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corazondebeskar-reads · 1 year ago

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live to rise - chapter two

live to rise series

two: morning will come soon

series masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

gladiator!Din Djarin x f!reader

word count: 3.2k

summary: As the Mandalorian makes himself a more permanent addition to the barracks, you get to know the elusive man a little more while grappling with the reality of the arena. [We get to know everyone a little better before things kick up a notch in chapter three :) ]

warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, captivity, forced proximity, canon-typical violence, prisoner of war, slavery, fight to the death, au where the empire wins, discussions of genocide & war, graphic descriptions of violence & injuries, gore, brutality, religious themes, fictional religion, major character deaths, minor character deaths, angst, helmetless Din Djarin, themes of grief and loss, slow burn

Please heed the warnings.

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

He doesn’t notice until his forty-eighth fight, but there are children in the stands. It’s not their mere presence that simmers his bile.

It’s the glee.

Violence is a wet nurse for Mandalorian children. They witness the raw essence of life turned to food and know the gush of a foe’s blood early in life. But they respect it.

They respect the fight and honor the lives they take. They weigh each kill and hang it from their ribs. They know what it means to be capable of exposing a being’s innards to the sun, what it means to hold a creature as blood froths in its lungs.

These children are reared to crave it. They’ll never feel the touch of violence, he thinks, but they’re fed by it. They play with these lives like it's a game.

The distraction costs Din a chunk of flesh but gains him a rotted tooth on the edge of the gash.

You’re in the barracks when they bring him back that afternoon. You go still and quiet, ducking into the shadows, but, as usual, they don’t bother to check the cells. He saw you, though. You’re inside C-6, and he has a clear view through his window into the cell opposite.

Once the guards leave, you pick back up mid-sentence into what must have been an already brewing rant.

“—pride. So stupid. The only—punished when you resist—is you.”

The humanoid grumbles something Din can’t quite hear.

“Yeah, well, —bacta, and I don’t, so—” you retort.

When you slip out of the cell, the automatic lock snaps shut with a resounding clunk. Your hands are wound up in the underbelly of your skirts and come back out dry, at least, if not spotless.

Not that Din notices right away. His mouth had gone fuzzy when you hiked up the layers to reveal the length of your calf. He shoves the feeling away and watches as you check carefully around the corners before slipping into the chamber between the barracks and the rest of the facilities.

He shakes it from his fingertips. It’s the post-fight adrenaline, he knows. Mandalorians are no strangers to fucking out their feelings as the world burns around them. He cannot—will not—entertain these thoughts of you, lest he become more of the monster they make him out to be.

And every part of him is too rough for the likes of you. He won’t be responsible for marring you with his too-tight grip and desperate cock. He wouldn’t press his pain into your cunt and learn to breathe again through your cries and moans.

He wanted to preserve you somehow, press you like a flower between the pages of a book. Even his protection would see you crushed by his selfish desire.

So instead, he funnels the feeling into righteous anger and determination, pushing himself in his exercises until his muscles ache and scream for oxygen. He slumps against the wall, not bothering to go to the cot, and dreams fitfully of his son.

He had made the call in his own chambers. The ship had left two hours ago, tracking along the path with no issues—yet.

“Who is this? How did you get this line?” snaps a voice he does not recognize.

“He’ll know. Tell him we’re going forward with operation esk, and the package is on-route.”

“Message received,” cuts in the voice he was waiting for. “May the Force be with you.”

“May the stars light your way,” Din returns, and cuts the line.

Grogu’s fast asleep when Din tucked him into the pod. He slipped the stuffed blurrg under one of the baby’s arms. It’s to be a short journey, but there’s a canteen and a tin of snacks.

The rest of his son’s belongings are carefully packed in the small cargo hold of the StarSpeeder 1000 they’d managed to salvage, complete with an RX pilot. Din didn’t favor leaving the child’s fate to a droid, but it had been thoroughly reprogrammed to override its tourist-geared protocol.

All in all, it’s an innocuous ship with a registered pilot and route. The chain code would suffice under basic examination, and the manifest is set with a handful of false identities.

