chalk it up to cabin fever, to being cooped up inside with only him, the baby, and the cat. Then he’ll go and do something like clean his blaster in front of you or polish the jet pack, and the sight of the cosmic gunslinger sends thrills of need through your deprived core.

The things that his lovely baritone voice can do to your body should be considered sacrilegious in every imaginable sense of the word. He’ll suddenly break a comfortable silence between you to ask you if the kid’s taken a nap yet that day or a random question about Earth, and its enough to make your mouth begin water before you’re able to answer. Enough to make you have to bite down on your left knuckles in order to prevent yourself from making obscene noises as you touch yourself later on that night in the fresher, imagining all of the dirty, depraved things you’d like to hear that voice of his whisper in your ear.

Your natural scent has pretty much taken over the cot at this point, but that first glorious week of sleeping on the ship had been insatiable. The smell of him had been on every inch of the thing. As far as you’re concerned, the sweaty, natural musk of the Mandalorian could be bottled up and sold by Gucci himself and no one would ever question it. It’s a heavenly aroma to say the least.

His persona is strong and masculine on the surface, which is initially what attracts you to him in the first place. There is another part of him though, one you’re slowly getting to see more and more of during your time together. It’s this slightly more relaxed side that only comes out when its just your little group whirling through hyperspace, that’s what is truly starting to do you in.

The only way you can really describe it, is that he’s gotten used to you being around enough that he’s begun to let his guard down a little in front of you. Not by much, but enough for you to notice.

His shoulders will flex beneath the armor as he reaches his arms up over his head to stretch mindlessly, sometimes a yawn escaping through the modulator. He’ll curse more in front of you if the kid’s not around. Words you understand, and some you don’t at all. The tone of a curse being unmistakable behind the odd phrases regardless. You’ll catch him sitting up in the cockpit every now and then, allowing Jupiter to sleep in his lap while he flies the ship. He seems to like her just as much as she likes him, or at the very least he doesn’t push her down when she jumps up to rub her head lovingly into his chest or knead at his armor plated thighs.

When he’d laughed at your joke back on Nevarro? That had only been the beginning. Mando doesn’t crack many jokes of his own, but this doesn’t stop him from chuckling at most of yours. His sense of humor is hidden under that helmet somewhere, and nothing makes you feel more accomplished than getting a miniature laugh out of him. It’s never a robust or boisterous sound, but low and hearty.

The kid will suddenly reach for Mando to hold him while in your arms and you’ll pass him over, the openly tender moments shared between unlikely foster father and son pulling effortlessly at your heartstrings. You’ve become endeared to this duo whether you’ve asked to be or not, and when Mando is in the room its all you can do not to act like a smiling, giddy mess.

The attraction you feel towards him is undeniable and strong, even without the luxury of being able to see his face. He could be the phantom of the opera inside that thing for all you know, but still the infatuation persists.

But above all else, you’re really starting to consider Mando to be your friend. That might be the most attractive thing about him.

Trying to keep these desires and feelings shoved deep down is becoming the biggest struggle of all, though. The urge to reach out and brush a hand over his forearm will overpower you, and you’ll catch yourself a moment away from your fingers stretching out towards him before clenching your fist up tightly at your side. There are two sides of your personality endlessly battling your will to ignore him in every instance.

You’ve always been a hopeless romantic, never truly content to wade through life by yourself. In the past, on Earth, this never worked in your favor with the opposite sex. Every chance at romance a failed travesty. You constantly long for the comfort of another person’s body pressed tightly against yours. You yearn to have the affection and attention showered upon you which you rarely received as a child, but with the intention to return that affection tenfold. You wish to have a friend by your side to share your life with. You want a true partner, someone to take care of you as you take care of him. As a natural caregiver from a broken home, you’ve always longed to have a family you can nurture and love freely as your own. A family entirely of your making, comprised of people you trust and respect.

Apparently for most guys this had been “too much”, leaving you to float in and out of uncomfortable situations with foolish men not worth half of your time. Not even sexually.

Embarrassingly, you’ve never slept with anyone who had the ability to make you reach an orgasm. You used to blame yourself, thinking that your self-consciousness was causing your body to freeze up in the presence of another. But as the years went on and your confidence in the bedroom grew, you’ve still never found a partner to achieve this triumph over your body. Because of this, you’ve also never been able to create a deep enough sexual connection with another person for any relationships to even stand a chance. Sex is one of your favorite things in the world, but you’ve never actually been able to enjoy it in the way you need to most.

You can’t help but think that Mando knows his way around a woman’s body, and your secret, almost nightly fantasies of him finally fixing this long standing problem for you are absolutely maddening.

And so the two sides of you wage war with one another daily. Some days you just want the Mandalorian to throw you up against the ship’s wall and fuck you until you don’t know your own name, and others you find yourself thinking that you want two of you to take the kid for a nice scenic hike should you stop on a good planet for it. You walk a very fine line between debaucherous wretch and hopeless romantic.

The fact remains, however, that you are still completely out of place in this galaxy. Your eventual departure and the eventual departure of the kid are the two main reasons that you usually force this silly, frivolous way of thinking aside. Both of you are temporary passengers on Mando’s ship, and you know that you’re already in far too deep with how attached you are to the kid. The day he leaves the Razor Crest, should that happen during your time on it, will very likely rip your heart completely in half. And you know damn well you will be just as broken-hearted if you are the one to leave first. Odds are things are bound to go back to normal for everyone on board the ship at some point, and getting attached to the Mandalorian on top of it is only asking for more trouble than you think you’re prepared to handle.

This, on top of the fact that he’s very clearly a private person to begin with, is why you stop yourself every single time you feel the urge to ask him something about himself. No matter how badly your curiosity wants to take over, you shove it deep down inside just like the rest of your infatuation with him. Besides, its not like he’d be able to answer questions like, “Hey Mando, what’s your favorite pizza topping?” The bounty hunter wouldn’t know what a pizza was if you made one for him yourself in the poor excuse of a galley.

Fuck. Now you could kill for a pizza.

*****

Similarly, Din is harboring struggles of his own behind that beskar helmet of his. Particularly in regards to the fact that you don’t ask him anything about himself. Ever. You are quite literally the most curious person Din has ever met, asking him various questions almost daily.

“How does the hyperdrive actually work?”

“Hey Mando, is the next quarry a human or some other kind of species?”

“What did this one do to end up with on a bounty on him?”

“Mando, what planet in this galaxy has the most moons? Mine only had one. It’s so cool to see multiple moons in the night sky like on that first planet. I’d love to see like six all at once.”

“What language do they speak here?”

Din is always willing to answer you, never once denying you the information you seek about the galaxy you now reside in. He never talks down to you or tries to make you feel foolish for asking, but instead tries to explain what he can to the best of his ability. The galaxy can be dangerous, life in space can be dangerous, and the more you know about your surroundings, the less Din needs to worry about you getting yourself into trouble.

One would think that this eventually gets old for Din Djarin, but it’s quite the contrary. It should annoy him. Really, it should. Yet it doesn’t. Your questions don’t pester him in the slightest. He enjoys answering you, getting to share his knowledge of the universe with you. It’s never a constant thing, and you never bombard him with too much of it all at once. Your queries are never anything other than thoughtful, drawing from a place of respect.

It usually only happens when you come across something you genuinely don’t understand, when you’ll look up at Din with those big, bright eyes filled with mystified splendor. He’s powerless not to answer you when you look at him like that. Din can’t help but find you beautiful, your sense of childlike wonder adding an extra layer of softness to your already impossibly exquisite features. It’s that same childlike wonder that also allows Din to see things that he’s always taken for granted in a new light.

He is not without questions of his own, however. Whenever you say, do, or wear something from your home world, Din cannot help but ask you about it. This planet, this Earth, you’re from seems to be just about the strangest place in the universe, and Din has seen some strange things in his heyday. The cultural differences alone are beyond him, let alone the primitive technology he’s seen you tote around the ship connected by a short wire to little white buds in your ears which you call “headphones”. He’s still getting used to the way you speak, the odd phrases you constantly spout off, but you’re usually able to get your point across to him. Din’s own growing curiosity about you is beginning to be somewhat uncontrollable.

Din is starting to consider you a friend worth getting to know.

Which is why it bothers him once he starts to realize that the one thing you’ve never asked him a single question about is himself. He’s not stupid, it doesn’t take long for him to figure it out. He’s even sure he’s caught you stop yourself from saying something to him on more than one occasion, and its nagged at him for several days after.

He knows how thankful he should be that you’ve never once pried into his personal life, but for whatever reason Din wants you to pry. Even though Din is ever the sensible and logical man, and he knows that it shouldn’t effect him in the slightest, it really, truly bothers him. Drives him slightly crazy, even. You’ve lived on the ship for a full month now, and still you ask about every kriffing thing in the galaxy besides him.

Din lets this whole thing go for another few weeks, as long as he possibly can, until he finally decides to stop driving himself mad and just put an end to it once and for all.

But in the meantime, his attraction to you grows.

The Way has no restrictions on sensuality despite the popular opinion of most beings. It’s simply seen by his people as a means to an end. A necessary aspect of life that, if not properly addressed, causes distraction and sloppiness. Both things that a warrior cannot afford, for his or her very life depends on the ability to focus in the face of battle.

Though the culture heavily consists of foundlings and there is very little need to procreate, most adult Mandalorians do eventually take another Mandalorian as a mate. If not simply as a way to deal with these natural urges effectively and for companionship. Din did have an adolescent fixation with one of the older girls in The Tribe, early on in his days with the Mandalorians, but even that had been fleeting. There is no denying that Mandalorian women are all beautiful in their own right. Strong, independent women whom Din would trust in battle without a second thought.

Hypocritically and embarrassingly, however, Din has never been able to bring himself to be attracted to another Mandalorian enough to see past the beskar helmet. This fact has always caused a deep sense of guilt within him, and a small amount of shame. It should be considered to be an honor to have a woman of such caliber at his side, but that’s not what Din most craves late at night when he’s taking care of himself in private.

No, Din wants to see gorgeous, thick hair that his fingers can get tangled in. He wants to see beautiful, lust filled eyes looking up at him with need. Those same eyes slipping closed as breathtaking facial features contort in moments of pure ecstasy brought on by his touch and his alone. Din doesn’t want the rough hands of a warrior on his bare skin, but the gentle and comforting caress of silky, delicate fingers. Soft lips grazing his neck.

Din also secretly craves to be completely nurtured by someone, to be taken care of in a way that he never has before.

Mandalorian women cannot provide these things for Din, and he cannot expect someone to be only ever be attracted to his helmet if he can’t find one attractive on someone else. He can’t even provide a potential partner with a kiss, one the simplest pleasures in the galaxy. Din’s lips have not touched another person’s flesh since he swore the oath and placed the beskar upon his young head. He’s not even sure he remembers how to do it. This is one of the many things that has always gotten in the way when it comes to women, so in recent years he’s resolved to not even bother anymore. Din Djarin is prepared to go it alone until the bitter end.

When your eyes meet his though? Even with a barrier of beskar between the two of you, the way you look up at him with such admiration in your eyes throws him for a loop nearly every time. That old way of thinking begins to melt away. Perhaps Din doesn’t want to go it alone, not all the time at least.

But... you’re inevitably going to leave. If you can find a way back to your bizarre home planet, you’re going to go and Din will likely never see you again. Just like the kid will leave him one day too. So he resolves to shove his growing desire for you so far down that he cannot feel it anymore. He’s convinced himself that he can be numb to it just like all the other times he’s had to be, until he eventually forgets about it all together and moves on with his miserable life.

*****

It’s another normal, uneventful evening in space. You’re sitting on an overturned crate, bouncing the kid up and down on one knee while Din is preparing something to eat for the three of you. This has been the unspoken evening ritual for the better part of your time on the ship, since the evening when you happened to walk in on Din attempting to keep the kid and the cat from playing too roughly with one another on top of trying to make food. He’d been obviously flustered and overwhelmed by the situation, but wouldn’t ask you for help. So you had just scooped the kid up, stroked the cat on the head, and silently pulled up a crate. He’s never once requested it, but you’ve done it every single night since.

Both of you secretly love this routine. In fact, if he is to be completely honest with himself, its Din’s favorite part of the day. Cooking a hot meal for the group a is such a simple thing, but more and more it begins to feel so... domestic. More domestic than anything Din has experienced since being a child, well before he became a foundling and subsequently a Mandalorian. It dredges up very early, blurry memories of Din on his own father’s knee while his mother makes their supper. The roles are reversed here, but the sight of his foster son sitting happily in your lap as he fixes dinner is enough to create a steady warmth to grow beneath his beskar chest plate, and he’s beginning to have a hard time trying to push it away.

As for you, at first this had been frustrating. On Earth you considered yourself to be an excellent cook, but out in the galaxy you have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to food. You miss Earth food a great deal, but its undeniable that Mando is culinarily talented. Even with the meager ingredients he’s able to pull together, he somehow always manages to come up with something far more delicious than anything you’ve been able to pull off. The kid also seems to agree, usually trying to clamber his way up to sneak more servings for himself even if he’s already had several to begin with. Food could have easily been a necessity for survival, not something Mando ever sought to take pleasure out of. You’re immensely glad that’s not the way he sees it. Usually your mouth waters at the mere thought of his cooking.

On this particular evening, you’re standing next to the Mandalorian rather than sitting on your crate. The kid is being bounced on your hip with the little silver ball he likes to steal from the cockpit. Mando has pretty much given up on taking it away at this point. The kid is holding it up to show it to his father, while saying something he clearly feels very strongly about in his nonsensical language of bubbling toddler-speak.

Din’s head tilts down from watching you bounce the child, to watch his son “talk” to him instead.

“Really?” Din says genuinely down to him in response, making an exaggerated face in spite of the kid not actually being able to see it, “You don’t say.” The little green boy smiles and coos back in delight. Din enjoys this mindless baby banter, but finds himself wondering out loud, “I wonder when you’re going to start talking, kid. It’d be nice to know what you’re saying one of these days.”

“How old is he anyway?” You ask, not looking up from the baby wiggling around in your arms.

Din responds immediately, almost casually, “He’s 50 years old. That’s why I took the bounty on him in the first place, I had no idea he was a kid.”

You turn your head up so fast that you’re sure you hear a bone in your neck crack, “50?! How is that even possible?” Your eyes scan over the tiny green thing and you can’t possibly fathom it.

“His species lives a lot longer than ours. He’s still considered to be an infant regardless of his age. This little womp rat here will probably live to be hundreds of years old,” Din explains, gently poking a finger on the child’s head.

You laugh then, shaking your head back down to the child on your hip. “And you can’t talk yet, nor can you wipe your own ass? You’re lucky you’re so adorable, little green bean.”

As Mando turns back to put the finishing touches on the meal, you keep your head tilted so that you can look at him from the corner of your eye. It isn’t lost on you that he’d called it “our” species, referring to the both of you being human. In a rare moment of feeling cocksure, you suddenly say, “So you’re a human under there after all, huh Mando?”

Din’s head jerks over to look at you, his eyebrows raising beneath the helmet. Still not really a proper question about him, but it’s formed enough like one to get his attention.

“What species did you think I was?” He counters seriously.

“That was a joke,” you say, suddenly feeling awkward. You worry that you’ve irritated him now, so your attitude becomes slightly dismissive as you turn to face away from him. “I figured you’re human, or at least humanoid. You’ve got five fingers on each hand,” you say nothing more on the subject.

Because your back is to him, Din’s eyes cannot help but land on your nice, firm backside. Truth be told... his eyes, deep brown and lusty beneath the beskar, do that a lot more than he’d readily admit. You’re wearing a black pair of what you’d once called “yoga pants” and they are... distracting to say the least.

Din curses lowly under his breath, vexed with your reluctance to talk to him about himself. He starts to play into it like he always does, pushing his irritation to the side and letting it go, telling himself its ultimately for the best not to get too close. But then you shift your footing and he watches as your ass shifts with it, rippling over to the left with the lightest of jiggles. Something within him shifts as well, and Din decides right then and there to just get the hell on with it. He sets the cooking utensils down and reduces the heat, before moving towards you.

You’re fully aware of every movement behind you without needing to turn around. You can sense Mando turning the heat on the food down before coming towards you. When you feel the height of him just a foot or so behind you, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The warm sensation returns low down in your belly, and your palms begin to moisten slightly. You’re not sure whether to face him or not. Deciding on the latter, you keep your back to him.

His modulated voice hovers about six or so inches above your head, “Why is it that you never ask me anything?”

That warmth in your belly becomes a steady heat at the sound of his voice. Squashing that down as best as you can, you sit the kid down on the floor and spin back around to face him. You’re very used to speaking to the helmet by now, and you see yourself raise an eyebrow in its reflective surface. You’d heard the way he’d asked it, but you decide to play dumb, “I ask you stuff all the time, Mando. I just asked about the kid a second ago! Sometimes I worry that it’s actually annoying.”

“If it was constant it would be,” he says honestly, head tilting ever so slightly to the right as his forearms cross just over his abdomen. “But, no. Not annoying. I know how... different this galaxy is for you, and it is a dangerous place. The more you know, the less I have to worry about saving your ass from something you could have prevented yourself.”

That head tilt to the right is most certainly a sign of him smirking under there, you’re willing to bet your Bowie t-shirt on it. And your knees wobble a little at the sound of his voice making a passing mention of your ass. If only he knew how deeply your depravity ran, of the things you’ve fantasized about him doing to your ass.

Face flushed, you force yourself to recover, “So what’s the deal then, chrome dome?”

He retorts evenly with, “You ask me about everything under the stars aside from, well, me. I’d like to know why.”

That’s not really what you’d expected at all, and it leaves you floored for a quick moment. So he noticed how hard you’d been trying to avoid that particular subject after all. You think about it earnestly before looking right in the visor, once again hitting your mark without even knowing it.

“You’re obviously a very private person,” you say, gesturing up to the helmet, “I may not understand that, but I can respect it. It would be wildly inappropriate for me to bombard you with personal questions. I’m your guest and since I may very well never find a way to make it back to my home world, I’d rather not overstay my welcome on this ship too quickly.”

Din’s head doesn’t move, but his shoulders soften slightly. “That’s...” he trails off, considering what he’s about to say next, “kind of you, to respect my privacy. I appreciate it, but you don’t have to be afraid to ask. You’re a curious woman, so I’m sure you have your questions. If you get too personal or if you do bother me too much at once, then I reserve the right not to answer you.”

You look up at him through thick lashes while your parted lips form into a small, shy grin. Din feels it then, something that had been long dormant within him before the day you came into his life. Pure, unadulterated, desire.

It stirs low inside of him like one of Nevarro’s lava pits, boiling steadily and beginning to crack at his once steely reserve. This is certainly not the first time a reaction like this has spurred within him, but this is by far some of the strongest attraction he’s ever felt towards another person. Din’s had a handful of encounters with women of various species over the years, and perhaps even felt a substantial sense of attraction to a few of them in his younger days, but never anything nearly so powerful as the aching, desperate need he feels when he looks down at you.

Then you reach your hand out towards him, towards the beskar pauldron on his right shoulder and your mouth opens as if to begin speaking. He quickly assumes that you’re about to ask him about the armor itself, what it’s made of. Technically still not an actual question about him. Downtrodden and genuinely disappointed, Din begins to prepare himself to begrudgingly explain the beskar to you, until you bypass the pauldron itself to trace a tentative finger over the signet there instead.

You delicately run the tip of your index finger over the mudhorn skull, looking up at him to meet the visor with that look of wonder Din is so powerless against. He might as well be tossed into a sarlacc pit right in that moment. He’s done for, even if he doesn’t realize it yet.

“What’s this represent?” You ask softly, running your finger up the length of the long horn. “I’ve wondered about it since we met. I can tell it’s the skull of an animal, but does it mean something special to you?” You chuckle a little, casting your eyes down to the symbol again, “We have an animal that kind of looks like this on Earth. It also has a horn on the end of its snout but not quite so huge. It’s called a rhinoceros.”

“Rhinoceros,” Din repeats the foreign word slowly, stumbling over some of the pronunciation. What an odd name for an animal.

You laugh brightly at hearing the word on his tongue, grinning up at him, “Rhino for short. I assume that this thing is probably gigantic in comparison to the thing on Earth, just like a lot of things in this galaxy seem to be.”

“It’s called a mudhorn,” he says simply after letting you ramble, “I had to kill one in battle, so it became my signet. My clan insignia, clan Mudhorn.”

You feel a pit in the bottom of your stomach form at that. If clan means the same thing out here as it does back on Earth, then he’s referring to his family. Does Mando have some family back on some planet that he’s never mentioned? Swallowing the lump in your dry throat, and though the childish part of you doesn't even want to know the answer, you ask him, “How many people are in your clan?”

But then Mando scoops the kid up as the little bugger runs between the two of you, and the helmet again fixes on you as he says, “Just two.”

Your heart just about turns to pudding within your chest right there. It’s all you can do not to clutch a hand to your collarbone and make a noise of endearment. The kid is truly all the Mandalorian has in this world? And one day he’ll inevitably have to give the green toddler up if they ever find his own kind? The muscle pumping blood through your body both swells and breaks for Mando all at once.

Deciding not to press your luck and that one question is enough for now, you’re satisfied with this new information about your mysterious cosmic companion for the time being.

But then he surprises you by saying, “If you’d like to join me up in the cockpit after I take my meal, I could tell you more about it.”

You’re sure the surprise is evident on your face, but you smile regardless, “I’d like that,” is all you can say.

No one speaks after that. He portions out a bowl of food for the three of you and hands you yours, making you feel nervous as your hand brushes against his glove. You thank him for dinner and he nods in a silent welcome before quickly making his way up to the cockpit. You’re a giddy mess as you scramble to deposit a protein pack in Jupiter’s bowl and situate yourself with the kid to eat your own meals. You’re so wound up that you barely want to eat, but force yourself to do so anyway. You let the kid have what you can’t finish.

Up in the cockpit the helmet drops to the ground with a loud thunk before he’s even in his seat. Din has never eaten so quickly in his life.

Within five minutes he’s calling down to you that you can come up when you’re ready, and in a gesture you know all too well at this point, his gloves appear from the opening in the ceiling for the kid. He passes his empty bowl down, and you thank him for supper as you then pass the kid up to him in exchange. You have to excuse yourself to the fresher to pull yourself together before joining them upstairs.

When you eventually do make your way up to the cockpit, you take your usual seat behind and to the left of the Mandalorian. He turns the pilot’s seat to face you while the kid sits in the other passenger seat, too happily occupied by the silver ball to notice the adults’ growing tension in the tiny control room. Mando could be making stupid faces under that thing for all you know, but you’re willing to bet he’s fixing you with some sort of serious look. It causes you to squirm in your seat, flushing as you look away from him shyly.

Even on Earth, there had never been a single, solitary man who had this much of an inaugural effect on you. Mando’s got steady a hold over you already, and you’re pretty sure you’re reaching that point of being willing to do literally anything to be close to him. You suddenly find yourself desperately wanting to take care of him in some way, to show some sort of affection in the way you know best.

“Would you like to hear about the mudhorn?” Din asks, looking from you to the kid. Does he want to tell you the truth about the kid? Din’s pretty sure he can trust that you are who you say you are at this point, and that you harbor no secret ill will towards the child. You’re not going to suddenly turn him in to the Empire. Hell, you probably still don’t even understand what the Empire used to be, let alone what the shambles of it are now.

When he looks back to you, you nod in the affirmative, “Only if you want to tell me.”

You’re surprised by his willingness to tell you this story, and you’re equally surprised by how long he makes the act of telling it. Mando is a man a few words generally, and this is the most you’ve heard him use his handsome sounding voice in one sitting since the two of you met. Usually you’re the one doing the talking, telling long winded stories. But because he is a man of few words Mando chooses them very carefully, and so he’s able to paint a fairly clear picture in your head of the events which led to the mudhorn. Kuill and the blurrgs. Finding the kid, returning to the Razor Crest to find it scrapped by Jawas, chasing said Jawas down and having them demand the egg of a mudhorn in return for the ship’s parts. Then he tells you about getting his ass handed to him by the mama mudhorn, nearly dying in the process, before the kid saved him.

