corinthianism - Tumblr blog

[corinthianism]

“I’ve lived through him, you know. Other people can have their opinion objectively about where Loki should go, but I’ve lived through every moment. And sometimes I’m the only person who knows how it feels…” — Tom Hiddleston

[corinthianism]

something about how easy it is to choose death with the one you love than to be the one who lives, forever haunted by a world that was only ever bright with him in it

I’ll Be Seeing You (Benedict Bridgerton x Reader)

Benedict Bridgerton x gn!Reader A modern zombie AU Rated/warnings: 18+, heavy angst, whump, gun use, slight gore, discussion of death and killing, zombie-fication Word count: 3.1k

Summary: After years surviving in a post-apocalyptic zombie landscape, you and Benedict find that your luck has run out. A sad zombie love story.

Author’s Note: Once again, a Discord joke gone awry becomes something I compulsively turn around and actually write. Is this even remotely related to Bridgerton? No. You can easily insert any man you fancy into this story. It’s just that Benedict is my muse, so here we are. For full effect, I recommend listening to the song after reading.

If you need to recover from the sadness of this story, go check out how it worked it's way into the beautiful, sexy love story Wide Open Spaces by @thebabblingbrookenook and/or if you enjoyed Benedict in an apocalyptic setting, check out her other masterpiece If The World Was Ending.

“Darling, it’s alright. You know this is the only way. It’s alright.” His tone was so calm, as if he were teaching you to drive a stick shift, not kneeling before you with your gun pressed to his forehead. 

You knew you were hyperventilating, your vision going blurry behind tears as your breath clawed ragged through your throat. Your hands hadn’t shaken this badly since the day the world fell, all those years ago. The gun felt like lead in your hands, suddenly so weighted with gravity, when before it had grown to feel like an effortless extension of your own arm. How many times had you swung it at a shambling figure or threatening foe and pulled the trigger without a second thought? It was a trained impulse, practically nonchalant, as easy and automatic as breathing.

Now it was the most inconceivable action you could take, as Benedict stared up at you through dark lashes beneath the barrel. He was so incredibly still, his blue-grey eyes so steely with resolve, as he waited for you to seal his fate and end his life. You had made it this far, to the spot you had designated for the act, the farmhouse two miles away from the settlement. You had known the entire way that this was the purpose of your journey, to mercifully execute your husband before he turned into one of those things. You hadn’t wanted to do it in the settlement or anywhere within eyesight. You didn’t want to go on looking at the place, reminded of where and when you had removed him from your life and from the world. So you were here, just the two of you, in a quiet abandoned home, surrounded by quiet abandoned fields, with nothing but your gun and a shovel that you had brought to bury him.

When he had confessed to you and the others in the settlement that he was bitten, a mishap of your latest supply run into the city, it felt as if all of your organs plummeted down an elevator shaft. You had lasted so long, evaded so many dangers, you had almost begun to feel invincible. So many others had died, your families and your friends and the errant packs of fellow survivors you had found yourselves with. No one lasted that long it seemed, except the two of you. Somehow, you had run and ducked and fought and wrenched yourselves out of every bind, a camaraderie and sense of shared destiny building so palpably between you. Benedict hadn’t been your husband when it all started, but when it was clear that you were the only constant things you could each rely upon in this new world, he had wanted to make your commitment official. He found a ring in some way you didn’t want to ask about, and you spoke vows to each other one night when the stars were radiant above you. It was as real and as provable as anything could be anymore, and it was the only thing that made you feel, in some strange way, hopeful for the future and happy to still be alive.

There was a protocol in the settlement when someone was bitten. Everyone knew what it was. The afflicted said their goodbyes and wrapped up their affairs before the fever set in, then they were dispatched by a loved one in a place of their choosing and buried with proper rites and respects. After the initial shock of his revelation, you had both defaulted to duty. There were new rules in this new life and you had to abide by them or die. It was that simple. When death was a hair’s breadth away every day, there wasn’t much space to get too emotional over anything. Survival was paramount. Survival of the settlement and survival of self. So when one of your number became an imminent threat, they had to be dealt with, respectfully but decidedly.

But absolutely none of that mattered anymore as you stared down at Benedict, physically feeling your heart break within your chest. He was all you had; the singular thing that had brought you any glimmer of joy or purpose over the past several years. Once he was gone, there was no reason for you to carry on. What was the point? To grow vegetables and stock ammunition in the settlement for years on end, waiting for the day when your luck would eventually run out and it would be you on your knees at the end of a gun? Who would even be designated to end you? You didn’t want it to be anyone but your beloved spouse which you realized, with a shuddering breath, was precisely what he was feeling in this moment.

The fever had set into him as you had trudged toward the farmhouse. He was pale and sweating, clearly fighting the tremors as he held your gaze, urging you on. It wouldn’t be long now until Benedict was snuffed out and the disease roared into sentience with its latest host, a microscopic puppeteer bearing his face and animating his limbs. He didn’t deserve it. No one did, but him least of all. He deserved the mercy you could grant with a simple sweep of your finger. But the agonizing hell of your guilt and the contemplation of innumerable days spent without him crippled you, and you dropped the gun with an anguished cry, falling to your knees in front of him.

“I can’t,” you sobbed, tossing the weapon to the floor. “Ben, I can’t. I’m sorry, I could never…I can’t.” You grabbed his hands and pulled them against your chest, somehow both an apology and a plea for his touch to mend the crack you felt growing there.

All of your guilt was immediately silenced when he wrapped his arms around you and pinned you to him, shushing your cries as you held each other in the dusty sunlight of the farmhouse kitchen floor. 

“Not you,” you whispered into his ear as he held you tight, the only thing keeping you from falling apart. “Not you.”

Then his hands were firm on the sides of your face and he kissed you, with more passion than you had ever felt, every ounce of love and sorrow and promise bound up in this single point of connection. He understood. Of course, he understood everything you were feeling. You didn’t need to apologize or explain. It was as if he could read your mind, an infuriating but astounding trait that he had always possessed.

“I know,” he whispered against your lips. “I couldn’t do this if it were you, either.” 

Your heart began to thud, with relief or anxiety or love, you weren’t sure. You were completely overwhelmed. 

“Then what do we do now?” You asked breathlessly, clinging onto him as if that was the answer, the way to keep him with you for as long as possible. 

You could feel his signature grin against your cheek. His tone was practically breezy. “Make the most of it.”

You pulled back and saw the crooked smile, genuine despite his ashen face. You were so lost in the turmoil of your feelings, so numb to the world outside of your entwined bodies, you couldn’t fathom what he was planning. He swiveled to look around the room and the next thing you knew, he had pulled you to stand and walked over to a piano that was tucked into a corner of the adjoining living room. The bench and instrument both had an inch of dust on them, as did everything in the world these days, and it puffed out as he slid the cover back off the keys. Trembling, you sat beside him on the bench and watched as his slender fingers, perpetually covered in grime as everyone’s were now, floated gracefully into place and tested the scale. Some notes were woefully out of tune, but the song he started to play was immediately familiar.

I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places. A voice sang in the back of your mind from a time so distantly far away it seemed like a dream. You let the tears stream freely down your face, entranced by his magic ability to remind you of the way things used to be, a warm memory of something sure, a mild recollection of normalcy, of being carefree. His music wrapped around you, muting out the rest of the world, the horrors of the past few years, until all you saw and all you felt was this moment, sunlit and perfect and real. You watched his face, ravaged with toil and fever but beautiful nonetheless, with eyes closed and a hint of a smile, concentrating.

On his third round through the chorus the notes became discordant, breaking the spell. His hands fell away from the keys as he shook with tremors. Then he curled into himself and fell toward you. You wrapped your arms around him as his full weight sank against you.

“My love…” he gasped, “I’m…you need to go…”

You knew what he meant. You knew what was happening. But you had already made up your mind that you were not going to leave. If you could not bring him to his end, you would stay with him until he met it himself. You would not sacrifice a moment in his presence while he was still alive. Whispering assurances, you let him lean on you as you pulled him to his feet and began to drag him through the house toward the adjoining barn. He would turn. That was the guaranteed outcome of your inability to take his life, but at the very least, you could prevent him from being a danger to anyone else. 

He slumped to the floor of the barn with a groan as you leaned him up against a post. Fortunately, you were able to quickly find rope, always a safe presumption in barns, and you carried the coil over, kneeling beside him. You both knew what it was for but you weren’t going to make any moves until he agreed to it.

His eyes fluttered open, bleary, as he began panting. “Do it,” he rasped, “tie me up. Make sure it’s tight.”

With your hands shaking nearly as badly as they had with the gun, you wound the rope around his wrists then secured them behind the post at his back. 

“More,” he wheezed. “I can’t get out. I don’t want to get out.” With sobs closing around your throat, you looped the rope around his chest once, twice, three times, and tied that off too. Now he was immobilized, held firmly in place against the post so he couldn’t break free in any state. You sat in front of him, unable to contain your tears, watching as he grew more sallow each minute, sweat streaming down the sides of his face, gasping for air against both the fever and the ropes you had bound him with.

“Thank you, my love.” He choked. 

You couldn’t help but reach out and cup his face, and he nuzzled into your touch. “Ben,” you croaked, a cold despair surging through you as you realized these were your last words with each other. You had to make them count. “Thank you for making this life worth living. Thank you for saving me, in every way. I love you.” 

A softness gleamed out of his hazy eyes, a sparkle of the Benedict you had fallen in love with, and the shadow of that smirk flitted across his face for the final time. “I love you, darling. You saved me too.”

Guilt and love roiled within you like a landslide. The sincerity of his words, the memories of your life together, all colliding with the impenetrable truth that you were unable to save him this time. You didn’t know how else to apologize or how to express your devotion other than holding him. You curled yourself around him and clung as tightly as the ropes you had tied him with. He exhaled warmly into your neck and melted into you. Somehow, in that horrific moment in that dingy barn, at the end of your time together, you found stillness, contented stillness.

He murmured against you, barely above a whisper. “When I stop breathing, you must go. Promise me.”

Everything inside of you was shattering. You nodded numbly, already knowing what you planned to do when that dreaded moment arrived.

Then you lost all sense of time. Benedict grew more restless in your arms, jerking and shuddering as you felt the feverish heat pouring off of him. His teeth began to chatter and his breath became harsh and quick. Everything seemed to rise to a crescendo, a writhing, desperate battle for life that was suddenly and so quietly concluded with a long, low exhale as you felt him deflate beneath you. You had been bedfellows with death for so very long, had seen it in all of its myriad faces and had visited it upon countless individuals, but you had never been so close to someone dying. Had never been wrapped around them as you felt their breaths fade, and then their heart stutter and slow to nothing. It was spellbinding in how subtle it all seemed.

You sat in the chasm of silence that was the world without Benedict, feeling all of your joy and motivation to carry on float away with him. You allowed yourself one final wail, a closing salvo for your emotions, and then you were empty. You pulled away from him. His head, which had been resting heavy on your shoulder, sank to his chest. Sitting across from his body, you watched. Two minutes, maybe five, with no sound or movement other than the gentle breeze through the half-collapsed roof and the dance of dappled sunlight it let in. 

Then he moved. The telltale twitching began in his feet, then his shoulders, growing more pronounced as the world-ending pathogen took hold. At last, with a rattling groan, he raised his head and stared directly at you. Those eyes, milky and devoid of anything but animalistic hunger, were the eyes you saw in your nightmares. The eyes of the millions who had succumbed, who had turned into enemies, predators, things to be avoided and destroyed, now glaring out at you from the face of your husband.

But somehow, you were unafraid. You had lost the ability to feel anything other than resolve for your next actions. You were going to stay with him. It wasn’t even a decision you needed to make. It was the only conceivable way you could proceed.

He had started to snarl, leaning toward you, fighting against his restraints. The disease always turned the skin a mottled bruise green, and darkened veins into purple cracks spidering up from the neck. But you could still see him, your darling Benedict, under the surface. Nothing, not even death, could dim his beauty. If you had to face your end, you didn’t want it to be anyone but your beloved spouse, and this was the way.

As you had countless times before, you reached out and carded your fingers through his hair, caressing around his ear and down his jaw. You smiled at the familiar feeling of it and then closed your eyes against the pain as his teeth sank into your wrist. It was a stinging, crushing pressure, surprisingly warm as he tore into your flesh with guttural noises of satisfaction. His bite was so strong, you had to plant a knee on his chest for the leverage to yank yourself away, then stumbled to your feet clutching your injured arm. He gnashed at you angrily, somehow roaring without breath as he struggled against the ropes, the crimson of your blood streaming down his chin. 

It was done now. There was nothing more to fear, and the relief of it brought you an undeniable feeling of weightlessness. The path ahead was more certain than it had ever been since this new life began. You knew precisely what to do. 

Leaving Benedict growling at you from the floor, you gathered both of your belongings and piled them neatly inside the door of the farmhouse. Your guns, your packs, anything anyone else might find useful. Before you left your knife, you used it to carve into the wood of the post where Benedict was tied, standing just out of his reach. Both of your initials. A simple but certain note to any members of the settlement who might come looking for you. They hadn’t known where you were going, but they would notice when you didn’t return and would likely sweep out to this area in a few days. Whatever they might think of your choices, you could at least give them the courtesy of confirming where you had both ended up.

Then you took another length of rope and wound it through Benedict’s bindings and around the post, creating a lead a few feet long that you tied off tightly to your good wrist. Now there was nothing left to do but wait. You sat across from him again, feeling yourself grow dazed at the ceaseless sound of him seething at you. He had bitten you deeply and you hoped that would make the infection spread faster. You would fade, you would die, and then you would join him in whatever space he now found himself. 

Even with all the time that had passed, no one really knew what the things could feel or think. It wasn’t clear if they could sense each other, communicate, or feel pain. Perhaps they could. Perhaps this was just another plane of consciousness that you couldn’t understand from the outside looking in. What was clear was that they endured. Even without food, the brains kept going for years. If they weren’t destroyed, it seemed the only thing that would end the animation was the natural decay of time. 

If the settlement members found you both, they would dispatch you. Better them than you doing it to each other, and at least you would go at the same time to that final plane. And if no one found you, you would still be together, tied in a patch of sunlight, staring at each other for years to come. It was everything you could ask for, and you felt no fear approaching the horizon of that reality. 

You were willing to face some new kind of forever, as long as he was by your side.

Tagging: @angels17324 @bridgertontess @broooookiecrisp

[corinthianism]

I’ll Be Seeing You (Benedict Bridgerton x Reader)

Benedict Bridgerton x gn!Reader A modern zombie AU Rated/warnings: 18+, heavy angst, whump, gun use, slight gore, discussion of death and killing, zombie-fication Word count: 3.1k

Summary: After years surviving in a post-apocalyptic zombie landscape, you and Benedict find that your luck has run out. A sad zombie love story.

Author’s Note: Once again, a Discord joke gone awry becomes something I compulsively turn around and actually write. Is this even remotely related to Bridgerton? No. You can easily insert any man you fancy into this story. It’s just that Benedict is my muse, so here we are. For full effect, I recommend listening to the song after reading.

If you need to recover from the sadness of this story, go check out how it worked it's way into the beautiful, sexy love story Wide Open Spaces by @thebabblingbrookenook and/or if you enjoyed Benedict in an apocalyptic setting, check out her other masterpiece If The World Was Ending.

“Darling, it’s alright. You know this is the only way. It’s alright.” His tone was so calm, as if he were teaching you to drive a stick shift, not kneeling before you with your gun pressed to his forehead. 

You knew you were hyperventilating, your vision going blurry behind tears as your breath clawed ragged through your throat. Your hands hadn’t shaken this badly since the day the world fell, all those years ago. The gun felt like lead in your hands, suddenly so weighted with gravity, when before it had grown to feel like an effortless extension of your own arm. How many times had you swung it at a shambling figure or threatening foe and pulled the trigger without a second thought? It was a trained impulse, practically nonchalant, as easy and automatic as breathing.

Now it was the most inconceivable action you could take, as Benedict stared up at you through dark lashes beneath the barrel. He was so incredibly still, his blue-grey eyes so steely with resolve, as he waited for you to seal his fate and end his life. You had made it this far, to the spot you had designated for the act, the farmhouse two miles away from the settlement. You had known the entire way that this was the purpose of your journey, to mercifully execute your husband before he turned into one of those things. You hadn’t wanted to do it in the settlement or anywhere within eyesight. You didn’t want to go on looking at the place, reminded of where and when you had removed him from your life and from the world. So you were here, just the two of you, in a quiet abandoned home, surrounded by quiet abandoned fields, with nothing but your gun and a shovel that you had brought to bury him.