He may not understand the Force, but he has to draw faith that it will ferry his son safely into the waiting hands of Skywalker at some destination unknown.

Skywalker had sent the coordinates directly to the droid so they couldn’t be tortured from Din.

A wise decision, Din thinks wryly, but they haven’t interrogated him yet.

It makes sour hope bloom—perhaps they think there’s nothing to be gained. In the darker moments, he worries they know there’s nothing to be gained.

As it was, each of the four of them only knew part of the plan. Din had the main strategy. Vizsla, the backup. Kryze, the route. And Fett—the rendevouz. For a man who claimed no ties to the Mandalorians, he was risking everything.

Even the loneliest striil is loyal to someone, he supposes.

He loses count after 60 fights or so. That’s about when he stops hating the idleness of his off days and starts longing for more rest.

It’s not just the physicality. He does seem to be perpetually bruised and bleeding, but that’s not so much different than his bounty-hunting days. He’s loathe to admit that he’s perhaps beginning to feel the effects of aging. To grow old is an honor for Mandalorians. It means you’ve emerged victorious from your battles. He doesn’t feel he can wear that pride, though.

But no, his weariness is from the killing. He tried to see his opponents as quarry, but it was too hard to maintain. Not when he’d see their sallow faces and sunken eyes. Beings with broken tusks and battered limbs. Rebel starbirds. Shock trooper stripes. Prison numbers and slave brands.

Yesterday’s fight had him facing a Miraluka who couldn’t have been much past her girlhood. And she wanted to live; oh, she wanted it so badly he could taste it.

She didn’t know a thing about fighting. Worse yet, their weapons for the day were flails, something even he hadn’t much experience with. He could wield it, but instead, he let it fall to the sands.

What a terrible way to die.

He saw it before it happened. Telegraphed in the arc of the chain, his brain completing the motion before it became real. She swung her arm out hard, trying to strike him in the chest, but he pushed back on his heel and easily dodged. Without something to crush, the momentum carried.

She grappled at the chain, trying to stop it. If only she had dropped it and moved, Din thought. If only, if only.

Instead, it wedged itself in her back, spikes between her ribs. She gasped, wavering for a moment in shock, and dropped to her knees. The crowd moaned a collective “ooh” at the turn of luck.

He knelt in front of her, grasping her shoulders.

“Just finish it,” she said, the trace of a whimper on the end.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Biala.”

“Biala, is there a prayer I can make for you? Any rites for your journey?”

She shook her head and coughed. Blood dribbled, and they both knew.

“I’m so sorry, Biala,” he murmured, cradling her head in his hands.

And then it was over. He laid her body down as the bell rang and rose to his feet. Stomps and cheers from the stands fell muffled around his shoulders, and he sneered into the crowd.

It only made them chant louder.

He’s brought back to the reality of today at your entrance, voices buzzing as trays clattered back and forth.

“Come here, girl,” calls a voice from across the way. Din watches as you pause, his own tray of food waiting in your hands.

The gruff old Devaronian in C-4 is reaching his large hand between the bars of the window.

“One sec,” you tell him, making your way to Din. You go to knock before you spy his shadow between the bars and avert your eyes.

“Good evening,” you say, sliding the tray through the slot against the floor. “Need anything?”

It’s the same old song and dance. “No, thank you,” he says.

“Okay, have a good night,” you tell the door politely.

He doesn’t grab the tray right away. He watches instead as you go back across the hall.

“Whatcha need, old man?” you tease. Vrar is your favorite, mostly because he’s been around for nearly a year, and you’ve had a chance to know him.

But something about his expression gives you pause.

Din feels suddenly intrusive as you step closer and let the warrior touch your cheek, his palm much larger than your face.

He can’t hear what’s said, but something terribly sad comes across you as you close your eyes and shake your head.

“No, you can’t just give up,” you say, loud enough that Din can hear.

His heart sinks. He had wondered how many were lost to hopelessness.

“I’m not giving up,” Vrar tells you. “I’m an old man. I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired.”

“No,” you say, a harsh but quiet protest. You want to yell, but the guards will make you leave if they hear you. Tears burn at the corners of your eyes.