“What do you mean the kid saved you?” You ask, incredulously looking over at the toddler as he still continues to suck on the silver ball and babble to himself. “Is that some kind of metaphor for, like, what you were missing in your life?”

“What? No, not like that.” Din says with a shake of the head, though something in your words rings true for him in the back of his mind. “The kid, he can do things. Has... abilities.”

Again you look to the child, and your jaw drops open, “Like he’s got superpowers? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Hey, watch the language in front of the kid,” Mando says sternly, “He can do things with his mind. You need to know about it incase he ever does it in front of you. Usually it’s a defensive thing, but I’ve also seen him use it to cause trouble.”

You gloss over the thing about the kid for a moment, focusing instead on the light scolding you’d just received. He hadn’t been rude about it, in fact the dad-like way he’d said it makes you smile. “I thought you guys don’t even have that word in basic,” you say, laughing.

“You say it enough that I was able to gather it’s inappropriate nature from the connotation in which you use it. What does it mean, anyway?” He asks, curious.

Embarrassed slightly, and not wanting to think about the way you’d love to hear him say that particular word to you, you shake your head. “That’s an adults-only explanation... So back to the little superhero over there?”

“That’s all. He used his magic powers or whatever they are to stop the mudhorn from charging me, and I was able to kill it. We retrieved the egg, and I got my parts back.” Mando replies, and you still can’t wrap your head around that tiny thing having abilities.

It’s not that you don’t believe it. You’ve been sucked through a man-made black hole in your grandfather’s basement and ended up stranded billions of light years away from home. Of course you believe it, you just don’t know how that could come out of something so precious and innocent.

“Well that’s certainly not what I thought you were going to tell me,” you breathe out with a shake of the head, “I’m shocked.”

The Mandalorian actually laughs a little beneath the beskar, “Imagine my shock. That thing was floating off the ground. Poor kid slept for nearly a full day after.”

“Poor fella,” you say, standing to scoop the kid up for an embrace. You begin bouncing him back and forth while making your way to stand beside the pilots seat as Mando turns it back to face forward. “It’s hard work protecting your dad from big, scary mudhorns, huh?” The kid just babbles up at you, and you hand the silver ball over to Mando so it can be screwed back into the shift.

“What happened after that?” You ask, wanting to know everything about him now that you know he’s willing to tell you.

“That’s a story for another time,” Din says while reaching with his right arm to screw the ball in. The injury in his shoulder from the previous week flares up then, causing him to hiss out, “Dank farrik,” under his breath.

You can’t help yourself, “Language in front of the kid, Mando.”

“I deserve that,” he says, still hissing in pain as he slowly pulls his arm back with a groan, opening and closing his fingers several times.

“I’m kidding. Are you okay?” You ask, genuinely concerned for him.

He nods, “Pulled my shoulder hunting the last quarry. Still sore.”

You set the baby back down on the passenger seat and return to Mando’s side, “That was almost a week ago, are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Din says somewhat curtly. He’s had worse.

“Well it doesn’t help that you’ve been sleeping up here for well over a month. That can’t be comfortable,” you suddenly feel incredibly guilty for having taken his bed, “Please take the cot back tonight, I’d hate to see you make it any worse. I’ll find somewhere else.”

“No,” he argues again, “I’ll be fine.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes, “So the men in this galaxy are stubborn too, huh? And here I thought it was just an Earth thing.”

Din doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing, which elicits an exasperated sigh from you. He suddenly feels your hand on his right pauldron for the second time that night, but this time it begins to pull. His own hand flies up to catch yours and the helmet snaps up at you while the leather covered fingers around your hand apply a light amount of pressure. This is the most he’s ever touched you.

“What are you doing?” He asks, halting your movements.

“Relax,” you draw out the word, “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. You need that shoulder rubbed, and I can’t do that for you with your armor on.” Feeling rather brave, you bend to hover your head beside the helmet, placing both hands on the pauldron and pulling lightly at it again. You drop your voice down an octave, softly saying, “Let me take care of you, Mando.”

Those words again leave Din at a loss for any of his own, and his hand melts back down to his lap. He doesn’t stop you when you pull his pauldron off completely, setting it down carefully on the seat you usually sit in. He lets you do the same to the vambrace on his forearm, using his other hand to help you get it off. His entire right arm suddenly feels so bare without the beskar, in spite of still being covered in layers of clothing.

“Can you take the cloak off too?” You ask nervously. This is quickly becoming uncharted territory.

Din complies, taking he beskar off of his left arm as well before handing all of it over to you. You set everything down so gingerly that Din can sense how much you respect his armor just from the delicate way you handle it. “Thank you. For being so careful with that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of messing it up. What’s this stuff made of anyway? It’s lighter than I expected it to be.”

“Mandalorian beskar. It’s one of the most indestructible substances in the galaxy, and weighs less than most common metals.”

“Like vibrianium! Heh, that’s awesome,” you laugh.

“Let me guess. Earth thing?”

“You got it.”

Din is too lost in the idle conversation to realize how bare he truly is at first, but this is certainly the most exposed he’s ever been around you. As you’ve been talking, everything on his torso aside from the thin, long sleeved undershirt and his gloves have been simultaneously removed and placed in the passenger seat. He finds himself wondering how he suddenly let it come to this.

Maker, it’s been so long since he’s been touched. His stomach is doing strange things inside of his body, his skin tingling all over.

You are similarly wondering the same thing, as you look down and get the tiniest glimpse of skin on the back of his neck. A small sliver of flesh tucked between his shirt collar and the base of the helmet. It appears to be tan, which should suggest that he’s naturally so. You highly doubt he has ever laid half naked in the sun just to vainly darken his skin tone, but that’s a sight you’d surely love to see. That little bit of skin nearly breaks you, but you ignore it.

Coming to stand directly behind the pilot’s seat, you instruct him to lean forward slightly and he complies. Your hands come to rest on either of his shoulders, and you suddenly catch a whiff of that scent from the cot. His scent. You breathe it in, and begin knead in your knuckles into his back. You start in near his spine and push both up and out, when a loud noise that sounds almost pained escapes him. You can see your own surprised expression in the silver reflection on the back of his head, moving your thumbs to rub circles into the base of his neck, just below the exposed patch of skin.

“Are you okay?” You pause to check on him

“Keep going,” he grunts out, and so you do.

You work at his shoulders for a good five minutes, focusing extra attentiveness on the shoulder he’s having trouble with. He makes noises here and there, but other than that you both stay fairly quiet. After you’ve given his shoulder enough attention, you work both of your hands slowly down his right arm. Your thumbs press into the knotted bicep, then the tricep, and Mando’s usually tense body practically liquefies into the seat under your grasp.

“Has anyone ever done this for you?” You ask seriously, making your way now down to his tight forearm.

“No,” Din says after a moment, groaning when you hit a particularly sensitive knot, “Never-gah-had anyone offer.”

“Never? Their loss,” you say, pulling his arm up towards you to stretch it out straight. He lets you guide him easily. “Does your hand hurt as well?”

Mando nods, and without prompting you kneel down beside him to get at a better angle and begin tentatively undoing the strap of his glove. Your fingers stall around his wrist as your eyes meet the visor, wordlessly asking for his permission for what you’re about to do, and he nods again. It hitches in your throat slightly, but you take a deep breath regardless to prepare yourself to cross this next line.

Tugging at the clay colored tips, you begin to gently pull the glove from his hand. The skin revealed beneath the leather is the same tan as the skin on the back of his neck, solidifying your theory that this is a natural occurrence. The knuckles are slightly dry, with small scars resting in between some of the rough peaks of bone and dark hairs dusting the fleshy terrain. The glove falls to his lap as you remove it completely, examining each finger carefully before flipping his hand entirely so you can examine his palm. All the usual lines and finger prints are there, and there’s an old burn scar just below his thumb where his wrist and palm meet. It looks like the initial wound had been a nasty one. You run your own thumb over it and look at the helmet again.

“How did you get this?” You ask.

“Don’t remember. Have so many that I lose track,” he replies.

“You have nice hands,” you say casually, not surprised when he says nothing in return. Instead you make yourself focus on the work, pressing into the palm and making your way up each finger with equal attention to each digit. His thumb pops when you unintentionally pull on it just the right way, and his entire body jerks forward a little.

This goes on for another few moments, until your own hand begins to cramp up on you. You pull it back suddenly, cracking your middle finger with a low hiss before yanking on your own thumb and spinning your wrist a few times.

“You okay?” Mando asks, sitting up slightly to look at you.

“Yeah just my hand cramping. I may need to call it quits,” you say, beginning to pull away before he stops you. For a moment his bare hand is just holding yours, and your mouth begins to severely dry up.

“Wait, let me. This hand?” Mando says, and you simply nod, dumbstruck. He quickly pulls the glove off of his other hand, and begins kneading both of his bare thumbs into your palm. “So soft,” he murmurs to himself, though you can hear him clear as day. Neither of you address it.

“Good grief,” you mutter as he hits the sore spot below your thumb, holding back a moan.

The Mandalorian mimics the same way you had massaged his hand, working his way slowly up each one of your slender fingers until he reaches the painted nails. It’s over in a matter of minutes and you eventually pull your hand back to shake it a few times, wiggling your fingers. When the audacity of what just happened occurs to you, you cannot help but blush. You’re still kneeling down beside Mando, looking up at the helmet bashfully.

“Thank you,” you say, casting your eyes back down to his unconfined hands.

Din doesn’t even consider the next thing he does. Involuntarily, his right hand reaches out to run over your hair, moving some of it out of your face. “Likewise, ner burc’ya.” he says lowly.

Puzzled by hearing him speak what is obviously another language, you look to him for an explanation. “What does that mean?”

“It’s Mando’a for ‘my friend’,” he says in a tone that brings heat to your cheeks.

Then he pulls away to begin replacing the gloves over his hands. You’re disheartened slightly both that he’s no longer touching you and to see his mesmerizing skin disappear once more. You cannot help the sudden longing you feel to see more of it, and in very particular places.

“How’s your shoulder?” You ask, standing to grab the suddenly tired looking kid and bring him over to the Mandalorian, knowing full well how much Mando likes to hold the kid as he falls asleep. This has never been discussed between you, but you know it to be true.

“Better, still not great,” Din says honestly, reaching for the increasingly sleepy toddler.

“I think you should sleep in the cot tonight,” you insist again, “and I’m not really willing to take no for an answer.”

Din looks up to where you stand beside him, fixing him with a pointed look. He knows it’s probably not worth arguing, and he does miss being able to lay out properly. “What about you?”

You wave him off, “I’ll make due, isn’t that what you said to me? You deserve a good night of sleep too, Mando. Especially if there’s another quarry only two days away.”

Din decides that you have a point, and nods, “Fine. Just for a few hours.”

Your eyes roll unceremoniously, “For fuck’s sake, sleep for as long as you need to.”

*****

As Din climbs into the cot later that night, the smell of you is completely overwhelming. Even with his helmet on, your natural aroma is so distinct. Some of your things are strewn about inside, as you’ve clearly made yourself at home over the past several weeks. There’s the small bottle of that strange black liquid you like to decorate your nails with, as well as a dark purple garment you wear almost daily. You’ve told him it’s called a “hoodie”. Though you’ve managed to make it seem more comfortable with the addition of a pillow and blanket, everyone on the ship is aware that a real bed would be far more preferable.

The kid would usually already be asleep in the hammock above Din’s head by now, but you’d suggested letting him sleep in the pram for the night so that Din could get some sleep of his own without interruption. So once the door slides shut behind him, he’s completely alone. Din normally just sleeps with the helmet on for fear of not wanting to be woken up off guard without it, but something makes him slide the thing off of his head and place it in the storage net hanging on the back wall next to your backpack, soon followed by his gloves. He’s without his boots already and still without the beskar on his torso, all more suggestions of yours. You’d sternly told him you expected him to get as comfortable as possible, and so Din complies with this demand.

Your scent is one of the most wonderful things Din has ever experienced. Without the helmet on, his sense of smell is assaulted by you. He can’t help himself as he lifts the black blanket up to his uncovered face, inhaling as much of you as he possibly can. When his head hits the pillow he also can’t help but to nuzzle his nose into the soft fabric, breathing in your essence as if it is the very oxygen his body needs in order to live.

Din falls asleep clutching your purple hoodie to his chest, while thinking about how soft your hand felt in comparison to his.

When he wakes several hours later, Din takes one last instant to enjoy the aroma around him without the barrier of beskar. His dark eyes slip closed while he savors the moment, before replacing the helmet to its rightful perch on his head and making his way out of the cot to find you and the kid. His boots are waiting for him just outside, so he slips those on as he looks around. There’s no sign of either of you anywhere on the first floor of the ship, not even the cat.

Din climbs up to the second floor to look for you, the cockpit door sliding open with the usual swishing sound. The overhead lights have been dimmed to nothing, so the only real light is coming from the various illuminated buttons up front. At first he walks in far enough only to notice that the empty pram is in the kid’s usual seat, and his beskar is still where he’d left it in yours. He stops right in his tracks once he gets far enough inside to actually see you, his chest swelling almost painfully at the sight before his eyes.

You’re curled up in the pilot’s seat at an angle that has got to be doing horrendous things to your back, one leg tucked underneath your ass while the other is propped up on an area of the control panel without any actual controls. The kid is sleeping soundly on your chest, his ears turned down in a relaxed position with his head turned to face towards Din’s direction. A green fist is curled up tightly in your shirt, while the kid’s little mouth hangs open and the tiniest bit of drool escapes out the side and onto the fabric.

Also sleeping soundly, you’ve got your head of wild hair leaning back into the seat’s headrest as your own mouth hangs open a little. One arm is draped protectively around the kid, and the other dangles uselessly off the side of the armrest. Din’s cloak is draped around the two of you as a makeshift blanket, and the cat is curled up into a ball of fluff on your lap, just below the kid. One of Jupiter’s tawny eyes opens to look skeptically up at him, before she closes it again and readjusts her sleeping position.

The image of this, the emotions it stirs within him, leaves Din’s head nearly ringing from the intensity of it. This quiet moment of serene hyperspace dancing in the background of his ship, of his home. You, easily most beautiful woman he’s ever met, holding his sleeping child to your breast. His cloak draped around the two of you, almost symbolic of what this little group is slowly beginning to mean to him.

A whisper of a thought begins to prick at the back of his mind then. A dangerous, self destructive thought which can only lead Din Djarin down a path of heartache should he let things get out of hand.

Once he hears his own voice murmur the words inside his head, he realizes that things were already well out of hand when it had only been him and the kid. Now, with the addition of you in the equation, it’s actually becoming quite the complicated situation. Din is now in a very treacherous new land, the thought echoing once more through his mind before he pushes it as far away as he can.

Don’t want them to leave...

*****

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sallysavestheday · 9 months

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Writing Year Wrapped (2023)

Thank you for the tag, @eilinelsghost!

3 Favorite Fics You've Written This Year

Beloved, Forsaken, Redeemed, my short Celegorm cycle. I am very pleased with each of the little bites that make up the whole, for imagery, characterization, and narrative arc. You love him, you hate him, you pity him, and you root for him in the end, even having seen him at his worst.

The paired fics In This, No Consolation and What Will Console You, in which Maedhros and Maglor find parenting challenging, first at Formenos in Nerdanel's absence, and then in caring for Elrond and Elros. These hurt, but they also comfort.

Examined Lives, in which Erestor and Pengolodh fall in love after Sailing and have to negotiate their respective understandings of history and truth. It's a very odd ship, but it works. I am quite fond of my Loremasters in Love.

And yes, it's cheating to slide in a fourth, but I have to mention my 2023 Tolkien Drabbles series, in which I fell in love with fixed-length stories and the challenge of fitting a whole world into 100 words. So much fun!!

3 Fics That Stretched You the Most

Tender Morsels. This is the first thing I've shared with a rating above T, but if you're going to do it, you may as well do it in style, right? Written for Silm Smut Week, it features Fingon/Maedhros figuring themselves out via cannibalism and sexy mutilation and carries the tag Is it really monsterfucking if it's Maedhros? It's oddly romantic, for all that. Thanks to @polutrope for convincing me to share it.

When All Other Lights Go Out. 5,336 words!! Let me repeat: 5,336 words! I usually hover between 400 and 1,000, so this was a big stretch. Written for TRSB, to accompany @grundyscribbling's gorgeous Feanorian nightlight, it's an epic (for me) look at love through the generations, in all its varieties and with all its consequences.

By Love Annealed. I don't write very many OCs, and this piece was both largely OC-focused AND about some tricky stuff. But I ended up loving my new friend Sorokendë and her relationship with Celebrimbor, in this remix of ultramarine by @welcomingdisaster.

3 Favorite Lines You've Written (loosely interpreting "lines")

For heartbreak, Maedhros and Maglor in Feanorians in Seventeen Kisses.

Maedhros rests his chin on Maglor’s head, watching the ocean, shivering and burning all at once. He murmurs something incomprehensible – it might be I’m sorry – and sighs. The sea surges, hungrily. Maglor doesn’t turn when the heat at his back changes. If he holds very still, he can almost keep feeling the last brush of his brother’s lips on his hair.

For angst, Fingolfin and Maglor in True North.

The banners ripple in the chill breeze off the lake as they stand toe to toe, second son and second son, frowning. They are anchorless, both of them, flung into the spinning skies with no fixed points to reach for, no greater stars to burn behind.

And for romance, the Glorthelion wedding from In Answering, An Answer Find.

Glorfindel cries out the praise he could not muster in the welter of the healing tent. He hears the fierce, bright music of Ecthelion’s reply. The bond sparks as their palms touch. Then they are burning, singing with it, leaping forward together, diving into the light.

3 Characters You Enjoyed Writing (that surprised you)

Turgon. This was my Year of Being Kinder to Turgon, after last year's portrayal of him as a history-whitewashing, Pengolodh-abusing kinslayer (ouch!). But this year I wrote him lovingly with Fingolfin in From the Heights, Such Light and Air, tenderly with Aredhel in None Shall Mark Thy Going, loving and furious with Fingon in A Bond That Shines and Burns, and being consoled by Elenwe in Mandos in Reckoning. Turgon! Multidimensional! Who knew?

Curufin. He was also an unexpected delight to explore, whether having a hard time letting go of Feanor in Borne Away Like Smoke, or having a hard time coming back to life in A Sea Change. I became very fond of the possibilities of him, actually.

Legolas' Mother. She is my first substantive OC, and I have had SUCH fun building her out. I first wrote her in A Mighty Shot in the Darkness, which is partly her love story with Thranduil and partly the story of Legolas drawing on her teaching to kill the Fell Beast. And she popped up again in These Soft Threads That Bind Us, newly home from Dagorlad and adjusting to life with only one arm and a curious child. She has a guest appearance in one of my seasonal exchange fics, too, which will be up at the end of this month (and which explains why I haven't named her).

3 Unexpected Inspirations

The Canadian government's vivid, lyrical description of the varieties of sea ice, which I used as a framing device for Ice Glossary (12 views of the crossing of the Helcaraxe, each linked to a type of ice).

Lawrence Oates' quietly suicidal farewell to his colleagues on the Scott Antarctic expedition, which I used along with the prompt "desperate valor" to drive I May Be Some Time, in which Maedhros departs to parley with Morgoth.

The poignant last line of Vincent Van Gogh's final, unfinished letter to his brother Theo, which along with @z-h-i-e's gorgeous painting Feanor's Art Therapy inspired Half-Foundered, in which Feanor is therapy-resistant, and expressing his inner struggles through art does not help.

3 WIPs You're Excited About in the Upcoming Year

Untitled Anaire/Fingolfin, full of rage and regret and maybe eventually reconciliation. It's almost done; I'll drop it on some dark day as winter lingers for maximum hurt.

The Sifted Light: Evranin smuggles Elwing and the Silmaril out of Doriath. Tolkien women, yay!

The Blue Line Between Sky and Water: a three-chapter Voronwe piece which is giving me fits but will be out there eventually. Spoiler: he drowns, three times.

3 People Tagged to Share Theirs

Tagging with zero pressure: @melestasflight @cuarthol @tathrin

#fic recs #my fics

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purpleheartskies · 1 year

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(These are general thoughts and not directed at anyone in particular.)

I recently got into The Mandalorian a month or so before its s3 started coming out. At first, I'd told myself I'd wait for the whole season to come out and then binge watch it, but I caved a few days after the first episode came out and watched it. Since then each week, I've been watching each new episode, reading fan comments, and watching how the fandom responded. If you haven't watched Mando s3, I'm not gonna spoil anything in this post. I'm just going to do some reflecting on how fans have responded to Cobra Kai in light of how fans responded to Mando s3.

Honestly, it's been so refreshing to watch a real found father-son story in which no child of any species has been replaced in the process. Din and Grogu's story has been so fun and heartwarming to watch. Many CK fans claim that Johnny and Miguel's story is a found father-son story, but it's clearly not presented to be, primarily because the entire context of Johnny and Miguel's storyline throughout the 5 seasons has been that Johnny abandons/neglects (including emotionally) Robby in favor of Miguel. Their stories are all interwoven to show the clear contrast between Johnny's behavior wrt Miguel and Johnny's behavior wrt Robby. Johnny has a son who needs him and who Johnny willfully abandons/neglects for a random kid. (From Robby's pov, Miguel is a random kid). This is still an important part of the story in s5. Also, an important part of the story is how Robby has been affected by Johnny's behavior throughout the series. Robby's behavior in s5 (fawning) is truly nothing to cheer on, like the majority of fans do because they got the endgame they wanted: Johnny's dream family with the Diazs, and Robby tacked on as an afterthought. (I've talked in detail about Robby and Johnny's relationship in s5 in this post.)

As I mentioned, I wanted to talk about the fan responses to CK and the fan responses to Mando s3. Getting CK seasons as 10-episode dumps followed by a period of waiting is somewhat similar to getting an episode of a season and then having to wait a whole week for another episode. It gives time for the hype of the new story content to die down, for disappointment to set in and permeate, for more analyses to happen, and for different groups of hive-mind thinking to form and echo throughout the fandom.

I really enjoyed watching how the story unfolded as each episode of Mando was revealed. There were those who, like me, recognized that this is a story and, well, storytelling is taking place. We enjoyed watching the pieces being laid out, the layers being assembled, things slowly coming together, etc. However, there were those who were just bashing the season, saying things aren't making sense, they're not getting the story they want, the writers don't know what they're doing, etc...

This made me think of how the CK fan response has evolved with each season. As each season has come out, the fan response has gotten worse. People aren't getting the story they want, they're insulting the writers and the storytelling, they're complaining that things were too "rushed" and this is a "dumb" show so the serious elements don't matter, they're claiming that their fics would have been better, "this is the way it should have gone... [insert fic with completely wrong characterizations]...", etc.

I know I'm a rarity when it comes to loving Robby's character and not hating on the writers' storytelling abilities. I'm disappointed with them for sure for the messaging so far, and I completely understand why some have quit the show and the fandom. (The topics explored in CK (childhood trauma, mental health, dysfunctional relationships, etc) can be very personal and how they're depicted, even in the interim, absolutely matters. Also, interacting with fans who don't care about these topics can be draining.) However I will say this: the writers have a really well-thought-out story that has been consistent and has been building this whole time. They have always said that they have their major story beats figured out and some endgames in mind, and that hasn't changed. With all the analyzing I've done, I believe them. However, I also do understand the disappointment that fellow Robby fans feel. I had certain things I would have loved to have seen happen in this story too. But, for a while now, I try to remind myself with every show/movie I watch or book I read that I'm not writing the story. I'm just along for the ride. I know with moving to Netflix there has been a change in how things look in the show. However, if someone analyzes the patterns in behaviors and dialogue in order to understand the characterizations, they'll see that the storytelling approach and characterizations are still consistent.