When he had confessed to you and the others in the settlement that he was bitten, a mishap of your latest supply run into the city, it felt as if all of your organs plummeted down an elevator shaft. You had lasted so long, evaded so many dangers, you had almost begun to feel invincible. So many others had died, your families and your friends and the errant packs of fellow survivors you had found yourselves with. No one lasted that long it seemed, except the two of you. Somehow, you had run and ducked and fought and wrenched yourselves out of every bind, a camaraderie and sense of shared destiny building so palpably between you. Benedict hadn’t been your husband when it all started, but when it was clear that you were the only constant things you could each rely upon in this new world, he had wanted to make your commitment official. He found a ring in some way you didn’t want to ask about, and you spoke vows to each other one night when the stars were radiant above you. It was as real and as provable as anything could be anymore, and it was the only thing that made you feel, in some strange way, hopeful for the future and happy to still be alive.

There was a protocol in the settlement when someone was bitten. Everyone knew what it was. The afflicted said their goodbyes and wrapped up their affairs before the fever set in, then they were dispatched by a loved one in a place of their choosing and buried with proper rites and respects. After the initial shock of his revelation, you had both defaulted to duty. There were new rules in this new life and you had to abide by them or die. It was that simple. When death was a hair’s breadth away every day, there wasn’t much space to get too emotional over anything. Survival was paramount. Survival of the settlement and survival of self. So when one of your number became an imminent threat, they had to be dealt with, respectfully but decidedly.

But absolutely none of that mattered anymore as you stared down at Benedict, physically feeling your heart break within your chest. He was all you had; the singular thing that had brought you any glimmer of joy or purpose over the past several years. Once he was gone, there was no reason for you to carry on. What was the point? To grow vegetables and stock ammunition in the settlement for years on end, waiting for the day when your luck would eventually run out and it would be you on your knees at the end of a gun? Who would even be designated to end you? You didn’t want it to be anyone but your beloved spouse which you realized, with a shuddering breath, was precisely what he was feeling in this moment.

The fever had set into him as you had trudged toward the farmhouse. He was pale and sweating, clearly fighting the tremors as he held your gaze, urging you on. It wouldn’t be long now until Benedict was snuffed out and the disease roared into sentience with its latest host, a microscopic puppeteer bearing his face and animating his limbs. He didn’t deserve it. No one did, but him least of all. He deserved the mercy you could grant with a simple sweep of your finger. But the agonizing hell of your guilt and the contemplation of innumerable days spent without him crippled you, and you dropped the gun with an anguished cry, falling to your knees in front of him.

“I can’t,” you sobbed, tossing the weapon to the floor. “Ben, I can’t. I’m sorry, I could never…I can’t.” You grabbed his hands and pulled them against your chest, somehow both an apology and a plea for his touch to mend the crack you felt growing there.

All of your guilt was immediately silenced when he wrapped his arms around you and pinned you to him, shushing your cries as you held each other in the dusty sunlight of the farmhouse kitchen floor. 

“Not you,” you whispered into his ear as he held you tight, the only thing keeping you from falling apart. “Not you.”

Then his hands were firm on the sides of your face and he kissed you, with more passion than you had ever felt, every ounce of love and sorrow and promise bound up in this single point of connection. He understood. Of course, he understood everything you were feeling. You didn’t need to apologize or explain. It was as if he could read your mind, an infuriating but astounding trait that he had always possessed.

“I know,” he whispered against your lips. “I couldn’t do this if it were you, either.” 

Your heart began to thud, with relief or anxiety or love, you weren’t sure. You were completely overwhelmed. 

“Then what do we do now?” You asked breathlessly, clinging onto him as if that was the answer, the way to keep him with you for as long as possible. 

You could feel his signature grin against your cheek. His tone was practically breezy. “Make the most of it.”

You pulled back and saw the crooked smile, genuine despite his ashen face. You were so lost in the turmoil of your feelings, so numb to the world outside of your entwined bodies, you couldn’t fathom what he was planning. He swiveled to look around the room and the next thing you knew, he had pulled you to stand and walked over to a piano that was tucked into a corner of the adjoining living room. The bench and instrument both had an inch of dust on them, as did everything in the world these days, and it puffed out as he slid the cover back off the keys. Trembling, you sat beside him on the bench and watched as his slender fingers, perpetually covered in grime as everyone’s were now, floated gracefully into place and tested the scale. Some notes were woefully out of tune, but the song he started to play was immediately familiar.

I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places. A voice sang in the back of your mind from a time so distantly far away it seemed like a dream. You let the tears stream freely down your face, entranced by his magic ability to remind you of the way things used to be, a warm memory of something sure, a mild recollection of normalcy, of being carefree. His music wrapped around you, muting out the rest of the world, the horrors of the past few years, until all you saw and all you felt was this moment, sunlit and perfect and real. You watched his face, ravaged with toil and fever but beautiful nonetheless, with eyes closed and a hint of a smile, concentrating.

On his third round through the chorus the notes became discordant, breaking the spell. His hands fell away from the keys as he shook with tremors. Then he curled into himself and fell toward you. You wrapped your arms around him as his full weight sank against you.

“My love…” he gasped, “I’m…you need to go…”

You knew what he meant. You knew what was happening. But you had already made up your mind that you were not going to leave. If you could not bring him to his end, you would stay with him until he met it himself. You would not sacrifice a moment in his presence while he was still alive. Whispering assurances, you let him lean on you as you pulled him to his feet and began to drag him through the house toward the adjoining barn. He would turn. That was the guaranteed outcome of your inability to take his life, but at the very least, you could prevent him from being a danger to anyone else. 

He slumped to the floor of the barn with a groan as you leaned him up against a post. Fortunately, you were able to quickly find rope, always a safe presumption in barns, and you carried the coil over, kneeling beside him. You both knew what it was for but you weren’t going to make any moves until he agreed to it.

His eyes fluttered open, bleary, as he began panting. “Do it,” he rasped, “tie me up. Make sure it’s tight.”

With your hands shaking nearly as badly as they had with the gun, you wound the rope around his wrists then secured them behind the post at his back. 

“More,” he wheezed. “I can’t get out. I don’t want to get out.” With sobs closing around your throat, you looped the rope around his chest once, twice, three times, and tied that off too. Now he was immobilized, held firmly in place against the post so he couldn’t break free in any state. You sat in front of him, unable to contain your tears, watching as he grew more sallow each minute, sweat streaming down the sides of his face, gasping for air against both the fever and the ropes you had bound him with.

“Thank you, my love.” He choked. 

You couldn’t help but reach out and cup his face, and he nuzzled into your touch. “Ben,” you croaked, a cold despair surging through you as you realized these were your last words with each other. You had to make them count. “Thank you for making this life worth living. Thank you for saving me, in every way. I love you.” 

A softness gleamed out of his hazy eyes, a sparkle of the Benedict you had fallen in love with, and the shadow of that smirk flitted across his face for the final time. “I love you, darling. You saved me too.”

Guilt and love roiled within you like a landslide. The sincerity of his words, the memories of your life together, all colliding with the impenetrable truth that you were unable to save him this time. You didn’t know how else to apologize or how to express your devotion other than holding him. You curled yourself around him and clung as tightly as the ropes you had tied him with. He exhaled warmly into your neck and melted into you. Somehow, in that horrific moment in that dingy barn, at the end of your time together, you found stillness, contented stillness.

He murmured against you, barely above a whisper. “When I stop breathing, you must go. Promise me.”

Everything inside of you was shattering. You nodded numbly, already knowing what you planned to do when that dreaded moment arrived.

Then you lost all sense of time. Benedict grew more restless in your arms, jerking and shuddering as you felt the feverish heat pouring off of him. His teeth began to chatter and his breath became harsh and quick. Everything seemed to rise to a crescendo, a writhing, desperate battle for life that was suddenly and so quietly concluded with a long, low exhale as you felt him deflate beneath you. You had been bedfellows with death for so very long, had seen it in all of its myriad faces and had visited it upon countless individuals, but you had never been so close to someone dying. Had never been wrapped around them as you felt their breaths fade, and then their heart stutter and slow to nothing. It was spellbinding in how subtle it all seemed.

You sat in the chasm of silence that was the world without Benedict, feeling all of your joy and motivation to carry on float away with him. You allowed yourself one final wail, a closing salvo for your emotions, and then you were empty. You pulled away from him. His head, which had been resting heavy on your shoulder, sank to his chest. Sitting across from his body, you watched. Two minutes, maybe five, with no sound or movement other than the gentle breeze through the half-collapsed roof and the dance of dappled sunlight it let in. 

Then he moved. The telltale twitching began in his feet, then his shoulders, growing more pronounced as the world-ending pathogen took hold. At last, with a rattling groan, he raised his head and stared directly at you. Those eyes, milky and devoid of anything but animalistic hunger, were the eyes you saw in your nightmares. The eyes of the millions who had succumbed, who had turned into enemies, predators, things to be avoided and destroyed, now glaring out at you from the face of your husband.

But somehow, you were unafraid. You had lost the ability to feel anything other than resolve for your next actions. You were going to stay with him. It wasn’t even a decision you needed to make. It was the only conceivable way you could proceed.

He had started to snarl, leaning toward you, fighting against his restraints. The disease always turned the skin a mottled bruise green, and darkened veins into purple cracks spidering up from the neck. But you could still see him, your darling Benedict, under the surface. Nothing, not even death, could dim his beauty. If you had to face your end, you didn’t want it to be anyone but your beloved spouse, and this was the way.

As you had countless times before, you reached out and carded your fingers through his hair, caressing around his ear and down his jaw. You smiled at the familiar feeling of it and then closed your eyes against the pain as his teeth sank into your wrist. It was a stinging, crushing pressure, surprisingly warm as he tore into your flesh with guttural noises of satisfaction. His bite was so strong, you had to plant a knee on his chest for the leverage to yank yourself away, then stumbled to your feet clutching your injured arm. He gnashed at you angrily, somehow roaring without breath as he struggled against the ropes, the crimson of your blood streaming down his chin. 

It was done now. There was nothing more to fear, and the relief of it brought you an undeniable feeling of weightlessness. The path ahead was more certain than it had ever been since this new life began. You knew precisely what to do. 

Leaving Benedict growling at you from the floor, you gathered both of your belongings and piled them neatly inside the door of the farmhouse. Your guns, your packs, anything anyone else might find useful. Before you left your knife, you used it to carve into the wood of the post where Benedict was tied, standing just out of his reach. Both of your initials. A simple but certain note to any members of the settlement who might come looking for you. They hadn’t known where you were going, but they would notice when you didn’t return and would likely sweep out to this area in a few days. Whatever they might think of your choices, you could at least give them the courtesy of confirming where you had both ended up.

Then you took another length of rope and wound it through Benedict’s bindings and around the post, creating a lead a few feet long that you tied off tightly to your good wrist. Now there was nothing left to do but wait. You sat across from him again, feeling yourself grow dazed at the ceaseless sound of him seething at you. He had bitten you deeply and you hoped that would make the infection spread faster. You would fade, you would die, and then you would join him in whatever space he now found himself. 

Even with all the time that had passed, no one really knew what the things could feel or think. It wasn’t clear if they could sense each other, communicate, or feel pain. Perhaps they could. Perhaps this was just another plane of consciousness that you couldn’t understand from the outside looking in. What was clear was that they endured. Even without food, the brains kept going for years. If they weren’t destroyed, it seemed the only thing that would end the animation was the natural decay of time. 

If the settlement members found you both, they would dispatch you. Better them than you doing it to each other, and at least you would go at the same time to that final plane. And if no one found you, you would still be together, tied in a patch of sunlight, staring at each other for years to come. It was everything you could ask for, and you felt no fear approaching the horizon of that reality. 

You were willing to face some new kind of forever, as long as he was by your side.

Tagging: @angels17324 @bridgertontess @broooookiecrisp

[corinthianism]

Over the Garden Wall - Masterlist

Benedict Bridgerton x Princess!Reader

18+

Summary: The youngest daughter of Queen Charlotte and King George, plagued by the same illness as her father, grows tired of her lonely and isolated existence. When escaping the prison-like castle she has been sequestered in for her entire life, she meets a young man who shares her love for painting and whom she can not stop thinking about. Secrets, betrayal, and love all fight against one another. Which one will win?

Series Warnings: Love at first sight; POV third person; eventual smut; isolation; dramatic/inaccurate depictions of mental illness; thoughts of death; there will be fluff, okay? I swear; potential historical inaccuracies; complex mother/daughter relationship; historical medical practices; SIMP Benedict; idgaf about historical canon; complicated sibling relationships; execution by hanging

Tags specified before each chapter

(Tags will be updated as the story continues)

Last Updated: 03/28/24 (Complete)

*indicates smut

Chapter One - Loathing Boredom

Chapter Two - Ruinous Secrets

Chapter Three - Never is a Promise

Chapter Four - As the Poets Say

Chapter Five - Vagrant Body

Chapter Six - Codes and Clues

Chapter Seven - Dig My Fingers in

Chapter Eight - No Light of My Own

Chapter Nine - This Sweet Plague *

Chapter Ten - Tricked By the Past

Chapter Eleven - No Label, No Name

Chapter Twelve - Keeping Time

Chapter Thirteen - Only You Can Mend

Chapter Fourteen - Not Above Violence

Interlude - Lady Whistledown

Chapter Fifteen - Matching Wounds

Chapter Sixteen - Go Along to Be With You

Chapter Seventeen - Balanced on Desire

Interlude - Marietta

Chapter Eighteen - Oh, My One

Chapter Nineteen - Like Fuel to Fire *

Chapter Twenty - If I Send for You

Interlude - Honeymoon *

Chapter Twenty One - An Atom and a Star

Chapter Twenty Two - The Bed I Was Born In *

Chapter Twenty Three - Don't Wait to Understand

Chapter Twenty Four - Fingers Laced a Crown

Chapter Twenty Five - Here to Kingdom Come *

Epilogue - A Moment, A Love

Drabble - Pall Mall Drabble - Picnic Drabble - Like Mother, Like Son Drabble - Jealousy Drabble - More Than a Maid Drabble - Coronation Day Drabble - Second Son Drabble - Number Four Drabble - Reasonably Unreasonable Drabble - Tag, You're It Drabble - Sisters Drabble - Spoiled Drabble - Opal of the Season Drabble - Fit for Family Drabble - Garden in Bloom * (smut adjacent) Drabble - What if? AU

[corinthianism]

CAN YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING

BEYOND THE VOID — !

1. THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

( MASTERPOST   |   AO3  |    SPOTIFY ) summary: torn from time yet again, it's thursday. six months pass. while you grapple with a newfound uncanny ability to premeditate, loki grapples with the fact he's slipping back into his old self without you. enter brad wolfe. now playing:  a whole lots gonna change by weyes blood word count: 3.3k pairing: loki / f!reader, established in from the void, with love tags: enemies to friends to lovers, soulmates, we-are-in-love-in-the-future but how did that even happen, angst & comfort, redemption arc, lots of time travel, loki season 2 (2020) spoilers a/n: finally, they return in "beyond the void". i can't thank everyone enough for the unending enthusiasm for this little project of mine. it's fitting to have the first chapter release with an eclipse. this is for all of you :) the beautiful gif for this chapter is from this set by @tomshiddles.

"Okay."

"Okay."

There's a long stretch of silence between Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster. 

In the liminal stretch of the apartment building's hall, there's little sound except the loud drone of some horribly, desperately sad song beyond the door of Unit 1131. The two women share a long look with one another, and then Darcy gestures urgently to the door.

"Go ahead," she nudges her colleague. 

"What?" Jane asks in a harsh whisper, "No, you knock." 

"You were the one that said we needed to do an intervention—" Darcy argues back in an equally low tone.

"Oh, so now this is on me?" Jane fires back, "She's our friend—"

"Our friend who has been babbling nonsense about things that have not happened and has been seriously obsessing with that Low-key dude—" Darcy rushes out, bringing her face closer to Jane's, "I don't even know what we're walking into here!"

Jane inhales. She pinches her brow. With a long rub of her face, she exhales. Then, she knocks.

She gives Darcy a 'happy?' look before stepping back and crossing her arms.

Almost immediately, the music stops. There's the sound of a shuffle. A meow. And then, the door opens only wide enough that one exhausted eye can peak through the chained gap.

"Heeeeeeeeeey, girl!" Darcy chides, waggling her hands in the air, "Surprise!"

On the other side of the door, your heart clenches. 

It feels a little bit like a cruel joke, y'know?

All that wishing, begging, clawing to go home and — well... you are. You're home. You've been home. For six months, you've been home in New York City. You're back in that little studio apartment, with Sigurd, with your research, with your doctorate. 

ALL I WANT  TO DO IS  GO HOME.

You try your best to give both Darcy and Jane a smile, but it comes out mangled and exhausted and not quite right. You've been crying. Sort of par for the course these days.

"Oh, uh... Hi guys."

Sigurd meows.

"You got a sec?" Jane asks, raising a folder in her hands, "We, uh... Erik gave us some new anomaly data to look over and we figured... you're the one for the job! Y'know? It's... kinda... your thing... have you been crying?"

