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spell-cleaver · 2 years

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No. 19 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH Knees Buckling | Repeatedly Passing Out | Head Lolling

Read it instead on AO3 or on FFN!

“And you, young Skywalker?” Palpatine asked him kindly. “What do you think of Lord Vader’s new motion to destroy your Rebellion?”

Luke, handcuffed to the table in the meeting room he’d been dragged to, gave the Emperor of the galaxy the most withering look he could muster. “I think it sucks.”

His father made a noise that might have been a snort. Luke turned that look on him as well. Just because he’d come to accept their blood relationship—and there was no other choice, having been scooped up on a random mission, flown straight to Coruscant, and given the worst news possible—doesn’t mean he exempted him from any of this.

Palpatine continued, fully turning away from Vader and looking down at Luke. It really wasn’t fair that in a room clearly designed for people to sit around a table, Luke was the only one sitting. “And yet I’m sure you understand its efficacy. With the Rebels so clearly concentrated in Bothan space, striking at the key planets he listed to find the Rebel base is a solid plan.”

“Why am I here?” Luke demanded. “You don’t want me to hear all of this. I’m a Rebel.”

“Your reactions are certainly telling.”

“They’re not useful unless you’re right.”

“Luke, there is no need for hysteria,” his father informed him. “You should be here. It is important to see how the Empire is run.”

“Why? I’m sure as hell not gonna help it run any smoother.”

“One day.” Palpatine patted him on the head. “You will. A year and a half with the Rebellion may have ruined your mind, but we will claim it back.”

Luke glared. “You want to talk about who ruined my mind?”

“I must concede that you are right, however. Simply observing your reactions to our intelligence is only useful if we hit information both true and dangerous. Its use is limited.” Palpatine glanced at Vader, who nodded in response. “But your use is infinite. As it is now.”

“Don’t you dare—”

Luke cut himself off with a strangled cry. The fingers that pushed into his mind were cold enough that he felt every one, like they were trailing frost down his back. He piled up what rudimentary shields he could afford and wished that Ben had bothered to teach him this.

They were enough, thank the stars. When he opened his eyes, he was breathing hard, leaning on the table with both hands. His chair lay behind him, kicked over in his struggle. He glared at Palpatine—at his father, who watched this happen and allowed it.

“Get out of my head!”

“Our presence in your mind is necessary, Luke,” Vader informed him. “You cannot shield yourself and you continue to refuse to learn.”

“I won’t learn from you.”

“Then you require our protection,” Palpatine insisted. “The galaxy can be so loud for someone with so much raw power.”

Luke shook his head. “Stop it,” he said weakly.

Palpatine sighed. “Far be it from be to intrude. I shall retreat. Your natural shields, though crass and untrained, are enough to hinder us. Perhaps you can protect yourself on instinct, this time?” The this time was just mocking. They had been here before. “Lord Vader, let go of your son’s mind.”

“Master—”

“He must learn.”

Luke’s knees buckled underneath him when Coruscant crashed in.

Numbers were cold, distant, and unfathomable. He hadn’t even known how to pronounce Coruscant when he joined the Rebellion: school called it Imperial Centre, and he’d only ever seen the real name written down. He still accidentally said Coruskant sometimes, which Palpatine had certainly mocked him for. When he’d joined the Rebels, he definitely hadn’t known what population: one trillion was meant to mean.

What it would mean for him.

It was the heart of the Empire, but so many Rebel missions ran here. It was the place to disappear, Leia had told him once. Whenever she’d tried to escape the authorities, she just went down several levels and was lost in the din. Policing that many people was impossible. The air traffic was a free for all, and only got strict if you tried to fly close to the important government buildings. It was, paradoxically, one of the safest places for a Rebel to be assigned.

No one could find you amidst all this noise. Luke couldn’t find himself.

His mind didn’t even know how to fathom this vast input from an unpractised sense. He could hear oil bubbling in a speeder tank a hundred levels below him. It was that he fixated on, until the bubbling grew louder, became a shriek, and he realised his head was ringing.

He opened his eyes on the floor. Pain dissected his scalp: he’d hit his head in the fall. Hot blood pumped out of his nose, his ears. Distantly, he lifted a hand to touch it. Now that the input had ceased, it seemed almost devoid of colour.

“Ah, I see,” Palpatine said. His oily presence slunk around Luke’s mind. The loudness of Coruscant tried to trickle through, but he was holding it back. Barely. Threateningly. “A scan of Bothan Space would be useless. They aren’t on a planet. They have allies on Bothawui’s rings that stock their carrier ship.”

“I don’t know,” Luke said to the ceiling uselessly. “I’m not assigned to Bothan Space.”

“You are Commander Skywalker of Rogue Squadron,” Palpatine said. “You have doubtlessly flown with such important missions. I have it on good authority from your own chaotic mind.”

“You are far more important that you seem to wish to see yourself,” Vader added. Palpatine gave his apprentice an amused, irritated look, but Luke’s head was spinning too much to process it. His left arm was still hanging above him. He was still bound to the table. The skin around his wrist was red and raw.

“Leave me alone,” he repeated. He tried to sit up, but his head swam and lolled against his chest. “Leave me—”

“I will train you, if you consent.” His father was dogged. He had been for all the weeks Luke had endured this. “You need not suffer this indignity. Your power is enough to crumple the galaxy in your fist if you wish to.”

“I don’t, thanks.”

“Defending yourself from Coruscant, even with our heightened sensitivity, will be simple once you allow me to teach you how.”

“I won’t use the dark side.”

“It is the only way to true power. And in an arena like this, weakness cannot be tolerated.” The way Vader looked him up and down like that made him feel sick.

How long would they drag him around like this? How long could he stand it? He hadn’t been more than a hundred metres away from the Sith Lords tormenting the galaxy in over three weeks. It was impossible to stop them from picking whatever information they wanted out of his mind. And his last escape attempt…

Was this his life? To forever trail in his father’s footsteps, because they refused to teach him to shield without the dark side, and he refused to learn it? He could not leave their side. Not while he was on this planet.

This couldn’t be his life. He wouldn’t let it.

The binder around his left wrist snapped open; the Force was used on instinct. He stood up, knees shaking. Palpatine raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you well, young Skywalker?” he asked. “You seem overwhelmed.”

“Go to hell,” Luke snapped and stumbled for the door.

Vader made to follow him, but Palpatine stopped him. Luke heard him say, just as he hit the button to open the door—it wasn’t locked; why would it be locked, when Luke was bound to them so thoroughly anyway?—“Let him go, my friend. He will come back. He knows that he needs you.”

Every step away from his father was harder. His limbs trembled. He ran into the wall several times. The pressure against the eggshell-thin walls around his mind thumped and thumped and thumped. Hairline fractures formed.

He had made it six corridors away before the eggshell smashed. His fingers went numb; his breathing skipped, like his brain forgot how to order it; his ears whined, although the overload wasn’t coming from there. He clung to consciousness with the fervour of a drowning man and, even as he stumbled to his knees, he crawled forwards.

The officers walking down the corridor gave him a wide berth. They were used to the Emperor’s pet Jedi by now.

The grey floor underneath him was neon yellow as he placed his cheek against it; the cool touch grounded him, almost, but it was intense enough that it stung as well. He felt like something had skinned half his face off.

The first thing he noticed for a long, long time was his father’s boots in his vision. The second thing was that the cacophony vanished. Luke was proud of himself for staying conscious for that one, at least.

“You cannot go on like this, Luke,” his father told him.

“Neither can you,” he retorted. But they both knew that in a war of attrition, the Empire that owned the galaxy would always win.

“Give in to the dark side. You need not lose your mind and your independence.”

“I don’t think your emperor is big on my independence anyway, considering I used it to blow up his pet project.”

“And I am proud of you for it. But this is pointless pain you are inflicting upon yourself. You do not even use your suffering.” Vader pulled at his cape and knelt down beside Luke. He wiped his nose. Luke hadn’t realised it was bleeding again.

It was a horribly paternal gesture. Luke despised him. And himself, for the pathetic, “You’re proud of me?” that slipped out of his lips.

“Naturally.”

Nothing about this situation was natural.

“You pretend to care,” he said, “and still you do this?”

“You refuse to be trained.”

“I tried! I said yes, once, remember! But you swore you wouldn’t use the dark side. You lied.” He still felt dirty, with how he’d wordlessly followed Vader’s instructions to draw on his frustration, before he’d realised what was happening. What little shields he could summon were due to that failed lesson, and he hated it.

“There is no point in teaching you without the dark side.” Vader almost sounded like he was pleading. “Your stubbornness is pointless, Luke. You would squander your potential, ruin your mind, out of some misplaced loyalty to a man who kidnapped and lied to you?”

Luke pushed himself off the floor. It was so grey. It had had so much colour a few minutes ago.

“Leave me alone,” he repeated and kept walking away.

Vader followed. “Do not think to give me orders.”

“You don’t care!” Luke snapped. “If you did, you wouldn’t do this! You can’t say you’re proud of me and then turn around and let this happen!” He pointed at his bloody nose. The dripping was deafening. The blood he shared with Vader touched his lips and baptised his tongue. “Is my power all that you want? Am I useless to you like this, without the dark side to maximise power with no regard for any other cost?”

“How dare you presume—”

“You want the powerful son you think you’re owed,” Luke said. “You don’t want me.”

He walked away.

Vader’s shock bought him several seconds. His outrage bought him several more. By the time Vader thought to follow, Luke was running, running, racing through the corridors of the Palace he despised so much. As Coruscant lurched in on him again, the walls he threw up shattering into bricks and mortar with every step, he swerved, crashed into people, nearly impaled himself on red guards’ staffs. But he kept running.

Somewhere, somehow, he found a balcony. The air on this side of the Palace was thick with smog—he was right above the kitchens. With Coruscant vast and screaming and beautiful in his awareness, he let that acrid smog fill his lungs. It pulled him downwards: out of the atmosphere, past the kitchens, into the dark, cramped, polluted depths below.

His father was coming. Luke did not have much time. He took a deep breath, clung to the railing of the balcony, and let his mind be ruined.

After a point of familiarity, screaming turns to music. His knees buckled underneath him; he lay sprawled on the floor, staring into nothing, and tried to parse the vast universe that beat at Coruscant’s heart. The myriads of lives swept in to carry Luke away, and he was gone.

No Rebel secrets in his mind.

No incriminating evidence. Nothing for Palpatine to use.

No Luke left behind.

Like so many Rebels before him, Luke dived into Coruscant and disappeared.

He saw everything. The sun, miles away on the other side of Coruscant, rising on a squalid neighbour many standard hours behind Imperial City. The rats scuttling over scaffolding between housing development projects, infestation new flats before they were even built. The thieves that stalked through the lower levels. The thousands of people who just wanted to get by.

He knew all of them. He loved them. This was what it was like to be the Force.

And, tragically, he loved his father as well. He saw him and could not look away: he saw him catch up with the body of his son on that balcony, heard him call Luke? Luke? Luke? Saw him fall to his knees. Felt him cradle his son’s body to his chest, with a heart that forgot how to beat without the mind it maintained. Heard his own words run on a vicious loop in his heart as if Vader’s own shields were butter, and Luke could slip right through.

want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want me you don’t want

Lord Vader. I sensed your distress. What has occurred?

Luke is gone.

Palpatine’s dark-robed presence was a black hole. Luke struggled not to get sucked into it.

Gone?

His mind is lost.

Perhaps this is for the best.

The best?

He was not the son you deserved, Lord Vader. You know that minds can be rebuilt—perhaps from scratch. With his body, you can make a new son. One who will not disappoint you.

Disappoint me?

Of course, if that would be too complex, we have excellent cloning facilities. I understand your grief. But can you understand my pragmatism?

Luke could understand what it felt like for black holes to die. He was unleashed from its orbit, spinning through the atmosphere. Oh, a pregnant mother was having an ultrasound for the first time. Her joy spilled into him, until he felt light as air. She imagined her child, what she would call them, and Vader mourned his.

Vader gathered his son’s corpse in his arms. His shoulders heaved.

“I do not accept this.”

He heard it with eardrums that vibrated under the booming words.

“This is unacceptable.”

Vader’s head snapped up. He scanned the Coruscanti skyline as intently as that new mother was staring at the ultrasound of her child.

“I want you,” he said. And— “I see you.” In the Force, he reached for him. Dissipated, chaotic, spread in a thousand pieces into a thousand levels of a stuffed world or not, the tendrils of Vader’s Force presence reached for him. One by one they cradled tiny sparks and pulled them inwards jealously. “You can’t leave me. I can see you.” The sparks coalesced. Luke was pulled back towards him, and now he could feel the dent his father’s chest box was leaving in his forehead, the hard, durasteel grip on his insensible arms. “I want you back.”

But so many pieces of him were already gone.

Luke opened eyes that seemed to glow, his voice breathy. When he looked at his father, he saw right through him: the faulty suit, the faulty history, the faulty man at the core of it all. He was a pathetic excuse for a villain, a Force-user, and a father. He was trying so hard.

“Then do better,” he ordered. There was a glow to his words, one that seemed more commanding than he had every been in his life. His pulse thrummed faster than the human body should be able to bear, in time with the racing heart of the city planet. “You can’t keep Coruscant quiet.” He pronounced it wrong.

His father stared at him in awe. Luke wondered what he saw: the pockmarked, patchwork soul of a city too large to truly live, except through him?

“Evidently,” he said.

#tw: attempted suicide #tw: suicide #it's not literal #but it's close enough that you should be careful #my writing #random words on a page #luke skywalker #darth vader #for darkness shows the stars #sheev palpatine #whumptober 2022 #no.19

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jangofctts · 3 years

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Thing for Trouble (boba fett x fem!reader x din djarin) (part one) (part two) (part three) (part four)

Rated: explicit 18+

word count: 7.6k

warnings: threesome, smut, thigh riding, oral female receiving, handjobs, unprotected sex (dont be a deadbeat, wrap that shCMEAT), light choking, throne fucking, vaginal fingering, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, creampies, pet names, sub? din? more likely than you think (also lmk if I missed any tags!)

a/n: yall im sorry this is such garbage but kjkwejh here we be. I hOPE YOU ENJOY THE CIRCUS. thank you to everyone who’s encouraged this so COME GET YALLS MANDO MEAT

There isn’t much when he it comes to Tatooine and fun things to do. There’s pod acing, drinking, Sabaac tourneys, more podracing, gambling and scavenging. Unless there’s a festival or some wild event, you’re stuck with boredom and whatever you can scrounge up for fun in the palace.

Now, don’t get it wrong—if you had it your way, you’d spend every waking hour trialing behind Boba, but you don’t want to smother. Fennec too—while you enjoy her company, you know that half of the reason she sticks around is Boba’s order for your protection. Kinda ruins the fun when you know she probably only tolerates you because she’s being paid to. Eh whatever—doesn’t stop you from tagging along on as she runs errands in town—besides, today you actually have a reason to be here instead of loitering like a lost puppy.

Fennec tells you to be safe and com her the second trouble rears its ugly head and disappears into the weapons shop—muttering about her prized rifle being jammed or something. You don’t know, all you hear is that you have the entire afternoon to yourself to hunt down your oh so elusive prize. Star cherries.

The markets are always vibrant. Jam packed with people from each and every corner of the galaxy, hundreds of booths and stalls selling their wares that varies from foods to jewelry to even bounty services. Tempting as is it is to peruse the sparkly rows of dainty necklaces and rings or inspect the vast array of beige ponchos and manilla undershirts—you have a purpose. A once a year chance you refuse to let go to waste.

The shabby booth is tucked near the end of the street, the mountain of the little red fruits looking comical compared to the withered old lady who sits beside them. She flashes you a gap-toothed smile, the crowfeet wrinkles surrounding her eyes scrunch with the movement. “Ah! I was wondering when you’d show, dear.”

“Hello, Mrs. Feraan,” you greet, bending at the was it to kiss her wrinkly cheek. The old vender was one of the first kind souls you met here when you arrived on Tatooine. In return for a couple compliments or an offer to be the lab rat to test her new recipes for pie or tarts, she hooks you up with the best of the cherries—handpicked with love. “How’s business today?”

She waves her hand in dismissal, her silver rings glinting in the sun. “Same as always, child.”

Eventually you work your way through the pleasantries and a couple, long winded tangents. The sort that only old people can flawlessly spin and keep you engaged. Trials and tribulations to earn your prize—you don’t mind sacrificing a couple hours.

Finally you’re allowed to walk away—cherries in hand and exceedingly eager for your sweet snack. Unfortunately, suffering through Mrs. Feraan’s old childhood laments is not the only bump in the road you have to face.

Granted, it is your fault—not looking where your feet are taking you—

Your temple crashes into something agonizingly hard. You swear you hear a quiet bonk when your skull collides with the mystery material and fucking hell—you probably have a concussion from the force of it.

Unbothered by your probable brain injury, you’re far more concerned with the cherries spilling onto the ground and so, as you flail and dramatically topple over—the brunt of your fall is cushioned by your shoulder. Something pops and yeah, ok, maybe you just tore a ligament but—kriffing worth it for the cherries you miraculously saved from their dusty graves.

Your temper flares as you spot the dirty brown boots pointed in your direction. Maneuvering yourself up so you don’t also get trampled by the crowd, you bare your teeth and put on your best impression of a terrifying force of nature despite the fact you’ve been knocked flat on your ass. “What the fuck—“

The words shrivel up and die upon your tongue as your eyes slide up the stranger’s legs, broad shoulders sporting the shiny armor that twinkles in the midday suns. They then settle on an all too familiar helmet. Well, sorta—you’re familiar with a certain red and green one, not the equivalent of a wearable disco ball.

You squint as the stranger’s head dips to look at you crumpled at his feet. You dust yourself off and point an accusing finger. “Fuck is your problem standing in the middle of the road?”

The stranger quirks their head. “You ran into me—maybe you should watch where you’re stepping.”

The raspy voice is a striking sound. Mellow and silky even as it passes through the vocoder and dresses it in static charm. Some of your anger melts away—maybe this is the friend Boba was talking about—it’d make sense. They’re wearing the same type of armor…

You shake your head and shove down your pride. You don’t think Boba would appreciate you chewing his ear off. “Sorry—you’re right.”

As you readjust your clothes and precious cherries you introduce yourself with a tiny smile. Yet just as you're about to ask him his name he interjects with a step forward. You flinch away but all he does is sweep back a strand of hair from your forehead, revealing a little nick in the skin. You hiss as his fingertips scrape against it--great, an actual head wound. “Are you alright?”

Maker—here you are, after yelling at him and he finds it in him to be compassionate. You wave away his concerns. “Y-yeah--peachy.”

He apologizes with a dip of his head and words soaked in regret and fuck--now you feel bad. You wrack through your brain and search for last ditch attempts to fix this little mishap and settle with a half baked idea. It’s dumb--but hey, if it works, it works.

“Seriously, it’s fine. But I mean, if you’re so worried, how about you walk me home and we call it even?” You propose, sticking out your hand to seal the deal. If your assumptions are right, he’d just be tailing you the whole way home anyway. “I’m headed towards the palace, so if it’s not too much out of your way then—“

He hesitates and interrupts by taking your hand. “Alright. Deal.”

You smile. “Lovely.”

On the return trip, Din is quiet—tells you his name and responds to your conversation fillers with interested hums—but other than that he remains on the silent end. Intriguing with a rounded softness unlike the armor he wears--a man of mystery much like a certain someone who awaits you back home. Well--Din is less grumpy--by a long shot...but still. It’s easy to spot some of their shared similarities.

-=-=-=-

Upon arriving at the castle you part ways with Din before he reaches the throne room--you’re not too excited about showing off your new battle scar yet and while it was an accident, making an entrance with Din will make it far too easy to link the injury with him. Besides, you don’t wanna risk scaring off your new friend if Boba decides to showcase that tightly sealed lid of anger and brutality.

Instead you take the long way around the palace. Soon, muffled voices carry through the long corridors, growing louder as you work your way back from the kitchens. You round the corner, catching glimpses of Boba and your new friend through the pillars that prop up the low ceiling. You don’t meant to spy, but you do so anyway, hesitant on interrupting.

