#din djarin x monster!reader

[sirowsky]

Chapter 17 - A Forgotten Treasure

Description: Kas tells you what happened to him, and in hearing his story, you begin to find a backwards sort of closure, which leads you to one last pivotal discovery about your kind. (Dual perspectives)

OBSERVE! Creator chooses NOT to include warnings on this series. Read at your own risk! Be aware that this story will include violence and is not suitable for minors! 18+ONLY.

Word Count: 3375 Masterlist (This Story) Author’s Masterlist

Link to Chapter 18

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   Din told you not to leave him, and despite the feeling you had earlier, the certainty that you could only hurt him if you stuck around, you don’t actually want to leave.    But this hurts.    He can never truly know how much he’s asking of you, just by telling you to stay there and endure the knowledge of what you’ve done, staring back at you in the form of a scrawny, dirt-covered and half-starved little boy.

   You don’t want to leave, but you do want to die. Because there’s no other way to set this straight, in your mind, as you can never undo anything. The lives you’ve taken won’t be brought back.    Except… One has been.    That’s the thing that keeps you there, more than anything else. Kas was dead, and now he’s right there with the Mandalorian, talking about you.

   When you’d returned to Cai’ilo after running off, it had been with a resignation to the fact that you and Din were connected, and that even though you desperately needed to keep him safe, you also couldn’t realistically go on without him anymore.    But this changes everything. Not because it absolves you of your guilt, but because it offers you a chance to do better. To save him this time.

   You need to understand how he’s alive, and you want to somehow tell him how sorry you are, even though it can’t make much difference to him.    Although, despite feeling this way, you find yourself wanting to crawl away when the kid approaches you. Because you’re still a fucking fire-monster, and if you hurt him in any way, even by accident, you won’t be able to live with yourself for another second.

   And who’s going to protect Mando if you die?    Well, Grogu will, but he’s a child. His job is to play, learn and grow, not fight.

   “Pan?”

   You hear the little voice no more than ten feet away, and you can feel the warmth of his body fill the air, but you keep your eyes closed and you don’t move at all.

   “Is it… really you?” he asks, and now he sounds sad, which you just can’t ignore because you’ve already hurt him too much.

   You open your eyes, and he trembles at getting a reaction, but he doesn’t step back.    Instead, he takes a breath and then steps closer.

   “Can you answer me?” he prods, and since you’ve already been too dismissive for too long, you slowly lift your head off the ground and nod.

   He seems understandably overwhelmed to actually be communicating with a demon, hesitating and swaying on his heels for a moment before he continues, but he doesn’t appear to be quite as frightened anymore.

   “Do you know who I am?”

   The question sends a spear through your heart, because of course you do, but how could he ever know that.    How could he know how much sorrow and guilt you’ve felt over him? How many times you’ve wished that you could’ve gone back in time and acted differently.    The myriad of dreams you’ve had about him.

   You raise your tails and spell his name as well as you can, and he gasps.

   “How…?” he breathes, scarcely believing his own eyes. “How can you know that? You’re not supposed to remember your human life.”

   To answer him, you incline your head towards the trees, to indicate that the entire planet is changing, so maybe it’s not such a stretch for a demon to be changing too.    But he doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, so he calls in reinforcements.

   “Mando? Do you know what she’s saying?” he calls over his shoulder to Din, who stands and comes to his side, asking him to repeat his question.

   “I think she means that everything here is changing,” the man explains once he’s seen what your response is. “Pagwu is coming alive again, but it’s been so badly damaged for so long that it won’t be the same as it was.    And since her kind have always been connected to this planet, that means that she is changing too.”

   “How do you know that that’s what she means?” the kid asks, genuinely perplexed, and you notice that Din hesitates.

   Learning that you’re Pan is more than enough for any Pagwian to absorb, adding the Mandalorian’s transformation to that mix is probably asking too much, in terms of what a nine-year-old boy can take.

   “We’ve been travelling together for over a year, I’ve learned to understand her cues,” he offers, sticking to the truth but leaving out the news about him also being part demon.

   “Why don’t you tell her about how you survived, kid,” he adds then, before Kas has had a chance to think of anything else to ask. “I’m sure she’s eager to find out, she’s been feeling really bad about what happened back then.”

   The boy thinks about that for a moment, and then takes a seat, but not before backing a couple of steps away. Just in case.    Din, meanwhile, sits down right by your front leg, and then leans against your shoulder and crosses his stretched-out legs on the ground in front of him.

   “So… when it all started, I was with some of the other kids that got snatched,” he began, and you suddenly find yourself feeling exceedingly alert and concentrated. “We’d been talking about going looking to explore the tunnels, and that morning, we snuck into the merchant’s garden and went down there.    We had a couple of flashlights and some water with us, and we were gonna find out just how many tunnels there were, cause we figured that if we knew the system, we could maybe use it.”

   It shocks you to hear that they’d been so brazen. You’d assumed that they’d want nothing to do with that maze after being smuggled through it and almost sold. But apparently, they’d primarily seen it as something potentially useful.    Which you suppose says a lot about their ingenuity and curiosity.

   “We had a sharp rock with us that we used to carve markings into the walls, so we wouldn’t get lost, and we wandered around down there for a long time.    We found the opening that they’d used to try and sneak us out, way out by the badlands, so we went back and looked for other passages and found one that was hidden behind another one of those fake rock-things.    And when we followed it, we ended up in the palace.”

   You can see where this is going, and part of you wants to ask him to stop, because you don’t want to hear how frightened he must’ve been, and what he must’ve gone through, being the only one left.    But you owe it to him to listen, and to let him unload all of these terrible things onto your shoulders.

   “The others wanted to raid the kitchen, cause it was close and we could smell meat cooking, but I was scared of getting caught, so I stayed behind with one of the girls of the group. Sin’ta.    She was one of the oldest, and she agreed with me that it was just stupid, so we waited for them by the hidden door.”

   His body-language starts to change then, getting smaller and more fearful, and even though you know what’s coming, it doesn’t make it an ounce easier to hear.

   “We heard something after a while, and we thought that something had gone wrong, that they’d gotten into a fight, maybe… But then the whole place started shaking and it got super hot, like… from one second to the next.    Sin’ta pushed me back into the tunnel before I could see where the heat was coming from, and since it sloped downwards, I rolled down a bit before I could stop, and then… she just…    She was right there, but then it was just this bright light and so hot that I couldn’t see anything, so I rolled into a ball and stayed still, and when it was over…”

   He looks as confused as any child would be, but there’s also so much fear in his eyes.    And it’s all your fault.    Despair is spreading through your chest, and suddenly you know why Din came to sit so close. That it wasn’t just about having something to lean on or further show the kid that you’re not gonna hurt him, but also to help you stay in control of yourself.

   “When it stopped, it was still too warm to go near the opening, so I went further in. I still had my light, and it was working, so I went back into the tunnel where it was cooler.    I don’t know how long I was down there, but when I went back up… I thought I’d gone the wrong way because everything was gone, even the stone houses and basements.    Everyone…” he trails off then, and glances at you.

   You can see that he’s checking whether you look angry or especially dangerous, but you feel only anguish.    Your expressions are easier to read than the Mandalorian’s, but they’re still miniscule compared to humans, so if the boy does manage to gauge your emotional state, it’s more likely because you’re burning a little brighter.    Still, whatever he sees in you is enough to make him switch tracks.

   “I was scared that whatever did it would come back, so I hid in the tunnels and tried to find somewhere safe to… I don’t know… live.    I found the greenery on the second day, I think, and the plants were full of berries and fruits, so I knew that if I took care of them, I’d be able to eat all year round from them. The waterpipe was already there, so it was easy.”

   It’s impressive that he’s been able to restrain himself from eating more than he has needed to for an entire year, but then, he did grow up in the streets. He knows how to make food last for as long as possible.    And you remember that old lady Tollim on the street above yours, used to teach any kids she encountered everything she knew about keeping plants, to hopefully preserve the skill.

   “I found the entrance to the tunnel after you ran off last night,” Din picks up once Kas falls silent and doesn’t seem to know what else to say. “I didn’t dare to believe that there could be any survivor, but even the smallest chance was enough that I had to be sure.    I could barely even believe it when this kid comes running at me.    We talked for a while about how he’d survived and then he told me about this place, so I asked him to show it to me.”

   He gestured to the small forest before continuing.

   “Given the secluded location, our assumption is that the prince had these trees planted to check the quality of nutrients in the ground, after realizing that his underground plants were flourishing.    He was probably just looking to make himself rich on their fruits, or he simply wanted them for himself, but whatever the case, they’ve clearly done alright on their own because Kas didn’t find this place until just three months ago.”

   You’re not quite sure what to make of that, except that it further confirms just how much and how quickly Pagwu is changing now.    These trees will soon begin to spread their seeds, if they haven’t already, forever altering the life cycles of this world, since many of them are alien to the planet. And there’s no telling what other developments that might lead to in the future.

   What you are still sure of, however, is that you no longer belong here, and especially not now. Somehow, hearing Kas’ story only solidifies your feeling of being misplaced.    You helped to break this world, so you shouldn’t get to roam its plains anymore.    You twist your neck and turn your head so that Mando can see your left eye, and it only takes him a moment to work out what you’re trying to convey.    He sighs and scratches the bottom of your jaw for a moment.

   “I know, Pan,” he confirms, and then starts to get up. “We should get back to Cai’ilo. Grogu must be worried by now.”

   “Is that your son?” Kas asks, and Din nods, before looking between you and the kid.

   “Uh… it’s about a two day walk from here to the city… unless…” he trails off, and the boy quickly realizes what he’s suggesting.

   “No… I can’t ride a demon, I’ll burn!”

   “She won’t hurt you, she’s your friend,” Din tries, and you can see that Kas wants to believe him, but he doesn’t quite manage it.

   On any other evening, you would’ve just settled in for the long walk, letting the human decide for himself what he was comfortable with.    But today, everything feels wrong and you’re itching to get back to the little green one, and also to get off this planet and free everyone here of your flame, once and for all.    So, in a swift and precise movement, you get up and swing your tails over the Mandalorian, snaring Kas and lifting him off the ground, kicking and screaming.

   You ignore his protests, urging Din to climb on, which he does while trying to soothe the boy, although with no success, and then you take off.    You keep to what is an average pace for you, but still gets you to your destination within an hour, at which point, Kas has stopped screaming.    And when you slow to a walk as you pass the first buildings along the main street, a familiar little squeal sounds in the dark.

   Grogu comes running out of a house further up the road, and Mando immediately jumps down to go meet him and pick him up.    He coos happily once he is in his father’s arms again, snuggling up to his neck and reaching his little arms around it as best he can.    And when you see them together again, when you’re all together again, something seems to fall into place inside of you.

   Suddenly it’s as though it doesn’t matter where you are or what’s happened here, because as long as you’re with them, you are home.    You have never felt like that before, even though you’ve been travelling together for quite a while now, and you wonder if it could have something to do with meeting Kas again.    If perhaps seeing him and learning that at least one thing managed to survive your monster, has somehow unlocked a new part of you.

   Acceptance, maybe.

   You carefully set the boy down on his feet, but he falls to his hands and knees once you let him go. He doesn’t crawl away in terror, though, which you take as a good sign.    Still, you give him the courtesy of walking away, letting him be free of you and all the fear that burns within him just by being around you.    Even if does eventually come to believe that you’re not his enemy, it’s still unlikely that he’ll ever trust you.

   You know that Din will make sure that he’s looked after, so you head back towards the mouth of the city, perching yourself on top of a cliff that gives you a good view over most of the streets and houses.    This day has been long and strange and full of powerful emotions taking extreme turns, which has left you tired and confused.    But you don’t sleep.

   And when your companion comes to find you about an hour later, your mind has gone blank, as though all of the impressions of the day have stripped you of your ability to think.

   “Neaba is gonna take care of Kas,” he says once he reaches you, and he’s still got Grogu in his arms. “So, if you wanna go… we can leave knowing that he’ll be okay.”

   You do want to go. But suddenly, you also want to show him something before you do.    Something that you always knew, but could never remember before this evening.

<><><><><><><> 

   You urge him to climb on, and he does without hesitation, feeling certain that whatever it is that he can feel poking at your mind, it’s important.    Leaping off the cliff, you head out into the emptiness of the dark desert, moving as straight as an arrow and as fast as you dare with your precious cargo aboard, which is why it doesn’t take long before you reach your destination.    A place that Din has seen before.

   He immediately recognizes the metal rod that he passed when he was out here alone after your Burn.    At the time, he had hoped that it was a sign that someone was out here still, even though that had seemed unlikely, and in the time since, he’d pretty much convinced himself that he’d hallucinated the thing.    But here it is. As perplexing as ever.

   He hops down from your back and once again moves to examine it.    It looks exactly as it did then, and it’s still firmly embedded into the ground, making him turn to you for an explanation.    You step closer, but keep to the side of it, and then you raise your tails, letting one of the tips gently tap against the metal.

   The sound is as clear as that of silver bells at first, but as it travels through the rod, it reverberates down into the ground, and there it seems to multiply.    It grows and intensifies until the ground starts to shake with the vibrations, and then it slowly ebbs out.    But your focus remains intent on a spot further ahead, so whatever this is, it’s clearly not over yet.

   And sure enough, a few seconds after the sound dies out completely, something stirs exactly where your gaze is trained.    The ground rumbles and cracks before slowly lifting to reveal a heated cache underneath maybe six feet of the solid rock-base, inside of which are hundreds of little eggs, about the size of his fist.

   He steps closer, kneeling by the crude edge of the opening, and had he still been able to produce tears, he would have in that moment.    Because in his heart, he knows that these eggs aren’t demons.    They’re the origin species. The creatures that you have evolved from, believed to have long since been extinct.

   How this secret cache has been made, or by who, he can only guess at, since it had to have happened long before the Mandalorians even joined the war, but he knows what it means.    Pagwu will thrive again.    Your kind were the first creatures to evolve here, the first fauna among the flora, and you helped this planet to flourish and thrive back then, which means that you can do it again.

   That’s why you’re so ready to leave, so ready to walk away from everything here, because the time has come to give it back to your ancestors.    And that is a truth that you would never have known, never been able to remember, without Din. Without the connection forged between you that allows you to be everything that you are. Not just the demon, but the human too.

   You are each half human and half beast, but together, you’re both.

   He doesn’t say anything, because really… what could anyone say that would offer more meaning to a moment such as this?    And there’s nothing that you need or wish to hear from him either, you already know that he understands now, you can feel it in his heart.    The dormant lifeforms before him speak volumes on their own, and no words from him would ever do this realization justice.

   Grogu coos in confusion, though, as he can’t quite understand the unspoken information that passes between you and Din, although he does perceive it.    But he doesn’t argue when his father gets up and leaves the cache, returning to you and climbing back on before you tap the metal rod again, and the secret is concealed once more.    Then you turn and head off through the desert, back to Cai’ilo, one last time.

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Link to Chapter 18

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging, I’d greatly appreciate it <3

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[djarinsbeskar]

HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 2

A/N: Imagine not updating a fic for nearly two years... hah-- couldn't be me (sweats). But my Minotaur is one of my most darling boys and I just couldn't leave him sitting in my drafts. Special thanks to the #1 Minotaur fan probably ever @astroboots for giving this a look over and for being the biggest hype woman for out hornyed hero. Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, mentions of unsolicited attention/dub-con, discrimination and prejudice, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: I learned the new lay of the land, so there's no more taglist. Instead you can turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes to stay up to date.

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Day 1

The stars were veiled.

Something hovered just out of sight that impeded your view of them. They remained dim despite the darkness and shied their faces away from shining down on such a netherworld.

You’d never felt so alone.

Taken immediately from Hera’s court, the guards who had once addressed you as familiars, friends and lovers over the years escorted you to your prison with rough hands and cold hearts. In that moment, they became strangers to you, and you had to wonder if you ever knew any of them at all.

A sprawling void of space greeted you when you arrived. A no man’s land forsaken by the gods as unconquerable, and those that lived trapped within its ever-growing perimeter at the mercy of the beast that prowled with eerie bellows and heavy footfalls.

Half man, half beast. With the horns of a bull and the strength to match, you feared you wouldn’t survive the night as you were pushed unceremoniously through the outer hedge.

You squeaked – frightened – and stumbled through the dense brambles that should have prevented your entry, but instead dragged you in deeper with thorny, greedy branches snagging on soft skin and the wafer-thin linen of your dress.

You fell to your knees on the other side, hands sinking immediately into a morass of mossy, damp earth. Hair falling around you in a tangle, you blew at the strands futilely before giving up and used your hands to push them back instead.

Scrambling to your feet, the dainty sandals you normally wore were useless against this unrelenting land. You’d never had to worry about footwear before… you hardly even needed it dancing under the moonlight or swimming among the stars.

The breathless, euphoric laughter of that time felt eons ago as your lungs constricted with fear.

Just breathe, you coached yourself, in and out… in and out.

It wasn’t working.

Not when your eyes finally moved past the initial, blinding panic to take in your surroundings. What you could see of them, anyway. A coffin of shrubbery greeted you on all sides, so tall they practically eclipsed the sky, the air cloying with a simmering malice you were reluctant to inhale as it tightened around your windpipe with the flex of a brutal grip.

And still, your wracked breathing was too loud in the oppressive silence.

Disturbed carrion birds flying overhead made you jump, squeezing your eyes closed reflexively. A fell wind followed the birds, blowing through the maze ruthlessly. It howled and whipped up the detritus as you folded in on yourself for protection, screaming in your ears with the anguish of those who found themselves trapped here.

However, unlike their torment, the wind eventually passed, and you cracked an eye open warily.

The labyrinth had changed.

Already? You thought with a hitched sob, swallowing it soon after lest you burst into tears and never stop.

There hadn’t been a path behind you where you first fell through the hedging. But by the looks of the narrow stretch of dirt that eventually became clouded by fog, you were deeper into the labyrinth than you first anticipated.

The thought had your stomach sinking.

There went your plan to keep to the perimeter in the vain hope of possibly escaping. You had no choice but to follow the path, deeper into the maze and towards the maw of the beast that inhabited it.

The wind returned intermittently, sometimes changing the labyrinth, sometimes not. Sometimes, it revealed hidden holes between hedgerows that led to another pathway that – while thrilling initially – proved just as complex and endless as the path you escaped from.

Hours of walking and nothing changed.

You were completely lost.

Tears spilled freely down your face now as you tried to stifle the sobs that escaped on every hiccupped inhale when your doom finally dawned on you. No one was coming to save you. Your feet hurt, your dress was filthy, and you were freezing.

You just wanted to go home.

But there was no one to hear your sorrow or respond to your pain. No one to care for you or comfort you or tell you that everything would be okay. You were alone after an eternity of living amongst others.

How little you knew of your own self.

Your vision blurry, you swiped the back of your hand across your eyes to glance at the next intersection of more dreary hedges. Quelling your sniffles, you listened. Trying to pick out any sound that wasn’t the breeze or your misery. A din of chatter or a chime of music, a—

Wait.

You held your breath. Was that—?

There!

A faint gurgle of running water filled your heart with song. There was a river nearby! Or a stream at the very least. You wanted to squeal at just the sound of something other than the wind and rustling branches you’d been subjected to for the last few hours.

And a river meant you could finally bathe.

It was hardly the most useful thing you could’ve done. You should have been looking for shelter, for warmth, for company and safety in numbers, but just the thought of getting clean… it was something familiar and you couldn’t let it go. It was something you would do whether at home among the stars, in the residencies of various deities or indeed, even here, in hell.

Yes, you smiled as bravely as you could, a bath would make everything better.

But you still had to find said river and that proved more than difficult. It was nigh on impossible after several more hours of walking.

Your grand plan of keeping left as much as possible proved fruitless as you came upon two dead ends that forced you to double back until you were confused again. It seemed like the promise of getting clean was growing less and less likely, your feet aching, and spirit defeated.

What a cruel… cruel place…

It was during your pursuit of water, however, that you happened upon the first settlement unfortunate enough to have been swallowed by the maze.

Doors latched shut and chimney’s smoking, you mistook the warm glow behind shuttered windows for warm inhabitants. But this was the labyrinth. No one cared for a sobbing woman banging at their doors for help, whether she was innocent or not.

You carried the condemnation of a goddess and for that you were shunned by even those forsaken by Olympus.

“Please, help me…” you hiccupped, voice raw when your forehead met the cold wood of the last door you tried to no avail, self-pity turning your fear to fury for a white-hot second. “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t me… he—”

Your voice broke as it rose, agony bringing you to your knees on the doorstep of indifference.

“Why won’t anyone listen!” You roared at the door, your face a mess of tears and a supernova of hurt illuminating your irises.

“Damnable woman!”

Everything that followed happened in a blur. The door flew open far enough for the man on the other side to shove you off his doorstep where you fell back on your bottom heavily.

“You’ll bring him here with all your wailing.” A frosty, uncompromising glare met you where the human looked down his nose at you. “Take your wickedness away. We might all be prisoners here, but do not think for a second that makes us the same. We were born into this hell, you were sentenced to it, filth.”

“But I—” You scrambled back to your knees only to be met with a bucket of dirty water that chilled you to the bone.

“There, consider it a gift.” He scoffed. “He won’t be able to smell you under all that for a while. Be grateful for this much and leave our village in peace!”

You sat frozen, in shock and unable to speak or move or do anything as the door was slammed in your face once more. Humans had… never treated you this way before and even though you knew their cruelty could rival the gods, it shook you to your core to be on the receiving end of both.

A rank smell made you gag, breaking your stony cage enough for you to get back up on shaky legs and leave.

Suddenly, scattered cottages became bear traps in your eyes, and you fled from them lest you get punished by their fiery teeth once again.

The maze was safer and, perhaps it was coincidence, but when you came across a lazily meandering river breaking the perpetual rows of hedging minutes later, you chose to believe the land had rewarded you for thinking as such. Turning your face up to the kraken-cruel clouds above, tears tracked through the stains on your face gratefully.

How odd… where before gifts of splendour hardly made you bat an eye; you’d never felt more thankful to an environment that was technically your foe for merely leading you to a river.

When you looked back down to take in your surroundings, you were shocked to see trees line the far side of the river in place of towering hedges. A forest lay within the maze, a fact you’d never heard about in rumours before. But then, an endless forest could be as disorienting as the labyrinth itself… so you didn’t count yourself lucky just yet.

But first… you stripped.

Down to the nude, your nipples pebbled at the cool air as you kicked off your ruined shoes to step into the gentle course of the water. Cold! You shivered. Accustomed to more tepid warm waters, the cold was startling on your soft body.

Baths here were less about enjoyment and more about brevity, you supposed.

You gave yourself a hurried wash, scrubbing yourself free of the dirt and grime and who knew what else had been in that water you’d been drenched in. Cupping the water over your hair, the back of your neck prickled from something other than the cold, but when you looked back, only ominous shadows greeted your paranoid gaze.

Right, you swallowed around the bulbous lump of fear in your throat, best not to linger. Something told you staying in one place for too long would spell disaster.

That in mind and with a wrinkle of your nose, you pulled back on your soiled dress with the promise to wash it during the daytime. A soaking dress during the night would only make things more miserable for you, after all.

And that was how you made your way into the forest, for nothing else if but a change of scenery and hopefully, a safe enough place to rest your weary, heartbroken bones.

It wasn’t half an hour later, though, that the same patch of grass where your dress had lain while you bathed was disturbed anew. A scent, tempered by filth that irritated his nostrils, cut through the bloodlust that guided him every night and caught his attention. That, and a trail of light powder clinging to the grass like morning dew.

It led him to the water’s edge, a great horned shadow that hushed even the rivers gentle gurgle when his eyes fell upon it.

The powder clung to him when he touched it, iridescent specks catching in the reflection of his dark eyes before he brought it to his muzzle and sniffed. His pupils dilated, starlight catching like kindling in the back of his mind, his body responding.

An exhaled plume of condensation sent the dust into the air where it scattered like the spray of blood from his last victim’s jugular.

Stardust…

He crouched low to find the scent again, picking it up over the water where his long tongue moved distractedly over his muzzle to catch what remained of the powder there. Suddenly, lust of a different kind rose to battle with his insatiable desire to spill blood, and the trajectory of his hunt changed.

A star had fallen into his domain, and he was going to find it.

[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.

[violent-darkness]

Masterlist

Hi, this is my masterlist. It's short and sweet for now, but this will hopefully change soon.

Requests: Open, you just have to be patient with me.

I only write for fictional characters, and I am hesitant to write about pregnancy and parenting due to personal preferences. Everything else is on the table.

Asks: Yes!! Ask me questions and share your shameless thoughts with me. Please.

The Boys

Monsters - Billy Butcher x OFC/Second person POV

At its core, this is a story about how people deal with their inner demons. Are monsters truly capable of love, or do they only seek to destroy? Can broken parts be mended?

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III

Submission - Billy Butcher x You/ Billy Butcher x Joe Kessler x You

A series of (mostly) unrelated extremely smutty one-shots where reader is very obedient.

Thoughts Little pet Use me Use me pt. 2 - the Aftercare

The Mandalorian

I highly doubt that I'll write about Pedro Pascal characters again, but this was the first fic I ever posted, so I am sentimental.

Blindfolded - Din Djarin x f!reader

Just before parting ways for good you and Din finally share a kiss, albeit in a slightly unconventional manner.

[pedroshotwifey]

Beg For It

Pairing: Virgin!Din Djarin x afab!reader

Word count: 3.9k

Tags/warnings: piv sex, oral (m), cock worship, virgin din, premature ejaculation, teasing, humiliation, sub din, dom reader, degradation, cockpit sex™, embarrassment, age gap (younger reader), din djarin's monster cock, helmet stays on, pet names, snarky reader, experienced reader, stuff I'm forgetting (c'mon guys, it's me.)

Summary: You make a shocking discovery about Din and decide to do something about it.

A/N: Hey babes! Sorry if you're waiting on TTF or FB rn, but my brain does not want to cooperate atm. TTF 4 should be out relatively soon, but I'm not sure about FB. I hope you like this fic, bc I have no idea where it came from 🤣 My asks are always open in the meantime!!

***

“Fuck, it’s tight in here,” you complain as you stuff yourself into the small alcove exposed by the panel that was just removed from the Crest’s wall. 

“And a fucking mess. Do you ever organize this shit, Din?” 

The exasperated sigh that comes from behind you is enough to answer your question. 

You roll your eyes as you reach for the tangled ball of wires in front of you. No wonder the lights have been flickering. You’re lucky it wasn’t anything worse than that. 

“Who would even be doing this shit if you didn’t have me? Not like your broad ass could fit in here.” 

Mando scoffs behind you. 

“We got along perfectly fine before you,” he argues. “Grogu could fit in there, I’d have him do it.” 

Now it’s your turn to laugh. 

“Yeah, that would go over well.” 

Din ignores your quip as he comes up to your side and nudges you with his boot. 

“Hey! Can you not?” You turn your head to bite out at him even though he can’t see you. 

“Scootch over,” he demands. “I need to see what you’re doing so you don’t blow the ship up or something.” 

“Wow, it’s really reassuring to know how much faith you have in me, Mando.”

You swear you hear him bite down on a laugh and you smile despite yourself. You squash yourself to the side as much as you can, allowing a small gap so Din can peek in beside you. He groans as he lowers himself to his belly. 

“Poor old man,” you can’t help but tease. “Bad knees getting to you?” 

“Shut up,” Din quips. 

You don’t actually know how old Din is, but you’re placing your bets on late thirties or early forties. Definitely older than you either way, but not quite old enough to be deserving of your quips. That’s not going to stop you, of course. 

By the time he’s looking inside, you’ve untangled the mess of wires and separated the two that need to be switched. 

“Damn it, Mando, you’re blocking my light. I can’t see shit.” 

He sighs for the umpteenth time today. 

“Really? There’s plenty of light,” he argues. 

“Yeah, maybe when you have a fucking night vision mod in your helmet. Get up and tell me what to do from there.” 

He obeys but you swear you hear him mutter something about being bossy through a groan. 

“What have you done so far?” 

“I’ve separated the red and blue wires from the rest.” 

“Okay, go ahead and pull them both from their outlets.” 

You try to pull them off, but you can’t quite reach the outlets on the back wall. 

“Damn it,” you mutter. 