Watching Mando as its new episodes dropped and browsing that fandom each week has helped put some things about this fandom into perspective for me. I've browsed other fandoms as well, but I'm mostly immersed in these two fandoms these days and the similarities in fan responses in these fandoms just stuck out to me. Storytelling is an art, and I wish people would be more open to treating these stories like stories.

Despite how much people hate the writers, they're the ones who gave us Robby and keep him the best, most central character in the show, regardless of how much he's resented and his traumas are minimized in the fandom. The writers still treat him like the most important teen, and imo, the most important character because Robby overshadows/drives Johnny's character journey as well. For example, in s5, Johnny still kept mentioning Robby when it came to the baby. If Johnny were redeemed or absolved, he himself wouldn't keep bringing up his failures with Robby. Robby's relationship with Johnny is still complex and painful and his relationship with the LaRussos is still complicated and meaningful. Robby was the key to bringing Daniel back and getting everyone together against Cobra Kai, something established in s4 when Sam first went to Robby to get him to come back and when Daniel realized he needed Johnny's help to coach Sam in the avt because Robby had taught the Cobras Miyagi-Do. Robby was also still the only character with people he cared about on both sides of the dojo war, as has been the case since s1. Robby's scene with Silver in s5 especially establishes Robby's importance amongst the teens. Silver mentions the 3 senseis, and Kim says that they're pests and they'll swat the next one that lands on their arm, and then Robby walks in immediately after. No other kid gets equated to the senseis like Robby does. There's more I can say about Robby's significance in the story, but that could be another post later on.

Out of all the characters, Robby's story is the deepest. He's a teenager trying to overcome his worsening c-ptsd (due to childhood trauma and other experiences) using the different karate styles/philosophies while everyone, especially the adults that "care" about him, keeps failing him, even in s5. I know the karate part sounds silly in a way, but there's nothing silly about c-pstd or coping with it. Robby's trying to apply what he learns to cope with it while caring about who he is. He's trying to overcome all the odds that keep stacking against him and to be the better person he wants to be. And part of his struggles with his traumas is that he's too hard on himself about how bad of a person he is. He's literally one of the best people in the show. If only he and the people around him could see that too. Robby coming out on top in karate and in life next season will be the most inspiring story this series could possibly come out with.

Like I've posted recently, I want to keep talking about the story and its nuances because Robby's story especially is important and represents the struggles of many in society who have experienced or are experiencing similar traumas to those he has experienced and is currently experiencing.

Robby is THE underdog in the story.

Cobra Kai is Robby's story.

I have spoken.

These two cuties 🥰

#cobra kai is robby's story #robby keene

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all-the-things-2020 · 11 months

Text

Deeds Not Less Valiant - Chapter Six

Pairing: Din Djarin x OFC (Tala Pavan)

Rating: PG

Summary: Din and Tala attend a soirée at Greef’s palace.

Word count: 3800+

Notes: Slowly but surely, these two are realizing they have feelings for each other. Din is awkward but he tries. Grogu gets to hang out with IG-11.

It was two weeks before Din and Grogu got back to Tala’s place. First came a call from Carson Teva asking for help tracking down a former Imperial officer who had “disappeared” from his post on Dantooine after completing rehabilitation. Din found him in the Hada Spaceport on Vina where he was helping former Imperials infiltrate a variety of New Republic locations by forging IDs and credentials. After delivering him to Teva, they were on their way back to Nevarro when a random encounter with a small pirate craft resulted in some minor damage to the Krayt that required a detour to Tatooine to visit Peli’s maintenance facility. This led to an invitation from Boba Fett to join him at a meeting to remind the Hutts that he was — and would remain — the daimyo of Mos Espa. By the time they returned to Nevarro, it was long past Benduday.

“It’s fine,” Tala had said when Din commed her from Tattooine. It was voice-only, not holographic, so he had only her tone to judge by, but she seemed to understand. “You have to work. I’ll see you next week.”

“Do you really think she’s okay?,” he asked Grogu when the comm link ended.

“Ya.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ya,” Grogu said firmly, reaching over from the co-pilot’s seat to pat Din’s arm.

It helped, but the idea that Tala might be upset still nagged at him like a sore tooth. Objectively, he knew he couldn’t do anything about it, at least until they got back to Nevarro, but that didn’t stop him from worrying. He didn’t want to lose this friendship, or whatever it was. Tala had become too important to him.

When he dropped Grogu off, he noticed that Tala was wearing a new shirt. It was a very flattering shade of blue and had embroidered details along the hem and neckline. She also had her hair done in a loose braid that flowed softly but neatly along the left side of her neck.

She smiled at him and Din felt the knot of uneasiness inside of him loosen a little. Grogu squirmed out of his carry bag and bounced into Tala’s arms, babbling away. “Sorry we missed last week,” Din said. “I’m sure Grogu is already telling you all about it.”

“He is,” she said. “And you’d better get to your meeting. There will be plenty of time to chat afterward.”

Din nodded. “Yes. And … I like your new shirt.”

As he walked away from Tala’s door, he shook his head. I like your shirt? Maybe he was in over his head. Maybe he should talk to Greef.

************************************

“You seem distracted, Mando,” Greef said after he’d gone over the minor points of business that made up their weekly “briefing.” It really wasn’t necessary but it was an excuse for Greef to sit back and enjoy the company of a friend who wasn’t on the take. The moment he’d taken on the mantle of High Magistrate, folks had started coming out of the woodwork, asking for favors and offering their services (at a good price). Mando wasn’t like that. He was willing to help if Greef needed it but never asked for anything in return. Which was why Greef wanted to keep him around. It was good to have an ally who was simply that: an ally.

Mando sat back in his chair. “I am … having some personal difficulties,” he said slowly.

“What’s her name?”

Mando’s helmet swiveled in surprise. “How …?”

Greef laughed. “It’s always a woman,” he said. “Or a man, as the case may be. Look, friend, I know you are a great warrior and an excellent tactician but the battlefield of the heart is something else entirely. You can’t rely on blasters or flamethrowers and fancy armor to protect you. So tell me … who is she and what’s the problem?”

“Her name is Tala,” Mando said. “She watches Grogu for me. She can talk to him telepathically, but I don’t know how to talk to her. We talk about Grogu, of course, that’s easy. But … for example, today she was wearing a new shirt. And her hair was different. So I said ‘I like your shirt.’” He shook his head. “I felt like an idiot. I’m not even sure I want to be more than friends with her, but I do know that ‘I like your shirt’ isn’t the right thing to say.”

Greef leaned back. “Women like to be appreciated,” he said. “So do men, of course, but women more so. Compliments will go a long way and they don’t have to be extravagant. Next time, say something about the shirt. Maybe how the color brings out her eyes. Notice the little details. And bring her a small gift. Nothing fancy. Just a little something: a food she’s mentioned she likes, an accessory in a color she wears often, anything that you can say ‘I saw this and thought of you’.”

He could tell the gears were working inside Mando’s helmet. This was an entirely new side of him and Greef was amused by it. He’d thought perhaps there was something between Mando and that Bo-Katan woman, but clearly he’d been wrong. Who would have thought Mando was the type to fall for the babysitter?

“Look, I’m having a little gathering this week, to welcome the delegation from Drosi. They just might sign a trade agreement and I want to show them that Nevarro isn’t some backwater skug hole. Why don’t you bring your lady friend? I’ll see if IG-11 can watch the kid.”

“I’m not much for parties,” Mando said.

“It’s a work function,” Greef said. “We need to show these folks that we are a respectable community where they can do business without worrying about the more sordid element.”

Mando tipped his head to the side. “Like bounty hunters?”

Greef held up his hands. “You’re legit now, working for the New Republic and the government of Mandalore. We just won’t mention your ties to Boba Fett. Come on, Mando, you help me out by shmoozing with the Drosi delegation a little, and I’ll help you out with your lady. Deal?”

Mando sat very still for a moment. “Deal,” he said.

********************************************

“Did you have a good meeting with the High Magistrate?” Din seemed slightly off balance when he returned. Tala hoped nothing was wrong.

“Yes,” he replied. “We, um, discussed an upcoming event. A … cocktail party for the Drosi delegation.”

Grogu’s ears pricked up and Tala suppressed a smile. “That doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“It’s not,” Din said. “I’m … not comfortable in social situations like that. Which is why … well, I thought, maybe … if you’re available …”

“Yes, I can watch Grogu,” she said. “You don’t need to be keeping track of him and worrying about making a good impression.”

“No, I meant … would you go with me? IG-11 can watch Grogu while we’re at the party and I’d … I’d be more comfortable if I had someone with me that I know and trust. Greef will be busy and …”

“I’d love to go,” she said. Din was adorably awkward but she felt she had to put him out of his misery quickly. “I don’t have much of a social life here on Nevarro, mostly just work and Neeli and you two. I don’t go out much. Which is fine, but …” Now who’s rambling awkwardly?

“Good,” Din said. “I mean, good that you’ll go, not good that you don’t have a social life … I don’t have one either.”

Grogu had been watching the conversation, his head swiveling back and forth like a spectator at a flimball match. :I like IG-11. Maybe we can ride a speeder bike!:

“Grogu likes the idea,” Tala said. “He likes IG-11 and wants to ride a speeder bike.”

Din tilted his head. “No speeder bikes,” he said firmly. “You’ll stay in Greef’s palace the whole time.” Grogu’s ears drooped. “But maybe we can take a bike out later in the week.”

:Yes! I like to go fast.: The ears went back up.

“So, when is this party and what should I wear?”

Even with the helmet on, Tala could tell Din wore the same expression as a womp rat caught in the headlights of a speeder. “Um, I didn’t ask about a dress code,” he stammered.

Tala ran her eyes up and down his armor. “Obviously it doesn’t apply to you,” she said. “I know what you’ll be wearing. But I need to know if I have to buy a new dress.”

Din’s hand clenched and unclenched. “I — I don’t know,” he said, miserably.

Tala laid her hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll wear my green dress. It’s nice enough to pass for formal wear but not too fancy, in case the vibe is more informal. Besides, no one will be looking at me if you’re next to me in that shiny armor.” She smiled at him and she felt him relax a bit, the tension in his muscles uncoiling beneath her hand.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I’m not good at all this.”

“You’re doing fine,” she assured him.

“Ya,” said Grogu. :Dad says he doesn’t like people but he does:

:I understand. People are tricky sometimes. Unless you know them and like them:

:Dad likes you. I’m not supposed to tell you.:

:I like him, too.:

There was something about Din that appealed to her. She hadn’t felt this way about anyone since Rix, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to go down that road again, but dank farrik, she liked him. Even if they were destined to just remain friends, she was going to see it through.

******************************************************

The High Magistrate’s palace was the largest building in town. Tala had seen it many times but had never set foot inside. As she walked beside Din, Grogu informed her of everything they passed along the way, gesturing from his carry bag. :That’s the school. I had cookies there! Greef lives in the big place. He has a spinny chair. And snacks on the desk. Once, the little guys were trying to fix IG-11 and his head wasn’t working and they made it so I could drive him and I could say YES and NO in a big voice.:

“Grogu has a lot of good memories in this town,” she said. Din’s step slowed a bit.

“I’m glad of that,” he said. “I hope they outweigh the bad ones.”

Grogu’s ears drooped. :I don’t like to think about the Bad Men. There was a fire. And Dad got hurt. But IG made him better. Before he blew up.:

“We’ll make some more good memories tonight,” Tala said. “You’ll have to tell us all about what you and IG-11 get up to, and we’ll tell you about all the people at the party.”

Grogu’s ears rose a bit. :And save me some snacks?:

“Definitely save you some snacks,” Tala laughed, patting her bag. It was a slim crossbody but surprisingly capacious. Perhaps not exactly appropriate for a cocktail party, but she had promised Grogu she would get him some samples of the food, once he’d realized he was not going to have access to all the snacks at the party.

They arrived at the doors and were greeted by a protocol droid. “Welcome, Master Djarin,” it said. “IG-11 is waiting in the guard room to take charge of Master Grogu. And then you and your guest can proceed upstairs to the ballroom.”

“Thank you,” Din said. He turned down a narrow hallway and tapped the lock pad of the first door on the right. It slid open to reveal Marshall IG-11, a repurposed assassin droid who Tala had seen patrolling the town many times, but had never met.

“Good evening,” IG said. Grogu scrambled out of his bag and jumped into IG’s hands. “You seem to have grown a bit, Grogu. I detect slightly more weight.”

“That’s because he eats like a bantha,” Din said. He handed IG a pouch. “Here are some snacks in case he decides he’s starving, but he’s had his dinner already, so he should be fine.” He tilted his head at Grogu. “Listen to IG and behave yourself. Tala and I will be back down in a couple of hours.”

“Ya,” Grogu nodded.

“Enjoy your evening,” IG said. “Grogu is in good hands.”

“Bye!” Grogu said, waving his hand.

Tala and Din looked at each other.

“Did he …?”

“Yeah.”

*********************************************

The ballroom was brightly lit and Din adjusted the filter on his helmet. Poor Tala could only squint as her eyes adjusted to the glare.

“Mando!” Greef came sweeping across the room, his red robes trailing majestically behind him, arms wide. “And this must be Tala.” He took Tala’s hand and bowed over it, kissing the back lightly. “I’ve heard so much about you. You look lovely, my dear.”

It was true. When she’d opened her door, Din had been at a loss for words. Her green dress was simple but elegant, and fitted her very, very well. He’d had some thoughts that were not exactly appropriate to have about a friend. And her hair … she usually kept it braided or tied back, but tonight it fell in loose waves around her face.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, High Magistrate.”

“Please, call me Greef. Any friend of Mando’s is a friend of mine.”

Din knew he should say something, but his mouth wouldn’t work. Tala was so pretty, and Greef was so charming … what could he add to the conversation? Nothing.

Tala smiled at Greef. “It’s good to have friends in high places.”

“Oh, Mando only moves in the highest circles,” Greef said. “New Republic officers, queen of Mandalore … me.”

“Lady Bo-Katan isn’t our queen,” Din blurted out. “She’s the leader of our people, but …” Greef gave a little shake of his head and a look that clearly said Shut Up, Mando.

“I’m sorry, we’re not here to talk about Mandalore. We’re here to support Greef and the future of Nevarro.”

“Well said, my friend,” Greef said, clapping him on the back. Din hated when people did that, but he’d learned to tolerate it from Greef, who was as demonstrative as Din was reserved. “And on that note, I should continue to mingle. Please, enjoy yourselves!”

“He seems nice,” Tala said after Greef had moved on. “A bit over the top, but I suppose you have to be if you’re in politics.” She tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow. “Well, shall we make the rounds?”

All Din could do was nod.

**********************************************************

Tala could feel the smile plastered on her face starting to crack. The party was one of those smile-and-nod affairs, where she didn’t know anyone but needed to look happy to be there. She was the ornament dangling off the arm of the person who needed to be there, a position she was familiar with after all those faculty soirées she’d gone to with Rix. Only this time, she didn’t feel superfluous. Din needed her, to help him over the awkward moments when someone said it was rude of him not to remove his helmet; when a pompous Drosi man wondered aloud why the High Magistrate’s bodyguard was allowed to act like a guest; when a dubious comment about Mandalore made Din involuntarily reach for his blaster.

“I hate this,” he muttered when Tala steered him toward the edge of the ballroom.

“I know,” she said. “But it’s for Greef, and Nevarro. Just keep telling yourself that.”

“They’re rude,” Din said. “Three different men have leered at you, that one woman said your dress was ‘quaint’ and every single one of them has been laughing at Greef behind his back.”

“I’m sure Greef knows it,” she said. “He’s played this game before.”

“So have you,” Din said. “I’m impressed.”

“I used to have to go to things like this a lot,” she said. “Remember I told you I knew a linguist? He was a student at the university on my planet. He wanted to work there after he completed his degrees, so he went to a lot of parties and mixers. Boring as hell, but he needed to do it, and I learned how to make small talk and look pretty and inoffensive so he could shine.”

“You deserved better than that,” Din said.

Tala shrugged. “I didn’t mind. Rix knew it was all a load of bantha crap, and we made fun of everyone on our way home. It was a part we both had to play. He was the brilliant young scholar, I was the pretty young thing who was awed by the intellectuals around me … he knew I was just as smart as any of them.” She smiled a little. Rix had been a good guy. He hadn’t deserved what he’d gotten.

Din laid his hand on her arm. “You miss him,” he said softly.

“I miss a lot of people.” She shook her head to rid it of the past. “Like Grogu. Do you think we’ve been here long enough?”

“Definitely,” Din said. He scanned the room. “It looks like Greef is unoccupied at the moment. Let’s say our goodbyes.”

********************************************

I am never attending one of these again, Din thought as they left the ballroom. It had been nice at first, to have Tala on his arm, a comforting presence by his side. After the first few conversations, though, he wanted to scream. Mandalorians were so much more straightforward. If you disagreed with someone, you told them. You argued, you fought, and then it was over. Or not. But it wasn’t disguised behind fake smiles and backhanded compliments. There were no whispers and judgmental looks. Of course, there was always the risk of bloodshed, but physical wounds healed a lot faster than emotional ones, Din had learned.

“That was fun,” Tala said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No, it wasn’t,” Din. “I’m sorry I asked you to go. You could have had a much more pleasant evening at home with Neeli.”

“I’m not sorry. It was good to spend some time with you in another setting. I’m very fond of Grogu, but grown-up time is nice.” She leaned into him a little more than was necessary.

“Yes, grown-up time is nice.” He wracked his brain for something clever to say, but her proximity was distracting. “We should do this more often. I mean, not this exactly but … grown-up time.”

“I’d like that,” Tala said. “I’d like to get to know you better, Din. Not just as Grogu’s dad.” He was starting to wonder how strong the punch had been. Tala had only had one cup but she was …

“You’re supposed to flirt back, you know,” she said with a little laugh. “Stars, I know I’m rusty at this, but you’re in need of a full oil bath.”

“I’m not good at droid jokes,” Din replied. “Or flirting. It’s … not in my programming.”

Tala laughed for real. “And you said you weren’t good at droid jokes.” She cocked her head to the side and smiled up at him. “I’ll bet you’re good at flirting, too, if you give yourself the chance.”

“I’ll need to practice. A lot.”

“Fortunately, I’m patient.”

They had reached the guard room and the conversation ended when Grogu tumbled out of the door. “Da! Ta!”

“Hey, kiddo, did you have fun?” Din scooped him up in his arms.

“Ya!”

“He consumed all the snacks and we played X-Wing Fighter until he regurgitated the snacks,” IG-11 said.

“Then it’s a good thing I swiped some goodies from the party,” Tala said, patting her bag. “You and your dad can share them when you get home. I felt guilty eating in front of him, but I had to taste test everything.” She winked at Grogu, who giggled. Din smiled. It felt good when people were kind to Grogu. And it felt even better when Grogu responded to their kindness. There had been a time when the child was reserved and hesitant; it made Din’s heart swell with pride to see how far Grogu had come in the time they’d been together.

“Sorry about the mess,” Din said to IG-11. “I should have warned you he can get motion sick if he’s eaten too much.”

“I will be better prepared next time,” the droid said. “At the very least, I will put down a tarp.” His head swiveled toward a damp patch of floor that had been recently mopped.

Grogu hiccuped, then yawned.

“Let’s get you home to bed, kiddo,” Din said.

****************************************

Grogu was dozing off by the time they reached Tala’s place. “I’d ask you in but …”

Din nodded. “It’s past his bedtime,” he said softly. “Thank you again for coming with me. Next time we’ll do something more enjoyable.”

Tala leaned against the wall. “Tonight was enjoyable,” she said. “Because I was with you.” She slipped the bag off her shoulder. “Here. You can bring the bag back later. Enjoy the food. Have a little party of your own with Grogu.”

As Din reached out for the bag with his free hand, she couldn’t resist letting her fingers linger on his. Even through the leather gloves, she could feel his warmth and strength. Slow down, Tala. He’s going to take a lot longer to get there than you are. Don’t push him.

“Th-thank you,” Din said. “For everything. And we’ll see you on Benduday.”

“Good night, Din. Good night, Grogu.” She touched the child lightly on the head and he snuggled a bit closer to Din.

“Good night,” Din said. There was a hint of wistfulness in his voice. He’s lonely, she realized. He had Grogu but otherwise, he was alone, the only Mandlalorian on the planet, trapped behind the walls of his armor and his Creed. Whoa, that punch must have been strong. Or maybe her abilities were growing stronger from being around Grogu. Some folks in her home valley were empaths as well as telepaths, able to sense the emotions of others, even if they weren’t Force-sensitive.

She laid her hand on Din’s arm before he turned away. “You don’t have to wait until Benduday to stop by,” she said. “You’re both welcome any time.”

Din covered her hand briefly with his. “I know,” he said.

Tala watched him walk away, her bag swinging from his shoulder and Grogu nestled in the crook of his arm. Then she took a deep breath and went inside, where Neeli demanded a treat and some pets. “Am I making a mistake?” The tooka purred and flicked an ear in her direction. “I don’t want to get hurt again. But I sense something in him. He’s worth it, don’t you think?”

Neeli slowly blinked her golden eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Tala said.

#the mandalorian #star wars #grogu #fanfic #din djarin #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x original female character #baby yoda #deeds not less valiant #tooka cat

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 1 year

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Mando season 3... sigh. Sadly, I'm beginning to lose interest. The story seems disjointed, and the production value feels like it's diminished in quality.

I'm having difficulty suspending my belief. For example, the location of the covert. It looks like they're in the middle of nowhere. There are dangerous beasts all over the place, so why are they still there? Why did they save those baby monsters if they're only going to turn into more dangerous predators? It looks like no one has a ship, so how are they getting supplies? Where are they getting gas to fire forge? Practicalities like these are knocking me out of the narrative.

Also, the fact that Favreau said there's no end in site concerns me because shows seem to lose quality over time when there isn't a plan. The words "jump the shark" come to mind.

I'll keep watching, but I miss being excited for a new episode to drop each week. In fact, I haven't watched the latest episode and am in no hurry to do so.

Hi Michelle!! 😀 I was so happy to see you pop up in my inbox! I hope you’re doing well, lovely!! Thanks for swinging by with this!!

I’m sorry that you’re not enjoying this season as much as the previous ones. It seems like you’re not alone - I have seen quite a few people expressing less than favorable opinions on what’s going on with s3 - but that’s still unfortunate, and I hope that the remaining episodes give you and others more to enjoy about it!

That being said, I’m actually really liking this season so far, which probably (maybe?) isn’t what you were expecting me to say, but here we are. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But let’s talk about the things you brought up. Going under the cut to avoid spoilers for anyone who doesn’t want to see them:

I’m gonna start by saying that I do agree that the production value feels a little diminished. I’m wondering if it’s because of bigger budgets on other SW shows (I’m thinking Andor & Ahsoka- which I have HIGH hopes for), and them banking on the fact that the Mandalorian series already has a large fan base. It doesn’t feel (to me at least) as diminished as the production value of BOBF felt (that low speed chase on 50s era mopeds was … a choice), but I’ll agree that it feels like a half step down from seasons 1 & 2.

The only thing I personally have had a hard time with as far as the storytelling/disjointedness goes, was the way that the Pershing episode was structured. It was 5 minutes of Din/Bo/Grogu, and then a whole chunk of Pershing and the least trustworthy character in all of star wars, and then another 6 minutes of Din/Bo/Grogu. I didn't hate that we got some info on what was going on on that side of things - I have theories about where they're going with Elia Kane and all of that, and they were strengthened by some details in the latest episode - but I wish they had structured the storytelling differently by sort of breaking it up and sprinkling it into the rest of the episodes.

