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pedrito-friskito · 2 years ago

Note

hey kay bb!! hope you're doing well 💖

mando has been on the brain lately so i'm requesting fluffy smut with him pls 🥺😫 (the yearning is *extra* today)

niiiiiiiiik my darling my dear hope you are also well 💗

ok…this got away from me. I blinked and suddenly a plot! exposition! SMUT! (multiple scenes at that) all the things. I’m a slut for Din Djarin and it really jumped out on this one.

(smut below the cut, a full plot, the helmet comes off, a bit of inexperienced!din, reader is kind of a bad ass, descriptions of bodies, unprotected p-in-v sex - wrap ur shit even if ur in space ok)

sleepover saturday

uncharted territory

(word count 9.1k - it REALLY got away from me okay)

gif by @aceofwhump

Then you are a Mandalorian no more.

Din Djarin aches in a way he has never felt before, much more powerful than any injury he could ever sustain. His Creed, demolished. His son, gone. His life, upended. As he staggers out of the Covert, trying to think of where to go next, he cannot shake the feeling of lost that settles around his shoulders like a cloak.

Maybe coming to Glavis was a mistake; maybe he should have stayed back on Nevarro, kept taking jobs from Karga until he finally had enough credits to take the old man’s advice, get himself a camtono full of spice and disappear into the Twi’lek healing baths until he forgot the whole thing.

The truth of it? He knew he could never forget. There wasn’t enough spice in the galaxy to help him forget it all. It wasn’t possible. And the larger part was that Din didn’t want to forget.

His leg aches as he walks. The bacta Paz had sprayed him down with had helped some, but the ache runs deep, and the drills the Armourer had forced him to run with the Darksaber had only made matters worse. He should find a place to lie down, to hide for the night before he decides what he plans to do next, where he plans to go.

Where will he go?

You are a Mandalorian no more.

The echo of the words make his head split, and for a moment, he has half a mind to wrench the helmet off, to launch it off the ring, let space swallow the beskar whole. But he stops himself; it feels as though his armour is all he has left.

His armour, and the Darksaber. The right to the throne of Mandalore.

Maker, he can’t think straight. The ache only worsens, his limp more prominent, and it gets to the point where he can take no more. He falls onto the nearest crate, his injured leg stuck straight out in front of him. His body feels twice as heavy, his head even more so, and he tips it back against the wall to lighten the load. He’ll rest just a moment, he’ll just shut his eyes for one—

“Mando?”

Din pulls his blaster from his holster as his eyes shoot open. There’s the sound of shuffled steps, something metallic hitting the floor, a murmured dank farrik! He hits a button on his vambrace, turns off the thermal setting on his visor.

“Sweets?”

You look exactly the same as he remembers. It’s been ages, but he could never forget your face. He knows what’s underneath your clothes, too, and the memory speeds to the surface of his mind faster than a pod-racer.

Before he had an in with Peli on Tatooine, the Razor Crest routinely parked and tuned up in Hangar 3-5, he had you. You were well-known within the Guild, had more than a few contracts with different gangs and hunters in the galaxy. If something on a ship broke, you were the one to fix it, and you had enough heavily-armed thugs on your side to make anyone think twice about trying to mess with you.

Some called you the Mechanic, simple and descriptive. Others, those you let a little closer, knew you as Sweets, a moniker earned by your penchant for candies and treats. You’d let your favoured clients off easy if they were short a few credits, but had something sweet from the far reaches of the galaxy to offer in lieu of the missing cash.

Din knew he was one of your favoured clients, perhaps your favourite. Or, had been. You’d crowed endlessly about the Crest, desperate to get your hands on it any time he hauled it in for service, whether it actually needed it or not. Sometimes he genuinely needed something fixed, some times he’d found some candy or sweet in a far off corner of the galaxy that he’d brought back just for you.

Other times, he just wanted to see you.

You were sweet in other ways, too. He knew first-hand. And he knew he was the only client you let into your bed. He’d been drawn to you the first time you’d been introduced — a common contact between you and Din sent him your way when the Crest was in serious need of a tune-up, and you were the closest mechanic he could get to without doing more damage to the ship.

Your knowledge astounded him, to start. You were barely into a diagnostic and you knew exactly what needed to be fixed, what parts you had and didn’t, how many credits it was going to cost him. And you hadn’t even set foot on the ship yet. Your competency drove him wild, only spurred on when he brought you aboard the Crest to give the interior a once-over, eager to see if he’d kept everything original, or if you had any modifications to offer that he might be interested in. Din followed you around the ship silently, answering whatever questions you had, mostly just watching you work. It was intriguing beyond belief.

“That’s not much of a bed,” you’d commented, cocking your head to the side when you hit the button that opened the bunk. “When’s the last time you had a new mattress?”

He just shrugged.

“One thing you should know,” you said over your shoulder, descending the Crest’s ramp, heading back towards the entrance to your shop. “I don’t use droids.”

Din nearly fell over. “That’s not a problem.”

“Good,” you replied, tapping at your data pad, your brow scrunching. “It’ll take longer than your usual hangar; I do everything myself.”

“I’m happy to wait,” he said, dipping his helmet, thankful it was hiding the way he was raking his eyes over you. I don’t use droids. Had someone made you in a lab somewhere, on some backwater planet, just for him? “I know she’s in good hands.”

The grin you’d offered him was sweeter than anything he’d ever seen, and you shooed him out a moment later, muttering something about getting back to work.

When he returned three days later to retrieve his ship, he almost didn’t recognize it. You’d repainted most of the outside panels, replaced all the ones that were missing, and the engines were so shiny Din could see his helmet reflected in them. Inside the Crest was another story; you’d outfitted him with a carbonite cell system, top of the line and primed for use. That meant no more mouthy bounties, no more wasting durasteel cuffs and gags when he could just hit a button and have a quiet ride back to the Guild.

And in the bunk, a new mattress, complete with a pillow, and bolted on the wall, a mount for his helmet.

“You don’t sleep with that thing on, do you?”

“The carbonite system,” he nearly sputtered, rubbing a gloved hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t have the credits, I didn’t—”

You poked the toe of his boot with your own. “Call it a gift, Mando. Let’s just say I shouldn’t have had the thing hanging around to begin with.”

“Is that gonna cause me any problems?”

“Nope,” you replied, popping the p. “Wiped all the identification numbers from the system. No one will know where it came from. Except you.”

He stared at you a long moment. “Except me.”

He was sure to pay you in full, plus the candied flowers he’d found at one of the vendors in the markets. You’d smiled again at that, and while Din committed the sight to memory, he also promised himself that he wouldn’t let it be long before he saw your smile again.

And he kept that promise. The next time he landed the Crest in your hangar, it wasn’t because he needed a tune-up or new parts. He’d struck gold at a black market on Coruscant; his bounty had lead him into the belly of a sweet shop, and after the Gungan had been dealt with, Din did some hunting of his own. He took as many boxes as he could carry, trying to take one of each flavour, a few extra of the ones he’d seen on the shelf in your shop.

“What in Maker’s name are you doing here?” you’d called as soon as he landed, stepping out of the shop and into the hangar, your hands on your hips, cocked to one side. “You ruin my handiwork that fast?”

“Not exactly,” he’d replied, walking down the ramp, his arms laden with goodies. Your eyes had gone huge. “I come bearing gifts.”

“For me?” you cried, gasping as you took the boxes from him, tongue poking between your teeth. “Mandalorian, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were flirting with me.”

He’d never been so grateful for his helmet at that exact moment. He might have crumbled to dust if you’d seen how red his cheeks were. “I-I owed you,” he stuttered out, “for the carbonite.”

“You didn’t owe me anything,” you quipped, swaying from side to side on your feet, staring down at your treats. “I told you, it was a gift.” You gave him one of those smiles again, and Din felt his stomach twist at the glitter in your eyes. “Why don’t you stay a while? I’ll feed you and everything.”

You disappeared into the shop, and Din paused a moment before following.

He saw you disappear behind a dark curtain that had definitely seen better days, and Din followed your further to discover there was an apartment of sorts attached to the shop. Apartment was perhaps too kind a word; it was one large room, a kitchen to one side, a large futon spread in the middle. Trunks and boxes and crates stacked along the far wall, a few grease-stained jumpsuits littering the floor. You stumbled over your feet trying to pick them up, tossing the offending fabric into a nearby crate, before you turned back to him. “What are you hungry for?”

You served him first. Noodles with dark sauce and some kind of shredded meat you thought was bantha but weren’t quite sure. But, as you stated with a shrug, “it’s good, and it hasn’t killed me yet.” After you slid the bowl across the table to him, you turned back to the stove and stayed that way. After a moment, Din wasn’t sure what to do, but then your head turned slightly, your eyes trained directly to the left, not wandering towards him over your shoulder. “I won’t look. Swear.”

He lifted the helmet just enough to shovel the food into his mouth. You were right, the mystery meat was good, and the sauce you’d made to go with it was even better. He nearly inhaled the food, not wanting to keep you too long, and when the helmet slid back down, the mechanism hissing back into place, your head turned again, still not looking at him.

“You’re safe,” he said, sliding his empty bowl back across the table.

You turned fully, serving yourself, and he expected you to sit across from him, keeping a bit of distance between you, but instead, you rounded the table and plunked yourself down on the stool right beside him. You ate much slower than he had, and Din let his eyes graze over you. The streak of engine grease on your cheek, the scar that split your lower lip, the intricately messy way you wore your hair. A silver chain sat around your throat, strung with a tiny silver ring. It disappeared down the front of your shirt most of the time, but right then it sat awkwardly, the chain caught on your collar, the ring sitting in the hollow of your throat. He resisted the urge to reach out and fix it.

The jumpsuit you wore was nearly identical to the ones you’d hurriedly swiped off the floor. Torn on one knee, zipper unfurling beneath your chest, a symbol he didn’t recognize patched onto your thigh. You’d tied the sleeves around your waist like a belt, a dirty rag tucked in at your hip. The Mechanic, herself. Sweets.

He thought you were beautiful. He had a feeling you’d look beautiful in anything.

Or nothing.

Din was distracted by your thumb at your lips, swiping a drop of sauce from your chin and sucking your finger into your mouth. His flight-suit was tight beneath his beskar to begin with, and you weren’t helping matters. “So,” you said simply, reaching for your food again. “Tell me a story, Mando. A good one. Best bounty you ever caught.”

The conversation filtered between you two easily. You were a good listener, easy to talk to, and Din felt like he couldn’t stop talking to you, telling you about his first kill, his first bounty. His first ship, before the Crest. He couldn’t bring himself to tell you about the before, before the Guild, before he was just the Mandalorian, when he was just Din Djarin. A foundling. Part of him wondered what you think, what your reaction might be to his past, but a larger part forced his mouth shut.

At some point, he turned himself towards you on his stool, one arm braced on the table, the other resting on his thigh. After you finished your food, you leaned heavily on the table, your head pushed into your palm, legs crossed at your ankles, swinging slowly, the toe of your boot tapping his shin every once in a while.

He could see you were tired, the way you started covering your yawns and rubbing at your eyes. “I should go,” he said, starting to get to his feet. “You’re tired, and I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

Your hand flashed out quick — not quick enough to startle him, though — and wrapped around his wrist. You’d managed to wedge your fingers right into the space where his glove met his vambrace, and he felt you against his pulse, against his bare skin. “You don’t have to leave, Mando.”

Din. He wanted to tell you. My name is Din.

Slowly, his own hand reached out, hovering in the air, shaking more than a vibroblade. He saw your eyes trace its path, watching until it lowered, dropped until the flat of his palm met the curve of your thigh. His gloved fingers wrapped around the meat of your leg, his thumb pressing towards the inside.

He heard you gasp.

He moved forward an inch, and his hand moved higher, thumb riding the seam of your jumpsuit. You hummed, fingered squeezing around his wrist, and Din moved closer, until he had one leg between yours. He let his hand wander higher, listening carefully to the changes in your breathing, the hitch in your throat. The heat between your legs was almost stifling, and something feral in the back of his brain screamed for more.

Whatever snapped in him, it seemed to break in you at exactly the same time. You both shot to your feet together, and Din’s hands moved to your waist, to where your sleeves were knotted at your waist. Yours roamed his chest plate, fingers tapping along beskar until you hooked them in his cloak. He halted his own hands, ready to help you remove the fabric, but you handled it just fine on your own, finding the hidden snaps with ease.

His blood turned to flame when he felt your fingers along his throat, seeking his pulse in another spot. “You should stay,” you breathed out, your voice barely above a murmur. “Please, Mando, I want you to stay.”

He forced himself to nod, his mind now preoccupied with ripping his gloves from his hands. He needed to feel you, no barriers in between.

He needed to see you, something in him screamed, no barriers in between.

He silenced that voice before it could spur him further. Busied himself with diving his hand beneath the waist of the jumpsuit, the broken zipper catching on his wrist. You were even hotter beneath, and he sucked down a breath when he found you wet, slick coating his fingers.

Your body leaned into him, chasing his touches, and he hooked his other hand around your thigh, lifting you up and backwards onto the table. He could feel you watching, your eyes moving from his helmet down his front, to where his hand was jammed beneath the jumpsuit. He crooked one finger, testing, pressing it into you, and grinned beneath his helmet when you moaned.

Din hooked his arm under your waist, lifting you just enough that he could maneuver the jumpsuit over your hips, down your legs. His cock jolted between his legs at the sight of you bare, leaned back on the table, your chest heaving. Even though the visor, he could see how slick you were, the evidence shining on the insides of your thighs.

He wanted to taste you.

He pushed the thought away again. Another time, when he wasn’t smearing the inside of his flight-suit with precum, when you weren’t keening into his touch as he dragged his fingers against the sensitive skin between your legs, when he could turn the lights off and shed his armour, bare himself to you the same way.

You moaned again when his fingers found your clit, drawing a sloppy circle that had your muscles tensing against his hand, knees closing against his hips. “F-fuck, Mando,” you ground out, tipping your head back on your shoulders. “You’re good with those hands.” Another stuttered breath as he twisted his wrist, curling two fingers just inside your entrance, thumb stretching up to swipe over your clit. “Really good.”

He was grinning beneath the helmet again, eyes glued to your face as he pressed further, fingers threading deeper into you. He could feel everything, the twitch of your thighs, the clench of your cunt. You reached out with one hand, using the other to balance yourself, and closed it around his elbow, your fingers digging into the thick fabric so hard he was shocked your nails didn’t bite right through.

“How do you like it, Sweets?” he asked, leaning forward until he was nearly hovering over you. Your hand moved from his elbow to chest, fingers hooked in his armour. “Tell me what you need.”

Your hand moved again, this time moving straight down his front, past his waist, right between his legs. His cock throbbed as you palmed him, a cat-like grin on your lips as you tilted your head level with the visor. You leaned up slightly, pressed your lips to the beskar edge that mirrored his jaw. Another squeeze, and the slow pace of his fingers faltered, his head nearly smacking into yours. “I need this.”

Din couldn’t hold back anymore. Something in the way you stared up at him, eyes tracing over the helmet, told him you didn’t want him to.

“I like it rough.”

It all happened in one fluid motion. He pulled you closer, right off the edge of the table, and you spun in his grip, leaning forward over the table, planting your hands flat. The jumpsuit slid further towards your ankles and you arched your back, your ass grinding against his hardness, and Din groaned audibly, tilting his head towards the ceiling. Your legs spread as much as the jumpsuit would allow, and Din worked his own zipper down, freeing himself from the flight-suit. You made the most delicious noise as the tip of his cock smacked against your ass, the tip dripping with precum.

Your head turned as he took himself in hand, tapping your ass with his cock again. “Maker,” you breathed out, your eyes widening. “I knew you’d be big.”

Beneath the helmet, Din turned crimson.

He planted his other hand between your shoulders, tipping you forward. You went willingly, eyes rolling back as he pushed his hips against your ass. He could see how wet you were as you bent, slick still dripping down your thighs.

There was nothing stopping him from dropping to his knees right then and there, lifting the helmet just enough to drag his tongue through your cunt. The thought alone made his cock pulse.

But then your hand reached back, twisting in the fabric covering his hip, and he couldn’t wait any longer. He bent his knees slightly, notching himself at your entrance, and pushed inside.

The noise you let out was nearly enough to make him cum right then and there. He knew he wasn’t gonna last, and judging by the sounds you continued to make and the way you were bearing down on him, hands clenched into fists on the tabletop, he didn’t think you were either. He set a fast pace, the space filling with the slick sound of him driving in and out of you, your moans echoing each move. Din’s gaze dropped, trained on the sight of his cock disappearing to you. Your hand flapped at his hip, scrabbling for purchase, and he wrapped his fingers around your forearm, groaning when you did the same.

He was right; you didn’t last long, and neither did he. Your entire body clenched as you came, one hand slamming against the table, nails digging deep into his wrist. It spurred his own orgasm, that coil at the base of his spine snapping, and he pulled out, cumming hard across the curve of your ass.

Silence settled over the both of you as you caught your breath. Din couldn’t help himself, rubbing his bare fingers over the expanse of your back, tracing over your spine. You arched a bit into his touch, making a satisfied noise before you lifted yourself off the table. You turned to him, leaned up to press a hot kiss to his bare throat. It made him shiver.

“Think we could do that again?” you murmured, lifting a finger and dragging it along the edge of his helmet. “Maybe you take all the metal off.”

Din cleared his throat, trying to ignore the way his cock twitched, already wanting a second round. “Helmet stays on.”

You stared at him a long moment, smile on your lips. “Helmet stays on.”

He kept close to you after that night. He rarely took bounties that took him to further reaches of the galaxy, loathe to admit that he was always within a few parsecs of your hangar. He brought you a long-distance commlink so he could tell you when he was coming back, so you could contact him if you ever needed him. He didn’t worry about you, per se; you were more than capable of taking care of yourself, and he knew for a fact you knew how to shoot the blaster you kept holstered on your thigh when he wasn’t around.

But then the comm went quiet. He called, you didn’t answer. A lead weight formed in his stomach, and he pushed the Crest’s engines are fast as they’d go. Carefully, though — he wouldn’t dare ruin any of your handiwork.

When he landed in the hangar, the lights were all off. It didn’t help his worry, and it only grew worse as he sprinted off the Crest, heading straight for the shop door.

It was locked, but the lock was no match for his vibroblade and a bit of brute force. Inside, the space was empty. no trace of you left inside. There was no sign of a struggle, no blood smeared on the floor or the wall, but it didn’t ease his mind any. What if someone had come for you, spirited you away in the dead of night to some backwater planet? Dank farrik, what if someone had put out a bounty on you? His mind reeled, raced, chewed him up and spit him out.

He never meant to get so attached to you.

Din switched the settings on his visor, finally determining that all the footprints he could make out on the floor were your own. Then he saw it, sitting on the edge of one of the shelves in the kitchen. The commlink, perched precariously, just enough out of sight that no one else would think twice, but not Din.

He thumbed through the screen, saw the icon flashing with a recorded message. Your face lit up the screen instantly, and he stifled the way his stomach clenched. You looked…scared. Not hurt, not injured, but scared.

“Someone sold me out,” you said, your voice distorted and warped. “I can’t give you details. I can’t really tell you anything. Just know I’m going somewhere safe, and I’ll miss you, Mandalorian. Take care of yourself.”

Your eye were shiny as you reached out to cut the recording, and Din’s heart sank into his toes.

He put the commlink in his pocket, and returned to his ship.

He’d watched the message so many times the words were engraved into his brain. The change in your voice, the way you’d blinked harder the more you spoke. The way you paused in the middle, glanced over your shoulder with a shock of fear in your eyes.

And now here you are, standing in front of him, a pile of metal spilling out of a crate tucked beneath your arm, that same streak of fear in those big eyes. Eyes that have haunted him all these years. You nearly drop the crate as you crouch, your gaze zeroing in on the wound on his leg. “Maker, Mando, what the hell did you do?”

“Long story,” he groans out, wincing as you adjust his leg slightly, leaning to the side so you can get a better look. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” you reply, getting back to your feet, retrieving your crate of parts. “C’mon, let me clean you up. You look like hell.”

Din goes willingly, not sure what else to do, his mind racing from the combination of the Covert and you appearing out of nowhere. He lets you pull him slowly to his feet, tuck yourself under his arm. “Sweets,” he starts to protest, but you drag his arm around your shoulders.

“Shush,” you whisper, glancing around as you start to lead him in the opposite direction he’d been going. “Lean your weight on me.” He does as you say, nearly crumbling with relief. “There you go.”

The ache only worsens as you go, Din resisting the urge to lean his head against yours. When you finally turn him towards the door, he thinks he may topple over completely, but you’re quicker, producing a remote from your pocket. The door slides open, revealing the inside of a hangar, and you all but carry him through, discarding the crate of parts the moment you’re through, hitting the button again once you’re inside. The door slides shut, and Din lifts his head enough to look around. It looks nearly identical to your old hangar.

Then he hears a curious little beep, and looks down to see a tiny droid scurrying towards you. A BD-1 unit; he recognizes it from Peli’s, though yours is a little more rusty around the edges, the cleaner bits of metal painted grey and yellow. “Not now, Shrimp,” you grit, waving at the droid. It beeps loudly back at you, like an arguing child, and Din stifles his laugh.

“I thought you didn’t use droids,” he mumbles.

“He came with the hangar,” you reply, moving him across the hangar. Shrimp follows a few more steps before darting off, disappearing into a pile of crates. “Couldn’t bring myself to scrap him. Besides, not like he’s much help; tiny thing can’t even lift a socket wrench.”

He laughs out loud this time, and when you pull him into the shop, he laughs again, despite himself.

There’s a shelf of sweets above the workbench.

There’s no curtain between the shop and the apartment, instead another sliding door, another remote. Din lets out a low hum when he sees the apartment beyond. More than one room, furnished with actual furniture. It’s…nice. It’s really nice.

You deposit him on the couch, propping his leg up on the table in front of it. “Wait here,” you mumble, pointing a finger at him before disappearing into another room.

He doesn’t move, but hooks his fingers into the edge of his helmet and yanks it off, depositing it on the couch beside him. He sucks down a breath of unfiltered air.

You gasp as you walk back into the room, nearly dropping the silver case in your hand. “Mando, you—”

“Din,” he says instantly, reaching down, tugging his gloves off, tossing them onto the helmet. “My name is Din Djarin.”

“Din,” you repeat, slowly, like you’re tasting his name on your tongue. The corner of your mouth quirks. “Din…Djarin.”

He just nods. You approach him carefully, like you’re walking towards an injured animal instead of a man, the silver case clutched against your chest.

“Your helmet,” you start, gesturing vaguely. A memory sparks. He told you before — not in so many words — about his Creed, his upbringing. You’d asked, and he’d answered. It wasn’t information he gave willingly. The second time he had you, when you were sprawled out completely naked on that old futon, writhing and moaning beneath him, when he’d shed almost all his beskar, felt the warmth of your body pressed up against all of him. Afterward, when you’d both been sated for the time being, you’d peered up at him from your place on his chest. “Do you ever take it off?” you asked, your voice laced with sleep.

And he’d answered.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says now, eyes darting towards the curve of silver. “I’m not a Mandalorian anymore.”

“What?” you ask, your brow furrowing. He wants to reach out, let his thumb ride the space between your eyebrows, feel it smooth over as he kisses the spot. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” He trails off. Loaded question. What does it mean? Truly? “My name is Din Djarin.”

There’s still confusion etched into your features, but you don’t question him further. Your brow doesn’t loosen, and you perch on the table.

“What’s in the case?” he asks, jutting his chin towards the silver case still in your hands.