You shove your knees under yourself and arch your back in attempt to push yourself further into the wall. Straining a bit, you’re able to grasp both ends and successfully tug them towards yourself. 

“Got it, what now?” 

“Put the red wire where the blue wire was, and the blue where the red was,” Mando instructs. His voice sounds much raspier than it had a second ago, making you quirk a brow. 

“You okay there?” you ask as you finish the task. 

“Yup,” he croaks. 

“Okay, I’m coming out.” 

You start to wriggle yourself back, and you hear Din make a strangled sound before biting down on it. It’s not until you feel your ass waggling with your movement that you realize what has him so worked up. A sly smirk quickly spreads across your face as you decide there’s no harm in teasing him a bit. 

You groan and arch your back further as you back out, your ass up in the air as much as you can get it. You take your sweet time sitting up once you're out, and you can almost feel the heat coming from Mando by the time you do. You turn around to face him only to find that he’s avoiding your gaze, his hands clasped together casually in front of his crotch. You honestly wonder who he thinks he’s fooling—there’s not much that could hide a tent that size. 

“What’s the matter, big boy?” you ask sweetly. “You look a bit flustered.” 

“N-nothing.” 

You have to physically bite down on your lip to avoid laughing at his voice crack. You’ve never heard him struggle so much. He clears his throat and tries again. 

“Nothing’s wrong, cyar’ika.” 

“Hm. You sure? Because I’m pretty sure you were checking my ass out a second ago.” 

Din chokes on nothing as soon as the words are out of your mouth. 

“I was not!” He bites out in a panicked tone. 

“Nothing wrong with it, I get it. I’d check out my ass, too,” you laugh and shrug. He looks down at his feet and your brows furrow. This might be the most flustered you’ve ever seen him. 

“Dude, it was just an ass, not a big deal. I’m sure you’ve seen much more than that,” you chuckle lightly. 

He slowly looks up at that, and time comes to a stop as things click into place in your head. 

“Holy shit,” you say, bewildered. “You haven’t seen more than that. You’re a virgin aren’t you?” 

You grin when he says nothing in response. No fucking way the Mandalorian hasn’t fucked or been fucked before. Hell, you’ve wanted to fuck him since you came aboard this junk pile of a ship. Damn, you’re going to take this opportunity and fucking run with it. 

“Poor baby Din, never had pussy before,” you coo at him as you stand all the way up. “What’s the matter? Is it too small? Maybe you don’t even like pussy. You want a big strong man to fuck your ass?” You know you’re just spouting anything you think might get under his skin at this point. 

“N-no,” he bites out, though there’s not much conviction behind it. You continue walking towards him, forcing him toward the cockpit’s pilot seat. 

“No? You don’t like cock, Din?” 

“I think you need some help, big guy. You clearly need someone to dominate you, since you don’t have the balls to step up yourself. You’re lucky I’m here, I can show you how good it can be.”

Din’s hands move closer to his clothed cock to hide the twitch that ensues from your words. You see the movement and it only spurs you on. He gulps again as you keep walking toward him.

“No, I-”

“Take a seat, Mando.” 

He crosses his arms and stands up straighter, leveling you with a defiant stare you can practically feel through his beskar helmet. 

“I will do no such thing.” 

“Oh,” you reply, crossing your arms and returning the look. “But you will.”

You glance down at the impressive bulge in his flight suit, smirking when you catch him shift ever so slightly under the weight of your gaze. 

“I think you want to sit down for me, Mando. And I think you’re going to be begging for my cunt by the time I’m done with you.”

You take a step toward him, and you can see the subtle way he stops himself from taking a step back in response. You stop in front of him and let your hand down to graze his covered length. There’s a sharp intake of breath barely heard throughout the hull. If you had been standing where you were a few seconds ago, you would have missed it. 

“Sounds like you already want to, actually.” 

You cup him fully now, and a strangled sound slips through his tightly sealed lips. 

“Poor little virgin Din, doesn’t even know how good he could have been feeling all this time,” you tease, giving him a light squeeze. 

“S-stop,” he grits out, uncrossing his arms to grab your wrist with one hand. Your movements come to a swift stop. 

“Ask me again, and I will,” you tell him. “But I don’t think you really want that, do you? I think you want to stick your dick inside my warm pussy and come your dumb little brains out.”

There’s a brief silence as you stare each other down, and you can almost feel the way he starts to consider his options. 

“I-”

You give him another squeeze, tighter this time, and his hips buck forward as another animalistic sound tumbles from his tongue. 

“Fuck, please,” Din whines as he gives up trying to hold back. You grin wildly at the sound. 

“Please, what, Din? What do you want?” 

“P-please fuck me!” 

Your hand flattens against him and starts to rub sensually up and down, giving him enough friction to have him shivering with each pass. 

“Okay, baby. Sit down like I told you to, and I’ll take care of you.” 

He nods as you start to lead him backwards, the back of his knees hitting the cockpit chair and forcing him to follow your instructions. 

“What a good boy,” you lean forward to coo at the side of his helmet, right where his ear would be. “Why don’t you take your cock out for me?” 

You push yourself away from him, your hands placed on either arm rest as you lean over him. Din hesitates for a moment, clearly not used to the kind of vulnerability you’re asking him to surrender. 

“Go ahead, baby. I promise I won’t make fun.” In fact, you know you won’t. Judging by the massive tent in his pants, there is absolutely no way that Din Djarin is anywhere near small. Not that you’ll tell him that, of course. 

You stare intently as he gulps and lets his hands trail down to unbuckle his belt and shakily pull his zipper down, revealing his boxers. He waits a beat before pulling himself completely out, and you have to fight to keep your jaw from dropping when he does. 

“Holy shit, Djarin,” you gawk. “Well, your dick definitely wasn’t the problem. Scared some people off if anything.” Honestly, it almost scares you. You don’t think your hand could even fully wrap around it if you grabbed it right now. 

You look back to his helmet, making what you hope is eye contact. Judging by the way he shifts in the seat, you’re pretty sure you’re spot-on. 

“You’re so pretty, Din. It’s a shame nobody’s ever told you.” 

“T-thank you,” he breathes, his head turning slightly. 

“I want you to put your hands on the armrests while I show you how pretty I think you are.” 

He hesitates, obviously still not sure about any of this. 

“Go ahead,” you prompt. “Unless you want me to cuff you to the damn chair.” 

At this, he quickly obeys your request and lets his hands go to grip the rests. His cock slaps up, hard and leaking against his covered stomach. He twists his neck all the way to the side, avoiding eye contact as much as he can manage. As much as he’s resisting giving in, you can see how his chest heaves with desire. In this case, the lust is simply stronger than the embarrassment. 

You quickly bring a hand up to grab at the bottom of his helmet, roughly jerking his head back to look at you. 

“You’re going to watch me while I suck your cock. If I see you look away, you’re not going to like what happens after.” 

Din shivers and nods, shaken slightly by your authoritative tone. 

“Say ‘yes, ma’am’.” 

You watch his throat bob as he gulps down his nervousness. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he breathes out. 

“See, you can be such a good boy when you put your mind to it.”

You slink down to your knees and place your hands on his thick, tense thighs. With your eyes level with his cock, you’re able to watch the way a spurt of precum dribbles down from the tip. 

“Look at that, baby. Little dick is drooling already and I haven’t even touched you.” 

Din tenses and clenches his hand but makes a point not to look away. Good, at least you know he’s listening. Who knew how easy it is to tame a Mandalorian? A little humiliation and degradation can go a long way. 

You lean forward, grabbing hard onto his thighs in reminder to keep his hands where they are as you stick your tongue out to scoop up the precum leaking down his shaft. His hips jut forward, and you swear you hear a quiet whine from his helmet. You can’t help but chuckle lightly.

You decide not to waste your time with little licks, and instead lean forward to take his entire tip into your mouth. Now you definitely hear a whine. You struggle to shove more of him into your mouth and down your throat, his girth making it much more of a task than it needs to be. 

You can feel yourself getting wetter just from the thought of how deliciously he would stretch you out in other places. It really is a damn shame he’s kept this absolute monster tucked away for so long. 

His fingers twitch at the same time his head slams back into the headrest, though he keeps it angled down so he can keep watching you. You have to swallow a few times to work him all the way down, and by that time you can almost feel the way he’s tightened up to restrain himself. 

You take pity on him and pull back, resisting the urge to gag as his weight drags across your throat again. A string of spit connects you to his shiny cock as you smirk up at him. 

“Tell me how it feels, sweet boy.” 

“F-feels s-so good, c-cyare,” Din squeaks. 

“Yeah, you want more?” 

He nods furiously and you immediately flick the tip of his swollen cock, earning you a strangled yelp as his hips buck wildly. 

“What’s the matter? Finally got your dick wet and suddenly you forget how to speak?” 

He begins to shake his head before catching himself and giving you a verbal response. 

“N-no–I mean, yes, yes I want more! Please touch me,” he thrusts his hips forward again, though you're not sure if it’s voluntary or not. 

“Alright, since you asked so nicely.” 

You quickly grasp him and start to pump him furiously, leaning to him again to drool on his tip. The extra lubricant makes your hand glide more smoothly, your pace picking up to the point where you can see his balls drawing up. 

You work your mouth in tandem with your fist, worshiping his throbbing cock with open mouthed kisses and gentle nips on the exposed skin. You close your eyes for a second to savor the way he feels between your lips, and the salty flavor that graces your tongue. If you died with Din Djarin’s dick in your mouth, you would die a happy woman.

“C-cyare, I-” 

He cuts himself off as you quickly pull yourself away, leaving him with nothing but your cooling spit to focus on. 

“No, no, no–ung–I, p-please!” 

You laugh at him as he thrusts up, trying to find some kind of friction. His voice sounds wet, almost like there are tears in his eyes. 

“Aww,” you stand back to admire his writhing body. “Poor thing can’t remember anything but ‘please’. That’s cute. Not hard to get you dumb, is it, Mando?” 

You start to strip in front of him, and his hands come up from the armrests. 

“You better not be moving your fucking hands, Din,” you warn. “I know where you keep those damn binders, don’t think I won’t use them.” 

He groans but lets his wrists back down. His feet shift instead since there’s nothing else he’s able to move at the moment. He whines again as your top comes off with your bra, and then your pants with your panties. 

Fully naked and obviously soaked, you stalk toward him yet again, stopping to place your hand on his shoulder as you climb into his lap, careful not to touch his cock just yet. You settle your thighs over the tops of his and spread your legs. 

When you look up at him, he’s staring you back in your eyes, refusing to look down. You smirk once you realize why. 

“Don’t get shy on me now, baby boy,” you say. “Go ahead and look at my pussy, I know you want to.” 

You watch him slowly lower his gaze and breathe out a curse once it lands on your seam. Leaning forward, you whisper again to the side of his helmet. 

“You can move a hand, Din. Spread me open.” 

He visibly trembles at your command but lifts an arm none-the-less. You feel his fingers trail gently down to where you want him, but he stops just short. 

“T-take my glove off, please. Want to feel you, cyar’ika.” 

You smile at him and carefully bring his hand up to pull his glove off, his dick twitching as you do so. You lick your lips as a tanned and scarred hand is revealed. It’s ridiculous how attracted you are to that simple appendage. You wish you could see his entire body, but you know that’s not a likely scenario. 

Once his glove is discarded on the floor, he moves back to your cunt and sucks in a harsh breath as he feels you. 

“You’re s-so wet,” he says in a way that makes you unsure if he meant to say it out loud or not.

You laugh quietly and guide his hand so that he can prod at your hole, to which he chokes. 

“That’s all because of you, sweet boy.” 

You move your hips forward, and his fingers slip through your seam, your slick collecting on the rough pads. You grasp his wrist to bring his hand to your lips, opening your mouth to suck your tang of the digits at the same time as you let your pussy push against the underside of Din’s cock. 

Another animalistic noise accompanies the way his entire body jolts at the sudden contact. With a pop, you pull his fingers from your mouth to make room for the giggle that bubbles up from your throat. 

“Poor baby’s so sensitive!” you exclaim as you grind against him, making him groan with each pass. Both of his hands grip down hard, one on the rest and the other on your thigh. The man has a fucking grip, you’re sure there will be five little bruises littered across your skin tomorrow. You wonder how good that grip would feel on your hips as he drills himself into you from the back, and file that thought back for another day. 

You shudder as his tip bumps up against your clit, sending little shocks up your spine and making you dizzy. 

“Gonna fuck you now, baby boy,” you breathe. “You want that? Want to stick your cock inside me?” 

“I-ungh-yes, yes!” 

“Yeah?” you ask as you keep up your movements. “Beg for it.” 

“P-please,” Din asks a bit too quietly for your liking. You would bet all the credits you won that he’s blushing under that armor right now.

“Oh, come on now, you can do better than that.” 

There’s a short moment where you think Din isn’t going to do it, and a lump of disappointment gets stuck in your throat. Luckily, he doesn’t make you sit with it for too long. 

“Please, please put my d-dick in your pussy, want to feel you, please! I-I can’t–I want–”

In the middle of his babbling, you lift yourself up and line his cock with your entrance, slowly lowering yourself down. His hands fly to your hips at the same time his thoughts fly from his brain, unable to think of anything but the way your tight pussy is parting to welcome his fat tip. 

He’s never felt anything quite this pleasurable before, the sensation nearly blinding him as you work yourself down onto him. 

Your head tilts back as Din holds onto your hips for dear life. The combination of that pressure along with the burn from his cock stretching you out is almost too much. You can feel a heat bubbling at the base of your spine, and he’s not even all the way inside of you yet. 

“Oh, god, that’s so good, Din. You’re so good.” 

He whimpers in response, though part of that may be due to the fact that your hips are now flush to his. You’re both panting, a sheen of sweat coating both of your bodies. You can’t see the perspiration on Din, but you can feel the moist heat emanating from him. 

You open your eyes, not realizing they had been closed in the first place. You’ve never been this fucking full in your life. You swear you can feel him all the way up to your throat.

“M–plea–please move,” Din begs and lets his helmet rest on your forehead. His entire body is shaking with the effort of not blowing his load too quickly. 

You grant his request, starting to rock your hips as you bring a hand to settle on his neck, delighted to find a damp mess of curls peeking out from his helmet at the nape. Din gasps as you tug lightly while lifting your hips. 

You start a slow but steady rhythm, your skin slapping against each other each time you bottom out. His heavy cock drags against your walls, making your toes curl. A little whine sneaks out from Din’s concealed lips every time you sink down on him. 

A lewd moan tumbles from your lips as you feel him punch against your cervix, tucking in further than you’ve ever been able to reach before. 

“Fuck, Din! You’re so deep, baby!” 

“I’m not g-going to last l-long, Meshla,” Din strains. 

You ride him harder, taking that as a challenge. The tight thatch of hair at the base of his cock catches on your clit as you slam down on him, bringing you further to the brink. Something white hot flashes within your body, blinding you momentarily. 

You’re not even able to tell him you’re close too before you’re clamping down on him, and he’s shouting as he loses control. Your moans tangle together as you soak his dick, your legs trembling unlike you’ve ever experienced before. 

Din wraps his arms around you as he thrusts up into you, spilling himself within your heat. You’ve never in your life seen or felt anyone come as much as he does. Every time you think he’s done, you feel another spurt of his seed clinging to your walls.

By the time you’re both coming down, your ears have started ringing and your breathing has calmed down enough for you to get a word out, though you’re not sure Mando’s quite capable of that yet. 

“Y-you good?” you manage to gasp. 

You feel Din nod against you, and give yourself permission to lean against him. You’re wrung fucking dry. If this is what it feels like when you’re on top, what might it be like when Din’s in charge? The thought makes your body shudder and your pussy quiver. You sit in silence with him for a while until he finally breaks it with a voice just above a whisper. 

“C-can we do that again?”

You laugh at hearing the last thing you expected to come from his mouth after that. 

“Fucking maker, Din.”

***

Thank you for reading!! Please consider interacting if you enjoyed this!

[sanarsi]

Kinktober 2024 Masterlist

Hello to everyone interested in this year's Kinktober by me!

Here you will find a few things I would like you to familiarize yourself with:

All stories are written by me and all of them are intended for MDNI so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

All stories are fiction and are not intended to offend anyone.

This is Kinktober with only Pedro Pascal characters such as:

Joel Miller – The Last of Us Oberyn Martell – Game of Thrones Din Djarin – The Mandalorian Javier Peña – Narcos Jack Daniels “Agent Whiskey” – Kingsman: The Golden Circle Francisco (Frankie) “Catfish” Morales – Triple Frontier Marcus Moreno – We Can Be Heroes Dieter Bravo – The Bubble Reed Richards – The Fantastic Four: First Steps Marcus Acacius – Gladiator 2

Please read the warnings under each of the works I wrote before reading and do not interact if any of them discourage you. Some stories are not for everyone and that's okay!

I do not allow my works to be copied and distributed without my consent.

All works will be available under this hashtag - #sanarsi kinktober 2024

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED

Main Masterlist

Day 1 – Threesome

QZ Joel Miller x f!Reader x QZ Tess

You have no way to pay for the goods. Tess finds a way for you to pay, Joel joins with pleasure.

Day 2 – Hunter/Prey

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Din has one problem with you, you often like to run away from him. Luckily he loves playing this game with you.

Day 3 – Monsterfucking

monster!Oberyn Martell x f!Reader

Your poison lessons with Oberyn went wrong when he accidentally drank the wrong potion.

Day 4 – Food play

Marcus Acacius x prostitute!f!Reader

General likes to brighten up his evenings with your companion. This time he's in the mood for more fun.

Day 5 – Edgeplay

dark!Din Djarin x f!Reader

Din learns to control the new power that has been given to him. However, the Darksaber has an influence on its owner and you will be the first to know about it.

Day 6 – Pregnancy

husband!Jack Daniels x wife!f!Reader

Jack finally made you carry his baby. The sight of you with your rounded belly makes him unable to get enough of you.

Day 7 – Sensory Deprivation

boyfriend!Frankie Morales x f!Reader

You and Frankie like to experiment in bed and this time you took the initiative to play with him.

Day 8 – Uniforms

husband!Reed Richards x wife!f!Reader

You try on your new uniform for the first time. Reed can't keep his hands to himself at the sight of you.

Day 9 – Massaging

Javier Peña x prostitute!f!Reader

Javier is one of your regular and favorite clients. You are always willing to fulfill all his requests but today he needed more from you than just sex.

Day 10 – Knife play

post-outbreak!Joel Miller x f!Reader

After Joel killed all of your comrades, he kept you as a reward. Unfortunately, you weren't willing to cooperate, so he used more drastic methods to make you obey him.

Day 11 – Face Sitting

Dieter Bravo x f!Reader

Dieter has run out of drugs, so he asks you to keep him occupied.

Day 12 – Handjob

Oberyn Martell x prostitute!f!Reader

Oberyn is busy discussing important matters for the kingdom but he can't resist taking care of you as you sit thirsty on his lap.

Day 13 – Bondage

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Din tests new bondage techniques on you and decides to take advantage of how defenseless you are.

Day 14 – Sex Toys

husband!Marcus Moreno x wife!f!Reader

You and Marcus have decided to spice up your married life, so you're more than willing to let him test out on you the toys he bought.

Day 15 – Gun play

Javier Peña x prostitute!f!Reader

You've always been interested in Javier's work, but you've never brought it up with him before. He finally decides to show you what a DEA agent is capable of.

Day 16 – Wax play

lover!Marcus Acacius x f!Reader

Marcus loves watching you arch in pleasure beneath him, but he loves watching you squeal in pain and pleasure even more.

Day 17 – Mirror Sex

coworker!Jack Daniels x f!Reader

One of your missions went wrong and you ended up stuck in a mirror maze.

Day 18 – Nipple play

Dieter Bravo x f!Reader

Dieter loves spending lazy evenings cuddled up to you, but sometimes he also likes to interrupt you a little while you're reading a book.

Day 19 – Thigh Riding

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Din is often busy piloting the ship, which is why he doesn't have as much time for you as he would like, and because of that he doesn't mind for you using him for your own pleasure.

Day 20 – Double Penetration

Reed Richards x f!Reader x Marcus Moreno

Two superheroes have decided to save you from trouble, and you want to repay them.

Day 21 – Bath Sex

Jack Daniels x f!Reader

You were used to Jack often coming back hurt and sore. You always took care of him after each mission and bandaged his wounds but this time he needed more than just a few bandages.

Day 22 – Teasing

fiancé!Javier Peña x f!Reader

Your fiancé can't keep his hands to himself even when you're at a family dinner

Day 23 – Glory Hole

Dieter Bravo x f!Reader

Dieter sometimes had drug cravings and now he found himself in one. He didn't know how he ended up at a run-down gas station in the middle of the night but he knew he had met a nice woman who wanted to make his time more pleasant.

Day 24 – Voyeurism

Oberyn Martell x prostitute!f!Reader

Oberyn liked to please himself in many ways. Today he wanted to watch you and your friend have some fun together.

Day 25 – Somnophilia

boyfriend!Frankie Morales x f!Reader

Frankie often likes to cuddle in his sleep. He is also very sensitive to your touch, which is why you can't help yourself when he moans your name in his sleep again.

Day 26 – Ice play

pre-outbreak!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Joel uses every moment your daughter is away to keep you in bed. He also likes to spice up your sex life with things he reads on the internet.

Day 27 – Public Sex

boyfriend!Frankie Morales x f!Reader

Your trip to see a movie took an unexpected turn when it turned out you were almost alone in the cinema.

Day 28 – Dom/Sub

lover!Marcus Acacius x f!Reader

After his failed conversation with the Emperor, Marcus needs to feel like he's in control of everything. You just so happen to be everything to him.

Day 29 – Period Sex

husband!Marcus Moreno x wife!f!Reader

Your husband helps you with period pain.

Day 30 – Praise Kink

Reed Richards x student!f!Reader

Reed likes to reward you for a job well done.

Day 31 – Hate Fucking

coworker!Jack Daniels x f!Reader

Another mission with Agent Whiskey tests your patience to the limits. The dislike is mutual, so you end up in each other's arms to numb the negative emotions.

COMMENT IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED

[fettuccin-e]

A Kind of Demon

Kinktober Day 3: Monster AU

Tags: Din Djarin x Reader, Incubus!Din Djarin, afab!fem!reader, unprotected piv, Din has a demon dick lol, force sex? yeah pretty much, fingering, overstimulation, making up my own demon lore as I go (w/c: 1.7K)

A/N: SO I have never, ever written something like this so this was way way out of my comfort zone, but I wanted to try it out! I really like incubus!Din, so I might come back to him again, who knows. Din does have like "force powers" in this, but since it's not the Star Wars universe, it's just like demon magic lol. (I am using prompts from this list by flightlessangelwings!)

You should be terrified of the power he has over you. 

You’d hadn’t meant to summon someone like him, something other. He looks vaguely human, or is just human-shaped, but he’s covered in a dark, metallic armor that makes him seem more mythical than man. And the power he exudes cannot be explained as anything other than supernatural. 

He calls himself a Mandalorian, a word that seems made up, not of this world. It’s a type of demon, he tells you, his sentences controlled and short, the type that you’d summoned. A kind of incubus.

“I didn’t summon a fucking demon!” you yell, throwing object after object at him, anything you can find. They bounce off of his dark armor, and he stands stock still, unfeeling and utterly monstrous. He says your name in a way that has your knees buckling on the spot, from fear, of course. 

“I have been summoned to you, whether intentional, or unintentional. Your unconscious needs have brought me to you, and I cannot leave until my duty has been fulfilled.” His voice is clear and deep through the metal helmet shielding his face, and try as you might to peer into the dark visor, all you can see is nothingness.

“What does an incubus even do?” you shout, throwing your hands into the air. He chuckles in a truly demonic way, terrifying and somehow endlessly charming.

“Are you lonely, little one?” he said, stepping forward and looming over you like a fucking predator. You don’t answer, staring straight ahead into his armored chest, lips pursed. Why the fuck would he have to know that? Your, frankly terrible, sex life is none of his business.

His gloved hand reaches forward to nudge your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze, even though you can’t see his eyes.

“All of these needs, trapped in your pretty little head, I can feel them. I can see them. Fantasizing in the dark night after night with your fingers in your pussy, desperate for someone to take care of you. I can see everything you want, and I can do it for you. I can take care of you, little one.” You swallow, harsh and painful, like sandpaper down your throat.

Your pussy soaks through your panties as he murmurs darkly into your ear. “You only need to say yes, girl, and I will make you feel so, so good.”

Your head swims, your knees weak and your body aching as you whisper a yes.

God, you should be terrified. Terrified of the way he takes control so easily. How, with only a touch, he makes your clothes vanish like nothing, leaving you bare to his invisible eyes. You should be scared for your life at the way you can feel his power all around you, touching every inch of your shaking body, pressing you backward to lay on your bed. Instead, your pussy leaks between your quaking thighs. A force, his force, you realize, invisible and yet so solid it might as well be his hands, strokes across your body, against your throbbing clit. A choked moan rips its way out of your throat. 

“That’s right girl, let me take care of you,” he murmurs, looming over you as he steps forward to kneel on the bed. “I can take any form you want, just tell me. Is there someone you desire?”

Oh. You’d hadn’t realized it was an option, for him to take the shape of someone else. He could be anything, you realized, a crush, a celebrity, even yourself. The realization makes you stock still, wracking your brain for someone, anyone. But looking up at him, with his dark visor and broad chest, God, you don’t want him to be anyone else. Just the sheer sight of him has you desperate enough.

“No,” you breathe, a little too eagerly. “No, this- this is fine.”

He pauses. All of him, his chest, his mouth, the force he has enveloping you. You both stare at each other, stock still and silent. And then, he moves. 

He’s got you turned over on your sheets in seconds, your face pressed into the mattress as he hikes your hips up. You clutch desperately at the sheets as he sinks two thick fingers into you, gloriously human but somehow not human at all. There’s no way he could be human when he finds that spot so deep inside, the spot that you can barely reach half the time, immediately.

“Holy- holy fucking shit, oh fuck,” you choke on your moans as he grinds the pads of his fingers into you, sending lightning ricocheting up your spine. Your hips twitch back into his hand without your permission, desperate for the kind of touch you haven’t experienced in so long.

“That’s it, girl, take what you need from me,” he growls, fucking his fingers into you at a pace that is truly obscene. His force surrounds you, a warmth that cannot be explained in earthly terms. It ghosts across your nipples, surrounding them and pulling on them in a way that brings tears to your eyes. It moves down and presses hard on your clit, flicking across it in a way that feels like a fucking tongue. You can’t hold back the way you scream.

He sinks another finger into you, stretching you out more than you have been in months, years. Maybe I have needed this, you think. Maybe I did summon him.

He leans over you, close enough that he is able to murmur directly into your ear, “Think you can take my cock, little one?”

The whine you let out is downright embarrassing. “Please.”

You glance behind yourself, to where the Mandalorian has his thick fingers buried deep in your cunt, to where he’s pulling out his cock with the other hand. That, for the first time, is distinctly inhuman. His cock is huge, so big that you have a brief thought about it splitting you in two, right down the middle. Rigid bumps run down his length, and the tip is thick, leaking, and oh shit, you want him in your mouth, you want him in your pussy, you want him fucking everywhere. 

“Fuck me,” you whine, and the demon chuckles. 

“Do you really think you can take me, girl?” He growls.

“I wanna try, oh please, please, I need it, ah-” he cuts off your whining by ripping his fingers out of you, leaving you empty and gaping. It doesn’t last very long before he notches the head of his cock against your entrance and pushes.

The stretch seems fucking endless. You can only clutch the pillows and sob as he breaks you apart on his thick cock, reaching so deep you swear you can feel him in your fucking lungs. It should hurt, God it should hurt, but his force only makes you relax as he pulls you back onto him. You feel dizzy with it, the way that force keeps licking maddeningly at your clit, pulling at your nipples while the biggest cock you’ve ever had settles deep inside.

You cum. Just from the way he sinks into you, fills you like you’ve always been empty, and you’ve only been missing him all your life. You writhe against the sheets, clutching at your pillow as you convulse around his cock. It’s debilitating, destructive, and all you can think of is how much you need more.

“It’s- oh fuck, it’s- I can’t,” you sob over your words, tears leaking down your cheeks, but you can’t help but press back into his body, trying to get him as deep as possible.

