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di-kut · 4 years

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Baar Bal Runi: Chapter 7

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: 7K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) You and the Mandalorian deal with the fight he started on the streets of Garel, and afterwards everything is talked out between you. Mando gives you something very close to him. And you finally shower.

Rating: M (Descriptions of canon typical violence and non explicit nudity)

A/N: This is so long and such an unintentional roller coaster. Half the things that happen in this chapter were not planned to happen here, but here we are. There’s just a lot going on for our poor babies, but hopefully it’s good goings on. We shall see. Also there is a LOT of Mando’a in this chapter, translations are at the end, but it should make sense without them! Mando is just a very emotional man in this one.

There’s a cool blade pressed through the fabric at your throat before you can blink.

The Mandalorian’s eyes are wide. Shocked. The rest of his face is contorted into an ugly snarl, your face. It doesn’t look like your face, not in the way you know it. It looks like a face capable of sinking the blade which is pressed against your throat in, through skin and muscle, killing you in the street on an unfamiliar planet. He had been about to. The pressure of the blade cannot be as intense as it feels, like the whole world has narrowed to a pinpoint. You stare down at him, more still than you knew you were capable of being, barely even breathing. His wide eyes are looking into the visor, or looking at his own reflection in it, you don’t know. And then the pressure slowly lifts and he inches his hand away from your throat, lowers it to his side.

He doesn’t step away, and you suck in a deep breath. Feel his chest brush against yours. Neither of you step away. His face falls slack in surprise, or maybe fear. You look to the darkening spot over his eyes, a spot that will soon be a dark bruise, the smallest of cuts from the blow slicing through the tail of end of his eyebrow. Down to where his open mouth is panting close enough to the helmet to fog the visor. You can feel it hot and damp where the fabric at your neck is thinnest. Where there had been a blade only moments ago. You shudder and watch as Mando looks down to your neck. The moment feels as though it lasts forever, and no time at all.

The Barabel behind Mando roars at you both, spittle flying from its open jaw. It beats a meaty fist against its chest. You jump at the sound, feel your whole body jerk, into Mando and then away again. He grabs your arm and twists back around to face his opponent. The hand he has wrapped around your arm stays there, tightens. His other hand still has his unsheathed blade and he brings it up in front of you both, flips it over his knuckles so the blade faces away from his thumb. It makes the air around it throb with the vibration.

“This isn’t over.” The Barabel hisses its words, lisps between its glistening teeth. “Tell your pretty metal friend to go away.”

Mando’s breathing is harsh. “We’re done here.”

The Barabel laughs. Or you think it does, the sound is somewhere between a laugh and a bark. Makes its wide jaw snap. You start to move, start to step forward, but Mando’s hand drops to your wrist. You feel his fingers work at the spot where your glove and your sleeve meet, slide beneath it to the bare skin. Rests them over the spot where your pulse thunders within. The contact makes you still completely again. The Barabel steps forward. Mando’s hand tightens around the blade.

“You owe me a fight, little lady. You hit me.”

“You swung first.”

Another grating laugh. “And I’ll swing last.”

You think you are going to break. You are going to snap. It’s all too much. You can’t breathe in the helmet, can’t think, feel your dirty skin crawl beneath the armour. The Mandalorian’s words are still chasing each other around and around in your head, have been since the docking bay. The feeling of the viroblade at your throat has not gone away. There are too many people all around you, the hot press of bodies everywhere. You can feel them. The thundering, boiling of their desire. The need to see bloodshed. Feel the Barabel across from you, the anger, the anticipation. And the Mandalorian. All of them, all at once.

You scream. Deep and raw and loud, ripping out of the Mandalorian’s chest. It’s a terrifying sound. “Enough!”

The hush which falls over the crowd is complete. You are shaking in Mando’s hand, shaking everywhere. You feel him jump, see his head snap around to face you at the sound. The Barabel stills and then slowly grins, rolls its huge shoulders back. The crowd murmurs, adjusts to a new fight. A Barabel and a Mandalorian. Mando’s hand tightens more, impossibly more, at your wrist, nails digging into skin. You snatch your hand away from his with a snarl and reach down, pull your blaster from its holster and swing it up. Step around him and point the blaster right between the Barabel’s eyes. Your hand is steady.