You look at him for a long moment, eyes sweeping over his face, over his features. Like you’re committing him to memory. He’s doing the same, almost scrutinizing your face, trying to remember what it looks like without the filter of his visor, what you truly look like, with no barriers in between.

He could taste you easily now.

The thought catches him off guard, the throb between his legs a welcome change to the pulsing of the wound on his thigh. The bacta the Covert had given him has worn off almost completely, and the pain is climbing.

“B-bacta shot,” you stutter out, shaking your head slightly as you flipped open the case. Your eyes moved to the wound on his leg, peering at the plates of beskar, the flight-suit, the discarded helmet on the couch. “That needs to be cleaned.”

Din just nods.

“Think you can walk to the bedroom?” you ask, shoving the silver case into the chest pocket of your jumpsuit. He recognizes it — the tear in the knee, the patch on your thigh. You fixed the zipper. “It’ll be easier.”

It’s slow-going, getting him back to his feet, shuffling carefully to the bedroom. You ask him if he wants to bring the helmet; he just shakes his head.

What does that mean?

Your bed is unmade, but Din barely notices. The scent of you is amplified in here, and he’s sucking down breaths like he’s been deprived of oxygen. You help him lower to the edge of the bed, and he starts on the armour. You sink to your knees in front of him, setting the bacta shot on the mattress beside him. He removes a pauldron with shaking fingers, and you’re right there to take it from him, your movements sure, setting the metal carefully onto the floor, waiting for the next piece.

“You disappeared,” he says, after more pieces of beskar have been removed, when you’ve moved onto his boots, setting them both carefully at your side.

Your brow had just smoothed out, and it pinches again. “I had to. I left you a message.”

Din pulls the zipper on his flight-suit, reaches into the pocket sewn into the lining, and produces the commlink. “I know.”

Your lips part as you look at the piece of metal, dwarfed by his hand. “You found it.”

“I did.”

Bottom lip caught between your teeth, you look back up at him through your lashes. “It wasn’t safe.”

“You’re safe now,” he says, and you reach for the bacta shot. “Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” you reply, your voice bordering on stern. “Somebody sold me out.”

“I knew that much,” Din mumbles, and you shoot him a glare.

You sigh. “Let’s just say, there were some parts in the hangar that shouldn’t have been there, someone wasn’t happy with some work I did, and then next thing I knew, there were Imps on my tail. So I disappeared.”

“You could have told me where you were going.”

You shake your head. “They were listening. Tracking every message I sent out. I couldn’t let you get roped into it too.”

“You could have gone to the Guild,” he says. He’s too distracted to notice you pull the syringe out of the case. He doesn’t see the needle until you’re pushing it into his muscle above the wound. He grits his teeth audibly, hands curling hard around the edge of the mattress. “Dank farrik.”

“Sorry.”

“I would have come for you,” he says, breath hitching in his throat as you push the plunger down. It feels like his body has been flooded with ice water, his teeth chattering for a moment before the cold turns to a woozy sort of warmth that spreads through his chest like Corellian fire whiskey. He blinks hard, slow, one eye than the other.

“Can you stand?” He nods. Or thinks he does. “The bacta will help, but I need to put a bandage on that wound, at least.” More nodding. He’s vaguely aware of you draping his arms around your neck, your arms sliding around his waist to haul him up. He plants his feet beneath him, forces his weight over his ankles. His movements are slow, languid, like he’s moving through water. You manoeuvre one arm out of his flight-suit, pushing the fabric down his shoulders, until it settles around his hips. The metallic sound of the zipper seems to echo through his brain, and he knows you’re touching his waist, moving the fabric slowly over his injured thigh. But it doesn’t hurt.

All he can feel is you.

You sit him down again, work on pulling the suit off completely. Your hands are warm, soft, gentle against his bare legs, and he nearly buries his nose in the crown of your head when you bend down. Once the flight-suit has been removed, leaving him in his boxers and undershirt, you disappear again, and Din’s not sure if it’s thirty seconds or thirty minutes.

Something cold presses against his thigh, and he flinches. “Does it hurt?” you ask instantly, and your voice is clear, then muffled, then clear again. “It shouldn’t.”

“Nuh-uh,” he slurs out. He hears you laugh, and the sound is like tinkling bells. He wants to hear it again. “Sweets.”

“Yes, Din?” Clear, muffled. His name is a song on your lips.

“You’re beautiful.”

“So are you.”

“Mesh’la,” he mumbles, and then his eyes fall shut, his body slumps back, and he thinks you laugh again. He’s not quite sure; sleep is too busy yanking him under.

Din wakes to the sound of running water.

He’s disoriented, confused, not sure where he is until he pushes up on his elbows, looks around, drinks in the sight of your bedroom. The memory floods back; the Covert, then the hangar, taking the helmet off, the bacta shot that knocked him out.

But more importantly: you.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes. How long was he out? He can’t be sure; there’s a window on the far side of the room, but time on Glavis is different, artificial nighttime and starlight instead of sun. His armour has been moved from the floor, neatly piled on a dresser against the wall, his boots on the floor underneath. His flight-suit is spread out on a worktable in the middle of the room, and he can see from his spot that you’ve tried to mend it, patching the spot the Darksaber had cut open with a square of fabric. It’s looks to be the same kind of material, but the colour is darker. Beneath the sheets, his leg is wrapped in cotton bandages, and there’s no sign of blood seeping to the surface.

His head turns in the direction of the noise of the water, and he pauses, waits for some kind of pain to prick through his body, but it never comes. He feels…good. Well-rested. His eyes follow the sound, and then he sees it.

The door to your bathroom is wide open, and from his spot on your bed, he can see directly into the shower. You’re inside, steam pouring over the top of the glass wall, and Din’s whole body jerks. He never forgot what you looked like naked, and it’s been a long time, but somehow it still feels like the first time. He can feel the blood rushing south, and his hands clench in the bedsheets.

He just stares, watching the water move over you, cascading down your spine, rolling in rivulets over your curves, following the lines of your body. He wants to follow them too, wants to read you like a map only he knows the key to.

Dank farrik, he’s missed you. He hadn’t realized how much.

The water shuts off, and he sees you reach for a towel, wiping your face first. He sinks back down on the bed, wondering if he should feign sleep, feeling like a kid caught doing something he’s not supposed to. But before he can— “You’re awake,” he hears you call, and looks back just as you wrap the towel around your middle. “I thought you’d be out for the night.”

Din coughs, shifting the blankets, trying to hide the tent that’s formed in his boxers. “You don’t close the door?” He doesn’t know what else to say.

You laugh. “I live alone,” you say, stepping out of the bathroom, walking towards the dresser his armour sits upon. “Force of habit.”

He clears his throat. Loudly. Pauses. “…it’s a nice view.”

Your tongue peeks between your lips as you walk over to him, still in just the towel. Your hair is still dripping, water droplets dotting your shoulders. You sink slowly onto the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”

“G-good,” he spits out, adjusting himself, making more room for you. “Really good.”

The corner of your mouth quirks. “I’m glad. You scared me, Man—” You catch yourself. “Din.”

A drop of water splashes down from your hair, starts a path down your upper arm, and Din reaches out, catching it on his finger. You watch his hand, lips softly parted, and he continues the path, drawing his hand up and down your skin, the backs of his knuckles against your bicep.

“I wondered where you were, all these years,” you whisper. There’s longing in your voice, he notices; the same feeling sits like a weight on his chest. “I never stopped wondering.”

“I’ll tell you sometime,” he whispers back. There’s something forming in the air between you, thick like the steam that still foams from the open bathroom. Din can almost taste it, and the thought he’d had in your living room resurfaces, making him twitch beneath the sheets. He could taste you so easily now. “It’s a long story.”

The corner of your mouth quirks. “I got nothing but time.”

So does he, he realizes. He’s without a ship, without his son, without anything anchoring him to one planet or another, to any sort of path. He’d been wandering already, trying to find the Covert, and now he is unmoored once more, yet somehow managed to find his way back to your hangar.

To your bed.

His hand stops chasing water droplets, and he sees your teeth sink into your lower lip. He lowers his palm until it rests on your bare thigh, and he can feel how your skin is still hot from the shower. “I never kissed you,” he rasps. “Before.”

Your head shakes slowly, and you turn towards him more fully. The towel is loose around your chest, your hand holding it in place, and he reaches for it, slowly uncurling your fingers from the fabric, until your grip falls slack, and the towel goes with it. “You should fix that,” you murmur.

“I’m out of practice.”

Your lips twitch again. “How bad?”

“Few decades,” he says softly. “Since before I swore the Creed.”

“You were a child.”

“It was a childish kiss.” He pauses, moves his hand again, brushes dripping locks of hair from your face. “I don’t want to kiss you like that.”

“Just…” Din leans in slightly, tilts his head to the side. “Do what feels natural.” You mirror his movement, and his eyes are glued to your mouth, to the way your lips stay parted even when you’re done speaking, the way your collar lifts with shuddered breaths. He sees your hands move the towel out of the corner of his eye, pulling the fabric away from your body completely until you’re bared to him, head to toe.

You’re just as beautiful as he remembers. If not more.

The tip of his nose drags along the slope of yours, and his hand slides from your thigh to your hip. “I need you closer, Sweets,” he murmurs, and you nod against him, your foreheads tapping together. There’s a bit of shuffling, the blankets moved back, his tented boxers exposed but barely acknowledged as you climb into his lap. He revels in the way you look above him, your knees pressed either side of his hips. You’re hesitant to lower your weight onto his leg, and he guides you slow, giving you a quiet it’s okay as you settle onto him.

He doesn’t feel any pain; he just feels you.

Once you’re comfortable, your hands clutching at his shoulders, he adjusts his grip on you, palms skimming up your spine, mapping out your ribs and the curve of your ass. You make a quiet noise when he squeezes one cheek, the movement propelling you forward, making your hips roll into his, your core pushed against his hard cock. It makes him hiss with pleasure, and he slides one hand up to your hair, knotting his fingers in it and dragging your mouth down to his.

It’s not artful; he’s sure it doesn’t look pretty from the outside. There’s a lot of teeth and tongue, the fumble of hands as he tries to get you even closer. He’s sure you’ve been kissed better than this, and it makes his cheeks heat, makes him pull away, tucking his chin towards his chest. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Hey,” you say softly, your hands moving to cup his cheeks, tilting his face back up towards you. “It’s okay. Just…follow my lead?” You say it like a question, your thumbs swiping over his face, through the smatter of facial hair along his jaw. “I got you.”

Din nods, lets his lips part as you cock your head to the side, leaning in slow. You kiss his top lip and then his bottom one, giving him just enough teeth that he wants more, wants it harder. He grips your hips as you move, but your kiss stays tender, slow, your tongue a wet heat against his own. He’d dreamed of this, of kissing you, and this one — albeit the second attempt — is everything he ever imagined.

Finally, your mouth grows more insistent. He’s hard as steel between his legs, and he can feel how hot you are, your wetness spreading across his boxers with every roll of your hips. Your mouth is sweet, almost sugary, and he finds himself chuckling against your lips, still trying to get you closer. Your stomach presses to his as you wrap your arms around his neck, kissing him harder, your tongue licking into his mouth.

“Sweets,” he grinds out when you start pulling at his undershirt, insistent to get it over his head. He lets you, and when you lower your head again, your mouth moves to his throat instead, and it makes him moan. “Mesh’la, wait, please, I need—”

You pull back instantly, your eyes bright with worry. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“I want…” His eyes drop, tracing a path down your body, his throat growing dry when they land on the apex of your thighs, the glistening wetness he knows he’s caused. He lets one hand follow the path his eyes made, rubs his thumb over your clit. Your whole body shivers. “I want to taste you.”

Your eyes go big, pupils blown with lust, and Din uses your momentary shock to his advantage. He’s stronger than you, perks of the bounty hunting lifestyle, and he flips you easily with one arm around your waist, his other hand hitching your thigh over his hip. You squeak as your head hits the pillows, clinging to him until you’re laid out beneath him.

It’s his turn to kiss his way down your throat, and he does, laving his tongue against your pulse as he makes his way down your body. He pauses at your chest, moves to the side to close his lips around your nipple. It makes your back arch, a high-pitched noise falling from your mouth, and he grins against you, giving you just the edge of his teeth before he’s wandering across your chest to give the other the same attention.

You’re a writhing mess by the time he’s settled between your thighs. He can’t keep his eyes still, raking over every inch of you, trying to remember every part. He can see the muscles in your legs jump as he traces his fingers over them, the more sensitive parts of your skin making you keen.

With your legs spread, he can see everything, and his mouth waters at the sight of your wet cunt, walls fluttering around nothing as he teases you with his fingers, collecting your wetness on the tips before drawing them to his mouth.

He moans at the taste. Of course, you’re sweet. Deliciously so.

“Din,” you groan out, propping yourself up on your elbows. He can feel you watching, and his gaze flicks up to yours as he drops his jaw, lowers his mouth to you. Your eyes roll back for a moment, one hand moving to knot in his hair, and Din moans into you. His tongue explodes with the taste of you, sending shocks down his spine, making his hips rolls into the mattress, seeking relief.

Just do what feels natural, your words echo in his head. So he does. He licks into you, wide stripes with the flat of his tongue, smaller kitten licks to your clit. He can’t get enough of your taste, hooking his hands around your thighs, pulling himself deeper into you. And you guide him some, your hand in his hair an anchor of sorts, tugging slightly to get him right where you need him, a gasped oh fuck, right there! reaching his ears.

It’s not before long that you’re smacking at his shoulder, muffled moans on your lips with your teeth sunk into your lower one. He detaches from you, gets one more good look and lick in before he’s following your grip, kissing every inch of you he can reach as he makes his way back up your body.

“I need you inside me,” you slur, your hands reaching down, pushing at his boxers. His cock springs up against his stomach and he groans, the sound growing louder when you wrap your fingers around him. “Please, Din, I want to cum on your cock.”

It’s a miracle he doesn’t cum right then and there, hearing your words turn filthy. And filthier still as he hauls himself over you, plants one elbow beside your head, looks between you, reaches down to line himself up and—

Freezes.

He can feel your eyes on his face, features pinched with anticipation. Your hands have found homes along his ribs, fingers tapping out rhythmless patterns. Hips lifting, you must see something in his expression, because you move a hand to his chin, lifting his eyes to yours again. “Din,” you say, and a shiver shoots down his spine again at the way his name sounds on your lips. “It’s okay. We can stop, if you need to.”

“No!” he nearly shouts, and feels himself flush, lowering himself slightly, careful not to drop all his weight on you. “No, that’s not what I…I don’t…”

“Don’t what?” you murmur. Your voice is quiet, understanding. You give a soft laugh. “I know you’re not a virgin, but if you don’t want to, it’s okay, I won’t say any—”

“It’s not that,” he cuts you off, petting his hand over your still-damp hair. “I want to. I want you. It’s just that…” He chews at his lip. “No one’s ever seen my face, while we…when I…”

Realization slides through your features. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have to look,” you say quickly, skimming your knuckles along his cheek. “I can turn over, if you like, if that’s easier than—”

“No,” he says, not a shout this time, but firmer. “I want you to see, Sweets.” He drops his chin, emboldened by your softness, your understanding. He kisses you soundly. “I want to kiss you while you cum.” His words pull a silky noise from your throat.

He breaks the kiss as he takes himself in hand, pushes into your dripping cunt. You’re hot, clenching down on him instantly, arms draped around his neck as he lowers himself further, latches his lips to yours. He hitches one of your legs high on his hip, drives into you deep. He had you close on his tongue already, and he rolls his hips hard, catching something deep inside that makes your entire body seize.

“Yes, Din, please, oh gods, please, please, please,” you’re babbling against his lips, one hand pressed flat between his shoulders, the other knotted in the back of his hair. “Yes!”

Just as he said, he kisses you while you cum. He feels it pulse through your body, your limbs taut and then lax, still holding him close. Your hips chase his, cunt clenching tight as a vice, and Din’s not far behind you, pleasure lighting a fuse down his spine.

You pull your lips from his just as he starts to spill in you. Your hand moves to grip his chin, and you force his gaze to yours. He gasps and your mouth mirrors his, lips parted in a soft o, turning to a grin as he grinds into you, painting your insides as deep as he can go. It feels like an implosion, his bones rattled in his body, but then set on the softest bed of silk as he collapses into your chest. You hold him close, petting one hand through his hair, breathing deep and slow until his own evens out, matches yours, until your heartbeat syncs with his.

“Mesh’la?” he calls after a moment, cheek still pressed to your sternum.

“Yes, Din?” you reply, your voice scratchy as your nails start to drag along his scalp. His eyes are heavy.

“I missed you.”

He can hear the smile in your voice. “I missed you too.”

Din wakes alone in your bed again.

He thinks it’s the next morning — the rest of what he assume to be evening was spent in your bed, both of you naked and wrapped in each other. Again and again and again, he pulled pleasure from your body, let you pull it from his, found your bliss together. By the time you were both too tired to move, sprawled on the mattress, your head on his shoulder, you’d whispered, “You’re a good kisser, Din Djarin.” And then you were asleep, Din not too far behind.

He dresses quickly, boxers pulled back on, undershirt in his hand as he pads out of the room. He finds you standing in the kitchen, a steaming cup of caf in your hands. The droid — Shrimp, he dimly recalls — is perched on the table, beeping out a message to you. You’re nodding along, blowing the steam off the top of your caf, and your eyes flick to him as he steps into the kitchen.

“You know Peli Motto?”

Din’s brow crinkles with confusion. “You know Peli?”

You scoff. “That woman taught me everything I know.”

“You’re joking.”

“Swear on my hangar.”

Din just laughs, walking around the table. He slides an arm around your waist once he’s close enough, leans into kiss the side of your head. You lean into him. “Why are we talking about Peli?”

“She sent me a message,” you say, offering him your caf. He takes a sip, only feeling more confused. “Asking if I had any spare ships laying around my hangar. A replacement for her Mandalorian friend.”

Din balks. He hasn’t told you about the Crest. “Sweets…”

You step away from him, pressing a hand to his chest as your eyes go wide with realization. “Din Djarin, what did you do to that ship?”

“I didn’t—”

“Din.”

“It was Imps,” he says, trying to reach for your hip. “It wasn’t—”

“Where is the Razor Crest?”

He sighs heavily, and reaches out to take the cup of caf from you again. “Now it’s nothing but a scorch mark on the planet Tython. It was the Imps. They took my son.” The words are out before he can stop them.

Your eyes go so wide he’s worried they might pop out of your skull. “Your son?”

“It’s a long story.”

You pluck the caf out of his hands, walk around the table, pull out a chair and sink into it. “I got nothing but time.”

#sleepover saturday #my fics #din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fic #din djarin fic #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin smut #din djarin fluff #din djarin headcanon #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian smut #the mandalorian fluff #the mandalorian headcanon #the mandalorian fanfiction

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crumbledcastle28 · 2 years ago

Text

Din Djarin: Bright and Shiny

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!reader (she/her)

Excerpt: “Do you like It?” he whispered, and you swore you were dreaming. You had pictured him like this so many times—so many times—but it was real. This was fucking real and you were fucking on fire.”

“Yes,” you said, breathily. “I do.”

You were locked on his helmet so badly that you didn’t see his right hand creeping up to frame your face with it. Holding your cheeks between his thumb and the rest of his fingers, forcing you to focus on his face.

“What do you like about it?”

Warnings: smut smut smut and more smut (me writing a dom man?), with softness at the end. The Crest is aliveee. Grogu isn’t here yet.

A/N: Happy Dincember everyone, aka my absolute favorite tumblr tradition. To all the authors updating prompts every day…are you Gods?

If you’d like to leave a like, comment, ask, or reblog, it would be very appreciated <3

Pedro Masterlist

There was no bigger hypocrite in the galaxy than the infamous Mandalorian.

Blood-crusted beskar coated the majority of his body every time he placed his feet on solid ground—every time— in addition to the metaphorical armor that was his demeanor. Solid, unbreakable, stern, terrifying.

It was not until you had spent a few months as his “partner” at the Guild, thus living together on his quickly crumbling Razor Crest, that you were met with his true doctrine of hypocrisy.

It was as if every time he elected to remove a piece of his armor for you, he knocked down one of his walls. First was the night he removed the small shoulder and shin pieces, the same night he elected to crack his first joke. Next was the dark-browned chest, sharing with you that he was a foundling in his Covert. Then the belt, covered in more weapons and weight than you had ever seen, and he told the story of his first kill. Then the wrists, along with the story of his toughest kill. The one that haunted him as he attempted to fall asleep at night. Then his gloves, with the story of the first woman he had ever fell in love with.

“You remind me of her,” he had said to you, “except you have actually stayed.” He had said the last part quickly before immediately exiting the pit to hide in his “room” for a few hours.

You remained in your copilot seat, staring off into the stars of hyperspace, unable to think at all.

Slowly—very slowly— the Mandalorian had revealed more and more of his true self to you. The one who would sneakily hum around the Crest, make sure to turn your heated blanket on early on cold nights, and always—always—avoid spiced food like the plague.

“It upsets my stomach,” he had defended, and you scoffed in return.

After such long travel-times on jobs, you would get so used to the softness of his true personality that when he would have to put his armor back on—literally and figuratively— you almost felt like you were looking and speaking to a different person.

The heat in your lower stomach felt that way too.

It flared when he was soft, but the switch from the man you knew to the Mandalorian always reminded you both of when you first met him and what he was truly capable of.

Plus, seeing the width of his shoulders accentuated by the most expensive and impenetrable metal known to man was not bad either.

You had been sitting at the usual meeting spot with Greef, ready to discuss the dozen pucks already sitting in front of you. You were still due for a new job after the boat-load of beskar given to you for the little green baby— which definitely was not still on your conscious— and Mando was running a bit late due to the crafting of his new armor. You waited anxiously to see the results.

“I have never held this much in my own hands before,” he had said to you, and you beamed up at him as he spoke. “This will likely be enough for an entirely new set.”

You had no idea how right he was.

You sat at the booth with Greef, making pleasant enough conversation, but mostly daydreaming of what Mando was seeing, feeling, touching. The pleasure to watch his own armor be crafted by hand, you could not even imagine what that would be like.

You took a sip of your drink—one that Greef had been so gracious to buy for you—and let it burn as you set it down on the sticky wooden table. As soon as the glass touched the wood, the entire cantina silenced, and all eyes went to the entrance. Your eyes followed the crowd’s, unable to see for certain what everyone was looking at.

It only took a few seconds for you to realize that the “what” was actually a “who,” and that “who” was the kindest man you had ever known wrapped in wealth, power, and impenetrability.

It was a good thing you had set your drink down, because it would have dropped to the floor, shattering into millions of pieces, because he was the sexist thing you had ever laid your eyes on.

This was the Mandalorian.

You thought his previous armor was intimidating—small shoulder pieces, a wide chest piece, and even wider thigh pieces. He was both a distraction to you and a threat to everyone else in that armor.

But now, now he fully covered, head to toe, in shimmering silver. His waist the tiniest you had seen it, with his shoulders as wide as they had ever looked. Almost the entirety of his legs were covered now, and even his helmet gleamed and glistened in the light. He walked straighter, stood taller, and stepped slower. Like he was enjoying this.

He had never looked more lethal, and with all of the eyes on him, his own were on you.

You stared back at him as he made his way, mouth slightly parted, and legs squeezing tighter and tighter together with each step he took. The typical slight steam in your stomach at the sight of him was now boiling hot, running through the blood in your body faster than you could process. The lack of blood flow to your brain caused it to wipe itself clean and focus solely on the warrior in front of you. Your hands began to shake and your mouth parched.