The demon snarls, using a thick hand to reach forward and grab your wrists together, pinning them to the small of your back. He pulls his hips back, slowly, so slow that you can feel every bump drag endlessly over your walls, before he drives back into you so hard the breath is knocked out of your lungs, the tip grinding deep into that spot he’s able to find so easily.

Then, the Mandalorian fucks you. No, fucking is too gentle. There is no earthly term to describe how he destroys you in a way that is so pure, so primal. He holds onto your wrists and drags you back onto his cock with every thrust, keeping you at his mercy while you can only moan and cry as he rips you apart into a million little pieces. You feel like a bitch in heat, getting fucked like that is all you’re meant to do. The demon uses you like a fucking toy, his force sucking at your abused little clit endlessly.

You can hear little grunts escaping his mouth with every thrust, tiny uh, uh, uhs that have your head spinning. You’re pretty sure you’re drooling, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when this man, this demon, is fucking you within an inch of your life, ruining you for anyone, anything else.

Your pussy makes obscene noises around him, echoing throughout the room as your headboard smacks hard against the wall. You can barely even make a noise anymore, overwhelmed sobs forcing their way out of your throat every time he reaches deep, deep into your body. 

“I can feel you clenching for me. Are you going to cum for me again?” He growls. “Go on then, little girl, make a mess of yourself.”

Your mouth opens in a silent scream as you squeeze tight around his cock, your body trembling in his hold. He fucks you through it, prolonging it, and it’s too much, it’s too fucking much. Your vision blurs, your head light and fuzzy, and you can only gasp wetly as the world blinks into darkness.

As your eyes blink open again, you’re warm. Your sheets feel clean, smelling of lavender and chamomile, and your room is blissfully, astonishingly quiet. You sit up in bed, a twinge going through your arms, and you nearly scream as you look across the room to see the Mandalorian standing still in your doorway, unmoving.

“Are you alright, girl?” he says, like he hadn’t just ripped you apart in every way that matters.

“Uh,” you cross your arms over yourself, feeling strangely vulnerable. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

He nods, once. “Good. My duties have been fulfilled.” He doesn’t let you get a word in.

You blink, and the Mandalorian is gone.

[jake-g-lockley]

Heyyy would you please do prompt 2 and (or) 9 with din? <3

Twisted Vows (Din Djarin x reader) 

Masterlist | Spotify Playlist | Wanna be Tagged?

Prompt: head or shoulder massages, lover’s sick habit ie being too stubborn to let someone else help

A/N: Thanks for the ask lovely!!! DIN SICK FIC!! Please, this tin can is so stubborn, I bet he’s a real hard headed dummy when he is sick. But, ofc we love our Din &lt;3

Warnings: Allusions to sex, Din taking off the helmet, the creed being a real bitch to real life things like sickness, vomiting. 

Word count: 1.6 k

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Your eyes sparkled as you looked at the fruits before you, smiling at the shopkeeper. Your Din loved fruits but he never asked for them, he never asked for anything. Before he met you, he would often go days without eating, hopping around from planet to planet in a wild nomadic frenzy. Things only got worse when Grogu made his appearance, Din ate sparingly and gave most of his food to his baby. You loved cooking food, and you loved it when you had someone to feed. 

When you appeared, you gave Din the chance to love food again, to slowly grow into the shell he hunched in after becoming a Mandalorian. He always had shown you his grumpy exterior but you clearly knew about his soft interior. You’d only see his soft side whenever he would take care of his son and more recently, when he would take care of you.

Once you were happy with your groceries you made your slow walk back to your hut, picking some flowers along the way for your flower vase. You opened the ramp to the Crest and were about to slip your shoes off and placed them beside Din’s chunky boots when a peculiar sight caught your eyes.

Your partner’s helmet somehow had grown a pair of green arms and was waddling towards your direction, a spoon in one green claw. You smiled down at your little green monster, wondering where Din might be if his helmet was walking around the house. 

Your answer came almost immediately when you heard loud footsteps followed by a gruff “COVER YOUR EYES!”

You squeezed your eyes shut and heard Grogu giggling as he ran away from his dad. 

“Hey Din! Catch!” you unfurled your scarf and threw it blindly. 

“You can open your eyes now.” you opened one eye to see the big burly man in lounge clothes with your scarf around his face. 

You set your groceries aside and scooped up the thieving babbling toddler, pulling Din’s helmet off to reveal Grogu’s cute face, a loud sigh coming from the man before you . 

“Baby, what did we say about taking your Papa’s helmet?” you gently chastise, kissing his forehead gently as Din stomped towards you, stretching his arms out for his helmet. As Din got closer, you realised something was wrong. He was breathing weirdly, not his usual controlled breathing and his back was hunched slightly. He turned and gagged into his elbow, followed by a weak cough.

“Oh Din, are you okay?” you worriedly questioned, stretching your free arm out to feel his exposed neck but Din stepped back.

You narrowed your eyes at him and Din’s eyes widened under the scarf. 

You whispered “do the thing” into Grogu’s ear and he immediately raised his hand, causing Din to lurch forward and collide with you. 

“Not fair.” Din mumbled in defeat as you touched his neck.

“Din, you’re running a fever, that's it, back to bed or I’m hiding your helmet.” you say sternly.

“Fine, can I have my helmet back first?” he mumbled under the scarf and you nodded, shutting your eyes again as he removed the scarf from his face, dropping it onto his son’s face.

You opened your eyes as soon as you heard the hiss of his helmet and Grogu squealing under the scarf. You tutted angrily at the both of them as Din hung his head.

“Stop having beef with your own child, tin can.” you scolded the overgrown child in front of you, pulling the scarf off Grogu’s head. “Go to your room, I’ll come back with some stuff for you.”

You stared into his visor as you kissed the top of Grogu’s head again. The Mandalorian sauntered off, not before mumbling something under his breath. You smiled as you caught the last bit of his sentence.

“I’m the one who is sick but he gets all the kisses.”

You shook your head and bent down to place Grogu in his bassinet before taking your groceries to the tiny kitchen. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Din tried to lay back and forget how his body was hurting all over. He groaned as he clutched his tummy, quickly slipping his helmet on before running out of his room. You watch worriedly as Din dashes past you and makes a beeline to the refresher.

You hear him emptying the contents of his stomach and your heart ached at the small whimper that accompanied the retching when there was nothing left for him to throw up. 

“Din, sweetheart?” you called as you stood outside the refresher. “You have your helmet on?” 

A small grunt of confirmation makes you throw the door open and you drop to your knees beside the Mandalorian who was now curled against the metal wall. Behind all of his pain, Din’s heart swelled with your respect towards his creed. He wanted to tell you what plagued his head and heart but all he could do was gag.

“Oh Din, maybe I should just leave, I-i don’t know what to do, I can’t help you if you don’t have your helmet off.” you say, your eyes brimming with tears. 

“I don’t know what to do either.” he whispered.

You laid down on the cold floor and curled up, facing Din, taking his hand in yours, an idea sparking in your mind. 

“Shall I suggest something really stupid then?” you say as Din’s mind calmed slightly at your touch. 

He grunted and you took a deep breath. 

“Marry me.” you whisper and through the fog of pure sickness, Din Djarin stares at you as if you were the craziest woman in the galaxy. 

“What?”

“You heard me. Marry me, then I can take care of you.” you say, placing a hand on his helmet, where his cheek would be. 

“You’re crazy.”

“And you’re sick.”

“Fuck.” Din had so much to argue about marrying him. 

He definitely was not a match for you, no matter how much his heart yearned for you, no matter how badly he wanted all of you to be his. 

“Din, I swear on my name and the names of the Ancestors, that I should walk the way of our love and the words that my heart sings shall be forever forged between us.” you say clearly, twisting the words of the creed that Din had used before dipping himself in the Living Waters. “You better agree before you throw up in that helmet, Djarin.”

Din slowly sits up and takes your hands, placing it under his helmet and letting you push it off to reveal his face. You stared in shock, not realising that he would be this pretty, despite being sick as a dog.

“Heya, husband.” you whisper as you run a finger down his nose, watching as his eyes flutter close. 

Din swallows and blinks, focusing on your face. Your fingers trace his lips, the ones you’ve had on you before in frantic times when you and Din’s desperations tipped over and the both of you lost control. 

“Your husband is gonna throw up all over you if you don’t move.” he croaked out and you shifted as Din bent over the bowl and retched. 

You rubbed the small of his back and whispered softly to him as he coaxed his stomach to relax. It took you a while to get the dizzy Din to get up from the refresher floor and lead him to his room. You pushed him down and handed him a pill that would calm his tummy, before slowly feeding him fruit that you had cut up for him.

Din could not express anything he was feeling, and he just accepted your unrequited love that you shoved at him. His eyes were downcasted after a while and you realised that he might not be used to someone seeing his face this long.

“Just yell for me if you need anything.” you said before standing to get up, but Din yanked you down despite being the weakest you’ve ever seen him.

“C-could you stay a while?” he whispered, his thumb gently tracing your wrist. 

You smiled and pushed his curls away from his forehead, making his eyes flutter close. 

“Of course.” you assured with a smile.

Din twitched awkwardly and you eyed him, trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Is something hurting?” 

“Nah.” he croaked out after a long pause.

“You can’t lie to me, I’m your-”

“Wife, yea got it.” he huffed  and scowled, making you giggle. “My head and neck are a little uncomfortable.”

You nod knowingly. 

“Can you turn over?” you ask and Din hesitated before shaking his head.

You thought his stomach was still making him uncomfortable but in reality, Din just wanted to look at your face. 

You sat on the bed and crossed your legs, laying his head onto your legs. He looked up at you with big eyes, and you skimmed your knuckles across his warm skin. 

You begin with his temples slowly kneading them with your fingers until a soft sigh escapes his lips. 

“A little h-higher?” 

“Of course, love.” 

Din loved it when you called him that. He was your love, your only love, maybe second to Grogu, but he was yours. That reminded him…

“When I get better, I’ll tell you the proper vows.” he whispered, and you blink down at him before realising what he was talking about.

“Oh-”

“Yea, we’re definitely breaking the creed here, but I don’t care. I-i’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time…” he said before taking a deep breath.

“Shh, I know.” you whispered, placing a finger on his lips. 

Din couldn’t help but smile. Despite knowing that you knew, he wanted to hear himself say it.

“I love you, my riduur.” he says as his eyes became heavier by the way you were gently pushing all of his pain away.

“I love you too, Din Djarin.” you whispered as he drifted off to sleep, placing a lingering kiss onto his forehead and smiling down at him. 

Reblogs are appreciated~~~~

Taglist: @fandxmslxt69 @joygirlmelii @wolfbook87 @randomnessfangirl @in-between-the-cafes @minigirl87 @alexxavicry @marygraceee @lia275 @euphoricosmo @violet-19999 @kierramofficial @ryebreadsworld @your-voice-is-mellifluous @lil-stark @absolutelybloodyhopeless @mintpurplemnm @bubblezuku

[theidiotwhowritesthings]

In a Perfect World, You Love Me [i]

din djarin x female!reader

warnings: injury, mentions of blood, cursing, derogatory name calling, forced drug exposure, hallucinations, light smut, angst, and some angst, and a little more angst just to top it off (actually this isn’t nearly as heartbreaking as some stuff i’ve written before lol), self doubt, anxiety, also cobb vanth is here. it’s not a warning but i love him so i wanted to mention it.🤷🏻‍♀️

word count: 6,961

Summary: On the way to visit an old friend, you and Mando find trouble. Both of you are subjected to a drug that puts you in your perfect world. But, when you can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t, how do you know what to trust?

a/n: bitches be planning out short drabbles about heart break only for it to turn into a long wordy mess. it’s me. i’m bitches. anybody know the show supernatural? it’s a show about like dramatic ass sad brothers who travel the country fighting monsters? (i know you know i’m being sarcastic). i watched that one episode where the djinn puts dean in like a dream world and it inspired this. i wanted to name it ‘din djarin’s djinn dream’ but that seemed a bit too on the nose.

.

“sometimes it is not love that breaks your heart. it is disappointment.”

-r.m. drake

.

Grogu was safe. That was the first thought that came to mind. You were so incredibly grateful that Mando had decided to leave the small child with Peli at the shop. It had been a last minute call. Weirdly, you were also thankful that you hadn’t stayed behind. You nearly did. Traveling through the Dune Sea was an absolutely miserable experience between the heat and the sand. It would have been so much more comfortable to just sit in the shop, cuddle with Grogu, and watch Peli con her customers.

However, when Mando mentioned he was going to Mos Pelgo you jumped at the chance to visit Cobb Vanth. It had been ages since you last saw the man, and you were eager to catch up with the marshal. So you climbed onto Mando’s rented land speeder, wrapped your arms around his beskar armor, and the two of you set off. What was supposed to be a simple day trip to greet an old friend and ask for a favor turned into a Maker forsaken nightmare.

Your face was throbbing in pain, you tasted blood in your mouth, and you were fairly certain your right wrist was broken based on the swelling and discoloration. Despite all of that, despite the pain and fear, the thought occurred to you once more. You were so thankful you were here. 

“How pathetic.” The smuggler cackled amongst his small crew. “You’re going to protect the Mandalorian from us? You dumb bitch.”

Five dangerous men stood at the rim of the pit you were trapped in while Mando laid motionless behind you. There was a bit of blood pooling from out of the bottom of his helmet, onto the sand, and the only comfort you had that Mando was still with you was the slow rise and fall of his chest. 

The smugglers had set a trap that Mando and you had fallen right into. As your land speeder tripped a wire it caused a blast that had both of you falling into a pit. The damned thing was deep enough to leave both of you injured and you prayed that your injuries were worse than Mando’s and he was just out cold for a moment. Your attackers began to argue amongst one another and you stayed on high alert. Mando and you were fish in a barrel. They could rain blaster fire down on you and there would be nothing you could do about it. The only reason you hadn’t grabbed Mando’s blaster to fire up is because you didn’t want to trigger a massacre.

“Shoot her dead then climb down and collect the beskar. Easy.” One smuggler scoffed and pulled out his blaster. You flinched but the loudest of the men, the leader, shoved the blaster’s aim away from you. “What?”

“The moment we try and get off world we’re gonna get stopped by those damned pirates again.” He snapped. “We keep the girl alive and hand her over as the tax we pay to pass free. We keep all the Mandalorian’s armor to ourselves.”

“Who’d want a bitch over beskar?”

“Oh, trust me.” The lead smuggler chuckled and the sound made you cringe. You set your hand in Mando’s gloved one and wished more than anything his grip would tighten around you rather than stay limp. “I know the man running the show right now, and he’s got a weakness for pretty little things.”

You tried to hide the tremble that shook your frame and you whispered for Mando to wake up⏤ for him to hear you. The lead smuggler opened his bag and you grasped Mando’s blaster. As threateningly as you could manage, you barked out. “You come down here and I’ll kill you. You hear me?!”

“Aw, she’s got some bite. Maybe we should keep her instead.”

“Shut the hell up.” The lead snapped and continued to root through his bag. “Where the kriff is that damned spice bomb?” Your eyebrows furrowed. Spice was bad news. It wasn’t something you ever wanted to touch. You had seen what the addiction could do to people, and you had a very bad feeling about what a spice bomb would be. “There it is.”

Panic hit you, and you lifted the blaster to start firing but the leader tossed a glowing red ball down into the pit and the smugglers dove away from the hole. The ball exploded mid way down into a cloud of red dust that rained down on you and Mando. You tried to cover your mouth and nose with the bottom of your shirt, but it was to no avail. Your entire body grew heavy, collapsing on top of Mando’s chest, and a sharp, tingling sensation washed over you before your eyes fell shut.

Din woke with a start⏤ panting and desperate for air. His mind was filled with a heavy fog that he tried to swim through to gather his bearings. There had been a wire. Din noticed it much too late and he remembered the ground swallowing you and him whole. You. Your scream was the last thing he could recall. 

His hands drifted to his face and Din hated that it was only then that he noticed he wasn’t wearing a helmet. He blamed the fog. Din scrambled about the soft bed he realized he was tucked into as he searched the space around him for his armor. Din was in a bedroom he didn’t recognize wearing only a pair of sleep pants. Dank farrik. Din leapt out of bed but stumbled rather than landed with any amount of grace. Where was he? Where were you?? 

He forced himself to take a steadying breath and centered himself. 

The bedroom was small. Only a large bed, a clothing dresser, and two nightstands on either side of the bed. The walls were painted a soft blue, two doors leading out, and one wall had a window that spanned nearly the entire length of the room. Din blinked in confusion. Outside was a bustling city with towering pillar-like buildings and early morning light spilling down through holes in the upper shelf casting light on a city that was very much alive. Din knew where he was. He just didn’t know how he got here or how this was even possible.

“Sundari?” He breathed in shock. Din had only seen images of the cities of Mandalore. Sundari, the domed capital city, being the most infamous of all. This must have been a dream. Exactly how hard had he hit his head in the fall?

Din, in all his distraction, hadn’t even noticed the sound of running water until it stopped. He spun on his heel and stared at the door in the corner which must have led into a fresher. Din wasn’t alone. His hand snapped to his hip for his blaster but met air. Maker, he’d be happy when this concussion finally passed. He scanned the room for any kind of weapon he could use and as he grasped the nightstand drawer he froze. Sitting on top of the small table was a holo image being projected up from a disk as decor.

It was a photo of you and Grogu. Din narrowed his eyes at it in confusion. The two of you were at a park of some kind, but he couldn’t recall where or when this had occurred. The door opened, making Din jump in surprise. Fine, concussion or not, he’d fight his way out by hand. However, as if he couldn’t possibly be caught more off guard, you stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a towel.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?” You stepped toward him and Din stayed frozen in place. Your hands came up to run across his bare chest before settling on his waist where you continued to trace your fingertips up and down in a repetitive pattern. There was so much happening at once that Din didn’t even know what to think. It didn’t help that the moment your skin touched his, his mind seemed to short circuit. “I was trying to let you sleep in for at least a little.”

Ever since you had confessed to him weeks ago that you wanted more than just a friendship Din had been plagued with dreams of you. Visions of you moaning under him as he buried himself into your warmth, of you riding his cock while his hands explored your body, of him simply holding you in his arms and memorizing your features unimpeded by his helmet. But never had it ever felt this real. 

“Din?” You tilted your head. Hearing his name from your lips, he shuddered. How was this happening? You staring up at his bare face and whispering his name in concern. 

Din tried to open his mouth and speak, but his voice had left him. When you confessed to him, it had taken every fiber of his being to not react. As much as he cared about you, as badly as he wanted you, he knew it was a bad idea. Din knew he had to draw a line to keep you safe. He was dangerous and Din knew it was selfish of him to keep you and Grogu around despite that. He always figured the two of you would go your separate ways when the jedi were found and Grogu was delivered, but Din would never be able to say good-bye to you if he crossed that line. So he lied. Told you he didn’t feel the same and walked away leaving you teary eyed and broken hearted. 

You frowned. Your eyebrows furrowed and he had the overwhelming urge to smooth out your brow with his fingers. Trace every inch of your face with his hands. “You look sad, love.” You lifted your hands to cup his face. “Did you have that nightmare again?”

“Wh⏤What?” Din’s voice was quiet and ragged.

“We’re safe now. You don’t have to worry.” You caressed his cheek. “Me, you, and Grogu. We’re all safe. We have a home. Our days of running are over.”

Din shook his head. “No, no. We were in the Dune Sea. I⏤I missed the trip wire and we fell. You were hurt. We⏤”

“Din, that was so long ago. Out of all the bantha shit we’ve dealt with I’m surprised that memory is the one plaguing you.” You said.

Din pulled out of your arms. “It wasn’t. It just happened. You’re lost⏤ You’re hurt. I have to⏤”

“I’m not lost. I’m not hurt. I’m safe, right here with you, in our home. Grogu is still sleeping down the hall. There’s no place safer for our son and I.” You set your hands on his chest once more. “Grogu with his buir, and I with my riduur.”

Din was so shocked by the Mando’a that left your lips that he didn’t even register the soft kiss you pressed in the middle of his chest. Right where his iron heart would be if he had his armor on. You stepped away from him, walking to the dresser off to the side, and Din watched you go until you let the towel fall from your body. He forced his gaze up to the ceiling to keep from staring. Something felt wrong. Was this a dream? Was he dead?

Din didn’t trust the world around him.

You startled awake. A cloud of panic and fear drowning you.

“Mando!?” The nickname left your lips before you even registered a thought. You scrambled to sit up, arms reaching out to try and find purchase, but it was too dark to see anything.  Even without your sight, something felt familiar about the material under your body and the comforting smell surrounding you, but the last memory of the smugglers dropping the spice bomb had too much adrenaline rushing through your body for you to think properly. 

The wall in front of you shot up with a metallic click and a light blinded you. Hands grabbed your calves and you screamed again trying to kick them off. “Mesh’la! You’re safe!” Mando’s modulated voice filled the air. “You’re on the Razor Crest. You’re in my bunk.”

Your eyes adjusted to the light and you recognized your setting. That’s why it was familiar. Mando’s scent surrounded you as you were nestled in the blankets and pillow he used to sleep. Standing at the bunk’s entrance was the Mandalorian himself. He looked unharmed, but he always looked unharmed when he was covered from head to toe in his beskar.

“Mando!” You cried in alarm and launched yourself at him. He didn’t complain when you wrapped your arms around him tightly. Mando simply held onto you and kept you from knocking him over. This should be awkward considering how he had bluntly said he felt nothing for you only weeks ago. But, you were so relieved that he was safe and alive that you didn’t care. His hands rubbed your back soothingly as he mumbled soft reassurances. “I thought you⏤ I thought we⏤”

“We’re safe, mesh’la.” Mando replied.

You leaned back and he kept his arms around you. “What happened? The last thing I remember…” It hurt to try and pull the memory out of your own head. Spice bomb. Red dust had rained over you and Mando. You passed out on top of him. “The⏤The bomb.”

“It knocked you out.” Mando said. “My helmet filtered it out, I think. I woke up with you on top of me and the smugglers were climbing down. We fought. I won. Then I carried you back to Peli’s.”

“All of that happened?”

“We’re in hyperspace now.”

“How,” You shook your head, “How long was I out?”

“Two days. The spice hit your systems hard. I was⏤” Mando cleared his throat, the sound scratchy through the modulator. “I was worried about you, mesh’la.”

It was only then you realized you still had your hands resting on his shoulders and he had his own wrapped around your waist as you sat on your knees⏤ the bunk making the two of you eye level. You swallowed nervously. “I, uh, it was you I was worried about. Your head. I thought I saw blood when you were out cold.”

“Small injury. Only took one round of bacta to clear up.”

“Good.”

“You, on the other hand,” Mando mumbled. He brushed his gloved fingers across your face. The touch lingered on your cheekbone. The same one that had hit the ground hard enough to make your face throb. Mando pulled his other hand away to wrap around your non-bruised and non-swollen wrist. How much bacta had he used to get all your injuries healed in two days? “Mesh’la, I am so sorry.”

You shook your head. “None of that was your fault.”

Mando kept quiet, as if he didn’t agree but didn’t know what else to say. The sound of a soft coo made you lean forward and peer around the edge of the bunk where Grogu was standing by the ladder leading up to the cockpit. He lifted his arms and waddled closer. Mando released you to pick the small child up. Grogu whined until Mando set him in your lap and you didn’t hesitate to cuddle the boy to your chest.

Thank the Maker, he hadn’t been with the two of you. You let out another sigh of relief. It seemed like you and Mando had gotten out of the pit by luck alone and you don’t know what you would’ve done if Grogu had been harmed during the whole thing.

“Here. Let’s get you some food.” Mando set a hand on your elbow to help you slide out of the bunk. What caught you off guard was when he let his hand travel from your arm to your lower back as he led you toward the ladder. You couldn’t help but let your eyes wander over his entire frame. Mando was a good man. It wasn’t the shiny, silver metal of a Mandalorian you were attracted to or the reputation of a dangerous and strong bounty hunter. You had fallen for the kind and protective man who hid under both of those roles. Mando’s head turned to stare back at you and a thrill went down your spine. He whispered your name.

You took a step away and cleared your throat. Mando let his arm fall away. Your obsession with him, your stupid idiotic crush on him, had you misreading signals left and right. The only reason you had confessed was because you convinced yourself that he was shooting you lingering looks and that every brush of his hand against you was purposeful and not a mistake made in passing. 

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled. Mando had made his position clear, and you were done crossing the lines and boundaries he had set.

“Can you get up to the flight deck alright?” Mando asked and you nodded. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Mando tilted his head toward the ladder and he waited until you began to climb⏤ as if he was worried you’d fall off mid-way up. When you got upstairs, you settled into the co-pilot’s chair with Grogu in your lap and stared out at the blurring lines of hyperspace. A small smile settled on your features.

The world around you was right again.

Din felt more like himself once he had his armor on. It still felt like the world around him was spinning and nothing made sense, but his beskar was like a heavy, impenetrable comfort blanket. He sat in a kitchen, helmet on, as he stared out at Sundari through a window that sat near a dining table. It seemed the home around him was part of a tower inside the domed city, and Din still couldn’t wrap his brain around that. The sound of footsteps startled him and he turned in time to see you padding down the hall with Grogu in your arms. He pushed to stand⏤ seeing the small child putting him at ease.

“Why do you have your helmet on?” You asked after handing Grogu to him. The child bounced in his arms chanting a recognizable sound asking for food. “Are you leaving already? Don’t you want breakfast?”

Din stayed quiet. You moved around the kitchen with the ease of someone who did this regularly, and he watched you make a meal. It didn’t make sense, he didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny the attraction he felt toward you being so domestic. Especially after you had just claimed that he was your partner, your husband, your riduur.

“Come here, cutie.” You cooed to Grogu and he let you take the boy from him. You set him in a little high chair and set a bowl of food in front of him. As per usual, Grogu didn’t hesitate to begin scarfing down what was in front of him. You lovingly pressed a kiss to his head then walked over to lean at the corner of the kitchen island next to him. “Din, please talk to me.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’m sorry, Mesh’la.” He sighed. 

You had shifted even closer to the bar stool he sat on. Din tensed when your hands settled on his thighs and you stepped between them. Slowly, you took his hand in yours and began to peel his gloves off. Din sucked in a breath, but couldn’t find a complaint to speak. You did the same thing with his other hand. Finally, your hands rested on his helmet, but you didn’t move. Not until Din gave a small nod. You pulled his helmet off carefully, respectfully resting it on the counter, and Din felt his features soften as he stared at you. Maker, you were beautiful.

“Din, listen to me, I love you.” You said. A pretty smile spread across your features and you took his face between your hands. “But if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I am going to kick your ass.” He chuckled and leaned into your touch. Was Din losing his mind? If this was insanity, it felt so good that Din really didn't think he minded. “Are you… Are you having one of your mornings?”

“One of my… mornings?” Din furrowed his brow.

“You know, when the nightmare doesn’t end.” You whispered.

Din shook his head. “This isn’t a nightmare. It’s a dream. A dream I don’t deserve.” He let his hands rest on top of yours with the plan to pull them away, but he was too weak to actually go through with it. Din sighed, “I lied to you.” A flash of confusion crossed your features. “I said I didn’t care about you in the same way you felt about me, but it was a lie. From the moment you stepped onto the Razor Crest I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. Mesh’la, you are my world.”

“Din, are you…” You paused then a small laugh left you, “Maker, are you talking about when we were trying to get to Mos Pelgo, still? I confessed to you and then we got caught weeks later and…” You shook your head. “Don’t scare me like that. When you said you were sorry and you lied, I was worried something had happened. It’s just a bad morning. They always pass.”

“What are you talking about?” Din asked.

“Fine. I’ll jump start your memory.” You pushed up on your tiptoes and then sat on his thigh. Naturally, his hands went around your waist to keep you from falling and your hands wrapped around his neck. “You confessed to me. It happened months later. You’re an incredible bounty hunter, but you move slow as hell, Din.” He narrowed his eyes. “It was right after we decided to keep Grogu with us. Become a real family. For the record, it also took you way too long to propose to me too.”

Din could picture it all and it made everything so much more confusing. Had that happened? No. Not yet. Yet? Had he meant to think of that word? Yet? Din wasn’t planning any of that, but it sounded right. No part of him thought he deserved you or Grogu, but Maker this was what he always wanted. It was the life he craved, but was too broken to admit aloud. 

