#Kids Water Blaster

[trykidshop]

Water Blaster Kids Summer Toys Spray Children Games! SUMMER PRODUCTS HER...

[lisasmithblogs]

Orbeez Gun for Indoor And Outdoor Fun Activities

The orbeez gun, also known as pellet water guns, are highly popular fun toys on the market today. These are water pistols that fire orbeez shots rather than water.

They received a lot of attention throughout Asia. However, they are ultimately liked by children in the United States as well. These toy firearms may be used inside or outdoors, in the summer or the winter. Whether you want to play with your buddies or have fun by yourself, these water pistols will certainly offer extra fun and explosion...Read More

[uncouth-the-fifth]

i'd like to report a crime - Leon Kennedy/Reader

read it on Ao3.

Pairing: Agent!Leon/Detective!Wife!Reader Tags: anxious work stress + leon comfort!!, leon being a fucking goober Notes: when i'm at work I'm always picturing him swooping in to save me...... leon kennedy if you can hear me please protect me from 9-5 hell... and like I said before, I would LOVE requests or prompts for this fic, I have so many ideas but I can't commit to any of them lol.

Standing in the bullpen at work today, you had a thought. Maybe they called it “medieval torture” because that was a whole lot catchier than “a shitty day at the busiest police precinct in Washington DC.”

It certainly felt like medieval torture to you. Before you’d even stepped into your big girl pants this morning, you knew that today was going to suck. Plain and simple. Suck. Yet another presidential event was bringing the Secret Service’s jurisdiction into your already hectic station, meaning that big square dudes in suits were going to be breathing down your neck until quitting time. You had three huge active cases that needed your attention. One of those cases came pre-packaged with a deeply annoying lawyer, who, in your professional opinion, has his head shoved a foot up his ass. He will absolutely be showing up to bother you today.

And worst of all: in your haste to get to work (Leon had put some serious effort into making you late), you’d accidentally worn a pair of super uncomfortable shoes! So now every waking moment of your existence was bonafide torture.

Clamping your jaw, you glance up from the paperwork in front of you and check your watch. Three o’clock. Right, okay, you can work with that.

You slap your hands down on your desk as you push out of your seat, and it gets a satisfying yelp out of the man sitting cross-legged beside it. He bristles up like a porcupine and nasally complains, “Where are you going, Detective Kennedy? You said we could—”

“Coffee, Douglas,” you bite back to said lawyer.

The last thing you want right now is some of the lousy, watered-down coffee from the station’s breakroom, but taking mini-breaks at your desk is just not an option anymore. Douglas has been camped out there from the moment you clocked in, and since you both refuse to budge, he’s going to stay there. Breakroom it is. You wince the whole way there, cursing your shoes from hell.

Someone forgot to start another pot of joe, so you have the absolute pleasure of doing it yourself. A small blessing in disguise, really. You give the glass pot your best thousand-yard-stare the whole time it heats the water, and just when the outline of it is starting to burn behind your eyelids, you’re jolted out of your glazed reverie by a cheerful, “Detective Kennedy!”

The officer appears at your side like she was there the entire time, and you wouldn’t put it past her—Giana is the latest in a long line of rookies who have imprinted on you over the years. Good kid, but a little on the overeager side.

She gives you a sympathetic frown and launches into way too much bubbly talking for your aching head to handle. “Heyo! Man, it’s crazy today, huh? You look beat, detective. Hey, think of it this way—just a few more hours and we’ll be home free! Any fun plans tonight?”

The question triggers a movie-style flashback sequence in your mind, complete with black-and-white visuals and some tasteful dream fog. Leon, your husband, boredly poking around the aisles of a new Target by your place. Leon discovering the boys' toy section. Leon, your beautiful, amazing husband, going starry-eyed at the massive NERF Elite Titan CS-50 Toy Blaster, which you’re pretty sure you need a license to operate.

He’d tapped the Nerf box like a boy on Christmas morning. “150 foam bullets, baby.”

But it would take a lot of energy to relay all of that to Giana. So instead of explaining that you’re having an epic Nerf duel with Leon when you get home (no headshots, loser makes dinner), you cooly answer: “...Spending time with my husband.”

Giana hums. “It’s so weird to me that you’re married…” (Thanks.) “I can’t even picture you not grinding away at some case.”

The coffee machine burbles out its last sad spit of coffee. You pour a good amount into your mug, smiling, “Oh, Leon’s just as bad. We’re both married to our work. He’s just my favorite mistress, s’all.”

Giana opens her mouth to launch into another cheery tirade you can’t catch up with. You like the girl, but on top of being way too eager, she’s also painfully see-through. For example, you don’t even have to turn around to know that a gloriously hot guy has just walked into the bullpen behind you. It’s written all over Giana’s owlish look over your shoulder. Hell, you can even clock that he’s heading straight this way—not only does Giana cross herself to bid away impure thoughts of the stranger, but she evaporates into smoke out of pure shyness.

“Look out!” She stage-whispers.

Aw. Poor girl, you think as she waddles away. Considering who’s going to be unloading a clip of foam bullets into you later this evening, (what a strange double entendre), you’re basically immune to hot guys. You can handle this.

“Excuse me, detective, I’d like to report a crime?”

All sense of professionalism poofs off your face at that familiar voice. You whirl to face your husband, and in one swift slash, the ten ton weight of your stress is slapped clean off your back.

Leon’s resting stare has slowly been absorbed by his Serious Agent Face. But today, he’s smoldering less in the business way and more in the off-duty model way. In a white tee, jeans, and racing-striped leather jacket, he certainly looks the part, clean-shaven and dewy-skinned. Fuck him and his unblemished skin. What Umbrella moisturizer was he using back in the day, dammit?

You’re capable of joking again and fall flawlessly into the bit. “Of course. What kind of crime, beautiful?”

He isn’t really able to look flustered, but you think you get close to the impossible with the way his head tilts at that line. You notice that he’s hiding something behind his back.

“A theft,” he answers. The tiniest smirk twitches on his mouth. “My heart’s been stolen.”

…What a fucking cornball. The tragic part is that you find the joke pretty funny, and not completely in the ironic way. He waits for you to giggle and twirl your hair or what-the-fuck-ever, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction, ducking into his quick hug to grin into his shoulder.

You groan at his awful joke. “Jesus. You need a fork for all that corn, Leon?”

“I take mine off the cob,” he drawls in your ear. With that voice, he could make anything sound suggestive.

You’re about to pout at him for failing to return your hug, when you draw back and see that his hands are full. It’s then that Leon presents his bounty to you, bowing his head and holding his trophies aloft like a knight giving respect to his princess: in one hand, one of the stupid expensive coffees you like, and in the other… your comfiest work flats.

“How?” is the first thing your fish brain manages to say. Because, truly, how does he always know? The coffee, the shoes— “Did you put a tracker in me? One that tells you everything I’ve been complaining about all day?”

You go slumping down into the nearest seat, mystified by him. Leon sets the still-steaming coffee down in front of you and kneels, stooping to help you out of your shoes-from-hell. The strap around your ankle has rubbed the bone raw even through your tights. He gets the clasp loose on the first shoe with little fussing, then soothes the skin with tender brushes of his thumb.

“Mhm,” he hums. All you can see of him from this angle is the layers of color in his hair, deep browns and ash blondes blending into one another. The smug pride in his voice is obvious—he loves knowing he’s read you well. “Tells me when you’re hungry, too. Have lunch with me?”

Please god, your body begs. Just picturing it loosens some of the tension in your neck. Like last time, the two of you would play-fight over where to eat, and your cute little delivery boy would go pick up the winner. That way, you wouldn’t have to waste a single moment of your allotted thirty-minute lunch. Leon would pull up a seat at your desk (maybe scare Douglas off with a flash of his badge), and you’d get a blissful, uninterrupted dose of him. Enough to get you through the rest of your shift.

He’d be too deep in Professional Agent Mode to babble like he does at home, but Leon’s raspy chuckles and his hand on your knee would tide you over til’ five.

…But no, the universe is never that kind to you. You wince at Leon’s offer and drop an apologetic hand to his shoulder, still knelt at your feet and working on your other shoe. He’s too good to you. “M’ sorry, baby, but I think I’m gonna have to work through lunch if I wanna get home on time. Rain check?”

He doesn’t mind. He throws a squinty warning stare your way, not happy that you’re getting dangerously close to overworking yourself, but he understands.

A sly smile creeps onto Leon’s face as he helps you slip on a flat. “I could talk to your Captain. What if you were pulled away for a ‘federal emergency?’”

“Then I think me and my Captain would implode from stress,” you laugh. “He’d think I’d been drawn into some national crisis or something.”

Leon scoffs. “That’s only happened, like, once.”

The other flat welcomes your poor, aching foot like a jacuzzi hot tub, and you take a deep magical sip of the overpriced coffee he got special for you. It trumps the watery breakroom joe any day.

For a minute you’re so stupidly happy that you could easily punch a boulder clean off a cliff. Hell, you might even twirl your hair.

“One too many times!” You groan. Since he’s being all cute and kneeling at your feet, you can’t resist poking him a couple of times to be silly. In the chest. In the cheek. In the heart. Stage-whispering, you accuse, “I think you just like having excuses to work with me.”

Leon finishes helping you into your shoes, but he’s in no hurry to leave his spot. One of his rough hands finds yours in your lap and toys with your wedding band, twisting it, testing the groove where it’s been sitting for a few years now. Those big blue eyes fix on your face. You’re married to the guy, but something about being the subject of all his naked attention makes you feel like shrieking into a damn pillow. He’s the best. Judging by that mean little smile on his face, he knows it’s true.

He gives your hand a little squeeze and points out, “I was your partner before anyone else. We never got our buddy cop beat—so yes, I will shove myself into your world since I can’t pull you into mine.”

You’re grateful he still thinks that way. Getting him to talk about Raccoon is harder than pulling teeth, but this—your partnership, whether that be as cops in an imaginary second life, or as husband and wife—never fails to pry him right open.

You’d been asked before if it was frustrating, how your paths had split after the city had blown. The two of you had come from the same spot and endured the same things, but where Leon had soared up, you’d kept to what you knew. No part of you envied him for it. In his mind, the two of you were still the same unit you’d been then, endlessly loyal to one another. You watched Leon’s back and—clearly, he watched yours.

“You’re my favorite,” you tell him, sweetly petting his chin. “I’m gonna fucking destroy you at our Nerf duel when I get home.”

All the buttery tenderness wipes from his face, and in an instant he’s on his feet, clapping a scarred hand down onto your shoulder and bending to whisper fiercely in your ear. “I’d like to see you try.”

He smushes a kiss to your cheek, waves a friendly, “See ya,” and melts back into the current of the rowdy bullpen. You hate to see him leave, but by god, you love to watch him go.

A few seconds after Leon says his goodbye, Giana, your rookie, peers around the open door of the break room. Her patchy blush goes all the way down to her uniform collar. “...Nevermind. I can definitely picture you married, Detective Kennedy…”

-

Ask to be added to my Leon taglist!

[huanted-dennys]

Siren au info that i'll probably draw out later

- Prowl is eel man long man very long

- Smokescreen also long eel man

- Autobots and decepticons are separate underwater kingdoms and absolutely despise each other omg there is so much ocean just leave each other alone-

- Optimus is a fucking drylander and is an ally to the autobot kingdom

- Megatron does not approve

- Megatron is 100% shark man and you cannot change my mind

- Soundwave is orca shaped

- the island town is in the middle of the two kingdoms

- Autobots allow fishing and ferries to travel through their territory and even have jobs that co exist with drylander jobs (fishing, underwater construction, energon wells)

- Cons will sink and drown anyone that boats or swims through their territory

- Seekers are annoying as fuck

- Jazz can swim (not well) but is terrified of sea creatures, big sea creature- LONG SEA CREATURES-SLIMY!! gross!

- Jazz noped out of the swimming scene ever since a fish touched his ankle when he was a kid

- Jazz is not enjoying his time on this god forsaken island

- Acree thinks its hilarious

- Blaster thinks it’s sad

- they both try to help him overcome his fears (forcfully)

- Jazz’s fears a warranted

- Jazz moved to the island because a family member died (yoketron) and left him a rotting house, and Jazz had problems he had to get away from

- Construticons usually work as fishermen but used to work on mainland bridge construction (that's how they met prowl)

- Autobots very much disliked when the mainland wanted to build a bridge from the coast to the island (through their territory) and sabotaged it. after awhile stories of man eating sirens and construction workers getting pulled into the water and drowning gotten too real and now there's just a half started bridge hanging out, out there.

-these stories are not true

- everyone acts weird around Jazz cause he's the only local that doesn't know ™

- Smokescreen has bets on how long Jazz will last before he leaves

- Bluestreak is not a siren, but was raised by Smokescreen and Prowl

- Bluestreak (a child at the time) was traveling on a ship from Praxus and it veered off course into con territory, they sank it and drowned nearly every survivor

- Bluestreak was holding onto debris and floated into Autobot territory and Prowl found him

- Prowl lives in the Autobot kingdom but has to come to town meetings and big events (because he works with Optimus and also Bluestreak is there so-)

-Jazz thinks Prowl is weird as fuck

- they are husbands

[netherfeildren]

The Cassandra Complex : Chapter IX : Persephone

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Canon typical violence; Angst

A/N: *babu frik voice* heeeyyyyyyyy

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 5.6K

Read on AO3

PART II

CHAPTER IX : PERSEPHONE

What are we made of but hunger and rage?

Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

Din pauses mid-hunt, heart jolting back against his ribs – on Corellia’s Maker blasted surface for a bounty once again. He’d avoided returning here since that last time, but with the kid gone now, with nothing to do with himself but count his losses, he’d sucked it up, taken the private contract, and now… something in the distance, dying or coming alive… it rings, it howls. 

The call comes again: low, far off, electrifying, agonized. He changes direction and follows it, recognizing it like he’d recognize the call of his own name, his ad’ika’s cries, the sound of a heart beating or dying. 

He’d imagined this a million times in a million different ways, turning a corner, another, suddenly dizzy and sick and terrified, terrified. He hastens his pace, holding his blaster tight against his thigh to keep it from jostling, and promises himself he won’t actually think of it, won’t imagine the full dream or nightmare of it, not yet, not yet… but there is something out there, just ahead. Something that grabs hold of the pillar of his spine and tugs, knows him, calls to him. 

His heart beats faster than an X-wing, and he can’t help but fall into weakness and hope. He lets the thought of you bleed in, something he allows himself only in the most dire of moments, when he’s so alone or so afraid or so angry he can’t control the missing. Your face, your voice, your scent like wading through water, the memory of your skin like sharing your name with someone for the first time, like flying or being alive; a knowing unlike anything else, like experiencing the whole world, your whole life in one single blink, holding it like a just-about-to-fall tear over the ledge of your eye. 

He remembers you like he remembers being alive, always there, always present, the next beat of his heart. 

He tries to measure his breathing, feels his throat spasm, almost choke him, and he forces himself with all of his considerable strength to control his movements, to not break out into a full unthinking sprint. One more slink around a cornered building, and then you’re just there. Just there in the distance. The lines and slopes of the girl he used to love. 

Nothing more than the movement of breathing shadow, and he wants to dwell on the past tense of his own thoughts, fixate and pick them apart, but he moves past it. Focuses on the image, perhaps invisible to someone who’d not come to love the dark as he had, but he finds you, he’d always be able to pick you out of the darkness. Sliding slowly along the building face, as if melded to the steel, slithering along the night like a mercury thief. 

Din felt he’d become a hostile, barren wasteland of a man these past two years; quick to anger, quick to aggression, worse than ever before; miasma within his heart now, no longer the sun. The only thing that had tempered him, gentled him, had been Grogu, and now even he too, was gone. And he knew the dark saber hadn’t helped, if anything, the thing had worsened his issues. The power of it wasn’t something that complimented this too restless heart of his.

You’re moving up ahead slowly, and he watches the line of your back, the slopes of your shoulders, the shifting of your hair, and he’d hoped for so long, all these agonizing days and months and years apart, that he’d look over his shoulder one day, and see you in the distance, that a crowd would part and you’d be there. Through his mission for Grogu, losing his ad’ika, this time now, alone, he’d looked for you, hoped for you. 

He can feel your focus elsewhere, ignorant of your surroundings, honed on the pull of the shadows around you, perhaps, as you keep yourself cloaked, or your steps forward, to where he does not know, but there’s zero awareness in his direction. And he realizes that for the first time in this catch and trap game the two of you had always enjoyed playing – you don’t feel him coming.

You pause suddenly, hand like a flash of the sky trailing along the building face, bracing yourself there for a moment. He’s a several paces distance away from you, and he’d have thought you’d have sensed him by now, but as you come to a standstill beneath a jutting awning, a light drizzle starts to mist the air, and it’s as if the two of you are separated by one final veil, one last test. You, apart, in your own world, him, waiting to be let in. And you stand there, still and propped up by the side of the building, head tilting back slowly to peer up at the dark sky above, and with the slightest shift of your chin, there you are. Your face again before him for the first time in two years. 

Din sees you again. 

And suddenly, the shock and anger clear from his head long enough to realize that there’s something off – your gait or your posture or the careful measuredness with which you press each foot in front of the other, a strange limp and shift that favors your right side, the way you’re using the building’s face to keep yourself upright.

A cold dread freezes deep in his belly. 

Something’s wrong. 

He watches the flutter of your lashes as you close your eyes to let the cold raining mist fall upon your upturned face, and the sight of you deals Din a famished, hollow feeling; his heart working in a fast and broken rhythm. There’s something wrong, something wrong, and the organ works so hard it hurts him, almost forces the metal around his chest to rattling with its ferocity. 

The world suddenly seems inverted, mirrorlike. The black puddles on the sides of the streets, filling with dark mercury that reflect the sight of you. And he can feel each breath filter through his lungs, as if he could taste each particle of oxygen as it moves through his body, stepping out and away from himself, away from you, frightened, anxious, lost, lost, lost. He wants this, and yet, he does not. Had wished for this for days and hours and years and weeks and yet suddenly, he wants to turn and run far away and not face the reality of his past and his heart. 

I’ve lost my way, ended up in some strange, narrow land where I recognize nothing. Not even myself, not even you. Almost. 

This unexpected bounty seems like nothing more than a bone chilling triumph.

You’re the same, and yet not. Your body still soft, your curves still lush, but there’s a sort of meagerness, a stillness to you that’d not been there two years ago.

It seems you’d both lost something. 

He has to take a moment to catch his breath, hiding within the shadows of the buildings edge, he mimics your lean against the damp wall, and you’re still looking up at the falling sky, impossibly, more beautiful than he remembered, and he’s suddenly afraid that he’ll vomit inside his helmet. His heart flutters and writhes and screams so that he’s dizzy, tremulous, sick and hot and cold all over, on the verge of tears. Tears? And then suddenly, he’s angry. He’s so fucking angry from one moment to the next. Shocked into fury. How can you be here? Leaving him to muddle about in his shock and disorientation, prancing about this planet which he’d told you, he’d told you, was too dangerous. You never listened to him. 

He moves again, propelled by righteous anger. 