“We’re done here.” You say. Quiet voice echoes around the circle of silent onlookers. The Barabel shifts, just slightly, and you press closer. “Try me.”

“This is not your fight, Mandalorian,” the Barabel hisses at you.

“Gotab – ”

“Shut up!”

Press your eyes closed, just quickly, just for a second. But the blaster slips, just slightly. And the Barabel lunges forward, you realise almost too late, hear Mando yelling behind you. You duck more out of instinct than anything else and the weight of the Barabel’s swing just misses you, glances off the top of the helmet. You hadn’t ducked low enough, underestimated your height and then underestimate your weight and you stumble. You’re still wearing the pack, you realise too late and the fist, which makes the helmet ring, catches it and pulls you forward. And then the huge hands of the Barabel are on either side of the helmet and yanking. You feel it start to lift, feel the air swim into the space around your face, the fabric over your jaw exposed.

Then the zing of blaster fire rings through the air. The Barabel grunts, releases you, stumbles backwards. You lift your hands to the helmet as you trip over your feet to get away from the huge alien, hold it in place and fit it back over where it had lifted, only slightly. The crowd is screaming, but you feel the clamour in your breast thousands of times worse than you can hear them. Are suffocated by it. Consumed by it, feel red start to fade into the corners of your vision, rage, bloodlust seeping into your thoughts.

Mando has his blaster up, still pointed at the Barabel. But you are stalking forward, blaster raised again, cross the space between you and the crouched body of the Barabel in three long steps and press the barrel against its head. You want to kill it, want to shoot right through its thick hide and its skull and watch it die. You don’t, you think you don’t, but the feelings of the crowd around you are so full with death that you are full with it too. But then Mando is there, resting his hand in the crook of your elbow and you feel him, his confusion, the familiarity of his soul. You lower the blaster, just slightly, loosen your finger around the trigger.

“If you ever,” you lean down, “touch this helmet again I will kill you.”

Mando is watching you, staring at you. You don’t look to see the expression on his face. Chest heaving from the fight, from the simmering want to spill the blood of the Barabel over the dirty ground beneath you. The alien says nothing, watches you with wide yellow eyes.

You hit the blaster barrel so hard against its head, right between its eyes, that it jerks away. “Tell me you understand!”

“Gotabor.” Mando tightens his hand again. “Gotabor.”

A shuddering breath. “Mando. It’s – it’s too much. I can feel all of them. They – they want me to kill him.” You say it quietly, not quietly enough. The Barabel goes stiff, you watch the reptilian slits of its eyes narrow. You press the blaster closer again. “He tried to take off the helmet.”

“You – you can feel them?”

“Jedi,” the Barabel says. True terror on its face. “Jedi!”

You jerk, and Mando steps closer. His blaster lifts while yours lowers. You say it together, you feel the blood draining from your face and Mando sounds the same. “What?”

“I did not know,” the Barabel says. “I did now know they were real!”

“You know about Jedi?” Mando nudge the Barabel’s arm with his blaster. When it doesn’t answer, Mando grunts and shoves at him with his elbow. “What do you know about the Jedi?”

Mando’s other hand still clutches your elbow. Holds you steady. The crowd is losing interest and bit by bit the completeness of the collective rage begins to fade away as people trickle back into their night. The fight was over, and no one was going to die. With every person that walks away you regain clarity, feel yourself return beneath the haze of bloodlust. Feel your own terror for how close you had been to taking a life, how much you had wanted to do it. You shudder and tuck the blaster quickly into your holster. Wish you were somewhere safe so you could get rid of them completely, feel the weapons strapped all over your body and the weight of them is suddenly heavier.

The Barabel is answering Mando. “Only legends! A race of great warriors who freed the clans of war, from beyond the clouds. They have great power!” It’s eyes slide to you and then down. “The old gods can feel everything, you cannot hide your true intentions from a Jedi.”

