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dindjarinandlysakane · 11 months

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The Sweetest Taste | Chapter 29 - Protective

When Din Djarin meets a beautiful cake seller from Nevarro, do you think he’s just going to stand back and let her suffer at the hands of her abusive boyfriend? After a lifetime of heartache and pain, Lysa Kane realises she’s not on her own any more and finds an unlikely friend in the Mandalorian. And Din Djarin does not like men who treat women like that, not one tiny bit. Friendship/comfort and maybe something more…

Masterlist

Chapter 29 - Protective

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Fifteen minutes later, and Din was stood near to the last stall of the Bazaar, as Lysa chatted easily to the vendor, looking radiant and happy. As if none of yesterday's events had even happened.

She looked content now. At ease. Her golden hair shining brightly in the sun, illuminating her face like a golden halo of light.

Din’s heart was still thundering in his ribs, as it so often did when she was near.

With anyone else, Din was reserved, short, cutting, at times. But with her, everything felt easy.

Like he didn't even have to try.

Grogu who was floating in his pram quite happily at their side, cooed up at Lysa as he helped her choose a punnet of some fresh orange berries.

Lysa smiled, making for her pocket to pull out payment. But before she could do so, Din had reached over, depositing two credit chips into the hand of the grey-haired human vendor.

At this, Lysa smiled up at him warmly.

“You didn't have to pay for everything today, y’know,” she uttered gently, turning to him as they walked from the market. “I wanted to make you dinner.”

But Din, glancing down at her beside him, gave a short and playful huff. And before Lysa could say another word, Din had pulled the now-heavy basket from her hand, placing it under one arm and carrying it with ease.

“I was expecting bread too. But if you’ve already changed your mind…” he taunted, tilting his head to the side.

Lysa beamed at his words, grasping at his bicep and giving it a friendly squeeze with her hand, bumping her hip gently into his.

“I just didn’t know bounty hunters were such gentlemen,” she swiped back teasingly, holding gently onto his the crook of his elbow as they walked

Din who was grinning beneath his mask gave a shrug.

“Not all of us,” he replied simply, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lysa gazed up at him, her eyes almost twinkling with delight.

Din felt his heart swell at the sight of her.

His light amongst the never-ending darkness of this galaxy.

And for a moment, he thought about how it would feel to do this for the rest of his life. Just being with her.

He was certain that today they had felt closer than ever. Her body lingering just that little bit closer to his. Her hands gently grazing his own gloved ones.

And just the way they spoke…that repertoire they seemed to share. Like a bond had been set. All tensions that had, before, kept them apart- gone.

Leaving only a closeness now that Din had yearned for since the first day he’d met her.

He longed to truly touch her now…to feel her body pressed against his. The heat of her skin, grazing his own.

But he knew that that was likely impossible.

Lysa Kane was too good for Din. A mere bounty hunter. A man that never removed his helmet in front of, even his own kin.

But like when he had shown his face to Grogu, Din was desperate to let her face see his. His true face, and not just the beskar that covered it.

But he knew that his Creed forbade it. To bathe in the waters of Mandalore, to redeem himself for a second time, would be an insult to his religion.

And what woman would ever want to be with a man literally as closed off as Din?

And yet still now she stared up at him, with those beautiful marsh-coloured eyes. And a smile that was so bright, so inviting. Din couldn’t help but feel a tug at his heart. A hope.

Suddenly there was a loud humming to their left as they walked across the city square and north towards the residential quarter.

And Din, just about turned his helmet-covered head in time, to see a speeder bike flying towards them with a couple of youths at the wheel.

Instantly and without thought, Din grasped for Lysa’s waist with his free hand, tugging her around and into him protectively…

��just in time to see the bike whizz past, almost clipping the pair of them as it went.

Din stared after the teenagers angrily, as Grogu, safe in his pram a few feet away, gave a growl.

But it was only when Din turned back to Lysa did he see her staring up at him with a curious expression across her features, her beautiful eyes searching his through his beskar.

His hand was still wrapped around her waist, her body pulled flush with his.

And from here Din could see the rise and fall of her chest beneath the bodice of her dress, and her lips, slightly parted…

…almost aching to be kissed…

“Mando!”

Din swallowed hard, as the sound of someone calling his name, broke the pair from their moment.

He immediately saw a flush grace Lysa’s face and chest, as she took a step away from him, brushing herself down.

Din turned to see Greef Karga strolling towards the trio, flanked by a Peacekeeper holding a gun.

“Karga,” nodded Din in a gruff tone, far removed from the casual and playful voice he had used with Lysa just a moment ago.

Irritably, he watched as a grinning Karga, with his eyebrows raised in interest, came to stop at their side.

Lysa quickly grasped up her skirts, giving a small curtsy, bowing her head in reverence.

“I heard you’ve been causing trouble out on the lava flats,” Karga said promptly, looking at Din. “Four men dead. Doesn't look good, Mando.”

But Din scowled at his words.

“Those men were out to kill us,” he uttered in an icy tone. “If I hadn't-”

But Karga merely slapped him hard on his back, causing Grogu to flinch.

“I’m kidding, Mando. Lighten up,” he said, cutting across him. “I heard from the Marshal what happened. You know I trust your instincts. Just a shame they haven't caught that Val’shif guy yet. But they will.”

Din glanced at Lysa who he could see was chewing on her lip, her face filled with worry and concern once more.

She looked so very lost that Din just wanted to reach out and tug her into his arms. But he held back, letting a long breath escape his nostrils, before turning back to Karga.

“IG-11 knows to contact me if he finds him,” the Mandalorian said in a serious tone.

But Karga just smiled easily.

“Well if he doesn't, I’ll know who to give the bounty tracking fob to,” he said with a chuckle, which Din did not appreciate.

“Was there anything you actually wanted?” Din retorted coldly.

At this, Karga raised both his eyebrows, and his hands simultaneously.

“Easy now, Mando,” replied Karga, giving another chuckle, but this time it sounded slightly more ruffled. “I just wanted to check you were ok. Both of you.”

Greef Karga turned to Lysa.

“Rest assured the Marshal will do all he can to make sure Val’shif is found,” he said, addressing her in a softer tone. “And if you need a place to stay until he is, we have a safe house you can stay in, in the Magistrate building. It’s heavily guarded. You’ll be safe there.”

Immediately Din noticed Lysa look to him worriedly.

“I…um…” was all she could manage through gently parted lips.

But Din took a reassuring step closer to her, his gloved fingers at his side reaching for her palm, which he grasped gently.

“She’ll be safe with me,” Din uttered firmly. “I have R5 keeping a constant watch on the perimeter of the cabin. Nothing is getting in or out without my knowledge.”

For a moment Din watched as Karga’s eyes flitted back and forth between the pair of them knowingly, before he gave a smirk.

“Well, offer still stands if you change your mind,” he said, nodding to Lysa in a jovial manner, before turning back to Din one final time. “Be seeing you, Mando. Oh and next time you decide to kill a bunch of men, make sure it's when I’ve taken a vacation day off planet.”

He chuckled to himself before brushing past the pair. The Peacekeeper following after him obediently.

Din gave an audible huff, as Lysa turned to him, her hand still clutched within his.

“I can stay at the safe house...if you’d prefer?” she said in a voice far quieter than before.

Din looked to see her facing him, with a look of nervousness painted over her beautiful features. The tops of her cheeks pink again.

She visibly swallowed, drawing Din’s eyes to her tanned and gorgeous collarbone and the bounty that lay below for the briefest of seconds, But quickly he glanced up again, his own cheeks turning the slightest shade of red beneath his helmet.

“It wasn't your fault you were dragged into all this,” she continued, talking quickly, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “And you’ve already been so kind to let me stay last night-”

A sudden lump appeared in Din’s throat, as he realised what she was saying.

“You’d….prefer to stay at the safe house?” he uttered in a questioning tone, wondering if he’d misinterpreted the situation, speaking for Lysa when she hadn't needed him to. Was he any different to Crix for doing that?

Din’s heart thudded.

Dank farrik.

What if Lysa wanted now to stay elsewhere?

What if she didn't want his company any longer?

Why had he been so stupid to just presume?

“No, I want to stay!” said Lysa suddenly, her breathing coming fast, her eyes wide and worried-looking…

…as her fingers clenched around his gloved ones tightly, giving them a squeeze.

“I…”

She trailed off, her cheeks almost scarlet now.

“I…feel safe with you…I…I want to stay……..with you.”

She blinked, breathing hard, staring meaningfully up at him.

Beneath his beskar, Din gave a lick of his lips, feeling a pull in his stomach the likes of which he didn't think he had ever felt before.

An all encompassing feeling.

A feeling so intense, Din both hoped it would never end, and yet knew that if it did, it would break him from the inside out.

He clenched his jaw for a brief moment, before opening his mouth to speak.

“You can stay with me and Grogu as long as you need,” he said in a low voice, staring down at her…

…before it was Din’s turn to let his fingers squeeze hers.

A simple gesture that he hoped she would understand.

And it seemed that she did, as she gave a warm smile, turning on her heel and coming to walk at Din’s side as the pair turned and began to head in the direction of Lysa’s home once more.

Simultaneously they dropped their hand from one another’s. But they seemed now to linger far closer than before. A subtle smile gracing both their lips as they went.

……………………………………

@its5-15wakeup @thecraftyartist @crazypaine @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @marysucks-blog @siimiasoi

#the mandalorian #din djarin #din x oc #pedro pascal #mando #din reader #din grogu #the mandalorian smut #the mandalorian spoilers

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fionajames · 7 months

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ocs pt. 2

apologies but i love making characters

GUYS IM SO SORRY FOR BEING ABSENT TODAY, I HAD TO WORK ON AN ASSIGNMENT AND THEN DRIVE AN HOUR TO MY COUSINS' PLACE FOR A BIRTHDAY AND THEN DRIVE AN HOUR BACK PLUS IVE BEEN TAKING CARE OF MY LITTLE BRO AND SIS

@lovejoysoots u asked to be tagged so here :) also, hope its okay i included xane in taki's info!

GUYS REQUEST.

ALSO, I REALISE KNOW IVE ONLY JUST MENTIONED THIS, BUT IF Y'ALL WANT I CAN WRITE AN 'X READER' WITH MY OC IF U LIKE THEM THAT MUCH BUT YOU. HAVE. TO. TELL. ME.

ANYWAYS, ENJOY, AND SORRY AGAIN

Taki Caileth

Taki is a Nautolan Bounty Hunter with dark violet skin and magenta, lilac and pastel purple. His eyes are purely black (as Nautolan eyes usually are).

He's eighteen in 22 BBY and became a Bounty Hunter when he was merely a kid - because he grew up on Glee Anslem until he was eight and then was hurriedly taken away, growing up on Tatooine and Corellia, as well as all over the galaxy.

He fights best with a sword or a blaster rifle. Taki is decently well-known as a Bounty Hunter under the name of Maverick (not related to Top Gun, it literally means an independent person). Whilst many know Maverick, not many know Taki.

Taki works - as the word maverick means - independently. It's not because he hates people or anything but because of trust issues after his family's death.

During the Clone War, Taki sides with whoever pays - and usually the GAR, because he feels bad for the clones. Not the senate, not the republic, not the Jedi, the clones.

He's smart and calculating yet sarcastic and loyal. His loyalty can be his downfall as he tends to trust easily and so his solution is to not get too close to anyone.

On several occasions, Taki has teamed up with fellow Bounty Hunter Xane. They are a scarily and shockingly good team and share several views over things, although Taki sides with the GAR more, Xane has a disliking towards a certain Jedi named Anakin Skywalker.

Although Taki is moving alot, he has a place on the lower levels of Coruscant which he uses as a base.

During the war, as everyone is desperate for money, Bounty Hunters become very valuable. One Bounty Hunter was doing a job for the Separatists and kidnapped a Jedi Youngling - an eight year old Rodian boy. Desperately, the GAR hired Taki, who went and retrieved the boy. In the process, he lost his left leg from the knee down. In thanks, the Jedi gave him a black-metal prosthetic and paid him about 70% of what he was originally supposed to earn, even though the prosthetic cost about the same price as the original payment. Taki begins to side even more with the GAR because the Separatists captured an innocent child - which he sees as very wrong, as something similar happened to him when he was younger.

Taki doesn’t really have a best friend but he’s closest with Xane and the Rodian Youngling he rescued.

Satsuki Noriko

Satsuki is a Human girl with light freckled skin, short, fluffy (dyed) red hair and black eyes. She’s seventeen in 22 BBY. Her grandmother was a Mandalorian who left Mandalore for reasons she refuses to explain.

Satsuki has a shop on the middle layers of Coruscant where she paints armour and helmets, as well as ships and speeders occasionally. When the clone wars came around, Satsuki decided to increase her work hours - in hopes of getting more customers and more money - so she could allow Clones to come in. Because the Clones aren’t paid, Satsuki doesn’t charge them for any money.

She’s kind and generous, but also sarcastic and stubborn. Her best friend is a Clone trooper named Trinket. Trinket once saved an old, rich woman off-planet who insisted on giving him her expensive jewellery as thanks. Trinket gave all of it to Satsuki as payment for the paints, materials and her time on behalf of all the Clones.

Satsuki is part of a rather large family with one fourteen year old sister, one eight year old half-sister and one six year old half-brother. The family do family dinners weekly and Satsuki gets along best with her sisters and brother and grandmother. Her grandmother is your resident badass grandmother who is incredibly scary and awesome.

Satsuki has and will beat up anyone who talks shit about the Clones and is their number 1 protector. She hangs out with Trinket, Fox, Rex, Cody and Vyper (the unnamed Commander of the 13th Battalion who I’ve named) the most.

Satsuki sees the Clones as her brothers and best friends, and has to be daily convinced not to sneak on board to join the fight.

One time, Satsuki introduced Rex to her grandmother and her grandmother instantly called him bu’ad and he almost cried.

The Clones and her have frequent conversations in pure Mando’a and it’s rather entertaining.

Rin Keiko

Rin is a human girl with long black hair, dark brown eyes and tan skin. She’s 16 in 22 BBY making her one of the youngest Jedi Knights, although not the youngest ever. Rin fought during the Battle of Geonosis alongside her Mirialan Master Aoi Tsumugi. During the fight, Aoi was struck down and Rin was forced to continue fighting for her life, feeling alone even though surrounded by hundreds of other Jedi.

After the battle, Rin managed to convince the Council into Knighting her using her points that one; Aoi was going to Knight her in a few months anyway, two; they’re scarce for Knights and need all they can get, and three; she is ready.

Rin was then Knighted and given a battalion of her own to lead as General. Alongside her Clone Commander Warden, of course.

Rin is what many describe as insane. She is protective to her troops and friends and would rather lay down her life than any of theirs. She’s reckless and smart but overconfident and cocky in a scary way. Her laugh is maniacal and intertwined with trauma, plus her troops are convinced she's either seeing ghosts or hearing voices. That doesn’t mean they don’t love her though! Their General is their sister and they are extremely horrified when they find out months after meeting her that she's still just a kid.

They are terrified for her when they accidentally somehow witness one of her PTSD-induced dreams (something a lot of Jedi get and are extremely dangerous) as she floated midair and objects swirled around her like a hurricane. She - frankly - looked possessed.

Rin starts losing it with the council a lot, laughing inappropriately and insanely and muttering loudly with huge grins. It’s terrifying for a sixteen year old to do that. If Rin wasn’t such a good fighter and General, the GAR would have probably forced her into some sort of insane asylum - or at least gotten her daily therapy.

Rin’s best friend is Warden and their like brother and sister, and all her friends are the Clones and some of the Jedi.

Iniko Edge

Iniko is a fourteen-year-old Pantoran Youngling boy. He has violet blue skin (colour hex code; #4157A2), golden yellow eyes, soft yellow markings on his arms, legs and hands, and curly raven black hair that is actually very dark, deep purple but only really obvious in certain lights.

Iniko has a double-bladed dark purple lightsaber that can be split into two separate lightsabers (like Cal’s). He got both crystals during the Gathering, and panicked because of it.

Iniko was apprenticed to Shaak Ti at the start of the Clone Wars and lives on Kamino. He trains there and has befriended many clones.

Iniko is a kind and quiet boy, but not shy. He loves befriending the Clones but is a bit quiet at first. All the Clones see him like a younger brother. After a few months of training with his Master on Kamino, Iniko is sent to assist other Jedi with missions and use Kamino as his base instead of Coruscant. He is sent as a Commander alongside Captain Rook and a small battalion of Clones. They aren’t really like battalions such as the 212th and 501st because they're a lot smaller and they have never gone on missions just with themselves. They don’t even go on missions as much as others, because thats how they work.

Iniko secretly cries for every Clones’ death and is a sweet Clones’ rights supporter. He befriends lots of other battalions’ clones - such as Cody, Rex, Jesse and others. He is best friends with Captain Rook, Ahsoka - who he teams up with during missions and was actually créchemates with - and several members of his squad - in particular Tripp, Kaz and Tempest.

Iniko also met Rin and sees her as an older sister, although Rook lectures him regularly about not taking after her reckless nature. Rook is extremely protective over him, and it shows through a lot. In fact, the entire squad - and others - are protective over him. But not in an obsessed way. They know that he can handle himself and that's what scares them.

Iniko is a wholesome boy and very similar to Dhole in a few ways because of it, but also different.

Iniko hides his breakdowns and illnesses and injuries and all that from everyone, because he believes he doesn’t matter as much. That’s one of the Temple’s faults. They brought up all the Younglings, Padawans, Knights and Masters to believe that peace was the most important thing, and to get it at all costs. Accidentally, they taught Iniko that he wasn’t worth as much as the battle, and so he remembers that. The Clones are slowly helping him but he’s still fragile.

DONE

HOPE U LIKED

IMMA GO HAVE A MENTAL BREAKDOWN

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burnwater13 · 1 year

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Grogu liked being a Mandalorian foundling. He felt very safe when he was with his dad and the others of his kind. He didn’t know a lot about them, but they had helped his dad and him out and he really appreciated that.

First, when they had to leave Nevarro after Din saved him from the Client, those Mandos had just literally jumped right in and protected them both from the bounty hunters and Imps. That meant a lot. Really. No other group of people had ever just come to his defense because of who he was with. It made an impact.

Then, he met the other Mandos. The ones who could actually take their helmets off and let everyone see their faces. Grogu had been impressed by them. Mostly because he liked seeing people’s faces. It had taken him a little while to realize that Din Djarin was a human and not just a human configured bounty hunting droid. Grogu had met a lot of bounty hunters and they worked hard at tricking people.

Spending time with them, he realized that they had a lot in common and they also had a lot of differences.

Grogu had noticed that the Mandos all seemed to decorate their armor. In some way. Even Din Djarin had a sigil on his armor to indicate that he was a member of clan Mudhorn. The other Mandos had things like that too, but some of them had the mythosaur skull on their armor and others had a feather and some had a symbol that liked like a gash from that flying menace they met up with on Nevarro.

He had wondered what kind of critter it was at the time, but then he stopped caring when he realized that he had to help Greef Karga. He was glad that Greef didn’t really wear armor. Not because he had wanted the flying critter to hurt him, but because it was a lot easier to heal him because he wasn’t freaked out over exposing his skin (regardless of his complaint about Grogu wanting to eat his arm, yech). It had been much harder to heal Din Djarin.

But a lot of things were different and harder with that Mandalorian. When they first met, Din had old, kind of beat up armor. Then he got the new very shiny armor. Neither set was very comfortable, but the old armor seemed softer somehow. Probably from all the damage.

Din also didn’t have a flight pack when Grogu first met him. That was a problem. He couldn’t just zip up into the air and drop onto the top of the Jawas sand crawler and explain nicely to them why he wanted the parts of his ship back. By the time they met the face Mandos again, Din had a flight pack and he could just fly them wherever they needed to go. That had been very cool. But Din was bad about leaving it around. It reminded Grogu of Master Obi-Wan and his almost magic way of losing cloaks and occasionally light sabers.

Now, Din had the Darksaber, an old Jedi tool from a long gone Mandalorian who had once been Mand’alor. Some of the Mandos agreed that having the Darksaber made you the boss of them (Mand’alor), but the others said nope. It was a Jedi weapon made of beskar. That violated the Creed in a lot of ways, even if it was more elegant, or nice, or whatever.

But he didn’t really know how to use it. But then why would he? He wasn’t a Jedi. Grogu had been studying the ways of the Jedi when he was a youngling and he knew that lightsabers, whatever you called them, had to feel connected to the person who used them. The Kyber crystals were fussy and didn’t like to activate for just anyone. It wasn’t like using a flashlight.

Grogu wondered if the other Mandos understood that? Any of the other Mandos. Only someone who knew a Jedi well was going to have learned about that sort of thing. And if there was one thing Grogu had learned, Mandalorians and Jedi did not get along. He and Din Djarin were the exception that proved the rule.

He liked his dad a lot, no matter how different or similar he was to the other Mandos, he was special to Grogu. After all, Din Djarin had shown him his face and that had been another turning point for them. That’s how Grogu knew they were really a family of two as well as a clan of two.

#the mandalorian #grogu #din darjin #calendar prompt a day

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firethekitty · 2 years

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thank you for asking @edalynn and i’m sorry i’m advance 😌

AUTISM MODE ACTIVATE

hunter is. extremely complicated. both as a character and how i personally think about him. i’ll put this below a cut bc it is extremely long 😭 i have so many thoughts about this dude and it’d genuinely mean a lot if anyone read it !!!!!

i didn’t like him! i fully admit that i didn’t enjoy hunter’s character when he was introduced. i thought he was boring and was just going to be another annoying antagonist like kikimora. man, i’m so glad i was wrong about him. i started warming up to him when Hunting Palismen aired, when we finally saw him without his helmet. i was fairly new to the show around this time, so it was one of the things i realized i love most about this show. he’s just some guy! every character in this show is literally just some guy. he’s got eye bags and a tooth gap and scars and messy, uneven hair.

the second his helmet is off, he becomes so. alive and vulnerable and human (in the metaphoric sense) and i immediately understood him. i realized he wasn’t going to be an ordinary villain, and he’s become such a huge comfort character for me since! i adore him!

(that episode actually has my favorite owl house scene ever (so far) which i think i’ll make a separate post for!!!)

a convo with fellow white boy enthusiast @subterra-rose helped me determine that he’s both deeper than he seems, but also really not that deep, in a way?

he’s incredibly complex and i’d actually argue one of the best-written characters in recent memory for me. he’s wildly smart and quick-witted and strong, but at the same time like. he’s just a kid!! yes he’s all of those things but he’s also extremely insecure, distrusting, closed-off, and awkward as hell

his tough guy persona is very obviously a farce, it’s the result of not having a single say in anything you do, of having every aspect of your life controlled. his golden helmet is very symbolic of this, i think. idk it just genuinely bothers me when people depict him as some kind of malicious, manipulative, evil person

and yes i unironically believe he hasn’t done anything wrong lmao. prior to Any Sport in a Storm, he hasn’t done a single thing wrong because he genuinely didn’t know that what he was doing was bad. i can say this with full confidence, pretty much exclusively in regards to hunter’s character and him alone, because he was literally created for the sole purpose of basically being belos’ puppet. he’s been manipulated since the day he was made by the only person he’s ever been allowed to be close to. it’s literally all he knows, so he’s of course going to be proud of it! he thinks it’s awesome and cool! he wants to show it to his first friends ever because he cares about them! except, of course, to everyone else that means being forced into a coven again their will. but he really, truly thinks he’s doing what’s best for everyone. he doesn’t have any ~hidden malicious intentions~ because he literally doesn’t know that what he’s doing is bad. this isn’t to say that he’s naive or anything, but it takes his new friends to spell it out for him like “uh, yeah, this is seriously fucked up. what’s wrong with you” for him to understand he isn’t helping anyone but belos. and then he realizes he doesn’t want to help him anymore. god his development is SO good bro

of course he’s done bad things, but that’s because we, the viewers, know about him through the protagonists’ perspectives. obviously we know that he’s working for the bad guy. but he doesn’t.

all of this is why hollow mind is SUCH a good fucking episode, because we get to see the exact moment everything he’s ever known comes crashing down on him all at once. it’s heart-wrenching, it’s insanely fucked up, and it’s realistic to the point where it has a genuine impact on you

and what i think is most heartbreaking about him, is that he doesn’t do these awful things because he wants to be awful. he doesn’t want to destroy magic or kill palismen, or betray people who show him kindness.

he’s literally just a kid who wants to have fun with friends and to be loved and for someone to be proud of him for once. genuinely i believe that’s all he truly wants.