Your eyes dart between them both. You wet your lips.

"No. Nooo, no. It's..." your mouth hangs open as you search for a reason, "...Allergies."

There's a beat of embarrassing silence, and then Darcy moves fast as lightning. She wriggles her arm through the gap and unlocks the chain — almost as if this is definitely something she's mastered before — before pushing her way through the doorway of your apartment. Jane follows close behind, and Sigard squawks as he scurries away from underfoot. 

The infiltration is almost immediately regretted because... woah. 

Like, big woah.

Darcy has seen crazy. Like, she has an Uncle on her Dad's side who is totally in on the whole "they're coming for our thoughts" thing and does not leave the house without at least six layers of Great Value tinfoil stuffed under his baseball cap. She knows crazy. She works for Erik Selvig. 

But this?

This is, like, soooooo above her pay grade. 

Jane's jaw is slack. The folder is immediately forgotten on the kitchen island in favor of the wall-to-wall documentation of... whatever the hell this was. 

LOKI MISSING? in the center of it all, with string and equations and runes and news articles and tabloid pages. There's an alarming amount of photos of the God in question pinned up beside ramblings on... Time? And... Quantum mechanics...? 

There's another loooooong stretch of silence. And then, Darcy and Jane both turn slowly to look at you pressed against the door.

You swallow.

Your face is set in horror.

"It's not what it looks like—"

"Uh, dude, it totally is what it looks like—" Darcy starts, stepping closer to the board and pointing a black, manicured finger at a paparazzi photo of Loki being carted off from the now-Avengers Tower, "What's with all the Loki paraphernalia?! Need I post a lil' throwback Thursday to when he tried to kill us all?"

IT'S THURSDAY AGAIN.

You wince. "You wouldn't understand—"

Then, it happens.

The same thing you've experienced dozens upon dozens of times these last six months happens again: A rush of chatter in your mind, a cacophony of whispers that claw at your thoughts and flood them with has-beens and will-be's. A million things all at once, a little bit of everything from all of time, and then— one thread. One thread that stands out against them all. 

"Jane, don't."

Across the room, Jane's fingers pause on the contact number for that pretty S.H.I.E.L.D. agent they've met once or twice now — the one who is managing the Asgardian anomaly cases. With Loki missing, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been desperate to track him down. If this is a lead... If you know where he is...

Jane's face freezes.

Her brows knit.

Your face is split in panic. "I know you think calling Agent Hill is the right thing to do, but—"

"...How did you know I was...?" Jane's voice falls off, her eyes searching your face.

Your voice splinters as you step forward. "If you call Agent Hill, she is going to section our entire division within the week. Thor will be exiled from Earth on conspiracy four days later. We will sit in a cell for five years until they decide we have nothing to do with Loki's disappearance from Asgard."

Darcy's eyes bounce between you and Jane.

"Why are you saying all that like you know it's going to happen?" Jane asks slowly, putting her phone down and closing the gap between you. "Doc, what's going on?"

Your eyes flicker with fear. 

And then exhaustion. The walls you've built to keep this away from the others crumble with one worried look from Darcy, and you crumple against the kitchen counter. 

Your voice is far away.

"It all started that Thursday."

You thought it would be better now that someone knows. 

Truth be told it might be more trouble than it's worth if not to soothe the burden of secrecy — because Darcy keeps treating you like a Magic 8 Ball that, when shaken, is going to spit out readings on the future. 

It isn't that easy. I mean, if it was, you would have definitely done everything in your power to avoid the commute traffic this morning. 

You don't know why it happens. Or how. You have a theory it has something to do with Alioth, but... without any sort of control, there's no way of knowing. All you know is that in those moments, you're presented with a weave of potential sequences. And in those moments, you can choose to act. Or not. 

So far, acting seems to be the best course of action. 

But, yea, no. No fortune-cookie-level stuff. No crystal ball, no tarot cards. Just... weird time-whispers. And a migraine that seems to never go away. And dreams. Really vivid dreams. Dreams that happen? And dreams that don't.

If it was a horoscope sort of thing, maybe you wouldn't have missed your morning bus after waiting in line at that coffee shop three blocks down. They always make your coffee a little too bitter, but the girl behind the counter is an NYU grad student you recognized from a mechanical engineering lecture you sat in on three months ago. You've got a soft spot for her. She's always nice to that guy in the baseball cap who seems unhoused. 

You hope it all works out for her in the end. 

But, Christ this coffee is bitter. 

You buzz into Stark Labs at 9:37 am, and you're setting your stuff down at R&D by 9:43 am. 

Bruce Banner looks up briefly from his work to slide you a welcoming smile. You return it gently as you settle down on your stool and reacclimate yourself to last week's work. 

Mondays, man.

Tony is, as always, later than anyone else. His entrance is followed by the usual boisterous chatter meant as a morale booster. More often than not it's a genius-level comedy routine built on absolutely torturing Dr. Banner. You opt, more often than not, to refuse to enable the bad behavior. 

Any laughter is buried deep into these readings from the Tesseract. 

And so this has been home for the last four months. 

Avengers Tower. R&D. Erik Selvig's Research Team. Theoretical Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Day in, day out.

No TVA, no TemPads, no Sylvie, no Mobius, no Capybaras. 

...No Loki.

But, plenty of whispers. 

It rocks you out of your focus, iced latte halfway to your lips as you're rooted in this little pocket of voices and threads and whisps of time. There's a thousand, then a hundred, then one. 

Your voice is soft.

"Bruce, try the equation again."

From across the room, Tony's voice dies down and Bruce's eyes rise to meet yours. He points to himself, with a questioning raise of the brows.

You nod, then continue to take a sip of your coffee.

And so Bruce does. Wordlessly. And, after a minute, he looks up with a grin.

"So it was right."

"Woulda never known if Iron Dick over here didn't shut up for one second."

Tony's grin is bigger than Bruce's as he meanders over to your lab table and throws an arm around your shoulder. He squeezes you gently. You avoid his eye contact — and in doing so, you miss the momentary grace of concern. 

(Tony has known you for a few months now. He knows you adequately enough to gauge that your triple-shot espresso should have been a sextuple. The bags beneath your eyes are dark. There's an edge there. Something jumpy. You're exhausted.)

"Now, that was mean."

"You're torturing him," you fire back lightly, non-the-wiser to his scrutiny. 

"It's called exposure therapy—" Tony croons, leaning back and thumbing through some of the notes on your desk. You allow it. 

Good. Still sharp. Still better than anyone else at what you do. 

"Exposure to workplace terrorism?" You rib back with one cocked brow, "No offense, Bruce, but I like you better not green. Okay, Tony?"

"None taken!" Dr. Banner calls lightly from across the room. He's working on the second part of that equation now. 

"Sure, sure, alright, Doc," Tony heads your words, raising both hands and stepping back, "I guess someone hates fun."

"Absolutely," you say blankly, chewing your straw; you point at him, "No laughter."

"None," Tony waggles a finger.

"Not a peep," you remark causally as you spin in your stool and snag your pen from the drawer behind you. 

"Any news on the other green guy we hate?" Bruce asks slowly, eyes bouncing between you and Stark. 

Your blood goes a little cold. Just like always. It's hard not to react — especially when that other green guy is all you think about day and night.

WHEN YOU LOSE HIM YOU WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET HIM BACK. 

You wordlessly shake your head. You shrug. Bruce turns to Stark. Tony is hunched over his bench. His words are a bit muffled by the soldering project he's turned his attention to. 

"None. According to Thor he just up and poofed. He was in the middle of atoning before the Buckingham of Asgard and... just warped on out."

So you've heard.

"Hill has been working every lead she can but... the Asgardians are a little touchy-feely on the whole 'earthlings in the domain of the Gods' thing."

"Understandable," you mutter absently.

Tony sits up. "Only time will tell."

...Indeed.

Home.

Unit 1131. 

Lonely.

It wasn't before all this... It was full to the brim with contentment. It was comfort, it was bliss. It was indulgent mornings slept beneath the covers and bright music in the kitchen. Cheap wine from the liquor shop on the corner and homemade meals. It was "I finally made it". 

Now, it's none of that.

Because he's out there — and you know that you don't belong here anymore.

You drop your bag by the door. 

Your boots follow in a trail. 

Sigurd mews expectantly, and you scoop him wordlessly into your arms as you weave through the chaos of papers and books. Your carpet is hidden beneath a layer of obsession masquerading as research.

But, there's one thing that pulls you back in each time.

It's that photo. 

The one Darcy had pointed at earlier.

Loki is being carted off from the now-Avengers Tower. He's looking back at something, and his expression is broken.

It's you.

You know he's pleading with Thor at that moment through a muzzle, desperate to call your name. He's looking at you, being whisked away by S.H.I.E.L.D. as they clear the area, and your voice is silenced by grief. 

You wish you had called out to him then — told him you'd find him again. 

Regret is a hell of a thing.

Grief, too. 

How do you mourn something you never really had? Not here, not in this timeline. 

So you stand there, in the dim lights of your apartment, staring at the photo. And you cry. Just like every night, for the last six months.

In your desk, that magical little daisy made of grass waits.

If they find Sylvie, they find you.

That's the mission.

Mobius M. Mobius thinks it's funny — back then, man if only he would have known that lil' hunch of his was right. Maybe a part of him did. And... Now? Things are different. I mean, everything is different. The TVA is different. 

Loki is different.

They say to be loved is to be changed an' all that. 

The first thing out of Loki's mouth was your name when Mobius finally saw him again — and then a word vomit of panic, induced by the death of He Who Remains and... time-slippage as OB called it. Lotsa moving parts. Lots to keep track of. But, ultimately, they're in a better spot than they were yesterday. 

1.) Loki is no longer falling through the metaphorical cracks in time. 

2.) Mobius did not get toasted alive when standing before The Loom.

3.) He never, ever, ever has to do that again.

And now!

They're in London. 

1977, huh. Zaniac. 

If they find Sylvie, they find you.

...Unless you find him first.

Loki isn't exactly thrilled. 

No, Loki knows better than to get his hopes up. Sylvie isn't here. He already told Mobius that. It's too safe. It's a damned movie premiere. There are no radiation burns, no falling stars, and no rampant gunfire. It's too quiet. 

It's a movie premiere and you're out there, somewhere, alone. You're... you're lost. He can't protect you here. He can't protect anything. You... You're all he has and you're gone. 

And he's here, wasting his damn time. 

Brad Wolfe is about to waste more of his time. 

Loki's gaze is sharp. His strides are long, and as they approach the fray, the God stands amongst the tallest of guests. He cuts a mean profile. It's times like these that Mobius remembers he is a God.

(It's times like these that Mobius can also see the ever-increasing edge in his partner-in-time. It's a little... worrisome. But understandable. I mean, rip a God's soulmate from his hands and see what happens, right?)

"So, he's an actor now?" Loki comments off-handedly, his irritation grating his heartstrings in a way that reminds him of who he was before all this. He hates it. But, he's angry. He will get you back. Without you...

Without you, he doesn't know what he'll do.

"Or he's undercover."

As they weave, Loki's brows knot in distrust. "Looks pretty real to me."

It smells like cigarettes and perfume, and the flashbulbs bite sharply into Loki's peripherals. The raven-haired trickster winces, tucking his hands into his slacks. 

On the red carpet, X-5 moves from interview to interview. Occasionally his laughter rises above the clamor. Each time, Loki's nostrils flare and he rolls his eyes. 

It's when he reaches the end of the line that Mobius moves in. 

"Will there be a Zaniac Two?" 

The look on Brad's face says enough for Mobius to know there's more going on here than just an undercover bit. Brad's laugh, as equally pained as his smile, just cements the fact. 

"Mobius! Woah!" A clap on the shoulder, a big hug. "I used to work with this guy!"

Still a show. Still a weasel trying to survive on his little slice of time. 

"We're going to need to catch up," he begins, backing up slowly, "You know, why don't we chat after the show?"

"How about now, maybe?" Mobius counters just as Brad turns on his heel and comes face to face with Loki. 

The God sneers.

"Woah. Okay, ha, whole gangs here!" he chirps, "Isn't that... great? Wow. I mean, you look — you look great, Loki."

"Why thank you, Brad."

Brad's eyes are manic, and he's searching the crowd quickly — no doubt looking for an exit. Then, they catch something. When Brad claps his hands together and pats them on both Loki and Mobius' shoulders, the two TVA agents pause.

"Everything alright?" Loki asks, head tilting in faux concern.

"Everything is great, actually, because when I was here," he begins, words quick and anxious as he tries to weave some sort of story, "I met a mutual friend!"

"Sylvie?" Mobius asks tightly.

"No, no, uh, better—"

Loki's jaw tightens. Enough of this. "We have some mutual friends back at the TVA who would like a word, as well—"

"Doc!" calls Brad after finally finding her in the sea of people, turning on his heel and calling out over his shoulder, "I got people I need you to meet!"

And just like that, it's like Loki's whole world splits wide open again.

In the fray of photographers and journalists, in the fray of drinks and the haze of smoke, there's you. You're smiling at Brad, positively beaming. You're bright as a star and Gods, there's no one in the room when you step forward with a laugh.

Your dress is green. Your hair is different.

There's a beauty mark on your left cheek. His version of you has a scar that lies there. A mistimed gift from Sylvie before their period on Lamentis. 

"Doc, these are some of my friends from work," Brad points, his hand falling along your waist in a way that makes Loki's blood boil; the ex-TVA Hunter leans close to your cheek, "They're the real deal."

You laugh into your drink, then extend your hand to Mobius. He's trying his best to hide his growing dread. "It's a pleasure."

Mobius takes it and shakes it gently. "And how do you have the pleasure of knowing our starlet, Brad?"

Damn it. He's losing Loki in real time here.

"Doc here did all the practical effects on set for Zaniac," Brad's eyes connect with Loki's — but the God is focused on only you... Her. Until Wolfe digs in with a low murmur meant to do just what it does, "She's a real wiz with her hands."

The God's face snaps. He will kill Brad, he decides. But, then this other-you moves to offer her hand and he can't help but melt. 

His fingers are trembling when he touches her skin. 

"Have we met before?" comes the soft lilt of her voice — this Variant's eyes are brown. They search Loki's face for a shred of recognition but all that's there between the two of them is raw attraction. A law of time and space unhindered by meddling hands. No matter where, no matter when, you will find one another.

Loki's mouth is dry. Your lipstick shade is a dark rogue. He thinks about that kiss back in the Void. He's stuck there, with your hand in his, when Brad bolts.

Her face contorts in confusion. She pulls away. But, Loki lingers. 

He has to... He...

He needs you back. 

Now. 

[corinthianism]

             —   FROM THE VOID, WITH LOVE    !

                             AO3     |     SPOTIFY     |     PINTEREST

a masterpost for the drabble series by yours truly. a revisitation of a well-loved story; watch two forever-lovers fall in love again. canon divergent, set during loki (2020). 

READ ME !  /  completed  ;  8/14/21

1.    the beginning of the beginning  2.    apartment CMY9 3.    dress code 4.    pester pester 5.    absolutely miserable 6.    blunder #1 7.    expectations 8.    control variable 9.    a time disguise 10.  fingers entwined 11.   half a sandwich 12.  beauty sleep 13.  the perfect storm 14.  a million meteorites 15.  keep on 16.  home is the heart 17.  petal-mouthed 18.  rib of adam 19.  desperation 20.  heart-haunted 21.  touch 22.  one more almost 23.  an ode to the void 24.  the catharsis of venus 25.  the end of the beginning

SCROLL ME !

1.   the sacred timeline 2.   the variant timeline files 3.   the tag 4.   the god & the scientist 5.   fan art

[corinthianism]

hell yeah

[corinthianism]

i have an issue with some of yall ewan mcgregor girlies who write fanfiction. like I'll watch the most jaw dropping, toe curling, back arching ewan mcgregor character in a movie and then move immediately to tumblr to find some fics of this delicious character and there's NOTHING.

like where are yall for Perry MacKendrick (Our Kind of Traitor)??? his hair? magnificent. his personality? jaw dropping. but there is absolutely nothing about him. i mean he is a fucking professor for gods sake.

and don't get me started on curt wild (velvet goldmine). there are only a couple of fics, which is better then nothing, but i am a slut for him. his entire being? panty dropper. his hair? ethereal. his personality? i would eat him up like its my last meal. like you guys are slacking on ewan mcgregors characters

every time i finish another movie i go to @kneamet to see if they have anything on ewans character from the movie i just watched, (it's sad ik)

this is shameful and i demand more fics of ewan mcgregors less popular characters

[corinthianism]

The Mandalorian Soulmate AU: You can only see colour once you look into your soulmate's eyes for the first time.

Pairings: Din Djarin x Reader

Genre: Very slight Angst, Fluff.