That is...until Boba cocks his head to the side and settles his eyes onto the pillar you hide behind. “It seems we have a little shadow with us today.”

You suck in a breath as your heart skips in a thrumming pace. Boba addresses you by name and crooks his fingers in a lazy motion for you to step out into the light—revealing yourself to the small party of two. “Come here, little one.”

The low light catches off of Din’s helmet with a glittering sparkle when he swivels his head. The tiny, warped figure of yourself reflects in mirror-like pieces of smelted beskar as his shoulders pull tight with recognition. You bite the inside of your cheek to keep the smile that threatens to crack across your face at bay. Boba is no fool—he excels in the subtleties of shifting eyes and clenched fists to hide anxiety or closely guarded information—sickeningly familiar with your own quirks and tells, but—

There’s no reason to reveal Din’s little secret—not yet. Boba called him a friend but you truly have no clue what the depths of that word entailed. Friend could mean anything from a casual acquaintance, to an old childhood bond, and or anything in between. You sigh and brush past him, mentally congratulating yourself for keeping a cool mask of indifference etched into your features. If Din wants to open that can of worms then so be it—you weren’t the one offering to walk random people home.

You step onto the dais and slide your free hand into Boba’s outstretched palm. The worn leather tickles up your forearm and locks over your elbow, silently demanding you to sit on his lap. There’s plenty of room to both sit on the throne but no—Boba prefers you tucked against the cool metal of his cuirass. You grunt as the bowl of star cherries you cradle dangerously dips when Boba adjusts your weight over his thighs.

His fingers pull back a strand of your hair, tucking it behind your ear and then spider along your jawline. The ends of his mouth quirk as Boba pinches your chin between his forefinger and thumb, capturing your undivided attention. “I don’t like it when you lurk in the shadows, little one. You’re allowed to listen.

You huff. “I know—but lurking is fun.”

Boba releases your chin with a scoff. “Foolish, girl.” You dip your chin with a sheepish grin as heat rushes to your cheeks. You briefly forget about the tiny nick adorning your right temple, the only thing you were trying to keep hidden—but Boba is all too quick to notice. “What is this?”

He pushes your hair out of the way of the cut, inspects it, then curls his fingers around your jaw to demand an answer. You refuse to let your eyes wander over to Din—what a dead giveaway that would be—and instead muster up enough courage to hold the weight of his stare.

“I tripped at the markets,” you say—not a complete lie. “It’s just a little scratch—no biggie.”

Boba squints in suspicion and grumbles a soft hm. You feel his chest rise and fall with a deep sigh—he won’t argue about it right now. Not a battle worth his while when you’re keen on keeping the full truth behind a wall of teeth and anxieties. Boba’s hand falls away, gestures to Din who still stands stiffer than a stature, then lays it over the golden armrest. “I’m sure you’ve noticed our guest—“

Din tips his head in acknowledgement.

“The rightful ruler of Mandalore,” Boba continues. “Din Djarin.”

Din Djarin…despite already knowing his name (or half of it, at least) you like the way it rolls off the tongue—like how it’s seemingly made to be repeated and carved into the walls of some ancient script. Your knowledge on all things Mandalorian is…limited to say the least but you know enough about the rumors.

“Isn’t Mandalore supposed to be haunted?” You don’t mean for your words to be a pointy jab to the ribs but regardless, it strikes a tender chord within the Mandalorian. You wince as Din shifts his weight and clenches his palm—a long story. “Sorry—I—I’m sure your home is lovely, all I know about it are dumb ghost stories about evil wizards and laser swords.”

The blood under your cheeks burn red hot. Great. Not only are you a complete bantha brain, you’ve also managed to sound like an impudent child. Boba soothes a thumb over your thigh as you curl into yourself—bastard. He thinks this is funny.

“It’s not my home,” Din responds, albeit tentatively. “Never been.”

Your brows furrow. Alrighty then.

Boba snorts and shakes his head. He mutters something in Mando’a and lazily waves his hand, dismissing the line of conversation entirely. It was turning into a dumpster fire anyway—

With a slow exhale, you remove yourself from the discussion and instead tuck your head under Boba’s chin. The beskar is cold against your cheek but it feels nice against the sweltering midday heat.

Their conversation fades in and out as you rest your head over Boba’s cuirass, listlessly picking through the bowl of fruit for the ripest ones. You sigh—the next cherry you bring up to your lips is intercepted as Boba’s hand clamps around your wrist and redirects it into his own mouth. You don’t find it in you to be grumpy about the stolen treat when Boba’s tongue slides over your sticky fingers. Still holding your wrist captive, he sucks the tip of your thumb into the warm heat of his mouth and curls his tongue around the digit. Your index finger is given the same treatment before your hand is returned. The beginnings of arousal spark to life below your belly, and fuck—that shouldn’t have been so…so…hot.

Din’s smoky baritone fades into background noise as the entirety of your attention zero’s in on Boba’s mouth. You purse your lips and suck in a shaky breath, then return your hand to the bowl to fish out another fruit. You don’t need any guidance this time around as you bring the cherry to his mouth—the crimson juice spilling down your palm and part of your arm as his teeth pierce the fragile skin. You breath hitches as Boba dips his head, catching the bead of liquid running down your arm with the tip of his tongue, then swiping s a slow trail up, and over the lines of your palm. He plants a careful kiss there, then breaks away.

Before you have the chance to reach for another one, Boba plucks a cherry from the bowl and rests it against the seam of your lisp, inviting you to partake in this little game he’s created. A wicked smirk curls over his mouth as you accept—the tart flavor of the fruit spilling over your tastebuds as you chew and swallow. A little wine escapes you as his leather-clad thumb rolls over your bottom lip, bushes past the barrier of your teeth and seats the digit into your mouth—all the way down to the third knuckle.

You hardly notice the moment Din’s voice tapers off into silence—much too enraptured with the taste of leather and the smooth feel of it over your tongue. You gag slightly when Boba’s thumb reaches the back of your throat, then retreats just as slow. The string of saliva that still connects the digit to your wet mouth, drips over your chin and part of your lip, eliciting a jagged, echoey breath that crackles through Din’s vocoder.

Boba grins—something that better belongs on a sneering jackal just about to pounce on unsuspecting prey with needle sharp talons, rather than his face. His eyes drift up to address his guest. “Do you see something you like, Mand’alor?”

Din’s head jerks, averting his gaze to anywhere but the throne. He murmurs a weak apology and shifts his weight to his other leg—acting as if he were to look at you a second time, it’d burn him to a crisp or force him to confront Boba Fett’s wrath. Obviously, neither thing would happen, but Din still remains unsure with his foothold in this situation.

“I see how you look at her,” Boba drawls—not an accusation, just a statement brought to light. Boba’s hand drops to your thigh, the warm weight of it resting just past your knee as Din swallows his nerves and returns his gaze. “It’s alright—a pretty little thing like her is bound to turn heads.”

A blush hotter than wildfire licks up your cheeks as Din nods in agreement. “She’s beautiful…you’re a lucky man.”

Boba’s grip on your thigh hoards you closer to his chest. He is and he’s fully aware of that fact, but there’s no need to admit such a thing when it’s so blatantly obvious. A lull in the conversation creates a palpable tension—nervous energy and a choice to let this is fade into nonexistence or…or breathe life into that flickering ember of unsaid desires.

Your heart leaps into your throat when Boba shatters the silence and addresses you. “You’re awfully quiet, princess…what do you think?”

He’s placing whatever this is into your hand and leaving you to call the shots. You’ve always been a troublemaker and there’s no will or way as to why you’d stop now. You look between your lover and Din as a smile curls over your face. “I think…if he’s so interested—why not give him a show? After all, he did bring me home—he deserves some reimbursement for the trouble.”

Boba’s shoulders jolt with a chuckle. “How chivalrous.” You shiver as he strokes the back of his finger down your cheek. “Fine, as you wish, little one—go play.”

Giddy excitement bubbles through your chest as Boba offers Din to take a seat on the edge of the dais. Din still has an option to escape, to slip through the cracks and pretend this never happened—but stars, you hope he stays. Din takes a step forward, then another—and another until he’s standing before the throne. He studies the raised edge and gingerly takes a seat.

You abandon your bowl of cherries onto the forearm of the throne and slip off Boba’s lap. You drift over to Din, his gloved fingers clenching and unclenching as they rest over his thigh plating. He’s purposefully avoiding your eye as you kneel beside him—still locked onto that niggling fear that this could be some sort of trick or test in resolve.

Smiling sweetly, you skate your hand over his knuckles—guiding his large palm to your waist and then under and up your loose shirt and bra. Din mutters a curse as you place his palm over your breast. “I’m glad you stayed.”

Pleased with his reaction, you peel off your shirt and bra, breath hitching as Din pinches your nipple between his forefinger and thumb. “Same—I think…”

With a bit more bravery backing his movements, Din pulls away briefly, shucks off his gloves and encompasses both your breasts. They’re warm and calloused, riddled with silvery scars that stand out against his brown skin, a storybook of past battles—won and lost—all equally important to the fibers of his being that stitch him together into a whole. His hand whispers down the length of your ribcage, no doubt feeling the thrum of your heart beating wildly against the cartilage and bone. It tickles over the swell of your hips then—

“You said you wanted to give him a show,” Boba drawls behind you, a sharp twinge of hostility lacing his words. “So enjoy the show, Mand’alor, ’nd keep your hands to yourself."

Din recoils at the verbal reprimand and drops his hands speedier than a flash of lightning. You frown and throw a glare over your shoulder. Bastard. Boba quirks a brow and runs his thumb over his lip, the edged sparkle in his dark eyes taunting you into challenging him. You huff and turn a cold shoulder.

“Sorry, Din,” you purr, scrounging up any and all back up plans to keep you both entertained. “Seems my king isn’t as generous I thought.”

Din withers a bit at the catty remark, keeping his lips sealed tight as Boba growls your name in warning. You don’t pay him any mind.

You puff up your cheeks and release the air in a steady stream, as your eyes scrape over Din’s armored thigh. Ok—you can work with that. It wouldn’t be breaking any rules…not technically. You step away, paw at your waistband and let the breezy fabric pool over around your ankles, your underwear quickly joining the pile.

Now bare, you return to Din’s side, his careful inhale distorted into choppy static as you straddle his thigh. He lifts both hands, intending to grab at your waist, but pauses midair. No touching. You lips tilt with a smirk as he clenches his fists and pins his hands to the cool stone instead, an attempt to curb that urge to reach for you. His shoulders knit together when you mold your hand in the gap between his shoulder pauldron and cuirass to give yourself some sort of balance—obviously not used to a soft touch.

You lower yourself and hiss through clenched teeth. It’s fucking freezing. Goosebumps rush up each limb as the wet warmth of your cunt meets the frigid beskar—the chill much colder than you initially expected. It’s one thing to touch the beskar with an open palm and another thing entirely to feel against such an intimate part of yourself. Din’s visor drops to look between your legs as you give your hips an experimental roll.

It’s different. You’re used to hardened muscle and fabric, or your own fingers while pleasuring yourself. Your breath hitches as Din’s thigh twitches, the smelted seam of the cuisse bumping against your throbbing clit.

“Sorry,” Din mumbles, “Didn’t mean—“

“It’s ok,” you smile, rocking your hips to ease into the sensation. “Just surprised me.”

The pace you set is slow, careful not to overwork your nerves as your arousal blooms and metastasizes like simmering coals low in your groin. With each lecherous pull of your cunt against his thigh, the beskar begins to warm to the temperature of your skin—the wetness between your thighs abating the friction and making the surface slippery. A low gasp escapes you once you find the right ridge and angle that just grinds perfectly against your aching clit. Your fingers dig into the cowl of Din’s cloak.

“Shit—feels good.” Like your voice and little moans jumpstart Din’s ability to move, his large hand drifts to the front of his trousers—an already sizable bulge tenting the dark brown fabric. You squeak as Din's leg jolts for a second time, a burst of dizzying ecstasy wracking up your spine with the choppy movement.

You suck in another raspy breath as your attention drops to his hand that cups his cock and palms himself through his trousers. You chew your bottom lip and clench your fist gripping his cowl, still gyrating your hips over the beska as Din hooks his thumb into his waistband and pulls them down, slow as molasses.

Fucking hell—he’s bigger than you initially imagined. Flushed a rosy brown, and half hard already, twitching as Din wraps his fingers around the thick length. Din lifts his head, gauging your interest or disapproval—but kriff—who the fuck would ever be unhappy with that sorta heat he’s packing? You bite your bottom lip, scouring your brain for ideas to convince Boba into letting you taste Din—but your plotting is abruptly cut short.

Boba sits up and off the throne, his presence looming over your shoulder as he lowers to one knee. You shiver and arch your neck, exposing more of your vulnerable throat as Boba runs the fingertip of his pointer finger down the side of your cheek. “Are you enjoying yourself, princess?”

You nod, eyes fluttering shut as Boba opens his palm and cradles your jaw. You groan and roll your head back onto your shoulders as Boba snakes one hand around your hip and jolts you forward and down—disrupting the slow rock with a catastrophic interference. Unrefined bolts of plasma shoot up your spine as desire licks up thighs—you need more.

Boba dips his head and nuzzles into the crook of your neck. You grunt when his teeth sink into your flesh, worrying a bruise into your skin. Boba laves his tongue over the throbbing area, then licks a wet trail up to the shell of your ear, all the while you continue to grind on Din’s thigh. Boba nibbles your earlobe and whispers your name—the sound sweeter than any symphony could ever hope to make. Like smoke over deep water or the surging crackle of energy just before a thunderstorm high up in the mountains.

“You’re allowed to touch…” he says with a rough chuckle. “Go on.”

Your noise of agreement is quickly muffled as Boba interrupts you with a feverish kiss—all open mouthed and breathless as his tongue curls around yours. Your chest heaves for precious air as Boba retreats just as abruptly as it began. With a satisfied smirk ghosting over his lips, he taps you below the chin and returns to his throne to continue observing.

Dropping your eyes between Din’s legs, his cock, hardened to its full glory and held casually in his calloused hand, is truly a sight. Your pulse thrums in your ears as Din rolls his wrist and pumps his length, the velvety skin shifting over what looks like fucking beskar underneath. It strains towards his navel as you watch with wide eyes, mesmerized with the way he touches himself.

Rolling your bottom lip between your teeth, you touch your hand to his wrist. Din shudders like your skin is made of sizzling embers that’s broken off the tail end of shooting star—like you’re something too luminous and dangerous to be handled by someone like him. You lift your gaze, smiling into that darkened void of the visor and gracing him with a toothy smile. “Will you let me touch you, Din?”

He nods and utters a breathy yes.

Fuck yeah.

Din sucks in a stuttered breath when your hand circles around his thick length. His hips jolt into your palm as you slide your fist to the base then all the way back up. Precum beads over the tip, dribbling down and coating your knuckles with sticky wetness. It eases some of that friction as you fall into an easy rhythm, matching your rocking hips with each pump of his cock.

Din’s stuttered moans fill the small space between you, dragging you closer to your release that’s suddenly so close. He whines as you abandon his length to chase after your high, your arousal leaking from your center and dripping down the sides of the beskar. Din takes his cock into his hands, fisting himself to your little show of breathy wines and rough jerking of your hips over his thigh.

Din says your name attached with a broken moan and it’s over—

Everything seizes up tighter than a jaw clamp as your tumble off that jagged peak of searing, white hot pleasure. It’s raw, sparking off like a blade to metal, burning you from the inside out as you cum. Your cunt clenches around nothing, your thighs shaking as you curl inward as if he punched you in the fucking gut. It feels like he did. Maker—the cool beskar against your throbbing clit is like you’ve been thrown to the mercies of an electrical surge.

It doesn’t help either that Din is still pumping his length, hips stuttering as he brings himself to his own euphoric high. The air in your lungs seizes when a fragile groan, light and airy passes through the vocoder. Din rocks his hips into his fist, once—twice and then he’s throbbing and cumming into his hand. Hot ropes of his release splatter up his chest plate and parts of your thighs, his helmet nearly knocking into you as he hunches foreword from the intensity of it.

Too exhausted to keep yourself upright, you smash your cheek against his cuirass, involuntarily twitching as the last little waves of pleasure prickle through the rest of your nerves. You whine as you watch Din move his hand to collect some of your wetness coating his thigh. He brings two fingers stained with your slick to the lip of his helmet, pushes it up with his thumb just far enough to sink the two digits into his mouth. He groans out a quiet fuck, and repeats the action, swiping his fingers through the mess you’ve made and feeding it to himself. Your cunt clenches as you catch a sliver of his pink tongue that twists between his thick fingers.

He groans and rolls his head back onto his shoulders. “Please—can I taste you? Fuck—I-I need my mouth on you.”

Stars—the mere idea of it stokes the dwindling flames into a blaze of want. You look up at Boba and puff out your bottom lip. Pouting and begging hardly ever gets you what you want under normal circumstances—Boba Fett is more stubborn than a rancor—but you hope just this once he’ll be lenient.

Boba holds out his gloved hand—summoning you to his lap without a lick of protest on your end. Din however makes a sound akin to a whimper when you leave him. Boba gathers you in his arms for the second time, the leather a strange sensation as it spiders down your ribcage and around your hips. You can feel his hardness poking into your backside once you settle against him—his chest plate a cold shock to your naked flesh. You shiver and bury your nose into the crook of his neck, poking your tongue out to taste him. Boba’s cock twitches under you as your teeth sink into him with a cheeky nip.

“Is that what you want, little one?” Boba rumbles in question. His right hand glides lower, grabbing a handful of your thigh and squeezing. You groan and keen out a whine of affirmation.

Boba cocks his head towards Din. “Well? You’ve got your wish—don’t keep her waiting.”

Din shakily stands—hesitating with removing his helmet for enough time that you notice the silence that follows. The vocoder crackles as Din sighs. “Do you trust her?”

“With my life.” Boba states it without a second thought. Your heart twists, golden light spilling from your lungs and staining your insides with devotion and fuzzy affection. You press a soft kiss over Boba’s jaw.

“Is she…” Din speaks a word in Mando’a you have no hope to decipher—either no direct translation or he’s purposefully left you in the dark.

Based on the way Boba almost imperceptibly tenses, you guess the latter. Boba responds with a grunt and an unsure dip of the chin. The answer is complicated—that much you can gather…you push it to the back of you brain for now.

Din nods, inhales, and steels his nerves. Plastering his hands around the shiny helmet, he tugs it off with a slow reveal of dark, patchy facial, plush lips and wavy brown hair that falls around his olive skin. And oh, his eyes—soft chestnut brown eyes that hold such ache within them—lost things, broken bones, wearing his wounds like decoration upon his chest. Forged in the flames of war, risen from the ashes with murder and mercy rolled into one.

You wish him a kinder future. One that doesn’t end with pain and a blaze of an unchecked wildfire—the same way how all heroes end up as martyrs.

Though—right now—you can be the beginning of softer things for Din. You smile and invite him closer, a vortex of anxiety peppered with arousal as his eyes flit over your naked body. He sets his helmet to the side with care and drifts to the foot of the throne—fuck, he’s broad. Why hadn’t you noticed that before?

Your mental berating is severed when cool air meets the wet heat of your cunt as Boba hooks your thighs over his knees, spreading you wide as far as your hips allow. Din’s unfiltered moan at the sigh of you, sends a volt of electricity through every vein. Din lowers himself to one knee, and then the other, shuffling between yours and Boba’s legs.

“Can I touch?” He asks, soft brows raising in question.

Boba lazily raises two fingers in a motion of permission. Your chest tightens at the sight of Din’s boyish grin—warm palms settling over the sharp bend of your knees. His thumbs trace soothing circles over the skin and right as Din decides to swoop down, Boba catches him by the hair atop his head and yanks. Din grunts—the long, arched line of his neck a tempting sight as he swallows. “No marks.” Din’s jaw clenches, but nonetheless, he agrees to Boba’s command.

Boba hums in satisfaction and untangles his fingers from the mess of Din’s soft curls. Din’s brows pinch together for half a tick but smooth out in the next breath. No use being irritated—especially right now.