You were speechless. A deadly bounty hunter stunned speechless.

He said nothing as he scooched his way into the booth, and you remained looking at him even when his body was turned towards Greef.

“I want my next job,” he said.

Greef said something, something witty, but you didn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear it.

“I want my next job,” Mando repeated. Amban rifle in his lap, leaning slightly forward.

Holy fuck the heat in you.

He grabbed a puck and began walking out, turning back to signal you to follow. You stood slowly, thanked Greef, and exited the Cantina, eyes locked on the expanse of his back the entire walk to the Crest.

~*~

It wasn’t two seconds after Mando put the security lock on the Crest that he had you cornered with his words.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, taking a step closer to you. You were both in the cock pit, ready to take off, and you were standing in front of the controls.

“No,” you said, meeting his gaze as fiercely as you could. Your hands were glued to your sides and your fists squeezed so hard they stung.

“Okay,” he said, so fucking softly it hurt you. He was still making his way closer to you, forcing you to look up.

“Okay,” you responded, and you thought that was it. He would back off.

But your fucking eyes betrayed you, darting down to the expanse of his body, and he laughed.

“Do you like It?” he whispered, and you swore you were dreaming. You had pictured him like this so many times—so many times—but it was real. This was fucking real and you were fucking on fire.

“Yes,” you said, breathily. “I do.”

“What do you like about it?”

You could barely breathe enough to respond. Your throat instantly dried, and every word of any language was lifted from you.

“I—I like—” you started, swallowing “—I like the chest.”

“The chest,” he said, bringing your hand up to the cold metal. “What about it?”

You traced your fingers down it, still forced to look up at him by his leather glove. “I like how wide it makes you. How powerful.”

He stood there in silence before asking, “what else?”

“The legs,” you whispered. “I really like the legs.”

He nearly growled. “Why Y/N? Tell me.”

Your name on his lips at this stage of the game was too much.

“It makes them look big. Strong,” you said, heart in your throat. “I like that.”

He softened his grip on your face and moved his hand to the back of your neck. “I know you do.” He then tapped twice on his helmet. “Heat signature.”

Your face fell and paled.

How long had he—

“I’ve known since the first day I met you,” he said, massaging your neck. “Just never knew how to bring it up.”

“Why now?” you whispered, voice deep from the pleasure of his fingers.

“Because this is the strongest it’s ever been for you,” he replied. “And for me. Seeing you watching me like that…”

He brought his hand back to frame your face.

“…I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than you in that moment.”

He started pulling you forward by your face.

“And now i have you, don’t I?”

Yes he did, so much of you, parts of you you didn’t even know about before him.

“Yes.”

He let go of you and sat in the pilot’s seat, spreading his legs.

“So ruin me, Y/N. Ruin this bright and shiny armor.”

You practically jumped on him.

You immediately mounted him, wrapping your hands around his shoulders, and felt all around the metal. Your breaths fogged up his helmet as you did, practically moaning at the chance to finally feel the expanse of his body. He kept his hands firmly on your hips, watching your face as you panted and whined in his.

After a few moments he picked you up and sat you on his right thigh.

“Go on.”

You immediately rolled your hips, fully moaning at the feeling, and rolled them faster and faster and deeper and deeper.

Your head began tipping back as the metal ground against your clit perfectly, but Mando pulled your face forward to rest your forehead on his.

“Mando—”

“It’s Din,” he said firmly, squeezing your hips enough to bruise. “Say it.”

You rolled your hips over and over, desperation dripping off your voice. “Din.”

It was then that he released a moan, ripped your pants and underwear off of you, and took control of your hips on his thigh. He placed you down just right and tears coated your eyes, sweat poured from your pours, and with one inch of incline from his leg, you shattered.

Your forehead fell against his, panting and whining “Din” over and over again as he kept you moving on him through your orgasm. You felt yourself drip down onto the floor and run down his legs, and your eyes rolled at the thought.

You held onto the fabric around his neck for dear life, gathering as much breath as you could, and Din just let you.

It was then that he started to feel you up.

He moved from your hips to your bare thighs, back up to your clothed breasts, then to your face to brush back your hair, and finally back down to your thighs. He gathered your drip from his thigh onto his leather glove. He brought it underneath his helmet, and your mouth dropped open.

He sucked it slowly, not making any noise except a slight groan. “I knew I was right.”

You swallowed, still panting in both exhaustion and shock. “Right?”

“I knew every part of you was perfect.”

Your eyes fluttered closed, and you smiled nice and wide. You had a feeling he was smiling too.

It was this sense of elation and euphoria that gave you the freedom not to think before sliding your hand over his hardened bulge and raising your eyebrows in question.

He chuckled, which somehow melted you more than anything he had done previously.

“Not right now,” he said sweetly, and pulled you into his chest. You cozied up into him before he slowly lifted you, allowing you to wrap your legs around his waist. “I don’t think I’d last two seconds.”

You smiled, humming. “Okay Din.”

His body tensed a bit when you said that, and you wondered if you crossed some sort of boundary, but he continued on his way to his bed. He set you in It, wrapping you in his sheets, and grabbing a towel to clean you off. You got a good show of yourself stained and running all over his thigh and nearly jumped on him again.

“Like I said,” he countered, likely picking up on the change in your temperature, “I wouldn’t last two seconds.”

You nodded with a smile and he took the towel to the laundry room before returning to you, sitting on the side of the bed.

“Get some rest,” he said. “We have a job to do in the morning.”

He stood, making his way back to the cockpit, but you called out to him.

“Mando, wait,” you said, and he froze before slowly turning back around. “Are we okay? Was that…okay?”

He paused, leaning himself into the doorway, sighing as always, and said, “Y/N, I wouldn’t trade the world for the last hour I’ve had with you.”

You enjoyed this forward, talkative Din much more than you anticipated to.

“And call me Din,” he said. “Please.”

He then left you, starting up the Crest to make its way to hyperspace, and you drifted slowly into sleep, still on a high. You finally fell asleep to the feeling of a warm body wrapping itself around you, and a deep voice whispering in your ear, “We’re okay, Y/N. We’re okay.”

Tag list: (I apologize if your tag is not present/not working. Let me know if you’d like to be added!)

@leahkenobi @cityofidek @burned-dorito @tiredbuthappy @punkiwiki @lovesbiggerthanpride @darth-voder @samanthacookieone @torchbearerkyle @stardust-galaxies @c4psicles-blog @joelsflannel @mysun-n-stars @tateelii @kirsteng42 @leithatnight @arson-tm @l0calgoth @thesmutslut @alastorhazbin @grincheveryday @martinsmomo @letaliabane @cathenan @big-ol-boat @niiight-dreamerr @jezebel1945 @call-me-doll-face @yelyahcardella @letskeepthislo-ki @misspearly1 @petals-opento-the-moon @just-a-sewer-goblin @em---r @kirsteng42 @leithatnight @arson-tm @l0calgoth @thesmutslut @alastorhazbin @grincheveryday @reader8679

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writerlyhabits · 1 year ago

Text

Ration Packs

Pairing: Din Djarin x female reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: based on this request...

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. “There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment. “I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional? Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

Warnings: mild language, miscommunication [but not in a horrible way, don’t worry, I’m better than that], young dumb in love din djarin, mild angst, angst with a happy ending, everything is in Din’s pov because i love his dumbass train of thought, idk it’s pretty soft

AN: oh my god i’m back from the dead! I told you guys i’d be back 😂 This request has been sitting in my inbox for probably about a year… and I have no end of apologies, but i’m finally done and it’s a miracle I don’t hate it 😂 I did change the prompt a little… the idea of them putting Grogu to bed was cute, but I had an idea for a younger Din and just fell in love with it, so i ran with that. I hope you guys enjoy 💖 Thank you @deceiver-of-gods for putting up with me all this time, ily 😘

Din had traveled through the toughest parts of the galaxy without batting an eye. He’d run with a mercenary group and proven himself to have more skills, more hits, more value… and more of a moral compass than anyone else in the group. After fighting his way out of their grip, he had taken out high-level targets with ease to earn his way into the Bounty Hunters guild. Din continued to be not only one of the youngest of their ranks, but also the most highly sought after. And after all of that?

You were his greatest challenge.

His Razor crest had taken one too many hits for him to be able to repair on his own, and the costs of repairs on his pre-imperial ship were starting to eat into the funds he usually gave back to his covert. Not providing for them was not an option; the Beroya was supposed to send their spoils back to the covert to provide for those in hiding. This is the way…

So when he landed on a planet with lush, colorful flora, and a generally trusting local people, he least expected you to strike a bargain with him. He needed a mechanic, and you wanted a ticket out. Free boarding and transportation in exchange for a live-in repair crew, he just had to get you the parts. It was his perfect solution. He hired you on the spot and scheduled to ship out as soon as the Crest was back in working order.

On that first day of travel, Din had only just entered hyper-speed when he became overly critical of his ship. The cold, metal surfaces of the hull were uninviting, full of sharp edges, and devoid of any personality. It didn’t take him much longer to realize that, to an outsider, his armor looked much the same.

But he’d never seen it that way before. To him, the Mandalorian armor was a sign of home, of belonging. It had been his savior in his childhood, and a beacon of his people as he grew into his own. He had tucked away into coverts where the blank metal lining of their ships and their walls meant protection.

But you were not Mandalorian. You hadn’t grown up around sharp edges and cold surfaces. The place you called home was filled with warm colors and soft curves, the buildings made to flow with the organic structures of the nature around them, letting in the bright sunlight necessary for its growth. You yourself walked with an elegance Din was unfamiliar with, treading softly on the ground and smiling brightly at him each time your kind eyes met his dark visor. You had shared your warmth with him since the moment he’d met you, despite the coldness he was certain he portrayed, and it surprised him how much he found himself drawn to it. Drawn to you.

You were everything he wasn’t. But Din would do everything in his power to make sure you never came to regret agreeing to this strange setup, that you never felt isolated or alone because you’d chosen him – a walking wall of cold beskar – as your traveling companion.

At first, he’d merely wanted to bring you things that reminded him of your home, things he thought might do the same for you. Anytime he was in a market passing through, either on a supply run or with a bounty in tow, he found something colorful to bring back to you. The first few had been small trinkets, things you could keep in the small cupboard you had decided to call your quarters, or delicate pieces of jewelry he would later catch you wearing around the ship.

The feeling Din got seeing you wear something he gave you made something warm swell inside of him… It made it hard to come back to the ship empty-handed, especially with the promise of your soft smile when he held his hand to you with a new gift.

On one of his trips, he’d brought back a woven tapestry; the craftsmanship had been beautiful, and the colors matched those of the outfits you wore the most around him. Din was about to launch into an apology when he first gave it to you, not having thought about where you would even be able to put it, but his statement was cut short when you happily grabbed it from him and turned on your heel to find something.

Not even a few moments later, you returned with a handful of powerful magnets you’d picked up on a market a few planets back, and he watched as you excitedly hung the artwork from one of the walls in the Crest’s hull, creating a curtain in front of one of the panels on that wall – you must have thought it was as ugly as he did.

“What do you think?” You had asked him, and he watched self-consciousness start to creep in now that your initial excitement was starting to wear off.

“It looks good,” he’d replied a little stiffly, still having a hard time finding the courage to speak around you. A bounty hunter, with hundreds of captures under his belt, was still too shy to talk to his mechanic… he at least wasn’t dumb enough to miss the irony in his own predicament, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t his truth.

Since then, Din had started bringing back more things you could use to decorate the ship with; tapestries, blankets, and cushions accompanied the trinkets and jewelry he brought back with him. He could tell that your favorite of his gifts had been a soft shawl he’d seen hanging at a market in the rural areas of Naboo. The politician’s son he was paid to deliver back home had gone on about the luxury material it was made of, something about ancient processes and unique resources… All he knew was that it brought out your natural beauty when you wrapped it around your shoulders, and he felt his cheeks get warm under his helmet when you did.

The two of you started to fall into these new routines fairly easily, and with all of your redecorations, it was becoming a welcome change. In the evenings – or at least what you thought was evenings in the darkness of hyperspace – you would prep a set of ration packs for the both of you. It was always two of the same kind so that you could feel like you were “sharing a meal,” a concept he had very little experience with. At least, he hadn’t for a very long time.

Since eating required removing his helmet, Mandalorians often took their meals in solitude, or within the confines of their family. You, on the other hand, were used to shared meals in dining rooms with someone at every seat, and communal dining halls bustling with people. At first, Din was afraid you might take offense to him leaving during meal times, never quite sure how to phrase his dilemma.

Luckily, he never had to.

You caught on pretty quickly to his predicament, handing him a warm ration pack with a smile before turning to let him eat in peace. He always rushed through his meals in order to join you in the hull, to thank you for your silent understanding by coming down to talk with you as you ate yours at a leisurely pace.

As the weeks went by, Din picked up on some of your silent requests as well, memories of food that didn’t need to be rehydrated before you ate it. He began looking out for other booths at the markets, and fresh ingredients began coming home in place of some of the gifts and trinkets he always brought back with him. Each time he did, a home-cooked meal would follow, and Din always made sure he expressed his gratitude when he came back down to join you for the second half of your meal.

Your routines continued like this for a while, silently assessing each other’s needs, and wordlessly adjusting to accommodate. And it worked. The Razor Crest felt more and more like a home rather than the metal casing of a ship, small traces of your personal touch nearly everywhere he looked. The food had been better, the companionship had been better, far better than the cold silence he’d had to put up with before you came to him.

And Din started to catch on to just how much his own feelings revolved around you.

He craved your warmth at the end of a rough day, he sought to provide your happiness, to get your approval… He tried to be better at actually opening his mouth, being able to express more of his feelings for you outside of your usual, quiet understanding of each other. He tried asking you more questions, wanting to not only hear about the events of your day but to actually get to know you better, showing you how much he genuinely cared. And Din was elated when you started to do the same in return.

After he came back to the ship from a particularly taxing hunt, he heard your soft footsteps descending the ladder from the cockpit while he secured the unconscious bounty into the corner of the hull you had affectionately deemed “time-out.” The most uncomfortable chair had been secured behind some of your tapestries, acting as a set of curtains that kept the bounties from view.

When Din emerged from the hanging fabrics, he could feel some of the tension leave his body at the sight of you in your work clothes, a warm smile dancing on your grease-stained cheeks, wiping your hands on the old flight suit you’d brought with you from home. No matter how difficult his hunts had been, being able to debrief with you upon his return always made him smile beneath the helmet.

“Hey!” you lilted.

“Hey,” he responded, still a little awkward despite how long you’d been working together. He was getting better, but it could definitely still use improvement.

“How’d the hunt go?” you asked, gesturing to the closed curtain beside him. “Obviously successful if you’ve got someone in time-out.” Din chuckled under his breath at your quip, mulling over the events of his day before he replied.

“It was fine.” You looked at him expectantly for a few moments, waiting for him to continue.

“Just… fine?” you half giggled, one brow raised in question while you donned a crooked grin. It hadn’t really gone bad, he did have the bounty in hand. It could have gone better, but nothing that came to any detriment in the end…

He nodded. “It… went well. There’s nothing to report,” he shrugged, unsure what else you were looking for in his answer.

But your face fell. Only for a moment… but enough for him to see it.

“How are your repairs coming?” He tried, hoping to stir the conversation again, to fix whatever had caused your sudden change in attitude.

“Fine. There’s nothing to report.” Your answer was short, both in your words and your temper. You usually volunteered the finer details of your projects, explaining with a dramatic flair all of your trials and your victories, stories that Din was always happy to be an audience to.

Why hadn’t you done so this time?

“I’m guessing it’ll be ration packs for dinner?” you added, nodding towards the empty satchel hanging from his hip. One that usually carried whatever gift he had brought for you. Dank farrik… he already hated coming back empty-handed – something you had never made him feel guilty for – but right now it was only making him feel worse.

“There wasn’t a market on the way back to the ship,” he almost pleaded, trying to explain his intentions, but you simply gave him a tight-lipped nod in acknowledgment.

“I’ll get the packs started so it's ready by the time you’ve unloaded.” Your voice lacked its usual kindness. This shift in the conversation had you speaking with him as if this were all just… business. Had he pushed you too far? Were you trying to remind him that he had hired you to be here? That he should be keeping things… professional?

Fuck. This was why he worked alone.

One of the downsides of having grown up around the Mandalorians was that his concepts of interpersonal relationships were skewed. The two of you were operating on completely different sets of rules, and where you had been able to read each other incredibly well… Now he was left to try and figure out where he’d gone wrong.

With Mandalorians, he knew where he stood. They spoke with purpose, meaning exactly what they said. Even growing up constantly harassing and sparring with Paz, Din knew where his sentiments came from; competition, comradery, and a deep passion for his people. But outside the covert… Din was still finding his footing when it came to the beings he interacted with. Riding with the mercenary group had at least taught him how to weed through the tangled lies that spewed from their mouths, trusting them only as far as he could throw them – if that.

But you were nothing like those slimy low lives. He didn’t know how to start friendships, how to engage in small talk… and he had no idea where to start when it came to the way you made his heart rate pick up. You made Din nervous, but you were also a comfort. You were new and familiar all at once, a new adventure as well as a place of rest.

You meant so much to him… and he’d managed to drive you away just as quickly as he had let you in.

…

The fog of uncertainty hung around the ship for days, and with it, the cold emptiness he had been so accustomed to in his solitude had returned. But after the warmth you had brought to his Razor Crest, being without it was almost suffocating. Din missed you.

That was a fact he was trying to wrap his head around, seeing as you still lived with him on the ship… but it wasn’t the same. You stopped humming while you worked on different panels across his ship, blanketing the hull in silence. Any questions Din tried to ask you were met with short, quiet responses. Surprisingly, you still made the effort to prepare a ration pack with yours during meal times, but when he rushed back down from the cockpit in record time to join you, you were nowhere in sight.

There was nowhere to go inside his ship. That was one of the things he’d liked about it; there was room for him to live on board comfortably without giving his bounties anywhere to hide. And yet, you still managed to avoid him. When he entered the hull, you escaped to your room. When he climbed up the rungs to the cockpit, you would make some quiet excuse and scurry out the door behind him. No matter where he went, what he said, or whatever measures he took to try and catch you off-guard, you were gone before he could even open his mouth.

He was fucking sick of it. He had made a promise, when you came aboard, that he would make sure you never came to regret choosing this life with him. That you would continue to choose to stay with him, to choose him over the home planet you were so desperate to leave. He made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

After landing on Nevarro a few days later to return his bounty, Din’s plan began to unfold. He walked out of the run-down cantina Karga liked to meet up at – insisting that he was going to fix it up and make it ‘a place of gathering’ – the spills of his hunt clanking against the mechanical chip he had tucked away in the satchel that sat on his belt. A chip that, if missing, would cause systems in the cockpit to go offline.

Something his mechanic would find during her daily diagnosis check.

Din felt a pang of guilt at the thought of you being buried arms deep in the underside of the control panel with no hope of finding the repair, because he was the one to take it from you... But then he thought about the worser fate; what if you figured out what was missing, and had more reason to dislike him than before? His guilt quickly turned into slight panic, making haste to get back to his ship to enact his plan before your clever brain could figure out what he’d done.

When he returned to the Crest, the harshness of the metal hull was almost overwhelming. You had started taking down your tapestries and decorations, save for everything but the “time-out” corner, and it felt cold. You didn’t come out to greet him or welcome him back, let alone acknowledge him at all. You hadn’t done so since the time your conversation had taken a turn for the worst. He did, however, hear a loud metal clang and your familiar grunt of frustration from exactly where he assumed you would be. He wondered if you had even heard him come on board…

Din quietly discarded his weapons before stealthily moving to the ladder just below the cockpit, stopping in his tracks when he heard a slew of colorful curses leave your lips. He waited a few moments until the sounds of your hard work continued, none-the-wiser to his oncoming ambush.

By the time he reached the top of the cockpit, he took a moment to assess the situation and figure out the best approach. You were exactly where he thought you would be, laying on your back just to the side of his pilot’s chair, agile hands fiddling with different cables and boards inside his instrument panel…

And your head snapped up to look at him when he made the door to the cockpit slide closed behind him.

You stared at Din for a couple moments before you opened your mouth. “Did you… are you cornering me?” When you put it that way, this was not going quite as he’d imagined, despite everything going according to plan. He had to keep going.

“You’re ignoring me,” he said firmly, his tone reminiscent of one he took with his bounties.

“Fucking maker, did you hunt me?” You asked with furrowed brows, and your slightly agitated tone made him fairly certain you didn’t actually need his answer. “I live on the same kriffing ship, and you had to treat me like one of your bounties just to say something to me?”

“I had to talk to you. You wouldn’t let me,” he pressed, keeping his voice steady. You gave a huff of indignation.

“I don’t have time for this, Mando, I have to fix your ship,” you threw at him before your body thumped dramatically on the ground as you went back to your work.

“So you are angry at me,” Din stated, sounding more like an observation than a question. He could work with angry. You shot him a glare without moving too much from your position, and he took that as a good enough indicator to continue his interrogation. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“Mando…” you started, his moniker leaving your lips in an exasperated sigh, not without a flame of annoyance lurking behind it.

“Don’t make another excuse. I’m tired of avoiding this.” He watched the bluntness of his words hit you, not surprised when you furrowed your brows as you started to slide out from under the console, sitting up to scowl at him properly.

“Another- what? I didn’t make any fucking excuses, I’m not avoiding anything,” you fired off, your tone indicating the exact opposite of what you were saying.

“Then why have you stopped talking to me?” Din expected another fiery response, but instead a split-second of realization crossed over your face before it was replaced with one of irritated confusion. It made him — him, the stone-cold Mandalorian bounty hunter — shift on his feet.

“I stopped talking to you?” You countered, and you waited a moment to let him respond… but he didn’t know what you expected him to say. “Right, because you’ve been super talkative after ‘there’s nothing to report’,” you mumbled, and it caused those same words to ring in his head from the night everything went wrong. You had said them so coldly…

After he had said them to you.

“I- I meant no offense,” he tried a little lamely, still not understanding where he had gone wrong, but wanting more than anything for you to understand that he was willing to fix it. “I didn’t have anything to say.” You gave another sigh, but this one was softer, like you were about to level with him. It was progress, if nothing else.

“Nothing? You couldn’t give me the details of your hunt the same way I tell you about the market? I mean, it’s not as exciting as I make it out to be, I just... “ You trailed off and looked away from him without finishing your sentence, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was finally getting answers out of you, he was going to get to the bottom of this, and make good on his promise to keep you happy. This was the way.

He was quick to kneel in front of you, trying to get closer to your level to get away from his interrogation tactic, and communicate that he was willing to listen and receive. “You just what? Help me understand.”

You scoffed a laugh as you shook your head. “There’s not a lot to understand. I like talking with you, I like when we share stories. I just… I wanted to be close with you.”

Din wanted to bang his head against the wall. With or without his helmet. This all started because he was an idiot who didn’t know how to talk? He was a bounty hunter, he should have been smarter than that. He should have been able to tell what had caused such a shift, and been able to fix it before the mission could go sideways.

But, in all fairness, he was a bounty hunter who was used to being alone.

Before Din had lucked into having you travel the galaxy with him on his hunts, he came back to an empty ship. There was nobody else to talk about the day with. And after living amongst the Mandalorians, a people of few words, he wasn’t exactly in the habit of speaking to himself or others. Before you, everything that surrounded Din was just… quiet.

“But… this is just professional, I get that now. I’ll stay out of your way, and I won’t pry. It is your ship, after all.”