#the owl house #hunter #character analysis #character bingo #i could write even more but i thought i’d spare you guys #talking

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vivid-but-vague · 2 years

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Touch | Din Djarin Self-Indulgent Collection

The first time her hands touched his skin, it was by accident.

She had finally gotten Grogu to settle into bed after humming him sweet lilting tunes from her childhood, but it was well into the night and the lights on the way to her bunk were already shut off. Not wanting to wake her young charge after putting so much effort into getting him to sleep, she took to stumbling down the rather short hall to her bunk. She thought the distance would be easy to navigate, but when the ship lurched she was caught off guard and let herself fall against the nearest wall.

If not for the rush of blood in her ears she might have heard the Mandalorian come from the cockpit, cursing the Crest in all its broken down glory. He strode across the ship with purpose, in search of the source of the outage, only to nearly stumble upon the lithe human girl who was still struggling to catch her breath.

She never was a fan of flying, much preferring deadly battles with both feet planted firmly on the surface of a planet. On the ground, there was nearly always an escape but a ship? Being on a ship made her feel undeniably trapped, but she did it for the kid, for him.

The bounty hunter stopped beside her a moment, regarding her shaky form as she pushed herself off the wall only for the ship to drop again. The sudden motion sent her flying, or, it would have had the Mandalorian not grabbed her arm in his own and taken the brunt of the fall against the side of the hallway.

Neither were sure when it happened, but sometime between the unceremonious lurching of the ship and the Mandalorian quite literally dragging her through the ship alongside him while he searched for the source of their problems, her hand wrapped tightly around his wrist. She told herself it was to steady herself without having to rely on him beyond that, but with every slip of the ship his arm would still wrap around to keep her upright or if it couldn't, would pull her into his chest plate as they both toppled.

It wasn't until Mando found the fried wires and stabilizer that he realized her grip on him, having been far too focused on steadying the ship. As the ship lurched a final time, her hand slipped, nearly taking his glove with it, and her fingers so delicately brushed the skin between his sleeve and his glove.

The bounty hunter took a sharp intake of breath, and his helmeted gaze shot her direction as he continued to pull at the wires. The moment the girl realized what she had felt, she flung her hand away from him as though his skin burned, just in time for the ship to tilt precariously as Mando finally reconnected the copper wires and pulled out the faulty stabilizer.

He almost wished his helmet had worse night vision, as the panic on her face just before her head hit the wall was only more reason for him to wonder why he couldn't reach out to grab her. All he could think about was the softness of her hands as he watched her helplessly crumple to the ground.

The second time he felt her skin against his was after she found him collapsed just in front of the Crest, the sand around him slowly turning red.

Cursing all the way, she dragged his limp body into the ship and closed the hangar door before running to grab a medkit from her room, her last medkit. Steadying her shaky hands, she searched for the source of blood and was quick to find what looked to be a knife wound in his side. Someone knowledgeable in the ways of Mandalorian armor had slipped a knife between the beskar, and even to her trained eyes, it did not look good.

After attempting and failing to shake him awake to ask permission, she gently removed the beskar from his chest and lifted his remaining undershirt just enough to reach the wound.

"You moron," she hissed, noting that the wound was far from new. He had to have been wandering around at least a day without tending to it, as it had begun to take on a sickly greenish hue around the edges.

He had only been gone for the better part of four days, and he still came back to her beaten and bloody. Except this time, with a knife wound in his stomach.

She could not even take the time to appreciate his olive toned skin, but her medically trained eyes did take note of the smattering of scars and even dark bruising seemingly stretching to and above his still covered ribcage. While the bruising worried her, she focused solely on the seemingly infected wound in his side. She winced as she scrubbed around the wound with one of her own clean shirts, rubbing the sweat and grime away before gently pouring antiseptic and then bantha powder over it. Finally, she tore off a strip of clean shirt and worked to wrap it around his stomach and side, struggling to lift him off the cold steel floor just enough to slip the fabric under and around.

Of course it would be as she tied the cloth that he would startle back into consciousness, to find her hands splayed across his stomach attempting to keep him from thrashing about and ruining her handiwork.

"Hey Mando, you need to take it slow for a moment okay? You look like shit, and that," she gestured at the now wrapped injury "looks worse."

He grunted in disapproval, but to her surprise did not shoot up as she expected him to. Instead, his helmet tilted down to bore holes into her hands that were still resting on his bare, well muscled abdomen.

"I'm sorry, I hope I did not overstep," she apologized, slowly removing her hands from his now quivering stomach, "I'm going to go wash my hands, let me know when that needs to be changed. Keep an eye on it this time yeah?"

Din sat up and pushed himself up against the wall, wanting nothing more than to call out to her before she left, but the knots in his stomach stopped him and he instead settled for wrapping his own arm across it and resting his head back, wishing she had not been so quick to pull away.

The third time she touched him was different. It was not accidental, it was not out of necessity, but it was gentle all the same.

Grogu had just been taken, Din had let him be taken. She should be furious, she should be berating him, yet here she was, taking him into her arms and holding him against her chest.

She had found him on his bed in their shared room for the night, Peli had only had one. He looked heavy, for the first time he looked, and felt, small underneath all the beskar as he sat in silence. His anger, fear, and guilt was so strong she could have sworn she could taste it as much as she could her own. The Mandalorian waited, jaw clenched, for her to take advantage of him in such a state, to be angry at him, to do SOMETHING. Anything but stand there and stare at him from the open doorframe, with pain in her eyes.

He had not expected her to sit beside him on the mattress, he had steeled himself for a blow, whether verbal or physical, but he had not prepared himself for her to wrap her arms around his waist and pull him into her.

She had to admit, the cold, harsh armor was anything but comfortable, but the steadying of his breathing was enough to convince her not to pull herself away with an onslaught of apologies falling from her lips. As much as she had caught him off guard, he did the same when he slowly folded his arms around her and tucked his helmeted head into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, finally giving away how dangerously close he was to breaking.

She choked back a gasp at the sound of his voice as he began to shake in her arms, and bit her tongue to think carefully about her next words, not wanting to offend him or push him further towards the edge.

"It's not your fault Mando, no one blames you, I don't blame you, HE doesn't blame you."

His stomach lurched at the memory of Grogu being carried away from him, and he struggled to keep himself from completely shattering right then and there. She seemed to sense this, and leaned back into the bed slowly, bringing him with her and slipping her hand into his own.

"I do," he spat angrily, clenching his hands into fists, nearly crushing hers within his own before realizing and dropping it as though it burned him.

He could no longer meet her eyes, knowing he had hurt her too even if she would never say it, but before he could find the strength to push himself away from her, her hand caught his wrist and the other wrapped around his glove.

"May I?"

Her question was gentle, not demanding as others had been when asking to remove his beskar. With every part of him Din wanted to shout 'yes', but he was unable to break himself out of the trance her touch put him in. It was only when she began to release him that he could force himself to nod and glance up at her face sheepishly through his visor.

No more words were spoken as she rid him of his remarkably dirty gloves and took a single hand into her own, tracing circles into his palm. Her touch was so gentle, so hypnotizing that Din could only take shallow, choked breaths. Her fingers traced every line, every callous of his palm dutifully, before finally and brought it up to press against her face.

He sucked in a breath as her cheek rubbed against his hand, so incredibly soft. She must have felt him tense under her ministrations because she paused and pulled his hand off, keeping it a mere hairsbreadth away as she peered into his visor shyly. His voice caught in his throat as it finally felt like she could see him, although he knew she couldn't, not truly. There was so much he wanted to say, but he couldn't. So instead he settled for pressing his hand back up against the soft skin of her cheek and melting into her embrace, if only for the night.

Peace

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mandoinevarro · 4 years

Text

WILL BUY STOLEN GOODS FOR LOWER PRICE

Rule Maker, Rule Breaker: Chapter 1

Words: 8.4k

Rating: E

Warnings: shooting, non-descriptive death, SMUT, fingering, mentions of masturbation, AND masturbation now that I remember, penetration, creampie! just general filth, gambling?

a/n: SO literally nobody asked for this, but I decided to turn NO REFUNDS into the prologue of a short series (you don’t really need to read NO REFUNDS, it’s only for context.) Anywayyys heavy feelings, heavy plot, heavy smut. Have fun.

……………

Maker, you need to start cheating. That way you wouldn’t be in the middle of a staring contest with your cards, like you can change their colorful drawings and numbers if you only glare hard enough. You’ve never been particularly good at sabacc, but a little luck wouldn’t hurt, especially since this is the third round in a row you lose. Duma deals the last couple of cards across the coal black table and stacks the deck, signaling the start of the game.

Well, you suppose it doesn’t really matter; you doubt your sabacc buddies have better hands. These days, everyone in Nevarro is short on luck. Luck and food and water. Others are less pessimistic: As soon as Greef Karga glances at his hand he leans back on the carcass of a cantina booth and slaps his belly. “Ha!” he bellows, “by the end of this round, you filthy gutter womp rats will have to borrow from your womp rat mothers to pay me.”

“Quit bluffing, Karga. We know you don’t have shit,” Cara mutters. She picks up her cards and pulls a face like she bit on lemon, but still the veteran goes all in, pushes forward a couple of stabilizing coils, an identity beacon you could’ve sold at a decent price some months ago and—maker—even a pouch of nova crystal dust. Nobody here is stupid enough to gamble with food, but you’re surprised that even nova has lost its worth and been demoted to casino chip status. “This place smells like shit.”

“Bad bluff, piss-poor trash talk too,” you taunt. “Looks like all that time doing business with Imperials smoothed your brain, Karga.”

“Ex-Imperials,” he corrects. The ex-Guild leader slides a few more credits to the center of his ex-cantina’s table. “We live in a jolly Republic now, didn’t you hear? You’ve been liberated.”

“Fuck ‘em.” Duma turns her head, spits on the melted floor. “Can’t eat liberation, can I?” She throws a few more worthless credits onto the growing pile of nothing. At least, for now, it’s nothing. Credits and ship parts and every other type of currency haven’t meant anything but props in Nevarro for five months, when the siege began. That whole mess with troopers and Greef and Cara was bound to bring some repercussions—aside from making Karga’s cantina look like a volcano erupted inside. For five months, Imperial forces have surrounded the planet, and for five months, food and resources haven’t been allowed inside. They won’t let up, rumor has it, until they find the culprit: one particular Mandalorian with a valuable asset. They think he’s still hiding somewhere in the planet, but you know better. You watched the Razor Crest’s fly off-orbit and leave everything behind. Everything and everyone.

“This place smells like shit,” Cara repeats.

“Not shit,” replies Duma, “ash.” She picks up a card from the deck with long fingers. “You never did explain how that Mandalorian managed to torch this place.”

Cara’s sabacc face melts. Her fingers tighten and bend her cards as she exchanges a complicit look with Greef. “Never said it was Mando.”

“Who else? I was there in the first shootout. That hunter was fierce.” Duma dons a wolfish smile, because this is how she always wins: She plays with people, not cards. In fact, she abandons her hand face-down on the table and—oh no—gives you a once-over. “You knew him well, didn’t you?” You almost want to show her your garbage hand so she doesn’t bother trying to throw you off your inexistent game.

“Swung by the store a couple of times,” you answer as casually as you can manage and pretend the most interesting book is written on your cards. “But we weren’t exactly chummy, if that’s what you’re asking.” Creeping warmth attacks your face and there’s no stopping it. Shit.

“Funny, could swear I saw him leaving your store more than a couple of times.” You feel Duma’s eyes piercing into your forehead. “Pretty late at night, too.”

“Is that so?” Cara pipes with a lopsided grin.

“I thought you two were…friends,” Duma adds.

“Yeah, well,” you mutter, “you thought wrong.” Friends don’t leave friends to their luck in the middle of a fucking siege. It’s the same prickly thought that’s plagued you since you watched the Mandalorian take off triumphantly. It’s a stupid feeling. He was under no obligation to take you with him. You didn’t lie to Duma, you two weren’t friends. You couldn’t even call what you had a fling, even those require some degree of making-love-below-the-stars, quoting-passages-of-Naboo-Nights-to-each-other romance. Flings are shooting stars. No, your…thing, whatever it was, did not belong to the heavens. It was earthy. Human. It was counting credits and arguing about fuel prices or old modulators. It had weight—too much, apparently, to escape gravitational pull and fly away with him on the Crest. It was doomed to planets, both feet planted on the ground.

Still, you remember times when earthy was good. There was never anything airy or celestial in the way he’d take you. The shoved clothes, the harsh grunts, the rough hands, the pleasure, it was all palpable and primitive; earthy was dirty. Your furtive encounters had beating heart of their own, and there was always hard evidence left behind in case either of you ever needed a reminder: marks on the skin, ripped clothes, stained bedsheets. The bruises he left always took too long to heal, as if his touch enhanced your mortality, made you more human. Stars, those moments are what you miss the most. Five months is a long time to be neglected of touch—six, actually: five months since the siege, six since he last came to you. Earthy expires.

It’s not like there’s nobody in the planet willing to help you soothe your needs; quite the opposite, actually. Lately, it seems like handjobs are the new Nevarran handshake. Just last week you caught Cara feeling up some pretty market girl in an alley. You saw her, she saw you, you rolled your eyes, she grinned and got back to work. You were almost offended. Everybody’s screwing their time through the siege, while you’re left with nothing but reruns of filthy memories with the Mandalorian. You just know nobody but Mando will do. You replay your moments with him like a sad, mental porno on the nights you spend trying to get yourself off. Trying and failing, like having to put out a fire by spitting on it, because the only person in the galaxy with a hose is too busy playing hero lightyears away.

“Last round. Place your bets,” Karga announces and pushes a few more trinkets forward. Cara follows, and you pat around your pockets for something to lose. It’s all just rusted metal anyways. Only…shit, the last three games drained you. And Duma reads it on your face like you’ve got “BROKE” written all over your forehead.

“All out, huh?” She reaches down the table for her bag and drops a beskar pauldron on the table with a thud. A Mandalorian pauldron.

Cara purses her lips and balls a fist, but Greef shoots her a warning look. As if cantina brawls could make this place look worse.

“Still can’t believe you didn’t take anything that day,” Duma continues, shaking her head. “Regret it?”

“I’ll regret it,” you answer and go fish, as if a new card—the right card—could fix a life’s worth of bad luck, “when you learn how to chew beskar.” That earns you a signature “Ha!” from Karga and a cocked eyebrow from Duma. She can arch her eyebrows all she wants, but that much is also true. You don’t regret leaving the Mandalorian covert empty-handed.

You were the first on scene that day. After the smoke cleared, the remaining imps left to lick their wounds, and the Crest flew away, you went to check on Karga’s child, his pride and joy. You were met with a gruesome scene. The cantina, Nevarro’s most sacred landmark, had been reduced to its black skeleton, third-degree burns all over, gone. It sounds dramatic, but the cantina used to be the closest thing to a place of worship on this planet. God Booze was dead.

You kicked around the bar’s guts, until you found a gaping mouth on a wall, leading down, down, down into Nevarro’s entrails. Finding purgatory would’ve surprised you less than what you stumbled upon: an underground tunnel, an abandoned covert, and a sinister, unguarded pile of Mandalorian armor. Stars, it would’ve been so easy. You could’ve hoarded the spoils and stashed them away for better days. That amount of beskar could’ve bought you a one-way ticket out of this dumpster and an early retirement. But when you lifted a helmet, it stared back. It was blue and definitely not his, but Mando was all you could think of while you studied the helmet’s unique curves and creases. You heard his exasperated sighs when you got on his nerves, his moans when you’d touch him. And you just couldn’t do it. You sat back and watched as this skughole’s scavengers crept into the tunnels to pillage. Easy as that, everyone in Nevarro but you and Cara now has a beskar toy or two. Soon enough, this planet will house the wealthiest corpses in the galaxy if the siege is not lifted before reserves run out.

Karga clears his throat. “Well, ladies first. Let’s see those cards.”

Duma ignores him. “You know,” she tells you, “I’ve more beskar than I know what to do with. I’ll trade you a vembrance for a couple of ration packs.”

“And what am I supposed to do with a Mandalorian vembrance, play dress up?”

“The cards,” Greef urges.

“You’ll be rich.”

You snort. “The rich don’t starve.”

“Give me a break, we both know you’ve got portions to spare.”

Elbows on the table, you lean forward and closer to Duma. She sniffs weakness like a Corellian hound, and if you falter she’ll sink her fangs. “I’m not interested in your fucking loot.”

“Cause it’s stolen? You never had a problem with that before.” She mimics your move and leans closer. Karga fiddles with a coinage of calamari flan, like you’re both Canto Bight slot machines and he’s trying to decide where to put his money. “What, did you grow morals all of a sudden? Or maybe, you’re too worried of what your Mandalorian friend would think.” You flinch. She smirks. “Oh my, what would the disgraced hunter, code-breaker, cult member say—”

The tiny noise of Karga’s coinage clinking on the table is not enough to distract you from the verbal beating Duma is laying on you. But his voice—like he got the air knocked out of him—is enough to grab your attention when he murmurs, “Ask him yourself.”

Cara, Duma, and you turn to Greef Karga, who stares saucer-eyed at the window. All three of your heads move simultaneously, guided by the line of his eyesight. Outside the window, on the deserted street, stands a trooper barking orders. It’s one of those in all-black armor, the extra trigger-happy ones with a side of god complex because they think the change of color magically makes their aim less shitty. His blaster is drawn (surprise, surprise), and on the receiving end of its barrel…

Maker’s fucking mercy.

You don’t even see the blaster shot, only smoke snaking out of a hole on the shiny breastplate. The trooper plummets to the ground like his puppeteer cut off his strings: no last steps, no resistance. Now, anyone else would’ve walked away from what’s clearly worm food without a second look, but one does not become the best bounty hunter in the parsec by taking chances. A mountain of unpainted beskar looms over the corpse and kicks the blaster off the imp’s limp hand. The Mandalorian sheathes his own weapon—that blaster you’ve tweaked and polished so many times you know it as the palm of your hand—and scans the perimeter for danger.

You don’t tell your legs to move, but they don’t need the command. You find yourself trailing behind Cara, Duma, and Greef, rushing for the door. Outside, all four of you stumble and stop on your tracks to blink stupidly at the Mandalorian, the way children stare wide-eyed at soldiers on military parades. But this warrior stands grander than any Republic or Imperial officer you’ve ever seen. He’s clad head to toe in silver beskar—except for one armorless thigh that makes his other leg look even bulkier. His old armor, the one you used to shine and buff, is gone. This one you’ve only seen from afar, on that day he crashed the imps’ safehouse, and later when the battle broke out. You know it’s him, but in this new getup it’s easy to doubt. Maybe he’s a stranger. Maybe he won’t recognize you.

The Mandalorian studies each of you one by one, his hand near the blaster in case he spots any enemy faces. The hand twitches when he sees Duma—she doesn’t have the cleanest reputation around here—but she’s shocked and unarmed, so his arm relaxes. To Greef and Cara he gives short nods that they return.

And then you. He actually takes a step back when he spots you, like you pushed him square on the chest. The helmet lingers on you and tilts, shamelessly rakes over every feature like he’s memorizing you. You hold your breath. It reminds you of the day you met, that weight on your chest from knowing you’ve been seen. That’s how you know it really is Mando: Whenever he stares at you, you feel it in your bones.

You realize the moment’s dragged out for too long when Karga clears his throat. The spell breaks.

You and Mando look bashfully away from each other. You squint up at the clouds, your hands stiff on your waist in a forced, generic, looks like rain! pose. He turns to his boss (ex-boss? enemy? You never asked for an update on Mando’s most recent status in the Guild) and mutters a short, “Karga.” To Cara he’s warmer, offers a comradely clasp of hands and a pat on the shoulder. “Good to see you again.”

“You too,” Cara drawls, as she stares suspiciously between you and Mando. You squint harder at the clouds. “Didn’t expect you back during a siege, though.”

“I have to…” he spies a furtive glance at Duma and lowers his voice, “I’ve something to do here.”

Duma rolls her eyes and clasps her bag across her chest. “Don’t worry, Mando. I’ll leave you girls to catch up on the hot goss.” She strides into the cantina (probably to bag the bets, the asshole), and goes back outside.

She points at the window of a crumbling building. “Careful with snitches.”

You glance back to the window. Nothing. Jerk. Duma’s not above a made you look moment, apparently. You turn back to her but she’s already disappearing into an alley.

Cara waits until she’s gone to grab the Mandalorian by the arm. “Mando, where’s the…” she glances at you and hesitates. You fold your arms and raise your eyebrows at the veteran. If she expects you to leave graciously like Duma she’s got another thing coming. You’re actually very, very interested on the Mandalorian’s hot goss. Especially it comes with an explanation as to why he left you stranded here. Even though he doesn’t owe you one. Technically. “Y’know,” she finally says and drops her hand. “The asset.”

“On the ship. I need to get back.”

“You, my friend, need to lay low,” Greef says with a raised index. “Every imp in Nevarro will be looking for you. Maker—” he spreads his arms “—they already are! And someone must have heard the blaster shot. You have ten minutes or so until an Imperial squadron gets here. The, uh, asset will be fine.”

“The asset,” Cara exclaims, “is a ch—is…is delicate. He can’t just leave it on the Crest!”

Mando interrupts their game of taboo. “Cara,” he starts, “you go to the ship and check on…the asset. Please. I landed where I did last time. I…I’ll lay low in the covert.”

“About that,” Greef mumbles. He looks at Cara for support, but she steps back and raises both hands: You say it. Greef sighs. “They…they found the tunnels, Mando.”

The helmet crooks slowly to study Karga. “Who’s they?”

“Everyone. Half of Nevarro is living down there, you…you can’t go back.”

Silence.

You imagine all four of you go through the same checklist: Even if Cara didn’t already have a top-secret assignment with whatever the asset is, she doesn’t have a place of her own yet. Every week, she crashes on one of her sweethearts’ couches. On their beds, more likely. There’s no way Karga is letting him near his house, not after what happened at the cantina. That leaves…

“Stay with me,” you blurt before you can really think it through.