And he’s silent, silent; Din is nothing but the ghost you made him. He’s almost there, his fingertips stretching towards this dream he’s had for so many days, for two years and endless seconds. He is so close. You pull your eyes from the rain, looking away, down the opposite end of the dark street, and it’s as if he can feel your mind thrum and whirl in all directions but his. Turn to look at me, turn and notice me. Why the fuck haven’t you noticed me? I’ve been searching for you for two years and my whole life. And then a sudden cacophony of crashing and desperate clumsiness, no longer measured or restrained, full of hunger and rage, and you finally realize; jumping, skittering ahead suddenly, spinning blindingly. So fast you’re a blur, frightened out of your skin. 

He doesn’t realize you’ve moved until you’re almost out of his reach once again. And Din snaps into color and focus at that singular threat, that hint of the possibility of repeated loss. He moves – covers a distance of approximately fifty yards in no more than five or six seconds. Coming up behind you fast and hard so that there’s no mistaking the sound of muscle and beskar and man barreling down upon you, teeth bared and ready to snap you up by the nape, drag you away, kept forever, were in not for the prison of his own promises. 

You move again like a flash and a wink, and then you’re spinning, spinning, pulling the violet of plasma from your cloak on him in one of those lovely flourishes you’d always preferred. Like a dancer and a swan and the love of his life. You pull your weapon on him and Din feels that ferocious love that brandishes teeth and your name spark and burst alive within his heart once again; amazed and uncaring of the threat on his own life.

It beats, it beats, he thinks, I live. What does it matter what happens after this? I’m alive again.

You bare your teeth at him in a tiny, fractured snarl, incongruous with the immensity of the fear held in your eyes. But that bursts too, and at the last moment, when he finally remembers he has to be alive to take you for himself again, that he can’t let you actually kill him in a fit of fright, that he’s angry with you and needs to tell you so, he brings his arms up to block the death dealing blow. His vambraces spark between the two of you, and he wonders suddenly if every man that’s stood in this place Din is now in, waiting to meet his end at your hand, had felt as grateful and awed as he does now, nothing but violet ends and eyes like a whisper and a scream.  

And when those eyes focus, when you realize it’s him, that soft mouth he’d dreamt of endlessly, spilled his seed to the memory of in his sleep, for months after you’d gone, rolling around like a dog in the nest of your blankets trying to find any last wisp of your scent, it falls open on a small gasp of shock, wet and lush, something that used to belong to him, his name sitting silent on the tip of your tongue as if he could see the very shape of it. There’s something strange happening in your eyes in the moment recognition meets cognizance, where memory meets present, and then they’re both like a scream, fracturing with horror, perhaps, shock, surely. Nothing he wants to see there in this moment. 

They shutter, go flat, deep and fathomless and that fear of his is back, his heart like a momentary sun come to life with your recognition goes dark and cold again, and you freeze still and thrumming with repressed energy, all the strength in the galaxy seemingly held within this slip of a girl he used to love, and then metamorphosing instantly into a supernova. As if all the energy surrounding the two of you is sucked into a vacuum only you wield, something like a momentary hovering of hollow silence before you’re exploding in movement, violence, the kind that salivates and hungers. 

You pull your saber back, a jagged shriek in your throat, and he realizes you’re as angry as he is, even more. When you bring the saber down against his vambraces again he feels the force of it, he feels the Force, ringing in his teeth. His molars, grinding down into nothing against each other, holding you at bay as you bring your blade down on him again and again and again. And in the very millisecond before he pulls it from his belt and bears the terrible, dark truth of it to you, he thinks that he shouldn’t, that he should just let you kill him. It’s your right after all. You’d owned him from that very first moment in that dark alcove on that nothing planet in the middle of a too large, too lonely galaxy. His life had been yours since then, and so it only fell to reason that it should be yours to end as well. 

But he does not. And when he engages the Darksaber, lets it meet the purple haze of your lightsaber, a momentary collision of two giants, the pause the two of you take to breathe each other in is like breathing in life again after two years of barren death. 

The sight of it sets you off worse than the sight of his mantle. Something affronted like how dare he wield your weapon? You spin, parry, spin, parry. Your blows ringing in his ears, sending his heart to beat in his throat, and most surprising of all, or perhaps not, there’s nothing restrained in the Force you strengthen your strikes with. You want to hurt him, and he can feel the energy of you thrumming through the bones of his arms, strengthening him further, strangely, rather than weakening him. And he thinks again, something is wrong. 

You’re expelling energy too quickly, and you send a burst of the Force forward, towards his chest, trying to push him back, away, but it’s weak, a tepid attempt at best. The Darksaber hums and spits in his grasp, heavy as lead, and he returns one hard blow, bringing the terrible thing up above his head and with the swing of his arms, an executioner set to kill this weak rebellion of yours, down to meet you in a cross of the two blades so that your faces are right up against each other. You pant mist into the air, fogging his vizor, and he feels his cock thicken.

You’re so close. And he is so predictable. 

“It’s you,” he breathes. 

He wants to demand you scream at him, say his name, curse him, anything. Let me hear your voice, he wants to beg, but you spin again, twirl to bring your saber in a slicing motion towards his throat, another screech of painful frustration. He blocks, shoves you back, takes in the lagging of your strength, the too fast gulps of breath, the tremble in the lines of your arms. He deals you another hard blow, harder than the first. He’d lost things along the way since you, yes, but he’d gained others. He was stronger now, older, perhaps, but with a harshness about him that granted a sort of advantage in the ways he maneuvered himself, fought his battles. Something he’d not possessed before he’d lost so much. 

You send another kick of the Force towards him, this one even weaker than the first, and he hears the low, pained whine you gurgle in your throat, sees the break in your expression. Pain. He shoves you back.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” He spits, graveled and low through the modulator. The sound of him does something else to you. He watches a shiver and a jerk move through you, something jagged, particularly painful, and then you go sort of limp, holding yourself with a sort of wanness, your eyes seeming to lose all color and shape and depth in the instant the sound of his voice rings. He sees the strength in your fingers go limp around the hilt of your blade, and he knocks it from your grasp, sends it flying. When the dull thud of it extinguishing against the ground sounds, it seems to bring you to momentary wakefulness again so that you’re skipping backwards and away from him, pulling a blade from a fold in your tunic close to your breast, a tiny, silver thing. Inconsequential – no, beskar, the most important thing in the world. 

“What’s this?”

“For you.”

“Are you sharing your weapons with me now?”

“I’d share anything with you.”

“Another shiny thing to remind me of my shiny?” You’d laughed, but he’d seen the truth of sadness in your eyes. The reality that said, you’d not share everything, not that one last thing. And when he’d covered your eyes and lifted the lip of his helmet to kiss you soft and slow and sorry, his words had rung hollow and false and rebellious in his ears. 

You pull the little knife back, your other palm held out in front of you towards him, as if that single hand had the power to keep him at bay. The sight of it breaks him. He extinguishes the Darksaber, lets it fall to the ground to keep yours company because of course, of course that hand holds power. All the power in the whole galaxy, held in the small palm of an even smaller girl who’d take up all the space in the sky if only she saw in herself what he does. 

He takes in the tremble in your hand as you hold it up towards him, and Din feels, suddenly, so tired. 

You’re terrified. Alit with fear and power, something that almost glows with the force of your terror, the warp and weft of all life in the cosmos made visible, but there is a jaggedness to the manifestation of it. Something dark and serrated, all your hurts visible and plain for him to see. 

He pauses, terribly frightened, terribly sad, suddenly. What had been done to you? 

He’d been angry at you for so long, he is still angry. At times, he’d even feared he hated you. It was like some sort of betrayal you’d forced him into, a betrayal you’d wrought by your own hand, driving that love he’d felt to confused resentment colored in hurt. 

But there is something ridiculously, illogically frightened inside of you now as the two of you face each other once again. On the verge of tears or breaking, your fragmentation, obvious for everyone to see. He focuses on that small, trembling hand, and he’s entirely bested, and you smile, teeth flashing white, but limp and he knows it for the lie it is. 

-

“Oh, you again?” Your mocking laugh rings more false than any lie you’d ever told him. There is only the truth of tears in your voice. 

Your first words to him, an echo of a previous night. Terrible. Cowardly. You take a step back, another that he matches, and your tether, that dark red thread screams the song of finally. 

Finally, finally we’re together again.

You take him in, the long drape of his cloak, the frayed and worn edges. The old rusted vermillion of his armor, gone, replaced by something newer, stronger, better. The helmet, the helmet, the helmet, that dark, yawning pit of the transparisteel visor. 

Beskar and Creed and centuries of culture and religion and the Way. 

Your Mandalorian. 

An entire sun in the heart of a single man and enough love in yours to fill the entirety of the darkness in the sky for him.

“Maker, you’re extra shiny now.”

He answers with a frustrated hiss. “What are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to stay off Corellia?” Said as if no time had passed at all, and he was still allowed to boss you around. He takes a step forward, and you flash a snarl at him, as menacing as you can muster with the state you’re currently in, tightening your grip on his little knife which tells more than you want him to know at this moment. 

“That was so long ago, and you always talk so much nonsense. You can’t really expect me to remember all of it, can you?” He growls again, another menacing foot forward. “Stay back,” you warn but take your own step forward too, slicing the blade through the air towards his neck. He blocks your arm, catching you by the bend of your elbow and shoves you back hard. Hard enough to send you into a clumsy stumble so that your back slams into the hard wall behind you, your head cracking against the stone. You’re left dizzy, disoriented, and there’s a particularly raw scrap of skin over your left shoulder that hadn’t been allowed to heal in weeks. Nausea bobs in your throat, floods your mouth, and he jerks at the sound of your skull meeting uncompromising stone, makes to reach for you, but then catches himself and freezes when you flinch away from him, going deathly still at the half animal groan of pain you let out. The helmet cocks slowly to the side, taking you in in that predatory way of his, all hunter. 

“What’s wrong with you?” His voice is so level and so cold and so frightening. 

The feeling of not knowing each other is suddenly so strong that you turn your face away from him sharply, sucking in quick panting breaths through your open mouth, tasting the putrid Corellian air, cold and slick against your tongue. This is wrong – this discomfort, this feeling of having been away from each other for so long that you’re once again strangers, that you can’t immediately recall the feel of his hands on you in tenderness, the smell of his hair, the taste of his come. But: liar, liar, you could never forget those things. 

You try and measure your voice, fail. “Nothing’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with you?” Slow breaths through your nose. Control yourself, please, please, get ahold of yourself. 

“Are you hurt?” He spits, all anger and threat of aggression now. 

“No.”

“Do you know how to do anything other than tell lies?”

“No,” You snap back. Truth finally, for what else are you to do? A girl who was never really so much a girl, but creature, creature, dark creature. Thalassian hissing and betrayal in the shape of a little Twi'lek sound and stumble through your broken mind. Molded into something worse by your own hands and weakness and fear. And you’re so angry at the fate of you, at the cards you’d been dealt. You want to curse and spit at him, you want these two years to go on forever, and you want him to take you into his arms and kiss you. 

You want him to never have to see you as you are now, for you to only live in his memory as he’d left you, well and his, and you want to break something. No— something is about to be broken here, but you can’t be sure what. You think it might be you, but you have no heart left to break, he took it, it was eaten, and too little mind remains for further shattering. 

The terrible voices that had lived inside your head your entire life, these past endless months, your own voice in that dark hole to the memory of: Master, I tried to make myself into what you wanted so many times and failed so many more times and can only seem to be, truly, what this man here before me demands of me, myself. You had rarely ever been yours, but Din, Din had always belonged only to you, from that first moment. Tucked away in the farthest and smallest recess of your mind, almost like a fracture in the dark, the memory of his strength, his honor, his loyalty, the great conviction of character and goodness every part of him was imbued with, he lived there, in that small pocket you’d managed to keep for yourself.

“You and that smart fucking mouth – you never know when to quit.”

You huff a saccharine laugh, your eyes filling with tears. You’re sure you must look unhinged, fracturing and hysterical all at once. “Smarter than you, that’s for sure.”

Both hands on his hips, he sighs then, long and frustrated, looking away from you with a shake of his head, and it makes you feel like the lowest piece of scum. You squeeze your eyes shut tight, listen to the jilt of his metallic encasings, the things that, second to your own stupidity, would always keep you away from each other, as he steps closer to you again. The ever present air of his concern hovers between the two of you as you press the balls of your hands hard into your eye sockets, willing your tears away. 

“Maker,” you groan. The will to fight leaves you, and your head, your head, it hurts. A piercing hot pain right through the center of your brain. You can hear the muffled sound of his voice saying your name, asking if you’re okay again, and you want to scoff and ask him in return how he could ever think you could ever be anything even close to okay after everything you’d done. But you focus on the blurry notes of him, that sliver of cracked light where he lives in your mind, the familiar sound of your name falling like salt from his mouth, like the phantom pain of an amputated limb, and let the fog clear slowly. 

When you open your eyes again, it’s nothing but clear reality: you, Din, all of your mistakes lying at your feet like two discarded sabers and dead hope. Two years of darkness is too long a time. You’d made such a terrible mistake, allowed such terrible things to be done to yourself. You want to run away from the sight of his anxious hovering, arms outstretched, poised to clutch and grab. You shy away, cowering into the wall, and you hear the sound of angry frustration he coughs out at the sight of the fear you can’t help but feel. 

But it’s your prize after all your sacrifice, can’t he see that? The only thing that remains.

All you have left now is the knowledge of how to be afraid. 

He appears to you, suddenly, as if he’d grown seven feet taller in two years. Brighter than any sun or moon in the galaxy, but also, exactly the same, and also, again, and at the same time, darker, colder, older. So heavily armored, like a wound of beskar looming above you in the night, outlined in pale, flickering silver, ready for war. He’s different, changed, unrecognizable. Something almost frightening, something that almost frightens you, as if he’d left the sun behind, ripped it out of the very sky. Finally, more droid than man, it seems. 

It makes you angry. 

Affronted, spluttering, you spit his own question back at him, “What happened to you?” Looking him up and down with all the contempt and disappointment you can muster.

He scoffs, planting his hands on tapered hips again, learning back on his heel. “What do you mean?”

“Look– Look at you. You were supposed to have greater care. You were supposed to be okay.” And you bear your teeth in the insinuation of a growl or a shriek. Completely nonsensical when he appears, for all intents and purposes, bigger and broader and stronger than he’d ever been before. “What happened to you?”

He takes you in, so still and so silent and so intimidating, and you’re about to cower and flinch once more before he says as simple as heartbreak, “You.” But of course. “You planted a rage inside of me. Do you understand what that is?”

How could you not? And so you tell him, “Yes,” and there are no surprises here. You should’ve been wiser, should’ve known that the two of you would meet like this again eventually. Angry and hurt and unrecognizable. That at the end of everything, all roads lead to Din. You had done something terrible, these were the consequences of your actions. 

“Where have you been?” He asks, but you look away, a quick shake of your head, not that question, any question but that one. He snarls, taking an aggressive step forward, and you press yourself into the wall at your back, wrapping your arms around yourself.

“Please–” and you won’t cry, you’ll kill yourself right here and now infront of him before you let these Maker damned tears fall, but he cannot touch you, “Please, don’t touch me.” If he does, you’ll lose. You know it. 

“Where have you been?” He asks again. “I searched for you. Everywhere I went, I searched for your face in crowds. So many things happened to me.” His voice breaks, “Terrible things, wonderful things, and at every step I wanted to share them with you, and you weren’t there for any of it.” You see the jerk and thrum of his body as he forces himself not to take you up into his grasp. “Where were you?”

In a hole in the ground, in the dark, in my nightmares. To tell him that you’d destroyed everything, that you’d let yourself fall into a trap as bad as the worst thing that’d ever been done to you by your own choice, by way of your own actions, that you’d suffered, oh, how you’d suffered, and that it’d all been such a mistake and that you’re sorry and terrible and small now – to tell him all that would be to lose him in an irreversible way. 

“Nowhere.”

“Fuck you,” he scoffs, turning to spin in a directionless circle, trying to walk his frustration with you off. And you want to fall to your knees and beg him to forgive you for things he knows naught about. My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality. 

A nod of your head and a small yes is all you can give him. The pain in your skull splinters and breaks and spreads like cracks in ice, and you try and swallow your wince and shudder but you hear his own pained groan of recognition. 

His voice gentles: “I’ve thought about you for two years. I’ve searched for you for two years, and this is how you meet me again? Cold and hostile – as if we were strangers, as if all that time together had never passed between us? I missed you,” he says, and you wish for your hole in the ground once again.

You dig your nails into the meat of your palms, break skin. “What were a few months of peace and happiness in the shadow of madness, of history?”

He’s quiet, for a moment, and you know the breaking is here now. “Were you?” He asks in a very small voice, like a child, unsure and fragile. “Happy? Did I make you happy?”

It hurts, the sound of his voice hurts, worse than the fire in your skull, worse than the bright white of torture, worse than being alive. “Yes, Din,” You look right into the darkness where you know his eyes are. Be brave now: “Of course you did.”

“I wasn’t sure. I– sometimes… after… you made me doubt.”

“I thought of you,” you say, and your voice sounds as if it’s going away from you, “When I dreamt, I dreamt only of you. You want to know where I was?” Your head is going to split in two, and there’s fire in your back, your shoulder and your spine and every inch of skin that encases you, as if you’re coming alive in flames suddenly. Awake and aware of all that had been done to you for the very first time. It hurts everywhere. “I was asleep, or I was in a dream.” You look up at the sky again, and there’s red everywhere, and the two of you should have stayed in that warm cave all that time ago, safe and together. Together in water. “I was tangled in red strings or memories, I don’t know. I’m sorry I left you.” The first thing you should have said. 

Your mind spins and spins in a million different directions, ricochets and slingshots back to him, always him, always Din, always, always. Such a terrible thing, you’d found in your captivity, to be held so by someone entirely unattainable. And yet, here he is. The very sun held inside the heart of the man standing before you, and it is so bright and so strong, and as you focus on it, there, in his mind or his soul, stitched into the very fabric that Din is made of, the only person you’ve ever loved in your whole life and also entirely a stranger now, there’s something or someone else– strong in the Force, stronger than you, even, perhaps. You’re confused for a second. Something unrecognizable, young and vulnerable and pure and yet with a certain type of innocent wisdom unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Your eyes briefly focus one last time to take him in full, and the realization slices through your mind, your heart; shock, betrayal, grief for the thing you could never give him, would never have. 

“You have a son?”

And then nothing, the ground rising up faster than light, a last flash of silver beskar and the snapping of the last threads in your mind as you finally find a pool of dark unconsciousness that doesn’t swim with nightmares for the first time in years.

Chapter X

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog!

[in1-nutshell]

Hey, not too long ago. There was a prompt about bot crash landing on to earth and getting adopted by ten year old buddy. If requests are open, might I suggest the same prompt with Rodimus and Drift (separately).

The concept for these two interactions has been stuck in my brain for days.

Rodimus- I'm a dad now, this is my kid.

Magnus- you can barely take care of yourself, how do you expect to take care of a human child.

&

Drift- heeeeyyyyyy Ratchet... how do you feel about kids.