As far as the covert being in the middle of nowhere goes, it’s entirely possible that at least one other Mando has a ship, and it’s hidden. I always assumed that their tunnels and caves on Nevarro were more expansive than what we ever actually saw - Din at one point says he’s not familiar with a certain section of them, which made me think they were LARGE and possibly even connected to other tunnels where a ship (or ships) that belongs to the covert might be kept for emergencies or just to use when needed. I also recall a line (when the covert was on Nevarro) about how living in the shadows means only one can go out at a time for secrecy and safety, and that made me think that it’s not just Din who comes and goes off world, that others do, too if or when they need to. It’s also possible that they had a pre-arranged backup plan, so they didn't all need to leave Nevarro together, they just had to find a way there even if it wasn't right away. But again this is all just what my brain came up with throughout the series, so I have no idea if it’s canonically correct.

The fact that there are so many dangerous beasts on that planet was probably one of the things that made it a desirable hideout - because no one in their right mind would try to settle Dino World, but Mandalorians aren't in their right minds so I get why they chose it from that perspective.

THE BABY MONSTERS!!!! Can I tell you that as soon as the mama went down I gasped and said "but the babies will die now!" And then as soon as they turned up back at the covert I was filled with relief like "oh, nevermind, they're going to be loved and cared for!" I love that they were "adopted" by the Mandalorians. For one, raising them from hatchlings will allow them to bond with the lil beasts and possibly even rely on them for battle backup like Boba did with the Rancor. Also? I just love the reiteration of how important adoption is to Mandalorians. It's a part of their belief system that they take care of any children that need taking care of, no matter who or what their parents were. "Mandalorian isn't a race, it's a Creed" extends even to beasties and I just think that's very sweet coming from a group of tin cans. (idk what the beasts are called. I've been calling them pterodactyls to fit the Dino World theme - I've seen articles and posts where people are calling them shriek hawks, but I'm pretty sure shriek hawks are smaller and have feeyethers. I could be wrong about that, though!)

*thanks, Dieter*

The "no end in sight" is admittedly concerning, but I'm choosing to believe they won't let it go beyond where it needs to. Depending on where this season ends, I think it could probably go one more. With all the tie-ins from the Clone Wars & Rebels series (which honestly, I know animation isn't everyone's jam, but Rebels was truly great, and there is a LOT of Mandalorian lore and history in that show, including stuff pertaining to the Darksaber, Bo-Katan, and Clan Vizsla, so if you're ever looking for something to watch I recommend it, or at least the episodes that concern Mandalore) that have been popping up, I'm hoping that Filoni will take good care of the rest of this story. My fingers are crossed.

I hope that you do keep watching, and I hope that you do find things to enjoy about it as it continues! I'm very much looking forward to the next episode.

Thank you again for dropping in! I know my response was probably different from what you were expecting, so I hope that's okay!

#thanks michelle!#cannedsoupsucks #cannedsoupsucks is an absolute gem #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 3 #mando season 3 #the mandalorian spoilers #mando spoilers #din djarin #grogu djarin #bo katan kryze #the beasts!#my hot take is that i am enjoying this season #though i do acknowledge that it feels a little different than the first two #thank you for asking!#ask me anything

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kyberblade · 1 year

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I don’t know if it’s just me but the new season of the mandalorian isn’t that captivating anymore. I used to be so happy when season 2 came out and was so excited for each episode, but now I forgot they even come out regularly. There’s nothing happening.. (the lack of new Mando fanfics is strengthening my point)

Unfortunately I’ve seen a few people say this, but I disagree. I am so freaking excited each week to watch, you’ve no idea.

Has the season been a little slow compared to before? Maybe. It’s structured differently, yeah. But I feel like that’s making way for something.

When I watched Andor, I’ll be honest, the first few episodes were so slow to me. I enjoyed them, but I was quickly losing interest, but once it picked up, it cemented me 1,000%.

Is this season maybe following along that same structure? Dragging its feet until a climax? Maybe. Problem is, we only have 8 episodes to rise and fall in, not the 12-ish we got with Andor.

I also don’t know what you’re talking about with the Mando fics, because I see new ones every day. I know tags are being very weird for some people.

In short, I’m sorry you’re not enjoying it as much anymore.

This is the first season I have watched as it airs, and I was expecting to be in a few trenches, but not like this. This season seems to have people scattered all over the fandom for all sorts of reasons in all sorts of camps, and I was not expecting that.

I’m rambling now.

Again, I’m sorry you’re not enjoying it. I hope it picks up, or you find a way to come back, because fandom can be such a fun place, and the excitement each week makes me giddy.

I will never not be excited for Mando on this blog. Will I always agree with the show? Probably not. But that’s what fanfic is for, right?

But the show as a whole? Yeah, that’s my Tin Can and Space Gremlin. 🥹

#i said something #sometimes people talk to me #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 3 #the mandalorian spoilers #kinda?#maybe?

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thefrogdalorian · 5 months

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The Best of Both Worlds: Chapter Twelve

Din Djarin x F!Reader Modern!AU

❁ Series Masterlist ❁ My Masterlist ❁ Read on AO3 ❁

Summary: When filming overruns and conspires to keep Din from the fun weekend he planned for you, he agonises over his decision. Fortunately, he manages to salvage the weekend, even after a calamity involving a rowboat...

Word Count: 13k ❁ Rating: Teen ❁ Content Warnings: Alcohol consumption, suggestive language. ❁ Author's Note: This is a very long one but I regret nothing, and I just reached 100k for this fic! Quite a milestone and I still feel nowhere near done, really. I get slightly carried away writing these two but I cannot resist. They're so cute, and writing their love fills me with so much joy! Thanks to @decembermidnight for being my beta. I appreciate your help amo!

12. The Calm [Din's POV]

Din tapped his brown boot anxiously against the carpeted floor of his room at the studios. He watched helplessly as the minutes ticked by on the large white clock that hung over the door, powerless to do anything but sit there as the original time he had arranged to meet you ticked by. The new time he had set came and went. Then, the time after that, too.

The Friday evening that Din had planned and the one which was unfolding before him were worlds apart from what he had originally intended.

First, Din planned to meet you after work and take you to the hotel he had booked. In a break from tradition, this time he had made the reservation under his name. Din had taken the precaution to avoid a repeat of the situation when a bottle of champagne had been delivered with Jim’s name emblazoned across it. After that, Din had planned an entire weekend of fun for the two of you. There would be some sightseeing and good food enjoyed by both of you. It would be the break both of you needed.

Din had even taken the luxurious step of booking a second suite for Grogu and Kuiil so that the two of you could enjoy some privacy in your room. After checking in, if you two could keep your hands off each other long enough to head out, Din had planned to take you for dinner. It was nowhere too pretentious but just something to help you wind down after a difficult week with some good food. Then he had booked a tour of London for the following day for him and Grogu and you, before an evening in the spa. Din hoped that it would be the exact treat you needed, given how hectic you had told him work was. Alas, it seemed that the universe had other ideas.

Now, Din was trapped at the studios, while you had finished work with no one to greet you. Din felt terrible. He knew how much you had been looking forward to seeing him. Even though it was far beyond his control, he still felt guilty. Din hated when plans were not kept to and schedules not followed. The uncertainty was by far the most distressing part of it all.

Din’s foul mood was not helped by the fact that it had been a particularly stressful day on set. One of those days when nothing was going smoothly and every shot seemed to be wrong. The most frustrating thing was that it was not one individual’s fault. Din Djarin was not the kind of man to lash out at people, his fury simmered deep below the surface. Yet, at least if there was someone for him to silently fume at, it may have distracted his agitated mind from the rage that bubbled within him.

The problems on set were not caused by a case of incompetence, of people not doing their jobs properly. The scenes were taking much longer to film than expected due to the intricate set. With so many components, it took so long to rearrange between takes and the cast and crew had to do a lot of waiting around. After each take, involving several stunts as Mando was tasked with fighting off a horde of enemies, the entire set was practically destroyed. It was a thoroughly frustrating process for all involved.

The hours that Din was required to be present on set had kept extending further throughout the day and now they were eating into precious time with you, a thoroughly unacceptable outcome.

While Din was frustrated that he was letting you down, he was downright devastated about the impact such a turn of events was surely having on Grogu. Din knew that his son was safe and being cared for at home with Kuiil, which was a relief. Yet, the separation anxiety that he felt when he was away from his boy was something that he had never managed to get comfortable with. Being away from Grogu caused Din to feel tremendously guilty

The only small comfort came from knowing that Grogu was with Kuiil, there was no one else – bar you, perhaps – that Din would trust more with his son.

Din was also relieved to know, courtesy of a picture you had sent him showing you in the hot tub, that you had successfully checked into the rooms at the hotel that he had booked. It was nice to know that the amenities weren’t going to waste, at least.

Yet, the selfie had caused Din further anguish, in a very different sense. Seeing the warm expanse of your skin, tantalisingly bare in the selfie, which revealed enough without being downright explicit, was causing his frustration levels to grow. How unfair that he was stuck here, while you looked so beautiful and all alone in that suite. Din was just grateful for how understanding and patient you were with him. Still, it didn’t give him bountiful new reserves of patience.

Din was irritable and lonely. The extended hours were miserable when he couldn’t even hang around with the rest of the cast without constantly fearing that his cover was to be blown. Peli was not required for this episode and Din missed his best friend. Din was alone with his thoughts as he frantically paced his room, waiting for a runner to fetch him when things were set up for the next take.

The knock on the door however does not herald the news that Din was hoping for, as an apologetic crew member informs Din that they were calling it a night and everyone would be required to return to set the following morning. Despite how frustrated he is, Din does not take it out on the young man who appears incredibly apologetic at the inconvenience. He knew that the crew member must have pulled the short straw to have to confront a fully armoured Mandalorian with such news.

As Din finally took a seat in the car that would drive him the short distance to his home, he was tired and irritated. Although he was careful not to take it out on the driver, Din is frustrated that he had spent hours longer away from Grogu than he had wanted, that he was forced into cancelled plans with you and even after both of those things, he had been told that he would have to return the following day. Not having anyone to blame it made it even worse. There was no one to silently seethe at and curse for their incompetence.

When Din eventually returned to his cottage it was almost midnight. After relieving Kuiil of his duties, Din wasted no time and immediately headed upstairs to his son’s room. Despite the old man’s reassurances that Grogu had gone to sleep without a hitch, Din knew that he would not be able to sleep without seeing that his boy was okay. It was a force of habit, a nervous question that needed answering.

Fortunately, when Din peeked around the doorframe, he was greeted with the soothing sight of his son sleeping peacefully. Grogu’s breaths were even, indicating that he was fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the turmoil that his father was experiencing. Din could not resist making sure that Grogu was tucked in and comfortable, kissing his son’s head carefully before he headed for a few fitful hours of rest himself.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Despite beginning the morning in as optimistic a mood as he could muster, Din soon discovered that the next day on set would run no smoother than the last.

He had returned to set what felt like only minutes after he had left. The cast and crew were being pushed to their limits of endurance, hardly having any rest between arduous days of filming. Unfortunately, such a demanding schedule was necessary due to the tight deadline that was looming over them from the executives who were near-unanimously despised by practically everyone on set.

The fact that their well-being was shunned in favour of satisfying goals and targets set mostly by people who had never stepped foot on a set in their entire lives was a fact that irritated Din. It made him rue the day he had ever decided to work for such a mega-corporation. But he had. He was here now. That fact could not be helped.

Fortunately, Din believed that the weekend was still salvageable. If the shoot was concluded in the middle of the afternoon, there would still be time for him to join you for a portion of the tour and then dinner. He thought it was pointless to ruin Grogu and Kuiil’s weekend too, so the two of them had left to join you that morning. Din was relieved to know that you were not completely alone. The selfie you had sent him confirming their arrival had certainly buoyed Din’s spirits.

After lunch, Din returned to the set, optimistic that the stars would align and he would be able to join you as quickly as he wanted to.

Unfortunately, those hopes were soon scuppered. The shoot was just not moving as quickly as it should have been. With the way things were progressing, there was no way Din would be able to make it to the hotel before the evening.

With his tail between his legs after the latest disastrous take, Din retreated to his room. Once he had secured the door, he pulled his phone out to call you, his heart aching as he did so.

“Hi, Sunflower,” Din said, as soon as you answered.

“Hi, Din,” you cheerily responded.

Din felt terrible at the excitement that was palpable in your voice. After all, he had texted you that morning and said that he would ring you when he had news. Judging by the tone of your voice, you assumed it was good news. Unfortunately, you were about to be bitterly disappointed. Din braced himself for the news he had to impart to you.

“I’m so sorry about this but it looks like I’m going to be held up at work even longer than I was hoping. Looks like I might be able to join you at around eight if things go well, but no guarantees. I hate to let you down,” Din sighed, his voice cracking with guilt.

The heavy sigh Din heard down the phone made him feel even more anguished. He knew that you hoped just as much as he did that things would go differently today. Instead here he was, letting you down again.

“It’s okay, Din,” you said quietly, “I know it isn’t your fault. It seems like your job is unpredictable, I know you would be with me if you could be.”

“Thank you for being so understanding,” Din said, gratefully.

“Don’t worry, honey. I understand. Work is work, these things happen,” you said sympathetically.

Din knew you didn’t understand, that was the entire problem. It made him feel so much worse about the entire situation. He knew that if he had just been honest and told you the truth that day when he had planned to, there was a chance you could have journeyed to his cottage to await his return with Grogu. Instead, due to Din’s cowardice, there you both were; miserable and missing each other when you were both in the same city. It was all so needlessly painful.

Still, Din knew that you had Kuiil and Grogu with you at least. It went some way to soothing his anguish.

“Besides, I have Grogu and Kuiil here for company now,” you added brightly, “We’re heading out on a tour shortly.”

“Sounds wonderful, Sunflower,” Din smiled, “I wish I could join you.”

“I wish you could too, Din,” you sighed. “I can’t wait to see you. I really hope you can be here tonight, I was so lonely in this big hot tub. It’s far too big for one person,” you add flirtatiously.

“Ugh, don’t, Sunflower,” Din murmured warningly. “If it was under my control I’d be there in an instant,” Din rasped, his voice suddenly husky with want.

“I know you would be, Din. We’ll be together soon,” you reassured him. With your sweet voice reassuring him, Din almost dares to believe it himself.

Unfortunately, before his conversation with you can continue in any more optimistic terms, there is a knock at the door. Duty calls as Mando is required on set.

“Got to go, a colleague is calling me. I’ll see you soon, Sunflower,” Din said, repeating your reassuring words to you, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Din. Bye,” you reply.

Din sat there for a few seconds after hanging up. While he still felt awful about letting you down, he would never tire of hearing you tell him that you loved him. It went some way to soothing his anguished state of mind. Yet there was another part of him that felt intensely guilty for his failure, to be honest with you.

Despite your words suggesting otherwise, the pain in your voice as you reassured him that it was fine made Din feel awful. Even worse than that was the bright way you had reassured him that you understood how unpredictable his job could be. Your innocence broke his heart.

Even more so because Din knew how much you had been looking forward to a little getaway with him. You had texted him many times that week, complaining about how stressful work was for you. It seemed that the final rush before the summer holidays ended had brought all kinds of families and their children to the museums. Din had consoled you as you complained to him about how you were expected to provide information and be personable to them all, despite how difficult they could sometimes be. It sounded far more draining than his job. Although doing stunts for a Hollywood production was physically demanding and required a lot of fitness, Din did not have to be personable. He could hide his face. Those two things were enormously important for him. If he had to face the world as you did, he was sure that he would not last a day.

Din replaced his helmet and headed back out onto the set. He pushed his shoulders back and transformed into a stoic Mandalorian warrior, rather than the anxious, frustrated man he was beneath all of the beskar…

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

It was almost entirely dark by the time Din was finally heading towards central London. Towards you.

Knowing that it would not be long until the two of you were reunited was causing little bubbles of excitement to spread throughout Din’s stomach. He could not wait to spend what remained of the weekend alongside you and was practically giddy with excitement.

Of course, Din enjoyed the domestic bliss whenever you visited his cottage in Nevarro. It was homely and comfortable. Yet he loved the thought of booking a luxurious room for the pair of you in one of the most exclusive hotels in London just as much. When Din had initially moved to London, he felt self-conscious and uneasy that such luxuries were at his disposal. However, since he had started dating you, he had become more grateful for such extravagances.

Din had always relished being a provider. Whether that be for his covert of Mandalorians or his son. Now he had someone else to provide for: his Sunflower.

He loved to take care of you at the weekend, after a long week of work. It went some way to alleviating the guilt that he felt at being paid many times more than your salary to do something that was, on the surface, a lot less demanding than the job you did.

Although the stunts Din was required to perform could be physically demanding on occasion, it was nothing compared to some of the arduous jobs he had had in the real world. It was all scripted and risks were assessed before the cameras ever began rolling. Since he had started his role as The Mandalorian, Din had been pampered in a way that was unusual to him, unfamiliar. Din had never been luxuriated in his entire life. It took some getting used to, to know that there were so many things such as the opulent hotel he had booked for the two of you that was available to him on only a moment’s notice.

It was an enormous contrast from the simple, solitary existence he had led for most of his life. Yet Din was becoming more used to this life and the luxuries that were on offer to him. As the hotel came into view through the window, Din found himself looking forward to a relaxing weekend there as much as he was looking forward to seeing you again.

All of the amenities were tantalising, especially when Din was so exhausted. He had been looking forward to this break all week, knowing that it would provide the rest and recuperation he so badly needed. The endless hours on set had proved incredibly stressful, Not just due to the scenes he was filming and the stunts he was required to do, but also the fact he had to be separated from Grogu for so many hours per day. So Din needed this break just as much as badly as he knew you did. He needed the time with his son and the opportunity to recuperate after filming for the final episode had been so intense. The stunts and physical acting were taking it out of him, though Din would certainly prefer that to the numerous children that he knew you had to deal with every week.

He couldn’t wait to take advantage of the spa and room service. Din knew that if you wanted to, neither of you would have to move a muscle for the entire weekend. Well, apart from the muscles Din knew that he would use in pursuit of your pleasure.

It would be utterly blissful, especially because Grogu and Kuiil would have their own space while Din enjoyed your company in the privacy of your room. Staying in this hotel was the escape from real life that Din relished. It was something that he did not feel anywhere else. Whenever you visited his cottage out in the country the times spent together were a blissful sense of domesticity that Din did not feel like he deserved. Still, it was preferable to spending time in your flat, a place where Din had never felt comfortable. Not due to its size or simplicity but because of the poster that adorned the walls.

So, to be granted an opportunity to escape your normal lives and just enjoy each other’s company here was a luxury that Din was immensely grateful for.

After exiting the car, Din practically sprinted through the hotel towards you. He could not wait to be back with you again. Gone were the times when he would stress about exposing his identity when he gave his name at check-in. You were waiting for him upstairs.

Now, nothing was stopping Din from being back with you again once again.

He smiled at the thought that he was only moments away from seeing you again and taking you in his arms. It would have been even sooner if the elevator would hurry up and arrive. Din tapped his foot frustratedly on the polished marble floor as he waited for it to arrive in the lobby with a ding.

When it finally did, he did not waste a second before he hastily entered and pressed the number of the floor you were staying in. His heart thundered as he made his way through the corridor, towards your room. Din feared it might well beat out of his chest as he stood there after rapping on the dark wooden door, waiting for you to answer.

Thankfully, you got the door pretty rapidly. When it finally swung open, there were a few seconds where Din stood unmoving, staring at you with his mouth agape in disbelief that you were finally back together. It was an expression that was mirrored on your face.

Then, he finally broke free of his trance and stepped forward to envelop you in a tight hug. Din could barely believe that you were in his arms again. He resented the fact that it had taken so long for you to be reunited. All the days of pain faded away, however, as Din gathered you close to him. He struggled to find words to express his emotions.

Fortunately, you spoke first.

“I missed you so much,” you whispered into Din’s shoulder, where you had tucked your head into the crook of his neck. He smiled as he felt your voice reverberating there, a reminder that this was real.

“I’m here now, Sunflower,” Din replied, his deep voice muffled into your hair, “I’m so sorry it took me so long.”

At that, you pulled away. Din saw how much love was there in your eyes that it floored him all over again. He wasn’t sure how he ever found someone to love him so much. All he knew was that your presence in his life had made him painfully aware of the fact that he had been missing something for so long.

He felt as though he had been sleepwalking through life. Existing rather than living, in the weeks it had been since he last saw you. Now you were back together, that difference was acutely obvious to him. Din closed the distance and claimed your lips with his, attempting to convey what he could not yet find with his words. He roamed his hands across the warm expanse of your back, before grabbing your waist and pulling you closer to him.

There was no doubt that things would have escalated further, were it not for the sudden presence of a certain child.

Din first heard Kuiil shouting at Grogu to come back and pulled away from you regretfully. Any feelings of disappointment were soon eclipsed by the relief he felt to once again be back with his son.

It had not even been an entire day since Din had parted ways with Grogu, but he missed his boy so much that he was so relieved to be back with him. The irrational fear that Grogu would think he was abandoning him had been gnawing at him all day. Coupled with the frustration of being stuck behind at the studios, it was an unpleasant combination.

Thankfully, Grogu seemed to be as cheerful as ever. He appeared to be in good spirits, which was unsurprising after the day he had spent with his two favourite people.

Din picked his son up and walked over to the sofa, placing him on his lap and doting on the little boy whom he had missed so much.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Although Din had every intention of quickly leaving the hotel again, after dumping his belongings and making sure that Grogu was settled, his plans soon fell by the wayside. Din had intended to take you out for a meal after the tour he had planned for you as part. Nothing fancy, but it was a Saturday night and he wanted to make the occasion feel special.

However, after Din exited the bathroom to see you lounging on the bed, you looked so relaxed and almost sleepy in the suite, he was happy to instead spend the rest of the evening in your spacious suite.

After all, it had been such a draining week for the pair of you. You deserved a relaxing evening. So, Din’s dinner plans were soon forgotten.

“I was planning to take you out for a nice dinner somewhere to spend some time just the two of us,” Din explained, “But I was thinking, since Kuiil is here and the food here in the hotel is so incredible… how about we just order room service?”

The way your eyes lit up proved to Din that it was a wise decision. The way you leapt off the bed and threw your arms around him and voiced your agreement only confirmed that. You seemed instantly relieved that Din was thinking along the same lines as you. Din wanted to show you again that there was never any pressure between the two of you to the expectations of what constitutes a ‘proper’ date. It was something that had defined your relationship ever since that evening when Din had tried to take you out to a fancy restaurant and instead, both of you had ended up in the noodle shop. Merely spending time with you was all Din needed to feel happy. Any time with you was incredibly precious to him.

After you and Din had finally made up your minds and ordered something from the extensive room service menu, Din went to check how Kuiil and Grogu were and inform them of his plans. He wanted to give you some space while you changed into some more comfortable clothes, but he was also eager to check on how Grogu was.

Din could not help but feel guilty for leaving Grogu for much of the day and how he would again tonight, even though he knew the boy was happy with the old man and Din would only be next door. Kuiil was as close to family as Grogu and Din had. A kindly old grandfather figure that they could always depend on for comfort and companionship. Din felt a lump in his throat as he hovered at the door, watching the two of them interact.

Kuiil had Grogu sitting on his lap, facing him. The old man was regaling him with tales from his childhood in his distinctive gruff voice. Watching the pair of them gave Din a familiar sensation of how he felt whenever he saw you interact with Grogu. The warm, tight feeling in his chest at the achingly familiality of it.

Family was a difficult subject for Din Djarin.

There was the family Din had lost when he was young and had never truly got to know. There was the family he had found with Mandalorians and the golden-haired woman who was the leader of his tribe. Then, of course, there was the little boy whom he had been unable to resist when he had seen him bundled beneath that threadbare blanket in the dismal attic.