And he was about to get himself into even more trouble if he didn’t figure out how to speak right fucking now.

“No,” he started firmly, desperately catching on to the tail end of your admission, but not entirely sure what was about to come out of his mouth. “This isn’t- I don’t… I’m not good at talking.” Strong start Djarin.

“What?” You asked softly. If anything, you pretty much justified his statement. He took a breath to try and steady himself, to dig through the chaos inside his head and find a half-way coherent string of words to offer you, to clean up his mess.

“Mandalorians are quiet. Bounty Hunters keep to themselves. I’m not used to talking,” he reiterated, and he watched your confused expression shift gently into one of intrigue, your sign for him to keep going. “I wasn’t trying to shut you out, I just… didn’t know what else to say. I’m used to sparing people any details that aren’t deemed necessary. Now I know that I shouldn’t do that with you. I’m sorry.”

Din was pleased to find a small smile growing at the corners of your mouth. “I mean… You don’t have to give me every detail. Just the good stuff,” you smiled, making Din’s heart feel warm. He didn’t realize how much he missed the radiance of your smile until now, feeling like he was finally stepping into the sun after spending so long in the dark.

“Just the good stuff… So I’ll tell you how much blood there was when I-”

“No, no thanks,” you cut him off quickly, making a fake gagging sound as he laughed under his helmet. “I take it back, let’s go back to no more talking, I’m good. I’ll just stay up here with all my busted circuits, thank you very much.”

“Please don’t, I can’t go back to quiet,” he said quickly, the smile still plastered on his face as the weight of his words hit both of you.

I can’t go back to quiet.

It was true, he couldn’t. The past few minutes talking with you again, even when you were angry and yelling at him half of the time, had him feeling better than he had in days.

“Oh yeah?” You offered, and he could tell by your knowing smile that you had come to the same realization that he did. You knew how much he had come to need you. “You don’t want a break from all my rambling?”

“Never,” he admitted. Din watched your shoulders relax and your soft smile get brighter as his answer left his helmet, and he realized how much you needed him in return. It made a warmth bloom from deep within his chest, warming him all the way out to the very coldest parts of his Beskar armor. “Never stop. I want you to fill this ship with all your stories, real or exaggerated.”

It caught him by surprise when you leapt up from your spot on the ground to meet his height, flinging your arms around his neck as you held him tight, fitting together perfectly even as you knelt on the floor in front of each other. With only a little hesitation, Din wrapped his gloved hands around you, arms circling your waist and pulling you flush against the plates of his armor, and soaked up everything that was you.

This is the way.

Sooner than he would’ve liked, he felt your grip around his neck loosen, and you leaned back to lock you gaze with his dark visor.

“As much as I’d love to catch up, your ship is driving me crazy and I have got to figure out how to get these control panels back online,” you explained, and Din slowly started to realize he hadn’t thought this part through.

“Well, I uh…”

“You’re welcome to stay and chat, if you’re in the talking mood. I’d love to hear about your meeting in town,” you offered playfully, sending him a wink as you began to shuffle yourself back down under the open compartment of his shift.

Instead, he got down on the ground and laid himself next to you, as if he was going to look at what you were doing with the repairs. Your hands stopped mid-action as you looked at him, and he enjoyed the airy laugh that escaped you at his actions.

“Or you can watch from here, that’s fine, too.”

“I was actually going to offer a suggestion,” he started timidly. You turned away from him as you focused on the wires in front of you again.

“I'll take anything you’ve got. I haven’t seen anything like this in ages… I’ve only got one idea left, but I doubt it’s right. It’s like the reactor chip is missing, but the only way that thing would’ve even budged is if someone-” You stopped in your tracks as Din lifted a gloved hand into your peripheral view, the small reactor chip held between his fingers for you to see.

You paused a moment before turning your head dangerously towards your companion. He could see the corners of your lips twitching as you did everything you could to avoid a smile, and he remained grateful for his helmet as it hid his beaming face from view.

You snatched the chip from his hand and looked back to your circuits. “Get out of my cockpit,” you said quietly, the last few words of your threat lost to your laughter. Din couldn’t stop his own laughter from coming through the modulator as he began getting up from the floor to do as he was told. “You’re making the ration packs tonight,” you added, the smile on your cheeks evident in your voice.

"This is the way."

Thanks for reading!! If you’d like to be notified when I post a new fic, be sure to follow @writerlyhabits-library + turn on post notifications! 💛

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #young din djarin #request #anonymous request #kam takes forever to do shit #my writing

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tangylemonade · 9 months ago

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Agent!Choi San x afab reader

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• Just a little angst/fluff? I wrote. It’s meh and I was just watching bouncy and got inspired by SAN’s look. Kinda sort of but not really a ‘will they, won’t they’ moment. SAN’s a Secret agent or whatever in this.

COMMENT and REBLOG if you enjoyed!

“How are you feeling?” You asked.

You had pulled the van over now that you felt you were far enough away. You couldn’t be too careful, not when they were still looking for him.

“I’ll live. You should see the other guys.” San replied with a chuckle before grimacing and holding his side.

You made sure your parking space was secure enough for the time being and climbed into the back of the van. After locating your first aid kit you sat down in front of him assessing the damage.

The Guild.

They weren’t the bad guys, but they weren’t necessarily the good ones either. They did the jobs no one had the guts to do.

San was their top agent who always got the job done. Their golden agent if you would. Coworkers called him Invincible Mountain.

There wasn’t a mission he couldn’t complete.

Only he wasn’t invincible.

You knew that best of all.

You were the one who picked him up after each mission. You were the one that saw his labored breathing while you bandaged him up. You were the one that wiped the sweat from his brow while he fought in his sleep, unable to rest after nights of running.

“I can’t believe they sent you alone.” You grumbled.

“It was a covert mission, stealth was most important.” He said calmly.

San could tell you were upset. He knew that you hated this job.

What he didn’t know was that the only reason you hadn’t quit was him.

“Where do you rank on that list of importance?” You said so low San almost didn’t hear you.

“It’s okay.” San said softly, steadying your now shaking arm. “I’m okay.”

You avoided eye contact as you worked.

“Hey,” He said gently lifting your chin so he could see your face. “Look at me.”

Looking into his soft eyes that we’re worried for you was too much. The tears fell and you angrily wiped them away.

“It’s not okay San. You're not a machine. How hard is it for them to send you some fucking backup!?”

You wanted to yell but knew it wasn’t fair to him so you gritted your teeth until they hurt.

Not wanting your mood to bother San, you took a deep breath. You still felt your face burning and quickly changed the subject.

“So, do you think you can eat? I brought you some porridge.”

San wasn’t sure if he would be able to stomach anything right now. This job… it didn't leave you with much of an appetite.

But as much as he didn’t want to eat he knew that you had taken time out of your crowded schedule to make it for him and just that thought made his heart pang with two many emotions he couldn’t afford to count.

So he sat up as straight as he could and gave you his best smile, dimples and all.

Your heart fluttered as it always did and you cursed the silly thoughts away.

San winced as he picked up the thermos of porridge, the movement straining the pain in his shoulder. You quickly stopped him.

“No No love, let me help you.” You said opening the container and pulling a spoon out of the bag you packed.

San could hardly think with the pain but the moment he heard you referred to him so tenderly he felt as if time had stopped. He couldn’t remember a time when you’d ever called him something like that, and definitely never so softly.

The porridge was still hot so you blew on it, testing it against your lip until it was cool enough before offering it to him. You hadn’t looked at him while you worked so when you finally did and saw a peculiar look on his bruised up beautiful face you couldn’t stop the blush that warmed your whole body.

You were glad the van was dim.

All San could do was watch as you prepared a bite of porridge for him with the tenderness that one would for a baby. It felt strange, someone caring for him in such a way. It wasn’t something he’d experienced with anyone.

Anyone except you.

When you looked up at him he couldn’t help gazing into your eyes as emotions rushed him.

Even through the dim light he knew you were blushing.

Your relationship had always been close in the oddest ways.

You would tell him how much you worried for him and missed him while he was busy. You would stay up late preparing meals for him. Sometimes on cold nights you would cuddle up next to him while you two slept.

He’d seen you in your casual clothes while you briefed him for a new mission.

Sometimes you didn’t even have a bra or pants on when he showed up late at night to the door of whatever hotel or cabin you were stationed in asking you to research something for him, but you never made an effort to cover up.

You’d seen him in all states and probably stitched up every inch of his body.

Everyone in the company knew you guys were inseparable which is why they would always send you when it came to dealing with him. After all, you were the only one he would tolerate.

You often drifted to sleep while you worked on the paperwork aspect of the job, resting on each other's shoulders.

To outsiders, there were no clear lines. To be honest, the lines were starting to feel insignificant to you two as well.

As San took a careful bite of the porridge you had so delicately prepared for him, a moment of quiet intimacy enveloped the two of you. The comforting taste squeezed at his heart. Feelings of gratitude and affection for you overwhelmed him.

It was hard to take another bite.

You continued on patching him up between almost forced bites. The stitches of a wound you’d closed up for him not too long ago had popped open. You restiched it along with a new one that now accompanied it.

Luckily this time no severely broken bones, only slight fractures that you bandaged tightly. The more you worked the hotter you became with rage but you did your best to swallow it down.

Suddenly, without too much of a thought, San reached out his hand and gently cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing away a stray tear that you hadn’t realized had fallen.

The air in the van grew heavy with the weight of unspoken hearts… the weight of unexpressed desires hanging between you.

"You know," San began, his voice soft and warm, "It never hurts when you’re the one that patches me up.”

Your voice trembled slightly as you replied, "San, you don’t have to act tough for me. You know that right?"

San's gaze never wavered as he continued in a whisper.

“This morning when you were late I realized something.”

You turned your head in shame, distraught with yourself for being late.

“I’m so sorry.” You said, swallowing to try and calm yourself.

San continued with a soft smile.

“A million possibilities raced through my mind and all I could do was pray that you were okay.”

“You and I are far too similar.” You said, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips as you thought about the prayers you prayed on your way rushing to him.

“I realized as I layed in the cold trying my best to stay hidden that- that losing you is my only fear. "

You blinked, completely caught off guard by his words.

“How- why would you lose me?” You said, unsure of how to respond.

You wanted to look away but his eyes had a way of holding yours. “Stop saying ridiculous things and finish eating.

Having finished your work you backed away from him leaning against the opposite wall of the van. You tried to take slow breaths to calm your pounding heart hoping he wouldn’t notice.

When that wouldn’t work you looked back at him with a frown.

“What do you mean by saying that?” You whispered, almost afraid to speak at all.

You squinting in the low light in an attempt to better see every nuance of his now pensive face.

San shook his head.

“I know how wrong I am to say this… I-I need you to stay strong for me.” He replied, his eyes now glued to nothing in particular on the floor. “I don’t know how much of this I can take if you’re not here to bring me home.”

Home? San didn’t have a place that an onlooker would refer to as a home. You’d pretty much seen him sleep anywhere.

Now in the back of a cold and dark old van as you saw his eyes slow with tiredness.

Why did it feel so safe here?

Just the two of you.

“What home San? That’s not really a luxury we’re allowed.” You asked quietly as the depression of the thought gripped you.

But San never noticed the absence of a bed to sleep on or a roof over his head.

He only noticed the absence of you.

San reached out his hand and you took it without thinking too much, allowing it to anchor you, cradling you from despair.

He gently pulled you towards him and you didn’t fight the urge to rest your tired body against his. He held you as close as he could without hurting himself.

“But you know y/n…” San whispered, his chin resting atop your head where he had placed a kiss so softly you wondered if you imagined it.

You laid still, listening to his heart beat, calm and steady..

You felt the tension ease out of you as his heart showed yours how to rest.

He was alive. He was safe. More and more you were feeling that that was truly all that mattered.

In that rickety old van, far away from prying eyes and the chaos of your worlds, you found solace in each other's arms.

“…You are my home.”

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moltensmusings · 5 months ago

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Time to rub my grubby hands all over fairy tail canon because I went looking to remember where jet's guildmark was.

Now I'm smart enough to know mashima did this because of a "haha, Jet and droy are so obsessed with levy" thing. But since I'm a vehement "team shadowgear are family who formed a team through shared trauma" I refuse to accept them only getting the mark because levy wanted it.

Imagine them forming their team, and a few years later, when they're old enough to get their guild mark, they let levy choose the placement since she's the leader. Levy decides she wants it on the shoulder because she thinks it's cool and when they go on covert missions it can be their little secret surprise. Now team shadowgear never goes on those missions together. They do a lot of research, curse breaking, and general support based missions that call to their strengths.

But when jet gets brought into the infiltration group Makarov has for information gathering, stealth, and infiltration, he'll occasionally think back to the reason his guild mark is where it ended up. And doing so makes him smile.

#fairy tail #moltenrambles #jet thinking about his family on missions and it keeping him going during tough times #i shout from the heavens #ft jet #fairy tail jet #jet mcgarden #team shadowgear

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penvisions · 8 months ago

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of beskar and kyber {chapter 18}

Pairing: Din Djarin x Force Sensitive! Reader (the Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader) ; brief Force Sensitive! Reader and M!OC

Summary: There are restrictions for entering the main city, some of them Din could agree to and one he absolutely could not. His helmet would need to be left behind, but isn't removing it what caused this entire situation to begin with? Meanwhile, you wake to a new environment, cautious of the things around you and the words of your mother.

Word Count: 10.5k

Warnings: canon typical violence, canon typical language, we meet readers betrothed and he needs his own warning, reader's mother also gets her own warning, kidnapping, reader is being kept against her will, hostage situation, use of narcotics, use of drugs, sedatives, self-depreciating thoughts, thoughts of self-harm, ptsd symptoms, medical trauma, past medical trauma, feelings of inadequacy, sexual themes, sexual content (not detailed), there are a few more but they will spoil the chapter!

A/N: more din pov! because it's so much fun and there are some things y'all need to see through his eyes before some explanations are given c;

all of you were right to think din is gonna need a disguise! but i don't want anyone to think that the desert environment and the choice of clothing is ignorant on my part in light of what is going on in palestine. i've had this original arc planned before the first chapter was even published. here are some resources for aiding those that need help. i've also provided a link to the moodboard for this particular arc, which does include a visual for din's new attire

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

Maker, your mother was really doing her best to keep you to herself. It was smart to warn the protection around you of him, to anticipate that he would make an attempt to take you back. But he loathed how much harder it was going to make even just getting into the city.

The weapons he could forgo, but his armor? She knew from her past experience with Akiz that it was a punishable offense for a Mandalorian to remove their helmet. And it was frustrating that she was using his religion, his Creed, his culture, his way of life to keep him at bay and to keep you under her control.

It was an injustice he couldn’t wrap his head around. It was just so conniving, and it was hard to believe how you had turned out so drastically different when being surrounded by someone capable of such extremes. He only hoped that your mother hadn’t done anything drastic to you, caused you to take matters into your own hands. He only hoped that you knew he had spent the last several weeks tearing through the galaxy in search for signs of what had happened to you. That he had rushed toward the planet you were taken to the second he had found it out.

Din needed you to know that he was trying, that he was searching for you, that he missed your presence by his side and aboard his ship. And not simply for the fact that you were a strong, capable fighter. But because the things he had whispered and promised you before he ruined it all were true. He did care for you. He had begun to care for you alarmingly fast after that first encounter.

And maybe it should’ve scared him, been a warning he heeded, the way his heart had lightened and opened up to you. Even despite the circumstances and the breaking of his contract with the Guild. He had been willing to change the circumstances, to do away with the contract he took on when his fingers closed around your offered tracking fob. Because it had felt right to do so, despite the inherent break of what he stood for in that moment. His willingness to do so, it only made him realize that this was real, because he had never felt like this with anyone before. Had never wanted to provide for anyone aside from those that made up his covert before. He had meant it when he had choked out those words back on Nevarro.

“I can’t wear that.” Din had been cautious as he looked out the cockpit viewpoint and down into the hangar space. The looming racetrack just beyond it, offset from the main city. Crowds and clusters of people swathed in billowing layers and a severe lack of weaponry was a worrisome observation. Upon her return from the markets, offset from the other side of the city, Cara had held out a bundle of clothing to him.

“I did enough recon to know the guards are the only people permitted into the palace without verification. That Sarad’s always surrounded by at least two of them when outside of the palace, though her mother never joins her outside the walls.”

“Because she knows I’d kill her on sight.” Din can’t help the growl of his words, knowing the truth behind them was all too real. Because he would, without hesitation, take out the threat that had presented itself after lying in wait. Striking at the most opportune moment even months after having first contracted your return to her when it seemed like it was fruitless.

“This the only way you’ll get close enough to her, by blending in.” Cara shimmied the bundle at him, wanting him to take it from her despite his trepidation.

“My face will be exposed.” He argued as he stepped away from her. His mind and thoughts at war with the notion of having to remove his armor and the one of doing it in order to save you. He picked up a grumbling ad’ika from where he had been settled in his pod. Taking a pack of dried jerky from the pouch attached to his belt and handed it to him. Happy coos filled the hull of the ship, Din helping to reach into the pouch for each piece the child devoured.

“They wear head coverings and cover their faces. More than a third of the people I saw. Both men and women. I know it’s not ideal, Din,” Cara risked using the man’s real name. Wanting him to hear her and believe that this was the best way, the only way to move about with having to worry about being stopped or appearing suspicious. Hoping to convince him it was the best scenario to avoid showing his whole face should he have to forgo his helmet. She didn’t seem too keen on having to don similar clothing that left little room to conceal a weapon. “Some have mesh over their eyes.”

Din reached out, taking the outfit from her. He would try it on, get a sense of how he felt in the clothing before making his decision. He had half a mind to fly the ship directly into the palace grounds and open fire until you were safely back in his arms. But realistically he knew that was a terrible plan. The man who you had been promised to was entrenched in the New Republic, someone of high standing and to attack him would bring on a whole new level of concerns into his life, into your life.

Setting ad’ika back down into the pod, Din tucked your cloak around him before making his way to the room.

What use was all his armor and weapons if he couldn’t keep you safe? The thought was sharp in his mind as he set about removing each plate, the clasps snapping in the silence of the ship. He stored them in a crate he had brought from his own ship. In it was the pair of pauldrons you had left behind. The armor settled together tugged at his heart, making his chest tights as he wished for you nestled beside him in his bed much like the beskar in the crate. Closing it and setting a lock on it, he already missed the feel of his vambraces, of the weapons hidden over his frame.

Despite being alone, he kept the cowl about his neck in place. The necklace of his people hidden beneath it and he wondered where the one he had gifted you ended up. The ship foreign to him, giving him pause in removing it as he looked over the robes Cara had collected for him. They were all black. Made of a light, flowing material that would cover his entire body. And he began to pull the wide legged pants over his legs.

The top was less a shirt and more of a tunic, cut shorter in the front to fall just below his waist. It offered coverage of his crotch, while the length billowed out down to his knees on either side. He wondered if he should chance donning the chainmail he had retrieved from your home on Tatooine underneath it. He felt exposed, too vulnerable even as he set about fastening the brown leather harness to cross over his chest from his shoulders and the belt that had an empty pouch fastened to it on his left.

Two arm braces made of bronze had been folded up in the clothing, and he slid those over his forearms, grateful for at least something similar.

Thankfully Cara had been able to find something that would allow him to cover his face- mostly. His eyes would be exposed, and he wouldn’t be entirely comfortable forgoing a visor or something similar to hide them behind.

But he set about containing his trimmed curls underneath the cover, wrapping it around twice before securing it with a black leather tie around his forehead, letting the rest of the fabric fall over the back of his neck and shoulders. The smaller black kerchief was secured over the cowl, adding another layer to hide his identity from the world, fastened behind his head and tucked into the leather keeping the head cover in place.

It would be harder for him to track you, to pick up on threats without the settings of the helmet, but he knew that it would immediately warrant attention. He had to leave it behind, depart from the ship without it. It was the only way he would be able to do his own reconnaissance.

Sighing, he turned to face the mirror set into the wall beside the door.

He didn’t recognize the man staring back at him. He was swathed in flowing black from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. His boots no longer weighed down with a hidden blade or the ring of bullet casings for his pulse rifle.

Sharp brown eyes set under thick, dark brows the only visible part.

Still far too much to be seen. To be witnessed so easily by those around him. By you.

Worry spiked in him, you wouldn’t know it was him. At least, not at first glance. He hoped you would feel a pull to him similar to the one he felt when around you. A comfort in the closeness of your body and presence. A familiarity and sense of connection, the things you had found in each other allowing you to recognize that it was him beneath the different clothing, what was always beneath the armor and helmet.

Self-consciousness, he realized, was the feeling making his stomach flutter and his nerves jittery. He hadn’t been outside of the ship and around people without his armor since he had been inducted into the training corps. He hadn’t been without his helmet since swearing the Creed. The thought of this breeching such a commitment crosses his mind. And while…yes, he had removed his helmet, his face was still concealed.

It was much like the unspoken loophole of removing it in the cover of darkness. The intention of which would have allowed him to give into your pleas for his lips on yours. That he had wanted to do, despite the skimming of lines that should not be crossed. The lines that defined his Creed.

He looked…like one of the natives of the planet. And that was the only consolation he could find in the need for the outfit.

They’re merely walking through the marketplace, when they see you among the stalls. Din’s instincts urging him to turn onto the street.

You’re right there.

You’re real.

You’re okay.

His heart skips a beat and then quickens, nearly vibrating it’s so fast a pitch. His breath stolen from his lungs as he sees you moving among the crowds. You…you’re so beautiful and luck seems to be on his side as you look unharmed. You seem to be at ease, moving from stall to stall with a pair of guards trailing behind you by a few yards. Black flowing robes much like his own, but the rapier style swords fastened to their sides acted as a silent threat. Weapons in the main part of the city were forbidden.

But you…you were so magnetizing, and Din’s feet were carrying him toward the stall you had stopped in front of. Distantly, he heard the hush of Cara warning him to be cautious. But it was as if the world had shrunk down to just you, his eyes tracking you as if you would vanish should he look away for the barest of seconds.

The fabric of your rather elegant dress a mix of soft white and pale cream. It highlighted the natural golden hue of your skin, though the only part visible was the length of your neck down to your chest with a rather low neckline. The supple skin of your breasts was accented by sparkling golden beading along the collar, creating a dip between them where it was concentrated. The bodice of the dress was cinched by an intricate belt made up of diamond jewels set into gold that created a floral shape right over your stomach before the skirt of the dress billowed out in flowing layers.

The sleeves were long, bishop in style, allowing for the fabric to be loose before cinching around your wrists. Allowing for you strong, capable hands to be exposed. Golden designs of lace woven into the fabric of them and the front of you below where the belt rested on your front. You were sparkling, from the bangles around your wrists to the delicate headpiece that kept your hair away from your face. He could see it as you moved about to take in the fruits of the stall, the way that thin netting was laid over the length of your hair, stones glittering in the sun as you did so. You were a vision bathed in white and gold, his brain short circuiting at the sight of you after so long apart.

But you didn’t look to be a captive, aside from the guards keeping close. No, you looked like you were free of worries, complicit in the life you had been stolen away to be a part of. It was as if this was just another day to run errands and take in the sights of the city, no undertones of eyes glancing around to look for an escape. No tension in your muscles as if poised to run at the first chance. And alarm bells sounded in Din’s mind, loud and harsh. Stirring unease in his middle, bubbling up to tighten in his chest.