“But,” Din tried to find a tether to hold him in reality, “Sundari. We live in Sundari? Mandalore is dead.”

“No, it wasn’t. The poison the Empire caused faded away. We rebuilt.” The sound of a door chime made you glance over your shoulder. “Kriff. She’s here early.” You slid off his lap. “Grogu, we’re gonna be late! Let’s get you cleaned up so Soran can walk you to school.”

Din watched you scoop Grogu up, the boy gave him a wave he returned numbly, and the two of you disappeared down the hall. Were his fears the reason he was confused? What if what you said was right? He was just trapped in a nightmare and it was keeping him from living his life. Din had finally taken the leap, taken the chance, and found his perfect home. Now, his fear was crawling back and trying to ruin it again. Din always did this. He always fought himself. It was why he had denied your initial confession and wasted so much time in the first place.

Moments passed, he could hear you moving around the home with Grogu. Until finally the door chime rang again. Din stood up and faced the hall. Seconds later, you stepped back into view. You gave him a bright smile. 

“Alright, where were we?”

Fully accepting this for what it was, Din marched toward you. Your feet came to a stuttering stop and an excitement filled your eyes. You knew what he was doing before even he knew entirely. Din basically tackled you, pressing your body as tight as he could to his chest, and crushed his lips to yours. You responded immediately. Your hands wrapping around his neck as his tongue found it’s way past your lips. Din let his hands trail down your back, over your ass, under your thighs, and with ease began to pick you up. Just like with the kiss, you were on the same page as he was. You jumped just enough for him to lift you off the ground and your legs wrapped around his waist⏤ locking your ankles at his back. 

Din had planned to carry you down the hall, back to the bedroom, but he felt you grind against him and that plan went right out the window. He slammed you against the wall, lips leaving yours to trail down your neck. Maker, he wanted you. Keeping you pinned to the wall with his hips, relying on your grip around his waist and neck, Din pulled his hands away so he could grab the collar of your shirt. He ripped it down to the middle of your torso so his mouth could reach your breasts.

“I liked that shirt, you know.” You gasped, but the way you kept trying to find friction against his hard on told him you didn’t like it all that much.

“I’ll buy you a new one.” Din replied before leaving open mouth kisses down your chest. One hand went back to cup around your thigh and the other yanked your breast band down so his mouth could wrap around your nipple. The unholy moan that left your lips nearly made him come undone right then and there.

“You’re going to be late to work. They need you today.”

“Mesh’la, I don’t kriffing care.” Din said after pulling his lips away from your breast. His mouth found its way back to yours and after leaving a messy kiss there he pulled away only far enough to speak. “As far as I’m concerned the only place I’m needed is right between your thighs.” 

Din licked into your mouth, and he was startled when your hands untangled from around his neck. Then, with great proficiency, you began to unlatch his armor. His vambrace and left pauldron fell to the ground with a heavy thunk. “How did you do that so fast? How’d you know where the latches were?”

“I’m your wife, dummy.” You unlatched his right one, it joined the other on the floor, then you ripped the cloak out from under the top of his chest piece and pulled down on the collar of his shirt so you could leave too soft, teasing kisses against the hollow of his throat. “Now, either keep carrying me down the hall to our bed or drop me on the floor⏤ I don’t care, I just need you to fuck me.”

Din was not going to make it to the bedroom.

You rose from your seat with Grogu nestled in your arms sleeping. It hadn’t taken long for the boy to fall asleep between the warmth of your arms and the silence of hyperspace. As you drifted toward the door, Mando spoke up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna put him in his hammock is all.” You whispered.

Mando glanced over his shoulder at you then nodded. “Good. Come back up when you’re done.”

Your eyebrows raised in surprise but you gave him a quiet confirmation before leaving the cockpit. You made your way down the ladder slowly and carefully so you didn’t wake or drop the little green gremlin snoring against your chest. You chuckled and rubbed his back while crossing the cargo hold. When you set him in the hammock, he stirred briefly and you took the time to lightly rock the hammock while humming him a lullaby. Only when you were convinced he had fallen back into a restful sleep did you find your way back to the cockpit.

“He’s down for the count.” You joked and dropped back into your chair.

Mando flipped a few switches on the panel before spinning the pilot’s seat so he was facing you. Your eyes widened and you shifted awkwardly in place. The weight of his heavy stare on you was intense. It burned into you and for a brief second you were sure he could see straight into your soul.

“What’s going on?” You asked. “You okay?”

“I could’ve lost you.” Mando whispered. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

“It’s over, Mando. We don’t have to think about it anymore.”

“It’s not over, mesh’la. There will always be another fight, another opportunity for someone to take you from me.” He argued. 

Mando wasn’t wrong. Your lives were a constant battle to maintain the upper hand over all the people trying to take Grogu and harm both of you. It was the exact reason why you had found the courage to confess to him in the first place. You stupidly convinced yourself that you didn’t want to lose anymore time⏤ waste another second. The silence in the cockpit was agonizing. You wanted so badly to break it, but you had no idea what to say to do so.

Luckily, Mando did not have that same problem.

“Come here, mesh’la.” He motioned you toward him with the curling motion of his fingers. You swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in the middle of your throat like a rock. “Please.” The word was spoken softly, but there was a firm undertone that made it feel less like a request and more like a command. You stood up and took the single shaky step that was required to put you in his reach. Mando’s hands found your hips and he startled you by pulling you into his lap. With a yelp of surprise, you were forced to rest your knees on the outside of his thighs. The moment you were situated Mando spread his own thighs further so each of your legs were pinned between him and the chair and you were even more open to him. “Oh, sweet girl…”

“Mando. What⏤ What are you doing?” You whispered. Your entire face felt hot⏤ kriff, every inch of you felt hot.

He shook his head, his hands roaming up and down your sides, “I never should have said no to you. What happened, it made me realize how much,” Mando raised a gloved hand to your face, “how much I care about you.”

“Wait, really?” You breathed. It was the stupidest kind of response to give and you hated that you just blurted it out. Mando chuckled in response, and you shook your head. “Mando, maybe you’re just… feeling this way because what happened was so fresh. We should give it a little time⏤”

“I spent two days waiting for you to open those pretty eyes for me, sweet girl.” Mando cut in. “I’m not losing another second with you.”

The hand fell from your face to rest on your shoulder and, with the other still on your hip, Mando pressed you down on top of him. He shifted his own hips so he could drag the hard bulge in his pants against your core. A sharp gasp of surprise left your lips. Mando kept you pressed against him and when he dragged his hip against yours again the sensation caused you to groan this time.

“Dank farrik.” Mando grunted as he bucked up against you⏤ this time you moved your own hips to add to the friction and he moaned. The sound of him losing control shot straight to your core and you let your hands rest on his chest so you could grind into him more. Maker, you wanted to hear that sound again.

Mando sat up straight and the only thing keep you from tumbling off his lap was the hand he wrapped around your waist. He reached past you, hands hitting switches and buttons, and suddenly the entire panel of flickering lights went dead. “Mando?” You questioned. He hit one more switch and you glanced over your shoulder to watch as the windows darkened until the lights of hyperspace couldn’t be seen. Nothing could be seen. A hiss of pressure release, then a hand took hold of your jaw to turn you back so you faced forward.

“Mesh’la.” Mando whispered. Before you had only heard his unmodulated voice from a distance, as he was eating out of sight or lying in his bunk with the door closed. But, now it was closer than you could ever imagine. He mumbled your name and you could feel the movement of his lips just barely brushing against yours⏤ his hot breath on your face. “Say you want me, mesh’la.”

You took in a deep breath and nodded. “I want you, Mando. I’ve always wanted you.”

Rather than pressing his lips to yours as you wanted, Mando lifted you with ease and pressed you against the control panel. Something sharp was jabbing you in the back, but you didn’t care. Mando’s leather gloves roughly yanked your pants down, underwear and all. You had lifted your hips just enough to help him, but when you lowered yourself back into a seated position you hissed at the cold metal against your bare skin. 

You lifted your hands to find his shoulders, you wanted to feel his face, but Mando’s hands grabbed you by the wrists and pinned them to the panel by your head. He leaned over you and slowly dragged his hard cock, hidden behind his flight suit, against your already dripping wet lips⏤ but it wasn’t the only lips you wanted touched.

“Kiss me, please.” You begged and tried to lift your head to find his, but he leaned back just enough to avoid you. “Mando, I want to feel you⏤ all of you⏤ please.”

“Not yet, mesh’la. Be patient.” His entire weight was pressing down on you. “Good girls are patient, and only good girls get rewarded. Is that what you want, mesh’la? To be my good girl?” You nodded, breathless from the agonizingly slow way he was grinding into you. “Words, mesh’la.”

“Yes.” You gasped. “Please, Mando, please⏤”

“How lucky am I?” Mando hummed. “To have such a pretty girl begging under me. I’ve wanted to make you fall apart since the moment you stepped onto my ship.” You tensed as an alarm began to faintly ring at the back of your mind. Something inside you was trying to warn you. Mando kept whispering loving words on top of you. “You’re mine, mesh’la. You’ve always been mine and you always will be.”

“No.” You tried to squirm out from under him, but Mando was much too large and much too heavy for you to even move an inch. “No, no, no.”

Taking the hint, Mando released your hands and jumped away from you. Breathless, you tried to sit up and gather your bearings. “What is it, mesh’la? What’s wrong?”

“This is wrong.” You shook your head.

“No, it’s right. This is what you want, this is what I want.”

“No, it’s not.” A sob left you. “You don’t want me. You said so yourself. You don’t want me. This isn’t right.” Your head was beginning to pound in pain and Mando’s voice sounded like it was suddenly far away. The cold metal under you was beginning to turn hot and the firm smoothness of the control panel was taking on a new texture⏤ something grainy that shifted under you. The darkness turned to a blinding light and you gasped as pain began to settle into you.

Your face was throbbing, you tasted blood in your mouth, and your right wrist was aching. Now you had a pounding headache as well.  You blinked your eyes, trying to clear the blurriness out of your vision, and you saw a man climbing down a ladder into the pit you laid in. The smugglers. The spice bomb. Your hand tightened around the blaster you had taken from Mando and you lifted your heavy arm to fire at the man. It hit him in the back and he fell from the ladder and landed motionless only a few feet away.

You blindly fired shots up to the ridge of the pit. Over and over⏤ not knowing what else to do. You fired so much that you never noticed the sound of someone else’s blaster mingling with yours. A familiar voice was calling out to you, but it wasn’t Mando. Your heavy arm sunk back into the sand, blaster falling loose, and your eyes began to droop in exhaustion.

You wished it was Mando calling for you.

You woke up slowly. Your entire body was sore and it took straight willpower to get your eyes to stay open. There was a thin cot underneath you and a flickering fire ahead of you. A groan fell from your lips as you tried to sit up.

“Whoa, whoa,” A familiar voice said, “Slow down there, little lady.”

“Vanth?” You tried to turn to find your friend, but a warm hand kept you from moving too much. Suddenly, Cobb Vanth was kneeling beside you with a charming grin. Your entire body sagged in relief. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you right now.”

Vanth rubbed his jawline and gave you a wink, “I am much better looking than those damned smugglers, huh? How’d you and Mando get caught up in all that mess?”

“Mando!” You sat up quickly, immediately wincing when a sharp pain shot through you.

“Maker, darling.” Vanth scolded. “Your tin man is doing just fine. He’ll feel just as shitty as you when he finally wakes up.”

You glanced around and just as Vanth said your companion was lying on a small rolled out cot of his own. The firelight dancing as it reflected off his beskar. “He’s really okay? I think he had a head injury.”

“He’s fine. I promise you.” You nodded and Vanth offered you a canteen of water. As he asked, you began to tell him the story of what happened. It didn’t take long until you reached the point of the story that made your cheeks warm. Vanth noticed your hesitance and bumped his shoulder into yours. “Say your piece.”

“They threw a spice bomb and… and some weird shit happened.”

“Yeah, a spice bomb will do that to you.”

“What is it?”

“Depends. What’d you see?”

You paused before shrugging. “I was on the Razor Crest. Traveling with Mando and Grogu. Like always. It was… it felt so real.”

“Probably glitterstim then.” Vanth made you drink more water. “I have no idea how you broke out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The drug should’ve put you under. Place you in a happy haze of the thing you want most and trap you there for as long as the drug runs its course. Too much and you can end up dying in that perfect little world.” Vanth explained. “Usually, you can’t get out unless someone hits you with an antidote. Something to cancel the effects of the glitterstim. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless you shock yourself out of it.” Vanth shrugged. “It all happens quick. In the first few minutes you either fall into the spice’s trap or you snap through it. The fact that I saw you wake up and shoot that smuggler is quite the feat, darling. How’d you do it?”

You wrapped your arms around your legs and rested your chin on your knees. The drug in your system deemed your perfect world to be Mando confessing how badly he wanted you. How pathetic was that? You didn’t stay under because even in a drugged out haze your mind knew that it was fake. Mando didn’t want you. Not the way you wanted him. Tears filled your eyes. Vanth didn’t press for you to answer and instead set his arm around your shoulder as a comfort. You leaned into him and fell asleep.

Every single part of Din’s body hurt. It reminded him of when the mudhorn had tossed him around like a ragdoll. Every atom in his body though, despite the pain, screamed danger. Din forced himself to sit up, blaster drawn. He was in the desert, by a fire in the dead of night. Across from him, he saw Cobb Vanth sitting there casually. Din’s blaster was pointed at him, but Vanth just gave him a slight wave.

“Hey there, brother.” He greeted. “You can put the blaster away.”

“What⏤” Din began to ask, but then his eyes landed on you. Your head rested against Vanth’s thigh and he had one hand resting on your shoulder. Part of your face looked bruised and even from this distance he could see your busted lip.

“Smugglers got the jump on y’all. Hit you with a spice bomb.” Din holstered his blaster and cursed. Dank farrik. Whispers of his dream world lingered in his mind and Din had to shake his head to try and rid himself of the way your lips felt against his skin. “You’re lucky.”

“This is lucky?” Din asked dryly. Maker, his body ached. 

“Little lady here broke free of the spice dream.” Vanth said. Din’s eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t know what he wanted to know more⏤ what your perfect world had looked like or how you had broken out of it. Vanth’s hand was tracing shapes on your shoulder as you slept and Din frowned at the touch. Coming from an imaginary world where he was fucking you, his wife, to reality where you were sleeping against another man was jarring. “You got stuck in it. Tell me, Mando, what was your perfect world?”

You were. You were his perfect world.

But, Din couldn’t bring himself to admit that in his current reality. 

[kaleidescope-writes]

"So that's where you are..."

Din Djarin x reader

18+, Minors DNI

Tags: Established relationship, swearing, protective!Din, No use of Y/N, no mention of the show's plot, mention of violence, Din's sexy ass voice, year long wait

Pretty sure I missed something, if I did lemme know!

Should I make a part 2?

You knew this was a bad idea. You knew this wasn't going to end well. But you were too far in to stop now. You'd been traveling with the infamous Mandalorian for months, looking for jobs and trying to keep the little green monster safe. It's been rough for the three of you, especially since many of the available jobs would compromise the three of you and put Grogu in inescapable harm. "There are more jobs out there, safer jobs." Din would say. But none of them would pay half as much as those he deemed "too risky." Not only that, they were scarce throughout the Galaxy. Every planet you landed on only had a few jobs Din was willing to take.

It was funny to you. Before Grogu came along, the last thing on his mind when taking a job was whether it was too dangerous. You'd often have to scold him for caring so little about his own safety, claiming he had no sense of self-preservation. Grogu changed that. Grogu was his wake-up call. Now he cares more about the safety of all three of you than how many credits the job offered. You were struggling to buy provisions and keep the Razor Crest in good shape. Peli was a big help, giving you a discounted price on repairs, but it still wasn't enough sometimes. Sometimes you had to scrape the bottom of the barrel just to have enough rations to make it to the next job. Despite wanting to stay optimistic, you knew you couldn't keep this up, it wasn't practical. You had a few conversations with Din about your concerns, but he kept reassuring you that it was fine. "Yours and Grogu's safety is what matters the most. We'll find other jobs, but I can't let anything happen to either of you." But that wasn't enough to make your worries dissipate. You still didn't have enough credits to buy the supplies you desperately needed.

That's what brought you here. You told Din that you were going into the next town over to try to find cheaper supplies for your travels while he took the next job. You hated having to lie to him, but it was getting harder to get by. The last time you visited Peli, you bargained asked for a favor. You asked her to send one of the droid-piloted ships in her possession to the next planet you were headed to, in exchange for a portion of the credits you'd get. You then had it take you to a different planet in the solar system, one you knew you could find one of the jobs Din refused to take. So here you were, waiting in an isolated corner of one of the grime-filled, crowded bars that bounty hunters frequented. You were looking for the zabrak that had offered Din the job a few days prior. He'd said that it was about killing a mercenary that had double crossed him a few months back. They weren't exactly well-known, but they'd made enough of a name for themselves in the underground for other hunters to stay away. Din said he could've taken care of it, but the only thing that stopped his was the very thing you were tired of hearing about. You knew you could handle it. Din had trained you well enough to take a job like this yourself, but he never really gave you the chance to prove it. You didn't need to. He would always be there to make sure you didn't. But now you had to.

A chirping noise coming from your belt pulled you out of your thoughts. Pulling out your holoprojector, you started to feel uneasy. You'd been gone for hours, he definitely noticed by now. As reluctant as you were, you knew that if you didn't respond, he would be absolutely mad with worry. Despite trying to get the job done as secretively as possible, you knew that worrying him would make it harder for him to understand why you decided to ignore his wishes for you to stay safe and stay near him. You knew you had to answer. The moment the hologram took the form of his helmet, the pressure in your stomach became harder to ignore. "Where are you?" His deep, modulated voice asked. You debated continuing the lie you previously used to leave his side, but the way he tilted his head towards you served as a warning against it. "I came looking for another job," you replied bluntly, "We need more than a few credits to get by this time." A deep exhale sounded through the hologram, he was upset. "You weren't in the next town over, I looked for you in every shit hole bar I could find. Where are you?" he asked more sternly He knew you'd gone farther than that, there was no doubt in his mind. That didn't deter you from accomplishing your original purpose here. You needed the supplies. That was something even he couldn't deny anymore. "Looking for another job," you repeated, knowing he wasn't going to stop asking, "I'll go back when I'm done, I just need you to be patient."

"Cyar'ika, tell me where you are. I'll pick you up and we can find a job together," Din tried, his voice easing up a bit as he spoke. Your stomach churned more, preparing another avoidant response. "Ah, there you are!" A very distinct familiar voice called over the noise of the crowd of drunkards, "You changed your mind then? You'll take the job?" Approaching your secluded corner of the bar, the zabrak you were looking for announced his presence out enough to be heard by your concerned lover. You felt your heart drop to your knees, knowing damn well Din would recognize the shrill, raspy voice of the man that had previously offered him the job. You turned your attention back to the holoprojector in your hand, attempting to end the projection before he'd fully realize where you were. But you weren't fast enough, as a deep hum resounded from his image followed by a sentence that would upturn your anxiety.

"So that's where you are."

*********************************************

A/N: Heyo! I know it's been almost a year since I posted the preview, sorry for the delay. Also, I meant to make this longer, but I figured if anyone wants to read more I can make a part 2. Love you guys, stay safe, stay proud, stay strong! 💖

Also, if my irl friends find this, not you fucking didn't 🫵😠

[sirowsky]

Chapter 18 - A Conclusion

Author's Note: This was not how I'd intended to end this story, but unfortunately, writing seldom happens on wishes alone. Thank you so much to everyone that's read and commented along the way, your engagement with these characters has meant a lot to me. <3

OBSERVE! Creator chooses NOT to include warnings on this series. Read at your own risk! Be aware that this story will include violence and is not suitable for minors! 18+ONLY.

Word Count: 3132 Masterlist (This Story) Author’s Masterlist

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   The ship creaks ominously as it slowly travels back to Tatooine and Peli’s workshop.    The giant worm had nearly managed to crush the midsection before you’d been able to burn through the tough outer layer of its hide, and you don’t care how many times Din persists that everything’s fine, you will continue to disagree.    Because you’d warned him not to take this job.

   There was nothing wrong with the client, their business was legit and the Mandalorian knew them from years back, but the task had given you a bad feeling from the start.    The client had wanted a large quantity of closed metal crates transported to a neighbouring system, but they had refused to disclose the contents.    You’d been able to smell something odd coming from the crates and even though you hadn’t known what it was, the client’s behaviour around them had been suspicious.

   You’d been hiding on the ship while Din had negotiated a price, so you hadn’t been able to alert him to your suspicions until the deal had already been made. And because of the creed, your partner had of course insisted on honouring the agreement.    And of course, the cargo had happened to be a valuable waste-product which also attracted fucking space-worms that were half a mile long and damned near indestructible.

   Din and Grogu are only alive now because you can survive in space, and had climbed out of the ship and killed the worm after it had already cracked the hull in search of the cargo.    It hadn’t managed to get to the waste, but it had been a close call. Too close.    Thankfully though, the ship holds together long enough to deliver the cargo and then all the way to Tatooine, where you set down at the workshop with a heavy thump.

   Din re-emerges from the cockpit, once it’s been depressurized, with Grogu in his arms, and you can tell that he wants to talk to you, but you’re absolutely not in the mood, so you slip out of the ship before Peli steps out of her office.    She’s still very nervous around you so you try and keep your distance as much as you can, which ordinarily annoys you a little because it’s been five years and she must know that you won’t hurt her by now.

   Today though, you’re grateful for the excuse.

   “Pan…” you hear Mando say just before you dart away, and his tone is apologetic, but it makes no difference to you right now.

   He ignored your warning, and it resulted in you almost losing them both.    And while this is not the first time that something like this has happened, it is one of the closest calls you’ve ever had, and today, that hurts a lot more than it did five years ago.    Which is why you’re not ready to forgive him yet.

<><><><><><><> 

   “It ain’t lurking in there, right? Cause I’m not going in there alone if it is,” Peli grumbles after greeting the kid and snatching him away for a hug, and Din sighs.

   “It’s been, what? Two years since she saved your entire shop, and you still don’t trust her?” he admonishes, but she just waves her hands dismissively at him.

   “I still don’t even believe it’s a female…” she huffs, and then starts circling the ship to assess the damage. “This is gonna take a while. What the furry happened to it?    Looks like somethin’ tried to take a bite out of it…”

   “Pretty much,” Mando offers instead of a full explanation, and she shakes her head at him.

   “I swear, you’d find trouble even in a monastery.    Well, I’ll get to work on it, but like I said, it’s gonna take a minute,” she declares, and then steps closer and whispers. “Seriously… it’s not in there, right?”

   Now it’s his turn to shake his head as he picks Grogu out of her arms, helps him perch himself on his shoulder, which has recently become his new favourite spot, before they walk off into town.    Along the way, he scans the side streets and roofs of the buildings he passes, looking for you, but you’re keeping your distance. And he can’t really blame you.

   It’s hard for him to find work these days, even though he’s still a member of the guild, because all around the galaxy, rumour has spread about a silver-clad Mandalorian apostate who rides on the back of a demon and can walk through fire without being hurt.    Occasionally, he will find a client that hasn’t heard anything about it, but those are the only times that anyone dares to do business with him.

   And even though the three of you have found a home for yourselves and try to live as peacefully as you can, sometimes you still need credits.    The payment was good enough that the repairs will only cost him about a tenth of the profit from the job, but he knows that you’re not thinking about any profits right now.    This one got scary for real, and he knows that you’re off trying to recover from the shock and the fear, but he hates it whenever you go far enough away that he can’t sense you.

   Over the years, the bond between you has evolved so much that you can almost hear each other’s thoughts now. And he can feel the flame in your chest just as clearly as you can feel his. But these things only work when you’re physically close.    Anything more than roughly a mile, and all he can sense is that you’re still alive, that his flame is still connected to yours. That’s it.

   You’re more than a mile away right now, and he doesn’t like it.

   Unfortunately, there’s nothing he can do about that, so he takes Grogu to a food-stand instead and tries to distract himself by watching the kid eat.    Din stopped missing the tastes, smells and textures of food a long time ago, but he’ll never forget the feeling of being hungry, or of eating something truly delicious.    So, he tries to make sure that his son gets to eat the things that he likes and enjoys the most, as often as possible.

----------

   The ship has been fixed and he and Grogu have been waiting in it for half the night when he finally feels you approach, even though he’s fallen asleep in the cargo bay.    He wakes up and immediately opens the rear hatch, to see you come walking in slowly, glowing bright red with the heat of a good run coursing through you.    You’re not as angry as before you left, but you’re still very disappointed.

   “I’m sorry,” he starts, hoping that you’ll let him try and work this out, and you stop before him without showing any indication that you don’t wanna talk, so he presses on. “You were right, and I should’ve heeded your warning.    I know that it seems odd to you… that I still try to live by the creed, even though I can’t ever be a full Mandalorian again, but that’s who I am, Pan.    It’s my identity, perhaps even more than my own name is, and I don’t know how to just stop being what I am.”

   You’ve had this conversation before, with other words and in other situations, but the gist of it is always the same.    Din still values honesty and loyalty, refusing to break promises or go back on his word, whereas your only loyalty is to him and his son.    The two of them are all you’ve ever had, and without them, you’re just a demon with no purpose or desire.

   “Hey…” he reaches forwards, letting his gloved hand run along the length of your head, and you can’t help how it soothes you. “We’re still here. In the end, that has to be what really matters.    That we never give up on one another.”

   Grogu coos, then, and you break away from Din’s hand to look at him.    He’s got his little arms stretched out towards you, and when your fiery gaze meets his, he tilts his head to the side.

   “Up?” the little one asks, and you instantly dampen your flame.

   It’s one of only a few words that the boy has thus far learned to say, but he’s only gotten better at jumping, and easily leaps up onto your head once he sees that it’s safe.    You’ve had a few scrapes together, and between you, all three of you have saved each other’s lives a few times.    And while Grogu has never been completely helpless in the time that Din has known him, he’s now become something of a hardened protector, always ready to defend his family.

   He fully regards you as his mother, just like he sees Mando as his father. A strange dynamic perhaps, but one that works for three such odd characters.

   “How about we head back home?” Din asks you both, to which the kid coos happily, but you merely nod, before you turn away and climb up to your hiding spot under the ceiling, taking the kid with you.

   You’re still not past this scrape, and he wonders why, out of all the dangerous situations that you’ve been in, ever since you first met, this one is somehow worse than any of it.    Because you’ve been pissed at him before, even deliberately throwing your flames at him a few times when you’ve felt like he’s ignored or disregarded you, but this is something else. Something more delicate or sensitive than what he’s ever seen in you.

   He fires up the ship and sets the navigator on Nevarro, hoping that you’ll be more willing to explain what’s going on with you, once you’re all home safe.    Greef had held up his promise to let Din have some land in his new territory, and since the planet is a volcanic one, it had suited you perfectly. He had been a bit perplexed when the hunter had asked for a remote location, though.

   For the sake of the people, you’d settled down miles away from town where no one would come wandering by mistake, building your own house right on top of some subterranean caves that have been carved out by a lava-stream which still runs through them.    Those caves are yours, running too hot for Grogu to even set foot down there, whereas the Mandalorian can endure them with only mild discomfort.

   The High Magistrate had been even more befuddled when he’d stopped by for his first visit, and found the demon that some travellers had already begun whispering about back then, standing beside his old friend and carrying his favourite little green alien on your back.    That had been an interesting conversation. But it had led to understanding, and an agreement that you wouldn’t set foot in the city unless it was absolutely necessary.

   He lands on the reinforced platform that he’s built just to the east of the house, where the bedrock is more solid, and switches everything off before heading back out to the cargo-bay, where he finds you already by the hatch, waiting to step out.    Grogu’s fallen asleep by now, huddled into a spot between some of the spikes and protrusions that poke out at the back of your head, and he looks perfectly comfortable despite the uneven surface underneath him.

   A comfort of knowing that he’s safe and loved, more than any physical sensation, most likely.