≈

The cramped storage room you call a home sits a story above your store. It’s four walls and only the essentials: a bed, an armchair, a table, a stove, and the only detached room is the refresher. It’s enough for you. But the Mandalorian looks like he squeezed into a dollhouse when you usher him inside and close the door behind you. He stands in the middle of the room, all fighter’s bulk and grandiose armor, like he’s afraid he’ll break something if he moves. As if he’s never been here before, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The apartment may be small, but it’s so filled with memories you could turn it into a museum of your dirty escapades with him. And if you look to your right, you’ll see the armchair where he sat while I went down on him on a stormy night.

“So,” you say and lean against the front door, “business or pleasure?”

He moves to stand to the side of the window opposite the front door and his glove moves the old washed out curtain to the side to peer into the street. The sun is setting, and the last streaks of light paint the beskar with warped yellow-orange streaks that stay as still as an undisturbed pond. So this is how he wants the evening to go: quietly and with a reasonable amount of distance between you. Disappointment knots in your stomach.

“Business.”

You open your mouth to cut into the silence, but you’re all out of words. Maybe you’ve lost your touch. It used to be so easy to tease him, but now…a heaviness seems to weigh down on his shoulders, some heightened sense of duty. But also determination: He stands taller now, prouder, like he woke up one day and knew exactly what he needed to do and why. Whatever that purpose is, you’re pretty sure it doesn’t involve you. You’re a detour, and not even the fun kind, judging by the space between you. Maker, this man used to pounce on you. Has the siege really battered you up that much?

“Been busy?” The sudden question startles you. He’s never been one to break the ice, that was usually your job.

“Sure.” Nope, not at all. “Store and all.” You closed the store three months ago. Turns out nobody buys equipment for their ships when they can’t fly past the atmosphere. “Plus, somebody needs to keep Karga distracted from his mourning. You owe him a cantina.”

“He told I did that?”

“Just a guess.” You move a couple of steps forward, like you’re approaching a nervous lothcat. When he doesn’t move away, you sit on the armchair, a little closer to him. “You like that flamethrower too much.”

“That what you four were doing in there?” The helmet moves to the side so he can spy deeper down the street. Always careful. “Assessing my damage?”

“No, just sabacc. Different kind of damage.” He’s making small talk. The Mandalorian, whom you’ve overheard have conversations solely based on grunts and sighs, is chatting with you. He’s not just answering out of politeness, he’s prompting you to go on, to keep running your mouth. That’s something he said once between thrusts, perched over you right on this floor: Keep running your mouth, see what happens. The memory warms your neck. Maker, not the point. The point is, before, he always said you had a smart mouth. Sometimes he’d chastise you for it, other times he’d encourage it. And you used to have the suspicion (or, let’s face it: fantasy) that he actually liked it. That somewhere hidden, beyond his pride and honor’s jurisdiction, he enjoyed the teasing and the banter, the challenge of having to deal with you. Better yet: More than once it crossed your mind that he got off on it, too. It’s been a long time, but some of that might remain. Maybe you’ll take his advice: keep running your mouth, see what happens.

You sit straighter, arch your back a bit just in case he’s watching. “You interrupted a round with your little stunt.”

“Yeah?” The helmet doesn’t move, but his hand runs up the curtain, considering. “Sorry. I bet you were winning.”

That makes you smile. It’s a dig at you. Far and wide across Nevarro, your uncanny ability to lose every single game of sabacc you play baffles locals and foragers alike. Yes, you know you suck, but the game amuses you anyways. You like the trash talk, the double-guessing, the bluff-calling. So much so that you forget to actually play. But what’s important is he’s teasing you, and that’s more than charted territory with him, a match you have a shot at winning. Okay. Game on.

“I was, actually.”

He huffs. “Don’t believe you.”

“Then I don’t believe you’re here on business.” Pause for effect. You can almost see a question mark form in a cloud above the helmet. You lean forward and lick your lips, lower your voice. “I think you missed me.”

You’re used to the helmet’s features remaining impassive, so you don’t look for clues on there anymore. Mando’s hands are more telling. You want to believe you actually see his fingers twitch and clutch the curtain a little tighter, that he takes too long to answer. That’s what trying to read him is all about—blind-guessing and wishful thinking.

“Don’t know about that. Six months and two weeks without your cons, I’m almost rich.”

Down to the week, huh? “Okay, if you want to make it about money we’ll bet on it. Twenty credits says you missed me.”

“Last time I was here you weren’t a compulsive gambler. Store’s doing that bad?”

“Last time you were here,” you coo, “there was a lot less talking involved.” You stare into the visor, and pray he can’t see the desperate hope in your eyes.

Your prayers are answered. In a way. Mando ignores you, doesn’t even look at you. You hear your clumsy attempt at seduction buzz around him like a one-winged bee, crash into the unmoving, unmoved Mandalorian, and fall to the floor in a pointed-lined spiral. You’re so embarrassed you want to step on it. Well, that settles it. Six months is apparently enough for a Mandalorian to lose interest.

“And store’s doing fine,” you lie to try and sway the conversation away from that lame innuendo that missed its mark. He really just wants to talk, then. No big deal. It’s fine. “Nobody gambles for money anyways.”

“Then why?”

You shrug. “Why do you hunt?” He’s never told you, but you saw him chase down a bounty once. He was ruthless, sweating adrenaline and with far too much stamina to only be chasing a bag of credits. “For the risk. The thrill.”

He lets your words float for a second. “You get a thrill out of losing?”

You roll your eyes. “I only lose cause everybody knows my bluff.” That is, except you. “You need to know someone to know their bluff. Greef and the others already know me too well. You, on the other hand.” You smile. “If you and I played, I’d get to keep so much of your stuff you’d think I’m half Jawa.”

And, only then, he seems to tense. That stupid throwaway line is what makes his spine grow visibly rigid and his hand drop from the curtain to his belt, where the leather of his glove creaks with how tightly he clutches the buckle. White and blue streetlights that reflect on his armor glide around like it’s water instead of beskar, and they’re your only indication that he’s shifted slightly. Slowly, so slowly you expect his neck to creak like a door, the Mandalorian turns away from the window to look at you. He holds there quietly, and you feel ants running down your back…stars, you’re nervous. For the first time in a while, he makes you genuinely anxious.

“You’re saying I don’t know you?” he rasps under the helmet. No, not really, but if it gets a reaction out of him…

“All I’m saying,” you start, summoning all your strength to keep your voice from faltering, “is you’ve been gone too long.” You try to make it sound a bit playful, but the words come out tasting bitter when you remember the sharp little edge that’s been digging on your side. He left you here, it whispers, he left you here and didn’t bother looking back. But a heavy boot suddenly drops forward and you’re forced to stop nursing your grudge to try and predict what Mando’s next move will be.

With every step he takes, you’re instinctively swallowed deeper into your armchair, until he’s looming over you. Stars above, the sheer size of him is enough to block out most of the artificial light coming in, and you’re left to squint in the blue twilight. Maker, you don’t remember him this big, this intimidating. Five months ago you would’ve smirked and opened your legs wide. C’mon, I don’t bite unless you ask, you would’ve teased, but now…now you think maybe you are the one who doesn’t know him anymore.

But some things never change, and having him so near still makes your thighs press together. If anything, this new foreignness, the inherent threat of a bounty hunter in your home that never quite poked the right nerve before now pulls on your most sensitive areas. It propels your heartbeat on a sprint. His arm moves, and—oh, you want him to touch you.

Visor trained on you, Mando points to the floor instead. “You hide your credits here.” To illustrate (or just to rub it in that he knows) his boot presses down on the loose tile and shifts from side to side. The sharp sound it makes irritates you less than knowing he found the fox clever hiding spot you used to pat yourself on the back for. “You don’t keep them in the store because it’s too easy to break into. The security panel downstairs is broken, but the one up here works fine.”

You can almost hear his proud smirk under the helmet. There’s a reserved side to him, sure, but bastard can be arrogant when he wants to. And no, you have no idea how he found the spot, but you’re not about to admit it.

“Congrats, boy scout. You can spot a busted panel and you have flat feet. Want a badge?” Your irritation brings back some of your old snark, but you still flinch when he moves closer and his legs brush against your knees.

“You also keep expensive parts inside the stuffing of this—” he takes a tiny step forward and frames your knees with his legs “—armchair.” Your blood freezes at his words, but it abruptly runs hot as the city’s lava river when you realize how close he stands now. His legs press against the armchair and there’s nowhere to go. You’re cornered.

A leather glove moves close and you hold your breath, before you realize he’s only toying with the tips of your hair. But his fingers dig deeper, tangle on thicker strands and, without warning, give a short but firm tug. It’s a tiny pull, but maker’s mercy, you feel your core pulse. And then, before you can regain some lucidity, his fingers dip lower, where the tips trace a slow line down your nape. He draws featherlight circles on that spot between your neck and your shoulder that he knows makes your toes curl, and—stars, it’s just been too long—you whimper.

“Still so sensitive here,” he whispers.

Once, this shielded man knew his way around your body like it belonged to him. You thought that part of him was lost, that he forgot, that he’d truly been gone too long. Those fears dissipate when his palm curls around the back of your neck to hold your gaze on him, while the thumb of his other hand brushes your lips. You know the drill—you open your mouth and give the orange tip some kitten licks. Mando huffs: You can do better than that. Maker, it should be a red flag, how quickly you comply. That urgent need to please him that had never, ever felt so crucial. An O forms in your lips before you can stop them, and his thumb pushes down on your tongue deep and deeper. You should play hard, make him earn it, bite him. But his finger starts to retreat and you panic—no, he can’t change his mind, not now. You seal your lips, trap him inside your mouth and suck. But his grip on the back of your neck grows beskar stiff, and he forcefully removes his finger…only to glide the spit over your lips. Just like that first time.

The visor looms closer to your face, and you catch a ruptured sigh, the pleasured kind that these four walls know so well. If Mando wasn’t holding you down, your chest would balloon with satisfaction and you’d float. His thumb trails down your throat, wetting its path and no doubt feeling the vibration when you chuckle. He cocks his head to the side in a silent question.

“You owe me twenty credits,” you explain, your breath clouding the helmet’s surface. “You did miss me.”

Mando crouches lower, where his helmet brushes your nose, and gropes the tops of your thighs with those wide palms you’ve been dreaming about for weeks.

“Yeah? You like bets?” You’ve never heard his voice so coarse, scratchy like week-long stubble. Did he change the settings of his modulator? Or is it just rash, pent-up need? “Then thirty credits says you’re fucking soaked.” His fingers butterfly higher up your thighs, almost at the apex. Your legs jerk.

“That’s cheating,” you gasp.

He takes one glove off and settles the covered hand on your hip, while the other disappears between your legs until—stars—he cups your core through your pants. You mewl and he hums when he feels the hot, damp fabric.

“I still win.” He presses the heel of his palm right into your clit and grinds it back and forth. Oh, if you thought you were wet before. The pressure, the friction, him—it all scalds you from head to toe like a fever, but you chase it, greedily push your hips into his palm. His fingers flatten along your slit and grope you tighter. “Gonna pay me? Doesn’t have to be credits.” He pushes viciously into you with that wide, hard palm, preening at the little gasps that escape you. Whimpering, you let your eyes fall shut and focus on something sprouting in your belly. Stars, you’re close—how the fuck are you so close already? It must be all the repressed desire, all that time. Fuck, you’re close—

The Mandalorian halts. You’re eyes flash open to see him straighten and step back, take his other glove off to stuff it snug between his belt and his hip, and remain still as a building. Still catching your breath, you study him head to toe, scanning for a sign of what went wrong. He’s clutching his belt, his stance is too smug. This isn’t him fighting temptation, he’s toying with you. Maker help him, you’re going to kill him. Some corner in your brain reasons that it’s kinda fair, as payback for all the times you messed with him. But in the forefront of your mind pulses the climax he just denied you, cast aside and angry.

Before you know what you’re doing, you push yourself off the armchair. “You—”

Mando beats you to it. A hand on your shoulder and a vembrance across your chest, he lunges forward and slams your back against a wall. He hovers over you, tightly pressed against your body. A fleshy, hard bulge covered by his pants throbs against your belly. Of course. You forgot how much he likes it when you look like prey; how much he enjoys the hunt, whether he admits it or not. The hand on your shoulder trails down to cup your breast. You squeeze your eyes shut and let out a shaky exhale.

“You need it bad,” he breathes as his fingers massage your chest. The movement shifts the fabric of your tunic, brushing it against your nipple. You roll your hips to try and stimulate him, to show you’re not the only one worked up. His erection twitches and you smile.

“You—mmm—you’re projecting.” You grind again to prove your point, but he catches on to what you’re implying and retaliates by shoving his hand inside your cleavage. Stars, you have to punch down the moan surges up your throat when he pinches your nipple.

“You missed this,” Mando hisses, and whether he’s trying to convince you or himself, you don’t know. What you do know is he’s plotting to settle this stupid inkling of a bet in his favor. He wants you to admit you missed him so he doesn’t have to. You know, because it’s exactly what you are trying to do.

You sneak your hand down his torso, aiming for the hem of his pants—but before you can get even with him, he crushes his hips against yours and traps your palm between them. And he’s not done—he wedges his thigh between your legs and rubs it up and down, drags your clit just right. Your mouth gapes in a silent moan as white hot pleasure lights up your spine. You want to get away from it but, maker, his forearm is still stiff against your chest. Even when you grab the vembrance with your free hand it doesn’t budge. You’re trapped between him and the wall.

“Can take care of m-myself just fine,” you croak as a last attempt to hold on to your dignity. “At least when I’m alone I don’t have to fake any orgasms.”

Yeah, it’s a low blow. A dirty fucking lie too, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all. Good news is it gets you a reaction—he immediately stops moving, as if your words punched him off balance. Bad news is you hit a nerve—his breathing becomes harsh like a bull’s, so much so that you expect clouds of smoke to come out from under the helmet. The Mandalorian creeps closer to your face and his forearm digs deeper into your chest. There’s a promise of danger in the dark visor that makes your pulse race, and a primitive instinct blasts emergency sirens. Maker, this won’t end well for you.

Just as you’re about to backtrack and whisper you didn’t mean it, Mando lets go of you—only for a split second, before he grasps your shoulders and turns you around to push your front into the wall. You jerk back on instinct, but he flattens a palm between your shoulder blades and squishes you right back against it.

The helmet rests right next to your ear when Mando growls, “You expect me to believe that?” His hands drop to your hips as he replaces the pressure on your back with his chest. His body weight holds you in place, and he rocks the hard outline of his erection along your ass. “That I don’t make you cum, you little fucking—” You curl your back as much as his body allows so he can stroke himself tighter against you. He groans and kneads your cheeks, moves the flesh in tandem with his thrusts. “I shouldn’t let you tonight, t-teach you a lesson.”

The mere suggestion feels devastating enough to let a pathetic whine tumble from your lips. Before, you could’ve turned this into a game, held out a little longer just to watch him break first. But you’re too pent up, too desperate, too sick of waiting. Your fingers hook on the hem of your trousers and push them down. Mid-movement, he traps both of your wrists in one hand and keeps them pressed against your lower back, while the other one gets your pants the rest of the way down, underwear too. You barely have enough time to step out of them before his free hand reaches between the apex of your thighs. You’re sticky, leaking around his fingers, and pushing back against his crotch like you’ll drop dead if he doesn’t fuck you.

“Fucking wet, fuck…” he mutters. His fingers follow the heat and your pussy clenches around nothing. Stars, if he just moved higher, a little higher where you’re hot and soaked and throbbing for him. But he takes his sweet time, molds the inside of your thighs like clay, pulls the flesh, squishes it together, until you’re writhing against him and leaking down your leg. Your vision blurs. “Can—can I…?” He lets his index finish the sentence, teasing at the edges of your outer lips.

Even with the side of your face against the wall, you manage to nod. “Yeah,” you breathe.

Two fingers slide around your folds and you gasp. Mando moves slowly, collecting your arousal and coating his fingers. Your breath catches when the tips finally push into your entrance—only a fraction before they slide back out, so the rest of his palm can cup along your cunt and drag more slick behind it. He’s strategically avoiding your clit, though, and with both arms behind your back and at his mercy, you can’t reach for it yourself. Fuck, you…you only need to hold on a bit more, he’ll get bored of his game soon enough. That’s it, just a little longer. You waited six months, no way he’s making you beg after a few minutes of teasing.

The Mandalorian eventually pulls his fingers away from your thighs and curses under his breath. You hear the familiar rustling of fabric and a divine zip that fills your eyes with tears of relief. Fucking finally. You brace yourself and relax your pelvic floor in preparation, but it’s barely necessary—you’re so ready for it. Your cunt is open and weeping, he can just slide it in. All this time, with nothing substantial inside you, your lower muscles pump and twist painfully with demanding want. Even with his size and in this position, you’re so turned on he might even be able to bottom out. Fuck, he doesn’t have to move much, a few good pumps and he’ll have you cumming, easy. Stars, what’s taking so damn long—

A modulated, battered moan and a wet noise make you turn your head over your shoulder and look for the source. The low light makes it difficult to make out shapes, but there’s no mistaking what you find below you. Hand wrapped solid around his cock, Mando is jerking himself off. With your cum as lubricant. While he treats you like a piece of furniture he’s only gripping for support. A chemical cocktail of lust mixed with fury spikes your blood.

“Is…wh-what are…what the fuck do you think y-you’re…”

“Say it,” he spits between his teeth, “say you f-fucking need me.”

No, no fucking way. As much as the words burn on your tongue and your clit tugs and begs, you’re not saying it. He left, not you. You waited for him. You turn your head as far back as your neck allows without snapping a ligament and look straight into the visor. And pointedly curl your lips inside your mouth, sealed.

Your act of rebellion lasts a good ten seconds.

“You’re so fucking difficult,” he snarls. He stops tugging on his cock, and for a moment you hope he might indulge you, push into you and stop the masochist torment you’ve talked yourselves into. But when it comes to Mando and you, it’s never that easy. Still not releasing your wrists, he grabs the base of his cock, glistening with your stolen juices, and rubs it up and down the swell of your uncovered ass. You gasp, let your lips part and your gaze fall to where he’s rubbing up against you and refusing to push inside.

He's not going to last long. Swollen and a strangled purple, the head of his cock dribbles warm precum and smears it on your lower back. The veins on his length throb against your ass, and stars, they’d feel so much better inside you. The Mandalorian’s grunts and groans ring more frustrated than lost in pleasure; it’s not enough for him either. He’s torturing you and himself just to prove a point, while you refuse to speak the magic words just to keep your pride. Desperate tears threaten to spill, but you shut your eyes to push them back. Either of you could put an end to it, right now. Maker, it’s on the tip of your tongue: I need you. Spit it out, end it. I need you, Mando, I need you, do whatever you want with me. It doesn’t matter that you abandoned me in this shithole, that you discarded me like faulty equipment, that you didn’t even have the decency to tell me—

The thrusting stops. When you open your eyes, you find the visor fixed on you, cocked slightly to the side, like there’s writing on your face. Mando’s grip on your wrist softens, his frustrated panting slows. Maybe he sees the unshed tears, or maybe your face really is that transparent, because he takes pity on you. Gentle palms on your shoulders, he turns you around to face him.

Night has fallen. Fragments of fluorescent light pour inside through your worn out curtains and give the helmet a fuzzy silver halo. The rest of the armor is shiny black, smudges of light here and there. His head moves around the features of your face, one by one, taking its time. Showdown’s over. He’s not playing a game anymore, not trying to get you to break, he’s just…studying you. Staring his fill of you farewell-style, even though he just came back. It hits you that you don’t know how long he’s staying this time. You open your mouth to ask, but stop yourself in time. If he leaves, he leaves. He doesn’t owe you any explanations.

But when he curls an arm around your waist and holds you against the wall and his cold breastplate, it doesn’t feel like goodbye. It feels like old times—pre-siege, pre-battle, pre-everything—when he confidently grabs your left thigh, sinks his fingers into the plump flesh, and hooks it on his lower back. You drape your arms around his shoulders and hold him closer. You’ve always liked the bulk of him against you, it makes everything feel more real. Buried on the crook of your neck, you hear him sigh when he lets go of your thigh and blindly searches your cunt. With your leg around his back you’re completely open for him, so it takes him no time to find your bud. He presses against it and rubs it in slow but tight circles that make your legs cramp.

You push down on him, demanding more. He groans and complies, inserts one finger and continues rubbing on your clit with his thumb. Maker, this has no right to be so good. He’s doing pretty much the same you’ve done to yourself these past months, but with Mando there are never any ghost sensations, no what ifs. It’s all here and now, and you swear you feel the pleasure of his fingers picking up speed in every corner of your body. He has you moaning and rocking your hips, dripping down his hand, and when he starts rubbing you harder and tighter, you finally whine a tiny, “Please.”

The Mandalorian doesn’t need to ask what you want, but he moves his helmet to look at you square in the face, check if you mean it. You stare droopy-eyed into the visor and nod: yesyesyesyes. Mando groans and grips you tighter. Maker, he’s right, you need it—need the bruises, need his cock, need all of him.

“Fuck,” he breathes. His hand leaves you to grab his cock and guide it to your entrance. He moves it around your lips and brushes his tip against your clit as he looks for your hole in the dark. It doesn’t take long for the head to poke right outside where it needs to go. “Fuck, I don’t—don’t think I can hold back, don’t want to hurt you—”

“Stars, please,” you whine, “I want it rough.” You want it more than rough. After six months, you want it fucking depraved, but neither of you is going to last long enough to make it elaborate. Maker, you don’t care. Right now, you don’t care for risky positions or clever techniques, you want him.

He groans and pushes inside—only the head, still testing, but your walls immediately grip him tightly to hinder any attempts to move away. That’s not what you should’ve been worried about. Fingers tight around your waist, Mando pulls you down as he pushes up. Stars. The brutal thrust reaches the end of you and then some more. Fuckfuckfuck. The dull bam of your skull hitting the wall is suddenly drowned by a slicker, filthier sound coming from between your legs. His length begins to pull out, your pussy complains the whole way, and you can almost hear the Mandalorian gritting his teeth through the sweet torture of feeling you squeeze around him…and thrust back up—harder. He likes the pace and sticks to it—fast, rough, deep, repeat—while you make sounds like you’re choking on air. Stars, it has been long. Long enough to partially forget his size, his fucking girth, currently filling you to the brim and punching high little sounds from your throat.

“Mmmando,” you sob.

Mando groans in response, snakes a hand down to your clit and rubs with the same wild abandon as his pounding. Maker, your memory was never this fucking good. No matter how many details you recalled, there’s nothing compared to the real, human meat of his cock pulsing urgently inside you, hitting your cervix, making you whine. Nothing like his fingers around your waist, or knowing there’ll be bruises tomorrow. The pleasure has teeth, carries a painful bite, but it’s exactly what you need. That tangible grit in his thrusts and his fingers is the missing piece. Your muscles start cramping, you pull him tighter against you—Maker, right there, you can feel it. It reaches your head and makes you dizzy, sheds light on some hidden, shameful words.

“Mando, I…”

“I—fuck—I n-needed this,” he grunts and brings his hand down to feel where his cock is inching out of you, like he has to double check it’s actually happening. Thrust. “Used—used to d-dream about you.” Thrust. Three fingers now push into your clit and draw frantic shapes. You clench your jaw, feel the hot tide in your belly rise faster. Thrust. “Wake up so f-fucking hard—cum in my pants.” Thrust—thrust—thrust.