Mando drops his hand from your arm abruptly, like it sears him through your thick armour. He curls it at his side. And suddenly you are cut off from him, swaying and cold and on your own. The crowd peters out to nothing, the bustling around you closing in and away, and becoming just a crowd. The Barabel is clutching a blaster wound on its left arm, hisses in pain when it lifts its hand to check to blackened scorch left of the top of its sleeve.

“What else?” Mando prompts.

“They are legends!”

“Where did you hear them?” He asks.

“They are from my home planet. Barab I, in the Albanin sector. There are others the beyond the Albanin sector who remember more legends. They tell the children these to scare them from telling lies.” The Barabel’s tongue hisses through its teeth again. “Most of us do not believe in them.”

Mando waits, and then slowly lowers his blaster. The Barabel watches you both, skittish eyes slipping through the crowd. Mando tilts just his jaw in your direction, does not let his eyes leave the Barabel until you step away. It lifts itself from the ground and scurries, disappearing into the ebb of the crowd around you. You move back, scoop up the pack which has been kicked and trodden on, left in the middle of the market. You hold it out. Mando does not move at first, and when he does its halting and unsure, takes the bag from you and slings it back over his shoulders. You move back towards the hotel.

You stare at the reflection of the helmet in the mirror. Gloved hands gripped around the durasteel sink. You try to see through the visor, try to see your eyes beneath, but there is nothing, just more of the reflection of your reflection, an endless maze of bouncing light and shapes. You stare at them so long and hard the helmet in the mirror no longer feels real, no longer feels attached to you. Even though you can feel the pressure of it pushing down around your head. The Mandalorian has killed many people before, the hands beneath you have taken money to end lives. He has told you this, it has never scared you before. It scares you now. You had been ready to kill the Barabel for touching the helmet, the roar of the crowd filling you. You don’t know if it was because there were so many of them, all feeling the same thing, or if it was because you wanted it too.

Jedi. You hadn’t heard that word since your mother died.

Mando had told you of the Jedi, of the brief knowledge he had of the history of his people. But he spoke of the Jedi in terms of the child, searched for them because of him. But finding the Jedi was like chasing smoke, like chasing the reflection of your reflection of the helmet in the mirror, a trick of the light was all they seemed to be. Forgotten, or those who had heard of them knew nothing more than the Barabel. Legends.

When you emerge from the bathroom it is morning. Outside, Garel is the same purple as it had been hours before, in the dead of night. The constant cloud cover only slightly lightened by the distant sun. Mando is awake, pacing the length of the room. Has stopped completely at the sound of the ‘fresher door hissing open. He watches the path you make to your bed and as you sit heavily into the mattress. The creak of the frame grating in the quiet room. You are in a different world to the one outside, the one which you can see and hear, floating in through the window. The child still sleeps, had woken only briefly when you had returned, and quickly slept again when Mando had rubbed his hairy little head. You want to take off the gloves and the helmet. Don’t know if you can anymore. Don’t know if he trusts you to do it on your own again.

“Gota – ”

“Why did you start that fight?” You cut him off.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “The Barabel threw the first punch.”

“Don’t give me that Kriff.” You want to sound angry, but you are just tired. “What happened?”

He turns and starts to pace again, crosses the room twice before he stops. “I bumped it, and it started – it was rude. So, I was rude back. And then it tried to grab me.”

You sigh and slump back against the wall. Close your eyes. Mando starts to pace again, you listen to the scuffing sounds of his boots along the floor and try to concentrate on something else. You count, focus on forming the numbers in your mind, solid enough that you can visualise them.

“What if something had happened to you? What about the kid?” You keep your eyes closed, hold the number four in your mind. “What would he do without you?”

“I’m no good to him like this, anyway.” He snaps. “He’d have you.”

You pull in another deep breath. You move on to the number five, imagine how it looks, form a space around it so that your thoughts and your anger are at the fringes of your mind. “Not if that Barabel had its way.”

“You weren’t meant to be there.”

Six. “A lot of good that would have done the kid.” Seven.

He stops and you open your eyes finally to look at him. He’s staring at the crib, arms limp at his sides. He looks so full, like he has a thousand things welled just beneath the surface, and you are glad in that moment that you can’t feel him. You are barely able to allow yourself to feel your own pain and cannot bear to feel anyone else’s. Eight.