   But Din still picks him up as soon as he’s beside you, because he knows that you want him to, so that you can make your usual sweep around the perimeter and through the house, to make sure that nothing dangerous has shown up in the time that you’ve been away.    You dart off the moment that the kid is no longer on your head, and Mando starts to slowly make his way down the ramp, while he waits for you to give the all clear.

   He hears your tails clang against each other, which is the signal that everything’s alright, and carries the boy to his room to set him down on his bed and tuck him in under his blanket, before he returns outside to look for you.    But you’ve saved him the trouble by waiting for him. Sitting perched on the roof terrace, looking at the sunset, and he can feel that you’re calmer now.

   Sitting down beside you, he removes his helmet for the first time in days, wanting to meet your eyes and let you see his.    You turn your head to look at him, and something in your eyes soften when you see him.    It’s still not something that he does very often, even though nothing really stops him anymore, and you seem to appreciate the trust that it so clearly demonstrates.

   “What’s going on with you?” he carefully asks, keeping his tone soft so that you’ll know that it isn’t an accusation. “You’ve been stressed on missions before, but this is something else.”

   At first, you just stare back at him while he tries to poke at your mind, tries to feel what you’re hiding, but without any luck.    Then, after several long minutes of deliberation, you finally lift your tails and begin to tell him a story.    It’s a story of hope and family, but it ends on a note of fear.

   Specifically, the fear that you will never, could never, belong anywhere or with anyone for any longer period of time, because yours is a legacy of hatred and violence and it will forever haunt you, as well as anyone around you.    And at first, Din fears that this is sounding a lot like the prelude to a goodbye.    But then your emotions shift.

   Because you have never been one to break under pressure. You have always risen to the challenge, and always dared to try what others wouldn’t dream of.    This story isn’t your way of preparing for an ending, but rather your explanation for the new beginning that you’re asking for.    The second chance that you, as the only one left of your kind, are uniquely able to give yourself.

   The only problem is that you literally can’t do it alone.

---35 Years Later---

   He hasn’t aged much since you turned him into a hybrid, which is fortunate because all the other members of his family are also extremely long-lived.    It had been a worry of his, ever since he’d first learned more about Grogu, and how slowly he seemed to age, because it had meant that he might never get to see the child actually grow up.

   The kid is still small, though. He’s grown some, but his development is most notable in his mental growth. He is still quite clearly young, but he’s also bright and clever.    With the comfort of a safe home and a loving family, he’s grown to learn how to take care of himself, how to contribute to his family’s wellbeing and everyday lives, but most importantly… how to be a good brother.

   Din had watched back then, just a few days after your conversation on the roof, how you’d reached into your own heart and brought a small part of your flame out between your claws.    Then using nothing but heat, extreme levels of it, even for you, you’d turned that tiny ember into it’s own flame, and once it had grown strong enough to sustain itself, it had formed a thick black shell around itself.

   A shielding cocoon where stolen genetic material came together to form a human baby.

   Your daughter, Somniera, is still human at thirty-five years old. A feat accomplished only by your guidance.    She’s headstrong and determined, but there’s a calmness at her centre. A complete understanding of what she is and what that means. But also, a deep acceptance of herself that even you never managed to find.

   All of which has led to a degree of control over her flame that might very well see her live out her life without ever succumbing to the Burn.    That’s not a prospect that the rest of the family is all that excited about, though, since it would mean having to watch her grow old and die.    But in truth, Din would rather suffer that pain, then having to pick up the pieces of his daughter’s soul that would be shattered if she ever lost control and killed someone.

   Regardless, he’s happy that she gets to chose for herself what her life will be, as so few of your kin have ever gotten that opportunity.

   On her fifteenth birthday, you’d taken her to see Pagwu for the first time, and you’d all been astonished by how quickly it had continued to recover.    There were already forests there by then, and little streams coming down from the mountains, as the ecosystem had finally started to come alive when the northern badlands had completely stopped burning.

   Somni had gotten to meet Neaba and Nibei, and the young man that Kas has grown into, but you’d also taken her to see the south caves and the history of your kind, which had helped her in her understanding of herself and calmed her rebellious, youthful self.

   Since then, Cai’ilo has become a thriving city once more, even home to its own spaceport now, and new settlers arrive every year as rumour spreads about the legendary dead planet at the edge of the galaxy, that has been reborn.

   And Nevarro is much the same. It continues to grow and expand, although Greef sadly died some years ago.    The city still honours and reveres him for his instrumental part in turning the planet into a respectable and inviting trade post, but not entirely out of the goodness of their hearts.    There has been more than one attempt to turn the young city into a pirate’s nest, or engage in trading of a less upstanding nature.

   But Din made a promise to Karga before the man died, that for as long as he lives, he will never let the Magistrate’s hard work be torn apart.    So, whenever there’s uproar, or even just whispers of criminal elements around, the demon and it’s rider makes a nightly appearance around town, and if need be, forcefully drives out or kills anyone that tries to destroy the fine city.

   It’s a simple life, and you all know that it won’t last forever. That sooner or later, you’ll need to move on, either to protect your own family, or to let Nevarro learn how to protect itself.    But until then, you’ll continue to enjoy this little slice of peace that you’ve managed to find for yourselves, one wonderful and trying day at a time.

THE END

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Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging, I’d greatly appreciate it <3

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[djarinsbeskar]

HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 4

A/N: We're getting closer. Brace yourselves... Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, gore, horror, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: If you want to keep updated on when I post fic turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes ! c:

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Day 10

You thought you had escaped him.

You considered yourself lucky.

But you soon learned there was no such thing in the labyrinth, and the Minotaur lingered with you long after you fled the carnage he caused in the forest.

Twigs and filaments of hedging scratched at your face and neck where you made a break into a barely visible gap onto another path in the maze. Your heart pounding, you couldn’t quell the terrified shriek when the air was disturbed behind you, a massive shadow racing past where you had just escaped from.

Another close call.

It wouldn’t take him long to circle back when he lost the trail. You needed to hurry.

Swimming through the hedgerow, you clawed your way to the other side desperately. It was too dark suddenly, the thicket too dense for you to see farther than your nose where you were coffined within the black foliage. When you hand finally breached the other side, however, it wasn’t open air that met it.

It felt like a living volcano under your fingers.

If the magma and rock and fury could be made man as a growl began deep in his throat, vibrating under your hand and filling you with the most intoxicating dread. It surrounded you in a sea of lava, cutting off your every exit. Made you hot when you realized the rock under your hand was instead solid muscle.

But instead of pulling away – burned – your hand moved on its own, tracing downward… getting hotter the closer you came to the source. The cloth at his groin gave you pause when something swayed beneath it.

Something mean.

Something designed to break you into submission. Or death. Whichever came first.

You finally reacted to the burn, yanking your hand away as common sense rammed into you ruthlessly.

He found you already.

How-

You didn’t have time to finish the question, a massive hand erupting through the hedging to collar your throat, his blood-thirsty bellow drowning out the sound of your neck snapping as you were dragged from a fitful sleep with a gasp.

The underside of a large root met your gaze, your hand flying to your neck to ensure you were still alive. If your pulse racing under your fingers didn’t convince you, your ragged breaths did as you tried to swallow around the fear lodged in your throat, your mouth fuzzy with thirst.

A… a dream?

You groaned, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes as you willed your heart to slow. Not again…

Not even in your dreams were you free from being hunted. Not even sleep rid you of the all-encompassing punishment the labyrinth insisted on subjecting you to. It truly was hell on earth, with no way out in sight.

You’d be stuck here for an eternity if you weren’t run down and killed first.

What would you even do if you escaped? The question sobered you as you pulled yourself out from the small dimple of space you’d taken shelter in under a root, the entrance to which was hidden by a sheet of draped moss.

It was impossible to tell how long you’d been asleep, stretching your aching arms above your head. The concealed sky hid the suns movements, but since it still shone behind the clouds, you knew it couldn’t have been for very long. The glare pounded behind your eyes, your dream finally catching up with you at the same time you became aware of something equally disturbing.

A decided slickness between your legs and a familiar throb you never normally had trouble finding someone to take care of.

But this wasn’t due to the drunken high of a midnight dance, or the wandering hands of a handsome god while you slept in his bed after a night of passion. It was… because of him.

Curse your nature as a nymph.

It was a well understood fact that nymphs – by their existence – were personifications of the natural world and therefore, were often drawn to the primal. To areas of potent carnal energy and overindulgence that often manifested in the parties Dionysus threw night after night, the whisper of an arrow from Artemis’ bow to fell a boar whose head would decorate the tables of plenty. The sex and orgies and decadence that you now found yourself on the flip side of.

You were connected to nature, to the very essence of the primordial and so… you were attracted to it. In all its’ forms.

But a beast? That was a far cry from an over-indulgence of wine and pleasure.  

Something was wrong with you. It had to be.

The labyrinth was making you mad… it had to be.

Realization propelled you to your feet as if you could escape those unwelcome thoughts and intrusive truths by simply running from them.

But they, like him, clung to your subconscious like nightshade you’d foolishly mistaken for burdock. Now, removing the burs was an obsolete task. The poison had already taken hold. A poison that made your hand tingle and pussy clench with the memory of a monstrous girth your imagination cooked up.

You blamed it on everything you could as you tried to find your bearings. You blamed it on the maze itself. You blamed it on Hera and her proclivity for curses. You blamed it on Zeus and his wandering gaze. You blamed it on the water, believing it to be bewitched even as you dropped to your knees to guzzle great handfuls of the life-giving essence at the first stream you found.

You even blamed it on the Minotaur himself.

In taking so long to catch you and put you out of your misery, you were forced to become accustomed to the fear… leaving room for other, more dangerous emotions to fill the space it once took up entirely.

There wasn’t time to ponder what those emotions might be when a shriek echoed across the labyrinth, raw and terrified before it was cut short with unnatural abruptness. That wasn’t unusual. You had grown accustomed to the way the wind carried screams far more willingly than any other sound to torment the labyrinths inhabitants.

It did, however, remind you of how exposed you were by the water. Especially if he had started hunting so early.

That was unusual.

He was usually far more active at night. As though cloaked in shadows, he could pursue his victims with a deadly invincibility. The shadows themselves an extension of his terror, confusing the instincts of every prisoner as they fled his tireless pace.

But he wasn’t the only villain within the confines of the labyrinth.

It had been a harrowing realization that just because he was the apex predator, didn’t mean there weren’t others willing to do anything, hurt anyone to ensure their own survival. You might have been wrongly convicted and sentenced here, but that wasn’t the same for everyone.

The back of your neck prickled suddenly with awareness, making you whirl where you came face to face with a man and a woman standing a short distance away, their hands raised in the universal sign of surrender. Their dress more worn and features more weathered, it was clear they’d been here much longer than you had.

Eyes widened and mind fresh with the knowledge that humans were capable of as much brutality as the gods, you backed away slowly. How could you not have heard them?

“Easy,” the woman began, her voice smoky and attractive, calling to the sisterly attachment you had been devoid of since coming here, “you are alone in this hellscape, traveller?”

That question was too loaded, and your guard fortified further.

You gulped, eyes flicking mistrustfully to the male standing silently by her side, his hand palming the butt of a crude knife of carved stone while sharp, black eyes scanned their surroundings. The woman noticed, placing herself half in front of him to drag your attention back to her.

“My name is Penelope, and this is one of my companions, Nikos.”

“One of—” you heard yourself speak warily, eyes darting to bushes, shrubs, the maze itself… all capable of hiding others.

“They’re not here.” You gulped when Penelope continued, your eyes finally pulled back to her. “We got separated during the night and have been trying to find them ever since. You are welcome to join us if you’d like.”

You didn’t miss the stifled noise Nikos made as his eyes snapped to Penelope, but she remained focused on you.

Tangled black hair was pulled away from her face in a long mane, various braids throughout the locks reminding you of those worn by Artemis’ hunters whom you often guided throughout the night. She wasn’t one. You were merely trying to find familiarity in her dirt-stained skin and keen, green eyes.

“There are about twelve of us, we look out for one another, work as a team—pool resources, take turns keeping watch, finding food. It works, and I’ve been part of it since it was formed. It’s the best the likes of us are ever going to get in here, traveller.”

Your jaw tensed at her ready acceptance of the way things were and you didn’t miss the way Nikos’ grip tightened on his weapon.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” She continued when you remained silent. You averted your eyes, the woman misinterpreting it for agreement and not the blush you were attempting to hide.

“This place robs us of everything but hope.” A chill entered Penelope’s voice. “That is his to destroy. It’s why so few last beyond escaping him. They realize there is no hope, and simply give up. You can see it in their eyes.”

You didn’t like her insinuation, nor the dullness in her gaze. Is… that what she meant? Did you look like that? Catching your frown, Penelope shook her head.

“But not yours.” Penelope smiled, the first tug of kindness stinging your eyes suddenly. “You still have some hope inside you, we could use that.”

“Pen—” Nikos began on a rumble, turning towards her with a familiar hold to her elbow while he cast a suspicious glance towards you.

“The fact you’re still alive is admirable, traveller. But it won’t stay that way if you remain alone.” Penelope ignored him to keep talking to you. Were you so transparent that she could tell you were being swayed? That the thought of company in this abyss was as tempting as the thought of being swallowed by it?

Your brows fell over your eyes suspiciously, suddenly unsure of their intent. You saw what you got out of this offer, but what did they?

“We don’t have much, but there is strength in numbers. “

You cursed your lack of experience with mortals. Maybe if you lived among them instead of observing them from afar in the safety of the night sky, their actions might make more sense to you. But in reality, outside the occasional dalliance with a warrior or three, you had no notion of why humans did… anything they ended up doing.

They were much too juvenile, their lives too short to be sure of anything before they died.

“We cannot linger, Pen.” Nikos insisted once more, drawing you out of your mind. “It’s clear she doesn’t want—"

Penelope silenced him with a pat to the bicep. Ah. Lovers. You understood that. The man grizzled, but subdued as she took a testing step towards you, smiling when you didn’t retreat.

“When was the last time you ate something other than a few raw nuts? Slept longer than an hour at any one time? Felt protected?”

You didn’t know.

Honestly, it felt like an eternity since you’d experienced any of that. Your stomach growled treacherously, telling her your answer. Still, you wouldn’t be swayed. That only ever got you in trouble, being swayed by others.

“I know enough about life to know nothing is free…” You flinched internally when Nikos shifted, the wind mercifully carrying your voice, as soft as it was. “How do you benefit from having another mouth to feed?”

In your periphery, a sprinkle of stardust shimmered atop the stream you stood within. If they didn’t already know you were a divinity, they very soon would. And the greed of humans could rival that of Zeus himself…

“That—”

A branch snapping made you jump, the sound of your neck breaking in your dream flashing across your memory along with a clamour of instinct.

Danger.

It wailed in your mind, forcing you back several steps, snapping out of the fantasy you’d found yourself in with the sudden dread that you’d been hoodwinked.

But it wasn’t the mortals.

They looked just as taken by surprise as you were, all pleasantness from the exchange falling as survival instincts kicked in and Nikos pulled out his dagger, Penelope palming her own weapon at her hip cautiously.

Another snap and then it was silent. Dreadfully so.

“Into the maze, quickly!” Nikos hissed. “Now!”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Without looking back, you sloshed across the river, the tell-tale silence of the water breaking around you heralding his arrival like the crack of a whip spurring you faster. You only realized the others were following by the sound of their laboured breathing.

So… the labyrinth silenced everything but the people within it. What a terrible mechanism for hunting.

But you couldn’t concern yourself with their welfare, yours was at stake and they had each other.

Breaking left on instinct, déjà vu struck you when you caught sight of a gap in the greenery. You would’ve missed it entirely had a similar shortcut not been present in your dream earlier that day. And echoing your dream further, the mortals sprinted past it, losing you while you shimmied through the small space onto another path entirely.

A bellow sounded across the silent maze, an explosion of noise sending birds into the air and those stuck on the ground to flee or hide.

“Shit, shit, shit—” you whispered under your breath when you noticed the flurry of stardust coating the leaves of the hedge where you passed through it. It practically signposted your route to anyone who passed by.

Futilely, you tried to knock it off but only succeeded in spreading it further. Your panic over covering your tracks overshadowed all else until you heard it. A sound that made your stomach drop as you lifted your eyes to the hedging.

A snort.

It froze you in place as the other side of the gap you had passed through was blocked by something dark and massive.

But unlike your dream, it wouldn’t take much to reach through to the other side.

You really were going mad…

Why else were you still here? Why were you not running?

A dangerous game presented itself to you suddenly, one you had no idea you’d been playing all this time when the monster on the other side of the hedgerow stayed where he was instead of charging you like you’d heard him do to countless others.

Would he be as molten hot as he was in your dream, you wondered in awe. Would he be as hard?

Maybe the entire thing hadn’t been a dream at all, but a premonition of your fate. One last gift of Atropos before she cut the string of your long life. But that hardly made a dent in your psyche the way it ought to, the way it once would have.

Indeed, it hardly made a ripple as the thought of huge horns and wide shoulders you’d only seen in shadows mated with the burning recollection of a touch only present in your dreams to create a single, enticing creature before you.

You took a wary step closer, the eldritch shadow on the other side shifting at the sound.

Another snort followed the first. Sharper, your scent caught, and you halted before you could get any closer. A throaty growl rumbled around you, giving you a split second to step back before the hedging shook and a forearm burst from the same gap you passed through with ease.

It was all that could fit, you realized, his forearm alone as thick as your thigh. Dark skin was littered in constellations of scars and hair, and the hand attached to it… was that of a man. Knuckles bruised and bloody, fingers thick and palm broad while a ring of fresh bruises surrounded his wrist and gave you pause when he pulled it back.

A warriors hand.

Apart from its size, you’d seen countless hands like this in your time and been touched by as many. That violent possessiveness and brutal affection was unique to hands who caressed their weapons the way they did a woman’s body. That sought to protect or destroy in the spilling of blood and ecstasy.

Either was possible until the moment it happened. There was a thrill in not knowing until it was too late.

You resented the trickle of wetness you could feel slip down your inner thighs, his growl deepening.

You should have run.

You should have run ages ago. If you had, you wouldn’t have been burdened with what you considered the last nail in the coffin on your sanity. The last vestige of hope Penelope was talking about. For when you heard his voice… attraction bloomed in a way it never had before inside you.

In a way you feared you’d never be able to return from.

“Lost… little… star—” His voice was so low it shook the earth, a primal gravel that removed all notions of humanity were it not for your ability to understand him.

“Run.”

You finally broke from your frozen stupor, dashing blindly any which way. It didn’t matter if you disoriented yourself. If you lost yourself completely. You needed to ensure you couldn’t find your way back there… to him and the filthy promise in unspoken words if he caught you.

Tears streaked down your cheeks as you did, unable to care if they – or your stardust – were leaving a scent trail for him to follow when it dawned on you that he wasn’t just hunting randomly anymore.

He was hunting you.

But the worst thing was, as you ran, breath stolen and heart hammering, your tears were joined by a delirious smile of adrenaline filled ecstasy. While separated from the stars, you found your lost connection to the core of nature through fear, brazen danger. Him.

It terrified you enough that when another endless night of evading his singular pursuit came to a close and you staggered on jelly legs to the closest body of water only to run into Nikos once again, you didn’t hesitate to beg for his help.

To take him up on Penelope’s offer though she was nowhere to be seen. You were blind to anything else but the panic-induced need you had to flee what had happened in the labyrinth that night.

You needed to stop these feelings from growing. Stop them, even if it meant cutting yourself off from the very nature you once thought lost to you that now pounded on your psyche with a wild, bestial need.

[the-scandalorian]

like a moth to the flame, part IV

Pairing: monster!Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: E, 18+ Word Count: 11.1k Content Warnings: dark!Din, predatory/obsessive/possessive behavior, body horror/painful physical transformations, injury/gore, blood and hunting and monstery shit, oral (m-receiving), p-in-v Note: Endlessly grateful to both @frannyzooey and @ezrasbirdie for lending me their big beautiful brains xx

DIN Din had woken, disoriented and hurting, that morning after he’d found the Armorer on Glavis.

He came-to curled in the fetal position on the hard metal floor of his tiny compartment on the humming public transport. Before he’d even opened his eyes, he knew his body felt wrong. Uncomfortable and unwieldy, heavy and strange.

When he did open his eyes to the harsh, artificial light, the first thing he noticed was the sharp clarity of his vision. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, but it felt like he was looking through one of the strongest filters of his visor. He blinked hard. No change.

He unfolded his arms and studied his hands, splaying too-long fingers, and his thoughts tangled and snagged as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. 

The glint of cruel silver claws. 

In his periphery, he caught the movement of a dark shape over his shoulder.

He tried to scramble away from it. It followed, a shadow.

Wings.

The word felt absurd. But it was…right. Silver that matched the half-moons of those claws, a structure of bone sprouted from both of his shoulder blades, a hooked joint forming the apex of each inky black, bat-like wing. Colossal and dark.

Piece by piece, in a haze of disbelief, he discovered new parts of himself.

The sheer size of this body, the power coiled in his changed muscles. 

He ran a finger along the edge of his teeth, catching the pad on an elongated canine. Blood welled.

The wound on his thigh, where he'd burned himself with the saber the night before, was largely healed. There was only a trace of it, a fading pink scar.

Din stopped there. He couldn’t bring himself to look in a mirror, to see himself like this. He wasn’t ready for it to be real, to know if his face was still his own.

Instead, he picked up his chest plate to start collecting his armor, and his claws bit gently into the perfectly smooth surface. He was stunned.

What scratches beskar?

Beskar.

Of course.

The silver of his claws, of his wing joints was beskar. Virtually indestructible.

Din sank back to the floor and closed his eyes. He sat against the cold metal wall with his clenched fists pressed against his eyelids, the tips of those talons cutting into his palms. He wanted to escape the prison of this body, of this new reality; to wake from this nightmare; to blink himself out of existence altogether. 

He forced himself to slow his breathing, holding it at the top of each inhale, until some of the tension in his chest eased. He let his thoughts go, focused on the cadence of his breath. Preparing himself as he did before a fight.

A slow, creeping sense of relief spread through him gradually, growing so palpable it turned physical. Like a cool wash of water over his aching muscles, a full-body shiver racked him. The tremble and quake of his broad frame was fleeting but intense. A release. His bones shifted in a pinch of discomfort. His mind drifted.

And then, stillness.

He’d opened his eyes minutes later, and his vision was blessedly, beautifully blurred—just barely. As it always was. As it was supposed to be.

Sitting there, staring at his hands and his blunt, human nails, Din might have been able to convince himself he’d imagined all of it. A fever dream. A delusion. An exhaustion-fueled moment of insanity, his mind addled by the fight and the pain and the life-altering dismissal from his covert. 

Except, etched into his chest plate…those damning marks.

A mechanical voice announced the imminent arrival of the transport, interrupting his moment of existential crisis. Tatooine. The local time and weather blared through the speaker.

Tatooine. He couldn’t go back there. Not like this.

He made a choice. He dressed and readied himself, deboarded and found his way to the baggage claim. A droid unlocked his case, and Din methodically reattached each of his weapons. He reached for the dark saber last. The metal hilt felt hot, even through the thick leather of his glove. Nothing else had—not his blaster or his charges. Just the saber, warm under his touch. Warm like something alive. Like something warm-blooded, something with a thrumming pulse. Like something pleased to be back in his grip.

Like it knew.

He clipped it to his belt and let it drop, relieved to not have it in his hand.

Din turned, looking for the closest screen of departures, and scanned the list for the least populated destination.

*** Now, months later, he wakes to a fantasy.

He hadn’t meant to sleep. He didn’t want to risk it, even in the armor—not after he felt his body start to shift under his beskar last night. He didn’t think that was possible. Then he’d sucked your taste off his fingers, and his head had snapped to the side, his spine straightening. He’d felt the pop of vertebra and the sudden tightness of the skin across his back, the warm tension in his muscles straining for the change, but he’d managed to stave it off. 

Just barely.

No, he hadn’t meant to sleep last night, but he had. And he wakes now, well rested, to the feeling of your warm body curled into his side, your head nuzzled into his neck, your breathing slow and deep. Watery morning light, as light as this dark forest ever gets, is visible through the trees outside the window.

He’d tried to move away from you during the night, to give you space, sure that you’d be more comfortable without the hard edges of beskar digging into your soft body, but every time he’d started to extract himself gently, you’d grumbled and tightened your fingers wherever they happened to be—caught in the folds of his duraweave, gripped around armor, tangled with his own. The leg you had hooked over his thigh had tensed too, your foot tucking itself under his other knee. You twined yourself around him, like a tenacious little climbing vine, and refused to let go.  

He likes it. You’re possessive too.

The realization hurts a soft spot under his ribs—you want what he wants. To belong to someone. To claim and be claimed. To know that closeness. Skin-to-skin, joined and sweaty, without all these fucking layers between you. That hopeless, dangerous thing he can never give you.

That thought is unbearable when you’re asleep on his chest, your hand still curled over the top of his chest plate, fingers clinging to the sharp cut of metal. When he can smell the faint tang of your blood as it pumps idly through your veins, detectable even under the layer of your delicate floral scent, even from beneath his helmet.

His mouth waters.

It’s the catalyst that finally gets him moving. He carefully but forcefully unfastens your hand, inches your leg off his, and slips out of bed. You readjust but don’t wake.

As soon as he’s standing, looking down at you, he regrets it. The space between your bodies is intolerable, and he has nothing to do but wait for you to wake. So he waits. He waits, and he seethes.

He thinks about the mistakes he’s made.

*** He’d spent yesterday angry at himself, fuming at his own idiocy. He’d ruminated on how to proceed, how to scare you off again after he’d all but courted you the previous night when he’d given you a com link. Had invited you to use it. Fucking encouraged it. He’d been drunk on you—on your presence, on your forgiveness, on your smile. On the headiness of your scent as you’d stood so close to him outside your house. And it had messed with his fucking head, made him do stupid things. Dangerous things.

He’d worked through the steps of his drills while he thought, slashing the saber through the air as he’d tried to decide what to do. How to retract his offer of the com. He didn’t think he could bring himself to be cruel to you, to reject you outright. He’d imagined your face, imagined the hurt there, and he’d just…known he couldn’t do it. He’d have to leave. He wouldn’t let himself see you again. He'd jam the frequency of the com link. A clean break.

It was the only option.

He’d decided he’d let himself change early then, before the sun had dipped below the green horizon. One last hunt before he found a way off this planet. 

He’d been minutes away from letting himself shift, minutes away from heading out completely uninhibited, when he’d caught your scent. You were close. The timing of it had made him want to break something. That was exactly the problem with all of this: one misstep, one instance of bad timing…and you could end up dead.

Why hadn’t he thought about you finding the bodies? How had that not occurred to him? 

He’d left a perfect trail from your house to his. His animal brain had thought protect and nothing else. He’d gotten sloppy, comfortable. Maybe some part of him had wanted you to find it, to follow.

This was how it would end, then, he’d thought as he waited for you. Not in the easy way he’d planned, not a quiet exit—a coward’s exit. He’d have to face you, to turn you away and tell you he was leaving. 

Then you were in front of him, and all of that was gone—the struggle and the resolve, the determination and decency. He’d fought to get it back for a few minutes, scrabbled against his own desire. Had tried to deny himself—to deny you. It was futile.

You’d asked him if he thought you were weak, if all of this was somehow your fault. And that was it.

He’d refused to punish you for his sins. 

*** And now you’re in his bed. Warm and soft under his comforter, your head pressed into his pillow. A dream. Something he could wake up to tomorrow and the next day, if he wanted. A string of perfect, untouchable days stretching before him like a beckoning temptress.

He can’t let himself think like that.

Your life, he reminds himself. Your life is what matters most. Keeping you here wouldn’t just be selfish, wouldn’t just be a temporary balm, it would be a gamble. Your life pitted against his own self-restraint. Your life pitted against the self-restraint of a monster he doesn’t trust.

If he can just get you out—out of his bed, out of his house, out of his head—he’ll be able to think straight, and then he can go.

He watches you stir, aware suddenly that a fully armored Mandalorian looming over you might not be the most comforting sight for you to wake to. But you crack open sleepy eyes before he can move, and a lazy smile spreads across your face. His heartbeat stumbles.

“Morning,” you yawn, stretching your arms over your head.

“Morning,” he replies, clipped as he tries to expedite this process.

“It’s early,” you muse, your gaze trailing to the window. “I think you should come back to bed.”