“You can’t change my mind. I just wanted you to know before it happens. To know that I made this choice, that I will be at peace. You’ve been the one spot of kindness in this life.”

Your voice is softer, breaking, crescendoing at the end as it pitches alongside your urgency,“—how much more you need; I’ll trade another year, please.”

“Absolutely not,” Vrar says. “When your time is up, get out and never look back. Look at me.” He waits for your focus. “You can’t save us.”

You break down into tears. Din feels something sharp pricking at his eyes, too. He shuts them and sits down on his cot, food forgotten.

He doesn’t need to look to know you stay at Vrar’s door until the guards make you leave for the night. You sit against it, skirts splayed out around you like the rising sun, and talk to him, listen to his stories, even the ones you’ve heard over and over before. Especially those, as you try to commit them to your memory, to carry him with you.

When you bring Din his breakfast in the morning, your eyes are bloodshot, and lips cracked from biting back your grief. For the first time, you don’t say anything. You rap your knuckles and slide the tray under.

You stay until they come for him. You wait and stand with your hands wrapped around the bars of his window. When they take him to prepare for the arena, you watch down the hall until he’s gone. As he passes Din’s cell, he looks straight in.

Neither man says a word, but their eyes meet, and Din nods. Vrar returns the gesture, satisfied.

When Din looks back, you’re gone.

When you return two hours later, as his own turn in the arena nears, he doesn’t have to see your face to know.

You’re not crying. But you move so quietly, held so tense, as you open the cell and scrub it clean, fitting it with new bedding. It’s the same routine as a deep cycle, but there was just one yesterday, and your sadness, though smothered, is palpable.

They take him up before you’re done. Din lives to fight another day. He scrubs clean of his opponent’s blood in the cold fresher and tugs on the stiff, starched clothes left behind for him. When they take him back to his room, it’s been cleaned, but you’re gone, and there’s a new prisoner in C-4.

You’re quiet again when you bring dinner, and though you do speak this time, it’s void of your usual softness.

“Need anything?” you say, muted tone bristling his spine.

“I’m sorry,” he says, in lieu of an answer.

You look up at the window out of reflex before quickly looking away. He’s not close enough for you to see, anyway. “What?” you say.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, “for your loss.”

Your eyes close tight, and you cover your mouth for a moment. “I—thank you,” you whisper. Your voice cracks a little, and he feels terrible, like he shouldn’t have said anything, shouldn’t have upset you.

But you hesitate there, outside his door. You swallow hard against the ache. “Thank you,” you repeat, but it’s stronger, now, and laced with the heaviness of recognizing oneself in another.

Which is why, when you pass by the newcomer’s door, and he tells you to smile pretty for him, Din snarls, “Shut your fucking mouth.”

You freeze and look back at his dark door. The man is saying something idiotic, but Din can’t hear it from the pulse throbbing in his ears and his single-minded focus on you.

You shake your head minutely, and he accepts the request to stand down. Before you turn and leave the barracks, you give his door a small, sorrowful smile.

He worries a little about the newcomer. You shouldn’t have to be harassed and accosted like this.

When you had brought breakfast, the man had tried to reach through the bars to grab your face. You had recoiled and dodged his grimy hands but otherwise ignored it.

It turns out he doesn’t need to worry. The next day, the guards take both him and the creep up to the arena.

When Din returns, your relief is unmistakable.

You never ask about the fights, so he doesn’t have to lie to you. He doesn’t have to tell you the truth, either; doesn’t have to tell you how it’s the first one he’s dragged out on purpose. How he broke the man’s hands in his own for daring to try to touch you. How he broke his jaw for talking to you like that.

It’s unlike him, and he hopes he can shrug it off, that the endless killing of beings he knows are fellow prisoners builds a layer of beskar in his bones each day. But Vrar was right.

You’re a spot of light here, like the yellow blossoms that push up between duracrete. He’s not sure how you’ve kept it up this long, not after seeing how deeply you’re cut when “your” fighters die. But he’s going to do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t lose that. Including keeping lowlife scum away where they can’t contaminate the barrack.

He dreams that night of taking you with him when he leaves and isn’t sure what to do with the thought in the morning.