“What if I don’t want the kid?” You ask him. “What if I don’t want him without you?”

He jerks away from you. “You would l-leave him?”

“No. Never.” Nine. “But you don’t get to make decisions like that for me. For either of us. You’re his father. He knows that, remember? Even like this. He wouldn’t want to be without you.”

Mando sags completely, manages to drag his feet over to the bed opposite you and sink into it. Drops his elbows against his knees and his head to his chest. Like a galaxy collapsing into a star. He shudders.

“I wasn’t… thinking.”

“Obviously.” You immediately regret how harsh the word sounds. Sigh deeply. “Sorry, that was…” You rub the helmet. “You were thinking something. You don’t just fight for – ”

“A Mandalorian does.” He sounds so bitter, so angry.

You stare at him, at his crumpled body. “Mando…”

“I don’t think I’m a Mandalorian anymore.” He lifts his head to look at you, not at you, at the armour. His eyes follow the shape of the helmet, around the chest plate and his pauldrons and gauntlets. All the way over you to the boots and then to the corner where you had placed the weapons with the pack you had carried. “I d-don’t think I’m a Mandalorian anymore. I-I can’t be. I have no armour, no h-helmet, no creed. I’m…” He stops, pulls his hands through his hair in frustration, but it makes it worse when the strands get caught around his fingers, tangle. He yanks even more of it out from where he’s tucked it into his collar. “Ni cuy’ dar’manda.”

You feel helpless, stars apart from him and alone in the room of the hotel. You want to ask him what he means, what he has spoken in his language, but you don’t know how. Don’t want to upset him further.

“I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not your fault. I just – I’m just. I don’t have – ” He churns with his thoughts. Sits up and then leans back down. “Maybe you can – you can… maybe you can feel what I do for a reason. I don’t know how to – ”

He doesn’t continue. You feel the emptiness in the pit of your stomach open back up, the fear eating a hole through you. Ready yourself for his rejection again. “I can’t feel you now.”

“You felt all those people. In the market – you said – ”

You remember. You wish you did not, but you think you will never forget. You hope you never feel it again, so many people, so much lust for death and for blood. “It’s never been like that before. Not so bad. I couldn’t even… I couldn’t even feel myself anymore. Just them, and then – then you.” You stare at your hands. “You didn’t want me to kill it.”

“No.” He shifts. “I didn’t. At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cuyiror at ijaat oyay.”

“I can’t turn it off, Mando.” You say. Your voice small and quiet and scared. “I don’t know how. I couldn’t ever feel anything before all this, not from you, and now it’s – it’s happening more. I don’t know how to control it. I don’t even know when it’s going to happen it just is. And I can’t stop it.”

He looks up again. You lift your hands to the helmet, slowly, allow him time to tell you to stop. But he doesn’t, he watches as you lift it away and place it carefully on the bed beside you. Don’t about the lights above you which are still on, not until you pull the gloves away and look down at the Mandalorian’s smooth skin, thick, long fingers. He is staring at his own face, studying it. It must be strange for him, not so used to seeing his exposed face at all, let alone being worn by another. Seeing himself properly for the first time since you had changed, not hidden in the dark of the ship or behind a helmet.

“I don’t want this either,” you say. There is something different about hearing his voice without the helmet on, with the light on, knowing if you stood and moved to the ‘fresher you would be able to look into the mirror again and see his face. Take his creed from him completely. You hold his future in your hands, and he has no choice but to let you. “I don’t want… I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Nu draar.” He pushes himself to the edge of his bed. “Nu draar, I don’t… I would never hate you.”

“I know you wish I was different.” His head jerks up. “But I’m – I’m not. And I don’t know how to stop this. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to do this. To you.”

“Ni gotal gar aalar ibic?” He sits down hard on the bed.