Din’s thoughts stall immediately. You look so cozy, so comfortable snuggled in his bed. In his bed.

“Please?”

Din’s helmet follows the path of your hand as it begins to wander: as it slides languidly down the column of your neck, molds over the swell of your breast, lingers along your waist. You know you’ve snared him right away. You always know.

He just stands there, silent and yielding, as you kick the blankets away and shimmy out of your clothes. He wants to tell you to stop, but his mouth isn’t responding to his brain, his jaw dropped open slightly behind the helmet as he surveys the bare lines of your body. He didn’t get to enjoy this yesterday, didn’t get to luxuriate in the view, to drink in every detail. To commit it to memory.

His visor catches where your fingers stroke the curve of your hip.

“I can’t—” he starts.

You slip your hand between your legs, run your fingers through the soft hair there.

He was going to get you out. To regroup. That was his intention.

One of your fingers slips lower, dips into the seam of your sex. His cock responds.

He barely knows his own name, let alone any sense of reason when you’re looking at him like that—touching yourself like that. Begging him to touch you. His nervous system jolts from freeze directly into overdrive, and immediately he can feel himself brushing up against some physical limit, teetering on the edge of his control.

He watches you drop your knees open, and a low, pained sound passes through the modulator when you use two fingers to part yourself, putting yourself on display for him. You roll the pad of one finger over your clit, and your head drops back onto the pillow, your eyes closing in pleasure. Need claws at the inside of him. 

“Stop,” he commands, but there’s no bite in it, his mouth watering at the sight of your stroking fingers.

You smile and widen the spread of your thighs, moving your hand lower.

He tries to sound firm, but his words come out like a plea: “Don’t—”

“I wouldn’t have to touch myself if you’d do it for me.”

You keep your eyes on his visor as you press two fingers inside yourself, frictionless as they sink inside the warm clutch of your body. He’s fixated on the flex of your wrist as you fuck yourself gently—his rapt attention suddenly a shivering, living thing throbbing under his skin. When you ease them out, he can see the shine of your arousal coating your skin up to the knuckle, a clear thread strung between your fingers for a brief moment when you slowly separate them.

“Your fingers feel so much better,” you breathe.

His blood pulses loudly in his ears, a too-slow beat. He knows what you feel like, clenched around his thick fingers—how slick, how hot. He knows what you taste like, licked off his own skin. Din would like to say that some greater primal force takes over, hijacks his body, that the monster in him doesn’t give him a choice, but that would be a lie.

He decides to let go.

Without changing forms, Din silences the part of his mind that’s protesting. He lets the animal of his hindbrain take control, a predator submitting to the call of its prey drive. It feels good to give in—a rush of blissful quiet overtakes him. He looks at you, and it’s simple. He wants you.

Time slows, but his hands move quickly—going to his belt buckle. The weapon-heavy leather thuds when it hits the ground at his feet.

You watch him disarm himself, poised like a willing sacrifice on his bed with your hand caught between your open legs, a naked eagerness on your face that pleases the possessive, hungry thing in his chest. His vision is tinged red, the severed thread of his control a distant memory as he thinks of all the things he wants to do with you.

To you.

He condemned himself to this the moment he let himself touch you. There’s no going back. He’s going to taste your nectar from the source. He’s going to fuck you with his tongue and gently suckle your clit between his lips until you sob. He’s going to eat you out until you come on his face, your hands tangled in his hair.

And then he’s going to do it again.

He tries not to think about how much easier that would be with his other tongue, his tongue when he’s transformed—long and dextrous as it is. He could get so deep inside you like that. Taste you from the inside out.

Later. He appeases himself with the promise of later. The promise of tomorrow and more more more.

His gaze settles on your mouth. There’s something else he wants now.

He approaches the bed and stands at its side, waiting patiently. That desperate sense of urgency drops away, and his shoulders relax. He can decide to have all the time in the world with you if he only lets himself. 

When he hunts, when Din really truly hunts these days, he finds that he likes to draw out the indulgence of it. The tease and the chase. The kick of adrenaline before the slaughter. He understands why a predator plays with its prey before it makes the kill. 

Because it can.

Because it feels good.

You’re expecting him to join you on the bed. He can see it in your expectant gaze.

“You want it so bad?” he asks, dipping his helmet down. “Come here.”

A wicked look flashes across your face at the change in his voice, at the invitation. There’s a beat of anticipation as you decide to play along, and then you crawl to the edge of the bed on your hands and knees. He watches, an imperious tilt to his helmet.

You perch on the edge, looking up. Waiting.

“Go ahead,” he nods. “Take it out.”

Your hands move to the button on his pants, but you don’t pop it open right away. You let your hand mold to the hard bulge there, feeling the heft of him.

He tilts his helmet the other direction, impatient, and you go for the zipper. 

Before you’ve even pulled his cock out, before you’ve even touched him, Din thinks the sensation of your hot breath on the expanse of skin exposed by his open fly might be the most erotic thing he’s ever experienced. 

He rips his gloves off and locks a hand around the nape of your neck. 

He thinks for a fleeting moment how obvious it must be—his obsession with your mouth. The edge of mania he’s shoved toward when you let your tongue drag up his hip bone. That he’d slit his wrists at the altar of your perfect lips if you asked.

Your eyes drag upward slowly as you lick across his skin, gaze catching on the armored lines of his body before it meets his visor. You peer up at him as you inch the fabric of his pants down just far enough. And then your eyes flick down to watch a pearly bead of precum slip down the length of his shaft at your closeness.

“You want it?” he rasps. “Open your mouth.”

He grunts in satisfaction when your lips part immediately. Again when your hand curls around the base of him and your tongue darts out to circle his head, a touch so infuriatingly delicate that it makes him want to hold you down and fuck your throat raw.

He doesn’t, of course. He lets you set the pace even though your teasing lick across the underside of his cock and another over his slit feel as much like torture as they do like pleasure. 

Finally, finally, you take him fully into the heat of your mouth. You start up a steady rhythm, and he’s more than satisfied to let you take the reins. 

You’re less satisfied with that though—you settle a hand over his on your neck and press down, your eyes skirting upward as you nod subtly, your other hand urging his hips forward, urging him to fuck your mouth. 

Use me. 

He wishes you could see his face in this moment, what you do to him. Din’s eyelashes flutter shut at the perfection of your request. But immediately, he snaps them open again, needing to see.

He thrusts forward, and you whine in approval, your fingers tightening on his hip—taking him deep again and again, until he watches a line of saliva slide down your chin. Until your lashes grow wet, eyes watering at the effort of taking him over and over. 

It’s too much. It’s too good. 

The tight, hot constriction of your throat as you swallow around the head of him, the hard suck of your cheeks hollowing out around his shaft. His helmet rocks back, and a growl reverberates through his chest. But he’s not about to let himself come without knowing what it feels like to fuck you.

His hand drops away from the back of your neck; he forces his hips to still. “Enough,” he grits.

When you surge forward again, taking him deep, he closes a hand gently around your throat and eases you backward, off him.

“I said stop.” He thinks the words would be menacing if the fractured restraint in his voice weren’t so apparent. If you couldn’t see the steady leak of precum from his cock, the drizzle of opaque liquid on his dark pants. He’s teetering right on the painful edge of orgasm, and you know it. 

“Need to fuck you,” he says, his hand still settled over your throat.

“Then fuck me,” you reply, your voice hoarse as you shift backward on the bed. 

“You want my fingers first?” he asks, his hand drifting down the inside of your thigh. “You want to cum on my hand again?”

“No,” you say, catching his wrist and pulling him onto the bed, over you. 

“No?” he says. “You want it to hurt?”

“Yes.”

His fingers tighten on your thigh. Too hard. “Turn around.”

You flip over and settle on your knees in front of him, and Din can see how much you enjoyed sucking his cock in the glossy spread of your cunt. 

He catches a drop of your arousal with two caressing fingers. “You want to be fucked hard? Is that what you want, you greedy little thing?”

You press your hips back, rubbing yourself into the cup of his hand. And for a moment, his mind buzzes with blankness—with the thought that he could be tasting you instead of just touching you. He satisfies himself for now by lining up his cock with the soft heat of your pussy, by pressing his sensitive head against your arousal-slick flesh. 

But when you whine and start to shift backward into him, he waits. Savors. “You need my cock that bad, huh?”

“Please, I need it. I want it—”

It’s that thing he fantasizes about—the daydream he strokes himself to in the shower after he hunts, when he’s sticky with blood and the leash on his desire has long been snapped. Your whined plea for him, your need so stark and bright that he couldn’t ever possibly deny you. Your need for him so heightened it threatens to match his for you.

“Take it then,” he pants. “Take what you asked for.”

He sinks his cock into the welcoming heat of your body, pressing slowly against the tight resistance of little preparation—hears the soft, drawn-out oh of your pleasure—and he knows there’s no coming back from this.

*** So he doesn’t fight it. He keeps you.

Days turn into a week. Into two. You bring life and sound to this desolate place—the creak of your steps on the hardwood floor, the sound of your humming, the quiet clanks of your movements around the kitchen in the early morning light. The quiet, steady tick of your heartbeat. All those pretty little noises you make when he has you in his bed—the moans and the whimpers and the pleas. His pillow smells like mellow spring flowers, and there are rose colored skirts and silky blue pajamas in his dresser.

He likes it.

He likes the noise and the tightness of the space and the company.

When he heads outside to chop wood for the fireplace, you follow to watch him roll up the duraweave sleeves of his flight suit and swing the ax—again and again until a thick log splits down the middle with a crack—and the attention pleases him. 

The weeks stack up, and there is a bar of soap speckled with lavender flowers in his shower. There are sweet strawberry preserves lined up in his cupboard, a colorful wool throw blanket tossed over the back of the couch that you insist is a necessity. For sitting in front of the fire, of course. You poke fun at his ascetic choices, at the lack of coziness in his house, but you don’t seem mad at all to be the one to provide it. 

He thinks you know instinctively that home isn’t a place or a concept he’s familiar with. He thinks you love being the one to show him what it could mean. 

He can tell you don’t mind that you have to face opposite directions when you eat. He thinks you like the sound of his voice even more when it’s not passed through the modulator. You draw out every meal with questions. He draws them out with his answers.

He tells you about the little green bounty that changed his life, the soup his mother made for him when he was sick, being adopted by the Mandalorians, the fact that he used to love swimming as a child. That sometimes he thinks about how good it would feel to strip off his armor and swim now. You tell him about your dreams, your childhood, your plans, everything.

When he slips his helmet on again and you turn to face him, he can see that the gulf between what he does tell you and the whole truth is obvious, though.

There is a question—are many questions—swimming in your eyes. The intention to get answers too. He’s not sure which exactly questions they are: Why the armor? The helmet? The Creed? Why this place? Where is he going next? When? What happened to him? What is he? Why the isolation and the fear and the hesitation and mile-high walls and why why why?

What the fuck happened to the wall of the shower?

Valid questions, every one. Many are things he asks himself regularly. All are questions he doesn’t know how to answer without shattering this perfect moment, without ruining the lovely domesticity you’re cultivating together. So when he sees that look and your lips part, Din speaks before you can. He’s not ready, yet, to go there. He reaches for your hand or strokes a gloved finger over your cheek and deflects. 

Just a little longer, he thinks, please. And you’re not fooled—he knows that. You understand the request and allow it for now, and he’ll take what he can.

“You want to learn how to shoot?” he asks instead. 

Your eyes light up.

He helps you pick a blaster from his collection—“How many blasters does one man need, Mando?”—that’s well suited to you, that fits your grip. He sets up targets outside, scattered on trees at varying distances, and stands close behind you, a solid wall against your back. He adjusts your stance and the placement of your hands, letting his touch linger on your waist in a way that makes your heart rate readout on his helmet spike. 

“Are you going to let me focus or not?” you quip, peering at him over your shoulder. “I thought you were trying to teach me something here.”

He raises innocent hands and steps back. “I didn’t realize I was distracting you.”

You smile slyly at him. “Sure.”

He lets himself enjoy it, the ease between you, the way you can read him even through the armor. Standing a short distance behind you, he talks you through the process: how to aim and shoot, how to breathe.

Hand-to-hand, next, he thinks to himself as he watches you practice. Then blades. Tracking.

He’ll teach you anything and everything that will protect you.

For when he’s no longer here to do it for you, he doesn’t let himself think. 

He watches you practice each day, watches you focus on the target, your lip caught between your teeth in concentration, until you nail the bullseye. You run to the tree where the target is hanging—a hole singed through the middle—letting out a triumphant cry, and he follows.

“Look,” you grin, so proud it makes his heart trip. You point at the perfectly placed burn mark. 

“Good,” he praises. “Do it again.” 

You roll your eyes, but you do. You return dutifully to the line he’d drawn in the pine needle strewn ground and shoot until you get the hang of it, until a miss is rare. And then he fucks you up against that tree, your dress bunched up around your hips, the blaster abandoned somewhere by your feet. 

You leave for a day, maybe two, here and there to check on things at home, that little fawn you love. As soon as you’re gone, he spends a couple hours getting as far in the opposite direction as he can, changing, hunting whatever he can find in the shortest time, and then after he’s washed every trace of blood away and donned his armor, he waits for you to come back. He tells himself it’s a perfectly workable arrangement.

It’s fine. It’s safe. Safe enough.

With his attention elsewhere, it takes him a few weeks to notice that those prints, the ones he’d been tracking so obsessively, have started to show up closer to his house, to yours. They mark a quiet, slow encroachment into his territory—inching just barely past that boundary he’d been so careful to hold until recently. Their bravery is returning, their local numbers rebounding, because he hasn’t been pushing them back by culling their pack with regularity.

He makes a mental note to keep a closer eye on things, reassured by the fact that there are miles of buffer between their progress and you. And, more importantly, that more often than not, he’s by your side these days—like the times you ask him to come with you when you leave. He’s not going to say no to you.

Every night, he gets to undress you and pull you into his bed. To touch you and fuck you and make you come. He gets to learn what makes you cry, what makes you scream, what makes you beg.

All in the armor, still. In the beskar prison that keeps you safe from him. That line he manages, somehow, to maintain. The monster in him hasn’t wrested it from him yet, and he clings to that last safety net, that final border between risky and reckless. 

He wonders every day when you’ll hit your threshold. When it’ll all become too much—the secrets and the questions and the armor. Every day you don’t ask or push or leave, he breathes a sigh of relief, knowing full well it just means the next day is more likely. That worry is so dwarfed by the pleasure of having you that he barely notices it, though.

It helps, too, that he’s well rested for the first time in a long time.

Din doesn’t dream when you’re in his bed, isn’t haunted by the nightmares. He slips into sleep, and it doesn’t fight him like it usually does. He sleeps soundly with your warm, soft form tucked against his side, your face pressed into his cowl. Your presence, your touch, your scent—they soothe him.

He’s always known—even before he admitted it to himself—that there would be no halfway with this. No measured approach to having you. And he was right, of course. Here you are, living with him… and happy, he thinks. He doesn’t like to think about what would happen if that changed, if you left. What he'd do. What he'd have to stop himself from doing.

Din loves hard, with teeth, and all of his are sunk deep in you. If he really thinks about it, though, the opposite is true. Yours, sunk deep in him. You have a bone-deep hold on him, a fatal bite that severed something vital upon first contact. If you decided to let go, he’d bleed out.

And he feels lighter than he has in months. Maybe years.

It scares him so much he doesn’t want to think about it.

So he doesn’t.

YOU

It’s not intentional. You don’t sit down together and make a decision, but you don’t want to leave and he doesn’t want you to go. So you just…don’t.

Slowly, with time, your most essential things migrate from your place to his. You bring a bag of clothes here and your favorite blanket another time. Your shampoo comes along with other bathroom essentials, and some kitchen supplies find their way into his drawers and cabinets.

Within a few weeks, you all but live with him.

You know instinctively that the opposite arrangement—staying together at your house—isn’t possible. Whether or not it’s actually necessary, Mando takes his self-imposed exile seriously. It’s another of the many things you don’t push him on.

Yet.

You visit home on a regular basis, of course, to keep an eye on things. Town, too, for supplies. You make the long walk alone—or sometimes together when you can convince him to put off whatever mysterious, imperative thing he has to do when you’re gone, and it feels shorter then. He’s not so hard to persuade.

You check on Luna, who is happy and well fed in the warmth of the barn, kept company by the chickens and the handful of braying goats. 

You find that she’s terrified of other people—or at least of Mando. You’ve never brought anyone else around so it’s hard to know if it’s something about him specifically. Maybe it’s the armor or his size. The first time she sees him, she goes rigid, the picture of freeze, and it takes twenty minutes to calm her down after you nudge Mando back out of the barn and close the door behind him. Even after several visits, she remains wary of him, barely willing to tolerate his presence.

A detail, like so many others, you file away for later.

It's one of many that you don't mention—anything that might prompt impossible conversations. Instead of souring the moment, instead of asking the hundreds of questions that are piling up in your head, you tacitly agree to avoid those things, skirting around any topics that elicit unanswerable questions or suggest an expiration date. Again and again. For weeks.

Then months.

It’s easy enough to rationalize. Might as well make the short time you have together pain free. Only good.

And, fuck, is it good.

You wake in his bed each morning and fall back into it each night. You wait for your lust for him to abate, for the initial need to be sated. Two months in, though, it hasn’t so much as begun to subside. If anything, it’s grown. It’s fed, you think, by the fact that you still don’t get all of him—what you do get just makes you want more. 

You get his hands, his cock, the expanse of his lower abdomen and upper thighs when he unbuckles his belt and fucks you. The sound of his unfiltered voice when you eat together. The sight of his thick, veined forearms when he chops wood. Snatches of golden skin dusted in dark hair.

Never his mouth, his eyes, his chest, the rest of him—his face. His face, that you think you might already love without having ever seen.

The why of it all—of the pace, of his nature—doesn’t feel so urgent any more, now that you’ve had the opportunity to soak him in, in more than just brief interactions. You can sense the why on him when you start to appreciate the weight of his past and his creed. There’s a layer of pain and loss calcified under his armor: you can all but feel it when your fingers work past an edge of beskar. He starts to tell you about it, too; he starts to untangle the complicated knot that is Mando. It’s usually during a meal when you’re faced away from each other and you get to hear his real voice that he starts to open up. You untease his past question by question, answer by answer.

When you do almost slip, almost ask a question that is too present, he helps you put it back. Offers a distraction that you gladly accept. An unspoken agreement of not yet.

He just needs time. You just need more time together.

You try not to think about the fact that you might not have time. No, you package that thought up with that list of forbidden questions, the ones that would threaten to crack the ice you’re standing on together, and tuck them all away. 

You take the things that he does offer, accept his baffling limits. You satisfy yourself with the reminder of progress. If you think back to a few months ago and draw a line from those cordial interactions at the Saturday market to the current reality of living with him—to watching him welcome all the ways you insinuate yourself into his space, to witnessing the way he seems to soften for you—you can’t help but feel hopeful about what the next few months will hold.

*** Winter comes early this year, sneaking in on quiet feet. It descends around you slowly—in brisk mornings and frozen dew drops strung along twigs like pearls—and then it comes all at once in a sudden blanket of white. You wake up to a thick layer of snow on the ground, the tree limbs and roof frosted and glittering.

He teaches you how to protect yourself—how to shoot and fight and track. You think there’s a part of him that’s certain if he only teaches you enough, you’ll always be safe. You can feel it in his palpable sense of relief when you master a new skill. As if he has a mental list of things to impart on you before he runs out of time.

When you’re consistently nailing the center of his targets again and again, Mando outfits you with a blaster of your own, tells you to keep it on you at all times—that it’s yours. That day, he drops to one knee in front of you. 

“Lean,” he says, patting his pauldron.

You listen without really thinking about it, bracing a hand on his shoulder.

“Up,” he says, gesturing to your foot and offering his armored thigh.

You comply, and he slips two loops of leather up your leg, the fabric of your skirt catching on his forearm as he inches them up, until the tips of his fingers brush your inner thigh. A holster. A holster he made for you.

He tightens the straps and then slips the small silver blaster into the leather sheath. 

You graduate to hand-to-hand combat next—well, not so much graduate as add it to the schedule. He’s visibly pleased when he discovers that you already have some skills with a knife, when you know how to disarm him of his vibroblade in certain holds, how to make an attacker bleed freely with one well-placed slash. How to sever a tendon or an artery. But he finds plenty of ways to stump you, ways to overpower you, and you practice those until you know how to get out of them too. 

A few weeks in, you’re more than satisfied with your skill level, ready to move on. Mando, on the other hand, is ever insistent on more. He holds you with your back against his chest, caught and pinned, a purring vibroblade at your throat. 

You’re exhausted, sweaty and sore from breaking out of his grasp again and again. You’re supposed to be doing it once more right now. But you’re limp in his hold.

“Go on,” he grunts.

“I’m actually fine with this,” you decide, letting your weight go even more leaden in his arms.

He scoffs low in his throat. “Is that right.”

“That’s right. I surrender. Do with me what you will.” You drop your head back, looking up at his impassive visor.

He considers. “Anything?”

The word slithers up your spine. “Anything,” you repeat, letting your eyes go heavy-lidded.

He closes the blade and tosses it away, releasing his hold on you. When you lurch forward at the unexpected freedom, your knees buckling slightly, he catches your waist to steady you. 

You spin to face him, pointing a finger at the diamond-like center of his chestplate, staying far enough away that he can’t encircle you in his arms again. “Technically that counts as me getting out of that hold.”

He plants a hand on his hip. “Disagree.”

“Emotional manipulation is a weapon. You’re just mad I’m better at it than you are. Maybe I should give you lessons. You know what, yeah, I think it’s only fair that we also start practicing scenarios where I’m the one in control.”

He cocks his head suggestively. “Are we still talking about training?” 

“Yes.”

He stares at you silently, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other. It speaks volumes.

You scoff. “Are you implying that I could never have the upper hand in a fight? That there’s no chance in the galaxy of that ever happening?”

A damning beat of silence and then: “No.”

“You are!”

He gestures at his chest, shrugs. “Beskar.”

You roll your eyes. “I’d just need to catch you at the right moment—sleeping or showering—and take you by surprise. Or have the right weapon. Like poison. I know plenty of plants that would kill you—plenty of plants I could find out here or maybe…yeah…those.” 

You gesture at the row of detonators lined up on the side of his belt as he reattaches it around his middle. He always takes it off before you practice hand-to-hand, along with the vambrace that apparently emits flame.

“Yeah, they’d be effective,” he admits, clipping the buckle together. “The problem is you don’t have any.”

“You don’t like me enough to share your detonators with me?”

“To kill me? No.”

“How about this one?” you ask, reaching toward the mysterious hilt that’s always clipped next to them.

He steps out of reach before you can touch it.

“What is it? Can I see it?”

“I don’t use it,” he says. You know him well enough now to read the lie in his level voice.

“Then why do you always carry it?”

“It’s…a long story.”

“I’ve got time,” you press, curious.

He looks away. “I can’t.”

And you realize it isn’t just stubbornness or stoicism. It’s pain. A bruise he isn’t ready to address, and you’re prodding it.

You wonder how many secrets can simmer between you before they boil over.

“Alright, come on,” you say, grabbing his hand and turning for the house. “I’m starving.”

*** It’s deep winter when Mando starts to take you into the woods, away from his house, to teach you the basics of tracking. Each time, when the forest lightens around you and you can hear the titter of birds overhead, he tells you to pick the tracks of a deer or a fox to follow. It’s easier now that the snow is thick on the ground, a continuous blanket of white.

He instructs you, as he always does, to disregard the larger prints—the clawed ones—that you come upon occasionally. Too often for comfort.

“I’ll take care of those,” he says, unconcerned. 

Each time, you think back to that bloody trail and know he’s more than capable. And then you wonder when he’s away from you long enough to actually do that. 

Never, it turns out.

You’re on the tail of a stag when he holds out an arm unexpectedly, stopping you in your tracks.

“What is it?”

He turns his head slowly, scanning the quiet forest. Listening, waiting. You can’t hear a thing—not a rustle of leaves or whisper of wind. The stag isn’t close.

“They’re coming.”

“The sta—?”

Mando drops his arm and grabs your hand, hauling you back in the direction of home. You follow on instinct when he breaks into a jog with you in tow, heavy boots crunching through the snow. He twitches as he moves; he groans and presses his shoulders back, rolling his neck, his hand too tight around yours.

He’s in pain.

“Mando—” you say, trying to slow him down, to understand.

“Run,” he interrupts, pushing you ahead of him, urging you toward the house. “I can’t stop it."

You halt in front of him, a hand raised to his chest plate. “I can’t— I won’t—”

He growls when you hesitate, the sound not entirely human. His hands are shaking.

“I can help—” you start, not even entirely sure what you’re offering.

“I won’t risk you.”

“But—”

A gloved hand settles over your mouth, the other gripped tightly around your bicep. “We don’t have time for this. I won’t let you—I can’t—just go home and lock the door. And promise me you’ll stay there until I come back.”

He drops his hand and starts stripping off his gloves and vambraces. “What are you—?” The pieces click together belatedly in your head. Those colossal prints, the clawed ones.

They’re coming.

“Promise me,” he says, forcing them into your hands. “Take this too.”

He reaches for his helmet and rips it off his head, pushing it into your arms. Your jaw drops open in surprise. You don’t even have time—or the free hands—to cover your eyes or the sense to shut them tight.

“It’s okay,” he says, responding to the fear in your eyes. “I wanted to—been wanting to.”

You only have a moment to take him in. He’s just as handsome as you imagined—maybe, impossibly, more. His dark hair is wavy and tousled, falling across his forehead. His eyes are brown and wild with fear, his sharp jaw peppered with gray-flecked stubble. His perfect lips are set in a half-smile. He looks a little bashful for a moment, a little boyish as you study him.

He holds your face between his warm hands. “Promise you won’t leave the house until I come back.”

You nod.

“Say it,” he prompts, his dark eyes serious. He knows you didn’t really mean it the first time.

“I won’t leave the house until you come back,” you repeat, a little dazed.

You’re looking into his eyes. Your brain is struggling to process it.

There's fear there that doesn't just belong to the threat to your safety. It's more: the fear of being seen. Wholly.

You’re waiting for more words to come to you—something that will express the feeling that’s blooming in your chest without relying on words it’s too early to say.

“Be careful.” It’s the best you can manage.

He presses his lips to yours in a quick kiss. It’s too fast, not enough. If your arms weren’t full of beskar, you’d grab him to keep him close, to kiss him deeper. Instead, he’s pulling back and turning you on the spot with an iron grip.

“Go.”

He urges you forward with a gentle push, and you break into a jog, glancing over your shoulder as often as possible without running face-first into a tree or slipping in the powdery snow underfoot. He’s stripping off his chest plate, his pauldrons, his thigh guards. Leaving them haphazardly on the forest floor.

The last time you look back, his back is to you, and several pairs of yellow eyes are emerging in the dark spaces between the trees.

One, two, four—too many to count.

You’re tempted to stop. To turn back. To bring him the rest of his beskar. It feels so wrong to leave him out here, alone and unarmored. He’s stripping down from metal to man, and it feels unbearably vulnerable. Maybe you could help—

But just as you’re thinking that, Mando turns his head and bellows, “Go!”

You’re far from him—too far to truly make out the details—but you swear, even across the vast distance, that the whites of his eyes look black.

*** You drop the pile of beskar onto the kitchen table, unholster your blaster, and drag a chair to the window. You study the intricate line work of ice on the frosted pane, tracing cold veins with the pad of your finger. You fidget and shift, but you don’t dare leave your spot.

You stare at the place between the trees where you emerged, straining to hear any sound, knuckles white where they’re wrapped around the edge of your seat.

It’s silent.

Minutes pass like molasses—they stretch and sprawl, leisurely and unhurried, while you wait.

You steal glances at the clock on the wall. You swear it’s been hours since you slid the dead bolt shut behind you, but the clock tells you you’ve been sitting here for eight minutes.

Ten.

Twelve.

Seventeen.

He’s out there, outnumbered and alone.

Fuck it.

You get to your feet.

You wrench open the front door, but before you can break into a run, you catch a subtle movement between the trees. The blaster slips out of your hand. He’s staggering back to you—stripped and injured. His flight suit is unzipped to his waist, the sleeves tied around his hips. One hand is gripping his ribs, the other trapping pieces of his armor against his side. He’s barefoot and limping through the snow.