Din had decided to rescue Grogu instinctively. Without much thought or planning, which was unlike a man who ordinarily prided himself on his meticulousness.

The abruptness of such a life-altering decision meant that Din sometimes doubted whether he was the right person to take care of Grogu, or whether Grogu deserved someone better. Din frequently felt woefully ill-equipped to deal with a toddler, especially one with as many needs as Grogu.

His love for the little boy won out every time.

Their connection was too great for Din to ever give up. He knew that he was not a perfect father, but he was determined to be the best one he possibly could be.

As he hovered in the doorway and took a brief moment to appreciate the fruits of his labour, and Kuiil’s labour, reflecting on how much progress Grogu had made, Din felt humbled by how precious fatherhood was.

When Grogu noticed his father standing there watching him, his big brown eyes lighting up when he laid eyes on the man who had saved him, Din’s chest swelled with pride.

It was these precious moments that made Din realise that he could do it; he was a capable father to Grogu.

He thought back to the first days onset, when he had arrived there terrified with his boy in tow. How Peli would scold him, telling him that he had an awful lot to learn about raising a young one after she caught Din not warming Grogu's baby food properly. The curly-haired woman had not been impressed. Din had been mortified. He hadn’t expected to see her just storm into his trailer like that. Those days seemed like distant memories now, but they were an important part of what had made Din the attentive father he eventually became.

Finally, Din moved from the doorway and joined Kuiil on the couch. He listened intently to the end of the story that the elderly man was telling his son in his characteristic breathy tone. Din had always admired the elderly man for the way he spoke to Grogu as though he were a real person, not just a cute baby.

“Everything okay, Mr Djarin?” Kuiil asked and Din shook his head slightly at the old man’s insistence on referring to him by a title.

“We’ve decided to stay here for dinner. I ordered something for Grogu and yourself and I thought we could eat together?” Din asked.

“Thank you, that sounds wonderful,” Kuiil smiled appreciatively. “I know this one has had a long day. I should imagine he'll soon go to sleep after he’s eaten and bathed.”

“Wonderful,” Din nodded.

Before the conversation could continue any further, the sound of the door opening tore Din’s attention away from Kuiil and his son.

Din was mesmerised by the sight of you, his brown eyes instantly brightening at the sight of you as you stepped through the door. Even though you were wearing something far less formal than you would have been wearing had you ventured out for dinner together, you were no less beautiful to Din.

You shuffled in wearing sweatpants and an oversized hoodie. Even with your body hidden by your comfortable clothes, Din was still on fire for you. Your outfit was not necessarily befitting such opulent surroundings. Then again, Din would not have picked this hotel out for himself. It was still a shock to his system to be surrounded by such an embarrassment of riches.

Din was distracted from checking you out by a knock at the door. Dinner had arrived.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Contrary to Kuiil’s hypothesis, Grogu had not immediately been ready to go down to sleep after dinner. It required a lot of attention from three weary adults and plenty of playtime before the mischievous boy was finally content to sleep.

With Grogu sound asleep and Kuiil eager to get some rest of his own, Din thought it was finally time for the two of you to retire to your quarters. It was, after all, a considerable amount of time since the last time the two of you had spent some quality time together. Now Din knew that Grogu was happy and settled, after receiving more than enough attention from the three adults whom he loved very much, he was content to leave his boy behind. Din knew that he would be there the second Grogu woke up the following morning.

Although it was tempting to take advantage of the spacious bed with its luxurious sheets, Din was determined to spend some quality time with you. He suggested watching something on the sizable flatscreen TV together while cuddling on the couch of course. Spending time with you and feeling your body on his was an intoxicating thought for Din. That closeness and companionship was something he had missed as much as the sex.

So, while you sprawled on the enormous sofa, Din hovered around by the minibar, fixing the pair of you something to drink. Din was content to leave you flicking through the various channels for something to watch. It reminded him of the time he had visited your flat when you cooked dinner for him and the two of you could not decide what to watch, despite the number of titles. This time, you were in control. He did not doubt that you would pick out something good. Or if you did not, he was certain that the pair of you would find other ways to amuse yourselves…

As he glanced up towards the screen, however, Din felt his stomach drop as you hovered over the streaming platform that The Mandalorian was on. He shook his head, hands suddenly trembling as he took the glass bottles in his hands. There was no way that he could watch the show with you. He hadn’t even seen it himself, too embarrassed to watch himself on screen.

“Looks like this hotel has a pretty nice collection of streaming services. Why don’t we watch my favourite show?” you said enthusiastically as you opened the app.

“What’s that?” Din replied, jokingly feigning ignorance. Hoping that you would not detect the terror that had suddenly settled in the pit of his stomach.

“You know what my favourite show is!” you exclaimed, thoroughly offended.

“Oh that Star Trek one, right?” Din replied, ducking as you threw a cushion across the room at him.

“Din!” you exclaimed.

“What, Sunflower?” Din replied, a cocky smirk on his face as he padded across the room and set your drinks down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

Although he may not get all the nerdy references, by confusing your favourite franchise with Star Trek, Din Djarin knew exactly what he had done. He felt lighter already. Laughing like that and knowing exactly how to push your buttons made Din feel as though everything was completely normal. The burden of the secret was temporarily lifted.

When he joked with you like this, it was so easy for Din to pretend that the jokes he was telling about the show were like any other people in a relationship. Teasing banter. It was a sense of normality. But the reality was that Din used such jokes to deflect from the truth.

He was the man behind your favourite character from your favourite TV show. No amount of jokes could hide that fact.

As Din padded across the room to fetch some cushions and blankets to snuggle up on the spacious couch, the guilt felt as though it was eating him up inside. He struggled to contain his emotions. Din knew that he was doing a terrible thing by lying to you. He was well aware that you would probably be disappointed when you discovered the truth.

Yet, Din also knew that the connection the two of you had was genuine. It had nothing to do with the character he portrayed, despite the way he had first encountered you. After that day at the convention, Din knew that he would have fallen for you regardless. Your brain and wits had stood out to him at the museum tour. Not to mention the way you had bonded with Grogu.

Anyone who was going to capture Din Djarin’s heart was going to have to realise that he and Grogu were a package deal. You had done that effortlessly.

When he finally sat next to you on the couch, threw a blanket over you and drew you into his side, all of that anguish was forgotten. Din felt your warmth all around him, the safety and security he drew from your touch whenever he was close to you. It was enough to make him forget the secret he was hiding from you.

With your head on his chest and your legs kicked up on the sofa as you cuddled up together and a terrible movie starting to play on Netflix, it was effortless to forget everything else beyond the here and now.

It was easy for Din to pretend that everything about how the two of you had met was normal. That there was no devastating secret lingering over you. That it was love and fate, rather than a combination of his job and your love for the show he starred in, which had initially caused your paths to cross.

Din wished that time would freeze and he would always be as happy as he was together with you in that suite. Curled up with his Sunflower, as you watched a terrible movie together.

Yet Din Djarin was a pragmatic man. Perhaps because of everything he had been through in his life. He realised, with a sickening, sinking feeling spreading in his stomach, that this happiness was fleeting…

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

That sinking feeling was a distant memory the following day, however. Din was strolling hand in hand with you through Hyde Park in London. Grogu was toddling alongside you, on a toddler lead. It was a beautiful, sunny day. You were both enjoying each other’s company, the anguish that the pair of you had felt for most of the weekend at being separated beyond circumstances that were out of your control was long forgotten. The quality time with each other was more than making up for lost opportunities. Din knew that it had been a more limited weekend than he had hoped, but he was still glad to spend time with you.

It was a warm, sunny day in the park. Unseasonably beautiful for mid-September. It was probably one of the last sunny days before the leaves would turn brown and copper and a colder breeze would be present in the air. So, naturally, most of the population had seemingly had the same idea as the one suggested to Din by you that morning, as you ate breakfast in the suite: to visit Hyde Park.

Despite the crowds, it was a spacious park, with plenty of room for all of you. Kuiil had been left at a cafe near the entrance, insisting that he was too old to join the rest of you, despite Din’s insistence that he would be more than welcome to join. Still, Din did not push him too hard. The kindly old soul had more than earned his pay this weekend.

Din squeezed your hand in his, enjoying the warm, comforting reminder of your presence as he strolled along at your side. He kept stealing glances at you, making sure that you were enjoying yourself.

Your eyes were covered by your sunglasses, but the small smile you wore near-permanently on your face proved to him that you were having as much fun as he hoped you were.

Din had been watching you extra closely this weekend. He always did, but he wanted to make sure that the time spent apart had not affected you. He knew how upset you had been, he was anxious to ensure that he had made up for the upsetting start to your weekend. Din found that his eyes were drawn to you. He could not get enough of looking at you. There was something palpably electric about the way the two of you would steal glances at the other.

The three of you stopped for an ice cream from a van sitting on benches as you licked the refreshing sweet treats. Grogu, naturally, ended up with far more ice cream around his mouth than actually in it. The contented coos of the little boy proved that he was enjoying himself, at the very least. Even though he had also spilt ice cream over his clothes.

The only part of him that was stain-free was his green bucket hat. The brown shirt with green shorts that he had selected for himself had fallen victim to his ice cream exploits. Green and brown was his favourite colour combination and Din had enjoyed the way you had gushed at the sight of him that morning.

After finishing your ice creams, you suggested that the three of you take a walk towards the water’s edge of the lake which was one of the main features of the park. At first, Din’s eyes were drawn towards the swans and ducks that were splashing around in the water there, as well as the people participating in various watersports and making their way across the calm, blue water’s surface on boats. He could have watched them all day, but his attention was taken away from them by the sound of your voice calling out to him.

“Din! Look!” you exclaimed enthusiastically, “There are boats we can hire!” you gasped as you turned to face him and pointed towards a boathouse with a few small rowboats tied up on the jetty in its vicinity which protruded into the water. “Can we hire one, please?”

Din released a sigh that was usually reserved for Grogu, an exasperated tired noise that ordinarily came out when his toddler was troubling him. But the childlike wonderment in your voice and face was too endearing for him to refuse. When you looked at him like that, Din knew he would have done anything for you.

The prospect of hiring a rowboat was something that Din would never have done on his own. With you, hiring a boat at the park suddenly seemed like an idea that he could at least entertain the prospect of. Din knew this was probably going to end in tears somehow, but he couldn’t resist indulging you and Grogu. Not when the pair of you looked at him with wide, expectant eyes. Waiting for him to give permission.

“Fine,” Din sighed, leaning his weight onto one leg and folding his arms in a way that was so characteristic of him.

It was a careless mannerism, one that was so distinctively Din Djarin. It was also unmistakably Mando. A gesture he often employed on the show, was to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies with just a lean and a sigh.

Din felt his blood run cold as he noticed the way that you stared at him for a beat longer than was usual. There was a terrible few seconds of silence where he was terrified that a glimmer of recognition had flickered in your eyes.

Fortunately, you soon snapped out of it. Shaking your head you took Grogu’s hand and led him towards the boathouse so you could figure out how to hire the boats.

When you turned your back, Din shut his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Without even realising it, he had slipped into one of his mannerisms that he had been so desperate to hide from you. The way he had stood and sighed was something that Mando would do. And he was certain that you had connected those dots.

Fortunately, you had hurried off before he had to lie to you, again. With his breathing back under control, Din paced over to the boathouse to catch up. You and Grogu were already at the desk, selecting the boat that you wished to hire.

After exchanging funds and a brief safety talk, with matching yellow life jackets to boot, the three of you were all set for your adventure in a rowboat. Din knew as he climbed into the boat that this was probably going to be a bad idea. Despite his reservations and hesitation and the grumpy dad facade that he was putting on, he was secretly intrigued by what this was going to entail.

“Have you ever done this before, Din?” you asked, as though you could sense his trepidation.

“No,” Din huffed, “Never.”

Din watched you shake your head at him with a smile on your face. He was confused by your apparent amusement, wondering what was so funny. Before you could continue teasing him, Din handed Grogu – who was wearing an adorable little yellow life jacket of his own – to you, and ungracefully clambered aboard the wobbly boat behind you.

As Din took a seat on shaky legs, you seemed intent to continue teasing him:

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, I’m sure you’ll be great!” you said cheerfully.

“You’re not rowing with me?” Din said, aghast. It had been your idea to hire this damn boat, after all.

“Oh, there’s only one set of oars. I think you can take the reins here, honey,” you smiled.

Then you proceeded to thoroughly ignore Din’s existence and his predicament, pointing out a tree in the distance to Grogu who was babbling contentedly on your lap.

Din shook his head with a huff and grabbed the ends of the wooden oars. He began to move them with trepidation. The weight was not an issue, especially not for someone with as hulking muscles as Din. But it was difficult to find the knack for the movements. He was uncoordinated at first, the wooden boat wobbling around as Din found his rhythm.

Din murmured a string of apologies but once he eventually got into the groove, the little boat hurtled away into the middle of the lake. Happy with the position, Din paused his movements and the boat came to a stop. With the sounds of the water sloshing as it hit the sides of the boat, a chorus of birds tweeting and Grogu’s giggles floating into the sweet, warm air… Din wondered if it was possible to feel any more content than he did at that moment. He closed his eyes and sighed in contentment, appreciating the sounds as the sun beat down on his face.

“I wouldn’t mind having a turn rowing,” you said eventually, breaking Din out of the tranquil state he had fallen into.

“Okay,” Din agreed.

What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.

First, Din watched as you placed Grogu onto the seat next to you. Second, Din stood up to allow the two of you to swap places on the two benches that were facing each other on the rowboat. Thirdly, he became acutely aware of how the motion of him taking a step towards you caused the little boat to rock as you stood up and your forces acted upon the tiny vessel.

The sum of your forces sent you hurtling over the edge with a yelp.

The splash which was produced when your body hit the water sent droplets of the lake all over Din and Grogu, who watched the entire thing with a scared look on their faces.

For a few, terrible seconds it seemed as though the entire world had stopped spinning on its axis as Din waited for you to reemerge from the lake.

Once he knew that you were okay, he felt certain he was about to get the biggest scolding of his life. He leaned over the edge of the boat, calling your name.

When you finally reemerged, hair wet and sticking to your face, Din breathed a sigh of relief. Principally, because you had survived your unplanned entrance to the water unscathed but mostly because you did not look like you wanted to murder him. A fact he was extremely grateful for. Instead of fire and fury, you were giggling breathlessly at the sensation.

Your airy laughs were the perfect accompaniment to the rippling waters of the lake.

“I hate you, Din Djarin!” you yelled between giggles.

It was a joke, there was no malice whatsoever behind those three words. Still, Din couldn’t help but wince slightly as you said such a thing to him. There were three words he never wanted to hear you say again.

Considering how well you were taking your impromptu dunking, Din thought he had escaped your wrath. He should have known that you would never allow him to get away with the predicament you found yourself in that easily.

Din leaned over the side of the boat to offer his hand out to you. He knew he would have no trouble pulling you back into the boat. You gladly took his hand and Din began pulling you inside the boat.

Except, Din’s helpful gesture was not met entirely with receptiveness from you.

It was turn for Din to let out a yelp of his own, this time as you placed all your weight on him and tugged him into the water.

It all happened so quickly that Din struggled to process what had just happened. For a second, everything was dark and murky. And cold. So cold.

Eventually, Din resurfaced, dramatically spitting a mouthful of water into the air and throwing daggers at you. There was darkness in those brown eyes, perhaps you would regret the day you ever pushed a Mandalorian into the water.

Din would deal with you later.

His first concern was for Grogu, who had been left in the boat all by himself. Din wanted to make sure that his son was okay.

Din discovered, as he pushed himself up to peer over the side that the water was incredibly shallow. He could easily touch the bottom. He felt instantly relieved once he peered over the edge of the boat and locked eyes with his son.

Except, rather than seeing Grogu’s expressive brown eyes full of concern towards his father’s predicament, there was a rather different expression across Grogu’s face. Din instead rolled his eyes as his son sat there, giggling at the scene unfolding in front of him and clapping his chubby hands together in glee. Din rolled his eyes and turned to face you, pushing his soaked brown hair up out of his eyes and onto his forehead.

Din stood there in the water, shaking his head and laughing at you in disbelief. Here he was, this man who was usually so hesitant to push himself even slightly out of his comfort zone, in the middle of a lake after an impromptu rowboat adventure.

Din looked at you, mesmerised by the way your face was bathed in the warm glow of a sunny afternoon in the park. Your eyes were shining a different colour than usual. Din was transfixed by the sight of you, the glow that seemed to surround you. As though you were an angel, brought to life. Your shirt was wet and clinging to your body, accentuating your figure which Din loved so much.

Before he was conscious of what he was doing, he had closed the distance between you. His hands were buried in your wet hair, it felt just as he had imagined it would, all silken and wet. His lips caressed yours in a slow, gentle kiss. Something about the way the water had caused your t-shirt to get so wet that it was clinging to your body had awakened something in Din. He was kissing you here in public, without a care for any onlookers.

“Everything okay here?” an unfamiliar voice behind Din caused him to snap out of the embrace in an instant.

Din cleared his throat and turned to face the mystery intruder. It was a lifeguard in a rubber dinghy, who had seen two people enter the water and been dispatched to make sure everything was okay. The man was probably close to retirement age and looked thoroughly unimpressed by Din’s antics, causing his skin to flush in embarrassment.

“Oh… uh, yes. Thank you,” Din stammered. Sorry, we were trying to switch places in the boat and then, this happened,” Din added with a nervous laugh.

“Well, there’s a kid in there you might want to return to,” the man in the boat observed as he nodded towards Grogu who still sat there with a grin on his face.

The blush that crept across Din’s face was unmistakable as the man in the motorised dinghy made his exit, the engine gradually becoming more and more distant. He could hardly look at you as he helped you back onto the boat, lifting you and pushing you back on there, careful not to disturb Grogu. When you eventually made it back onto the boat, you unceremoniously flopped down on the deck like a fish.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

The rest of the afternoon was spent lying on the bank next to the lake on fluffy towels. Thankfully, the boathouse had provided them to help dry you out from the soaking you had received. Din had resisted all calls on your part for him to take his shirt off so he would dry quicker. He knew it was just a cheap plea on your part to get to ogle him. He was too self-conscious to contemplate such an act. Despite the ease with which he had stepped out of his comfort zone by agreeing to a spontaneous boat excursion before, his typical shyness had returned.

Yet, as the sun fell lower in the sky and afternoon turned to early evening, Din decided that it was probably time to begin heading home. He knew a long filming day stretched out ahead of him tomorrow. A day that he knew was going to begin early, just after dawn had broken. Likewise, he knew that you would have to work early. And your job was far more draining and demanding than his.

The three of you had spent much of the afternoon in the same position. You cuddled up on Din’s warm chest as his hands rested around your waist, while Grogu leaned into his shoulder as the little child napped, exhausted from all the excitement. Din hated to move from this position. He would have been quite content to stay here forever.

“We should probably think about heading home soon,” Din whispered into your hair, nuzzling into the soft strands which were still slightly damp after your dip in the lake.

You nodded in agreement. Din carefully picked Grogu up and gathered him to his chest, grunting slightly as he stood up. Din noticed that you could barely meet his gaze as he offered you his hand and hauled you to your feet.

The three of you set off for the cafe where Kuiil had spent much of the day, Din once again laced his fingers through yours.

“Would you like to get a ride back with us or would you prefer to make your way home?” Din eventually asked as you approached the gates to leave the park.

Din had noticed the way you had become gradually more withdrawn and quiet. He wasn’t sure what had caused it, but he sensed that the tension in you was probably because you wanted to leave for home. It was a Sunday afternoon, turning into an evening after all. Din knew that you had work the following morning. But then Din noticed how your bottom lip was trembling as you looked at him. He knew that your idea of a peaceful, relaxing weekend had been ruined by his job. His heart ached for the disappointment which surely still lingered.

“Din, I don’t want to make you feel guilty. I hate to sound so clingy… but I feel like I hardly spent time with you this weekend. I thought I would see so much more of you and it’s been great to see you today… but we’ve been with Grogu pretty much the entire time and I,” you sighed, looking away from him as you attempted to compose yourself. “I miss you, Din.

“Oh, Sunflower, I understand. Don’t worry. I think this little one is tired so he probably wants to head home but, if you want, you can come back to the cottage,” Din offered.

When he saw the way your eyes lit up, he knew he had made the right decision.

“Perhaps we can go for a walk there and maybe have dinner together before you head home?” Din suggested.

He noticed the way that your shoulders immediately lifted. The thought of going back to work the following day without having seen as much of him as you were hoping seemed to be upsetting you deeply, Din could tell. So anything he could do to ease that pain made him instantly feel better. Din never wanted to see you upset.

“I’d love that, Din,” you smiled at him.

Your smile was one of the features that Din loved the most. Especially when you gave him one that made your eyes crinkle. Knowing that you were feeling better soothed Din’s shaky nerves. He thanked his lucky stars that the pair of you would not end this weekend with one of you feeling upset.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

The Nevarro Arms was the most defining feature of the tiny village of Nevarro itself, aside from the huge studios, The Volume, that stood right next to it. It was where most residents of Nevarro spent their evenings, drinking and chatting with each other.

Although they were a staple of the British countryside, pubs seemed small, intimate and terrifying to Din.

Despite how much time he had spent in the UK and how much he was enjoying his time here, this was not the country of his birth. There were certain cultural oddities that he could not get used to, no matter how hard he tried. Pub culture was evidently one of them.

Fortunately, you were slightly more of a local than Din. So, you insisted, when you passed it at the village cross on your way to walk the path around the hill where you had infamously been caught in the rainstorm a few weeks back, that he had to at least have a pint in his local.

“You haven’t even been to a pub since you got here?” you asked, astounded, as the two of you walked hand in hand through the tiny village of Nevarro.

Except for The Nevarro Arms and a couple of small shops which sold basic groceries, there was nothing else really of note here. Besides The Volume, of course.

“No,” Din replied with a smirk. He found it adorable how worked up you seemed to be getting over something as simple as never having visited a pub.

“Din! That’s ridiculous!” you said, exasperated.

“Sorry,” he shrugged, “Just didn’t appeal to me.”

“Well, we’re changing that today,” you smiled at him, “On the way back from our walk, you’ll have a pint, and you'll enjoy it!

Din was relieved to see how much you had brightened up since he had invited you here, you had been visibly upset at the prospect of leaving him. He still felt awful about the whole thing, about his work keeping him from you, but he was grateful for how patient and understanding you were with him.

Din was transfixed by the sight of the sun setting as the two of you strolled around a dirt path, bugs buzzing as the sun set, the two of you hand in hand. You started swinging your joined hands playfully. Din giggled at the sight. He loved the zest for life that you possessed. That something as simple as just taking a stroll at sunset with him seemed to perk your spirits up and make you so playful.

He would need every bit of those positive emotions to carry him through his first time stepping foot in his local.

Din felt his stomach churning with nerves as the two of you entered The Nevarro Arms. It was an old building with a slightly sloped doorway, indicating its age.

Din immediately felt like an outsider, an alien.

Part of what had prevented him from ever visiting the quaint old building was a fear that there would be a barrage of questions from the owner of the pub.

Din was nervous that they would suss him out somehow. He suspected that the pub did not get many foreigners in it. Once they realised how close Din lived to The Volume, that would be it. They would know he was The Mandalorian.

Although it was an irrational fear, Din looked and sounded much different than the character he portrayed, the terror at the prospect of being discovered never really left him. He was constantly checking himself, trying to speak differently and disguise the gait of his walk. He had found that it was surprisingly easy to blend in, given how people were never really going to imagine what Mando looked like without the suit of armour.

Still, as he stepped into his local pub for the first time, his clammy hand clasped in yours, Din was a bundle of nerves. It was amusing that he could fight people off physically like it was no more physically demanding than opening a jar of pickles. When it came to people… Din felt out of his depth.