Maybe it’s his words, maybe the rough pace, but something holds a flame to the dynamite building inside you and it explodes. Maker, your head’s going to burst. You moan long and deep into the spot Mando’s ear might be. Your legs shake, your arms cramp. Months’ worth of frustration gush hot and wet around him, as he babbles encouragement: There you go, just like that, make it fucking good. Your walls are still fluttering, your ears are still ringing, you haven’t even ridden out the last of your climax when his hips pick up the pace.

“Let me—let me cum inside,” the warrior pants, “let me f-fill this cunt…I—I haven’t since—fuck, I didn’t—”

“Yes,” you gasp, “yes, please, Mando, cum, cum inside—”

There’s no space left between you, but Mando finds a way to squish you tighter against him as he pounds into you for a few last moments, until you hear a strangled grunt, and a half-forgotten warmth pools inside you. The extra lubrication drives his last thrust as deep as your body allows. A few more lazy thrusts inside you, short and stunted as you take his load inside you, before he stops. A warm string trails down your leg, and—stars, he’s leaking out. How much did he cum that it didn’t fit inside you? Fuck.

You take turns panting, whimpering, listening to each other’s heartbeats slow to a semi-normal pace. The Mandalorian moves away from the crook of your neck to meet your glossy eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but you think will. You can almost hear his mouth opening, words boiling and rising in bubbles up his throat—

Zium!

It’s your imagination. It’s your ears ringing from that orgasm, your mind making stuff up. But. You could swear you saw a red flash glade right past your cheek. And from the way Mando’s helmet cocks to the side, you know he saw it too. You turn your heads in unison, to see smoke coming out of a hole a breath away from your ear. It takes both of you too long to put two and two together, and—before he can pull out—more of those red flashes are raining down on you.

…………

Edit: Chapter 2 let’s goooooooo

Taglist: @rosetophighlander @hellomothermoon @newyorksins @leo-moon @benedrylcumbersnatch

#the mandalorian smut #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian #din djarin smut #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando smut #mando x reader #mando x you #star wars smut

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dameronology · 3 years

Text

that’s all {din djarin x reader}

(i’m reposting this bc it wasn’t showing up in the tags and it was stressing me out)

summary: you’d saved din djarin from himself before. now, with the pain of losing his kid, you’re about to do it all over again. (kinda based on find me here by hayley williams)

warnings: this is...flangst. fluff and angst. swearing. mentions of depression but it’s also a bit ✨positive✨

this is just me trying to be the emotional janitor to...that. i’ve tried to keep it as gender neutral as possible but some of the conversation might imply an afab reader but hopefully it’s vague to be completely objective!!

- jazz

anyways i know i already said it but !! spoilers !! spoilers !! spoilers !!

p.s spot the titanic reference

Grogu was tiny but the whole he left in your lives was massive.

You always knew you were going to have to give him up - hell, that had been the job in the first place - but you hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. He wasn’t your kid but at the same he completely and entirely was. You’d never expected your first parenting experience to be with a tiny green Jedi but at the same time, you wouldn’t have had it any other way. The next few months were going to be hard; accepting that he wasn’t yours to keep and that he was in a better place was guaranteed to be a long process. It would be worth it in the end but the initial pain was bordering on unbearable.

Din was better at hiding it than you. Admittedly, he did have a thick beskar layer to shield his emotions and pain from the outside world but he couldn’t hide it from you; never from you. Even behind the metal, you could read him like a book. It was a product of spending every waking minute together (his overprotective doing, not yours) and in return, he had learnt every habit and every quirk of yours. He sometimes cursed your ability to read him, especially when it lead to you saying things like you did not just tilt your helmet at me like that, Din Djarin.

He’d been quieter in the days since Luke Skywalker had taken the kid - quieter than usual, at least. Din was already a pretty taciturn person; compared to how he was with other people, he practically spoke your ear off but since you’d landed back on Nevarro, he’d completely kept to himself. It was painful to watch, seeing him rise at the crack of dawn to take a bounty, only to return in the evening with a few more bruises than he’d had that morning. You wanted to say something to do something that would make him snap back to reality, but this was probably his grieving process and you had to respect that. Or, you had to at least try to.

That was, until, it felt like Din was killing both you and him; working himself to the point of exhaustion, barely sleeping and refusing to even acknowledge Greef or Cara. You could deal with him being angsty. You could deal with him grieving. You couldn’t, however, deal with him ignoring you. You had literally vowed to go through all your bad times together and Din Djarin was nothing if not a man of his word. He knew it. You knew it too - and you’d be damned if you’d let him forget it.

It was on a cold - at least by Nevarro standards - morning that you decided it was time to show him some tough love. The Mandalorian had decided to hole out on one of Karga’s old ships that morning, claiming that he wanted to fix it. You were no engineering genius, but given that the old jet’s wings had fallen off, you could see it was past the point of no return and that Din had just been looking for an excuse. He was good at that these days.

‘Din!’ You called. The bay doors were open, but the ship itself was dark and dusty. Tinkering, my ass. As expected, there was no reply. ‘Din! Don’t ignore me.’

Silence.

‘Please?’

You grumbled to yourself, walking further inside the dimly lit ship. Tiny specs of dust were floating in the streams of thin light, leading your path further and further towards the cockpit. Who ever it had belonged it, it pre-dated the Republic, let alone the Empire or new order. You tried to resist the urge to cough, instead choosing to focus on your mission: hunting down the Mandalorian. The tables really had turned, considering he was very rarely the prey.

‘I was talking to Karga.’ You continued - as far as you knew, you were talking to thin air, but you liked your chances. ‘He offered me a bounty puck for...Corellia, is it? For that big, bad guy we didn’t catch last year. You know the one that nearly killed me?’

There was a crash from the cockpit, and you grinned to yourself. It was a little unethical to scare the man out of hiding with your bullshit, but you were getting desperate.

‘I figured it would be good to get out a bit, try and distract myself, you know?’ You continued. ‘So I was gonna borrow a ship and head out there tomorrow-’

‘- like hell you’re doing that on your own.’

A six foot mountain of beskar suddenly stepped out from the darkness. Normally, that would have been enough to scare anyone, but not you. You’d married that six foot mountain of beskar. That probably gave you more guts than anyone in the damn galaxy -- until they found out he wasn’t actually that terrifying. Not many people would have taken the Mandalorian seriously if they knew he enjoyed having his hair played with.

You held your hands up in the air, stretching out your fingers to show that there was no puck in sight.

‘You lied.’ Din grunted.

‘And you were ignoring me.’ You shot back. ‘’S going on?’

‘I told you. I was working on the ship-’

‘- nope.’ You cut him off. ‘Try again.’

‘Karga asked me to fix it-’

‘- Still no!’ You snapped. ‘We gonna go three for three or are you gonna finally pull your head out your ass and stop lying to me, Din?’

There wasn’t a single person in the galaxy who dared speak back to the Mandalorian - except you. That was what had made him fall for you in the first place. It was like you couldn’t even see the beskar. You’d always seen him as Din, and never as the Mandalorian, or a warrior. You’d made it clear from the day you met that you wouldn’t take any bullshit from anyone, him included, and he’d always respected that.

‘You have been holing yourself away for weeks.’ You continued. ‘I know it’s hard but you have to accept it. Grogu wasn’t ours to keep - he never was.’

Din didn’t response, instead dropping his gaze down to the floor.’

‘Hey.’ You put a finger at the base of the helmet, tilting his head back up to look at you. ‘Look at me. Talk to me.’

‘I miss him.’ He stated; short and blunt. Fitting, really. ‘And it hurts.’

‘I get that.’ You gently placed your hands on either side of his helmet, fingers splaying out over the cold metal. ‘But it’s better to hurt together. Can I?’

Din nodded, signalling that it was okay for you to take it off. You gently tugged at the helmet, momentarily breaking away from him to place it beside you. It was a relief to see his face after so many weeks of having the beskar between you; the soft brown eyes and slightly crooked smile that met you on the other side felt like home. You could have stared at him forever if the galaxy wasn’t so fucking demanding of your presence.

You’d spent far too long on the other side of the beskar, waiting for him to let you in. And now that you’d got him, now that you’d promised yourselves to one another forever? You weren’t going to let it happen again.

You gently pushed back a few tufts of brown hair, offering him a sad smile. ‘You know we made the right decision, yeah?’

He nodded, leaning into your touch as your hands carded through his hair. ‘I know.’

‘So you gotta stop beating yourself up, baby.’ You stressed. ‘Stop shutting people out - stop shutting me out. I know we don’t have the kid anymore but we are still a family.’

‘I lost the ship. I lost the kid.’ Din quietly spoke. ‘I’m just worried that-’

‘- I’m not going anywhere.’ You shook your head, knowing what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth. ‘Even if you paid me. You are stuck with me, okay? Cursed with me till the day I keel over and die.’

Finally, Din smiled. He looked you dead in the eye and he smiled, eyes creasing at the side as he peered down at you, eventually tightening his arms around your waist. He held your head to his chest, ungloved hand gently clutching you as he rested his chin on your hair. The first time he’d clung onto you like this had been after a rough mission; neither of you had been sure if he was going to make it back and when he did, the first thing he did was pull you into his arms and you stayed there for what felt like hours. That was when Din realised for the first time that he loved you - and now, after weeks of isolating himself and shutting you out, this didn’t feel completely different from that. It was just that this time, it was less of a realisation of more of a reminder.

‘I didn’t expect it to be this bad.’ Din quietly admitted.

‘I know.’ You whispered back, voice slightly muffled by his chest. ‘But pain is only temporary. Dark times pass and we’ll learn to look back on this and enjoy the memories. They won’t always be tainted.’

He’d been in a dark place when he’d met you. It was like he’d been treading water, waiting for the riptides to take him, to stake their claim and remind him of his mortality, to remind him that not even the bravest people can forfeit their ability to hurt. He tried. Maker, he had tried. The icy and emotionless impression he gave to strangers wasn’t an accident. It was a survival mechanism; a defense mechanism. One that you’d chosen to ignore. You’d saved him in every way a person could be saved.

Just as the waves were pulling him under, you’d dragged him out; dragged him to the shore and reminded him that pain was merely part of being human. Most importantly, you’d called his attention to the fact that no matter how much beskar he wore or how impenetrable he acted, that he couldn’t avoid being one. He could run away from bounty hunters and Imperials and the thousands of enemies he’d made but the fact of mortality was always hot on his tail.

Now, you were pulling him up for air all over again.

Eventually, pain stopped being a reminder of his humanity and instead, it was replaced by his love for you. His ability to feel things for you. You’d saved him then and now, you were helping him come up for air all over again. Being human didn’t always mean to hurt - it could just as much mean to love.

‘I’ve got you, okay?’ You tightened your grip on him, eyes meeting his. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘You.’ Din replied. ‘I need you. That’s all.’

a/n: ok i realised i published an identical but slightly different imagine to this in october but...clearly i have a type and that type is imagines where the mandalorian confesses that you’re the only thing he needs because i eat that shit up. consume it whole. i am telling you. i have no regrets. my content might is predictable but HELL at least u can rely on something in these wild times❤️

#din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #din djarin x you #mandalorian x you #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian imagine #mandalorian fan fiction #din djarin fan fiction #star wars x reader #star wars x you #star wars fluff #din djarin fluff #mandalorian fluff #mandalorian spoilers #mandalorian season 2 spoilers

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the-scandalorian · 3 years

Text

Tempered Glass: Chapter 1

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader (no use of Y/N) Rating: M (will become explicit in later chapters) Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: slow burn, canon-typical violence, cursing, sexy thoughts, pining, non-graphic description of wounds Summary: With the ghosts of your own mysterious past close on your heels, you can’t afford to get in the middle of someone else’s fight; however, attraction drives you to make a reckless decision, and you end up swept up in the Mandalorian’s story. Notes: (1) Reader is bisexual. It will probably only come up peripherally, but I wanted to make a note of that. (2) I did my best to keep physical descriptions of the reader out of my writing, but please let me know if something slipped in that isn’t as inclusive as it could be!

Masterlist | Next Chapter

Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

You felt the weight of the Mandalorian’s gaze before you saw him.

Sitting in the cantina on Nevarro, you were alone in a corner booth—a seat close to the back exit that had a clear view of the front door.

You were halfway through your drink when the hairs on the back of your neck prickled, and you had the overwhelming feeling that you were being watched.

You scanned the cantina and, in your periphery, registered the Mandalorian’s head snap back from your direction to face the man sitting across from him. You hadn’t noticed him enter, but it must have been just moments ago because you surveyed your surroundings every few minutes.

The two men were seated a few tables away. You observed the Mandalorian for a moment, noting his stiff-backed posture and the tension in his shoulders under his battle-worn armor. He could tell you’d caught him staring and that you were watching him.

The man sitting across from the Mandalorian was gesticulating as he spoke. You’d been on Nevarro long enough to recognize him as Greef Karga, local leader of the Guild. You could only see his back, but he was boisterous—a stark contrast to the Mandalorian’s silent stillness—and his voice carried.

Karga was saying something about bounties and currency—no surprise there. Mandalorians were the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy. You didn’t know much about them besides the legends you’d heard as a child, though it was very unclear what was true and what was myth. You’d only ever seen one in person before, and that Mandalorian had been terrifying, threatening.

This Mandalorian, however, was... intriguing? He was, of course, intimidating—in his head-to-toe armor with a long rifle leaned against the table, he was the very picture of a warrior. Any person with sense would be scared of him, and judging by the sidelong glances he was getting from the other patrons, most were.

The very relatable experience of having someone catch you in the act of watching them—as you’d just done to him—however, humanized this Mandalorian. Noting his broad shoulders, you couldn’t help wondering what he looked like under all that heavy metal. You’d heard rumors that some Mandalorians never took off their armor in front of another person. That would be a real shame.

Though you’d have preferred to continue thinking about the man under the armor (and the things you wanted to do with him), a small voice in your head reminded you of the potentially dangerous reality of your situation.

Why was he watching me? He can’t possibly recognize me.

No one had come after you in years. There was likely still a steep bounty on your head, but many of the people who wanted to find you were dead, imprisoned, or deep in hiding. Some were convinced you’d been taken out in a star cruiser explosion (because you almost had been). And, you no longer looked like the photo that was attached to your bounty puck. Your hair was a radically different shade and length. You wore contacts to obscure the real color of your eyes. You always chose high-necked clothing to conceal the identifying scar that slashed an angry line beneath your clavicle.

You kept a low profile, moved often, and assumed a fake identity, but you felt safe enough in your anonymity to come to a planet like Nevarro, a place that was swarming with hunters.

Plus, you reasoned that if the Mandalorian was looking for you for a job, this is probably not how it would have happened. It would have been stealthy and quick, potentially bloody and violent.

No, you didn’t think he was looking for you, which meant he had been looking at you. Out of interest. And that was so, so much better.

You turned your body towards him pointedly to make it more obvious that you were watching him. The slight forward lean of his shoulders told you he registered your movement in his periphery. His helmet stayed trained on Karga, but it was impossible to know exactly where he was looking through the black t-shape of his visor. You would have bet he was looking back at you.

The Mandalorian responded to Karga, pushing some credits back across the table. You could hear the low undercurrent of his modulated voice, but you couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. It looked like they were arguing about the currency of the credits on the table.

As Karga dug in his pocket for something, the Mandalorian turned his helmet slowly back towards you. Throwing caution to the wind, you smiled at him and winked, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement. You watched him expectantly, figuring this was when he’d walk over to your table.

Instead, he turned his head back to Karga, responded to something he said, and grabbed the credits off the table. They were clearly finishing up their deal. The Mandalorian slid out of the booth and strapped the long rifle to his back. He started toward the front door.

Maybe you’d read the whole situation wrong. Like you, he was trained to be aware of everyone, everything around him. Perhaps, he’d just been surveying the cantina, not necessarily you.

Feeling slightly disappointed, you finished your drink, dropped some credits on the table, and got up to leave. You were pulling on your jacket when a familiar feeling made you flick your head up. The Mandalorian was standing at the front of the cantina, his dark silhouette framed in the light of the open doorway, visor trained on you.

From where he was standing, he looked you up and down, lowering and raising his helmet to survey your body from top to bottom and back up again—a gesture that could have easily been achieved without moving his entire head in such an obvious way. His penetrating gaze and brazen attention made you shiver.

He waited to see what you would do.

You were tempted to go to him, to see what would happen, but the stubborn part of you wanted him to come to you—and, more importantly, the sensible part of you was worried this was somehow a trap. You made an impulsive choice and decided to prolong the chase...whether that chase would prove to be literal or figurative, you weren’t totally sure.

You smiled slyly at him and turned, slipping out the back door.

***

The second time you crossed paths with the Mandalorian, you saw him before he saw you.

You were walking down Nevarro’s main thoroughfare, a busy street lined with vendors, pushing through the crowd, when you spotted the back of his reflective helmet. A couple weeks had passed since you had seen him in the cantina, and you’d been hoping to see him again, always keeping an eye out for his distinctive profile.

These past two weeks, you’d found your thoughts straying to his image—strong, mysterious, intimidating. He was sexy. There was no getting around it. You’d spent enough time around people in masks and full-body armor to know that it wasn’t just the mystery of the helmet that attracted you to him. There was something about him you couldn’t shake.

It didn’t help that you were bored and lonely here on Nevarro. It was not your favorite planet. It was dry and hot, the surface a mosaic of cracked flows of hardened lava and loose tephra—unwelcoming terrain. It was volcanically active, too, steam pouring from fractures in the hard, black ground. A river of molten lava ran under the city itself. Who would choose to live here?

For you, Nevarro was no more than a stopover—a place to stay for a few months before moving on to the next planet. You could leave any time, easily book passage to a bigger city on a prettier planet, but that shameless part of you that imagined the Mandalorian fucking you in his full armor was bold enough to convince yourself to stick around for a little longer and see if you could run into him again. Why not?

You’d been running for years, denying yourself comfort, companionship, consistency. Couldn’t you indulge just this once?

You had no reason to think the Mandalorian had thought of you for one second after seeing you in the cantina, but you let yourself hope. He didn’t hide the way he looked at you, and he hadn’t pursued you as a quarry when you left the cantina (and what a relief that was), so that meant...he’d flirted with you...right? That was probably how a Mandalorian flirted? Maybe you were stuck in his head the way he was stuck in yours? A girl could dream.

You watched his helmet disappear and reappear as you both weaved through the throngs of people. The Mandalorian had a purposeful gait and an immediate effect on everyone around him: the crowd parted for him as people avoided his path and his gaze. No one wanted to be noticed by a Mandalorian.

Well, almost no one.

The Mandalorian clearly relied on his menacing appearance and the notorious lore associated with his armor to ensure that he was left alone. You, on the other hand, depended on stealth and the ability to disappear in a swarm of people to stay hidden. This meant that while the crowd parted easily for him, you struggled to wend your way through it.

He turned down a side street.

The fact that he’d hounded your thoughts since you first saw him spurred you into recklessness, and you followed. As you turned down the same side street, you saw the edge of his cape disappear into an alley. The further away you moved from the main street, the more you began to question yourself.

This is potentially a bad idea.

This is definitely a bad idea.

Your existence hinged on your ability to stay lost, to be anonymous, to change your appearance, to never be sought out. And here you were, seeking out a bounty hunter.

You’d been slipping into a dangerous false sense of security these past few months—spending more time in each place, neglecting to change your chaincode as often as you should. Just because no one had come for you in a couple years, didn’t mean you were safe. You needed to snap yourself out of this delusional thinking.

But maybe... not yet?

You picked up your pace.

It was just the two of you in a long alleyway, and you were sure he could sense you behind him by the slight turn of his head, but he didn’t stop or turn around. You weren’t being stealthy, only a few long strides behind him. He had to know you were there.

He walked surprisingly quietly, considering his heavy armor and determined stride. The loudest sound he made was his cape whipping around his calves. His long rifle was strapped to his back, and he was carrying a camtono in his left hand.

He quickly slipped down another shadowy passageway that you hadn’t noticed. You turned to follow, about to say something, but the passage was deserted. You walked to the end and back, checking to see if he’d turned again, but there was no trace of him. No doorways led off the passage. The only things in the alley were a stack of abandoned wooden pallets and a grate that emitted hot steam. He must have given you the slip on purpose, taken some secret route to evade the stranger on his tail.

Understandable. It’s what you would have done too. I probably should have come up with a better plan than just pursuing him.

Well, fuck.

You were more disappointed than you cared to admit, but you turned and headed back to the apartment you were renting a few blocks away. You were slightly embarrassed by how impulsive you’d just been. You wouldn’t have felt so abashed if it had paid off, but it hadn’t.

You’d overstayed your time on Nevarro. Your self-imposed limit was two months per location, and you’d been here two and a half. You couldn’t push it any more, especially for such a ridiculous reason. It was time to go.

***

The third time you encountered the Mandalorian, neither of you saw the other coming.

You packed up your things, fitting everything you needed in one backpack. You purchased more food and let the hours of the afternoon drag on, waiting for the sun to sink low in the sky before heading out.

When it was evening, you slipped your blaster into the holster at the small of your back. You slid a vibroblade into the sheath at your hip and strapped a much smaller one to your calf where it was concealed under your pants. As you slung your bag over your shoulder and scanned your small space to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything, noise erupted outside—an explosion, not far away.

There were enough ex-Imperials and bounty hunters on Nevarro that street fights and loud commotions were commonplace. You slipped out your front door, figuring you could avoid the action by slinking through the alleyways. You knew the layout of the city fairly well by now.

You crept through the dim streets. You guessed that the fighting was a couple blocks to your left based on the muffled sounds of intermittent blaster fire. You made your way toward the cantina where you knew a few regulars who would have transpo connections, but you only made it a couple blocks from your apartment before you ran into trouble.

Suddenly, shouts echoed down the street behind you. You made a hasty left turn, looking back to see if anyone was following as you broke into a run. With your head turned, you didn’t see the Mandalorian backing his way down the street toward you. You collided painfully with his back and crumpled to the ground next to him. He, mostly unfazed, made a grunting sound and snapped his head to the side to see who’d hit him. He kept his body and his blaster trained forward at two shadowy figures that were stalking towards him, but he pointed his left vambrace down at you, prepared to neutralize you if needed.

He cocked his head at you as if trying to assess whether or not you were a threat. Before you could think of anything to say, blaster fire screamed down the alley toward both of you. You grabbed your own blaster and sprang to your feet.

Noting the way you trained your blaster away from him, the Mandalorian redirected his attention back to the oncoming assailants. As more blaster fire streaked toward you, he jumped in front of you to shield your body with his and fired back down the alley.

I guess he decided I’m not a threat.

The figures drew nearer—one, a hulking man, and the other, a wiry woman with blue hair... both bounty hunters. They slunk around stray crates and garbage bins, making it difficult for either of you to land a direct hit.

The Mandalorian’s beskar armor lived up to the crazy stories you’d heard. Blaster fire pinged off of it without leaving a mark. Standing so close behind him, you noticed that his armor was different than what he’d worn just earlier that day. His old armor, painted a rusty reddish-brown, had been mismatched and battered. This was new, pristine, unpainted—a stunning reflective silver.

It was the same Mandalorian though. That you were sure of.

You kept most of your body behind his protective stance, just peaking your head and arm out periodically to take a shot. You leaned around him again to fire, and you hit the woman in the thigh while she was momentarily exposed. She grunted in pain and paused her advance.