Wow! First request! I haven't put up a message for that yet...BUT consider this the first of many to come. I will be posting when the request will be open and some guidelines as soon after this posted.

Hope you enjoy this and feel free to request!

Rodimus and Drift (separately) accidentally crash lands and is slightly injured on Earth and meets a 10-year-old Human Buddy

SFW, Familial, platonic, mention of injury, Human reader

MTMTE/LL

Rodimus

Rodimus groaned as he sat up feeling slight pain in his struts. He looked around him and nearly did a double take. He was on Earth. It had to be, He recognize those pine trees and fuzzy moss anywhere. Unless he was on some weird simulation, or Swearth again.

He hears a small sneeze and attempts to reach for his blaster before his wrist began to hurt. He prepares for whatever is coming his way.

A small human with a bucket filled with water waddles into his clearing. They take one look at him and waddle their way to his acheing pede and proceed to dump the water on it.

“Cold! That was cold! Why did you do that for?”--Rodimus

“You were overheating. I had to cool you down. The names Buddy by the way Mr. McQueen.”—Buddy

“McQueen? Who—nevermind. My name is Rodimus, rodimus Prime.”--Rodimus

He goes to shake Buddy’s hand but his wrist shot in pain causing him to hiss. Buddy dropped their bucket and reached into their pocket and pulled out 3 Hot Wheel bandaids and with a concentrated face began sticking them all over his servo.

“Uhhh… What are you doing?”--Rodimus

“I’m helping obviously.”--Buddy

“While I appreciate—”--Rodimus

“Shhh! Let the band aids do their thing Mr. Prime.”--Buddy

“Rodimus. Just Rodimus. Anyways where’s your parents? They should be too far.”—Rodimus

“Never met them Rodimus.”--Buddy

“Wait what?”—Rodimus

Rodimus pauses taking in that information in

He tries to lighten the mood a bit and asks Buddy some basic questions he heard that little kids liked answering.

“So, what’s your favorite color?”--Rodimus

“I like orange. Like the one on you, it’s a pretty color.”--Buddy

“It is! I always tell my friends it’s a cool color!”--Rodimus

“Oh! Do you like cheetah’s? They are like, super-duper-fast!”--Buddy

“Don’t know what that is but if its fast then it has to be awsome!”--Rodimus

“Right!”—Buddy

The two eventually fall into a nice conversation until Rodimus notices the sun fall across the horizon. He asks Buddy if they know a place where they could lie low for a bit. Buddy nods and begins walking further into the thick wood.

Rodimus slowly followed in tow.

Buddy eventually comes to an old, abandoned gas station. Good for Rodimus. No other humans to know of his existence. Buddy goes to the back and opens the back garage door. A place for Rodimus, sure a little cramped but still better than sleeping in the thick wood.

Buddy went back in the store and retrieved dozens of trash bags and a sleeping bag for their improv sleepover.

“At a sleep over, you have to tell stories before we go to sleep.”--Buddy

“Any story?”--Rodimus

“Any story.”--Buddy

“Well, I have one. Let me tell you about the time I single handedly wrestled a Sparkeater.”--Rodimus

“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds cool and creepy. Tell me!”--Buddy

To his surprise Buddy was fully interested in his stories. And it was cute to see Buddy fighting to stay awake to hear the rest of the story. They ended up falling asleep, curling next to Rodimus’s leg.

That sound? That’s definitely not Rodimus’s spark screaming at the cuteness before him. Nope, definitely not that.

Rodimus is confident that his team will find him so most of his time is spent with Buddy.

Between telling stories to one another, admitting one to the other of some loneliness before meeting the other. Rodimus defiantly pulls Buddy into a hug after one of those heavy emotion sessions about the past. It’s good for the pair.

It’s now been two weeks since Rodimus had come back to Earth. Buddy decided to take him to their favorite place to look at the stars. A little field not too far from their “home”.

Approaching the clearing, they weren’t expecting Lost Light to appear over the horizon. Rodimus was so happy to see his ship he almost forgot that Buddy was on his shoulder.

“They’re here! They’re here! Oh, I can’t wait to get back to my Captain’s chair!”--Rodimus

“Oh…”--Buddy

“And I can’t wait for you to get a mini chair next to mines!”--Rodimus

“Wait…”

“Yeah, we can have it with orange designs and all. I’m pretty sure Ten won’t have much problem doing the details on the chair.”--Rodimus

Buddy just looks at him in disbelief and in happy tears hugs the side of Rodimus’s helm.

Rodimus finally catching to the reality for Buddy pauses a bit and does his best to hug them back telling them that he wouldn’t leave them even if it made all of his reports disappear.

The Rod Pod touches down and Rodimus wastes no time in running to it with Buddy holding to his chassis.

Magnus was not prepared for Rodimus to show up with a little human.

“Rodimus—”—Ultra Magnus

“Behold the newest addition to the Lost Light!”--Rodimus

“Hi.”--Buddy

“… I’ll get the supplies ready then…”—Ultra Magnus

Rodimus explains the whole story to everyone on the Rod Pod and does the same when he gets back to the ship. Buddy is having the time of their life meeting new friends. Rodimus is glad that he managed to help his friend and hopes to give them a better life than the one they had on Earth.

Drift

Drift wakes up to a cold shudder.

He looks around at his surroundings. It looked like he was in an old barn. A cold old barn with the paint falling off just like the snow outside. He then feels a sharp pain near his pede.

It not his room or the medbay. It wasn’t even a part of the ship. He remembers… the crash… He remembered trying to send one last message to ratchet about his coordinates before he blacked out.

He goes to examine the wound when he hears little footsteps. Drift reaches for one of his swords when a little human came out of one of the barns shadows. They looked like one of the children in Swerve’s human movie night films.

The child had some protective layers on, but clearly not enough for the snow falling. They had a bunch of old miss matched blankets in their hands.

“Hi…My name is Buddy.”--Buddy

“Hello? My name is Drift.”—Drift

Drift ever dumbfounded waved back before clutching his pede in pain again. Buddy carefully puts down the blankets and slowly moves towards his pede. Drift curious slowly releases his pede and watched the human pull out some sort of wrappings and began wrapping his pede the best they could.

“Buddy, as much as I appreciate the help, that isn’t—”--Drift

“Shh!”--Buddy

“Did- did you just shush me?”--Drift

“Yes, and I’ll do it again. Shh!”--Buddy

They then grabbed the blankets and attempted to… tuck him in?

He thanked them shivering a bit feeling the cold seep in.

The human smiled and left him alone in the barn before falling into a much-needed recharge.

The next morning, Buddy returned to check back and pulled a chair to sit right next to him. The two ended up talking about how Drift had gotten to Earth and how to get him back home. Drift was surprised to see Buddy eager to help him get back home.

“C’mon Drift. Let’s help you get home. And don’t worry I won’t let any evil corrupt government spy take you.”--Buddy

“That sounded oddly specific but thanks?”--Drift

Together the two end up borrowing some tech from a nearby scrap yard to help create a distress beacon. Sure, Drift was by no means an engineer, but he hopes that his time with Perceptor will help him now.

During the next 3 weeks it goes by, Drift learns a bit about Buddy’s life. About them being an orphan and finding haven in the old crumbly barn.

Buddy learns a bit about Drift too. They learn about how he used to be a bad guy before turning good, how he made some new friends on the Lost light, and his misadventures with a medic named Ratchet.

“You really chopped the bad guy’s hands?”--Buddy

“Yeah, the were going to hurt Ratchet. I had to protect him.”--Drift

“He sounds like a nice guy. Wish I could meet him.”--Buddy

It was early dawn when Buddy woke up from a nightmare and came to Drift for comfort.

“You- you just left! You didn’t even say goodbye!”--Buddy

“Buddy, it was all a dream. A bad one. Anyways I could never leave you even if I tried to.”--Drift

“What? What about the Lost Light? What about Ratchet?”--Buddy

“… Would you like to come with me? Mean, You can say no and all—”--Drift

“YES!”--Buddy

Buddy attempts to hug Drift nodding furiously. A tearful confirmation that made the pair happy.

A sudden crackle is heard from outside the barn.

Drift is immediately up, holding Buddy close to his spark and sword in the other servo. Buddy is completely dwarfed in his servo and shakes a bit in the suspense in the air. Drift is prepared to fight whatever is outside of the barn.

Multiple footsteps are heard which only makes Drift’s grip on the sword tighten.

Then the door swings open and Drift kicks down the intruder straight in the chassis pointing the sword at them. Rodimus, on the ground groaning at the sudden attack.

“Geez Drift I know we had our differences but that was a bit harsh don’t you think?”--Rodimus

“Rodimus?”--Drift

“Drift!”--Ratchet

“Ratchet!”--Drift

“Oh thank—is that a human?”--Ratchet

“Hi… I’m Buddy. You must be Ratchet. Drift tells some of the best stories about you.”--Buddy

“Does he now?”--Ratchet

“Uh… Buddy—”--Drift

“Shh!”—Buddy and Ratchet

“I like this kid.”--Ratchet

“Are you guys my parents now?”--Buddy

“What?”—Drift and Ratchet

“What?”—Buddy

And that is how Buddy ended up joining the Lost light and how Drift and Ratchet ended up being their guardians. Never leaving Buddy alone in danger and never feeling cold again.

[miss-musings]

"You Should Be More Careful With Your Shooting Hand": Was There a Better Way to Address Crosshair's Hand Tremors?

In the weeks since The Bad Batch series finale, I've seen a lot of discussion about how the show handled Crosshair's PTSD, hand tremors and losing his hand to CX-2. I've seen some positive and some negative, and a lot of mixed thoughts.

So, I wanted to share my thoughts on it purely from a writing perspective. There are a lot of aspects of TBB Season 3 that could've been executed better -- *cough* CX-2 *cough* -- but I just want to focus on these ideas on paper.

Before we start: I want to state for the record that I do not have PTSD, nor am I any kind of authority on mental health conditions. I am commenting on this only from a writing perspective. If I happen to come across as insensitive, I apologize because that's not my intention.

So, let's set up the general scenario and look at a few options for tackling it, analyzing the pros and cons of each option.

An Overview of Crosshair's Hand Tremors in S3

From his very first appearance in Season 3, we see that Crosshair has a tremor in his right hand. It is implied to be a symptom of PTSD — or something akin to it in the Star Wars universe — related to being imprisoned and tortured on Tantiss.

His hand tremors impact his sharpshooting abilities during the Tantiss escape in 3.03, during the Lau shootout in 3.04 and during the confrontation with the Ice Wyrm in 3.05. However, he and his allies end up "winning the day" in all three episodes.

(His hand tremors don't seem to be a factor during the Bad Batch's showdown with Asajj Ventress in 3.09. Even if Crosshair had been at 100% against her, I doubt he would've done anything.)

It isn't until 3.07 that Crosshair's hand tremors have lasting negative consequences. As a result of not killing CX-2 during their first shootout in the spire, his group is endangered, Nemec dies and Crosshair nearly dies too.

However, the group manages to escape Teth, and I'd argue that everything in 3.11 probably would've played out the same regardless because Hemlock would’ve sent a different CX operative to Pabu instead. (Although I realize the characters don't know that.)

Crosshair's hand tremors persist through the rest of the series, seemingly getting worse as CF99 prepare to infiltrate Tantiss, until CX-2 cuts it off during the hangar fight in 3.15.

Now, let's analyze a few options for how this could've played out. Again, we're just looking at each one on paper, not in execution.

Option A: The Version We Got

Let's call the canon version Option A.

In this version, Crosshair has tremors in his right hand throughout Season 3, and the only real negative consequence is that CX-2 is alive post-3.07.

In 3.11, Crosshair misses the shot to track Omega to Tantiss. However, it's not because of his hand tremors. It's because of the timing. He was about to shoot when stormtroopers found him on the Sea Wall, and by the time he took the shot — which, why was he running anyway? — it was too late. The ship pulled away at the last second and the tracker fell in the water.

Skipping ahead to 3.15, Crosshair and his brothers are infiltrating Tantiss to rescue Omega and the other prisoners.

There's a mounting sense of dread in the hangar fight: the CX operatives show up; Hunter is knocked unconscious; and Wrecker is attacked. As the dark climax/conclusion for the hangar fight and as the payoff to their one-sided rivalry, CX-2 decides to cut off Crosshair's shooting hand.

The entire hangar fight, but especially this moment of CX-2 attacking Crosshair and preparing to cut off his hand, is probably the darkest moment in the entire finale. This is underscored by the next two scenes: In a moment of morbid humor/dramatic irony, Omega notes that the blaster fire is over and leads the other kids to the hangar; and then Echo sees his defeated brothers being carted away to Hemlock's lab.

Crosshair's amputation then adds tension to the final confrontation with Hemlock, as now he's down a hand in general and his dominant hand at that.

So, let's look at the pros and cons of Option A (the version we got):

PROS: Payoff to the one-sided rivalry with CX-2; a dark conclusion to the hangar fight; additional tension in the final confrontation with Hemlock; playing into Star Wars tropes and drawing parallels between Crosshair and other characters who've lost hands/limbs, namely Anakin Skywalker

(EDIT: This ScreenRant article also argues that Crosshair losing his hand severs his connection to Tantiss and "marks a turning point toward redemption and a brighter future." So, make of that what you will.)

CONS: Admittedly this is being reductive, but Option A could feel like the amputation essentially "solves" Crosshair's hand tremors and/or PTSD, which is definitely not how it works. It could also be a very careless way to tackle such a heavy subject matter, especially for those who suffer from PTSD and see themselves in Crosshair. (As I'll talk about more in a second, this is something YouTuber SheevTalks discussed in his TBB Season 3 review.)

Option B: Crosshair Keeps His Hand in the Finale

This is the version that I saw YouTuber SheevTalks and some other folks on social media champion. (Note: feel free to watch his TBB Season 3 review, but just know that I DO NOT agree with all of his takes about the season or the show in general.)

Essentially, everything with Crosshair's hand tremors plays out the same way up until 3.11. In this version, he misses the shot to track Omega's ship because of the hand tremors, not because of the timing.

This would add greater tension in the episodes leading up to the finale, because failing to track CX-2's ship would be an immediate and direct consequence of his hand tremors. With the exception of CX-2 surviving 3.07, we haven't had anything like this in Season 3.

It would also directly contribute to Crosshair feeling that he failed Omega (and his brothers) because of his hand tremors and add to his insecurity that he's not the capable sharpshooter he used to be anymore.

This version would have him keep his hand through the finale. That way, in the final confrontation with Hemlock, he has to battle against his hand tremors and self-doubt to save Omega. But, unlike in 3.11, this time he would be doing it with his family's physical and emotional support.

As SheevTalks argues, there are a lot of positives to this version:

PROS: a greater narrative through line and payoff for Crosshair's PTSD/hand tremors throughout Season 3; a greater emphasis on the importance of family, love and community in addressing mental health needs; Crosshair gets to keep his hand!

However, under Option B, there would also be some drawbacks and several things that would need to be addressed:

CONS: Without CX-2 cutting off Crosshair's hand in the hangar fight, we'd need some equally high-stakes conclusion AND have some kind of payoff for CX-2's rivalry with Crosshair.

Crosshair needs to sustain some kind of injury in the fight. It'd need to be 1) survivable 2) as severe and dark as losing his dominant hand and 3) add to the tension during the final confrontation with Hemlock.

CX-2 couldn't just knock Crosshair out, because then Crosshair would essentially be in the same physical state post-hangar fight as he would be pre-hangar fight. Yes, there would be additional tension in the confrontation with Hemlock because he'd have to overcome his hand tremors, but we still need some other way to conclude the hangar fight.

I've wracked my brain trying to think of ideas, and I can't come up with anything that would be as dark but survivable as getting his hand cut off — as terrible as that sounds.

I mean Wrecker gets shot in the leg later in the finale and Echo gets stabbed in the back/shoulder, and neither wound is ever addressed again. So, we'd need something much worse than either of those, but still survivable.

Plus, as I've discussed before, CX-2 is a petty bitch who definitely had a grudge against Crosshair. Cutting off his shooting hand kind of makes sense in a dark and twisted way.

One more con I'll mention is that, being reductive again, people could argue that Crosshair overcoming his PTSD/hand tremors through "the power of love" or "the power of friendship" might be cliché. But, as I'll talk about more in a bit, I don't really have a problem with that.

*****

Now, looking at Options A and B, neither is perfect. Both of them have problems, even just on paper.

So, I wonder: is there a way we can combine the two so we have the best of both worlds?

Allow me to introduce:

Option C: Crosshair Has Tremors in Both Hands

In this version, we'd set up very early in Season 3 that Crosshair has tremors in BOTH hands. Maybe his tremors are more severe in his right hand, because he uses it more; or maybe because it's his dominant hand, it's more noticeable. It doesn't really matter.

Pretty much everything in Season 3 would happen the same way, up until 3.11, when — just like Option B — Crosshair misses the shot on Pabu because of his hand tremors not because of the timing.

Then, in the 3.15 hangar fight, CX-2 still cuts off his right hand so we have payoff for their one-sided rivalry and have our dark, high-stakes conclusion to the hangar fight.

So, by the time we get to the final confrontation with Hemlock, we have double the tension because Crosshair is missing his dominant hand AND he has tremors in his left hand too.

(Side note: Because S3 canon makes it clear that Crosshair's tremors are ONLY in his right hand, I wondered why he didn't start shooting his pistol leftie as a way to compensate. As we see in 3.15, his aim was fine, and we know he can shoot leftie pretty well from S1-2.)

Option C would also make it clear to the audience that Crosshair's PTSD/hand tremors are not "solved" simply because he got his hand cut off, which would be a problem with Option A.

So, under this scenario, we combine most of the pros for both Options A and B:

PROS: Payoff to the one-sided rivalry with CX-2; a dark climax for the hangar fight; additional tension to the final confrontation with Hemlock; playing into Star Wars tropes and drawing parallels between Crosshair and other characters who've lost hands/limbs, namely Anakin Skywalker; a greater narrative through line and payoff for Crosshair's PTSD/hand tremors throughout Season 3; a greater emphasis on the importance of family, love and community in addressing mental health needs

CONS:

Under Option C, I really can't think of any new downsides.

The only one I can see is people complaining that Crosshair overcoming his PTSD/hand tremors through the "power of love" is cliche. But, as I said, I don't have a problem with that.

If we're going to be reductive about PTSD and its symptoms — with hand tremors being only one of many possible symptoms — I would much rather be reductive in a positive way. He's able to briefly overcome his hand tremors in a moment of need because he has his family's physical and emotional support. That's a far cry from "His PTSD/hand tremors are now solved!"

(EDIT: You can make the case that this also happened in the canon version. While I agree that Crosshair only made that shot in 3.15 bc he had his family’s support, I still don’t think the resolution to his PTSD/hand tremors plot line was well-executed.)

As I said I'm not an authority in mental health, but what I do know is that feeling mentally and emotionally supported, having a group of family and/or friends you can trust and confide in, and generally just having a sense of community are major factors to improving one's mental health.