“I… I don’t – ”

“Gotabor’ika. I d-don’t wish you were different.” He says. “I don’t. I never… I would never. I’m sorry. I should never have made you feel…” He gets frustrated with the words again. Tugs at the collar of your jacket. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

You move forward, drawn into him. Push yourself off the bed and cross the space between you. Feel a spot in your heart heal as you get closer to him, the fear his rejection sated, for now at least. Kneel on the ground before him and it makes him groan, shake his head. You start to reel backwards but he puts his hands out to steady you. You almost take his hands in yours and then think the better of it. Fold them in your lap. “I never wanted to lie to you, Mando. But I was so scared. You’re… the first person. The only person I’ve told, since my mother.”

“Bal Ni kadala gar.” He’s looking into your eyes, through them, right beneath the skin you wear of him and through to the soul which belongs to you. “If anyone should kneel before anyone it should be me kneeling before you. Gotabor’ika, ni ceta. Ni ceta.”

You don’t know the words in Mando’a but you understand the apology within them. His hands move to the pauldrons and he pulls you up off the ground. Relies on your help to move your weight around, still not used to being so much smaller than you. He pushes you to sit on the bed beside him and you do. His hands linger on the Beskar for a moment and then he pulls them away, haltingly. Unsure of himself.

“I-I don’t want you – want you to feel – unwelcome. I trust you. I trust you with my armour. And – and my creed. And the kid.” He swallows thickly. “If I had known it was you, before, with the knife. I would never. I would have never… done that. I’m sorry that all I’ve done is… is be mad at you. I’m not mad at you I just – I just don’t know what I am anymore. And it’s not fair that I took it out on you.”

You reach slowly and place your bare hand over where his are clenched in his lap. Close your large fingers around his and rest. His hand turns, one of the them twists upwards so that your palms are together, his fingers finding your pulse again, like they had in the market. And this time you see his sigh of relief when he presses lightly against the singing blood. He did not want you to kill the Barabel. He did not hate you for what you could not control. He was checking for something to show you were alive beside him. So much of his life was surrounded by death. You squeeze your hand tighter around his and realise you want to hug him closer, want to feel someone. Haven’t touched anyone since the change.

A soft cooing from the crib draws your attention. The sounds of the child near his wakening. Not quite up yet. The Mandalorian does not look away from your hands, you feel the gentle circle his fingers begin to make over your pulse. Shiver without meaning to.

“Who built the child’s crib?” You ask him.

Mando continues drawing against your skin. He turns his head and shoulders to look at it, hovering a few feet away from you near the wall. He is quiet for so long you think he won’t answer you. “An old friend,” he says eventually.

“It’s incredible work.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

He turns away from the crib. His fingers still and press back into your pulse. “His name was Kuiil.”

You look away. “I’m sorry.”

“He was an engineer too. Like you. Before I knew him. He was a moisture farmer when I met him.”

You remember his flight through the desert, it feels like a lifetime ago. Really only a week. Remember his silence during your stay at the moisture farm, and then his stubborn ride through the desert which had almost killed him. Remember the grief you had felt from him that night around your campfire, suffocating and dreadful. The day suddenly makes sense, missing pieces of the puzzle finally in their place. “Oh,” you say softly.

He nods, turns again to stare vacantly at the crib. “Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.” His voice is so quiet you can barely hear him. “You are meant to say their names to remember them, those who are gone.”

“What are their names?”

“There are too many dead,” his voice cracks. He says it like a terrible confession. “I can’t remember them all.”

Your hand tightens around his so much it must hurt him. But he doesn’t complain, only holds you tighter as well. You shuffle forward slowly, until your leg is pressed to his. He stays looking at the crib, looking inside it at his child.

“Teach me how to say it.”

His face pinches. “Teach you?”

You watch his face, watch the child in his crib. “I’m scared, sometimes. When you go out. When you leave that you’ll go and it will be the last time I see you. That I’ll be alone, and I’ll have to live knowing I won’t ever see you again. I’m scared of looking after the kid by myself. I would never leave him, but I don’t think… I don’t know if I could do it. I was scared just now, with the Barabel.”

Finally, he turns and faces you. His eyes are red, but they are dry. He studies you, chasing the features of your face and searching for something there.

“What would I have to remember you by?” You whisper. “What words would I say when you’re gone?”