You ducked back behind the Mandalorian. You were surprised and confused by the way the he was treating you like a partner, protecting you instinctually. You hadn’t exchanged so much as a word yet.

Weren’t Mandalorians supposed to be merciless, violent bounty hunters? Why was he trusting you? For that matter, why were you trusting him? It sounded absurd to think that he just felt trustworthy.

The next time you poked your head out, you noticed that the man had stopped shooting and was watching you intently from where he was hiding behind a stack of boxes. He made eye contact with you and held it, and you saw recognition dawn on his face. He pointed at you, turning to the woman to yell something in a language you didn’t recognize, and then charged forward, blaster drawn. His mouth formed your name, your real name, as he thundered towards you. You froze where you stood, partially exposed.

Fuck. He recognized me so easily. How?

Hot blaster fire zinged past your ear. The Mandalorian lurched forward and fell to one knee in a controlled movement as fire erupted from his vambrace. His quick thinking snapped you out of your panic, but your heart thundered as you processed how close you’d come to getting shot.

As the man’s clothes caught fire and he began to flail in panic, you came back to your senses and shot him in the chest.

The female bounty hunter, who was still several paces behind the man, disappeared down an alley behind her, just as you resumed shooting in her direction.

It won’t be long before word spreads that I’m alive on Nevarro. FUCK.

The footfalls of the woman faded quickly, and you knew she was too far ahead to catch.

You and the Mandalorian were left alone in the alley. Things were quiet for a moment.

You turned to look at each other. It was then that you noticed the bundle tucked tightly in the crook of his right arm, the same arm that held his blaster. He shuffled the bundle to his left arm carefully... tenderly?

He tilted his helmet slightly, starting to say something just as you did the same. Before either of you could form a sentence, several more figures rounded the corner behind you.

“Come on,” you yelled, grabbing his arm to drag him forward. For the moment, the two of you were in this together. It was better than being caught in this fray alone. You figured you’d be able to slip away from the action soon enough.

As you ran through the streets, you both noted the echoing footsteps picking up behind you at each juncture. More and more people—bounty hunters—were joining the pursuit. It seemed like every bounty hunter in Nevarro was being drawn to the Mandalorian.

What did he do to bring this much heat down on himself? I need to lose him.

You considered turning down every street or alley you passed, but at least one hunter blocked each one. Every doorway was shut tight. The hunters were right on your heels. You kept running, the Mandalorian pounding along behind you, until you reached the main street, emerging near the archway that marked the entrance to town. Beyond the archway, the flat expanse of Nevarro stretched out before you; a silver ship, not far ahead, was the only thing that broke up the uniform landscape.

You both stopped abruptly in the middle of the street, as at least twenty bounty hunters closed in around you, each with a blinking fob in their hand. You were trapped. The pinging chorus of the fobs was enough to rip you back to a not-so-distant time when that sound was a constant refrain in your nightmares. But even at the height of the Empire’s search for you, you’d never had this many people on your tail.

Up until this moment, you hadn’t been too worried about making a getaway. You knew you would get out of this. You’d been in worse situations. But now? Blood rushed in your ears, and your adrenaline spiked. You were cornered, outnumbered, and somehow in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with you. You were surrounded by bounty hunters, and one had already recognized you. You’d spent years disappearing and here you were, back in the thick of it because you turned down the wrong alley at the wrong time.

You glanced at the Mandalorian and tried to formulate an escape plan—or at least a way put some distance between you and him.

He surveyed the scene, seemingly calm in his blank mask of beskar, and began to walk towards the archway, as even more bounty hunters appeared. Not having come up with any better alternatives yet, you followed him.

The Mandalorian stopped short when Greef Karga sauntered out from the shadows to block your path forward through the archway.

“Welcome back, Mando!” Karga’s voice, the voice that had seemed jovial in the cantina weeks ago, sounded threatening as it rang through the street. “Now, put the package down.” He rested a hand on his hip, pushing back his cape to expose his blaster.

The bundle must be valuable. You wondered briefly what the Mandalorian had wrapped so carefully under his arm. A rare material like kyber? Something unstable like rhydonium? A set of holodisks with important intel?

The Mandalorian mirrored Karga’s movement, hovering his hand over his own blaster. “Step aside. I’m going to my ship,” he replied calmly. He sounded awfully certain considering the circumstances. Your eyes flicked back to the silver ship, an old Razor Crest, that sat just beyond the archway.

Karga chuckled. “You put the bounty down and perhaps I’ll let you pass.”

“The kid’s coming with me.”

KID?

“If you truly care about the kid, then you’ll put it on the speeder,” Karga said, pointing to a speeder parked in front of the building on your right, where a droid sat in the pilot’s seat. The droid let out a series of cheerful beeps, indicating its readiness.

“How do I know I can trust you?” asked the Mandalorian.

How did he know he could trust me? This guy seems to play fast and loose with trust.

Karga scoffed, “Because I’m your only hope.”

Shit.

Any second, this fight was going to turn into an every-person-for-themself situation. You and the Mandalorian had helped each other thus far because it had been convenient, but now that you were trapped, you knew this precarious alliance you’d formed out of necessity was about to fracture. You hadn’t missed the way he said I and me, not we and us. You weren’t part of his equation, and you couldn’t blame him—of course, you were also going to prioritize your own safety over that of a literal stranger.

You surveyed the street, looking for the least obstructed escape route. You hoped you could run fast enough once this tense moment passed and the fight started in earnest.

The Mandalorian stepped back into you suddenly, taking the opportunity to whisper urgently, “Jump in when I say go.”

You were stunned—so stunned that you followed him without thinking as he walked over to the speeder.

For the first time, the Mandalorian looked down at the bundle in his arms. You gasped when you saw that it was in fact a sleeping child—a tiny green infant. He took a moment to watch the baby before glancing at you briefly. He looked back down at the child and without any warning, he breathed, “NOW.”

You dove head first onto the speeder as he raised his blaster and shot a hunter who was right behind where you had just been standing. From the outside, you imagined that it looked like the two of you were partners—the way you moved together, coordinated and seamless.

You scrambled back and pushed crates out of the way, staying down on your stomach, as the Mandalorian flung himself over the side of the speeder and landed next to you. Blaster fire screeched all around you as the hunters reacted in unison.

You both stayed prone on the floor of the speeder, reaching only your blasters up to return the fire that was raining down on you. The Mandalorian rolled over to carefully place the kid down before yelling at the droid at the front of the speeder.

“DRIVE!”

When the droid shook its head in refusal, the Mandalorian demanded again, holding up his blaster threateningly. The droid acquiesced, and the speeder lurched forward. You grabbed the child and hugged them to your chest as the crates shifted around you.

You made it almost all the way to the archway—you and the Mandalorian taking out several of the bounty hunters as you went—before someone had the sense to shoot the pilot droid. The speeder crashed to a halt in a rain of sparks. Fire ceased and a tense quiet fell.

The Mandalorian edged toward you on his elbows. You could hear the bounty hunters closing in around you, the crunch of their boots ominous. You curled your body protectively over the child.

“Fuck,” you whispered. “What now?” You looked into the black t of his visor, wishing you could see his eyes.

He nodded as if that was a sufficient answer to your question and worked his way toward the edge of the speeder. Slowly, silently, he pulled his long rifle from his side and eased it between two crates, pointing it at a hunter on the roof of the closest building. You heard the sound of the rifle powering up and its screeching discharge as it vaporized the hunter. And then another. And another. The Mandalorian’s reload was lightening fast. You took the chance during the ensuing chaos to scoot to the edge of the speeder and take aim at a hunter with your blaster. The remaining hunters scurried away, taking shelter behind walls, doorways, whatever they could find.

The Mandalorian paused, and for a tense moment, nothing happened. The threat of the Amban Rifle was enough to create another temporary ceasefire.

“That’s one impressive weapon,” bellowed Karga. You couldn’t see him from where you lay.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna walk to my ship with the kid, and you’re gonna let that happen,” the Mandalorian stated authoritatively.

We.

“No, how about this? We take the kid, and if you try and stop us, we kill you both and then strip your body for parts,” Karga spat back.

You could feel the hunters starting to come out of hiding all around you. The subtle rasp of tephra under foot gave them away again. You looked behind you and saw that one hooded hunter was edging closer to the speeder. The Mandalorian had his back to the hunter, as he faced Karga. You trained your blaster on the approaching hunter, ready to fire. Before you could pull the trigger, the Mandalorian kicked the canister at his feet, knocking the hunter over, and sat up to stun him with the rifle.

Apparently, he had been aware of the man the whole time. His peripheral vision must be largely obstructed in his helmet. How is he so acutely aware of everything around him?

Everyone opened fire once again.

Over the sound of blaster fire, you heard Karga yell, “Don’t hit the target!”

The Mandalorian rose to his knees, leaned over some crates, and activated his vambrace so a sudden burst of flames cleared out the hunters that were closest to the speeder. You took out two more with your blaster while they were distracted by the flames.

The Mandalorian grunted in frustration as the fire streaming from his wrist sputtered out. Then, he grunted and doubled over in pain when blaster fire hit him in the side, where he wasn’t protected by his armor.

He clutched his side and ducked back down to crawl his way over to you, gently pulling on your arm until you released the child, so he could look at their face. The child cooed and opened two huge, watery eyes.

You looked away, feeling like you were encroaching on a private moment.

Is this his kid? Who is after a child? What is the story here?

You leaned away and fired several more shots, injuring another hunter.

Then you heard it. A streaming projectile took out one of the hunters on a nearby roof. As the hunter screamed and fell to the ground, several figures in Mandalorian armor, powered by jetpacks with blasters in hand, rose up from behind the row of buildings lining the street. There had to be at least a dozen of them—maybe more. It was hard to tell in the chaos. They seemed to be everywhere. They took out hunter after hunter as they slowly lowered themselves to the ground and sparks rained down around you.

You both sat up to watch.

A particularly huge Mandalorian in blue armor with a large repeating blaster touched down next to the speeder and bellowed, “Get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”

“You’re going to have to relocate the covert,” responded the Mandalorian, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

“This is the way,” replied the huge blue Mandalorian, as he continued to fire at the bounty hunters.

“This is the way,” agreed the Mandalorian next to you.

In one fluid movement, he strapped his rifle to his back. You sheathed your blaster as he thrust the kid back into your arms, and he grabbed your free hand, hauling you to your feet as he stood. You jumped from the speeder together. He pulled you along behind him, continuing to shield your body with his as much as possible. The juxtaposition of the way he held your hand and how he was brutally taking out hunter after hunter with his blaster was jarring.

A blaster shot grazed your thigh as you ran, and you swore at the stinging pain, doubling over slightly without loosening your grip on the child. The Mandalorian turned his head but didn’t stop pulling you forward. You faltered for a moment but gritted your teeth and sped up to sprint behind him, leaving the chaos in your wake as you crossed under the archway. You made it the short distance to his ship, where the ramp was already lowered.

You followed him up the ramp. He shoved his blaster into the holster on his belt and started forward into the ship.

The idea of being trapped with this strange Mandalorian was absurd, but you didn’t have much of a choice. If you stayed on Nevarro, the remaining bounty hunters would tear the city apart to find you. This was the fastest way to get off world: a calculated risk.

You sensed movement behind you before you heard Karga’s voice.

“Hold it, Mando.”

You both spun around to face him. Karga had a blaster trained on you and the kid in your arms.

“I didn’t want it to come to this. But then you broke the code,” he spat.

The Mandalorian was silent as he assessed his options. Silent was clearly his default state. He was used to hiding behind the intimidating mask of his armor.

You were trying to guess how good Karga’s reflexes were and if you could grab your blaster from where you’d resheathed it at your back fast enough. As you thought it out, the Mandalorian tipped his head subtly to his left at what looked like a carbonite chamber. Before you or Karga could register his plan, he shot a metal cord from his vambrace, hitting the button to activate the chamber and filling the hull with freezing mist.

In the gloom, the Mandalorian grabbed you roughly and pushed you out of the way. Karga shot blindly. You whipped out your blaster and fired back, knowing exactly where he had been standing. You heard him grunt and fall backwards off the ship with a thud.

The Mandalorian made quick work of shutting the ramp, deactivating the hissing carbonite chamber, and initiating the takeoff protocol from a control panel on the wall.

You slumped onto a nearby crate, exhausted, as the ship lifted off the ground. You let your backpack slide off your shoulders onto the floor next to you. Still holding the baby to your chest protectively, you loosened your arms to study their sweet sleeping face.

His face? Her face? Who is this child?

Wordlessly, the Mandalorian stomped forward and snatched the kid from your arms. You looked up in surprise as he disappeared up the ladder next to you. He was gone for a few moments before the ship jolted as it left Nevarro’s atmosphere and jumped into hyperspace.

You rested your head on the cool wall behind you, trying to catch your breath. You let your eyelids slip shut for a minute—until you opened your eyes at the loud thud of the Mandalorian jumping back down into the hull, ignoring the ladder all together. He walked purposefully towards what looked like a storage bay, set the sleeping child down inside, and closed the door with a snap. He turned slowly to face you.

***

Chapter 2

#my writing #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x f!reader #mandalorian fanfic #mature #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x female reader #mandalorian reader insert #tempered glass

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datawyrms · 3 years

Text

Half a Decade Late

Valerie was finally promoted to the main headquarters of the Guys in White. There she finally comes face to face with Phantom, who disappeared five years ago, locked in a cell. For Phic Phight 2021, @lexosaurus' prompt!

Nothing proved ’harder workers get ahead’ was only a capitalist lie than the absolute hassle getting promotions within the GIW. Of course she’d gone right to them for employment, it was the only organization large enough to actually pay people that took her resume of ghost hunting seriously. She had experience, actual knowledge and even her own gear but had still spent years getting jerked around to various small operations, basically just using her to train all their useless recruits while still just considering her a ‘fellow’ field agent. It wasn’t like she had the option to quit in protest, no one else was in the market for ghost hunters. As far as most people knew ‘ghost intelligence’ was just a joke cover story that the agents were very attached to. They didn’t want any more Amity Parks, so if she wanted to live somewhere new and still do her job...these guys were it. She’d been very clear, she wanted to be in the main office, where everything happened. That didn’t stop them from constantly assigning her literally anywhere but the actual headquarters. Maybe they finally ran out of other places, she still half expected to get stopped at the door and be told about a new field mission they absolutely needed her on immediately. It didn’t happen. Valerie Grey finally got to clock in as an Ecto Containment Officer at the main branch. Where they kept the strongest creatures, developed the new anti-ghost equipment and did more than just splattering a ghost down to nothing. Sure, she liked a good ghost obliterating, but it got boring after a while. There were only so many ways a ghost could beg for it’s useless afterlife before it became white noise. It didn’t stop any new ones from showing up, or tell her anything new. Just got rid of one pest, permanently. That wouldn’t help explain some ghosts, the powerful ones that showed up again and again. It wouldn’t explain the one that stopped showing up either. There was no way that life ruining ghost just got ‘bored’ and vanished without notice. It was still out there, plotting something. She just knew it in her bones. She had to be ready for it. There were traces of that ghost, hints of his ectosignature that she came across in the field, he was still out there. The GIW was just a means to an end, she didn’t trust them to be ready alone.

Sterile corridors and simplistic signs were expected, but even the break area was doing its best impression of a frozen tundra. Fantastic for morale? Probably not. Made the coffee pot easy to spot, at least. Even if she preferred to avoid the stuff in uniform. It stained too easily, and just made her wish for her red battle suit. She took a cup to at least have an excuse for her scoping out the place, she could pass it off to someone once she got to the containment area. A quick double check that everything was in place at the mirror before heading right back out to the winding halls. She wasn’t going to be late, she didn’t have time for that. Maybe a red tie was against protocol, but no one had been stupid enough to bother her about it yet. Judging from the deferential nods from her latest coworkers, that wouldn’t be changing. No one who worked here couldn’t know who she was. The only Ghost Hunter who got out of Amity Park without getting corrupted by the ectoplasmic monsters. It was a shame, Jack and Maddie Fenton used to be a serious force for humanity. Five years ago they suddenly flipped the script, denouncing their work and calling for peace with unreasonable fiends. Their daughter Jazz likely had something to do with it, but Valerie had her own theories. Danny, her friend and once boyfriend had gone missing around that time. Leverage to ensure the Fenton’s ‘good behaviour?’ The whole thing reeked of ghosts. To think she might have gone the same way. Back then she was actually listening to the pest, starting to really consider them a ‘good’ ghost. Like that was actually possible, when he’d just been playing to emotion and her own desire to give up in fighting a dangerous foe over and over. So much for that. That monster showed it’s true colours, sure enough. Something the GIW never bothered to look into, even as she wrote report after report about the incident, how unlikely it was for the Fentons of all people to change that drastically without constant possession. Not worth the resources, even when it was easy to see what tech was built on the foundations the couple had laid. They were throwing away so much to focus on little outbreaks of ghosts instead of making more of a lasting change. Stupid. That was what the funding was ‘meant’ to go towards, as if helping the Fentons would be less productive than making a slightly different ectogun.

She almost hoped there would be a problem, just to prove this is where she should have always been.Even if it seemed distinctly unlikely. She had to swipe to get into the lab, then yet again to actually get to the cells. Or the ‘vault’, as if the higher ups wanted to pretend the creatures in there were inert materials instead of cunning and dangerous beings. Even though they had someone posted at each door, and someone on guard inside as well, herself today. To get acquainted with the place mostly, she had more than enough training on ‘proper handling’ procedures.

“Hey, you can swap with me today, if you want.”

Valerie blinked, eyebrow already raised at the posted guard’s suggestion. “I can handle watching caged ghosts.”

They had the sense to look embarrassed, taking their hand away from the oversized ectogun to loosen their tie- which was tied rather poorly now that she got a better look at it. “I’m sure you can, it’s just, well.” They wouldn’t stop fidgeting with their tie now, eyes checking that no one was really paying attention to the guards. “H0G02 is awake today. No one likes those days.”

“Then all the more reason to get used to it early.” She didn’t give them time to sputter another excuse, swiping her card and striding past without another look. As if people should be worried about a captive ghost being awake. Maybe some of the people here never got a spine before joining up.

It wasn’t as cold as she expected it to be. Or as dark. It was actually brighter, thanks to the extra row of fluorescent lights. On some level she expected the room to reflect the monsters kept here, a shadowy icebox of a space. Of course it wasn’t. These were defeated creatures under human control, of course their cages would be bright and clean, the air warmed for human comfort. The ghosts might not like it, but why care what they wanted? It wasn’t like there were many to begin with, mostly green oversized vermin with blank red eyes. Most had the sense to cower back as she walked past, but a fair few didn’t even twitch. Calling a ghost of all things lifeless was foolish, but it was the only word coming to mind...she had to focus. She didn’t pity these things. Why so many creatures though? The real dangerous ones, the most monstrous ones were the ones that could play human, the ones that had conniving minds that only worked to cause destruction and terror. These were just feral things, annoying but hardly more impressive than a coyote when you knew what to do. Half of them she’d barely rate above ‘feral cat’. A light near the back flickered. Strange. When it flickered a second time she was already releasing her helmet to pull it on. Not nearly as easy as just willing it on, but at least she could carry it in a pocket without needing to rely on some ghost’s power. Three steps and her gun was ready, not that she expected to need it. Really, she worked on autopilot, legs still moving as she stared at the largest glass cage at the back of the room. Or more accurately, at what was in it.

“Oh, newbie. ‘Sup.” The ghost rasped out, blank green eyes watching the ghost hunter. A teenaged boy with a shock of white hair, a black jumpsuit, but the voice of a seventy year old chain smoker. Just sitting in a painfully bright cell, watching. Not exactly as she remembered him, but close enough.

“You.” The disgust was easy to voice, even as her brain struggled to catch up. He was here? Looking practically exactly as he had when she was still a soft hearted freelancer?

He only gave a sputtering laugh at the aggression. “Me? You’re not that mad about the light, are you? I’m bored, Tie.”

“What are you doing here?” That wasn’t the important question really, she should be more concerned that he apparently was able to manipulate light fixtures from his cell...but she’d been hunting after this ghost for five years. Protocol could go shove itself up the director’s ass.

“Same thing I do every day Tie, being some government property!” His laugh was wrong, not from amusement like she remembered. A desperate cackle that didn’t fool anyone. “You new enough to still have your soul in there?”

“Answer the question, Phantom.”

The smirk slid off the ghost’s face. “Wh’ad you call me? Like I’m only calling you Tie cus the red sticks out, I can call you Shooty if you don’t like it, newbie.”

The response made her insides run cold. It had to be Phantom, and the terrible sense of humour was just like him- but the ghost wasn’t quite right. What was this? It couldn’t be some copy of the ghost kid, could it? “I called you by your name, ghost.”

“Never heard of em.” The ghost crossed his legs and looked away, apparently bored of the person holding a weapon. “What day is it?”

Surely he was playing around. “What do you think your name is, then?”

He didn’t take his attention off the ceiling, looking more bored than anything.“Day first, Tie. Gotta know how much of a head start I’ve got.”

“Like you’re in any position to bargain.”

“Hm? Whatcha gonna do Tie? Let me be unconscious for a few hours? Scary. Day first.”

There was the Phantom she knew, snide and sarcastic when he really had no business being so. “I could do worse than that.”

“Doubt it. You gun grunts gotta listen to the freaks out there, remember?” His shoulders shook with a silent laughter, but it looked more like spasms. “No more mishandling the goods, yeah? Day Tie, comeonnnnnn”

Since when was he so interested in the calendar? Not to mention how weird it was how he kept referring to himself...and pretending he didn’t know his name. “It’s Monday.”

That got his attention, the casual rocking halting as he looked at her again, disturbingly still. “Monday, really?”

“Lying is your thing, not mine.”

He grinned. “I like you Tie, so you’ll probably be fired in like a week. Maybe it’s the red.” The tension left the ghost completely, she hadn’t even noticed how stiffly he’d been sitting until his spine relaxed as his elbows rested on his legs. “Pretty sure I’m H0G02. Least that’s what all your creeps call me.”

There was no way Phantom of all ghosts would call himself ‘H0G02’. He had to be a mimic of some sort, a ghost that modelled himself on the once well known Amity Park menace. “You like me because I told you it was Monday? Seriously?”

“I like the Mondays more than you, if that helps.”

“Not particularly.”

“Sounds like a you problem.” He was watching her again, more curious than anything. She shouldn’t be glad to see a spark of something in those eyes, but he was far less creepy this way.

“What’s so great about Monday? You’re a ghost.” She didn’t really care. She should be asking important questions. She was just...playing along to see if it really was Phantom. That didn’t stop her for being grateful for the helmet.

“Monday is the farthest day away from Friday.”

“Wouldn’t that be Saturday?”

“It hasn’t been Saturday or Sunday for...like four years? Those days don’t exist, I think you humans made ‘em up to prank me.” Phantom shrugged, sounding completely serious. Not even a hint of amusement or a grin. “Pretty good one, all you new guys keep it up.”

He was going to be completely useless if he kept saying nonsense. How could he be useful in finding out what happened to the Fenton’s son if he couldn’t even talk about the days of the week sensibly? “Fine, what’s so bad about Friday then.”

“Ohhhhh, you’re really new, Tie.” the ghost flopped onto his side, bored of sitting up apparently. “You know, the day they keep me around for? That day.” He wasn’t quite still, his right shoulder moving very, very carefully. Hiding something.

She didn’t have the patience for this.“What are you hiding there.”