Throughout Season 3, we see Crosshair wanting to deal with his hand tremors (and likely his PTSD in general) by himself. But, his family help him address it and begin the healing process.

Hunter to Omega in 3.08: See if you can convince (Crosshair) to get his hand looked at. Ignoring it won't make the problem go away. Omega to Crosshair in 3.08: Just because there's nothing AZI can do, doesn't mean your hand can't get better. Maybe you're the one who has to fix it. Omega later in 3.08: It's meditation. It'll help you heal. Not just your hand, but your mind too.

So, yeah, if we're going to be reductive about something as heavy and complex as PTSD and mental health in general, I would much rather emphasize "the power of love/friendship/family" than whatever the alternative is. Even if it's cliché.

Honestly, I think Option C would've been the best option of the three I've discussed. There are a few other possibilities I've considered — like what if CX-2 knew about Crosshair's hand tremors from their time together on Tantiss and CX-2 cut off his left hand in the hangar fight??? — but I think we'd ultimately end up covering a lot of the same ground.

However, these are all my opinions. I'm interested to hear everyone's take on this. Feel free to comment/reblog with your thoughts.

[and-so-he-rambled]

“Is this your lab?”

Vlad jumped, cursing in the form of a confectionery as he shocked himself. He spun around in his chair to see the children in the doorway. He wasn’t sure how they’d gotten in to the secure lab, the baby monitor on the table standing silent. He had put them both to bed hours ago and had been too restless to sleep, so he’d gone down to the lab to work on Jazz’s blaster. He hadn’t been sleeping well since he’d gotten the children.

Jazz stood in front with Danny beside her holding her hand. She was pale and terrified as her teal eyes roamed around the partially finished basement. It had likely been a dungeon once, but he’d cleared it out and had started remodeling it. It was sparse, filled with table of blueprints and half finished projects. He hadn’t conducted many successful experiments in the last few years, but the more he learned about himself, the better things he could create.

Danny’s eyes were focused on the gutted portal against the back wall. It had taken him years to build a functional portal, and he’d managed to and was able to explore the infinite realms in the last two years, but his portal was too unstable to rely on. He’d needed to disassemble it and ship the parts to the castle and he hadn’t gotten around to putting it back together yet.

“Don’t make a ghost portal.” Danny stared into Vlad’s soul. “I don’t want you to die too.”

The words washed over Vlad like a bucket of icy water.

He stood so fast his chair flipped, the spinning of the wheels drowned out by the ringing in his ears. He dropped his soldering gun, uncaring as it flattered to the ground.

“Your parents died in a portal accident?” They hadn’t given him details on the accident before and the police had only told him there had been an explosion. Due to the open investigation he hadn’t been able to view their lab or bodies, and only once it was closed could they have a proper funeral.

Both children nodded.

Vlad leaned against the table, hand over his chest as his core shuddered. The children both called out to him, but he couldn’t focus on it. Had Jack messed up another portal? Had they not learned from Vlad’s accident? He was spiraling and he needed to breathe already, what about the kids-

What about the kids?

He was over whelmed with the need to make sure they were okay, that they hadn’t been damaged by the portal collapse. He needed to focus, why couldn’t he breathe? He didn’t even need to breathe, so why couldn’t he catch his breath?

A small hand began to pet his hair.

“You’re having a panic attack, I think you’re supposed to take big breaths. The doctors made me count to five and back, can you do that?” Jazz was standing in front of him, and oh, he was on his knees. “5… 4… 3…”

“1!” Daniel yelled, face smooshed into Vlad’s chest as he snuggled into his lap, gangly lumps in every direction.

“No Danny, it’s 2 next.” Jazz corrected

“Then 1?”

“Yeah, I dunno if zero counts.”

“Do abcs next!”

Hearing the kids talk brought Vlad out of his haze. He stood on shaky legs, holding Daniel still. He shouldn’t put his mental well-being on the shoulders of a child, he thought he had gotten over his panic attacks over the accident. The deaths of his former friends had opened old wounds he’d long since bled dry.

“Thank you Jasmine, I apologize that you had to see that.” He took a shaky breath. “Let’s get you kids back to bed.”

Jazz’s eyes were on him the entire trip back upstairs, gaze far too intelligent. She was analyzing him.

Daniel fell asleep immediately once he was back in his bed, snuggling in to the stuffed aliens he’d happily picked out.

Jazz sat on her bed while he put her brother to bed, bare feet swinging idly.

“You don’t need to be sad, that you got scared.” She said softly as he tucked her in, eyes seeming to glow in the dim light.

Vlad sighed, smoothing her hair from her forehead. A patch of it seemed lighter than before.

“Jazz, I’m the one who’s supposed to be telling you that.” He sat on the edge of her bed, hands folded in his lap. “You don’t need to worry about me, I’m an adult.”

Jazz blinked sleepily at him, snaking a hand out of the blankets to pat his leg.

“You’re an adult, but you’re like us.” She yawned, snuggling into her pillow. “You’re broken too.”

Her tiny hand slid off his leg as she fell asleep, finally relaxing. She only was calm when she was asleep, and even though he knew she had a weapon under her pillow it was a relief to see her calm.

Vlad stared at her sleeping face, a torrent of emotions running through him. He resisted the urge to wake her up and ask her what the hell she meant by that

[wreywrites]

The Sniper of Old Pabu

Summer of Bad Batch Week 1

Prompts: Water Gun Fight & "It's not what you think."

A/N: Decided to write little scenes and snippets in and around my current WIP "Shattered." I promise I'm working on it, but in the meantime, enjoy Summer of Bad Batch and all the Omega & Boys & Zara shenanigans. Warnings: None, it be fluff AO3

Echo dropped behind the crumbling wall. Missed shots plastered the brick behind and above him, where his head had been only seconds before. Footsteps pounded toward him. He raised his blaster and faced the corner, finger on a hair trigger. With a scuffle of scraping gravel, Omega skidded around the corner and dropped to a crouch next to him.

He heaved out a relieved breath and lowered his blaster. “Thought you might be—”

“I know,” she panted, pushing sweaty hair back off her forehead. “I thought about whistling, but then they’d know our signal.”

“So you risked it?”

Shouts echoed through the old compound.

“It’s usually not a problem,” Omega hissed back. “When Zara’s here, and I can just—you know—think at her, and she tells you not to shoot.”

“She’s coming back, right?”

Omega twisted around and peeked over the wall, ducking back down quickly as three more shots hit the wall behind her. “Yeah, yeah, she just didn’t know how long it would be when she left. Guess the Protectors—”

“They play fast and loose these days, with no throne to protect.”

“Should we be there? Since we’re Mandalorians too?”

Echo snorted. “We’re not the right kind of Mandalorians. Well…” he frowned, listening to the shouts and shots a few buildings away, trying to decide who was winning, “We’re not necessarily the wrong kind of Mandalorians, especially if Zara speaks for us—”

“She told me she could adopt us,” Omega giggled, “but that would make… things… weird.”

“What things?” Echo feigned innocence. “Things like none of our names sounding good with Rau? Wrecker Rau?” He shuddered.

“Omega Rau sounds good. And it’s not like any of your names sound more awkward than Zara Rau.”

“That’s fair.”

The compound fell quiet and Echo peered over the wall. He came back down with a frown.

“All gone?”

“All gone.”

“Huh. I wonder—” Omega cut off with a shocked yelp.

Echo, fully aware of his occasional shortcomings as a brother/father/mother figure, left her for dead and scrambled back around the crumbling wall the way he had come.

“Coward!” Omega laughed after him, slumping dramatically over the wall, the back of her shirt soaked with water.

“Yep!”

“Avenge meeeee!” she wailed in the throes of a badly-acted death scene.

“Will do, kid.”

Confident he had cover from whoever had sniped Omega—undoubtedly Crosshair—Echo looked toward the rest of the old market district—Pabu’s new official water gun and laser tag arena. Hunter was sprawled dramatically against the old burned-out pastry shop, chatting quietly with Wrecker, whose boots were just visible behind the old ice cream stand.

Hunter glanced up at Echo, then gestured between Wrecker and himself. “We’re both dead.”

Echo nodded. “As you were then.”

Wrecker sat up and leaned around the ice cream stand just far enough to give Echo a not-entirely-sincere salute, then flopped back down. “Should still sell ice cream out of this place,” he grumbled.

Hunter nodded as Echo jogged off in a crouch. “Maybe delivery-style. You get shot, they send a runner in with your consolation ice cream.”

Wrecker gasped. “We could train Batcher to run ice cream!”

“Yes!” Omega chimed from across the square. “Lyana and I will start tonight!”

Chuckling, Echo rounded the corner and crept up the stairs. With Hunter and Wrecker out as well as Omega, that left one member of each team—him, Tech, and Crosshair. He was sure Crosshair was sniping from the roof of the bar, but where Tech was—especially if he hadn’t been there to watch Hunter’s back—

Echo tripped as he rounded the corner, falling forward hard onto something definitely not stairs. Two shots hit the wall where he had been. Swearing, he shrank lower and hauled Tech into a sitting position in front of him to block two more shots that came from Crosshair’s rifle, very visible from here.

“Come on, help me out a little,” Echo grunted.

“That would be against the regulations,” Tech said, letting his head loll to the other side. “Per the rules of the engagement, I am functionally dead—”

“All right, all right.” Echo managed to prop Tech’s shoulder against the inside corner wall so he was sitting up and creating just enough cover for Echo to kneel behind him. “How many shots does he have?”

“I am deceased and therefore unable to assist you.”

Echo rolled his eyes. “Were you at least having fun before Crosshair got you?”

“Oh yes!” Tech’s eyes lit up the way they always did when he got to talk, uninterrupted, about something he loved. “I enjoy all of our tactical simulation games. And Hunter and I have worked out a new plan—143—that we both think will benefit the group. Though, of course, we will have to wait until Zara returns to truly test its effectiveness.”

Echo nodded, poked his head over Tech’s shoulder, and slowly straightened up. Crosshair’s rifle was no longer visible. Then again, Crosshair knew it was just the two of them left. He might have moved to a better position knowing Echo would head to his usual sniper’s nest to dig him out, or maybe he had taken a page out of Echo’s book and was hunting him down at this very moment, or maybe—and this way was the way to madness.

Echo took a quick breath and ran for it. He dodged around Tech, keeping his head low as he bolted up the stairs and dove behind a pile of crates. There was a scraping, scuffling sound overhead, the sound of Crosshair getting into a different position.

Echo nodded to himself. Still up there. He’d take the back ladder—Crosshair would never expect him to come up that way—hopefully there would be some tables or something up there for cover, then one quick shot to the back of the head, and Echo and Omega would win and receive that most glorious of prizes: picking tonight’s movie.

He crept across the empty balcony, eased his way up the ladder, and peeked onto the roof.

Nothing?

He frowned and moved up one rung.

There it was. A boot, just visible from behind a table that had been flopped on its side to provide some cover. Keeping to a low crouch, Echo crept closer. Only two more steps, then he’d stand up and shoot—he and Omega had picked a movie already—and—

BANG!

The table fell forward, legs sticking up in the air.

Echo jumped, nearly out of his skin and a good foot off the ground.

“It’s not what you think,” Crosshair grumbled, sprawled face down, a long red nerftail just visible behind and under where his neck and shoulder joined.

“Oh?” Echo said, raising his pistol and popping three shots into Crosshair’s back. “Because it looks like Zara got back early and decided to, uh, surprise you.”

“Already dead, idiot.”

From underneath Crosshair, Zara sat up, jerked his rifle to her shoulder, and pulled the trigger twice. She grinned as Echo hacked a cough, the impact of the water blasts on his throat sending him staggering. “Decided to surprise all of you, Cross was just convenient.”

“Hate you,” Crosshair grumbled.

Zara laughed. “And you’ll hate me more when you hear what I picked for movie night, as is my right as the victor!” She bounded to her feet, propped Crosshair’s rifle at shoulder arms on one side and reached down with the other hand to pull the surly sniper to his feet and then into a side hug. “Just admit it, you missed me.”

Crosshair rolled his eyes. “Missed you a little. And I wouldn’t have missed you when I tried to shoot you when you first got here, but you cheated.”

“Using the Force isn’t cheating.”

“It’s kind of cheating.”

“Listen, I can’t turn it off any more than you boys can turn off your enhancements, and we don’t tell Hunter to plug his nose and ears, so kriff off.”

Echo nodded. “You don’t tell her not to use the Force when she’s on your team.”

“Completely different,” Crosshair scoffed.

“Why?” Echo scoffed back.

Crosshair grinned and slung an arm around Zara’s shoulders. “Because I get to pick the movie then.”

“Not tonight!” Zara’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Tonight we watch The Many Adventures of Togo the Tooka!”

[wisted-twunderland]

TWST boys go to Disneyland!

Heartslabyul

Ace: Is an absolute fiend on the teacups and knows which one spins the fastest (the orange diamond) and how to really get it spinning.

Deuce: Gets spun too fast on the teacups by Ace and throws up. When he feels better he enjoys being the Pilot on Smuggler's Run.

Cater: Documents the whole thing on Magicam in real time. He gets all of the classic shots, like the selfie in front of the castle, holding up the Dole Whip in front of the Tiki Room, etc.

Trey: Spends a lot of time on Main Street sampling all the different confectionaries. Also sits with Deuce after he throws up.

Riddle: Will ride the Alice in Wonderland ride and talk about all the historical inaccuracies to anyone who will listen.

Savannaclaw

Leona: He's been dragged here too many times with his nephew and made to ride all the kiddie rides, so he'd rather skip the whole thing and nap in the hotel room. But when he is inevitably dragged to the park, he enjoys the atmosphere of Adventureland and eats an unreal amount of meat skewers from Bengal Barbeque.

Ruggie: Doesn't go because it's too expensive. Nah I'm just kidding, he goes, but he definitely packs all his own food. Goes through the bakery tour and the Ghirardelli factory tour for the free bread and chocolate until he's told he can't have any more free samples.

Jack Howl: He likes Frontierland best, because it's the least crowded (and the cactus landscaping is exceptional).

Octavinelle

Azul: He's not big on rides, but he really enjoys scouring the historical showcases at the front of the park. As the owner of his own up and coming mega-conglomerate, he is eager to glean any information he can about the park and its rise to fame (and fortune).

Jade: He's very eager to get a selfie in from the yellow mushroom in Fantasyland, claiming its because of its historical significance. (Did you know it used to be a ticket booth?)

Floyd: Rides any and all of the roller coasters as many times as possible. Is not above pushing past little kids to run to the next ride.

Scarabia

Kalim: Is as excited as any kid there. Wants to see and do everything, and cries at the fireworks at the end of the day.

Jamil: Spends most of his time trying to keep up with Kalim and make sure he drinks some water once in a while. Enjoys the music and the parade more than he lets on.

Pomfiore

Vil: Enjoys the park from under a sun parasol, UV shades, and a high SPF sunscreen. He HATES that Snow White's Scary Adventure has been turned into *~*Snow White's Enchanted Wish*~*. The kids of today are WEAK.

Rook: He is hunting aiming to meet as many characters as possible and get them to sigh in his hit signature book.

Epel: Makes it his goal to sample every kind of candy apple in each of its differently decorated forms (Poor bear apple, Mickey ears apple, marshmallow apple, baby yoda apple, etc). Also a roller coaster fanatic.

Ignihyde

idia: Rides Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster's over and over trying to beat the all time high score (it's his). Knows where all the best targets are and can turn the cart with one hand while shooting with the other. ("This is the OG of interactive rides, even though Toy Story Mania may be more modern, this ride paved the way. At the time getting your picture taken and sending it to friends via email was unheard of but this ride blah blah blah blah...)

Ortho: Enjoys Pirates of the Carribean for its theming and "primitive robotics". Likes Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the same reason.

Diasomnia

Malleus: Will purchase and consume a Mickey shaped ice cream bar at every opportunity (He knows where all the ice cream carts are by the end of trip). He finds Fantasia amusing and says that the dragon is a "passable likeness".

Lillia: He's amazed at how much the park has changed since he was last here ("Star Wars Land? That area used to be a petting zoo.") Enjoys Haunted Mansion and startling Sebek in the queue.

Sebek: "We need to make sure we use our Lightning Lane at precisely 3:30, and then we must get to Goofy's Kitchen immediately after for our character dining experience, after which we must reserve our spot for the fireworks..." He's extremely concerned with getting the most out of the trip and ensuring that Malleus has a good time (Malleus doesn't care).

Silver: Enjoys the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough, as it is dark, full of vintage charm, and uncrowded. Falls asleep before the fireworks ever start.

[kiss-me-muchoo]

 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐝 || 𝐃𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐣𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨… here.

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_𝐀 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐨, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡, 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐝. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬. 

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_ 𝐌𝐀𝐘𝐁𝐄 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐩, 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐞 (𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝), 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐮𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐃𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓, 𝐬𝐞𝐱 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. 𝐍𝐎 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃

𝐀/𝐍_ 𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞-𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟏, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐧. 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐞𝐩.𝟏 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐒𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲.

✰ 𝙄𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙓 (𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚) 

♪ ♫ 𝙋𝙀𝘿𝙍𝙊 𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙔𝙇𝙄𝙎𝙏 (𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩)

————————————————————————

The hot sun hits directly into Din’s face. He sighs, wiping his sweat with the back of his hand. He thought wearing the helmet of his armor was the worst, but maybe the direct contact of his skin with the rays was… unbearable.

“Okay. Now, I won’t hurt you, Grogu. This is like the training you had with Skywalker…” the little mandalorian apprentice coos in agreement to his father. 

“At the count of three. One, two, thre-“ before Din shoots for the first time, Grogu is already flipping and doing a series of somersaults. As much as Din doesn’t want to hurt Grogu, he wants to train him well. The Mandalorian saw much of himself in the little Grogu, so he was patient with him. Although sometimes he felt like Grogu also needed some love, like someone peppering him with praise, cuddles and more. And he lacked that, because he grew up without that.

“Dank farrik” he mutters once he sees that Grogu landed on the pond of their house when he tried to dodge his blaster. The baby coos when Din reached to the edge of the pond, and pulling him by the neck of his robe, he takes Grogu out. 

“Oh boy” Grogu’s robe was drenched and the baby was giggling, shaking his pointed ears to splash some water. “We need a proper place to train”

“Yep” Grogu manages to say, which makes Din chuckle. “It’s time to go with Carson Teva for some job”

—

You were beautiful.

“She escaped from Coruscant a month ago,” Teva explains to the mandalorian. Yet, the man only seems to be mesmerized by your image. It had never happened before, he even questioned if he was ever going to feel romantically attached to a woman, and here it was this unknown woman who was missing and allegedly was an enemy. “Look, I don’t trust official Elia Kane, she’s the one who has sent the request to bring her back. But the whole situation is suspicious, so I would like to get ahead from the New Republic. Especially from the ones in Coruscant” 

“Chain code?” Din asked, but the older man in bright orange attire shakes his head.

“No chain code. Just this…” the little device with a red dot sparkling on top made Din sigh. He felt like the day he was assigned to hunt the child, but the familiarity discomforted him. You probably were a spy, you were the enemy. “They already looked at the ice planets. She’s not there, good luck” 

“Alright. Let’s go, kid…” when Din turned, Grogu was trying to steal a whole plate of the fried appetizer they had on that little recreational base of pilots. Din rolled his eyes under the helmet, and took the kid in his arms, under the constant complaints of him.