Fortunately, it transpired that his fears were misplaced, for the pub landlord – not owner, you had corrected Din on the proper terminology – was just as much of an outsider as Din was.

Greef Karga was not from this part of the world either, like Din he had once been employed at the studios here. An actor from the US, after concluding his job here, had just never left. He explained how he had fallen in love with the environment here and bought a cottage close by.

When the former landlord of The Nevarro Arms had sold up, Greef had decided to step in and buy the pub to save it from closure. It was an icon of the surrounding area that desperately needed saving. Greef had heeded the call.

Upon seeing how relaxed and friendly Greef was, Din felt instantly relieved. The image he had feared of a nosy old lady with grey hair, mottled skin and too much time on her hands, who wanted to know everything about Din’s life as well as yours had been his biggest fear. With Greef, he needn’t have worried.

The only thing that did worry him, though, was how extensively Greef had talked about the studios here.

Now there was no way to avoid it. Surely you were going to bring it up.

When Greef finally got distracted by some other customers, Din followed you through the pub to find a table. He was appreciating the low beams of the pub, the unmistakable smoky feeling produced by the real wooden fire. He was finally beginning to feel calm and relaxed.

Until he saw it.

His heart dropped at the sight of it.

You were walking directly towards a huge display of Star Wars memorabilia. Various posters and autographs were framed, and hanging proudly on the walls. There was no way around it. No way you weren't going to stop and bring it up.

Everything Greef had just told you would have been a perfect segue for Din to come clean, to tell you the truth, that it was no coincidence that he lived in Nevarro, given its proximity to The Volume. That he was The Mandalorian.

When you inevitably stopped in front of the impressive display of memorabilia at The Nevarro Arms, it would provide a perfect conversation starter. He could just slip it in carefully. There would be no more paranoia that you would find the terrible secret he had been keeping from you. He would not have to hide such an enormous part of his life from you any longer. He could tell you all about how much being a Mandalorian meant to him. He could be honest with you about what kept him from you on long shooting days.

Once again, Din took the coward’s way out.

Right before you reached the display of memorabilia, Din called your name.

You turned away from it abruptly, spinning around to face him.

“I thought we could sit here, by the fire?” Din said as he gestured towards a cosy table tucked away in the corner.

“Sure,” you nodded and moved to join him.

Din breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down opposite you. Anxious that the conversation would not circle back to The Volume, or anything about the memorabilia on display, Din asked you a question that he knew would serve a dual purpose; that would keep you distracted and talking, while also pulling your mind far away from Star Wars.

“What’s the history behind Sunday Roasts?” Din asked, inquisitively. “I mean, I saw a sign for them outside here ‘Try our famous Sunday Roast!’ but I’ve never heard of one before.”

At once, you pivoted from someone Din was on a date with into your full historian mode. You launched yourself into an enthusiastic lecture, telling him all about Sunday roasts.

“So, British food has a bad rep around the world and that’s pretty fair. Some of this island’s cuisine is truly terrible. But I think the history of the roast is quite interesting and amusing,” you started, eyes twinkling with delight at finally getting to share your knowledge. “A lot of countries put pride and time into their cooking, but I think British people have always been a little more lazy than that. We think the Sunday Roast or Roast Dinner as we know it first started in the Middle Ages. After a busy week of working in the fields, the peasants would just shove a joint of meat into a roasting tin and leave it to cook over the fire while they went to church. So when they returned, I’m not sure what was tougher, the boots they wore to work in the fields all week or the meat!” you giggled.

“Yeah, I wonder,” Din laughed, “Interesting history, though. Never heard anything about it before. Thanks for the lecture,” Din added with a wink.

“Oh, there I go again,” You said timidly, biting your lip in embarrassment, “Off on another one of my lectures. You can take the girl out of the museum but you can’t take the museum out of the girl.”

“No, Sunflower,” Din whispered, smiling as he propped his elbow on the table, resting his hand on his chin, “I love it when you go off on your little tangents about things. Your passion and enthusiasm… it’s infectious. You’re also incredibly cute when you do it.”

“Din…” you scoffed.

Din smiled at your bashfulness. He loved how much more open you seemed to be to receiving compliments from him. You had been so shy at first and now you seemed to be getting increasingly comfortable with him admiring you and appreciating your presence.

“I mean it, Sunflower,” Din nodded, as he laced his fingers with yours.

Here, in this tiny, cosy pub, as the sun set and the fire crackled in the corner, Din thought you looked perfect. Your beauty was on full display to him, both inside and outside. The twinkle in your eye that was evident after the compliments he had paid you only added to your gorgeousness.

Din knew then that he had made the right decision. How could he ever let you go?

“Thank you,” you said with a wink, “Let me go and get us another round, do you want your usual?”

“A what?” Din added in confusion. He knew he understood the words you were saying, but some of them seemed so alien in this context.

“In the UK, it's common to buy a round of drinks rather than everyone going up to the bar individually. Saves time and as long as everyone sticks to the same drinks, it pretty much works out at the same cost. And your usual is just what you had before, so in your case a pint of the cider Greef recommended?”

“Oh,” Din nodded, fascinated as he was introduced to this new culture he knew nothing about. “I'll have another pint of cider but let me pay, baby,” Din insisted, placing his hand out to try and stop you.

“No, Din. I insist. I want to buy a pint,” you smiled as you walked away from his outstretched hand.

Din had no real concept of how long the process of ordering a pint should take. But as the minutes ticked by, he struggled to remain rational about what was taking you so long at the bar. After a few minutes, he became concerned about whether something had happened to you.

It wasn’t like The Nevarro Arms was the busiest pub in the universe, given the tiny village that it served. So, despite his reservations and fear that he was being overbearing, Din moved from the table and went to the bar.

Thankfully, he spotted you straight away and some of the tension that had been building inside of him was somewhat relieved when he caught sight of you standing at the bar.

However, his heart instantly sank when he saw who you were talking to. A familiar figure, who Din instantly recognised.

It was Migs Mayfeld, a security guard from The Volume.

Din suspected that Mayfeld was already slightly inebriated. Din locked eyes with the bald man, but Migs broke contact and resumed chatting with you.

He tried to quell his panic by remembering that Migs would have no idea who he was. After all, the only way that he would have known that Din Djarin was The Mandalorian was if he was standing there with a big suit of armour on.

But Din was not wearing armour. He was wearing jeans and a sweater.

You hadn't spotted him yet, your back turned as you continued chatting away to Mayfeld. Din suddenly felt guilty and awkward about his paranoia. He turned to leave, seeing that you had only been chatting to Greef and Migs and there were no more sinister reasons for how long you had taken. At that moment, you must have spotted him because from across the bar, he heard you call his name.

Din turned to face you and heard you say:

“Oh Migs, this is… uh, my boyfriend, Din.”

Din froze. There was no option now, he had to go and greet the man who had accompanied him to set so many times and checked him in at the little security hut at the entrance to The Volume. Din was silently praying that the armour hid enough of his build and voice so that Mayfeld did not guess who he was.

“Pleasure to meet you. Mayf– Migs, was it?” Din asked, his heart skipping a beat as he almost said the man’s surname. The nickname that everyone at work used for him. Luckily, Din corrected himself just in time.

Din noticed the way Mayfeld regarded him as he moved in to shake his hand, hoping that the flicker of recognition he thought he saw was something else.

“Nice to meet you Din, you got a wonderful girl here, I must say,” Mayfeld smiled.

The way Mayfeld turned to smile at you unsettled something in Din. He felt his blood turning hot. Luckily, you were on hand to diffuse the situation.

“Well, nice to speak to you Migs,” you nodded in the bald man’s direction, “And Greef,” you smiled at the man pulling pints behind the bar. “We’ll go sit by the fire and enjoy our pints. It's Din’s first time in a pub and he’s pretty excited to be here,” you smiled.

Din watched speechless as you walked towards him and grabbed his arm.

“You okay?” you asked, linking your arm through his as you led him back to the table.

Din nodded, although he wasn’t entirely sure that was the truth, because of how you had referred to your relationship with him to Mayfeld. The fact that you had just referred to him as your boyfriend was running through his brain on an endless loop.

The pride, the happiness that he saw in your eyes when you said that word. It was something that the two of you had not officially discussed, but it felt so right. It would be wrong to refer to you in any other way.

After he had met you, there was no question for Din of there being anyone else. It was always you, only you.

Now, due to his cowardice, he felt immense guilt. That title, your relationship becoming something official was exactly what Din wanted more than anything else in the world. There were no doubts in his mind that you were the one for him.

You had brought him out of his shell, including earlier in the day on the boats in the park. It was something he never would have considered on his own but with you, it just felt so right and Grogu had the best time. Your relationship with Din’s son was just as special as the relationship you had with Din, it was plain to see how much joy you had brought to the special little boy’s life.

Rather than feel the sheer joy he should have felt at your decision to bestow such a beautiful title on him, Din suddenly felt heavy and burdened by it. As you slid back into the cosy table to enjoy the freshly pulled pints of cider, there was one emotion Din was plagued with above all.

Guilt.

Din knew he should never have allowed to get it to this point, such a serious step, without saying something first, telling you the truth about who he was. The guilt threatened to engulf him, it was eating him up inside. Din’s heart broke when you took his inner turmoil as a sign that he was not happy with the way you had just referred to him.

“I hope you uhh… you didn’t mind me saying that. I mean calling you my boyfriend. I know we didn’t talk about it or anything but uh…. I don’t think Mayfeld was flirting really but I just wanted him to know I was seeing someone and it’s serious,” you said, anxiously looking up at Din over your glass as you took your first sip from your pint.

Din felt awful about the anxiety that he saw there, that you were so worried you had been upset when you had done nothing of the sort. Now that he looked at you before him and thought of you as his girlfriend, it caused a sensation in Din’s chest that was quite unlike anything he had experienced before. Somewhere between pride, security and a dash of possessiveness – knowing that you were his. No one else’s. He moved to reassure you, he could not leave you thinking that it was something he would not have chosen for himself. Din placed his arms on the table and took both of your hands in his, gazing at you adoringly.

“I do not mind for a single second, Sunflower,” Din beamed at you, “We didn’t talk about it, that’s true, but to me, it feels right. I am honoured to hold your heart.”

Din brought his lips to your hands, marvelling at how soft your skin was as he placed a firm kiss on the back of your hand. The sigh of relief he heard you release was noticeable in the quiet of the pub, and Din was happy that he had managed to reassure you.

“And I am honoured that you want to,” you said, beaming at Din adoringly. “Despite how useless I am when it comes to rowing boats.”

Din laughed at that, the memory of your earlier exploits in the park was going to live with him for a long time and comfort him in his darkest days, Din was sure of that.

“Well, you can’t have it all. It would be unfair on the rest of the world, otherwise,” Din said as he took a sip from his cider.

“Din…” you scoffed, unused to such a beautiful compliment.

To Din, you did look so beautiful. The firelight illuminated your features as the sky behind the window your table was against turned to a dark blue behind you. The wooden panels of the pub combined with the traditional decor and crackling fire all contributed to the scene before Din. He thought it was one of the most stunning sights he had ever seen. Here was a man who, thanks to his work, had travelled the world and dined in many of the most luxurious, exclusive establishments. It turned out the greatest one of them all was this small, quaint, pub in the English countryside. All thanks to you.

It was such a beautiful moment, Din was almost swept up in it completely. But then he remembered what he was hiding from you, and the sickening feeling in his stomach came back. He was so terrified of ruining this, the most incredible thing in his life aside from his son, that he was tongue-tied. It would have been a perfect opportunity to tell you.

Instead, he sat there, a warm feeling spreading in his chest. Whether from the love he felt for you or the crackling fire, he wasn't entirely sure. Still, Din basked in the moment. Committing every single sight and sound to memory as he watched you.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

The rest of the night was passed with pleasant chatter and laughter. Din could tell that you wanted to stay overnight, and he wanted you to. He didn’t want the laughter by the fire on this pleasant summer evening with the delicious pints of cider to end. But even if it would have been possible for you to blag a sick day, that was impossible for him, especially not with how filming was coming to a climax. It would never wash.

So, reluctantly, after one more pint, Din walked you outside and placed you into a waiting car that would take you home, thanks to the driver that the company supplied for him to use whenever he needed it. Din could tell that you felt hesitant to use such a luxury, but he had repeatedly assured you that it wasn’t coming out of his pocket.

Even if he was, he could surely afford it. Din usually felt embarrassed by the riches that were afforded to him, but wherever he could use a perk of the job to spoil you, it all felt worthwhile to him. Din watched the car leave down the narrow country lane one way before he turned around and headed back towards the cottage, back to his son who was surely asleep, having been lulled off by the dulcet tones of Kuiil. Din was always happy to get back to Grogu, but he missed you already.

Din returned to Grogu and the cottage. He hummed a happy tune, feeling a buzz from the cider. Blissfully unaware that something as simple as a visit to his local pub could have changed everything.

As he stood in the door, watching Grogu sleep peacefully, Din Djarin had no idea that by finally taking you to The Nevarro Arms, he had just set in motion a chain of events that would change the future for the two of you in the most dramatic way…

Next Chapter

Taglist: @survivingandenduring @readingiskeepingmegoing

#din djarin fic #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din djarin #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #mando x you #pedro pascal characters #my fics #tbobw

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dans-den · 1 year

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The Mandalorian Season 3 Review

Hey what's going on everyone? Dan here and today I'll be reviewing The Mandalorian season 3 on this May the 4th be with you day!

Even though the season has ended weeks ago, I'll give spoiler warnings for those who do not have Disney Plus because these streaming services add up.

Now I love The Mandalorian, I've watched all three seasons and Star Wars content is the only reason I wanted Disney Plus in the first place. The Mandalorian is indeed Disney Plus's number 1 show and there is a reason for it. I enjoy the series greatly and in my opinion, season 2 is the best of the three. Season 3 I'd say is on par with season 1, it's rough in some areas, but overall still enjoyable story and entertaining to watch. I'll be going through what I liked and what I dislike about season 3.

One major complaint that I and several others have is that they intertwined the Mandalorian with the Book of Boba Fett show. They're doing what Marvel is known for and connecting everything in a universe but the issue here is that Book of Boba Fett happens between season 2 and 3, meaning that if you're new and trying to watch The Mandalorian then you're gonna be confused about what happened between seasons 2 and 3. A newcomer wouldn't know to go to Book of Boba Fett for context so it loses points off the bat just for doing that. Book of Boba Fett was decent imo, but everyone else doesn't find it entertaining and find it redeemable because of Mando so a newcomer would likely stay away from that show. It's not good when you have to intertwine two shows to get the full context of one or the other, it's inconvenient and just unnecessary to me unless it's meant to lead to a universe which if they plan to cool, if not, unnecessary.

Now with the Book of Boba Fett stuff aside, I do enjoy the continued story of Din Djarin and Grogu on their adventures, this time around we actually get to see them amongst the Mandalorian tribes and culture. I love the lore of Mandalorians and this is a great addition to the series and the lore. I especially like Bo Katan, I think of all her varients, this version of her is by far my favorite only matched by her Clone Wars version. Din Djarin played by Pedro Pascal is great and his character continues to get fleshed out with each season. Grogu, I can't say much because it's puppetry and effects and it's done well enough, it's adorable as well. I also like how we get the return of Moff Gideon as the Antagonist, is he finally gone? we'll see.

Now the episodes this season were a mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, most of Season 3 episodes are fun and action packed, but I'd say there were two episodes in the entire season that were just filler for the most part. Episode 3 was kinda boring to follow because it was literal filler about reformed villains because it barely served any connection to the plot. Episode 6 filler was Mando and Bo on a wild goose chase of a mystery finding defective droids for Lizzo and Jack Black (I love Jack Black but this is definitely one of his weaker roles) and the villain turned out to be Christopher Lloyd and makes it like we care but it felt so rushed and phoned in. These two episodes are definitely lackluster compared to the rest but at least the other episodes make up for these two so I won't hold it too hard against season 3.

I loved the last two episodes where the Mandalorians all band together to take back Mandalore from Moff Gideon and his Beskar Stormtroopers. It did Kill off one of the Mandalorian characters we came to know and respect but at least he went out in true Mandalorian fashion fighting till the end. Gideon got wrecked the third time around and Mandalore was taken back and Mando himself has settled on his land with Grogu as his new adopted son/apprentice where they're gonna go on many more adventures together. This makes me excited for a Season 4 and hopefully we will get a season 4. Though if we do get one, maybe if should be the last one but also the best one yet. Though this is Disney, so it is possible they will try to milk the Mandalorian until its dry but maybe I'm wrong there, who knows?

Overall, season 3 was pretty good and while I still think season 2 was better, season 3 still added to the lore and world of the Mandalorian culture. I would like a season 4 but we will see what happens in the not so distant future. Jon Favreau, you busted out another banger of a season here!

rating this season I'm giving it:

8/10

While I don't think it's the best season, I still think it's great and adds plenty to the story of Din Djarin. I would recommend this season just as much as 1 and 2 and you'll definitely need to watch the last few episodes of Book of Boba Fett to figure out what happens between seasons 2 and 3. Here's to hoping for a season 4 and make it the best and last one.

May the Fourth be with you all

See ya!

#dans den #tv show review #the mandalorian #may the fourth be with you #din djarin #bo katan kryze #moff gideon #star wars #season 3 #disney plus #din grogu #jon favreau

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aliiok · 2 years

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Chapter 3

Through the Stars

ao3

After finding no leads to the artifact you came to Kalevala for, you decide to join the Mandalorian's crew.

A/N: This story takes place between s1 and s2.

This was the first breakthrough you had had on this planet. Today, while using a small shovel to clear the sand, you felt something hard under the surface. The sun was high in the sky, and you could feel its warmth on your skin. When you pulled the object out from the sand, the light glimmered off of its metallic surface.

You weren’t familiar with what this particular object was. It was small, about the size of your hand when you made a fist. Really, you thought, it was shaped to mimic a human eye. You guessed it was some sort of contraption, but you couldn’t place it. The object was familiar but foreign at the same time. When the light in the center began to flicker a blue light, as if it was coming online, you decided to alert the Mandalorian.

“Mando!” you called out, getting his attention from where he was fixing the rig. The damn thing quit working a few hours ago.

He turned his head to your direction, but then began looking around for danger.

To clarify yourself, you added “I found something!”

He stood, walking over to the dig site. From where you were perched on your knees, you dusted off the rest of the sand quickly and reached up to hand it to him. He spent a few seconds studying it, before speaking.

“It’s a homing beacon,” he said finally, answering your silent question.

You frowned. Is that it? After spending weeks on this planet, you thought you would have found what you were looking for by now.

Placing a hand on the ground, you stood to meet his level. You rubbed the edges of the breathing mask around your face, as if you could clear the dirt that seemed to cling there, and sighed. This was probably your last chance to really find something to make a name for yourself in the world of archeology. After all the time you’ve exhausted here on Kalevala, there were still no leads to the specific artifact you were sent here for. You had spent all of your time since leaving the training center taking small jobs that lead to almost nothing, and that didn’t pay well either. This one was just like the others. Maybe you could convince this Mandalorian to drop you back off on your home planet, Corellia, before leaving with whatever he came here for. With the credits he was paying you though, you figured at least you could afford a ride back there if he didn’t.

Interrupting your thoughts, Mando began to speak again. “It’s coming online. I can plug into its tracking data on the Razorcrest.” He motioned for you to follow, and you walked behind him to the ship. You watched as his boots made footprints in the sand in front of you

In a weird way, you had grown fond of the two. Only a few days had passed since you met them, but it had been longer than you would’ve liked to admit since you had companions to share your journey with. You liked younglings, and the child always seemed to fill whatever space he occupied with joy. Whether it was watching you work from behind the clear shell of his pram, or toddling around the ship as you catalogued the few religious artifacts you had found, you enjoyed his presence.

Oh, and then there was the Mandalorian. He almost entirely consumed your thoughts as you were trying to fall asleep each night. You were perplexed by him, and you weren’t sure when you began to view him as more than an acquaintance, but a friend. You guessed it was the way he acted around the child. Ever since that first encounter, your mind had spent hours trying to figure out why he was here, why he might have decided to hire you in the first place. The thing you liked most about him, though, is how he respected your professional opinion. There have been several times where you had to educate him about the relics you had been finding. He didn’t seem to know that much about ancient Mandalorian culture. You wondered if he had ever been to Mandalore, or if he was born there. Your heart panged at the thought of the state of the planet. So much culture lost.

Also, why didn’t he ever take off his helmet? With everything you had learned about Mandalorian society through your training, you knew their armor was integral to their religion. Ultimately, though, you figured he just didn’t trust you enough to see his face.

After entering the ship, you followed the Mandalorian over to a data station. It was some kind of pre-imperial tech, you recognized. You watched as he fiddled with the beacon, and then plugged it into the terminal. When the ramp was fully closed, you removed your mask and hooked it onto your belt beside your tools.

The screen began moving, scrolling upwards as it presented information. You weren’t quite sure how it worked, or what the words on the screen meant. You could tell he understood, though.

“What’s it saying?” you asked, a little unsure if he would answer. If this is what he came to Kalevala for, you guessed he probably wouldn’t say.

Surprisingly, he answered. Turning his head towards you, he explained what the data it was emitting meant. “It’s tracking the coordinates of a Mandalorian.”

You bit your lip. How did this beacon end up here? These ruins have to be at least a couple hundred standard-years old. The device in front of you couldn’t be more than fifty, you guessed. An uneasy feeling settled in your stomach. “Is this what you came here for?” you asked, taking a step back and crossing your arms over your chest.

Mando finished installing the data, and unplugged the homing beacon from his terminal. He stood there for a second, pondering your question. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes, or something like it. I’m looking for others.”

“I see,” you responded.

The both of you stood there for a moment, unmoving. You wanted to ask if this was it for your temporary partnership. You hadn’t found what you came here for, but you didn’t regret working with the Mandalorian, either. His help had doubled your pace, and you had written more notes in the past week than when you took a course on digital archives, you thought.

Just as you were starting to get uncomfortable with the amount of silence, he spoke again.

“Listen…” he began.

“The kid. He..” the Mandalorian trailed off again, moving the beacon to a satchel on his waist and settling his hands on his hips. He adjusted his stance as well. “He likes you. We could use another crew member, especially now.”

“Now?” you questioned.

“It’s too dangerous to keep taking the child with me on missions. I will pay you to keep him safe.”

“So… you want me to be a nursemaid?” you said after a beat, in your most accusing tone. “I came here looking for an artifact, not to be demoted.” You turned, walking toward the exit and starting the motor to your breathing mask. You couldn’t believe what he was saying. It was insulting. You didn’t spend your former years scraping together all the credits you could find to go through training just to become a glorified baby-sitter. Before you could seal it over your face, your hand hovering over the door controls, you felt a hand on your shoulder. Turning your head, you saw the Mandalorian towering over you. Your skin prickled under his touch, even through the leather of his glove and the thick cloth of your jacket.

“I trust you,” he admitted. This time, when he spoke, you could hear something different behind his voice.

You stiffened a little at his words. He trusts you, with his son. This planted a seed in your brain, and you decided to water it. You had spent weeks on this planet for a job that paid next to nothing after your expenses. After all this time, even with the help of the Mandalorian these past few days, you had found no trace of it. What was next for you? Were you going to keep taking job after job, living off inexpensive meal bars, while searching for answers you would never find, for the rest of your life? You had gotten into archeology because of your sense of adventure. You wanted to see the galaxy’s cultures and people. But, since your graduation, you mostly spent your time alone preserving artifacts and double checking your notes. You had made more the last few days under Mando than in the last few months. At least with the Mandalorian, you could travel and make enough credits to start saving for your future. Then, you decided, you could buy your own ship and travel wherever your heart desired.

Finally, you nodded your head. “Okay.”