“Tie has good eyes. Gotta remember that.” Phantom muttered, getting onto his back, a blue shard of ice melting off his arm.

“You don’t really think that some ice would help you out of there?”

“Out?” He looked mystified by the suggestion, but that could more be seeing his face upside down. “That glass doesn’t break for anything, I should know.”

Which didn’t explain why he’d been trying to hide the fact he’d made ice at all. He knew it too, but apparently playing stupid was still one of his favourite tactics. “Knock it off and just answer me.”

Phantom’s frown didn’t change, green eyes staring intently at her helmet as if hoping to see through it. “I could show you why?”

It didn’t sound like a threat. “Sure, why not. It’s gonna be a long day.” If it was? Then she’d show him that she wasn’t someone he could mess with.

Ice wrapped itself around the ghost’s lower arm alarmingly quick, a wickedly sharp blade of ice with serrated teeth jutting from the scrawny arm at an awkward angle. It was practised, something this ghost must have done often in all the time he’d been gone from her life. Yet it was so different from how Phantom usually chose to fight. That was a weapon to tear and maim, not to shock, stun or bruise. It looked wrong on him. The idea that this ghost wasn’t Phantom at all only grew more credible with that thing on his arm, even if ice powers were to be expected. His eyes flicked back to green, still fixated on her as he lifted the arm and stabbed down hard. Right into his other arm. Didn’t even blink.

“What are you doing!” She couldn’t remember the last time Phantom had ever been frightening on some primal level. This- with the disturbing snap of bone as the edges of the blade caught and tore made her hair stand on end. “Stop that, Phantom. What’s wrong with you!?”

“Cancelling Friday.” Phantom was laughing as the blade melted away into the pool of green rapidly spreading from his self inflicted wound. “I said you’d probably get fired Tie.”

“Forget Friday you idiot, cover the wound so you stop splattering everywhere!” He was just a ghost-a ghost messing with her. A ghost she’d fought with and had heard scream in pain. This...thing wasn’t him. Her heart didn’t care what her mind thought, insisting he needed help.

The ghost sat up, his left arm holding on by a shred of his suit before splattering into the puddle, but the left behind stump stopped dripping almost as quickly as he’d lost the limb. “Aw. Maybe Tie does have some soul left. You actually sound worried.”

“Of course I am! You slashed your arm off!”

“So?”

He didn’t seem to be in pain. If it wasn’t for the mess of green and the lack of a limb, she’d almost say she imagined it. Why did she care? “You wouldn’t do this sort of thing.”

“Uh. Yes I would? You just saw me do it. I’m down for an encore.”

The idea just made her feel ill. “Don’t.” Did she want this to be Phantom or not? “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Well I’m down an arm. So the coats are going to be very whiny about how much ectoplasm they can get out of me.”

“You must have felt that.”

“Sure. Isn’t nearly as bad as when they start ripping as much ectoplasm as they can out of you. Every single Friday.” He actually rolled his eyes, like she should just know this.

Why did they bother keeping Phantom around if they just wanted ectoplasm? He might be strong, but no ghost had limitless amounts. They’d just fall apart and stop existing. That’s why the weakest ones never even left the Ghost Zone, they couldn’t survive without constantly being around the stuff! “What makes you so special then? Not your attitude.”

“I’m just lucky enough to make my own ectoplasm. Who knew food was easier to get then high grade ectoplasm? Not me.” His remaining arm pointed to her weapon, his smile stretching. “Bet ya your weapon’s fully powered from Fridays. Yours and every other thing they use in this hellhole.”

“Ghosts can’t do that.” The lie was absurd. It went against everything they knew about ghosts, even before food entered the equation.

“Y’know, Tie. I think I knew a ghost hunter that wore red once.” the ghost’s eyes went unfocused, unmoving as he looked listlessly into space. “It’s a good colour.”

“You knew me. Quit fooling around with this not remembering crap.” Valerie threw her helmet aside, no longer caring. She had to know who this ghost really was. She had to know if everything he was blathering about was a lie. So what if it wasn’t ‘safe’.

His eyes didn’t change. “Y’know how hard it is to remake a brain? Cut me some slack Tie…”

“I mean it. Look at me Phantom. If you’re the ghost I know, you can stop pretending to be something else.”

“You lose the details. Arms and legs are easy. The brain though? Way too hard.” He kept rambling to himself, not reacting even as she put a hand to the glass to get his attention. “Y’know how many times they’ve cut it open? I don’t. I lose track after like. Eleven. Maybe. Pointy Shoe said my best was fifteen but I sure don’t remember that.”

She wanted him to just stop talking. She wanted this ghost to be some strange creature she didn’t know. To not have the only possible link to someone long lost a shattered husk. “Phantom. Do you remember the hunter in red’s name?”

He finally blinked. “I’m not this Phantom guy, Tie.”

“Okay, whatever, forget that part. The ghost hunter in red, what do you remember?” She insisted, knocking again in hopes it would keep the ghost’s focus.

“Wish I’d told em something.” he held up his gloved hand as she opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t remember what that something was, don’t ask.”

So he was Phantom? He couldn’t be. That was so non-specific it could be anything. “You never explained how you’re the only ghost that can make their own ectoplasm.”

“It’s in my name Tie! Come on. Thought you guys were smart or whatever.” He did a very awkward one armed attempt at crossing it, eyebrow raised. “The H? The feeding a ghost food thing?”

She didn’t really get the whole naming scheme they used here. The fact it mattered wasn’t making her gut unclench either. “What about the H?

“Hybrid? Might have been Human. That might have been a joke.”

Valarie’s mouth was drier than any desert when he said it that easily, that casualty while kicking his own arm aside. “You’re saying you aren’t all ghost.”

“Yup. Not yet! Trust me, I’ve tried,” the bubbly high pitched laugher clawed out of the ghost at that. “I tried so much. Guess it’s another thing I’m a failure at, eh Tie?”

Something told her not to ask. She had to know. Five years she waited, five years apparently knocked Phantom clear from reality.“Does Danny Fenton mean anything to you?”

He just laughed harder at the question. “Really Tie?”

“Yes, really.”

“That’s the name I scream at em. Don’t know why. Feels good though.”

“Is it your name?” Had he had contact with Danny? Been part of whatever made him go missing from everyone’s lives? He couldn’t be, there was no way.

“They get reallllll angry when I say it is.”

There was no way the GIW had a human captive for five years. There was no way Phantom could be the Danny she knew. The ghost was just lying. He had to be, she desperately needed him to be. “Were you fused with a human or something? Got stuck when possessing someone?”

“Nah. Been like this before I got here, pretty sure. You can check your fancy gear though. There’s some non-ghost DNA in it. Lucky lucky me,” he lay back down in the mess of ectoplasm, ignoring how it clung to his hair. “Thanks for the Friday off! I hate those.”

There was no reason to need air. Talking to a ghost she didn’t even like shouldn’t make her feel like she was being crushed under a boulder. Panting for air, outside the room would make her look pathetic and weak, but she needed the space, needed to be away from that...mockery of a ghost.

“He does that to everyone. He’ll repeat the whole thing in a week or so, but he’s a really good copy the first time you see it.” The guard gave a comforting word, apparently unsurprised by her sudden unscheduled departure.

Oh, there would be no ‘next time.’ Not if he was right about her weapon. But she nodded instead, letting her ‘coworker’ think she was just overwhelmed. Even if all she could think of was how many ways this place would burn if that ghost- that thing had been a human once. She was good at telling when ghosts lied. Phantom didn’t sound like he had. No matter how much she tried to convince herself he did.

#Danny Phantom #phic phight #phic fight 2021 #valerie gray #how obvious is the angst #100%#but maybe in a different way then usual?#the comfort is only the FLAMES OF POSSIBLE REVENGE

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quinntamsin · 2 years

Photo

"DEMON!" The Sanghelii warrior cries to her, she tilts her head, as her hud displays its weakness. "Aurora." She speaks to her AI who replies, "YES?" "Let's kill this fucker."

Okay seriously, John, I'm just, whatever you have your helmet off, this heresy continues.

Halo

Charity / Gladius:

So we finally get a backstory for Makee, and wow, it's as dreary as we could have predicted. She lives on a planet analogous to the "Third World" from Futurama including the abuse of child labor! YAY! Watching the Elite bash that guard aside after he killed Det was, satisfying. Then we flash back toward High Charity and Makee preparing to lead her team to learn more about the Forerunner keystone.

Makee is, insidiously good at her job. And, the Prophets gave her a fucking Mgalekgolo, or Hunter, so seems she's not alone. My get is she's gonna steal the ship and use it for some nice little infiltration jobs. Rightfully so the captain of the UNSCS Gladius treats the girl with suspicion (that girl is hella sus), and keeps her in full view of a cadre of marines. Then the Hunter worms invade and murder all the humans, this is yup, uggo as hell, but it shows us WHY ever species in the covenant is fucking terrifying.

Makee hotwires the Glaidus and sets up her progress to find the ring. Wow, we get bit back on Reach where they appear to be getting close to learning more about their enemy.

Reach:

Switching takes, we find ourselves back on Reach. Halsey has continued her work to create Cortana and wow. Yup, it's as unethically FUCKED UP as we could have ever guessed. Literally burning away her sentient flash clone's brain to create an AI is all levels of fuck this lady. Then watching Cortana appear in her blueself was, nice, but thank the gods thing isn't over-sexualizezd like later iterations. Seeing her in the flesh explains WHY we have a much younger looking Dr. Halsey to create the Holo Avatar. Yup we need that sweet sweet stupid holo-hottie look. Seriously, guys I get it, we wanna bang the holo girl, but after a while this geek girl is just tired of it.

(Insert neckbeard bitching).

Back on Reach, Cortana assists in testing the artifact. All we get is more memories and images from John, and more commentary from Cortana. She is silenced once again and they learn only a little bit. We split to John leaving the lab and walking from his place to rejoin his fireteam in the Spartan Barracks. The berths are respectfully sparse, and damn I do like that the the lack of over emphasis of the girls curves. And thank the goddess those boots they were don't have fucking heels.

Cortana is awkward, and Chief is even more so. These two potatoes are gonna get into trouble. We get more and more Cortana banter, loooove Jen Taylor reprising her voice role here! Now, the two start to go over the loss of the Spartan's one by one over the years. He relives his life and feels the emotions attached to the memories because of the keystone. Cortana is told to cease being a spy, and thus the Chief loses his pellet. Riz-028 sees the action, and seems disturbed. I hope she doesn't snitch on chief, I like the Spartan women.

Walking out into the dock, we see Chief walking among other humans and soldiers without his pellet. HIs experiences are now real, like a glass removed from emotions. Emotions can inhibit combat, but with proper discipline, they can also enhance it. And, Chief gets to see a city night, and experience a concert. This is kind of tropey, but fuck, it's a perfect poetic revelation for him to experience.

More on Chief's backstory is revealed, and his knowledge of the artifacts is fascinating. I did like how they hid the epiphany y in his memories on a childhood sketch.

Rubble:

Zooming to Rubble we learn about the shit erupting on Madrigal. Vinsher just seems to be killing and causing tyrrany in spades. And Kwa is just watching it all fall apart. She want's to go off and save her people, but this isn't the time to be rebel princess. Kwa and Laera discuss the ongoing crap on Madrigal as well. Kwa goes on and on about the fact she is determined to be a rebel, and yeah, I get it. She want's to save her people, but this girl is a major asset in a galactic war. I get WHY Laera is against the idea.

Meanwhile, at the Legion of Rubble, Kwa is intent on building a fucking ship. Soren drops some serious reality on the girl, and I'm fine with this. She's living a dream in a way while I agree with it, she's easily making a mistake that could get a lot of people killed.

Hottakes:

Makee, makes more sense now that we have her backstory.

Seriously, Halsey, fried her own clone to make Cortana, and then treats her like a annoying child when she tries to speak up.

Note, this might explain why the two bond so well later on in Halo, Chieftana forever bitches!

I thought the Mgalekgolo in the trailer were Flood, hell, this is gonna get more gruesome when we finally meet them, damn.

And holy shit Makee has...plasma talons...yup, and yup. This girl ain't human anymore. I wonder if they used tech from the old

This show really hits the futuristic clothing I liked a lot in Expanse, and it has a nice level of utility to it as well.

John meeting a dog for the first time, and seeing a good boy, was, excellent. This seems to have provoked a revelation for him.

Yes, hiding the realization on the artifact IN the childhood memory was...excellent.

It's good to see how utterly fucking ignorant the UNSC is about the Covenant.

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maulusque · 3 years

Text

i have some QUESTIONS about Echo’s prosthetics

fair warning i’m going to talk about the uhhh intimate details

ok first of all, the legs:

from this screenshot, it looks like he’s had everything from the hips down replaced. Looks like he only kept a little more torso than Maul did.

in WHICH CASE

how does he poop? Where is Echo’s colostomy bag? Or did they install synthetic intestines somehow? Does that mean Echo also has a synthetic asshole? A synthetic sphincter? Prosthetic ass cheeks? What kinds of materials would you even make a synthetic butthole out of? Does wiping still work the same? Or are the synthetic organs like, way more efficient and you just have to open a little door in your prosthetic ass and remove a condensed poop cube like once a week

Does Echo have a robo-dick? If so, where is it??? If not, how did they route the urethra? Did they hook the bladder up to the the hyper-efficient robo-digestive system, and the cyberintestines just like, recycle the water back into the body and condense the rest of the urine contents into the hypothetical poop cube? Meaning Echo doesn’t have to pee ever again. And technically the Poop Cube Door would be a cybernetic cloaca.

i found this ref art and it DOES NOT HELP EXPLAIN THE DICK ISSUE

The material on his thighs kinda looks like pants, but given that it goes under the clearly metal parts, and permanent pants seems like a stupid idea, I’m guessing it’s part of the prosthetics. Meaning that Echo spends the entirety of that episode stark naked. No one even loans him a shirt. Please give him a blanket at least he looks so cold. And if there IS a robo-dick, this means it is retractable.

Fuck, dude. Imagine having to do regular machine maintenance on your robo-dick and prosthetic asshole.

Also look at that shit on his left arm. Those little cables and such. Those would be SO EASY to get snagged on something, and if they’re remotely important it would be a BITCH AND A HALF. Maybe the techno union re-routed the important arm arteries because the original ones were damaged, and just didn’t bother to put them inside the body because they were keeping him in cold storage anyway, not like he needed to run around and risk getting them caught or something.

Also why did they bother giving him legs? It’s not like they were letting him use them at all?? Why bother?

Also. The KNEES. Completely exposed joint. Here’s a closeup:

Look at all those gaps. And edges. And corners. Those joints would royally suck if you get any dirt, sand, fabric, or literally anything at all anywhere near them. Echo’s not wearing pants here, so it’s not a problem, but

He CLEARLY is wearing pants here. And somehow he’s not getting them all snagged up on his knee joints? How did he even get them on over those monstrosities? Did someone have to sew him into his pants? God.

Also, look at this nonsense:

He has no calf?? Nothing replacing the very important calf muscle??? How the fuck does he WALK???

and briefly back to the arm: there’s no reason to limit the prosthetic joints to normal human ranges of motion. Wouldn’t it be freaky as hell if Echo could just. Rotate his elbow joint all the way around. Just bend his elbow 100% backwards. I feel like Hunter would punch him on the spot if he did that in front of him.

And finally: Echo’s cyber earmuffs.

sorry for the shit quality screenshot but WHY ARE THEY SO BIG

Those are much bulkier than the earmuffs he had when Rex rescued him.

Smaller! More compact! And they don’t wrap around the back. Echo has a different neck-head plate thingy back there. But the earmuffs are just little discs right over his ears.

And the new ones???

SO MUCH BULKIER. AND THEY WRAP ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BACK. WHY.

This would be SOOO UNCOMFORTABLE to sleep with. Can’t lie on your sides, and now he can’t even rest his head on the back because the dumb new cyber-earmuffs wrap all the way around. Is there still skin under the earmuffs in the back? If so, how the fuck does Echo clean it? He has do otherwise he’d start growing mold and fungus back there the moment he starts sweating.

Also. Does Echo have ears anymore??? How does he hear things? If those are supposed to be cybernetic ears, why don’t they have, you know, an ear shape, so they channel sound into the ear canal?

ok and one last thing: Echo’s new helmet.

Is it just me, or does this helmet look like it absolutely would not fit over the cybernetic earmuffs? Those things stick out a good two inches from the sides of his head. This helmet does NOT look like it has 4 extra inches of width in it. Do we have a scene where Echo puts on/takes off his helmet????

Anyway i’m somewhat intrigued by the concept of a hyper-efficient cybernetic digestive system/cloaca. Though I’d imagine that everyone would be wanting one because how convenient would it be to never have to use the bathroom again???

#meta #arc trooper echo

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mandoalorian · 3 years

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Borrowed Time [Din Djarin x F!Reader]

ੈ♡˳‧₊*: • Chapter 4: The Bounty ✩࿐ ˚.✧

Summary: You are the princess of Mandalore, held hostage on your own planet by Moff Gideon and his army of Imperial troopers. Left with no choice, you send out a distress signal; a plea for protection— and who comes? None other than Din Djarin, a foundling of The Death Watch. He, by creed, is your sworn enemy. And where you have asked for his protection, he has been told by his mentor that he must marry you and gain the ability to restore Mandalore to its former glory.

Word Count: 2400>

Warnings: allusions to male masturbation, protector!Din comes with his own warning.

Series Masterlist

Maker, you were beautiful.

The way you slept was so peaceful, basking in the moonlight. Din was surprised you could even sleep that well on top of the rock hard slap he called a bed. He thought the child was cute when he slept, but as Din watched you, revelling in the way your chest rose and fell with every breath, he swore he had never seen such heavenliness in his life.

He’d gotten lucky, he had to admit that. You were the Manda’lor, and you could’ve been a Gungan or a Rodian or who knows what… but you weren’t. You were a human who looked distinctly similar to the illustrations of angels in the fairytale books Din grew up reading. You were brave and fierce, but you were still the same girl who burst into tears only minutes after meeting Din. You were special, different. And Din had never let himself feel this way about anyone before. Truthfully, it scared him.

And Din didn’t get scared either. He was a scarred, battle hardened Mandalorian warrior. Very little affected him... but already, his heart ached for you. He was yearning. He saw the way you were with the child, and the love you had in your heart. He was a fighter, and the way the creed had brought him up, he’d never known any different, but you were a princess. You showed him that you didn’t need to win your battles through violence, but you could do it through peace and love. Just like your mother; duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore.

Din sighed, and raised his hands to remove his helmet. You were asleep, so it was okay. Just for once he wanted to look at you with his own eyes. And somehow, it was even better. Din discarded his gloves and quietly took off his beskar armour and boots, preparing to settle himself down for bed, but as he undressed, he didn’t take his eyes off you once. So so beautiful.

Maybe you and Din were more similar than you first realised, because Din was throbbing by the time he went to the refresher. He leaned against the cool wall and closed his eyes, palming at his erection through his pants. He felt so confined and he was desperate for some kind of relief. But when he closed his eyes, he wasn’t seeing the usual darkness. All he could see was you.

-----

You weren't sure how long you had been asleep for. But it was the distinct smell of bone broth that woke you up. Your eyes slowly fluttered open and it took you a few moments to focus your vision, getting used to what was about to be your temporary (yet still new) home. You stretched your body and yawned, bringing your fists to your face to rub your eyes.

“You're up,” Din commented, his modulated voice stating the obvious. You jumped when you saw the beskar clad figure standing at the edge of the bed—just watching you. How long had he been watching you? “There's a bowl of bone broth waiting for you.” he informed you and you scrunched up your nose at the unpleasant smell. “What? You don't like it?”

No. Was there anyone in the galaxy who actually liked bone broth? You assumed it was just something the settlers on Sorgan ate because they had no other choice, and it was cheap. Did the Mandalorian really drink bone broth? He’d already sounded irked and you had just woken up.

“Uhm…” your voice trailed off, your gaze flicking between the bowl of soup and the Mandalorian. "Do you have any fruit? Sourberries, maybe?" You tried your best to dodge his question and sound polite, but judging from Din’s reaction, you mustn’t have done a good job.

Din scoffed, before taking his rifle out of the armoury and attaching it to the holster on his back. What did he need a rifle for? "No. You think I have the credits for that? Sorry princess." He grumbled. And with that, he disappeared into the shadows of the ship.

You felt bad. You didn't mean to offend him, although you could completely understand how your comment came across. Ungrateful. You weren't ungrateful, it was just… bone broth was what you fed to the palace bluurgs. It wasn't something you ever voluntarily chose to consume. You looked back over at the steaming bowl of soup and sighed. Why did you even feel bad? You barely knew him. You were the literal princess of Mandalore and - no, you wouldn’t feel bad for a child of the watch. If anything he should feel bad for the actions of his people and what they had done to yours. What they had done to you. You slipped out of Din’s bed and picked up your bowl of broth before heading down the hull of the ship, wanting to find him and apologise. He’d given up his bed for you, he was making sure you were well fed, the least you could do was say sorry.

But he was nowhere in sight. You’d noticed the ramp of the ship had been lowered, and a stream of natural sunlight was blazing into the ship. You had landed. Were you on Nevarro? Had he… had he left you without saying anything? Surely not. You padded into the cockpit only to find Grogu sitting in the pilot seat, playing with a small steel ball. He threw it between his three clawed hands and giggled every time he caught it.

“Hey kid,” you sighed, slipping into the co-pilot seat. “Where did your dad go?”

Grogu garbled a long winded response and you listened closely. No way. He was a bounty hunter? Kriff… you’d somehow managed to tie yourself into a bounty hunter’s affairs. You cursed yourself but continued to listen to the child’s explanation. Din had gone out to earn some quick credits, goodness knows what for. And he’d left Grogu on the ship with strict instruction to watch over you. You couldn’t help but laugh incredulously. He’d asked his child to make sure you wouldn’t get into trouble.

“He can’t just leave me on the ship and not say anything,” you laughed to yourself in disbelief, letting your head fall in your hands. The birds outside the ship tweeted and for Din to have left the ramp open, you knew that Nevarro must have been a safe planet. At least for the most part. “Do you come here much?” You asked Grogu, who nodded his head in affirmation, You hummed, picking up the child and nursing him on your lap. “Does your father always expect people to follow his rules?” you asked slyly, and even Grogu giggled. “Come on. Take me around Nevarro little one. I wish to explore.”

It wasn’t like you gave Grogu a choice, but you learned that he was practically just as mischievous as you were, and Din was wrong to leave a child in command of you. He was wrong to leave anyone in command of you. You’d lived on Mandalore your whole life, not once ever leaving the planet. Now you were finally further into the outer-rim than ever before and Din just expected you to stay on the ship? Not a chance. You picked up the child and carried him outside and oh stars - it was beautiful. The golden sunlight radiated warmth and you overheard the happy sound of children excitedly chirping away. Din had parked the Crest dead centre in the middle of town, it seemed, with stalls and vendors on every corner, peppering the streets. You hummed in contentment, and sat down on the edge of the ramp with your bowl of broth and Grogu.

“Do you like this?” you asked, mixing the broth with the spoon Din had provided you. Grogu nodded his head happily and you laughed. “Does Din eat it?” Grogu nodded his head even more and his lips curled into a smile when he realised you were about to try the soup. If both Din and the child ate bone broth regularly, then it couldn’t be that bad…

And it wasn’t, not really. You could get used to the taste. The odorous smell was more off putting than anything else. So, without fuss, you ate the bubbling brown substance and discarded the finished bowl back inside the ship. You weren’t going to be gone too long, just long enough to meet the townsfolk and get a feeling off the planet. You hadn’t been this excited about anything in a long time.