As directed, Din leaves not a scratch. Instead he scrapes the blunt edges of his teeth along the insides of your thighs, threatening to catch soft flesh between them—but he knows better than to act on the urge. He laves his warm tongue over each freckle or blemish he finds, leaving no patch of skin undiscovered as licks a steady trail to his prize. Din mouths a warm kiss over the crease of your thigh, and smooths his calloused hands over your hips, settling for a moment to trace little circles with his thumbs onto the soft protrusion of bone there. Seemingly satisfied, he then shifts them closer to your aching cunt. His hot breath fans over your cunt as he uses his thumbs to glide through your folds, almost curious with his exploration. He makes a little hum of appreciation low in his throat when the pads of his thumbs part your soaking folds.

You whimper and bury your face into the crook of Boba’s neck, his warm palms a much needed comfort as they tickle down your ribcage, then sweep back up to cup your tits. You cry and arch— Din’s tongue is scalding—like liquid velvet as he dips the tip of his tongue from the base of your cunt all the way up to your clit. Din sucks on the little bundle of nerves, rolling his tongue until you’re crying out, molten pleasure zipping through your abdomen. He grunts as your fingers tangle into his hair—kriff.

Fuck, you need more.

Arching into his mouth, all thoughts are transfigured and molded into a vicious loop—beginning with those adoring brown eyes, the color of freshly tilled earth and the warmth of sunlight over dappled aspen leaves in the balmy summer afternoons. It ends with soft lips—rose petal pink with devotion crystallizing in his mouth like sugar—madness and uncertainty and lovesick desire is all that he is and you’re not sure if you’ll come out of this unscathed.

He sinks two deliciously thick fingers into your clenching hole and curls them, only to retract them a moment later to shovel more of your wetness onto his tongue—as if simply using his mouth wasn’t enough for him. Like he needs to savor every drop of your arousal like the golden ambrosia the gods feast upon in their palaces of cloud and endless twilight.

That frenzied desperation lingers on the edges of his movements like he’s afraid you’ll fade away like a hand through fog—but you’re going nowhere. You’d stay here, suspended in time forever if the choice were up to you.

You whine and arch off Boba’s chest plate as Din strokes and curls his fingertips, plucking little gasps and moans from you easier than breathing. He zeros in on that little spot that makes your leg go all jittery and forces out high pitched mewls that echo through the throne room. You’re careening towards another high, the sensitivity of your last orgasm amping up the influx of pleasure.

“Stars—Din. Close—I’m so close,” you gasp, pulling his hair tight enough that you know it must sting—at least a little bit. He makes no sign that it does, just groans and buries his tongue into your dripping hole, licking alongside his fingers that shovel more of your wetness into his mouth.

Your release zips through your body like a flash flood—quick and fatal that leaves you gasping for air and struggling not to let your head dip below the waves. Your high seeps into each limb until they feel heavier than lead. Fuck—it’s so hard to work through the muddled thought and remember where exactly you are. You groan and toss your head back as Din keeps going.

“Another one—let me—“ He moans, opening his mouth as wide as it’ll go so he can devour more of you. You can feel the mixture of saliva and your own arousal dripping down your cunt and over your thighs, some of it pooling on the throne or onto the floor. Your thighs shake as Din pushes you towards another high.

You squeak as Boba’s palm sweeps up your sternum, locking his fingers around your throat in a loose hold. The tip of his nose nuzzles into your cheek—silently demanding a well earned kiss as his hips rock into your ass, grinding his cock for the barest scrap of friction. You moan into his mouth as Din doubles his efforts, raw and bordering that serrated edge of overstimulation and ecstasy.

Goosebumps rush over your arm as Boba places his lips right beside the shell of your ear. You feel the sticky heat of his breath fan over your throat and shoulder, and the way his lips skim your ear when they move to form the syllables of his words. “Such a filthy princess…”

You clench around Din’s fingers and moan a half garbled, “Boba—“

His weathered palm encompasses the entirety of your breast, rolling your pebbled nipple between his forefinger and thumb. “If only you could see yourself…dripping all over my throne and another man’s tongue.” Boba clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Depraved creature—cum for your rightful king.”

Wildfire chars your insides as it begins in your core and sweeps through your body. Tears prick the corner of your eyes as you buck and squirm in their arms—no mercy as the prickly waves of your orgasm make you hypersensitive to each touch. Even the hold on your hip, while innocent in nature, is blistering as if you suffered from a fever. You shudder as a salty tear rolls down your cheek. Boba catches it with his tongue as your ears pick up Din’s raspy praise—thanking you while spattering reverent kisses up your thighs.

Struggling to keep your eyes open, you do spot the apparent wetness soaking through the front of Din’s trousers. Fuck—he—he came again while eating you out. You whimper and rest the back of your head over Boba’s shoulder.

Your belly flinches under his scratchy facial hair as Din travels up, seizing and worshiping every inch he’s freely given before intercepted. He catches your nipple between your teeth, tugs a bit then moves to the other, lavishing equal attention with adoring lips and sweet whispers. When he reaches your collarbone, you’re boxed in against his chest plate and Boba’s. A blush blooms under your cheeks hotter than stare fire as Din gingerly sucks your earlobe into his mouth and breathes out a muted moan of your name—committing the very essence of you to his memory for the rest of his days.

Your heart squeezes tight like a clenched fist when he mumbles another thank you. Plucking up a smidge of courage, he risks planting a kiss right on the corner of your mouth. You blink—despite the sweetness of the gesture you wince as Boba snarls a curt phrase in Mando’a. Din peels himself away with a minuscule frown and slinks away.

Yet before you have the chance to remedy the situation of wounded pride and territorial jealousy—Boba tightens his hold on your hips and flips you both, so that now your back is smashed against the seat of the throne, a bit crumpled and sorta folded in half. Your hips hang off the edge as Boba holds the majority of your weight, grinding his clothed cock between the apex of your thighs.

“Don’t forget, princess—” Boba barks, slithering a hand up the column of your throat. You breath hitches as he lightly presses his palm down. “—what belongs to me.”

Reaching between you, he slides his gloved fingers through your slick folds and sinks two of them inside of your clenching center. You jolt as his thumb scrubs over your clit, still sensitive and edging towards too much.

“You want me to fuck you here?” He asks, shifting his hold to grip your jaw instead—the rounds of his fingertips digging firmly into the flesh and bone. “Say it.”

You gasp and scrabble weakly at Boba’s shoulders as he grinds the heel of his palm into your clit. “Please, Boba! Please fuck me—I need it.”

Boba folds over you, his breath fanning hot and hungry against your cheek. He devours your mouth with a discordant edge, like he’s trying to prove to the entire galaxy you are unmistakably his despite the fact you’re already wound so tightly around his fingers. Boba wrenches himself free and tears at his robe and trousers to free his thick length, leaking and flushed a rosy brown at the tip. He doesn’t keep either of you waiting as he removes his fingers and replaces them with something bigger.

You both groan as he lines himself up with your entrance and sinks into you, a delicious stretch that leaves you shivering beneath him. “Fuck—so wet for me.”

The first roll of his hips makes an obscene noise that showers shame down your throat, but it’s quickly kicked to the back of your brain as he slams back into your cunt—obliterating all thoughts save for him. Boba’s lip curls over his teeth as he claws at your thighs and yanks them over his shoulder, crushing you even further between the throne and the weight of his body. Each stroke is a liquid fire, tearing you apart at the seems while at the same time stitching you back together and leaving your body begging for more. Like this, it’s as if he’s reaching the deepest part of you, pounding into your cunt and hitting every nerve with deadly precision. Your legs prickle with the stretch as you squirm beneath him, stuck with the brunt of rough thrusts and violent stamina with nowhere to go.

“Bein’ such a good girl for me." He hums into the juncture of where your neck meets your shoulders. He sucks a mark there and tangles a hand in the hair at the nape of you neck, forcing you into a steeper arch. “Maker, you look so fuckin’ pretty stretched around my cock.”

Your walls clench tight around him as you dig your nails into the fabric of his cowl. You voice cracks with airy moans—attempting to work through the haze of lust and respond. All that tumbles from your lips is a pathetic whine of his name—so close to that precipice again.

The friction of each thrust scraping against your clit, the way he fills you and the possessive hand curled over your throat. You wiggle an arm between your bodies and rub the little bundle of nerves in a frenzied half-circle. You wheeze as Boba increases the pressure over your throat.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he demands as devastating ripples begin to spark through your core, a live wire an inch away from a puddle of water. “Tell me—“

“You! It’s you—“ You sob, desperate for another release only he can give. “I’m yours—“

Boba snickers and gives your throat another squeeze. “Cum on my cock.”

There we go.

You seize and cry out, violent shivers forcing your back to arch high off the throne and into his chest plate. It tears through your being, quick and deadly through your core, spreading to every nerve and shredding through it with molten pleasure. Boba’s voice is a gravelly scrape that vibrates next to your ear, sprinting towards his own deserved euphoria. Your climax still boiling through your blood, is dragged out as Boba continues thrusting—an endless echo that leaves you incredibly oversensitive sore. For the next few moments, his thrusts are too sharp, the grip he has on you too abrasive—but then he’s cumming too. A couple more rough jabs and then he’s seating himself deep inside your cunt, his warm release coating your insides with thick ropes.

You’re panting breaths fill the air between you, settling like fresh snow over a silent wood. By the time Boba pulls out, leaving behind a sticky trail of his cum and your arousal over the throne, you’re toeing the line of hazy unconsciousness.

“Such a good girl,” Boba praises, threading fingers through hair and tracing the lines of your face. The the soft drone of his voice mixed with Din’s gentle baritone, murmuring something you don’t catch, casts a dreamy haze over your reality. You’re not afraid that this could back fire and blow up in your face—to move inches from two serrated blades, each seeking for a taste of blood and flesh, is always a risk. But yet, the calloused hands and the sweetness of brown eyes reach through chaos and silence to offer you salvation. You take it with a smile.

You should invite Din over more often…you think, as you slip into content sleep.

taglist: @goldafterglow @djxrxn @velvetmel0n @steeeeeeeviebb @stargazingcarol @ohiobluetip @anxiety-riddled-mando @absurdthirst @thesoftdumbass @huliabitch @max--phillips @silverfish-kingdom @krissology @teaofpeaches @pettyprocrastination @nelba @beskars @jango-fettish @corrupt-fvcker @maybege @auty-ren @legally-a-bastard @bigdickdindjarin @thesparkleslugs @cryptid-candy @mandowhorian @pascaliprincess @mitchi-c @vesperstalksclones @cmakars @cptnbvcks @whewchiles @leias-left-hair-bun @astrochellie @angryares @rise-my-angel @stardust-galaxies @phoenixhalliwell @samhollandssweaters @blue-writes-a03 @hdlynnslibrary @darthadeline @calamity-queen @luxurybeskar @justanotherblonde23 @book-hoardingdragon @fahrenheit-not @princessxkenobi @skdubbs @ben-is-a-hoe @3strogen @chasingdreamer @weebblossom @bobaandthefetts

sorry if I missed you AH!!!!

#well yall im #bucket fucker supreme right here I guess #enJOY #boba fett x reader #boba fett x you #boba fett #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #boba fett x reader x din djarin #din djarin x reader x boba fett #star wars fanfiction #my writing

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its-kinda-snowy · 2 years

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okay now that tbobf is finished I finally feel ready to voice my thots abt this hot mess . . .

(fair warning I have yet to watch the final episode, but based on what I've seen of it, I doubt my opinion will change)

This show is quite possibly some of the most poorly written and produced works I've seen come out of sw, (sequels excluded) and god its just so disappointing to see such a promising show that everyone was excited to see fall flat on its face.

Talking abt the Boba-centric part of the show first, its just so horribly put together, you can clearly see where Morrison placed his input and worked to have proper cultural representation. Because literally everything else is a hot mess. So many characters are under written and have literally no development after they are first introduced. Not to mention the incredible mishandling of the Tuskens after ep 2, killing them off just to further Boba's own development (not going to delve into that can of worms).

And god I am so frustrated that we learn almost nothing abt Fennec, and shes literally the secondary protagonist! She barely had any lines in the show to begin with, and it is just so clear how little show runners care abt these characters and how much it is a disservice to the people of color who worked so hard to make what representation there was correct and meaningful.

and . . . now everyone else. I am still stupefied that they essentially placed Mando season 3 into this show. Effectively ruining both of them with taking Boba out of his own show and preemptively dealing with Grogu before season 3 can actually address it. And the stupid amount of cameos in this show is exhausting and simply unnecessary.

And Luke! The complete and total character assassination they gave him to further both his character in tlj(ugh) and so Din can see Grogu is so cheap. They literally took a character whose core development is using his love and attachment towards his father, to both save him and not compromise who Luke is as a person and a Jedi. And they just threw that away.

God they even fucked Grogu up too, like for the entirety of season 2 it was clear that he wanted to be a Jedi. It was what the finale was all about! So for him to just throw that part of himself away at first opportunity is so poorly written and just peeves me off.

hhhh okay I think thats the long and short of it. I just really needed to write this down or it would just burn a hole in my head. This show will definitely not take away my enjoyment of sw(not for its lack of trying), I am far too stubborn and they will have to pry Luke from my cold gay hands. But I will probably take a break from it for a bit tho, just so I can focus in on the aspects that genuinely make me love the franchise, and not let one bad show take that away from me lol

#sw #tbobf #tbobf spoilers #long post #my bar tbobf was so low #but favloni said lets make it a limbo #the dinluke comic ive been working on since the show started is still getting done tho #canon can suck it

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avarkriss · 4 years

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troublemaker

✭・.・✫

Boba Fett x Female Reader x Din Djarin (no y/n, no she/her)

Rated: E for Explicit, 18+ only

Word Count: 2.807k

Summary: You and Boba interrupt Din’s nap, so to make it up to him you invite him to join in on the shenanigans

Huge thanks as always to the most lovely ray of sunshine @beskars for being a second set of eyes, an absolute enabler, and making that stunning gif up there!

Warnings: Mandalorian S2 spoilers I guess, mention of part time Jedi summer camp, Boba has a filthy mouth, gratuitous oral sex and fingering, loud sex, yet another threesome, some lite dom Boba, two cocks one hole, i think there's some lite spitting too probably, cum as lube (pls do not try that at home), biting, lil' bit of overstim because how could you not have you seen them, oh shit the ending got soft

Author’s Note: I have absolutely nothing to say for myself. I started writing this and then Boba saying “little one” became canon and I just lost my mind. No y/n; no she/her. Please let me know if I missed anything so I can correct it! Also, hey whaddup PPC taglist haven’t seen y’all in a minute - if you want to be removed from my tag list or added to anything else let me know! Enjoy, share what you can, and be well ~

Boba's hands were curled around the curve of your ass, his calloused fingers digging into your soft flesh. His face was buried between your legs, tongue teasing along your entrance.

You squealed high in the back of your throat when he sucked hard against your clit, murmuring his delight through your core. He squeezed against you before pulling one of his hands away, using it to hold you down when you arched up to meet him.

You were close, so close, when a loud thud on the wall shook you from your reverie.

"Will you two quiet down in there?"

Din's voice was muffled by the not quite thick enough stone wall and you shared a quiet, nervous laugh with Boba before hiding your face in the crook of your elbow, swallowing down your moan as he slowly began to work his fingers into you.

"You know I like to hear you," Boba growled into your thigh, curling his fingers deeper into your aching heat.

You choked on a sigh, sinking your teeth into the skin of your forearm when he rolled your clit between his lips, greedily sucking against you.

He was searching out your hidden paradise, his callouses grating against your upper wall and when he found it - he pressed. You were clenching around him and couldn't help the whine that escaped from behind your teeth, sounds of your pleasure filling the room as he drew your orgasm out.

"I swear to the Maker!"

Din was banging on the wall again, his short words cutting through your gasps. Boba rested his head on your thigh, lazily dragging his fingers through your folds.

"Sorry Din, didn't mean to wake you up," Boba shouted, smirking in the general direction of Din’s voice.

You rolled your hips under Boba's sweet ministrations, narrowing your eyes as you hissed at him.

"You're such a little troublemaker."

He shot you a devilish smirk, circling your clit with his thumb. You groaned again, throwing your head back on the pillows.

"If you're going to make me listen, then you might as well let me watch!"

Boba cocked his head to the side at that, feeling the way you fluttered around his fingers as he lazily thrust them against you.

"Would you like that, little one? Want him to come over and watch me ruin this sweet pussy of yours?"

You cried out when he increased his pace, licking his lips while he watched your thighs quiver.

"Go on and ask him then."

Your breaths were heavy as he worked you up again, calling out for Din until you heard him knock on the door so hard you thought it was going to fly off its track. Boba pulled away from you and kissed the inside of your thigh, answering the door with his fingers in his mouth and beckoning Din inside with a quick nod.

You were sitting up on your elbows, ankles crossed when Boba strode back in, pointing to the small chair in the corner. He then climbed into the bed next to you, easing your thighs apart to let your legs fall open, silent conversation passing between the two men.

You could hear Din suck in a breath through his modulator, biting at your lip when Boba started to trace through your folds.

"So wet," he murmured, sliding his long middle finger into you. You looked at Din and watched him palm himself through his pants, turning back to Boba to find him smirking at you.

"Did you want him to do more than just watch?"

Every push of his fingers was sending you higher, and the thought of entertaining two Mandalorian men was quite thrilling.

"Yes, please!"

"So polite," Boba smiled, beckoning Din to come closer. "Go ahead."

Din nervously stretched his hands while he watched Boba drag his soaked fingers up your body, briefly circling your nipple before dipping them into your mouth. His mouth went dry at the sight of you licking against Boba's fingers, slowly tracing his own up your entrance before slipping one inside.

He warmed as you hummed around Boba, working in a second finger when your hips moved to meet his shallow thrusts. You swallowed around Boba’s fingers as Din worked into you, his helmet heavy on the side of your leg.

“Can I -” Din breathed, pausing to swallow thickly as he languidly thrust against you, “can I taste you?”

The corner of Boba’s mouth turned up in a feral smile, pulling his thick fingers from the soft heat of your mouth, allowing you to answer with a shaky breath.

“I would like that, please.”

Din seemed pleased, stroking his fingers along your upper walls before slowly pulling them away. You whined at the loss and Boba bit against your neck with a chuckle, tweaking a nipple while Din fiddled with the light panel, eventually bathing the room in darkness.

His helmet hit the floor with a heavy thud before he crawled back to you, running his thumb up your slit before tracing his tongue along your folds. Boba reached down your body to tease at your entrance while Din lapped at you, kissing across your chest as your sighs grew louder.

Din mumbled something into you, hungrily licking against you before adding a finger next to Boba’s, matching his pace while he teased your sensitive nub. You balled the soft sheets of the bed in your hands, both their names heavy on your lips as your release grew. They both trailed their rough fingertips against your upper wall, stroking that sweet spot deep inside and with a few swirls of Din’s tongue you were falling apart, breath catching on his name.

Boba withdrew his finger first and pressed himself to your side, nuzzling against your ear.

“Having fun, little one?”

His voice was dark granite, hard and scarred from the trials he faced. Despite his harsh rasp you had made your home in that voice, finding more comfort there than you had in the spaces between the stars.

“Absolutely,” you smiled, running your hand over his cheek before kissing him long and slow, more tender than the situation probably called for.

Din was kissing his way up your body, lips traveling over your stomach and stopping at each nipple, sucking them into his mouth before licking at the base of your neck, the edges of his teeth nipping sweetly at your skin. You broke away from Boba to pull Din to your mouth, tongue sliding against his lower lip before kissing him.

“You doing okay too?”

“Absolutely,” he echoed, far less tense than when he had been shouting through the wall. He sounded tired, and you realized that you and Boba probably had interrupted one of the few naps he was able to take with the child being away for the next few cycles. It was a brief moment of rest before he would return, undoubtedly stronger and more than willing to make his father’s hair more grey with all the mischief he caused around the palace.