You run to him.

His hair is sticking to his sweaty forehead, and there’s blood on his face—so much blood—coating his lips, smeared across one flushed cheek. Lines running down his neck. It covers his hands, forearms. It’s splattered across his muscled chest. When his lips part in a pained grimace, you can see the inside of his mouth is bloody too, red lining his white teeth. 

You don’t have time to process it, to think about what it means because he’s hurt.

He must see the terror on your face when you register the state of him because he shakes his head and says, “Not mine. Just this,” jerking his chin down to gesture at his side. 

A row of deep lacerations is seeping blood down his ribs, over his tense fingers and down his stomach, where it’s soaking into the dark fabric bunched at his hips. You shudder at the sight of it—even through his spread fingers, you can see that his flesh is torn open in a way that makes your stomach pitch.

Behind him, there’s a sporadic trail between the trees, red dripped on virgin snow.

You want to hold him, to pull him into your arms, and, most of all, to fix him and put him back together. You start by taking the pile of armor from him and slipping under the arm of his uninjured side, pulling it over your shoulders to support his weight. He accepts the help wordlessly, leaning on you as you stumble forward together.

“They’re gone,” he pants. “Dead. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you scoff. “Are you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He grunts.

You limp the rest of the distance to the house together and pull open the front door, kicking it shut behind you as you help him inside. He reaches behind you to lock it, his shoulders dropping in relief when it clicks.

You drop his beskar on the floor as gently as you can while you’re half holding him up. It clatters.

“We need to get these closed up,” you say, gesturing toward a kitchen chair. “You need bacta. Sit down.”

When he doesn’t move to sit, you look up at his face, and he’s staring at you with an intensity—a soft, quiet intensity of creased brows and bright brown eyes—that takes your breath away. 

“I’m fine,” he protests, gently gripping your shoulders and pushing you back in the direction of the bed instead. He fumbles with the hem of your shirt, trembling fingers slipping under the fabric to caress your skin. “I’ll heal. Just let me touch you.”

His hands are hot on your waist.

"You’re not okay,” you protest, trying and failing to redirect him. “You won’t heal if you bleed out.”

“I just need to hold you.” His words are starting to slur, running together. The blood loss is tipping him into delirium.

“After—just let me—”

He ignores you and curls himself around you, crushing you against his body, a heavy hand holding your head to his chest, the other arm locking yours to your sides.

“Mando, please—I really need to stop the bleeding—”

“Din,” he says, nestling his face against your neck sweetly. His forehead is sweaty and feverish. He brushes gentle lips over your fluttering pulse. “My name is Din.”

You’re speechless.

“I want you to call me that,” he says. “Please.” There’s a heartbreaking vulnerability behind his words, like he’s worried you won’t accept the offering of something so precious.

“Of course. Of course, I will.” His grip slackens, and you wrap your arms around his middle reflexively. The heat of his throbbing wound and the hot slip of blood against your forearm make you recoil.

“Shit—sorry—”

But Din doesn’t react to the pain.

“Din—hey—”

You try to pull back, to extricate yourself from his hold and get a better look at him, but the arms draped over your shoulders go leaden, and he sways on his feet, forcing you backward a couple faltering steps. The backs of your calves hit the bed.

“Din—” You try to steady him, but he’s getting heavier by the second, his weight shifting unexpectedly as he tries to keep his balance, half-conscious and fading.

Your knees threaten to buckle when he grunts and goes completely boneless, slumping against you.

“Fuck—”

You’re just barely able to angle your body so that you can gently—and awkwardly—use his momentum to guide him face-first onto the bed. It’s a miracle you both don’t end up in a crumpled pile on the floor. You hoist his legs up too. It takes all your strength to haul his dead weight over to flip him onto his back so you can access the slashes across his ribs.

Your heart jumps into your throat when you see how rapidly a crimson stain is spreading on the comforter underneath him. You run for the med kit, dumping it on the bed beside his prone form and digging out all the necessities.

He doesn’t flinch when you clean, close, and dress the wounds. Not even when you prick him with a bacta shot. You work as quickly and carefully as you can, keeping tabs on his breathing all the while. Any time you have a free hand, you rest it on his chest, soothed by the shallow but steady rise and fall. 

The whole time, you think about all those questions, those details, those secrets. You turn them over again and again in your head in a feverish loop—all those things you’ve been stacking on top of one another all this time, a teetering pile of essential pieces of him, ready to topple with a gentle nudge. Kept at bay by distractions and diversions and half-truths. All the ways you’ve both been keeping your relationship in stasis to postpone…what? Loss? Something that’s inevitable, something no one can ever truly prevent. It feels undeniable when your hands are covered in his blood. When you almost lost him anyway.

It seems obvious now. Obvious that in the end, it will be more painful to have only stayed in this place with him than to have at least tried to give yourself wholly to whatever this is.

Before you secure the final bandage over the wounds, you check your work once, twice—terrified the simple expansion of his ribcage as he breathes will force them open again. You press edges of the bandage down and watch closely, dreading the red seep of blood on clean white. It doesn’t come. You breathe a sigh of relief.

You clean him up with a moist towel, wiping the blood from his skin, his face, his rumpled hair. 

If he hadn’t chosen to take his helmet off before any of this, you’d feel like you were invading his privacy by being able to see so much of him. It still feels that way, just a little, as you admire the taut lines of his biceps, the broad spread of his shoulders, and thick muscles of his pectorals. As you gently swipe over the soft expanse of his middle, feel the hard abdominals underneath. As you study the slope of his nose and the grays threaded through his stubble, his long eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. The soft pink of his lips. 

You rinse that stained-red towel until the water runs clear, until there’s no trace of blood left on him. 

The bloodied sheets and blanket and pillow underneath him will have to wait; it doesn’t even occur to you to be bothered by them when you climb in next to him, when you sweep his damp hair back off his forehead and press your lips to his warm skin and settle against his non-injured side.

You fall asleep like that, your head on his sternum, the subtle rise and fall sweeter than a lullaby.

*** He’s healed by the morning.

He’s healed.

When you wake after a fitful sleep, you scramble out of bed to pull back his bandages and find that the wounds slashed across his ribs look like they’ve had several weeks to mend, the skin knitted back together seamlessly. You run your fingers gingerly over the tender flesh in wonder, in relief.

Another one of his secrets. Something else to ask.

He rouses at your touch, starting as he blinks open bleary eyes. He must be immediately aware of the absence of his helmet because his whole body tenses as he recoils, his eyes panicked as he tries to decide to attack or to flee, jerking away from your hand on his arm. 

“It’s okay,” you say, holding up your hands in placation. “It’s me, Din. It’s just me. You’re safe—you’re home.”

He calms somewhat as he meets your gaze, as he registers your face and his surroundings, settling his head back against the pillow. The tension in his body remains.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, resisting the urge to reach up and brush his tousled hair off his forehead. Touch, you think, is his to initiate in this moment.

“Fine,” he croaks. He’s visibly uncomfortable like this, still not used to being so unguarded around someone else. Holding eye contact for longer than a moment seems almost unbearable for him, his eyes shifting around the room so they don’t have to stay settled on yours. 

You hand him a glass of water, and he sits up against the headboard to drink it. He winces a little as he maneuvers, his jaw ticking. He’s sore.

“You’re the worst patient, you know,” you gripe, trying to lighten the mood, to give him something to focus on. 

He scoffs, lifting an eyebrow over the rim of the glass.

You give him an unimpressed glare. “I couldn’t take care of you until you fainted from blood loss.”

He has the audacity to shrug a little.

You blow out an exasperated breath, distracted, maybe, by the movement of his throat as he swallows. By every detail of his face that you can’t seem to memorize quickly enough—a privilege you’re more than willing to relinquish if it means easing the tension in his shoulders, the wrinkle of concern etched between his brows.

When he sets the glass down on the bedside table, you retrieve his helmet and offer it to him wordlessly, a show of nonjudgmental understanding, a willingness to back-pedal if that’s what he needs right now. His eyes soften when he takes it.

The urge to say something before he disappears behind beskar jumps up your throat.

“I was scared, so scared,” you admit quietly. “Din, I thought—I thought you…”

He sets his helmet beside him on the bed and jerks his chin. “Come here.”

You make to settle next to him, but he pulls you onto his lap instead, guiding you until you’re straddling his thighs. 

You try to wriggle away. “I’m going to hurt you like this—just let me—”

“Shhh,” he breathes, hands locking down on your hips. “I’m fine, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” He hesitates for the briefest moment before he leans forward and presses his mouth to yours.

His lips are soft, tentative. His first, you realize. Of course.

Your mind snags on the way he tends to be in bed—directive, commanding, sure—and holds the two up side by side. This hesitation, the halting press of his lips, has something in your chest going soft. Between your legs going molten.

You cup his jaw and lick into his mouth when his lips part—an it’s okay, I want you to take—and his breath goes ragged against yours. He leans into you, an arm slung low around your back to keep you close as he starts to tip you backward.

“Don’t move,” you say, attempting to ease him back gently.

He ignores the command, responding to your open mouth with the slip of his tongue.

“Or I’ll stop,” you threaten.

He sits back, chastened, a subtle pout to his lower lip. It disappears when you lean back in. 

He makes a low noise of protest when you don’t meet his lips, but it turns into something pleased when you move your attention to his neck. You lick over his thrumming pulse, across the faint saltiness of his flushed skin. Your hands roam the planes of his chest, over his pounding heart, and down the swells of his muscled arms—greedy for so much warm skin, for so much of him you’ve never seen or touched or tasted.

Even with the helmet set beside you, the fear that you’ll have to go back—to concede gained ground—that he’ll revert back to full armor again, rankles at the back of your mind. You dig your nails lightly into his shoulders, and he growls.

You can tell it’s taking all his restraint not to move, to keep totally still aside from his wandering hands. You know he’s hard underneath you, that he’s aching to wrest control from your hands, to put you on your back and fuck you like this, with no layers between you. And he knows you won’t let him when he’s still healing.

You try not to let it escalate, to keep things from getting out of hand. But then his mouth is on yours again, your lip caught gently between his teeth, his hand locked possessively around the nape of your neck, and you can’t help the quiet moan or the subtle grind of your hips in his lap.

Din jerks back, hands braced on your shoulders to keep distance between your bodies, his head tipped back against the headboard and eyes closed as his panted breath gradually slows.

And you know it’s not just the injury. He isn’t humoring you or in too much pain. He’s fighting it—the transformation, the change that keeps him in his beskar. What he wouldn't let you see in the forest.

“It doesn’t bother me,” you say—quiet, serious. 

He pauses, understanding despite the sharp turn. The energy in the room shifts as he waits for you to continue.

“Your…you—?” you stumble over the words, struggling to find the right ones. It comes out badly. “What you…are.”

His eyes are downcast, fixed on the silver shine of his helmet.

He doesn’t ask how. Of course you know—it’s an open secret between you, has been for months.

“I want to see,” you press. An honest plea. “To know. Just let it happen.”

A tight, subtle shake of his head. No.

“Please, Din,” you say, laying a hand on his chest. “Show me.”

He looks away, his eyes full of some unnameable emotion, something soft and fragile, a sharp edge that might be anger. He slips away so easily, even without the helmet.

“Please,” you beg, framing his face with your hands to guide his gaze gently back to yours.

He still won’t meet your eyes.

Suddenly, you know this was a mistake. That this is the thing that’s going to break what’s between you. He’s given you his face, his name—they should be enough. Yet, here you are, pushing him for more. There’s no coming back from it, no swallowing the words, though. You find you don’t want to anymore, even when you can feel him slipping out of your hands.

“It’s not safe,” he says.

“How? It’s you.”

“No,” he says, “it’s not.”

“I don’t understand, Din,” you say, a hint of desperation laced between your words. “And I need to. I need to understand. We can’t avoid it any more—look at what happened. I just—I can’t do this when I know I don’t have all of you. I can’t do this anymore. All these walls, all these secrets between us.”

His head snaps to you, a flicker of panic kindling in his eyes. But he doesn’t deny it, the skirting and avoidance, the game you’ve both been so willing to play. His eyes settle on your joined hands. 

“I want all of you. I need all of you. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice low, and the panic in his eyes is swallowed by a deep, hollow want—a yawning blackness that expands and disappears so quickly you think you must have imagined it. “I do understand that.”

“Then let me see you.”

His brown eyes flick upward to meet yours, and he nods.

[noxturnalpascal]

My 2023 Fanfic-Wrapped

I only really started reading Pedro fanfic in April or May, I got started on some of the well-known fics on AO3 that were recommended on tiktok. However, one of them brought me to tumblr (because I wanted to see more from this author, I wanted to see their moodboards and their sneak peeks). And I haven’t left since.

I even decided to try my hand at writing as well. It’s been a LOT of fun. (My masterlist is here if you want to see all the weird shit I wrote so far). Thank you to everyone who has supported me in all my efforts and to all the friends I've made.

I wanted to create this list to highlight some of my faves this year. If you haven’t read these, they all come highly recommended by me.

I'll be reblogging everything on this list throughout the day. If you’d like to reblog this post and add some of your own favorites from this year - PLEASE DO!!!  I would absolutely love to get new recs!! Let’s share the love!!

In no particular Order - Here are some of my favorites from the year!

Fave Writers (I’ll read anything they write)

@toxicanonymity (joel miller masterlist) Personal Faves: NightWalks!Joel, Vamp!Joel (both Ongoing)

@theywhowriteandknowthings (masterlist) Personal Faves: Creep - Joel, Princess and the Duke - Dave York (Ongoing)

@chloeangelic (masterlist) Personal Faves: Love Me Back - Joel, Seeking What is Desirable - Joel (Ongoing)

@goodwithcheese (masterlist) Personal Faves: The Layover - Frankie, Paranoid Heart - Javi P (Ongoing)

@beskarandblasters (masterlist) Personal Faves: Me and My Husband - Din Djarin, New York or Nowhere - Bodega!Joel (Ongoing)

@absurdthirst (masterlist) Personal Faves: Kinktober 2023 Oct 15th - LactationKink!Dieter, A Marriage of Convenience - Regency!PeroTovar, (they have SO many good ones)

Fave Ongoing Series

Mall Rats (Jackson-era!Joel) by @strang3lov3

Oh! Honey (Monster!Joel x Mortician!Reader) by @lincolndjarin

Hard to be Soft, Tough to be Tender (Pimp!Joel) by @iamasaddie

On the Waterfront (Chubby!Mafia!Frankie) by @beefrobeefcal

The King’s Queen (Royalty/ArrangedMarriageAU!Javi G) by @wardenparker

From Eden (PlantShopOwner!Joel x Married!F!Reader) by @5oh5

A Lover’s Pinch (Professor!Joel x Student!Reader) by @hier--soir

Into the Beat of the Night (Bi!Frankie x afab!gn!OC) by @perotovar

Fave Finished Series

A Stranger’s Heart Without a Home (Jackson-era Joel) by @morning-star-joy (This is the one that brought me to tumblr. Doni created this beautiful story and it has a very special place in my heart.)

Late Night Texts (Post-Colombia Javier Peña) by @undercoverpena

Someone’s Wife in the Boat of Someone’s Husband (Married!No-Outbreak!Joel) by @netherfeildren

Something New (SexWorker!Frankie) by @prolix-yuy

Something Wretched About This (DrugDealer!Joel) by @covetyou

Pioneer Frankie (A series of stories about Pioneer!AU!Frankie) by @frannyzooey

Trial & Error (No-Outbreak!Joel helps Tommy & reader get pregnant) by @thetriumphantpanda

Pleased to Meet You (Meeting Francisco Morales - twice) by @intheorangebedroom

Fave Characters

Husband's Best Friend Joel Miller (with Married! Reader) (HBF!Joel) by @gracieispunk

Jackson-Era Vampire! Joel Miller (A Secret Worth Keeping) by @multiversed-daydreamer

Soccer-dad No-Outbreak Joel Miller gets a racy text from an unknown number (The Right Wrong Number) by @proxima-writes

Demon! Ezra (with Witch! Reader) (In Every Lifetime) by @xdaddysprincessxx

Protective Jackson-Era Joel Miller (A Safe Haven) by @joelsgreys

THROUPLE Frankie x Joel x F!Reader (Catalyst Masterlist) by @ezrasbirdie

Sleezy Gas Station Joel *MC* Miller (Meet Me in the Back) by @atticrissfinch

Porn Star Joel Miller (with Porn Star Reader) (I Know it When I See it) by @bageldaddy

Fave Dark/DDDNE Fics (These fics aren’t being put in the corner but they do come with some very special warnings so I wanted to separate them)

Trick or Treat? (DDDNE Dark!Frankie Morales x Dark!Joel Miller x Dark!Dave York x F!Reader) by @morallyinept

Bullet For You, Darlin’ (DDDNE Dark!Raider!Joel Miller) by @kewwrites

Online Friends (Cherry Bomb) (Dom!Joel, online/phone sex) by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Blessed Be the Fruit (Dark!DubCon! Joel Miller - Handmaid’s Tale AU) by @romana-after-dark

Red Light (Dark!Obsessive!DubCon! Landlord Joel Miller) by @kiwisbell

The Burglary (DDDNE burglar!Joel Miller x f!reader x burglar!Tommy Miller) by @milla-frenchy and @aurorawritestoescape

I don't know man.... I just know I like it

Menuet (It’s an animal/shapeshifter/monster fucking thing (Pero Tovar) that fundamentally changed who I am as a person) by @psychedelic-ink

Liquid Gold (Joel - and Tommy? - help Pregnant!Reader out when an issue arises) by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Get a Grip (Watch Model!Joel Miller x Manicurist!Reader Hand/GloveKink!) by @bonezone44

Mother Who Provides (Mommy!Kink Joel gets breastfed) by @pedge-page

Goodbye 2023, See you all next year!!!!

[campingwiththecharmings]

*These weren’t necessarily written and/or posted in October, but that’s when I read them 😊

🔥 - explicit/mature content

Star Wars

Sunk (Poe Dameron x Reader) - @reallyrallyauthor

🔥An Unorthodox Method (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @the-little-ewok

🔥Kinktober Day 1 (Love Bites) (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 4 (Sex Pollen) (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (Soft and Slow) (Cal Kestis x Reader) - @flightlessangelwings

🔥Kinktober Day 10 (Stripping) (Stripper!Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @youvebeenlivingfictional

I just called to say I love you (Poe Dameron x Reader) - @nowritingonthewall

Adore you (Poe Dameron x Solo!Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Kinktober Day 25 (Breeding) (Cowboy!Din Djarin x Cowgirl!Reader) (Part of the Gardens of Babylon Universe) - @spacecowboyhotch

Moon Knight

🔥Over the Counter (DBF!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

Vivid (Marc Spector x Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Shades of the Moon (Virgin!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @missdictatorme

Boundless (Witch Hunter!Marc x Witch!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Price You Gotta Pay (Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥The Sweetest Sound (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥The Sweetest Taste (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥Kinktober Day 10 (formal wear) (Steven Grant x Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 6 (Phone Sex) (Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Kinktober Day 12 (Formal Wear) (Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥What a Show (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥La Petite Mort (Ghost!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Pumpkin Porno (OnlyFans!Steven Grant) - @ominoose

In the morning light (Marc Spector x Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Nature Boy (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Sleeping Dogs (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) (Part of the Dancing with Wolves Series) - @hon3yboy

🔥What A Wicked Thing To Do (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) (Part of the Dancing with Wolves Series) - @hon3yboy

🔥Kinktober Day 23 (Begging) (Marc Spector x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse

🔥Couch Sex with Miguel (Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @romanarose

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (& 8): Soft & Slow (Cockwarming) (College!Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥soft s3x and grey sweats (Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @wyvernest

Ex Machina

🔥Peak-A-Boo (Ghostface!Nathan Bateman x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Perfect Little Fuck Toy (Nathan Bateman x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

Sucker Punch

🔥Product Demonstration (Club!Blue Jones x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥Monster Mash (Rockstar!Blue Jones x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

Triple Frontier

Under cotton and calicoes (Santiago Garcia x Reader) - @dailyreverie

Make this feel like home (Santiago Garcia x Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Kinktober Day 30 (Cunnilingus) (Santiago Garcia x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Just A Little Push (Will Miller x F!Reader) - @missdictatorme

Scenes From a Marriage

🔥Kinktober Day 2 (bath/shower) (Jonathan Levy x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 15 (Against a Wall & Voice Kink) (Jonathan Levy x Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

The Two Faces of January

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (Slow and Soft) (Rydal Keener x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥body talk (Rydal Keener x F!Reader) (part of the Oxford Comma series) - @whatthefishh

Misc.

🔥Just A Scratch (Jack Mohave x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Take Care (Anselm Vogelweide x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Service Fee (Llewyn Davis x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥If You Wanna Be Wild (Javier Peña x Latina!sex worker!informant!Reader x Santiago Garcia) - @romanarose and @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction (i already recced this but there's more so 🙃)

Thank you to all the wonderful writers for sharing their stories with us 🥰❤️

*For more recs, please feel free to check out my fic rec tag.

**If you’d like to have your fic removed from the list, I completely understand, just let me know

[netherfeildren]

The Cassandra Complex : Chapter X : Geryon

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Angst; Lemme say it again for those in the back, ANGST; Hurt/Comfort; Din's kinda being an asshole but he's hot and his dick is 10 inches long and he's also sorry; Dark themes from previous chapters continue

A/N: Hello and surprise and I'm sorry. I promise one day *ONE DAY* they will be happy again!!!

Geryon is my favorite figure in Greek mythology :) He is a very special monster to me :)

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 8.1K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER X : GERYON

Who can a monster blame for being red?

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“We have got to stop meeting like this.”

He’s been pacing back and forth across the hull of the Razor Crest, the metallic jilting song of his heavy gait, the clank, clank, clank, threatening to lull you back into unconsciousness. There should be no comfort to be found in this moment, and yet, just the sound of him is enough for a measure of peace. You can’t believe you’re here right now, lying in your pile of blankets as if no time had passed at all. His anxious pacing stirring you back into wakefulness, your head all muddied and muffled, your ears seeming to pop into a pressurized silence and then ebb back into clarity. 

You feel, suddenly, that you’re more tired than you’ve ever been in your entire life. A bone deep tiredness after a life that’s been too long and too heavy for someone who is, for all intents and purposes, so young. 

He whips around at the sound of your voice, snapping forward to loom over you, voice deep with the intent to intimidate, maybe even hurt. “How did you know about him?” He demands without preamble, picking up right where the two of you had left off before you’d stupidly fainted from pain and exhaustion. You shiver and shrink back into the blankets, pressing the tips of your fingers against your mouth to stifle the too loud hiccup of your breathing. You’re not going to be afraid of him, he doesn’t deserve that. 

You try to gather yourself, swallowing the bitter nausea that sits heavy on your tongue and push yourself up into a sitting position on shaky, weak arms as he falls with a heavy thud to kneel before you, spits your name, sharp and angry, quickly losing patience. “Who told you about him? What have you heard?” You hold out a warning palm as he leans forward, trying to bully you into compliance with the urgency of his tone. 

“Don’t touch–” you warn, and then all soft, helpless hurt and accusation, “You have a son?” And you wish your voice didn’t sound as it does, like a child begging for the truth to not be what it already is, and you won’t cry, you’ve already promised yourself you wouldn’t, but your mind is so weary, your heart so vacant, it’s hard to remember the things you have and have not promised, the things you should and should not do.

“Who told you? You promised you wouldn’t ever rifle through my head, and I swear to the Maker–”

“I can sense him in you,” you snap. “I haven’t been rifling through anything! You’re so annoying. And get back–” you bare your teeth at him in a tiny snarl, nose scrunched with the exertion it takes to push a weak tendril of the Force against his chest and shove him back just barely. If there were a well within you, measured by the will of your strength and power, the Force, it would be bone barren dry right now. 

He’d gone and had a child, a son, without you. He’d left you, or let you leave him, what did the details matter anymore – and he’d had a child with someone. 

He snatches you up by the elbow, dragging you towards him, weak and shapeless as you are, barely any strength to hold yourself up, much less defend yourself, and his grip is tight enough, punishing enough, that you know it’s meant to cause pain. Harsher than he’d ever handled you before, on the verge of hurting you in a very real way. And after everything that’d been done to you… you’re like a raw, scalded nerve, nowhere left to touch that isn’t covered in hurt. Every inch of your skin screams in pain, and you swallow your moan of agony, trying to suppress your animal sounds. His other hand comes up to grip your jaw, stopping you from twisting away and squeezing the frame of your face so tight in his strong fingers, you feel your bones creak. “Explain. Now.”

“Please, Din,” Please, don’t touch me. “I can– I can sense him– inside you,” you gasp. “He’s strong. He – he has the Force?” You shake your head in his grip, brow folding in on itself, trying to make sense of what it is you’re feeling, the confusing amalgamation of Din and the Force and memories of something, someone young and innocent and pure beyond imagination. Like a well of the Force, of greater depth and strength than you’ve ever encountered before, but viewed, or felt through the veil of his memory, from afar. “You– you still carry him with you.” A child, his child. A little boy, the picture gains clarity in your mind, and then more confusion, as if there were a block in his mind, some protective encasement that keeps the truth of his precious secret safely guarded. 

His hands tighten around the curve of your jaw, jerking your face up to force your eyes to look right at him, and he holds you trapped there for one breathless moment, his gaze like this is worse than any torture you’ve endured thus far, burning but hidden, and then the miniscule shift of the helmet, and you feel the light brush of a single finger against the gem of your earring, and you think: It’s so scary out there. Do you recognize me? We used to know each other. 

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Look how strong you’ve become,” you say by way of an answer through your smooshed cheeks and clenched teeth Like an insult more than anything else. “Whatever it was that was done to me… something far worse has happened to you. The great Mandalorian, come to save the poor little Sith, huh?”

His fingers dig into the tender skin of your cheeks, your upper throat, harder, hard enough to squeeze a moan out of you before he’s shoving you back with a revolted scoff, pressing up to his feet to pace away from you again. You’d told him once you didn’t like it when he treated you like this, roughly, all that time ago, and he’d always remembered before now, had always measured himself, but it seemed that two years was long enough for him to forget this. 

“You are not a Sith,” he reminds you without turning back, that reminder that he knows what you truly are, perhaps, even better than you yourself know, and you panic for one second that you’ll vomit. But then he gentles: “There’s blood on your earring,” and you sag forward, trying to breathe slowly through your mouth, stretching your eyes as wide open as they’ll go, forcing yourself not to blink so that the tears brimming there won’t fall. I hate you, you mouth the words silently down into the blankets, unsure who it is you’re directing them at. 

“You’re going to tell me where the fuck you’ve been,” he says, turning back to pace towards you, hands on his hips, the snap of his cloak as he whips away again, as if he can only stand to look at you for so long. “And what in the Maker’s wrong with you?” He continues. “Did you get into a fight or something?”

You shake your head slowly down at the weave of the blankets. They’re the same ones from before, he’d kept them, and you are so sad and scared and terrible, and when you lift your head back up to look at him, standing just there looking so defeated and suddenly so singularly powerless… You can’t remember what the point of all this was supposed to have been. 

“I’ve been here,” you say, for the truth is the only thing left to you now.

“On Corellia?”

“Yes.”

“And you… you can sense him on me?” And his voice has gone suddenly soft, suddenly quiet. A father speaking of his child with care, even in the tone used to address him. All the fight’s gone now, and that tiredness sets in deep where the spirit meets the bone. 

You nod, full of so much grief, unbelief that the two of you are here again together, swallowing the gasp that wants to force its way out of you, but you surely can’t help the seeping of it, for there is so much held within your heart when you say up at him with those infernal tears so close to falling: “You had a son with someone?”

He whips back around, pacing finally come to a pause. “With someone? What? N– no. No.” He shakes his head furiously, rushing back towards you, falling back to his knees so that you’re pressing yourself back and away from him. “No, cyar’ika. No. He was a foundling. I– He was a bounty, but along the way he– he became…” He shakes his head again, and you watch the tightening of his fingers around the cap of his knee, the creak of the leather of his gloves as he wrangles his restraint into control, trying not to reach for you. Please, don’t touch. Please, don’t touch. If he takes you in hand, if he puts his hands on you in gentleness or care, you’ll lose. You don’t know how, but you know you’ll be lost. But perhaps the battle is already lost, for when he says, “I would never do that to you. Never with anyone else but you,” it doesn’t matter if he’s touched you or not, the hole in the ground, the two years, the endless, endless darkness and the pleas for something worse, for end or a quiet that doesn’t stop, none of that matters anymore because the battle is lost here and now in this moment. 