A⁄N: I wrote this entire piece at like, four in the morning, so please excuse me for any possible mistakes. Also, this has very little dialogue, and it is mostly just Din being a complete fool in love. It's not exactly my usual writing style but it came out this way and I will accept my child as it is. Jokes aside, enjoy!

Din Djarin had accepted from the moment he put on his helmet for the first time, the lonely life awaiting him. Or so he has tried to tell himself, for so long now, that maybe he has started to believe it.

He can't remember much from his younger years, back when he still had his parents, but one thing has always stuck with him: they were soulmates.

Even now, after so many years, now that he has forgotten his father's face and the feeling of his mother's embrace, he can still remember the way they had loved each other. Can still remember the way they never failed to describe colours to him; The way that his eyes are brown like his hair, like the trunk of a tree and the earth when there's no grass to cover it. The way he had always been drawn to green things, unknowingly, as if he found comfort in a colour that was just another shade of grey.

He can still remember what it truly means to find your other half.

The Universe gives and takes, being found and raised as a Mandalorian was a blessing, one he still isn't sure he deserves, one he will never be able to repay. But for it, he's had to make a simple sacrifice: renounce to his soulmate. 

With the Mandalorian way, came the helmet, and the inability to look anybody directly in the eyes.

Throughout his life, especially when he was younger, he cursed more than once the visor covering his stare. A couple of times, back then, he had even thought he had found "the one".

It never worked out for long.

Sometimes, Din still wanders if they just weren't meant to be, or if they were, but the uncertainty, the never really knowing drove them away. If he messed up his happy ending with his own hands.

The Universe has a way to bring the two halves of one soul together, everyone tells him, more often than not in just a fleeting moment.

He wanders, on those rare occasions when he is too tired to stop his mind from torturing him, if he hasn't already met them someway else. He is old now, older than he's ever thought he'd have the chance to be, surely he must have crossed eyes with them by now. Maybe on some far away planet, at a busy market or a rowdy cantina, locking eyes for only a second, a second meant to colour their worlds and complete their existences. He would never know. 

He feels sorry for whoever had the displeasure of sharing a soul with him, for whoever he has doomed to bare loneliness because of his own choices. Sometimes, rarely, he takes pity on himself too, he attempts to make the guilt more bearable. They could still find someone to be happy with, someone who isn't him and his destructive lifestyle. 

Not everyone meets their soulmate, he reasons, he has encountered some of them, and they were still leading fulfilling lives. He knows you aren't dead, his world would be pitch-black if you were, and he is glad for that mercy everyday.

On the occasions when he returns to the covert, he feels slightly more at ease, can keep his mind off of you for longer. His people are on the same boat as him, and he isn't alone, not in his sorrows at least.

Most of them can't see colours, he does his best to avoid the few who can. Din had asked one of them, back when he still had hope, how they'd done it. They told him they had taken the risk, so it is known, told him they were so utterly sure to have found their half that they had lifted their helmet and taken the chance. 

Your soulmate is allowed to see your face, he remembers. He never asked again after that, sure all the answers would be close to the same, and sure that he would never be able to take the risk.

So yes, he has done his absolute best to believe he has accepted it. It didn't bother him, he would swear it didn't, would lie through his teeth and get away with it.

Until the moment Din met Grogu. Until the moment he found his son. And he was more than aware that it would only be a matter of time until he wouldn't be able to fight the visceral need to find you any longer.

But until then, the company of his child was more than enough, even if temporary, like all the sense of belonging in his life.

Home for him has never been forever, and Din accepted his fate in the ways he could, if he can't stop the bleeding in his heart, then he can at least embrace it. Gone are the green clothes and the strange feeling of comfort they brought, replaced by the shining grey Beskar he leaves unpainted and black underclothes that conceal every part of his skin. He can see grey and he can see black, which means he can at least see himself in the same way everybody else can; even those more fortunate than him.

The Razor Crest, his ship- he has to bite back the word 'home' every time and he hates it- is grey as well, even on the inside. In a way that makes it feel cold, inhospitable, he has been told, he believes it fitting.

They are small mercies, ways he has developed to keep his mind off of the longing. He is not meant for nice, warm, homely things.

But the child is.

A child that is green, which is quite unusual, even he would know. 

Grogu is dressed in a beige tunic, sleeps covered in a red blanket and his toys are all brightly coloured. Din doubts he knows, or cares, but it makes him rest easier knowing that he can provide at least something good for him.

You enter the picture not long after, by chance. He hadn't been looking to expand his crew, his job was easier with no one to worry about but himself. He had considered a few times the idea of hiring a mechanic, but when the only one in danger was him, it came easy to dismiss the thought. But then his priorities changed, thrown upside down by the need to protect the most precious thing he could ever have: his clan. He could take the risk, the child couldn't.

Every emergency landing now made his skin crawl, a red beeping light or a malfunctioning piece he doesn't know how to fix could send him into a panic, and how is he supposed to protect if he can't think.

So reluctantly, he started to keep an eye out for someone he could trust with something far more precious than his life. A lost cause really.

Until he found you.

He had just intended to stop at Peli's for a few quick repairs. Tatooine is an inhospitable, dangerous pit of a planet, but he trusts Peli enough to work on The Crest without having to worry afterwards, double checking things in a way he isn't used to. He needs that peace of mind, he can admit that to himself at least.

He is about to remind her of his 'no droids' policy, when she cuts him off, gesturing to a spot a little far behind her. And there you are, her new assistant. The way she praises your skills, although in her own way, is not something Din had thought her capable of. He'd be more surprised by it if he was actually listening.

You, as stunning as you look and as capable as you clearly are, were just another person. No one that should have kept the Mandalorian gazing obviously enough for Peli to notice, let alone for her to raise a brow at him as if she knows a secret he doesn't.

Then she whispers that you have yet to find your Soulmate, and Din's heart skips an involuntary beat. He remains silent, in an act of fake indifference he has mastered well, he pretends to avoid dignifying that insinuation with a response. In truth, he is not sure what to say, uncertain with his own brief fascination with you. Brief, because that's what it is. What it has to be, because he can't afford anything else.

He turns around after that, going to find a job to pay for the repairs, and Peli calls after him, tells him that you will look after the child while he is away. His heart skips another beat, he likes the sound of that. He wonders if he's getting sick, if that's why his body isn't working the way it should.

He doesn't dwell long on that.

When he comes back a day later, he is much more tired than when he left.

It's late at night and he is sure everyone will be asleep, except maybe the child, whose sleep schedule is almost as messed up as his own. He blames himself for that.

Still, he knows exactly what he wants to do, keeps dragging his body forward only because of it. He's going to see the child, cook for him and then maybe himself, and then he is going to shed all the beskar and collapse somewhere, possibly on his cot.

He shouldn't be this tired after a job, but he is more than aware that he has rushed it and himself to the point of cutting the estimated needed time in half, so he cuts himself some slack.

Din knows the child is safe with Peli, but the feeling that has been in his bones since landing here is heavy, foreboding, and he knows better than to ignore it. Whatever might happen must stay far away from his child, and it's that thought that pushes him forward.

Despite his expectations, you're the first thing he sees. You're still awake, Din can tell, even if your body is slumped on the ground and your head is leaning heavily against the wall behind it. Your eyes are closed and the expression on your face is so serene he hesitates to come closer. He has to retrieve his child, a child that, Din wants to shake his head off his shoulders for even thinking that, looks quite at home in your gentle embrace. It's the most relaxed he has seen him in a while.

So he makes an impulsive decision, he lightens his footsteps just enough for you to know he's approaching you without disturbing the quiet, and then, in what feels like both a second and an eternity, he's on the floor next to you. He doesn't know you, you don't know him, yet your shoulders are touching, and you're holding his son, and it feels like the Universe has just shifted into place.

You don't say anything that night, and neither does Din, but the three of you sleep together until Peli opens up the shop the next morning, a knowing smile on her face.

You can feel the Mandalorian jolt awake next to you, like he's taking the first breath of air after being underwater for too long. 

What you don't know, is that he hasn't slept that peacefully or that long since he first put on his helmet, and he feels like he might have just died and woken up again. And maybe it's the best he's ever felt. 

He doesn't have the time to dwell on it, because only a moment later the child wakes up with a coo and the growl of his stomach, and you're smiling at him. Smiling at Din.

He doesn't see you again for the rest of the morning, while you complete the last repairs for the Crest. 

Nothing happened, or maybe everything did, but the sense of foreboding isn't half as strong as it had been, and it disappears completely when he asks you to join his crew that afternoon.

It has been months now, months since you came into his life, and he finds himself thinking of the day he met you far more often than he probably should. His fascination with you hasn't been brief, not at all, but it has been softened by the sense of peace you bring him. A sense of familiarity, of belonging that he is still terrified to explore. 

You're always by his side now, and he struggles to remember a time when you weren't. When he didn't come home to you after a job, when your laughter didn't light up the entire ship and his life, when there was surely a you sized hole in his heart.

In a way, he came to regret hiring you. He was already struggling with accepting how much he cares for the child, how the need to keep him safe makes him second guess every choice that would have come easy once upon a time, how he is sure he would crumble if he ever were to lose him.

Din knows his clan is what gives his life meaning, and now that his family has started to include you too, he is terrified.

When he offered you a place on his ship, he was sure that no matter how mesmerising you were, he could manage to be normal about it. Now he knows he can't.

You're just his friend, yes, and yet somehow, you're so much more than that. He isn't sure how to deal with it.

But Din is a master at pretending he doesn't care, and when it keeps you from discovering how his heart hasn't seemed to function quite the same since he met you, he considers it a blessing.

Still, when he looks at him, Din knows his son knows something he doesn't, maybe in the same way Peli did. 

He tries his best, as he always has, to keep his mind away from his soulmate. But his colourless world had never been able to taunt him in the same way it does now, when he runs his fingers through your hair without knowing what shade it is, when he watches how your eyes shine when you're looking at the child, or you're working on a project you like, or, and he feels like he is kidding himself even thinking it, when you look at him, and he doesn't know what colour they are.

It's his favourite shade, even without seeing it he knows nothing could ever compare. 

Din has no way to express that to you, can't begin to find the words to even try. But when you look at him, with that look in your eyes that makes his knees buckle underneath him, he knows with striking clarity, that it's love he feels. 

The day it all comes pouring out of him feels like any other. But you're there, and it's a constant reminder of what he is missing. 

He owes it to you to try, for all the good you've brought into his life, that he could never begin to deserve. 

If there is one thing that matters more than his creed it's his clan, it's your happiness, it's you. 

And if he has to take the risk for it? Then Dank Farrik he has never been a coward, and deep down, there is no doubt in his mind that it is you. 

"Cyar'ika." He starts, and it comes out heavy, dragged down by his insecurities. By the fear that maybe he's got it all wrong and you've never felt anything more than friendliness around him. He second guesses not doing this on a planet, somewhere beautiful where your first sight would be a breathtaking scenery; all Din wants to see is you and the child, in the comfort of the home you share.

But you turn around, and your expression betrays the worry you've already started to feel for him, and there is nothing else on his mind then, than the need to reassure you.

His hands, no matter how hard he tries, still shake slightly when he lifts them to the sides of his helmet.

Din's breath sounds shaky even with the help of the modulator, and the way your eyes widen lets him know that you've caught on to his intentions.

"Din-" The way you murmur his name feels like the beginning of a prayer, and he thinks that maybe the outcome doesn't really matter as long as you keep saying his name like that.

He knows there's other words stuck in your throat, that you're worried about him, that you're going to try to stop him. He can't let you do that.

The helmet comes off in one swift movement and newfound conviction.

And when he looks you in the eyes, there is a split second just before the world starts changing, in which his breath evens, his hands still, his heart calms, and he realises nothing else could ever feel as right as this, as right as you. The Universe would just have to accept that.

When the colours hit, Din doesn't blink, doesn't move his eyes from yours, no matter how disorienting it feels. He needs it to be the first colour he sees, the first one he commits to memory. Then his gaze moves to your hair, skin, lips, to the jumpsuit you always wear that he now knows is light green. He watches the way you blink, the way you look at him, the awe on your face. He is sure there is no first sight worth more than your smile.

You ran straight into his chest then, and his arms wrap around you without a second of hesitation. 

Din doesn't realise how tightly he is holding you, until you giggle, your voice so full of emotion his head spins.

"I'm not going anywhere." 

And Din has to chuckle at how easily you read him.

He opens his mouth to reply, but the only sound that comes out is a choked up thing. So he just stays quiet, and buries his face in the curve of your neck. 

There are so many things he wants to tell you, so many things he wants to see, his son is in the other room and he can't wait to get to him. But you have all the time in the Universe, and for now, he just needs to hold you close and remind himself that you are real.

[corinthianism]

Told Before and Told Again [din djarin] -> series masterlist

my masterlist!

status: ongoing

rating: 18+ (mdni) (tags and warnings included in each part!)

read on ao3!

PART ONE: told before and told again [complete; 7k]

One time you saved Din, and one time he saved you.

PART TWO: the light of the stars [complete; 15k]

Your celebration for Din’s name day goes horribly wrong. And a group of pirates sees the worst of your Mandalorian.

chapter one: you will not take my heart alive

chapter two: where the lonely wind abides

chapter three: backs bound in twine

thank you all for reading!! i love you dearly xoxo

[corinthianism]

new vows – din djarin x gn!reader

summary: the first time din ever removed his helmet in front of you

pairing: din djarin x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

word count: 2.5k

warnings and tags: fluff and angst + good ending, insecure!din, established relationship, kissing, the helmet's removed, doesn't follow the plot of the show at all (it's just din, reader and grogu being a happy family)

author's note: oof i hate how this turned out but my best friend read it and told me to post it so here we are, i hope it doesn't suck as much as i think it does

a reblog and/or comment on my posts really help me out as a content creator so thank you in advance if you take the time to do either!

navigation | pedro's characters masterlist | star wars masterlist

Din was observing you and Grogu from the entrance of the Razor Crest, arms crossed across his chest as he leaned against one of the walls of the ship. He smiles to himself when he hears the child giggling after you put a flower at the top of his little head, immediately reaching out with some difficulty to grab a flower from the ground and offering it to you.

"Thank you, Grogu. It's very pretty!" you say to the baby, who looked absolutely thrilled to realize you liked his gift. 

The kid stands from the ground, lifting both of his arms as a sign that he wants to be carried. Already familiar with the gesture, you quickly lift him up from the ground before laying on your back in the middle of the landscape filled with lilac and light pink flowers. The baby giggles again, holding onto you as you both lay there.

Din's smile fades just enough shortly after that when the inevitable thought pops in his head again. That annoying and sudden thought that always makes an appearance during the day. 

At first he didn't mind, finding ways to always push it away before it got to him. However, it's been more and more frequent these past couple of days and it's becoming a bad habit he seems unable to control at this point, and it's starting to really annoy him.

His mind is filled with all these doubts and insecurities. Not only because of the content of what he's thinking, but because it's completely impossible to push it away now. Almost like an avalanche, it falls down the mountain at a rapid, devastating speed and it only seems to get bigger as minutes pass. It destroys everything in its way. In this case, the prime and only victim is Din.

Perhaps the worst part is that it always ruins what should be pleasant moments. If Grogu is looking up at him from the ground begging to be carried, the thought is there. Whenever you wrap your arms around him or grab his hand when the two of you are exploring yet a new planet, it's there. Even when he's trying to sleep right next to you, hearing the faint sounds of the baby already asleep, you can bet that thought will be there to torture him.

Because all of those little moments he shares with his partner and son remind him of the fact that neither of them even know who he is. Sure, they know how he is, but not who.

Every touch is not really a touch, it's just skin brushing against a uniform. Every exchange has a helmet hiding his features. They can hear him laugh, but they don't see his eyes squinting just enough and the smile that adorns his face. They can hear him remind them of his never-ending love for them, but they don't get to look into his eyes as he says it.

And it hurts because his mind has tricked him to believe none of those moments are real. Because they've never seen the man that claims to care for them so much, none of it is genuine. It's just touching a uniform and hearing empty words coming from a helmet. It almost makes him feel like a droid rather than a human, leaving him longing for that real connection. 

He knows he probably shouldn't, but he craves that actual contact, which is something he never felt before you two showed up in his life. 

Being a Mandalorian and living by their code was easy. He never even considered breaking his vow because nothing and no one was ever worth it. What could possibly be more important than this? That's what he would always ask himself and he wasn't able to come up with an answer– until you and Grogu showed up.

Now that you two are here, it's obvious to him that his priorities have changed. He wants to commit to an entirely new code. To prove his undying fidelity to his family and make a vow to the two of you.

But that brings another set of insecurities that make this entire situation a lot more difficult for him. As much as he needs to truly feel connected to you, he's terrified of what that connection means. It's obvious that in order to obtain that, he needs to take off his uniform. Most precisely, his helmet– which is something he has never done in front of anyone. Ever.