Where in the whole galaxy would he even start? This was going to be harder than he expected. 

—-

Two weeks, and Din Djarin was getting tired of looking for you. 

No sights of a young woman in the desert, tundra, lava, or swamps. As Din flyed the N-1, his brain enlightened.

The jungle, he hadn’t looked for the jungles.

He looked in Felicia, Onderon, Kashyyk, Glee Anselm, but you weren’t there.

That’s when he started questioning, Why were you that important?. What could another female officer want with you? You were just a simple mortal. 

“Look, Grogu. It’s the first time you see a beach” Grogu cooed loudly at the sight of the clear waters, in Scarif. 

The planet was more green than ever. Remnants of imperial bases were scattered between the growing jungle. Din had to admit it was beautiful. A wasted planet, however.

He landed his ship on the sand, making some palms fall in the process. And once he steps outside with the kid, Din felt an incredible wave of peace. The sound of the waves, some birds singing, it was very impressive.

But his peace increased once he saw the red dot of his tracker flashing rapidly. He had found you.

“She’s near, Grogu. Open your eyes” the kid only wandered through the vegetation Din cut with his knife as he made clear the way. 

The weather is hot, humid, and Din is hating every moment because in the jungle everything feels sticky.

“I think she’s gonna be inside” the man states, pointing the tracker to the destroyed building of the Empire and holding Grogu with his free arm. “We’re gonna be home again soon, kid”

The only available entrance of the building is covered by plants, which have grown over the years. Din isn’t nervous, he doesn’t think you’re a potential threat. Maybe a blaster, or two, but that’s it. 

“I’ll put you back in the nest, okay?” Grogu nods at his father's intention. That’s how he liked Din to call his flying carrier. 

“The tracker doesn’t lie, we’re close” he feels proud to be the first one to find you, since you escaped from Coruscant. For a little while, Din felt like he had lost his abilities as a bounty hunter, this was proving him wrong.

The destroyed base reminded him of Mandalore, in ruins, only that Scarif had empty memories, nothing special. 

The interiors are black, and as they enter deeply into the building, the lighting remains intact, making the way a little less scary.

Which resulted in irony, because the place seemed like not even a soul was there.

After what felt like a maze of hallways, the typical structure of the Empire was going downhill and the distant sound of a waterfall alerted Din. 

“Stay close, kid” as they went downhill, the base started to look covered in plants again. The weather turned incredibly humid and Din felt like he was suffocating under the helmet. 

At the end of the hallway, Din noticed something, a pond. 

“Something’s off…” Din whispered as he and the kid entered  open space that holded the pond.

There was a big possibility that after the attack on Scariff, the water and plants created a pond with constant tremors and bombs, but what seemed weird to Din, is how calmed the building was. And most importantly, no signs of you. 

Until, someone pushed his calf so hard that he fell on his knees, then punched his neck from one side so hard that he gasped for air. 

Din groaned in discomfort, but he didn’t get behind, because he managed to take his blade out. As the unknown opponent holded his arms and violently kicked Din’s hip bone with their knee. 

The mandalorian decided it was enough. So he grasped the blade, and using his string muscles, he was able to get free from the enemy’s arms and stabbed their leg.

A female gasp. You were an unusual woman.

Luck wasn’t with Din at that moment. Because just as he was going to take his tight to tie you up, he felt your weight behind him, and in less than a second, he felt some strong plant choking him. 

“How did you find me?” he hears you ask demandingly. You have a strong grip, and Din accepts you are a skilled warrior. With rare techniques that he only heard from the Armorer when he was young. “How. Did. You. Find. Me…huh, Mandalorian?”

Grogu coos and you turn to spot the child. Your eyes widening at the sight of him. If you were surprised to see a shiny Mandalorian finding you after a month of peace, now you were intrigued by his little companion.

“Don’t worry, kid. I don’t plan to kill your master” you say, hoping that the child wasn’t totally freaked out.

“I’m not his master. I’m his father…” you return to look at the man you have trapped, holding the liana straight against his neck, causing another grunt from him. 

“You can’t be one of his kind. You are a human under the armor” Din thinks your voice is hypnotic, delicate but not suave, it’s weird, but in a beautiful way. He really wants to see your face.

“I am a human.” He shouldn’t be answering questions, he never spoke to his quarries. “Once again, Mandalorian. Who sent you after me?” 

“Carson Teva. Now, likely, you must deal with the trials of the New Republic for your crimes” you giggle, this tin can was so clueless.

“Crimes? Oh, silly Mandalorian. You don’t know what lies in Coruscant nowadays” Din felt a goosebump across his spine. Sensing that your words were true, however, he remained light as a feather, waiting for any moment to get out of your claws.

“That’s not my business, I’m just here for the credits” you kick him again, making his helmet crash against the wet floor. You hated bounty hunters from the guild.

“You all bounty hunters are the same ignorant and heartless scum. Bless that child for having to be seeing what you do” somehow, your words hurt him. Like that time where the lady frog said that she was disappointed in him, and pointed out the honor Mandalorians claimed to have.

“You don’t know anything about Mandalorians” skillfully, the tall man managed to hurt your ribs, letting him free. You gasped for air, anf before the air healed your hurt lungs, the Mandalorian threw his tight and made you roll a little before wrapping your arms and legs, leaving you vulnerable. 

Din finally watched your face. Dry skin, cracked lips, frizzy hair, but gorgeous face. 

Delicate hands that try to make their way away from the tight. 

He notices you wear a long skirt, boots and a long sleeve top full of holes, you have a holster and a big cross bag hangs from your shoulder.

You try to crawl away, but it’s useless. The mandalorian keeps pulling you close, scraping your knees against the sharp stones that lay on the ground.

It’s a battle that neither one of you want to lose. Din is very surprised to feel how strong you were, he was struggling to pull you closer. 

But something happened, Grogu got closer in his little pod. 

“Grogu, stay back” demanded Din as he watched the kid very closely. 

But it wasn’t on the child’s options, he closed his eyes and raised one of his little arms. Unexpectedly, Grogu lifted a little wave of water from the pond, gently showering your legs and Din’s right side of his armor.

You squealed trying to cover yourself, but the water still impacted your legs.

Din looked confused at Grogu, and when he focused his eyes on you, his gaze landed on your legs. 

Clammy and shiny skin, almost sticky. Scales. 

Like a rash that instead of a red eruption were scales.

“A sereia…” Din mumbled in shock. 

One of the most shocking and unbelievable moments in his life was retaking Mandalore and now this, encountering face to face with a mythological deity that promised success for the Mandalorian culture. 

“What?…” you asked in disgust. But curiously, because the man stopped struggling with you. Once you saw what he was looking at, you moved your legs, hoping you could hide the already visible scales.

“You’re a mermaid” more like a question, he made a statement.

“No…” you firmly said. 

“This is impossible…” he said, once again, more to himself than to you or Grogu. “Once a Mandalorian finds a mermaid…”

“He’s supposed to serve her and she would shower his culture for prosperity” you finish for him. “Ironic, because you are a filthy Mandalorian who’s going to turn me into the useless New Republic”

There was no point in denying what you were. He saw your scales, the kid saw them too. This is it, once again, injustice won. 

“I can’t turn you in. I’m taking you to Mandalore” he explains. And you can’t help but feel his relaxing voice is soothing you.

“Mandalore? But it’s destroyed, and cursed” to your dismay, a lot happened on the forgotten planet.

“Mandalore was retaken a little while before. I helped Bo-Katan Kryze and other tribes to retake it” you are surprised by his words. “You know what this means, right?”

“Those are tells for children, Mandalorian. I’m not a goddess, and your people should have learned that the ancient Way is full of myths” he’s surprised too. He wasn’t expecting you to be educated about Mandalorians. 

“I don’t care what you think. I’m taking you to Mandalore” he could extend this bounty, Teva wouldn’t know how much time it took him to find you. 

“So be it, then…” you say, as he unwraps the tight around you.

“Cuff yourself, please…” His low voice makes you irritated, you can smell a little arrogance. 

“You’re welcome” you sarcastically say as you cuff yourself after standing up. Although you were smaller than him, now Din could understand your strength. Mermaids were strong warriors that were known for their beauty and determination. But nobody in the galaxy had seen one in centuries. This was special for Din.

“Let’s go…” he indicates to you and Grogu. 

The way back to his shis uncomfortable. You can feel the eyes of the Mandalorian on you. You feel a strange energy with the kid. Everything seemed odd.

As you walk away, you suddenly feel a little melancholic. Scarif became an improvised place to become home. And now, a Mandalorian was taking you against your own will. You were tired of running away, so you just surrendered, that didn’t mean you were enraged for his actions.

When you reach the shore of the beach, it is impossible to not feel teary. Lowkey, you are afraid of what’s about to happen. You lived in Coruscant your whole life, hiding your real nature, until you couldn’t.

At the same time, Din Djarin feels bad for literally taking you hostage. You were a free person, you could do whatever you wanted. But he had to take you to Mandalore, maybe you could understand the situation. And also know more about you, because he had an omen, that you weren’t a bad person.

__

He could have taken the space in front of you, but he decided to have you between his legs. 

“Keep an eye on her…” Din whispered to Grogu once they started hopping on the ship.

You ignore the Mandalorian all the way from jumping into hyperspace. But inside your head, your mind was on fire. 

He proved to be a strong warrior. His long legs secured your small figure, and the soft grazes against him were impossible to not notice. His strong grip against the controls of the ship. 

However, you tried to concentrate on the baby on your own legs. 

“I like your little armor, Grogu” you share after feeling the plate covering the Child’s chest. 

“My name is y/n”

 Din nearly stopped flying the ship. Analyzing your own name, y/n.

“How do you know his name?” You sighed.

“I can hear some of his thoughts…” Grogu cooed loudly, as you smiled and petted his ear. “He says your name is Din Djarin. Is that right?”

“It is. Mermaids are like the Jedi?” You giggle.

“Not quite. We were force sensitives, that is why the Jedi hunted and annihilated us” Din remains quiet, and he feels empathy, he went through the same. Grogu too. 

“Moon Jakaré was the home of the mermaids, right?” you nodded. Suddenly you don’t hate the Mandalorian anymore, and you like his kid. 

“That’s right. It happened to disappear decades before I was born” Din was very curious to know how you ended up wanted by the New Republic, but he wouldn’t push you far. 

“I didn’t grow up in Mandalore. I wasn’t even a Mandalorian when I was born” he shares a little bit of him. You understand how the child was with him. You like him a little more. 

“You have to know that I haven’t committed any crime. An imperial spy is after me because I discovered her dirty secret. She also wants to sell me to some hutt” Din sighs, feeling some urge to protect you. 

“I’ll propose to you something. Let me take you to Mandalore. And then I will help you to take down that spy. We’ll talk to Teva later. We’ll explain the situation” his low voice does something to you. You nod against his back. Trying to ignore every time his arm moves and brushes your tights. Grogu makes his way to sit on your legs, looking at the stars.

“Sounds fair. But why do I have to go to Mandalore?” You knew Mandalorians and mermaids had a long story, but they were myths, this was present, magic didn’t happen anymore. 

“If a Mandalorian finds a mermaid. It means good luck for Mandalore. It’s not a coincidence that this happened right after the retake” it made sense. Some Mandalorian had strong beliefs and traditions. And after analyzing it. It was better to be traveling with a Mandalorian rather than living with fear in Scarif.

“I’m sorry, for saying that you were ignorant and heartless. Now I see you are unlike other bounty hunters. You’re a good Mandalorian” he feels better, somehow he wanted some sort of approval for you. 

“That’s okay. You should rest, we’ll be in Mandalore soon” you nod. Unconsciously falling asleep on Din’s shoulder.

__

Mandalore was pure ruins. Yet, a strong aura was felt. 

As you walk along Din and Grogu, you look at your environment. Entering a dark cave, some Mandalorians stop you and the others.

“I need to see the Armorer and Bo-Katan” one of them nods, allowing you to continue. 

You start descending some rocks and broken stairs. Your boots are good, but it doesn’t stop you from tripping once in a while. But Din takes your hand, and you feel safer, holding onto his strong grip. 

The caves start to look like a city after walking for some minutes, showing how much had been advanced a month after the retake.

In the middle of what used to be an esplanade, a female Mandalorian is there. She wears a golden helmet, and a sophisticated piece of armor.

“For what is your sudden return, Din Djarin and Grogu?” The woman speaks clearly, then turns to look at you. “And who’s your outsider companion?”

“I found a sereia” the woman seems shocked, even with the helmet on. After hearing the name of the mermaids in Mando’a, she steps closer. Examining you.

“What’s your name?” She asks you. 

“…y/n” you say shyly, before she nods calmly.

“Nobody has seen one in a long time. If what you say it’s true, There’s only two places where a sereia will never hide its true form…” she explains seriously, only to add. “The waters of Moon Jakaré and the living waters beneath Mandalore”

Din and you exchange looks, he doesn’t want to cause a burden for you.. But, you nod at him, offering a sweet smile.

__

You don’t have to prove anything to them. But after hearing Din, you want to show everyone that he was the lucky one to find you. In exchange he would help you get rid of your problems. 

As you place your things in the ground. You can smell the waters. Under the cautious look of Din and the Armorer, you undress yourself at the edge of the ancient waters. 

It’s been a month since you turned, you knew that after this, your appearance would be more noticeable. However, you step inside. The water sending some shivers and a familiar vibration through your legs and stomach.

When half of you is inside, you start feeling the change. Thin skin spreads through your body like sweat, growing like tissues to give you a strong tail.

For Din’s horror, something drags you down. 

“y/n!” He yells before diving into the water behind you. 

As he submerged, his vision wasn’t very skilled. He avoided some rocks and pieces of demolished buildings. But after some seconds, he spots a big creature taking you down. 

A mythosaur is dragging you down. 

Din makes his way to you, and once you spot him, you indicate to him to stay away. But he doesn’t, he grabs your waist with one arm and starts pulling you up. Away from the giant animal. 

He knows you can breathe underwater, still, he wants to be as fast as possible. But with some seconds of struggle, he’s able to win and start ascending with you. 

He doesn’t even know he’s holding your hip, which is clammy, and full of scales at that point. Your tail is tangled around Din’s hips, and your arms are securely wrapped around his neck. 

When you make it back to the ground, he’s grunting loudly. The end of your tail is in the water, but all of you are outside.

That’s when Din is able to see you. 

Sparkling skin, smooth hair, pink lips. Your breasts look faded thanks to the scales that cover them. And it matches with your tail. In pink and salmon tones, which end in a bundle of scattered pieces of tail that look like ribbons and gracious tule. You’re divine.

“What was that?” Is the first thing you ask. He can’t believe what just happened. “A mythosaur”

“Let it be known that Mandalore has received a sereia in the dawn of this day” suddenly the armorer speaks. Making you turn away from Din to look away, noticing a bunch of Mandalorians looking at your direction. 

But Grogu flies in his pod to get closer.

“We’re fine, kid” Din lets him know. The kid is curiously looking at your tail, which makes you smile.

“You are our notice of a new awakening for Mandalore. And for that, you’re welcome to join us” the Armorer speaks to you. “Once you’re ready. Come, there’s much to talk about. This is the way”

“This is the way” everyone replies, including Din. 

“Are you okay?” You ask him. He nods.

“Yes, What about you?” You shrug, rolling to hold from your elbows, and shaking the end of your tail, you smile at Din.

“Just a little scratch” he looks, noticing some blood on the scales. “Thank you. For saving me…”

“And thank you, for letting me bring you here”

You know he must be smiling under the helmet. 

__

The Mandalorian named Koska offers you a blanket. Which you accept and thank her. 

The Armorer, Axe, Koska, Bo-Katan, Din and Grogu are the Mandalorians waiting to hear your story. 

At the moment, they only knew you were a fugitive of the New Republic and that you were Din’s bounty. 

“I was born in Coruscant some years after the Clone Wars. I’ve lived there my whole life. I’m the fourth mermaid of the family, one of each generation.” Din is next to you, which makes you feel better from receiving so much attention. 

“My great grandmother was a mermaid. Maybe she escaped from Moon Jakaré. But I was taught to hide it from society. And that’s how I made it. I worked as a senator's assistant. But, there’s spies among the New Republic personnel” when little Grogu asks for your attention, you put him out of his pod to place him in your lap. “Elia Kane is one of them. He provided information to Moff Gideon. Once I discovered her, she started looking for a weakness in me, so she found out I am a mermaid. " They  look concerned, maybe because Gideon was a potential enemy for them, but apparently he was gone. 

“How did you find out?” Axe asked. 

“Oh. Well, Kane liked using the mind flyer to hurt innocents, and she knew about remnants of the Empire. Which was weird because they were supposed to be secret. But I saw her directly talking with Gideon one night” they nodded, encouraging you to continue. 

“When I evacuated my family to Tatooine, Kane captured me. She was on her way to deliver me to some hutt she made a deal with. But I was lucky to escape. However, she accused me of treason with the New Republic, so now I’m wanted. So I found Scarif, and I started living there. Until Din found me…” you say smiling to him. Koska and Axe exchange looks, the Armorer and Bo-Katan keep analyzing your look, and Din is only appreciating you.

“Do you know that Kaled Vizla landed on Moon Jakaré centuries ago?. That the mermaids saved him from death?. That Mandalorians added them to millions of songs?. And that’s why a sereia translates to good omens” you nod.

“Yes. I knew…” you say firmly. “Mandalorians protected us from the Jedi after they started to hunt us” the Armorer nods, standing up to walk to a little forge, nothing compared to the giant one in the heart of the planet. She started pulling out some tools and equipment, capturing your attention.

“Sereia is… mermaid in Mando’a” all of them nod. Bo-Katan also stands and hands you a giant book, opened on an exact page. 

“My clan kept this for years. See? This is one of the original scriptures…” the books are old, brown pages with missing parts show mandalorians simulating a conversation with mermaids. 

“According to the scriptures of Kaled Vizla, the Mandalorian that encounters a mermaid, is the only one alive that can propose marriage to the mermaid” Koska explains, which sets your cheeks on fire. “And after listening to your situation, the New Republic won’t be an issue. We, Mandalorians can and will protect you from the Empire. But, dealing with a Hutt… we can only protect and argue in your favor if you are married to one of us” 

“She’s right…” the Armorer concludes with a wise tone. 

You analyze the situation. You knew that a Hutt was dangerous. Once they make a deal, they won’t rest till they get what they want. Then Elia Kane and the Empire. And the New Republic. 

“We don’t have to… I won’t force you. It’s your choice” Din whispers. You turn to look at him. 

The others notice the hesitation.

“We’ll let you discuss it…” Bo-Katan says, while everyone heads out. 

“As a Mandalorian, it would be an honor to take you as my riduur. I’m willing to confine you to my clan. To serve and protect you as a faithful husband.” Din wasn’t sure what was, but something was telling him to do it, to not oppose this. What he knew is that he liked you. He liked your dynamic with Grogu, your ability as a callous warrior, and he was attracted to know everything about you. 