“Thank you for this,” he whispered against your ear, licking along the shell of it as his limbs tangled into yours and Boba’s. You hummed your contentment, both kissing against your neck as their hands traveled along your body.

“Tell us what you’d like,” Boba asked, one hand curled around your hip.

“Want to feel you both,” you murmured, squeezing each of their hands.

“Is that so?” Din teased, teeth scraping at the edge of your shoulder before he soothed the marks left behind with the tip of his tongue.

“Where?” Boba asked again, and you were thankful he couldn’t see the pleading face you were making, desperate to be filled.

“Right here,” you whispered, guiding their hands back down to your pussy, throbbing with need. Boba laughed against your skin and Din inhaled you deeply, his hand tightening at your side.

"Greedy little thing aren't you," Boba taunted, circling your clit with the rough pad of his finger as Din kissed down your spine. You hid your face in his neck when he dipped the tip of his finger inside, mewling against him while Din knelt behind you. Din's hands were hard on your hips, running his thumbs over your lower back. Boba moved his finger achingly slow, drawing out a long moan as he kissed the side of your neck.

"Do you think we should let Din stretch you out? Get you nice and ready?"

You fluttered around his finger and begged him to let Din fuck you before he pulled away, groaning behind your teeth when Din playfully swatted at your ass after you tried to push yourself back towards him. He paused to shed the rest of his clothes and then rubbed his fingertips into your soft flesh while he licked his other palm, stroking himself before shuffling towards you.

"Relax, little one," he cooed, easing himself into you. "We're gonna take such good care of you."

You mewled against Boba’s chest and he slid next to you, wrapping his hand around your wrist before bringing it to his mouth, placing a soft kiss to your pulse point. Your hum turned low as Din sank into you, slowly splitting you open as Boba lowered your hand to his waiting cock.

You stroked him before taking him into your mouth, muffling your moans from Din dragging his cock along your velvet walls. He rolled his hips up to fill your mouth as Din thrust against you, building a steady rhythm that had tears forming in the corners of your eyes.

“Feel good, little one?” Din growled into your shoulder, wrapping a hand around your front to rub his thumb against your clit, smiling when he felt your walls squeeze around him. You bobbed your head on Boba until he caught your chin, lifting you up and guiding your head to his thigh.

“He asked you a question.”

You swallowed thickly before nodding against him, voice strained as Din thrust against you.

“Y-yes Din, feels so good!”

Boba traced his finger along the edge of your ear and down your jaw, pausing to hold your chin between his fingers and lifting it so you could meet his eyes.

“I want to see you come, pretty thing.”

Din picked up his face and your jaw went slack in Boba’s hands, toes curling as Din rutted against your upper wall, dragging himself across that rough little spot. You shook as you fell apart, cunt clenching hard around Din as he grunted behind you, hands flexing on your hips to steady himself, thrusts slowing.

He pulled out of you lazily while your chest heaved, slumping into the bed for a brief moment as Boba whispered quietly against your ear. When you crawled back over to Din he palmed at your thighs, holding you in place.

“Still okay?”

“Very,” you smiled, shooing his hands away to lower yourself onto his cock.

Boba shuffled around behind you, placing a gentle hand at your mid back and guiding you forward. You were bent in half over Din, waiting for Boba to make the next move. Slowly, ever so slowly, he started to work his fingers into your entrance, your whines swallowed by Din as he kissed you, thumbs skimming over your sides.

"Just like that," Boba mumbled, pressing a kiss to your spine before slowly moving his finger, allowing the brief sting as your walls stretched to accommodate him to pass before moving against you.

Din slowly rolled his hips opposite of Boba's movements, the sting quickly becoming replaced by the sweet heat of pleasure as they set a steady rhythm. Boba worked in a second finger and Din teased along your nipples, pressure growing deep within your core.

"Please Boba," you begged, muffled against Din's neck.

He hummed as we worked in a third finger, setting off Din's groans in a chorus with your own.

"Please what?"

"Please, want your cock so bad -"

He hummed against you, his fingers tight against your walls and Din. You felt him moving behind you and when he eased his fingers out you buried your face in Din's neck, listening to him spread your wetness along his length.

Din kissed your cheek and held your hips steady, murmuring sweet praises against your ear as Boba worked his tip inside of you as gently as he could manage. The burn was exquisite, a quiet fire lapping at your skin as he stretched you open, his own breathing as shallow as yours.

Din cursed softly when you clenched around them, stalling Boba's movement until you had relaxed again, melting into the warmth of their hands.

"Pretty thing, wrapped so tight around us," Boba grunted, giving you an experimental roll of his hips as he seated himself fully inside of you.

You whined between them, nails biting into Din's shoulders.

"Tell us what you need."

His voice was low as he mouthed at your neck, hands flexing at your hips as Boba settled into a comfortable position, lips gracing your shoulders.

"Move, please, please don't make me wait anym- "

Din moved first, thrusting up against you and Boba took the cue to pull out, moving with each other to build a pace that had you seeing stars in no time.

You came hard with a cry, quaking around them. You could feel every ridge of their cocks, every scrape of their flesh against yours. The pressure in the pit of your tummy had turned to flames, engulfing you fully as you surrendered yourself to them, pliant in their hands.

You dropped your head down against Din's shoulder, so wracked with pleasure you couldn't hold it up anymore. He grunted harshly in your ear, fingers buried so deeply in the soft flesh of your sides that you'd be wearing his fingerprints for days.

Boba worked his hand between you, rolling your nipple between his fingers while he mouthed at your back, your name falling from his mouth like it was something holy. They each chased their own release as pleasure coursed through your veins, an orgasm crashing through you yet again.

Din wiggled his hand to your clit, teasing it lightly as Boba palmed at your breasts, both reveling in the noises coming from your mouth. You lost count of the number of times you came, pleasure mounting to a steady high that left you breathless, cries of pleasure dying on your tongue as your tears pooled along Din's clavicle.

"Stay with us little one, nearly there." Din nuzzled at your ear, kissing lightly against the catilage as you sobbed, begging them to fill you. You were surrounded by fire; the heat of their skin, the warmth of their breath, the pleasure deep in your tummy as you bore down around them, grunts and curses and names filling the room with ragged sighs.

Din came first, hard and deep inside of you, Boba quickly following. When he came it was with a deep thrust, his teeth firmly in your shoulder. For a long breath you all layed there, blissed out and sharing gentle kisses. Eventually Boba pulled away, helping you roll off of Din to lay next to him.

He brushed away the stray hair that had fallen in your face, running his thumb across your cheek.

"I'm going to go fill the tub. It's been thoroughly cleaned several times over but the best part of this palace is that giant slug's enormous bath."

You and Din shared a quiet chuckle, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness when he returned.

Boba tilted his head towards the massive 'fresher, gesturing with his hand.

"If you want to get in first, I'll help them over."

Din nodded and peeled himself away, leaving you shivering from the loss of his heat. He picked up his helmet and made his way into the other room, the sounds of a splash faint on your ears.

Boba helped you sit up, wrapping his arm under your shoulders before convincing you to stand. Your legs wobbled but he held you firmly, careful to avoid the new marks blooming across your skin.

"Sure that tub has been washed well enough?" you snarked, and he responded with a gentle pinch to your ass and the kind of laugh that made your heart swell. Once you entered the bathing chamber you couldn't help but let that laugh escape, seeing Din spread out along the far wall, his helmet resting on the edge.

Once you were settled into the water Boba curled himself around you, Din gliding over to join him on your other side. They peppered your skin with sweet kisses and praise, limbs tangling together. You were lulled into a gentle sleep, quietly drifting between them as they helped clean and settle you, safe in the hands of the deadliest men in the galaxy.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Masterlist

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

#boba fett #boba fett x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #boba x reader x din #female reader #no y/n no she/her #sw smut #the sw smut tag #another threesome??#who's shocked not me #i am an absolute ho i am so sorry #i also really need you all to know that when elisha sent me that gif the file name is kings and if that isn't the most accurate thing #the mandalorian #the mandalorian smut #the mandalorion spoilers #like kind of only a little bit #bucket fuckers united 💕

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forever-rogue · 4 years

Note

Alrighty *rubs my hands together*Lets do this again.

Prompt : Din saying "I'm kidding" when he tries to joke but the reader responds "I'm not."

Did someone say soft hours? Because it's soft hours 🥺💕

The Mandalorian Masterlist

»»————-　♡　————-««

"Hmm," you mused as you touched Din's beskar covered cheek, "so almost no one is allowed to see your face. More or less."

"Only children... or a riduur - a spouse, are allowed to see," he confirmed softly, an almost strained tone to his voice.

"Oh," you nodded in understanding as you turned back to your soup, reaching over to make sure the little one still had enough in his bowl. You'd heard the Mandalorian's words but had taken a few moments to process, "oh."

"Yeah..." he said as he cleared his throat, heat rising up in his cheeks. Like he had been on many other occasions, right now he was thankful for the beskar helm shielding his face from you. He was sure he was probably bright red at this point.

"Well, I...I think its commendable that you are so steadfast in your creed," you acknowledged, trying not to let your disappointment shine through too much in your voice. What he just said basically all but confirmed your fears and worries that you wouldn't get to see the man under the helmet.

You'd always seen him, even without seeing his face. You knew he was a good, kind, soft hearted man under the beskar, even if he wouldn't admit. He was not just the scary intimidating Mandalorian everyone made him out to be. Sure, there were times when he was imposing and intimidating, as he often needed to be for his job, but that wasn't everything. To the world he was simply Mando - the Mandalorian. But to you he was Din. Funny, gentle, caring, albeit sometimes grumpy, Din.

You weren't even sure what you labelled your relationship with the Mandalorian. Work partners? Absolutely. But beyond that? You weren't even sure what to call it. You'd been...intimate before on a occasions after long days. Those times had been...special. At least to you. He was a gentle lover in the ways you needed, giving you everything you needed and then some, but also just as rough or intense as you wanted in other days. You wondered if he ever felt the same about you. You hoped he did.

You knew he had messy unruly curls, ones you'd run your hands through under the cover of complete darkness on multiple occasions. You wondered if they were light or dark. You were guessing dark, like a warm chocolate brown. And his eyes, you just knew they were expressive without ever seeing them. He just had the air. The way his light dusting of facial hair tickled your skin...was amazing. You'd managed to sneak a few glances at his exposed slivers of skin and you knew it was a golden tan, warm and soft. It was like you him already, so intimately and closely without ever having to have seen him.

And yet you still wanted to see him, bare and revealed to you. You wanted to earn that trust...that level of relationship. You'd taken a step in the right direction when he'd whispered his name, his real name, to you in the middle of an exchange of kisses. You'd thought...just maybe.

But maybe he didn't see you like that at all. Maybe he just saw you as a friend, a partner, a caretaker for the green bean. Maybe he never wanted anything more than a romp or two whenever it came around. Maybe it didn't mean nearly as much to him as it did to you....maybe...

"Yes...t-this is the way," he turned and grabbed some more bread for your soup, setting it gently on the edge of your plate. It was hard to read him at this point, so you just started at your bowl.

"What if one becomes a Mandalorian and adopts the creed?" you were reaching at this point, knowing it was likely the same answer as before, "can it happen then? I guess not, huh?"

"Not even then, Cyare," he said softly, "once you don the helmet, it does not come off for another unless they're family."

"I-I figured," you said with a small smile as you started at your bread, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm speaking out of turn."

"No, no you're not," he reached over and let his hand gently rest of top of yours. You hadn't noticed him taking the gloves off, but his skin was rough and delicate and electric on yours at the same time, "I...I want to show you. I...I'm not good at this, and I've never actually wanted to before. But you...you're not...I don't view you just as someone to have sex with. It was never...never like that."

"Oh. Oh."

"I guess that means we'll have to get married," as soon as the words were out of his mouth, a thick silence hung over the two of you. Had he really just said that? Was he really validating all of your feelings and letting you know that you were not alone in your feelings? When you didn't respond and just stared wordlessly at him, he coughed before laughing awkwardly, "j-just kidding. It was a joke. I'm kidding of course."

"I'm not," you reached for his hand that he had withdrawn and held it tightly in yours. All of your nerves were bubbling up at once, but you had never been so sure about anything before, "if you're serious, I'm serious....Din, I-I love you. I'm in love with you...I have been for a long time. It was never just about sex or anything for me either. I just never knew...I never knew if you felt the same and I didn't want to ruin anything...I'd rather have you as a friend than ruin anything...but I do...I love you very much."

"I love you," he choked out as he listened to your words. He couldn't believe what you were saying...to be so lucky as to be loved by you, "I'm pretty sure I fell in love with you the day I met you and you tried to knock me on my ass."

"You scared me and I thought you were after me - Mandalorian," you laughed lightly, "but you have to admit I can hold my own."

"More than anyone I know," he agreed, beaming from ear to ear, "I should have told you sooner...I'm just...a fool."

"Yeah," you agreed with a nod, "my favorite fool. I wouldn't change a thing."

"I would," he said softly, "I would have married you a long time ago."

"We've got time," you promised, "all the time in the galaxy."

"I want-"

Before he could say anything else, the little one from next to you grabbed your attention. He was watching both of you with a little grin as he cooed and chirped happily. Apparently he was more than approving of this moment.

"Of course," you promised him as you picked him and held tightly in a hug, "we both love you very much. You're family...we're all a little family of three...my two loves."

"My two loves," Din agreed as gently stroked your cheek, "I'm going to marry you the kriff out of you."

"I look forward to it," you grinned at him, "very much."

#din djarin x reader #din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #star wars #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader

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javier-pena · 3 years

Text

alone

Chapter 1 of The Hunt

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!reader

Word Count: 4.4k

Rating: Mature (for now but that will - spoilers! - change eventually)

Summary: When your best friend and companion is abducted by a group of outlaws, you hire a Mandalorian to help track down the men and get your revenge. What seems like a simple enough task stretches into a month-long trek through inhospitable terrain while both you and the Mandalorian are trying to come to terms with events in your past you cannot change. Set after Season 2.

Warnings: mentions (and short descriptions) of death, murder, and torture | a lot of hurt and no comfort | mentions of loss | mild to moderate language | a lot - and I mean A LOT - of talk about Din’s hands lmao

Notes: This is my first attempt at a Mandalorian fic and the first time in months I’ve written anything. It’s vaguely inspired by my favorite western movies, True Grit (1969/2010), The Quick and the Dead (1995), and The World to Come (2020). So yes, this is going to be very much like a western. I also want to - again - thank Dani @javierpcna who was like “are you writing Mandalorian stuff?” about a month ago and has, since then, read through this chapter more often than me and encouraged me to continue to write it and offered so much valuable insight whenever I came to her with an idea ... seriously, Dani, this fic wouldn’t exist without you and I hope I can find a way to repay you! Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this first chapter (I’m already working on the second one) ...

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The day the Mandalorian arrives on Alvorine is the day you lose your best friend. You’re still busy putting out the fire, running your soot-blackened hand across your face, where the dirt mingles with the tears you’re too tired to stop from streaming down your face, when you hear the thrusters of a spacecraft roaring above you. You barely glance up; you can’t be bothered to. It could be the remnants of the Empire looking for recruits, it could be the New Republic looking for the remnants of the Empire, or it could be the bandits coming back for more. But what do you care? They already took away the one person you care most about in the galaxy. You just grip the shovel tighter and drive it into the soil so you can choke the fire underneath moist stones and dirt.

While you exhaust your body with physical labor, you occupy your mind with thoughts of revenge. Revenge as dark and quenching as the soil beneath you. With every load of dirt you heave onto the searing flames, your plan gains another sharp edge until all you can think of is driving the cutting edge down onto the throat of the man who gripped Brea’s arm and pulled her onto the speeder bike. Maybe his head would come off right away, maybe your tool would just obstruct his windpipe as you watch the life drain slowly out of his eyes. And even that would be too good an end for that monster.

It’s not just in your mind – those thoughts aren’t simply there to ground you while you continue your work in the ruins of what was once your home. It’s not pure fantasy, something to give you back a feeling of control. You are determined to follow through on it; you are going to hunt down these men who burned down your farm and stole Brea from you. You will not rest until they are all dead by your hand. And if you should die in the process … then you won’t go out without a fight, without taking as many of those bastards with you as you can. They have sealed their own fate by coming here today.

You know Brea isn’t dead; they won’t kill her unless she tries to kill one of them first. And she wouldn’t do that, she is too gentle for that, too docile. She would rather turn the other cheek. They should have taken you instead; she doesn’t deserve the fate that awaits her. You would’ve at least put up a fight, make them pay for what they did. And Brea? She would just die.

For now, she’s alive. But whatever you set out to do once you’re done here won’t be a rescue mission. You aren’t under the illusion you can save her. You know that even if you were to leave right now, even if you had your own speeder bike, you would never find her in time. No, this possibility hasn’t even crossed your mind. All you want to do is cause these men more pain than they caused you. You know it is impossible because you cannot imagine anything worse, but you sure as hell will do your best.

You straighten your back, drive the shovel into the ground, and use it as support while you try to catch your breath. The air burns in your lungs, and not just from the cold. There is also the steadily rising black smoke that makes breathing hard; your throat stings, so do your sides, and there is a bitter taste in your mouth. But you’re almost finished here, you’re almost done putting out the fire, so it won’t endanger the surrounding forest. And with every flame you bury, you also bury a piece of your soul until you feel like there is nothing left that makes you human, until all the pain and despair you’re feeling since listening to Brea’s screams grow quieter and quieter until they were swallowed up by silence has turned into a cold, brazen cry for revenge. But you’re glad this has made you less forgiving, less kind, less … human. Those things would only get in the way of the task ahead of you.

As the last flames go out with a wet hiss, one of Alvorine’s three blue white suns vanishes behind the treetops. You know the other two will be quick to follow. And you don’t have anywhere to spend the night. You wouldn’t mind sleeping with your back propped against a tree. You’ve done it often enough. But it’s winter, and the air is already cold and will be even colder once the other two suns set too. And you just lost every blanket, every single piece of fabric that could keep you warm in a small inferno. You know this is just an excuse, a comforting lie you tell yourself. The truth is you cannot spend a minute longer on this clearing, even if that means you have to walk the four miles to the next settlement. You’re so exhausted you cannot feel your legs, but you don’t care. Anything is better than spending the night here, even collapsing in the middle of the dark forest.

You leave the shovel where you stand and walk to the edge of the clearing, swallowing around the lump in your throat, trying to hold down more tears that are threatening to spill over and down your cheeks. Once you reach the edge of the forest, where the air is a bit clearer, you take a deep breath and turn around to look at the ruins of your home, now nothing more than a black pile of rubble. You have nothing, nothing but the clothes you’re wearing, not even a small trinket to remind you of Brea and the many happy hours you spent here tending to your fields, sweeping the front porch or sitting around the fireplace sharing supper. Even remembering how you worked on menial chores now feels like the most precious memory, one you will hold onto until your last breath. Because even though they have taken everything from you, they can’t take away the memory of Brea’s laugh.

***

They stare at you as you enter the inn. They stare and then look away. They can’t bear your presence because it reminds them of their own guilt. Not one of them came to your aid this morning, not one of them came afterwards to offer help. And you ignore them too because there is nothing left to say. All you want is some food and a dry place to sleep before you turn your back on them forever.

You sit down at a small table in a dark corner. The patrons around you either turn their backs to you or stand up to move their meals and conversations someplace else. It’s as if you’ve been marked. If you had any strength left in you, you would call them out on their behavior. Shit, you would wreak havoc, and only stop when the last one of them is on their knees begging for forgiveness. But you’re glad you’re too exhausted because your sudden hatred for everyone and everything scares you. The villagers don’t deserve to fall victim to your rage. There is nothing they could’ve done. They are just as defenseless and helpless as you. Would you have come to their aid if your positions were reversed? You would like to think so, but just because it gives you a false sense of moral superiority. Deep down you know the truth. Deep down you know you would hide too, praying that you would be spared.

As you dig into your bowl of soup, you realize how hungry you are. Even though everything tastes like ash in your mouth, your stomach is glad to have something to clench around when your thoughts stray to this morning’s events again. And you know there’s no need to punish yourself by refusing your body the nourishment it needs. The opposite, in fact – you know you’ll need all the strength you can get if you’re really going after them.