So that's when his mind is yet again filled with negative thoughts. What if you don't like what's under the helmet? What if you already have a picture of him in your head and he disappoints you because he looks nothing like it? What if you suddenly don't love him anymore because he's not what you expected at all? And what if Grogu rejects him too? He couldn't deal with either of you not liking what has been hiding underneath all the Beskar.

That's the complicated mess that's been haunting him for a few weeks. That inner struggle he has tried to keep hidden from the two of you. Should the helmet stay on despite being an obstacle to reach the depths of connection he needs to have with his family, or should he remove it and risk rejection? Is it better to settle or search for more?

He feels pathetic. The supposedly fearless bounty hunter is terrified of even thinking about taking a risk. Going on adventures used to be a lifestyle. Now, the mere idea of it is enough to fill his mind with self-doubt, making it almost impossible for him to make a decision.

He thought about it later that day when the three of you were already inside the Razor Crest and getting ready to go to bed, really considering his options and trying to create different outcomes to this hypothetical conversation that kept playing inside his head.

You were telling Grogu a bedtime story when Din joined the two of you. He sat on the bed and listened to you speak as he watched the baby, who was struggling to keep his eyes open at that point, holding onto the little blanket covering his body. 

By the time the story was over, Grogu was already completely asleep. You carefully brushed his face with your pointer finger in an affectionate manner, smiling down at him before focusing on Din.

"Ready to go to bed?" you asked.

"You'll tell me a bedtime story too?"

The comment made you laugh. "I think you're a little old for bedtime stories."

"Ouch. I'm not old."

"I said a little old," you quickly correct, putting both of your hands on his shoulders. He quickly lifted a hand that was resting on your hip a few seconds later. "Not the same as just old."

You smile down at him as he gently caresses you from your hip all the way down your thigh before his gloved fingers trails back up. Your smile inevitably takes him to the dark corners of his mind again because he knows you won't be able to see him smiling back at you.

His next words came out very impulsively. "Can we talk?"

Evidently, you were a little concerned after hearing that given the tone he used. "Is there something wrong?"

"I've just been thinking a lot lately...there's something that's been bothering me and it won't leave my head."

"Okay..." you said, trying to be receptive to what he was saying but still having no idea of what's going on.

"Neither of you know what I look like," he decides to simply confess. Why would he try to over explain something that is actually quite easy to say? "And I've never...you know, actually touched you," he adds, his helmet titling towards his hand still resting on your hip, hinting at the glove covering it.

"I mean, yes...but that's because you're a Mandalorian. It's what your people do, right?"

Din nods after your words. "It's part of our code, but...I don't know. It's been bothering me because lately this entire uniform feels like an obstacle. I still feel like it's a part of me but...it also stands in between us."

"I've told you how I feel about the suit," you quickly say in a soft, reassuring voice. "I don't mind it one bit."

"I know, I know. This isn't because of something you did or said," Din explains. "I guess my priorities have changed."

"You mean...?"

"I mean, I care more about connecting with you than with my traditions. I've started to question things I never took a second to consider before you and Grogu showed up. I want to be able to touch you– really touch you. And I want to look at you and talk to you. Not through a visor and a modulator," he further explains, feeling like a weight is lifted off his shoulders. "I don't need to be a Mandalorian when I'm with you two. I just need to be Din."

"Oh, darling," you start affectionately, feeling so incredibly in love with the man sitting in front of you. "Whatever it is that you want and need, I'll support you no matter what. Helmet or no helmet, you're still the guy I fell in love with."

"Really?" he asks with evident worry.

"Of course," you immediately reassure him.

"I guess it took me too long to talk about this because...well, I didn't know if you'd like what's underneath the uniform."

"Din," you call in a very serious voice, hoping that'll hint just how much you mean your next words. "I love you so much. I love you because you're the kindest man I've ever met. You're loyal, passionate, brave...and you care so much about me and Grogu. I could stay here and mention a trillion things about you that make me fall in love with you every single day. You're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with and nothing in this world is ever going to change what I feel."

He was quiet for what felt like forever, simply staring up at you while you held the helmet in between your hands so you could stare directly at his visor where his eyes should be. 

"You can't see it but I'm smiling, by the way. This is a good silence," he offers, which immediately makes you laugh.

"Is it okay if I take it off and see that smile for myself?"

He hesitated before answering. "Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

"I promise I won't change my mind."

There was another pause before he finally answered. "Okay..."

You start to remove his helmet in a gentle, slow manner. If he wanted to stop you, he could at any second. You really didn't want to rush it because you still wanted to give him a chance to back down if he wanted to. 

The fact that he wears the helmet all day in front of you has never been an issue. You fell in love with the person he is, whatever he looks like couldn't possibly matter any less to you. That love is not going anywhere. Ever.

It looks like Din is confident in his decision because he doesn't stop you at any point. He continues to keep one of his hands attached to your hip and the other rests on his lap for a few seconds until he uses it to help you completely remove his helmet.

Still holding it with both of your hands, you look down to admire his face. You can tell by his expression that he's terrified as he stares back at you, impatient for any hint of rejection. He was still expecting to see the disappointment all across your features before you take a step back from him and reveal he's nothing like what you expected.

But that disappointment never appeared. Instead, he's relieved to see the smile forming on your face before you leave the helmet next to him on the bed, immediately reaching out to grab his face.

Din practically melts under your touch, closing his eyes and focusing on just how good it feels to have your skin touching him for the very first time. The way your soft fingers trace his cheeks before they move down to his jaw...it feels like absolute heaven.

And you take your time with that. Your digits explote his features as if contemplating them wasn't enough. You needed to touch every inch of his face in order to truly appreciate what's in front of you. 

The most beautiful sight ever. The man you love so much, looking even more handsome than you could've ever predicted. From his soft brown eyes to the hint of a beard, he's so perfect you can't believe you're seriously this lucky.

"So?" he dares to ask. Hearing his voice without the modulator for the very first time almost made you feel goosebumps all over your body. How is this man so pretty?

You could've just said that. You could've stood there and told him over and over how pretty he is, but it didn't feel like it was enough. No words would ever begin to explain the admiration you have for this man, even before you knew what he looked like.

After feeling his skin for the very first time, you could only crave more. It was probably that inefficiency of words and the need for more contact that made you lean down and kiss him for the very first time.

He kissed you back instantly, the grip on your hip tightening just enough as he completely gave in to you.

It was evident you were his first kiss, but that detail couldn't be any more insignificant right now. His lack of experience didn't bother you. All you could think about is how lucky and happy you are to have him as your partner.

The kiss lasted for a few more seconds before you pulled away, failing to hide your smile when you saw his face. It was evident he was already missing the way your lips feel against his. 

You stare at him again for a bit, caressing his flushed cheeks, before you finally decide to speak. "Does that answer your question?" Din was still too lost in his thoughts to reply out loud, so he simply nodded. His reaction after your first kiss made you giggle, and you swore right there that you've never felt happier in your life. "Good. I'd like to kiss you again if that's okay."

Another nod, this time looking more desperate, was all you needed to kiss him again. You got more comfortable as you sat on his lap, knowing you'll be there kissing him for a bit, feeling his arms wrap around your lower back to keep you close as soon as you sat down.

And as he holds you in his arms, he knows he made the right choice, silently vowing to be yours for as long as you allow him to.

[corinthianism]

The Concession - Din Djarin x f!Reader

gif from @rebeljyn 's gifset here

Din Djarin falls in love. Whoops.

The Savior / The Concession / The Choice (END)

AO3 Link

TAGS: S2 Din Djarin, "Who Did This to You?", P in V, Unprotected Sex w/o consequences because who likes those, m!Masturbation, Fluff, Pining, touch-starved!Din, helmet-less!Din, soft!Din, protective!Din, Grogu bein a sweet shit.

WARNINGS: Star Wars cursing/slang which I know annoys some people lmao, abusive shopkeepers.

A/N: "Shit" is Star Wars canon (thank you, Andor); Din is a groaner (Chapter 5 of TBOBF); & Din is a bit of a poet (thanks pledge to Bo-Katan in Chapter 23); I have cited my sources LOL.

"No," the Mandalorian snaps. "No droids." 

A gloved hand flies to his holster and the rusty pit droids screech to a halt, beeping nervously.

Leaning against the frame of the Razor Crest, at the top of the boarding ramp, you roll your eyes at Din Djarin's back. His distaste for droids had been made clear to you the first time he'd stopped for parts.

Those droids had been considerably less polite about Din’s preference, and he had taken too much pleasure in enforcing it.

"Listen, buddy, they're my refueling dr-"

"Then I'll take my business elsewhere."

The attendant sighs loudly, glaring at the Mandalorian. The skinny, maroon male with a fin-shaped head rises from his chair behind his workshop desk. He walks toward a shaking pit droid and grabs the refueler.

"It'll cost you extra," the attendant's eye-stalks narrow at the bounty hunter.

Din comes to an agreement with the disgruntled worker, sullenly agreeing to a slightly higher rate.

As the Mandalorian keeps watch over his ship, your footsteps clang down the steep ramp, and you sidle up to him, saying, "We need some things. Ration packs are gone. And - don't tell him -" your voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, "But I think Grogu deserves a treat." 

"He would agree with you.” Din’s elbow brushes your shoulder, and he realizes he’d leaned closer as you spoke.

You continue, “And you need something to relax.” 

At that, Din’s helmet turns. “I do not.” 

“You’re even more impatient than usual. You’re on an anti-droid campaign; the last time we stopped, you threatened to yank out one’s navigator circuits just for bumping your foot.” You look up at him, raising a teasing eyebrow. 

The Mandalorian goes as still as one of those droids he had deactivated. His intimidating, T-shaped slit brands into your vision. Behind it, you know he’s boring holes into your face. 

“Alright. Nothing for you, then.”

Your shoulders drop when you turn away from him, almost relieved to be out from underneath his piercing, hidden gaze. 

The Mandalorian had paid you a few days before, and this was your first real opportunity to spend your own money. You can’t stop smiling, even as you place the kid in his white pod and stuff your pocket with your credits. Grogu is as excited as you are - giggling in his quiet way.

As you pass the statue of Din Djarin, he extends a closed fist. Obediently, you hold out your hand. The tan-hide fingers of his gloves open and credits fall, clinking. You look up questioningly at him.

“For the food. Your wages are not meant to be spent on communal necessities.”

 Your lips curve into a lopsided, sweet smile that Din immediately commits to memory, and you nod.

Turning to Grogu, his fuzzy ears perked and eyes wide, you ask, “Ready, kid?”

***

The marketplace is huge. Stretching the length of the entire square, it’s busy for a planet this remote, but the size increases the options. 

Grogu floats along beside you, and you keep one hand on the lip of the pod, just to be safe. The responsibility of the kid is the greatest charge you’ve ever been given, in more ways than one. Grogu often holds your hand or squeaks to get your attention to point at something glowing or stinky or flashing. His outright affection is a lamp to your lonely heart. 

After visiting several vendors, you’ve resupplied what was necessary (with credits left over), and now you move on to something for Grogu. You’d be buying that with your own wages. Din could say whatever he liked, but what else do you have to spend your money on except the cute baby?

You walk past a booth advertising repair supplies, but when you realize it’s for clothing repair, something clicks in your brain. Grogu’s ears flop forward with your sudden stop. Your eyes run over the objects, and you select some, a smile splitting your face. You hope he will be pleased.

Several minutes later, Grogu makes a bah! sound, pointing at a live amphibian display. You’re pretty sure it’s a pet vendor, but the look on the kid’s face tells you he won’t take no for an answer. And maybe you should parent him - tell him no - but that’s Din’s job, not yours. 

“Hi. How much for the frog eggs?” You politely ask the vendor, digging in your pocket for credits.

The bug-eyed lady tells you in a language you don’t speak, but she holds up three short tentacles on her hand. She pushes six eggs toward you, which you gratefully take and set in Grogu’s pod. 

When you try to hand her the credits, she’s pushed out of the way by someone behind her. A man with a smushed nose yells in the same language the lady had spoken, and points away, clearly telling her to leave. 

You watch warily, and once the woman has gone, the man turns to you. 

“My apologies. The price is one credit per egg,” he simpers at you. 

Disliking the hike in price, you move to return half of the eggs, but he protests, “Once the item has left my possession, they must be paid for.” 

“But I can give them back to you,” you assert. “I’m not paying that much for frog eggs.” 

His smushed nose twitches up like a feral Loth-wolf, “Yes, you are.”

"I'm not." You set three eggs back on the counter. 

The man seizes your wrists, holding you in place. The crowded market is loud, but your indignant cry and the vendor's screamed accusation of theft cause several people to stop and watch. 

You try to twist out of his hold, but his scaly skin tears at yours. The snarling vendor suddenly ceases making noise, and he releases your wrists to clutch at his throat. Shocked, your head snaps to the child.

Grogu has one little, three-fingered hand raised and curled. 

“No!” You gasp, slamming the button on Grogu’s pod to close it. Far, far too many eyes watch. 

The vendor, choking and sputtering, recovers quickly and lunges at you across the table. His hands grip your upper arms, but you wrench out of his hold. Hoping to draw all attention to yourself, you punch the vendor with all your might. The vendor stumbles.

“Never seen someone pretend to choke over three credits,” your lie is an incredibly lame one, but you hope it’s enough for passersby.

He clutches his jaw; his spat insult is garbled, and he begins to inch around the long table, trying to get a better shot at you.

You turn and walk away with as even a pace as you can manage. Running would make his accusation true. The crowd swallows the two of you up well, and you lengthen your stride.

 But the vendor is regaining his volume. Nervously, you check over your shoulder. You jolt when Grogu’s pod bumps into your hip, then zooms away.

“No,” you yell again, grasping for the white vessel, but it comes to a hovering stop in front of a tall, silver man.

“Thank the Maker,” you sigh with relief. “We have to go.”

Din immediately notices the red ring of heat around your wrists and along your knuckles. He strides toward you. The closer he gets, the safer you feel - his protective aura slowly engulfing you.  

Din grabs your forearm and examines your wrist. There’s a raw quality to your skin where the man’s abrasive hands had clamped down and twisted. After a moment, his face locks onto yours.

“Show me who did this."

Cold, calm, his words are a promise.

Confused by his reaction, and still so used to answering when asked a direct question, you wince over your shoulder. Din finally seems to hear the vendor shouting in the distance as he searches the crowd for a ‘thief’ and her ‘dangerous pet’. Din abruptly straightens and steps past you.

Running after him, you reach for his gloved hand, fingers sliding home. “Din, please; we need to go.” 

The familiar contact makes him stop and turn to look at you. He says nothing, so you use the opportunity to explain.

“The ki- I made a scene, and it would be best if everyone forgot about it. A Mandalorian publicly roughing up the very same shopkeeper would give them more reason to gossip.” 

Din Djarin frowns the longer you speak. He knows you’re right. The kid is far more important than his sudden anger. He nods curtly.

The man’s vicious insults about your likely occupation and parentage echo down the street and make Din’s lip curl. But for the sake of the child, he manages to turn back toward the Razor Crest. It’s only when he passes Grogu’s stationary pod that he realizes he’s still holding your hand, fingers loosely intertwined. 

He gently flexes his hand, letting go.

____________________________________

As the Razor Crest speeds away from the planet, you smile. Vacuous and bone-chillingly cold, space is the worst. For most of your life, the inhospitable conditions had been worsened by your constant transport in the dark hold of some Creator-forsaken vessel.

But the cabin of the Mandalorian’s ship is warm and full of life, occupied by the kid's excited babbling and your semi-nervous laughter.

The kid waves his stubby arms in the Mandalorian’s lap as the Razor Crest dips and rises through a relatively calm asteroid field. Expertly maneuvering the expanse, Din Djarin has little motivation to do so except the smiles on his passengers’ faces. If you ask, he’ll tell you it’s a shortcut to the next system, which is only mostly untrue.

It’s been three months since Din collected the bounty on your former master. During that time, the Mandalorian had found one of the kid’s kind. A Jedi who could’ve taken Grogu, she declined the task. She told the bounty hunter of a place, a Seeing Stone, where Grogu could reach out for a Jedi master himself. 

Though a week has passed since learning of the Stone, Din had yet to bring Grogu to it, instead taking a couple of jobs. The stoic Mandalorian won’t admit, especially to himself, that he’s reluctant to let the child go. 

Reaching a lull in the slow-moving asteroids, Din draws the thruster back to stationary level, then looks down, his helmet nearly touching his breastplate, at the child still waving his short arms. Din turns his silver face to you questioningly.

Before he can speak, you joke, "I don’t want to learn to fly out here, if that's what you're about to ask.”

He shrugs with acceptance. Your eyebrows pinch in surprise, wondering if he’s playing along or serious.