-----

This was never part of the plan, but in the 24 hours of knowing Din Djarin, you had softened him considerably; more so than what the Mandalorian would like to admit. He didn’t plan on being gone long. But he still wanted, no, he needed, to get on your good side if he planned on asking you to marry him. The thought of winning you over through a façade of lies didn’t sit right with him. He never had a strong moral compass but he believed that you should at least marry for love. But then again, love was a foreign concept to him. He’d seen it before, in his parents, but that was just a distant memory. It felt like a lifetime ago, and if the Armorer told him to marry you, he had to do it.

It wasn’t a choice. It was his duty as a Mandalorian.

“I need a quick job.” Din announced, sliding into the booth opposite Karga.

“Mando! Good to see you. Kid not with you today?” Greef Karga, esteemed magistrate of Nevarro asked.

“He’s on the ship,” Din shrugged casually, knowing that the child’s safety - and yours - would be guaranteed as long as you just stayed put. “I need a quick job. Something simple and on Nevarro.”

Karga scrunched up his eyebrows in bewilderment. “Coming from the hunter who normally takes four pucks at a time, this is new,” he chuckled. “But I don’t have anything of the sort. What’s it for?”

Din hesitated, having no reason to be dishonest but yet not wanting to explain more than necessary. “Sourberries.”

This was a foolish plan, but if you wanted sourberries then Din would get you sourberries. He had this primal urge in him to appease you. To win you over.

Karga blinked before erupting into a fit of belly laughter. Din shuffled around in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

“Sourberries? Let me guess, is that code for something? I get it Mando. Us men have needs!” Karga laughed. “I do have one puck on Nevarro. Brand new. High paid. Imperial bounty," Karga hissed once his laughter settled down, but a smirk still played upon his lips. "You could buy a whole sourberry forest with the credits from this bounty.”

“You’re doing Imperial work, after everything we’ve been through?” Din frowned, shaking his head in disappointment. “Does Cara know?”

“It doesn’t matter. The Imps are the only ones who will pay Guild rates. Besides… I really didn’t have a choice. The guy who came to see me was an ex-ISB officer. Said he’s looking for a runaway princess. Figured the guy she ran away with is a settler on Nevarro. Told me he has a very distinct look but didn’t provide much more information.”

Din swallowed, his heart sinking in his chest. It couldn’t be, could it?

“What other information do you have?” Din countered. He had to know. He had to know so he could return back to the Crest and warn you. Maybe Nevarro wasn’t as safe as he’d predicted after all.

“Will you accept the bounty?” Karga asked. “Otherwise I can’t-”

“Listen, I need to know all that you know.” Din said sternly.

“Unless you’re willing to accept the puck, I can’t give you that information.”

Dank farrik. He couldn’t accept a bounty on you… he was your protector. What would he even tell you?

Once upon a time, he would’ve felt comfortable enough to explain his situation to Greef but if he was working with the Imperials again… maybe he wasn’t as trustworthy as Din once believed. He understood where Greef was coming from, to a degree. You were living during difficult times, but if he learned that you were the bounty and you were literally just a mile away, waiting on his ship, he’d have no choice but to notify this ex-ISB officer. If it meant Greef would earn his coin, Din wouldn’t put betrayal past him.

He needed the puck. He needed the puck because if he didn’t take it, another bounty hunter would. Of course Din wouldn’t let anyone even get near you, but if it was an Imperial bounty, he knew they’d just keep coming and coming. The Imperials didn’t give up easily. They didn’t give up with the child and they wouldn’t give up on you.

“I’ll take it.” Din announced after a moment of contemplation.

“Excellent!” Karga grinned, fishing out for the puck. “What I can tell you is this. She’s the princess of once of the very few Empire ruled planets. Could be Lothal, Naboo, Dathomir, maybe even Mandalore…” and then Karga began to describe your appearance. Everything from your eye colour, hair colour, skin tone… he had you to a T. This was not good.

“Do you know why she ran away?” Din asked, trying to swallow away any fear for your safety.

“I don’t ask questions like that,” Greef responded, shooting the Mandalorian a strange look. Din should have known better. “But they’re almost certain she’s on Nevarro so hopefully you won’t have to look far. I have no doubt a man of your talents will be able to bring her back to the Guild before nightfall, right?”

“Right…” Din replied, a little too quietly. “Dead or alive?”

“Alive only. No reward for a cold body,” Greef said strictly. “Good luck Mando,” Din was going to need more than just luck. He took the puck and stood up, Greef following from behind. “Hey, for your journey,” He smiled, handing the Mandalorian a bag of sourberries. “No charge. I’ve just… missed you.”

Din made a small noise of gratitude although it wasn’t received through the modulator, before taking the berries from his friend and leaving the cantina. It really was warm outside, so much so, wearing the beskar was even more uncomfortable than usual. He had to go see Cara, but suddenly, it was very unsafe for you to be on the ship if Imps were roaming the town looking for you. Thankfully, Nevarro had the perfect hiding spot for you; the covert. Only Din didn’t know how much the other children of the watch would take a liking to you… or you them. But neither of you had any other choice.

So when Din returned to the Crest, with sourberries and one hand and your bounty puck in another, he was mortified to see that neither you nor the child were there. His heart sank into his chest and his movements became erratic as he called your name and searched every crevice. Had they found you already? Had they taken the child? Oh no no no -

On impulse, Din fished into his armoury and grabbed more weapons, including explosives and detonators. He didn’t want this to get messy, but if the Imperials had taken both you and Grogu, there wasn’t a chance he’d go down without a fight. He’d have them begging for mercy. No one gets on the wrong side of Din Djarin.

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acourtofsnakes · 3 years

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Dar - Rogue, Chapter 16| The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader (f)

Summary: Din frantically searches to find you, but will all be well when he reaches you?

Warnings: Swearing, angst, injury/blood, drowning, mentions of dead bodies, Ltt me know if i forgot anything!

Word Count: 3.8k+

AN: Oh, dear.

Rogue Taglist: @snipskixandbeskar @weirdowithnobeardo @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @jackgrzs @sarahjkl82-blog @boomtownboy @goldielocks2004 @seninjakitey @what-iwish-you-knew @queenofthefaceless @rosiefridayrogersunday-reads @greeneyedblondie44 @itsnottilly @welcometothepedroverse

Permanent Taglist: @greeneyedblondie44

Gif by: @jesuiscalmedammit

Mando’a translation: Dar - No longer

Din couldn’t feel his feet.

Or his hands.

There was a thick layer of frost over his armour that crackled every time he moved, giving him the feeling of being encased in a walking, icy tomb.

Of course, if he couldn’t find you and the kids, that’s what his life would come to.

A yawning, bleak nothingness that was darker than his life had ever been. For now, he knew what he had to lose.

He had turned the whole of the Razor Crest apart, pausing to put out the fires now and then before continuing his manic search.

Every single inch, every nook and hidey hole and compartment – even the crates.

Nothing.

You had vanished like the ghost that people had dubbed you when trying to hunt you.

But he had still found you. Why couldn’t he do it again?

He’d managed to get out of the Crest, by climbing out through the doors which were stuck shut. The engines in the ship had died and all the power went out in the crash.

Which had only made him more confused about how the hell you had gotten out – and why.

Din knew you wouldn’t have abandoned them, but he had a horrible feeling that you didn’t leave the ship by choice.

Something had taken you. He knew it by instinct.