As you swallow one ashy bite after the other, you let your eyes wander around the room, looking for something that will distract you from your thoughts and your feelings of guilt. Everyone avoids your gaze; everyone acts as if your corner is empty. Everyone … except one stranger.

He sits in a booth close to the bar, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze on you. Or at least you think he’s looking at you – he’s wearing a helmet that covers his entire head, the kind you’ve seen twice before in this corner of the galaxy. He’s a Mandalorian, a bounty hunter, and his presence here doesn’t really surprise you. Even though actually seeing one is a rare occurrence, stories about them are countless.

Alvorine is a planet without laws, a planet that lives by its own rules, so many criminals decide to hide out here while they wait for their crimes to be forgotten. There is no military presence on the planet, no judicial system, no one to catch and punish the wrongdoers. The planet follows the rules of whoever is in charge, which changes frequently, but none of the powerful people have enough resources to enforce those rules anyway. Disputes are often just settled by the parties involved in whatever way they see fit. Only the Mandalorians, who are hired by people on other worlds, by people who have never experienced what it is like to live on Alovrine, are brave enough to get involved in those disputes. You have to admit you do feel a tiny bit curious as to why that particular Mandalorian is here ... who hired him? And who is he hunting?

You tentatively let your gaze wander over his stoic body, over the beskar covering his arms and chest, over the bandolier wrapped around his upper body, over the visor hiding his eyes. If you had one like him on your side, you wouldn’t need to worry about getting your revenge. He would catch those men in the blink of an eye. And if you paid him enough, he would do to them whatever you wanted.

He would cut off their limbs but keep them alive long enough to feel it.

He would make them run for it, give them the illusion of hope, only to crush it like their bones.

He would let you watch, let you choose whatever punishment you saw fit.

You shift in your seat because you can almost smell the blood, you can hear a faint echo of their screams, and it makes you feel light-headed and nauseous, but also elevates you, lifts a weight off your shoulders, even if just for a brief moment.

But he’s not here to do your bidding. And when you lift your head again, he’s gone.

You finish your bowl of soup and then decide to rent a room upstairs for the night. You don’t have a place to stay anymore and it’s too dangerous to start your pursuit while it’s dark. The forest belongs to dangerous creatures during the night, more dangerous than any man out there. And you’re planning on staying alive for just a little while longer.

You stretch and yawn and move to get up when your path is suddenly blocked. It happens so fast you don’t register anything at first apart from the cold, hard beskar chest plate that is level with your face. Its unexpected appearance makes you lose your balance and you fall back down onto the bench you’ve been sitting on. The Mandalorian extends his hand, his fingers closing around thin air. It’s a half-hearted attempt to stop your fall, and it comes too late – your backside has already painfully collided with the hard wood.

“May I join you?” His voice sounds distorted through the modulator in his helmet. He sounds like a machine, not like a being with a heartbeat.

You want to tell him no, want to tell him to fuck off, but for tonight you have no fight left in you. So you nod.

He sits down and you expect to hear the clink of his armor, expect to feel a tremor when his heavy body comes to rest on a stool opposite you. But there is no sound, no movement, and the lack makes you sit up straighter. This isn’t just another cowardly villager you can get rid of by glaring at him … this is an apex predator.

You swallow with some difficulty. “Can I help you?” you ask, your voice level, your eyes resting on his glove-clad hands lying on the table. You figure you’re safe as long as you can see them.

At first, he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at you. Or at least you think he’s looking at you. You cannot see his eyes behind the tinted visor. No matter how uncomfortable the situation makes you feel, you try not to move … you try not to show any sign of weakness, to give him any excuse to lunge across the table and strangle you.

Finally, he answers. “I’m looking for work.”

Now you cannot help but move. You exhale sharply, and with that release of breath comes a release of tension as you slump backwards, your back hitting the wall behind you. You cross your arms over your chest. “I can’t help you,” you say. You don’t have any work to offer him, no work worthy of the skills of a Mandalorian who usually hunts down important people, kings, merchants, people who influence the course of the galaxy’s history. Following a few lowly bandits is not the work he’s used to. You don’t even want to tell him about it because you know he’d take it as an insult. And even if - by some miracle - your quest for revenge would be deemed a worthy cause in the eyes of the Mandalorian, you couldn’t afford his services.

The slightest movement of his helmet is the only reaction your answer gets out of him. Whether he shifts because he’s surprised or because he’s angry, or whether his scalp itches under the metal you cannot tell.

Still, you feel the need to explain yourself. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money.”

Shit, that’s the wrong thing to say. It implies you have work for him, but that you’re too poor to pay him. For all you know, this could be a grave insult in Mandalorian society.

His fingers on the table clench around thin air again. “What can you offer?” he asks.

He doesn’t want to know about the job, the quarry as you know they call it. No, he just wants to know how much he can earn.

“240 credits,” you answer. It’s all you have. You won’t need it anymore.

He tilts his head and you expect him to refuse, but then he says, “That’s enough.”

You’re taken aback, surprised. He’s caught you off-guard. You were fully prepared to see him walk away at hearing the ridiculously low amount of money you just offered. “You don’t even know what the job is,” you protest. The last thing you need is a Mandalorian hunting you down because you’re not paying him enough.

“They told me,” he says with a nod behind him.

You follow the movement with your eyes and see heads whip to the side, gazes wandering downwards, you notice conversations being picked up again. White hot fury fills you, more powerful than the flames that destroyed your house.

“They had no right,” you press out through clenched teeth.

The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything. He sits still like a statue, unwavering, as you fight a small battle with yourself. You should leave without looking back. Messing with a Mandalorian is even more dangerous than the task ahead of you. But he’s offering you something invaluable, something no amount of credits can get you: a chance. If you go alone, you’ll be dead in about a week. There’s no use pretending you’ll get out of it alive. But if you accept the Mandalorian’s help – his services, you have to remind yourself – you might make it through two. You might get to see your dreams of revenge become reality.

You sigh deeply as a heavy weariness settles over you. You’re exhausted, and now that all the adrenaline has left your body, you can feel all the small cuts and bruises today’s labors have left behind. And you feel empty … cold and empty, and utterly alone.

The Mandalorian still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t defend the villagers, he doesn’t tell you what he knows about you or the job, he doesn’t try to persuade you to take him up on his offer, nor does he walk away from it. He just sits there and waits for you to make up your mind, as if it’s all the same to him. And it probably is. Either he goes with you and earns some money, or he doesn’t and looks for work elsewhere. He is completely detached from the whole affair. There is no emotional investment, just a job that needs to be done.

He doesn’t care if you live or die, he just cares if you pay him or not.

This realization is what finally helps you make up your mind. “I want to hire you,” you say, your tongue heavy in your mouth. All you really want is to sleep.

There is no reaction for the longest time but then the Mandalorian nods. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to say something, give him details or explain the specifics of the job to him. But before you can decide what to say next, he stands abruptly.

“I’ll be back in a few days,” he says before turning around.

Your brain needs a moment to catch up but when it does, you’re already on your feet. “Wait,” you say, and to your surprise the broad, steel-clad man listens to you.

He doesn’t face you, but he stops.

You briefly consider asking him if you can accompany him, but you don’t. You don’t have to ask, you get to decide.

“I’m coming with you,” you tell him.

You tell a stranger, a dangerous one at that, one who makes his money by making other people’s lives a living hell, that you will travel with him through dark, deserted forests where no one will stop him from taking what he wants from you instead of earning it, where no one will come to your aid should he not honor the deal you apparently just made with him. And you don’t care. Because no matter what he will do to you, it can’t be worse than what has already been done.

But all your worries and fears focus in on just one tiny aspect of this whole, fucked-up situation when he says, “I work alone.”

You don’t want to negotiate. This shouldn’t even be up for debate. You’re his employer now, you get to decide how things are done. But if you insist on this, he could just walk away from you. And you cannot let that happen now that you’ve had an idea of what it would be like to have a Mandalorian on your side.

“We’re not a team,” you say. “Think of me as an interested party. As someone who is fascinated by your work.”

You’re not sure if that is the right thing to say. His shoulders move, but he still doesn’t turn around. When he speaks again, you know it was the wrong thing to say.

“I work alone or not at all.”

You don’t want to accept that. You want to be there when those men are punished for what they did. You don’t want to wait around for the Mandalorian to come back, not when you don’t have anywhere to wait around in. You’ve lost everything. Had he talked to the villagers as he claims, he would know this. Or maybe he does. Maybe he knows you lost your home today but doesn’t care. He doesn’t even know the definition of the word home. It means nothing to him.

You take a deep breath. “Then I won’t be needing your services.”

This finally makes him turn around. Everything in you screams for you to take a few steps back, to put yourself out of his reach. You can feel the atmosphere between you shift – he draws back his shoulders, makes himself even taller than he already is. And you know, you just know, that refusing his offer, that backtracking on your agreement is the worst mistake you made tonight.

You’re pretty sure that not honoring a deal is the worst insult to a Mandalorian.

“Going alone will be your death,” he says when you cannot bear the tension a second longer.

“What’s it to you?”

The words are out. They are a challenge, one you didn’t mean to make, one you shouldn’t have made, but it’s done now. Your hand begins to tremble, and your feet grow cold with fear as you prepare yourself for his reaction. You don’t know if he will hit you, tie you up, torture you, or just kill you on the spot. He could do all of these things without having to fear any repercussions. You curse yourself for not having been more careful, for making this fatal mistake, because now Brea will go unavenged. Just because you couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut, just because you’re stubborn and hot-headed and oh so stupid.

But to your surprise, the Mandalorian shrugs. He lifts his broad shoulders, then lowers them again as your eyes follow the movement. But he’s not giving you anything more: He doesn’t insist on going alone, he doesn’t turn around and leave, he just keeps standing opposite you, motionless, emotionless, until you’re convinced you imagined the shrug.

So you decide to make the next move by removing yourself from this situation before he changes his mind and drags you back to his ship to do whatever he wants to you. You take a deep breath and start to step around him, a movement that is almost impossible to complete in this small space you’re both in. But you attempt it, nevertheless. When you’re level with him, doing your best not to brush up against him so you won’t enrage him, you hear his voice. It’s just one sentence, four words, but for some reason it sounds so much more human than it did when he was opposite you. Maybe it has something to do with the distance between his helmet and your ear, maybe it’s the angle from which the sounds hit your eardrums or maybe it’s because you feel light-headed, dizzy with the realization he hasn’t killed you yet and probably won’t.

He says, “Have it your way.”

You stop right next to him, staring ahead at a group of three men who do their best not to look at you. But you don’t see them anyway. In fact, you don’t see anything at all because the rushing sound in your ears drowns out everything else, even other senses.

“You can come with me,” he says, and it’s the first time he has spoken two sentences in a row. “But you do as I say.” Three. “If I tell you to run, you run.” Four. “If I tell you to get out of the way, you do so.” Five. “And if I tell you to kill, you kill.” Six.

Then nothing, just the faint sound of his deep breaths through the modulator.

Your thoughts are racing, tripping over their own feet like children running down a hill, and they’re unbearably loud. Everything is loud suddenly, from the sound of the barkeep filling a glass to the way that woman over there is chewing her food. The only thing that’s quiet is the last one you would have suspected to be so: the Mandalorian. Now he is waiting for you to say something and as he does, he balls his hand into a fist and then releases the tension again, over and over like a nervous tic, like he needs an outlet for the tension in his body, the tension you have no idea he is feeling until you see his arm flex beneath the fabric covering it.

But, once more, you’re at war with yourself. You don’t know what to tell him. There is still that shimmer of hope on the horizon, the light that makes you believe you stand a chance if you bring him along. But his terms … you’re not sure if you can accept them. He doesn’t know Alvorine or the men you would be hunting half as well as you do. And you’ve never been one for following orders. So if you feel that his assessment of a situation is wrong, you’re not sure you’ll be able to run just because he tells you to.

You have a feeling that defying his orders would be the most dangerous thing you could ever do, even more dangerous than hunting down a group of ruthless bandits who like to torture and kill for fun.

“All right,” you say finally.

His fist unclenches one last time and he exhales slowly.

“But when we find them,” you swallow hard, once, but your mouth is completely dry, “I get to decide what happens to them.”

The Mandalorian turns toward you so abruptly that you almost lose your balance. You lean back and hit your elbow on the wall behind you. The pain makes you curse under your breath.

“Agreed,” he whispers. He sounds like a machine again, as if everything that makes him human is shut away beneath that cold, hard, invaluable beskar steel. You too feel cold suddenly, cold and afraid. “But until then you do as I say. Understood?”

You nod, not trusting your voice. He is too close to you, and drowns out everything else, even the sounds that you considered to be too loud mere seconds ago. If he wouldn’t be wearing a helmet, you would be able to feel his breath on your cheek. He takes up your field of vision almost entirely. You’ve never felt more on display, and yet more hidden. And you know that if you say the wrong thing now, it will have terrible consequences.

So you just nod again.

“We leave in the morning,” he tells you, then turns around suddenly and leaves, his cape trailing behind him.

All sounds come rushing back at once, as if you’ve just emerged out of a pool of water. You release your breath quickly, only now realizing you’ve been holding it. Then you slump back against the wall, a shaking, quivering mess.

***

tag list: @bella-ciao, @filthybookworm, @frannyzooey, @khalysa, @leannawithacapitala, @mothandpidgeon, @mrsparknuts, @mxsamwilson, @piscespussybabe, @something-tofightfor

#the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #mando x reader #star wars #din djarin #pedro pascal #fanfic #the hunt fic #yes i've queued this #yes i'm asleep right now #and yes i'm too much of a coward

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madsinfiction · 3 years

Text

Would You Go With Me? - Chapter 1

Here’s the official start of my Mandalorian Country Singer AU which is totally self indulgent. I’m glad you guys are enjoying it so far!

“You need a nanny,” Cobb Vanth said, setting his guitar to the side, giving up on doing any writing for the day. Garret had found his way over to an outlet on the wall. Luckily Din had seen him and shouted, dropping his guitar to swoop the boy up.

Garret was more shaken by Din’s reaction than any actually fear, but it had sent the boy into a tearful spiral. Din was doing his best to stop the tears, but it was like the kid could sense his discomfort.

They’d come a long way in the month that Din had been taking care of the kid, but things were still rocky at best. He’d only just started to speak, and was insisting that he be called Grogu instead of his name. Din didn’t know how he’d managed to butcher his own last name, but the therapist said he’d grow out of it eventually, so he wasn’t too concerned.

“I know I need a nanny, but have you ever tried to hire one? Shit’s complicated.” Din shifted the crying child to his other arm, patting his hair stiffly.

“Just use an agency,” Cobb said.

“I am using an agency,” Din snapped. “I don’t have time to do interviews and look at profiles, and all the other shit they want.”

“Parenting’s tough,” Cobb conceded. Din glared. Cobb Vanth was eternally single and edging into his 60s now. He didn’t know shit about parenting.

“But I have to, I know, because it’s not like hiring a bad drummer. A bad nanny could ruin the kid’s life.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” Cobb chuckled.

“No, I don’t think I am. Conceivably, the nanny would be spending just as much time with him as I am, and probably even more time when we go on tour next month. Do you know how hard it is to convince an agency nanny that a tour bus is a fine place of residence for six weeks?” Garret had started to calm down a little, his hands wringing at the collar of Din’s t-shirt.

“Just hire a younger nanny then,” Cobb said, closing his guitar case.

“Yeah, remember what I said about ruining his life?”

“I’m just saying, someone younger might be more willing to adapt to your lifestyle. And if you don’t like her at the end of the tour, then you hire someone else who won’t have to live on a bus.”

“You find someone like that, you let me know,” Din said, pulling Garret’s hands away from his shirt, trying to salvage it. The kid had ruined a couple of his shirts the same way already. “We gotta get to the store and get home, it’s almost nap time.”

“Good luck with that one,” Cobb said, waving them off. “Let’s try and get some writing in in a couple days, maybe you’ll have someone hired by then.”

“Don’t hold you’re breath.” Din muttered as he watched Vanth pick up his guitar and place it back onto the stand. He couldn’t very well wrestle a kid and his guitar into its case, so it’d have to stay there for the time being. Wasn’t like he didn’t have three others at home if inspiration struck. He rolled his eyes at that one.

He hadn’t been able to string together more than three new notes before declaring he had nothing and quitting his writing session in a fit. It was embarrassing, really. But if Garret - Grogu’s therapist was to be believed, stress affected everyone differently. So he blamed his writer’s block on the stress and hoped he’d get over it soon.

He said his goodbye to Vanth and left the small backyard studio, treading across the yard and out the gate to his SUV. He unlocked the car and set the kid in his car seat. He fumbled with the buckles for a moment but got them eventually. He was getting faster at that.

Din adjusted the baseball cap on his head and shut the door before getting into the driver’s seat. He eyed Grogu in the rearview mirror.

“Let’s go get some groceries and then go home, okay?” he asked. The little boy nodded, wiping away the last of his tears with a tiny little fist. Din turned the key in the ignition and let the radio play quietly as they drove across town. Every now and then he’d check on the kid, but he stayed quiet and only seemed interested in watching the passing cars out the window.

As Din placed his SUV in park at the grocery store, his phone rang. The caller ID indicated that it was the nanny service he’d been working with.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Djarin, how are you?”

“Fine, fine,” he said, wishing the woman on the other end would get to the point: he hated small talk.

“I’m calling because I found a candidate I think you’ll be happy with,” she said. He huffed out a breath. No fuckin’ way. He’d nearly run them out of nannies with his tour bus demand.

“She is on the younger side,” the woman continued. “But she’s got the flexibility and the immediate start date that you were looking for.”

“Can she interview today?” He asked. It wasn’t ideal, but maybe Vanth was right and he’d have to settle for someone just for the tour, and then he could reevaluate and look for someone when it was over.

“I’m sure she’d be able to make that work,” the woman said.

“Great, give her my address and tell her to be there at three.”

“Yes sir,” the woman said. “Have a great day.” Din hung up and looked at the kid in the rearview mirror. The little boy was looking at him, and tilted his head when Din smiled.