“Okay, kid. We're done here,” he tenderly lifts Grogu and passes him to you. 

Grogu makes a protesting sound and hides one of his hands inside his robe.

“Big, mean Mandalorian is no fun,” you mutter to the child teasingly. Grogu coos in agreement.

Din shakes his head and swivels back to the control panel, flipping switches and entering data. The kid catches your attention, triumphantly showcasing a small metal sphere from his robe. You press your lips together and wink, silently promising you won’t tell. 

The Mandalorian’s gloved fingers run over his ship’s control panel like he’s conducting the Coruscant Orchestra, and then, suddenly, his right hand freezes in mid-air as he reaches for the thruster. 

“Grogu,” Din growls, spinning in his chair.

You laugh openly, “He’s a toddler, Din. You can’t close your eyes for a second.”

The Mandalorian rises, his bulk taking up the entirety of the cabin. He gently wrestles the ball from Grogu's fingers.

Long, soft ears droop, and massive, black eyes turn glassy. 

“Oh, look what you've done,” you croon, looking up at Din with an expression mirroring the kid’s.

Though he doesn't move, you can somehow see when Din’s annoyance is overruled by something stronger. Then the Mandalorian’s wide shoulders slowly rise and fall, a long-suffering sigh leaving his body.

“You are both menaces,” the Mandalorian accuses. He extends his hand, palm upward, “Grogu. Take it.” 

You hold your breath, allowing the child to focus on using his power. Grogu closes his eyes. The metal ball wiggles in the concave of Din’s large palm, then zooms to Grogu’s tiny hand.

Din makes a fist in excitement, “Great job, kid.”

Beaming at the Mandalorian, even more enthralled with him than the magic child in your lap, you wish you could see his proud smile.

Noticing your expression, Din's chin swivels to the side, clearly questioning. 

"Nothing. It's just that - it’s good to see you like this.” You shrug, trying to minimize your staring. “I know you’ve been stressed.”

The silent moment draws out as he assesses your observation. Still standing, the Mandalorian’s right hand hesitantly rises to whisper across the left side of your jaw. The gloved softness of his thumb caresses your cheekbone for an instant and a lifetime.

Din drops his hand like it weighs as much as a rancor. He turns around and sits back in his pilot's chair. Silver armor reflects the red and yellow lights around the cabin as he finishes his navigational procedures. 

Cheeks aflame, you duck your face down into the kid. 

___________________________________

“‘Occasional repairs,’’' you quote at the Mandalorian. “Every karking week there’s a new hole in this poor ship.” 

On the other side of the wing, busy soldering panels together, the Mandalorian's head snaps up. Unmoving, his expressionless mask simply stares at you. You bite your lip to prevent a grin and continue replacing bolts.

The beskar helmet remains for a while longer, hiding Din’s thoughts. He imagines what you’d look like if he put you on your knees and made you pay for your jokes. If he wiped that pretty smirk off your face. He feels a stirring in his flight suit, so he wrenches his mind away. 

The act the two of you committed in that field has not been repeated. His dedication to his helmet - to his creed - is paramount. And you tempt him too much. 

For the second time in the past year, Din has accidentally grown attached to someone - first the kid and now you. But with you, it’s a danger of a different kind.

Din had hoped that he just needed to get it out of his system. Get you out of his system. He had won that mock fight in the field, but he had yielded to his desire for you. 

Instead of feeling sated, Din feels hungrier as the days go by. Useless information, such as the number of sonic showers you've taken, clogs his mind. He would be ashamed of his counting, but he's too battle-weary to care. He does not count how many times he's taken advantage of the privacy of his bunk, remembering your eager face, your receptive body underneath him. 

All that armor wasn't worth a damn thing.

It’s easier for you. As inexperienced as Din but with your self-esteem already in the sarlacc pit, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine he'd had his fill of you and… well, that was that. Though you dream of it nearly every night, waking up to the strange feeling of both gaining and losing something.

Of course, the Mandalorian still needed you to care for the kid or help him replace several wing panels when he inevitably damaged them, as you were currently doing. 

At dusk, white trees sway behind you in the biting wind. This planet is rather cold, and Grogu, asleep inside the Razor Crest, doesn’t join you for the lovely, young Gornt dinner that Din had hunted. The two of you butcher it in silence and place it on the makeshift spit.

You then plop onto a log and snuggle down into your clothes, shivering. Though the items Din had given you months earlier are sturdy and warm, some of the chill of the night manages to seep through. You cross your arms, rubbing them.

Din vanishes from the other side of the fire - the smoky, dark air impenetrable. Squinting, you try to spot his reflective armor, but it works against you in this instance, easily blending him into the flickering, dim light.

A heavy material suddenly falls onto your shoulders, and you jump.

"Oh!" 

The Mandalorian stands directly behind you, the thick cloak he was trying to give you still partially in his hand. 

"I was focused on trying to see you through the smoke. I didn't think you'd be there." You clutch the brown garment tight around you and softly smile up at him, "Thank you."

Din nods, the clinking sound of metal audible as he returns to his log across the firelight. Your mouth gapes for a moment when you realize that the material around your shoulders is his torn cape.

"Do you not get cold?"

"I do." 

"Why not wear one yourself then?" You lift part of the cloak in indication.

"Mandalorians are taught to withstand uncomfortable circumstances. As a foundling, I frequently exercised in far less temperate weather." 

"A foundling?" You query, your eyebrow raising.

The Mandalorian leans back and shifts his legs apart to better distribute his weight.

"My youth was upended by war. When my village was destroyed, I was found by a Mandalorian."

"The name is quite literal, then?" 

"My people are quite literal," Din crosses his arms and his commanding presence is distracting.

He looks so big sitting on the log, his legs open, back straight, and arms folded. 

"We have similar beginnings," you swallow, trying to ignore the burning inside that has nothing to do with the fire.

"I was a little more fortunate in who found me," Din states. He leans forward to finally adjust the rod holding your dinner.

You lose your gaze in the flaming light, remembering.  

“I still can’t believe how much things have changed,” you murmur. 

Din Djarin can’t either. He has a life-altering decision to make, and a child to let go of, and both thoughts weigh on him like a karking Mudhorn. Din sighs internally at his unintended choice of simile.

Your eyes stray upward to the navy sky, breathing deeply. The frigid air burns your lungs, but you only draw more in, relishing your freedom to do so.

"You did not deserve that life," Din’s rough, mechanical voice answers over the sound of the crackling fire. 

You frown, "No one does." 

Running with the Mandalorian was a great way to stay ahead of the slavers. Paid employment, constant movement, and no one besides Din knowing your name - it was too good to be true.

Dropping your head from the sky, you level the Mandalorian with the most heartfelt gaze you can manage, "Thank you. I would've never had the courage to run without you."

Unable to see his reaction, you feel the distance most acutely. It isn't just flame and metal that divides you.

"I-" Din starts, but you cut him off.

"But mostly it's thanks to Grogu," you grin, trying to lighten the mood.

The helmet bobs as though he's amused, then Din sighs dramatically. 

"I need to separate you two."

"I love him," you giggle, remembering a moment a few days earlier when he had picked up a very dignified, sentient species of frog and tried to eat it. "He is such an agent of chaos." You laugh into your cloak-covered hand. 

Grateful that you can't see the fervent emotion glimmering in his brown eyes, Din studies you. Your fond smile is lit by the glowing fire and the cold winds blow redness into your cheeks and nose. You’re secure in his cloak, and it makes his chest ache.

"Shit," he breathes. The hiss through his modulator doesn't pick up the word well, to his relief. 

It's not a surprise if you do truly love the kid. He is adorable and you've been with him every waking moment for three months, but the word you've just introduced is jarring to Din.

Talking about Grogu brings the dangers you all face to the forefront of your mind. Your smile falls.

"Will you continue to teach me to fight?" You don't immediately register the sudden rigidity of Din's posture, so you press on, "It’s upsetting to me that I'm better with a blaster than with the skills I was taught and trained in by my family." 

The Mandalorian is relieved. You've given him an excuse to say no.

"I cannot teach you the methods of your people." 

“That’s alright; anything would be appreciated.” 

Din shifts his thigh on the log, agitated, and you struggle to fill the silence, “You don’t have to, of course.”

Then, as the silence lengthens, and you watch his helmet glint as he looks away, you realize what he must be so uncomfortable about. 

“Oh. I am not asking we repeat that. I’m sorry,” you raise a hand to chest height as if you’re trying to physically defend yourself from the awkwardness. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“I know.” 

“I- Din, really I only meant the…” you grimace and clamp your lips together, unable to bear the tension. Standing, you insist, “I swear to you, I never expected more.”

Forgetting to return his cape, you unconsciously hold it closer as you retreat into the Razor Crest. 

The Mandalorian does not watch you walk away. His conflicted eyes remain trained on the crackling fire. Sparring with you brings every heart tug, every little attraction he has to you to the surface, and that's too frustrating to manage while IMPs track him and he deals with letting go of Grogu. 

But Din knows he really should continue to teach you. It’s in your best interest, as well as Grogu’s. His hangup is entirely selfish, and Din is not a selfish man. 

***

Hours later, when the sun has started to rise once more on this short-cycle planet, the Mandalorian finds his brown cape hung on the door to the refresher. He jerks it off its resting place, and goes to tuck it back around himself, when he notices that something is wrong.

Frozen, the Mandalorian stares at the brown, rough material in his hand. There are no holes in it anymore, only stitches. 

_________________________________________

Combined with the sound of intentionally-loud footsteps, Din places Grogu - who had jumped between the two of you all night - on the edge of your cot, allowing the child to wake you up. Din strides to his weapons cache.

You yawn, then snicker at Grogu’s delighted face as he babbles what must be his version of Good Morning. 

“Morning, kid.” You pet his ear and he begins to purr.

“You should stop babying him,” the Mandalorian doesn’t look at you as he searches among the weapons.

“Why? He’s a baby.” 

Din shuts the doors to his stash. “He is fifty years old."

“He's what?” 

Din shrugs and inclines his head in humor. You stare incredulously at the middle-aged child who rotates his little head between you and his father. 

“His species is unknown, but they age differently than we do.” 

“Uh, yeah. Fifty?” 

Din’s modulator makes a rasping sound. It could’ve been a small laugh, but you’re not sure. 

“Is fifty so terrible?”

Something in Din’s voice makes you look up at him. He casually leans against the hull. 

Unsure if you should have the gumption to even ask, you stutter, “A-are you also fifty?” 

The beskar mask does not move as the man behind it debates his reply. He decides on honesty.

“No,” Din states. He clasps one hand over the other in front of him, adding, “But I will reach that number in less than a decade.” 

You make a small, accepting gesture as you had subconsciously placed him around his early forties anyway. In any case, it doesn’t matter to you. He is the Mandalorian who (somewhat inadvertently at first, you’ll admit) saved you. Even without that gratitude, you would feel an attraction to him. He was strong and kind and protective. Ruthless, sure, but only when necessary.

Din pushes off the wall, “You didn’t ask why I woke you.” 

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to you, so used to being woken up - far more rudely or violently - each morning for the prior two decades. “Alright, why did you wake me?”

He reaches behind his back, unhooking an item, and holds out the fighting stick he had used in that skirmish between the two of you. 

“I will teach you what I can.” 

***

Din Djarin is careful not to touch you, even through his gloves. He doesn’t trust himself anymore. Instead, he instructs you in tactics. After clocking your strategy in less than three moves, Din is worried about your future opponents doing the same. 

“You dislike giving ground, but there will be times you’ll have to. It’s how you will outmaneuver them,” the Mandalorian stands, hands folded, his knee cocked, as he speaks. 

“How do you know that?” You ask in response to his first statement. 

Din clenches his jaw at the memory so very close to other memories, and answers you in a contained voice, “You were not subtle.” 

You smile, abashed. “See, that is why I asked you. I’m far too inexperienced.”

Din closes his eyes in frustration.

You continue nervously, thinking about how hesitant he had been to agree to this, “My master took me to many fights, and you’re the best I’ve ever seen. I value your opinion.”

Din is used to compliments. Those whom he returned quarries to often praised him for his work. But your praise is one he actually wants, and something throbs in his chest. Then he grows irritated with his rampant, immature yearning for you. 

Din speaks harshly, “This is for the protection of the child. You are his guardian when I am not nearby.”

Locked onto that T-shaped, black slit, your eyes flicker a little at his callous, impatient pronouncement, but you nod. 

“Of course. For the kid.”

__________________________________

Unhappy to be removed from where he had curled up on his father’s pilot seat, Grogu had insisted upon sleeping in the cockpit with his little metal ball. You had assured the Mandalorian that you didn’t mind staying in the passenger chair for the night. The cushions were comfortable enough, and it made the child happy. 

An hour after Grogu had begun purring in his sleep, you’re brought to consciousness by a deeper, labored sound. Bolting to your feet, worried about the Mandalorian below, you descend the ladder. 

The door to the Mandalorian’s bunk had not fully closed, apparently jamming on some loose junk part that Grogu must’ve picked up. There is no light on in the enclosed space, so you cannot see him. But you can hear the way he mutters your name once, rough and agitated. You can hear the sound of material jerking and his rasping, vocoded grunts. 

Your throat tightens and your breathing stops. Eyes wide, you slowly back up, terrified for him to find you in this way. A molten weight in your stomach wants you to push open the door and take care of him, but after the manner in which he spoke to you the entire afternoon, and the obvious way he tries to forget about that day in the field, you can’t. You can’t even fathom why he would be uttering your name. It’s too confusing.

Dazed, you return to the cockpit and try to block him out. Sleep does not come to save you for far too long, and when it does, it provides you no escape from the Mandalorian.

__________________________________

Din’s tortured use of your name had kept you awake far into the night. When you groggily open your eyes the next morning, you know you won’t be able to let this go. You must talk to him. Bravery is a muscle you’re trying to flex anyway, so you might as well try it on the scariest thing you can think of: an angry Din Djarin. 

While Grogu plays with a ship part you pretend to have never seen, one Din had pried out of the receiving slot of his bunk door this morning, you and he traipse down the boarding ramp, intending to save the rest of the Gornt meat for traveling. 

Absolutely guessing at how you’ll begin this conversation, you decide you’ll just hope for the best. 

“I- I heard you last night.” It’s barely more than a whisper.

The Mandalorian stops dead in his tracks and you stumble, trying not to run into him. He turns on you, a solid wall of muscle and metal, but says nothing. You swallow and force what shred of courage you have to the front. 

“I heard you say my name. You don’t have to do that alone. I can help you,” your final words are almost inaudible.

The Mandalorian provides food, shelter, and companionship. Ignorant to any kind of normal relationship, friendly or greater, you want to show your gratitude. And if that was how you could help him, all the better.

Your inner self, the one that’s been unthawing since the day your master was frozen in carbonite, wants Din in a far more genuine manner. You want him. His compassion and honor, his fatherly love for Grogu, his non-pitying care for you, and his primal confidence have you in danger of becoming a hopeless devotee.

“Help me,” he reiterates, his tone worryingly neutral.

“Passage for assistance,” you try to ease the tension slightly with another old quote of his. “I can still assist you. It’s repayment for your aid.”

Even as you say it, you feel the depth of the lie. You want Din for yourself.

He’s silent. At his side, the fingers on his right hand fidget. The broad bounty hunter leans over you. As he tilts his head, the cold sun glints off his armor. 

Din’s voice is as sharp as his vibroblade but twice as lethal, “You are no longer a slave - do not make me say that again. This is not a business transaction.” 

Not a business transaction? While technically a rejection, his clarification makes you dizzy. Your breath comes out shakily, fogging in the chill air. 

“Okay. What if that’s not my real reason for asking?”

That does it. Stunned, the Mandalorian might as well be a statue made of beskar. Din had found it easy to believe you allowed him to touch you because you felt in his debt, and he hated it. Made him feel as slimy as a Hutt.

“Tell me.” 

Din watches your facial expressions run the gamut and he knows that whatever you’re about to say is the truth. 

“I care about you.” Will you ever stop whispering? “For you, not just what you’ve done for me,” your second greatest act of bravery this morning is touching his cold chestplate. You swallow as you look up into that blank face. 

Din doesn't move. Doesn't think he can move, but then his body responds before his mind does. Soft leather brushes your cheekbones as he takes your face in his large hands. He tilts his cold helmet to your forehead, and you instinctively close your eyes, sighing in relief. This was not what you were expecting when you followed him out here.

You can't hear the first thing he says, but it sounds like dank farrik. You laugh quietly in his hands.

"You are a menace,” he mutters a little louder, the modulator somehow enhancing the timbre of his voice. “You and the kid.”

Grinning, you open your eyes as he lifts his helmet from your skin. “Don’t bring him into this,” you joke. 

Din’s thumb ghosts across your lips and you shiver. The Mandalorian is calm. This is inevitable now. He need not fight himself any longer. He grasps your wrist and brings it upward. Gently guiding your fingers underneath the edge of his helmet, Din presses them to his lips.