“Be an te adate at ganar ner runi ni cuy’ briikase bic cuyir gar.” His voice is softer than yours. Without the helmet on the feeling shared through his eyes is stronger. You feel it push up inside your ribcage, spread through your arms. Its slow and gentle and quiet. His heart once again open to you. It does not hurt like sharing yourself with the people in the market. Does not make you scared.

You wait for him to say first the words again, so you can repeat them. He is patient with you, sounds them out piece by piece so that you can form your mouth around them. Until finally you can say them, haltingly and slowly, but you can form the sentence. You can still feel him, feel a softness you could not put a name to. He explains the words to you. “It means that even though you are dead, I am here to remember you. So, you are eternal.”

“Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.” You say to him.

His smile is bittersweet. “Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.” He repeats. “There, you have it.”

“I hope I never have to use it.” The words are fierce, fiercer than you’d intended them to be. The Mandalorian’s face softens. “I won’t forget them.”

You feel the lump forming in the back of your throat, but you refuse to look away from him. Think it might be better to let him see it. He pulls on of his hands from beneath yours and lays it over yours, threads his fingers with yours and squeezes. His palms on either side of your hand. Almost used to the feeling of your own smaller hands in his, of the strangeness becoming normal. You feel him shaking. All you can do is rest your other hand over his, hope your presence will be enough. He drops your gaze and stares at your entwined hands. Your heart dips in your chest.

“Din.”

You frown. “What?”

“You need a name to say, afterwards.” He looks back up, seeks your eyes again. He looks raw, like someone has stripped away everything outside and left only something small and – scared. You heart had dipped and now thunders, beating so loudly you can hear it in your ears and feel it behind your eyes. You feel your intake of breath, rather than mean to do it. Feel dizzy. “My name is Din.”

Your mouth opens and closes. You mouth it before you can speak it, and when you do you can’t manage to bring your voice above a whisper. Hold his name close to you as you can. “Din.”

He nods.

“Din.” Only just louder, just to taste it on your tongue. You feel your whole chest aching. Full of your own feelings, and still of the lingering of him as well. Mando. Din. “Thank you.”

“I won’t… I will try. Not to leave you.” He looks into your eyes, glances at the cot. “Either of you.”

You nod at him, slowly. You know you can’t ask him to do more, you wish you weren’t already asking so much of him, that the world was not asking so much of both of you. You cannot ask him not to fight – it is a part of who he is. But he will try not to leave you, and it is enough. You close your eyes. Realise you are exhausted, that the time difference of your travel is finally catching up to you now that Garel is in the early hours of its morning. You realise the lingering whisper of his emotions are still brushing against you, so soft and quiet you almost do not notice them. And he is tired too. You both need sleep, a long, long sleep. And time where there are no secrets or tensions or fears tearing you apart. You tug his hands gently, still clasped in yours. Feel the last remnants of the feel of him fade from within you.

“Help me with the armour.”

He is slow to move, but he does, his hands rest against the chest plate and begin to quickly detach it from the magnetic plating beneath. You work on one gauntlet first, and then the other. Mando’s – Din’s – hands are light and fast, and yet somehow feel heavy anywhere they rest against you. Your heart is pounding, and you know your ears are burning hot. The back of your neck where he’s reached to start working on the thick fabric of the under armour is bright red. You shiver when he pulls it up over your head and you are wearing the much thinner undergarments. He has helped you out of the armour before, you have taken it off the sleep on the Crest every night, but now, with nothing left between you.

Your hands jitter at your shin guards.

When you get them free he takes them from you, places them reverently with the rest of the removed pieces. You unlace your boots, too. And then he helps you to stand, pulls you off the bed. Only in your – his – thinner layers. You can feel the coolness of the air around you, feel a waft of a breeze against you neck and down your spine. Feel the warmth in the air from his body in front of you. The cold ground beneath your feet.

“Can you cover the mirror?” You ask softly, get wrapped up in the sound of it coming out your mouth. It rubbles differently, more chest.

He turns from you, his warmth leaves a waft of cold in his wake. He riffles through the closest pack until he finds it, one of the thermal capes from the desert. Pulls it loose and disappears into the ‘fresher. You dig through the pack as well, pull out a fresh set of clothes to take in with you, and a small drying cloth. You have to squeeze your eyes close to brace yourself. Try to remember what number you were up to. Eight, you think. Or maybe nine.