“Looks like things are getting back on track, kid,” he said. “Come on, let’s go get what we need and get home.” Din hopped out of the car and went to the backseat, pulling the little boy out of his car seat. He held him against his hip as they entered the store, Din making sure to keep his hat low over his face.

~~~

Clara Newbold had no idea why she’d moved to Nashville. She didn’t even like country music.

It was a fit of post-grad psychosis, she was sure. She had graduated college with no job prospects, no affordable plans to keep going to school, and not a clue of what to do with her life. She couldn’t bear to stay in her college town, and moving home wasn’t an option, so she’d fallen down a hole of “Cheapest US Cities to Live In.” And that’s how she ended up moving herself and her few belongings into an apartment with four roommates halfway across the country.

The job situation wasn’t looking much better, despite the many applications she’d submitted. If she had to write one more cover letter she thought her head would explode. It wasn’t that she didn’t like working at the coffee shop she was at, it was just that she’d like to be able to afford to live on her own sometime in this century. She’d long ago given up hope of ever putting her art history degree to use.

The job interview she’d just left seemed like it had gone well, but it was part time and in their own words, ‘what we lack in competitive pay, we make up for in experience.’ Right. Experience, which she could get at a place that paid her enough to eat more than once a day.

She scanned the can of soup in her hand with the store app, hoping that a coupon would come up. She needed food, and soup was looking like her cheapest option. But if she could find a coupon for it, then she could try and swing getting something that didn’t come prepackaged.

When nothing came up, she sighed and put it in her cart anyways. She had to eat, but the food groups that didn’t include sodium and noodles would just have to wait.

She moved down the aisle and contemplated a box of pasta that was on sale. Okay, she could make that work, maybe get some ground beef and have protein for once too. It would cut into her budget significantly, but the protein would keep her fuller longer, so she’d eat less, right?

“Hi,” a voice said below her. She swiveled her head to the each side, not seeing anyone, and then felt a tug at her skirt. Standing at her side was a little boy, no more than three years old. He had curly brown hair and the biggest eyes she’d ever seen on a kid. He grinned up at her and waved.

“Hi dude,” she greeted. “You here by yourself?” There was no one else in the aisle with her and the kid.

“Nuh-uh,” the kid shook his head and then held his arms up like he wanted her to lift him.

“No? You want help finding your mom?” she asked, bending down to get to eye level with him. He shook his head. “No? Your dad then?” He giggled and shook his head. “No, you don’t want to find anyone? You running away?” She smiled at him. A kid after her own heart. She tickled his tummy and he let out a full belly laugh and pushed at her hands.

“There you are!” A voice boomed from the end of the aisle. She looked up and saw a man in a baseball hat stalking towards them. She stood and he scoped the kid up into his arms. “You can’t run off like that!” He admonished. The little boy just laughed and the man sighed.

“Sorry for the bother,” the man said to her. He was tall, broad-shouldered and mustached. The baseball hat he wore low over his forehead did little to hide the dark curls that were almost identical to the little boy’s.

“Oh, no he wasn’t bothering me,” she said.

“We friend,” the kid said firmly.

“Kid you don’t know her,” the man said. “Sorry,” he muttered again to Clary. The poor kid looked dejected at that.

“Yeah, we can’t be friends because I don’t know you’re name,” she said, not wanting the boy to be sad on her account. She was sad enough on her account for the two of them.

“Grogu,” he chirped, his mood immediately improving.

“Grogu?” She asked, directing her gaze at his dad.

“Garret,” he corrected.

“No!” the boy shouted. “Me Grogu!”

“A battle for another day,” the man muttered. Clearly his son was a trouble maker.

“Grogu, I’m Clary,” she held out her hand and Grogu high-fived her.

“Okay, kid, let’s let Clary get back to her shopping, okay?” the man said. Grogu looked aghast that his father would take him away from a new friend so fast, but she could see that he was dying to get out of the store.

“We’re friends now, so we’ll see each other again, okay?” she tried to assure the boy. It was, of course, a lie, but the kid would get over to the next aisle and forget all about her.

“Okay,” the kid agreed reluctantly, laying his head on his dad’s shoulder. He gave a little wave as they exited the aisle. Clara watched them go and turned her attention back to the pasta.

As she loaded the groceries into her roommates borrowed car, her phone started to vibrate in her pocket. She fumbled to answer it as she shut herself in the car, locking the doors and turning on the heat. She had always been under the impression that the south was hot year-round. Clearly that didn’t apply to Nashville in January.

“Hello?” She asked.

“Hi is this Clara? This is Amy with Nashville Nanny Services.”

“Hi, hi, yes it is.” Clara said, adjusting the phone and sitting up straighter. “What can I do for you?”

“Well we just got your background check cleared and everything looks great,” the woman said.

“Oh, great,” Clara said, a little dejected. She’d thought maybe the woman would be calling to say there was a job for her. Nannying wasn’t her first choice of a job by any means, but she liked kids well enough and it was something that would give her a little more flexibility and hopefully a higher rate.

“And normally we wouldn’t put you on such a high profile job, but this client is having a hard time finding someone to fit his needs and it seems like you might be just what he’s looking for.” The woman said. Her tone made it sound like this problem client was a big headache and Clara was the last advil in the medicine cabinet.

“Oh?” She said, unsure of how to proceed.

“He’d like to have a meeting with you this afternoon if possible. Are you available?”

“Yes, yes, that works great for me actually,” Clara said. Wow, the client must be desperate. But so was she, so maybe they were a match made in heaven.

“Great, I’ll email you the address,” the woman said, and Clara could already hear her typing on the other end of the line. “And I will also remind you of the binding privacy agreement you signed.” Clara started a little. The woman had said high profile, and clearly she’d meant it.

“Of course,” Clara agreed.

“Wonderful, good luck, darlin’,” the woman said, her accent twanging the term of endearment before she hung up the phone.

Maybe today was looking up after all.

Tag List: @mishasminion360

#din djarin #din djarin x female oc #din djarin x reader #the mandolorian x reader #the mandolarian #mandalorian #mandalorian country singer AU

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foli-vora · 3 years

Text

worlds collide

A/N: Hi, I’m in my feels tonight so have some angst! (That gif is breaking my fucking heart.)

Pairing: Din Djarin/gn!reader

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: violence, blood, death

+++

Din didn’t know how or when it happened. All he knew was that it did happen. He awoke, however long after the initial blast, in a startle, hand shooting to the beskar covering his face as he pushed himself into a sitting position. People were screaming, running erratic paths through the fire and debris. Stomach lodged firmly in his throat, he looks to his side where he expects to find the Child, his child, tucked up safe in the sack he had fashioned from old pieces of scrap material he found on the Crest.

He whips around in alarm when he finds nothing but ruins. Where was the kid? Why wasn’t he here? Dust coats the gloves covering his hands as he pushes through the remnants of fallen buildings around him, showing away piece after piece of rubble, desperation clawing away at his insides as he continuously comes up empty.

Where was the kid? The kid. Where was the kid?

And then a memory hits him.

Your smile. Not the polite half smiles you would offer others, mere strangers passing by on the streets, no. This smile was all his. The smile that he swears brings the stars he travels through to your eyes. The smile that is seared into his mind, that’s painted across his eyelids every time he finds a small amount of time to rest.

You grin up at him and make a sly little comment about his stiff armour digging into the soft sack carrying the sleeping baby, gently lifting it from across his body and hanging it upon your own, hand automatically rubbing soothing circles over the little lump through the coarse material.

“I told you he wouldn’t wake,” you shoot him a smirk, walking further ahead to admire the various materials and trinkets laid across tables throughout the market.

He pauses, coming to a stop between the bustling patrons, taking a moment to watch you. Watch the way you tread between the buyers, the way your hand automatically cradles the sack protectively if someone pushes too close, the way your eyes soak up each new object and entity you encounter with eager, curious eyes.

You notice the absence of his intimidating presence only a few steps ahead and turn to him questioningly. Tilting your head, you smile inquisitively, taking a small moment of your own to admire him and the incredible gleam of his armour against the bright backdrop of colourful banners and busying shoppers.

Peace.

That’s what he had felt in that moment. And though you had never seen him without the heavy helmet covering his face, he knew you saw him. In more than the physical sense. But where did it go wrong? When did the peace meet its end? When did it melt into the overwhelming sense of loss he feels now?

Your eyes flicker to something over his shoulder, brows pinching together. The immediate sense of dread that crashes over him the second your eyes widen in fear has him moving instantly, not caring about what’s there, what you’re seeing – just filled with the drowning need to reach you, to reach the child, to protect.

Had you called for him? In his current state, he doesn’t recall. The explosion had been so loud. He knew he had called for you – your name ripping from his modulator with a blinding urgency that left his throat feeling raw and then… nothing.

Frantic, he continues to push his way around, ignoring the people that pull on his armour-clad arms and beg for his aid. He doesn’t have time. He refuses to help them while you and the Child are missing. He won’t help a soul until he knows where you are, knows that you’re both unharmed, that you’re both safe.

He’s not sure what sound falls from his lips when he catches sight of your boots sticking out from beneath a piece of fallen wall. The breath gets sucked from his lungs, bile rises in his throat, and then he’s running, not caring about who he shoves down along the way – he just needs to get to you.

The adrenaline pulsing through his system has him hefting the piece of rubble off of you and then he’s on his knees, gloved hands gently, urgently, pushing at your shoulder until you’re on your back. He can’t see you, not the real you. Dust and blood cake your face and no matter how hard he scrubs along your skin; he can’t find you.

His hands follow along your frame, feeling along the side of your body and then… there he is. The Child chirps sadly, blinking dust from his wide eyes, and wiggles from the soiled sack, stumbling onto unsteady legs. He turns to look at you, large ears dropping in sorrow at the sight of your battered body.

“I know, kid. They’re gonna be fine.”

You were going to be fine, because there was no other option. You’d have a bump on the head, complain about it for a few days, get on his nerves, and then be fine. Healed. Alive.

He swears his heart jumps a beat when your face pinches, features contorting in discomfort. He hates knowing you’re in pain, but he’d take it. Quite happily. At least that meant you were still here, still with him. He waits, but your eyes don’t open and he gets impatient. He taps your cheek once, twice, again just a little bit harder.

Why aren’t you waking up?

He shakes you; hand locked firmly onto your shoulder, fingers digging into your skin. The desperation that’s leaking into his voice starts to intensify the longer your lashes stay against the skin of your cheeks. Come on. You’re alright. You’re alright. Wake up –

And then finally – Stars, finally – your eyes flutter. The two suns hovering in the sky blind you, and you lift a heavy hand with a groan to cover your face. Relief floods him in an overwhelming wave and he crumbles over your body like he’s just ran nonstop for miles. You’re okay. You’re fine, everything’s fine.

His hands are everywhere when you eventually sit up – cradling your ribs, supporting your shoulders, a gloved palm against your cheek as you blink blearily at the scene around you. What happened? You don’t have the strength to ask. His grip is tight as he holds your hands, gently pulling you to stand. He doesn’t move away once you’re on your feet and it’s a good thing, too – you tremble, head melting into a vicious spin, and your legs give out from under you.

He has you in his arms before you’re even halfway to the ground.

“I’ve got you.” Always.

He cradles you the entire hike back to the Crest, the Child cuddled up to your chest as he coos gently at you, keeping you awake and as alert as possible. Din doesn’t stop moving, powered purely by the desperation to get you back to the ship, back home, somewhere safe. He kicks blankets across the cold grated floor and delicately lies you down, careful not to jostle you too much.

Your face puckers in agony, but soon you relax with a soft exhale, watching him through tired eyes as he moves the kid to his hammock before rushing back to your side. The gloves come off in an urgent tug and soon you’re rewarded with the heat of his fingertips trailing across your skin. His touch disappears, and you wish you could voice your protest, wish you could beg him to put them back.

You watch as tanned hands reach and grasp at the helmet, pulling it up and off and then – oh. Din blinks down at you with wide brown eyes, assessing every bit of damage he could see without his visor hindering his view. A scratch here, a scrape there – nothing bacta won’t fix. You’re fine. Everything’s fine. His eyes fall back to yours, and he half smiles, somewhat shyly, as you study his previously secret features.

Beautiful.

Your hand moves, fingers desperate to feel the scruff covering his jawline, but it falls short and you try to frown in frustration but lack the strength to contort your features. His own hand shoots up and helps yours on its journey, and soon you can feel it – scratchy against the skin of your palm.

His other hand is warm across your forehead and you smile weakly at the look of pure adoration on his face, his dark eyes flicking over your features. He had no regrets removing his helmet. He would have removed it in front of you one day, anyway.

“I’ll get you some water, cyar’ika.” He murmurs, bending to press a soft kiss to your forehead. You weakly move your head ever so slightly, greedily chasing his lips with your own, desperate to feel them just once, and your heart bursts as he grins, eyes crinkling and dimple appearing. What a sight. He lets his nose trail softly against yours before moving to your lips. His kiss was everything you had dreamed – tender, loving… and it chased away the chill that seemed to have taken a hold of your body, even if just for a few seconds.

“D-Din –” Why is it so hard to speak? You feel so weak. You want to tell him so much. He needs to know what he means to you. You’ve never been able to say the words and now you’re filled with regret. But surely, he knows. He must. You need to thank him for… for everything. For showing you the stars, for making you believe in yourself, for showing you that it’s okay to stand your ground when someone tells you to move. Maker, you need to speak. He needs to know. “Din,”

He hushes you lightly, dancing his warm fingers across your jaw affectionately. “Save your strength, cyare.”

Your eyes well as you watch him stand and leave. No, stay. Stay, please. He tries to be quick as he retrieves you a drink, but the water pressure on the Crest is questionable to say the least. He also fills a small bowl to start cleaning your skin of the filth that cakes it, desperate to see the horror of the day washed free from your skin. He returns after a short while, expertly juggling the many bits and pieces in his arms, and stops short of the makeshift bed.

You’re still. Completely unmoving. Your chest no longer moves, fighting for gasps of air. Your eyes were open, pointed to where he had disappeared into the fresher, but they lacked life. They’re vacant, hollow. They stare right through him. He all but drops everything in his arms, falling right beside you.

Swallowing around the bitter taste in his mouth, he tries to speak. “C-Cyare?”

His hands move to your face, and he recoils at the chill of your skin. Heat, you need heat. His thumbs rub across your cheeks, desperate to work some sort of friction against your skin. He wills your eyes to focus, to gaze back into his. Breathe. Maker, please, breathe.

“Cyar’ika, I’m here.” He moves closer, hands darting over your body, indecisive of where to touch, where to hold you. No. You’re fine. You’re fine. He feels the cracks start to form, his world quickly falling apart in his hands. “I’m here. Please, cyare – I’m here.”

Yes, he is… but you’re not.

Tags: @anu-simps @seasonschange-butpeopledont @withasideofmeg @you-got-me-starry-eyed

#the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x gn!reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x gn!reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fic #mando #din djarin #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal

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evarcana · 3 years

Text

I See the Moon

Oh when you are looking at the sun

Ev wears some very impractical shoes and learns that she does not know the city quite as well as she thought.

characters: the usual cast of Ev and consul Valerius

words: 2,4k

warnings: none!

notes: I wanted to write something short and sweet to act as a placeholder between the previous part and what is coming next, but I think I got a bit too emotionally attached in the process. The title is from “Be the One” by Dua Lipa and I will leave it open for interpretations.

Darkness strikes Ev’s eyes as she steps out of the theatre doors and for a moment she is completely lost in time and space, staring at her surroundings as if seeing everything for the first time - the disorientation which comes with returning to reality after the magic of the theatre wears off.

A few myopic street lanterns glimmer faintly and the moon, pitched extraordinarily high, is covered by the ragged organza of thin clouds and barely available to light the streets below. Passing groups of people turn into clusters of dark silhouettes, and Ev watches the collars being lifted and scarfs wrapped tighter, as the theatregoers hide themselves from the wind moist with the cool evening dew and disappear into the shadows, leaving only trails of soft footsteps and animated chatter behind them. It is this time of the year when night falls suddenly and way quicker than anyone anticipates.

The impatient tug on Ev’s arm cuts through the hazy darkness. “Are you going to let me leave or what?!” Valerius sounds desperate in his exasperation.

“Just a moment and you are free.” Still watching the dark street, Ev reaches for her bag and throws a pair of flat pointy mules decorated with golden beads and tassels on the ground in front of her. Using Valerius’s arm for support, she lifts one leg to untie the ribbons on her ankle. Somebody behind them helpfully holds the theatre door open, letting the light out, and they both stare at Ev’s bright red toenails as she steps out of her shoes. Ev frowns to herself and curls her toes - it is hard to be an intimidating opponent when you wear a cute sparkly little ring on your fourth toe, when she feels another tug and catches her breath in surprise, losing her balance. The arm slips from under her hand causing her to immediately crash into Valerius. Well, no chance of looking like a menace now. At least Valerius can’t run away, she thinks, because her entire face is smashed into his chest. “So impatient,” Ev rolls her eyes and tucks her heels in the bag.

Valerius hurries to brush off something invisible from his coat and then looks down at Ev’s feet with cynical interest, “Going on a hike?”

She contemplates telling that it took her a very detoured walk from the palace and four nervous circles around the Town Square to finally burn all that destructive energy her body generated in their morning argument, and that right now she is dying to rub her sore ankles, but decides against it. After all, wounded animals are easy prey. “Looks like it,” Ev says, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She scans the road once again and clicks her tongue. There is a carriage pulling away, two people inside, and another one rolling on towards the theatre, the coachman already waving to somebody, but most of the theatre crowd chooses to walk. They all must be locals, or heading to the closest tavern, Ev realises.

“Don’t tell me, -” Valerius’s voice says and Ev looks up, surprised that he is still standing there, “you don’t have a carriage because you were hoping to find a date to continue the night. You shall forgive me for ruining this little plan of yours.” His words are dripping with distaste.

She realises that Valerius must have been following her eyeline. The nervous lough blasts out of her but she manages to catch it and it turns to sound like a cough. A lucky guess on his part? Or did he take inspiration from his own plans? Ev refuses to think about the whole theatre fiasco. The sinking feeling in her chest has started and she puts her hands on her hips in annoyance. “I thought there would be carriages waiting,” she manages to say.

Valerius arches his brow in response, “...how pathetic.” Ev gives him her best withering look and turns away.

The last carriage departs with the din of wheels hitting the worn edges of the stones. Valerius’s eyes are still set on Ev’s face and his brow begins to crease slowly. He is clearly deliberating something but Ev cannot see it. She is watching clouds moving slowly across the moon. “Where do you live?”, he finally asks.

“By the Town Square,” Ev responds automatically, squinting at the sky above her.

“Not in the Heart District?” It sounds like a genuine question at first but the edge of his mouth lifts in a wry grin. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t the only one with the money here?”

“Too close to you,” she smirks back, “the urge of leaving a dead fish by your gate at least weekly would be -,” she leans in closer, turning her voice into syrupy sweet hush, “- irresistible”. This is getting weird. “Anyway,” Ev hurriedly looks behind her shoulder at the theatre doors, “I think it is going to rain later. Have a good night,” the words come in a flat orderly row, she is already concerned with something else, “I will see whether the theatre director can fetch me a carriage.”

“My carriage is waiting down the road.”

“Mm good,” Ev mutters to herself but then the realisation hits and she turns to the consul, eyes wide. “Are you offering me a lift home?” A ‘thank you’ sign lights inside her head but she crashes it with a wave of suspicion. It’s Valerius out of all people. He has no reason to offer her a ride in his carriage besides plotting to murder her and then ditch the body somewhere in the forest. Ev gives him a hard stare.

Valerius breaks the staring game first - his eyes flash with the new unidentified emotion before he regains his usual dismissive look. “Not home,” he snorts, “to the Town Square,this should suffice for a favour.”

“No no, hold on,” Ev raises her hand in protest. “I haven’t asked you anything yet, and hospitality is not a favour.”

“What hospitality are you talking about?”

“You repeat that it is your city all the time! Technically, I am still a guest.” Inside her head Ev is thanking all the available gods for her ability to just keep talking, regardless of whether it makes sense or not, because she definitely has not processed what happened yet.

“Yes, well, just keep your mouth shut,” Valerius says and walks off without a backward glance, his back soon disappearing in the darkness of the narrow lane.

Ev’s eyes follow his path and then she throws another look at the theatre building. The light in one of its rounded windows goes down. She watches the emptying street and feels the goose bumps scatter her forearms. The air is beginning to chill. She looks down at her feet. Ev decides that the consul is the kind of man who would rather pay somebody if he wanted to get rid of her than being involved himself and for the second time this evening she rushes after Valerius. This is so weird.