Utterly shocked at this new gift, you gasp. A scratchy cloth wraps around the bottom of his chin, but above it, his soft, scruffy facial hair and plump lips make your skin tingle. Nerves jumble in your lower stomach. He presses another kiss before slowly lowering your hand.

You tell him disbelievingly, "I thought there was no way -” 

“What you thought was wrong.” 

Your heat signature rises at the sincerity in his voice. Din tilts his head, watching your reaction to him. He lets his covered fingers drift over your lips again, then he drags them down the column of your throat and past your exposed collarbone, enjoying your whimper. Your pupils are dilated.

“You want me now, don’t you?” He asks, his voice hoarse. 

You nod, whispering past your suddenly dry mouth, “Yes.” 

The Mandalorian crouches for a split second, hefting you into his arms with no effort. Your legs automatically wrap around his middle, arms around his neck. His hands clasp underneath your thighs as he strides up the loading ramp as though every second he delayed was one wasted. 

Din lays you out on his bunk and hits the button for the door without looking at it. He does not turn on the light. In the tiny, black room, you can hear him divesting himself of his flight suit and armor. It makes your heart throw itself against your chest. You sit up and struggle out of your own clothes, wanting nothing between you and him.

“Will I ever get to kiss you?” You ask timidly.

Din answers you immediately. His rough palms bracket your face, then he reverently pushes his lips into yours. His facial hair brushes against your skin and you weakly moan into his mouth, parting your lips for more. The Mandalorian groans, as well, enraptured by this new sensation. 

Din wraps a muscled arm around your waist, crushing you to him in the small space. His warm, broad chest forces yours to mold around him. Your hands gently drag along his torso, mapping him. He shudders underneath your fingers.

His lips break like waves around yours. You could be floating above the bed and it would feel no different. He kisses you like it’s what he needs to survive; his occasional noises of desperation stake your heart and dampen your thighs.

“Need to touch you everywhere,” Din’s real, untampered voice knots your stomach. 

“You can do whatever you want,” you breathlessly repeat the unspoken affirmation you’d given him the first time. 

He chuckles, and you shiver again, drunk with lust. Din lowers you back onto the hard bed, settling over you.

His hot mouth surprises the sensitive skin of your breast. Din moans, involuntarily you think, as he tastes you there, gently pulling and sucking. You jerk, pressing up into him with a cry. Who knew that could feel so good?

His big hands flow down your sides, pressing into you, exploring, and you get a burst of understanding. This man is starved.

Your hands comb into his hair, and while you wonder what its color is, you’re choked up to find that it’s soft and wavy. Din groans loudly when your fingers rub on his scalp. He seems invigorated by it as he growls and returns to your lips with a fever. His tongue demands you allow him inside, but there is no resistance on your end. 

Suddenly, Din breaks the kiss with a wet pop of his lips. He vanishes from above you, but then two large hands slide up your thighs. He pushes them apart and your breath hitches. 

“You trust me?” The Mandalorian knows the answer, he just wants to hear it.

Nodding dumbly in the dark, you realize he can’t see you and squeak, “Yes.”

He shifts down and presses a row of kisses up your inner thigh. His nose brushes your coarse hair, and your breathing breaks a second time. 

Din flattens his tongue and licks the spot he already knows you like. You jolt and his arms wrest around your thighs, holding you in place for him. You whimper as he buries his face in your folds, shocking your system. Your hands return to his hair, and his chest swells as he quickly shoves you toward your end. His nose continually nudges your bundle of nerves and each time it feels like you’re hurtling through hyperspace.

Your back arches when he traps your clit between his lips, and he responds with another obscene noise. This time, the vibration of his deep voice rips your orgasm from your marrow. Crying out his name, you quake, chest heaving through the waves of euphoria. 

Too overwhelmed by all his options, Din moves back to your mouth, breathing heavily himself, “Incredible.” 

He licks into you again, his hand cradling your face to allow him deeper. Taking advantage of his position, you wrap your legs around his trim waist, pulling him down. His hips cant toward you, and you feel his length fall onto your abdomen. You hadn’t forgotten how big he was, but the heft of it makes your body tremble. 

The Mandalorian could be a patient man, but this would never be one of those moments. Din fists himself, rubbing once along your soaked seam. He pushes forward, steadily feeding his cock into your tight, forgiving heat. Din grunts several times, overstimulated. 

“You don’t know what you’ve done, mesh’la,” he gruffly murmurs, his naked voice still so shocking to hear.

You have no idea what he means, and you file it away for later study. Solely focused on how he feels halfway inside you, you clutch at the back of his thick thighs, encouraging him. But then he snaps his hips, driving himself to the hilt.

“Din, oh,” you sharply gasp. 

He grinds his pubic bone into your mound, stimulating you; his chin tilts up, proud, when you shudder. The Mandalorian grabs one of your hands and brings it to where he’s joined with you.

“You feel that?” Din’s voice is weighty, meaningful.

“Mhm,” you sigh, your fingers leaving his hand to explore his dark curls. He’s right. The deviant way his thick member disappears inside you is intoxicating.

He languidly draws himself out, letting you experience every ridge and vein, pulsing with your filthy sounds. He re-enters you just as intentionally, and when he’s given you everything, he leans down and drags you into a kiss. A kiss that means something to him. His tongue surges through your mouth in a single stroke before his full lips pull on yours, one hand gripping the back of your neck.

He lets you go, trailing his mouth down your throat, obsessed with the taste and the feel of you on his skin.

Din returns to your lips, his forearms framing your head. His fingers twist in your hair, and he begins to pump faster. His length strokes along a spot that makes your eyes flutter in the pitch blackness. Your nails carefully rake at his toned back, drawing a strangled moan from him as he shoves himself inside again and again. Losing a measure of self-control, he thrusts hard, placing a palm on the back wall for stability. 

Your hands finally, finally, reach up for his face, expecting at any moment that he’ll stop you. His lips are parted as he pants in exertion, his facial hair fluttering with his breath. Din’s cheekbones are round and high; his nose is angular and fitting. 

“I knew you were handsome,” you praise, the words fluctuating in cadence with his pounding strokes. “Wouldn’t have mattered.”

He scoffs, barely conscious of what you’re saying. His forehead drops to yours again, and he can’t believe the life he’d known had unraveled so drastically. In under a year, Din had gained a child and this. 

“Turn over,” he orders.

Of course, you obey without hesitation.

His calloused fingers slide around your hips, pulling them upward. With your chest still pressed into the bunk, you moan when he slowly re-inserts himself. He nearly chokes when your body draws him in; the angle and drenched grip of you makes him shake his head in disbelief. 

“You okay?” He rumbles. 

Your chin scrapes on the metal bed as you nod, “Please move.” 

He clasps an arm around your middle, hunching forward. His scruff and lips tickle the top of your spine as he begins to rut into you. It’s already too much - Din grunting, his chest hair scratching your upper back, his muscled arms holding you in place as he fills you over and over. You begin to clench around him again, crying out harshly in a rush of pleasure. Your legs shake, giving out underneath you.

The Mandalorian’s large hand splays across your breast, and he pulls you backward onto your knees alone, welding you to his perspiring chest. As his length plunges up into you, his lips brush your ear. He’s whispering something, but you can't understand the words.

Then, Din exhales with a groan and rolls several long, pulsing strokes, burying his come as deep as he can with a final, gravel-filled grunt.

***

In the dark, there’s only the sound of two people fighting for breath. Din has leaned against the cool wall; he tugs you to him. You sit somewhat beside him, your legs tangled together. Your head rests on his heaving shoulder, and every now and then, you feel the press of his lips in your hair. He laughs once, quietly.

“What is it?” 

“Your life is not the only one that has changed.” 

Blinking rapidly, your heart glows with warmth. Yours had changed the most. This Mandalorian had come into your non-existence and given you everything. Courage, freedom, responsibility, love. 

“I know you like to fight, but this is one I’ll win,” you laugh softly. 

___________________________________

Tagging:

@morks-watermelon

[corinthianism]

Significant

Summary: Din has been calling you riduur for months. You finally find out what it means, and get a little more than you bargained for.

Pairing: Din Djarin x gn!Reader

Word Count: ~5.1k

Warnings: pining, absolute FOOLS in love, bit of grumpy x sunshine, lil angsty, possibly incorrect lore, fluff, lots of Mando'a (translations for the Mando'a at the end)

A/N: Happy Mandalorian Eve!! This is based on a short drabble I wrote, which you can find here! It's not necessary to read it first, though of course I recommend it! The reader and Din have been traveling together for a long time, and after removing his armor in front of the reader for the first time began calling them riduur.

“Riduur.” 

It may as well be your name, the way you turn at the sound of that word. 

“Din,” you return, adjusting the child’s little sleeve which had fallen down past his hand.

“Are you ready?” He asks as he tilts his head to the side. 

You smile and turn back to Grogu. “Dad’s impatient today, isn’t he?” The child coos up at you, lifting tiny arms, ready to be picked up. “Yeah, he is.”

“I’m not impatient,” Din grumbles lowly.

You raise a brow at that and lift Grogu into your arms. “You’re always impatient, Mando.” His head jerks to the side at your assessment.

You have to bite back a laugh. In truth, he is incredibly patient. Most of the time, and especially when it came to you and Grogu. The only time you’ve seen him truly lose his temper was with the Jawas, and really, that couldn’t be helped. 

The child reaches for Din when you turn back to him, and the Mandalorian immediately holds out his arms to take him from you. You deposit the little green baby there before grabbing your shawl. “Yes, we’re ready,” you finally answer. 

The baby gets tucked into the pouch at Din’s hip, before he descends the ship’s ramp out into the desert air that awaits you. 

You roll your eyes gently. 

Not impatient, but not entirely patient either. 

You follow, wrapping the light material around your shoulders. 

It’s subtle, but he does wait for you, his pace slower than if he were alone. His right elbow ticks out a fraction, and you smile before cupping your hand there. He would never ask you to take his arm, still the offer is usually there if he can accommodate it. 

He relaxes a little when you fit your hand against his bicep. “Supplies only,” he reminds you, ever practical. 

“Supplies only,” you agree. “Unless I see something for Grogu.” 

“The child is becoming spoiled,” he complains lightly. “We won’t have enough room in the ship soon.” 

You shrug and tighten your grip on his arm. You like the way he says we. So, you return with, “That’s just because our child deserves the best.” 

Din’s spine straightens a fraction and his shoulders tilt back. 

He’s somehow both stoic and incredibly bad at hiding his emotions. You can tell, just by the slope of his shoulders or the exact angle of the helmet or the precise way he stands or walks, exactly what and how he’s feeling. 

Or, maybe you’ve just spent too much time around him. 

Maybe, you just know him too well. 

And right now, he’s swollen with pride. Though you don’t know if it's because you’ve complimented the way he takes care of the child or if it were something else. Something in the way you said our.  

It’s not long before you reach the market, and Din sighs as soon as it comes into view. It’s much larger than the ones you normally frequent, a riot of color and sound that you both know you won’t be able to resist. The town seems to be in the midst of some kind of festival. 

The smell of fried food greets you before you’ve even breached the perimeter of the town, and your mouth waters. Something better than rations awaited you there. 

Din is single minded though, and you know he’ll immediately make for the most boring of the stalls and shops. 

Supplies only, after all, is what you’d come for. 

“Mando,” you remove your hand from his arm and he immediately halts at the loss of your touch and turns to you. “I’m going to go look around.” 

He stares at you, helmet tilting down. He doesn’t like telling you no, and knows it wouldn’t matter if he did anyways. But, he worries and so it takes a moment for him to reply. “Don’t go far,” he advises. “Do you have a comlink?”

“Yes.” 

“A weapon?” 

You pretend to search your person, “Hm, what’s that again?” 

“Riduur,” he reprimands your teasing. 

That word makes the inside of your skin light up pleasantly. Riduur. If only you knew what it meant. 

You’ve started to assume it means something similar to cyare or cyar'ika. But he’d had no problem telling you what those words meant. Darling and sweetheart and beloved. He’d had no problem telling you he was calling you beloved. 

But he no longer calls you cyare or cyar'ika. Since the first time he’d called you riduur, the day he removed his armor in front of you for the first time, he’d solely begun calling you riduur. 

Even your name is becoming a rarity from his lips. 

“Udesii! Yes,” you cross your arms. “You know I took care of myself for a very long time without you and nothing ever happened. I’ll be okay.” 

Din doesn’t answer, just sighs and gives a curt nod and marches off towards a shop selling medical supplies. 

The dramatics of it all makes you giggle. You like teasing him, especially because he thinks he hides how flustered you make him well. 

Although you enjoy traveling with the Mandalorian, alone time has become a complete rarity. You were always with Din, or watching your little green menace.

You eat your way through a couple of different stalls selling food, bundling up second and third servings to keep for Din and Grogu. 

Din wouldn’t think to get anything beyond rations. Both you and the child like a little more variety, where Din treats the act of eating like a maintenance routine. 

You drift past stalls hawking trinkets and jewelry, fending off the sellers as you crunch something sweet and sour you’d picked up at the last food stall, not entirely sure what it is.  

Textiles are next, bolts of cloth you run your fingers over but mourn not being able to afford. Still, it's nice to browse, nice to feel normal. The Mandalorian isn’t hunting someone for once, and you aren’t trapped in the interior of the ship, stale recycled dry air burning your nostrils. 

A little supply stop has become a little welcome relief. It’s giving you the chance to stretch your legs, to explore. 

Still, your mind drifts back to Din, the way he calls you something he would not name to you.

You’ve searched before, in other markets, on other worlds, for the answer to your question. What does that word mean and why won’t Din tell you? 

You’d tried to convince him once or twice, with gentle words whispered in his ear, when the helmet was off and your hands were pressed against his skin, the contours of his face still a mystery to you. 

Once, you’d felt the skin of his cheeks go hot beneath your hands when you told him he used his tongue so prettily, couldn’t he use it to tell you what riduur meant? 

He’d mumbled something else in Mando’a but had not explained himself. 

You can understand most of that he says now, but because he’s the only other speaker, you have to rely on him to tell you what new words and phrases mean.

Because the Mandalorians are such an insular people, you never come across any other speakers you could ask. There are no dictionaries to Basic that you could download and peruse. 

It’s frustrating, especially since the word seems to be laden with something heavy. Din says it with reverence, with a softness that doesn't cut through the rest of his words. His voice is softer when he speaks Mando’a anyways, but that word is held with a reverence on his tongue, like it’s precious. 

The only other time you had heard him use that tone was when he once called Grogu ad’ika, which meant child. 

You’ve almost given up on knowing, resigned to that fact that you may never know and he may never tell you.

Whatever it means, you’re sure it's important. You just don’t know why.

The market is loud, boisterous and colorful. Music floats through the air, shouts and laughter. 

It’s nice, it makes you smile and you wish you’d taken the child with you because you’re sure he’d have much more fun with you than with Din picking out rolls of bandage and rations and pulse rifle cartridges if he can find someone that has some. 

You stop suddenly in your tracks when you hear a conversation in a language you immediately recognize, the familiar syllables cutting through the afternoon chatter. 

You spin and find two men in robes speaking gently to each other in Mando’a. Before you can stop yourself, your feet have already carried you to their table where they sit sipping cups of caf. 

“Su cuy'gar,” you greet. They both look surprised, glancing at each other and then back at you. “Sorry to bother you. You speak Mando’a?” 

One smiles, “Yes. Of the few outsiders that do, I think.” 

“Were you foundlings?” It’s the only way, you think, that they could have learned it. 

“Once,” the older of the two says. “This one learned it at a university.” 

You can’t help the curiosity that burns through you, “At a university? Really?” 

“Only the very barest basics. From a woman being courted by a Mandalorian,” he dismisses with a wave of his hand. “That was a long time ago. Really I learned from him.” He gestures between himself and the other man. 

You shake yourself, “I’ve just never met another aruetii that does.” Let alone two of them, you think dizzily. Two outsiders who spoke Mando’a. 

“And how did you learn?” 

“My…” you trail off. 

Your what? You aren’t sure what exactly Din is to you, or what you are to him. You never have been. He treats you like you’re more precious than beskar, yet everything between you remains undefined. 

“My traveling companion. He’s a Mandalorian.” You swallow, “I wonder if you could tell me if you know what a certain word means? It’s one I’ve been curious about.” You don’t want to tell them that you’re seeking it out because it's something he calls you. That feels too private, too close to the chest. “He said it once and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.” 

“Why don’t you ask him?” 

“It would wound my pride. He’s already taught me so much. He overestimates my fluency.” 

They laugh and the man who was once a foundling says, “Yes, ask us then.” 

“Riduur,” you say, carefully pronouncing it so they don’t mistake it for another word. “Riduur,” you repeat with more confidence. 