He couldn’t help but approach you, even if he had no clue what words to breathe should he be able to find his voice. Even if he had no clue how you would react to seeing him after the emotional fallout from so many days ago. But when you turned to him with a smile, lips closed and eyes kind, they only flitted over his face before they moved down along his body toward where ad’ika had popped his head and chest over the top of the bag slung over his shoulder.

He certainly hadn’t expected you to recognize him, he was without his armor. And though you knew the shape of his body and the way it reacted to your touch; you didn’t know him as he stood beside you now. In flowing black robes and brown leather, a head cover secure over his curls and a flowing material hiding his face aside from his eyes. He realized you wouldn’t be able to recognize them, having never seen the brown of them before. And he greedily drunk in the sight of you without his helmet, delighting in the way the sun lit up the features he had come to admire.

But your attention wasn’t even on him, it was on the small form that had reached out for the bundle of berries in your grip. Plucking one and popping it in his mouth with a satisfied hum. But there was no recognition that flickered over your face upon seeing ad’ika either. It was as if you were seeing him for the first time, a polite curiosity in your gaze. And Din’s gut lurched.

It hadn’t been long enough for you to forget the child, forget him. Forget the life the three of you had carved out from circumstance. Unless you were playing along to not alert the guards of being reunited, not wanting them to suspect anything was amiss. But…but Din didn’t think you were pretending. There had been no fast glance back to him upon seeing the child crop up, there had been no hitch of your breath as realization of him standing beside you set in.

It was as if you didn’t know him at all, know the small form of the child holding your adoring attention.

“Well, hello there, little one.” Your voice was so smooth and calming, like silk against his ears after having not heard it in so many days. He watched as you tilted the bowl closer, making it easier for a tiny green claw to retrieve another berry. A laugh bubbled from you as the child smacked on the fruit, happy sounds flowing from him unbidden.

And then, with a simple question, Din’s heart shattered.

“He’s rather cute, is this your child?”

You had focused your attention back up to him, though you avoided his eyes again. Something he was beginning to think was just a part of every version of you. Because the one standing in front of him was not his own. It couldn’t be.

Words, so many of them, burst to life and died on his tongue in the silence between you two. None of them making it past his lips, his voice lost in injustice of finally being reunited with you and you having no clue as to who he was. Of how much you had been through together, the promises you had whispered to each other, the soft sighs of waking up together, the harsh grunts and desperate whimpers shared between yearning bodies. You had no clue what you meant to him. The only thing he was certain of, was that he was a stranger to you.

Clearing his throat, he managed to utter an affirmative to your gentle question.

“I’ve never seen any like him before, he seems like the sweetest thing.”

And he wanted to tell you that you allowed for him to be so, for the child to have the protection of your skills and caring heart to be just a child after being held a captive for so long. That he had stolen him away from those who wished him harm with your aid. But suddenly, you were being approached by the vendor, your attention splitting from them both beside you.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to pay for- oh, Princess Cala. I’m so sorry.” Strict words and steal façade falling as the man approaching realized who you were. Princess. Because that’s what you were, had been swiped from him to be another’s wife. All memories of your commitment to him forgotten in a cruel twist of fate that Din was determined to get to the bottom of. To rectify. Though he had no clue how to even begin such a daunting task as he was still struggling to accept that it was so. “I was unaware you were in the markets today. Please, take whatever you wish. I will send for payment from Sir Cala at the end of the day.”

“Oh, that’s quite alright.” You appeased gently, hands digging into a small pouch hidden among the layers of your dress. Credits clinked as you set them down atop the table, the jingling of your bracelets catching ad’ika’s attention and he reached for them. “It’s just a little snack today, nothing too crazy.”

As the vendor turned back to duck inside, away from the bright sun and the watching eyes of the guards, it happened.

Ad’ika’s skin connected with your own and you were buckling at the sudden energy that Din could feel flow between you both. Ripples of is cascading through the air. Body overwhelmed and knees weakening at the onslaught as a strangled gasp fell from your lips. Just as you had done back at the compound, history repeating itself in a way he hadn’t expected. He was quick to close the distance, to wrap his arms around you and hold you up. You allowed him to pull you close, your chest flush with his as heaving breaths matched his stuttering ones.

His body igniting at the feel of you against him once again. Of the way your hands gripped his arms to support yourself. The prick of your fingers digging into his muscles and the way your mouth had fallen open in surprise. It was all so normal, the reactions of your body against his. Natural, the magnetism between your bodies making everything feel alright even if it was just for the barest second.

“I’ve got you, mesh’la. Are you alright?” Voice low, he felt it robbed from him when your lashes fluttered, and your eyes met for the first time. They glinted with something and then –

“Unhand the princess, no one is to touch her!” Twin forms of the guards watching over you were suddenly closing in. It took every ounce of strength he possessed to not take all your weight securely into his arms and run. Hush of swords being pulled from their sheaths had you tearing your eyes away from him, had you shifting your footing to hold yourself up a little better though you didn’t let go of him. And he was grateful for the prolonged seconds of getting to feel you in his arms.

“It’s alright!” You assured the guards, halting them in their steps with a polite smile. “I just tripped is all!”

Loosening the hold he had on you, his hands remained steady as you stepped back from him to stand on your own once again. He was aware of the hard looks aimed at him, as distance bloomed between your bodies.

Endlessly considerate and caring toward the ad’ika, even if you didn’t know it, you carefully handed the bushel of berries into his small claws.

You were bidding him goodbye with an impersonal bow. And he wished to feel the unspoken greeting and departing habit of your forehead nudged against his own you two had established over the course of your time together.

He fell in line behind them, a safe distance away to not attract their attention or suspicions. His focus so completely on you, the captivation you held over him even now, especially now, spelling his feet forward through the last of the market and through the streets. He was silent as Cara fell into step beside him, questions flowing from her that fell on his straining ears. You were talking with the guards, though it seemed like you were merely confirming the rest of the plans for the day.

And they would know, they would be by your side every time you left the palace, he mused as he watched your trio wait outside of the large wooden doors that led into the place you now called home. It was surrounded by a large, easily fifteen-foot wall made up of decorative tiles and white stone. He caught a glimpse of large gardens, complete with bright blue ponds and lush plant life making a beautiful backdrop to your form. But his eyes snapped back to you, taking notice of how the guards had begun to walk away and toward a small building that must act as their command center. They were replaced by two young women, dressed in long pale blue layers that followed your every step.

As you began to move along the paths lined throughout the garden, a figure approached you. And the tension Din had been worried to not see in your shoulders seemed to slam into you. The figure moved from beneath the shade of a large palm, having been waiting on a bench. It was a woman, one who bore a strong resemblance to you from tone of skin to the color of your eyes. Your mother.

Arms were slung together and Din could see even with the distance how her touch made you uncomfortable. And it was all so confusing. You remembered your mother, memories of her intact but you had somehow forgotten who he was, who ad’ika was. Forgotten who you were enough to not make an attempt to escape, submitting yourself to the life your mother had created for you.

And then, a man in elaborate robes adorned with jewels and lace designs much like your own approached you both. He was dressed in colors that complimented your own clothing. His own jewelry fastened over his head cover much like yours, though decidedly heavier, more masculine to the dainty feminine of yours. Matching.

A hand came over his shoulder as he realized he was breathing harshly, no helmet to disguise the deep push and pull of it as he watched you disentangle from your mother and step into the man’s personal space. The front of your bodies touching together as his hands splayed wide on your shoulders, as your own wrapped around his neck. As you perked up to press your forehead to his, in the way that was Din’s.

His chest hurt, his hands clenched, body alight with the need to rush forward and tear the two of you apart from each other. His ears hurt with the silence pressing against them too firm to shake. To press his own forehead against your own and plead with you to see him, to remember him. Remember what you meant to each other.

It was a small blessing of the Maker that your back was to him, because he didn’t think he would be able to take the way your gaze had softened as you looked into the eyes of the man holding you. The same one he would find aimed at him throughout the day, mirth in your eyes as your lips pulled into a soft smile. Adoration and admiration soothing the concentrated look you normally held. Not when the man looking back at you held the same exact expression.

The one always hidden behind his visor.

The same face that was now hardened in a flurry of emotions, his jaw clenched tight, teeth grinding, and eyes ablaze as he watched the man dip his face and press his lips to yours in a kiss.

A kiss.

The very thing that had unraveled the entire life you two had created out of circumstance and connection, the very thing you now shared with another.

Your easy laughter was what brought his senses back, though it was cut off from him as quickly as it had been delivered as you began to walk hand in hand with the man down the path leading to the palace entrance.

Din’s mind was working, working, working. Trying to figure it out, trying to come up it a way to figure it out. To rectify it. To make it right. To make everything right.

And as if a chip was falling into place, he realized. They could fall into line as a guard and a handmaiden.

It was so obvious, so easy, the plan coming together in his mind as the wooden doors swung shut and stole you away from his watching gaze.

“Mando…” Cara’s voice was gentle, as if she was worried she would startle him. Spur him into movement toward you, tackling the obstacles that stood between you both despite the consequences. “I don’t know exactly what-“

“We’ll talk back at the ship.” His words were rough, voice rumbling as if he had just swallowed gravel. It felt thick in his throat, coating his tongue and making it hard to speak.

“It’s customary for visitors to stay in the tourism sector.”

“I’m…low on credits.” He admitted, aware that his words were carried on deep exhales, air hard and solid when breathed in. Aching, hurting, stinging in his throat as he closed his eyes to rid himself of the image of you embraced so intimately with that man, with your husband. But the image was burned into the backs of his eyelids, pressing on him even as he clenched them shut.

“Good thing I’m not. Let’s go, I have a feeling you’re going to tell me this isn’t going to be as simple as sneaking in at night and whisking her away.”

Din followed the woman’s lead through the city, through the gates and toward the collection of tourism amenities. The sounds of the ocean waves getting louder the further they moved away from the palace.

The suite was grand, decorated lavishly in soft earth tones. Bright jewel tones accenting it all around.

But Din’s eyes were unfocused, unseeing as they stared down at the carpet, his head in his hands as he sat rigidly on the couch. With a deep breath pulled in and then let out, he deflated. Chest tight like he was being retrained with ropes, his limbs tingling as if the blood was having trouble flowing through them. His nerves felt both numb and overwhelmed all at the same time.

Cara just paced around the room, searching for potential bugs while she ensured ad’ika was settled in a chair with the fruit you had bought for them in a bowl for him to occupy himself. Din’s voice returned to him when he felt the couch shift with her weight on the other side.

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

“I wouldn’t recognize you, Mando, it’s just the clothes. I’m sure she was just pretending to be clueless to avoid suspicion. She saw ad’ika and even got him those berries.”

“No. Cara.” He surged up, feeling the need to move. To be on his feet, his mind hurling endless self-depreciating thoughts. This was all his fault, you were in the arms of another man because of him, your mother had been able to snatch you away because of his carelessness. His lack of speed when chasing after you, his lack of ability to have tracked you down and bring you back to the Crest as quickly as possible. He had failed you, he had failed you beyond comprehension and you didn’t even remember it.

He meant nothing to you, he was a stranger to you. While you willingly lived alongside that man who had every intention of letting you know how much he wanted you, desired you, who kriffing kissed you.

Aware of her eyes on him, Din paced back and forth in front of the couch. Feeling the need to move, to run, to chase, to track, to fix. She was watching him, a conflicted look about her features as she thought over the things they witnessed. The blatant issues that they had to move around in order to get to you.

Maker, what if…what if you shared the man’s bed. That would add another layer of complication to breaking you free of your imprisonment. Was it even imprisonment anymore? Did it qualify if you didn’t know the people who surrounded you were the ones who had manipulated you so completely, so intricately that they had somehow wiped your memory and fed you a story of what they wanted their lives to be in order to make it a reality?

Even if he could manage to convince you that you weren’t meant to be a dank ferrick princess in a palace, how would he prove to you that you were meant to be with him? His ship was old, needed repairs too often, his way of life, it all paled in comparison to the residence you had now, the quality of life you had now. How was he supposed to make you understand that he cared about you and that you cared about him if you didn’t know who he was?

Your mother certainly knew what she was doing. From the wiping of your memory to make it harder for him to convince you that your life was a sham, a lie, a false thing made up by those around you to the warning posters of him plastered around the city. The version of you he knew was wary of strangers and he would bet everything in his name that you still held that reservation. That anything he or Cara had to say wouldn’t be taken lightly, most likely result in their immediate order of removal should you find them guilty of trying to manipulate you.

“She doesn’t remember me. Or ad’ika. Her mother must’ve done something to her. There was no recognition in her eyes.” Heart thudding hard in his aching chest, Din couldn’t stop the sob that wracked through him. “I’m nothing to her.”

Darkness and the pull of the cold feeling drumming through your veins lightening ever so slightly as you begin to rouse, body limp and not heeding your commands to move. Alone. You’re alone. Metal clinking and heavy around your wrists and ankles. Around your neck.

You’re shackled, restrained, drugged.

Like so many times before, like you had never wanted to be again.

It’s quiet, unnervingly so.

Opening your eyes doesn’t allow you more of the setting you’re in, only darkness of the room you’re hidden away in. Gravity lurches and you know, can sense it: that you’re aboard a ship that has just taken off into the air. Traveling and distance growing, taking you away from them. From him.

Had he even realized you were gone? That you had been seeking solace, a way to return to him without shame prickling your skin and guilt flooding you, body tight and mind remorseful.

Everything was a haze. Everything jumbled up into a messy recollection. The pleasure that had been igniting you, the feel of his fingers deep and hitting that spot just right, building you up and tearing down your inhibitions. Enough so that you had pleaded with him for the one thing you knew he wouldn’t give you. And then it was gone, shifting to rejection. The blank, emotionless helmet shielding the way he must’ve been so repulsed by your question, your desperation to have more of him when he had already given you so much. Needy, selfish, you had been so wrapped up in him that you had offended him beyond words. Warped the path you two had been traveling together, guiding him without realizing it, off the distinguished trail and into the unknown. To the forbidden. Toward sin.

You had tried to convince him to break his Creed.

Heart heavy and mind trying to piece everything back together, you convulsed. Shocks ripping through you at the sudden movement.

Whimpering, you felt it was more than deserved. This punishment, being forced to submit once again at the hands of your mother. All of it was because of the temptation you had dared to whisper to a man so devoted. He would’ve lost everything had he followed you into it. From the very identity of himself to the new standing of a clan he had just been granted. All gone.

And for what? A measly kiss with someone who didn’t even know how to want without asking for too much. A shared mingling of breath and teeth and tongue with someone who should’ve been long dead for their own sins.

Brightness burst into the room, assaulting your senses as footsteps shuffled close.

The prick of a needle sharp, the swoop of your nerves being calmed and then raised to tingling heights.

A gentle caress of a hand on your cheek and the last thought you had before you were pulled back into the darkness heart more than anything your mother could do to you:

He hadn’t come after you. He had let you walk away.

We can’t…I-I don’t...

Through the hull and off the ship, let you slip into the crowd where he hoped you would disappear from his sight. Vanish from his life and taking the sins you had tempted him with.

Compliant. You would be compliant this time around. Now knowing that there was nothing else for you, the entire galaxy making a mockery of your attempt at finding a life other than this. The blood of so many on your hands and cleaned off the hilt of your saber, the reason as to why you didn’t deserve happiness or comfortability. That you hadn’t deserved him.

And it hurt. More than the throbbing high spurred on by the drugs in your system. More than the memories of everything you had ever known being ripped from your desperate hands, not once but twice. The thought of him simply sat on that cot still, slowly dressing, gathering the things you had left behind and shoving them in a crate to never be opened again, hurt. The thought of him climbing toward the cockpit and bringing the ship to life, of guiding it up into the air and leaving the planet behind, leaving you behind, hurt. It was devastating.

Because you knew, you know he would’ve come to your aid if he had known what had happened. That you had been on your way back to the ship with an apology on your tongue when you had been ambushed. You know he would’ve protected you, even if he didn’t want you. Out of some sort of personal obligation, out of the empty commitment he had made to you that now felt like a ploy to get you into his bed.

He had known your past, seen the evidence of it in your words and nightmares. He had known to how use it to his advantage, to whisper sweet nothings and notions of care beyond what you could provide him with your body to get exactly that. He had known to not pressure you, to let you come to him and he would get what he wanted all along. The same as every man, only seeing you as a body to warm your bed.

But…he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum. I love you.

He had said it first, as he bled out on that dirty cantina floor as the building crumbled around you both.

Anything spoken by a man of few words had to mean something. Had to be genuine. Had to be real.

And that hurt far worse, that he cared and had still let you walk away. Disappear into the crowd of the planet, only to be taken hostage and away from him. That he had let it happen.

The confusing and painful thoughts circling around in your sluggish mind were cut short, turned to smoke that wafted away when the metallic clang of what had to the locking mechanism on the door to where you were being kept. Artificial light filtered into the room, blinding you as your eyes tried to adjust to the sudden shift from near blinding darkness. A soft voice was speaking to you, thought you couldn’t make out the words. Brain scrambled and too loaded up to understand.

It was astonishing, really, even through the haze, that your mother’s hands were gentle on you despite the things she subjected you to. Comforting caresses and fingers moving your hair and clothing in ways to avoid pinching or pain as she removed the shackles and began to untangle you from the chains that had wrapped around you. It felt like a loss, to no longer have them pressing into your skin, no longer holding you up as your head rolled on hard to hold up neck.

“Oh oh oh, it’s okay, sweetie, I’ve got you.” Your mother’s voice was syrupy sweet, coating you in its allure. The only thing you truly knew was real in this moment of time. Her hands helped you up on weak legs, arms going around your waist to hold you to her, support most of your weight. “We’re home, my darling. I think it’s gonna treat us well, this time around.”

Confusion colored your senses and prompted a warbled sound to fall from your lips as she led you to the fresher. She helped to disrobe you, carefully peeling the clothing from your scuffed and sweaty skin. The weight of your hair being let loose from its braided updo stirred the beginnings of a headache. Trying to establish itself even in the presence of the drugs thrumming through your veins.

She washed you free of the sweat and grime that had built up on your skin in the time it had taken to guide your sluggish and unaware form onto a ship for travel.

Hands that didn’t feel like her own filled your senses. Larger than hers, rougher than hers, more intentional than hers. The feeling being washed away along with the suds and bubbles down the drain as you felt the prick of something in your neck and everything became fuzzy.

Things slowly returned to you as you felt the hum weighted over you lighten. Gravity shifted and a feeling of foreboding bubbled up in your stomach, prickling the instincts compressed inside your mind until they could do nothing but trigger ever so slightly. The hush of the door opening had you shifting atop the bedding, looking toward it to see the shadow of your mother approaching you with a cloak.

But it wasn’t yours, because the one you had been gifted, the one with the beautiful floral clasps to keep it closed, had been left behind in your haste. Haste to run from the feelings of inadequacy and heartbreak that threatened to overwhelm you even if you couldn’t piece together the specifics. Too overcome with the things your mother pressed into your veins to have you sluggish and heeding her commands.

The flash of a shiny reflection of sunlight against the metal of a sword stirred something in you as you walked alongside her. She was supporting most of your weight, guiding you along down the ramp of the ship and you paused at the sight before you. Blinking, ensuring that the image wouldn’t melt away and that it was real, you couldn’t believe your eyes.

A garden. Lush and green, was stretched out before a grand palace of white and sandy stone. Pillars and domes accent the different parts of grand sight. It was magnificent and entirely too complicated for you to be able to find a way to escape once within the walls. Guards cloaked in black were stationed at the main entrance and along entryways within the halls. Women in rich jewel tones scattered about the palace as your mother guided you through it, being led herself by a man who held an air of authority about himself.

Your heart beating fast, dizzyingly fast and your breath becomes labored, pitchy. It garners the attention of your mother, the shift from quiet to increasing panic as your led further into the maze of halls and buildings. She holds the control to the shackles about your wrists and ankles in her hand, waving it at you to quell the twitching of your muscles as you tried to resist running, of harnessing the Force to send everyone around you flying through the wide hallway. The silent threat of the electricity sparking through your synapses paired with the way the world didn’t feel quite right, everything off kilter and slightly blurry, fuzzy all around you had you obeying her without a word.

She commanded the people around you both as you were ushered through a door into a sterile room, medical equipment and first aid supplies collected in a large cabinet. The medical center, you guessed through the haze and worry spiked through you. What was she going to have them do to you?

With soft words, she urged you to lay down atop one of the cots. Smoothing your hair away from your face with gentle hands as the prick of a needle startled you. An attendant, a man dressed in dark red billowing layers, had stuck you with a syringe.

Before you could form your lips around a question, a plea, the edges of your vision blurred. Within seconds, the room was spinning and your eyes fluttered shut. The last thing you thought of before being pulled under the influence of the sedative was a plea for Din and ad’ika to be safe, wherever they may be.

“Alright,” Your mother chirped once you had fallen unconscious. The man in red regarded her with a blank expression, knowing that he was here for one reason and one reason only. Being paid generously for the use of his skills and the machinery that he possessed. He was one of the few who had been sought out by the New Republic to recalibrate and repurpose something used by the Empire that would prove useful for them as well.

Rumors of such a machine were whispered across the galaxy, most believing them to have been destroyed. But they would be wrong, they were very prevalent in the reformation and reintroduction of the Empire’s countless forces back into the general population. To break the spell of indoctrination imposed on them with low force electric vibrations. The Six-O-Two Mitigator, otherwise known as a Mind Flayer. Curtesy of the royal families firm standing within the New Republic and their generous donations to help fund their endeavors.

“Is it ready?”

“Yes, it’s been calibrated to perform at a higher voltage to achieve what you’ve requested.” He spoke as he watched two attending medics wheel the cot you were laid upon toward the doorway that lead into another room. He followed them, with a wave of his arm to allow for your mother to proceed him. She did so with a dip of her head.

“I’m sure you know how to oblige what is being requested of you. From me and from the Prince. We will settle for nothing less.”

“I do, you want me to target the memory glands.”

“Yes, eradicate anything that sparks in response to the Mandalorians and the Jedi. Warp them if you have to.”

“I will do my best, it may take multiple sessions.”

“That’s quite alright, we are here now. We have the time.”

Something was wrong. Something was missing.

And your head was pounding, a dull pain throbbing at your crown and moving down, down, down to coat your entire body. Groaning, you realized you were laying in a large, plush bed. Pillows and soft blankets surrounding you, having allowed you the comfort to sleep deeply. Deep enough that you couldn’t recall the location of where you were.

The room is beautiful, all pale, soft tones that match the way you had always wanted to decorate your own home one day. But it was a lost thought, something that would never come to fruition. A personal home that you would never have, a home that you would never share, because the people that you love no longer exist to you, faded into blips you can’t recall. But there was one shadow that you could sense in the back of your mind. And it was making you worry about the way you couldn’t fill it. The underlying feeling of something wrong settling low in your gut.

The room is completely foreign as is the scene of a desert city surrounded by large, formidable walls of stone. You now stood on the balcony, having crossed the spacious interior decorated with tapestries and thin beaded curtains to take a look outside. Your body protested the movements, sluggish to respond to your need to figure out where you were.

The door creaked open, a pair of young women with a tray froze as they say you out on the balcony.

And then, a familiar figure shouldered past them with a wide smile.

“Mother?”

“Yes, my sweetheart, how are you feeling?” She was across the room, her arm over your shoulder as she guided you to take a seat in one of two chairs that surrounded a small, low table. Across from them, on the other side, a long, curved couch that looked to be velvet stretched out.

“I feel okay, I’m just a little confused. When did we move….here?” You felt like something was missing still, aside from the curiosity of the foreign environment. You were looking around the room, trying to nudge that vague shadow of whatever it was into a more concrete form. And then it did, the shadow took the form of a man and your heart skipped a beat. “Is he okay?”