Your breath comes in painful, sharp pants. The icy air gusting out of the ship's vents turns your breath to hurt in your lungs. You shake your head at him, trying to swallow the barren dryness in your throat away. “You should have.” And you don’t mean to hurt him worse than you already have when you say it. You don’t mean to hurt either one of you. These are words only of sincerity. “That’s what I left you for, so that you could have that.” But you miss the way they’d pulled your bones from your skin as you say it anyways. A terrible lie wrapped in the hopeful intention of truth. 

“I would never.” You can imagine he’d used this same tone of voice when he’d sworn his Creed as a child. All staunch honor and unwavering conviction. 

You whip your head away at that, unable to bear the sight of him, the sound of him. Even if you want to smell him more than anything. To bury your nose in the crevice between helmet and cowl and inhale deeply right there where the scent of his warmth and sweat and skin is the most concentrated. “Well that’s what I wanted. What couldn’t you understand about me leaving you? You should’ve made your own life. Forgotten me.” Snakelike and spitting and full of venom.

“Is that what you did? Forget? How? Tell me. Tell me so that I might remember for next time.” He stands to pace away again, slow measured steps now. Chewing on a thought, thinking, thinking, and then a death dealing sort of blow when he says, “I could have. I could’ve had all that, you know… There was a woman,” and his voice wavers.

So many terrible things in a terrible, terrible life. You close your eyes to it, accept, even now already, that this is how it should be. You think of your time in your beloved hole, all of your choices that lead you there to such a terrible fate, your time with him, so lovely and so full of light. To have been granted the opportunity to love and be loved, even if you’d never said it, it was the greatest gift the Maker had ever granted you. Such a recompense after everything you’d suffered. The death of your parents, a childhood alone and enslaved and abused, that moment when you’d finally put blade against the only terrible father you’d ever known, the creature who’d put you in chains and ensnared you to this dark fate, master and father and monster all in one, even that had been painful, the taking of your so fiercely desired freedom. And so this now… worse than all the rest, but you’ll accept it too. This is what he deserves. This is why you had let yourself be put away. 

“There was a woman,” he says again, voice unsure, uncomfortable. Almost like he doesn't want to, but feels he must. “A time back– we were on Sorgan, and she wanted me… she wanted me.” And he says your name again, softly this time like an apology. “To be with her, to stay with her and her daughter. She wanted us to be a family and I– I considered it… for a moment. What that would be like, to have someone want me to stay with them. To want to make an end with me.” He shakes his head down at you again, from his great height and you break. Fuck acceptance. A condescending sigh and, “You ruined that for me too. You wouldn’t let me, your memory, you wouldn’t let me be with her.”

“I hate you,” you spit through clenched teeth. You wish you had the strength right now to get up and fight him. 

“That’s fine. That’s your right. It doesn’t change the fact that she wanted me to be with her, and that I thought about it for one brief, delusional moment,” He sounds like he’s laughing through the modulator, “And then just… couldn’t. I couldn’t, cannot even fathom staying for anyone else that isn’t you.” And the laugh fizzles out into a crack. “How does that make you feel? Powerful?... Over me. Does it make you feel like you have power over me? Like you own me? Like I belong to you?” Now tears, perhaps, like he’d cry if you gave him the chance. Like you’ve hurt him enough to drive him to that. The nausea is back. The need for violence is back. The fucking fire in your back and your skin and all over… why, why did you let them do so much to you? You’d been so stupid. It’d all been such a terrible mistake. You should have never let him go. 

“No.” You won’t cry. You won’t cry. “It doesn’t make me feel powerful.”

He suddenly seems to lose all strength. Falling back into a crouch, his knees folding in under him, the clash of the armor against the durasteel floor sharp as a cracking bone. 

“Because you do– own me, that is. You do.” And he says it so simply. Like it’s the basest thing in the galaxy, as simple a thing as the birth of new life, the birth of a star, a black hole sucking an entire planet and all life into nothingness, death. Things that are really not simple or base at all. 

So you shake your head, refute his truth. “I don’t. I don’t want to – I let you go.”

“But you didn’t. Don’t you fucking see that?” And his voice is gentle, but he slams his fist against the steel floor all incongruous rage, and it echoes and rings between the two of you, his violence. “You didn’t let me go, you only took yourself away from me– left me chained.”

“What was she like?” You cut him off, an envious, ravenous thing all tinged the hue of bile – something poisoned, churning within you. “Was she beautiful? Was she kind? Was she good? All the things you could ever want a woman to be? Would she have promised to stay forever?”

“She wasn’t you.” And oh, how you hate him in this moment. You hate him, you hate him, you hate him. This is guilt, this is punishment, this is retribution of the cosmic sort. Something from the Maker sent to remind you that she who sins shall be made to atone. But haven’t I atoned enough? Haven’t I paid my pound of flesh? This man and that soft heart is your punishment for all you’ve done. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you tell him because there is nothing else to tell. Because it’s the truth, and you are, you’re so sorry that he couldn’t find someone else, someone better, kinder, more alive. And then, because if a thing’s going to hurt, it should hurt all the way, a glutton for punishment but a coward for consequences you ask: “Did you fuck her?”

“I didn’t kiss her.” Consequences. You bare your teeth at him, an approximation of a hiss and a snarl and a howl of grief so ragged it rips through your throat. Folding in on yourself like a dying star you turn your face away, trying to gather yourself and get away from the sight of him.

“I hate you,” you spit the lie again, again and again as many times as necessary until it becomes truth. “I fucking hate you. You should’ve stayed lost, you should’ve gotten sucked into a blackhole for all I care, you fucking asshole. You stupid metal beast! You should have died out there, left me to rot anything, anything but this,” you heave. 

“I could’ve had a family.” And you want to ask him why he’s doing this to you. To tell him you don’t deserve such cruelty. But you know that isn’t true. 

“Then you should’ve fucking stayed with her.”

“I wish I could have. Instead, I waited for you… I looked for you.”

Blow after blow, and perhaps, you think, this is not cruelty after all, but necessity. There had always been so much left unsaid between the two of you before. Perhaps, it’s finally time only for honesty. “I didn’t ask you to wait for me,” eyes cast down at your hand twisted in the blanket, voice small and pitiful. You have new scars there now, faint and glimmering like cobwebs beneath your skin. They’d wanted to see how much it’d take to leave a mark for good. They’d found their answer. 

“You didn’t–” He scoffs, hands braced against his knees he shoves up again and turns in a directionless circle, all coiled tension and so much rage with nowhere to go but the pitiful sac of girl shaped tragedy littering the floor of his ship. He brings both hands up to clutch the curve of his helmet. “You didn’t ask me to? I didn’t fucking ask for this either.” He turns back to shout at you, a real shout this time. One so full of anger it makes you flinch. “You think this is what I wanted? To wait for someone who abandoned me out of pure selfish fear? No. No, it’s not what I wanted either. But how was I supposed to forget?” He asks. “Hm? Tell me. How was I supposed to let it all go? Tell me how you did it, and I’ll go and do the same since you’ve been so successful. Tell me how you did it and I’ll–”

You surge forward on your palms, teeth bared. “I trapped myself in a hole in the ground until I forgot my own name and still I wasn’t able to forget you.”

“What?”

“Oh?” You coo at him, eyes going all wide, you bat your lashes at him mockingly. Your shoulder suddenly feels like it’s about to pop out of its own socket with the way you’re bracing yourself on your arms. “What? You weren’t expecting that?” You sit back slowly, bones creaking. “To know while you were off fucking someone else, wishing for a family, I was trapped in a grave having my skin pulled from my body over and over and–”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m leaving.” You try and push yourself up, clawing at the walls to pull yourself to rights by your fingernails. “I hate you,” you say again, and again you don’t know which of the two of you it is you’re talking to. 

He sneaks up behind you, taking you in hand by the elbow again, Maker, your shoulder, and whipping you around to face him, clutching your other bicep to pull you up onto your tip toes and to his level. “What are you talking about?”

You let your weight go heavy and sagging in his grip, head falling back on your neck to look up at him, and he plants his feet firmly apart, locking his arms so that he’s bearing your weight entirely. He gives you a tiny jostle. “You’re exactly as I am, you know? We’ve always been the same. A creature in a mask.”

He’s quiet for a second, confused. His chin tipping to one side and then the other. You know he’s reading you for what you’re worth in this moment, which you must admit is very little. “Is that what this was all about? The whole time? My face?” Your heart goes colder than ice, and you’re glad he’s bearing your weight for you. You think, suddenly, that you’d not have been able to remain upright on your own. 

“N– no. No. I don’t care about that. I let it go years ago.”

“Let it go?”

“No. I mean–” Stupid. “Nothing.” Tongue muddled, caught. Terrible. 

“But it was something? Then? Answer me.” He jerks you again, harder this time so that your teeth click together. 

You shake your head no, but say, “Would you have been okay with it? If it had been you, the one kept in the dark.” Always the dark, again and again. “Would you have been okay never really knowing who I was?”

“You know me, cyar’ika.”

“Don't call me that.”

“You’re the only person in the entire galaxy who ever has.” And his touch is gentle and cradling now, supportive in a different way. 

“Would you have been okay with it?” You ask again stubbornly. 

“Do you think–”

“You say I’m the one that can’t ever give a straight answer, but you’re just as bad!”

“Do you think,” he repeats more forcefully, talking over you, “That your very first night on the Crest, when I gave you my name, when you told me you could see inside my mind, that I would have stayed had I not understood the reality of what it was we were getting into? What I was getting into? That there was that possibility. You told me, don’t you remember? That you could’ve looked any time. You’ve always had me in the palm of your hand, and I’ve always wanted to be just there.” His thumb starts to move gently up and down the inner slope of your bicep, it’s the first soft touch you’ve felt in two years. 

And it was something you’d always known. Of course. The most obvious thing between the two of you, besides the love. You bring your hand up slowly, pinching the lip of the helmet between your thumb and forefinger, tremulous and terrified, you pull him down slowly so that the hard curve meets your forehead in a soft press. The two of you are so still for a moment, shivering, but still. Soaking up the proximity of something so necessary for survival after going so long without. “I should have never left, but a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts. And I am more sorry than you will ever be able to know. For all of it.”

“Tell me what happened,” he whispers, voice smooth and deep, fathomless through the modulator. You close your eyes and think of the warm cave, the pool of water, the feel of this man that you love moving inside of you, using his body to translate all he’d felt for you with his touch. You think of the amazing ability people have to hurt those they love in ways no one else possesses. It is a cruel realization the business of loving someone brings about, the reality that to truly hurt someone, you must truly know them, and that to know is to love. 

“I was taken. Put in a very dark place. Hurt. They tried to make me forget, and I could not help but remember. It was all such a terrible mistake, Din. I made a terrible mistake.”

“Taken? Taken where? By who?” Voice full of panic and urgency. Everything you never wanted him to know. He brings one hand to his mouth, pulling the glove away by the edge of his teeth, and you follow it with your eyes as he lets it fall away, slowly, the dull thud of leather hitting steel, and then his skin, his skin on your face.  He cups your cheek in the palm of his hand, and it’s two years of heartache and a terrible noise coming from either one of you, an animal dying or coming to life, something painful and raw. He holds you so gently, and you let so many terrible things happen and now what will the two of you do? How will he ever look at you after he knows everything you’ve done? 

Everything you’ve ever done. Your eyes shift upwards again, the black transparisteel T-visor. That last, eternal barrier. That haunting flash of beskar in your mind, buried deep, come to the surface.

“A grave. Zealots. Servants of the Dark side.” You bring your hand up, run a slow, gentle finger along the edge of dark protecting his eyes from you. 

“Tell me,” he says gently.

But you shake your head, mouth pursed. Not that. Something else though… “I never looked, you know?” 

He knows you mean his face. “Why not?”

“It wasn’t mine to take. Not mine to have. It wasn’t the right time.”

“If there was ever going to be anyone, it would’ve been you.”

“There is one more thing.” Your voice sounds very far away. One of those terrible moments when your life suddenly branches out before you again, and you always know how a thing will end and there was never any other recourse but for the two of you to end up exactly here in this moment from the very first time. 

“I killed a Mandalorian once,” you finally, finally tell him. “Many, but there was one worse than all the rest.” 

I’ve never met a Mandalorian before, a lie and a truth. You’d never met one you hadn’t killed in the end. 

He goes shocked into stiffness, hands rigoring into cold shackles around your arms. They drop from where he grips you. He steps back, and in a way, it is such a relief. The truth you’ve held on the tip of your tongue, the thorn beneath your nail bed for so long, finally come into the light. 

“What?”

“Have you– have you ever done something so– so terrible that you regretted instantly? Something you felt in the moment you had no other choice but, and then– and then suddenly clarity sets in, and you realize you could have done everything else but what you’d just done? Wished you could turn back time in that very instant, and go back and change everything?” You press forward to clutch at his cloak, fingers twisting in the coarse fabric to force him to stay with you, but he pulls you away with fingers wrapped around your wrists, steps back again and again. 

“I’ve done terrible things–” you whisper, your eyes so wide, terrified of the thing you’re about to confess, of yourself, always, more than anything. “Things that you’d hate me for, if you knew the truth of them. To myself, to others.” You bring your hands up to your throat, wrapping your fingers around yourself there, feeling the patter of your thundering pulse against your palm. 

“Tell me,” he says again, and this is the last moment, the last stretch. The end is so near. You will look for relief in this feeling of horror, you decide. Like all other times when you’d been so entrenched in the pain of it all, in fear or loneliness or violence, you’ll look for the relief this confession will grant. Perhaps, absolution will finally be possible by way of confession. Exile, too, surely, afterwards, for you know there’s no way he’ll ever stay with you, look at you, after you tell him of your killing of his people. And you think again, that you have always been a monster, red, but if you’d been given a chance, a choice, then perhaps, you could have served as mantle and protector for a family that had never been afforded to you. You know that he could have been that, that you’ve lost the chance now for good. 

“After the fall of the Empire, the Dark and Vader, my master was weak, his acolytes dispersed and felled, their power waning. And for the first time in my life, I saw hope.” Your voice fluttering up with an airy note of that childlike wonder you’d felt in that moment of realization, when you’d recognized what it was you could become in that moment of freedom. “I took it, seized it. I killed him.” You walk backwards, blindly, needing the support of the wall to tell of this. “You know, my first memory is of my master. I can’t even remember my parents anymore. And he was never kind, surely. Never gentle, and caring only in a way that served him. But I belonged to him as any tool, weapon, belongs to a man, and there was something about that, that was meaningful. A child, alone, belonging to someone who would keep them no matter what. Sometimes, I try and remind myself of this, when I think too much on the things he had me do, the things I did for him, sometimes even gladly… I remind myself of this as a way of consolation. What else did I know? What other choice did I have? Death? Perhaps… But strangely, before… or,” You shake your head, your eyes falling closed as you search for the words or answers within yourself, “Strangely, I– I can’t remember when that changed, but it did because I didn’t always want to die. I– I wanted to live, even if it was for him. To please him or serve him or be useful in any way. They hoped to fill me with fear. But fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate… leads to power. I was only ever the thing he wanted me to be in the moment I was powerful enough to defeat him. And you can’t know what that means, to live such a fruitless existence, to have no purpose… it’s terrible. But he finally gave me that in the most terrible and glorious of ways.” You open your eyes again to take him in, Din with the heart of a sun. 

“I don’t mean it as an excuse, but– but I think it’s important to remember. That he was ever the only one… it feels that, before I met you, he was the only other person I ever really knew. Only ever him, but then I met you, and then I knew you. And can a girl ever be more animal than girl? I don’t know… but surely if it was possible, then that’s what I was. So when I escaped, when I killed the only father I’d ever known, who was also a monster, yes, but also all I’d ever known, I was more animal than girl in that moment. You understand, Din?” You ask, but he gives no hint that he does, more droid than man now, and so you continue on anyways. “I killed the remainder of his following. I was stronger than them, stronger than him sometimes, and I know he feared that. I escaped to Corellia. The chaos of the planet was easy to hide within, but you must remember, again, I was more animal than anything else at that moment.” You give a short laugh, “I don’t know why all of my tragedy always seems to start and end on that planet. Perhaps, it’s why I keep going back there. And he–” You want to turn away, but force yourself to remain facing him. “He ended up joining me in that tragedy. He tried to help me, the Mandalorian, found me broken and discarded, waiting to die in the gutter like a street rat, entirely unaware of what it was to survive without the guiding hand of someone else.” You’d been so terrified, delirious and confused and reborn again – like an infant, come straight from a hostile and poisoned womb, newly birthed unto the galaxy and left to fend for yourself. Mind and body, savaged, yes, but with a soul that sang and howled with victorious growing pains at your newfound freedom. It had been so long, trapped, so long you’d forgotten the sound of your mother’s voice, the feel of your father’s strong hand on your child softened cheek, but you’d been free then, and you’d thought that even if you were to die like that, in the slums of Corellia, on the street like a pauper, at least you’d die clutching freedom in your hand. And then he’d found you. 

“But I had never known help, Din. Never. I couldn’t recognize such a thing. He led me to safety within the city, saw me for what I was, a broken, haggardly thing, perhaps, and he helped me. And once he was done showing me his kindness, I killed him. For no other reason except mistrust and habit. I– I didn’t know there was another recourse, that that wasn't what I had to do. I didn’t know I had other choices besides violence. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I killed him, Din. I’m sorry I never told you. I’m sorry I am the thing they made me. I’ve tried to be better, I’ve failed bitterly, and I’m sorry.”

You hope he understands that you hadn’t thought before you’d acted, more animal than girl, you’d performed on base instinct. And worse than anything else, he’d had a son, that Mandalorian, like Din does now, and you can still bring forth the memory of the child’s face in your mind even after all this time. You’d seen him as you’d ripped through his father’s mind, pilfered and savaged his memories and left him for dead in a filth strewn, back alleyway. An entire life torn apart in a single moment, and in the very millisecond before his soul had left him, the last thought you’d laid eyes on within his mind had been the image of his own face reflected back at him as he’d seen it earlier that day just before he’d hidden behind the protective helm of his Creed. You’d stolen his future, stolen a child’s father, and desecrated a life’s worth of dedication all in one single foul, unthinking instant. You’d not even given him the dignity of dying with his Creed intact. 

After all this time, you still felt that was what made the sin all the worse. That unintentional theft, to openly spit in the face of his benevolence and generosity, an unforgivable thing. 

And it would be easy to say that you hadn’t recognized that which he’d been offering – the sight of a merciful and helping hand extended to you without malintent or pretense. That you hadn’t recognized it, and perhaps, it was the truth, but you were sure it didn’t really matter at the end of it.  A thing worse than all the death and destruction and pain you’d dolled out in the name of the dark side, that one act was singular in its unencumbered horror for you’d not had the farce of your master's orders to hide behind, the helm of the dark whispering in your ear, stealing you of your choice. This had been wholly your own action, entirely your doing. 

The first thing that had ever belonged only to you in your entire life. And strange because during your time as a Sith, you’d undoubtedly killed any number of the beskar covered warriors, but this last one, it had been a kill without thought, without necessity, without influence. Only as yourself. Perhaps it had set the stage for all the rest. Perhaps it had set the stage for your own fall. 

You aren’t aware you’re crying until you feel his mouth on your face, his throat vibrating with low growls as he licks at your tears, the hollow thud of the helmet hitting the floor finally registering in your ears. Stop, it’s okay. Please, don’t cry, little one. You squeeze your eyes shut tight as you can, trying to pull away, escape him again, but he pulls you close. The long, uncompromising line of him pressing all the way along your softness, inciting the chill of death inside of you back to life. 

“Do you really think,” he starts low, the sound of his unmodulated voice for the first time in so long, “that there’s anything you could ever do, that I’ve not forgiven you for already a thousand times over?”

You begin to thrash in his grip, feral and wild and not wanting to be tamed this time, but he does not let you run, not again. His arms like bands of iron around your waist, stitching you to the cold steel of his chest and crushing your protests from your lungs. The two of you fold slowly to the ground. Huddling you between his crouched thighs, you try and push back, but he cages you between his knees and arms, and you turn your face away from him, trying to escape his wet mouth, the damp of his lips catching against your tear soaked lashes. “I never wanted to be this– this thing,” you gasp by way of another apology. “I never wanted to live like this – strange and violent and obscured in the shadow of something I was too young to ever understand until it was too late. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I lied or deceived you or made you feel something for someone that never really existed. Most of all, I’m sorry that it could not be true,” you gasp. “I’m sorry that I could not be true. That I couldn’t be something else.”

“You have nothing to apologize to me for. You think…” he says very slowly. Measured. “You think that I haven't done terrible things, as well? That I haven’t killed when I, perhaps, could have been merciful? That I’ve never been afraid or lost or weak? That I’ve never let violence overtake me? Worst of all, that sometimes I even liked it. We’ve all done things to be ashamed of. We will all, at one point, do things to be ashamed of. That is what it is to be human.” Human. You don’t know if you’ve ever truly been that. “What means more to me is honor and loyalty and character – these are things you’ve shown me.”

“I haven’t,” you cry.

“You have,” he growls, and he takes you between his hands violently so that you’re crying out in pain from your wounds or shock or fear of what he’ll do to you now. Crushing you to him so fiercely you feel as though he’s trying to squeeze your very heart from your chest so that he might look upon it with his own two eyes. “You exist. You exist, and you are here and you are mine. You were never given a choice. You were a child, stolen and abused and turned into something you were never supposed to be. The Force within you is a gift, and they tried to corrupt it into something it should have never been, but they did not succeed.” You try and shake your head at him, push him away, scream and cry and tell him that he’s wrong, that you are bad and poisoned and that even he, the great warrior, cannot save you. But he grips your jaw in his long fingers, grinding your bones between his strength, and halts your disagreement. He snarls at you, so furious at what had been done to you. You realize, suddenly, that he is vibrating with barely restrained rage. For you. Not at you. 

“They did not succeed. Your presence here, your regret, your wish for more, for better, your very escape, proves to me that they did not. You were too strong, too good.” I am not, you moan, starting to thrash and claw in his arms again. You don’t know, you’re wrong. “I know your true heart, I see you. As much as you hate it, as much as you wish it were otherwise, I know the true desires of your mind. As much as it pains you to be seen, to be known, I do. I always have, from that very first moment in the darkness, I saw you.” And his voice holds so much conviction, so much surety, you’re left with no other choice but to believe him, for Din is good and honest and true, and if he says it’s so, then it must be so. 

You go loose and weak suddenly, eyes pressed together tightly, squeezing tears out through crinkled lashes. Din is good and honest and true, and if he says it’s so, then it must be so. Your entire body is trembling, fraught with nerves and a surging of truth inside of you so overwhelming your heart beats in your ears, behind the fragile membrane of your eyelids. 

They’d done such terrible things to you, over and over again, and you were nothing but a single blip in the galaxy of stars, a singular pinpoint of terrible pain. That’s what they’d turned you into, but here, in his arms, you’re beginning to realize they’d failed at their goal.

He pulls your face into the space between his jaw and shoulder then, so tenderly, and you finally open your eyes to take in the skin of his throat, the growing stubble there. “Come here, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’re together now.”

“I’m not sweet, don’t call me that.” But there is no conviction behind your words, and you clutch at him more tightly. Your fingers twisting into the folds of his cape, clawing at the skin of his cheeks. 

“You are for me,” he says. And it’s true. There’d always been something about him that’d made you fragile in the face of his strength, in a way you’d needed, in a way you’d never had before.

“No. No.” You try and push and pull at him weakly, fruitlessly. “I’m leaving soon. I just need to catch my breath, and then I’m going.”

And he clutches you tighter at that, fingers twisting through your hair to jerk your head back painfully. You snap your eyes shut, mouth falling open on a gasp. “You’re not going fucking anywhere, do you hear me?” 

He’s being so careless with his face, dangling it before your closed-eyed face. “I won’t open my eyes. I don’t care what you do.”

He gives a rough sound of frustration, pressing his panting mouth to your cheek, growling against your skin, “Try to leave me again and see what fucking happens,” and there’s no doubt or wavering in his voice, only a great sort of conviction laced in terrible fury. “Go anywhere in the galaxy and see how long it takes me to find you again.”

“Please, Din– it hurts.” You can’t help it, he’s being too rough for the state you’re in now, barely holding yourself together at the seams. His hands leave you immediately, pulling back so that you’re sagging between his crouched thighs. You listen to the sound of him picking up the helmet, the hydraulics engaging once again as he fits it over his face. 

The two of you are quiet for a moment, catching your breaths. Your lungs feel set to burst, your vision jumping from bright light to murky dark and your stomach twists a sharp, brutal pain. Everything hurts everywhere. 

“How long?” And you know he’s asking about your time captured. 

“I don’t know,” you say, bracing your hand against the hard strength of his thigh, barely able to keep yourself upright. “I lost track of time, but it was winter when they took me away.”

“It’s winter again now.”

“Yes.” And the truth sits like a heavy smog between the two of you, a very long time. “I don’t want you to forgive me,” you say then. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Which is why you won’t look at my face.” He pets your head so gently, and you lay your cheek against the beskar over his thigh, letting the coolness of the metal settle the flames running beneath your skin, and think it is terrible, sometimes, to be understood so deeply. Tears drip over the bridge of your nose and lose themselves in the weave of his pants. 

He shifts, settling on a folded foot beneath himself, bringing you in closer to his chest, careful, careful, as if you’d been made of nothing but breakable hurt. Silence swells, fraught and unbearable, between the two of you, and your heart beats in rebounding thumps. You feel you know what he’s going to say before he even says it. “I told you that there’s nothing you could ever do I’d not forgive you for. I think… I think that love allows for forgiveness.”

You choke on your breath. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it,” you beg. He continues to pet your hair slowly. 

“I love you. And you’re going to listen to me say it. If I have to live with it, then so do you.”

“This doesn’t feel like love, this feels like punishment,” you whisper, tears falling faster, soaking the duraweave beneath. 

“How would you know? You’ve not had it before.”

Your eyes snap up to the face of his helmet, and you try and jerk away, but he holds you in place with a hand fisted in your hair. His voice is still gentle, not meant to hurt. “Fuck you,” you spit, hurt anyways.

“But neither have I, and yet, I know that’s what this is.” You shake your head in his grip, so full of confusion, listening to the wheezing whittling of your breaths pass in and out of you. You can’t understand. You don’t. Or you don’t want to. 

There is something humiliating about the easiness of his forgiveness. He forgives you now, and so what was all that for? Where does the point of all your suffering go now that he’s so swiftly given you that which you’d craved for so long? 

“I don’t give a damn what you’ve done. I’d let you stab a knife through my heart if it pleased you and die still loving you.” He cups the side of your tear soaked face, drags the warm, dry pads of his thumb gently beneath one swollen, aching eye. The callus of his trigger finger catches on the paper fragile skin, and there is a writhing, howling pain working inside of you, inside your heart. 

I love you too, you mouth up at him, words made only of air, but no less true. “But I can’t look yet,” you tell him, “I’m not ready yet.” Not strong enough to grant myself that. 

“I know.” And you’re grateful. Grateful for this, for his understanding, even if it is terrible. Grateful he’d not kissed you yet; you’re not ready for that yet either. 

“How can you not be angry with me? How can you not hate me?”

“The only thing I’ve ever been angry at you about, is that you forced me to betray you.”

“I didn’t–”

“I should have never let you go.”

“I didn’t want you to,” your voice breaks. “I wanted you to fight.”

“I know, cyar’ika. I should have seen that.”

There is, with startling clarity, the realization that there was no point at all. That there is never any point, justification to suffering. It just is, and then it is not. 

“Why did I do all of it?” You plead, cry.

“Why did you do all of it?” He asks you instead, for at the end, you’re the only one who can say. 

And there is no justification, and no point, and it all just is. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

“You did what you had to. Or what you thought was right. I know. I see who you really are. I understand.” And absolution is a very specific sort of thing, and it lives here between the two of you. It always had

Chapter XI

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