She is about to call him out to slow down because the sound of duck feet that her ‘emergency’ shoes make is getting on her nerves when she hears a loud thud and a curse. In the darkness of the path Ev is not sure how close Valerius is to her but she knows that he stumbled and it makes her giggle in delight. She stretches her hand out glancing at the strips of warm candlelight coming from the gaps in the window shutters and the ivory glare of the moon. A small globe of light, the size of a plum, forms above her hand. Its light is delicate and warm, as if filtered through the frosted glass, but bright enough to fill the space between the two of them.

The consul straightens up quickly, “Why -”

“I don’t know about you but I like my toes all intact,” Ev walks over to him. “It’s only a small trick, here,” she raises her hand and the light gets brighter, “you can touch it, it’s not hot.”

Valerius takes a step back, looking at the ball of light suspiciously. “You are full of tricks, aren’t you?” he says.

“Don't even make me start on what you are full of.” She bunches her hand in a fist and the light sphere drops down but, before hitting the ground, it bounces back in the air like a small ball and splits into a dozen of smaller lights, startling Valerius. They hover in the air along the path similar to a garland of lanterns as they walk in silence until the lane ends, opening to the canal, and Ev asks, “Is it your carriage there?”

***

The servant opens the carriage door and much to Ev’s astonishment, Valerius waits for her to get in first. She gives him a confused look but complies. There is no evening chill inside and the cushioned seats are invitingly soft, so Ev’s immediately decides that regardless of what is going to happen it was a good idea not to walk home. Valerius takes a seat opposite her and reaches to unbutton his coat and pull his long loose braid from under the collar. His head rolls gently to the side and Ev sees a couple of inches of the neck, soft lines and the glowing skin. She feels her cheeks beginning to heat, suddenly remembering the warmth and the bitter almond fragrance she breathed in every time she got too close to the man, and gods did she get too close tonight.

This is about as far from the real world as Ev can imagine. The carriage is small and the little triangle of her beaded slipper somehow ended up between the consul’s leather boots. If she was to stretch her leg, the bareskin on the side her foot would brush along his shin. They have never sat this close together. Ev thinks about the old lady from the theatre. How would she feel if she knew that she was the only thin barrier stopping them from recognising each other and fully succumbing to the mutual hostility, claiming at least half of the theatre as casualties in the process. This could have been a disaster.

Ev looks at Valerius again and tries to understand how could she not recognise these features straight away. The signature crease between the dark brows and the sulky mouth. Valerius sits in silence, and his eyes are definitely not the ones she knows. They are so wistful and lonely, and so golden under the lamp light, Ev has to look away.

She puts a hand under her chin and leans to the window. A fine mist of rain has started to grit on the glass, and behind the sparks of its tiny drops - a bridge arches over the canal’s silver curve, both ends of which are clipped by infinity, which, in the dim light of the early night, is only ten feet away. The backdrop is all in flashes of the lit windows and the black outlines of pointed rooftops, round cupolas and slender towers, all together resembling a crown adorned by a single grand jewel of the moon, burning bright white. Then, the skyline and even the moon gets momentarily obscured by the huge wall, deprived of any lights, looking ghostly in the tempered gloom.

“That massive rounded building, what is it?” Ev is surprised with herself for striking a conversation.

“Have you not seen it before?”

“No, I have not really been to this part of the city,” she says, turning to Valerius, “What is it? A hippodrome?”

“It's the coliseum. The count’s favourite place,” he gives a chuckle which sounds bitter. “The man loved... performances.”

“What kind of performances?” Ev asks, watching his mouth twisting in distaste. Something about his look makes her frown.

“Gladiators. Bloodshed which lacked any order or purpose besides the count’s own entertainment,” Valerius rubs the bridge of his nose and glances to the window. Ev cannot tell whether he is looking at the moon or the looming coliseum, considering something. “But it’s not what this place was intended for,” he pauses. He turns back to Ev and the expression in his eyes is softer. “It was built before Lucio became a count, although it was slightly less grand back then. The rituals and ceremonies were conducted there during the festivities and the previous count used to reenact scenes of the famous battles there, using the actors. It brought the whole city together. Nobody wants to remember those days anymore.”

Ev feels a weird tremble inside and she is not sure what has caused it until she realises that it is a strange, unusual affection in his voice. She crosses her arms and seats back to contain the feeling. It’s so freaking strange to talk to him when his face is not a mask of boredom. “Did you use to come to watch?” she asks.

“Only when I had to. As if I would mix myself with the roaring crowd of plebeians. Besides, it was terribly distatestful and the smell inside was disgusting.” His mouth tightens, and a strange shadow clouds his expression this time. “Pointless waste of human life.”

“Oh,” is all Ev can manage. She cannot stop staring at Valerius. There is some kindness beneath this asshole facade, human decency, fairness even. It is not the perspective that she has been prepared for. “I meant before that,” she adds faintly.

“Yes I did, when I was much younger.”

“I cannot believe I have never heard of it.”

“Did you do any research before you came here?” The consul is back to his dismissive tone.

“Honestly? I had other things to worry about.” Ev turns back to the window, suddenly unable to look at him anymore.

She hears an irritated snort from Valerius but then, after a brief silence, he starts talking again, and it is not about Ev’s inadequacy. He talks about the canals named after constellations, traditions which Vesuvia used to have, and what you could find in the city before the plague. His voice is calm and steady, and has this velvet quality to it, which fits the night perfectly. Ev closes her eyes and thinks that maybe if she asked Valerius, as that favour she got from him, to continue his stories sitting by her bedside, she would finally be able to fall asleep before the sunrise.

#omg if there is such a thing as MY writing style it is writing things where nothing is happening #but I promise they will kiss..maybe…eventually #I wrote something chronological do I need like a master list now #the arcana #consul valerius #the arcana Valerius #evpanopolis #ev x valerius #the arcana fanfiction #writing #valerius x mc #the arcana fanfic #the arcana fic

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writtenonreceipts · 3 years

Note

Feysand and “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” - “Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.”

Kinda sappy? Kinda cliche? Kinda...idk.

Thanks so much for the prompt!

Words, Words, Words

Escape.

Escape is all that is pounding through her head. Just that one word. One simple action that one would think it would be simple enough to obey.

But Feyre is stumbling as she back peddles and tries to weave through the bar. Why did it have to be a Friday night? Why did she have to pick tonight to come out with her friends?

“Feyre,” his voice is almost desperate in the way he calls out. Desperate and afraid. And everything she doesn’t need.

She ignores him. Feyre’s gotten pretty good at it too. As much as she loves her best-friend, it’s been harder and harder to be around him because that love isn’t what it should be. That love is a raging fire within her. That love should not be reciprocated.

“Feyre.” Rhysand manages to grab her hand and swing her around to face him.

In the jostling crowd she is pushed flush against him, the heat of his body flaring around her. His cologne, a familiar haze to her senses. By the cauldron she has to get away from him.

“I can’t do this right now, Rhys,” Feyre says.

Rhys’ violet eyes bare into her, scanning every inch of her face as though he can keep her there himself. But the longer she stares at him the harder it will be to walk away.

She shakes her head and pulls back, turning to leave the bar. She's not sure why she trusted Mor. Or course the young woman would spend the weekend hanging out with her cousin. She should have known Mor would want Feyre to talk to Rhys. It was Feyre's mistake to trust her friend with the sensitive information of being in love with her best friend.

Feyre is outside in the stiff chill of autumn and is desperately looking for a cab. But it isn't the right time of night. The street is just a touch too busy and Feyre is out of luck.

She pushes a hand through her hair and begins walking. A cab will show up eventually, won't it? Besides, it's only a few blocks to her apartment.

"Feyre!" Rhys calls again. She can hear him running to catch her. She doesn't slow down. When he finally does reach her, he makes it a few steps in front of her and stops, forcing her to run into him.

Feyre snarls, bracing her hands on his far too sculpted biceps. Damn him.

"Rhys," Feyre says when his hands grip her waist. She can feel her heart thundering in her chest. Feel her breath catch in her throat. Feyre refuses to look at him. Even when she can feel his eyes baring down on her.

"Please just let me explain," he says. The desperation to his voice returns and in the overhead street lamps she can see the tension lines in his face. This is so different from the calm and collected Rhys that she knows. So different from his usual confidence. It almost makes her want to laugh. To tell him that he’s being over dramatic as always.

“Rhys,” she begins. He lets her pull away and she wraps her arms around herself, holding her coat closed against the wind. “There’s nothing to explain. I decided I’m not feeling good and want to go home.”

The lie is blatant and obvious that it causes her to cringe and look away. A couple walks past, too engrossed in each other to even notice Feyre and Rhys.

“You weren’t supposed to hear what I said,” Rhys explains. He runs a hand through his hair mussing it up from its usual neat style. “Cassian and Azriel were being asses and wouldn’t shut up about and I just--”

He’s floundering for words now, his mouth agape and eyes wild. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying.

Feyre shakes her head and exhales slowly, trying to remain calm. “If I wasn’t supposed to hear it then maybe you shouldn’t have been saying it. I mean, dammit, Rhys you’re my best friend. It’s just--I mean.”

Now it’s her turn to struggle for words. Heat rises on her cheeks and Feyre looks down at her feet. She’s probably said too much as it is. But the conversation that she overheard is all she can hear and it’s hard not to say too much.

How can you be in love with me?

The words are on the tip of her tongue. They could slip so easily from her lips and stain the night with uncertainty. But she stays silent. Nothing good has ever come from bar gossip and if she knows Rhys, he’s already got at least three beers in him. Maybe more. Definitely on the road to getting tipsy if not drunk.

“Can I just explain?” He steps toward her, slowly, as though she’ll run away if he moves too quick. And she’s ready to bolt. Ready to flag down the next car that passes and bum off a ride.

All she feels is mortification. Why did she have to overhear that conversation? Overhear Rhys’ exact words. And then she ran out of there the way she did.

Feyre stuffs her hands into the pockets of her coat. Her keys dig painfully into her palm, but she welcomes the distraction.

“You know I’m an idiot Feyre,” Rhys says. He tries to smile, but she doesn’t return the gesture.

Feyre rolls her eyes and brushes past him, determined to walk home and get away from him. Because of course tonight she came to realize the extent of her feelings. Of course tonight she was feeling a bit more willing to act on them. Of course tonight had to be the night where Rhys went and ruined it all. He is actually very good at doing that--saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. She used to find it endearing, humorous even.

Rhysand is quick to keep pace with her. His long legs eat up the distance with ease, his jacket flying open around him.

“Feyre.” He’s pleading as they walk. She knows he’s watching her so Feyre tries to keep her expression blank. But Rhysand has always been able to get under her skin.

She stops abruptly causing Rhysand to swing around and almost collide with her.

Standing flush together, Feyre has to tilt her head to avoid squishing her nose against his chest. Which wouldn’t have been quite a terrible problem if he weren’t wearing that cologne she likes. Swallowing roughly, Feyre meets his dark gaze.

“If I wasn’t supposed to hear what you said, then we shouldn’t be talking about it,” she says stiffly. And she really doesn’t want to talk about it. Because how did you tell your best friend you were in love with him? It didn’t matter that she’d heard him admit to the same thing just minutes earlier. He’s already denying what he’d said so why not help him along by keeping her mouth shut?

Rhysand’s hands come up to her forearms, holding her in place. He leans forward enough that Feyre’s heart skips a beat and she knows they’re in a far too compromising position. One that would be so easy to sink into and cross all the boundaries of friends.

She steels herself and lifts her gaze.

In the streetlights overhead Rhysands eyes become pools of black. Deep and endless it is so easy to get lost in them. There’s a furrow in his brow as though he’s trying to solve some equation or think of a solution to an impossible scenario.

“Feyre.”

He’s always used her name so casually. Tossing it around as though he’d never tire of it. Using it almost as a punctuation mark when they’re having the most mundane of conversations.

This time is an exception. This time her name is a prayer lilting off his lips.

Slowly he brings a hand up to her cheek. He brushes his thumb along her jaw and a shiver races over Feyre’s skin. She can’t help it, can’t control it. There’s always been something about Rhys that causes her to lose control and slip up just a little.

So now, when she has this little bit of courage, she keeps his steady gaze.

“You said you loved me.”

Somewhere in the din of the bar as she was weaving around patrons, Rhys had been sitting with Cassian and Azriel. He hadn’t noticed her approach otherwise she was certain the discussion wouldn’t have been anywhere near where it was. But Cassian and Azriel were pestering Rhysand about something laughing and giving him knowing looks.

And somehow amid the rest of the noise of clinking glasses, conversation, and music she’d heard Rhys’ words clearer than anything else in that bar.

I’m in love with my best friend, what else do you want from me?

Feyre isn’t interested in the exact nature of the conversation. The boys have always kept up strange discussions and debates. She isn’t interested in Cassian and Azriel’s reactions to what happened either. She's more concerned with the utter panic that consumed her and forced her to run in the opposite direction.

“Yeah,” he replies, “yeah, I did.”

Because, really, how can Rhysand be in love with her? It’s some sort of sick cosmic joke for this sort of mix-up to happen right when she’s starting to realize her own feelings for him. And hell, who is she to say that Rhys was even talking about her? He can have other best friends. Amren, for instance. Cresseida. Vassa. She’s grasping now, desperate to fil her mind with anything than to respond to Rhys.

Maybe a hole will open up beneath them and swallow her up.

“And I meant it,” Rhys continues.

“You’re drunk,” Feyre says and rolls her eyes.

He shrugs. “Only a little. But it doesn’t make what I said any less true.”

Feyre squeezes her eyes shut, unable to tell if he’s being serious or not. “Including the bit about being an idiot?”

She opens her eyes in time to see a smirk flash over his mouth. His hand brushes softly against her cheek and Feyre knows she could so easily get lost in his touches, so easily get lost in him. Despite his arrogance and nonchalance of everything--she knows Rhys for who he really is.

“I’ll let you go if you really want, but I just needed you to know, I meant what I said.” He drops his hand to his side, fingers flexing.

Unconsciously, Feyre tilts forward, missing the contact. In his eyes she can read every emotion. Everything on his mind is laid bare for her to see and Feyre knows just how deep his words run.

“Rhys,” Feyre whispers as she snatches a hand out to grasp the front of his jacket before he can pull away. Oh hell, oh hell, she has no idea what she’s doing. And before she can stop herself or convince herself it’s a terrible idea, Feyre surges up on her toes and kisses him.

Feyre never would have guessed that she would be able to catch Rhys off guard, considering how collected and confident he always appeared to be. But the second her lips meet his, Feyre knows she’s surprised him. And that’s fine by her. She put all her feeling into the kiss, despite leaving it at barely more than a brush. She still wants to give him the opportunity to pull back and take back what he said.

Rhys however doesn’t have any qualms about being surprised. When Feyre pulls away, his hands are already at her neck, her waist keeping her close. His mouth is urgent against hers as though he can’t quite get enough of her. Feyre gasps, the feeling of his mouth, his hands and the taste of his tongue on hers--everything has her begging to be closer to Rhys.

When they part, foreheads pressed together and hands desperately searching each other’s bodies, Feyre finally catches her breath.

“You didn’t throw a shoe at me this time,” Rhysand says grinning down at her.

“The night’s still young, we’ll see what happens,” she replies.

Rhys laughs, kissing her again.

tags, I think I got the acotar tags right? maybe...and if you didn’t specify which fandom, I put you on my fixed list, please feel free to correct me if you’d just prefer TOG.

tottenhamboys20 @more-espresso-less-depresso-xx @bamchickawowow @ladywitchling @ireallyshouldsleeprn @courtofjurdan @sassys-world @sleeping-and-books @superspiritfestival @chieflemming @julemmaes @harrymoncheri @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln @my-fan-side @sjmships @emikadreams

#feyre archeron #feyre x rhysand #rhysand #feysand #answered #thanks anon!#anon answered #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acowar

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azurethevampire · 4 years

Text

Mando’s Lessons to Parenting Special: The Gift

A/N: Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

The Mandalorian won the vote for Christmas fic 2020 by one vote so here we are - I hope you enjoy! :)

As there isn't really Christmas in the Star Wars universe I have taken the liberty to play around with Life Day which I see as the closest equivalent to Christmas in the Star Wars universe.

Summary: Life Day is closing in and you are determined to get both The Child and Mando the perfect gifts. The little one's gift is easy enough but the closer the holiday comes the more frustrated you grow as you can't figure out a gift that would be good enough for Mando. But Din Djarin just might give you the best present yet.

Words: 2017

•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•

"A hundred!?"

"Yes."

"For, for this piece of scrap?!"

The salesperson glared at you at that. "Listen, you aren't happy with my prices-", they yanked the metallic item out of your hands with more force than necessary, "take yourself elsewhere. You're ruining my good day."

You narrowed your eyes and grit your teeth. You had to close your eyes, take a deep breath and force yourself to turn around from the booth - which declared itself as the perfect gift shop - to stop you from entering a shouting match with the salesperson.

How were you ever going to buy a gift for Din Djarin when it seemed every single salesperson in this town had such upscale prices for little pieces of junk?! You didn’t have that much money on you as it was and the last thing you wanted to do was borrow credits from Din. It would have been just plain wrong to use Din’s own money to buy him a gift for Life Day.

“Ugh”, you groaned and kicked a rock out of your path. Why was this so hard now? You had had no trouble finding a gift for the little green monster that you had claimed as your brother. Why was Din’s gift so difficult? It seemed that every single thing that you even considered was either too expensive for you or just wasn’t the right gift.

The sound of something shattering made you look up, eyes widening. Seeing that the stone you had kicked had hit a clay pot in front of a home, you halted and then groaned.

You thought about turning around. It didn't seem like anyone had noticed you had kicked the rock. You could just turn around, run from the scene and continue your gift searching.

But you couldn't do it; even if it weren’t for the hands that suddenly landed on your shoulders you most likely would have gone up to the house and apologized to its owner for breaking their property.

"I hope you didn't do that on purpose, kid."

You craned your neck backwards to look up at Cara Dune whose hands gave your shoulders a gentle squeeze.

"I didn't", you answered honestly, although there was an underlying tone of bitterness that Cara caught on.

The former mercenary turned sheriff frowned. "Alright, kid, we are gonna go up there and pay for the damage in a moment, but first you are going to tell me what's going on with you."

The woman lifted a finger as you opened your mouth protest. "Ah-ah, before you tell me that 'nothing' is going on, I suggest you take into consideration that I know you kid and this is not you."

You huffed and crossed your arms. "Fine." You said. "I can't find a gift good enough for him."

"Who, Mando?"

"Yeah", you nodded. "Everything I even consider ends up being way too over-prized! I will never find a gift for him in time for Life Day by this rate!"

Cara patted your head. "You take this thing way too seriously kid; have you considered that perhaps the best gift to our friend from you would be something self-made?"

"...self-made?" you repeated, seemingly dumbstruck.

How come you hadn't thought about that? Making something to Din would indeed be a perfect gift! What else could be both affordable and show how much the man meant to you?

Suddenly you grinned and were quick to hug Cara around the waist. "Thank you! You gave me the perfect idea, Cara!"

The former stormtrooper grabbed you by the scruff of your neck when you tried to dash away from her. "Kid, as glad as I am to help you, we had a deal, remember?"

You looked up at her sheepishly. "Sorry. I will go and apologize for breaking the vase."

•-•-•-•-•-•

The Mandalorian had never really celebrated Life Day. Never had any reason to do so.

Now he found himself indulging his two charges and especially the older one. He barely admitted it to himself (he certainly was not going soft) but Din quite enjoyed seeing the way your face lit up when you got the permission to hang up some light strips around the Razor Crest's living area along with some other ornaments you and the kid had managed to dig up from somewhere.

Wanting to give the kids something better on this day that so clearly meant a lot to you, Din had made an effort to buy you all a more festive meal. It was no tip-yip but it was the best substitute he could afford. Of course, he would only watch you and the kid eat and would help himself for whatever his two little troublemakers left for him after you would fall asleep.

"Wow! This is so good!" You exclaimed once you were seated around the table on Life Day eating the meal Din had gotten for you. The child across from you made happy agreeing noises as he munched his own food.

"I'm glad you like it, kids."

"Are you kidding, Mando? This's gotta be the best meal I have had for a while", you said. "You gotta try this!" you insisted, pushing a plate towards the Mandalorian.

Behind the cover of his helmet, Din Djarin grimaced.

He knew that you had not meant anything malicious with those words but it struck him right to his heart for two reasons. One, because he was trying to do his best by both of the kids who had managed to sneak their way into his heart but initially he knew that the life he had to offer you was far from the best you and The Child could have with someone else. Two: you jested to him about his helmet most of the time but lately the jabs meant to be light had only managed to make Din feel bad.

He knew how much he meant to you. For crying out loud, you had accidentally called him dad a while ago - not that you seemed to remember and he wasn't about to remind you even if he sort of wanted to.

You two little rascals had come to mean the world to him, so why couldn't he take his helmet off in front of you?