He emerges again, holds his hands loosely before him, sitting into one hip. “Now?”

“Yeah,” you sound as shaky as you feel. “If that’s okay.”

He nods. “I’ll go after you.”

When you pass him on the way in he does not look at you, and yet you still feel the raise of hair along your arms. The ‘fresher is small, but not so tight as the one aboard the Crest. You let the door hiss shut behind you, left in the humming white light. It seals away the outside world completely so you can’t hear it even, can’t strain to make out the sounds of Mando moving around outside of it. You have the small square you use as a towel, hang it in the corner. Stare at the dark fabric covering the mirror. The only thing between you and the Mandalorian’s face. On the other side of it the man would be looking back at you. Din. You wish there was some way to remove the mirror altogether.

You turn the shower on, cold water splashes against the ground and onto your feet. There is no screen to protect the rest of the small room from the water, so instead you watch as it sprays a fine mist over everything while you wait for it to heat. And then keep waiting while the room fogs around you, so thick it’s hard to breath without the feeling of wet clinging in the back of your throat, so thick your arm is clouded from your sight when you hold it out in front of you. Only then do you lower the temperature and force yourself to undress. Keep your head facing the white ceiling as much as you can, and when you can’t, squeeze your eyes so tightly closed you can feel the press of the skin against them. You don’t know how much of his Creed you have already violated by seeing his hands, so the rest you are determined not to see.

The feeling of the steam clings to your skin, thick and hot. The water is too hot at first, and then only just bearable. You know it must be making your skin pink when you finally step under it. The relief of water, of a shower, for the first time in almost a month is a greater relief than you have ever known.

You forget everything except the beating of it against you, eyes closed, and chin tilted up. Duck your head beneath the stream and let the water soak through your hair. Try not to think about how long it takes to reach your scalp, how thick his hair must be. Concentrate again on what you know of the Creed to keep your thoughts from wandering. It’s easy enough, easy enough to press a forearm against the coolness of the wall and lean into it, fade all thoughts away into just the stream of water over you.

There’s a bar of soap you lather between your hands when you can’t put it off any longer, had noticed it while you waited for the water to heat, and now felt for it blindly. You rub the soap into your hair and rinse it away, twice, until you feel so clean the strands pull against your fingertips. His face, scrub at it with both palms, feel the shape of his noise against them and his brow bone, and the scratch of facial hair. And then his shoulders. You had thought of equations to recycle through your mind, ones you had learnt while at the academy on Coruscant, to stop you from thinking. To stop you from trying to imagining a map of the shape of him beneath your hands. But you do not need them. Because beneath the bubbles of the soap you can feel the jaggedness of his skin, riddled with scars. It shocks you into stillness. But of course he is. Of course he is covered with scars, some long and straight from blades, others mottled and burned, like blaster fire. You run the soap along his arms, under them, around the back of his neck. Plotting a path over him which is filled with wounds and pain. A life of fighting. You rinse it away, close your eyes and step back under the stream, feel soap pool and bubble around your feet. The imprint of his mottled skin under your hands remains.

Just a man, beneath everything. A man marked by all the ways his life has built him.

Din.

You lean against a wall before you feel confident enough to attempt his legs and feet with your eyes closed. Rub your fingers thoroughly between every crease, behind his knees and between every toe. Wash the grit and grime away. His is covered with scars there as well, not so much as his arms. And then you move back to his torso, moving faster now. There is a scar beneath his left ribs, large. So terrifyingly jagged you can’t imagine a person living through the injury which must have caused it. He has another on the right side of his stomach, definitely blaster fire. Hit him through a gap in the Beskar and burned straight through to the flesh. His back is littered in them, in all the places you can reach.

You feel some mixture of invasion and resignation at washing his groin. Have at least had to cope with this already from the human act of having to relieve yourself. You tilt your head away and close your eyes as you work your hands through the motions of washing him, feel the heat burn not only in your cheeks and your ears but along your chest and up your back as well. Made worse by the unbidden image of him having to do the same in your body rising behind your closed lids. So hot that the temperature of the water begins to feel cool. The feeling of your hands is too strange, too bizarre, that much has not changed. To feel him at your fingertips, and feel your hands against the unfamiliar appendage, is like to watch a holodrama and be a part of it at the same time. You go as quickly as you possibly can, recite one of your equations, and finally replace the soap in its holder.