“Will you ever try to love me?” You ask. Because you wanted love. You wanted to find your other half. Some who would take care and protect you. As you would do with him. 

“I would…” he whispers, he means it. 

“Then, as a wife; I can only offer you my heart, to love and cherish you. My smile, to brighten your days and soothe your nights. And my eyes, to look after you and that kid every day of my life.” You don’t know, but Din starts feeling in love after your honest words. 

“That’s more than enough, Cyar’ika” you blush, his hands take yours, and it feels safe, kind. 

“Acceptable then…” you sigh. You will marry him. It was even, and he was willing to love you some day. 

“I’ll wait outside…” you nod. Looking at your little bag, you grasp the bunch of shiny shells. One for each member of your little family. You would do it to be free. To come back to them. 

It didn’t matter, you would learn to love Din, and Grogu. 

When you go out, Din waits there, with his baby beside him.

He likes your new skirt, it’s pretty. Your shiny top, and old boots. With your attractive skin, perfect hair, you look amazing. An unusual bride. 

“You look… pretty” you lower your gaze, suddenly feeling shy. “Thank you…”

Grogu coos, and you know he’s saying the same as his father. 

“Well, thank you, little man. You always look adorable” he giggles as you gently brush his nose. 

—

The Armorer starts forging something. The sounds bring you unsteady memories, but soon it’s over.

“Ready to take the vows?” She asks. You nod, taking Din’s hands in the process. 

He tries to calm you by brushing your knuckles with his thumbs. 

“Begin…” although you’re unsure, Din loves how you have a good pronunciation of Mando’a, the way you look eager for the next words, how you keep getting close to him. It’s over in less than a second. Now you have a partner, who you met less than a day ago, you don’t know anything besides his name and a little about his adopted son. You don’t even know how he looks. Yet, you’re not sad, you’re eager to find out.

“Now, you’re y/n Djarin. Member of clan Djarin” She hands you a necklace. It’s pretty, you like it very much. “This is the way”

“This is the way” Din says, while you also dare to say those sacred four words. 

Thankfully, there’s no celebration. But everywhere you go, Mandalorians look at you. 

They give you a big tent, that inside looks like a house. You play with Grogu, while Din cleans his weapons in the light. Once the baby is asleep, you turn to the shiny armored man. 

“What’s the… creature?” You ask your now husband, pointing at the necklace that hung from your neck. He puts down his blaster to look at you. 

“A mudhorn. It’s from my clan, Grogu, me… and you” he likes your smile. You hold the necklace, lovingly. “It’s very pretty, Din…” 

“What were your expectations for this…” you smile, delirious.

“Ceremony with a view, which we had. A pretty dress, I’m okay with this…” you accept, holding your skirt. “My family being present…, but they’re safe, it's okay. And… a passionate consummation”

Din stops cleaning his blades, only to fix his visor on you. You blush, turning away.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t be ashamed, it’s part of a riduurok” he gently says, moving away from his weapons to sit closer to you.

“Yeah but-, I know it’s allowed, just- I don’t want to see your face until we… we know we are” he knows.

“In love?” He asks, and you nod. “Is it stupid?”

“No, riduur. It’s mature, and says a lot about you” you sigh relieved. “I could-, blindfold you?”

“Yeah. That would be good…” he guides you to the improvised bed. Once everything turns into darkness, it becomes a sensory game. You feel his bare hands brushing your chin.

“Can I-?…” you nod. “Yes, Din. Touch me.”

He kisses you, it’s delicate and soft. He must have facial hair. 

He starts traveling across your body, with sensual and loving touching. Your body fits him, like two broken beskar pieces reunited together. He loves the sights of the mudhorn dangling between the valley of your breasts. Your pretty mouth forming O’s and sobbing his name like a prayer. 

“My perfect sereia…” he grunts in the middle of the act. You feel showered with praise and high waves of pleasure. 

His grasp on your hips, where scales can barely be seen, it’s strong but fulfilling. His lips constantly danced with yours, and how deep he was inside you. 

You were full of him. Your riduur. 

“No one will ever hurt you again, Cyar’ika. I’ll be here to fight by your side” he promises near the end of his pleasure, as he chases his high. 

“I know. I already know…” you manage to say, before you go back to make a mess of moans, cries and the repetition of his name. He promises you a home, a family, security, and devotion as both of you let the pleasure take you.

“I think we were destined…” you say, panting, but smiling. You hear him chuckle, bringing you close to his chest. 

“Me too…” he replies. Drawing imaginary constellations in your naked back, you know so. You were destined to him. 

_________________________________________

What? Part 2 with more mermaid scenes?, fight with the hutt? misunderstanding in marriage? You tell me…

@miss-goldenweek

[spacemagicandlaserswords]

The Bad Batch: What's left from the trailer?

I wondered this earlier and then fell into a haze of going frame by frame through the trailer and screenshotting what I think hasn't appeared in season 3 of The Bad Batch so far, as of episode 6 and 7.

All of the shots to do with this scene of Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair escaping in the big truck thing (juggernaut?) and Phee flying in to save them.

Coruscant! Whose ship is that?

The Empire and the mystery clone assassin invading Pabu, which @gamelpar pointed out in this post.

Someone's hand pushing a handle forwards. Whose gauntlet is this?

More of the Empire and the mystery clone assassin on Pabu. Is this Tech. Or Cody? Either way, more pain 😭

Hunter pushing a handle down.

More of Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair escaping from the same scene at the start of the trailer.

There's a number of shots that I'm pretty sure we've seen, like this one. I think this was in episode one?

A very fast and blurry shot of what looks like a LAAT/i flying down in a tight spiral over a large body of water.

Fennec looking all badass in a bar somewhere.

Cad Bane and his hat.

This shot where Wrecker says the line "Give us a real challenge." The bridge structure in the holo in the bottom left looks similar to the bridge Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair drive over in the big truck thing when they're escaping in the shots from the start of the trailer. My guess is that this is a briefing about that mission.

Hunter being eaten by a space crocodile and Wrecker jumping in after him. What's interesting about this is that Fennec is there. She's on the boat in the bottom left of the second frame. That's a very distinctive helmet and coat.

That's the clone assassin's ship. I think we just saw this during episode 6?

Hunter squaring up to fight someone.

Wrecker also squaring up to fight someone.

This shot of Crosshair (or at least his Firepuncher), Hunter and Wrecker where Hunter says the line "We're not big on following orders."

Hunter leaping onto a LAAT/i and yeeting a stormtrooper out by his ankle.

Ventress! She's being shot at by blue blaster bolts here. Who's shooting those?

This shot that pans across Hunter and Wrecker aiming at someone, though they both lower their blasters slightly.

I find all this stuff rather interesting because there's so much going on in trailers and there are so many decisions being made. Disney has a habit of mainly including footage from the first half of a series in their trailers, which makes me wonder how soon we're going to see all of these shots.

It's also a good idea to take trailers with a large grain of salt as they're often full of misdirects and footage or audio that doesn't even appear in the show. This was really obvious in the Rogue One trailers but TBB trailer has done it already as well. @icantlivewithoutdreaming correctly pointed out in this post that Rex says "not with the Empire imprisoning the kid" at 0:35 in the trailer but the line he actually says in episode 7 is "Not with the Empire being after the kid." There's also shots that are flipped, like the one of Hunter and Wrecker at 0:52 where Hunter's tattoo is on the wrong side of his face, and the hero shot of Rex at 1:22, which was at the end of episode 7 when he's staring down Wolffe.

I've hit the max number of images in a post so I'll put a link my post about the short trailer/TV spot here when it's done. Edit: Here's the link to my post on the shots from the short trailer/TV spot that haven't appeared in TBB yet.

[the-scandalorian]

like a moth to the flame, part III

Pairing: monster!Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: E, 18+ Word Count: 10.8k Content Warnings: dark!Din, stalking, predatory/obsessive/possessive behavior, body horror/painful physical transformations, violence, gore, blood and hunting and monstery shit, verbal argument turned smut (finger fucking, cum eating, etc.), nightmares

DIN

The dreams started as soon as the kid left.

Angry vermilion dreams, fractured dreams—a flurry of images as sharp as shattered glass—played any time Din so much as dozed. He couldn’t make much sense of them, but the visuals seared into his mind. Pearly white incisors caught in thick, hot viscera. Rent flesh. Deeply gouged burns. The smell of scorched skin.

A war-ravaged planet. An empty gray-washed throne.

A pile of discarded Mandalorian helmets coated in ash.

As soon as they began, Din knew something was wrong with him. These weren’t normal nightmares, not like the quiet, melancholic blue of the dreams he’d always had about his parents, the ones that stayed tucked safely in his sleep. No, these…lingered. They slunk past the edges of his sleep to haunt his daylight hours. He’d wake up and taste blood on his tongue. All day, he ached in strange places: his shoulder blades, his teeth, his hands and feet, a spot behind each of his temples. Every one was a concentrated, bone-deep ache, like the growing pains he remembered vaguely from his teenage years.

The kid was gone, and something was wrong with him.

Din knew loss too intimately to mistake it for grief alone. He knew this was something else too. It was physical. He was ill. He told himself it needed to wait. He had to find the covert. Then, he could deal with whatever was happening to him.

So he put his head down and did what he does best: he hunted.

For two months, he searched. He took jobs for credits and jobs for information. Finally, finally, he tracked them down on Glavis.

He can still remember the fetid reek of the butcher where he went to find the final bounty, Kaba Baiz, the key to the covert’s location within that ringed maze of a city. Even through the filters on his helmet, the smell was an assault—raw flesh and congealed blood, singed bone and burnt marrow. All at once, it made him sick…and, to his own horror, ravenous. He should have been disgusted, but his mouth watered even as his stomach soured. Cold sweat beaded between his shoulder blades. He itched to peel off his armor.

He was most definitely ill.

The last thing he wanted was a fight. The last thing he needed was a fight. He wanted to take the bounty and leave, to find what remained of his covert and be still. But the Klatooinians closed in around him, and he knew he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

It was the first real fight he’d been in since the dreams had started, and it was…different. He was different.

One of the Klatooinians lunged forward and bit him. The pain was sharp, and as he tried to wrench his wrist out of their grasp, all Din could think about was how much he wanted to sink his teeth into something that bleeds. Behind his beskar, he bared his teeth.

It only devolved from there.

He slipped so far into the flow of the fight that it felt like a fever dream.

He didn’t make an active choice to reach for the saber. It just happened. His blaster had been knocked out of his grasp, and there were too many of them. The beskar spear was strapped to his back, but his hand fell to the saber’s hilt as naturally as it falls to his blaster; his finger flicked the activation as naturally as it finds a trigger.

He lifted the humming blade, and for one short moment, it had sung for him.

The saber slipped through living and dead flesh alike, rending breathing bodies and hanging animal corpses just the same. He felt good. He felt strong. He moved with an ease he hadn’t felt for years, not since he was younger, before he had a tight back and knees that cracked. He felt distant from himself, distant from the fight, as his body fell into a controlled sequence of moves.

Somewhere in the back of his fogged mind he finally asked himself why? Why was it suddenly easy?

Then the saber grew heavy in his hand, and he faltered.

He stabbed one of the Klatooinians straight through the gut, and when he wrenched it back, the flat of the saber sizzled and spat against the flesh of his own thigh. The searing pain pitched him into a red haze, and he dispatched the rest in short order. He cleaved through two, took a hail of blaster fire, and stabbed Kaba Baiz between the ribs with his vibroblade. He lifted his dead weight with one hand on the hilt, and Din knew he was different.

Without thinking, he took up the saber and sliced clean through the Klatooinian, even though he was already dead, and Din knew he was different.

*** He was half delirious with pain and exhaustion by the time he found the Armorer.

“What weapon caused such a wound?”

“Paz Viszla, bring it to me.”

The moment Paz touched the hilt of the saber, Din’s body went cold, every part of him snapping to high alert. His hackles raised.

He knew then there’d be a challenge. A duel.

Sure enough, after he’d given himself enough time to assess Din’s state and skill with the blade, Paz had thrown the gauntlet, and something reared in Din’s chest in response. Something eager. 

The fight passed in a blur of scarlet. Smoke encroached on the edges of Din’s vision as they grappled, and something outside himself took control. By the end of it, by the time he had Paz on his knees with a blade to his throat, Din was barely conscious. He felt far away in his own body.

He heard the Armorer’s dismissal faintly, an echo of words through his hollow ribcage.

“Then you are a Mandalorian no more.”

He could barely stand, let alone process the devastating reality of her words.

He doesn’t know how he made it back to the surface of Glavis and all the way to the public transport. He has no memory of stripping himself of his weapons, signing them over to a droid, and stumbling on board. He has no memory of upgrading to a private room.

He remembers the room, though.

By the time he got there, he knew he was going to be sick, his insides roiling and churning. As soon as the door closed and locked behind him, he ripped his helmet off and paced the tiny space, massaging his temples and willing himself to calm down. His blood pumped hot and furious through his veins as he replayed the duel, as he remembered the Armorer’s words. 

He felt trapped, pent-up and weighed down; he needed to be out of his beskar in a way he hadn’t felt since his first days of wearing armor—back when he was just a kid and the weight was stifling and restrictive and unfamiliar.

And then the real pain came. Like a fever, it took him.

He buckled to the floor of his private room, collapsing to his hands and knees, his thigh guards clattering against the durasteel floor. Against his better judgment, slouched pathetically on the ground, he peeled off each of his layers—his beskar, his soft underarmor, his flight suit. He stripped to his boxers and stretched out in a prone position, face turned to one side. The shock of the cold metal floor felt good on his feverish skin. Din lay there and counted.  

He lay there and tried to compose himself.

Over and over, he watched his hot, panted breath leave a temporary shadow of condensation on the gelid floor and dissipate. Spread and evaporate. Spread and evaporate.

Just when he thought he was starting to get control of himself, it felt as though two hot blades pierced his shoulders, and he reached back reflexively, rolling onto his side as he convulsed in agony, his spine curling and straightening. He shoved his clenched-white knuckles against his teeth to muffle his scream, and he felt something hard protruding from his back.

Paz must have followed.

He writhed and pitched.

The door was locked. The room was empty.

Nothing made sense.

I’m dying.

Two points of white-hot pain sprouted behind his temples, his vision going gray and bile rising in his throat.

Then, blissful darkness.

*** Things are good. Things are calm.

Din has fallen into a routine, a sustainable routine for the foreseeable future. It will get him through the time period between now and whenever you leave—whether that’s a few weeks or a couple months. And that’s all that matters.

He lets himself hunt once a week. He’s finally accepted that concession lends him more control. He’s less on edge after he allows himself to turn and feed. So, once a week, he sheds his armor and changes. It’s just enough freedom to quash the urge to go armor-less when he shouldn’t. Plus, he has a clear purpose for it now. He stalks through the forest, kills a beast, and reinforces his territory.

He’s picking off the pack one by one, just as he planned. They’re onto him now—they’re wary and hyper-vigilant. They move constantly, retreat higher and higher into the hills. They place scouts along their flanks. Din picks off the scouts.

First, it’s a gray female.

Next, a tawny male.

The third, its mate.

And so on.

He hunts. He keeps tabs on you from afar. He trains with the saber.

Yes, everything is good.

You haven’t sought him out again, not since the market. His rejection was enough, apparently. He’s relieved.

He’s miserable.

Truly, he’s sick with it, and his regret is showing up in all sorts of tangible ways. 

All the tiles of his shower, every single white square at his eye-level, where he leans his weight on a clawed hand once a week, are scored now. The deep lacerations don’t bother him anymore though. Each one is a mark on stone instead of flesh, a tally of his self-control.

He breaks things more often, when he’s changed and when he’s not. He feels like some kind of adolescent animal, just learning the limitations of his own strength. It’s ridiculous. He figures it’s the incompatible combination of his new strength, his burning frustration, and the age of the house.

He’s had to repair his headboard, the door frame to the bathroom, and two door knobs. He’s had to fully replace his front door, hinges and all. He came back from a particularly grisly hunt, pent up and brimming with violent energy, and pulled the thing clean off.

It’s been weeks since he’s talked to you. Summer has had enough time to wane into fall, but this unexpected penance he’s enduring for the way he treated you doesn’t seem to be going away.

*** The next time he goes out for a hunt—in the early evening because he can’t seem to make himself wait out the few hours until nightfall—Din can tell you’re out walking in the forest before he’s even a mile from you. The wind shifts, and he can smell you as if you’re standing right next to him.

He could turn for home. He could skirt you completely. He could follow you from a distance until you make it home safely. He could do anything that ensures you have no chance of seeing him like this.

He’s not in the condition to make a rational decision.

Din continues on the same path, until you’re so close that in full daylight you’d be able to see his towering shape moving beyond the lattice of low tree limbs, and he scales the largest tree he can find, pulling himself lithely up into its high branches.

He waits, silent and still, as you wander through the trees far below him. You look so tiny from up here, like something too insignificant to draw his attention on a hunt, the perfect prey for some creature that’s one rung lower on the food chain. 

Possessive longing embeds itself somewhere tender behind his ribs and tugs: You look like something that needs to be protected.

The little fawn is trailing behind you like an obedient duckling. She notices Din’s presence right away, her tiny head craning upward to find him in the murky gloom. She goes skittish and fragile when she sees him, blundering ahead of you on precarious legs.

You look after her with mild concern. “Where are you going?”

If you were to glance up too, you might be able to make out his hulking shape, crouched in the tangle of the canopy, but you wouldn’t be able to discern the details. You wouldn’t see his face. His silhouette would be obscured by the wide, swooping contours of his wings, all detail lost to shadow.

There’s a part of him that wants you to look up, a part of him that wants to leap down and block your path—to make you look at him like this. He needs to know what you’d do.

You’d scream.

And then what?

Would you freeze or fight or flee?

You’re not one to flee on instinct. You’re too smart to fight something more than twice your size. His credits are on freeze.

And when you stood there staring at him, how long would it take you to tear your gaze from his clawed hands and pointed wings and sharp teeth to meet his eyes? How long would it take you to look up from the threatening bulk of his body to his face? Would you put it together? Would you recognize the unzipped flightsuit tied loosely at his waist? 

Would you hate him?

He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of disgust reflected in your features. As hard as he’s tried to convince himself that it would be easier if you feared him, he despises the idea of you seeing him like this and being scared or repulsed.

It would be the final confirmation that he’s a monster.

You’re almost out of sight. You could still look up. All you’d see is a dark void—a space that swallows more light than any of the surrounding shadows.

You don’t look up, though; you wander on. You’re close enough to your home, headed back in that direction, that he’s not worried about you. He’ll be attending to the potential threats elsewhere anyways.

He jumps down when you’re a safe distance away, falling gracefully and with control, and the thick bed of pine needles muffles the thud of his landing. But he’s so heavy like this, so dense with muscle, that the forest floor vibrates just for a moment when his feet touch down.

Din turns for the hills, where he knows the pack is waiting. 

He thinks he’ll kill two tonight. 

When he returns home hours later—sweaty and fed and sticky with blood—he heads right for the shower, reaches for the knob, starts the hot water…and the metal snaps off in his hand. 