You paint him, too. Nicolai. The one who made your skin crawl. Even the portrait comes out predatory, and you wish you wouldn’t have to look at it every time until the page is full.

It’s not the first time a resident has made you feel unsafe. Won’t be the last, either, you reckon. Unlike those of you who are serving criminal sentences, the fighters are all prisoners of war. But just because they were an enemy of the Empire does not make them a friend.

Most of them are good. Not all even raised a weapon against the Imperials. Some were support—medics, pilots, suppliers. Some were strangers who stood up to protect a Stormtrooper’s victim in the town square. Some were no one, who had the unfortunate luck of being related to or seen with a known insurgent.

But some, well. Some were grifters playing both sides. Some were mercenaries, assassins, slavers. Some, like Nicolai, were druglords who couldn’t be bought—too busy running their own empires to respect the government.

It’s funny, in that way that makes your stomach bile bite and claw at your throat. Everyone thought you needed to be afraid of the fighters. You have to shut and stow the book, not wanting to smudge Vrar’s portrait any further by thinking of him.

He never liked you being in the servant’s barracks. And for some reason, he never liked your bunkmate. Didn’t like Eli, who had never been anything but kind. Who was maybe your only friend.

“Just something off about him,” Vrar had said. “But you shouldn’t trust anyone.”

You had shaken your head. “I’m one of them,” you insisted.

“Oh, how could I have forgotten,” he deadpanned, “you and your criminal record of… what was it again? Stealing from your own farm to feed hungry children? Being too polite to a trooper?”

“Shut up,” you groaned. “Evading tariffs is considered very serious, I’ll have you know.”

When he was done teasing you, he had sobered right up. “I still don’t like it. Do you even know how to throw a punch?”

“No, but I’m sure they wouldn’t trust someone dangerous as a caretaker.”

He hadn’t been so sure, but it’s not like they let just anyone work down here. You had done a stint upstairs for a while, like everyone else, serving drinks in the sponsor’s lounge.

After all, caretaker neglect could (and did) prematurely kill their stock. And it granted access to much more of the complex than most other roles.

When you deliver dinner, the Mandalorian speaks to you again. You try to take it in stride.

“If there’s another like him,” he says, voice like the creak of trees at night, “are you safe? Can you defend yourself?”

It’s not what you expected. You purse your lips, frowning as you weigh your answers. “Harming a caretaker is prohibited,” you say after a moment.

“That’s not what I asked.” It’s firm and compelling in a way you can’t explain. Maybe it's the regality that he can’t contain, a tone leftover from negotiating and persuading or whatever kings do.

“I don’t have to worry about being hurt by a fighter,” you say.

He hums, accepting your answer.

You wonder if he heard the unspoken words you swallowed back.

You eat with them again at Disdraa’s request, though it’s a quieter affair without Vrar’s booming voice. You find you don’t have it in you to joke around.

She takes mercy on you, setting aside her meal to regale the hall with a story from her childhood on Ryloth. It’s not a happy story, exactly, but it ends with hope.

You feel warm for the first time since Vrar’s death. “Thank you,” you murmur through her bars when you stand.

She makes a show of rolling her eyes. “For what? I just like to hear myself talk, little bird.”

You make a show of returning the gesture, including the solemn smile she gave.

It wasn’t the story, really. It was the way it reminded you of home. When you would visit the families of the dead and dying. When they would share themselves while sharing their love, how they would leap to comfort despite their own grief.

Even for you, a stranger until that moment, someone they could easily hate for only arriving while someone was leaving.

But that was not the way of things for your people. They allowed you, for however small a time, to be the vessel for their loved one, to gather and hold the memories until you could spill them on your canvas. To stand between their spirit and the void of the forgotten.

To love and be loved, even fleetingly.

Did you wish that just once, that love would stay? That you wouldn’t love knowing it was to be lost? In the dark of night, though you’d never admit it, you ached for it.

next chapter

*title from "Prayer of the Refugee" by Rise Against

#din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #the mandalorian fic #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #mando x you #din djarin x f!reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #gladiator!din djarin #fic: live to rise #if you see me messing around with formatting again no u didn't #did I mention this was a slow burn? lol

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