“Who, honey?”

“Um…the man I’ve been traveling with. He- he was injured, his…his head!” You felt panic ripple over you, very real and so overwhelming. You had been traveling with someone, that much you knew. But the name, the specifics of him weren’t coming to you. But it felt so real, the phantom feel of the man who you had been with, you carried him with you, and you needed to know if he was okay.

“Honey, he wasn’t the one that fell. You were.”

“Where is he?” Her words didn’t shake the panic settling into your bones. A memory of kneeling in front of an injured man, cradling his face in your hands as he lay before you flashed in your mind’s eye. The feeling of heat washing over you, as if trying to consume you.

“He’s a very busy man, he was going to visit this afternoon.” You mother tried to console you, moving to sit on the arm of your chair and reaching out to cusp a hand over your shoulder.

“I need to see him now!” You stood, anger spiking. Lungs aching for air, for the vision of the man whose touch was ghosting over your skin, whispers of promises and comfort filling your ears. All coming back as the shadow in your mind grew larger and larger, taking space and becoming all consuming,

“Alright, honey, hold-“ She caught your hand as you walked past her, set on searching for him. Needing to see him, to ensure that he was okay. The feeling of warm blood thick on your hands.

“That’s quite alright, Lena.” A deep voice spoke from the open doorway and you felt your knees buckle as you looked over toward it. The tall figure of a broad man was standing there, dressed in orange and gold. He had dark, thick hair on the top of his head and decorating his face. He looked healthy and relief replaced the panic. The feeling of comfort at his few words urging you back up from where you had reached out for the couch. Memories of laughter and teasing, of time spent together coming back to you as if he had brought them into the room with him. “I had a spare moment today, is everything okay here?”

“I-I just…I needed to make sure you were okay.” The words left you in a shaky breath. His image filled the form of the shadow, pushing you toward him. He opened his arms and you moved into them, lifting up on your tip toes to press your forehead to his own and everything whirling around in your mind calmed.

“My heart, are you alright?” His breath fanned over your face and your eyes focused on his lips. Waiting for an answer to flow from them. For all the memories that had flooded back when you first looked at him, you couldn’t recall the feel of his lips on your own.

“I’ve got you, beautiful. Everything is going to be okay.”

Before the last word was uttered, you were surging up and pressing your lips to his.

Weeks go by, the days spent with your mother and the maidens assigned to look after you and ensure you had everything you needed. Prince Cala was accommodating, doting almost when he was free from the responsibilities that came with running a successful city. He was a prince, you learned. Set to inherit his royal standing of king and full control over the city once the marriage he had proposed to you in your murky past came to fruition. He was all soft, casual touches and kisses pressed to your temples. He hadn’t kissed you fully since that first day you had woken up and you could understand his hesitancy. You were still struggling with your memory, no exact recollection of your lives together.

Assurances spoke from both him and your mother that this was indeed your life, even if everything seemed so new and part of a routine you didn’t quite feel like you were a part of. You were…slightly uncomfortable in your mother’s presence, when alone. An almost fearful undertone as you watched her movements closely, feigning focused interest in the things she told you and shared with you to mask the way your eyes catalogued everything. There was a faint weight that pulled in your gut when she would touch you, her hands always gentle but it was as if… it was as if your body was waiting for the gentle to give way to something more sinister, more ill-intentioned.

You felt more at ease with the man who had filled the shadow in your mind, his presence calming and kind. You weren’t waiting for his touch to sour, though it didn’t spring forth any feelings of desire or yearning from you. A causal intimacy between you both. Slightly disjointed in the way that you had separate room when you could recall sleeping beside a warm body before your accident. In the way that he would press his forehead to yours in greeting each morning and departure each night, the warmth of his skin against yours feeling….wrong as you recalled a coolness in the memories of the practiced motion. In the way that your flowing gowns and light layers looked beautiful in every color provided to you helped to alleviate the heat of the planet but felt too…impractical when you could recall feeling different clothing against your skin, practical, durable.

But for all the things that felt slightly shifted, you also found familiarity.

The ever present heat and bright sunshine of the planet, so unlike your own world of K’ath and yet it was almost comforting in a way. The food you enjoyed at the words of your mother and fiancé to the kitchens to keep on hand. Fresh fruits, crispy vegetables, and warm bread slathered with salted butter fresh from the ovens. Plenty of soups served over rice and easy broths for you to sip from ornate china, never anything too heavy or slathered in rich sauces. Sweet treats in the form of artisan chocolate, decadent cakes with frosting covering them in intricate designs and an endless supply of fresh, strong caf.

But you took it all in stride, spending time in the gardens, memorizing the walkways that wound through them and around the cerulean ponds filled with colorful fish. Spending time in the library and reading through the history of the planet and the city. Spending time in the lush sunroom decorated with plush rugs, overstuffed seating, and a nice view of the grounds just beyond it. Spending time overlooking the beautiful sights of the city and the distant ocean from your balcony, unable to shake the feeling like you were supposed to be somewhere else.

You tried to ignore the guards hovering around you as you explored the streets of the market. You had earned the outing after your good behavior, showing restraint in the questions you had wanted to ask but didn’t want to repeat yet again the night before. Shaking those thoughts from your head, you reached up and adjusted the dainty crown atop your head. The beautiful netting sprinkled with jewels fanning the base of it cascading over your hair in quite a nice way and it would look beautiful if the piece weren’t a deadly threat. It was a little overkill, you thought. Even if you had been nothing but willing to play along to your mothers and husbands’ words despite feeling like something was wrong, missing, like this wasn’t your life. But they were all that you knew right now, the figure of your mother familiar from childhood and you heeded her words.

You were at a stall that had an array of colorful and fragrant fruits, the sweet perfume of them blending together too tempting for you to bypass without checking out. A creature of habit, your mother called you. A woman of expensive taste, teasingly aimed at you from your husband. They knew you

You paused to hold a bundle of sunset orange berries up to inspect. A small green hand with three fingers suddenly reached out for the bowl in your hand and you jumped only slightly at the sudden company you had as you perused the stalls offerings. You turned a cautious look over but a smile broke out on your face at the cute visage of a small, wonderous face peeking out from a canvas bag that seemed to be his safe space.

“Well, hello there, little one.” You lowered the bowl for the small creature to reach for a berry, the fruit stuffed into his mouth with a happy sound that had a laugh bubbling up from your chest unbidden. “He’s rather cute. Is this your child?”

You canted your attention up, at the broad man dressed in all black who was wearing the child’s bag over a shoulder. His clothing was nondescript, matching that of the priests who littered the town. Flowing cassock and wrap atop his head. His face was obscured, much like their own by black gauzy material draped from underneath it. His dark brown eyes were the only thing visible, and you smiled at him trying to come across as friendly. You didn’t want to anger anyone in town lest they had a connection to your new family.

The figure didn’t speak for a moment, seeming to take stock of you, gauging if you were a threat or not, something everyone seemed to be doing when interacting with you. A newcomer, an outsider, not one of the many tourists visiting the city for their own amusement, but someone brought in to be a part of the ruling family. Confirmation sounded through the fabric masking his face from you and you nodded to show you heard. “He is.”

“I’ve never seen any like him before, he seems like the sweetest thing.” The child let out small coos, as if knowing he was being talked about. He reached for another berry but held it out to you this time. You shook your head lightly and another laugh bubbled up even as you felt the heavy gaze of his father on you.

“Ma’am, you’ll have to pay for- Oh, Princess Cala, I’m so sorry. I was unaware you were in the markets today. Please, take whatever you wish, I will send for payment from Sir Cala at the end of the day.”

“Oh, that’s quite alright. It’s just a little snack today, nothing too crazy.” You smiled wide at him, hoping your behavior will be relayed back to your new family and they will lower their intensity. But you also genuinely appreciated this man, he treated you like a person while everyone else in the market kept a wide berth around you. Afraid of either you as a newcomer or the guards that tailed you, you hadn’t been able to work it out yet. You reached for the small pouch attached to your belt, the jingling of the bracelets on your wrists drawing the attention of the child.

You felt the tug of on them as you reached out to place a few credits for the bowl of berries on the stand, nodding your thanks as you turned to face the child again. He was gripping the bracelets tightly, his skin touching yours as he did so and a clash of emotions flooded you, causing you to gasp and your knees buckled. Before the guards could reach you, the tall man had stepped close and his arms were wrapped gently around your back, holding you to his chest to help steady you.

“I’ve got you, mesh’la. Are you alright?” His head was pitched so his voice was right beside your ear, and it sent a shiver through your body, the timbre of it so alluring. It was all you could hear though you were aware of the soft babbling of the child close to you and the harsh voices of the guards. You felt completely calm with him, like returning to your home after a long day. Comforted, safe, cared for. His touch was so familiar, the way he held you feeling like a faint memory though you had never met him in your life.

“Unhand the princess, no one is to touch her.” The guards closed in around you both, trapping you between their bodies and the stall.

“It’s alright! I just tripped is all!” You raised your voice even though it was rather hard to concentrate with the strong body pressed up against you and holding you. You felt the man loosen his hold and step away as you stood straighter. You weren’t quite sure what happened, but he had been quick to help you, even at the expense of drawing the guards’ attention. You smiled at him, something genuine. The feelings he had stirred in you were confusing but not unwelcome. You had no idea why. He was a stranger after all.

“We must return now, Princess Cala.”

When his touch retracted, the warmth that had blossomed in your chest and the quickening of your heart beating against the cage of your ribs didn’t wane.

You retrieved the bowl of berries and held a few out to the slightly dejected child, his large ears turned downward. “Here you go, little one. Make sure to share those with your papa, okay?”

Another glance roved over his face, a soft smile just for him, and you were bidding him a good day with a bow of your head. The urge to press your forehead against his strong, but you resisted, knowing that it felt too personal a thing for the stranger standing beside you. Your brow furrowed slightly, unsure of where the need to do so rose from. The comfortability and underlying feeling of complete and utter safety that the man stoked in you confusing you, he was a stranger, and yet it felt like there was a string wrapped around your heart that pulled taught and uncomfortable as you began to move away from him.

And with that you were turning and walking away from the stall, two guards leading you back to the palace and two behind you. You could feel the kind man’s brown eyes watching you as you did, daring to look over your shoulder to get one last look at him yourself.

Your breath hitched as your eyes met his even from the distance of the street and you felt the heat from his intimate touch and soft words encompass you completely. A dull pain throbbed in your temple, forcing you to turn away.

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dindjarindiaries · 6 months ago

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Din Djarin & Hunter: The Rhyming of Two Star Wars Dads (Analysis)

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) and Hunter (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) are two Star Wars characters who both end up becoming a primary caretaker for, and ultimately adopting, a child in need. Their journeys share even more similarities than what meets the eye, telling a tale of love, loss, and eventual peace for each of them.

Both stories begin with Din and Hunter at their status quo. For Din, this is a lone life of bounty hunting, providing for his hidden Mandalorian tribe. He's good at what he does, and he seems to enjoy it. He's made a name for himself as "the best in the parsec" and he's proud of that reputation.

For Hunter, this is leading his squad to a 100% success rate during the Clone Wars. He's often described affectionately as a "frat boy" in this era for his behavior, which sees him acting much like an adrenaline junkie who truly enjoys the rush of battle and action. He enjoys the fact that the Bad Batch's reputation precedes them.

Then, both men come across a child. (Ironically, it's revealed that these children are both technically older than Din and Hunter, which is a fascinating similarity.)

This complicates things for both men. Din is instantly conflicted by the morality of what he's doing; he's supposed to be turning this child in for a price. But as someone who lost his family at such a young age and would have been lost in the galaxy had it not been for the Mandalorians, how can he fathom doing that? Still, he does end up sticking to the Guild code and doing what he initially signed up for, and he turns in Grogu.

Hunter is genuinely confused about Omega at first, but the more she tries to fit in with their squad, the more that confusion is exchanged for worry. He knows the galaxy is changing quickly with the rise of the Empire and that his squad often brings trouble wherever they go. For her sake, he finds it best to have her keep her distance, and he leaves Kamino despite her warning of what's to come.

And when both men find out these children are at risk, they're faced with a life-changing decision: will they sacrifice the life they've always known for this child?

It's an easy yes for both.

Both these men make major sacrifices to save these children. Din goes against his livelihood and even receives assistance from his covert on Nevarro, which puts them all in danger. He only narrowly escapes, and even as he does, he has no idea what his next steps are. His life is forever changed.

Hunter takes his squad back to Kamino and is immediately imprisoned with Omega. He loses Crosshair at the hands of the Empire because of this, and he has to leave him behind to get away safely. With no Republic backing them up anymore, Hunter now has to protect a child and care for his squad in an ever-changing galaxy.

Their first stop is meant to help them lay low and start figuring things out. For Din, that's on Sorgan, where he meets Cara Dune, Omega, and the Sorgan villagers. He gets a glimpse at what a peaceful life would look like, and how Grogu seems to enjoy it. Din insists that's not a life he can ever give Grogu, and so he tries to leave Grogu there, but a threat to his safety (and no doubt some of Grogu's own desire to stay with his new father figure) leads Din to keeping the child with him.

The Batch's stop on Saleucami serves a very similar purpose. Hunter sees the life Cut and Suu have with their children, and he sees how happy it makes Omega to live amongst the kids and simply enjoy a peaceful life. He believes it's not something he and the squad can ever give her, so he decides to have her go with Cut and Suu. But just as with Din, the galaxy has other plans, and Omega stays with her new father figure and brothers.

From there, both men struggle with two primary things: first, their new role as a protector to a child, and second, life on the run. Din needs a way to make credits, but cannot return to work from the Guild. He agrees to questionable jobs to make this possible, all to keep both himself and the child in his charge alive. In the meantime, he's constantly dodging betrayals, from Toro Calican to his old gang, all while Grogu is being pursued by various bounty hunters.

Hunter also knows he needs credits, or else his squad cannot survive. This is complicated even further by Omega being under threat by bounty hunters. It leads Hunter to agreeing to Cid's less-than-ideal partnership, which sees them completing mercenary work for a rather lousy share of credits. He also struggles with the betrayal of Crosshair, who catches up to them on two different occasions.

Everything culminates for these men when it's time to return to the planets where everything started. For Din, he knows he cannot continue to outrun the Empire and their bounty hunters. The only way both he and Grogu will be freed is by taking out the Client. He gives himself up to get closer access, but this plan quickly backfires when the true mastermind behind it all arrives. Din nearly sacrifices his life to save Grogu and his allies, but in the end, a droid makes a heroic sacrifice to help save everyone and see them to the other side—keeping himself and his child safe for the time being.

Hunter doesn't get as much of a choice at first. He sacrifices himself to let his squad get away on Daro, and he falls into the Empire's—and Crosshair's—captivity. This leads them all back to Kamino, much to Hunter's displeasure. Though they survive through the Empire's and Crosshair's initial plan, they nearly meet their demise due to the destruction of Kamino. It is yet again a droid who sacrifices himself to save them, though he at least makes it through. Hunter has thus gotten himself, his child, and his squad on the other side safely, but only for the time being.

It's at this point these men's stories begin to differ, yet still share many similarities in the process. Din has been sent on a mission by the Armorer to reunite Grogu with his kind, and this is what defines much of his journey in The Mandalorian season 2. The overall theme is the same, however: Din doing whatever it takes to protect Grogu, and even considering a life or a possibility that Grogu wants to stay with him for a lifetime.

Hunter's main concern in The Bad Batch season 2 is keeping Omega and the rest of the squad safe. He, similarly to Din but for different reasons, continues to lead his squad into missions, but at the core of it all is his desire to protect—and a search for a deeper purpose. Pabu is what helps him realize what that would be, and that a life of peace could actually be possible for him, Omega, and the squad.

(This is where things begin to get less linear. We'll be going back to The Mandalorian season 2 even as we discuss The Bad Batch season 3.)

Then comes a pivotal event for both men: the inevitable separation of them and the child in their charge. Din's is difficult for him in the way that he knows it's right, but it's still hard to give up the relationship he has with the child he's come to love. He's sacrificed so much for Grogu, and now he has to let him go. It's a devastatingly bittersweet moment that begins a new chapter for Din. Unfortunately, it's not a great chapter, as he becomes lost in his grief for the missing child.

Hunter loses both Tech and Omega, both of which he feels heavily responsible for. Neither loss is something he had control of. What's worse is the irreversibility of Tech's loss, and the difficulty of getting Omega back. He's at his lowest, having lost so much, and he too is overwhelmed by this grief—but also an intense determination to get back Omega, at all costs. Both men have now been changed, but not necessarily for the better.

The path ahead is dark for both men. The Book of Boba Fett finds Din unable to do what used to be easy for him, nearly failing a bounty hunting mission and giving himself a horrible injury in the process. It's only made worse by him being excommunicated from his tribe for removing his helmet, sending him on an even worse spiral. He's certainly at his lowest, with only a few allies there to support him along the way. He's even refused a chance to see Grogu, and though he could go against this, he chooses what's best for his son again.

Hunter is making rash decisions in his and Wrecker's quest to find Omega when The Bad Batch season 3 rolls around. The usual level-headed sergeant is impatient and impulsive in his desperation, with Wrecker having to act as the voice of reason quite often. Like Din, he certainly isn't himself anymore, and the things that used to come easily don't anymore—even his enhanced senses. Though he still helps others and does what he thinks is best for the children, he's utterly lost.

Then, a glimmer of light and hope returns. Din is suddenly reunited with Grogu, and even amidst the chaos of the battle for Mos Espa, Din stops everything to enjoy the moment. It's an emotional reunion which informs viewers that Grogu will be staying with Din for the long run.

Hunter also gets his light returned to him, and like Din, it's his child who finds him first. This reunion is nothing short of emotional, especially with the shared relief both Hunter and Omega have to be back in each other's arms. It's obvious at this point that Hunter and Omega (and Wrecker) want nothing more than to enjoy being a family for the long run.

This is where The Bad Batch season 3 begins to echo the latter half of The Mandalorian season 2. Going back in time for Din, he's completing missions to get answers on Grogu, most notably about the Jedi and where he can find them. He helps his allies along the way, but his main priority is always protecting Grogu and getting the answers he's seeking.

This is much of what Hunter does with Wrecker and Crosshair after Omega's been returned to them. He and Wrecker even team up with Fennec Shand (an ally of Din's as well) to get the answers they're looking for regarding Omega. They also help Echo and Rex, but their main priority is keeping Omega safe from the Empire and finding out what exactly it is about her that they're so eager to get.

Then comes the pivotal capture. Din and Grogu are on Tython when the Empire catches up to them, and Din can't be in two places at once. He has to go out and fight, leaving Grogu vulnerable in the process. This allows the Dark Troopers to get a hold of him and whisk him away, just after Din's trusty ship—the one that was much like a home to him—is destroyed. By the end, Din is left with no leads on Grogu's location, and no ship of his own.

Hunter and the Batch are on Pabu when the Empire finds them. Their ship is also destroyed, taking away what was once their home—and their only means of escape. Hunter has to leave Omega in Crosshair's care as he tries his best to find them a way out. Rather than being taken by force, however, Omega gives herself up, but Crosshair's missed shot also leaves them in the same situation as Din: no ship, and no leads.

Their journeys and plans then become very, very similar. Din gets the help of his allies Boba Fett and Fennec Shand to ferry him over to Nevarro, where he hatches a plan with Cara Dune to spring a prisoner who's a former Imperial. The prisoner is freed, but there are complications to getting the coordinates, and it requires the use of juggernaut vehicles to get there.

Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair get help from their ally Phee Genoa, who ferries them to a planet where they can also spring an Imperial prisoner. This is where the juggernauts factor in for them, as they must hijack one that holds the prisoner so they can get the coordinates from him. However, there are also complications with this, and there are extra steps they have to take.

The stakes rise to their highest for both men. Din is faced with a harsh truth: if he wants to find Grogu, he has to break his Mandalorian Creed. He does it, removing his helmet for the first time in front of other living beings since he was a child and thus risking his identity for Grogu. He gets the coordinates, but it comes at a high cost. He also has to blend in as an Imperial to complete this mission, which adds to the already mounting stakes.

Hunter also has to strip himself of an identity, but for him, it's the customization of his armor that has long since represented his squad's history. This is to help him blend in as an Imperial as he and his squad gets the coordinates. The stakes mount even more as they discover the only true way to find Omega is to go to Tantiss themselves with no backup, and Hunter doesn't back down as they do just that.

And then they reach the big rescue mission. Din has a slew of allies at his disposal, which makes the raid of Moff Gideon's ship rather easy. He earns the massive weight of Mandalore's throne by accidentally winning the Darksaber, but The Mandalorian season 3 resolves this by passing the responsibility on to Bo-Katan Kryze, which frees Din and Grogu for a future of their own making once the three of them at last take down Moff Gideon. This allows Din and Grogu to live a life of peace on Nevarro, even if they still have future adventures in store with the New Republic.

Hunter and the squad's mission isn't as simple. They nearly don't make it out, and they're tortured horribly in the process. Omega has a lot of agency in her freedom and their own, though it's still Hunter and Crosshair who get to take out Dr. Hemlock—also freeing them to a life of their own choosing. Hunter tells Omega that they can finally rest, and they at long last get to do so on Pabu.

The last thing to address is the epilogue of The Bad Batch. Interestingly enough, it goes back to paralleling The Mandalorian season 2 finale. Hunter letting Omega go is very reminiscent of Din letting Grogu go, as both fathers sacrifice their love and protection for the sake of the children's futures. Though Grogu would ultimately choose to return to Din, Omega is now set on her destiny, even if there is a high chance she hasn't seen the last of her father and her brothers on Pabu.

At the end of the day, these two Star Wars dads are just two guys trying their best to raise a child in a dangerous galaxy—and even if it's gotten rough around the edges at time, they've done a wonderful, beautiful job of it.

Thank you for reading! All screen caps (minus one) came from cap-that.com. Feel free to share your thoughts!

#i'm just very passionate about the parallels between din djarin and hunter okay? okay.#din djarin #tbb hunter #hunter tbb #the mandalorian #the bad batch #star wars

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chromaji · 1 year ago

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so much has been happening in the Undersea Grotto that i wouldn’t be surprised if I turned a corner and saw Blót doing fuckall in here again

#*turns a corner* ‘it seems your investigation of the lost lemurian documents is going well covert guild’#eo3hd playing

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ak-vintage · 7 months ago

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Quarry - Chapter 4

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Reader is Mando's bounty, second-person POV, Din Djarin POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, starship mechanics, unresolved sexual tension, light angst

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

By the time Din Djarin returned to the Mos Eisley spaceport and hangar three-five, almost three full days had passed, and he came laden with sacks of supplies for his next foray into deep space. Ration packs, nutrition supplements, medical supplies, a broad selection of ammunition for his many weapons, and – the crown jewel – a selection of fresh produce he had been promised would last at least another two weeks if properly stored. He had even managed to pick up some short-term contract work as a body guard for a visiting trade syndicate representative in Mos Eisley on business; the pay from that had easily covered the cost of his restock. He hoped it would cover Peli Motto’s bill, as well.

A ship repair hadn’t exactly been part of his plans for this run, but although it had delayed him by a few days, he stood by the choice. For all of its charms, the Razor Crest had never been properly equipped to handle prisoners without the aftermarket mobile carbonite freezer unit he had had installed a few years back. It had been his first big purchase after he finally started making enough money to pay for fuel, contribute to the covert, and also manage to feed himself, and its addition to the ship had made his life infinitely easier. Especially now with Grogu to look after, he couldn’t afford to have bounties loose in his ship, even if they were in binders. It wasn’t safe. Truthfully, he knew he had gotten lucky that his first quarry on this trip hadn’t been more dangerous.