Fuck.

*** All the necessary repairs mean that Din is in town more often than he wants to be.

The next evening, fuming, he heads there for the replacement part for the shower. With the newly purchased knob slung in a bag over his shoulder, he starts for home. He’s skirting the main roads in town, sticking to the side streets and alleyways to avoid people, but Din pauses when you step out the door of the cantina. 

Alone.

No, not alone.

A quiet growl escapes the modulator when that boy that bothers you at the market comes stumbling out the door behind you, tripping over his own feet as he calls your name. Din has noticed every time this boy lingers too long by your stall on Saturdays. You always have the same vague, disinterested smile plastered on your face until he leaves. He annoys you, and that annoys Din.

Din waits in the shadow of the alley, out of sight, to ensure this boy doesn’t do anything more than annoy you.

The urge to protect you isn’t a want for him anymore. It’s a physical imperative.

“Wait, wait up,” the boy pants when you turn at the sound of your name. “Let me walk you home.”

You turn and give him a pacifying smile. “I’m good, Terek.” You wave him off amiably and keep walking.

Terek follows.

Din starts forward as soon as Terek reaches for you. He covers the short distance in a few strides, coming up behind both of you. Neither of you hears his approach.

“Don’t,” Din says, his voice low and threatening, just as Terek grasps your wrist.

You and Terek freeze and whip your heads around, surprise apparent on your faces. When you both register Din’s presence, Terek’s surprise melts into fear, yours into…disappointment?

That stings.

In an attempt at chivalry, Terek hesitates for a moment then steps all the way in front of you, putting his body squarely between yours and Din’s, swallowing audibly as he looks up at his visor.

Din sighs.

“What do you want?”

“Release her.”

Terek splutters for a moment, trying and failing to form a sentence that expresses his utter disbelief, but you save him the trouble by wrenching your hand from his and stepping away.

“I’m fine,” you say to no one in particular. Then, to Terek, “Go home.”

“I’m not leaving you with him,” he says, disgusted, eyeing Din warily.

“I’m fine,” you reassure him, adding, “Just go,” when he hesitates.

Terek leaves, his pride sufficiently wounded by the dismissal. He mutters under his breath as he does, disappearing around a corner. Then it’s just you and Din.

You look up at him for a moment then turn abruptly on your heel and stalk away.

You waited to be alone with him just so you could leave first. The pettiness of it almost amuses him.

You’re upset with him. Hurt. For good reason. He doesn’t blame you, and as much as he should be thrilled that you want nothing to do with him, he’s suddenly desperate to fix it. Now that you’re standing in front of him again, he can’t help himself.

“Wait,” he says, following you instinctively. “Let me walk with you.”

As soon as he says it, he regrets it. He sounds just like Terek, who obviously annoys the shit out of you. Sure enough, you reject the offer. 

“No,” you reply, tossing the word carelessly over your shoulder.

Din watches you walk away, disappointment coiling in his chest like thick smoke.

He makes an impulsive decision, overtaking you in a few strides, turning around in front of you to force you to stop walking. “Please.”

You’re surprised, caught off guard by his plea, but you recover quickly. You deliberate for one painful, infinite moment.

“Alright,” you say, your expression softening. “Come on.”

He’s so relieved he sighs audibly. He’s so relieved he doesn’t even let himself think about what a bad idea this is—how it’s going to completely erase the progress he’s made in keeping you away from him. He shoves those thoughts aside and falls into step beside you. 

Din looks down at the reluctant smile pulling at your lips, and he smiles behind the helmet.

In that moment, everything changes. His resolve evaporates. Nothing about this could be wrong, he decides. It feels too good. Even more importantly, you look happy. 

That means he’s doing something right.

YOU

Summer gifts you a final handful of warm days as fall pushes in.

Your weekly harvest shifts from the best of the summer fruits and vegetables to what fall has to offer—pears and apples, squashes and pumpkins, leafy greens and broccoli crowns. A chill slips in at night, first a light breeze, then more insistent until it’s enough to necessitate shut windows and drawn curtains.

In the forest, the deciduous trees are just starting to turn. The tart greens of summer have waned to a muted olive in the heat and the drought, and they’re beginning to give way to the first golden hues of autumn, heralding the oncoming winter months. It’s your stark annual reminder of the transience of the growing season. In a few months, the weekly market will all but close, reduced to a handful of stalls selling preserved and prepared foods. Your part in it will be over for the year. 

You’re even more relieved than usual. You’ll miss the finer weather, of course, but not the work. Or the weekly slog to the market…and the constant reminder of the Mandalorian’s rejection.

The memory tastes like sweet cherry gone sour on your tongue.

You try not to think about it—how stupid you made yourself look, flirting with him when he wasn’t interested. Pursuing him outright and cajoling him to come to your stall when he’d made the choice to avoid you. You’d made some bold moves, and they hadn’t paid off. No, they’d backfired rather spectacularly. 

You’re grateful that the Mandalorian’s constant radius of solitude—the area around him that his intimidation keeps clear—means that no one else witnessed the whole embarrassing scene up close. A small blessing.

The last Saturday markets of the season pass without event. Just like the previous handful, Mando walks by. You see him coming and avoid his gaze; you avoid looking at him altogether in fact—you don’t even sneak a sidelong glance to see if he’s willing to spare you a nod. You don’t want to know.

You both act the part of the strangers you are. Whatever nascent thing flickered between you for a moment has been snuffed out completely.

You pack up your kiosk and head home from that final Saturday, knowing it’s time to get to work on the necessary preparations for winter: some repairs, the work in the orchards and gardens, tending to the chickens. The final push feels extra hard this year.

You’ve never been more ready to leave this planet. 

So naturally, when you head into town a few days later to check on the progress of your ship, you find out that the last few parts are back-ordered. Everything slows down here when the first chilly winds start to pick up the fallen leaves—everything. People hunker down preemptively, incoming shipments of all goods slowing to a trickle. It doesn’t help that your ship is an old model, out of production. It already takes extra time to find the right parts.

The mechanic estimates an early spring completion date.

You’ll have to wait out the cold months patiently. Knowing he’s still out there. A small comfort is that you probably won’t see him at all now that you won’t spend hours at the one place you reliably crossed paths. Maybe you’ll pass each other when you’re visiting the tiny winter market briefly for necessities. Likely not, though, when you know exactly the time he shows up and therefore just how to avoid him.

You wish he’d leave the planet entirely so you could stop thinking about him.

No, you wish he’d seek you out. Just so you could reject him.

Who are you kidding? That’s not how that would go. 

What you really want is for him to seek you out, explain that the whole thing was some kind of misunderstanding, whip his helmet off to reveal his handsome face, and kiss you full on the mouth.

It’ll probably happen. Any second.

*** Right away, you’re proven wrong. It’s not so easy to avoid him. But you don’t run into him at the market—no, you’re in town, coming out of the cantina, when you see him next.

A slightly drunk Terek is trying to talk you into letting him walk you home, and the Mandalorian appears out of nowhere.

Again, the absurd idea that he follows you seems not entirely improbable.

“Release her.”

The protective tone of Mando’s voice makes your stomach clench. Terek is perfectly harmless. You’ve dealt with him for years, and he’s never done more than offer his company, sometimes too insistently. Some deep, vicious part of you wants him to get uncharacteristically angry and brave right now—to escalate the situation by refusing to let you go.

You want to see how effortlessly Mando would put him down. 

Fuck, what is wrong with you?

The man does things to your head. 

You pull your hand out of Terek’s loose, sweaty grasp and step away. He protests when you tell him to leave, but eventually, reluctantly, he listens. And then it’s just you and the Mandalorian. As you wanted.

He got protective over you, and your curiosity is unyielding. You have to know how this is going to play out.

He stands there like a metal statue and says nothing.

So you turn and walk away.

“Wait,” he says belatedly, his footsteps picking up behind you. “Let me walk with you.”

It’s embarrassing how easily the request makes your irritation disappear. The reality of just how much his attention means to you cinches uncomfortably in your gut. You remember your last encounter, and the combination makes you defensive.

So you say the opposite of what you really want, an ugly satisfaction settling in your chest: “No.”

He rounds on you. “Please.”

He sounds well and truly fraught—even though the modulator, the sharp emotion comes through.

The Mandalorian seems to be someone else entirely tonight: you think he’s the man you’ve glimpsed behind the armor, sweet and real, the one he usually tries to keep hidden. It’s intoxicating.

“Alright,” you say, relieved. “Come on.”

He falls into place beside you quickly, a little eagerly.

You pass the entrance to town, and the wind whistles through the dry leaves in the forest, tugging the last few hold-outs from their branches to join the rest. They skitter across the hard-packed dirt road.

As much as you’d rather avoid the topic altogether, it feels necessary to address the awkwardness between you before diving into anything else. It doesn’t feel so daunting at this moment. His energy tonight has changed the dynamic completely. 

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable that day at the market. I didn’t mean—”

He surprises you by stopping abruptly in his tracks and turning toward you. You pause too. He extends a hand like he wants to reach for yours then decides better of it and lets it drop.

“I was rude,” he says. “I’m sorry, it had nothing to do with you.”

You scrunch your nose. That doesn’t seem true. “Really? It seemed like—”

“Forgive me.”

It has the quiet desperation of a plea, and he says it with so much sincerity that you don’t feel any qualms about agreeing.

“Of course,” you say. “It’s forgotten.”

He nods once, decisively, then turns to keep walking. Apparently, the matter is settled. You let him change the subject when he tries.

“How’s the progress on your ship?” he asks.

You let out an annoyed huff. “Delayed. Again.”

You explain the specifics to him.

It feels like a gift to be alone with him for this long, to finally have an uninterrupted, prolonged, one-on-one conversation. You’re learning so much about him, his quirks, already. He has a way of keeping you talking without saying anything. He gives you a look, cocks his helmet, hums. Not talkative but not aloof. He wants you to keep talking, and he communicates that openly.

You like it—like learning him—and at the same time, you can’t help but want to wheedle more out of him. You want the man behind the mask, all of him. You tell yourself to settle for this. This is easy. This is comfortable. You’ll give him time. You’ll let him unravel you a little before you start in on him.

So for now, he goads; you answer.

Ten or so minutes pass like that.

“So, it looks like I’m stuck here through the winter,” you conclude. 

That fact is starting to feel less bleak by the minute.

“Yeah?”

Either there’s a faint glimmer of potential in his question or you want it to be there so badly you’re projecting. It feels real, though—real enough to press a little.

“What about you, Mando? How long are you here for?”

“Still deciding.”

“And what’s informing that decision?”

He looks you over for a long moment. Leaves crunch under his boots, and you feel exposed under his naked attention. 

“Several…factors,” he says finally, perfectly cryptic.

You roll your eyes at him playfully, prompting him to expand with an open hand. 

“I’ll…be here through the winter too.”

It feels like he’s just deciding right now. And you want to believe that—that your timeline is somehow, improbable as it is, affecting his. 

You can’t help but smile at him. “Good.”

You walk in companionable silence for a few minutes—until something howls mournfully into the night.

“You walk this alone at night?” he asks. There’s concern there.

You shrug. “I’ve lived here all my life—long enough that I know what to expect, long enough that nothing on this planet really scares me anymore. I know how to deal with it.”

A grunt of acknowledgement, then he goes thoughtfully quiet.

You’ve reached the turn-off for your house. You expect him to leave you here. He doesn’t. He walks with you all the way down the path, all the way to the stairs that lead up to your front porch.

You turn to him, he turns to you, and you’re painfully aware that in any other situation, walking home with someone you’re interested in might culminate in a kiss. If you wanted it to.

You look up, meeting his visor, feeling shy under his gaze again. “Thanks for walking with me.”

He nods and reaches into a pouch on his belt, fishing out something small. He hands it to you. “In case.”

You look down at the little silver device, closing your fingers around it. A com. A direct link to him, given freely. You’re surprised. And pleased. “I—thank you.”

“Use it if you need it.”

“I will.”

“...if you want to,” he amends, a little hesitantly.

“I definitely will.”

He bids you goodnight with a final nod, but he waits to leave until you let yourself in your front door and lock it behind you.

From the window, you watch him go, watch him turn and melt into the syrupy darkness like he’s always been part of it.

*** The next day, you’re buoyed by the hope of last night’s conversation. He was friendly. He wanted to spend time with you. He was protective. You float through your work mindlessly, daydreaming. 

The little silver com feels heavy and significant in your skirt pocket.

The air smells earthy, and there’s a chilly bite to the morning breeze. Luna follows you as per usual, moseying behind as you graduate from one task to the next. Her ankle is fully healed. She wanders in your vicinity, searching out the best food sources without leaving your sight. 

You replay your conversation with Mando—the questions, the interest, the amiable silence—while you work. 

You pause in the middle of pruning an apple tree, clippers poised over a branch to be cut: you might actually be friends with the Mandalorian.

Of course, what you really want is to be fucked raw by the Mandalorian every day. But being friends is probably a good first step.

When you’re done in the orchard, you move the chickens from their outdoor enclosure inside, counting each feathery butt as they titter their way through the door of the barn. The last one meanders away, pecking at the ground in search of bugs, and you have to herd her back toward the waiting warmth. 

“Come on, silly.”

You usher her inside, check the feed levels, and latch the door behind them. All accounted for. You haven’t lost a chicken in months. 

It’s odd, honestly.

It’s usually a constant battle to keep them from being picked off. You always factor in an expected loss each year. But for the past few months, you haven’t lost a single one, haven’t seen a single offending footprint of a predator—large or small—anywhere on your land. Even the rats have stopped coming for the eggs.

It makes you curious.

You venture into the forest early that evening, slipping under the patchwork of fall colors: amber and olive and burnt orange. Luna follows close at your heel. You’re not sure what you’re looking for until you find it.

A ways into the forest, quite far from the edge of your clearing, you come across a large tree, its trunk wide and thick, and the bark is shredded. It’s cut with long, deep lacerations. And lying at its base is a sizable ladder of vertebrae. Mammalian. Something big. The bones have been picked clean, left almost pristine by the elements and hungry critters.

You’ve never seen something like this so close to your house.

And you haven’t seen any live predators lately. You’ve heard them, far off.  It doesn’t make sense.

You circle the trunk and notice a little way off, there is another tree just like this one—ribboned bark, an offering of bones gathered at its foot. And then, from that tree, you spot another. There’s a series of them, one after another. You follow one to the next, marked tree to marked tree, and find that they form a massive ring around your property. 

A halo of slashed trees hemming you in. 

You can tell they’ve each been marked repeatedly, newer lacerations scored across older ones, newer kills piled atop older ones. There are scattered bones everywhere—husks of shattered skulls and splintered femurs, the pristine skeletal structure of a paw as big as your hand. Some are stripped, but decaying muscle and flesh still cling to others.

Dread has dropped into your stomach like a stone, growing heavier by the minute. Something is…stalking you?

Has been stalking you.

For weeks. Maybe months.

Something that’s large enough to kill the largest predator on this planet.

Something new.

Someone new.

You know.

You’re almost back to where you started; you’ve almost completed the full circuit when you find one spot that’s more disturbing than the rest. The kill that sits at the base of this tree looks fresh, maybe a day or two old. It hasn’t rotted yet, and you can smell the coppery tang of dried blood. You can see it too, dripped like black ink across dead, curled oak leaves.

There’s something else in the air too—something strong and alluring—

You turn abruptly when you realize you haven’t heard the quiet crunch of Luna’s steps in a minute, haven’t felt the gentle press of her nose and the warm chuff of air when she exhales against your leg. Your tiny companion is several steps behind you, completely stricken. She looks as terrified as the day you took her home—trembling legs splayed, eyes huge, ears alert.

She is not pleased with the grisly scene. For good reason.

You scan the area, listening intently. There’s no movement, no immediate threat you can discern. You know this kill is abandoned.

But you’re not going to subject Luna to this fear. You scoop her up, trudge back through the forest to bring her home, and put her inside. And then you head back to the spot.

Something aside from the macabre mystery of it all brings you back.

The smell of blood is overpowering, but there’s that other scent lingering on the still forest air, something warm and pungent and vaguely familiar. You can’t put your finger on what it is, but it smells good. Mouthwateringly good. Not like fresh baked bread, not something benign like a food or flower or early morning. 

It’s something overtly sexual, something personal.

You can’t remember ever being this attracted to a scent, but it conjures images of intense coupling. It smells like tangled limbs, like burying your face against the hollow of a sweaty throat. Like skimming the tip of your nose up the inside of a thigh. Like having two thick fingers thrust into your mouth, pressing in, pressing down on the wet muscle of your tongue until you choke. Like those same spit-wet fingers slipping out of your mouth, streaking a glistening trail down your chin, and closing around your throat.

It’s leather and sex and smoke and salt and…so many more unnameable things.

It has you wet between your legs.

It has you following a faint trail of dripped blood and remnants of dismembered carcasses across the pine-needle strewn ground—a path that leads away from your property. You wander from one trace to the next, a little dazed, searching the forest floor for more signs of the violence that took place here.

Every step you take has you moving a little faster, until you’re all but running through the maze of tree trunks.

You pass cracked ribs, stripped almost completely clean.

The smell is getting stronger, more magnetic. You barely have to seek out the trail of the blood and scattered viscera to find your way; the smell itself is enough. It keeps you on track.

You know it’s crazy. But you need answers.

Halfway there, you’re sure of where the path leads. There’s nothing else this far in the forest. You know who will be waiting at the end of it.

You step over the sharp angle of a jaw bone, shiny teeth lined up like snow-covered mountain peaks.

No wonder the nights have been loud with desolate howling.

You’re vaguely aware that dusk is gathering quickly, spun like silk between the tightly packed trees. It’s dangerous to be out this late, in this part of the forest, in the dark.

You keep moving, fingers clutched tightly around the com in your pocket.

*** The Mandalorian is waiting for you.

He’s standing comfortably, leaning against a tree, as if he’s been expecting you for some time, like he’s known you’ve been on your way. His house lurks somewhere in the blue mist behind him.

How could he possibly have known?

When he straightens, his body language is stiff. Something is off.

He greets you with a gruff, “You shouldn’t be out here.”

You hesitate. “What—why?”

“It isn’t safe.”

“It’s not—”

“Don’t come here again.”

The contrast to how he spoke to you last night is jarring. You’re speechless for a second. He turns on his heel and starts to walk away. He’s gone mercurial on you again—retreated fully behind his armor.

You find your voice before he’s disappeared between the trees. “I told you—I’m not afraid of anything on this planet.”

He stops in his tracks and turns slowly to face you, his silver armor glinting dully in the gloom. 

“I know,” he says, “but you should be.”

You bristle. “Why are you acting this way? Yesterday—just yesterday you gave me a com link.” You pull the thing out of your pocket and hold it up. “And told me to use it. You wanted me to.”

“That…was a mistake.”

“Don’t say that. It wasn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have been so familiar. It won’t happen again.”

He turns and is almost completely lost to darkness, the looming outline of his roof just barely visible beyond the trees.

“Why is there a trail of carcasses leading from my house to yours?”

He stops in his tracks. Silent.