"Okay!" Your voice interrupted the Mandalorian's train of thought. You sounded both excited and nervous as you pushed your now empty plate away from you. "It's time for the gifts!"

Gifts?!

Dank farrik, I forgot about the presents!

You proceeded to take out two messily wrapped boxes from under the table, one being significantly smaller in size than the other.

The Child tilted his head curiously as you passed him the smaller one. "Happy Life Day, brother", you wished and then helped him unwrap the gift.

It revealed a small metallic ball, much similar to the one from the cockpit that The Child loved to play with, Din noticed. And if the happy babbling noises The Child made indicated anything, he enjoyed his gift.

"And uh… this is for you, Din", you said next, obviously nervous and pushed the larger of the gifts towards the Mandalorian.

His hands automatically wrapped around the package but he didn't open it yet, looking at you instead. "Y/N…" he began, somewhat hesitating. What if you got mad at him for not having a gift in return? "I'm sorry but I forgot about the gifts - I don't have one for you."

"...oh", you said, and Din didn't like the fact that he couldn't make out if it was a disappointed 'oh' or a neutral one. But then a small smile appeared on your face. "It's okay, I- you agreeing to celebrate today with us is a gift enough for me."

No, it is not. It shouldn't be, Din thought but said nothing and only bobbed his head slowly.

"Well, aren't you going to open it?" you asked with a frown.

The Child also looked at the Mandalorian with a questioning, almost demanding look. Din Djarin let out a chuckle, slightly altered by his voice modulator. "Alright, kids, I'll open it,” he relented.

What the wrapping revealed made Din Djarin’s eyes sting and his vision blurred a bit. It was not the best artwork he had seen in his life but at the same time, it definitely was the most beautiful one.

You had excelled yourself this time. He wondered how long it had taken you to make this.

From behind his visor, Din looked at three self-made figurines with blurry eyes. They were standing on a small round pedestal made of moss and small rocks. The tallest figure wore an armor resembling his beskar one and was holding a bundle of green with one arm as the other was wrapped around the shoulders of a figurine of a little girl.

On the bottom edge of the rock pedestal was carved one word, a word that Din didn't even know you knew; Aliit.

Family in Mando’a.

Was this the your way of telling him that this was how you saw Din? How you saw the three of you?

Suddenly Din realised that both of the children were looking at him. There had been a smile on your face but as the seconds dragged by and Din hadn’t said anything the smile faded.

“I- I can make you a new one if you don’t-”

“No!” Din said, maybe a bit louder than was necessary, startling both of the kids as you jumped slightly in your seats. “No, Y/N”, he said next, in a gentler tone. “... it’s…” he tried to search for a word that would convey how much this gift had managed to move something inside him but he didn’t know such word, and he cursed himself for it. Instead he reached out and took your hand in his, squeezing it. “Thank you, kid.”

The smile returned to your face and Din felt relief wash over him.

This was how it was supposed to be: his kids were supposed to be happy.

Din carefully lifted the group of figurines from the table. “I know the perfect place for it.”

“Yeah, what is that?” you asked, now curious.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, kid”, Din said, his voice having a playful edge to it.

•-•-•-•-•-•

“Thank you, Din.”

The Mandalorian pushed your hair behind your ear. It was nighttime, and the Child had already fallen asleep in the middle of playing with his new toy. After all these months, Din Djarin still marvelled at how it had become a mundane routine for him to tuck you kids in your beds before laying down himself.

“I should be thanking you, kiddo.”

You frowned. “For what?”

For giving me a family I didn’t know I needed, he thought, but couldn’t make himself to say it. “For showing me the meaning of Life Day.”

“Oh”, you said. You pat his armor-covered arm a few times. “You’re welcome.”

No, this didn’t cut it, Din thought. He should be able to give you something. Something that you would - could - hold valuable. But you would fall asleep soon and the moment would be gone.

Then it struck him.

He could give you the perfect Life Day gift after all. Something that you had wanted as long as you had known him.

“Hey kiddo?” You hummed in response as you had already closed your eyes. “Don’t go to sleep yet. I have something for you.”

“Wh-what?” you mumbled, drowsily opening your eyes again. You pushed yourself to sit and let your eyes fall on the Mandalorian.

For a few seconds, Din Djarin hesitated but then his hands moved to the sides of his helmet.

Your eyes widened as you understood what he was about to do.

And Din Djarin removed his helmet for the first time in front of you, letting you see the face that you had so long been begging to see.

“Happy Life Day, kid”, he said softly.

You teared up and all you could do was to stare at him in the eyes you had dreamed to see on so many occasions.

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yetanotherhoeforpedro · 3 years

Text

Sinfully Armored

Summary: After Din Djarin had lost everything: his ship, his child, his way, and found himself as rightful leader of the Mandalore, he’s glad when an opportunity arises to escape all of his responsibilities. Grogu doesn’t seem to adapt well to his destined life in the New Jedi Order and handling the little rascal is simply too much for Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, who has to rebuild the entire Jedi Order and help in the founding of the New Republic. As a last resort, he contacts the mysterious Mandalorian, who seemed to have formed a strong bond with the Jedi foundling, to help Grogu accept his Jedi heritage and finally let go of the past. What Mando didn’t know is that on top of being given the chance to escape his duties, he’d meet you.

Notes: see ‘Sinfully armored’ on AO3

Chapter 1 - Strange Revelations

It has been the Maker knows how many days since you arrived at this desolate planet in the Outer Rim. The planets where you had to scout for Imperial Scum all started to blend into one after weeks and weeks on this expedition. The same dreary landscapes, shady people and shabby buildings on every single one. The Empire has left its dirty imprints throughout the entire galaxy and its people, including you.

The rundown bar you found yourself in right now must have seen better days as well. You swirled your drink lazily and scowled at the remaining dregs. This next part of your job was always the worst, impossibly done sober. You absolutely despised any kind of peaceful interaction with sympathizers of the Empire, even though you knew hate was not an emotion you should feel as a Jedi.

You drowned your glass in one big swallow and smoothly slid the it across the counter with a few credits. Before the bartender even reacted to your movement, you were already gone. The mud made an unsatisfying, squelching sound under your boots as you maneuvered through the narrow streets of Wakuda. Your nose scrunched at the mere smell of the place. Why the secret underground organization you were supposed to track down chose this of all places to build their base is beyond you, but you guessed it fit their morals.

As you neared the location you tracked the Imperial scum down to, you noticed a few snipers on the roof of the half-ruined building in your peripheral. Deep down you hoped they’d be skilled just so that you’d have a bit of a challenge as a distraction. They weren’t, since they didn’t even notice you until you were too close. Maybe their stupid helmets blocked their vision, you couldn’t even blame them. A quick swipe of the force knocked them out and you proceeded with your task.

Through a crack in the roof, you could spy on the meeting taking place underneath you. You leaned down a bit to get a better view and watched the scene unfold.

There were 6 people assembled in the room, but the woman at the head of the table stuck out especially to you with her glowing red hair. When she raised her voice, everyone went quiet. This woman clearly had an air of authority surrounding her. She began in a conspiring tone: “Fellow members of the First Galactic Empire, I have called you here today because troublesome news reached me. The New Jedi Order of Luke Skywalker keeps gaining more and more power. If the New Republic is backed by such a strong force of Jedi knights, our chances of rebuilding the Empire are slim to none.” The woman surveyed the room full of expectant eyes. No one dared to interrupt her. “So, we must take action. I have already contacted Grand Admiral Thrawn…”

The rest of her sentence didn’t reach your ears as you heard that name. As far as you knew, the notorious man died during the Battle of Endor with most of the other Imperial generals. If there was any truth to her claim that he was still alive, the New Republic and everything you stood for was in great peril. The old hatred started to boil up inside of you once again and it was all you could do to not jump down there and finish all of them in your fit of rage. To calm yourself, you reached deep into the Force as Luke had taught you. You reminded yourself that it was him and the Jedi’s goal of a peaceful galaxy you were doing all of this for and the discussion that broke out beneath you abruptly caught your attention again.

“That’s absolutely impossible! How would we even train those children? It’s not like we have a Sith Lord to train them!” a small man with shockingly pale skin exclaimed. “Leave that to me and the more experienced generals, we have everything under control. All you need to do is collect the force sensitive children from the systems I’ll send you out to,” the woman answered. The small man nodded once and the woman seemed satisfied. She pulled out a little device, flipped a switch and a holographic map appeared at the center of the table. As you glanced at the map, something pocked at the back of your mind. Why did it look so familiar?

But before you could observe it more closely and identify the feeling, the comm at your wrist vibrated. Luke always had such an unfortunate timing for someone so in tune with the Force. You cursed under your breath and accepted the transmission. After all, he wouldn’t contact you if it wasn’t important.

“Report back to the Jedi Temple immediately,” he stated. “What? But I’m in the middle of a mission! I just made a discovery of great importance,” you protested. “Alright, but get back as soon as possible. May the Force be with you.” The connection snapped and you focused on the meeting again.

“Do not disappoint me,” the woman commanded. That was an obvious dismissal. After cursing Luke’s awful timing once again, you decided to track the leader of the meeting, which couldn’t be too hard, considering her hair was shining like a beacon. However, as you scaled down the building and looked down the street, she and her co-conspirators had vanished into thin air. How odd. But it was a blessing of sorts because you were eager to get off this planet and return to the Jedi Temple. Thrawn was alive? It was all you could think about as you cut through the winding streets of Wakuda once again. The man who had taken so much from you had not been avenged? A sick part of you was thrilled about the opportunity to get revenge yourself, but it was outweighed by your general anxiety.

The sudden gleaming of a hull caught your eye and your pace quickened. As you turned around the corner, the magnificent ship arising before you obscured the view of your tiny, wreckage of an X-Wing. The rusty ship had accompanied you on many missions and despite its state, you had grown quite fond of it, but couldn’t be bothered to clean it. It wouldn’t matter anyway; it would just get dirty again in the next place you landed. You climbed into the cockpit and took off.

As you activated hyperspace, you tried to shake Thrawn off your mind and it quickly filled with other enigmas. You reconsidered the strange Déjà-vu you felt when you saw the map. You were sure you had seen it before sometime, but when and where exactly? Why would you have seen an imperial map? And how could they have left without a single trace? Who was the strange woman?

After pondering about these questions turned out to be futile, you began to wonder what could have been urgent enough for Luke to call you back from your mission. While you would have been jumping at the chance to finally leave these shitty systems under normal circumstances, the situation just got interesting and all you wanted to do was track the Imperial scum down and kill them one by one before they could do any more harm. But Luke had to lecture you on discipline far too many times and this mission was your chance to show him that he could trust you.

Still…How would you ever find out where they had gone now? You should have damned Luke’s orders and followed them somehow when you still could, what if they got to the children first? Shit, why didn’t you think straight? It seems like all of your focus and composure had left you once Thrawn’s name had perturbated your thoughts. All of the old grief and hate resurfaced again and threatened to drown you.

You took a deep breath and pushed those emotions as far back as you could. The logical action right now would be to contact Luke immediately, he needed to send out someone else to stop the bandits. While you were short on Jedi, the New Republic would sure have someone to take care of the problem. If only you knew where they went, they’d be long gone if the Republic needed to investigate their whereabouts first. You sighed and called Luke.

“What’s wrong?” His hologram appeared in front you instantly. “A lot,” you responded dryly. “You’ll not be pleased about what I just discovered – before I was so rudely interrupted by you, that is.” He frowned at your sarcasm, this was obviously not the time for it, but you couldn't help it. It had become a sort of coping mechanism for you, a way to shield yourself from issues lest they touch you personally. “Grand Admiral Thrawn – or some doppelgänger of him – is still alive and in direct contact with the leftovers of the Empire.”

Luke was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. “That is bad news indeed, I’ll need to inform Leia and Han so that they can alert our troops. Your assistance has been most valuable to us,” he replied finally, oddly formal. Still, you nodded curtly at the approval.

“Wait,” you intercepted as he was about to disconnect. “Unfortunately, there’s more. I overheard that they plan to rebuild the Sith Order, but on a far grander scale. I only caught a glimpse, but they had some map that directs them towards force-sensitive children all across the universe. While I have no clue as to how they would train them – unless they had a secret Sith Lord up their sleeves as well – we cannot let them take the children. The Jedi Order needs them.” This time, Luke’s silence lasted even longer, to the point where it was almost painful. You forced the words forming on your tongue to fill the silence back – yet another nervous habit of yours – and mirrored his quiet. Until you gave in and broke it: “I did not disappoint when I warned you that I had some bad news, huh?”

Luke gave you a no-nonsense-look. “No, you did not. Do you think you can recall the map and lead us to the children?” he inquired. “Um…I’ve tried, but to no avail. However, the map looked oddly familiar. No idea where I could have seen it before, but I trust my instincts.” You shrug, though it doesn’t reflect your sentiments in the slightest.

“You said this map leads them to force-sensitive children?” he repeated slowly, more to himself. “Yeah.” – “In that case, I might know just where to look.” Before you could ask him what he meant by that he was gone. You let out an exasperated sigh. He took the whole mysterious Jedi image way too seriously, in your opinion.

You spent the rest of the flight dissociating in space, as one does. In a way, you were doing the meditation exercises Luke taught you. Time bent around you, it could have been minutes or hours until you arrived back at Coruscant. The blinding lights of the capitol made you snap back to reality as you swiftly descended.

------------------------

You spotted Luke, facing the wall, quickly as you entered the council chamber, which was empty except for him. The few other “Jedi” seemed to be on missions as well. The “Council” consisted of a bunch of half-trained Jedi knights and one other survivor of Order 66, Master Vamora who appeared too fragile to still be an active fighter, but he was a stubborn old bastard. Not that it wasn’t an immense blessing to have at least one Jedi of the Old Order in your midst who was fully trained. He was extremely cranky and righteous though.

Luke turned back around to you. You did a double take as you took him in, seeing what the hologram had concealed. At first you noticed his eyes and the black rings underneath them, then the hollow of his cheekbones, his general paleness and crouched stance. He looked really exhausted, to say the least. Not being able to hold yourself back, you commented: “What happened to you? You look like you went through some shit.” At that, you earned a small grin from him that made some of the color reappear on his face.

Your heart jumped a little at the sight, you had to admit he was quite handsome, especially when he smiled. It wasn’t just ideological reasons keeping you in his Jedi Order after all, although you felt a twinge of guilt every time your stupid, horny brain produced these immoral thoughts. It was absolutely illegal for a Jedi to harbor such feelings, much less act on them, at least according to your set of morals. Luke himself had been conceived out of such an improper relation and since he did not grow up learning about the old set of Jedi rules, he had seen no use in implementing any such rule in his Jedi Order (much to the displeasure of Master Vamora, who had quite a lot to complain about today’s youth). You, on the other hand, had been indoctrinated the old set of rules from a small age on and you tried to stick to them in honor of those who saved you from your horrible fate and the sacrifices of those who had not been as lucky as you. But Luke did have a point. He claimed that love was not a crime or a weakness to be punished but rather a virtue that differentiates you from those who strayed to the Dark Side. Frankly, he was just a little too horny for his own good. He was well known for his bohemian lifestyle, sharing his bed with both men and women.

“That’s why I had to call you back here. I am being tormented endlessly by a little green monster,” he replied with a smirk on his face, pulling you out of your thoughts. You raised an eyebrow, but before you could inquire further, the door slid open behind you and you snapped around.

This day just kept getting weirder, or maybe you were extremely sleep-deprived as well. There was a Mandalorian with a little green creature that eerily resembled Master Yoda (if he were young and cute instead of old and wrinkly as he had appeared the last time you saw him) cradled in his arms standing in front of you. His armor was unlike any you had ever seen before, pure beskar and shimmering as it reflected the bright city lights. He looked exactly like the legendary warrior race of Mandalore you had only ever heard rumors about, straight out of a myth. Considering those rumors, didn’t they absolutely despise the Jedi? Suddenly alarmed, you pulled your lightsaber from your belt. The Mandalorian didn’t move, only cocked his head to the side. Even though you couldn’t see his face underneath the helmet, you felt like his eyes were piercing you. You stared right back at him, not moving an inch, thumb resting on the switch of your weapon, ready to activate it should he attack. Not that your lightsaber could do much damage to him, as he was dressed in beskar from head to toe. But what about the child in his arms? Maybe he wasn’t up for a fight after all. With a sick disappointment – how challenging would it be to fight such a legendary warrior? – you put your weapon back on your belt again. The Mandalorian kept staring at you, standing still as a machine.

This time it was Luke who broke the silence, as you were too entranced to say anything at all. “There is the source of my eternal torment.” He strolled up to you in a relaxed manner. It was his calm posture and the underlying humor and fondness in his voice that kept you from attacking the strangers. The green creature turned its head and stared at you innocently with its huge, black eyes. You sensed it suddenly through the Force and did a double take in surprise. It reached its small arms out to you, but the Mandalorian took a step back from you rather than let the child closer to you. “This…this is why you called me back?” You shot Luke an incredulous, slightly offended look, to which he returned another wicked grin. “Yes.”

“Elaborate, please?” You didn’t even try to hide the annoyance in your voice. “This is my good friend…” He gestured to the Mandalorian. “Um, I actually don’t know his name, I just call him Mando. Everyone does.” He smirked at the warrior. “And this little fellah is Grogu, a Jedi foundling I took upon me to train.” The look Luke gave the child was so full of love that it seemed almost too intimate to witness. “Mando saved him from the Empire and took great care of him. Frankly, he cared for him too well. Grogu has formed such a strong attachment to him that it’s nearly impossible to train him. The little rascal is incredibly stubborn if his daddy isn’t around.”

A bit more enlightened, but still unaware of your place in this family drama, you waited for Luke to continue. “Since I have a ton of obligations, I don’t have time to train the little one and detach him from his savior.” Oh no. You hoped this wouldn’t be heading in the direction you thought it was. “You, on the other hand, have less responsibilities.” Fuck. "So, I decided that you should train him. And let his dad tag along until he can let him go.”

No fucking way. “I am not a damn babysitter! Neither do I care to get involved in this clearly complicated family structure! I have a mission, Luke. I need to get to those…,” you paused, suddenly all too aware that you had an audience, “…thieves and stop them.” Luke grinned at you, as if he expected that answer from you. “Isn’t it super convenient that our friend Mando here is a professional bounty hunter, eager to earn a few credits from the Republic?”

You shifted your gaze back to the silent warrior and the kid. “I am supposed to train this rip-off Yoda while on a mission? That’s just pointless, I won’t have time to teach him anything at all!” you pointed out. You were not interested in training another Jedi, especially not one that resembled Master Yoda and everything you lost so much. “You’ll have plenty of free time while traveling through space and he can learn a lot more in real situations than I could ever teach him,” Luke argued. “You want us to take him along on a hunt?” a modulated voice interjected. “No way, that’s far too dangerous for him as long as he’s untrained!” Luke wasn’t kidding about the bond, the man in armor clearly cared deeply for the child. Interesting.

“You need to stop being such a helicopter parent if you want him to live an independent life,” your Jedi companion retorted. You couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped your throat and a visor turned back to you. “I don’t trust her with my child”, the Mandalorian stated curtly. You scowled at him. “You shouldn’t have brought him to the Jedi if you had a problem with him being in the custody of a Jedi,” you snarled at the intruder, suddenly not caring that you didn’t even want this child in the first place and simply wanting to disagree with him. “It’s not the Jedi I don’t trust, it’s you and your attitude.” – “Is it because I called him a ‘rip-off Yoda’?” You flashed him a sweet smile.

“I see you two’ll get along just fine,” Luke said, the corners of his mouth quirking up slightly. “You could leave for the first child tomorrow.” At that, your attention snapped back to him. “What do you mean? Did you find the map?” – “Of course, as it was our map they stole in the first place.” Now your Déjà-vu made complete sense and you cursed yourself for not having come to this conclusion earlier. Obviously the Jedi had a map with the locations of force-sensitive children – possible new Jedi. The situation was even graver than you expected. “Get some rest now, you seem to need it almost as much as I do.” Luke winked at you. Accepting defeat for now and realizing how exhausted you truly were, you gave Luke a short nod before departing from the room and retiring to your chambers to finally get some well-deserved sleep.

Chapter 2

Masterlist

#din djarin/reader #the mandalorian/reader #mask kink #canon-typical violence #Din kind of talking like an elderly Victorian gentleman #smut #enemies to lovers #the mandalorian #din dijarin x reader #pedro pascal

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