As they often had over the last few days, Din’s thoughts turned toward the woman he had left in Peli’s care alongside his foundling. You were… Well, to say that you puzzled him would be an understatement. In all his travels, he was certain that he had never met anyone quite like you.

He could tell that you were not a skilled fighter, and yet you had attempted to evade capture, to outrun him. It had been unsuccessful, of course, but he couldn’t help but admire the effort.

You possessed a strong spirit, unwavering and stubborn, and he also knew that you were deeply frightened to have landed in his captivity.

You had a sharp, biting wit, but even from your first encounter, you had handled Grogu with a softness, a tenderness that Din had rarely experienced.

You were beautiful. Distractingly so.

Altogether, it left him…unsettled. He could not help but feel eager to be rid of you, if only to save himself from the disquieting thought that perhaps there was more for him to discover about you.

That, of course, was preposterous. There was nothing more. You were a quarry. There was a bounty on your head. He had accepted the task of tracking you down and turning you in, and he would be paid well for the effort. That was that. Bounty hunters didn’t ask questions.

Until recently, Din had actually been quite good at that part of the job. He felt a brief surge of thankfulness for the anonymity of his helmet as he rolled his eyes at himself. He was growing soft.

As the Mandalorian crossed the threshold into hangar three-five, he was met with the familiar sight of Peli leaning heavily against the exterior wall of her office, thumbing at a datapad as her pit droids milled about the place, tittering and whirring at each other.

“Ah! Mando!” she called out, flagging him down with a grin the moment she spotted him. “Welcome back! Successful trip?”

“Successful enough,” he replied tersely. His eyes hadn’t stopped scanning the hangar for evidence of his foundling as he approached, but the little green child was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s the kid?”

Peli waved him off dismissively. “Don’t worry, he’s just with the girl. You know, she came up with this slick design for a carrier for him? He’s been happy as a Nabooian clam riding around in that thing! She’ll be out in a minute, I expect.” She nodded in the direction of the Razor Crest, glinting brightly in the afternoon sun in the center of the hangar. “Just putting the finishing touches on the hyperdrive.”

Din felt his eyebrows raise inside his helmet. “The hyperdrive?” he echoed flatly. The beginnings of aggravation itched in his chest. “I asked you fix the carbonite unit.”

“Cool your jetpack, Mando – I fixed your carbonite unit,” the engineer assured him, extending her palms placatingly. “It’s good as new! Well, pretty sure it’s good as new – guess you’ll have to find out when you try to seal a bounty in there! I wasn’t about to test it myself. I’m thorough, but I’m not that thorough. You understand.”

Drawing a centering breath deep into his lungs, he repeated, “Peli. The hyperdrive?”

“Listen. The list of systems on the Razor Crest that needed a tune-up was a mile long. I had time, I had help, and I knew you wouldn’t mind a bit of extra output! What self-respecting starship pilot is going to say no to a bit more efficiency, eh?”

“What do you mean, you had help?” Din gave up on attempting to reign in his irritation. His words were clipped, his tone gruff. Peli was a friend – she was good to Grogu, and she was a damn fine mechanic – but dank farrik, what he wouldn’t give for her to get to the point. Something about this situation wasn’t sitting quite right with him. Where was the child? “What exactly is going on here?”

A metallic thud, like the sound of someone dropping from a height onto deck plating, reverberated from inside the Razor Crest. His gaze snapped to the ship immediately, his senses on high alert.

Peli, however, seemed less than concerned. “Why don’t you see for yourself?” she suggested with a shrug, gesturing in the direction of the Crest.

Almost as if on cue, you stepped into the light of the afternoon sun from the belly of his ship, and Din’s breath seemed to seize in his chest.

It was as though you had transformed into a different woman than you had been when he left you here three days ago. Your long, braided hair had been wound up at the nape of your neck and partially covered with a scarf that you had tied around your head, and a welder’s helmet perched precariously on top of that, the tinted shield flipped up so you could see clearly. You had stripped the top half of your olive-green boilersuit down your body and tied the sleeves together low on your waist, leaving your chest covered in nothing but a sweat-soaked black band around your breasts. Your skin gleamed with exertion in the sunlight, highlighting the smoothness of your forehead, the hollow of your neck, the soft angle of your shoulders, and you were painted with the grime of engine oil and durasteel dust. You had a fusion cutter in your gloved hand, your grip practiced and strong.

And, as if all of that were not enough, there, strapped in a padded leather harness across your back, peaking up over your shoulder, was Grogu.

After a beat too long of silence, you seemed to spot him in the shade of the hangar, and you smiled softly. “Mando!” you called out, pointing to him. “Grogu, look – he’s back!”

Din watched as the child blinked in the direction that you had pointed, and then his little face split in a broad, toothy grin. He let out a joyful screech and immediately began squirming in his carrier, suddenly desperate to be let down.

You laughed – laughed – at this and began to descend the ramp, reaching back to lift Grogu from his post on your back and up over your shoulder. “Your little guy missed you,” you said fondly. You passed the child into the bounty hunter’s arms, that same softness he had noticed before dancing in the corners of your eyes. Din felt an inexplicable heat rising up his neck under his cowl.

Thankfully, both you and Grogu seemed oblivious to his body’s baffling response; you simply continued across the hangar, returning your fusion cutter to one of Peli’s many equipment racks, while Grogu babbled happy nonsense and gently patted the cheeks of Din’s helmet as though to say, “Welcome back.”

“Peli,” Din said, his voice strained and hoarse, “I’m only going to ask one more time. What. Is. Going. On.”

Peli rolled her eyes dramatically . “Your bounty here has skills, Mando!” she declared, gesturing emphatically at you with both her free hand and the one holding the datapad. “You had to know that! Took her less than a day to start pointing out all the stuff I was doing wrong. Figured I’d have her put her money where her mouth is.”

A bright flush made itself known on your cheeks, and you shook your head. “Excuse me – no, no. If you recall, I saved your life. And then you asked me to help you.”

“Details, details,” the older woman scoffed dismissively. “Look, Mando, she’s a starship engineer. And a damn good one, I’d say. She’s the one who figured out how to fix your carbonite freezer, not me.”

Din’s gaze snapped to you at that revelation, and he watched as you raised a hand to rub at the back of your neck in clear discomfort. You had fixed it?

Mentally, he quickly ran through all of the data in your bounty puck. Nowhere in your files had your profession been mentioned. How did you have the skills needed to repair something so sophisticated?

“I couldn’t just let her sit around on her hands the whole time you were gone,” Peli continued, completely unaware of Din’s distraction. “I mean, take a look at everything we’ve been able to get done with both of us on the job.” She passed him the datapad, pointing to the line items on the work order she had pulled up.

Din took a moment to study the list, both wary and reluctantly impressed. Peli wasn’t wrong – the amount of work the two of you had accomplished in just three days was staggering. In addition to the carbonite unit and a much-needed tune-up on the hyperdrive (which had apparently resulted in an efficiency gain of 25 percent), you and Peli had managed to replace about half of the Crest’s leaking powerlines, update the navigation to the latest operating system, recalibrate the deflector shield projectors around both engines, and scrub the carbon scoring from the Crest’s last fire fight from the hull. At the bottom of the list, a perfunctory five-credit charge had been added for something Peli had labeled as a “privacy screen.”

“This is…impressive,” he admitted. Grogu squealed happily in agreement from the cradle of Din’s arms.

The older engineer nodded, smirking in self-satisfaction. “Try it all out. You’ll see, it’s good work,” she said, gesturing toward the Crest. Din nodded once and strode up the gangplank, finding himself almost eager to see the improvements for himself.

He spent the next several minutes surveying the changes, noting that the repair of the carbonite freezer had apparently necessitated the complete disassembly of most of the starboard wall. He could also see where panels of the bulkheads and deck plating had been displaced to access other tubes and powerlines, though if this were not his ship, if he didn’t know it better than his own reflection, he wasn’t certain that he would have noticed. Everything had been re-assembled flawlessly, the only evidence of tampering being the slightly shiny look of freshly-welded solder along the panels’ joints.

However, he nearly burst into laughter when his eyes landed on the change that clearly had to be the “privacy screen” Peli had referred to in the work order. In the space between his bunk alcove and the port wall, a steel rod had been mounted, and a thick, black tarp had been hung from it, attached with a series of matching metal rings.

You had installed a makeshift curtain in front of the ship head.

Trusting that he would be able to test the improvements to the hyperdrive once he was out of the atmosphere, Din returned to the hangar, still chuckling under his breath.

“Well?” Peli prompted, crossing her arms across her chest in a confident pose.

“This is more than I could have asked for, especially given the time,” he replied honestly. He glanced back and forth between the two of you, noting the way Peli’s smirk expanded into a grin and the way your posture seemed to loosen as if in relief. “Thank you.”

“Aw, shucks, Mando! No need to thank me,” the older woman insisted. In spite of the dismissal, her voice couldn’t hide her pleasure at the praise. “Just sign at the bottom of that work order and hand over the credits! That’s always thanks enough!”

Din sighed, hearing it as a gruff hissing sound as his vocoder transmitted it. Why was he not surprised? “Yes. Of course,” he agreed, pulling the work order back up on the datapad. The price quoted at the bottom was significantly more than he had planned on spending (which, he knew, was very much intentional on Peli’s part), but the work was already done, and the security job he had just been paid for made it so he wouldn’t have to dip into his profits from this trip too much. He signed the work order with the tip of his finger. “This should do it, I think.” Reaching into a pouch on his utility belt, he pulled out a sizeable cloth drawstring bag, half-full with New Republic credits, and dropped it into Peli’s waiting hands.

Peli yanked the bag open immediately, assessing its contents with a keen eye. “That it will, my friend. That it will.”

Now that the hangar operator had been satisfied, Din turned his attention to you. At some point during this exchange, you had removed the welder’s helmet and your gloves, and you were in the process of untying the dusty scarf from around your head, revealing your hair. You had been sweating, and tendrils of it clung damply to your forehead, ears, and neck.

Shoving each of these inappropriate observations to the back of his mind, he cleared his throat and said, “So. You’re a starship engineer. I didn’t know.”

You seemed taken aback by that statement, your eyes narrowing and your brow crinkling in puzzlement. “Huh. Well. Like I told Peli. I’m not…exactly a starship engineer. But I suppose I might as well be.” You paused for a moment as you tugged your lower lip between your teeth. You seemed to debate something for a beat, and then you added, “I worked in the Chardaan Shipyards for almost a decade. I guess I thought you already knew that?” You phrased that statement like a question, confusion evident in your tone. “Didn’t you get a bunch of background information on me when you accepted my bounty puck?”

The Mandalorian shrugged. “Every bounty is different. Yours was…sparse. Planet of origin, last known location, your name. Some biometric data that allowed me to find you with your tracking fob. Nothing else.”

You seemed to digest that for a moment, your expression thoughtful, but before you could comment further, Peli interrupted.

“Hang on, honey – did you say the Chardaan Shipyards? The one where the New Republic has their fighters built?”

You nodded, a tight, closed-mouth smile tugging at your lips. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Of course, Din had heard of the Chardaan Shipyards. Anyone who knew anything about starships knew about them – the conglomerate of pressurized hangar spheres orbiting the planet Chardaan in the Inner Rim, the home of some of the most well-known custom starship and engine producers in the galaxy and the shipyard of choice for the New Republic since the days of the Galactic Civil War. He knew your bounty originated on Chardaan, though it hadn’t occurred to him that that might have been a clue as to your personal history. You had been easy enough to find, even easier to capture. He hadn’t bothered to dig any deeper than that. For some reason, that ignited a pang of guilt in his gut. He typically made it his business to know everything there was to know about his quarries. If he knew their history, if he understood them, he could walk in their shoes – predict their next move.

“That explains a lot,” Peli quipped, putting words to Din’s disorganized thoughts.

You didn’t respond, but regardless, an idea occurred to him then, and he couldn’t stop himself from taking a step toward you.

“You could have repaired the Razor Crest on your own. The carbonite freezer, the hyperdrive, the powerlines, all of it,” he said, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice and only partially succeeding.

A blush burned high on your cheeks, and you stepped back, bringing your bare arms to wrap around your midriff defensively. A heavy silence descended on the hangar, and you looked away. You were chewing on your lip again, digging your teeth into the rosy flesh, and Din allowed the quiet to linger, allowed you to come to your response on your own.

“Yes,” you eventually whispered. “I could have.”

“You never said.” Din recalled the way you had known the carbonite unit was broken before he did, the way you sat in the Razor Crest’s cargo hold, cradling Grogu, and watched him futilely attempt to repair it, the way you had sat back and allowed Peli to take the lead on the ship repair in his absence. Had he even needed to come to Tatooine? If you could have done it on your own…

You sighed then, your expression shifting from guilt to something like annoyance. “Mando… Come on. Why would I help my captor fix something he has already promised he will use against me?” You reached down to the tied sleeves of your boilersuit then and began tugging the garment back up your torso and over your arms. “That’s why we’re here, right?” you continued, your voice picking up speed and intensity as you spoke. “Peli and I did a bunch of other work, but it was the carbonite unit you were after. Why would I make it easier for you to put me in stasis? I’ve seen what that thing can do to people with just…the smallest miscalculation. Why would I volunteer for that?”

If you are able to fix it…are you going to freeze me?

Are you going to try to run again?

Three days, you had been here. No restraints, no locked doors, just a few meters away from potential freedom. You hadn’t run. Instead, you had repaired the means of your continued captivity. Why?

“Then why help fix it at all?” Din asked incredulously. “Why not just let Peli – ”

“Because her life was in danger,” you cut in. You seemed almost offended at the suggestion that you ought to have done something different. “Carbonite technology is dangerous, and not just for the people imprisoned in it. I wasn’t going to let her die just for the chance of keeping myself out of stasis.”

Peli chose that moment to weigh in. “It’s true, Mando. It was almost ‘time’s up’ for old Peli – if your girl hadn’t caught a gas leak, I’d have blown myself and your ship sky high.”

“And…” you shrugged, less defensive now, “It was better than doing nothing at all. It’s been a while since I got the chance to get my hands on a pre-Empire vessel. It was…nice.”

Din frowned. He had underestimated you. Not just your technical capabilities, but your character. He hadn’t met many bounties who would sacrifice their own freedom for someone they hardly knew. Unbidden, the memory of what you had said when you learned about the threats to Grogu’s life echoed through his mind. How could I ever hurt him?

There was no way he was going to be able to sleep at night if he froze you. The guilt would eat him alive.

“Well.” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “You’ve done fine work. Both of you.”

Peli grinned toothily and offered Grogu a tiny high-five. “Damn right, we did!”

“Unfortunately, I’m not able to compensate you for your work,” he continued, addressing you directly. “However, I would be willing to consider allowing you to remain out of stasis for the remainder of this run. In exchange for some additional maintenance work on the Crest as we travel. As a thank you.”

All of the breath seemed to leave you at once – your shoulders sagged, your mouth dropped open, and you allowed yourself to drop back to lean against the sandstone wall of the hangar. “You’re serious?” you asked softly, bewildered.

Din nodded once. “You’ve demonstrated that you can be trusted without restraints. You’ve been kind to my foundling. And you’re a talented engineer.” He paused for a moment, then added, “You have to understand, I will need to turn you in once I’ve collected the other quarries. I accepted your bounty puck – my Guild agent is owed a return of the asset. I can’t go back on my word. It’s against the Guild code, and against mine. But…I see no reason for you to suffer in the meantime.”

You broke his gaze, staring down at your hands. After a few seconds of contemplation, you murmured, “I understand.” With a nod seemingly to yourself, you pushed away from the wall, closed the distance between you, and extended a hand to shake on it. “It’s a deal.”

Din accepted your hand, finding it to be small in comparison to his own, but your grip was strong, and he felt his lips curl into a small smile behind his helmet.

With an affable grin, Peli patted each of you on the back bracingly. “See, Mando? Everything works out!” she crowed.

And Din thought that perhaps she was right.

___

With the matter of payment already settled, it took only a handful of minutes for the Mandalorian to load his many sacks of supply purchases into the Razor Crest and begin his pre-flight checks. With Peli’s blessing, you took those sacred few minutes to duck into her ‘fresher and take a break-neck sonic shower, eager to get the sweat, engine grime, and Tatooine desert dust off your skin before you settled in for another indeterminate period of time in deep space.

As the sonic waves vibrated and lifted away specks of oil and dirt faster than your eyes could follow, you felt as though your thoughts were moving just as quickly. You had known the risks when you stepped in to assist with the carbonite freezer repair. You had fully anticipated that the moment Mando returned and confirmed that it was once again operational, his first action would be to seal you away in frigid, half-life stasis between two sheets of carbonite. Regardless, you had done what you needed to do to keep Peli safe and to keep the Razor Crest intact. You had never expected compensation for that choice.

To know that the bounty hunter recognized this, to know that he acknowledged not only your technical skills but your sacrifice, and saw fit to offer you what he could in exchange was both validating and deeply unsettling.

Resentment and bitterness still clung to your sentiments toward the Mandalorian. You could appreciate that he was just doing his job, that he had been given a task and he was executing on that task for payment, just like anyone else trying to make a living in the galaxy. He ensured you were well fed, he offered you medicine when you were injured, he left you in the care of a kind woman when he had to leave, and now, he was giving you the opportunity to remain both out of stasis and out of your restraints for the next several weeks while he finished his hunt. There was man of honor buried under all that stoicism and beskar. You couldn’t deny it.

But before he had come into your life, before he had stood across from you on the other side of your bar with your bounty puck glowing in the dim cantina lighting, you had finally gotten a taste of freedom. You had gotten to choose the clothes you wore, the food you ate, how long you slept. You had been paid a fair wage, and you had gotten to choose how you spent it. You had even started to make friends, which wasn’t something you had experienced since childhood. It was a life unlike any you had known before, and you had relished it.

Every time you caught yourself thinking somewhat fondly of the Mandalorian and the respectful, almost gentle way he treated you, you were immediately reminded that if it were not for him, that freedom would still be yours.

What he was offering you was far better than the carbonite alternative, and you would be a fool to turn it down. But it was not true freedom. It was temporary, false. You were grateful, but you would be lying if you said it didn’t leave a touch of sourness in your stomach.

Your mind was still cloudy when you emerged from the ‘fresher, your long hair clean and soft against your neck as you braided it back away from your face once more. You spotted Mando immediately, hovering near the ramp up into the Razor Crest, Grogu balanced contentedly on his hip. You smiled involuntarily. In spite of your complicated feelings toward his caretaker, you couldn’t seem to muster any negative sentiments toward the child. He was easily the best part of your current situation, with his toothy smiles and his sweet babbles and his giant, bug-like eyes. After the life you had lived, he brought a softness out in you that you hadn’t been certain you still possessed, and you adored him for it.

“Ah, there she is!” Peli called out, shading her eyes and spotting you in the shadow of the overhang.

Mando turned to face you, his impenetrable black visor reflecting a mirror image of the surrounding hangar. “Come,” he said, beckoning to you with orange-tipped fingers. “It’s time to leave.”

You nodded once and crossed quickly into the beaming sunlight.

Peli smiled at you, offering you a firm handshake. “Well, missy, not often do I get to work with someone like you around here,” she said brightly. “It was fun. Maybe we’ll get to do it again sometime.”

You swallowed hard and fought to muster up a smile in return. You wondered if that was just a platitude, something people said to one another when parting ways, or if she meant it. You weren’t sure which one you would prefer.

“Yeah, maybe we will.” You hoped your voice didn’t sound as shaky to her as it did to you. The Guild is sending me back to Chardaan. We’ll never see each other again, you thought.

“And you take good care of the little guy, Mando, you hear?” The older woman stepped forward and offered Grogu an affectionate rub of one large ear. “See you later, bright eyes.”

Mando nodded in her direction. “Thank you again,” he said. With a gesture that told you to follow him, he strode up the ramp and disappeared into the cargo hold, you close on his heels.

As the gangplank retracted and the blast doors closed, the bounty hunter passed Grogu into your arms.

“I’m going to get us out of the atmosphere,” he rasped through his helmet modulator. “There’s fresh fruit in the chiller locker if you’re hungry.”

The child cooed at that, and you felt the corners of your mouth turn up in spite of yourself. “Sure, thanks,” you said. Mando quickly ascended the ladder up into the cockpit then, leaving you and his foundling to your own devices.

Grabbing a meiloorun from storage, you settled yourself on top of one of the anonymous gray cargo bins, Grogu watching your every move with interest as you peeled back the skin and exposed the sweet flesh inside. You took a bite as you heard the Razor Crest’s engines turn over, and you passed the fruit to the child as you felt the landing gear retract beneath you. He dug in with gusto, his ears wiggling in approval as juice dripped down his chin and onto his brown robes, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm.

The sound of heavy footsteps on the deck above drew your gaze away from the spectacle, and a moment later, the Mandalorian dropped down the ladder into the cargo hold.

“We’ll get out of the system then jump to hyperspace,” he said somewhat absently as he examined a datapad that he had brought with him from the cockpit. He grabbed one of the several packs he had loaded onto the Crest from his supply run and began pulling various items out, appearing to record them on the datapad in some kind of inventory. He said nothing more, and it left you feeling a bit out of place just sitting and watching him while he worked.

After what felt like several minutes of this, you cleared your throat. “So…what happens now?” you asked, your hands twisting hesitantly in your lap.

Mando did not look up at you, ostensibly fully absorbed in his task. “Now, I move on to the next bounty,” he said. “And you do what you did with Peli. Identify systems on the Razor Crest that need your attention and repair them accordingly.”

You frowned slightly at that. “I’m sure you know that some work I won’t be able to do while we’re in hyperspace. Some things will have to wait until we’ve landed somewhere.” You were already mentally running through the list of systems in need of repairs based on the diagnostics you and Peli had run before you left Tatooine. There were more powerlines to replace, the air recycler was well past due for a cleaning, not to mention you were certain that given enough time, you could get more out of the Razor Crest’s hyperdrive than it was currently giving you…

“I’m aware,” the bounty hunter agreed. “Those are things you can work on while I’m away on a hunt.”

“You want me to stay on the ship by myself while you hunt?” You did nothing to hide the discomfort in your voice. In spite of your complex emotions surrounding the Mandalorian, you felt as though you would be safer with him than you would be on your own. You didn’t know the first thing about bounty hunting, but surely it would be taking you to some…unsavory places? Did he really want you to stay behind?

That was finally enough to get him to look at you. Dropping the datapad into the supply bag, he turned in your direction, crossing his arms over his broad, armored chest. “Do you know how to handle a blaster?” he asked impatiently.

You shook your head. “No.”

“What about a vibroblade?”

You bit your lip, shaking your head again. “…no.”

“Then yes, I want you to stay on the ship while I hunt. It’s too dangerous to take someone with no combat training into the field. You’ll be safer here with the ground defense systems activated.” His tone carried a note of finality you knew better than to argue against. You supposed you could understand his stance, and though you didn’t relish the idea of being cooped up in the narrow walls of the Razor Crest for days on end, you knew yourself well enough to acknowledge that you didn’t have the skills you would need to be of any help against another bounty.

“And, if you’re up for it,” he added after a moment, “Grogu will stay here with you.”