“You owe me an explanation,” you press. “I’m not leaving until I get it.”

He stands there for a long moment.

“Come in,” he growls finally, jerking his helmet toward his front door.

You follow him inside. The house is old but beautiful—hardwood floors and sky blue walls. It’s clean and uncluttered, just as you expect his space to be. He nods toward his kitchen table, offering you a chair, and leans against his kitchen counter, thumbs tucked into his belt.  

“Explain the bodies.”

He’s not looking at you. He chooses his words carefully. “They…were a threat.”

“They were a threat…?”

“So I eliminated them,” he says simply.

Eliminated feels like a generous euphemism for the way the beasts were obliterated, ripped to shreds and scattered. To be honest, though, you’re less concerned with the details than you should be. You care more about the reason. You want to hear him say it. 

“Why?”

“I’m a hunter. It’s what I do.”

“There was a bounty on those creatures?”

He tilts his helmet in a way that feels like an eye-roll.

“They weren’t bothering anyone,” you say. “It wasn’t necessary.”

“They were stalking you.”

The lake. The fight. Here it is, finally: the truth. You’re going to have to drag it out of him.

“And how do you know that?”

He tips his helmet up, his visor finally meeting your eyes, but he says nothing.

“You’ve been following me.”

Again, nothing. He fixes his gaze downward again.

“Why, Mando?” you prompt, some mixture of dread and desire pulsing through your veins. “Tell me. You owe me that.”

“You know,” he says quietly.

Your heartrate kicks up. “I know what?”

He says it begrudgingly, like it’s an ugly reality: “That I want you.”

You laugh. He can’t be fucking serious. “How would I know that? Should I have guessed when you stopped talking to me? Or when you refused to look at me? How could I possibly have known when you can’t seem to decide whether to let me in or push me away?”

“You’ve known,” he says, addressing none of your questions. “You flirted with me.”

“I did,” you admit. “But that had more to do with my feelings than anything I assumed about yours. I didn’t know what you were feeling. I just knew what I wanted.”

“Mmm.”

You’re going to kill him if he doesn’t start giving you more than monosyllables.

“If you want me, why do you keep pushing me away?”

He rolls his helmet to the side, annoyed. As if he has any right to be annoyed. You can hear how tightly his jaw is clenched when he speaks. “Because I can’t have you.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one who gets to decide that?”

“Not in this case.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Fine. Explain it to me.” You make a show of settling back in your chair. “We have all the time in the world.”

He bunches his shoulders, rubs a heavy hand down the back of his neck, uneasy. “You’ll get hurt.”

“What does that even mean? How would I get hurt?”

He ignores that, deflecting. “This isn’t your decision to make,” he spits. “It’s mine.”

“That’s insane—we both want the same thing—”

“I won’t let you get hurt.” His voice is low, his visor pointed at his boots—almost as if he’s talking to himself, trying to convince himself.

You stand, frustrated, your chair squeaking on the hardwood floor when you shove it backwards. “Why would I get hurt, Mando—how? What are you going to do? Or is it me you’re worried about? Is this how you really think of me? As something fragile? Do you just think I’m that fucking weak?”

He breaks.

The sound he makes is brutal and anguished, a dull roar, and you can’t help but flinch when he slams his fist against the counter behind him. The windows shake with the impact. He laughs when you flinch, something low and dark rumbling through his chest, a sound tinged with vindication.

“Good,” he says. “I said you should be scared.”

“That sound startled me,” you say, rolling your eyes. “It doesn’t mean I’m scared of you.”

He moves like a gunshot. 

He shoves your empty chair away, and his massive metal frame forces you backwards with faltering steps. You stop when your back hits the wall, looking up at his visor defiantly. He’s trying to provoke you, to orchestrate a situation that forces you to push him away, that justifies his own worry. 

“What will it take?”

He gets so close that his chest brushes yours, so close that you can feel the cold metal of his armor through your clothes. He looms over you, dropping his helmet toward your ear.

“Hmm?” he prompts. “What will it take to convince you?”

“Of what?”

“To leave this—leave me—alone.”

You open and close your mouth, at a loss for words, overwhelmed by his closeness.

He dips his head again, his helmet nudging your temple, his voice pitching low and dangerous. “You want me to hurt you?”

“You won’t hurt me.” You say it so quickly, with such conviction that it surprises even you.

Mando lets out a quiet sound like a wounded animal and looks away, his visor fixed on the ground as his chest heaves in deep breaths. You’re about to speak again when he looks up and cradles your cheek in his gloved hand.

He’s gentle suddenly. Reverent.

“You’re right, sweet thing. I won’t hurt you. Not on purpose.”

“See?”

“Not on purpose,” he repeats, the words heavy with significance.

“I trust you.”

You reach for his helmet with a tentative hand, waiting for him to stop you—fully expecting it. He doesn’t. You trace the sharp relief with light fingers, running them down what would be his cheek.

“I want you. Let me want you.”

A low growl rumbles through his chest, but this one is different from the others. This one sounds pleased. You’ll take it.

You tuck two fingers into the soft leather of his belt and tug his hips forward those last few inches, guiding him close until his whole body is flush to yours, until you’re caught between his unyielding metal and the wall.

You let your hands wander to the spaces between his armor, let them run up his sides, let one slip under the layered fabric at his neck. Your fingertips find warm skin, and you sigh at the feeling.

He’s real. He’s here. He’s not moving away. 

He’s leaning into your touch, his breath coming thick and fast through the modulator. His hands, though, are hovering by your hips, uncertain.

“Touch me,” you beg, grabbing them and moving them to your sides. 

His fingers tighten against your middle, and he presses the solid length of his body harder against yours. He’s half hard against your hip.

“Please.”

He’s considering. He’s drawing out the longest moment of your life.

You can feel the moment he decides to give in, to let himself have what you both want so badly. He sighs and curls himself around you, dropping his helmet toward your shoulder, slipping his arms around your waist to hold you tight.

It’s achingly tender. Intimate in a way you weren’t expecting.

You breathe together.

And just as suddenly, everything shifts again. He pulls back and fixes you with a hard look. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure. Just—please—”

His fingers follow the line of your jaw, his thumb settling on your lower lip. At the merest hint of pressure, you open your mouth.

“Bite,” he whispers, pushing just the tip of his thumb past your lips.

You graze your teeth lightly over his fingertip, catching the seam. The potent taste of leather and blaster residue invades your mouth, sitting heavy like ash on your tongue. You want to taste his skin, not his glove.

You’re desperate to know what sound he’d make if you wrapped your lips around his bare thumb and sucked. But before you have the chance, he eases his hand out of his glove—revealing golden brown skin—and drops it to your side, squeezing your hip so hard it makes you gasp. The leather slaps quietly against the floor when your jaw falls open. He yanks his other hand free and lets that glove fall too.

Your hand slips down his chest plate, skates over his belt, to settle over—

His bare hand covers yours, clamping it in place over his cold metal buckle.

“No.”

You look up at him. “What—?”

“No,” he repeats.

“Why—?”

“Are you sure you want this?” he asks again. “Are you sure you want me to touch you?”

“Yes,” you gasp. “But why can’t—?”

Before you can finish your question, Mando is spinning you around and ushering you backward toward the table. When the edge nudges your back, he turns you again, pushing your shoulders down until you fold forward over the oak top. 

He arranges you to his liking: a boot kicks your feet wider, and rough hands grip your hips to shift them backward so he has enough space to work open the button on your skirt, shove it down, and let it pool at your feet. He takes your underwear with it. 

Your gasp melts into a moan when he fits himself behind you, bent over you with his hips bracketing yours, and drags his warm, dry hands up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You can feel him through his clothes—his cock is hard against the small of your back—and you’re on fire with the thought of trying to fit him inside you.

You’d take it. You want that burn.

But he doesn’t reach for his belt. He stays like that, folded over you, the edge of his helmet sharp on the back of your shoulder, and slides one hand further up into the v of your legs. He grunts and presses his hips harder against your ass at the first feeling of your wet heat on his fingers as he parts you. 

The pad of his finger finds your clit and skims it, applying barely any pressure. Teasing.

He speaks softly, his helmet close to your ear. “Is this what you wanted? Is this what you needed?”

You push your hips back against him, seeking. “Please, Mando—I need—”

“You’ll take what I give you, pretty thing. And you won’t ask for more.”

He goes torturously slow, clearly unconcerned with your urgent need. He’s enjoying the build-up, you think, enjoying feeling you squirm against him. He lets you whine for a couple minutes while he plays with you as he pleases. Until finally, he decides to give you the pressure you need, two fingers rocking gently against your clit, his other hand dipping lower.

Out of all the things that have happened tonight—all the weird, improbable shit—what shocks you the most is this: Mando can be a talker. As soon as he sinks two fingers into the warmth of your pussy, he starts to run his mouth. And he doesn’t stop.

In his sinful voice, he tells you how much he’s wanted this, how good you feel around his fingers.

He groans deep. “I’ve thought about this tight little cunt every night for months.”

With both his hands between your legs and a steady stream of filth murmured in your ear, he takes you apart in minutes. He pauses only to rip your shirt over your head, palming your breasts with a quiet oh fuck, and then resumes.

“I’ve imagined the sounds you’d make—the way you’d cry for me when I make you come.”

He fucks you with two thick fingers, stretching you open in a way that’s making your arousal seep down his palm.

“Fuck, you’re even wetter than I thought you’d be—hngg—you’re dripping on me.”

He flicks your clit with his other hand, a little mean, then soothes the sting with just the right touch, the right rhythm. You come like that, spasming around his fingers, and he growls when he feels it. 

“Oh fuck, come for me, just like that.”

He pulls his hands away too quickly.

“Let me—just let me—”

He guides you into a new position with gentle but hurried movements. There’s a frantic air to them that has you obeying without a second thought. He draws your shoulders up and spins you around; his hands slide down your back and over the curve of your ass, gripping the backs of your thighs to lift you onto the edge of the table.

He presses you backwards until you lie flat for him, and he parts your knees and slides his palms up the insides of your thighs, forcing your legs apart so you’re completely spread for him. You don’t have time to be startled by the depravity of it because he does something you’re not expecting. He drops to his knees with a clank of beskar and lets his helmet fall forward into the v of your thighs.

You gasp at the cold shock of metal, flinching away instinctively, but his hands curl around your thighs and keep you in place.

He presses the front of his helmet against your sex.

There’s no way he can see anything at all with his visor shoved up against your skin, no way there’s enough light to make out the details of your cunt.

Then you realize, he’s smelling you. His fingers are digging into your thighs as he tries to drag you closer to his face—as if he could drag you any closer when you’re already pressed up tight against him, as if he could pull you straight through the mask of beskar if he tries hard enough.

He’s making sharp, animalistic sounds: growls and huffs and desperate inhalations.

You watch in fascination as his shoulder starts to shift and roll, the dim light glinting on his pauldron, and you push yourself up onto your elbows and drop your head to one side to discover he’s palming himself over his pants where he’s kneeling, rubbing the erection straining against his zipper.

He’s touching himself to the smell of you.

It makes you desperate to touch him. You reach for him.

“Mando, please.”

He lets you pull him up, but when you go for his belt, he swats your hand away. Instead, he grips your thighs and yanks you further down the table; you slide easily over the wooden surface until the solid weight of his body stops you—until you can feel the hard bulge of his clothed erection against your core. You must be leaving a gloss of slick arousal on the front of his pants, but something tells you he likes that.

His hands cup your breasts, run roughly down your stomach, and pause at your hips. His helmet snaps up to your face.

“Can I taste you?”

You don’t even know what he means—don’t know how that will be possible with the impediment of the helmet—but you truly don’t care. You’d let him do anything he wants to you. 

“Yes.”

Mando slips a hand between your bodies and teases you open again, easing his fingers inside where you’re hot and leaking for him. He gives them a few leisurely pumps, curling them against you in a way that makes sparks skitter up your spine. And then he pulls them back.

He shoves his hand under the lip of his helmet and lets out the filthiest groan yet, his head tipping back in bliss as he sucks your taste off his fingers.

You brace yourself on your elbows to watch. It’s a deeply erotic sight. It makes you throb for him.

You’re about to reach for him again, to pull his body down over yours when he steps back and suddenly looks…disoriented. Caught off guard. His hands hang loosely by his sides, like he’s… waiting. Something foreign wracks through him—a shiver, no, more violent than that. A tremor shakes his body; he jerks his head to the side sharply and pulls his shoulders up tight, tensing, resisting something. It passes in a moment, and when it does, he leans his weight on slightly bent knees, catching his breath as if he just sprinted up a hill.

What the—?

“Are you alright?”

He shakes his head in a quick jerk. “I’m fine.”

He brushes past it as if nothing unusual has happened.

You don’t have time to question it because he takes his place between your knees again and leans over you, bracing a forearm above your head, the side of his smooth helmet sliding against your cheek. His fingers are still wet with his spit when he slides them home. He presses in close, and you can see the evidence of your slick smeared across his usually pristine visor. You can smell yourself on his helmet.

And you like it, like seeing him undone for you. By you.

He knows it’s there. You’re sure he can see the hazy smudge that extends across the vertical line of his visor.

“Fuck,” he says, breathless, resting his forehead lightly against yours, his hand moving between your tense thighs, “taste it.”

It takes you a moment to understand. His fingers press deeper, the feeling of him curling and stroking radiates outward.

“Lick yourself off my helmet.”

You don’t even think about it. Your mouth falls open obediently, and you drag the flat of your tongue up the glass, cutting through the taste of your own arousal.

He loves it. He lives for it.

You’re not sure if it’s the fact that you’ve just shown him you’re wiling to do whatever he says, without question; or if it’s the idea of you tasting yourself; or if it’s the filthy visual he must have of your mouth, up close and personal—maybe the closest thing he will ever get to a kiss; or if it’s something else entirely.

Whatever the reason, he likes it.

He mutters a string of praise so panted and broken that you can’t follow it. It somehow manages to communicate his meaning even better than if it were intelligible.

Mando shifts the arm braced above your head lower so he can press the pads of two fingers against your lip, a question.

Just what you wanted earlier.

You part your lips, and he coaxes another orgasm out of you. With one hand, he moves two fingers inside you, his thumb slipping over the tender pearl of your clit, and the other is cradling your chin, his fingers pressing down on your tongue as you moan around them.

It takes no time at all to work you back up to that same precipice.

“You’re—fuck—you’re choking my fingers.”

The broken pant of his words is enough to push you over the edge.

And all you can think about while you’re coming on his hand is how impossibly full you’d feel if he was fucking you with his cock instead of his thick fingers. And how much you want to know what that feels like.

You lie there, trying to catch your breath for a few moments, Mando braced over you, his breathing just as labored as yours. Eventually, he straightens.

“Up,” he invites, offering a hand.

You take it, and he pulls you into a sitting position on the table, your spread legs snug around his hips. You both look down between your bodies, and you hope he’s thinking the same thing you are.

This table is the perfect height for him to fuck you.

He could take himself out and sheath himself inside you so easily. Or you could do it for him. You’re hesitant to reach for him again, the echo of his unyielding no still loud in your head.

But you can see the rigid outline of him straining against the dark fabric of his pants. Your mouth waters at the sight. You’re itching to touch him—you can almost feel the weight and heft of him against your palm, hot and hard. He must be riding the edge of painfully aroused by now, absolutely aching for relief. And based on where his gaze is fixed—on the inches of space between your body and his, the meager distance that feels like a gaping chasm—he’s definitely thinking the same thing you are. 

He wants it.

You’re seconds away from throwing caution to the wind and reaching for his zipper when he clears his throat, and you look up to his visor. His tentative fingers brush your cheek, and your filthy thoughts are successfully derailed by the only thing that could possibly derail them: Mando being sweet to you.

“You’ll stay here.”

It’s neither an invitation or a question, just a fact. Stated warmly and firmly.

He finds your discarded clothes for you then leads you to his bed and waits for you to climb in. You settle under the thick quilt at the far end so he has enough space to lie down beside you. Which he does. Awkwardly. On top of the covers. In full armor. He’s even pulled his fucking gloves back on.

You’ll push him on that at some point—the armor thing. Not now, though. You’ve just barely gotten this far with him. You feel like you’ll spook him if you push too hard.

He leaves a gulf of empty space between your bodies when he settles on his back, his hands clasped together over his belt. A safe, respectful distance away. Hands completely to himself. As if he hasn’t just made you come on his fingers twice, buried knuckle-deep inside you as he whispered filthy things in your ear. As if he hasn’t just tasted your cunt.

If it wasn’t already perfectly clear, this drives the point home: He doesn’t know how to do this—how to be close to someone. If you want this to be anything else, anything more, you’ll have to show him.

You close the space between you, shifting toward him, guiding him closer with a hand on his arm, and he makes a quiet, surprised sound as he turns onto his side, into you, his arm instinctively circling your back. The instinct is there—the desire too—just not the how.

You curl into his metal chest, and one of the very good reasons he had for staying so far away from you on the bed becomes immediately apparent.

Ow.

He murmurs what you’re thinking: “I know the armor can’t be comfortable for you either.”

He makes no offer to take it off, extends no apology for its presence, just acknowledges that you’ll want to move away because of it. It’s not that he doesn’t want this; it’s that he’s accepted he isn’t suited for it.

“It’s fine,” you murmur, afraid he’s going to pull away. 

You tighten your fingers in the duraweave at his side. The hard lines of his beskar press into the front of your body, cold and pinching, in all the wrong places. He’s right. It is absolutely uncomfortable. You try to adjust subtly, try to get more comfortable without confirming that you’re really uncomfortable in the first place. You nudge your face further into the fabric bunched around his neck, chasing one of the few soft, warm parts of him that you can reach.

The tip of your nose brushes skin, and he sighs.

That scent. The one that lead you to him. It’s strongest here, heady and potent. You think you could get drunk on it. Live in it. Right now, though, it’s not so urgent. It doesn’t compel you; it’s not the catalyst it was before. It’s simply…comforting. Sweet and soothing, like the cloying edge of a sedative. No, it’s less demanding than that. More of a gentle suggestion, a reassurance.

The warm embrace of safety.

“It’s fine,” you mutter again, and this time you really mean it. “I don’t mind.”

His arm tightens around you, his hand traveling up your back to cup the nape of your neck, holding you in place where you’ve nuzzled in close. The gesture feels protective. Intimate and familiar.

Somewhere in the back of your mind you register how difficult it will be to give this up, but you release the thought as soon as it comes. No good can come from thinking like that. The end is inevitable: neither of you are meant to stay here forever.

You’ll enjoy this while you have it. Enjoy him while you have him. However brief that is.

You start to doze off, tucked comfortably against him, your thoughts spreading out and losing their shape, like ink bleeding across a wet page. It allows several things to click into place at once, settling into a recognizable pattern like puzzle pieces.

The bloody path. The dismembered carcasses. His unwillingness to let you touch him. The trees around your house. His inner conflict—his worries about hurting you. The armor. The odd physical reactions. The scent. Luna’s fear.

You’ve suspected for a while. You’ve known for sure since you saw the bodies, and in the liminal space on the edge of sleep, you finally let the truth surface.

He’s not human.