The men glance at each other, brows raised. “Well, it has several meanings,” the more grizzled of the two says, “But I suppose it's all the same in the end. Spouse would be the most overarching translation. Partner, wife, and husband all work too.” 

For a moment, you can’t breathe, you’re sure your heart has come to a leaping halt in your chest. “Truly? Riduur?” You say it again, just to make sure. They laugh and nod and you decide to have your meltdown away from their table. “Well, thank you for clearing that up. Sorry again to bother you.” 

You turn away from them, a roaring in your ears. Your heart stutters in your chest. Riduur. He’s been calling you his partner, his spouse, for months? That word so softly spoken to you - to tease you, to call for you, whispered to you in the dark, said over and over, more than your own name. It meant partner, spouse, wife, husband?

Something inside you lights up with pride. The shape of it is warm, firm in the clasp of your lungs. Riduur. It’s a living, breathing kind of word, one that takes up space inside you. One you’re proud to bear the weight of, the title of. 

Spouse, you think, doesn’t carry the same gravitas as riduur. There’s something heavier and deeper in the word that a translation couldn’t really carry over into Basic. 

You start back down the road, smiling to yourself, but only make it several paces when Din steps up beside you silently from between two stalls. “Dank farrik,” you gasp, stumbling back. “Where did you come from? You scared me.” 

He doesn’t answer you, doesn’t even tilt his head towards you. You may as well have not spoken at all. 

“Mando?” 

Still, he doesn’t answer you. 

You raise a brow but don’t say anything else as he herds you gently out of the market, desert dust swirling around your calves. Eventually, when you reach the edge of the town, he asks, “Did you find everything you need?” His voice is flat, rough. 

“Yes, I got some food for you and Grogu to try. A little feast for you tonight, since it won’t hold.”

He merely grunts and you frown. “Is something wrong?” You glance over your shoulder. “Did something happen? Are we being followed?”

You glance around his legs at the baby, still securely in the brown canvas bag, who’s peering up at both of you with anxious eyes, big ears drooping. 

“No.” He answers curtly. 

The walk back to the ship is silent, and tense, and you aren’t sure why. 

It’s only when you’re in the safety of the mouth of the ship’s ramp, with the baby in your arms, that your irritation spills over. “Are you upset with me? I didn’t wander. I stayed close and had a weapon and -,” 

Din’s hands go to his hips, helm tilting at an angle as he regards you. His voice is agitated when he finally speaks. You expect him to tell you that you wandered too far, that he commed you and you hadn’t picked it up, that you’d unknowingly wandered into danger. And you expect to have to tell him once again that it's all fine, that you are fine, that you’d traveled without him for years and things always turned out alright. 

Instead, he says, “You should not call yourself an aruetii. That is not what you are.” 

For a moment, it doesn’t register with you what he’s talking about, that he’d clearly overheard your conversation with the Mando’a speakers, likely eavesdropped on it. 

All you are, for a few seconds, is confused. “But…I am an aruetii. I am not a Mandalorian.”

Din’s shoulders go stiff at your words. “That does not make you an outsider. You…you are far from an outsider,” he growls and suddenly spins away from you, his footfalls heavy and loud when he stomps across the hull.

He climbs the ladder to the cockpit and disappears, leaving both you and the baby alone, still standing on the ramp up to the ship. “He’s angry with me,” you say in disbelief, glancing down at the child in your arms, not really understanding why. “We’ll let him cool off,” you decide, bouncing the child against your waist. “Hungry?” 

The baby coos and you smile, worry biting into you as you settle with him in the mouth of the ship. The sun is setting on the sand, the air warm, casting red shadows over the world. There’s nothing around you but sand in any direction you glance, aside from the town from which you’d come on the horizon. 

In the distance, fireworks from the town explode in the sky. You point them out to Grogu, gently feeding him bites of food that you’d gotten at the market. He makes a sound that you suppose is a giggle, big eyes focused on the colors dissipating in the sky. He holds a tiny hand up, like he’d like it to fly to him. 

You curl a hand over his. “None of that,” you say with a laugh. “Those are meant for the stars, not you.” 

He goes back to eating, already distracted. 

A weight settles over your chest.

If Din heard you call yourself aruetii then he knows that you now know what riduur means. 

Maybe that was the true source of his irritation, that you’d gone behind his back to figure out what it meant when he clearly hadn’t wanted you to know.

You rub the tip of Grogu’s ear between your fingers and sigh. 

Any warm feelings you’d had are gone. 

Riduur. 

He’s been calling you that for months. But he hadn’t wanted you to know that he was calling you his partner. For some reason it stings. 

The Mandalorian is not cruel, not the type to play with another’s feelings. But, nonetheless, it feels like he might have been. Teasing you in a way you couldn’t begin to guess at. Or, like he could pretend without actually attaching himself to you, and you’d be none the wiser. 

You shake those thoughts away, listening to the music echoing over the sands. 

When Grogu falls asleep and the sun is just disappearing behind the horizon, you secure the ramp of the ship and carry the baby up into the cockpit. 

Din sits silently in the pilot’s chair, and doesn’t look at you as you tuck the child into the floating pod. 

You fidget with his blanket, not sure what to say. 

“I’m sorry,” he breaks the silence first. “Ni ceta.” 

“Din,” you perch next to him in the co-pilot’s seat. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have gone poking around where I don’t belong. I’m sorry.” 

His head tilts toward you, the visor impenetrable. You swallow when he doesn’t answer, an inexplicable lump forming in the back of your throat. “Don’t belong?” 

“I shouldn’t have asked them what riduur meant. You didn’t want me to know.” 

Din stands and holds out a hand to you. You take it carefully and let him pull you to your feet. “That is not why I-,” he stops. “Do you really not know?” 

“Know what?” 

“I should have been…honest about the name I’ve given you.” He tilts his head and releases your hands. “I’m upset because-,” the Mandalorian pauses and seems to consider his next words for a long moment. Finally, he sighs and simply repeats, “You’re not an aruetii. By definition you can’t be.”

You stare at him for a long moment, before shaking your head. “I don’t understand.” 

He huffs, helm ticking to the side again. “Would you call Grogu an outsider?” 

“Of course not,” you answer, horrified. “No.” 

“And why is that? He’s not a Mandalorian either.” 

You don’t have to think about it, shaking your head before he’s even finished speaking. “He’s your child.” 

Din steps forward, close to you, but doesn’t say anything. “Our child,” he corrects eventually. “I am upset because you don’t seem to know you are a part of our clan. Even after knowing what I’ve been calling you. Riduur, ner riduur, for months. You still don’t know.”

Oh. Oh. 

“Osi'kyr,” you murmur softly. “How could I know that, Din?” 

He stands silent and still before you, so still you aren’t sure he’s breathing. “I thought it was clear,” he says stiffly. “I thought it was clear I was courting you.”

Something pleasantly warm settles in among your heart and lungs. “Maybe you should explain your customs to me more thoroughly,” you joke lightly. 

He doesn’t laugh, shoulders tense, hands curled in anxious fists. 

“So why not tell me what the word means?” It seems a bit past courting to you, to call someone riduur. It seems to you he’s already chosen you. 

He shifts from foot to foot, the movement somehow laden with vulnerability and worry. “If you did not…want the same - I’m not sure I could bear that.” 

You stare at him, not entirely sure what to say to that. “So, what,” you start, “you expected me to one day just realize you considered me your-,”

“I would have told you,” he interrupts quickly. “One day.” 

“Told me-,” 

“What riduur means,” he corrects. “And asked if you’d like to be that.” Din takes your hands again, “Just know that you are part of this clan, whatever your answer is.” His voice is so sincere, it breaks your heart a little. “Whether you want to be attached to me or not, you have a place in this clan. You are not an aruetii.”

You tilt your head at the same time he does, the nonverbal cues you both habit in reflecting between you. “I’m just a bit confused. Was that your idea of a proposal?” You smile so he knows you’re teasing him. 

Din gives a long suffering sigh. “Mandalorians do not propose.” 

“Oh. So what do you do then?” You lift a brow, sliding your hands to his wrists so you can work on tugging one glove off at a time. 

“We make an agreement,” he says, not trying to stop you. His voice is hoarse. “We make vows.”

You don’t look up, tucking the gloves in your belt before tracing your fingers along the veins in his wrists, the lines of his palms. “Oh. And did you make vows to me that I wasn’t aware of?” 

You’re still joking, but Din takes your words to heart. He shakes one hand loose from yours and presses it beneath your jaw, tipping your head gently back. “I did. I make vows to you everyday.” 

All the air seems to get sucked out of the ship. You gape at him, mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out as you struggle to find words. He chuckles, low and breathy beneath the helmet. You imagine he must be smiling. “Now you see how you make me feel. Like I can’t breathe.”

You finally manage to take a breath, lifting your chin away from his fingers, threads of embarrassment beating under your skin at his teasing. “You could have told me, you know.” 

“It was too large a risk. I wouldn’t risk you.”

Maybe you should hesitate in your next words. 

But you don’t. 

You’ve never been surer in something. 

“Din,” you step close to him. “I would take those vows.” 

“They…they are heavy vows. Not meant to be taken lightly. They’re bonding vows.”

He thinks you don’t get it, that you still don’t understand. “I understand what kind of vows they are. What are the vows?” You step even closer, the heat of his body seeping into yours. 

He smells like sun, like spices from the market and oil on beskar. It makes you dizzy, the usual scent of him is much cooler. Evergreen and pine. 

The cockpit is dark, the very last dregs of light on the horizon gone. The contours of the helm are shadowed, the flicker of lights from the control panels reflecting in blinking lights over the visor. 

There is no hesitation in his voice when he finally speaks. 

“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde.” 

You mouth the words, doing your best to translate them. 

But he’s spoken too quickly, and you only understand part of it. He waits for you to ask for him to translate, giving you a moment to attempt it instead of immediately telling you. 

“I only understand part…We are one together and-,”

“We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share all, we will raise warriors,” he says easily. “We are - we are all of those things already. I have kept the promise I made.” 

Your throat is dry, and you can’t think about how that’s true. “We’re raising warriors?” You attempt a joke. 

“Would you not call the child a warrior?”

“I would,” you agree. “I would also still take those vows, now knowing their meaning.”

There’s a long pause in which you can feel the Mandalorian’s stare. His gaze is intense, assessing, hot against your skin. You patiently look back, waiting. “You don’t have to.”

“You think I don’t want to.” 

He huffs, “I…don’t want you to believe you have to make vows to me. You are a part of our clan no matter what.” 

“Would you still call me riduur?”

“If you allowed it,” he takes a breath. “Yes.” 

The lip of the helm drifts up and you can sense he’s no longer looking at you, embarrassed. “Din.” His head snaps back down. “I know I am not an outsider.” You wait for him to digest those words. “I know this is my clan now. I still would like to make these vows to you.” 

He reaches up and presses his palms to either side of your jaw, the crown of the helmet pressing softly against your forehead for just a moment when he dips his head. “If you’re sure, repeat after me. We’ll say them together.” 

“Elek,” you agree. 

“Mhi solus tome,” he starts, reverence and disbelief lodged in his voice. 

In the distance, more fireworks explode in the sky. The colors reflect in the glass of the ship’s front window, sparking over the reflective helmet. “Mhi solus tome,” you say slowly, careful to pronounce each word exactly right. 

You’d never imagined yourself as someone who would get married, and certainly not like this. 

But that was before you knew Din. And all this feels to you is right. It’s both sudden and not. 

This was meant to happen. All your years with the Mandalorian lead towards this. 

You repeat the rest of the vows after him, slow and deliberate. 

When the final syllable rolls off your tongue, a muted kind of joy overcomes you. You’ve been a part of it for a long time, but you feel it now, the belonging to a clan and people. 

Din releases you and leans back. His chest rises and falls quickly. 

You close your eyes and reach for the edge of his helmet. 

You want to kiss him at the very least. 

But when your fingers skim over the release, he captures your wrists in one hand. You let go and Din reaches up with his opposite hand to take it off himself. 

You expect him to kiss you right away, but he doesn’t. You can only feel the lingering touch of his gaze. 

“Open your eyes.” 

“What? No-,” you begin to protest. 

“Yes. You can now, riduur.” The word rumbles out of him proudly, heavy in his mouth. 

You tilt your head and frown. “Are you-,” 

“This is the Way.” His voice warbles, just a little. 

“Are you sure?” You get the entire question out this time. 

Now it’s his turn to tease you. “No,” he says dryly. “I’ll change my mind after you open your eyes.” 

“Ha ha,” you deadpan. “You’re very funny.” 

“Open them.” 

You think you might be more nervous than him to see his face. You honestly never thought you would get to, and you had long ago made peace with that. It didn’t matter to you what he looked like, you knew his heart and that was more than enough. 

You’ve tried to picture him before, from tracing your fingers over his face, but the image is only half formed and without detail. It felt wrong, somehow, too, to try to picture the face of someone who deliberately hid it. 

 Slowly, you peek your eyes open at him. Whatever you had pictured is nothing compared to the man you find yourself gazing at. 

A sense of vertigo sweeps through you, because it's almost like looking at a stranger. 

You have to resist the urge, for just a moment, to tear yourself away from him. 

His hair is darker in color than you thought it would be, but just as feathery and lightly curled as you imagined. Din’s eyes are dark, a deep brown that you’d like to spend lifetimes memorizing, falling inside. You were right too, from your explorations of his face with your hands, about the shape of his nose, his mustache, the patchy beard. You’d pictured his eyes all wrong, the shape of jaw.

One thing you couldn’t have guessed at is the naked expressiveness in his eyes. 

It makes sense though, he’s spent a lifetime without the need to school his features into anything other than exactly what he was feeling. 

You wonder how many times he’s looked at you with such longing, and you never knew. 

He says your name, a question mark tagged onto the end of it, his voice wrecked and strange without the modulator muffling his voice. 

The sound of his voice rips the upside down feeling away. It’s his voice, it’s him. Not some handsome stranger. 

Your eyes flit up from where your gaze had lingered on his lips, the pink shape of his mouth against golden skin. “I was right.” 

He frowns, eyes soft and worried. It shocks you again, just how open his emotions read in his eyes. “About what?” 

“I knew you were pretty. You are pretty,” you tease, pressing yourself against him, the hard contours of him biting into you. You fist your hands into the fabric at his sides. “Mesh’la.” 

Din frowns at you. “I told you that means beautiful, didn’t I?” His voice is playful and doesn’t match his expression. 

You nod and don’t answer, reaching up to cup your hand against his cheek. Din’s arm settles easily around your waist, dragging you closer, the weight of his helm in his hand heavy against your hip. Normally, you’d let him close the distance between you but you can’t quite manage to let him now, gazing instead at the planes of his face. “Mesh’la,” you tell him. “Ner riduur.” 

“That’s my line.” 

“Not anymore,” you tease. “Husband.”

You tip your chin into his and wait for him to meet you there. 

He gives a slight smile before leaning into you. “Not husband. Riduur.” 

“Right,” you agree, because really, it isn’t quite the same. It can’t be. “Ner riduur.” 

The kiss lingers long on your lips. He’s savoring you, a warm passion that doesn’t quite extend into heat. Din’s tongue meets yours briefly, the groan it tugs from his mouth sending flashes of lightning all the way down to your toes. 

The fireworks outside are no rival for the feelings clawing up the back of your throat. 

You want to tell him you love him, but you think he already knows. 

He breaks away to set his helmet down. When he turns back to you, his hands roam over you, free in their movement, tugging at the band of your trousers. 

You can’t stop staring at him, suddenly overwhelmed, drinking in the sight of him, the naked expression of him, everything he’s thinking spread over his face like a well loved language. 

All you’d wanted was to know the name he gifted you, instead - this. 

You map your hand over his face, tracing the divot between his brows, the curve of one sharp cheekbone. “I never thought I would see your face,” you whisper. 

Those soft, vulnerable eyes meet yours, arm wrapping around you again, as his bare forehead presses to yours, “And I always knew you would.” 

Thank you for reading! Please let me know your thoughts!

If you want more of Din and his riduur, Significant-verse drabbles can be found here!

Translations:

Riduur - spouse, partner, wife, husband

Ner riduur - my spouse, partner, wife, husband

Cyare - beloved

Cyar'ika - darling, sweetheart

Udesii - Relax, take it easy

Ad’ika - little one, baby

Su cuy'gar - Hello

Aruetii - outsider, foreigner, traitor

Ni ceta - an apology, rare

Osi'kyr - exclamation of surprise

Elek - yes

Mesh’la - beautiful

[corinthianism]

me when the READER in the X READER has a name:

like babe the fic ate but i do NOT look like an Aurora🙁

[corinthianism]

Taking anti-depressant pills?? Seeing a therapist??? Journaling??? No need babe, my fav writer just dropped another x reader fic.

[corinthianism]

[corinthianism]