You felt your eyebrows raise at that, but you didn’t protest. “Sure. I don’t mind keeping an eye on him,” you said. The little guy had a streak of mischief in him a mile wide, but he was also incredibly sweet, and he seemed fond of you. You knew that if he ever got out of hand, you could simply strap him to your body in the carrier you had fashioned for him, and he would be content.

Mando nodded at that. “Then it’s settled.” Turning back to his inventory task, he continued, “You’re welcome to any of the food or hygiene products we have on board. You don’t need to ask permission before you use something. The only thing off limits is that cabinet.” He pointed at the mysterious silver cabinet you had noticed days ago when you had been surveying the ship. A flickering control panel was mounted to the wall next it, which you knew meant it was locked. “Don’t attempt to open it,” he cautioned, his voice firm and dark. “If you do, I’ll know.”

Inexplicably, the harshness of the command sent a flash of heat through you, and you knew a blush had to be burning in your cheeks. “Understood,” you said, your throat suddenly dry. You looked away from him immediately, desperate to find somewhere else to rest your gaze.

As you did so, another thought occurred to you. “Um…one last thing?”

“Yes?” His reply was curt but not cold as he continued his work.

“Sleeping,” you said hesitantly. “Where should I sleep? If you have a few spare blankets, I can make do with the deck, it’s not a problem. I just don’t want to be somewhere where I’m going to get in your way.”

That seemed to give him pause, and he turned his head to you once more. After a brief silence, he answered, “There’s a bunk in the corner.” He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, as though he was confused as to why this was even a question.

You fought not to roll your eyes at him as your blush burned hotter. “No, I know, it’s just that…that’s your bunk,” you said.

The Mandalorian appeared to consider that for a moment before shrugging dismissively. “I’m accustomed to going long periods of time without sleep. It won’t be difficult for us to take turns.”

“Are you sure? I really wouldn’t mind sleeping somewhere else,” you insisted.

Rather than replying, he simply stared at you. It was clear that he wasn’t understanding your hesitance, and you thought perhaps it was best to just drop it before he began to question it further.

“Got it,” you said eventually. “I’ll use the bunk when I need it.”

“Good.”

“So what’s the next stop?” you asked after a beat. Grogu had finished the meiloorun, and you took the sticky remnants from him and hopped down off of the storage bin to toss it in the refuse recycler. “Where’s the next quarry?”

“There’s a bail jumper whose last known location was on Ryloth. I wasn’t planning on doing that one next, but it’s so close, I don’t know if I will be able to justify a trip back to this sector. It’s just a short jump down the Corellian Run,” the bounty hunter explained.

You considered this information for a moment. You knew little of the planet Ryloth; it was mostly known for being the home planet of the Twi’leks and for its somewhat treacherous terrain, so you didn’t feel as though you knew any better what to expect when you landed than you had a minute ago.

Just as you were using the back of your sleeve to wipe the meiloorun juice from Grogu’s mouth, Mando seemed to finish his inventorying.

“We should be well out of Tatooine’s star system by now. I’ll get us into hyperspace,” he said.

“We’ll be here,” you said, gesturing at the grinning child now nibbling absently on the wrist of your boilersuit.

Mando paused for a moment then, one foot on the ladder, and appeared to study you both. He glanced from you, to Grogu, and then back to you, and that blush came roaring back into your cheeks as you swore you could feel his gaze settling on your body through his helmet.

You almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that notion. What the kriff was wrong with you?

However, the moment passed as quickly as it had come. The bounty hunter appeared to almost shake himself, and then without another word, he took the ladder rungs two at a time and disappeared.

#din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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chickadee-djarin · 9 months ago

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Breathe

Fandom: The Mandalorian (Star Wars) Pairing: Din Djarin x wife!reader

Summary: Months after their escape from Nevarro, Din and the child finally return in the hopes of settling things with the Guild - and finding you.

[takes place within S1E8: Redemption]

Word count: 2.2k Warnings: mention of injury and implied canon typical violence

masterlist

Din’s ears are ringing, each step a loud drum beating in his head as they make their way through the tunnels. Most of his weight is carried by Cara, but his feet continue to falter and his thoughts are on distant memories and Karga has to grip the arm not thrown around the shocktrooper’s shoulders to keep him upright. Din tries to lead them, direct them through the tunnels but they’re as much a maze to him as they ever were – he’d always entered through the bazaar, and he never bothered to learn an alternate route. You had always teased him for that-

‘Best in the parsec, huh?’ Din could see your smile but it was blurred, the searing pain in his head only just beginning to numb. He tried to focus on you - on the memory of you - as his feet continued to drag; but his mind was betraying him. He knew you’d teased him further, scolded him for not knowing his way around the covert in case of emergency. But the memory faded as quickly as it came, your laugh barely an echo in the empty tunnels.

They took another turn and still, no Mandalorians. Still, no trace of you.

Since taking the child, every quiet moment was spent thinking of you – wondering if you’d made it off Navarro alive. Hoping. He had last seen you with the armorer; you’d stood by his side as she crafted him new armor. You’d helped him put it on, piece by piece, unaware that as you worked the armorer was crafting something for you as well. He’d set two beskar ingots aside, his request of vambraces having been made prior to your arrival at the forge. Din thought you would object – you were a healer, not a warrior – and you were not a Mandalorian by Creed. But when you’d finished setting the final piece of his armor in place and the armorer had stepped out, Din had presented you with the unpainted vambraces and you’d silently accepted them. He hadn’t told you of the job that resulted in such a pay, but he didn’t need to. High reward meant high risk, and if wearing the armor meant easing his conscious regarding your safety then you’d hold your tongue.

But he hadn’t seen you since then. He’d meant to take another job, return to the covert with more credits and supplies before finally finding rest in your shared bed. He hadn’t anticipated the gnawing guilt, the little silver ball sitting atop a simple lever to send his world upside down. And he certainly hadn’t anticipated the covert revealing themselves, forcing them to relocate after he made his escape with the child - without you.

Paz Vizsla had assured him you would be safe, though. The tribe would protect you, as they had throughout the five years since you’d been brought before them. You were their healer, the former outsider that tended to their wounded and their foundlings. You’d readily sacrificed your freedom to live among Navarro’s shadows, only leaving the safe confines of the tunnel system to gather supplies when Din was off world. And although not sworn to the Creed, you were sworn to him – you were a part of the tribe by marriage, and they would treat you as one of their own. This was the Way.

“Stop,” Din reached for the light on the side of his helmet. They’d finally reached a juncture he recognized – the memory of you standing there with a foundling on your hip crashing into him as they’d rounded the corner – and he pulled his other arm from Cara’s shoulders. “I can stand. I’ll try to find tracks.”

Again, he fiddled with the settings on his helmet. But as his visor began scanning, it returned only faint traces. Boot prints of various sizes, adult and child alike, appeared to have rushed down one of the corridors weeks ago. Din knew it was futile, but he couldn’t help wondering which set was yours.

He led them through the tunnels now, the possibility of finding you safely hidden away with the covert propelling him forward. A few more turns, another dozen sets of prints lighting Din’s visor-

And Mandalorian armor, cracked and chipped and dented, in a pile on the floor.

There little quintet stopped short in the tunnel. For a moment, they forgot about the Imperials above ground. For a moment, all eyes followed Din as he stepped forward and fell to his knees. He picked up the nearest helmet, it’s dark and empty visor offering no comfort: he recognized it, the shades of blue and gold owning to only one among the covert.

As he turned it over in his hands, Cara moved gingerly to his side. He heard her say- “We should go.”

But Din still held the helmet in his hands. He wondered if he dug, would he find your vambraces amid the pile? Or the carefully crafted diadem – the beskar braided to rest just above your brow – that he’d given you upon exchanging vows? It’d been forged from a piece of his own armor, the only thing he could gift you in place of a signet he did not yet possess.

“You go.” His voice came from a distance. “Take the ship. I can’t leave it this way.”

‘I can’t leave not knowing if she’s still alive.’

Cara made to protest, to remind him of the Imperials that would surely be closing and the little green child that needed him – but before she could speak, Din had stood and turned on Karga. The guilt he had carried since leaving Navarro; the fear of losing you that he’d carefully hidden away; it all morphed into an ugly rage and he could no longer contain the storm that was whirling within him. His hand fell to the blaster at his hip when a voice cut through the tunnels-

It was the armorer, her helmet glinting in the tunnels low lighting. She was picking pieces of armor from the floor, salvaging what she could as she spoke. Din had been a member of her covert long before she rose to lead them, and she reassured him that he was not to blame for their fate. “We knew what could happen if we left the covert.”

And she retailed exactly what had happened: the immediate arrival of Imperials, the possibility that some escaped. But she did not mention your fate and Din found he could not speak the question. Instead, they merely followed as she returned to her forge.

Karga watched with great interest as the armorer began melting down what remained of a breast plate. Neither he nor Cara, who began to move about inspecting the room, interjected as the armorer asked of the child. They heard the truth of how it came to be in Din’s care, of what it was. Still sitting in the nurse droid’s arms, the child’s ears drooped as the armorer spoke of ancient tales and Mandalore The Great and battles fought eons past. It’s big eyes followed her as she scooped the now liquid beskar from the forge, only breaking from her as she reminded Din of their creed.

Din met the child’s gaze. The armorer, with her back to them, picked up a hammer and began to craft. And with every impact she made, Din could only flinch under his helmet. He needed to find you. He needed to know whether you were safe, to return you to his side not search the galaxy for this creatures home-

‘This is the Way.’

The armorer’s words echoed in his mind, and he found himself- for the first time- at odds with them.

So distracted by his thoughts of you and of the child, he did not hear as Cara reminded them of the Imperials searching for them or as the armorer detailed an exit route. Nor did he hear as footsteps began approaching, echoing off the walls of the tunnels at a sprint.

Karga and Cara immediately moved to either side of the entryway, their blasters in hand and Din, finally, registered what was happening. He still stood behind the droid, which had turned to shield the child from view – but the armorer continued her work, barely pausing to say, “Lower your blasters.”

Cara shot a questioning look at her, but her back was still to them.

The footsteps grew louder; Cara and Karga kept their blasters raised; Din’s hand hovered over his own-

And you came rushing into the room, your breath ragged and your hair disheveled. “They’re coming, Alor, from the south entrance-”

The sight of the man in beskar – the unpainted steel covered in blaster residue and scorch marks – stole whatever remaining breath you had and you immediately moved towards him, a choked ‘ner ka’rta’ on your lips. He heard you, gripped you as you clung to him.

At the sight before her, Cara finally lowered her blaster. She motioned for Karga to do the same, recognizing now who you were – you were the Mandalorian’s wife, the one he had mentioned on Sorgan. When they had driven out the village raiders and found rest and spoken of the future, Cara had inquired of the rules surrounding his helmet. She had asked why he wouldn’t remove it, why he wouldn’t settle down on the swampy planet with the widow and her daughter.

‘I’m married,’ he had said.

Cara had asked- ‘Where is she?’

And after a beat, ‘I don’t know.’

Cara had heard the pain in his voice, read the defensiveness in his body language. She hadn’t pushed the topic further.

Now she watched as you pressed your forehead to his, heard as you spoke quietly in a language she didn’t know. But time was against you, and the armorer had nearly finished her work.

“You must go,” she said. “A foundling is in your care.”

In your relief at seeing your husband alive, you hadn’t noticed the others. Now, as Din took in your own appearance – the beskar diadem still upon your forehead, your clothes and cloak dirtied and your medical bag slung over your shoulder – you saw the others. The man you recognized immediately – you’d seen him around the cantina, seen him as he spoke with Din. He was Guild, and the grip you had on Din’s arms tightened. The other was a woman, one whose eyes met yours with an expression you couldn’t read. But the armorer’s words quickly drew your gaze away, to the droid and the small green creature in its arms.

“By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father,” she continued. “And its mother. This is the Way.”

Your gaze again found Din’s: you had so many questions, so many concerns. Months had passed since you last saw him and so much had happened- so many lives had been lost. But you knew, among these people, now was not the time. Not when you had only spotted the approaching Imperials minutes ago. And Din’s gaze had never left you, one arm still holding you tightly to him.

Her work now complete, the armorer turned to fully face you and Din. “You have earned your Signet,” she said to him.

As she approached, Din’s grip on you finally loosened and you stepped away. But you didn’t go far, standing before him and watching with a mixture of confusion and pride as the armorer welded a figure onto his right pauldron. When she finished, she pressed something into his hands and said- “You are a clan of three.”

This should have been a momentous occasion, one marked by celebration as was typical of a Mandalorian earning their Signet. You should have been proud of your husband – and you were – but an explosion was heard and the unmistakable sound of boots followed and there was no time for traditions.

“It’s a scouting party,” you said, finding your voice again. “They found the south entrance, they come from the bazaar.”

The armorer turned to the droid and it immediately passed the foundling off to the nearest person – the woman- before making its way down the hall. She seemed to struggle for a moment, but the armorer had continued talking to Din and the Guild man guarded the door and no one seemed to know what to do with the foundling. So you stepped forward, your focus shifting entirely to the small creature as you lifted him from her arms and held him to your chest. The movement caused the light from the forge to bounce off your vambraces, and you missed how the woman seemed to assess you.

And as you quietly cooed at the foundling, his large eyes fixed on you and his little green claws reaching for your face, you missed the way your husband watched you. How his hands tightened around the set of pauldrons the armorer had given him, unpainted and bearing a matching mudhorn. How, after months of torment, he could finally breath again.

A/N: Hello 👋🏻 I’m gonna preface this by saying: this is not a guaranteed return. Life got a little crazy and busy and next thing I knew two whole years had passed since I’d been active on here and writing. And work took a turn recently and I found myself restarting The Mandalorian, turning to my old comfort show while the boyfriend was at work. Maybe it was rewatching the show; maybe it’s me craving an escape from work. But I remembered this sitting somewhere among my drafts and thought ‘what the hell?’ Hope y’all enjoyed it. We’ll see if this gets me back into writing. Be pretty cool if it did, I’ve missed it. And I’ve missed y’all<3

Taglist: It’s been so long, I don’t yet know who all is still active on here - so no tags today. But as always, comments, inbox, and messages are open should you like to be added!

#my writing #fanfiction #the mandalorian #star wars #the mandalorian fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #din djarin #the mandalorian x female reader #mando x f!reader #wife!reader #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x wife!reader #one shot #breathe #s1e8

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court-jobi · 2 months ago

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Sneak Peek: Just Be Gentle pt 2

Gif credit by @javier-pena

I am SO delayed in this, but WIP Weekend it is! Recommended by the lovely @djarins-cyare, thanks friend!

I have not visited my drafts folder in sooo long, but I'm coming out of an unintentional writing hiatus and have fresh motivation to open the ole lappytop back up for a little sample to share. Part 1 of this fic was much beloved by yall apparently, so it continues here!

Pairing: Paz Vizsla x reader

Words: 1.9K (for now)

For my Star Wars | Mandalorian Masterlist, check it out here!

Paz watched the scene before him unfold; the heat of compassion bloomed in the gut like stoking a fire…

Din Djarin swore on the deed of his ship that he wasn’t exaggerating. He placed a flag solidly in her camp, and would go to arms for her as a returned gesture of loyalty. From that first meeting when the Hunter came back through the alcove to Nevarro’s covert, he spoke on his companion’s competence on several fronts. Namely, in all the ways that resonated with his people: creative thinking, handy know-how, and something more: empathy- a gift not to be ignored when it came to caring for others -himself included- in moments of high stress.

He praised her talents ‘all across the board’, citing moments in their brief stint together on the Razor Crest as testimony to his Mandalorian clan for her to remain there in shelter– to be the exception to their rules regarding outsiders. Aruetti.

A surprise to none, Paz Vizsla deemed that it would be up to him to judge such loyalties for himself; as a man more inclined to view actions as proof rather than words.

But then he met her. Every bit of what Djarin said was true. Better yet, she proved every assumption of his wrong: allowed her to take him by the crook of his arm, surrendered her best vote of confidence, and let him lead. Acquiesced to his strength, protected it, and encouraged him at every turn. Saved him the first of her meals, the best of her scavenged findings. Took to tending to his wounds herself, because he wasn’t gentle enough to do so on his own.

A few weeks have passed since that day, but his fondness for her didn’t wane like the moon’s phases did. Paz Vizsla made it his mission from that moment forward to carry an extra ounce of gentleness, just for her.

Then, the refugees came pouring in. Her arrival couldn't have been timed more perfectly, Paz thought; he’d only begun to see the full measure of little Song’s magic the moment he saw her skills at work.

A smaller covert made a quick exit and raced to safety after a raid depleted their stores a few systems over. There had been some rumors of their hunter clans taking the bait of Guild membership in order to make ends meet, as they’d seen in Djarin’s success. The Way instilled a sense of belonging wherever Mandalorians crossed paths, so merging on his covert’s territory for the upcoming season out of necessity was a given.

But now, in light of Nevarro’s storm season, it seems their numbers would be doubling indefinitely. The situation proved to be a strain and test of everyone’s flexibility and resilience, to keep everyone content and organized on such short notice… but with a Vizsla as Alorad, they flourished with the change in plans and watched on as Paz steeled himself against Fear, and made everything suitable. Supplies were rationed and rooms were stuffed to the brim, but they would make do.

While they may not have resources with them in tow, they more than made up for it by pulling their weight in preparation for the underground shelters. And that, would benefit all.

Song made herself indispensable, true to what Djarin had said. Moreover, she did so with caring smiles and solemn assurances to the migrating Mandalorians -young and old- who felt very out of place. To those men who lost their way in the bustle and found themselves turned around in the tunnels, she would give quick pointers about where to go– and thanked them for their service to the clan, each and every one.

Learning fast. Paz was grateful.

Upon nightfall, there was less commotion than normal. As the common spaces gradually funneled down, bedchambers were lit and sealed for the night. For the most part, it was the heads of families -adults- who went to rooms for the night as a chance to let down and get their heads on straight after such a sudden move. Surely not all slept right away, but took to tending to their armor and delving into their meditation practices.

Meanwhile, their children under ten or so were sent off to the creche where they could be watched over. The community room was next to the medstations, and as kids are often ones to complain of very little bout of aches, pains, or simple snotty noses, it was the logical choice.

Two crechemasters stayed in the spacious alcove of the Medbay annex overseeing the creche, as well as one of the resident tribe’s kitchen aides, a few men as guards near the entrance and supply doors… and a certain someone -with a voice like the Coming of Spring- that Paz Viszla could never refuse pausing for a minute to listen….

Clearly tugged by the soft spot within him, Paz volunteered to serve first watch over the children for their first night, which made their parents feel that much more assured of their protection. So with blankets pulled from every corner of spare storage, canvas mats laid this way and that, and with juvenile excitement despite the circumstances, the children all got to sleep and the staff interchanged periods of rest until all was quiet by the early waning hours of morning. Even the covert’s local young ones came to join this slumber party of sorts. For the sake of welcoming and strengthening bonds, the crechemasters allowed it.

Right after the 0300 guards changed out, Paz heard it. Inside the alcoves inset bunks, one of the smallest boys -nearly four years old- was making a steady and increasing amount of noise, until he startled himself awake and clearly didn't know where he was. He was calling for his babuir in their native tongue; but by his aimless flailing about, it’s clear he’s looking for just about anyone bigger than him that might come to his cry for help.

Before Paz could overstep one of the sleeping children nearest him to respond, he caught the woman he'd know to know as the 'Songbird of the Covert' slipping out of the window jumpseat like a sparrow off its perch, flying to the child's stuttering form up on the riser.

"Well hi honey, g'morning to you too~ Pretty early, isn't it?"

Seeing a soothing figure coming to his call, little threadbare arms immediately shot out and spoke brokenly in bits and pieces of a particular Sundari dialect. Basic wasn't his strong suit. Then again, it gave way to crying in minutes anyway, so his distress was clear and the language barrier mattered little.

"Hm?-- ohhh, aw c'mere bub..” the woman set the child on a hip as he clutched to her. She set them in a sway, “Yeah, you can stay up with me– I can always use some snuggles, too."

The toddler nuzzled in but by his whimpers, Song moved towards the open atrium with more room to walk around and hopefully not disturb the sleeping of any others.

Paz met her there. She'd looked his way with a pitiful expression, traipsing about with the little one in her arms and keeping his little shoulders pressed in close.

"Bad dreams, I'd say," she murmured low to Paz, in Basic. "But I can't tell if anything else is wrong. Doesn’t feel too warm, not coughing. Seems trusting though, poor thing. " she shrugged, motioning to how easily the child was settling.

Through his careful watch of her across the room, he’d caught her sneaking the back of her hand to his forehead earlier in a move masked as just fixing his curls, but fortunately, he must not have been found feverish to warrant more worry.

Paz came to bring a big, steady hand on the child's back. The kid turned his head from her neck to find the new Alorad tilting his helmet to match, and made a big sniff to put on a brace face. Shy and no doubt aware of this elder’s importance, he snuck out a little wave back in acknowledgement.

"//Be at peace, young one. You're safe in the Reliable one's arms, that you are.//"

Whatever Paz said to this "adika" -as he seems to have called him- brought relief to the child, as he hugged her neck tighter and made himself comfortable again in her arms.

An amused whisper graced his ears as she looked up at him,

"What'd you say?"

"That he has nothing to worry about," Paz shared kindly. "He seems to like you."

"I wouldn't think these kiddos would trust strangers so easily after what they've been through," she smoothed back the child’s hair gently- thankfully, his breathing evened out into sleepy sighs.

"They've had quite the eventful last few days."

She kept humming away for a minute, trying to subconsciously lull the child the rest of the way. She looked absently over the nursery if other young ones, but Paz was captivated by her alone.

This instinct must have been what Djarin was talking about. She hadn't hesitated to jump right in, even though she must have been on the edge of sleep herself- if her state of dress was any hint. Shed opted for no outer protective layers for this reason perhaps- a source of comfort for the little ones, and though perhaps it was also to signify to them she was not a warrior or someone too formal for them to shy away from.

Finally seeing the child dozing back fully, Paz offered to take the child from her and set him back on his bunk above them.

She let him, adjusting her loose cardigan back onto her shoulder. Shed opted for that over her cropped black body glove that acted as a breastband, and the loose comfy pants that honestly have fit Paz better, but she made do with her current wardrobe and didn't bother worrying about outfits too much.

Here, just over his shoulder, she watched the Big Blue tuck -yes, tuck- the child in. Stepping away only when he saw the child try to settle into his new sleep position did he step away and back towards her retreat to her watch corner.

"Teacher and carer? You're the dual package, Mr. Vizsla."

"I do what I can. It's not often I get to see our children be children- I would preserve that wonder in them if I could."

Childlike innocence: to hear the hardest-working, stoic soldier speak on such tender things was a thing of wonder itself.

“I’ve only ever seen the little ones work their drills here– recitations, history lessons.” She looked about the room. “I haven’t seen kids this young in a year, much less so many crammed into one room.”

“Well, the rooming arrangement is common practice,” Paz explained, his trademark patience a soothing constant- even through the helmet, “You’ll find a nursery like this in every covert across the galaxy.”

Then, a more sobering thought, one that brought pity to the forefront of her mind:

“If– you weren’t all living down here, would they be going to a normal school? Making other friends? At least while they’re young?”

As if she expected any other answer, Paz’s reflex came through the form of his gentle whisper: “This is the Way.”

“That it is,” she firmed up a knowing smile. “There’s so many of them, going through so much newness at their age.”

Paz agrees, though knows no other way than the community that sleeps before them. To watch the woman’s empathy radiate from her being -those angel eyes- was to know the warmest ray of sunshine in the pit of winter. Such a calm presence… that’s what these youth need, after all. She’s exactly where she should be.

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