You don’t linger any longer. Dry yourself off as quickly as you can and dress. The clean clothes are damp from the steam and the light spray of water, but they smell fresh. You pull them on with relish. Step from the ‘fresher in a billow of steam which clouds the room. Din is outside, pacing, with the kid in his arms. He glances over when you open the door and then quickly away. In the hotel room the smell of steam and soap and freshly washed skin waft between you, fill up the tiny space. You can feel, suddenly, every place that the clean clothes cling to your damp skin, feel the drip from your hair which falls and gathers and slips around your neck. You tuck your dirty things back into the top of your pack and then pad to where Din avoids your gaze. Hold your hands out for the kid.

“Din,” you whisper.

He jumps slightly at the sound of his name. The kid is up, grins at you with a wide smile and all of his teeth. Nuzzles his cheek against Din’s jaw and holds a hand out for you. You hold up your fingers, let the child grab at them with a coo. Step slightly closer. You watch the way Din stiffens and holds his gaze firmly ahead, cheeks burning, watch the way he fights his eyes trailing towards you. His cheeks warm. The child still has his head tucked against Din’s neck, begins to chew gently on your fingers, babbling around them. The kid closes his eyes, squeezes them tightly shut, his jaw closes slightly firmer around you. His tiny hand grabs onto your pinky, his other on Din’s jaw.

The world pulses.

Your knees almost buckle from the force of it. Have to close your eyes to fight off the intensity of the wave of dizziness that follows. And then it happens again, like there is a band of pressure running the width of your skull and it lifts and lift and then snaps back around you. You have your eyes open, don’t remember doing it, the room is different, warped, you can see the window. Your eyes hurt, water, and your ears are ringing. And then it stops.

Your stomach is rolling, threatening to heave. You can feel the spot where the kid is holding your hand, resting against Din’s shoulder. Scared to open your eyes, in case everything around you spins, but you do anyway. The kid is cooing, his face smoothed over again, slumped with your hand caught beneath his head. He looks like he is falling asleep again. The Mandalorian is staring at you now, face pale and specked with sweat. He looks as ill as you feel. Neither of you dare to move.

“What…” He croaks.

You can feel the floor beneath your feet, but it does not feel steady. “You too?”

He nods.

“We’re,” you lick you lips, your mouth prickles with dryness. “We’re probably just tired. I think… I think we should sleep.”

He lets out a shaking breath. Nods. “Here.”

You take the kid from him and walk him to his cot, not trusting your legs to hold you up. While you tuck him in you hear the hiss of the ‘fresher door open and close. Your bed feels miles away, and when you finally collapse into it you are ready to sleep. Head throbbing, weakness settling into your limbs. You roll onto your back and stare at the white ceiling, listening to the dim sounds of the shower running. Even as tired as you are, you smile in the empty room. You mouth the Mandalorian’s name, and then speak it aloud.

“Din.”

Gotabor: Engineer

Gotabor’ika: The ‘ika suffix turns the word into an affectionate nickname. (lit: little engineer)

Ni cuy’ dar’manda: I am no longer a Mandalorian (dar’manda is someone who has lost their Mandalorian heritage, and as such their identity and their soul. This is feared by most traditional Mandalorians)

At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cuyiror at ijaat oyay: To kill without understanding is not to respect life. There is honour in fighting but not in mindless murder.

Nu draar: No! (A very strong disagreement)

Ni gotal gar aalar ibic?: I made you feel this way?

Bal Ni kadala gar: And I hurt you

Ni ceta: I’m sorry (lit: I kneel) This is the strongest way a Mandalorian has to apologise. Extremely rare.

Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum: I am alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal. (Said to honour fallen comrades, friends and family).

Be an te adate at ganar ner runi ni cuy’ briikase bic cuyir gar: Of all the people to have my soul I am happy it is you

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