You spent the rest of the evening cleaning up your campsite. Packing away all of your belongings, the child watched you from his pram. The Mandalorian was aboard the Razorcrest, preparing the ship for flight. After everything was neatly encased onto your cargo carrier, you said your last goodbye to the planet you called home for these past few weeks, and boarded the ship.

After the ramp sealed behind you, you removed your mask and picked up the child from his now open carrier. You started thinking about everything that had happened in the past few weeks. You thought you might run out of food trying to find the artifact, but now here you were here, on your way to the other side of the galaxy, on a Mandalorian’s ship.

#tts #mando #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #mando x you #chapter 3

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millersdjarin · 2 years

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I Only See Daylight

Chapter Eight

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Rating: E

Warnings/tags: mentions of past arranged/forced marriage, past emotional/physical abuse, nightmares, wound/injury description (not in detail), negative self-talk/self-image, panic attacks, PTSD, religious trauma, religion disillusionment

Chapter length: 10k

Previous Chapter | Series Masterlist/Info | Full Masterlist

notes: so the rating hasn't technically gone up yet, but i've decided to just label it as E from now on rather than E (eventually), just 'cause it's easier :)

long chapter today, so grab a drink, settle in, and enjoy!

i wounded the good and i trusted the wicked; clearing the air, i breathed in the smoke

Grogu doesn’t settle again until he’s made sure that both of you are alright, and that you’re not still mad at each other. He sees the bandage on your shoulder, reaches out to it like he’s going to try and heal it. But you assure him that you’re going to live, that Mando has patched you up real good.

“Your dad’s taken care of me, kiddo. Just get some rest, I promise it’s alright,” you tell him.

Then, Mando sits with him, gently rocking his hammock back and forth, telling him everything is okay. You watch from the doorway, heart warming at the sight.

You wish you could say that your focus is entirely on that, though.

But it’s not.

All you can think about is what Mando said. What he’s called you on several different occasions now, since the first day you came aboard with him weeks ago.

Sweetheart.

You’re still trying to rationalise it, not willing to believe that he means it in the way that you think. Maybe Mandalorians call all their friends that. Although, you think, he didn’t want Karga to call you it, back on Nevarro. And…you’ve never heard him say it about anyone else. Not even to the kid. And if anyone’s going to get called a non-romantic, affectionate Mandalorian nickname, it’s him.

But so far, it’s just been you.

You’re just debating whether or not to bring it up when Mando peers over the edge of Grogu’s hammock, then says softly, “He’s asleep again.” He gets up, and you move out of the way so he can climb out of the bed chamber and close the door behind him.

And then you’re just standing in front of each other, barely two feet apart. He’s looking at you through the visor, and something about him seems hesitant, unsure.

“Look,” he says eventually, “I’m really sorry.”

“You already said that. And it’s alright, we’re both wired after what happened…”

“Not just about the fight,” he cuts you off softly, holding up his hand for a moment. He pauses. You’d fold your arms over your chest if you could; you feel exposed beneath his gaze, like he can see so much more of you than anyone ever could before.

“Then what are you apologising for?”

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

You frown. “By…doing what?”

“Calling you Cyar’ika. Sweetheart,” he corrects, and his left shoulder twitches just a little, almost self-consciously. “I…hope I didn’t overstep. I won’t call you it again.”

“No,” you say, probably too quickly, and find yourself taking a short step closer to him. He doesn’t move away, but he tenses, visor following your movement. “No, you…” you’re not sure how to say, Actually, Mando, I’d quite like to be the person you call ‘sweetheart’, so instead, “You didn’t overstep.”

A beat. “Oh.”

“I mean, maybe it would’ve been nice to know what you’ve been calling me all this time…”

“When I called you it for the first time, it just…slipped out. And again just now. I was worried it would scare you if you knew what it meant. If you’d think it was…weird.”

A smile twitches at your lips as warmth blooms in your chest, and you’re itching to step closer, to put your hands on his helmet like you’d hold his face. “It’s not,” you say. “But…”

“…But?”

Softly, you sigh. For a moment you glance away, rubbing the back of your neck. “Mando, I…I never wanted to intrude on your life. I honestly thought you’d get sick of me by now,” you say, and he tries to stop you with a gentle slip of your name, but you hold out your hand to carry on, “But you haven’t. And, honestly, I guess I’m wondering what…that word means. Not literally, but…to you. To us.”

A breath comes through his helmet. You see it release from his chest. He looks at you, as if considering. Then, tentative, he takes a step closer, and reaches down to take your good hand in his.

A sharp, quiet breath pulls into your throat. You wait for him to speak, unsure you could form words right now.

“Cyar’ika…” he says, and now that you know what it means, it makes a shiver run down your spine. “This is…all very new. To me. To my life.”

You look down. “I know. Like I said, I didn’t want to intrude…”

His other hand surprises you by lifting to prop his pointer finger under your chin. Gently, so gently, he coaxes your head up, lifting your eyes to meet him again. “You’re not,” he says, “that’s not what I’m saying.”

You gulp heavily. “Then…what are you saying?”

He keeps his finger there for another long, lingering moment. Your skin is still sparking even when he pulls away, hand dropping back to his side. “I’m saying that I feel…something between us. If you do.… I mean, do you?”

It’s endearing, this new hesitancy about him. It’s almost enough to distract you from the fact he just said that. You manage to nod, stammer out a, “Yes.”

“But…this is new. I’ve not had something like this before, and I…I never expected it. I never expected…you.”

“Likewise,” you agree, a soft smile tilting the corner of your lips.

“I care a lot about you. Which is why I don’t want to kriff this up by—by not being able to give you what you need, what you deserve.” He sighs, soft, his hands clenching nervously at his sides. “I’ve got a lot of things that I need to work out. From…from my past.”

You swallow down a lump of emotion, and nod understandingly. “Me, too.”

He nods, like he already knew. “And I don’t really know where I’m going, what I believe anymore. But what I do know is that whatever has happened that led us here, I don’t…I don’t want it to end. With you, with the kid. I promised I’d take you travelling, and I also promised I’d take you back if you ever wanted or needed to; I intend to keep those promises.” He shakes his head. You watch him, waiting for him to continue. Then his tone shifts to something softer, something less certain. “I don’t know what I can give to you, but if you’re okay with waiting for me to work it out, can we…find a way forward together?”

Kriff.

Your heart leaps. Both with excitement and nerves. It’s quite a thrilling mix, actually, one you’ve never felt before. At least, not quite like this.

You’ve never actually been with anyone before. Not willingly, not out of real and true feelings. The man you were betrothed to was never someone that you had chosen. Never someone you would have chosen, in any version of reality.

And, despite the thrill of hearing Mando say he feels the same, you’re not really sure how you’re going to handle anything more than what They tried to force upon you. They went to a lot of effort to make sure you weren’t desirable to anyone else. Mando doesn’t know what lies under your clothes, or beneath the rubble of the past you tried so hard to leave in a wreckage behind you.

Doubt begins to creep in around your happiness. It’s sour, foul on the edges of your consciousness.

As soon as he sees all that…mess, he’s going to run. You know this. They made sure that it would never be any other way.

“Cyar’ika,” Mando’s voice breaks you from the thoughts heading down a dark path. “If you don’t feel comfortable…”

“No, it’s not that,” you’re quick to say, voice shaking a little. “I just…this is new to me, too.”

He nods. Squeezes your hand, soft, reassuring.

Maybe, for now, you can pretend that it will be everything you could dream. You can have this, both of you, even if just for a time.

“We can take it slow,” Mando promises you, so soft that it hurts, brings a painful yearning to your chest.

You nod. Some kind of instinct draws your eyes down to where his lips are behind the beskar, even though you can’t see them, can’t kiss them like you want to. Can he kiss? Is that a thing that you’ll ever have together, if he can’t take his helmet off?

“There’s a lot that I don’t know,” you whisper, a confession and a question.

He lifts up his other hand. Out of the corner of your eye, you see it gently coming towards your face, and as it goes out of sight you feel the backs of his fingers trace lightly down your cheek. “Whatever you want to know,” he says, “I’ll try my best to answer.”

A shaky breath escapes your lips, your eyelids fluttering at his touch. You wish it was his bare skin, wish you could turn your head and kiss the very warmth of his palm. There are a lot of questions, many of which you’re sure you haven’t even thought of yet. He probably has them for you, too, and you wish you could offer him the same promise of answers in return.

It should be terrifying. This development, whatever exactly it is, should make you want to run back to that planet and never see anyone again. The trust and attachment blooming in your chest are exactly what you stayed alone to try and avoid; let alone being off of the safe planet and in the middle of space where anyone could find you.

But, just like everything else with Mando that should have scared you off, it doesn’t.

“You should rest,” Mando says quietly, his hand falling from your cheek. “How does your shoulder feel?”

“Hurts,” you say with a sad smile. “But I’ll be okay.”

He nods. Pauses. “I really am sorry,” he says. “And I’m thankful. I couldn’t have done the mission without you. I’m sorry for getting angry, but I’m mostly sorry that you got hurt.”

“It’s alright. I went in knowing what could happen. Honestly, Mando, it could’ve been worse.”

“It could have been. But I won’t let it happen again.”

A small smirk twists your lips, “You saying you’re going to invite me along to another mission? Because I’m down.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Maybe. If we need to.”

“Well, you’ve got my number,” you joke. Your body is starting to feel heavy with exhaustion, muscles getting stiff from the exertion.

Mando sees it. He reaches his hand out again, this time settling it carefully on the back of your neck. Then he leans in, almost like he’s going to kiss you, but you know he’s not (though you wish he could). Instead as your eyes fall closed, you feel the gentle press of cool beskar against your forehead as he rests his there.

“Rest, Mesh’la,” he says, maysh-lah, and smoothes his thumb over your neck.

You exhale, shaky. “What’s that one mean?”

Briefly, he pushes against you so gently, the front of his visor brushing against your nose like a Mandalorian kiss. Then he pulls away, lets you go. “Beautiful,” he translates.

Your heart clenches.

The last time you heard that word directed at you, it was your mother, telling you that no one would find you beautiful again. That your only hope was your betrothed.

Shoving the memory away, you give Mando a shaky smile, and squeeze his hand before letting him go. “You going to sleep, too?”

“Once we’re in hyperspace,” he says. “I need to eat first. Are you hungry?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“I’ll make us something quick. Then you can sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” you offer a playful salute, earning a humorous shake of his head.

He gestures to the ladder, following you when you turn towards it. Just before you start to climb, you feel the slightest brush of his palm against the small of your back.

You shiver, partly because it feels nice, partly because of what lays beneath your clothes.

You force yourself not to pay it any mind. Not now.

Not yet.

When you wake up, the first thing you feel is the pain in your shoulder.

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, grimacing as you roll onto your back, winded with the effort of it. The pain is shooting like the knife is still in there. At the feeling, the dream you just left comes back to your mind: you dreamt that you were lying in your bed at your hut with a knife in your shoulder, and no one could get it out. Mando was there in the corner of the room, just watching while dozens of people tried to remove it, the pain increasing with every tug, every tear.

Then, Mando had stepped closer, and everyone around you disappeared. He reached for you, for the knife’s handle. It was going to be okay, he was going to help you, until your shirt tore and revealed your stomach and he saw your skin, what you look like, and the memories from everything you escaped were playing on a screen on the wall for him to see—he backed away, disgusted—

And then you woke up.

Now here you are, still feeling the after-effects. So much so that when you look to the door and realise it’s open, you almost expect to see Mando there, backing up, turning away and not looking back. As if you were never there in the first place.

You hate bad dreams.

Mando and Grogu are in the cockpit when you emerge. You’d avoided your reflection in the ’fresher mirror, and hope that you don’t look as hideous as you feel when the flashing lights of hyperspace come into view.

You sit down in your seat. Grogu turns to you and gives you a happy smile.

“Morning, kiddo,” you smile tiredly, reaching out with a wince to rub your hand over his head. Pain shoots down your shoulder, strains all the surrounding muscles. “Oh, kriff.”

Mando’s helmet turns to look at you. “You okay?”

“Just hurts, is all. Sleeping kinda made it worse.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Well, thank you.”

“Where are we headed?”

“I know we only left Coruscant not that long ago, but I thought we could head back.”

“I’m okay with that. You did promise to take me to a restaurant,” you say, giving him a sly smirk.

He chuckles, his shoulders shaking just a little. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Just try not to get into any trouble that gets you stabbed, this time.”

“Can’t make any promises. And anyway, you’re one to talk.”

“Oof. I see how it is. Are we going there for a mission?”

“No. The ship’s heater has been showing warning lights, I thought I should get it checked out. And I thought…” he hesitates, although it might just be a lapse in concentration as he flips a few switches above him, “I thought we could get you some new clothes.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You saying my wardrobe is tired, Mando? Rich, coming from you.”

“No,” he laughs a little, “I like your wardrobe.”

“Are you a fashion expert? Secretly keeping track of all the style trends on different planets? Personally, I think you’d really suit a poncho.”

He sighs, not tired but amused. “Alright, alright. I just meant that you still have to sleep in your day clothes. It can’t be comfortable, and after your injury, you should be comfortable.”

Your heart warms. “That’s sweet,” you say softly, wishing your sore muscles would let you reach out and run your hand over his shoulder. Then, turning teasing again, “What do you sleep in, Mando?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he quips, low and suggestive.

Something stabs through your gut. Something…not unpleasant. “That’s why I asked. Do you sleep in the armour?”

He’s quiet for a second, either avoiding the question or just concentrating on something. “I sleep in my flight suit. With the helmet on, since taking the kid on.”

“Is it comfortable?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “I’m used to it.”

Your mind wanders to a place where you might see him when he sleeps. Where maybe, he’d let you lie beside him. Maybe even touch him, hold his hand. Feel his heartbeat in his chest.

“We’re coming up on Coruscant,” he announces, and the ship whips out of hyperspace, the planet appearing before you, stars coming to a standstill.

“Maker,” you curse, “it is pretty, isn’t it?”

“Better from far away,” he says, wry. “Too busy on the surface.”

He’s right. It’s really fucking busy.

You knew this, of course. But last time you came to Coruscant, you stayed on the ship, and you remember being distinctly grateful that you were safely inside the walls and not out amongst the chaos.

The only thing that stops your racing heart from deteriorating into full-blown panic is Mando beside you, sticking close to make sure you’re not separated by any quick-footed pedestrians. The kid is in his satchel, not enough space on the streets for his pram.

Mando’s hand brushes against the small of your back every now and again, sometimes guiding you through a quieter section, and sometimes, you think, because he’s offering or seeking comfort. He’s not big on crowds, either.

It’s loud and a little disorienting, but Mando keeps his head as always, knowing where he’s taking you: to a little clothing store on a street corner, lit with bright neon lights in the windows. Grogu is fascinated by all the clothes, the different fabric textures and designs. He reaches out and touches everything he can, and Mando only sometimes tells him to stop, though it’s entirely half-hearted. The kid is distracting, so it takes you far too long to pick out some comfy pyjamas, while Mando waits with an admirable patience.

“Hey, these would suit you,” you say to him, holding up a pair of black pyjamas with gold embroidered trimmings and patterns. You give him a teasing grin, holding it up to his body to try it. “That’s a good look on you, Mando. I’m into it.”

He shakes his head, amused.

You make sure to choose long-sleeved clothes to hide your skin as always. The pyjamas you go for are soft, probably the softest fabric you’ve ever felt, a dark blue colour with white stars patterned on the shoulders and the hem of the pants. The long sleeves are wide and flared, the pants pleated. They’re warm and comfortable and you can’t remember the last time you slept in something like this; if you ever have at all.

“Thank you,” you say as the three of you exit the shop. “You didn’t have to get those for me.”

His gloved hand brushes against yours as you squeeze yourselves past a particularly dense group of people. “You’re welcome,” he says. “You deserve to be comfortable.”

You smile, warmth blooming in your chest again. “So, dinner?” You suggest.

“I know just where to go.”

The diner is small but busy, a restaurant tucked on the fifth floor of a tall, beige building that glitters with lights in each window and hanging down the corners of the walls.

It’s divided throughout the restaurant with curved walls, creating little areas tucked away and some more in the open. There’s a bar in the middle of the room where people are perched on barstools, drinking alone or flirting with another. A live band plays in the corner opposite yours, generic music floating through the air as a backdrop to the hustle and bustle. It is small compared to other places in the city, but clearly a popular place to come.

You sit in a booth in the corner beside one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the perfect place to watch the busy crowds moving through both in and out of the restaurant, some people arriving, some still eating, and some on their way out. The city below you is alive with lights and movement, above you with speeders in traffic lanes.

“Did you pick this spot because you know I like watching people?” You ask Mando after a waiter has taken your order.

“You and the kid, yes,” he says.

You give him a smile. He’s sitting opposite you with the kid at his side, in a little kid’s booster chair on the booth bench. “You been here before?”

“I got a bounty here once. It seemed nice.” He’s got a drink in his hand, the waiter having brought both of you one after you ordered. He’s not drinking it, just swilling it around as if he’s nursing it.

“Of course you did.”

“It was before I met you. Before I met the kid, actually.”

You take a sip of your drink, the liquor warming your throat. “How long ago was that?”

“That I met the kid, or that I came here?”

“Both, I guess.”

He tilts his head, thinking. “I’ve had the kid a little over a year,” he says. “So, maybe two years ago.”

You want to ask more, ask him where he and the kid met, how they were brought together and why they stayed together. Maybe Mando knew his parents, and promised to look after him. Maybe it was just an unlikely meeting, and Mando couldn’t resist the kid’s charm. You could totally get that.

But before you can ask, the waiter comes around with a hot tray of food, plates steaming atop it. The kid has a little bowl of soup with something sticking out from the bowl, something that was once alive, with tentacles. He looks very excited by the idea of it.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you, sir?” The waiter asks Mando.

“Yes, thank you.”

He nods, gives a respectful half-bow, and leaves you alone again.

The soup you chose smells amazing, and as much as Grogu seems thrilled with his tentacle-ridden dish, you’re glad you went for one that came without a creature you don’t know the name of sticking out. Instead, yours is bright green, a broth of vegetables and regular meat, herbs sprinkled on top, served with a huge hunk of fresh bread.

It smells amazing, and tastes even better.

Grogu sucks the creature out of his bowl in one move, and gulps it down.

“Very impressive, Grogu,” you say, blowing on a spoonful of your own soup. “Was it good?”

The kid nods and coos before lifting up the bowl. He looks at you, watches you blow to cool it down, and then mirrors you, pursing his little lips to blow air onto his hot soup.

“Good job, kid,” Mando praises, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

As you eat, your foot brushes against Mando’s boot under the table. On instinct you pull it back immediately, but after a second, you feel the boot there again, gently tapping against your own. Mando is looking down at his drink, so it could have been an accident.

Either way, you slide your foot so it’s pressed right up against his, and leave it there.

“If you’re not going to drink that,” you say once your bowl and plate are empty, stomach full and satisfied, “can I?”

He pushes the glass across the table towards you. “Go ahead. Is it good?”

“It’s beautiful,” you take a sip and smile. It’s sweet, with the common bitter undertone of alcohol, syrupy as it glides down your throat and warms you from the inside out. “Strong, but good.”

He sits forward in his seat, leaning across the table just a little, forearms resting on it. The backs of his gloved fingers brush against yours where you hold your glass. “Do you want anything else?” He asks, his little finger hooking over yours, smoothing across your knuckle.

You swallow, looking into his visor. You can think of a million other things you want, but none of them involve something the restaurant can give you. They all involve Mando. Mando and his hands, his arms, his body. And, in your wildest fantasies, his mouth.

“I’m okay,” you tell him with a smile, feeling your cheeks start to heat up at your thoughts. “You sure you don’t want to bring any food for the road?” He shakes his head in answer, so you nod, and reluctantly pull your hands away from his. “I’m gonna go to the ’fresher. Be right back.”

“I’ll be here.”

As you walk away, a smile tugs at your lips, warmth blooming in your chest. You know he’ll be there; you know he’ll wait for you. And that’s something you’ve never been sure of with anyone.

The contentment in your bones is interrupted, though, when you suddenly walk into something very broad and hard. You weren’t looking where you were going, too distracted by the memory of Mando’s finger wrapped around yours, and you’ve only gone and walked into a Trandoshan who’s standing in the middle of the restaurant walkway.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” you look up, finding a lizard-like face turning towards you with an unimpressed glare. They narrow their eyes and fold their arms over their chest, tongue darting out for a second.

“Ssseems like it,” they hiss. “You almosssst made me ssspill my drink, girl.”

You feel small underneath them. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.” You step back, just wanting to get away from their unrelenting glare, but as you turn around without looking first you walk into someone else, and this time it’s accompanied by the smash of a glass, the slosh of liquid spilling on the floor and down your front.

You’ve walked into a Rodian, and spilled their large drink all down their clothes and their feet. Your cheeks are red for a different reason now, embarrassed down to your core, heart racing now that you’ve got two very angry-looking people on either side of you.

“I’m sorry!” You yelp. “It was my mistake, I wasn’t—”

“You jusssst can’t sssstop causing trouble, can you?” The Trandoshan says from behind you. A cold, scaly hand clamps down on your shoulder, right over where it hurts, where there’s still a bandage beneath your sweater.

You cry out in pain, unable to resist the pull of their hand when they spin you around again, their slitted eyes glaring down at you.

“Buy thisss fine Rodian a new drink, and a round for my entire table, and we can forget thisss ever happened,” they hiss.

Wide-eyed, you stare up at them. The Rodian is still behind you; you can feel it, they’re standing so close. You’re trapped between them, and are just about to try and run in one of the directions that they’re not boxing you in, when suddenly you feel the muzzle of a blaster being pressed discreetly to your ribs. You gasp, feeling like your heart just stopped.

“I ssssaid,” the Trandoshan says, “buy us drinks, girl, or else I’ll walk you out of here and make you disssappear.”

Your heart is pounding, blood rushing through your ears. You can feel the drink that you spilled on your shirt where a large splash of it had reached you. It’s cold against your stomach. Your shoulder is agony, the Trandoshan’s hand still clamped on it. It’s like they know you’re injured there. They’re using it, pushing pain into your nerves that would make it near-impossible to move even without the blaster pointed against your ribcage.

“Please, I…I don’t have any credits. It was a mistake, I can help clear it up…”

The muzzle pushes further into you, the hand squeezing your shoulder so hard that it brings a whimper from your throat, tears to your eyes. Your heart drops when you hear the click of the safety on the blaster. Breaths start coming faster than they should, your lungs rising and falling, pushing against the blaster barrel every time your chest expands.

And then, another click.

This time from your left side, the side where the rest of the restaurant curves around into the divided space.

Without moving a muscle, you look towards the sound. There’s another blaster. Except this one isn’t pointed at you, and it’s being held in familiar, gloved hands.

“Let her go,” Mando says lowly, calmly, “let her go, now. She’s with me.”

The Rodian immediately scuttles for cover, running around the corner into the safety of the lounge area. Mando cocks his head as if urging the Trandoshan to follow the very smart Rodian and move the fuck away.

They don’t, though. Instead, they just move their blaster into Mando’s view, pressing it against your stomach now. You grit your teeth against the pain in your shoulder, feeling tears wobbling on the edges of your eyes.

This is all your fault. You’ve fucked up. You were too distracted, not paying enough attention to your surroundings. Mando is going to be furious, he’s probably never going to want you back on the ship again—

“Last chance,” Mando tells the Trandoshan.

Just as a toothy grin splits its green face, there’s the sound of a blaster firing. You gasp, expecting to feel pain burning in your middle. It takes a second for your brain to catch up to the fact that it’s Mando’s blaster that’s gone off; he’s shot the guy in the shoulder, getting him to release yours.

Stumbling backwards, you grab your wound, trying to catch your balance through the blinding rush of relief at the pressure being released.