And his instinct was rarely wrong.

~~~

He had been walking for days – at least that’s what it felt like.

Din didn’t stop, only briefly when his body begged him to.

He couldn’t afford to stop really, not even for a second.

As soon as it became dark, he used the light on his helmet, but after one incident of nearly tumbling headfirst into an icy crevasse, he knew he would have to wait out the night.

How could he save you if he was lying in the bottom of a ditch with a broken neck?

The second the first streaks of sunlight peered weakly through the clouds; he was moving.

As he walked, he couldn’t help but reminisce of moments you had shared together, from the first time you’d met, all the way until now. Not always significant things, they could sometimes be just flashes, small details that his mind and heart had clung onto.

The way he had instantly thought you looked beautiful when you fought, even if you had been striking out to kill him on Sorgan.

The sharp bite of your words, or the crooning silk of them when you teased him.

The musical twinkle of your laughter filling the quiet atmosphere of this ship, beautiful and infectious.

The scent of you floating through the cockpit, sneaking up under his helmet and making his head spin and his heart flip over.

The ‘fresher always smelt of your soap after you’d been in there, some natural, flowery bar you’d bought from a market and now stayed firmly lodged in his senses.

The way your lips held a natural pout when you slept, as if taunting him. More than once he had to physically remove himself from your presence, before he yanked off his helmet and felt for himself if your lips were as soft as they looked.

The gentle tone you took with Grogu, even when you were scolding him for eating something he shouldn’t, like your fruit or your hair.

Your hair… the feel of it slipping through his fingers like water. Even if it were tangled, or thwapping in your eyes, it was still gorgeous, and he ached to brush it back and braid it out of the way for you.

He didn’t even know how to braid.

Din swallowed, feeling tears threaten the backs of his eyes.

He just couldn’t lose you.

You meant more to him that he could ever admit.

And he never even got to tell you how he really felt. Never got to tell you the things that kept him awake at night, the words that threatened to spill from his lips every time you smiled or laughed with him – but usually at him.

Never got to reveal his true face.

You had shot into his life and exploded like the fierce brilliance of a star, bathing him in light and something extraordinary that he had never realised he’d been missing.

You drove him insane, made him terrified with your reckless abandon, to the point where he thought he might have an aneurysm.

But more than that… you were a constant that he needed.

Sure, he had the kid, but this was different.

With you, he didn’t have to pretend. He didn’t need to keep up the acts of Mandalorian, hunter, fugitive, protector, father.

He could just be… Din.

And telling you his name… Yes, he’d felt nervous, thought his heart might escape out of his throat but… he wanted to. It felt right, to give you something.

And now he might lose you without ever being able to tell you that he lo-

He was broken from his thoughts rather suddenly as his boot caught something and he went tumbling face first into the snow.

Which was hard, and felt… human?

Easing his numb limbs up, Din moved to a crouch to examine what he had ungracefully stumbled over.

His gloves were already soaked, so he made no haste in clearing away the thick, white powder until he revealed something shiny and hard, as white as the landscape.

Armour, layered over soaked black fabric…

Stormtrooper.

A very, very dead Stormtrooper.

Quickly, Din cleared the rest of the snow, and he sobbed out loud when he saw the cause of his death.

An arrow to the throat, which was unmistakably yours with the matte black and gold filigree design

You’d been here.

And you’d fought well, naturally.

He didn’t need to search the rest of the snow to know that there would be more bodies here, that was a waste of time.

Now he just had to find you.

There was a chance you may have been hurt, but the ever-falling precipitation and frigid air would have long since covered any tracks.

Din quickly scanned the trees, but there were no signs of the codes you had both established one night, should you ever be separated and need to find each other without drawing attention.

He was this close to you, literally holding a piece of you in his hands, and yet… he had no idea where to look.

When it came to you, everything he knew how to do often turned upside down.

Frantic anxiety crept along his spine as he rose to his feet, clutching the arrow and he ran a hand over the top of his head, an anxious gesture that would normally involve him running his fingers through his hair and tugging at it to try and make his brain kick into gear.

He was a hunter. A Mandalorian.

So why couldn’t he just hunt?

Doubt and frustration were just beginning to pull him into the depths of a breakdown, when he felt it.

A lick of power along the back of his neck, caressing gently and then disappearing again.

Din went rigid, his heart giving one thud and then seeming to go still as well, like it would help him concentrate better.

He hadn’t imagined it, had he?

Even the snow seemed to stop, everything pausing in anticipation.

The power crept along his shoulders, down his back and roamed over his chest. It slid down his arms and circled his hands, and for a single moment, he swore he could feel fingers laced through his own, tugging his hand gently the same way you did when you saw something pretty or you were in a market.

“I’m here. This way.” It seemed to whisper, “Come and find me…”

Din ran, not even hesitating as he felt the pull.

It was similar to the other night, when he first felt your power. It had that same tug, the same urgency.

Admittedly, there was something wrong with it, it felt… darker. It didn’t carry the same irresistible light that glowed from your very soul and chased away his shadows.

But it had to be you.

He didn’t know anyone else who could do that, apart from the kid and he didn’t know where Grogu was.

Besides, he wasn’t strong enough to do that.

It was you. He knew it was.

As he ran, he put it down to the trauma of being trapped out here, and maybe the fact you were grievously injured.

Maybe even dying.

That unwelcome thought had him moving even faster, following the call and caress of power as it led him across the icy plain, along a slushy river to the base of the largest glacier on the horizon.

The river opened up into a huge, solid lake, glittering with frost and hiding all manners of dark creatures in the murky, frigid depths.

Din bolted around a boulder, and what he saw nearly made his knees buckle in relief.

There you were.

You were alive.

Standing in the centre of the lake, feet planted firmly on the ground, crying as you saw him. You were whispering his name; he could see the way your lips moved and formed the one syllable.

Din had tears of relief on his own cheeks, and he ran a few steps onto the ice when his brain finally caught up and processed the scene.

Something wasn’t right.

You were crying, yes… But you were shaking your head, desperately, as if begging him... not to approach?

Why would you be begging him?

He looked at you properly for the first time.

You were standing oddly, arms behind you and the tension in your body looked like you were being held against your will.

But there was nothing there.

Which only one thing.

“Mando! Finally decided to join the show, did you?”

That fucking voice.

Rich and smooth, dripping like honey with none of the sweetness to match. It only left a bitter taste of copper and blood.

Din turned his head, hand already yanking his pulse rifle from his back and aiming it at Haran before his head even finished turning. “Let her fucking go.”

Haran was leaning against a boulder, one leg crossed over the other with his hands in his pockets. He chuckled, infuriatingly casual, “I’ve just been explaining to your princess here, that this is my game. My rules, my decisions. You are the pawns in my game, and I will move you as I see fit. It’s only just begun, and it is far from over.”

Din snarled softly, raising his hand more, “I don’t care whether you’re playing a game, or having a fucking tea party. Let her go. Now.” He walked further forward, his rifle unwavering and locked onto Haran.

Haran lifted a hand from his pocket, waggling his finger, “Nu-uh. Make one more move and...” He looked over at you, smiling sweetly and his finger just lightly twitched.

A sudden cry, your cry echoed across the air.

The sound of your pain wrenched through Din’s chest, as his head snapped to you and he made a soft noise of horror as he saw the wound that Haran had clearly just probed.

There was a circle of fabric singed and burned away, revealing angry, shining flesh beneath. By the edges of it, it looked almost cauterised... but still awful and blistered; a wound made by a weapon Din had never seen before.

His arm wavered, hearing you stifle your cries of pain, but you looked so pale, seemingly exhausted from the past few days.

And yet, despite the injuries, despite the terrible situation, that fire in your eyes still blazed. It was the untamed fire of a wolf, someone used to being on the edge again and again, and still fighting their way out.

A survivor.

You gazed back at him and your eyes roved over him, taking in every single inch of him, checking for wounds and anything obvious that would show hurt.

You couldn’t see his face, so you wouldn’t be able to see the tears that had frozen on his cheeks. You wouldn’t see the way he was panting, or the way his heart pounded against his ribs.

Normally, this situation would have been nothing to him, something he’d experienced multiple times. A stand off by a bounty who had nothing to lose.

But this was different.

Everything with you was different.

Even though you gave him a strength he never knew he had, you also scared the absolute life out of him. He had nightmares about this kind of situation, nightmares where he wasn’t fast enough to save you and you died in his arms.

He couldn’t let that happen again.

Haran’s voice flowed out again, purring, “You feel it don’t you? The fear… the terror of being faced with a choice. Knowing that in minutes, maybe even seconds, it’ll no longer be me holding her life. It’ll be you. You will be responsible for how your day ends. Embracing each other, alive and safe. Or clutching her dead body to you as you try to figure out just how you failed her.”

A wave of anger rolled through Din, edged with fear and revulsion at the joy in Haran’s voice. “You’re sick, you know that?”

Haran laughed again, rising to stand straight and he walked to the edge of the frozen lake, his black garb standing out starkly against the snowy white surroundings. “I’m not sick, Mandalorian. I just see the world clearly.”

He motioned toward you, “As I also explained to your darling princess - Everyone preaches that they will always sacrifice themselves for the one they love. That it would never be a choice to choose between a stranger, or their amour. But… they lie. When it comes down to it… They always choose wrong.”

He began to walk up and down the edge of the lake, with fluid movements that highlighted the fact that… he just wasn’t human. He couldn’t be.

“Now, of course, I know that if I presented you with saving your own life, or hers, you would choose hers. And she would beg me to save yours, and on and on it would go and be terribly boring.” He paused, stopping and looking between Din and you with a blissful grin, “So, I’ve decided to make it a little more fun.”

You moaned low, a noise of horror and you shook you head, tears forming in your eyes, “Please… Please don’t.”

Din’s blood began to turn even colder, “What are you talking about?” He spoke with fierce demand that didn’t match the turmoil inside.

Haran just smiled a pretty smile, “I’m going to make it harder for you.” He extended an elegant, gloved hand toward you, “Your beloved… or…” He turned his head toward Din, waving his hand again and suddenly, a small bundle flew through the air and he caught it.

Grogu.

He held up the Child, gripping him by the back of his tunic that Din had painstakingly made for him out of fabrics he salvaged from the ship. “Your sweet little child.”

Grogu whined, trying to move but it seemed that Haran had him gripped with the same power that was trapping you.

Din couldn’t breathe, couldn’t comprehend what was happening. There was no choice here. How could he possibly choose?

He swallowed, looking between his Child that he risked his life for, defected, became a fugitive… or the girl that he had been harbouring such love and deep affection for since the night he had nearly lost his life in the alley way.

There was no choice here.

He would save the pair of you, even if he had to die.

The wheels in his brain started turning, spinning over and calculating multiple strategies, how to best save you both with the least amount of harm.

He ran a mental check of his weapons. He had a few Whistling Birds left, his beskar spear, pulse rifle and a knife.

Sure, Haran had those Force powers, but Din was fast… and he had no mercy when those he loved were in danger.

A delicate snort of laughter broke his reverie, and he shifted his attention back to the terrifying legend come to life, “Oh, Mando, please don’t embarrass yourself. I know you think you have the upper hand, but maybe you’ve forgotten that I simply will tear them both apart without blinking. I need your beau, yes, but I’m not afraid to break her first. It’ll only make my job easier.” He grinned, as he were discussing how cold it was, not the fates of his family. “You have to choose, Mandalorian. I don’t have all day. Even monsters like me get cold.” He winked, his scar pulling tight his eyelid for a second.

Din rolled his shoulders, adjusting his grip on his blaster, “You truly think you can do this do us? You are nothing. A monster who delights in hurting people. I’m not listening to you-“

Haran sighed, an over the top, dramatic sigh, “Stars above, I’m bored of this now.” He hauled Grogu up higher, yanking the tube free from his belt and he activated his lightsaber, holding it close to Grogu’s little throat. “For every minute you keep me waiting, I will burn your little baby here. He’s only small, so I’d say you don’t have long. And then, if you’re still keeping me waiting, I’ll do the same to your princess over there, looking all pretty on the ice.”

The gold light bounced off Gorgu’s skin, dangerously close and the little creature whimpered.

For a moment, Din struggled to keep his cool.

There was a sudden flash in his mind, of himself crying over both yours and Grogu’s dead bodies. Because he was too slow, too late and too cocky.

He swallowed back the rising panic clawing up his throat and shook his head a little.

Tears were rolling down your cheeks now, and you turned your head to look at Haran, body still restricted tightly against your will, “Please, please don’t do this. I take it back. I’ll stay with you, or you can kill me. Just don’t hurt him.” You struggled pointlessly against the bonds, trying to send your own power out but Haran had suffocated you.

Din shook his head harder, fiercely, and he was just about to tell you exactly why that would not be happening, when he caught movement above Haran.

His helmet was already turned toward Haran, so he wouldn’t notice the way Din was now searching the boulder above his shoulder.

He could have sworn he saw something, just a flicker-

There.

He did.

A pair of small, glossy black eyes. The very tips of big pointy ears attached to a round head that was barely poking above the top of the boulder.

Suddenly, Din knew exactly how this was going to play out, and what he had to do.

Be the distraction, until he could run and save you.

“Why? Why do I need to choose? What could you possibly gain out of making me decide?” He didn’t risk moving, wanting to keep Haran’s attention focused on himself without letting Grogu be hurt.

Haran rolled his eyes, “You tell me I’m a heartless monster, and then you ask me why I’m doing this?” He looked over at you, “I thought he was supposed to be smart? Tell me there’s something else good going for him besides hunting people.”

You snarled at him, eyes practically spitting fire even though they were glossy with tears, “You should see what he can do with his hands.”

That’s my girl.

Din could have cried at the fact you were still snarking despite the rapidly spiralling situation.

Haran blinked at you for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes before his lips curled up into a wicked smirk, “Oh, I have. Your mind is a lovely little place.” He dropped you another wink and then looked at Grogu, bringing his saber dangerously close agin, “You two have been the centre of my games for far longer than you realise. And this won’t be the last time we meet, believe me. I have much, much bigger plans to set in motion, that will make you wish – Aaah!”

His words were cut off with an uncharacteristic cry of pain as Duru sprang from the top of the boulder, sinking her wickedly sharp claws straight into Haran’s head. She hissed at him, swiping her paws over his forehead and eyes, opening deep cuts that immediately pooled blood.

“Get the fuck off me!” Haran clawed at her, and his effort to dislodge her, he dropped Grogu, becoming more preoccupied with saving his eyes than holding the little baby hostage.

As soon as he landed in the snow, Duru leapt down next to him, biting the back of his tunic and streaking across the snow toward Din. Her head was nearly the same size as Grogu’s entire body, so she had no trouble hauling him to safety.

A frantic laugh bubbled into Din’s throat, but he quelled it fast, because Haran had stopped spinning and wiping the blood from his eyes.

He looked up, his hair sticking out wildly, and with the streaks of blood running down his face, his bared teeth and furious eyes, he truly looked every bit the madman he was believed to be, “You think you can beat me? That I will be taken down by a pest?” He laughed, but this laugh wasn’t silken, or seductive. It was off-kilter, manic and oh-so twisted.

Din turned to you, quickly whilst Haran was laughing, “Sweetheart, run-“

Haran stopped laughing, “Oh, Mando. It’s you that needs to run.” His hand emerged from behind his cloak, and then he suddenly shot at the ice surrounding your feet, multiple blows in rapid succession.

The entire lake rumbled, fissures snaking across the surface like lightning bolts.

With each new appearance, the ice cracked, a deep, echoing noise that Din felt in his bones.

Thousands of splinters appeared around the holes at your feet, exploding across the surface of the lake quicker than taking a breath.

For a few moments, everything seemed suspended as time grew limitless.

Din could count every single squeeze of his heart, could feel every ragged breath dragging in and out of his lungs.

He could see each snowflake that danced in the air, their unique beauty a stark contrast to what was happening.

He saw Haran’s grinning, bloodied face disappearing behind the boulder, making his escape.

Din heard Grogu’s piercing cry of fear, and the noise shattered the haze of time and everything seemed to snap into fast-forward.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening, even though he screamed at his feet to move, to run, to save you-

You barely had time to hold out your hand, for your lips to just form The Mandalorian’s name…

And then the ice gave way into the fathomless depths.

And you were gone.

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#the mandalorian x force sensitive! reader #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x force sensitive! reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #rogue #the mandalorian #din djarin #Pedro Pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal

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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Chapter 5: Of Metal and Men

Part five of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5.1K OUR LONGEST SIN YET FOUNDLINGS

Warnings: SMUT, oral sex (m receiving), dirty talk, mild mild degredation whoops

A/N: Uhh this is so fluffy? wtf how come??/?

“Mando?”

“Hm.”

“I have to pee.”

He grunts. “So go pee.”

“I can’t see.”

“Turn on a light.”

“But…” You don’t even want to say the words aloud. You’ve so far convinced yourself that if you just never mention the fact that he’s got his helmet off right now, he’ll somehow forget to put it back on again.

It’s not that you necessarily want him to deviate from the ways of the Mandalore, obviously; you have more respect for his culture than that. No, it's just that. This is so nice. Hearing him speak without a modulator warping the natural frequency of his voice, being able to feel his skin directly under your lips with your face buried in the crook of his neck like this. Practically everything on this fucking ship is metal—the floor beneath you, the mechanics, the hull, the cockpit, the blasters, the armor. When he puts it on, he becomes nearly invincible; an unreadable, impenetrable fortress that abides by a strict code he rarely deviates from.

But without all that, he’s so… human. Not a Mandalorian, just a man. Everything that gives him prestige and recognition stripped away. Every weapon he straps to his body removed. The code he’s honored his entire life suspended in a paradisiacal loophole that you never want to end, even if it means having to walk around in the dark for the rest of your life.

He has to put the helmet back on at some point, you’re eventually forced to remind yourself. What starts out as an impossible task slowly becomes easier as the pressure in your bladder increasingly makes itself known, a reminder that you too are only human and sometimes humans have to pee soon after they wake up.

Which, y’know, a lot of times is okay. But sometimes, like right now, it really fucking isn’t okay. Because right now, his hand is so big and warm resting against your upper-back, shoved up underneath the fabric of your shirt and spread out across your shoulder blade. Right now you can feel his heartbeat through his chest, feel his lungs expand and contract slowly against you. The last thing you want is to move, and the darkness makes a perfect scapegoat.

You’re quiet for too long, apparently, because he eventually turns his chin to brush his lips against your temple. “Turn on a light. Just don’t look.”

You honestly don’t blame him. He hasn’t had as much time to contemplate the staggering predicament you’re in. “Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, shiny.”

“Go. I trust you.”

Your lashes brush against his neck when your eyes pop open, and the giant pang you feel in your chest shouldn’t be nearly as debilitating as it is. You know he trusts you, it goes without saying. But it’s one thing to travel around the galaxy with him, cultivate that inherent trust that comes naturally with odd partnerships that work surprisingly well. He trusts you to look after the kid, trusts you to pilot and maintain his ship, trusts you to cauterize his wounds when he’s incapable of doing so. He even trusts you enough to fall asleep next to you, leaving himself unarmored and vulnerable in ways you know you’ll never truly be able to understand.

But this—this is entirely different. This is the Way. And he’s half-asleep right now, putting a proverbial blaster in your hand and painting a target on his livelihood, telling you he trusts you enough to uphold one of the strictest, most foundational pillars of his belief system for him.

Okay. Okay. If this is what he wants. You’re not sure you’d put nearly as much blind faith in your own abilities (pun totally intended), but okay. You trust him and apparently he trusts you, so by some weirdly paradoxical extension inwards, you’re just going to have to trust yourself, too. He’s always been a man of relatively few words, so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to you that somehow only three of them work to provide you with more motivation than you’ve experienced in your entire life. If this is what he wants, then you’ll fight logic with gloves on and downright force yourself to see without seeing. Somehow.

You slowly start to wiggle out of his arms, but then pause for a second to tilt your chin up and press a soft kiss to his lips, trying not to get distracted from your task when he mmphs low in his throat and his hand comes up to cradle your jaw, holding you there for just a bit longer than you originally planned.

“Go,” he eventually breathes into your mouth.

“You’re not making this any easier.”

“Go.”

“Fuck—fine.” You carefully remove yourself and do your best to stand up on the blanket with unsteady legs, but then you stop for an entirely different reason, patting the skin on your bare hips in the pitch blackness to check. “Wait, hang on, did—did you not put any pants back on me last night?”

“…Was I supposed to?” Eventually comes from somewhere by your feet.

No. No, he most certainly was not. You’re honestly just surprised it took you this long to notice, especially since you’ve been subtly clenching your thighs and delaying the inevitable in the darkness for so long.

You don’t end up answering him, determined instead to find your way to the fresher without the use of sight so you can come back to him quicker. That’s easier said than done, though. It’s slow going from the start, trying to step over him without actually knowing exactly where he is, carefully tapping your toes to the ground three times before putting any weight on them and hoping you don’t accidentally step on anything important.

He takes the possibility away when you hear him sigh and strong fingers wrap themselves around your ankles in the dark, pulling and guiding your legs up over his body while muttering inaudibly under his breath. Something tells you he’s still getting used to having companions that are so blatantly helpless without him, but he does good in rising to the challenge regardless.

The second he releases you and you take a step forward off the blanket though, you immediately trip over something bulky and painfully hard on the floor, catching yourself just in time but managing to stub your toe in the process.

“Careful,” his voice says from behind you, over the loud clang echoing throughout the hull. “Beskar’s there.”

“Thanks, I almost tripped.” Once you get closer to the machinery standing upright against the far wall of the hull though, it’s a bit easier to see. The red and green lights act as your navigation beacons, stationary air traffic control wands guiding your turbulent body through the darkness.

The fresher light is fucking blinding when you finally make contact with the switch, and with the illumination comes an incredibly stern reminder to yourself not to look behind you. It… it’d be so easy, wouldn’t it? Turning your head just a fraction right now would be the equivalent of pulling a blaster’s trigger a mere inch—devastating, life-altering, and permanent, yet somehow so fundamentally easy.

You don’t, of course. It’s just the fleeting thought of it that jars you for a moment. You quickly shut the door behind you, use the toilet (annoyingly slanted thing you need to have a talk with him about soon, more of a weird space urinal than anything else and not really designed to be used by people with vaginas at all), and then wash your hands.

Your slightly damp fingers press tight to bridge over your eyes before you carefully open the door again, knowing you’re now facing him and the fluorescent light over the sink behind you is probably shining directly on him.

“Is it… safe?” You ask after a second.

“I’m not a rancor.” The sound of his voice makes you sigh in relief and your heart drop in disappointment simultaneously.

Modulated. Filtered, and familiar.

Sure enough, you peek through your fingers to see him laying back with an arm casually folded behind his head, his helmet back on. Even though the only skin you see is his bare hand resting on his stomach, he still looks fucking gorgeous like this—waiting silently for you in the make-shift bed you shared, blanket twisted around his lower half.

You pause there in the doorway so you can just admire him for a second. Relaxing, looking so trim and flexible in his long sleeved under-armor without all that beskar weighing him down. He looks back at you through the chrome visor, letting it tilt to the side and rest lazily in the cradle of his arm, and you suddenly remember with a jolt just how incredibly pantsless you are right now.

“Come here.”

Maker, he still makes you nervous. Stars, he had his mouth buried between your legs for longer than you can even imagine last night, why are you still so nervous? Is it the proximity? Just the literal act of seeing him in front of you? Not being able to feel like yourself around him unless he’s a disembodied voice in the darkness? Not being able to remember he’s an actual fucking person under there if you’re not actively touching his body in some way?

You feel… kind of shy now. Why? It’s like a flip inside you he can switch at will, just ever so subtly change his posture or tone of voice and bam—he’s dangerous, remember? He’s an underground bounty hunter, remember? He’s a mystery, he’s unpredictable—he’s an invincible, unreadable, impenetrable fortress, and you know absolutely nothing about him. Remember?

You trip over his armor again for an entirely different reason on your way back to him this time, despite how much better you can see now. You catch yourself once more, looking down at the offending pile of beskar like it did that on purpose, but then stop to consider it for just a second.

It’s just metal. And he’s just a man. You know he’s probably killed more people than you can count and he’s intimidating as all fuck, but you also know he stutters when he gets really worked up and decided to fall asleep next to you without his helmet on. Because he’s just a man, and men aren’t born with shields on their backs and visors covering their eyes and grenades in their hands. Not even Mandalorians.

So you slowly bend down and grab his hefty gloves, taking a moment to study them before fitting your comparatively small hands into each of them one at a time, flexing your fingers inside the fabric and feeling how much space the tips of them have to move before reaching leather.

He says your name shortly as you’re carefully stepping your right foot into his oversized boot. You ignore him, balancing precariously on one leg while your left foot slides in the other one. “Hey, guess who I am.”

“No.”

You reach down and lift the unexpectedly heavy ammo belt over your head, letting the thick leather drape between your breasts and come to rest just below the curve of your bare hip. “I’ll give you a hint,” you say, gathering the mass of dark fabric at your feet and making sure your butt doesn’t get caught on the thick bandolier when you rise back up again. You wrap the cape around your shoulders and lift your chin to tie it in a sloppy, makeshift little knot around your throat, fingers noticeably less nimble when confined in loose leather. “Handy with a blaster, not real big on droids. I also wear a helmet, probably because my face is too pretty to match my menacing vibe but those rumors are unconfirmed.”

“Come here,” he gruffs impatiently, but you just turn around and waddle back a few steps in the baggy getup, much too tiny feet clomping around awkwardly in his roomy boots and the floor-length cape dragging on the ground behind you.

And then you stop, before grabbing the hem of it and whipping around dramatically to face him, giving him your best bounty hunter pose.

“I can bring you in warm,” your voice is a deep as you can get it, your eyebrows narrowed as you fingergun and shift with flair. “Or—”

“Hey—careful—” he quickly sits up and points at your hand, “—don’t touch your thumb to the—”

“—I can bring you in—” And then an actual, real life, giant ass blaze of fucking fire suddenly shoots from your wrist and scares the living shit out of you so much that you stumble backwards and trip over your cape, choking and flailing as you come down hard on your bare ass.

You blink up at him from the ground with wide, terrified eyes. He looks back at you, arm outstretched and frozen in midair.

And then he laughs.

Mando actually fucking laughs at you.

You stare at him in utter shock as he abruptly drops his hand to his lap and his helmet to his chest, his shoulders shaking with it. As lovely and uplifting the sound is, you’re not really sure how to feel about the fact that the first time you managed to get an outright laugh out of him was at the risk of your own mortality.

“Excuse me,” you say after a second, trying your best to sound appalled. You carefully remove the death gauntlets with your hands extended as far away from your face as possible, fingers spread and thumb held completely rigid in position. “Are you actually laughing at the fact that I almost just died horrifically in front of you?”

“Stars, just—” he lifts his head back up to look at you, “fucking—come here. You’re worse than the kid is, I swear.”

You slowly stand up, and the boots are so big around your ankles that you don’t even have to kick them off, you can just leave them there in position on the floor as you lift your feet and begin walking over to him. “I’ll have you know I am a fierce bounty hunter—”

“Terrifying,” he mutters, and you’re about halfway done untying his cape when you get close enough for him to reach out and snatch the bottom of it, swiftly yanking you down on top of him and removing the fabric from your throat at the same time. He ignores your dramatic choking noise, catching your flailing body with barely a grunt. “Craziest in the guild. Your first kill was yourself.”

“Yeah, I—” you oof and giggle as he immediately flips you around, downright giddy at the ease with which he maneuvers you on the floor and gets on top of you, “—I bring them in warm, or I bring them in hot.”

“Stop,” you can hear his smile through the helmet as he catches each of your wrists and pins them to the ground by your head. “Maker.”

“Wait—” you try to wiggle out from under him. It’s futile, of course, not just because he’s all muscle while he holds you down and straddles your hips, but because all your body weight is now laying on top of his ammo belt as it slings around your chest. “Wait, h-hang on—the fresher light’s still on.”

“So?”

“So I can see you right now, which means—” you can’t take that stupid thing off your head and kiss me.

That’s what you want to say. You catch yourself just in time, biting your lip and blinking up at your warped reflection in the chrome visor. He releases your wrists and lifts his torso up tall. “…W-which means—”

Mando’s too smart for that, though. You’re not getting one by him anytime soon. Before you can come up with an alternative, he hooks his fingers under the thick band of leather trailing down through the valley between your breasts and calls you out.

“Do you want me to take my helmet off?” He asks, tilting his head down at you and letting his hand slide back and forth under the ammo belt idly. For a second you think he’s going to remove it, try and find some way to wiggle it off you in this position, but then he just lets the heavy bandolier drop back down to your sternum again and continues moving his hands down your tummy. “Hm? Or do you want to see?”

And then one of his thumbs catches the hem of his trousers and ever so slowly starts to pull the fabric downwards. Your breath stutters as tan skin and dark, coarse hair are gradually revealed right in front of your eyes, the hemline making a mouthwatering triangle shape that runs alongside the lines of his Adonis belt.

When he stops just at the very base of his cock, it takes you a second to realize he’s waiting for an answer.

“Uh—” Stars, what the fuck kind of harrowing, existentially crippling question is this? Kiss him or look at him? Is he serious? “Uhhhh…” You legitimately feel torn, blinking up at the visor and noticing the struggle blatantly written all over your reflection. Why in Maker’s name would he put this on you? On the one hand, his mouth. On the other hand, his—

“I want you to see,” he admits quietly, and you flick your eyes down to look at him slowly running his thumb along the slope of flesh peeking out of the dark curls. “Can I show you?”

Oh fuck, what is happening? And why are you so wet already?

“Uh… ye-yeah—” and then he’s immediately using his other hand to reach inside and shift up just a bit, before he eases his gorgeous cock out of his pants by cupping his balls and letting the fabric hooked in his thumb rest under them. He’s already half-hard for you, already deliciously thick as he carefully lowers himself back down again. Against all reason, his skin practically glows under the artificial lighting, somehow looking sunkissed in places that never see the sun.

Maker, you want it in your mouth.

You have no idea why that’s your first thought. Okay, well no, that’s not true—you know exactly why that’s your first thought, especially when you can physically see him getting harder and harder right in front of you, watch him trace his fingers down his shaft and lazily brush them over the head. You love the way he touches himself, how his hands look cradling the base, the beautiful contrast between the dark hair and his warm skin tone.

He slowly starts to move down your body, slide his legs back on either side of you until he’s straddling your lower thighs, and it’s not until his cock goes in the exact opposite direction you want it to (away from your mouth) that you find your voice.

“Hey, wait—I want—” his touch immediately stills along your hips and he lifts his helmet, letting you scramble to prop yourself up with your elbows, “—let me go down on you. Please.”

“I told you I’d fuck you when you woke up,” he says, dropping his gaze back down between your legs. His voice somehow sounds deeper through the filter. Maybe not the pitch exactly, but the… color? Fuller, darker, more depth. “You want to make me into a liar?”

“Never. Fuck my mouth instead.”

His hands tighten and his breathing subtly picks up through the modulator. “I want your pussy. First. We’re almost to Corellia and I’m not risking my life on another hunt until I’ve fucked it like I want to.”

“You decide that timeline,” you remind him breathlessly, pushing your upper-body up off the floor and catching the fabric of his tunic near his neck.

“I have to earn credits somehow, I can’t just—” he abruptly cuts himself off when you yank his collar to the side and lick a slow, hot, wet line up his throat. “—I… I-I can’t just stay on this ship with you f-forever and… and…”

His breath catches when you bite down on the thick cord of muscle connecting his neck to his shoulder. And then he murmurs your name when you wrap your hand around his hard cock.

“You can do whatever you want to my pussy,” you whisper against his skin, feeling him shudder under your lips as you slowly pull your hand up and down the thick length of him. “Whenever you want. I made that clear last night. All I’m asking is that right now, you lay back and let me suck your cock for a little bit. Is that okay?”

He doesn’t answer with words, but he throbs under your hand and his body is surprisingly malleable as you urge him to move back slightly, just enough for you to collect your legs out from under him and rise up on your knees to face him. You keep stroking him the entire time, sucking marks down his neck while you hold the hemline to the side. Nobody will ever be able to see them, but somehow that makes it even better. A secret only you and him know. Next time he scares off a crowd of locals, he’ll be wearing your signet under his armor.

When you’ve sufficiently bitten and kissed marks along his neck and the fabric won’t stretch anymore, you reach down and pull it up from the bottom, lifting it up up up—up until it rests right above his sternum and you can see almost the entire length of his torso underneath, tan and dusted in dark hair.

You strongarm him back to sit on the floor with one hand and hike your own shirt up over your breasts with the other, letting the fabric bunch under your armpits while his ammo belt bisects your chest diagonally. He curses when you immediately climb on top of him and start dragging your skin against his, rolling your exposed tits and pussy against the hard planes of his body and letting him feel how soft you really are.

“Is that okay?” You ask him once more, rubbing yourself into him. “Will you let me suck your cock, Mando?”

“Fuck—” he growls, grabbing your hips, “—why are you—h-how do you always make it feel so… so good—?”

“It’s supposed to feel good,” you tell him, beginning to slide down his body.

“Not like this,” he pants, tipping his head back when you slowly lick down his chest. “Not—not everything, n-not all the time.”

The warmth that settles in the pit of your tummy is intensified by the clear drop of precum shining at the tip of his cock, now achingly swollen and a mouthwatering shade darker in color than the rest of him. “Keep talking,” you whisper. “It’s sexy.”

And then you slide his head into your mouth and let your tongue flutter gently along his frenulum.

Mando instantly goes rigid and grabs a fistful of your hair as you hum and taste his precum, slowly brushing your tongue over his tip to see if you can get any more out of him like this without going deeper.

“Fuck—” he grits while lifting his helmet to look, every muscle in his body tensing under you. “Y-your mouth is—” he gasps when you gently swirl circles around the pulsing head, his open palm coming down hard on the blanket with a dull thud, “—fuck, your mouth is s-so—so fucking good—”

You open your jaw and take him down a few inches so he can feel your throat, satisfied when his helmet falls back and his grip tightens in your hair. You slowly begin bobbing up and down, dragging the flat of your tongue along the underside of his shaft and getting him nice and wet. His thighs almost feel like he’s wearing beskar over them, his entire body held so incredibly tight and stiff as you softly pleasure him.

You can only get around half of him in your mouth without straining for it, so you soon lift off him and start coating your palm and fingers in spit. His head raises immediately, exposed chest heaving as he watches.

“You’re so tense,” you murmur, reaching down and starting to jerk him with your slick hand. He doesn’t relax into it, instead he straightens his back even more, his hips starting to thrust into your grip. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I want to fuck you,” he growls, the exact opposite of relaxed. “You—you can’t w-walk around half-naked in—in my clothes and expect me t—”

He cuts himself off with a groan when you take him back down again, deeper this time. And then he relents and starts slowly fucking into your mouth, gradually rolling his hips further and further with every thrust. One hand fists itself into the blanket while the other holds your hair back as you open your throat and work the rest of his length with slippery fingers.

When you take him down as far as you can and you drop your palm down to cradle his balls, Mando just about loses his mind.

“Fuck—let me fuck you,” he starts rasping at the ceiling, “please, l-let me—let me pound you into this dirty f-fucking ground like you wanted, like—like the filthy little girl you are—”

You hold there and swallow around his thick cock, letting your other hand slither down between your own legs and start rubbing your clit. He probably can’t see you do it from this angle but it feels so much better this way regardless, having him as far down as your throat as possible and listening to him babble while you touch yourself.

The sound you make pulling off him to breathe isn’t necessarily the most attractive thing in the galaxy, but with the way he groans and tugs your hair sharply in response, you’d think it was the sexiest thing he’s ever heard. You keep jerking his throbbing cock and rubbing circles around your clit, before moving down to take one of his balls into your mouth.

His grip tightens, along with the gorgeously soft skin under your tongue. “W-Wait—stop—”

You look up at him. He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat and everything about him is unbearably stiff, even with the way his body is sprawled out and his chest rocks up and down with exertion.

“Sorry, I just—I was—” he gasps, “—I d-didn’t want to—to c-cum—”

“I want you to cum,” you murmur, blinking up at him and dragging your tongue up the length of his swollen, throbbing cock. “Please. Want it down my throat.”

You don’t know how it’s possible for his body to go even more rigid, but it does. “You—?”

He possibly could’ve stopped himself, you think. Even with the way you start gently sucking on his tip and looking up at him innocently after telling him you want to swallow his load, maybe he could’ve stopped the way his balls suddenly pull up tight, the way his grip on your hair turns to steel and his helmet rolls to the side.

But then the subtle shift of his head means he can see your hand moving between your legs, you can tell. You can tell, because he makes a choking sound through the modulator and his stomach flexes, and then he’s cumming down your throat exactly like you wanted him to.

There’s a second between the moment of detonation and the explosive result of it. It’s just enough time for him to slowly tilt his chin up and let out the smallest, quietest moan you’ve ever heard from him before his cock starts throbbing on your tongue, his balls working to steadily pump cum up his shaft.

You pull up and start swirling circles around his head just as the first spurt hits your tongue, moaning at the taste of him and preening at his hoarse whisper of your name. You swallow everything he gives you, drain him until he’s completely empty and spent, trembling in pieces on the floor.

Admittedly you do keep him there in your mouth just a little bit longer than you should, just taking a minute to savor how good he tastes and how fucking beautiful his cock is, how stunning his body is exposed and spread out for you on the ground like this.

“Keep—keep doing that and I’ll get hard again,” he eventually warns, though his voice comes out sounding like sandpaper in his throat.

You hum and finally pull off him. “That’s got to be the least threatening thing you’ve ever said to someone, I think.”

“Not able t—” he jerks when you bite his hipbone, “—to scare you off, apparently. Most people run from me.”

“Nope. Told you I wouldn’t, remember? Back on Cantonica. I’m also the craziest bounty hunter in the guild, so. Look.” You lift up to show him. “I even have an ammo belt, see? It holds all of the bullets, for all of my guns that I have.”

His hand slowly comes up and you think he’s going to grab the band of leather across your chest to either take it off you or pull you forward with it, but then he just grabs one of your breasts and gently squeezes it instead. “You’re beautiful.”

Your breath catches. You blink twice at him, your heart suddenly thundering under his hand.

“Wearing my armor. Not wearing it. Not wearing anything. Wearing your clothes. In complete darkness. You’re beautiful.”

You think—for one ludicrous, insane second, you think that the enormous swelling in your chest literally transfers itself up to your brain and causes you to have an aneurysm right there on the floor in front of him.

But nope—it’s just the entire hull starting to violently shift and shake, swerving sideways and jerking upwards with rapid, unpredictable shifts in gravity.

You thrown on top of him in the chaos and try to find some sort of stable ground without accidentally kneeing him in the crotch. Mando grunts and gets rolled on top of you when the ship immediately veers the other way, the weight of him suddenly crushing your lungs and making it impossible to breathe with the brutal changes in g-force. Did he—did he leave the baby in the fucking cockpit?

He left the baby in the fucking cockpit.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #smut #reader insert #pedro pascal #no-droids

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