The guy is still alive, just stunned, and he’s about to lunge for Mando when Mando just punches him right in the throat, then in the face, rendering him unconscious and falling to the ground with a mighty thud.

Mando is next to you in an instant, taking a gentle hold of your good shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright, I got you. Are you hurt?”

Your mind is racing, reeling after what just happened, blaming yourself relentlessly until you absurdly start to think that the two guys were innocent, you made this happen, it was all you, you can’t get anything right—

“Hey, Cyar’ika,” Mando says, dipping his head to try and catch your eyes. “Are you alright? Look at me.”

You can’t. Your eyes won’t focus, either from tears or the fact you feel separate from your body.

Distantly, you feel him push gently at you, one hand coming to the small of your back to guide you towards the refresher. He doesn’t say anything, just leads you to the door at the end of the corridor, quietly takes you both inside and locks the door behind you. It’s all one room with a toilet and sink, an armchair in the corner, silver trim over every accessory and towel in the room. There are plants on shelves, in pots on the floor. You’d admire how fancy it was if panic wasn’t tightening your chest, if you could even blink.

He sits you down on the armchair, then crouches down in front of you. “I need you to answer me,” he says softly, “are you hurt?”

You somehow manage to shake your head. It’s not true, not really; your shoulder has just been squeezed with the strength of a Trandoshan, and you could swear you felt a few stitches popping while it was happening, the wound now feeling sticky and strange beneath the bandage. Your chest is hurting, tightening as your breaths get faster and come quicker.

Then, you look at Mando, and fear strikes in your gut.

He’s going to be furious with you.

You were having such a nice evening, a quiet dinner just the three of you, probably the most normal and mundane thing you’ve done since you met. It was so nice, so calm. And now you’ve gone and fucked it up by being too damn clumsy, too fucking mindless to focus enough to watch where you’re going—

“I’m sorry,” you whimper, “I’m sorry, Mando, I know I fucked up—” You’re waiting for him to yell, to explode, to tell you what an idiot you are. Or, worse, not acknowledge your existence for weeks until you’re so lonely that you’d rather die than exist another second of being invisible—

“It’s alright,” he says softly. “Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.”

“You should be angry with me,” you tell him, not enough room in your mind to wonder why you’re telling him that, why you want him to be angry at you—it’s all you’ve ever known—“I understand if you can’t forgive me…”

No one has ever forgiven you. Not without consequence. Not without trial. People around you don’t understand mistakes; they just demand retribution, even for things you never even did, let alone things that you did.

“I do, Cyar’ika, it’s okay,” he reaches up a hand to touch your face, but in your panic you push him away, your brain telling you he’s going to hurt you even though you know he won’t, know he would never. But in your eyes right now, he’s not the Mando that you know. He’s not someone you know at all. He’s Them, thinking of the best way they can punish you.

Maybe this is how. Maybe They’re saying they’re going to forgive you, lure you into a false sense of security, a trick to make you feel like you’re safe, only for Them to bring it up again in the future, hold it over you like a cloud…

“Please, just get it out of the way,” you beg him, feeling tears pouring down your cheeks. “If you’re mad, just tell me, don’t use it against me…”

“Sweetheart,” he says, in Basic this time, his voice soft and laced with concern. “Sweetheart, look at me. Here, look right at me.”

Unable to do anything else as your entire body trembles, you look to his helmet, wondering how angry he looks under there.

Except his voice is soft, so soft, concern under every single breath that comes through his modulator, “Hey, Cyar’ika, it’s alright. I promise I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just me, okay? Just us, we’re here for you.”

It’s then that you look at his lap, where his knee is propped up and Grogu is sitting in his satchel, staring at you with curious, concerned eyes.

The sight of him releases a breath from your lungs, the first good one you’ve been able to let out in minutes. You keep your eyes on him, lift your trembling hand so he can hold it when he outstretches his own. He squeezes, soft, reassuring.

And then, it’s like he’s flooded comfort through your bones. Like the place where his skin touches yours is made of a golden light, peaceful, familiar. Gentle.

You close your eyes, clutching the kid’s hand. He doesn’t try to pull away. Just lets you hold him, lets you feel the overwhelming sense of peace that he is somehow giving to you. It’s like it was when he healed your poisoned wound, except this time, the poison is in your mind.

“Just breathe,” Mando’s voice comes through the quiet.

You nod, doing what he says. Taking shallow breaths, forcing yourself to stop hyperventilating, to bring yourself back to the moment. Your hand that isn’t holding the kid moves up so you can grasp at Mando’s shoulder, the soft part above his pouldron and beside the curve of his neck. You hold on tight, feeling his warmth. Feeling him.

It’s alright. It’s just Mando.

It’s not Them.

“Sorry,” you say again, this time apologising for the panic attack.

He lifts his hand and places it over yours on his shoulder. “It’s alright,” he assures you, soft. “It’s alright. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

You shake your head, but say, “He squeezed my shoulder. I think—I think my stitches might have popped.”

“Dank farrik,” he curses. Panic stirs again at his tone, but then he follows it up with, “I should’ve killed him for that.” and it settles again.

Letting yourself fall forward, you press your forehead into his neck, close your eyes again. Your hand is still holding on to the kid, his peace still reassuring you like nothing ever has before. Mando’s hand finds its way to the back of your neck, grounding you. “Can we get out of here?” You ask in a voice thick with tears.

“Of course,” he says. “I had another surprise for you after this, if you’re feeling up to it. I promise it won’t be hard work.”

“A surprise?”

“Sort of.”

A smile twitches at your tear-soaked lips. You push against him just a little harder, then pull away, wiping at your cheeks.

When you leave the restaurant, he doesn’t take you in the direction of the ship. Instead, he leads you down a street that’s just a tiny bit quieter than the others, lit with all kinds of lights, from lamps in windows to street lights to decorative neon signs above stores.

Then, he takes you to a hotel.

Oh.

Not just a hotel room. A suite. With two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area. You’ve never seen anything like it. Everything is plush and white, edged or decorated with golden thread. The carpets are thick, soft, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Each wall is either black, white, or gold, decorated with a marble-like pattern that shines in the speeder lights coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Mando…” you breathe, disbelieving, as he closes the door behind you.

He shrugs his backpack from his shoulders and places it by the door. You feel his hand gently touch the small of your back, his helmet leaning close to your ear when he asks, “You like it?”

“I…yes,” you laugh. Turn to him, giving him a smile, probably a teary one. Happy tears, this time. You’ve never stayed at a hotel; never been somewhere so comfortable. And no one has ever done something like this for you before. “I…this must have cost a lot of money. Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Karga gave me an advance for those guys who were after the kid,” Mando says, hauling Grogu out of the satchel and in to his arms. “You helped with one of them, I figured this could be your payment. Unless you want actual credits, of course…”

You shake your head. Your throat is tight with tears at the sight of him, standing here in the soft light of the hotel living room, his baby in his arms, his armour shining like he’s something ethereal. “I don’t need credits,” you manage to say past the tears.

He steps closer, reaches out a gentle hand to push some pieces of hair back from your face. For a minute he just lingers there, the very tips of his fingers brushing at the apple of your cheek. You could just close your eyes into the touch, revel in the way it makes you feel, all the thoughts that flood your mind of other places you want his hands to hold you.

“I’m going to put the kid to bed,” he says, dropping his hand. “Then can we talk?”

There’s that shot of panic again, mind going places you don’t want it to—

“A good talk,” he clarifies, probably noticing the sudden wideness of your eyes. “And only if you’re up to it.”

You centre yourself, swallow your nerves. Giving him a reassuring smile, you nod. “Okay. Night, kiddo. Thanks for today.” You give his hand a little appreciative stroke, and he smiles at you, like he knows exactly what you’re talking about.

It takes Mando twenty minutes to get the kid to sleep. His bed is a regular, human-sized cot with soft, white sheets and big, fluffy pillows. It’s a far cry from the hammock in the ship; although, he does seem to like the hammock, and he definitely doesn’t have any concept of fancy things, because he gets Mando to get rid of all of the pillows before he’ll even consider settling down.

The second bedroom is bigger, a huge, four-posted double bed in the centre of it, pressed against a marble wall. A fluffy carpet is spread across the empty space between the foot of the bed and the sofa by the window. Paintings of Coruscant line the walls, and there are twinkling lights on the ceiling.

It’s so beautiful that you don’t think, at first, about the fact that there is now only one bed.

Your heart beats louder at the realisation, thrumming in your ears. Does Mando want you to share it? Are you going to take turns, or maybe one of you will take the sofa?

He breaks you out of your thoughts when you hear the soft click of Grogu’s bedroom door closing, the gentle padding of Mando’s footsteps. When he steps into the bedroom, he finds you standing in the middle of it, staring out at the beautiful view of the city below you.

“Kid’s asleep,” Mando says. He comes to stand beside you, his arm brushing yours.

“He’s probably exhausted after a long day,” you say. “It’s been really fun today. Thank you.”

“I’m just glad it made you happy, Mesh’la.”

Your heart clenches at the word, its meaning. Beautiful. If only he knew.

“Can I take a look at those stitches?”

You nod, and the two of you head out into the living room. Mando fetches a med kit from the bathroom cabinet, then comes to sit beside you on the long, plush sofa. It’s all very square and rectangular, with sharp angles and thin metal legs. But the cushions are fluffy, soft, comfortable. It’s been so long since you felt something like this.

“How much does it hurt?” He asks, setting the medpack on the glass coffee table in front of you.

“Just a little more than usual. That Trandoshan squeezed the fuck out of it the entire time.”

“Asshole,” Mando mutters. You smile a little at that, at the disdain in his voice. You can relate. “Do you mind if I lower your shirt just a little?”

Instinctively, you close in on yourself.

It’s stupid. He’s seen your shoulder before; he patched it up yesterday like he didn’t even notice the bare skin around it. And you know he’s not asking to see you fully naked, or anything. It’s just what he has to do to help you.

So you force yourself to relax, sliding the shoulder of your shirt down your arm, releasing one of the buttons to allow him better access. Like this, all he can see is the fresh wound. No scars.

“Dank farrik. They have popped,” he confirms. “I’m gonna have to stitch it up again. I’m sorry.”

Resigned, you sigh. “Okay.”

As he readies the sutures, he glances at you. The quiet lingers for a moment, your shoulder still exposed to the warm air of the suite. “Can I ask you something?” He questions.

You stare at the side of his head. A nervous nod, “Yes.”

Threading the needle, he says, “Did you think I was going to punish you for what happened back there?”

Your eyes fall closed, forehead wrinkling as tears sting at the backs of your eyes, rising impressively fast from nothing.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Mando assures you, turning back to face you with the sutures ready to go.

“I want to,” you say, finding that you mean it. “Yes, I did think that.”

“You know I would never hurt you, right?” He sounds so concerned, so desperate to get you to hear him. “I need you to know that. I’ll never punish you, I’ll never hurt you. I promise.”

Pulling your bottom lip into your mouth in a futile attempt to control the tears wanting to fall, you nod, your eyes still clamped shut.

“I’m going to start now,” he says quietly, resting one of his gloved hands on your shoulder. “Are you ready?”

You nod again. “Yes.”

The first stab hurts more than you’d expected. A sharp hiss goes through your gritted teeth. It ebbs a little as he keeps going, your body getting used to it.

“I know you’ll never hurt me,” you whisper into his patient silence, “I know that. But in that moment, it’s like…I forgot where I was. Who I was with. I…” a trembling breath comes from your mouth, shaking from your very core. Memories flood your mind as you try to find the words to explain how you became the way you are. Wondering if you even should tell him; if it’s too soon. “Some people in my past treated me like that. Any tiny mistake I made, they’d punish me in some cruel way.”

Mando remains steady and quiet, pulling the thread through your wound with precision, concentration. But you know he’s listening. He’s always listened to you.

And now that you’re saying it out loud, now that the words are forming and falling out into the intimate, private space between you, it feels like something has released. Like a dam breaking, a blockage being pushed through. “I—it was my family. Sometimes, the punishment would come later, not right away. They did it like that just to be cruel. It wasn’t physical—not always, anyway—but, honestly, it felt just as bad.”

He ties the sutures. When he’s done, he keeps his hand on your shoulder, his thumb smoothing softly over the uninjured skin.

You take a shaky breath, and continue, “I’m just so used to messing up. To everything I do being a fucking mistake, something that has to be corrected. Nothing was ever off limits for them. They would reach into every area of my life, everything I cared about, everything that made me me.”

You feel his other hand taking yours, threading your fingers together. Your eyes open, falling to your lap to look at your joined hands. “Sometimes, it’s like I’m still there. Like I never escaped.”

“You’re safe now,” he says softly, trailing the hand on your shoulder up to gently cradle the side of your neck.

You nod. “I know. I know that really. But sometimes I just…revert back to who I was in that time in my life.”

“That’s understandable,” he assures you. “Was it always like that? Even when you were a child?”

“Like I said, nothing was off limits,” you laugh bitterly. A tear falls from your cheek; you lift your free hand to wipe it away. “They controlled every aspect of my life,” you think of your betrothed, the man they tried to force you to be with, all for the sake of their stupid religion, or whatever they called it. A shudder goes down your spine. Words don’t form, won’t; you can’t even imagine getting it out and telling Mando about Him, about how They did everything they could to make it so He was the only man who could ever want you.

You’re shaking before you realise it, Mando’s hand in yours the only thing keeping that hand still. The other is trembling in your lap, your shoulders shaking.

“Sorry, I just—it’s hard. To talk about.”

He leans in, presses his forehead so gently to your temple. Maker, you wish you could feel him. Feel his skin, his warmth, his lips against your skin. Something about the gesture makes you think he feels the same; wishes he could press a real kiss to the side of your head, could push his nose against you and say his words right against your skin with nothing between you.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says softly. “Thank you for telling me what you have. It means a lot to me that you trust me, after everything you’ve been through.”

“I do trust you,” you squeeze his hand.

He removes his hand from yours in favour of lifting it up to gently stroke at your cheek. Your eyes are still on your lap, his forehead still pressed to your temple. He holds your face in one gloved hand. It’s hard not to feel like this is only half a touch, when you can’t feel his heat.

But it’s enough. Kriff, is it enough.

“You don’t ever have to worry about them again,” he promises firmly, his thumb rubbing circles over your cheekbone. “Even if one day you decide to go back to your planet, and you want to be alone, I’ll still protect you.”

Your heart warms at the promise, and panics at the idea of ever being alone again. You reach up, take a hold of his wrist. Tilting your head, you press a kiss to the leather on his palm, nuzzling your nose against the curve of his fingers.

“Do you know,” he whispers, “how badly I want to kiss you right now?”

Oh, kriff.

A shot of arousal, surprising in the midst of the nerves and warmth and tenderness, goes through your belly. You move back just a little so you can look at him, gaze right into his visor. “You do?”

“Yes,” he replies. He’s still holding your face, his other hand moving to gently hold the back of your neck. Holy fuck, you can somehow feel his warmth even through all that armour, his softness despite the metal and the weapons that cover him. You want to be all over him like the armour, cover him, protect him from anything that would ever cause him harm.

You bring up a hand and place it gently on his chest plate. “Is that something you can do?” You ask, looking right into the darkness of his visor.

The hand on your cheek ghosts down, his fingertips tracing the line of your jaw, down to the sensitive skin of your neck. You shiver, eyelids wanting to flutter closed at the sensation.

“I’m not supposed to take my helmet off, ever,” he says. You start to nod, knowing that already, knowing that you will never ask him to do something against his Creed, but then—“But things are changing.”

You pull back, your brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

He hesitates. His fingers still absently stroke your skin, almost like he’s trying to comfort himself as much as you. “The kid and I went on quite a journey. I discovered a lot about my people, about…the Creed I was raised in. Not all Mandalorians keep their helmets on.”

This is something you already sort of knew. You have fuzzy memories of meeting Mandalorians when you were a child, and they wore no helmets. But you’d thought that maybe they’d abandoned the Creed, that maybe they were outcasts.

“But you do,” you say, explorative.

“I…always have. Except a few times, for the kid. When I had to save him; when he needed to see my face, before we were separated.”

Your eyebrow raises. “You were separated?”

“For a time,” he says, nodding once. “The Mandalorians cast me out after that. Because I took my helmet off.”

“But…you did it for your kid,” you frown.

“Yes, I did. And for a long time I tried to atone for my failure. But…since then, I’ve become…disillusioned, with some of what I was raised to believe.”

You try not to show your surprise too much on your face, let alone your hope.

You never, ever planned on asking him to break his Creed. Despite your own rocky history with religion, you’d never even considered getting Mando to choose between his own and you.

“I’m not saying I can take my helmet off right away,” Mando says, sounding hesitant, like he’s maybe frowning under there. “Maybe I’ll never be comfortable enough for it. But it’s crossed my mind. Especially since you.”

Something shoots into your chest, something like guilt. “Mando, I’m not asking you to change who you are for me,” you say, pressing both hands against his chest now, holding his armour to make a point. “If who you are comes with this helmet, with this beskar, that’s good enough for me.”

He nods. “I know that,” he says, appreciative, putting his palm back on your cheek. “But, fuck, Mesh’la, there’s so much I want to give you.”

“Mando…”

“I’m not telling you this meaning that I’m going to change who I am for you. I’m just saying that I’m…different, to how I used to be. Everything is different with you, with the kid, and it’s opened up my eyes to something bigger.”

You swallow heavily, feeling that your eyes are wide as you gaze up at him. Your shoulder is still exposed, not even bandaged up yet. You don’t care. You could sit like this forever, until the wound was healed and your skin was wrinkling from age.

“So, if you’ll let me,” he says, “I’d like to kiss you.”

Holy shit. Yes, yes, yes.

Trying your hardest to maintain some level of composure, some level of self-control, you nod a little. “I’d like that,” you say, nostrils flaring as you hold back the excitement and arousal that’s blooming in your chest. “How?”

He brings up his hand from your cheek. Gently, so gently, he touches your eyelid with his thumb, coaxes them shut. A soft gasp escapes your lips as you close your eyes, as the light shuts out and you can’t see anything else, just feel him, hear him, smell him.

You feel his hand moving down your face, tracing over your jaw, rubbing circles into your chin with his thumb. He touches you for just a minute longer as you focus hard on keeping your eyes closed, then he pulls away.

The next thing you hear is a soft, unfamiliar hiss.

Then, breathing. Unmodulated breathing. His breath, brushing softly against your face with every exhale.

Oh, kriff.

He reaches for your hands, lifts them from his chest. He guides them to his face and lets you feel that his helmet is still on, just tilted up so his jaw, lips, and the tip of his nose are exposed to the air. Then he lets your hands settle on his cheeks, and you feel the exhale before you hear it, a release of relief at your touch.

“Cyar’ika,” he whispers. “Can you keep your eyes closed for me?” His voice. That’s his fucking voice. Holy, holy kriff.

You nod without question. Yes, it’s hard to resist opening your eyes when you know that his lips are right there, when you know that you could open them and see half of his face for the first time. But, ultimately, the trust he has in you to let you do this is more important than any of your own desires. You need him to know that he can trust you, need to honour the faith he’s putting into the space between you right now.

His voice is enough to keep you going, too. You’d keep your eyes shut forever if it meant you could hear him speak to you so intimately, nothing there to modulate him.

Gently and carefully, you let your fingers spread out. There’s the hint of a beard on your palm, just a thin covering over his jaw but not his cheeks. A moustache is above his lips. You feel it tentatively, brush your thumb over the hair on his chin.

“Mando,” you breathe, “it’s you.”

He chuckles. You feel the vibration in his face and grab hold of him tighter, wanting to feel it again. “It’s me, Cyar’ika.”

Hearing him say that in his unmodulated voice unravels you from the inside out. You release a shaky breath. Everything is trembling still, except now, it’s not because you’re scared or talking about something horrible. This time, it’s from the sheer effort of holding back from him, of keeping your eyes closed.

You hear a soft sound, two things hitting the ground in quick succession.

It only takes you a second to put the pieces together. When his hands find your face, and, kriff, it’s him. He’s removed his gloves, no leather separating his warmth from yours. Just his skin. Bare skin.

“Mando…” you all but whimper, “you don’t have to…”

“I want to,” he whispers, sounding more sure than you’ve ever heard him. “Can I?”

“Yes,” you answer in an instant. “Yes, Mando. Whatever—whatever you want.”

You feel his smile. His smile. His smile, his smile, his smile.

And then, slowly, he guides your head forward. His head is tilted back a little, making a bit of an awkward angle for him. But it means that when he pulls you in, coaxes you to dip your head a little, tilt it to the side, he has you in just the right place for him to close the distance between you with ease.

And he does.

His lips are so soft. So warm. Gods. Maker. Fuck.

It is, technically, a chaste kiss; top lip to top lip and bottom to bottom.

But it sends a guttural need through your entire body. Because his mouth is on yours. Because he’s here. His moustache is brushing against your upper lip.

He lingers on you for a long, delicious moment. Then only pulls away to open his mouth slightly, coaxing yours open too as he catches your top lip between both of his. You sigh into his mouth, into the soft, slow kiss he gives you. His breath is sweet, familiar and new all at once. His cheeks are so warm beneath your hands, so real.

The kiss is gentle, exploring. It can’t go any further, the two of you barely able to open your mouths much further without your forehead bumping the bottom of his helmet and knocking it off his head.

But it’s perfect.

When he pulls away, you can’t help the sigh that escapes your throat. Both a sigh of relief, and of desperation. It was perfect, it was more than enough. You need more.

“Kriff,” Mando curses softly, his thumb running over your bottom lip, pulling it down just a little. Like he’s memorising its curve. “I’ve never done that before.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Really?”

“Really. You could do it again, though, just to make sure.”

He smiles. You feel it on your hands. Then he leans in again, quickly kisses you.

“Mm. Yeah, I think you’re a natural.”

A soft chuckle brushes against your face. “I’m putting it back on now,” he tells you, but then leans back in again like he can’t help it, pecking one last kiss upon your lips, then on your nose.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He takes his hands from your face. A second later, there’s the same hissing noise from before, and he taps at the corner of your eye. “You can open them.”

You do. The visor is staring at you, his bare hands back on your face. “Thank you,” you whisper. “Mando, that was…I wasn’t expecting that. Ever.”

“Me, neither,” he says truthfully. “Thank you. I never thought I’d trust someone enough to do that. You kept your eyes closed.”

You kiss his palm and close your eyes again for just a second, almost pointedly. “Of course,” you whisper. Then, smirking, “I like these bare hands.”

“Oh, you do?” His voice lilts with a smirk. “They’re pretty skilled.”

“Mm. I can imagine.” You slide your hand over his helmet, let it rest at the back of his head. “Think maybe one day you can show me what they can do?”

He releases a shaky breath. His fingertips push past your hairline, carting through your locks with a soft ease that has a shiver running up your spine. “We’ll get there,” he whispers. “I promise.”

And you believe him.

notes: so you might have noticed i've changed the upload schedule for this to just Thursdays. i know that sucks but life is super busy, and i just wanna make sure each chapter is as good as it can be, which means i need more time to edit ❤️ hope you don't mind! i might do the occasional surprise Monday update though :)

as always, reblogs help so much with engagement/reach/my motivation, and i'd love to hear your thoughts if you can ❤️

love you, take care of yourself!

taglist: @toobsessedsstuff @granillx @keepingitlokiii @shoe1412 @kiruoris @quentinor @yourunstablegf @moonknight-s-cumdump @senassn @samanthacookieone @local-fanfic-addict @your-slutty-gf @brilliantopposite187 (this tag never works im so sorry) @whenpugzfly @elsasshole @moony-toasts @julesjewelss36 @jbcalway @mxlsmith @indec1sive @lordhavemurthy @booktvmoviefangirl

ps: reminder that my requests are open, info here ❤️

#din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #star wars fanfiction #my fic #my fic: din #i only see daylight #my post: fic #gif cw

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